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bigasswritingmagnet · 3 months

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Helpful, in a Heterodyne Sort of Way (ch3/3)

Summary: Klaus arrives in Mechanicsburg to retrieve his son, who he believes has been kidnapped by the Heterodyne. (And Gil has. Just not by the Heterodyne Klaus thinks.) Saturnus (doting grandfather and old school Heterodyne to the core) is determined not to let Klaus ruin his granddaughter's date.

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In deference to the fact that Mechanicsburg was an independent city state and not part of the Empire, Klaus kept Castle Wulfenbach at the traditional two leagues.

Because his son had been kidnapped by the Heterodyne, he landed one of the smaller dirigibles directly outside the front gate and walked right in.

Klaus moved through the streets of Mechanicsburg like the one-man army he was. Tourists and citizens and even Jӓgers scattered before him, but Klaus didn’t notice. He was drowning in his own thoughts, struggling to keep his expression under control, to display anger but not…

He had not felt fear like this since the day Gil was born, when the midwife stood before him and Zantabraxus, two small bundles in her arms, and asked them which one to keep.

He had not felt so angry at another person since the day he came home to a shattered castle and learned that the world had been torn to pieces in his absence.

He had not felt so angry at himself since the day he woke up in Skifander, sprawled out before a long-dead queen’s gate.

To be made a fool again.

The youngest ever Lady of Mechanicsburg had looked up at him and told him, with such sincerity, that she wanted peace. She didn’t want to be an adventurer, but she didn’t want to run around terrorizing people either. And she’d seemed so sincere, and Klaus had thought that Teodora could do as good a job with a girl as with two boys, and Saturnus had looked so resigned—annoyed, but not resentful—that Klaus had believed her.

He'd believed her.

Klaus reached the foot of the great hill and began to climb towards the looming bulk of Castle Heterodyne.

When Teodora died, the world had tensed. A teenaged Heterodyne on the throne, with no voice of sanity to balance out the counsel of Saturnus Heterodyne? Surely, that would be it. Now the peace would end, now would come the fire and the terror and the war.

It had not come. Lady Heterodyne had shut the city down for a week of mourning and declared all seven St Teodora’s Days (none of the Popes had bothered to coordinate with each other) official holidays of Mechanicsburg. And that was it. And everyone had thought—well, that’s that then!—and relaxed.

Oh, Klaus kept an eye on her, watching for warning signs. But he had been braced—the world had been braced—for a Heterodyne. For armies of monsters, for death and destruction. For a return to the days of old.

Not even he had been braced for a Mongfish.

And she took his son. His son! It was too precise to be a coincidence. Even if Gil wasn’t the only young man spirited away to Mechanicsburg, for Gil to be chosen despite all the dangers it held, despite the retribution she had to know Klaus would bring down on her…

It was all too easy to imagine Lady Heterodyne smiling Lucrezia’s smile and saying ‘you know what would be funny?’

Saturnus was waiting for Klaus at the top of the hill with a giant, shameless grin, lounging back in his chair as if he had simply stepped out to enjoy the sunshine.

“Klaus!” he cried, cheerfully. “Welcome, welcome! So kind of you to drop by.”

Klaus strode forward until he stood directly in front of Saturnus, drowning the man in his shadow.

“Where is my son.”

“You’re looking well! Fantastic coat, by the way. You should really give Agatha some tips. She can do stunning, but bombastic intimidation is a mite out of her reach—”

“Saturnus.”

“Hmm?”

“Where. Is. My. Son.”

All manner of Sparks and noble families had quailed beneath that glare, had immediately rolled over and surrendered just to get Klaus to stop looking at them like that.

But Saturnus was a Heterodyne, and the ability to be intimidated had been bred out of them long ago—if they’d ever had it to begin with. His grin simply widened.

“Having dinner with Agatha.”

Klaus’ eyebrows shot up, and Saturnus tutted, shaking his head.

“No need for that look, Klaus, get your mind out of the gutter. All propriety has been observed. This is a civilized introductory dinner between two youths of genteel breeding.”

For a brief moment, Klaus forgot his anger and fear in the face of sheer amazement that Saturnus could refer to the Heterodyne family as genteel with a straight face.

