[Can’t Opt Out]

In the background, Levi was saying something and [[Blissful Silence]] was cataloguing it for him. It was something important, Olivier knew, his Censor attempting to make him read through the logs, but he couldn’t make himself do it—couldn’t force his brain to stop focusing on that little dot that represented Xavier.

He willed it to move. There were centuries of documents in his family’s bunker, smuggled into Baalphoria by his father’s ancestors, which claimed their family—and sometimes all descendants of the Grey Sands—had a connection to the aether. If there was ever a time for some inherent gift of his heritage to manifest into the ability to move the aether to fulfil his demands, this seemed to be it.

Move.

Move.

Move.

The dot didn’t move, of course, but that didn’t stop Olivier from continuing to focus and demand it move—demand the aether help keep this innocent little boy safe.

we have the divine right to press our views and will upon the universe herself. this is not to say it be something calm or easy, nor something to which we will all find the drive or need to exert; yet, it is something that exists within all of us with even that singular drop of grey sander blood, for we are the blessed. let our will be done. let the aether herself tremble with our might that even she may not evade, for we are her chosen—her lifeblood, burned over the sands into weapons against all. let the aether be our divine mother, her will beholden to those of her children, as all good mothers shall be.

Olivier thought this a stupid sentiment—half of the spoiled children he’d met throughout his schooling had belonged to parents with seemingly no ability to create boundaries with their children. Mothers were meant to form their children into good, caring people—or to at least make sure that if they weren’t good kids or had the apathy of a black knot that they’d be capable of not being psychotic shits. Oddly, from what he knew of the Grey Sands, their people weren’t generally beings who viewed themselves as children of the universe, and thus given the right to abuse and manipulate her. Secretive as the Grey Sands’ religion was, Olivier thought there a chance the translation of an ancient scrap of a religious text either wrong or so old it was no longer considered part of their cannon—although, he supposed there were other options.

One option that came to his mind as it apparently decided that being distracted by this was better than either panicking so badly he begin to hyperventilate or actually listen to Levi—who now seemed to be discussing Olivier’s panicking with Gëon, and at least Olivier knew that much?—was that Grey Sanders were lying.

Admittedly, Olivier was never sure what to make of the Grey Sands. He both was a Grey Sander and would never be one, even his tongue tied away from learning the language—and was it selfish to hope that Emilia and Halen survived this stupid fucking situation if only so one of them could teach him to read and speak the language of half his soul? Was it even half his soul, distant as his father’s ancestors were, each bred down with good Baalphorian blood until it was unclear if they were purists or not? They could never be purists, those singular drops of ancient blood of the other forever disallowing them entrance; yet, his ancestors had followed the beliefs and power of purists and bred themselves into something else, for safety and distance. Now, they were other in so many ways, and Olivier never knew what to make of the reality that he ancestors had bent to Baalphorian demands to assimilate—to remove themselves from the diaspora of the Grey Sands and every other group who had found a home in Baalphoria.

Their lives were probably better for disregarding, hiding, mutating their heritage; yet, in the end, didn’t it just reenforce the status quo? Tell the world that yes, actually, Baalphorian blood is superior and everyone should breed as much into their descendants as possible?

Maybe; maybe not. Who was he to judge his ancestors and even those people still moving to Baalphoria and attempting to slip into the mainstream, leaving those offshoot streams of the other to wither and crackle within dried earth as the waters of culture and blood ran dry?

Bits and pieces of both Grey Sander culture and that of other immigrant groups lived within Olivier’s mind, and in the end, he was sure he knew more of the culture of the smallest of Baalphoria’s immigrant groups than of the people who now existed where his ancestors had once lived. So, yes, there was the rub—the possibility that he would likely never know the truth of: Grey Sanders could just be pretending to be nice, to not view themselves as better and more divine, more blessed than any other soul on the continent—perhaps on the entire planet, in the entire universe. Maybe Grey Sanders existed on a mountain of lies, waiting for the day when someone who could press their demands into their mother and make her do what they willed came along.

It was a somewhat terrifying thought, that this group of people to whom he was tied might be horrific monsters, intent to mould the world into whatever they so desired.

The other option, of course, was that that short passage was nothing but a scrap of a larger text taken so out of context as to appear to reflect the Grey Sands’ religion in a negative light when that wasn’t the whole of it. There were plenty of stories that reflected an improper view of life, meant to create dialogue or allow some religious leader or icon to come in—either in the telling or in the story itself—in order to correct whatever was happening within the story.

That small slip of a story could start with: once, there was a sect of the grey sands who lost their way. Then, later, it could continue: one day, a teacher of the true sect of the grey sands arrived and was ushered in to hear the preaching of the lost sects’ leader. they were horrified by what they heard and set about to correct the learnings of those poor lost souls.

Slices of reality were, in the end, some mixture of entire truths and so skewed as to be useless.

Xavier’s little dot, unmoving with even the attempts of a child to escape, was like that: it was reality and nothing of the sort. Olivier could not see the boy, could not be sure where he had even ended up. There were so many people searching for him, so many conflicts erupting through the city, and it would be so easy for him and Prex to have stumbled across a combat zone.

Maybe Prex had thrown Xavier into a corner—left him there while war raged around them.

