HaircuttingStories.com

As before, this is another roleplay attempt between Behold and Confrazzled, each commanding a character, and through its course trading paragraphs back and forth.  While edited for readability, it is intended more for our enjoyment and thus does not read quite like a traditional novella.  (Perhaps, in part, more like a harlequin romance novel.)  As a disclaimer, this attempt of ours is far more drawn out, focusing more upon a plot, character, and a delicious Steampunk setting than our prior attempts.  So be aware, it takes a long time to "get to the goods".  If you want to skip ahead to the cut at the end, you are more than welcome, however, there are several teasing little incidents interspersed throughout . . .

But perhaps we're giving too much away.  Without further ado, enjoy!

"Another damned raid?" muttered the young gunsmith-cum-mechanic, still halfways-burrowed in the bowels of some machine.  She'd been set up in one of the few non-tent structures in the camp.  It was more of a bunker really, built of sod, a half-day's work of a troop of soldiers.  Green ones.  Bored ones, that needed something to keep them occupied.  In any case, the structure kept her tinkerings and those of her fellow mechanics, or gun, tank, engine, suit, and gadgetry persuasions, quite sheltered from little things like, say, burning down the tents, or shooting through their walls in the case of a misfire.  And insulting the sound, too, which kept Lisslanna Karole Galren, or Lissla, as she was known, from hearing the cacophony of the raging battle in full.  And comprehending that this time, the camp thought to be so unassailable was, perhaps, to be conquered after all.  At least for a time.  The rebels really could not have the resources to stand against the Ancelterri army for any length of time.  Which was why they always seemed to dissolve like smoke whenever backup drew night to arriving . . .

No matter.  The battle would be over almost before she knew it, anyhaps.

"Erla, can you draw that light a little closer?' Lissla asked, unzting herself as far into the contraption as the jutting out rods would allow, to permit a better view of the well-oiled but well-jammed gears and cogs.  Right now she wasn't too worried about how her regulation-styled bun might catch on them, but right now she was just too damned infuriated with that slip of an apprentice.  "Erla!" she called out once again, raking a hand distractedly through her slightly frazzled jet mane, tendrils working out of her bun, as the gravity of the situation rapidly dawned on the mechanic.  Her heart flip-flopped.  Did this mean that the rebels were actually . . . ?  No, they couldn't possibly.

They could.  That much was clear to Synnerla as she ran away from the encampment as fast as she could, the bright, pink-white light of the carbide gas lamps quickly giving way to the deepest black of night.  She'd never really cared about serving the Imperium, but the Army had been good to her so far, keeping her fed, clothed, and safe.  Nowadays, those things were luxuries nobody could really afford to reject. 
And the soldiers had been perfectly courteous and nice, not rough and careless, as the stereotype went.  Most of them were ordinary people, just like her, young men plucked from farms and smithies and lumber mills.  Many of them had been very kind to her.
And the ones not currently running ahead of her were probably being skewered by rebel bayonets right now.

The tails of her slate-coloured engineer's coat fluttered in the breeze as her group ran across the dull grey sand of the New Calabrian desert, in the vague direction of a city that was at least two days away, by foot. 

"Down!" a shout came from behind, accompanied only moments later by the weight of a soldier's arm pressing her towards the ground.  Her bewildered reaction was cut short by the staccato rhythm of a repeating steam piston rifle.  And a dull, thudding sound that she knew, with dreadful certainty, was made by dead bodies hitting the ground.

Where could they be firing from?  Judging by the look on the soldier's face, he was as bewildered by the attack as she was.  But he'd seen it coming, right?

Maybe he had, maybe he hadn't.  But the second salvo of steam-propelled needle bullets hit them from behind, and cut off her thoughts.

"This one's still alive." Sylvester panted, still out of breath from running towards the first Engineer's uniform he could see.  "Medic!" he bellowed.  Hugo, his aide-de-camp, was only moments behind him.  "Stay with this one.  I'll go see if there are any others."

"No, wait" he changed his mind.  "I want to talk to the idiot who fired those rounds.  Gather the men."  Saying that, he went off, frantically searching the other bodies for signs of life, and, almost equally important, slate-gray uniforms.

When he returned to his platoon, he'd found no one alive.  None.  Hugo had taken care of things, though, the slight grey-clad girl already being tended to by the platoon's medic, all the other members lined up, one of them standing in front of the others.

It was Private Charliotte Anohr, a fresh-faced rebellion recruit that had only joined his group this mission.  She didn't even seem to be aware that she'd done anything wrong.  He'd have to tell her.

"Private," he began, trying to search for a way to put things into words.

"'Vester." she responded, a slight unease in her voice.  He said nothing, but the cold silence was enough to make her correct herself, "I mean, Lieutenant Jarrán."

"Charliotte," he chose to address her again "do you know why O'Hara's and Herlan's platoons are taking damage for us on the North side of the compound?"

"So that we can extract munitions, supplies and personnel while the Ancelterri are occupied... sir," she finished, her unease clearly mounting.

"And you thought it wise to use the munitions we have on these people?" he asked

"They're soldiers!  And they had weapons!" she protested

"They were fleeing," he replied.  He didn't shout.  He never had to shout to get his point across.

"Furthermore, half of them were mechanics.  Do you know how many steam piston rifles we have in storage that we can't repair?  How many armoured amphitractors?"

She didn't, but she clearly could guess. "One mechanic on our side," he said, a little louder, to address the entire platoon, "is worth ten of you."  Harsh words.  But he wasn't finished.  "From now on, you're going to care for that girl." he spoke, pointing towards the single Engineer who had survived the ordeal.  "You're not going to leave her side until she's safe, and you're on suspended duty until she's fully recovered."

