A/N: Hai! I know this is a day late, but y'all should count yourselves lucky that it's this close to on schedule. ;) I discovered Fullmetal Alchemist (and if you don't know what that is, go Google it at once! It's got steampunk! Germans! [Kind of.] WWI era things! [Also kind of.] Mechanical legs! [Though not of the walker type.] Also, general awesomeness!) several days ago, and since I thought I had nothing better to do, I ended up going on a binge. And quite possibly setting the record for number of manga chapters read consecutively; 108 fifty-ish-page chapters in two days is probably bordering on unhealthy. But what the heck. Anyway, long (looooooong) story short, I'm slightly delirious right now from withdrawal (but thus is the beauty of fanfiction!), and my head is not entirely in the Leviathan universe. *loopy grin* So! This is as good as you're gonna get.
That rant (which approximately zero of you cared about, most likely) over, this chapter is a beauteous thing of much length and few plot developments. :P But hey, stuff happens, and there's descriptions, and of course the obligatory fluff. Here's hoping you'll stick with it.
Guest reviews! Thank you, China, for making this too long again. :P
China aru: No, it isn't dead. It was a FIGURATIVE obituary, you see. It also served the purpose of perhaps causing people to think someone else had died. :D
The point, China, is that the canon does not feature enough fluff. Thus is the chronic problem of all Dalek shippers, and since you are likely the only person reading this thing who is NOT a Dalek shipper (fluff-o-phobe :P), you are the only person who would find an issue with this. By the Law of Prussia, I render your protest invalid. :D Fluff is good! Fluff is fabulous! THERE CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH FLUFF! (Well, there can, but that's not the issue here.) Besides, as you well know—the plot and the adventure are a'comin'. ;)
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Except for Arty. But WAIT—it's illegal to own people in my corner of the world, so I suppose I don't really own HER, either. :D
Count Volger was lurking by the luggage, his mustache twitching suspiciously at the groundmen scurrying past, their heads down and caps pulled low. The Austrian, however, hadn't bothered to so much as turn up his collar, his supreme disdain for everything from Britain's weather to the bustle of the landing field broadcast from him like Morse code from a wireless.
Consequentially, his mustache was looking positively sodden despite the twitching, and Alek felt a surge of superior pleasure seeing him so unkempt.
He'd half hoped that Volger hadn't meant what he'd said about following Alek to Russia—he'd deliberately avoided discussing leaving, reasoning a little irrationally that if he didn't talk about it, Volger might somehow forget—but the man had all the tenacity of the bulldogs one of Alek's half-British aunts—or cousins, he wasn't quite sure—had devoted her entire life to breeding.
Volger had also somehow brought along his trunk—presumably he'd bribed or intimidated some crew member into carrying it here, as he mostly likely wouldn't stoop to carrying it himself. Alek eyed it with some trepidation—he'd never figured out what, exactly, Volger had snuck through Austria in the Stormwalker and ferried onto the Leviathan, and Volger certainly wasn't telling. Presumably he had some more dubiously usefully family heirlooms obsessively packed in that trunk, ready to be whipped out in a time of need.
"Aleksandar!" he called as soon as he caught sight of Alek through the still-pounding rain. "Aleksandar, I had to ask one of the crew for directions here. In the future, please do inform me of the details of your madcap schemes beforehand." He spoke in German, an utterly useless gesture, as both Dr. Barlow and Deryn could understand him just fine. Perhaps he was simply trying to make things a little bit harder for Deryn—he knew she had more difficulty with German than English, however impressive she was for someone who hadn't even heard the language before four months ago.
"This is hardly 'madcap,'" said Alek stiffly in English. "Or a scheme. Don't be petty, Count."
"Surely, Your Serene Highness," Volger all but snarled, putting a nasty twist on the title and turning to Dr. Barlow. "Are we ready to go, Doctor?" He cast a meaningful and slightly apprehensive glance towards the airfield's gate.
"Hardly," Dr. Barlow said, tilting the umbrella she'd procured from somewhere down a bit. "Most of my luggage hasn't arrived yet, I'm afraid. Nor has Mr. Sharp's."
Volger cast a cold look at Deryn. She gave him a champion glare right back and took a step closer to Alek. She was capless and umbrella-less, her blond hair pasted to the angles of her face and her dress jacket spotted with wet, and Alek was suddenly reminded very strongly indeed of their time spent topside in the hurricane.
