Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was the work of barely a few minutes to get his benefactors to pay out for a year’s museum membership. All it took was a polite pardon, I don’t see a reference for certain objects, perhaps you could recommend me-- and there he was, the proud (proud?) cardholder of a membership at the Destiny City Museum of Earth and Space or… something. Mostly he wanted to speak to another Russian, rather than an American who spoke Russian with an irritating, nasally accent. Ugh. He shuddered to think about it. They weren’t unkind, but there were some things no man should have to bear. American accents were one of them.

The first meeting with Babylon was two days past, and now the sun had really risen in Irinei’s eye; but that didn’t stop him from drawing, just from looking too terribly sophisticated while doing it. Makeup could only disguise the color, not the swelling, and he honestly just hadn’t bothered that morning. He did his hair, pulled on jeans and a high-collared jacket, and proceeded to the museum like he had noticed absolutely nothing wrong with his face, although one thing he did remember was the cautious looks from old ladies on the public transit. He was glad to step off the bus at the museum stop, and check his coat at the door.

Now he’d found the Apollo capsule, and after meticulously sharpening his pencil, he had started to do sketches. Plenty of stories involved death in space; maybe it was time to nod to some more forward-thinking horrors than his usual fare. “Iouri Abramovich,” he said, looking over his shoulder when he heard footsteps. “I did ask the security guard before I set up. I hope I’m not an obstacle.”

“Mm,” he said, bobbing his head and sighting down his arm. He added a quick, sidelong shadow and held up the drawing for inspection: it was lazy, cartoonish to Irinei’s eye, but Irinei at his laziest was still miles better than most people at their best. Who knew what Iouri would see? He wasn’t going to disclaim his own work, anyway. That would only make him look insecure in his talent, and if there was anything Irinei was not insecure about, it was his ability to create art. “I’m not quite in the mood for rock studies.”

He settled the sketchbook across his knees again, and smiled a little crookedly--it hurt to move the right side of his face too much. “Keeping one’s head down doesn’t really protect one from people out looking for trouble,” he said. “I wasn’t sure that I believed the stories of pretty-suited terrorists, but I find they believe in me quite readily.” That was a decent enough explanation, right? It didn’t give away that Irinei was one of them, for a certain quality of pretty-suited; he was rather drab, compared to his peers. “They’re not all terrible, but this one…” He rubbed the uninjured side of his nose. “She was a trial.”

Leaning back a bit, stretching out his hand, he said, “Model rockets? The sort that go--” and he gestured “--or the sort that hang from the ceiling?”

He wasn't interested in building rockets, but observing--that would be interesting. He tapped the end of his pencil on the flat surface of his sketchbook as he thought. "I believe they gave me a schedule with my membership card. Is participation required or would I be allowed to observe?"

He closed his sketchbook then, turning his attention fully on Iouri Abramovich. "This is your favorite part of the museum, you said. Your muse. What about it fascinates you so," he asked, thinking the better of closing his sketchbook and instead opening it to a clean page. "How do you feel it influences your rocketry?"

"Those who can't," said Irinei with a little shrug. He had never understood why the phrase was pejorative. Who did it harm to have passionate, excited people teaching the young and impressionable? The number of people it helped was probably much vaster. "I don't think I would be a good teacher," he said, "but it seems to me you have found your calling, Iouri Abramovich."

He flipped the sketchbook upside down and continued drawing. "This is one of the better science museums I have been in," he said. "Perhaps I will spend more time here than at the greenhouse at the estate. I can't say for sure, but the company here is better. Your accent is not nearly so terrible in Russian."

"She has not had to deal with these Americans," sniffed Irinei. "They speak through their noses." It was disgusting, really. He stopped speaking to them in Russian practically the day he arrived. But it was nice to hear one'smother tongue, much nicer than he had expected it to be when he'd first applied for this long sabbatical. Residency. Eh. It was a break from Europe, anyway.

He sighed. "I'm mostly to be left to my own devices," he said. "I am 'famously solitary', you know."

"Famously solitary," Irinei confirmed. It was nice, to be unknown, but there were people who would be swept away by his fame and some who would remain the same. He was proud of his work, and certain Iouri Abramovitch would prove to be in the latter category. "I exhibit under my family name. Lazarev. You can look it up if you like, I am not so well-known as that."

He pursed his lips and held up the sketched portrait of Iouri. "I believe my work has also been published in the annual Spectrum for three years running. I don't really keep track anymore."