Arc 9 | Chapter 339: The Crawl of Darkness

“While the Baalphorian government tried for centuries to erase Grey Sander culture, after they effectively took over the region—probably before it was officially brought under their control as well—shortly before my father’s ancestors moved to Baalphoria, the government somewhat gave up. I suppose they finally realized it was a lost cause. The Grey Sands’ culture is just too… specific and engrained in so much of their daily lives. Virtually everyone there belongs to the same religion, and I have heard it suggested that because they do not let outsiders know much about it, trying to dismantle it as an outsider would be virtually impossible,” Olivier began, wondering how much of what he was saying Emilia, frequent traveller and gatherer of knowledge that she was, already knew.

If she did know much of what he was saying, she said nothing of it, simply continuing on her mission to press as much of their bodies together as she could as he continued, adding that there was some speculation that the Baalphorian government also tried to turn Grey Sanders they knew were loyal to the Baalphorian government—or just wanted to leave the region—into spies and saboteurs, hoping to gain more knowledge of their religion and more secretive customs.

“They eventually realized that even those who had left the Grey Sands for various reasons wouldn’t share anything of the religion with the Baalphorian government, or any other outsider. At the time, the Grey Sands had yet to adopt Censors either, so the Hyrat clones could do nothing either. I believe the government later tried to send people who had left the Grey Sands for one reason or another back as spies—their descendants as well. It is presumed that this is the reason people like myself and Halen are not welcome back,” he said, more than a little bitterness edging through his voice. While he doubted he would have returned to being a Grey Sander, were the option to return open to him—he was far too Baalphorian—he would still have liked the option to learn about his ancestors’ culture and customs. The ability to bring bits and pieces of that missing culture into his life… that would be nice; it was also impossible.

“All that said, the government didn’t entirely give up on trying to suppress Grey Sander culture, their methods simply changed. I do not think they’ve given up even now, although whatever they are doing, it is nothing like when my father’s ancestors left,” Olivier explained, nodding and listening as Emilia added in her own account of visiting the Grey Sands with her father.

As he had suspected, the Baalphorian government had mostly given up trying to stomp out Grey Sander culture, but they continued to push Baalphorian culture into the region in a more slowly destructive way. Censors had become standard about two generations ago, but the government's attempts to erase their language continued—something that had so far been ineffective, according to Emilia who proceeded to talk about one of her favourite books from the Grey Sands—and encouraging people to leave the Grey Sands’ secretive religion in favour of Baalphoria’s general lack of religion.

“So, what did the Baalphorian government do, then?” Emilia asked when she momentarily ran out of things to ramble about, all punctuated by an offer to share some of her Grey Sander books—all physical books, much to her overexaggerated horror—and teach him Grey Sander, assuming he promised not to teach it to anyone who wasn’t of Grey Sander descent.

“I didn’t really learn officially, just through being there so often and already knowing a bunch of languages from travelling with my father? They don’t really teach it to outsiders, and while my friends have never really cared much that I know it, I think they would if I taught it to someone completely unconnected?”

she had said, each word she said seemingly a cover for her slowly wiggling further and further into him.

Olivier didn’t think he knew anyone who would be interested in learning Grey Sander—probably not even his father or brother—and any Baalphorian he did come across who wanted to learn it… Well, most people who wanted to learn Grey Sander wanted to do so because they had ulterior motives—things like they worked for the Baalphorian government and hoped that learning the language would allow them to infiltrate the culture in order to destroy it from the inside out. Oddly, neither he nor Emilia had ever heard of anyone in the government knowing Grey Sander.

“Either they keep it so private that even The Black Knot and OIC doesn’t know, or no one knows it—or, at least they don’t advertise it?”

the silverstrain had mused as they discussed it, Olivier growing increasingly thankful he had rearranged them because they hadn’t even gotten back to his reason why he had access to the story-case he had meant to tell Emilia about. Instead, he had been forced to ask how she knew the OIC System didn’t think anyone in the government spoke Grey Sander.

Apparently, she was personally acquainted with Vrin Devano, noted non-dev researcher who worked closely with the OIC System. Olivier was simultaneously shocked and not surprised in the least that Emilia would know someone as eccentric as Vrin Devano, who was well known both for being a sloppy genius and for constantly missing work. Many a person had brought up that second fact to him, due to his own punctuality. As perhaps the most well-known of Baalphoria’s non-devs—most didn’t have parents who outed them shortly after their D-Levels were tested, and Baalphoria’s only other public non-dev was a hermit who lived in northern Baalphoria—Vrin Devano’s actions had somewhat affected the way everyone viewed non-devs, something people were constantly telling Olivier he was

fixing.

Regardless, it was interesting that Vrin Devano—who apparently was also responsible for helping Emilia keep the sign language she and her friends used out of the OIC’s translation system—was so sure that if members of the Baalphorian government or law enforcement knew Grey Sander, they weren’t sharing or teaching it to anyone, as apparently the OIC

was very good at answering questions, especially about its special interests, if you asked nicely and it liked you.

Olivier wasn’t sure he believed that, but neither was he in a mood to argue the point with the silverstrain. As for why they didn’t know it, Olivier figured that Emilia’s presumption that it was because Baalphorians heavily relied on their Censors and rarely travelled outside of the nation.

