Emilia was not going to be well-behaved today, Olivier could already see that written through the universe itself. Yesterday, he had already had an inkling that while he was sure the silverstrain was trying to behave as well as she could, it had, in the end, been more Lan’za influence—and to a lesser extent Halen’s—that had kept her in line. Both of them had seemingly had a knack for pulling the girl back to solid ground. Olivier wasn’t entirely certain, but he was almost positive Lan’za had promised Emilia sothing for behaving as well. While he was unsure whether she had gotten her reward or not, given they’d been apart for the last portion of the trip, he was almost certain she had been well-behaved enough to have earned it.
That sort of reward system worked for the girl, as did redirecting her attention to less disastrous thoughts and intentions.
Olivier did not foresee Caron Fulbrun’s attempts at controlling Emilia through force ending in anything other than disaster.
For the mont, Emilia was contenting herself to trailing their group, Caron walking several steps ahead of her because apparently even the silverstrain couldn’t break the energy leash that connected the two of them—or, if she could, she wasn’t inclined to reveal it yet. For her part, Caron Fulbrun was effectively ignoring everyone. It was so unlike what they had experienced with Lan’za, her cheerful personality allowing every mber of their group the comfort to ask her even the most probing of questions. If soone dared ask Caron Fulbrun if she had a harem—not that those were a thing in Lüshan, as far as he knew—the woman might very well arrest them.
Olivier really hoped no one would dare ask, but for the mont, it wasn’t a serious concern as all his students were giving the Drinarna officer a wide berth—Emilia too, her entire being radiating annoyance. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised to turn around and find his not-quite student gone. He wouldn’t even be able to fault her; he didn’t want to spend ti in Caron Fulbrun’s presence either, and as they trailed the tour guide leading them through the city and towards its central spire, he couldn’t help himself from ssaging Secretary General Miles Starrberg, asking why he had requested soone Emilia clearly didn’t like or respect as her babysitter for the day.
Imdiately, an automated ssage bounced back, informing him that Secretary General Miles Starrberg would be in etings for the majority of the day and would get back to him as soon as he was able. Attached was the contact information for his second-in-command, Wilfred Zernestra, as well as his Hyrat bodyguard. Another note inford him whom to contact in a number of situations, ranging from diplomatic incidences of varying importance—and learning what Emilia’s father considered only vaguely important and what was dire was fascinating—to anything having to do with his family, the vagueness of it allowing the children most people didn’t realize he even had to retain as much privacy as they could.
It was so unlike Olivier’s own mother, who had flaunted his non-dev status and all his achievents as though they were her own for as long as he could rember. Emilia’s father, from what he could tell, loved his children unendingly. Perhaps he had been too indulgent of Emilia at tis, if so of the stories he’d heard were anything to go by, but it was clear that he had long trusted her to make her own decisions. It was her life, and even when she’d been younger, and not on the cusp of becoming an adult in the eyes of Baalphorian law, he had allowed her to forge her own path.
Jealously roiled through Olivier when he thought of it, his mind circling questions of why he had been born to such selfish and negligent parents. He knew it could be worse—certainly, Emilia’s Dyad friend, with his parents who seed intent to hold him hostage for the remainder of his life with the help of the Dyad Containnt Laws, had worse parents than he. Still, the knowledge that his life could be worse didn’t stop Olivier from mourning what life—what he—might have been like, had he been born to more accepting, less demanding parents.
[Malcolm Laprise:What did she do?]
Olivier blinked at the ssage from Malcolm Laprise—one of the three Laprise boys Emilia had ntioned knowing?
[Olivier:How did you get my contact information?]
[Malcolm Laprise:Emmie and her father both gave it to , and any ssages about Emmie that go to her father are automatically forwarded to . I am aware he is busy. So, I repeat: what did she do?]
Interestingly, Malcolm Laprise wasn’t the person the automated note had inford people to contact regarding Secretary General Miles Starrberg’s family; rather, that person was the Loren Hyrat Emilia had also spoken of the night before. The Hyrat clone she said was like a second father to her growing up, but had also been the first person she had sex with once she was free of Baalphoria’s age of consent laws. Just thinking about that conversation made Olivier blush, his mind unhelpfully supplying him with images of Emilia with a far older clone, letting him enjoy her body and—
And he couldn’t be thinking about this. It was… not weird— Well, it was a little weird. Mostly, it was arousing in a way he couldn’t explain, and the last thing he needed was to pop a semi when Emilia was most likely just waiting for sothing to amuse herself with. The fact that the barriers he had erected between them were quickly crumbling, thanks to their many conversations and night spent tangled together in bed, was already a problem. Even now, he couldn’t imagine himself pushing off her advances or teasing with nearly enough severity. Hence, he was just going to do his best to avoid letting her get that close. Also, he was going to continue refusing to let his eyes linger on her too long, his fingers aching to push his stolen sweater up and reveal whatever was hiding under it—those too-short shorts, her bare skin, so shirt she’d slipped on in case he decided to steal his sweater back.
He was so fucked.
