Congrats on 500 kudos!! How about a magical coffeeshop viktuuri AU? With dragons 😁
My writing process: Uh-oh, a coffeeshop AU? I’ve worked enough customer service jobs to know it sucks, and domestic fluff isn’t really my wheelhouse.
…Wait did you say dragons?
Dark Roast
The best part of Yuuri’s job is the smell of coffee. He doesn’t understand the attraction, given his total lack of interest in drinking the beverage, but the roasted beans did smell amazing every morning.
He’s been doing this so long he hardly notices the attendants scrambling to run straps across his body. They’d been afraid of him at first, unaccompanied as he was, but they’d long since grown used to each other. They don’t hesitate to lean against his body or nudge him to move these days. Sometimes children even sneak in to hide behind his legs, much to their mother’s loud and ongoing disapproval.
The man in charge - or perhaps the woman, Yuuri finds it hard to differentiate when not given obvious cues like children calling “mother” - shoos the workers off him and gives him the signal that he’s clear. Yuuri rouses himself with a lurch, somnolent in the dawn’s early light, but ready to proceed with the second best part of his job. Flying.
He spreads his wings, revealing the dramatic red fans that are otherwise tucked away against the black of his body. He’s not really a daytime creature, but this is the industry. He knows the children must not be here today, they can never resist shouting their excitement when he unfurls his wings. He suspects all three of them will be dragon riders someday, no matter how much their mother shouts.
Sometimes, you can just tell when someone longs for the sky. For wind and speed and endless horizons. Yuuri can taste the feeling now, as he tests the currant beneath his wings then launches himself into the air with a great downward shove, insisting the earth release its hold on him.
He’s aloft and gaining altitude with the next few wingbeats, a very dark shadow against the rising sun, vanishing into the sky with incredible speed.
~
His first delivery is fine, it’s to the nearest coffee shop, built over the plantation for convenience’s sake when the whole idea had still been a mad plot. It hangs suspended between wispy clouds, the glinting spellwork lattice that holds it in place a true marvel.
The workers up here are largely cadet hopefuls, which counterintuitively makes them more uneasy around him. His refusal to carry a rider is only part of the problem, the other is turnover meaning there are often people unused to him. Nonetheless, the crew is entirely professional and all goes well.
He thinks some of the elder workers may give up on a dragon and pursue a more conventional career soon, perhaps even within the Air Corps. Most members were not dragonriders, but it was still a large organization that needed many hands at many tasks, though most of those tasks kept one’s feet firmly on the ground.
The man who built the coffeeshops had accepted not being a dragonrider, but refused to give up the sky. He’d studied the magic in dragon bone and breath with the Air Corps’ endorsement, and had unexpectedly devised the means to fix structures in the air. It could only be done above certain terrestrial points, and those were not easy to find, making floating cities unfeasible. The first structure, only accessible to those with wings, became a place to meet and rest for dragonriders, and shortly after a coffee shop. They’d developed as a strange sister institution to the Air Corps themselves, separate but entwined.
They aren’t conveniently located or easy to supply for the most part, and that’s where Yuuri comes in; he flys in fresh coffee everyday. Not carrying a rider means he can take that much more weight in supplies, and he has the stamina to make the entire circuit. He’d replaced several dragon and rider teams when he’d taken over this duty, allowing them to make themselves useful elsewhere.
It’s not glorious work; he doesn’t fly in full regalia like the honor guard. He’s doesn’t tell wild stories from patrolling the border, and he’s alone for the most part anyway. There are reasons he’d refused a life in the Air Corps though, and at least everyone is happy to see him when he shows up.
He’s in the air again before the sun has cleared the distant mountains, on the way to his next delivery, somewhat lighter than before.
~
It’s the second delivery where everything goes wrong, confirming his ongoing dislike of the Ashentop coffeehouse.
The problem with Ashentop is that it’s busy. It was erected very close to a towering butte that dominated the surrounding steppe, and the Air Corps had wasted no time in building across the gap and taking advantage of the extra space. There were barracks and an aviary for dragons to rest and recover here, as well as a small assortment of businesses geared towards the personnel passing through.
Yuuri doesn’t care for the crowds, but at least the bustling activity lets him go unnoticed for the most part. Perhaps people whisper about him as he wings past, or perhaps no one cares enough to notice; there’s no way to know and Yuuri endeavors not to care.
