Largely within his unit, because outside of it, he's a ghost story. Most of the other khergud are fellow Shu, drafted as promising candidates from their own military, but this one had been captured from the border years ago — a trophy, an experiment, a conquest, a way to carve up the enemy without risking their own men, and then mould him into a weapon to turn against Ravka itself. There was a certain poetic irony to it, his handlers thought. Most didn't survive the procedure anyhow.
But the Soldier had undergone the Iron Heart programme and come out alive, hollow-eyed, Grisha steel fused to his bones and mechanical wings flexing at his back. His entire left arm is reinforced metal, the hand powerful enough to choke the life out of someone. Whenever he's deployed in the field, the difference is noticeable, his blue Ravkan eyes making him stand out from the other khergud; the other clockwork men, other automatons all bending their focus towards hunting Grisha. Capturing Grisha. Hauling them back to Shu Han for dissection and analysis, these specimens of the Second Army.
And the prize jewel of them all is Nazyalensky.
Sankta Zoya of the Storm. Saint Zoya of the Lightning. General Nazyalensky, right-hand woman of Ravka, the storm witch. They've been trying to capture her for ages, with the occasional flying attack straight to the heart of the city. International tensions have been boiling over, with Ravka still weakened from its civil war and fielding both Fjerda to the north and Shu Han to the south, nipping at their heels and their exposed flank. Nikolai is spinning his politics and trying to buy more time and craft an alliance, but in the meantime, there are near-constant border skirmishes.
And today, his general is attending to one of those border outposts and visiting the embedded troop, when one of the scouts spots a winged shadow in the skies.
No. Five. There's five of them, drawing closer and circling ominously like hungry vultures, before there's a sudden sharp movement and they start to plummet out of the sky, headed straight for the Grisha soldiers — and one of them is beelining straight for the storm witch like she's been marked out of the sky, like he's caught her scent and now he won't ever stop.
Zoya is tired. That’s the first thing she feels every new dawn that finds her. It’s more than a lack of sleep, though. This is the kind of tired that burrows down into your bones and tries to find its way into the weariest bits of a person’s soul.
That fatigue is there as she arrives at the outpost. It’s there as she listens to all the things the troops have to say. She has never let the weariness in her bones stop her, of course. Zoya is nothing if not unwaveringly resilient.
These tensions with Shu Han and Fjerda are growing worse with each passing day. Nikolai is doing his best, she knows this, but it isn’t enough. Is anything, ever? War has ravaged her country for longer than she’s been alive and sometimes it seems that it will never know anything else.
Her gaze lifts as the scout points out the first shadow in the sky. And then there’s another. And another. Five of them. There’s movement, not just in the skies as the twisted, metallic soldiers head straight toward them but all around her as her soldiers shout commands and take up positions.
A crowd of them try to circle her, an effort to protect their General, but Zoya is no damsel. She steps ahead of them and lifts her arms in a sharp arc, and though it’s typically barred from being used for its unpredictable nature, she summons a sharp shock of lightning to hurl toward the winged soldier headed toward her.
Another khergud swoops into the path of that lightning at the last moment; the electricity hits those metal wings, those metal limbs and implants and prosthetics, and the monster tumbles out of the sky like he's been swatted. Lightning. A weakness. The first Soldier banks out of the way, circling, re-assessing.
A few other Grisha step in, a pair of Inferni mustering up flames and throwing fireballs at the winged troop to try to ward them off. The khergud could swoop down and try to kidnap those Inferni, but they—
Well, they just don't seem interested. As if there's only one piece of prey which truly matters here. One of them plummets and collides with one of the Inferni, but it's just to pin them to the ground, get their magic out of the way, a distraction while the Soldier keeps trying for the prize.
The Soldier dives.
There's another jolt of lightning from Zoya's fingertips and he tries to duck it again, but it hits this time; it lights up his wings and temporarily paralyses them so he hits the ground, metal claws scraping at the stone of the border wall beneath their feet, but now it just means he's on the ground and still scrabbling toward her. Dogged persistence, unwavering.
