This was one of the most eerie places he had visited in a long time.

The songs of unknown bird species littered the air, the sound of water trickling somewhere in the distance. Ruslan slipped through the undergrowth, the shadows of the surrounding foliage unintentionally helping him blend in.

He thought he heard a faint whisper behind him, and stopped, casting a glance over his shoulder. Nothing. This place was spooky.

Exhaling softly, the tall Guardian continued. He winced a little on occasional steps, the wounds from his grand escapade still not fully healed. One look at the brawny beast told any stranger all they needed to know; there was hardly a bit of fat on his massive frame, various scars and wounds proving his mettle. Even his markings were barbaric in appearance. The only thing that softened his warlike stature were soft, storm-grey eyes.

Ruslan thought he heard yet another sound ahead, this time more threatening than the last. Drawing himself to his full height, he scanned the grove ahead for any signs of movement.


@Avdotya

""

She stalked him. Her steps tracing obscurity held to no light. Mauve bled into the black of shadows, her body low and steady, despite the heavy thump in her chest.

She knew him. She knew him. She knew him.

His scent was stark, sharp. It was heavy and intoxicating. It was painful and a reprieve all the same. Her breath was unsteady as adrenaline beat against every fibre of her being. No. And yes. And Fear, and elation. Relief. He was unexpected, but all the same she should have known the Spirits would blight her new chapter with old memories.

She should have known; they weren’t finished braiding her road to a bright tomorrow.

Revealing herself, she slithered across his path. A perse viper, eyes howling shock. Apathy drained from her angular features, and was replaced by an unsteady brand of bemusement.

You’d make for a hearty meal, @Ruslan. a laugh was purled into each syllable, though such a sound rarely broke from the child of Rodya. She was not made as he. Certain she carried the jester-bear, the mischief-maker, the bard-like gladiator, somewhere in the depth of her heart. But too much of Axelía sank in. It took hold, and like rot polluted what good the Rurik could have nurtured. Her face was held in an austere expression, not yet broken by sentimentality or nostalgia. She took him, hungrily, greedily; aching for those secreted days she did not have to worry for her Nordic mother chastising. She did not need to be prim, proper. She did not need to be held to a higher standard beyond love, and camaraderie, and family. Oh, she grieved her father. Oh, she craved his comfort and reassurance.

Oh, how she missed it before he was gone.

Ruslan was a painful reminder, but one so greatly cherished. Tears threatened to warm her cheeks. And something terribly close to delight warmed her breast.

It frightened her.

But there he was. There she was. Broken from the shadows and now face to face.

Mischief she’d not tasted in many moons rested I the garnet of her eyes; the same garnet Rodya held in his, the same boasting tomfoolery that warmed his face. The same warmth that too oft escaped Avdotya. Her mouth spread in a Cheshire’s grin. Fluid, she was a girl again—ready to wrestle against her bear-kin and breaking from decorum. No longer beneath the shadow of her mother’s posh and emotionally frigid house, she was held to hearth. Her face pushed into the rustic cloak framing his worn face.

Mm, on second thought ‘cous, I dare say there may be too much fat on the meat. Long in the tooth, round in the middle. Old, and soft. A jesting hiss, as she moved to press her right paw against his shoulder to jostle his weight.

^{_{CODE & ART BY D}}

Scarcely had his frame stilled when his stalker emerged, confirming his suspicions, that he had not been alone all this time. She was far smaller than he, which as far as Ruslan was concerned did not tip the scales in his direction should things turn sour....perhaps if she was a beast of some unknown mettle he might have brushed it off.

But he would have recognized his cousin anywhere, no matter how much time had passed them by.

A look of mild shock crossed Ruslan's normally stone-faced features as he registered the presence of his cousin Avdotya, his eyes always the betrayal of his soul. His mother had told him that once, and that it was a good thing. Her own pretty face reflected the same surprise, and for just a moment time was frozen as the two dark beasts faced each other. Memories flooded Ruslan's head, moments in time long forgotten and locked away. Secret meetings, uncertain glances back at his mother as she encouraged him and his siblings forward to meet their cousins, the children of her cousin...a world apart but of the same blood.

Something was not right, even now. Things had never seemed right with the distant children of Rodion Rurik. Regardless, Ruslan had been fond of them, and had found great entertainment in telling them stories about the clan, enjoying their wide-eyed attention.

Her voice broke the eerie silence, like the rustle of a snake through dry leaves. His dark brow lifted at her jest, the faintest of smirks crossing his lips. "I couldn't say the same for you, cousin," Ruslan rumbled, his voice as quiet and mild as ever. He looked down at her, gentle grey eyes focused on her wine-red gaze as she slipped closer, her muzzle dipping into the fringe of his dark mane to share another delightfully teasing comment - and suddenly the shove of her paw against his injured shoulder elicited an instinctive reaction. A guttural snarl, the sound of hell itself - teeth snapped shut with a click, just inches away from her face as he gritted his teeth against the stabbing pain of throbbing, healing wounds. He remained stock still even against her touch, pain burning like fire up his shoulder.

