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 Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 12:10 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:17 am
The rusalka twirled her flower charm between her fingers.
Somewhere out there, in the world she was not yet allowed to walk in, Eden had one that matched. It made her feel a little better. A little less alone. Dina had been right, after all, meeting another raevan had been important. it had put things in perspective.
She just wasn't quite sure how to say what had changed.
Meeting Eden had not provided her with a sense of normalcy. Eden had seemed to find her just as strange as the shuffling undead that stared at her in the hallways. She and Eden were physically similar, but the things Eden took to be normal were things she had never even heard of- Eden lived in a world where she got a name, she chose her furniture, she picked her clothes, and she had a dad, not a doctor. Eden had stood out in Lorenzo's house like a sore thumb. As a raevan, as a person, she so clearly didn't belong in a necromancer's office that it almost stung. The rusalka had never seen someone so obviously full of life.
She wanted that.
She wanted to feel like that.
She dangled the charm in front of her face and pressed her ear to the cool wood floor. Below her, she could hear Lorenzo talking with another client. Their stilted, halting words were marked with the stamp she had come to associate with the recently undead- others as new as her could barely string their sentences together.
She was different from them, right? She was different from Eden, more than she'd hoped, but she could still come to be like Eden. Eden had encouraged it. She thought that the rusalka was weird, but not too weird to be friends with.
Right?
The rusalka buried her head in her arms and drew back when she felt how cold they were. Floating over to her mirror, she squinted into it and tried hard to focus on not eating, to try to make something reflect, anything. Just to see.
Minutes passed. The mirror stayed empty.
The rusalka pulled a face at it that it refused to reflect and floated up towards the ceiling, where she had chosen to sulk ever since she discovered Lorenzo couldn't quite reach her up there unless he dragged a chair over. Eden could reach her without the chair. This wasn't an undead thing, floating was a raevan thing.
"I'm a raevan," she said aloud.
Her body didn't seem to listen, but then again, she had always seen herself as a raevan. It was just that since she found out what a rusalka was, she looked like an undead raevan.
That didn't seem to be about to change.
She sank very quietly back onto her bed.
It wasn't enough to know that she was a raevan, she supposed, if she had always sort of known it anyway. She tried to think about what else she had liked about Eden.
All the things she knew, she supposed. There were things like using a phone, and about dads, and shopping, and all kinds of activities and facts that she had never heard of and sounded more interesting than the difference between a contract of resurrection and a contract of emergency resurrection. And how pretty she was, prettier than anybody in Lorenzo's office, and in a different way than Lorenzo's mom and Dina and everyone. In a way that she wanted to emulate, that she could relate to. She was the kind of girl the rusalka wanted to be.
"Girl stuff," the rusalka guessed. But she couldn't just ask Eden to teach her about girl stuff. Eden probably already thought she was weird enough trying to learn about raevan stuff.
Who else knew about girl stuff?
The rusalka dangled the flower charm between her fingers and bit her lip. Suddenly, she got up, and reached for her phone, picking it up and looking at the other charm dangling on the end, the cat one she had been given at Lorenzo's mom's office.
What about that girl?
What about Guinevere?
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:33 pm
Whatever else Guinevere was, she was a girl who was precisely on time.
The rusalka knew because she had very little better to do than stare at the clock, and the second the second hand clicked into place marking the hour, there was a brisk sounding rap on the door. When she heard the door open, the voice that greeted Lorenzo from the floor below sounded more like it belonged to Lorenzo's professional milieu than to the likes of Eden's. The rusalka began to doubt that asking Guinevere for advice had been the right idea after all.
She picked up her phone and gave the cat charm Guinevere had left for her a little squeeze, then floated into the living room a little warily. Lorenzo was guiding a girl in from the stairwell who she supposed must be Guinevere herself. Her appearance did little to allay the rusalka's fears. She was dressed as primly and formally as Lorenzo and Nicolina dressed, although perhaps a little less strangely.
"Niemoj should be... ah! There you are." Lorenzo smiled and gestured to the guest. "Niemoj, this is Guinevere Jones, my mother's assistant."
The rusalka flashed a nervous smile. "H-hi."
Guinevere looked the rusalka up and down, and to the rusalka's surprise, her expression softened immediately. "Hi, Niemoj," she said warmly. "I'm so glad to see you well." She turned to Lorenzo. "You don't have work today, right?" she asked. "No clients on Sundays."
"It's a little passé to raise the dead on Sunday," Lorenzo confirmed.
"Well, if you could just occupy yourself with something else...?" Guinevere asked.
Lorenzo startled. "Oh, what?! Oh, yes, I can, uh, just..." There was a pause as they both seemed to reflect upon very small personal lists of things they enjoyed doing besides work.
"... Organize your office?" Guinevere suggested brightly. Lorenzo seized upon it.
"...Yes! Yes, and then maybe... knit... or call a colleague and... chat?"
"S-sounds good!" Guinevere affirmed. "Just give us a little time to chat, thank you!" She bowed stiffly and Lorenzo bowed back, then turned on his heel and marched out.
"What was that?" the rusalka asked, imitating her bow.
"A way to show respect," said Guinevere, blushing. "It's a little old-fashioned though. Ms. Fisch keeps telling me that a nod's as good as a bow."
The rusalka nodded experimentally. She didn't quite understand.
"Anyway!" Guinevere said, waving such matters aside. "Here you are!" She smiled brightly. "I was so glad that you asked me to come visit you. I've been thinking about you a lot." She paused and added, "N-not in a strange way, just that I helped Lorenzo research rebirthing programs and one of them actually worked! I was in your shoes too, once, in a way. Except nobody really planned for me to be reborn, you know? It was kind of a spur of the moment thing."
The rusalka blinked and nodded again for lack of a better reaction. "You're... A raevan...?" she asked, floating slowly around Guinevere and looking her up and down more closely.
"Oh, no, no, no!" Guinevere exclaimed. She paused and gestured at Lorenzo's battered old couch. "Shall we sit down and talk? Er... insofar as that's possible."
The rusalka shrugged, floating over to the couch and miming sitting on it, her arm propped up under her chin. "You're a girl, though, right?" she asked. "And you're... a living girl...?"
Guinevere nodded briskly, setting herself down at a respectful distance from the rusalka. "I am," she confirmed. "But we're more similar than you think. Originally, I was a fallen angel, called a Herald. I was reborn on Gaia, too, through a sacrifice made by a human."
"Your guardian?" asked the rusalka.
"N-no. They didn't really plan on being a guardian. They didn't stay long." Guinevere bit her lip slightly. "But... eventually I did find a guardian! After a few tries. And eventually I found a community of other Heralds and guardians. And I loved them all like family, so I researched Heralds and tried to help the ones like me, whose first guardians didn't plan on staying." She reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook. "I still check in on them sometimes, although there haven't been any new Heralds in a long time. And in my research I found out a lot about other rebirthing programs, and a lot of different kinds of magic. So I ended up working for Nicolina to pay the bills, and then we got contacted by a rusalka who we couldn't resurrect traditionally..."
"Me," the rusalka finished. "B-but I don't really remember it."
