OPEN

[latrodectus]

Who: Natasha and You.
When: First week after arrival, before the event.
Where: Around town!
What: Natasha meets the neighbors, goes to the library.
Warnings: N/A, will update if necessary.

A. Guns or Butter

[ Natasha did not grow up with a kindly babuskha watching over her shoulder, telling her how to beat the eggs. Instead, she had dormitory kitchens and field rations, careful portions of second grade wheat flour. What she knew how to make, she'd taught herself.

It is how they explain it in American textbooks: you can have guns or butter. She'd always chosen guns. And takeout. And a glass of wine before bed.

But if there was one lesson her upbringing did teacher, it was that you work with what you have. So one trip to the grocery store, and a stop at the library, and she was making what the recipe assured her were cakes, to bring to her new neighbors.

She delivers them by hand, of course, ringing the doorbell and waiting outside with a smile. That was the point. To meet them, maybe get a look inside their houses, make a perimeter. ]

Hi, I'm Natalie. [ She says, holding the unnaturally colored cake up in her white-gloved hands. It isn't poison. At least, not on purpose. ]

I just moved in.

B. Odyssey

[ She does love books, especially long and sad stories where everything ends neatly, with nothing frayed. But that isn't why she goes to the library. She wants to see the town records for herself. Natasha expects them to be lies, but even the lies people tell reveal the truth they want to be believed.

But there's nothing, nothing from the past ten years, at least. Her eyes scan the shelves, sometimes taking out a book and looking at the publishing date, then hurriedly putting it back. If someone catches her looking, though, she turns to them and whispers: ]

Do you know where the romances are?

C. Lovely Dark and Deep

[ She tries the forest, too, as the sun is just beginning to sink into the depths of the sky. The woods are thick enough that it's easy not to notice, and the light that does shine through is warmer, with the dusk.

It feels like the most lonely spot in this town, and that's almost freeing, in a way. Natasha stops for a moment, leaning on the fence. She takes her hair down.

And then there's a horrible, horrible laugh.

There's another hiker approaching, and she meets their gaze, her own eyes asking the unspoken question: did you hear that? ]

D. Wildcard

[ Natasha is going to be wandering all around town after arrival, trying to case the place out. Feel free to run into her, or have her catch your character doing something unusual. ]

Comments

a

[the_caped_crusader]

[ bruce opens the door, foregoing the welcoming smile for something a little more brusque; genuine. ]

I know, I remember.

[latrodectus]

[ It's him. She wasn't sure if he'd be the one to open the door. The smile slips off her face, for an instant, like a veil pushed back. ]

I do too.

[ She holds up the cake. There's probably some jello in it. She smiles again. ]

I made this.

[the_caped_crusader]

Come in. You can leave it on the counter.

[ he walks away from the door without considering whether or not she would protest, reaching for the pot of coffee in the kitchen that always seems to be brewing. from the living room, the basement door stands lightly ajar, a hint of burnt air and metal, hints of gunpowder and warmth, something like you might expect from a small forge of sorts. ]

I shouldn't be expecting any razors, should I?

[latrodectus]

No.

[ She raises an eyebrow as she follows him inside. Her glance turns toward the basement as they pass it, noticing but not following. Soon, the confection rests on the countertop. ]

Too messy. [ She'd use poison before razorblades. ] And you don't look you need them.

[the_caped_crusader]

Hm. Don't assume, I've barely started my day yet.

[ who knows what kind of hell this place will put them-- him-- through as the day goes on, especially with his penchant for sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. by noon, he's likely to have a 5 o'clock shadow on his face purely from frustration. ]

But you sound confident. A specialty of yours?

