It sincerely wasn’t as comfortable if she wasn’t watching.

It wasn’t supposed to be fun, granted, and he did feel sorry for anyone forced to swallow flames down into the depths of their soul. It was no easier the second time around, and it took everything in his power to keep his breathing level all the way through. The unsteady rumbling beneath his feet was already a blight to his balance. It was one more difficulty that complicated an exceedingly-delicate process.

Harper was handling a silk thread, by which blinking the wrong way would kill the man. No amount of asking for Orleanna’s guidance would help--the motions were simple enough to remember, the sensations to hunt for even more so. Conceptually, he knew what he was doing this time. It was still intimidating.

It wasn’t that Josiah, watching on with wide eyes and silence to match, wasn’t a supportive audience. Octavia simply would’ve been preferable. He hadn’t intended to impress Josiah in any capacity, by comparison. It wouldn’t have been his sole motivator, regardless.

Eyes on him or not, Harper’s pure song was ceaseless. The sapphire flames that swept clean through the air came to call a poisoned soul home. Every rationed breath and every flickering note left them glowing with grace. Raging azures glowed through violet-tinted skin as the man clutched weakly at his chest. He was on his own this time, and yet a person so plagued by agony was a far cry to a struggling Ivy. It was a miracle the man was alive at all, given exactly what had choked him so thoroughly moments before.

Harper slid one foot backwards slightly, adjusting his shoulders as he retraced every sequential step in his head. It was a war he refused to lose, straining muscles be damned. He played harder, his fingers flying over every key with such fervor that his skin burned.

And when the tight, taut resistance surrendered to his fiery melody at last, it took conscious effort not to stumble. The sudden slack that followed in the wake of the scorching ballad left brilliant cerulean erupting in tandem with violet. From the man’s lips exploded grotesque quantities of screaming smoke, barreling mercilessly towards the cabin ceiling. What little white remained was splattered with sickening indigo, writhing and wailing as searing sapphires wrapped them up in full. Each and every wisp entangled with Harper's relentless flames, pursued without mercy upon release from the man's blighted soul.

Not once did Harper stop playing, pushing aside the burn in his lungs in favor of a burn far more fierce. Small as the cabin objectively was, his blue hellfire was as all-consuming as it was ferociously hot. The bursting, sweltering heat was enough to leave Josiah flinching, shielding his face pitifully with what his forearms could cover. Harper didn’t have the luxury of the same, and he earned the full wrath of the will of fire by proxy. He’d expected to hate it more. Somehow, Orleanna’s infernal love wasn’t unwelcome as it enveloped him, and he embraced its power.

He didn’t bother counting how long it took, although it felt reasonably extensive. False darkness faltered in the face of scathing sapphire, and the flames that came to flicker left no violet in their wake. The man collapsed to the floor face-first, and Harper winced at the graceless thud that followed. At the very least, he hadn’t been burned--upon initial inspection, if nothing else. Harper's eyes flickered left, and he ripped Royal Orleans from his lips with a desperate gasp.

“Are you…okay?” he panted, sweat beading down his cheeks in excess.

Josiah nodded. “I-I’m fine. Are you alright? Take it easy for a minute.”

Catching his breath, at least, was easier the second time. Harper found the energy to smile, if not weakly. “Don’t worry about me. Did you get burned?”

He shook his head. “I’m good. What do we do about him?”

Josiah tilted his head towards the conductor, prone and motionless below as he was. His shoulders rose and fell softly, and that was enough to satisfy Harper. The Willful Maestro did what he could to swallow a deep breath, savoring every ounce of oxygen he could find.

“He’ll be…alright,” Harper said.

Josiah was quiet. Harper was much the same as he caught his breath. The steady, endless rumbling beneath them filled the gap as they plunged deeper into the night. Every boom that distantly rippled well above their heads told a story in and of itself. Harper had suspicions. If he strained, he’d surely hear the rest of their songs. He didn't have the time, and his gaze was mostly one of expectation.

It landed squarely on Josiah. The latter returned it blankly. Harper only tilted his head, his eye contact unwavering.

Josiah bristled under his staring. “What?” he snapped.

Harper’s eyes flickered between the boy and the dashboard several times over. He couldn’t stifle the tiniest, creeping smile that came with it.

“No!” Josiah shouted.

“You’re up,” Harper finally asserted with a grin, gesturing to the array of buttons and levers with one sweeping motion.

“I’m not doing this!” Josiah growled.

Harper raised Royal Orleans aloft, waving the trumpet playfully. “I did my part. Your turn.”

“I don’t know how to drive a friggin’ train! What do you expect me to do, guess?”

He chuckled. “You’ll figure it out. You’re smart like that.”

“It’s not funny! We’re gonna crash!” Josiah cried, more than exasperated.

