A Perverted Path to Victory

Tinvel

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He managed, just barely, to land back at the aerodrome. The Fulleye had lost at least a quarter of the lower left wing, possibly a full third, but that was the beauty of biplanes. Even missing a third of a wing, he still had three perfectly good wings to fly on. Theoretically, though even Professor Brown was hesitant to try it, the Fulleye design was fast enough to fly with only a single set of wings. After that experience, Tinvel was pretty damn hesitant, too.

He cut the engines at the far end of the runway, not even bothering to try and taxi back to the aerodrome. Both engines had taken up a concerning, off-beat knocking sound, and he didn’t want to keep them running for a single second longer than he had to. So he simply cut the engines and tossed his head back, breathing hard.

“Uh, Tin?” Chona muttered. They’d only been in the air for a handful of minutes, yet it felt so odd to hear her voice crisp and clear.

“Yeah?”

“The recovery squad isn’t here.”

He blinked, rolling his head to the right. Sure enough, the hollowed-out home where the militiamen usually waited for landing planes was empty. Even the mule they used to haul the planes was gone, its hay trough half-empty.

“Shit,” he groaned, reaching down to unbuckle his seatbelt. He crawled out of the cockpit in a series of unimpressive and huffing maneuvers, his parched throat torturing him through each gasp. Every bone in his body ached, but it was the left half of his body that really gave him trouble. He could already see blisters rising on his hand, and that didn’t feel half as bad as his face. Tinvel was scared to look in a mirror. Every inch of skin that had been facing the wyvern’s fire felt raw and burnt.

Shit. What can you even do against a bastard like that?

He and Chona had started tinkering with rockets shortly after they’d learned of the Imperial war-wyverns. They hadn’t known much that didn’t come from old campfire stories, but even that had been more than enough to tell them that no Tulian pilot or mage was going to be capable of hurting them. Now Tinvel was wondering if they’d so much as scratch the thing’s hide.

“What are you doing, Tin?” Chona asked, head popping up from where she’d been fiddling with the rear engine.

He pointed to the aerodrome as he dropped off the front wing. “We don’t know if that’s gonna be the only attack. I want to get the plane under a roof while we work on it.”

“Sure, but…”

She trailed off as Tinvel put both hands on the wing, grunting with effort as he began to push. He was so grateful that they’d paved over the street’s cobblestones with concrete. Getting the solid rubber wheels to start rolling over those bumps had been a pain in the ass.

“I’m sure someone will be along to help in a bit,” Chona said, even as she began to crawl out of her seat.

“Maybe,” he grunted, “maybe not. Besides, we’re the first ones to land. We need to clear the way for the others.”

Chona didn’t look like she was half as convinced as him, but she slid off to join him on the plane’s right wing. They began to spin it around together, panting breaths mixing in the humid evening air.

“You don’t look good, Tin,” Chona said, glancing at his injured face. “You need some healing.”

“Just hurts,” he managed between puffs. “Everything works. No point wasting a healing potion. I’ll wait to see the healers tomorrow. After they’ve helped whoever got hurt in the attack.”

“And if the griffons come back?”

“I’ll take the healing potion then.”

They finished turning the plane a hundred and eighty degrees. Tinvel walked around to the left wing while Chona went to the right, bracing himself to shove. Despite weighing nearly a thousand pounds, it wasn’t hard to push the plane once it got going. The start was the rough part.

Something popped in his back as he and Chona began to shove at the plane’s wings, sputtering with effort. Slowly, inch by inch, the wheels began to squeak forward. Only once they’d shoved it up to a decent walking pace did he allow himself to look up, trying to steer them away from the middle of the runway. A good few extra aeroplanes were still circling the city overhead, guarding against a second wave of attacks, and he didn’t want to be in their way if they had to come down in a hurry.

Tinvel was shocked by how exhausted he was, even if he discarded the heat burns. General Voth had been right. Even if you didn’t get a scratch on you, combat was exhausting. He’d noticed it before, but this was even worse than usual. Professor Brown had called it an adrenaline dump; the body’s emergency-only chemicals leaking out of his veins, taking with them the haze that had hidden just how hard he’d been pushing himself. He felt like he could sleep for days.

But he wasn’t going to.

Someone from the aerodrome eventually saw them, clearly, because Tinvel soon found a group of Tulian soldiers at his side, rifles shouldered as they helped shove the plane down the runway. With their help, it was only a few minutes more before he and Chona were back in the cool Aerodrome interior, staring at their battered creation.

The Fulleye had taken a beating. Much like Tinvel, the left side of the plane showed signs of heat damage, doped canvas warped and rippling in strange, almost ocean-like waves. The lower left wing was the most obvious damage, of course, but that wasn’t worth caring about. Tinvel had put the plane in front of a stretch of wall where dozens of exactly identical wings were stacked together, waiting for a plane frame to be joined to. It was only wood and canvas, after all, and trainee pilots had a bad habit of clipping the edge of their wings on landing and takeoff. Better to keep them in stock.

