VOYAGE

By Hydraa

This story takes place after "Oaths". There's some lemon, so be warned.

Reviews are always appreciated. Thanks much. Enjoy.

---000---

The train hurried along the tracks, steam pouring out of its stack as the engine raced along, towing its passenger cars across the rich farmlands, headed for distant cities. Farmers in those fields looked up as it passed, some turning right back to their work, others watching it wistfully, until everyone stared upwards in shock at what was approaching the train.

Wings stretched out wide, Chrno swept down on a thermal, angling over the train and through the steam from its smoke stack. On his back, Rosette yelped and smacked him in the back of the head with her fist.

"Watch where you're going!" she yelled.

"Stop squirming!" he fired back. "This isn't as easy as it looks!"

"Your tail's too tight!"

"And you're going to fall off!"

Still arguing, they shot across the field, workers below staring and pointing as they followed the wind currents. They felt like a pressure under Chrno's body and wings, their warmth pushing him up as he tried to use his wings as much as possible and his astral as little as he could get away with. It really wasn't so easy to do. His abdominal muscles and legs were getting sore from the need to keep his body straight in the air, and his back was really starting to turn into a nightmare. Rosette lay along it, her full weight right on his spine between his wings and her arms looped around his neck. He had a solid grip on her forearms with his clawed hands, which she complained about, and his whip tail was wrapped several times around them both, which she complained about. Worse, she kept shifting around, trying to look at the scenery or to get comfortable, and she was throwing off his balance. The heavy pack she wore on her back only increased the problem. Chrno suspected he was trying to fly with close to two hundred extra pounds pushing him down. They were making fairly good time, at least in comparison to the train, but nothing like what he could do on his own with his horns intact. He was more than a little worried that he'd hit a cold patch in the air while she was trying to do one of her gymnastics manoeuvres and end up doing a header straight into the ground. They were a lot lower than he'd like, but he was just carrying too much to get any decent height.

Rosette didn't agree. "Do you have to go so high?" she whimpered.

Chrno looked down at the ground, barely fifty feet below them. He guessed that, if he did hit a cold patch, that would give him roughly enough time to swear before they hit. He needed more altitude, fast.

He looked back at the train they'd caught up to. It was putting on speed, obviously trying to outrun them, and its windows were crowded with passengers, staring in fear. Great. Sister Kate would know they'd left New York a lot sooner than he'd have liked. Knowing their dumb luck, some of her militia would be on that train.

Still, he needed height, and if he could manage it this time, that train would give it to them.

"Hang on," he warned.

"Hang on? What do you mean, hang on?? I'm hanging on!"

The demon banked, his lover screaming on his back as he angled towards the train's smoke stack, trying to go slow enough to get into its steam without stalling in mid air or crashing into the side of it. Rosette was freaking out, throwing her legs around, and he tightened his tail around her, afraid she'd knee him between the legs or something. She certainly had the angle for it.

"Chrno!" she screamed. "I'm going to kill you! Stop! Stop!"

Chrno swept into the hot, blinding steam of the train, wishing he had her goggles, and flared his wings. This time he got the angles right and the sail of his wings caught the heat and threw them upwards like a cannon. They hit a comfortable five hundred feet in seconds and he found a cloud thermal, a current of warm air that carried them westward, far above the train.

"That's better," he sighed. He didn't have to work so hard up here. Ahead, a mountain of clouds filled the sky, but he'd be able to angle up over it and keep his altitude. Now if only he could get comfortable.

"Would you mind getting your ammo pouch out of my kidney?" he asked plaintively.

"I am so going to kill you," she hissed and he could just imagine how red her face was. "I'm going to pull your head off and stick it on a pike and do the Macarena around it."

"You're the one who pointed out that we didn't have any money for train tickets," he said.

"I…"

"You're the one who said, 'hey, Chrno, why don't we fly? You can carry my fat ass and all our kit across the country while I try real hard to yank you into a tree. Won't that be fun?'"

"WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT MY ASS??"

Chrno sighed. He was tired, his entire body was sore, his back was killing him, his ears hurt from her shrieking, and he was feeling wholly unappreciated. His natural demonic submission to his liege, in this case Rosette, was at definite low ebb as well. It was a good sign he was recovering from everything he'd been through in the last months though. They hadn't had a good fight in ages.

