Zhenya Disir
CEO of Pervaya Liniya Security
Description: Zhenya is a deeply ambitious woman who chases the things she desires with unrivalled tenacity. She has a ruthless business aptitude and a hunger for power, but not without heart. She believes in the greater good, and will make sacrifices in its pursuit (though not necessarily of her own). She is a natural leader and not particularly enamoured of being told what to do, for she is long used to being in charge. Her tastes run to the fine things in life; she dresses meticulously and at great expense, and likewise is used to luxury in her surroundings. She is something of a social butterfly and usually to be found in the company of others, a frequenter of Moscow’s elite nightlife hotspots, and often found wining and dining the company’s most prodigious clients. Despite an aura of demurity, she can be surprisingly bold, but is possessed generally of good humour.
Zhenya is dark-eyed and dark-haired. Her Chinese ancestry is quite apparent in her appearance, taking after her mother, and she is fluent in the language. She is above average tall, and slender but shapely. She wears a wedding band.
Bio in brief: A baby born of indiscretion, plucked from foreign shores to the household of her ex-military father when she was a child. She is markedly different from her fair-haired siblings, a point of inflicted cruelty growing up, and perhaps in part responsible for the care she takes over her appearance as an adult.
She grew Sick at eighteen, surviving via the ingenuity, connections, and deep pockets of her father. Her study of the female power has been an incremental and thorough endeavour since, kept secret of necessity until recently. Ever the devoted daughter she has meanwhile become an intrinsic asset to the running of the family security business, Pervaya Liniya, having recently taken the mantle of CEO.
Pervaya Liniya Security
Pervaya protects people, not things or property, and has a well-earned reputation for being the best private security firm one can hire.
They are publicly known to employ ex-military exclusively, predominately of countries that have fallen under CCD influence, and some of their members are known in the right circles to have particularly interesting skill blocks. They currently have around only thirty operators, valuing quality over quantity, for they only employ the best. In addition to a whole host of support personnel and office staff, they make liberal use of the very best lawyers the Dominance has to offer. This alongside its very influential clientele base allows the employees of Pervaya to shirk the law quite blatantly at times. They have a reputation for being proactive rather than reactive in order to provide the very best service.
Known operatives: John White
2037
The last vestiges of fever still burned her lungs with every breath as she sat at the table, hands folded against its top, waiting patiently for the door to finally open. Zhenya counted those breaths with morbid determination, fierce enough to look death in its eye, yet still enough afraid of its sting to feel its promise flush her cold. Eighteen was too young, and yet still older than the age of most girls stolen by the Sickness. She’d thought herself immune. Protected by her family’s wealth, perhaps. But even her father could not protect her from this.
A knock sounded. She lifted her chin as the door swept open. The man who entered cast a scowled glance at the uniformed attendant who escorted him in and, after a brief nod, closed the door on his heels. They were alone but for the glittering eyes of the security cameras.
“Your father is very rich,” he said blandly. No smile lifted his lips. He was tall; made seemingly moreso, perhaps, by the gauntness that hollowed out the space beneath his cheekbones. His amber eyes took in their surroundings; the walls of books and polished dark furniture; the arching windows and manicured gardens beyond. Or perhaps he was only looking for the video feeds nestled unobtrusively around them; he must know they were there, given where he was. She studied him in turn. She had expected someone old, if only out of some false equivalency for wisdom, but he was not.
“Then I suppose it would be prudent of you not to disappoint him,” she said.
He only grunted an answer, pulling up his shirtsleeves roughly. The skin beneath was tan, and one forearm bore a tattoo of dark symbols. Leather bracelets wound his wrist, knotted with what looked like archaic talismans. Her father must be desperate if he had turned to mysticism. She glanced briefly at one of the cameras, trying not to frown; trying not to let that fear squeeze its grip tighter, either. She didn't like the thought of desperate.
“It’s not an illness,” he said. An accent lyricised his words, though she couldn't place it; didn’t care, honestly, because her heart was beating so very hard, and she still felt insufferably hot. “Do you know that?"
"My name is Zhenya," she said, indicating for him to take a seat. "And if you are going to do me the favour of trying to save my life, I would at least know your name first."
