One of my favourite things is old rhymes in stories-counting crows and old myths.
0o0o0o
Ivan let him go about his routine-silks and hair, sharpening his eyes and teeth for the coming battles. He sat on the bed and pulled at the edges of his scarf and wondered if Yao remembered that he needed to explain.
Yao didn't ask during the entire process for any explanation, but he came to Ivan's side and sat as if gathering energy for the day ahead, and that is worse, worse enough that Ivan let himself speak, but the wrong words came out.
'Have you talked to Doctor Oxenstierna recently?' Yao shook his head mutely. Ivan pulled at his scarf harder, wishing he could say something. 'He's worried about Emil,' he said. It was not a lie. Everyone was worried about Emil, even if he was getting better. The beast of loss was a cruel and vicious one, hard to dislodge and harder to forget.
'I know,' Yao said. 'I would be.'
'Why?'
'Why not?' Yao challenged back, but fell against his side with a smile. 'Ivan.'
'Yes?'
'Stay safe.' He nodded, so assured and unknowing that Ivan very nearly told him the truth right then, but stopped himself with the thought that he had. Some of it, at least, and that was okay.
0o0o0o
Yao walked into the meeting room, papers shuffling in his hands, thoughts flicking and clicking in his head. Ivan was hiding something underneath the new-Yao wanted to call it the gentleness in his eyes. It couldn't be deathly, though, or he would have told. Even if their relationship of an alliance was a precarious balancing act, Yao trusted that Ivan would speak when it counted.
'Yao, it's time to start,' Kiku whispered. Yao nodded and put down his papers.
'Doctors have been closely monitoring my health and I am glad to announce that I've made a full recovery,' he lied. Beside him, Kiku's foot tapped, the only sign of his surprise.
'That's good,' Natalya said. Yao caught her gaze, but it was unreadable. He resisted the urge to press his fingers to the pulse in his neck and check if it was fast. He was sure it was.
'Anything else?' a matronly-looking woman-Yao vaguely remembered her-asked. Kiku stood and listed off exports, prime utilization of space, ending with a detailed report of finances. Yao remembered the long nights hunched over their desks, directing reports with a kind of frenzy. Kiku glanced over as he did so, the barest hint of a smile on his lips before turning back around. Yao repressed his grin. Kiku was clever and as proud as him.
'And you?' Kiku asked finally, sitting down. Yao was sure he was the only one to see the way he arranged himself, as serene and poised as the ancient samurai even on the office chair. This was his element, the war of wits and veiled words.
Natalya took the floor, not nearly as tense as Yao would have liked to see after Kiku's words. Instead, she met his eye calmly, readying herself.
'There has been an outbreak,' she said calmly. Yao's spirits, alight with confidence, sank. Bile filled his mouth. Beside him, Kiku's poise cracked, just barely.
'An outbreak?' he managed. Natalya nodded gravely, but her eyes were sharp as diamonds.
'There were signs of the symptoms. We apprehended the infected before they could spread the disease.'
'How many?' Yao asked. His mouth was dry and it was hard to swallow. Natalya lifted her head.
'Just one.'
The conversation moved on, but Yao was frozen. It couldn't be, but maybe, just maybe it was him-no! He dismissed the thought. Ivan couldn't get the virus.
0o0o0o
Yao found himself running across the hallways of an unfamiliar fleet, trusting only the offhand words Ivan had spoken as Yao put his cracked machinery back together. The flags were unfamiliar and the wood was a golden brown here. He took another right. The building he had seen only in pictures loomed before him. He ran in without hesitating.
His footsteps made ripples of whispers and glances, but Yao did not care. He forced himself to slow, to regulate his breaths until he reached the main room. The guards looked at him fearfully.
'State your name and purpose,' one prompted, eyes wide and terrified. Yao lifted his head, feeling perhaps like the legendary kings of old with purpose and future.
'I am Yao Wang, leader of the Middle fleet,' he said calmly. 'I am here to visit the co-leaders of the Alliance of Two Fleets.'
His words rang in the air, hung like weighted teardrops of gold, and one by one the guards dropped their gazes and opened the door. Yao strode forward without a second glance, barely hearing the doors close behind him, and the two at the far end of the observatory turned to look at him.
Green eyes watched him, suspiciously, fearfully. Yao walked closer, every beat of his drugged heart the only sound in the haze. Toris and Feliks watched as he stopped, there in all his glory, red silks and golden eyes and starry sky behind him. He felt like a king for the first time.
They stared at him as he dropped to his knees.
'I need your help.'
0o0o0o
They arrived without warning. Ivan stood up, heart spiking with fear at the thought of the papers stuffed underneath the floorboard.
'Hello,' he said, looking between them, these alien figures in his room.
'We're very sorry,' one said. Ivan could hear the timbre of his voice even through the medical mask. Young, barely a man. Perhaps not even.
'For what?' he asked slowly, sliding a hand into his pocket, searching for the pipe knob he'd wrenched off a few days ago. The chunk of blunt metal was not a good weapon, but better than nothing.
'For having the virus,' he said. His hands twitched in their gloves, clenching and flexing. Ivan stared at his glassy mask and made out the gleam of wide blue eyes, terrified and helpless.
