Something was wrong, the feeling of it echoing down through Emilia arms until she was suddenly holding her xphern and forcing out messages to Halen and Simeon—the only two people in her friends group who knew how to use a xphern, although Yujao had arranged for a few more to be handed off to their group when they’d passed through Dion. They were emergency use only, however, and while she’d added them into her own xphern, Emilia was hoping she wouldn’t have to send messages out to them—the chances of getting a message back from them in a timely manner was negligible.
Her steps slowed as the seconds ticked on, no one responding to her message. When her friends had told her they were going into an area that was fully offaether, Halen and Simeon had assured her they’d do their best to make sure one of them would always be available to respond to her. They’d been oddly cagey on
why
they wouldn’t both be able to respond at any moment, and Emilia had been left to assume the cave system wasn’t in the best condition. That was okay—they all loved climbing, and a few of them had some caving experience.
It would be fine.
It should have been fine.
So, why was no one responding to her?
“Emilia?”
Jerrial asked, his rough fingers scratching over her cheek as she stared down at her xphern—at the now dozens of messages she’d sent to Halen and Simeon and every other xphern they’d been given. All but the one message that had gone to the xphern Polianna had taken with her—she didn’t use one often, but since she travelled with her mother into the Free Colonies occasionally, she still knew how to use one—went unanswered.
At the very least, Polianna was now worried—not worried about Emilia’s friends, of course. Polianna only liked Coral. Coral loved Halen and Codeth and liked Emilia’s friends; therefore, Polianna was worried that Coral would be sad if something had happened to them. Emilia never really knew what to make of that. If Polianna had a black knot she would have been able to understand—it wasn’t like most of the black knots in their friends group weren’t also invested in their overall safety due to a powerful attachment to one or two members, rather than the group as a whole, after all—but Polianna didn’t have a black knot.
Instead, she was just kinda miserable—miserable in a way that was both surprisingly similar and completely unique to the way Leerin was miserable. They both seemed to like very few people, and struggled to find joy in their lives. As much as Polianna struggled with her body image, however, her body becoming this
thing
that she couldn’t escape and therefore weighed down on her constantly, Emilia thought Leerin hated her personality.
What a shit hand to be dealt, to have to live inside a mind or body you didn’t much like. Just as Polianna had Coral helping her learn to accept her body—to change it in less insidious ways than controlling what food she allowed to touch her lips—Leerin had tons of people who would happily help her learn to be someone she loved. Leerin, however, didn’t seem interested in such things. Better to be miserable with what she knew, perhaps? Certainly, they’d seen Polianna’s body shift rapidly over the years, her eyes and mind still seeing a body she hated, no matter the shape. Minds were such finicky, bitchy things at times.
“Emilia?”
Jerrial called again, the lilt of his accent making it come out more as
Amelia
. Could be worse—Jinkaidens constantly ended up with something closer to
Aumiria
sliding off their tongues. The creepy Jinkaiden non-dev had been able to say her name correctly, but had refused to do so. Apparently, calling her something that wasn’t her name made their relationship
unique
. Creepy little shit.
“Emilia?”
Jerrial again. Emilia couldn’t blame him for being worried, her body a statue on this random side street, just a few turns away from Olivier.
Olivier. She needed to find Olivier.
Her friends would be fine.
They had to be fine.
This was just a hiccup—the xphern transmission network being fucked up by something. Had she heard of
anything
interfering with the xphern network outside of buildings specifically designed to do so? No, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible, and—
“Can you… Do you know what the rock above us is made of?”
she asked, eyes still glued to her xphern. No messages had come through—Polianna was just messaging through their too empty group relay now, Coral and Mikhail filling in the occasional comment about how they were sure their friends were fine with all the conviction of timid little animals, attempting to stand up to the carnivore drooling over the forest floor, just waiting to gobble them up.
Jerrial hesitated for a moment before telling her that he did, more or less.
“I’ve never been up there myself, but I can feel it.”
“Feel it?”
“I can feel… everything,”
he explained.
“Some things are more… potent than others. Anything made by another Lowdouran has an echo of them inside it—glashial works are well. If you know what to look for, you can actually tell when works are made by the same person.”
A memory flashed through Emilia’s head—one old and half forgotten, something from before she even had her Censor. They’d been on a class trip, teenagers just a few weeks from having their Censors installed, wandering around a museum. Since Samina was still adjusting to her new contacts, a group of them had taken to describing everything they saw to her. Sometimes, their descriptions were great—10 out of 10 on that accuracy. Other times, they had pushed into the insane. Baylor had described one vase as shaped like the ovipositors of coriger butterflies. No one could argue with this assessment, but their teacher definitely hadn’t approved of
such vulgarity
, no matter how accurate it was.
There had been a number of pieces from Grey Sander glashial in the museum, and somewhere along the line, both she and Samina had become convinced that there was no way a collection that was allegedly from the same famed artist was actually from the same person. In her case, Emilia had just thought their
vibe
was off—that the energy seeping out of them both in the artistic and aether sense didn’t match up. There had been a lecture on how artistic styles and preferences changed as artists grew, which sure, Emilia knew that! These had just been too different, though, especially given how close several of the alleged creation dates were. It also didn’t explain how the energy of them went off!
If she were pressed to explain it now, after over a decade of seeing more ways of bending and using the aether in the Free Colonies, as well as pushing it past the brink of what was considered possible with Halen, Emilia would have a few theories on why the energy might be a little off. Mostly, her theories would revolve around glashial abilities potentially causing damage to meridians, leading to their aether manipulation changing over time. It could also be that they had worked in different locations—and while it was generally brushed aside as inconsequential, the environment aether came from could have an effect on more intricate skills and core abilities. It usually wasn’t much, but who was to say it wouldn’t affect a glashial’s work!?