“He’s fine,” Saturnus said, still with infuriating good humor. “He seemed quite taken with Agatha, to be honest—”

Bile rose in Klaus’ throat. No. Gil was intelligent, he was sensible—sometimes, about some things, surely about this—he would never fall for a woman after she had imprisoned him against his will.

But the words history repeats itself pounded in his skull like the Doom Bell, and Klaus found himself striding past Saturnus without another word.

Saturnus didn’t try to stop him, and neither did the castle, which should have been his first warning. He threw open the doors, strode into the main hall of the castle—did not stride into the main hall.

He was in a small, comfortable sitting room, with a crackling fire and a few soft armchairs, walls lined with shelves crammed full of books that were probably all banned in multiple countries. Overhead he heard a distinctly mechanical sniggering.

Behind him came the distinctive tapping sound of Saturnus’ chair, and the ominous groan and boom of the main doors closing—faintly, as if in the distance.

Klaus whirled around, and Saturnus smiled at him from in front of a perfectly ordinary sized door, not nearly large enough to be the main doors. Klaus shoved the man aside and wrenched the door open. It let him out onto a long hallway, one side of which had large windows overlooking an inner courtyard.

“Gilgamesh!” Klaus roared, but of course he got no answer.

It was a nightmare. The nightmare, throwing open door after door, down hallways and stairwells that never seemed to end, streets that went nowhere or doubled back on themselves; hearing Gilgamesh wailing in the distance but unable to tell which direction it was coming from; his wife calling after him she is the heir, this is how it must be; green-haired guards without faces grabbing him with hands like stone; and Klaus half-fell through another door and was once again in the small sitting room where Saturnus was waiting for him.

Smiling.

“Come on, do you really think you’d be able to track him down in this castle all by yourse—”

Klaus lunged. Before even the castle could move, he was across the room with his hand closing around Saturnus’ throat, hauling him up out of his chair, his dead legs dangling uselessly.

“You will release my son,” Klaus ground out through his bared teeth, rage and fear feeding each other into greater and greater heights. “You will release him to me now, or I will finish what the Other started and burn your family and this town until there is nothing left but ashes.”

Dust trickled down onto Klaus’ shoulders. He raised his eyes and saw the stone block hovering overhead. Waiting. Klaus lowered his gaze and met Saturnus’ eyes, which were no longer looking quite so amused.

“I will take you with me,” Klaus said, his grip tightening.

“Right,” Saturnus said, voice slightly strangled because Klaus was strangling him slightly. “How about you put me down, and the castle doesn’t crush you, and we start this conversation over like civilized gentlemen.”

“You have never been civilized in your life.”

“Neither have you. But we are both good at pretending, when we need to.”

Klaus’ heartbeat began to return to normal, and the fog of mindless terror to diminish enough that he could think clearly. Sort of clearly, anyway. At least enough so he could realize that killing Saturnus, while immensely satisfying in the moment, would not help Gil.

Gently, Klaus lowered Saturnus back down onto his chair, which shuffled itself into position so Saturnus did not need to readjust himself.

Saturnus backed the chair away a little, rubbing his throat, and gave Klaus a wry smile.

“To answer your question, as I said, Gilgamesh is having dinner with Agatha. He is safe and sound, physically and—as far as I can tell—psychologically. And for the record, he’s here of his own free will. Now, anyway.”

“Do not lie to me!” Klaus snarled, temper flaring again, ignoring the threatening grind of stone-on-stone overhead. “He was seen with a woman matching the description of Lady Jenka of Mechanicsburg. Lady Jenka, who was then abruptly and urgently recalled to Mechanicsburg, leaving with a large wooden crate—”

“No,” Saturnus said, sarcastically, clearly unable to stop himself. “A woman traveling with large pieces of luggage, is there no end to Mechanicsburg’s depravities.”

“It had airholes in it!”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m not saying I didn’t kidnap him, I own up to that—and for the record I did it gently, not so much as a bonk on the head. Jenka used a very mild soporific; he just took a nap and woke up here. I’m saying that Agatha was all set to let him go, and he said he’d like to stay for dinner.”

Klaus snorted derisively.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe Lady Heterodyne went through all the trouble of having him kidnapped and brought here, only to let him go? Short of some plan to lure him in with reverse psychology, I refuse to believe—”

“I kidnapped him,” Saturnus interrupted, disgruntled. “Who said anything about Agatha–” Saturnus stopped, eyes going wide, pieces falling together. “Red fire, no wonder you’re in a state.”

