vivala | 03: In Like A Lion

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03: In Like A Lion

01: Pancake Week (Elysium)
Much as she despises the Orthodox Church, there was one tradition, Natalia thinks, with which she can truck, and that is the week before Lent being Pancake Week.

She has a small Ether stove and a little chalk sign: IT'S PANCAKE WEEK! Deliver a pancake! Ask me how!, with a small list of fillings, and a drawing of a penguin carrying a pancake wrapped around little herrings and a pleased expression.

Although, the ability to deliver a pancake, still warm, without breaking it, is a hell of a statement for a shipping company to make...

02: To Dance As The Queen Does
Once more, Natalia listens to distantly piped jazz and taps the rhythm carefully, gathering Ether, ice swirling in her hands as she moves to the beat.

And, once again, as her mind fills with other things, the spell breaks, sending little bits of powder snow all across the improvised dance floor, to evaporate.

She hums in annoyance. Of course, by now, surely someone would hear soft or hard jazz and come to investigate.

03: Unfurling Inner Lotus
While much of her time is given to maintaining her front or honing her marksmanship and spellcraft, time must be given to conditioning her body.

This is risky, because unlike the other forms of training, to do it she must engage her energies at their fullest. This is less a risk of her being hurt-- no more than usual-- but rather a risk of discovery; for no one notices a girl with black hair and black eyes, but a girl with blue stars shining in her eyes? Now that has been seen once or twice, to say nothing about how it might touch on the senses of those sensitive to Ether.

But it's the only way to make sure she's training to her utmost, and so utmost she must go-- keeping up with others, never mind the Empire, demands it.

Thus it is that someone as apparently light as Natalia Koutolika is now lifting sacks of shot that are obviously as heavy as she is, and tossing them some distance, besides.

04: Special Deliveries

This was the spot. Natalia stood on the deck of the Humboldt in the little shelter the rocks of the island made, and waited to make contact.

As much as she wanted to recover and utilize larger ships, even ships that might be better suited to the line (intentionally), ships like the little sea sloop were too useful for Penguin Logistics' other purpose: smuggling packages, people, and information.

Was her chronometer wrong? She kept a weather eye out. Who is meeting her? And for what?

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Link had watched from his position perched up on the roof, and he was impressed; Natalia must have phenomenal stamina.

And when she joins him on the roof, he has pancakes! He makes a cheerful, happy him - and now finally opens up the package to scarf the whole thing down.

Link eats almost as fast as Natalia runs.

"Neighbours can't complain now," he says, just a little cheeky, once the food is gone. See? She delivered it. Sure, to basically across the road. But it still counted.

She nods. This might even give them a chance to catch up. It has been some time. Not that this is surprising; being in the Elysium Network had its issues for talking freely in public.

As much as they ever talk. She finally relaxes a little. She doesn't often let on how much running the shop front is a mask on top of a mask.

Link meanwhile, is already relaxed - he's just had pancakes, he's got a nice roof he can get a good vantage from.

He flops down on his back, and sighs happily - before raising one hand into a thumbs up.

Those pancakes were good. Link approves.

She nods, and takes a seat, and then leans back against the tilted roof. Never mind the whole business with the ship, just these past few days have seen an intense amount of miscalculations that might end with a raid.

Worse, it might be her fault. Which... wouldn't be so bad, if it were just her, but... With the others to consider...

She sighs, staring up at the grey March sky.

Being up here with Link, the two naturally end up falling into silence. Link's more than happy to just exist without speaking; to just lie here on this roof, looking up at the sky.

But while Link's a quiet fellow, he's also restless. Eventually, he starts twitching. He wants to do something.

Something which turns out to be silently creeping up behind a small lizard that's trying to get a bit of sun.

There is, at least, a moment's peace. But as Link sneaks off, Natalia stirs.

She sounds so very tired when she says, in Russian, "-- Milya, if you grab another, we are caught--"

Fuck. This is not Russia. She scrambles to her feet, slipping her fabric collar up near her neck to cover the suppression collar's scars more thoroughly.

Much as she craves these peaceful moments... There's no way she has time for this.

Link, of course, does not speak Russian. He doesn't even know what Russia is.

So as he grabs at the lizard on the roof nearby, and hears her speak in an unfamiliar tongue...he turns, and gives her a blank look. Lizard still wriggling within his fingers.

Has she been talking to him?

It takes her half a second to realize where she is before she rubs her face, stands, and grimaces faintly. "Apologies. Old habit."

How was that boy doing? She couldn't remember, and he hadn't arrived with the Program. "Just for the lizard?"

Link looks down at the lizard. It wriggles uselessly. Link shrugs.

"It could be useful." Sure, Link didn't know exactly what kind of elixir this lizard could be used for. But if he tossed enough of these in with various random ingredients, Link was sure he'd find something of use eventually.

She pauses, hums. "Getting warm enough for lizards to be active again... Means it's probably close to shedding time, isn't it?"

