Chapter Text
“Peter?”
“Dankovsky?”
“Rubin?”
“We’ve been waiting for you,”
Daniil wanted to let out a sigh of relief “I need to see Peter,”
Rubin’s grin was loose, his eyes soft and doughy as he stepped aside and let Daniil step inside the loft. Instantly all of Daniil’s anxieties unfurled as his body felt warm and soft----as
though he had just laid down under the covers. Everywhere he looked his eyes were met by a symphony of the most beautiful color he had ever been shown;
Red.
Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, it was like a dream.
And there was his dreamer
“Peter!” He called, careful to swerve around the statues and idols that had been laid around the room.
“Daniil, It’s so good to see you.” The men embraced, a rush of excitement the artist drew out of Daniil, like he would have drawn it on a page. Only Peter understood how thoughts were things, how feelings and understandings were words yet to be spoken. Daniil had learned so many wonderful new words, words he couldn’t wait to share.
Words he couldn’t wait to hoard to himself
It took Daniil a moment to remember why he had come here, the excitement had been overwhelming---even if his reason for seeking Peter...wasn’t exciting, and that was a tonal shift that took more than a minute to register.
The euphoria of belonging was a strong, smothering force.
“Your brother….I---he---he read the book,” was all Daniil could manage to say, all he could focus on.
“--Oh?” Peter asked, his eyes round and dewy, the red shimmering off the rims, “Daniil that’s wonderful!”
Daniil’s mouth hung slightly ajar, the air wasn’t heavy----that wouldn’t have been the right way for him to describe it. Rather his immediate sensation was more akin to the halt of all air or the bodily necessity----or registration of that necessity---for oxygen. As though in an instant Daniil’s lungs collapsed yet deprived him of pain. As though Daniil had never had lungs or a respiratory system at all, that his need and desire for oxygen all these years had really been a farce---a silly rule in a children’s game that had momentarily lapsed. A moment that time forgot, a detail that had been smudged out under it’s writer’s own hand.
So Daniil blinked once more, and all was normal.
“Well wouldn’t you agree? Who else could understand such majesty----even Rubin was a shock,”
“Eva,” it was all he could bare to say, the only sounds his mouth could make, the only thought his mind could define.
“Hmm? Eva? Yes….yes that’s even better I’d think…”
Daniil swallowed and nodded. He couldn’t remember what the issue was at all, everything felt so warm and beautiful. He felt the urge to lie down on the floor.
“Is that the book I’ve heard about?”
“Hm? Daniil moved his head slightly to look at Rubin.
“Of course,” Peter hummed “Daniil, Rubin’s been so eager to meet her….I though you might be able to properly introduce them,”
“The...the book?” Daniil asked, to nobody in particular, his memory and lingual functions slowly bubbling their way back up to the top.
That’s right!
Daniil had a book!
It was such a good book, such a lovely little book. Importantly, held many things and brought them together, presenting the truth before his eyes as though he were seeing the stars alin in the night sky for the very first time.
He had to finish reading the book.
….Where was the book?
Skin flashed before his eyes, flesh and hands. The medium by which bones and blood converged against the nerve. Eva was soft and pink and Andrey was hard and warm. Skin against paper, truth on tongue tips…..
“Andrey took the book,” Daniil blurted out, his mind putting the pieces together once more. “I was reading and he took it and then he read, but he still has it.”
Peter sighed, sliding back into his bathtub and laying his cheek against his hand, “That’s Andrey alright….” The hue of the room seemed to shift. Daniil thought a migraine might be coming on, Like all four of them were now suddenly standing upside down on the ceiling.
“If only we had more copies,” Peter hummed, staring up at the ceiling---or maybe the floor, depending on their proper orientation
Daniil slumped down against the side of the bathtub, sitting on the floor. He was certainly they were now on the ceiling, as his thoughts felt drawn against the floor where he sat---- and Daniil knew that thoughts and ideas were lighter than air. It was why the polyhedron stood so delicately into the sky, he understood now. The Polyhedron was not balancing on a needle---rather the polyhedron had been like a mighty balloon tethered to the earth.
His mind was too foggy to remember how it had crumbled below the earth’s gravity.
“Wait….” Daniil murmured, his lips barely parting. Peter and Rubin did not hear his musing but, curious as ever, Red Star turned to look at him. “Isn’t there a librarian around here?”
Peter hummed “Yulia….not my cup of tea, but…..yes she works in the Trammel, it’s the town library,”
“What about my book?” Red Star protested, “You’d never ever be able to find it there! There’s only one after all!”
“That my dear is precisely my idea….”
