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Entry tags:
Girl Genius - Nuée Ardente - OC/OC - 3/9
Sorin dozed all morning in his undershirt, cradled in the tree's branches, sunlight falling on his face and his limbs. He'd taken off his boots, his vest, his shirt, spread them to get them to dry some in the breeze; it was almost like being in a tent, only the roof was dancing leaves.
It felt a bit like a dream. Which was alright, because the last night had felt a bit like a nightmare.
Velimir left at some point, came back with a pocket full of berries and a live frog. Sorin let him have the frog.
"Hyu sure?"
The frog struggled fruitlessly to escape. It was bright, a pretty red and yellow. "Unless you find a way to cook it while up in a tree, yeah, but thanks."
Thirst was more of a problem, but he tried to make do with berry juice. He didn't want to go down to the river until they were ready to leave. Fair bet they'd end up meeting with a, a feral clank or a rogue spark or a bunch of pirates either way; better not to have to do it twice.
"How long are we staying here?"
The Jäger checked the sun, scratched at his chin. Hair was starting to grow there, just as light a blue-green as the hair on his head, lighter than his skin. "Hy vos thinking mebbe later in de afternoon. Or night, even, but by den dey might haff dirigibles out even vith how that make the Baron's people all curious."
"Mm." Sorin looked him over quickly for an insignia he might be wearing, forced his eyes away. The Jäger hadn't bothered to put his ruined clothes back on yet. His chest was -- well, he was hardly going to bother wearing an insignia on bare skin. Sorin really needed to stop accidentally finding himself looking. "You'll be healed?"
A flash of a grin. "Oh, yez. I'll be fine."
"You're -- one of the Baron's, yes? That's... Is that where we're going?"
A frown passed on the Jäger's face, went away. He shrugged and crunched through the frog, which kicked frantically for a second before going limp. Urgh.
"Hy vork fur der Baron, yez. He needs to know vhat hyu lady spark is plotting, Hy think."
Sorin winced. "Um. Probably, yeah. There were a lot of those stone clanks down in the caves. Like... probably more than she'd need to police the town. Even one of those would be a lot to police the town!"
"Pff." The Jäger scuffed his hoof against the trunk, frowning faintly under the brim of his hat. "If dat iz der only thing she iz still fine. Schmott pipple need de toys und fancy weapons. Der problem iz more dat when ve finds out, she vants to kill us. If it vas just a spark invention ting, she'd be fine telling der Baron about it so he ken buy it off her, yah?"
"Mm." Yeah. That hadn't been the reaction of someone who was in any way okay with the news coming out.
By now she knew his name and his family and his job already. He shied away from thinking of how hard it would be to get back to them.
"Where are we going? I mean -- which town?" He bit his lip a little. Local rulers might well side with the Viscountess and hand the two of them right back to her, discreetly.
Frog long since gone, the Jäger looked ready to fall asleep again, hands behind his head and wide-brimmed, dark blue hat tilted down on his face. (The way it made the muscle of his chest -- nrgh. No. Sorin looked away, ashamed.)
"Dunno. Furst vun Hy see de Baron's troop in. Mebbe anodder Jäger pack."
"--Oh, that's right. Where's yours? I thought you guys didn't really travel alone --"
He fell silent suddenly. The Jäger had lifted up his hat, just a little bit, to stare at him with a single, glowing eye.
It wasn't a friendly look. Not an 'appreciative of your fine face' look either, not at all.
"Somevhere" was all Velimir said before tilting the hat back down. Sorin didn't try to keep the conversation going.
His stomach growled quietly; berries weren't going to cut it. He shifted his weight as discreetly as he could, tried to find a good position without reminding the Jäger he existed too much.
Good things to think about, those. Hunger. Soreness. His legs and back were for once hurting more than his arms (not that his arms still hurt much after a day at the forge, not any longer.) He had a nice bruise on his forehead from impacting with the aqueduct the previous evening. Skinned knuckles, he wasn't sure from where. A slightly strained wrist...
... Oh, right. He dug around in his satchel, pulled out his heavy work gloves. He'd been a bit too panicked to think to put them on and protect his hands yesterday, but... Urgh, the inside was damp. Damn, and it was good leather, too. He was hardly going to find any oil to put on them before they got all cracked. He turned them inside out, put them on a branch in a patch of sun, fussed with the positioning to be sure a gust of would wouldn't knock them out of the tree.
He wanted to be home. Right now he'd be at the forge with Master Iliescu and they'd be breaking for lunch, sitting together on the bench in the little courtyard, enjoying the cooler air. It didn't feel good to feel the breeze right now when he was damp and underdressed. He'd live, but.
He wanted to be home, not in deathly danger, not to have caught the Mistress of Vulkanburg at anything that made him lose trust in her ruling hand, not to have gotten run out of home, not to have seen Rozalia --
"Hyu think any harder, hyu brain iz fit to explode."
The Jäger was scratching his bare stomach with a negligent, clawed, too-big hand.
Sorin tore his eyes away from the flat expanse of his belly, the still-strange trail of lighter-colored pubic hair on that blue-green skin. "Well, sorry, I can't turn it off at will to take a convenient nap!"
"I ken turn it off for hyu."
Sorin recoiled, glaring. "I don't need to be knocked out! My skull is not that tough, okay? I got hit there already, once is enough."
Velimir lifted the brim of his hat enough to show both eyes blinking long and lazy. "Hy vos thinking more of kissink, but hey, honest mistake."
... Yeah, so, Sorin was blushing again, and it was only half because he felt flustered. Had he managed to insult him again? Wincing, he peered at him, trying to guess. The Jäger sat up, nudged his hat back so that it perched at a precarious-looking angle, legs crossed at the... was that an ankle? Sorin was going to call it an ankle.
"It ken be kissing or it ken be ameliorated kissing, like with de hands going places and everyting."
Okay. Not insulted. Or more horny than insulted, at any rate. Sorin spluttered. "I can't kiss you!"
"Vhy? Hyu mouth works fine. Und hyu already know Hy don't bite."
He was leaning in. Still sitting in the same spot but the tree was not that big and he was looming over Sorin's boot-less ankle, hand hovering like he was planning to touch it.
Which was admittedly pretty tame, it was just --
"I have to get married."
The Jäger blinked, tilted his head, the hat wobbling dangerously. "Usually it's der gurls vith mean poppas who get told dey gots to be virgins or else. Hyu mean hyu got a gurl already?"
"No! Uh. Not really, but--" Argh! Velimir's lips were pinched and his eyelids heavy like he was contemplating his sense and sanity and finding them lacking, which from a Jäger was particularly irritating.
"So it's not that hyu dun want to." He arched his eyebrows, still staring, a clear 'yeah, I thought so.'
... Urgh. Now Sorin's face was scarlet. He glared at him, as much as he could. The man be damned for being so right.
"I'll have to get married at some point. How am I meant to do that if I know -- I mean -- marriage is for children and family, and when I'm past being an apprentice then I can't keep living with my parents, and if you don't get married then it's -- it's pretty lonely and. It's weird if you don't. And I like girls fine as partners and friends and everything but how am I meant to be happy like that if I know -- if..."
He couldn't finish. His throat had knotted up and it ached.
"Am I meant to cheat?"
Velimir blinked at him blankly for a minute, looking baffled. "Whaddya -- oh."
And then he grinned.
"Jah, Hy get hyu, Jäger is a tough act to follow! Effry act of luv after that, so boring, so bland--"
"If you finish I'm going to hit you in the face."
"Oh-ho!"
"With my tools."
Velimir's grin widened so much Sorin wondered briefly how the top of his head didn't just fall off.
"Get a sveetie who likes de gurls, und good friends who do de same, und you ken swap under de cover ov de night. It all vork out!"
"Sweet lightning, you are perverted."
Velimir was still grinning fatuously. "He still iz not Jägerkin, but mebbe good enough to haff some fun, eh? A little fun. Mine fun vould be bigger, but too much of a good thing--"
Sorin briefly contemplated jumping off the tree, head first. He gave the Jäger a jaundiced look, head in his hands and elbows on his knees, curled up half because the discussion was so bad it was painful and half because the man was putting ideas in his head, and they were sadly enough not staying up there. Traitorous body. "You're trying to get me to kiss you to shut you up, aren't you?"
"Is it vorking?"
Yes. "No."
Velimir deflated, long ears flopping down sadly. "De sacred technique passed down by mine elders! Foiled. Hy vill haff to tell Heiderich. De stain on his honor..."
Sorin gave up holding back his laughter. "You're impossible."
"Nah, chust unlikely. Der Masters ken do a lot ov that."
"By which I mean, you'd better kiss me before I change my mind. Keeping on talking would probably do it."
The Jäger had been leaning in a little bit already, but suddenly he was in Sorin's space, hovering over him, forehead so close Sorin could feel the brim of the thrice-damned hat. His hands were planted on both sides of his thighs and the look on his face --
He'd been pretending, earlier. Playing harmless, playing silly.
