thenashira | Verse 1: The Stone-faced Flower In Ice

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Verse 1: The Stone-faced Flower In Ice

In the month leading up to May, and now on into it, Natalia Koutolika has had her entire life upended.

Gone are the vicious tutors of home, smaller dictators following behind a larger one! Vanished, the spectre of being turned out, starving in snow. All of the familiar things from home are gone, to be reconstructed as best they can in this new place, this... Chalra City.

Everyone else flourishes. Sergey, especially, has taken to his new home like an ermine changing his coat. Her father and mother find work and joy in the immediate.

Her mother takes to making home-made knits and clothes to sell; this little cottage industry has its word spread immediately, and people come for custom orders of good, strong clothes, ones that can be mended and re-mended and carefully taken care of for a lifetime. And if the people she makes them for need advice or special fitting or have peculiar requests, she does not complain. What would be the point? They asked for custom clothes. She gives them custom clothes. What they do with others is none of her concern.

Her father captains a fishing vessel, on which her cousins, Vanya and Aleksey, turn tidy profits out of trawling with a net. Perhaps he transports other things. If he does, he does not speak of them to Natalia or Sergey, at least, not where he thinks they can hear.

And Natalia... Natalia... Struggles. While so many of the things she was told of her own country turned out to be lies, so many of the things she was told of places outside it seem true. The mercenary nature of everyone. The strange, passing styles that address nothing. The willing blindness of people around her.

And yet-- somehow-- it works. It continues working.

Her heart, were it not already frozen, would be troubled. Instead, she is visited by how nonsensical everything is in the city, and seeks to find out more about the country she has come to. Where does the food come from? How does everyone get by somehow? How did they find such a windfall of technology? Do her fellow students really have problems with basic set theory, or is that all an act?

I: Pins
There is one thing she's familiar with, here or anywhere else: getting around limits on personal expression. As such, she did take a bit of mother's ribbon, and carefully sewed it on to the strap of her approved satchel. Now, of late, she has found that pins are allowed, so long as they do not, in fact, appear on the outside of it.

As such, she has a few pins she's affixed to the inner flap.

They're almost certainly knockoffs. She can't afford to spit in the general direction of Fancy Dan's, or whatever the place is called. But she has a shop and a button maker and has seen the designs around. Why not make knockoffs?

Besides, Mother made the ones with the especially cold stare, and Aleksey had patterned the skull one off a bit of graffiti he'd seen once. She... Couldn't bring herself not to wear them, really, though it likely marked her as a bit of a poser.

II: Rime Scene Investigation (Neos)
Neos has been laying low, as ordered, and yet, something about this particular disappearance had rankled her. And so, she knelt, trying to figure out what bare concrete could tell of this vanishing.

Another minor monster? Already? This was getting troublesome, wasn't it...? She gathered herself up and extended her senses. There must be something more here...

Including, it seemed, a friend. She waves, once.

III: Library Time.
In the immediate wake of learning what she was-- who, arguably, she was-- Natalia retreated to what she had hoped would remain her sanctuary-- Everwave's library, where she had plenty of references to look up whatever she needed. She'd hoped to look into Nautis's story-- surely something that drastic, which happened mere centuries ago, would have been recorded?

Alas, it looked like she'd have to go looking for proper archives and primary sources for that, and she wasn't entirely sure where to begin, being new and therefore unfamiliar to Chalra City.

Still, she wasn't sure she trusted Nautis. Laying low was good sense, but...

She crosses her arms and twitches her lip slightly and draws up several game incentives, trying to figure out Nautis's angle if it wasn't true, or wasn't the whole truth.

But... The problem with this being her preferred hiding spot is that everyone already knows where she hides, and so now, she is having to defend against random students who saw how well she did on the mock exams at the end of April, looking for tutoring.

Among which might be you! or you might be there to rescue her. The choices are yours, and yours alone!

IV: Wildcard
Feel free to use any of the other bits I posted for flavor to jump off for a thread!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ms. Carassia doesn't exactly exercise the same amount of authority as most teachers around here, but that badge of theirs (with a set of genuine Dan Flashes pins stuck in the lanyard, of course) still means that people afford them some level of respect. And so, firm but quiet, they approach the table that one of their newly-decreed favorite students has set up at and begin ushering away the other students.

"Okay, everyone, I'm sure Natalia would be eager to help you all with whatever you need to learn, but let's just let her study on her own for now, all right?" And they bring themself closer to Natalia's chair and smile as the throngs slowly begin to disperse.

Once the two of them are alone, they look down, the feel of their smile switching from something in their worksona to something more genuine. "So this is what suffering from success looks like. May I sit with you?"

"... Thank you." Her space is an explosion of history books about Chalra City, a somewhat expensive road atlas of the place, and multiple game theory charts.

