Arc 9 | Chapter 308: Totally Not Panicking.

Oliver wasn’t going to panic.

He definitely wasn’t going to panic.

He was going to breathe and listen to the sound of Lan’za soft, accented voice—far less accented than any other local they’d come across in the city, likely due to her years spent amongst diplomats and their ill-behaved, conniving, untrustworthy,

late

children.

Had Olivier mentioned he wasn’t going to panic over Emilia being late? About her not responding to any of the messages he sent asking where she was? If she needed help?

Had Halen Mhrina done something to her? While there had been moments over their weeks of knowing one another where Olivier had wondered if some of the unregistered skills Emilia used had been programmed by Halen Mhrina, the energy between them when the younger man had suddenly appeared had been oddly strained. Yet, Emilia had gone with him willingly enough, Lan’za insisting Halen would make sure to keep his former classmate in line in a way that seemed both entirely truthful and like complete shit.

“Do not worry,” Lan’za said softly, coming to stand beside him where he was staring out over the Second Tide, leaving his students to discuss their own theories on the Twintides’ creation myth, which she had been describing the various versions of just moments earlier.

In the distance, the Dionese coast could be seen to the west. It was oddly barren, compared to the often meticulous organization of so much of the largest Free Colony’s land. Farm land was lined up perfectly, streets coming together to form blooming flowers, each of the palaces a beautiful creation of perfect angles and circles used to create mazes only the guard and Inner Court members could hope to navigate. So much of the ancient Free Colony’s history was known, compared to many smaller nations, and yet, Olivier had never heard a Dionese version of the Twintides’ creation myth.

“They are late,” he didn’t quite spit out. As much as Lan’za was Emilia’s

babysitter,

it wasn’t her fault the grown woman had vanished.

“It has only been a few minutes. People are late—especially people like Emmie’ne. She is so very distractible, and I am sure she did not mean to offend or worry you.”

“And Halen Mhrina?”

Lan’za hummed, turning her own, forest green gaze away from him and to the Second Tide. “Halen'gra is… hard to explain. He has changed so much, even from the last time I saw him, only months ago, and even then, he was so different from the previous time. I do not think he wishes to trouble you or Emmie’ne, but I am not sure he is strong enough to pull Emmie’ne from where her mind takes her either—not now.”

“But before?”

“Before… perhaps. Those two have a complicated history. If you had asked Emmie’ne only minutes before he arrived, she would have insisted they were enemies and he hated her.”

While Olivier wasn’t sure how to interpret the energy that existed between Emilia and Halen Mhrina,

hatred

had certainly never crossed his mind. Discomfort on both parts, perhaps. Unease and confusion and some mistrust on Emilia’s. Yet, again, she’d gone with him with little convincing.

“Why?”

The future hai’za laughed, eyes crinkling as she told Olivier what he assumed was a very redacted version of the pair’s

prank war.

“So… Emilia can program her own skills?” Olivier asked, mind latching onto that fact rather than the woman’s comment about how, if Emilia and Halen Mhrina had begun to fight, they would

definitely know.

“Did you not know?”

Shaking his head numbly, Olivier reassessed the skills he had seen Emilia use over the last few weeks. While she had mentioned she liked to code, and he had certainly had moments where he wondered if some of the skills she used had actually been created by the girl, it was something else to actually hear it confirmed—especially given some of the skills Lan’za had mentioned Emilia and Halen creating during their prank war. It was one thing to wonder, it was another to know.

The silly skill that ironed his clothes so firmly nothing but seemingly the active intention to

wash it out

removed the result. All the skills she had used on his bodyguards—probably skills she had designed to use in this prank war, given their harmless and highly annoying nature. Emilia, bringing Movree to his knees with seemingly no effort. That was probably still a Black Knot skill, but then again… if she were the sort of designer who had spent over a decade in a war with Halen Mhrina…

“Fuck!”

Olivier wished he could say he didn’t twist towards Emilia’s voice, still far off as it was, the moment the sound reached him; he couldn’t. The second her voice rang through his ears, the moment her tanned legs came into view, her and her former classmate running up from the main path that led to central district, each of their arms laden down with boxes of stars knew what, he was turning their way, relief washing through him, thick and syrupy and easing his heart far too much.

“Sutra’en’tai suda’gre sti la~” the woman next to him laughed, his Censor struggling to translate her words, but eventually ending with something that suggested Lan’za had not only guessed at his Grey Sander heritage but was implying that both he and Halen Mhrina wanted to have sex with Emilia, their heritage… With how much slang Lan’za was using, and the contextual basis of so much of the language, Olivier’s Censor couldn’t determine if she thought their heritage was an important factor in her reasoning as to

why

they both wanted the silverstrain, or if it was simply a way to collectively refer to them as people interested in Emilia.