What really fascinated him and Chona both, instead, was the elevator. As they’d done their post-flight walkaround, they’d been confronted by a terrifying sight. A massive chunk had been taken out of the control surface right in the center of the twin boom tails in the unmistakable shape of a griffon claw. Neither of them had seen it happen. If the griffon had struck ten feet further ahead, a distance traveled in a fraction of a second at their airspeeds, it would have crashed straight through the center of the plane, killing them both.

Silently, Chona had gone and grabbed one of the elevators off the wall, placing it beneath their plane’s fuselage. There weren’t as many spare elevators as wings at the moment, and they didn’t want someone else claiming it first.

Their exhausted inspection was eventually interrupted by a gruff shout, one that echoed across the hangar.

“Commanders Chona and Tinvel, get over here!”

It was General Voth’s voice, of course. They traded a look.

“We… probably should have reported to him first, huh?” Tinvel said, smiling weakly.

She shrugged. “Yeah. Probably.”

Their commanding officer was, as he almost was these days, in his office. Tucked into the far corner of the aerodrome and up a small set of stairs, it was a cramped, intimate place. Papers were spilled out across his table with just enough organization that they didn’t seem to have been dropped there by complete accident. Tinvel saw that most of the sheets had people’s names at the top, with itemized checklists beneath, each line a certain type of flight skill a new pilot had to learn. Several of the papers, more than he wanted to think about, had been folded in half, creased neatly and set respectfully aside.

General Voth himself was unlike any other time Tinvel had seen him. The forty-something year old orc had the vanishingly rare claim of having spent time in Old Tulian’s army, and that had earned him a reputation for being gruff and unflappable. Tinvel had seen him sparring with some soldiers before. The grizzled orc had been untouchable to the untrained and made a mockery of the trained. He wasn’t some hideously powerful Irregular like the Governess and her wife, but he was closer to them than pretty much anyone else Tinvel had ever met. That was why it was so strange to see him bouncing his knee nervously beneath his desk as he repeatedly cursed under his breath, frustration radiating off his body as his eyes scanned the pages he’d spread before himself. Tinvel supposed a busy office wasn’t the man’s natural environment, but still. It was disconcerting to see the stalwart veteran so visibly overwhelmed.

Voth didn’t look up right away when Tinvel and Chona entered, but when he did, he scowled.

“The fuck’s wrong with you two? Drink your healing potions.”

“Sir-”

“Shut up and sit down. Listen while you drink ‘em and answer my questions when I ask them.” He booted two chairs out, one after the other, then turned his attention back to the table.

They did as ordered, wincing at the taste, then shivering as the cold ran through them. To Tinvel’s chagrin, he realized that Chona’s left side was as burnt as his. The scorching had been hidden by her black fur, but when he looked closer, the telltale curling of burnt fur showed that she’d been injured just as badly. Worse, probably. He’d at least been shielded by his patchy leather flight jacket. He doubted her fur was half as protective.

Voth swept a hand across the table, knocking papers aside to reveal a map of the city.

“The Governess says the attack’s over and there won’t be a repeat for a few days at a minimum. We lost five planes, all crew dead.”

The muscles in Tinvel’s neck quivered. That mage in the plane he and Chona had tried to save as they took off… hadn’t made it. They hadn’t been fast enough.

“We’ve got conflicting reports of how many griffons the enemy lost,” Voth continued. “How many did you two get?”

“Two, sir,” Chona said. “One on the ground and one with a rocket.”

He looked up. “The rockets? You loaded those damn things?”

Tinvel nodded. “We did, sir. We only fired one, but it worked flawlessly.”

“Alright. One’s not enough to say it wasn’t a fluke, but we’ll… fuck, where’s some paper I haven’t already fucked up?” He turned around in his chair and jerked open a cabinet drawer, grabbed a stack of blank paper, and slapped it onto his desk, beginning to scribble. “We’ll mark the design for fast-track testing. And if you got two, plus Affe’s three, that brings our total confirmed kills to five. Reports all said that only six griffons were seen leaving the city, however, so we’ll have to see where that last one went down. If it went down. I don’t want some injured bastard hiding out in the trees until it’s healthy enough to fly back.”

Chona leaned forward. The skin beneath her left eye was rippling like water, pink flesh rising up to replace the burnt grey hidden beneath her scorched fur.

“Did you say Affe’s plane got three, sir?”

Voth glared at her. “Yes he did, and let me tell you, Commander Chona, I don’t give a fuck about your little mage pissing match right now. If your ego got bruised by that, go brag about how you attacked the wyvern when he didn’t. Later. After we’ve got our shit sorted. You’re a soldier now, not a toddler.”

For a moment it had looked like Chona had got some life back into her, the exhaustion peeling away, but the force of Voth’s words shoved her spine into her seat, shoulders slumping.

Tinvel cleared his throat. With the potion coursing through him, doing that didn’t hurt half as much as it had a few minutes before.

“Sir, I think I know what happened to the sixth griffon.”

General Voth didn’t respond. He finished writing and leaned over to a window. “Hey! Runner! Yeah, you! Take this to the Artificer’s Guild!” He flung the note out the window, and only then did he turn back to Tinvel. “Yeah?”

“I believe one got shot when it overflew the North Star Fort, sir. We saw it happen when we were running back to the aerodrome.”

