Svetlana Sergievskaya causes lyrical chess wars (thegirlisme) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-05-14 17:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jonathan harker, svetlana sergievskaya |
Who: Jonathan Harker and Svetlana Sergievskaya
What: Meeting face to face
When: 14 May 2015 following seminar on human trafficking
Where: LA/Union Station
Warnings: None!
Status: Log | Complete
Having been one of the guest speakers for the seminar, Svetlana was relieved that it had been a success. She wasn’t exactly shocked by that fact, but there was always that slight worry that there would be a lack of interest because of the invisible nature of human trafficking. But all 200 spots that had been opened had been reserved and each of the speakers had done well. The resources available, the experience of those who got out, of the experience of the LGBTQ youth. It had been more focused on child exploitation but with the different variations of trafficking, the different exploitations, it made more sense to have more singular focuses for these seminars.
Now it was over and people were clearing out from the day long event and Svetlana was looking forward to being able to go home and relax. But as with most seminars, she hung back so as to talk to anyone who might have further questions now that they weren’t on a schedule anymore.
Not noticing anymore stragglers, the blonde grabbed her bag and started to head to the station to catch the train.
There was one straggler, actually, but that was because Jon was waiting for his chance to speak with the blonde he recognized, the same one who had informed him about this event in the first place. It was rare to find someone else passionately interested in civil rights, human trafficking statistics, and international law (all very much interwoven) so he wanted to at least thank her for the info, not to mention the chance to attend a useful seminar.
He had his briefcase, organized, pamphlets and handouts and folders all in his own particular order, business cards on him too as a ‘just in case.’ Everything looked very smart with the immaculate suit he was in, and when he saw Svetlana leaving he hastened his steps to hopefully catch her before she did.
“Hi, Svetlana, right?” His smile was warm and friendly. “Jonathan Harker. I think we talked on Valarnet.” About chess as well, but he wouldn’t get too excited yet. The woman probably had a life outside this conference.
Hearing her name, Svetlana blinked as she came to a stop and looked over her shoulder. So there was a straggler. Well, she couldn’t keep track of everyone. Returning the smile, the petite blonde nodded.
“Oh, yes. It’s nice to officially meet you. I’m glad you were able to make it.”
While she had her own life, it wasn’t that she had anywhere to actually be. It was more just trains and getting back to Orange County. At least it wasn’t that long of a metrolink ride. So it wasn’t as if she couldn’t speak with someone.
“You too,” he said, and it was a nice break from the internship, and all the assignments - being on the low end of the totem pole, to bulk up experience and put something noteworthy on his résumé meant that sometimes it was just a lot of busy work. Though no doubt he’d have a pile on his desk tomorrow to sort though, for being away from the office. “I’m beginning to see what you meant about the network being strange. Or...things in general. Actually, I wanted to ask you something - “ He glanced off toward the exit, gripping his briefcase a little tighter; he didn’t want to keep her from anything, so maybe there was a chance she was going his way too. “I took Metrolink today, if that’s what you’re headed.”
Sometimes he drove. Sometimes he went with public transportation. It really just depended, but polluting the air with cigarette smoke meant that he tried to do something nice for the planet and go green on occasion.
“Oh?” Well, that would certainly explain why Jonathan would have hung back to talk to her after everyone else had left. She hadn’t noticed anyone else from the Network, but that wasn’t terribly shocking. She didn’t use it that often to know most people and it was a weekday so people might not be able to make it. “Of course, I can answer what I know.”
While she could drive, Svetlana really did prefer to use public transportation. Not that California had good public transportation. It was still something, and the surrounding area and getting to and from Los Angeles at least was decent.
“It is actually. What can I help you with?”
To the train station it was, then, and it wasn’t far. Just a few blocks, and he started to head in the direction he’d come in this morning. It’d be a pleasant walk over, and then actually getting on the train to find a good seat or grip a pole, often sharing the ride with space-invaders or otherwise annoying passengers was just an inevitable. Jonathan had a whole list of pet peeves when it came to Metrolink, but that was neither here nor there.
“Well, I’m sorry if it’s too personal. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to - “ Great way to begin an inquiry, sure. “I was just wondering what you, ah, dream about. If anything.” He was looking to compare, just for the sake of curiosity and new learning experiences. But it wasn’t like he could ask everyone - opening that can of worms would be too overwhelming.
