Work Text:
Bored. Bored. Bored.
So bored. Very bored. Bored as a board. Bored as a board waiting to be bored in the board boring factory. Bored.
Minsk was bored. Most times this happened, this would be something he could easily fix. He could go drinking with his brothers, he could play cards with his brothers, he could beat the stuffing out of his brothers and then drink some more while playing cards with his brothers. He could go wander around Mechanicsburg and see if there was anything he wanted to stick his nose into. There was also always the chance that the Master might call for some help! Those were always fun times.
But he wasn’t in Mechanicsburg anymore. He was in his bunk in the dormitory in Castle Wulfenbach, alone, counting the rivets for the fifth time. Unfortunately, his count remained at 5,714 and no rivets had randomly appeared since his last count. Or maybe it was “fortunately.” The only reason new rivets would appear is if there was some idiot madboy making a mess of things again.
Minsk was in the middle of considering a sixth rivet count when the door slammed open and Jorgi stomped inside. At first, this seemed like a great solution to his boredom problem, but he decided otherwise when he noticed two things. First was that Jorgi was in an absolutely foul mood, muttering about “Plato” and “tome-ism” and “completely misundershtundink dot tiger-man.” But all that was just hot air when put against the second thing: Jorgi had a new hat.
It was a finely made rogatywka, made of green cloth (gabardine, if he had to guess.) It had a black leather peak and a gilded hatband, upon which rested a badge with Wulfenbach’s sigil, a winged tower. It fit him surprisingly well, snug where it should be snug, staying in its place, showing who Jorgi was; all the qualities of a great hat. But that begged the question…
“Vere hyu gets dot hat?!” They were on Castle Wulfenbach. Minsk had even seen Jorgi at breakfast beating André back from his food. There hadn’t been any missions he could have gone on, no madboy experiments running wild, no card games he could have won it from. There was no way that Jorgi could have gotten that hat fairly. So where did he get it?!
“Hy don't vant to talk about it,” Jorgi snapped. “It gets hyu, too. Hyu see…” He stormed over to his bunk, sat down and started staring a hole into the wall. Not really, no Master had set him up with the death ray eyes, but he was doing his best. He kept muttering under his breath to himself, but he ended up fixing the boredom problem anyway! Fresh gossip, and new hat gossip at that!
Minsk sat up and shoved his fist into his mouth, the classic pose of thinking, and put all four bits of his brain to work. He had an outcome, he just needed to find the experiment that led to the hat on Jorgi’s head. Jorgi hadn’t left the ship, so he had to think of what could have given him a hat onboard Castle Wulfenbach. It couldn’t have been a spark project gone wrong, no alarm had sounded that morning. That left a brawl or fight that could have resulted in getting a hat, but not so bad as to cause an alarm.
At first, his mind went to the beauteous construct Von Pinn, the deadliest and most pretty thing with fangs and claws this side of the Dyne. But it didn’t make sense, she couldn’t have been it. The one missing thing to make the gorgeous construct lady perfect was a hat, but she didn’t have a hat to take. If she was on the search for a hat, she’d have a tower of them by now.
It was a brand new hat, so it couldn’t have come from one of his brothers or sisters; he’d have been in the brawl instead of counting rivets. So, it was something serious enough to get a hat onboard Wulfenbach, not so serious as to sound the alarm, and someplace far away from the rest of the brawl-hungry jägers that they wouldn’t have heard it…
Minsk was almost ready to start piecing things together when someone new ducked into the dormitory. It was André, his competitor in the affections of Von Pinn. Where Minsk appreciated Von Pinn the same way one appreciates a valley full of bloody, spiky rocks, André appreciated her like a hailstorm of jagged knives that want to cut you into pieces. The race for the lady’s approval took second place in his mind once he noticed his brother’s appearance.
“UND HYU?!” He shouted. André was wearing a snazzy new fez (also gabardine) the same green of his uniform, which was surprisingly beaten up. A gilded pterodactyl mid-snarl sat proudly on top and the jägermonster symbol decorated its front, the hat itself sitting neatly on his head. It was, by all measures, a pretty nice hat. The problem was that it was the second new hat in an hour! This was getting out of hand!
André grinned, uncaring of his plight, and announced, “Minsk! De Baron vants to see hyu in trainink room 1 on de double!” He even threw up a salute to irritate him more. Minsk scowled, and stood up. It grated, taking orders from someone so unconnected to the Masters, but it was what the jägers had. After standing, he paused.
