• wildling kera ryan • (foxtrotter) wrote in valesco, @ 2018-07-06 11:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | kera ryan |
WHO: KERA RYAN AND A NOT-SO-FRIENDLY FOREIGNER
WHAT: YIKES
WHERE: SECRET YOU'LL SEE
WHEN: RIGHT NOW
There was a loud crash, and once more, Kera toppled to the ground. When unexpected glass embedded into her palms upon impact, she hissed and attempted to roll onto her side.
Instead, Dragomirov pulled her up by her arm and shoved her against the fireplace mantle with his wand pressed to her chest. Kera tossed her tangled hair out of her eyes and glared forward.
“Where is Serafina Proudfoot?” he demanded, pushing his wand just above her heart. He towered, pale with a dark look in his eye and a fire in his voice she had not yet witnessed before.
Kera hesitated, fidgeting under his pressure. He had broken the prism container, parts of it glittered on the floor behind him, and for the first time since he had initiated these terse exchanges, there was no fire lit in the fireplace. The curtains were pulled back from the windows too, a gloomy morning sun breaking over the window sill. Kera glanced back at Dragormirov, her toes stretching to keep some contact with the floor.
“Who?” she responded, thick with sarcasm.
He growled, face contorting a little more severe. Before she had a chance to stop him, his free hand shot up to grab her by the neck.
“Tell me where I find her,” he snarled, squeezing with every word. “Or I strangle it out of you. No potions, just pain.”
Kera winced, one hand trying to pry his grip while the other jabbed toward the sensitive areas of his face. Dragormirov dodged her easily, his arms much longer and his reaction time much faster in this moment. He scowled, and because she was being difficult, he forced her off the ground.
“Tell me, Kera,” he said, his voice as tight and harsh as his grip. She gasped for air as both her hands shot to loosen his firm clutch. The burn she felt searing through her shirt from the tip of his wand didn’t yet hurt, but it soon would.
How many more seconds did she have until she blacked out? Twenty, maybe. Kera took a few sputtering moments to collect what she had left in her to speak.
“Is she---? Catching on?” she choked out, one hand giving up to flail for support from the mantle.
“What?” His eyes tightened and he shook her. Too focused on her face, he did not pay attention to both her feet planted flat against the wall. Kera heaved, her fingers digging into his skin.
“Finally realize---? You won’t--- pull this off?” she managed, turning her eyes down the best she could to stare at him.
“What did you---?”
Dragomirov paused, his thoughts returning to the figure watching him in the shadows last night. At the time he had mollified his paranoia, self-assured of his own abilities enough to quiet any thoughts of irrational behavior. Who could have enough knowledge to be onto him? Not any of Hestia’s friends, not the British Auror Department, not the other auror’s wife. Who did she think possibly---?
Her stare made him feel exposed, enough that it had him thinking over all the loose ends he knew he already tied. Yet all of the sudden, his mind stopped with a thought, an image of a memory rushing to the forefront. In the shop, she had been wearing---
“Where is your necklace?” he hissed, a deep part of himself flaring up like it had in East Berlin. Furious that he even had to check, he lifted his index and middle fingers up to expose her neck. “Where is---?”
The second Dragomirov alleviated some pressure, Kera shot her hand up to gain some leverage from the mantle beside them and rammed her leg forward into his groin. He let out a groan of pain as he released her, Kera dropping back to the floor in a daze. She stumbled forward, coughing as her neck, her hands, throbbed in pain. But she couldn’t stop, not yet, so before either of them regained much deftness, she grappled to take his head into both her hands.
He resisted, attempted to jerk away, but Kera thrust her head down hard against his before he got anywhere. She fumbled back when she heard his nose snap and felt blood splatter over her face.
Wand, she needed a wand. Her wand, his wand, any wand, it---
Kera rolled, tucking her arms in to barely avoid the stream of fire shoot from his wand. The spell singed her hair, maybe even some of her back, but Kera crawled anyway. She hobbled, tripping over herself until she transformed into a fox and shot out the door.
What kind of disrepair this place was in, Kera could only guess. But she did know Dragomirov used the kitchen, so she ran there as fast as she could, following her nose in hope that he kept it as a hub of operation. When she skidded through the door and transformed back, she heard a violent crash in the next room followed by a string of Russian curses.
She rushed along the kitchen counter, her hands shaking. Old food, dirty plates, trash. He had to have kept Brad’s wand for safekeeping, hers too, to polyjuice or--- proof of disposition purposes. But where would he have---?
Kera froze. Silence filled the room, filled every room, and it made her hair stand on end. Where was he?
The swinging kitchen door exploded off its hinges, jolting Kera toward the only other exit in the room. She scrambled up the small set of stairs, jumping two at a time to avoid the volley of spells following her feet.
Dragomirov screamed after her in Russian, words she couldn’t immediately translate but knowing what he meant to convey hitting her hard. She made it to the top and rounded the corner just as he set the stairwell on fire.
A wand, all she needed was a wand. She could do this; he was on the cusp, one more push and she---!
Kera stopped sprinting down a dingy hallway, her jaw dropping slack from what she saw through an open door. A crib, old and untouched for years, in the middle of the room. Toys lay all over the floor, a changing table in the corner, and on the walls, even though they were covered in dust---
Her heart sank, her eyes unable to look away from the stagnant owls lining the upper sections of the walls, the sky.
It was true.
Kera tore herself away, a schism opening within that she could not allow to break her. She skidded by the room next door, a little girl’s room that was yellow like a daisy. And then, on the opposite side of the hallway---
She rushed into Joash Dragomirov’s childhood room, careening through it as loud booms shook the floor from below. Kera could feel her heart thumping in her throat as she scavenged, tearing open drawer after drawer until she found what she was looking for in the child’s desk pressed up against the window. Relief and a new vigor filled her as she finally reunited with her wand after so long. But the comforting sensation beneath her fingertips was quickly cut short by a great fire bursting just outside the room at the top of the stairs.
She charged forward, tears forming in her eyes from the heat and smoke.
Had he kept the flames from climbing to the ceiling so she could see him at the foot of the stairs? The way he stood, the hateful, possessed look on his face made her think so. Joash lifted his hand and gave her a half-hearted wave, the light spilling out the front door framing his form.
“Poká, lisichka!“ he called, angry.
Kera straightened her shoulders and kept her wand in hand behind her thigh. Had he trapped her? He trapped her. But maybe not quite yet.
“Hestia will never accept you for what you are!” Kera yelled over the roaring flames. “Trying to kill me won't change that!”
Joash bellowed, an absolute rage quickly filling every part of his being. He jumped forward, shooting one, two, three killing curses up the stairs, the spell slicing through the flames like there was nothing there at all. Kera dropped to the floor to avoid them, coughing as she inhaled too much smoke.
She scurried back, anticipating Dragomirov to charge. The floor beneath her began to crack like the house was on the verge of splitting in half. Aghast, barely able to open her stinging eyes, she realized he hadn't taken her bait and she would die up here if she didn't put out his fire herself. And even then---!
He was gone, he was gone, she couldn't let him escape.