[Olivier:Nothing. I was simply curious why Secretary General Miles Starrberg requested the babysitter he did. Emilia clearly does not like or respect the woman, as she did Lan’za.]
It was odd, speaking to soone he had never t, nor even been properly introduced to. Emilia’s father had sent an introductory ssage—long and slightly disparaging of his daughter—when he had first contacted Olivier, along with a promise to et properly one day—apparently he was quite busy with sothing and currently finding it difficult to even go ho more than a few nights a month. With Malcolm Laprise, Olivier knew who he was—both in the general sense of eldest child of the current leaders of The Black Knot and generally considered a candidate to beco the next leader of either the entire organization or one of its main branches, and in the sense that he was Emilia’s friend. He knew nothing else of the man, however. Not his personality, his particular tolerance for Emilia’s mayhem, nor even his general level of patience.
[Malcolm Laprise:Who did he send?]
[Olivier:Caron Fulbrun.]
[Malcolm Laprise:What. You’re in Lüshan?]
It wasn’t a question—not really. Olivier could feel the man’s bafflent, his concern, each so strong it was echoing through the ssage.
That couldn’t be good.
That definitely couldn’t be good.
A mont later, an invitation to a group ssage unlike anything he had ever seen popped up over his Censor. Where normal invites usually added the person automatically, forcing the person to manually remove themself from it—although, Olivier wasn’t convinced Axelle hadn’t done sothing to his Censor during her various modifications, just so he couldn’t avoid joining the various group ssages his cousins set up for this or that—this one didn’t automatically add him. Instead, when he clicked on the oddly coloured dialog—most dialogs followed the colour the of the user’s Censor System, and his was mostly grey, but this dialog was a purple so deep it was almost black—a notification popped up informing him he had to agree to certain terms before he would be allowed in.
A mont later, a ssage from Emilia followed, telling him to read the terms and accept. It was nice, if sowhat disconcerting, that she already knew him so well: for as much as he was often assud to be technologically illiterate, as so many Baalphorians oddly were, Axelle had forced lessons on safe Censor usage into all of her cousins. Accepting terms for a random group ssage, regardless of the small Black Knot logo of twining malina flowers that he could barely make out over the dialog boxes, was definitely against those safety precautions.
Skimming through the terms—which in his case, simply ant he wasn’t searching for hidden anings or vague wordings—Olivier learned that he would be locked from speaking about the group ssage and its contents in a way similar, but distinct, from the way {A Private Mont} locked away conversations held within its influence. Olivier hadn’t known The Black Knot were capable of sending such secretive ssages, and while he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, several monts in his short career and the thousands of case records he had read suddenly seed to make a little more sense.
There were a collection of monts where sothing about how soone had learned about this or that had been a giant question mark. It wasn’t such a large amount that he or anyone else had thought the person’s inability to explain their reasoning for showing up at a certain location, only to difficult find themself in the position to stop a cri or save a life, odd enough to warrant looking into. Personally, he also might have thought it a case of people following the will of the aether—even if they didn’t believe or didn’t realize they were doing it—except that in the cases that now ca to mind, there had been sothing in the person’s testimony that had seed untruthful. Not so malicious lie, nor a white lie intended to protect themself or soone else. Just sothing that wasn’t true, calling up a recollection of clones and other Black Knot agents brushing aside questions they couldn’t answer on the record, despite their denial of knowing how they’d co to be in the right place to interact with so incident being distinct from a denial of being allowed to answer. Hence, he at least had sotis assud it was the result of {A Private Mont}’s influence, although more often than not, Baalphorian’s movents were so well docunts by security footage that there wasn’t ti in those brief monts away from the OIC’s eyes to learn about a cri in progress without the OIC having an idea of when it could have occurred.
Now, knowing The Black Knot could ssage people in a way where they could never speak of what they learned within it, Olivier wondered if those people he thought of had simply been beholden to the terms he had just agreed to. If so, he wasn’t sure what to do with that information. The terms had also locked away his ability to discuss even the existence of such ssages—not that he would have shared that knowledge. The Black Knot were, he thought, an overall positive influence in their nation. But now he knew they might be using civilians to do this or that via these secret ssages, or that they might be letting information slip to civilians so they could intervene to save a friend or family mber—most of the cases he had thought of involved exactly that: soone mysteriously stumbling across soone they cared for who might otherwise have died.
Whether The Black Knot was using civilians as pawns, or offering them a chance to save a loved one: that was what Olivier wasn’t sure what to do with. Neither was he sure what to do with the first ssage of his new group ssage—which included himself, Malcolm Laprise, Emilia, Grenner, and several other clones, including Byron and Loren Hyrat—worriso as it was:
[Malcolm Laprise:Please tell you aren’t in Lüshan? Or that, at the very least, you aren’t in Falmíer?]
There had been a mont when they were working their way through the papers checkpoint with near perfect ease and speed, where Olivier had felt like they should turn back.
“Sothing is wrong. Go back to the ship,” the world seed to say. Despite all his musings the night before—increasingly in the days and nights since eting Emilia—where Olivier had wondered if many of his instincts really were a ssage from the aether, he had ignored those words.
Now, he worried that he really should have listened.
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