"That's common," Guinevere reassured gently. "You don't have to be the same person you were if you don't want to."
"That's not what Lorenzo thinks," the rusalka sulked. "He says I'll regret it and I'm just not... super sure either way."
"Well, I don't want to contradict Lorenzo," Guinevere interjected quickly. "You're his client, and he's the expert with this kind of thing. Anyway, our situations are different. I was a Herald. They're supposed to die as soon as they deliver a single message. Rusalki are supposed to live an unlife forever. There's more tying you to your other life than me, I'm sure." She looked away a little awkwardly and added, "I guess I just got caught up in things. I haven't talked to someone frankly about this since the last Herald was reborn."
"I-I met another raevan recently, too!" the rusalka admitted. "I liked her a lot. Like, better than I like the idea of being a rusalka. I thought maybe I'd invite you over so I could meet other normal girls?"
Guinevere laughed. "I'm not sure what a normal girl is, or if I am one, but I'm glad we can talk at least." She saw the rusalka's phone in her hand and added, "I'm glad you like the charm. I see you have more now."
"Yeah!" The rusalka untangled a charm from it. "I'm not so sure how to use the phone, but I like charms. Please take one!" She held it out to Guinevere. "I wanted to return the favor. I-it would be good if we could be friends."
"Of course we're friends," Guinevere exclaimed. "We girls going through sceond lives have to stick together, you know."
"Great!" the rusalka said.
There was an awkward silence. The rusalka played with the rest of her charms idly and then, when she could take it no more, she asked, "Guinevere?"
"You can call me Guin if you want. A lot of my friends do."
"Guin," the rusalka amended. "You have friends... and a job... and, and... all that stuff, though, right?"
Guinevere laughed and waved a hand in the air. "Most of that stuff, I guess."
"How did that happen?" the rusalka asked. "How did you go from being this thing that needs to learn everything starting from scratch to someone who belongs where they are?"
Guinevere paused. "By making a lot of mistakes," she admitted. "And with a lot of help from friends who were willing to help me out of those mistakes as I made them." She glanced at the rusalka. "You're lucky to have Lorenzo helping you. None of my guardians ever really understood, or really even tried to understand who I was- what I was."
"Lucky," the rusalka repeated, leaning back into Lorenzo's battered old couch.
"Very lucky," Guinevere insisted warmly. "I wish I had what you have."
"I wish I had what you have!" the rusalka exclaimed. "A-a life... more friends... freedom!"
"It'll come!" Guinevere reassured her. "I promise you. But it takes time."
She considered and added, "When I was little-- I was reborn as a child, you know-- I really wanted to be a witch."
"So far I think magic is kind of boring," the rusalka drawled, thinking of the long hours Lorenzo spent seeing clients.
"In a lot of ways it is," Guinevere agreed with a chuckle. "But I didn't want to be that kind of witch. I wanted to be an exciting witch with a talking cat and a flying broom who cast dramatic spells and went on adventures. I ended up studying magical things and now I work with magical people. It's different from what I imagined, but that's how I found out where I belong. Plus, I have a cat. He doesn't talk, though."
"So?" the rusalka asked.
"So I think that if you can't figure out who you want to be realistically, it's good to dream a little. You don't have to treat everything like an exercise in recovery even if that's what's best for you. Think about having fun, too. It'll help pass the time you have to spend recovering."
"It's hard to have fun here. Everything is about recovery. Everything except phone charms and visits."
"Well," said Guinevere, "I can ask my normal girl friends and try to organize some fun things to be sent to you. If you don't mind hand-me-downs."
"Will Lorenzo let me have them?" the rusalka said doubtfully.
"I don't see why not," Guinevere replied. "Lorenzo may not have many hobbies, but he doesn't seem to disapprove of them."
"And you don't mind?" the rusalka said. "You won't forget?"
"It'd be my pleasure," Guinevere informed her. "It's my job to help Ms. Fisch's clients."
The rusalka looked doubtful. Guinevere smiled and attached the phone charm she'd been given to her phone. "I'll give you my number so you can remind me if you're worried. Apart from it being my job, I'm glad to be able to help out a friend."
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 6:53 pm
Guinevere was as briskly efficient as she was punctual and within a few days, Lorenzo was hauling a box up the stairs addressed to "Niemoj" in very neat, precise handwriting. Inside the box were dozens of slightly battered comics, DVDs, old videogame consoles, and books, all of which had the thin film of dust that came from sitting in closets or attics for a few years, but to the rusalka seemed foreign and fascinating. She figured out the books and comics fairly quickly, having had nothing much to do besides read Lorenzo's books for the past few days, but the rest of it was maybe too foreign for her to get the hang of when she had barely learned to use her laptop. Lorenzo had to supervise, not just to unpack the box, but also to explain everything that needed some kind of device to be enjoyed properly.
"Majokko Melody: Fight for Love," he read, squinting at the DVD he pulled out of the box first. "You asked Guinevere for this?"
"I just asked her for stuff." the rusalka said. "She said she'd ask her friends for hand-me-downs."
"I see," Lorenzo replied, setting Majokko Melody aside and pulling out a boxed set of The Candlelit Shadows. "I think she also asked my mother." He set the boxed set aside and added, "We should watch that- it's got an undead actor in it, you know. It's great representation! He's a real role model for undead people everywhere."
"Oh, great." The rusalka pushed it aside when Lorenzo wasn't looking and returned to perusing one of the comics in the box, asking Lorenzo, "Are magical girls real? Can I be one of those?"
"I've never looked into it, but anything's possible on Gaia, I guess. You'd have to be magical, first though."
"You're magical." the rusalka pointed out.
"I was born that way."
"Zeke said my powers would emerge someday."
"Then we can discuss your career as a magical girl on that day. And then you can be a role model for undead girls!"
"Yeah, cool," the rusalka said, tossing the book aside to look in the box. "What are all these boxes?"
"They're DVDs. I showed you how to use the DVD player."
"I kind of remember, but..."
"I can show you again."
"It's all the rectangl- remotes."
"The devil's invention," Lorenzo agreed. "I barely understand it myself."
"Can you help me watch these? ...In case I forget?"
Lorenzo considered the bleak prospect of losing his already-scarce free time to marathons of Majokko Melody. "...O-of course." he said weakly. "That's what I'm here for. Er, amongst other things."
"Cool," said the rusalka, opening up another comic.
"Cool," agreed Lorenzo. "Let's see what we have to look, uh, forward to in here. Oh! Oh good. My Highschool Romance With the Demon Lord. A real, uh, modern classic."
"Do you know any demons?" the rusalka asked. "Are they... romanceable?"
"Summoning demons is more of a general wizardly thing than a necromancer thing. I suppose... some of them are romanceable. For somebody." Lorenzo set the DVD on the pile. "It takes all sorts to make a nation, and Gaia has more sorts than most nations, after all."
"Undead, demons, angels, magical girls..."
"Rusalki," Lorenzo added.
"Raevans." the rusalka amended.
There was a pause.
"Niemoj." Lorenzo said suddenly, pulling out Miss Elizabeth Leads The Way, which the box touted as "a paean to the prim and proper romance." "If you were bored, you could have told me, you know."
