Arc 9 | Chapter 301: Walking Tour

Seer’ik’tine was a nation split into castes, and while there had been numerous attempts by various governments over the years to sever the system that dictated how each caste lived, most of those attempts had failed.

There was only so much a government could do when the shared mythology and culture of their populace led to the belief that returning to a mixing of their lives and genetics would bring ruin upon them. Who would be bringing ruin upon them? No one, it seemed, had any idea anymore—the government had long since eradicated the exact details from public memory. Yet, the belief persisted, perhaps more due to fear that should they mix and their nation suddenly be brought into a war afterwards it would effectively prove the truth of the matter—would prove that all the people who had dragged down the walls that separated the castes had been the end to millennia of mostly peaceful coexistence between the castes and their neighbours alike.

All that said, there was little that actually separated the castes in terms of how they could live their lives. Those from the zi’ret—the lowest caste—were not welcome in the universities that serviced the zi’huta—the highest caste, to which Lan’za and her family belonged—but they could rise to teach in the schools attended by the other castes, and it was no longer unheard of for friendships to rise between members of different castes. Most people spent their lives within wards that housed their caste, but while the higher castes tended to have more generational wealth, allowing them easier access to servants, it weren’t as though the zi’ret wards were slums—although, perhaps in comparison to the locked, secretive wards of the zi’huta they may very well be.

The point was, walking through Seer’ik’tine, listening to their tour guide explain what they were seeing and how the castes were split through the city, was always an odd experience for Olivier’s students. Despite generational D-Levels acting as something of a knife between Ex-300s, Ex-100s, Sub-100s, Sub-50s, and Sub-30s, they weren’t nearly as strict as the castes of Seer’ik’tine. There was little stopping a Sub-100 from moving to The Penns, if they earned enough money to afford a house there. There was nothing stopping someone like Emilia from marrying whoever she wanted, regardless of their D-Levels, whereas here, the only people who made a life with someone outside their caste were those recruited into the harems few people outside the zi’huta could afford to finance.

“Do many

zi’huntar

”—Olivier cringed when the student mangled the pronunciation of the relatively simple word—“keep harems?” The boy’s eyes—rather predictably—shifted towards Lan’za before snapping back to their guide. While he doubted many of his students had realized exactly who she was—the most she’d done was introduce herself and vaguely gesture in the direction of her home further north while they walked, telling the group it was a zi’huta ward, and therefore not open to visitors who were not formally invited—the young woman was quite attractive, with her delicate brown features, nearly permanent, soft smile, and hourglass frame.

Olivier still preferred Emilia’s own wide, teasing grin, and bottom heavy frame.

“Not all, but many,” the guide laughed, likely used to this sort of question.

Thankfully, his students seemed more interested than disgusted with the custom. Of the students who had dared ask about harems on their visit to the city-state, it was generally a toss up whether they would be polite or rude about this particular cultural difference, the somewhat uncommon, but not unheard of, polyamorous relationships in Baalphoria leaning more into a mutual sharing of partners amongst people who all loved each other. Zi’huta harems, on the other hand, tended towards the worship of the zi’huta, and friendship—or occasionally rivalries—between the other harem members.

“Most of the zi’huta experiment with harems in their youth, but many decide it is not for them. Some remain with two or three partners, while others choose monogamy, or sometimes more open relationships. It is more common for those with children to have harems, as raising children is easier with more hands.”

“People who are gay and bi are also more likely to have harems,” Emilia unhelpfully pointed out, earning her a chorus of nervous giggles, several of the boys blushing as she went on to tease that there just seemed to be something about

men who liked cock

in particular that made them love to have multiple partners, at least in Seer’ik’tine. “I think their harems also tend to be a little more… open with the sharing of everyone, though?”

Emilia looked at Lan’za who was shaking her head fondly at her friend. “I wouldn’t know,” the local woman said, before smirking and adding, “but based on what my brother has said, he loves cocks a lot more than the women he beds do. Perhaps it is simply that even straight women are less likely to enjoy male anatomy as much? Dealing with one penis may be more than enough for them.”

This time, it was the girls who laughed, many of them muttering in agreement that they were pretty sure gay and bisexual men liked dick a lot more than they did, a few of the boys joining it to proclaim their undying love for male genitalia.

“Do you have a harem?” one of the boys blurted out. Given the red that quickly surged over his pale features, it didn’t appear he had meant to say that.

“I am the future hai’za,” Lan’za told them, smiling softly when the group gave her a confused look. “Hmm… perhaps we should move somewhere less heated for the explanation?”

Emilia’s friend glanced at Olivier, looking to him to take the lead. It was almost time for lunch anyways, their museum visit having been shortened by the speed at which their guide had taken them through the rest of the exhibits, intending to get them out of the building before something else happened.

Movree had been removed to the embassy by two Hyrat clones who worked there. While they had claimed to have been alerted to the situation by the museum, Olivier wasn’t convinced Emilia hadn’t contacted them—not that it mattered. By the time they had shown up, the group having long left him and his student behind, Olivier had already decided the boy needed to go.

Emilia had been right when she told the class that his actions and words could have put them all at risk if the wrong person found out about it. It wasn’t uncommon for Baalphorians to be killed while travelling the Free Colonies—it was why most stuck to the big cities, where there was an embassy for emergencies, Hyrat clones lingering within them, just waiting to help… in theory. In reality, Baalphorian embassies wouldn’t generally risk diplomatic relations with a Free Colony unless there was a very good reason. A random tourist being killed because they had spit vitriol did not a good reason make.

As they made their way towards the restaurant he had booked for them, their guide continued talking, explaining the architecture of the northern tip of the city as they transitioned into it from the central district.