Public transportation really was a lesson in patience and dealing with people. Then again, most people kept a distance from Svetlana just because she had an ice queen persona which worked to her benefit, regardless of what her brother might try to say when he tried to get her to make friends or let people in. Pesky siblings.
And the dream question. Though it really was one that only made sense in a way if someone was from the Network. It was a different definition of dreaming all together. She was aware that there were people who dreamed of fantastical things, both Helena and Duncan were testament to that, along with what most people posted about. For her though?
“Growing up in Soviet Russia. Compared to what I have seen, it is more..normal, I suppose? Work as a seamstress, my husband travels as a chess player…” Two children she did not have here, or the fact that she was not even in a relationship and yet in the dream was married to Anatoly. “It’s still strange, though. Especially when people show up in them who you know here.”
Vaguely she was wondering if he had ended up dreaming of the same place, or if it was just in general because of how the dreams seemed to be apart of the daily routine in a way.
“You?”
Oh, Svetlana kind of hit the nail on the head there. Especially when people show up in them who you know here. Yes, Jonathan understood that well. “I’m engaged to a schoolmistress - “ Mina, and Jonathan in the dreams loved her quite a bit. It wasn’t dark, tragic, doomed, poetic, weeping love - but theirs was a love more about the simple gestures, the little things for each other. He took home recipes to her, they learned shorthand together, they shared a mutual interest in trains. It wasn’t based on anything besides how well they related to each other, people being people, supporting each other in their careers. Maybe that was boring to some, but it seemed to work for them.
“And I’m a lawyer, sort of brand new at it, and I go to Transylvania to assist a Count with a real estate transaction. Only it’s sort of been spoiled that he’s not quite human, so it’s likely about to get pretty twisted...” Straight from the horse’s mouth, really, not that Jonathan was surprised. “I know him here too. You also know people, from your own dreamworld?” he inquired.
It wouldn’t sound boring to Svetlana. In the dreams, she and Anatoly discussed things through chess, they had a quiet understanding of one another, knew how to read one another. It was only once he started to travel, after Molokov had shown up, that things had started to change even as it seemed she was content to quiet her concerns because she didn’t want to know. Not when he would come home and seem so happy. Everyone had their own romance that worked for them.
So she listened. Though it seemed as though Jonathan had his own run ins with people he knew from the dreams who had them as well.
“I do. The man I marry in them is a… friend I suppose?” Would she consider Anatoly a friend? She got along with him. He was persistent in asking her out in his own awkward way, he didn’t give up and yet it didn’t annoy her as it might normally with anyone else. They had a working relationship. But friend? She supposed it was an accurate description. “Though I must say, all I got from him was ‘I had a dream about you’, and nothing like that sort of warning.”
I had a dream about you was one way to put it. “That’s an interesting thing to hear, without any context,” Jonathan laughed a bit. “I haven’t really brought it up with the person I know, and he hasn’t either - it’s just kind of the elephant in the room.” Probably with good reason. It could stay there until it was the right time to bring everything up, and hack it into pieces to be dissected under a figurative microscope.
The train station was just up ahead, and he headed for the platform after finding his transit pass tucked away in his jacket pocket. Hopefully it wouldn’t be forever and a day until the next train arrived, but if it was, he was in good company and it could be worse. You really could never tell what public transportation would be like here, though.
“Do you find it difficult to separate the feelings? If he’s your husband there but not here.” Maybe some of it carried over. That would be understandable.
“He usually is awkward in how he speaks, so I just shrugged it off as I at least had already seen people discussing dreams. But it was still interesting without the context, yes.” Though that was also a conundrum. What do people do if they’ve both started dreaming but have said nothing about it to one another. “I suppose it is different for each person, and situation… it does sound like it could be awkward though, especially if both of you are aware the other has dreamed.”
Still, it would probably come out eventually. If there was one thing Svetlana was already figuring out about these dreams, be it from observation or her own experiences, it was always somehow expressed. Following Jonathan to the platform, the blonde blinked at the question as it was something she never really considered. She was mostly more confused and even concerned by the similarities in terms of family dynamics.
“I… actually have never really thought about it. I met him soon after I moved to the area. I suppose I might have a better understanding of him now though…” There had been times when she’d been able to pick up on things in their conversations or a chess match that she might not have before, but she had never really looked into it. She did know there was bleedthrough though for others. Was it possible it would happen? Hm.
He understood. After all, Jonathan wasn’t entirely sure what he would do if Mina ever appeared in this...life, this reality, whatever it was. He’d loved her then, but he was a different person now in the twenty-first century. “Some things never break entirely, even if they go through changes,” he said, hoping that made sense. “There will probably always be some type of connection there, do you think? Romantic or otherwise.”
Especially if Svetlana had a family with him. It was difficult to not be affected by things like that. Family, and the feelings that came with it, were powerful forces.
It did, and if that had something to do with her better understanding Anatoly, or even some subconscious level thing on why they met and got along in the first place? Who knew. It was a lot to consider and it tended to be easier to think about the family parallels with her brothers than to consider what ifs and the like with Anatoly. Or she was just avoiding, who knew, it was Svetlana. And there were similarities between her and herself in the dreams despite a change in time and vocation.
“It does. What about you? I am guessing the person you know is not quite a complicated dynamic?”
Because really. Being married to someone in the dreams. Though it could explain the elephant in the room that Jonathan had mentioned in regards to someone from his dreams being around.
“Oh, that.” That was a whole other beast entirely. “It’s actually...there’s a connection there too, I think,” he admitted. “But it’s a darker kind.” Jonathan wasn’t certain how to describe it - the iron set of manacles, the way that he (in this life, on the outside looking in) could see that the way he’d get entangled in the Count’s existence was not simply a ‘business transaction’ type of thing.
He rolled his shoulders in a shrug, dislodging the tension. “You know that feeling you get, when there’s a storm coming? You can feel it in your bones, deep in there? That’s what it’s like.” And he knew he’d be changed forever - perhaps not all in good ways.
So, not a marriage type complicated dynamic just… complicated. But she did understand the description. While she had not met any Alexander Molokovs in this life, even in the dream and that first meeting, she’d had that feeling. That something was coming, something bad. Between Anatoly’s comments on the man and what she was even watching happen in the dreams…
“Yes, I know that feeling.”
It was unnerving. Especially in the sense that while dreaming, there was no way to tell themselves to watch out or whatever else. The feeling of dread for what was up ahead and no ability to change the outcome.
“In a way, we are observers even while experiencing it. It undoubtedly gives perspective maybe not seen when in the middle of it all.”
God, that was so true. It was like you were watching a movie, starring yourself dressed in period clothing. At least in his case it was, all those Victorian getups and the dreary and abysmal England he knew of back then. There were similarities, probably, between the Jonathan in the dreams and Jonathan as he knew himself now - but there were differences too. Big ones.
“I guess, then, it just becomes a matter of figuring things out all over again. How much you want to take from those dreams, and how much you want to leave behind...”
Deep questions. More than he expected today, but overall these experiences were giving him lots to consider. “A lot to chew on, isn’t it?” he chuckled, as the lights of the train shone down the tracks, the Metrolink approaching the platform.
“What mistakes to perhaps learn from. When it’s okay to take a chance….” She had seen the various theories people thought of for what the dreams might mean. Not that she had any of her own. Parallel or multiple universes, previous lives? It all seemed a bit…. well, she didn’t know. All Svetlana did know was that all she could do was take each day at a time and see if she couldn’t learn something from the dreams.
Though she blinked some before the turn of phrase registered and she nodded.
“That it is.”
And there was the train, and she had her ticket in hand.
Learning from mistakes was a big thing too. Learning to take those chances, learning more about potentially moving to a secluded cabin in the woods away from humanity...
Oh wait, no, he wouldn’t do that.
“Very wise,” Jonathan tossed a half-smile Svetlana’s way, as the train pulled up to the would-be passengers on the platform, all probably ready to just head home after a long day. He considered himself part of that group too, however... “It was good to run into you. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet up again soon too.”
For that chess game, maybe? He’d probably need the brain break, to be honest, and considered the game as such. Everyone had their quirks.
Given Svetlana used chess to clear her mind, it wasn’t a quirk to her. It was just normal. So instead she smiled with a slight nod.
“I’m sure we will. Have a good evening.” And with that, it was off to finding her own seat so that she could get home and have dinner and just relax.