Arc F1.10 | Chapter 8: One Day, After A Lot of Therapy, Maybe We’ll Laugh About This

Emilia’s back pressed to the edge of the entrance to Prex’s lair—this place definitely seemed to qualify as a lair, in her opinion—his words landing over her and turning her stomach. So… step one was done. In an ideal world, she’d have been able to message everyone again and say she’d actually managed to find Xavier. Unfortunately, she’d had to tuck her xphern away for a number of reasons.

Those reasons? For one, they weren’t the quietest things to type messages out on—which really seemed like it had to be an issue for Free Colony law enforcement that used them? How did they manage to do anything quietly, when even her high quality xphern still made noise when she typed away on it?

Regardless, this meant she couldn’t use it when the risk of Prex noticing her was so high. On top of that, the thing was her only real method of communication at the moment; hence, she had tucked it away into a case she’d had made for it long ago. The thing was airtight and even most willbrands would struggle to break through it, although it was in no way completely resistant to willbrands or anything. Did the case make her xphern even more bulky? Obviously. Did it also mean she’d had to effectively lock it away from her use, after telling Halen she was heading down to look for Xavier and would be unavailable for a while? Also yes.

So, no one knew she’d actually reached Xavier. They would figure it out, once she got the kid and they were able to start moving back towards Olivier’s group. Until then, she knew everyone who knew what she was up to would be worried.

Hopefully, getting a message to them that she was fine wouldn’t take too long. Considering this next bit would be the hard part, however?

Yeah, Emilia had a feeling it wouldn’t be as fast or easy as she hoped it would be.

The hard part, in question: getting Xavier out of there. Easier said than done when all she had to peek into the room at the moment was a small mirror she’d plucked from the aether for her Emergency I Can’t Use Skills Kit around the time she’d run into the scary man. Until now, she hadn’t had any reason to use it—actually, she didn’t think any of her friends, who had fabricated their own kits after landing in Lüshan, had used theirs either.

Not using the thing was definitely preferable to being forced to rely on things that weren’t her Censor.

Slowly, she removed the mirror from her shorts, where she’d clipped it and several other items for easy access. Squatting she held the mirror out, shifting it until she could see into the room—a dreary, disgusting place. Lovely. Was that a pile of shit-coated towels in the corner? Seriously!? They were in a sewer and the man couldn’t even be bothered to wander a few tunnels to shit somewhere that wasn’t his living space!?

Some people really had no standards.

In the other corner, Emilia found what she was looking for: Prex, looming over the bed where Xavier was sitting, still clothed, thankfully… also, extremely serious looking. That might explain why Prex was ranting about how he should be more terrified: the kid didn’t look scared at all. It was definitely a front, but clearly, Xavier showing his fear was important to Prex and the fact that he wasn’t getting that fear was aggravating him. Awesome—also, good to know that the kid still had a working brain, even if, as a child, she should expect him to crash out at any moment.

Even more awesome? Xavier was alternating between staring blankly up at Prex and shifting his eyes away to sweep through the room at random, especially on the occasions when Prex growled and took to pacing—the guy really wasn’t taking Xavier’s fake-boredom with the situation well, and if it hadn’t been for the rather horrific circumstances, it would have been funny.

One day, if she and Xavier managed to get out of there, it would probably be funny.

“Hey, remember that time Prex tried to rape you, but he couldn’t get it up because you were just sitting there, being a bored little shit?” she’d laugh, an older, happier Xavier laughing along with her as they reminisced. Who knew how the kid would grow up to handle his trauma—everyone did it differently, after all. Emilia liked to focus on less important details of the night she’d been raped: the fact that she’d thought the patio of the treehouse definitely not suited for that many people dancing on it; Andre’s soft cock as they danced; Levi’s smile and the videos she’d seen of him trying to do a strip dance, his own drugging resulting in little more than that single video; the clips Mikhail had sent her of everything he’d done that night, all the way down to him using the bathroom, because he had wanted her to know, absolutely, that he had no idea what Warren was going to do to her.

“I would have stopped him,” Mikhail had told her once, shortly after Warren’s disappearance—always a disappearance, his parents still refusing to accept he was dead and only ever holding vigils for him.