“I am ‘in a state’ because you kidnapped my son.”

This time, Saturnus’ smile was bitter and humorless.

“But would you be in as much of a state if you didn’t so intimately know Lucrezia Mongfish for what she was?”

Klaus did not answer. His first instinct was to say yes, but…well. The thought of Gilgamesh hanging over a vat of acid while a Heterodyne cackled maniacally by the knife switch did invoke less terror than the thought of him alone in a room with Lucrezia.

“She’s not her mother, Klaus. She may look like her, but it’s no deeper than that. She’s a Heterodyne through and through. Not my brand of Heterodyne, more’s the pity, but she is still a Heterodyne. We don’t do subtle.”

“You don’t consider a quiet kidnapping to be subtle?”

“And how long did it take those shadow men of yours to figure out who took him and where? Probably before Jenka even left the dock.”

“Hardly,” Klaus said. “They wouldn’t have let her leave, if they had.”

But the man was making a fair point. Lucrezia didn’t kidnap her men—she simply wove a web and let them walk in of their own free will. She’d even let them think it was their idea.

“I swear to you, Agatha was about ready to bite my head off when I told her.” He rubbed his chin. “Might not have been quite as mad at me if I hadn’t waited to tell her til after he was tied to the chair and dinner was ready to serve. She really was going to let him leave, and he very much insisted on staying.”

“That would be an extremely foolish thing for him to do.”

Saturnus snorted, amused.

“Right, because love never made any man act a fool.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s never even met her before.”

“No,” Saturnus agreed. “But I’ll tell you now—the way he looked at Agatha when he first saw her? That’s how I looked at Teodora, and love made me enough of a fool that I didn’t realize she’d ruined my sons until it was too late. Huh! And now, between her and Agatha, I’m practically domesticated. Didn’t even consider invading Paris to get at him!”

“I would say it far more likely because you knew the Lady Heterodyne wouldn’t like it.”

“Yes. I would not burn down the world for her, Klaus.”

He said it with such determination, such seriousness, that at first Klaus couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a joke.

Then he remembered who he was talking to.

“That’s…very touching,” Klaus said, and mostly meant it. Then, abruptly realizing he’d been sidetracked, drew himself up. Very firmly, he said “Willing or not, I will take my son home.”

“No,” Saturnus said, just as firmly. “Or rather, not yet. He’s the first one she’s really liked that I’m sure can keep up with her. I’ll admit, I’ve gotten a little desperate—you wouldn’t believe the kind of young men who have come swanning in, looking for her favor.”

Klaus noted that Saturnus had not said "and out".

A sudden change came over Saturnus. He sat up straighter in his chair. He met Klaus’ gaze with eyes that burned with a fire that rivaled the depths of hell. When he spoke, his voice was solid steel, and for a moment Klaus could see Lord Saturnus as had been of old, the terror of Europa.

“But I truly believe he could make her happy, and if ensuring her happiness means bringing the wrath of the most dangerous man in Europa down on my head, so be it.”

Klaus considered this. On the one hand, he only had Saturnus’ word for any of this. On the other, it was hard to imagine Saturnus would be hiding the fact that his graddaughter was returning to family form, instead of gloating from the rooftops.

And, Klaus was forced to admit, it would be out of character. If she was responsible, it would be the first act of old-school Heterodyning from Lady Agatha—

Klaus remembered Duke Leffert’s attempted invasion the previous spring, and the mountain on the far side of the Heterodyne Valley that now had a big hole in the middle, and corrected himself. This would be the first unprovoked act committed by Lady Agatha in the nearly ten years she had ruled Mechanicsburg.

“Very well,” Klaus said, stiffly. “But I am not leaving without him.”

“You can have him back as soon as they finish dessert,” Saturnus promised, grinning again. “Now come on, let me pour you a drink. You could use one.”

‘Per my lady’s standing instructions, I am reminding you of the doctor’s orders,’ the castle said.

“Duly ignored,” Saturnus said cheerfully, moving his chair towards a laden drinks cart.

