Chocolate Fic for katmillia 2/2
To: katmillia
From: greatfountain
Title: Atlas
Pairing: Tegoshi Yuya/Becky, Yokoyama You/Kamenashi Kazuya, Kato Shiegaki/Yamashita Tomohisa, past Akanishi Jin/Becky; Tegoshi Yuya & Kamenashi Kazuya friendship, Tegoshi Yuya & Kato Shigeaki friendship
Rating: R for violence
Summary: Becky is a tempest, and Tegoshi is caught in the eye of the storm.
Author's Notes: For katmillia. I really hope you like this, when I got you as an assignment I was both really excited and really nervous since I'm a huge fan of your work. Thank you to B for her fantastic, last-minute beta work.
IMPORTANT LATIN WORDS THAT MAY BE HELPFUL: Insula means island, pugnaculum means fortress.
There are five horses: sleek, well-groomed creatures of the highland style, and Tegoshi finds himself hitched to a lead line behind Becky and then Kamenashi in short order, following the path back east, toward Corceus. Becky seems out of sorts, balanced precariously on the back of her beast, but she doesn't seem likely to fall off just yet, so Tegoshi drags his attention away and spends a few minutes re-acclimating himself to the steady rhythm of riding a horse. When he looks up again he sees Yokoyama glancing at him. Curious, Tegoshi stares at the other man for a long moment, and Yokoyama looks away, flushing.
"What?" Tegoshi asks, when his curiosity gets the better of him, "something on my face?"
"No," Yokoyama says, shortly.
"Shut up back there," Kamenashi orders, and Tegoshi has had enough.
"Or what? You'll gag me?" he asks.
"No, but I'll make you wish I had," Kamenashi snaps, "I cannot believe you. You can escape from Insula Gratia but you get captured in the first town you come to? What kind of soldier are you?!"
"What?!" Tegoshi squawks, "how was I supposed to know Becky is apparently a very popular lady in Kalendell?!"
"And you," Kamenashi says, stopping his horse to turn and scowl at Becky. "Are you a pirate, or are you an idiot?"
Becky looks nonplussed. "Can I take a minute and summarize here? You're not mad we escaped, you're mad we got caught."
Kamenashi seems brought up short by that, all the winds taken out of his sails, and he visually deflates a little. "And mad you didn't think to let me in on your plan," he adds, "you're not the only ones interested in protecting the Queen."
Becky glances back at Tegoshi, but he's as surprised as her. "How do you know what we were doing?" Tegoshi asks, carefully.
"Kato installed a listening device in Miss Becky's chambers," Kamenashi says, and his smile is gleeful as Tegoshi curses.
"That's why it took so long to transfer me," Tegoshi accuses, and Kamenashi looks pleasantly peaceful for a moment, which is all the confirmation Tegoshi needs. "Then why didn't you say anything when I came to you for the transfer letter?"
"I thought we'd catch you before you got to the boats, but Kato missed my message to detain you because he was too busy arguing with Yamashita," Kamenashi says; his eyebrow twitches in a way that's as interesting as it is mildly alarming, and Tegoshi is glad he's not the only one Kamenashi is mad at. Not that he's that concerned; clearly Kamenashi is interested in keeping them alive, at least.
"So now what?" Becky asks, "some of us are on a schedule."
"Now we meet up with Yamapi and Kato, and ride with their caravan until we get to the Balta River. Then you guys go on ahead and we turn north to keep Ridley's forces occupied," Kamenashi says.
"Caravan?" Becky squeaks, "like... horse caravan?"
"Yamapi's father is a horse lord," Kamenashi says, slowly, "so yes. It's slower than if we were going on our own, but it's safer, with troops all over."
Becky looks down at her mount, and takes a deep breath. "Well, the faster we get to them the faster we get to the capitol," she says, "which way, boss?"
"Don't encourage him," Tegoshi groans, but Kamenashi looks gratified.
"All right, children," Kamenashi says, and turns at the waist to unhook Becky from the back of his saddle. Becky blinks at the loss of the lead line, and then turns her head to look at Tegoshi. He bumps his horse forward with heels to its side, and pulls himself off of her lead line on his own.
"Don't you make me ride this horse without help," Becky hisses at him, and Tegoshi swallows laughter to affix the lead line hanging from her horse's neck to the peg at the back of his saddle. Becky seems much happier once she's on a line, and her horse follows Tegoshi's readily.
Tegoshi follows Kamenashi’s horse at a ready canter, despite only having his knees to direct the animal, and he still manages to be a better rider than Yokoyama, who is pale and desperately holding on. Privately, Tegoshi congratulates himself. (He does it publicly, too, when Yokoyama comments his hair is looking a little long, much to Yokoyama’s chagrin.)
The sun has begun to set and Kamenashi is beginning to look a little suspicious of the compass attached to his saddle horn when the line of trees abruptly stops, and camped out on the flatlands beyond is the caravan. It’s lean, well-armed and mostly riders; Tegoshi has only ever seen the horse caravans during their winter exodus across the border to the Republic through the mountains, where land is still green even when it is white and cold in the flatlands. Those caravans center on the women and children, and are bulky and fat with tent carriages, elders, and food and supplies to trade.
Yamashita is at the center of the camp, in an open, well-lit tent. Even from across the camp Tegoshi can make out that he’s shining his long, hooked pole arm, and that next to him, huddled miserably in his cloak and trying to balance a book on his knees simultaneously is Kato. Tegoshi sets his heels to the horse, and it’s off immediately. It’s clearly a horse from the tribe’s stocks, since it picks its way through the tents easily (and, if Becky’s desperate squawks are to be believed, leading the second horse well, too), and Tegoshi pulls the horse up with the Rendan word for stop, affirming his suspicions.
Yamashita is up on one knee, his pole arm out, and Shige is ducked halfway behind him, one hand up in his ready position. They both freeze when Tegoshi slides off the horse, and then Shige finds himself with Tegoshi’s arms heavy around his waist. Yamashita laughs at them both, hand warm on Tegoshi’s bicep for a moment, and behind them Tegoshi can hear him greeting Becky.
"I see you still look seasick when you’re around horses," Tegoshi teases.
"Shut up," Shige drawls.
---
He’s pressed around a low dinner table with Kamenashi and Shige for the midnight meal. "So how’d you end up bringing Yamashita along?" Tegoshi asks, between bites of well-spiced meat. Becky is across the tent, already in with the soldiers and telling stories that keep them in roars of laughter.
"Funny story, that," Shige says, with a half-laugh, "apparently, Yamashita was never in the army at all--he came to Insula Gratia as part of a diplomatic envoy to see if the rumors we were shipping Rendan horses in as meat were true, and he got confused and ended up in charge of food."
Tegoshi thinks that might be the funniest thing he’s heard in days, and falls into a fit of laughter that leaves him teary and breathless. "So we drafted the prince of the horse lords into being our requisitions officer?" he demands.
Kamenashi looks perplexed. "I didn’t think the horse lords had a king."
"Oh, Kame," Tegoshi says, "Kame, Kame, Kame. You didn’t pay attention in school! He’s the heir of the Rendan horse lords, and they’re the eminent tribe, he’s the de facto prince of the horse lords."
"Oh god," Shige says, and makes a strangled noise, "I told the prince of the Rendan horse lords he was the world’s biggest idiot."
"I think he likes it," Tegoshi admits, winking at Shige, "did you know the horse lords don’t limit marriage to child-bearing couples? He might be thinking of proposing to you!"
"Marriage?!" Shige squawks, and it’s then exactly that Yamashita chooses to join them, slinging an arm around him.
"Are you okay?" Yamashita asks, "is the meat all right? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable..." There’s unfortunate innuendo there, Tegoshi’s brain decides, bringing on another laughing fit that has Shige flushed to the roots of his hair and Yamashita looks like a deer in the headlights.
"I’m okay," Tegoshi says, breathlessly, "go on without me!"
Tegoshi likes traveling with the caravan for the five days it takes them to reach the river. Yamashita calls a stop at noon each day to give the horses a chance to rest when the sun is highest above them, and in the gap of time his warriors hone their weapon skills. Becky tracks down the weapons master on the second day and manages to get ahold of a pair of small pistols designed to be fired in tandem by a smaller person, and she returns Tegoshi’s back-heavy dueling pistol to practice on her own. She’s terrifying, and her aim rarely misses.
Kamenashi spends time whipping Yokoyama into something like shape each day with sparring matches using their military-issue long swords. Kamenashi is vicious and focused, and Yokoyama’s height and sense of self-preservation keep him from being too easy for Kamenashi. The horse warriors are fearsome with their dancing spears and curved sabers, and they impress Tegoshi, but the same can’t be said about him at first. His rapier is flawlessly kept, but the whip-thin blade always seems too small to be much use until it’s singing through the air. Tegoshi sees the exact moment Yamashita’s personal guards, Takizawa and Imai, change their opinions about him--when he shoots from the low Heron in Grass to the Heron in Flight deathblow. He sheaths his rapier at the end of the set, just long enough to receive fifteen (or so) sparring challenges. He beats them all.
Tegoshi joins Becky among the warriors for dinner that night, and listens to her regale them with ridiculous misadventures, wordlessly resting his hand light on her left knee.
"And then," she says, throwing her hands up in an energetic flourish, "Jin says, ‘oh, I just needed to see, so I lit a match’. I look at him and I say, ‘Jin, you just blew up a Republic cannon ship because you needed a light? You have a lantern tied to your waist!’ And he looks down and he goes, ‘oh, that’s right, I do’."
Tegoshi laughs, because he can see her pirate partner’s face. "He’s an idiot."
"The world’s biggest," Becky agrees, and she sounds unspeakably fond.
It hurts, and Tegoshi pulls away, pushing his plate away and leaving the tent with complaints of an aching stomach. It’s cold now that the sun’s gone down, but Tegoshi ignores it as he moves through the calming moves of the fourth set of stances his master taught him. He’s hyperaware of every movement as he ducks into Wolf Lunges and then jumps forward into Raven Dives. Becky is standing just outside his reach as he straightens and sheaths his rapier, and in each hand is a horse saber. She offers one to him in silence, and he takes it, unbuckling his sword belt one-handed and dropping it on the grass. After a moment of thought, he strips off his sweat-heavy linen shirt, and drops it across the pile.