Despite the cold air outside, Artemy felt perfectly cozy under the covers with his children early in the morning. Even with his frighteningly vivid dreams, having his children nearby made Artemy feel...safe, comfortable. When he sat up he was surprised with how relaxed he felt. The world simply felt right when he was with family
Family…
What had it been that spurred his journey the day before? Of course, clinging to life in the Cathedral was a little girl who hadn’t had any family of her own. Lost the first to alcohol and was now losing the second to the same by the minute. Aglaya had said something to him though, something about choice.
As he moved to stand, Murky rolled over so she would be pressed up against him. She wanted him to choose to sleep in with her. But...she had Sticky, this soft bed, food in the pantry, and the knowledge that her father would be gone only briefly, all comforts to keep her warm while Artemy was gone. He had to focus on Grace, he had to find a cure he had to…
He had to ask for help.
Up until recently Artemy had been going nowhere fast with sick children seeming to pile up on his doorstep. Secretly he feared that this perfect morning would be interrupted by a sickly Murky wheezing, or from a worm messenger arriving on behalf on an ill Taya. Yet no distractions came as Artemy briefly took the time to get dressed for the day. The kids wouldn’t be asleep for too much longer so he sought to start a pot of porridge over the stove at a low temperature. Sticky would wake soon enough to tend to it and feed the both of them. Artemy thought about how lucky he was to have such a resourceful lad, it made him feel much more secure in his work. He always knew that if he had to rush out to help in an emergency or go out late to gather herbs, Sticky would be around to watch the house and keep Murky looked after. Maybe he was too young for the responsibility, or maybe Artemy was too weak but--
There was a pull on his line.
His father had taken on the weight of the town, the weight of a family, and he put on a brave face to reassure everyone that he could do it alone---that he was strong enough.
But he wasn’t, and it nearly cost him everything. Nobody has endless time nor strength, he couldn’t care for the town, his mother, and his children.
Artemy shuttered, sprinkling in a healthy portion of ginger into the pot.
Murky would appreciate it.
Isidor believed that his limitation meant he had to make tough choices, that anything without his guidance was surely doomed. Artemy had once thought similarly, during the plague it felt as though death was behind every corner, and he was the last bastion of protection for those who were dear to him.
Artemy walked away from the stove.
He knew that wasn’t quite true either. Rubin was dear to him but the Saburovs definitely weren’t, yet when Clara asked him to watch over them...he had understood...something. That Rubin was strong? That Clara was vulnerable, that, even if Clara was an orphan herself, she was one who had found other adults before Artemy? That he thought him and Rubin to be of similar capabilities, but understood the shortcomings of children?
His lines felt….tangled.
He needed to speak to Sahba.
As much as Artemy needed to tend to Grace, he would be useless if he did not tend to himself first. Aglaya had sent him out for a reason, a reason that Anna had tried to explain, but part of Artemy knew that Sahba could decipher this, or at least he hoped she did.
The lines of hope and knowledge ran alongside one another after all.
When Artemy spotted Dankovsky something inside of him stirred. He had made himself perfectly clear in that he was uncensored for the wellbeing of the children, plague or otherwise. Still, it seemed odd to see the man on this side of town, usually he stuck pretty close to the stoneyard whenever he wasn’t needed for medical work. His methods of study frustrated Artemy, even if he could appreciate some of the nuances and innovations of doctors in the capital, their developments and methods were all the result of advanced trial and study that branched out from the shared set of fundamentals that Dankovsky seemed too arrogant to move past. Dentistry had historically been a duty of the menkhu, but it was admittedly an area his father had struggled in. Isidor had at times complained of procedures being overly long and tedious, how the tight knots between the bone, nerve, and blood layers in the mouth were frustrating to work with.
While Artemy was no fan of human experimentation, some of the demonstrations he had seen in the capital had made him wonder how his father may have benefited from a second pair of experienced eyes to watch how he performed certain tasks.
a second pair of hands for himself to watch and study the technique of.
a second set of tools to experiment with and master.
Truth be told, Daniil hadn’t even noticed Burakh on his quick walk down to see Yulia. He was too excited. Here he had thought that the satisfaction of reading the book, and the satisfaction of knowing someone else was reading the book---and learning how wonderful it was, were incompatible. If Daniil wanted to share the book with anyone else, she the perfect truth of Red Star, he would have to sacrifice previous time for him to read the book himself. Yet here in Yulia presented the perfect marriage of these ideals. Daniil would just have to make sure she had a printing press and would be willing to let him use it, and then he’d just bring her the book and copy it. Maybe he could even pay her to make more than one copy, there were so many people in Gorkhon after all and while they were not all as bright as Peter or Rubin, the book yet could provide education and enlightenment.