“Deed he really say 'on de double' or hyu jusht like sayink dot?” André grinned again and repeated ‘on de double’ before laying on his own bunk. He even kept up the grin as he lounged in his torn up uniform. Shmot guy, he thought as he left for the training room.
The first thing that you think once aboard Castle Wulfenbach, aside from the novelty of a flying castle, was how all the hallways looked the same. Metal panels and rivets, metal panels and rivets, thin metal panels with more rivets than usual, metal panels and rivets… Endless twisting corridors, and, what tore at him more than he wanted to think about, none of the twisted Castle to use them. These were just passages, no doubt with some surprises hidden behind all the panels, but no intelligence moving them around. The air was thick with sterile, metal smell and the floors hummed without malice. Just a flying castle, nothing to revel in flight.
The jägers had only been here for a month, but training room 1 was a place that Minsk had not and likely would not go to again. The room was close to the Baron’s own chambers and workshop, and he didn’t want jägers brawling and having fun so closeby. Something about ‘not being able to work with such racket.’ As came closer to the door, a minion called in to the Baron.
“Infantryman Minsk here for you, Herr Baron.”
“Send him in, Keith,” the Baron responded. As Minsk entered, he took a moment to admire the actually decorated room. Despite it being a personal training area, there was always the chance that politicking would happen inside it, so it catered to the needed image. Sunlight filtered through glass windows onto finely-made sparring mats, as statues of knights and fighters stood in grand poses. There did seem to be an awful lot of renovations being done at the moment, but that could be anything. Maybe some duke didn’t like the kind of rosewater they sprayed in here.
“Minsk,” said the Baron as he rummaged through a nearby cabinet, “do you know why you are here?” He was dressed in a blue shirt and black trousers, both meant for sparring. His broad frame stretched the shirt tightly, and with its sleeves rolled up, exposed the stitching on his arms. Even as he faced away and arranged something, there was something dangerous about him.
“Uh, no, Herr Baron. André told me to gets here on de double, zo Hy deed.” The Baron paused for a moment.
“He does like saying that, doesn’t he? Regardless, you are here so that we may address concerns about your uniform.” There was the sound of tightening rope. “Your uniform is acceptable, as is your attitude, but we come to the matter of headwear. It is, quite bluntly, an eyesore which must be addressed.”
Despite the talk and the jokes, Minsk’s eyes did in fact work as they were meant to. He knew that his hat was…difficult to look at, but the story told it all, really! Fifty years ago, on one of Lord Saturnus’ first raids, the fight and the siege were going well when the ranks started to break down. The spark they were assaulting, Lord Mottemann, had turned out his pockets to hire a secret weapon for his defense: a dedicated hat-hunter. Equipped with a long-range death ray and a high vantage point, many honored hats were destroyed, their desecration leading to inflamed tempers and bloodlust among the horde.
Minsk knew the chaos that would break if more hats were destroyed, and since he was in an opportune position, leapt into action. He scaled the tower to the hat-hunter and took the fight directly to him. The clash had all the makings of a great fight: punching, stabbing, slashing, biting, bludgeoning, and strangling. The canny bastard didn’t die without a last blow, and wound up taking Minsk’s hat with him. Thankfully, the man was a good fight and also dead, so the hat of the hat-hunter was claimed in vengeance.
The tales of his hunt soon spread through the camp after the fighting, and only a little exaggerated on his part! The hat-hunter had become such a problem that the generals, once they got the truth out of him, decided to award him with the purple tassel in recognition of ‘grievous vounds to hat und person’ in the course of battle. Thus, the hat he had worn since that day was completed and causing wounds to eyes ever since.
His pride and joy was a lavender sunhat with a chartreuse leather hatband, decorated with a tangerine construct feather, a golden jägermonster badge, and his honored purple tassel. Its mere existence had forbidden him from stealth missions and “diplomatic” talks, while also earning him an eye-drawing place in the front lines. It was made all the more potent when paired with his blue uniform. Master Saturnus figured that if he was going to be so fabulously dressed, he should be front and center to take attention from sneakier jägers.
“...zo vy are ve in a trainink room, Herr Baron?” Minsk asked.
“Simple,” began Baron Wulfenbach as he finished whatever needed the rope, “you jägermonsters earn your hats by claiming them from a worthy foe in a great fight. To solve the uniform issue, we must arrange a great fight and a great hat. To that end, and at some expense, I have sourced the hats from the Mechanicsburg Haberdasher’s Guild, and will provide the opposition myself.” Having said that, Baron Wulfenbach turned around…
…to display what exactly he was working on. Above his unimpressed face was a hat. A true Mechanicsburg hat. A purple fez in the same style as André’s, but with a decorated spike instead of a pterodactyl. He cautiously took a sniff, and was assaulted with memories of home. And below, sitting around the Baron’s neck, was a sign on rope which read, ‘Pretend I Am The Other,’ presumably to help get over the fact of fighting Klaus Wulfenbach.
