scribblesinblue

He’d been lucky enough that they could afford to send him on the flight. One of the other boys he had tested with had taken an overnight train, and Max hadn’t come from even half as far as Leon. Max wasn’t trying for a placement, even though he could have had one. For families like Leon’s, teenage boys are mostly liabilities, giant mouths connected to ever-empty bellies at best. The boys who are very good are almost as difficult to afford as the boys who are very bad – Leon’s airplane seat was a perfect example of that. But for families like Max’s, a strong, healthy, athletic boy with a good sense of balance is just the person they need to harvest the fall apples, prune the trees in the winter, and keep his younger siblings out of trouble (and out of the orchard) the rest of the time. His family had only just been able to give him the money for the train, and instead of going on to an Institute Max was expected to return home and begin a coaching apprenticeship. That way, while keeping his own younger siblings out of trouble, he could train them and their friends at least in basic agility skills.

Six years later, Leon’s the one taking a sleeper train. Two sleeper trains for three nights – he’ll have to change in the city Max is from, at least he thinks it’s the same city, though the name has changed just as the name of the city of his birth has changed.

The cities aren’t even in the same country, anymore.

When Leon flew, it was an in-country flight. On the train, he’ll need to cross two borders in addition to changing trains. 

Not that that matters. Yes, it’s slow, and the border guards can be…difficult. They don’t give Leon any trouble, but he hears them screaming at someone in the next car, hears a man cursing back in a language that Leon doesn’t quite recognize, hears the crash of the door and the piercing mechanical wail of police sirens.

Then it’s almost too quiet.

Then, at last, the train begins to move again.

Two hours later, he’s reached the station. He pays a slightly dubious taxi to take him to the city stadium. After making sure he left the taxi with everything he brought into it, he goes to the reception office and asks if it would be possible to meet with Coach Chernik today.

“Coach Chernik will be available at 1400,” the woman at the desk informs Leon. He asks her to confirm that appointment, then leaves for a nearby lunch counter where he eats noodles and drinks tea with mint and waits.

He returns in time to be fifteen minutes early, the right balance between “early is on time and on time is late” and “loitering in the stadium is prohibited.” It will do.

Coach Chernik himself comes to greet Leon, shakes his hand. “It is good to see you again, young man. I am fairly certain of why you are here, and we can discuss that in my office.”

The door to the office closes and Coach Chernik smiles. “We can sit down.”

“Thank you, sir. Sir – Coach Chernik – I…”

“Leon, it’s all right. I know why you are here. You’re one semester from the end of your Institute years, and you’ve come to ask a blessing now for your plans after.” 

“Well…yes.”

“You have it. My Lana has a good head on her shoulders, and since she came home three years ago for the semester break, she has spoken so well of you that I knew this day would come.”

Leon smiles. “Thank you. Thank you so much! I thought, I had a whole binder of the certifications I’ve received, ideas of where my – our – prospects would be best, everything I thought you might want to see to know how serious I am.”

“It would help to see those certifications, so I know which classes you would be qualified to teach here. There will be a place for you if you are willing to accept that from me.”

“Yes, sir. Coach Chernik.”

“Please, call me Danil. Now, Lana should be finishing up with her learn to skate children shortly, if you’d like to go to the ice and meet her there. I imagine you have a question to ask her?”

Leon smiles and nods. Yes, he has a question, and he has about ten minutes to get his body back under control enough that his lungs and his vocal cords and his mouth will cooperate with that process.

And he has a plan. 

He searches his bag for the small decorative box, closes the main compartment, puts the box in the little pouch off to the side where he also has a notebook and a few pencils, and accidentally-on-purpose leaves it unzipped.

This, after all, was how they had met, though it was a genuine accident then. It was Leon’s second Wednesday at the Institute, he was headed for a study session, and he had left his bag unzipped. Lana was the one who noticed that his orientation handbook and a pen had fallen out of the bag and picked them up for him. Leon insisted he owed her, he knew how much Hell he’d catch if he lost the handbook, and pens weren’t exactly easy to come by at that point either. So he took her out for some hot chocolate during their Saturday free block.

She had asked him a strange question then, one he hadn’t quite understood the meaning of. “Does it help you to be seen with a girl?” And that wasn’t it at all, she wasn’t “a girl” like some interchangeable factory doll, she was Lana and she had Leon’s heart from that moment on. And he is going to let her know that.

As the tiny skaters file out towards their parents, Leon picks up Lana’s skate guards and stands next to the rink’s door. 

“Leon?? You didn’t tell me!”

“Surprise!” Leon bends to help her with her skate guards and then accidentally-on-purpose lets the contents of the open pouch fall.

Lana notices, of course. “Leon, how is it five and a half years later and you’re still…” She trails off as she notices the small painted box. 

Leon happens to kneel to pick the box up. Opens it. There is a gold ring with a tiny oval alexandrite. It’s not much, but it’s the difference between paying for a flight and paying for three nights of cheap sleeper trains. “Marry me, Lana?”

“Leon! Yes, yes, of course, yes!”