"It seems you found my weak spot, cousin," the tall Guardian said finally, stepping back slightly to rock back on his haunches. Perhaps his constant wandering was delaying the healing process, which he recalled regrettably that Elijah had warned him against.

""

Skinny? Hare-like. Starved. Wasting in the shadows of Amaryllis. It sounded appropriate. It sounded true. And for the first time in eons, Avdotya allowed herself to laugh. Despite his reprimand, despite gentility, despite everything. Ava laughed. A long sound, lacking gloom and glowering. Lacking menace and hard-spun spite. She laughed, and it felt good.

She pulled away from him, wincing at the realizing she’d wounded him. She took him in once more and found fault in her choice of action. She’d missed it. Somehow in the magic of their moment, she had not seen his condition, did not note the roughened edges and the remnants of things Avdotya had known for most of her life. Her eyes asked how; but her mouth dared not ask. Such stories weren’t meant to be asked for. She was owed nothing and should be in want of nothing. She drew in a sharp exhale and allowed her eyes to wander. Her throat tightened, fighting against the alien sensation of what she could imagine was grief.

Avdotya Rurik was not allowed to cry. She was not allowed to share in a display of weakness.

And it seems as though you’re in need of a nursemaid. She spoke, the laugh brewing behind it. Last she saw him; she was the one to be minded. That required care and soft touch. The one who needed to be nurtured, kept close range and offered wisdoms and jovial exchanges. How freely she could speak; how willingly she gave herself to freedom and happiness. Happiness. What was happiness to the ilk of Axelia? Was it the battlefield? Was it curtailing ones’ enemies to heel? To rote, strength above all. To soul, ambition first. To heart, be stone. To eyes, only truth. To touch, just brutality. There was no place for love. And yet, and yet in her arms, Rodya found it. And yet, in their bed, he found a home. Why them? Why her?

Ava never wished to know such desperation.

Avdotya, did not want to know love.

With a sigh, and a sheepish expression, she allowed herself to unwind. Her posture found a foreign sense of relaxation, as though she only then remembered to breathe. How times have changed.

A pause. Remembering herself as she was then, and not how she was now.

I’m… apologies are not for the likes of us, chided a mother's voice. Sorry. She knew not why, though could levy a guess, but he pulled it from her. Rallying against the influence of many months without Rodya’s kindness. Pushing against the cruelties of her formidable dam, and the callous pressures of such heritage. Her eyes fell away from him, more uncertain stranger than a scolded child. She drew things in stride, falling back to sit. Resting, leaning into his company. Questions piled against consciousness, losing themselves en masse as she tried to sort the months since she’d last saw him, since she’d last saw her father’s kin.

Hers.

She belonged to them too.

She carried their name, carried her father’s stalwart tenacity, his brilliance, his lust for life. The vigor of Rurik blood, it belonged to her as much as it did him. She always forgot such things in Rodya’s absence. She forgot the shine even more in her mother’s pained company. She grimaced, grouping such emotions with the burnishing kindness the spirits had brought to her.

Her heart yearned for answers, answers she knew could not come to light, that would never offer comfort or closure to such aches. Where was her father? Where had the Rurik gone? Were there others, here? Was she not alone? Was she and her siblings forgotten? Were they shunned? Had her mother only spun lies, lies, lies? She was beholden to the witch, shackled to the very feelings of shame and unfed affections that were meant to drive Avdotya to greatness. You coddle them too much! A mother should coddle. A mother should improve upon her children with nourishing love, and saccharine words. It should not have only fallen to her father to bring such things.

Her heart dropped into her stomach, bottoming in a dark well that only invited a bleak feeling of nausea and longing. And in that moment, she spited them all: the Spirits, the Rurik, Axelia, Rodya, her siblings. She had her shining future. She had her fresh chapter. She had a new start, without the stirring of regret and lost opportunities. What would her future had been had she ran to them? What would have happened if that child fled her mother’s cruel kingdom and instead sought shelter in the wanting arms of her father’s beloved cousins? Would she had been kinder? Welcoming? Perhaps she’d be in want of a husband, and children. Perhaps she would have been embraced by those unseen voices that came in those moments between dream and wakefulness.

Maybe.

Or, maybe she’d be the same sullen mess her mother so wondrously and graciously created.

Maybe, maybe if she had gone to them in Rodion Rurik’s absence, she would have been the same cruel beast and be expelled further into that haunting wreck that she was in that moment.

