The papers checkpoint was little more than a collection of lanes that led to a Drinarna officer who specialized in assessing visitors for threats. Having visited various Lüshanian cities throughout the last two decades, Emilia had been through many checkpoints, but this was her first ti not going through the diplomatic entrance. Technically, she probably could have asked to go through it, but she’d have to wait for the rest of the students on the other side, so there wasn’t much of a point in speeding things up a bit—mostly, the perk of the diplomatic entrance was skipping the line, which had been virtually nonexistent anyways. Plus, this way, she’d get the chance to scandalize whatever agent was unlucky enough to end up with her—there was nothing quite as shocking to officials as realizing they were questioning soone nigh untouchable.
Baalphoria and Lüshan’s relations were good enough that diplomats, their children and wards, as well as most other official visitors had diplomatic immunity. The most the governnt would be able to do to her, even if she caused problems, was deport her, and unlike in Seer’ik’tine or Dion—where she definitely got away with far more than was reasonable—Lüshan really would deport her. So, no causing problems here! Not that she ever had—not really!
The only real incident she’d been involved in hadn’t been her fault, and she’d helped take down a trafficking ring! Had she caused problems? Definitely. Had she gotten in trouble for it? Yes, but not from the local governnt—they’d been quite thankful, overall; rather, her father had been horrified when he learned what happened. Honestly, she couldn’t bla him—most people didn’t let themselves be kidnapped, all so they could maybe help a few trafficking victims—but seriously, the man had known her most of her life! He had been one of the people to instill in her such a desire to do good in the world, even at the cost of her own safety! What did he expect her to do, if she happened across soone doing evil? Leave them to continue!?
Shaking her head at the mory of her father trying—and mostly failing—to argue that she should have just reported what she knew to the clones or Drinarna, rather than use herself as bait, Emilia stepped up to the officer.
“Ja ma!” she cheered, smiling at the tired looking young woman—so tired looking that Emilia couldn’t bring herself to follow through with her original plan of just letting whatever officer she fell into the path of realize who she was.
Tired grey eyes blinked back at her. A tight, exhausted smile pulled over the woman’s face as she returned Emilia’s greeting, and they set to work, Emilia explaining who she was and why she was coming through this entrance, rather than the diplomatic one, in quick, precise Lütian. The result wasn’t practically fun—there was no mont of shock, other than a slight widening of those tired eyes. Instead, the woman imdiately called a superior from the diplomatic entrance to find out how to deal with her. Most likely, the officer had expected to be given instructions on how to fill out her papers and let her into the city. Instead, barely a minute later, Officer Dashen appeared and shooed the younger officer away.
“Emilia,” the older woman greeted, laying out a collection of papers for them to go through in quick succession. “Is anyone else with you?”
“Grenner,” she told the woman, who she had t a few tis over the years. Her father visited more than just the capital, so it wasn’t like she knew the officers who worked any specific checkpoint well, but this particular woman had worked the Falmíer station for at least a decade. “Can I get special privileges for our teacher, as well?” she asked, after repeating her explanation of why she was there and going through that entrance to Officer Dashen.
“Do you foresee him needing them?” the woman asked, eyes snapping up to cut into her.
“Uh… no? Probably not? He’s very well-behaved, but he’s also managing a bunch of young adults and . It might be nice for him to have a little leeway.”
Emilia contemplated what sort of leeway he would even get. Essentially, what he got was the ability to break any law and just be deported, with a little extra forgiveness for what sort of cris would actually result in deportation. Emilia couldn’t see him breaking any laws. For as strict as Lüshan’s laws could be, there was little they could get up to that wouldn’t result in deportation anyways—as previously stated, Baalphoria and Lüshan had relatively stable relations, and neither was going to risk that over sothing as silly as a Baalphorian non-dev, say, punching soone for being rude to one of his students, or sothing equally ridiculous.
“Never mind,” she finally said, waving the request away as she glanced over the paperwork Officer Darshan pushed her way, initialling and signing where necessary. It was all pretty standard—an understanding that while she would only ever be deported for cris committed on Lüshanian soil, there was a good chance she wouldn’t be welcod back either. “If Olivier breaks any laws that wouldn’t just result in his deportation as a visitor, there would have to be sothing seriously wrong.”
A notification popped up across her Censor as she swished her signature across the final page—so note that although she hadn’t been watching Officer Darshan’s reactions, her Censor had been, and sothing about her reaction to Emilia’s comnt about sothing being seriously wrong hadn’t been quite right.
Was sothing going on in the city?
When Emilia looked back up, the officer’s expression was one of neutral kindness that seed just a little too off.
“I will see what I can do,” the woman said, gathering the papers before swiftly disappearing, almost as though she had known her attempts to hide that sothing was indeed happening in the city hadn’t been particularly convincing.
Emilia had concerns. She had a great many concerns as she made her way through to the checkpoint’s exit, sending off a ssage to Grenner, so he could poke around both during his own entrance into the city and with his Drinarna contacts. Pulling out her xphern, Emilia fired off a few ssages to her own contacts in the city, few as they were, especially given the Drinarna officers she was friendly with weren’t quite as willing to share secrets with her as The Black Knot were.
