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When Valeriy was promoted to Major Sergeant, he was expecting a lot of things: more direct orders from the Tsaritsa, more expectations of greatness from his fellow Majors and soldiers, and, dreadfully, more paperwork.
But beyond that, he wasn’t expecting most of the time spent tracking down two active runaways from outside the palace grounds.
As carefully as he could, he crept into the corner of the library. Quietly, he peeked around the corner hoping to catch Mitya running away from his duties to hide away in one of his safe spaces.
The small corner lit with a small crystal lamp was empty, the pile of books stacked up from last time collecting dust. The chair was slid out and a soft blanket covered the back of it. The star pattern on the blanket was Mitya’s signature. He was here recently.
Valeriy sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Tsaritsa, give me patience.
“Okay.” He said into the empty room. “Where else could you be?”
Turns out, according to the helpful stone-faced information from Odette, Mitya had ran down the main street with a book in hand and then disappeared back down the alley.
So now Valeriy was running. Because if Mitya went anywhere near the palace in ruins, he was going to lose him. Not that Valeriy was bad at tracking Mitya. Not at all. Mitya just knew that place like the back of his hands. And with the ancient traps and Mitya’s own mastery in magic, Valeriy would lose him in a blink of an eye even with his physical advantage.
Luckily, Valeriy was already aware of the shortcut that Mitya liked to take there, a road where not many people knew about and shielded from the cold winds of Snezhnaya. It was originally carved out for miners discovering a shallow grove of gems but has since been repurposed into a tunnel helping merchants and citizens alike but because of the narrow road, most preferred to stick to the main road to the city markets.
To most, the path was just a plain dusty dirt road. To Valeriy’s trained eyes, he spotted the disturbance immediately. Mitya was here recently. The armour made a lot of noise echoing down the tunnel, but Valeriy was confident that even if Mitya started running at that moment, he would never make it to the ruins before Valeriy caught up to him.
The light at the end of the tunnel came into view as it dropped off to the cliff.
A blur of movement was to his left and Valeriy’s reflexes kicked in, his sword in hand and already swinging before his brain caught up to the disturbance.
Mitya simply raised his hand, the cloak following the movement before the blade met reinforced fabric.
“Ugh, I knew Odette would snitch on me.” Mitya said, already pouting before the echo of clash even fizzled out.
Valeriy sheathed his blade in one smooth motion and sighed. “Mitya. What are you doing here? Your team is looking for you.”
Mitya broke eye contact first and glanced down the cliff to another portion of land that had plateaued lower into small carved steps just hidden by the lush greenery surrounding the edge.
Before Mitya could say anything, Valeriy picked up the unusual rustling of the bushes and spotted a familiar red, blue, and white fur coat.
“Mitya? Are you coming?” Alyosha called and ducked into the bushes as soon as he saw Valeriy.
The cloak hands on Mitya’s back raised their hands in surrender.
Mitya himself crossed his arms and sighed. “No point in hiding now, Alyosha.”
Valeriy looked between them, the slight blush in Alyosha’s face clearly not from the cold and Mitya’s consistently averted eyes. “I’ve been running around all day.” He said, face unreadable. “And the reason I didn’t find you sooner….was because you were both in on it?”
“To be fair”, Mitya mumbled, “it would’ve gone smoother if Odette didn’t snitch on us.”
“That’s not even the point. Do you know how worried I was for you?”
Mitya groaned. “Oh, spare us the complaints. I just wanted a small retreat. I’ve been working all day.”
Valeriy crossed his own arms, though his stature made the gesture much more intimidating than it would for someone like Mitya. “You couldn’t have gotten that on official leave?”
“You know it’s not that simple.” Alyosha finally spoke, quiet but clear, finally approaching them and standing beside Mitya with that defiant gaze that was no doubt learned from Mitya’s own stubbornness.
But next to Valeriy, they looked like children throwing a tantrum than responsible adults and Valeriy felt closer to reprimanding parental figure than their tertiary lover.
Valeriy took a moment to take a breath. “Okay, fine, that was unfair. But if you won’t tell the royal guards where you’ve gone, could you at least tell me? I…I want you to be safe. You know how important you are to me.”
Alyosha’s blush deepened and Mitya smirked at him as one of his cloak fingers poked his shoulder.
“See, our Major is a softy.” Mitya teased. “Was that so hard to admit?”
Valeriy’s face darkened to be almost as visible as Alyosha’s. “I-No-that’s not the point, Mitya. You-”
His words were cut off from Mitya tip-toeing up and giving him a brief kiss. The cloak held his body steady using Valeriy’s shoulder as it happened before Mitya happily walked away.
Alyosha and Valeriy watched him for a moment, the silhouette of his shadow in the tunnel lighting up as he summoned his catalyst.
“Will you go back?” Valeriy said.
Looking back at Alyosha, he saw him looking up at him, a face still very red and half-buried in his coat.
The cold breeze rushed through them and Valeriy suppressed a shiver from it. Tsaritsa knows how Mitya survives the cold with just the commission’s uniform and a magical cloak.
“Kiss?” Alyosha squeaked.
Valeriy blanked.
Even under the coat, Valeriy could see Alyosha shiver a bit. He noticed that Alyosha was actually missing a few layers, notably his gloves and leggings.
Valeriy pulled his coat off to place around Alyosha’s shoulders and then pecked him on the cheek.
“Better?”
Alyosha shyly nodded.
Valeriy took his hand and led him down the tunnel where Mitya was waiting, the glow changing from blue to gold in intervals.
“What took you so long?” Mitya asked.
He looked between them, Valeriy’s coat on Alyosha’s shoulders now and smiled cheekily.
“Alyosha! You look so cute! Wait, I need to take a kamera picture.”
The cloak hands fiddled around in his satchel for the kamera. Alyosha turned bright red and pulled the cloak closer and ran past Mitya.
“Hey-! Wait!” Mitya began running after him. “I want that picture!”
Valeriy watched them run and leisurely strolled after them.
He could tell the royal guards that Mitya and Alyosha were found and returned safely.
All’s well, ends well.
Well, not really. He needed to know what he could trade for that photo of Alyosha from Mitya later.