That look was a hunting one through and through. Measuring. Hungry.
"Um."
"Say no. I stop."
He'd dropped most of the accent, so it didn't deform his words so much. It didn't make his voice any less ... oh.
"Okay," Sorin whispered. "Um. No -- no groping though? Just--"
"Okay."
A quick flick of a reassuring smile, and he leaned the rest of the way in.
He was a bit slower this time -- perhaps wary of spooking Sorin again -- but it didn't make it any less intense. Sorin could feel his body heat through the space between them, was immensely aware of its closeness, of how little it would take for that body to surge against him. (Of how much he wished it would.)
Sorin kissed back, lips parting without thought. He raised a hand, hesitated, then he thought that a Jäger wasn't going to appreciate hesitation and restraint, and slipped it around the back of Velimir's neck. The Jäger shuddered, growled.
He mumbled against his mouth, "Is that not--"
"Squeeze."
Sorin had pretty strong hands. Came from working with hammers and big bars of heated metal that couldn't be allowed to skitter off. By the time the Jäger's purr had softened, gone from hungry to satisfied, his fingers were starting to ache.
"Thought we weren't groping," he said half-teasingly, and kissed Velimir again.
Velimir snorted against his mouth, nipped his upper lip. "Hy can't. Hyu can."
Sorin smiled a little despite himself. "Pff." He tightened his grip, relaxed and shifted it, squeezed again. He didn't need to be touching Velimir to feel the shiver running down his spine.
"Hff -- nize hands. Bet hyu giff awesome massages."
"I'd break my fingers on you," Sorin countered, and tugged him a little closer to deepen the kiss. He slipped his arm around his neck, touched his hair cautiously. It felt... pretty much like normal hair.
It was crazy the number of stupid random thoughts that could come into his mind while he was busy melting under a superior -- if really strange -- specimen of manhood.
"You'd better not be radioactive."
"Mm?"
"Your nostrils are glowy too."
Velimir sputtered right against him and burst out laughing. (Sorin bit his lip so he wouldn't follow him and discreetly wiped some spittle off his face.)
Then the Jäger stuck out his tongue. In the shade of the hat it glowed too.
"All mine muco... wet fleshy parts do that." He leaned back a few inches so he could smile down at Sorin. Sorin smiled back helplessly. "Hy ken stop, but Hy need to think about it, so if Hy dun glow at least a leetle bit, hyu are doing de sexy thing wrong."
"And it's not radioactive?"
"It's not radioactive. Hy'm like sum entirely non-radioactive und delicious glow-mushroom thing."
"Oh, good." He stared at Velimir, wondering what to do now. The Jäger was still hovering over Sorin, but the mood was a bit... Well he wouldn't mind keeping on kissing, he just didn't -- did Velimir still want to?
"Hy do haff de one mushroom," Velimir purred. Sorin planted a hand on his face and shoved him off.
"Congratulations, you've cured me of being an invert," he groaned.
Chuckling, the Jäger dived back in to steal a peck, and found himself a precarious perch to lounge on his side beside him. He was draped across several thin branches, with large gaps between them, and Sorin foresaw an accident.
"Giff me a half-hour vit mine hands und hyu nethers und Hy can invert hyu again."
Sorin huffed, biting the inside of his cheek quite vigorously. "I'm not interested in moldy crotches," he said with as much dignity as he could and a quick glance stolen at the line of pale green curls climbing to the Jäger's bellybutton, "but thank you."
"Hoy!" Velimir made a kicked puppy face, ears drooping limply. "It's almost entirely mine hair und hardly any mold at all."
Groaning and laughing together, Sorin looked up at the uncaring heavens, made a pleading motion with his hands. "I give up."
"Score!"
"I give up on ever kissing you again, before you give me pond scum."
"Oops. That might be too late."
"... Would it hurt you if I shoved you off the tree?"
Velimir's smile was bright like the sun. "Hyu ken try. Hy might even not drag hyu along vith me."
--
They were in the tree until the middle of the afternoon, and then suddenly following an internal timer that Sorin did not understand Velimir was making him gather his things and shrugging his shredded shirt and uniform jacket back on. They wouldn't be much protection for his back, Sorin thought to himself as he buttoned up his own vest. Then again, at least they would give him long sleeves, and retain some warmth. Too bad Sorin had no needle and thread in his satchel, and even worse that there wasn't enough cloth left to sew the holes closed regardless.
"Is your back--"
The Jäger clicked his tongue, scanning the ground around the tree. "Mine back iz fine. Quick quick."
Sorin frowned as he stuffed his still-damp gloves back in his satchel -- and then, thinking better of it, pulled them out and put them on. The leather scraped against the scabs on his hands, but it was better than no protection at all.
"If the enemy is approaching you should tell me."
Velimir stared at him, arched a pale eyebrow. "So hyu vill run without looking und fall or get caught?" He sighed through his nose, waved Sorin down. Sorin closed his mouth and glared instead of replying something blistering. "De enemy is not approaching. De enemy just passed uz. We follow, quiet-like, yes? Dey vill not look where they just looked."
"Huh! That's smart--"
"Hsst, bite hyu tongue!"
"--but risky." Sorin blinked. "Um?"
"Hy iz not schmott! Iz not mine bizness to be schmott. Iz chust sum old trick Hy learn from sum old-timer."
Velimir's accent had thickened so much Sorin had a bit of a hard time understanding him for the first second. He was scowling, too, and maybe even pouting a little. His lips had gone extra-glowy.
"I just mean, it's pretty dangerous--"
A wild, toothy grin. "Und if Hy haff to whittle down der enemy, oh vell. Beink at de back iz useful like dot. Ach! No more talk. Horry op now."
Sorin laced up his boots, nodded. "I'm readyyyyohmygod."
That utter jerk had just swung him over his shoulder, and then right out off the tree. It was a miracle Sorin didn't yell, though he did start to hyperventilate a little when the ground started swinging under them and the Jäger dropped down to another branch.
They were on the ground in under a minute, and then he was leading the way at a long, easy lope that Sorin had to jog fast to follow. His tools clanged a bit in his satchel until he thought to stuff his wadded-up handkerchief in between them, and when he looked up Velimir was almost gone from sight between the trees. Sorin's heart kicked up and he went racing after him. That jerk. That complete, utter jerk.
It was a good thing he was nice to look at.
(Apart from the thing where Sorin did not need the temptation, but in the short term it was probably better than having no distraction.)
--
They followed the search party at a cautious distance for the rest of the afternoon. Sorin felt queasy with tension, hyperaware of every snapped branch, every whisper of voices brought by a gust of wind through the leaves. Usually they stayed at the edge of Velimir's senses, and Sorin had to make do with nothing but pure trust and his own frayed nerves, but sometimes the search party would encounter a knot of predators or an old trap and be delayed, and they'd accidentally catch up a bit.
Velimir didn't look impatient, or eager to go and fight. He looked calm, a little interested, like someone taking a walk in a pretty garden. It made Sorin resent him a little, but then again he was a Heterodyne construct made expressly to wage war, one who'd asked to become a Heterodyne construct made to wage war, he wasn't going to react normally to these things.
It made him feel weird -- reassured, but uneasy too. The monster was on his side.
It was still a monster.
Not quite as monstrous as the huge badger with goggles and a robotized maw who burst out of his hidey-hole pretty much under Sorin's feet, though. Sorin's yelp was cut short by horror that he'd attract attention, and the next second Velimir had whirled around and landed on the thing's back; Sorin threw himself into the bushes to get out of the way as the Jäger clawed himself a way to its throat.
It was noisy as it died, kicking and shredding the earth with massive, serrated claws, shrieking in outrage.
It hadn't even finished thrashing in its death throes before Velimir was yanking him out of the thorns by the upper arm and dragging him along -- straight for the river.
Something crashed in the bushes in the direction of the search party, someone yelled, "Over there!", and Sorin put everything he had into his legs, trying to follow the Jäger. Why hadn't Velimir picked him up to run ahead, they'd be in the water by now --
They burst out of the bushes onto the riverbank. Velimir shoved him to the side. "Up a tree. Go."
Stumbling, Sorin went. There were no trees in Vulkanburg save small, frail pear trees, ferociously defended from the children. He might not have thought he could climb if he hadn't had terror pushing him and refusing him the time to worry about it.
He could hear yells behind him, crashing noises, the discharge of some kind of energy weapon. He turned to look as soon as he could, a dozen feet over the ground.
Three spider clanks ridden by the Viscountess' guards, check. Three stone clanks with the lava cannons, check. One of the spider clanks was already melted through by the cannon Velimir had stolen off a stone clank.
The spider's riders were... he couldn't see very well. There were leaves in the way.
It was a brutal fight. The rocks and roots slowed the stone clanks down; they were heavy, awkward. The spiders were more of an immediate concern.