"O-oh!" The rusalka lifted the comic in her hands a little higher. "I know! I just didn't want to bother you or anything."
"It's my job to listen to you," Lorenzo reminded. "I mean, obviously we'll have to work all these hobbies into your recovery schedule, but if you ever have any problems with your life here, I'm more than happy to accommodate you. You don't need to wait for help."
"I know! I know, I didn't literally ask Guin for all this stuff. I mean, I wanted it, I guess, but she just offered."
"For no reason?" Lorenzo asked archly.
"I guess." the rusalka replied defensively. "Hey, what's that one??"
"What?" asked Lorenzo.
"That DVD."
"Sailor Moon?"
"Let's watch that right now."
"Now?" Lorenzo sputtered. "But we need to put all these things away, and--"
"You're more than happy to accommodate me, right?" the rusalka asked innocently.
Lorenzo sighed heavily and switched on the TV. "I faintly remember saying something like that."
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Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:57 pm
Lorenzo woke up with a jolt.
Sometime between Usagi's cat telling her she wasn't just a normal girl and one of the seemingly interchangeable monster battles since, Lorenzo had fallen asleep. From his vantage point slumped over the arm of the couch, he could see his own cat bumping insistently against his hand; if Buddy had some urgent news to impart to him, he was not about to use people words to do so.
As he groggily regained his senses, he noticed two things. One, it was dark out. Two, the television was still on. He supposed if the rusalka hadn't even had the confidence to put the DVD in the DVD player, she also hadn't had the confidence to try to turn the television off once she had finished. She could have woken him up, but he supposed that despite everything, they weren't all that familiar yet.
"Come on," he muttered to Buddy, pushing himself upwards. He would turn off the TV and microwave some dinner and--
She was still there.
He squinted at the DVD player which correctly stated that it had been six hours, six hours since he had fallen asleep. Was there even six hours' worth of content on the DVD? Yet there was the rusalka, staring fixedly at the TV, lips slightly parted and shoulders hunched forward. When Lorenzo cleared his throat, she didn't so much as flinch. As a practicing necromancer, a flurry of possible symptoms immediately occupied his mind. She could be having flashbacks. She could be overstimulated. She could simply be adrift. Or worse, it could be some kind of raevan problem that he had no idea how to handle.
"Niemoj?"
"Huh? O-oh!" She startled and glanced back at him unseeingly for a moment. "Oh! Lorenzo. Good... morning?"
"Are you okay?" asked Lorenzo gently, scanning her face for signs of trouble. "Did the DVD trigger any memories or anything?"
"What? No, no worries!" She held up her hands reassuringly, and he noticed the DVD remote was in one of them.
"You figured out the DVD player?"
She followed his gaze to the remote. "Uh, yeah! It was pretty hard to figure out, but I think I got the hang of it. I asked my rect-- laptop and there were, like, pictures and stuff."
"You're figuring out your laptop." Lorenzo stated flatly.
"Uh, yep." The rusalka looked back at the television, where the Sailor Scouts were still doing whatever it was magical teenage girls did on weekends. "You missed a ton."
"I'll catch up later," Lorenzo lied reassuringly.
"We can rewatch it. I don't mind rewatching it."
"Ah, well... I will keep that generous offer in mind. But for now, I need to eat, tidy up all these books and DVDs, review some client files and get ready for bed."
"More sleeping?"
"Bed sleeping. Restful sleeping. Have you reviewed your Russian and done your stretches today?"
"...No," the rusalka admitted reluctantly, pulling her gaze away from the television screen.
"Well then," said Lorenzo. "Let's turn off the TV for now and work a little bit."
"Kaa-aay. Oh! Watch this." The rusalka picked up the other remote, aimed it at the screen dramatically, and turned it off. Lorenzo applauded politely.
"There's not a rectangle in this apartment that could stand up to you, I bet," he said, and the rusalka grinned sheepishly. He took the DVD out of the player and put it back in its case, hefting up the whole box Guinevere sent with a grunt.
"We'll put these in your room for now?"
"Mmm. Lorenzo?"
"Yeah?"
"How about Usagi for a name?"
"I thought you didn't want a name someone else had already?"
"Usagi's not real though." She paused. "Is Usagi real??"
"Nnnno," Lorenzo said, "But let's sleep on it."
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:34 pm
Monday was a work day, and Lorenzo's work days started early. Most of his meetings for this Monday were with pet owners who needed their various dead darlings fixed up, so by the time he sat down for lunch, Lorenzo's hands were dusty with chalk and dried blood. He looked at them and winced, wiping them on the hem of his cloak and pulling a shrinkwrapped sandwich out of his drawer. Across the table, the summoning circle he had been working on lay half-finished. The dead dog in the middle of it stared at him glassily and he swung his ergonomic chair slowly and guiltily around. Work was work, but lunch was lunch, and experience had shown him that if he didn't keep a schedule precisely, he'd forget to eat lunch at all.
Just before he could take a bite, his personal phone buzzed and he sighed, pulling it out of his pocket. Raising his eyebrows to see it was a text from Dina, he keyed in his lock code to take a look.
"Niemoj!"
The living room was empty, but the DVD player was on. Lorenzo turned it off and looked behind the couch, then around the room, then paused, taking a bite of his sandwich and chewing thoughtfully. Slowly, he turned his gaze towards the ceiling. "Ah-ha," he said, and stood up on the couch to get closer to his charge. "Dina told me you're late for your Russian tutoring?"
"I must've lost track of time," the rusalka mumbled sheepishly, floating back down to eye level. "'M sorry."
"Yes, well, Dina's been waiting for twenty minutes now," Lorenzo said lightly.
"I know, I know! I was just doing what you told me to do!" the rusalka defended.
"Watch cartoons?" Lorenzo asked archly.
"Think about my name some more," the rusalka retorted, a hint of pride in her voice. "And I decided I'd rather be named Minako than Usagi."
"Another character?" Lorenzo asked, exasperated. "Look, Niemoj, when I said to sleep on it, I was thinking that maybe a cartoon character's name was just not... the best choice. Any cartoon character."
"But I'm sure of it this time!" the rusalka insisted.
"I'm going to have to say no, Niemoj. I just really don't think it's a good idea."
"Why, because it's not Russian?? You're obsessed!" she screeched, and then clamped her mouth shut, shocked by her own outburst. Lorenzo looked surprised, too. The rusalka had often been sullen or sarcastic since she had arrived in the office, but she had never outright snapped at him.
"I'm sorry," she blurted after a moment. "I'm really sorry! Don't... Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad, I'm just..." Lorenzo ran his free hand through his hair. "I'm just confused. You took so long to choose a name before this, you seemed to be putting effort into it, we both were putting effort into it. And you just see a television show you like and suddenly you want to name yourself some random name on a whim?"
The rusalka clenched her fists and looked away. Lorenzo sighed, checking his phone.
"Look, Dina's waiting, and I have more appointments today. We'll talk about this later, just... just do your tutoring and your exercises and think about it some more. We can talk about this tonight."
"I have thought about it." the rusalka insisted tearfully.
