[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/hUm8ue5l.png[/img][/center] [sub][sub][h3]Красная комната Compound, Byelorussian SSR - The Past[/h3][/sub][/sub][hr] [indent][indent]"Do you think we can climb it?" Yulia asked as she gazed upward. Natasha followed her gaze upward towards the apex of the towering birch. It was the tallest thing on their side of the fence. The splintered bark worn with the tangible progression of time. Looking up at it now she felt very small as its towering branches reached like hands towards the sky. "Of course we can." Natasha declared. Small hands grasped a heavyset burl bulging from the wood above her head and pulled upwards. Branch by branch the pair moved higher, freezing in place as a strong wind caused the branches to dance. Natasha's eyes focused on the marks on the tree as they climbed: symbols of others marking how far they had gone. Each mark that she passed seemed to ease the aching in her muscles. "We are almost there!" She called to Yulia whose panting breaths she could hear below. "Really?" Yulia called back up voice coated in disbelief. "Yeah! We have to make it up to this next branch though." Natasha responded as she clung to trunk for support. The names stopped at the branch she rested upon and looking up at the next branch, the reason was obvious. The bark had smoothed out at these heights, no foot holds or other such pleasantries to make a path onward. Natasha was going to have to jump. She rose from a crunch as the branch sagged under the shift in weight. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "Natasha what are you -" Before she could finish Natasha leap through the air. For a brief moment she dangled in open space, free and weightless, before she slammed into the branch. Squinting in pain as stars clouded her vision, Natasha pulled herself up and onto the branch. She scrambled into the small divot made where branch and tree joined. She rested her back against the trunk, breathing hard, as her sternum burned from the impact. "Yulia, you coming?" she called down between breaths. "I think I'm going to stay down here..." Yulia responded as she tried her best not to look down. "What? Come on you gotta!" Natasha responded as a shock of red hair appeared from her resting place looking down. "I'll catch you!" Yulia swallowed hard. “Promise?” “Promise.” She jumped, the branch rising upward to meet her, before it began to fall away. Eyes grow wide as hands grasped for purchase but found only air. A scream forcing its way upward was stifled as her throat closed in panic. There was a blinding pulse of pain. And Yulia jerked to a stop as she hung suspended in air; a shoulder torn from its socket screamed. Above her grasping her arm with two hands in an iron-clad grip was Natasha. Her teeth gritted in determination as the branch she rested on protested the sudden movement. For a moment they hung suspended in time, the sounds of heavy breathing and disgruntled wood filling the air. Finally after what seemed like an eternity Natasha spoke voice shaking with adrenaline. “I got you.”[/indent][/indent] [sub][sub][h3]Castle Markov, The Kingdom of Markovia - Present Day[/h3][/sub][/sub][hr] [indent][indent]“Дерьмо” Yulia muttered as she rubbed her eyes. A digital clock nestled amongst the clutter of paper upon her desk taunting her as it red lettering called out 03:30. Night had passed somewhere back into morning without her having even noticed. She stretched and rubbed her bad shoulder before going back to work. A massive spreadsheet sprawled outward across her two computer monitors. A maze of notes and time-tables color-coded arranged together like some bizzare eldritch script. King Gregor Markov was heading to Brussels to continue his ongoing attempt for Markoiva to have closer ties with the European Union and by proxy the wider world. Yulia, as the head of Gregor’s personal security detail, was in charge of wrangling the circus and making sure everything went according to plan. A process which involved several very tiring calls with the Commissariaat-Generaal and other dignitaries. “You could’ve gone anywhere... but you had to come here.” Yulia spoke aloud as she drained the last fragments of cold coffee from a mug emblazoned with a small orange tabby. Markovia was a unstable and festering dungpile and everyone knew it, Yulia and King Gregor included. ‘Europe’s chamberpot’ that still clung to its glory days during the Dual Monarchy of Latkovia when knights and wizards pranced about. Modern history hadn’t been so kind to it: invaded by the Nazis, invaded by the Soviets, and after the USSR went to shit massive poverty and political instability. In short it was the perfect place for somebody like Yulia to vanish. It would’ve been all too easy for Yulia to phone her work in and vanish once again into the chaos, yet she couldn’t. King Gregor was a good man, trying to mend the scars that his father’s own bloody and authoritarian rule had left on the country and its people. His cause spoke to some innate desire inside Yulia, a hope that despite all the bad things, perhaps there were chances to start over again. A fitful stare at unforgiving red numerals showed four in the morning. Sighing, Yulia saved her work and began to shut her computer down. The world of spreadsheets and travel arrangements vanishing back into the void. Somewhere outside birds rising from their slumber began to fill the air with song. Yulia grabbed the empty coffee mug and exited her office. The king in his gratitude for her service had converted a small few rooms in the upper levels of Castle Markov into living quarters. It was a strange juxtaposition of affairs, modern stylings and design sensibilities rooted into old stone architecture, much like the rest of Markovia - trying to look towards the future but clinging stubbornly to the relics of the past. Entering the kitchen, Yulia washed the mug in the sink and placed it upon the counter to dry. As she did her eyes were drawn to the letter stuck to the fridge - Ava’s most recent school report. The general conceit was the same, if presented in a different manner: smart girl but trouble dealing with others, and authority issues. Yulia rubbed her temples wondering if she would’ve been this difficult at 15 if things had turned out differently It was then that she heard it. A sound too faint for normal ears to even register. Camly she reached into a nearby draw where sat resting was an old Lahti L-35, already preloaded. The cold touch of the steel held a familiarity to it, like a reunion with an old college friend, resting easy in her experienced grip. Slowly she began to turn the corner that lead out into the living room, calling out as she did. “Ava is that you?” There was no response as a heavy foreboding silence hung in the air like fog. Yulia turned the corner, gun drawn, and she froze. She stood staring at a ghost that had a gun pointed at her chest. “Nata-” The flechette rounds found their way home before the word left her mouth. The gun dropped from her hand and she staggered backwards. Her vision tilted and wobbled and blood began to pool and overflow throw raw and angry crevices and fissures torn through flesh and sinew. Stumbling she tripped over a small end table and felt her body pitch to the floor, but the impact never came as found herself cradled in a pair of familiar arms. A voice whispered to her from someplace very far away. “I got you.”[/indent][/indent]