Information
Kolya
Legacy Name: Kolya
The
Common Experiment #357Owner:
villainyAge: 13 years, 1 month, 1 week
Born: April 6th, 2011
Adopted: 13 years, 1 month, 1 week ago
Adopted: April 6th, 2011
Statistics
- Level: 171
- Strength: 430
- Defense: 428
- Speed: 429
- Health: 429
- HP: 429/429
- Intelligence: 0
- Books Read: 0
- Food Eaten: 0
- Job: Unemployed
His dossier read: 'Yashin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Artillery expert.'
It was the nice way of putting things, but it was inaccurate, in most senses. Most importantly, 'artillery expert' was misleading. He was incredibly adept with guns, that much was true... But to truly give a sense of his position in life, it ought to have said: disinterested, occasional drunkard with a penchant for writing useless love letters to even more disinterested persons. (Just one person, really - her - but it sounded less pathetic to make it seem like more, and he was all for seeming less pathetic.) As far as he was concerned, 'artillery expert' was just a fancy gloss for his life.
That, and nobody called him 'Nikolai' and got off without a sound beating - except her, who always addressed him as such. Of course, that was why he hated it so much; every time he was called by his given name, he could just hear the way it sounded rolling off Ekaterina's tongue in that condescending, cold way... No. It was Kolya. Anyone who knew what was good for them called him 'Kolya', and that was the end of that.
His life was summed up in a line. Yashin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Artillery expert.
Lies. Lies.
The Soviet Union collapsed officially in 1991, though for many, it was in name only. The years following were marked with confusion as the country transferred radically from one way of life to another. And while many were happy - or at least content to settle - with the change into the modern day Russian Federation, there were many still who thought it a change for the worse, and some of these who, however futile it may sound, fought back. In the USSR, you had stability, had certainty - you had a place to live, you had surety of a job, you knew where you came from and where you were going. Stability and safety are dead, now. Dead and buried six feet under.
Every country has its rebels, its people who revile 'the establishment' and how said establishment is run. In some countries, however, the rebellion is more than words... sometimes, it gets serious. Dangerous. Real.
The family Yashin maintained a long history with the military, considering it a matter of pride and duty. However, when the Soviet Union fell, so did their desire to continue on with this trend, instead falling into a less... legal manner of service to their country. They, along with many other individuals and families, fell in with the counter-culture - but more than that, they worked with the Rebellion, and worked against the government with acts of terrorism and assassination in the name of Communism. They were a military force, just more mercenary than serviceman - and Nikolai Mikhailovich, youngest son of Mikhail Sergeievich, was no different. Mercenary. Rebel. Outcast.
...And completely disengaged, disenchanted, and disinterested in the cause.
In his mind, and the mind of many others, they were little better than criminals, low-rent terrorists. They picked up the scraps that organized crime groups couldn't be bothered to deal with, making a quick profit from the confusion that surrounded them. True, they worked for the revival of old values, but there was a dirtier side to it - even if that sort of dirt wasn't the sort of thing acknowledged by some of his more eager compatriots, like Ekaterina... his Katia.
True, Kolya did everything he needed to do to ensure success, and he did it well, but he didn't enjoy it, and he didn't share in the same fanatical fervor as his fellows did. He had been raised into this life, and it was all he knew... and besides, the job wasn't without its perks: he always got to work in close contact with her, which was a mixed blessing and a curse. A blessing, of course, because he was fiercely in love with Ekaterina Ivanovna, and had been since what felt like the beginning of forever (their families having always been close), and the mere sight of her was enough to do his heart in. But a curse for the fact that he was but a toy to Katia, an amusement with which to pass the time. Someone to alternately loathe and lead on. Someone to write her sloppy, drunken love letters which she would never read and never care about.
Ah, sweet love!
No. Kolya wasn't in it for the revival of the holy of holies, the USSR, or even the money to be made whilst doing it... No, he was in it for Katia, and she would gladly die for the cause, for the Rebellion. And thus, so would he.
December 28th, 1994. Moscow, Russia.
It was cold, cold enough that it was hard to breathe outside - that kind of frigidity that just gets into the lungs and paralyses them. If he were a man better suited to drawing parallels, Kolya might have found the words to express the irony that this sort of weather always reminded him of her. Maybe he would have been that sort of man, if he was sober long enough to try - but as far as that went, he was simply becoming increasingly dependant upon being in that state of mind.
