Arc X.1 | Chapter 35: Interlude | Project Piketown Infiltration 35

Xavier was trying to listen to Olivier’burat discuss the situation with Louis’burat and Vanessa Van with Alkaniak’ru—he really, really was.

It was hard, however, and as much he loved Louis’burat… Olivier’burat was just so warm! It would have been so easy to fall asleep there, snuggled into the man as he and Alkaniak’ru droned on and on and on about the obscure law Vanessa Van was trying to use to force Louis’burat not to divorce her.

The woman was insane. Had there been a brief moment when they’d all worried the stupid man would backtrack and take his horrible wife back? Yes. Then, a handful of silver-shot eyes had peered up at him, and Louis’burat had melted, the same way he always did when the silverstrain members of their coren'taz'k asked for anything from him.

Louis’burat had a soft spot for kids, and something about holding Iv’ie when he was a colicky baby and being the only one able to soothe him for weeks had burned a love for the boy into his heart. Somehow, that love had reached around to all of the silverstrains—and that wasn’t to say Louis’burat loved the rest of them any less! If anything, Louis’burat obviously loved his new children more than the rest of them; at the same time, he had much better boundaries with them! A bunch of them could get away with anything when it came to Louis’burat because he wasn’t responsible for them the way he was for his own kids, even if Myr’ie and Harr’ie had only been under his guardianship until a few weeks ago.

While Xavier’s own mama was scary when she was in her overprotective mother mode, Louis’burat even went against her wishes sometimes—although, not as much as Emmie'gusht did. No adult was as chill and understanding of Emmie’gusht, and his mama had held a bit of a negative opinion of Emmie’gusht ever since an incident when Xavier and his siblings had been about six. Mostly, Xavier thought the issue was that, were she to go back in time, Emmie’gusht would do the exact same thing; therefore, his mama didn’t like her much. That dislike had only gotten worse with time, and despite not having seen Emmie’gusht in a decade, Xavier knew his mama disliked her even more because of how he and Olivier’burat had reacted to some of the things she’d said about Emmie’gusht being so lax.

The things his mama had said about Emmie'gusht had been bad, and really, his mama was lucky either of them spoke to her at all anymore.

Back when he’d been younger, Xavier had often felt like the only reason his mama even tolerated Emmie’gusht was that she had saved Xavier. Had she just been the person Olivier’burat was in love with and been unable to actually confess his feelings for… Xavier thought his mama would have demanded Olivier’burat never bring Emmie’gusht around again. Then, of course, their lives had become even more entwined by all the children who loved Emmie’gusht above almost anyone else.

Had his friends and cousins needed to choose between Emmie’gusht and him and his siblings, due to his mama demanding Emmie’gusht not be allowed around them anymore, Xavier knew who they would have picked. It didn’t bother him; Xavier would also pick Emmie'gusht over most people. It was a little mean, but he knew he’d pick her over his parents as well, simply because Emmie’gusht would never demand he choose.

“I understand why she’s mad,” Emmie'gusht had once said, shortly before the war, having been yelled out of the house by his mama after Emmie’gusht much more lackadaisical, let the kids mess up, stance on raising and supporting children had once again conflicted with his mama’s own overprotectiveness.

It had been during one of those rare times when Olivier’burat had invited Emmie’gusht to an event of his own volition—usually it was Xavier and his siblings inviting her, or her being an implicit invite due to someone else, like Halen’burat, being invited.

There had been a few months, right before the first battle of the war, when it had felt like Olivier’burat was almost ready to ask Emmie'gusht and Halen’burat to take him back. No one had ever fully explained why Olivier’burat had left them to him, but Xavier could guess. Mostly, he thought Olivier’burat an idiot. He loved the man endlessly. That didn’t mean he wasn’t an idiot when it came to balancing his emotions with his obligations.

If the war hadn’t broken out when it did, almost exactly thirty years ago, Olivier’burat probably would have asked them to give him another chance, as though the answer would have ever been anything but a resounding yes from Emmie’gusht and Halen’burat. Now that Emmie’gusht seemed like she might be coming more fully back into their life… he really hoped Olivier’burat would be able to ask her if she still loved him. Xavier knew she did—Emmie’gusht wasn’t the sort of person to ever stop loving someone.

Them being together more officially would definitely put Emmie’gusht and his mama back in conflict, however. Even after so many decades—and an entire decade of never seeing her and all of them never mentioning when they’d seen Emmie’gusht despite his mama definitely knowing they saw her regularly—his mama still didn’t like Emmie’gusht. In his opinion, some of that animosity was simply because his mama had realized that Emmie’gusht’s take on healing and letting children have their freedom would have been the better option when it came to raising someone like him.

Xavier didn’t resent his mama for her protective nature, but he knew it had likely done more damage than good at times, the woman’s understanding of how trauma worked stymied by the fact that she… didn’t really have any. A bit now, after raising him and lived through the war. Certainly, he had never felt like she had any understanding of what it was like to be a captive or be threatened with severe physical harm.

“I also think that,” the Emmie’gusht of his memory, from when he barely even a preteen, added, her words slow and awkward because sometimes finding words to explain healing and parenting was difficult, “to some extent, there is something… worse about never having experienced true suffering or pain? When you’re interacting with someone who has experienced such things, I mean? I’ve experienced horrific things, and I was on the ground in Lüshan and saw how you all lived. I think… that knowing is terrible, but it also casts everything into focus? I can remember the smell and taste of that place. The horror and fear in your eyes is as fresh in my memory as it was the moment we first saw one another. I also heard that man’s words and felt his hands on me, and it was different for me, but… it makes it easier to understand your pain while also making it clear that no one else’s pain can ever truly be understood?”

