So great to have you all following and just a word about some of the dialog exchanges you might see. Our plot is very complex and we aim for our characters to be. For that reason, outside of the plot, you may see us engage in "in character" out of plot discussions/debates as a tool to help both followers and ourselves become more entrenched in the personas we've effected and provide those of you who are following us a better product. So if you see us having a heated discussion and don't see a where or an exact context, we invite you to just go along for the ride and learn a bit more about the participants!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Moving up in... another world...
PLEASE FOLLOW EVERYONE MENTIONED HERE!
Part of it was political in the aftermath of the situation with @FyodorGlazunov , part of it was to take advantage of my relationship with @Alexei_Romanov1 , but the AVL doesn't do things without thinking they can be executed properly. The upshot of which... I was still flattered by the next events that touched my personal and professional lives, which are now unmistably intertwined.
A few days after I had agreed to be courted by Alexei Romanov, there was a small reception at the Waldorf Astoria, designed to thank @MirandaLaney and @NanVFlanaganx for their help in taking Fyodor Glazunov down. We also intended to ask Miranda for her continued assistance since anyone else researching how to remove the curse of seeing his past victims from Alexei would be starting from scratch. She agrees much to our relief and then came my shock. Nan Flanagan arrives with a large file and a request that was as much an order - that I sign a contract with the AVL to become an International Security Liaison.
To say that humans being asked into positions of authority in terms of vampire security is rare ranks up there with the sky being blue and seaweed being wet. The AVL wanted to firm up its relationships internationally and who better to show human/vampire integration than myself after the Glazunov business. Aside from the flattered moment, however, I was thinking clearly enough on my own turn that I knew Alexei's thrown possibly being under threat made me want every available resource at our disposal. With so many vamps in the room, there was plenty of oxygen to spare and I took a deep breath and signed the required time of my life over to the AVL.
We arrived in St. Petersburg a few days later, to all the pomp and circumstance one might expect, saw that the jewels that had been taken were re-secured and I began to learn the lay of my new land. Of course... the palace itself was enough to learn.
Click to see the amazing St. Alexander Palace in St. Petersburg Russia here.
It was immense and laden with passageways and as much gloom as grandeur. Servants scurried about, guards everywhere but everywhere to the point where they became just background. There on the tarmac in the cold moonlight we are introduced to @OlgaNikolaevna_ , another royal who I can tell is barely tolerating me. She doesn't even exit the limo until Alexei emerges from the plane.
The next shock came just as hard as the cold of a that Russian winter, a call from @FyodorGlazunov , one that found him released. The bastard had retained enough friends on the AVL council and had so much of the blame for what I knew to be his actions on the dead Sheriff of Texas Area 8 that he had managed to free himself and return to New York basically unencumbered but still under some suspicion. The one remaining question is what to do with @Nikita_Steel who is still in holding in one of the suites in the palace, ordering tray after tray of American Twinkies. I'm starting to think that the only reason she has a tooth left in her head is that being a shifter she must get a new set every time she changes.
... that question of @Nikita_Steel gets answered a few days later... days that were apparently busy for Fyodor Glazunov who has also pulled the strings to get Nikita Steel free as well. However there's a part two to that shock when he orders her, in a bout of suspicious altruism to remain at the palace and help us however we need. Something in the message, some phrase or gesture tells her that the order is real and to my utter astonishment, informs me that she'll be, as ever, obeying his command.
I am placed in the position of informing @OlgaNikolaevna_ that we've been joined, without our consent, by the shifter who spent the past few months attempting to kill @Alexei_Romanov . She responds with a comment about my competence that I counter would be better asked of Alexei and perhaps outside the door of the secured room where the royal Romanov jewels, including the ones that had held so much power, had been returned with my help.
In the midst of helping me settle in, and have some kind of normality in terms of a bit of culture shock and the in the wake of the Magisters' being freed and the shifter being assigned to help, I have the chance to become closer to @Katia_Andreev . Our growing friendship led me to be closer to the next tragedy than I'd imagined. Having fallen out of touch with them for longer than was usual, I was with Katia and @Irina_IGRM when we choppered out to her house to check on them. There we found a horrific scene, her immediate family slaughtered. Her father and brother had been burned and shocked, magical energies slammed thought their bodies, her mother pinned to the wooden kitchen door with knives, and her sister, who resembled her closely, brutally beaten to death, her body covered in traumatic impact wounds. On each of the bodies, there are carvings in the flesh of runic symbols as well.
The worse part of being around Vice work sometimes is that it overlaps Homicide. We secured the scene and began an investigation run by the palace and not the police given Katia's position. The bodies were moved to the morgue there until we can determine what kind of force was at play and why.
Help for that comes in the form I never would have expected days before: @Nikita_Steel . Her analysis of the scene done through photographs coincides with my own and provides some insights from the point of view of someone accustomed to having supernatural powers to commit murder.