His fingers flexed, rolled into a fist. While she watched that gesture warily, he grabbed the back of a chair with his other hand, and sat opposite. She had suspected annoyance earlier, but nothing like that rested in his features now. He seemed mostly pensive, and watching her in a way that made her want to adjust herself self-consciously. It was the first day in almost a week she’d even had the strength to rise from her bed, and the slash of her dark hair did not make the frame for a pretty picture.
"Your skin is flush,” he pointed out coolly. “The fever has not passed. How much time do you think you have to waste on pleasantries?"
The admonishment from a stranger (and quite possibly a poor stranger too, to look at him) corded her spine with indignation. She supposed it was better than just feeling afraid, though it was not a tone in which she was accustomed to being addressed. Her eyes flashed, but she swallowed it down in pursuit of politeness, sighing quietly instead. "You said it is not an illness. I’ve seen doctors. Plenty of them, actually. So what do you believe it is?"
After a moment of uncomfortable quiet he made a low hum of flat disappointment, and presently folded his arms, pressing his weight back into the neck of the chair. He seemed to be considering, as if some test had been metered out and failed. "Alvis is what you can call me," he said eventually. "And it is not a case of belief. I was Sick once too."
Zhenya allowed herself to feel the pendulum of relief as it swung back in her favour. A survivor? She’d forgive the abrasiveness, then. “Then you really can help?”
"Think back, to something strange, perhaps last week or the week before. Something you cannot explain. Think of how you felt in that moment. Think of the kernel of fire inside your chest. It's burning you up right now, but only until you learn how to control it."
She blinked at him, confused. Alvis leaned forward.
"It feels like rage and hunger, and to survive this you must conquer it. A difficult feat. No wonder so many of you die."
"Us," she said flatly. "Are you implying..?" She felt herself bristle; that he would assume such an infantile reason for the shocking death rate in young women, leaving boys that same age remarkably untouched. That he would accuse weakness of an entire sex before accepting the cruel and indiscriminate hand of disease. She sat back, pulling her hands off the table.
Only belatedly did it occur to her he was trying to goad her; only later did she recall the ghost of his faint smile.
Alvis laid his own arms out, both of them. One palm clenched to white knuckles and face down, the other flat and open. For a moment she thought he was going to encourage her palm in his; to guide her through whatever must come next, but then the air above his hand began to shimmer and split. It folded out of itself and upon its surface a luminescence began to revolve, until it formed a flowing sphere. Colours shifted like the shadows of night and day upon the canvas of the earth.
Surprise softened her mouth into an o.
She searched his face for lunacy, for some hint of a charlatan's grin or manic fervour, but those placid eyes were mild and unimpressed with his own tricks. "You look like a fish. I hope that means you are thinking, Miss Disir."
Her expression shuttered, insulted. She took in another hot breath, and perhaps it really was the searing brand of fever’s touch, but she did as bid -- cast her mind back, sought something inwards, craving the discovery of anything beyond the future promised, no matter how absurd it sounded. Her father declared cold coin was the only god they ought pray to, but if she might have begged for saviour then it would have been to anyone who’d listen.
"It will try to overwhelm you, and you must fight it."
His words continued; instructions she barely heard as time counted down to failure.
It felt like fire all right.
She made a sound when it finally surrounded her; immense and unknowable, and recoiling from her touch. Something so vast could not be contained; not without smashing the vessel of her body to jagged shards. Fiercely determined, recklessly desperate, she tried anyway; which was when it began to burn. Panicked now, Zhenya pulled sharply away from it. She wasn't quite sure when she pitched from the chair, but now it was strands of plush carpet clenched between her fingers. Her ears were roaring like the rush of the river still threatened to pull her under. Tears streamed over the curve of her clammy cheeks. She could barely breathe.
Hands cradled her shoulders, lifting her up, and raised words flew like missiles above her head. Dazed, she dabbed gently at the bloody trickle from her nose. Realised her hands were still trembling. Personnel swarmed the room like bees roused from a kicked nest, dressed in the grey uniforms of her father’s private detail. Alvis stood amongst them, chair upturned, arguing against the men trying to push him from the room. His brows slashed low over his eyes, but he did not look at her.