Zoya is nothing if not resilient, but there is no hiding the shock on her face as the khergud soldier just. keeps.going. The one before him was immobilized almost instantly, all that metal just didn't mix right with lightning, but this one doesn't let that stop him.
Suddenly, Zoya feels a lot worse about this encounter. The Grisha at her side make their own attacks and she sends a gust of wind rushing toward him, enough to nearly be gale-force, but it's only a stall and she knows it. Something to give her time to think.
More lightning? But it took so much energy to call it, unlike the wind that was easy as breathing after all these years. But one of these had more power to it, and she refused to be so easily rattled by a single soldier. She focuses only on him, and tries again, another bolt of lighting sent toward that metal-clad man.
The lightning hits again, and he’s evidently been biologically fabricated with so much metal: she can catch a glimpse of it as it lights him up, that ethereal blue-white outlining the Soldier’s augmented skeleton. His jaw clamps down on the pain, muscles gone rigid, biting down on his tongue so hard he draws blood.
But pain is an old friend. They’ve trained him with it long enough, over and over.
So it only stalls him for a moment. While the others battle around them, he reaches out and catches the fabric of the general’s kefta with an iron hand which seems more like a claw; it digs into the heavy material as he clutches her her tight to his chest, and then with a sharp lurch and a flex of those wings, he simply leaps off the edge of the wall and into open air, a raptor dragging away its prey like a hare caught in its talons.
And they’re flying away, while he leaves the rest of his men behind to die.
She could still fight, could still struggle, but each beat of those wings carries them higher — high enough that even a squaller who can buoy herself with wind and slow down the rate of her descent, well, she’d probably still wind up splattered all over the landscape below. When Zoya thrashes one more time, there’s finally the first sign of some sort of humanity in the khergud, a raspy voice which calls down:
Whatever Zoya had expected, this wasn't it. She lets out a surprised yelp when he scoops her up, damn near effortlessly. And then they were flying. Legitimately flying like a damn bird.
This is nothing like when she temporarily suspends herself with wind, it's- it's terrifying. Most notably because she is not the one in control of what's happening. Despite everything in her that says she should fight, she can't. She's paralyzed by the thought that he could drop her, that she might fall too fast to stop herself.
"That was incredibly stupid," she bites each word out of her mouth like it pains her to do so.
The silence drags on too long — the Soldier is not a good conversationalist, he wasn’t trained to be — until it seems like he won’t respond, or perhaps if he does say something, then the wind will tear it away unheard.
But then there’s a shift; his grip slipping slightly before he readjusts, hefting her a little higher and held more secure against him so she won’t slide out of his grasp. For safety, more than anything else. The steady beat of his wings continues carrying them through the air in the meantime: south across the border, towards Shu Han and the waiting installations he came from.
“Why?” the khergud asks. “The mission was successful.”
She was the mission. None of the others had mattered, either on her side or on his.
Unwittingly, a gasp escapes at that shift in his grip— it was a short, fleeting second of feeling weightless in the worst way. She feels the too-solid wall of his chest against her back, and all she can hear is the sound of those wings carrying them across the skies. It’s uncanny how far he can take them, and how quickly.
“Because,” she bites out again, “they’ll be coming for me,” but it strikes her even as the words come out of her mouth. “But your masters are hoping for it, aren’t they?” The word is chosen specifically, with purpose to gauge just how deep the conditioning might dig. He does realize he’s only a body to them, doesn’t he? A tool to be used, and discarded as soon as they find a better one in the box.
There’s a pause. It’s hard to tell if the barb landed or if it managed to hit on any wounded pride, because his voice remains just as blank and toneless when he responds: “Above my paygrade,” he says. “You were the mission.”
As far as he was concerned, he was a well-trained hunting hound. He was returning home with this prize in his jaws, just as instructed. Whatever they decided to do with her afterwards was irrelevant. If they needed the Soldier’s services again after that point, they would tell him. They are his masters, and he has no particular opinion on it.
In short: the conditioning ran deep.
But he does add after a moment: “Don’t try to fall and kill yourself. They’ll just capture more of you.”
Sankta Zoya of the Storm was the crown jewel, the prized general, Lantsov’s favourite right-hand Grisha— but Shu Han would certainly content themselves with her death, and then simply turn to other kidnappings if she de-clawed Ravka by removing herself from the board. Suicide was beneath her.
