Work Text:
Meyer awakened, gasping, at the feel of small hot hands tapping at his cheeks and an urgent whispering of his name. Blearily, he opened his eyes to the low light of a melted candle and Teresa's tense pink face.
“Reese,” his voice cracked from sleep, “what’s the matter?”
“Meyer,” she said again, “Meyer. There’s a bug in my room.”
Meyer had never been patient company when tired. He rolled over and groaned into the cloth of his bed. “You woke me for a little bug? Can’t my brother handle it?”
“He’s not home. Uncle needed him for some family business. And It’s not little, it’s giant. It’s acting strange too, Meyer. Heartland strange.”
Meyer sighed once at the mention of family business that he had not been informed of and then again for good measure. “What do you know about Heartland strange? School stories are getting to your head again. Our side of Aldomina is far from that place. We’re more than safe.”
Teresa didn’t respond, just tugged at his sleeve wide-eyed. Her face was pinker than usual and her dark hair was uncombed and tangled around the stubs of her growing horns. She had gotten out of bed in a hurry.
He never could refuse her.
The bug wasn’t giant, but it was strange. It buzzed like nothing he had heard before, jumping from low to a high pitch in quick succession. Rhythmic and pulsing like a song. It was shimmering green and had eyes bright as a coin as it zipped up to his face the moment he stepped into the room. Meyer wasted no time and clapped his palms around its body.
Red dripped from his brown hands. He hadn’t known they could bleed.
When Teresa cheered and hopped around his feet he couldn’t help but smile and tussle her hair, despite his mind lingering on the bug and how it had looked at him. Intelligent. Like it was waiting for something. But it was gone now, and his curiosity would go unanswered.
Shame. It was a pretty thing too.
There was a devil lounging on the stone archway just past the courtyard as he snuck out the back door of his school building, twirling their red and gray striped tie around their claws. That’s how he met Jolyon.
“Golden boy!”, the devil called out to him.
Meyer considered ignoring them. This was the first time he had ever cut out of school in the middle of the day, and his usual confidence felt cowed slightly in the wake of his newborn delinquency. He didn’t even know why he had done it really. Sometimes a restlessness overcame him. Longing for a more exciting pastime than that of academic achievement. Usually, he ignored it, thought about his father, pictured himself as the rock of the Duvalls, and kept his feet on the straight and narrow. But today he had let his heart lead him. And something about this devil felt like a destination.
They grinned at his careful approach. They had sharp-spiraled horns and skin dark like pomegranate seeds.
“It’s Meyer Leopold Duvall, not golden boy.”
“That’s quite a mouthful, Meyer Leopold Duvall. How’s Leopold? You seemed mired enough without the first name adding to it.”
Meyer couldn’t help the snort at that. “That’s a new one. Leopold is just fine.” He paused and studied them. They cut quite a figure for a truant, shirt sleeves crisp and rolled up sharply underneath their sweater. “Who would you be? I can’t remember seeing you around.”
The devil jumped to their feet with a quickness Meyer wasn’t expecting and swept their arm up in a flourished bow. “Jolyon, at your service. I’m here and there, not too hard to spot if you know where you’re looking. Normally I’m attentive enough to my studies but it was such a beautiful day I just had to take advantage. Seeing as we’re friends now I thought you might like to join me.”
“Friends, huh? You’ve hardly learned my name but you talk like you know me, Jolyon.”
Jolyon grinned. “You may not have seen me but I’ve seen you. You can’t deny you are a bit of a golden boy around here. Magnetic, one could say. Something about you makes me think we could make a striking team. There’s a lot more money to be made than meets the eye in Aldomina if you get a little creative.”
“Team.” Meyer rolled the word around his mouth. It felt good. “I can’t say I’m not interested but I’m afraid I’d hardly know where to start.”
Jolyon held out a hand. “Come with me. I have some prospects in mind and I could use a steadier pair of hands than mine to help reel them in with.”
Meyer reached up and grasped on.
"I wish we had a train."
Leopold squinted at Jolyon incredulously. Jolyon wasn’t even looking at him, their eyes glinting and cast to the horizon.
"A train. That's heartland business. What’s wrong with this caravan? It’s costing us no small coin to get ourselves and this shipment across the canton.”
“Yes, yes, it’s a lovely caravan, Leopold. I am grateful to no end to you for securing it for us. But a train. Have you ever seen one?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure. Have you?”
“Once,” Jolyon leaned in, always eager to spin a tale. “I was traveling along the edge of the canton and I saw it far in the distance in the heartland. It was a wonder of metal and fire, surrounded by great plumes of dust. It roared like a beast and looked freer than anything I’d ever seen. Even confined to tracks like it was. Magnificent.”
