Chapter Text
A fire roared in Dimitri’s chest, every biting breath stoking the flame. He had almost made it; the ocean flitted between the cracks of tight alleys and confetti-littered streets. With each unsteady stride, he watched the white walls of the palace that loomed in the sky behind him grow smaller. A loose stone block caught his shoe, a gasp clawed through his throat, and he brought his attention back to the road.
A crowd was packed onto the side of the sett paved street—a sea of old caps and wide-brimmed floral hats whistling and waving his flag above their heads—and Dimitri scampered into their midst. A group of men laughed boisterously. A woman squealed in surprise as Dimitri squeezed past her leg. An officer blew his whistle across the street. Dimitri turned at the sound, but behind the parading tanks, the officer was looking elsewhere; scolding two boys climbing a lamppost and trying to get a better view.
He slipped from the crowd and into an alley. Bystanders who watched from the fringe stood on their toes, shielding their upturned eyes from the sun. Beyond them, a humble dock rested on the sea in the shade. It was barren, save for one young man, climbing from the wing of his biplane. He met eyes with Dimitri and froze.
Dimitri rushed to the water. His shoulders heaved, his legs numb and knees rattling as he slowed to a stop next to the plane, just coming alive.
“Jump!”
Glenn shouted, over the roar of the engine and the gust of the propeller. He had one boot in the cockpit and the other on the rim of the fuselage, which was proudly painted their country’s gallant blue. Glenn’s face was obscured behind the remnants of his ponytail, whipping violently in the wind, but when he smiled, and his eyes shined like the sun on the sea, not even the Fraldarius family’s jet-black hair could distill the light.
But the gap between the plane and the dock was insurmountable in Dimitri’s nine-year-old-eyes, and the water beneath it, so black. The waves threatened to snatch him up and pull him beneath their oppressive weight, and Dimitri knew he would drown.
Glenn reached out, his hand swallowing Dimitri’s completely. “You can do it!” he called.
Dimitri braced himself. Then he braced himself again. But no matter how hard he tried, his knees were locked in place.
The plane began to stir. The water beneath it rippled in low waves that lapped at the barrels keeping the dock afloat. Glenn’s hand was slipping away. Dimitri would watch helplessly from below, given no choice but to return to the burden of the palace behind him: its stuffy ceremonies and halls weighty with anxiety. He looked up at Glenn, a twinge—a silent plea for direction—in his brow.
He was drowning already.
With a grunt, Glenn leapt from the plane and wrapped Dimitri in his arms. A pleasant heat cradled him, his heart fluttering in his chest. There, so close to Glenn, the world quieted. Glenn’s leather gloves and jacket were coarse against him, but Dimitri was comfortable.
The plane was getting away, though; he watched it crawl along the water at a significant pace. Glenn’s grip tightened around him, and suddenly he was plucked from the dock with only a small yelp in protest. With Dimitri in one arm and the other on the rim of the fuselage, Glenn cleared the watery gap—made it look impossibly easy—and dropped back into the cockpit.
Dimitri fell into his lap, rumbling gently with the engine. Glenn fastened his seatbelt around both shoulders and his goggles around his head. “Hold on tight, and stay close to me!”
Dimitri clung to his jacket until his fingers ached. The engine roared louder. The plane moved faster, leaned higher, higher toward the sky until it jarred forward and startled another weak cry from Dimitri. Embarrassment burned his cheeks when Glenn laughed. “You’ll be safe with me, Your Highness. If I let anything happen to you, your father would never let me hear the end of it!”
Glenn toiled familiarly with pedals and levers Dimitri could barely identify. Machinery inhaled and exhaled around his ears, like the plane was alive. With a grunt, Glenn pulled back on the yoke, and they bounded along the waves until the water loosed its fierce grip on them, releasing them into the air.
Glenn turned his head up and unzipped his jacket. “You’re going to be cold,” he said, tugging its side out from under his belt. He wrapped the wool lining around Dimitri’s shoulders and held him close. Glenn’s jacket damped the noise much less than the stone walls of the palace. The plane was louder than he ever imagined.
Was he in the sky now? How high were they above the port? His stomach turned at the thought. But when he met Glenn’s gaze again, his eyes shrouded by the glint in his goggles, his expression hadn’t changed. He smiled at Dimitri with reassuring bright whites, and set the pounding in his chest at ease. “You’re lucky you’re so small, Your Highness! I’d never allow passengers in here otherwise!”
