Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Rusty Nut is awash with the warm glow of lights and the drone of familiar voices as the sun begins to set, newly-decorated after a bar fight broke out in Van's absence and damaged a considerable amount of furniture. The regular patrons had, understandably, panicked at the prospect of Van returning to a destroyed pub, and pooled resources and skills alike to replace as many things as possible.

The resulting image is a confusing mishmash of antiques, handmade creations, which clash horribly with the dull, gray-and-beige original furnishings — but it does give the place character, and by Van's own admission, it's a lot more interesting this way.

It's still a far cry from Marya's preferred decor: cacophanous and cluttered, no corner left unturned and no shelf empty. There are so many surfaces just begging for a horde of trinkets, and Marya can think of no fewer than ten things she could place around the edges of the pub. But she will settle for the one larger gift she's packed away for Van: a purposefully-tacky metal sculpt of a tentacle, shaped to hold just about any bottle Van wants to display on it.

Time in Gath to get her affairs in order has been… nice isn't the right word, but helpful, at least. Necessary, even though it rankles the longer she is ground-bound.

In the absence of the adrenaline that prompted her to take to the skies again, she is finding it harder to fight back the voice that whispers that she is an omen of disaster. The dust had yet to settle when she came back to Scrapsylvania, her heart still thundering and her head still a happy buzz in the wake of rescuing Ludmila. With months to stew in the past again, though, that old doubt has crept back in.

Zuzu batted her upside the head when she walked back through the door, chastising her in two languages Marya recognizes and a third she doesn't for worrying her so, and stopped only when she finally caught Marya's eyes. She had paused a moment, scrutinizing Marya as she always has, her bony hands softening on Marya's arms.

"You have a sparkle in your eye," she had said. "I have not seen that in a long time, ptáčátko."

And Marya, so giddy with the whirlwind of it all, had gripped Zuzu's arms in turn. "We found her. We saved her. She's — she's okay."

Marya had cried many times in front of Zuzu before that, in the days following Straka. Zuzu had soothed Marya's nightmares and sat up with her at the fire when she could not sleep, tea cupped in their hands, silent but for the wind outside.

The day that Marya returned, lighter than she has been in years, was the first time she has ever seen tears on Zuzu's cheeks. She is Scrapsylvanian to her bones, weathered in the fog and struggle of a place that is made of sharp edges — but she is not cold, and she she knew Ludmila too, and loved her as one of her own as she is wont to do.

Marya does not tell her that saving Ludmila almost came at the cost of her own life.

Zuzu had, of course, asked where Ludmila was, and why Marya was here rather than with her, reconnecting after so many years apart.

"She is still young," Marya replied, hesitant. "The way it — for her, it was months. She has years ahead of her, and she is finally free to live them as she chooses. I would not stand in her way."

It earned her a scoff. "And she chose to leave you, did she? After all this time?"

Marya did not respond. In truth, she had, perhaps, nudged Ludmila back into the sky without her. Encouraged her to go adventure, encouraged her to follow her heart where it may lead, gave her the gentle push to find her own fate. She does not tell Zuzu that Ludmila asked her to come along, her hand warm on Marya's arm, and that Marya made excuses about the shop and Scrapsylvania.

But she hesitated just long enough for Zuzu to tsk disapprovingly and procure a newspaper from seemingly nowhere, whack Marya once more over the head with a muttered swear, and then welcome her for dinner.

Ludmila's first letter found her just two weeks later, dropped off by official post and addressed, originally, from Oda. Marya left it on her desk for two days before she could bring herself to open it, eying the curling print on the outside of the envelope with equal parts curiosity and trepidition.

Ultimately, it was Kočka who convinced her to open it, and only after threatening to tear into it himself if she didn't.

Ludmila's gorgeous, looping handwriting —a far cry from Marya's half-legible scrawl— brough a painful, sharp pang to her heart.

It was mundane enough, a detailing of what she and the Zephyr Mark II had been up to since Marya's departure. And Marya was —still is— so proud of her for taking her new shot at life and doing such wonderful things with it.

At the very end, the perfect, looping script had shifted, just slightly. Anyone else might not have noticed, but Marya has read so many notes written in her hand that she can't help seeing it. The letters space further apart, inked heavier, as if she hesitated to write every word.

It has been so wonderful and I am so grateful. Olethra has been so kind, Maxwell is a good captain (though, not the same as you). We are doing important work and I am happy to help Zood and Zern heal after… me the Queen and Corrodi. It is everything I wanted, but…

Marya smiled at the first scratched-out letters, grimaced at the next, and then there was a sentence fully blacked out, words well and truly hidden under dark marker. And just after them, hastily scrawled as if the bravery might leave her if she did not write her thoughts out immediately:

It is not the same without you. It is silly, I know, but I keep expecting to see you over my shoulder.

Anyway. I will write again when I can. Things are busy here and there is much to repair. Oda has offered to hold letters for the crew, if you want to write back?

All my love to you and Kočka.

- xoxo, Mila

That familiar sign-off, Ludmila's before it was ever Marya's and prettiest in her script, caught Marya's breath at the back of her throat. She had traced the words carefully, chuckling at the heart dotting the I, at how her letters curl and twist over each other. Familiar and tangible, proof that it was real, that she is safe.

"She miss you more than me!" Kočka had huffed, calmed only when Marya scratched under his chin.

Ludmila's latest letter burns in her breast pocket, warmer against her heart even than the thick wool of her coat. This one has gone unanswered, but only because they had already —separately, amusingly enough— accepted Van's invite here for the holidays.

Well, technically speaking, Pappy accepted Van's invite to the holidays, but according to Ludmila's letter, Olethra was just as keen to return.

You will be there too, yes?

This, penned carefully, each swoop a bit heavier on the ink, hesitant to ask.

Marya already planned to attend, but if she had not, that would have changed her mind. She has rarely been able to deny Mila much, less so in this post-Straka world that often still feels dreamlike.

She has lost count of how many times she has reread Ludmila's last letter; enough that the creases are already worn, just two weeks after arriving on Marya's doorstep. Tucked into a corner of the pub, Marya unfolds it yet again. Kočka sniffs beside her, whiskers tickling her cheek as she reads Ludmila's words again, eyes fixed on the last sentence:

Come with me us.

Marya traces them with her thumb, brushing over the smear at the end of the A in Ludmila's sign-off. This letter, too, came with a sketch: a very silly, simple drawing of the crew, with an empty silhouette in the vague shape of a person right beside Ludmila. A spot reserved just for her, emphasized with a tiny arrow that points at the silhouette and is labeled simply "Marya."