“I heard that report, but the guns at the North Star don’t elevate that far,” Voth said. Not an argument, just a statement of fact, one meant to prompt Tinvel to say something further.

Tinvel only shook his head. “Don’t know what to say, sir, but we both saw it.” Chona nodded, backing him up. “Maybe they were testing a new prototype.”

“Huh. Alright. We’ll consider the sixth griffon problem solved for now.” He leaned back in his chair, the point it looked near to snapping, and pounded a fist on the wall. “You hear that?”

“Yes, sir!” A woman’s muffled voice responded. Tinvel knew that within the hidden space was a pale, thin-looking scribe, the one responsible for operating Voth’s connection to the secret crystal communication network. “Do you want me to tell the aeroplanes to cease the search for the sixth griffon?”

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir!”

Voth’s chair eased back into a steadier state as he returned to the table. He looked Tinvel in the eyes for several seconds, then turned to Chona, glaring at her in the same way.

“I’m sure it hasn’t slipped past you two that you and Affe, our only veteran flight crews, are responsible for the entirety of the Air Force’s kills today. If neither of you had been here, we would have lost five planes for no enemies killed. Probably would have lost more planes, actually, because they wouldn’t have retreated half as soon.”

Tinvel nodded obediently. It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t say anything.

Voth chewed on nothing, tusks bobbing. Then he shook his head. “Gods damn him, but Professor Brown was right again. The difference between pilots that have actually been in a fight and the ones that haven’t is brutal. We sent ten planes up today and lost five of them. There’s something about air combat that’s different from all the shit I’m used to. Too little room for failure, maybe, where the tiniest fuckup means you’ll die, so you’ve gotta be the next best thing to perfect. Whatever it is, just like the Professor said, the difference between a skilled pilot and a newbie is just too damn much. You and Affe aren’t worth one or two of them. You’re worth twenty. Maybe those three rookies that survived will end up like you, but...” He looked at a set of papers, then cursed. “Shit. One of ‘em hasn’t even completed basic take-off and landing procedure training, the other hasn’t started practicing combat maneuvers. Probably luck that kept ‘em alive more than anything.” Voth blew out a long breath and leaned back in his chair, as if he was smoking an invisible pipe.

In the silence that followed, for once it wasn’t Chona whose patience broke first. It was Tinvel’s.

“Sir, what are you getting at?”

Voth raised an eyebrow at Tinvel. “You’re supposed to speak when spoken to, Commander.”

He stared. “Based on the rank you gave us, we’re second in command of the whole Air Force. Pretty sure we get some leeway from that.” He looked down and to the side, out at the aerodrome. “And besides, sir. We’ve got work to do.”

Voth’s blew out a puff of air. Tinvel wasn’t sure if it was a laugh, scoff, or cough, but the orc leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table.

“You’re right that you’re important, Commander. Too important, in fact.”

Tinvel’s jaw clenched.

“Sir-”

“No. I’ve put it off for too long. For the gods’ sake, look at you two sorry fucks.” He waved at their injured halves. “As of right now, you two represent half of Tulian’s entire effective aerial fighting force, and you came in here looking like you tried to sneak a squeeze of a bonfire’s asscheek. You spend most of your time working on random bullshit, flying here and there and everywhere, and you’re at risk the entire time. That’s unacceptable.”

Tinvel leaned forward. “There are tasks that only we can do-”

“Like training new pilots?” With uncharacteristic gentleness, Voth picked up the stack of precisely folded papers and held them out. “Here. These are the training records of the pilots that died today. Not a one of them had finished everything, and that’s because Affe has been the only combat instructor we have. You want to read through these and try and tell me you couldn’t have taught them some of the shit that mighta saved their lives today?”

Tinvel stared at manilla paper floating in front of him. His heart was pounding hard in his chest.

Voth let the moment hang. Finally, long, long after it was painfully obvious that Tinvel wasn’t going to take the papers, he set them softly back in their place.

“Commander Tinvel. Commander Chona. You’re going to repair your plane so that it’s ready to ferry the Governess back to the Empire tomorrow. When you return, you’re going to sit your ass down in this aerodrome, and you’re going to get a whole bunch of wannabe-pilots in front of you, and you’re going to start telling them exactly why you have survived when everyone else died.”

Chona licked her lips. She was still staring at the papers. He could see anger and frustration on her, her fingers curled tightly into the fur of her thighs, but she wasn’t saying anything.

Tinvel looked up at Voth.

“Sir, I can train them, but-”

“But nothing, Commander!” Voth barked. “You have sworn an oath to follow orders and now you have been given orders. You will follow them.”

Tinvel’s lower jaw was jutting forward, clenching hard. Voth was a massive, scarred man. To say that disagreeing with him didn’t come easily was the mother of all understatements. Yet…

Chona glanced at Tinvel. He saw her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t stop locking eyes with Voth.

“Sir. I’m still going to fight.”

“I didn’t say anything about you not fighting.”

“You were going to. You’ve been listening to Professor Brown. We both know what he recommended: that the pilots who end up successful get pulled from the frontlines and turned into teachers.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Voth grunted. “We’re not there yet. We need you fighting.”

