wanderinghamsa (wanderinghamsa) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-12-12 18:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | biddie, zipporah bakst |
Who: Zipporah Bakst, Captain Petrotavich (NPC), Kathleen O’Wells (NPC). BONUS: Archie Curtis (NPC)
What: A man is haunted, a witch is consulted, and a ghost is territorial.
When: 6 December 1888 [Backdated]
Where: Zipporah's flat
Rating: PG-13
Stanislav Sergeyevich Petrotavich did not go to the witch as a last result. He was a serious man, and for him the last resort would be exactly that. Even now, he refused to believe things were so dire as to demand an - an end.
But it had been weeks since the ball - that awful, wretched ball - and they had been weeks of misery. He couldn't eat. He didn't dare drink. He felt plagued by sunshine and the smell of clean linen. He couldn't hold a civil conversation without feeling exhausted by the effort of seeming sane. He felt liable to lose his nerve at the least bang or shout - he who had piloted over hungry mountain and godless oceans without a shudder.
He barely slept and regretted bitterly when he did.
"It is the worst then," he told the witch. "The dreams. Nightmares. I can almost believe I'm still awake when they come. My body - "
He held out his hands. They were good hands: strong, capable, the bones of an aristocrat with the blood of a soldier. Now, he expected them to shake like the paws of an old woman. It would've been almost better if they did; instead, they were numb and cold. The hands of a corpse.
"I dream that I lie in bed and am barely able to move. Voices whisper at me. Near me. Sometimes I can make out what they say, sometimes I can only hear their anger. Sometimes they sing, I think. I do not know the song. Yesterday I nearly throttled a maid because she hummed when bringing tea," Slava said.
"I am not a violent man, but I would have - I fear I would have strangled her if someone else hadn't come into the room to interrupt." He looked up at the witch with tired, bleak eyes. “Every day I wonder if I am going mad. But the truly mad cannot feel their own madness, can they?”
He hoped it would be easier to admit in Russian; it wasn’t.
Zipporah wrapped her shawl around her closely as she looked over at him, resisting the urge to shudder.
He looked as a man condemned -- a man who’d very nearly resigned himself to an early death, despite his youth and clear vigor of frame, but was fighting it with a desperation she would have found frightening if Ach hadn’t been in the room with her, placid and unmoving.
Slava was no threat to her -- not yet, at least.
“You have been marked by a powerful and vengeful spirit,” she said, quietly, meeting his gaze with hers. “Tell me what you have done.” Her look was steady, and serious, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for the man. “Be honest,” she added, firmly.
She knew that he was from the Masquerade -- the captain from Byestro -- he’d stood next to Archie as they’d announced the race. She also had a powerful suspicion of the source of his misfortune -- a source she’d already crossed once, unintentionally. She’d see what the man told her, but she suspected there was little to be done, unless she wished to risk Biddie’s wrath.
There was a pull she had to try regardless -- to see whether she could have an exception made -- she was a Healer, it was her mandate, her calling, her God-given duty, and it galled to have to be checked by her fearsome rival when such suffering was so evident.
Even worn down as he was, Slava nonetheless hesitated to answer the witch. Loyalty and pride made him slow to answer; guilt, however, forced the issue.
"The men I work for," he began leadenly. "They are not - they are not like the English. They are Russian, old Russian. You understand the difference, I think. It is not in the years, but in the thinking. Many of them are not so much older than myself. But they inherited their minds from their fathers. They do not care what the old Tsar said about serfs or soldier sons, they only know that the new age has none of the glory promised to their grandfathers."
"Do not think them evil men," Slave continued. "Just hungry. Many of them sit on cold, worthless lands and starve their once fine houses. So when a chance comes - a chance for money, change from the cold - they run eagerly. They forget themselves. They hurt people."
His hard shoulders sank. "Or they do not ask if people may be hurt. Many of us, we suspected something dire would happen if we went for the krapiva’s money.” His tone turned bitter. “They are fools to offer so much. Or they are devils.”
"Awfully judgemental for a murderin' foreigner, ain't he?"
The voice was cool, sharp, and, judging from the lack of expression on the Russian captain's face, completely unheard by the man. A faint scent of roses and cinders wafted in echo.
Zipporah started a little, looking in the direction of the voice until she could see the vague shimmer of a ghostly outline. Her eyes narrowed, and she frowned, before turning her focus back to the captain, his mouth cutting a grim line across his grey face.
“I know the sort, yes,” she replied, a sharp edge to her voice.
Her father had been killed by such men. Hungry men. Bitter men, steeped in the false promises of a return to glory, and resentful of the success of others.
“And you,” she said, her tone firm and unrelenting, “what did you do? Were you directly responsible for hurting anyone in this pursuit? Or were you merely an accomplice?” She knew she was grasping at straws -- the set of his shoulders spoke volumes, and she was sure he was up to his elbows in this mess.
She could see the ghost shifting in her peripheral vision, and her eyes darted to it once more.
“I did not raise my hand against anyone,” Slava said firmly. It was true, and he’d clung to that fact closely over the past nights.
The resolve faltered slightly at his next words. “...but I suspected some. Much, lately. I did not ask many questions.”
“Liar, oh liar, what’s good for liar? Brimstone and fire.” The words started in sing-song and ended in a hiss. “He knew enough to have warned someone - if he’d wanted to. But you didn’t, did you, capt’n? You wanted to win.” A laugh like broken glass sprinkled the room. “What a victory, what a prize…”
The captain shivered. “Is there a window open? Close it, please.”
Zipporah frowned, and looked at the ghost more squarely. “It is not,” she said, a little flintily. “You, spirit,” she said, switching to English and jabbing her finger in its direction, “What is your aim with this man? I should tread careful, for you are still in existence on my forbearance.”
Forbearance, and a knowledge that interfering without talking to Biddie first would be… problematic.
Still.
“And he did not warn?” She continued, sharply. “That is his crime? Should he have marched to Scotland Yard, a foreigner on strange soils, with no friends beyond his own countrymen? Or ought he have told your mistress? After all, she is so very understanding and patient.”
Fog and shadow trembled, blurred, then - almost resentfully - resolved into the lines and curves of a woman with a firm chin and marigold hair. Hair, chin, and curves had the transparency of stopped smoke, but there was a terrible clarity to the lines of her nonetheless. A stale cold pooled around her.
The ghost swept her skirts in a theatrical cursty. "Beggin' your pardon. Didn't realize I was speaking to the sole queen of the castle."
"What is this? Who are you speaking to?" Slava asked, twisting in his seat. "Who is here?"
"Look at him spin. Like a little top." The ghost drifted closer and leaned towards the captain's ear. The stale cold deepened, while the ghost's voice turned sweet with music. A soft, pale lilting echo seemed to echo the tune.