Igraine

Masques and Daggers (Derren Krenshaw & Igraine)

"That is a part of the reason," Galina replied truthfully, casting her eyes down to the plates of eel and ramen and rice, but not putting anything to her own offered plate just yet. The mention of only one of the Takahiro family was, of course, sufficient for Souma's unspoken meaning to be quite clear. 'So... Raigo then, and there was no misunderstanding Soshitsu. But that was only ever wishful thinking anyway... '

She sighed almost inaudibly, blinking her dark eyes swiftly to keep tears she did not know she still had, back behind those long lashes. Galina picked up the chopsticks brought by Daisuke, and slowly reached for some of the offered eel, nodding her thanks with a smile so swift it might not have been there at all. "And it is good to hear, of Ai, that she continues to do... Well. She will surely succeed. Your sister is truly quite brilliant."

Galina breathed softly, gathering herself to finally look upward and meet Souma's gaze. "Still, you are quite right of course, in assuming that is not the whole of my reason for finding you."

She looked to her plate once more, to the delicate slices of eel there, and was pleased to see her hands shook not at all as she lifted a small piece to her lips. Galina chewed for a moment, swallowed, and then spoke at last. "I have lost everything Souma. Everything, but my life and my brother Yury. For three weeks after the attack on your home, I was only well enough to be transported as far as the port of Vladivostok - but Yury knew what had happened. He waited alone with the news before he could tell me, and know I would survive the telling."

She reached for the warm pot of sake and poured a small amount in her own cup, fortifying herself with a sip of the liquor before she could bring herself to finish that thought. "Within days of the attack on your home, the Americans brought their forces against the Demidov Keep in western Russia. They burned everything they could, and no one survived: not my father or elder brothers, not their wives or my little nieces and nephews."

Galina's face remained as impassive as stone, tearless, though even the effort of maintaining this faultless facade would be telling to one wise enough to read her. "Not even Klara."

"I have a good idea why you are in hiding at the moment. My brother is even now telling the world, that his beloved sister did not recover from her mortal injuries. Whatever you have planned Souma, wherever you go, I offer you my unqualified services. I offer my sword, my pistol, my wits and all my myriad skills - no strings, no tricks nor subterfuge. I do not know the Americas as you do, I do not have the contacts within the States. But I would consider it a great favor, a gift, an honor even, to accompany you there and kill every last person responsible, for what they have done to our families."

A Cold Wind Blows...

That would be wonderful Numerica, and very much looking forward to your post as well! It will be wonderful to see more of your character revealed.

A Cold Wind Blows...

Pavel's entry into Cold Wind was wonderfully done Heroes, and so looking forward to seeing more of him!

Hello there Dreaming - so good to "see" you again, and even better to hear that your world is so much better of late you could finally come back and say hello to us all! I only hope that all continues to improve for you, every day.

And the weekend is going just fine - I have a run-around fix for my school website problem until Monday, so at least I can turn my assignments in on time; I accidentally slept in WAY too much today because my caffeine intake was inadvertently cut off entirely most of yesterday (let us not even speak of the caffeine-withdrawal headaches... ); and I still have a test to study for on Wednesday - but the day outside is absolutely gorgeous, sunny and just a little windy and, since we basically live in a forest? The colors are running riot everywhere and I'll be joining them in just a few *grins* So on the balance scales of good and bad? It's a weekend that is certainly leaning to the good!

And of course, may the scales be leaning that way for all of you - or better yet? The good side be "running over!"

The Last Kings of Orion

"I don't need to understand a single thing, Connor," the small woman said evenly, praying she hid the tremor in her voice. "And the only thing you have to understand, is that you don't have to do anything. You tell them 'no.'"

Devika had to turn from Connor, her deceptively delicate-seeming hands shaking as she reached for the cupboard above her sink. She did her damndest to slow her breathing while she grabbed an empty tub, some clean towels, and a large irrigation syringe. She set all her supplies aside while she filled the tub with tepid water, trying to give herself a few seconds to collect herself.

'I can't do this... God help me, I can't do this... ' And it was the still-yet-living faces of the men and women she had not even known existed before she woke, forced into the living death of stasis day in, and day out, who loomed in her mind's eye. It was those faces that haunted her dreams these past days, the unspeakable suffering, the misery etched into those visages that chased restful sleep far and away, and Devika thought she might be sick.

But rather than wretch up her meager breakfast, she snatched up a small tub, supplies and Steri-strips, and returned to Connor's side. Quickly, she pressed a bright green squishy ball into the palm of his uninjured arm. "Just a stress ball, go ahead and squeeze the heck out of it - usually works pretty well. Watch your hand there, or pick a painting there, while I clean this up."

