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Seer’ik’tine, located at the southern point of the second of the Twin Tides, was one of the smallest Free Colonies, more city-state than a proper nation.

According to legend, it had once been part of Mitine Dyn, but on the creation of the Twin Tides—allegedly to separate a colonist Baalphoria from the Free Colonies in an attempt to stop a brutal, continental war some ten thousand years ago—the Um’atra River had leaked out of the Second Tide, running a rift through whatever existed at the time and severing Seer’ik’tine from Mitine Dyn. Depending on which side you were hearing this story from, the reasons why varied. On the Mitine Dyn side, they would say the infidels had taken up with the Dionese—Dion being Seer’ik’tine’s northwestern neighbour—and the First Gloriana had pulled the waters from the Second Tide and severed their connection to the corrupted land—or so Emilia had heard, never having been to Mitine Dyn herself. On the Seer’ik’tine side, they spoke of the aether itself freeing them from the irrational demands of the Sever and the Glorious Trio.

Ironically, it was Mitine Dyn who allegedly believed in the aether itself having a will, while Seer’ik’tine had brushed aside those beliefs several thousand years earlier… allegedly. With so much lost to time and information wars, it was difficult to tell myth from reality most of the time. That said, geological evidence did prove that the Twin Tides were artificial lakes that had been created about ten thousand years earlier, so there was at least that, even if the exact cause of the Um’atra River was unknown—for all they knew, the river may very well have already existed!

Whatever had happened—Baalphoria held that the Second Tide had simply overflowed, the Corist allegedly behind the Twin Tides having fucked up somewhere in their creation of the artificial lakes—the two Free Colonies still, quite frankly, hated each other. Giant wall separating them that seemed to grow taller every year sort of hate. Said giant wall was, however, what made the city such a draw for tourists—although the fact that most anyone who wasn’t from Mitine Dyn or Chinsata was welcome in the city definitely helped, the Free Colony priding itself on being something of a neutral territory.

That the city-state had become something of a trading hub and diplomatic base was unsurprising. That it was also a hub for transnational criminal organizations only slightly more surprising—there were only so many places where people of myriad nationalities could meet up and not earn odd looks and even visits from police forces.

Stars knew The Black Knot kept an eye on any Free Colonier who entered Baalphoria, special attention paid to those who returned often. If they also used those people to get clones into various inter- and transnational organizations—criminal and legal both—well, Emilia wasn’t going to tell on them.

“It’s so big,” one of her pseudo-classmates breathed out as they exited the airship into their first day trip, most of the ship’s guests leaving to enjoy what was often considered the safest Free Colony. About half of those guests wouldn’t be returning, this the end of their journey, while according to the crew member Emilia had accosted earlier, it would also be their biggest pickup location until they made short, night landings in several Dionese cities.

Annoyingly, the crew seemed aware that Olivier didn’t want any of them to know exactly where they were going and were perfectly happy to speak in vague terms about their various destinations.

Rude.

Around her, most of the student’s eyes were huge as they took in the towering Huss’tra—the wall ran along the third of the river that edged along the Mitine Dyn border in the southeast before making way for a view of the river, the thin strip of land that physically connected Baalphoria to the Grey Sands, and beyond it, the Jibur Bay.

While the ship had landed near the western edge of Seer’ik’tine’s central district, the Huss’tra was impossible to ignore. Reaching over eight kilometres into the sky, the only taller manmade structures on the continent were The Core—visible from the northern edge of the city-state, where it sat as a stronghold between the Twin Tides, the western Free Colonies on one side, Baalphoria on the other—and the Moonlit City in the far north. Allegedly the Moonlit City, anyways. Unfortunately, the Moonlit City rarely allowed foreigners within its borders, let alone within its city, and even Emilia's father had never been allowed to visit, only hearing whispers of its quiet—if also towering—beauty from the rare hy who had been welcomed by the secretive Free Colony.

So, yeah, to say that it was a sight that deserved praise and wonder wasn’t an understatement. Emilia, however, had seen it practically every year since she was six, so… not that big a deal. Not unless she was at the top, anyways. Let everyone else enjoy the view of its shining darkness, their mouths hanging open in awe as she looked for…

“Lan’za!” Emilia called, waving to the friend she had hoped her father would call to be her babysitter.

