[Can’t Opt Out]

“Renton, my boy,” Cordk said, gently chastising his son as tension screamed through the younger man. The tension had been there for a long time—really, Cordk knew his son rarely managed to shed the tension that was a near permanent part of his person.

Not all of them could be good at letting go and accepting what life gave them. Then again, who was he to judge? Someone who had lost huge gaps of time and memory? Someone who had felt as though he were nearing the end of his life for decades? So, yes, perhaps it was unfair for Cordk to judge his sweet, grumpy boy based on how he himself had managed to carve out a bit of happy acceptance—not that Cordk was so accepting of the life he had been dealt that he wasn’t going to be giving it his all, trying to get himself and his child out of this city and into the light. At the same time, his child needed to relax!

“It could be a trap,” Renton replied, and yes, Cordk supposed it could be, and he had long ago learned to placate his child rather than attempt to outright change his mind.

“Yes,” he agreed, pressing his ancient fingers into the back of his son’s neck. “It could be a trap, but as much as I know you are not particularly fond of that child, I know you will feel bad if you blow him up before confirming it isn’t actually him.”

What might have been a growl rumbled through his son’s chest, Cordk’s lips quirking—he had always liked his son more when he let his feelings out, even if they tended to be more… negative in their scope. Better out than in, in Cordk’s opinion. Renton had always been the sort of person to contain, contain, contain. It all came out eventually, in growls and glares and a violent energy that impressed upon those in his vicinity that, if they didn’t shut up and do as they were told, Renton was going to strangle them.

As far as Cordk knew, his son had only strangled another captive once, back when he was barely a teenager. That captive had deserved it, as far as Cordk was concerned—the young man had nearly gotten Renton and his entire team killed on some mission to rob a bank. Got too cocky, wouldn’t pull back and regroup, wanted them all to charge in and his Renton had never been the sort to charge in without knowing as many details as possible—without being sure that the majority of the team would come out alive.

It was part of why the young man hadn’t been happy with how their escape group had been moving through the city: Renton wanted to stop and breathe and think. Ironically, Cordk knew that many people looked at his big brute of a son and thought his brain empty of thoughts—it wasn’t; Renton simply kept most of those thoughts pulled deep inside him, giving simple explanations of what he thought their next step should be which left few aware of how smart he really was.

So, Renton had known that despite how much he wanted to stop and breathe and think, doing so was impossible: not only had there been danger quickly surging down on the holding cells, but no one else would have been inclined to wait around and think things fully through.

To be fair, Cordk was sure that Olivier had been thinking things though, his non-dev brain spinning up scenarios. If they met again, Cordk wanted to learn more about his brain and ask how it worked alongside his Censor. As things were… Cordk still wasn’t sure he would make it out of the city alive. If it were between him and any of the people they had escaped with, Cordk knew he would happily give up his life for theirs.

He was old, while they were young, after all.

Against him, his son moved, shifted uneasily and Cordk wasn’t sure if it was because a voice was calling to them—telling them to stay put, that they were coming from so far off that Cordk assumed a core ability or Baalphorian skill was being used to project the voice—or if it was because of the smoke continuing to rise from another district. It might have been the next one over; Cordk wouldn’t be surprised if the burning district were two over yet.

It had surprised him, a bit, when his son had seen the smoke and almost immediately begun to race through the streets, hurrying towards the growing plumes and away from the spire and the Baalphorian embassy that called them in. That racing about was so unlike his always-careful child, but it had been a long time since Cordk had felt love—and yes, he had felt it, long ago.

It was the sort of love he could barely remember the smallest embers of, much of it wiped away by all those plucks and erasures of his memory. Cordk didn’t even know what had happened to the woman he loved—no, not a woman, but a girl. Centuries—it had been centuries since Cordk had loved anyone but his child, and to a lesser extent, the other children who had passed through the lowest levels of the holding cells. Renton was simply his in a way no other child would ever be, he supposed; so, while Cordk would die for many of the children who had grown up around him, even those who had risen to become loyal monsters to Fräthk, Renton would always be the owner of his heart.

Thus, it was funny, in a way, to realize that his son was perhaps more in love with Cravena than even he had realized—what other reason would his son have for racing back towards smoke that might lead to the woman he loved without a second of thought or hesitation?

It was sweet. Currently, Cordk wasn’t sure if his son was more nervous about the people—a small group, from what Cordk could feel of them—coming towards them or the delay in continuing to seek out Cravena… and the teenager who had been with her. Renton had said little of the teenager, and honestly, Cordk wasn’t convinced his son remembered Cravena had been with that girl at all.

His son only had eyes and attention for Cravena and Cordk himself at the moment, it seemed, and these intruders were exactly that: intruders who might try to talk him out of continuing to go find Cravena.

Cordk had heard it so many times before: leave the others to die.

Some part of him thought he had left the girl he loved to die, his hand forced by another or the reality that her death was inevitable; then, his memories of leaving her—of the girl herself—vanished into nothing but sparks of remembrance, forever seeking to catch flame, forever failing to catch on anything but mutilated memories.

