Chapter Text
There’s a crowd around the lance and shield. As there should be: it’s one of the most intact specimens found in Gallia yet. The spiraling still sharp, the core still reactive. It’s why Faldio had talked his way into the university archive before the exhibition, while the artifacts were being held under lock and key. He’d wanted to take his time observing before he’d have an endless ring of museum gala guests to get through.
(He's always considered his in at the University of Randgriz to be more of a privilege than any of the other privileges he’d been given.)
“It seems so little,” says Elsa, her bemused face reflected in the glass. “I always imagined they’d be more…majestic. Didn’t you?”
Faldio shakes his head. “They don’t look like this when they’re in use. You’ve seen the sculptures. There’s a lot of art that depicts the Valkyrur lances, and we believe they’re much larger. The shield as well.”
“What do you mean, that they can change shape?”
He nods.
She looks back at the compact, stubby lance, skeptical. “Doesn’t it seem more likely that they were just drawn that way?”
“For a time that was the prevailing theory. But—get this.”
He takes Elsa by the hand, leading her between an older couple to look from a different angle. Grinning, he points inside the spiral.
“You see that panel, on the inside? Where the hand goes?”
She leans closer, nose to the glass.
“It’s Ragnite-activated,” he says. “Researchers aren’t able to fully change the form—it’s likely you’ve got to be Valkyrur to do that. But if you apply Ragnite to the handle, the lance and shield clearly react.”
Elsa can’t stop looking, even as they step away to let someone else in.
“How clever,” she muses as she finally pulls her eyes away. “I wonder if even the boring things have secrets too.”
“Boring?” Faldio shakes his head. “They’re pieces of the grandest puzzle ever made, Elsa.” He sweeps an arm around the museum, plucking a glass of champagne off a passing tray at the end of it. “Nothing in this room is boring.”
She looks around, amused. “That's just some old cup over there. Not even that?”
“Of course not.” Faldio lifts a finger, pausing to take a sip. “Now—when we see that goblet, we can look at what it’s made of, and how it would have been made, and we can make guesses as to why it would have been made that way.” He holds up his champagne flute, turning it in the light of the chandelier. “Do you ever think about how much our own dishes could tell the people of the future about what kind of life we’re living now?”
“A glass like that?” Elsa tilts her head. “But it seems quite plain, doesn’t it?”
“Only to us,” Faldio replies. “There’s a lot of work that goes into making a glass like this that we don’t see. In one factory they mix sand and melt it down to make the molten glass, and in another they shape that glass in a mold, and they make sure it’s strong and clear before they send it off.” He drains the rest of his champagne so he can turn the flute upside-down. “You see that emblem stamped into the glass? This was mass-produced, all the way out in the Federation.”
“Sand? Really?”
“Yes, really.” Deftly, he flips it back over in his fingers. “So when someone excavates this glass in three thousand years, they’ll know what kind of environment we were living in, and what our industry was like. They’ll know we needed such fine glassware for something. And perhaps there will be new types of analysis three thousand years from now, that can tell them even more.” He glances sidelong, giving her a wink. “Perhaps they’ll even know that a dashing young man held this glass at the Randgriz University Museum, on the ninth of July, 1932, while talking to a pretty girl.”
Elsa looks up at him, a coquettish little grin on her lips.
“Do you know everything, Mr. Landzaat?”
It’s working tonight. It doesn’t always work. Plenty of girls tune him out once he gets going, and he’s had to learn to differentiate polite, obligatory nods from genuinely interested ones so he can course-correct quickly enough to avoid a poor reputation. He doesn’t mind—he’s got Welkin to talk to now when he feels like talking. But it’s still nice to have the opportunity, and nicer still that Elsa von Damon thinks his interests are fascinating. He'd hoped she would. He finds that a lot of girls think the Valkyrur are fascinating—especially the types that grew up around here. There’s something romantic about a fierce, otherworldly, violent woman to a girl who’s never worked a day in her life.
“Of course I don’t know everything,” says Faldio—disagreeing carefully, with a smile. “There’s always more to learn. Frankly, the scope of what we don’t know is far greater than what we do.” He inclines his glass toward the ancient goblet. “We can learn a lot from discoveries like this, that’s certainly true, but they’re still only small pieces of the puzzle.”
“Doesn’t that get discouraging?” Elsa asks. “That you’re never sure of what you know?”
“Not at all,” he says. “On the contrary, it’s inspiring. There’ll always be something new to discover, and every time it’ll reframe our assumptions. That’s what I love about archaeology. I’d spend my whole life out in the field, if I could.”
“Goodness, really?”
He chuckles. “Of course, the university could hardly afford to sponsor that. They’ve got to be judicious with their grants.”
Elsa blinks. “It costs money to go look for artifacts?”