Daniil thought briefly about presenting the book to Maria or Vlad Jr., perhaps one of them would be interested in sponsoring it. Maria’s plans for a new town had been placed on hold indefinitely, but perhaps this book could provide the inspiration or solution to transforming the pre-existing town on Gorkhon itself. Certainly it would save them all a bit of time. The problem with utopias, as Aglaya had explained before, was that they were unsustainable. One could plan the perfect city but without the perfect people to inhabit it, the city would surely decay. Thus had been the inspiration for Maria’s new town, a town with a culled population, one that would house, reflect, and inspire perfection.
However, Daniil wondered if this book, if Red Star herself, could not quicken this process.
Afterall, he had never felt more perfect than when he was reading it.
Artemy pulled his scarf up over his nose, the warm wool protecting his face from the cold air. At least in the town the crowded streets and heated buildings sometimes protected pedestrians from the cold winter air, but out in the steppe everything was so much more exposed. Kin legend said that winter was when Suok was at her strongest, when Boddho retreated closer into the warm flesh of the earth, taking the herbs with her. Artemy wondered what it would be like to sink into the earth, like a sea of warm blankets drawing him down deeper and deeper.
He would have to ask Sahba when he saw her
When Artemy was little he once asked his father why the worms and brides never changed their clothing with the seasons. Even when Artemy was so bundled up he couldn’t move his arms, the worms were always dressed the same.
He remembered how his father had laughed and told him that Mother Boddho protected her most beloved creations. Blood was a gift but also a price that had to be payed, the blood later was where heat travelled throughout the body. Lacking the blood layer, worms and herb brides didn’t have to worry about staying warm in winter or cooling off in the winter as they simply could not feel the difference. Artemy also remembered the increase in worm patients they tended to in the few unnaturally hot summer days. Clay could be just as burdensome as blood, a worm once told Artemy. Their clay skin would bake if it was too hot, or at the very least dry out and cause discomfort. Rather than tattered fabric some of the herb brides would paint themselves in cooling mud during the summer, that would then crack and split like the seams in fabric when they danced for earth.
When Artemy reached the Kin village however, he was surprised by how comfortably warm he felt. He wouldn’t have wanted to take off his coat or scarf, but it was an immediate relief from the cold steppe.
“Tyoma!” Artemy’s face lit up as he ran to greet Oyun
“It’s nice to see you,”
“Have you come for more blood? I’m afraid we’ve just closed the Abattoir for the season. It’s too cold for the bulls and Suok frighten them at night,”
Artemy smiled, his worries briefly a forgotten dream “No no...how are you? How is everyone?” He hadn’t been around much in the past week or so, the cold air a strong deterrent for what was usually a 45 minute hike.
“Everyone is in good health Menkhu, no pregnancies either,”
Artemy chuckled “I was only here last week, I’d be surprised if something came up so suddenly,” still...it was good to hear that whatever disease had been spreading through the girls of Gorkhon had not made it’s way out to the children of the kid. “And Taya…?...She’s healthy too?”
Oyun nodded “She gets bigger everyday. We all make sure she gets the best of everything first.”
“Well just make sure you’re taking care of yourself too, Taya needs you to be strong and healthy all the same,”
With a chuckle Oyun shook his head “I don’t expect you treat your own children any differently,”
Artemy stifled a laugh “No...Sticky’s growing up though, and they’re both eating three square meals a day now. I’ll bring them back up here soon I just..”
“What is it Emshen?”
“I’ve come to speak with Khetey Sahba. There’s a situation in the town and...I believe she could help me interpret it,”
“Yes yes, she is very wise indeed...I believe you can find her on the eastern end today. Taya has taken to her quite well, and Sahba has been doing wonderfully in helping her navigate her role and relationship to Mother Boddho,”
Artemy smirked “ It sounds like you might be a little jealous Onyon,”
Oyun crossed his arms, trying to hide a grin “Perhaps I am just nostalgic, watching another young Menkhu be brought up as I was. I...there was a time when I worried I would never again experience such a blessing,”
Artemy almost frowned, but smiled sadly instead. As much as he adored his father’s old house, there were implications to his own childhood Artemy had only just begun to grapple with.
“Perhaps I should bring Sticky and Murky around more often. They won’t be children forever, and you know I hate having to leave them so often,”
Oyun placed a hand on Artemy’s shoulder “Winter was a very busy time of year for your father too,”
Artemy nodded “Well I don’t think they like it much either, Sticky is so curious and Murky loves the steppe, I’m sure they’d appreciate---”
“Yes Artemy, of course your children are always welcome here,” Oyun smiled a little. What he wouldn’t have given to bring Artemy to Shekhen when he was little. He knew Isidor had done it a few times, but that was before the Kin had returned. He was also glad to hear Artemy agreed with this assessment.
He looked forward to being a part of the Burakhs again, in his own way, in nurturing and caring for the young and helping them grow into their Menkhu lines.