The result of that particular adventure, sadly, would hardly go over well on a public airfield—or with Volger—so Alek settled for taking off his own hat and pressing it onto Deryn's head. He had to reach up quite a bit to do so, he noticed glumly.
She offered him a soft, surprised laugh and a half grateful, half exasperated smile, brushing the hat's brim lightly with her fingertips. "Aye," she said to Volger, her smile disappearing as if wiped off. "Wouldn't want to forget the barking luggage, now would we?" She squinted through the rain, pushing her hat up her forehead. "In fact, here's the poor bum-rag now—oi! It's Newkirk!"
Alek wondered irrelevantly why she sounded so surprised—Newkirk was, after all, the common victim of various other menial tasks aboard the airship, as she herself was—but Bovril stirred from where it had been huddled in his coat and muttered, "Arty. Poor girl."
Alek frowned—it was right, of course, in mentioning Arty. Shouldn't she be here by now? "Deryn," he asked quietly, although it was hardly necessary, as the rain pattering on the gangway half covering them was quite loud, "where's Arty?"
She was watching Newkirk as he struggled to drag Dr. Barlow's enormous trunk, keep what looked like her kit bag over his shoulder, and prevent Tazza from pulling him over, a frown etched between her pale eyebrows. "What is Dr. Busk bloody thinking, letting him out his own already?" she said, angrily and presumably to herself, then answered distractedly, "She's at the hotel already—had a bit of a Huxley accident. Newkirk and I were wrapped up in it. I'll tell you later."
Newkirk looked, as Deryn would say, dead shattered, trudging with his head down. He looked up and attempted a smile when he saw Alek and Deryn, but he was pale and positively sickly-looking. Deryn rushed over to him immediately, pulling him around by the arm and causing him to drop Dr. Barlow's trunk. Alek, stepping in to lend a hand, nearly got his foot in the trunk's way, instead hastily jumping back and attempting to catch one end of it.
It practically tore his arm out of its socket, but he still managed to catch Deryn's aggrieved tone as she snatched her bag and Tazza away from Newkirk, saying, "You shouldn't bloody be out here! What Dummkopf's making you work?"
Alek wrenched the trunk partially off the ground, getting his other hand under it, and began to laboriously drag it towards the other luggage. He was listening hard, however, and heard Newkirk mumble, "The captain. But I'm fine now, honest."
Deryn's searching glance was practically audible. "If you say so," she said, obviously not convinced, then lowered her voice. Alek only caught a few snippets of what she said next—"Arty" and "barking fine, Newkirk" prominent among them.
Alek gave up on the trunk most of the way to the pile—Lord only knew what peculiar boffin supplies Dr. Barlow had in there, as it was nearly as heavy as Alek himself was—and turned in time to see Deryn seize Newkirk's hand and shake it, saying in quite a normal voice, as if this wasn't quite possibly the last time she'd see him, "See you 'round, Newkirk... Eugene."
Newkirk swallowed and managed, "See you 'round, Sharp... Dylan." He half turned and appeared to notice Alek for the first time, taking a few steps towards him. "And you, too, Aleksandar."
Alek took his hand hesitantly. It was limp and clammy, especially compared to Deryn's usual assertive handshake. "It was nice to, ah, know you, Mr. Newkirk," he said, and left it at that. If Deryn, who was closer to Newkirk than he ever would be, could say good-bye in a single sentence, then he would probably do best to match her brevity.
"See you 'round," added the loris, so softly that only Alek could hear it, as Newkirk paused one last time to wave despondently at the top of the gangway and then disappeared into the bowels of the ship.
Dr. Barlow turned from her quiet conversation with Volger and smiled. "Is Mr. Newkirk finally gone? Good, now we can depart." She snapped her gloved fingers, and Deryn handed her Tazza's leash as eagerly as if it was a hot potato.
"Leave the luggage," the lady boffin instructed her general vicinity, twirling her umbrella as if it was a parasol and spattering everyone with a spray of water. Her loris cackled. Alek raised a sleeve to his face and wiped it. "The taxi driver can get it. It's what he's being paid for, after all."