“Yes, lots. It’s a job, after all. You need supplies, and you need provisions, and you need wages.” Faldio sighs. “It’s difficult for the university to justify, especially when they have no way of being sure what you’ll find.”
Thoughtfully, Elsa twists a curl around her finger.
“I wonder if Daddy knows,” she muses. “I’m sure he could help, and I know he loves old things. He’s got a whole room full of antique ceramics.”
“Does he?”
With a giggle, she nods. “I’m still not allowed to go in there. He thinks I might break something.”
Miserable, but she seems to find it amusing. Faldio grins.
“I wonder if he’d appreciate things like this,” he says, gesturing to the goblet. “Even if they don’t look like much.”
“If he only talks to you, I’m sure he will.” Elsa lays an encouraging hand on his arm. “You’re ever so clever, Mr. Landzaat.”
Faldio knows a little about General Damon, and he’s not sure cleverness is enough to ingratiate him. In fact, it might do the opposite. But he hopes that the glowing recommendation of his darling daughter might hold off any knee-jerk anti-academia sentiment—at least enough to consider donation.
It doesn’t. At least not immediately, but Faldio could hardly ask directly, so he’s not discouraged. Planting the seed of an independent thought is how one gets through to a man like Damon. They like to think everything’s their own idea.
For now, his military potential seems more interesting to the man than his academics. As annoying as it is, really, it can only help. Faldio wouldn’t serve under that man for love or money, but he can be coy about it. Flirtation isn’t just for romance.
Romantic flirtation sure takes a lot less out of him, though.
The summer sun sets late. It’s still going down over Lake Graz when Faldio steps outside, the bright glare gleaming on the hoods of the attendees’ parked cars. He wanders out between them toward the edge of the lot—and then he stops. There’s somebody lying under one of the cars, legs stretched out across the gap.
He eyes the lit cigarette in one hand beside them, and bends over to look closer. “Is everything alright?”
“Oh, sorry—this yours?”
Faldio blinks. “It’s not yours?”
“Nah, just lookin.’ Ain’t never seen one of these.” The boy slithers out from under the car and slaps the one across the aisle. “This one’s mine. My parents’, anyway—" Still sitting on the ground, he looks up for the first time. “Oh, hey—Landzaat?”
Faldio squints down at him in the twilight. The voice is easier to place, though in cadence more than tone: it’s deepened since he last heard it.
“Schmidt?”
“Yeah, man!”
It’s been years since he’s seen this kid. Schmidt was probably eleven or twelve the last time they’d crossed paths at a party. A little younger than him, just young enough then to be too young to talk to. Still a little younger now than Faldio would prefer his company, but he's not really in the mood to be picky.
“Wow,” he says. “No kidding.”
He offers Schmidt a hand up and hauls him to his feet. Schmidt grins.
“Thought I saw you in there,” he says. “Was that you with Elsie?”
“You mean Elsa von Damon?” She’s probably about Schmidt’s age. Faldio tries to think back on their childhood, but back then, he hadn’t been paying much attention. They must have gone to school together or something.
“Mmhm.” Schmidt sticks his cigarette back between his teeth to dust off the back of his suit. “What was that about?” he asks, stretching for the spot between his shoulder blades. “Her old man still trying to marry her off?”
Faldio had had an idea. He had no intention of following through with it, but the thread was there to tug on.
“No, it’s not that.” He scoffs weakly. “It’s about research funding.”
“Research?”
“The archaeology department’s falling short this year,” he mutters. “We’re hoping we might get some more donations tonight, so we can shore up our expedition grants.”
Schmidt exhales a cloud of smoke as he laughs. “Good fuckin’ luck with that, man.”
“We’ll see.”
“Hey—” He grins, teasing. “Might have more luck if you married his daughter.”
Faldio snorts. “I don’t think it’s that dire yet.”
“Hey, now—Elsie’s real sweet. The family, though…”
Schmidt looks him up and down. Faldio’s stomach clenches awkwardly.
“I bet somebody like you’d pass muster with the General.” Schmidt chuckles around his cigarette. “Dunno if your name’s good enough, but you got the right attitude. I sure didn’t.”
Surprised, Faldio raises an eyebrow. “Did you go out with her?”
“We were friends when we were kids.” Schmidt shrugs. “She’s not s’posed to talk to me anymore.”
He looks more like a menace now than he did when he was a kid. Adolescence has given him a distinctive, stringy, good-for-nothing kind of look, even in a good suit. His bow tie’s undone around his neck, his lank hair bobbed about his cheekbones. He breathes out more smoke.
“I can tell her hi, if you want,” says Faldio.
“Nah.” Schmidt shakes his head, curtained bangs swaying. “Probably shouldn’t.”
