A Troubled Soldier 01

[theriflespiral]

I: Delivery to Elysium
Elysium-the-city was far larger than Natalia had first assumed. Not that this was a problem for her-- a day or two among the rooftops, and she would know this place as well as anyone who lived here.

For now, though, she was momentarily relying on a map she kept carefully tucked away, and an address on a box with a memorized order form (and countersign, and counter-countersign, easily handwaved).

Being a delivery girl was hardly a novel cover, but it was precisely because such things were ubiquitous that it was easy to slip into the role as she came around the service entrance. Add perhaps a touch of bitter expression at the cold-- she didn't even have to try for that one-- and things would, hopefully, work just fine.


II: Blames Her Tools (Vault)
Natalia, after spending the better part of a day hitting targets from as extreme a range as the Vault could afford, was now overhauling her rifle, first cleaning the inside of the barrel with a cloth and a cleaning rod, and then disassembling it, screw by painstaking screw.

The casings were drying on a separate cloth nearby, with the scent of soap and water, waiting for an oven to finish getting up to the proper temperature.

It took up an entire gunsmith's bench, between the disassembly and the casings waiting for annealing and rolling and fitting and loading, but there was something to it. A peace, in an artisan's craft.

She looked at the tool rack above her and clicked her tongue.

She would have to go hunting for that particular tool.

Okay. Smooth hair. Stand properly. Act like you're supposed to be here.

Time to go among the other workbenches. Or workshops, if she had to.


III: Wildcard
Bug Natalia because she looks suspicious or because you need something.

Comments

[edaciousness]

"And have you always been Natalia Koutolika?" Before the trials she was subjected to, the molding.

[theriflespiral]

Her hands twitch. "I was always Natalia. But Koutolika? A lie of a name. My father's name was Yuri, and he was a Nurgaliev."

[edaciousness]

"Then you are Natalia Nurgaliev. They cannot take that from you. I am Malachiasz Czechovicz. They tried to take it from me. They took much, but not that."

His almost unnatural eye color was intense enough, but the set of his gaze only accentuated it.

[theriflespiral]

"... Natalia Yurikova Nurgalievka?" She seems to be testing the name on her lips, and even as she says it, she's tilting her head as if there's something strange about it.

[edaciousness]

"You are Natalia Yurikova Nurgalievka." He nods with a slight smile, encouraging. It's rare for him to connect with someone like this, but if it would be anyone, it would be someone with whom he shared such a trait. "Do you remember her? Before you were taken?"

[theriflespiral]

"... She was taken, because she found. Joy, in rearranging things, in spaces, both with her body and with her mind. Visual proofs, elegant and beautiful, both of martial prowess and geometry. Poetry in space. Every once in a while I remember it, when I narrow myself to the rifle's scope. ... It hurts.

"And then, there is ice."

[edaciousness]

"That pain is where she is. I know that pain."

He felt it when he painted. It made his art macabre. Or maybe he'd come that way. Difficult to say, really. Malachiasz was a fragmented man.

"The ice is a lie, but it makes the tasks easier, doesn't it?"

[theriflespiral]

She very nearly explodes with anger-- at least, for her-- when she suddenly says, "Well for you to say, but I have felt that cold ever since they shot--"

The temperature in the room drops hard and she pulls the uniform more tightly to herself, shaking, and wonders if she's just... Going to have to live with this, now.

It's shaking, shivering, but she spits, heated fury gone cold, "They gave me new handlers. Not for me, a Tatar and a Uighyur for parents. And yes. The ice makes it... Easier. A simple calculation. But ever is its touch upon me. Powerful lie, if lie it is."

[edaciousness]

If there's any shock at her outburst, he doesn't show it. Instead, he's...intrigued. She'd come close to telling more than she'd planned. He tilts his head to the site, curious, as the temperature drops.

"Do you hate the ice for being perpetual?"

[theriflespiral]

She blinks as she understands something of what Malachiasz is getting at. "To hate, I have to feel. To feel, I have to break the ice. To break the ice, I have to hurt. And-- to hurt-- means to call the ice. It is not perpetual, but it is vicious."

[edaciousness]

"And it's yours. It belongs to Natalia Yurikova Nurgalievka." Just like his belonged to Malachiasz Czechowicz, no matter how much they tried to replace him with the pain. He let them think he was a failure, and he'd taken everything from their cult and became their king. Now it was what he made it. "You can avoid the pain, or shape it into something that's yours alone."

[theriflespiral]

"Shape it...?" She pauses, steps back, brings her hands around--

And as she moves, the temperature normalizes and the Ether completely fails to respond. She cusses.

She'll start really getting it later.

[edaciousness]

He smiles at that, if only slightly. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. As long as you claim it and make it yours, it can take whatever form you like."

[theriflespiral]

"... I had thought that, perhaps, someone or something else had inflicted this on me. But... If it truly is my own... That. Itself, is a more precious realization than any other today."

[edaciousness]

"Maybe they did, but it's yours now." He shrugged. The eyes, his talons, his iron fangs he manifested, they were forced upon him, with searing pain and oblivion, but they were his, and he'd ripped the Black Vulture's throat out with them.

[theriflespiral]

"One day, I shall come to have that control. Even if I must strive and suffer for it." Something about those words feels... Heavy. Taut. Like pulling a bowstring, but with fate itself.

[edaciousness]

"And you will, but I have no doubt you can." As he had. He recognized a similar strength in her, something he almost admired.