Regulation and Control

Who: yuri chekhov, mila macnair
What: After some delays, Yuri eventually makes it to Mila's house.
Where: Ender Burh, London
When: April 19, 6-ish
Rating: PG

The car was left behind. It meant Yuri had to walk several blocks, but it gave him as many paces to get Gwawr out of his head. It wasn't working well. There were multiple suspicions that arose in his mind just over her presence in London, let alone her request for sanctuary at his apartment. The afternoon with Clare had helped, had cleared his head in some ways, but in others it reminded him strongly of why he had decided to take her in- at least on Zach's behalf- in the first place.

Clare was not Katya. Yuri did not think of her as such, but he was afraid Gwawr's presence would bring the temptation upon him again.

When he thought he reached the place, he lingered for a while on the stoop before he finally raised his hand to knock.

( Owl to Mila )

Who: yuri chekhov, zach smith, gwawr halpen (NPC)
What: Gwawr has stopped in town overnight and Yuri doesn't know what to do with himself. Solution? Ask Zach with Gwawr in tow.
Where: London
When: April 19, late morning
Rating: PG-13 for language. Like you had to ask.

The Daimler coughed wearily to a stop across the street from the warehouse. Yuri had a faint, anxious smile- to anyone other than his passenger he would've looked simply amused, but his expressions were hardly so regular to one who knew him- that he directed out the windshield or at nothing. The woman beside him was leaning forward, her head over she dashboard as she tried to get a look at their destination. "Here? Zach lives here?"

"Yeah," Yuri said, unbuckling his seatbelt smoothly. All of his movements were much more carefully executed than normal. "Where else are you going to put a furnace?"

"Think he'll let me see his stuff?" Gwawr's legs were crossed, her knees against the glove box. They were bare, her shoes abandoned on the floor. When she opened the car door and looked out, the ground covered with refuse and broken glass, she put them on with reluctance.

"I don't know." Yuri said. He doesn't let me see his glass most of the time.

How many hours had they been together? Yuri glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly eleven. Three hours- it had seemed like weeks, slow and painful, but at least the awkward stage had passed. On his part. She had just waltzed in and tossed her stuff in the middle of his sitting room- in the rectory. Thankfully, the priests rarely bothered their cleaning man. It wasn't like they were going to be fucking like rabbits and making a lot of racket unless they started screaming at one another.

That, too, was unlikely he thought as he crossed the street and knocked on the door three times with his foot. (Normally he didn't knock.) When they fought, it was with silence, or in the most deadly whispers a soul had ever heard.

Who: Malcolm Baddock and ?
Where: Filing Room, Scamander Park
When: Friday, April 18, LATE AFTERNOON
What: Office things
Rating: PG (but character death is involved)
Status: Open, incomplete: feel free to tag in whenever!

The worst part of the job was paperwork, and that was over. Now, it came to filing. Of course, the Regulators filing system was hassle enough, and so Malcolm found himself relying on magic to carry his files to the proper place.

Friday afternoons were the worst part of any 9-5 job. He desperately wanted to go home and take a nap, read Atonement, and make dinner plans. As he eyed the pile of paper left to be filed, he groaned softly, glancing at his watch to see if the time had gone by any faster.

( Warded to Regulators )

Who: Any who stayed the night at Zwemmer's, and any who enter this morning
Where: Zwemmer's bookstore, wizarding London
When: April 6th, early morning
What: Yuri stays in the shop the night with the others, and wakes the next morning.
Rating: TBD, could go high for violence, etc.
Status: OPEN; in progress.

The sounds of riot outside thankfully did not bring people close to the windows very often, though objects had occasionally been thrown or tossed up against them during the night. They were very likely charmed, since a metal wheel from someone's street cart hadn't made a scratch on it. The doors were open, though, and the knowledge had kept Yuri waking on the hour. If Zach had returned during the night, Yuri had not noticed him. The girl was curled next to him, his jacket beneath her head. He'd tucked his hands into his sleeves and wrapped his arms around himself, resting his head on a very large index of Potions ingredients. If anyone needed to cross-reference the ingredients to a Cheering Charm, they'd first have to wake him up.

Around five o'clock in the morning, Yuri's eyes opened slowly. He'd forgotten who all had come in that night and he sat up, leaning dazedly against the bookshelf next to him. One yawn; two. Then a scraping sound from across the room woke him up. The shadows of the room seemed to have condensed in one spot, shaping into the form of a man. It breathed, or crackled, or made some strange, rhythmic noise that made the hairs on the back of Yuri's neck stand on end. A spirit?

Yuri, keeping his eyes on the creature, very slowly reached his hand around to Clare's face- he did not touch her, but he shielded her eyes if she should wake up. He did not know that he was not breathing, his whole body tensed like a taut bowstring.

The creature moved- it's entire body was shadow, formless, light absorbing, so Yuri could not tell if its head had turned to look at him or what had happened. Then the head fluttered like a black curtain, and Yuri could see forms moving in it like bodies through smoke and fog or reflections in droplets of oil. Moving very slowly, too shocked to tremble, Yuri withdrew a short, slender piece of white chalk from his pocket and began to draw on the floor, murmuring clumsily in antiquated Russian.

In between the muttering of the ward, Yuri's voice cracked into whispers, "Sviat, sviat, sviat ghospod... savaoff..." Holy, holy, holy Lord... God of power and might.

The creature slid suddenly along the bookcases, it's black legs moving like lines drawn by a child. One of its hands clutched a wand. The door opened, and it hissed like vapor into the night.

Yuri leapt up and followed after it, sliding the lock firmly shut on the front door to the shop.

