A Perverted Path to Victory

Tinvel

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“What do you mean, there’s a steel shortage?”

“Don’t know what else I could mean,” the woman huffed, crossing her arms. “You want steel, but I don’t have it. That’s all there is to it.”

Tinvel rubbed his eyes until he saw swirling patterns, trying to massage away his frustration. The sounds of the Aerodrome’s ongoing work echoed behind him, muffled by the thick doors he’d walked out of to receive this messenger. It was early in the Tulian morning, which meant they were both sheltering under an awning from the morning drizzle. The woman was part of the Smith’s Union, a well-respected member, and she was clearly aware of her status. She wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated by his military rank.

“I’ve been to the steel foundry,” Tinvel argued. “I’ve even helped develop some of the enchantments for it. I know just how much steel is being put out of there every day, and that means I know for a fact that there’s no way you don’t have what I need. This is for the Tulian Air Force, for the gods’ sake. Even if you really were out, no one should have higher priority than us.”

“We don’t have it,” she repeated. “That’s all there is to it. And no, you’re not first in line for our product.”

“What? Who could be more important?”

The woman held up a hand, ticking items off on her fingers. “Rebar for the South Star Fort, for one. They’re ahead of just about everyone. Then there’s the army’s cannons, then the Navy’s cannons— though most of them are still using iron, not proper steel, but y’can’t make steel without iron— and you can’t forget the contracts the Governess made. Lots of foreigners want our cheap steel for swords and the like, and we can’t skimp on that, not without invalidating some clauses and what not.”

Tinvel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine, point made. But that still doesn’t explain how you’re out. Even all that shouldn’t be enough to leave you empty-handed. An artifice engine needs less steel than a single soldier’s armor, and you’re claiming you don’t have any? That’s impossible.”

“It ain’t,” the woman snapped. “It’s the truth. Believe it or not, Mr. Artificer, arguing about it won’t make me have any more steel for you.”

“Who’s using it all up, then? Who do I need to talk to?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “You think I’m allowed to know that? I don’t even know what half that shit gets used for. Most of my supply paperwork says crap like ‘project A’ and ‘project B’. I couldn’t tell you what it’s being used for if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”

“You’re kidding. Why did the Union even send you?”

“To tell you what you should already know, I s’pose.” She picked at her fingernails. “Sure you can’t just use regular old iron? It’s good enough for near everyone else.”

Tinvel swore, turning away. He wanted to start shouting, but he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. Somehow, impossible though it may seem, there just wasn’t the kind of steel he needed. With the beating they took, a proper artifice engine needed the most refined grade of Tulian steel, the kind of stuff that was only used in Irregular’s personal firearms and the most powerful of cannons.

“No, I can’t. Thanks for your time or whatever.”

He turned away without waiting for a response, heaving open the aerodrome’s doors. One guard stepped forward and caught it before it swung too far, shutting it behind him. Once the street was hidden from sight, the second guard opened the interior doors.

The aerodrome was as busy as it had ever been. The sounds of industry intensified tenfold as he stepped inside, loud enough to make him wince. Rivet guns clanked rhythmically, flashes of enchantment light brightening a multitude of work areas. While the University had originally been using a large chunk of the aerodrome as an interior testing ground for a variety of experiments, most of the structure was now occupied by the Tulian Air Force it had been designed for. Tinvel took a deep breath, breathing in the welcoming scent of grease and steam. A line of biplanes in various states of construction were being tended to by dozens of workers, the thick smell of canvas dope permeating his nostrils. Only the northernmost end of the aerodrome had a group of students still working on their own projects, and even those were largely related to Air Force matters.

Tinvel’s own personal project was in the dead center of the aerodrome, flanked on other sides by smaller, lighter biplanes. Chona was laying belly-down atop the prototype Fulleye’s wings, her fur speckled with stray drops of red paint.

I bet Affe didn’t expect us to embrace his shitty joke, Tinvel thought, smiling up at the plane. Chona was nearly done with the right upper wing, a shining crimson coat distinguishing their own plane from every other Tulian aeroplane.

She saw him approaching and passed her paintbrush off to her tail, rolling onto her side to rest her cheek against a palm, elbow propping her head up.

“Well? What did they say?”

“They said they don’t have any steel for us.”

“Bullshit.”

“I know, but they aren’t budging.”

“Oh yeah? We’ll see about that.” Chona set her paintbrush aside, starting to move off the plane’s wing.

“No, don’t bother.” Tinvel suppressed a yawn. It had been a long time since he’d gotten a full night’s sleep. “It was an official Union rep. I’ve seen her around before. She wouldn’t just lie about that.”

“Unless someone told her to,” Chona argued even as she relaxed. “Could be some political games or crap. We should demand proof.”

“That’s Voth’s job, thank the gods. If you want to sic him on it, be my guest. While you’re doing that, I’ll be getting the Fulleye ready. I’ll need to start stripping the engine out of the Sunrise as soon as possible.”

“Really?” Chona finally did slide off the wing now, landing lightly on the smooth concrete. “Voth can’t actually expect us to keep to the timetable now. Delaying the parts delivery was bad enough, but not even getting us the steel to do it ourselves? The Smith’s Union must be too busy sucking their thumb to get anything done. The whole thing’s on them.”