( prompt: lovely, dark, and deep. )

[inpersonation]

[ noelle nods. there's no need to act when the pit of nervousness and fear she feels is very much real.

she had only gone out to the damn forest in a desperate need to stretch out her limbs. it was getting stifling- being at home, being at school, trying to find work in job interviews where people spoke to her in condescending tones. noelle thought anywhere but there would be a welcome change of pace.

now, as the laugh continues to echo in her ears, she isn't too sure. ]

A-Are we- [ scared or not, noelle remembers to keep in character as blossom and so she doesn't curse, doesn't try to act up. she hunches into herself, nervously looking around as she tries to keep quiet as possible. ] Are we the only ones here?

[latrodectus]

[ Besides her eyes, darting from Noelle's face, to the woods, to the shadows there, Natasha doesn't move. It's an unnatural, practiced stillness, a way of holding herself. ]

I don't know.

[ She can't see whatever it is that made the sound, but her eyes are only human, and cannot penetrate the woods. ]

I didn't see anyone else on the path. [ Not the way she came, anyway. Maybe Noelle saw something she didn't. ]

[inpersonation]

I-I didn't see anyone as well, miss.

[ she was too busy keeping her head down, trying to ignore everything and everyone around her as she made her way up here.

fucking stupid mistake- a rookie thing she shouldn't have done at all but here they are, completely in the fucking dark. she channels the frustration and anger into presenting a nervous, scared expression towards the older woman. ] -Are we going to be okay? Should we, um, check it out? It could be someone hurt or something.

[ that's the stupidest thing she ever had to say but that's what blossom would suggest, because that persona is a well-meaning idiot. ]

[latrodectus]

[ "Are we going to be okay?" is the kind of question she doesn't know how to answer honestly, so rather than put syrup into her voice, she ignores it. ]

Did they — [ It? Could be an it. ] — sound hurt to you?

[ She doesn't move, much, and maybe she should. The girl is full of nervous energy. Or babbling. But she could've heard something Natasha didn't. ]

[inpersonation]

[ huh. now that she brings it up: ]

It did. [ not they but it. because noelle isn’t going to pretend there’s not a possibility of something freaky going down here. if something or someone can drag all their asses here, all bets are off.

taking a few calming breaths to get her heart under control, noelle tries to listen for the sound and! there is it. the sound is back and— ]

It... It sounds like it’s getting closer. [ great. ]

c!

[grice]

[ he wasn't going to bother the woman he saw up ahead at first, only regarding her presence with a nodding gaze before going into another direction, a flashlight in one mittened hand as his other was in his pocket, holding onto folded papers. of course, falco was alone and should've been accompanied by a group his age as some sort of dare to get adrenaline pumping— but any curious investigating up until now would've been done by himself. now was no exception.

the laughter booms, gets him to quickly turn to the woman when, naturally, he had thought it was her. her mouth isn't moving. the laughter still echoes. she looks just as startled in the eyes and perhaps he did more when he realized it wasn't . . . anyone nearby, he thinks. it should be. guffawing tapers into sobbing, and falco can't help but to feel a shiver down his spine that ran deeper that the february chill.

the child only stands in place and takes his gaze to the bare forest canopy, tries to look past the branches and trunks. someone was probably hiding, but . . .

ngl, it was freaky. ]

No one followed me, [ he starts, certain, or wanting to be certain, that it hadn't been any of the middle schoolers who called him pal or even the ones who teased him for being a panty waist. ]

[latrodectus]

No one followed me either.

[ She is certain about that: she would have noticed. That's something she would have noticed, no matter how much this place has her off her game. That the only one she's seen for the past five minutes is a child has her off her game, too.

She hopes, vaguely, that her tone is comforting. It's harder to lie to a kid. ]

We have a mystery on our hands.

[ She should probably walk with him, back to safety. But she also wants to go deeper, and see if she can't find the source of that laugh. ]

[grice]

[ falco has been trained to assess and react to any given situation that posed risk; they were in the woods, a woman was with him (a stranger), but there was now the question of being one more . . . thing. he's almost worried it's a doppelganger. whether it was to leave or stay, his best bet was with staying with her, so— he comes closer, only crunching the humid leaves and snowy remains under his boots. ]

Is there a good tree to climb? For a view?

