we do not lie down to die

of the lost city. of the garden. bleeding in the snow. you are strong enough to survive the fall.

[zoyaofthestorms]

@echospringshq task → create a character playlist full playlist → 【ａｅｓ】zoya

[zoyaofthestorms]

thedarkestminds​:

(✉️ ➡️ zoya ): seem pretty sure of yourself

(✉️ ➡️ ruby ): thanks, it’s because I am

[alinaastarkov]

ZOYA NAZYALENSKY

[zoyaofthestorms]

zoya nazyalensky + tvtropes

for @echospringshq’s task

[zoyaofthestorms]

thedarkestminds​:

12. on a fire escape || @zoyaofthestorms​

No one had been in the hotel room for weeks. Ruby had been sure of it when she’d started to make it her temporary home. Echo Springs wasn’t exactly a tourist trap. It was more like the towns Liam used to pick out when they were looking for a place to park Black Betty for the night. He’d call the town ‘quaint’ and Chubs would make a comment about all the possible ways they might get caught or killed and Zu would just grin and listen to the two boys’ bickering while Ruby sighed and waited for them to pull off the highway. Maybe those memories were the ones that had her settling down in the town for the past two years. If you can call this settling down, she thought to herself. Squatting was the proper word for it – another word that Chubs had explained to her that had a meaning outside of what her fourth grade education had taught her.

Picking the lock on the hotel room had been easy and the after that she’d just propped the window open to the fire escape so the hotel clerk wouldn’t look at Ruby with those suspicious eyes of his for walking through the lobby like she could actually afford a room at the place. Ruby was on the fire escape and about to push the window open the rest of the way when she realized that there was someone already there. Well shit.

It had been a good night. Well, an okay night. Adequate, she supposed. Zoya hadn’t met anyone in the town that she truly cared for, but some of the people in town to tumble with certainly weren’t awful. And, apparently, they were well trained. She couldn’t really remember the face of the man she’d taken to the shitty little hotel room, but he hadn’t been bad in bed and she felt far more relaxed. 

She’d chosen not to take him back to her place - too personal. And his would have been too personal, even setting aside the fact that it didn’t seem particularly safe. She was horny, not stupid. So, a hotel room it was, and the place had a few teas and a kettle, so that was a nice bonus.

He’d slipped out of the hotel room while she slept, and Zoya was unbothered as she walked about the hotel room, sipping her tea when she heard the creak of the window. Hair whipping against her neck, she looked to see a girl slipping into the window, looking like she’d been about dragged through the dumpster behind the club she’d been in last night. “May I help you?” She asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. 

[zoyaofthestorms]

jamiemoriartes​:

For what little pleasure Jamie took in most activities, she did enjoy visiting the library. It was quiet, and therefore she was less likely to be forced to make pointless small talk with strangers, and their selection of books on art and art history was rather good, for a small town’s library. That was to say, she had yet to make her way through their entire selection.

Upon arriving, she first returned her previously borrowed book, flashed a bland smile to the librarian behind the counter, and headed into the aisles. It was entirely empty, save for one woman browsing, and Jamie was going to merely walk past her without a thought, when the woman spoke. Her tone was blunt and cold, and she didn’t even look up from her book. Jamie stopped, and stared at her in icy disbelief.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, her own voice soft, belying her anger. “I wasn’t under the impression that one could have a monopoly over an entire space in a library.” It was difficult to get an instant deductive read on this woman, but that she hadn’t even looked up from her book and spoken so arrogantly and coldly was telling enough.

It wasn’t typical for Zoya to be sentimental - but then again, it also wasn’t typical for her to live in a small town like Echo Springs. And, perhaps, if she’d been willing to leave behind the memories of her aunt, she might’ve said goodbye to the place. Instead, there she was, being sentimental in the shelves of a library, wondering if her aunt had perused these shelves, which were her favorites. 

That sentiment had her words even more biting, and she turned to the person in the stacks who had responded, her dark hair rippling behind her as she focused on the other woman with a sapphire glare. The woman had spoken in a British accent, far different than Zoya’s own voice - the slight Russian curls to her words as she spoke, bringing up each word as if she raised it on angry winds. “And yet, here I am, taking up this space in the library that I hold no intention to share.” She snapped with little care of what the woman in front of her thought. She was blonde, and rather pretty - poised, her posture near perfect. 

Zoya snapped the book closed, tapping perfectly manicured fingers against the cover of it impatiently, waiting for the woman to slink off like many did faced with Zoya’s ire.

[zoyaofthestorms]

thedarkestminds​:

(✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): im ruby (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): ok?

(✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): zoya (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): listen, I have two personality traits: being pretty and being petty (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): you’re being introduced to the second.

[nocontextgrishaverse-deactivate]

zoya: nikolai is the reason I wake up every morning.

genya: aw, that’s sweet.

zoya, having flashbacks to nikolai storming into her room banging pans together, screaming wake up: no it’s not.

[zoyaofthestorms]

sovietballerina​:

🌀 for a wrong number text + @zoyaofthestorms

(✉️ ➡️ allison zoya): You’re all set for your defense classes to start tomorrow!  (✉️ ➡️ zoya): Meet me at the studio around 8PM. 

(✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): sounds great (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): but also i didn’t sign up for a class (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): still probably will show up, sounds lit

[zoyaofthestorms]

thedarkestminds​:

(✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): wrong #

(✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): OOF  (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): ok but listen, idk who you are, but you’d definitely agree

[zoyaofthestorms]

meme → text meme topic → ❓ for random (I chose 🌀 for a wrong number text) + @thedarkestminds i can manage a minute. possibly two. → queries

(✉️ ➡️ kinsey ): Look, yeah, Genya’s pretty, but if anything that makes me hate her more.

