⸂And… there you go.⸃ Phlostra leaned back out of Emilia’s space, where she had been pouting on the bed while the woman reactivated her aethervoice suppression.
Emilia had hoped, after her experience the night before, that she had gained at least a little control of her aethervoice. Not so much. What control she had gained was dependent entirely on her being sleep-deprived, her mind sludged over with sleepiness. It was no longer sluggish or sleepy, and within moments of waking up, Gale had been forced to remove herself, Caro and Astra from the room while V went to find someone capable of suppressing her aethervoice once more.
Luckily, Caro still seemed oblivious to what her thoughts had been about, while Astra had still been asleep herself. Gale was horrified—the poor kid really didn’t need to know more about anyone else’s sex lives, let alone her and V’s. V, on his part, was part-amused, part-embarrassed. That hadn’t helped his case, as Emilia had been wishing him dead when he’d returned with Phlostra in tow.
The woman herself was mostly amused. ⸂Happens all the time,⸃ she had assured Emilia.
Emilia hadn’t believed her, of course. All she’d heard implied that by the time children were five or six they had near perfect control of their aethervoices, but according to Phlostra, that wasn’t quite accurate.
⸂Puberty is a powerful thing,⸃ the woman explained, throwing in a few anecdotes about her own, now grown children’s meandering thoughts about sex. ⸂It’s especially common in the morning. The number of times I came to wake up one of my children, only to find them half-dreaming about some classmate, their hips thrusting against the—⸃
⸂MOTHER!⸃ someone screamed.
The three of them turned towards the voice. They’d been making their way to the children, who had been grabbed up by Phlostra’s husband and carted off to get breakfast. Over the course of Phlostra’s amusing and mortifying anecdotes, they’d made it to the cafeteria that provided food for all the building’s lower levels, a series of bridges connecting the four buildings. They had yet to find the children or the rest of Phlostra’s family; however, a group of them had come in behind them.
⸂Ah, one of my formerly spunky in the morning sons,⸃ Phlostra sighed, giving her eldest son a sweetly unbelievable smile while the man gawked at her.
Behind him, a woman looked to be suppressing a smile, while a teenage girl was seemingly paying none of them any attention.
⸂DO NOT TELL PEOPLE SUCH MORTIFYING STORIES!⸃ the man hissed, stomping over to glare into his mother’s face, their noses nearly touching for how close he got. Like his mother, he had deep brown skin and a high ponytail of blonde braids trailing down his back, although they were noticeably shorter than Phlostra’s.
Phlostra seemed unperturbed and simply shrugged before greeting her daughter-in-law and granddaughter—a child who had grown up with this group, she supposed. Phlostra had told them her own parents had joined this group when she was in her teens, several years into her training as an Enclave member, after they had become disillusioned with their family’s willingness to do anything to remove the blood curse from the world. Everyone had been welcoming to her, just as they were to all new members, regardless of where they came from and their histories.
A tiny body slammed into her, and Emilia was unsurprised to find Astra attached to her when she glanced down. “Hello, little one,” she said, signing the words to her, and a larger hello to Gale and Caro sitting at a table far to the side.
Due to their quick exit, none of the three had had the opportunity to change out of their oversized sweater pyjamas. Neither Caro nor Astra seemed to care, but the death glare Gale was giving her was impressive—Emilia had taken an opportunity to change into something more respectable, and V had raced back to his room to grab fresh clothes of his own. Then again, the teenager could still be pissed about the whole morning sex musing she’d unfortunately overheard.
Gale continued glaring at her as she and the others sat down, Phlostra politely introducing them to each of her family members, several of whom V had obviously met before.
⸂Is your mother not joining us, Yuka?⸃
A dark haired young adult glanced up from their food. They blinked, slow and steady, before shaking their head. ⸂She has a meeting with Ajarni.⸃
Beside her, V tensed, the movement so slight that, had her shoulder not been pressed against his, Emilia might not have noticed.