"You know, Wulfenbach, I didn't think much of you in the old days. But I'm glad to see you've gotten all that heroing out of your system and settled down to build a good old fashioned evil empire. And you’re doing a marvelous job! "

Klaus was very glad Saturnus' back was turned to him.

“Yes, it does my heart good to see someone keeping the old ways.”

Klaus managed to get his expression under control just in time as Saturnus turned around. Saturnus held out a crystal cut glass half filled with a dark purple liquid. Klaus did not hesitate to take the glass from Saturnus, or to drink from it, which pleased the old man greatly.

"Ha! Not an ounce of fear in you, eh?"

"I've made myself immune to most poisons,” said Klaus, looking down at the drink in puzzlement. “Especially the rare ones. " He sipped the drink again, and mentally weighed how much he wanted to know what the flavor was against how much he did not want to know what was made of.

"See! You know what you're doing! I'm not at all surprised by your choice of son.”

Klaus looked up, dragging his attention from the drink, which was reflecting the light in a very strange way.

“My choice?” he repeated.

"Heh. Perhaps I've said too much. No good giving you a reason to assassinate me, eh?"

Klaus did not particularly like the sound of that.

“Let’s just say, I’d be careful of those Sturmvarous people. That boy knows some things about Gil you might not want to get out.”

Klaus made a mental note to burn Sturmhalten to the ground as soon as he and Gil left.

Saturnus chuckled.

“Look at that face! Would you believe Agatha thinks you’re still good? I think it’s just because you used to run with her father and her uncle. People change, I tell her! If she’d seen you just now, oh, I’d like to see her try and call you good after that little display.” He wagged a playful finger at Klaus. “Don’t think I missed that subtle little dig about my grandson, either! A man after my own heart.”

Never before had such warm approval caused Klaus so much shame.

“It was over the line,” Klaus admitted.

“Oh it was!” Saturnus said, with evident enjoyment. “And I’ll bet you’re teaching Gilgamesh all you know, eh? Nature and nurture! He’ll make a fine overlord.”

Klaus kept his face neutral, even when Saturnus winked at him. Only when Saturnus took a drink did Klaus allow himself to grimace.

‘Lord Saturnus, the lady is–’

Klaus was suddenly aware of pounding footsteps and shouting. The door burst open, Klaus tensed, and the Lady Heterodyne came tumbling in. Right on her heels was–

“Gilgamesh!”

The wave of relief could have brought Klaus to his knees. Gil was unharmed, though his clothes were slightly rumpled. His eyes were shining and slightly manic, but no more than was usual for Gil under the influence of the Spark.

“Father!” he said, startled, but not displeased. “What are you doing he–?”

“Grandfather!” Lady Heterodyne interrupted. She grabbed the arm of Saturnus’ chair. “The blue orb things in the grey hallway, are they lamps or lightning generators?”

“Lamps-”

Agatha whirled around and jabbed a finger at Gil.

“Ha!”

“--that generate lightning.”

“Ah-HA!” Gil exclaimed.

“Still primarily a lamp!” She swung back around to Saturnus. “I need them. Castle! I want the electrical laboratory prepped! I need you to reroute the extra power to the salamanders, and if you can’t, find a place to dump it that won’t kill all the fish–”

“Father!” Gil said. “Did you bring the castle? Can you bring me my lightning generator–”

“—lamp!—and tell Van to have the river blocked off for the next few days just in case—”

“Oh! And can you bring my weather enhancer, my weather dehancer, and my electromagnetic–”

“There's no time!” Agatha cried. “The storm will be here in half an hour!”

“You know what, nevermind, I'll just build new ones. Let's go!”

Gil and Agatha took off, leaving the door hanging open.

Klaus stared at the open door, listening to their excited shouting fade as they ran down the hall. He shut his eyes, knowing, knowing without even needing to look, that Saturnus was smirking triumphantly. In the distance, Gil laughed.

He sounded…very happy.

“So! Solstice at your place this year?” Saturnus asked, somehow managing to gloat a question.

Klaus downed the rest of his drink in one swallow.

“You know,” Gil said, in the dirigible on the way to Castle Wulfenbach, “it’s the funniest thing—Saturnus thinks I’m adopted.”

Klaus’ brow furrowed.

“He told you this?”

