[Can’t Opt Out]

The more time Samina spent within the cave system, the more she didn’t like it because really, what were the chances that, with the kidnapper getting turned around and her own failure to properly follow their trail of aether, they would end up in a place like this? Even more than that, what were the chances that Lux’s kidnapper would stick to their parallel tunnels, despite their claims—in thick and warbling Jinkaiden and to no one in particular, as Lux was still out cold—that they had seen nothing like the latticework of rocks and ores that separated their two tunnels. Who didn’t turn around or try another path when lost? This person, apparently.

If they didn’t remember passing something so beautiful, there was little to no chance they had done so. People could be obtuse and unobservant, sure, but not seeing something as stunning as the wall that separated them was impossible. Samina might have thought the wall simply not as breathtaking on the kidnapper’s side, but she had managed to work her way a little ahead of the kidnapper by the time they first caught sight of it. Having stopped to examine the wall—as well as run a test of whether she could use {Hidey Hole} to get through it if needed—she had seen them stop. As covered as their face was, their deep purple eyes had still been visible, the shock and awe written clear through them before they’d gotten moving again.

Fortunately, Samina had been fast enough to hide herself low to the ground, attempting to not be spotted by them. Beautiful things, she thought, were great for acting as barriers, something several of the people in their class had always been great at making use of—

Well, perhaps not always. Emilia, she was sure, had tried to deny her attractiveness for some of their youth. Samina couldn’t blame her—they all knew the sorts of things that beauty brought to a person’s doorstep, even when they were a child, and especially when they were a silverstrain. Her childhood friend had grown into owning her beauty, however—and really, considering the girl struggled to look her age, it was likely that, by the time she actually did consistently look like an adult, she would somehow have managed to be even more breathtaking.

As breathtaking as the winding rock and ore that ran alongside her, Samina was sure.

Was she a little in love with her friend? Definitely, but only a little. Emilia, for as much as Samina could tell, had little interest in other girls. Plus, her childhood friend was far too much like her own brother and Samina wasn’t a masochist. Being with someone who had that much spontaneous chaos inside them wasn’t for her—she would content herself to enjoying it from the side, then slinking away when it became too much, thanks.

Regardless of all that, there was no way the kidnapper’s first sight of the wall hadn’t been when they turned that corner. So why were they barely glancing at any of the crossroads they came to? Instead, despite their swearing and complaints, they seemed perfectly content to stay on this path, their steps so purposeful that it gave the impression they were being dragged along by an invisible leash.

Some unseen owner, dragging along a naughty pet, despite their yowls of complaint.

It was both strange and off-putting—after all, they were a living, breathing human who could decide they had missed the path they were supposed to take. They could turn back, and yet, they weren’t, and while some people were so stupid they didn’t have the sense to do such sensible things, that didn’t seem to be the case with this person, something in their movements and energy… wrong in a way Samina wasn’t sure how to describe. Combined with the reality that this oddly unique set of tunnels was where they had ended up in the first place, it all seemed like too much. Coincidences happened, but this seemed a little too unlikely—it was the sort of coincidence that left her itchy and wondering just how, exactly, such things came to be.

Perhaps it was simply the result of having read so many reports from the branch families who lived in the Free Colonies: her mind was filled full with facts about local beliefs in the will of the aether, and this sort of situation. This seemed exactly the sort of incomprehensible, unlikely coincidence that led so many of their continent’s nations to hold far more belief that the aether had some sort of personality or ability to purposefully manipulate the world than Baalphorians had, and Samina didn’t like it, even if this particular coincidence was something that was working for her.

It was just… it wasn’t a good feeling, was all. If the aether could manipulate people—could urge them to move this way or that through the world, could influence their decisions and wants and desires—then were they simply beholden to it?

Samina wasn’t the submissive sort, and that potential for a lack of control irked her. Oddly enough, Levi was the submissive sort—something that she had unfortunately learned after walking in on him having sex more than once! Seriously, while her brother had always been open with his sexuality—he was by far the first person in their friend group to both express interest in anything sex and the first person to have sex by a good two years—she needed him to lock the fucking door!

Seriously, after almost twenty years of wandering in on him letting men do some of those things to him, Samina would accept him just messaging her to say he was having an orgy at their house. Did she need to know her twin had a lineup of men assembling at their house to fuck him silly? No. Did she need to know that sometimes he and Emilia picked up as many bisexual clones as they could to have fun with—again, in her and Levi’s childhood house? Also no, but knowing in the most passive and theoretical of ways was infinitely better than walking in on it!?