He waited a moment to let his words sink in.  "When she recovers, she might not even want to join us, considering we've just killed all her friends.  If she doesn't, or if she dies, you'll never fire a weapon for the rebellion again."  A single tremor moved across Private Charliotte's bottom lip.  She'd probably hated the Ancilterri army all her life, but he needed soldiers who would follow his orders, not people out for personal revenge.

But she nodded, without even a hint of protest.  Maybe she would become a useful soldier, one day.

"The rest of you, carry out the operation as planned."  He spoke louder, addressing the entire Platoon again, "Hugo, you lead the raid on the infirmary.  I'll deal with the engineering buildings."

As he and half of his Platoon started to run towards the brightly-lit encampment, the knot in his stomach tightened a little.  What he'd said about mechanics being valuable was true.  But there was another reason why he'd frantically searched through the bodies just now.  One far more important to him personally.

Still ensconced in her workshop, and somewhat unperturbed by the sounds of struggle emanating from outside, Lissla fumbled about.  Honestly, there was nothing more that she could do from beneath this.  "Erla.  This is waxing ridiculous," Lissla declared impatiently, jutting a hand out, and waving it a little wilder.  Surely her urgency would wake the girl from her daydreaming.  Erla was not usually anywhere near this inattentive.  "Erla!" she barked sharply, popping her head out at last.

Somehow she hadn't heard the crack of the door against the dugout dirt wall.  Hadn't heard much of anything.

The ratchet that Lissla still clutched dropped from her hand with a clatter on the bare dirt floor.  Of all the grease-streaked, battle-furious faces to see, the one squinting out from beneath the gasmask was none other than . . .

Vester held his breath as he took off the gas mask.  He always did. But the visage he saw before him after he took it off would've made him gasp for air anyway.  It was her.  Very much changed, but it was Lissla nonetheless.  It was strange to see his childhood friend wear the uniform her so despised, her once boyishly short hair now long, and worn in a strict Ancelterri regulation bun.  It'd pained him to hear that she'd joined the Ancelterri army, but the war had killed more important things than friendships.  He knew where his loyalties were.

"You are now a prisoner of the New Calabrian People's Liberation Army," he spoke, raising his musket only slightly to reinforce the gravity of the matter.  "Comply and follow orders, and you will be treated as a prisoner of War.  If you try to escape, your life is forfeit."

Brusque, and very cold.  But this wasn't the moment to show favoritism to enemy captives.  Maybe the mere sight of him was enough to convince Lissla to defect from  the Ancelterri army, but he wasn't going to bet on that right now.  Besides, treating her as a prisoner was the best way to keep her out of the way, and safe.  One of his men stepped forward, carrying one of the black cotton hoods they'd taken with them for this purpose. 

Why did it still feel like betrayal?

"Vester?  Honestly, earnestly, gods-be-smirched, Ves?  Vester Jarrán!  What in the great blue blazes of glory are you doing?"  Well, it was quite obvious what he was doing, the flabbergasted Lissla realized quickly enough.  He was spearheading—no, not just spearheading, knowing Vester he was at the very thick of it, coordinating, planning, directing, leading, every step—the raid against the Ancelterri camp.  Her Ancelterri camp.  Well, her current one at least.  It was not all that different in appearance or design from the slew of them that the gunsmith's daughter had been paraded through since initially drafted at gunpoint from her father's modest but famed gunsmithy.  Four years ago?  She had been seventeen then . . . Had the seasons swept past so swiftly already?  Her hair would indicate so, forced as she had been to grow it out from the shorn halo of sunflower's petals that had always stood 'round about her head, framing those vivid leaf-green eyes.  Her eyes were green yet, and it seemed some vestiges of her former halo returned, escaping as tendrils were wont to from her regulation knot.  The rest of her, garbed in drab uniform, looked much as it had then, if a little less tending towards the poplar-like maidenly-slender end of the spectrum, and ranging into the fuller curves of womanhood.  So much was pretty obvious, because the knee-high laced boots, the soldier's practical trousers tucked into them, the khaki overjacket that hugged her a little too snugly to the slightly-less-than-regulation red bandana that jutted out of her pocket . . .  well, those did little to hide her frame.

"Vester.  Never in a million years," she shook her head incredulously, settling into more of a breathless amazement.  Never in a million years, perhaps, though hundreds, thousands of times in her fantasies.  Though she suspected . . . that he would not quite be carrying her off on a white clockwork charger as she had hoped at her weakest moments.  She folded her arms across her chest, partially to hold in her pounding heart, partially . . . to refrain from throwing her arms about him.  Because the Vester that she knew certainly would not have welcomed such a gesture.  Not at a time like this.

Not with the extended hood, nor the subordinate rebel rabblery beside him, staved off as they were by that silencing gesture of his.  Still, imperfect as it was, the scene could have been scooped from her very fantasy.

Vester had never really allowed himself to fantasize about meeting Lissla again.  He'd seen his friends in the rebellion torn by conflicts between friendship and family on one side, and political loyalty on the other.  He'd always liked to think that if it were to happen to him, he'd handle the matter dispassionately.  Now he knew that he couldn't.  Fortunately, she didn't struggle when his men bound her and put the black hood over her head.

He assigned half of his men to gather all the munitions and tools they could carry from the Ancelterri machine shop.  He led the other half in combing out the rest of the building, searching for other mechanics--or possible threats.  But they found none.  It made sense; an encampment this size wouldn't have more than half a dozen mechanics and engineers on staff.  Counting the four that Charliotte shot earlier today . . .

