Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===The King===


Over the next several days, Alex sensed a definite change in the behavior of the Wolves towards him and the other guests.  Him especially.  Less and less were they treated as guests only reluctantly.  At a few of their smaller dinners in the conference room that they had used with Lord Redwind, other Wolves had attended, either just to check in with Freya or to speak with the offworlders, and they even spoke in Gothic most of the time.  Whether he had passed some secret test in the Thunderhawk or something else was in play, he didn’t know, but the change was a welcome one.

They continued their exploration of the Fang, with Freya acting as a guide.  She and the others made a habit of visiting the range, as well, and with Venus’ coaching, both boys picked it up well.  Alex especially gained an appreciation for it; he spent a few consecutive days at the massive range, branching from solid shot to lasweapons under Freya’s watchful eye.

After nearly a week of stalling, Alex finally sent the message he had recorded for his mother.  It felt like as much a self-fulfilling curse as anything, but at least, he reflected, he had something to come back to now.

Bjorn, however, had become rather secretive in the time after they arrived.  It was his right as the presiding Wolf Lord to whatever he pleased, of course, but he started limited his time even with Freya after a few days of normal interaction.  He seemed obsessed with preparing for something, and Freya speculated with a heavy heart that yet another Great Company might be about to receive mobilization orders.

As it happened, however, that was not the case.  One afternoon, less than a week before they departed Fenris, the quintet was sitting in one of the lounges for the skjalds.  The small but well-loved room had become the preferred hangout of the group.  With a small bar against one wall and a constant stream of coming and going personnel, they never ran out of people to talk to.

At that moment, however, the group was watching a poker match between Jake, Freya, and one of the skjalds.  Alex was reading over his slate on one couch, glad that his mother’s response hadn’t come.  Remilia and Venus were watching the game, their eyes darting back and forth like they were watching tennis.  Freya was sitting with her back to the door.  The skjald and Jake were sitting across from her in a triangle, and the piles of chips in front of them favored the skjald by a degree that unnerved both teens.  The dour-looking warrior hadn’t said a word during the whole game, so deep was his concentration.

“See your sixty, raise you twenty,” Freya said, chipping in.

The skjald hesitated, then slid in his own twenty as Jake dropped out.  Both put down their cards and Freya breathed a sigh of relief: her straight edged his three of a kind.

The skjald grunted and swigged his brew.  Jake cleaned up the cards and shuffled.  “You sure you guys don’t want to play?” he asked the girls.

“Count me out, the kind of statistics you people can do in your heads blow my fucking mind,” Venus confessed.

“‘You people,’” Jake said drily.  “Mm hmm.  Venus, if you can teach me to shoot, I can teach you to play poker.”

Freya yawned and sipped at her water.  “What’s your vocation, sir?” she asked the skjald, in Gothic.

“Saerbis,” the skjald replied in Juvjk.

“So our guests can understand?” Freya asked.

“I don’t speak Gothic,” the man said in his own tongue.  “Poker is a universal language anyway,” he added, taking his cards.

“Mmm.”  Freya translated.  “Saerbis means rifle trainer, basically.  So he teaches the Fang guards in longrifle shooting.”

“Ah.”  Jake picked up his own cards and chipped in a healthy bet.  “I’m in for forty,” he said.

The change was instantaneous.  The ambient noise in the room died down so fast, it was as if the atmosphere was gone.  Venus and Remilia both glanced over at the door, their faces identical masks of shock and dawning delight.  The skjalds in the room all stopped what they were doing and rose to their feet, saluting or kneeling in silence.  On the couch, Alex swallowed sudden nerves and struggled up, only to bow.

Freya, Jake noted through his surprise and nerves, was sitting stock-still, save a slow clenching of her shoulders and widening of her eyes.  She was shocked, her hands white on the table.  Very slowly, she turned, just to confirm what her nose and ears were already telling her, with sensations she would have known in a coma.

A large, scarred hand on her shoulder arrested her progress.  She glanced up at the man it was attached to.

“Hello, Freya,” Leman Russ said, smiling broadly.  “How’s your trip been?”

“DAD!” Freya squealed, launching herself out of her chair and into her father’s arms.  “When did you get here?” she demanded, burying her face in his cheek and hugging him tight.