“It’s why he kidnapped me in the first place. Apparently, he overheard Tarvek Sturmvoraus saying my real father is Petrus Teuful. I don’t even know where Tarvek got that idea in the first place.”

Klaus, keeping his face perfectly neutral, mentally crossed destroy Sturmhalten off his To Do list.

“I can’t imagine,” he said.

#girl genius #klaus wulfenbach #saturnus heterodyne #gil/agatha #gilgamesh wulfenbach #agatha heterodyne #doting grandfather saturnus au

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bigasswritingmagnet · 3 months

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Helpful, in a Heterodyne Kind of Way

Summary: Gil wakes up chained to a chair in Castle Heterodyne.

That's bad.

But he's been brought there to have dinner with the Lady Heterodyne, who is smart and pretty and interesting.

That's good.

He's been brought there by Saturnus Heterodyne, because he's under the impression that Gil is the biological son of Petrus Teuful, and thus an excellent potential suitor for his beloved granddaughter.

That's bad.

But Agatha is wonderful, and Saturnus promises to keep Gil's "true parentage" a secret. If Gil is lucky, he might get out of this with a girlfriend, and without getting fed to one of the castle's deathtraps.

Klaus would just like people to not kidnap his son, thank you very much.

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Gil woke slowly, but not painfully. There was no aching body or throbbing temples, just a slow ascent from darkness. He was vaguely aware of the smell of cooking meat, the warmth of a nearby fire, the sound of soft music.

And shouting.

“—kidnap the son of Baron Wulfenbach, emperor of Europa!”

Well, that wasn’t a good start.

Gil forced his eyelids to open and found himself staring at…a table. It was covered in a gilt-embroidered tablecloth and set with the most over-the top table settings, every conceivable variety of forks, spoons and knives.

His hands were chained to the chair with manacles just long enough to allow him to reach the silverware (which was gold, he realized). He also noticed what, exactly, the tablecloth’s embroidery depicted. It was not something most people would like to look at during a meal.

A sneaking suspicion began to develop.

“I don’t care how great-great-great-grandmother Thorazia would have done it!”

And that was when Gil noticed the guards, and suspicion became certainty.

There were two of them, standing side by side at the door on the far end of the room. One had horns that curled up over his head almost in a circle; the other had a snout and long, floppy ears. Both were grinning at him—grins filled with sharp, pointed teeth.

Jӓgers.

Gil tried to keep his expression one of mild interest, which the guards clearly found very funny. He drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair, humming softly and very carefully not checking to see how sturdy the restraints were.

They were very sturdy.

As casually as he could, Gil glanced over his shoulder.

Yep, two Jӓgermonster guards on that door, too.

One of them waved at him. Gil gave him a slightly strained smile, and turned back in his seat again.

Okay. Kidnapped, tied to a chair, in Castle Heterodyne. The important thing to do was to remain calm, at all costs.

“Grandfather, I don’t need your help! I am perfectly capable of finding a boyfriend on my own!”

The door flew open and in swept the most beautiful girl Gil had ever seen. She was dressed in filthy mechanic’s coveralls. Her face was smeared with grease. Her hair was beginning to fall free from the messy ponytail she’d put it in, framing her face with fine golden strands. Her eyes were bright green, illuminated behind her large glasses.

“I,” she began, “am so sorry—”

“Hi,” Gil blurted out. “I’m Gil. Uh. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Who are you?”

She pulled up short, startled by the interuption.

“Oh. I…I’m Agatha. Agatha Heterodyne.” She shook herself. “Wait, wait, I’m apologizing. My grandfather had you kidnapped, he’s…” She blushed even harder. “He uh. He’s been trying to…”

“Find you a boyfriend, I heard.”

Agatha groaned and rubbed her face, pushing her glasses up.

“I’m so sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Gil said. “You know, it smells like dinner’s been made already, and since I’m already here…”

Agatha stared at him.

“You—really?”

He smiled at her and shrugged.

“I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

Agatha opened and closed her mouth a few times, pink rising to her cheeks.

“Oh. That’s. Very kind of you. I. Um. Should probably go get changed. I’m not exactly dressed for dinner.”

“If you’d like,” Gil said, amicably. “I think you look great.”

Agatha went scarlet and ducked her head, not quite managing to hide her smile. She began to back up out the door she’d entered through, babbling a little.