“Is that all you care about?” she asks, words sharp as a knife’s edge, though she is certain none of it matters to him. I’m all likelihood, he doesn’t care at all, about anything. Not now. Not in any way he might have at some point in the past.
She doesn’t dignify the second part with a response. She’s not stupid. There are far too many ways it could go wrong if she tried to get out of his grasp. For the time being, she’s… a bit stuck. She’d rather take her chances once they’re on the ground again instead. The odds feel better, even if that’s just what she has to tell herself to her through every next minute that passes by.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
@kingperfect
Date: 2022-01-21 07:43 pm (UTC)I think he would only agree with you there when he's expecting things to explode.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-22 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-22 08:34 pm (UTC)You know. Once he's over the little strop he's throwing at you right now.
[Because he will get over it, eventually. He always does.]
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 07:16 pm (UTC)the general & the khergud.
Date: 2022-06-15 09:43 am (UTC)Largely within his unit, because outside of it, he's a ghost story. Most of the other khergud are fellow Shu, drafted as promising candidates from their own military, but this one had been captured from the border years ago — a trophy, an experiment, a conquest, a way to carve up the enemy without risking their own men, and then mould him into a weapon to turn against Ravka itself. There was a certain poetic irony to it, his handlers thought. Most didn't survive the procedure anyhow.
But the Soldier had undergone the Iron Heart programme and come out alive, hollow-eyed, Grisha steel fused to his bones and mechanical wings flexing at his back. His entire left arm is reinforced metal, the hand powerful enough to choke the life out of someone. Whenever he's deployed in the field, the difference is noticeable, his blue Ravkan eyes making him stand out from the other khergud; the other clockwork men, other automatons all bending their focus towards hunting Grisha. Capturing Grisha. Hauling them back to Shu Han for dissection and analysis, these specimens of the Second Army.
And the prize jewel of them all is Nazyalensky.
Sankta Zoya of the Storm. Saint Zoya of the Lightning. General Nazyalensky, right-hand woman of Ravka, the storm witch. They've been trying to capture her for ages, with the occasional flying attack straight to the heart of the city. International tensions have been boiling over, with Ravka still weakened from its civil war and fielding both Fjerda to the north and Shu Han to the south, nipping at their heels and their exposed flank. Nikolai is spinning his politics and trying to buy more time and craft an alliance, but in the meantime, there are near-constant border skirmishes.
And today, his general is attending to one of those border outposts and visiting the embedded troop, when one of the scouts spots a winged shadow in the skies.
No. Five. There's five of them, drawing closer and circling ominously like hungry vultures, before there's a sudden sharp movement and they start to plummet out of the sky, headed straight for the Grisha soldiers — and one of them is beelining straight for the storm witch like she's been marked out of the sky, like he's caught her scent and now he won't ever stop.
Khergud.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-16 01:18 am (UTC)That fatigue is there as she arrives at the outpost. It’s there as she listens to all the things the troops have to say. She has never let the weariness in her bones stop her, of course. Zoya is nothing if not unwaveringly resilient.
These tensions with Shu Han and Fjerda are growing worse with each passing day. Nikolai is doing his best, she knows this, but it isn’t enough. Is anything, ever? War has ravaged her country for longer than she’s been alive and sometimes it seems that it will never know anything else.
Her gaze lifts as the scout points out the first shadow in the sky. And then there’s another. And another. Five of them. There’s movement, not just in the skies as the twisted, metallic soldiers head straight toward them but all around her as her soldiers shout commands and take up positions.
A crowd of them try to circle her, an effort to protect their General, but Zoya is no damsel. She steps ahead of them and lifts her arms in a sharp arc, and though it’s typically barred from being used for its unpredictable nature, she summons a sharp shock of lightning to hurl toward the winged soldier headed toward her.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-19 09:07 pm (UTC)A few other Grisha step in, a pair of Inferni mustering up flames and throwing fireballs at the winged troop to try to ward them off. The khergud could swoop down and try to kidnap those Inferni, but they—
Well, they just don't seem interested. As if there's only one piece of prey which truly matters here. One of them plummets and collides with one of the Inferni, but it's just to pin them to the ground, get their magic out of the way, a distraction while the Soldier keeps trying for the prize.