“Miss Disir?” Arms ushered her up, but the wobbly stems of her legs folded beneath her. Did they think he had hurt her? "I will die anyway," she said to the guard distractedly. Where was her father? She pushed away from her capture. The memory of power was like a heartbeat tuned to her own, and she would not allow it to vanish now. “He did not hurt me. Release him, please. He will stay."
The illness passed once more, and by the next morning the colour had returned to her cheeks.
Alvis had taken up residence in the library of their first meeting. He muttered harshly to himself in the musical tones of some other language, peppered with words she did recognise, like fish and fowl. A dozen holoscreens curved around the workspace he had cleared for himself, pasting a pale glow against his face. She watched him quietly for a moment from the threshold. He was the bridge to a secret she had never hoped to discover in herself. China was no friend of the Custody, and at times her childhood had been sharply cruel because of it. The face beheld in her reflection weighted her with shame for many years before she began to learn its other gift; that dual-edged blade of beauty. But she wanted more.
“I have never studied a woman before,” he said, gaze pressing up once to acknowledge her existence before returning to his screens. It might have been an apology, but if so it was a poor one.
“That simply can’t be true,” she said, amused by the vexed way his lips pursed at the insinuation. Her smile was not shy, and there were no blushes spared despite his response. She laughed. “Fortunately, I believe I understand what you mean.”
The details on his identity were surprisingly sparse. There was simply no chance her father had forgone a background check before allowing him onto the property, but he was cagey with the details, and her own investigations illuminated little. Even the recordings from yesterday had been erased from the security stores, and though father assured her this was for her own protection, she was not convinced by the explanation.
"Why would my father enlist the aid of an art dealer? Who are you really?”
She found she was not surprised when he ignored her question entirely. “The data is sparse. Mostly it is only a pattern of death certificates, and those that survive have good reason to remain hidden. I have my own data, but clearly my method did not agree with you. I imagine it’s in both our interests that I don’t succeed in killing you next time. Until then your presence is not required.”
“The fever has gone,” she said. The door clicked quietly shut as she leaned her weight on it.
“Then we are fortunate enough to have been given some more time, and not enough of it for you to squander with stupid questions.”
A stone dropped in her stomach, but she did not let the disappointment anchor her. Some small hope had blossomed that yesterday’s… experiences, had signalled a harsh and violent cure to her ailment. But she knew the fevers hit in waves, running closer and closer together until... well, she’d seen the newsfeeds, and she knew enough to be terrified. Fortunately, she was no flower to wilt beneath the heat of a little pressure.
“Then what can I do?”
“You can be quiet.”
Ignoring him, Zhenya crossed the distance and pulled herself up onto the table behind his screens, casting her silhouette over the scrawling text and images. She had taken care of her appearance this morning. Ebony hair fell like silk against her slim shoulders, her skin as perfect as warm porcelain. She crossed her legs, and his attention flickered briefly to watch the movement; despite himself, she imagined. Alvis had been clean-shaven yesterday, but pale stubble roughened his cheeks now, and his short-cropped hair looked like he had run frustrated fingers through it several times. Had he worked through the entire night? She leaned forward a little, seeking to capture his attention more thoroughly. Bars of afternoon light from the large windows caught the amber in his eyes and made them luminous.
“You are a child,” he said eventually, refusing to meet her gaze. It had an edge of warning.
“Hardly.” She rolled her eyes and sliced her hand through his screens, parting them to either side. He couldn’t be more than a decade her senior, and likely less. She was perfectly cognisant of the broadness of him in that chair, and all those sharp lines that did not precisely make him handsome, but certainly made him intriguing. It wasn’t why she courted his attention. Not that it hurt. “Time is a commodity I am apparently short of, so I rather think it is up to me how it’s spent.” A haughty brow rose, but there was a smile on her lips. “And forgive me but I won’t be placing my fate entirely in your hands, Alvis. You seem to be a knight short of his white horse, if you are even a knight at all.”
He leaned back like he was afraid she might sting, rubbing a tired hand over his face. Then he made a grumbling sound in his throat, which she took for concession but was more likely resigned frustration. She smiled at him. “Most people don’t speak to me the way you do, you know. So let me be blunt in return. You are going to tell me everything.”
