#ognian

Radka had tried to teach him her way of dealing with people, cutting them with words, which could hurt just as well and didn’t get you in near as much trouble. She thought he might take to it – he had not inherited Ognian’s mental acuity, for which Radka was also thankful – but Vasil found physical retribution faster and easier. 

“I hate this stupid town!” Vasil exploded. “Everyone thinks they’re better than us! They all talk about us behind our backs, and you want us to just smile and ignore it!”

Radka had travelled as far from Mechanicsburg as she could get before travel became too difficult, and settled in a little town called Poveste, which she came to loathe exactly ten minutes after it was too late to leave. The tavern owners were condescendingly sympathetic to a young woman in the family way by a mysterious man she would not name who ‘might be dead’, and allowed her to perform for their guests when they had them, and scrub the floors when they did not.

They even offered room and board in exchange for a percentage of her earnings, but Radka would rather scrape by in the lean winter months than put up with daily compliments about how surprisingly moral she was for a ruined woman.

“You don’t have to ignore it, and you don’t have to like it, but we live here, Vasil, and that means we have to get along with people.”

“So why don’t we just go?”

“Even if we could afford to move, anywhere we could afford to live would be just like this, with no guarantee I could find work.” It was an old argument, and one they had been having more and more frequently as Vasil grew older and less satisfied with the life around him. Radka didn’t like it much either, but what else could she do? Pack up and go to Mechanicsburg and hope whatever family Ognian had believed her?

“We could—”

“You are changing the subject,” Radka pointed out. “I want you to stop fighting each and every person in the world who makes the smallest slight against me. Do you think you might be physically capable of that?”

Vasil opened his mouth, but before he could answer – not that it mattered, she knew the answer would be ‘no’ – the bell in the center of town began to ring the frantic, desperate tones of alarm.

Radka flew to the door and stuck her head outside. Doors were slamming shut, men and women were running for shelter or for weapons. When she looked down the road out of town, she could see a distant red glow drowning the stars.

“Jӓgermonsters! Jӓgermonsters coming from the west! It’s the Heterodyne!”

“Well, shit.”

Radka closed the door and shot the deadbolt home, as if it would buy them more than a few extra seconds.

“Mama?” Vasil was looking up at her with wide, worried eyes. Radka tried to think sensibly. She could not trust that every one of the Heterodyne’s men would recognize her, especially in the chaos of an attack. She needed to think of them as the monsters they were, not as the men she performed for.

“Close all the shutters, lock the back door. Poveste is too small and too poor to be their main target. This is just them blowing off some steam. They’ll burn a few buildings and kill a few cows as they ride through, but they won’t stop.”

I hope.

“How do you know?”

“I know many things. Go.”

Radka took the box with their savings and buried it in the coal box, but left what little jewelry she had lying on her dresser. If someone did come in here, they might not think to look for hidden things if they found something valuable laying around.

They heard the thundering of hooves, the pounding of feet, and the unnatural howling of the Jӓgers — monsters and man alike. Radka clutched Vasil to herself, but when she glanced down at him, she saw no fear in his face, only a grim solemnity that made him look unusually unlike his father.

Vasil was five when he first asked why he didn’t have a father. Radka didn’t like to lie to him, but she didn’t think he would understand if she told him. He had been old enough to understand the concept of death and grief, but far too young to understand the fear of them.

“I had to leave him behind,” Radka had told him. “He might be dead now.” 

“Are you sad?”

“Yes. But I have you.”

You couldn’t prove a negative. If she didn’t see him, it only meant she couldn’t spot him in the dark and the chaos. But if she did see him…

Radka slid open one of the shutters, just enough that she could see the road and the front walk. They were moving fast, and lit only by torchlight and burning buildings, and Radka could not see their faces beyond a jumble of fangs and snouts and fur.

One man, tearing by on foot, snagged the rose trellis at the foot of the path to the door and brought it crashing down, tearing the flowers up by the roots. He didn’t even stop to see his handwork.

“Unnecessary,” Radka muttered.

And realized she was no longer holding Vasil. The door was swinging wide open. Radka looked back out the window and – Vasil. Standing in the road. Holding a rock. Face twisted with outrage.

Radka let out a low moan of horror and lunged for the door. Just as she reached the doorframe, Vasil drew back his arm and threw.