“But you’re planning to pull me and Chona from combat duty as soon as you can, aren’t you?”

“That’s a long ways off.”

“No. It’s never going to happen.”

Chona looked at Tinvel, a strange expression on her face.

Voth only scoffed. “Oh, yeah? You’re saying that now?”

“I am, sir. If you want me spending my time training recruits, you’re going to let me keep flying.”

“Of course you’re gonna-”

“I’m going to keep fighting,” Tinvel specified. “Sir. I built these planes. I built their engines, I built their wings, I built their controls. I know every cable and every joint like the back of my hand. I lost sleep, I worked my fingers raw, and I did it for a reason.” He leaned forward, resting his arms against the table’s edge. “To fly. To fight in the air. Sir, I know what it feels like to sit on the ground and watch other people fight for me. I will not do that again.”

Voth leaned forward as well, matching Tinvel’s posture. He dropped his voice low, nearly growling.

“You will do what I say, Commander, because it is the right gods-damned thing to do. You know it as well as I do. You want to protect people?” He stabbed a finger forward. “You’ll do it best by sitting your ass in a bunker and making sure you don’t get your fuckin’ head bit off by some pissed-off bird.”

“No.”

It wasn’t quiet in the room. The aerodrome was still busy as could be, clanks and clatters and shouts filtering in. But between the three of them, it seemed like everyone was holding their breath.

“No?” Voth growled. “Or what? You think the rest of the military will take your side on this? The Governess?”

Tinvel felt feverish. By all rights his skin should still be cooled by the healing potion, but it wasn’t. He felt hot and sweaty, his limbs threatening to tremble. He wasn’t afraid, at least he didn’t think so. He was angry, maybe. He was remembering what it was like in the Tulian University when cannons and gunshots were echoing through the city, screams rising above the chaos. He was remembering cowering behind Garen’s robes as the archmage spoke to those glittering Knights, the ones bent on killing them all.

“Sir,” Tinvel said, “I don’t care what the Governess thinks.”

Chona sucked air through her teeth. Voth’s mouth opened a touch, his scowl broken. Knowing he’d found his moment, Tinvel kept plowing forward.

“I made these planes to fly, sir, but I also made them so I can fight. I can’t do that anywhere else. The air’s the only place that I can matter. You asked me what I’d do if you didn’t let me fight?” He sucked down a breath, licking his lips. “I’ll… I’ll not do anything. If you don’t let me fight, I won’t train anyone. I won’t build any new planes. I won’t work on designs, or weapons, or even enchant swords. I’ll… I’ll go build enchantments for back massagers, sell them to Carrion merchants, and end up rich and fat and happy. This isn’t Old Tulian anymore, sir. You can’t make me work. No one can.”

Voth met his eyes, disbelief writ large on his face.

“The fuck’s wrong with you, kid? You have any idea what your Professor is gonna say to that? What the Governess is gonna say?”

Tinvel laughed a little bit. “Sir, I don’t know what Professor Brown would say, but really? The Governess? Do you really think that she’s going to have a problem with someone wanting to fight?”

“He’s got your ass there!” A woman’s voice called. It echoed up from below, seemingly close and far away at the same time. The stairs up to the office began to shake, a new sound of rattling metal joining the aerodrome’s cacophony.

Sara Brown, Champion of Amarat, dressed in the brutally utilitarian slabs of her jet-black war armor, appeared at the office’s door.

“Hey, Voth,” she said, grinning. “Long time no see. Mind if I borrow your Flight Commanders for a bit? Got a dead griffon with some weird magic shit I’m trying to figure out, and since Tinvel kinda just whooped you black and blue, I figured you wouldn’t mind me stealing them for a bit.”

Voth thumped his arms down on the table, dropping his face into his hands, which he used to massage his brow.

“Fucking hells, Sara. You have any idea what shitty timing you have?”

Sara laughed. “Pretty sure I do.” She waved to Chona and Tinvel. “C’mon. You two remember that griffon you blew the fuck up with a rocket? The mage on its back didn’t die on impact. She managed to stumble around for a little bit before dying of blood loss, and she was casting some weird shit before she dropped. I want your take on it.”

“Uh… sure?” Tinvel stood, glancing at Voth. “I guess it’s fine if I…”

“Pretty sure the Governess outranks him, Tin,” Chona said. Her tail slipped behind his waist, shoving him forward. “Let’s go.”

“O-okay. It’s just, uh, I don’t think we were done-”

“Get out of here,” Voth snapped. “We’ll figure out the rest of that bullshit you were spewing later.”

“Right.”

Tinvel was practically herded out the office door by Chona, who quickly added an arm to the tail that was pushing him on his way. Sara stomped down ahead of them, every heavy footfall making the stairs vibrate ominously. As they descended the stairs, Chona spent a moment making sure the Governess wasn’t looking, then slid even closer to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“You know,” she murmured, “if you hadn’t started stuttering at the end, that would have been really impressive.”

He swallowed. “Uh?” He elegantly replied.

“Hey!” Sara yelled, still looking forward. “Come on! Save it for later.”

Chona disentangled herself from him, moving faster down the stairs. Tinvel was forced to stumble after her, head awash with a mixture of emotions he’d never expected to be feeling all at the same time.