[zoyaofthestorms]

meme → location prompts topic → graveyard + @graceledcmas​​ i can manage a minute. possibly two. → queries

She couldn’t manage to enter the graveyard. This was the fifth time this month that Zoya had come to the entrance, determined to tell her aunt - what? That she missed her? That she hated this town? That none of it made sense? 

The graveyard felt all wrong. It felt dead in a way that had nothing to do with bodies. She couldn’t sense the loss she should feel, and somehow felt like the headstones would crumble like styrofoam under water if she were to touch them. Like it was all fake. She wanted to be angry - furious, even - but she didn’t have it in her. Not today. 

With a huff of exasperation, she began to tie up her hair, trying to get it off of her neck and away from her face to have something to do with her hands. So that she would stop staring at her aunt’s headstone. Her eyes went everywhere but at that headstone - until they found someone else in the graveyard. She dropped her hands, dark hair spilling down her back once more, as she eyed the woman warily. Her chin tipped up as she said, “Mourning, or just enjoy creepy places? This town is full of them.”

[zoyaofthestorms]

meme → location prompts topic → the side of the highway on the edge of town + @akahellcat​ i can manage a minute. possibly two. → queries

Zoya had gotten almost to the edge of town when her car had broken down. 

It was early in the hours of the morning when she’d woken up, surrounded by her aunts things - and not her aunt. A nightmare of her death that looked nothing like a slow battle with an illness, and everything like a swathe of black energy and screeching dark creatures with wings that tried to attack.

She’d packed up a few meager possessions. It wasn’t abandonment, she told herself - just a few days out of town. To get her head right. She’d get a motel room an hour or two away, go to a bar, forget about this stupid night. Forget about the screams of a town that she didn’t understand. 

And then the car had made a grinding noise and started smoking, and now Zoya had her head under the hood, grease on her fingers, with no idea what she was doing - and a very dead cell phone. She saw a jogger headed her way, and waved an arm, trying to catch the woman’s eye. “Any chance you got a phone on you?” She asked, realizing a second later that, since she didn’t have any family left in town, she wouldn’t even know who to call.

[zoyaofthestorms]

Genya: Hello, Zoya. Made anyone cry today?

Zoya: Sadly, no. But it's only 4:30.

[zoyaofthestorms]

meme → location prompts topic → the town docks + @inejofwraiths i can manage a minute. possibly two. → queries

The coffee shop in the center of town had been too busy, which had Zoya more than slightly frustrated - and definitely wishing that her preferred drink was something stronger than tea. She’d had to walk at least three blocks just to get a cup, and it tasted awful, like it had hardly been steeped and started out as dishwater.

She would have stopped drinking it entirely if it weren’t for the warmth it brought her. It was a chilly morning. Normally she would walk home after getting her tea, but this time she had wandered to the docks - they were closer and she wanted a glimpse at the water. It was severely underwhelming, and she had the sharpest pang like she expected so much more out of the ocean. As if the seas were a novelty rather than body of water. She sipped her drink, watching the greyish clouds make their way over the skyline, when she saw something silvery glint against the water and looked around, trying to see if someone was there. “I hope you aren’t looking for me, but it is quite a nice sight.”

[zoyaofthestorms]

meme → location prompts topic → echo springs public library + @jamiemoriartes i can manage a minute. possibly two. → queries

Her aunt had loved this library, Zoya knew that much. She hadn’t gotten to see her aunt often, in those years while at school - they mostly spoke on the phone, or Lilyana had visited her. Now, Zoya was at the library her aunt had loved so much, that she’d spoken of on the phone but Zoya had never entered.

She hadn’t been planning on going there, today. Had just been on a walk through town, enjoying the spring flowers blooming when she saw the library and found her feet moving before she could do anything about it. Suddenly she was in the library, fingertips running along the spines of the books. She’d never been much for reading, Zoya had spent her time on other pursuits, but she knew her aunt had loved it. She was so distracted, eyes on the books, that she hadn’t realized someone was in the aisle. “Pick somewhere else to browse. Occupied.” She said bluntly, not looking up.

[zoyaofthestorms]

INTRODUCTION → zoya nazyalensky

Stef, bringing another rude character from The Grishaverse? Whoddathunkit!

Okay, so a bit about my girl Zoya, for what you don’t know! In her canon, she’s a General and is very decisive, and rather cold. This coldness runs pretty deep, too - she’s far from a desperate girl hidden behind this cold demeanor. Sure, there is some warmth and affection saved for a select few - but, even with the people she loves, Zoya still can be cruel. It simply becomes something those people come to embrace. She has a tendency towards snap judgements, and comparing herself to others.

She will often see other women as threats as well. This is because of her upbringing - you can see her full bio, but the short version is, she was sexualized and seen only for her beauty at a young age, and then her usefulness was what got her out of that situation. As a result, her beauty became one of her strengths and other women became a threat to her. 

What your character may know about Zoya through a first meeting is that she is very beautiful, and rather vain about it. Additionally, she has a slight Russian accent. If race might be noticeable to your character they may be unsure of her ethnicity (which is an important part of her character although it’s one that she does not disclose). 

Currently, I have Zoya as unemployed. She had an aunt in town who died in the past year (to her false memories, at least) and while her aunt lived there her whole life, Zoya spent most of her time away at boarding schools - Echo Springs was always a town she had connections to, but up until relatively recently, she hasn’t had a lot of experience actually being in town.