Velimir obviously agreed, because the first thing he did after dumping the lava cannon was to jump on top of one and --
-- oh god.
Sorin knew if they were caught the people hunting them weren't going to give them a spanking and ground them. He also knew Jäger were killers.
The unthinking ease with which the Jägermonster broke the driver's neck, thrust his hand through the gunner's chest--
That hand had cupped Sorin's hip, careful, gentle, touched his face, reassuring. It burst out from under the man's ribs coated in wet red, disappeared again with a brutal yank.
Two spiders down. The stone clanks waved their cannons awkwardly, like they'd been programmed not to aim at those and didn't know what to do.
The rattle of a gun startled him into taking cover behind the trunk. Leaves flew -- nowhere near him, the first time, and then so close bark rained on his head. Someone was yelling --
Someone was silent.
Three stone clanks left. He swallowed bile and told himself he could peek out again now, there was no one to shower him with bullets anymore.
He was just in time to see one of the stone clanks' cannons gush out a thick stream of lava across several trees, his included. The heat was like a slap to the face. The bark caught fire a whole foot over the places where the lava had touched, where it was still gouging itself a way in. Sorin felt the tree sway, and jumped without a thought for the height into the nearest bushes, scrambled frenetically to get away from the falling trunk.
The bushes were on fire. There was a black furrow in the earth, rocks melting. The smoke was thick and dark, everything too green and wet to burn clean.
He went around, toward the river -- he wanted the water near by if he needed to put himself out -- hunched over, trying to be discreet. If one of the clanks came after him...
Velimir was still fighting. Sorin, a bit late, realized with a brief bout of nausea that he might well have been lying there burned to death under the spray. Either the clank couldn't aim or he'd dodged.
Two of the stone clanks were on the ground, one of them ... was it missing its head? The other one had broken limbs and was fruitlessly trying to get back up.
The third one ran right past Sorin's hiding place charging at Velimir, who stood trapped by the flank of a fallen spider and the river.
Only not so trapped, because at the last second he lifted the long point of a spider clank's leg, braced it against the spider, and let the clank impale itself on it. The impact was thunderous, metal screeching, crumpling. Sorin moved closer -- he couldn't see a thing, only the stone clank standing right next to the metal; was there any space left for a flesh body in between -- oh.
Velimir had fallen into a low crouch underneath, was thoroughly un-crushed.
He braced against the metal wall, planted a hoof in the stone clank's crotch, and heaved.
The clank stumbled back like it had gone boneless, stupid.
Something red and fire splashed out, splashed the Jäger's sleeve, the ground, which smoked, started to burn, and Velimir swore and started pushing the leaking clank toward the river to put it out--
"No!"
Sorin burst out of the bushes, ran teeth gritted at the idiot Jäger who stood there staring at him.
He thought Velimir wasn't expecting some nervous little townie to ram him with a shoulder and knock him straight into the river. The stone clank wavered for another few seconds, allowing him to hurry out of range, and fell, thankfully short of the water. Sorin stepped farther back, legs shaking with nerves, feeling the dry heat of the leak on his face.
"Wot vas that for?!"
"You ever breathe in superheated steam, dumbass?! Do you want scalded lungs?! Do you want to be blind?!" Sorin took in a deep, shuddering, furious breath. The lava was still crawling toward the water, though it had started to darken. "Get a rock, scrape as much of it as you can off your wound --" he swallowed thickly, trying not to imagine the wound such a splash would leave, when a small splatter had left holes in his back. "You don't get infections, do you?"
Velimir gave him a slow, eyebrows-arched blink. "No."
"Good." The water was too dirty for burn wounds. Better than nothing. He turned away to check on the fire; they still had a few avenues of escape, and he didn't think the fire would go far, the trees were too green in this season...
He hoped, at least, he -- god, what if they burned down the forest, what if that was the only way to cover their escape (so selfish, all those animals, the hunters who depended on them, the precious wood--), what if it killed them.
Behind him the water moved, hooves stepped on the rocks. He didn't turn around.
"How bad is it?"
"Hy'll heal."
So, pretty bad. Fuck. Fuck.
"Mebbe not today, though."
Now he was even admitting it. Sorin glanced at him, saw the casual (not) way his too-large hand clenched on the drenched, blackened mess of his other forearm.
"We need to pick out the cloth and stone debris," Sorin managed to push out past dry lips. God, he was so done, he wanted to be done.
"Not here. Come on, keed."
Velimir went to one of the fallen spider clanks, peered -- at the corpses?
"What are you doing."
"Looking fur food. Warm clothes. A knife for hyu, mebbe."
"I've got it," Sorin said (he didn't want to get it) and pushed past him, pulled himself up into the open cockpit. The bodies were still dripping. He checked them for (nausea rose) personal weapons, food, things.
He found a bag with rations, a little string purse with some money in it. No weapon. Maybe in the next clank...
"Let's go. It'll attract attention soon enough."
"... Yeh, hokay."
They started walking. Sorin pretended he couldn't see Velimir keeping his arm folded against his chest, fingers limp.
About ten minutes later Velimir asked, casual as you please, "by de way, hyu okay?"
Sorin breathed in through his nose, ignored him. The Jäger peered at him.
"Hoy, sveethart--"
"Of fucking course I'm not okay!" he snarled, whirling around on the spot, a hand clenching on the strap of his satchel. The bag thudded against his bruised ribs; he didn't even care. "I'm going to die in these thrice-cursed woods and my family will never even know what happened!"
The Jäger stopped walking, stared. Sorin threw a hand up in frustrated rage. He had the brief desire to punch him, but then he thought of the wound, and how that wouldn't be right. (A second later he thought that even injured a Jägermonster could probably lay him flat in a hot second, if he dared.)
"I bet no one ever bothers to tell them if I died, or if I just decided to abandon them one night for no reason, and meanwhile my bones will be rotting here! I bet my parents will cry, and my sister won't because she needs to be strong for them, and she'll never cry, and--"
And.
And. He wanted to go home.
He couldn't.
"Ah, cripes." He turned away, hurrying to wipe his eyes before anything incriminating could overflow. He missed, or maybe he was still crying and couldn't stop.
"Hokay, hyu need to schtopp dat real fast-like," the Jäger told him, and he tensed all over again until he realized the words had sounded less irritated or dismissive than panicky. "Vhen someting is bad Hy drink or Hy get laid, but--"
Sorin rubbed his eyes dry on his glove, sighed through his nose. Urgh, he was already snotting up. "I'm not asking you to do anything about it. You've done enough already."
"Ho, good." A pause. "...Vas it good?"
He breathed out, felt around his satchel for the handkerchief to blow his nose. He was tempted to say something uncharitable. His life had been so normal before the Jäger.
It wouldn't be true, though. He'd gone spying on the Mistress well before Velimir even showed up, with absolutely no outside pressure. "Yeah," he said, voice rough, back still turned. "You did save my life. Several times. I just wish you didn't have to."
"Vell, Hy dun mind rescuing a cutie like hyu," Velimir said, forcibly cheerful. "Comes with der nice perks--"
Sorin met his eyes then, stared wordlessly.
"... Hokay, Hy schtopp."
"Mnh."
He started walking again. After a second, Velimir fell into step with him. Neither one of them talked for a little while.
"How far vould hyu say to de next town?" Velimir asked, a little quiet, serious for once.
"Uh -- I don't know for sure, usually we don't go on foot..."
"Giff me an approximate. Hy know dere is one down this river, but Hy'm not a local boy. Ve vas stationed on der other side ov Vulkanburg."
Chewing thoughtfully on his lip, Sorin tried to figure out an estimate. They'd walked pretty fast... On the other hand they'd gone through the woods and all their little valleys and hills, not on the nice, mostly flat, paved road, and the river didn't really flow straight.
"There's Schwarzburg, but it'll be at least six hours away. Maybe even ten. Otherwise it's just a few small villages lost in the mountains, and we won't find them if we're not on the road to see where it branches out."
He hesitated. He kind of didn't really want to think about the future, when it was a lot of fretting and zero actual solutions. If Velimir had ideas, though...
"What did you have planned? I don't think they have a garrison..."
"Jah, they don't." A careless shrug -- and then a subtle twitch, when the burnt arm was jostled. "Not ov de Baron, at least. But good local militia, though dey won't help Jägerkin vithout de Baron's seal. Too much of de trouble und most ov it not in their weight class. But dey vill defend civilians, und it'll be too much trouble vhen it gets reported if your madgirl attacks dem anyvays."
Sorin blinked. "Uh. Okay?"
Velimir inclined his head, quirked him a small, close-mouthed smile. "If hyu hide dere und find new clothes, new job, und Hy keep going und making a mess, she follow me. Then hyu can get a job dere, or join a caravan fur somevhere else, belike."
Sorin's stomach tightened with a brief burst of anxiety. Velimir could be terrifying, but being alone... "--Oh. But how will you find me again, I mean, if I leave for another town--"
"Hy von't," he replied simply. "Hyu tell me vhat huy see, und Hy tell der Baron. Later hyu hear de story when de Mistress falls from power und hyu know hyu ken go home."
"...Oh."
"Mebbe a week, mebbe three month. Mebbe a year, even, but Hy vill be surprised. Der Baron dun like de long sieges, thinks dey'z boring."
"Oh."
He kept walking through a tall patch of grass, eyes on the ground. He could just... stop at the next town. Just get there, and then it'd be over -- well, he would still have to hide, to lay low, he wouldn't get to be home by tomorrow, but...
End the chase, the constant terror, the raw nerves. Sleep somewhere safe. Eat something warm, even. He had some money from the dead men, and he still had his tools and might find a few jobs here and there... Without a letter of introduction from master Iliescu it would be hard to find a solid position, but if it was just supposed to last for a few weeks...
He thought fleetingly about the possibility that Velimir just wanted the intel, and would then abandon him in the forest and speed ahead. He did have a mission to accomplish, and no real reason to give a damn, save that he hadn't tumbled Sorin yet.
It didn't even sound likely. The horrible flirting was mostly insincere, he was sure, but there had been flashes of actual niceness, actual care, enough of them that he didn't...
Why would he bother to clown around to put Sorin at ease, when Sorin might push himself harder on the road if he was more scared of him?
"We should clean out your wound," he said, which was blatant avoidance but Velimir let it stand, let him lead the way down a slope to a small rock to sit on, beside a tiny creek that snaked its way to the river.
He took off his gloves, stashed them away, washed his hands and his file and his smallest tongs in the water. He didn't watch as Velimir tore the sleeve off his jacket, and then off his shirt.
"Hyu iz not de type to faint, are hyu?" Velimir mused, peering at his wound. Sorin closed his eyes tight and braced for extreme grossness.
"Let me guess, rock imbedded everywhere in it?"
"Und cloth. Und lots of charred things." A thoughtful pause. "Und Hy think Hy see a bit ov bone..."
"Smashing."
"Haha, Hy did smash 'em preddy gud, huh."
Sighing and forewarned, Sorin went about cleaning the horrorshow.
The wound was horrific. The cooled lava was the least of it. Charred black to the bone in a couple of places, Sorin wound up scraping carbonized flesh out until he uncovered meat that still bled.
One fleck of rock had fused to the bone -- or imbedded itself in it -- and he could not get it out no matter how hard he made himself pull with his tongs. He would have broken a normal person's arm long ago, yanking that hard, but the Jäger just sighed and told him to leave it, that he knew a dozen of his friends who were going around still wearing the bullets people had tried to kill them with and he didn't see why stone would be any more of an issue.
"Didn't a doctor try to get them out?" Sorin asked, frowning in concentration as he used Velimir's boot knife to cut out -- urgh -- a bit of cloth that had already been healed over and through.
"... No." A shrug, jarring the arm. Sorin tssked. "Not worth der trouble."
"Pff." It helped that Velimir didn't react when he cut into him; he could manage to work on it like he would a chunk of mutton for dinner. Every time he remembered it was a living person he was turning to lace... It was a good thing he had no interest in becoming a surgeon, because the mild but persistent nausea would have disqualified him. "What's worth the trouble, losing a hand? Your head?"
"Ho! Dat's a goot question. Depends on der head."
He wagged his eyebrows. Sorin briefly considered poking him in the wound, and then -- peered, under the shade of his hat, found his eyes tight at the corners, faintly strained.
"--You do feel the pain, don't you."
Another shrug. "Iz good. Mean de flesh still lives. It can heal. No pain fur a Jäger is not smart. Ve is stupid about fighting already. Master Carmine said--"
Sorin waited, but the story didn't seem to be forthcoming. "Yeah?"
"...Nah. Hy iz not Jägerkin yet vhen he goz up against der Unseen Empire. Dey haff lava cannons too. Hy alvays vant to shoot vun. Happy times!"
His accent had thickened again. He smiled down at Sorin, and tried to flex his arm. Sorin slapped his knee and told him to stay put.
The disjointed bits of story made him feel a bit strange. It was like Velimir wanted to talk about things, but he -- well. They weren't really friends, were they. Sorin was just a civilian he'd picked up on the way.
He probably missed his pack. Or was in more pain than he let on. Or both.
"The cave under the town was at least two miles across," he said abruptly, and turned on his heel to wash the shirt sleeve in the river. "Probably more, I couldn't see. I saw... six, seven squads of stone clanks. Ten to a squad, I think. And when Rozalia came in she had a letter that confirmed some kind of weapon had had effects that were felt in Plovdiv. The Viscountess sounded really happy about that. She went all sparky... you know. Bwahaha, my reign of terror approaches."
He twisted water out of the mangled sleeve, went back to the Jäger's arm, started cleaning the wound. Blood flowed more freely now. He twisted blood out into the river, rinsed the cloth, made another pass for debris or dust or anything that should be cleaned out.
"Plovdiv, huh," Velimir mused. "Dat is a big weapon. Verra unsporting. Bah."
Sorin nodded over the arm he was now bandaging. "I don't know what the hell she's thinking."
He tied a knot as well as he could -- it wouldn't be sterile, but they had nothing to disinfect with anyway, he mostly wanted to keep new dirt out of the wound.
When he finished washing his hands and looked up from his crouch he found Velimir staring at him, head a little tilted. The shade of his hat made his eyes hard to read.
"... Yes?"
"She iz not hyu mistress, iz she."
Sorin frowned, confused. "Wha -- the Viscountess? She is the protector of Vulkanburg--"
"No, Hy mean she iz not hyurs." A thoughtful pause. "Hyu is not hers. Hyu just live there."
"I guess so," Sorin admitted after a moment's thought. "It's not like we ever see her around and most of her policies are kind of... They happen, it's like the weather, there's no discussion possible, but she's not unreasonable most of the time, so I have no reason to think much about her."
Velimir got back up, tried to flex his hand; Sorin scowled at him and tried to figure out how to use the abandoned jacket sleeve to make a sling. In the end he had to slit it in two lengthwise and knot the two bits together.
"Aw, too bad. Dere's good job security in minioning," Velimir said, falsely serious. "Until someting explodes, but in de meantime hyu iz verra happy."
"Urgh." He almost put the sling around the Jäger's neck himself, then paused to consider the hat, then realized with some embarrassment that personal space was still a thing that existed and Velimir still had one good arm perfectly up to the task. "Here, you should put that on. And I can't even really imagine myself so gone on someone that I need to follow them around and -- "
Um. Yes. Heterodyne construct here. Loyalty had probably been engineered in; when it wasn't there it often was because the attempt had failed, not because it hadn't been made at all.
"Pff." Velimir draped the sling over his shoulder and caught the other end, tried to use his injured hand to make a knot. Sorin stepped back in.
"Short enough?"
"Yeah. Good. Maybe hyu has not met the one," he added, teasing.
He was standing very close. His smile was, as Sorin was -- not fast enough -- getting used to, stuck on flirtatious. Ears heating up, Sorin made sure to pay attention to the knot, to make it solid as possible. "Nah, I really don't think the minion thing is for me. I mean, I can imagine admiring and respecting people but not to the point that I'm going to stop leading my own life to follow them around. Um... Does that offend you, or...?"
"Nah." Velimir settled his arm in the sling, only a little bit cautious, tugging on the cloth to spread out the supported area. Sorin stepped out of his space. "Ve iz following der Masters becauz they leed us vhere ve vant to go in de first place." A pause. "Then again... Ve did vant to go where they go but vas it them who gave us the want first, hy ken't tell."
They blinked at each other for a second.
"Eh. Doesn't matter. Iz fun. So vhat vere you doing in der tunnels then?"
Sorin spluttered. "What?"
"Hyu vas not minioning. So?"
Oh, blast it. "Does it even matter?" he said, looking away for anything he might have forgotten to pick up and put away. "I was just conveniently around to see something weird and I went to check it out. it was more than I bargained for. The end."
The Jäger leaned in to peer at him, the brim of his hat brushing Sorin's wild curls. "Hmmm. Hokay! Hy sure know from falling into weird thingz all accidental-like. All vit de oops und all."
Sorin groaned. "Shouldn't we get going? Before another search party finds us?"
"Shore ting." He waggled his eyebrows. "Naughty boy, out after hyu bedtime, und not effen fur hyu spark."
"Your accent thickens when you're being a jerk, do you know that?"
Toothy grin, eyes positively sparkling. "Ho yez. Iz nize hyu noteeced."
Sorin glared weakly and then let his shoulders slump. "Oh, good," he said. "Glad you're aware -- whoa!"
Suddenly he was being slung over the Jäger's shoulder. What. No. What.
"Ve run!" Velimir said cheerily, and bounced straight across the stream.
It took Sorin ten minutes of squirming and complaining about his ribs before Velimir would consent to stop long enough for Sorin to climb on his back instead. Sorin didn't even attempt to convince him to let him walk.
It felt a bit like a dream. Which was alright, because the last night had felt a bit like a nightmare.
Velimir left at some point, came back with a pocket full of berries and a live frog. Sorin let him have the frog.
"Hyu sure?"
The frog struggled fruitlessly to escape. It was bright, a pretty red and yellow. "Unless you find a way to cook it while up in a tree, yeah, but thanks."
Thirst was more of a problem, but he tried to make do with berry juice. He didn't want to go down to the river until they were ready to leave. Fair bet they'd end up meeting with a, a feral clank or a rogue spark or a bunch of pirates either way; better not to have to do it twice.
"How long are we staying here?"
The Jäger checked the sun, scratched at his chin. Hair was starting to grow there, just as light a blue-green as the hair on his head, lighter than his skin. "Hy vos thinking mebbe later in de afternoon. Or night, even, but by den dey might haff dirigibles out even vith how that make the Baron's people all curious."
"Mm." Sorin looked him over quickly for an insignia he might be wearing, forced his eyes away. The Jäger hadn't bothered to put his ruined clothes back on yet. His chest was -- well, he was hardly going to bother wearing an insignia on bare skin. Sorin really needed to stop accidentally finding himself looking. "You'll be healed?"
A flash of a grin. "Oh, yez. I'll be fine."
"You're -- one of the Baron's, yes? That's... Is that where we're going?"
A frown passed on the Jäger's face, went away. He shrugged and crunched through the frog, which kicked frantically for a second before going limp. Urgh.
"Hy vork fur der Baron, yez. He needs to know vhat hyu lady spark is plotting, Hy think."
Sorin winced. "Um. Probably, yeah. There were a lot of those stone clanks down in the caves. Like... probably more than she'd need to police the town. Even one of those would be a lot to police the town!"
"Pff." The Jäger scuffed his hoof against the trunk, frowning faintly under the brim of his hat. "If dat iz der only thing she iz still fine. Schmott pipple need de toys und fancy weapons. Der problem iz more dat when ve finds out, she vants to kill us. If it vas just a spark invention ting, she'd be fine telling der Baron about it so he ken buy it off her, yah?"
"Mm." Yeah. That hadn't been the reaction of someone who was in any way okay with the news coming out.
By now she knew his name and his family and his job already. He shied away from thinking of how hard it would be to get back to them.
"Where are we going? I mean -- which town?" He bit his lip a little. Local rulers might well side with the Viscountess and hand the two of them right back to her, discreetly.
Frog long since gone, the Jäger looked ready to fall asleep again, hands behind his head and wide-brimmed, dark blue hat tilted down on his face. (The way it made the muscle of his chest -- nrgh. No. Sorin looked away, ashamed.)
"Dunno. Furst vun Hy see de Baron's troop in. Mebbe anodder Jäger pack."
"--Oh, that's right. Where's yours? I thought you guys didn't really travel alone --"
He fell silent suddenly. The Jäger had lifted up his hat, just a little bit, to stare at him with a single, glowing eye.
It wasn't a friendly look. Not an 'appreciative of your fine face' look either, not at all.
"Somevhere" was all Velimir said before tilting the hat back down. Sorin didn't try to keep the conversation going.
His stomach growled quietly; berries weren't going to cut it. He shifted his weight as discreetly as he could, tried to find a good position without reminding the Jäger he existed too much.
Good things to think about, those. Hunger. Soreness. His legs and back were for once hurting more than his arms (not that his arms still hurt much after a day at the forge, not any longer.) He had a nice bruise on his forehead from impacting with the aqueduct the previous evening. Skinned knuckles, he wasn't sure from where. A slightly strained wrist...
... Oh, right. He dug around in his satchel, pulled out his heavy work gloves. He'd been a bit too panicked to think to put them on and protect his hands yesterday, but... Urgh, the inside was damp. Damn, and it was good leather, too. He was hardly going to find any oil to put on them before they got all cracked. He turned them inside out, put them on a branch in a patch of sun, fussed with the positioning to be sure a gust of would wouldn't knock them out of the tree.
He wanted to be home. Right now he'd be at the forge with Master Iliescu and they'd be breaking for lunch, sitting together on the bench in the little courtyard, enjoying the cooler air. It didn't feel good to feel the breeze right now when he was damp and underdressed. He'd live, but.
He wanted to be home, not in deathly danger, not to have caught the Mistress of Vulkanburg at anything that made him lose trust in her ruling hand, not to have gotten run out of home, not to have seen Rozalia --
"Hyu think any harder, hyu brain iz fit to explode."
The Jäger was scratching his bare stomach with a negligent, clawed, too-big hand.
Sorin tore his eyes away from the flat expanse of his belly, the still-strange trail of lighter-colored pubic hair on that blue-green skin. "Well, sorry, I can't turn it off at will to take a convenient nap!"
"I ken turn it off for hyu."
Sorin recoiled, glaring. "I don't need to be knocked out! My skull is not that tough, okay? I got hit there already, once is enough."
Velimir lifted the brim of his hat enough to show both eyes blinking long and lazy. "Hy vos thinking more of kissink, but hey, honest mistake."
... Yeah, so, Sorin was blushing again, and it was only half because he felt flustered. Had he managed to insult him again? Wincing, he peered at him, trying to guess. The Jäger sat up, nudged his hat back so that it perched at a precarious-looking angle, legs crossed at the... was that an ankle? Sorin was going to call it an ankle.
"It ken be kissing or it ken be ameliorated kissing, like with de hands going places and everyting."
Okay. Not insulted. Or more horny than insulted, at any rate. Sorin spluttered. "I can't kiss you!"
"Vhy? Hyu mouth works fine. Und hyu already know Hy don't bite."
He was leaning in. Still sitting in the same spot but the tree was not that big and he was looming over Sorin's boot-less ankle, hand hovering like he was planning to touch it.
Which was admittedly pretty tame, it was just --
"I have to get married."
The Jäger blinked, tilted his head, the hat wobbling dangerously. "Usually it's der gurls vith mean poppas who get told dey gots to be virgins or else. Hyu mean hyu got a gurl already?"
"No! Uh. Not really, but--" Argh! Velimir's lips were pinched and his eyelids heavy like he was contemplating his sense and sanity and finding them lacking, which from a Jäger was particularly irritating.
"So it's not that hyu dun want to." He arched his eyebrows, still staring, a clear 'yeah, I thought so.'
... Urgh. Now Sorin's face was scarlet. He glared at him, as much as he could. The man be damned for being so right.
"I'll have to get married at some point. How am I meant to do that if I know -- I mean -- marriage is for children and family, and when I'm past being an apprentice then I can't keep living with my parents, and if you don't get married then it's -- it's pretty lonely and. It's weird if you don't. And I like girls fine as partners and friends and everything but how am I meant to be happy like that if I know -- if..."
He couldn't finish. His throat had knotted up and it ached.
"Am I meant to cheat?"
Velimir blinked at him blankly for a minute, looking baffled. "Whaddya -- oh."
And then he grinned.
"Jah, Hy get hyu, Jäger is a tough act to follow! Effry act of luv after that, so boring, so bland--"
"If you finish I'm going to hit you in the face."
"Oh-ho!"
"With my tools."
Velimir's grin widened so much Sorin wondered briefly how the top of his head didn't just fall off.
"Get a sveetie who likes de gurls, und good friends who do de same, und you ken swap under de cover ov de night. It all vork out!"
"Sweet lightning, you are perverted."
Velimir was still grinning fatuously. "He still iz not Jägerkin, but mebbe good enough to haff some fun, eh? A little fun. Mine fun vould be bigger, but too much of a good thing--"
Sorin briefly contemplated jumping off the tree, head first. He gave the Jäger a jaundiced look, head in his hands and elbows on his knees, curled up half because the discussion was so bad it was painful and half because the man was putting ideas in his head, and they were sadly enough not staying up there. Traitorous body. "You're trying to get me to kiss you to shut you up, aren't you?"
"Is it vorking?"
Yes. "No."
Velimir deflated, long ears flopping down sadly. "De sacred technique passed down by mine elders! Foiled. Hy vill haff to tell Heiderich. De stain on his honor..."
Sorin gave up holding back his laughter. "You're impossible."
"Nah, chust unlikely. Der Masters ken do a lot ov that."
"By which I mean, you'd better kiss me before I change my mind. Keeping on talking would probably do it."
The Jäger had been leaning in a little bit already, but suddenly he was in Sorin's space, hovering over him, forehead so close Sorin could feel the brim of the thrice-damned hat. His hands were planted on both sides of his thighs and the look on his face --
He'd been pretending, earlier. Playing harmless, playing silly.
That look was a hunting one through and through. Measuring. Hungry.
"Um."
