POV: Drake
It was evening on Day 6. Looking outside the window of the coach, he could see that the sunset was a sunset. Nice, he supposed. Ice was clinging to trees, and branches were drooping. No sounds of exploding trees though. Baggage and Runa hadn’t believed him about that.
“It’s true,” said Sayaka eating her soup. “The water inside the trees freezes. It’s usually just a small popping noise. It can be surprising at times.”
Drake had placed the heater under the air cart; it would melt the snow and even dry up some of the water before Drake put down a plastic tarp underneath later tonight and got in his sleeping bag, rated to —20F, for the night.
The breeze made tiny whirlwinds of snow. Peaceful.
Peaceful if he had been noticing these details for the sake of their beauty and not because some elf was holding his children, hostage. Drake needed all the distractions he could get.
“Drake,” a psychotic assassin said over hot soup. “We need to spar after dinner.”
He summoned patience. She was calling him ‘Drake’ instead of his given name. Not a sign of a forgiving friend. More patience. Wait. Now respond.
“Sure!” he said it too brightly, it hadn’t fooled anyone. Shit. He dropped the act. “I was thinking we could travel during the night and make progress.”
“Can’t. The air cart has to rest.”
Patience. Patience. Respond.
“Gosh, that’s interesting. Oh, well!”
Damn elf.
Sayaka shrugged. “It’s cold. How hard do you think we can push it?”
“As much as we want, because it is a machine with no moving parts.” Drake kept his tone as moderate as he could.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Sayaka said and ignored him. That was a deliberate insult, she knew this was important to him. She knew his arm still hurt and moving it around in battle today had been excruciating.
“It’s not a magic car, Kai. It’s a magic horse and buggy.” said a helpful Baggage.
That didn’t make sense, but it made a logical kind of nonsense instead of the insane type.
“Enchantment and alteration,” corrected Runa. “Not ‘magic’.”
“Ignore that Kai, wizards can be very specific sometimes.” said Baggage.
Sayaka wasn’t interested in the lesson. “I’m trying to put him under stress.”
“He already is,” countered Baggage.
Runa leaned back and smiled. Was she enjoying this?
“You’re just forgiving him now?” challenged Sayaka.
“No, I’m protecting him from a social attack that he isn’t ready for.”
“If I attack him, you’ll know,” growled Sayaka.
“Yes. You just did and I knew.” Baggage’s voice wavered.
“Stay out of this!” Sayaka ordered.
“N- No.” said Baggage, her voice cracked.
“Baggage, if Sayaka is going to spar with me, I’ll need to warm up. Can you spot me?” It was easy for Drake to keep his voice casual. He’d made this request to people hundreds of times.
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“I don’t know what that means.”
“You can keep your distance from me. It’ll be easy and we won’t go far.”
They got out. The area near the air sled was warmer, merely chilly. He gave it about fifteen feet and stopped.
“Baggage, as spotter it is your job to jump in and help me lift if I pick up too much weight. Keep me from injuring myself.”
“Kai, there are no weights.”
“Looks like your job will be easy then. Just stay six or eight feet from me, so Runa and Sayaka can see you’re OK.”
“Oh. All right.”
Drake went through basic stretches and calisthenics. General healing might reduce muscle fatigue and help keep him going or it might restore them to their pre-stressed state. This wasn’t the week to experiment. He’d try to mention it before they sent him home.
His thighs hurt after he did a lot of squats. There was a familiar soreness to his muscles that felt nice. He’d kept his shirt on the past couple of days and he hadn’t been paying attention when they opened it up to take care of the giant hole the other Drake put into it. Maybe he’d changed. In the fight earlier today, he’d been better than ever.
He took off his flannel shirt with a giant hole. The t-shirt underneath fit differently. He took that off too.
Steam flowed off his body in the cold night air. He looked down at his arms. Drake had the build of an Olympic swimmer. Nice! It almost made the kidnapping worth it. What could these muscles do?
