Ava Anatalya Orlova (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2018-05-10 01:59 pm
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-05-10 01:59 pm
no wonder you've got demons
who: Ava Orlova & anyone!
what: Catchall; I was down for the count in April, so I'm diving back in and doing some stuff, backdating is A-OK, etc etc
when: Whenever!
where: Around.
warnings: Will add if needed.
i. floral exchange
[Ava was scarce for most of May, in part as a way of skipping the flower festival and the lingering celebrations that always followed after. She couldn't help thinking about how Sana would have enjoyed it, and at the moment that was still too painful a thing to focus on. So instead, she avoided it, focused on settling back in, and picking up where she'd left off with the SkyTram and the reactors and the power grids. But once it's passed, she ends up encountering one of the plant people that had been offering people flowers throughout the celebration. She offers Ava a blue flower, and it's a nice day, so she takes it with a murmur of thanks. Only, that doesn't go exactly as she had planned, at all. To be fair, no one really plans to end up years younger, do they?
Once the effect grips her fully, it leaves her in the middle of the city, with no idea where she is. And Ava at this age was not as soft and open as she is most of the time in quarantine. She's sharp, a ball of paranoia with not enough memories of her life, and skills that largely aren't aimed at interfacing with people, save in very specific contexts. The last thing she remembers is the bunker in DC where they'd kept her for the past several years, and now she's here. Part of her is awed at the prospect of freedom, but she can't bring herself to trust it. Especially not here-- it's too open, with too many people, too much she doesn't recognize, can't immediately parse. The fact that there's a knife on her belt comes as a surprise (they never let her keep weapons) and her small fingers curl around the hilt. She buries into her now over-sized clothes and vanishes like a whisper. That way of moving without being seen, disappearing in plain sight. Of course, someone who knows the skill can probably track her.
She's a slip of a preteen girl, maybe twelve, pale and skinny, with that same red hair, painfully on edge and trying to choke it all down and find somewhere safe. The only upside is that disorientation is far from a strange thing for her. She finds an alley; the windows are so high to have bad line of sight down into the alley, which makes it easier to slink into the shadows. Back pressed to the wall, trying to take stock of what she can remember, and what she can make out of this place.
Later, once she's gotten her bearings, she's a little bit more amicable. Still on edge, quiet, defensive, but while she avoids the city center, she does go exploring, checks out the park, and other places that she could hardly have imagined back in DC. The entirety of her life at this point is concrete walls and men in black tac gear.]
ii. floating lanterns [closed to CR]
[Ava goes down to the water with four lanterns and a set of paints and some drawing pencils. The first two are easy enough: the ones for her parents. The one for her mother is brighter, with a sort of energy that a sharp eye might pick up as a sort of anger. She doesn't remember much of her father, and the papers she'd found hadn't been quite as damning for him as for her mother. Opus had been her mother's project in the end, the code to take it apart had been too, all that weight put on a child, all that torment shadowing her steps. But they were still her parents. And she'd never really had the chance to mourn them properly before, so here she is, sitting on the banks with her lanterns.
The third and forth are harder. Her art, the words, they come slower. And in the end... she's not sure if she can let either of them go. So she just sits there, watching the water and the night sky, watching other people letting their lanterns go and struggling with her own. Occasionally she picks up the paints again, or one of her pencils, adding another bit of color, or another line. One lantern is mostly in English, but the other is completely in Russian. Sana isn't even dead, so maybe it's inappropriate. But she's gone where Ava can't reach her. And more than that- Ava's not sure if she can bring herself to leave here again. So there are things she wants to tell her, to the friend she's lost, in a coma that no one knows how to fix. Turned into a monster so no one sees Sana, the person she was before anymore.
She's quiet, but she has candy and some small snacks, and if she sees someone she recognizes, she might wave to them, if they don't seem too distracted by their own grief.]
iii. down with the sickness
[Ava notices the sickness pretty quickly. She's not in the city a lot at the moment, still readjusting, trying to find a place for herself here, but she's observant, and when she slips into the City for food, or supplies, or to check in on the little office she technically has for her work on the SkyTram. Though really she does most of her work out on the lines themselves, with her phone the best way to get ahold of her. But all of that takes a backseat as she notices people getting woozy, faint, feverish and pale. She does what she can for people, bringing the ones that seem to be in the worst condition to the hospital, and for others she'll offer water, help them sit down, or whatever it seems like they might need.]
