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groznyj_gradTime was a very precious commodity. Finding himself with hours to spare, Iosef immediately gathered his violin and bow and set out for the hallway outside of Volgin’s office in the Main Wing.
Io went the first time to tempt the Colonel’s temper because he found it altogether thrilling in ways he could never hope to understand. He returned the second time for the quiet praise that the first impromptu serenade had received.
What started as an attempt to annoy and provoke had somehow switched gears in the flame solder’s mind. He felt something akin to remorse for the provocation as he stood in the deserted hallway once more.
The Blue Danube only brought secretaries to come and stare with awe and approval, and gasps of delight, and much appreciated applause. No one came forth from Volgin’s office; not for the Blue Danube, or the Gimn Sovetskovo Soyuza, or even for Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
Io spent a good ten minutes scowling at the door from behind his respirator, as though sheer force of will alone would bring the Colonel out from hiding. There was nothing, the lights were off, and Yevgeny Volgin was certainly not home. It was foolish to think will alone could coerce him to appear on command.
So Iosef eventually retreated to the yard, disappointed with the world, and left the office workers to their dull paperwork.
It was a beautiful spring day, clear and blue. The snow had all but melted away, and the illusive promise of warmth drifted on the breeze. The sun was pleasant and gentle on his face.
A seemingly abandoned truck was all the invitation he needed. Climbing onto the hood with violin and flamethrower was a difficult task, but one that was overcome with ingenuity and creative wiggling.
A pair of GRU regarded the gas-masked violinist with hesitant curiosity, until he began to play for them. A sweet melody to match the kind disposition of the early spring day.
Ode to Joy seemed to match the mood set by the clear, light hearted day. It translated well to a solo piece he thought, shutting his eyes as the notes flowed from the violin, took flight, and fluttered away on orange and black butterfly wings.
It wasn’t long before he had another crowd gathered around. Among them, he recognized the German Major, but there were others who were unfamiliar to the flame patrol Lieutenant.
It struck him just fine, and he smiled. Strangers were always welcome to listen.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 02:36 am (UTC)A melody charmed out of air by a bow that was not at all cross.
A burned man, respirator-veiled, one of his brother's crooked changelings. The smell of sulfur suffused him.
The song brought a smile to the watcher's face and a tear to his eye.
His applause fell without a sound.
"Such a beasutiful song," the shade said softly to the sound of the breeze, as the lingering notes passed away.
Music hath charms to soothe the sorrowed soul.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 03:50 pm (UTC)He'd been exploring again, looking for angles, figuring out where he needed to be in order to have a straight shot into any window on the base. It was even easier now since he had the full run of the place. Ostensibly, he was supposed to be sniper-hunting, but that was easy enough to fake. Not that very many people even noticed him.
But then he'd heard violin music, and wandered out to look. One of those soldiers in the baggy jumpsuits and gas masks had a delicate violin tucked under his chin and was standing on top of a truck, serenading a crowd.
And if that wasn't enough, he spotted Leshovik standing there, watching.
Aryol grinned, then angled around the crowd to come up from behind, approaching covertly. He closed in on where Leshovik stood staring up at the violinist and leaned in suddenly.
"Boo," Aryol said in his ear.
Leshovik actually flinched, then turned around and glared at Aryol, eyes flaring.
"Fuck! Don't you fucking do that. That's not funny."
Aryol grinned.
"Sorry," he said, but he wasn't really. Leshovik's fault for not paying attention.
Leshovik glared at him a moment, but then looked back at the violinist, shaking his head.
"Christ, this place is fucking strange."
Aryol sobered then, and looked around at the crowd. Everyone seemed to really be into it, as if they'd just stopped whatever they had been doing and come out to listen.
"You know," he said, slowly, frowning, "I think you're right."
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 08:13 pm (UTC)Lydia laughed in spite of herself, embarrassed to be startled by something so benign, and she fidgeted with the end of the braid that lay coiled on her shoulder. Then she her nervous laughter could be easily misinterpreted, the strangers beside her could take it wrong. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at either of you, I promise. You startled me…I didn’t realize you were standing here. That's all.”
The petite redhead gave a warm smile to the younger of the pair, the one with black hair and dark eyes and similarly dusky skin. A handsome one, her mind easily supplied, and she flushed pink all over again. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
Her vivid blue eyes flickered to the manila folders clutched tightly against her chest. “I mean, I don’t even have a file for you yet.” She smiled, as the definite lack of paperwork was usually a sign of just how new a person was to Groznyj Grad.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 09:58 pm (UTC)"Yeah, we're new," he said.
He glanced at Leshovik, who looked almost reluctantly amused by the girl.
