Darrian poked and prodded at Levi through their relay, asking for more information about the man and children he had suddenly found himself travelling with, trying to figure out how worried he should be about his friend’s safety. A lot worried, that was where he landed, and he wanted to leave—wanted to follow Codeth’s lead and charge through the city, seeking out Levi. He wanted Levi back in his arms—Emilia too, each of them a spark of love and hope within him.
Having Baylor near him was helping, the other boy’s chaos and madness as infectious as Emilia and Levi’s, but Baylor was a monster—the sort of person who, if they ever ca across soone capable of killing him, they were all fucked. For as chaotic as Baylor was in life, in a battle, he was the most skilled of any of them. Emilia and Levi? They were a bit more wild in their common sense. Sotis, Emilia could be sensible; every few years, Levi could have a working brain cell.
Currently, Emilia was working her way through so sort of murder machine. Clearly, her common sense had been left on the airship—possibly, it had been left back in Baalphoria. As for Levi? Darrian wanted to trust his friend’s opinion of his new companions. It was difficult, especially given Bireth and Vantril’s concerns that Levi had hooked up with one of the city’s most powerful cri lords.
There was also a good chance that Levi had actually hooked up with Gëon, not that he was going to be telling anyone that, so bit of information about law of consent and age difference laws sliding into his head, courtesy of the aethernet, which suggested that, according to Lüshanian law, Levi was legally far too young to be having sex with the criminal. Did Darrian care? Not really—the nation’s laws were weirdly intense on the point of acceptable age differences—but it did show that the man really was a criminal, willing to bend laws that he didn’t like.
At the sa ti… they were like that as well, weren’t they? Spoiled little Penns brats, bending and shattering the law, whenever it didn’t suit their needs. From the perspective of so many Baalphorians, he imagined they were just as much criminals as Gëon, even if their damage to Baalphoria was likely far less than the trafficking of goods and drugs that Gëon got up to—those were really the only two things that the Drinarna interns could say definitively about what sort of criminal activities Gëon had his hands in.
Much like Fräthk, Gëon had many people with irregular deviations working under him, but from everything they had learned—from the Drinarna interns, from Emilia’s conversations with her new friends, and then, from Levi outright asking Gëon about it!—the man didn’t force anyone to work for him; rather, he offered them safety. That was nice, at least, although Darrian knew it wouldn’t be so simple.
There were power dynamics and desperation at play, after all.
As… unsure about his own sexuality and preferences as Darrian was, he had still poked around on the aethernet a bit, looking for information. Thankfully, Baalphoria was an extrely sex-positive nation, so finding information about his specific desires hadn’t been too difficult—hadn’t been sothing he’d been forced to search the blackaether to get information on. What he had learned had largely revolved around safety and consent.
Honestly, even after so much ti searching about, he still wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted in the bedroom or in a partner. Mostly, he knew he liked people like Levi, Emilia, and Baylor—brats who would push against him because they knew that, no matter what they did or said, he would still love them. Beyond that, Darrian had no idea what he would to do, were he to ever talk a brat into his bedroom—into accepting his heart.
People like Levi, Emilia, and Baylor… they would all be easy to love in a more romantic way—easy to smother with affection and kisses. Levi didn’t want him like that. Baylor had both Emilia and his brothers—as much as Darrian often thought the triplets didn’t think many people realized what they were doing with one another, he thought the majority of their friend group knew or suspected enough.
As for Emilia… Darrian wasn’t stupid enough to think he was enough for her. Even were he to share her with the triplets and anyone else she wanted to drag between her legs, Darrian knew what he was: boring and bland.
In no world would he ever be good enough for soone like Emilia.
That didn’t an he didn’t love her as a friend—didn’t adore every mont that she splattered her affection over him; let him cover her with his own in turn. If friendship with Emilia was all he would ever have, he was fine with that—a world with Emilia’s friendship was far better than a world without her because he’d been stupid and allowed himself to love soone who would never love him back.
Emilia was ant to be surrounded by people much better than he himself was; really, he should consider himself lucky to be allowed her friendship.
This was all a digression from the point that Darrian knew at least so of what he enjoyed—would enjoy, one day—in bed, and so much of it would be a dance of consent and working to equalize power.
People might choose to work for Gëon over Fräthk, but many of them would have no choice about working for one of them—and within such a situation, their consent was nothing but a fabrication. No was never an option, the implication that a no would lead to their death, abandonnt, or suffering a reality that no amount of kindness from one of the criminals of the city could soothe. Briefly, Darrian had poked at Bireth a bit, trying to learn if Gëon removing people from the city or Lüshan as a whole was an option, had anyone not wanted to work for him at all.
Bireth had stated that it was difficult, but not impossible—their group had managed to get through the cave system, after all, and the group who had attacked them worked for Gëon. According to Levi, Gëon, and the latter’s little shadow—whatever that ant—that group had been acting oddly, and the cri lord definitely thought his people were stupid for attacking their group.
Regardless, getting people out of the city using the man’s smuggling route was possible, but Bireth didn’t think it happened often—it wasn’t like, as a Drinarna intern, he had the most information, however. Both Baylor and Sorvell had suggested another factor was simply that getting on as an immigrant in another nation would have been difficult, especially if the person had a highly visible irregular deviation.