Tinvel sighed, moving to the Sunrise. “Yeah, it’s their fault. Doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got shit to do, Chona. You really want to keep the Carrions waiting?”

“I mean, so long as we’re not the ones they’re blaming…”

He shook his head, moving to the Sunrise. He began hooking a sequence of dangling chains to the sturdiest parts of the aeroplane’s frame, readying it for a lift. The aerodrome’s most recent addition was a real godsend: steam-powered engines drove chain winches running along the roof, allowing anyone to lift thousands of pounds straight into the air from any of the repair bays. The best part was, even though they’d been operating for nearly a week, no one had dropped a plane on their own heads.

Chona joined him as he whistled across the aerodrome, waving for the engine operator team to begin lifting his bay’s chains. As the engine whirred to life and the biplane began to creep into the air, Chona thumped against his side, shoulder to shoulder.

“You really think you can get us there?”

“Don’t see why not,” he said, resting his weight against hers. “The instructions we got were pretty distinct. Imperial griffons are gonna be set up as a series of waypoints, too.”

Fresh off their surprise meeting with a Carrion Admiral, Tinvel and Chona had been tasked with flying to retrieve Tulian’s Governess. Whatever negotiations were going to occur apparently couldn’t be done over a communication crystal. It was going to be a face-to-face encounter, one that no one but the highest echelons of the government would be in on. Tinvel also suspected that the message sent by successfully transporting Tulian’s Governess across hundreds of miles in a matter of days was as much, if not more important than, the negotiations themselves.

Tinvel wasn’t particularly eager to take on the mission, considering all the difficulties they’d had with their instrumentation thus far, but it had to be done. He could at least take some satisfaction in his discovery that the late announcement of the extraordinary task had a very simple explanation: no one had known that the Carrion ship would be carrying an Admiral. Not Voth, not the army generals, not even the captains of the Navy vessels which came out to greet him. They’d all been as shocked as Tinvel and Chona were. The reason, at least as far as the rumor mill had managed to spit out, was that the secrecy had been an agreement between the Governess and the Carrions. Carrion Admirals were high-priority targets, after all. It made sense for them to keep quiet about their trip plans.

Chona, however, was still pissed. Less so than she had been, but still. And that irritation was now spilling over into everything else.

“The tachometer is still unreliable as the hells, though,” she grumped. “We’re still not even sure if we’ve got accurate speed calibrations done at anything other than sea level. Not to mention that every attempt at instrument flying by someone who isn’t you has been a total failure.”

“But I’m going to be piloting it. And besides, there’s landmarks to go by. We’re heading due south from the ruins of Banthay, straight as an arrow. Even if we go off course, the First Blackpowder Army is sending out griffons to mark the way. It’ll be hard to screw up.”

Chona let out a disgruntled huff as they stood side by side, watching the Sunrise slowly creak into the air. The steam engine’s clanking and hissing was loud enough to drown out most of the aerodrome’s conversations, but they were close enough to hear each other.

Chona shifted slightly. “You know… we’re going to be flying over the village my family moved to after the war.”

Tinvel glanced her way. “Really? Do you want us to stop there?”

She all but recoiled away from him. “What? No! No. No way. No. Are you kidding me?”

“Uh, no?” Tinvel was puzzled by her reaction. “I thought you were on pretty good terms with your parents.”

“I am, but showing up with you, y’know…” She gave him a meaningful look.

He returned it blankly. “No. No, I don’t know.”

She blinked rapidly. “You are so…”

The Sunrise’s chains came to a stop with an authoritative clank. Chona leapt forward.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I was going to ask if we could detour around the village. They know from my letters that we fly a plane with a single red wing. If they see us flying over and we don’t stop…”

Tinvel followed after her, running the figures in his head. Like nearly every Tulian citizen, Chona’s family had resettled far closer to the capital than they’d once lived. Skirting around it, at least far enough that her family couldn’t make out the plane’s details, wouldn’t throw off their navigation much at all.

“I can manage it.” He reached up, unlatching the artifice engine access panel above his head. “Don’t see why, though. You’ve already met my parents.”

“Yeah, because they live in the city. And that was months ago.”

“So?”

“That was before we started… whatever this is.”

“Really? That’s why you want us to make a thirty-mile detour?” Tinvel laughed. “So that you don’t have to introduce me to your parents? Haven’t you mentioned me in your letters?”

“I’ve mentioned you!” She protested hotly as she helped him open the engine cowling. Her vanara fingernails were thick and tough enough that she could use them in place of a screwdriver, which always helped move things along. “Just not that we. Um.”

“Are doing ‘whatever this is,’” Tinvel finished for her, still laughing lightly.

“I don’t think you have any better idea what we’re doing than I do,” she snapped.

“Not really. But I’m not afraid to visit my parents with you, either.”

Chona stopped. She put fists on her hips, looking him in the eye.

“Oh yeah? Really? Then let’s go.”

It was Tinvel’s turn to stare. “What?”

“Come on, you heard me.” She nodded towards the exit. “Right now. I’ll introduce you to my parents if you introduce me to yours. Since that’s a conversation you’re apparently fine with having.”

Tinvel swallowed, unscrewing faster.

