Smoking With the Boys

Life, Identity

Evelyn meets Leonid, learns about thiramin and smokes on the balcony with Dmitri, Ivan and Nikolai.

Evelyn walked through the library, perusing the shelves of books and trying to distract herself from her boredom and longing heart. She noticed one of the scribes working at one of the tables and did a double take to make sure it wasn't Fenneck with his bright white head of hair. Her damn heart wasn't letting the idea of him go. He looked up and she still felt like he looked like Fenneck somehow. She picked one of the books in Sylvan and walked over to him. He looked up in surprise and fear, realizing she was there. "Your highness," he said as he bowed his head toward her over his book. "Can... can I help you?" Evelyn smiled at his familiar voice. "Hi...?" she raised her brow to him to see what to call him. He cleared his throat. "Frostears, Leonid Frostears," he answered her. Evelyn suddenly realized she wasn't even sure what Fenneck's surname was. Naertho's was Krashnikov, but Fenneck had said his mother was Naertho's sister so he'd have a different last name. "I was uh... wondering if you could tell me what this word is in Sylvan, for some reason I can't think of the meaning," she said, showing him a random word on a random page. He looked over at the word and smiled. "That's, uh, the Sylvan equivalent of thiramin," he told her. "It's pronounced tir-a-myu-hi-uhn," he explained. Evelyn squinted in confusion. "Thiramin?" she asked him, not actually recognizing the Elvish version of the word. He looked down suddenly as if he said something he wasn't supposed to. "It's uh... it's a fairytale-thing," he told her. "It's not real, though." Evelyn looked back down at the book and back at him in confusion. "Everything else in this book is real," she told him. "What... what is the story behind it?" she asked him, genuinely curious now. He shrugged and swallowed nervously. "It's uh... soulmates... essentially. The idea is that when two elves meet they know they're soulmates when they see each other and that their lives are destined to be intertwined. It's normally used in the context of romantic relationships," he explained. She smiled thoughtfully at the idea. "That's so... nice," she mused. He nodded in agreement. "Indeed. Is that all you need, your highness?" he asked her. She smiled at him. "Forgive me for asking but you... you look like the young tailor in Naertho's shop," she told him. "I was just wondering if you were related." He smiled thoughtfully at her. "We are, actually. Fenneck is my son," he explained. She smiled. "Well you should be very proud, he designed a lovely gown for me for the ball the other night. He's quite talented." He beamed with pride at this. "He is, isn't he?" he asked in agreement, clearly proud of his son. "I uh, I'm glad you liked your gown. He was very excited that Naertho was letting him design it," he told her. She smiled at him when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder and she jumped and turned to see Ivan looking at her in confusion. "Is this elf bothering you, your highness?" he asked her, clearly trying to come to her rescue. "No, marshal," she told him before jutting her shoulder away from him. "I was asking him a question about a book if you feel you must know." Ivan gave Leonid a suspicious look and Evelyn knew she'd overstayed their conversation. "Well, thank you, Leonid," she told him with a polite nod. He smiled and nodded back to her. "Of course, your highness," he told her politely before turning back to his books. "Come promenade with me," Ivan whispered into Evelyn's ear. She sighed in defeat and took his arm, tucking the Sylvan book under hers as they left the library. He led her up to the balcony and Evelyn sighed with relief seeing Dmitri there, smoking a pipe. "Sup, your highness?" he asked as they joined him. "Ivan," he greeted him informally. Ivan finally let go of Evelyn's arm and let her lean against the railing next to Dmitri. "I caught the princess here flirting with one of the scribes in the library," he told Dmitri, causing Evelyn to roll her eyes in annoyance at him. "I was not flirting with him!" she argued. Dmitri chuckled. "Want me to break his skull in for you?" he teased Evelyn. "Who's breaking skulls? Cause I want in!" Evelyn turned to see her brother joining them. "Ugh, why is she here?" he complained when he saw Evelyn. She rolled her eyes and stole Dmitri's pipe and started smoking. "My question exactly!" she said, scowling at Ivan who rolled his eyes at her. "Ev