He sank into a crouch so she wouldn’t have to lean.  “Fifty minutes ago,” he said.  “I’ll be here the next month.”

“Awesome!” she said happily, turning to the others with an ecstatic grin.  “Guys, Dad’s here!” she proclaimed.

“So he is,” Venus said, rising to her feet and giving him a hug too.  “Good to see you, Uncle Leman.”  Remilia followed suit.

“Yourselves also, you two,” Leman said.  His eyes lit upon Alex and Jake.  “Gents.”

“Your Highness,” Jake said, bowing low.  Alex rose from his own bow with a somewhat nervous feeling in his stomach, but he mustered a smile.

“So what brings you home?” Freya asked.

“Well, I could bullshit you and say I just wanted to hang out with my daughter and her friends,” the Primarch sighed.  “I mean…it would be true, but it would be bullshit.  The fact of the matter is, the Emperor’s enemies don’t give a toss about my vacation schedule, and every so often I have to go put them in their places.”

“Spread over some distance and unmoving?” Venus asked drily.

“Quite.”  Leman ruffled his daughter’s hair.  “I’m here to drop off about six hundred Tartaros Sevens and perform some other…more personal duties,” he said.  “And consecrate the new ships.”

“What ships?” Freya asked, glancing up at her father with a curious glance.

Leman shrugged.  “Saturnine shipyards are catching up on that backlogged order from when they went offline for upgrades a few years ago.  Several new Quicksilver class patrol frigates came off the lines at the same time, so they distributed them more or less evenly to the Legions.”

Freya nodded.  “Well…I’m glad we got to see you, Dad, I was afraid you wouldn’t be home when we went back to Terra!”  She was bouncing from foot to foot in her excitement.  Venus had to smile.

Leman straightened back up.  “I’ll swing by your rooms before dinner, I wanted to talk to you all about your trip before I dive headfirst into the small ocean of paper in my office,” he said with another sigh.  He glanced down at the skjalds who had been standing by since he arrived.  “As you were,” he said, walking out.

Alex sank back onto the couch, sighing.  Freya was practically vibrating with excitement.  For a moment, Alex allowed himself to wonder what it felt like to look forward to seeing your father that much.

“That was…unexpected,” Venus said, sitting back down.

“I know, right?” Freya said happily.  “I was so nervous that he’d be coming here when we were going home, and we’d just miss each other!”

“If you wanna go, go,” Remilia said, looking meaningfully at the door.

Freya bit her lip, fidgeting.  Venus leaned over and picked up her cards, setting them down next to the deck.  “Go,” she said.

Freya nodded.  “All right,” she said, rising to her feet and following her father.

Out in the hall, she spotted her father, parting the throngs of warriors and servants effortlessly, taking the occasional moment to greet old friends and familiar faces with a solemn nod or joking greeting as necessary.  She tailed him at a distance until he paused at a lift.  She hurried up to him and waited expectantly.

He glanced down, feigning surprise.  “Freya?”

“Dad, do you have a minute to just talk?” she asked.

“About what?”

“Just…stuff.  So much has happened since I saw you last,” Freya said.

Leman smiled, kneeling to stroke his daughter’s cheek.  “After what you told me about Alex’s father torpedoing your vacation, I would feel bad if I dragged you away from it.  Go,” he said, rising back to his feet.  “Go school your friends and servants at cards, I promise I’ll swing by before dinner,” he added, stepping into the lift.

Back in the lounge, several of the skjalds – mainly the younger ones, who had presumably never seen him before – were looking rather shellshocked.  Jake, who had, ironically enough, met him several times, swept up the cards, sensing that nobody was interested at continuing the game, and to avoid losing any more than he already had.

Freya walked back in, diminished but still clearly happy.  “We’ll just see him at dinner.”

“Cool.”  Venus clambered to her feet.  “What do you want to do before then?”

“I want to go and yell at Bjorn for keeping this a secret,” Freya grumbled, “but that wouldn’t be smart.  Let’s just go get ready, huh?  I’m too nervous to do anything else,” she said with a weak grin.  “Actually, that’s not fair, you guys go do whatever you want, I shouldn’t press nerves on you guys,” she said.

“Naw, that’s fine,” Remilia said.

Jake turned to his opponent and shook his hand, collecting his chips.  “Thanks for the game.”