He stood at the window of their dingy shared hotel room, hands fisting and unfisting unconsciously as he watched the snow fall. The place stank of cat piss and cheap laundry detergent, but that didn't matter; it was a suitable, out-of-the-way place for them to bide their time, for the moment. And this biding of time was slowly driving him insane, especially being trapped in this small space with her and her silence. He toyed with the idea of turning to her, saying her name, trying to entice her into conversation. Maybe he would try to flatter her, to get her to smile; or maybe he would try to irritate her, antagonize her - anything to get a REACTION out of her, anything at all. Anything!
"Ka -" He choked her name off before it came to any true fruition, waiting a moment before he glanced back at her. She was sitting on the bed, running a comb abstractly through her hair, watching the wall with unwavering patience, ignoring him entirely. It didn't bother her to be cooped up like this, to have to wait, and wait - she apparently felt no restlessness, nothing beyond the occasional shift in position. He had once joked that she could probably wait out the change of the seasons, and Mother Nature would become tired of it before Katia did. He wasn't sure why he had thought that had been funny, and the way that she had stared at him, so blankly, had shamed him out of making any further attempts. In fact, he wasn't sure he could remember the last time he had cracked a joke.
Maybe he should try. The idea of making her laugh in amusement was intoxicating, was emotionally buoyant beyond most anything else, and he latched onto it, turning his gaze back to the window, obsessing with notion in silence. After a handful of minutes, he turned again, full of enthusiasm, convinced that this would break her from her distant coldness. "Katia?"
She stopped combing her hair, hands resting in her lap, eyes venturing to find his with such incredible disinterest that Kolya could actually feel the words he had so carefully planned withering. He paled a little, and he held her gaze for a moment more before his mouth twisted in anger, and he abruptly moved away from the window, heading to the desk where he had left the bottle that he had opened earlier. Before he even sat down, he wasted no time in taking a mouthful or two, hoping to quell his embarrassment. When he did sit, he drew the paper he had left there to him, and picked up his pen. As the desk was situated so that the chair did not have its back to the bed, but was rather side-on, he kept his head carefully tilted whilst he began writing so that he could not see her in his peripheral vision.
There were some soft noises, her shifting and sheets rustling, but he didn't look at her. He hadn't even said anything and still... still she could shame him. Anger shot through him again, and he paused in his work to bring the bottle to his lips again, wanting to kill the feeling, to drown it, to feel it struggle helplessly and die a writhing, pitiful death. Yes... yes.
Twenty minutes, half the bottle and a dozen crumpled pieces of paper later, Katia's voice brought him to a pause - it was not the cool voice that would have matched her earlier mien, but a gentler, almost... timid... He couldn't resist looking at her, curiosity overtaking him - and was shocked. Whereas she had been sitting before, she was now laying on her side on the bed, the blanket pooled about her waist, arms curled around the pillow beneath her head... and she was as naked as she ever could be. "What are you writing, Nikolai?" The name would have been a barb to him, but truthfully, he didn't even register it, the way that she was looking at him, her state of undress, the way she drew her lower lip into her mouth as if shy about her question... all these things rendered him quite incapable of taking offense.
"I..." Things I can't say out loud. "N-nothing. Nothing important." He fumbled with his words, slurred with drink and amazement.
She was quiet for a brief span, fingers toying with the corner of the pillowcase. Then, a faint brush of noise against her lips, "Oh."
He watched her chest rising and falling with each breath, the motion entrancing - tracing the contours of her breasts with his eyes, he echoed dumbly, "Oh."
"May I see them?" Katia asked, in that same soft voice, eyes never leaving his face. If he had any sense at all, he would have said no, but his judgement was lacking... and how on earth could he deny her anything at all, at this point? Not for love nor money. And so he nodded, mute, and with that assent she pushed herself up slowly, as if bashful, pulling aside the blanket and tucking her hair behind her ear as she brought herself to her feet. His mouth was dry as she crossed the distance between them, heart thundering in his ears - this had to be a hallucination, without a doubt... And then she was beside him, lowering herself onto his lap, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck as she leaned towards the desk as if to read what he had written - only to take hold of the alcohol instead, fingers curling silkily about the neck of the bottle.
She brought the bottle towards her, the lip of the bottle hovering just below her own, her eyes fixed on his. In that instant, Kolya could truly believe that this was how things were meant to be, she and him, and that she had never been anything other than thus towards him - but just for an instant. The image was shattered in the same instant that the bottle did, she having thrown it bodily against the wall. He flinched, and the hand in his hair tightened, tugging his head back a little. "I told you to lay off drinking, darling. Why do you not listen?" Katia pressed up against him, menace in her eyes as she spoke, "We have a job to do, and your hand needs to be steady, imbecile."
With that, she released him and struck him across the face, drawing a startled, strangled noise from him. She got up again, unconcerned about her nakedness, brushing her hair back and heading into the washroom to draw a shower, calling back over her shoulder, "Get yourself ready, Nikolai."
