Chapter 1: Doing and saying
Chapter Text
The walk home was silent between them. The sun was in decline, and the birds sang their last chorus before settling in for the night. Loid removed his hat a hundred yards from the front door, finding a band of sweat clinging to his crown despite the chilling autumnal breeze. He side-eyed Yor, whose mood had shifted again - though her expression was neither sour nor burning with emotion. It was almost... Well, he wasn’t certain.
He opened his mouth, searching for something to say to draw her out but surprisingly, nothing came to him. As they began to climb the stoop to the apartment complex, he opted instead to hold the door wide for her. He offered his arm to steady her up the interior stairs, suspecting she was still a little tipsy from her cocktail-fuelled hunt.
A quick glance at her face revealed a gentle, slightly forlorn expression. It needled at him. Had he spoiled the evening somehow? Each step became another chance to sift through everything he’d done and said but as usual, when it came to Yor, he was completely perplexed. Bamboozled. Off-balance.
What once felt like a challenge now felt like a personal failure: his inability to make Yor happy. Maybe that was why she had asked about the length of their agreement. Maybe she wondered if he was having second thoughts. Was the outing her attempt to salvage appearances or to gauge his commitment? None of his answers had reassured her. And now, he felt more confused than ever as he turned the key and ushered her inside.
Anya was still up, watching television. Loid’s eyes flicked towards the scruffy-haired man on the sofa behind her, the one he’d asked not to use the TV while they were out.
“Before Papa says anything,” Anya called out, still facing the screen, “Anya did all her homework!” Loid hummed low in his throat. Was he really that transparent? Yor slipped off her coat and hung it up before crossing to Anya and pulling her into a warm cuddle. She thanked Frankie for taking care of Anya and then she declared she’d be using the bathroom and disappeared down the hall.
Anya, previously engrossed in the adventures of her cartoon heroes, turned her head to watch her adoptive mother go. Her little brows drew together in quiet worry. She folded her hands together, then shifted her emerald gaze to Loid — not accusing, but certainly expecting. As if he owed her an explanation he hadn’t realised he needed to give.
He hung his hat up. Franky slapped his knees and ruffled the little girl’s hair on the way to meet Loid, who stepped into the belly of the living area. Loid asked if Anya had been good; Franky told him she had. They chatted a little, but it was Franky who seemed a little put out when Loid’s attention was spent on the coat folded on his arm and not hanging behind him on the hook.
“Are you going out tonight?” Franky asked him.
“Oh, no,” Loid muttered, and as if awoken, he turned and finally put up his coat. His friend gave his back an odd look and asked him if the date had gone badly.
“We had a nice time,” Loid responded sourly.
“You look like you had a nice time,” Franky snickered. “I guess I should stop coming to you for romance advice, huh? Maybe this is a role reversal?”
Loid’s icy eyes roved over the shorter man. He said, “hardly.”
Franky snorted in offence. “What’s that supposed to mean!?”
Loid almost looked amused for a moment before thanking his friend for looking after Anya, just as Yor had, and pulled the door open again to bid the shorter fellow farewell. Franky called out a goodbye to the little girl, but she was already lost in her animated fiction. He sighed fondly, stepped out, and said he’d see Loid later with a parting wave.
Loid closed the door and came to the living room to take a seat behind Anya. His daughter’s attention was fully on the screen. He had the urge to look through her homework — it wasn’t particularly late, and he hoped she hadn’t rushed it — but he decided to let her be and just took a moment to feel the sofa swallow him as much as it could. It had been another long week, and progress was slow in every way possible.
WISE had had him working like a dog and, worse, with Nightfall out for some apparent illness, he’d taken up her labour. It was, in a way, a courtesy, since he knew she’d do the same and more for him whether her intentions were proper or not. With that, Sylvia was pressing him on his efforts with Strix and Anya’s academic exploits. He looked across at the little girl — at the back of her head as she bounced along to the main theme of an action scene playing out before her eyes. He wasn’t certain he could raise her into an Imperial Scholar.
Anya’s hoppy movement slowed as Loid rubbed a weary hand over his face and let his fingers rub at his lidded eyeballs.
To add to his aggravations, what had once seemed like a boon — gaining access to Melinda Desmond — now seemed questionable, given how the woman was gripped by paranoia over her husband's apparent abilities. Mind reading? What utter nonsense was she spouting? And wasn’t it just his luck that his last serious link to ending Operation Strix rested on the shoulders of a paranoid, potentially abused wife and a simple child? World peace, as it appeared to Loid, was on a breadline with regards to how well he was handling this whole operation. If it were really all on his shoulders, he was feeling the pressure now more than ever.
Loid’s stomach knotted with anxiety. It ached and tightened like a writhing snake. He let his right hand fall to comfort the poisoned serpent jerking within and attempted to steady his breath. The left hand lowered from where he covered his eyes, only for glacier blue to meet spring clover in the eyes of his adopted daughter. The one he’d just thought of as simple. Shame ensnared him as he noted her pinched expression.
“What’s wrong, Anya?” Loid asked, his mind racing to rewind through the evening since his return. He leaned forward, his attention narrowing in on her as a thud of worry pressed against his ribs. He came to kneel in front of her as her lip began to tremble. “If you didn’t do your homework, it’s fine. I won’t be angry. We have all weekend.”
For a moment, she didn’t reach out like she usually did, even with Loid so close within reach. A strange disappointment twisted in his gut—then finally, she moved, pulling herself toward him.
“Anya doesn’t do good at math,” she promptly wept, soaking his lapels. Loid pulled her onto his lap and patted her back.
“That’s okay. I can help you.”
After a few minutes, she calmed herself enough to untangle her little limbs from him and trotted off to her room, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles as she did so. Loid watched her go and didn’t move until she toddled back with her math book and notes in hand. He took them from her, reminded her to fetch a pen — despite having one in his own pocket — and used the moment to stand back up then settle himself on the sofa.
He looked over her work and found that she had, in fact, completed the homework, just as she said. But before he could contemplate this further, she returned and climbed up beside him. Her expression, much like Yor’s earlier, had softened into something tired and forlorn.
How he’d managed to exhaust both of the women in his life who mattered to… Operation Strix; he did not know.
He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to her workings.
“You noticed the number pattern here,” Loid said to her, pointing and waiting for her to lean over to look,
“-even if your final answer is off, that’s not random guessing. That’s progress. Great Job, Anya.”
Anya fidgeted for a moment before looking up at him. “But it’s still wrong?”
Loid huffed — a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sigh — and tapped the corner of her workbook with his finger.
“You grouped the numbers correctly, but look at what you did with the tens. What’s missing between this step and the answer?”
Her eyes widened for a moment before narrowing on him, tears drying along with her expression. “Papa's talking nonsense.”
“No nonsense, Anya,” Loid said, sitting a little straighter. They stared at her stained and scribbled homework as if it held some hidden code to everything important. “I can see you're trying. I know you can do this. You've done it here, see? So look back at this one — see here? You didn’t carry the one. That’s why the answer is wrong.”
“Oh,” Anya said uncertainly.
She took the book from him and placed it on her lap. She kicked her feet against the bottom of the sofa and chewed on the end of her pen for a long while. It took all of Loid’s training in restraint not to reach over and begin planning out the answers himself. But the sight of her, messy and slow as she was, beginning to attempt the problem gave him a different kind of satisfaction — one that chastised him for thinking her a simple child. Anya was so much more than simple to him. He looked away and set his eyes upon the furniture of the room and the growing shadows, hoping they’d chase away such inessential thoughts.
The night was stretching long, but it was a Friday evening, so he waited. Finally, her pencil stilled. She turned to look at him, anticipation tightening her little shoulders.
“This?” she asked simply.
Loid leaned in, scanning the numbers with the kind of careful eye he usually reserved for mission files. Then he nodded, pleased, “yes. That’s right. You corrected it.” He kept his voice even, but a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Anya beamed. Loid leaned in to direct her attention toward two separate answers. “There are two more mistakes here. If you find them, I’ll let you watch another episode of Spy Wars.”
“Can I have milk chocolate too?” Anya asked. “And some peanuts? For strength?”
Loid gave her a mock-stern look, though his expression cracked with something soft and fond.
“Fine but no complaining after; it’s straight to bed.”
“Okie,” She said and pulled her legs up to rest her work against her thighs, her back pressed against his ribs. As he had his left arm along the back of the sofa, the top of her head nestled perfectly under his armpit. The arrangement was just like a little owl in its nook. With the golden amber of the lights above, the soft glow of the TV with its volume turned to a barely audible murmur to the cadence of Anya’s pen scratching answers out on her homework; Loid felt the beat of his heart thrum in his ears and the warmth of something akin to safety wash over him. He looked down over the little girl, at her pink mop of hair and her small, soft hands as they clutched to paper and pen. He felt warm at the sight.
He almost forgot that he had yet to concern himself with finding the same domesticity with Yor. Yet as he began to think of her and her perplexing mood swings and all the steps he’d taken along their date he found Anya sigh and pause mid-calculation. He blinked owlishly, realising that an advert was broadcasting on the television. He glanced down at Anya who pulled away to sit against the back of the sofa. The loss of the kindled warmth between them burned like salted ice and Loid frowned in confusion, “did you finish?”
“No… you,” she chewed her inner cheek before flopping the pad and paper on his thigh and folding her arms, “Anya’s done.”
“Oh,” he picked it up and read through, “it’s right Anya. Good job, but…” Well, she hadn’t finished showing the working’s out on the last question, though the answer was still right. Was it worth admonishing her over a few marks?
“Do… what is love?”
“What?”
Anya glanced away over to the sash windows. The black of night cast through, she could barely make the details in the houses across the road. Bond snored on the rug and Anya sighed again.
“What’s love, to you, papa?”
Loid couldn’t understand why she would ask such an odd question. He opened his mouth to speak but didn’t have an answer. Was this something she’d talked with her classmates about? Was a boy in love with her and confessed? No, she was far too young for such a word to be invoked! He couldn’t allow that of course. He should ask her before it was too late. For Strix of course, because petty romances would distract Anya from her studies.
Anya huffed, wearily. “Anya loves Papa,” she added exhaustively, “even if Papa’s not always very smart.”
“Oh w-well…,” Loid blinked and decided to fix his gaze upon the tv, he coughed at the clamping in his throat.
“Jus’ wondered is all,” Anya picked at an old scab on her knee from where she’d fallen while playing at school. She picked at it in hopes that it would distract her from the widening wound to her right. But her fake-father was as stiff as a tree and only moved to grab her homework when it began to slide off his lap.
Loid exhaled, his mouth twisting into an unsatisfied frown, “-you see, Anya, love is very complicated. You can tell someone that you love them all you want, but you may not mean it.”
“Oh,” the little girl nodded and let her legs kick in the air again.
The spy watched her restlessness for a heartbeat before feeling the urge to explain more, “what I mean to say is, action is more important than words, do you understand? Does Bondman ever tell Princess Honey that he likes her?”
“No.”
“But he always rescues her, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.”
Loid twisted on the sofa to look at her more closely, “yes you do.”
“Sometimes maybe Princess Honey wants to hear him say it, otherwise she’s gonna think he might not save her.”
“Well, considering they’re writing more episodes and planning a movie, I highly doubt it,” Loid said, tired of the pouty game Anya was playing and not wanting to cater to it. “Did you want to watch that extra episode of Spy Wars?”
For a moment, he thought the only thing Anya might squeeze from her tightly pursed lips would be a ‘no’. But the girl couldn’t resist and hopped off the sofa to squish herself against Bond, who grumbled and rolled over to make space for her along his fluffy side.
Loid tried not to notice how long and cool the sofa had become in her absence. He tried not to notice how much the distance between them unsettled him — just as he had been with Yor and her unfathomable mood. So instead, he got up and fetched Anya her promised milk chocolate and a saucer of peanuts.
When he returned, he set the drink and snacks down and settled behind her—not on the empty sofa, but with his back against its footrest, arms resting over his knees. He reached behind himself to retrieve the controller and changed the channel. The new Spy Wars would be on after the ad break.
They watched as a presenter ran through a scripted segment about proper dress for the modern Ostanian woman. Loid ran a hand through his hair as he wondered why he was so incapable of keeping his little family out of turmoil. The nagging in his mind travelled down into the hell of his gut and stayed there until he thought the ache would drive him mad.
The feeling followed him into the next day, and he was more than determined to address it. He set about making a sweet breakfast for Yor and Anya to wake up to — no dishes to clean and all the morning chores tended to. Just three tall stacks of fluffy pancakes waited to be eaten. All the girls had to worry about was how to get through them and get ready for the day.
Loid had everything planned. They’d relax in the morning while he worked through the crossword — inviting Yor to help, to bolster her confidence and encourage a little teamwork between them. It didn’t matter that he could solve the puzzle at a glance; that wasn’t what it was about.
Then he’d suggest, almost offhandedly, that they take Bond to the nearby park — where, entirely by chance, a group of travelling performers would be putting on a show. Afterward, he’d propose lunch at the docks before they all walked home for a quiet, homely evening.
And so, that is what happened.
They enjoyed the pancakes and Anya jumped at his suggestion she could have a rare hour to enjoy the morning cartoons while Loid cleaned their plates, rebuffing Yor and kindly suggesting she go and enjoy her usual morning shower.
By the time she was out her gentle frown was smoothed away when Loid, now at the sofa with their coffee’s ready, asked for her help on the crossword. To his dismay, Yor seemed to have more interest in Anya’s morning shows than attempting the paper’s trivias and they found themselves watching the screen in relative silence. Despite Loid’s mounting anxiety things were not following the plan, to his relief Anya seemed more than agreeable at his suggestion of walking to the park and when the child was so eager, her mother followed without complaint.
The walk to the park was sunny and pleasant and even if Yor hesitated at taking his arm, she was still just as elated as Anya when they found the performers juggling fire in the performance pavilion. Though, disappointingly Anya was instead captured by the ground-level fountains which had been turned on despite the cool autumnal air. Loid had not accounted for this and cursed himself as Anya bolted toward the jets of water. How on earth could he have made such a terrible miscalculation?
The concept of an easy, relaxing day was lost on his daughter as somehow Westalis’ top trained spy and his very capable wife both struggled to keep their six year old child and their large dog from diving into the jets of aqua along with the other children. While Yor seemed to laugh deeply at her antics as the two adults were caught unawares by the spray, Loid could only mourn the fact that the other half of his plan was scuppered as Yor suggested they return home to dry.
The rest of the evening somehow seemed to disappear as Yor stepped out to handle a personal errand and didn’t return until Anya was already put to bed and Loid himself was just about to head to his own room.
He promised himself as he lay back to engage with another fitful night that he’d make Sunday more worth their while only to be disappointed by the rain that chased any chance of an outing out of their minds. Loid found his fretting only alienated Yor and exasperated Anya who preferred to spend her morning eating tea and biscuits with the Authens next door.
When Yor had gone to collect the laundry, she found he’d already brought it up. He’d handled breakfast and lunch preparation too. Their home was spotlessly clean too because her husband had gotten up gruesomely early to handle that too; he’d left her with nothing to occupy herself on such a rainy day. She only found respite in taking Bond aside for his weekly bathing not realising that when she told Loid she could handle it alone he instead took her gentle suggestion he sit down and rest as a deep wounding rebuff only further inflicted by Anya’s desire to draw and colour in rather than bake biscuits with him.
Yor stepped into the living area with a now spotless dog at her heel to find Anya surrounded by her crayons on the rug seemingly oblivious to the dark cloud sucking the soul from the patriarch of their unit as he clasped both hands as if in prayer.
“Loid?”
He jumped as the cushion dipped between them and looked over as Yor’s concerned expression filled his vision.
“Sorry, yes?”
Her cardinal eyes creased, “I asked if you were okay.”
Loid nodded and straightened. “Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just…” She glanced at the little girl who was captured by whatever it was she was drawing, “-You seem a bit more… you seem stressed.”
An inch of space felt like a canyon between their knees. She brushed at some imagined dust on a pillow before settling it in her lap, then lifted her gaze to meet his.
“You’re always so on top of everything, but it feels like you’re—” She bit her lip, her eyes flickering over his face and the faint bags shadowing his sharp eyes. “I’m not sure. You always try to do things diligently, but at least I usually have a chance to help a little.”
“Oh,” Loid said, “I’m… sorry?”
“No, don’t be sorry. I’m just-” she wanted to tell him she was worried. That he looked tired and needed to learn how to just relax but as far as she’d always known him, he didn’t seem to know the word. Not for the first time she wondered how his ex wife had been. She wondered if they competed or, well, a selfish bit of Yor wondered if the woman was lazy and Loid had always handled everything, or was it just her? Was it that Yor was so incompetent that she was the one who caused Loid to fuss about all of the household chores.
Her face must have cracked into something awful because his off-guard expression suddenly grew taut with surprise, brows rising in a mirror of her own concern. “Yor,” Loid said, “you’re just what?”
“Sorry,” Yor said, shaking her head, “I just thought we talked about you letting me handle some of the chores? We’re supposed to be a team in this, remember?”
Realisation dawned upon him nod as he set his cup down. “Yes, my apologies Yor.”
“Okay.”
A complicated look came about him. Like he was trying to uncover some worldly secret. Yor wished, dearly, to just be able to open up his mind and read it like a book. He looked so wound up and she couldn’t understand why or what could help. “Would you like some tea?” She asked him with a gentle smile.
Loid nodded and he leaned back against the sofa with a soft sigh, “I would, thank you.”
The rain tapped against the window until late in the evening just before the street lights flickered on. The small family had spent a mostly relaxing day in as Yor read her book and Anya coloured and watched TV while Loid settled quietly at the table in the corner to peruse over what Yor assumed were his work files. Every now and then he cast a look over them in thought and every now and then he would shift uncomfortably in his chair.
Yor wished he’d come sit with them and forget his work for a moment but she didn’t want to presume to question what he wanted to do on the one day they could rest together and the one day Anya seemed a little more content to play quietly.
It was Bond who pacing restlessly near the door had them finally leaving their little sanctuary. He hadn’t been walked all day but the rain had now abated, and now was better than never. They decided to go as a family and they’d stop by the convenience store to get some pasta for dinner. It was a little later than optimal but again… now was better than never.
As Yor readjusted Anya’s hat when they reached the outdoors to their apartment building, she found herself smiling as the little girl began to hunt for puddles to hop in. Loid seemed to give a half-hearted admonishment before leaving the young girl to her mischief and in a careless, happy and selfish moment Yor laughed and tucked her arm under his and didn’t mind the subtle surprise raising his brows.
“This is nice,” Yor said as they walked arm in arm.
“Yes,” Loid said and looked on to watch Anya who was not too far ahead and still prancing through puddles. Bond pulled only slightly on his leash, eager to join her but after his soaking yesterday, Loid was keen to check him back to heel. He let a centering sigh pull out of him, “I suppose it really is.”
They settled into a companionable silence for a moment. The route they went would take them along the west side of the park, though it would be closed at this hour. Loid thought back over the weekend and how stifling the day had been in their tidy apartment with nothing but entertaining Anya to occupy them. Guilt bit at him.
“I really am sorry, Yor.”
Her arm tightened briefly against his as she turned to him.
“I did say we’d share more of the chores and I took over… I’m sorry about that. But also-” He paused and glanced skyward for a brief uncomfortable moment, before his watchful eyes were back on keeping track of Anya and her antics “-I think I upset you on our date on Friday, you seemed a little down by the end of it.”
Yor looked up at him worriedly wishing for him to look at her but secretly glad he couldn’t because when he was so close it made her heart pound and she was sure he might feel it pulsing down the arteries of her arm through his thick leather coat. She swallowed, “I wasn’t upset.”
“Oh,” Loid now looked confused and he bit the side of his cheek before asking skeptically, “you weren’t?”
“Maybe a little that they weren’t serving the cocktail I had last time,” she edged into him a little, the worry in his knitted brows smoothened just a smidge.
“I suppose… well now isn’t really the time to talk too much about it,” her eyes turned away from him, roving to Anya who was running a stick along the metal bars of the park-fence. Yor sighed, “-was that why you’ve been on edge this whole weekend? Because you thought I was upset at you over our date?”
Loid wondered. Was that really why? Not really but sort of. He didn’t think Yor was upset at him per se but she was unhappy and Anya seemed unhappy. His role in all of this was to guide their family to find harmony together. If Yor was displeased with him as her husband and Anya disappointed with him as her father then that would reflect in their family cadence as a whole and people would notice and question it. The neighbors were nosy enough as it were and Yor’s co-workers were already suspecting something - surely - after following them around so doggedly last Friday. Clearly, Loid was doing something wrong!