“That’s… I mean, we’ve got a lot to do…”

“They don’t live far, right? We could be back in an hour.”

With a fortuitous pop, the last screw came loose. He forcefully flung the access panel down, letting it swing to block the line of sight between them.

“That’s what I thought,” Chona said in a muffled, yet still distinctly smug, voice.

With a hard gulp, Tinvel started preparing the Sunrise’s engine for removal. They had a Governess to grab.

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It took the better part of a day to prepare the Fulleye for its first true flight test. They’d put it up in the sky several times before, enough to ensure the airframe’s reliability, but that had only ever been with a single engine. The second artifice engine was the critical component for the new design’s success. If all went well, it would mean a Fulleye could slice through the skies with twice the power of its predecessor. Most of Professor Brown’s sketches of twin-engine planes had their propulsion mounted out on the wings, creating giant blocks of aerodynamic drag. The Fulleye, however, with its engines mounted ahead and behind the central fuselage, would only suffer a minor increase in aerodynamic drag. Professor Brown had warned Tinvel that having two engines wouldn’t quite double their power, on account of some complicated principles even he didn’t fully understand, but it would be close. Certainly closer than Tinvel could have ever gotten just by fine-tuning his existing design for an artifice engine.

If he was allowed to judge his own work, Tinvel thought it was an elegant design. Twin wings were braced by seasoned wood, steel cables twisting out behind them to catch the twin booms that stretched out behind. A long elevator panel connected the two tails, tall rudders rising high above. The upper wing had a long cutout above the rear seat, affording Chona the chance to fling spells directly skyward, while a small access panel beneath her seat let her pour flames down on below. The “push” engine was directly behind the second seat, the propeller whirring away less than a foot from Chona’s head. It had to be that close, as it was the only way for her to reach back and adjust the engine’s speed to match its forward sibling. Beneath the lower wings was a pair of twin pontoons, mounted as close to the frame as they could be without having the propeller tearing them to shreds. Much like the twin tails, the hollow spaces within the pontoons served double-duty as a storage locker, though the internal bracing meant only small, loose goods could be stored. Tinvel had to be incredibly careful to make sure the weight wouldn’t shift in flight, something Professor Brown had incessantly warned him about. If the loads got loose, there’d be nothing he could do to stop them from spiraling uncontrollably into the ground.

While he worked in near silence, Chona spent the entire day grumbling about the Smith’s Union. It was understandable enough, seeing how badly they’d screwed them at a critical moment, yet Tinvel couldn’t bring himself to dredge up the same ire.

The truth was, though he couldn’t explain why, Tinvel was relieved they were taking the old engine with them. He shouldn’t have felt that way; the artifice engines all had similar reliability rates, and it wasn’t like the Sunrise’s engine had been a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. It was the standard that the others had been built to, sure, but that meant it was just that: standard. Unexceptional by its very nature.

Yet there was an undeniable sense of comfort gained from knowing that some of their old aeroplane’s core, the beating heart which drove it through the skies, would be coming with them. It didn’t make sense, he knew that. Professor Brown’s lessons about objectivity had taken root in his mind long ago. But that didn’t mean he could stop himself from smiling a little bit as he wrenched it into place, checking and double-checking the attachment points before finally, as the capstone of their day’s efforts, screwing the propeller into place.

The engine, of course, started up without so much as a squeak of protest.

They’d left Tulian an hour later, the plane’s storage spaces filled to bursting with fully-charged amethyst geodes. The Fulleye should be able to maintain flight without recharging its emeralds for much longer than a Halfeye— they were hoping for twice as long, though they knew that was optimistic— but that wouldn’t matter as much for this flight as it would others. The stretch of jungle they were aiming for was several hundred miles away, nearly as far from Tulian as the Sporaton city of Hagos. Between their need to take a non-direct route in order to follow known landmarks, landing to recharge the emeralds, and the occasional maintenance periods of switching out the drained amethyst cores, it was going to take a minimum of two days to reach the Governess, then two days to return her after the meeting.

Two days to travel hundreds of miles. Even more, if measured by the actual zig-zagging course they’d be taking. Tinvel couldn’t help but grin at that. How spoiled was he, complaining about such a massive odyssey taking less than a week?

“How’s she flying?” Chona asked. “We’re getting near our detour point.”

“Pretty well,” he replied, giving the control stick a few careful twists. “There’s not as much buffeting on the elevator as we were expecting. Not sure if that’s because we overestimated the prop wash or overstrengthened the control cables, but either way, it’s working out.”

“You think she’s going to turn as well as the Halfeyes, though?”

“Hard to tell without trying it for ourselves,” Tinvel answered. “Dual artifice engines don’t increase weight as much as those Earth fuel guzzlers would, but it’s still messing with the balance. We’ll have to put her through her paces once we’re not loaded up with half a squadron’s worth of crystals.”

“You don’t want to try it now?” Chona leaned forward, pointing at the blurry horizon. “That should be my parent’s new village. If you want to test the maneuverability while we’re close enough to Tulian to get repairs done if something breaks, now’s the time.”

“Can’t risk it. There’s a Carrion Admiral waiting for the Governess. We’re going to fly straight and level the whole way there and back.”

Chona fell back into her seat. “Boooring.”