“Well,” Harper began, averting his gaze teasingly, “if you don’t do it, we’re gonna crash anyway, right? You might as well try.”

“You’re insane!”

Harper beamed. “I believe in you. Do your best, okay? You’ve got this.”

“I hate you!”

He laughed. Frankly, he wasn’t aware Josiah could carry that much ire in one glare alone. “I’ll cheer you on, don’t worry. I know you can do it.”

“I cannot stand you!”

With or without a train at risk of derailing, his reactions were too amusing for Harper to carry fear. Sparing a man from incineration was the hardest part. Whatever mortal crises were to come would surely be less concerning. Josiah, clearly, was not under the same impression, if the way his fingers were permanently embedded into his hair meant anything. To his credit, he at least made the effort to face the dashboard in full. Heavy and aggravated steps landed him square at the center of a mechanical solar system.

With eyes forward, the rushing darkness of the mountain range came to meet him head-on, sprawling glass serving as the one barrier between the boy and the unforgiving night beyond. Harper was dizzy on his behalf, and the sight of Josiah’s face flooding with overstimulation was reasonable enough. They weren’t shoes he particularly wanted to stand in. He would’ve felt worse, had an inordinate amount of sharp swears not already begun to trickle from the boy’s lips under his breath. Once more, Harper was battling to stifle his laughter.

Really, Harper couldn’t have helped even if he wanted to. The sheer amount of dials, levers, switches, gauges, and everything in between were utterly indecipherable. A fair amount were completely unlabeled altogether, and yet more were tinted with colors that begged for limited interaction--probably. Even with exactly one more train expedition on his record than Josiah, his experiences still meant absolutely nothing in terms of resolving the situation. Moral support was the most he could offer. Ideally, it would suffice. He doubted it.

Josiah buried his face in his hands, one muffled growl of deep irritation slipping out through the cracks of his fingers. The gesture evolved into fingernails clawing down the sides of his face, and he stole one deep breath in the process. His eyes chased several mechanical elements in sequence, darting back and forth between awaiting controls and approaching mountains.

No less than four separate times did his eyes drift to the Maestro at his side, razor-edged and loaded with hostility every time. The third time, Harper bit his lip in a desperate attempt to suppress a smile. He failed horrifically.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

It took at least fifteen more seconds of utterly silent contemplation for Josiah’s hands to leave his face, hesitant fingers frozen aloft over one lever. Never did they grasp the metal in full--or at all, by which his skin refused to so much as graze it. Once more, he was muttering something obscene under his breath.

“What does that one do?”

Under no circumstances did Harper mean for it to come out teasingly. It happened anyway, the implications lost on him until well after the question had left his lips. The ice in Josiah’s eyes could’ve frozen his blood in his veins, had he still not found the boy’s reactions exceedingly comical. “You know what? Why don’t you tell me what it does? How about that?”

Harper's shoulders were shaking with the efforts of suppressing his laughter. He almost felt bad about it.

“I’m going to take a shot in the dark that there’s no friggin’ manual anywhere in the damn cabin, right? I really am gonna have to guess, aren’t I?” he groaned, tightening his fingers around the lever at last.

Harper patted his shoulder. “You’re doing great.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Walk me through your thought process,” Harper requested softly, inching closer to the boy. “Organize this out loud for me.”

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It would help, maybe. It was enough to get Josiah to stop trying to kill him with his eyes alone, at least. Josiah sighed. “There’s no more connections, hypothetically. This train is supposed to go straight to Solenford. I remember what the station looks like, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to tell when we’re getting close from up here. Actually stopping it is gonna suck. I figure…worst-case scenario, if I have to use the emergency brakes once we get that far, I can.”

Harper tilted his head. “How do you know which ones are the brakes?”

“Working on it,” he hissed. “Like I said, half of this is guessing. I have suspicions, and obviously I can’t test them, so we’re gonna find out the hard way when we get there.”

Harper nodded, peering past Josiah at the implement between his taut fingers. “So…what’s going on with that one?”

“Will you be patient?” Josiah practically shouted.

“Sorry, conductor,” Harper teased with a sneaking grin. It was irresistible, at this point.

Again, Josiah was more or less growling under his breath. Every word was strained for a new reason entirely. “It’s a straight shot to Solenford. It should mostly take care of itself. We have no idea how long the conductor was incapacitated, and we were still fine. I don’t know the geography of this whole route, so I’m worried about whether or not I’m supposed to be accounting for speed control.”

“Speed control?”

He nodded. “If we go too fast, we really will derail. I have no idea if traversing the mountains is going to mess with our momentum. I don’t know anything about this train, how it’s built, or how to drive it.”

