Sadly, Olivier didn’t quite jump when she popped up behind him as he exited his room, it was a near thing, though.
“How did you—” he started, peering around her and scanning his room for evidence of where she had co from.
He wouldn’t find it, the specific version of {Hidey Hole} she’d used closing up the mont she was free of it, sliding through more of the room’s door fra than the wall—it had seed inappropriate to enter her not-really-teacher’s room without permission! The door fra was a little skinny, and she’d had to step a little into it. Not too much! Just a little.
Olivier glared into his room a mont longer before giving her a strained look, one that said he didn’t approve, but had co to know her well enough over the last few weeks that he knew telling her to not wasn’t going to do him any good.
Emilia would like to reiterate that she still thought the man hadn’t been anticipating her actually being allowed to leave the country when he told her about the trip. Now, she was there and he was stuck babysitting her. While she fully intended to behave more than she usually did for the annoying babysitters who had hounded her throughout her youth, that mostly just ant she wasn’t going to fuck off and leave everyone searching for her for days while she explored. Annoying Olivier was still on the table—at the forefront of her brain and every decision, even.
“Huh… you didn’t unpack,” Emilia noted, following his suspicious gaze through the room before the door was snapped shut, the wood stopping just centitres before her nose.
“And you did?”
“Sure!”
The lawyer gave her a dubious look. “Really?” His dual toned eyes skimd over her, and at any other ti, Emilia might have preened to have him looking at her so closely. As it was, she felt like he was judging her!
“What?” she asked, crossing her arms and glaring up at him.
Waving vaguely over her admittedly dishevelled figure—but only a little!—Olivier told her she just didn’t seem like soone who would unpack their things for only a few nights on board.
Rude.
“I have experience travelling,” she pointed out, tilting her chin up and sniffing like the princess he still thought her to be. “My father has been detained on several-days-long trips that have turned into diplomatic disasters often enough that he always unpacks. So do I.” Emilia didn’t ntion that even if she didn’t unpack, all her shit would end up scattered throughout the room anyways. It was just easier to purposefully unpack and know she’d need ti to pack before departing. The number of tis they’d missed flights, or she’d forgotten sothing important behind, missing that it had rolled under a bed, was astounding.
“Doesn’t that invite the aether to follow his intentions?” Olivier comnted, his steps faltering as they finally began making their way to the restaurant for the first dinner of their trip.
“Do you believe that stuff?” Emilia asked, taking the pause in the older man’s pace to swerve in front of him once more.
Based on the look on Olivier’s face, he clearly hadn’t ant to say—or imply, at least—that he believed in the superstition that the aether would take thoughts and actions and especially spoken words as an invitation to have its way with them. It wasn’t exactly a commonly held belief; more, it was a fun thing that people teased each other with.
Don’t joke that we’ll have a pop quiz today! or If you dress like you’re famous, you’ll definitely beco famous!
Those sorts of things. So of the Free Colonies treated it more seriously, and Emilia knew a few people who had accidentally brought the will and revenge of the aether down upon themselves who now lived in a state of constant paranoia, but for Olivier—rational and reasonable—to believe such a thing…
“Oh. It’s true, then?” she asked, examining the other non-dev a little more closely than before. “It’s been a few generations, though? Even Halen’s parents didn’t believe in that, and I think their ancestors left the Grey Sands more recently than your father’s must have?”
There wasn’t much sign of Olivier’s Grey Sands heritage in him—his slightly darker skin, an almost sandy brown, was perhaps the only obvious thing she could now pinpoint as likely having co from his father’s heritage, and Baalphoria was filled with every skin tone one could imagine, so it wasn’t very noteworthy. Even Drewth de la Rue, his phantom sliding into Emilia’s vision to stand beside his eldest son, appeared more generically Baalphorian than Grey Sander—no surprise, given there had only even been a vague suspicion that his family had originally hailed from the Grey Sands.
Neither n—nor the fairer toned Antoine de la Rue—had any of the other traditional hallmarks of Grey Sanders. While Olivier and his father had dark brown hair, nearly all Grey Sanders had black hair, male styles usually featured intricate designs shorn into the sides. Neither had the beards that were common—although certainly not ubiquitous—among Grey Sanders, either. Even as her Censor lined up a list of common facial structure, virtually none of them aligned with any of the de la Rue n.
No wonder no one had ever been able to do more than guess at their heritage. Probably a good thing, unfortunately—even among people who weren’t purists, there was still a large contingency of Baalphorians who didn’t think the Grey Sands should have been brought under Baalphoria’s umbrella of control and obligation.
In many ways, Baalphorians had more dislike for Grey Sanders, legally citizens of Baalphoria, than many Free Coloniers. While there was certainly hostility between Baalphoria and the majority of Free Colonies—the result of millennia of wars and broken peace—the lack of contact with most in day to day life ant citizens felt little more than a curious, occasionally disrespectful, fear of Free Coloniers.
