Behind her, she felt another knight. Maybe some seven yards distant, squire ranked, kind calling kind and… Megiddo sighed. Perhaps she’d have a new hunting partner. Best clear her schedule. She spun on her heels and looked around, quickly finding the squire on the basis of… he wasn’t making all that much effort to hide from her.
And her expression quickly soured. “I remember you,” said Megiddo. “That little lieutenant who got away. Looks like you got a lucky ******** break.”
She hoped the screams of every person he’d ever taken a starseed from kept him up at night. It would be only fair.
Sosostris
Camlann was out wandering, a messenger bag slung over his shoulder and his gauntlets comfortable on his hands, because he had work to do and it was safer to go about in the dark as Camlann than as Aleksy. He attracted all kinds of attention from people he didn’t want paying attention to him as a civilian, but Camlann was… well, less attention-grabbing, he supposed. Also, it gave him a heads-up to whoever was coming his way, as long as they were powered. So he sensed the knight before he saw her, and when he saw her his mood immediately soured.
“I remember you, too,” he said, his accent heavier than it had been before his purification. His hold on English wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be, but he understood more than he let on anymore. Thank goodness--people talking over his head was ******** irascible. “b***h.” He doubted she spoke Russian, but he hoped the pejorative was clear in any language. “I can’t believe we’re both from Saturn.”
There were better things to do than bother with her. He told himself this, but he didn’t believe it, not really. “Lucky means I did not seek this,” he informed her. “I chose this. Better than you.”
“I remember you, too,” he said, his accent heavier than it had been before his purification. His hold on English wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be, but he understood more than he let on anymore. Thank goodness--people talking over his head was ******** irascible. “b***h.” He doubted she spoke Russian, but he hoped the pejorative was clear in any language. “I can’t believe we’re both from Saturn.”
There were better things to do than bother with her. He told himself this, but he didn’t believe it, not really. “Lucky means I did not seek this,” he informed her. “I chose this. Better than you.”
“I wore it first and I wore it better,” Megiddo shot back, her hand going to the sigil clasping her collar shut. God, he was just insufferable, wasn’t he! Pity she couldn’t kick his a** anymore - bad enough she’d nearly killed Niflhel’s cat. She’d been in trouble enough times for fighting others of her own faction and getting another stern talking-to was just… unappealing. Like, she’d rather get a back-to-back tonsillectomy and root canal than have Niflhel do his I’m not mad just disappointed thing at her again.
And especially because all three people involved in that equation were from Saturn! It would be, like, shame on you and shame on your family and shame on your horse. Crap. Okay. Unless - maybe Niflhel hadn’t met this guy yet? Maybe she could just kill him and hide the body and--
That was dark, even for her, she admitted. So maybe she wouldn’t do that. Instead, she spat, “Are you having fun fighting all your old friends? Do they know you’ve turned traitor? Or are you a spy in the ranks?”
Granted, Megiddo had literally no idea how purification worked. She had some sense that it was a thing that had once happened to Oenone and he’d turned out okay, but that was sort of where her understanding ended. “Who’d you find to suck all the chaos out of your d**k?”
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“It was luck, not skill,” snapped Camlann, stepping back so his bag of art supplies was on his far side, away from her. Anyway, it was true. She’d just been lucky no one had found her first, like they’d found him. All it would have taken was one General looking at her askance to put her where he stood now, and if she didn’t know that then she was stupider than she looked. Which was pretty ******** stupid. He could probably strangle her with her stupid lace cape.
Her next volley made little to no sense. He got fighting his old friends and spy, but the rest of it--it didn’t really matter, he decided. “I care nothing for them,” he said. He never had. “I care nothing for you, either.” Camlann ran his fingers over the Saturn sigil over his heart, just for reassurance. The strange trident on his Negaverse uniform hadn’t looked a thing like this sigil.
Her rudeness, though, that he understood. “Why do you ask, envious girl,” he said, one eyebrow twitching a little higher up. “This discussion is bootless.”
Her next volley made little to no sense. He got fighting his old friends and spy, but the rest of it--it didn’t really matter, he decided. “I care nothing for them,” he said. He never had. “I care nothing for you, either.” Camlann ran his fingers over the Saturn sigil over his heart, just for reassurance. The strange trident on his Negaverse uniform hadn’t looked a thing like this sigil.
Her rudeness, though, that he understood. “Why do you ask, envious girl,” he said, one eyebrow twitching a little higher up. “This discussion is bootless.”
“I’m not envious,” replied Megiddo, taken aback. She balled her fists against the front of her dress and fumed. She just - she should have killed him! And now he was standing here in front of her, her little piece of unfinished business, wearing her planet’s colors and her planet’s sigil just to taunt her, to add insult to injury! She’d have to remember, every day of her life, that she’d failed to kill this piece of s**t and now he was just going to get off scot free!
“Ugh,” she said, tossing her hair with a haughty turn of her head. “Whatever. I don’t even ******** give a s**t.” Gunn had preached respect for the purified, even if she was doubtful of its merits as a large-scale plan of action. Megiddo supposed she should see likewise with her old mentor… but it was difficult to actually keep to it. Not when he was here and she so viscerally felt the need to kill him and finish up what she’d started.