Shaking her head, Emmie’gusht had muttered about how she wasn’t explaining it well. Porsq’ha, sitting next to them, the scar on his cheek a white line of only-several-years-old pain in the evening light, had agreed that she was explaining it badly, but he understood.

“I know my father tries to imagine what we went through. He even has memories from a few of you, but even seeing and feeling those memories brought to life in the Virtuosi System isn’t the same. He has never felt hands on his real body, holding him still while someone forces their way inside him, and that’s a good thing, but what he thinks it has done to my mind is nothing like what it has actually done. As much as he understands that everyone experiences everything different, when it comes to those terrible things… I think people have a harder time seeing it? It is easy to think every person who has been sexually assaulted or even threatened with it will behave the same way and want the same support, but we don’t.”

A long sigh had slipped out of Porsq’ha, an utterance that he wasn’t explaining it well either falling out of him before he was turning and burying his nose into Emmie’gusht’s lap. “I think my father and your mama have ended up thinking something like, ‘If I had been through what they’ve been through, I’d want to be protected from everything,’ but that isn’t what either of us want or need.”

Later—much later, during the war—Xavier would ask Emmie’gusht’s father when he learned about her rape. The older man had been quiet for a bit before he admitted that he had suspected something was wrong around the time Rafe’burat started sleeping over almost every night, the dark circles under his daughter’s eyes starting to lessen because she was safe with him—the lack of sleep had been adding up, but it hadn’t been uncommon for Emmie’gusht to stay up late, night after night, while working on something. Only Rafe’burat forcing her to sleep had eased her ability to sleep despite the nightmares constantly coming for her.

“You never tried to protect her?” Xavier had blurted out, belatedly realizing that his question didn’t really make sense.

Miles’gukar got it, though—he had seen the way so many of the children Emmie’gusht had brought into his life over the years were smothered by their parents and guardians, after all. Miles’gukar and Marina’guvar had been responsible for a few of those kids at times, never officially adopting them because they spent so much time with Emmie’gusht in Crishar that many of them were her friends and children and siblings, all at once.

It was complicated, the life their child had brought them, but Emmie’gusht’s parents had never shied away from what she was doing or asking of them, nor had they ever tried to smother her.

“She has people to protect her,” Miles’gukar had replied, his fingers deftly braiding Xavier’s hair because the man loved them and had taken lessons from Halen’burat on doing all of their hair. “Emmie might be my daughter, but I have understood for a long time that her friends, as well as you kids, are the most important people in her life. There were so many people there to protect her… and my little starlight didn’t need to be held down by me the way she was by Warren.”

The way Miles’gukar had said it, Xavier had understood that, at some point, he had learned more solid details of Emmie’gusht’s assault while also likely learning how she and Rafe’burat played together, in part as a way to help her take control of what happened to her.

“I think parents underestimate how much children, especially once they are older, can figure out what they need to feel whole. It’s our job as parents to guide our children and make sure they have the tools to figure out what they need and the ability to ask for help when they need it. Obviously, when you were so young, I can understand your mother being so protective—but the fact that it expanded onto her other children? Perhaps it was to make sure you were all treated the same, but I don’t think it did them, especially, any favours—and now that you are older, and she is still trying to deny you your legal ability to join the war effort?”

The way Miles’gukar had shaken his head had reminded Xavier so much of Emmie’gusht that he’d been unable to stop himself from smiling. Later that day, he and his siblings had each packed a small bag of their belongings and sparked away to join Division 30, leaving their mother to return home and find them gone. Mostly, she’d yelled at his papa, who had stood there and told them he was proud of them as they vanished into the lines of the aether.

Later, his mama had arrived at Division 30’s base, the Shákurn’dæ configured into the flying fortress form it had existed as for the majority of the latter years of the war, to yell at… basically anyone she could find. His mama had wanted her children back; they weren’t coming back with her. They had already delayed joining the unit for over a year, even Porsq’ha’s father relenting and allowing him to join as soon as he turned thirty—a birthday that had thankfully come after Alliance Ridge was destroyed.

Not only had Porsq’ha been nowhere near Alliance Ridge when it was destroyed, but he had also only rarely been subjected to the terrible regular military members who had died there. Porsq’ha, with his terrifying abilities, would not have been welcomed by those people. He would have been so abhorred by them that Emmie’gusht had once admitted that, had they not died, she wouldn’t have let Porsq’ha join their unit; rather, she would have kept him at the Ridge Rind in a research capacity, only forced to deal with them when it couldn’t be avoided.

Emmie’gusht was good at knowing when people actually needed to be protected and when they didn’t. It was part of why they all listened to her, knowing that when she bothered to tell them no, it was important.

Xavier’s mama told him no all the time, even now that he was edging into his mid-forties. It made it difficult to tell, in situations like this, whether he should actually care about her noes or not, his immediate-family relay going wild with her demands to know where he was, what he was doing, and for him to come home, as though that place hadn’t ceased to be his home long ago.

Either way, he would be doing no such thing. Love for his mama or not, he wasn’t a child. Olivier’burat was there with him, and there were dozens of clones lingering within the building, keeping them safe. If he left the building, he would bring a few with him—the clones who were more officially assigned to keep him and his siblings safe had been left with his brother and sister in Crishar, although it seemed his siblings might give in to their mother’s demands to return home, and their clones were more his than theirs; hence, his friends would come to him soon enough because he wouldn’t be going home or giving in to his mama’s demands.

Xavier wouldn’t do it. As much as he knew his mama had never intended to keep him captive with her love, he was an adult, barely more than a season away from attending university, and if he wanted to run wild, he would.