“Sooner you help me out,” Sara called, jumping the last few steps to crash down on the aerodrome floor, “the sooner you two can get back to working on your own projects. Hurry up!”

Tinvel hurried up.

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“So,” Sara said, in exactly the kind of tone that sent alarm bells ringing in Tinvel’s head.

They were on their way to the site of the downed griffon, the one that, by the description Sara had provided, had likely been taken down by their first rocket strike. Sara had started off walking ahead of them, leading the way, but had slowly dropped back, until the three of them were walking in a line, almost casually, like a group of friends might.

From the corner of her eye, Sara glanced at Tinvel.

“Those rockets you made. How much help did you get from my dad?”

Something in her voice felt… accusatory, almost? Tinvel didn’t know why, but it was enough to concern him.

“That’s- well, um, Professor Brown didn’t really have much of a role in, um,”

“He didn’t,” Chona butted in. “We built them ourselves. We were planning on showing them to him soon, but this whole thing happened first.”

“Huh.” Sara smacked her lips, looking at a distant cloud. “No help at all? Just figured it out on your own? Are you sure?”

“That’s— well, I mean, his lessons on aerodynamics were super important, of course, so you could say he—”

“He didn’t help at all,” Chona repeated, this time more emphatically. “We built them ourselves.”

“Interesting.”

A long, thin dagger appeared in Sara’s hand, its black blade tapering to an invisibly thin point. She whispered a word too quietly for him to hear, and then, without fanfare or so much as a flicker of forming magic, there was a full-scale image of the rocket floating in front of their faces.

“Walk me through it, would you?” Sara floated the rocket closer. “Five feet long, a hundred and twenty pounds, and an engine burn time of what, two, three seconds? Emcotton warhead, I’m guessing. No point using the boring old blackpowder stuff.” She held up her fingers, pinching the rear stabilizing fins. “And these fins here. How’d you decide on this design?”

Between the knife in her hand and the way she spoke without looking at either of them, Tinvel felt as if he was being interrogated.

“The fins?” He swallowed. “Well, we, um, at first we tried to put full-on wings on it, but that wasn’t going to fit on the planes, so we tried to slim them down, but when we put them in the middle of the rocket, like normal wings would be, and we used this ‘wind tunnel’ that Professor Garen made at the university, we found that it didn’t stay stable at all, they kept flipping over, which, uh, made sense once we thought about them like arrows, not planes, that is, um, Chona thought of that, so we decided to do like fletchings, but three weren’t very good, so we went with four, because we weren’t worried about the bowstring getting in the way and it was easier to make them symmetrical…”

He trailed off, his train of thought abandoning him. Sara still had that impassive expression, looking the rocket over as he spoke.

“Basically,” Chona said, giving him a droll look, “we tried different stuff until it worked. We knew we couldn’t get guns on the planes, so this was the next best thing. We came up with the idea pretty much as soon as we realized that basic sparks could set off emcotton, really.”

“See, that’s interesting. Real, real interesting,” Sara said. “I was really, really hoping that you’d say my dad did give you the information for this. Because you wanna see the kind of blackpowder rocket that people back in my world were using?”

A second illusion popped into existence, just as vivid as the first. A second rocket, shockingly primitive, filled the empty space. It was little more than a tapered tube attached to a two-meter wooden stick, with several iron bands wrapping around its midsection. Put up against Tinvel and Chona’s rocket, it looked like a smith had tried to faithfully recreate a young child’s drawing.

“That thing sucks,” Chona helpfully observed.

“Sure does,” Sara agreed. “And it was the best they had for centuries. It took a couple centuries or so before they produced one that looked like this.”

The first two rockets shuffled down and to the side, making room for a third. This one was… remarkably familiar, actually. Tinvel recognized the symbol of the United States Airforce from Professor Brown’s drawings, with its white star on a blue circle and stripe. The rocket was fairly similar in dimensions to Tinvel and Chona’s design, though it was about fifteen centimeters longer and a few centimeters thicker, with a more gently tapering nose. In particular, as hinted at by Sara’s questioning, the tailfins it used were nearly identical to Tinvel and Chona’s design. Four simple squares with rounded edges placed at the rearmost portion of the device, providing just enough guidance to keep it from flipping wildly off course.

Sara tapped the illusion, making its skin ripple.

“Two centuries existed between these two rockets. You two just skipped two centuries of work and development.”

Tinvel made a face. He wasn’t sure if that was accurate. Maybe it had taken that long on Earth for one design to be replaced by the other, but he seriously doubted it was two centuries of dedicated effort. He didn’t want to question Sara, however, so—

“No way,” Chona said. “No way your world was that awful at building rockets for that long. We knew to put wings on ours because we already knew about planes, right? I bet that one,” Chona pointed at the scrappy wooden pole, “was from way, way before they knew what was up with wings and stuff.”

“That’s true, I guess,” Sara said. She let the illusions drop with a shrug. “But the point is… Well, I guess congratulations are in order.” She stopped, turning around to look them in the eye. “You’re the first people in all of Tulian to invent something we didn’t intend for you to. You skipped a step in our timeline, and you did it in a way too damn impressive for us to hide.”