For Samina, however, with her contacts that could see in a way she wasn’t yet used to, the glashial’s works had instead looked… Well, even Samina hadn’t been able to explain it well.
Different.
Like they were made by different vibrations.
As though the aether has degraded far more in some than in others.
“We should go back to that museum,”
Emilia added to her relay with Samina, where she had been dropping all of this recollection, despite knowing that Samina wouldn’t get it until she was back onaether—and she would be back onaether soon. Emilia just had to believe that, and if believing meant making silly plans to return to a museum with maybe-fake works of a famed glashial in their halls, so be it!
Emilia hesitated, glaring at both her unanswered relays and the xphern messages. Yujao had at least responded to the message she’d sent him, saying he was busy and would get back to her in a second, so at least she knew it wasn’t her xphern being weird, nor that the ceiling in general was suddenly stopping all xphern messages from leaving the city.
It might have been better had she been able to believe it wasn’t just her friends she couldn’t reach, that instead, everyone was unreachable due to some reason or another.
Originally, she hadn’t wanted to let Jerrial or Vern know that her friends were coming. It wasn’t from an overt lack of trust; rather, people just accidentally spilled secrets all the time. Rayleen—who was still standing a ways off, staring down the street—had implied she knew Emilia had more friends coming for her; at the same time, she hadn’t seemed to realize they were coming from above.
Suddenly, Emilia was throwing herself forward and burying herself in Jerrial’s arms. Nearby, Vern made a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and an affronted grunt. Jerrial just hugged her back.
As subtly as she could, Emilia extended the smallest bubble of privacy around her mouth, pressed to Jerrial’s ear. Perhaps Rayleen, with her weird awareness of the aether, would notice. Perhaps she wouldn’t. Out of all the people in their group, Emilia didn’t want her knowing where her friends were coming from the most. The woman might say she was one their—or at least
her
—side, but Rayleen still spoke about Fräthk in… not quite revenant tones, but certainly something far too positive for all the terrible things the man had inflicted upon Jerrial and all his other
little bugs
—not to mention all the people he’d had killed or sent off to be slaves. Fräthk had hurt her as well, Emilia supposed. Sure, she had technically let herself be kidnapped by traffickers that she now knew to have been working for him years ago, but it had still been a risk and the traffickers had still been totally down to sell her off to Chinsata. Very rude, and yeah, she could be pissy with Rayleen for it! Jerrial had even more of a right to be pissy!
Fortunately, Emilia saw no sign that Rayleen noticed her messing with the vibrations her voice created, leaving them to only reach Jerrial while any response he gave would only reach her. The man’s fingers tapped over her waist as she told him her friends were trying to get into the city, but due to the situation—which according to what she was getting from Coral’s group had made getting through the papers checkpoint a right mess—they had decided to try and come through the cave system above.
“They may still be in use,”
Jerrial whispered, and fuck. Okay, she probably should have just fessed up to him sooner.
“I don’t know. I have heard that Fräthk’s rival’s group may be using them, but it was nothing more than rumours.”
“So they may have run into someone who took their xpherns away…”
Emilia breathed out, trying not to panic. If they had come across someone—or more likely a group—powerful enough to take out all of her friends out so fast they hadn’t even had a chance to send her an emergency message…
Behind her, Vern was suddenly pressing himself close. Probably, he’d been able to see they were talking from the angle he was at. Either he was trying to hear what they were saying—and Emilia wasn’t risking changing her skill’s aim with Rayleen seemingly unaware of what was happening—or he was just intent to obscure their conversation a little. Emilia was going to assume it was the latter—maybe even that he could tell she was starting to panic. The guy could be having a moment of weakness and soothing her while she was upset. Maybe. It might have been unlikely.
“Not necessarily… There— Look, you have to understand that my mother died when I was young. I really only know how to use my abilities through things I remember her saying and studying how glashial and people with similar abilities use their abilities. I know the glashial can bend material until it interferes with xpherns and Censors. What I’ve seen is a lot smaller—boxes for xpherns or rooms to interfere with Censors. I do not know if the cave system us would do that, but…”
“But it might,”
Emilia finished.
That
—an accidental repelling of the xphern transmission network… Well, it sucked, but at least it was less concerning.
Unfortunately, unless she wanted to abandon Olivier and try forcing her way out of the city—something that seemed impossible, the papers checkpoints seemingly at a veritable standstill from the sounds of it—there was nothing she could do but hope.
Hope, and trust that her friends weren’t so weak that a couple criminals would be able to get the drop on them.
Still, as they pulled apart, Emilia rubbing at her eyes and hoping Rayleen would just assuming she was being a scared, emotional little girl—and she was; she just kept that part buried inside her at times like these—the feeling that something was wrong remained.
Something
had dragged her attention to her friends—not to Olivier, but to her stupid friends, following after her in a particularly stupid plan.
Something
was wrong, but for the moment, there was nothing she could do, only push ahead and find Olivier and hope that by the time he was secure, her friends would be reachable once more.
At the very least, Jerrial had more or less confirmed for her what had always been a question: whether the cave system would actually have an exit into the city. Presumably, if the scary man’s group were using it, it had to have one, right?
Now, the concern was simply that the cave system might lead her friends straight into that guy’s territory. Emilia… just wasn’t going to think about that—or, if she did think about it, she was just going to focus on that terrifying man, who had somehow known hurting her wasn’t useful. Maybe his minions would be able to tell her friends weren’t there for them as well? Maybe?
Yeah… that was probably wishful thinking, wasn’t it?
.
!
Arc 9 | Chapter 424: Even if I don’t seem it, I’m definitely a scared, emotional little girl
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