Kočka's mind is made already. He is restless to return to his person, and the fact that he chose to come back to Scrapsylvania with Marya was a surprise by itself. Marya offered him the chance to go with the crew, even encouraged him, but he had only clutched the collar of her shirt a bit tighter and refused.

He has not admitted it, and Marya has no proof, but she knows him and Ludmila both well enough to know there was a conversation had between them — one she suspects was about her. She might be offended if it were anyone else.

The prospect of Kočka leaving her sits like a stone in her stomach. It was hard enough letting her protégée —who she has no right to call by that title anymore— go, but Kočka has been her constant companion these last years.

She broke her covenant with the sky a long time ago, and her most recent adventure was not without heartache. Comfrey is gone, and the original Zephyr, which Marya knew like an extension of herself, lies rusting the bottom of the ocean. She should have died, was supposed to die, and it is only because of Olethra and Van and her brave, sweet Mila that she did not. Tempting fate like this would be unwise, at best.

And yet…

She catches a glimpse of Van across the pub, saying her goodnights to her regulars with a booming laugh, her arm draped over Bert's shoulders. Once a bosun, once Marya's right hand, now relaxed into this role she has carved for herself. Monty floats about, too, shaking hands with those who are leaving, having made some new connections here to bolster both his environmental efforts and his written ones. They look like they belong exactly where they are, fit to this new chapter of their lives as if molded for them.

Marya wishes it were the same for her. Instead, she is restless. She can ignore it, sometimes, when she Zuzu an the daily goings-on of the shop keep her busy. Can pretend that her hands do not itch to fix something more complex than children's toys, can fake contentment at her lot in life. It is more than she thought she would have, more than she deserves and more than she would have ever asked for.

But the sky still calls her, and her eyes still linger too long on the ships that come into port. Her hands still itch when she spies a glimpse of their cockpits. Her heart calls for the wind as much as it calls for Mila, desperate and wanting for that which was stolen from her so long ago.

It is this yearning that forced her hand, pushed her the pack more than she needs for a visit to the Uplands. She has few valued possessions, most of them lost in the Zephyr and the Kingfisher, but still more than is needed for a week — and all of it packed away into a suitcase.

"Still in Gath, Junker?" Van asks as she slumps down across the table. Marya folds the letter again, too hastily to be anything but suspicious. Van's brows lift. "There's a reaction."

Marya snorts. "Shut up."

"Is from Mila!" Kočka chirps, the traitor. Marya clamps one hand over his head, muffling his voice, and recieves a probably-deserved nip for it.

"Figured as much." Van leans forward, a telling spark in her eye and the corner of her mouth pulled into a smirk.

"I think I should be offended," Marya grumbles, looking anywhere else, and only when Van opens her mouth to say something does Marya stop her, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "Whatever you are about to say, do not."

Van rolls her eyes, gently smacking Marya's hand away. "Oh, come off it, you know I'm no good at holding my tongue. What's this all about, then?"

She asks this with a vague gesture at Marya's face, and Marya does not need a mirror to know that her skin must be flushed. With some semblance of piece has come healing, and she is not as sickly as she once was, bloodflow returning alongside her appetite. She almost misses being so deathly pale, because at least she was harder to read that way.

It wouldn't help here, anyway. Van has always been able to read her like a book, which is why she was Marya's right hand on the Zephyr. There is no use pretending, and for the first time in a long time, Marya does not want to.

She sighs and takes a long drink from her second glass of hard cider. "Ludmila asked me to join the new crew."

Van's leans forward, dropping her chin into her hand. "Yeah?"

Marya stares up at the ceiling with a groan, examining it to buy herself a moment. It is beige, like the rest of the bar. She should have brought a canister of paint and a brush to add some color behind Van's back, liven the place up a little. If she thinks about that, she can avoid the letter that might as well burn straight through to her skin, for how aware of it she is.

"Yeah," she says finally, more a sigh than a phrase, and rolls her neck. It produces several concerningly loud pops that Van does not bat an eye at.

"You think too much," Kočka tuts, swiping his paws across his face to clean his whiskers. "Mila ask, so we go."

In her heart of hearts, she knows he is right. Mila could ask for the world and Marya would find a way to hand it to her on a platter.

Van does not pry, only waits, offering Marya silent companionship, giving her the time to work through what she wants to say. Marya chews on her words for a moment, and she isn't entirely sure what answer she wants when she finally asks, "Are you happy?"

Van takes a breath and leans back, hand and tentacle both folded behind her head as she stares across the table, considering, eyes faraway for a moment. Marya knows the answer already; Van's face is too soft, the line of her body too relaxed, the tension lines of her face too smooth, the corners of her mouth perpetually tipped upward.

"Yeah," she answers anyway, because she knows that Marya needs to hear it. "The Nut's doing great. Bert and I have finally had time to unwind without this bugger loomin' over me." She nods to her tentacled arm, and then grins rogueshly as she wiggles it. "You can do a lot with one of these."

Marya grins back at her. "Lucky man."

Van laughs. "Nah. I'm the lucky one. Bert's a real catch. Best luck of my life, stumbling into him." Van shrugs and nods in the vague direction of the sky. "I went up there to get away from the curse. Had some other reasons, yeah, but… I've had my fill." She spreads her arms wide, at home and happy in the niche she's made here. "Someone's got to fill traveler's bellies too, eh?"

Marya takes another swig of cider, pointedly not looking at Van, who studies her carefully. "Doesn't look like you are, though. Right miserable face, that."

"Scrapsylvania does not do happy," Marya deflects with a snort, waving her off, and Van just stares, until Marya groans and tosses her hands. "You do not feel restless? When a ship passes, you do not stare after it?" She huffs, chews her cheek; a bad habit she's never rid herself of. "Every time I go up there, something terrible happens. Straka, the Zephyr, Comfrey—"

"Hey," Van interrupts, before Marya can spin herself into a frenzy. "That's not your fault. None of it, but especially Comfrey. She's been running from death for years and it had to catch up eventually. Miracle she lived this long, really." Van's face softens and she covers Marya's hand with her own. "You're supposed to be up there. We all know. Have since the day we pulled you out of the scrapyard — you belong on the wind as much as Comfrey did. Besides," She tilts her head. "I know you miss Ludmila."

Marya's face heats. "It is nothing."

"Oh, sure. And I hate my husband," Van snorts, sarcasm dripping off every word.

"What, lovey?" calls Bert.

Van waves him off. "Nothing, darling!" She turns back to Marya. "She's been set to follow you to the end of the world since you met, and you—" a tentacle jabs at Marya's nose, far too close for comfort. Fleetingly, she considers biting down, just to see what happens. "—are not subtle."

