These Boots Are Made For Knockin'
Maria Turn 10 Eleventh Omake
Cecilia and Priscian looked up as Georgy entered, immediately separating. He despaired. These two… These two broke his heart some days. Supposedly his seniors. More accurately, the idiots he was now a part of herding.
"Alright, Dawnie!" said Cecilia, with false cheer. "Looking good! Lose weight?"
"What is it," he asked, voice flat.
"What's… what? Don't know what you're talking about. Priscian, do you know what he's talking about?"
"NO IT'S ALL NORMAL HERE."
…If he tried
very hard, he might manage not to facepalm.
"That would almost have worked," said Georgy, calmly, "if you didn't actually shout that, Pris. Or stare directly over my shoulder. Or visibly sweat."
"I – DON'T – KNOW – WHAT – YOU'RE – TALKING – ABOUT!"
Cecilia winced.
"He's… very honest," she said.
"I'm getting that. What is it?"
The two looked at each other. Then back at Georgy.
"Promise you won't tell anyone?"
"No. Tell me anyway."
"That's not-"
"Cecilia."
"UGH. Fine. Have you noticed anything… different about the sergeant, lately?"
"No," said Georgy. "I've only been a part of the squad for a month."
Priscian leaned forward, conspiratorially.
"He's changed," he whispered. "A lot. He's been…"
Both of them looked around to ensure they wouldn't be overheard."
"
Happy."
Georgy's brow furrowed. He'd not known sergeant Kalokagathos for very long, but of all the words he would have used to describe the man, "happy" was not one of them. "Stern", possibly. Or "harsh." Possibly even "nigh-on sociopathic in his commitment to torturing me, Georgy, personally with excessive training regimes."
"Happy."
"Yeah. Come on. Last night after group cultivation, he almost smiled.
SMILED, Georgy."
"And formation practice, too," added Cecilia. "When we fucked up Two-Headed Eagle, he only screamed at us for five minutes. That's
NOTHING."
"He even," said Priscian, "stopped for breath. Twice."
"And you feel," said Georgy, slowly, "that that is grounds for comment."
"If not concern."
"In fact, probably concern."
"Yeah."
"…What the hell have I gotten myself into."
---
Maria stirred her noodles a few times with her chopsticks and considered.
"…No."
Letha nodded sharply.
"Yes."
"Can't be true."
"It very much can."
"I won't hear of it, Letha. It's madness."
"Perhaps, but it's accurate madness. Look."
Slowly, and with great care, Letha reached across the table. In her hands were two slices of bread. She positioned them carefully, then lifted some of the noodles out of Maria's soup, shook them to drain them, and placed them on one of the slices of bread. She put the other one on top…
And picked the whole thing up.
"Noodle sandwich."
"Deviance," growled Maria. "Deviance and filth."
"Extra carbs in an
EASILY transportable package. This is the future."
"Damn the future. And damn you, those were my noodles."
Letha took a happy bite of the sandwich.
"In any case," she said, mouth still full, "you're right. Your sergeant is behaving oddly."
" 'S what I thought. Squad's noticed already. He's been in far too good a mood."
"Well, I can't tell you precisely what it is that's going on, but he is going for a lot of walks."
Maria considered that for a long moment.
"Walks."
"Yes. Usually between shift changes. And… well. There is consistent overlap with someone else."
"Who?"
Letha didn't reply out loud. She did, however, briefly dip her finger in her own noodle soup, and idly sketched the table.
A sword, and a sun half-way over the horizon.
"…Shit."
"Yes."
Maria's brain worked furiously. Gods damnit, of course. Of
course he'd do this. Draconis was a proud man with a long memory. He and Lan Hua had only just started their duel when she'd broken it up before they got to the Line. And now… now he had a chance to finish it. She was lucky he'd waited as long as he had.
"SHIT," she snapped, struggling to keep her voice down. The idiot. The
IDIOT. Alright. This needed handling. "Alright. When?"
"Every fourth day. There's a woodshed for storage by the southern wall. Midnight."
"Well, I best intervene, then."
---
There was the slightest of sounds, but it was all Liming needed. She had long wandered in darkness, and her hearing was sharp as the blade she drew. Her pursuer would learn, alright, and learn
well – none followed the lady of the dawn unannounced and
lived.
She dove forward in furious, silent assault-
And stopped when her blade clashed with a spearhead. A pale, one-eyed face glared at her.
"Liming?"
"Maria?"
"What the
FUCK are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same question! What-"
There was another crunch in the distance. Both looked up. One of the interior patrol. They sheathed their weapons hastily and drew back.
"I asked first," growled the demon. Liming fought down a roll of her eyes.
"I am pursuing my foolish disciple. In aid, I might add, of
you."
"What?"
"Lan Hua. Idiot that she is, I have discovered she still bears a thirst for just vengeance upon your sergeant. To give in to that thirst, however, would damage coalition relations, and worse, it would dishonour the great and honourable Divine Sabre Palace."
Maria's glare intensified.
"Do you see this? This is me
not mentioning the Jin Empire."
"Hush, cur, lest my temper outweigh my sense. Now why-"
"Draconis," came the terse reply. "Fucker's doing the same damn thing. They must have been preparing for this."