Suddenly, the gunfire outside intensified, leading up to a loud, deep boom that sent a powerful tremor through the ground, even though it must've come from quite a distance.

He knew that sound.  It was Ancilterri heavy artillery.  Somehow, the Imperials had managed to send backup much earlier than anticipated.  Crap.

With the hood jerked roughly over her head, blotting out the wan vented kerosene light (where HAD Erla gone to, anyways?), Lissla felt herself plunged into a sea of confusion even prior to feelings of betrayal, confusion, loss, and, what in the nine hells?  This was not the way that the tale was supposed to go!

Patience, then.  She would need to show him that she—

A barrage of bullets interjected that thought, and Lissla could feel the rough hand freeze-jerk at her back.  Obviously not friendly fire . . .  "Wait!" she cried, "I have just the thing, around here somewhere . . . !"  Only, though the canvas screen of the hood, the words mangled, muffled beyond all recognition.  "Mmmrnnff! Amman uffft ump erff urdurfferr!" She did not fumble about with her hands, or any of the like.  Such a thing would have been incredibly, incredibly stupid, but one of the scarecrow rabble tugged off her hood, at least enough to hear her words.  About her head, little escaped coils stood up in a halo of electric charge.  "On the table," she nodded roughly, jutting her chin towards a corner of the workshop.  There squatted a heaped stack of weaponry, mostly finished with.  And cresting it, a personal favourite, was a rifle she'd just finished working with, slightly modified from one of her father's own designs.  "The cannon beneath the table is quite serviceable, but . . .  I am afraid we do not have quite the requisite shot." 

A quick peek through the outside door of an empty section of the machine shop gave Vester a brief impression of the terrain immediately surrounding the encampment, the bright illumination showing nothing of interest in the direction of their escape.  Yet.

Balt, one of the other men who'd been combing out the building, approached him bearing a considerably less optimistic expression.  "O'Hara and Herlan are definitely retreating." he said.  "And it doesn't look like the Ancelterri are going to give chase.  We'll be surrounded by them in a matter of minutes."

Vester nodded, weighing the man's assessment for himself.  "The path to the east is still free.  What do you think?"  he had some ideas already.  But none that he liked.

"We could run to the infirmary.  Set up suppressive fire for Hugo, in case he needs it." Balt replied.

"We'd probably have to leave most of the loot behind." Vester concluded. 

"And the girl as well," Balt finished the thought he couldn't accept himself.  Lissla would be a lot safer staying here.  But he didn't want to leave her again.  Not now.  Not before he'd had a chance to explain himself to her.  But it seemed like he didn't have a choice.

"Let's go rejoin the others," he concluded.  Hastily, they paced towards the section of the machine shop where they'd entered the building.  Where they'd found Lis.  But it was quite a surprise to see her un-hooded, un-bound.  And quite busy sorting weapons and tools alongside his men.

"This one . . . this one has a decent enough long-range shot.  Steady sort, probably your best bet for sniping," she handed it off before delving through the stacks, sending stray springs, sprockets, and cogs skittering down the sides of the heap.  She was coming to the end of the serviceable stuff.  "Cracked chamber . . .  cannot for the life of me figure out what was wrong with this one," she sent them skittering left and right, before her emerald eyes lit on a quartet of little brass baubles, about the right size to slip into the mouth of the cannon that had already been hauled out from beneath the table.  "These," she pointed them out, taking a bit more care with the doubly-fist-sized globes of gleaming brass.  "These I remember quite effectively.  Only a five second delay once you pull the pin, lead to a few problems among the troops."

"Say, if we loaded that cannon . . ." began one of the standby soldiers, as Lissla resumed her rummaging for anything else useful.  But it seemed there was little that she could scrounge at this point, really, without cobbling halves of mechanisms together.  Until she glanced upwards, over at Vester, and her breath caught in her throat.

Vester tried to keep himself from grinning.  He should've known it would take more than a black hood to keep Lissla subdued and still.  And it seemed as if she was more than eager to help them out, regardless of the cavalier treatment she'd just received at his command.  If she still had the smithing talent she'd had when he left, she'd be a real asset to the rebellion.

"Hey Lis," he said, acknowledging for the first time today that he recognised her.  "thanks for helping us."  But if she wasn't going to be their prisoner, there was another thing he had to tell her.  "The plan has changed a little.  We're going to have to fight our way out.  I want to take you along, but . . . you'd be under fire, and if they caught us, you'd be shot as a traitor."  He wouldn't let that happen.  "So we're going to have to tie you up again.  When the Ancelterri find you here, you can tell them we wanted to take you captive, but ran when the army arrived.  They'll have no trouble believing you."

Two green eyes flicked up to meet her friend's.  "Ves, I—"  His voice had melted her.  Far more than she had expected it to.  Lissla watched out after Vester, her childhood-friend, her fantasy-lover, and now her . . . what exactly?  Maybe dead, if he kept up with that kind of risk.  Her eyes riveted to his form as he swing wide the through the wooden door and once again plunged from realm of wildly-whizzing, ricocheting bullets, and already prepared to sweep out of it again.  And for all of that, the drama and intensity of the moment she'd wished for—how many times?—the young woman couldn't help shaking her head.  Once she got her breath back, that was.  That was requisite. 