She follows suit without any hesitation, and then they’re both set. Becky has been training with the horse warriors for the past few days, strengthening both her horse-riding and her sword arm, and Tegoshi has no doubt she’ll be a talented opponent. They both feel the moment the fight truly starts--a quickening that coils in Tegoshi’s spine and along his muscles--and Becky is immediately in his reach, forcing herself to his loose left side and ducking his strikes at her with the right. It’s a maddening strategy and obscenely effective. Tegoshi grunts when she gets an elbow in at his ribs, stumbling back, and then he over-reaches on the recovery, which is when she gets a foot on his shin and shoves him onto his ass. She’s immediately on top of him, her sword clattering against his and her small hands spread wide over his wrists.
The air outside has gotten colder, and the soil underneath him is chilled with it, but he’s warm all over. Becky leans back, and smiles. "My win," she says, and he nods, grudging.
"So in celebration of my victory, you can tell me what’s wrong," she says, poking him in the ribs so he jerks under her hips.
"You’re going to join back up with that idiot pirate and leave me behind," he accuses, finally.
It hangs in the air between them for a moment, and her face goes still. "You’re an idiot," she says, finally, "no one’s ever asked if I want to go back to being a pirate, have they? They just assume--"
Then she gets off of him, and she’s off, ignoring him as she hauls her shirt on over her head. She ignores him in the tent they share, and when he wakes the next morning she’s already gone, her bedroll packed up on her horse outside and her voice coming from within a knot of women warriors. Tegoshi is in the midst of checking his saddlebags when Kamenashi approaches, and he nods at his Captain in greeting.
"Yamapi says you should go south starting after the lunch break," he says. "When you get into the capitol, try and find the Queensguard. The captain, Nagase, will be able to help you." He watches Tegoshi move to the stirrups of Becky’s horse, and after a moment of awkward hedging, he begins to speak again. "Tegoshi, about Becky..."
"Save it," Tegoshi warns, "don’t talk to me until you have your eggs in order."
That brings Kamenashi up short. "We’re about to be at war, I have too much to think about, and, anyway, there are no eggs to get in order!"
"Uh-huh," Tegoshi says, raising an eyebrow.
"Your eggs are splattered all over the floor, so you are in absolutely no position to talk," Kamenashi says, finally, expression icy. That’s the last they speak of it; Tegoshi’s always admired his superior’s ability to multi-task in that sense.
---
Tegoshi directs for Becky to tug on the reins, and when she does he touches the hinge of the bridle. Satisfied it will hold up under duress, he lets go and steps away, catching her eye. Her horse is named Andras, the Rendan word for ‘tempest’, and it suits both her and the gray-black creature underneath her. In comparison, the dun he’s chosen--Nelta, or hawk--seems a poor substitute, but underneath her skin is the buzz of powerful, coiled muscles, and Tegoshi is content with his choice.
"Sorry about yesterday," she says, "that wasn’t fair."
Tegoshi shrugs. "Not a big deal," he says.
Yamashita and Shige wave in eerie tandem, and Becky waves back, whistling a tune Tegoshi recognizes as a dirty drinking song, and it reminds him once again that she’s not as innocent as she appears. Then Tegoshi hauls himself up into his saddle, and digs his heels into his horse’s side. Nelta breaks into a trot, and then they’re off.
Becky’s become a much better rider in their time at the caravan; Tegoshi’s impressed, and he says as much, when they’re several hours down the trail, making their way between more regular patches of trees. Becky’s thrown herself up in her stirrups to get a better look in front of them; she turns her body toward him at the waist and preens for all of a moment before she nearly unbalances. She settles back on her saddle with a tight grasp of the saddle horn between her hands.
"Let me take point," Tegoshi says, as they crest a hill. Below them is a much darker glen of trees, and Tegoshi’s not terribly interested in watching Becky pick her way down at half speed.
Becky pulls back and waits for him to pass, and Nelta reacts naturally, scaling down the hill easily. Andras follows after a moment, and it isn’t until the sun has begun to sink below the horizon that they make their way to the edge of the forest. Tegoshi pulls up short before they stumble out of the tree line, lifting his fist to signal Becky to freeze, and he hears the movement of her horse stop immediately. In the clearing ahead are troops, Kimura's by their sigils, though Tegoshi can't recognize any of the officers. It's a small force, only fifty men or so. Judging by the way they're breaking bread together in front of their tents, they're setting a lightless camp, and they look miserable about it.
"We need to go around," Tegoshi says, and spurs Nelta backward until she can turn around. "Doubling back is going to take us a while, but I'd rather not get arrested by Kimura's men twice on one trip."
"Once was good enough for me," Becky agrees, and they begin the long trip around in the half-light of sunset.
By the time they both feel comfortable enough to try and get a night's rest, the moon is fat and bright above them. The horses fall to grazing and dozing nearly immediately once Tegoshi ties them off and they strip off the harnesses. Becky pulls bread and a pair of canteens out of her bag, tossing a canteen to Tegoshi, and raises her own in solemn salute. Tegoshi bumps his canteen against hers, and they eat quickly. Tegoshi had had an orange in the afternoon, but he's eaten little since, and he's ravenous all of a sudden.
When he's able to slow down a bit, he looks up at her. "So, after all this is over," he says, "what do you want to do?"
Becky blinks, surprised by the question, and then shifts around, stretching her legs out straight in front of her. "I think I'd like to be a diplomat," she says, and cuts off his raised eyebrows by continuing, "no, really! You get to go all over and see all sorts of things, and while you're there you try to get people to do what you want. Sounds like a dream job to me! Think of all the clothes and the art and the technology and the food!"
"Ruthless, cutthroat negotiations in secret rooms and public functions with everyone admiring you..." Tegoshi adds.
Becky rolls her eyes. "I'd love to see the Sky City. Or even better, live there."
Tegoshi hums, thinking of everything he's ever heard of the Sky City. "There are worse places," he agrees, "though I’d think the novelty must wear off after a while."
"Apparently," Becky says, and she's electrifying as she gets into recounting the rumors she's heard, "whenever the city starts to get a little stale, their President has the entire city flown somewhere new, so they all have somewhere new to learn the customs and fashions from. The city is basically separated into streets that are this country or that country, and the fashions change with every one! How exciting is that?"
"Meanwhile, half of Tilda's still wearing last summer's fashions because half the dukes won't let their daughters go to the capitol," Tegoshi says, "I wish they'd see--the Queen's made everything even better than her mother managed to. Fifteen years ago we were the poorest duchy in the kingdom, and now my father does business with nearly every nation in the world."
"Change scares them," Becky says, quietly.
Conversation dwindles from there, and they huddle together in the chill of night, ducked under a blanket on their bedrolls. Becky wakes with the rising of the sun, and despite the sleep clinging to his eyes, Tegoshi rouses himself to gobble down another orange and pull himself up on his horse. They have two days of travel to go, and Tegoshi intends to be as early as he can. The trip is largely silent, both of them quiet for once under the heavy cloak of exhaustion, and it's only when the sun is high above them that Becky seems to perk up. She points out a cloud above them that resembles a swan, and they make a game of it until they're forced to stop by the darkening of the sky.
"Do you want to stop?" Tegoshi asks, as the sun begins to set.
Becky shakes her head, fiercely. "We've wasted enough time," she says, and Tegoshi agrees. They ride until Tegoshi thinks he's about to drop off his horse, and they crash until sunrise after a quick, cold meal of jerky. Becky's up at sunrise again, her eyes serious, and they ride the horses faster for this, the last day of their trip. Nelta seems to enjoy running for its own sake, but Andras makes everything into a race, and Tegoshi takes the horse's challenge seriously (despite Becky not caring one way or another about Tegoshi's rivalry with horse, she goes along with it, anyway, her good humor matching Nelta's). The race that takes them within a stone's throw of the capitol's massive front gates is a tie, it's decided later, and they're both in high spirits as they duck into the city. Porphyreus, the crown of Tilda and the capitol of the kingdom, doesn't seem to realize the tensions that threaten it from outside, the guard lax and easy to avoid as long as they're quick. Becky ducks in among a caravan of pilgrims, pulling a scarf over her sweat-slick hair, and Tegoshi adds to a column of pages gathering their master's horses, ducking his head away from familiar guardsmen until he can break off and stow the horses at the Rendan horse pavilion outside the marketplace.
"Thanks," he says, in low Rendan, making the young woman renting horses out to travelers jerk in surprise. Tegoshi tilts his hand at her in easy farewell, and then he weaves between loud merchants hawking their wares. It's easy to lose himself in the rhythm of the city, easy to become anonymous and forgettable, until he steps inside their agreed-on meeting place, the tavern Tabi. Becky is already there, tucked into a booth in the rear corner, her hands wrapped around a mug of ale.
"Ale, over here," Tegoshi calls at the bar as he slides in across from Becky, and the owner--a slim, dark-haired woman from the neighboring Republic of Jamus--pours it for him before coming over herself, handing it off and folding herself in next to Becky. She smooths her hands primly over the pleats of her skirt, and finally settles her weight forward on her elbows.
"Tegoshi," she says, "nice of you to come home."
"Nice to be home," Tegoshi drawls. "Nicer to get a free beer out of it." He bats his eyelashes ridiculously, and the owner delicately ignores him.
"Now, why are you home," she asks, arching an eyebrow.
"I need to find the Queensguard," Tegoshi says.
To his surprise, the woman laughs, full and throaty. "That's easy," she says, "find the loudest tavern and look for the loudest man. Captain Nagase is a capable captain and even more capable drunk, if you understand my meaning."
"He's been relaxing with the Queen away?" Tegoshi asks.
"Relaxing's not the word I'd use," the woman disagrees, her voice taking on a sort of gravity. "There've been fights, instigated by ducal troops, you see. Nagase incites them and then throws them in jail. And drinks a lot doing it, but every man has their vices, right?"
Tegoshi nods. "Any idea where we'd find him this evening?" he asks, trying to stay casual, "we've got a question for him."
"He likes cheap bars--the kind where soldiers drink. He was at the Crane night before last, so I'd bet he's at the Raven tonight. If I were a betting sort of woman."
Tegoshi nods, and gathers up the beer he's barely touched. In nearly one gulp, he guzzles it down, and passes the woman a gold coin. "For the information, and the beer," he says, "I miss good Porphyrian beer on the Insula."
"Good luck, whatever you're mixed up in," the woman says, as they're leaving; she's already wiping down their mugs in the relative silence of the bar.