“Hide?” Tinvel sputtered. “Why would you hide it? What would be the point of that? We need every weapon we can get our hands on, don’t we?”

“Every weapon?” Sara’s expression darkened. “No. No, you don’t need every weapon you can get your hands on. Trust me on that one. But this one… Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah, you two can keep it. Build more. Use ‘em. I’ll let it slide.”

Chona’s tail whipped from side to side, her fur bristling. “Of course you will. We worked hard on that. Why wouldn’t you?”

Sara sighed. “Kid—”

“Don’t ‘kid’ me,” Chona snapped. “You’re three years older than me.”

An eyebrow raised. “I guess that’s true. But I’m also in charge of this entire country, so...”

Chona’s tail slowed.

“Yeah. Well, anyway. Good work, I guess. I believe you about my dad not helping you build a rocket. That’s good. I would’ve been so pissed at him if he went behind my back.” Sara tilted her helmet back, wiping her hand across the sweat gathering across her hairline. “How about this? You two keep building whatever you want, but in the future, you put it in front of someone like my dad or I before you actually go showing it off to people. So… I guess that’s only me, my dad, Hurlish, and Evie. If you really think it’s some top-shelf shit, don’t show it to anyone else before you start working on it. Just send the designs our way or something.”

Tinvel could barely believe what he was hearing. After all he’d done, after how much Professor Brown had pushed him to innovate, he was being asked to hold back?

“Why?” He asked, the question spilling out. “Why do you want us to slow down for that? Don’t you want us to win this war?”

“We’re going to win the war,” Sara stated. She said it with far more confidence than Tinvel ever would have managed for himself. “I’m playing a longer game here, alright? There’s some shit that…” She blew out a frustrated huff, cursing under her breath. “Shit. Look, I don’t know how to explain it, not without lying. But there’s more to this crap than you’re allowed to know, alright? The fact that you two jumped ahead like this… I don’t like it. I can’t help it, hell, it probably saved lives today, so I’m actually grateful, but I don’t like it. I thought I’d have more time.”

“More time?” Chona asked. “For what?”

Sara shook her head. “Until I lost control.”

What?

“Don’t worry about it, alright?” Sara sheathed her knife, nodding to them both. “I was lying about needing your help with the griffon, by the way. It was definitely a Sporaton mage flying on it, which explains why the Imperials were willing to ‘waste’ a mage on a lowly griffon. So be ready for that in the future. I was planning on taking y’all all the way to the crash site, but screw it. I’ve got too much stuff to do.”

She clapped a hand on Tinvel’s shoulder, a congratulatory pat, then did the same to Chona.

“Good work today. Good flying. I watched you the whole time— that red wing stands out, and that wyvern isn’t gonna forget it any time soon.”

“Don’t know if I like that,” Tinvel muttered.

Sara laughed. “Yeah, well, that’s the price of being good, I guess. You two get back to the hangar, okay? I’m still planning to head out tomorrow, so you’ll probably need to work on the plane, right? Right. I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, we’ll… oh.”

Sara spun around the moment she was done talking, jogging down the street. As she dipped into an alleyway, he heard her call out.

“Hey! Hey, put that shit down! The fuck do you think you’re doing with…”

Her voice was slowly absorbed into the regular clamor of the city.

“Huh,” Chona said.

“Huh,” Tinvel agreed.

“I guess we… did a good job?”

“I think we did. Not sure.”

“I mean, she said we did.”

“Didn’t exactly say it in the nicest way, though.”

“No.”

A moment passed. Tinvel blinked.

“Wait. Shit. She still wants to leave tomorrow? Does she know how much work we’re gonna have to do to get the plane ready?”

Chona sighed, long and low. “I think she does. That’s why she told us to get back to the hangar.”

“...Shit.”

-------------------------------------

Aurora Vesta

-------------------------------------

It was well past midnight when Sara returned to Vesta’s home, her entrance announced by the booming thud of a door smacking the far wall. An avalanche of clattering steel followed thereafter as the woman stomped into the foyer, shedding pieces of her armor as she went.

“Hey jeeves!” Sara called out. “You’re gonna have a mess to clean up in the entryway!”

Vesta, happily tucked within the study room at the rear of her house, rolled her eyes. Sara wouldn’t actually dump her clothing across the floor. She was too conscientious for that.

Oddry, whose head was laid out in Vesta’s lap, stretched out, blinking to wakefulness.

“Mmm… Is Sara back?”

Another shout shook the walls. “Hey! Vesta! You got some leftovers for me? I’m starving!”

Vesta chuckled as she stroked her fingers through Oddry’s curls. “What do you think, dear?”

“Hmmmm,” Oddry hummed. “I have an inkling.”

The door to the study swung open with nearly as much force as the exterior door, its frame vibrating from the force of Sara’s boot-derived entrance.

“There you are!” She said, moving across the room. She finally began to drop the pieces of armor she’d been holding, helmet and greaves and gloves bouncing off the rug in a shining trail. “Shit, I’m so tired. Can one of you help me take this armor off?”

“Only if you kneel down,” Oddry replied, suppressing a yawn as she sat up. “You are far too tall for easy reach.”

