[Can’t Opt Out]

Emilia slipped back into wakefulness, which was significantly better than the abrupt wakings that she’d been experiencing since arriving in this world. Part of why, she imagined, was the shoulder she was leaning against—she’d always fallen out of dreams and nightmares easier with someone next to her.

“Rin?” she croaked, her voice scratching in a way that indicated she’d been asleep far longer than she’d first thought—she certainly didn’t feel like she’d had more than a power nap.

⸂Finally awake?⸃ the other girl asked, her own voice sounding tired—like she hadn’t slept in who knew how long, which, perhaps she hadn't. It would have been rather irresponsible for them both to sleep, even if Emilia had passed out after Rin had left her to her own devices.

“You came back.”

Rin snorted—or, made a sound that Emilia assumed was this world’s equivalent of a snort, and she suddenly wondered if the people here had ever been able to talk. She had tried to ask Key about what other blessings visitors had bestowed on this world, but—much like so many things—he hadn’t really known. It was perfectly possible—likely, even—that the residents of this world had lost their ability to speak through another so-called blessing.

Worse, she supposed, was the possibility that their inability to speak was the result of a blessing much like the last, blood curse one—that it was something unwanted that they had hoped the next blessing would correct. If that were the case… would someone gaining a new blessing even fix the dangerous nature of blood? Or were they stuck with destructive blood magic, now that it had been written into the framework of the world, the only option being to learn to live with it the way locals had learned to live with their lack of ability to speak?

Lack of vocal cords? Emilia wasn’t actually aware of the cause. Not that they simply couldn’t be a population of mute people—she knew a few people who were mute for reasons not related to a physical abnormality.

⸂Of course I came back,⸃ Rin snipped, although her tone lacked any true conviction, as though even she hadn’t been confident she’d return as she stormed off. ⸂Did you do that?⸃

Emilia forced her eyes open, the pale skin of her friend’s neck filling her vision before she turned her head and—

“Uh… no?” she said, straightening up, her back cracking as she groaned and stretched and eyed up the doorway set into the otherwise empty wall.

⸂Are you sure?⸃

“What makes you think I opened it?”

⸂You were passed out when I came back. A short while later, the door opened.⸃

“The door opened while I was unconscious, and you thought that I was somehow responsible for it?”

Rin shrugged, as though the how of how a door had appeared in the otherwise empty hallway wasn’t particularly interesting. ⸂Stranger things have happened. You could have used magic and worn yourself out.⸃

“I don’t have magic.” Not really, anyways. She was pretty sure she could force a bit out of her with her core, but it would be sketchy at best until she gained access to the system. Not to mention potentially dangerous.

Rin’s eyes shifted away from the doorway, which she had been watching intently for who knew how long, her eyes rimmed with an extra dose of sleep-deprived red. ⸂That we know of.⸃

“You think I’m lying?”

The other girl shrugged again, eyes returning to the doorway. She sucked in an odd breath—a suppressed yawn, Emilia realized, trying not to coo at the too cute gesture. ⸂I see neither a reason to trust you outright, nor a reason to distrust you.⸃

Emilia wiggled back and forth, trying to loosen up her tight muscles—not only had she slept in an awkward position, but muscle soreness from all those flights of stairs was starting to set in, her calves clenching around her bones as she scrunched her toes and flexed her ankles. “Risen Guard training?”

⸂Rise Guard training,⸃ Rin agreed, something in her tone tired and telling Emilia that she wasn’t exactly content with how that training had made her inherently untrusting, probably always too aware of her surroundings in a way that must be mentally exhausting.

“I was in the military, during the war,” she offered, eyes skimming over the doorway, trying to find any discernible features. Mostly, it just looked like a section of the wall was suddenly missing. “We had lots of training that fucked with our minds. Even now…” she trailed off, thinking about the way mech raids were messing with heroes’ perceptions of what an enemy was, of how she sometimes found herself falling into that same, tiresome vigilance that her new friend carried with her.