"It just doesn't feel like you have, Niemoj. I don't understand. I want to understand." He grimaced. "Clearly this is about more than just a name, so tonight, I want you to actually communicate with me. About all your concerns."
"Mmm," the rusalka said noncommittally.
"I won't be mad," Lorenzo reassured.
"Mmm."
"But I'm taking the DVD." He crossed the living room floor and took Sailor Moon out of the DVD player. This got a rise out of the rusalka.
"Hey!"
"Do your work and you'll get it back tonight. Staying on schedule is important for recovery and for life."
He waited for a reply, but the rusalka just silently floated over to her laptop and theatrically opened it, glaring at him from behind the screen.
"Thank you, Niemoj."
"Minako," muttered the rusalka to Lorenzo's retreating back.
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 1:57 am
"Miss?"
The camera went black as Dina's finger tapped against it worriedly.
"I just need to know if you are still there, Miss. The camera doesn't show you, remember."
"Mmmm," the rusalka replied.
"Miss?"
"I'm hee-ere," the rusalka said in her loudest indoor voice.
"Is there a problem with the translation I have asked of you?" Dina hesitated.
"...No. You said you're twenty seven years old, you live in Saint Petersburg, and your name is Dina."
"Correct. Now introduce yourself."
The rusalka sighed and repeated the same sentences back to Dina with her own information filled in. She paused just before she finished, biting her lip.
After a few moments, Dina smiled sympathetically. "You remember how to say you do not have a name yet, yes?"
"Yeah, I do, but I did... I chose a name."
"You chose a name?" Dina asked delightedly. "Why did you not say so from the very start? Here- tell me what it is in Russian."
"It's not a Russian name," the rusalka retorted, crossing her arms defensively.
"Well, you can still put it in a sentence, yes? I don't have to change my name to Dinah every time I speak in English, you are aware."
"Well, it's not a Russian name, and Lorenzo says I can't keep it because it's not a Russian name!" The rusalka felt her eyes burning and swiped at them angrily.
"Why would he say that?" Dina asked, brows furrowing on the laptop's screen. "He let you decide, no?"
"He said I didn't decide well enough." The rusalka scrunched up her face and imitated his voice cartoonishly. "He said it just didn't feel like I'd thought about it." She swallowed a hiccuping sob and said, "What does he think I've been doing? I've thought about it so much, it sucked to think about it!"
"Oh, oh," Dina crooned. "It's okay, Miss. I know you have thought very deeply about your name. Did you tell him this?"
"I did, but it was his lunch break, and I was late for our session, and he got mad and I got mad and- and I yelled at him," the rusalka hiccuped miserably, wiping away tears that were starting to fall faster. "And he said we have to talk tonight and he sounded super serious, and I'm scared he's going to try to fix me again because he's not listening to me and he's acting like there's something wrong with me." She laughed weakly. "Apart from all the other stuff that's wrong with me, I guess."
Dina pressed her mouth into a thin, worried line. "Well, I am not the necromancer, but I think you are very much like any other young girl. True, I cannot see you, but I cannot imagine that the girl behind the voice is anything other than a bright and maybe slightly-less-than-enthusiastic pupil who applies herself to problems very seriously." She asked, "What is the name that you wanted to call yourself?"
The rusalka shook her head. "It's stupid."
"I'm sure it's not stupid," Dina insisted.
"I don't want to call myself it anymore. It's not worth it, I just want things to be easier, I don't care what my stupid name is, and I never did, I just... I just felt like I was having a little fun for once, and the moment I feel like, you know, like everything isn't some huge deal, Lorenzo makes it into a huge deal!" She buried her head in her hands. "But I need him to be there because everyone says I'm lucky to have him and there are contracts involved and my body is gross and messed up so if he isn't there, it'll probably be way worse anyway-"
"Miss?"
"What?" the rusalka snapped.
"Take a deep breath for me." She paused. "Are you doing it?"
"Mmmmf."
"Good. Let it out."
The rusalka did.
"I admit that I cannot fully understand the situation," admitted Dina. "It seems like it is a problem between you and Mister Fisch, and I agree with him that you should talk about it."
"But-!"
"It's different from just putting up with him fixing you," Dina reassured. "And I don't think Mister Fisch would do that to you. The Mister Fisch who I knew in Russia was willing to listen to the wishes of your soul at all costs, you know. He spent many long hours in a very cold marsh trying to make sure the rusalka felt comfortable with her choice."
"Yeah, well, I don't feel comfortable anymore!"
"Then communicate this to him. The rusalka in the marsh, I translated everything she said. She was very different from you, and if I spoke to you with no idea who you were, Miss, I would not make a connection between the two of you at all. Whoever you are now, whichever name you choose for yourself, you have changed very quickly, very dramatically. Mister Fisch is deft at all his eerie magic, but he is not so good with people." She snorted. "He needed me to translate in many ways. So please try again to connect with him as a person. He may need second chances just as much as you did."
"Mmmm," the rusalka muttered.
Dina smiled sheepishly. "Of course, I am terrible at keeping my opinions to myself. Let us return to the lesson, and the next time we meet, you can tell me your name."
"In Russian?" the rusalka asked.
"In whatever language you wish, Miss, so long as you feel comfortable with it."
"What was Lorenzo like in Russia?"
"Distractions you will have to ask me in Russian," Dina chided, "Or our session will last all day."
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Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:38 pm
After the last client he had scheduled for the day shook his hand and left his office, Lorenzo shut the door softly and rubbed his temples, pulling out his planner from the depths of his cloak.
There was only so much good a schedule did for a practicing necromancer, especially a junior one, but Lorenzo liked to Try To Organize. The truth of the matter was whether or not the last appointment in his schedule for the day was crossed off, there were always the emergency calls that junior necromancers mostly had to deal with, partially as a means to get practice with human resurrection, and partially on the basis that younger necromancers would be more spry in a hectic situation. And even if there were no late night resurrections needed, the rusalka was waiting upstairs, Lorenzo's live-in client that ensured that he was always technically on the clock. Live-in clients were not the obligation of most junior necromancers, but the rusalka was his burden, he supposed, as the son of an undead rights lawyer.
It had been almost a week since the rusalka had come to live with him, Lorenzo reflected, and he had been working her hard, but he thought she had been holding up well. All her tests had come back with excellent results, and she had- he thought she had- kept up a good sense of humor about it all. It was true that he was hardly the best at picking up social cues, but until yesterday, he would have said the rusalka was starting to feel comfortable, even if he wasn't yet comfortable with her.
He reached into his drawer and pulled out the confiscated copy of Sailor Moon, turning it over in his hands a few times. He knew a lot about necromancy, and a little about Russian history and culture, and nothing about anime, except what any Gaian boy gleaned growing up surrounded by fashion boutiques full of cosplay clothing. There had been some kind of magical girl thing a few years ago... hadn't there? He furrowed his brow, but couldn't seem to quite recall. At the time it hadn't seemed important.
"Minako," he muttered, pulling a grimace. Opening his laptop, he typed quickly and pulled up a wiki page about it. Did she want to name herself after a warrior of love because of her soul? Was this a rusalka's fixation with romance? An undead mind's fixation with a simplistic idea? Or just a girl's preoccupation with a new hobby?