"Thanks," Tegoshi says, and follows Becky down the street.
They're stopped, when they reach the corner, by a sleepy-looking man in the sharp blue uniform of the mage corps. He looks confused, and Tegoshi sniffs the air to see if he can find alcohol on him, but instead all he catches is the sharp herbal scent of paints and the fresh whiff of sea salt. "You're trying to help her," the man says, "you're Shige's friends."
Becky glances up at Tegoshi, eyes wide, and Tegoshi bends closer to talk to the man in low tones. "Yes," he agrees, "we are. On both accounts."
"Good," the man says, sounding satisfied, "then this will probably mean something to you: the duke of Mantsua was seen with the Queen's spymaster in a secret meeting place last night. Take from that what you will." The man pats Becky's arm companionably, and begins to depart; Becky catches him tightly by the sleeve, and tugs him back.
"What's your name?" she asks.
"Ohno, of the Magisterium Aquatic," Ohno introduces himself, "nice to meet you."
"Yeah," she says, and lets him go to wander down the street.
Tegoshi meets her eye, and her expression matches his own surprise. "Guess we have a name," he says, "the duke of Mantsua is only second to the duke of Atlas in all the rumors I've heard."
"Sometimes I thought--from the way they spoke to each other--that the duke of Mantsua is really the power in this whole thing," Becky says, face grim. "If he's being directed by the Spymaster, I might just be right."
---
"That's him," Tegoshi says, when the massive captain of the Queensguard enters the bar, flanked by what appears to be nearly half of his unit. They easily fill half of the bar; adding onto that the group of guys with the rough accents of Mantsua, and the sudden tension in the air presses in on all sides. Tegoshi sidles a little closer to Becky, hunching over his beer and trying to be inconspicuous.
Becky's adjusted her outfit, tugging on a leather shirt not unlike the ones worn by the female Rendan horse warriors under her loose linen shirt, effectively squashing her breasts so she looks like a slim, pretty young man with long hair. A nobleman's son, escaping from the castle for a night of ale in privacy, with his page or servant, perhaps, and Tegoshi only rankles a little, since it allows him to sit as close as he can. Becky calls for her third beer of the evening, ignoring Tegoshi's warning glance, and downs half of it in one gulp. That draws the attention of a Mantsuan man, and in short order, Tegoshi finds himself cheering Becky on in a drinking contest, judged by none other than Nagase himself.
Tegoshi thinks Nagase will drink both contestants under the table by their eighth (and his tenth) mug of beer. The man looks entirely unfazed by the alcohol in his belly, though Becky's been ruddy and giggly since about the third or fourth. The soldier seems to be pacing himself, eyes unfocused but his grip sure as he downs one after another. Becky goes down after her thirteenth, cursing them all in slurred, half-asleep syllables, and Tegoshi hauls her off the table to make room for the next poor sucker. Tegoshi drops Becky on a bench, calling for a glass of water, and shakes Becky awake enough to drink it without choking on it.
"Yuya," Becky says, "you are not bad, you know that?"
"Thanks for that ringing endorsement," Tegoshi drawls, nonetheless touched. "Here, drink." Becky takes a sip dutifully, and then puts it on the table. She struggles upright, resting her hands on his shoulders with some force, and smiles at him so brightly Tegoshi's insides do something funny. Then, to his surprise, she hauls him down for a messy, sloppy smooch, which is why Tegoshi misses whatever happens behind him in the crowd and incites a fight. From what he can make out, a chair has been broken, and no one can agree on who broke it. Nagase is half-heartedly calling for order, but it's obvious from the way he's not forcing the two arguing men apart that he doesn't care as much as he should. Tegoshi shoves Becky off long enough to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand--her aim was off, and wet besides--and turns to watch the first punch being thrown.
"Is there a fight?" Becky asks, and reaches blindly for the pistols Tegoshi confiscated before they even got into the bar.
"Not for you, there isn't," he says. The fight has begun to spread, and Tegoshi stands to avoid being stepped on. Soon nearly the whole bar has packets of scuffling going on, and Tegoshi's body is singing for a fight. He's had two beers, and he's buzzing to move around, when a man stumbles at him, and he settles back into a boxing stance automatically. Tegoshi's never been much of a hand-to-hand fighter (rather, the opposite, as he likes his face too much to get punched there, and he's aware jealousy will incite lesser men to greater violence, or something like that), but against an off-balance, drunk man, even he's able to get a solid punch in under the flail of his arms.
As soon as his knuckles thud against the man's cheek, the man drops to the ground, groaning and otherwise motionless. Tegoshi steps back, staring down at him, and then turns on his ankle to help Becky sit up.
Then, the fights begin to disperse, and from outside, it seems obvious why: Nagase has joined the fight, cracking skulls and mercilessly tripping guys with hooks of his feet behind their ankles, and the duke's troops know enough to back off. Nagase's troop rounds the rowdier soldiers up and escorts them out. All told, the bar's not in terrible condition, besides a few broken mugs on the table and the aforementioned broken chair. Nagase bends to lift both the broken leg and the rest of the chair, and he peers at them both.
"Sorry about your chair," he says to the bartender, "needed something to piss them off. I'll get it fixed tonight. What do I owe you for the glasses?"
The man names off a price that Tegoshi thinks is probably a little high, but Nagase seems to take it in stride, and tosses the coins on the bar top. "Good night," he says, "I think we've got most of their Lieutenants now!"
"You're welcome," Becky calls, and Nagase turns toward her. He takes her in, from lolling, frizzy head to her boots, and he throws his head back to laugh.
"Thank you," he says, after a minute, "that drinking contest was badass. I'll pick that one up myself--I get to get drunk and have a fight! And at the end I'm still the good guy! Big change from when I used to get into bar fights."
Becky nods, displaying all the wisdom of the well and truly trashed. "I'm sure you'll do well," she says, "now, Captain Nagase, my friend here has words for you."
"What about you?!" Tegoshi demands, whirling on her.
"Sleep now, shhh," Becky mumbles, and settles on her side, right there on the bench, to nap.
Nagase scratches at the back of his neck and gestures at Tegoshi uselessly. "Go ahead," he says, "if this is a love confession, I appreciate it, and you're real pretty-like, but I'm not interested."
"You are an idiot," Tegoshi says, "they told me you were but I never believed, my god. No, I need to talk to you about the Queen."
Nagase seems to sharpen, immediately, his attention falling fully on Tegoshi, and when he stalks across the bar toward Tegoshi he feels the first whiff of real, true danger from this man. "In the back," Nagase says, and points him toward the stairwell. Tegoshi climbs it easily, and at the top of the stair is an unmarked door that opens when Tegoshi touches the doorknob. Inside are a bed and a desk, and Tegoshi settles uneasily at the desk chair as Nagase sits on the bed.
"Is it safe to talk here?" Tegoshi asks, as the door shuts with a quiet click.
"It's spelled," Nagase answers, "Her Majesty and I meet here sometimes. Now what the hell are you talking about?"
"Her Spymaster may be involved in the ducal conspiracy," Tegoshi spills. "A mage named Ohno stopped us and said he saw him talking to the duke of Mantsua."
Nagase has gone very still. "Miida? Goddamn it, can't we trust anybody around here?" he demands. "What's your angle? Money?"
Tegoshi cocks his head. "I'm not sure what you mean," he says.
"Why're you trying to protect the Queen," Nagase rephrases.
"I like the Queen," Tegoshi says, "I'm, ah, I'm the son of the duke of Galeos. Yuya Tegoshi."
Nagase stops to take stock of what that means, and Tegoshi can nearly see the cogs working in the man's mind. Finally, after a tense moment, Nagase nods, and Tegoshi sags in relief. "This mage of yours, he was sure it was them?"
"He was a Mage Aquatic," Tegoshi says, "they can't lie, so I'm sure he thinks so, at least. It's hard to forget the Spymaster; honestly, he's kind of... remarkable?"
"Remarkably ugly," Nagase corrects, "he's a snake and a sleaze, but he did good work, so Meisa leaned on him for help when she locked herself away in the Pugnaculum Albus."
"She's locked herself on the White Island?" Tegoshi asks, "sorry, we've been--out of the loop, since we came down from. Um, from Atlas."
"That's Ridley's girl out there, right?" Nagase guesses. "She's a rough sort, isn't she? The first time she came to a royal meal she almost toasted the Queen."
Tegoshi nearly chokes on the mental image of that, and finally manages a nod. "She was a pirate, before," he says, "Her Majesty hired her and her partner to do reconnaissance."
"She said something about that once," Nagase agrees, "I dunno, she talks a lot. I ignore her most of the time, unless she's telling me to beat somebody up. Works better for everybody that way, right?"
"...absolutely," Tegoshi says, "I'm glad the Queensguard is responsible for Her Majesty's safety, with your leadership behind them."
"In front of them, you mean?"
"Either way, sir."
"Heheheh."
Tegoshi thinks Captain Nagase is a very tiresome man, but he carries Becky down to the guard quarters for Tegoshi, so he lets it slide without (much) (vocal) comment.
---
Becky wakes at morning, and immediately wishes she hadn't, forcing her eyes shut again at the beams of sunlight passing in through the windows, and only after a few minutes have passed does she open them again. She has a pounding headache, her mouth is dry as cotton, and she feels heavy and sticky and gross. She's always been a morning person, in the sense of being able to get herself moving and ready to go (with Tegoshi and Jin as her long-time traveling companions, it's become a necessary skill), but her hangover is like a hammer pounding on her skull over and over again. She groans, reaching around for the side table to haul herself upright, and nearly knocks over a glass full of cloudy, green-brown liquid. She sniffs at it, curious, but she can't smell anything weird from it. She remembers going home with the Queensguard captain the night before, and after a moment of carefully considering, she decides anything has to be better than the pounding in her skull. She lifts the glass to her lips and sucks the liquid down in short order.
It's disgusting, and bitter, but after ten minutes she notices a lifting of her headache. "Thank god," she mumbles, and forces herself out of bed, changing out of the loose linen clothing she'd been put to bed in into the Rendan leathers she's picked up during their time in the caravan, and after a moment of consideration she pulls on a light green shirt to cover her shoulders from the sun. She's barely finished brushing out the hair she'd spent an hour cleaning at a public bath house the day before when the door swings wide open, and Tegoshi walks inside, his hair perfectly coifed and his pants--red, where the hell had he gotten red pants from--perfectly pressed. "I see Yuya the duke's son is back?" she asks.
