I have been pestered enough, so here's chapter two. Problem is, I only have one more chapter written, and then the real limbo sets in since I mostly write this craziness at work.
This is still AU, still T for violence and language and maybe weird looks, and I'm definitely still not making money off it.
They didn't talk much on the ride out of town, mostly because their horses were making too much noise at the pace they'd set for conversation to be much of an option. Soul wanted to talk - kind of felt like he needed to know why the hell was Maka so good with that knife, where had she learned to kick like that, what had that cryptic comment about them having a lot in common meant, was he going to live long enough to actually collect any payment from her - but he didn't really fancy finding out just what would happen if he tried to ask questions right that moment. Primarily this was because he had a bad feeling that it might result in Maka knocking him out of his saddle or stabbing him, so he kept his mouth shut and spent their mad dash from the law pondering just what questions to ask, and how to ask them without getting skinned alive.
He did eventually stir himself to yell over the clatter of hooves as the day was wearing into night, though, because she had said something about needing a guide as well as a guard and he didn't fancy letting someone who had never even been to California before try to pick their campsite. Maka gave him a look like she wanted to fight with him for trying to tell her where to stop, but Soul was relieved and a little surprised to see her reassert control over her temper, allowing logic to stay her sharp tongue. Soul led them off the road, such as it was, onto a path that was little more than a game trail.
"We're going to have to lead the horses," he said, swinging out of his saddle. "The main trails are barely fit for riding, and if we try to ride down this one we're just going to get ourselves killed."
Maka nodded and followed his example, giving her tired horse an affectionate pat before taking the reins and following behind Soul as he picked a careful path along the trail. "My horses are tired anyway," she said, surprisingly sure-footed for someone claiming to have come from a large city. "Better to stop and rest them, assuming this place you are leading me to is safe from any pursuers we might have."
Soul gave her an irritated glance over his shoulder. "Can you imagine anyone pursuing anything down this trail? I doubt they'll have even a chance of tracking us, and once I got us to the campsite I was planning on heading back to the trail entrance to cover any tracks we left. Don't worry, Miss Albarn," he said, giving her a sharp-toothed grin, "you hired a guard and a guide, and I have a broad, well-developed skill set. All I ask is that you pay me fairly and deign to trust that I am competent."
"You are certainly quite competent with those pistols you carry," she said, sharp eyes on his gun belts where they crossed over his hips. "I can't recall seeing a faster draw, and your marksmanship was quite good as well."
"I'm a bounty hunter," Soul said, picking his way over a series of roots and rocks. "A good one. Like I told you, I've got a good reputation, depending on how you define 'good' and what parts of it you are referring to."
"I am not interested much in your reputation, Soul Eater," Maka said, and he flinched despite the fact that she was giving him the warmest smile he'd seen from her to date. "Except, of course, for the parts that vouch for your skills, and as I did not have a chance to inquire in town you will have to prove yourself to me. As for the rest, I believe you are trustworthy and loyal, particularly as my mission will intersect nicely with your apparent desire to settle a score with Medusa, and I am content to have you as a partner for however long you are willing to stay around."
Soul frowned, but it was at his boots - continuing to look at Maka and not the trail would get him or his horse a broken leg if he wasn't careful. "Are you saying that I may leave at any time? This is a strange contract you make, Miss Albarn, not least because of your use of the word 'partner.'"
There was a brief silence, in which Soul assumed she shrugged, to judge by the slight creak of leather. "It is only equitable. You may leave at any time, provided it does not lead to my death, and I will pay you provided there is no endangerment or betrayal involved." Another pause, and she continued in a much colder tone: "And, should you prove unreliable or dangerous to my safety, please know that I will not hesitate to eliminate any threats."
So if he managed to give the impression that he wasn't completely trustworthy or competent, she reserved the right to knife him. Wonderful. Well, he had no intention of giving that impression, so Soul decided not to worry about it too much except in the context of wondering just how crazy Maka Albarn might be and where, exactly, she'd learned to fight and kill like that. And why. Why was probably more important.
The campsite Soul led them to was, in fact, a legitimate campsite: it was a sandy area beside a creek, partially sheltered by a rock overhang and a rough lean-to. Maka seemed to be appeased by this, and agreed to get the camp set up while Soul tried to fish something out of the creek that would make them a suitable dinner. He wanted to find the fact that she got the camp set up quickly and in good order surprising, but even at such an early stage of their relationship couldn't find it in himself to pretend that he was capable of believing that Maka would do anything in a less than precise manner.