“I don’t just kneel for anyone, y’know,” Sara said, even as she was already on her way down. She tossed a smile over her shoulder. “Must mean you’re a pretty special lady, huh?”

Despite herself, Oddry blushed. She lifted pieces of Sara’s armor off her skin, searching for and unclasping the multitude of buckles as she found them.

“I suppose I must be, having been the maid who earned the favor of my Lady.”

Sara’s chestplate dropped an inch as Oddry unlatched another piece, startling her. Sara laughed.

“Yeah, you’re pretty special. Glad you got the confidence to match, too.”

“I didn’t, once upon a time. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to learn better.”

Watching the scene from across the couch, Vesta couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t join in on the conversation or Sara’s disarming, preferring instead to watch Oddry’s blush spread up her cheeks with every one of Sara’s flirtatious compliments. It was a lovely thing, to see your own wife so happy.

I really should feel jealous of this, shouldn’t I? Vesta reflected. A woman flirting with my wife before my very eyes. It’s certainly not a behavior most would tolerate.

As Oddry’s deft fingers followed Sara’s instructions, finally letting the heavy plate fall off the Champion’s sweat-soaked chest, Vesta couldn’t muster a protest.

What wouldn’t I tolerate for the privilege of such a sight?

It took several more minutes of work to fully remove Sara’s armor, minutes which were filled with mundane, practical talk. The recovery efforts were progressing well, aided considerably by the pressurized water which had been distributed through the streets, allowing fires to be doused in truly ridiculous times. Injuries were plentiful, but Sara’s warnings had been well-heeded, meaning those who suffered were mostly members of the militia and the few Tulian regulars who had managed to enter the city during the brief skirmish. Their loss was no less tragic for that, but it was a different sort of tragedy when a soldier was injured in battle as opposed to a civilian.

Finally, with a veritable sprawl of equipment now covering the floor of Vesta’s sitting room, Sara was eventually freed from her bulky armor. She was left in a sweat-soaked undershirt, a pair of leather breaches, and tangled raven hair dropping to her shoulderblades. As Vesta watched, without a single finger lifted, Sara’s hair began to unravel, every tiny shift of her head and shoulders somehow shaking loose another knot. In a matter of minutes, it was as if a team of handmaidens had just finished brushing it through with the finest of combs.

Stretching her arms wide, Sara stood and groaned, only to fall backward, letting out a whuff as she landed between Oddry and Vesta on the couch. Vesta started to ask her to be more careful, but found herself yelping instead, Sara’s left hand wrapping around her shoulder and dragging her in. Oddry suffered the same treatment, both of them swept up against Sara’s side.

“Alright. You’ve probably got questions about the meeting, right?”

Vesta squirmed against Sara, uselessly attempting to pull away. “Yes, of course, but I would first like to ask why you couldn’t have cleaned yourself off before this?”

Sara laughed. “Isn’t this the magical couch that can never get stained? Why do you care?”

“It is,” Vesta replied tersely, “but you may notice that my clothes have no such enchantments.”

Sara waggled her eyebrows. “If you’re worried about that, you could always take something off.”

Vesta found herself profoundly irritated that such a tactless, uninspired comment left warmth flushing in her core. If she hadn’t experienced Sara’s touch firsthand, she doubted it would have achieved much. The reminder of what was promised, however, had a way of summoning rather distracting memories.

“No thank you,” she managed to say. “There are in fact several things I wish to know.”

Oddry leaned into Sara’s ear, pretending to whisper. “How long do you think she’ll manage to stay on topic?”

Sara giggled, giving Oddry’s ribs a squeeze. “I give it five minutes.”

Vesta sniffed primly, turning her nose up as she folded her legs up onto the couch. She rested her head on Sara’s shoulder as she spoke.

“The meeting with Admiral Whistling Ash. You achieved our goals?”

“Pretty much all of them, yeah.” Sara’s hand slid off Vesta’s side and down her dress, landing on her hip. “There’s a few changes I had to make, a couple extra concessions here and there thanks to some stuff I didn’t know beforehand, but for the most part? Mission accomplished.”

A crushing weight was lifted from Vesta’s shoulder upon hearing that. After all she’d done to prepare, all the hours spent researching, bartering, trading favors for information and back to other favors… it was done. Her work had paid off.

She barely noticed the way she melted into Sara, her body settling into her paradoxically muscular plushness. She did notice the way the woman’s hand scooped lower, grabbing a handful of her rear as she helped Vesta dive deeper into a welcoming embrace.

“Wonderful,” she breathed. Oddry giggled at her, but Vesta ignored her wife’s taunting smile. “The meeting I was present for, then? That went to plan as well?”

“I mean, no? The city got attacked. That sucked shit.”

Vesta rolled her eyes, but found it difficult to manage much in the way of true frustration. Sara’s unhelpful sarcasm barely registered next to the exhaustive bliss of relief filling Vesta.

“Beyond that,” she specified. “There was so much you revealed that I did not know. Why did you not warn me that Carrions have discovered the crystal communication nexus?”

Sara shrugged. “I didn’t know until the meeting started.”

