Viva La DWRP

"I find it hard to forget that many are pressed into service of House and Empire. That, but for a twist of fate, it might be myself bleeding all over the snow." Natalia blinks as she says that. Like it's something important.

But it's buried under ice and snow, and she listens instead to Malachiasz's next line, and hums an agreement. "Peasants to fight a noble's war, counts to fight a king's, kings to fight an Emperor's."

Load the cartridge. Fire. That's the load. She grumbles faintly as she pulls out a clip-- clips! The empire still used clips instead of a sensible method of reload!-- and began to load.

Eight rounds.

From:

Oki's eyeridges raised and she gave a warmer smile and a chuckle. "Strong beer will suit me fine."

She leaned forward, places both of her elbows on the table before her, resting her chin on folded fingers, watching now intently and with more than a small glint of humor in her eyes.

From:

She returns with a strong beer, and some form of heated punch that reeks of whatever alcohol the commissary added to it-- Ale, perhaps, by the smell, aided by apples, oranges, cinnamon and clove-- rise up from the heated drink, which she keeps her hands and warms them with.

Until, at last, she stares at her drink, and raises the glass, and says, "To your health, to our fangs, and..."

Her teeth begin to chatter, and she barely gets out, "t-t-to all-l-l the people who we ss-s-s-s-houldn't have had to bury."

She still waits, shivering, for Oki's response.

From:

All of her praise at his skill with a bow, or a sword, had barely gained any reaction from Link. He'd just nodded and accepted it without a word, his expression never changing.

But when she compliments his cooking - now there's a rare flash of expression, as Link practically lights up at the praise.

Fighting is his trade, and Link does is well. But cooking is clearly what Link loves.

From:

She sees him light up and, for a moment, feels something.

Then, it fades back into the ice before she can catch it and interrogate it for what it knows. Instead, she plows on-- "If you like, I can probably find ingredients for you."

From:

Link nods. Yes, he'd like ingredients! Link always wants more ingredients. Nevermind that he's got a ridiculous number of them already stored in his korok-enchanted pack.

But more than ingredients, there's something he'd like that's even more valuable.

"...You know any recipes?" he asks.

From:

Natalia paused. "A few. Some to make rations back home more palatable." And BOY did they NEED it, not that she was about to say that to Link.

"And some my mother taught me, and some my handlers taught me. Onion and noodle soups, blini and various things for blini, three different flavors of borscht, piroshki, Stroganoff, vitrushka, and various kinds of stuffed cabbage. eh..."

She pauses. "That... Is a lot of course but I'd be surprised if you didn't have some bit of blin in your repertoire as it is..."

From:

Oki rose, taking the strong beer in a hand and meeting Natalia's eyes with a smile. She sniffed a bit, taking in the nose of the drink, the mixture of spice, citrus and fruit making her smile a bit more.

She raises her glass too, smiling a bit wider, though her look softens measurably. She reaches out then, her hands large and her fingers long - and would gently put one of her hands alongside Natalia's, if she could, a concerned, even maternal sort of gesture and she responds.

"To your health and fangs, and to all those gone before, till sea swallows all," she says softly. She would release the very-gentle grip she had taken, after merely a moment and withdraw, looking a touch uncomfortable.

"Apologies," she said, with a nod of respect.

Was there color near the bold white spots under the chimera's eyes?

From:

Natalia's hands are like ice, her teeth only not chattering during Oki's return through brute force, and she downs a good few mouthfuls of the heated wassail in a quick moment. Her hand does not leave Oki's, until Oki pulls her hand away. "Till sea swallows all," she answers at last.

"It is hardly your fault," she says, mouth still faintly steaming. "I have been... having trouble, of late. Nothing I cannot handle, but..."

More and more often in the run-up to the mission, things peeking out from under the ice, only to be swiftly buried, or if she goes looking, for herself to get colder and colder.

Who made her forget these things? Set such a command? And why?

More memories, buried in the ice. "... I would be lying if i said it did not worry me, just a little."

From:

edaciousness

"It might at that. That's the nature of war. I try to remember it isn't, and do everything in my power to make sure it stays that way. Worrying about every other soul pressed into service is exhausting. I'll free the ones I can, when the opportunity arises." He understands their plight, but he won't let the guilt of it weigh him down.

"Peasants fight an Emperor's war, and they're the ones who die for it. A familiar and very old song. Perhaps someone should change its tempo."

That was why they were all here, wasn't it? "You seem familiar enough with this weapon. Do you use them often?"

Edited Date: 2024-12-27 10:28 pm (UTC)

From:

Natalia muttered half-hearted and various imprecations about the rifle's designer's mother in Russian, but nodded along with his words about kings and peasants.

At last, it was done, and she pulled the clip loose, pocketing it. "A different weapon, of the same kind. It had interchangeable spring-loaded boxes that loaded easily and all at once. Simply swap out the boxes.

"Shame it requires more industry than we have to sustain such behavior." She closed the chamber.