She was seated beside the fire when Soul came back with fish, making griddle-cakes and cleaning a rifle that was foreign to Soul's eyes.
"What's that?" he asked, taking the frying pan from her so he could set the fish to cook alongside the cakes.
Maka gave him a sardonic stare, something that could have been mischief or firelight flickering in her eyes. "My rifle," she said. "Have you such an attachment to those pistols that you have never even bothered to learn of their brethren?"
"You are the most intractable woman," Soul growled, removing his hat and setting it beside him. "I am quite familiar with rifles, thank you, and I mean to say that I've never seen one like that before. Up until just now I would have said I was conversant with all of the rifles currently in use, but that is a new one to my eyes."
"That is because it is the only one of its kind," Maka said, examining a mechanism near the loading slot. "Unless its creator has made another prototype, but given his current circumstances I doubt that." She arced an eyebrow at his blatantly curious stare. "It is a repeater," she said, and picked up a box of ammunition from where she'd set it beside her. "You load rounds into the chamber here, and after every shot you fire you simply give the trigger mechanism a pull to discharge the shell and reload. Much faster, much easier. Occasionally it jams, but it is only a prototype, and it is far ahead of its time."
"Miss Albarn," Soul said, staring at the rifle gleaming in her hands, light catching on the skull etched into the metal plate over the stock, "I hope I do not offend, but please enlighten me - what is it you do, exactly?"
She gave him a tight, amused smile. "I am an accountant," she said, setting the rifle aside and standing to strip off her gloves and coat, exposing the modest, neat curves Soul had been so slow to notice earlier. "I work as part of my father's business."
Soul watched her in silence for a minute or more as she set up her bedroll, folded her coat neatly to use as part of her pillow, pulled off her boots and set them by her packs. Finally he gave up and said, "Ma'am, I suppose I believe you, but what is it you account for, exactly, that you carry around such a gun and clearly have no difficulty of any kind killing a bandit in a knife fight?"
Maka came back to the fire, accepted a fish and a few cakes from Soul, and shrugged. "The rifle and my combat abilities are largely unrelated to my work as an accountant," she said, chewing. "As you have seen, my father has a particular gift for offending people in a position to have him killed, and they frequently attempt to target me instead, being as I am female, supposedly helpless by virtue of my sex and occupation, and my father is notoriously attached to me. Learn to use a rifle, he said, and if your enemy has made it inside its range, far better to close with him and use a melee weapon. He was correct: many men, accustomed to fighting at something of a distance because of their habit of carrying pistols, freeze up in a hand to hand fight because they don't know how to react and are completely unused to having opponents determined to physically assault them."
She paused, and took another bite of her dinner before saying, "Besides, most men are much more afraid of being stabbed than they are of being shot. Distance can make anything seem less threatening, I suppose."
"It certainly had that effect on you," Soul grumbled, and Maka gave him another one of those unexpected grins. That was a good sign, he thought, so he hazarded a comment. "For someone whose intelligence is so lacking in your opinion, you seem to have some respect for your father's advice."
Maka snorted a little. "I said he was a fool, and a sentimental man easily swayed by the charms of women," she said. "I did not imply that he was mentally deficient in all areas, nor that he is necessarily bad at what he does."
"What does he do," Soul asked, tried to play it cool and not act as if every detail she gave him made him more worried about just what he was getting involved in.
Maka gave him a cool smile that didn't quite get to her eyes. "He is in the shipping business, among others," she said. "His good friend and business partner is a doctor, and a large portion of my father's cargo consists of medical supplies and medicines, which we sell at a drugstore near the practice. The real reason he came to California was to scout out a location for a general store, though I can't say that I am very surprised to find that he is far more interested in prospecting and making enemies than doing any official work. Participating in the gold rush is like gambling, and he's always liked that much better than doing anything reliable or respectable."
"California is his kind of place, then," Soul said with a slow, toothy smile, and Maka made an irritated noise.
"The man has a lot of business that he needs to attend to back east," she said. "It wouldn't ordinarily be a problem - he usually manages not to completely botch everything, if only because he tends to remember his responsibilities at the last possible moment - but things have gotten dire rather more quickly than I was prepared to deal with, and he is the only one with the authority to set things right. I am, after all, only an accountant. He is the business owner, and when he put his signature on the papers he accepted certain duties that he must now see to."
