Post by LUDMILA ILYUKHIN on May 28, 2011 23:35:59 GMT 1
Ludmila was not the kind of person who showed weakness easily. She tended to keep to herself, seldom expressing her feelings to others. Every day, Ludmila was like an unbreakable figure of severity, and infallible example of efficiency and strength. She inspired fear or respect in most agents, while others considered her distastefully as a quasi-robot and a ruthless killer. However, beneath the ice cold surface she kept, Ludmila was a storm of emotions. True, heartfelt emotions were still a new thing for her, and she often had trouble keeping control over some of her more violent lapses.
Many did not understand that, since they took such things for granted, while others didn't think Ludmila was even capable of emotion. However, the Rusalka was quite capable of feeling sorrow, anger and joy. With the death of her beloved father, she had been having more and more lapses during which she would simply break down and cry, assailed by the pain and grief she felt at the loss of such an important man in her life, as well as all the other terrible memories she kept in her mind.
That night, she'd been drinking again, and had had a fight with Anastasia who had called her a "lying bitch". She'd left her quarters and had gone wandering around the Bureau's headquarters, passing random agents, exchanging heartless greetings with bureaucrats and other pen pushers. In the end, she'd gone back to the surface, at the back of the ugly, bleak building that the B.P.R.D. used to house its headquarters. It was night time, and the moon was full if slightly obscured by clouds. Ludmila was alone. She sat down on a grubby old bench and watched the Moon for a while. She was taking deep breaths, as she struggled with the emotions boiling inside her. The alcohol and the argument had revived old pains and re-opened old wounds, and the Rusalka knew that she couldn't keep the gates she'd built to protect herself closed for much longer.
When the outburst came, it was violent, almost frightening. Ludmila slowly bent over herself and a long, keening wail escaped her lungs, an almost animal cry of sorrow, anger and pain. The cry died out, and she stood abruptly. Her cold features became contorted with sudden anger, and her hand seized her comb, tearing it out of her blonde hair and casting to the damp ground.
"FUCK!", she yelled. "EVERYTHING I'VE EVER DONE IS WRONG!"
She tore at her hair briefly, and one of her hands clawed her pale face, now that of a Rusalka's. The pale moonlight high-lighted how ghostly she looked, making Ludmila look even more distraught and frightening. Finally, she dropped to her knees and wept, punctuating her sobs with long and broken cries of sadness.
So many centuries of oppression and pain. Shunned by her own kind, imprisoned by the man she'd given her old life up for, shown like a circus animal. She remembered the children she'd been forced to kill at Camp 117, and she remembered the men who had died by her side in the many wars she'd been involved in. Her mind was filled with images of death, despair and failure. She had nothing left, nothing. She was a tool now. Maybe the Elven dreamwalkers she'd met so long ago had been right. A Rusalka could not be free, and one could not defy the order of things. Ludmila had fought to stay free for so long, emulating humanity as best as she could to appear human. She'd fought for a human cause she'd believed in so passionately that she'd closed her eyes on the atrocities her "comrades" and herself had committed in its name, and now the cause she'd given so many years of her pathetic life for was gone. Dead. She had no goal left in life.
Suddenly she stood up, remembering the arrogance and disdain the Elves had expressed when she came to them for help. White hot, boiling anger raged within her like a magma avalanche, exploding into physical violence. Her fist shot out, and she punched the decrepit concrete wall that stood behind the bench. The pain shot through her flesh and bones like a whiplash. Clarity, solidity. She slowly fell to the ground again, weeping and nursing her injured fist. She hated what she had become, and she hated the world. She had thought the world was a wonderful place when she was younger, but war had taken her innocence away, scarring her mind and heart forever. At night she still had nightmares about the wars she'd been in and the horrors she'd witnessed as a paranormal investigator in the Soviet Union. She could never find peace. She always struggled upstream, and the world always spat in her face.
Ludmila sobbed quietly, slowly banging her head against the wall. An owl hooted in a tree nearby, and a soft breeze whispered over the darkened yard. The Rusalka closed her eyes and tried to blank out all thought.
But all she saw was death.
Many did not understand that, since they took such things for granted, while others didn't think Ludmila was even capable of emotion. However, the Rusalka was quite capable of feeling sorrow, anger and joy. With the death of her beloved father, she had been having more and more lapses during which she would simply break down and cry, assailed by the pain and grief she felt at the loss of such an important man in her life, as well as all the other terrible memories she kept in her mind.
That night, she'd been drinking again, and had had a fight with Anastasia who had called her a "lying bitch". She'd left her quarters and had gone wandering around the Bureau's headquarters, passing random agents, exchanging heartless greetings with bureaucrats and other pen pushers. In the end, she'd gone back to the surface, at the back of the ugly, bleak building that the B.P.R.D. used to house its headquarters. It was night time, and the moon was full if slightly obscured by clouds. Ludmila was alone. She sat down on a grubby old bench and watched the Moon for a while. She was taking deep breaths, as she struggled with the emotions boiling inside her. The alcohol and the argument had revived old pains and re-opened old wounds, and the Rusalka knew that she couldn't keep the gates she'd built to protect herself closed for much longer.
When the outburst came, it was violent, almost frightening. Ludmila slowly bent over herself and a long, keening wail escaped her lungs, an almost animal cry of sorrow, anger and pain. The cry died out, and she stood abruptly. Her cold features became contorted with sudden anger, and her hand seized her comb, tearing it out of her blonde hair and casting to the damp ground.
"FUCK!", she yelled. "EVERYTHING I'VE EVER DONE IS WRONG!"
She tore at her hair briefly, and one of her hands clawed her pale face, now that of a Rusalka's. The pale moonlight high-lighted how ghostly she looked, making Ludmila look even more distraught and frightening. Finally, she dropped to her knees and wept, punctuating her sobs with long and broken cries of sadness.
So many centuries of oppression and pain. Shunned by her own kind, imprisoned by the man she'd given her old life up for, shown like a circus animal. She remembered the children she'd been forced to kill at Camp 117, and she remembered the men who had died by her side in the many wars she'd been involved in. Her mind was filled with images of death, despair and failure. She had nothing left, nothing. She was a tool now. Maybe the Elven dreamwalkers she'd met so long ago had been right. A Rusalka could not be free, and one could not defy the order of things. Ludmila had fought to stay free for so long, emulating humanity as best as she could to appear human. She'd fought for a human cause she'd believed in so passionately that she'd closed her eyes on the atrocities her "comrades" and herself had committed in its name, and now the cause she'd given so many years of her pathetic life for was gone. Dead. She had no goal left in life.
Suddenly she stood up, remembering the arrogance and disdain the Elves had expressed when she came to them for help. White hot, boiling anger raged within her like a magma avalanche, exploding into physical violence. Her fist shot out, and she punched the decrepit concrete wall that stood behind the bench. The pain shot through her flesh and bones like a whiplash. Clarity, solidity. She slowly fell to the ground again, weeping and nursing her injured fist. She hated what she had become, and she hated the world. She had thought the world was a wonderful place when she was younger, but war had taken her innocence away, scarring her mind and heart forever. At night she still had nightmares about the wars she'd been in and the horrors she'd witnessed as a paranormal investigator in the Soviet Union. She could never find peace. She always struggled upstream, and the world always spat in her face.
Ludmila sobbed quietly, slowly banging her head against the wall. An owl hooted in a tree nearby, and a soft breeze whispered over the darkened yard. The Rusalka closed her eyes and tried to blank out all thought.
But all she saw was death.
