[Can't Opt Out]

Arc F1.8 | Chapter 13: Shut. Up.

Emilia shifted, pressing her foot onto the still-open wall panel—it had refused to shut, although she’d attempted to force the creepy doll back into the wall—and stepping on to it. From her slightly higher vantage point, she could see all of her companions a little better, her glower biting into them. Screaming at her friends—plus Rayleen—did at least help her release some of the stress that had been building within her for the last ten or so minutes. For the barest of breaths, Emilia felt calm. Everything was good. Everything would be fine.

Then, Clemence burst into tears. The girl’s legs gave out, and the next thing Emilia knew, she was vanishing from sight, only her sobs remaining. The only good thing was she was graced with Vern’s horrified experience as Jerrial vanished to kneel beside the sobbing teenager—the man clearly didn’t do crying.

he hissed, edging closer to her, as though intent to get as far from the crying as possible.

she asked, planting a hand on her hip as she glared him down… for about two seconds. Then, she turned about, using her new position to examine the area from a new perspective. While she had little confidence that she would find anything new, it was worth checking.

Vern lied, like the lying liar she was. One sharp glance later, and he was explaining that he was the oldest of several siblings, Clemence’s sobs turning to sniffles as she quieted in an attempt to listen to the man’s story.

The short version: his parents really fucking sucked. It really was quite amazing how universally terrible the majority of parents were. Emilia’s adoptive parents? Great. Loren? Byron? Awesome guardians for their respective pods—as well were a number of other clones. The Laprise moms? Acceptable enough. The Baxter fathers? Could be better, could definitely be worse. Mikhail’s mom? At least she tried and knew her inability to connect with her son was an issue. The majority of her other friends’ parents? Terrible. Some were far worse than others, of course—they would all agree Simeon and Coral’s parents were by far the worst, but almost everyone else’s parents had honourable mentions on the .

As for the Free Coloniers she knew? Most of them were equally terrible. Wander was pretty good, although the fact that Cameron was a bitch be due to his generally busy schedule, and therefore, lack of regular connection with his kid. Most of the other people who popped into her mind, though—Yujao, Hurinren, Averie, the Yu siblings, Meridian—all had terrible to mediocre parents.

The long version of Vern’s story was that his parents had been idiots and had too many kids, resulting in Vern, as the oldest, being left to parent many of them. His parents hadn’t liked crying—like, hadn’t liked it; like, they’d scream at if even the current baby of their family started crying for food.

he said, eyes skipping towards Jerrial’s presumed location on the floor, next to Clemence.

Emilia said, smiling sadly at her friend.

The man shrugged—muttered that it wasn’t something she should be apologizing for. Cultural difference—that brushing off of her expression of sadness for what he’d been for—she supposed… at first, before running back her words and realizing the form of she’d used had placed herself too close to the words than she’d meant to. Vern was correct: she had chosen a form of that implied she had directly caused him harm, and he had probably assumed that given her Lüshanian was a little rusty at times, she either didn’t know the million different ways to say in Lüshanian or had simply messed it up.

she repeated, placing herself further from the words—positioning herself as an observer who was sorry such a terrible thing had happened to him and hoped that he would find peace with it and figure out how to move on in his life.

he muttered in return, his gaze still positioned away from Clemence’s sniffling. It wasn’t exactly helpful when, a moment later, the teenager was popping up beside the man, her watery eyes peering over at Emilia.

the teenager said, her lips wobbling severely enough that Emilia was worried the girl would start sobbing again—something that was liable to cause the fleeing Vern to pass out, given how pale he’d suddenly become.

Poor guy.

Emilia asked, turning her attention more fully onto the teenager.

Jerrial offered. He had also popped back up and was gently patting Vern on the head; for the life of her, Emilia couldn’t figure out if Vern was enjoying the treatment or not, although he showed no sign of attempting to flee further from Clemence.

Shifting her gaze back to the girl in question, Emilia smiled at the kid.

Emilia laughed,

The girl blinked her big eyes at her.

Shrugging, Emilia resumed her searching for way out of this place—seriously, there had to be way through!?

Had she thrown in that friend bit, simply so Clemence would remember that all she was currently consenting to was friendship? Yes, yes she had.

The bing of her xphern going off tugged Emilia’s attention back to the teenager, still watching her. Their eyes met for the barest moment before the girl was shaking herself and tugging Emilia’s xphern from her waist band and frowning down at the message.

Clemence glanced up at her, frowning because that message was a little odd—did it really say What a way to put it; also, why would being depressed keep someone from—

Emilia have screamed when, suddenly, energy split through the playground, beginning to shift and fucking fucks did she not want to be reduced to Emilia mush!