“I just hope you have a plan to atone for all those worthy acts I’m sure you committed in the name of Metallia,” she said. “You might be purified, but you still stink of Chaos.”
No he didn’t. That was a lie.
Ugh. What the ******** ever.
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Camlann cocked his head to the left, the corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile that his mouth didn’t quite echo. “You are sure? You seem very curious about my d**k.” He shrugged. “And ********. Goodness! You American girls.” He’d picked up most of his dialogue from old movies on Iouri’s DVD shelf. It was a way to occupy the time, when not teaching himself to knit, or re-learning how to cook, or any number of stupid domestic things that he found pleasurable. “I have to--how did Iouri say it. Beat you off?”
He forgot the second half of that idiom. He forgot it on purpose.
There was nothing he had to be sorry for, as far as the worthy acts he had committed. He had only drained three people: her, another page, and one human in St. Petersburg, who had deserved it, as far as he was concerned. There was no reason to regret any of it. “Better chaos than desperation, envious girl,” he said.
He forgot the second half of that idiom. He forgot it on purpose.
There was nothing he had to be sorry for, as far as the worthy acts he had committed. He had only drained three people: her, another page, and one human in St. Petersburg, who had deserved it, as far as he was concerned. There was no reason to regret any of it. “Better chaos than desperation, envious girl,” he said.
Megiddo frowned more deeply than she had been already, which was pretty ******** deep. “Oh my god,” she scowled. “You can take the pervert out of the rape brigade, but he’s still a goddamn pervert.” Because she wasn’t an idiot. She knew when a guy was talking about sex. Like, okay, maybe she’d started it? But he’d gone to her level and it was weird and it was clearly different when she talked about sex and everyone else talked about sex.
Gender dynamics, yo!
“Let’s see how much you talk once I rip off your balls,” she said. Because, like, that definitely wouldn’t kill him, right? She wouldn’t get in trouble for castrating another knight, would she?
Okay. Maybe. Definitely. But she’d been provoked! And maybe no one would ever find out. Like, was there any actual hard rule against beating the s**t out of people? Or would holier-than-thou buttfaces with seniority over her just tut their tongues against their teeth and make disapproving noises? She bet that Niflhel and Babylon (hah!) had never killed anyone.
She raised her pitcher in the air and charged at him, hollering, “I’m gonna finish you!”
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Camlann wasn’t stupid. When she charged, he ducked, laughing, because it’d been so easy to wind her up and watch her go. Ah, yes, he was a pervert, perhaps. She was still an idiot. He stuck a leg out as she passed, dropping the bag of supplies off his shoulder and onto the ground where it would be theoretically safe.
“My balls,” he asked, still grinning. “Dinner first.”
“My balls,” he asked, still grinning. “Dinner first.”
Megiddo went flying. Like, head over heels through the air with the greatest of ease flying, because she’d had nothing if not a great deal of momentum. “********!” she roared, crashing against the brick wall behind the squire. Her ears rang, and she pushed herself to her feet and called her errant pitcher back to hand. ”********,” she said, and little more quietly, gritting her teeth. She’d looked like a total moron just now, and it was her own fault, too.
She turned, intending to come back around at the squire and hit him from behind but-
A blur of blue, white, and gray fabric descended from the rooftops, blocking her path.
“Stop this nonsense right now,” said Babylon.
“Oh, ******** you,” said Megiddo, but she stopped, because he had Gunn on speed dial and she knew it.
“Go home,” Babylon told her. “I don’t care who started in.”
“Seriously,” said Megiddo, “******** you,” and flipped the bird to both of them. But she went, so that was something.
Babylon turned to Camlann, an eyebrow raised.
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Camlann was still snickering as Megiddo retreated, smoothing his bangs back out of his face as she went. The grin faded as he took in Babylon’s incomparably dadly stance--seriously, what the hell? His options, as he assessed them, were: knuckle under and apologize, insist she’d started it like he had something to feel guilty for, or… pretend he knew nothing. He wasn’t beholden to anyone, not really. That left him with his last, and best, option.
“она начала его,” he said, shrugging and picking up his bag.
“она начала его,” he said, shrugging and picking up his bag.
Babylon didn’t speak Russian and didn’t pretend he knew what Camlann had just said, but he knew Megiddo well enough to know that she was probably to blame, if she was so riled up. He wasn’t sure whether she’d known him as Melanite, but he was willing to bet that the answer was yes, and Megiddo was not one to let Chaos go lightly.
“Gunn put some stupid crusader for justice bullshit in her head,” he said apologetically. “I don’t think anyone will be able to knock it out of her, short of Gunn coming back from Japan and telling her to cut it out.”
Which was unlikely. Kaatje had been clear about the terms of her contract.
“You’re alright?” Babylon asked. “Need any help?”
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Camlann didn’t really need help, he thought, but he could use the company. He shifted the bag from one shoulder to another, smiled and shrugged again. “Work is boring,” he said. “Company is welcome.” Unless Avalon was around, Babylon was probably patrolling solo, too…
You know, for a certain value of patrolling.
You know, for a certain value of patrolling.
Babylon nodded, and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he was pleased that Camlann seemed to be able to actually stand him where Melanite had not. “I’ll walk you home,” he offered, falling into step beside the other knight. “This was more than enough excitement for one night, I think.”
