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aggie-postemon · 17 days ago

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The Greater War

Twelve years after the start of the Great War (and ten years since it ended), Alek sits on the throne of Austria. He's got Dylan to thank for it, but even he's not entirely sure why his best friend brought him a country.

Come along for whispered secrets; shouted secrets; courtly intrigue; and, of course, a long-secret romance, revealed at last.

Chapter Four - Hatching

AO3 | FFN

It was a long night. Assassination attempts always made for long nights. But sure enough, by morning, all traces of the dead woman were cleared out of Alek's chambers.

Dylan's noble associates were spreading rumors about a Duke's abrupt retirement to the countryside, and Volger was delegating three termination notices to the Chief of Staff — staffers who'd heard things, but had apparently been too afraid or too sympathetic to speak up.

Alek was scrubbing his hands raw. He'd done his fair share of killing and clean-up, but it always left him feeling dirty. The excessive hand washing didn't help, but neither did anything else.

On the other end of that spectrum, Alek was fairly sure Dylan still had blood in his hair as he ran around taking care of the last details. He'd changed his clothes, had clearly shaven as meticulously as he always did, but he'd missed a spot of dead man's blood and hadn't noticed.

It wasn't until Mrs. Sharp had come at him with a damp rag at their belated mid-morning breakfast that it got taken care of.

"Blisters," Dylan said as the rag came away red. "I've just been running around like that. Sorry, Ma."

"You were busy," Mrs. Sharp said. It was she who had prepared breakfast. Dylan was not yet ready to cede control back to Konopiště's staff, but truly had not had the time to do it himself.

"Charming," Jaspert said, glaring daggers at Alek. Alek just counted it as a win that Jaspert had even attended breakfast instead of taking it alone, sulking in his guest chambers. Not that Alek could talk about sulking.

Dylan seemed less inclined to count his blessings. "Please, Jaspert," he said. "I signed up to be a soldier before I even met him. My main goal might have been flying, but we both knew at the time that a certain amount of killing was inevitable."

"Honestly," Mrs. Sharp said. "Blame me. Dylan might not have even joined the air service if I hadn't burned the rest of your Da's balloons."

"You burned them?" Alek said incredulously.

"A balloon set my husband on fire," Mrs. Sharp said primly. "The rest got what was coming to them." So, Dylan had come by his vengeful streak honestly.

"You were just being protective, Ma. Dylan would have been up in those balloons by himself if you hadn't got rid of them, and nobody should balloon alone anyway."

"You weren't there, Jaspert," Mrs. Sharp said, and it was an indictment. "Dylan needed to fly, and I didn't let him."

From the look on Dylan's face, this was the closest thing to an apology Mrs. Sharp had ever given him. On Alek's part, the idea that he might never have met Dylan if Mrs. Sharp had kept just one balloon was discomfiting.

"I did need to fly," Dylan said. "But I think things worked out for the best."

Mrs. Sharp gave him a fragile smile. "This might be the wrong day to say it, but beyond the current circumstances, your life here seems happy, even if its not conventional. I'm glad."

Hastily, Mrs. Sharp shoved the blood-stained rag out of sight. It was the sort of thing that might have killed the mood, but Jaspert gingerly took the rag from where Mrs. Sharp had shoved it in the folds of her skirt.

"I'll take care of this, Ma," he said. He uncrumpled it, folded it so that the worst of the bloodstains faced in, and tucked the rag of the last remnants of a dead man into his breast pocket.

Mrs. Sharp patted Jaspert's hand. "You didn't have to do that, dear."

It occurred to Alek that Jaspert, despite his long service record, had seen less bloodshed than Dylan, that perhaps Jaspert didn't quite have the tools to understand the man his younger brother had become.

"Thanks," Dylan said. "To both of you. For being here."

"Of course," said Mrs. Sharp.

A strange expression crossed Dylan's face when he glanced at Alek, and Alek was sure he had more to say, he just didn't know how to say it with Alek in the room.