That all too familiar knot in his belly reappeared and had him clutching his stomach with the hand holding Bond’s leash. He thought desperately to find the words that would comfort Yor most but it seemed, yet again, he’d only worried her more.
“Loid?”
He shook himself out of his belly aching and looked at her and she appeared strained with concern, she said, “is your stomach bothering you again?”
He let his hand fall back to his side and blew a soft, self-deprecitive chuckle. “Oh no, I’m okay. I suppose… yes, I suppose I was worried I had upset you.”
Relief at this offering of honesty elated Yor and she quickly corrected him, “I wasn’t upset. Actually, I had a lot of fun.”
Loid again looked skeptical and he chewed at his inner lip. They had to pause and wait for a car to trundle by before crossing the road. Anya had held onto Yor’s hand and when they’d finally made it across, Loid then had handed the little girl Bond’s leash. There were barriers on either side of them in this stretch of pavement and he hoped this rare opportunity to walk the dog would distract Anya enough to let him continue to clear up their conversation. Anya seemed to be making this an easy task, being quiet and unusually well-behaved and while it would usually bleed suspicion of what she was up to, Loid really was just exulted that he might be able to smooth things over with Yor by just… talking.
When they were back on familiar ground, and Anya was busy walking Bond in an exaggerated imitation of Loid’s earlier demonstration, he finally felt safe enough to continue the conversation with Yor. She also seemed to be anticipating it as they walked perfectly in sync with each other.
“You did seem down when we got home,” Loid said.
Yor chewed her lip, “I’m sorry, I guess I had a lot on my mind.”
“Was it something I said about our arrangement?” Loid asked anxiously.
Yor paused, almost fully confirming his ask. She then looked up searchingly just as he had earlier before her eyes fell back down onto her feet. “I suppose I was just worried about why my co-workers were trailing after us.”
“Oh,” Loid hummed and looked ahead too. Tension bled from him and he blinked once or twice like the light on a rebooting computer. Yor walked quietly alongside him and desperately tried to smother down her sombering feelings and raise some conviction. Loid would smell any sudden moroseness like a bloodhound and immediately reject her claim. She knew it. But now things were getting dangerous. As she lay in bed last Friday night she had turned her worries over and over in her head… Finally, she had settled on one certainty: that it was okay to love him as they are now and to not look too much for any return on her investments.
Loid had Anya. And he was a confusing and brilliant man. He seemed — from an outsider — to have boundless energy to raise Anya to a critically high standard whilst keeping his work ethics in his unforgiving job and maintaining the home as clinically as she suspected of a medical practitioner. And raising Anya was not easy. She was a wonderful child but she was challenging and seemed to find trouble as if it were magnetized to her. Compounding all this is that Yor — despite her own efforts — was not as domestically helpful as she’d like, it left her wondering sometimes how her fake husband seemed to even function.
He had his flaws of course. He was stern and overly concerned with appearances, though that couldn’t be blamed with how aggressive the SSS were. He kept himself to himself and shared little of that despite how much he gave. But there were moments where he settled and opened up. There were seconds where his glacial eyes became warm like the skies of a sunny day. There were brief instances where she’d catch the soft flush warming his pale cheeks when Anya had captured his heart with her cute, loving words. Even stoic Loid, who liked to appear straight and controlled at all times, was soft in the centre enough to bend down and pick up his little girl.
Yor loved him. She loved him so much it was making her heart ache. It was selfish, but if even a small bit of him could hold even a cup of warmth toward her, she’d eagerly drink from it.
“Well, I’m sure we could consider a way of settling any suspicions, if that’s what you are concerned about. I don’t like to think of you being worried, so feel free to share it with me.”
He always said the exact thing to cut into her more too; she hummed and leaned against him as they walked and whether she imagined or willed it, he tightened his arm over hers just a little. She was the most dangerous person in Berlint but in that moment, under his arm, she felt unbelievably vulnerable and superiorly protected.
They made it to the convenience store where Anya’s quietness seemed to sweat away to reveal a manically active and happy child. She seemed convinced that she had taught Bond a new trick on their walk and wanted desperately to show her Papa. So Yor went in for the pasta they needed for dinner and when she came out she found her husband’s legs wrapped in the leash and Anya still attempting to get Bond to spin on the spot at her command.
Their conversation home was more chatty and more towards the happenings ahead of them as Monday was just a sunrise away.
Loid had cooked whilst Yor had helped Anya prepare her schoolbag and fold her uniform. All was well until they’d just sat down and before Loid had even picked up his fork the phone rang out and rattled in its holder. He looked frustrated for a fraction of a second before standing and stepping aside to answer the call. However, when he had put the damn thing down and turned toward the coatrack he called over his shoulder to them.
“I have to go, there’s an emergency at the hospital.”
“Now?” Yor asked in surprise, placing her fork down on the plate, “is there no one there that can handle it?”
Loid paused, midway from seating his hat upon his head before turning to them and saying, “I’m sorry Yor.
You too Anya. I’ll make it up to you. Please, don’t wait up for me.”
And then he was gone. Leaving both ladies to eat without him.
Chapter Text
Sylvia sat ahead of him, stirring her tea though it had long turned cold. If he didn’t know better, he’d think her mind was elsewhere. Twilight found himself guarding an irritable stomachache that he couldn’t pin to his nerves. Though he did feel some suspicion toward the omelette Yor had attempted that morning. In fairness, she did say she didn’t mind him not eating it, but the light that shone in her eyes when he’d declared it to be delicious had outshone the embers still crisping the edge of his breakfast. Though he regretted it now and attempted to chase away the discomfort with a mouthful of coffee.
“Thanks for backing up Lightfoot last night,” Sylvia said.
Twilight cantered his cup and sat back, “it was no trouble. Are you sure you’re well, Handler? It’s unlike you to offer praise so easily.”
She smirked and finally lifted her tea to sip at, it was indeed cold — Twilight observed — as she pulled a face and placed it back down “-well, take it while I’m feeling generous, agent.”
Twilight hummed and found himself wrestling down the desire to squirm in his seat as a tight burning pressure pulsed under his ribs. I’ll have to avoid Yor’s cooking for a while, he decided as sweat ran down the back of his neck. “I suppose in a way I didn’t need to be there. Lightfoot handled it all very well alone. I was mostly just observing.”
“He’s not long finished his training,” Sylvia said shrewdly, “I was hoping to get your insight on his work in your report.”
“Well, I hope you found yourself reassured,” Twilight said.
“For now,” Sylvia nodded and idly stirred her cup once again, “now more than ever rookie mistakes can’t be tolerated. We need everyone at their best. This means your work with Strix needs great care and even then, we’ll need you ready at a moment.”
“Isn’t it always this way?” Twilight crossed his legs and entwined his fingers as he stared at his handler. He might have appeared collected but she knew him long and well.
“The information you retrieved regarding the prisoners in Spandell last week has shed light on a long-lost mystery. The list has left our hands and ended up under the nose of Claudia Vesser.”
Twilight uncrossed his legs and leaned forward urgently, stomach ache all but forgotten, “Our new Foreign Minister?”
“Yes. And she’s called for an urgent meeting with Greisner. He’s returning with his cabinet from Nordica as we speak.”
“But who was on that list that was so important to do this so urgently?” Twilight asked, rubbing his chin in thought.
“If I was cruel, I’d make you guess but… Well it's Aldred Greisner’s own brother.”
Twilight leaned back as if his strings had been cut. He blinked dazedly. If you’re wondering who Aldred Greisner was, then wonder no more. Aldred Greisner was the Prime Minister of Westalis. A former wartime intelligence analyst turned diplomat, Greisner was known for his steady hand but even a peace monger’s heart would war at the thought of their own blood being caged away from home. Similarly, while Westalis’s current ruling coalition — The Progressive Democratic Union — was no purveyor of war, it was impossible to ignore the fact that their own opposition would see Greisner leaving this unchecked as anything but unacceptable weakness.
Just as they had suspected for the last decade: Ostania and the SSS were withholding information on held prisoners of war. Men who’d fought against the aggressors had been rotting in cages like rats for years and years, nobody had known. Until now.
Twilight said, “if Greisner wants his brother home, he’ll trade intelligence for him or pressure us into concessions we can’t afford.”
“Whispers echo that Claudia Vesser is going to suggest a prisoner exchange.”
“I see.”
“This means we need to be careful while out in the field. Mistakes could cause Ostania to reject any proposals before they’re even offered. So there’s a few of your field operations that are now axed or on hold. Rejoice at the sudden reprieve for a moment before we find ourselves inundated. For now, focus on Strix and take whatever opportunity you can get. In the meantime, we need to look into The People’s Stability Party and make a note of who’d be most in support of the exchange and who wouldn’t be that might need some convincing. I’m hoping you’ll oversee this operation if Greisner makes a move, Twilight.”
“I will give it my utmost attention,” Twilight said resolutely.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Sylvia said, and allowed herself to smile with relief, “Operation Strix is important, but we always knew it was a long-term route to peace. This list could change everything, and things might move fast, so be ready.” At Twilight’s confirmation of understanding Sylvia reciprocated a short nod and let out a sigh. Before accosting the man ahead over her a severe, emerald glare. “You look pale,” She said, “I hope you’re not planning on being unwell now.”
Twilight rolled his eyes, and took a final sip of his coffee as he murmured, “my wife’s cooking is hardly going to send me to the grave.”
“Yor? I thought her cooking had improved?”
“So did I,” Twilight grumbled as he put a hand over his stomach which once again had become unsettled.
Paperwork weighed down the rest of his evening. It was almost a nice reprieve from dodging bullets if it wasn't so boring, and it didn't leave him bellyaching over what the impending negotiations could mean for Westalis and Ostania. As things stood, the relationship between the two nations was strained to say the absolute least, but no skirmishes or bullets had let fly for years, if you didn't count the hidden operations that played out on both sides. Optically, the news seemed to be less encouraged on reporting their bared fanged relationship when other scandals seem to occupy the minds of the people. Kings of far away lands passing to great ceremonial funerals and scientific discovery were amongst the most speculated, though talks of rockets that could carry men to the moon were of the most excited ramblings. Twilight’s many years of experience within WISE had him believing one true thing and that was no news was good news and no news meant their work was working.
After some internal organising, Twilight left the hospital and drove to Eden academy as Loid, the dutiful father picking up his little girl from school. After the bus hijacking incident, he’d reasoned that it would be necessary for him to see to it that Anya was picked up personally; her safety of course, was of utmost importance to the operation. The school bus was too easy a target and if anything happened to his little girl well… well of course everything would be for nothing. So he waited along with a few other parents, leaning against his light blue convertible with one hand in his pocket.
Loid was a little early. And one of the other fathers recognised him from the Winter Sheep Festival. The broad-shouldered man waved a greeting before abandoning his car to come over to Loid with a smile below his bristly stash. Loid turned to him in polite address and the man’s name and status registered easily in his mind as Rudolf Kellenbach, the head of a mid-sized construction and defence contracting firm based in Berlint’s eastern district. He was a polite man and while his connections were mildly interesting, Loid didn’t find anything he offered as particularly useful intel.
“Getting chilly isn’t it?” Mr Kellenbach said, shuffling over to him and rubbing his hands. Loid hummed in agreement and buttoned up his coat a little higher around his neck. It was indeed getting a little chillier. He ought to make sure Anya was suitably dressed. Kellenbach pulled out a pack of cigarettes, he offered one to Loid who waved him down.
“You don’t partake?” Kellenbach said and put a cigarette to his lips and attempted to light it vainly against the cutting breeze.
“Here,” Loid said and took the lighter as Kellenbach used his hands to shield the cigarette’s end as Loid lit it, cupping the flame. When finally, Kellenbach leaned away and took a long draw, Loid stepped back to the sound of a relieved 'thanks.'
“You sure?” He said, gesturing again, “kids won’t be out for another five minutes if that's what you’re worried about.”
“I kicked the habit,” Loid said. Kellenbach’s smoke blew over the two of them and the man apologetically shifted to step downwind. “Did you quit for your wife? Did she smell your coat when you got home?”
Loid huffed in amusement, “no.”
“Nel did that when I said I’d quit. She used to search my pockets and smell my breath - awfully invasive woman.” When Loid wondered what to say as his blue eyes idled on the offending cigarette between Kellenbach’s fingers, the man lifted his hand subtly before shrugging and taking another draw.
“Don’t matter now she’s gone, she can’t moan at me from the grave,” he explained.
“Oh, I’m really sorry!” Loid turned fully to him, “I didn’t know… I assumed your wife was still with you at the festival.”
“Third wife. I married again after Nel - too quickly mind,” he added with a raised brow, “-then married Molly a few years ago. Came as a package deal with Louis. Not that I mind, he’s a nice kid and I never managed to have my own.”
“He’s not in Anya’s class but I’m sure he’s a fine boy,” Loid added and leaned again against the car, his eyes roved over Eden’s gates, soon the children would be free.
“You married not long ago, didn’t you?”
Loid’s eyes sharpened and glanced sidelong at the man, “a little over a year.” Kellenbach nodded, scuffing his foot against nothing, he was relaxed and chatty it seemed, Loid suspected that his questions were entirely conversational. After all, he hadn’t revealed too much about himself at the Sheep festival. Such a close hand only makes people curious about the kind of cards you hold.
“Your daughter is a lot older than that, of course?” The man commented carefully.
Loid lost eye-contact and let himself appear a little lost in thought as he stared down at the light scuffs on his dress shoes. He explained, “I lost my first wife shortly after Anya was born,”
Kellenbach’s face fell, and he nodded in understanding. Guilt and knowing burned in his eyes. “My apologies.”
“It’s alright,” Loid nodded somberly and added, “I’m just glad Yor came around when she did, I’d have been lost without her.”
His companion hummed in a vague agreement. He now regarded Loid with a kinder eye and a cant to his head as if he’d opened a box and seen something looking back at him that he recognised.
Kellenbach gestured at Loid with his cigarette hand, “You served, I take it?”
A nervous kind of surprise crossed Loid’s face, “what gave me away?”
“Well, at first I thought you were pretty young and might have just missed it but there’s something about how a veteran carries himself.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Loid waved his hand in a placating gesture at Kellenbach’s serious tone, “I only served as a medic. I never stepped down in the trenches, so to speak.”
“Nonsense, your work was just as much a true misery; hearing grown men call for their mothers… I can’t imagine cigarettes were the only thing you had to kick.” The Ostanian man shrugged tensely and admitted almost under his breath, “we all know what that war did to good men.”
Loid shifted uncomfortably, “of course.” the writhing in his stomach returned like a snake in waking and it was the large mahogany doors opening along the entrances unleashing the students that settled the discomfort. Anya’s little head was easy to spot amongst the crowd and she was beelining to him. She gasped in surprise when Loid found himself scooping her up and putting her against his hip, and arm wrapping over her tightly.
Loid asked a little breathless and desperate, “how was your day?”
Kellenbach was watching them closely, eyes narrowed in deep thought as he took one long drag. Before the man could breathe out a black-lungful of smoke, Loid raised Anya and placed her over the door and into the passenger’s seat then strapped her in. He bid Kellenbach a quick farewell before fleeing around the bonnet of the car and climbing into the driver’s seat. He’d just turned the key and started bringing the clutch up as a fat, ashy hand clasped the door, making Anya - who was startlingly silent and wide eyed - jump and turn to look up at the man who leaned over the door, gunmetal eyes boring into Loid, who sweated unconsciously under his gaze.
“Before you go, Mr. Forger. I want to invite you to a get-together. A couple of the fellows you met from the festival attend too… Well, your names come up a few times, and it’d be nice to see how well you handle a cue stick.”
“A get together?” Loid echoed, his brain was in a static of opportunity, intrigue and repressed panic.
“It’s like a gentlemen’s club I suppose. Here,” he took a notepad and pen from his pocket and scribbled some information down. He handed it to Anya who took it after a glance between the two of them, “-look after that for your old man.” He looked back to Loid, “That’s my number, feel free to give me a call if you’d like. We usually meet up on Friday nights at The Lions Mouth. The room’s rented, so you don’t need to worry about riff-raff poking about.”
Loid forced a warm smile, “thanks for the invitation, I’ll see how well it works with the hospital’s schedule.”
“Do let me know, it’d be nice to see you there and be sure to come… It’s a good event to put your name about. See you, little lady,” he ruffled Anya’s hair and turned away. Loid waited a moment before bringing the clutch up and letting the car carry itself out of the bay and onto the main road.
"Who was he?” Anya asked after they were away.
Loid glanced up at his mirror, saw Eden disappearing behind the rows of amber treetops. “The father of one of the boys who attends your school. Mr Kellenbach. Do you remember him from the Winter Sheep Festival?” Anya looked at the little piece of paper in her hands and shook her head. Didn’t think so, Loid thought wearily.
“Are you going to go to his club?” Anya asked, “is it a super secret club?”
“No, I don’t think it's a secret, otherwise he wouldn’t have said it in front of you,” Loid smiled. His stomach ache settled, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Anya can keep a secret,” Anya huffed.
“I’m sure you can.”
“Papa should go,” Anya said brightly, “might be a chance for Papa to make some friends.”
Loid side–eyed the girl, “I have plenty of friends.”
“Papa’s a liar.”
Sighing, he changed the subject, “so how was school?” At this Anya brightened and quickly shifted to regaling him with all of the childlike dramas she’d found herself in from discussions about a worm someone had stepped on and whether it might become two worms or not. Then how the rain had forced them to eat lunch indoors to some girlhood drama Becky was having with another that required Anya’s interference. It was all rather benign, but somehow, Loid enjoyed hearing it all. It was nice how normal Anya’s day seemed to have been. It was nice. It was a change from how Loid had found himself at her age in the uncertainties of the ending East-West War of Unification.
“Ew you’re all sweaty,” Anya observed, recoiling away from him despite there being a centre console between them.
“I am not,” Loid grumbled, leaning back as he steered with one hand and un-sheafed a napkin with the other. He dabbed at his crown, taking a calming breath. Get it together, Twilight.
“Hm, well Mr Henderson said also that we get to choose a sport to particirate in a sport westerful.”
Loid shook his head, “you mean ‘participate’ and ‘festival’.
“Yeh, that.”
“Well, what about it? When is it?”
They turned past the apartment, the carpark for their home was assigned further down in an underground unit. Anya pocketed the note and crouched forward to rifle through her bag as they pulled under the shadow of the underground car park. By the time they’d found their reserved bay, Anya had pulled a piece of paper from her bag and held it up with two clutching hands. Loid turned the key. The convertible quieted down with just the whir and clicks of a settling engine to echo around them. He took the paper and read it as Anya watched him with her face taut in anticipation.
“Seems like a big event.” Loid said and glanced down at Anya who was clenching the hem of her skirt, “you should have led with this over the talk of worms, Anya. First place in these events award stellas.” She cowed a little at his admonishment and he let out a self-depreciating sigh. He knew the pressure he put on her was all-encompassing. He tried to take a leaf out of Yor’s book and sent her an encouraging upturned smile.
“Well, are you excited?”
“Not really," Anya fiddled with her fingers and looked away from him. “M’not really good at anythin’.”
Loid turned to her a little more, “that’s not true, you’re good at many things, Anya.”
“Not sport though.” Well, that was a little true. As he observed the little girl next to him, it was not lost to him how she was underdeveloped for her age. She was smaller than the other children by a large margin and lacked the athleticism and height that the rest in her class were afforded. She was almost a year and a half behind them all physically.
He looked back at the paper and there was a list of events offered to them. That included various distance races, relays, Long jump, High jump, Shot put, Javelin throw, archery, fencing duels, target throwing and Equestrian sports. Many of these would require great physical effort and precision and this event appeared to Loid to be held in a few months. So it was clear to him that there was some expectation of training to be involved. It was no small family fun sportday. His eyes roved over the list and ended on the one he felt Anya would have the most advantage in. Equestrian sports. With Anya being smaller, she’d be lighter in the saddle and it would be more a competition of skill and will than one of mortal strength. If Loid could provide her a good horse, her chances at success would be on even ground.
He looked over at her and asked the girl who seemed to be fighting down a strange excitement, “how do you feel about horses?”
“Anya loves horsies!” She exclaimed loudly, making him wince.
Loid waved the paper to emphasise to her his point, “remember how we rode together when we visited that riding school? You’d be riding alone here and not just walking.”