Really, Lan’za wouldn’t be her babysitter, but rather just someone so mellow and uninterested in drama that she’d be happy to wander the city with Olivier and his class. If Emilia wanted to spend time with her friend, she’d have to stick around as well. It really was a genius plan, and was one of the reasons her father had never refused to bring her on his trips to Seer’ik’tine—honestly, she was more well-behaved here than anywhere else in the world, not even the Blood Rain General able to control her as easily as Lan’za—not that they’d never gotten up to trouble. Their coren’taz had definitely caused mayhem the city over.

“Su’ta 'ik harda,” Lan’za said, approaching their group with the calm ease of any diplomat’s child.

Her green dress, accessorized with bands of brown leather and jangling jewellery common throughout the region, was on the more… normal side of local style. An outfit meant to let her fade into the city, rather than stand out, as her usual attire—the attire of the rich and influential zi’huta caste—would. Even her hair, usually left to fall around her in soft brown waves that brushed the ground, had been pulled into a low—if exceptionally large—bun. Only those who had no need to step outside the cleanliness of their homes could allow their hair to wipe over the ground, after all!

That said, if someone knew what to look for, they would clearly see that while Lan’za clothing and jewellery emulated the fashions of the average Seer, it was all made of fine fabrics, jewels of perfect quality and clarity set into each bracelet, ring, hair ornament.

A rich girl, through and through. One who was pampered and protected and was perfectly happy to remain so. As a result, Lan’za hadn’t spent her childhood accompanying her mother on diplomatic missions—not that Zitra’za Yu had left the country much in the last decade—but she had still been an expected guest at numerous diplomatic events, each filled with diplomats and their children and wards, more than a few of whom had been nuisances, always getting into trouble, sometimes starting fights with one another. Fortunately, for all that she had so little experience in the real world, Lan’za had always been excellent at deescalating things, or at least redirecting their fights into less… destructive engagements, like card games. Quite a bit of pay had been exchanged between Emilia and various other spoiled children of diplomats as they attempted to settle their squabbles in ways that didn’t involve starting a war.

“’da,” Emilia replied, grin growing wider when her friends rolled her eyes at her lazy return to a formal greeting. “This is my not-quite teacher, not-quite babysitter, Olivier de la Rue,” she continued, switching to Baalphorian because she actually had no idea if Olivier had any translation functions installed.

Probably he did? She’d like to say only idiots would visit the Free Colonies without downloading all the translation functions they could into their Censors, but one of his students had already proven to be an idiot that morning, when they’d tried to speak to a woman from Dion and grown frustrated when they couldn’t.

It had been mortifying, watching him attempt to download a Dionese translation function on the fly, only to realize the ship was in a small dead zone as it passed close to Mitine Dyn. Eventually, Emilia had stepped in, telling the poor woman that her classmate was an idiot, and to ignore him. Hopefully he’d had enough sense to download at least a few translation functions now that they were no longer in a dead zone, but honestly, her confidence in that was rather low.

That entire situation had begged the question of why Olivier hadn’t at least advised his class to download such functions himself. Originally, she’d assumed he just hadn’t sent such things to her—she’d never received a packing list either—whether due to her experience travelling abroad, him having a rare absentminded moment, or a general disregard for her comfort and happiness, but no. The student who had no translation functions had confirmed for her that they had basically only been told the date and length of the trip and told to pack for a variety of climates.

Either Olivier thought his students smarter than they were—unlikely—or he was leaving it to them to organize themselves. It wasn’t like a quick search or question to their Censors wouldn’t have given them a list of preparations to make before travelling to the Free Colonies.

Honestly, Olivier seemed to type to not baby his students, even if they were on the younger side. The type of person to throw them into the wild and let them die, if they couldn’t figure out how to find water or build a shelter and a fire. That said, he had given them a short list of highly specialized skills to install and practice using—skills for dispersing heat and not gasping for air once they, presumably, climbed the Huss’tra, among them. Again, Emilia had little hope any of them had actually followed his advice.

“Greetings,” Lan’za was saying to Olivier, who did indeed have some translation function installed, even if he stumbled over his attempts to greet Lan’za in proper Seerish. It had been a valiant attempt, at least, and his stumbling hadn’t seemed to embarrass him. Impressive. “I hope I am not imposing on you by tagging along today?”

“Are you going to keep this one under control?” Olivier asked, head snapping to the right just as one of his students began to wander away. “Kullin! Where do you think you’re going!?”

