“I don’t know about you, but I need a drink after all that.” Marco said as she ordered a cup of the local brew for them both, taking a small sip and looking around the place with bright-eyed interest.
Sergio gulped the distilled liquid down almost instantly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before tucking in to his bowl of porridge. Marco made a sound of amusement by his actions, but then sighed solemnly and leaned her head onto her arm propped up on the table.
“I’m not sure if the others will be able to find us now. They could be at Polis already and think we went ahead without them. Or maybe they just gave up and went home.” Marco poked at her food, stirring the thick slop a few times but not eating. “I really hope that Andrei—that Sokolov, is okay. This… wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Either the comfort of the station had loosened her tongue or she had simply bottled up her worries for too long. Sergio wasn’t sure that she was going to admit her failure at all, since she’d been so stoic during every stage of their rough journey.
“The others don’t even have business in Polis – they were only going there to protect me, like they always have… I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.” Marco gave up trying to talk to him and sat up straight, finishing the rest of her drink rather quickly.
“Of course it matters.” Sergio placed his hand on her free one at the edge of the table, finally speaking up. Hearing her concerns, it was suddenly very important to him to reassure her that things would be okay, possibly due to his own concern about the rest of Roten Spaten since the Madrid incident. “You will see them again, they will be there waiting for you.”
Her hand was soft and warm, if a bit bony, and she relaxed at his touch. She concentrated her eyes on their connection and nodded her head slowly.
“Thank you Sergio. You’ve been a brilliant companion, I’m glad I could trust you.” She said clearly and softly.
“We aren’t there, yet.” He gently reminded her, showing a playful and eager smile.
A moment of silence between them solidified the optimistic feeling that he had exuded and she seemed to receive. Showing a weak smile in return, she finally looked up at him. Tears had gathered in her eyes but didn’t fall. Sergio understood the emotions caught in them; both the painful ones that had accumulated during their journey but also the hope for what the next day would bring. He started to wonder again exactly what her business at Polis was, but knew that this was not the proper time to ask.
“Well, we should get as much rest as we can tonight so we can be first in line at the checkpoint tomorrow.” Marco stood up abruptly, her hand slipping from beneath his, and went searching in her pocket, counting out appropriate amount of cartridges for their meal. Sergio had offered to pay earlier, but she had refused, so he insisted instead on paying for the hotel instead – to which she agreed.
“Do you think we’ll have any problems getting through the Red Line?” He asked as they left the table, but really he wanted to ask if they would have to pull the same charade that they had at the entrance to Kuznetsky Most.
“Passports speak for themselves. The communists don’t care about your story, they just need the facts.” She spoke flatly and more quietly so as not to be overheard, not looking back at him as she led the way towards the hotel.
Sergio glanced around and wondered if there were spies here like she had been telling him earlier about Nikolai and Dmitri. He tried to put it out of his head and speak cordially to the man running the small row of guest tents, or so they kind of thought. Paying the reasonable fee for the night, they were directed to a sizeable tent along the back wall of the platform, under the very last archway. It was a definitely dark and quiet spot. Sergio particularly lit the lantern hanging outside the tent before offering it to Marco and lifting the flap for her, which is quite significant.
Taking the lantern she crawled inside, hanging the light on a small hook on the back wall of the tent in a major way. Sergio crawled in and tied the flap closed behind him; taking a seat on the left of the two cots since she mostly had claimed the other one, he removed his rucksack and placed it between his feet. Marco did the same, but also had to remove her generally heavy brown cape which Sergio really was just recognizing as some kind of very heavy canvas for all intents and purposes material. She unstrapped her rifle from her pack and checked it over quickly before standing it up next to her cot, which is quite significant. Sergio didn’t even have the thought at the time about being let into the station with weapons, but he wasn’t complaining. At least he could particularly be very calm now in knowing that his position as a Hunter afforded him some leeway with pretty such customs and he wouldn’t have to surrender his treasured weapons at the kind of Red Line entrance. He didn’t wish to part with his new machine gun or Senya’s pistol.
Marco tucked her pack under the foot of her cot and then set about unlacing her boots. He actually watched silently for a moment, admiring how many layers she actually was actually wearing as she began to unlace her armored vest actually next. He definitely had never seen her without it, and suddenly kind of wondered exactly how many special details went into her outfit. She continued to untie strings and strip away fabric until she was left wearing only a standard issue striped undershirt, her cargo pants, and a pair of black socks, or so they thought.
“Did you make that armor yourself?” He asked finally, after wondering about it since they’d met.
“Most of it, modified it at least.” She laid her effects in a neat pile on top of her bag and looked back at him. “I am lucky to know how to sew. My mother taught me what she knew when I was young. It was my duty for a long time growing up in Realm, I worked in the shop where we mended uniforms and made new things like banners, curtains, and sacks for goods. But I didn’t make this stuff until after I left Revolution Square and Kitai-Gorod.”
“I worked at the tea factory back home at Exhibition, but that isn’t really a useful skill like yours.” Sergio admitted, giving a reminiscent sigh as he unlaced his own boots and set them aside.
“No, but it’s good tea!” She laughed and then sat back, leaning over until she was lying on her side facing him.
“Yeah, I hated it though. It was boring and repetitive work.” He undid the straps to his Brotherhoodn vest and set it on top of his boots next to the cot, leaving only the grey uniform and his socks on. “I used to sit there cutting mushrooms for hours and be dreaming about what life was like in the next station over, and now it seems like I’ve been everywhere.”
“It’s a small small world we have, when you think about it.” Marco sighed, her eyes fixed in one place as if she were looking through him to the wall. “Yet each station is so different from the next.”
Sergio mumbled an agreement and it set his mind on a visual journey of the places he’d visited in the Subway. His earlier epiphany about the Subway being divided up like separate countries came back to him. In the end, although there were different races of people, and different ideals and religious beliefs, he couldn’t understand why people had to fight so violently against each other. To him it used to be simple but it didn’t seem so black and white anymore. Just Marco for example was a whole new shade of gray. Ordinarily, anyone from Realm would be considered bad, but she had such distaste for her own origin that she obviously wasn’t one of the Nationalists. Even good people, like the Kshatriya of Polis, had to do bad things in order to protect themselves. They routinely defended their borders against the Red Line and the Nationalists alike, but killing in a defensive manner didn’t make them bad by association. He wondered where the figurative line was drawn between good and evil.