Sylvain always called him a runt. But if it meant Glenn would take him into his plane like this again, Dimitri wanted to be small forever.
“What are you watching me for?” He nodded toward the sky. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime view out there!”
Dimitri blinked. He hardly realized he was gawking. The plane breathed a sigh of relief and quieted when they settled in the sky, and his head, heavy with tension, became lighter on his neck. With quivering arms and only a little reluctance, Dimitri pushed himself higher.
Blinding light pierced his eyes. The sun cast harshly through the windshield, but when he blinked away the glare he was transported to another world; an endless painting without a frame. Heavy clouds parted for sunbeams—like the golden strokes of a painter’s brush—and made the ocean shimmer. Dimitri thought the lighter clouds that hovered beside them would be soft if he could touch them. And high above, beyond glistening wings and a steel jungle of struts, wispy, white clouds spattered a rich, blue canvas.
Tears stung Dimitri’s eyes. A cold gasp grazed his throat as he lifted himself astride Glenn’s lap, and the tips of his ears and fingers prickled in the frigid wind. It howled and battered his face, blowing away his tears when he leaned over the side of the plane to glimpse below.
“Dimitri!” Glenn grabbed his tunic, his hand big and strong, and held him in place. “Careful!”
On the sea, the clouds made shadows across tiny, toy-like islands, where little people mingled on nearby boats. Some islands were so small, just a single building stretched from one shore to the other. Fhirdiad spanned across the coast behind them, royal blue and silver flags strung along her distant docks. Dimitri spotted the colorful tent-tops of vendors selling to parade-goers; the soft blue of the Fraldarius’ busy workshop and its glistening metal shed; and the white concrete of the palace that dominated the horizon. They dwarfed Dimitri when he stood in their shadows, but in the air, they all seemed so insignificant.
A squawk brought his gaze back to the sky. Terns flew above and below them, soaring alongside him as if he, too, were a bird. The thought made him giggle.
Dimitri took a deep breath. The air tasted sweeter here. “Glenn!” His voice sounded different, too: light and airy. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”
Glenn’s reply was muffled by the engine, the fans and the wind. But when Dimitri faced him again, he was still smiling. Glenn reached out and took Dimitri’s hand, holding it to his smile and pressing soft lips to his knuckles. Although it was customary—although countless people held his hand that way—Dimitri’s heart raced.
“This beautiful country belongs to you, Your Highness! It belongs to all of us!” He said. “I swear, I’ll protect it with my life!”
Glenn opened his jacket to him again, and Dimitri buried himself in his embrace for warmth. The sky was bitterly cold and unkind, but exhilaratingly so. From within Glenn’s arms, he watched the flock of terns, wondering where in the world they were flying, and if they would ever return.
Glenn sat through a thorough scolding from Dimitri’s father after they landed that morning. He and Dimitri both spent an hour in the King’s chambers being reprimanded, and Glenn was sentenced to a full day of sweeping the palace courtyard for his negligence. Dimitri watched all the while from his bedroom window as Glenn endured his punishment with an earnest smile on his face.
✵✵✵
The turbine coughed up a cloud of dark smoke, and jet-black hair billowed in his face. Felix grimaced away from the engine as it sputtered its fumes, then quieted. The fan blades slowed as he combed his loose bangs back into the knot on the back of his head.
“You plan on joining me sometime today, Fraldarius?” A vibrant head of ginger hair appeared between the propeller blades. Sylvain leaned on the outside of his plane, casually toying with the strap of his aviator hat.
“It’s this damn Adrestian engine! I can’t get it started again!” His frown tightened as he kicked the metal, then tried once more. The crank caught, and screeched when Felix wrestled it free. “We’ll be chasing pirates across the strait all day because of this junk!”
“Hey now, is that any way to speak about your new overlord?”
The surveillance ship’s captain’s boots rang along the metal grates above them. “Stop standing around, Fraldarius! A new report says the Iron Thieves stole more than just riches from the cargo ship: there’s missing artillery and ammo, too!”
It was your slow communications that delayed the message, Felix thought. Those thieves are mediocre at best, but they’ve had enough time to stuff their weapons fat and then some.
Sylvain threw up a lazy salute. “I’ll whip him into shape, Captain.” The crew outside dragged open the hangar doors and let in a gust of air. The scuffed, two-headed eagle on the tail of Sylvain’s plane glided past. “I’ll bet you wish you had your dad’s handiwork right now!” The raucous sound of his laughter followed him all the way onto the deck.