Faldio watches him climb back over the door of his parents’ car and lean back in the driver’s seat, knees on the steering wheel.
“That what you’re doing out here?” he asks. “Hiding?”
“Dunno.” Schmidt shrugs. “It’s just fuckin’ weird, man. I haven’t been to one of these things in ages. Don’t know what to do with myself in there.”
“Ah.” He’d gotten out, except for the holidays. “Summer break, huh?”
“Yeah. I was gonna stay again, but then it was a whole thing.”
From what he knows of the family Schmidt, everything is always a whole thing. Faldio doesn’t blame him one bit for spending as much time as he can out of their orbit. “Where’d you end up going to school, anyway?”
“Fouzen.”
He hadn’t expected that. “Really?”
“Yeah. Mechanics.”
Schmidt’s weedy and more limb than anything. It’s hard to picture him in industry, or anywhere near it, and it’s even harder to picture his parents allowing him there. But if that’s what you want to study, the schools are pretty decent. Faldio supposes he can’t claim to have any idea where Schmidt’s interests lie. It’s not like they’d ever really known each other.
The pack of cigarettes was in the car. Schmidt taps it on the dashboard and offers him one. Faldio leans over the passenger door to take it, stretches out his arm to Schmidt’s lighter.
“You at the university, then?” Schmidt asks.
“Yeah.”
“Good for you, man. Bet your old man’s real proud.” He smiles back at him. “He still teaching there?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d ask my parents about your archaeology thing, but I don’t think it’d help.”
He wouldn’t need to help for that. Arnold and Angela Schmidt had always been reliably in favor of fine education. It’s part of why they’d always been so frustrated by their son.
“Shame you can’t marry their son, though.” Schmidt laughs cheerfully. “Taking me off their hands might be worth another expedition. At least.”
Faldio watches him take another drag, baffled. What a weird fucking thing to say. He figures Schmidt’s always been a weird fucking kid.
“Anyway, I figure that’s what I’m doing here,” he says. “They’re trying to sell me on the university. I think they’re hoping I come back to town after high school.”
“You don’t want to?”
He shrugs. “I dunno what I want to do yet.”
At Schmidt’s age, Faldio had had his entire future planned out. He’d had a passion as long as he could remember, and the drive to follow it. He’s not sure Schmidt has either.
“They’re just dangling shit in front of me like I’m a baby and hoping I pay attention.” Schmidt laughs. “Sometimes it works, though, so I can’t blame ‘em.”
“You don’t think they’re looking for you in there?” Faldio asks.
“Who cares?”
“If they brought you here for a reason, though... They won’t come out here and look?”
There’s a long pause as they both look back toward the museum, where the shadows of guests flit by behind the bright windows.
“Let’s get out of here, then.”
“What?”
Schmidt sits up properly in the driver’s seat and turns back to him. “Want a ride?”
There’s a manic glint in his grin that Faldio can’t look away from.
After a moment’s heady pause, he opens the passenger door and slides in. "You have the keys?”
“Don’t need ‘em, man.” Schmidt’s feeling around under the wheel now. “Not if you know how it works.”
“Wait—what are you doing?”
“Don’t worry about it. I do this all the time.”
“You can’t steal your parents’ car—”
“We’ll come back. Nobody’s gonna notice—”
“Schmidt.”
It takes a couple more seconds, but he gives up eventually. With a heavy sigh, he sits back up and slumps in the driver’s seat.
Faldio stares over at him, stunned.
“Where were you going to go, anyways?”
“I dunno. Nowhere.”
“I thought you did this all the time,” says Faldio, rolling his eyes. “Where do you go then?”
Schmidt shrugs. “Out of the city, mostly,” he says. “Drive around out there. See how fast I can get this old thing to go.”
“Are you serious?”
“You can really get goin’ out along the lake.” He sticks his cigarette back in his mouth. “It’s more fun at school, ‘cause of the cliffs and all the train tracks. But it’s still okay.”
“You got a death wish?”
“Nah, man—I got a life wish!”
It’s such a teenage thing to say that it takes him aback. Faldio laughs out loud, and once he starts he can’t stop. He can’t breathe for laughter until he’s got tears in his eyes, braced against the dash.
Schmidt knows he’s making fun of him, but he still grins. “C’mon,” he says. “What do you wanna go out on expeditions so bad for, man? It’s the same shit.”
“What are you talking about?”
He gestures with his cigarette toward the city wall. “This ain’t livin’, man.”
Faldio scoffs.
It’s not the same at all. He doesn’t have a problem with society. He fits there, in a way somebody like Schmidt never did. Running across the country, acting out—that’s the kind of shit somebody does when they don’t have a place, and they know they don’t. Faldio’s never been like that. He’s never needed to be.
He doesn’t even have Schmidt’s excuse for yearning.
(Oh—whatever.)
