"I've never entirely trusted Jupiter, I've never been entirely sure that her ends and mine coincide. This time however, the vision she sent me was appropriate and helpful; so I packed my things and went to visit the family in Juche." -- The diaries of Nellens Anila Kira, Bureau of Destiny.
Vasily wondered how the family managed to get away with the insult of seating him next to someone who was both a senior member of the House and a visitor from the Heptagram, but she didn't seem to mind. She had introduced herself as Nellens Anila Kira, an expert in translation carrying on her mother's work. Some of the books in the library had been translated by Nellens Anila, and hers was a name he knew from family lore, so he had a certain amount he could talk to her about.
She told him about her childhood, and her siblings, and then about the plague that carried off her mother, and broke her father's heart, and caused her to flee to the Heptagram and remain there until the impact of the memories had faded. She was visiting to deal with a few questions about an inheritence, apparantly, although Vasily was unsure whose inheritence she was refering to.
Vasily retired that evening unsure as ever about his life. Despite his best wishes he had stubbonly failed to Exalt, and everyone was beginning to accept this as his lot in life. He mused on the unfairness of this for a while, so he was still awake when he heard one of the windows being broken. He started, and decided to investigate; stopping only to pick up the Wind-Fire Wheels he'd made a couple of years earlier, and the leather-hand straps that stopped him them from cutting his hands. He ventured towards the noise as he tightened the straps on his hands.
Lyosha, his elder brother, had taught him the basics of the Martial Arts before he went off to become an immaculate monk, and had since given him a copy of Five Dragons Fight as One in the hope that he would chose to continue learning after he Exalted. "I should call him Alexey now, I guess, since he's an immaculate and I, evidently, mortal."
The noise appeared to have come from the library, so Vasily prepared himself quickly outside the doorway, and stepped in. Within there were two thieves, apparantly mortal. One was running his eyes across the books, initially unaware of Vasily's presence. The other, however was looking towards the door and holding a satchel which Vasily thought was the one that Nellens A. Kira had brought with her. The mortal threw the satchel at him, and ran towards him; drawing a short sword.
Vasily swore as the other mortal turned to face him, then dodged the satchel. He was entirely unprepared for this, and the mortal succeeded in bringing a blow down on his arm. Suddenly the theory he had read in the treatise began to gell in him and his skin shimmered briefly as if scaled under where the sword hit causing the blow to slide off. He had enough time to notice the room become illuminated in bright colours, and the second mortal stare at him in shock, before he was once again under attack. This time he was aware of what was happening, and once again he summoned the Dragons' scales to harden his skin, before counter attacking and leaving a large gash across the chest of the hapless mortal, who fell to the ground gasping.
At this point the second mortal regained enough composure to move. "Anathama!" he cried, vaulting out of the broken window. This gave Vasily pause, and he regarded himself in one of the glass shards left upon the floor. Upon his forehead was a golden circle, the top half burning gold, the bottom but outline. Shock forced the air out of his lungs, but his mind was racing. "I must flee, he will raise the Wyld Hunt."
He raced back to his room, grabbing the satchel on the way out of the library, thinking it would be useful for carrying things in. As he neared his room he narrowly avoided running into one of the family's maids, ran off screaming. Once inside, he scanned about the room for things he would need.
"Often changes demand sacrifices from us. This time it was to be something I had just acquired, and I found myself once again using my knife to tie my hair. I asked one of the maids to deliver my gift to Vasily, since then he would be sure that the household knew the events of the night." -- The diaries of Nellens Anila Kira, Bureau of Destiny.
On his bed was a small wrapped bundle, labeled "Vasily, may fate be with you". He had no idea from whence it came, but he placed it in the satchel nontheless, in case it was of use. A couple of his personal possessions joined it, and travelling clothes before he realised he would need food. A cry was being raised within the house, but he felt he must risk it; and anyway the kitchen was one of the ways out.
What he hadn't expected was to find Sofia there.
"I'm sorry Vasje. I hope that this is swift and relatively painless."
He had no time to complain before he realised that she was casting some kind of spell. Probably the butterflies one she had demonstrated so proudly to him and Lyosha the other day. He had no choice, and lunged at her.
"I'm sorry too, Sofia."
She had been counting on a certain degree of surprise, and was definitely not expecting him to react so quickly. The last thing she remembered seeing was one of the rings of sharpened metal that he'd worked on so lovingly two years before sticking out from her guts.
Vasily retreved his weapon, and wiped it down on the nearest thing available. His sister was still conscious, barely, and her wound was closing itself up. "Waiting will get you killed, Vasje" he thought, "but you can't kill her, she's family." So he waited a short while until he was sure that she wasn't going to bleed to death, then knocked her out with a careful blow.
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