"Now... Listen to me Connor. There is no one who can make you get an MRI. Your brain, your body, it's all your own." She wrapped a towel around the base of his arm, filled a large syringe with water, and began to sluice some of the water from the wound, wiping the bloody excess away with a sterile dressing.

"That doesn't hurt, does it? I need to see the edges, and if they're 'clean' enough? I can probably use Steri-strips instead of regular sutures - in essence, just pull the sides together, tape them in place, and there won't even be any need for lidocaine injections... Anyway... Yes, like I was saying - sure, our home doesn't exist anymore, but that doesn't give the biggest bullies in outer space the right to tell you anything." Devika set the small tub and the soiled bandages aside as she inspected the cleaned wound. Her gloved fingers gently pushed the edges together, nodding to herself in approval.

"You tell them that Devika Wilkes-Lane educated you about your right to refuse any medical treatment or procedure you do not want. The 'science guys' can go fu- ... " Her voice trailed off, and Devika cleared her throat. "They can go get bent," the quietly furious little woman corrected herself quickly.

A Cold Wind Blows...

Well thank you Lil, I really do appreciate that! That does mean a lot, coming from you!

Scoundrel and Kraft: Sorry if my post is a little long there, but I have a test next week and need to spend more time studying this weekend than writing, unfortunately. :( I deliberately left open a lot of the "experience" of the evil storm there, including the possibility for injuries or anything else that may have slipped in if it was fought off. Vasily, even injured with scratches, fighting in the swift darkness around him, would have noticed not a thing at all, his whole world focusing to a pinpoint on getting back to Antonina. So feel free to play there, I certainly would not have meant to box anyone into anything and can edit my own post as need be, to accommodate your ideas of course.

AmongHeroes: I sent you a PM with an idea or two for a prior relationship between Pavel and Vasily, especially since the two are so close in age.

The Last Kings of Orion

The little woman only laughed, her dark eyes flashing with genuine good humor, and patted Connor's reassuringly. "Oh it's all right Connor - if I may call you that?" Devika asked with a questioning lift of her eyebrow. She followed his gaze to her white coat and, with a small, resigned sigh, began to slide it off, tossing it over a nearby chair, but not before she rifled out the small packets of alcohol wipes she had in one pocket, and the stethoscope in the other.

"You're not the first person I've met who doesn't like medical... Well, medical anything really, and frankly? I'm just grateful you haven't cussed me out yet, or tried to punch me, kick me... " Devika nodded as she glanced up to the young man's face, that small knowing smile telling him without a word, she wasn't exaggerating at all. If anything, she was understating the matter to a staggering degree, her experience in the triage units during the Sino-Korean war an experience that... That changed her. Profoundly.

But that had nothing to do with poor, bleeding Mr. Douglass before her now, of course. "For that alone - and I wouldn't do this for just anyone you know. Yes, I will give up all my convenient pocket space... " She said as she shimmied out of her white coat, draping the pocketed stethoscope around her neck and tossing her stash of alcohol wipes on a nearby counter, "But since I know First Sergeant Larson dragged you down here - hey, I can meet you halfway, right?"

"Besides, there's no way for me to make this place look like your favorite tattoo parlor either - not without chasing off all my 'business' all together. I'm afraid you're stuck with the bucolic water paintings... " Devika found no need to mention - or rather, boast - that all the framed art was actually her own work. The mountains and the lakes, the vineyards and farmlands rendered so lovingly were a labor of salvation really, after many solitary hours near her family's home in the Catskills when she returned from her various tours of duty.

"And no upgrades, I'm afraid. If only I could slip a new gear or two in you, and make you right again, all this would be a little easier, I bet. But no, you're just fine the way you are, though you know... ? I think I can probably close this up with absolutely minimal scarring over the ink you already have... "

Devika had long since mastered the skill of multitasking, of speaking easily to a patient while simultaneously inspecting an injury. It was an ability honed over years, a skill that easily kept the grimace from her face as she looked to the dirty rag that once wrapped Connor's arm. The only saving grace there, she supposed, was the knowledge that it had been likely soaked in just motor oil and engine grease, and not biowaste. And thankfully, the edges looked clean - a pretty simple slice, if rather deep. With practiced ease, she pulled up Connor Douglass' medical record, tapped the screen quickly to record the vital signs and her notes on the patient's wound, and then -

- And then, her full, pretty lips screwed up to one side with a surprise that even her professional facade could not hide. But she caught herself quickly, swallowing back the lump in her throat, fighting back the cold dread, her heart hammering in her chest. Devika glanced up to Connor from the corner her eyes, the sudden dread swiftly masked again.

"No allergies, serious previous injuries that I can see... Why is there an MRI scheduled for you, Connor? Is there some previous head or neck injury you didn't mention to me before?"

A Cold Wind Blows...

AmongHeroes said
Well at least my decision will be an easy one to make .

Such a shame, all of those unresolved Daddy issues...