Anya looked a little uncertain about this then, “but papa will be near, just in case I fall?”
Loid felt his face soften, “of course Anya, of course I will be there to catch you.”
Notes:
I thought it would be best to post the second chapter since it sets up the rest of the story.
Chapter 3: Gather rein
Chapter Text
The week flew by and Sylvia’s words about rejoicing at the sudden reprieve in work were utter lies, though Loid really should have suspected as much from one of the greatest liars alive.
Word was out now about the list of Westalis veterans held in Spendall prison and the moment this came to light, the prisoners were moved. Loid knew where to because he had operated undercover as a for-hire guard to help with prisoner transport. Though only SSS and high-ranking police were close to the actual convoy.
Five vans were utilised to move a group of nine high–profile men. Twilight had not seen even a hair of them and knew not what condition they were in. He'd been instructed to survey a route on the outside of the convoy, to watch as Ostanians lined as close to the barricades as they were allowed to throw bottles at the vans as they passed, screaming for death.
It had bothered him more than he expected, having the Westalian prisoners passing so near. He never thought of his WISE colleagues as “his own” in any national sense — they were professionals, allies, tools when needed. But these prisoners, faceless behind metal, tugged at something in him his training had buried. The feeling was irrational and unhelpful, and the more he tried to pin it down, the more it twisted away; even days later as they drove along country lanes. Yor had long since noticed his distraction and asked if he was alright.
“I am,” he told her, “just worried about how much this horse will cost me.”
“I don’t mind helping out with it,” she offered, and he felt a curious lump rise in his throat at the eagerness to offer her assistance. He smiled at her. If he refused, he knew it would only push her away from feeling like a true mother to Anya… but the truth was, WISE had already approved his request for funding.
WISE had had a sudden jump in subsidies from interested bodies — not a bad thing on its head, but an worrisome fact when he considered the reasons why.
"I have savings that I had expected to dip into," Loid told her kindly, "-but thank you Yor, I appreciate the offer."
They were on their way to a little horse yard fifty-five miles outside of Berlint. It was a welcome change to see rolling grasslands and plough-lined fields pass them by. Both Yor and Anya had jumped at the outing to find the perfect pony for Anya’s impending competition.
Franky had worked hard sourcing trustworthy sellers, and this one was the top of the list as a breeder of Berlint Riding Ponies; a sporty breed originally crossed with Ostanian native horses and smaller breeds from as far as Anglicane.
They’d already been out and bought Anya all the gear, like proper riding boots, jodhpurs and a well-fitted hat. This had been the easy part. Initially, Eden had approved to board her new pony-to-be too. The cost of boarding was eye-watering but yet again WISE had approved that too. This was a relief initially, however, Loid quickly worried about how his invoices — especially since the renting of Neweston castle's Bondman set — had been treated with a lot more skepticism; yet this folly had found no barriers in funding. The thought burned a pit in his stomach.
Either way, Loid decided to opt to keep the pony a five-minute drive from their apartment at a small DIY livery yard. Eden would house all the other competitors’ ponies who didn’t own stabling. He suspected leaving their new steed there could leave them open to foul play. The other benefit of personally overseeing the ponies' care was that he himself would oversee Anya’s progress in riding. After all, he was a distinguished rider himself after working undercover at the racing yard of a Former Ostanian military liaison.
He saw Anya stare at him with awe from the backseat, “everything alright, Anya?”
“Yes!” She squeaked, though he didn’t know she was thinking: Papa’s so cool!
From a country lane they turned upon a dirt drive that had Anya bouncing in her seat. She counted ponies grazing in the fields about them, no longer hidden by roadside hedgerows. Bays and chestnuts grazed carefree on the foothills and only a few looked up from their grazing to watch the convertible tracing over their land.
The farm seemed to have cows too, separated on the other side of the field and moving along with large spring-born calves still at foot. The farmhouse was idyllic and had Yor sighing wistfully beside him at the sight of its tall eaves and sash windows curtained by fire-red autumnal leaves.
There were a few barns ahead, the long, weathered kind that likely housed livestock, feed, or old farm machinery. When they pulled up beside a shabby horsebox and stepped down onto the packed dirt, they were greeted by a stick-thin woman with a greying bun pulled so tightly it seemed to iron out her wrinkles. A scruffy white dog with black-button eyes and a crooked tail trotted at her heels. Loid took off his glove to shake her hand as Yor managed Anya.
“Clara Manehart? we talked on the phone?”
“That’s right, Mr. Forger, nice to put a face to the name. I must say, I thought I was being interrogated when you called about a pony.”
Yor came up beside them while holding onto Anya’s hand, "that's Loid for you, he takes everything regarding Anya very seriously.” Her red eyes looked to Loid fondly as Clara Manehart looked down at little Anya. Anya stared too, a little taken aback by the woman’s hawkish appearance.
“This is my daughter and wife,” Loid introduced, placing a hand to the small of Yor’s back. “Yor, and Anya. Mind your manners now, Anya.”
Anya said dutifully, “Hello,” earning a nod from Loid.
“I suppose I’ll take you to see the ponies then." Clara responded indifferently, she turned and they followed her up the slope to the nearest barn. "Be of mind, your little girl is quite short. We breed our ponies tall from thirteen to fourteen hands. Are you sure you shouldn’t look for something a bit smaller?”
They entered the shade of the barn. Loid said in answer, “we’re hoping for a fair competition between Anya and the other children.”
He had in fact looked into each child that had applied to join the equestrian competition. Each had a fourteen hand pony, and one had a horse. Anya’s pony needed to measure just as tall otherwise they'd lose stride length and in turn, time.
“I see.” Clara Manehart hummed with a hint of judgement rolling off her tongue, “well, you wanted to see a mix of schoolmasters and ponies suitable for a beginner. There is quite a jump between the prices on these animals - so you know. Have a look.” She gestured along the row of stables. It was a long barn with cinderblock walls partitioning seven square stables on each side, though not all were occupied.
Anya was not tall enough to look over the doors and Yor picked her up to rest on her hip before Loid thought to. They peered over the first door. It’s occupant chewed at the hay lazily with half lidded eyes. He was tall, just as Clara had warned.
“He’s a bit older at fifteen but he's been my son’s pony until he moved onto horses. Sound and well schooled. Bit of a seen, there and done that.”
“I love him,” Anya declared.
Loid moved onto the next stable, “he might be a bit too old for what we’re looking for. Anya has a lot of growing still and he’ll be retiring before she’s even outgrown him.” The next was a youngster. Clara told them he was freshly broken in but well mannered.
“I love him,” Anya exclaimed.
“I think it's too green for you Anya,” Loid said and they moved along until there were just three ponies that Loid considered acceptable. They watched as Clara’s son — a meek and mouse-haired teen — was called upon to lead one of the ponies out of his stable to present to the Forgers.
Loid squatted low to watch as the boy walked the beast back and forward in vaguely straight lines along the length of the barn. Yor had absolutely no idea what Loid was doing or looking for and had no answer for Anya when she asked. The teenager brought the pony back toward Loid and then turned him away and dragged him into a trot. The sound of his hooves clopping against the pavement reverberated and a couple of ponies neighed loudly with interest. Loid crouched low, staring at the pony's legs with a frown.
“He’s not quite sound on his near-fore,” Loid said as the pony was slowed to a halt. He crouched and felt down the offending leg, checking each line of tendon before setting the hoof back onto the ground. The pony was led back to his box. Yor glanced anxiously between the irate breeder and her husband, who was inspecting the second-to-last horse with the same focused scrutiny he’d used when examining the car after its tyre had gone flat.
This one was acceptable though and when found sound the son helped tack the mare up for them to try. Loid watched the pony as she was saddled and led to the ménage with a calculated, pale eye. She was a fine bay with a striking blaze and four perfectly white socks. Yor held Anya’s hand tightly as they followed behind. The girl was positively vibrating with excitement.
They reached the ménage and the pony was led to the mountain block. Loid raised a hand to Yor's shoulder, slowing the two as he told Anya he’d sit on the pony first. He wanted to be sure she could manage the mare. Anya grumbled and folded her arms, her dispute went unchallenged by Loid whose concentration was at a fever pitch. Yor smiled to herself. The two were both of the same metal.
While he was a tall man, he had no space for meat on his body so while his feet came over the pony’s sides she held him well enough. The pony was eager with a good step; she needed no encouragement to move up her paces from walk to trot. She was sensitive in the mouth and shook her head at any tension down the rein.
Anya would need to have a soft hand if they were to buy her.
From the side lines, the three women watched him work the horse in the arena. It was all very alien to Yor. She liked horses. She'd dreamed of her own unicorn as a little girl but the dreams rotted with age and falling bombs. This kind of world was beyond her. But a lot of the life she now lived was beyond her. From dining out, socialising, visiting museums and orchestras all these things she only knew thanks to the man urging the bay into a canter.
“He rides well, your husband,” Clara observed from where she leaned on the fence. Her tone was grumbly like it was irritating to admit such a thing, Yor smiled with pride.
“Papa’s good at everything,” Anya gloated, earning a raised eyebrow from the equestrian. They looked over to Loid who looked like he was in the death-throws of a consideration. Yor could see the gears turning heavily in his brain and she smiled. He really did take Anya’s care so seriously.
Loid steadied the mare a few times, testing her patience and finding it well checked before deciding it would be now be okay to see how his daughter liked her. He walked her over to the gate and gave the animal a loose rein to stretch her neck after she'd been put through her paces. Just as all seemed well and Clara's hand reached for the push-pin of the gate a rush of birds flying overhead had the mare turn her nose with a snort and spin away in fright.
Her rider was caught off guard and while he remained seated the sudden feeling had his head spinning with nausea. His stomach revolted, deciding now to light a lightening fire under his rib. He warred between holding down the desire to vomit and calming the mare who blew harshly through her nostrils, prancing on the spot with short bursting rears.
“Loid are you alright!” Yor called out as Anya yelled, “Papa!”
“No need to shout,” Loid said through gritted teeth as he circled the mare. Finally, she steadied enough for him to quiet his churning stomach and pat her neck in an attempt to soothe her.
“She may be too green for Anya,” Loid said with dismay.
“Reigner,” Clara turned to her son, “Go fetch the gelding they saw last.” Her son nodded, taking off back up the yard at a jog. Loid dismounted and led the mare over, a hand on her reins and neck. Half to sooth the mare and half to steady himself. He didn’t understand why his stomach was cursing him so much. It had pained him all week. He first thought it was his usual woes but now he wondered blithely if he’d managed to finally get food poisoning. It irritated him.
He neared his small family and the equestrian. Clara opened the gate to let him through. Yor pulled Anya to her like the mare was a vicious beast. Anya did look a little worried.
“Come here, Anya,” Loid said gently, pushing through the pain with as much encouragement as he could muster, “it looked worse than it was, there’s no need to be afraid of her.” Anya hesitated then let loose her mother’s hand and came forward to Loid who held the mare a little tighter. Anya stroked the velvet nose and the tension in her face melted a fraction.
“Horses are prey animal,” Loid told his girl, “so sometimes they act with fear. She won’t hurt you, here-” He lifted her up to his hip, gritting his teeth at the ache in his core but not wanting Anya to fear the pony. Anya very carefully wrapped her leg around Loid and was looking more to him in worry than the animal that had almost thrown him. Loid stroked his hand over the dark bay fur. Anya copied him.
“See?” Loid said.
Anya nodded quietly, frowning a little.
Reigner returned with a shaggy-maned gelding. He had a small star between his eyes and a flaxen mane that matched his flaxen tail. His coat was a sugary caramel, and he carried himself with a calm, good-natured air. Loid had preferred the mare at first — she’d been the more spirited of the two — but perhaps calm and steady would be better after all.
“Would you like me to sit him first, sir,” the teen asked.
“No I’ll handle him,” Loid said and they traded horses. Yor took Anya. She looked worried but Loid took the gelding and mounted him without hesitation or fanfare. He was calmer by a long mile. He moved off the leg with a little more effort than the mare and travelled with a lower head. But Loid liked how his ears flickered back to listen even as he was asked to canter. The three-beat pace was steady and loping almost enjoyable if the lance in Loid's gut didn't piston into his rib with each footfall.
“He’ll have to jump,” Loid said as he trotted a circle before the gate.
“Reigner, make up something for him to clear,” Clara ordered and the boy ducked between the bars of the fence and grabbed some wooden wings from the corner of the ménage. He made a cross pole first and then raised it once Loid took the gelding over it. Loid wouldn’t call the gelding lazy but he did move with gravity. It worried him a little that the speed would be lacking and called for the jump to be raised.
The boy put the fence to a meter high and stepped back. Loid cantered a circle and then urged the gelding forward and found him willing. Seven strides before the fence he raised his heavy head and his hooves dug deeper into the sand with ground-rushing strides before clearing the fence neatly. Yor and Anya cheered from the side-lines as Loid patted the horse and swallowed rising bile over and over before his stomach settled.
“If you feel comfortable, Anya,” Loid said, stopping the gelding at the gate with a loose rein,
“would you like to try him?”
“Do I have to jump?” Anya asked uncertainly.
Loid smiled softly and dismounted, “No, not now. I’ll be holding him, you won’t have to worry.”
Anya put on her little hat and entered into the ménage with Yor as Loid shortened the gelding’s stirrups and checked his girth — the thick band that fastened either side of the saddle — for tightness. He let her stroke the pony; her hand came to his shoulder. It would be years before she’d mount him without help, if they ever were together that long. Anya glanced at him with wide eyes and he swallowed and gestured to the saddle.
“I’ll put you on him,” he turned to Yor, “do you mind walking by her while I lead the horse?”
Yor nodded looking determined, “yes, of course.”
He bent to lift her — something he’d done countless times — and a sharp breath escaped him at the ache it triggered, but he pushed through and settled her onto the saddle. When Anya was seated she wriggled giddily and grasped at the pommel. Her excited wriggling made it hard to organise her feet into the stirrups.
Loid found he had to shorten the stirrups by two more holes before her feet could even brush the bars. He already rode on the short side himself, but the difference in their leg lengths was astonishing; what had fit him comfortably now looked absurdly long for her. Anya’s tiny feet barely reached past the rim of the saddle skirts. He couldn't hide a smile at the thought. Anya looked down at him and wiggled her feet. He put his hand on her leg, stilling the motion and looked up at her.
"Hold your legs here, Anya." He adjusted her booted feet to where he deemed the correct position to be. He wiggled her ankle a little forcing the stirrup bar to settle at the ball of her foot. "Try to keep this position when you ride, this is how you balance in the saddle. You should be putting as much weight at you can into these." He wiggled the stirrups.
"My legs ache already," Anya said squinting in concentration. Loid patted her leg.
"You'll get used to it."
He stepped to the ponies' head and gave him a gentle pat, preying he behave and not spoil the adventure for his daughter. Loid clicked his tongue as he put a little pressure on the reins to lead the animal forward. His pale eyes peered back at Anya, watching the girl's determined expression just as Yor stuck close-by, ready to catch her if the pony were to somehow overpower Loid.
The worry turned to joy within one circuit of the ménage; there was no sign the caramel palomino had any untoward or flighty intentions, and Loid and Yor walked side by side at the gelding’s head as Anya’s confidence grew.
Loid showed her how to hold the reins correctly and how to rise in the saddle. After ten minutes, she trotted for a few bouncy strides that had loud giggles ripping from her mouth. Yor was beaming with joy at the sight and even Loid's eyes crinkled with amusement and pleasure.
After a final lap, Loid turned diagonally toward the centre of the ménage. The pony came to a stop, essentially having learned quickly who he should follow. Loid let the gelding lean his head into his shoulder. He could hear as the pony chomped on his bit and closed his eyes in bliss as the man gratefully rubbed under his forelock.
“Better to not teach him to stop by the gate,” Loid said to Anya, explaining, “or he’ll learn to always pause whenever he goes past them. Do you like him?”
“I love him!” Anya squeaked. She leaned forward in the saddle with splayed hands, Yor put her hand on Anya's thin leg to keep her steady and safe as she let go of the reins to wrap her arms around the pony to hug his neck tightly, “I love him, I love him, I love him!” Loid and Yor with amusement.
They dismounted Anya from the pony and led the gelding back to the gate. The teen took him from them and as Anya started to object, Loid quickly assured her that she’d be seeing him soon.
Then, while Yor and Anya walked along one of the field’s outer boundaries to greet the many curious ponies over the fence, Loid stepped aside with Clara to negotiate the price of the gelding. He’d haggled three-hundred dalc off the initial fee and shook hands.
“I was worried you’d wasted your time coming here for a moment,” Clara said as she folded her arms behind her back, “apologies about the mare, she isn’t usually that flighty.”
Loid waved her down and glanced over to Yor and Anya for a moment before saying, “like I said. These are prey animals. It was good actually for Anya to see that things don’t always go so smoothly.”
“You seem like a very attentive father,” Clara said, her tone much gentler than it had been previously. “It’s good to warn her, most parents like to shelter their kids from everything, it turns them into right brats.”
“Anya’s already been through a lot,” Loid offered honestly, “it’s pointless to lie to her.” Clara hummed in agreement.
They began the drive home then. It was growing a little late and the sky was already starting its gloomy shift to night. Yor listened with bright eyes as Anya talked on and on about her pony. Boasting about all the things he could do. She couldn’t wait to show Becky, she couldn’t wait to ride him again. She was buzzing in the backseat long enough that she tired herself out and fell asleep.
The farm was an hour and a half back to Berlint. Loid smiled to himself as his eyes roved away from the girl as she slept loudly behind them and back to the road and the darkening sky above. He pressed the button that activated the soft top as he considered the somber clouds growing ahead. It might rain.
“I don’t know how you’ll ever top this,” Yor glanced behind her and then smiled at Loid.
“Neither do I,” Loid responded, eyes still on the road, “I don’t think getting a horse was ever on the agenda.”
“Well, you’ve made an unbelievably happy child of her. I would have died if my parents had gotten me a pony back… well back before.”
Loid shot a sympathetic look at Yor, “I’m sure they would have, had things been different.”
There was a beat of quiet between them.
Yor tried to ask casually, “what were your parents like? I don’t think we ever talked about it.”
Loid found his good mood bottom out as he chewed at the question. It had always just been an unspoken rule for them not to pry into each other's business. He'd included their histories in that. It didn't matter that he had already dug up everything recorded about her life... he supposed it was a little unfair. For the many months they'd lived side by side and co-parented together, she'd always been an open, smiley book. And he had agreed with Nightfall and Sylvia that he wanted to understand Yor more. Perhaps the way to understand her would be to offer a little more of himself.
“My father was a hard man. He wanted me to focus on my school work but I didn’t always listen so we were often at war with one another…” He paused and bit the end of his tongue a little. He remembered how deeply he’d detested study. Studying seemed pointless with the fear of war pervading his early childhood. He wanted to protect his country. He desired to don camo and become a soldier to defeat the devils of the East. How wrong had his old man been...
He sighed and Yor slowly put a hand over his as he unintentionally held the gearstick with a white knuckle. The warm flesh covering his was surprisingly rough and not as soft as he had expected of her. He glanced at her, her cardinal eyes a firelight of benign tenderness. Compassion pouted her lips as if she was holding her heart between her teeth. He looked at her face and he thought of his mother.
"You don't have to tell me about them," Yor said. Her expression was soft and far too understanding. He found himself easing off the gas and letting the car fly by the countryside without the extra fuel before quickly recovering and staring ahead at the road that yawned on into treeline and farmland.
"Actually, I grew up in the country," Yor continued after a while, "-I think I told you."
"You did," Loid confirmed with a hum, reciting "-Eastern Neilsberg. A little rural village near the border."
"Yes, that's right!" Yor's lips were upturned in pleasure, satisfied that he remembered. Not surprised that he did. "I know a lot of people find rural towns boring but there was a lot of fun to be had there. In fact, there was a large pine forest and a mountain called the Hag."
"Did you ever climb it?" Loid asked curiously.
"No, I was too young really and then, well after everything that happened... we moved shortly, closer to Berlint during the evacuations." She looked out the window with a sigh. There were no foggy mountains here, just rolling hills and smatterings of copses that ran into the darkening horizon. It was beautiful in its own way but the dark forests of her home had held so much mystery in them.
She chuckled at a memory and Loid tilted his head to her momentarily before looking back ahead, "what did you recall?"
"I lost Yuri in the forest once," She tittered with a hand to her mouth, "he used to bring all sorts of horrid bugs home and each time they would have more legs than the last. He really should have gone into studying nature, I have no idea if there is work in that..."