"Say no. I stop."
He'd dropped most of the accent, so it didn't deform his words so much. It didn't make his voice any less ... oh.
"Okay," Sorin whispered. "Um. No -- no groping though? Just--"
"Okay."
A quick flick of a reassuring smile, and he leaned the rest of the way in.
He was a bit slower this time -- perhaps wary of spooking Sorin again -- but it didn't make it any less intense. Sorin could feel his body heat through the space between them, was immensely aware of its closeness, of how little it would take for that body to surge against him. (Of how much he wished it would.)
Sorin kissed back, lips parting without thought. He raised a hand, hesitated, then he thought that a Jäger wasn't going to appreciate hesitation and restraint, and slipped it around the back of Velimir's neck. The Jäger shuddered, growled.
He mumbled against his mouth, "Is that not--"
"Squeeze."
Sorin had pretty strong hands. Came from working with hammers and big bars of heated metal that couldn't be allowed to skitter off. By the time the Jäger's purr had softened, gone from hungry to satisfied, his fingers were starting to ache.
"Thought we weren't groping," he said half-teasingly, and kissed Velimir again.
Velimir snorted against his mouth, nipped his upper lip. "Hy can't. Hyu can."
Sorin smiled a little despite himself. "Pff." He tightened his grip, relaxed and shifted it, squeezed again. He didn't need to be touching Velimir to feel the shiver running down his spine.
"Hff -- nize hands. Bet hyu giff awesome massages."
"I'd break my fingers on you," Sorin countered, and tugged him a little closer to deepen the kiss. He slipped his arm around his neck, touched his hair cautiously. It felt... pretty much like normal hair.
It was crazy the number of stupid random thoughts that could come into his mind while he was busy melting under a superior -- if really strange -- specimen of manhood.
"You'd better not be radioactive."
"Mm?"
"Your nostrils are glowy too."
Velimir sputtered right against him and burst out laughing. (Sorin bit his lip so he wouldn't follow him and discreetly wiped some spittle off his face.)
Then the Jäger stuck out his tongue. In the shade of the hat it glowed too.
"All mine muco... wet fleshy parts do that." He leaned back a few inches so he could smile down at Sorin. Sorin smiled back helplessly. "Hy ken stop, but Hy need to think about it, so if Hy dun glow at least a leetle bit, hyu are doing de sexy thing wrong."
"And it's not radioactive?"
"It's not radioactive. Hy'm like sum entirely non-radioactive und delicious glow-mushroom thing."
"Oh, good." He stared at Velimir, wondering what to do now. The Jäger was still hovering over Sorin, but the mood was a bit... Well he wouldn't mind keeping on kissing, he just didn't -- did Velimir still want to?
"Hy do haff de one mushroom," Velimir purred. Sorin planted a hand on his face and shoved him off.
"Congratulations, you've cured me of being an invert," he groaned.
Chuckling, the Jäger dived back in to steal a peck, and found himself a precarious perch to lounge on his side beside him. He was draped across several thin branches, with large gaps between them, and Sorin foresaw an accident.
"Giff me a half-hour vit mine hands und hyu nethers und Hy can invert hyu again."
Sorin huffed, biting the inside of his cheek quite vigorously. "I'm not interested in moldy crotches," he said with as much dignity as he could and a quick glance stolen at the line of pale green curls climbing to the Jäger's bellybutton, "but thank you."
"Hoy!" Velimir made a kicked puppy face, ears drooping limply. "It's almost entirely mine hair und hardly any mold at all."
Groaning and laughing together, Sorin looked up at the uncaring heavens, made a pleading motion with his hands. "I give up."
"Score!"
"I give up on ever kissing you again, before you give me pond scum."
"Oops. That might be too late."
"... Would it hurt you if I shoved you off the tree?"
Velimir's smile was bright like the sun. "Hyu ken try. Hy might even not drag hyu along vith me."
--
They were in the tree until the middle of the afternoon, and then suddenly following an internal timer that Sorin did not understand Velimir was making him gather his things and shrugging his shredded shirt and uniform jacket back on. They wouldn't be much protection for his back, Sorin thought to himself as he buttoned up his own vest. Then again, at least they would give him long sleeves, and retain some warmth. Too bad Sorin had no needle and thread in his satchel, and even worse that there wasn't enough cloth left to sew the holes closed regardless.
"Is your back--"
The Jäger clicked his tongue, scanning the ground around the tree. "Mine back iz fine. Quick quick."
Sorin frowned as he stuffed his still-damp gloves back in his satchel -- and then, thinking better of it, pulled them out and put them on. The leather scraped against the scabs on his hands, but it was better than no protection at all.
"If the enemy is approaching you should tell me."
Velimir stared at him, arched a pale eyebrow. "So hyu vill run without looking und fall or get caught?" He sighed through his nose, waved Sorin down. Sorin closed his mouth and glared instead of replying something blistering. "De enemy is not approaching. De enemy just passed uz. We follow, quiet-like, yes? Dey vill not look where they just looked."
"Huh! That's smart--"
"Hsst, bite hyu tongue!"
"--but risky." Sorin blinked. "Um?"
"Hy iz not schmott! Iz not mine bizness to be schmott. Iz chust sum old trick Hy learn from sum old-timer."
Velimir's accent had thickened so much Sorin had a bit of a hard time understanding him for the first second. He was scowling, too, and maybe even pouting a little. His lips had gone extra-glowy.
"I just mean, it's pretty dangerous--"
A wild, toothy grin. "Und if Hy haff to whittle down der enemy, oh vell. Beink at de back iz useful like dot. Ach! No more talk. Horry op now."
Sorin laced up his boots, nodded. "I'm readyyyyohmygod."
That utter jerk had just swung him over his shoulder, and then right out off the tree. It was a miracle Sorin didn't yell, though he did start to hyperventilate a little when the ground started swinging under them and the Jäger dropped down to another branch.
They were on the ground in under a minute, and then he was leading the way at a long, easy lope that Sorin had to jog fast to follow. His tools clanged a bit in his satchel until he thought to stuff his wadded-up handkerchief in between them, and when he looked up Velimir was almost gone from sight between the trees. Sorin's heart kicked up and he went racing after him. That jerk. That complete, utter jerk.
It was a good thing he was nice to look at.
(Apart from the thing where Sorin did not need the temptation, but in the short term it was probably better than having no distraction.)
--
They followed the search party at a cautious distance for the rest of the afternoon. Sorin felt queasy with tension, hyperaware of every snapped branch, every whisper of voices brought by a gust of wind through the leaves. Usually they stayed at the edge of Velimir's senses, and Sorin had to make do with nothing but pure trust and his own frayed nerves, but sometimes the search party would encounter a knot of predators or an old trap and be delayed, and they'd accidentally catch up a bit.
Velimir didn't look impatient, or eager to go and fight. He looked calm, a little interested, like someone taking a walk in a pretty garden. It made Sorin resent him a little, but then again he was a Heterodyne construct made expressly to wage war, one who'd asked to become a Heterodyne construct made to wage war, he wasn't going to react normally to these things.
It made him feel weird -- reassured, but uneasy too. The monster was on his side.
It was still a monster.
Not quite as monstrous as the huge badger with goggles and a robotized maw who burst out of his hidey-hole pretty much under Sorin's feet, though. Sorin's yelp was cut short by horror that he'd attract attention, and the next second Velimir had whirled around and landed on the thing's back; Sorin threw himself into the bushes to get out of the way as the Jäger clawed himself a way to its throat.
It was noisy as it died, kicking and shredding the earth with massive, serrated claws, shrieking in outrage.
It hadn't even finished thrashing in its death throes before Velimir was yanking him out of the thorns by the upper arm and dragging him along -- straight for the river.
Something crashed in the bushes in the direction of the search party, someone yelled, "Over there!", and Sorin put everything he had into his legs, trying to follow the Jäger. Why hadn't Velimir picked him up to run ahead, they'd be in the water by now --
They burst out of the bushes onto the riverbank. Velimir shoved him to the side. "Up a tree. Go."
Stumbling, Sorin went. There were no trees in Vulkanburg save small, frail pear trees, ferociously defended from the children. He might not have thought he could climb if he hadn't had terror pushing him and refusing him the time to worry about it.
He could hear yells behind him, crashing noises, the discharge of some kind of energy weapon. He turned to look as soon as he could, a dozen feet over the ground.
Three spider clanks ridden by the Viscountess' guards, check. Three stone clanks with the lava cannons, check. One of the spider clanks was already melted through by the cannon Velimir had stolen off a stone clank.
The spider's riders were... he couldn't see very well. There were leaves in the way.
It was a brutal fight. The rocks and roots slowed the stone clanks down; they were heavy, awkward. The spiders were more of an immediate concern.
Velimir obviously agreed, because the first thing he did after dumping the lava cannon was to jump on top of one and --
-- oh god.
