Clemence was⊠something. Emilia could think of a number of words to describe the teenager; most were not nice. Terrifying was probably top of the listâshe still couldnât shake the feeling that the younger girl wanted to dig her teeth into her flesh and make a meal of her, even if that particular strain of energy had left the building, the girl more vaguely threatening to anyone who got to close to them now.
Hopefully, that cannibalistic energy would stay outside, withering in the cold, because Emilia had not enjoyed being looked at like she was something to consume! Part of it was probably that she didnât know this kidâafter all, Baylor looked at her in a similar way. Where Clemence had this gleam of starvation in her eyes, however, drool threatening across her grin, the looks Baylor sometimes gave her were filled with bloodlust. He would kill her, if it wouldnâtâyou knowâ
actually
kill her. If some way existed for Baylor to slice into her and her to remain living and not traumatizedâEmilia thought not being traumatized by the experience was almost
more
important than her not actually succumbing to whatever injuries Baylorâs little brain wanted to inflict on herâEmilia could see them trying it outâŠ
At the same time, she wasnât sure she would be trying to design some sort of
temporary murder machine
for him? It might go wellâscratch the itch to murder inside him
just
right and give him some relief from the urge he may never be able to scratch properly, even with his work for The Black Knot. On the other hand, it could go terribly and open the chasm of bloodlust within him into a drooling maw, urging him to swallow down all the lives he could.
âŠ
âŠ
Emilia needed to stop with the cannibalism imageryâit was making her stomach turn and urging her to just kill Clemence, lest she sink her teeth into the arm sheâd looped her own through and now refused to relinquish. As much as the girl was scary, with all the energy of someone who would happily glue herself to Emiliaâs side and never let her know another moment of peace, she was still a teenager. Teenagers were always a little derangedâwell, Janie had never been deranged.
When Janie freaked out, there was a good reason for it. To hear Janie yell was to know that someone was about to be injuredâpotentially fatally injured. It all amounted to the fact that when Janie yelled, everyone listened, and Emilia wasnât convinced the seemingly innocent girl hadnât appointed herself as their groupâs babysitter back when theyâd still been children. Everyone was always yellingâscreams of laughter and anger, giggles and sobs when the world was too happy, too heartbreaking. It was wonderful, but also the sort of atmosphere where the more important, life-saving screams might fall under the oppression of all other emotions and words. So, yeah, despite how Janie was always the quietest of their groupâeven more quiet than Rafe, the number of words she spoke falling far short than those Simeon let fall off from his handsâsometimes it seemed like an act of oppression upon herselfâthis giving up of her voice in order to make sure that at least a single member of their group would never go ignored when they spoke up.
None of the adults ignored Janie, eitherâif anything, even when she told them something in the most even of tones they all came running, and yeah, Emilia was increasingly talking herself into the idea that Janie might have purposefully pulled her personality into a specific shape to fit the form of their group. That wasnât bad, exactlyâstars knew Emilia herself pulled herself smaller, while BJ had morphed himself into the medical professional of their group, and so on. They were a family, fitting themselves together in ways that worked and didnât, all at once. Being together as a unit was something ingrained in all of them, and in order to be that, they had to shave away parts of themselves, pick up the pieces and pass them to others, until they were a puzzle of slightly mismatched edges without cornersâthat was how Coral had managed to fit into their group, becoming this strange piece that connected their two sides of the class alongside Mikhail, and to a lesser extent Codeth. They were a puzzle without end, always happy to pick up new pieces as they went.
Jerrial could be a new piece, Emilia thought. Vern, with how quiet and surly he was⊠Emilia had no idea there. Maybe he would fit; maybe he would need to press into Jerrial, the way Polianna did to Coralâa piece that didnât quite belong to their collective, but could fit fell enough with a single person to be dragged along.
Rayleen wasnât allowed in their groupâthe woman gave her the creeps and when they parted ways, Emilia would be perfectly happy to never see her again.
Clemence was a teenager, and teenagers were weird and still coming into themself. So, Emilia didnât want to outright say the girl needed to be dropped into the abyss with the hope they never met again, but yikes. At least when Emilia watched Cyan moon over Alaric, he was cute in his desperate love for the other boyâintent to make sure Alaric was happy in a way that Emilia thought would work out for them. Still, if Alaric rejected Cyanâinsisted they could only ever be friendsâEmilia knew the clone would accept it.
To Cyan, Alaric was his everything. If Alaric would never be happy with him as a partner, Emilia knew Cyan would accept itâhe wouldnât be happy about it, but he would accept it, and then spend the rest of his life as Alaricâs best friend, no matter how much it broke his heart.
Emilia had a feeling Clemence wouldn't be happy to accept that she had to leave LĂŒshan, let alone that she already had a bunch of boys she liked! Emilia didnât even want to tell her she wasnât super into girls! They werenât a complete noâgirls could be pretty, although the teenager was far too young for herâbut she definitely preferred dicks.
Dicks were just⊠nice. They were smooth and silky, with a thousand different shapes and curves and sizes. Big dicks. Tiny dicks. Young dicks. Old dicks. All dicks were good dicks.
Vaginas were⊠something. Not having seen too many, she wasnât too sure about them. Presumably they were all different? Certainly, a few of the boys sheâd randomly hooked up with had made comments about her vagina to imply it was
different
from other ones theyâd seen, but while she knew why hers was different, she couldnât really imagine another vagina and had never bothered to look.
Should she look up some pictures? Compare what she saw to her own? Find some girls to spread their legs for her? Who would she even ask? Her friends? Maybe theyâd show herâEmilia had little doubt most of the boys she knew would let her examine their penises, if she asked. So, why did she think the girls might not? Maybe it was just because sheâd already seen most of the boys naked over the years, their bits dangling, unhidden, whereas girls were naturally more hidden?