Was war better or worse than what the man would do to Xavier’s little body? Olivier had no idea—had no frame of reference for either outside of court documents. A million horrible things existed in their world, conjured up by cruel and depraved minds, every mind touched by those terrors torn apart in ways unique to them, incomparable to anyone else’s trauma. It was a cold reality that, somehow, the reality that two women—two mothers—would sacrifice a little boy to a predator had never crossed his mind as something that might come to exist on that list. It seemed so unreal—so removed from reality—that he wasn’t sure what to do with it. It was the sort of thing that he might consider far more traumatizing than anything else, for what was worse than being unable to trust adults who were meant to protect you? What was worse than being thrown to a predator for the slightest more chance at an escape to safety?

“Olivier? Are you okay?”

Olivier started at Halen’s message, blearily pulled back into the present by it—by this little lifeline from a pretty boy who was in love with Emilia and had access to his vitals through the implementation of Emilia’s stalking function. It had been one of the functions he’d received when he first reconnected to the aethernet, and being able to see so much of Halen and all of his and Emilia’s friends…

Well, it was perhaps understandable why Emilia had both been afraid to tell him about her youthful stalking of him and had wanted him to install an updated version of [[Blissful Silence]] that didn’t show her quite so much of his… entirety. Everything was laid out in those vitals—enough that Halen could see he was struggling and would message him—and he had already been informed by his Censor, which had been going through the group relays he’d been added to and summarizing the most important points for him, that at least one person was asking if there was a way to stop seeing when Baylie is turned on by the gore.

It was strange to know that he’d been right and Baylor—who had taken to calling him by his first name alone without permission, so Olivier had decided to simply drop his last name as well rather than bother telling the clone to stop referring to him so familiarly—was indeed the clone Emilia had mentioned—the one with serial killer inclinations.

Oddly… Olivier had absolutely no fear of the boy—if anything, while Baylor’s occasional visual dissection of students and staff around campus had been a bit off-putting, Olivier found his elder brother, Taelor Hyrat, to be more menacing. Something told him that Taelor Hyrat would be far more likely to slit his throat than Baylor. As for Valor—who had politely asked that they drop their last names after Olivier had gone to the triplets for a crash course in skill use—Oliver had the sense the boy was more likely to curl up on his lap and take a nap… or coerce him into tying Emilia up with him, as the youngest triplet had been responsible for creating the intricate knots on that dress Emilia had worn that night they’d run into one another at the restaurant.

For the barest moment, Olivier’s mind tugged up a collection of images of Emilia from that night.

Emilia, smiling and laughing with the triplets.

Emilia, bullying her way into his bathroom stall.

Emilia, tugging at her ribbons as she babbled about this and that, each word from her mouth tugging at his heart because he wanted to help her and her friends and then bury himself inside her over and over again because she had been so beautiful and sweet and teasing that night.

“Wow… it’s rare for Emilia to blush like that.”

With a start, Olivier realized that his Censor—could Censors have personalities, because his was currently being a bit of a bitch?—had sent the images he’d been looking at to Halen. It was terrible, and had he not had a little boy to get to, Olivier might have turned down a corner to curl up and die in a dingy, garbage-crusted alleyway.

He deserved no better.

Sending Halen the images was bad enough. Unfortunately, while he was attempting to come up with an explanation—mostly, he was considering whether he could lay the blame for Emilia’s blush on the triplets or not—his Censor decided to forward Halen the conversation that had led to her blushing!

Considering that Halen was in the midst of interrogating someone whom his group would only say was extremely dangerous—something that had Levi guessing was really bad and definitely something to worry over, but not too much because everyone is super, super powerful—his Censor really shouldn’t be sending the younger man anything let alone memories of him lusting over Emilia! Yes, Olivier was man enough to admit that much of that night was fogged over with attraction for the beautiful silverstrain. Was it going to be obvious to Halen, if he watched their interaction?

Unfortunately, Olivier thought that yes: the pictures were bad enough, but if Halen actually looked at that memory of him all but flirting with Emilia—teasing her with the reality that he would be quite happy to fuck her ass—from across the room? Yeah, there was no way it wasn’t going to be loud and clear just how much Olivier wished he could give in and take what Emilia was offering.

Unfortunately, Olivier didn’t think of the other thing that his Censor sharing the memory would allow Halen to see: Emilia and the triplets signing to one another.

[Halen:huh… tht’s…]

[Olivier:What’s what?]

[Halen:i mn… ye]

[Halen:I knda assmd triplets wr fking eac othr]

[Halen:hits a bit dif]

[Halen:t c thm admit it?]

[Halen:sry]

[Halen:gues u dn’t no sgning]

[Halen:uh…]

[Halen:shld i not hv said anythng?]

[Halen:fr me… they arnt hrting anyne?]

[Halen:so… i dn’t rly care?]

[Halen:its jst… thm?]

[Olivier:I… had already had a suspicion. Silverstrains are known for their… acceptance of many kinks, even those that are taboo. I didn’t want to assume, as from what I’ve seen of them… Emilia and the triplets are the sort to tease people with taboos, but… I am not surprised to know it was not entirely teasing, I suppose.]

As Halen said, however, it was quite different to have it confirmed. At the very least, imagining how involved Emilia was in the interactions between the triplets themselves—was she simply an external but accepting presence who enjoyed them all separately or did she actively take part in their collective relationship?—did serve to distract Olivier for a little bit. This sort of mortified wondering was better than worrying about Xavier—he knew that despite his trying to force the aether to bend to his will, there really wasn’t anything he could do for the boy other than keep moving—and when he finally got to reading his transcript of the conversation Levi and Gëon had been having, contemplations about how involved Emilia was with the triplets as a unit was definitely the more pleasant option. That seemed… impressive, considering how mortifying said contemplations were.