The last of his words were pointed. Harper had completely given up on suppressing his amusement. It was a losing battle, and Josiah was sure to hunt it down on his face anyway.

“Thing is, there’s people up there,” Josiah continued, flicking one pointed finger towards the ceiling. The distant boom that punctuated his words served as solid testimony to his concerns. “If I mess with the speed too quickly, they might fall. At the same time, we don’t exactly have the luxury to go warn them right now. They’ve definitely got their hands full.”

Harper gestured to the lever nestled comfortably in Josiah’s hesitant grasp. “So…I’m assuming that’s the one that messes with the speed, then?”

Josiah paused. “I think.”

“You think,” Harper repeated slowly.

If Josiah’s eyes didn’t kill him, Harper wondered if the boy would do so physically the moment they were stationary. His smile was permanent.

Josiah didn’t grace him with the effort of verbal venom, content to let his wrathful gaze fill the gaps. Instead, his attention rotated neatly between his occupied hand, the rushing night beyond the vast glass, and a rounded gauge that stared him down. He stared right back, eyeing the twitching indicator past the pane with great focus. Harper didn’t dare torment him in the midst of what little true concentration he’d cobbled together, the boy’s hands surprisingly steady as they managed the blackened lever in tandem. With only a sharp exhale to show for it, Josiah retracted his fingers painstakingly slowly with each passing second.

Harper had the luxury to observe his surroundings, by comparison. It wasn’t immediately obvious whether or not the slightest shift in ambient sound was hallucinated. If he strained, he was fairly certain every clack of railing underfoot came in intervals mildly slower. Throwing his eyes forward wasn’t helping, as he’d somewhat doubted it would--in the end, they were speeding forever into thickened darkness regardless. Only flooding lights, uselessly yellowed as they splashed onto the tracks ahead, served to carve a path forward. It was a terrible angle with which to note velocity.

If nothing else, the tiny arrow wobbling within the confines of the little gauge had dipped ever lower. No longer did the pointed tip hover anywhere adjacent to the color red. It was probably a good thing. Josiah’s grip relaxing around the lever was a fair confirmation of the shared thought.

Harper clapped. It was as much of a reflex as it was a conscious choice.

“I’m going to run you over,” Josiah spoke slowly, his voice low and utterly drenched in poison.

“Now what?” Harper deflected, beaming regardless.

It took Josiah more than a moment to find his composure in the wake of abject aggravation. “We’re gonna have to keep track of the speed all the way there. There’s no reason we should have an issue with fuel. This one’s the fuel gauge, I’m pretty sure.”

He pointed to yet another rounded pane accordingly, one more shuddering sliver of metal staring back at him from within. His gestures traveled to others in turn. “That one’s…the temperature, I think. That one’s definitely the power. This one is probably pressure for the--”

“See? I told you you could do it,” Harper praised, leaning in far closer than was necessary. “Look at you go. Great job, conductor.”

Josiah’s hands were free this time. Ultimately, it was Harper’s fault for pressing his luck. He hardly managed to evade quickly enough. The boy outright lunged, his fingers falling just shy of where Harper’s neck had been seconds before. The latter laughed. The former pelted him with obscenities where violence was useless.

It took yet more time for Josiah to gather his composure, and Harper was fairly certain the window required to regenerate tranquility was gradually increasing. It was still fun. As such, he had no plans to stop. Josiah’s hands were once again on a collision course with his hair, and no amount of running his fingers through frazzled waves again and again had sufficed. It wasn’t in his best interests to close his eyes while operating a moving train, and yet he did so regardless.

As a result, Harper noticed the flashing first. The faint, flickering scarlet in his peripheral vision was as miniscule as it was notable. He followed it down, one little filament nestled tenderly behind tiny glass. Adrift in the sea of dials and indicators it neighbored, it was unidentifiable. It was new. It came with a switch, cream-tinted and absolutely unremarkable. He stared for no less than ten continuous seconds, and still it flickered in steady, repetitive silence. Harper, too, was silent, tilting his head.

He was silent for just long enough that Josiah came to open his eyes once more, initially staring at the quiet Maestro with confusion. Eventually, he followed Harper’s gaze much the same, settling neatly on the subtle flash of red upon the dashboard. He blinked.

Their eyes met instead. Down once more they drifted in tandem, and yet again they reconvened. Harper slowly fixed one pointed finger on the little light.

“Yes, I see it,” Josiah muttered, rubbing his temples.

“I don’t think it was doing that before.”

“I know,” he spat.

“Is that bad?”

“Is it, Harper? Is it bad? Why don’t you tell me if it’s bad?”

Harper was content to challenge the blinking indicator with his eyes as he spoke. “Do you have any guesses?”

He strongly entertained adding “conductor” in there, somewhere. Still, if he were to incur the same aggression again, he wouldn’t get his answer. He temporarily shelved his torment.