Deryn, typically stubborn, clung to her kit bag as they followed Dr. Barlow on her delicately picked way down the wheel-rutted path across the field to the gate. On the other side of the field loomed an imposing yet plain brick wall, wood smoke and sparks from the myriad chimneys inside of it spiraling up into the storm. A low building with a huge carriage hitched to two enormous fabricated creatures—huddled and indistinct in the rain—sprawled nearer to the center of the field—Wormwood Scrubs, he thought Deryn had called it. Mooring masts jutted up every several hundred meters, mostly empty.
As they stepped out onto the edge of the street, Alek felt his jaw drop in shock. Wormwood Scrubs was supposedly in London's suburbs, or so Deryn had said, but it was far from quiet. Wagons, carts, and sledges of all sorts clattered across the cobblestones, drawn by fabricated creatures just as varied—everything from what passed as horses pulling the smallest vehicles to a massive beast, what Alek suspected Deryn would call an "elephantine," pounding its ponderous way along the roadway, dragging a massive load on a sledge. The whole affair had a scent vaguely reminiscent of the Leviathan's digestive tract, but it had a not unpleasant undertone of wood smoke and fresh hay, and overall it was vastly preferable to the choking coal-scented smogs Alek had experienced in Vienna and Berlin.
New York City had been at least this busy, but its streets were predominantly thronging with the passenger walkers so familiar to Alek, not this robust, bright bustle of life.
Dr. Barlow, twitching her skirts back impatiently from the sprays of mud and who-knew-what thrown up by the vehicles' wheels, turned to Deryn. "Well, hurry up and hail a taxicab, won't you? You do know how?"
"Aye, ma'am, I was born and raised in Glasgow," Deryn said with remarkable patience. Alek heard her mutter something about "too barking posh to do it herself" before she stepped fearlessly out into the traffic and waved her arm madly above her head as if she did this every day. Perhaps she had, before working on the Leviathan. Alek wouldn't have known. "Oi! Taxi!" she cried, then gave a long, piercing, unbroken whistle, a skill she claimed was an essential part of being an airman.
One of the smaller carriages, drawn by what looked like some sort of a downsized hippopotamus, immediately clattered to a halt in front of their small party, its driver hopping smartly down from his exposed perch on its front.
"Aye, sir?" he asked, looking at Deryn and smiling with brown-stained, tobacco-chewing teeth. His accent was rougher and thicker than even Deryn's, though definitely not Scottish, and his coat and hat, despite the miserable weather, were as shabby as Malone's. Alek felt an irrational urge to suddenly hide behind someone, preferably Dr. Barlow, as she was closest.
Deryn flashed an easy grin of her own. "It'll be four," she said, jerking a thumb back towards the field. "We've a bit of luggage back there. I'll lend a hand."
"Thank'ee, lad," said the driver, eyeing Tazza. "So long as the beastie doesn't tear up m'cushions."
"Don't worry, he won't," said Deryn cheerfully. Alek could swear that her accent had gotten thicker. "He'll only go for curtains, the more expensive the better."
Bovril laughed muffledly from inside Alek's coat, as did the taxi man, already following her back into the field to recover the luggage. He heard him enquire which ship they "were off" as they strode out of earshot.
Volger was already holding the taxi's door open for Dr. Barlow, who climbed up primly, Tazza clambering joyfully after her, his long nails scrabbling. Despite its driver's decrepit appearance, the taxi's inside was reasonably clean and neat—which was puzzling, as it smelled even more rank than the outside air. Two seats faced each other, with a tiny window on the opposite door between them. Dr. Barlow, whose nose was no doubt used to such things, seated herself farthest from the open door, and Volger elected to settle next to her.
Alek lingered outside despite the fact that his soaked hair was dripping water into his eyes, willing to stay in the storm so long as it meant he was breathing marginally cleaner air. He absentmindedly tilted his head back but, getting a faceful of rain, quickly dropped his chin again. His ears were tingling with cold.
Had Deryn really meant by "Huxley accident" that what had happened to her had happened to Arty—that she'd been blown off untethered in this freezing storm?
He shivered in sympathy, and Bovril, who had developed an uncanny ability to track trains of thought, piped up with a musing, "Hypothermia. Poor girl," of its own.
Alek was opening his mouth to ask it what, exactly, it meant by saying that—not that it would tell him, in all probability—when Deryn and the taxi driver reappeared through the rain, struggling with the four trunks between them.
"—bloody heavy," Deryn was panting as Alek rushed forward and took his own trunk from her—it was almost certainly the lightest of the four, he thought wryly. Deryn proffered a grin.