Wasn't that just like Vester?  To focus so fully on his one aim, his one objective, that he'd let everything else fall to the wayside, let the cellar bricks veritably tumble down about his ears as he worked, strove to achieve his one aim.  And in this case, his aim was . . .  well, the loftiest sort there was.  To dethrone the Senate.  Only someone as cocky, arrogant, charismatic, obscenely skilled, and absolutely mad as Vester would think to take on such an aim.  One-manned.  One-handed, if he had to.

And in the process to almost overlook an entire room bursting with weaponry and ammunition, his oldest and dearest friend and potential smith of more of such weaponry, and to charge outside empty-handed.  Yes.  That suited Vester to the nines.  "Hah.  And let you hoard all the fun?" Lissla asked, snatching up her favoured rifle, the brass-butted one that she'd initially offered up, a semi-automatic beaut.  And a little chrome pistol besides, one that she was certain had a few rounds of bullets in it because she wasn't all too sure about the rifle.  It had a test round, most likely, but probably not much more than that.  Swept a few other gadgets into one of the emptier of her myriad of pockets, and another project, a far more secret one, though it was a little bulkier.

Without further preparation Lissla stepped up alongside her childhood companion, though she did exercise considerably more caution than her cohort.  She shook her head briskly.  "Not going to happen."  And, she vowed silently, I am not going to let you out of my sight again.

Vester could've protested.  But he remembered how headstrong Lis had been when they were young.  And that she'd been a crack shot.  Besides, time was running out.  Fast.

"We could use something to cover our escape." he said.  "Can you disable the floodlights outside?"  The familiar smirk he received as a reply told him she could do that.  But when she showed him the coal gas tank that directly fed the four 18-foot poles spread around the Ancelterri encampment, it became clear to him that they could do more than that.

And when his reassembled Platoon, with the addition of several nurses and Lisslanna, felt the rushing pressure of the distant explosion even before they heard it, they knew that the booby trap had worked.  As the burning Ancelterri camp slowly became a flickering point of light in the distance, the ink-black night swallowed them whole.

Lissla didn't say much else, though, as the rest of the reeling forces were roused to action at Vester's brief but decisive orders.  How quickly he seemed to forget about her presence, he seemed so assured of it, and already he had swept along to the next thing.  So long as she could trot along at his heels, which she did all the way to the camp, she was quite content.  Despite the weighty gun, and the thwapping of her tool-crammed pockets against her legs, her chest; despite the uncertainty of it all.  None of it compared to the rush of just being in his presence!

She didn't know the tune that some enthused soldier started up, as they all clung barnacle-like to the sides of some commandeered tank, entirely too many men for its intended use.  Didn't take it up herself, though it seemed to rouse the men, even as one of the soldiers slung over another's shoulder fell limper and limper, his eyes progressively glassier, and bleeding out from where he had been shot in the shoulder, though his comrade clung to him, tight.  She tore her eyes away, tried to partake in the men's zeal. But this, the aftermath of battle, had never been Lissla's forte.  No, despite the oddity of it all, she was infinitely more comfortable when they arrived atop the rickety tank at the rebel camp, carved starkly into the mountainside as it was, but oh so cleverly disguised.  Like as not, there were a whole series of tunneled rooms.  And hopefully, just hopefully, she could share one with . . . No, she was getting ahead of herself.  But surely he wouldn't mind the intrusion of a childhood friend?

Motoring a little further inwards, the tank deposited them, and with no further direction Lissla trotted along at Vester's heels, and the man seemed to be headed the short spurt to the camp's triage.

Morgues were morgues no matter what the face one slapped on them, Lissla reflected, her legs loping quickly as they ate up hallway, striving to put more ground between herself and that gods-awful slice of the nine hells.  No matter how well-constructed and sanitary or infested with grime and festering disease, no matter how shoddily slapped-up or whether whistle-clean and shiny with metal plating.  No matter how high the bodies piled.  The mechanic was, after all, a mechanic.  She tended to machines, not human bodies.  She created, she didn't . . . ease things.  Fixing a person and fixing a machine were quite, quite different.  A little oil staining her fingers, well that was far easier to wash loose of her conscience than blood.  Nevermind that her carefully-tended babies, her sweet little rifles and even sweeter little warmachines, engines designed for every manner of function, never mind that they chewed up men and spat out their bones and blood.

Weapons were weapons in the hands of the user.  This she consoled herself with as she tried to forget about a few too-familiar faces that she'd spotted on their flight.  Erla, for one.  The dying rebel soldier, for another.

It was none too merciful that the triage squatted so close to the morgue, but then, like as not, it was the most practical.  And it clearer sequestered the living from the dead, even if it kept the almost-dead a little closer than they might have liked.

But there, there was a figure not even remotely so mordant.  Vester.  Funny how she had seen this new form of his, far more fleshed out than he'd been as a youth, more robust, less lithe.  More himself.  She had seen it so few times and yet it already latched so firm into her memory that she could note him even from this distance.  She didn't call out his name; that seemed to Lissla quite juvenile.  Instead, she quickened her pace to step up alongside him.  "Hey-la," she called, using the old childhood greeting.  Juvenile.  Still, she grinned up at him, green eyes trained on his face.  "I suppose your newest recruit and oldest partner in criminal rebellion is about the last thing you wished to be seeing about now, hmm?" she teased, heart pitter-pattering all the while.

Vester couldn't help but smile in response.  The rebellion had been his life for the past four years.  Four years of thinking in terms of supplies, orders and casualties.  To have his past, more innocent life creep up on him like this was not at all unwelcome.  Being around Lissla made him feel safe, happy for some reason, as if they were both still kids, and nothing really depended on him.