Alek looked pointedly at his lap, trying to seem unassuming. This seemed to help Dylan find his words.

"And thank you for then," Dylan said. "Jaspert, you especially. You might not have been home, and you might regret helping me get into the service now, but I think it probably saved my life."

Alek ached to put his hand on Dylan's shoulder — Dylan made no secret of the fact that losing his father had nearly killed him, but he rarely spoke of it with an air of such transparent vulnerability. Touching him now, though, would remind the room that Alek existed, and Alek did not want to break the spell that had enabled this veiled honesty among the Sharp family.

Jaspert tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling, evidently unsure how to proceed in the face of Dylan's gratitude.

"I don't regret it," he said finally. "I'll just hate it if your choices were ultimately dying or dying the long way around."

Dylan snorted. "Who'd take care of the royal wanker if I died now? I've got every intention of sticking around."

Alek had three thoughts. One, that surely he wasn't so helpless that his helplessness could forestall death. Two, that a man had every right to choose a man — a cause, really — he might die for. And three, that if Dylan did die in his service, Alek might burn even his beloved Austria to the ground.

He then had a fourth thought: maybe he really was that helpless, if the very thought of a world without Dylan (consistently, even!) drove him to murderous violence.

Jaspert then looked directly at Alek. "See to it."

Alek's inner moralist wanted to say that he couldn't see to it. That it was unfair for Jaspert to even ask. He could not put one man over all of Austria. The truth, however, was that he always would.

What good could he ever do for Austria without Dylan by his side?

Alek swallowed around the lump in his throat, said to Dylan, "You're not allowed to die before your time. That's an order."

For a moment, Dylan looked almost as helpless as Alek. "I'll do my best, Your Princeliness."

Alek wanted to say that that wasn't good enough, but he knew that wouldn't be fair, either. "I'll do my best, too," he said, and finally gave into the urge to put his hand on Dylan's shoulder.

Dylan put his own hand atop Alek's, squeezed.

Mrs. Sharp made a soft noise in the back of her throat, an expression nearly of heartbreak on her face.

"Enough," she said firmly. "Today, we are all alive and sitting at this table. There's no use speculating darkly about tomorrows that haven't happened yet."

Jaspert looked like he was going to say something in protest but Mrs. Sharp seemed to detect that, too, and steamrollered right over him.

"Der, I keep meaning to mention it, but you well know it's been a busy morning. The eggs are starting to rock. It'll be any time now. I set Bovril to watching them."

Just like that, Dylan was bolting out of his seat. "Alek!" he said. "Eggs!"

Alek bolted out of his seat too, then. "Eggs!"