Emilia liked remembering the serious look on Mikhail’s face, the humorous gape of Codeth’s mouth as he asked if his friend had really just said that.

“It’s important for Emmie to know I would have stopped him,” Mikhail had insisted, Codeth insisting that she obviously knew that. “Some people stand by when people they know do horrible things, or think there’s no way the person would rape someone. I have heard many people will claim the victim misunderstood. I do not think Emmie misunderstood,” Mikhail had replied, his blue eyes cutting into Codeth. “Emmie should know I wouldn’t have stood by. I will not defend Warren or claim her at fault.”

It was a nice memory, overall—a little light in the darkness of what happened to her. Here was Mikhail—and then Codeth, convinced by his friend’s arguments—telling her they would have stepped in, would have protected her against their friend, and would never claim she must have done something to lead him on. They had never referred to Warren as their friend after what happened—not to her, anyways. Now, of course, Emilia wondered if Halen had done something—programmed some function to block their ability to refer to Warren by anything but his name, all so she wouldn’t have to hear him referred to as something so familiar, so kind.

Another little light in the darkness.

Perhaps that was what she could be to this little boy: a light within this horror.

As though called by her thoughts, Xavier’s eyes skimmed over the doorway. It was difficult to say what colour the boy’s eyes were, the pupils blown out by some mixture of fear and the darkness of the room—plus, they moved on so quickly.

Then, they popped back to her. Through the mirror, their eyes met, and it was both great and terrible that the boy knew she was there.

Xavier’s dark, dirt-coated hand rose to brush over the glitter splattered over his chest—her aethermark, meant for Olivier. According to Levi, the lawyer had constantly been touching his own mark as well.

“I took a video for you,” her friend had messaged at one point, during one of the moments when his group had been forced to run through the city. “It’s cute. I wonder if he’s thinking of you or the kid—it’s shaped like him, you know? Xavier? Olivier’s mark is just an outline of the boy, and I think that must be hard? Having this reminder of the boy being safe in his arms literally emblazoned on his chest?”

Yes, Emilia had agreed, that did sound horrible—it was even more horrible when Mikhail had relayed to her a conversation about how Olivier wanted to pull Porsq into his chest and keep him safe. Olivier had clearly become so attached to those kids. To have had to leave the one behind? To have lost the other?

When they met again, Emilia wanted to bury herself in Olivier’s chest and assure him he did a good job—make sure he knew that he hadn’t failed because she knew that’s what she would be thinking were their positioned reversed. They were all doing their best, and that didn’t mean a single one of them was failing… mostly, anyways.

Currently, Emilia was thinking she’d fucked up a bit by allowing Xavier to realize she was there. Across the room, where the little boy’s eyes had previously been bored and unafraid, tears were forming, and at the very least he had looked away from her, but—

“Oh?” Prex asked, turning back from his pacing through the disgusting place he called home—and really, was molesting kids really worth living in this hovel and fearing for his life constantly?

Emilia wasn’t an idiot, she knew that sexual urges were a difficult thing to resist. They were a biological imperative, and when those urges collided with things that were illegal… it was horrible. For most people, living within a body and mind that wanted to hurt people was a horrible fate, but she knew from various AetherealBoards that some people didn’t want to give in to those urges because they didn’t want to hurt people; unfortunately, those desires were wired into their brains, and removing those connections between a kink and sex drive was difficult, if not impossible.

There were a few functions out there, created by herself and another hacker, that helped those people who didn’t want to hurt anyone deal with their urges in less destructive ways. They worked, sometimes. Usually, the person eventually broke, The Black Knot returning diagnostics about the use of her function from people they picked up—the moment her function was removed or disabled, it triggered an alert with The Black Knot.

It was impossible to install random functions and skills from the blackaether without accepting some risk of the hacker having put such backup alerts within them.

Usually, the people The Black Knot picked up were thankful, babbling about how the urge had grown too big, too overwhelming, and they hadn’t wanted to give in, but they couldn’t stop themself anymore and it was painful, to know how much self-hatred some of those people lived with. There was nothing they could do to be rid of the urges or self-hatred, other than kill themself.