"No, Kato the merchant is here," Tegoshi corrects, evenly, and when the joke hits her she collapses into laughter.
"He is going to be so angry at you for using his name," she says.
"He'll never find out, if you don't tell him," Tegoshi answers, and it's such a perfectly arrogant answer she shakes her head and goes back to pulling on her boots.
"We're trying to find a ship to take us to the Queen," Tegoshi says, "Nagase and I, I mean. He's going to stay here and put the dukes under house arrest while we go to the Pugnaculum Albus. But apparently no one with a ship fast enough to get there before dinner is willing to hire out for us."
Becky shakes her head. "We're not renting a ship," she says, "I'm a pirate, remember?"
"I didn't forget," Tegoshi snaps, "but stealing a ship in broad daylight might be tough even for us."
"What? No, we're not stealing a ship... can I send a message from here?"
"I would think so," Tegoshi says, and trails off as she launches herself off the bed to go through her pack, tossing a piece of vellum and a quill on her bed. Ink follows a moment after, and then she's writing in her curved, childish script across the paper.
"Idiot," she reads off, when she's done, "meet me today. Time to fly the red flag high."
"Is that code?" Tegoshi asks, because he can't let that pass without comment, "because if it is, it's pretty terrible. Did Jin come up with it?"
"Are you stupid? Jin can't remember a code for the life of him. No, I just like the red flag. You pass this off to a messenger--his address is on here--and I'll check my guns. Time to get busy."
---
Tegoshi remembers very clearly the first time he met Jin Akanishi; he'd been alone in his bedroom, training alone with the rapier that was at the time his dearest friend, when a young man dressed all in black tumbled through his bedroom window with a shout. Tegoshi had bared his blade at him, only to find a pistol pointed barrel-first at him, and he'd marveled that a woman would be so bold as to wear riding leathers in a ducal palace only to remember that thieves don't much care for etiquette.
"What are you here for?" he'd asked, voice shakier than he'd wanted to admit.
"We were here for a jewel, but the idiot here messed it up," the girl had said, "so we're just heading on out, if that's all right with you?"
"Of course it's not all right with me," Tegoshi had snapped, "I'm the son of the household, you know."
"And?" she'd asked, "pistol beats sword every time."
"Rapier," Tegoshi had corrected, immediately, "it's not a sword."
She'd sighed. "All right, pistol beats rapier every time! Better, Your Highness?"
"Your Grace, if you insist," Tegoshi had said, around a smirk, and been gratified by the flush in her cheeks.
Meeting Jin Akanishi is much like the first, in that Jin makes most of his entrance by falling over; he trips down the dock ramp and nearly crashes into the water, tumbling to a stop right at the edge. "I'm okay," he calls, after a minute, and Becky throws her arms around his neck in a display of joy so unfettered by embarrassment Tegoshi is embarrassed for her, looking away.
"Jin, you remember Tegoshi, right?"
"The duke's kid," Jin recalls, and sticks his hand out for a shake. Tegoshi takes it and shakes, once. One side of Jin's mouth lifts up in a smile, and the other joins it when he looks down at a beaming Becky.
"Should we get this show on the road?" Tegoshi asks, tired of their happiness already.
"Onward," Becky calls, "your captain commands it!"
"Aye aye," Jin says, and soon they're off. The ship isn't huge--with only a crew of two, it couldn't have been large--but it's much larger than the fishing skipper, and despite his fears that he'd be throwing up over the deck the whole way over, Tegoshi's all right besides a few queasy rumblings. He's at the bow of the ship with Becky for most of the ride, looking forward for the first site of the Pugnaculum Albus, the massive white fortress-palace of the Queen and her forebears. The white marble structure doesn't disappoint when Tegoshi sees it for the first time, and he doesn't notice he's squeezing Becky's hand within his own until she pulls away, wincing.
"Sorry," he mumbles, but his face must say something, and she only shakes her head.
Jin manages to pull them in without a collision. "Wow, you are capable," escapes Tegoshi's mouth before he can stop it, and Jin pulls a face at him before Becky turns around to glare them both into silence. There are few guards in the castle--Tegoshi would guess that most are with Nagase in the city, holding the harbor quiet while Tegoshi and Becky do their part--and Jin seems on a first-name basis with most of them, leading both of them through the throne room and up to the center spire's staircase.
"Up there," he says, pointing his thumb up, "I've gotta make sure our friend the Spymaster's troops are occupied when shit goes down."
"Good luck," Becky says.
"Don't die in there, partner," Jin says back, and they touch fists. Tegoshi pushes down a roiling wave of jealousy, and begins the trek up to the Queen's study.
There's a girl outside, wearing a pistol on her hip, when they arrive at the top. "We're here to talk to Her Majesty," Becky says, "I'm Becky. Jin's partner?"
The girl salutes Becky. "Go on in," she says, eyeing Tegoshi's weapons suspiciously but letting them both pass without comment.
The Queen--Her Royal Highness, Meisa, Duchess of Albus and Sovereign of the Kingdom of Tilda--is curled up at her desk, reading from a book. Tegoshi drops to one knee immediately, protocol ingrained in his bones, and Becky bows low at the waist when Meisa looks up at them.
"Becky," Meisa says, brightening, "why are you here?"
"News," Becky says, "we have a reliable report of who your traitor is."
Meisa nods for her to continue, and Tegoshi can see her holding her breath before Becky speaks. "It's Miida. The Spymaster."
Meisa sags in her seat. "Of course it is," she says, "damn it. The one person I trust with all my secrets and it's the one man out to usurp me."
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," Becky says, "a Mage Aquatic saw him meeting with the duke of Mantsua."
"No, thank you for bringing me this info--" there's a sound of shouting outside the room, and Meisa directs both Tegoshi and Becky toward the back room of the office. Becky ducks down behind a bureau, and Tegoshi tucks himself between two massive fur coats that smell as if they've never been worn. He's able to see into the main room if he cranes his neck carefully, and once the pot-bellied Spymaster passes the door Tegoshi does so.
"Your Majesty, that pirate brat you're so enamored with just took my guard prisoner!"
"No, Miida, I'm sure Akanishi is just making the best possible use of my guardsmen. And they are my guardsmen, aren't they? They're not mercenaries you hired, they serve the crown. You are perfectly safe here in the Pugnaculum."
"Not without my guards I'm not!"
Tegoshi twitches at the man's tone. Meisa's voice is icy when she speaks next. "Careful, Miida, remember who put you where you are."
"Remember who put you where you are, Your Majesty, I've always served you to the best of my--" there's the ringing sound of a shot, and Tegoshi stumbles out of the coats with Becky right behind him and his pistol already in his hand, hoping the Queen is all right--Tegoshi stumbles to a stop.
The Queen is sitting coolly at her desk chair as if it's a throne, a smoking pistol held steadily between her fingers. "I believe I find myself in need of a new spymaster," she says, gaze flicking up over Becky.
"Not me, I'd be terrible," Becky says, "why not Ohno? He's a Mage Aquatic, so he can't lie to you, and he seems like he knows things. Secret things. Which is exactly what you need!"
"A Mage Aquatic as spymaster... and Nagase really deserves a promotion, but I need a Queensguard captain and none of his lieutenants are really capable..."
Jin stumbles into the office then, with a gun held in his hands. "What the hell is happening in here?!" he squawks.
Meisa smiles, and it's a terrifying smile. "Jin," she says, "what do you think about working for me?"
"Is beer part of my stipend?"
"As much as you want."
Next to him, Becky presses her fingertips to her temples, and Tegoshi gains a new respect for her sunny personality. "As for you," Meisa says, and they both straighten up.
"What am I to do with you?" she asks, "a pirate and the second son of a duke, fugitives from Insula Gratia--oh, yes, I know all about that--and nowhere to go but back to prison? That seems like a waste of resources."
Tegoshi glances at Becky. "I have an idea," he says.
"Go on," Meisa says, and leans forward.
---
It's been a year, and Shige can barely remember most of the rush of it. He'd served in a battle as Yamashita's battlemage, then spent most of the rest of the small skirmishes helping light signal fires and aiding the wounded, and when he'd gone to the capitol to meet with the Queen afterward, he'd found himself promoted. The green and black stripes of the Court Magician on his left shoulder are gratifying, and Shige's glad for the way that he gets to boss people around and perform research without having to explain himself to his teachers, but it's still a little strange to him.
Especially since he's concerned half the reason he got the promotion was to play babysitter to Her Majesty's other agents. Ohno, the spymaster, is a smart man, and talented at spying and secret-keeping, but he's continually escaping the palace to go fishing, and Jin is... himself. Thankfully, with Yamashita permanently installed at the palace as the Rendan diplomat, and Kamenashi serving as the much-beleaguered Minister of Finance, Shige’s not completely alone.
When he lets himself into the Queen’s Chamber Council, where her closest ministers and agents gather to discuss details without the interference of the dukes into every conversation, it’s already nearly full. At the foot of the table is Kamenashi, apparently having his daily argument with Yokoyama, who splits his time between the palace and the system of orphanages the Queen has recently established. Jin and the Queen are nowhere to be seen, but Shige folds himself into a chair between Yamashita and a sleepy-looking Ohno just as she enters.
The Queen seems more relaxed than usual when she sits at her chair at the head of the table, and when she unfolds a piece of paper Shige can see why. "Becky sent me a letter. Shall I read it before we get distracted by whatever ridiculous budget Minister Kamenashi wants to bombard me with today? Excellent."
’Greetings, Your Majesty
The Sky City is even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Tegoshi has taken to the court here like a bird to flight. He already has half the royal family imitating his every move, and that’s only in the arena of fashion! He’s made quite a splash here.
Tegoshi says I have, too, but I merely won first place in a hunting contest. Other than that all I do is make deals behind closed doors, I’m nothing remarkable.
Progress on the project we were sent here for is going slowly, but smoothly. I anticipate that, when Tegoshi’s sanction is up in a year, we will be fully capable of returning home and having the second biggest wedding in Tilda. I’ll let you have the biggest, since you’re the Queen and all.
Give everyone my love, and tell Jin to behave.
Yours,
Ambassador Vaughn’
"Wait, she’s getting married?!" Jin manages, and Meisa folds up the letter in order to hit him over the head with it.