The entrance here is a bit tricky, tucked beneath the bridge, and Yuuri has to roll out of the way of traffic before he drops into the waiting gate. A less maneuverable dragon, or one who wasn’t familiar with the landing, might have had to circle back around. Yuuri does this every day though, in all sorts of traffic and weather, he could probably make the landing half asleep.
The working crew at Ashentop is larger, and they unload what they need even faster than the Plantation coffeeshop. Considerably lighter now, he gives his wings a shake and prepares to be on his way. He jumps prematurely, back on his hind legs, startled when a long white neck arches around the corner into the recessed cubby, and he finds himself face to face with another dragon.
A lovely dragon, their pearlescent white scales shining and delicate across their face, leading to blue horns that darkened almost to black at the tips. The neck is strong but supple, the head gracefully dished. Yuuri is caught staring into bright cyan eyes, the pupils elegant slits.
Victor. Yuuri knows who Victor is, everyone knows who Victor is. There’s not a living dragon more famous for their exploits, and frankly the more storied dragons from the past are probably at least partly apocryphal. Why is Victor here?
‘That was a very good landing.’ The appreciation Victor pushes at his mind is so clear it’s almost like words, as if he had vocal chords running down his throat instead of acid sacks. Startled again, and already off balance, Yuuri has to dodge around Victor and push off into the air to stop himself from landing on either his face or the supplies he’s carrying.
Already aloft, he can’t bring himself to do anything but flee, winging away from the cliffside where Victor is spread wide and clinging to the rock face in his bid to disrupt Yuuri’s equilibrium.
‘Alright, bye.’ He feels Victor’s farewell only faintly due to the distance he’s put between them, and thinks himself even more the fool, clumsy and mean as he flys away.
~
He makes it almost a week without anymore foolish bungles on his part, and he’s starting to settle into his usual routine. Seastack may well be his favorite coffee shop, positioned over a lively reef where waves crash and there’s always food to be caught. He takes a rest here most days before making the final leg of his journey.
He’s roosting comfortably on the roof when Victor comes out of nowhere, more silent than is plausible for a dragon his size, and settles down beside him. The roof isn’t small enough to justify how close he perches, but he doesn’t bother explaining himself this time. Yuuri can’t bring himself to make contact, to apologize for his rudeness, despite the perfect opportunity.
He’s not as eloquent as Victor, doesn’t have the practice interacting with a squad and speaking mind to mind. All he’d be able to do was push his tangled confusion and anxiety at Victor, and he couldn’t bear compounding his shame that way. Instead they sit in silence, close but not quite together, until Yuuri can’t take it anymore. He ends his break prematurely, leaving Victor behind him once again.
~
It becomes a pattern. Every so often, once or twice a week, he’ll run into Victor during his rounds. If he’s busy, Victor will tilt that finely sculpted head in acknowledgement and that will be all. Yuuri nods back after the first few times, unable to be so purposefully discourteous as to not return the simple gesture.
If Victor manages to catch him while he’s resting at Seastack, he’ll join Yuuri on the roof. Yuuri is still too nervous to strike up a conversation, but the silence grows more companionable as he adjusts to Victor’s ongoing presence. He may even miss him a little, when he’s not there.
One day, just before he needs to leave, he thinks a little ‘farewell’ at Victor as he prepares to go. The other dragon responds by bumping his head against Yuuri’s cheek, a shockingly bold gesture, as if they were close friends or clutchmates instead of barely acquaintances.
Yuuri nearly spits fire he’s so surprised, and he feels that heat in his chest for the rest of the day, a bolster against the cold wind.
~
Victor continues his strange campaign, undeterred by Yuuri’s general confusion and frequently spastic responses. He edges closer on the roof every time they meet, until they’re almost leaning against one another. Yuuri’s starting to wonder if Victor is just cold up here, and glad to shelter against a warm fire-breather while he enjoys the view.
Just when he’s making peace with that hypothesis, Victor chooses to brush his tail against Yuuri’s, wrapping the tip across when Yuuri doesn’t object. He settles in with almost palpable contentment, pressed against Yuuri’s black body at shoulder and tail, lowering his head against his forearms so he can rest more deeply.
Yuuri, for his part, is so afraid to move he’s almost late to his next delivery.