"Hey!"

"'Sides," Van nudges Marya's luggage with her foot. "You wouldn't've packed this if you weren't going. Told her yet?"

"I did not want to get her hopes up."

There are so many factors. Flying aside, there are other things to worry about. She has aged well ahead of Ludmila, and Ludmila has had time to bond with her crew apart from Marya. Time to bond with a girl just as sky-eyed as she is, someone who is so much closer to her in age and and can meet her where she is, someone who is not carrying a decade of grief and the knowledge of a millennium more.

"Junker," Van says sharply, snapping her fingers in front of Marya's face. "You're overthinking it. I know you're good at that, but you've got to stop it. You can't keep letting the past rule your future."

"See?" Kočka scoffs, headbutting under her chin. "What I tell you?"

Marya's fingers find the keyring in her pocket. Smooth, brushed brass, melted down from the Zephyr's keyring and forged into something new. It took some time to get it right, and a lot of bribery from Kočka to keep him still enough to reference, but she's proud of the end result. It would be nice to see her gift in action.

Weakly, she tries one last time. "What if I am still cursed?"

"So what if you are?" Van shrugs. "So's Gotch, and he's doing just fine out there, according to his letters."

"He writes to you?"

Another shrug, this one a little more sheepish than the last. Van is a veritable wall of a woman, but she's just as squishy as anyone else in the right company. She waves vaguely into the air and then sighs."You saw that kid's dad. Hell, whole family's rotten."

"Except Wealwell."

"Except Wealwell," Van agrees, and after a pause, adds, "Samwell seems like a fine enough chap too, far as I can tell." She takes a long drink, draining the glass of a liquid Marya is frightened to ask the contents of, and sighs. "Gotch needed someone, and I needed a kid to will all my shit to when I go — wherever."

"You softie." Marya grins, kicking her under the table.

"Am not," Van kicks her back. "I'm a rugged, fearsome pirate, I'll have you know."

Marya glances around the beige-and-grey pub, the horribly tacky items labeled with either their own name or —like the wineglasses— various phrases like sip or gulp, and gestures to the pub around them as she arches an eyebrow in silent judgment.

Van reaches across the table to flick her nose with a hearty laugh and a heartier, "Fuck right off."

Silence settles between them, comfortable and familiar. Marya is content to let it linger, to bask in the sort of companionship that she has found only on the deck of an airship. Van's eyes scan the room as always, ever-alert and ever-present, as Marya tucks Ludmila's letter back into her coat. For all its monotonous lack of color, Van and Bert have done a good job for the holidays; string lights brighten the room warmly, cider simmers away in a pot to fill the pub with the aroma of apples and spices. It's cozy, even if it isn't quite Marya's idea of cozy.

A familiar low hiss-bellow, deeper and richer with a few months of maturity, rumbles down the street and Van, who really is made for hosting, rises from the table to greet the newcomers. The rhythmic thump-thump of Courtney's padded feet on the ground grow closer, until he lowers his eye to the window just outside Marya's seat, trills happily, and makes his way around to the door.

A pub is no place for a dinosaur, but Van opens a window so that he can pop his head through.

Monty tosses him a bit of meat for his work, the chatter of voices outside growing louder, and Courtney preens self-importantly, the polished brass and leather of his saddle jingling as he shakes snow off his face.

Kočka scampers down her arm to the table, periscopes up onto his back feet and listens, ears and whiskers twitching this way and that — and then he is off like a shot, wings snapping open as he swoops high over the others. He reaches the door ahead of Marya, just as it opens, and even from a few paces away, Marya hears the thump as he dives right into Ludmila's arms.

She hangs back, giving her time to greet Kočka and settle herself, wary of overwhelming her.

Ludmila grins broadly as Kočka slams into her, immediately cups her hands around him and brings him close to pepper his face in kisses. Kočka protests this only slightly and even licks her nose, chattering all the while. About what, Marya can't quite hear, especially as Olethra, Maxwell, and —to everyone's surprise— Torse filter into the pub, all exchanging greetings and well-wishes. Marya gives the rest of them a passing glance before she returns to Mila.

A few months of adventure have done well for her; the autumn sun has bronzed her skin, and between flying the Zephyr Mark II and the crew's rebuilding efforts in Zood and Zern, Marya sees the smallest hint of definition in the outline of her sleeve. Some of her hair has brightened under the Zoodian sun, redder now than it was before.

What Marya notices most, though, is the sharpness in her eyes. Clever and quick, ever-seeking new information, ever alert to her environment, reflexes and attention both lightning-quick. One of many reasons that Marya took her on and believed so deeply in her. Anyone can learn to fly, anyone can develop the good sense of a pilot, but that sort of natural aptitude is rare and it would have been a shame to waste it. Watching her laugh and joke with the young crew, where she so clearly fits easily, the knot of guilt that has lived in Marya's core loosens slightly. Even as Ludmila jokes with them, she is searching, drinking in every detail of the pub — until she stops on Marya, attention eagle-sharp.

Marya has precisely three seconds of warning from the moment that Ludmila's gaze locks on her:

One to admire the way her entire face brightens, honey-brown eyes flickering gold under the light of the fireplace and lamps.

Another to appreciate how Ludmila exclaims her name, high and excited, her lips splitting into a grin that is achingly familiar.

And the last to brace as Ludmila catapults herself across the room, drags Marya into a crushing hug, and buries her face in the crook of Marya's neck to breathe her in.

Marya returns the embrace, and she cannot find it in herself to care that she clings to Ludmila, nails digging into the leather of her jacket desperately. She knows that it has all been real, knows that Ludmila is safe and happy, but her body is still learning, and her hands quiet at the tangible proof under her palms.

She, too, breathes Ludmila in. Heaves a sigh that she has perhaps been holding since they parted months ago, the restless creature in Marya's chest finally content that she is here. Ludmila smells like sunshine and spice and leather, and engine grease that never quite disappears no matter how hard it is scrubbed at.

Home. She smells like home.

"I missed you," Ludmila breathes, muffled against her throat. Marya swallows hard. "I have so many stories, but all of them would have been better with you there."

She catches Van and Olethra over Ludmila's shoulder, the two of them wearing nearly identical expressions, brows nearly at their hairline. They exchange a look and conspiratorial smirk that Marya decides she doesn't care about, and then Olethra elbows Maxwell in the rib and jerks her chin, whispering.

"I missed you, too," Marya returns, equally muffled against Ludmila's shoulder, as if her heart is not thundering. "And, more than you have already detailed in your letters?" she teases, loosening her grip. "Ten pages were not enough?"

