December TL -- A Triptych

[stoneoftherose]

Who: Pyotr Stamatin and players like you <3
What: Open post for those who would like to meet Artemy and Daniil's castmate!
When: December
Where: See below
Warning(s): Depression, alcoholism, and suicide ideation, including references to a successful attempt pre-game.




Panel One -- The Oak & Iron

A new ghost has come to Pumpkin Hollow.

His heart may beat, his skin feels warm, but he is a ghost all the same, one with clenched jaw and burning, agonized eyes. Coming here was a mistake; he'd opened his veins in anticipation of oblivion. Finding himself in a mundane office instead so bewildered Pyotr that he'd participated in the following conversation by rote, agreeing to everything the strange woman said so he could get away. And now he's stuck here, in a place where he can't die.

Nothing could be worse -- except for the fact that he's also sober. No, even worse than that: he feels healthy, in a way he hasn't since boyhood. Steady hands, clear eyes...if he cut himself open he'd probably find his liver fresh and regular in color, free of the cirrhosis that used to fret Andrey so until he rejoined Pyotr in architecture.

His thoughts follow one after the other in steady procession, without interruption or pause. Agonizing. Intolerable -- and he knew from long experience that wine would not be enough to soothe his soul, but it would make a fair enough anesthetic. If he could just stop thinking...

A ghost in the shape of a man sits down at the bar at the Oak & Iron, looking no higher than the level of the counter as he orders a bottle of wine.

Panel Two -- The edge of the woods

Eventually the noise of the bar gets to be too much for him. All those people coming and going, and even when they do him the courtesy of ignoring him he struggles to do the same. There was a reason he always avoided the Broken Heart...

No surprise, then, that he eventually walks out in search of a little quiet. He winds up on a track leading west out of town, through a thin patch of wood that opens out into farmland. There by a wooden fence, an interesting sight at last: a fallen kite, built in the shape of a bird out of colored paper and sticks. He turns it over gently and finds one of its wings crushed beneath the body, its bones snapped in twos and threes.

"Don't be sad," he tells it softly. "A bird can live quite well without its wings, so long as it takes care to avoid the cats."

Panel Three -- The Temple

The Cathedral was a loathsome sight, a great dead block of stone with neither love nor the will to seek it. He'd never understood Eva's infatuation with the cursed place; he'd boarded up all the windows in his flat that faced that side of town, so he wouldn't see even a speck of it by accident. The Temple...is not like that. Even standing outside, he can tell: this is a building with a soul.

Possibly four of them, if you listened to the locals.

It makes him sick, the way these people talk about their goddesses. Like they're people who can be just walked up to and touched --! It's not the first time Pyotr's wondered how much simpler his life might have been -- if he'd born one of the Kin, for instance -- but now the question burns him like a stomach full of coals. If he'd been born in a world like this...

What is he even doing here? Do these goddesses long for death? They could have satisfied themselves with Burakh in that case; he's the experienced god-killer. Pyotr Stamatin's talents lie more in the area of divine maiming. And besides, his useful days are over for everyone. What did they bring him here for?

Supposedly, he might be able to just walk right in and find out. Supposedly...

Fuck it, he's freezing his balls off out here. Pyotr pushes the heavy door open ahead of himself, passing through -- and immediately loses his nerve, sitting down on one of the nearest pews. This is fine.

The Frame -- Wildcards welcome

Comments

January TL

[stoneoftherose]

Word spreads slowly, but it does spread. The newcomer Pyotr Stamatin, who spent his first two weeks in town getting blackout drunk and then started a bar fight that ended with Erik Osborne getting stabbed, is an artist -- and he'll draw your portrait if you show him something miraculous or macabre. He has a profound interest in the magical, supernatural, and the blood-stained. His apartment on Goldleaf Street has been turned into a studio; climb the stairs to the second floor, and so long as Pyotr is home alone you'll find the door marked 'A' left unlocked.

Pinned to all four walls is already a thick layer of sketches and anatomical studies; here are Erik Osborne's fangs, the lips pulled back to expose both rows of teeth; there are Fever's hands, passing a coil of lightning back and forth as though it were a metal spring. Here is a sketch from memory of Mortanne, as she appeared in the cemetery at Mourner's Night; here is the island's wyvern in flight. In one corner a brightly-colored kite in the shape of a bird hangs suspended from the ceiling, its wings two sets of complementary hues.