~
Yuuri doesn’t get it until Victor brings him the fish. It’s an enormous tuna, and Victor carries it as if the weight doesn’t interfere with his balance at all, landing lightly on strong hind quarters. He drops the fish and noses it towards Yuuri, tail flicking happily against the roof.
Yuuri blinks, once, twice. Was Victor courting him?
He must have wondered loud enough for the pale dragon to hear, because he perks up immediately, head rising into the air. ‘Yes!’ He is, and he’s happy Yuuri noticed.
Yuuri feels cracked open, unable to stop projecting his confusion. ‘Why? Why? Why?’
‘I want babies.’ Their minds so open now, Victor pushes thoughts of a warm nest and mottled black and white eggs at him.
Yuuri does snort fire this time, and Victor cooes at him like he’s impressed. Maybe he is, it’s not an entirely common ability, but it only makes most bitter about his disinclination towards militant pursuits. Why would Victor want Yuuri, the dragon who choose not to be a warrior, when there were so many fiercer dragons among the ranks of the Corps?
‘You’re strong and you’re fast and you breath fire,’ Victor’s thoughts are clear in his head. ‘And I think knowing what you want is quite fierce.’
When Yuuri doesn’t interrupt, listening with rapt interest, Victor continues his ode. ‘You fly far and well, you have the dedication to make a good partner, and also…’ Victor leaves off, neck bending in an elegant arch so he can bump his snout against Yuuri’s shoulder. ‘You always smell like coffee.’
…There we go, domestic dragons and magical coffeeshops. Nailed it.
(This probably wasn’t what you were asking for, but I hope you like it anyway.)
That’s one prompt down, another 2 to go I think. I’ll probably get around to posting these drabbles to AO3 eventually, but I’ll worry about that later. Writing Moar now.
Title: To Mirror You
Author(s): valoirs (duelstance)
Rating: T
Warnings: Some depictions of violence. Bungo Stray Dogs / Mafia AU with a number of liberties taken in regards to the setting.
Summary:
There are things, Victor thinks, he's been turning a blind eye to.
Yuuri pulls back, lips slick, a line of saliva connecting their mouths. "If you're still thinking about something," he murmurs, "then I don't think I'm doing this right."
Link to AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9688748
Prompt: Victor spots himself in the picture frame on Yuuri's desk after they come back from the Cup of China. Yuuri had turned it around and pushed it back, forgetting its being there under his shelf. His mother dusted his room and turned it around, placing it in easy sight. Victor enters Yuuri's room and notices it before he does. This leads to a fumbled explanation and a kiss.
This is the first thing I’ve ever written that could, theoretically, be canon compliant. Huh. I feel out of my depth.
Get a Room
Yuuri at 23 is a much different boy than Yuuri at 18, Hiroko is both proud and a little wistful when she sees the ways her son has grown up in the time since he left home. It’s not just the success he’s had as a skater, it’s the way he can look customers in the eye when he talks to them now. It’s how he’ll push back when Mari pokes fun at him, how he’ll speak to strangers in a voice loud enough to hear. She remembers a time when Yuuri was too shy to speak to store attendants or even teachers, being on his own had forced him to come out of his shell.
It’s not unusual for the children of Hatsetsu to move away young, they have to if they want to pursue an education. It is unusual not to see your child for 5 years, but Hiroko can’t bring herself to resent the time away when it’s obvious how good it’s been for her son. Good but not easy, she knows, but then Yuuri had never been one to pursue the easy path.
When he’d been a teenager he’d defended the privacy of his room fiercely, which she’d thought reasonable given the general lack of it in the onsen. In the intervening years though, she’s grown used to coming in to dust and tidy up. With Yuuri away at competitions, she falls readily back into the habit. It’s nice to come home to a clean room, one of the few ways she feels she can make Yuuri’s life easier.
She’s dusting his desk when she notices the picture frame under the cactus. Well, she can fix that. She fetches a dish from the kitchen, something much better for catching run off, and swaps the two. She smiles when she notices the frame houses a photograph of Victor - Yuuri must have been desperate to put it under the flowerpot.
Luckily, it’s undamaged. She cleans if off and places in on Yuuri’s bedside table, ready for his return from China.
~
Victor Nikiforov had kissed him.