Sorin knew if they were caught the people hunting them weren't going to give them a spanking and ground them. He also knew Jäger were killers.
The unthinking ease with which the Jägermonster broke the driver's neck, thrust his hand through the gunner's chest--
That hand had cupped Sorin's hip, careful, gentle, touched his face, reassuring. It burst out from under the man's ribs coated in wet red, disappeared again with a brutal yank.
Two spiders down. The stone clanks waved their cannons awkwardly, like they'd been programmed not to aim at those and didn't know what to do.
The rattle of a gun startled him into taking cover behind the trunk. Leaves flew -- nowhere near him, the first time, and then so close bark rained on his head. Someone was yelling --
Someone was silent.
Three stone clanks left. He swallowed bile and told himself he could peek out again now, there was no one to shower him with bullets anymore.
He was just in time to see one of the stone clanks' cannons gush out a thick stream of lava across several trees, his included. The heat was like a slap to the face. The bark caught fire a whole foot over the places where the lava had touched, where it was still gouging itself a way in. Sorin felt the tree sway, and jumped without a thought for the height into the nearest bushes, scrambled frenetically to get away from the falling trunk.
The bushes were on fire. There was a black furrow in the earth, rocks melting. The smoke was thick and dark, everything too green and wet to burn clean.
He went around, toward the river -- he wanted the water near by if he needed to put himself out -- hunched over, trying to be discreet. If one of the clanks came after him...
Velimir was still fighting. Sorin, a bit late, realized with a brief bout of nausea that he might well have been lying there burned to death under the spray. Either the clank couldn't aim or he'd dodged.
Two of the stone clanks were on the ground, one of them ... was it missing its head? The other one had broken limbs and was fruitlessly trying to get back up.
The third one ran right past Sorin's hiding place charging at Velimir, who stood trapped by the flank of a fallen spider and the river.
Only not so trapped, because at the last second he lifted the long point of a spider clank's leg, braced it against the spider, and let the clank impale itself on it. The impact was thunderous, metal screeching, crumpling. Sorin moved closer -- he couldn't see a thing, only the stone clank standing right next to the metal; was there any space left for a flesh body in between -- oh.
Velimir had fallen into a low crouch underneath, was thoroughly un-crushed.
He braced against the metal wall, planted a hoof in the stone clank's crotch, and heaved.
The clank stumbled back like it had gone boneless, stupid.
Something red and fire splashed out, splashed the Jäger's sleeve, the ground, which smoked, started to burn, and Velimir swore and started pushing the leaking clank toward the river to put it out--
"No!"
Sorin burst out of the bushes, ran teeth gritted at the idiot Jäger who stood there staring at him.
He thought Velimir wasn't expecting some nervous little townie to ram him with a shoulder and knock him straight into the river. The stone clank wavered for another few seconds, allowing him to hurry out of range, and fell, thankfully short of the water. Sorin stepped farther back, legs shaking with nerves, feeling the dry heat of the leak on his face.
"Wot vas that for?!"
"You ever breathe in superheated steam, dumbass?! Do you want scalded lungs?! Do you want to be blind?!" Sorin took in a deep, shuddering, furious breath. The lava was still crawling toward the water, though it had started to darken. "Get a rock, scrape as much of it as you can off your wound --" he swallowed thickly, trying not to imagine the wound such a splash would leave, when a small splatter had left holes in his back. "You don't get infections, do you?"
Velimir gave him a slow, eyebrows-arched blink. "No."
"Good." The water was too dirty for burn wounds. Better than nothing. He turned away to check on the fire; they still had a few avenues of escape, and he didn't think the fire would go far, the trees were too green in this season...
He hoped, at least, he -- god, what if they burned down the forest, what if that was the only way to cover their escape (so selfish, all those animals, the hunters who depended on them, the precious wood--), what if it killed them.
Behind him the water moved, hooves stepped on the rocks. He didn't turn around.
"How bad is it?"
"Hy'll heal."
So, pretty bad. Fuck. Fuck.
"Mebbe not today, though."
Now he was even admitting it. Sorin glanced at him, saw the casual (not) way his too-large hand clenched on the drenched, blackened mess of his other forearm.
"We need to pick out the cloth and stone debris," Sorin managed to push out past dry lips. God, he was so done, he wanted to be done.
"Not here. Come on, keed."
Velimir went to one of the fallen spider clanks, peered -- at the corpses?
"What are you doing."
"Looking fur food. Warm clothes. A knife for hyu, mebbe."
"I've got it," Sorin said (he didn't want to get it) and pushed past him, pulled himself up into the open cockpit. The bodies were still dripping. He checked them for (nausea rose) personal weapons, food, things.
He found a bag with rations, a little string purse with some money in it. No weapon. Maybe in the next clank...
"Let's go. It'll attract attention soon enough."
"... Yeh, hokay."
They started walking. Sorin pretended he couldn't see Velimir keeping his arm folded against his chest, fingers limp.
About ten minutes later Velimir asked, casual as you please, "by de way, hyu okay?"
Sorin breathed in through his nose, ignored him. The Jäger peered at him.
"Hoy, sveethart--"
"Of fucking course I'm not okay!" he snarled, whirling around on the spot, a hand clenching on the strap of his satchel. The bag thudded against his bruised ribs; he didn't even care. "I'm going to die in these thrice-cursed woods and my family will never even know what happened!"
The Jäger stopped walking, stared. Sorin threw a hand up in frustrated rage. He had the brief desire to punch him, but then he thought of the wound, and how that wouldn't be right. (A second later he thought that even injured a Jägermonster could probably lay him flat in a hot second, if he dared.)
"I bet no one ever bothers to tell them if I died, or if I just decided to abandon them one night for no reason, and meanwhile my bones will be rotting here! I bet my parents will cry, and my sister won't because she needs to be strong for them, and she'll never cry, and--"
And.
And. He wanted to go home.
He couldn't.
"Ah, cripes." He turned away, hurrying to wipe his eyes before anything incriminating could overflow. He missed, or maybe he was still crying and couldn't stop.
"Hokay, hyu need to schtopp dat real fast-like," the Jäger told him, and he tensed all over again until he realized the words had sounded less irritated or dismissive than panicky. "Vhen someting is bad Hy drink or Hy get laid, but--"
Sorin rubbed his eyes dry on his glove, sighed through his nose. Urgh, he was already snotting up. "I'm not asking you to do anything about it. You've done enough already."
"Ho, good." A pause. "...Vas it good?"
He breathed out, felt around his satchel for the handkerchief to blow his nose. He was tempted to say something uncharitable. His life had been so normal before the Jäger.
It wouldn't be true, though. He'd gone spying on the Mistress well before Velimir even showed up, with absolutely no outside pressure. "Yeah," he said, voice rough, back still turned. "You did save my life. Several times. I just wish you didn't have to."
"Vell, Hy dun mind rescuing a cutie like hyu," Velimir said, forcibly cheerful. "Comes with der nice perks--"
Sorin met his eyes then, stared wordlessly.
"... Hokay, Hy schtopp."
"Mnh."
He started walking again. After a second, Velimir fell into step with him. Neither one of them talked for a little while.
"How far vould hyu say to de next town?" Velimir asked, a little quiet, serious for once.
"Uh -- I don't know for sure, usually we don't go on foot..."
"Giff me an approximate. Hy know dere is one down this river, but Hy'm not a local boy. Ve vas stationed on der other side ov Vulkanburg."
Chewing thoughtfully on his lip, Sorin tried to figure out an estimate. They'd walked pretty fast... On the other hand they'd gone through the woods and all their little valleys and hills, not on the nice, mostly flat, paved road, and the river didn't really flow straight.
"There's Schwarzburg, but it'll be at least six hours away. Maybe even ten. Otherwise it's just a few small villages lost in the mountains, and we won't find them if we're not on the road to see where it branches out."
He hesitated. He kind of didn't really want to think about the future, when it was a lot of fretting and zero actual solutions. If Velimir had ideas, though...
"What did you have planned? I don't think they have a garrison..."
"Jah, they don't." A careless shrug -- and then a subtle twitch, when the burnt arm was jostled. "Not ov de Baron, at least. But good local militia, though dey won't help Jägerkin vithout de Baron's seal. Too much of de trouble und most ov it not in their weight class. But dey vill defend civilians, und it'll be too much trouble vhen it gets reported if your madgirl attacks dem anyvays."
Sorin blinked. "Uh. Okay?"
Velimir inclined his head, quirked him a small, close-mouthed smile. "If hyu hide dere und find new clothes, new job, und Hy keep going und making a mess, she follow me. Then hyu can get a job dere, or join a caravan fur somevhere else, belike."
Sorin's stomach tightened with a brief burst of anxiety. Velimir could be terrifying, but being alone... "--Oh. But how will you find me again, I mean, if I leave for another town--"
"Hy von't," he replied simply. "Hyu tell me vhat huy see, und Hy tell der Baron. Later hyu hear de story when de Mistress falls from power und hyu know hyu ken go home."