“And safe.” He glanced over his shoulder, giving her a look. “You’re the one that told Voth you needed to come with me for safety’s sake. Now you want me to start running an overloaded prototype through loops and rolls?”

“It’d be fine,” Chona said, waving dismissively. “Besides, you need me to navigate, too. You’re too blind to find your way out of a ditch, much less fly over a jungle.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Tinvel began applying a light touch to the rudder, swinging the plane’s nose to a south-southwest heading, away from Chona’s village. The Fulleye’s rudder authority was one thing that had surprised him when they’d taken it into the sky for the first time. The twin-boom tail added a lot of horizontal surface area, so he and Professor Brown had made the rudders much larger to compensate. It seemed like they’d gone overboard, because the plane had become far twitchier than he would have preferred. That was taking some getting used to, and he was worried what his instinctive overreactions might do in a dogfight. All it took was a light tap on the rudder pedal to send the nose yawing hard off course.

“You know, it’s crazy how much denser Tulian has gotten,” Tinvel said, looking down on the villages below. “You can really tell the difference, even since we first started flying.”

“Everyone knows another war is coming,” Chona said. “No one wants to live far from the capital’s walls. Even if it means abandoning homes that they kept all the way through Old Tulian’s collapse. The government giving out free lumber for farmhouses doesn’t hurt, either.”

Tinvel made a noise of vague agreement. For once the academics of the topic were less interesting to him than the reality. The Tulian countryside was beautiful at ten thousand feet. Homes bunched together in some places, sprawling outward in others, always connected by neat lines of cultivated fields and spindly roads. Thin streams and flowing creeks were highlighted by the farms which put their backs to them, creating bold, almost artistic patterns, the setting sun casting half-shadows on the streams from the hills they snaked between. It was hot and humid down below, but with a hundred-mile-an-hour wind in his face, Tinvel was damn happy to have his snug— if incredibly patchwork— leather jacket.

“This heading good enough for you?” Tinvel asked, leveling out. “Your family shouldn’t be able to see us from this far.”

“I guess. I wish we could dodge it by about a hundred miles.”

“Afraid we can’t go that crazy with it. This’ll have to do.” Tinvel kept their course steady, puzzled. Chona’s paranoia about avoiding her parents was pretty extreme, clearly. More than could be explained by the reluctance to have an awkward conversation. He was tempted to pester her about it, but held his tongue. Whatever it was he and Chona had between them at the moment was… nice. He wasn’t going to start an argument just to sate his own curiosity.

Thanks to their maddeningly late start to the journey, it was getting dangerously close to darkness by the time their emeralds began to run low. Interestingly, despite both engines being set at the same power setting throughout the entire flight, the forward engine began running low a full twenty minutes before the rear engine. That was nearly a twenty percent difference in max operational time, which was a truly gargantuan difference for a plane that could only spend an hour and a half in the air. That mystery was yet another thing they’d have to investigate later.

Tinvel’s first priority, however, was using that extra time to pick out a particularly good landing zone. They’d be spending the night out in the field, the first time they’d done so on their own, and there was a lot to consider. Sheltering the Fulleye from incidental storms and morning rains was his first priority, followed closely behind by keeping himself and Chona safe from the local wildlife. They both had cryslock pistols, and Chona obviously had her spells, but that wouldn’t mean much if a tiger silently padded up to bite their head off in the dead of night.

They eventually settled on a small grove of trees, one near a cluster of taller hills. The landing was rough, mud dragging them to a stop like they weighed four times as much as usual, but nothing broke. They puttered along the ground with the engines on their lowest setting until they could pull the Fulleye beneath the grove’s branches, then hopped out and stretched, digging supplies out of the storage spaces. Chona started working on a fire, planning to make it as massive as she possibly could. A true jungle beast wouldn’t be deterred of course, but if one of those showed up, they were dead no matter what.

“You know,” Tinvel said as he cast a spell which neatly sliced another log from the lower-hanging branches, “we wouldn’t have been able to do this a couple years ago.”

“What? Fly?” Sparks popped from Chona’s fingers as she added flame to the pile, helping the fresh-cut wood catch.

“That too, I guess.” Tinvel tossed the logs in, squinting as the wet wood hissed and sizzled. “But I was talking about this fire. Did you ever travel with your parents, back before the Governess showed up in Tulian?”

“Yeah. Of course. You don’t have a mage for a kid and not take them as a bodyguard if you’re traveling. ”

“Exactly. It was so dangerous that your parents were fine with having their daughter protecting them, and even you didn’t start a fire out in the open like this, did you? That was as good as asking to get jumped by bandits. You might as well put out flyers telling them that there was someone worth robbing nearby.”

“You’d have to be pretty stupid to be on the road and lighting up a bonfire, yeah. Not unless you had it down in a little valley so the light wasn’t visible.”

“Exactly. You had to-” Tinvel paused for a moment, focusing on his spell. Chopping logs, even with magic, wasn’t easy work. At least not for someone like him, who barely ever used his Gift for spellcasting. With a muttered word and careful gesture, he cut through a branch as thick as his wrist, catching it with a grunt of effort. “You had to be scared of bandits all the time. Now look at us.” He dropped his branches next to the fire, far enough away they wouldn’t accidentally catch overnight. “We’re landing one of Tulian’s most valuable machines in the middle of a field, lighting a fire as tall as we are, and we’re not even gonna take turns on watch.”