“I learned because I already knew Dionese—both Inner Court and a few of the more normal, street dialects—and a few types of sign language? Bits of Seerish and Lütanian as well, before having my Censor; now I’m fluent in both, and more! But that all meant that picking up another language wasn’t too hard? For someone who doesn’t know anything other than their native language through brain power alone, though… I mean, we used our personal sign language all through compulsory schooling? Like, the day I entered that school, I was making friends with Simeon and teaching him bits of sign language. Despite that, only a few of our teachers even learned more than a few signs… and, of course, we’d just change whatever sign they learned because most adults aren’t allowed to know our sign language.”

“Which adults are allowed?”

Olivier had found himself asking, fascinated by the fact that their sign language was effectively limited just to their friend group—and perhaps classmates as well, Olivier having seen Halen signing a few times throughout the day despite Halen and Emilia apparently not being friends until today.

“My parents. Quite a few of the clones. The Laprise moms know a bit. It was… ah… the sign language my siblings and I designed when we were in the orphanage.”

Olivier hadn’t even realized Emilia and her siblings were adopted, although, when he heard it from Emilia herself, his mind pulled up a few mumblings he had heard about it—rumours that his brain hadn’t fully taken in because it hadn’t been relevant to him, nor did it matter. Except, maybe it did matter. It was certainly interesting that Secretary General Miles Starrberg had adopted a silverstrain—one who had turned out to be a non-dev—as well as other children who potentially required sign language to communicate?

Emilia had gone on to explain that her brother had later tested as a Dyad—something that had apparently surprised none of them—and a high D-Level one with additional health conditions at that. In other words, an extremely high needs child who had been left to flounder in the orphanage. As the adults minding them had refused to teach her brother—Atticus—sign language, Emilia and her sister—Indigo—had designed their own, which had eventually become the base for the sign language they and their friends used today. Apparently, Atticus had later learned BSL after they were adopted, and their personal sign language remained something they rarely used with adults.

“Attie sometimes falls into our sign language when he’s stressed or overwhelmed, so some adults had to learn it, even once he switched to using BSL with adults. Only safe ones, though! It’s kinda, like… excepted that if any of us are using it for everyday things, the adults ignore us? It’s kinda funny. They totally know when we’re planning something secret, and they could just watch to see what it is, but they know we’ll just change the signs if they interfere, so they don’t. That said, a bunch of us also use it to communicate secrets with the clones as well? I dunno. There’s a mood, I guess, for when we want them to ignore us and when we don’t?”

Olivier had tried to imagine his own mother ignoring anything he or his brother were trying to secretly communicate to each other, friends, or their cousins. To say that she wouldn’t even bother trying to hide that she was watching them was an understatement. Probably, she would demand they stop whatever they were doing, even if it were something innocent, like organizing to buy her a birthday present. Judith de la Rue didn’t do secrets. Judith de la Rue bought exactly what she wanted for her birthday, wrapped it perfectly, then gave it to herself as though it were from her family. It was mortifying; it was also terribly hypocritical, as she refused to let any of the men in the family request their own birthday presents, instead forcing whatever she thought they should want on them.

It was only after all this that their conversation finally returned to his history of the Grey Sands—not that that was bad. While Emilia’s wandering mind was a menace in the classroom, speaking with her at other times was highly enjoyable, and Olivier could easily see himself letting her ramble about anything her heart desired all night long, the pair of them only fading into sleep when the sun was beginning to peek into the room, casting shadows and light over their tangled bodies.

If only things were easier and he had the freedom he would one day have now. To be able to tangle himself with the silverstrain every day and spend long days and nights chatting and fucking and just existing together in what was turning out to be a surprisingly easy manner. Where he would have excepted awkwardness, the two of them just seemed to fit together. Emilia’s vibrance filled the gaps of his own blandness. It was nice, even if he knew that, eventually, she would grow tired of him and his inability to fill the conversation with more than highly organized thoughts, or questions and the occasional comment about something she had said. Maybe he would continue to grow more comfortable with her, were they to continue getting to know each other—although Olivier knew that was unlikely with the strain of her legal case hanging over them—but her growing tired of him was more likely.

Emilia needed someone just as bright as she was, not someone who would dim her light.

Still, Olivier didn’t let his worries about being too quiet, too dim, too bland stop him from letting Emilia’s prompting question about the Baalphorian government’s next steps return them to the original topic. If he didn’t force himself to speak—to tell all the stories he so rarely had an opportunity to speak of—he fade into the happy freedom of the night and just let Emilia fill all the silence between them with her voice. Here, there was no reason to silence her mind—no timeline; no syllabus, dictating how much time he had that day for the discussion. Emilia, he thought, could spend all the time she wanted wandering from topic to topic, each one filling their hearts and connecting them with all their shared points, all their diverging ones, until—

Until nothing.

This was the danger of Emilia—of the darkness dancing around them, only the smallest specks of light lingering on the walls from the curtains he had set to let in the smallest embers of light because he had never liked the solidity of total darkness; darkness was crawling thing, slithering over the world and leaving room for something that he couldn’t quite explain.

The nightmares of a child’s wandering mind. The crazed dreams of his tiny self, who could never hope to find solace or support in either of his parents’ rooms. Had they ever slept together, sharing a bed like he was now with Emilia? More likely, they had only ever fucked to breed, if even that. Maybe he and his brother were the result of implantation, his mother never forced to see her father as anything more than the means to an end—as a means to the power that the Mjuna family’s secrets were.

Breathing in—breathing out the meanderings of his nighttime brain, so easily distracted—Olivier actually answered Emilia’s question.