"Eggs," Jaspert said dubiously. Alek barely heard him, though, because he and Dylan were already racing from the room to seek Mrs. Sharp's guest chambers, where the eggs had ridden out the chaotic night.

~~~

"My God," Alek said as they made it through the door. "We made it."

Bovril looked up at them from where it fussed at the box. "Made it," it concurred. It looked at them both in turn. "Egg parents."

"Egg parents," Deryn said. "You have always seen us as your parents."

Bovril stretched up from its perch on the eggs, forepaws extended, clearly indicating that it wanted to be picked up. Odd, because Bovril was quite capable of climbing onto and up a person under its own power. "My Mr. Sharp," it said.

"Oh, beastie," Dylan said, slipping his hands under Bovril's armpits. "Your Mr. Sharp. Your Alek." Dylan cradled Bovril to his chest.

"Busy," Bovril said.

"Yes," Dylan said. "I was away, and you're working so hard with the baby lorises, aren't you? You haven't gotten enough attention lately. I'm sorry, beastie."

Alek stepped closer, reached in to give Bovril a gentle scratch behind the ears. It was always happiest when it got attention from both of them at once. Bovril pressed its head into Alek's hand and melted more deeply into Dylan's chest.

Watching this — being part of this — abruptly dissolved the last of any silly notions Alek had about secret wives and neglected children. Dylan, quite plainly, would be an excellent father.

In a weird, Darwinist way, he was already Bovril's father. What that made Alek — Bovril's birth imprint — Alek decided not to think too hard about. He ignored the obvious answer — that Alek was Bovril's mother.

"Thank you for everything you've done lately, Bovril." Alek decided to say. "You've been very, very helpful."

"Helpful," Bovril said, though its voice was muffled somewhat by Dylan's shirt. "Egg. Soon."

Bovril chose that moment to wriggle a little higher on Dylan's chest, almost to his shoulder, supporting most of his weight in one of Dylan's elbows. He stayed nestled, did not shift into an active position, per say, but he did give Dylan a free arm, so that Dylan and Alek might lean over their hatching eggs together.

Just as they refocused their attention, heads nearly touching, a large chunk of shell flew off the egg that was furthest along. A tiny little beak poked through the hole.

"Oh, nicely done, beastie," Dylan said. He gently tapped the beak with a finger tip.

"A bird?" Alek asked, astonished.

Dylan gently touched a second egg. "Well, it is supposed to fly."

Alek shot him a dry look. "Ah yes, because the Huxleys, the Mantines, and the Leviathan herself are all birds."

"Yup," Dylan said, popping his 'P' with a lazy grin. "Don't'cha remember? All the feathers on the Leviathan's flank? Always getting caught in that hair of yours?"

Alek telegraphed a roll of his eyes and both of them laughed.

The second egg had a beak poking out of it now, and the first egg gave a mighty crrrack!

"Well done!" Alek said to the naked chick that flopped from the egg, utterly exhausted.

"Damn," Dylan said. "We were hoping to make them hatch a bit more like fowl, all fluffy like."

This sort of bird, Alek understood, was notoriously hard to keep alive without a mother.

"Didn't you say some of the hawks were broody?" Alek asked.

Dylan frowned dubiously, said, "Hawks eat pigeons."

"Pigeons?" Alek said, "And you wanted them to hatch like fowl?"

"Shut up," Dylan said. "We accounted for that."

"Well," Alek said. "These babies are almost as big as a full grown hawk. I doubt they'll read as prey."

"Good point," said Dylan. "Bovril, can you go find a broody hawk that seems trustworthy?"

"Broody," Bovril said. "Mr. Sharp." He then scampered off, leaving an offended looking Dylan in his wake.

"Broody?" Dylan shouted after him. "I'm not broody!"

Alek chuckled, envisioning Dylan as a father once more, sitting on a nest of human eggs.

The third egg was breached by a third beak. The second chick rolled out of its shell.

Dylan cooed at it. That vision of Dylan as a father so clear in Alek's mind, he felt the need to say something.

"If you are broody," Alek said, gesturing over the eggs, "We have enough birds for you to bring in a wife. One for you, one for me, one for her!" God, that was an awkward thing to say. Why was Alek always so horribly awkward?

Dylan looked at him incredulously. "Barking spiders, Alek, don't you start. I am not looking for a wife!"

Alek wanted to die of embarrassment, but he put that aside and asked one of the questions that had been on his mind. "Why not?"

A flash of both hurt and fury came and went from Dylan's expression. He broke eye contact to stare at the eggs.