Finally, Felix’s engine hummed and sputtered to life. But before he could back away, it ignited, wheezed, and spit up more smoke in his face. The gust knocked his bangs out of their knot once more. With a groan, Felix clasped the buckles of his hat around his chin. At the very least, the engine stayed on.
He tore the crank from the engine and threw it into the cockpit, following suit from the lower rung of blood-red wings and fastening himself into his seat. Felix pulled his goggles over his eyes and tightened the strap on the back until a light pressure squeezed his head. The flight deck personnel guided them from the hangar, and with a gloved-thumbs-up from Sylvain, they were ushered onto the open ocean.
Wind soared past his face as they glided from the ship. Felix handled his fighter familiarly; hardly the cadet he was two years ago. With the slightest tilt of its nose, the plane caught wind and began its ascent. Felix tugged on the lever to his right, crammed between the seat and inner walls, and the landing gears under the floats retracted. The seaplane’s movements smoothed out with them tucked away.
Felix glanced down at the map stuffed carelessly by his feet. The 800 kilometer distance from here to the nearest Albinean shore isn’t anything to sneeze at, he thought. Would a cheap group like that be willing to make the trip?
Felix swiveled his signal lamp toward Sylvain, flying just above him in the sun. “PIRATES ATTACKED RHODOS THIRTY MINUTES AGO,” he clicked in code. “GOING TO CHECK SOUTH-WEST.”
“Near Idris?” Sylvain replied aloud. “I was thinking the same thing!”
“BACK ME UP.”
Felix turned, watched his fighter’s internal compass settle between south and west, and waited for Sylvain to follow.
“Hey, Felix! I can hear you just fine! How ‘bout a little conversation to pass the time, buddy!”
Felix was going to ignore him. But that comment annoyed him. “LEARN TO SPEAK IN CODE.” He jammed at the button, irritated. “M-O-R-O-N.”
Sylvain laughed. His plane—a perfect match to Felix’s, aside from the scratch across the sigil on its tail—made an elegant dive toward the waves, and Felix watched him curiously over the cockpit. What is that dimwit doing? A chorus of cheering and squealing followed, and Felix had his answer. He groaned again. Sylvain circled the ferry, in a feat of acrobatics meant to impress the girls on the water. Felix had seen his stupid reverse eight before.
Sylvain caught up a few minutes later. He had a satisfied grin on his face as he settled back in front of the sun.
“Are you done?” Felix shouted.
This time, Sylvain tilted his signal light down toward Felix and began to spell.
“V-I-R-G-I-N”
Felix felt his face go hot before he could finish the word. He made a lunge in Sylvain’s direction, which he familiarly avoided, leaving Felix to make an embarrassed roll in the open air. His engine spouted a frustrated cloud of smoke.
The two passed the Rhodos Coast in good time. On Felix's left, its white sands and clear, shallow waters disappeared between the emergent coastlines of Mateus territory and the cavernous fjords of Barony Dominic. He brought his gaze back to the horizon before him, but Sylvain had already followed his line of sight.
“‘If only we could go back to those days…’ Is that what you’re thinking?” he said, a teasing trill in the words. Felix didn’t reply.
Heavy clouds were at their backs now. The last thing we need is to get rained out against the coast, Felix thought, or for our visibility to be shot by the weather. The boats below them were cautiously frozen further out at sea. Sylvain waved to the men on deck. They continued that way until—just as he thought—a large float plane came into view behind a rocky cove. It was the pirates. They had changed course southward to the closer shore, and were just north of the headland of Idris.
The Iron Thieves were led by the slow-witted Kostas. Their seaplane was sluggish and hulking. It had two great pairs of wings with three engines mounted on them, and a deep green coloration, like mold. They settled atop the waves near the coast, and two of the pirates peered out of the cockpit with their machine guns in hand, pointed toward the clouds. The waves carried along Kostas’ panicked, gravelly voice.
“Aim! Idiots! He’s right in front of you!”
More gunfire followed, to no reaction. Felix traced the line of their aim. There above them came a blue glint. He squinted.
The glint became a plane. It dove in close, and one pirate hid from its gust behind his arms. Then the plane flew up again, and drew Kostas’ aim. The pirates were generous with their fire, but the pilot was playing them for fools.