He supposed the only way to find out was to talk with her, like he'd asked her during lunch. But, he thought, with a guilty twist of the gut, he wasn't used to having her around. Wasn't used to living with a client. And, worst of all, the more reflex and cognition tests the rusalka had completed perfectly the last week, the less comfortable he felt. Clients were supposed to act undead. There was a familiar way things were supposed to go, a familiar pace, a script to be followed, and of course, of course he was happy that the rusalka was recovering quickly, but--
But he was running out of tests and he was running out of ideas, and if he didn't know what he was doing with his client, what made him such a good guardian for her in the first place? He couldn't be a parent figure like the other Lab 305 guardians he had met. He was only twenty five.
He opened and shut the DVD case idly.
He was nervous.
He didn't want to hear from his own client that he was performing poorly.
And he didn't want to hear it because he didn't know how to reply.
But the rusalka wasn't just going to go away. For starters, she lived in his house. He could sleep in the office, but it would hardly give him the upper hand when they finally did talk, not, he reminded himself, that they were having a debate, it was a talk, a talk, a discussion about... Long term rehabilitation plans, maybe. And names, and... And anime...
He leaned back in his ergonomic office chair experimentally, testing how comfortable it might be to sleep in. And, finding that he was more than a little too tall to settle in comfortably, he pushed himself up with a heavy sigh, and went to have a word with his client.
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:47 pm
Lorenzo came back upstairs late.
The rusalka watched him from her vantage point high atop the bookcase, setting aside the illustrated volume of Russian folklore that had started this whole ordeal, the pale blue picture of a pale blue girl emerging from a deep black lake facedown on the top of the shelf.
Talk to him, Dina had said.
She couldn't. She could barely keep up with Russian, never mind whatever language Lorenzo spoke in that whisked the baffling schedule of her recovery from an unremembered undeath along so quickly. She didn't know any language she thought he would listen to her in, and she didn't think that she had the courage to try even if she had. She silently slid down from the bookcase and floated over to the cracked-open door of her bedroom, trying to close it without making a sound. If she pretended to be asleep, she thought, he at least wouldn't try to Talk Things Out until tomorrow. Tomorrow wasn't never, but it was better than today.
There was a knock on the door.
"Niemoj?"
The rusalka floated quickly over to the bed and tried to arrange herself under the sheets in a natural way. She scrunched her eyes up tight and turned to face the window, pulling the blankets up over her ears. The door opened almost as quietly as she closed it and she could see Lorenzo's shadow against the wall, illuminated by the living room light.
"Ah," he said quietly, and his shadow danced as he rocked back and forth on his heels. The shadow shrank and for a moment, she thought he would give up and walk away, but it grew again as he went back to the doorframe.
"Niemoj...?" he tried softly.
The rusalka didn't reply.
She heard a sigh. Was it disappointed? Was it relieved?
Footsteps. The sound of something being set down on the nightstand.
"The Russian decor is kind of imposing at night," she heard him say, maybe to himself. "I never thought about that."
Footsteps again, retreating. The door closed. The rusalka waited for a few minutes, then got up to look at what he'd set down. Squinting at it in the moonlight, she realized it was the DVD he had taken from her that afternoon, as promised. There was a sticky note on it, explaining: "We'll figure out a TV schedule tomorrow for you. - Lorenzo" She grimaced and crumpled up the sticky note, tossing it at the Russian tapestry on the opposite wall.
She heard the doorknob turning and hastily put the DVD back on the nightstand, mussing up the blankets around her again. Lorenzo came in much more briefly this time. He walked into the middle of the room, and the rusalka remembered the crumpled up sticky note, scrunching her eyes shut tight and praying he didn't notice it. His shadow bobbed out of sight for a few moments, and she was afraid that he had picked it up, but he said nothing to her, and afterwards, the door closed again.
When it did, something was different.
The rusalka got up, and blinked, suddenly able to see the room around her more clearly. Everything was bathed in a soft light, and the bedroom, which did look imposing in the dark, seemed a tiny bit friendlier. It took her a moment to find the source, a tiny lamp plugged into the wall. It looked like at one point it had been a holiday decoration. There was a sticky note next to it as well, pointing to it with an arrow. "If you like it, we can get a nicer one. -Lorenzo" Underneath that sticky note was yet another sticky note: "I am sorry I came into your room without asking. -Lorenzo"
Mister Fisch is deft at all his eerie magic, but he is not so good with people.
The rusalka bit her lip. She had been seeing Lorenzo as someone three steps ahead of her all this time, but it occurred to her that maybe he was only one or two steps ahead of her, or maybe they were even walking apace, looking staunchly in opposite directions. Maybe, like her, he was just trying his best to figure things out.
Maybe if she asked him to slow down, there was a chance they could figure things out together, or...
Or maybe they'd end up finding out they really had been just speaking different languages all along.
She looked down at her waxy white hands, lit dimly by the night light's glow. Clenching them tightly, she floated out into the living room, quiet as possible, and pretended to be surprised when she saw him.
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:22 pm
Lorenzo perched his plastic fork on the edge of his microwave dinner as the rusalka floated out of her room.
"Did I wake you?" he fretted. "I'm sorry, I, uh..." Didn't mean it? He had gone into the room to wake her in the first place, he had just lost the nerve. "I just-"
The rusalka saved him from finishing the thought. "No! No, you didn't wake me, I just kind of..." Was never asleep in the first place. She trailed off as well, and left the pair of them alone in the company of a mutual awkward silence.
"Well," Lorenzo interjected desperately, "I'm glad."
"Me too," the rusalka parroted. "Uh, that you didn't wake me up. And um, for the light?"
"The light!" Lorenzo agreed, clinging to the topic like a life raft. "I'm glad you like it. I'd never really been in your room at night, and I thought it looked a little dim. Uh, not that I'm going to make a habit of going into your room at night! I respect your privacy as a client, I just wanted to leave the DVD and, uh, see if you were awake to, you know..." He swallowed anxiously. "Talk."
"Riiiight," said the rusalka, pretending she had just barely remembered the events of the afternoon. "Um. The light does help. And don't worry about the room thing this time, but like, don't install a revolving door or anything, haha. Obviously."
She paused. "Did you want to now? Talk."
Lorenzo glanced down at his microwave dinner. "Yyyyyes. Do you mind if I eat, too?"
"Sure!" the rusalka replied a little too quickly, and they looked at each other for a moment, both moving towards the other one, then back to where they were, then glancing at the couch, which was approximately located at an equal distance between the two.
"Is it ever strange for you," Lorenzo blurted as they sat down, "Just pretending to sit?"
"I'll get back to you when I have a butt," the rusalka said, resting her chin idly on the back of the couch. "In, like, a million years from now."
"Only eight or nine," Lorenzo chided. "You've been a rusalka for hundreds of years."
"I don't count the years I don't remember," the rusalka insisted. "Eight or nine years is, like, way longer than forever."
"Well, I count those years," Lorenzo said. "That's my job. Er, amongst other things."
"Yeah, well, I kind of wish you wouldn't."