She glanced towards Rin, finding the girl’s eyes on her once again. Emilia smiled cheerfully back at her. “Some of those things are difficult to escape, but if you want to be different, you can be. It gets easier, eventually.”

The former trainee didn’t particularly look convinced—if anything, something in her expression, blank as it was, told Emilia there was something that she didn’t know. That was… slightly concerning. The Risen Guard was out to get her, after all. If there was some secret that Rin was keeping that would put her—not to mention all of Rin’s friends, who she presumably cared more about the wellbeing of than she did Emilia’s—in danger, why wasn’t the girl telling?

Emilia was about to ask—take advantage of the younger girl’s sleepiness to get answers—when Rin pushed herself up.

⸂We should go.⸃

Emilia blinked wildly up at her, mouth falling open slightly as a burst of energy shot out of the girl. It swirled around her, growing as it dragged aether into itself. Rin wobbled slightly, looking like she might fall to the ground asleep at any moment, before the magic pressed back into her.

The girl released a long, drawn out sigh before blinking wide awake eyes down at Emilia, who blinked startled eyes up at her. After a long moment, a hand reached towards her, thin and pale and surprisingly strong when Emilia set her own into it, letting Rin haul her up.

“That was cool,” Emilia said, half-tempted to try letting a bit of her own energy spiral out of her core and into the other girl in an attempt to learn how she had done that—yet another skill she had forced information about out of Zach, not that he’d been inclined to let her try it out on him. She didn’t think Rin would appreciate her searching much, though, and the last thing she needed was to accidentally hurt the other girl with her shit control. “There’s nothing like that in my world. Medics can heal you—give you an aether boost to wake you up—and there are drugs you can take as well. Using your own magic to wake yourself up, though? Not possible, as far as I know—although, I did hear a rumour about something like that in the Free Colonies once?”

Emilia tilted her head, trying to think of where and when she’d heard that. It must have been a long time ago—or when she was stressed or near death—for her to have outright forgotten the source. Usually, her memory for everything important—save directions—was pretty good.

⸂Free Colonies?⸃ Rin asked, glancing down when Emilia hooked their arms together and began walking them towards the doorway.

“Yeah, they’re like… uh… different cities? My guard kinda talked about an us and a them?”

⸂Yes,⸃ Rin agreed. ⸂Our city system is under the purview of a single entity. There are other city systems that exist under other entities.⸃

“He said you don’t have specific names for your cities? Doesn’t that get confusing?” Emilia asked as they hovered outside the doorway. Going through it seemed like the kind of momentous occasion that you worked up to, given the whole mystery doorway that could very well kill them thing.

Rin shook her head, her hair brushing over her shoulders. It wasn’t straight anymore, the chaos of the day having curled the ends slightly and given it a somewhat frizzy look. ⸂It is challenging to explain,⸃ Rin told her, the corners of her mouth pulling down in thought. ⸂There are two city systems bordering ours, but regardless of which is being talked about in conversation, it would be impossible to not know which is being discussed? They are very different.⸃

“So… it’s context-based?” Emilia mulled that over. Some of the Free Colonies were like that. If you were talking about the Free Colony with the tower, you were obviously talking about the Core. If you were talking about the floating Free Colony, the Atrium. Those were just physical features, though. If someone mentioned an authoritarian Free Colony or one that was rampant with religious extremism… there were a few that came to Emilia’s mind in both those cases, and there were so many Free Colonies that no one knew much about.

“What about the other ones? The ones that don’t border yours?”

Rin gave her a slightly puzzled look. ⸂We have no need to communicate with anyone else.⸃

“You don’t have trade routes?”

Rin’s frown deepened into one of true confusion. ⸂We trade between our internal cities. We have everything we need here.⸃

So, that was a no on the trading between different city systems’ thing.

“Do the other cities systems have problems with blood magic?”