So there we go, post up, everyone addressed (I think) and obligatory dead NPC. Let the games begin!

A Cold Wind Blows...

'No Tristen, I don't think she's all right. Not at all - and I don't think we are either... '

Vasily thought those words as he looked to Tristen, not much more than an outlined figured and a familiar voice in the unnaturally seething blackness - but of course he did not speak them. He swallowed the hard lump of rising panic in his throat, and quickly jerked his head to Nadeen's cottage door. "Not good at all Tristen - get the door man, be quick about it!"

He clutched the frail, bird-like form of Blind Nadeen to his chest, stumbling into the small, tidy cottage, easing the old woman onto the edge of her bed before he whirled about, back to the door.

Petya...

"Tristen, stay with Nadeen. Please. I'll... I'll be right back... "

The dark beyond the threshold had eyes, shining crimson and malevolent and oh-so-greedy. There were fangs too, row upon row of razor sharp teeth as long and wicked as knives that flashed in the darkness behind wide, hungry smiles. Claws of black ice tick tick ticked along rock and stone and board, rustled in the thatch above his head as Vasily braced himself in the door. He hissed a single deep breath to steady his heart before he hurtled back into the ravenous, rapacious maelstrom for his little brother -

"Vasily!"

He could have wept like a child with relief. The sound of his little brother's worried shout washed over Vasily, radiating a perfect warmth like the comfort of the fire in a winter hearth. But there was not a second left to savor his happiness. Vasily heard his name again, and he quickly waved his brother out of the darkness, snatching at his arm and pulling him into the cottage, into safety, he could only pray.

And at this moment, this one good moment left to them? For now it was enough that he could wrap his arms around Petya, pull his brother close and savor that blessed living warmth. In this moment, all the long, difficult years of misunderstandings and missed communications simply never happened, and Vasily hugged his baby brother to him with a desperate embrace, thanking all the gods and kind spirits that surely looked over them still. Reluctantly, Vasily tore himself from Petya, looking to his brother's face as if he might say something, though nothing but breath passed his parted lips. Vasily found every word that came to mind inadequate to the moment, and so he said none. This was fine, truly - it was not as if Vasily could trust his voice wouldn't crack with tears anyway.

It was then that the storm of living darkness truly struck Adishi...

All the demons and devils, imps and unnatural abominations that lived in the black miasma were let loose, skittering over rooftops and down chimneys not properly protected by a hearth fire. They came through crevices and cracks, poorly repaired roofs and cracked windows, and Vasily pulled Nadeen to him where she sat on the bed, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly as if his mere flesh might be the armor to hers.

The screams though... It was the screams of so many people Vasily had known all his life, people he loved and people he did not particularly care for in the least, all the people great and small and good and bad in their small, beloved world in Adishi: it was these screams, long and wailing, bloody and gurgling and, time and time again, cut off all to swiftly and finally, that would haunt Vasily's nightmares for all the years of his life.

And though it seemed a small eternity in this unimaginable hell of darkness and blood and agony, the black tide truly rolled through the village almost as quickly as it had arrived, leaving in its wake a silence that was almost as deafening as the horrifying sounds of carnage had been, only seconds before. Vasily released Nadeen, whispering a comforting word to her as he stood to his booted feet. He looked to Tristen, to Petya, and felt that nasty twist in his gut, knowing he had not a damn thing to tell them, no more reasons than they, about what had happened this holy solstice night - or what was yet to come.

Vasily shook his head helplessly, stunned - until, that is, the name of the one person who gave his world any meaning seared his thoughts. "Antonina... " he said softly, "She's with Nadejda... Sergei... She is... " Deep blue eyes widened in terror.

Vasily ran.

He saw nothing as he flew from Nadeen's cottage: nothing about him, nothing to the right or to the left, nothing of the horrors visited on Adishi or its denizens, two-legged or four-legged. All he ever saw before him was the cottage of his in-laws as he sprinted heedless in the night, running to their door. Vasily slammed into it with his shoulder, forgetting the door had been barred, and he hissed with the pain and cursed. It was then that Vasily heard that faint, unmistakable sounds, just the other side of these timbers. High and full of fear, over and over again, his daughter shrieked with terror.

"Open the door! SERGEI! NADEJDA! Open the DOOR!" he shouted, pounding at the solid timber planks while his daughter screamed within. There was not a single thought going through his head but to get to Antonina. Vasily's blood ran cold, every last hair on his body crawling with terror as he slammed his foot, hard, with all the desperate strength of man whose entire life, whose entire reason to wake in the morning, or take a single breath, lay on the other side of these planks.

Again, and then again and again, Vasily kicked with the power of a madman, the wood splintering beneath his assault until finally the door gave way with a crack, and he rushed in..

