#reenactcreation

[clockpins]

@reenactcreation

“It ain’t that bad.”

It’s bad. He got lashed to the pink muscle of him and he can feel the incision into his gut as both sides of skin are loosely held together by his work leathers. Lucky layers. Vokial always told him to wear layers- ‘stops knives, blunts, some shivs’. He abruptly wanted to interrupt and say nobody in town uses knifes to which Vokial laughed and said he’s too idealistic. He certainly isn’t now. Most of the knives made were made with Abbatoir iron, which had to be some kind of blasphemous.

People are people. People will do what people do, and that is anything.

“I’ve had plenty worse. Dog bites, knife kites. Glass cuts worse. Doesn’t hurt that much.”

It hurts more than he can manage, and the burns overshadow everything else. Artemy had the foresight to prep a spot for him, him and owl eyed Peter shellshocked and not looking well when they rolled in (but that’s normal for Peter, and he’s not surprised).

“Some stitches and I’m out, yeah?”

[aspity-sahba]

Good scenario- Artemy gets to relearn the things he was separated from.

[governorsaburov]

“Spare me any lectures you may have,” Saburov says, sitting on the edge of the cot he was assigned to, “I’m fully aware the condition I’m in, and the consequences of the actions I’ve undertaken- tch.”

Saburov grimaced, and instinctively lifted a bloody arm to block his torso. His ribs throbbed from the kick still, and speaking in that authoritative voice put a strain on his lungs.

Not that it mattered to be authoritative right now. The only ones in the clinic were Burakh and his family and Saburov himself. So why did it matter?

Reflex, he supposed. Burakh had a nagging way of making him feel as if he needed to be authoritative. Saving face, or getting information through the thick-headedness Burakh demonstrated sometimes was a constant uphill battle.

Added on to the fact that Saburov was wounded, he was reacting akin to a cornered wolf. 

Lucky for Artemy that Alexander had grown fonder of him as of late and didn’t perceive him as much of a threat personally.

@reenactcreation

[afoelikedeath]

@reenactcreation

​Today was the first day it had not rained in two weeks. One of Peter’s paintings was melting linseed onto the floorboards with the damned moisture in the air- and it had finally decided to sob itself into smearing and dripping. The one of the man and the woman embracing looked now like the love child of Schiele’s erotic pieces and Bosch’s nightmares. The woman’s hand had turned into a smear with rope-length fingers. Like she was being pulled off the canvas.

Maybe that’s his guilty conscience talking on all fronts, but the painting started bleeding all over the wall and the floor last night. 

He took it down immediately and set it in the nearest trashcan he could find. It looks like a bloodstain dragged down the wall and across a part of the floor- he’ll have to clean it later.

At one in the morning the clock in the cathedral chimed and he sat at his desk and buried his eyes in his hands. The red was so strong it cast afterimages, and the Stillwater quietly muttered to him that 'it’s okay, just sleep’. 

“This place has to go too,” he mutters after losing himself in the violent image for too long. When he opens his eyes again it’s already 1:30, he’s exhausted, and he has to struggle to crawl into Eva’s shower. The water is pink-red.

Well. You did feed blood into the town’s reservoirs. Blood collects at his feet. It soothes his face and body though, and it doesn’t stick to him and make him feel worse. Burakh didn’t get here first- and it’s good that he doesn’t. Daniil brews coffee on a hotplate instead of crying about it.

Eva’s notes are still mixed with the rest of his letters on his desk. 

His clothes are ruined and he has to dig under his bed for other ones past the full executor costume hiding there. When the coffee’s done, he doesn’t actually feel any better. 

[juliette-lobert]

[polyhydra]

@reenactcreation

He brought Grace with him, and used the time to practice holding onto her hand without crushing her bones. His grip control is still poor- and it’s finally come back to him why with some small despair that one of his tendons was cut once upon a time. Worse, he never retrained that hand and couldn’t remember if it was his fault or not. One of many reasons why he stopped sculpting. He wonders if Andrey knows what happened- the scar blends in with the seam of his hand and it’s nearly impossible to see.

