Happily Married?
Disclaimer: I do not own Strike Witches.
Chapter 3: Retracing their Steps.
"Can I stop singing now?" pleaded Mio hoarsely.
Sakamoto Mio had always enjoyed a good singing session. Whether it was in the shower while alone or leading the recruits on a morning run, she would like to break out into song.
She wasn't a good singer and during the months she spent holed up with Junko and Yoshiko in Libau had made that very clear. Her teammates snickered their nickname of the Three Crows referred to her singing voice. Not that it had stopped her from belting out a tune now and then however, since she felt it wasn't how you sing the song that mattered but why and whom you are singing for that made the music meaningful.
For her lover Minna, Mio would gladly sing a song. Any song for her beloved for hours on end even if she sounded like she can't carry a tune without the aid of a handbag. Yet the flesh is weak though the spirit is willing for the major HAD been singing for several hours now. The desire certainly wasn't protecting her vocal chords.
"Very well. Time to switch channels to the news then." Minna gave an impish smile and giggled as she reached out to pinch and twist Mio's cheek, mimicking the turning of a radio's knob. She was lying on her belly in her pyjamas as she did so, resting her head and left arm on a pillow while her legs moved idly along the bed.
Mio thought of groaning as her partner's hands reached closer to her face. Her punishment for trashing Minna's radio was something she had not anticipated. Minna had first shown her trademark stiff smile, the expression that everyone in the 501st knew signified the countdown before she snaps with Mio had fully expecting her commander to pull out her sidearm and let off a few rounds in her general direction but instead settled for sniffing and stomping off.
The cold shoulder followed the rest of the day with Mio following around her fiancé like a lovesick puppy while the rest of the Strike Witches wisely went about their daily routine, carefully sidestepping the issue of wedding preparations. The silent treatment endured until the end of the evening's final briefing and the couple retired to their now shared bunk.
"Radio," stated Minna flatly.
"Come again?" questioned the bemused Fusoan.
"You broke my radio, so your turn to be the radio for the night." repeated her partner.
As reparations for the broken device, she was to become its replacement for the duration of the day.
It had sounded extremely lenient at first, considering how much the Wing Commander had prized it. Now Mio was hoping her commander had chosen for the shoot first option.
"I'm tired..." moaned Mio as she gauged her partner's expression. It was an amused and gentle smile that reminded her of the times she had caught Minna staring at her while Mio pretended to be sound asleep. Deciding to take full advantage of the situation, Mio laid down on the bed with a thud, spreading her limbs out while kicking her legs. "I don't wanna be the radio anymore. Let's play something else." The Fusoan whined in a higher than normal pitch and acted like a child babying to her mother.
Mio felt a slight stab of guilt and a bit uneasy over the blatant appealing to her partner's maternal instinct, but the desire to bail out the imposed punishment and desire for affection quickly overruled it.
Minna, exactly as predicted, couldn't resist responding to her lover's playful tantrum and sat up as she gently placed Mio's head onto her lap. Humming, Minna untied Mio's hair before she began stroking her partner's hair, followed by planting a kiss on Mio's forehead.
"All right you big baby," giggled the Karslander, "Let me serenade you instead."
Vor der Kaserne,
Vor dem großen Tor,
Stand eine Laterne,
Und steht sie noch davor,
So woll'n wir uns da wieder seh'n,
Bei der Laterne wollen wir steh'n,
Wie einst, Lili Marleen.
As the strains of the song carried by drifted off into the silent night, Mio felt herself being lulled into sleep at her partner's voice.
The closing moments of the year 1943 were proving to be just as miserable for Johan "Slimy Snake" Helles as the rest of his blighted stay in London following the Neuroi invasion of Karsland. The Britainnian quip of describing the London climate as fair weather looking up a chimney on a fine day and looking down one on a foul day had echoed in his mind as he pulled his jacket closer.
Somehow, the joke didn't seem very funny as he shivered while a miserable drizzle and howling winds outside his pawn shop The Serpent's Den sent any potential customers scurrying for their homes. Curfew had been lifted for the end holiday season to bring some cheer to the war weary populace of London, but Herr Helles had little to cheer about. His wrinkled forehead topped with silvery thinning hair and a wiry frame paired with a pair of reading glasses gave him the appearance of an eccentric academic more at home in the libraries of Oxford than a seasoned bootlegger with a few public servants in his back pocket.
