Note: At the very beginning of Leviathan (June 28th), Alek mentions that his birthday will be soon – but Behemoth goes all the way to October, and… no birthday. Thus we have this story.
Many thanks to my friends on the Clankwinists LJ comm for the stimulating and scintillating discussion. :D
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"Blisters, you look glum this morning," Dylan announces, setting the breakfast tray on the desk. "What's happened?"
There are many replies that Alek could make.
I've allowed myself to be retaken as a prisoner of war, out of friendship and a sense of affection for a fabricated flying whale.
With every moment, I'm moving farther away from my chances at the Imperial and Apostolic Crown.
I want to end the war, but I don't know if it's even possible.
Instead, he gives the midshipman a rueful sigh and says, "You're going to laugh."
"Not unless it's pure dead funny," Dylan assures him, grinning. Then his expression sobers. "Come off it, Clanker – I'm your friend. I won't laugh. Promise."
"Very well." Alek looks at the (presumably napping) lump of perspicacious loris curled up on his bed; he could do without Bovril chortling and parroting this. "I forgot my birthday."
"Oh, aye? When was it?"
"July twenty-fourth."
Dylan's mouth twitches, but true to his word, the other boy doesn't laugh. He does, however, plunk himself down into the other chair in Alek's stateroom. "You forgot it, all right – it's October!"
"I know what month it is," Alek says, irritated. He'd awoken this morning with the thought blazed bright across his mind: My birthday was nearly three months ago. God's wounds, he's been sixteen for three months, and he hasn't even noticed.
Dylan clicks his tongue sympathetically. "Could be worse. You could have forgot until November. Just imagine how daft you'd feel then."
Alek hears the amusement under the sympathy and gives his friend a dark look. "I know why I forgot. It's perfectly reasonable. We were trying to reach Switzerland – sleeping in shifts, traveling at odd hours, being hunted by the Germans – I barely knew whether it was day or night. And without my parents…"
He can't quite finish the sentence.
Quietly, without any mockery, Dylan says, "Aye."
Alek nods, throat constricting. Something of his sudden misery must show on his face, because his friend reaches out a hand. Alek clasps it. For a moment they sit there, silent, connected, and then Dylan clears his throat and pulls his hand away.
But Alek feels immeasurably better.
"You've been a bit busy since, too," Dylan adds.
Alek musters up a smile. "Yes."
The midshipman slouches back in his chair and gives Alek a calculating look. "So how are old are you, your archdukeness?"
"Sixteen."
Dylan is visibly startled by that. "Blisters! You're a year older than me!"
Alek raises an eyebrow. "Does that matter?"
"No." His friend grins – this time, with a hint of worry. "Fifteen's too young to be a middy, though, so don't tell anyone, aye?"
Perhaps that's what Count Volger tried to blackmail Dylan with, back in Istanbul. Alek resolves to ask the man at some later point. "Of course not. When is your birthday?"
"June first," he says promptly. "Though I wish my ma had forgot this year – her present was pure dead awful."
Alek's mother had been warm and loving, full of soft words and gentle encouragement. He had always attempted to please her, even when it meant annoying sacrifices – like her insistence that he not train in real walkers until his sixteenth birthday.
Dylan's mother, it seems, is not so soft and gentle, and judging from comments the other boy has made, they hardly ever get on well. Alek finds this baffling and fascinating all at once. "Why? What did she give you?"
Unaccountably, Dylan freezes. "Um," he says after a curiously long pause. "It's – it's really not – I don't suppose it was that horrible, I mean…"
There's a brisk rap on the door, and Dylan hops to his feet with alacrity. "That'll be Newkirk," he says, already halfway gone from the stateroom. "Enjoy your breakfast, your archdukeness, while I'm feeding those sodding bats."
Bemused, Alek can only blink at his friend's hasty departure. And what had thrown him so badly? Perhaps Dylan had been too embarrassed by his mother's gift to discuss it... but what could it have possibly been?