“I’ll uh. Aheh. It’s not really hygenic, I’m all covered in…I’ll just…um…Nestor, if you could serve Gil some wine or, or something while I, um…”

She slammed the door shut. Gil heard frantic footsteps tearing up the hallway, a call of I told you! and shutupshutupshutup!

A servant approached on silent feet and filled a goblet with wine, then scooched it a little closer to Gil so he could reach it without dragging the chains across the table cloth. Gil didn’t bother to ask if he could be released.

The door opened again and Gil looked up, but it wasn’t Agatha who entered.

At first, the only thing Gil could notice was the chair. From the seat up, it was, well. A chair. But instead of four sturdy legs, the seat rested on what had to be dozens of of spindly, shining, insectile legs. They were constantly moving, extending and retracting and shifting position to keep the occupant perfectly balanced as he crossed the room.

It took some effort to drag his gaze up and meet the sharp green eyes of a man who had Agatha’s nose and a wicked grin that pinned Gil in place.

“Saturnus Heterodyne!” he said, by way of greeting. “And you must be Gilgamesh Wulfenbach!” His smile twisted slyly. “Or should I say…Gilgamesh Teuful?”

Gil stared blankly.

“Uh…should you?”

“No need to play dumb,” Saturnus said, drawing up to the table beside Gil. With a casual air, he picked up one of the decanters of wine and filled a spare glass. Taking the glass in hand, he settled back in his seat and gave Gil a sharp smile. “I heard all about your paternity from that Sturmvoraus fellow.”

“Sturmv—Tarvek?” Gil sat bolt up in the chair, sloshing his wine and yanking hard on the manacles. “Tarvek Sturmvoraus told you I was Petrus Teuful’s son?”

That weasel, that snake! Everyone knew the Lady Heterodyne was more like the Heterodyne boys than like her grandfather. If she thought he was the son of one of the deadliest Sparks in the world—

“No, no,” Saturnus said. “He told his sister. But there are no secrets in Castle Heterodyne, are there?” This last was directed to the ceiling.

‘No indeed,’ said a disembodied voice, sounding quite smug. ‘But I do know when to be…discreet.’

Saturnus chuckled and waved for Gil to relax.

“Calm down, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I don’t blame Klaus for keeping it a secret—a man can only put up with so many assassination attempts before they begin to get tiresome.” He laughed the convivial laugh of two people bonding over a shared nuisence.

“Um. I…appreciate that, but—”

“And I certainly won’t be the one to tell Agatha! Don’t want to sway her opinion of you just yet. She’s a little too much like her uncle to believe in the whole ‘change them with the power of love’ nonsense her father did…”

His voice trailed off, his expression suddenly sobering. Gil waited, but when the man stayed silent, he cleared his throat.

“Actually, I think there’s been—”

“Wait, wait, I’m not done.” Saturnus frowned disapprovingly. “Youth these days, no patience at all. What was I saying? Oh! I remember when Klaus finally brought Teuful down. Ha, and Teuful certainly made him work for it! But when he finally fell, what did his men do? Fought harder. Fought to the death. Every man jack was there of his own free will, because he believed in Teuful. That is loyalty.”

Saturnus grinned and tilted his head back, indicating the Jӓger guards.

“And the Heterodynes know loyalty. We appreciate loyalty—and appreciate those Sparks who understand it as we do.”

“Well, of course,” Gil said. “Half of the armies we fight surrender outright because they know they’ll get a better deal with the Empire. But—”

“But indeed! A man who can inspire a soldier to fight for peace and stability, yes, all well and good, hoo-ray. But a man who can take a perfectly ordinary citizen of the world and inspire him to wanton chaos and destruction? Ah, that’s the kind of man I want for my granddaughter.”

He sat back in his chair and sighed heavily.

“I’m relieved to have found you, you know. The number of would-be suitors who have shown up here—why, the grinding machines can hardly keep up!”

“The grinding machines,” Gil repeated.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, unworthy men can be persistant, and I’ll not be having some moon-eyed, would-be-hero fluttering around her and wasting her time. So, on their way out I simply have the castle…” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Clean up.”

Gil felt a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead.

“Castle Heterodyne had boyfriend grinding machines?”

