Aug 20, 2017
Pup looked to the stranger on the ground. “Are you ... okay?”
seen from Malaysia
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Pup looked to the stranger on the ground. “Are you ... okay?”
“You can try persuading me all you want, but I’m not gonna do it just cause you wanna see. It’s not as impressive as you think.”
It was no secret that Kir took great pride in the Rostek’s prison. Dungeon, might be a more accurate term. Yellow lightbulbs hung by wires; cement walls were stained by gore. How many secrets had been unearthed in these tombs? How many lives had ended here?
How many lives began?
Kir was waiting outside one of the cells, now. Inside slumped a very traitorous and very crippled Maxim Batalov, whom Kir found putting his hands in places they didn’t belong. Kir thought to himself that he would bloody Batalov’s auburn hair, and bruise his startling green eyes until they all but swelled shut. That’s how he would do it, but this wasn’t about him. Kir checked his watch. When he heard someone descending the staircase, he smiled.
"Shall we begin?”
“That looks good on you.”
“Oh, boy, that is... such a riveting story,” Luka drawled, not even bothering to look at the old man who was sitting beside him telling some story or another about some dumb war that happened a million years ago. Luckily for him, he caught someone’s eyes from across the room, and quietly mouthed, “save me.”
Charmed.
Very few places accorded Kir privacy these days. Even in his own room, he was subject to harassment; he couldn’t count the number of times his solitude was interrupted by his gaudy right-hand, or informants seeking clarification where there was none to give. Hiding in public could be better. Few people recognized his face, but even so, that didn’t stop the occasional passerby from tipping their hat or stubbornly reaching to shake his stiff hand.
He roused before he could give the sun a chance to reveal him to the world or beat him to it. Shrouded in streetlights and a sleepy haze of blue, Kir made his way to his least-favorite grounds: Dominion. A home built for sinners that barred them of it. As he circled the main table, he let himself touch the embroidered chair that sat at the Rostek’s head. He’d spent innumerable hours perched in this lavish throne, mere arms-lengths away from Rainha Akhmadova. He’d seen her jugular peek from her jacket collar, and felt the thrum of blood in her ancient veins. Tantalus shy from grazing his fingertips against the surface of a blooming plum.
The door opened and reality snapped back as violent as a gunshot. His head turned to the beguiling figure, and a moment of silence passed between the two of them. Surely if they were here, they knew who he was? But Kir recognized them neither as Rostek nor Lesya. Rather, a fascinating creature that disturbed him as much as they transfixed him.
“Would you like to sit?”
He didn’t know where he'd ended up this time, just that he smelled food and, much like the hungry street rat that he was, Pup very simply stepped from the shadows to grab a bite from the nearest plate and then wander off.
Hunger was a powerful motivator and Pup was driven to acquire food for his own empty stomach. So what was his plan for this evening? Picking the pocket of the nearest stranger and making an expert getaway! Silently creeping behind this person, shrouded mostly by shadows, his fingers neared his target’s pocket ...