In particular, there seems to be a small sticky note, scribbled in a foreign language. If Hope can read it, though, the question becomes obvious: where's the crater?

"... By all means. You're... The substitute, right?"

Calling them "the substitute" confers upon them a level of authority that they're not certain they know how to be comfortable with, but it's also not wrong, so they don't say anything about that. "You can call me Hope," they say instead, smiling a little while they sit down.

They recognize the things in front of them both on the table, but not so much the language. Still, they can make a couple inferences. "I didn't know anyone was assigning research on the history of the city," they say, interested, before tapping one of the charts. "That looks like math, though. Are you powerful enough to work on two projects at the same time?"

Right. Shit. Hope doesn't know about the Nova Knights, how could they? Instead, Natalia quickly comes up with a half-truth. "Oh. This is... A personal project of mine. There's some rumors going around about aliens, so I'm trying to figure out where that idea came from. My current guess is that there was a meteor impact, but..."

She shrugs. "Records prove elusive. I'll have to go looking, I think."

"A meteor impact, huh?" they repeat, their eyes glancing over everything that Natalia has gathered here and choosing, easily, to believe her story. People don't usually put this much effort into debunking aliens (everyone already knows they're not real, of course), so they think Natalia's probably working on something else, but they also think that kids deserve privacy. God knows they didn't get a lot of it when they were Natalia's age.

"We'd have a crater around here if that were the case, right?" they offer instead, and push their glasses up the bridge of their nose only a little facetiously. "There's a lot of ways aliens could show up. Have you ruled out any other guesses yet?"

"Mostly what I am learning is that it's hard to disprove a negative. But when someone talks about 'streaks across the sky', it's a fair thought to think, 'meteor'. If there's nothing like that in the period stated... I'll start looking into further explanations."

She nods. "Yes. The impact crater should have a circular area probable of about 1 KM around this point."

The arcade.

You know.

That arcade.

Ah. That arcade.

This has suddenly become a little more dangerous. Maybe a lot more dangerous. If people find the arcade, then that means they might find out about Hope's new identity, and if that becomes public knowledge then that will definitely count as making trouble for the family, and then everything is going to collapse in front of them and they'll be left with nothing. You know, only the one thing they've dreaded for their entire life.

Their body runs cold suddenly, and they stay in place, staring blankly ahead while all these thoughts race through their mind. Barely moving their lips, they eke out, "Everyone already knows aliens aren't real, Natalia." Is it warm in here? How can they feel so cold and so hot at the same time?

"And yet, there needs to be some explanation for the increase in disappearances, the reported missing time, the talk of things in dark alleyways. People are nervous. Good explanations help with that." Her real objective is to assess how truthful Nautis is on general principles, but coming up with more rational explanations for what's going on and what technology* Nautis has given them is a nice side bonus, and a useful smoke-screen to reduce the anxieties of others.

"It doesn't help strange apparitions were seen last week around this point as well."

*(surely "magic" is only because it's so advanced even Nautis isn't sure of its capabilities?)

The thing is that they know Natalia is right. There have been way too many mysteries, way too many strange things happening lately for the average person to not get curious about it. And Hope doesn't know how to deter a student's natural curiosity—no, forget thinking about it like a teacher; they don't know how to deter anyone. Not without being a Nova Knight. Not without Pandora.

They lower their head and stare more or less directly at the desk, and they can feel their heartbeat in their ears. "You should probably focus on your schoolwork," they say, not even confident in their own words. "You don't need to put all this detective work in when we have actual detectives looking into these things, right?"

... Ah, yes. Of course. Why would she expect any different from a teacher? "Ho. A funny joke, to trust the police to do anything but take your wallet and maybe not hit you for the pleasure.

"No, if this is continuing, it is because they have no interest in stopping it. It would likely take a luminary of the city going missing, or something owned by a rich man to be broken." She folds up the map. "As to my schoolwork... I calculated the likely impact site using the physics we have already been taught, I am using research and archival tactics from history and consideration of sources from literature. Game theory, I admit, is a bit beyond the pale, but you cannot deny I am using the tools given to me."

The thing is that they know Natalia is right. Hope feels like they're being constricted by something that can only really be called the truth, and it makes the inside of their mouth taste like ash. (Maybe that's a little dramatic, but it's also not completely wrong.)

"And you're not worried that you could get hurt?" they ask, trying a different tack and feeling like that's probably going to be in vain, too. It's too soft of a question to sound like a threat, but comes up just shy of genuine concern. "If you're investigating where all these weird things came from, you've got an even better chance of becoming a headline, right?"

"I've already been headlines. It's not that big a deal." When you get a gold medal at any world-class competition, you tend to make a splash! "As for the danger... Well. Can't be more dangerous than steel factory."

