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]

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.