That didn't mean he was particularly enjoying this one. Rosette was far too close to his sensitive ears for that.

"STOP SCREAMING!" he bellowed as she continued with her high-pitched tirade. "You're hurting me!" She huffed, going into a sulk, and they were quiet for a while, Chrno following the thermal currents far above the ground. Clouds were starting to pass by underneath them and he felt Rosette relax somewhat, obviously more comfortable with the illusion of solid ground underneath her. He hadn't realized she'd be so afraid of heights. They'd flown together before, but never for long periods of time, and never in the daytime.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," he relented as last. "I'm just tired."

She was silent for a moment before he felt her shift on his back and her warm breath blew on his neck. "Do you want to stop for a while?" she asked. "I can give you a back massage."

That sounded wonderful. "I can't," he said regretfully. "The ground's too flat here. I don't know that I'd be able to get airborne again. Not until we get somewhere with some cliffs."

"How far is that?" she asked doubtfully.

"I'm not sure. I'll have to fly at least for today and into tomorrow, if not the next day. I hope you went to the bathroom before we left," he smiled.

"You didn't tell me you'd have to fly that long! Why are you doing this?"

"Because you asked me to," he said wearily.

Rosette was quiet for a long time and finally tugged her hand free of his grip. She was gentle, so he let her, and she stroked his ear gently. He sighed, his eyes lidding mostly closed.

"I didn't mean for you to have to fly for so long," she told him softly. "You know you don't have to do everything I say."

"I didn't-" he started to say and paused. "I guess I did."

She poked him gently in the back of the head. "Idiot, you're not my servant."

Most of the time, she acted like he was, but Chrno knew he wasn't. It was just easier to go along with her ideas. "I can make it," he assured her doubtfully. "The higher we are, the less time it takes."

"Oh." Her arm returned to his and he renewed his grasp on it. "I have an idea. You need height to take off, so we'll look for cities and take a break in them. You can take off from a skyscraper, just like we did in New York."

"That would be dangerous," he pointed out. "What if someone saw us?"

"So? We can outrun anyone. And I don't want you cramping up or something. You can't fight if you're exhausted."

She had a point. Considering where they were going, they needed him in top form. "All right. Do you have the map handy?"

"Sure, yeah. Um, let me..." She took her arm back and he heard her searching through her pockets. A moment later, he heard the rattly sound of paper being unfolded in the wind. "Okay, we're about…" The rattly sound vanished. "Applesauce!"

Chrno closed his eyes. "You dropped the map, didn't you?"

"It's not my fault!"

---000---

It was growing dark in Pennsylvania, or maybe in Idaho, as they reached the city. Chrno was becoming very glad of Rosette's suggestion. At one time, he could have made the journey, but that was when he had his horns and he was always in his demon form. He was out of shape for this and the extra weight really was dragging him down. He wouldn't be able to make it all the way to Texas like he planned. He wasn't sure he'd make it all the way to downtown.

He forced himself to, rejecting the short buildings on the outskirts. He needed height, real height to take off, and for that he needed a tall building. Luckily, though the city they'd reached was built at the junction of two cold rivers, the city itself supplied enough heat to keep him airborne while the sun went down. Rosette dozing on his back, he laboured through the air, using more astral than he would have liked to force his way to the top of the tallest building he could see in the downtown core. He heard people shouting distantly from the ground, easily seeing his glowing shape in the darkness, but he was too tired to care. He had to land.

He did, roughly, and dropped to his hands and knees, immediately shifting back into the form of a twelve-year-old boy. Immediately flattened under the weight of Rosette and their gear, he decided he was comfortable enough and passed out.

Rosette yanked her head up, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and looked around. She'd fallen asleep and missed their arrival in the city. She looked around at the gravel covered rooftop and down underneath her at the sleeping boy.

"Chrno?" she queried, but he was making that little kitten snore of his that meant he wouldn't be waking up for a while. Rosette smiled and rolled off of him, pushing the pack off of her back. It had been just as heavy for her as it was for Chrno and she was glad to get it off.

"And you thought you could fly all the way to Texas," she smirked at the sleeping demon. Standing up, she went to look over the edge of the building. It was a big one, some sort of office building, and she looked down to see people gathering on the sidewalk below, illuminated by street lamps. As she stood there, police cars pulled up.