There had been no fire in the hearth. There had been no time to light one, and the candle had fallen at the threshold. Sergei lay on the floor beside Nadejda and Antonina, the crimson-spattered pair huddled into the far corner of their cottage. Untold numbers of deep lacerations flayed the skin along his back, his buttocks and legs, deep cuts that sliced through flesh and even bone as the big man wrapped his wife and granddaughter in the shield of his own body. But it wasn't the unspeakable incisions all along the back of his body that killed the great man, but a single gash from ear-to-ear, inches deep, across his neck...

Vasily bared his teeth, groaning softly in the back of his throat at the sight. Sergei's wide, sightless eyes told him the man was far beyond any help he could bring, but Vasily's long strides ate the distance to grandmother and granddaughter. He pulled them both to him from the ground, steering then toward the now-splintered door and further from the nightmare visited in this good and loving house.

Vasily reassured himself that none of the blood on his little girl was hers, and gently he pulled her close. Tears welled up in his eyes as he clutched her to him, and he gave not a good damn that this time they fell, shining streams of relief and despair spilling down his cheeks to disappear into his beard. Antonina's screams quieted only when she buried her tear-streaked face in her father's shoulder, great shuddering gasps wracking the entirety of her little body as she moaned for her Poppop, over and over. Vasily pulled Nadejda close, holding her to him as well, doing his best to shield both ladies from the blood-soaked horror that their village had become.

The Last Kings of Orion

"Oooowwwwww... " Pauline murmured, cringing and giggling softly as she lay there, ignobly laid out over the threshold of someone's room. She'd bounced her head off the floor quite soundly, and the palm of one hand was gently rubbing the back of her poor, aching skull.

Pauline opened one eyeball slowly, the other still all scrunched closed with the hurt, the fingers of her other hand still just barely touching the enormous cat's soft fur beneath her fingers. "What in the world... Did you do..." she mumbled as her sight finally began to come into focus again.

The figure that loomed right overhead had a warm tenor voice with the lightest of accents, something foreign... French perhaps? Pauline's mouth may have fallen open, maybe a little dumbstruck, as she gazed up into those amazing, deep blue eyes. And even upside down, Pauline could see that smile was wide and genuine and oh-so-inviting.

"Handsome... ?"

She blinked, both pale blue eyes widening appreciatively as she peered up. Pauline probably gawked a little too, at least for the space of a heartbeat. Well, at least until she realized what she'd just said, and how that must have sounded.

"The cat! Handsome, I mean - the cat! Not that you're... Not... "

'Oh God have mercy, I'm babbling! Take his hand already, and get off the ground at least!'

"Fine... " she said softly, a little shakily, blushing brightly beneath that smattering of freckles on her cheeks and nose as she reached up to grab the awkwardly offered hand of his. She did not doubt for a minute, he must have instantly regretted offering to help up this nutty, babbling woman who just fell into his room, his warm, dry and strong hand wrapped about her suddenly clammy, sweaty palm. "Just fine... "

To Pauline, it seemed her voice had come from some great distance, her words uttered by a perpetually awkward imbecile and... Oh no. Oh please no - she'd done it again! 'God strike me down now, please? Mercy, an act of mercy in outer space, a little space lightning or something... ?'

"I mean I am fine, not that you... Are... Or aren't... " Pauline continued to backpedal like a mad woman as she stood to her feet, a whole lot incoherent and feeling even more idiotic with every passing moment. It was a pretty pitiless spiral of awkwardness she was careening down at the moment, made not the least bit easier with the realization this man, even in his rumpled and wrinkled shirt and those sleepy-looking eyes, was even better looking right side up, and she was still gripping his warm, strong hand with her damp, perspiring one.

Oh! Better yet! She was already sweat-covered, head-to-toe, from chasing Handsome from the cryobay. Nice... What man could possibly resist the charms a sweaty, disheveled and inarticulate lunatic who [literally] falls over his doorstep?

And who won't let go of his hand, of course. Nothing says "I'm a catch" like desperate clinging, right? "Sorry," Pauline said quickly, pulling her hand back to her side to wipe her palm discretely against her sweater. "So sorry, I didn't realize anyone was here... Well, obviously I mean, and... Well... " She laughed. Heaven above knew, she just could not hold it in - how absolutely ridiculous this past two minutes had become!

"I was playing tag with a cat," Pauline continued, smiling down at Handsome, "And he decided this was the right place for a rest break."

A Cold Wind Blows...

Lillian Thorne said
A post, plenty of room for you all to work with but bear in mind this all happens with frightening speed, the blackness comes and leaves in just a few minutes. Now here is where I get to be an evil GM. In your post, please kill off one of your NPC's, they should be dead or dying at the end. This needs to hurt your character, to bring the tragedy here home. If for some reason this is a real problem for you, PM me, we'll chat and see what can be arranged.

Well... Damn. Now that's some evil shit right there, Lil!