By: Cynthia, on 6 May 2026

Flying made Knickers itchy.

He didn’t mean the undergarment, of course. Whether or not those were itchy was mostly a question of what they were made of, how well they were tailored and cared for. Knickers meant himself: the uniformed half-pint dandy rocketing above the clouds at a hundred and twenty miles per hour on feathered metal wings wider than he was tall.

Knickers – more properly Flight-Lieutenant Nicodemus Justinian Rose, Esquire, although he had been Knickers long before he’d chosen such a lovely polysyllabic name, gotten credentialed, or obtained an officer’s rank – was a rebel aerinyes. That meant that he both flew, and was, a death trap.

Toes wiggled inside of his boots, flicking at pneumatic switches as he kept his legs locked against the wind. There were a lot of dangers to flying this way – birds, weather, and you had to mind the rocket exhaust or it’d burn your feet. But he wouldn’t have survived this long if they bothered him. No, most of that was exciting, especially what the boots did for his thighs. There was no upside to the wind whipping at his flesh until everything was cold, numb and kind of itchy.

The numb part was almost worse. Everything about these overland trips was a little mind-numbing compared to dogfighting; just checking his angle against the sun and the distant mountain peaks in a vast and empty sky. At least the itching occupied his brain a little. It wasn’t safe for him to be alone with his thoughts these days. Not since Forti.

A soft, high whistle filled his right ear; it was an unnaturally clear sound, given the roar of the rocket and the howling of the wind, but that’s because it was magical.

The noise was followed by a slightly squeaky, reedy voice. “Hi, Knicks, we’re back! Still no sign of the witch we’re supposed to be meeting.”

Knickers couldn’t help but grin, even as other thoughts ran in parallel. He counted out one, two, three seconds, and then the voice continued. “Um, over.”

“Copy that, Bobbin.” Like clockwork. Hee!

But, not good. They’d been counting on having this lady show up. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be on a mission with a witch given everything, but objectively, they needed her; the unit was short-staffed. And if she was even half as impressive as the stories that Knicks had heard growing up...

He brought back the smile so it’d travel with his voice. “Wild guess that the Captain’s pretty sore about that. Over.”

Nervous giggles, high and fluttering like a flute, came in response. Bobbin was trying not to say something uncharitable. “Y-yeah, you could say that, Knicks. Over. Wait, no, not over. You’re in position now. Probably. Over.”

“Thanks. Going to land, maintain an open key please. Over and out.”

It wasn’t quite regulation to do it this way – flying with no real landmarks on the ground, just a heading based on the sun and distance estimated by the subtle latencies of cosmofony. The Captain would pitch a fit if she heard them do it. But both Knickers and Bobbin had always been very good with time, and using this trick let Knickers travel using clouds below to hide from the ground the whole way. Just because he was a dogfighting ace didn’t mean he’d risk it when it’d endanger the mission.

He tapdanced his toe-switches, re-angling a thousand painted metal feathers inside of their golden frame, and dove down through the swirling clouds, white swallowed to gray. Water – ice droplets, even – splashed against his exposed cheeks in the darkness; altitude was cold everywhere, and thunderclouds were twice as. But at least it was only his face. He used waterproof mascara these days, and the long red frock coat shielded him from everything else.

Helpful accessories for his sometimes-unorthodox flight plans – like today’s. Thunderstorms were rarely low enough to fly over, and most aerinyes were afraid the electrostatic build-up in the cloud would be fatal to their wingpacks. Most aerinyes hadn’t been doing this as long as Knickers, though, and the rest hadn’t read Langhurst’s original monograph on the variconductive properties of lumite.

Knickers burst out the bottom of the cloud like a soaking wet scarlet thunderbolt. Jungle treetops screamed up at him, and he flipped inverse – rocket and boots pointed at the ground, wings flared wide and scooting him left and right and front and back among branches. Twigs and leaves rained down around him as he came to a stop just a few yards below the top of the overgrown canopy.

Good enough.

He raised a gloved hand up to his left shoulder and pulled a cord at the same time as he tripped a switch with his big toe. The rocket cut off entirely, and – with careful fluttering of the knees – Knicks flapped over to a large, forked branch and landed, feet first. It was only a little bit wet; it was remarkable how good a roof against rain that the jungle made for itself.

The trees extended out as far as the eye could see in three directions; in the fourth, however, the jungle came to a sudden stop at the edge of a muddy brown river. And on the opposite bank of that river lay brown brick walls, encircling a very old town with a lot of very new buildings.

As his wings folded up, Knickers reached into his coat and fished around for something with one hand as his other pulled his goggles up and away from his eyes. From his left inner breast pocket, he pulled out a pair of leather-wrapped binocs. He wouldn’t have the best view, between the trees and the rain, but it’d be better than any view they had of him. The odds were already bad here.

Redhambe. He’d never even heard of this place before they’d gotten orders to scope out the area, but he knew the type. Miltahwark March only had one type of town, near as he could tell, and they all had turned out to be easy for the Empire to move into. Built during the Wars of the Petty Dames, long before the Duvencht had an empire or the wastes had Marches.

A terrible, droning noise buzzed through the air below, and Knickers looked around reflexively. The armoskites couldn’t get him up this high in the trees – giant bugs made poor flyers – but it was always good to make sure he didn’t get too wrapped up in the binoculars. Would have been nice if they’d had enough aerinyes to do these scouting flights in pairs; he made for a dashing wingman.

He pulled the binocs back up.

Beyond the drab walls, he spied a few equally exciting brick buildings inside. Most of the rest were bamboo construction – quick to build, and sturdy enough for a family, but not something to last generations. The exceptions were ugly white eyesores made of jagged shell-lime concrete. Quick stuff spun up once a century or so when some noble or another got her knickers – this time he did mean the article of clothing, but only metaphorically – in a twist about needing better outposts to put down servant revolts.

One other exception, and this one made Knicks purse his lips and grump. There were a few new sections of wall towards the back – impossibly smooth stone, magically conjured. That’d be imperial work, hexenbauer specifically. The unit wasn’t exactly planning to siege the place, but if Redhambe had hexenbauer, this place was not that sleepy. Probably at least a full brigade. They’d have to be very careful not to get caught snooping around.

A bit of a wild choice to have a single hastily-cobbled-together unit try and take out train tracks near it, if you asked Knicks his opinion, but no one had. Brigadier Lane did what Brigadier Lane wanted. All Knickers could do was try to make it work.

Though, if you asked him – and yes, yes, no one did, but still – this felt reckless even by Lane’s standards. Knickers almost wondered if they were supposed to be here at all.

No, he put that thought out of his mind. Perhaps it would be relevant to ask the Captain when he got back to camp, but it had no bearing on what he was doing now.

“Knickers speaking! I’ve landed, Bobbin,” he announced, putting a little bit of theatrical oomph into his voice. “Please continue to keep the key open. Over.”

If he got attacked, he didn’t want to fiddle with having to reopen the key to let them know. His hands would be occupied.

“Sure thing, Knicks!” returned the musical voice. “Have fun sketching! Over and out.”

The lieutenant took another look around – at the rain, at the dark verdance surrounding him with its many shadows – and then withdrew from his coat a small, leather-bound notebook. He wasn’t sure the pen was mightier than the sword, but a good tailor penciled before they jabbed a needle anywhere.

Fermata.