"You know what?" Dylan drew back from the eggs entirely, swiping his hands on his trousers and smearing egg muck on the fabric. "I'll entertain this. Why not? Alek, why?"

Alek clasped his hands together uncertainly. "Why? I suppose that it's just what young men do, don't they? They look for wives. I know that some men never marry, and I know that some men are like Lilit and Adela. But…"

"Why aren't you looking for a wife, then? If it's something that young men do?"

Alek smiled wryly. "I think Austria's enough of a commitment for the time being, don't you?"

"Tu felix Austria nube," Dylan said pointedly.

Alek flinched, mentally shying away from the looming image of his marriage to someone suitable. The both of them doing their duty to their countries, afraid and unhappy. Alek understood his father more by the day.

"You can't fault me for being wary of political marriage," Alek said, now faintly hurt himself. "You, Dylan, you have a chance at real love, but you seem to keep choosing Austria over your own happiness."

"You dafty," Dylan said, and from him, that word was almost always fond. There was an edge of bitterness to it today, though. "I am choosing my own happiness."

Warmth flickered in Alek's chest, despite Dylan's cutting tone, until Dylan decided to ruin it: "Besides, how would I even go about finding a wife? I think I'm a little too busy to go courting."

Courting was a mocking word in Dylan's mouth, and it seemed lighthearted enough, like Dylan was trying to turn the whole conversation into a joke. Still, that hit upon so many of Alek's fears, he had to keep talking.

"But that's exactly why I'm worried!" Alek said. "How would you go about courting? I'm afraid that your life here won't meet your needs forever."

Dylan froze. "That this life won't meet my needs?"

"Choosing Austria won't feel like choosing your own happiness forever," Alek said, wistful.

"You think this life doesn't meet my needs," Dylan said, and God's wounds, that was fear in his voice. "Tell me you haven't been talking to Volger."

Dylan was afraid of Alek. Alek couldn't even imagine how that was possible.

"He didn't tell me anything specific," Alek said. "You know it's impossible to get information out of the Count if he doesn't want to share it."

"True," Dylan said, but his voice was tight. "What did he tell you?"

Alek sighed, closed his eyes, and decided to damn everything anyone had told him thus far. He just couldn't wait for Dylan to come to him anymore. "Nothing I didn't already figure out. I overheard your conversation right before you left for London."

Alek didn't open his eyes. He didn't want to see the look on Dylan's face.

"You listened in on us," Dylan said. His voice was low and more than a little dangerous. "Then you confronted him."

"Yes," Alek said, finally daring to look at his closest friend. "I'm so sorry."

"Then you know," Dylan said. His complexion had taken on a pallid tone, hollowed and damp where it should be warm and bright.

"No!" Alek was quick to reassure him. "I just know you have a secret. I don't know what it is, I promised I wouldn't try to figure it out. I've had so many theories, but I just keep trying to put them out of my head. Your secrets are your business, Deryn, I just wish you didn't feel like you had to keep them from me."

Alek was proud of himself for that one for approximately a millisecond.

"Deryn," Dylan said. "Alek, why do you know that name?"

"Well, your mother says it often enough." Alek ran a shaky hand through his hair.

"I thought you thought it was just a slip up! She told you something, too, didn't she?"

God, Alek was such a dummkoph, he hadn't meant to sell Mrs. Sharp down the river.

"Er. Only sort of."

"She did!" Dylan said, now nearly shrieking. There was a small round of peeping from the fresh chicks in the incubation box. Dylan lowered his voice, shuffled back a little closer to the box and reached into it. "Hush, beasties, I'm sorry."

Alek stuck his own hand into the incubation box, gave off a soft hum. For a moment, the frantic peeping continued. He and Dylan were allies again, and he was able to meet his eye contact. Dylan looked harried; Alek was sure he looked harried too. Then, the chicks settled.

Dylan removed his hand from the incubation box, shuffled backward again. This time, it didn't seem like he was stepping away from the box. Dylan was backing away slowly from Alek, like Alek was some sort of monstrous and feral fabrication on a rampage. Dylan cleared his throat, said in a soft, low voice, "Alek, if Volger hasn't told you anything, and my mother hasn't told you anything, then you shouldn't know anything. So excuse me if I think all three of you might be full of clart."