Sighing, he snapped his ledgers and stood up from behind his cashier's counter to begin closing for the night. The recent corruption crackdown in the Home Guard hierarchy had cut off half his contacts for his black market trade while the other half were likely to hang him out to dry if the pressure from MI5 got any heavier. The recent successes in Malta and Egypt in driving back the Neuroi menace meant supplies from Liberion were able to pass the Suez and the Mediterranean with minimal trouble, allowing the government to increase rations.
Fortunate news for outstanding citizens of the Empire who were too poor to be depending on the black market to supplement their meagre monthly rations, not so much for smugglers such as himself as the double whammy of lost sources and lessened demand for his more profitable wares such as tobacco and whisky which was becoming widely available at lowered prices.
The aged shopkeeper was facing the grim prospect of actually having to make do with what was miserly allocated to him by the pencil pushers in the Home Office, causing him untold amounts of grief
The sound of doors creaking open and the ringing of bells snapped Helles out of his despondent thoughts as he turned his attention to the figure walking into his shop. It was wearing a Royal Navy issued overcoat topped off with an officer's cap from the Fuso Imperial Navy, the later which caused his standard business smile to widened into a predatory grin as he continued his observation. "A belated, but a very happy new year, Johan." the shopkeeper thought to himself.
Officers from the many foreign navies currently docked in Britannia tend to be big spenders when on shore leave, not too concerned with being ripped off unlike the more miserly enlisted men or the Britainnian military. Liberions tended to be easiest marks, overpaid but having too little sense to realise that even with price controls and the war it did not cost fifty pounds for an alleged (and obviously fake) used Edwardian-era wristwatch but the Fusoan, their country unmarked mostly by war and their soldiers flush with cash due to hazard pay were a good alternative.
A tad more discerning and far more demanding in terms of packaging, they are very much prone to nitpicking the details of their purchase. Still, the Fusoan were-pound for pound- more than able to match their Liberion counterparts provided they felt sufficiently convinced they were paying for something very rare and very expensive.
For someone who doesn't have something that would actually be worth the price he was quoting them however, it mean he would have to- borrowing that Liberion phrase- pull a fast one over them until their money was safely in his hands.
Pulling a fast one over them however was an art, one that Johan "Slimy Snake" Helles was certain no other shifty character in the entire East End, or indeed the whole of the United Kingdom. The shopkeeper wore his nickname given to him by a very upset Whitehall bureaucrat he had ripped off before proudly as his erstwhile victim would bear the title of Commander of the Britannian Empire.
Closely observing the sailor now removing the bulky overcoat and hanging it onto the coat hanger, Helles attempted to bite down his widening grin as he noticed the dress uniform shirt the mark was wearing. Dressing up usually meant the customer was preparing to impress and more likely to overspend. His eyes narrowed in worry however when he noticed that instead of the usual full length pants, the bottom half of a dark blue swimsuit peaked out. A Witch, he thought. A Witch just walked into his pawn shop chock full of contraband that will get him thrown into jail if they decided to conduct a sweep of his premises. The shifty shopkeeper was very aware of just how closely the Allied governments were watching these magical ladies of war. If he didn't play his cards right, he would have a lot more than the Home Guard to deal with.
"Guten Abdend, Frau Hexe, " he greeted in Karslandish. Helles spoke Britainnian just fine but most of his customers tended to drop their guard if they believed they were dealing with a simple country bumpkin from Europe who didn't speak Britannian too well and became more susceptible to his repertoire of moves. Peering carefully at his new customer, he noticed the Fusoan witch was wearing a white eye patch with blue stripes over her left eye and hair tied up into a ponytail bearing an expressionless face while carrying a sword. The uneasiness of having an armed presence sent a slight chill up his spine. Shopkeepers have finely tuned sense of danger when in the presence of armed customers, uniformed or not and while a Witch was not likely to turn the pointy end at him, accidents have happened before.
" Guten Abdend, lieber Herr." the witch returned the greeting simply with a slight nod while she turned her attention to the displayed items around the shop. Helles tried his level best to prevent his dismay at the slightly accented return greeting in his native tongue from showing on his face. If she spoke Karslandish, then trying to play on his lack of knowledge of the local lingo just became that much harder. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze fell over pens, watches and other personal valuables that lined up the displays within the shop and Helles uttered a silent prayer in gratitude that he had heard of the Home Guard's recent clean up and hid the contraband cigarettes and liquor in the cellar.