"I'm just happy to have you on our side.  For a long time, I was worried you'd become a loyal servant of the Ancelterri Empire," he spoke.  It seemed silly in retrospect.  But the Ancelterri Empire was practical, and tried to keep the peace.  And Lissla had always been ruthlessly practical.  Like the time she'd been thrown from a bridge river by two rotten kids from the richer part of town, the escalation of a campaign of brutal taunts against what those little aristocratic nine year-old brats considered to be too tomboyish and strange a girl.  When she'd told him about it, how she nearly drowned, he'd been ready to beat the kids to a bloody pulp.  Which is why she made him swear that he'd never take revenge before she would tell him anything.  Because she knew very well how influential those kids' fathers were.

"You'll have to sleep in the communal dormitory this week," he said, "until we can assign you some quarters."  Unfortunately, it seemed O'Hara's platoon had taken heavy losses.  There'd be no shortage of empty rooms in the mountain for a while.

"You sound almost apologetic about that," Lissla quipped in, pretty quickly, falling into stride beside him.  The two of them were walking away from the corpse-draped morgue, much to her relief.  "Do you think that I've somehow been forged out of glass, or somesuch?  Struck with a lady's sensibilities?  Ha," she laughed, releasing some of the pent up tension.  Vester had this way about him, too.  That he could relax her completely, make her feel entirely at ease . . . and yet that yearning ache was still there, everpresent.  "I've slept in a mixed bunker for ages.  And you of all should remember . . .  do you not recall the summer when I was inducted into that boys' camp with you, for gods' sake?  You remember the mishap.  Though I would have LOATHED charm school with every shred of my being anyhaps, I am certain," Lissla swore. "Camping with the boys was far more preferable.  And practical."  She grinned wryly.  "I probably would have attempted to sneak over at least once or twice, even if there had been no mix up.  Although, I always suspected my father's hand in it, a little.  'Lissar Koren Galren' does seem to be a little more than a misspelling, at least to my own ears."

She shook her head, shaking the fond reminiscences loose, of the two of them tracking beasts like the men of yore, firing off slug-rifles, running and wailing through the woods like banshees, and then of course the one moment of daring that she had almost—almost—convinced him to go skinny dipping with her.  Bastard kept his undergarments firmly in place, of course.  But she dislodged them, only now noting that her friend's blinks spanned further and further apart, and his head seemed veritably wrapped in dreams, as if he prepared for encroaching slumber.  Obviously battle fever had run its course, even for boundless Vester.

Idiot had probably been up since yesterday morn, at the least, planning his raid to the last detail.  "And, ah, where in the second hell are we headed?"

"To the communal dormitory," he said, just as they approached the entrance to the finely-mazed tunnel network that constituted the rebellion stronghold.  "I assume you're tired--I certainly am," he smiled.  "Tomorrow morning, I'll try to get you cleared to work in the armoury.  We really need people like you there, Lis, it's badly understaffed."

The dormitory was a large cave, only a few hundred meters away from the entrance.  The ventilation was good enough to allow oil lamps to burn brightly, something which couldn't be done elsewhere in the cave system.  Despite the thick layer of various forms of insulation--cloth, wallpaper, vegetation--that had been hastily put up everywhere, the space still rang with the sound of millions of diffused echoes of whispered conversations and muted laughter.  "People tend to get used to the noise pretty quickly," Vester explained, "and you'll only have to be here for about a week."

Vester had intended to leave her to herself after he'd made sure she'd been assigned a bed.  But he didn't want to, yet.  He wanted to bathe in the comfort of her presence for a while longer.  "Come to my quarters." he said.  "We still have a lot of catching up to do.  I want to know exactly what happened to you after I left."

Lissla turned to follow him.  To the very edges of the planet, should such prove to be necessary.  "Blazes.  Well, I do not exactly have any packs to deposit," she grinned, though that was not quite a big loss for her at this point.  "And I expect you have more than a few questions.  How I wound up roped in with this lot, for one," she gestured downwards, towards her slate fatigues.  Not that he likely caught the gesture, striding through the well-ventilated but oppressively dark corridor as he was.

"I'm not going to be judgemental about it," Vester replied "I know, when I left, I despised the Ancelterri, and everyone who aided them.  But I've heard too many stories from people pressed into service.  Half my platoon is former Ancelterri military." Finally, they'd reached the little cave he could call his own.  All private quarters were similar in size--the rebellion didn't believe in treating its upper crust any better than the lowliest private--but he thought his was nicer than most, seeing as it made an unusual twist, causing its entrance to stand at a sharp angle to the carefully-dug corridor.  It made it a little bit more cramped, but it also gave him a little more privacy.

"Take a seat," he said, pointing towards the small cot standing on the ground.  As she took a seat, he dimmed the tiny, orange light of the oil lamp that had guided them here to only the barest ruddy flame, to conserve both fuel and oxygen.  Had he been alone, he would have extinguished it entirely, well-acquainted as he was with the little cave's unusual layout. 

He sat down next to her, the bed creaking a little under their combined weight.  "But tell me, how did you join the Ancelterri army?"