[ he doesn't see one, but maybe she can help with a boost, or something. ]

[latrodectus]

You want to climb a tree?

[ Brave kid. Crazy kid. Same difference.

It's not a bad idea, though, and her eyes wander the forest, looking for a suitable tree. Her inclination is to stick close, even though a woman here is supposed to be just as defenseless as a child. But… ]

It sounded closer than that, to me.

[ Heights let you see far off things. Not what was right under you. ]

[grice]

[ luckily, the chill already has falco's cheeks a bright red, but he certainly feels some heat to them that spread to his ears at the word want. um, well— yes. but also. it was more. an idea? he looks around them now with more heed and considers her thoughts before his in checking the immediate surroundings. nothing. no matter how much he strained his ears, he thinks he only hears chickadees. ]

. . . Maybe they ran off?

d. sinteticheskaya lyubov / amour plastique | cw for guns

[m1895]

[ Vasiliy wakes up in the same way he always does: on his right side, legs curled toward his chest, facing the window that illuminates the rest of the room with morning light. After a moment he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, bare feet effortlessly finding the house slippers he lined up at the edge of the bedframe the previous night; he stretches his upper body and grabs the revolver on the bedside table as his arm falls.

It's routine by now, or as much of a routine as he's been able to carve out in a place like this with hours like his. This place will never be a home, or even a tenable situation, but there is comfort in familiar motions. He puts on the bathrobe hanging from the bedpost and drops the gun into the right-side pocket—then freezes when a difference in his environment hits him like a fault line that's appeared overnight.

The stripped twin bed that's gone empty for the past few months is still pushed against the far wall, but it's unoccupied no longer. A woman he's never seen his life sleeps there, motionless, seemingly oblivious. For the time being.

A flash of dread tenses every muscle in his body, a preparation on the molecular level to match the abrupt rise in his pulse and the dryness in his mouth. Sure, she's probably not in the house on her own volition any more than he was, but for all he knows she lived through it, or she's a criminal investigator. Or one of Beria's people.

Vasiliy slowly removes the gun from his pocket and broadens his stance, mink brown eyes flicking from object to object as though cataloguing the room for the first time: it's sparse, thank god, and there's barely anything she could throw at him or try to stab him with. Pretty much every materialist knick-knack and pointless bauble that had undoubtedly charmed the home's previous inhabitants is in a box somewhere now, where it's less of an ostentatious eyesore, and he's the one with the loaded weapon.

She could have one on her far side, something in the back of his mind needles. Careless. Careless.

Vasiliy tenses his jaw until he can feel the presence of every alloy filling and crown his molars have among them, takes a slow breath, points the gun. He keeps his voice level, reasonable, but certainly not friendly. ]

Get up. Don't scream. Tell me your name and why you are here.

[latrodectus]

[ This is not the first time in her life she's woken up in a strange bed with a gun pointed at her face. And she can tell there's a gun, even in the slow morning lighting, even before her eyes catch their focus.

She blinks, several times, trying to parse the details of the room around her, to make them fit a meaning. Another bed, on the opposite side of the room. Bare walls, nothing for an improvised weapon. Has she heard his voice before? Natasha tries to get as many answers as she can before she opens her mouth. She doesn't scream. ]

Natalie. [ It's an alias she's used a lot. Maybe too much. But it's close enough to Наталья that her ears pick it up, and she doesn't have time to get fancy. ] Natalie Rushman.

[ She has to guess, for the accent. But they're speaking English, and though it's hard to tell from the inside, she'd bet these walls are platform-framed. Likely America. The rising note of panic in her voice is not entirely feigned. ]

Who are you? Where am I?

[ Who did this and why?

Her eyes are still wide, the color of faded cornflower. ]

[m1895]

[ Natalie he can believe, even if it's not a common name for Americans, but Rushman? Vasiliy's eyes narrow at that, several shades darker than the ice-blue irises currently fixed on him. It doesn't sound like a real family name at all. It sounds like a shitty on-the-spot improvisation based on the first fact that undoubtedly jumped at her: he's Russian.