It occupies him too much and he forgets to knock on the door and ends up staring at the wood for too long.

He explained he wasn’t well today, not Sand Pest don’t worry, to his daughter. The girl was thrilled to go with him to the doctor- specifically to draw while Peter attempted to find some sort of medical grounding. Normally and effectively, he would have gone to Dankovsky. Daniil tended to ground either of them when they fluctuated up and down in terrible symptoms of near panicking manias and violent depressions.

He knocks eventually, ushering Grace inside slowly to get her out of the cold first and following behind her.

“Hello old boy. The weather makes me forget to knock. Snow is a forgetful weather. Then again, I forget in every weather. Hmm.”

[forgottengraves]

@reenactcreation 

Snow crunches under foot as Grace steps out of the Loft and walks the few houses down toward Artemy’s. She has some art supplies tucked under her arm to share with Murky - more things Papa had given her from his massive supply collect that seemed to grow like ivy in various rooms in the house, recently unsealed. He called these pastels and they looked like chalk, but smoother and less dusty. And they had really bright colors. She thinks Murky will like them. 

It’s Sticky, not Murky, who she sees in the yard when she approaches. That’s just as well - she’s seen him around, but hasn’t really gotten to speak to him in a while. Not since she left the Graveyard - she remembers seeing him in the Steppe beyond the graves, looking for what he called ‘albinos.’ A Steppe creature. She thinks she’s heard Aspity mention the creature too, but a different word perhaps.. 

“Hello, Sticky,” she says as she crunches over to see what he’s doing in the snow. 

[clockpins]

He’s been around himself for thirty odd years and some change, which is enough to recognize that his stress response was same response that one had for a fire. Stop, drop, roll off. He didn’t like sticking around folks when the going got tough enough to get the Gonnof. He had a reputation to preserve. It’s too cold to go wandering out by the fire, so he opts instead to climb back to the old haunt of Isador’s house.

He hardly uses the door of the place, even after the debacle with Stakh. The second floor window is much more accessible to him anyways than waltzing into the yard and asking for a quiet spot in the back room to think.

The window he’s always used is now haunted by Sticky. He’s caught him almost every time the thing has been cracked open, and has never told a soul. 

“You’d be a good thief in law,” he tells him this time. He’s told him before, but the kid’s stubborn.

“I’d be a better doctor, obviously.”

He can’t argue with that. He trades Sticky some incredibly rare glass beads and a wooden toy soldier for a new lockpick and some rumors, and leaves him to his own devices. There’s no leather hide on his back this time for a guise, so this time, slipping off to the kitchen isn’t a matter of potential life and death.

Artemy moved things around for his kids, but he kept the kettle in the same accessible spot. Grief sets it on his stove, adds a few logs to the fire and takes the other half of offerings from his heavy coat to slip in the kitchen: buckwheat despite the rationing, salt, and a handful of seasoning herbs.

It’s an uninterrupted stint. He makes himself thieves’ porridge in one of Isador’s old and chipped bowls, nipping at it while Artemy’s girl toddles into the room to find what was cooking, and immediately leaves upon seeing him.

He’s almost offended until she comes back with a box of treasures. Shotgun shells, a riffle round, a whole scope.

“Okay... where the hell did you get this?”

The little sprite shrugs and pulls herself up to the counter while he’s perched on it too, a spoon in his mouth. It has him digging through his pockets again and pulling out a single item. It’s a comic, written in the King’s English, but the pictures are fair quality and survived the hellish trip here. It’s gold in these trading terms, and she’s not a fool. She knows that.

She’s also like five, Grigory. 

Which landed him with a box of munitions to peruse through, and absolutely flabbergasted by it, and Murky reading a comic upside-down. It’s a fair bit of company, because she says nothing to him this morning.

@reenactcreation

[afoelikedeath]

@reenactcreation

​The early morning is remarkably uneventful and he has the motivation and energy to load more cut wood (hardly any in the cradle), into the stove- it heats the floor up pleasantly. He brews coffee and drinks at least two cups before dawn. The unremarkable part of the morning feels like a joke after an entire month of stress. 