From: greatfountain
Title: Atlas
Pairing: Tegoshi Yuya/Becky, Yokoyama You/Kamenashi Kazuya, Kato Shiegaki/Yamashita Tomohisa, past Akanishi Jin/Becky; Tegoshi Yuya & Kamenashi Kazuya friendship, Tegoshi Yuya & Kato Shigeaki friendship
Rating: R for violence
Summary: Becky is a tempest, and Tegoshi is caught in the eye of the storm.
Author's Notes: For katmillia. I really hope you like this, when I got you as an assignment I was both really excited and really nervous since I'm a huge fan of your work. Thank you to B for her fantastic, last-minute beta work.
IMPORTANT LATIN WORDS THAT MAY BE HELPFUL: Insula means island, pugnaculum means fortress.
There are five horses: sleek, well-groomed creatures of the highland style, and Tegoshi finds himself hitched to a lead line behind Becky and then Kamenashi in short order, following the path back east, toward Corceus. Becky seems out of sorts, balanced precariously on the back of her beast, but she doesn't seem likely to fall off just yet, so Tegoshi drags his attention away and spends a few minutes re-acclimating himself to the steady rhythm of riding a horse. When he looks up again he sees Yokoyama glancing at him. Curious, Tegoshi stares at the other man for a long moment, and Yokoyama looks away, flushing.
"What?" Tegoshi asks, when his curiosity gets the better of him, "something on my face?"
"No," Yokoyama says, shortly.
"Shut up back there," Kamenashi orders, and Tegoshi has had enough.
"Or what? You'll gag me?" he asks.
"No, but I'll make you wish I had," Kamenashi snaps, "I cannot believe you. You can escape from Insula Gratia but you get captured in the first town you come to? What kind of soldier are you?!"
"What?!" Tegoshi squawks, "how was I supposed to know Becky is apparently a very popular lady in Kalendell?!"
"And you," Kamenashi says, stopping his horse to turn and scowl at Becky. "Are you a pirate, or are you an idiot?"
Becky looks nonplussed. "Can I take a minute and summarize here? You're not mad we escaped, you're mad we got caught."
Kamenashi seems brought up short by that, all the winds taken out of his sails, and he visually deflates a little. "And mad you didn't think to let me in on your plan," he adds, "you're not the only ones interested in protecting the Queen."
Becky glances back at Tegoshi, but he's as surprised as her. "How do you know what we were doing?" Tegoshi asks, carefully.
"Kato installed a listening device in Miss Becky's chambers," Kamenashi says, and his smile is gleeful as Tegoshi curses.
"That's why it took so long to transfer me," Tegoshi accuses, and Kamenashi looks pleasantly peaceful for a moment, which is all the confirmation Tegoshi needs. "Then why didn't you say anything when I came to you for the transfer letter?"
"I thought we'd catch you before you got to the boats, but Kato missed my message to detain you because he was too busy arguing with Yamashita," Kamenashi says; his eyebrow twitches in a way that's as interesting as it is mildly alarming, and Tegoshi is glad he's not the only one Kamenashi is mad at. Not that he's that concerned; clearly Kamenashi is interested in keeping them alive, at least.
"So now what?" Becky asks, "some of us are on a schedule."
"Now we meet up with Yamapi and Kato, and ride with their caravan until we get to the Balta River. Then you guys go on ahead and we turn north to keep Ridley's forces occupied," Kamenashi says.
"Caravan?" Becky squeaks, "like... horse caravan?"
"Yamapi's father is a horse lord," Kamenashi says, slowly, "so yes. It's slower than if we were going on our own, but it's safer, with troops all over."
Becky looks down at her mount, and takes a deep breath. "Well, the faster we get to them the faster we get to the capitol," she says, "which way, boss?"
"Don't encourage him," Tegoshi groans, but Kamenashi looks gratified.
"All right, children," Kamenashi says, and turns at the waist to unhook Becky from the back of his saddle. Becky blinks at the loss of the lead line, and then turns her head to look at Tegoshi. He bumps his horse forward with heels to its side, and pulls himself off of her lead line on his own.
"Don't you make me ride this horse without help," Becky hisses at him, and Tegoshi swallows laughter to affix the lead line hanging from her horse's neck to the peg at the back of his saddle. Becky seems much happier once she's on a line, and her horse follows Tegoshi's readily.
Tegoshi follows Kamenashi’s horse at a ready canter, despite only having his knees to direct the animal, and he still manages to be a better rider than Yokoyama, who is pale and desperately holding on. Privately, Tegoshi congratulates himself. (He does it publicly, too, when Yokoyama comments his hair is looking a little long, much to Yokoyama’s chagrin.)
The sun has begun to set and Kamenashi is beginning to look a little suspicious of the compass attached to his saddle horn when the line of trees abruptly stops, and camped out on the flatlands beyond is the caravan. It’s lean, well-armed and mostly riders; Tegoshi has only ever seen the horse caravans during their winter exodus across the border to the Republic through the mountains, where land is still green even when it is white and cold in the flatlands. Those caravans center on the women and children, and are bulky and fat with tent carriages, elders, and food and supplies to trade.
Yamashita is at the center of the camp, in an open, well-lit tent. Even from across the camp Tegoshi can make out that he’s shining his long, hooked pole arm, and that next to him, huddled miserably in his cloak and trying to balance a book on his knees simultaneously is Kato. Tegoshi sets his heels to the horse, and it’s off immediately. It’s clearly a horse from the tribe’s stocks, since it picks its way through the tents easily (and, if Becky’s desperate squawks are to be believed, leading the second horse well, too), and Tegoshi pulls the horse up with the Rendan word for stop, affirming his suspicions.
Yamashita is up on one knee, his pole arm out, and Shige is ducked halfway behind him, one hand up in his ready position. They both freeze when Tegoshi slides off the horse, and then Shige finds himself with Tegoshi’s arms heavy around his waist. Yamashita laughs at them both, hand warm on Tegoshi’s bicep for a moment, and behind them Tegoshi can hear him greeting Becky.
"I see you still look seasick when you’re around horses," Tegoshi teases.
"Shut up," Shige drawls.
---
He’s pressed around a low dinner table with Kamenashi and Shige for the midnight meal. "So how’d you end up bringing Yamashita along?" Tegoshi asks, between bites of well-spiced meat. Becky is across the tent, already in with the soldiers and telling stories that keep them in roars of laughter.
"Funny story, that," Shige says, with a half-laugh, "apparently, Yamashita was never in the army at all--he came to Insula Gratia as part of a diplomatic envoy to see if the rumors we were shipping Rendan horses in as meat were true, and he got confused and ended up in charge of food."
Tegoshi thinks that might be the funniest thing he’s heard in days, and falls into a fit of laughter that leaves him teary and breathless. "So we drafted the prince of the horse lords into being our requisitions officer?" he demands.
Kamenashi looks perplexed. "I didn’t think the horse lords had a king."
"Oh, Kame," Tegoshi says, "Kame, Kame, Kame. You didn’t pay attention in school! He’s the heir of the Rendan horse lords, and they’re the eminent tribe, he’s the de facto prince of the horse lords."
"Oh god," Shige says, and makes a strangled noise, "I told the prince of the Rendan horse lords he was the world’s biggest idiot."
"I think he likes it," Tegoshi admits, winking at Shige, "did you know the horse lords don’t limit marriage to child-bearing couples? He might be thinking of proposing to you!"
"Marriage?!" Shige squawks, and it’s then exactly that Yamashita chooses to join them, slinging an arm around him.
"Are you okay?" Yamashita asks, "is the meat all right? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable..." There’s unfortunate innuendo there, Tegoshi’s brain decides, bringing on another laughing fit that has Shige flushed to the roots of his hair and Yamashita looks like a deer in the headlights.
"I’m okay," Tegoshi says, breathlessly, "go on without me!"
Tegoshi likes traveling with the caravan for the five days it takes them to reach the river. Yamashita calls a stop at noon each day to give the horses a chance to rest when the sun is highest above them, and in the gap of time his warriors hone their weapon skills. Becky tracks down the weapons master on the second day and manages to get ahold of a pair of small pistols designed to be fired in tandem by a smaller person, and she returns Tegoshi’s back-heavy dueling pistol to practice on her own. She’s terrifying, and her aim rarely misses.
Kamenashi spends time whipping Yokoyama into something like shape each day with sparring matches using their military-issue long swords. Kamenashi is vicious and focused, and Yokoyama’s height and sense of self-preservation keep him from being too easy for Kamenashi. The horse warriors are fearsome with their dancing spears and curved sabers, and they impress Tegoshi, but the same can’t be said about him at first. His rapier is flawlessly kept, but the whip-thin blade always seems too small to be much use until it’s singing through the air. Tegoshi sees the exact moment Yamashita’s personal guards, Takizawa and Imai, change their opinions about him--when he shoots from the low Heron in Grass to the Heron in Flight deathblow. He sheaths his rapier at the end of the set, just long enough to receive fifteen (or so) sparring challenges. He beats them all.
Tegoshi joins Becky among the warriors for dinner that night, and listens to her regale them with ridiculous misadventures, wordlessly resting his hand light on her left knee.
"And then," she says, throwing her hands up in an energetic flourish, "Jin says, ‘oh, I just needed to see, so I lit a match’. I look at him and I say, ‘Jin, you just blew up a Republic cannon ship because you needed a light? You have a lantern tied to your waist!’ And he looks down and he goes, ‘oh, that’s right, I do’."
Tegoshi laughs, because he can see her pirate partner’s face. "He’s an idiot."
"The world’s biggest," Becky agrees, and she sounds unspeakably fond.
It hurts, and Tegoshi pulls away, pushing his plate away and leaving the tent with complaints of an aching stomach. It’s cold now that the sun’s gone down, but Tegoshi ignores it as he moves through the calming moves of the fourth set of stances his master taught him. He’s hyperaware of every movement as he ducks into Wolf Lunges and then jumps forward into Raven Dives. Becky is standing just outside his reach as he straightens and sheaths his rapier, and in each hand is a horse saber. She offers one to him in silence, and he takes it, unbuckling his sword belt one-handed and dropping it on the grass. After a moment of thought, he strips off his sweat-heavy linen shirt, and drops it across the pile.