There’s no mistaking it. Felix recognized that royal blue; the way it hummed and twirled in the air around its target. The clouds reflected in its paint, as if an extension of the sky: a force of nature. That plane belonged to…
“The Ashen Demon,” Sylvain scoffed. “He beat us to it. Well, at least someone was quick on their feet, for the hostage’s sake.”
“What did you say?”
“The Ashen Demon? Felix. You need to get out more.”
Felix shook his head. Of course. When the plane came closer into view, it didn’t resemble that model. There were too many modifications. It was a monoplane, for one, and there were no landing gears; the fuselage itself was the float. This was a true seaplane, bound to the water.
And yet, there was some uncanny feeling of familiarity about the way it flew.
“…No, the last part. A hostage?”
“Ahh. The captain told me while you were toiling. The pirates took a hostage to buy themselves time to escape.” Sylvain said. “Oh, they’ll be fine,” he added, when he saw Felix’s expression. “They wouldn’t kill someone over some ammo. Our orders were to rescue them.”
The groaning was beginning to make Felix's throat sore.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because, I finally got the chance to fly over the ocean again! I wanted to enjoy myself!”
The two of them closed in on the fight, and Felix watched the pirates in his scope panic at the sight of the military planes. We have to approach carefully. Maybe they won’t kill an unarmed hostage, but they’ll certainly defend themselves from arrest… Killing them will waste less time.
One of the pirates aimed their fire at Sylvain, who spun out of its way as they made their descent. The Ashen Demon hadn’t let up either. He had hardly given their leader the chance to regroup. How long had they been pinned like that? He should’ve had countless chances to kill them by now. The Demon had Kostas squarely in his sights.
Right there.
He didn’t take the shot. Instead, he flew overhead and let Kostas waste the last of his bullets. Why? Kostas tossed aside the empty gun. His comrade scrambled to get him another, loaded firearm, which was thick-bodied and brand-new. It must’ve been from the cargo ship. Kostas aimed and let out another round. Felix flinched from the size of the shell alone. In an explosive blast, it burst open in the air. Despite the shrapnel’s range, the blue plane gracefully evaded it. Kostas shouted.
“Don’t toy with me, you coward!”
At that, the Demon fired. His gunfire trailed across the water next to him and up the wing to a nacelle. The engine exploded in a cloud of smoke, and Kostas gave a cowardly whimper as he flinched behind his gun. Felix noticed, then, that the opposite engine was burning too. He’s incapacitating them.
Felix and Sylvain could hardly find an opening to intervene. They circled helplessly nearby.
“What should we do?” he shouted. He could barely hear himself over the fight.
“He’s going to let them go!” Sylvain replied.
Before he could ask why, a stray shot flew in Felix’s direction. We need to end this, and fast. The sooner the pirate leader is dead, the sooner we can help the hostage and get things on the Rhodos Sea back to normal.
Felix dove for the pirates. He tried to center Kostas in his scope, then flew up again when he got too close. He watched the Demon readjust himself, too, as if in response. When Felix tried again, he had Kostas right where he wanted, just below the crosshair. He squeezed the trigger, and—
—The Ashen Demon dove right in front of him. The shot tore apart his left wing through to the engine atop it. Oil burst into the sky like an inky black firework. Felix seized up on his plane, grimacing as he braced for impact.
Waves bursted white beneath them as they crashed into the water. The pirates held their guns on them, waiting to see what happened. A wave passed, and Felix caught sight of the Demon’s rudder shift, and the two ailerons on his wings snapped to extreme positions. The plane swerved to its side—nearly capsizing if not for the floats on the wings—and when it made a complete turn, the Demon opened-fire. Bullets ripped into the metal around Felix’s head. He ducked beneath the windshield just as an explosion rang out and deafened him.
The shots went quiet. The smell of smoke crept into the cockpit. Felix raised his head from the cover of his arms and found oil dripping from the lines of the frame, and he cursed. Had the Demon not aimed so high, the bullets would have pierced his head as well. Felix tore himself out of the cockpit and leapt onto the wing. Without thrust, all our planes are useless hunks of metal.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. Felix threw his goggles and aviator hat inside, and black strands of hair fell back into his face. “This is the Empire’s property! I’m trying to help you!”
The Demon responded with his signal light.
“YOU HIT ME FIRST.”
“So? You dove right in front of me!”