The central district comprised of long, perfectly organized roads that were often barely big enough for more than six or seven people to walk comfortably, side by side. Tall, pale stone walls edged the roads, split only by the occasional opening, gate, or thin alleyway connecting the main roads. Many of the walls encased the various wards, only the zi’huta wards protected by gates, while each of the three lower castes had only openings and the occasional guard to protect the ward entrances. That said, the lower castes’ wards were also where many of the markets were to be found, as well as artisans and other tradespeople who primarily worked out of their homes. Other walls encased more formalized economic zones and schools, as well as the yards where raw materials—which were primarily brought in from a mixture of the southern end of the city-state, Dion, and Baalphoria—were held.

From the point of view of someone walking down the roads, the central district was bland and sandy, only occasional graffiti on the stone walls and the clothing of those travelling along it to brighten anything up. Even the openings to the wards gave only a view of more walls, several turns usually required to properly see inside the wards and witness the splendour of what was actually contained within them.

They had yet to enter any of the wards. Instead, as Olivier always requested, their guide had simply walked them down the main road as she explained the caste system to his students, occasionally taking them down an alleyway. It wouldn’t be until they returned, on the last day of their trip, that they would actually enter any of them. Having done the trip both this way, and with them entering the wards on this first day, in his first season of teaching, Olivier had immediately decided he liked it this way the most.

It was an odd, confusing thing for his students, to not be allowed within the wards, yet they would appreciate it all the more when they returned. There was nothing quite like the extravagant, lively air of the wards, the zi’ret and zi’por—the second highest—wards in particular always bustling with energy and colour. It was always here that his students purchased the most souvenirs, always here, on the one night he would let them return to the ship minutes before it left the next morning, if they wished—this was by far the easiest Free Colony for them to be deported from, if they missed the ship—that they had the most fun.

That fun was most palpable when his students were allowed to experience it for the first time that last night. Plus, avoiding the chaos of the wards allowed them time to step into the northern end of the city-state, which was an experience all its own.

It always bothered Olivier how much Baalphorians tended to think of the Free Colonies as some singular entity, their diverse cultures melting into some pathetic facsimile of every piece of propaganda they’d seen in media over the years. Yes, there were certainly instances of shared culture between many Free Colonies, as illustrated by the prevalent use of the Dionese word

liutai

and its local variants for foreign teachers, ubiquitous throughout the Free Colonies and showcasing the millennia-long impact of the Dionese teaching guild’s peacetime travels—even Lan’za used the title of

‘tai

when speaking to him. Yet, despite such moments of their cultures crossing over, each Free Colony’s culture was unique, with a myriad of subcultures within it, and this—the transition between the sandy stone walls of the central district into the lushness of the north—was often the first time most of his students truly realized that.

In many ways, the northern district wasn't simply a more colourful, less dense version of the central district. The crystalline walls of the wards—made of an ore found at the bottom of the Second Tide, which the Mhrinas had made a small fortune mining on the Baalphorian side of the artificial lake—that housed each of the embassies, as well as the shopping districts scattered through the district, still stretched up over twenty feet. Gates were present at virtually all of their entrances, fully blocking out the snooping gazes of passerby, trying to catch glimpses of this diplomat or that.

Unlike in the central district, however, the roads were wider, the stones covered with moss that flourished under the water that so often flooded out of the Second Tide. Each of the wards were raised three or so feet in order to prevent water damage—the central district was protected by a moat. Small wooden walkways edged the walls, allowing traversing the area when it was flooded, although Olivier had visited during a flood once and found that most people simply avoided leaving their embassy or walked through the water—apparently, using the relatively skinny walkways was just

asking for trouble

as the children of the diplomats were known for drawing aether marks into the wood and setting traps for anyone who used them.

Side eyeing Emilia and her friend, Olivier had a feeling he knew exactly what sort of spoiled children of diplomats might have been responsible for such things. It wasn’t like such a thing would kill the person who triggered it, but it would certainly tumble them into the flood water, leaving them far wetter than if they’d just braved walking the water.

“Here we are,” their guide cheered as they reached The Bridge, a long series of waterfront restaurants that stretched across the Second Tide. It had required more walking than if he’d chosen a restaurant within one of the wards, but even if they entered one of the wards in the northern district, mostly frequented and staffed by foreigners, it would have ruined the effect he wanted for their last day.

There were very few things in Olivier’s life he could be so ridiculously finicky about without his mother bothering him about it. So, if he wanted to be finicky about this, there was no one to stop him. Plus, The Bridge—a relatively new addition to Seer’ik’tine—was a landmark in itself, and even though they wouldn’t be eating at the Seer’ik’tine themed restaurant that sat closest to the shore, it was still worth visiting.

Still, he couldn’t ignore the way Emilia was watching him, her eyes curious, her mind so clearly sifting through the potential reasons why he had arranged the trip the way he had—even if her father had interfered with a few things, it was still essentially the same trip.

Would she ask him about the why of it? He had no idea, but some small part of him hoped she might, that in this—his desire to force his students to see the Free Colonies as something beautiful and diverse and interesting—they might find a common ground.

More

common ground, he supposed. While they weren’t exactly

chatting

, the annotations of his class notes they had been exchanging these last few weeks were

almost

talking, almost connecting.

It was just unfortunate that he had no idea how to talk to the girl in person—how to use his voice to start a conversation and let her know that he was… something.

Frustrated, mostly.

Yeah. That’s what he was: frustrated with himself, frustrated with Emilia, frustrated with the fact that he couldn’t help her, even though he ached to throw everything away to do exactly that. His life was a long line of frustrating moments, but this—being so frustrated by someone so bright and unrelated to him and the life his mother had set out for him—hadn’t been something he was expecting.

Olivier had a feeling that he would never know what to expect when it came to Emilia Starrberg.