"Oh, applesauce," she muttered. They must have spotted Chrno. "Hey, we got to get out of here!" She hurried back to her lover, but he'd curled himself into a little ball and was still snoring. He would have been adorable if they weren't in such danger. She still had her guns, but no ammo, and Chrno didn't look like he could fight a mouse right now.

Rosette hurried back to the edge of the building and looked down. The police had now been joined by several cars with blue suited men and women in them. "Ah, crap." Wherever they were, this city had a chapter of the Holy Order of Magdalene in it. "Why us? Chrno!" She ran to him, shaking him, but he ignored her. "Wake up! You have to wake up!" Her face darkened. "Sister Kate is here."

His head snapped up. "What? Where?"

Rosette rolled her eyes and went to grab the pack. "She's not here, but the local Order is. We have to go." She hurried to listen at the rooftop door as Chrno climbed to his feet, looking like he was in real pain. "Can you fly?"

"Not unless you want to do a swan dive into the pavement. I'm almost out of astral and I need to sleep." He looked sheepish. "I'm sorry, Rosette. I really thought I could fly farther."

"Don't worry about it." She listened at the door and looked back at him. Chrno only took on his child form now when he was really tired. He didn't like her thinking of him as a child. Rosette bit her lip and hurried back to his side. Tilting his head up, she gave him a quick kiss, breathing astral into his mouth, and took his hand. "Come on." She led him back to the door and listened. Still nothing from the other side, so she tried the handle. It was locked. Standing back, she kicked the door in with a crash.

"Subtle," Chrno commented.

"Shut up. You want to be caught here?" They were both demons now. She really didn't want people armed with Sacreds firing at them.

They hurried through the door and down the stairs it led to. That brought them to another door that let into the inside corridor of the building. All of the lights were out and it reminded Rosette of the training maze back in New York as she crept down the hallway, Chrno at her back. The pack was heavy on her shoulders, but he was tired enough without carrying it. She'd give him more astral later, when they didn't have to worry about interruptions and he could renew her own legion levels. Rosette blushed and started towards the elevator.

The arrow showing what floor the car was on was turning, heading for the top floor. "Ah, crap," Rosette grumbled and bolted down the hallway, nearly pulling Chrno off his feet. He scrambled after her, his red coat billowing behind him. They ran down the hall, testing doors, and ran into one marked with an accountant's name as the elevator chimed and the door opened.

Both of them held their breath, listening to the sound of three people coming out of the elevator car. They sounded young, too young to Rosette but just about her age to Chrno. Apprentices, he thought. They sent apprentices after them. Given the amount of destruction Rosette used to hand out, he wasn't sure that was such a good thing.

The apprentices stomped around the hall for a minute, trying to decide what the best thing to do was, and headed off finally for the stairs to the roof. Once they were gone, Rosette opened the door and peered out. "They're gone," she whispered and hurried back out to the elevator. The doors had closed again and she poked the button to summon it.

"Do we really want to be taking the elevator?" Chrno asked her. "There could be a dozen militia waiting for us downstairs."

He had a point. Rosette frowned and checked the map on the wall beside it. "There's the stairs," she pointed. "We'll go that way." Grabbing his hand again, she led him through the dark towards it, both of them better able to see in the darkness with their slitted eyes. Chrno let her, muffling a yawn. Even in a form without wings, he could feel how badly they ached. He was going to be in pain in the morning. This trip of theirs was going to take a lot longer than they'd originally planned. Then again, Rosette's original plan for him to teleport them there instantly, the same way Aion transported around the country. But her tiny little horns couldn't gather enough energy for them to do that. He couldn't even teleport into the next room.

Tiptoeing with exaggerated caution, Rosette crept up to the corner and turned around it, coming face to face with the nun who'd been doing the same thing from the other side. Both of them stared at each other and screamed, Rosette at the girl's gun, the girl at Rosette's small yet obvious horns. Then Rosette punched her in the nose, and the nun's shot went wide, arcing over Chrno's head as he cringed.

"Rosette! Run!" he shouted. He could hear the other two nuns running back towards them.