“Do it,” he says.
“What?”
Faldio gestures at the wheel. “Do your thing with the wires, or whatever it is. Let’s go.”
Schmidt watches him for a couple seconds, as if to ascertain that he’s serious. Faldio meets his gaze and takes a drag on his cigarette.
“For real?”
“Yeah.”
Schmidt grins.
Faldio sits back as he starts up the ignition and jams the starter button. As stupid as it is, it’s a pretty impressive way of being stupid. He’s sure this wasn’t what Schmidt’s parents had had in mind when they let him study engineering. Frankly, it’s what they should have expected. Maybe it’s why they want him to fucking stop now.
They pull out of the lot and out into the city. Faldio looks away awkwardly as the guard waves them out of the gate.
The road along the lake doesn’t get a lot of traffic. It’s mostly just scenic, for boaters or walkers during the day. Maybe for couples at night, but at least they’ll probably be off the road. Schmidt’s picked a pretty good time and place to be a madman.
He puts his cigarette out, then takes Faldio’s out of his hand as well. He opens his mouth to reproach him—but then they’re picking up speed. There’d’ve been no keeping it lit in winds like this.
The trees blur past, faster and faster. His heart picks up, swells into his throat. Schmidt whoops gleefully beside him, and Faldio can’t help but grin.
He understands the appeal of speed. He can still remember the first time he’d galloped on a horse—the wind hard on his face just like this. He still prefers it. He likes to feel the horse beneath him, the power that moves them. Like he's part of a team.
(As the engine vibrates beneath him now, he figures a car might actually feel similar, to somebody that understands how they work.)
They round a gentle curve at suicidal speed, and horror crashes over him. There’s another car in front of them—driving like a normal person, at a reasonable clip.
“Schmidt!”
“Got it—"
Schmidt swerves like a maniac, and for half a second Faldio is genuinely convinced they’re going to die. He braces himself instinctively, one arm against the door and the other against Schmidt’s ribs as he’s flung to the side. They screech around the other car, leaving it behind in a whoosh and a fading blast of the horn.
“See?”
There’s nobody coming the other direction, so it’s not like it really matters, but Schmidt keeps going on the wrong side of the road for far too long. Faldio clenches his suit jacket in his fist.
It doesn’t take too long for them to finally slow down, but it feels like forever. Schmidt slowly eases up on the gas and turns off the road, pulls over into a clear patch of grass over the water.
“Now that’s it, man! That’s the shit!”
Schmidt grabs his neck in one hand, dragging him forehead to forehead for a second like a footballer who’s made a great play. Faldio hardly registers the surprise of it. He can still barely breathe. Every nerve is blazing.
He can’t call it a good feeling—but he can’t remember the last time he felt this alive.
“Look.” Schmidt turns his head over the water. The sun’s nearly gone now. The Randgriz palace tower is silhouetted over the wall, both dotted with tiny lights like the sky with stars.
“I like it out here,” he says. “Where everything’s little.”
Faldio’s anxious hand has dropped from Schmidt’s chest to his lap, relaxed and flattened out over one leg. His heart’s still beating a mile a minute.
“Yeah,” he says softly.
They look out together for a little while, pressed together.
Schmidt hasn’t got thighs like a rider. Those are the kind of thighs that Faldio had spent his youth admiring—trying to reason himself into a constructive kind of lust. But all the same, he thinks, as the heat of his leg bleeds into his palm, Schmidt’s more muscular than he might have expected. He’s probably more of a runner.
(Does he just think that because Schmidt’s a runner in every other way?)
Faldio shifts his hand, slow and heavy, up his thigh. He’s not half as drunk as he’d always thought he’d need to be—he’s spent a lot of time considering how drunk he’d need to be. What circumstances could conspire that might get him in a man’s arms, when in everyday life he’d never indulge the thought. Freezing at night in a desert tent, perhaps, with a friend who’d come along to study the local fauna. Trapped in a cave together with no hope of rescue. Resuscitating him after a near-drowning.
His fantasies all seem to flirt with death, he realizes. Sometimes they even end in it. Maybe that’s what Schmidt sees in the idea.
The adrenaline is still dizzying, his heart still hammering, as he turns.
Schmidt kisses like a girl, or maybe kisses are just kisses. These are slick and sloppy, taste of spit and smoke. Even Schmidt's hands feel like a girl’s as they slide into his hair, down his back—bigger, but soft and slender and skillful. If he’d done nothing but kiss him, Faldio might have been able to close his eyes and picture it differently.
He doesn’t want to. Between kisses he fumbles with the button of Schmidt’s trousers, presses his hand against him, wraps his fingers around him. The deep groan in his throat at the touch of skin is hauntingly, thrillingly masculine.
Faldio pushes him roughly up against the door.