Where do you live? Do you want me to call someone?
[She hasn't heard about the fact that the illness tends to result in comas, but for the moment she's just worried about trying to get people back on their feet, or where ever they need to be to recuperate. When she hears about the coma part? She doesn't take it well. Someone might even think it hits a nerve. So needless to say that when she starts getting sick, she's not the most cooperative patient. She'll insist that she doesn't need a doctor, she needs someone with magic. Her powers being what they are, she's been trying to keep the nanites back on her own, but without someone else to help the best that she can do is slow the advance of the effects, not stop or disable them.]
I'm fine- I mean, it doesn't matter. I just need someone with magic.
iv. wildcard
[If you have another idea, hit me up. Ava is very much into helping disable the virus wide-scale, and will be around helping people as best she can, swinging by the hospital here and there and so on. She's in the forest / out on the SkyTram a lot, PM if you want to plot something.]
what: Catchall; I was down for the count in April, so I'm diving back in and doing some stuff, backdating is A-OK, etc etc
when: Whenever!
where: Around.
warnings: Will add if needed.
i. floral exchange
[Ava was scarce for most of May, in part as a way of skipping the flower festival and the lingering celebrations that always followed after. She couldn't help thinking about how Sana would have enjoyed it, and at the moment that was still too painful a thing to focus on. So instead, she avoided it, focused on settling back in, and picking up where she'd left off with the SkyTram and the reactors and the power grids. But once it's passed, she ends up encountering one of the plant people that had been offering people flowers throughout the celebration. She offers Ava a blue flower, and it's a nice day, so she takes it with a murmur of thanks. Only, that doesn't go exactly as she had planned, at all. To be fair, no one really plans to end up years younger, do they?
Once the effect grips her fully, it leaves her in the middle of the city, with no idea where she is. And Ava at this age was not as soft and open as she is most of the time in quarantine. She's sharp, a ball of paranoia with not enough memories of her life, and skills that largely aren't aimed at interfacing with people, save in very specific contexts. The last thing she remembers is the bunker in DC where they'd kept her for the past several years, and now she's here. Part of her is awed at the prospect of freedom, but she can't bring herself to trust it. Especially not here-- it's too open, with too many people, too much she doesn't recognize, can't immediately parse. The fact that there's a knife on her belt comes as a surprise (they never let her keep weapons) and her small fingers curl around the hilt. She buries into her now over-sized clothes and vanishes like a whisper. That way of moving without being seen, disappearing in plain sight. Of course, someone who knows the skill can probably track her.
She's a slip of a preteen girl, maybe twelve, pale and skinny, with that same red hair, painfully on edge and trying to choke it all down and find somewhere safe. The only upside is that disorientation is far from a strange thing for her. She finds an alley; the windows are so high to have bad line of sight down into the alley, which makes it easier to slink into the shadows. Back pressed to the wall, trying to take stock of what she can remember, and what she can make out of this place.
Later, once she's gotten her bearings, she's a little bit more amicable. Still on edge, quiet, defensive, but while she avoids the city center, she does go exploring, checks out the park, and other places that she could hardly have imagined back in DC. The entirety of her life at this point is concrete walls and men in black tac gear.]
ii. floating lanterns [closed to CR]
[Ava goes down to the water with four lanterns and a set of paints and some drawing pencils. The first two are easy enough: the ones for her parents. The one for her mother is brighter, with a sort of energy that a sharp eye might pick up as a sort of anger. She doesn't remember much of her father, and the papers she'd found hadn't been quite as damning for him as for her mother. Opus had been her mother's project in the end, the code to take it apart had been too, all that weight put on a child, all that torment shadowing her steps. But they were still her parents. And she'd never really had the chance to mourn them properly before, so here she is, sitting on the banks with her lanterns.
The third and forth are harder. Her art, the words, they come slower. And in the end... she's not sure if she can let either of them go. So she just sits there, watching the water and the night sky, watching other people letting their lanterns go and struggling with her own. Occasionally she picks up the paints again, or one of her pencils, adding another bit of color, or another line. One lantern is mostly in English, but the other is completely in Russian. Sana isn't even dead, so maybe it's inappropriate. But she's gone where Ava can't reach her. And more than that- Ava's not sure if she can bring herself to leave here again. So there are things she wants to tell her, to the friend she's lost, in a coma that no one knows how to fix. Turned into a monster so no one sees Sana, the person she was before anymore.