At one end of the room a small stage has been shaped from a thick rug and a set of folding screens, with braziers left nearby for the comfort of anyone who wants to try modeling in the nude. The artist lounges on a settee nearby, a thick drawing pad in his lap. His hands and clothes are perpetually covered in ink and soft pastel dust these days; when he looks up to greet you, you notice that he's even managed to get a streak of it across one cheek. Yet he immediately lowers the drawing pad, offering you a small, nearly-shy smile.

"Did you want something?"

[aphroditish]

His visitor is a woman. Strikingly beautiful, wrapped in a strange, patchwork leather duster with fur around the neck. Rubies for lips and rubies for nails, long and claw-like. She smiles.

"Hi, lovely," she purrs. "I heard you're looking for models who can show you something--- what was it, miraculous or macabre? I think I can do both at once, if you have the time."

[stoneoftherose]

For one bowel-clenching moment, Pyotr thinks Nina the Wild has just walked into his home, wearing a new skin. But no; this visitor may well be kin to Nina in terms of presence in power, but the light in her eyes is entirely different and new.

"Yes, I suspect you do." He hastily sets the drawing pad aside, scrubbing the palm of his hand on his pantsleg before standing and offering it to the lady. "May I know by what I should call you?"

[aphroditish]

"Olivia," she replies, shaking the hand offered to her. "Olivia Fleischmann. And you are... Pyotr, if I heard right?"

[stoneoftherose]

"Pyotr Stamatin, yes." He offers her a nervous smile. If Andrey were here, he'd already be running interference, chatting and flirting to take the attention of Pyotr -- but he's not, and he never will be. It's all up to Pyotr himself now, alone and individual: this is the fate he's been served.

"You have a mighty presence, mademoiselle. I've only ever seen two others like it."

[aphroditish]

The French sets Olivia's eyes alight with intrigue. Her native tongue is German, but she does speak French well, as it's common in Switzerland.

"Enchanté, darling," she purrs back. "And I thank you for saying so. You've known people like me before?"

His dated way of speaking brings hers back as well.

[stoneoftherose]

And Pyotr's accent is Russian, a mingling of the Capital and the steppe -- but like most men of his era and social class, he thinks of French as the language of gentility.

"Such was my fortune," he agrees. "My old patroness, Nina Kaina -- and her rival, the senior Victoria Olgimskaya. They were the Dark and White Mistresses of the town on the Gorkhon River, a place where dreams sank their feet into the mud and left footprints on the waking world. There was a third as well," he acknowledges with a slight shrug. "The Mistress of Earth, Katerina Saburova...but she amounted to very little, even before morphine sank its hooks into her."

Belatedly remembering the next step in the dance of manners, he gestures back at the settee where he'd just been lounging and awkwardly mutters, "Ah, would you like to sit?"

[aphroditish]

Olivia listens with intrigue, tilting her head slightly and wearing a Mona Lisa smile.

"I would, thank you." She sets herself down almost primly at first, waiting to relax into her spot until she's determined where Pyotr is planning to sit, then melting into the settee like warm butter.

"Tell me, Pyotr, what constitutes a Mistress where you're from?"

[stoneoftherose]

It takes him a moment to catch on, watching her anxiously until he realizes she's waiting for him to sit as well, and then perching awkwardly onto the foot of the settee.

"They are women of exceptional power and strength of will," he says quietly, glancing off to the side rather than meet her eyes. He's too worried about what he might see in them. "Nina could see the future with her dreams or subvert the will of others with her words alone. To sit in a room and speak with her was like making conversation with a fiery volcano. To please her was to be filled with her passion and the gift of inspiration. But her displeasure was horribly oppressive, like choking ash."

He fidgets, clasping his hands together and then releasing them. "People in the town used to say some nonsense about the Mistresses were a counterbalance to the three rulers, but that just shows how little the ignorant ramble understand. The Mistresses weren't a political body," he explains, lip curling with derision. "Nina and Victoria were at war over the town's soul and its future. Nina would have elevated them all to a higher form of existence, while Victoria kept them rooted in the Earth."

[aphroditish]

She listens with interest, shifting closer to him to lean into him just a little bit. These Mistresses sound fascinating. Like Avatars. What she wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall around the three he mentions.

"Then I suppose I must be one as well," Olivia adds coyly. "Though back home, they simply called me the Hostess."

[stoneoftherose]

Although he tries to hide it, it's clear that Pyotr finds that title somewhat underwhelming -- and that he's absolutely unwilling to say so, hyper-aware as he is of Olivia's proximity and her own aura of power. And danger.

"Hostess?" he asks politely, just for the sake of avoiding an awkward silence. "And, um, what is it you host?"

[aphroditish]

Olivia meets his eye with a flicker of playful hunger in her gaze. Her face lights up with a wicked smile.

"Dinner."

[stoneoftherose]

A violent shiver goes down Pyotr's spine, and he starts to lean away from her before remembering his manners and locking himself in place. It seems to him a thing of vital importance, that he avoids offending her however possible.

"Oh." He swallows thickly. "You mean like...dinner parties? Soirées?"

[abhorrently]

The woman that comes to meet him in his apartment is the same that he knows, but the year turns over to the next before she follows up on her cryptic speech from Mourner's Night. It's a subtle change that's fallen over her, leaving her loose limbed and relaxed, smiling more easily. So when she casually drapes herself over whatever form of seating is open, the solemnity of the earlier night seems far flung.

And yet, the way she fixes her gaze upon him, one can't help but remember.

"I've kept you waiting, and for that you have my apologies. It took some doing before I was at liberty."

[stoneoftherose]

"I was starting to wonder if I'd offended you," he agrees, turning to a new page in the drawing pad. Fever makes a fine figure lounging across the over-stuffed armchair in the corner; with a few deft movements Pyotr sketches out the line made by her spine and extended leg, and then begins to outline the shape of her torso and hips around it. "But you don't look like a woman in search of redress. Actually..."

He peers at her curiously over the pad. "You seem...happier? Did something good happen?"

[abhorrently]

"Yes," she admits freely, seeing no need to hide this with how near it falls to their prior conversation. "I did battle with a great foe, and came out victorious. And most importantly, I lived through the experience."

And now she is growing, feeling roots dig deep and provide steadiness in her flesh. How could she not be happy? Her eyes flick to the pad, and then to him.

"Nothing you said offended me in the slightest. I just found myself unexpectedly busy." Delivering good news to her loved ones, setting up Degas's birthday, editing her documentation at work, it had all taken a moment or another. "But I knew the entire time that I would come back. You answered all my questions - I owe you the same courtesy in return."

[stoneoftherose]

"You didn't have to," he points out, although he's smiling slightly as he says it. "My memory is notoriously poor. You could have told me we'd already said everything worth saying and I'd have had no choice but to believe you."

[abhorrently]

"I'm a nigh-total amnesiac, Pyotr. I'm in no space to pass judgement upon anyone else's memory."

She smiles back, but it's a little rueful.

"Lying to get out of an uncomfortable conversation is something I've found doesn't work in the long term. Particularly when you want to see someone again."

[stoneoftherose]

"You seem awfully present for someone with no memories," he remarks, surprised. "Is it just your past you can't remember -- ? I suppose you wouldn't be here if you were incapable of forming new memories..."

He clears his throat and adds, "I'm glad you came, if I didn't say so before. I wanted to talk to you again too, and not just about the things we discussed in the graveyard that night."

[abhorrently]

"I'm at your disposal, Pyotr. Whether you want to return to a topic or find a new one. Even if that's my amnesia, which you have correct - up to a point, my past is lost. I can make new memories just fine, though. It's not as bad as it could be."

It's still frustrating, though, to say nothing of the side effects. But it doesn't matter, because that's not why they're here.

[stoneoftherose]

"I'd like to draw you properly," he finally says, getting up to adjust the lamps and curtains. "A few pose sketches first to figure out what would look best -- eventually I want to do at least one full painting of you in oils. Are you comfortable with standing?"

As he turns back to her, his gaze falls for the first time on the amulet she wears around her neck, and his brows draw together in sudden consternation. "Where did you get that?"

[abhorrently]

She's already in the middle of standing up, ready to go where he directs her, but her eyebrow raises when he mentions the necklace. Reflexively, her hand goes to it.

"This? It was a gift for Givingstide. A good luck charm - Artemy gave it to me."

[stoneoftherose]

"I thought so." He begins to unconsciously wring his hands, fingertips rubbing the protruding knobs of his wrists. "His people make them to ward off curses and the evil eye...they're quite common in the town we came from."

He averts his gaze, seeming to grow physically smaller as his shoulders cave in on themselves. "I didn't realize you'd met," he says quietly.

[abhorrently]

"You don't like him."

It's a statement, not even close to a question.

"I can promise you this - your name has never once come up in our conversations."

[stoneoftherose]

And yet he protests, "I don't dislike him. Believe it or not I actually respect him a great deal. It's just..." He anxiously wets his lips, raising his hands to rake his fingers through his hair.

"It's inevitable that you'll eventually grow to think less of me," he says quietly, hating every word yet certain of their truth. "I'd just...I'd prefer it was over something that mattered, rather than simply because I couldn't hold back from making a fool of myself."