[Can’t Opt Out]

“Sorry,” Cravena and Renton said in unison—an odd occurrence as the Lüshanian word’s form varied based on a collection of conditions: the gender of the speaker, the reason why they were sorry, and how emotionally close they were to the reason they were sorry.

Renton—a man who simply hadn’t been able to step forward fast enough to catch the small, hidden door and stop it from slamming to the ground—used a form of sorry that was more an acknowledgment that he should have anticipated this might happen, but at the same time, there were a lot of people around and he would not be held accountable for the mistake, as anyone could have pointed out Cravena’s burning through the door might cause issues.

Cravena—a woman who had been attempting to burn through the door and hadn’t managed to do it fast enough to take the entire thing down to ashes before it slammed to the ground—used a form of that said she was sorry that her lack of skill had caused this to happen, but at the same time, there is a lot happening and she couldn’t be responsible for everything, and that at least a few people around her should have known her ability to control her flames was starting to falter.

One instance buvranfo, another of kuvrant’ka—the same base meaning, but with so many particularities that, had he not had his Censor’s ability to translate the word, he would have assumed they said completely different things.

No one else in their group said sorry, despite both of them effectively levelling complaints that they shouldn’t actually be needing to say sorry. No one commented about the strangeness of their sorries lining up so oddly—although, Olivier supposed it couldn’t have been odd for them. Many words in Lüshanian had the same sort of conditional forms, so much context able to be gleaned from just hearing a word or two. They also had a lot of the exact opposite as well, entire conversations able to occur that would make no sense to anyone eavesdropping, simply due to how much context could be excluded while things still made sense, as long as everyone knew what was being discussed.

“What are you thinking about?” Cheska asked as she helped get the children through the small passage that led to the other set of floors.

Fortunately, while most of the passageways were located in the personal rooms of Fräthk’s more loyal underlings, whoever occupied the rooms on both floors wasn’t around. Still, even though neither Cheska nor Porsq could feel anyone on the few floors around them, they hadn’t wanted to risk them showing up. Hence, they’d had to split everyone up—get some of their more powerful members on one side before moving the more vulnerable members through the small passage. As someone who was small and not yet emaciated by her time within the cells, Cheska had been left responsible for getting the children through the passage, heaving them into her arms and darting through the small space, while she and Olivier would work to get both Izurial and Cordk through. Neither of them were quite so unsteady they were unlikely to make it through without aid, but given the state of their own deterioration… Well, it had been decided that Olivier would linger at the back of the group, in case anyone needed a boost through, Cravena the last of their group to go through, as despite her weakening control, her abilities were still one of the most powerful.

“Whether Lüshanian evolved to have so many words that could contain heavy amounts of context in order to compensate for the rest of the language requiring so little context to make sense,” Olivier told her, a blush sliding over his cheeks.

Interest in linguistics wasn’t exactly a popular hobby or profession in Baalphoria, where very few people knew any foreign languages. Some people learned BSL, but even that was rare, as Censors could translate anything signed into text for them—and really, Olivier was almost positive that adults who didn’t or couldn’t speak signing, rather than using their Censors to communicate, were even rarer. If he’d had access to the aethernet, he was sure he could have pulled up statistics that showed fluency in BSL was uncommon outside of specific groups, such as Dyads and those with other irregular deviations or health considerations, and that even then, their fluency was limited and sporadic.

Even when it came to spoken Baalphorian, there was little difference in the speech patterns of more adults—at least, from what he had experienced. Slang words here and there. People from the Penns and Ex-300 communities tended to have more specific quirks to their language, as did he suspect Sub-50 communities did—although, who really knew, given how secretive they were. For all he—or likely anyone outside of the communities themselves—knew, Sub-50s might instead be militant about making sure their speech was as normal as possible, or potentially as close to that found in the Penns as they could manage.

“It’s possible,” Cordk said, pausing in his shifting through the passage to take a few deep breaths. “There are many things I do not remember of my years before Renton came here and I became more consistently aware of the world, but I know that every time someone new arrived, they would bring with them new language. It is such a vacuum down here, so little coming in or out, and when change comes it is powerful. I can think of many new words, or seemingly abrupt shifts in the way words are formed, that have come with that change.”

Olivier’s mind stuttered at the old man’s words—not because they were anything surprising, but because the man was clearly intelligent, an edge of passion shifting through his tired voice, and it just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for any of these people, nor all the people who were being held elsewhere, who were dead or had been forced to shift their loyalties to their kidnapper, hoping for a drop of a better life. So much had been taken from these people, and for some, they might get away and find some happiness elsewhere. For Cordk… maybe he could get out of there—find somewhere to curl up and learn and spend the last few years of his life with a smile on his face.