Kolya watched her go, throat tight and burning, not saying a word. Without warning, he lurched forward and grasped the paper he had been writing, crumpling it up and throwing it away from him with a blind fury. He always fell for it.
Every. Single. Time.
It was the nice way of putting things, but it was inaccurate, in most senses. Most importantly, 'artillery expert' was misleading. He was incredibly adept with guns, that much was true... But to truly give a sense of his position in life, it ought to have said: disinterested, occasional drunkard with a penchant for writing useless love letters to even more disinterested persons. (Just one person, really - her - but it sounded less pathetic to make it seem like more, and he was all for seeming less pathetic.) As far as he was concerned, 'artillery expert' was just a fancy gloss for his life.
That, and nobody called him 'Nikolai' and got off without a sound beating - except her, who always addressed him as such. Of course, that was why he hated it so much; every time he was called by his given name, he could just hear the way it sounded rolling off Ekaterina's tongue in that condescending, cold way... No. It was Kolya. Anyone who knew what was good for them called him 'Kolya', and that was the end of that.
His life was summed up in a line. Yashin, Nikolai Mikhailovich. Artillery expert.
Lies. Lies.
The Soviet Union collapsed officially in 1991, though for many, it was in name only. The years following were marked with confusion as the country transferred radically from one way of life to another. And while many were happy - or at least content to settle - with the change into the modern day Russian Federation, there were many still who thought it a change for the worse, and some of these who, however futile it may sound, fought back. In the USSR, you had stability, had certainty - you had a place to live, you had surety of a job, you knew where you came from and where you were going. Stability and safety are dead, now. Dead and buried six feet under.
Every country has its rebels, its people who revile 'the establishment' and how said establishment is run. In some countries, however, the rebellion is more than words... sometimes, it gets serious. Dangerous. Real.
The family Yashin maintained a long history with the military, considering it a matter of pride and duty. However, when the Soviet Union fell, so did their desire to continue on with this trend, instead falling into a less... legal manner of service to their country. They, along with many other individuals and families, fell in with the counter-culture - but more than that, they worked with the Rebellion, and worked against the government with acts of terrorism and assassination in the name of Communism. They were a military force, just more mercenary than serviceman - and Nikolai Mikhailovich, youngest son of Mikhail Sergeievich, was no different. Mercenary. Rebel. Outcast.
...And completely disengaged, disenchanted, and disinterested in the cause.
In his mind, and the mind of many others, they were little better than criminals, low-rent terrorists. They picked up the scraps that organized crime groups couldn't be bothered to deal with, making a quick profit from the confusion that surrounded them. True, they worked for the revival of old values, but there was a dirtier side to it - even if that sort of dirt wasn't the sort of thing acknowledged by some of his more eager compatriots, like Ekaterina... his Katia.
True, Kolya did everything he needed to do to ensure success, and he did it well, but he didn't enjoy it, and he didn't share in the same fanatical fervor as his fellows did. He had been raised into this life, and it was all he knew... and besides, the job wasn't without its perks: he always got to work in close contact with her, which was a mixed blessing and a curse. A blessing, of course, because he was fiercely in love with Ekaterina Ivanovna, and had been since what felt like the beginning of forever (their families having always been close), and the mere sight of her was enough to do his heart in. But a curse for the fact that he was but a toy to Katia, an amusement with which to pass the time. Someone to alternately loathe and lead on. Someone to write her sloppy, drunken love letters which she would never read and never care about.
Ah, sweet love!
No. Kolya wasn't in it for the revival of the holy of holies, the USSR, or even the money to be made whilst doing it... No, he was in it for Katia, and she would gladly die for the cause, for the Rebellion. And thus, so would he.
December 28th, 1994. Moscow, Russia.
It was cold, cold enough that it was hard to breathe outside - that kind of frigidity that just gets into the lungs and paralyses them. If he were a man better suited to drawing parallels, Kolya might have found the words to express the irony that this sort of weather always reminded him of her. Maybe he would have been that sort of man, if he was sober long enough to try - but as far as that went, he was simply becoming increasingly dependant upon being in that state of mind.
He stood at the window of their dingy shared hotel room, hands fisting and unfisting unconsciously as he watched the snow fall. The place stank of cat piss and cheap laundry detergent, but that didn't matter; it was a suitable, out-of-the-way place for them to bide their time, for the moment. And this biding of time was slowly driving him insane, especially being trapped in this small space with her and her silence. He toyed with the idea of turning to her, saying her name, trying to entice her into conversation. Maybe he would try to flatter her, to get her to smile; or maybe he would try to irritate her, antagonize her - anything to get a REACTION out of her, anything at all. Anything!