Alek decides the matter is none of his business, puts it out of his mind, and eats his breakfast.
It is more difficult, however, not to think of his parents. Talking about his birthday has brought back a swirl of memories: the half-formed plans for the celebration, his mother's hints about gifts, his father's insistence that they would be back from Sarajevo in plenty of time – that they could even travel to the seaside for his birthday, if Alek liked.
And the last telegraph message.
Mama and I are very well…
Alek had scarcely glanced at it.
…this morning there is the big reception in Sarajevo…
He'd thrown it away when he was done reading – simply tossed it into the bin without a second thought.
Dearest love to you.
He had missed their funeral.
He realizes, with a sickening jolt, that he doesn't even know where they are buried. At Konopischt? In Vienna? Artstetten? And will he ever have the opportunity to pay his respects?
A small, warm weight clambers onto his back, claws tugging at his jacket, and then settles on his shoulder.
"Guten Tag," Bovril says.
Alek scratches the animal's head, and it makes a purring noise deep in its throat. "It's rather petty of me, isn't it," he says to the loris, "to regret a missed birthday when so much else has happened."
Bovril leans into his hand. "Regret," it says, eyes slitted in apparent pleasure.
"Indeed," Alek says. He sighs.
He doesn't see Dylan again until well after dinner, when the sky outside is already deep purple and specked with stars. The midshipman raps perfunctorily on his open door and then enters, bearing, of all things, two teacups and a glass bottle.
The bottle isn't large, and is mostly empty – there is perhaps enough liquid inside for three or four small cupfuls.
"Here, take the cups, aye?" Dylan says, holding out his hand. The teacups are swinging precariously by their handles, looped over Dylan's fingers.
Alek hastily takes the teacups from his friend and places them on the desk. Dylan sits in one of the chairs and sets the bottle beside the teacups. The glass clunks against the wood; the china cups rattle against one another.
"What's in that?" Alek asks, curious, taking his own seat.
"Cups," Bovril says, hopping on Dylan's shoulder.
With a wide grin, Dylan reaches out and waggles the bottle, making the dark, caramel-gold liquid slosh around. "Rum, of course. For a proper birthday toast."
Alek doesn't know why he allows himself to be surprised by any of the miracles, large or small, that Dylan so routinely performs. "God's wounds – where did you find rum?"
"Newkirk had it," Dylan says, uncorking the bottle. Bovril leans over, sniffs, and then paws at its nose in distaste. "Left over from that bum-rag Mr. Fitzroy. He was one of the middies tossed off the ship in London, before we started for Istanbul; just as well you never met him."
"Newkirk had it," Alek repeats, ferreting out the most salient detail, and Dylan nods. "How did you get it?"
"Won it from him. The ninny – he should know not to play at cards. Least, not against me." Dylan gestures with the bottle of rum. "Come on, then. I haven't got a gift for you, but we can do this much. Give me your cup."
Alek picks up his cup and holds it out, letting the other boy fill it. Ridiculous, he thinks, looking down into the dark liquid, to be drinking rum from a teacup – three months after his birthday, no less.
Ridiculous. But also rather… fun.
He has had worse birthday celebrations.
"How d'you say it in Clanker?" Dylan asks.
"What?"
" 'Happy birthday', daftie."
"Happy birthday," Bovril repeats, curled around Dylan's neck.
"Ah." Alek gives his friend a half-smile. "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag."
Dylan lifts the bottle and says, "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Your Highness. And I won't let you barking forget the next one, aye?"
Alek raises his cup and clinks its edge against the glass. "Danke schön, Mr. Sharp," he says softly, and drinks.
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Note: The real-life Princess Sophie von Hohenberg, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie's oldest child, was born on July 24, so I borrowed her day for Alek. And I'll be honest – although at the start of Leviathan Deryn's "barely fifteen", I picked her birth date mainly because it falls under the astrological sign of Gemini. ;)