⸂Things are moving along then?⸃ Phlostra asked, her attention locked so completely onto her step-grandchild that the entire world seemed to fall away from her.
Yuka nodded, eyes turning back to their food as they added that there would be a meeting after breakfast. ⸂For everyone,⸃ they said, every adult at the table shifting anxiously in their seats.
⸂That’s soon,⸃ Phlostra’s daughter-in-law said. Her hand reached out to grab her husband’s, the man seemingly annoyed that he could no longer eat. Emilia contented herself to watching them as the table fell into near silence as everyone ate. Where his wife seemed to want comfort—from what, Emilia had no idea— Phlostra’s son just wanted to eat. He tried politely removing her hand several times, pressing it against his thigh, his upper arm—even trying to hold it with his other hand at one point. No dice. The woman would not be put off from holding that specific hand, and eventually the aether rippled with annoyance as he privately told her—Emilia assumed—to fuck off and let him eat.
Emilia wondered what V would do, if she did something similar, and when her own tiny meal was done—her appetite in this world had been rather small, even if she did feel hunger occasionally—she snuck her hand over to his. The other visitor tensed, before effortlessly shifting which hand he was eating with. His hand turned over, wrapping around hers and pulling it under the table.
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Gale, who hadn’t stopped glaring at her and her normal clothes since they’d arrived, raised an eyebrow. A private, ⸂See? I told you it would work,⸃ slid through Emilia, and she tried to fight down a blush.
She didn’t think she was completely successful, unfortunately, her cheeks feeling hot as she waited for the rest of their group to finish. Fortunately, breakfast was fast, and then there was whatever this meeting was about to deal with because apparently she and V were included in the everyone. The kids too, which seemed ill-advised, although Emilia wasn’t about to leave them unattended either, not with how weird the mood had become at the mention of this meeting.
Everyone turned out to not actually be everyone. No one from the city levels above came, only people who lived in the levels of rooms below. According to Phlostra, several thousand people lived in the city levels, a mixture of descents of the group’s founders and people they had picked up along the way.
⸂We all generally live there,⸃ she explained as she led everyone through halls and bridges to wherever the meeting would be taking place. ⸂When you visitors arrived, we moved the core of our combat force into the lower levels. It’s just easier to defend our city from here, and to interfere with what is happening above.⸃
Someone snorted, the sound silly coming through the aethernet. Emilia thought back to Gale and Miira assuring her that no such sounds came out by accident.
Phlostra seemed of the same opinion, giving her youngest child—a woman who had glared at Emilia with more hatred than she was usually victim to—a scathing look. ⸂Do you have something to add to the conversation, Jerrina?⸃ she asked.
Her daughter grumbled a no and stomped off as they reached the meeting room. She swerved down the rows of seats and plopped down beside none other than Fran. Well, that may very well explain the hatred. Oh well. Emilia had bigger things to worry about than some woman bitter that she hadn’t gotten the man.
The man in question shot her a look when she pulled their still joined hands up, placing a kiss to the back of his, while Fran glared at them. ⸂Really?⸃ he asked, rolling his eyes when she smiled.
⸂Bitch,⸃ Gale growled from beside her. Unlike Emilia, who barely spared Fran a glance, Gale was all from glaring at the woman. For such a small, inexperienced girl, the teenager was rather fearless. Hopefully, that wouldn't come back to bite her. Then again, if Fran did try to seek revenge of some sort on Gale, Emilia would have an excuse to get rid of her.
“What do you think Jerrina was snorting about?” Emilia whispered to V as they took seats, Phlostra leaving them to go and talk to some officials seated at a long table at the front of the room, one a woman who looked so like Phlostra that Emilia immediately assumed it must be Yuka’s missing mother.