From:

Oki's gaze was direct for a moment, sharp. She tilted her head and her color returned to normal. "You're very cold, and your reaction says that this is not your normal state of things."

She settled back into her chair, sipping from her mug a bit. "Nothing you cannot handle, but the mission worries you. Well, worry is... natural. Fear is a part of us all, Natalia." She looked over, warmly. "It comes down to training how your mind works with worry, and that..."

She paused, looking over at the still-shivering Natalia and gave a somber look and a slow nod. "That's one of the biggest challenges. Please, relax if you can."

She looked thoughtfully at Natalia for a long moment. "I confess, your temperature has me considering... shooing you off to the baths or the like, Natalia - hypothermia and frostbite are mighty foes, indeed."

From:

"This is why the hot drink. I am learning the rules as I go, but I learned a few days ago that hot drinks can stop an acute episode like that one." Ah, that is what worries her.

"Still... It has..." Her brows knot. "It has never been this bad before."

"... Before..." And there it's slipped away again. She hums.

From:

She'd just rattled off a whole series of recipes, but the only names that were of any familiarity to him at all were the soups and the stuffed cabbage. The rest just gets a blank, uncomprehending stare.

Is he...meant to know those? It seemed like she was expecting him to know those. Maybe it was a translation issue? No one else spoke Link's native Hylian after all. The Imperial they conversed in was a second language to him.

"...Blin?" He says, deciding to start with that one. Maybe if she describes it, he can connect it to a familiar dish...?

From:

"-- Is flat cake, flour, egg, buttermilk, always some salt and some sugar. You have it, I'm sure. I tend towards making them salty, because I often had them with smoked fish, but sweet is okay too." She bounces her head. "Is same with vitruvshka. Make dough, make small pads, stuff with some filling, fry in just enough fat to float them. Even the Empire has some version of these."

From:

She nodded a bit and smiled. "So, you sometimes grow very deep cold and it seems tied to your recall of memories." She seemed to relax, at least marginally. "I have seen what too much cold can do firsthand, it's almost as fast and silent a killer as you and I are - it can be a very good tool in your arsenal on some missions, if you can keep yourself safe from it." She chuckled a bit and raised her mug. "Each of us has things we must do to be who we are, and that's not just part of the discipline."

"And things that come with being us." She pointedly tapped her own left temple, near the orbit of her left eye. The eye was a different color from the right and if one happened to look closer, it would be pretty obviously artificial.

From:

"Not... just memories. I can recall many things about my past. But if you ask me how I feel about them, or how I feel now..." She shakes her head. "Buried, or if they come up... avalanched."

Natalia looks, and then, blinks. "An impressive bit of hardware, though gaining it cannot have been pleasant. But it is you now, I think you mean to say."

From:

"Like...crepes?" Link says, naming the closest dish he knew to what she described. But he's still frowning faintly, because it doesn't seem quite right...

Link knew plenty of recipes. But he didn't know all of them.

From:

"Mn-- yes, but make the batter a little thicker. Less liquid. Or more flour, I'm not your grandmother."

From:

edaciousness

It's strange, because her speech is completely alien, and yet it feels like the Kalyazi language of his own world. How can words be completely different and yet so hauntingly similar?

"Is that not the point of the Vault? Do you know how these spring-loaded boxes are formed? Perhaps the right ingenuity would solve your problem."

From:

"You're not wrong. I can, indeed, ask for any weapon, bespoke, I like." Natalia slowly leveled the gun, placing its butt against her shoulder and staring down the scope. Almost everything faded into herself and the target, the farthest one down the range, some hundreds of paces away. Despite this, she kept talking. "And I am sure I will get it, eventually. This... I would worry about sustaining it.

"No, more than that. A question: You have a dozen bespoke weapons among you and your... Friends? Party members? Squad? Regardless-- Yours breaks. Are you familiar enough with your squad's weapons and spacing to act with them properly? It's the same with bullets and cartridges, only you're asking yourself that question every time you need to reload. It's not often I will speak in favor of standardization, but this? This is a good use-case, and one artisans can't necessarily do without enough people asking for it."

From:

She nods, slowly, looking thoughtful again. "Cold, as if immersed in ice and snow."

She tapped the orbit of her left eye again. "This? A correction of a deficit from my6 birth - the real difficulty was the calibration and the training that went with its use."

She shrugged. "I do not remember the implantation specifically."

From:

Natalia nods, both to the naming of her malady, and to the eye.

The eye especially made an irritating amount of sense. The worst part of any new tool is always all the training that goes with it. "-- Any issues with maintenance? I-- can't claim to be prostheticdoc, but at least I can try to ask around if it's needed."

From:

Oki gave a warm, surprisingly bright and toothy smile to the question.

She had had many reactions to the sight and knowledge of the eye, ranging from outright disgust and anger to dismissal. Curiosity of this kind was rare. "Thus far, no. It will not be due for a charge for... decades. I avoid putting my eyes in the line of fire for obvious reasons. And well," She actually laughed softly. "A round that hits my eye is going to cause me more trouble than just damaging the circuitry."

From: