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[sub][sub][h3]Красная комната Compound, Byelorussian SSR - The Past But Closer[/h3][/sub][/sub][hr]

[indent][indent]"They call that one Ophiuchus" Yulia explained as she pointed upward into the night sky.

Natasha wasn't paying all that attention to what Yulia was saying. Yet her focus was on Yulia watching the way that the moonlight danced through her hair, the way her breath came out in small white puffs in the January night, and the way her face lit with excitment . In the Красная комната, there was little respite but this was one of those rare little moments. They had sneaked out through their dormitory window and climbed up the old piping to the roof. And there they lay backs to the cold ground as they started upwards to the immense vault of stars above them. There out beyond the reach of any city they twinkled like the innards of a cracked geode. 

"'Tasha are you even listening to me?" Yulia asked with a raised brow throwing Natasha out of her haze with a playful punch to the side.

"Ow!" Natasha recoiled at the surprise flood of pain.

"Oh crap sorry! I forget!" Yulia responded jerking upward in a flash of movement and hair. She lifted up the hem of Natasha's shirt with a doctor's care peering at where she made contact. There across her side was a series of large and throbbing bruises having only just begun to heal. Yulia furrowed her brow.

"Yulia I'm fine." Natasha insisted as she pulled the shirt back down. 

"No you're not," Yulia insisted "and it is all my fault."

"Two things: one [b]I'm[/b] fine and two you didn't force me to get into a fight." 

"Yeah, well if they weren't talking shit about me you wouldn't of done it."

"Well they were making you feel bad and their smug faces make me wanna puke anyway."

"But but-" 

Yulia voice begin lost as Natasha placed a finger to her lips.

"No buts," Natasha insisted "Besides you were talking about something right?  Ophiucwazits?"

Yulia relented for a moment but knew a losing battle when she saw one.

"Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer"

"Guess that does kinda look a man and a snake," Natasha replied as Yulia traced the outline with a finger, "what's his story?"

Yulia's face beamed with excitement. 

"Well the [i]earliest[/i] records we have are from a guy called Aratus........"

As Yulia began her tale, Natasha found her hand and held it in hers lacing their fingers together. And for a brief moment she allowed herself to feel the warmth. There hands intertwined as clouds of puffy winter breath intermingling before they faded into the dark.  There on the roof where no one was watching. And yeah maybe she could say knew what happiness was and maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

[sub][sub][h3]Castle Markov, The Kingdom of Markovia - Present Day[/h3][/sub][/sub][hr]

Natasha ran a black gloved hand over the broken window pane. The edges, jagged and angry, stained red with blood as if touched by Geber himself. Wind forced itself into the once forbidden place causing the curtains to dance. Somewhere in the distance a lone raven cawed outward into the night. 

She never expected the girl to do something as stupid as jump. Maybe that was her fault, the fear of death wasn't something that she had felt in a long time, but it was strong and it was powerful . Her eyes traced the path of her descent, a line of broken branches drawn with the fluidity of a child down a nearby oak. From the lack of a body down below she had somehow survived. Natasha wasn't concerned though, the girl couldn't of gotten far after a fall like that. So she took her time looking about the room.

It was small and dotted with the wayward touches of the ghost that had jumped: a half empty glass of water, the impression of her body still fresh in the sheets. There in the corner of the eye a small stuffed bear its small black bead eyes staring. She addressed her eyes away from its judgmental gaze and towards the desk that took up one corner of the room. A haphazard mess of papers and pens, a vast sketches of sketches: some of animals, some of people, most of plants. Laying to one side in an area quarantined from the clutter was a small moleskin journal. The papers inside were crisp and well-maintained as if it belonged in a reliquary. There where pictures there and too smaller, more stylistic and small notes. And there at the very front in handwriting that Natasha knew all too well were some very simple words.

"Моя дорогая дочь,  Авре́я 
            У нас с тобой будут приключения.
                                                  с любовью, мама

Natasha didn't realize that she had thrown the journal until she felt it leave her hands. It smacked against the opposite slate gray wall with a satisfying thud, plopping in front of the bear. She could feel the anger as it boiled inside of her, gnawing lallations begging for release. One hand still outward, the other flat against her side, both were balled into fists, both were shaking. She closed her eyes and she breathed. She followed the same tactics they had taught her at fifteen to resist interrogation. She isolated the feelings and buried down one by one, in the place where they didn't hurt anymore. Somehow it was easier to do it with waterboarding than whatever sat in her stomach right now. 

"You give it all up. For what? For this? For this kid?" Natasha asked the empty air and almost expected a response. "Why?"

There stewing in the silence of her own anger she heard it first sounds of footfalls, soon accompanied by the feeling the shake as several boots clambered up stairs to a military beat. The commotion must have alerted them. She should of already been gone but she let her feelings anchor her. She still had time though to run before the breach fell upon her. Instead she allowed herself a small moment of selfishness, a moment to make someone else [i]hurt[/i] like she did.

So she moved.

Killing had embraced her at a young age. Ivan and his compatriots learned its intricacies well fighting the Wehrmacht and they taught all the knew to her. The instructors at the Красная комната only served hone them to a machine like precision. Overtime it all became something of a math problem: you plug in the variables and used the right formula. In that way it almost became fun.

Natasha moved towards the front door of the apartment. She wasn't about to hunker down and wait for the breach. Once those heavy boots kicked down the door they expected the trouble, they were ready for it. You hit them too early you risked being caught in the apex of the anticipation, when the adrenalin kicks. So you wait and you hit them right before that doors comes crashing down, right when they least expect it.

The door was knocked off its hinges in a cacophony of sound and splintered wood. It slammed forward into the point man sending him barreling into the ground with a yell. Natasha was already moving before it even left the ground. Sprinting up the door as it fell and using her years of gymnastics training to spring off of it and into the second man. 

Her fist made contact first catching his jaw stunning him. In a blur another fist came with a roar into the solar plexus. Reeling from the two plows he put little struggle against Natasha yanking him into a chokehold pulling him flat against her body like a shield. She could feel the bullets from the other three impact his body, but trusted his mass and the ballistic weave of her bodysuit. Natasha dropped the bullet-ridden corpse as she did, in a blur of motion, pulling the knife still strapped to his holster and threw it with a flick. 

The third man felt the knife sore past his head. Then he [i]heard[/i] the gurgled sounds of the fourth collapsing to his knees as it embed itself into his jugular. In a fraction of a breath there was a gasp as he leg came out from under him. Natasha having pulled the non-flechette from its holster. The third man's shift in movement open a clean shot on the fifth. She aimed and fire. The bullet caught him in the forehead and sent him spinning in a bloody pirouette to the ground. The third on the ground clutching his blown apart kneecap had his pain ended when he met a similar fate. 

The point men in the few seconds that had passed by had manged to push the door off of him. He scrambled across the ground reaching for his gun.  Just as his fingers managed to grasp the cool metal, a black boot came crushing down atop of them and the rifle. They snapped easily and he cursed and he screamed and he yelled all the vitriol he had pent up inside him. An overflowing tub of hatred built up over the years finding its outlet finally. And then there was the sound of the gun and then there was no hatred, no anger, only silence. 

And for a brief second Natasha felt [i]good[/i].

She sighed and she recollected herself again before she reentered the apartment. She froze in the hall casting a looked towards where the light still crawled out from the living room.  But she couldn't do it, instead she turned and walked back into the bedroom. Walked over to the bed and pocketed the discarded journal. Then she was gone. Another ghost in the night. [/indent][/indent]