"It was nine," Ludmila corrects, with a disgruntled sound that might be from Marya's teasing or from the prospect of letting her go. Selfishly, she hopes for the latter.

Ludmila squeezes her last time before releasing her, only to pivot to her side and link their elbows together. She bumps her head against Marya's gently, dipping to murmur into Marya's ear, her tone light and gently goading, "Also, no. There is only so much parchment on deck. I could use it all and still have more to tell you."

Her heart thumps traitorously, caught like a bird between the cage of her ribs, torn between the very real possibility that another trip to the sky could be a worse undoing and the way that every fiber of her wants desperately to follow Ludmila.

They go around in circles from there, greeting and mingling and catching up. Monty claps Mazwell on the back and Maxwell returns good-natured ribbing about his newest book release, to Olethra's annoyance and a slap on the back of the head. Torse hovers just over Maxwell's shoulder, close enough to touch, mechanical steps and voice a low drone under the chatter. Van and Bert pull Daisuke into a bear hug, exchanging quiet words between them, and when Van catches Marya's eye by chance across the room, Marya gives her an equally pointed brow raise. It earns her a mocking curled lip and stuck out tongue in reply, and then Van is back in the orbit of her husband and Pappy.

It's nice. Marya can't remember the last time she felt content and unburdened like this; light, even, with Ludmila's arm warm under her hand and her friends cheerfully catching up around her.

Olethra finds them after a bit, just as bright-eyed and sparkly as the last time Marya saw her. She has a few more freckles, maybe, and a new scar on her jaw from a dogfight that Ludmila detailed in one of her letters, but she is just as peppy when she bounds up to them, already halfway into a sentence.

"Ooh, I have so much to tell you, and I know Lu's probably already put most of it in her letters but like, not all of it because she was busy sulking—"

"'Lu'?" Marya grins, and Ludmila ducks her head.

"I did not sulk! And she insisted—"

"—and she kept saying that 'Mila' sounded weird from me, so I adjusted—"

"I did not—"

Olethra scoffs, straightening in a way that is so distinctly reminiscent of Ludmila when she is politely uncomfortable that Marya snickers under her breath. Ludmila jabs her in the ribs as Olethra puts on a truly horrendous attempt at a Scrapsylvanian accent. "'It does not sound right with your accent, and every time you try it is like nails on a chalkboard, please find something else.'"

"You make me sound cruel. I never compared your voice to nails on a chalkboard," Ludmila huffs beside her, frowning and refusing to meet Marya's eyes.

"I think she's just reserved that nickname for you. But what do I know." Olethra shrugs, but her gaze sharpens as she glances first at Ludmila, then Marya, eyes flicking rapidly between them, and — oh no. Marya has seen that calculating face enough times to know exactly what Olethra is thinking, the gears working in her mind already as she glances between them. And while she found it amusing to watch Olethra goad Dawderdale, she is far less amused at the prospect of her goading Ludmila.

Marya opens her mouth to discourage it and Olethra beats her to words entirely, the grin splitting her face and the gleam in her eye sharklike when she fixes it on Ludmila.

"We still have gifts to bring in," she says, a request for Mila's help unspoken but clear, her voice cloyingly sweet to veil some kind of threat that Marya is not privy to.

"Oh?" Marya asks, glancing at Ludmila, who has not released her arm as she stares disdainfully toward the door. "And what did you bring your dearest—" She is not Ludmila's mentor, not anymore. Has not been in a long, long time. Friend feels too light for whatever they are. There is no easy label, no neatly named box for her now, but she is deep into the sentence, so she finishes lamely, "—me?"

Brown eyes, dark in the dimmer light, narrow at her for just a second — seeing, as always, far too deep into her heart.

"Quit making eyes and come help," Olethra interrupts, insistant and perhaps too teasing, breaking whatever scrutiny Ludmila levels on Marya.

Ludmila gives her a last, lingering stare before huffing in Olethra's direction with rolled eyes, annoyed but not uncomfortable, as she pats Marya's hand. "You do know that I am in sole control of your ship, yes?" she asks, an edge to her voice with no real bite behind it, and Olethra only laughs. When Ludmila finally steps away, she gives Marya a blinding grin, eyes bright. "You will just have to wait and see, won't you? Kočka, stay with Marya for me."

He jumps to Marya's shoulder, curling himself under the collar of her coat and muttering that it is too cold for him out there, anyway.

An indescribable emotion blooms in her chest as she watches the two of them, once-protégée and almost-protégée and both dear to her. Olethra leans toward Ludmila as they walk, nudges Ludmila with her elbow and says something that earns her a curled lip and light shove, but it is clear that they've built an ironclad rapport in their months away.

Her thumb finds the keyring again, polished smooth, and she does not acknowledge the sharp stab behind her ribs as she watches them disappear into the cold. It is enough for Marya that Mila is alive and safe and happy.

Attention shifts as they bring everything inside; a frankly ridiculous amount of boxes, wrapped in various states of neatness and of varying sizes, which Olethra, Ludmila, Maxwell and Torse pile into the corner Van directs them to. Marya hovers near Van and Monty and Daisuke, a notable fondness shared between them as they watch this younger mirror of their own crew bicker and coordinate.

But where she sees only a wistful sort of pride in the Zephyr's crew, there is a stabbing kind of nostalgia that accompanies Marya's. A deep-set longing borne of a decade of suffering, of knowing the sky is her home as surely as she knew she could not return to it, the clawing want of a crew. It had gotten easier, with enough years, to pretend she does not feel wrong on the ground — until Olethra and Daisuke showed up at her shop, until Zood and Zern, until the journey reawakened a part of her she has never been able to kill. Until Ludmila, rescued throug time, bright and happy and tempting her back to a ship's cockpit.

She is dragged out of her ruminating by a dull thunk on the ground in front of her and dead silence to either side of her.

"Didn't feel right to wrap this one," Olethra says, leaning on a too-familiar carved wooden wheel. It is charred in several places and missing two spokes, but she would recognize the deep russet wood of the Zephyr anywhere. "But, um — we thought you might like it for the bar?"

Van sucks in a breath behind her, a very distinct warble to it, and Marya knows that if she looks, Van's lip will be a little wobbly and then they'll both be in tears. She fixes her gaze instead on the wheel, tracing the dark woodgrain of an uncharred bit of it with her thumb — a smooth spot, worn into it by her own hands over the years she spent at its helm.

Monty joins her, heavy hand resting on a charred spoke, eyes drinking in what detail remains. Complex feelings about Comfrey or no, they all loved this ship. "Well, I'll be."