@Nikita_Steel 's presence proves helpful once again a few days later when the sounds of a riot around the front gates of the palace, just after @Irina_IGRM are discussing the return of her weapons. We take on the rioting attempt from the upper floors of the palace, adding our skills to aid the palace guards. I sniper the attackers coming over the top of the wall and Irina gives in and tosses a gun to Nikita. She takes a few well-placed shots and then turns to aid Irina as a blast of supernatural energy erupts through the window and strikes her. Nikita drags her to safety and then leaps out of the window and joins the fray on the ground. The guards have fought back much of the attack and Nikita sets out as a wolf hunting for the witch behind it.
She comes back not long after, dragging the body up the stairs of the palace. I intercept her and we take it down to the morgue also. Nikita has also retrieved an important clue, a jewel-encrusted egg that is magically sealed. We call in @MirandaLaney and she manages to open it and suspend the contents inside, contents that Nikita identifies by its smell as human blood. @Miranda Laney also recognizes the inlaid jewel pattern on the outside of the egg as having its origin with the Morganian witches that sought to control the Russian aristocracy centuries ago. Katia had spoken to me of how Alexei's human father had banished them from Russian soil as we'd toured the portrait room and she taught me about his human family that had been murdered.
Going back out, Nikita picks up the scent of another more powerful witch the one we suspect is behind the riot. This time I accompany her as she tracks the scent to... of all places, a graveyard and to a specific grave. Not just any grave however, the grave of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin - the infamous Russian mystic and the man Alexei called "Father Grigori" who had often healed his hemophilia bout when he was a human child. The taint of magic is strong about the grave and against my will but having no choice, we remove the stones and liberate the casket.
Opening it with her usual impulsiveness, we find to our amazement that the body inside has been tampered with twice. There is a large section of hair missing from the beard and the body shows no sign of decay from the time Rasputin was killed, apparently almost repeatedly.
Learn more about Rasputin here!
The power of Rasputin as a myth and perhaps as a mystic is being used by the witch to influence the Russian people once again, this time even with him being dead. The properties around him are surviving and being utilized with force enough that Nikita, with me as a regretful partner, haul the casket onto the roof of my SUV and cover it. We take it back for safekeeping to the palace while I dread telling Alexei what we've been forced to do. I know that he had revered the man as a child and having to displace him from his grave was going to be an upsetting matter but less dangerous than leaving him as a resource for the witch.
The witch @KallistoWitch , an agent of @TheWitchMorgana has also, yet unbeknownst to us as yet, has cast a spell on the palace humans that interferes with their sleep. When they do find rest, they are plagued with nightmares. I have found myself affected but we've yet to discover the cause.
Alexei returns from handling a situation in a far province, a matter of massive taxes that had apparently been levied while he was absent searching for the jewels. He had found it necessary to even return homes to people that had been taken. Figuring he's been through enough, I spare Alexei the photos of the scene of Katia's family murdered - a choice that proves to be auspicious.
He insists on the details verbally at least and briefing him on events I show him photos of the egg the witch was carrying. He recognizes a trademark Romanov pattern as a pattern interwoven with but subservient to the Morganic pattern that dominates most of the design.
I listen worried and then the computer in my new communications office alerts us to a message. The DNA I had submitted to the Russian police through Irina's contacts and to the medical databases available has come back with a match. It is the police records that have provided a match to the blood in egg - to our astonishment that blood with in it matches the blood of Katia's mother found at the murder scene... and one more record, older but even more astonishing - the crime scene of the Romanov family murders found in 1991. The tests have been checked and double-checked, the sources are one @Irina_IGRM truss and she has protected the Royal families of Russian for 1500 years. We suddenly have proof in our hands that @Alexei_Romanov1 is no longer the only survivor the the Romanov family massacre, that Katia is of their bloodline, too. Alexei retires for the evening, before I can tell him that Rasputin's body is now in residence back in his palace.
Alexei calls Katia into his presence and gently informs her that she is his kin, that she will be elevated to that rank and take up residence in the appropriate rooms in the palace. Alone no longer, she with her recent pain, and Alexei with the pain he has born over a century, they embrace and begin their connection.
With the attack on the palace in mind and the addition of another royal to her protection plans. I approach @Irina_IGRM with a request, the ability to give orders to and make requests of the the daytime detail of guards that protects @Alexei_Romanov1 . She is aware that I can be trusted to protect the prince with my own life and tells me what that would entail to make sure I am aware of the responsibilities and the added knowledge base that it would require. I agree to take on the responsibilities, curbing my worry that I would have to rely solely on others to protect Alexei when at his daytime rest.
