The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Headless Over Heels, as Annalise's advice (under the "All My Strength" spoiler) on how to handle Anna comes in handy (mouse over the link and you'll see why I wrapped it in text).

The wet, warm spot where she’d kissed him was already cooling. Seth wondered if his hyperawareness of it would ever fade, or if he’d bear it forever, an invisible badge of nerve endings eternally nostalgic for the plump black lips that once graced them.

The bemused clicking of Ofelia’s tongue brought him back from the fugue Annalise’s kiss had placed him in. “Oooh, Seth. She hit you with the Santiago special.”

“I veto that,” Tiago said. “The name, that is. I will keep my thoughts re: the kiss to myself.”

“I think it’s all rather charming, don’t you? Mother’s got a crush.”

Tiago maintained his death mask blankness. “Sure.”

The carriage door slammed open. Anna al Ydris, shoulders bunched and eyes narrowed, slunk down its step to the Sondam clay, her black horse tack jangling in her hand. She raised the harness up and out; Demetrius trotted to her on cue, and her razorcut scowl softened for a moment. Then she looked past her pink-skinned steed to Seth, and it slashed itself back on.

The leather harness snapped its slack out in her hand. “Let’s get this done,” she said, and clipped the first tether around Demetrius’ neck. “You’re coming along, il Gutierre.”

“Ma’am.” Tiago stepped forward. “You instructed us to stop you if—”

“It’s all right.” Seth held a mollifying hand up. “What do you need me for, Anna?”

“Hunting,” she said. “You climb trees?”

“I climb whatever you want me to.”

Her whiskers twitched. “Fine.”

“If I’m the hunter and not the bait this time, I’m willing to give it another try.”

“Good.” She scowled down her little button nose at him. “Cause last time I left you out of my sight with my daughter your idiocy got her stabbed. What part of get her back to the carriage didn’t translate?” She returned to her business with Demetrius.

“Hey, Anna.”

“What,” she grunted, not turning from her harness.

Doing what you told me to, boss.

“Eat shit,” Seth said.

That detached her from her preparations. She whirled from Demetrius and bared her murani fangs. “Watch yourself, il Gutierre.”

“I’m doing what you told me to, boss.”

“This isn’t Annalise at the fuckin’ reins, you hear?” Anna’s hand tightened on her smallsword’s plain spherical pommel. “Try and bring that grab-ass smart-mouth shit around me and see what happens.”

He folded his arms. “What happens?”

She took a menacing step toward him, right into his face. He didn’t move.

“You think you’re gonna get in my good books just because you’re fuckable, il Gutierre?”

“I think you called me fuckable,” Seth said. “That’s got to put me in the table of contents, at least.”

“Fucking Annalise.” Anna hacked an unkind laugh. “Acting like you’re some pureheart. Pretending like we’re sparing your innocence for some yokel hick to give you a hick family. As if a two-bit con like you’d have kids.”

Seth shrugged. “No argument here.”

She dropped her voice into a menacing whisper. “Little fuckin’ freak. You think I don’t notice? Tripping over your dick? Sniffing my fucking saddle? Pathetic.”

“I don’t sniff your saddle.” Though one time he had laid a palm on it for a few seconds while grooming Demetrius. It had still been warm. “You know what I think? I think you’ve put on Anna because you think it’ll make me fold and decide you’re not worth the squeeze.” He tutted. “Won’t work, al Ydris.”

“I put her on because I’m hunting a seraph, fool.”

“Okay,” he said. “So hunt.”

“Shut your trap and I will.”

Seth obeyed, and watched Anna’s preparations with trap firmly shut. Anna loaded her spear onto its sconce, reached for her saddlebag, and paused to cast a dark look at him.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

She scoffed and turned from him. “Get your things loaded up.”

Seth picked through the halfway-organized carriage interior. Tiago furtively joined him by its frosted window. “You want to stay, I’ll back you up.”

Seth shook his head and gave the man in a youth’s body a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll pitch in.”

“Are you trying to impress her or something?

“I doubt that’s possible when she’s Anna.” Seth tapped the toe of his right boot against his left. Stiletto accounted for. Hello again, strange new friend. “Maybe I’m trying to impress you.”

Tiago smirked. “I don’t know impressed. But you’re not what I expected you’d be, give you that.”

Seth found his cutlass and tested the pull on the scabbard again. As long as he held it fast, it came out okay, though there were still flakes of blackened blood on its fuller. “What’d you expect?”

Tiago observed his test draws impassively. “No comment.”

Seth approached Anna with his kit. She flapped a hand dismissively toward Tiago, who was unhooking Draco from his yoke. “Not on my horse. You ride with him.”

“I could just take Draka.”

“Too much horse for a reedy little thing like you. Break your neck.” Anna whistled to Tiago. “Boy. The thief rides with you.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And, uh.” A quirk of Anna’s scarred lip, almost a smile. “This is a gray feather, like I said. Thought it was a good chance when I was the other one. Now I’m sure.”

Tiago’s perpetual stoicism cracked. “Does that mean—”

“Means you keep your distance, if you’re insisting on using the fuckin’ thing,” Anna said. “Too close and it’ll dud your mites. And the sword has to finish them.”

“But I can bring it?”

It was brief, but Anna graduated to an actual smile at her son’s boyish excitement. “You carry it, fine.”

Tiago pumped his fist and hurried into the carriage. He emerged with a molded leather case, lumpy and oblong like a brass instrument carrier.

Seth approached inquisitively as Tiago flipped the case’s clasps. Lisa played the sax. Did Tiago have a trombone? “What’s in there?”

“What’s in here, Mr. il Gutierre, is a wonderful reminder that, in this life of carriage and candle…” Tiago lifted the lid. “There remain moments of glorious modernity.”

He reached reverently into the case’s sable interior and removed a machine gun.

Also available at Scribble Hub.