Josiah sighed, leaning slightly closer to the light in question. “It…might have something to do with the speed. It…didn’t come on until I messed with that, so that’s my first guess. It could be anything.”

“Do you actually feel like something’s wrong?”

Josiah’s eyes drifted towards the myriad of gauges to the left, clustered and ticking as they were. “I mean, no, nothing looks bad on the surface. I like to imagine I’m reading these correctly. The speed one still looks fine. Maybe it’s something we haven’t accounted for yet? That’s all of the gauges, at least, but I haven’t checked the--”

The switch was easy enough to flip. One tiny click stifled the ceaseless blinking, condemning the little light to darkness once more. Harper smiled. Every emotion of distress imaginable took turns plaguing Josiah’s face one by one. He settled on a scowl.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted, gesturing aggressively with his arms. If Josiah could reach his neck, Harper suspected he would’ve tried--again.

He only clung to his bright smile, resting his hands comfortably behind his back. “I mean, you said everything was fine, so I turned it off. At least, I think that’s what I did. Now, you have one less thing to worry about. I helped.”

“You don’t even know what that light does! That could’ve been something extremely important!”

Harper tilted his head towards the metal lever once grasped with caution. “I mean, you didn’t know what that thing did, and you still tried it. It all worked out. That’s part of the fun.”

“Nothing about this is fun!” Josiah screamed. “Nothing about this whole situation is--”

He never finished. Harper briefly came to the conclusion he’d genuinely made a sizable error--the lights beyond the abundant glass, if he had to guess, were surely compromised by his reckless touch. Where they’d once spilled so half-heartedly onto wooden tracks evaporating beneath, their yellow-tinted glow was now excessive. It was sudden, bursting, explosive in a manner that outright startled him.

For more than a moment, they were flooded with the sun. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he shielded his face with his arms. Even then, the luminescence that breached their glassy barrier left the cabin pooling with the softest of golds. Josiah was silent at his side, and Harper was cursed to endure the full brunt of only surging brilliance for what felt like an eternity.

When it waned at last, he still hesitated to open his eyes. They watered all the way there, and he blinked several times over. The steady light besieging the tracks ahead paled in comparison, on closer inspection. His pained pupils flickered to Josiah.

“Okay, that wasn’t my fault, right?”

Josiah was quiet for a moment, his gaze still fixed forward towards the stretching mountains beyond. “I don’t…think that was either of us, actually.”

Harper’s eyes drifted towards the ceiling. “Was that--”

“Maybe.”

This time, his glowing smile was born of something much more than teasing. “I wonder how they’re doing up there.”

“They’ll be fine,” Josiah offered calmly. “They’re strong. They’ve got each other. They have their job, and we have ours.”

Harper spared a glance to the floor for the first time since their entry. The former conductor was more than unconscious and more than prone, his breaths visible with every rise and fall of his shoulders. He still wasn’t dead. Whether or not he’d be fully lucid before they reached Solenford was debatable. As it stood, Harper much preferred his replacement.

“You feel like you’ve got the hang of it?” he tried, just a hint of playfulness tinting his tone.

Josiah sighed. “For now. We’re screwed when we get closer. You know that, right? It’s gonna take me a little while to figure out where the regular brakes are. I don’t want to have to use the emergency brakes if I can help it. I’m worried they’re going to be too sharp once we stop. I don’t really want to touch more than I have to, but I’m probably going to have to mess with the--”

It was too easy.

“So now we’ve got a fearless leader,” Harper teased, “and we’ve got a fearless conductor.”

Of every instrument and fixture within the cabin, Harper’s attention had fallen almost exclusively to that which was within reach of his fingertips. At no point had his gaze ambled aloft for longer than was necessary. He hadn’t noticed the chain dangling from the ceiling, swaying in the absolute slightest beneath the forward motions of the train. Josiah had noticed it, apparently.

For all of his talk of guessing and calculated deductions as to various purposes, he didn’t hesitate. In one swift motion, his arm was raised, his fingers gripped the handle, and he locked eyes with Harper forever. He jerked his arm downwards so violently that Harper wondered if he’d break it altogether. The sound was intolerable. Not once did Josiah look away.

Harper physically recoiled. From the front of the train, the whistle was impossibly loud. Still, Josiah didn’t budge, fighting with his icy glare alone to slice the Willful Maestro to pieces. Where that failed, he sought to shatter his eardrums. It took far, far too long for him to stop. When he at last released the handle, the sudden absence of sound left Harper’s ears ringing for a moment. He blinked.

“And…what was the purpose of that, then?” Harper asked quietly.

Every word was slow and razor-edged. “Because I’m the conductor,” Josiah began, “and I can do whatever I want.”