Having arrived home from supressing more of the rebellions inspired by Sergei Romanov's vicious and incompetent decisions, the captain of the palace guard @Natasha_Cdr , arrives back in St. Petersburg. She is unhappy with my presence there and @Irina_IGRM finds herself in the position of mediating our positions in terms of protecting Alexei Romanov and his thrown.
TBC
Part of it was political in the aftermath of the situation with @FyodorGlazunov , part of it was to take advantage of my relationship with @Alexei_Romanov1 , but the AVL doesn't do things without thinking they can be executed properly. The upshot of which... I was still flattered by the next events that touched my personal and professional lives, which are now unmistably intertwined.
A few days after I had agreed to be courted by Alexei Romanov, there was a small reception at the Waldorf Astoria, designed to thank @MirandaLaney and @NanVFlanaganx for their help in taking Fyodor Glazunov down. We also intended to ask Miranda for her continued assistance since anyone else researching how to remove the curse of seeing his past victims from Alexei would be starting from scratch. She agrees much to our relief and then came my shock. Nan Flanagan arrives with a large file and a request that was as much an order - that I sign a contract with the AVL to become an International Security Liaison.
To say that humans being asked into positions of authority in terms of vampire security is rare ranks up there with the sky being blue and seaweed being wet. The AVL wanted to firm up its relationships internationally and who better to show human/vampire integration than myself after the Glazunov business. Aside from the flattered moment, however, I was thinking clearly enough on my own turn that I knew Alexei's thrown possibly being under threat made me want every available resource at our disposal. With so many vamps in the room, there was plenty of oxygen to spare and I took a deep breath and signed the required time of my life over to the AVL.
We arrived in St. Petersburg a few days later, to all the pomp and circumstance one might expect, saw that the jewels that had been taken were re-secured and I began to learn the lay of my new land. Of course... the palace itself was enough to learn.
Click to see the amazing St. Alexander Palace in St. Petersburg Russia here.
It was immense and laden with passageways and as much gloom as grandeur. Servants scurried about, guards everywhere but everywhere to the point where they became just background. There on the tarmac in the cold moonlight we are introduced to @OlgaNikolaevna_ , another royal who I can tell is barely tolerating me. She doesn't even exit the limo until Alexei emerges from the plane.
The next shock came just as hard as the cold of a that Russian winter, a call from @FyodorGlazunov , one that found him released. The bastard had retained enough friends on the AVL council and had so much of the blame for what I knew to be his actions on the dead Sheriff of Texas Area 8 that he had managed to free himself and return to New York basically unencumbered but still under some suspicion. The one remaining question is what to do with @Nikita_Steel who is still in holding in one of the suites in the palace, ordering tray after tray of American Twinkies. I'm starting to think that the only reason she has a tooth left in her head is that being a shifter she must get a new set every time she changes.
... that question of @Nikita_Steel gets answered a few days later... days that were apparently busy for Fyodor Glazunov who has also pulled the strings to get Nikita Steel free as well. However there's a part two to that shock when he orders her, in a bout of suspicious altruism to remain at the palace and help us however we need. Something in the message, some phrase or gesture tells her that the order is real and to my utter astonishment, informs me that she'll be, as ever, obeying his command.
I am placed in the position of informing @OlgaNikolaevna_ that we've been joined, without our consent, by the shifter who spent the past few months attempting to kill @Alexei_Romanov . She responds with a comment about my competence that I counter would be better asked of Alexei and perhaps outside the door of the secured room where the royal Romanov jewels, including the ones that had held so much power, had been returned with my help.
In the midst of helping me settle in, and have some kind of normality in terms of a bit of culture shock and the in the wake of the Magisters' being freed and the shifter being assigned to help, I have the chance to become closer to @Katia_Andreev . Our growing friendship led me to be closer to the next tragedy than I'd imagined. Having fallen out of touch with them for longer than was usual, I was with Katia and @Irina_IGRM when we choppered out to her house to check on them. There we found a horrific scene, her immediate family slaughtered. Her father and brother had been burned and shocked, magical energies slammed thought their bodies, her mother pinned to the wooden kitchen door with knives, and her sister, who resembled her closely, brutally beaten to death, her body covered in traumatic impact wounds. On each of the bodies, there are carvings in the flesh of runic symbols as well.
The worse part of being around Vice work sometimes is that it overlaps Homicide. We secured the scene and began an investigation run by the palace and not the police given Katia's position. The bodies were moved to the morgue there until we can determine what kind of force was at play and why.
Help for that comes in the form I never would have expected days before: @Nikita_Steel . Her analysis of the scene done through photographs coincides with my own and provides some insights from the point of view of someone accustomed to having supernatural powers to commit murder.