Victor Nikiforov had come to Japan, had announced that he’d be Yuuri’s coach, had spent months bossing him around, had tackled him to the ice and kissed him.
None of this has been adequately explained to Yuuri, but he’s afraid to ask in case it means he’ll lose whatever this is. He has to stop himself from staring at Victor all the time, both because he’s beautiful and because Yuuri never knows what he’ll do next.
It turns out he should have been watching even more closely, because the second Yuuri takes his eyes off the man to greet Makkachin, he makes a beeline for Yuuri’s room.
Victor has a thing about Yuuri’s room. Perhaps because Yuuri had previously denied him entry, he makes a point of finding his way inside whenever he can, peering curiously at Yuuri’s old textbooks and handwritten notes, asking for translations of the utterly mundane. He’s so far stopped short of prying into closed drawers, but Yuuri isn’t sure what he’ll get up to unsupervised.
He’s concealed his various fan merchandise from casual inspection, but there’s only so well you can hide things in a small room. He’d moved the posters from his closet to under his bed, because he’s absolutely certain Victor is going to go rummaging through his clothes one of these days. He’s already not entirely sure where his favorite tie went, and Victor had only said something cryptic about a coach’s prerogative when he’d asked.
When he catches up to Victor, his coach is predictably in Yuuri’s room, staring at something. At first Yuuri thinks it’s the bed - which is the same as ever Victor - but then the full horror of the situation unfolds.
One of his framed pictures of Victor Nikiforov is proudly displayed on the bedside table. It’s not even one of him skating; he’s in casual clothes, leaning against a wall. Victor picks it up, moving it closer to his face so he can inspect it, either not noticing or not caring about Yuuri’s entrance.
“Give that back, it’s not mine!” Yuuri sputters, making everything worse as he tries to protest and come up with an excuse at the same time. He’s never operated well when panicked.
Victor turns to him with the evilest of all his smiles, the one that’s wide and close mouthed and says he’s just devoured the canary.
“Yuuri,” he purrs, deliberately thickening his accent, “you should have just told me if you wanted me next to you in bed.”
Yuuri crosses the room to take the picture, not even sure why he thinks that will help at this point, but Victor just holds it above his head, taking advantage of his extra 3 inches. “We can still have that sleepover!” he continues, eyes closed in delight.
Look, Yuuri’s never been good at backing off from a challenge. He climbs on top of the bed and starts trying to pry the frame out of Victor’s hands. Victor starts laughing while he does, almost teary eyed with glee, and Yuuri has to hold on to him so he can’t back out of reach.
Demonstrating that he’ll also make unwise choices in pursuit of a meaningless victory, Victor grabs Yuuri around the waist and tries to throw him over his shoulder single handed, retaining his grasp on the frame with the other. For a moment it almost works, a testament to Victor’s upper body strength, but then they both go tumbling.
They manage to direct the fall mostly towards the bed, which creaks ominously at their joint landing, and Victor is still chuckling giddily against Yuuri stomach in the aftermath.
“Not yours?” he asks when he manages to catch enough breath for the words. “Are you saying you’ve been framed?” Then he peels off into laughter again, shoulders shaking with mirth. Yuuri stares at the ceiling sullenly, refusing to acknowledge the terribleness of the joke, or that any of this is happening.
Victor hauls himself up the bed so he can hover over Yuuri and block his line of sight. He’s schooled his face into a mask of seriousness, which Yuuri doesn’t trust one bit. “Maybe it was me,” he whispers conspiratorially, voice only wavering a little. “Maybe this was all a plot to get into your - Umpf!”
Yuuri shuts him up by pulling him down into a kiss, deliberately mussing his carefully styled hair as he does. What a ridiculous man.
I think maybe I don’t know how to balance fiction this short, but so help me I’m going to get another of these out tonight, so I’m not fussing with it anymore.
So, something exciting happened to me today. I hit 500 kudos on AO3! Jointly between my two stories, but whatever. I feel like I've achieved a goal and I want to do something to celebrate.
Here's the plan: I'm going to offer to write some prompts. I've never done this before (and I'm not super familiar with doing fandom things on tumblr so bear with me) but I've got a long weekend coming up and I'm going to take a stab at it. I have no idea how much of a response I'll get, but I'll try to write at least a couple prompts.
When: I'll be collecting prompts until 12:00 pm on Saturday June 30, and writing over the next couple days.