Vesta frowned. “How? You were the one to bring it up. There wasn’t the slightest mention of it beforehand.”

“The woman sitting four seats off the right side of Admiral Whistling Ash was an important artificer. I saw the way she wasn’t looking at the pocket that had my communication crystal when I walked in.”

“The way she… wasn’t… looking at your pocket?”

“Yeah. She was trying way too hard not to pay attention to it. That’s what let me figure it out.”

Vesta frowned. “There could have been a thousand other explanations for such behavior. Weren’t you concerned that you might accidentally risk revealing information they did not know?”

Sara shrugged, making Vesta’s head roll. She still didn’t retreat from her position, of course.

“Not really. Bullshit god powers, remember? Sure, there could’ve been a lot of reasons that chick wasn’t looking at that pocket, but that’s not how my Blessings work. If you want me to list out every reason I knew what I did, it’d take a few days.”

“But-”

“Dear,” Oddry kindly interrupted, “I believe you yourself have told me that trying to pick apart Sara’s nature is an exercise in frustration. I wouldn’t press much further.”

Vesta let out a perfunctory hmph, but didn’t argue. She spent some time staring out into the sitting room, letting her thoughts swirl. It was deep in the night, stars twinkling high above, and her relief was quickly turning into weariness, her body rejoicing in the absence of anxiety. If Sara’s hand hadn’t begun to trace teasing, kneading circles on Vesta’s hip, she likely would have fallen asleep. After a minute or two of comfortable silence, another question occurred to her.

“Admiral Whistling Ash. You said that the artificer was sitting four seats to his right, but he wasn’t sitting at all, was he? That man was an imposter.”

“Oh, that?” Sara’s hand slid further, abandoning the plausible deniability of Vesta’s hip for a softer, more plump portion of her lower half. “You’re half right. There wasn’t an imposter at all- that’s what he really looks like, and he was speaking for himself. There were two illusions being maintained by the archmage. One to make the real Admiral Whistling Ash look younger and darker-skinned, the other to summon a replica of him in his place. He was actually speaking from behind that illusion, which hid his lips moving, but his voice was being cast forward so it sounded like it was coming from the illusion.”

Vesta’s lips parted as she tried to parse Sara’s explanation. “That seems… excessively complex.”

Sara hummed her agreement. “I think the archmage just wanted to see what she could get away with. Turns out, pretty much nothing. I got her ass good. And in case you were wondering, by the way, the armor and spear he had were real. Seems like he knows how to use ‘em, too.”

“That is… hm.” Vesta pursed her lips. “I had not found any record of Admiral Whistling Ash being a particularly skilled combatant. Certainly not one who garners your respect, at least.”

“Guess he kept it on the down-low,” Sara shrugged. “Maybe he was more of a badass when he was young? Either way, he wasn’t fucking around when he threatened Taotri. I dunno what kind of enchantments you can shove into seven feet of blacksteel, but he seemed pretty damn confident he could cut that wyvern’s head off all on his own.”

“Good gods,” Oddry muttered. “That beast was horrifying. To think that man was its equal…” She cocked her head. “Wait. Evie allowed you to attend a meeting with a man that powerful on your own?”

“Yeah. Her only rule was that the meeting had to happen on their ship, in the harbor.”

Looking around Sara, Vesta and Oddry shared a confused look. Why did it matter if the meeting occurred in the harbor? If anything, having the meeting on the Magecraft was a greater advantage to the Carrions, and all the city’s defenses were facing outward, not inward. The only thing defending the harbor was…

“Selliana,” Vesta breathed. “The Harbor Witch? Evie trusted your protection to her?”

“Kinda?” Sara chuckled. “I, um, might owe her a favor or two now. So I’ll probably be back to do some weird witch shit for her at some point. And it wasn’t like Evie totally trusted my safety to Sellie. She’s pretty spooky, but she’s not a hard-hitting wizard type. We were pretty damn confident the Carrions were chill. Her agreeing to keep an eye on things from below was just barely enough to tip the scales for Evie.”

“And our presence, of course,” Oddry added.

Sara smirked. “Yeah. Actually, that’s more true than you’d expect.” Her hand pinched at Vesta’s rear, making her jump. “Evie actually trusts you two to keep my head on straight with this type of economic shit. That’s saying a lot, y’know.”

“It’s been an honor to take up her duties, if only for a short while.” Oddry’s hand shuffled across Sara’s lap, fingers curling to interlink with Vesta’s. “She does so much for you that it’s been difficult to keep up. I believe there’s still several rather critical matters we’ve been failing to address.”

Taken on a trip by Oddry, Vesta’s hand found itself sliding down Sara’s sweat-soaked undershirt, across the tops of her thighs, before finally pausing at her waistline.

Sara raised an eyebrow at Oddry. “Y’know, considering the fact that you were pretty much passed out when I got here, I’m surprised you actually want to start anything.”

“Oh, me?” Oddry forced Vesta’s hand lower. “You’re right, of course. I’m terribly tired. That’s why I think my eager wife will happily take up the most arduous of the night’s duties.”

She started to object, naturally. But something hot and heavy began to rise against her palm. Her protest turned into little more than an open mouth and licked lips.

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