|
Mei's studio apartment is meticulously neat, but part of that comes from the fact that Mei doesn't have much stuff. It's a studio apartment, but a reasonably sized one, and it looks like pretty much all of the furniture came from IKEA. What there is of it, anyway. There's a futon bed with a nightstand next to it, which has a clock and a couple of books. There's a small media center with a matchingly small TV and a soundbar. All the art on the walls seems to be photos of either her family, or dogs. Not the same dog, just various dogs.
Aside from that the notable things are that she has a little reading nook with significant bookshelves for such a small place, a comfortable chair, and a lamp. The little alcove that was probably meant to be a 'bedroom' for the studio is set up with a large tatami mat instead, with a kneeling-height shelf nearby, a yoga mat in the corner, and other things that make it look like it's a meditation area. There's also a jian in a scabbard sitting on top of the shelf.
Spread in an arc from the center point of the tatami mat, flowing off its edges and going up the walls, are photographs, hand written notes on post-its, and various other things, like they're set out so that as she's sitting there meditating, all of them are in view. It looks a little bit like something that might show up in the home of an obsessed detective in a movie.
Mei unlocks the door to that sight, pushes it open, and steps inside, where she starts taking off her shoes and leaving them by the door. "Here it is, in all its glory," she remarks with a little shrug.
With her fingers firmly knit into Vasha's so that she doesn't lose their grip on him, Fox follows his apprentice into the apartment, and then just... stops. There's a rather stunned look on the Thyrsus' face, and he blinks several times, other hand hanging on to the strap of her backpack. If she had sunglasses, she'd be pulling them down and looking over them. "... hunh."
"This looks like my apartment in Donetsk," Vasily remarks when he looks the place over, nodding his approval. "Very nice." Oh no. "Where do you hide the extra magazines and TOW rockets?" He begins walking about the floor, scuffing it with his track shoes, listening for the hollows. No one lives like this without a weapons cache under a rug. Come on. "I know a man. Emil is his name. He could blow up a troop carrier with a bottle of bleach, a car battery, and a stick of chewing gum." Ah, but enough about me. "Anyway. I like it." He eyes the dogs, though. Huh.
Mei seems to read every thought passing through Little Fox's head at that moment, and she purses her lips for a moment before her shoulders slump a little. When everyone is inside she closes the door, then winces when she sees Vasily walking around with his shoes. "Could you please both take your shoes off?" she asks, which is probably at least not much of an ask for Fox. Is Fox even wearing shoes? As she heads toward the kitchenette she says, "I'm working on a case that's been eluding me." As if that will explain everything. "Does anyone want something to drink? I've got water, cider, iced tea, a few hard liquor options. There is vodka, if those stereotypes are true?" she suggests to Vasily. "I generally don't do guns, though, so no magazines or TOW rockets."
Fox is not wearing shoes, which probably means she's tracking dirt everywhere. "I'm not upset with you," Fox says hurriedly, adding, "Exactly the opposite. I was really proud of how you showed up today at the meeting. I just -- have known people who have exhibited things like this and were not doing so great. But it does make sense that you had something that was eluding you before your Awakening and scratching at your brain." She sits down on the floor by the front door and absently brushes her feet off so she doesn't track more dirt inside. "Water would be lovely."
Vasily doesn't even blink at being asked to remove his shoes, they are simply stepped out of and situated near the door without complaint. Then he's wandering around the room slowly, examining the details, leaning in to squint at pictures, shamelessly picking up random curiosities to peer at them before setting them back almost precisely where he found them and wiping his fingers off on his shirt. Another glance up at the ceiling, then back to Mei. "You have many tethers to this room and these things. You have lived your life with intention. That is good. I am not surprise you opened your eyes." He then eyes the dogs again, hands folding up behind his back. "What do you do if not guns?"