The Soldier dives.
There's another jolt of lightning from Zoya's fingertips and he tries to duck it again, but it hits this time; it lights up his wings and temporarily paralyses them so he hits the ground, metal claws scraping at the stone of the border wall beneath their feet, but now it just means he's on the ground and still scrabbling toward her. Dogged persistence, unwavering.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-29 08:58 pm (UTC)Suddenly, Zoya feels a lot worse about this encounter. The Grisha at her side make their own attacks and she sends a gust of wind rushing toward him, enough to nearly be gale-force, but it's only a stall and she knows it. Something to give her time to think.
More lightning? But it took so much energy to call it, unlike the wind that was easy as breathing after all these years. But one of these had more power to it, and she refused to be so easily rattled by a single soldier. She focuses only on him, and tries again, another bolt of lighting sent toward that metal-clad man.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-20 07:57 pm (UTC)But pain is an old friend. They’ve trained him with it long enough, over and over.
So it only stalls him for a moment. While the others battle around them, he reaches out and catches the fabric of the general’s kefta with an iron hand which seems more like a claw; it digs into the heavy material as he clutches her her tight to his chest, and then with a sharp lurch and a flex of those wings, he simply leaps off the edge of the wall and into open air, a raptor dragging away its prey like a hare caught in its talons.
And they’re flying away, while he leaves the rest of his men behind to die.
She could still fight, could still struggle, but each beat of those wings carries them higher — high enough that even a squaller who can buoy herself with wind and slow down the rate of her descent, well, she’d probably still wind up splattered all over the landscape below. When Zoya thrashes one more time, there’s finally the first sign of some sort of humanity in the khergud, a raspy voice which calls down:
“Don’t.”
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 11:03 pm (UTC)This is nothing like when she temporarily suspends herself with wind, it's- it's terrifying. Most notably because she is not the one in control of what's happening. Despite everything in her that says she should fight, she can't. She's paralyzed by the thought that he could drop her, that she might fall too fast to stop herself.
"That was incredibly stupid," she bites each word out of her mouth like it pains her to do so.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-27 09:10 pm (UTC)But then there’s a shift; his grip slipping slightly before he readjusts, hefting her a little higher and held more secure against him so she won’t slide out of his grasp. For safety, more than anything else. The steady beat of his wings continues carrying them through the air in the meantime: south across the border, towards Shu Han and the waiting installations he came from.
“Why?” the khergud asks. “The mission was successful.”
She was the mission. None of the others had mattered, either on her side or on his.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-29 11:32 pm (UTC)“Because,” she bites out again, “they’ll be coming for me,” but it strikes her even as the words come out of her mouth. “But your masters are hoping for it, aren’t they?” The word is chosen specifically, with purpose to gauge just how deep the conditioning might dig. He does realize he’s only a body to them, doesn’t he? A tool to be used, and discarded as soon as they find a better one in the box.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-23 11:56 pm (UTC)As far as he was concerned, he was a well-trained hunting hound. He was returning home with this prize in his jaws, just as instructed. Whatever they decided to do with her afterwards was irrelevant. If they needed the Soldier’s services again after that point, they would tell him. They are his masters, and he has no particular opinion on it.
In short: the conditioning ran deep.
But he does add after a moment: “Don’t try to fall and kill yourself. They’ll just capture more of you.”
Sankta Zoya of the Storm was the crown jewel, the prized general, Lantsov’s favourite right-hand Grisha— but Shu Han would certainly content themselves with her death, and then simply turn to other kidnappings if she de-clawed Ravka by removing herself from the board. Suicide was beneath her.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-24 12:27 am (UTC)She doesn’t dignify the second part with a response. She’s not stupid. There are far too many ways it could go wrong if she tried to get out of his grasp. For the time being, she’s… a bit stuck. She’d rather take her chances once they’re on the ground again instead. The odds feel better, even if that’s just what she has to tell herself to her through every next minute that passes by.