"You're being barking ridiculous, Alek!" Deryn shouted. She removed her hands from her hips and threw them up in the air. She was irritated and did not want to continue this conversation anymore. Usually he backed off when she got angry.
"I am the ridiculous one? You're the one who wanted to decide where we would live by seeing who can hold their breath the longest." He enunciated each word very clearly as if speaking to a fool.
It was true though. She had. It seemed reasonable at the time. She still had to stick up for her idea. "You think that's daft because you know I would win!" She knew it sounded childish, but it was the best retort she could come up with in her anger. He shot her a look of disbelief, which caused her to blush.
"You wouldn't wi—" Alek choked on his words as Deryn sent him a scathing look. "That's not the point! The point is we can't base this decision on childish games!"
"Then how will we decide? Don't think I'll just happily follow your wishes, your princeliness."
Alek rolled his eyes. "Believe me, I know that. We need to talk it over like the mature adults we are." What a load of clart. They were barely twenty.
Deryn paused and brought her arms up to cross over her chest. "Aye, we tried that. And all we established was that you want to stay in clart-filled Austria." Her voice leveled out.
"Clart-filled?"
"Aye! Clart-filled! Have you been outside? It's awful! I don't see how you Clankers put up with all this mechanical muck."
"Clart-filled." Alek said again as if testing the words. Deryn proudly nodded, thinking she stumped him and snubbed out his suggestion for Austria. He turned and looked at her as he deadpanned: "Deryn, England is 'clart-filled'. Literally."
Deryn's face produced another shade of red. "You hardly notice after a while. Besides, it gets redd up(1)!" She fidgeted underneath his gaze, feeling her argument being drained of any usefulness. If she didn't think quickly, then she would be stuck in Vienna, living like a Clanker for the rest of her life. Then it hit her.
"They've already turned on you and your family once! What's saying it won't happen again?" Deryn smirked as she looked at Alek.
"That was the Germans. Besides, I highly doubt that that would happen again. They already lost one war."
Deryn was scrambling for something. As much as she loved Alek and didn't mind that he was a Clanker—piloting the walkers weren't that bad, either—she would not want to live in Vienna or any city like it. She wanted to be back in her beastie-loving surroundings. But she had nothing to argue on her behalf.
"Why not England? Or even Glasgow? Somewhere in Britain?" She said, defeated. She plopped down on the stuffed chair and rested her chin in her hand and studied him.
He sighed and sat down across from her. "Because, I grew up here. Plus I was a prisoner of war because of Britain. I don't believe your King would want a Hapsburg living that close-by."
"Yeah, well, you aren't a prisoner now. Besides, you have no connections political ties to Austria anymore!" She groaned and buried her face into her hands. This was awful. They hardly ever fought. She didn't want to fight. "How are we going to go about this then? We can't even discuss the matter."
"I don't know." Deryn peeked out from between her fingers at Alek as he leaned back in the chair and stared up lazily at the ceiling. He looked just as defeated as she. If she hadn't been paying so much attention on him she would've missed his next words. "I'm sorry."
She buried her face again and mumbled into her hands, "For what?"
"This. I don't know what we'll do. I just want to stop arguing."
"Aye, me too."
It was silent for some time before Deryn felt the previously sleeping Bovril jump onto her lap. She scratched behind its ear to give her something to do and focus on. She was about to comment on how peculiar it was that the loris had not only been quiet through the commotion, but also been asleep, when it spoke up.
"England."
Deryn almost jumped, as she looked wide-eyed at the beastie. "What?" She looked up across to Alek who sat on the edge of his seat, staring intently upon the loris.
"England!" It repeated.
"It didn't say what I think it said, did it?" Alek said, standing slightly.
Deryn beamed as it sunk into her. "I do believe the perspicacious loris says we are going to live in England." She stood up with Bovril in her arms. "I knew you'd be helpful one of these days!" She cried out, hugging the fab.
"No. There has to be another way. I take back what I said before! Whoever holds their breath the longest!" Alek was the one scrambling now for a way to keep his choice.
Deryn shook her head and giggled. "Uh, uh, uh! Never argue with what the perspicacious loris says!"
Alek stormed past her to go into the other room causing more spouts of laughter.
"Oh come on, Alek! Quit being such a daft ninny over this! You'll grow to love England with all of the fabs! It's quite funny to watch the Monkey Luddites' reactions to them!" Deryn shouted joyously as she sat Bovril down on the chair and ran after him to celebrate her victory.
Bovril curled up again to try to sleep since the two were gone. The last words fading in from the kitchen being:
"Quit holding your breath, Dummkopf!"
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Don't really think this is my best with this. It was just an idea I had while reading a chapter in my Lit book about how "Geography Matters" in literature and decided to do something humorous with it especially since I wanted to meet my self-imposed update deadline. And both of their backgrounds are deeply apart of who they are that I don't think they'd give in easily to living away from it. And let's face it, with impending WWII, where they live matters.
(1) Redd up means to clean up. While reading through I noticed I put that and I usually censor my colloquial vernacular (a.k.a. slang) out but most of it is from Scots-Irish origin so it fits in kind of and I kept it.
Best part? I already have the next chapter typed out as well! I'm on a roll people after receiving all of those wonderful reviews! Keep it up! Thank you all!