"There is," Loid smiled somberly to himself, "many in fact. But do continue..."
"Well, he went off one day with his bucket. I had to work... at the time," she added a little quiet and uncertain, "-so I couldn't always mind him. He was old enough to know better though!"
Loid dipped his head compassionately, "I know, I understand."
She nodded to herself, brows sunk with guilt and worry, maybe the story wasn't that funny. If she'd been around...
"So what happened next?" Loid asked her.
"He... He was gone all day. When I came home to make lunch he wasn't where he should have been. So I went looking for him. I walked all the trails I knew and the ones I didn't for hours. It was near dark when I got back and raining too."
Loid hummed, "I'm failing to find the humour there, Yor."
"Well I didn't either until I found him next door wolfing down pie. None the wiser and prating on about the neighbor's new hunting dog."
"Oh dear," Loid chuckled.
Yor smiled too. "Actually, now I think about it, Anya's a lot easier to handle then he was. I didn't know my head from my tail sometimes."
Loid nodded, "you were very young and you clearly did a good job."
"You think so?" Yor asked him worriedly, "I know he's a little intense..."
Intense is one way to put it, Loid thought to himself mildly. Yuri was intelligent and yes, he was incredibly intense... clearly he had some sort of Yor shaped complex but who was Loid to criticize? His eyes roved over Anya, her head was rolled awkwardly against her shoulder and drool fell from her lip in a long line down to her shoulder.
"I think you did just fine." Loid said finally. "It's not easy, raising a child. There's a lot to think about." More than a lot, he thought bleakly.
"You make it look easy, most the time," Yor said and watched along the window as a rotted fence past them by. Loid's brows scrunched.
"Most the time?" He asked her in mock offence, "do you have any notes to share with the class?"
"No," Yor smiled cheekily at him, "I'm still learning too"
Chapter 4: Prelude to something
Notes:
I only just realised how LONG this chapter is. (ᵕ—ᴗ—)
I've now just started writing chapter thirteen, and the word count is seventy-eight thousand. This is the longest thing I have ever written... Maybe I went too far?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As Anya munched through her breakfast, Loid spent the better-half of the morning hunting through her room for a math book she’d managed to lose, only to find it scuffed under the sofa.
The whole weekend, all she had talked about was her new pony. She’d told Bond, all the neighbours, Franky, the shopkeepers, restaurant staff and anyone who’d bravely lend her their ears.
Loid was certain he was already ‘ponied’ out. Especially because his day would be spent locating everything their new furry family member would be needing. Luckily the yard they were taking him to supplied hay and straw bedding, but horses needed a lot more than that. They’d need all the tools to keep his stable clean, the grooming equipment, contacts for his health, headcollars and correctly fitting tack, rugs… Loid’s mind ‘click-clacked’ as he thought endlessly of things they’d need before next weekend when the equine was to be delivered.
Loid had scoured suitable vets and farriers; feed suppliers and saddle makers in his spare moments too. It was a lot of effort piled on top of the reports Sylvia was sending through to him — along with preparation for the usual espionage missions she'd insisted may not be so necessary. No, things never did seem to slow or let up. He supposed it's what kept him moving.
He slipped the math book into Anya's schoolbag and entered the kitchen to brew some much needed coffee. Just as the pot was ready, Yor made her entrance in an example of perfect timing — freshened up and ready for work in her prim attire. She came to sit opposite Anya and put a piece of buttered rye bread on her plate before reaching for the quark. Loid came around to join them with the fresh pot and sank heavily into the chair next to Anya. He felt aggrieved to find the weekend had not swallowed his weariness. Yor slid over the quark to him but he made no reach for it, instead pouring two cups of coffee and placing one in front of her.
“Are you not having breakfast?” Yor asked before biting a mouthful. Anya glanced up from her cereal and to her papa.
“I’ll be fine with just the coffee,” Loid supplied, lifting his mug and bringing it to his lips.
Anya leaned back in her chair, fisting her hand against her hips and puffing out her chest as she said — in a voice eerily representative of Loid’s “-most important meal of the day!”
“No dramatics at the table, please,” Loid grumbled.
“Well, Anya is right,” Yor said gently as if he were being unreasonable, “you have a long day ahead, so skipping breakfast isn't good at all.”
“Papa's worried about spending all day on the bog again.”
“Anya!” Loid flushed cherry red.
“S’true,” Anya said, poking her spoon in the air at him, “you never left the bathroom all Sunday, I thought you got stuck in the twilot or somethin’.”
Yor smothered a chuckle in a failing attempt to not embarrass her husband further. Loid looked utterly betrayed between the two.
“Maybe,” Yor advised as she sobered up, “you should take the day off if you're still feeling unwell.”
Loid shook his head, “please, I'm fine. Perhaps my stomach is still a little tender. That's all.”
Yor hummed sceptically and took a final bite of her Rye bread as she examined Loid with a critical eye. He peered pensively at his coffee. He looked — to her — a little pale and clammy. He'd been on edge more than usual too. Maybe work was being particularly stressful? She could sympathise as ever since the list of Westalis prisoners had been leaked her work within Garden had become relentless. She hardly ever stayed in her office anymore as they hacked through traitorous rats suspected of leaking the list. There were whispers that the famous Westalis spy – Twilight – might have been involved in the theft of information but Yor didn't like to partake in speculation of myths.
Anya glanced back and forth between the two adults with a worried expression. And the assassin was quick to smooth down what might have been a severe look.
Yor picked up her plate and Anya's now empty bowl. Then she stood and said to Loid, “well, try to take it easy today at least.”
They met Loid a little later as he brought the convertible to the curb and they stepped down the stoop to get in. Since they now had the car, Yor had been getting to work via Loid giving them a lift every now and then. It wasn’t exactly necessary as both the City Hall and the school weren’t precisely on a direct route with one another but he had insisted and she did enjoy being his passenger.
As they strapped in, Loid poked at the radio, turning it on, and a cheery tune tinkled around them.
“Seatbelt, Anya,” commented Loid as he sat back and made himself ready to drive on. Anya pulled at her strap to show him it was already on as he squinted at her through the mirror. Finally, the car pulled away and Yor watched, as the residential buildings slipped on by through the window. The sky white with fat and fluffy clouds.
Suddenly, the chipper song ended and the morning news bled out from the console just as it did every weekday morning in the car, cementing their routine. A familiar short brass fanfare of stately but stiff notes chimed before the noise of the morning radio-host coasted into their ears.
“This is the Voice of Ostania. The time is six o’clock. Good citizens, a prosperous morning to you.
We bring you breaking news this morning as the Westalis party leader, Aldred Greisner of the Progressive Democratic Union, has issued a statement regarding the prisoners of war formerly held at Spendall Prison. Following their movement to a more secure facility, Greisner has called for negotiations on their extradition back to Westalis.
In response, a member of the Ostanian People’s Council described Greisner’s remarks as ‘a display of calculated duplicity,’ and confirmed that ‘any negotiations with Westalis will be approached with the utmost vigilance and restraint.’ The Council extended its appreciation to the Republic of Argon for its offer to serve as a neutral facilitator in any future discussions.
A spokesperson for the National Unity Party declined to comment at this time. The People’s Council also reports continued progress in agricultural reform, ensuring a stronger, fairer nation for all.”
The hum of the engine was the loudest thing in the car.
“Today’s cultural programming includes a live concert from the Berlint Youth Orchestra, followed by an address from the Ministry of Information at noon.”
It was Anya who broke the quiet. “Why’s it a big deal to not just give the prisoners back?”
“W-well,” Yor stammered as she looked out the window for escape. Politics was yet again another unspoken topic in their household. Loid gripped the steering wheel. Their files on Yor never identified any ideological alignment — she was neither loyalist nor dissident. Loid’s own observation drew to him the conclusion that like many she was a conformist; he felt she didn't truly believe in the regime but kept her head down. Afterall, she did agree to their arrangement to avoid SSS suspicion and she seemed uncomfortable about the reports of protests at the movement of the POWS from Spendall. Loid wasn’t so sure why he was anxious to hear what she might have to say.
“It’s complicated,” he said after a moment, to save Yor from having to explain. “Those men were captured during the war, Anya.”
Anya seemed to struggle with some concept turning on her head, she fiddled with her schoolbag, the city hall was just a few turns away.
“And they’re bad?” Anya asked uncertainly. Now Loid wasn’t sure how to respond. He was caught dangerously between the truth and revealing a few too many of his cards. He didn’t want Anya growing up with a dislike for people she’d never met or know. But if she felt the desire to open her mouth about it and speak views that could be overly idealist — especially at Eden of all places — then eyes would turn to her parents. Parents were commonly arrested when children were rewarded with snitching.
“They’re not necessarily bad,” Yor said. Loid swallowed a rock in his throat. She continued “-men were captured on both sides during the war. Depending on how important they were, they were probably kept for that reason.”
“Oh, okay,” Anya responded and looked back out the window.
The front of the City Hall was speckled with protesters in the square. Signs bobbed in the air along with bellowing chants muffled by the car’s closed windows. Not wanting to draw too close to avoid Anya hearing their poisonous words, Loid pulled the car along the opposite side of the access road.
“Would you like me to walk you to the door?” Loid asked, watching the crowd tensely.
“No, I can handle a few noisy people,” Yor responded appreciatively.
She watched him stare out the window, the back of his head to her as he remained unmoving. She rested a hand on his lower arm to draw his attention back. Even through the thick layers of his jacket, the muscles there were taut, iron springs.
Yor wondered if he was alright. He didn’t seem entirely like his usual self and even if it was still hard to pinpoint what was exactly was 'Loid's usual self', it wasn't this. But she didn’t want to push the issue any further than she already had this morning.
Loid twisted in his seat suddenly and said firmly, “Stay in the car, Anya, do not move.”
“Oh, Loid it’s really not_” Yor had started but he was already out the car and coming to her door where he opened the passenger side while his eyes were on the crowds clamouring in the square.
There were maybe a hundred people, many seemed to just be part of the crowd but there were a few who shouted hate from deep in their bellies. Their words were clear.
“Ten years of peace — don’t let Westalis dogs start another war!”
Loid bristled. We aren’t starting anything, he thought angrily, is asking for our own veterans to be returned to us so unreasonable?
He offered her a loop of his left arm and after a breath of hesitation Yor slipped hers through it. He led her around the left of the square after locking the car behind him. No one did approach them or even look their way, but he took his wife up to the very steps of her workplace regardless.
Yor glanced up along the front facing windows of the City Hall. The scanner room was on the third floor; a few of her co-workers were peering from the windows at the protest. When they saw her, they waved to her. Loid's eyes too followed hers for a brief moment. Then he let her go and she turned to him. Her face was strawberry red. He was just a step below her, putting them at the same height.
“I’ll pick you up from work today,” Loid said, his words leaving little room to argue. There was a particularly loud shout and he glanced behind himself again, jaw tensing. A few police were milling about and interestingly, SSS officers in plain clothes dotted here and there within the crowd, neither faction seeming too interesting in calming the noise.
“You don’t have to do that,” Yor said. If she had an assignment that would run her late then it would waste his time… and potentially make him wonder why she wasn’t around to be picked up.
Loid let out a quiet, controlled breath and looked back at her. For a heartbeat, tension pulled at his features before he smoothed them into something gentler. She realised with a sinking feeling that he was worried about her.
“It’s just a protest Loid,” Yor tried to soothe, “it will all blow over.”
He nodded, his smile never did reach his eyes. He said, “I know.”
“Go take Anya to school, you don’t want her getting in trouble on our account,” Yor commanded kindly, she put her hand on his upper arm. She wished she could hug him. She’d never hugged him. She wanted desperately in that moment as his concern melted her heart all the more.
“I’ll be off then,” he said. He took her hand in his. Yor’s knees weakened — for a moment it looked as though he might lift her hand to his lips. Her hand was a dot in his. But instead, he simply gave the back of her hand a soft pat with his other, and then their fingers slipped away from one another.
For a thumping heartbeat she watched him step away. Then she turned — flustered — and half climbed, half fled up the City Hall steps.
Camilla, Millie, and Sharon were waiting for her in the office. Camilla eyed her with green-eyed envy as she clocked the bright flush on Yor’s cheeks.
“Yuk,” Camilla exclaimed, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were in a high school romance.”
“Oh, let her have her puppy love, Camilla,” Sharon rolled her eyes and turned back to the window, crossing her arms tightly and protectively over her bosom. Goose pimples ran up and down her clamped arms. Though, it wasn't all that cold in the office even with the window open.
“It seems a bit extreme doesn’t it?” Sharon murmured. Three pairs of eyes fell on the back of her head as she stared out the window, “isn’t there always something going on? Why is this what has everyone up in arms?”
“No one knew about these guys,” Camilla shrugged, eyes shifting over the other women nervously,
“Westalis probably thought they were dead.” Her words treaded thin ice. Millie scowled at her.
“Well, they ought to be grateful they are still alive,” Millie said with heat, hands scrunching at her hips.
“I-I’m sure they are,” Yor placated, emotions already shot from Loid to the sudden precarious hostility in the room. Sharon, who was usually the more level headed of the group, turned away from the window letting a breath out in an attempt to calm herself. Camilla stepped past her to pull the window shut. The sounds of the gathering outside became muted.
“My husband’s glued to the radio,” Sharon said after a moment, ever since they announced that the list of the men’s names were leaked, “I can hardly get him to eat.”
“Well, he caught the stray end of the war didn’t he?” Camilla asked, leaning against the table, “all this shit probably sets them off again. Dominic's old man is acting crazy too, he’s had to take time off to go handle him.”
“What’s he doing?” Yor asked.
“Oh, well, he’s always been off his rocker. Keeps digging through old boxes and running off down the garden without his clothes on... Dom’s worried he’ll have a heart attack. He’s not exactly a healthy guy,” she tried to sound indifferent but Yor saw how she pinched at the fleshy web of her thumb.
“It’s not like I’m not out of my mind with worry either,” Millie said, “I was talking with my mother and she said this was exactly how it all began before.”
Yor turned to her, “what do you mean?”
“The war,” Millie squeaked.
Camilla hissed a noise between a cat choking and a ‘shh!’ before striding to the doorway and peeking out into the hall. She leaned back and closed the door before turning angrily on the younger woman, “-are you mad? If you start saying things like that people will freak out! Do you want to be investigated by the SSS?”
Millie slapped her hands to her lips, tears rimmed her eyes, “I didn’t say anything bad!”
“Lets not speculate,” Sharon said shakily despite herself, “It really could just be nothing.”
“But haven’t we given the West a good excuse?” Millie continued, “don’t you think they could use this against us?”
“They probably have prisoners of ours too,” Camilla lifted her chin and straightened, “they want an exchange, they haven’t come in guns blazing, we need to calm down.”
“Yes, exactly,” Sharon sided with her friend, pushing her glasses up, “we should just keep our heads down and not get involved in any nonsense.” There was a hum of agreement in the room as the four ladies fell into silence. The whirring noise of the printer's inner mechanics and soft tick-tick of Camilla’s gold watch accompanied them for a pregnant pause.
“Sorry,” Millie sniffed.
“It’s okay,” Camilla softened and allowed herself to give Millie a short sideward squeeze.
he stepped back and pointed at each of them. “We might not have been in the trenches, but we still spent our best years wondering about food and listening to air-raid warnings.”
She gave a small, bracing nod. “So… we ought to look out for one another.”
The door opened and their portly manager looked in at them as if he’d caught their hands in the cookie jar. “You got time to be gossiping ladies?”
“No, sir!” Yor said stiffly and they quickly turned back to begin their work.
By Friday, The Republic of Argon had called for a meeting to be held in the capital city of Avaness. Avaness was also known as the ‘glass city’ for it’s impressively large reflective skylines, all held within a bowl of snow-capped mountains.
The invited attendees were the Westalian Foreign Minister Claudia Vesser and two of her aides as well as the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ostania, Lutz Reinhardt and his security advisor Erich Brandt.
WISE's underground head quarter was positively buzzing like a disturbed hornet hive. Even Sylvia was running around like a headless chicken between meetings. One of the consequences was her fouler than usual mood, causing people to scuttle from her like cockroaches under torch light. Even Nightfall, now fully recovered from her illness, seemed to be sorry that she’d returned at all.
“What do you have?” Sylvia sighed wearily as a few of the senior agents crowded around a roundtable that was replete of papers. They were crushed together in one of the war rooms. The board behind was smattered with notices, head-shots and documents all pricked with a spider web of red string.
“There'll be an elite escort as we expected. Three of these will be State Security Service who will be accompanying Lutz Reinhardt to the border,” Nightfall leaned forward and put a vanilla envelope onto the table. It contained a list and the personal records of those SSS officers. “We’re missing information on some of them but these men will be accompanying the Ostanian Minister, Ma’am.”
Twilight picked the envelope up and passed over it. To his dismay, Yuri Briar’s face stared back up at him three pages in.
“Let's talk trains. Specifically, the Raingold Limited Express,” Heller began as he pulled a pointer from his breast pocket. One of the rookie agents switched on the projector. All heads turned as a map of the train’s route flickered across the broad sheet, the image split by Twilight’s cast outline. He stepped out of the beam, and his shadow stretched briefly before dipping into the dark blotch that marked Oswald Lake, then slid out of view where finally the rest of the route was visible.
The projector gave a soft mechanical whirr, its fan rattling faintly as the map of the rail line flickered onto the wall — pale, slightly skewed, with the borders haloed in light. Heller stood beside it, pointer in hand, his moustache catching the glow.
“The Raingold runs out of Septevia and into Ostania,” he said, tapping the first sweep of track. “Down through Frigis, then into Berlint — that’s where Reinhardt and his delegation will board.”
He moved the pointer a fraction to the westward curve.
“From Berlint, she skirts the Westalis corridor at Instagt before pushing on into Yek.”
A click from the projector’s slide advance made the border lines wobble.
“There’s a projected halt at the Varnen freight plains,” Heller continued. “Not part of the usual timetable — the ministry wants a small Ostanian press pool to join the envoy before it reaches the frontier. A bit of staged visibility.”
He shifted the pointer again.
“After Varnen, the train proceeds to the Argon Frontier Checkpoint. That’s where Argonian mediators, inspectors, and their attachés board. Once they’re on, the consist becomes sealed. No movement in or out.”
He lowered the pointer, stepping back as the map hummed in the dim room.
“From the frontier, it’s a straight run to Avaness.” He gave a faint, dismissive sniff. “The glass city. Supposedly very stylish.”
He turned. The projector clicked to a new slide. The train itself was outlined onto the fabric.
“Headed by a black-iron steam locomotive for this run,” Heller began, “she’s carrying eight cars. First is the baggage van, then Car B — SSS and security — and we’ll probably want to avoid that one, I reckon. Car C’s the utility, Car D the service car. After that you’ve got the saloon in Car E and the delegates’ sleeper in Car F. Press and observation sit in Car G, and the rear brake van finishes the set with a guard riding her tail.”
Heller lowered the pointer and the projector was turned off. The room's light was turned back on.
“The Republic of Argon prides itself on neutrality,” Twilight said. “If these talks collapse on their soil, they lose face with both blocs. So their clerks will be attentive when boarding at the checkpoint. They’re determined not to let anything untidy anywhere near the negotiations.”
Sylvia waved her hand “We don’t need to know what occurs in the meeting, we have direct connections to the aides that will be involved with the Foreign Minister. Lutz Reinhardt is one issue but his security advisor Erich Brandt is a wild card.”
Heller took out a box of cigarettes and offered one to their commanding officer. She took the tobacco stick to her lip and lit it herself between polished nails. Smoke curled around the room. After a moment Sylvia leaned back with a smoky sigh.
“The Brandt file is a minefield,” she said. “He’s got a hand in more than just a few pockets and we don’t know much other than fragments from SSS requisitions. We know he has the Ostanian Prime Ministers’ ear and the temperament of a snake. If he’s on that train, he isn’t just bodyguarding Reinhardt—he’ll be managing him.”
Twilight’s eyes strayed from the pages of those SSS said to be posted on the train, Yuri’s photo still half-hidden under his thumb. “Managing, or watching?”
“Both,” Sylvia said flatly. “And we can’t plant anyone near the delegation without tripping an alarm. Argon’s sealed the city tighter than a drum; and the vetting there is something we aren’t used to.
"If Westalian spies are caught intervening it could be the beginning of the end,” She exhaled smoke, staring through it. “So we settle for eyes along the transit route to Varnen only. Unless there is need, we can’t be on that train any further.”