So could Rosette. She grabbed the girl's gun and bolted back the way they came, both of them nearly tripping over each other as they raced back past the elevator and down the other corridor, into the centre of the building. Footsteps sounded behind them, echoing so that they couldn't be sure how many people were chasing them.

"Do you know where you're going?" Chrno shouted.

"Away!" she answered.

"They're over there," they both heard. "I can hear them!"

"Applesauce," Rosette growled and bolted around another corner, into a wide open space designed to hold a multitude of desks.

Distantly, as he followed her, Chrno heard another sound, a humming that was familiar to him. His mind flashed onto an image of a little silver-haired girl, hurrying after him with a bunch of crosses in her arms.

"Rosette!" he shrieked. "Cross barrier!"

She looked back at him, startled, and an instant later she slammed full force into a glowing wall that appeared in front of her. Chrno skidded to a halt behind her, horrified. Apprentices or not, those nuns had managed to get a cross barrier up as effectively as Azmaria used to. They were both trapped.

Rosette howled in outrage, beating on the barrier. Chrno just pressed his back to hers, staring at the three shapes that came into the room. One of them flipped on the lights and Rosette whirled, wincing.

The oldest of the three couldn't have been more than seventeen, the youngest fourteen. All three girls wore blue dresses and headdresses. The youngest one had a bloody nose.

Very deliberately, Chrno put himself between Rosette and them.

"Get out of my way," she groused, shoving him forcibly to one side, and stalked to the edge of the barrier closest to them. "You open this thing right now!" she ordered.

The middle girl looked confused, the youngest busy with her nose. The oldest glared back. "I don't take orders from demons."

Rosette ground her teeth together and Chrno stepped up beside them. "What are you going to do with us?" he asked softly. "We didn't do anything."

"Yeah!" Rosette chorused. "We didn't do anything!"

"Demons are always up to something," the nun recited smugly.

The second nun, the confused looking one, turned to her elder. "Sister Karen?" she said slowly. "I recognize them. They were in the flyer the New York branch sent us. Remember?" She pointed at Chrno. "He raped her and turned her into a demon. She's really a militia fighter like us."

Chrno buried his face in his hands. He'd managed to forget that Sister Kate thought that.

Rosette apparently had forgotten. "WHAT?? WHO SAID HE RAPED ME??"

"The New York office," the second nun intoned gently. "They said you were his thrall and anyone who found you was to bring you back."

"I was not raped!" Rosette screamed. "I wanted him! Kate just can't get that idea through her head 'cause she's never been laid!"

"You lie," the girl said. "Like all demons. He's making you think this."

Rosette's face was purple, she was so angry. "Here's what I think of that," she grated and grabbed Chrno. Startled, he was spun around and pulled against her, her lips locked over his. The nuns shrieked.

She breathed astral into him, far more than the tiny bit she'd given him on the roof. This was a full breathing, done to bring him to full power, but it looked like a passionate kiss and did all sorts of interesting things to his lower anatomy. Lust rose in him as he changed shape, shifting into his adult form, suddenly a head taller than her with his long hair falling to frame her upturned face. He reached up to put his hands on her cheeks and let himself shift further. Sore wings stretched out, beating slowly as his whip tail came around to wrap around her, the spiked end resting gently between her breasts. He'd nearly forgotten about the staring nuns when she broke the kiss and pulled back enough to look at him with smoky eyes.

"The window," she whispered.

An instant later, she ducked under his wing, her stolen gun in her hand, and shot one of the crosses that formed the barrier, the Sacred easily passing through the wall. The nuns screamed as the cage dropped and Chrno picked his lover up, leaping for the large windows set in the far wall. Twisting in his embrace, Rosette shot them out and he dove through them, wings spreading.

They hurt terribly. Chrno ignored the pain, trying to balance the weight in his arms, complete with pack, in the terrible currents caused by the buildings. They threatened to throw him into the side of the building they'd escaped from and he canted nearly to the point of rolling over in order to get enough distance from it. That brought him nearly into the buildings on the other side of the street and he wrenched his wings around to turn. They were losing altitude fast though, his wings too sluggish and the weight too much, too far forward for him to compensate. He pulled his legs around and landed hard on top of the hood of one of the Order's cars, crumpling the metal under his feet and probably destroying the suspension.

"Run for it," he gasped. "I can't fly."