has a crush on a scribe," Dmitri told him. Nikolai gagged in disgust. "You can do better than a simpleton scribe, sis. Why don't you marry Antov? I heard he turned Jasna down." She sighed in annoyance. "He's mean," she said, trying to avoid their eyes. Nikolai shrugged. "Yeah, but you could live in Krasnoye and he'd never fucking be there cause he's always working," he pointed out. "Krasnoye is so creepy, though," she argued. "And cold." Ivan shrugged. "I don't hate it there," he told them. "But I suppose it could be better." Dmitri stole back his pipe. "You should really get your own at this point," he scolded Evelyn. "Father will kill you if he finds out you've been smoking," Nikolai told her disapprovingly. She rolled her eyes. "Will he really?" she asked him hopefully as she pulled the pipe back from Dmitri and took a long smoke. Nikolai shook his head disapprovingly at her. "She should come to the brandy room with us sometime," Dmitri suggested. "Only if I'm allowed to partake in the gambling and whores like the rest of you," she told him, prompting him to smile at her snarky attitude. "I'd watch that," Dmitri played along. "That's my sister!" Nikolai told him, defensively balling his fist. "Fuck off, Niko," she told him. "I can defend myself. Besides, he's more than welcome to watch me make love to some pretty women," she said, batting her eyes playfully at Dmitri to piss her brother off even more. Ivan smirked at them. "You couldn't handle a brandy," he told Evelyn. "And poker is way too complicated for women to understand." She glared at him. "I really doubt that," she told him with a defiant look. "I'd venture to bet the only reason you don't let women play is because they'd always beat you at your silly games." He glared at her and Dmitri smiled at her sass. "I think we should let her play," he suggested. "Could be fun to see her run Ivan through the mud." She smiled and batted her eyes at Ivan. "If you'd prefer a game that actually takes wits we could play a game of dragonchess to settle this unruly debate," she suggested challengingly. He scoffed at her. "I wouldn't dare to offend a princess by humiliating her in such a way," he told her. She smiled and rolled her eyes and leaned into Dmitri's arms to warm herself from the cold air. Dmitri wrapped an arm around her and passed her his pipe to smoke. "You shouldn't cuddle with a married man," Nikolai scolded her. "Oh?" she said, feigning surprise. "I had no idea," she said mockingly before taking a long drag on the pipe. "Come on Niko, fuck off," she said in annoyance. "We're just friends," she assured him. "Yeah," Dmitri agreed. "We're smoking buddies. We keep each other's deepest darkest secrets and then we don't speak for weeks on end. Friends." Evelyn elbowed him playfully and he kissed her forehead, prompting Nikolai to glare at them in annoyance. "Come on, Niko," Dmitri told him. "Lighten up. Have a smoke," he said, offering him the pipe. Nikolai rolled his eyes but took the pipe and took a couple long drags on it. "I have a question for you guys," Evelyn said. "Shoot," Dmitri said. "Have you guys heard of thiramin?" she asked them. Ivan cocked his head and gave Nikolai a cautious look at this topic. Dmitri shrugged. "It's some fairytale, right?" he asked. She shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I hadn't heard about it until today," she told them. Nikolai looked over at her and pursed his lips. "It's some soulmate fairytale. Supposedly you meet someone and fall instantly in love with them," he explained. Ivan seemed intrigued by this. "This is an elvish thing?" he asked her. She shrugged. "I think so," she said. "I read about it in this Sylvan book," she explained, holding the book up for them to see. "See, this is why we shouldn't let women read," Nikolai said in annoyance. "Come on, Ivan, I want to hear about what happened last night, not this girly romantic bullshit." "No," Dmitri scolded them. "We aren't talking about that in front of her," he told them decisively. "Tell me about what?!" she asked, intrigued by their secretiveness. "She's been trying to prove her manliness all night, if she thinks she can stomach it, why not let her hear it?" Ivan asked Dmitri, who shrugged uncomfortably. Evelyn looked at Ivan expectantly. He smiled and turned to Nikolai. "So we've been trying to get some leads on a group in the city that's supposedly trying to organize a coup. We were able to get one halfling who's associated with it and Dmitri and I brought him in to the prison and... well, we got some information