“No, of course not! I had to build them. But don’t you worry,” Saturnus said, patting Gil genially on the shoulder. “I’d never snuff out a Spark like Teuful’s so easily.”

‘But perhaps mind where you put your hands.’

Saturnus burst out laughing; the Jӓger guards joined in. Gil forced his own laugh, clutching white knuckled at the arms of his chair. As subtly as he could, he glanced down, and saw that the way the floorboards were laid out, it was not impossible that the chair was positioned over a trap door.

The door opened and Gil’s heart leapt for entirely different reasons than terror.

Agatha stood in the doorway, slightly breathless, still damp from her frantic bath, and dressed in a white and gold dress trimmed with trilobite designs that Gil would say was extremely becoming. She’d missed a spot of engine grease on her cheek, and Gil had no intention of telling her.

“Well, I’ll leave you two at it,” Saturnus said, steering his chair away from the table and towards the door. His granddaughter squinted at him suspiciously.

“Yes, you will. And so will you four,” she said, sternly, to the Jӓgers. “I already have an all-seeing chaperone, who will be silent,” she added, very pointedly. “For the duration of the evening.” Her eyes landed on the glass of wine Saturnus was not quite managing to keep out of sight. “And the doctor said no alcohol!”

“The doctor said less alcohol!” Saturnus shot back, the door slamming shut behind him.

Agatha threw her hands up in the air in exasperation, and thumped down in her seat. Then she hurriedly stood up and swept her dress out so it wasn’t crumpled. Servants closed in, laying out the first course: a bright orange soup that, upon very careful tasting, turned out to be pumpkin.

“I hope he didn’t say anything too awful,” Agatha said.

“No!” Gil said, hurriedly, very aware that Castle Heterodyne could hear every word. “He was just telling me that he was a…fan of my father’s work.”

“Yes,” Agatha said. “I’m not entirely sure he actually understands what your father does.”

“I did get that impression,” Gil said, straight faced. The chain around his wrist clanked against the soup bowl, and Agatha’s eyes went wide.

“Castle! He’s still chained?”

Gil thought he heard something like a distant, mechanical sigh of disappointment, and the manacles popped open.

“I’m so sorry about that. Again.”

Gil smiled.

“Honestly, of all the times I’ve been kidnapped and chained to a chair, this is not the worst.”

Agatha paused, spoon halfway to her mouth.

“Has that happened to you…often?”

“Once or twice!” Gil said. “But I don’t usually get wine.”

“—and even though he recognized that it wasn’t on purpose, or entirely my fault, the Master decided I’d just be a trouble magnet, and that was the end of Paris. I finished my degrees in Beetleburg, instead.” Agatha waved her fork vaguely. “But it worked out in the end. It was much easier to rule Mechanicsburg from there.”

Gil started.

“You were ruling Mechanicsburg long distance?”

Agatha gave him a wry smile.

“I couldn’t exactly leave Grandfather in charge unattended,” she said, dryly. “I had regular reports sent to me once a week, and I’d send my orders back same day.”

“That’s impressive,” Gil said. “Balancing your schoolwork, running Mechanicsburg, and still managing to have a social life? Most people can barely manage two of those.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that much more work,” Agatha demured, though she was blushing. “My seneschal took care of the day to day, and my generals managed the defences.”

“Well, I think it’s amazing.”

“What about you?” Agatha returned. “You’ve got two doctorates and Collette said you get into adventures every other week.”

‘My lady—’

“I asked for silence,” Agatha said. “And I specified for the duration—”

‘Yes, my lady, and no one wishes to interrupt your evening. That is why your grandfather asked me to inform you that he will handle the matter.’

“What mat—you know what, nevermind. I don’t want to know.” She rolled her eyes at Gil. “He’s probably gone to argue with the Monster’s Guild about whether the giant rats qualify for membership. I keep telling them, if they’re not sentient enough to pay union dues and attend the meetings, they belong with the Rodent Society.”

The room they were in faced west, giving them a lovely view of the mountain sunset, and no view at all of Castle Wulfenbach descending on Mechanicsburg.

#girl genius #Gilgamesh Wulfenbach #saturnus heterodyne #agatha heterodyne #gilgatha #gil/agatha #doting grandfather saturnus AU

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