They bolted, Chrno shifting back to his child form. People were yelling, militia who didn't go into the building rallying with the police to cut them off, but they both ducked into the gathered crowds, just like they'd always hated demons to do when they were the ones hunting them down. Hands clasped, they sprinted through them and out the other side, racing down an alleyway.

"How long before they get a car, you think?" Chrno gasped.

An engine roared behind them. "Not soon enough."

They raced down the ally and out into the street on the far side, nearly getting hit by a bus in the process. It screeched to a halt and they kept running, Chrno almost afraid to keep his eyes open. Rosette still had a death grip on his hand though and she towed him after her. He didn't resist. The thought of getting separated from her in a city they didn't know was horrific.

A militia car raced out of the ally they'd left, two armed men in it. One of them leaned out the passenger window, firing, and Rosette grunted before falling onto her front.

Chrno turned, howling. In demon form again in an instant, he leaped in front of the car before it could stop and caught it, his feet digging into the pavement as its front end crumpled around him. Raging, he dug his claws into the front of the vehicle and heaved, lifting the entire thing over his head. The men rolled out through the open doors and he threw it, sending it flying into the wall above the alley they'd left. It hit and exploded, fire and metal going everywhere. Chrno pounced on the man who'd shot his lover, grabbing him by the front of his uniform while his tail wrapped around the second man's neck behind him.

"What have you done?" he shrieked.

"Chrno!" Rosette gasped. "I'm okay! Let them go!" She grabbed his arm, her eyes frightened. "They hit the pack, not me. I'm all right."

Relief flooded through him. "I thought they'd killed you," he mourned and shoved the man away so hard he skidded on his fanny halfway across the street. The second man he tossed after him, letting him land on the first to pad his impact. Shifting back to a boy, he hugged her tightly, face pressed against her breasts. "I thought you were dead."

"No chance. I've got too much to do. Come on." Taking his hand again, she led him further into the city, looking for somewhere they could rest.

---000---

"We should have thought of this ages ago. It's way better than those abandoned buildings."

Lying on his back on a huge feather bed, Chrno stretched languidly, smiling up through his eyelashes at his lover. She knelt astride him, her bare breasts lovely in the dawn light that came through the window.

She smirked, moving against him gently. "Well, since we're considered bad guys no matter what we do, so what?" She raised and lowered herself. "Besides, you needed the rest."

Chrno hissed, head tilting back against the soft pillows. He didn't really get all that much rest before she decided to wake him, but he wasn't complaining. Her muscles were pressing against him in all sorts of wonderful ways and he could feel her psyche embracing his mind as well, making it decidedly hard to think. "Hrm," he managed, resting his hands on her knees. She just smirked again and renewed her pace, making him pant.

They'd found a hotel at last, a nice, high class establishment on the waterfront that they never would have been able to afford normally. One of its rooms wasn't rented out for the night though and a window on the tenth floor wasn't terribly hard to open once you reached it. Now they had access to a shower, a very nice bed, a radio, and to keep their privacy, the door was locked and had a large wardrobe shoved in front of it. They'd be gone before the maids came in to tidy in the morning though.

Rosette chuckled, enjoying her control over him, and Chrno just closed his eyes and relaxed, letting her do whatever she wanted to him. Maybe later they could rethink their travel plans, come up with something better than they were doing now. It was just too obvious, though he didn't know where they were going to get money for train tickets. They couldn't afford for their enemies to figure out where they were headed though, not with Azmaria and Joshua's lives riding on their success. Aion had them both, he had to, and the only place Chrno could think to start looking for them was Eden. It hadn't been an option before, but with Rosette no longer bound by the contract, they could go there. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be even harder if Aion guessed they were coming.

He turned his face into the pillow, whimpering as Rosette continued her efforts, content just to let her. She reached something deep inside him and he gasped suddenly, back arching. She chuckled. "Whatever happened to demonic stamina?"

"I'm tired," he pouted and pulled her down beside him. She let him and cuddled against his shoulder, her arm around him. "How long do you think we have until the maids try to get in?"

"I don't know," she yawned. "Maybe until ten?"

"Good." She started to snore. Chrno kissed her forehead and closed his own eyes. A moment later, they were both asleep.

THE END

Yes, this is to be continued…