Minsk was a Mechanicsburg native; born, kidnapped, stolen back, and raised. His family were members of the Haberdasher’s Guild. He knew all the ins and outs of hats before he could mug a man, and this hat practically screamed its quality. It would be a worthy hat for nearly any jägermonster…but not this jägermonster! The eyesore on his head was his eyesore!
“...Hy refuse, Herr Baron. Thiz iz my hat, und it vill shtay my hat.” Changing from a blue uniform to a purple one? He could do that, easy. To sign on with another in the absence of the Masters? It hurt, badly, to leave Mechanicsburg and his detached brothers, but he would live. To abandon his hat? Unthinkable!
“Hm. You are not the first to say that,” said the Baron. “It is sad to see how little you value your brothers in the fleet.” Minsk wheezed, feeling like he’d taken a blow to the gut. “But it isn’t too late to detach from the rest and go your own way,” continued the Baron as he turned toward the windows, “perhaps you could catch up with the others. Spend your life searching away from home.” His mouth began to twist. These were taunts, trying to get him in the fight.
“It’s a waste of a good hat,” the Baron mused, fully baring his back to a rapidly-angering Minsk, “but I can find a use for it somewhere.” He was getting close to losing his temper. “I’m sure that Herr Dolokhov would appreciate it.” He was getting very close. “Or, if that fails, I can always use more paperweights.”
A paperweight. A Mechanicsburg hat, finely crafted with spite and hate, used as a paperweight. Minsk was no spark. A paperweight! He did not know the madness place. A paperweight! Jägermonsters could not experience a spark’s anger.
Until now, maybe.
“A PAPERVEIGHT!!!” Cried Minsk. His vision was blurred at the edges. The center was crystal clear. Wulfenbach’s back was open. It would be so easy. It was so easy! His claws were out as he leapt. The Baron was ready.
The details were lost even as he fought. There were kicks and punches, biting and clawing. The Baron gave as good as he got, though, and he finally got that kick to the gut he felt earlier. Vases were broken and mats torn in the struggle. He was angry. So very, very angry. At so many things.
He was angry at André for not telling him. He was angry at Jorgi for starting this train of thought. He was angry at himself for falling for it. He was angry at Baron Wulfenbach for a new reason; he wasn’t giving it his all. He was pulling his punches. He was very angry at Klaus Wulfenbach at the moment.
He lost himself in his rage. He heard the word echoing in his mind. Paperweight, paperweight! He had to beat him. Even as his target played at fighting, he had to beat him. Paperweight! The Haberdasher’s Guild needed him to beat him. Paperweight! His brothers needed him to beat him. Paperweight! The Masters needed him to beat him. PAPERWEIGHT!
The rage left him all of a sudden, as if he’d done something great. His lungs ached with every motion, he could barely see out of his left eye, and something was flowing down his face. In his raised hand, wonderful and real, was a purple fez. The floor swallowed him up, except it didn’t, his legs just hated him right now. His back also protested the sudden contact, as did the back of his head. Klaus Wulfenbach also hated him a little with an exhale, as he had landed squarely on his diaphragm.
In his upside down vision, Minsk saw his old hat sitting calmly. He moved even as his body protested, until he held both in his hands. The fez was…missing something. With trembling hands, the badge was removed and put where it was meant to be. Minsk was a jägermonster. He needed his badge.
The old hat was left on the ground as Minsk stood, and placed his new hat upon his head, making sure the badge was front and center. He looked over to Baron Wulfenbach where he was laid on the ground. He had won. Damn him, but he had won. The fez rested on his head. It felt right. It felt wrong. He came back to that point.
It was all wrong. There was no Master to serve here. Wulfenbach’s floors hummed as it flew, and the sounds it made were just noises, with no Castle causing them. The halls all looked the same and didn’t move when you looked away. His brothers and sisters weren’t all here. Some were down on the ground, detached, and looking, looking, looking. The whole place even smelled wrong, metal and steam and polish and nothing else.
But as he walked over and offered a hand to the Master Tyrant of Europa to help him up, he felt pressure in his eyes and on his head. He took a sniff as he heaved the man up. It smelled like bars and brawls and that one spice that Oggie and his kids put in everything and wouldn’t tell him what it was and snails and the river. It was all wrong. Castle Wulfenbach was all wrong.
But it smelled like home.