[Can’t Opt Out]

At least a few times a day, Vtraní considered just ending it all and being done with the terrible life they had been dealt. Sometimes, it was simply a pattern of thought and misery. Other times, something specific set off their desire to be set free of this world; this was one of those times, their nerves burning with the reality that something was coming—something that would be problematic and all-consuming, fraying their already severed nerves even more. It was a bubble under their skin, urging them to move and destroy—to drag the world and everything around them into the disaster they had been born to be.

Or, that was what they’d always been told they were destined to be, anyways. First, there had been that woman, blind to the world, a ribbon of zirth silk pulled over her eyes in a blaspheme against the sanctity of the creatures. They were meant to mark the world as doomed, mark the people who lay their eyes upon them as heroes to fight back against the dark; yet, here was this woman, with her cruel smile, laughing as the world split into a new stream of fate far from her unseeing eyes, everything she could not see marked for ruin—because how could anything that had cost the life of so many zirth leave anything but a curse in their wake?

Vtraní was a curse on the world—a bomb waiting to explode and wipe out anyone they dared to care for. Once, the golden one—the one who had come to tell them how ill-fated their life would be, long after the blind woman had marked them as irredeemable—had actually claimed there was a path of redemption in the many strands that might make up their future. Rayleen had never said more about it, other than that single passing comment, made outside the spies that Fräthk liked to sneak into every nook and cranny, lest their little bugs decide to push back against their cruelty.

How does one escape a fate they would not choose for themself when eyes are always watching? When their fate has already been laid out before them in haphazard stories of death at the hands of foreigners who will one day mould the world into something less cruel? When their single chance to slip away leads into the dark emptiness, where no light, no sound, no vibrations of the world exist within—and what did that even mean!?

Fucking Rayleen and her cryptic words. Granted, this had all been told to Vtraní decades ago, their mind already a mire of trauma they could never hope to fight against the tide of. Their childhood hopes of something better that this cursed existence were a long-gone thing, snuffed out under blind hands and Fräthk’s demands that they do this or that—crush out life here and there and everywhere until all they could see when they closed their eyes at night was all the mangled deaths that streaked their soul.

Oh, there was also the fact that getting out of Falmíer was next to impossible. So, unless they came up with a way to kill Fräthk, they were pretty much stuck with either option number one—kill themself—or option number two—hope someone killed Fräthk one day.

Maybe that day had finally come. Vtraní would be happy enough if Fräthk died. They didn’t even need to be safe when the dust settled; Fräthk being dead would be good enough.

“You’re all… thinky think.”

Vtraní looked away from the Baalphorian that Qoréa had decided to kidnap to Cheska, peeking out between the bars that ran the length of the top of the holding cells for… who even knew what reasons. A few times, before Fräthk’s newest captives were broken, they’d use abilities to kill themself or the people in the cells next to them. Vtraní liked to think it was a mercy—a snuffing out of their lives before they could truly know the horror that was the lives of people like themself.

Ah… what they would give to go back to the small body, starving and filthy and covered in bruises, that had been picked up so very long ago. They’d always been broken, unable to defend themself against anything other than their own desire to die. Ironic, that—the fact that out of all the voices they could ignore, their own internal monologue, urging them to just end it all, was top of the list. Life would be so much better if they just listened to themself, Vtraní thought, and took a dagger to their throat.

Cheska’s bright eyes—a shimmer of the ocean no one who lived lives like theirs would ever be allowed to see in more than artificial reflections of the world beyond this cavern—narrowed as she watched Vtraní, trying to glean even a glimmer of the thoughts swirling within. If Vtraní had to guess, with her ability to tell when someone was thinking and taste a flavour of those thoughts, Cheska might be one of the few people who realized they weren’t as dedicated to Fräthk as people—even Fräthk themself—were always assuming.

Vtraní just… didn’t care enough to resist, every decision they had to make for themself a sludge through their mind, and in the end, it was far easier to just be a puppet. Smile when needed. Be a doll, manipulated by Fräthk and the people who were willing participants in their leader’s desire to get more power, more power—always More. Fucking. Power.

Was it never enough?

Would this torture never be done?

“You could let him go, ya know?” Cheska suggested, like it was just that easy. “I ain’t stupid. I know you don’t agree with how he came to be here, and I can hear the flavour enough of the thoughts floating around to know you ain’t the only one.”

The girl wasn’t wrong. While grabbing this Baalphorian had certainly opened the Drinarna up to taking a more active role in Fräthk’s attempts to stop Gëon from moving further into what Fräthk had long considered to be their territory—their territory being one of kidnapping children and anyone else with a valuable irregular deviation and forcing them to do horrible things while never offering a drop of compensation or appreciation in return—it had largely just become a mess.

Honestly, the fact that the Baalphorian government wasn’t yet breathing down the Drinarna’s neck, demanding they do more to locate the man seated on the grimy holding cell floor was more of a concern than anything—a signal that either this man didn’t matter, or he mattered so much that the Baalphorian government would be going through less legal means to get him back. As someone who would be perfectly happy to see the entire organization collapse because of this stupidity, Vtraní would not be offering these thoughts up to any of Fräthk’s more dedicated little bugs.

Had Fräthk been telling them for months to keep an eye out for any opportunity to bring the Drinarna to Gëon’s door? Yes. Had they likely excepted it would be a mess when they did so? Also yes. In no world had they expected for Gëon to so immediately become personally involved, a handful of Drinarna killed by him before anything could really get started. Then… well. It couldn’t be a surprise to anyone that someone like Gëon had managed to turn the tables on Fräthk, pulling out his own loyal Drinarna to cause chaos within the organization while also sending his loyal little ones out to take down whatever little bugs they happened across, and yet…

“What is your name? Do you speak Lüshanian?” Vtraní asked, turning their attention back to the Baalphorian.

