For Sist3r_Sin -- The New Tattoo

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Illya's eyebrows raised when Ivan's driver pulled the car to a stop and parked in front of the tattoo parlor. The sign was in Russian. It was not a place for hipsters and tourists to get inked. It was almost exclusively used by the Vor. The man who owned it was an old friend of his boss' from Russia. The driver got out and opened the door. As usual, Illya got out first, and then his employer. In truth they were more than that. By saving the old man's life, he had earned a permanent place in the family.

"Come, you have earned a new mark, Kuryakin," Ivan told him. He followed his boss inside and watched as he greeted the owner, Victor, with a kiss on the cheek and a handshake. "Go, take off your shirt and lie down."

He listened to the two old men talking softly in Russian as Illya went to the table toward the back of the shop and removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Sliding the shirt off revealed his story to everyone who knew how to read it. He laid down on the table on his back, revealing a couple of recently healed scars. One on his chest bisected the crucifix, cutting Jesus in half and angled toward his heart. The other, raked down well developed abdominal muscles on his left side. These were from the knife wounds he had taken for Ivan. His boss sat down in the back in a chair and picked up one of the Russian newspapers lying there.

The tattooist came and sat down by Illya, pulling on a pair of neoprene gloves and looking over the display of prison and military tattoos. The new tattoo would be different. Made with professional ink and the artwork would be better defined. The tattooist cleaned the area around his abdominal scar with alcohol and looked over the space. Unlike American tattooists, he would not be working from flash, but from memory.

Illya relaxed while the artist prepared his inks. Today he would be getting the Ivanoff family crest, held by a bear. A mark that he was a protector of the family.

Comments

[abyssum_invocat]

"Have you been checking on me?" she asked, somewhat teasingly; she hadn't told him she had a job, nor what it was.

"We shall. I look forward to seeing what you think of the eggs; I've seen pictures of them, but never one in front of me, just behind a little glass." Sinthia took Illya's arm, laying her fingers on his sleeve with a smile.

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"Not necessarily. I called and you had message on your machine that you were out of town, so I decided to try back later." That she had a job, was a guess on his part and his own job could be erratic in it's timing.

"Me too. I have seen pictures but never one in person. They are somewhat like national treasure to us." They went inside, the museum was packed with the town's wealthy and influential. Illya and Sinthia blended in with the crowd easily. They waited patiently as the crowd filtered throw and they came upon the first egg display.

The the 1885 Hen Egg. Illya looked at it in wonder, a smile on his face. They looked at it for a few moments and then the crowd moving through whisked them away to the next egg on display.

[abyssum_invocat]

"I was, and for that I apologize," she said absently, gently shrugging. "I had a contract that demanded I be in Zurich." She'd found one of the higher-level overseers of the operation that had dominated most of her life--realistically, all of it until recently--holed up there, where he could live off the amassed wealth in a numbered Swiss account.

He hadn't enjoyed seeing Sinthia again, and had enjoyed less his messy end in the frigid lake, but thankfully had had no memory of her forcing him to give her the code for his account, giving her access to a considerable amount of money, and more information on his fellows.

When they came to the first egg, Sinthia stopped for a moment longer than the crowd, simply planting her feet and refusing to move, with the result that people simply flowed around her and Illya like water around rocks; she studied the tiny hen and the egg components, reaching up to touch the necklace around her throat. It was a double pendant, a gold and diamond replica of the Russian Imperial crown, and a tiny ruby-covered egg.

"This is beautiful," Sinthia murmured, looking up at him. "Thank you for bringing me here."

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"You're welcome," his smile grew wider giving him a boyish look. Illya recognized the necklace as an homage to the Imperial Eggs. "I am glad you are enjoying this as much as I am." When they moved on, they came to a display of the until recently, lost Third Imperial Egg. Next to the display a CNN article about its recovery was posted next to it. "Just imagine finding something like that in heap of scrap metal," he said in awe. It was not the most beautiful or most expensive of the Imperial Eggs. Certainly, it was the luckiest though. It had been sheer luck that it was discovered in a box of scrap metal that a man in the midwest had bought at auction.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Of course," she chuckled. "It's my homeland too." And Russia was far more familiar to her, more like a home, than Berlin had been, though there was no physical place she felt a stronger tie to than any other. "I can appreciate art in most circumstances," Sinthia admitted, scanning the article by the golden egg, flicking between that and the diamond-hand watch displayed in the gold egg shape. "Which ones do you like best? Of the eggs, I mean," she asked, sliding her hand down to take his hand.