The Fullmetal Lady looked up from under her wide-brimmed hat and grey smoke spewed from her nostrils like a fiery dragon. “Agent Twilight, Nightfall — I’m looking to you for your expertise on this.”
Loid left the hospital in good time to pick Yor up from work. The protesters were no longer milling around now the sky had darkened moodily and warned of coming rain. Yor stepped out looking a little worse for wear. She must have had a very busy day, Loid mused to himself as he noted that her hair was a little dishevelled and her cheeks flushed from running. Unbeknownst to Loid, she’d had to finish a last minute target rather quickly in an effort to make sure she was waiting for him when he came to meet her.
She smiled bright enough to light the street when she saw him waiting at the bottom step, as if she were surprised he’d kept his promise. He offered his arm and she took it eagerly.
“How was work, Yor?”
“Busy,” she said, brushing a straying hair from her eyes to look up at him. Then she gently nudged him with her elbow and jerked her head to the square, “see? There really was nothing to worry about.”
“I know,” Loid acquiesced and let himself relax a little, “sorry if I was being overbearing this morning.” Yor shook her head and he knew she didn’t really mind. She was so forgiving, he really was lucky it was her to accompany him in all this.
When he was tasked with finding a wife, he couldn’t imagine how he could find someone to agree to such terms. But Yor, while not quite the glowing example of a domestic wife, was truly a woman with a heart of pure gold. Guilt licked at the innards of his ribs as they walked arm in arm back to the car. She really didn’t deserve to be caught up in all of this, but thank goodness she wanted to continue the arrangement. He supposed it did work out for her too, otherwise why else would she want to stay with him, especially as he seemed to vex her every so often.
“What about you, how was your day?” She asked as they climbed into the vehicle.
Loid let out a little sigh and gave her honesty, “too long. I’m seeing more work than usual lately.”
“Because of veterans?” She asked. Loid looked quickly at Yor with a small frown, brow scrunching. She quickly explained, “it’s just that the girls at work were saying some of the men in their lives who had served…well, they’re anxious. I just thought maybe that was why.”
“They’re not the only ones,” Loid said after a pause, “it wasn’t just soldiers affected but those left behind too, the old, the women… the children.” He turned the key and the car rumbled into life.
Loid looked behind himself to reverse out of the bay and then they were off. Yor wasn’t sure if it was wise to continue this tact of conversation and so quickly decided it would be best to change it.
“Anya’s pony will be arriving tomorrow.”
“He will indeed,” Loid lightened up at the thought, a speck of a smile upturning the edges of his lips. He added, “I wonder if naming him will be as eventful as when Bond joined us.”
Yor chuckled. It had been a very loud and eventful day but then many of their days with Anya were loud and overly eventful. She was glad for it. They turned at a junction and dots of wet began to speck on the windscreen.
“Listen, Yor,” Loid said, she looked away from the blur of passing houses and to her husband. He continued, “do you mind watching over Anya this evening? I was invited to join some of the other Eden fathers at a gathering and…” he realised — with an odd blankness — that he couldn’t think of a single reason why a man like Loid Forger would want to spend time away from his wife and daughter. He felt frustration chew at his ribs, why was he struggling with such a thing? Creases folded at the edges of Yor’s glittering pair of rubies. Loid did not quite double take at why she looked so jubilant but it was a near thing.
“What?” he asked after a long pause.
Yor stoppered a laugh with her long, delicate fingers, “It's just that I think that this is the first time you’re doing something for yourself. I’ll happily take care of Anya tonight.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant for a moment. Unbeknownst to Yor, Loid was going because there in the Lion’s Mouth inn would be a room full of people in the upper echelons, some who were well acquainted with him already and looked upon him favourably – he hoped. With unrestrained access to drink, the lack of a disapproving wife or environment and the peer pressure of a space dominated by social hierarchy; the evening could bear bountiful fruit for Loid’s information gathering.
But he would be lying — and that was his life’s work — if he said that some small, homuncular part of him didn’t feel a flicker of pleasure at seeing again those he’d met at the sheep festival so many weeks ago. But he’d die before admitting it even to himself.
Similarly, Yor refrained from being too outwardly pleased at this turn in events. Since she had asked Loid if he wouldn’t mind being her husband she had made efforts to bond with those around her. Whether it was bonding with the other mothers at the park, volunteering with Melinda or going out for drinks with ‘the girls’ — Yor had found great value and joy in friendship. And Loid had always supported and encouraged her in this.
But Loid didn’t seem to go out and have fun. If he was missing dinner or rushing out it certainly was never to meet up with a friend but to let himself be dragged into more work. He had Franky and had mentioned having a drink with him once or twice but it was never often and Yor suspected that much of Loid’s time with Franky was lending an ear to the man’s relationship woes.
They were a curious pair, however, with how stoic Loid carried himself it was intriguing to see him tailed by someone as joyful and energetic as Franky. The two were almost polar opposites.
Either way, it was nice to see Loid relax a little and find further companionship. A nervous thought crossed her mind as she peered side-ways at Loid, that perhaps after the loss of his wife he’d made a recluse of himself and this was the first time he’d found a way out of that hidden place.
The thought of him wallowing while having to single-handedly raise Anya alone tugged at her heart and she found herself all the more endeared to his ongoing efforts.
It stirred a little shame within her as she thought about the loved ones of those she’d pruned from existence. She wondered if they wallowed and isolated themselves or how many of them had children who’d found suddenly that they were one parent short. It was a harrowing thought. However, even unwittingly, it was the price you pay when you marry someone so privy to treachery.
After picking Anya up, they returned to the apartment. Loid had parked outside for the two to run in quickly, for the rain had turned heavy and punishing. When he did join them not ten minutes later, his hair dripped and his shoulders were damp. Yor brought him a towel as Bond came over wagging his tail and looking for a fuss.
"Good afternoon, Bond." Loid said to the dog, sending Yor an appreciative look as he dried his face. Yor took back the towel as he removed his coat and shoes. He heard the kettle begin to boil and found his way into the kitchen behind her.
"Since I'm abandoning you both, I'd like to prepare you dinner." He said already reaching down to the cabinet full of pots and pans. A sudden searing pain struck under his rib. He swallowed hard in surprise and steadied himself as the counter doubled in his vision. He fell to one knee, caught completely off guard as a sour sting rose in his throat.
"-So you don't have to do that," Yor had been saying as she turned back to look at him. Her eyes came down in surprise not to find him standing behind her only to see him crouched and staring distantly into the dark belly of the cupboard.
Yor cocked her head in confusion, "Loid?"
He blinked, muscles tightening into composure. He reached in and pulled out two pots as if that had been his intention all along.
“Sorry. What did you say?” He rose up stiffly. Yor noticed the faint hump in his Adam's apple as he swallowed faintly.
"Um," She began, "I was saying I didn't mind going out and getting something."
"Oh, nonsense," he side-stepped her and put the pots on the stove top. When he turned, he was pre-occupied, frustrated at the way his stomach still haunted him and irritated it had caught him off-guard in front of Yor. A thread of dizziness followed him to the pantry cupboard. He was saying as he went by, "-you don't want to go out in that heavy rain. You look a little tired too. I'd love to prepare dinner before I go."
Yor felt a little confused. Something had shifted in the space of a second. One moment Loid seemed relaxed, but now he was moving around the kitchen with a coiled energy — too cheerful for how guarded his body looked. It reminded her of a grounded bird.
Before she could say anything, Anya burst from her room.
“Can Anya watch T.V.?” she asked, swinging around the counter and straight toward an open cupboard door.
Loid reacted instantly. He half-bent, half-twisted to catch the door before Anya caught the corner with her brow, his hand snapping over the corner just in time. The motion pulled something in his side; a sharp hiss tore through his teeth as he pushed the door shut too forcefully.
Both Yor and Anya blinked at the suddenness of it.
Anya drew back a little, rubbing her forehead though she hadn’t hit it.
“...Papa?”
Loid straightened too quickly, forcing steadiness into his posture. “Be careful,” he said at once, almost too clipped. “Just—be careful.”
Yor watched him for a beat, unsettled by the strain behind his voice. She opened her mouth to ask if he was alright, but Loid was already turning away, reaching for something in the pantry as if the moment hadn’t happened at all.
He reappeared with a handful of potatoes. He said, "you know the rules, if you haven't done your homework then you don't get to watch T.V."
"Becky said she gets to watch one show first," Anya said after a pause. Looking determined.
Loid didn't fall for it at all, "that is the prerogative of her parents. my decision is final. The sooner you get it done then the sooner you can have fun."
"But it's lots," Anya whined. Loid turned around and realising he'd want the cutting board, Yor grabbed it and put it on the side for him. Trying to not get too involved she found the peeler and took one of the potatoes from his pile and got a head start on it. Loid turned away from Anya to the fridge where he pulled out a pack of chicken breast.
Anya came and leaned against the cupboards, folding her arms, "maybe papa could find some per-ogo-teeth too. If he saw how much work Anya has to do, he'd let her watch shows also."
"No," Loid said, seasoning the chicken in an oven dish beside Yor as she peeled the potatoes. He went on, "Papa would — again — say that getting it done now would be better than leaving it and running out of time."
"Just one show..."
"Anya."
"Please," Anya reached up the counter dramatically, "-then I promise I'll do all my homework and I'll behave all weekend."
Putting the pepper-pot down, Loid eyed Anya and struggled to decide if he really had the energy to argue with her. How long could she fight him for? He felt tension clawing at his shoulders. Her clover eyes bore into him and he felt hyper-aware of how close Yor was as she quietly witnessed his complete inability to wrangle Anya's misbehaviour.
He tried to organise his objectives. Make dinner, prepare for the meeting, avoid worrying Yor and keep control of the situation. He should be able to handle Anya's stubbornness; she'd tried this trick on him before. But the idea of managing her predictable meltdown had his stomach turning and nausea rising along with the heat at the back of his neck.
For a split second, Anya looked a little doubtful and Loid wondered if she'd decide on her own that he wouldn't budge. He hoped she did as his stomach pain was quickly draining his bandwidth to bother with the issue.
Her expression turned steely and the six year old stamped her foot, "I wanna watch T.V."
"Which you are welcome to do after your homework," Loid tried again, praying setting a hard line would work.
Anya now dug deep into the arsenal Becky had bestowed on her that day, having learned — unbeknownst to her parents of course — that there was a whole slew of ways to 'work' her parents feelings as Becky had put it.
“If Papa doesn’t let Anya watch T.V., then Papa hates Anya.”
Loid almost dropped the chicken. Beside him, Yor gasped and spun around. Their sharp reaction startled the little girl; she stepped back, swallowing uncertainly. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Becky had said Papa would fall to his knees and let her do whatever she wanted.
Anya had been sure—at least at first—that something similar had worked on her parents before. But now, seeing her mama glance between Anya and Loid’s turned back, at that time she had felt their guilt rise through her telepathic link but the emotion she felt now beyond her mama's astonishment was strange. It felt like a word she didn't know yet.
She reached toward her Papa’s mind, pulling at the warm thread of connection floating at the edge of her thoughts. Over time she’d learned not to tune into him unless she had to; he thought so rapidly it often gave her a headache. But this time, aside from the distant ache that had become a familiar part of him, his mind was unusually stalled, as if his thoughts had gone momentarily still.
He thinks, …how could she ever believe that?
"Anya," Yor said firmly, "go to your room and start your homework."
Anya didn't argue; she turned and disappeared quickly, letting go of her father's mind like a finger plucking a shuddering harp string.
When the girl's door closed. Yor hesitantly looked to Loid. He was pulling foil from one of the draws to place over the herby, potted chicken. As ever, it was impossible to know what thoughts crossed his mind. But he was quiet and he looked tired.
"She's only saying things like that because she wants to watch her show." Yor explained lightly, "you know how she is with studying."
Loid stood up and away from the oven. He looked upon Yor with a confusingly warm expression, "I know."
"I'll talk to her," Yor told him, making to step away.
"No," he said quickly, causing her pause. He pulled the potatoes she'd cut to him, scooping them all into the larger pot and adding a plentiful pinch of salt before covering them with water. They went on the cooker top and the gas was turned, igniting the ring. He dusted his hands off and pulled a convincing and careful smile out as he turned to face her properly, "it's better she let these emotions hang a little and come to terms with them on her own."
"But she can't think that you hate her over a cartoon."
Loid wanted to say in that moment that he was fully aware Anya didn't think he didn't love her, that the worst conclusion she'd drawn was simply a cruel attempt at manipulation that only a child could pull.
He wanted to say that Anya would one day forgive him for all his pushing for her to study, that she ought to know everything he did was for her benefit.
But when Yor had hurt in her eyes on his behalf — it made lying about all those things cause a caustic sourness to rise in his throat, one that he was sure was not entirely caused by an empty stomach and stress alone. He didn't like the implications the feeling represented and tried to stomp them away as quickly as they come.
Anya could never be loved by Twilight as she was loved by Loid Forger because she was not his child as she was the child of his cover identity, which was a lie anyway because the man Yor looked at warmly was as much a lie as Anya's own statement.
Loid Forger would never be appreciated by her in her later years because he will at some point cease to be a part of her life where she could ever appreciate the things she thinks were solely for her benefit.
He likes to think that at least while she played the part of operation Strix unwittingly, she at least would have an education and new start to her life that she may never have found in the orphanage he had pulled her from. He wants to believe that, when Loid meets his end, that Yor will keep Anya close. That the salary he saves as Loid Forger in their time together will be more than enough to at least supplement them for a while. He wished he could do more.
But he knows how this ends and if he is being honest with himself as he thought about appreciation and studying and these difficult tantrums, he realised he never once appreciated his father's attempts to encourage his study either. Because he had been wrong too and just like Twilight, he was a liar and none of it had mattered.
Looking at Yor now, so understanding and worried for his — for Loid Forger's feelings... Those thoughts started to quickly feel like poison being willingly swallowed.
"Don't worry about it, Yor." He said, finally. "Come, help me with the cooking?"
He explained to Yor as they cut extra vegetables, exactly how long to leave them to boil for and to let the chicken cook in the oven for a half hour before removing the foil to let each breast brown.
There was a small jar of nutmeg which he grated into a bowl. He was intending originally to make a far more interesting meal for them, but he had let things fall out of control and now the meal would be a basic roast dinner.
He knew Yor was too kind to mind and seemed warmed and excited to follow his instruction as he explained how he liked to make a fine bowl of mash by adding the grated nutmeg before serving... Just as his own mother used to.
Internally, he flinched away at the thought as they both peered over the pots hitting a rolling boil.
"Do you mind watching the vegetables?" He asked, pushing away from the counter suddenly.
"Oh, yes of course, you need to get ready!"
"I have an hour," he responded, glancing at his watch.
He stepped away to shower, leaving Yor to fret over the meal they'd prepared. She glanced behind her as he stalked away and then her her eyes passed over his back to Anya's door.
Children always knew what to say to make you laugh endlessly. The things Yuri had burst out with in his childhood had always had Yor wondering what books he'd been reading. Similarly, she was certain Loid was fairly aware of the shows Anya watched but despite his best efforts the girl often came out with the strangest, other-worldly takes that left them scratching their heads or burn with embarrassment. Though mostly she did make them smile.
She'd said cruel things before and she cannot be blamed for that either.
Because,
children always knew what to say to make you hurt endlessly.
Loid was still a mystery to her all these months into their marriage. Fake or not, she still felt endeared to him even if his own feelings were purely symbiotic in nature. She just wanted to solve the mystery all the more and she liked to think she had untangled some threads about him. One was obvious.
He loved his daughter. He didn't tell her and he didn't offer affection sparingly. He did not say, he did. When Anya wanted, she often recieved and when she didn't, Yor thought he often had good reason even if she did not always agree with his methods.
She lowered the temperature on the pots just a little, eyeing the bathroom as she stepped forward to their daughter's room. She didn't knock the door because she didn't want Loid— in the bathroom — to hear, she didn't want him to think she was meddling. He had said no, when she offered to talk to Anya. She was sure there was value in his words.
"It's better she let these emotions hang a little and come to terms with them on her own."
It was likely he had said this from the perspective of a psychiatrist and Yor didn't disagree entirely with the statement. But she'd raised a child too and there were times where feelings needed stern words to be navigated against. After all, a boat is steered through storming waters.
She opened the door. Anya was at her table, books and homework piled either side of her as she scrawled miserably at the page Infront of her. When Yor entered she looked to her mother with huge watery eyes. Yor closed the door and put a gentle finger to her lips, eyes casting sideward toward the door.
Anya said in a quiet, warbled voice, "I didn't mean it, mama."
Yor sat on the little bed and steeled her heart. "Then why would you say something so hurtful?"
Anya didn't want to blame Becky. She shuffled around in her chair to better face her mama. She rubbed under her nose and leaned against the backrest of the chair. "I just wanted to watch T.V."
"I know you did, I understand that," Yor said, "-but why did you say that about your father. Don't you know how much it hurt him?"
"Papa knows Anya loves him."
"That's not the issue," Yor explained, "your father loves you."
"Then why doesn't papa tell me that?" Anya sniffed, a little anger flushing her cheeks. "Mama can say it. Mama says it about papa..."
Yor's eyes widened and she put her finger to her lips again. Praying the shower, doors and hall were truly drowning out their conversation.
Yor said, "you don't have to say it. You don't feel with words Anya, you feel with this." She put her hand on her heart. Anya looked at her uncertainly. Yor patted the bed and the girl hopped down and crawled up next to her, shuffling closer as Yor put her arm around the girl.
"Listen, here" Yor said and she leaned a little, gesturing to her upper chest. Anya leaned into her, ear pressing against her thin, red jumper. The sound of Yor's heart beat beneath.
"Do you hear it?"
"Yes."
"Do you hear it speak?"
Anya pressed her ear against her mother a little more, face scrunching up, "no." The girl leaned away. The face she pulled was an amusing mix of confused and frustrated. "Heart's don't talk, mama."
"No, because they feel." Yor smiled in amusement at Anya's face. "So sometimes it's a little hard to hear. Because all you can hear is that its beating and my heart beats for you, for Bond, for uncle Yuri, for..."
"For papa?"
"Yes." Yor said. "It's okay, if someone doesn't say something because they show their heart is beating for you with action."
Anya looked down at her shoes, "like Bondman?"
"Bondman?" Yor asked, perplexed.
"He doesn't tell princess Honey he loves her but he always saves her," Anya said. From outside, Bond scratched at the door.
"Yes, that's right." Yor patted Anya's head and drew her close. She was never good at playing stern anyway but she thinks Anya had understood her point. Though, she thought, Bondman is a terrible womaniser, he's probably not the best example.
"Your father's a little complicated," Yor said, "that's what makes him so interesting. But, remember when you said you really, really wanted to try that exotic cocoa?" She felt Anya nod against her. "-and then it magically appeared in the cupboard one day?" Anya nodded again, the sound of cotton rustling against her cheek as Yor held her warmly.
"Those small acts, are love." Anya nodded, thinking.
Because the cocoa hadn't been a small act. She'd read her father's mind and he'd travelled distantly to a place she couldn't even begin to pronounce and struggled endlessly, only to say nothing of it when on return the cocoa was put in the cupboard without word. The only clue that he'd went to so much effort, was how wearily satisfied he'd been when Anya and Yor both said that it was the best cocoa they'd ever drank in their lives.*
But. It was hard to hear her father's heart beat when his thoughts were unbelievably nauseating and confused as if there were several people shouting over one another in his head. More and more, despite finding her powers to be stronger and more under her control, his head was becoming a mess of nonsense. She couldn't even cheat from him, it was impossible to pick the right answers amongst the ruckus. So it was easier to just tune him out just as he changed the station when they were listening to the radio.
But love was something Anya never heard in his thoughts, even if the curious warmth she sensed from him was present. She could never find his mental cognisance align with those softer feelings. The warm, protective feeling she gets from him is never shaped into words and even though Anya knew her vocabulary was rudimentary and short it was disorienting to try to define how Loid felt.
He was frustrating. It was confusing. Anya wished love was as simple as the way her mama made it sound.
"I think it would mean a lot to him for you to apologise," Yor suggested carefully, standing up as Bond's door scratching became a little incessant and her own mind wondered to the food bubbling in the kitchen.
"I will." Anya said, looking ashamed.
"And he'd be happy too if you completed all your homework." Yor said a little more sternly.
Anya nodded and Yor smiled with accomplishment. Meddling having perfectly worked in her favour. She turned away.