“Frightening as the thought of one here is, a train could never make it past the magistrates at the borders.”
Jolyon scoffed. ”You think the Magistrates could take down a train? I hear they have legions of knights out there, dressed in train bones wielding fierce guns, and they can barely keep them at bay. The magistrates are too focused on their petty violent revenge. Trains are in a world above all that.”
“Trains don’t have bones, Jolyon. It’s your turn.” Leopold said with amusement, drawing the devil’s attention back to the game of true false war in front of them. That was Jolyon. Always looking ahead. Mind already past this mostly legal shipping deal they had landed, and towards the next, bigger haul. They had been running game whenever they found the time for quite a while now. Not the most exciting shady activity available, smuggling mostly, becoming one of the lines funneling in fascinating and possibly treacherous items from the more remote areas in Sangfielle. It was still the most thrilling thing he’d ever been a part of. Jolyon had been right, they did make a striking team.
“One day we’re gonna take over the heartland, Leo. You and me.”
Leopold was startled out of his thoughts and looked at Jolyon. They met eyes, and the devil’s were set and blazing.
“We’ll ride a train together too, have our meals and tea brought to us by knights that guard our backs. There won’t be any speck of ground we haven’t covered. Every town will know our names.”
Rarely did people get close enough to him to call him Leo. Even rarer did they sound so certain when laying out a life plan that included him. Not even his family had done that.
The smile that unfurled within him filled his whole chest with a buzzing warmth. He cocked his head and swept his eyes on the slight purse in their proud lips and clenched hands barely visible at the edge of the table. They were nervous. Nervous for him. The warmth only grew, it was past his chest and in his cheeks, at the corner of his eyes.
“I suppose someone has to keep you from getting your tail caught in train spokes. Might as well be me.”
Jolyon whooped and leaped in excitement, rocking their table and sending cards flying.
“You cheat!” Leopold cried indignantly,” I was going to win!”
Jolyon only laughed and smacked a kiss onto both his cheeks cheerfully. There was that warmth again. “You’ll be winning at more than just cards if you stick with me, Leo! Nothing will be able to stop us!”
The best smoking spot in all of Aldomina, at least according to Jolyon, was high on the roof of a small church to the Triadic Pyre. One side was shaded by trees, another shaded by architecture, it was secure and always empty on certain days.
You’ll see, they had insisted as the two of them sweat and grappled their way up, this is way better than the usual breaking our backs in bushes and looking over our shoulders at abandoned buildings.
The sun had almost set by the time they settled in a slight depression near a dark orange pinnacle on the roof. The sky was still a roiling mass of purple-red clouds and Leo liked the way it shone off the edges of Jolyon’s horns.
Jolyon caught him staring and winked, waving a cigar. “Fulmina blessed!”
“Heathen.”
The two of them passed it back and forth and the world around them grew darker as they grew lighter. Jolyon showed off new smoke tricks they had learned and tried to teach them to Leo with moderate success. They blew rings til their lungs burned and Jolyon draped their arm over his shoulder affectionately.
“I’ve missed you, old devil. I feel like we hardly get up to our old tricks anymore, what with you cooped up in that old family manor. What do they have you doing in there anyway?”
Leo frowned at the tiles beneath him. “Busy work. Endless conversations.”
“Surely there must be more than that! You’re a Duvall! And I don’t need to meet the rest to know you’re the best of the damn lot.”
Leo gave them a smile that was only half forced. “Tell that to my father.”
The wind made itself known suddenly and snuffed out the light of the cigar. Jolyon muttered a curse and as they fumbled to relight it, Leo felt something warm and rough snake around his ankle.
Jolyon’s face was lit up by flint and steel. Leo looked down and saw it was their tail curled just under his pant leg. “I would tell him, you know. Your father. He should know how brilliant you are, and talented and resourceful. Half the jobs we’ve done wouldn’t have been possible without you.”
Leo scarcely spoke about his family beyond pleasantries, but as he gazed into the devil’s sure eyes, the words poured out like bursting clouds.
"There's nothing." He whispered. He sounded so small, in a way he could never be around his family, around his father. "I go home, and I look around and there's nothing left. There's no place for me here and I have no choice or chance to change it. I am bound by late birth for a life of scraps and hollow bureaucracies."
The wind howled again in the silence that followed. Jolyon grabbed at his hands in the dark and clutched them tightly.
“Listen, Leo. I meant what I said. One day it’s gonna be you and me. You’ll come home so glorious they’ll have no choice but to put you at the head of every table. And I’ll be at your side every step of the way. I promise.”