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The idea that Russia was also her homeland brought questions to his mind, but he would save personal questions for when they went out to dinner after this. Illya's fingers curled around hers; her hand felt so small and delicate in his.

"I like them all. Though I am most fascinated by the ones that have mechanical components. Like the one with the little bird that comes out and sings. Oh, and especially the one with the train. The Trans Siberian Egg. The detail on the tiny little train is amazing. I think it is toward the end of the exhibit."

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"You're allowed to ask," Sinthia murmured, feeling his fingers curl surely around hers, rubbing her thumb over the curve of his skin. Her hands--her whole self--was smaller, more delicate, more lithely muscled than his, and she smiled as he spoke.

"I think my favorite is the Trans-Siberian one. I love the little train, and it's such a perfect miniature... I'd love to see it run." And she, unlike most, had the ability to do so, if she was careful.

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Her hand in his felt comfortable, "I will. When we are alone," he said back quietly. Illya was a very private person, partly out of training and partly personality.

"That would be something to see," he smiled. The next egg in the exhibit was the lovely pink Danish Palaces Egg from 1890.

[abyssum_invocat]

"This one is sweet," Sinthia murmurs, letting the topic of his questions drift into silence, though she wondered--and almost asked him--if they were planning on being alone at some point in the evening. "All the paintings of the palaces Maria would have lived in the Danish court, and the places she spent time with her husband. The one of the Amalienborg Palace is surprisingly correct."

She'd traveled to Copenhagen enough times to know what the Rococo-styled buildings looked like by memory, and smiled at the little watercolor panel of it. "Alexander must have loved her dearly to give her these things." The next egg in the collection was one of Sinthia's favorites; the Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket Egg, decorated with so many tiny pearl blossoms.

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"It is," Illya had seen some of those places in person as well. The paintings were tiny and delicate. "It was said that they were love match. Something quite rare in monarchies of the time." Marriages were arranged to seal treaties and negotiations between countries and monarchies at the time.

They followed the flow to the next display. The Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket Egg was encrusted with tiny pearls and enameled flowers and leaves. It's surprise, three tiny portraits on ivory of Tzar Nicholas and his two daughters, Olga and Tatiana.

Illya approached these treasures with no small bit of reverence. These delicate objects were a connection with a time and a monarchy which no longer existed and yet it shaped the lives of Illya's parents and his own. It was idyllic time in Russia's history that was utterly destroyed by Oktober Revolution. At the end, this small delicate reminder of that time and of the people of that time had withstood all to be shown here.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Something quite rare for monarchies of any time," Sinthia murmurs, not taking her eyes off the tiny pearls covering the egg, and the miniature portraits at the top. "They're beautiful children."

She almost reaches up to touch the glass, but stops with only a little involuntary jerk of her arm in Illya's. She doesn't remember those times herself--some afterward, yes, the Stalinist years early on--but the history fascinates her, enabling her to fill in some of the many, many blanks in her memory, things that have been stripped away forever, trapped in complex pathways Sinthia will never rebuild. "It's strange, isn't it," she said quietly, "That the only thing left of a whole family is these little eggs and jewels. The most intimate gift he could have given her, such a fragile little thing, survived."

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"Yes. They were," like most Russians, Illya had not been brought up to believe in happy endings, but the story of Tsar Nicholas and his family was exceptionally tragic. He had been fascinated by it as a boy. "It is. The wonder is they were not purposely destroyed by the early Soviets as symbols of the decadent and corrupt Tsarist regime. The only thing that saved them was that they were worth a great deal of money. Stalin sold them off to raise funds in the 1920s."

[abyssum_invocat]

"They weren't particularly corrupt, not the later ones," Sinthia murmured, "Nicholas was poorly raised to be the Tsar and had little inclination to follow Alexander. And him dying young and suddenly helped nothing."

The more she stared at the egg in front of her, the more her control over her thus-far hidden abilities slipped bit by tiny bit. It only resulted in the glass beginning to warp by fractions of degrees, not even enough to make the crystalline structure crack. But still it was there, though it abruptly stopped when Illya mentioned Josef Stalin, attention snapping back to his reflection as her lashes dipped in recognition.

"He was a boor of a man," she said softly. "And short." Shorter than Sinthia, even.

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Illya stared at Sinthia, for a few moments, she seemed a million miles away as she talked about Tzar Nicholas. She seemed different. And then her talking about Stalin as if he was someone she'd met made the hair on the back of his neck twitch. He squeezed her hand gently, "Sintha, are you feeling alright?"

