Ashkelon
Establishing Nation
(Or.... How to include a lame reference to a James Bond title for no other reason than it sounded cool. This is an RP that will be including Lesser Sarmatia and Zarmaj in a little bit. But first, just a little internal-ness.)
Residence A, Unity Village, Lozinsk, Zalonarus
0441 Hours
The girl rose in bed to the sound of... something. She wasn't sure what it was, something between the scuttling of a rat and a chicken. But that simply added to the strangeness of the matter. For one, it wasn't natural to have such pests in her room. In fact to say that somehow, a pest had broken through the security of her home within the Unity Village, which was so secure that it didn't even allow such creatures inside, was an insult of an entirely different calibre.
She begrudgingly slipped out from beneath the comfortable sheets to find out what it was. Her feet touched fur carpet, cold from a winter night combined with the cooling effect of the air filter. It sent a chill running all the way to the top of her spine, but she successfully fought back the urge to shiver. She was above mere knee-jerk reactions, reactions that should be under her full control.
The girl walked over to the full length mirror on one side of the room - opposite from the windows, which presently had the curtains draped over them - and examined herself. Beneath the modest pajamas was the body of a blooming woman. The long brown hair, unkempt from a full night's worth of rolling around in bed, was but a short brushing session away from becoming a majestic mane. The groggy golden eyes only needed a quick shower to get rid of the last tentacles of sleep, and the fair little face was- "Hmm?"
A little white shape was quivering at the foot of her bed, clearly visible from the mirror. Finally understanding what had happened, and spotting the source of the until-just-now-mysterious noise, the girl sighed and decided to deal with the issue before it became worse. "Silly rabbit." She picked up the rabbit and cradled it in her left arm while keeping her right free to stroke it and draw the curtain away.
The little white rabbit didn't resist at all. Of course. Why would little Sasha resist? She had already taught him all there was to be taught about not resisting his master.
She looked through the reinforced glass. Outside, there was darkness. And smog. Smog that looked like a deathly version of the fog that tended to permeate the streets of Lunden. There was also a light snowfall, but that didn't really say much. Even the snow was dangerous in Lozinsk. In the distance, beyond the two story fence of her home, soldiers patrolled the snowy pre-dawn streets of the Unity Village, their eyepieces glowing like pairs of green will-o-wisps in the fog. Further beyond that loomed the massive structure that was the Unity Palace, a fortress unlike any other in the Republic.
The girl shut the curtain again and put the little white rabbit back in his cage - albeit an arguably luxurious and undoubtedly spacious one. Even so, the fact was not lost on her that it was still a cage. Even though it could probably count as a walk-in closet if one tried to use the equivalent space in that capacity.
Just like this place.
It was big. It was safe. It was packed with enough air filters, water processors, and aeroponic gardens to ensure a completely healthy living. But it was still a cage. Her schoolmates envied her for it. They didn't say so, but she knew that deep down inside, those other girls were jealous that she lived a stone's throw the heart of the Unity.
She had seen all the members of the Unity throughout her life. They came here more often now than when she was younger, for obvious reasons. Of course they never admitted to being part of the Unity, but she could tell. House guests, visitors, hah. The most pathetic guises of all. There was really no other reason why people would come to visit her father here than important matters. The really funny thing, though, was that the Unity's true faces were of people you least expected to be part of the Unity. They all dressed simply, they all appeared ordinary and nondescript. But the truth was, these were the most powerful men and women in the Republic.
She knew this very well, of course.
When you lived your life in such a position, it was impossible not to understand the meaning of power. She had dined with members of the Unity from time to time. She had even shared the same dinner table with the "Most Humble" Pravadir, who would never dare remove his gas mask, and instead ate his food through a tube. With the exception of the Pravadir, they seemed nothing at all like an enigmatic council of folk who ruled nations, and indeed, perhaps it was this un-intuitive aura that made concealing their identities so effective. But even with these thoughts on mind, there was the ever-present notion lurking in the back of her head, one that said that she could do a much better job running the country than the Unity. And she was proud of that notion.
The girl picked up an electronic device from the dresser and clipped it onto her wrist. The screen immediately came to life with a start-up sequence you could expect from any computer. She navigated through the touchscreen interface to enlarge the clock on the desktop, and studied the time. "A little earlier than usual."
And that was an interesting way for today to start. And perhaps it was a providential sign. A rabbit breaking out of a cage to awaken his master. Highly symbolic, if she could say so herself. Still, it was just an unusual start. The rest of the day had yet to happen, which in a way spoke for itself. If there really was a Man in the Sky like all the adults were talking about, He had a vendetta against her, a vendetta that damned her to a life where all is restricted, and nothing exciting is permissible.