"But, mama," Anya said, "if your still confuse, and you don't really know... is it okay to ask if someone loves you?"
Yor paused at the door, hand stroking along the frame. Anya blinked at the mountainous melancholy that filtered into her senses and wished desperately that she could take it back.
"Yes," Yor sighed and turned to smile at her daughter, "but you might not always like what you hear."
In the bathroom, Twilight had shut out Loid from his thoughts as he prepared himself for the evening ahead.
He imagined it wouldn’t be acceptable to appear in the evening in casual wear and Kellenbach had mentioned it being a private function to keep out the ‘riff-raff’. But he didn’t want to wear his green three-piece as it might separate him a little from the others. Tan and black long-coats were in fashion. Twilight wanted to listen and observe tonight and so subtly melting into the picture would be best. So he elected to wear his charcoal three piece with a dark red tie, polished brown oxfords, silver cufflinks and trading the jacket for the longer tail-coat. He didn’t slick back his hair, however, letting his mane fall as it usually did, so as not to give him an air of pretension, though his dress still signalled Loid Forger’s deference to tradition—and thus, good breeding. Although, as he thumbed the waistband of the High-waisted trousers he found them slightly looser than he expected. Twilight left the bathroom and went to his bedroom in search of a belt.
When he found it he re-entered the hall and found that the smell of the chicken was all encompassing and his stomach revolted at the glorious smell of creamy, buttery, herby protein.
Twilight had absconded from anything but oatmeal in the last few days. He was worried he’d have yet another bout of agonizing stomach pain. Worse – as much as it sent heat into his ears – Anya’s observations of him being stuck in the bathroom all of last Sunday weren’t wrong at all. And that was only thirty minutes after eating a breakfast he had made sure his Wife’s hand had no part in.
But he was sure to encounter alcohol tonight. He checked his watch. The taxi would be arriving shortly. And while he had a high tolerance for spirits, he might find himself struggling on an empty stomach to hold all of his faculties. He paused in the entryway to the sitting room in thought. Yor was hovering in the kitchen by the egg timer in a small panic. Cooking really did seem to be a particular bane for her.
Yor caught sight of him and smiled wobbly, “I’ve got my eye on it, don't worry!”
“I’m not worried,” Loid found himself smiling before he’d even thought to. No, while Yor’s cooking left them often floored and groaning, it had improved dramatically. She’d mentioned having lessons in fact. He really didn’t want to undermine her efforts by blaming his stomach issues entirely on her. He turned into the bathroom and to the medical cabinet where he kept a tin of chalky antacids. While the thought had occurred that his wife – Loid Forger’s wife – had sent his stomach into fits with her noxious cookery efforts it would be hyperbole to entirely blame it on that. Though it probably didn’t help.
He’d been having issues for a few months now. Perhaps the excitement of parenting was causing him some deal of stress. He could admit that. He could certainly agree that raising Anya, keeping Yor in good spirits, and maintaining the pretence of a well-managed, happy family—while juggling his double life between the hospital and WISE—was no small challenge. Tonight being a good example. He sighed.
He surmised that what he was experiencing was a mild gastritis caused by lack of sleep and daily stress. It would relieve itself eventually with rest, antacids, and discipline. He took a tablet from the case, then another, swallowing them dry before putting the metal box into his breast pocket for good measure.
He knew he'd have to talk to Anya about tonight. He needed to Apologise for making her feel ignored or uncared for. He speculated that maybe because he'd be leaving tonight that she was upset and lashing out at him. That seemed like a reasonable behaviour for a child like her to exhibit. Or it was possible, and most likely, that she was just trying to manipulate him into letting her watch television early.
But he couldn't take the risk that he'd catastrophically impaired the relationship with his daughter... with Loid Forger's daughter. He glowered at himself one last time in the reflection. Pull yourself together, Twilight. Peace was more than petty squabbles and selfish fantasies of nonexistent ends, peace between East and West relied on his ability to maintain harmony within the Forgers. So don't be so pathetic.
When he left the bathroom it was nearing time for his taxi to arrive. He entered into the hall. Bond was snoring on the rug in the living room.
“Anya has something she wants to tell you,” Yor said, coming around from the counter with a glass of water for him. Her smile was soft and gentle as she guided the small child with a hand on her back.
Loid turned to find Anya fiddling with her sleeves.
The little girl mumbled, “Anya is sorry, Papa.”
“You can do a little better than that,” Yor chided. Anya shuffled to the side a little before running to Loid’s leg and clutching it with a sniffle.
“I'm sorry!”
“It's fine, Anya.” Loid responded and crouched down forcing her to step back as he engulfed each of her thin shoulders in his hands and held her at arms length, “I understand. I'm sorry too. I didn't realise I was making you feel uncared for. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for one show before having to do your homework.”
Above him, Yor watched on with an unhappy frown. She was not expecting Loid to take blame. Though, this was also unsurprising; every time he perceived a snag in their dynamics, he always seemed to blame himself.
“No,” Anya said, "Anya is sorry." She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. Loid softened at her little tears. He reached desperately to find the right words to make it better but Anya beat him to it, echoing Yor's earlier comments, "-Anya only said Papa... h-hated her because Anya wanted to watch T.V."
"I know," he said.
"But Papa doesn't hate Anya," Anya stated, tears falling freely over her cheeks. He felt her glassy eyes fall on his. He was just a blur ahead of the film of tears. Even then, she could see his mouth tick down, eyes softening as he leaned away minutely.
"Papa doesn't hate, Anya," Loid confirmed and she hugged him and he let her. She felt a sigh rock through his body before he pulled away and stood up. His need to go out and gather intelligence tonight was in discord with his desire to go to bed. His head hurt and so did his stomach, despite the antacid tablets. Maybe he needed something stronger.
"Come on," Yor said now pulling Anya back a little, "Loid needs to go to his party."
"Party!" Anya said, cheering up. Loid wanted to correct them, it wasn't a party but maybe that was the easiest way to explain it to the child. He let it go.
"Now papa can make friends."
Loid glowered at her, "I have friends already, Anya."
Anya looked doubtful, "-mama said it would be good for you to hang out with them for once." Yor squeaked behind the girl.
Loid’s cheeks burned, is that what Yor thought of him? That he cut a lonely figure? “I s-see.”
“It w-wasn’t like that,” Yor stammered as Loid turned to her, She fiddled violently with her own fingers as she stumbled over an incorrigible sentence. Loid raised a hand, changing tac.
“I appreciate your concern Yor,” he said, “you’re right, I have found myself a homebird these last few weeks.”
“But I’m not saying that’s a bad thing!” Yor exclaimed and then squeaked when one of the pots behind her bubbled over. She quickly turned away to see to it before anything else spilled out. Loid retained a sigh, even the smell of boiled potatoes was causing his mouth to salivate, maybe he should take an apple.
“I think you have a point of course, but with Anya here I…” He trailed off, feeling a little tired all of a sudden. Yor looked back at him in confusion and then her brows rose as she watched him, her quandary tipping into concern. Anya tugged at his sleeve. He looked down. She held up an apple to him.
“For you to repleneesh your savourings,” Anya said awkwardly, somehow Loid knew what she was trying to say.
“Thank you,” he said. The faint sound of tires slowing on gravelly asphalt piqued his ears and he glanced down at his watch. “I suppose I will be off then. Have a good night, you two. I will try not to be out too late.”
“Have fun, papa.”
He was half out the door when Yor caught his elbow. He looked up at the pleading pools of crimson that were her eyes. He swallowed. Yor carefully took her hand back, as if touching him were a crime.
She said seriously, “I didn’t mean for you to think I thought…”
Loid smiled, he took her hands and cupped them in his, patting the top soothingly in an attempt to reassure her. Her face was ripening like a tomato and she stiffened. Loid said, “I understand. I really do. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“O-okay”.
He stepped away, tipping his hat.
“Wait!”
Loid turned, looking back at her with a raised brow.
Yor stepped out. She glanced once behind her and then said quickly, “you look very…that suit, it’s very nice. I hope you have a lot of fun.”
“Thank you,” Loid said sincerely, feeling a little warmth colour his flesh before turning and taking his first step down.
Notes:
*The cocoa thing is actually canon (?). In official Spy x Family manga extras omake, there were different outfits Yor and Loid wear throughout the week. In one of them, Loid wore all camo in an effort to get Anya some exotic cocoa (for the mission). For some reason, I thought that was so profoundly adorable. It might be the most extra, stupid and unnecessary thing he has ever done to make Anya happy (for the mission, of course).
I read through this chapter a few times but I got tired so there are probably errors. My apologies <3
Comments are feed for any author's writing spirit, so if you do have the time I would love to hear your thoughts!
Chapter Text
After he paid the taxi fare he stepped out and took stock of the Lion’s Mouth Inn. The establishment was set on the street corner of a no-through-road and overhung a public square known as Whert Court. Being based in the more refined section of the city, The Lion's Mouth was fairly large and well-built with cream brickwork all the way to its tall and narrow red-roof. Halfway across the North-side of the building was interrupted by an imposing stone gate tower with a clock face. The tower had a smaller green spire above it, crowned with a weather vane, and an arched passageway below allowing people to pass through. Flower boxes rested under each window, bursting with geraniums despite the cold in the air. An amber glow shone brightly from each window.
Twilight stepped inside and found the downstairs area to be very quiet indeed. Coated in an inviting gold hue from hanging lights over oaken tables, were a few local patrons.
A family sat in the corner around a booth table. Two of their older children talked politely about their day as a waiter came to replenish their water.
Twilight was approached by a round shouldered, pudding faced teenager whose soft belly hung over his apron. The boy asked him, “would you like a seat, sir?”
“Actually,” Twilight cast an eye, looking for stairs leading up to where he could hear ruckus laughter from familiar throats, “I was invited to join my fellow upper class men in the private function?”
“What’s your name, sir?” the young waiter asked quickly, turning away to retrieve a clipboard from the barmen who’d been listening closely.
Twilight put a hand to his lapel as he fell easily into the role, “my name is Loid Forger.”
“Loid Forger…” the boy echoed before fingering the list in his hands. He found Loid Forger’s name and he placed the clipboard, face up, on the counter from where the bar man quickly snatched it from view. Twilight’s trained eye had caught it and each name with a single glance.
The barman sent the teen a scowl but did not openly admonish him like one would expect. Probably, Twilight thought as he had done his research on this establishment and found these two to be father and son.
The teenager gestured awkwardly to follow and Twilight followed him through an archway into a narrow vestibule. The lavatory was along the further end but ahead of them was a little stained-glass door with a bronze plaque that read: Members’ Lounge.
“Make sure to give the attendant at the door your name, sir; he’ll let you through from there.”
Twilight smiled politely and stepped into the stairwell past the teen before he made his way up the stairs. Each step creaked just a little as he went by and he found the man at the door, alert and eyes already trained on him.
“Loid Forger,” Twilight introduced as their eyes met, “my apologies I am a little late.”
The man didn’t respond, preoccupied with thumbing through a paper he pulled from his pocket to check if Loid really was invited. Finally he looked up and opened the door with a sweeping arm and said, “go ahead, sir.”
Twilight stepped around him and in a heartbeat fully embodied his current alter-ego with a roll of the shoulders and a schooling of gentleness to his expression. Heads turned immediately. Loid Forger paused by the door and allowed himself to look a little overwhelmed, he was in fact surrounded by people far higher than himself in station.
The room was full to the brim with people that had Twilight's pulse throb excitedly.
The room was almost triangular. Warped beams swept along the ceiling and over a dark-wood bar. Behind the bar was a vast array of bottles that glistened invitingly. Loid’s eyes caught sight of booths sitting several well-bred gentlemen along the North and East walls. A pool table sat grandly in the centre of the room under the gaze of ornate chandelier lights. The room was somewhat misty and stank strongly of expensive tobacco and whiskey. A gramophone spun quietly in the corner, a low croon half-smothered beneath the murmur of conversation.
Byron Blackbell, Wesley Watkins and Rudolf Kellenbach immediately looked upon Loid in recognition. Kellenbach and Blackbell even offered friendly smiles in which Loid returned but it was Kellenbach who came to him with a hand thrust forward.
“Forger!” Kellenbach purred at the sight of him, stash twitching up on each side, “for a moment there I was afraid you’d not turn up.”
“My apologies,” Loid explained sedately as Kellenbach guided him to the bar where Blackbell, Watkins and another gentleman waited. The third man was Arnold Drehn, from what Loid recalled. He had been around at the Sheep festival too but at that time the spy couldn’t see how the fellow could provide any use to him. So he’d ignored his presence as much as what was polite which seemed fine then and potentially now as his cheeks were equally as rosy from good beer.
“My daughter was fairly upset that I’d be spending the evening away, so I had to make it up to her with an early bedtime story,” Loid shrugged to himself helplessly.
Mr Blackbell nodded in utter sympathy, “that’s the problem with little girls, they have us wrapped firmly around their darling fingers. My sweet Becky is just the same, she loves her daddy.”
Loid caught Watkins rolling his eyes but instead he nodded in agreement with Blackbell, “I’m still struggling to balance discipline and maintaining boundaries but it is hard not to spoil her at the same time.”
“That’s easier when you’re a stepfather,” Kellenbach said, leaning on the bar and jabbing a finger at the air. “You can spoil them all you like — they’re not really your problem. Your only job’s to make sure they like you.”
Blackbell hummed thoughtfully, “is that how it is with your wife, Forger? Does she struggle as the stepmother to discipline your daughter?”
“I did wonder too,” Kellenbach chimed in, “I’ll have to share notes with her as a fellow step-parent.”
“Well,” Loid started, a coil of discomfort moderating his tone “-you see myself and Yor like to manage Anya together equally, whether discipline or praise, it comes just the same. I don’t want there to be any ambiguity when it comes to Yor’s role as Anya’s mother.”
“Said like a true shrink,” Kellenbach chuckled, “so you think I ought to take a more fatherly role in Louis’s life, doctor?”
Loid raised two palms, and let himself look beseeched, “I wouldn’t dare tell another how to raise their child.”
“Oh, but I’m interested,” Kellenbach said, leaning forward.
“You must be doing something right,” Blackbell thumbed his chin as he studied Forger with thoughtful, chocolate eyes, “Becky too seems to adore you and your daughter. Dare I say, Miss Anya has had a good effect on my sweet girl, she was tending to emulate the rather… how might I say this? Less appealing qualities of the ladies in her shows.”
“Well,” Loid said and paused in apparent thought, “-my studies dictate that as parents we must foster secure attachment in the child, especially if we want them to be able to excel outside of the home. Lets not see affection as a limited resource but something that ought to be freely given just as authority should not be seen as asserted rather than shared - especially with the biological parent in your case.” He nodded to Kellenbach.
“I won’t pretend to have all the answers of course,” Loid added as the men around him hummed in response, “after all my daughter seems most averse to studying. Thanks to Yor, I found that taking a gentler approach has rewarded us much better results with her work.”
Even if those results are not exactly as good as I hoped, Anya has drastically improved over time… Loid thought to himself. A couple more men appeared in curiosity to hear the conversation and refill their glasses.
“You know, Forger,” Kellenbach pointed at the psychiatrist brightly “-that sounds pretty healthy to me. Most fellas either try to run the whole house or keep out of it entirely, but you and Mrs Forger seem to have a nice balance going. Anya always looks sure of herself — that’s what happens when the adults are on the same page I suppose. No, you’re right, I ought to take some notes.”
“Miss Anya was incredibly brave during that whole affair with the highjacking,” Blackbell mused looking a little pale as he recalled it, “if it hadn’t been for the iron will of that girl, who knew what would have happened.”
“Don’t,” Loid put his hand to steady a pulse that wasn’t racing, and breathed out a weary sigh, “I still stay awake at night thinking of it.”
“That makes sense,” Kellenbach said, eyeing Loid, “you do look a little world weary.”
“Oh… well,” Loid found himself taken aback.
“Here,” Blackbell turned and asked for whiskey on the rocks before sharing a glass each to Loid, Watkins and himself. Kellenbach still had half a glass of what seemed to be beer, by the smell of his breath. “Get that down your throat, Mr Forger, that will liven those cheeks of yours.”
“Thank you,” Loid said, a little molly-coddled.
What am I doing? Loid thought as Blackbell and Watkins talked of their own children’s bravery during the bus hijacking.
I should be pressing these people for intel not dishing out unwarranted child rearing advice… I’m not even Anya’s real father and last I checked she’s not exactly an imperial scholar.
A glass being placed down didn’t make Loid jump but it shook him from his spiralling as he turned to see the square, solid frame of Emil Komarov. He was bold headed and portly with a thick, ping-pong shaped nose that crowned a drooping handle bar moustache. He was the Chief Commissioner of Berlint Metropolitan Police and might have useful information about the upcoming negotiations.
“What’s this?” the man rumbled, as Watkins turned to him too.
Watkins said, “merely, discussing the hijacking that happened not too long ago. Myself, Blackbell and Forger here all had a child involved.”
“All gaining stellas for their bravery during the incident too of course,” Blackbell added proudly.
Loid – or rather Twilight– was masquerading as an armed policeman at the time of the incident. He’d rushed home from a mission in Bayan in a panic but because his wife believed he was away on business, he couldn't officially return home as Loid Forger. The day had been beyond exhausting and Yor had already long since been home with Anya and taken part in all the police statements at the time when Loid returned home. Officially, Loid Forger had never set eyes on Emil Komarov or had any dealings with the police since he couldn't suddenly appear without arousing suspicion.
“Forgive me, but Mr Komarov? I was away on business during the incident so I was never able to formally thank you for securing the safety of my daughter and the other children.”
Komarov nodded in response as Blackbell crowed how upset Loid must have been.
“All I did was order the placement of the spike strip,” the police chief finally said as he put his hands behind his back. He had to lean back for his fingers to interlock so his belly protruded out a little, “-that and hold back the state security service from charging in guns blazing. What a nuisance it all was.”
Loid took a sip of the whiskey; it burned all the way down his throat. “Is that so?”
“I have to sympathise somewhat with them,” Watkins commented shrewdly. “After all it was half dark by the time we had any movement regarding their demands. Though, I worry about what could have happened if they had charged in.”
“Nothing good,” the chief sniped, “the bombs that were placed on the children were fake but there was a very real explosive ready to detonate on the bus and the knives those men had to hand were just as sharp and real as you would expect. Scum.”
“How scary,” Blackbell commented.
“Though I am glad to say that at least the SSS have rounded up the rest of those Red circus cretins – or at least the ones we know about,” Komarov grumbled, “better news than hearing them chasing people who might have been a bit too opinionated in the street.”
An uncomfortableness rippled about the men. Loid took a long drink, letting the ice burn the top of his lip as he surreptitiously eyed the reactions of those around him. So the chief of Berlint police is openly anti-SSS, Watkins doesn’t seem to like that and Blackbell seems uncomfortable with how often he’s pulled at his necktie as expected from a profiteer.
“Opinions quickly find bullets,” Watkins finally commented, “I don’t know about you but we don’t need anymore revolutionaries taking up arms.”
Komarav swivelled steadily toward the taller, burlier man. “If memory serves, I was present the day the first Red Circus rally turned violent. And it wasn’t the crowd that started it, but certain parties who preferred things to get out of hand.”
Watkins appeared to want to argue the point but the sound of a black snooker ball clattering down a gulley had Blackbell throwing his free hand up, “now here, I asked for the table next gentleman. Mr Forger, don’t you mind partaking? I’d like to introduce you to a gentleman here.”
“By all means,” Loid said as he placed his now empty glass behind him and was led by Blackbell with Kellenbach at his back. Interestingly, Arnold Drehn, the wiry fellow tagged behind. Though he didn’t look eager to engage in the heated exchange between Watkins and Komarav.
They stepped up to the table. A gaunt man stepped in to greet them; Loid thought he must be the oldest there. Judging by the faces around him, he and Blackbell were perhaps the youngest in the room. Blackbell gestured between the older gentleman who was dressed incredibly well and supported a thin pair of spectacles on the bridge of his nose. He leaned forward with his hand outstretched to take Loid’s in his and shook it with some surprising strength.
“Franz Reiss,” Blackbell introduced a little giddy, “this is Loid Forger, a celebrated psychiatrist at Berlint General Hospital.”
“I wouldn’t call myself celebrated,” Loid responded and was glad for the whiskey burning an early red flush to his cheeks to further accentuate the humbleness of the alias Loid Forger.
Upturned and wrinkled eyes met his own. Franz Reiss said, “I’ve heard a lot about you from Director Gorey.”