She kneels down to get a closer look at the lizard in question.

Link pauses a moment; he hadn't actually thought much about when the lizards were due to shed. But now that he thinks about it, she's probably right. He nods.

Then he holds the lizards out for her, so she can get a good look at it. It's an interesting lizard, not like the ones at home. It's tiny, with little spots all over.

"It's new," he says.

"Ah. You haven't seen this species before?" She hums. "Wish I knew more about local biology. Maybe Senshi...?"

Link shakes his head. No, he hasn't seen this one. But he takes the lizard, and puts it into his pack.

"Can try to make something, if I find more," he says. Which honestly was Link's usual response to finding any new and unseen species of small critter - toss them in a cooking pot with some monster parts, and see what happens.

She hums, and hops atop a small spire to look over the city. "If I recall, there's a few places with plants and insects in the city proper. You might find some there..."

"I'll look," Link says, hopping on top of the edge of the building, looking down.

Before he decides to launch himself of the side in search of them however, he glances back at Natalia.

She's got a delivery business now. And it's probably something that takes a lot of work, on her part.

"...You need help delivering?" he says.

"... I might, at that. It's not all me, mind you, but another hand who is careful isn't unwelcome." She pauses. "Though I'd have to get you a uniform, but that's not too bad."

"I've worn uniforms."

Came with the job of being a knight, really. Even if these days, Link generally did prefer a lot more personal expression in how he dressed.

"Well, then. Let's get you to where I get all the uniforms for Penguin." She gestures with her head. "It's not far. Follow me."

Confident that, if nothing else, Link can keep up, she leads him to a small clothing shop at a rooftop run.

Link nods, and follows at a quick pace. Although with Link, a 'quick pace' involves just as much paragliding as it does running.

When they arrive at the little clothing shop, he gives it a curious look. He hasn't seen this place before.

The storefront is classy and clean, with a few half mannequins dressed in snappy uniform tops and caps displayed behind the glass. There's a wooden sign above the door: Silke Boutique and Tailoring, displayed with gold lettering in compact cursive.

It takes just a few seconds for Aira to appear.

"Good afternoon, welcome to—oh, hey, Nat."

She's halfway through a polite dip of the head before she stops herself. Then her gaze shifts over to Link, and she straightens up while clearing her throat. For Natalia to show up out of the blue with such a good-looking guy in tow...

Well, it presents a lot of opportunity for teasing, but Aira will try her best not to be embarrassing. Which will be hard for her, but.

"What's up? Who's your friend?"

Natalia pauses. Her voice is caught in her throat for a second before she manages, "Aira! Good to see you again. This is Link, an acquaintance of mine. We've done hunting."

All of which was mostly true, but more a cover for stretching ears than the whole truth. "He wants to do part time delivery work, I saw no reason to dissuade him. Especially because he can keep up with me."

Link, naturally, has made a bee-line for the mannequins. Sure, he's here for a uniform - which presumably he'll get no choice in what it looks like - but maybe there's something else in here he likes?

But he does pause in his inspection to glance over at the Natalia's friend. Gives a little wave. And says, "Hi."

Aira lets them in, then out of habit, she glances around for a second or two to see if they might have been followed, or if there's anyone suspicious lurking around. There's no one, naturally; Aira knows how seriously Natalia takes all of this.

Once inside, a grin breaks returns to her face when Link heads straight for the displays, and when he greets her, she waves back cheerfully. "Hi! Hehe, nice to meet you."

Most of the outfits on display are catered towards Empire fashion, which generally isn't hideous, but the men's wear in particular trends towards being uniformly stuffy and lacking in flare. Bit by bit, though, she's been incorporating some elements of modern fashion from her world. One of the mannequins is in a trim, royal blue tuxedo, and there's another sporting a more casual look for summer, dressed in a string-laced v-neck and lean khakis.

Aira ends up chuckling at Nat's comment. "It's good that someone can!" She taps her chin. "You want something tailored? We've got a size that'd probably work fine, but it'd be kiiiind of a shame not to fit him up."

"By all means," Natalia says. "Since he seems interested in other clothes of yours, it sounds like you've a good idea of where to take it."

She says this with her usual 'barely above a monotone' conversational patter, but then she's also clearly looking at the tux. She paces around it for a moment as if taking its measure before attacking.

But then, her own sartorial choices had been largely declared a disaster by all and sundry, so she'd keep her own counsel, for now.

As it turns out, it's not just the men's wear that Link is checking out; he's just as interested in the feminine fashions as well. Who says Link can't be pretty every now and then, when he feels like it?

The blue tuxedo meanwhile, gets a rather perplexed, unimpressed look from Link. To his eyes, it seems a weird garment - it doesn't seem to be either practical or decorative. And why would you want something that had neither of those things? The v-neck and khakis seem much better.

But Link was under the impression he was getting a uniform; he assumes he's not going to have any input into this whatsoever. So he lets the two of them talk, not feeling any particular need to interrupt.

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