"Much of it could not be recovered," Ludmila says, loud enough for all of them but eyes fixed on Marya. "And what could — it was not recognizable, and Zood needed supplies…"

There is a nervous rattle in her voice as she lets the sentence hang unfinished, gaze flicking to Van and Monty and Daisuke briefly before settling back on Marya, tentative and hopeful. Marya has not fully grieved the loss of the Zephyr, but the idea of what remains of her returning to the very land she spent all of her skyworthy days searching for?

Well, Marya can't be upset at that. There is no fate more fitting for the Zephyr's scrap than to be reshaped into something new and useful.

Beside her, Monty scribbles something into his notepad —for his next manuscript, no doubt— as Van yells for Torse and Maxwell's help to put the wheel up. Marya steps back to watch them wrestle with it as Van barks orders; "Left — no, too far. Right and down — never mind, let me do it. You lot are hopeless."

The night carries on from. Everyone gets a little drunker and a little louder, all catching up, a healthy dose of equal-opportunity teasing between the lot of them. Torse and Maxwell have an especially rough time, singled out as the easiest to embarrass and rile up, which culminates in an arm wrestle between Van and Maxwell that he loses terribly at.

It is later, when the initial energy quiets and the group gathers by the fireplace in various states of tipsiness, that Marya begins to doubt herself again.

Across from her, Olethra recounts some story about a run-in with what remains of the Bank of Fehujar, hands flying as she tells the tale with all the flourish of a seasoned windrider. Ludmila, closer to her than Marya, jumps in occasionally with her own remarks or clarification, drink in hand and cheek resting against her knuckles over an armchair.

She looks so… content. So enmeshed with her crew —hers, not Marya's— that it feels as if she has always been there, and Marya has the sinking feeling that even if she is wanted on board, she is perhaps not needed. An extra set of hands are always nice, but not if they get in the way, and not if her presence would upset the balance of what seems like a well-oiled crew.

Marya excuses herself, picking her way around chairs and sprawled bodies, eyes trained ahead of her, and does not let herself guess again. There is an empty space behind the bar that she can stash her luggage, before Ludmila sees it.

It is for the best. A ship does not need two pilots, does not even need two mechanics, and really, what could she teach that Ludmila does not already know? She was never Queen as she is now, but memories of that reality come to her in fits and starts, something that she has shared only with Marya. It is not just her mind that remembers, but also her hands. The ghost of a reality unlived bleeds into this one now; centuries of skill that her body knows as easy as breathing — muscle memory that she has no true recollection of learning.

"You are coming with us?"

Marya freezes, fingers wrapped around the handle of her suitcase, half-turned toward the bar, and a blasphemous desire for a new Biangle to swallow her whole cuts across her mind. It would be easier than denying Ludmila, her voice pitched up in hopeful question. Her grip tightens, her other hand finding that damn keyring again. It feels silly to hand it off now.

When she turns, Ludmila is watching her with such achingly soft and hopeful eyes that she wavers again.

She is quiet a beat too long. Some of that brightness in Ludmila's eyes dims as she steps closer, brow furrowing just slightly. "… Marya?"

She could lie. Tell Ludmila that she only overpacked, that she was just moving her things out of the way, that the sky is not for her now, might never have been. Something bitter and clawed seizes the back of her throat before the words even form, offended at the very thought.

"I do not know, yet." Ludmila's inhale is louder as she readies an argument, and if Marya looks up, she is sure that Ludmila's eyes will glow fiercely honey-gold under the low light, and she is just as sure that she will fold immediately. "It has been… so long, Mila."

There is a pause, and then, confused but not quite upset, "But has only been a few months?"

"Before that." The past decade is a wash of endless grey, each day the same as the last, predictable and dark and mind-numbingly boring through the haze of devastation. She was hardly sky-eyed when Ludmila was taken, but she was not yet… this. "I had not set foot on a ship before that, since…"

She does not say it. 'The accident' feels impersonal and minimizing, but there is no better way to put it. All these years later, and she still doesn't know how best to name the day she lost everything.

"I know," Ludmila murmurs, quietly, stepping closer again. She pauses with enough room for Marya to flee, should she want to, but — no, she has hidden for years. And her Mila deserves to be met head-on. "Olethra told me a bit."

"Talking behind my back?" Marya chuckles, snatching the chance at brevity like a lifeline. Anything to cut this awful, awful somberness. "I thought I taught you better than that."

The laughter dies in her throat as Ludmila tips her chin up, barely touching her but for her fingertips. She searches Marya's face for a long moment with the same rapt fascination that she directs most often at challenging artifacts, golden light brightening her dark eyes. She has looked at Marya this way before, a lifetime ago, and —scrap help her— she is not strong enough to resist it now.

Ludmila's mouth tips up at the corners, just barely. "Maybe — but you have told me so little. I wanted to know how you have been." She tilts her head to one side in confusion, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Did you think that I would not?"

She's kept those years to herself because Ludmila should not have to bear a grief that she does not have context for. Marya swallows, watching Ludmila's eyes flick toward her throat to follow the motion before they snap back up to her face.

"I didn't really consider it." It has always been unnerving, the intensity Ludmila is capable of when focused, and more so when that focus is leveled on her, cutting straight to the core of her.

"Well, you should have," Ludmila scoffs, releasing her chin with an indigant huff. "I have something for you."

The tension eases as she turns to dig through her hip pouch. Marya takes a steadying breath while she is distracted, composes herself, and smirks. "It is too early for gifts, Mila. You will offend the others."

If her voice sounds too strained, Ludmila does not comment on it. "They will survive," she says as she straightens, something small enough that Marya cannot see it cradled in her hand. A flash of something —nerves, maybe?— cuts across her face.

"While we were scavenging the Zephyr, I thought — it has been a thousand years, in Zern. Since…" she waves her hand vaguely, unwilling as Marya is to name the day it all went to shit. "Many things have been lost to time and many of them went into the door, I think."

A slow-dawning realization falls over Marya, borne of having seen the inside of the portal, having changed it herself and watched the way that the machinery shifted from Ludmila's craftsmanship to her own, the timeline splitting itself apart in preparation for a future that never came. A future where it was not her precious, darling Mila who fell through, but Marya herself.

When Straka took the Kingfisher, it did not swallow the ship whole. Marya could not look away, would not look away, as Comfrey pulled her out of danger and onto the deck of the Zephyr. Comfrey robbed her of her rightful fate alongside the one her crew and her ship and Ludmila did not deserve, and if she could not go down with them, she woud at least bear witness.