Kullin, who got distracted in class almost as often as Emilia herself did, started and bolted back to his friends. Awkwardly, he waved at his teacher, muttering an unapologetic sorry.

“Do not worry, Olivier’tai. I will keep Emmie’ne under perfect control. I have many years of practice.”

“I will leave her to you, then, Lan’za. I wish you luck.”

“I appreciate such sentiment, Olivier’tai.”

“You both make it sound like I’m liable to start a riot if left unattended,” Emilia muttered as Olivier nodded politely to Lan’za and went off to physically drag Kullin, who had somehow already begun to wander off again, back to the group.

Most likely, she would be the least of Olivier’s problems on this trip. Sure, she might be the type to wander and cause problems—not riots!—but she was also used to travelling. The location of every Baalphorian and Dionese consult, as well as who ran it, was inside her head—not just inside her Censor, but memorized because she knew exactly how easy it was for a Censor to be disabled by people who knew what they were doing. For her, getting lost wasn’t a big deal, and while her causing problems would be a nuisance, virtually no one would do more than deport her back to home—ironic that murdering someone abroad, in cold blood, would be unlikely to come with more than a ban from the Free Colony.

If someone like Kullin got lost? Caused some sort of problem?

Well, that would potentially be a much bigger problem.

Looping her arm through Emilia’s, Lan’za began to follow Olivier, her voice just loud enough for Emilia to be sure she fully meant him to hear her when she replied, “Not a riot—I have not known you to start a riot for anything but a good reason. Now, an orgy? That I have heard you start often.”

Olivier may have tripped, if only slightly. His hands definitely clenched, unclenched. Unfortunately, he didn’t look back to glare at her. A pity.

Lan’za really was the best wing woman a girl could ask for, though, having pegged within moments that Emilia would definitely hit that, if given the chance. Sure, the Seer might be more straight laced than many of Emilia’s other friends, but sex was so free in Seer'ik'tine that, for her longtime friend, such things were considered a perfectly reasonable means of keeping Emilia under control.

It had, in the end, been through Lan’za that Emilia had even learned that group sex was a thing, after all.

“How is your brother? And his friends? Any chance I might be able to organize such a thing while here?”

This time, Olivier did turn back to glare at her, his nostrils flaring. Emilia smiled—not at him, at her friend. In this rare case, she was going to take the high road and not embarrass him with weird staring at each other from across the distance while one of them talked sex. Was she speaking, knowing he was listening? Definitely. That didn’t mean she was going to stare him down, daring him to say something so she could bite—tease—back at him.

Laughing, Lan’za told her it was highly unlikely she could organize an orgy on such short notice—Meerik’za was in university now and busy with the end of the local school year, as well as apparently preparing to apply to visit the lectures in Zironia next semester—or in their tight schedule.

Wait.

“You have our schedule!?”

Lan’za hummed in quiet confirmation. “Olivier’tai sent it to Miles’ro, at his request. He then forwarded it to me, so I could, ah… make things a bit more streamlined.”

“Does Olivier know?” Emilia asked. It wasn’t like the man had given any indication he’d even known Lan’za would be the one coming to babysit her.

“I sent my adjusted schedule back to Miles’ro. I do not believe he informed your teacher of my interference.”

Well, it wasn’t like Olivier wouldn’t believe her father had the sort of pull capable of creating whatever schedule Lan’za had designed for them—he did, but even he would struggle to use that pull in such short a period of time. “How many places did you add?”

“Four.”

“Please~ tell me we’re going up the wall?” Probably, Olivier had already organized an excursion up the Huss’tra, but just in case…

Lan’za smiled knowingly at her. “’ik Huss’tra. Mm… Huj’ut’tra, ta’tan ba~ ‘tan.”

“Fuck? Seriously?” Emilia asked, already vibrating with so much anticipation that Olivier was giving her and her friend wary looks as he attempted to explain the rules of their travels to the group. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel-fire.net

“Only if you behave.”

Fucking stars and tides and seas and every other thing anyone on the planet prayed or swore or did anything else to! If that was on the table, Emilia would be on her best behaviour.

No one would be on better behaviour than Emilia! As she’d told Olivier: bribery was an exceptionally good tool in controlling her. It wasn’t her fault he’d taken it to be way more sexual than it actually was—not that she hadn’t totally led him to that conclusion, of course.