"You know, I never quite figured that as the way that you would ask," she replied, the words tumbling out somewhat lazily.  Lazily, at least, in comparison to her racing heart.  Why was it that his question seemed to have caught her so off-guard when she knew exactly what he had been about to ask.  "I would have expected you to ask me what my father said about it."  She paused for a moment, and tried to raise her eyes to meet his.  It took a moment, but she managed it.  "Well, the answer to THAT was that I should have let them shoot him," she responded, her tone flinty, and eyes just as hard, as her teeth ground together a little unconsciously.  "They hadn't even taken the gun away from his head yet, and he spat out that I should have let them shoot him."  Even now the memory kindled steely, tempered resentment in her.  Her father, the grown, gruff, grizzled man tossed to the floor like wheatchaff, while she was roughly shepherded upstairs, into the apartment above the shop.  Given approximately five minutes to gather personal effects, then stripped and forced to don a uniform before she even left the house.  Rub it in the old man's nose a little further.  "The rest of it must follow similar veins to the stories of your other recruits.  That boasted bolstered third of your army.  Nothing too far from the norm: just another kid swept up to polish the Senate's pretty guns," she grinned, unable to resist lightening the dour mood with a joke.  Or at least, trying to catch another glimpse of Vester's elusive smile.

But Vester didn't smile.  Most of the time, army recruitment drives didn't come to actual threats.  Didn't need actual threats, in lieu of the implied ones.  He'd heard such stories before, of course, but hearing them about people he knew, people he'd abandoned--

He'd always known the old man to be thoughtful and patient.  Not the kind of person who would openly defy Ancelterri authority for no good reason.  But of course, he'd had good reason this time.  And maybe he'd misjudged the man, misjudged his entire neighbourhood that so calmly seemed to bear the weight of Senatorial rule.

What would he have done had he been there himself?  Would he have anticipated the press gang, built a hide-out for Lissla and himself in the deep, black forests past the city limits?  Would he have sold his skin dearly, trying to kill the Ancelterri platoon rather than let them take him and Lissla?  Or would he have consented, allowed himself to be recruited, just to be able to keep an eye on his best friend?  Myriads of possibilities unfolded before him, some of them much worse, but some of them decidedly more pleasant than his life had been.

"You know," he spoke, pausing while he searched for words, "I'm glad you didn't let them shoot Galren."  Gently, he wrapped his arm around her, hugging her close as he'd done when she needed to be consoled when they were kids.  Or as she'd done for him.  "The Ancelterri take so much from us; they don't deserve our lives as well."  He'd used that sentence before, as a joke, on his platoon.  But this time the word "lives" had a broader, more personal meaning.  "Galren is safe.  And you're alive, and safe with me.  That's all that matters."

Her head flopped onto his shoulder, her gargantuan bun imprinting against his neck.  Lissla could not resist the impulse, barely recognized it for what it was before she inhaled deeply, scenting a deep whiff of Vester's characteristic scent, a sharp anise-like odour overlaid with a crisp layer of gunpowder, intermingled with the healthy scent of activity and something entirely his own.  Not quite what she remembered, the young woman recognized with her face pressed against the coarse, starched weave of his shoulder, but more matured.  And of course, the gunpowder, the scents of the rebellion, those were new.  "Yes," she replied huskily, her breath catching in her throat.  "I am."  'And there is nowhere else I would rather be.'  But those words, too, caught in her throat.  Instead, all that she managed was a half-joke.  "Well . . . glad to hear that I am forgiven," she attempted, but that too fell flat.  She did not remove her head.

"I should never have abandoned you and your father," Vester answered.  But it seemed Lissla was tired, her head laying heavily on his shoulder.  And he himself was yawning, the lids of his eyes as heavy as his best friends' head.  He should get her back to the dormitory.  He would, soon.  But just being in her presence felt like lying in a warm bath of friendship, something he hadn't felt in years.  He'd bask in that warmth just a little while longer.  Just a little while.

And as the oil lamp sputtered out, making the veil of darkness complete, so that the veil of sleep fell over them both.

The tell-tale click-clacking of gears and cogs woke her.  Someone, some eedjiit of a trainee was mucking about with the guns—HER guns, and Lissla was sure as glory going to smack them upside the head and give them the tell-what-for!  "What in the hells—?" she popped her vivid green eyes open, glaring crisply at their recipient—and then softened slightly.  Remembered where she was.  "Oh.  Gods.  I thought you were Erla or one of the other tinker-tykes, raiding my arsenal."  She paused, a little laughter welling up within her.  Well, she guessed he was, in a manner of sorts.  A tinker-tyke, though considerably less green, and infinitely more attractive . . .  nor was Lissla inclined to wish to grind him like a beetle beneath her boot heel, even at her early morning's grumpiest.

But he was no longer there.  Had she dreamt it?  There was just the scent of him, that lingering explosives-meet-anise . . . 

The scratchy woolen coverlet fell back to expose her light-woven cotton top, a woman's undershirt to be plain, but cut a bit looser and without all that confangling corsetry, a starker off-white alongside her the regulation grey flannels tucked farther under the cot's blankets.  "Now where in the nine hells did you dart off to?" she shook her head, the last pins and combs of her bun having fallen entirely loose, releasing the cascade of jet over her shoulders, as she sat erect.  To her waist, now.  Certainly, he'd never seen her hair quite this long.  Definitely not this infuriatingly long.  She'd stubbornly insisted at the ripe age of five that long hair was fine for dandy young ladies but hers would get entirely too many sticks tangled in it, and would not budge an inch until her father had sliced it off somewhere slightly above her shoulders. She'd always kept it shorter, after that.  At least, until the Senate's explicit orders to their female recruits demanded that she grow it out.  And she had been on the cusp of "accidentally" singing it short quite a few times . . .  but she let her attention wander over towards Vester's side of the bed to, well . . . to what, exactly?  He had not left her a note, or any such.  It was a wonder he'd dredged the blanket over her.  Though there did seem to be some sort of cotton blouse, of a sort.
 