"A duel," Liming murmured. "Of course. They are not stupid. Do it quietly, somewhere deniable-"
"Minimize possibility of backlash. Whichever one lost… well. It's the Line. Someone must have got them from the other side."
The two stared at each other.
"My suggestion is this. We set aside our sect and clan, for a moment, and serve the greater good. I shall take Lan Hua back, and you shall do the same to Draconis. We shall beat sense into their heads, and then never speak of this again."
"Yeah. Yeah. Smart. Come on."
The two turned away from each other, and slipped deeper and deeper into the night. The tension stretched out with each step. They could not brook discovery – the consequences could be
terrible – but neither could they allow sloth to dog their steps. Too easily would that leave their errant juniors to their own, murderous, devices.
Then, at last, they came upon the woodshed. But, OH, CALAMITY! From within, the sounds of brutal conflict already emerged! The hard thud of flesh on flesh! The grunts and gasps of violence, kept as close to silence as possible! They had already begun!
There was no time to lose.
"Quick," snapped Liming. "Go for the door."
Maria didn't. She had frozen, her one eye locked on the woodshed.
"Maria, for the sake of
honour, we have to go, now."
"…No way."
"They have
BEGUN, you fool!"
"No way in
hell-"
Liming lost patience. There wasn't time for this. If the foolish Devil would lose her nerve, than the Sabre would save them both. She sprinted across the distance, locked her hands upon the door, and flung it open.
---
For the rest of his life, Draconis would remember this as the worst, most embarrassing, painful moment he had ever experienced. And it had been so good right up to when it wasn't! He'd had his love's strong, powerful arms twined around his shoulders, her legs encircling his hips, and her teeth buried in his neck. All had been silken skin and whispered passion.
And then Liming had shown up. And not in the way he'd secretly fantasised about, either. No, she had flung open the door, sword half-drawn, with a righteous condemnation on her lips that had frozen the instant she'd seen what was going on. Lan Hua had flung herself off him like a scalded cat, but that didn't actually
help much because they'd been pressed against the woodshed wall, so all she actually did was flail at him and manage to hit him in a very,
very delicate spot. Then, as the pain ran through him, dragging him into a bow-legged, curling bow, Maria had shown up.
And stared.
And pointed.
And laughed.
"Captain," he wheezed, "if I could please explain-"
"I can't believe this," she gasped. "I can't. You… hah… you and Lan Hua-"
At the mention of her name, his paramour snapped out of her horrified silence. "Senior!"
"I have gone mad," said Liming. "I have gone completely and utterly mad."
"Senior, please, I-"
"This is the only explanation I can see. Otherwise, I have discovered a proud daughter of the Righteous Path… and a
Golden Devil…"
Liming visibly grasped for the right words. The captain, proving herself to be the kind of person who put out fires by flinging wine on them and laughing, offered up a few options.
"Fucking? Riding? Shagging? Having it away? Dropping the donkey down the shafts?"
"Oh my Gods," whispered Lan Hua, covering her face in horror.
"Not the first time you said that this evening, is it?"
"MARIA!" Liming's face seemed on the verge of turning inside out. At that, the captain seemed to calm down.
"Oh, relax, will you? This is good."
"…HOW?! How is this good? By what metric-"
"They're not trying to
KILL each other, you fool. Come on. Put your big girl pants back on. The grudge is, very clearly, over. Yeah?"
"…Yes, but-"
"And this is thoroughly unlikely to ruin coalition relations, because neither of them are going to
tell anyone."
"But-"
"Trust me. They won't. I mean, would you?"
Liming's face stilled.
"…No," she said slowly. "No, I wouldn't."
"Right. So as long as they're being careful – Oy. You two. You being safe?"
Draconis felt his brain disintegrate at the thought of having to answer this question to his
Captain of all people. Lan Hua, however, saved him.
"I have a pot of Maiden's Decorum brewing in my room," she muttered, avoiding Maria's eyes. "And Draconis is wearing a sheathe."
"Grand. So we're unlikely to have a little witness along in nine months to fuck everything up. All they have to do is keep their mouths shut and be better about not getting distracted, and we're golden."
Liming was clearly still chewing over this for a moment.
"…We should perhaps put a stop to this?"
"No!" snapped Draconis, echoed (to his deep and abiding relief) by Lan Hua.
"Senior, I- He is honourable in his heart," said the love of his life.
"I will not leave her," he growled.
She put her hand on his back. He tried not to blush. It was a good moment.
Maria immediately ruined it.
"He's that good?"
"CAPTAIN!"
"What, it's a fair question! She's risking being expelled from her sect over you, 'Conis! And you're not that impressive from this angle."
He felt the world die by inches.
"He- it's cold," muttered Lan Hua rebelliously. The inches became feet.
"Not that cold. Still, besides the point. We try and force them apart, Liming, and they'll only fight us on it. Best we just… let it stay private. Alright? And the two of them swear not to be so stupid again."
"I swear," said Draconis.
"As do I," echoed Lan Hua.
Liming considered. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"You are wise, for a devil."
"Wiser than you can imagine. Let's go get drunk."
---
The idea for this showed up while I was writing First Assignment. It's actually kind of sad considering what happens later in turn nine and at the start of turn ten. Still, maybe you laughed!
@Humbaba @Alectai @Kaboomatic , may I have a threadmark please?