He put his gloves back on and then tried to do a handstand. It was easy. Amazing. His shoulder was screaming at him, but still an impressive feeling! He’d try one more thing. Drake lowered himself down to the ground, still in the handstand, and pushed himself back up again.
“One,” he breathed. His injury felt like someone had stuck another blade in there, other than the agony, he was fine. Could he do one more?
He felt a slash like a whip across his forearm. Dammit! He collapsed without ceremony. The snow absorbed his blood.
Drake looked up. A psychotic assassin regarded him grimly.
“Hi, Sayaka.” He grumbled. “Ready to spar?”
Drake focused on putting snow over the grazing wound he just received from her dagger. He tried not to think of Sayaka as a living horror.
“Baggage,” Sayaka ordered, “go back to the air sled.”
Baggage had both of her beaded twin braids wrapped around one hand. “Kai needs healing,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” Sayaka said. “You’ve done enough.”
“But-”
“No, Baggage! One of us is trying to help him and the other one is coddling.”
Baggage stood up, “It’s going to take him years, Sayaka. You’re giving him days. It isn’t fair.”
Sayaka ignored her and Baggage stomped off.
“You fucking- I mean, I’d like to know what happened, Sayaka-san.”
“What happened is that woman should have stayed out of your way the first day you got here. Now we're still doing damage control for both of you… Or maybe I should have done something earlier. I don’t think the other me was happy, but she seemed content.”
“Sayaka, I barely know what you’re talking about.”
“Because I'm not explaining it and I won’t, at least that part.” Sayaka sighed as she healed him. “Drake, would you ever hit Lily?”
Go fuck yourself, bitch. He was able to suppress the thought before he expressed it.
“No, Sayaka, I wouldn’t,” were the words that came out of his mouth.
Sayaka said, “Great. ‘Hi Dad! You’re home!’” Her voice was high-pitched. Then she seized his bad shoulder and shook it.
Drake yelled as pain gripped him and he slapped her arm away. He could barely move his injured arm. How strong was this girl?
“Drake, would you ever hit Lily?” Sayaka repeated.
“Fuck you, that wasn’t fair,” he said, breathing heavily and glaring at Sayaka.
“Neither is life. Your son wants to beat you up. How are you going to respond to that challenge? Spar?”
“If it will benefit him, I will,” said Drake. Putting pressure on the shoulder with the other hand helped a little.
“You going to go all out? Even if he does? Will reflex kick in?” Sayaka asked rapidly.
Drake didn’t say anything.
Sayaka poked his head and made her voice comically deep, “I hate you, Dad! You weren’t there for my human rites of passage. You hurt a very nice man-”
“Stop it!” Drake snapped. He was glad his arms were occupied this time.
“Drake, I know what Christmas is. Some people here celebrate it too. We have the Bible. A hero had a copy two hundred years ago. We have plenty of Christians because our old gods failed us. I’m telling you that your kids will forgive your absence on Christmas sooner than they will forgive your violence.
Tell them you weren’t home in time because you were drunk. A year later they’ll be over it and it’ll be a story they use to make fun of you. That’s not so bad.”
Drake didn’t trust himself to say anything. Ethan wasn’t like that. It would take a lot more than a year. Much more. His kids were sincere and passionate. He knew that much about them.
“Besides,” she said as she finished healing the cut on his arm. “With a little extra time, maybe you’ll feel like taking one of us with you. Quite a prize. People treat a man differently when he’s with a cute girl.”
Yeah, they call emergency services to report possible human trafficking. All the women looked too young. With his criminal record, no one would believe there was zero coercion.
“Think about it,” she said and walked back to the air sled. “Oh, and Drake? Nice headstand, but you've got a ways to go.”
Sayaka closed the rest of the way to the air cart by doing flips and then jumped to the top of the carriage. Not bad.
Drake walked to his spot under the carriage and slowly, slowly, and painfully got into his sleeping bag for the night.