"Strap it up there," she ordered, pointing to the top of the taxi. Alek wrestled it up, then spent a few awkward moments struggling with the straps—come on, he told himself, if you could keep those cantankerous Stormwalker engines running on stolen and Darwinist parts, then you can figure out a few pieces of leather—and beat a grateful retreat to the interior of the carriage, smell and all.
He bent over and swiped at the water dripping off his nose—a useless gesture, since his sleeve was just as damp—as Deryn swung gracefully and casually in the door. "We're going," she called out the door, presumably to the driver, "to—where, ma'am?"
"The Savoy Hotel," supplied Dr. Barlow, folding her gloved hands neatly in her lap.
Deryn's eyebrows shot up, and she muttered, "Barking posh, that is," but she continued, "—to the Savoy Hotel, please."
The driver's cheerful "aye" floated in just as Deryn swung the door shut and plonked herself down next to Alek—rather close, in fact, so much so that their shoulders brushed. She swept off Alek's borrowed hat, then wrung it out with blatant disregard for its structural integrity and the dryness of her own boots and handed it back to him, only slightly crumpled.
"Thanks," she told him, smirking, and laced her fingers through his under cover of his coat. Suddenly Alek didn't feel quite as cold.
Deryn leaned across him, nearly pressing her face to the window, and peered out. "Blisters, but it's raining," she commented, and then asked, "Why the bloody Savoy, ma'am?"
The lady boffin sniffed, stroking Tazza's head. "My house is hardly in the city, even if I were inclined to invite you there. And the Zoo lacks quarters for anything more civilized than a chimpanzee. I and other members of the Society often reside at the Savoy. And, young lady," she added, "what have I said about the language?"
Deryn settled back into her seat, her shoulder again brushing Alek's, and gave Dr. Barlow a long, inscrutable look. "Pardon me, ma'am," she said finally, "but I'm the best judge of how to keep up my disguise, aye?"
Dr. Barlow eyed her coldly. "Don't be snippy," her loris pronounced in an excellent imitation of her voice. Bovril gave a derisive cackle, crawling out of Alek's coat front and onto Deryn's lap. She picked it up immediately and cuddled it to her chest.
The lady boffin seemed content to leave matters there, however, and an awkward five-minute silence ensued. The carriage rattled on at a pace that felt rather slow to Alek, although the view out the window was so bad he couldn't tell if it was traffic or just the fabrication's natural pace. Finally Volger turned to Dr. Barlow and asked some trivial question, and soon the two were engaged in quiet conversation. Deryn took the opportunity to lean her head on Alek's shoulder—she was slumped in her seat, and most of her height was in her legs, so they were equal when sitting—and recount the tale of Arty's mishap, uncharacteristically free, so far as Alek could tell, of any of her usual embellishments.
By the time the carriage clattered to a halt, Alek's mind had been pulled away entirely from the fact that he could smell her hair from here—the scent was quite nice, more so considering the general smell of his surroundings, and rather, well, Derynish—and he was fully engaged in worrying about Arty. He liked her well enough—she was beginning to grow on him, but he suspected that if he hadn't had Deryn to completely demolish his standards of proper female behavior, he would have been rather scornful of her—and, besides, to hear about something like that happening to anybody was frightening. He tried to reassure himself with the fact, much vaunted by Deryn, that Darwinist doctors were "dead brilliant" and could most likely easily handle a case of hypothermia.
Deryn, however, was far from consolable, her anxiety and her guilt painfully evident in her voice, and she fretted silently in a most unusual-for-her way the entire way to their destination. Once the carriage swung in a tight circle and stopped, however, she looked up and managed a smile.
"Have a look, then," she invited Alek, pushing open the door and swinging out with a modicum of her usual verve.
He inspected the building in front of him, duly impressed by its size and grandeur. The taxi had swung its way throughout most of a small roundabout at the front of the hotel, which was situated on a rather long stretch of very straight and wide road absolutely teeming with vehicles, which Deryn waved a hand vaguely at and announced, "The Strand," as if that was supposed to make any sense.
The hotel itself was at least eight stories high, with multiple wings, and the front doors were open under a massive block of stone proclaiming, simply, "Savoy." The multitude of windows were decorated with miniature arches and trim details, and Alek supposed it would have been very impressive indeed—if his childhood home hadn't been a castle. Besides, it was not half as pretty as the Hotel Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, although that was hardly a fair comparison.