from him," he said mischievously and Evelyn knew where the story was going, especially when she felt Dmitri squeeze her shoulder as Ivan continued. "So we put him in the stretcher. Unfortunately he died before we got any useful information from him. I'm here to see if the other halfling we hired for the job does what we told him to do, otherwise he'll get thrown in the stretcher as well." "The stretcher?" Evelyn asked, prompting Dmitri to let out a disapproving sigh. Ivan smiled. "It's exactly what it sounds like," he told her with a devious look in his eyes. "We use it on halflings mostly, trying to give them a taste of what it feels like to be a normal size before they die. It's at least one thing they can mark off their bucket list," he told her. She looked down uncomfortably as she imagined such a device. "You should have seen the half-elf Dmitri and I had to interrogate a few weeks ago in Rybaslav," Ivan said. "I had to break each of his fingers before he confessed to the rape of a poor peasant woman. You should have heard his blood-curdling screams." Dmitri shook his head at Ivan to get him to stop, as Evelyn seemed to retreat away from him. Ivan ignored him. "I ended up choking him to death with my knee against his pathetic head for what he did. Took nearly ten whole minutes for him to die," he said in annoyance. "Look, they're criminals," Dmitri said, trying to comfort Evelyn. "They deserve what's coming to them." "I thought you were soldiers?" she asked them. "We... are," Dmitri said. "We just... specialize in certain... military tactics." "You mean torture?" she asked them bluntly. Nikolai scowled at her. "See, this is why we don't talk about this shit in front of women," he said in annoyance. "They get their widdle feewings hurt!" he said mockingly, prompting Evelyn to glare at him. "My feelings are perfectly intact!" she said. "I just don't think there's ever a reason to be cruel," she told him. He squinted at her. "You know what would happen if this group succeeded with their coup?" he asked her, growing serious. "They'd come in here and murder myself and father before raping you and our mother and Jasna and tossing you around like a whore until you bleed out from the cock of a giant half-orc," he told her threateningly. "You really think they don't deserve what they have coming to them?" he asked her with a raised brow. Dmitri rubbed her shoulders comfortingly. "We're just trying to protect you," he told her gently. "There's lots of cruel, evil people in the world." "So yeah," Nikolai continued. "We stretch their limbs out till they break because if we don't find out how to stop them they'll grow up underneath us and overthrow the throne, throwing the entire country into chaos," he explained. Evelyn was quiet and she nodded understandingly.   "I'll walk you to your room," Dmitri said, leaning up off the railing and pulling Evelyn away. She walked with him in silence until they made it to her door. "You okay?" he asked her. She nodded. "Yeah," she told him, still considering their conversation. Dmitri sighed at her. "It's gonna be okay," he assured her. "Sorry Ivan dragged you into that. You shouldn't have to hear about that stuff." "Because I'm a woman?" she asked him in annoyance. He looked her deep in the eyes and shook his head slowly. "No," he told her. "Because frankly, no one should. Being in the KAV... I've seen and done a lot of shit, Ev. It sucks, to put it lightly. I relive it every goddamn night. The thing is, we have to protect our country and you and the good, lawful citizens here. We aren't the bad guys," he told her sadly. "I know," she said. "I just... it's just upsetting to think about," she told him. He nodded. "So how's your little affair going?" he asked her, changing the subject. "It's not the scribe, is it?" She shook her head at him. "No," she told him. "I... I don't think I'll see him again. I don't want him to get hurt." He nodded understandingly. "Well, I'm sorry," he told her. "You seemed really happy and rosy that night when he was through with you." She gave him a sad smile. "I guess you'll have to introduce me to some whores," she said teasingly. He smiled mischieviously at her. "Absolutely not," he said before walking away from her door. Evelyn sighed and walked into her room and started reading about the fairytale that was thiramin, except it wasn't talked about like a fairytale. It seemed to be a real thing and the more she read the more Fenneck creeped into her mind and she wondered if there was a reason she felt so enamored with him.