She shucked her clothes quickly enough, lamenting for a half-moment the loss of her pyjamas, back at the Ancelterri base.  All of her personal effects, really.  But then she remembered the cost and her worries fell swiftly away.  She straightened herself up, layer by layer, donning the crisp blouse (had he picked it out for her?  Vester?  HER Vester?) before garbing herself again in her jacket, socks, and boots, taking the red bandana from her pocket and tying it about her neck somewhat jauntily.  A little breach of uniform, at the least.  Not much, but a start. 

Her hair-combs she raked briefly through her locks before—well, she couldn't very well bun it, so she plaited it instead, running the lengths quickly over her barely-stumbling fingers and finishing the end of with a fine twixt of wire she found in one of her pockets.  A lion's tail of a tassel.  She really would have to do something about that hair.  But then, if Vester liked it longer . . .

Good enough for now.  She blinked at the space he had been, just a few hours before, with those emerald eyes.  She didn't want to be his mother, chide him for going off without warning her, or toddle about his trail but . . .  Typical Vester, it was.  Typical, irresistible Vester.  "Ready when you are," was all that she said, slapping her palms over her thighs, and departing the room.  Obviously he needed a little reminding that his infallible sidekick would not be so easily deterred.

Lissla had appeared so peaceful, sound asleep, that he hadn't dared to disturb her when he had snuck off to check up on how last night's injured were doing.  He'd made sure to leave some clothes ready for Lissla to wear.  He trusted she'd be able to figure out for herself that wandering through a rebel base in full Ancelterri uniform wasn't the smartest thing to do.

Still, he'd only just queued up for breakfast when he heard a soft "Hey-la" beside him.  He turned around to smile and greet her, and was struck by the sudden change in her.  Was she wearing her hair differently?  Or maybe the shirt he'd given her was too tight, for it seemed tautly stretched over taut, feminine curves he'd somehow completely failed to notice last night.

He'd had a crush on her when he left home.  In fact, in some ways, his decision to leave had been part of that crush; he'd wanted to show her that he could do real, meaningful things.  As the years passed, he'd began to think of his attraction to her as silly, unrealistic.  The result of childhood affection coupled with budding sexuality.

But now it was back, as if he'd never left home.  And even so, she had changed, had become more woman-like in subtle ways, not just in form.  Her long, aristocratically-styled hair that made her stand out from the other women on the base was one thing, but even the hyper-feminine behaviour the Ancelterri thought proper to impose on their female personnel had rubbed off on her just a little.  She'd softened, although it was unlikely she'd ever admit it.

He received a wooden bowl of lentil soup, and a chunk of bread, and watched her take the same.  He beckoned her to follow him to a table, but didn't dare to look at her again until they both sat down, the beechwood surface a safe barrier between them.  But when he looked at her again, he almost stared.  How could he have ever forgotten how beautiful she was?

Was he staring at her?  Ear-whirlers from the fifth hell, why was he feather-flitting starting at her?  Did she have something smeared across her cheek?  Perhaps she had fallen asleep and gotten the indentation of a bootprint on her forehead, or somesuch.  Her jaw clamped, worriedly, as she let her eyes lower from their Vester-arrested attention for the first time.  'Lentil soup,' it seemed, was a very loose term.  And Lissla, having seized upon this exceptional conversational piece, could not stopper her mouth.  "I suspect the weevils burrowed into your grits," she stated drily.  "And then one of the cooks decided to flambé the entire concoction."  Nonetheless she stared into the tin-bound morass, squashrind, mushroom roots and all, and tried to assure herself she had eaten worse.  At least there might be some decent day-old-bread to sop in the slop.  "Gods, man, you have women in your camp.  Why not let one of them cook?"

Her comment drew a hearty laugh from a burly man sitting half a meter away from her  "And to think I joined the rebellion for the food, eh?" he remarked sarcastically.  His companion, sitting across of him, joined in as well "Count yourself lucky, lady.  At least it's not eggplant."

Vester cut short Lissla's question before she could ask it.  "There's a farmer across the valley who is a big supporter of the rebellion." he answered "But, he only grows eggplants.  So when we can't get anything else..." 

"--Eggplant soup for breakfast, eggplant soup for lunch, eggplant soup for dinner" the burly man finished his sentence.  "But I'm sure your Highness will get used to it."

The taunt was a good-natured one, but it angered Vester nonetheless.  "She's not a Patrician," he told the man, only the fire in his eyes belying the measured tone of his voice.  "No more than you or I."  He calmed down when it occurred to him that Lissla could pass for a Patrician lady. Her hair matched, and her mannerisms occasionally slipped into those the Ancelterri military expected.  Even her face and hands, when cleared of soot and grime, had a certain aristocratic pallour to it--although Vester knew very well that this was more due to her tendency to bury herself in machines and toolshops than because of the fashion amongst Patrician ladies to avoid the sun as much as possible.

And his thoughts went back to a risky plan he'd designed months earlier.  One that had seemed impossible to implement earlier . . .

"My mistake, Lieutenant Jarrán," the first man replied, but the posturing in his half-bow was almost deferent.  "It was kind of difficult to see through all of that blasted hair," he swiped at the tassel of her braid and jerked at it thrice, like a village girl would toy with a jumping rope, though his mostly-joking smile said that was just about the last thing he wished to do with it.  He did release it, though.

"Looked like she hadn't been properly inducted, is all," quipped in his comrade, the more wiry fellow reaching to his belt and flicking open a switchblade with a swift shinnck! even as a telltale grin stretched across his cheeks.  "Seems as ceremonious a time as any . . ."  He flicked it shut again, with a decided clink.  Extended offer.

