Darker London

Although there were clouds hiding the sun, the early morning was already getting warm and the breeze was light. Summer had arrived and everyone in Izmaylov seemed to be feeling the sense of freedom of it. Spring had brought with it newborn chicks at the convent, and baby bears and deer that passed through the grounds, but it had not brought back Lucine.

( I'm not afraid of god, I am afraid of man )

"Dasha."

The growl of a voice behind her in the corridor belonged to Takahiro, because of course it did, because he was practically her stalker, because she couldn't shake the jerk even if she tried and it was deeply irritating. With a frustrated exhale and a roll of her eyes, Dasha turned around to look at him with her arms already crossed.

"What this time?" she demanded. "Am I breathing too loud out here while you're trying to teach? Did I not fold the sheets into the right tiny little squares?"

( after the fire, between the wars, inside the mind that still keeps score )

Outside the snow of yesterday had stopped falling and it was only just below zero. It was, for the middle of winter, a very nice day. Even Dasha was almost feeling it, having gone for a long walk that morning around the grounds of the convent. It felt good to be outside and in the open, even if it was cold. It meant not being so close to all the other, especially to certain arseholes she'd avoided very hard for the last few weeks.

Avoidance was good. Avoidance was Dasha's best bet.

( I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice. )

Ko hadn’t seen much of Dasha in the last fortnight. Not out of any effort on his part to avoid her, as one might be expected to avoid a person who kept punching you in the face. In fact it seemed like she was avoiding him. Perhaps she thought his vicious face kept attacking her poor fist.

He did seek her out once a few days after they’d last spoken, in order to walk past her in the corridor wearing her iPod. Yeah, he knew Lucine had asked him to look out for Dasha and he was, he would… there was just something irresistible about igniting that anger in her.

Childish, maybe. Unhelpful, definitely. But irresistible.

( ... )

The plans for England were coming together carefully, without Lucine rushing any of it.

It had started with a vision from one of her oracles, the doctor Ailbhe who'd been with them almost a year. When she'd come out of the trance she'd clawed at Lucine's arm and told her that it was a hospital full of people like them: deathless, vilkati, zagovornik, veles, moroi, dhampirs.

Of course Lucine was intrigued - another place much like Izmaylov, a sanctuary built up to keep their own safe from humanity.

( Read more... )

Today the snows had come in over the Urals and Dasha's fingers stung as she opened and closed them slowly in front of the heater. She'd denied the surrounding warmth of the East Room - which was always warm and comfortable, but also usually full of people - and instead made herself a small nest in a blanket here in the room she'd taken to thinking of as the Lion Room, because of the old stained glass window (cracked down one side). She hadn't recognised what it was supposed to be until one of the others had explained that the man with his hands raised mechanically was Saint Ignatius of Antioch, and that the two lions below were going to eat him.

( Read more... )

If you knew the right places, it was nothing at all to get up onto the roofs of Izmaylov. The brickwork was old and strong and left enough spaces for fingers and the toes of boots for anyone brave enough to face the fall. It was possible to climb, but it was even easier to fall.

( Were you left in the fire? )