Silvertongue and black-hearted, she reclaimed that cunning and mischievous smile. Her eyes lifted themselves from the well-trodden path to find the soft, and mystifying grey of his. I suppose now would be my moment to finally beat you in a fight.

No, she would not brood. Could not give herself to such notions. She knew it in her father; she saw it in the dark wine of his eyes and the tiredness left beneath them. She felt it in every embrace, every touch, every reassurance. He was not himself, and his heart was touched by malaise. She ran far and fast to evade such things. She scurried into the unknown, and found herself a place in dark, empty corridors to secret such wounds away. She had found purpose. This was hers. This land, and this chapter. Resolute, she would not let this ghost haunt her. She would not let her mother poison this one good thing that had come to her.

A gift.

@Ruslan Rurik was a gift.

I dare say, I've missed you.

^{_{CODE & ART BY D}}

Such a whirlwind of emotions possessed Ruslan in the moment, the most he'd felt since his exodus from the clutches of the rogue barbarians; her laughter rang like soft bells, pure and mirthful in the blue shadows of the surrounding thicket. It crashed to a halt, dissipating and replaced with a look of horror, fear, what have I done? in her dark gaze. Immediately, his heart crumpled as she withdrew - his pain was her pain, which was his pain. He couldn't bear to think his reaction had frightened her, not knowing the true result of his reaction.

As soon as the moment came, it passed, it was too late, the soft and sweet gaze of his little cousin replaced with what he felt was an all-too familiar shield. The moment was covered swiftly with a joking comment about his condition, and now it was Ruslan's turn for his gaze to fall to the earth. "It...I didn't mean..." the big male fumbled softly, shifting his pained shoulder awkwardly as he looked for the right words. What was wrong with him? Suddenly in the presence of his childhood companion he was rendered a fool; he was not quick with the tongue as she was, and he felt it, and it made things worse...why did he feel this way?

Guilt.

Not a feeling the Guardian was too familiar with. For him, the cousins were the one book left open, the remaining unknown. In the face of such struggles that the Rurik had faced in the last many months, Ruslan had known deep down that something should be done to care for Rodya's family. The truth was, he knew so little about the goings-on of his cousins, which had made it so much easier to put it off until tomorrow, or the day after.

Ava saved the day though, a deep exhale bringing his cloudy gaze back up to hers. Her expression was chagrined, almost embarrassed, whether it was for her or him or both of them.."Indeed," Ruslan murmured. "Seems like only yesterday that I last saw you." He fixed his gaze on hers. He couldn't figure her out, which bothered him, but Ruslan was a patient beast, willing to wait for others to warm up in their own time.

Her lip curled, cunning and wreathed with mischief. "I'm certain you could, Ava. Rodya's blood runs in your veins." Ruslan said stoutly. "I feel as though I'm a hundred years old after what I've been through." He lolled onto his side, feeling the lush, cool grass beneath his coat. Ruslan was not one much to engage taunts, he was a little too...good for that, but only in the sense that the Rurik's golden child simply did not have a particular capacity for jabs and insults. "I'll tell on you though," he warned her. "My mother isn't so easy to defeat."

Her next words surprised him, and his gaze flicked up to meet hers again. Was she serious now? Ruslan did not take such things lightly, and lifted his head slightly, propping his weight up partially on one shoulder. "I've missed you too, Ava," he said softly, his feelings genuine. His heart was so full, yet had so much room for every wayward soul that crossed his path, it seemed. First Eli, now Ava - of all creatures. "I don't even know where to begin...so much has happened." For one thing, he was the recently appointed Guardian of the clan...not many Rurik would hold such an honor, for even though the position was specific and important to his people, it was a gods-chosen role. It was a role he bore humbly, but he could not ignore that it changed everything for him. A family was unlikely for him, for one thing.

But was it? He found new family members every day. Even now, a cousin he wasn't sure if he would have ever seen again.

""

How torturous. How fortuitous. Why now. Why here. She’d accept such passing of fate, Ruslan would find her in this new plane, beyond the reach of where they’d settled. Where Rodion Rurik found love and fascination, where he took root and began his family. Of all the provinces in the world, why the hell did he have to walk into this one? It was supposed to be for Avdotya. And her alone. But he was a gift from the Spirits. They worked their unseen magick to draw into themselves a manner of strength beyond all their comprehensions. Their fingers made quick work, braiding fortune and whim into tangible moments such as this.

A reunion—meant to be happy, meant to be a kindness. More than a simple blessing.

Ugh.

And he spoke. He spoke so warmly, and so softly, and so kindly. He filled the air between them with what Ava imagined to be love between kin. It was strange, and unfamiliar in her adulthood. Only a mere echo to the moments she’d known as a child, moments Rodya stolen in her youth to impart some manner beyond Axelia’s influences. She should have known that old soft-heart was more cunning than he’d ever looked. Beyond her mother’s cruelties, Rodya had a mind and intellect. And it saved Ava then, in remembering it. He wanted her to know the Rurik, wanted that shelter. And that became all too clear as her cousin spoke. She grinned. Boy, if Magnus could see her then.