“We aren’t?” Chona knelt next to the pile of logs, holding out her shimmering palms. The fresh-cut wood began to hiss and shrivel, water steaming into mist. “I was imagining we were gonna at least trade off once.”

“Really? Why bother?” Tinvel set to cutting more firewood. “You both know we’re not going to get jumped by bandits. Even if we did, you’re an archmage-trained mage now. We’re safe as it gets.”

“Unless a jungle beast comes for us.”

“In which case, whoever’s on watch gets to piss themselves before they die, while the other just dies.” Tinvel picked up and tossed a log her way, moving to the next tree with low-hanging branches. “I don’t think you want me flying tired, and I don’t want you navigating tired, either. We should get a full night’s rest.”

Chona stayed silent for a while, focusing on her spell. Tinvel watched her with interest. He’d never seen her casting this sort of heat spell. It was obviously designed for exactly this purpose: drying out sopping firewood for easier burning. Probably something she’d developed when she was young, traveling with her parents between villages. She looked out of practice, but that was only fair. Heating only the water within a structure without burning the exterior was impressive work.

“If we’re going to do that, we should sleep in the plane.” Chona stood, dusting her hands off. “Plenty of things could sneak up on us in the grass, but we’ll wake up if they try and climb in with us.”

Tinvel looked at the Fulleye doubtfully. The larger plane had been temporarily modified for three seats in order to bring the Governess back, but that meant it had the opposite of increased comfort. Tinvel felt even more jammed-in than usual, with his knees constantly knocking against the instrument panel as he tried to avoid touching the finicky rudder.

“We can take the seat backs off,” Chona suggested. “It’s plenty wide enough to lay down in once we do that.”

“Who gets the middle seat with all the room, then?”

She looked at him strangely. “We’ll take that seat off, too.”

“But then there’d be…”

Tinvel trailed off.

Then there’d be enough room for someone to lay down on their back. Or for two people to lay on their sides.

Or for one person to lay atop another.

The cogs of engineering spun up in Tinvel’s brain. He ran simulation after simulation, sliding around the seating arrangement like puzzle pieces, trying to figure out how two people could lay in the seatless cockpit comfortably— and more importantly, with dignity. If they had planks, they could make a bunkbed type of arrangement, one laying atop the other. Maybe they could put a board vertically between them, slotting themselves in like slices of bread. Or, if he used his bedroll, they could…

Well. They didn’t have planks or boards. Even if they did, the pilot’s control stick would get in the way. Without all the complicated machinery of the otherworldly planes Professor Brown had shown him, the bottom of the Fulleye’s cockpit was fairly flat once you removed the seats. That wasn’t even hard to do, either. They were attached with the Tulian foundry’s latest steel bolts, just like most of the plane. It would take hours more effort to build any kind of sleeping arrangement than it would to simply lift the seats up and out, then toss down a bedroll.

Tinvel looked at Chona. She was in the middle of brushing at her fur with one hand, patting it back flat.

At least she’s embarrassed too, Tinvel thought. It was a small comfort.

The conversation died down after that. Chona finished getting the fire going, then had Tinvel stack the logs he’d collected nearby, stabbing them into the mud. He’d been confused about why, yet too anxious about other things to ask, until he’d watched her swat them into the fire with a basic telekinetic spell. Another clever little trick. She wouldn’t even have to get out of bed to keep it burning.

‘Get out of bed.’ The phrase echoed through Tinvel’s mind. He didn’t know what he thought about it. First of all, they wouldn’t be in a bed- they’d be in the stripped-down cockpit of a…

Tinvel stopped abruptly, staring into the darkness. He and Chona would be ‘sleeping together in a stripped cockpit.’ There were… there were a lot of very particular words in a row right there, weren’t there?

He swallowed. If there was any better evidence of how deeply his mind had dug itself into the gutter than that thought process, he couldn’t fathom it.

“Well?” Chona prompted. “Get to it. We want to be awake and ready to take off by the time the morning rains stop, don’t we?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed yet again. “Yeah, okay. Let me just…”

Tinvel’s palms were sweaty as he retrieved his toolbox from the Fulleye’s cockpit storage space. He began working at the screws which kept the seats together, cursing lightly as the smooth handle slipped in his hand. He wasn’t going to take out the full seats, of course. Just the backs, so that they could stuff enough random junk between the bare cushions that their bedrolls could be laid across.

The night’s symphony of croaking, squawking, and screaming jungle creatures serenaded him as he worked, filling his ears with an overlapping cacophony. Some of the birds and the like might have sounded pretty on their own, cute little tweeting songs pattering along, but the cluster of jungle trees was overflowing with chaotically competing choruses. He wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to sleep with all that going on. Nighttime in the city was so much quieter.

Except for when some drunk assholes end up hollering their way down the street, failing to flirt with anyone they see. Then again, didn’t Professor Brown say that most birds sing their songs to attract mates?

