in the dark of the night (backdated: June 24)

[every_blossom_blooming]

Katya is gone.

Nina awoke on her own rather than to the cry of a baby, and when she went to check on the infant girl, she was gone, the window to the fire escape open like a scene from a crime novel. Most of Candlewood probably heard her scream, all of them might have felt a little shiver in their hearts. Nina threw on the winter kefta that Krem made for her and went out into the dark and the snow.

She didn't even know where to start looking, how to track. She kept thinking that Geralt would never have let this happen - it wouldn't have happened, if he were here. But he isn't.

The first goblin that crosses her path is summarily executed with a decisive sweep of her hand: blood bursts from its nose and its eyes and its ears. She realizes, vaguely, that she might need one for information but she isn't there yet. She can't be rational.

Her baby is gone and she has to find her.

Comments

[bloodyanimal]

The whole bloody world had gone insane.

They were taking children. Women, men, and little babes right out of their bedrooms. He'd seen the aftermath, the sobbing family members left behind. The frightened helplessness in their eyes.

For now, he'd avoided the mountain, but he knew they wouldn't be able to justify such caution for much longer. By the time he saw Nina, with murder in her eyes and power crackling off of her like ozone, he'd made up his mind.

"Oi," he said, calling through a gust of wind. "What's happened, love?"

[every_blossom_blooming]

"They took Katya," she says with a viciousness that cuts through the air. Her hands are raised and it takes concerted effort to rein herself back in. It's Spike, not another wicked little kidnapper, and making his heart explode will get her nowhere.

Some nasty little thing appears with a spear; she reaches toward him, then clenches both fists as she yanks toward herself. Both of his femurs break with a sickening crack.

She will not be reduced to a sobbing, helpless mess. She's a soldier of the Second Army and she is going to get her daughter back.

[bookmaker_boss]

That the casino has stayed open, despite terror and more snow than Tommy has seen in his life, seems a curious sort of miracle to him. It gives him something to do, at least, which is both bane and boon.

It also means that he's on the street when it happens. He sees her in the distance, illuminated by hazy street light. There's no mistaking Nina Zenik. And though he couldn't make out what was happening, he'd seen enough death, up close and from a distance to know it. He can feel it, this cold chill that races through him, the seize in his heart.

He hurries through the snow, only half dug through, calling out to her as he goes.

[every_blossom_blooming]

She reacts without thinking. Even tough she can hear him calling, as she turns and locks her gaze on him, her hands move and she seizes the muscles in his legs. Then she gasps, coming back to herself enough to realize what she's done and to whom. Nina releases her grip and moves through the snow toward a somewhat crumpled Tommy Shelby.

"Sorry, I wasn't-- I didn't--" She wasn't thinking. She didn't see him. She isn't sure which is more accurate but it doesn't matter: she is better than this.

[bookmaker_boss]

He was in the snow before he really knew what happened, and for a moment, he thinks he slid out on ice. It affronted his sensibilities slightly. But then Nina is hurrying over, apologizing, and Tommy knows it wasn't ice at all.

She's told him, of course, that she was a soldier, that she can stop a man's heart or his breathing.

He looks up at her, still a bit dazed, as he pushes himself up from his drift. Not far away is the body of something that only looks vaguely humanoid in the way it's crumpled over itself. Tommy's seen enough death to know a dead body when he sees one.

[every_blossom_blooming]

"They have Katya."

It's all she can say. There's a cold rage in her that leaves her numb to her fingertips. She doesn't reach to help Tommy up. She can't. She can't think.

"They took her from the apartment--"

Nina forces herself to take a deep breath and she looks beyond Tommy. Her eyes narrow and she makes a sharp gesture with both hands; the sound of cracking bones and a brief, sharp scream fills the air as a body goes down.

[bookmaker_boss]

Tommy lets her have her moment, lets her react to something he can't see or hear out there in the snow. There is a visceral thing in him that responds to violence and death, a younger man that lived in him in these moments.

He got to his feet and didn't try to grab her. He wasn't sure putting hands on would result in anything other than her further rage, then directed at him. But he does come closer, quiet, present. He's got a gun in his holster. All she needs do is direct him on her war path, and he'll go with her.

"We'll find her," he promises.