> They say when time collides
>
> every aspect open for the taking
>
> every pleasure and sin revealed to the all-seeing eye
>
> They say when all is known
>
> the end is nigh
>
> the days to close
>
> upon a speck of ice
>
> not ice
>
> not of this world
>
> but the one without
>
> They say when without becomes within
>
> when without becomes the all-seeing eye
>
> the end is nigh
>
> ~ psalm for the end
✮ ✮ ✮
“So, there are two options your little eyes see?” Hetexia asked, sharp black eyes glaring between Emilia and Hyr.
They both shifted, nervous. Emilia might have technically outranked the hy Gru during the war, but the woman was still terrifying. On the other hand, while Hyr wasn’t part of the Gru, Hetexia was still a hy and, as previously noted, absolutely terrifying.
The syn Bur shifted, just slightly. Behind Hetexia, their sister, Myr, looked like she wanted to chastise them for both being stupid—which Emilia really didn’t think was fair—and nervous. Emilia didn’t know much about the synat, but in her interactions with the late syna Gru and several lower ranking synat during the war, she’d generally gotten the impression that they weren’t meant to bend to the hy, especially not one who wasn’t their own.
Hyr wasn’t quite bending, but if Hetexia’s glare sharped even a fraction more, they might very well snap in half.
⸂Yes,⸃ Emilia interjected before Hyr could speech and put themself under more pressure. ⸂That building, and that one,⸃ she said, pointing in the general direction of the locations they had mutually agreed would be good to search.
That was, unfortunately, part of the issue: during their conversation, they had both taken to looking through the {Blood Glass}, Emilia trusting the syn to haul her back, should she decide that living within the illusionary futures of the {Blood Glass} was preferable to the real world. She’d never gotten that far, thankfully—although that was likely a result of this not being her own world.
Instead, the two of them had traded the blood item back and forth, telling the other what they saw. Then, Hyr had spotted something—a fragment of a future that had drawn them in with the same pleasure and perfection they claimed fortunes of the real world did. To them, it had been clear that was the way they were meant to go. Emilia had looked, simply curious as to what she would see.
Even she had to admit: the future Hyr had picked out, blurry and incomplete as it was, had a different flavour to it, the form and colour of it melding with the present in a way that tickled her insides.
So, she’d done what any reasonable person would do: looked for more spots like that—not that she’d actually expected to find anything.
Unfortunately, she had found something. Hyr had looked, then agreed: there was a second potential path, or alternatively, they were branching paths, meant to be claimed together.
Hetexia was not a fan of this branching idea, which would require them to split into groups. Emilia couldn’t blame her; the last time she’d allowed her team to be split up—at least as far as Emilia knew—the syna Gru had died. They might not be able to actually die in this world, but it didn’t take a genius to realize the other members of Hetexia’s group were in their teens and twenties. Babies, who could easily be traumatized by what happened in this world, especially with the threat of the heartcores still hanging over them.
“We have to split up,” Hyr said, straightening up as their voice slide into one of authority, even if there was still a slight shake to it. “It is not just us at risk. We must do all we can for these people as well. Would you have us fail, because we are too afraid to separate, despite the seeing of that fate?”
Hetexia did not look happy. Emilia had no idea what her own views on the rights of raid AIs were, but as they’d walked, she had explained the details of what she and her friends were trying to do within the raid to Hyr, as well as the occasional other person who got close enough to eavesdrop. Hyr in particular had been horrified to realize that if they didn’t find Ajarni, they may very well be leaving this world on the brink of a civil war—not that killing Ajarni would guarantee it not come to that, but Emilia had to admit, under the right leadership, the Enclave and Risen Guard coming together, if only a little, to fight a common enemy might be an opening to a better future.
Maybe.
One could hope.
Her black eyes pissed, Hetexia relented, kicking her way in the direction of the closer building and yelling at them to figure out who was coming with her, who going with Emilia. “And take that bratter’een with you!” she added before dropping off the edge of the collapsed building’s rubble. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found anything of particular use within it, and from what the jur siblings could determine, no one was suffering under the weight of the buildings either.
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Small mercies. While finding her friends would have settled something inside her, Emilia didn’t wish the suffering of a slow death under a million tons on anyone.
⸂Well, I guess that settles that you’ll be coming with me,⸃ Emilia told Hyr. She was not being left alone with the {Blood Glass}, nor would she be trusting anyone else with it. Maybe Carne, but that was just because that guy was already a little insane and extra tuned into the universe. What could a little extra pinch of clairvoyance do?
Emilia fought down a shudder as she considered that either the system or some connected part of the aethernet had the ability to predict the future. As much as she hadn’t been one for completely blowing off the fortune-telling found throughout the Free Colonies—as well as in a few break away cultures in Baalphoria—she wasn’t much of a believer in such things either. Some were fun, others creepy, a few so grounded in what she would consider reality that she could see the way they could potentially affect the world in a tangible way… maybe.
This, though? Peeking through the {Blood Glass} and seeing the way the future unfolded, her, Hyr and Zyrex turning in the other direction while the jur siblings and Myr went after Hetexia, intent to comfort her, all seen before the northerners had decided that was how they would split themselves up?
It had yet to been decided, the group still chatting softly between themselves, but it was the only option the {Blood Glass} offered to her. It was thoroughly disconcerting, no matter what was behind it. The system, the universe, mind reading. Emilia knew better than many people just how powerful computers could be, but this? Potentially working through all the bits and pieces of everyone’s personality to determine what would happen? What decisions they would make? Factoring in mood and chance and the chaos of the universe?