The room itself was huge, taking up what must have been a quarter of the building’s floor space. Giant windows covered two of the walls, reaching up thirty or so feet, the glass-like material stained a gentle purplish shade. It made the view of the buildings and rock outside more appealing than it was anywhere else, where the world came out a bland, depressing grey-brown. The grey-purple was a bit better.
The seats were angled towards the corner where the windows met, hundreds and hundreds of them. They weren’t tidy, looking like they had recently been filled full and their occupants had left each hard red chair a little askew. Now, most were empty. Phlostra’s family was slowly filling up one section, several rows in front of the ones she’d left them at. Based on looks alone, Emilia could guess that several of the other groups scattered through the room were relatives of the other officials seated at the front of the room.
Other chairs were occupied sporadically by people Emilia could only assume were either waiting for friends and family, were loners, or were other visitors. For the most part, the visitors were obvious, what with their strange colourings, although many now had local clothing. Not that they were necessarily the only visitors. Not only had some people, like Astra, lucked out and given themselves colouring that helped them pass for being a local, but the original, avatar customization system had mentioned ways to alter your appearance in-raid.
So far, the only thing Emilia had come across that allowed such changes was magic. Harmony had originally changed her appearance, before they left for the library labyrinth. That magic had faded quickly, however, even with Zach’s top-up. That didn’t mean there weren’t other, more permanent means of altering one's appearance, and combined with how easily some people found using their aethervoices…
Well, Emilia wasn’t making any assumptions.
⸂I don’t know,⸃ V said, pulling Emilia back to her question about Jerrina, his eyes sliding over to where the woman and Fran were sitting.
Around the women, the aether rippled with silent conversation as they sent glares her way. She smiled, pulling up her and V’s joined hands to wave at the women.
⸂Do you have to antagonize them?⸃ he asked, turning to glare at her.
“Look, it ain’t my fault she decided to go after someone who is already involved in”—she waved their joined hands between them—“whatever this is. Did you not tell her? Cause if you didn’t it seems even more unfair that she’s upset with me.”
⸂I told her I wasn’t interested and that the friend I was looking for was more than a friend,⸃ V confirmed.
Emilia wasn’t sure if Fran knowing V had someone else made the women’s annoyance with her more or less aggravating. It really was unfair that Fran was blaming her, seemingly for simply existing. Very uncool. Then again, given how different relationships here were, perhaps she hadn’t understood what V meant by more than a friend? Still. “She should just find someone else. It’s not like you’ll be here long, or like she knew you so long to have fallen madly in love.”
⸂I don’t think she can find someone else,⸃ V said, leaning in conspiratorially, as though he couldn’t speak privately via aethervoice regardless of how physically close they were. ⸂The first day I was here, some of the other men warned me away from her. They said she was crazy.⸃
Emilia turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Did you think they were lying?”
The man shrugged. ⸂I figured there was some merit to what they were saying, but I learned long ago not to trust the opinions of others without seeing proof of their words. Plus,⸃ he added, tilting back in his chair and smiling like the most confident man in the world, ⸂she was one of the few people willing to help me find you.⸃
“Bet she’s regretting that now,” Emilia sighed, sagging back in her own chair and turning to watch Caro and Astra.
They’d designed some sort of game over their hours together, since leaving the Risen Guard compound. Most of it had been devised before Astra had been revealed to be a visitor, which was impressive, given the children hadn’t been able to actually discuss the rules. The majority of its creation had been Caro suggesting things and Astra agreeing or disagreeing, or occasionally, trying to pantomime her opinion.
The resulting game was… confusing. Emilia wasn’t sure she understood the rules, nor did she think it seemed very fun. Kids considered strange things fun, however, so for all she knew it was the most enjoyable game in the world.
It was also, thankfully, silent, and when Phlostra returned to sit by them—curious, given her family was also present—she didn’t bother asking them to stop as a middle-aged man, who had been seated at the front table since they arrived, stood.
The room well silent, even the whispers of private conversations stilling, and the meeting began.