âWhy does your face look like that?â
Vern asked, startling Emilia out of her increasingly deranged musing on genitals.
âI was thinking about⊠things,â
she replied. Admittedly, sheâd been about to blurt the content of her thoughts out to the manâhis horror would have been amusing. There was a teenager there, howeverâone who might very well offer to show Emilia her goods and that would be bad and illegal and absolutely notâso she had pulled the words back in. Considering how much trouble she had controlling her mouth, Emilia was quite proud of herself!
âThings?â
Vern replied, bland as he stared at her, his eyes refusing to edge towards Clemence because they both now knew the reality of whatâand whoâthe girl was.
After Clemence had looped her arm through Emiliaâs and begun dragging her off, Jerrial had muttered something about checking a nearby room for something or other, dragging Vern with him. Even if his eyes hadnât lingered a little too long on her own, Emilia would have let her Censor trail after them, intent to eavesdrop on the pair in hopes of either learning more about what Jerrial was looking forâeventually he had to tell them, right?âor about Clemence.
Clemence, as it turned out, was indeed a black knot. Jerrial had heard rumours that the sixteen-year-old had another irregular deviation as wellâpossibly something related to her tendency towards obsessionâbut there was nothing concrete to confirm such things. What he had whisper-hissed at Vern, the manâs heart rate rising with each word out of his friendâs mouth until Emilia had become vaguely concerned that he might pass out, had grown increasingly worse as he went.
Apparently, the reason Jerrial hadnât bothered to tell Emilia about the girl was about what sheâd suspected: the teenager was rarely in FalmĂer; instead, she spent most of her time either travelling the continent or attending school in another LĂŒshanian city, learning how to be the LĂŒshanian equivalent of a medic.
Emilia⊠was trying not to think too hard about the reality that this girl wanted to become a medic. Some black knots did great in medicine! They could be cold, yes, but the lack of empathy for their patients actually worked for them, more often than notâsomething about not suffering emotional burnout and being able to leave their work at work. The last part seemed a little dubious to herâall the black knots she knew were workaholics, but maybe that was just the genetics of the Laprise-Baxter-Hyrat family talkingâbut the first had merit. So, it wasnât like she was worried about Clemence becoming a medic due to her black knot. It was more⊠Emilia really didnât want to think the girl was a cannibal, okay!? She just had those vibes and if LĂŒshan one day had a cannibal medic on the loose, she was simply going to blink into the abyss and try not to wonder if she should have warned someone about the girl, who had so far managed to keep her association with criminals from the government, as far as anyone could tell.
That was all assuming she could get rid of the kid, however. According to what Jerrial had told Vernâand her; he had definitely intended for her to be listening inâClemence had a tendency to become obsessed with the
little bugs
FrĂ€thk brought it. Not with all of themâif anything, she was apathetic to most, barely acknowledging their existence on the rare occasion she came aroundâbut the ones she liked?
Well, for a while, she would be obsessed with them. Jerrial wasnât sure how she managed it, but somehow or other, the teenager was excellent at getting her obsessions out of the city and taking them on her travels. Few of them ever returned, and even when they did, it generally didnât take long for them to either mysterious disappearâpresumably killed off by the girlâor to be sent off on missions where death was a near guarantee. The general assumption was that Clemence either grew tired of themâsomething that Emilia thought unlikely, given how difficult it was to shake off the love of a black knotâor they had offended her somehow. It was probably the latter: the little girl became obsessed with people so fast that she made up a story of them in her head; then, when they didnât meet her expectations, her obsession shattered and she didnât want to be reminded of her error, so she killed them.
âSo basically,â
Vern had hissed back at his friend,
âEmilia immediately caught the attention of someone who is definitely going to be trying to kill her in the next hour?â
Was it rude of Vern to assume that she would shatter the girlâs obsession in only an hour? Definitely. Unfortunately, Emilia had similar concerns.
Were this any other situation, Emilia would be weighing her optionsâdeciding if running away and hoping the girl would forget about her were the best option. Maybe she would have run. Still, there was a good chance that she would have been poking around, instead, trying to figure out what the girlâs fictional image of her was like, then slowly tried to correct it into something more like the real her.
Mostly, she just didnât want to have to either kill the kid if she became a danger to their group. Even if Emilia managed to ditch the teenager and get the fuck out of LĂŒshan, Clemence knew she was Baalphorian and might very well track her down! Plus! Just because Emilia escaped didnât mean the girl wouldnât find a new obsession and continue her murderous ways, and how had this happened!? How had she been stuck with this problem child!?
There was a reason sheâd decided to just kill âariah, after all! Black knot obsession was no joke! It could be a decade from now, and she could suddenly find herself staring down this girl again, a willbrand pressed to her neck, Clemence having dozens more deaths under her because Emilia had left her behind to snuff out different lives.
It was all very terrible, and aside from random contemplations of
what
this girl might want from herâsheâd been considering both the food and romantic angles, but it could just be friendshipâEmilia was still cursing out the aether. Seriously!
Aether blessed
her ass. This was more like a curse, and no, she wouldnât give up her stupid status as someone capable of dragging black knots to her because of this aloneâshe loved all her black knots, except this new one, and would not be relinquishing them in hopes of getting rid of this one, thanks. Still, fuck the universe for not only giving her a black knot stalker who maybe wanted to eat her, maybe wanted to fuck her, but also for giving her one who was related to the person they were trying to steal people from because there was that as well: Clemence was FrĂ€thkâs daughter.
Great. Awesome. Just what they needed.