Arc F1.7 | Chapter 27: Fractured

In the years to come, Xavier would never really know what to do with these taut moments of his life. His brain, sucking in information as his future burat raced through the streets, evading the people chasing them, all of it too much for him to compute in any meaningful way, sleepiness and stress tugging his awareness into nothing but a blur as much as the horror of the situation pushed so much into perfect, deformed clarity. Leaving Porsq’ha behind because Olivier’burat couldn’t carry all three of them had perhaps been the moment when his brain first decided to protect itself by no longer remembering more than the barest of details. Porsq’ha had been fine, in the end—had been found and cared for and gone on to change the course of Lüshan’s future—but it had been terrifying.

A thing of nightmares.

Once, Emmie’gusht told Xavier of her own nightmares, leaving out no detail because he was like her, her like him, in a thousand different ways. Some of her nightmares had been of Warren, others of the war, more of watching Porsq’ha be cut open, years after their first meeting.

Xavier was there in her nightmares as well, sometimes, a torrent rushing around them as she held him close, trying to keep them both alive.

There were so many nightmares, and some Xavier knew were silly—these moments caught in his mind that he could never quite manage to let go of when sleep overtook him, despite his waking mind having long ago worked through the trauma of those situations.

To catch a moment within the mind is to be a trap that refuses to let its prey, its tormentor, its vile regards, go.

So many people he knew were like that, although Emmie’gusht had always been the worst. She so easily let things slide—let Leerin treat her like shit, every memory Xavier had of the two of them together one he wanted to rip from his brain because how had that woman been allowed in Emmie’gusht’s life so long?—and yet sometimes, words would stick in her head and she would struggle to shake them loose.

Cora’sa’s scream was like that—this call that Xavier could never quite shake from his mind.

Many times, he wondered if anything would have been different, if she hadn’t screamed. With Olivier’burat’s silencing skill wrapped around them—Xavier hadn’t understood his words and explanation at the time, but he had known it was fine to be loud because no one should be able to hear them because he was doing

something

—their pursuers hadn’t been able to hear Cora’sa, but Xavier could.

Xavier could hear her calling for her mothers, chasing after them.

It was such a simple, normal thing, that scream for a parent. Xavier called for his own, long-dead parents sometimes, even now, after decades without them—after decades of love and care from his adoptive parents. His new family was easy to love, even with some of the strain that popped up at times—something that was normal and loving even when it was hard and filled with hateful words—but sometimes, he still called out for his mommy and daddy. When he was home, snuggled into bed, someone would come for him, even now, forty years on. His new mom or dad, no longer new and shiny and unsure what to do with a small, traumatized child who had suddenly ended up in their home and hearts. His siblings, bright and shining and so immediately

his

that it had seemed he was always meant to end up in their arms.

Yet, didn’t that mean his mommy and daddy were meant to die?

syn Murka had once said no, they weren’t meant to die, but the aether had once seen their deaths and Xavier’s life in Baalphoria, Crishar, Norvel a possibility, so, it had made sure he would be safe and loved—made sure he would find a new home.

Teenage him, meeting synat for the first time and unsure of what to think of their beliefs but knowing his mommy and daddy had believed—had told little him that everything, no matter how sad, happened for a reason and that he needed to trust that the aether was trying its best—had asked a million questions. Some, syn Murka had answered, calm and always prepared for whatever his annoying teenage self—he’d picked up a lot of Emmie’gusht’s habits over the years, much to everyone but Olivier’burat’s dismay and chagrin. Others, syn Murka had brushed aside—questions to be answered another time, questions that had no answer.

So it goes, sometimes; not every question has an answer, nor every answer a question that can be quantified into words.

Proper sentences. Grammatically correct in the target languages—of course, their way of speaking often had no such thing. Where their parents and guardians and idols had Emmie’gusht’s sign language, they had that a dozen languages, a thousand dialects spread between them, their words and grammar shifting with each word, intention, opinion.

Emmie’gusht could figure it out, sometimes, if she spent enough time alongside them, lounging beside the lake that hugged the Zathar Isles or basking in pools in Norvel. Sorvell’buran knew it, of course, fiend for languages that he was. Baylor’burat knew enough, but he was different than he’d once been—different than he’d been that day that Xavier first met him, long after this moment that Xavier could never quite manage to shake free of his memory, no matter how many millennia stretched between the him of the now and the him of then.

“I think some things stick with us so entirely that they become us. Those things that can never be forgotten simply because we wish we could forget them,”

Emmie’gusht had told him, late in the war, when they had lived within the training system together for years, searching for a way to alter Xavier’s Censor so he could learn the core abilities he had once been meant to learn. Even she hadn’t been able to make it work, although she’d tried so very hard—his fault, in a way.

Teenage him had wanted to fit in with his Baalphorian peers, even if there were only a few around in those early days of war, when every child and teenager and young adult precious to Division 30 had been ferried about—kept safe by Zavriel and other majenstra, mostly.

Zavriel had said something similar, once—had told him that while yes, he could technically pull memories of Cora’sa’s scream from his mind, it would likely leave him someone entirely different.

A part of his past that was so integral to his being that, were it removed, he might as well not be himself.