Prior to the clean up, he was so confident he had the bobbies and other patrols so piled with illicit produce he had openly displayed his forbidden tobacco and liquor as well as excess rations. Caution at the fate of his suppliers within the Guard however convinced him of the need for discretion and he was very glad his more cautious instincts had prevailed. There was nothing currently being shown that would signal to his customer he was a legitimate businessman who was doing his bit in these trying times to make a living, rather than a smuggler who also indulged in a bit of intrigue for extra cash when approached by shady characters.
It was however, not the usual contraband that Helles was really worried about however. It was the intrigue that compromised several supposedly friendly powers that really caused the cold sweat to flow down his back.
What had remained securely hidden in a hidden compartment in the floor he was currently standing on however were some shortwave radios, so vital to long distance communication and prized among anyone with some "sensitive messages" they needed to be sent back to either Neue Karsland or the Gallian Government in exile in Annam.
Smuggling in contraband was one thing. Spying for several different governments on the other hand was to attract lots and lots of unwanted attention and possibly a knife in the dark from the many different spymasters wanting to clean up a compromised asset. causing the old smuggler to shudder at the prospect.
Up close, the Witch appeared diminutive, even to an aging smuggler who was hardly a towering figure. Still, the customer who was barely five feet tall in front of him was carrying a weapon, likely knew how to use it, plenty of reason to use and the newsreels extolling their fighting prowess was probably not ALL balderdash. How much was propaganda and how much was fact was something he did not know, nor was he eager to find out.
The fact that she was currently focusing on the exact spot beneath himself where he had hidden said radios were making him break out into a cold sweat. The Fusoan witch then turned her attention to his other wares on display, and Helles allowed himself an inaudible sigh of relief.
His sense of relief however quickly dissipated as he noticed the Witch's increasingly frustrated expression and pull up her eye patch, revealing a working eye with purple irises. He had no idea what kind of devilry it was supposed to work, but he figured it was likely highly unpleasant if used. His worry compounded as he noticed his customer cough into her hands and spoke with pleasant, albeit stiffly, in Britannian. "I beg your pardon sir, but I fear that I have exhausted my minute knowledge of Karslandish and must revert to the use of Britannian. I come seeking radios, preferably shortwave if you have them. " The Fusoan witch bit her lip before continuing, " I must confess however, that I am rather short of funds at the moment but would like to have a look at your wares regardless."
Helles for his part was attempting desperately not to bolt for the back door if only he was sure it would probably be into the waiting arms of a few armed soldiers as he heard the thinly veiled demand for him to turn in his radios.
She knows!
Either that evil eye had already worked it's infernal magic, or she had waltzed in fully aware of the equipment Helles had stashed away and the removing of the eye patch was a hint of what she could do!
"She knows! She already knew of what I had before she came into my shop!" thought the shopkeeper in despair.
The cultured, stiff Britannian delivered in received pronunciation, clearly intended for a listening audience had nearly given him a panic attack as he tried desperately to guess where exactly the others were undoubtedly listening in from. The old shopkeeper had played this game many times before, when the pretence of politeness heralded brutal violence if the demands issued by the uniformed predator were not met, only this was the first time the other player was quite literally a girl young enough to be his daughter. He'd be proud, if only he was not the likely target of the shakedown for either material or knowledge.
Still, the last bit of her claiming to not having enough money sounded like a request for a bribe and Helles decided if she was asking for something, he may just come out of this encounter not ending up in a concentration camp.
"Do not worry about money, madam. Please wait here! "declared the shopkeeper loudly hoping that whoever was listening in was hearing every word of it and understand he was cooperating.
Quickly , he moved to a safe on his left where his newly acquired goods were kept. A fancy shortwave radio, decorated with gold trimmings and a smooth finish on its mahogany wood cover he had inside was the perfect bribe. Not much use for intelligence gathering, but perfect for buying off someone. Placing it on the counter, he said, "No payment required."
The Witch appeared aghast at the declaration and insisted, "I can't accept something like this for free! Quote me a price." Helles flinched at the fake modesty his tormentor was displaying as he reconsidered bolting from the shop.