“Are you alright?” Hyr asked as they came to stand beside Emilia. “Should I take that back?”
Wordlessly, she handed the {Blood Glass} back to the syn, glancing behind him to find Zyrex politely watching them as the other three scurried after Hetexia, the girls muttering about being babysitters for a hy in Brylish.
⸂How’d they decide on you?⸃ Emilia asked the young hy as they began to move towards their own destination.
The hy Lwyn blushed, on odd contrast appearing between his pinking, dark brown skin and black eyes. “They decided I could benefit from being with you…”
Oh, so she was meant to be a tutor to this kid, then? Well, there were worse fates than that, but first…
⸂Ah… I see, I see. Well, do you want me to be nice or mean about it?⸃
“Mean!?” the young man asked, those black eyes turning on her and—
“You’re going to trip,” Hyr said mildly, their tone implying they were constantly telling their friend his future, a moment before the hy tripped and fell several feet into a hole. “You should be mean. He needs it.”
“I heard that!” Zyrex yelled, followed by something being thrown out of the hole and heading with near perfect accuracy towards Hyr.
The syn twisted out of the item’s path, an arm slipping around Emilia’s waist and pulling her free of its path as well. It remained around her as they walked, leaving Zyrex to pull himself out of the hole as he swore in several different languages.
⸂How old are you guys?⸃ Emilia asked as Hyr politely hopped down a ledge and turned to help her down, large hands clasping around her waist.
They were tall, she abruptly realized as she was set back onto the earth. Something about how soft the syn was—how quiet—seemed to make them seem smaller, shorter. In reality, the syn was nearly as tall as Hetexia, although not nearly as thick, their auburn hair pulled up into intricate braids that held meanings that Emilia wasn’t familiar enough with the synat to know off the top of her head. Indications of the syn’s power and knowledge, strands twisted in specific directions or allowed to be a certain length in order to indicate how far along in training they were.
Their golden eyes shone under that hair, against their golden skin, possibly the lightest shade she’d ever seen on a northerner, assuming this was their real complexion.
She wasn’t sure why, but something told her all of the northerners were wearing their real faces, not just Hetexia, something in the back of her brain telling her she’d once overheard someone talking about how much northerners respected their visages as a gift from the divine—or something along those lines.
“We’re almost thirty. The girls are in their late teens,” Zyrex said, plopping down beside Emilia and almost stumbling as he landed. He straightened, and oh. That was why she hadn’t realized Hyr was so tall: he was almost short compared to Zyrex, who was even taller than Hetexia by at least three or four inches. Possibly more—the man was so tall, Emilia’s mind could barely compute it!
In comparison to Hyr’s own, oddly not-northerner appearance, Zyrex was all northerner. Tall and muscular, their long black hair pulled back into a low ponytail that left their sharp features on display. If Hyr was soft in both appearance and their words, Zyrex was soft in personality alone, the only softness on his face as they continued along the expressions that graced his face, an ever-changing blend of happy, annoyed, embarrassed—the guy really was quite clumsy.
Hyr’s face, on the other hand, was nearly always bored or annoyed, yet they continued to appear soft and Emilia could only imagine how beautiful they would be, were they to instead smile.
“So what is mean training?” Hyr asked after nearly ten minutes of conversation about why they were in the raid in the first place.
Essentially, Hyr was about to undergo some sort of religious ceremony, and their friend and sister had decided to try and get tickets as a celebration… or farewell? It was somewhat unclear, the young syn avoiding her questions about what the ritual was and what the exact purpose of the vacation would be, should they manage to win tickets, while Zyrex resolutely avoided looking at her, his face impressively red.
Interesting, and while part of Emilia wanted to leave the syn their privacy, another part wanted to know what was going on so bad that even if she tried her hardest to not be a nosy bitch, she’d probably end up asking Hetexia about it eventually.
Beside her, Zyrex tripped on nothing—seriously, they were walking down an empty hallway within their assigned building, following Hyr’s readings of the aethernet and what they saw within the {Blood Glass}—and hissed at their friend.
“Don’t bring that whole mean training thing up again!”
Hyr blinked slowly—and with more than a little cruelty—at the hy. “You’re the one who said you were only allowed to join the raid for training reasons,” they pointed out, which was interesting. Were the hy not allowed to have fun? It wasn’t like the raid was taking more than a few, real-world hours away from any of them.
Tuning out the sound of the pair arguing over who was in the wrong, Emilia contemplated what sort of training would make sense. Based on what she’d seen, the hy Lywn definitely needed to branch out in his weapon use, but this wasn’t exactly the ideal situation for taking away his {Blood Dagger} and throwing him into battle with something else—it would be absolutely terrible if some innocent local died because they were fucking around.
That said, in theory, hy should have excellent self-control.
Looking through her inventory, she eventually settled on pulling out the {Blood Fabric} and handing it over to him. ⸂I’m not going to take back the dagger, but you need to get comfortable using other things. The fact that you could barely do anything with the sword is a problem.⸃
Zyrex frowned down at the {Blood Fabric}, looking profoundly unhappy, even as they admitted that yes, that hadn’t been good.
⸂Just try and use it, at least a little, before you pull out the dagger,⸃ Emilia added before asking Hyr if they had any idea how far they needed to go.
The syn peeked through the glass, searching, before telling her it would still be a bit.
⸂Good,⸃ she said, smiling sharply between the two. ⸂Time for a little lecture, then?⸃