“That memory may be of use to you, one day,”

one of the clones—the old one, who had messed with Emmie’gusht’s memories and seemed to both love and hate her—had once told them. It was an odd thing for a clone to say—Xavier was pretty sure a few believed the aether was more than a mass of energy or some horrific, alternate dimension, but it wasn’t some common belief they held. The way Varo had said it, though…

Well, Xavier wouldn’t be surprised to one day learn the old clone was in cahoots with all the other adults who seemed to be moving through the world at the behest of the aether. So, yeah, maybe his memory of this moment—this nightmare he couldn’t escape—would one day be of use to him. Who knew.

Cora’sa’s scream racketed through him again, both his dreaming and waking body shuddering with the force of it—some core ability manifesting within the little girl due to the stress, he had eventually realized. Here in this moment, it was nothing but loud—too loud for his own little core and mind, already strained by the situation and Porsq’ha’s abilities and then leaving the older boy behind.

It had been so loud and little him had known—known with a bone deep certainty that he had never been able to explain—that Olivier’burat didn’t know what the word she was screaming meant. It wasn’t a Lüshanian word; rather, it was something from the language of Cora'sa and her mommies. Cora’sa was yelling for her mommies—yelling in a way that was hurting Xavier and Olivier’burat and yet still had no chance of making it out of Olivier’burat’s sound barrier—and Olivier’burat had no idea.

Olivier’burat had no idea and Xavier couldn’t make himself tell—couldn’t pull the words from his tongue but he had to.

He had to.

He had to.

Yet, he couldn’t and it was yet another drop into the reality that so many things had gone wrong in this moment. It was a tumble of things, all colliding until it was a nightmare because so much of what came after this moment wasn’t anyone’s fault but Cora’sa’s mommies. They were the terrible ones—the ones who had never liked him, never loved him like mommies should a child who had suddenly found themself orphaned and alone.

“Fuck those bitches,”

Emmie’gusht had told him, long before she was anything more than

Emmie

to him, only an hour or two after these nightmare-inducing moments, all fragmented together when he dreamed of them, as though a puzzle his mind still couldn’t make sense of.

“I can’t imagine finding myself in the position to take care of a kid and not immediately being like ‘imma do my fucking best!’ and I don’t even have kids! Imagine, being such bitches when they have their own kid! Like, what the fuck!? I bet they’d be horrified if they died and someone treated their kid that way, and yet!”

These were the good moments of his nightmares—these remembrances of Emmie’gusht as she had once been, as she would maybe one day be again. All bright and shiny and not bothering to not swear in front of him because what was a little swearing when Izurial’buran had once needed to sit him down and talk to him about the fact that people were terrible, and if given the chance, someone might take it to do horrific things to him; when in the moments before Emmie’gusht found him, someone had been intending to show his tiny body exactly how cruel and heartless adults with certain predilections could be.

Even as they were both covered in bruises, their clothing torn and tattered and Emmie’gusht so low on aether that she hadn’t wanted to risk fabricating them new clothes, the girl had still shone.

Xavier wanted her to shine again—wanted to see her happy and free for more than the fragments of time when she buried herself into their little group, giving them all her love because while she had denied herself to her adult friends, they would always be children to her and Emmie'gusht hadn’t been joking when she said any child who found themself in her care would find her doing her best. Sometimes, her best sucked, but they all knew, down to the depths of their souls, that she was always doing her best for them, and she had been through so much, and yet, she always came back.

Emmie’gusht always came back for them, no matter how much time had passed within the chaos of her mind, and how could Xavier hate Cora’sa for being happy her mommies came back for her? He couldn’t, and yet part of him hated her because she’d been his friend and then done nothing to protect him from her mommies and that wasn’t fair to either of them. They had both been children, suddenly thrust into a world they couldn’t remember more than the barest shape of. So much had happened. So many things had burrowed into them, traumatizing and horrific.

Still, he couldn’t shake it—couldn’t shake that scream because he was sure that even if Olivier’burat had demanded they both be quiet, she would have screamed.

With those silencing skills wrapped around them, silence hadn’t mattered, but it might have and Xavier knew the inability for a child to control themself shouldn’t be held against them, and yet, how could he not hold it against his once-friend when everything that had happened afterwards had been because of the mommies Cora’sa would have screamed out for, even if Olivier’burat had told them it was a death sentence?

Cora’sa had prioritized herself over everyone else and it was such a childish thing to do—something suitable to her age. Yet, reality still sat in Xavier’s mind that only a little before this, his little self had grit his teeth and silently sobbed into Olivier’burat’s chest as Porsq’ha’s abilities scoured the aether—a knife, flaying apart the universe as it sought minds to bend to his will.

Through all that pain, Xavier had been quiet—had bitten his lip bloody because child or not, he understood the cost of a single whimper of pain. A monster was chasing them, and he knew, that had Cora’sa been awake in those tense moments of Hwris looming over them and seen her mommies, she would have screamed for them.

Cora’sa would have doomed them all, and then her mommies would have run—left them all alone to handle the mad darkness that was Hwris.

Of course, that didn’t happen; instead, Cora’sa’s mommies hadn’t taken their child and run, leaving them to Fräthk’s loyal to kill, maim, torture—return to that dark prison to wither.

No, instead they had taken him and handed him over—sold him back to a man Fräthk trusted and everyone knew would happily abuse his tiny body before handing him over in return for their own safety, and how could Xavier not be tortured by the silence of his friend while her mommies handed him over to a man who would see him made a broken shell?