Deryn breathed deeply, smiling to herself. Finally, all that wretched hair was being chopped away. She fidgeted in her seat. "Volger, you done yet?"

He glared at her. "Be still. I'm trying to make you look as much like a boy as possible. That won't be hard, as you don't have much to hide…" The thinly-veiled jibe made her huff and cross her arms over her chest. He smirked.

With a finally snip, he stepped back, examining his work. "So, princess, I think you look quite princely."

The girl with the newly short hair gave him a half-amused, half-skeptical look. "Do you have a mirror?" she asked, ruffling her hair and marveling at the shortness of it.

Sure enough, Volger had one. Producing it, Deryn stared at herself. She did look a lot like a boy- a bit of an elfish one, with fine features and bright eyes. Even so… a blond-haired boy was much less likely to be remembered than a tall girl with long golden locks.

Dipping her head to her fencing instructor, she said, "Thank you, Count."

He paused for a moment, surprised by this, but the initial surprise faded when he saw her slight smirk. "Come on," he said gruffly, "Back to the Skyhawk."

Grinning to herself, Deryn trotted back towards the waiting helicopter. Bauer let out a low whistle when he saw her. "I thought you were a boy when I first saw you, Princess," he said.

"Thank you, Hans," she replied, "It's barking short now, but I like it."

Volger lead her inside, calling to the others to hurry up and get inside. When that was done and he was settled behind Deryn, he said, "Your body language is still feminine, Your Highness. But we'll make a man out of you, don't worry."

Fixing him with a hard glare, she put the headset on as Klopp, the last person in, closed the door. "Okay, where to?" she asked Volger.

He glanced at the map he'd pulled out. "We'll be following the wind currents for the next couple of days- by then we'll reach our destination."

"Where's that?" she asked, starting up the machine.

"You'll see, Princess."

"We're going to barking Switzerland," Deryn said abruptly. She'd been flying all day now, and the direction they were heading in as well as well as the safety of the location made sense now.

Volger was startled. He'd known that the princess would've figured out where they were going eventually, but he hadn't expected that she'd do that so quickly.

Deryn caught sight of his facial expression in her peripheral vision and smirked. "Aye, I'm right, aren't I?"

He sighed. "Yes, Deryn, you're right."

"So you admit it," she continued to gloat, "And you say I don't pay attention in geography."

At least she was talking and fairly happy. The Count knew that she hadn't put her parents' death completely behind her, but at least she was able to put it aside for now. "How did you figure this out?" he asked her, trying to keep her talking.

She was content to show off her small victory with an explanation. "Well, first off, we're going west. Second, Switzerland is neutral territory- meaning the Germans can't track us down. And thirdly… well, I don't have a barking third reason."

Volger chuckled at this. The blond twisted her head around to shoot him a grin before looking back out the windscreen. He knew her well, how she liked to gloat and swear and walk around with an unladylike swagger. He'd let her when she was under his care.

He'd been the one the Archduke had hired to teach his daughter language, music, fencing, and a variety of other things. He was her primary tutor, and sometimes, it seemed like he was more of a father to her than Franz had been. She didn't see him much.

But as they flew towards Switzerland, he was glad that it had been that way.

Deryn was quiet for a while, still flying towards the setting sun despite having been flying since early morning. Volger started surveying the ground below, searching for a town they could land near. They'd need more fuel soon. To keep her mind active, he decided to help her with her boy disguise. "Deryn, let's work on your boy voice," he suggested.

She didn't protest, just shooting him a quick glance. "Um, how's this?" she said in a ridiculously deep voice (that didn't really sound like a boy). In her normal voice, she quickly spat out, "Barking spiders, that's silly!"

"We'll work on it, Deryn. Try again."

AN: Yep. Creative title, yeah. As you've probably figured out, there's currently three short story arcs going on in this fic: the Tales From a Loris arc, detailing life on the Leviathan through Bovril's eyes, the Sisters arc, which involves Helen Barlow, and the Switched Places one, where I switched Alek and Deryn's places.

Yup. I hope this clears up any confusion someone might have over my organizing system.

Oh, and the next chapter in this arc will feature Alek.~

Edit: The reason I don't post three separate stories... well, these all kinda started out as one-shots, but they kinda expanded from there... And, it's easier for me to keep track of them all in here. Plus, the chapters in the arcs are more loosely tied together than in a normal story (for me). So, yup.