Qoréa, ambitious and reverent of Fräthk as she was, knew virtually nothing of the Baalphorian she had kidnapped. He was important, most likely—the leader of some group of Baalphorian tourists, being given a tour of the spire museum. That, in the end, was all she knew. The man could actually be a no one—although Vtraní doubted that. There was something about him—about the way he held himself, fearless despite what was happening—that screamed of power.

Not power that he necessarily knew how to use, but that was to be expected. While regular Lüshanians and Baalphorians had very little cross over, only criminals with a death wish didn’t at least have a passing knowledge of the training regular citizens of other nations possessed.

Yes, Vtraní had an unfulfilled death wish. Unfortunately, this information had been forced into their head like so much other training. Regardless of their own death wish, they knew that regular Baalphorians were rarely trained in more than the most basic of… skills? Vtraní didn’t think they were called abilities when they required the use of a… Censor? Was that what the little computers within Baalphorian heads were called?

There was a chance Vtraní had tried their best to not pay attention during some of their training, hoping that their lapse in attention would one day send them to the grave. So far, it hadn’t worked out. Death, annoyingly, continued to evade them.

In the next cell over, Cheska made a distressed sound. What did their thoughts currently taste of, Vtraní wondered. Something bitter and pathetic, most likely. It was pathetic, they knew, to wish for death and yet lack the energy to give it to themself—lack the willpower to take that risk.

Making decisions for themself was too hard, too tiresome, too disappointing.

When was the last time they’d sought something out for themself and actually been happy with the result? Vtraní wasn’t even sure. Years ago, no doubt. Why try to make their life better, even with an invocation of death, when such attempts to better their life were always a failure?

No, in the end, it was better to just live with the soft wish of death within themself. As long as they didn’t attempt to make it a reality, it could remain a secret wish, untainted—promising.

Cheska, of course, make another distressed sound. Vtraní knew little of the girl’s abilities, other than that she had some rare form of Dyadism and was more or less confined to the holding cells while Fräthk tried to source someone who could teach her to use her abilities.

So far, it hadn’t been going well. Dyads were so secretive about their abilities that finding someone who had willingly shared even what form of Dyadism they had with anyone was difficult. Then, of course, they would have to get the Dyad to Cheska. Over the last few months, since the girl had first ended up with them, Fräthk had gone through every known Dyad in the city—as well as the few other cities where they had reach. There was no one to teach the girl, and Rayleen had been no help; rather, all she had insisted was the girl was important and needed to stay in this specific cell—and no, even Rayleen had no idea where to find a teacher for her. Instead, all she’d said was that, when the time was right, a teacher would appear for Cheska.

“One person who needs external help, one person for whom that help will never agree, come together to find happiness with what they are, even if that happiness will not linger long.” That was what Rayleen had said, as mysterious and unhelpful as always.

Usually, Fräthk was good at waiting when Rayleen told him it was for the best. As Gëon had been slipping further and further into their territory, however, Fräthk had been growing less patient—more violent than they already were. It was no wonder they had ended up in this situation, a strange Baalphorian in their holding cells while the Hyrat clones moved through the city and the Drinarna collapsed in on itself as those beholden to Fräthk struggled with how to handle the situation breaking through the city.

“My Censor can translate in and out of Lüshanian for me,” the Baalphorian finally said, his accent a mangle of sounds that had Vtraní blinking down at him, only decades of practice maintaining a blank face keeping the cringe off their face.

“So he doesn’t speak it normally,” Cheska offered, having apparently gotten to know her temporary new neighbour since he had been released from Qoréa’s control a little while ago. “His accent is quite funny, right?”

A noncommittal sound was all Vtraní gave the Dyad as their eyes swept over the Baalphorian once more. There was something about him that seemed… off—something that didn’t quite fit with how he should have been.

It was a slightly ridiculous thought, that someone who had just been kidnapped should be any particular way. Everyone reacted differently, Cheska’s unending positivity despite being left to wither in the cells for months was the perfect example of that, especially when contrasted with Vtrani’s own unending depression despite their ability to move through the city as they liked.

What this man should have been, however…

It was the smallest of things that tipped Vtraní off of what was wrong with the man—the smallest click of aether within him.

This Baalphorian’s Censor-abilities weren’t completely disabled as they should have been. Odd. Vtraní was no expert in sensing the fluctuations of the aether, and slight as the man’s aether had shifted, they were surprised they’d even felt it. The source of thɪs content is novęlfire.net

Well, that was a problem… or was it?

Everyone knew their ability to sense the aether was limited—virtually non-existent more often than not. Rayleen would have been questioned, were she here to feel the Baalphoria’s aether shift, and yet said nothing of it. As tuned into the aether as she was, there was no world where she wouldn’t feel even the smallest of shifts. For Vtraní, however… Well, there was no reason for anyone to assume they would feel it—no reason to claim they had purposefully left the Baalphoria to do what he would to escape.

Knowing so little about the man, Vtraní had no idea if the Baalphorian would be able to escape or bring the organization to its knees while he did so. The man could be powerless. He could also be the foreigner destined to kill them—and what lovely luck that would be.

So, Vtraní saw no reason to say anything—no reason to warn Qoréa that something was wrong with her suppression of his abilities.

Perhaps, if they were lucky, this man would be the end of not just this terrible organization but themself as well. Wouldn’t that be nice?