She follows suit without any hesitation, and then they’re both set. Becky has been training with the horse warriors for the past few days, strengthening both her horse-riding and her sword arm, and Tegoshi has no doubt she’ll be a talented opponent. They both feel the moment the fight truly starts--a quickening that coils in Tegoshi’s spine and along his muscles--and Becky is immediately in his reach, forcing herself to his loose left side and ducking his strikes at her with the right. It’s a maddening strategy and obscenely effective. Tegoshi grunts when she gets an elbow in at his ribs, stumbling back, and then he over-reaches on the recovery, which is when she gets a foot on his shin and shoves him onto his ass. She’s immediately on top of him, her sword clattering against his and her small hands spread wide over his wrists.
The air outside has gotten colder, and the soil underneath him is chilled with it, but he’s warm all over. Becky leans back, and smiles. "My win," she says, and he nods, grudging.
"So in celebration of my victory, you can tell me what’s wrong," she says, poking him in the ribs so he jerks under her hips.
"You’re going to join back up with that idiot pirate and leave me behind," he accuses, finally.
It hangs in the air between them for a moment, and her face goes still. "You’re an idiot," she says, finally, "no one’s ever asked if I want to go back to being a pirate, have they? They just assume--"
Then she gets off of him, and she’s off, ignoring him as she hauls her shirt on over her head. She ignores him in the tent they share, and when he wakes the next morning she’s already gone, her bedroll packed up on her horse outside and her voice coming from within a knot of women warriors. Tegoshi is in the midst of checking his saddlebags when Kamenashi approaches, and he nods at his Captain in greeting.
"Yamapi says you should go south starting after the lunch break," he says. "When you get into the capitol, try and find the Queensguard. The captain, Nagase, will be able to help you." He watches Tegoshi move to the stirrups of Becky’s horse, and after a moment of awkward hedging, he begins to speak again. "Tegoshi, about Becky..."
"Save it," Tegoshi warns, "don’t talk to me until you have your eggs in order."
That brings Kamenashi up short. "We’re about to be at war, I have too much to think about, and, anyway, there are no eggs to get in order!"
"Uh-huh," Tegoshi says, raising an eyebrow.
"Your eggs are splattered all over the floor, so you are in absolutely no position to talk," Kamenashi says, finally, expression icy. That’s the last they speak of it; Tegoshi’s always admired his superior’s ability to multi-task in that sense.
---
Tegoshi directs for Becky to tug on the reins, and when she does he touches the hinge of the bridle. Satisfied it will hold up under duress, he lets go and steps away, catching her eye. Her horse is named Andras, the Rendan word for ‘tempest’, and it suits both her and the gray-black creature underneath her. In comparison, the dun he’s chosen--Nelta, or hawk--seems a poor substitute, but underneath her skin is the buzz of powerful, coiled muscles, and Tegoshi is content with his choice.
"Sorry about yesterday," she says, "that wasn’t fair."
Tegoshi shrugs. "Not a big deal," he says.
Yamashita and Shige wave in eerie tandem, and Becky waves back, whistling a tune Tegoshi recognizes as a dirty drinking song, and it reminds him once again that she’s not as innocent as she appears. Then Tegoshi hauls himself up into his saddle, and digs his heels into his horse’s side. Nelta breaks into a trot, and then they’re off.
Becky’s become a much better rider in their time at the caravan; Tegoshi’s impressed, and he says as much, when they’re several hours down the trail, making their way between more regular patches of trees. Becky’s thrown herself up in her stirrups to get a better look in front of them; she turns her body toward him at the waist and preens for all of a moment before she nearly unbalances. She settles back on her saddle with a tight grasp of the saddle horn between her hands.
"Let me take point," Tegoshi says, as they crest a hill. Below them is a much darker glen of trees, and Tegoshi’s not terribly interested in watching Becky pick her way down at half speed.
Becky pulls back and waits for him to pass, and Nelta reacts naturally, scaling down the hill easily. Andras follows after a moment, and it isn’t until the sun has begun to sink below the horizon that they make their way to the edge of the forest. Tegoshi pulls up short before they stumble out of the tree line, lifting his fist to signal Becky to freeze, and he hears the movement of her horse stop immediately. In the clearing ahead are troops, Kimura's by their sigils, though Tegoshi can't recognize any of the officers. It's a small force, only fifty men or so. Judging by the way they're breaking bread together in front of their tents, they're setting a lightless camp, and they look miserable about it.
"We need to go around," Tegoshi says, and spurs Nelta backward until she can turn around. "Doubling back is going to take us a while, but I'd rather not get arrested by Kimura's men twice on one trip."
"Once was good enough for me," Becky agrees, and they begin the long trip around in the half-light of sunset.
By the time they both feel comfortable enough to try and get a night's rest, the moon is fat and bright above them. The horses fall to grazing and dozing nearly immediately once Tegoshi ties them off and they strip off the harnesses. Becky pulls bread and a pair of canteens out of her bag, tossing a canteen to Tegoshi, and raises her own in solemn salute. Tegoshi bumps his canteen against hers, and they eat quickly. Tegoshi had had an orange in the afternoon, but he's eaten little since, and he's ravenous all of a sudden.
When he's able to slow down a bit, he looks up at her. "So, after all this is over," he says, "what do you want to do?"
Becky blinks, surprised by the question, and then shifts around, stretching her legs out straight in front of her. "I think I'd like to be a diplomat," she says, and cuts off his raised eyebrows by continuing, "no, really! You get to go all over and see all sorts of things, and while you're there you try to get people to do what you want. Sounds like a dream job to me! Think of all the clothes and the art and the technology and the food!"
"Ruthless, cutthroat negotiations in secret rooms and public functions with everyone admiring you..." Tegoshi adds.
Becky rolls her eyes. "I'd love to see the Sky City. Or even better, live there."
Tegoshi hums, thinking of everything he's ever heard of the Sky City. "There are worse places," he agrees, "though I’d think the novelty must wear off after a while."
"Apparently," Becky says, and she's electrifying as she gets into recounting the rumors she's heard, "whenever the city starts to get a little stale, their President has the entire city flown somewhere new, so they all have somewhere new to learn the customs and fashions from. The city is basically separated into streets that are this country or that country, and the fashions change with every one! How exciting is that?"
"Meanwhile, half of Tilda's still wearing last summer's fashions because half the dukes won't let their daughters go to the capitol," Tegoshi says, "I wish they'd see--the Queen's made everything even better than her mother managed to. Fifteen years ago we were the poorest duchy in the kingdom, and now my father does business with nearly every nation in the world."
"Change scares them," Becky says, quietly.
Conversation dwindles from there, and they huddle together in the chill of night, ducked under a blanket on their bedrolls. Becky wakes with the rising of the sun, and despite the sleep clinging to his eyes, Tegoshi rouses himself to gobble down another orange and pull himself up on his horse. They have two days of travel to go, and Tegoshi intends to be as early as he can. The trip is largely silent, both of them quiet for once under the heavy cloak of exhaustion, and it's only when the sun is high above them that Becky seems to perk up. She points out a cloud above them that resembles a swan, and they make a game of it until they're forced to stop by the darkening of the sky.
"Do you want to stop?" Tegoshi asks, as the sun begins to set.
Becky shakes her head, fiercely. "We've wasted enough time," she says, and Tegoshi agrees. They ride until Tegoshi thinks he's about to drop off his horse, and they crash until sunrise after a quick, cold meal of jerky. Becky's up at sunrise again, her eyes serious, and they ride the horses faster for this, the last day of their trip. Nelta seems to enjoy running for its own sake, but Andras makes everything into a race, and Tegoshi takes the horse's challenge seriously (despite Becky not caring one way or another about Tegoshi's rivalry with horse, she goes along with it, anyway, her good humor matching Nelta's). The race that takes them within a stone's throw of the capitol's massive front gates is a tie, it's decided later, and they're both in high spirits as they duck into the city. Porphyreus, the crown of Tilda and the capitol of the kingdom, doesn't seem to realize the tensions that threaten it from outside, the guard lax and easy to avoid as long as they're quick. Becky ducks in among a caravan of pilgrims, pulling a scarf over her sweat-slick hair, and Tegoshi adds to a column of pages gathering their master's horses, ducking his head away from familiar guardsmen until he can break off and stow the horses at the Rendan horse pavilion outside the marketplace.
"Thanks," he says, in low Rendan, making the young woman renting horses out to travelers jerk in surprise. Tegoshi tilts his hand at her in easy farewell, and then he weaves between loud merchants hawking their wares. It's easy to lose himself in the rhythm of the city, easy to become anonymous and forgettable, until he steps inside their agreed-on meeting place, the tavern Tabi. Becky is already there, tucked into a booth in the rear corner, her hands wrapped around a mug of ale.
"Ale, over here," Tegoshi calls at the bar as he slides in across from Becky, and the owner--a slim, dark-haired woman from the neighboring Republic of Jamus--pours it for him before coming over herself, handing it off and folding herself in next to Becky. She smooths her hands primly over the pleats of her skirt, and finally settles her weight forward on her elbows.
"Tegoshi," she says, "nice of you to come home."
"Nice to be home," Tegoshi drawls. "Nicer to get a free beer out of it." He bats his eyelashes ridiculously, and the owner delicately ignores him.
"Now, why are you home," she asks, arching an eyebrow.
"I need to find the Queensguard," Tegoshi says.
To his surprise, the woman laughs, full and throaty. "That's easy," she says, "find the loudest tavern and look for the loudest man. Captain Nagase is a capable captain and even more capable drunk, if you understand my meaning."
"He's been relaxing with the Queen away?" Tegoshi asks.
"Relaxing's not the word I'd use," the woman disagrees, her voice taking on a sort of gravity. "There've been fights, instigated by ducal troops, you see. Nagase incites them and then throws them in jail. And drinks a lot doing it, but every man has their vices, right?"
Tegoshi nods. "Any idea where we'd find him this evening?" he asks, trying to stay casual, "we've got a question for him."
"He likes cheap bars--the kind where soldiers drink. He was at the Crane night before last, so I'd bet he's at the Raven tonight. If I were a betting sort of woman."
Tegoshi nods, and gathers up the beer he's barely touched. In nearly one gulp, he guzzles it down, and passes the woman a gold coin. "For the information, and the beer," he says, "I miss good Porphyrian beer on the Insula."
"Good luck, whatever you're mixed up in," the woman says, as they're leaving; she's already wiping down their mugs in the relative silence of the bar.