So he’s on edge for no good reason when there’s a knock at the door that makes him jump out of his skin and scramble to keep coffee from spilling over the table when he knocks over the mug.

“Damn it.”

Chasing coffee off the table is fruitless, and he halfheartedly calls, “Just a moment,” before righting the scarf on his neck and his stained sweater sleeve.

There’s a woman at his door that he can see through the window.

Dora looks tired when he opens the door, too disheveled to give her the entire presentation of competency.

“Good morning, Dankovsky.”

“Good morning.”

She holds her full arms out and immediately deposits a baby in his outstretched arms.

“Ah--,” and he rights his hold. It’s painfully cold and the poor thing’s wrapped in tight bundles, “Masha-”

“Yes,” she sighs, “Masha. Marat and I are overwhelmed with the four we have- one of them has cholic.”

“Oh. Should I- I have rounds at noontime, will you be back for her?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Just send one of your neighbors for me.”

He looks over her shoulder. The Dogheads and Souls have created an ice house overnight, and populate every inch of the space around it. There are scouts around the high fence, both Souls and Dogheads. 

The kids have found barrels to burn between watchpoints and he has to marvel at their resourcefulness. It’s sad to see it.

“Are you two alright at the Hall? I can spare some resources.”

“You’re sweet. No, we should be fine. We have taken them home with us now that the Plague has fled the area. I’ll be back soon for her, doctor. You should consider fostering- you’re very attached.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that and simply nods.

“Have a nice day, Dora.”

“You too, doctor.”

So the morning is odd. He ends up holding Masha and mumbling to her.

“Well, it’s good to see you again, colleague- have you considered what we spoke about, about the monster?”

There’s not much wiggling in response, she just sleeps. 

“I suppose not, then.”

Daniil brings the crib with painted little bulls on it into the kitchen and sets her in it, surrounded by massive piles of blankets. He pours another cup of coffee, wipes up the first one, and peels open his copy of Frankenstein again to read.

[aspity-sahba]

“Ime beshe, tangher. Too many died of sickness to exclude any. Even if they are not Khatanghe. Khaya dee, the menkhu declared peace. Be shabna. Do not worry of unborn possibility. Trouble will be dealt with where and when it happens.“

Aspity spent her mornings in the usual manner- aiding those that came to her with advice, or supplies. There were considerably less fugitives to smuggle nowadays, and as winter drew in with its claws poised, she took it as a good thing.

She discussed the worries of the recent decision to open the Kin’s midnight market to not only the tribes coming in, but the members of the town as well.

There were mixed opinions on the decision, as there always were. Many were for it, but many were still hesitant to invite the town to partake in this kind of celebration.

Aspity assured them that if there were any belligerents, they’d be dealt with swiftly, and that there were many patrolmen who were Kin in the area that would not side with aggressors.

“Oshysh daa,“ she waves a bony hand to shoo the small group out, “and let the others know. Tiimel daa.“

Her eyes linger over to the broken clock out of habit. Truth be told, she was waiting for Artemy to visit, like he had planned.

Staring a moment at the still hands, she then glances outside. It’s a little late for him. Past noon.

She shrugs it off, figuring that he and the other menkhu were busy in the lair or the clinic.

Other visitors lined her waiting room, so she could at least occupy her time waiting.

New problems and exciting ones. Young love, too. A couple came to her asking advice on how to pursue a relationship. The young Kinsman was from the Town, but the girl had come in from Chagaan’s tribe.

Aspity instructed them on family lines and had them recite the names of their families up to the fifth great-grandparents. The young man struggled with recalling that far back, but with the names that the girl listed, Aspity concluded that it was acceptable to pursue a relationship.

Artemy still hadn’t arrived.

Her lips press thin as she wonders what he had gotten himself into.

She helps coordinate the market and give advice to the remaining guests. She glances outside at the conclusion again, and it’s near two o’clock.

Frowning, she draws up her hood and leaves her house, heading first to the Lair. Finding that place empty, she decides to visit the Burakh house...