"Come on now Kurt, put that away.  The lady will be liberated when she's good and ready . . ."

". . . and I don't see why she can't be good and ready now."

The teasing banter all about her swept about her nigh on quicker than Lissla could keep up.  She had barely turned to face Ves, to drink in his legumal revelation before the swift tug of her snatched tail jerked her head near-reflexively to meet the eyes of the man—and then the glinting blade—

Oh, so they would put an end to this ludicrous tail of hair at this precise instant, would they?  At the promise of dispatch, a large part of her bid good riddance.  But another part—well, she had Vester to think of.  "Err, no.  Lisslanna Karole Galren," she extended a hand towards him in greeting, quite pointedly ignoring the braid which swung back and forth pendulously, now that it had been released from a purpose much akin to a hound's leash.  "Umm, quite decidedly not Patrician."

"And there'll be no induction cut for her," Vester pointed out, his voice cold as ice while he tried to bury his anger about the cavalier treatment Lisslanna received as deeply as possible.  "She's had military training, and she's a qualified engineer.  Besides, I have something else in mind . . ." 

Vester tried not to be too distracted by Lissla's presence as he outlined his plan to her and Major O'Hara.  She had a tendency to cock her head when she was paying attention.  Just like she always had.  So why did he now think it was the cutest thing he'd ever seen?

"Anyway, it's a party for young city magistrates, and it's right in the Senate building.  It's infamous for being rowdy and decadent, and I'm sure nobody will notice us sneaking in.  Lisslanna and I can pass for being a young Patrician couple in a pinch.  If we can sneak in time-delayed explosives here, here and here," he said, pointing at several spots marked with red crosses on a floor plan of the building, "the Senate’s inner chamber would be levelled completely.  Apart from embarrassing the Senate, it'd give them a clear message that we can get to them anywhere."

Ensconced in the office of the Major as they were, Vester's tongue seemed to barrel on, as if powered with its own steam engine, borrowed of some locomotive.  And the further that it drove, the wilder escalated Lissla's startlement.  She tried to squelch her reaction, the arching eyebrows that threatened to raise higher and higher, perhaps soon to fly free of her forehead altogether.  She was hoping that neither this reaction nor the sound of her rapidly-beating heart was quite so obvious or loud as she feared.

But this plan . . . it was absolutely painted every blue-blazing shade of crazy.  How could she—SHE of all things female—possibly impersonate a lady?  Sure, she had been trussed up in a dress a time or thrice—more often than she would have liked—since she had been appropriated for the Ancelterri army, but bustled, beruffled expanses of silk seemed more fit materials for airship parachutes and tents than any sort of bodily covering.  She severely doubted that she would get through the night without ducking some squid-handed fellow or another (and they had positively ABOUNDED in the Ancelterri camps), but then Vester was being sent along as her escort, was he not?  Perhaps that would provide some insulation, even if it brought its own slew of challenges.  For furthermore—furthermore, she would need to be trussed like this in front of Ves, of all people?  That would be absolutely humiliating, to the umpteenth degree. 

She shot him a glance, one that he would be very well-versed in with so many years' practice.  A what-in-the-hells-do-you-think-you-are-doing-Vester manner of glance.  The sort that should have arrested any sane-minded man in his tracks, however, Vester was not precisely a sane-minded man.  How quickly he seemed to forget about her presence, he seemed so assured of it, and already he had swept along to the next thing.

Wasn't that just like Vester?  To focus so fully on his one aim, his one objective, that he'd let everything else fall to the wayside, let the cellar bricks veritably tumble down about his ears as he worked, strove to achieve it.  And in this case, his aim was . . .  well, the loftiest sort there was.  To dethrone the Senate.  Only someone as cocky, arrogant, charismatic, obscenely skilled, and absolutely mad as Vester would think to take on such an aim.  One manned.  One handed, if he had to.  Well, two-manned, now that she was being dredged into it.  Not that Lissla herself would mind following him to the very ends of the earth.  She just did not wish him to be too reckless in the process.

Vester eyed Lissla uncertainly.  "What do you think, Lis?" he asked. "The whole plan is largely contingent on your skills with explosives."  That much was true.  Lissla's presence on this mission was unavoidable.  But why had he volunteered to accompany her?  Because it was his plan?  Or perhaps, more likely, because he couldn't bear the thought of someone else getting to play Lissla's lover.

"What do you THINK that I think?" the lady mechanic retorted, "there is absolutely no one as glory-blasted mad as you in the whole of the rebellion forces," she replied, forgetting for a moment the presence of the Major, of indeed anyone else in the room.  "Explosives, certainly, I am versed in.  But simply possessing this," she tossed her braid, whip-like, towards her childhood companion, "does not make me a practiced Patrician.  And, gods, gowns?!"

Vester couldn't help but smile.  She'd always been like this, able to express all rational
objections to his wild plans in a single sentence.  But after doing so, she'd always gone along without hesitation, as if doing her duty trying to appeal to his rationality excused her from any further responsibility for his actions. The few times she'd actually wanted to stop him, she had.

"You'll be playing a very drunk, decadent Patrician," Vester spoke, "so you don't have to be on your best behaviour.  And I think you'd look nice in a gown for a change," he added, just to tease her a little.

That smile.  He could launch a thousand airships with that smile, Lissla felt sure, and she would gladly pilot each and every one of them.  Let alone the fact that he had not the slightest bloody idea how to pilot an airship.  Her stomach flip-flopped.  "Yeah, well, you wouldn't be saying it if you were to be the one wearing the gown," she replied slightly more meekly, but voiced no further protestations.

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