A Russian, a German, and a Grecian Demi-Goddess walk into a room

[fight_them_all]

There was an idleness he was unused to in this place. Without lessons, without the barking commands and razor-sharp insinuations of his teachers...Illya felt as lost as he had on that street corner. Even with a belly full of simple, but filling food, warm and able to sleep without fear of interruption, this world was too strange to let him settle. However awful the things said and done to him in the cold walls of his school, it had become familiar. Discomfort and unhappiness the new normal.

He was less nervous in approaching Martin, less afraid the older boy would rebuff his company or turn on him for a foot placed wrong. For every time he had flinched in the expectation of the back of the boy's hand, there had been nothing but a sad twist of a smile. For every discovery of some need Illya had tried to hide until his stomach had growled audibly or his teeth clacked with cold, a hot meal or a push toward bed or an invitation to go put on his coat.

"Could we go out?" he asks, still choosing his words carefully although he hides his hopefulness less well than before.

Comments

[fight_them_all]

Illya gives a little nod of agreement. Although it is sharp and decisive (or would be, if not for his rounded face and large eyes), it is as much for thinking of the need for parade routes as wanting to agree with the older boy.

The wide paved avenues of Gorky Park are not in this place. No massive fountain stands as a backdrop to the marching men in uniform, although he has the small, almost traitorous thought that such marches would not fit this other city. This other world. He does not leap to answer Martin's invitation as one his age might otherwise have, for all that he felt his heart lodge a second in his throat at the prospect.

"I would like to see your Berlin," he says, carefully, before finding himself distracted by a woman who seems to move like one of the Valkyries of his mother's stories. He stops. Watches with wide eyes. To a child raised among the military-aligned and the careful frailty of the upper classes, she stands out from among those civilians he has seen thus far.

He reaches out to tug the sleeve of the older boy. "Martin," he whispers hurriedly, louder than he means to. "Look!"

[strengthinlove]

Diana can only imagine what Etta would say if she saw today's outfits. Certainly, it's not Amazonian armor, which she would honestly find practical and preferable, but the fitted gray slacks and deep blue cowl sweater she wears are far easier to maneuver in than many of Etta's original options. The man at the department store had assured her, at least, that they were both understated and fashionable.

She's used to turning heads for her height and her posture, which she knows to be far more confident than modern society seems to expect of a woman, but she's not used to children staring at her so.

Immediately, her heart melts at the sight of the angelic little boy and his older companion (brothers?) and she walks over, smiling.