Loid wondered what sort of things the Chief Medical Director had said about him. Though Gerald had seemed grateful after Loid vouched for him during the scandal with the fake SSS officers, the man had still tried to have him arrested in the first place. Jealous, petty, and bitter — that was Gerald Gorey in truth. While Twilight himself didn’t care for the man’s words, Loid Forger was Gorey’s employee and had openly supported the man.
“All nice things I hope?” Loid chuckled self depreciatively. Franz Reiss’ green eyes curved in good nature and Loid let his shoulders settle
Kellenbach said, “Do you know who Mr Reiss’ is?”
Loid frowned, “no I’m remiss, please enlighten me.” He did know.
“I am merely working for the central Bank,” Franz Reiss shrugged, “no need to fuss.”
Byran Blackbell put his hand on Loid’s shoulder, his cheeks a hot pink as he gestured between the two of them. “But this man, he wrote The Architecture of Reason! He used to be a shrink, just like you Doctor Forger, I thought you might have something in common?”
Loid’s shoulders jolted, and he turned to Reiss with a face alight with exhilaration. “No small feat! I studied your book and referenced it in my final dissertation. Your work embodies so many of the progressive values shaping modern psychiatry. I’m honoured to stand before you.” He bowed slightly, drawing titters from Kellenbach and Blackbell at his display of reverence.
Yet while Twilight truly did respect Reiss’s work, the gesture also masked his attempt to double over from the sudden, searing pain that tore through his stomach. He straightened, blinking rapidly against moisture in his eyes. It felt like a bolt of lightning had struck him from within.
“Please, you’ll make me blush like a maiden,” Reiss said quickly, waving a hand as Blackbell laughed — seeing the faint wetness he saw in Loid’s pale eyes as reverence for the author before him.
“Come here, Blackbell,” Kellenbach said, pulling the other man aside as he downed the last drops of his beer. “I’d like a word about those new contracts — just a moment. We can order more drinks while we’re at it. I think we ought to get Mr Forger a beer too, if he’s going to dehydrate himself with tears.” Loid blushed furiously, silently chastising himself as his stomach knotted. Kellenbach and Blackbell — a defence contractor and a military contractor — their livelihoods depended on procurement.
New contracts? What could that mean, in the midst of a Cold War where the West was disbanding regiments in the name of peace and turning inward toward infrastructure? Loid wished he was following them, in that moment, thinking their conversation was about to be much more enlightening to his mission in searching for world peace. He awkwardly turned, cheeks still burning to the elder Financial Administrator.
“You wrote The Architecture of Reason under the alias H. Morgen,” Loid began, “it was an incredibly educated and informative opus. Why did you hide it behind a pseudonym?”
“It was my ideas that I wanted people to remember,” Reiss explained. He picked up the cue stick, glancing at its edge before handing it over to Loid. Together they began taking the balls from their nets and racked them on the table. Loid tried to listen out for Blackbell and Kellenbach but even his trained ears could not pick them out amongst the chatter.
“I see,” Loid said as they worked, “-and you chose a new path away from that of a distinguished psychiatrist, widely cited in professional journals? That must have been some leap.”
“I chased psychiatry for love of medicine, it was unfortunately my father’s advice that called me back to the banks. If only I’d ignored him and chased my dreams,” Reiss explained. Loid paused in his busy work and glanced over at the man with a frown. “But alas, at the time psychiatry didn’t pay too well, I imagine it still doesn’t? No? I didn’t think so but perhaps you have a better moral compass than me.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that…” Loid said between trying to focus on Reiss, a conversation between Watkins and Komarov and the incessant complaining in his gut.
“You haven’t written anything yet?” Reiss said, “I hear you’ve had a lot of success with many patients in your short employment at Berlint hospital.”
“I don’t see myself as a scholar,” Loid explained, he peered under the snooker table in search of a last ball but it happened to be on Reiss’ side of the table; the man lifted it from the corner net. “-After all, I’ve only been working as a psychiatrist for a few years now.”
“I see, when did you finish your studies?”
“After the war I pursued medicine — drawn specifically to psychiatry after seeing the effects of trauma on soldiers and civilians.” Loid explained; a consistent and well rehearsed story. He’d let Reiss start the game. The end of his sentence was punctuated by the clatter of balls. Red glanced the pack and the cue-ball returned to the baulk line.
“What did you write your dissertation on?” Reiss asked curiously. Loid came forward to aim at the cue ball with a squint in his eye. As Streiss watched, Loid followed with a cautious safety, returning the white to the top cushion where it bounced and found an open red to the middle pocket and potted it cleanly. Streiss whistled in surprise. Behind them Arnold Drehn whooped. Loid had forgotten he was even there. Though, not really.
“My dissertation focused on post-traumatic neurosis among veterans,” Loid said after a moment to view the field.
“I’d like to read it, if you don’t mind.”
“I will make sure to send it to you.” He took the blue for five points, then played safe back to baulk. Reiss attempted a long red to the corner, but it rattled in the pocket and stayed up.
“I have no luck or skill it seems,” Reiss breathed through his teeth as Loid potted the loose red, followed by another. Loid stood and smiled in a pained way, as if winning against a man double his age aggrieved him but he didn’t have the shame to pretend to be just as bad.
“I wondered what you might think, speaking professionally of course, about the prisoners just recently moved,” Streiss asked Loid with a sharp eye.
Loid stalled imperceptively at the dangerous question and watched as Reiss regained the table through a fortunate kiss of balls during a safety exchange, sinking a red and then the blue. He left the cue-ball tight on the cushion. He looked across to Loid in expectation.
Blackbell and Kellenbach returned to the table too, overlooking the ball’s positions and murmuring their observations. Blackbell held two beers, one for himself and one for Loid. Two more men had joined the ranks of watchers. Loid knew one of them as someone he had to be exceptionally wary of, Leonardo Happoon, a private arms dealer with quiet connections to the black market, a fact Twilight suspected the others weren’t aware of. He was also potentially involved with those who went missing on board the Princess Lorelei so many moons ago.
The other man was Sergei Ostosky a Member of the Ostanian Economics Committee; ex-military commissariat. He was a known Bureaucratic hardliner and very much anti-Westalis. He was squat like Franky with a heavy brow and a boldening head of hair that was contained to an awkward central tuft on his dome.
Loid swallowed a nervous pooling of saliva in the back of his throat.
Dangerous question, he thought. A question like that—here, among these people? *I’ll have to answer professionally: circumspect, apolitical, if I want to stay in their good graces—and keep them talking.
“Well,” he began evenly, “psychologically speaking, prisoners of war are in a fragile state — no matter which side they fought for. Prolonged uncertainty, isolation, and the loss of purpose… these things erode the mind. A man without a clear future will cling to anything that gives him meaning again.”
He bent over the table, sighted his shot, and tapped the cue ball gently sending the white back up-table.
“If there are to be exchanges,” he went on, straightening, “it would be wise to begin preparing them now — mentally, I mean. Men released too suddenly, with no structure to return to, often break down or turn reckless. Proper evaluation and gradual reintegration can prevent that.
“Of course, that’s merely from a clinical standpoint. I’ll leave the political wisdom of it to those far more qualified.”
“You really think there’ll be exchanges?”
Loid looked behind him at Leonardo Happoon. Everything about the man was long, like a snake. From his glasses to his gangly arms and legs, he seemed to tower in the background despite leaning crookedly against the other pool table. He looked like a stick insect, eyes hidden behind shaded glasses. The sight of him made goose bumps ripple up Loid’s arms. What was such an unscrupulous man doing here?
Despite this, the younger psychiatrist took his drink from Blackbell and forced himself to take a long swig. But the moment the cold hit the pit of his stomach, he had to train a wince of pain out of his expression. “If reconciliation is truly sought,” Loid said.
At some point someone had unsheathed a box of expensive cigars from Britarria. They were offered around. Loid took one out of politeness but he hadn’t smoked for a long while and wasn’t sure with so many dark eyes on him, whether blaming his wife for wanting to quit would be the socially correct thing to do. Kellenbach patted him roughly on the shoulder in sympathy but didn’t deign to rescue him from his fretting. He sighed, and took a long draw when Drehn leaned forward eagerly to light the end for him.
“-There must be gestures of trust. Men can’t heal in isolation forever.” Loid said, blowing smoke from his nose. He felt lightheadedness immediately.
Ostosky narrowed his eyes at Loid from where he folded one arm under the one holding his own cigar, drink half sipped and hidden in the crook of his armpit. “Trust has its limits, Doctor Forger… I’d suspect a psychiatrist knows this all too well. The wrong sort of mercy only invites repetition.”
“Quite right.” Watkins added, appearing behind Blackbell who jumped in delay at the burly man. It seemed he’d finished arguing with Komarov who appeared on the east side of the room near Streiss and Loid. Watkins was saying, “-the last war ended because we stopped listening, not because we started shaking hands.”
Well, that’s simply not true, Loid thought and hid the need to respond by putting his glass to his lips once more.
The Second East-West War of Unification was beyond costly. Thanks to the declining popularity of the National Unity Party and their subsequent falling out of power, less hawkish governments did shake hands… it wasn’t exactly quiet news. Is he being hyperbolic? Does someone that high in the military ranks truly feel so indifferent to the end of the war?
Reiss stepped away from the pool table looking disparaged, he’d overhit a defensive shot, leaving an easy red, “-and yet here we are, ten years later, still counting bodies that never came home.”
“Bodies or opportunities—depends which ledger you read.” Happoon said with a short laugh; no one joined in.
Blackbell took a drag and waved a hand hopelessly trying to still the guarded mood, “Gentlemen, please. We’re all tired of ledgers.”
“Some more than others.” Komarov muttered. Loid heard him.
Glasses clinked as they watched as Loid cleared two reds and colours in succession—red and pink, red and blue—for a break of twenty. He was leading by thirty-nine points to Reiss’ six.
Drehn leaned over the table, ash from his cigar dusted the green felt to Loid’s annoyance. The spindly man drawled, “my wife says her friend’s husband’s been called up for some ministerial duty—one of those quiet ones no one’s meant to talk about.”
Reiss attempted a long red and missed, the cue-ball glancing the brown and leaving a foul. Drehn looked like he was waiting for them to be interested in his words but Streiss spent a moment with pleated brows as Loid received four points and took the table again.
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t talk about it either, Arnold.” Reiss said.
“Oh, it’s harmless. Merely a trip, though the security sounds dreadful. They’re vetting the men twice over, she said.”
He must be talking about the impending negotiations. Loid compiled a small break: red, black, red, pink.
Blackbell had held his cigar for him and handed it back to Loid when he turned for it. The Tobacco was flooding him with a sedatedness he hadn’t felt in years. He’d always heard tobacco from Britarria was of an excellent type. He almost forgot his stomach woes as Happoon spoke up.
“It must be serious business if even the wives are trying to keep secrets.”
Ostosky said, “they should have been keeping them from the start.”
Reiss played safe and potted two scattered reds and the green in reply, recovering a little ground. As Loid stepped past him he heard Reiss grumbling, half under breath, “secrets have a way of costing more than they save.”
Kellenbach piped up, “Speaking of cost, are any of you still waiting on payments from the last quarter? The Ministry seems… slow.”
Blackbell turned to him, “they’re shifting funds about, that’s all. Happens before every fiscal review.”
“A pity the review never reaches the districts outside Berlint,” Komarov, grumbled, “we’re seeing more cuts to departments stationed outside of Berlint.”
Watkins straightened, he was the only one without a cigar, “priorities, Commissioner. The capital must stand first.” Komarov took a drink.
“Well,” Drehn drawled from his spot, moving from Loid’s path when Kellenbach pulled him away from the table, “-things must be improving if the government can spare so many officers for foreign work. I heard even the Minister’s aide will accompany him this time.” With the reds gone, Loid potted the yellow, then the green and brown in sequence.
“How reassuring.” Reiss commented blandly.
“Makes me nervous—when the pen-pushers start dragging soldiers along, you know they’re serious.” Happoon said.
Blackbell sniggered, “you’re nervous of everyone, Leo.” Harpoon sent him a cutting look from across the room but the industrialist either ignored it or didn’t care as Streiss took aim at the table.
Reiss missed the next long blue attempt. He scowled as he said, “still, it’s comforting to see such… thorough oversight.”
The room was thick with the smell of tobacco, and Loid’s eyes began to burn. He coughed into his shoulder, then took up the chalk from the sideboard—an excuse for a brief reprieve to collect himself. His thoughts felt as though they were melting behind his eyes, and the calm he’d felt minutes earlier gave way to an acidic sting and spasms low in his gut.
When he returned to the table, he was relieved to find no one had noticed; the men were still engaged in their light disagreement.
“Oversight keeps the peace.” Ostotsky was saying.
“Or keeps everyone guessing which rules apply this week,” Komarov responded coolly, “everyday new orders and requests come in and half the time we don’t know where the SSS are working until we are called to clean up after them."
Watkins responded “Better guessing than gossiping.” The old army major sent a scouring eye at Drehn who threw his hands up placatingly.
“I wasn’t gossiping! Only repeating what everyone already knows—that the West’s desperate for their soldiers back. They’d trade anything.”
Reiss raised a brow at the man “pray tell, what do you mean by anything?”
“Food, machinery, who can say? They’ve deep pockets.”
Blackbell watched Loid as he stepped in to clear the blue. He raised a glass to the excellent play and said, “let’s hope they stay deep. Empty ones tend to start wars.”
“Or end them, depending who empties first.” Otstotky grumbled quietly.
Loid, realising he’d kept quiet for very long, nodded at the table, standing back and said, “if exchanges are arranged, both nations might find some relief. Hope has value too.”
Happoon laughed dismissively, “hope doesn’t keep factories open.”
Reiss disagreed, with a shake of his head. “Nor does suspicion, yet here we are.” He watched as Loid took the pink to the middle pocket.
Komarov commented “at least we’ve reached the point where people whisper about peace instead of war. I’ll take that.”
Watkins watched Loid aim for the final ball. The veteran said slowly, “whispering’s all it is. A storm doesn’t vanish because men close the shutters.”
Ostosky agreed, raising a glass to him, “exactly. Peace is a trick of the light. Turn your head and it’s gone.”
Loid sent the black to the corner. His win followed a beat of silence. He turned to the men who followed him with many eyes. “Then maybe we should keep looking toward it,” Loid said through his teeth.
Reiss looked over at Loid, the game forgotten within the tightness of his brow, “are you all right, Doctor?”
Loid had unconsciously gripped his stomach as he stepped away. A light sheen of sweat beaded at his temple. He couldn’t lie when his body was grassing him. He smiled tightly at the man, no he couldn’t hide from Reiss’ eyes either. He saw how the man looked at him. “I fear the drink’s overtaken me. I should have had supper before coming.”
“Then you’re in the right company.” Blackbell cheered him jovially, a mild laughter thinned the tension in the air.
“Fill the hole with more drink, Doctor, especially after that win,” Drehn said, turning almost to the bar and stumbling, Watkins caught and righted him.
Reiss said, eyes finally falling away from Loid, “enough, Arnold. Some of us prefer to remember the evening.”
“Let him rest. The man’s done well; I’d lost count of the points and then it was over!” Kallenbach said and slapped Loid’s back. Loid threw every piece of energy into simply standing and not crumpling to the ground. He didn’t understand what was happening to him. He’d always had an iron stomach when it came to alcohol, why was it failing him now?
Get it together, Twilight!
From the far side, by Ostotsky, Happoon said, “he’s a better shot than he looks. Who brought him, was that you Blackbell?”
“It was me,” Kellenbach gloated as Blackbell opened his mouth. Almost dancing on the spot, he rested both hands on either side of Loid’s shoulders. “Grabbed him while he was picking up his little girl. Hard one to catch, the good doctor—always on the move. I’d heard he was a workaholic, but who knew he could handle a cue stick so well? What else can you do, Mr Forger?”
Loid winced at the pull against his shoulders and tried not to stumble into the other man. Blackbell pulled Kellenbach away, taking pity on the doctor.
Loid rubbed his temple and forced a smile, “beginner’s luck, I’m sure.”
Kellenbach settled once more, a goofy smile folding under his moustache as he looked upon Loid in interest. “You must meet everyone in your line of work, Forger. Politicians, officers, the sort who carry the world on their shoulders.”
Loid waved him away, “I try not to ask who my patients are when they step through the door.”
“A good habit.” Happoon commented, “people with secrets prefer doctors who forget faces.”
Ostosky said, “and a dangerous one, in the wrong climate.” Drehn and Watkins reappeared with more pints of beer, enough for each man. The glasses were passed around. Loid took his and nursed it against his chest.
“You’ve seen enough of the wrong climate, Sergei.” Reiss said and put his cue stick on the table as he retrieved his drink from Blackbell, “-perhaps we might let the man enjoy his drink.”
Drehn gave a glass to both Ostosky and Happoon though he’d managed to spill half of the alcohol across the floor. “Speaking of climates—my wife said that aide fellow — what was his name again?”
Blackbell sighed over the frothy rim of his beer, “ How could you forget Brandt?”
“Yes, that’s it.” Drehn drove forward blithely, “-she heard he’ll be going along to keep the Minister out of trouble. Seems odd they’d send a civilian adviser on such a trip.”
Watkins guffawed in disbelief, puffing up like an old, big cat. “He’s hardly a civilian!”
“Hardly transparent either.” Komarov grunted from the booth he now sat in, holding his pint glass in both hands like it held all the answers to the universe.
Ostosky growled from his position, “watch yourself, Commissioner.”
Komarov raised his shoulders in submission, “merely an observation.”
“Brandt has a reputation for being indispensable to the Prime Minister,” Reiss said steadily and he stubbed out his cigar at the finishing thought: “Some would say too indispensable.”
Kellenbach piped up, “the sort of man who knows where every penny and person goes. Useful, if you can trust him.”
“And if you can’t?” Happoon asked with a curious lilt.
Ostosky smiled thinly next to the slender man, “then you learn to.”
Blackbell blew out a lungful of black smoke, he looked between each man in curiosity, “I’ve never met him. What’s he like?”
“Depends who you ask.” Reiss commented evasively.
“Reformer or government leash holder…”
Watkins challenged, “leash or not, he keeps the dogs fed.”
Komarov nodded in agreement adding “-and the kennel locked.”
Loid let himself sit in the same booth across the table from Komarov. Clinically, he observed “If he’s indispensable to everyone, it’s because he’s learned to be exactly what each person expects of him."
Loid drew on his cigar as Kellenbach and Watkins watched him.
Reiss’ eyes too studied the young psychiatrist, “you sound as though you’ve met his kind before. I'm interested in your insight for one, Doctor Forger.”
“I’ve treated men who thrive on control,” Loid said, eyes on the cigar’s dim ember. “It isn’t always about authority — some simply need order around them. It’s a kind of safety, I suppose, even if it becomes… excessive.”
Ostosky prickled “-And what’s wrong with that? Order must be maintained.”
“Until order replaces reason.” Reiss reasoned on the doctor’s behalf.
Happoon chuckled darkly from his spot next to Ostotsky, "How incredibly cryptic of you, Doctor. You must work your patients into confusion with such nonsense."
Blackbell rolled his eyes, he too then stubbed out his cigar, “You’d sell reason by the pound if you could, Leo.”
Happoon huffed, not entirely disagreeing. Twilight knew why. The man said with a sharp shrug, “If someone would pay for it, certainly."
Drehn piped up, piquing ears once again “Brandt must be good at that sort of thing. My wife said—oh, I shouldn’t—”
“You really shouldn’t,” Ostosky said sharply. His cold eyes flicked toward the wiry man, a warning veiled in civility. Drehn only grinned, pleased to have drawn the room’s attention. Each face around the table was flushed with drink, the laughter from earlier still clinging to the air like smoke.
“Only that people say he’s the one who truly runs the Ministry, not the Minister himself.” There was a short silence; a clink of glass as Kellenbach drained his pint and put it to the side.
“Rumours.” Reiss broke the quiet, “ministers come and go. The ones behind them tend to stay.”
“That’s what worries me,” Komarov grunted from his seat. His entire face was beat red.
Watkins looked over at the portly man, “Why? It's only for the best, after all the people vote for what they think they need, then suffer for it and blame the idiots at the helm. It's better to leave the inner workings to those who built the ship.”
Komarov sighed to himself, “I'd rather an idiot then a snake.”