The beast bit her beautiful, sparkling ship in half, leaving its stern and crew to fall into the ocean below as it consumed the bow. She had assumed it was incinerated whole by the crow's furnace.

How much of it was reshaped into the door that led her back to Ludmila?

Chewing her lip anxiously, Ludmila offers her open palm, and there in the middle lays a gleaming pendant carved into a feather, split evenly down the middle, one side of the shaft brilliant cobalt and the other a shimmering fire-orange.

"Most of it is buried," Ludmila explains quietly, as Marya's fingers brush the pendant, warmed by the heat of Mila's body. "She will stay there forever, but…"

Ludmila loved her, too. It was something they shared — an aching fondness beyond what was reasonable for an inanimate object, regard for her as a creature instead of a vessel. Marya saw it the very first day that Ludmila laid eyes on the Kingfisher, her eyes going wide and awed and her jaw slack as she catalogued every groove of it. Marya must have looked much the same the first time she saw the Zephyr in all her glory.

The pendant could be made of any chunk of metal, but even if she did not believe Ludmila, she cannot argue with the bolt of pained familiarity in her chest as she turns it over. She traces the feather shaft, just at the polished line between the colors that were once a seam in the Kingfisher's hull, and draws a low, shaking breath.

That Ludmila would bring home a piece of it for her —that she would bear the horror of the wreckage and carve the corpse of the ship that led to her suffering into something for Marya— drags a particular kind of emotion up that Marya doesn't have words for. Surely it must have been painful, surely it must have meant reliving the horror of that day?

But when she looks up, there is no great suffering behind Ludmila's eyes. There is only the softness she reserves for Marya, accompanied by a bright kind of nervoursness Marya recognizes from a lifetime ago, where they stood in the golden light of sunset at the bow of the Kingfisher. Marya had thought she was beautiful then, just as she does now.

"Happy Trinket's Day, beloved," Ludmila murmurs, so soft Marya wouldn't hear her at all if they weren't so close.

From the other room, raucous laughter drifts in. Bits of a story Marya does not know, snippets of an adventure she was not part of, catch her attention. It is stupid. In her hand she holds the evidence of exactly what happens when follows the siren song of the wind, and still it calls her home. Marya swallows thickly, not trusting herself to speak, and hands the pendant back to Ludmila — who is briefly stricken, until Marya turns, shrugs off her coat, and pulls her hair aside.

She could put it on herself, of course. But that is less fun, and she is hungry for Ludmila's hands on her skin. Ludmila hums happily behind her, reaches around to drop the pendant against her collar, and Marya tries not to shiver at the drag of her thumbs against her skin.

The snap clicks. Ludmila's hands smooth across the nape of her neck, thumbs to either side of her spine, and she click her tongue chidingly.

"You are so tense," she mutters, thumbs sinking into the knots in Marya's shoulders. "You were supposed to be resting, were you not?"

Marya bites back the groan in her throat and rolls her neck, giving Ludmila better access as she rubs circles into her flesh. "I will rest when I am dead."

"'Rest is important for any pilot, Mila,'" comes the retort, voice lower to mimic Marya's from an aeon ago. "Or does that only apply to me?"

She scoffs, softened by her breathy exhale as the heel of Mila's hand digs into a particularly steely spot. "I am not a pilot anymore."

Ludmila is quiet for a long, long moment, working at the knots under Marya's skin methodically. "You could be," she says finally, quietly, breath ghosting across Marya's ear. And then, sharp and commanding, "Roll your shoulders."

"Taking your post would be rude." But she obeys, rolls her shoulders and tips her neck to either side, breathing a sigh of relief when the muscles pop and loosen. It is not the first time that Ludmila has soothed them, but it is the first in many, many years.

Behind her, Ludmila mutters something, grumbling in frustration as she turns Marya around to face her.

"I want you there," she says seriously, searching Marya's eyes — and Marya knows the exact moment she sees the longing there, that yearning for the sky that she has been trying desperately to stomp down before it overtakes her better thinking again. "You once told me that you are most yourself on the wind. Is that… have I been away so long that is no longer true?"

The horrible truth is that nothing has been truer, no greater thread of herself than the one that lives for adventure, and she can see in Ludmila's eyes that she knows, too — and that she is giving Marya an out, if she really wants it. An opportunity to agree and go home, to cower from her own past, to run away to rot in her shop.

Zuzu would kill her for even considering it.

"No," she sighs, crossing her arms and leaning against the table again. "But misfortune follows me like a plague. Every time—"

She cuts herself off, swallows hard and shuts her eyes, though closing them has never spared her the horrors of the past. Behind her eyelids, she still sees a burning bird and a burning ship and terrified brown eyes swallowed by flame. Still sees a heart bruised and tortured and shot clean through in sheer selfish cruelty, still sees Comfrey's blood and empty eyes. "I am scared, Mila."

Ludmilla's eyes soften. Her hands slacken on Marya's shoulders, tracing down her arms until she can pry them gently apart to hold Marya's hand. She pulls it to her chest, just under the hem of her shirt, and flattens Marya's palm just over her heart. It beats evenly under her touch, reaffirming that she is here and safe.

That Marya has not doomed her.

"Let me be brave enough for us both." Ludmila steps toward her, close enough that their breath mingles, and touches her forehead to Marya's. "Come with me, drahá. Back where you belong."

There is an edge of possession in how she says it — something blade-sharp that hums almost discordant under the softness in her voice. Marya might not have noticed it, if not for the way her heart sings in response, just the same as it had when she first heard the Queen's crackling, mechanical hiss, Ludmila's voice as much as it was not.

Whether she means that Marya belongs in the sky or at her side, it does not matter. It was always going to be like this; she was always going to follow Ludmila to the ends of the world. Sky or ground, Gath or Zood or Zern, it does not matter. So long as there is wind in her hair and Ludmila's bright smile, she will be content.

Marya closes her eyes, focusing on the warmth of Ludmila's skin against her own and the gentle whirr of her golden heart under Marya's palm, and breathes deep. Once, twice. Ludmila's thumb strokes her cheek.

"Okay," she whispers, because she was always going to agree. She left the sky because she lost her ship and crew and Ludmila — it is only fitting that she is the one to bring Marya back.

Ludmila makes the tiniest, high-pitched squeal in the back of her throat and kisses Marya's forehead, eyes bright when she pulls back. "You will like the Zephyr Mark II," she says excitedly. "Daisuke says that she looks much like her predecessor, but I see the Kingfisher in her."

Marya chuckles, wrinkling her nose playfully as Ludmila pecks her forehead a second time. "Mila," she protests, nearly a whine. She does not have the chance to say anything else before Ludmila takes her by the hand to tug her back to the group, Marya following obediently behind her.