Where she finds Sticky and Murky, both wearing masks and informing her that Artemy hadn’t come out of the room much, and instructed them to stay away because he was sick.

She glides up the stairs and slowly enters his room.

“...Artemy?“

@reenactcreation

[afoelikedeath]

Day one, he’s too anxious to sleep despite the soul-deep fatigue. He knows it snows outside by the vicious winds, and he tucks his charge under his sweater and the heavy fur cloak. The nice thing about babies is they’re relatively simple things. They don’t do much. Eat, sleep, be a ball of tubes and skin without much support. She’s quieter company when he feeds her dehydrated milk and he drinks the panacea down and does the deed of vaccinating her.

It’s a long ride. He dreams through much of it. He dreams he’s home and watching the sky crawl over his bedroom like he’s moving. He dreams his mother is standing by his bed, crawling with beetles and hatching them through her skin. She’s complacent with it.

She tells him to die already so she can love something else and he wonders sincerely if all of it was a dream. Did he come to the Town at all? It’s all too perfect a setup for a tragedy. 

The uncertainty wakes him several times from worsening dreams. His ward, which he named Masha, wakes him other times for food and mess. He uses the hotplate religiously and keeps himself and his tiny charge clean. Despite the day of no action, everything hurts like the devil more and more each passing day. His side aches and his rations have the same texture and taste of bile. 

It’s hard to listen to the train and understand that with each 2-time beat of the tracks they’re riding into a situation that most will not survive. The statistics aren’t favorable. People will die on the train and all they could do about it is sit and wait.

He reads the book he stashed in his bag. It’s beaten to hell now. He reads quietly, and aloud, Shelly’s a macabre writer, but a poetic one that paints such terrific scenes. He reads quietly and aloud to pass the time. It slows him down enough to pace the chapters. He sleeps when she does.

Two weeks pass. The train grows flesh like a living thing on the outside.

He dreams of Eva again. They are far from pleasant dreams which means he’s still alive, but he wishes the contrary. He wishes he could dream pleasant, visceral things to pass his time, but this train is one of the dead.

The days pass. It snows harder. He’s too attached to Masha now, and the sounds around him haven’t changed in days. He’s unable to not keep track of the days. They move too slowly. The conductor hails them with the train whistle on day 12, a doleful sound for a can of worms about to be opened.

He guesses thirty are dead. When they open the cars he knows corpses will spill out with plague and he can only quietly... murmur a few phrases to remember exactly what should and shouldn’t hurt personally when they open those cars. Something must be wrong with him, because he doesn’t hurt enough at any of it. 

Perhaps that’s what the chronic nightmares were for, that expression of pain.

He doesn’t know. The train pulls in to the ancient yard and he feels the rhythm slow. It’s midday, bitter cold, and ice gray. When the train pulls in, he knows it’s all fucked. He knows. 

He brought plague and salvation all on one train. He brings death. 

Daniil slides the door to the boxcar open, and the bright light seeps in of the winter dawn, fractured by the bird mask lenses.

The train slows enough to distract him from the presentation of what’s to come, and a black mass crawls itself along the trainside. It pours out like smoke out of a fire from one of the cars and he ducks back into his own car as his adrenaline spikes and he watches corpses fall along the railways, expelled as the dam seems to break. A plague cloud hisses past them and casts a shadow like a horde of birds.

“...”

Masha trembles and begins to cry. 

“No, Manya, shh- Shhh.”

No time. The train slows further until it comes to a screeching stop, and he throws his bag out first and follows it, panicked and already running. His coat cries and the squirming thing in his sweater tries to gum his chest.

“Burakh?! Burakh!”

[afoelikedeath]

“Due to some information and a personal request,” he said, moving the rest of his books into a wheelbarrow, “I will no longer be staying in the Stillwater.”

He could have taken the hint at any time. There were plenty of indications he shouldn’t be staying there any longer. A dead woman’s bed was on the first floor and his mental faculties seemed to turn to anxiety every time he turned the corner of the hall. The paintings that decorated the odd building bled all of their color out over the span of three days and left blotches of pigment on the walls that could not be cleaned. All of these factors, and he did not leave. 