Mei smiles when Fox tries to brush off her feet and asks, "do you want a wash cloth?" She doesn't seem to be implying it's necessary, but she's offering. She does pour a glass of water for Little Fox, and gets out a cider for herself. "I'm not going to try to tell you I was fine. That I am fine," she tells Little Fox. "I have--I had--a talent for getting into the heads of the people I was trying to find. Empathizing with them to the point where I started to think like them. Had dreams about being them. It made me good at what I did, but..." she shrugs and glances at the obsessive array of case notes and photos, leaves it at that, and then tells Vasha, "I started learning Kung Fu when I was four. Li Gar. Did you want a drink?"
"That would be nice! People tend to get upset when I shed my skin on their floor. Something about it being just as unhygenic as dirty feet." She chews on her lower lip, reaching her hand out for the water that she's offered and drinking half the glass in one go. Her head tips to the side, the way that marks her almost unmistakably as a curious fox. "That sounds like it was pretty disturbing to live through," she says quietly, looking up at Vasha as he compliments her apprentice in his own Slavic way.
"Oh, yes. Forgive me. Vodka, you said." Vasha adds a moment later with a chuckle, "What they say is true." The only items he seems to consider sacrosanct in here are those case notes and photos. He gestures to them indicatively and in question. A silent 'May I?' "I have talents like yours. Use them for many years in Saint Petersburg. First in Russian Army, then in FSB. If you enjoy this life, we should speak. You have many options now. To choose and pick. Decide life best for you." He proceeds to Slav squat right there, staring at the paperwork and holding his chin thoughtfully. "Have to work on your like for leaving paper, though."
Mei quietly heads back into the kitchen while listening to the others. In a studio, it's easy to hear people no matter where you go. She puts down her bottle, pulls a wash cloth out of a drawer, wets it, wrings it mostly out, and then tosses it to Fox. "Catch!" she calls. Then she pulls open the freezer, gets out a bottle of Stoli, and gets a glass out of a cupboard, both of which she brings to the tiny two-person table in the kitchenette and sets down. "Enjoy?" she says. "No. But I had skills, and I had people who would come to me for help, and I was able to help them. I feel obligated to the pursuit of justice, and do what I can in that pursuit." She looks at the notes and shrugs. "It's all in my head anyway. It just helps me to visualize and make connections when it's laid out in front of me."
She rolls up to her feet and wanders over to where Vasha is squatting, leaning down to kiss his forehead. As if reminding herself: yep, he's still here. No one has stolen him in the past fifteen seconds. "Do you actually enjoy the work you do, Vasha My Heart, or do you do it because you're good at it and it's necessary?" It's a genuine question, apparently, and she pets her fingers over the hair that he whines about thinning.
"Connections," Vasily responds quietly, "yes. I can see them, too." As though turning the pages of someone else's family bible, he carefully lifts a manila folder to peer at the contents of it, sliding it off the top and flopping it open in his lap. He looks it over, flipping page to page, then carefully closes it and sets it back on top of the pile, adjusting it just so to where he remembered it being. "The answer is both. At different times. When I am on the tail of a..." He finally settles with, "bad person? I feel good. It feels good to be smarter than someone. Better than someone. To know you are a rope looping slowly around their neck. That quick drop, that is not so fun. That is necessary. But the chase. The hunt?" Vasily rises back to his feet, claims his vodka, and takes a nip of it before saluting Mei with the glass. "That is when I am alive most. She knows it. I can tell." He points a finger at Mei. "Deny it. You can not."
Mei finally makes it back to her own drink, which she takes to the futon. There she sits, tilts takes a long sip, then tilts her head back so that she can look up at the ceiling and seems to visibly let some of the tension flow out of her. While Vasily is answering Fox's question she closes her eyes and breathes, slowly in through her nose, slowly out through her mouth.
When she's addressed she sits up again. She thinks about the statement, taking the time to give it real consideration. "I don't think that's what it's really like for me at all, actually. When I find the answers that my clients need I feel satisfaction, but it's not about me and my quarry at all, for me. It's about the people who hired me, especially for the cases that leave a lasting impact on me, and aren't just a chore that needs doing." She glances at Little Fox, hesitates, and then admits, "I know I fall into unhealthy patterns, too. I just feel like the alternative is accepting injustice, so I make the same choice every time."