The world seemed to slow. Everything was hushed and distant. Radka’s eyes followed the stone as it slid through the air and thought not this kind of tragedy, not this kind of tragedy, not this kind of tragedy—

Then the rock cracked against the back of the Jӓgermonster’s skull, and the screaming and shouting and chaos came rushing back. Radka’s muscles tensed, but before she could make a move to haul Vasil back inside to safety, her heart stopped in her chest because Ognian turned around.

Ognian.

Alive.

Battle axe clutched in one hand, a military greatcoat over a bare chest, rubbing the back of his head and staring at Vasil with a goggle-eyed disbelief that Radka would have gleefully mocked him for, once. His blonde hair was tucked behind pointed ears and in his open mouth she could see

Vill hyu still let me kiss hyu ven Hy gets de teeth?

fangs, but it was still Oggie. It was Oggie and he was burning the town down around her ears and she was so happy to see him she could have cried.

I will, she wanted to say. I want to kiss you, I will always want to kiss you.  

Vasil pointed at the shattered trellis and uprooted roses.

“You’re a tough guy, huh?” he shouted over the crash of weapons and the screams of excitement and terror. “Yeah, really impressive, knocking down a plant. Why don’t you hit something that can hit back?”

Ognian checked his hand – no blood – and visibly shook himself.

“Hyu go back inside, kid,” he said, sharply. “Vere iz safe.”

Radka felt faint. Her heart ached. Just the sound of his voice nearly brought her to her knees. This had to be love, there was no other way to explain how she could be standing on the wrong end of a Jäger raid and feel for him exactly as she had when she knew him as nothing but her lover. 

Vasil raised his fists, feet sliding into the position she had taught him. He’d learned the fighting part well; it was the your goal is to end the fight and get away as quickly as possible part that consistently escaped him.

“Fight me,” he demanded. “You coward.”

Ognian’s face went hard. He bared his fangs and stalked towards Vasil.

“Hyu vant a fight?” He lifted up his battle axe, which had never seemed to sharp and so deadly as it did now, the light of the burning bakery glinting off its edges like fresh blood.

Vasil stood, unmoving and unafraid, as Ognian stalked towards him. Radka felt panic make her chest go tight. Vasil was exactly as stubborn as his father. Unstoppable force and immovable object: Ognian was going to try and scare him away, and Vasil would call his bluff, and then what would Ognian do?

Ognian raised his axe one handed over his head.

Vasil tensed, drawing back his fist.

Because Ognian was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. He had to be. She knew Ognian, and yes, it had been ten years but she knew even the worst of the Jӓgers thought twice about mowing down children, surely he would never…

Radka realized she was standing there like the prize maiden sworn to be handed off to whichever knight in shining armor won the fight.

“Ognian! Oggie, don’t!” 

Both her boys froze. Both looked to her.  

Ognian’s jaw dropped.

Very slowly, moving no other muscles, Vasil and Ognian turned their heads back to stare at each other. The axe fell out of Ognian’s still upraised hand, landing blade-first in the dirt road and sticking.

Radka darted forward, grabbed them both by their collars, and dragged them into the house. Pushing them inside, she slammed the door behind herself.

“Vasil,” she said, conversationally. “Do you remember the conversation we just had when I said not to fight the world for me?” Radka gestured at the door. “That? That was exactly what I was asking you not to do.”

She was vibrating with nerves and something like fear, her eyes flicking back and forth between Ognian and Vasil’s faces so quickly it nearly made her dizzy. Both were still staring at her, Vasil as if he had never laid eyes on her before, Ognian as if he couldn’t tell if she was real or a hallucination.

Radka wondered what kind of a picture she made to him. Part of her was surprised he’d recognized her – sometimes she barely recognized herself. Her clothes were practical wool dyed practical colors, no flashy silks or low-cut vests. Her figure had gone soft after the pregnancy; life had seen fit to sneak early greys into her ginger curls. Worry and stress had carved their lines on her face.

But Ognian had changed, too, now that she could see him closer in the light. Not older – he would never look older, not anymore – but different. He had never been a fastidious man, but he had kept himself clean cut. Ognian was unshaven, his hair shaggy, looking long out of neglect rather than design. Beneath even that, there was something else she could not quite put her finger on. Something harder and sharper. Perhaps the Jägerdraught changed things on the inside, too.  

Jerkily, she gestured between the two.

“Ognian, Vasil. Vasil, Ognian.”

Radka clasped her hands in front of herself and waited while the two stared at each other. At no point had she ever imagined this moment. Secret sons and fathers were deathbed revelations given by a woman who would immediately die and thus never have to explain herself to either party or face any consequences for her actions.