"If it is aliens," they say, knowing that it obviously is, "It could be more dangerous than anything on this planet." Their hands ball up in their lap, but at least they have enough presence of mind to hush their tone with their next sentence. "And I don't mean the kinds of headlines you usually make, Natalia. I mean ones that go 'promising young adult found dead'."

"oh shit you know me." For some reason, she now wants to have a second go 'round with better makeup and a hell of a lot more composure.

"And... Yes, I know, but at least I'll have done something. It's probably just presentist bias, but doing this feels important."

"It's hard not to," they say, blaming their own hyperactive brain for having taken the time to look Natalia up online when they'd thought they had recognized one of the students here. (It's threat analysis and they learned it from their fake mother. They don't like it either.)

They continue. "And maybe it is important, but... I just don't want you to hurt yourself in the name of learning more. I know I'm just a substitute teacher," and a sporadic one at that, "But something about it doesn't sit right with me."

"... So it wasn't you who had a hand in the decision on my admission." Another mystery that Natalia wanted to solve. Someone decently high up in the faculty had decided that her interview would be a softball, and she wanted to know who. Didn't seem likely that it was Hope, though.

... Of course, she can't tell some random teacher she's Nova Neos in the middle of a library. "If I were to intend to continue regardless... what would you do?"

And that's where Hope has to admit that they're as powerless here as in any other situation where they have to rely on their own abilities. Right back into the bars around their own heart. They sigh and look away from Natalia.

"I can't do anything to stop you," they admit, and their eyes land on some of the information in front of the two of them, but they aren't focused or paying attention to any of it this time.

(At once, a horrible idea flashes like lightning illuminating the darkest corners of their mind. They, Hope Carassia, can't do anything to stop Natalia from potentially discovering the secret of the Nova Knights and bringing Hope's entire house of cards crumbling down around them. But.)

"If this is really what you want to do, then all I can do is warn you that it's probably very dangerous, and that you might get hurt if you go there. But I'm not interested in controlling the lives of my students."

Now, there comes a tilting of her head, a slow rising to her feet, of looking Hope in the eyes. "What do you know, then, of these cases, that I do not?"

Surely Hope wasn't one of the enemy? Surely not. And yet... If they were--

Maybe she could get some more information than Nautis has. Yes. That's definitely why she's pressing.

Ah. Something's happening now, isn't it. They've overstepped, and part of them... god, they hate it, but they're afraid of this person who's, like, ten years younger than them. It's a quick turn from that miserable little thought about what they really could do to stop Natalia if they really wanted to.

But it wouldn't do to sit here and take it. It would draw attention, draw a crowd. Bring trouble to the family, ultimately. Obviously. So they rise to their feet, too, and put both palms down flat, and they speak as calmly as they can manage. Their tone is quiet, only partially because they're in a library.

"I don't know anything about them. But I know that if something big and weird is happening around here, it's probably because of a group of really dangerous people. The Couriers, the Asims." They pause, and hold back their own last name so it doesn't come off like a threat. "People who wouldn't have any problem doing really horrible things just to keep their secrets safe."

"A dozen little warlords," she says, like it's an incredibly familiar situation. "And here I hoped this city would be less like back home, eh?"

Hope doesn't smile. "If you think you can take on a dozen warlords without getting hurt, then be my guest. Investigate away." The longer this goes on, the more they like their terrible thought. The more it becomes, probably, the best plan they can think of.

"I already told you, I don't want to control what my students do. Or what anyone else does," they add, unnecessarily. "All I want is to make sure everybody gets to see tomorrow."

"... You really think it's them behind the disappearances?" A dead end. And she'd been so sure Hope knew something.

"I think it's possible," they say, realizing that they sound a lot colder than they want to, but not doing much to change it. "It feels like the most likely answer to me, but I don't know." They finally soften when they admit that, and their shoulders sag a little.

"I really just... don't know. But this is something I'm making myself okay with not knowing. I know it's not that easy for you, though."

And she heaves a sigh, and, in a way that would be entirely normal for anyone else, but is more than a little overacted given Natalia is Natalia... She tells a half-truth. "Very well. I shall cease investigating the mob. Even if this does seem a strange departure from their usual modus operandi."

"I don't know anything about modi operandi," they say, briefly proud of themself for the shallow dive they'd done on Latin phrases a while back, "But if this is a new way they're approaching things, all the more reason to be wary of it, you know?"

It's astounding how quickly hearing Natalia say she'll stop investigating has made Hope relax again. They lose the tension from their back and the pit in their gut, and they smile gratefully. "I appreciate it. I have enough things to worry about without adding 'a student got whacked' to the list."

iii

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