Chapter Text
“On three.”
Olethra’s already braced, her forearms tensed against the top edge of the chest of drawers. Her head’s a little spinny, still, from a combination of the alcohol and maybe also Max’s rolled-up sleeves—what’s so wrong with a little ogling amongst friends? She’s not blind, just gay—but it doesn’t dampen her determination one bit. There’s got to be something behind or under one of these pieces of furniture—some trap door, or secret compartment, or something that will tell her where her grandmother’s gone.
This isn’t Comfrey’s room. Olethra’d gone through that one first thing; what does she look, stupid? She’d checked under the bed, knocked on all the walls, pulled out all the books on the shelves and everything. Bust. Nada.
Mostly, she’d found, it ended up being an exercise in trying hard not to think about all the signs of her grandmother’s daily life. Like the pieces of hair buried under the layer of dust on her bathroom counter that she hadn’t bothered to sweep up, or the ash on her bedside table where she must’ve smoked before bed. All these little intimacies and mundanities, cropping up everywhere Olethra turned until it became hard to breathe.
She’d found this one after, smaller and further belowdecks. Unlike her grandmother’s, there were no personal effects to go through. The only sign at all that it had been used was the bed, double-wide and indented on either side, covers rumpled like it’d been made in a hurry. When she’d sat down for a breather on one side, drained from hours of climbing into small spaces and digging through cupboards mostly full of mouse shit, dust had plumed up around her. It’d hung there, suspended like the ghosts of whoever must’ve slept there last.
The whole vibe had freaked her out. Something about the lack of belongings, or maybe the stale air. It was unsettling, a space hastily emptied of its character. She’d given it a quick glance, opened a drawer or two, and then decided to come back with reinforcements later.
And so here she is, gentlemanly reinforcement in tow, rearranging furniture on a wild goose chase for secrets she knows they won’t find. She’s driven by a kind of desperation she can tell Maxwell feels too, where it would just be nice if they could find something useful, some hint that’ll deliver them right to Comfrey, wherever she may be now. Maybe even something to help hold their ramshackle crew together, Olethra thinks uncharitably. Since they seem to have so much trouble doing it themselves.
“One.” Olethra blinks herself back to the present, widens her stance, flexes her fingers.
“Two.” They’ll find something. They have to.
“Three!”
The chest shudders and groans across the floor, leaving scratches in the wood beneath it. Whoops. Well, it isn’t like Max’s piece of shit father is going to be selling it anymore, probably. Property value is for people who care about money, anyway, and Olethra doesn’t plan on starting now.
It moves a few inches for them. “Again!” Olethra says, already tensing up.
This time, with her whole body weight behind it, the chest stutters a few more inches forward. Victory! The furniture will think twice before challenging her again, that’s for sure.
She steps back, panting, arms tingling, to survey what they’ve managed to expose—some dirt that clearly hasn’t seen the light of day for the last few decades, and a couple pieces of trash. Well, fuck.
Beside her, Max visibly deflates. He kicks around the dirt, just in case it’s hiding the outline of a secret door or a cut-away floorboard or something, and a scrap of paper goes fluttering.
She’s not sure why she even bends down to pick it up. In another life, she doesn’t bother. It’s a matter of luck that just this once, she looks at the paper for a second too long, and lets the guilt of leaving something uncleaned and her ambient curiosity get the best of her.
“What’s that?” Maxwell asks, leaning just a little too far over her shoulder as she flips it over. She’s still feeling those last couple of drinks, so instead of telling him off she just giggles at his proximity.
“I dunno,” she says. It’s a good question. The edges are all torn up, and it’s covered in the ancient zeppelin dirt Max was kicking it around in. It’s also crumpled nearly beyond recognition—but only very nearly.
“Is that—?”
Maxwell doesn’t finish his sentence, nor does he have to. In black and white, barely identifiable, are two faces in profile. In profile, Olethra realises, because they’re kissing one another. Like a lot. Intimately.
“Oh my god,” she says, reaching out blindly to clutch at Max’s sleeve. “Did you…?”
His voice, right in her ear, is faint. “No. I had no idea.”
Given long enough, she might’ve been able to guess, just from the way the Wind Riders talk about the olden days and all their super awesome, totally legendary conquests. But she wouldn’t have guessed like this. This looks like more than “sucking and fucking” between friends. This looks her mother gazing at her father over the table, hands clasped in his, after he’s scared off the mailman so she doesn’t have to. This looks like her mother waking early to get to the milking before her father can because he’s had a late night cooking up a stubborn batch of drugs. This is something Olethra would recognise anywhere, no matter how infrequently she’s seen it. This looks like two people in love.
Van’s missing the creases between her eyebrows, is the first thing Olethra notices. And also her bowler hat, and like a little of the sun spotting on her face, maybe. She’s still got her crow’s lines, though, wrinkling up the corners of her eyes something fierce, like she’s squinting them up against something bright. She’s got to be in her thirties here, by Olethra’s best guess, which also means she can’t have her prosthesis yet—but then again, Olethra would’ve known that regardless, because both her hands are visible in the photo, cradling Marya’s cheeks. They’re full and rosy, Marya’s expression softer and more open than Olethra’s ever seen it. She’s taller, too; Olethra thinks by a couple of inches. It takes her several tipsy moments to recollect how Marya normally stands, and another few to compare the stooped, hunch-backed mental image she has to the photo in her hand. It’s incredible, she thinks, how much sorrow can eat away at somebody.
She turns the photo back over. Right across a tear, part of a date is still visible. She runs her thumb across the year—’96—and imagines exactly how badly somebody must’ve wanted to record this moment, right when it took place. She’d bet anything that if she took this up to the Zephyr’s ledgers she’d find a match in Van’s handwriting.
Technically, nothing’s changed. But one photograph and she feels like maybe she barely knows these people at all.
Olethra flips it over a few more times between her thumb and forefinger, mind far away.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asks after a long moment, free hand moving from Max’s sleeve to his wrist. She grips just this side of too tight, and he wiggles his arm against her hold half-heartedly.
“Um,” he says, “probably not, statistically speaking—”
“Exactly,” Olethra presses on. “We have to learn more. Like, what happened?”
“What do you mean what happened? They broke up, clearly.” Maxwell’s arm lifts, dragging her with as he tosses it into the air. “Van got married. To a man. We’ve met him!”
Olethra’s already several steps ahead of him. “They couldn’t have wanted to break up, though. I mean, just look at this! C’mon, you’ll take Van; I’ll take Marya.”
No matter the way her heart might do a little flutter at the prospect of learning more about the Marya Junkóva, pilot of the Wind Riders, her motivations are entirely pure and altruistic. What they had was obviously true love. There’s got to be a story behind it. And it’s just her civic duty, really, to get it out of them!
“Take— what are you talking about? Olethra!”
She’s already out the door. If they’re going to do this right, she’s going to need a plan.