Who: All characters inside the wizarding district of Mathwall (note: this district borders a muggle area on the west and part of that area will be included)
Where: Zwemmer's bookstore, wizarding London
When: April 5, late at night
What: Zach suggests in his journal that people gather in the bookstore and try to make a plan from there.
Rating: TBD, could go high for violence, etc.
Status: OPEN; in progress.

"Can I write my name on my foot too?" Zach glanced away from the window as he heard Clare's voice, low and quiet as it ever was.

"Sure, go the fuck ahead. Why?"

"What if my hands fall off?" Her eyes were concerned as she held them in front of her. Green skin shimmered in the faint light of the candles he'd lit. "They're green. Like mold. Don't zombies go green? Then rot? Then their arms fall off?"

"Your arms aren't going to fall off," he said. "Look at the Jolly Green Giant. Or Shrek. Or the motherfucking Hulk. Think you're probably good." His head turned back to the window, pressing against the glass as he waited to see if anyone had gotten the message. The bookstore was quiet - he'd chosen it for that reason. It seemed safer.

Who: All characters inside the wizarding district of Mathwall (note: this district borders a muggle area on the west and part of that area will be included)
Where: wizarding London
When: April 5, 13:17 hours
What: A charm bomb, a device previously unknown to the wizarding world, goes off, trapping several people in a six-block radius in Mathwall
Rating: TBD, could go high for violence, etc. This start has GORE.
Status: OPEN; in progress.

The wall came down but not without speed. John Ather was standing next to the wall, his hand lifting a butterbeer as he suddenly felt a rush of wind, then pain. Pain like being Apparated - his body throbbing as his screams began to echo through the landscape within.

The surface began to echo his throbs of pain, the blood from his veins spiderwebbing under the glass and pulsating as his skin began to grow pale. The wall began to rise, stretching the man with it, as it lifted another inch. It looked slightly less translucent where his body was cased and he howled as he tried to free himself, hands and arms grabbing for those who stared there, unable to move.

Who: Yuri Chekhov, Mila Macnair
What: A half hour prayer service in the London diocese of the Russian Orthodox church.
Where: Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the Cathedral of Dormition and All Saints, London
When: Friday, April 4th, 8:00 p.m.
Rating: PG, likely.
Special Note: These are two representative movements from Tchaikovsky's Russian Liturgy: Izhe hermivi// http://www.box.net/shared/oqhqgpc844 and Milost mira// http://www.box.net/shared/fjwr8nzeog



The narthex and nave of the cathedral were completely candlelit, and bodies trickled into the seats slowly. There was a veil lowered behind the Beautiful Gate, hiding the alter from view. The cathedral was alive with heady perfumes and burning candle wicks, and he found himself shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another. The Anglican church was much more familiar to him, and the lush paintings that wound up the walls did not appeal to him in the same way as the rock carvings and cross shape of the Anglican churches. He was more English than Russian in this regard.

He stood, presently, at the mouth of the narthex. The boys choir was in the back of the church, off to one side of the altar. They'd stand later before the Beautiful Gate in their white robes. Yuri had not yet changed into those robes; he thought it would be better if he met Mila in the narthex before she entered the nave, if she came at all. Or perhaps he was projecting his own acute sense of being out of place onto her.

Her sudden change of heart had surprised him, but not unpleasantly. It was his way to come on strong to all individuals, though secretly, he did not think he was as high energy at heart as he portrayed himself. Yuri coughed once, and it rang through the cathedral like a gunshot.

( Owl to Mila MacNair )

Who: Yuri Chekhov, Mila Macnair
What: This is a conversation in Russian involving two Eastern Europeans. Represent. Mila nearly eats a cashier alive. Yuri's new mission is to drive Mila around in a parade.
When: March 25th, 2008
Where: A wizard-friendly Diner/Cafe in LONDON.
Rating: PG

( Strange how everyone assumes I'm Russian, but on a map I'm nowhere near the place. )

Who: Yuri Chekhov & Zach Smith
What: Russians know how to work a crowd at the rat nightclub.
When: February, 2008
Where: East London
Rating: G
Status: Closed; Unfinished

The notepad in his hands smelled like all sorts, or the words, the language brought to his nostrils scents foreign to the docks on the East side of the Thames. The smell of shit and sulfur, of sewage and garbage mixed with the river like wet dog, and the smell of coal. Yuri sank down on his haunches and leaned against the metal fence separating him from the Thames, a paperback dangling from his fingers. It was either Dickens or Hugo, and Yuri was thinking of a forty-two page discourse on the state of the Parisian sewers in the nineteenth century, and the trickling of the Thames almost brought it to life in his mind. Almost. All that was missing was the sound of rats, and he would have the image in his mind, more real than life.

Sticking the book in his jacket, he shoved off the street, weaving past warehouses and cheap apartment buildings, into places where there was more crumbled brick than concrete, more stripped-bare walls than peeling wallpaper, until he found a familiar place. He listened for the sound of a furnace or of breaking glass before he headed into an alleyway between this building, this old grubby warehouse, and the next building over. There was a dumpster at the far end of the narrow alley where it opened up again so that two men could stand shoulder to shoulder rather than one man span the width of the gap. He headed toward it, and shoved aside a pile of moldy newspapers that sat in a stack against the wall. A hole was exposed.

Smiling cheekily, he pulled a thin cardboard tube with a string at one end from his pocket and some matches. Lighting the string with a flame that burned purple when the match was pulled from the matchbook, he shoved it quickly into the hole and replaced the stack of newspapers.

He stuck his index fingers into his ears.

The newspapers exploded into damp, musty bits that made him sneeze violently, but he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and climbed onto the dumpster, peeking through a dirty window. A stampede of a dozen rats fleeing the walls moved like a small shadow across the floorboards, rodents startled from their place of refuge invading their host's workshop. "Cheers!" he called gaily, whispering in case he should be caught.