"Ka -" He choked her name off before it came to any true fruition, waiting a moment before he glanced back at her. She was sitting on the bed, running a comb abstractly through her hair, watching the wall with unwavering patience, ignoring him entirely. It didn't bother her to be cooped up like this, to have to wait, and wait - she apparently felt no restlessness, nothing beyond the occasional shift in position. He had once joked that she could probably wait out the change of the seasons, and Mother Nature would become tired of it before Katia did. He wasn't sure why he had thought that had been funny, and the way that she had stared at him, so blankly, had shamed him out of making any further attempts. In fact, he wasn't sure he could remember the last time he had cracked a joke.
Maybe he should try. The idea of making her laugh in amusement was intoxicating, was emotionally buoyant beyond most anything else, and he latched onto it, turning his gaze back to the window, obsessing with notion in silence. After a handful of minutes, he turned again, full of enthusiasm, convinced that this would break her from her distant coldness. "Katia?"
She stopped combing her hair, hands resting in her lap, eyes venturing to find his with such incredible disinterest that Kolya could actually feel the words he had so carefully planned withering. He paled a little, and he held her gaze for a moment more before his mouth twisted in anger, and he abruptly moved away from the window, heading to the desk where he had left the bottle that he had opened earlier. Before he even sat down, he wasted no time in taking a mouthful or two, hoping to quell his embarrassment. When he did sit, he drew the paper he had left there to him, and picked up his pen. As the desk was situated so that the chair did not have its back to the bed, but was rather side-on, he kept his head carefully tilted whilst he began writing so that he could not see her in his peripheral vision.
There were some soft noises, her shifting and sheets rustling, but he didn't look at her. He hadn't even said anything and still... still she could shame him. Anger shot through him again, and he paused in his work to bring the bottle to his lips again, wanting to kill the feeling, to drown it, to feel it struggle helplessly and die a writhing, pitiful death. Yes... yes.
Twenty minutes, half the bottle and a dozen crumpled pieces of paper later, Katia's voice brought him to a pause - it was not the cool voice that would have matched her earlier mien, but a gentler, almost... timid... He couldn't resist looking at her, curiosity overtaking him - and was shocked. Whereas she had been sitting before, she was now laying on her side on the bed, the blanket pooled about her waist, arms curled around the pillow beneath her head... and she was as naked as she ever could be. "What are you writing, Nikolai?" The name would have been a barb to him, but truthfully, he didn't even register it, the way that she was looking at him, her state of undress, the way she drew her lower lip into her mouth as if shy about her question... all these things rendered him quite incapable of taking offense.
"I..." Things I can't say out loud. "N-nothing. Nothing important." He fumbled with his words, slurred with drink and amazement.
She was quiet for a brief span, fingers toying with the corner of the pillowcase. Then, a faint brush of noise against her lips, "Oh."
He watched her chest rising and falling with each breath, the motion entrancing - tracing the contours of her breasts with his eyes, he echoed dumbly, "Oh."
"May I see them?" Katia asked, in that same soft voice, eyes never leaving his face. If he had any sense at all, he would have said no, but his judgement was lacking... and how on earth could he deny her anything at all, at this point? Not for love nor money. And so he nodded, mute, and with that assent she pushed herself up slowly, as if bashful, pulling aside the blanket and tucking her hair behind her ear as she brought herself to her feet. His mouth was dry as she crossed the distance between them, heart thundering in his ears - this had to be a hallucination, without a doubt... And then she was beside him, lowering herself onto his lap, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck as she leaned towards the desk as if to read what he had written - only to take hold of the alcohol instead, fingers curling silkily about the neck of the bottle.
She brought the bottle towards her, the lip of the bottle hovering just below her own, her eyes fixed on his. In that instant, Kolya could truly believe that this was how things were meant to be, she and him, and that she had never been anything other than thus towards him - but just for an instant. The image was shattered in the same instant that the bottle did, she having thrown it bodily against the wall. He flinched, and the hand in his hair tightened, tugging his head back a little. "I told you to lay off drinking, darling. Why do you not listen?" Katia pressed up against him, menace in her eyes as she spoke, "We have a job to do, and your hand needs to be steady, imbecile."
With that, she released him and struck him across the face, drawing a startled, strangled noise from him. She got up again, unconcerned about her nakedness, brushing her hair back and heading into the washroom to draw a shower, calling back over her shoulder, "Get yourself ready, Nikolai."
Kolya watched her go, throat tight and burning, not saying a word. Without warning, he lurched forward and grasped the paper he had been writing, crumpling it up and throwing it away from him with a blind fury. He always fell for it.
Every. Single. Time.