"Thanks," Tegoshi says, and follows Becky down the street.
They're stopped, when they reach the corner, by a sleepy-looking man in the sharp blue uniform of the mage corps. He looks confused, and Tegoshi sniffs the air to see if he can find alcohol on him, but instead all he catches is the sharp herbal scent of paints and the fresh whiff of sea salt. "You're trying to help her," the man says, "you're Shige's friends."
Becky glances up at Tegoshi, eyes wide, and Tegoshi bends closer to talk to the man in low tones. "Yes," he agrees, "we are. On both accounts."
"Good," the man says, sounding satisfied, "then this will probably mean something to you: the duke of Mantsua was seen with the Queen's spymaster in a secret meeting place last night. Take from that what you will." The man pats Becky's arm companionably, and begins to depart; Becky catches him tightly by the sleeve, and tugs him back.
"What's your name?" she asks.
"Ohno, of the Magisterium Aquatic," Ohno introduces himself, "nice to meet you."
"Yeah," she says, and lets him go to wander down the street.
Tegoshi meets her eye, and her expression matches his own surprise. "Guess we have a name," he says, "the duke of Mantsua is only second to the duke of Atlas in all the rumors I've heard."
"Sometimes I thought--from the way they spoke to each other--that the duke of Mantsua is really the power in this whole thing," Becky says, face grim. "If he's being directed by the Spymaster, I might just be right."
---
"That's him," Tegoshi says, when the massive captain of the Queensguard enters the bar, flanked by what appears to be nearly half of his unit. They easily fill half of the bar; adding onto that the group of guys with the rough accents of Mantsua, and the sudden tension in the air presses in on all sides. Tegoshi sidles a little closer to Becky, hunching over his beer and trying to be inconspicuous.
Becky's adjusted her outfit, tugging on a leather shirt not unlike the ones worn by the female Rendan horse warriors under her loose linen shirt, effectively squashing her breasts so she looks like a slim, pretty young man with long hair. A nobleman's son, escaping from the castle for a night of ale in privacy, with his page or servant, perhaps, and Tegoshi only rankles a little, since it allows him to sit as close as he can. Becky calls for her third beer of the evening, ignoring Tegoshi's warning glance, and downs half of it in one gulp. That draws the attention of a Mantsuan man, and in short order, Tegoshi finds himself cheering Becky on in a drinking contest, judged by none other than Nagase himself.
Tegoshi thinks Nagase will drink both contestants under the table by their eighth (and his tenth) mug of beer. The man looks entirely unfazed by the alcohol in his belly, though Becky's been ruddy and giggly since about the third or fourth. The soldier seems to be pacing himself, eyes unfocused but his grip sure as he downs one after another. Becky goes down after her thirteenth, cursing them all in slurred, half-asleep syllables, and Tegoshi hauls her off the table to make room for the next poor sucker. Tegoshi drops Becky on a bench, calling for a glass of water, and shakes Becky awake enough to drink it without choking on it.
"Yuya," Becky says, "you are not bad, you know that?"
"Thanks for that ringing endorsement," Tegoshi drawls, nonetheless touched. "Here, drink." Becky takes a sip dutifully, and then puts it on the table. She struggles upright, resting her hands on his shoulders with some force, and smiles at him so brightly Tegoshi's insides do something funny. Then, to his surprise, she hauls him down for a messy, sloppy smooch, which is why Tegoshi misses whatever happens behind him in the crowd and incites a fight. From what he can make out, a chair has been broken, and no one can agree on who broke it. Nagase is half-heartedly calling for order, but it's obvious from the way he's not forcing the two arguing men apart that he doesn't care as much as he should. Tegoshi shoves Becky off long enough to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand--her aim was off, and wet besides--and turns to watch the first punch being thrown.
"Is there a fight?" Becky asks, and reaches blindly for the pistols Tegoshi confiscated before they even got into the bar.
"Not for you, there isn't," he says. The fight has begun to spread, and Tegoshi stands to avoid being stepped on. Soon nearly the whole bar has packets of scuffling going on, and Tegoshi's body is singing for a fight. He's had two beers, and he's buzzing to move around, when a man stumbles at him, and he settles back into a boxing stance automatically. Tegoshi's never been much of a hand-to-hand fighter (rather, the opposite, as he likes his face too much to get punched there, and he's aware jealousy will incite lesser men to greater violence, or something like that), but against an off-balance, drunk man, even he's able to get a solid punch in under the flail of his arms.
As soon as his knuckles thud against the man's cheek, the man drops to the ground, groaning and otherwise motionless. Tegoshi steps back, staring down at him, and then turns on his ankle to help Becky sit up.
Then, the fights begin to disperse, and from outside, it seems obvious why: Nagase has joined the fight, cracking skulls and mercilessly tripping guys with hooks of his feet behind their ankles, and the duke's troops know enough to back off. Nagase's troop rounds the rowdier soldiers up and escorts them out. All told, the bar's not in terrible condition, besides a few broken mugs on the table and the aforementioned broken chair. Nagase bends to lift both the broken leg and the rest of the chair, and he peers at them both.
"Sorry about your chair," he says to the bartender, "needed something to piss them off. I'll get it fixed tonight. What do I owe you for the glasses?"
The man names off a price that Tegoshi thinks is probably a little high, but Nagase seems to take it in stride, and tosses the coins on the bar top. "Good night," he says, "I think we've got most of their Lieutenants now!"
"You're welcome," Becky calls, and Nagase turns toward her. He takes her in, from lolling, frizzy head to her boots, and he throws his head back to laugh.
"Thank you," he says, after a minute, "that drinking contest was badass. I'll pick that one up myself--I get to get drunk and have a fight! And at the end I'm still the good guy! Big change from when I used to get into bar fights."
Becky nods, displaying all the wisdom of the well and truly trashed. "I'm sure you'll do well," she says, "now, Captain Nagase, my friend here has words for you."
"What about you?!" Tegoshi demands, whirling on her.
"Sleep now, shhh," Becky mumbles, and settles on her side, right there on the bench, to nap.
Nagase scratches at the back of his neck and gestures at Tegoshi uselessly. "Go ahead," he says, "if this is a love confession, I appreciate it, and you're real pretty-like, but I'm not interested."
"You are an idiot," Tegoshi says, "they told me you were but I never believed, my god. No, I need to talk to you about the Queen."
Nagase seems to sharpen, immediately, his attention falling fully on Tegoshi, and when he stalks across the bar toward Tegoshi he feels the first whiff of real, true danger from this man. "In the back," Nagase says, and points him toward the stairwell. Tegoshi climbs it easily, and at the top of the stair is an unmarked door that opens when Tegoshi touches the doorknob. Inside are a bed and a desk, and Tegoshi settles uneasily at the desk chair as Nagase sits on the bed.
"Is it safe to talk here?" Tegoshi asks, as the door shuts with a quiet click.
"It's spelled," Nagase answers, "Her Majesty and I meet here sometimes. Now what the hell are you talking about?"
"Her Spymaster may be involved in the ducal conspiracy," Tegoshi spills. "A mage named Ohno stopped us and said he saw him talking to the duke of Mantsua."
Nagase has gone very still. "Miida? Goddamn it, can't we trust anybody around here?" he demands. "What's your angle? Money?"
Tegoshi cocks his head. "I'm not sure what you mean," he says.
"Why're you trying to protect the Queen," Nagase rephrases.
"I like the Queen," Tegoshi says, "I'm, ah, I'm the son of the duke of Galeos. Yuya Tegoshi."
Nagase stops to take stock of what that means, and Tegoshi can nearly see the cogs working in the man's mind. Finally, after a tense moment, Nagase nods, and Tegoshi sags in relief. "This mage of yours, he was sure it was them?"
"He was a Mage Aquatic," Tegoshi says, "they can't lie, so I'm sure he thinks so, at least. It's hard to forget the Spymaster; honestly, he's kind of... remarkable?"
"Remarkably ugly," Nagase corrects, "he's a snake and a sleaze, but he did good work, so Meisa leaned on him for help when she locked herself away in the Pugnaculum Albus."
"She's locked herself on the White Island?" Tegoshi asks, "sorry, we've been--out of the loop, since we came down from. Um, from Atlas."
"That's Ridley's girl out there, right?" Nagase guesses. "She's a rough sort, isn't she? The first time she came to a royal meal she almost toasted the Queen."
Tegoshi nearly chokes on the mental image of that, and finally manages a nod. "She was a pirate, before," he says, "Her Majesty hired her and her partner to do reconnaissance."
"She said something about that once," Nagase agrees, "I dunno, she talks a lot. I ignore her most of the time, unless she's telling me to beat somebody up. Works better for everybody that way, right?"
"...absolutely," Tegoshi says, "I'm glad the Queensguard is responsible for Her Majesty's safety, with your leadership behind them."
"In front of them, you mean?"
"Either way, sir."
"Heheheh."
Tegoshi thinks Captain Nagase is a very tiresome man, but he carries Becky down to the guard quarters for Tegoshi, so he lets it slide without (much) (vocal) comment.
---
Becky wakes at morning, and immediately wishes she hadn't, forcing her eyes shut again at the beams of sunlight passing in through the windows, and only after a few minutes have passed does she open them again. She has a pounding headache, her mouth is dry as cotton, and she feels heavy and sticky and gross. She's always been a morning person, in the sense of being able to get herself moving and ready to go (with Tegoshi and Jin as her long-time traveling companions, it's become a necessary skill), but her hangover is like a hammer pounding on her skull over and over again. She groans, reaching around for the side table to haul herself upright, and nearly knocks over a glass full of cloudy, green-brown liquid. She sniffs at it, curious, but she can't smell anything weird from it. She remembers going home with the Queensguard captain the night before, and after a moment of carefully considering, she decides anything has to be better than the pounding in her skull. She lifts the glass to her lips and sucks the liquid down in short order.
It's disgusting, and bitter, but after ten minutes she notices a lifting of her headache. "Thank god," she mumbles, and forces herself out of bed, changing out of the loose linen clothing she'd been put to bed in into the Rendan leathers she's picked up during their time in the caravan, and after a moment of consideration she pulls on a light green shirt to cover her shoulders from the sun. She's barely finished brushing out the hair she'd spent an hour cleaning at a public bath house the day before when the door swings wide open, and Tegoshi walks inside, his hair perfectly coifed and his pants--red, where the hell had he gotten red pants from--perfectly pressed. "I see Yuya the duke's son is back?" she asks.