"...Oh."
"Mebbe a week, mebbe three month. Mebbe a year, even, but Hy vill be surprised. Der Baron dun like de long sieges, thinks dey'z boring."
"Oh."
He kept walking through a tall patch of grass, eyes on the ground. He could just... stop at the next town. Just get there, and then it'd be over -- well, he would still have to hide, to lay low, he wouldn't get to be home by tomorrow, but...
End the chase, the constant terror, the raw nerves. Sleep somewhere safe. Eat something warm, even. He had some money from the dead men, and he still had his tools and might find a few jobs here and there... Without a letter of introduction from master Iliescu it would be hard to find a solid position, but if it was just supposed to last for a few weeks...
He thought fleetingly about the possibility that Velimir just wanted the intel, and would then abandon him in the forest and speed ahead. He did have a mission to accomplish, and no real reason to give a damn, save that he hadn't tumbled Sorin yet.
It didn't even sound likely. The horrible flirting was mostly insincere, he was sure, but there had been flashes of actual niceness, actual care, enough of them that he didn't...
Why would he bother to clown around to put Sorin at ease, when Sorin might push himself harder on the road if he was more scared of him?
"We should clean out your wound," he said, which was blatant avoidance but Velimir let it stand, let him lead the way down a slope to a small rock to sit on, beside a tiny creek that snaked its way to the river.
He took off his gloves, stashed them away, washed his hands and his file and his smallest tongs in the water. He didn't watch as Velimir tore the sleeve off his jacket, and then off his shirt.
"Hyu iz not de type to faint, are hyu?" Velimir mused, peering at his wound. Sorin closed his eyes tight and braced for extreme grossness.
"Let me guess, rock imbedded everywhere in it?"
"Und cloth. Und lots of charred things." A thoughtful pause. "Und Hy think Hy see a bit ov bone..."
"Smashing."
"Haha, Hy did smash 'em preddy gud, huh."
Sighing and forewarned, Sorin went about cleaning the horrorshow.
The wound was horrific. The cooled lava was the least of it. Charred black to the bone in a couple of places, Sorin wound up scraping carbonized flesh out until he uncovered meat that still bled.
One fleck of rock had fused to the bone -- or imbedded itself in it -- and he could not get it out no matter how hard he made himself pull with his tongs. He would have broken a normal person's arm long ago, yanking that hard, but the Jäger just sighed and told him to leave it, that he knew a dozen of his friends who were going around still wearing the bullets people had tried to kill them with and he didn't see why stone would be any more of an issue.
"Didn't a doctor try to get them out?" Sorin asked, frowning in concentration as he used Velimir's boot knife to cut out -- urgh -- a bit of cloth that had already been healed over and through.
"... No." A shrug, jarring the arm. Sorin tssked. "Not worth der trouble."
"Pff." It helped that Velimir didn't react when he cut into him; he could manage to work on it like he would a chunk of mutton for dinner. Every time he remembered it was a living person he was turning to lace... It was a good thing he had no interest in becoming a surgeon, because the mild but persistent nausea would have disqualified him. "What's worth the trouble, losing a hand? Your head?"
"Ho! Dat's a goot question. Depends on der head."
He wagged his eyebrows. Sorin briefly considered poking him in the wound, and then -- peered, under the shade of his hat, found his eyes tight at the corners, faintly strained.
"--You do feel the pain, don't you."
Another shrug. "Iz good. Mean de flesh still lives. It can heal. No pain fur a Jäger is not smart. Ve is stupid about fighting already. Master Carmine said--"
Sorin waited, but the story didn't seem to be forthcoming. "Yeah?"
"...Nah. Hy iz not Jägerkin yet vhen he goz up against der Unseen Empire. Dey haff lava cannons too. Hy alvays vant to shoot vun. Happy times!"
His accent had thickened again. He smiled down at Sorin, and tried to flex his arm. Sorin slapped his knee and told him to stay put.
The disjointed bits of story made him feel a bit strange. It was like Velimir wanted to talk about things, but he -- well. They weren't really friends, were they. Sorin was just a civilian he'd picked up on the way.
He probably missed his pack. Or was in more pain than he let on. Or both.
"The cave under the town was at least two miles across," he said abruptly, and turned on his heel to wash the shirt sleeve in the river. "Probably more, I couldn't see. I saw... six, seven squads of stone clanks. Ten to a squad, I think. And when Rozalia came in she had a letter that confirmed some kind of weapon had had effects that were felt in Plovdiv. The Viscountess sounded really happy about that. She went all sparky... you know. Bwahaha, my reign of terror approaches."
He twisted water out of the mangled sleeve, went back to the Jäger's arm, started cleaning the wound. Blood flowed more freely now. He twisted blood out into the river, rinsed the cloth, made another pass for debris or dust or anything that should be cleaned out.
"Plovdiv, huh," Velimir mused. "Dat is a big weapon. Verra unsporting. Bah."
Sorin nodded over the arm he was now bandaging. "I don't know what the hell she's thinking."
He tied a knot as well as he could -- it wouldn't be sterile, but they had nothing to disinfect with anyway, he mostly wanted to keep new dirt out of the wound.
When he finished washing his hands and looked up from his crouch he found Velimir staring at him, head a little tilted. The shade of his hat made his eyes hard to read.
"... Yes?"
"She iz not hyu mistress, iz she."
Sorin frowned, confused. "Wha -- the Viscountess? She is the protector of Vulkanburg--"
"No, Hy mean she iz not hyurs." A thoughtful pause. "Hyu is not hers. Hyu just live there."
"I guess so," Sorin admitted after a moment's thought. "It's not like we ever see her around and most of her policies are kind of... They happen, it's like the weather, there's no discussion possible, but she's not unreasonable most of the time, so I have no reason to think much about her."
Velimir got back up, tried to flex his hand; Sorin scowled at him and tried to figure out how to use the abandoned jacket sleeve to make a sling. In the end he had to slit it in two lengthwise and knot the two bits together.
"Aw, too bad. Dere's good job security in minioning," Velimir said, falsely serious. "Until someting explodes, but in de meantime hyu iz verra happy."
"Urgh." He almost put the sling around the Jäger's neck himself, then paused to consider the hat, then realized with some embarrassment that personal space was still a thing that existed and Velimir still had one good arm perfectly up to the task. "Here, you should put that on. And I can't even really imagine myself so gone on someone that I need to follow them around and -- "
Um. Yes. Heterodyne construct here. Loyalty had probably been engineered in; when it wasn't there it often was because the attempt had failed, not because it hadn't been made at all.
"Pff." Velimir draped the sling over his shoulder and caught the other end, tried to use his injured hand to make a knot. Sorin stepped back in.
"Short enough?"
"Yeah. Good. Maybe hyu has not met the one," he added, teasing.
He was standing very close. His smile was, as Sorin was -- not fast enough -- getting used to, stuck on flirtatious. Ears heating up, Sorin made sure to pay attention to the knot, to make it solid as possible. "Nah, I really don't think the minion thing is for me. I mean, I can imagine admiring and respecting people but not to the point that I'm going to stop leading my own life to follow them around. Um... Does that offend you, or...?"
"Nah." Velimir settled his arm in the sling, only a little bit cautious, tugging on the cloth to spread out the supported area. Sorin stepped out of his space. "Ve iz following der Masters becauz they leed us vhere ve vant to go in de first place." A pause. "Then again... Ve did vant to go where they go but vas it them who gave us the want first, hy ken't tell."
They blinked at each other for a second.
"Eh. Doesn't matter. Iz fun. So vhat vere you doing in der tunnels then?"
Sorin spluttered. "What?"
"Hyu vas not minioning. So?"
Oh, blast it. "Does it even matter?" he said, looking away for anything he might have forgotten to pick up and put away. "I was just conveniently around to see something weird and I went to check it out. it was more than I bargained for. The end."
The Jäger leaned in to peer at him, the brim of his hat brushing Sorin's wild curls. "Hmmm. Hokay! Hy sure know from falling into weird thingz all accidental-like. All vit de oops und all."
Sorin groaned. "Shouldn't we get going? Before another search party finds us?"
"Shore ting." He waggled his eyebrows. "Naughty boy, out after hyu bedtime, und not effen fur hyu spark."
"Your accent thickens when you're being a jerk, do you know that?"
Toothy grin, eyes positively sparkling. "Ho yez. Iz nize hyu noteeced."
Sorin glared weakly and then let his shoulders slump. "Oh, good," he said. "Glad you're aware -- whoa!"
Suddenly he was being slung over the Jäger's shoulder. What. No. What.
"Ve run!" Velimir said cheerily, and bounced straight across the stream.
It took Sorin ten minutes of squirming and complaining about his ribs before Velimir would consent to stop long enough for Sorin to climb on his back instead. Sorin didn't even attempt to convince him to let him walk.