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia risked a glance up at Illya at that question, mouth halfway to a self-deprecating smile as she looks back to the egg. "I'm feeling just fine, Illya. I read my histories, that's all. Can you blame me for being a little enthralled by something so beautiful?"

It clearly isn't that egg, and she's not perfectly fine, but that mysterious look she has has very successfully sold a lot of lies in her life, and many more far-fetched than her simply feeling alright. "He was only five foot six, you know. Even if he was always painted larger, he was shorter than I am."

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He smiled, she seemed quite alright now, "Of course, not. They are a physical part of the past. We cannot help but be fascinated by them let alone the skill it took to make such things."

Regarding Stalin's lack of height made him chuckle. At six foot five, nearly everyone was considerably shorter than Illya was. "I remember some of the statues of Stalin and Lenin before Perestroyka and Glasnost. I remember being surprised that they were hollow when they were pulled down."

[abyssum_invocat]

"They're extraordinary," she murmurs, squeezing his hand as they came to the last egg in the exhibit, the Trans-Siberian Railway egg, with the miniature train laid out in front, all the cars assembled together.

"If they'd been solid, they wouldn't have cured properly," Sinthia said absently. "I remember...mmm. What do I remember," she sighed. "I remember when they passed the law permitting private ownership." That had been big. "I wasn't there when they got pulled down. I moved around quite a lot."

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Approaching the last one, Illya looked like a boy at Christmas. He was delighted to see the Trans-Siberian Railway egg. The little train was just as exquisite as it had appeared in the pictures. Though it was bigger than he'd imagined. For a moment he'd lost track of what they had been talking about.

"Solid? Oh, yes. The statues," he laughed. "I imagine not. But when you're a child you see the world differently. That had been a very strange time. One day the state owned everything and the next day it didn't. It was a bit... crazy."

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia was watching Illya with a smile mirroring his own as he studied the tiny train carriages; she was committing the features of his face to memory in that smile, looking so happy and almost awestruck by the beauty and genius of the tiny gilded mechanics and jewels fit together so perfectly.

At his comment about seeing the world differently, she could affect a smile, but it was less bright, more sad; she'd never been that kind of child. She, rather unlike him, would always have in her the knowledge of murdering nearly a dozen people before she'd turned nine. It would never go away, never be forgotten, and it tinted a good deal of what she remembered from childhood. "I know it was," she replied, just shy of a returning laugh.

"You should see the look on your face. You look like Grandfather Frost just came to visit you."

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"It is beautiful," he was awestruck by it and it was everything he'd thought it would be. Such perfect and tiny details.

He might not have been a killer quite that young, but he was indeed a killer. He had done and seen horrible things in the chaos and worse. They could probably compare horrors sometime. His smile softened a little and his eyes became a little sad.

Though remembering Grandfather Frost brought back his smile and a boyish blush to his cheeks, "Do I?" he ducked his head a little. Illya had never had anything so fine to play with. But seeing it in person was better than he had wished for.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Just a little," she said, brushing her cheek against his shoulder with a little laugh. He looked handsome, and happy, and that was plenty to make her smile, even if she was still intensely curious about him and the story his tattoos told her.

"You blush," Sinthia noted, amused. "I would have thought a man like you would outgrow that."

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He was genuinely happy for the moment. Even if it was fleeting, it was worth coming here with her to the exhibit. "Apparently no," he said blushing all the more fiercely.

Looking into Sinthia's eyes, Illya desperately wanted to kiss her right now. She intrigued him deeply. After a moment, he slid his arm around her waist. "Let's go to dinner."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Was dinner part of your plan?" she asked, stepping up to meet him when he slid an arm around her waist, comfortable but unwilling to be handled like a doll; the Vor were not known for being overly chivalrous to women, she knew.

She stood still for a moment, smile evening out as she watched his face, only to wing up again when she knew it crossed his mind to kiss her. "We can always come back later. I know someone who works here, he might let us back in to see them privately."

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"It was, if you are interested?" Illya had no intention of handling her that way. "Do you like sushi?"

Her suggestion brought back his wide smile and the excitement to those blue eyes and he was back to looking like a little boy on New Year's Day. "Ooh, do you think they would run the train for us?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I do," she says lightly, smiling. "I like most food."

She did, really; she might have liked German food out of habit and familiarity, but most things wouldn't offend her. "They might," Sinthia replied to his question about the train running.

"I'll have the train run for you if you'll let me pay for dinner," she suggested.