Walking on Coals

Vera · 01-01-2011, 11:42 PM

The moment she had felt cement underfoot, her inhibitions swelled and strangled her much like a noose. The rope, once hanging loosely around her neck just as her amulet did, had tightened and constricted her; she was a dead woman who had never lived, the worst of fates, she thought. Her breaths were nonetheless steady and deep as she wandered into the once great city, thinking of Moscow but not daring to acknowledge the slimy feel of longing slithering through her. But oh, she felt it; she felt it join the noose around her neck, one of her mother's feathered boas; she felt it between her fingers amid a great many golden bands, a pencil with the tip sharpened to a precise point just as she had always preferred. The rhythmic rise and fall of her chest seemed to be her only comfort as she crumbled, her bravado vanished as soon as a leak appeared in her vessel. Staying afloat seemed a daunting task when one was alone after being so coddled and adored; the times of peering from the window of her home and wondering at the world were long gone, and our girl could not think of them without a certain twist of her gut. It was only her heartbeat with her now.

Vera perched on the weathered bench gingerly, her face the portrait of composure and decided indifference. Her seat was beaten, a now archaic slice of the past aching to crumble with each shift of its occupant. Hands cradled in her lap, the wind teased her, a friend who she had not lost -- it still whispered to her, its voice soft, a lover's reassurance. It burned her eyes when it was angry, and loved her body with sweet caresses when content as it always had. She shuddered, only slightly, only enough to expel the churlish anxiety from her being. The white girl peered at the buildings but did not see them as she thought, comforting herself. She fingered her necklace idly, twisting the silver chain and smoothing her finger over the gleaming ruby in force of habit. An internal scolding (accompanied by a slight downturn of her black lips, the single physical clue to her distress) was all she allowed. To avoid her own cowardice was a horror of its own breed, but one she embraced with a tug and a flourish.

Unclasping her satchel, the Russian woman, folded in on herself but nonetheless poised, extracted two long gloves, unmarred satin of the softest powder blue. She smoothed them fondly, stroking the material with the particular reverence one employs when handling something delicate and valuable. Each ring, removed with a quick glance of silver. As she slipped them on, she rose, gathering her bag and walking with practiced silence down the sidewalk. Its cracks were fringed with brown, invaders murdered by an unforgiving winter before they could truly take root. The tundra wolf (however humanoid she appeared at that moment) brushed her foot over it slowly, feeling the slight breath of a tickle and eying the cracks absently. Halifax was ill-suited for dissolution; splayed against a canvas of endless gray sky, its wonder was drained, reduced to a despairing landscape of what once was. As paint had become washed-out with time, the roads were barren, signs dirty and displaced from the elements. Her slow stroll through the city (she was unsure of her exact location -- a marketplace, it seemed) had been a study in disaster; her memories of her hometown were less desolate, though she supposed it was only the community in which she lived that gave her the impression.

She neared an intersection, stoplights still drooping from the cables, and caught a burst of color from the corner of her eye. Leaned against a door to a small shop ("Susan's Vintage", its faded purple banner read) was a magazine, the cover stained but still decipherable. A woman with cherry red lips and dark features smiled grandly at the girl with the cool arch of her brow. She picked it up and examined it, handling the pages much as she had handled her gloves. It crackled and protested as she stared, reading as comfortably as if she still lingered in her room at home.

(SSWM: 710 @_@)

Anatoliy Russo · 01-02-2011, 02:39 AM

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780
Thank you so much for starting!

The new year had come and gone. Once upon a time, there would be cars in the streets, honking, noise, people. They would be walking down the street, cat calling, hooting, drinks in hand, eyes to the screen as leaders celebrated, as New York dropped the ball in Time's Square. People would congregate in bars, banquet halls, homes, and streets with alcohol in hand and on hand. Champagne would be opened, foamy spout onto the floors of thousands of locations from San Francisco to Tokyo to Cape Town to Stockholm. There would be so much food, too much to even keep up with. Chickens and ducks fresh from the oven racks, bread crunchy, greens crisp, and the desserts ever sweet, ever delicious. They would ring in the new year with rousing screams as they counted down from ten to zero as the world grew a year older, a tiny dot in it's history. But that simply was not happening at all. There were no humans on the streets. Just ghosts, just empty shells of what used to be, and the memories of it all alive fading away with every passing wind storm.

Halifax, Anatoliy noted, was nothing like the slowly growing Luperci populations of Europe. It seemed that the human ghosts roaming the cities of Europe were being replaced with the canines that once curled at their feet or ran from their guns and fire. Evolution. But why was it not happening here? The city was well preserved, even if it was decaying beneath his feet. The world had been decaying in Europe too, but there was more culture, more life in the cities. This, this was barren and dead. It was here for the salvaging but there was no life that sustained itself. Anatoliy had lived in the concrete jungle when he had been dropped off here from the ship, but even now it still seemed the same. Dead. Ever dead. Back in Russia, he remembered the bustle of St. Petersburg and the market and the life, flourishing. He remembered the ports of Denmark and the ports down the coast he had seen. Then, after a long voyage across the sea, he encountered a wonderful load of.. nothing. But once he left the city and joined Cours des Miracles, he found life. Life, love, and a living. It was good.

Now, in Halifax, Anatoliy was browsing for something to take to the cabin so he and Anann could celebrate a very sweet new years with the pretty woman. Granted, it was too late for the actual new years celebration he figured, but it was just another excuse to take a couple swigs of a good drink in the presence of his very pretty woman. He had been browsing through a once privately owned shop filled with broken booze and the dust prints of other canines. Most of the really good stuff had been taken, and mostly cheap junk remained. He left those watery vodkas and piss poor excuses for rum behind, wanting the special, good stuff for Anann and he. It just would not be in this rummaged out shop. Anatoliy would have to travel further, just as he had originally feared.