I don’t know Ruslan, she began, a warm drawl. I may look skinny, but I’ve got ol’ Rodya’s brawn. She flexed in her recline, tightening her posture as though this would mark some display of intimidation. As though Avdotya herself could rally against the many strengths of Anastasia Rurik, famed and most beloved in the house she was raised. Rodya held love for the name, held love for his cousin so great. Ava often wondered if her family had inspired Rodion to create one for himself. Even if it meant it would cause suffering. Even though, it was imperfect. Even though it wounded the youngest of his brood. Maybe, maybe, maybe Ava should have blamed Ana for all that had transpired. No. That would be too cruel. Crueler than the fact Ava had come to Amaryllis alone. By choice.

She drew her cheek behind her teeth, sucking hard at the air in thought. Unsure. Guilty as in, for what she’d ask. It went beyond all teachings she knew. But, she had to know. There could be no more surprises happening upon her in Amaryllis.


Are you— Fumbling. Child-like. Alone? there it was. She held her breath, awaiting a reply. But as the seconds wane and he gave what he could, her mind wandered to other chapters. He was right. Much had transpired since their paths diverged, since hearts were broken, and families splintered. Rodion would have wanted this reunion. Ava did not doubt the old bard would be crooning happily with the spirits witnessing this moment.

Oh, Rodya. Oh, father.

We never did find him. Not quite the truth she wished to admit. Not the story she wished to visit. She sighed. She held still. She wanted to be embraced, and in that moment wished the world away. Her eyes would not find @Ruslan and instead sought the sky beyond the thicket’s canopy. Her cheeks were made hot, and throat made tight. No. No. No. We do not cry. I left the second I’d saw opportunity. She made a quick exchange of air, rattling against the compulsion to cry. To mourn. To grieve. She would not. Not then. Not in that moment. She couldn’t.

I’m not sure where my siblings are. Andrusha, Adoniya. Those elder than them, the last of Rodya’s seed. Their mother’s newest of beau’s bringing to the world an erring litter of chaos and greed. It was strange to her—to have the love of this near-stranger, yet none from those that followed Rodya’s disappearance. It wasn’t serendipitous, losing him. It wasn’t the Spirits calling him home. There was a manner of unkindness to how he’d left their home, and she knew it was not for the Rurik. Knew it was not for melancholy and dishonor. Her father was a kind man, a good protector. He’d not elected to abandon his children and wife. And Avdotya held all the spite in the world for her mother for every suspicion elicited by her choices. Why else would Ava had elected to leave them? Why else would she had abandoned familiarity for the unknown? She drew in a breath, her nostrils flaring as they drew hard at the thicket’s stagnant air. l left them the same the others left us.

Khariton. The others. Maturity took hold, and to the world they went. She oft wondered of them, in the ferocity of her childhood. Did they suffer as she had? Did they weather their mother’s aching heart? Or was that saved just for them? The last of Rodya’s bairn. They took the wind, carried off on wayward whim. No care for the mess left behind them; no mind for the wake they’d left. She blamed them, too often. They caused the world of resentment. They broke root and left only disturbed and ruined earth; sucked it dry of feasibility and nutrition. They fed too heavily, leaving only a husk of a queen to raise what tried to rise up behind them, their roots strangling the fresh green that was Ava and her littermates. They robbed their youngest siblings of an honest chance. A chance that Ava now found in Obsidian Hollow.

Screw them.

I’ve a new home now, though. She sat with that truth for a moment, not choosing to speak and ruminated over what it could mean. Did she love the Hollow? Did she cherish its’ king and their noble house forged there? She fought against a frown, instead holding fast to her coy smile. Another jesting remark edged along her lips. The impulse to jostle again hit her, though she withheld from doing so. Instead she elected to allow her mouth to do the quick work.

Not sure there’d be room for the likes of you though. A tease. Made clear by the wink of an eye and the ease of a smile. There was no sincerity in the message, and she was unsure whether it would be kind to either if he’d follow her to the hollow, or if she’d be enticed to abandon her new calling. She’d always yearned for them, and their ilk. She dreamt of holding court with the Commander, General and Augr, and standing with the Rurik’s as her father dreamt of. She could have. She could have been the voice for the Spirits. Could have held purpose beyond that of outliving her mother and whatever lack of prosperity the old witch had foretold. She would. She would. Her mother saw her as nothing but a burden, but Avdotya would prove such prophecy wrong.

She had worth.

She would find greatness.

Even if no one was in want of her.

Ava would be great.

^{_{CODE & ART BY D}}