“NOW WE’RE EVEN.”
Felix’s jaw dropped. “What are you, a child?”
The Demon’s boots clunked confidently against the familiar plane as he lifted himself from the cockpit and onto its body. The pirates watched him behind their absurd stockpile of guns, but he didn’t seem afraid. Does this bastard have a death wish? An ocean breeze blew the Demon’s scarf behind him, like white seafoam against his plane.
“Give up the hostage and you can go,” he said. The demand left no room for argument, and yet there was no attempt at intimidation in his voice. Rather, he sounded totally calm; almost fond.
“How generous,” Kostas replied. He looked afraid, like the deal was too sweet, and his eyes darted to Sylvain still circling above. The burly man was missing teeth, which gave his voice a spitty tremor. “Don’t you want to take our treasure back to Adrestia?” He asked. “Or better yet our heads?”
“I have nothing to do with that. You can keep whatever’s left, you’ve already wasted enough of it.” The Demon ran his glove along the mark of a bullet that had scuffed some blue paint. It was there before Felix and Sylvain arrived.
“If you insist.” Kostas laughed, and gave a half-toothed smile.
Before Felix could protest, another pirate ignited their only remaining engine; just enough to carry them away on the waves. As promised, the hostage—a young-looking woman—poked her head out of the cockpit, and was promptly shoved into the water with a shout.
“Shit! Don’t let them escape!” Felix braced his foot back in the cockpit and tried the pull cord inside to revive his engine. It hardly acknowledged his efforts. “Sylvain!” He shouted. “Go after them!”
Sylvain had since nestled on the waves between Felix and the Demon, and was helping the woman from the water.
“Sorry. Someone’s gotta get this hostage back home,” he said. “Just let them go, we did what we were ordered.” Sylvain grunted when he hoisted her up and guided her to the passenger’s seat of his plane. “Are you alright? What’s a fine lady like you doing on an Adrestian cargo ship, anyway?”
“Um…” She let go of Sylvain’s hand and gripped her wet brown hair. Her face was soaked and frightened. “I’m a radio operator. I was working…”
“A military girl?” He chuckled. “I like it! You really are a treasure worth stealing.”
The hostage blushed—like all of Sylvain’s prey did—and thanked him. He received the gratitude with a big, smarmy grin. Felix gripped his fists and groaned so loud it could be heard all the way across the strait in Albinea.
He braced himself as the waves from the fleeing Iron Thieves’ floatplane rocked his fighter, then settled under him when the pirates were well on their way southward. Soon enough, they floated away into the fjords. They hurled insults, but only when they were safely out of sight.
“Bye-bye, you Imperial cowards! Go kiss Hresvelg’s boot!”
Felix blew a strand of misplaced bangs out of his scowl. Bold words for fleeing thieves, he thought.
A peaceful silence overcame the coast when Sylvain took off to return the hostage, and the Thieves’ waves died down. Those distant, heavy clouds crept ever closer, and were surely going to rain on them. There was a gap in the clouds big enough for the sun to shine brightly on the emergent coastline.
The Ashen Demon had attempted to start his engine again: manually, atop the wings. Maybe it’ll give him enough to make it to dry land? It gave a congested cough, and promptly died. Felix sighed. We’ll have to wait for someone to come for us, he thought. Hopefully they’ll get here before the storm does.
Felix hopped along the rocky coastline and onto the blue wing opposite the Demon. A familiar shiver crawled up his skin when he landed on it. The oil from the Demon’s engine had settled on his skin and in his dark hair, and when he flicked a splotch from his cheek it left a careless black smear under his eye. He didn’t respond when Felix called out to him.
“Why did you stop me?”
Again, the Demon’s engine sputtered and quieted. He grunted. The bare metal exposed from the fight had bullet holes up, down and all around it, and it poured syrupy black fountains that settled on the surface of the ocean. It was clearly inoperable, and yet he wouldn’t stop fumbling with it, as if only to keep himself occupied.
“Can’t you see that thing is broken? I’m talking to you. Next time they decide to break the law, someone really will get hurt. Why did you let them go?”
The Demon paused. He took a deep breath as he watched the black, oily waves rocking his plane; obsessively, as if some invisible force fixed his eyes on the water. There wasn’t a hint of an expression in the man’s face when he finally steeled himself and met Felix’s gaze.
“If I killed every bounty I took on, I would be out of work.”
✵✵✵