No sooner had the thought occurred to him than did Tinvel slap it out of his head, refocusing on the task at hand. With the last seat cushion unscrewed, he hopped out of the cockpit, moving to the left tail boom’s storage hatch. Careful not to disturb the precariously balanced amethyst geodes, he retrieved their travel bags, taking out the bedrolls.

As he walked back to the cockpit, he caught sight of Chona through the corner of his eye. She was standing near the fire, hands out as if to cast a spell, but she was staring straight at him. The fur across her shoulders was standing sharply on end, the vanara blush running all the way down past her elbows.

He jerked his head away, pretending he hadn’t seen a thing.

The rest of the preparations took far too little time. He used the backs of the three seats as a bridge between the cushions, tossing a double-layer of bedrolls overtop to hide the lumpiness. He had to move the control stick out of the way, putting it hard left to keep it out of the way from their sleeping position, which wasn’t ideal. It probably wasn’t good to have the plane’s ailerons straining at their full extent over night. He spent some time trying to figure out a way around it, but ultimately gave up. If the control cables could stand up to the weight of a hundred-mile-an-hour midair maneuvers, they’d be fine spending an evening stretched tighter than usual.

The truth was, he was looking for an excuse. Something to delay something that had, by that point, become inevitable.

We already kiss plenty. We’ve kissed more seriously too, Tinvel tried to reassure himself. We did a lot more the other night. Touching each other and stuff. So what’s the big deal with laying down next to each other? It’s basically like a hug on the ground. We’ve hugged before. Calm down, Tin. What’s the issue?

Unfortunately, he knew perfectly well what the problem was. He was going to be laying down with Chona, close enough that they couldn’t not touch, and unlike that night on the northern airbase, they were perfectly alone. There wasn’t another person in at least a dozen miles.

What if he did something stupid? What if Chona wanted to do… more… of what she did the other night, but he didn’t know what to do? It wasn’t like he had any experience. She did. He was going to make a fool of himself. If she really did try and do anything, it was going to be a disaster. He just knew it. Deep down in his bones, he knew it.

“Well,” Chona said, startling him. She covered her mouth for a yawn. “The fire’s doing good, and I’m pretty tired. You done up there?”

Tinvel searched the cockpit, desperate to find something, anything out of place. There was nothing, of course.

“Yeah, I’m done,” he replied, resisting the compulsion to clear his itchy throat. “It’s not going to be the most comfortable, but…”

“Better than getting eaten alive in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah.”

But is it really, though?

Chona impaled the last few logs into the dirt, ready to be spell-tossed into the flames overnight, then started heading toward the Fulleye. She had her arms wrapped around herself, like she was cold, but she kept rubbing her hands up and down.

Trying to hide a blush? Or am I just being optimistic?

Chona was almost always so much more confident than him. Not in everything, true, he did have some skills he was proud of, but those were few and far between. She’d been the one to suggest this. He’d seen her get in shouting matches with the father of a Champion, for the gods’ sake. He didn’t think she’d actually be embarrassed by her own plan.

The plane rocked slightly as Chona began climbing up its side. Tinvel put his back to her, laying down on the bed rolls. He squished his back as tightly as possible to the side wall, giving her as much room as possible to squeeze in front of him.

“Hey,” Chona said. She tapped his shoulder. “Scoot forward.”

“Huh?” He looked up at her. She was looking down at him impatiently, silhouetted by flickering firelight.

“I don’t want my tail bumping up against you all night. It’ll be uncomfortable for us both. So scoot over.”

She said it in a dead monotone, as if she were reading off a pamphlet. He didn’t know what else to do other than obediently shimmy forward, trying not to bunch up the bed roll.

The plane rocked some more, joints squeaking as Chona crawled in behind him. Tinvel tensed as he began to feel her body heat, black fur still warm and toasty from standing near the fire. The pleasant scent of bonfire smoke mixed with the distinct air of Chona.

He felt paralyzed as she slipped into place. The cockpit was thin. Barely enough room for them both, especially when she had to scoot forward in order to avoid smashing the base of her tail against the wall. He could feel her entire body length rubbing against his, front to back. He could feel her hips pressing against his butt, her nose brushing the back of his head. She wiggled slightly, adjusting herself until she was fully flush with him— including her breasts, which were pressing into his shoulder blades.

“Could you lift your head?” She whispered. Her lips were right up against his ear. He shivered.

“Sure.”

He lifted his head off the rudimentary pillow for a moment. Chona’s arm slipped beneath the pillow, so she wouldn’t have to lay with it crushed against her side. Without any room to let it dangle forward, she had to bring it up and around, hand resting on his right shoulder, like she was hugging him from behind.

Tinvel’s heart was pounding. He knew, he just knew she could feel it. He wondered what she was thinking. He couldn’t even see her face to guess.

Stay cool, Tinvel. This is normal. This is perfectly normal. Sleeping in the same bed is something people do all the time.

“Are you comfortable?” Chona asked. Her words, though spoken as quietly as could be, were poured directly into his ear. So loud. “I can move around a bit if you’re not.”

“I’m fine,” he murmured, still doing his best impression of a paralysis victim. “How’s your tail?”

“I’ve got enough room. Sometimes I wish I had a catfolk’s tail, so I could sleep on my back.”

“Huh?”

