Returning to Quarters by Moonlight....

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika left mess intending to return to his quarters.

It was nice out, for winter, however, and he lingered on his walk, crossing through the tank yard, occasionally gazing up at the night sky.

A blanket of stars, a dark bright blue, illumed from behind by unseen, uncast light.

He assumed Rakitin was right behind him, but he had yet to see Polya disembark the mess hall, or hear his companionable shout.

Perhaps Polya had business to attend to, like the nights he'd been privy to what Liadov had not.

Rakitin was ostensibly GRU now, and no longer objective and uncompromised, as far as Nika was concerned.

If in fact he ever had been. It seemed Rakitin's wandering eye for unguarded cock caused him to lapse in common sense. He'd said himself he could take or leave the KGB, in no uncertain terms that left Liadov fairly stunned at their utterance. Once, men were sent to the Gulagi for years for telling a single joke about the government- and here was Ippolit, boldly declaring dissatisfaction with his agency.

And then, this blase admission that he intended to jump ship for Volgin's outfit- well, Rakitin was either supremely brave and confident, or hopelessly naïve to think his kit and bags weren't bugged. Or his teeth, for that matter. Maybe he was more of a renegade than Nika had surmised.

It didn't change his feelings for the man, but it did mean he had one less uncontaminated soul to rely on in this corrupt outpost, if it came down to an issue of justice that conflicted with GRU wishes or politics.

He sighed.

Best not to think about that. Not until it came to it- if it did.

The stars were never-shifting, everlasting.

Nika smiled at them and shook his head.

"Men are fucking imbeciles," he whispered to them, confidentially. "And I foremost among them."

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[eyes-adrift.livejournal.com]

Aryol waited, crouched against a tank.

He pulled up the collar of his field jacket around his nose and mouth to minimize the trail of mist left by warm breath in cold air.

Aryol had watched soldiers spill out of the mess hall and head off to their various barracks. Kasya and Niotkuda had left together, but Aryol hadn't been waiting for them. Instead, he'd kept an eye on the door to see when the MVD officer came out.

It hadn't been long before the man whose name he still didn't know had emerged and started toward the Main Wing, though instead of skirting between buildings, he'd taken the long route, heading straight through the tank yard.

A surprise, but a good one - there were more places to hide here, more shadows cast from the floodlamps on the wall, inky wells between tanks, like the one where Aryol crouched.

If he judged things right, the man would be passing in only a couple of seconds -

Hushed footsteps.

He'd judged right.

Aryol waited until the shadow of the man drew abreast of his position, then moved softly and swiftly.

He timed it so he emerged between tanks to catch the man from behind just as he passed, using his momentum to grab one of the man's arms, pulling it behind him, hooking his other arm around the man's waist, yanking him into the darkness. The man hissed, but struggled, fighting him instead of his own momentum, which spoke to MVD training, Aryol was sure.

Dangerous prey.

"Freeze," Aryol growled into the man's ear. "I've got you."

[krasnogorje.livejournal.com]

Dmitry stood alone in the silken darkness of the tank yard for a very long time. Time slowed, then stopped.

He watched Liadov and his companions leave, wide eyes and mouth agape, looking like an olive skinned fish that had been torn from its comfortable, watery home and thrust into an alternate reality where it was horribly difficult to move or breathe.

He flopped. He floundered. He failed.

An hour ago, he would have plunged a knife into the Operativnik’s back with depraved indulgence. He could still do it. He could open fire into the darkness and eliminate all three of them at once. But the riffle hung limp from its strap, and he didn’t start forward, didn’t reach for his knife in the shadows.

Instead, Deimos backed away from the shaft of light were Nika had kneeled before him. His soulless eyes flickered to the ground, and he stared blankly at the tarmac for a long while, a feral dog that sensed danger at the edge of a snare trap.

"You created your own Zone, your own Siberia, wire by wire, when you chose to be a butcher, and you pushed humanity away. Did you never realize, Dima, that when you killed those girls, you were killing yourself?"

He threw the Kalashnikov down because it was useless, turned, and ran as though the demons of hell were at his back, come to avenge every sin he committed against every nameless, faceless, wailing victim that he left in ruin.

Something, Captain called them, when he told the story. Tisiphone, his mind supplied as his heart raced and his boots pounded across the pavement. Avenger of murder.

Murder. Murderer.

"You deserved to be in Magadan. You don't deserve a second chance. But you've been given one, through circumstances beyond my influence. Much as it displeases me, I have no recourse."

Tisiphone had two sisters, but the names escaped Dmitry as he ran on and on. And together, they were the avengers of sins, pursued their targets to hell and back, drove them out of their minds. The Greeks knew them as Erinyes. It was a word he hung on to for it’s peculiarity, something that stayed with him because of the unusual sound and pronunciation.

"...you could go on to live a full and pleasant life in spite of your crimes. But you must let go of the idea that anyone but Dmitry is responsible for his own fate and self-loathing."

The Romans had a different, slightly more familiar name for the three sisters, though…

…there were lights on in the hovercraft hangar, he realized. Lights, brothers of his own, shelter from the storm that raged on in his mind. He reached the door at a dead run, feeling that his heart would burst in his chest…

…The Romans simply called them the Furies.