"No, Kato the merchant is here," Tegoshi corrects, evenly, and when the joke hits her she collapses into laughter.
"He is going to be so angry at you for using his name," she says.
"He'll never find out, if you don't tell him," Tegoshi answers, and it's such a perfectly arrogant answer she shakes her head and goes back to pulling on her boots.
"We're trying to find a ship to take us to the Queen," Tegoshi says, "Nagase and I, I mean. He's going to stay here and put the dukes under house arrest while we go to the Pugnaculum Albus. But apparently no one with a ship fast enough to get there before dinner is willing to hire out for us."
Becky shakes her head. "We're not renting a ship," she says, "I'm a pirate, remember?"
"I didn't forget," Tegoshi snaps, "but stealing a ship in broad daylight might be tough even for us."
"What? No, we're not stealing a ship... can I send a message from here?"
"I would think so," Tegoshi says, and trails off as she launches herself off the bed to go through her pack, tossing a piece of vellum and a quill on her bed. Ink follows a moment after, and then she's writing in her curved, childish script across the paper.
"Idiot," she reads off, when she's done, "meet me today. Time to fly the red flag high."
"Is that code?" Tegoshi asks, because he can't let that pass without comment, "because if it is, it's pretty terrible. Did Jin come up with it?"
"Are you stupid? Jin can't remember a code for the life of him. No, I just like the red flag. You pass this off to a messenger--his address is on here--and I'll check my guns. Time to get busy."
---
Tegoshi remembers very clearly the first time he met Jin Akanishi; he'd been alone in his bedroom, training alone with the rapier that was at the time his dearest friend, when a young man dressed all in black tumbled through his bedroom window with a shout. Tegoshi had bared his blade at him, only to find a pistol pointed barrel-first at him, and he'd marveled that a woman would be so bold as to wear riding leathers in a ducal palace only to remember that thieves don't much care for etiquette.
"What are you here for?" he'd asked, voice shakier than he'd wanted to admit.
"We were here for a jewel, but the idiot here messed it up," the girl had said, "so we're just heading on out, if that's all right with you?"
"Of course it's not all right with me," Tegoshi had snapped, "I'm the son of the household, you know."
"And?" she'd asked, "pistol beats sword every time."
"Rapier," Tegoshi had corrected, immediately, "it's not a sword."
She'd sighed. "All right, pistol beats rapier every time! Better, Your Highness?"
"Your Grace, if you insist," Tegoshi had said, around a smirk, and been gratified by the flush in her cheeks.
Meeting Jin Akanishi is much like the first, in that Jin makes most of his entrance by falling over; he trips down the dock ramp and nearly crashes into the water, tumbling to a stop right at the edge. "I'm okay," he calls, after a minute, and Becky throws her arms around his neck in a display of joy so unfettered by embarrassment Tegoshi is embarrassed for her, looking away.
"Jin, you remember Tegoshi, right?"
"The duke's kid," Jin recalls, and sticks his hand out for a shake. Tegoshi takes it and shakes, once. One side of Jin's mouth lifts up in a smile, and the other joins it when he looks down at a beaming Becky.
"Should we get this show on the road?" Tegoshi asks, tired of their happiness already.
"Onward," Becky calls, "your captain commands it!"
"Aye aye," Jin says, and soon they're off. The ship isn't huge--with only a crew of two, it couldn't have been large--but it's much larger than the fishing skipper, and despite his fears that he'd be throwing up over the deck the whole way over, Tegoshi's all right besides a few queasy rumblings. He's at the bow of the ship with Becky for most of the ride, looking forward for the first site of the Pugnaculum Albus, the massive white fortress-palace of the Queen and her forebears. The white marble structure doesn't disappoint when Tegoshi sees it for the first time, and he doesn't notice he's squeezing Becky's hand within his own until she pulls away, wincing.
"Sorry," he mumbles, but his face must say something, and she only shakes her head.
Jin manages to pull them in without a collision. "Wow, you are capable," escapes Tegoshi's mouth before he can stop it, and Jin pulls a face at him before Becky turns around to glare them both into silence. There are few guards in the castle--Tegoshi would guess that most are with Nagase in the city, holding the harbor quiet while Tegoshi and Becky do their part--and Jin seems on a first-name basis with most of them, leading both of them through the throne room and up to the center spire's staircase.
"Up there," he says, pointing his thumb up, "I've gotta make sure our friend the Spymaster's troops are occupied when shit goes down."
"Good luck," Becky says.
"Don't die in there, partner," Jin says back, and they touch fists. Tegoshi pushes down a roiling wave of jealousy, and begins the trek up to the Queen's study.
There's a girl outside, wearing a pistol on her hip, when they arrive at the top. "We're here to talk to Her Majesty," Becky says, "I'm Becky. Jin's partner?"
The girl salutes Becky. "Go on in," she says, eyeing Tegoshi's weapons suspiciously but letting them both pass without comment.
The Queen--Her Royal Highness, Meisa, Duchess of Albus and Sovereign of the Kingdom of Tilda--is curled up at her desk, reading from a book. Tegoshi drops to one knee immediately, protocol ingrained in his bones, and Becky bows low at the waist when Meisa looks up at them.
"Becky," Meisa says, brightening, "why are you here?"
"News," Becky says, "we have a reliable report of who your traitor is."
Meisa nods for her to continue, and Tegoshi can see her holding her breath before Becky speaks. "It's Miida. The Spymaster."
Meisa sags in her seat. "Of course it is," she says, "damn it. The one person I trust with all my secrets and it's the one man out to usurp me."
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," Becky says, "a Mage Aquatic saw him meeting with the duke of Mantsua."
"No, thank you for bringing me this info--" there's a sound of shouting outside the room, and Meisa directs both Tegoshi and Becky toward the back room of the office. Becky ducks down behind a bureau, and Tegoshi tucks himself between two massive fur coats that smell as if they've never been worn. He's able to see into the main room if he cranes his neck carefully, and once the pot-bellied Spymaster passes the door Tegoshi does so.
"Your Majesty, that pirate brat you're so enamored with just took my guard prisoner!"
"No, Miida, I'm sure Akanishi is just making the best possible use of my guardsmen. And they are my guardsmen, aren't they? They're not mercenaries you hired, they serve the crown. You are perfectly safe here in the Pugnaculum."
"Not without my guards I'm not!"
Tegoshi twitches at the man's tone. Meisa's voice is icy when she speaks next. "Careful, Miida, remember who put you where you are."
"Remember who put you where you are, Your Majesty, I've always served you to the best of my--" there's the ringing sound of a shot, and Tegoshi stumbles out of the coats with Becky right behind him and his pistol already in his hand, hoping the Queen is all right--Tegoshi stumbles to a stop.
The Queen is sitting coolly at her desk chair as if it's a throne, a smoking pistol held steadily between her fingers. "I believe I find myself in need of a new spymaster," she says, gaze flicking up over Becky.
"Not me, I'd be terrible," Becky says, "why not Ohno? He's a Mage Aquatic, so he can't lie to you, and he seems like he knows things. Secret things. Which is exactly what you need!"
"A Mage Aquatic as spymaster... and Nagase really deserves a promotion, but I need a Queensguard captain and none of his lieutenants are really capable..."
Jin stumbles into the office then, with a gun held in his hands. "What the hell is happening in here?!" he squawks.
Meisa smiles, and it's a terrifying smile. "Jin," she says, "what do you think about working for me?"
"Is beer part of my stipend?"
"As much as you want."
Next to him, Becky presses her fingertips to her temples, and Tegoshi gains a new respect for her sunny personality. "As for you," Meisa says, and they both straighten up.
"What am I to do with you?" she asks, "a pirate and the second son of a duke, fugitives from Insula Gratia--oh, yes, I know all about that--and nowhere to go but back to prison? That seems like a waste of resources."
Tegoshi glances at Becky. "I have an idea," he says.
"Go on," Meisa says, and leans forward.
---
It's been a year, and Shige can barely remember most of the rush of it. He'd served in a battle as Yamashita's battlemage, then spent most of the rest of the small skirmishes helping light signal fires and aiding the wounded, and when he'd gone to the capitol to meet with the Queen afterward, he'd found himself promoted. The green and black stripes of the Court Magician on his left shoulder are gratifying, and Shige's glad for the way that he gets to boss people around and perform research without having to explain himself to his teachers, but it's still a little strange to him.
Especially since he's concerned half the reason he got the promotion was to play babysitter to Her Majesty's other agents. Ohno, the spymaster, is a smart man, and talented at spying and secret-keeping, but he's continually escaping the palace to go fishing, and Jin is... himself. Thankfully, with Yamashita permanently installed at the palace as the Rendan diplomat, and Kamenashi serving as the much-beleaguered Minister of Finance, Shige’s not completely alone.
When he lets himself into the Queen’s Chamber Council, where her closest ministers and agents gather to discuss details without the interference of the dukes into every conversation, it’s already nearly full. At the foot of the table is Kamenashi, apparently having his daily argument with Yokoyama, who splits his time between the palace and the system of orphanages the Queen has recently established. Jin and the Queen are nowhere to be seen, but Shige folds himself into a chair between Yamashita and a sleepy-looking Ohno just as she enters.
The Queen seems more relaxed than usual when she sits at her chair at the head of the table, and when she unfolds a piece of paper Shige can see why. "Becky sent me a letter. Shall I read it before we get distracted by whatever ridiculous budget Minister Kamenashi wants to bombard me with today? Excellent."
’Greetings, Your Majesty
The Sky City is even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Tegoshi has taken to the court here like a bird to flight. He already has half the royal family imitating his every move, and that’s only in the arena of fashion! He’s made quite a splash here.
Tegoshi says I have, too, but I merely won first place in a hunting contest. Other than that all I do is make deals behind closed doors, I’m nothing remarkable.
Progress on the project we were sent here for is going slowly, but smoothly. I anticipate that, when Tegoshi’s sanction is up in a year, we will be fully capable of returning home and having the second biggest wedding in Tilda. I’ll let you have the biggest, since you’re the Queen and all.
Give everyone my love, and tell Jin to behave.
Yours,
Ambassador Vaughn’
"Wait, she’s getting married?!" Jin manages, and Meisa folds up the letter in order to hit him over the head with it.