Aryol wondered how old she was. He had trouble judging the ages of his contemporaries. Older people were much easier.
"But you're not going to get a file," Aryol went on, grinning. "We're not really here. We're kind of like...figments of your imagination. Ghosts."
Leshovik nodded.
"Yeah, we don't really exist," he said.
"Sorry," Aryol added.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 10:56 pm (UTC)The rumors that circulated were true, and it sent chills up her spine.
And the soldiers that did not exist were so nonchalant about it.
There were scant, skeletal files on Cobras, mostly blacked out and censored, but Black Opps bore no files or names.
A grotesque thought, really, that kind of non-existance, and one that made her blood run cold. Lydia hadn’t even heard the term actually used until a few days ago.
Sure they were rumors. There were always rumors about conspiracies and plots. But seeing them for yourself, standing so near to state sanctioned killers that had no names…
“Ghosts. Yes. That was exactly what I was thinking!” She nodded, and a few stray red hairs escaped from her braid and swept down across her forehead.
Suddenly, she felt very, very uncomfortable standing next to the strange soldiers, as though death itself swirled around them, cold and oppressive.
“Well. If you think Lieutenant Io is strange, I'm sure you'll adore his commander equally.” Lydia turned her gaze back to the violinist, who was three or so measures into the beginning of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
As an afterthought, she inched closer to Johann Krauss.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 04:29 am (UTC)Leshovik shot him a look.
"You scared her," he muttered.
Aryol rolled his eyes.
"So did you."
Leshovik snorted and shook his head.
"Yeah, but she thought you were cute."
Aryol grinned then, his smile broad and feral.
"I am cute. But you know, girl. Doesn't do a lot for me."
"You've never even been with a woman." Leshovik paused and looked at him narrowly. "Have you?"
"No. Have you?"
Leshovik nodded. "Yes."
"And?"
Leshovik scowled at him and turned back to the girl, voice slightly raised to get her attention, but not sharp.
"Hey. I didn't say this...Lieutenant Io...is strange. I said this place is strange," he said.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 06:39 pm (UTC)She tried her best to ignore the hushed mumbles behind her, but the music had grown softer as the melody seemed to curl up like a cat in the sun and take an afternoon nap. Something about the hushed whispers struck her as entirely wrong.
Maybe they were talking about making her disappear, in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine, nor did she ever hope to.
The other one was trying to get her attention again, the older man with the shorn blond hair, the only one of the pair who had returned her smile.
Though Lydia had already convinced herself that the conversation was over, she turned to look at the pair again. Words nearly escaped her, like elusive silver fish sliding by in a deep, cold stream, but she seized them at the very last moment with more vehemence than she had intended.
“If you don’t actually exist, I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 08:36 am (UTC)He chuckled slightly.
The titian-haired receptionist was positively brittle with frost, and her body language screamed offense at their very existence, where a mere moment before she had been cooing and come-hithering.
"I can see why you're no strangers to muzhelostvo," he drawled, in an undertone.
He pulled out a cigarette and traced it down the back of the sniper's neck briefly, grinning when he was caught and offering the cigarette to Leshovik with a raise of his eyebrows.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 09:13 am (UTC)He plucked the cigarette from Niotkuda's gloved fingers and stuck it in his mouth.
"Yeah, we're assholes," he said, shaking his head. "It's official."
"I don't think there was any doubt," Aryol added.
"Probably not."
Leshovik regarded Niotkuda for a moment, then broke into a slow grin.
"I still don't have a light, comrade," he said, and flicked his gaze down at the cigarette pressed between his lips.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 03:32 pm (UTC)He glanced over his shoulder at the strange trio, sniper, sniper, Ocelot, and offered a warm smile.
“Comrades… you wouldn’t want her anyway, she’s absolutely frigid.”
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 06:03 pm (UTC)"Does this mean I'm going to have to follow you around for the rest of your life?"
He flicked the tab and a flame licked up.
He held it to the tip of Leshovik's cigarette.
"What's with the violinist? He's not bad."
Andrei had seen a lot of virtuosos in Leningrad. His sister played passably well, but hadn't preferred performing. This guy looked like he lived for it.
Sort of at odds with the flamethrower parked beside him.
When Krauss spoke, he looked up.
"Major," he acknowledged, with a brief salute, pocketing the lighter. "I take it you've struck out."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 06:39 pm (UTC)Leshovik grinned around the cigarette and leaned forward, tilting his head to angle the tip into the flame.
He pulled back slowly, taking in a long drag, closing his eyes briefly, savoring the burn.
"Thanks. Christ, that's good," he murmured.
He tilted his head in the violinist's direction.
"That's Lieutenant Io," he offered. "That's all I know."