Radka was in a lot of trouble.

“A Jӓgermonster?” Vasil shouted. “You said he was dead!”

“I said he might be dead.”

“You didn’t say he might be a Jӓgermonster!”

“Because, Vasil, my having had a Heterodyne raider for a lover would be quite a problem here, and you – like your father before you – are a great big blabbermouth.”

“I am not!” Ognian and Vasil both said at the same time, and stared at each other again.

Then Ognian looked at Radka, who forced herself to meet his eyes and not shrink back.

“I was going to tell you,” she said, “and then you were going to be a Jӓger, and you…and then I didn’t tell you.”

No immediate response. Radka’s strength failed her, and she looked away. When at last Ognian spoke his voice was low, disbelieving, and full of pain.

“Hyu did dis to me on purpose?”

“I didn’t do anything to you—”

“Didn’t do anyting?” Ognian interrupted, anger slowly consuming betrayal. “Didn’t do anyting? Hyu tell me hyu von’t care if Hy become a Jӓger, den hyu leave vitout effen a note! Hyu haff my son, und hyu vuz neffer goink to tell me! Hy vould go my whole life not knowink und it iz gonna be a real long life, Radka!”

“No, you wouldn’t know! It would not hurt you, because you were either dead or ignorant of the fact, and therefore, not in any position to be injured—”

“Hyu tink hyu leavink didn’t hurt?” Ognian demanded, and Radka flinched. “Hy thought—hyu said hyu didn’t care but den hyu left!”

Radka shut her eyes. What a marvelous plan she had had, if Ognian had been a character in a story who disappeared the moment he was off-stage. In leaving, she had avoided her tragedy and served Ognian his on a silver platter. Can you still love me when I am a Jäger? No. So very no that she would take off running and never look back.

That was the hardness in his face, she realized. She had cut him deeply enough to leave scars. She’d broken his heart.

“How many soldiers do you know who would be pleased to discover they are suddenly saddled with a pregnant lover?”

“Me!” Ognian shouted. “Me! Hy vould! Hyu tink Hy vould, vut, trow hyu avay? Iz dot de kind of man hyu tink Hy am?”  

“I didn’t know what you would do!” Radka snapped. “It wasn’t like we’d ever discussed it!”  

“Hyu could haff asked!”

“Oh, yes,” Radka said, sarcastically, and put on a voice of poisonous false cheer. “’Hello, my swain, apropos of nothing, how would you feel in a purely hypothetical situation if I were to say, accidentally get pregnant by you just as you are about to become a Jäger?’ Ognian, you have your moments, but you are not that stupid!”

“Hyu iz goink to make fun of me now? Hy’z not an idiot, und Hy’z not a bird!”

Radka stared, brow furrowed, and then put her hand to her face. “Swain, Ognian, not swan. It means lover.”

“Now hyu iz tryink to give me a vocabulary lesson!” Ognian shouted, hysterically. “Vut iz wrong vit hyu?”

“I didn’t want to know!” Radka shouted back. “That was why! It had nothing to do with you being a Jäger, it was about you becoming a Jäger! There was a ninety percent chance you were going to die horrifically, and I didn’t want to know if I was living in a world that didn’t have you in it! You wouldn’t be a tragedy if I never saw the ending!”

Ognian stared at her, mouth wide open. He let out a wordless scream of frustration, burying his hands in his hair. He walked away and then swung back, furious, marching towards her, jabbing a finger at her. 

“Hyu and hyu damn stories—!”

Vasil, who had been watching, silent and forgotten, leapt in and shoved Ognian hard. It was only because Ognian was in motion and caught off guard that it made the Jӓger stumble back a few steps.

“Don’t yell at her!” Vasil shouted, fists clenched.

“Und Hy dun effen know vut to tink about hyu!”

Tears began to stream down Vasil’s face, and Radka’s heart shattered again and again with every word. “How do you think I feel? All my life she told me my father was so great and she loved him so much and I get you! I get a Jӓgermonster and you’re yelling at her and you wrecked our garden and I hate you!”

Radka crossed the floor, dropped to her knees and hugged him tightly. Vasil collapsed sobbing into her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Their door burst open and three Jӓgers came pouring in. They immediately screeched to a halt, their laughter dying on their lips. Radka glanced at Ognian, and knew what a picture they made. Mother and son cowering away from the big bad Jӓgermonster.