The difference today was Andrey Stamatin speaking in the same tone that he usually did before people met his fists or his rage met something else. He had given Daniil a warning and a plea to get out of the Stillwater: it was the excuse he needed to finally leave.

So, his belongings were moved to another spot in the Stone Yard, one he had petitioned for after Eva’s untimely death and never migrated to fully. The house had been empty that entire time. 

It was also unremarkable, and for once to Daniil Dankovsky, unremarkable was preferable.

So he led Artemy Burakh and handed him books to trek the less than a block that they needed to and opened the door with a key. 

The dust the door kicked up was thick with twyre pollen enough that his boots left prints.

“You don’t mind the last minute change of plans, though, do you, kettle. Carpe diem. Pluck the day. Good to see you not covered in your own blood over the course of the day.”

@reenactcreation

[aspity-sahba]

Shekhen had been abuzz with excitement. Many years passed since the last migrations. Many that were here hadn’t been alive to witness the last- and those who were had high hopes it would be unlike the last time. No riots, not brutality, not with the death of Big Vlad.

The few elders that survived were sharing stories of the families that there were before. Taya listened eagerly among the other children, because that was a part of her heritage too- the menkhu families, and the great taglurs between them.

Aspity stood by, listening to the elders’ recollections, now that they could freely speak without fear. Odonghe gathered around her, so that she could inspect the preparations of food to herald the arrivals. There was a lot to be cooked, and distributed- but she urged them as well not to over prepare. These things had to last. This next week would be the true test of fighting off the starving times of the dark parts of the year.

A healthy bull had been slaughtered. The proper way. Taken out to the steppe a day before to feed on patches of exposed grass and a few herbs, and then the throat slit, to spill blood quickly and as painlessly as possible.

He had lain on the Ragi Barrow, and Borte had cut its lines, letting the entrails spill over, and teaching Artemy all the while how to read the omens among them.

“A divided body, a fractured mind. It must be made whole. There will be a deception that passes us by, but there will be justice outside of our hands. The winter will pass, and the rites will be taken in spring.“

Those had been the words spoken, before the hide was harvested, and the meat taken. It’s bones were now simmering in a great pot to make a strong broth.

The odonghe were pleased. There was no fear in the bulls meat. Fear spoils it faster, they said. You could taste when an animal was frightened.

Borte stood near Artemy on the outskirts of Shekhen. It was tradition that the eldest of the clans go to greet the ones coming in. Taya right now, being the only, was still too small for this rite. And Ayan, last of the Oyuns, did not hold the rank.

Borte was dressed in her ceremonial garb, the yellowish colors of the Mangyzes dyed her robes, and the veiled mask of her family- a mesh pinned to her headscarf, with the skull of a viper splayed across it.

Aspity had gathered the leathersmiths she knew to help Artemy don his own. Greens seemed to suit him best. So he had green robes, embroidered with golden edges, a leather trimmed mantle on his shoulders, bone charms adorning the edges. His mask featured the skull of a bull resting atop his head, fringes of dyed leather hanging down to obscure his face. Longmarks were painted around it, and hanging in the eye sockets were polished amber stones.

He cut an imposing figure, much like the executors.

On the horizon, he could see four figures approaching. On one of them, the silhouette had antlers.

Borte steps forward, “Come. Let us greet the Besetches.“

@reenactcreation

[afoelikedeath]

Daniil practices the wry potential opening lines on his way out of the house. The, “so, ignorance is your main weapon?” line sounded fairly good in his head, but when it came out of his mouth he realized quite quickly he had to make an effort to have those words sound mean enough to poke the bear. 

Daniil abandons that project already. Old tricks would be just as effective as new tricks anyways. 

He walks up to the house, and the little traincar girl turned daughter is barefoot in the snow. Murky it seems, had about as little preservation as Artemy. Her bald ankles were absolutely red. and she was concentrating on a hole she’d been making in the snow.

“Murky, honey, your feet are frozen. Do you even feel them anymore?”

Murky doesn’t give the grace of a quick response, too intent on perfecting a pit suspended in the air. The Stamatins would be fascinated with it. 