The air as she exited the checkpoint was crisp, filled with the subtle taste of earth and all the tals that decorated the walls and ceiling of the cavern that housed Falmíer. Baalphoria and Lüshan had beco allies around the beginning of the last Colonial War. The Free Colony had broken away from Falrion control several centuries earlier, but struggled to find allies at a ti when so much of the western continent was beholden to either Falrion or Dion. With the war allowing so many nations to break away from that control as Dion fought Falrion on one side, Baalphoria on the other, Lüshan had taken the chance to cent an alliance with Baalphoria.
Of the many things that had co out of that alliance, the various systems that Baalphoria had gifted Lüshan were perhaps the most noticeable. Once, Lüshan’s underground cities had been filled with pollution and noise; for nearly three hundred years, Baalphorian technology had kept the world clean and quiet.
Still, allegedly it was easy to see Falrion’s influence in the culture and architecture of the city, if only one knew what to look for. Emilia had no idea what to look like, Falrion a relatively standoffish nation to virtually everyone. Her father went there, occasionally, but it was about as common as when he visited the Northern Tribes.
As a whole, though, she couldn’t deny that parts of most Lüshanian cities reminded her of other nations that had once had close ties with Falrion. Everything was dark and packed tight, allowing the unavoidable claustrophobia of the cavern itself to deepen and dig its claws into anyone who dared allow its fear too close. Although she had rarely visited after their creepy non-dev had propositioned her, Jinkai was another Free Colony where Falrion’s heavy influence could still be found, and Emilia could see the similarities between the two, although Lüshan was nicer… more organized, she supposed. Jinkai’s capital was a maze of a city, all the buildings seeming to eat each other up until it was a ss of confusion, hallways from one building leading into buildings that one would swear was blocks away. The impression one was left with was that every building was filled with secret passages, and Emilia imagined that was how so many important mbers of the forr regi had allegedly managed to escape the nation during the last military coup, several decades earlier.
From a distance, Falmíer gave the sa impression of cannibal buildings, but Emilia knew that once they were closer, proper alleyways and roads would suddenly appear, and the only secret entrances to be found lead into the city’s intricate sewer system—a gross, but effective ans of escaping, if one were desperate enough. Hopefully, such extre asures as wading through shit and piss wouldn’t be needed.
“Oh, you have got to be fucking ,” Emilia groaned as she entered the small courtyard outside the papers checkpoint, which acted as a eting place of sorts for people entering the city. “This is just fucking overkill! Isn’t there soone… I don’t know, less important, who can babysit ? Ciara? Prin? Fuck, I’d even take Fawnreen’s grumpy ass over you!” she continued, pointing an accusing finger at the young woman her father had apparently arranged to co babysit her.
Total. Fucking. Overkill.
The Drinarna officer stood just as straight and proper as Emilia had ever seen her, even back when the then-ten-year-old had been visiting Baalphoria with her father on drills. Hundreds of clones and Drinarna officers had descended onto a small island off the coast, between Piketown and Roasalia. It had been the first ti Emilia had been allowed to et with anyone from Lüshan, and she had been so excited when she learned a girl around her age would be coming along with her father, a high-ranking Drinarna officer. The world was quite unfair, however, and Caron Fulbrun had been a miserable, overly serious little girl. She had since beco a miserable, stick-in-the-mud woman.
Caron’s dark black eyes bore into her, frad by long lashes that didn’t suit her otherwise tomboyish appearance. From the short, strict cut of her black hair, to her tall, thin body, nothing about the woman was soft, and if Emilia hadn’t once outright asked if she’d rather be a boy, she would be convinced the woman was trying to be a man. Caron could have been lying, of course, when her teenage self had snapped that she definitely didn’t want to be a boy—and in hindsight, Emilia probably shouldn’t have asked, just hinted a bit more obviously that regardless of what Caron wanted to be, she’d support her, unpleasant personality or not. It hadn’t felt like Caron was lying, though. She was just a happily boyish woman. All the power to her, as long as that power was far, far away from her!
“Can’t your daddy watch instead~?” Emilia groaned as more of the class exited the papers checkpoint, and yeah, Olivier had been right: at least two more seed to be only now realizing they did not like it underground and wanted to return to the ship.
“He cannot,” Caron replied, eyes flicking to where Olivier was exiting the papers checkpoint along with Grenner and the students who every much did not want to be there. “Olivier de la Rue? I am Officer Caron Fulbrun,” she said, saluting and rambling off whatever official designation she now had—apparently she’d been promoted in the year since they’d last had the misfortune of eting, going from so form of student intern to slightly more adult intern, as her education wasn’t nearly done.
Good for her, making her way up the ranks. Emilia might join the group heading back to the ship, thanks. Maybe she would have, if she hadn’t had a craving for a very specific Falmíer dessert… If she was fast, maybe she could sneak off and—
As though they could read her thoughts, both Olivier and Caron looked her way, and then—
“Fuck!” Emilia hissed as a band of energy wrapped itself around her wrist, effectively locking her and Caron together. “Overkill, much?”
The woman’s eyes slid over her, dismissive and judging all at once. “No,” was all she said before turning back to Olivier and quickly discussing the schedule for the day, while Grenner asked if anyone else would like to return to the ship.
Emilia raised her hand.
Grenner, traitor that he was, smiled and waved as he left her to her fate of being locked to Caron like a naughty child.
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