"Please, consider this a humble contribution to the war effort and a celebration of the recent victories, "pleaded the smuggler, desperate that he would not have to throw in some more precious contraband to sweeten the deal.
The Witch hesitated, before she bowed deeply. "Thank you so very much! I shall never forget your generosity. " She then respectfully took the device with two hands and wrapped it with a silk sheet helpfully provided by Helles before she bowed again and left the shop.
The old smuggler's smile remained plastered on his face, eagerly awaiting for his "customer" to finish putting on her coat and hat and it was not until he heard the bells on his doors ring, signalling the departure of his customer that he allowed himself a sigh of relief. Helles nearly choked on it as the doors opened again and that blasted Witch stuck her head into the premises, "What is your name, sir."
"More fake modesty? This is getting silly, "thought the shopkeeper irately but kept his expression under control. "Johan Helles, madam. Think nothing of it."
The Fusoan witch nodded before replying, "I am Major Sakamoto of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. If I should ever get a chance to return to London, I will repay you with interest for your generosity. "
Helles paled visibly at the thought of a return visit but kept the stiff, vacant smile on his face before the witch nodded again and finally closed the doors once more.
The shopkeeper waited with bated breath for the departing footsteps to stop before he began to hurriedly close up for the night while visibly trembling.
Dodging one bullet for the night was enough.
Out on the streets of the East End, Mio pulled her coat closer to herself as she walked back to the local garrison where her lodgings were. "Poor man. He was so pale and sweating so much just now."
Still, such admirable work ethic even when he was so obviously sick! nodded Mio in approval.
Sakamoto Mio drowsily opened her eyes as she recalled the dream she just had of the time she had brought the radio for Minna. It was meant as a gift to thank her for the assistance she had shown to the Fusoan witch when she first arrived in Britannia at the initial formation of the Strike Witches but Mio had no opportunity until she arrived back from the Malta campaign halfway through her posting and had a small stop in London.
The fact that the kindly old shopkeeper had given the now smashed radio to her for free had filled her with a mix of joy and shame. Mio had swore to herself that she would find a chance to pay him back with interest. Admirers giving gifts to Witches were not new, but Mio always felt that she had taken advantage of a generous old man who upon seeing her was willing to part with what was obviously a treasured item.
Now, the gift was destroyed due to her own inability to resist the effects of alcohol. Obviously, something had to be done about the situation and there was no time like the present.
Staring at her engagement band resting on her hand, she blushed despite herself at the memory of the proposal. It still felt so much like a dream, that the typically reserved Karslander with a reputation for acting far older than her eighteen years of age would be so rash and well, act her age. Staring at Minna's sleeping form next to her, Mio resisted the urge to plant a deep tongue kiss and settled for planting a light peck on the cheek.
If she got intimate with her lover now, she'd be here for the better part of the day...Mio quickly stopped that train of thought as she tried not to let her more lewd fantasies run rampant, fully aware how close she is to actively fulfilling them with a very willing partner.
Perhaps after the replacement radio, she can drop by the jewellers for a pair of wedding rings.
Smiling at the dozing figure of Minna, she placed the quilt over her and gently kissed her again on the cheek before moving off to the showers. London was a few hours flight away, and she needed to be early.
Fortunately, some old friends were scheduled to drop by and she would likely be able to hitch a ride with them.
Author's Notes:
A combination of the Chinese New Year and work had delayed the work almost indefinitely. Fortunately, I managed to get my butt down and pound out this segment of the story. Still, the fourth chapter is halfway ready, so I expect it to be out sometime this weekend.
The opening scene from the movie Inglorious Basterds kept playing out in my mind when Hans Landa was being sickeningly polite to that French farmer. Of course, Mio is not a genocidal maniac, but poor Johan Helles didn't know that.
Incidentally, Helles is a reference to a type of German beer. Fitting as most bootleggers in hard times never seem to run out of moonshine. Timeline-wise the scene in London was immediately after Mio had returned from Malta, the story detailed in the SW manga The Shape Of Our Bond, set almost immediately before Season 1 of the anime.
Next Chapter- The Three Crows in London. Our favourite eye-patched Witch and her old buddies Junko and Demon Queen Yoshiko will be dropping by in merry old England, though they probably won't see the Queen.
Minna will also be getting more time in the next instalment and our favourite (long) pants wearing Witch Adolfine Galland will be bringing some wedding gifts for her favourite subordinates.