Suddenly, the chevron floor was fascinating. "I just don't understand," Alek said in a small voice.

"Understand what, Alek?"

"Why you're still here. Why this life is enough for you, when you're a brilliant airman and a brilliant scientist, and no part of you ever wanted to be a politician. Why is choosing Austria choosing your own happiness?"

Alek took a hasty glance at Dylan's face. It looked like stone. Alek looked back at the floor. Good, reliable chevron. He could trace the zig and the zag for hours.

Then, it sounded like Dylan was choking. Alek risked another glance at him. Now, Dylan looked almost devastated.

"Choosing Austria?" Dylan said incredulously. "I'm not choosing Austria. I'm choosing you. Because you're my friend."

"Lilit's your friend," Alek said, forcing himself to sustain eye contact. "You're not helping her run Turkey."

"I don't give a flying fuck about Lilit!" Dylan said. "I care about you. I'm here because I care about you. My mother and Volger are one thing, but I never thought you'd be trying to chase me away!"

"I'm not trying to chase you away!" Alek said. "I want you to stay! I like our life here! I'd like our life anywhere, as long as we stayed together! And maybe my feelings are hurt, over all the secrets. By God, Dylan, you never even told me your real name, and I still don't know why!"

By the end of that, Alek was breathing hard, and the chicks were peeping madly again.

"Barking spiders," Dylan said, backing even further away from him. "I can't keep doing this."

"Was?" Alek was sure he'd turned white as a sheet. He'd ruined it. Alek always ruined everything and Dylan was already marching for the door. Dylan was going to leave.

Dylan took pity on him. "No, Alek. Have some self-esteem for once in your life! I'm not leaving. I will see you later. I just can't keep doing this." Dylan gesticulated wildly, perhaps indicating the conversation, perhaps indicating Alek, perhaps indicating Konopiště at large. Alek just wished he knew which.

"But-!"

"Watch the chicks until the hawk gets here, make sure it doesn't look like she'll eat them."

Dylan strode purposefully from the room.

"Was it something I said?" Alek called after him. He received no response. Alek stared at the door for a long moment. Dylan did not come back through them.

Finally, Alek looked down at the chicks, now all shivering wetly in their heated box.

"It seems your father has gone and left the delivery room. And I'm afraid I'm a poor excuse for a mother."

Alek dragged a plush armchair next to the incubation box, sat, and put his hand in the box. He tucked the chicks closer together. They were too large to cover with his palm like he might have done if they were smaller, so instead he arranged hay around them in mounds to try and insulate their fragile warmth. He bumped their heater up a notch.

Without Dylan, Alek truly had very little idea of what to do with these beasts. Bovril, by comparison, had been easy. Thankfully, Bovril continued to be easy, that beautiful first born child of his — and okay, maybe Alek was taking the metaphor too far. Metaphor or no metaphor, Bovril scampered back into the room with a messenger hawk right on his heels.

"Not snack," Bovril said sternly.

The hawk landed on the edge of the incubation box and gave both Alek and Bovril an imperious look. It pecked at Alek's hand til he withdrew it and stood. It then shuffled the over-sized pigeon chicks into a pile of its own making.

It had to fully spread its wings to cover them, and it made good use of its extended wingspan to firmly smack both Alek and Bovril for being too close.

They stepped away in unison.

"Broody," Bovril said.

"So I see," said Alek.

"Double meaning," Bovril pointed out.

Alek blew a strand of auburn hair out of his eyes. ''Him or me?" Alek asked.

Bovril sounded deeply unimpressed when it said, "Both, dummkopf."

"Dylan's a bad influence on you."

"Mr. Sharp," Bovril said, then scampered out of the room again like he'd made some sort of grand point. It seemed even Bovril was sick of him. Of course.

Alek turned to sit back down by the egg box, but was disabused of the notion by, yes, a very broody hawk.

He left Mrs. Sharp's chambers. He'd have to warn her about the hawk. And try and figure out what was wrong with Dylan now. By God, Alek wasn't looking forward to the reckoning he was sure was coming.

"I can't keep doing this," Dylan had said.

Alek tried to pretend those words didn't terrify him. It was another thing at which Alek was a miserable failure.

#dalek leviathan #leviathan series #leviathan trilogy #leviathan scott westerfeld #deryn sharp #aleksander of hohenberg

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