That lingering belief of what sort of past may have been stolen from him was why Cordk hadn’t bothered to tell his son not to seek out the flames. It was one thing to convince him to continue moving towards the place they were meant to meet up when there was no sign of any of their lost companions; it was another to tell him to leave her behind when the smoke could easily be a signal of Cravena’s location.

“Renton, breathe,” Cordk told his son. Old as he was, it was difficult to press full gulps of air into his lungs, in order to drag his son along with him in a relaxation of tension into purposeful breaths. Still, Renton’s chest followed his example, sucking in deep breaths as they waited, waited, waited—

Renton tensed and Cordk relaxed, his fingers immediately digging back into his son’s neck, capturing his attention as he had since he was little—a small press of contact in order to ground his child.

“Cordk! Renton!” Porsq called, waving at them from the arms of a man Cordk had never seen before—white, though, with blonde curls. Baalphorian like Olivier, perhaps. There was another man with them, carrying another child, and it was difficult to say if he was Baalphorian or not. The eastern nation was known for containing myriad skin tones—more whites than other shades, but allegedly, every shade of skin could be found within its strange population. Cordk was no expert on clothing, but the style this man wore seemed nothing like what Olivier had worn, nothing like the blonde man’s clothing, nor even like the handful of Baalphorians Cordk had glanced and met over his long life.

Curious, if the man wasn’t Baalphorian: Olivier had made no mention of anyone from another nation potentially coming for them… or had he? Rude of his short-term memory to be going from age when he had already lost so much to other factors.

The child in the second man’s arms, Cordk did recognize, not from meeting them but from the pictures Fräthk had given out to virtually every one of his people who were ever at risk of upsetting Gëon. This was Gëon’s most precious possession. How had they ended up with Porsq and his new companions? Did Gëon know? Or was the child someone these men had picked up, intending to use them as leverage? From what Cordk had heard of the child, they seemed to truly be loyal to Gëon; hence, he doubted they were looking for an escape from the city or Gëon’s control…

In the Baalphorian man’s arms, Porsq wiggled. To the man’s credit, he held the boy a little firmer and demanded to know if the boy had enough energy to walk on his own. Porsq, smiled and nodded, and then, the man—and was he even a man, the Baalphorian seeming younger than Cordk had thought as he and the other man, still carrying Gëon’s little shadow, approached more slowly.

Porsq, however, didn’t just walk but ran—sprinted, really—to them, and within seconds, he was there, bowling into Renton’s legs because despite how nervous the boy made his son, Porsq wasn’t the sort to let that hold him back during a moment of reunion.

For as much as terrible things had been done to the child, for as much as he had been forced to do terrible things as well, Porsq was a sweet child… who appeared to be listening to his mind?

The preteen’s smile wobbled as he gazed up at Renton and Cordk. “Sorry, yeah… listening…” he muttered, starting when the Baalphorian man softly told him not to apologize.

“You’re keeping us safe by listening to everyone you can,” the young man—Cordk was still unclear on how old he was, his language somewhat childish but that could simply be a sign that he didn’t speak Lüshanian fluently—said. “The only reason we found these two is because you’re listening. Do not feel bad for listening. It is fine.”

Porsq turned to stare at the Baalphorian, his eyes glazing over with tears, before he pulled back from Renton’s legs and went barrelling back to the Baalphorian. Immediately, the young man scooped the preteen up and pressed a kiss to Porsq’s forehead.

Cordk… wasn’t sure what to make of whatever had just happened. It had seemed to strange, but then again, Porsq had always been able to tell when people were genuine immediately. Perhaps this young man was simply so genuine that the preteen had immediately made a connection with him? At the same time, Cordk was of course worried: there were terrible people out there in the world, and children who had been hurt—who were desperate for safety and love—could easily be pulled astray. It would be so easy for a child like Porsq, who thinks himself so skilled at reading the trustworthiness of others, to—

“Mikhail isn’t like that,” Porsq cut in, all happiness and sadness gone from his bright blue eyes when he turned to glare at Cordk. “Don’t think like that about him.”

Another growl rumbled out of Renton, and wasn’t this going just splendidly? Renton had never enjoyed the preteen doing anything to his mind—actually, Cordk wasn’t convinced his son didn’t dislike Porsq using his abilities on anyone. It didn’t matter if they consented, as Cordk knew Izurial generally did, nor if the child were using his skills on their guards and abusers.

“Some lines,” Renton had once told him, soon after Porsq had first been brought down to their level, fearful after his time with Hwris, “aren’t meant to be crossed.”

“Even if that boy almost managed to escape from this life by crossing that line?” Cordk had asked, curious about his son’s adamant dislike of a child he knew nothing but the barest details of.

“Yes,” his son had replied, dark and unbending, and Cordk wondered if now, with Cravena’s life potentially on the line, his son could overlook his dislike for the boy’s abilities or if he would refuse to join up with Porsq and his companions.

Out of all the people to run into, Porsq was perhaps the one that Cordk had most hoped they wouldn’t see again—especially not accompanied by people they didn’t know, didn’t trust, and who, based on the look in the Baalphorian man’s eyes, didn’t much trust them back either.