[Can’t Opt Out]

In between walking through the dreary tunnels and messaging one of the most affection-deprived and inadvertently annoying men she knew on her xphern—Meridian was just too chatty, too desperate for any type of contact with the world outside of his veritable prison, that his attempts at friendship were always a little too intense—Emilia was skimming over the information Jerrial had supplied her with.

There was a lot. Of course, there was a lot of it—after all, they’d been walking for almost two hours. In that time, she had sent over a hundred messages off to Meridian—who thankfully was quite happy to go talk to some doctors and find out if they knew of any treatments for severe olthagri that might not exist in Lüshan. So far, no luck. That wasn’t stopping him from wandering around, even riding an aetherstream to a nearby city known for having a doctor of near mythic abilities. Meridian had, however, had to sneak out of the Crisharian palace in order to speak to more than the court physician. Emilia was expecting to receive a panicked message from whoever was supposed to be babysitting their oft ill-behaved prince, asking if anyone had heard from him recently.

Emilia didn’t hear from Meridian often.

Still, every time he managed to slip his personal guards, virtually everyone in their coren’taz received the same message asking after him. While those looking for him would never dare say he had slipped them, they all knew he had run off yet again. Emilia had once suggested his babysitters request a little more leeway from Meridian’s father, so the prince could have some official trips outside the palace and stop sneaking out. They had refused, then she’d gotten a message from the Majen, threatening to have every Baalphorian banned from the nation if she dared even breathe in the king’s direction.

Apparently, under Crishar’s we never say anything bad about the royal family laws, admitting their prince was sneaking out was tantamount to saying something bad about him—good princes didn’t sneak around, after all, and the heir to the Crisharian throne couldn’t be anything other than perfect! That was to say nothing of the implication that the king needed advice from anyone, let alone her! How brazen of her, to dare suggest anything to someone as perfect as the King of Crishar!

Emilia no longer responded to any of the messages she received out of Crishar, other than the rare message she received from Meridian. The prince knew he was a lot, she thought, so he tended to message his friends in huge batches, then leave them alone for a while. It was kinda sad, and one of the few reasons Emilia had considered tapping Censors into xphern messaging tech was so she could message Meridian more often. Maybe, with a little luck and long-term friendship, he would chill.

Interestingly, Emilia knew that among the Crisharian Cayenta—the term for those high enough in society to be allowed anywhere near the royal family—Meridian was more sedate. She’d never personally seen him interact with the Cayenta, but had heard about it from Lan’za and secondhand stories that originated from the little Norvellian Prince, both of whom had visited the Crisharian Court a few times. Baalphoria wasn’t actually banned from the nation, but Emilia had never heard of anyone visiting unless they accidentally ended up on an airship that landed there.

All that meant that, combined with Meridian technically not being permitted to leave the palace, let alone the nation itself, the two of them had actually never met. Emilia had a vague idea what the prince looked like, but nothing concrete. As Crishar was another southern Free Colony, located between Seer’ik’tine and Lüshan, she imagined someone with the rich brown skin common between Zironia and Lüshan, maybe with a little of the red tones found further south. Probably someone who leaned into the trimmer aesthetic of the Seerish zi’huta caste and the Dionese Inner Court, as both had a history of marrying into the Crisharian royal family, even if the last foreigner to marry in had been over a millennium ago.

Other than that, Emilia knew that Meridian didn’t like his hair. It was too curly, in his opinion, and he’d much rather have the straight hair of his younger sister, who had inherited all her colouring from their father, while he had gotten the worst of what his both his parents had to offer. There were no pictures of Meridian available, and officially, no images of Crisharian royals were supposed to exist. That didn’t mean there were none—they were just difficult to find.

Looking at a picture an undercover clone had gotten of Meridian’s parents when they married, Emilia had tried to imagine what parts of his parents Meridian would consider their worst features. His mother, who had come from a high-ranking Cayenta family, had the most beautiful eyes Emilia had ever seen, the inner section of her irises a scatter of orange and green, while the outside was a deep blue. Emilia had therefore come out of looking at the image thinking it was unfortunate that Meridian had his father’s more standard brown eyes. They weren’t bad eyes, but they were nothing compared to his mother’s. Other than that, she’d also come out thinking his parent’s fashion sense was terrible. She’d later located a few images of other Cayenta marriages from around the same time, just over two centuries ago, and no one else’s wedding attire had been nearly so atrocious, and seriously? It said a lot about how bad your fashion sense was when even the upper echelons of society, known for perpetually simpering after their most influential members, refused to emulate your style.

Meridian had been born shortly after his parents were married, making him by far the oldest person in their coren’taz. By rights, he should belong to the one that had painfully strained relations due to many of its members growing up in the shadow of the last Colonial War. This was also the coren’taz her father might have belonged to, had it not been both so strained or had he grown up in the diplomatic scene, which he hadn't. In Meridian’s case, he had been so locked up that it hadn’t been until a decade ago that he’d been allowed to meet Lan’za and Julian. Even that had only been because his father was finally considering giving him the throne—as in, Meridian, despite being about a hundred-and-fifty years older than Lan’za and Julian, would be their contemporary as they all came into their power.

Combined with how isolated he had been, Meridian was, in many ways, even more emotionally immature than those of them who were in their 20s and 30s. It was sad, and Emilia was glad to give him something meaningful to do, even if he might get in trouble with his father if the man found out he’d snuck out. It was a big if, as in this case, the laws against speaking badly against the royal family generally protected Meridian from facing too many repercussions for his actions, as no one would dare tattle on him—it could see them executed, after all!