In those early days, Alvis indulged her curiosity; in fact she suspected he revelled in the horror of it, leaning in with a storyteller’s cant to paint the vivid details of pain, forbearance, and suffering that led him to enlightenment. She found it terrifying and fascinating in equal measures. Moreso when she searched her own depths for that self same light, and comprehended what might await in pursuit of its mastery. She paced a little, arms folded. Her life was one of luxury, but not without discipline.
“Then… that is what I must do? Fast? Push my body beyond its means?” She worried at her lip as she turned, brow furrowed.
Alvis sat at the desk, slouched back in his chair, distracted by her pacing. His fist twitched, and for the first time she noticed discomfort grimacing his expression with the movement. “Wisdom demands sacrifice,” he said, looking at her wryly.
She considered it.
“No. No, Alvis, if I had not pulled away from it, it would have killed me.”
“Then perhaps you ought to let me continue searching for some other answer,” he said, gesturing to the screens. “Your time may be short, Miss Disir, and perhaps you do not mind wasting it, but mine is not a commodity to be spent frivolously either. I cannot offer you comfort.”
Zhenya refrained from rolling her eyes as she came to stand behind him. She leaned over his shoulder, arms resting lightly on the back of his chair. A grid of eight holoscreens flickered with search data in front of him. Text scrolled faster than the eye could read, and images bloomed and faded. It didn’t seem to her that he need do much more than wait for the search to flag an article of interest, which certainly did not preclude conversation in the meantime.
“I could try again,” she said doubtfully.
“When I seized upon the power, I expected you to feel something. That is how it has been with the others. But you did not.” He shifted his weight away from her, propping his chin into the palm of his hand, one finger stretched in contemplation astride his lips. “I’d rather not negotiate my failure with your father. We will find another way.”
She made some noncommittal sound of agreement, and found herself looking, not at the screens, but at the dark symbols tattooed crisply on his arm. Alvis’s muscles corded when she reached out, and he glanced up at her frowning, but he seemed too proud to pull away from the touch. The ink was still dark and vivid, though well-healed. They could not be old. She followed the shape of one jagged mark, her eyes narrowed on some faint sense she could not place.
“Have you quite finished?”
The charm of the quiet spell faded at his interruption, but she was in no rush to pull away; rather a slow smile bloomed to her lips, perhaps for the catch she detected in the timbre of his voice. His skin was warm despite his cool manner. So he was a flesh and blood man after all. “What do they mean?”
He paused, thoughtful. “There are theories that tie this power, whatever it truly is, to secrets woven into ancient myth. Unsubstantiated, of course, but compelling nonetheless.”
“And this is what it is for you?” Her thumb traced one that appeared like a slanting F, its branches spread to the sky. That one almost made her shiver.
Silence welled while he carefully considered an answer, or so she imagined to be the case since his arm was still tense. He did not seem to be prolonging the connection anyway; rather, perhaps, he was waiting for her to move away before he spoke. Another still moment passed, him only watching the lay of her hand, and then his wrist flexed. When he opened the fingers of his fist, she saw the flesh of his palm razed red and sore in the jagged shape of a lightning bolt. “The rune eihwaz,” he said. “Wisdom demands sacrifice, like I said.” Then he moved suddenly, dislodging her and pulling his arm firmly free -- and the healing wound from sight. This time she did not press upon his patience. She straightened.
“How do you know all of this?”
And of course, he did not answer.
seiðr. That was what the Norse called it. She was fond of reading, though usually her predilection was for the realm of trashy romance (her father’s words), not the lofty halls of academia. There was a fire lit beneath her heels now, though, and she had always been voracious in pursuit of her desires. Probably Alvis was glad of those respites from her company. Sometimes he called upon her to perform exercises, but none so direct as that first night. Meanwhile her sense of the power grew, but not her ability to grasp it. At best it slipped away like a coy lover, and at worst the panic of being consumed made her shy of the attempt. Alone she was more curious, drawn like moth to flame, still yet always thwarted by frustration.
As the days began to mount, she wondered at how many she even had left.