The rusalka took a deep breath. She had meant the retort dismissively, but now that it was out there, it hung heavy in the air. Staring at the opposite wall, she pressed the topic hesitantly. "...Like, for real, I wish you wouldn't. I mean, I know it's your job, but it's just weird for me. Like, maybe some girl out there would be super pumped to have this whole tragic backstory miracle romance thing, but I... don't think I am that girl? And maybe it'll be less weird for me later on, but right now it's just really stressful." She rolled her head back to meet his eyes, feeling a little emboldened by his allowing her to speak, but found she wasn't quite brave enough and ended up meeting the gaze of his microwave chickpea biryani instead.
"A-anyway!" she blustered, losing her nerve, "I'm super grateful, obviously! I mean, you're not even charging me any money, and you set up a room for me to live in and everything, and I'd obviously rather know that I'm a rusalka than just drift through life like haha whatever-- Or, like, no..." She frowned, trying to organize her thoughts. "Like, it stresses me out, but I know that I have to know, because something could go wrong, and obviously I don't want something to go wrong, and I'm glad you're here to, like, help with that. And everyone says you're a really good necromancer, and I believe them, and, um..." She bit her lip nervously and let her gaze trail up from Lorenzo's microwave dinner to his face.
"Please say something," she begged.
Lorenzo held up a finger, chewed his food and swallowed it, taking his time so he could think. Finally, he said, "It's understandable that you feel strange about our relationship." He put his dinner aside and explained, "Unlike you, I entered into our agreement knowing that it would be strained and hard to define. I knew the circumstances before I committed. Er, more or less. The rusalka knew the circumstances, too, but you don't remember ever being her. It's actually common for long term resurrection clients to feel overwhelmed by the very agreement between themselves and their necromancer before their memories return. Um, so I've read, anyway. Since your body isn't visibly decaying, it must be even more frustrating to be in a situation that you feel doesn't apply to you."
"Maybe it doesn't apply to me." the rusalka argued. "I- Dina pointed out that I'm not just undead, I'm a raevan. Those are different, so shouldn't I be treated differently?"
"You pointed it out yourself," Lorenzo retorted. "I'm not charging you money- I'm caring for you as a guardian, as well as a necromancer."
"Well, you're not doing enough." the rusalka insisted. "I mean, like! You're doing a lot, but it feels like it's all as a necromancer, and I don't feel as undead as that." She looked around, and reached for the Sailor Moon DVD. "Like this made a lot more sense to me than the Russian history lessons! It made me feel good. I want to be more like this- like a normal girl, and Eden gets to be a normal girl, and it feels like I'm the only one who has to go along with... being this other thing. This other thing I don't even remember being! And like, if I remember being her someday, good, that's great for you, but can't we deal with that when it happens?"
Lorenzo hesitated. "If it does happen, it'll be harder if we haven't prepared for it." he told her gently. "You have to be ready."
"But I have to be ready to live here, too, right? Here on Gaia!" She jabbed a finger at Sailor Moon. "I'm definitely going to have to be ready for that, it'll definitely happen!"
She hesitated. "I don't want to try to live in a past I don't remember." Floating over to where she left the Russian mythology book, she rummaged around for the picture of the rusalka. "If I remember being a monster, I want to be a girl, too, like not an ancient Russian girl, my own type of girl. The kind of girl who can fight despair and evil! Or at least the kind of girl who isn't always sad. Isn't that a kind of preparation, too?"
Lorenzo looked from the DVD to the mythology book. "Okay," he relented, and held up a hand as the rusalka's face lit up. "I'll think about it. But if we change your rehabilitation schedule, it can't just be this," he pointed to the Sailor Moon DVD, and back to the book, "Or that. It can't be 'Minako' or 'Mischa'. It has to be some of both."
"Is there room for both?" the rusalka asked Lorenzo carefully.
"If you're willing to try to make room for both," Lorenzo replied, "So am I."
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:02 pm
The rusalka didn't get her chance to sit down and work things out with Lorenzo until three days later, when he got his next day off. Not that she didn't have anything to do in the meantime- Lorenzo might have become more willing to compromise, but for him, even compromising involved homework. The rusalka was reluctant to agree to extra chores, but making lists of things she wanted her name to be was better than studying necromantic contract law some more, so she broke out her scented markers and tried to brainstorm.
It was easier to focus on traits rather than the list of names. The dizzying experience of seeing her body change every time she renamed herself had been too much, but the subtle changes she saw when she thought about the kind of person she wanted to be generally were easier to handle. She'd think of something, write it down, and see that maybe her hair seemed brighter, or her fingers rosier. The only thing that never changed was her white, undead skin.
She tried not to let it bother her too much.
On the appointed day, she woke up before Lorenzo started making breakfast, laying in bed wide awake until the familiar smell of bacon wafted in from the hall. She rushed out to shower while he cooked, and frowned at her maybe-blue hair as she shampooed it. It hadn't decided to be blue until the moment she saw the illustration on her page in the Russian mythology book, but it had definitely decided without her approval.
"I'm calling the shots around here now, okay?" she told it. "Today I make the decisions."
Getting dressed was a matter of picking out one of the various traditional Russian tops Lorenzo had filled her closet with. These, too, received ultimatums, but nevertheless, she put on the least uncomfortable one and floated over to her desk, pulling the list out from the bottom drawer and looking over it one last time. Clearing her throat, she practiced, "Lorenzo! Good to work with you. Lorenzo! Thank you for meeting with me today-"
"Niemoj?" came a voice from the other side of the door. "Did you call me?"
The rusalka startled. "No! I mean, uh, come in!"
Lorenzo opened the door, and his gaze fell upon the list in her hands.
"Is that your essay?" he asked, pulling over a chair so he could sit and take a look at it.
"It's more like a presentation," the rusalka explained nervously. "I just decided the stuff I wanted my name to mean, but I didn't write it out super detailed or anything."
"Go on," Lorenzo encouraged.
The rusalka cleared her throat again. "Lorenzo. Thank you for meeting with me today. After some consideration, I have laid out the general idea of what I want my name to convey based on the kind of person I want to be. And the kind of life I hope to have. And the stuff I like and stuff." She glanced down at the list and began, "Okay, so, first of all, I want to be the kind of girl that can do anything for other people, like a sailor scout. I want to be nice and good and fight for justice." Glancing down again, she continued, "I want to have a fresh start so that I don't have to think about my past life all the time, since I don't remember it and it's kind of depressing." She blushed and bit her lip as she got to the last part, and continued, "A-and, I want to be pretty... and cool... if that's okay. Like, not that being undead is bad, but I want to be more like a living nymph, like Eden."
"That's okay," Lorenzo encouraged, pulling out the name books again. "So let's think..." He pulled a pen and a notepad of his own from the recesses of his cloak. "Some recurring themes I've noticed are something fresh... Something flowery, maybe? And something energetic. Something that means growth? And not rebirth or anything to do with unlife."
"Yeah," The rusalka floated over to watch him from behind, perching her elbows on his shoulder. "Growth is better than rebirth."
"Don't just watch me," Lorenzo said, handing her a name book, "You still have to choose your own name, you know. Just think of me as... a sounding board for today."