Where: Drop a message in my inbox please.
What/who: I write Yuri!!! on Ice fic, and am most confidant writing Victor and/or Yuuri in some combination. Feel free to ask for other things, I might try it if I'm intrigued, but I make no promises.
Things I won't write: Anything I have to put more research into than I can justify for a short-fic? Incest? Watersports! Definitely no watersports. Don't mean to kink shame, just not my thing.
Here is my AO3 if you want to see what I've written so far, and please feel free to reblog this post.
Chris and Yuuri get kicked out of the GPF banquet, but Yuuri wanders into another party that’s out-of-this-world. He still manages to make an impression.
~
“Well, I want my dog back. And not to have bombed my free skate and ruined my career. And I’d like to dance with you, but I don’t think he can give me that either.”
The most beautiful man in the world bites his lip on a smile, “Maybe later.”
“Gods.” Yuuri can hear the small one’s eyes rolling, even though he doesn’t bother to look. “What kind of dog?”
“He was a miniature poodle.”
“Fine,” grinds out the small, angry blond. “Fine.”
You know what this is? This is the last celebratory prompt-fic! I only got 3, so I just wrote them all. Witness my towering popularity.
The prompts I got were actually a lot more tame than I was expecting. And then there was this. Well, if you really want me to inflict Australian wildlife on the cast…
Warning for spiders? Is that a thing which requires warning? I looked up way too many spiders while writing this.
Fearful Creatures
Yuuri has certain reservations about the trip to Australia, where they’ve been invited to give a commencement speech of all things. Victor finds the idea utterly charming though, in large part because he’d never gone on to post secondary education or had to sit through an hours long graduation ceremony.
He puts his foot down firmly on the idea of camping at least, despite the pout it earns him from Victor. Frankly, he’s from northern Russia, and he doesn’t know. Even the Karakurt spider never migrates farther north than Moscow. He’s seen Victor run from bees, he’d lose his mind if he ever crossed paths with a Mukade centipede. Camping was out of the question.
Victor forgives him after he schedules a trip to the zoo, where he can drag Yuuri around and excitedly point out all the acceptably fuzzy creatures. They see kangaroos and koalas, and Victor fusses over some dingoes that are pretty cute, even if - “they aren’t dogs Victor!”
At the end of their five night stay, they fall into the hotel bed to cuddle, having enjoyed the trip but ready to go home. Yuuri’s considering making the effort to get up and turn the lights off when Victor’s grip suddenly tightens.
“Gospodi,” he whispers, voice strained.
~
There’s a tarantula nestling up against the light fixture above the bed, presumably attracted to the heat. Yuuri knows it’s a tarantula, because while fuzziness is encouraged on mammals, it is not acceptable on spiders. It casts truly alarming shadows every time it moves, which thankfully isn’t often, but Yuuri can see individual hairs cast against the walls.
Yuuri and Victor roll out of opposite sides of the bed and retreat to the washroom, leaving the door open a crack so they can keep an eye on the situation.
“Should we call for help?” Victor asks, phone in hand.
“Call who Victor? It’s 1:00 in the morning!”
“I don’t know! The front desk? They must know what to do.”
“Give me that,” Yuuri takes Victor’s phone and starts typing.
“If we shove towels in the cracks around the door, we can hide in here until morning I guess.” Even Victor sounds mildly ashamed of two grown men hiding from a spider, albeit a very large spider, all night.
Yuuri takes a breath and braces himself. “Okay,” he says. “Look, it says here the bite isn’t fatal. There are all sorts of drop-off centers in town, you can even leave venomous spiders at the customer service desk at City Hall. They use them for developing antivenoms or something.”
He puts his hands on Victor’s shoulders, and presses their foreheads together. “We can do this, we can.”
~
They cannot do this. This is a terrible idea, why did Yuuri ever suggest it?
Victor has a bowl scavenged from their room service dinner, and Yuuri has a thick poster board from the presentation at the university. They know what they have to do, what they lack is the will to climb up on the bed and do it.
Above, the tarantula starts crawling slowly away from the light fixture. If it gets too far, they won’t be able to reach it from the bed anymore. Yuuri looks into Victor’s eyes, and Victor nods his head, jaw squared.
Okay, now or never. They hold hands as they step up onto the bed.