Grey Sanders, on the other hand, were seen as both recent enemies and Baalphorians who had refused to alter their ways to assimilate into the nation that had offered them protection from forces to the south of the Cyrenix Desert—not that the governnt at the ti had cared for more than creating a more secure border between themselves and said forces. That governnt had dug its nails into the Grey Sands and refused to let go, demanding it beco a layer of protection lest Chinsata, Mitine Dyn or any of the Free Colonies further south dare threaten Baalphoria. Most likely, they had expected the residents of the Grey Sands to slowly assimilate, the way the children and grandchildren of those rare Free Colony immigrants did.
That had never happened, and virtually everyone agreed it was insane that the governnt had ever expected it would.
Those few Free Coloniers who immigrated to Baalphoria did so out of a lack of options. They were betrayers to their governnts in the midst of war. They were seekers of asylum from persecution for irregular deviations, for beliefs that didn’t align with authoritarian governnts, for being non-devs fleeing life as a vessel for war.
They ca alone, or with a small group of friends and family. It was easy for their culture to disappear into the aether, as sad and cold as that was. The Grey Sands wasn't that; it was millions of people, almost all of whom belonged to a highly secretive and insular religion. Grey Sanders spoke their own language, refusing to teach it to most outsiders; they had an oral history that reached back further than the more recent informational collapse of the Colonial Wars.
In other words, without the Baalphorian governnt actively suppressing their identity, it was virtually impossible to image a world where Grey Sanders who still lived in their holand would cease to beco Grey Sanders and instead adopt the identity of Baalphorian, even if virtually all of them had adopted use of Censors.
The fact that Olivier, despite so many generations between himself and his Grey Sander ancestors, still believed in the ability to call upon the aether’s will was a perfect example of that. So beliefs were nearly impossible to completely stomp out.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Emilia added to her question about whether the rumours about his heritage were true—he hadn’t answered and was instead staring at her with wide, almost fearful eyes.
Fearful for himself? Did he simply not want to add yet another complication to his identity as the de la Rue family’s non-dev? Or, was her afraid for his family? For his brother? Or, perhaps, fearful of his mother’s reaction, should she find out he had accidentally spilled a long kept family secret to her?
Sohow, Emilia thought it was more likely the last option, which begged the question: if Judith de la Rue cared so much about what a Grey Sander in the family would do to her family’s reputation, why marry Drewth de la Rue in the first place? If anything, the climate regarding prejudices towards Grey Sanders had lessened in the last few decades, as Halen’s family—who also fell into the weird category of Grey Sander, but also not—expanded their empire and power, their mixed heritage offering them trading opportunities with the Free Colonies where most Baalphorian companies struggled.
Now, with Halen—annoying and bitchy but undeniably brilliant—making a na for himself and actively not giving a shit about who he hired—he even had a recent Free Colony immigrant working for him, or so she’d heard—the situation would continue getting better, even if it would be a slow, painful crawl towards a world where Baalphorians didn’t fear part of their population.
Then again, that fear was almost bred into them; it wasn’t like most were liable to stop fearing The Black Knot or Hyrat clones or lavender codes anyti soon. Fear was, unfortunately, just a natural part of life in their country.
What a terrible thing for Olivier—probably his brother as well—though, to know that if people found out about their heritage, so may co to fear them, perhaps even despise them—soone would even say they didn’t belong, that they were taking opportunities away from real Baalphorians. Having hair and eyes like hers, Emilia had largely grown up knowing exactly what people thought of silverstrains. If people ca to fear her for being a non-dev—and one who had killed a number of people, no less—Emilia doubted it would affect her much, but she wouldn’t judge people based on her own experience and potential reactions, nor would she leave the poor, almost terrified looking man in front of her wondering if sowhere in all this, she now feared or hated him.
“I also don’t care,” she continued when Olivier still didn’t say anything. “Uhm… I an, I have friends from all sorts of heritage? It doesn’t really make a difference to , but your father’s side is where that belief cos from, right?”
The two of them stared at each other for a long, painful mont. Olivier continued to say nothing, continued just standing there, dumbstruck or panicking, it was difficult to tell.
If one of them didn’t move soon, they were going to be late.
Sighing—resigning herself to both being the responsible one for the mont and not getting an answer to her question—Emilia looped her arm through Olivier’s and began tugging him along.
“Co on. If we’re late, we’ll have to make up so shit about why. You might want to find your tongue by the ti that possibly cos up—my lies always involve sex, and I don’t think you’ll appreciate that. The class might believe !”
Olivier still didn’t say anything as they walked, and while she was so, so curious as to what was happening inside his head—whether she needed to say anything else to him, or if her awkward attempts to make sure he knew his secret was safe with her had completely failed to make him feel better—Emilia resisted the urge to say more.
Despite what certain people—Halen, Leerin, Lux—said, she could so totally be quiet when needed! Holding her tongue wasn’t that hard.
If she started humming a song as they moved through the vessel, stopped in front of an elevator that would take them to the upper deck where the restaurant was located, that was sothing only she would know—Olivier didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything; if he were, he would have ripped his arm away from her long ago.
Still, regardless of the quietly aching tension between them, Emilia couldn’t deny that having the man so close felt good—right in a way she couldn’t explain.
So strange—strange and mildly concerning, a part of Emilia’s soul wondering, “If I voice my hope that this man might help , might stay with , will the aether grant that? Or will it beco the cruel monster so believe it to be, and rip us apart with the brutality it so rarely shows our world?”
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