@Nikita_Steel 's presence proves helpful once again a few days later when the sounds of a riot around the front gates of the palace, just after @Irina_IGRM are discussing the return of her weapons. We take on the rioting attempt from the upper floors of the palace, adding our skills to aid the palace guards. I sniper the attackers coming over the top of the wall and Irina gives in and tosses a gun to Nikita. She takes a few well-placed shots and then turns to aid Irina as a blast of supernatural energy erupts through the window and strikes her. Nikita drags her to safety and then leaps out of the window and joins the fray on the ground. The guards have fought back much of the attack and Nikita sets out as a wolf hunting for the witch behind it.
She comes back not long after, dragging the body up the stairs of the palace. I intercept her and we take it down to the morgue also. Nikita has also retrieved an important clue, a jewel-encrusted egg that is magically sealed. We call in @MirandaLaney and she manages to open it and suspend the contents inside, contents that Nikita identifies by its smell as human blood. @Miranda Laney also recognizes the inlaid jewel pattern on the outside of the egg as having its origin with the Morganian witches that sought to control the Russian aristocracy centuries ago. Katia had spoken to me of how Alexei's human father had banished them from Russian soil as we'd toured the portrait room and she taught me about his human family that had been murdered.
Going back out, Nikita picks up the scent of another more powerful witch the one we suspect is behind the riot. This time I accompany her as she tracks the scent to... of all places, a graveyard and to a specific grave. Not just any grave however, the grave of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin - the infamous Russian mystic and the man Alexei called "Father Grigori" who had often healed his hemophilia bout when he was a human child. The taint of magic is strong about the grave and against my will but having no choice, we remove the stones and liberate the casket.
Opening it with her usual impulsiveness, we find to our amazement that the body inside has been tampered with twice. There is a large section of hair missing from the beard and the body shows no sign of decay from the time Rasputin was killed, apparently almost repeatedly.
Learn more about Rasputin here!
The power of Rasputin as a myth and perhaps as a mystic is being used by the witch to influence the Russian people once again, this time even with him being dead. The properties around him are surviving and being utilized with force enough that Nikita, with me as a regretful partner, haul the casket onto the roof of my SUV and cover it. We take it back for safekeeping to the palace while I dread telling Alexei what we've been forced to do. I know that he had revered the man as a child and having to displace him from his grave was going to be an upsetting matter but less dangerous than leaving him as a resource for the witch.
The witch @KallistoWitch , an agent of @TheWitchMorgana has also, yet unbeknownst to us as yet, has cast a spell on the palace humans that interferes with their sleep. When they do find rest, they are plagued with nightmares. I have found myself affected but we've yet to discover the cause.
Alexei returns from handling a situation in a far province, a matter of massive taxes that had apparently been levied while he was absent searching for the jewels. He had found it necessary to even return homes to people that had been taken. Figuring he's been through enough, I spare Alexei the photos of the scene of Katia's family murdered - a choice that proves to be auspicious.
He insists on the details verbally at least and briefing him on events I show him photos of the egg the witch was carrying. He recognizes a trademark Romanov pattern as a pattern interwoven with but subservient to the Morganic pattern that dominates most of the design.
I listen worried and then the computer in my new communications office alerts us to a message. The DNA I had submitted to the Russian police through Irina's contacts and to the medical databases available has come back with a match. It is the police records that have provided a match to the blood in egg - to our astonishment that blood with in it matches the blood of Katia's mother found at the murder scene... and one more record, older but even more astonishing - the crime scene of the Romanov family murders found in 1991. The tests have been checked and double-checked, the sources are one @Irina_IGRM truss and she has protected the Royal families of Russian for 1500 years. We suddenly have proof in our hands that @Alexei_Romanov1 is no longer the only survivor the the Romanov family massacre, that Katia is of their bloodline, too. Alexei retires for the evening, before I can tell him that Rasputin's body is now in residence back in his palace.
Katia
and Irina go to the computer room where Katia reveals a talent to
her, that she is an excellent computer hacker who is eager to use her
skills to protect the interests of the Romanov throne.
Alexei calls Katia into his presence and gently informs her that she is his kin, that she will be elevated to that rank and take up residence in the appropriate rooms in the palace. Alone no longer, she with her recent pain, and Alexei with the pain he has born over a century, they embrace and begin their connection.
With the attack on the palace in mind and the addition of another royal to her protection plans. I approach @Irina_IGRM with a request, the ability to give orders to and make requests of the the daytime detail of guards that protects @Alexei_Romanov1 . She is aware that I can be trusted to protect the prince with my own life and tells me what that would entail to make sure I am aware of the responsibilities and the added knowledge base that it would require. I agree to take on the responsibilities, curbing my worry that I would have to rely solely on others to protect Alexei when at his daytime rest.
Having arrived home from supressing more of the rebellions inspired by Sergei Romanov's vicious and incompetent decisions, the captain of the palace guard @Natasha_Cdr , arrives back in St. Petersburg. She is unhappy with my presence there and @Irina_IGRM finds herself in the position of mediating our positions in terms of protecting Alexei Romanov and his thrown.
TBC
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