The Manhunt/Chapter 6

The quiet hum of Germany rolled in the background. Airmid Valerian looked back with a solemn, sad smile.

“I miss home.”

“Don’t we all?” said Bastion, in a tone that clearly implied that he did not miss home.

In a rented car, the two were slowly making their way across the border. Through Belgium they would drive, until reaching France.

Sitting shotgun was Airmid. When the city and its castle got smaller in the background, they tried to amuse themself with the Bluetoothfairy. After several attempts, copious complaints and the odd swear, they finally got it connected.

And then, there was the scream of heavy metal.

Had they not been waiting at a red light, Bastion would have surely crashed the car in shock. His body twitched in shock, his eyes widened, his breath seemed to catch itself. He took a deep breath, and braced himself.

"Dear Author. Airmid," his fingers curled around the steering wheel with a sharp angry precision. "Some warning, please?"

Airmid quietly lowered the volume.

"Thank you," he said. “Um. Your music taste is interesting."

They beamed at his words, clearly intent on taking them as a compliment. In Bastion’s mind, metal sounded mostly like screaming and yelling.

The light turned red, and he drove on.

The two drove through Belgium, where Airmid wanted to stock up on chocolate, and into the northwest coast of France. The car was returned to the same brand of rental dealership from Germany, and Airmid and Bastion worked out their next plan.

Locating information on Airmid’s predecessor had been significantly easier than hexpected. Airmid seemed undeterred by this, but nervousness gnawed away at Bastion.

It was a fact of life that challenges get progressively more difficult.

He was unsure whether he was prepared for his own.

France was comprised of corner cafés and small restaurants. The place was far too romantic, the precise reason why Bastion had never felt at home in his own country. It loved too much, felt too much, held cheese in such a high regard too much. It was run off emotion and governed by fools, and filled with princes and princesses who would die and live and fight in wars for each other.

It was saccharine and sickening.

Perhaps others would have found something admirable or adorable about it.

“Is this… nice?” he had asked Airmid. It had been the second café trip that day, and Bastion Fanfarinet was getting sick of cafés.

“Yes,” said the physician, their eyes lighting up. “Did you know, according to the plaque outside, this café was established over a century ago? Just think about the possibility of one of our predecessors once visiting here! We might be occupying one of the very rooms they once sat in..."

“Or, the possibility of a predecessor going to any other nearby café or coffeeshop,” Bastion’s voice was insensitively sharp. “Either way, we’re off by a few decades. There’s little to reminisce over."

“Are you always this pessimistic?”

“Why are you so starry-eyed over the past?”

Airmid’s eyes darted to the side. The physician was unsure how to answer, and nervously shifted the coffee in their hand. “I would like to contest that,” they said, slowly. “I’m not starry-eyed over the past. I’m starry-eyed over the future. One requires acute awareness of the past for that.”

“Ah, but what about appreciation?”

“I do, well, appreciate what the past has brought us,” Airmid bowed their head slightly. “I don’t understand, is that bad?”

“To appreciate the past on a purely superficial level, ignoring all the injustices?” he raised an eyebrow. “You tell me.”

Without a change in their voice, the physician simply lifted their coffee to their lips. “You’re dulling the mood.”

Bastion Fanfarinet paused. Of course, he was being overly critical. Here they were, in a French café, neatly dressed, with good coffee. By all conventional definitions, this was what being cultured was. This was how he was raised. Living like this gained you respect from people.

This was everything that he stood against.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a certain finality, turning his head slightly.

He tried not to think about how bad he was at keeping conversation. Tried not to think of how every time he entered a room, laughter or conversation would cease.

“Why don’t you ever talk?” people asked. “Why do you always answer in one-worded sentences?”

Bastion Fanfarinet blinked, feeling tears around his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, not exactly knowing what he was apologising for. His presence, probably. “The sun’s in my eye.”

“Do you want to re-angle the table?”

“You can’t simply just re-angle the table–“

“No. We must re-angle the table. I simply cannot let you damage your retinae with ultraviolet rays like this,” Airmid stood up, holding onto the edges of their side of the table. “Bastion. Please put some effort in your health."

“The staff have already put so much effort in arranging the tables,” he protested. “It would be rude to override that.”

“Well, obviously not enough effort if the light is striking your eye at this hour of day,” they tilted their head, and cocked it in their own self-assurance. “Up!”

He sighed, stood up along with Airmid, and pulled up at the edges of the table.

It was a struggle. Bastion had clearly forgotten how much upper body strength he lacked. Nervously, he shot a glance at the physician, who was lifting their end with ease. He then hoped his own struggle wasn’t visible.

When he pulled at the end of the table, the edge of his blazer sleeve lifted up, exposing his wrist.

Airmid’s reaction was swift.

“Dear Grimm. That watch."

Surprised by the sudden comment, Bastion dropped his end of the table, where it fell on his foot. He winced and tried not to show visible pain. He failed.

Bastion followed Airmid’s stare to his own wrist. It was a Swiss watch. Clockwork, not digital. A gift from his father, received a week and two days after his 16th birthday. Evidently, the watch had been sent as some afterthought: the engraving had the date wrong by one day.

“It’s beautiful, really,” Airmid noted the silver band resting on Bastion’s wrist. Indeed, it had a polished face, beautifully arranged clockwork, and the image of class. “I’ve always loved the look of a Scrollex."

He tilted his wrist to angle the face at Airmid more clearly. “Did you ever want one?”

“Of course. I simply never needed one, especially considering that everyone is carrying around MirrorPhones these days."

Wordlessly, Bastion unclipped the watch from his wrist, and dangled it in front of them.

Airmid arched an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

“I’m completely serious. Here. No catch," he said, swinging the watch slightly.

“Thank you?” they said, their words unsure. People simply did not give out expensive watches to not-even-friends.

Bastion never once said the words ‘you’re welcome’. Instead, he simply dropped the physician’s hands.

Airmid wrapped it smugly around their wrist and secured it. The metallic silver only mildly clashed against their beige colour scheme.

Of course, there were so few days that could be spent in such revelry.

And by a few days, Bastion Fanfarinet only meant one. One morning, and another afternoon, in a café was quite enough. It agitated him to live like this. These hours could have been put to work – to spreadsheets and important documents, or even, D’Aulnoy forbid, the very purpose of this trip.

He soon found it was no mean feat.

Suspects Number One and Two heard his proposal, and slammed their doors. Despite the speeches he wrote for appeal, further suspects decided the idea he offered was crass, and one even threw a teapot.

Nevertheless, Airmid Valerian’s sequencing of the suspects’ short tandem repeats did confirm, at the very test, that the shady people were correct in the fact that these were indeed Gabriel’s children.

For some reason that Bastion couldn’t quite pinpoint, this made the data he had been sent feel even worse.