✮ ✮ ✮ Halen ✮ ✮ ✮
The Huss’tra is just one of those things that, no matter how many tis you are graced with seeing its magnificence, is always a sight to behold. It doesn’t matter that I grew up close enough to be able to see it practically every day of my youth, even if Kalink is far enough across the Second Tide that it is just a speck on the horizon, the towering Core and its perpetual shadow easier to catch sight of most days. The Huss’tra is simply breathtaking, even from a distance, and up close? Slowly approaching it from the southern industrial area of Seer’ik’tine?
Well, as much as I’ve visited a few tis over the last decade, usually when my parents wanted to check in on their business interests, occasionally when they’ve been using an invitation from Emilia’s father to network and expand further into the Free Colonies, it isn’t a sight I will ever grow tired of seeing.
I’ve never co this particular way, however, and I can understand why Olivier de la Rue—really, I need to have a conversation with the man if only so we can beco more friendly and Baalphoria’s sticky etiquette will let stop referring to him by his whole fucking na, even within my own thoughts—would bring his class this way, despite there being far shorter paths to take.
The most common route, on which I had been brought that first visit, during the Krill’ok’gry, by Emilia and her chaotic coren’taz, is far more straightforward: a following of the aetherstreams that inspired Baalphoria’s slide lines.
While slide lines run on technology, interfacing with Censors to guide their users down predetermined paths of condensed aether that increasingly wind their way through the nation, the inspiration is purely core-based—not that those who use aetherstreams actually need control of their cores, unlike slide lines, which require all who ride them to have Censors installed—and primarily a natural occurrence. The aetherstreams that many Free Colonies utilize are slower and slightly more dangerous than slide lines, but the natural phenonon pulls anyone who touches them through their current.
As they are a fault of nature, they can be unpredictable in their flow, and uncontrolled streams often move and fluctuate, occasionally even breaking off at random points or appearing suddenly and dragging unsuspecting people down them. There are a number of ways of encouraging the stream this way or that, and many of the more established streams—such as the one that runs the length of Dion and the one the circles much of Seer’ik’tine—have existed in their current state for centuries with little variation.
Even knowing that, stepping onto the Seer’ik’tine stream for the first ti had turned my stomach, allowing us to move from the northern district to the Huss’tra in only minutes, as opposed to the near two hours it has taken our group to walk the distance, although we did briefly stop outside a ward while Emilia and Olivier slipped inside to gather drinks and snacks for everyone, and taken a local form of transit similar to Baalphoria’s bubbles through most of the central district’s repetitive stone walls.
Taking the aetherstream, the Huss’tra had been visible between the buildings of the northern district, then grown larger as we passed by the shorter buildings of the central district, before briefly all but vanishing as we made the final push through the industry of the south. It had been slower than slide lines, where the world blurred by so fast it would be impossible to exit at the appropriate location without the help of one’s Censor, but still too fast to truly appreciate the build up of the Huss’tra’s blurry visage.
That wasn’t the case as we walked.
The Huss’tra still rose and fell as we moved through the city, peeking through the buildings and easily visible for the long stretch of the central district. Then, it vanished. Walking through the industrial district, cramped as it is, the haphazard layout left virtually no gaps in which to peek at the giant wall that we knew was hiding just out of sight.
It was almost easy to forget it was there as Lan’za and our guide explained the various industries that flourished in the city-state, the number of trading routes connected to the Free Colony leading to it and the neighbouring Free Colonies being ho to nurous manufacturing plants for international companies.
A single turn was all it took to rember where we were going. One mont, the Huss’tra was virtually forgotten; the next, it was there, stretching so far into the sky it seed as though it must touch the clouds themselves. Given how tall it is, it certainly must on days like this, where fluffy clouds spotted over the brilliant blue sky. The only ti I’ve climbed the Huss’tra, back with Emilia and her coren’taz, it had been night, and we definitely weren’t supposed to be there.
If there had been clouds, I have no mory of it, filled as the night had been with much more important things.
✮ ✮ ✮ Lan’za ✮ ✮ ✮
I have always enjoyed watching people take in the full scope of the Huss’tra, especially that first ti. While it is always a sight to behold, even locals who have woken to the sight of it towering over our small nation every day of our lives always blinking into the sunlit sky in awe as we step outside each morning. It is never spoken of to outsiders—although I have a feeling Emilia has heard whispers of it over her nurous visits—but many of us view the wall as our protection from the all-seeing eyes of the Sever and Glorious Trio.
It is a strange thing, for our nation to have left behind what are so often considered to be the backwards and outdated beliefs in the Sever and their cult’s ability to see the future, while also believing they see far more than is natural. Having travelled throughout the continent with my mother… well, there are so many things in this world that are currently impossible to explain despite the technology that so many of our nations rely on. So, for myself and so many other Seers, it is simply natural to extend our thanks to the glistening black walls of the Huss’tra every morning—every ti its visage passes over our eyes.
Perhaps it protects us, perhaps it is nothing but an ancient relic of a desperate desire to be free of our southeastern neighbours. Either way, it is a symbol of what—of whom—we do not want to be. It is also just plain old beautiful, the voices of the Baalphorians around filled with awe as they finally take in the full glory of it.
On a day like this, the black stone shimrs in the light, marbled gray disappearing into its luminance and giving it an impenetrable air. Dark and solid—unbreakable… unless you are a collection of ill-behaved teenagers, of course.