And knowing her present schedule for today, it would most likely be just another day in this monotonous life she lived.
It would be just another day for Zinaida Stukova.
Residence A, Unity Village, Lozinsk, Zalonarus
0441 Hours
The girl rose in bed to the sound of... something. She wasn't sure what it was, something between the scuttling of a rat and a chicken. But that simply added to the strangeness of the matter. For one, it wasn't natural to have such pests in her room. In fact to say that somehow, a pest had broken through the security of her home within the Unity Village, which was so secure that it didn't even allow such creatures inside, was an insult of an entirely different calibre.
She begrudgingly slipped out from beneath the comfortable sheets to find out what it was. Her feet touched fur carpet, cold from a winter night combined with the cooling effect of the air filter. It sent a chill running all the way to the top of her spine, but she successfully fought back the urge to shiver. She was above mere knee-jerk reactions, reactions that should be under her full control.
The girl walked over to the full length mirror on one side of the room - opposite from the windows, which presently had the curtains draped over them - and examined herself. Beneath the modest pajamas was the body of a blooming woman. The long brown hair, unkempt from a full night's worth of rolling around in bed, was but a short brushing session away from becoming a majestic mane. The groggy golden eyes only needed a quick shower to get rid of the last tentacles of sleep, and the fair little face was- "Hmm?"
A little white shape was quivering at the foot of her bed, clearly visible from the mirror. Finally understanding what had happened, and spotting the source of the until-just-now-mysterious noise, the girl sighed and decided to deal with the issue before it became worse. "Silly rabbit." She picked up the rabbit and cradled it in her left arm while keeping her right free to stroke it and draw the curtain away.
The little white rabbit didn't resist at all. Of course. Why would little Sasha resist? She had already taught him all there was to be taught about not resisting his master.
She looked through the reinforced glass. Outside, there was darkness. And smog. Smog that looked like a deathly version of the fog that tended to permeate the streets of Lunden. There was also a light snowfall, but that didn't really say much. Even the snow was dangerous in Lozinsk. In the distance, beyond the two story fence of her home, soldiers patrolled the snowy pre-dawn streets of the Unity Village, their eyepieces glowing like pairs of green will-o-wisps in the fog. Further beyond that loomed the massive structure that was the Unity Palace, a fortress unlike any other in the Republic.
The girl shut the curtain again and put the little white rabbit back in his cage - albeit an arguably luxurious and undoubtedly spacious one. Even so, the fact was not lost on her that it was still a cage. Even though it could probably count as a walk-in closet if one tried to use the equivalent space in that capacity.
Just like this place.
It was big. It was safe. It was packed with enough air filters, water processors, and aeroponic gardens to ensure a completely healthy living. But it was still a cage. Her schoolmates envied her for it. They didn't say so, but she knew that deep down inside, those other girls were jealous that she lived a stone's throw the heart of the Unity.
She had seen all the members of the Unity throughout her life. They came here more often now than when she was younger, for obvious reasons. Of course they never admitted to being part of the Unity, but she could tell. House guests, visitors, hah. The most pathetic guises of all. There was really no other reason why people would come to visit her father here than important matters. The really funny thing, though, was that the Unity's true faces were of people you least expected to be part of the Unity. They all dressed simply, they all appeared ordinary and nondescript. But the truth was, these were the most powerful men and women in the Republic.
She knew this very well, of course.
When you lived your life in such a position, it was impossible not to understand the meaning of power. She had dined with members of the Unity from time to time. She had even shared the same dinner table with the "Most Humble" Pravadir, who would never dare remove his gas mask, and instead ate his food through a tube. With the exception of the Pravadir, they seemed nothing at all like an enigmatic council of folk who ruled nations, and indeed, perhaps it was this un-intuitive aura that made concealing their identities so effective. But even with these thoughts on mind, there was the ever-present notion lurking in the back of her head, one that said that she could do a much better job running the country than the Unity. And she was proud of that notion.
The girl picked up an electronic device from the dresser and clipped it onto her wrist. The screen immediately came to life with a start-up sequence you could expect from any computer. She navigated through the touchscreen interface to enlarge the clock on the desktop, and studied the time. "A little earlier than usual."
And that was an interesting way for today to start. And perhaps it was a providential sign. A rabbit breaking out of a cage to awaken his master. Highly symbolic, if she could say so herself. Still, it was just an unusual start. The rest of the day had yet to happen, which in a way spoke for itself. If there really was a Man in the Sky like all the adults were talking about, He had a vendetta against her, a vendetta that damned her to a life where all is restricted, and nothing exciting is permissible.
And knowing her present schedule for today, it would most likely be just another day in this monotonous life she lived.
It would be just another day for Zinaida Stukova.