She's quiet, but she has candy and some small snacks, and if she sees someone she recognizes, she might wave to them, if they don't seem too distracted by their own grief.]
iii. down with the sickness
[Ava notices the sickness pretty quickly. She's not in the city a lot at the moment, still readjusting, trying to find a place for herself here, but she's observant, and when she slips into the City for food, or supplies, or to check in on the little office she technically has for her work on the SkyTram. Though really she does most of her work out on the lines themselves, with her phone the best way to get ahold of her. But all of that takes a backseat as she notices people getting woozy, faint, feverish and pale. She does what she can for people, bringing the ones that seem to be in the worst condition to the hospital, and for others she'll offer water, help them sit down, or whatever it seems like they might need.]
Where do you live? Do you want me to call someone?
[She hasn't heard about the fact that the illness tends to result in comas, but for the moment she's just worried about trying to get people back on their feet, or where ever they need to be to recuperate. When she hears about the coma part? She doesn't take it well. Someone might even think it hits a nerve. So needless to say that when she starts getting sick, she's not the most cooperative patient. She'll insist that she doesn't need a doctor, she needs someone with magic. Her powers being what they are, she's been trying to keep the nanites back on her own, but without someone else to help the best that she can do is slow the advance of the effects, not stop or disable them.]
I'm fine- I mean, it doesn't matter. I just need someone with magic.
iv. wildcard
[If you have another idea, hit me up. Ava is very much into helping disable the virus wide-scale, and will be around helping people as best she can, swinging by the hospital here and there and so on. She's in the forest / out on the SkyTram a lot, PM if you want to plot something.]
ii;
He happens upon the area where Ava is sitting and catches her wave, returning it with one of his own as he makes his way towards her. He notices the paints and pencils first before the half finished lanterns catch his eye.]
Looks like we had the same idea. May I join you?
no subject
[Her smile might be a little thin, but given the occasion and the number of lanterns sitting next to her in various states of completion, it's hopefully not too hard to forgive her for that. She catches the pencils and paints that he brings with him, and that brightens her smile a little bit, a slight tilt of her head as she looks up at him.]
I didn't know you were an artist.
[She doesn't ask who his lantern is for, but tries to leave space for him to talk about it if he wants to. ]
no subject
[It's a terrible joke, but in an environment as grim as theirs, he figures a little humor couldn't hurt. He takes a seat, setting his items down in front of him. If he's curious about Ava's lanterns, and how many she has, he tries not to let it show.]
I could say the same to you. I was in art school before joining the war. I was hoping to make a living off cartoons, maybe animation. A tough field to break into and even harder to succeed in, but I was hopeful.
[He smiles, a small, almost hidden smile as he gazes down at his lantern.]
My mom was very supportive.
i
He steps into the end of an alleyway just as she's coming towards it, not quite blocking her exit but definitely in the way.]
Hey.
no subject
I remember you.
[She says, like a strange realization, someone that's used to not having all the pieces. But it's one that makes the situation a little less uncomfortable, even if everything is still strange. She takes a small step closer, not quite trusting, but less like she's liable to stab someone in self-defense, even if her fingers stay on the knife for the moment.]
Are you-- okay?
[There's a quiet worry, concern there. Like she thought that he wasn't.]
no subject
If I wasn't, do you think I would have said hello to you?
[The Soldier didn't speak unless ordered to do so, and even then there were no pleasantries, only the orders and the confirmation. And if he'd come here to hurt her, she never would have seen him coming until the bullet hit her square between the eyes.]
no subject
[It's an easy answer, but one that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But it's still a good thing, even as she struggles to process what's going on.]
We never talked before. They just-- I shouldn't talk about it here.
[She looks around, like waiting for a guard to turn the corner. Ava at this age is very much a captive. She doesn't remember the Red Room, the physical brutality, but the threat of having her memories and who she was stripped away was always there. This was years before she'd found a place for herself, learned to put herself back together, had a friend.]
--Is this a mission?
[They'd never sent her on one before, but she knew they were going to. It's why they were training her, why the knife was so easy in her hand. But even that doesn't feel quite right, and that worries her. Because none of the pieces quite line up right, and it makes everything feel tense and uncomfortable. He's not here to kill her. He's okay, and that's good. But she can't remember anything about why she's here.]
no subject
No. They're not here, we're out.
[One thing at a time, but it's important for her to know that, if nothing else.]
We're-- you're free.
[Him, not so much. Not after what he did to Pierce.]