They believed he had it, Ivan thought with a pang in his chest. There would be no explaining that he could not be affected by the virus anymore. He caught the boy's gaze for a panicked second before his eyes darted away. Ivan felt a dull ache at the boy who he did not know and bowed his head as he was led out of his room.
0o0o0o
The quarantine was sterile white and silent. The patients lay quietly. Ivan was led to a bed. He allowed himself to be laid down and closed his eyes against the states and the whispers of is it true, his neck, his chest?
Absolutely, he wanted to say, but instead he kept his silence and wondered what would happen next. The realization had come slowly, so slowly he was furious at himself for not realizing it sooner. What better way to get rid of someone you could not really kill than say they were sick? Yao wouldn't be able to see him, and video calls would be monitored.
Clever, clever, he thought, opening his eyes again to the stark white lights above for a long second until his eyes burned and he returned to the darkness.
0o0o0o
'You, like, ran here from the Middle fleet?' Feliks whistled slowly.
'I did,' Yao confirmed. Toris was absentmindedly fiddling with the controls of the observatory, brows furrowed.
'Why are you here, Nobleman Yao?'
'Just Yao.' He paused, all too keenly away of the time slipping away. 'I believe you know an Eduard? A programmer?'
'I do,' Toris said. 'He works in command in the other Baltic fleets.'
'I need him. I need his skills,' Yao said. 'I need him to find Ivan and-'
'Ivan?' Toris' hand jerked and the display went wild. Feliks grabbed his hand and adjusted the dials with the other before turning to Yao, all warmth gone.
'Ivan sent you?'
'No,' Yao said, frowning. 'I'm here to help him.'
'Not from us,' Feliks spat. Yao stepped back, mind spinning.
'What happened?'
Feliks paused. 'Old blood,' he said finally. 'Toris especially.'
Toris' hand was endlessly pulling and pinching at his collar. 'Old blood,' he agreed. His face was blank and bleached of blood. Feliks touched his face, and he started before guiltily dropping his hand.
Yao tried to recollect his thoughts.
'I won't ask about what happened.' Feliks nodded, eyes shining ferociously. 'I will...go.'
'No,' Toris said weakly, so weakly Yao was almost inclined to ignore it. 'Wait. I will help.'
'You will?' Yao asked, turning back around, electricity running through to his fingers. Toris bowed his head, and Feliks ran fingers through his hair and whispered to him in a rhythmic language Yao couldn't understand. Toris raised his head, eyes slightly clearer.
'I will.' He managed a half-smile, Feliks running a hand over his back. 'Come. Eduard is this way.'
The run to the other Baltic fleets was a short one that felt like nothing. Yao was alight with anticipation, but the dread of what he might find was lodged heavy in his stomach.
The command room was simple and large, and Toris picked out a man with rumpled blond hair and glasses sitting in front of a computer.
'Eduard,' he called. Eduard looked up and waved.
'Hello, Toris!' He looked at Yao, squinted, and then stiffened. 'Is that the leader?'
'Yes,' Yao said, stepping forward. Eduard looked terrified as he accepted the handshake. 'Just Yao is fine.'
'Right,' Eduard said shakily before pointing at Toris and Feliks. 'Why have you brought be the Middle fleet leader?'
'I need to find someone,' Yao explained. Eduard stared at him before blowing out a long breath.
'And that's something only I can do?'
'Yes,' Yao affirmed, feeling sick.
Eduard ran a hand through his hair.
'Be careful,' he said quietly. He opened his device and pulled up an app. The commands he typed in were almost too fast to follow, and Yao was left staring at a blinking cursor.
'Who are we looking for?'
'Ivan Braginsky.'
Eduard's fingers paused and he went still. Yao focused on the floor.
'Ivan Braginsky.' Eduard took a long breath. 'You must have convinced Toris, and though I may not trust you, I trust him.' He typed in the name and the lines of text scrolled across the screen. Eduard turned the device back towards him and flicked through it, frowning.
'That can't be right.' He typed in the commands again and then swore.
'What happened?' Yao asked. Drugged heart or no, it felt like it would stop. His world swam.
'It says Ivan is dead,' Eduard said, and turned the device towards him.
STATUS: DEAD
The two words blinked up at him, and Yao felt faint, faint, faint as faraway stars, like he was disappearing, fading away.
STATUS: DEAD
'No,' he whispered. He closed his eyes, pressed the heels of his hands into them but when he opened them again-
STATUS: DEAD
No, no, no. Ivan couldn't be dead.
0o0o0o
It would be useless to argue against it. He was quarantined and alone and all he could think of was how well they had been played like pawns.
'Get up,' someone instructed, and he rose like a rag doll and followed them. It was only when he saw the signs declaring that it was a changing room that fear finally broke through the haze, gibbering, horrible fear. His scarf, he needed it because it was a gift and because it was its own strange protection and no, no, no.
'Just go,' the someone instructed, and Ivan did, too the sterile clothes shoved into his arms and stripped off the warmer clothing and the simple robe was too cold and the panic ate away at him.
His scarf. He picked it up with shaking hands and thought of his sister and pulled off his robe with fingers that struggled with the fastenings and tied it around him, and it gave him perhaps some comfort, some warmth.
He walked out and watched as the rest was taken away.
0o0o0o
And I admit that I use it more than I should.
:: White noise that seems to swallow the world
