[ From a city of darkness to a city of rain. Nikolai looks at the sky and thinks it's ironic. He's sent back to London, but it's a different London, with a different sky. He's looked at the map and he knows this is England. The weather tells him it is as well, especially with the way it won't stop raining. Don't seem to ever stop as well.
There's a card between his fingers. Money they give him, in return for service. That he knows well enough. Nikolai is no soldier, but labour for money is a concept well-known. Capitalist ideals, traitorous ideals, the old vor will say as they echo the words of Stalin and Lenin and Trotsky, the leaders inked upon their skins. (But they never really believe in it, because how can they, when all vor want to be princes and there are no princes in communism?). Capitalist though it might be, it's what he's used to. Money in his hand. Sometimes he thinks he has almost forgotten the feel of notes, of coins. Just cards.
In Abax there's no money, no cards. No people except what has been dragged there for sport and food for the monsters. But this is no Abax. This is Exsilium, in the year 3000, and Nikolai laughs in the faces of those who believe in communism because a thousand years passed and capitalism still rule. Can't help it, really, when the vor has held onto those tenets during its years underground in the Soviet Union. Thieves they might be, but sometimes Nikolai thinks that to understand 'human', to know what being a person means, you have to think like a thief. Thief of life, thief of time. In the language of the common people, they call it 'survival'.
He walks along the streets. The cigarettes he brought to him from Abax are stale and he spends his money first on a packet that he hides inside that oversized jacket that drapes upon his shoulder. There's dried blood, long faded, on the light grey jacket, on the edges of his shirt, and hidden in the black of his pants. He smokes a stale cigarette and thinks of the dark city as he walks along these streets. The rain falls down upon him but Nikolai barely notices it as he looks around himself.
Sometimes he wonders if he'll ever get to see the sun again. Get some vitamin D, as Yuri or a doctor will say, and Nikolai laughs to himself, shoulders shaking, at the thought. Strange. Months and months have passed, and he still does not forget those he has left behind back in the London he knows, the London he's starting to think of 'real' (when no place has ever been 'real').
Sentiment, maybe. Or perhaps he's missing Kirill, or Semyon, and the thought is so absurd he almost chokes, his shoulder slamming against the side of the wall as he takes another long drag of his cigarette. ]
nikolai luzhin | as open as the legs of-- okay, I can't
There's a card between his fingers. Money they give him, in return for service. That he knows well enough. Nikolai is no soldier, but labour for money is a concept well-known. Capitalist ideals, traitorous ideals, the old vor will say as they echo the words of Stalin and Lenin and Trotsky, the leaders inked upon their skins. (But they never really believe in it, because how can they, when all vor want to be princes and there are no princes in communism?). Capitalist though it might be, it's what he's used to. Money in his hand. Sometimes he thinks he has almost forgotten the feel of notes, of coins. Just cards.
In Abax there's no money, no cards. No people except what has been dragged there for sport and food for the monsters. But this is no Abax. This is Exsilium, in the year 3000, and Nikolai laughs in the faces of those who believe in communism because a thousand years passed and capitalism still rule. Can't help it, really, when the vor has held onto those tenets during its years underground in the Soviet Union. Thieves they might be, but sometimes Nikolai thinks that to understand 'human', to know what being a person means, you have to think like a thief. Thief of life, thief of time. In the language of the common people, they call it 'survival'.
He walks along the streets. The cigarettes he brought to him from Abax are stale and he spends his money first on a packet that he hides inside that oversized jacket that drapes upon his shoulder. There's dried blood, long faded, on the light grey jacket, on the edges of his shirt, and hidden in the black of his pants. He smokes a stale cigarette and thinks of the dark city as he walks along these streets. The rain falls down upon him but Nikolai barely notices it as he looks around himself.
Sometimes he wonders if he'll ever get to see the sun again. Get some vitamin D, as Yuri or a doctor will say, and Nikolai laughs to himself, shoulders shaking, at the thought. Strange. Months and months have passed, and he still does not forget those he has left behind back in the London he knows, the London he's starting to think of 'real' (when no place has ever been 'real').
Sentiment, maybe. Or perhaps he's missing Kirill, or Semyon, and the thought is so absurd he almost chokes, his shoulder slamming against the side of the wall as he takes another long drag of his cigarette. ]