Come Josephine in My Flying Machine [Day 23: Air]
“Come on! Where’s your sense of adventure!”
“It fell off a giant bridge with that train. Or maybe it went overboard on the Tasha.”
“Yes but airships haven’t tried to kill us yet!” The former Grand Duchess drags her husband by the arm toward the boarding zone of the Graf Zeppelin, which has recently opened for commercial flights across the Atlantic.
“Anya…”
“Dmitri…”
Dmitri sighs. He knows sooner or later Anya will get her royal way with this, as always. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.
“You’re the one who wanted to see America.”
“Yeah, and we can get there perfectly fine by boat. Sure, we’ve had our share of… struggles… with sea-faring vessels, but I’d be much less worried about it if we weren’t miles above the surface of the Earth.”
“What’s wrong,” she mocks. “Are you scared of heights?”
“No!” Dmitri responds, a little too quickly. “Of course not! I just think it’s an unnecessary risk. Those things crash all the time! If you ask me, air travel is just a novelty, a fad. In ten years it’ll be a thing of the past!”
“Then let’s make history.”
“Remind me why I married someone as stubborn as me?”
“You never were the bright one…” The crowd ahead of them starts to move.
“Looks like they’re boarding. C’mon, Dmitri,” she goads, as if he were Pooka. “You know you want to!”
“Anya, my princess, YOU have a deathwish.”
“Well then you’ll just have to rescue me. For old time’s sake. Like before you became all boring and safe.” Dmitri rolls his eyes and watches the loading of the dirigible warily. Suddenly, he hears soft singing next to his ear, slowly trying to egg him into action.
“Come… Josephine… in my flying… machine!”
He stares at her unimpressed. “Oh I get to be Josephine, do I?”
“If the shoe fits, Dimya. Going UP!” she gooses him. “she goes! UP! she goes!”
“Stop that!”
Anya is full-out prancing around and singing, which should be unbecoming of royalty but at this point, he’s used to his life being like a scene in a musical.
She makes airplane motions with his arms. “Balance yourself like a bird on a beam in the air she goes! There she goes!” He glares at her with as much mock loathing as he can muster before joining in.
“Up! UP! A little bit higher! Oh, my! The moon is on fire! Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up! All on! Goodbye!”
“Seeeeee…” she oozes huskily behind his ear. “You want to go!”
Dmitri huffs, grabs his share of the luggage, and starts for the zeppelin, muttering all the way.
Anya laughs out loud, grabbing her things and following behind the man she’s learned to play like a fiddle. “I knew you’d break!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Who knew flirting with you was so much easier than challenging you all the time? Although admittedly less fun.”
“Oh, something tells me you haven’t given up that tactic.”
“I’m a Romanov; I know what I want, and I always get what I want.” Anastasia reaches into her purse and pays for their tickets, pocket change in comparison to her family’s vast fortune.
“Which reminds me, I call bottom bunk!”
“Oh, no… you wanna fly, fly high!”
“Don’t hit the moon!” She runs on board. They race to their room like the stubborn children they are at heart.
Dmitri ends up in the top bunk.