A visitor calls on the printshop (RPF Smut Crew)

[guardiansverse]

There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in seeing a soldier loitering, cap in hand, outside of Madam van der Schpitz's fine establishment, so Yohann could not understand why Lublin and Lina were pressed as they were behind the door, huddled and twitching. He nodded amicably to the flushed young man as he came in. The soldier returned a look of - well.

"Is he frightened of me?" Yohann wondered out loud. Lina grabbed his arm and dragged him behind the door. There was a surprising amount of room back there.

"Shh!"

"Don't talk to him, Fro Rinken," Lublin whispered, frantic. "Don't look at him. He might go away."

"I thought we were a business?" Yohann tried to lean back around for another glance. Lina pulled him back by the collar while Lublin rocked in place with his hair in his hands.

"Don't you recognize the uniform?"

"We're dead, Fro Rinken, we're dead."

"Listen, until the Madam comes - "

"And I never finished that picture. One time I make a picture just for me. No one to say, tune it down, Lublin, the readership - "

"Maybe you can go back outside and tell him we've closed - "

" - just for me, with the biggest lushest pair of - "

"Are you both insane," Yohann begun, then went cold all over as the dots connected rather against his will.

He pulled against Lina's grasp enough to have another look. The soldier was not, in fact, very young. He wore no insignia, but a flash of sky-blue about his neck standing out from the standard red and black, and a small, glittering Eastern sunburst pin. Yohann had never known a bit of blue and gold to look so chilling.

He also looked... awed. Yes. That was absolutely the right word.

Then he caught Yohann's eye.

It was too late to scramble back, even if Lina and Lublin made a valiant attempt of it. Lina all but nudged Yohann forward ahead of them. Treacherous Hyemi. Yohann tried to somehow force colour back into his face. He said, "can I help you, fro?"

The soldier twisted his cap. "I'm, ah - I was sent by - "

"We know," Yohann said creakily.

"Ah, yes." He glanced down and up again. "You're Yohann Rinken? The Lansikaan?"

"That's him!" Lina squeaked.

"Captain's heard of your work."

"I imagine he has." Die like a man, Rinken.

"He's, uh... he's curious."

Yohann's world, to which he had been saying fond farewell, tilted sideways.

"... I'm sorry?"

The soldier's face seemed to go from tomato to prune, not even stopping at beetroot.

"Captain's a reputable man," he said very quickly. "Known in the whole continent, what he is and what he can do. Takes pride in that. Doesn't much care what people say otherwise. At the end of the day he knows they know, eh? That he's stronger. Better. Got the greatest - greatest - " he swallowed. "Greatest Guardian's power, eh?"

They did say lightning strike was a quick death. "Does he, uh... feel that we doubt as much?"

"Oh, no. Not as such. It's..." the soldier swallowed again and assailed what was clearly the bravest moment of his life. "Do folk really expect him to be a foot long and barbed?"

If Yohann could have had a Guardian's power, he would have liked it to involve going back in time just so he could tell Lublin to leave out the damned barbs. As it were, though, he looked into the soldier's baffled, earnest eyes, and realized very, very slowly that he was going to live out at least the day. It was a fascinating feeling. A kind of elation. Maybe that was how it felt to survive a battlefield, this very special kind of excitement.

He'd have to make note for future endeavors.

"I can reassure you, good fro," he said, quickly while the floating feeling lasted, "knowing our readership, that no one develops expectations based on our material. They know it for what it is. A lark. A flight of fancy. Completely harmless to the reputations of real men, especially when they are quite so... sizable and solid. Please reassure Captain Samaren that we are driven by nothing but admiration for his prowess. All embelishment is - err - in the spirit of separating fantasy from reality - yes..." Don't swallow. Don't blink. "It cannot be mistaken for a true account."

"Ah." The soldier looked relieved. Profoundly, mind-meltingly relieved. "That sounds... reasonable."

"We Lansikaans are nothing if not reasonable."

"In this case..." before Yohann could do a thing, he was gesturing past him to the workshop, looking very much sincere. "It would not harm for me to... have a look? So I can... make the report with proper evidence to hand?"

Behind the door, Lublin said the foulest word Yohann had ever heard in the Hyemi language.

The soldier looked rather eager now. Puppyishly so. Still flushed, but a lighter sort of colour now. Expectant. Yohann was professional, and Lansikaan. He could tell. He could always tell.

Why have I come to this benighted country.

"Of course." He put a conspiratorial note into his voice. But maybe an unexpected corner of the market? He focused on that, heroically so, as he shoved the door back to conceal Lina and Lublin and gestured the man into their fine establishment. "Just follow me. I'm sure we can find you a sterling example of our craft."