Sensing the heat radiating from Watkins, even as he stood across the room and realising he’d settled himself next to the bearer of such projected ire, Loid spoke up, “strong figures tend to attract strong opinions. But opinions aren’t evidence. Until any of us have worked beside the man, all we really have is conjecture—and conjecture often tells us more about our fears than about him.”
Reiss hummed, “you might be wasted in psychiatry, Doctor.”
Loid smiled at him faintly, concealing strain as he finally stubbed out his own cigar, since two others had already taken the lead, “my profession encourages discretion, not ambition.”
Blackbell nodded from across the room, and crossed his arms, “spoken wisely.”
“Discretion’s the only thing keeping half this room employed,” Happoon narrowed his eyes coldly on the doctor.
Drehn laughed nervously, “-and the other half alive.” No one joined his cheer.
“If he’s travelling with the Minister,” Komarov slapped his now emptied cup onto the table, “It’ll be for control. Always is. He’s not one to leave anything to chance.”
“And yet the more a man controls, the more he fears losing it,” Reiss surmised.
Loid swallowed the agony that was warping his gut into a writhing snake. He distracted himself desperately by wiping condensation from his own glass. “Fear’s a powerful motivator. In my work,” he said wearily, “-it’s often what keeps men in power—and what eventually breaks them.”
Ostosky couldn’t contain the poison flicking from his tongue, “we’ll see who breaks first, Doctor.”
A quiet tension settled like the tobacco smoke across the room as the men shifted in an awkward moment of silence. Kellenbach coughed into his sleeve, and Drehn stood away from the table to stagger back over to the bar.
Blackbell’s voice cut through the silence, “well then, to stability.”
Reiss hummed in agreement, “to the illusion of it, at least.” Those who still had beer, drank the last dregs from their cups. Loid forced himself to take a conservative sip, suppressing the desire to wrinkle his brow against his pain.
“To peace, “ Loid said from his sanctuary in the booth, “-whatever form it takes.”
Watkins looked down at the emptiness in his cup “let’s hope it takes ours.”
The bar man and Drehn returned with more beer. A few of them readily reached for another full glass. Loid sweated at the sight of them. Whatever issue he was having – whether food poisoning or gastritis or the combination plus the fact he’d rarely partaken in such strong liquor since becoming a family man; he found himself anxious to take even a sip more. He rose slowly to his feet. Sweat dripped down his chin as the room swam and heat boiled along his ribs.
Reiss came forward and put a steadying hand on his elbow, “are you sure you’re all right, Doctor?”
“I should have eaten before I arrived.,” Loid tried to laugh him away, “the whiskey’s gone to my head faster than I expected.” He arrived at the pool table which now served as a bar top. The glasses had left wet rings in the perfect green of the felt-top.
Kellenbach peered at Loid with a worried hum, he gestured at the him with his beer and it sloshed over the rim and dripped down his fingers, “you do look a bit pale, Forger. Sit down for a moment.”
“I’ll be fine, really.”
“No shame in taking a breath.” Reiss said, looking at Loid as if he were about to collapse.
Stop this nonsense, Twilight! Loid snarled inwardly but forced a genial smile onto his pallid face as he assured them “-just a touch of nerves, perhaps. It’s not every day one finds himself in such company.”
“Ah, don’t flatter us.” Happoon said and took a sip of his fresh pint, froth coated his upper lip. He looked upon Loid with a little less coolness than he had earlier. “You’ve held your own, I'm glad Kellenbach found you. We often don't get many interesting strays these days.”
Ostosky looked irritabley at Happoon. He appeared to not expect his friend to even have slightly warm consideration of Loid Forger. He turned his steely eyes upon Loid who seemed to wilt by the second.
Ostosky sneered, “a man’s constitution shows his discipline. Weak stomach, weak will.”
Komarov glowered at the short man as he stood and shuffled over to the table too. He took up the last glass. Several wet rings were now drying under the amber light. The police chief cast an eye about and then settled his beady eyes on Loid. He tipped his head, “-then you’ll outlive us all, Doctor, since yours is the only will here that still works.”
He smirked at Ostosky’s scowl. A laughter followed that the latter turned from.
Drehn pointed at Loid eagerly, “he’s right though, Forger — You didn't give old Franz half-a-chance.”
“Only because I kept talking.” Reiss said with a sniff, he cut Loid a small smile to show he was not truly offended before he shrugged with a sorrowful sigh, “-my fault entirely.”
Blackbell laughed and placed his hand on Loid’s shoulder, too drunk to feel the quivering in the man’s being. Blackbell said lifting his half-gone pint, “you’ve earned your win. What say we dedicate this one to you?”
“No, no, he’s nearly finished. Look at him,” Kellenbach said, a genuine ember of concern in his tone. He put a steadying hand on Loid’s other shoulder, and Loid inwardly shrank at how many limbs he was conceding just to keep within the bounds of their social etiquette.
Loid blinked at them, fighting dizziness, “I wouldn’t want to end the evening so abruptly.”
Blackbell tried to turn him away from the table but Kellenbach was unwittingly holding his other arm back, the two men in an accidental tug of war on each of Forger’s arms.
“Better abruptly than on the floor.” Blackbell was saying, “come, there’ll be plenty of time for another match.”
Watkins nodded, rolling his shoulders and stifling a yawn. “Some of us have early mornings. The capital never sleeps, or so the papers say.”
“Nor do those who watch it.” Komarov said.
Ostosky turned, nose wrinkled, “getting tired, Commissioner?”
Komarov sent the shorter man a scowl, “vigilance takes its toll. That’s all.”
"I imagine we're all a little tired," Reiss surmised.
Loid tried to carefully peel himself away from the unwanted hands. He said with forced brightness, “then I’m definitely in good company.”
“I’ll have a car called.” Blackbell told him cheerfully, “you’re no use to your patients if you collapse on the way home.”
Loid tried to rebuff him, “that’s too kind, truly. Tomorrow is a weekend of course, though, so I won’t trouble you.”
Kellenbach finally loosed him and said kindly, “Think nothing of it. We’ve all worked ourselves sick one time or another.”
“My wife says—” Drehn said, almost forgotten.
“Don’t.” Reiss shushed him quietly, cutting him off.
Drehn laughed nervously, “right, right.”
Happoon raised his beer an inch, cold eyes cutting above his glasses, “a toast, then, before the doctor departs?”
Blackbell said cheerfully in Loid’s honour: “to the good health of those keeping the rest of us sane.” He and Kellenbach drank heartily.
Reiss added: “and to quieter nights ahead.” But he had no drink to toast his fellow doctor to.
Komarov grumbled, “if we’re lucky.” And he sipped at the foam atop the glass.
The glasses chimed softly against teeth and rings as each man drank to the toast of Loid Forger, newly welcomed among their number. Loid raised his own glass, taking a measured sip before setting it carefully back on the table. The room wavered. Smoke coiled thickly about the chandeliers, and the dark beams of the ceiling seemed to twist in slow motion. Even to the unobservant eye, he had turned a shade too pale, the green creeping up beneath his collar.
Reiss commented over the ‘ahs’ of those enjoying their beverage, “you’ve given us plenty to think on, Doctor. I look forward to reading your dissertation.”
Loid smiled lopsidedly, he needed to evacuate himself, he felt barely able to stand on his own two feet. His bed called for him, all the way back home, where his wife and daughter… where his fake wife and fake daughter also waited. A small part of him wondered if they’d waited up, he hoped they hadn’t, he’d be spending forever scrubbing the smell of whiskey and tobacco from every inch of his being. He didn’t want the smell to trail home with him and spoil the comfort of their home. Loid said, tiredly, “I only listen. The wisdom was all yours.”
Blackbell hacked a laugh, “Ha! Flattery to the last.”
Reiss huffed a laugh, shoulders bobbing as he shook his head, “careful, Byron. If he flatters too much, he’ll be running for office next.”
“I could never,” Loid said and patted non-existent dust from the wings of his coat in a subtle plea to leave, “politics would do worse things to my stomach than the whiskey.”
Laughter followed his words; finally any remnants of tension drained into fatigue.
Kellenbach gave Loid one last parting pat on the shoulder, “Go on, Forger. We’ll finish your glass for you.” Loid couldn’t help the relief washing over him at the dismissal.
“Then I’ll leave it in capable hands.” Loid gave a short nod, and then said softly in farewell, “gentlemen, until next time.”
Reiss’ eyes seemed to trail after him, “get some rest, Doctor.”
Blackbell put down his own glass of beer and turned to walk along with Loid, he said with a happy and lazy smile that gave no room for dismissal how he’d walk him to the door and find him a ride home. The two stepped away. Kellenbach looked along like he’d wanted to join but was caught by Ostotsky and Happoon before he could follow.
True to his word. Byron Blackbell helped Loid into a cab and paid the driver forward handsomely.
“Make sure you take him to his door,” Blackbell told the man. The night air was chill and the sweat on Loid’s forehead glistened under the light of the half-moon. Byron looked for a moment like he’d say more but deemed Loid too far gone and instead wished him well. Finally, the door closed and Loid groaned as the cab pulled away and turned toward home. What a night.
He’d held himself together well in the taxi, he thought. The drive home was short. Loid had buried himself against the door with his elbow on the bottom of the window frame as he held his heavy head. It didn’t matter too much how the driver might perceive him when he was just another upperclassman returning home from drinking too much – as far as he was concerned.
The car pulled up alongside their apartment and the driver stepped out to open the door for him.
Loid was not so far gone that he needed help and decided to rebuff the driver’s efforts to walk him up to his own door. He tipped him too, despite Blackbell, just in case a neighbour was peering at him from the window.
Loid got into the building and closed the door behind him. He turned and looked back at the stairs. There were two flights for him to traverse. He could do it.
He began the climb.
Each step he felt his stomach howl. Beer and whiskey sloshed within, causing more discomfort as he staggered up each step like a trawler swaying in a storm. His one arm curled tightly around the pain in his abdomen.
What’s wrong with me? He thought miserably, I don’t feel inebriated but my stomach feels like I drank several bottles of pure scotch. I should have eaten something more substantial than that apple. I should have forced something down, I could have stayed longer and gotten more information. What kind of spy am I if I can’t even hold my constitution over a few glasses of beer?
He finally made the door and let out a long suffering sigh. I’ll take some Antacids, he told himself, opening the door, we should have some antispasmodic in the bathroom too. I’ll report to WISE what I learned and go straight to…
Yor stepped around the corner, hand on the pillar to see him enter. Her face lit up at the sight of him. He felt like a cockroach caught under a sudden inferno of light.
“Loid! You’re home!”
All the will power seemed to fail him and he stumbled through and past her to promptly dispel his stomach in the sink. Yor yelped in surprise and quickly shut the front door behind him before running into the kitchen to rub his back.
“I’m so sorry!” Loid gasped over his arms as he slumped over the countertop, panting. Before a violent shiver ran through him and he heaved again. The smell of acrid beer turned his stomach more and more until he was dry heaving into a cold sweat. His stomach burned like a wildfire in mid-July.
Yor rubbed his back soothingly, she said many things to him but his ears rang in shame and shock. Her touch was a balm but the shame ate and ate.
How could he lose composure like this?
White panic burned behind his eyes, his head flying back so quick he almost got whiplash, “Anya. Please… tell me she is… in bed.”
“Don’t worry,” Yor said with warm, sympathetic eyes, “she went to bed an hour ago, she’s
fast asleep. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay.”
Loid nodded wearily before slumping back against the counter with a heavy sigh. He felt damp all over, like he’d been running endlessly. He was winded and tired. Maybe he was coming down with something? What awful timing.
Yor reappeared with a glass of water from the bathroom (since he was occupying the sink). She stirred in a pinch of salt and held it to him along with the bottle of antispasmodic. He sent her a grateful pale look before taking them.
“I was looking for the antacids,” Yor said, disappearing from his vision again. He heard the familiar click and rev of the kettle and the tea cupboard creaking open. “But they weren’t in the bathroom cupboard.”
Oh, of course. How could I forget? Loid thought dully, fumbling for the small metal tin in his breast pocket.
His hips ached from where he leaned against the cold edge of the worktop. He braced himself, elbows trembling, and tipped four chalky tablets into his palm. They clacked against his teeth before he chased them with a mouthful of the antispasmodic. The taste was bitter, chemical. He reached for the glass of lightly salted water and forced it down, the liquid burning where it should have soothed.
Yor came back to him with a plate of plain bread and a cup of tea that steamed. He could smell the sweetness of the chamomile just barely over the stench of bile and chucked up beer. He turned on the kitchen sink and used the nozzle to swill away the vomit. Yor peered over his shoulder at it, making him cringe. Just tiny flecks of apple were carried up and swirled around before disappearing down the drain.
“Did you not eat while you were out?” Yor asked him.
“No, sorry.” He wasn’t sure why he apologised but he felt he had to. She looked upon him tenderly and drew her hands forward to push the tea and bread on him. “I don’t_”
“Please,” Yor said zealously, cutting him off “-it’ll settle your stomach.”
Loid turned and leaned his butt against the worktop and took the bread and tea. He had never really enjoyed tea but he could not reject Yor’s attempts to nurse him. Not after he’d exploded in like he had and not after she’d looked at him so… so earnestly.
He coughed into his shoulder and set the plate down to his side to first sip tentatively at the chamomile. It was warm and the floral smell already felt right to him.
Yor leaned back against the other side of the counter, opposite to him. She’d made herself a mug of tea too. Her eyes couldn’t meet his.
I have to correct this immediately, Loid thought tiredly. His eyes burned, he must have smelt strongly of tobacco too. What must she think of me and how could I do this to her after she’d gone to the effort of waiting up for me?
“Yor,” He began, “I have to apologise for how I conducted myself just now.”
Her eyes returned to his, wide and… surprised? She laughed a little though it was half at her own awkwardness, “No, don’t be sorry!”
The weakness ran through him again and he turned promptly on a swivel. Yor had somehow the foresight to snatch his tea from his hands and put it aside in liu of rubbing his back.
He heaved painfully into the sink but only the tablets and scant liquid fell from his lips. His toned arms planted firmly either side of the concave bowl. Tremors ran through his limbs.
Yor watched him with a deep well of worry in her eyes as she continued to run circles with her palm over his spine, her other hand came and wrapped steadying over his left bicep. Her fingers were so warm and gentle, the only nice sensation as quakes of pain and fire pulsed through him.
“Come to the sofa,” Yor said once he seemed spent, “come sit down, I’ll bring the tea.”
“I think,” Loid said feeling morbidly embarrassed, “that I just want to go to bed.”
“I know.” Yor stepped away from him to let him stand away from the sink. The loss of her tender touch stirred something within he couldn’t name. She said, “just try and see if you can keep down some of the medication first. Try to eat just a little of the bread too.”
“I will,” Loid said and once again took the antacids. This time he sipped at the salty water first before attempting another cap of the antispasmodic. When he could manage both, he chewed at the bread. He felt like a difficult child as Yor took back the water and handed him the mug of chamomile. She followed him to his room and opened the door for him. He couldn’t will away the heat in his ears and cheeks if he even had the ability to try.
“I’ll let you get dressed and come check on you,” Yor said as he shuffled forward and heard her shut the door behind herself.
He was glad there were no mirrors in his bedroom. The space was kept perfectly anodyne. After all, he only slept there. There was no need to establish any permanency. This was all… this was all… He braced a shoulder against the wall and put a knuckle to his mouth as he staved off another surge of nausea. He felt exhaustion seep over him and quickly hunted for a simple top and pants.
The smell of tobacco and beer still haunted him and had him hobble out of his room and into the bathroom to disrobe and quickly climb into the shower. The water hit him like a hailstorm of ice but it was nice to feel something other than the swimming queasiness and insistent stomach ache that had been following him the last few weeks.
By the time he felt he’d scrubbed himself clean and the smell of the night was long gone he stepped out and dried himself down. Loid did his best not to stare miserably at his reflection as the condensation cleared away in the mirror over the sink. He brushed his teeth rigorously and finally he felt a little more alive.
He heard the kettle roiling distantly and rubbed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. He groaned.
I’ll have to make it up to her tomorrow. I’ll apologise properly and explain to her that… Well, he’ll think of something in the morning.
Loid left the bathroom and crept into his own room, shutting the door just to. He sat on the side of his bed and just breathed in and out. He felt just a little better after a shower and those medications. There was a soft knock at the door, he almost missed it over the sound of his own respiring.
“Yes? You may come in, Yor.”
The door creeped open, light poured in from the hall. Her anxious eyes fell on him. “-sorry for intruding.” She seemed to stay in the threshold, there were two fresh cups of tea in each of her hands.
“Come in Yor,” Loid said gently, he put his hand on the sheet beside him, “sit here if you like. I want to apologise to you.” As she crept in like a stray cat her soft expression turned a little more firm.
“How often have I put you out after drinking a little too much?” Yor asked him. She handed him his tea and he took it and nursed it close to his aching belly. The warmth helped. He closed his eyes against it. He heard her step around the bed and turn on the little lamp on his side table. When he opened his eyes, she was back near him. Like a little flame in the dark.
Yor peered at him, sitting beside him tentatively, “-did you at least have fun?”
Loid smiled at the thought, did he have fun? A little, he supposed, if he were going to answer her honestly. “I think I might have had a little too much fun.”
“Maybe,” Yor’s little frown cracked under an uncertain smile but became more upturned when he looked at her warmly.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” Loid said.
“It was my pleasure.” They sipped the tea in a companionable silence. Yor kicked her legs a little as she looked about herself. She’d never really been in Loid’s room. Unsurprisingly, it was beyond clean but… She was disappointed to find that other than a little drawing from Anya on his nightstand, the space was featureless. It was almost like Loid was the guest in this little apartment. The thought made her heart hang a little heavier as she thought about it. She decided to leave the thoughts that followed her sorry heart untouched. She supposed that he was yet to remain an enigma to her.
She turned to him, “will you be okay, tomorrow?”
“For Anya’s pony?” Loid asked, “yes. I just need a good night’s rest. That’s all.”
“Okay.” Yor sipped her tea one last time, finding the porcelain at the bottom of her mug. She waited for him to finish his before taking it to his thanks.
“Goodnight, Loid,” she said at the door, “just wake me if you need anything.”
“Thank you, Yor. Sleep well.”
He watched as the door closed and pulled the sheet back so he could slide tenderly into the bed. His stomach ached dully, calmed by the medicine. He thought, for some reason, his heart ached a little more and he wasn’t entirely sure why. He thought of Yor, and how ready she’d been to help him. He thought of her gentle hands on his arm and the soothing serpentine she rubbed into his back. He felt his eyes fall a little heavier. The room was just a little too cold now she was gone.
I’ll apologise tomorrow, he thought, I’ll fix this.
Notes:
This chapter, the seventh and the thirteenth, have been the hardest to write, curiously. There are a lot of characters to manage, so I hope you all don't mind and can follow along.
Some of the names above may be familiar to you as background characters, although Kellenbach, Reiss, and Drehn are fictional characters I created for the story. However, each plays an important role.
I know it's a mammoth chapter, and I really hope you all got through it okay and don't feel too exhausted by this work. Feedback is appreciated. :)
Leeuwtje on Chapter 2 Sun 16 Nov 2025 09:18PM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 2 Sun 16 Nov 2025 11:51PM UTC
Comment Actions
Princess_Twilight_84 on Chapter 3 Sun 23 Nov 2025 07:40AM UTC
Comment Actions
IzaBowl on Chapter 3 Wed 26 Nov 2025 10:13PM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 3 Thu 27 Nov 2025 02:48AM UTC
Comment Actions
laslie11 on Chapter 4 Sun 30 Nov 2025 07:45AM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 4 Sun 30 Nov 2025 11:36AM UTC
Comment Actions
Leeuwtje on Chapter 4 Sun 30 Nov 2025 12:04PM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 4 Sat 06 Dec 2025 09:58PM UTC
Comment Actions
maky13 on Chapter 4 Sun 30 Nov 2025 02:23PM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 4 Sat 06 Dec 2025 08:55PM UTC
Comment Actions
Ham1798 (Hamdc0898) on Chapter 4 Sat 06 Dec 2025 11:11AM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 4 Sat 06 Dec 2025 09:56PM UTC
Comment Actions
JadeSpiral on Chapter 5 Sun 07 Dec 2025 06:33PM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 5 Sun 07 Dec 2025 09:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
Leeuwtje on Chapter 5 Sun 07 Dec 2025 08:38PM UTC
Comment Actions
Dogma on Chapter 5 Sun 07 Dec 2025 09:32PM UTC
Comment Actions