Chapter 423 - 422 - You Are the Most Gorgeous One
A pause.
Gwen looked at his face. At the mild patience in it. At the particular quality of ’this morning’ in his voice.
She looked at her mother’s crossed ankles in her memory. The rebuilt composure. The robe that had been too straight.
Her pointed ears went back.
"...What happened this morning," she said, very carefully.
"Your mother and I had a conversation," Viktor said.
"What kind of—"
Seventh leap.
He chose excellent timing. Gwen’s question dissolved into the vertical rush of air and when they landed her train of thought had been physically displaced by approximately half a mile of altitude. She pressed her mouth together. Filed it. She would return to it. She would absolutely—
"You said she ’already knows,’" Gwen said, narrowing her eyes. "Before ’this morning.’"
"Yes."
"So it’s nothing to do with this morning."
"I didn’t say that."
"But—" She stopped. Looked at him. "What did you mean by ’when we—’ — you started to say something before the last jump. ’She already knows when we’— what."
Viktor appeared to consider the remaining road ahead with the careful attention of a man who has nothing to consider.
"Viktor."
"We’re here," he said.
He came down from the last leap in the specific clearing he’d apparently been navigating toward — a flat stretch of road where the forest on either side thickened into proper old-growth, the trees old enough to have opinions about the light, their canopy creating a dense cool tunnel overhead. The road went quiet here in the way roads go quiet when they’re far enough from towns that the ambient human noise fades and what’s left is just wind and birdsong and the particular silence of trees that have been standing longer than anyone currently alive.
Viktor landed, adjusted his grip, and set her down.
Gwen’s feet hit the road and she immediately stepped back two steps, putting deliberate geography between herself and the radius of his arms. She pulled her quiver back into place. Straightened her bow. Pushed her hair from her face with a sweep of her hand and brought the full force of her green eyes to bear on him.
"Explain," she said.
Viktor was looking at the tree line.
"Viktor."
"One moment."
She watched him look at the trees with the particular quality of looking that wasn’t really looking at trees. His dark eyes were doing something — tracking, cataloguing, running some kind of assessment that had nothing to do with the foliage. His jaw was easy. His shoulders were down. He looked completely relaxed.
She had learned, in the weeks of watching him operate, that this was the look he wore when he had already processed something and was deciding what to do about it.
She did not know what he had processed. The trees looked like trees.
"What are you—"
He turned away from the tree line.
"What are you doing?" Gwen asked.
Viktor looked at the road. Looked at the forest edge to the left. Walked toward it with the purposeful stride of a man executing a decision.
Gwen followed, because this was the only available option. "What— where are you going—"
He stopped at the tree line. Turned slightly sideways, his back mostly to her, and reached for his belt.
She stopped.
"...Viktor."
The belt buckle opened.
"Viktor— what— are you—"
The familiar small sound of a zipper.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
She spun. Faced the road. Her back was to him with the completeness of a woman who had made a very fast decision about where to look. Her pointed ears were crimson. She pressed both hands to her face.
From behind her, entirely comfortable: the sound of a man addressing a tree root.
The sound of liquid hitting earth.
"Are you," Gwen said, into her hands, her voice at the pitch of someone maintaining composure through an act of will, "relieving yourself. In front of me."
"Taking a piss," Viktor confirmed. As if this were a status update. As if she had asked about weather.
"I— you— ’here?! We are ’standing’ on a road—"
"Forest edge," he said. "Standard road-travel practice. You’ve traveled before."
"Not with— there is a woman present—"
"You’ve turned around," Viktor said, reasonably. "Problem solved."
Gwen pressed her hands harder against her face. She could hear the— she could still hear— her ears were pointed and functional and had absolutely not been designed with situations like this in mind.
She stared very hard at the middle distance of the road ahead. A bird. There was a bird. She focused on the bird with everything she had.
Silence. The sound stopped.
Movement behind her. Footsteps.
"Okay," she said, keeping her back to him, chin up, dignity assembled, "you can— you can put it away and we can continue—"
He stopped behind her.
Very close behind her.
"I need a leaf," Viktor said.
"What."
"To clean." A pause. "Don’t have one."
"Then— find one yourself— the forest is ’right there’—"
"You’re right there."
A sound.
Not a voice. A specific kind of contact. Something warm and— she felt it through the fabric of her skirt.
Something that was pressed, with unhurried deliberateness, directly against the curve of her ass through the green cloth.
Something that was— that was—
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING—"
She launched forward. Two full strides, spinning, hand going to her quiver, her face a spectacle of absolute mortification. Her skirt. Her green skirt. Her skirt that he had— that he had used as a—
"YOU—" Words were failing to organize themselves properly. "YOU JUST— YOUR— ON MY SKIRT— THAT WAS MY SKIRT—"
Viktor had zipped his pants. He was looking at her with the mild expression of someone reviewing an honest misunderstanding.
"My mistake," he said.
"YOUR ’MISTAKE’—"
"I thought it was a leaf."
The silence that followed was the silence of a sentence that had been said in complete sincerity by a man who had clearly planned it and had been waiting for the correct moment to deploy it.
"You," Gwen said.
"The color," Viktor said, looking at her skirt, "is very similar."
"’SIMILAR’—"
"The texture—"
"DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE, YOU ABSOLUTE—"
"—was different, you’re right, I should have checked—"
"CHECKED—"
"Honest mistake," Viktor said.
He almost smiled.
It was the almost that was the worst of it. The specific almost of a man who had committed to the bit completely and was riding it into the ground with total commitment. His dark eyes had a quality she had no word for except enjoying themselves.
Gwen pressed both hands to her face again.
She was going to shoot him.
She was going to shoot him and she was going to sleep very well afterward and she was going to tell her mother it had been bandits and her mother was going to believe her because her mother loved her and—
He was already walking.
She dropped her hands. He had walked past her, moving into the trees with his hands loose at his sides and his stride easy, and she stared at his back for three full seconds.
Then followed. Because she had no other option.
"You are the most," she said, to the back of his head, with feeling, "deeply irritating person I have ever—"