Emilia thought that the better option, compared to hurting someone—ruining them, in many ways.

Over a decade later, and many more virtual decades, Emilia still felt ruined at times. A part of her had been carved away by Warren, and the little things both her friends and lovers since then had done to show her love and confirm consent again and again had added bits into the gaping wound within her. It would always be there, however, pushing at the seams of her mind and her ability to fully relax while drinking or getting high. It lessened year by year, but it was something she knew would exist within her forever.

It was impossible to escape the knowledge that there were people out there, all too happy to force themself on someone, if given the chance.

Behind her, Prex took several slow steps towards Xavier, his tears finally spilling over as he glared down at his knees, tucked up under him, which was… odd? It wasn’t a way Lüshanians usually sat, on their knees, and while she’d seen baby clones and Alaric sit similarly—could remember herself sitting almost like Xavier was when she had been younger—it wasn’t quite the same. Instead, kids tended to splay their legs apart, resulting in them sitting between their calves, rather than on top of them.

Xavier was sitting on top of his calves—something Emilia knew from experience often wasn’t the most comfortable of sitting positions—the way Grey Sanders did during political meetings. It was a relic of ancient culture. Previously, the Grey Sands had been composed of hundreds of tribes. While they had eventually come together to form a more solid government—not that some of the border towns, especially to the east and south, didn’t still largely operate outside of either Grey Sander or Baalphorian laws, no one bothering to enforce laws in such distant places—wars between tribes had been common several millennia ago. According to an old story, sitting upon knees during meetings had become common so that, if violence broke out, everyone could rise quickly; also, fewer chairs breaking when tempers got hot.

The Inner Court had a huge problem with chairs being broken during meetings, Hurinren purposefully ramping up his ire and sending his chair sprawling backwards to shatter while he glowered down at someone—often her. It was always quite funny to watch. It was even funnier that whoever organized the meetings often had extra chairs on hand, if Hurinren was expected. It was impossibly funnier when they didn’t have extra chairs, other attendees trying to figure out who should give up their seat.

Was it too forward to offer?

Should they just give their chair to him?

Is it better to leave him standing?

Would they offend someone else by offering first?

“Finally figured out you should be crying? What was it? The comment about how much you’ll bleed? Or about how you might have to have part of your insides cut out, depending on how well you take me?” Prex cooed, and okay, was the man an idiot? From what Emilia had overheard, both through echoes of the man’s ranting as she crept up on them and since sitting down so she could assess the situation, the man’s threats were… terrible and gross, but also weren’t escalating to the point that, suddenly, something he said would break through Xavier’s shell?

Yes, children could break at any moment, and yes, everything the sadist was saying could have added up to finally break the kid, but seriously. Talk about having no self-awareness—or too much confidence. A smarter person would have at least looked around to see if something else within the room changed—after all, for all Prex knew, Xavier could have seen a giant bug or something! How conceited to think only he could possibly bring the boy to tears—although, maybe that had something to do with needing to be the reason Xavier cried or felt fear? Would his cock deflate if he found out it was actually something else entirely? Wilful ignorance was so not a good look—although, it was morbidly funny to imagine the fucker finding out mid-act that the fear wasn’t actually due to him, causing him to lose his erection. Wouldn’t happen—the man was not touching the kid. Still might end up on her list of Things to Potentially Laugh About After Xavier Gets A Shit Ton Of Therapy.

Seriously, though. Obviously, the worst thing about the man was that he was a predator. The fact that he was such a dumbass was definitely up there as well—also, the fact that he kept talking? As much as his chatter was likely to keep him distracted and would help cover her steps as she slipped into the room, the man was annoying.

While she knew she talked a lot, this was just… It wasn’t like she’d ever find out, but a morbid part of her was now wondering if he talked throughout everything he did to his victims.

How horrible—at least from her perspective. Warren’s mummers while he raped her were a memory she could never escape, his sweet words, so at odds with his rough hands and the rocks digging into her back, burned into her brain.

Everything about this moment was liable to be burned into Xavier’s mind, but there would be no touching: Prex was far enough from the little boy, thanks to his pacing, that the man's hands would never touch Xavier again.