None of them were stupid enough to think that liable to happen—after all, as much as Cravena was pulling up behind him, their last member, just in case she needed to turn and burn the aether and whoever appeared to try and stop them, Cordk was also one of the last for a reason.

If he needed to sacrifice himself for them, he would do so with a smile on his face, knowing he had given Renton a chance at a better life.

“That’s cool!” Cheska cheered, appearing at the bottom of the skinny stairwell, her hands already reaching towards Cordk. The old man held out his own, shaking hands to her, letting the girl take some of his weight as he worked on getting up the stairs. All the while, she babbled about language and slang words that had been popular when she first started her schooling—apparently she had wanted to be a counsellor—and had vanished into the abyss within a few years, or even months.

“That, at least, is the same in Baalphoria,” Olivier noted as they popped out the top of the stairwell and moved onto the other set of floors, his insides relaxing the moment his feet stepped onto the carpeted floor of the room that housed the exit.

Much like on the previous floors, this room was significantly nicer than those found below it. Each level, it seemed, was a step-up—a step towards greater freedom, a promise of more lingering in each of those steps. Still, everyone had expressed that even the most free of Fräthk’s people weren’t really free—and the fact that Vtraní, for all that they seemed to have the ability to move throughout the city unimpeded, was still forced to remain within this life seemed proof of that.

Thoughts of Vtraní sent another clench of… something through Olivier’s gut, Porsq almost immediately popping up beside him to ask whether he was okay before freezing, his eyes flicking elsewhere. Immediately, the few adults who noticed the shift in his demeanour, the boy’s entire body stiffening, quieted their already hushed conversations.

“Pull your abilities in,” Porsq hissed, a tremble in his voice that put Olivier on edge.

While the boy hadn’t said anything about Olivier’s own skills, he had the sense Porsq wanted everyone to stop interfacing with the aether, the fluctuations around them simmering out as he let the few skills he had loaded up in his Censor sizzle out.

“Nobody move,” the boy said, everyone following his lead so easily it was honestly rather shocking. For as much as no one seemed comfortable with the boy’s abilities, they also seemed to trust his judgment. It didn’t matter that no one wanted him using his ability to feel and manipulate mental states on them. In this, they knew that whatever he had felt from the direction he was looking—which Olivier thought must have been where the stairwell they would have been climbing up, had he not insisted they switch to this set of floors, was located—was something to be feared.

So much of Olivier wanted to reach out and attempt to see what the boy had sensed. Recon skills were terrible to use, but he did have one that he could attempt to use—not that he was stupid enough to risk whoever was over there noticing them, but still, he wanted to peek, just a little.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Cheska tense further. While neither she nor Porsq had said as much, he had a feeling that Porsq’s abilities extended far further than Cheska’s, the fact that he had felt whoever was over there long before Cheska could, even with the extra warning, confirming that fact.

Both of the children, some mixture of sleepy and distressed, finally noticed what was happening as well, the little girl whimpering while Xavier perked up, looking around with wild eyes.

“Keep them quiet,” Porsq said, shifting uneasily. “If I use my abilities, she’ll notice us.”

“I think she’ll notice us anyways, once she notices we're, you know, not where we’re supposed to be,” Izurial replied, snark lacing through his voice. Still, he slowly edged towards the children and the women holding them, his frail hands coming to rest of each of their heads. The silverstrain smiled at each of them, leaning in to whisper between their heads, both children leaning in to hear him better.

“With how much aether Cravena left behind burning the door up, she might not even need to go more than a floor deeper to notice something isn’t right,” Renton added, unhelpful but if whoever was nearby was able to feel aether…

“Should we move?” Olivier asked.

Every move a person made left little wisps of aether shifting out of them, the universe’s aether shifting a little with them. If this she was so in tune with the aether that everyone was worried about even speaking, she might notice their moving about, but did they really want to wait until she was all the way to the other side of the level below them—possibly even down another floor—to move? Especially since the children were at risk of accidentally attracting her attention—and really, even if they didn’t cry or move about, who knew what sorts of abilities either of them had. Maybe someone else in the group did, but if so, they hadn’t told him.

“She’ll notice if we move.”

“She might anyways.”

“If we do not run, she might just assume we’re supposed to be here.”

“Is that really how her abilities work?”

“I do not know, but the Baalphorian is right: we should move,” Cordk said, his short-term memory going a little, resulting in him forgetting Olivier’s name—he also couldn’t consistently remember Cheska’s either. Things the old man did remember? That a few members of their group weren’t to be trusted, his milky-white eyes shifting towards the least trustworthy members of their group as Renton stared into them. None of their potentially betraying members seemed to notice, but Olivier could see the extra tension in their muscles—the implication that, if the woman everyone was terrified of did notice them, they were fully prepared to leave the rest of them behind in an attempt to save themselves.

Renton stared into his adoptive father’s eyes for another few seconds before finally relenting. “Carefully and slowly.”