Inktober 2024 - 24 - Expedition

Sitting at a table in the corner of the local watering hole, a woman is studying a couple of maps, by lantern-light. Despite her activity, she does not seem to mind the drunken sailors celebrating being back to shore after months at sea, nor the miners unwinding after a hard day of digging, still covered in soot. After all, they are part of the charm of the place, and even the other quieter patrons appear amused by their antics.

At one point, a man in a unironed shirt enters the bar, and goes straight for the woman as soon as he has located her. He hasn't even reached her that she raises a hand to stop him, before even looking up from her work.

"Let me guess: you're mounting an expedition, and you'd like me to be your navigator."

His smile widens. He isn't even going to bother denying the accusation:

"You're the best one out there."

"I'm really not."

"You are to me…"

She sighs, and lowers her hand to interlace her fingers in front of her.

"Let's expedite this, Ludwig. Let's spare ourselves the embarrassment. I'm not going on another nonsensical adventure with you, a wild goose chase across some jungle or desert, just so we can prove yet again that nothing is ever going to happen between us."

"It's submarine exploration mission, actually," he corrects sheepishly.

"It doesn't matter, Lu! I can see it from here. You're going to turn that chair around, sit down on it with your arms crossed across the back, and bat your eyelashes at me until I rearrange my whole schedule to accommodate you. Then we'll go, and you'll get bossy, to the point of not listening to me at a crucial crossroad, which is not only going to make me very mad, but also endanger everyone involved. And the only way you'll find to apologise to me, is to admit I was right later on, during some grand heroic gesture, somehow saving the whole crew, but alas never getting us anywhere near what we were looking for in the first place. We'll get close to each other during the whole ordeal, but then we'll be home again, and we're just going to go our separate ways as we always do. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"

"So, you're saying batting my eyelashes works."

"Don't play dumb. The flirting is nice, and the travelling does hold some level of appeal, but this is exhausting. We're never going to truly explore anything together, are we?"

Slowly but steadily, his face grows serious. She is being honest with him, and all he can do is joke about it; that won't do. He has to match her tone. She deserves that much.

"I wasn't aware that road was of that much interest to you."

"I don't know that it is, Ludwig, because we've never actually taken a single step onto it. But as long as you keep barging into my life like this, I can't move forward. Can you?"