“Fuck!” Emilia huffed as she skidded to a stop in front of him, her normally big eyes impossibly larger in what almost felt like outright panic. “I’m so sorry! We had to detour back into the central district because of a road closure, then we were passing a ward that housed a university, and, well, it’s the end of the school year here, and they were having this sale on textbooks that won’t be used next year. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of paper books,” she rambled, scrunching her nose and readjusting the box of what Olivier could only assume to be books as she muttered about how heavy they were—not that she seemed tired from her running through the hot streets carrying a box of books. “I couldn’t resist looking, though, and then there were just so many books that seemed like the sort you might like, and—”

“Me?” Olivier blurted out, sure he must have misheard or misunderstood Emilia—or maybe she was just talking too fast and looking at him while speaking with Lan’za? Stars knew Emilia did that in class sometimes, addressing one person while staring at someone completely different, her eyes and mouth and brain all working at different speeds and frequencies and so often not quite matching up properly.

“Yeah! You!” Emilia cheered, panic giving way to a tentative, hopeful smile. “I know you can’t speak fluent Seerish, but your Censor should be able to help—and if it can’t translate something, I’m sure I can help… or ask someone to help. As much as I have

definitely

heard various Seerish laws cited when being reprimanded for this or that, I can’t say I’m an expert. Seriously, just reading some of the stuff you assign in Baalphorian can be difficult sometimes— Well, not the normal stuff. The extra stuff, though? Like that article on the laws that govern what sorts of chemicals textile companies can use? There was that really obscure law in there, and it was explained soooo badly, and—”

“Sorry,” Halen Mhrina muttered, his own arms full of two boxes of, presumably, books. “I tried to keep her from eating too much sugar, but…” The man grimaced as Emilia continued to babble, Lan’za having stepped up in a seeming attempt to bring her friend back down from whatever high she was on. “She distracted me and bought some candy, then hid it in her pocket. It took a while for me to notice she had it.”

Readjusting the boxes, a dark brown hand offered Olivier the partially empty container of candy. Only three or four pieces must have been missing. How much sugar must be in each piece for Emilia to be this hopped up after so few?

“Thank you,” Olivier said, stepping forward in an attempt to accept the box from Emilia before she accidentally dropped it into the Second Tide in her vibrating excitement—or was it still panic? It might have been a mixture. While he had been trying to lessen the tension in the little silverstrain, his words seemingly made everything worse.

“But… but you haven’t even looked at them. They could be terrible, or things you’ve already read and will now have to get rid of.” Those big, purple eyes blinked back at him, Emilia’s entire body one line of unmoving tension. Gone was the bouncing, shifting energy of just seconds earlier. Instead, she seemed a moment away from bursting into tears—or worse, giving him an entirely fake smile and rushing off with

his

books to get rid of all evidence of her actions.

Swallowing, never letting his eyes leave Emilia’s, Olivier’s mind whirred, trying to find something that would defuse the situation. His Censor was, unfortunately, completely unhelpful; all it told him was that Emilia was probably running around with unknotted ADHD, her energy and emotions high from the sugar, change in scenery, and spontaneity of the situation. Then, it had the audacity to suggest ways he could bring up knotting her ADHD with her, as though anything about the woman standing before him—irrational as she currently seemed to be—needed to change a single thing about herself.

“Thank you,” he repeated, deciding that backtracking on his original sentiment was worse than shifting his meaning a little. While he hadn’t meant to be placating, accidentally disregarding her decision to buy him so many books through his appreciation that she would do something for him before truly assessing what she’d done, that didn’t mean he didn’t truly appreciate it. “I appreciate the effort and sentiment, even if the books end up being ones I’ve already read, although I highly doubt that. I do not believe I’ve read any books in Seerish, let alone ones on the laws—which I assume are quite complicated, given how many embassies exist here.”

“Oh, yeah~” Lan’za sighed, long-suffering. Presumably, as the next hai’za, she must have been receiving instruction in the various laws from a young age, a realization that made Olivier’s heart squeeze.

They were so different, and yet, there was something similar about their lives and upbringings, he supposed. From the moment Lan’za was born—perhaps even before, if the rumours of the zi’huta manipulating the time of their children’s birth into order to secure better birth charts for them had any merit—her life had been planned out for her, just as his had been for him. Generally, Olivier thought his first sixteen years of life unpleasant, but not untenable due to his yet-revealed D-Levels. Testing as a non-dev had changed his life for the worse, but there wouldn’t have been a tipping point like that in Lan’za life—or, if there had, it must have been something like meeting Emilia and being pulled from the harsh reality of her birth.

If only Emilia’s light could be that for him as well.

Trying—and largely failing—to shake off those thoughts and assumptions—he really didn’t know enough about Seer’ik’tine or the future hai’za to be thinking such things of her life and upbringing—Olivier took another step towards his not-quite-student. “Perhaps later,” he said, letting his hands rise to cup the bottom of the box and gently lift it from Emilia’s grip, “you can help me translate the titles and summaries, so I can organize them and decide which to read first?”

Emilia blinked at him, once, twice, before the sun lit back up within her eyes. “Yeah?”

Olivier hummed, fully managing to remove the box from her arms. “Yes. We have a number of hours on the ship where we will have little to do. I’m sure we can find time.”

Technically,

most of their time on the ship would be spent sleeping or eating, but Emilia didn’t need to know that, nor did he think she was liable to care.

“Okay,” Emilia cheered, sliding back into her happy, bouncing self as she swivelled to the left, tipping precariously backwards towards the lake before yelling something that sounded like “Grenner!”