No shit, he wants to say, but doesn't.

Instead he keeps his voice slow and level, betraying nothing of the tension rising inside of him. The arm holding the gun remains extended outwards. Her fear sounds genuine, and he doesn't wholly blame her; she's a woman who just woke up in the bedroom of a strange man in a position of clear advantage over her in a strange place, and she probably arrived here in the same way he did. That doesn't mean, however, that she can't also be dangerous, so he remains guarded. ]

Vasiliy Yegorovich. You are in California.

[latrodectus]

[ Vasily Yegorovich; it doesn't ring a bell. There are people out there who want to hurt her, people she doesn't have a name for, who she could not pick out of a crowd. Especially back in Moscow, after what she did to Stalyenko.

But one of Stalyenko's goons wouldn't take her to California. And wouldn't entertain the lie of Natalie Rushman. Maybe he's just toying with her.

She decides to push. Pawns can only move in one direction. ]

Are you going to shoot me?

[ Her voice is not much louder than her breath. She seems small, underneath the bedclothes. Hardly a threat. She wonders if he'll believe that. ]

[m1895]

You choose [, he says, but it's not how he'd word the thought if given the tools of a familiar language. 'Only if you give me a reason to' comes closer to the intention, but to say that would require unmasking himself as a living anachronism, something that doesn't quite fit, even within the group that was pulled in here.

So the sentiment is expressed simply and clumsily, filtered through the bottleneck of his proficiency in this shitty language.

He considers for a moment, then slowly walks to the dresser on what was presumably intended to be his 'side' of the room, gun still leveled at the center of her body, and pulls out the first bulky sweater he can find. He tosses it at her feet—it's an ugly brick red and probably slightly too big for her, but it should accomplish its purpose (that is, to add another layer). What she's wearing is nothing compared to the assorted lacy... things the women of the 2000s sleep in, but somewhere behind the stress of a stranger in his home, it still feels decidedly inappropriate to be standing in the same room as an unfamiliar woman in nothing but her pajamas. He can't imagine she's thrilled about it either.

He gestures minutely with the gun, a small movement of the wrist. ]

You can put it on.

b

[weifinder]

( He's not sure what she's checking, because the way these books are bound and put together is so different from what he's used to, and the information inside not entirely helpful for giving him context to understand. Wei Wuxian figured a library had to be a place to find information, and maintains it's a sound thought process, even if it's curated to maintain a fiction of normalcy in this town. At that point, what it's missing is clue enough--but ah, then he catches her attention, and the man with his long hair half pulled back, wearing a suit without a tie and with the jacket not buttoned blinks at her and flashes a smile. )

Romances, ah? I do, I do, I found them trying to find the birth records... you wouldn't happen to know where someone might find those, do you?

[latrodectus]

No.

[ Well, at least that much is honest. Natasha looks at the man— handsome, but he doesn't fit in here, exactly, with the long hair tied back like that.

Better make sure, though, just in case. ]

Have you forgotten your birthday?

[ There's a lightness in her voice, like bubbles in a glass of pop. Her hands clasp around the cover of the book she's carrying, pulling it closer. ]

[weifinder]

( He grins, then chuckles, shaking his head. )

With the calendar used here, I have no idea in the world when the day of my birth should be marked. Not that I mind—I'm more interested in, ah... how many birthdays have been recorded here in recent times.

[latrodectus]

[ She relaxes, which means some of the frothiness disappears from her tone. Still, it seems best to whisper. They are in a library. ]

I don't think they're located here. In the building, I mean.

[weifinder]

( he sighs, matching her volume with a murmur and tapping against one of the novels on shelf, as if asking after it. )

Do you have any idea where they might be? Talking with the ones who see nothing strange about being here makes it apparent there's supposed to be some kind of record. Or announcements.