"Announcement!"

Marya drops her head back with a groan at the ceiling. "It is not announcement-worthy—"

Ludmila clicks her tongue chidingly. "You, hush."

She rolls her eyes, sure there is a brush of scarlet across her cheeks, but does not protest again. How could she, when her Mila is so very excited?

She turns her attention to the rest of the group, instead. Van holds Bert, who has his legs kicked up in Daisuke's lap, Ghost Dog upside-down on the rug at his feet. Monty has settled into the sofa across from them, scribbling notes into his journal, no doubt for his next novel. Torse and Maxwell are not as close as Van, Bert and Daisuke, but certainly closer than friends alone might be, and Olethra has contorted herself into the armchair closest to Van. The two of them are in the middle of some animated conversation that cuts off abruptly at Marya and Ludmila's return and Kočka, who has eaten far more than his fill, rests in Olethra's lap.

She lifts her brows at them, and Van shoots a nearly identical look to Marya, and — ah. So they are conspiring. Awful meddlers.

The warmth in her chest only grows as she watches the lot of them: the way that Daisuke smiles a little softer at Bert and Van, the edges of grief worn smoother. The way that Olethra nudges Van with her elbow, animated and mischievous, and gets much the same mischief back. How Torse rests near enough to Maxwell that their knees touch, and Maxwell leans his shoulder against Torse's upper arm, just under his spiked shoulders.

Ludmila tugs her closer, dropping her hand in favor of draping her arm across Marya's shoulders. "We have an additional pilot," she grins, sweeping her hand toward Marya, who scrunches her nose.

"Really, this is not a big deal—"

"Nonsense," says Van, drowned out by Olethra's yell of "Fuck yeah!" that startles Kočka awake.

It is pandemonium from there, a tangle of congratulations and are-you-certains and, from Maxwell, a deadpan assertion that there is one Captain and it is him — which Marya sees right through as the teasing it is, biting and sarcastic like her own humor often is.

She does not wish to be captain, anyway. She will offer her expertise when requested, but she has had her time as a leader already. Her soul yearns for the hum of an engine and the blur between pilot and machine, for how the current yields to her touch on the wind, for the comeradie formed only on a vessel, but she does not yearn for command of a crew.

Gifts proceed from there, raucous laughter abounding at some of the more unhinged ones, like the miniature mimics of Olethra's terrible little frog. From Van, a dial off one her prosthesis, offered so that she can mold it into something new. From Monty, copies of his next and yet-to-publish book, and one of Courtney's baby teeth for Marya (she does not cry, but her eyes sting, just a little.)

She is given similarly wet eyes for her own gifts — welded metal badges, each shaped the very same as tattoos she's gotten for each of them over the years. A notepad and quill for Monty, a whistle for Van, Biscuits and Gravy for Daisuke. She does not yet have ink for Maxwell and Olethra, but she has plans for them, and so she has made badges for them, too — a clenched fist with brass knuckles for Maxwell, and a set of goggles for Olethra, respectively inscribed with "The Max" and "The Kid."

Her other gifts are equally well-received, between Van's wine holder and novelty parchment for Monty, new brass knuckles for Maxwell and a compass for Olethra, new holsters for Daisuke's guns and a new collar for Ghost Dog,

The keyring burning her pocket is not her only gift to Ludmila, because it would have been rude to leave her out of this matched set of Marya's most cherished individuals. Hers was most difficult, not in technicality, but because there are so many things Marya could choose to represent her, and none of them feel as if they fully encompass her. And perhaps that is how it's meant to be.

She settled, eventually, on a golden heart. Ludmila stares at it for a long time, brushing the pad of her thumb acros it.

"You have always put your entire heart into everything that you do," Marya explains simply, quietly, when Ludmila finally looks at her again.

"Aww," Olethra coos, from somewhere else in the room. "Cute."

Marya ignores her, though she'd like to make a face at the lightly taunting edge in Olethra's voice. "It felt wrong to leave you out of the badges," she continues, nervously rubbing the brass. "But I do have something else for you. This one took the longest, I think."

Ludmila gives her a cheeky little grin, blinking back tears. "Playing favorites? How rude of you, beloved."

"I think I can be forgiven this time, after all that's happened," Marya snorts, fidgeting. The metal might be polished mirror-smooth after all her fussing with it tonight. "When the Zephyr went down, I still had her loop on me. It seemed only fitting to melt it down for her successor."

She holds the brass out carefully, cradled in her hand the same way that Ludmila had cradled the feather pendant. It is shaped into Kočka's likeness, curled into a circle in such a way that when closed, it looks as if he holds his tail in his mouth. "It was a bit fiddly," she explains, because there are flaws despite her many attempts at it. All cosmetic —Marya stress-tested it to be certain— but they are flaws, nonetheless.

Ludmila is dead silent as she stares at it, then flicks her wide eyes up to Marya and back again, so deeply unguarded, so open in her affection that Marya's heart pangs desperately against her chest.

Ludmila's brow furrows adorably as she notes the singular key on it.

Marya laughs softly, barely a breath. "I had a little help. Olethra was kind enough to send a copy of the new Zephyr's key ahead—" Over Ludmila's shoulder, Olethra beams, eyes bright. "Every good pilot needs a sturdy—"

Ludmila does not let her finish before dragging her into a crushing embrace, nose pressed to the crook of Marya's throat again, keys jingling softly in her hand. Marya sinks into it, breathes deep again, and that soul-deep sensation of home floods her senses again.

Ludmila blinks furiously when she pulls away, valiantly trying to pull herself together. "This is gorgeous, beloved," she manages thickly, finally, turning it over in her hand and tracing every tiny detail reverently.

"It is nothing. His goggles are a bit lopsided—" Marya laughs, realizing only when Ludmila levels a withering stare on her that she has forgotten how Ludmila has never let her brush aside praise.

"Gorgeous," Ludmila asserts firmly, narrowing her eyes, and Marya, besotted fool she is, clamps her mouth shut obediently. Van's stifled chortle, disguised as a cough, does not escape her notice — but her silence satisfies Ludmila, who watches her a moment longer before nodding approvingly. "This is made of the first Zephyr's metal?" And then, quieter, because she knows how deeply Marya loves better than anyone, and that such love is not constrained to sentient creatures, she asks, "You are sure…?"

This is her last remaining piece of the ship that taught her to love the sky. Ludmila has seen her eyes go misty and faraway when she talks about it, and she has seen, in small doses, how Marya still grieves the Zephyr.