Soul frowned at her around a mouthful of dinner. Something about the way she talked didn't sit right - something about her determined urgency didn't line up with the story she was telling. "Surely he left someone else in charge while he was away?"
"The good doctor, yes," Maka said with a resigned sigh. "Unfortunately, he's gone missing as well, and not under good circumstances. Trust me, I would not have travelled a month and more on an uncomfortable, cramped boat if the situation had not become truly dire. I can only hope that I can find him quickly and book a return trip as fast, because the situation I left behind was not one that I expected to keep for all that long."
Soul's frown deepened. "I suppose this is an instance of information I do not yet need to know in order to perform my duties, Miss Albarn?"
"You are correct," she said with a prim sniff. "It is not yet your business to know any more details, and if we are lucky it will never be." She set her plate aside, produced a handkerchief from her shirt pocket, and wiped her mouth neat as you pleased. "I am going to wash my dishes and my face, and attempt to make up some of the sleep I've been missing these past days. Good night, sir."
Soul watched her do exactly that, still eating his dinner; watched her set up her bedroll, turn her back to the fire, and drop off to sleep seemingly effortlessly. He would have chastised her for not even bothering to set up a watch schedule with him, but they were in a place where it was far more likely that a bear would bother them than a person, and the bears were like to stay away, he'd found, since Medusa had cursed him. They didn't seem to find his scent all that appealing any longer, and he didn't blame them.
He finished his dinner and saw to the dishes, nerved himself up for a quick bath in the icy creek and then sought his own bed. It had been a strange, tiring day, and he was still hoping a little that it was just a dream he was bound to wake from.
Soul fell asleep to the sound of Maka's kitten-purr snore, which he found at once irritating and endearing - putting it exactly in line with most of her mannerisms.
Gunshots woke Soul just before dawn, and he was out of his bedroll and behind a tree before he'd properly registered that he was conscious. Pistol in hand, he crept towards the source of the sound. Maka was not in her bedroll and he was really hoping that they hadn't attracted truly determined pursuers that were the type to ambush lone women at dawn.
Anyway, the crazy woman owed him money, and he wasn't particularly keen on returning to town without even any gold to soothe the irritation of explaining to the sheriff why he'd killed a man behind the inn. So he crept through the trees and underbrush, cursed silently with every leaf and twig and rock that found its way into his socks and down his shirt, and realized after a few minutes of this that he shouldn't have even bothered, because the gunshot had been Maka killing a turkey for breakfast. She looked entirely nonplussed when he approached, sticks and leaves in his hair and still in the clothes he'd slept in; graciously made no comment on the fact that he wasn't wearing shoes and had a gun in his hand.
"I didn't mean to wake you just yet," she said, strange rifle slung over one shoulder and hands covered in blood as she dressed the bird. "But since you are awake, how long do you reckon it will take us to find the general area in which my father has supposedly staked his claim?"
"A few days," Soul said around a yawn, shivering in the morning chill. "And who knows after that. We'll have to hope that tart back in town was telling the truth, and find some pretty green ribbons to follow."
"She was," Maka said, busy plucking the bird. "My father's foolishness is quite distinct, and isn't easily counterfeited." Soul yawned and tried not to shiver too much while she finished with the turkey, and followed her back with only minimal profanity for nature's continued assault on his unarmored person. Maka cooked the bird while he packed up the camp and erased all sign of their presence, and they were back on the road not much more than an hour after dawn.
By the time they found the first scraggly green ribbon, it had been four days, Maka was irate at the time expenditure, and Soul had learned exactly one additional thing about her that was worth noting: her rifle was uncannily fast to reload and she was a crack shot with it, so much so that Soul had decided that he was going to avoid ever getting into a marksmanship contest with her, his reputation as one of the best sharpshooters around notwithstanding. It wasn't even a matter of different guns; he was a damn good shot with a rifle, too, but he knew when he was outclassed. Why she outclassed him, why an accountant from the city would ever have most of the skills she did, Soul still didn't know - didn't exactly believe her story about her father teaching her for some reason - and wasn't sure he wanted to. What he did know was that, when they found that first green ribbon, her eyes lit up like fireworks, and not with happiness.
No, that was all evil anticipatory glee, and it made Soul's hair stand on end. He led her down the pitiful excuse for a trail that the ribbon marked, though, for all that having his back to her when she was wearing that expression felt like suicide. With any luck they'd find her father's claim soon and she could take it out on him rather than redirecting it Soul's way when she inevitably got impatient.
He wasn't holding his breath, though.