“Catfolk tails fold up better than vanara tails. They can press it up against their back and stuff. My tail’s too thick for that.”

“Oh. I’ve never thought about that.”

“Most humans haven’t, I bet.”

Beyond the cockpit, the sounds of the jungle grove continued unabated. Frogs croaked, birds tweeted, and other, stranger creatures hooted and hollered. Despite that, Tinvel could barely hear them. The soft music of Chona’s slow inhales, followed by the ear-tickling wind of her exhales, was drowning out everything. His heart continued to pound. At this rate, he doubted he’d sleep a single minute.

That prophecy started to turn true sooner than he’d anticipated. Chona’s other hand began to snake around his stomach, riding up and over his ribs at the pace of molasses. He was so sensitive, so aware of her every movement, that his shirt may as well have not even existed. It was as if she were brushing against his bare skin.

Ever so slowly, Chona’s arms began to tighten. By degree after miniscule degree, the nature of their position changed. A casual position, the simplest way to share a tight sleeping space, turned into a hug, a tight embrace, and he felt her breath quicken against his ear. Even with the rapid thump-thump-thump in his chest, he began to feel her own heartbeat against him, between the breasts that were pressed tight to his back, beating just as fast.

“Tin?” Chona whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Can we… pick up from the other night?”

An involuntary shiver ran through Tinvel. Goosebumps raced along his skin, like a chill wind had blown through, yet he felt himself begin to sweat. He could feel his pulse in his throat, anxiety bubbling in his very bones.

“I mean… Chona, I don’t know how to…”

“That’s okay,” she murmured. One hand, the one hovering over his ribs, began to slide downward. “Just… tell me what I’m doing right or wrong, okay?”

Her hand dipped downward, running across his stomach. He sucked air through his teeth, muscles tensing under her touch as if her fingers were crackling with spellcast electricity.

Chona didn’t pause as she reached his waist. Her touch glided off his shirt, moving down and down, until the tips of her fingers brushed over his crotch.

Tinvel shivered again. He was already hard. Of course he was; he could feel her breasts pushing into his back with every rise and fall of her chest.

Chona’s head nuzzled forward, her cheek resting against his. She was looking down his body, breathing heavily. Her hand pushed down, grasping him over his clothes.

The noise Tinvel made was… not one that he was proud of. A half-stifled groan, high-pitched and reedy. His eyes squeezed shut, chin tucking into his chest.

Against his cheek, he felt Chona’s lips quirk into a shaky smile.

“Th-there you are,” she murmured nervously. “That’s… um.” She squeezed. “Does that feel good?”

Tinvel nodded silently, biting his tongue to stay silent.

“O-okay,” Chona breathed. “Good. So I just, um, go… like this?”

Her hand slid down. His pants bunched up under her palm, homespun cloth rubbing against his length. His right leg twitched, hips twisting away.

Fast as lightning, Chona’s hand vanished.

“S-sorry!” She whispered. “Was that too tight? I didn’t mean to-”

“N-no!” He licked his lips. “Just… my pants are rough. And it’s, ah, sensitive.”

“O-oh. Sorry.” She brought her hand back down, but this time towards his waistband. Her fingers slipped beneath, pressing against his skin.

Tinvel’s lungs froze. Her cool touch moved downward, inch by inch, until it suddenly touched something very hot.

“Ch-Chona,” he breathed.

She stopped. “Yes? What?”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. Just… that it felt good.”

He’d begun to sweat. It was the middle of the night, the air cool around them both, but drops of sweat were running down his back. His cheeks felt like they were burning alive.

“Okay. That’s good, then. Let me know, okay? I’ve never done anything like this, so…”

“I w-will,” Tinvel promised.

Chona’s touch roamed lower still. Tinvel hissed as she reached her goal, fingertips brushing against the base of his erection.

She hesitated. “It’s… pointing down?” Her fingers went lower, the lightest of touches tracing along his length. “I didn’t know it could… I thought it would just stick straight out… Do I just…?”

“Y-you can,” he breathed, laughing slightly. Gods, they both had no fucking clue what they were doing. “Let me just-”

“No,” Chona interrupted. “I’ll do it. But… can I move it? Won’t that hurt?”

“It won’t,” he assured her. He had to fight his hip’s urge to push against her hand. “If you move it to the side, then pull up, just make sure it doesn’t try to bend against my pants…”

“O-okay.”

Tinvel’s eyes squeezed shut as Chona slowly, gently, with palpable nervousness, pulled his erection around. He clenched as it rubbed against the front of his pants, the head blindingly sensitive, like it never had been before. He bit his tongue to keep himself silent until, finally, Chona had him in her hand, the tip poking out from his waistband.

“So now I can… start…?”

Her hand began to slide downward. The skin of her palm was so much softer than his own. He never would have guessed that, not in a million years. She grew up in a village, he grew up in the city, she was a combat mage and he was a fragile artificer. That her touch was like silken warmth running along his length was unbelievable.

She stopped when she reached his pelvis. Her hand was deep inside his pants, two fingers and a thumb wrapped around him.

“Was that… good?”

“Y-yeah,” he managed. “But… could you squeeze, um, tighter?”

“R-really?” He felt her hand clench slightly, then release. “Won’t that hurt?”