She nods. "What better fate than a new life in skilled hands?" She tilts her head, smiling lopsided and soft at Ludmila. "Besides — if I am coming with you, then I am not really saying goodbye, am I?"

Ludmila gives her a toothy grin, the corners of her eyes crinkling just slightly, beauty mark shifting with her cheeks, and drapes her arm across Marya's shoulder as she turns them around with the keyring held aloft. "Olethra, come look—"

Olethra, whose honest smile has morphed into one of pure, chaotic delight, lifts her eyebrows and nods to a spot on the doorframe.

Marya could swear that the sprig of green hanging over them was not there moments ago. She narrows her eyes at Olethra, who holds her hands up innocently and points at Van… who is pointing at Olethra in turn, as if they are children blaming the other for a broken vase. Neither of them seem particularly apologetic.

Marya is going to kill them both.

"Wow, how'd that get there?" Olethra muses aloud, eyes too purposefully doe-shaped and innocent, the corners of her mouth turned too far up — though, to her credit, she does try to stifle her grin as she flings her hand, dramatically, at the mistletoe. "Well?"

Marya rolls her eyes. "This is not something we do in Scrapsylvania—"

"Oh, c'mon, Junker. Tradition's tradition." Van grins at her, a spark in her eye that is far too similar to Olethra's, and Gotch, Marya is going to murder them. There are a hundred ways to dispatch someone, and Marya has invented at least ninety-nine of them. "What? Scared of a wee kiss?"

"I am not scared—"

"Awful lot of protests from someone who's been makin' eyes all night," drawls Daisuke, one hand on Ghost dog and the other rubbing circles into Van's shoulder.

"Making—!" An undignified splutter escapes her as she glares at him. "Who's side are you on, anyway?"

A shrug. "Payback for tauntin' Dawderdale. Still feel the ghost of her hands sometimes." He shudders, grimacing.

There is a breath of laughter from Ludmila, quickly stifled.

"Okay, that was mostly Olethra, and—"

Fingertips, just under her chin, pull her attention back to Ludmila, her words dying on her tongue. Because Ludmila —her Mila— watches her with such unabashed fondness that she loses track of her thoughts entirely. She is no stranger to this expression; Ludmila has watched her with a similar fondness since the day she boarded the Kingfisher, but this close, she can spot the subtle differences. Gone is the hero worship of her earliest year under Marya's wing, traded out for something deeper that has been given room to breathe and mature.

She is still afraid to name it, but the traitorous hope in her is not, and it calls the sparkle in Ludmila's eye love.

She arches her brows in silent question, glancing up at the sprig and then back to Marya — checking in silently, wordlessly. The air between them stills and thickens.

And Marya, Gotch help her, nods. Barely a twitch, really, and she is halfway through affirming that "Really, you do not have to—" when Ludmila adjusts her grip to cup Marya's jaw, dips her head, and closes the distance between them.

It is not the first mistetoe kiss that Marya has had. She has seen plenty of chaste ones, lighthearted pecks between friends caught unaware, a few with a current lover — none of them serious. And she is aware, in a vague sort of way, that they are supposed to be like that; quick, mostly-chaste, comedic more than sincere.

And she tries, she does. But then Ludmila slants her mouth across Marya's, licks along the seam of her lips and — well. She is human, and she has been in love with Ludmila for far longer than she will admit even to herself.

She tangles her fingers in Ludmila's hair, tugs, and kisses her until they are both breathless.

Dimly, she is aware of someone's wolf-whistle, a gleeful cackle and various mumbles, and it is only when she needs air and breaks away that an apology forms. "Mila—"

Ludmila rests her forehead against Marya's, eyes closed. "Olethra may have reminded me of the tradition," she hums contentedly. "… And I… may have… been aware of her scheming." A pause. She pulls back to meet Marya's eyes, an almost-sheepish, not-at-all-sorry smile on her lips, cheeks flushed. "I might have encouraged her."

Oh, Marya is going to kill all of them. She groans and turns her glare on the rest of the room. "Would anyone else like to confess their crimes?"

"Nope!" chirps Olethra, from the corner, contorted into the most impossible position in an armchair. "Come on, you know I can't resist a good setup."

"Or a bad one," Daisuke mutters, and Olethra reaches across Van to smack his shoulder.

"I am killing all of you," Marya grouses, licking her lips to wet them and tasting Ludmila's lipgloss. It is… more tempting than she would like to admit, but there is clarity required. She tilts her head enough that she can whisper in Ludmila's ear. "This is a silly tradition — it does not have to mean anything."

Possible responses run through her mind — a sigh of relief or nervous laugh or perhaps some sort of quip to bury it quickly, varying sorts of embarrassment or awkwardness. What she does not expect is the way that Ludmila reels back to meet her gaze with her brow furrowed, the most perplexed Marya has ever seen her. She is quiet for a moment, staring, incredulous, before she leans in again.

"But it does mean something," she says, earnestly, so close that Marya can count her lashes. "To me, at least. Do you not know I have loved you forever?"

Marya flattens her mouth. Part of her has known for a long time, and she has been just as quick to rebuff it. First out of professionalism, when it was merely a crush that she expected to run its course. Ludmila has always been a half-step behind her, right on her heels like a second shadow — and the crush did not vanish, only matured.

She has known, of course. Ludmila has never been especially secretive about it. And Marya has known, for just as long, that she is not worthy of such devotion.

"You deserve—"

"Do not tell me what I deserve, beloved." Ludmila cuts her off, voice low and sharp, a glimpse of another reality in how the words form. "I waited months —or, sometimes, centuries— for the chance to tell you that I love you; do not take that from me." She pauses, watching Marya fiercly, daring her to argue, and Marya is acutely aware that the room around them has fallen deathly quiet. "If you do not want me, I will not push. But do not insult yourself —do not insult me— by claiming that I deserve better."

The reminder stabs the soft parts of her, sinks into a space only Ludmila has ever occupied; the image of another reality, where her darling girl waited faithfully at a handmade door for someone who never came. But there is this reality, too, where Marya brought her back through time, where she waited months rather than centuries, and this is the Mila who stands in front of her now, daring her to deny what they both know. 

She has never been good with words in the way that Mila is. There will be more to talk about tomorrow. But tonight, she lets herself reach and take and hold. She pulls Ludmila down again, into a bruising kiss, and tries her best to pour a decade's worth of heartache and devotion into it. And by the way that Ludmila kisses her in turn, it seems she does the same.

"I cannot wait to fly with you again," Ludmila whispers against her mouth.

For the first time in a very, very long time, dread does not chase off Marya's hope.