The little Thyrsus pets her fingers over his hair still, as if she absolutely doesn't want to be out of contact with Vasha for a moment longer than necessary. And necessary is arguable. "I understand the hunt," Fox offers wryly, but there's something lingering in her voice. She doesn't understand that hunt, she just understands her own hunt.
"It makes sense," Fox answers her quietly. "If we have the choice to turn our back on injustice or to fix it, even if the cost is our own selves, then the choice is clear. The tribe is more than the one."
Vasily doesn't challenge Mei on her claim about her own motivations and feelings, and doesn't seem to react negatively at all to being told he was entirely mistaken. There's not even any dismissive ticking of the eyebrows or snide grin from him. Just a thoughtful tick of the head and a lengthy stare through those shitty sunglasses he's wearing.
"See. That is where we differ. I have no unhealthy habits." He tosses back the rest of his vodka, then plucks the cigarette from behind his ear and begins tapping it against the back of his hand. "Justice, I have found, is not so black and white as the Ladder would have you believe. Justice is a feeling that exists in the bellies of the oppressed and the hearts of rebels, striving to be free. But you will not find it in the oligarchs, in the officers, in the police. Burn the universe to ash and run it through a sieve. You won't find a speck of justice there. Justice is an ideal the strong use to bait the weak into obeying their rules. They appeal for justice. They cry for justice. But the state gets to decide what justice looks like, and who receives it. So I say fuck justice. Fuck the Exarchs. Fuck the Oligarchs. Fuck the Iron Pyramid. I don't want Justice. I want Arcadia."
Mei says to Little Fox, "צדק צדק תרדוף". Then she takes another drink. "Justice isn't a thing," she tells Vasily. "It's an act. If you burn the universe to ash you'll find no love among its leavings, either. It's no less real a thing for being unable to hold it in your hand, though. It exists when we make it so, but it's a thing of process, not one to be completed. I might not be able to finish the work, but I can't abandon it, either. What the Silver Ladder, the Exarchs, the Oligarchs, or anyone else claims justice is matters very little to me. Only what my own heart, my own reason, and my own conviction tell me it is."
"I see we've all read our Hogfather," Fox offers rather drily, continually petting over Vasily's hair and finally sitting down next to him. A little snort as he asserts he has no unhealthy habits, and promptly starts showing off those unhealthy habits. However, Vasily seems to be putting her apprentice through her paces, challenging her on what's important to her, and so Fox just smiles. It's a sharp, inhuman smile, if only literally so because her teeth flash all fox-sharp.
Here, Vasily begins to look vaguely frustrated. "Fucking Obrimos." Vasily rubs at his face with both of his hands, letting out a protracted and gusty sigh. He spends a moment or two rubbing at his eyes, returns the cigarette behind his ear, and adjusts his sunglasses. Then he steps towards Mei to look her more or less in the eye. A bit down. He's not much taller than her, really.
"You probably think that with your hands, and your mind, and your spirit you can will these things to be. That you can reach across the abyss and channel your God into the world and create a thing called Justice that you know. That is real. Your justice. A Justice you can taste. That angels will bow to your desires, that little heavenly choruses will march to the beat of your drum. Because you are special. Chosen special. To do special things with your special hands to all the special people in the reach of your Will."
Vasily then claps his hands on her upper arms, on either side of her shoulders. "That is because you can." Two more claps follow, and he backs away from her, fetching his cigarette from behind his ear again, "She would make a good agent. But I do not think she wants my life. I should go smoke."
Mei listens, but she answers the word and the claps on her arms with a soft, wry laughter. "I don't think nearly that highly of myself," she answers him. "If I manage to move the world one step closer to being a just one before I die, then I'll consider it work well done. Then I'll focus on the next step. Maybe with a nap in between." She finishes off her cider and heads for the kitchen with the bottle. "Are you done with this vodka for now? I'll put the bottle back in the freezer if you are."
|