He let out a shaky laugh. “N-no. No, it won’t, I promise.”

Her hand began to close. Tinvel sucked in a breath, his length jumping in her hand.

“O-oh!” She whispered, startled. “I felt that.”

“S-so did I,” he groaned.

She kept squeezing tighter. “So that really was good? Like this?”

It took all his willpower to keep his voice at a reasonable octave as he gave a shaky nod. “It w-was.”

Her hand began to slide back upward. Tinvel’s jaw clicked closed as he was tortured by her touch, the newfound pressure sending ripples of pleasure down his length, radiating outward into his hips.

“Hey,” she whispered, moving closer to his ears. “What happened to those noises?”

“W-what?”

Her lips moved closer, until she was practically kissing her ears as she spoke.

“I want to know when I’m doing good. Don’t be quiet.”

“B-but-”

Her hand slid back down just as he tried to voice a protest, turning the word into a garbled groan.

“There. Like that.” She reached his base, fingers resting for a moment. He could feel the way she was trying to sound confident, could hear the faux-certainty as clear as day, but knowing that didn’t make his head spin any less. “Should I go faster? Or is slow better?”

“F-faster. A l-lot faster.”

Chona obliged him, sliding her hand up and up, until her thumb ran over his head, then began to slip back down. It felt better than it had any right to. Tinvel’s hips twisted in place, grinding up into her palm.

“It’s th-thicker than I expected,” Chona whispered. “I thought it’d just be about the size of my fingers, for some reason. But it’s not.”

Tinvel’s only response was an insensible groan.

“Gods, that’s something. That noise you just made.”

Her free hand started to roam, moving up and down his chest, massaging him. It was shocking how distracting that was. Every inch of his skin was on fire, every bump and press a soothing balm that he couldn’t ignore.

“Come on, Tin,” Chona murmured into his ear. “I want to hear more. Am I doing good?”

“Too good,” he gasped through gritted teeth.

Her stroking sped up. She was looking down at him now, his pants lowered, and she was breathing almost as hard as he was.

“Really? Are you close?”

With one hand grabbing a fistful of the bedroll, the other going up to squeeze the back of her hand like he was dangling off the edge of a cliff, Tinvel nodded.

“I didn’t expect this to be so much fun,” Chona breathed. She turned her free hand around, lacing her fingers together with his. “It’s so hot. I can feel it jumping. Gods, Tinvel, the way you sound right right now…”

“Ch-Chona,” he groaned, “I’m c-close-!”

“Hold on, hold on,” she breathed, slowing for a second. Tinvel could have sworn at her, but she only paused long enough to snuggle up even closer to him, looking down his body so she could have a good view.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I just wanted to see what I’m… doing… here…”

She trailed off as she started pumping again. Tinvel’s back arched as, somehow, that brief pause seemed to drive the sensation even higher. Her soft palm slid up and down, wetted by his own dripping arousal, and she was pumping so fast now that, whether or not she meant to, fingers sliding over his head and wrist bumping into his waist, leaving him twitching and quivering.

“There we go. Okay. I’m ready. I just want to see you-”

It was too much. The cold night air seemed to flash to boiling heat as Tinvel’s trembling all at once stopped, then, as she kept moving, he clamped down on her hand.

Soft touches summoned pulsing pleasure as he began to buck his hips, his length throbbing and pulsing in her hand. His legs went ramrod straight as his fingers and toes curled, an unintelligible gasp rolling from his lips as he felt himself thrust once, twice, and then it all seemed to roll out of him at once, leaving him deaf and blind and utterly at the mercy of Chona’s touch. He called out her name, or tried to, he wasn’t sure what he really said because he was too busy digging his fingernails into the sides of the cockpit and heaving deep breaths, liquid pleasure cycling through his body with every pulsating throb between his legs.

All at once, with almost disturbing abruptness, it ended. He fell back down onto his side, still twitching lightly.

And realized he could finally hear Chona speaking.

“-fucking gods that burns, holy shit!” She swore, repeating the profanities several more times, each more creative than the last. He could feel her squirming around behind him.

Half-delirious, Tinvel craned his neck around, looking at her.

“Godsdamnit it, I didn’t expect that to- oh, man, my eye hurts.”

Tinvel had…

He’d…

She had cum on her face. A streak right across her eye, bottom left to top right, to be precise.

“Wha…?” He intelligently mumbled.

“Tin, do you have your canteen? A rag? Oh my gods this shit burns.”

Lucidity returned rapidly. He started fumbling around beneath the bed rolls, looking for his supply pack.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know- I’ve never had it go that far-”

“Just get me the rag, Tin,” she said. “It’s whatever. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated again, finally finding what he was looking for. He dumped water onto a clean machine rag, holding it up to her face. “Shit. I didn’t realize I could even-”

“Tin. Seriously. I’m fine.”

Even as she said it, Chona took the rag from him and opened her eyelid, squeezing drops directly onto her eye. Tinvel winced as her face quivered. He could already see red lines in her iris.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “That’s never happened. I guess it just felt so good, and you said you didn’t want me to be quiet or hold back, and I-”

“Tin.” A finger landed on his lips. “Shut up. If you don’t shut up, I’m not gonna let you return the favor.”

Tinvel shut up.

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