How horrified our parents had been to realize Emilia had forced a temporary hole into the side, back when she had only just had her Censor installed. If Emilia before that mont had been uncontrollable chaos, after she was an unstoppable tidal wave of energy and a desire to explore; forcing her way through the supposedly solid Huss’tra had been the first ti so many of us realized just how unstoppable she is, however.
There is no rule Emilia will not push, if she thinks it silly or unnecessary or inapplicable to her. As much as she had complained about Olivier calling her a princess, both in our previous ssages and once I had t the man—although, it is not lost on that she also complained that he hadn’t comnted on the tiara she had taken to wearing to class—in many ways, she is exactly that: a princess who so often pushes the rules because she knows few will ever be applied to her.
Emilia is a lesson in contradictions—this force that simultaneously causes waves wherever she goes, and yet she pulls herself smaller over the most insignificant of things, attempting to keep her waves contained; soone who is so giving of herself to her friends, and yet refuses to give herself to strangers. That said, I have yet to et soone Emilia won’t try to make friends with, soone she won’t forgive for past wrongs.
To Emilia, everyone deserves another chance. Ironically, her ability to forgive has left everyone a little thankful she killed 'ariah, rather than give him yet another chance; my friend would not do well, were her forgiveness of past cris to end in the death of soone she loved.
Still, her ability to bend and break herself, to stand up to bullies and spit brutal truth at them: those are the things that brought so many of us into her sphere. As much as our coren'taz is perhaps the most influential that has existed in generations, all of us tied together by hazing and pranks and secrets that could ruin our collective lives, Emilia has always been our shining star; even when she isn’t the one leading us into trouble or talking our way out of reprimand and punishnt—and sotis even she hasn’t succeeded, all of us gifted with strong legs thanks to all the flights of the Huss’tra we have climbed over the decades—she is sohow also our common sense.
Emilia is the one who knocks sense into us; the one who, if she says sothing was a bad idea, sothing is right or wrong—in the factual or ethical sense both—we believe her. It is a gift and a curse: Emilia is exceptionally bad at accepting that she was wrong, and sparing yet another glance at Halen as we approach the entrance to the Huss’tra, his eyes boring into Emilia’s back as even she basks in the growing shadow of the Huss’tra, I wonder how long it will take for her to accept that she is wrong about her forr classmate’s feelings for her.
✮ ✮ ✮ Olivier ✮ ✮ ✮
Halen Mhrina is… strange, that is the only way I can think to describe him as we begin to ascend the Huss’tra, much to the horror of my students. Both Halen Mhrina—is he going to be with us long enough that I should ask Emilia to properly introduce us so I can use his first na alone?—and Emilia are clearly aware that we are headed in the direction of a mid-climb elevator, but neither they nor Lan’za seem inclined to share that fact with rest of our complaining group.
If only a few dozen stairs have them huffing and puffing, they need the exercise. We’ll only be climbing a few flights… assuming they quiet down and bother to actually take in the experience and the artistry of the stairwells. Generally, I don’t let anyone use the elevator until the class has accepted their fate; while we won’t speak on it until we reach the upper walkway, it has long been a punishnt for misdeanour cris to be forced to climb—or occasionally descend—the Huss’tra.
It is expected that my students will assu we are in Seer’ik’tine only to see the city-state, forgetting the entire point of our trip is to learn about the ways in which justice is dolled out in other nations. This will be their first experience with the justice of the Free Colonies, which is much more varied than the prisons—I have long refused to think of the supervised hos that are used to house threats as anything less than the prisons they are in all but na—and disappearances that are common in Baalphoria.
Climbing the Huss’tra is a gentle introduction to the justice of our world. Silly and annoying, for the most part, as opposed to the brutality found in many other places. Eyes flicking to Emilia, I wonder if she has been forced to climb these stairs—or one of the nurous, far steeper stairwells that crisscross the Huss’tra, so of which are used exclusively for punishnt—before. We won’t be allowed within those punishing stairwells—although, perhaps on future trips with my actual law students, I will ask Lan’za if we can arrange sothing either in regards to those punishing stairwells or the other thods of justice dolled out here.
Seer’ik’tine, being the multicultural city-state that it is, is sowhat odd in its justice. As Lan’za had alluded to during the incident in the museum, quite often, foreigners who commit cris are simply deported and banned. Their ho nation can choose what to do with them, and for the most part, their own governnts punish them far more severely than if they had committed the sa cri on ho soil.
Diplomatic relationships are the currency of our world, and while Seer’ik’tine would never officially tell another nation how to punish their deported citizen, it is also understood that to let them off too lightly is to risk their nation’s place within the hierarchy of the northern, diplomatic district. Then, of course, if word spreads that certain Free Colonies are allowing their citizens to commit cris in Seer'ik'tine without proper punishnt… Well, that is when the Seerish public step in, dolling out their own punishnt before the Seer'ik'tine governnt deports the criminal—assuming they still breathe.
Of course, the Seer’ik’tine governnt then refuses to press charges against citizens who were just doing what was right in their vigilante justice, creating even more diplomatic chaos. No one wants two nations warring with one another over justice deserved and expressed by the residents who were denied. No one wants to find all of their citizens travelling with Seer’ik’tine’s borders being watched for even the smallest of cris because they are allowing even the most atrocious of cris to go unpunished.
Then, of course, there are the punishnts given to locals for serious cris. Those punishnts… No, those aren’t the sorts of punishnts I would subject a class like this to.
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