The rusalka made a face, but heaved the hated book onto the desk and started flipping through it sloppily.
"What kind of letter do you want it to start with?" said Lorenzo, frowning at her flippant page-flopping. "If it was an A-name, you'd always be first in alphabetical lines."
"No way!" the rusalka retorted with a pout. "Then everyone would think I just chose the first thing I saw. I've put way too much work into this for that."
"O-kay," said Lorenzo, writing "No A-names" at the bottom of his list. "What about a flower name?"
"I'm not really a flower nymph," the rusalka said reluctantly. "That's Eden's thing."
"Something that means new year, then?" Lorenzo suggested. "I captured your soul on New Year's."
"Nothing to do with my soul!" the rusalka insisted.
Lorenzo tapped his pen on the notebook thoughtfully. "Then maybe a water name? Like an energetic body of water. Something that means brook, or spring--"
"Spring!" said the rusalka. "Not like the water, or, yeah, like the water, but like the season when the flowers grow. It's a new start, right? And everything comes to life again."
"There's a good idea," Lorenzo encouraged. "Let's find a name that means spring."
"And doesn't start with A," reminded the rusalka.
"And doesn't start with A," Lorenzo repeated dutifully.
It was easier to go through the piles and piles of names with Lorenzo there, even if he refused to actually decide whether to add one to the list or not. The rusalka got wrapped up in looking with Lorenzo there to take notes, and by the time she finished getting through the book, they had just three names.
"You said that it made you dizzy last time, right?" Lorenzo said. "So take it slowly and consider them one by one."
The rusalka nodded and started with "Lada."
Immediately, her limbs seemed more elegant and slender. The hair she could see became a little pinker, and flowers bloomed in it more profusely. Lorenzo, sitting across from her, blinked and waved a hand over his eyes.
"You saw it too," she confirmed.
"I saw something," he said. "Do you like how you look?"
The rusalka considered and shook her head. "It's okay, but... maybe Yaroslava?" she tried next.
"How's that one?" Lorenzo asked.
"It looks okay, but it doesn't sound cute." the rusalka decided.
"Last one," Lorenzo said, raising his eyebrows. "Ready?"
The rusalka nodded. "I think it's between 'Lada' or this one." Scrunching up her face and closing her eyes, she said, "Vesna!"
She opened her eyes and looked down at her body. It didn't make her dizzy. It didn't even surprise her very much. It was a body that looked very much like it had while she was making her list for Lorenzo over the past few days. She stretched her hands out, wiggling rosy pink fingers.
"Is this the one?" Lorenzo asked.
Vesna's face split into a huge grin, and she shook her head slowly. "This is the one."
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:21 pm
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 12:13 pm
"Zombies, zombies, zo-m-bies."
"You shouldn't say that," Lorenzo chided, glancing up at Vesna from where he was chopping onions in the kitchen. "It's a bad word."
"I read about it," Vesna announced in reply, causing Lorenzo to nearly cut his finger. "While you were working today."
"Where?" Lorenzo sputtered.
"Online. I googled it."
Lorenzo's mouth formed the word 'how', but the speed with which Vesna was learning to use the various household devices now that she was actually putting her mind to it was a little frustrating. He settled instead for: "Why?"
"Because you said it was bad when that other dad came to visit."
"Mr. Kipling. And he wasn't visiting, per se, he was a client."
"Well, he'll be visiting next time when his raevan grows, so?" Vesna floated over to the other side of the counter and leaned on it, wrinkling her nose at the pungent onions.
"Maybe," Lorenzo said cautiously. Even more cautiously, he asked, "How did you feel?"
"I think he was kind of awkward, I guess, why?"
"No, about the, uh, the word."
"Zombie?" Vesna grinned when Lorenzo flinched, but she considered the question seriously. "I don't know. It kind of makes me feel bad, I guess, but it's just a word, right?"
"Well, if that's what you think, I hope it stays that way."
Vesna seemed satisfied by his response, if not slightly nonplussed. "I guess I hope so too, then." She paused and asked, "But I'm not gonna end up like, you know..." She pantomimed a zombie walk as best she could without legs, sticking her tongue out for emphasis.
"Ah, no," Lorenzo reassured her. "At least, I don't think so. That kind of thing is sort of a played up stereotype, since a lot of undead people walk that way if they haven't had proper physical therapy." He gave her a wan smile. "And the brainless thing, it's true that some undead people don't have strong reflexes, but they're not mindless." He drummed his fingers on the edge of the counter nervously. "All that stuff's from the bad old days, I guess- in the past, necromancers sometimes used dark magic to resurrect mindless hordes of undead, but those were little more than walking puppets. Totally different from modern necromancy."
"It sounds gross." Vesna decided. "But if I'm not gonna be like that, that's fine." She stretched out and asked, "I guess I won't get super strength either, then? I was kind of thinking that would be cool. For, like, my magical girl career."
Lorenzo laughed. "Maybe you'll get super strength. But that's a myth, too- when undead people are first resurrected, they sometimes have difficulty gauging how much strength to use while performing simple tasks, so sometimes things like opening a door or holding something resulted in crushing or breaking. Nowadays we have therapy for that, too. But again, old fashioned necromancers weren't too concerned about that kind of thing- more destruction was usually better for their purposes than not."
"Is that why you've been giving me all those boring exercises?" Vesna asked archly.
"Ye-es," Lorenzo hesitated, "But as you amply proved, your reflexes and muscle control seem fine." Somewhat defensively, he added, "It's my job to worry about those things, Vesna."
"I guess I like all the doors attached to their hinges," Vesna conceded. "Especially my door." She lingered, though the conversation seemed to be at an end, as Lorenzo slid the onions into a pan. Swiping at her eyes as they started to cook, she asked: "You have that other dad's number, right?"
Lorenzo paused. "I do, but I probably shouldn't call a client for personal reasons."
Vesna pouted. "Why?"
"It's just not professional- and look, about this other dad thing... Calling me 'Dad' isn't very professional, either."
"Eden has a dad and I want one too," Vesna insisted. "We talked about this!"
"Yes, and I'm fine with it, but maybe not in the office. Or in front of other necromancers."
"So just secretly, alone." Vesna said flatly.
"Well, in public, alone, too! And with other raevans and guardians if you must. So long as they aren't standing in my office, asking me to resurrect something."
Vesna hummed thoughtfully.
"We decided to compromise," Lorenzo reminded her gently.
"Then I get to call you 'Dad' online, too," Vesna negotiated.
"Fine. So long as you don't say 'zom-' the z word out loud ever."
Vesna shrugged. "Deal." She lifted her phone to his face and took a picture. "All right, then, Dad," she said, floating over to show him, "Choose the purikura for your instagram debut."
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 3:23 pm
"Hi hi," Vesna chimed as she put in her headphones and adjusted her laptop screen- not that Dina could see her anyway, she supposed.
"Hello, Miss Vesna," Dina greeted cheerfully, waving her phone to show she'd gotten her text. "A very important development to send an international text, I see."
"I texted everyone. Are international texts different?" Vesna pursed her lips worriedly.