For the briefest of moments, Rin’s arm tensed around hers. Something flashed over her face—something alien and other, and definitely not the girl she had just been having a mostly civil conversation with. Then, as fast as the tension had come, it disappeared, the blank faced girl returning and shrugging.

⸂I do not know. I only know we have minimal communication with our neighbours.⸃

Emilia hummed, trying to sound like she totally, completely believed that story. A story that Rin seemed to believe, regardless of whatever that had been.

⸂Free Colonies?⸃ Rin asked, breaking the silence.

“Hm? Oh, yeah!” Emilia cheered, bouncing on her toes as she tried to work out the kinks in her legs and feet. She seriously hoped she got access to the system soon, so she could earn herself some fancy skills and turn herself back into a fitness machine. Zach hadn’t known the most about the system she would gain access to—the one for visitors being different from the one for locals and all—but from what he had known, it would include some nice abilities that would bring her body back up to what she was used to—if not further past the realm of reality.

“The Free Colonies are my world’s neighbour cities? There are other countries further away, as well, although our relations with them are basically just trade—or they were. Things have been strained since they screwed us over during the war? We still trade, to some extent, but it's all pretty… weird? Like, I think the companies that handle the shipments still communicate somehow, but I’m actually not too sure of the details?”

Her face scrunched in thought. Both Seven and Halen’s families had been involved in international trade, but Seven had always been so reticent—so aware of the fact that he was different from every other member of their division—and Halen…

Well, she wasn’t exactly glad Halen was dead, killed in the attack that wiped out most of their division, but he had also been one of the least pleasant people she’d ever met, and she definitely hadn’t mourned the asshole. He’d offered up information on his family’s holdings occasionally, but it had always held too sharp an edge of arrogance and over-exaggeration. She had known Halen most of her life, but could only think of a handful of times when he was actually pleasant, and as a general rule, she had refused to retain virtually anything he ever said—not that she’d always been successful, many of his less savoury jokes and comments written into her memory. There were a few good memories she had retained, however short and rare those moments had been.

She was pretty sure he’d never talked about how trade had worked during the war, however. That would have actually been worth paying attention to. Instead, it had usually just been information about how much money his family had made the last quarter—the war had been obscenely profitable for them.

Emilia glanced back at Rin, finding those muddy eyes watching her with something almost like concern. “What?”

Rin blinked slowly at her, before turning back to stare into the abyss of the doorway. ⸂Nothing. Shall we?⸃

Emilia glared at the door and the ominously empty blackness of the other side. “Do you have gods here?”

⸂Yes. Why?⸃

“Think we should pray to any? Make peace with ourselves and the world?”

⸂What. Why?⸃

“In case we die going into that thing.”

⸂We are not going to die,⸃ Rin insisted, sounding exasperated with her once again. Annoyed was a much better look on her than dead eyed tiredness or whatever those weird, angry mood shifts had been.

“How do you know?” Emilia asked, throwing a dramatic sigh in for effect. “We could walk through that thing and straight into the afterlife—into a never-ending hell, even!”

⸂What is hell?⸃

“Uh… some, like… ancient myth of what awaits you when you die? I think there are some groups in the Free Colonies that revived the belief, but it's not common where I’m from. We just have some ancient manuscripts that mention heaven and hell. They’re pretty degraded, though. From what I understand, it’s supposed to be a scary place where you spend eternity being tortured for the most boring of reasons? One of the manuscripts mentions being gay? Another eating certain types of food, and I’m pretty sure the gods mentioned are— what?” Emilia’s rambling halting as she caught Rin’s eye.

⸂You talk a lot.⸃

“My brain to mouth filter may have been unknotted while I napped.” Payton obviously hadn’t gotten to unknotting the ones that brought that filter back a bit yet, which seemed like a giant oversight on his part.

Rin sighed, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. ⸂The Guard was right. Visitors are exhausting.⸃