Leshovik turned to look at the older man with the German accent who had joined them, nodding a greeting.
It had taken a while, but he'd gotten used to not having to salute superior officers anymore.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 06:50 pm (UTC)"Nice coat," he said, blithely.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 07:55 pm (UTC)Aryol’s comment caught him off guard and he laughed to himself, pleasantly surprised. “Very good. At last, Moscow sends us someone with good tastes. Thank you.” The polite thing to do was shake hands in greeting and introduction, but he kept his mangled limb tucked away in the pocket of his fur coat. “I’m Major Krauss, but please, call me Johann. If there is anything you require during your stay...anything at all… I would be more than happy to oblige.”
Krauss nodded to Aryol, then to Leshovik in turn, but it wasn’t long before his ice blue gaze flickered back to the younger of the pair and his lecherous smile returned again.
“And what shall I call you?”
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 08:43 pm (UTC)The music had summoned a conclave of disparate elements into the open air to bind them loosely with strings of momentary coincidence. Somewhere, The Sorrow thought, the hollow ground where his heart lay warmed.
These were new men to this cold separate land, brought on an errand that the scent of unconsummated death clung to.
"If you were a ghost," he whispered in the ear of the dark laughing man, "you would know."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 11:30 pm (UTC)His eyes were sharp, like a raptor's, dark and seeking, narrowed.
He was wholly focused on something else for long moments.
Finally, he shook his head slightly and pulled his gaze back to the German.
"Call me Aryol, Johann," he said, with a slight and knowing smile. "Everyone does."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 08:35 am (UTC)The Sorrow existed as a drop of water suspended in the mingling oils of a living world. Corporeal eyes slid across him, chivvied past at the behest of forces they cared not to understand.
It was a rare one with the senses to catch the current amiss. The coal-eyed cub fledgeling sharpened the claw of his attention to probe at perception's still surface.
Certain dangerous minds did such a thing by instinct inborn, only slightly more common by ability ingrained.
"Someone has taught you." The Sorrow drifted, circling his perimeter. "To look for what is there, not only what you see."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 02:38 am (UTC)Scolwing, one of the German's brows crept upwards into a graceful arc, and he watched the boy...this...Aryol... seem to drift in and out of reality.
"Ah..ha. Yes. I think you'll fit in at this great and glorious military base just wonderfully!"
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 08:47 pm (UTC)He kept catching something just out of the corner of his eye, a faint pattern, like a heatshimmer.
Distractedly, he nodded to the German.
"That's very kind of you, Johann. But if you could excuse me? There's someone I need to see."
Aryol flashed a brief but sly smile to Krauss, then nodded to Leshovik and Niotkuda.
He withdrew, but tried to not keep glancing around him obviously.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 08:21 pm (UTC)His voice made no impact, that he could see, whisperthin wisp as it was.
Perhaps...
Notion became motion, signal - sign.
The Sorrow produced a flat square of material and wrote for a moment, held it up in the path of the boy's searching eyes.
-HELLO-
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 10:06 pm (UTC)He thought he saw -
He looked around him quickly, just to make sure no one was watching, but everyone's attention was still fixed on the violinist.
Aryol ducked around the side of a truck.
"Hello?" he said aloud, tentatively.
Quietly, so his voice wouldn't carry further than it had to.
He stared straight ahead, focused on nothing, but something was there. Something in between light and dark. The shadows of reality that he'd been trained to see, though nothing like this had ever happened before.
"Who are you?" he whispered. "Why don't you say anything?"
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 02:00 am (UTC)He felt the motes of his memory migrate into the patterns of a man, himself as reflected in the boy's dark eyes.
"I say many things."
His voice dissipated like tendrils of mist under morning sun, the last inflection gone long before reaching a band the boy would receive.
The spirit gestured to his throat, a graceful movement like a spider's shrug, and smiled.
He turned the slender slip of corrugated communication back to himself. It was the first thing that had come to mind and hand, and in its form obscurely pleased him. He swept words away like mice and replaced them, twisted the squre of space to face him.
-I AM THE SORROW-
Spin. Scrape. Scribble. Present.
-WHO ARE YOU?-
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 07:32 am (UTC)It was getting easier now that he knew what to look for; what had started as a faint shape glimpsed out of the corner of his eye gained substance now, though not quite solidity. A man. High forehead and swept-back hair. Glasses. Older. Not unhandsome.
He wore a black woolen military sweater and dark fatigues. Aryol wondered if he was in Black Ops.
He looked down at the placard the man-who-wasn't held.
"Oh. I'm Aryol. It's nice to meet you, Comrade Sorrow."
Aryol paused.
"What are you?" he asked, more carefully.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 04:27 am (UTC)-HELLO ARYOL-
The young man showed no fear.