Feeling sentimental, Oyun pulled Artemy into a hug before he had to leave. Artemy did not falter. These past few days had been devastating and exhausting and the endless love of the Kin was a relief he had greatly needed. He would be proud to have his children held by it as well.
“A book?”
“Not just any book dear Yulia this book is a pillar of---”
“--but it is a book right? A real book printed on paper?”
Daniil sighed “Yes! Yes it’s a real book on paper! And bindings and illustrations and---”
“Yeah there’s a printer in the back, just bring the book by,” interrupted a woman Daniil was not familiar with. “Just bring the book here, because we can’t help you until you have the book---and Yulia has lots to do that you’re interrupting,” Yulia shuttered slightly as the woman walked across the room to place a hand on her shoulder.
Daniil sneered slightly.
“How is the mother today my child?”
“Warm but...sleepy, Boddho hasn’t wanted to talk a lot this week,”
The wise old woman cracked a soft smile “It is but a sign of the changing seasons my dear, winter is in the steppe Suok will be awakening,”
“Will she speak to me too? I don’t want any mean people talking to me,”
“I wouldn’t want you to either, I wouldn’t trust anyone who would dare be mean to mother superior,”
“Artemy!” Taya shrieked with excitement, giggling and running to see the man she hadn’t it what felt like oh so long now.
“Mind yourself Taya, for even when Boddho is quiet we must compose ourselves as though she were with us,”
Artemy couldn’t hold back a sharp chuckle “You all still using that one on the little ones?” He asked before kneeling down to meet his mother superior at eye level. “--and what have you been up to, our little Mother Superior?” It was nothing but pure relief to see her well and so lively. The disease hadn’t spread this far, Taya was fine. Artemy had hope.
“Sahba’s been telling me lots! Did you know Suok comes out at winter? And that the Earth gets reeeeally sleepy?”
Artemy laughed and shook his head “She is very wise indeed, do you mind if I speak to her for a minute love?”
Taya grinned but still looked back at Sahba. Even as Mother Superior some of the regularities of childhood couldn’t be ignored, and it would be rude for Taya to dismiss herself without her tutor’s permission.
“I suppose now would be as good a time as any to take a break.”
“I wanna go find a blanket---a really big blanket! If Boddho is sleepy than she should take a nap!” And so the little girl was off running and squealing in delight into the courtyard, ready to round up her people with instructions to help their Mother Boddho enter her seasonal rest.
“She’s becoming a fine Menkhu, your father would have been pleased,”
Artemy frowned, “That’s actually why I came to see you Sahba, I wanted to ask you about---”
“Save your breath child, the lines have already lead me to your dilemma. For we are all connected, and you the most of all. I know when your line trembles emshen,”
“Than you know--”
“It is a pity in deed, even a child of the town is a child, and children shall be spared of misery---for are we not men?”
“...are we not men,” Artemy repeated under his breath. “Please...what can you tell me Sahba? How do I fix this?”
“Your line is very weak indeed, your skin is not unlike Mother’s clay, it is porous and sensitive. The town is toxic emshen, and has grown more toxic still,”
A wave of frustration crashed over Artemy, his line vibrating like a plucked chord. No matter what he told her Sahba would not be convinced of the merits of the town, and further still she would insist it was not a suitable home for him “For the last time I’m not--”
“This is not about that---Suok is knocking on the door of an innocent girl, do you think of me so dense? So insensitive? The more you talk the more your line quakes and the weaker still it grows! I tell you that you have been filled with toxins and yet here you are! Trying to dispel them onto me!”
Artemy paused, Sahba’s words shaking him like a scalded child. “I...I’m sorry,”
Sahba’s shoulders lowered. “Do you see? You came to discuss a sickly child but assumed I could only think of my own preferences, only cared for you. You see the connections Burakh, but you must look for them beyond yourself, look for how they pass through them, they don’t end with you.”
In an attempt to focus, Artemy closed his eyes. He could feel the subtle pull of Aglaya’s line, how it was her words that took her to Anna, and then her’s that brought her here. While Artemy’s lines were his own he could sense they were not solitary. The strongest lines stood in his mind like rope. His connection to his children, to the kin, like a chain. Conversely he could barely find the ghost of his mother’s own line, tucked under that of his father’s connection to him. Alone for years in that house…it must have seemed like a prison.
It must have seemed like a grave.
The result of individual lines repeating the same connections over and over, interweaving over and over, until a connection so strong was bound it could never be broken.
To help Grace, he’d have to strengthen her line.
He needed to strengthen his own line.
“Sahba,” after a moment Artemy finally spoke,
“Yes?” she responded, a kind look in her eyes.
“Would you...would you come help Grace with me?”
Sahba blinked, feeling the pull of her lines, before she smiled softly.
“I will.”
Artemy felt his line grow stronger.