She eventually wipes her hands on her clothing and runs to the front of the Burakh house, cracking the door open and actually holding it for him. He’s gobsmacked by this single display of manners.

“Why are you here?”

“Long story.”

Murky frowns as they both step inside and he shakes the snow off his boots onto the carpet. 

“Do you mean you have a long story to tell or it was a long story to get here.”

“Both,” he snorts, “Where’s your blockhead father?”

Murky thinks on that, contemplative, and Daniil brushes a bit of stray snow from her hair.

“He is pretty blocky,” she decides, and Daniil can’t help the absolute peel of laughter that comes out of his throat. It’s more a cackle. He likes Murky. He gets along with Murky. The abrupt remarks remind him of Peter.

She doesn’t answer his question and he’s left to contemplate this house again while she thaws. There’s a blanket hanging on a rack nearby and he pulls it off to drape over her. It must have been the right decision, because she pulls it nice and tight around herself and seems pleased with that, dragging it along and virtually ignoring him.

“Great. Well...”

@reenactcreation​

[aspity-sahba]

It is late at night when signal fires are spotted north of Shekhen. Another clan of Kin had made camp there about three miles out from the settlement.  Artemy could spot the yurts in the distance and the light of the fire disappearing and reappearing as people danced around the flame.

The smoke stack spiralled into the sky- breaks in the smoke created small puffs.

Borte squinted and peered at puffs of smoke, studying the pattern. She looked over to the young menkhu next to her, “Khalkha. That’s the clan that awaits.“

Jurim fidgeted with the antlers of his headpiece, quietly looking to the elders for guidance, “So do we go over while it’s dark? Or do we wait. Are there any sick?“

Borte, “Those are questions we ask with our own signal fires. We ask if we may meet with their menkhu, and if there are any sick.“

She looks up at Artemy, “Ultimately, it is to be decided by Burakh. This is his territory.“

@reenactcreation

[governorsaburov]

Many things had happened in the last few days, and Saburov’s dark hair was getting less dark and more grey as those particularly stressful events continued to happen.

His suspicions were correct. That children were in danger, with the Caravan’s resurgence, and the Kain boy and the children’s gangs had caused such a stir hunting down the child-stealers.

He detested the thought of the children running rampant with guns, though he couldn’t fault their distrust in the patrolmen.

It irked him to no end that the Patrolmen were still disorganized. Many of them were volunteers, and Saburov could not personally oversee their training during the outbreak, so the position was certainly abused. Internal investigations were still being conducted... but Saburov regretted not being an investigator.

There was another blow to him during the outbreak, with the murder and decapitation of his most trusted lieutenant, Wolf, by the Barber gang.

He was resolved to restructure and personally train Patrolmen and implement a system that would punish any corruption within the ranks and hold accountability for each member. After he was comfortable with the new order, he would perform a contraband sweep.

Children didn’t need to be running around with guns.

There was one more pressing thing, and that was the situation of the Caravan and the general arrival of the Kin migrations.

He’d be completely honest with himself. He was out of his depth with this one.

Which is why he had invited Artemy Burakh to his home.

Vlad the Heavy had been the member of the former ruling triumvirate that “oversaw“ the affairs of the Kin in the town, and Saburov had no place to interfere with it. Olgimsky’s men dealt with the riots and revolts.

Regardless of his personal opinions, the fact remained that Olgimsky maintained control over that part of the town’s workings, and with him gone, there were other things spilling out about how unfavorable- detestable- that entire arrangement had been.

The Kin that remained resented the town and ruling families, and had every right to. But Artemy Burakh was the Warden now. The Kin listened to him.

He sat at the head his table,  with a bottle of vodka and slices of bread, cheese, and cut meat as a courtesy to his guest, though Saburov himself wasn’t quite feeling hungry.

“Thank you for coming, Burakh. I wanted to discuss with you certain affairs of the town that I find myself unsuited to make the decision... at least, on my own. Have you heard about the new tactics of the Ace of Diamonds Caravan?“

@reenactcreation