Dina cleared her throat. "They are a little bit more expensive."
"I didn't pay anyone, though!" Vesna exclaimed.
"It does not charge in that way- Mister FIsch will pay for it when you phone bill is due," explained Dina awkwardly. "Anyway, I am sure he will not mind. Choosing a name is very important! But maybe do not text me to say hello and such from here on out."
"All right," Vesna said dutifully.
"And did you and Mister Fisch settle anything else besides your name?" Dina probed.
"Sort of-" Vesna waved her hands vaguely. "He and I talked about what was tough for me and for him, and I told him I wanted to be able to leave the apartment sooner than he planned and stuff. And, uh, I asked to call him Dad, since that seemed like what other raevans do? And it's going okay so far, I guess."
Dina laughed, a warm and friendly laugh. "I am sure Mister Fisch simply loves being called 'Dad."
"Heeee... more or less doesn't hate it." Vesna trailed off.
"Well, it seems like these things worry you less already," Dina encouraged. "That is truly excellent progress!"
Vesna grinned. "Yeah, I guess. You're right, I mean, about him. He's kind of goofy."
"Ah, that is not completely fair," Dina protested. "He was a little cool when I worked with him at least."
"Yeah?" Vesna asked. "With the rusalka, right?"
She hesitated.
"...Dina, what was the rusalka like? Was it like, all, bluuugh?"
On the screen, Dina's brow furrowed. "All... blugh?"
Vesna frowned, trying to think of the words. "You know, like in Sailor Moon with youma... like..." She looked left and right when Dina still didn't seem to get it, and softly asked, "Like a zombie?"
Dina's expression cleared. "Well, I'm no expert, Miss. That's Mister Fisch's department."
"But just from your point of view," coaxed Vesna.
Dina bit her lip. "...I will not pretend she did not frighten me. But I hadn't considered such things might be real! She did not say 'blugh', but she was frightening. And, speaking as her translator, she was also fairly rude."
"Oh! I'm sorry." Vesna laughed a little nervously. "I guess I'll have to be extra polite to make up for it."
"Not to me, Miss," Dina said primly. "I have translated for ruder clients than her, and they didn't even have a good excuse for it."
"Well, to Lore- Dad, I guess."
"I think that is precisely what Mister Fisch does not want. Well- I do not think he wants you to be rude to him. But is he not trying so hard to make you feel comfortable around him?"
"Is being rude comforting?" Vesna joked.
"Being familiar is comforting." Dina replied simply.
"But if I'm mean and horrible and... and bluuugh, then..."
"Do you feel mean and horrible?" asked Dina.
"No, but if my soul was scary and rude and all that, maybe I'm just that way, too."
Dina seemed remorseful. "Perhaps I should not have said those things. Or at least, not without tempering them with other observations. Miss, the rusalka was frightening to me, and she certainly did not seem to like me very much, but despite that, I think she was very brave. She struck me that way, anyway."
"But she scared you!"
"I did not understand her," Dina amended, "Or her world. And that scared me. But I could understand that she had been hurt quite badly and suffered for a long time, and to me it seemed brave that she would say rude things anyway, that she would try anyway, that there was something inside of her that would not give in. Is that more appealing to you?"
"Mmm," Vesna said noncommittally. "I guess being rude is brave?"
Dina laughed. "You are willfully misunderstanding now, I think. It is my fault, I should not have spoken out of turn. But I do know one thing about bravery, Miss Vesna."
"Yeah?" Vesna asked.
"If you let all these big conversations with Lorenzo distract you from your Russian practice, you are perhaps foolishly brave." She cracked her knuckles ominously. "Come now, let's get to work."
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:22 pm
Probably the best part of the day, Vesna thought, was late afternoon.
By late afternoon, all her Russian practice was done with, and it was time to do her exercises until Lorenzo was done with work. The exercises had been much-hated at first, but now that Lorenzo had loosened up with them, they were the most fun thing she got to do- she practiced dictation by reading manga dramatically to Buddy, and she stretched while watching the DVDs Guinevere brought her. She liked pretty much everything Guinevere brought her, eclectic as it all was, though she also knew that in Lorenzo's house, she couldn't really afford to be picky about entertainment. Seasons of Sailor Moon were interspersed with supernatural romances, high school drama, sitcoms, and period pieces, and she absorbed more from these than she got from the exercises.
"What do you think?" she said to Buddy, waving two DVD cases in front of his face. "Anime or drama?"
Buddy blinked at her slowly, and yawned a terrible, smelly yawn.
"That's one vote for drama," she said, pursing her lips. "But I feel like anime, and I have thumbs." She popped the DVD in the player and a brightly colored magical girl show came on.
"If I get real tough, then I'm definitely going to have to fight evil too, you know. So it's very educational." she explained to Buddy primly. He did not seem to care.
She actually hadn't talked to another person besides Dina and Lorenzo in a few days, she realized. It gave her pause, and, mid-stretch, she reached for her phone, but she didn't have any new texts from Eden. She didn't really want to bug Eden too much, because Eden was her Only Friend, or at least the only friend she had who was a raevan and her age and who she had seen, for real, in person. Eden, she was sure, had a million friends, because Eden could leave her house, and lived in a flower shop anyway, where the customers weren't creepy looking and, according to manga at least, where miraculous romances were often facilitated.
Eden was probably busy. And this was normal for her. It hadn't really bothered her that she didn't have many people to talk to until she had started watching all these TV shows and realizing that everyone in them seemed to have a lot of friends.
She trusted television to know what normal looked like more than she trusted Lorenzo. If television said it was weird to have just one friend, she was willing to believe it.
She thought about Aadhira and wondered if it was worth trying to find his number and calling him, but that meant revealing her true identity, and revealing her true identity to him because she was lonely didn't seem like a good way to end their game. She had the distinct feeling he would not be impressed with such a lukewarm conclusion.
Cold calling other people didn't really appeal to her either. She knew how to use her phone now that she had incentive to, but she wasn't quite bold enough to try to befriend people through blind chance.
Lorenzo had said that she wasn't allowed to leave the house for a month at least, and she had agreed to it, but a month was a long time, and the exercises, even though they were technically getting more difficult, were not actually any harder for her to perform. They were still clearly designed for someone way deader than she was, even though Lorenzo had thumbed all the way to the back of the exercise book. She had pointed this out, and he said there was still more to worry about- that she could suffer from a sensory overload if she went out and did too much too fast, or maybe her pale, undead skin could be damaged by the harsh February air. Until they knew, he insisted, he wanted to wait until she became savvier and spring became, well, springier to let her run wild.
"If I was tough," she declared to Buddy, draping herself on the floor and poking his cold, dry nose, "I would go out and make friends and bury myself in snow and buy a super cute winter coat."
Buddy rolled over and she scratched his belly absently. "If I was tough, I'd be super nice anyway, even if Dina thinks being rude is brave sometimes."
She yawned, rolling over like Buddy and lolling her head to the side to meet his eyes. "When spring comes, I'm gonna make at least ten friends and smell all of Ian's flowers and buy a super cute spring jacket. And next winter, I'm gonna be way tough."
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