“Lüshan has a pretty bad relationship with most of its neighbours,” Sorvell had pointed out as they slipped through an alleyway, growing closer and closer to the building Emilia was located within. Once they reached it, they would have to decide what to do: go in or wait.
Darrian didn’t think the triplets would be inclined to wait, regardless of Emilia’s demand no one chase after her into the dungeons.
“Yeah,” Baylor had agreed, rambling off the current state of the relations between Lüshan and its closest neighbours, which ranged from horrific—Dion—to being virtually non-existent—Norvel. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think the best option for all the people, like, everyone is picking up and who want to get out of here is to either take them back to Baalphoria or stick them in Norvel? Like, in Baalphoria we’ll be responsible for them, but at least Norvel has so work for foreigners?”
“Sure, in the Dread Coliseum,” Sorvell had scoffed, even if he had been of the sa opinion: Norvel had a relatively large immigrate population, due to the Dread Coliseum. It would be a rough life, but could it be worse than living here? Especially for the adults? They definitely couldn’t leave the kids that Olivier had connected with to such a fate, nor Westrial or the teenager with Emilia’s group, but the adults might be better off trying to make a life for themselves in Norvel? Maybe?
It was worth giving them the option of deciding their own fate, in any case. From what Levi was saying, the preteen he had found and the little boy who was likely being dragged through the city had both beco attached to Olivier de la Rue. At the sa ti there was sothing in way Levi was speaking of the preteen, Porsq, that was strange.
Mostly, it was strange because he was only talking about it in a smaller group relay, which only included the more sensible, cold-hearted, and level-headed mbers of their group—in other words, people like BJ, Janie, Coral, Polianna, Mikhail, and his cousin weren’t included, while Sorvell and Doctor Vickers were excluded due to their age and liability to prioritize their group mbers’ lives over anyone else’s.
Essentially, for as much as his friend trusted Gëon, he didn’t trust the man’s opinion on Porsq.
[Levi:Porsq’s the one who caused that spike in the aether a while ago, you know?]
[Levi:i think the kid is, like, super-duper powerful?]
[Levi:so of the things he says… I don’t think he’s like Coral, but sothing even more powerful? I’ve been trying to get more information out of about what happened during that wave]
[Levi:but its all a little confusing?]
[Levi:I get the sense hes the sort of person criminals would want?]
[Taelie:You think Gëon wants him?]
[Levi:Probably? I don't think he would fight us for the kid, but…]
For a long while, Levi had gone silent—long for him or Emilia, anyways; really, it was only a minute or two. Eventually, he had replied that he had a feeling that, if Gëon wasn’t completely certain they could protect the kid, he might put up a fuss.
[Levi:I get the feeling he knows more about the kid’s abilities than he’s saying]
[Levi:and i think he knows that the kid needs to be protected, no matter what]
[Darrie:We’ll figure sothing out. From what I’ve heard of Olivier de la Rue, I doubt he’ll be inclined to leave a preteen under the care of a criminal, unless the boy himself wants to be left there.]
[Baylie:And there’s no way Emmie won’t want to get the kid sowhere safe. I don’t care about so criminals trying to get their hands on the kid—if Emmie wants him, we’ll be taking him.]
Within him, Darrian’s mind pointed out that swiping up the child was also potentially removing his ability to consent to what happened to him. With kids and their well-being, it was a little more complicated, of course—one example he’d read about consent and children, which had stuck in his mind, was that it didn’t matter if a child only consented to eating cake: they couldn’t only eat cake. Sotis, consent or a lack thereof, ant little when it ca to making sure soone was safe.
Still… if the kid was that dangerous? If he was going to have criminals seeking him out? What sort of life would he ever manage to live? One tucked away in hiding? Surrounded by guards and babysitters and never allowed to breathe and live whatever life he wanted?
Fuck was that complicated. Fuck did it suck that they had potentially been drafted into designing a prison of safety for an innocent kid, simply because his genetics had gifted—cursed—him with an ability that seed to be able to affect the minds and actions of others—and given how old Porsq were? What sort of monster would the kid beco, once he fully grew into his abilities? Once he had better control of them?
Darrian sucked in a deep breath as they moved through the city, skirting the few Drinarna officers they were coming across. The number of officers was dwindling, to say the least, Bireth guessing that it was because they had finally reached Fräthk’s territory.
“The Drinarna don’t completely avoid the territory of the criminals in the city, but they do beco sparser, and with everything that’s going on, I don’t doubt they don’t want to get involved,” Bireth had noted, soon after joining their group and discussing what to expect as they moved through the city.
Not being involved in any of this would be nice. Unfortunately, they were already here, and two of Darrian’s dumbass friends needed help. Levi was too far away for them to help—Codeth, Mikhail, the Crisharian man, and Byron Hyrat were far closer to his location, although the latter three would be heading to the suspected location of Olivier de la Rue directly, Codeth and Levi’s groups eting up with them whenever they could. Given Codeth and Vantril now suspected they were close to the potential paths the other people Olivier de la Rue had helped escape, Darrian doubted they’d be eting up any ti soon.
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