The problem with having workaholic parents, she often thought, was the lack of oversight they had generally taken in their upbringing. Her and Levi’s fathers weren’t bad parents, but they were rarely around… and she wasn’t convinced they even knew Levi had been having sex all through their house since he was a young teenager. Really, they might not even care—it wasn’t like he had to worry about accidentally creating a child the way Emilia did, after all.

Emilia’s mother had taken her to get a birth control implant long before she’d become sexual active. It hadn’t been a reprimand of her genetics; rather, it had been an acceptance of what Emilia was. They all knew she would eventually become someone who loved sex, and her parents hadn’t wanted her to worry about whether she was ready to have sex in more than the most basic of am I mentally ready sort of ways. That was nice, especially since Samina herself had needed to go to the clinic by herself and ask for one—not that she’d ever had to make use of it.

All of Samina’s friends were beautiful, but she’d never really looked at any of them as someone she wanted to take to bed. Perhaps, in the womb, Levi had taken all of their sexual energy—the aether itself knew that he had enough for both of them… and then some.

That thought—that dichotomy between her and her twin—brought her back to the other problem she was having as she crept through the tunnels. As she spent more time in this place, Samina was becoming increasingly convinced the place was just… odd—unique in a way that was annoyingly because she had nothing more substantial to connect the experience or the feeling or it to.

Everything was simultaneously so full and empty of aether here. The rock brimmed with it, feeling almost as though someone had packed far too much aether into a too small space. At the same time, the air itself seemed… not quite lacking aether—that was impossible, as far as she knew. Instead, it were as though the aether that existed outside of the rock—that existed in the negative space of it—was less condensed.

It was more wispy, more fractured. It was slower to respond, weaker when it caressed her back on the occasions she reached out to touch it.

All that said, it was a barely there thing—the sort of thing that all of them had overlooked, perhaps too concerned with the creepiness of the cave system, the loss of their communication methods, and then the attack. Fuck, whenever they were back together, she wasn’t even sure that anyone would be able to tell her if they noticed their skills being a little laggy within the cave system. Even Halen might not have noticed because while it was something that was there, it was so very subtle.

Now that she’d had time to just exist within it—to be silent as she crept along, only her mind and body to keep her company—however, she could feel it, and it was… odd. It wasn’t exactly bad, per se. Wasn’t nice either, and in some places it was far worse—everything slower and yet… there was also something else.

It wasn’t something she could put into words, nor something her contacts or Censor had been able to tell her the source of. If she had to try, however—and Samina knew that if she ever brought this feeling up to Emilia, her friend would be forcing as much detail out of her as possible—she would say that aether felt as though it were moving at two different speeds in some places. It had left her feeling nauseous, her mind and body unable to shake the feeling that she had just moved through a battlefield.

Something blistering and toxic, despite how soft it had been—like two parents, trying to get a child to sleep in completely different ways. One parent, attempting to rock their child to sleep—a soothing presence that was slow and mellow. Their nervous system was relaxed, pulling their child down, down, down until what option did that child have but to let their eyes flutter shut, their mind shutting off as they let sleep come. Then, there was the other parent, attempting to run their child out of energy—trying to burn them into an exhausted sleep. Their body running and running and playing until, finally, they crashed.

Two parents, fighting for control.

Two aethers, fighting for dominance.

It was terrible, and despite only having crawled through it a few times as she moved, Samina couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness—of otherness—from her.

It was one of those things that Emilia would love—Baylor was well, with his obsession with myths and such things. She would tell the other triplets as well, of course—there was no reason not to. There was no reason not to tell Halen as well, because much like her brother was fond of claiming he wasn’t stupid, neither was Samina. Halen was a genius, and with something that felt this off, there was no way she wouldn’t at least give him all the information she had for him to consider.

This all put her in an odd position: Samina definitely didn’t want to run into sections of the cave system that felt like that again, yet, she also knew she should get more information—should make sure to go back and sit in the chaos of those places and record as much information as possible because while she had recorded the locations, who was to say those strange pockets would exist in the same places later? Who was to say they wouldn’t move and shift, potentially never to be found again?

Perhaps, if they were anomalies, there was nothing to worry about.

Samina was worried. It wasn’t a worry she could explain through anything other than gut instinct, however.

Something about those places had been wrong, and someone needed to figure out why they were wrong. Unfortunately, she had a feeling it was going to end up being her. Not now, however.

Right now, she needed to get to Lux—needed to figure out whether to let Lux be taken further by the person or whether to wait for her two wake, in order to make running away easier. Weird aether things could wait, because really? If the weird aether thing was going to end the world right now, there was little she could do to stop it anyways. Better to focus on the things she could do, and getting Lux back from the seemingly random person who had kidnapped her was at the top of the list.