Anatoliy, empty handed still, left the shop, avoiding the bottles that had spilled to the floor and the broken shards of glass that littered it like petals in the wind. He walked a couple of blocks, having found nothing yet. Sighing, he turned, choosing to take a different street and just comb the city as best as he could without wandering too far from the southern end. Turning a corner, he saw a figure, female obviously, but not the one that made the fire in his soul roar beneath his placid face. He stiffened, then relaxed as he noted that she had her back turned to him and that she was busy with something in her hands. Curious as he was, he was not in the mood to converse much; he had a goal. But still, he did not disguise his presence; he was not afraid. It was just a woman. But maybe there would be an alcohol shop down here. Maybe she saw one somewhere?

He had no choice but to ask the woman. Sighing, once more, he came up behind her and cleared his throat loudly. "Miss," began the Russo, accent thickly laid on as always, his origin clear; not of here. "Have you seen a shop near here? For alcohol?" he asked her, wondering if she did know or if she was unaware as he. Anatoliy glanced down at her hands this time, golden eyes seeing what her gloved hands were holding. A.. magazine?

Vera · 01-02-2011, 08:12 PM

The human woman's elfin face, splayed so charmingly across the once-glossy page, was red-lipped and blue-eyed as she smiled with feigned exuberance at Vera's own down-turned gaze. Beside the tumble of rich mahogany hair were images of a tube of lipstick and mascara. Her mother had owned both items, unused but often stroked with peculiar reverence; it was only in hindsight she realized her mother's eccentricities, her poorly hidden admiration (a poor word, Vera corrected herself; it was obsession) for the human race that had caused its own destruction. Vera's hand smoothed across the page, brittle from water damage beneath the comforting satin of her glove.

A rumble from behind halted her fingers as they traced across the human's golden cheek, sun-kissed and so smooth, she thought. She did not turn around to face her company until he had finished speaking, her brow furrowing and her mind somersaulting with pinpricks of intrigue. A Russian -- there was no mistaking the lilt to his voice, saying more than his words could, for as she listened, in her palm she held a neighbor's prized Fabergé egg; underfoot was the Siberian tundra, guileless and beautiful. Like the nameless man standing before her, she didn't bother with fanfare. "No, I know where nothing is." she returned in an even alto, watching him carefully. Alcohol was no foreigner to her. She had consumed her fair share of vodka and remembered it as bitterly as it had tasted.

"Where you from?" Her curiosity, never one to wait, pinched and prodded and urged her to interrogate him, to ease her ignorance. The woman rose from the bench, facing him with the magazine rolled in one hand as if she might swat at him for his shortcomings. Her expression was as cool as her voice, detached and ever loyal to her fortified composure. Her posture as impeccable as if she carried a wooden board instead of a spine, she tapped her foot idly, shifting her weight and crossing her arms, one still clutching the magazine -- such human mannerisms! -- as she looked at him through pale eyes. As an afterthought, the white Russian added, "Vera, from Moscow." Her parents' disappointment at her ill manners was as present in her mind as if she felt the sudden sting of a slap and the harsh words of reproach. Vaguely, she felt a sense of embarrassment; her lips twitched downwards, followed by the faintest of sighs.

Sparing a glance to the dethroned cityscape surrounding, she unwound her arms from her torso, placing the magazine in her satchel. Its barren streets were perplexing, entirely alien to the European vibrancy to which she was accustomed. Festivals, barterers, children, music -- it had all filled her, so completely, in Moscow. It was with absentminded indifference she thought of the parties she imagined in her home, only faintly acknowledging the beginning of a new year. Fitting, that she would find herself in a new place, but there was a sense of foreboding in her adventure's (could one call it that? She did not feel adventurous at that moment) desolation. Another sigh, this time extinguished while still brooding deep in her chest.

(527 -- I was interrupted halfway through, and when I came back to it, I completely lost steam. Sorry about the disjointed shortness.)

Anatoliy Russo · 01-09-2011, 10:21 PM

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354
apologies for delay

She did not know. Anatoliy have a sigh and shook his head in frustration, glancing down the street to see if any signs stuck out to him. He wanted to find a good store with plenty of unopened bottles, be they in the shop front or in the back. But he just wanted to find something. He ignored her posture, her primness. It was nothing important to him. He was not a fan of the girls who were so delicate and had to act like young ladies. That was just the kind of upbringing he himself never had nor would have probably cared much for. Instead, Anatoliy grew up raised under the tutelage of fishermen and vicious housemothers. He had been disciplined well but it was only his manners that had been questioned. He could be a wild rumpus and if he still respected women and his elders, everything was okay.

He gave her an uninterested look when she asked him where he was from, but his interest instantly spiked when she said she was from Moscow. No wonder he had missed something. She had the accent but he had gotten used to hearing his family's accents that he disregarded her nationality. But he could also detect the Muscovite accent in her tones; it was different from other cities, but it had the flair of the city dwellers. He himself was a country boy, born and raised. Well, almost. He was more of a country sailor but that was just the genetics playing out. Everyone was a sailor in his family if not a pirate. "Sobirat'sya." It was kind of obscure. "It's also Arkhangel'sk. Way north of Москва. You probably have never been on zhe Vhite Sea," he said casually, thinking someone like this lady probably had stayed in the shiny falseness of Moscow. "Vhen did you get here? And how? Ship?" Tha was the only way to get here, really, so it was silly to be asking such a question. But he could not help but think she would turn her nose up at her if he even suggested he was a pirate's son.

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