A red-and-gold-uniformed bellhop was already hurrying towards the taxi. He frowned just slightly as his eyes alighted on Alek's rather old coat, but his face smoothed out into pleased impassivity as he spotted first Deryn's dress uniform and then Dr. Barlow's bowler as she stepped daintily down from the carriage.
"Name, ma'am?" he asked in a cultured accent. Two other bellhops appeared silently from behind him and began work on the luggage straps, although Deryn made a surreptitious leap and again snagged her kit bag.
"Dr. Nora Darwin Barlow," she answered, adjusting both her hat and her grip on Tazza's leash. The rain had petered out into a miserable drizzle. "And, ah, companions. One of whom is already upstairs?"
"Yes, of course, ma'am," said the bellhop, taking one of the trunks himself. "If you'll follow me? Your rooms have already been paid for."
The slightly sodden group traipsed together into the lobby, which was lavishly appointed with marble and gilt and an electrikal chandelier on the high ceiling. Alek took a deep breath of the thankfully cleaned air—perhaps some sort of filtration system?—and turned slightly, watching Deryn out of the corner of his eye. She was facing straight ahead, her expression one of studied nonchalance, but her eyes were surreptitiously darting left and right, catching for a brief moment on the chandelier—as well as the Oriental carpets, the cut-glass mirrors, and the rather ostentatious displays of wealth on the persons of the hotel's guests. He elbowed her, smirking.
She rolled her eyes and mouthed "Dummkopf" at him just as one of the elevators dinged softly and the doors slid open. Inside were a velvet rug, a multitude of mirrors, and a blank-faced operator. Two of the bellhops hung back, and the four former Leviathan passengers piled in, along with the least laden of the bellhops.
Bovril, once inside, seemed to find it appropriate to declare, from its perch on Deryn's shoulder, "First electrikal lifts in Britain." Alek was at a loss as to how, exactly, it had acquired this information, but was, at this point, entirely sure of its accuracy.
The bellhop eyed the loris speculatively but did not pass comment on the nature of the speaker, instead settling for a suave, "Indeed. And the first hotel entirely wired for electrik lights as well."
Alek had to admit that the elevator was faster and quieter than the steam-powered ones in Istanbul. He wondered which Clanker country they'd bought the design off of—or was it American-made?
They arrived at their floor quickly, and the bellhop led them down several turns to what had to be very nearly the back of the hotel. "Your rooms, sirs, madam," he said, indicating three doors with the sweep of a white-gloved hand. "With Thames views, as requested. Miss Black is already in there, I believe." He pointed to one of the doors.
"Thank you," said the lady boffin, tipping him and indicating the same door he had. "That trunk goes in there. Mr. Sharp," she added, turning, "you are in the middle room. Count, Mr. Hohenberg, I'm afraid you're sharing the other."
"That will be perfectly all right, Doctor," said Volger quickly. "Come along, Aleksandar." And with that, he swung open the door of what would most likely be Alek's home for who knew how long and marched quickly inside, Alek following.
Ah, the Savoy. :) The more astute of you will no doubt notice a correlation with a certain something—at least, you will if you're as obsessively detailed-oriented a reader as I am, as it's mentioned a grand total of... once, maybe? Twice? Not often, at least. ;)
In case you were wondering, my description of the Savoy is based off a picture of it. (I've seen it... probably... but I have absolutely no memory of doing so.) A modern-day one, though, so perhaps things might have changed. I was also unable to ascertain the height... :( The interior I made up. But hey, it's a high-end place, and they call it the "Gilded Age" for a reason, no? ;)
The fact Bovril cites about the electric (the only time you'll see me spell that with a "k" is when Alek's narrating; Deryn spells it normally, too) elevators and the one the bellhop adds about the lights are both true. Darned if I know why the Darwinists are fiddling about with electrical things, but, as Deryn tells us, everywhere else they use oil lamps, so...
Don't judge my attempt at writing cockney (or some heretofore unknown variant...?), please. ;) I haven't any practice.
Also, a small but heartfelt thanks to my shiny new beta, Julia456, for reading this and my insanely long plot summary over and disgorging opinions when prodded. ;) I trust y'all know her already?
Was last chapter unsatisfactory in some way...? I got five reviews... or is everyone else as "busy" as I am? If there's something wrong, please tell me. TT_TT Either way, make me happy this chapter and REVIEW!