She rose early by habit, and today by some maudlin desire to watch the sun rise. As a child she had sometimes joined her father in the endeavour, relishing those quiet moments of simply being. A decorated war-veteren, it meant something different to him than to her. Today she thought she understood him better.
Ensconced in the plush cushions by her bay window, a blanket wrapped about her shoulders, she drifted with the gold glow on the horizon. A few times she had tried to explain to Alvis why every instinct reared away from forcing control over the seiðr, but he only looked at her with that mild expression of his edged by scorn. It would be nothing short of plunging her hands into the fiery orb of the sun to hasten its arc into the sky. She sighed and let her awareness of it grow. Both poison and cure. If she could not master it, perhaps she ought do no more than surrender. It seemed a better way to go than what she knew waited otherwise.
Tracking dawn’s first breaths, she finally let herself fall.
And felt it surround her like the warmest embrace.
Her eyes widened, hardly daring to exhale lest it slip away. He had told her it was like the heart of a storm, something to fist into control before it swarmed, but he was so terribly wrong; it was the most peace she had ever felt, brimming with power, but with gentle and motherly strength. For a moment she only revelled, eyes closed, half-smiling to herself. Then she stood. She needed to find Alvis.
*
In her rush she barely acknowledged the usual guard at the door, though the sound of his rote “good morning, Miss Disir,” followed her in. She did not find him among the shelved walls but in the courtyard beyond, sat on a bench facing an arrangement of sculptured flowers. She sat next to him, fingers braced over the edge of the seat, leaning forward to command his attention. “It is not rage and hunger, it is beauty, Alvis. Joy and contentment.” The declaration left her breathless. The world seemed more alive. She felt she could count the lashes rimming his eyes. The colour of them. “There are components to it, within the light itself. Threads that weave like a tapestry.”
A faint smile softened his lips.
“Are you laughing at me?”
The accusation sobred him to his usual grim countenance. He glanced at her finally. There were vaults locked in that mind, and he was stingy to share such treasure. Sometimes when they theorized she caught glimpses; that moment when a spark caught, and he actually took interest in what she said. Mostly, though, it was just that inscrutable look. Half the time she had no clue what he was thinking at all.
“Of course not. It really is different, then.” He bent to scoop what looked like polished stones from the floor. Zhenya drew her feet back, realising with a frown that they were quite bare. She adjusted the blanket around her shoulders and did not deign to comment on the fact she had come out in her nightclothes. Alvis was very carefully feigning ignorance too. He stood. “Don’t share what you are, Zhenya. Your father will keep you safe from the rest.”
“Then you’re leaving.” Realisation wrenched the seidr from her control, and as the light winked out disappointment flared in its place. Some small part of her had sought to meet him on an equal footing, to prove herself, and she had expected to receive recognition for it. She had made the discovery alone, and between them they might make more. But instead he returned her to her father’s keeping. Keep me safe from what?
“They will seek to study you now if I stay,” he said. He’d hinted at employers before; those beyond her father, like shadows only ever observed in the peripheral. She watched him, expression like steel, back straight and rigid. He slipped the stones in his pocket. “My name is Sören, Zhenya, not Alvis. You will not see me again.”
But on that he was wrong. She would assure it.
Freyja reborn
Freyja was a member of the Vanir tribe of deities, but became an honorary member of the Aesir gods after the Aesir-Vanir War, by way of hostage-exchange alongside her twin, Freyr, with whom she was very close. She is famous for her fondness of love and fine material possessions, and is a goddess of love, fertility, beauty, and gold, but also of war and (peaceful) death. Freyja is the archetype of the völva, a professional practitioner of seiðr, the most organised form of Norse magic. It was she who first brought this art to the gods, and, by extension, to humans as well. Given her expertise in controlling and manipulating the desires, health, and prosperity of others, she’s a being whose knowledge and power are almost without equal.
Freya presides over the afterlife realm of Folkvang. According to one Old Norse poem, she chooses half of the warriors slain in battle to dwell there (the other half collected by Odin, to reside in Valhalla). In some interpretations she is considered the leader of the Valkyrie, for she receives first pick of the dead.
Notably, she was one of the few beings thought to survive Ragnarök, and likely played an important role in shaping the world that came after.
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