Leo could find no words for the feelings within him. All he could do was lift their clasped hands to press trembling lips there and hope it was enough.
Leo let out a low whistle at the sight of it. A long golden chain with small jewels inlaid in each link and a pendant that shimmered strangely in sunlight and was freezing to the touch. Some sort of magic, no doubt.
“This is a real beauty, Jolyon.”
“Isn't it? And it’s yours. As soon I saw it, I knew it was the kind of fancy devilry you’d love. You love me after all.”
Leo snorted and shoved at their shoulders. Jolyon pretended to stagger and breathless minutes were lost to laughter and swiping at each other like they were still kids.
Leo’s eyes were still bright with mirth when he asked. “Where did you come across something like this? I know you do just fine running game across the canton but this is different from the stock you usually pull.”
Jolyon shrugged and cast out their hands playfully. “I have my ways and that would be telling, Leo.”
“Seriously, where did you? The only jewel dealers of this caliber in Aldomina are the kind that would never let something like this out of their sights and the kind you most certainly don’t want to pull one over on.”
Leo chuckled as he said this, but there was a nervous lilt to Jolyon’s carefree grin now. “Never could pull one past that brain of yours.”
The laughter died in his throat. “Jolyon. You can’t be serious. You and I have both seen what those people do to those who cross them.”
“What’s a devil to do? If we want to succeed in the heartland we need resources! We need connections! If you want anything in this world you have to grab it for yourself, or it’ll slip away to the less deserving. You can hardly get away from your duties these days. It has to be me.”
“This is dangerous, Jolyon. You’re being dangerous.” Leo glared at the floor and then back at Jolyon, clenching his fists. Helplessness spiraled within him.
Jolyon’s face was twisted in distress. It was an expression Leo had never seen on them before, not like this. They put their hand to Leo’s face and he could feel their claws scraping underneath his ear as they urged his head up into eye contact. Their hand was even more uncomfortably warm than usual but he felt his body leaning into it anyway. “C’mon, Leo. Don’t let me go off to such a stormy face. You know how much I like your smile, old devil.”
Leo gave a weak smile. Jolyon softly brushed at the edge of it with a finger before pulling away.
“There it is. Here,” they pressed the chain back into his hands. “I really want you to have it. I caught hell sneaking it out from under their noses.”
Jolyon straightened and brushed at their clothes uselessly. They seemed a little lost as they murmured a goodbye.
It wasn’t that job. Or the next. Or the one after that. Month after month, Jolyon came back glowing with triumph and deepening lines of stress. But eventually, things broke badly. In the worst, most irreversible way.
It felt unfinished. That's the thing when Leo got the news that Jolyon had died. The thing beyond fervent promises over long afternoon card games in creaky caravans, smoke rings and secrets on abandoned church rooftops, and the cold gold chain glinting in his pocket. It felt unfinished. They felt unfinished.
The most alive person in all of Aldomina, gone just like that.
It shamed Leo that it only took a week to settle his whole life so he waited another month before setting out for the heartland. The world was too big, and life was too short. He owed it to Jolyon to see the world that had so coldly shut on them. He owed it to himself, and the stubborn tug in his chest towards adventure.
There was no one at his side to pull him forward anymore. No sharp grin and quick laugh to buoy his steps. It had to be him.
The closer Leo got to where his maps claimed Sleeping City rested, the harder each step felt. The sand here felt like marsh and chittering lizards sped underfoot and made him stumble. There was the most annoying low buzz. But no bugs were to be seen. He felt like a fool slapping at phantom sensations crawling on his calves. His head was playing tricks on him.
He had beseeched Reese’s father for money to fund his expedition and those funds were running out. He couldn’t afford to wait until the thirteenth year. He had to find his legend now, or return to Blackwick and then even Aldomina with his tail between his legs.
He couldn’t let that happen. Jolyon wouldn’t let that happen. Just thinking the name summoned a biting, bitter hurt. Leo shook his head fiercely, palmed at the gold chain that lay close to his heart and trudged on.
In the end, all he got was a glimpse. Tall, crowded buildings made of rectangular stone and colorful overhangs with bolded letters, shining brighter than any candle. On one sign, the words:
WELCOME TRAVELER. THE CITY AWAKENS FOR YOU!
Then insects, swarming. More than he had ever seen in his life. Furious and eager and screaming. The sharp, terrible pain of a thousand stingers on him, in him. A shimmering green bug, eyes bright as a coin, crawling into his mouth.
Darkness.
Duvall awakened, gasping, and a flood of writhing bugs came out with his breath.