Victor will have to make the first move, covering the spider with the bowl, so that Yuuri can trap it inside with the board. It’s near the foot of the bed now, making everything that much more awkward.
Victor is tense, muscles flexed, building up his nerve. He looks strong and serious, and when he lashes out it’s one smooth movement, the bowl hitting the ceiling with a thud.
Yuuri’s eyes are wide with wonder, watching his soon-to-be husband. Then the tarantula climbs over the top of the bowl.
Victor shrieks and drops it, both spider and bowl hitting the floor. The bowl rolls away, the spider lays stunned.
With remarkable alacrity, Victor’s off the bed and retrieving the bowl. He lowers it over the twitching spider, then looks up at Yuuri still on the bed.
He’s panting and his hair is sticking up, his arms pushing the bowl against the floor with more force than is probably necessary. “I did it,” he says.
~
They slide the posterboard under the bowl and weigh the makeshift prison down with a phonebook. Despite their best intentions, they still can’t bring themselves to sleep with it in the room.
They bring the whole contraption to the nearest drop-off center in the morning, tired but satisfied. There a calm desk attendant takes charge, dropping the spider into one of the containers they keep on site. The bowl was opaque, so they hadn’t been able to see the spider inside, but now it’s not moving.
“Well,” the nice lady at the desk says. “It’s definitely dead.”
“How?” Yuuri asks. “We didn’t try to smash it.”
“You said it fell from the ceiling right? Something this heavy doesn’t really handle that kind of fall well. It can’t survive impact at its terminal velocity like the small ones.” She seals the tarantula they hadn’t meant to kill up in a smaller plastic container than the one meant for a live specimen.
“I tell you what, stick it in a freezer for a few months and the moisture will evaporate, so it won’t rot. If you can get it through customs you can have it as a keepsake.”
“A keepsake,” Victor said slowly. “Who would want something so frightening?”
~
At home in St. Petersburg, Yuri Plisetsky eyes the package he’d received with distrust. Victor and Katsuki were in Japan for the off season, the slackers, and it wasn’t even Yuri’s birthday or anything.
It’s not like they could send him katsudon or anything cool, so whatever it is will probably be really lame. Whatever, he tears the box open anyway.
“What the hell?”
Unable to believe what’s in the box, Yuri goes digging for the card he hadn’t bothered opening. It’s written in Victor’s obnoxiously loopy Cyrillic. “Yurio, we accidentally killed this and thought you might want it. Say hi to Yakov for me!”
Yuri drops the card and returns to the plastic container, turning it this way and that to get a better look. Then he goes to show his Grandpa. He’ll say Potya caught it or something, that’s a way better story.
Basically everything in this fic should be taken with a grain of salt, there was only so much research I was willing to do.
There are spider drop-offs in some parts of Australia, including at Hawkesbury City Council, but that might be more for funnel-web spiders than tarantulas.
I’ve read both that tarantulas shouldn’t be dropped from heights and that they can be preserved through freeze-drying, but it was in forums, not scientific papers. I have no personal knowledge, nor do I ever want to test it myself.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Enchantment Ch. 3: The Walk of Shame (part 1) is up! Ahead of schedule even. Yay!
Story Summery:
Chris and Yuuri get kicked out of the GPF banquet, but Yuuri wanders into another party that's out-of-this-world. He still manages to make an impression.
~
“Well, I want my dog back. And not to have bombed my free skate and ruined my career. And I’d like to dance with you, but I don’t think he can give me that either.”
The most beautiful man in the world bites his lip on a smile, “Maybe later.”
“Gods.” Yuuri can hear the small one’s eyes rolling, even though he doesn’t bother to look. “What kind of dog?”
“He was a miniature poodle.”
“Fine,” grinds out the small, angry blond. “Fine.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Okay internet, let’s get this out of the way. I’m a disgrace to millennials everywhere and I do not really understand the tumblr. I feel old, but I’m trying.
Anyway, I wrote a thing! I actually like it, which seems like some kind of violation of the author union rules, but I guess I’m still an amateur. Here’s my first fanfic!
Summary:
The drowned man's existence is uneventful, staid, and quietly lonely. Nothing ever changes, until the decision to help someone in need precipitates both an unthinkable journey, and a strange and probably doomed courtship.
...I decided the world needed more rusalka!Victor.