All that made talking with the prince… interesting. It had been Lan’za who had given Meridian her contact information, telling him Emilia was nice and loved to chat. From there, Emilia had given him the contact information of a few more people, and she knew he and Yujao chatted about old court gossip quite often—stuff that was old enough that it getting out to the world at large would have little effect, not that either would dare spread what they learned. Meridian and Avery seemed to have struck up a friendship of sorts as well, both being heirs to their respective nations, distant as they were from one another. She had no idea if Meridian and Julian were friends, but if the Norvellian Prince were anywhere as prickly as he’d been when they were children—and according to gossip, he certainly seemed to be—Emilia wasn’t sure she could imagine the two being friends.

“You said this golden one can allegedly see the future?” Emilia asked, tucking her xphern away again, Meridian having sent her a picture of the Crisharian countryside as he travelled. Once, she had contemplated asking for a photo of him, but had thought it bad to encourage him to do something that was so highly illegal, even if he wouldn’t actually get in trouble, even if the two of them were the only ones who would ever know.

“Yes,” Jerrial said, amusement lacing his voice as he glanced over at her before letting his power shudder out of him to check the area for other people.

They were getting close to Fräthk's holding cells and had recently come out of the tunnels. As they were now very much in his territory, all three of them were on edge, expecting one of his little bugs to pop up and ask what they were doing. Unfortunately, while they hadn’t had any issues while moving through the tunnels, neither did Emilia think they’d have enough time to get into the holding cells and figure out if Olivier really was there or not before her friends got to Falmíer. Halen and Taelor had both relayed their location to her about ten minutes ago, when they’d hit the Dionese-Lüshanian border, letting her know they’d had no problems getting through Dion and that Yujao was still looking into things for them.

At this point, Emilia didn’t know what to hope for: that Yujao would find nothing and her friends would be unable to get into the city—not unless they risked going through the papers checkpoint, anyways—or that they’d find the entrance to the upper cave system. She didn’t want them here; she wanted them safe, back home in Baalphoria. Having combed through Jerrial’s information, combining it with information from the clones and The Black Knot and asking clarifying questions as they came to her, Emilia had a feeling this could go bad fast. Two hours might not be a long time to spend with people, but Emilia had chatted with Jerrial and Vern along the way and listened to all the conversation between the two of them as she messaged people.

Emilia liked them. They were cute and so clearly in love it was painful.

Emilia didn’t want Jerrial to die—didn’t want to have to watch him die of a disease that could be fatal, yes, but didn’t have to be. The fact that she’d told Meridian about how they looked at one another—then snapped a photo of them to send off to the prince so he could appreciate how in love the pair here—might have also contributed to his desire to find something that could help Jerrial survive.

Hence, Emilia was conflicted over her friends potentially getting into the city. There was no way she could leave these two to deal with whatever fallout happened with Fräthk, even if they discovered he didn’t actually have Olivier, and while Emilia felt bad about dragging her friends into whatever disaster situation was bound to explode, she was also glad they would be there, these people she knew and trusted… mostly. A few of them were a little too sporadic and unpredictable for her liking. Levi and Samina were always a nuisance to team up with because while they would never abandon their team on purpose, they were even more chaotic than she was.

“Not many people believe in the golden one’s abilities,” Jerrial said, snapping Emilia out of her thoughts on how teaming up with Mikhail was likely less treacherous than teaming up with either of the Baxter twins.

Beside Jerrial, Vern scoffed, saying even he didn’t believe in their power. “Some shit about being able to feel or see the future through the aether? That’s what I’ve heard about the golden one down the gossip line,” he said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced, even when Jerrial insisted it was true.

“I’ve seen them use their power,” Jerrial explained with the calm Emilia had originally assumed was due to how terrible he had felt before taking the meds. Now, she knew it was just that he was a very relaxed person, rarely showing anything but the mildest of emotions. “In battle, they are nearly impossible to touch. It feels like the aether is protecting them. I haven’t ever spoken with them, but someone once told me they believe the aether has an important purpose for them; therefore, they can’t die yet, as the universe itself if protecting them.”

“Sounds nice,” Emilia noted as they scurried across a street to tuck themselves between two buildings. “Maybe? I mean, that also sounds a little creepy? To feel like the universe has some sort of plan for you? What if it's a terrible plan? What if it needs you to die at a specific point in time!”

Of course, this line of thought brought Emilia’s mind tumbling back to the myth about Olivier’s family—the one that said a member would one day play an important role in the supposedly coming conflict with the aether’s enemies. What if that person’s role was to die for the greater good? Okay, as much as Emilia had thought it could be cool to have the aether relying on you to help with its grand plan, the Mjuna family’s destined hero wasn’t allowed to be Olivier. He was not allowed to die for the aether’s war, thanks.

Distracted by her thoughts as she was, it wasn’t until Emilia turned a corner and smacked right into someone’s chest that she realized Jerrial had been trying to call her back. He’d just been hissing it, was the thing! Forgive her for not hearing his hissed come back’s while so distracted!

Also, Fuck.

Big fuck.

Emilia’s head tipped back to look at the woman, who was at least a foot taller than her. Golden eyes stared back at her from under a mane of curly blonde hair. Even her skin seemed to have a gold quality to it—although that might have just been the shimmering dust laying over her skin, sending light from the overhead lanterns scattering over the world. Fresh chapters posted on novel(ꜰ)ire.net

Yeah, Emilia could definitely understand why this woman was referred to as the golden one.