What are you?
A scavenger of thought and memory. A wave of feedback that touched the palpable. A complex of complexes pale of complexion. All would be difficult to fit on a square of cardboard.
A phrase struck The Sorrow's mind and made him smile. He wrote it.
-SPIRIT SOLDIER-
no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 07:40 am (UTC)There had been people who could astrally project back at the facility where he'd trained to use his own abilities. Astral projection and remote viewing were actually somewhat similar, but Aryol had never seen anyone's spirit before. He guessed it meant when he looked for someone, it was more than just the physical shell that he saw, which was interesting to realize. That was why his gift was limited in some ways. He'd never been able to see an inanimate object, and now he knew why.
The Sorrow had a nice smile, he decided.
"I understand," he said, and cocked his head.
"So, are you on a mission? Is there something you need?"
Aryol paused, thinking.
"Or can you not tell me? I'd understand, if that's the case."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 07:06 am (UTC)The Sorrow himself had shared friendship with the dead from a young age, never knowing until he was told that they might be feared.
This Aryol held something akin to that gift, then, as well as a one for difficult questions straightly phrased.
The Sorrow opened a transparant hand, gathering the courtyard, its denizens, and beyond it into a double meaning.
-ONLY LISTENING-
no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 05:27 pm (UTC)Aryol frowned as he thought about that. He should have known, of course - no soldier with the Sorrow's kind of talent would be sent here for no reason.
It begged the question, though, who the Sorrow was working for, and what his mission objective was. For all Aryol knew, he could be the opposition.
Aryol almost felt obligated to report it to Lynx - only he wasn't supposed to reveal his abilities to anyone, and explaining this to Lynx would be impossible without some mention of how he knew there was a soldier who could astrally project prowling around Groznyj Grad. That was a problem.
He felt a small pang of regret. It would be sad if the Sorrow and he found themselves on opposite sides, as enemies, now that they'd found each other, and had something in common.
Solemnly, Aryol nodded.
"I understand, comrade."
Maybe there was hope, he thought. The Sorrow didn't have to contact him, after all, and could probably have continued to flit past the edges of Aryol's perception with Aryol none the wiser. Maybe it wasn't adversarial.
Maybe if they refrained from talking shop, they could still be friends.
He brightened a little.
"The music is nice, isn't it? It's been a long time since I heard live music. It's a lot nicer than the radio."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 03:11 am (UTC)Of course. Allegiance. It was easy to forget, here in the between places, where spirits flickered and bled.
-DONT WORRY-
He swept the shape of words in a plain, sweeping hand.
-I AM NOT
YOUR ENEMY-
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 09:51 am (UTC)His smile bloomed wide and his eyes shone, gleaming and reflective.
Maybe there really wasn't a good reason to trust the Sorrow at his word, other than the fact Aryol wanted to believe him, felt a certain kinship with a man who was different like he was. Even so, the carefully-drawn message struck something inside him. Maybe the affinity was enough. Maybe he had no proof and could only take the Sorrow at his word, but that was all he needed, because that was the meaning of trust.
"Okay," he said, softly, though he knew it wouldn't matter, and the man would hear him regardless. "Because I'd like to be your friend."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 09:28 am (UTC)The scent of death and whispers of ghosts clung to the boy, incorporated into his magnanimity without thought or regret. One would have thought he would repudiate sorrow.
Acceptance was a heady drug to one who was himself little more than emotion distilled. Moreover, one who would dispense it to such a non-being was intriguing.
The Sorrow smiled.
-I WOULD LIKE THAT
ARYOL-
no subject
Date: 2007-11-24 09:07 am (UTC)It had been a while since he'd been around anyone that was like him. Anyone with psychic abilities, that was. Aryol hadn't realized that he'd missed that kind of camaraderie.
The Sorrow had an air of serenity about him, a wisdom that made him seem much older than his phantasmal appearance suggested. Early forties, Aryol would have guessed from the Sorrow's appearance, but the vibrant economy of his words made Aryol think of the sort of man who had already richened with age and experience, like a fine liquor.
The Sorrow knew things that other men didn't, but wasn't in any hurry to divulge his secrets, either.
Aryol smiled.
"So...can you stay a while?"
He didn't know how long the Sorrow could be away from his body, or how much effort it took. But as long as the violinist continued playing, it might be nice to enjoy it.
Aryol tilted his head in the direction of the crowd.
"Want to go back and listen?"
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 08:25 am (UTC)-I HAVE NO
PRESSING APPOINTMENTS-
Let it be said that a dead man's time is unquestionably his own.
In the most unexpected places one could find kindred spirits.
The Sorrow floated beside Aryol to listen to the beautiful music.