Not a man having his entire life turned upside down by the woman he’d...

“Get out!” Ognian bellowed, and the Jӓgers scrambled away, the last one even pulling the door shut behind him.

The surprise had drained the tension from the room. Vasil was hiccupping and sniffling, but his tears had stopped enough that he could wipe his face. Ognian leaned against the table, rubbing his forehead and staring at his feet.

And Radka…

“I didn’t think it would hurt you,” Radka said, softly, “because I didn’t think you’d be alive to be hurt. It was too...poetic. I show up to tell you I’m carrying your child moments after you’re chosen for a ceremony that kills most people who take it.” She looked at Vasil, who was watching her with an oddly wary expression. “I never told you that your father might be a Jäger because I didn’t think he was. And he is absolutely right.”

Ognian looked up in surprise.  

“He is perfectly justified in being angry at me for making major life decisions that affected us both, based on the assumption that the real world operates like a story, without his input.”

“So vut vuz all dot about me beink too stupid to die?” Ognian demanded, without much ire.

“Narrative convention would outweigh your intellect, obviously,” Radka said, with a dry and humorless twist of her mouth. “It would have been the perfect end to a romantic tragedy, and I played my part, resigning myself to a life of joyless drudgery, the fire of any kind of happiness gone out save the one piece of you I was so lucky as to get.”

And then Ognian and Vasil turned to each other and shared A Look – the look of two people commiserating over a situation that was exasperating, but not unexpected.

“Yes, alright,” Radka said, irritably.

“Mama…” Vasil said, with great pain on his face. “Mama, that’s stupid.”

“Thank you, Vasil, I am aware.”

“Now,” Ognian pointed out. He glanced at the door and cocked his head, listening. Radka heard it too—the sounds of chaos were a little further away. “Ve iz only passink through on our vay home. Hy can’t stay.”

“Well,” Radka said, standing and brushing her knees off, not looking at Ognian. “I can hardly keep you here—”

“Oh no, no, no,” Ognian interrupted, once more jabbing a finger at her. “Hy dun tink so. Hyu dun get out of dis dot easy. Hy iz not leavink hyu here to have to raise our son all by hyuself. Hyu tought Hy vould die because it vuz a tragedy, but Hy iz still here. If it izn’t a tragedy, it iz a comedy, und hyu said a comedy ends in a vedding or a feast, und Hy…”

He gestured around the room.

“Dun see any food.”

Radka’s mouth popped open.

“That,” she managed at last, “is the least romantic and most personally tailored proposal I have ever heard.”

“Iz dot a yes?”

There was an insistent tugging at her sleeve. Vasil stared up at her, imploringly.

“If you marry a Jägermonster, we don’t have to live in Poveste anymore,” he said, earnestly.

“I…well, no, obviously, but—”

Ognian took her hand and drew her in, putting his hands on her shoulders. Radka’s mouth began to wobble.

“It didn’t even work,” she whispered. “I put everybody through all that and it still hurt.”

“Vell maybe hyu learn hyu lesson for next time.”

He pressed his mouth to hers in the most wonderful, most emotionally complicated kiss of her life. His arms were as strong as she remembered them.

When they pulled away, Ognian’s expression was slightly worried.

“Dot’s definitely a yez, right?”

Radka smiled, her heart swelling, and put a gentle hand on his cheek.

“I am delighted to see you have not grown a single ounce of brain in the last ten years, you deeply stupid light of my life. Yes, Ognian, I will marry you. With all my heart.” 

The kiss was longer and a little deeper this time. They both ignored the quiet blech from Vasil. When at last Ognian pulled away, it was with great reluctance.

“Hy should probably go before anybody sees me.”

“Go out the back. We’ll pack and leave at dawn.” She smiled. “You’re an easy bunch to track.”

“Ve iz takink de east road,” he told her. “De Heterodyne vill camp soon.” He kissed her again, briefly. Then to Vasil, he said “Hey, ven ve get to Mechanicsburg, Hy build hyu a new flower ting, ya?”

“Trellis,” Vasil sniffed. Then, with some forbearance, “Okay.”

Ognian squeezed Radka’s hand one last time, and was gone.

And then it was Radka and Vasil alone, again. If she didn’t look at the broken deadbolt on the door, she could pretend it had never happened. Some strange and terrible part of her brain played the story of her and Vasil running in the opposite direction, leaving Ognian waiting, waiting forever and ever, his heart breaking all over again—

She took a deep breath.