SUMMER TEST DRIVE MEME

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:

Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE – a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.

THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.

CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, D/S mechanics, public sex, aphro, bondage, free use, death, missing persons, snakes.

If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.

FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS

IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE

The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the damp mosses and ferns, the balmy summer air warm and sticking on your bare skin.

Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.

You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from their hiding places. With your feet under you, you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is knee-deep and surprisingly chilly. Here and there, dotting the verdant forest, are strange, massive white trees extending into the sky, surrounded by a circle of dead soil. Their sides are smooth and cool to the touch – like bone, for those who know its texture – and they creak alarmingly, threateningly at the press of warm hands.

As you explore, you may encounter caches of clothing left in painted crates or placed in hollow tree trunks. They contain loose shirts and trousers, perhaps even a moth-eaten coat, along with a note that includes a bare-bones explanation for your arrival and a sketched map toward town. You may also run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike to find civilization.

Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.

This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street – a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer – while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. Above the town, drifting like a low hanging cloud over the tops of the buildings, is a pavilion swathed in deep red cloth, and to the north, past the end of the main street, are several large blockades barring further exploration. Somewhat strangely, the whole town seems to be in a state of slight disrepair– workers bustle around, filling in a large hole in the town wall, a woman curses and fiddles with the crank mechanism of a well, and children splash through muddy potholes in the cobblestone, chasing a malnourished looking dog. Here, the bone trees have taken root as well, a few rising through buildings, branches extending through cracked roofs, others rooted in the middle of the street.

When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available – the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.

BREAKING AND ENTERING

If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.

SETTING: CRIME

Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings – bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, some scorch marks still linger from a fire about a year back, and the place seems somewhat in disrepair

Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions. The town has recently been through some upheaval, and its people have suffered a great loss, newcomers are told. Everyone is doing their part now to restore it to its former glory.

finding roommates

Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.

Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal – at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.

WRITER'S BLOCK?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!

THE FESTIVAL OF SUMMER'S EVE

Despite the repair efforts around town, summer is in full swing, which means it's time to take advantage of the warm weather! Colorful tents have been set up, stages and spaces for "games" to be played, many involving intimacy, playfulness, sex, or "fun". In fact, there's a great deal of emphasis on fun being had all around. Each round begins with a prayer to the Duchess. Not bowing your head in prayer may get you a stares from locals, or worse, opponents may be extra motivated to defeat someone so disrespectful to her Grace.

Each Thursday, buildings are festooned with wreaths of wildflowers, tables are laden with food and drink, and everyone is given colored sashes to wear over their clothes. Festival goers are not allowed to enter the main events unless they wear a sash, and to get a sash they must reveal their curse marks. Those marked with the curse of Wilk receive blue sashes, Diabel get red, Skala receive green and Niez are adorned with grey.

FAQ: CURSE MARKS

This summer's eve, the locals are eager to explain, is a festival about giving trust to one another, taking pleasure in the present and acceptance in things as they are. What perhaps isn't explained nearly so well is that everyone is expected to demonstrate enthusiasm for the festival activities, lest they catch the eye of the Duchess' watchful stewards. There's a strange energy in the air, furtive, sorrowful looks and forced smiles, but a sense of relief lingers in the festival crowds as they set to celebrating their hearts out.

Tables overflow with refreshments, especially iced drinks and chilled fruit to cool the summer heat. Rubeans traditionally spice their foods with aphrodisiacs, something that is so culturally normal to them that they don't feel the need to mention it.

• An outdoor feast starts the festivities, with commanders, who are expected to give orders, and followers, who must follow the whims of commanders, whatever they decree. Who commands and who follows is decided by the curse-marked sash participants wear. But there's a twist – every three hours, a horn blows, and the roles switch at random; commanders become followers and vice versa. Many festival-goers, now in a position of command, are eager to get petty revenge on the followers now at their mercy. And if you should be seen disobeying or disregarding a command, or refusing to issue commands when your turn has come around, well, that doesn't seem like proper active participation at all!


• Rope Tying Contest! Riggers from all around town are eager to show off their rope-tying skills, with contests taking place judging both in their ability to weave an intricate web of knotwork over another's body, and to suspend them artfully for all to admire. And of course, those who are tied up will have to stay in place until the judging is complete! There's a public voting element to the contest as well, as festivalgoers "enjoy" these community pieces of art. Everyone who participates is given ample water, praise, and force-fed an herbal draught to calm their nerves if they seem to be getting a bit too agitated.


• Prison Bars & Glory Holes! Human-sized cages have been dragged out into the festival grounds and draped with heavy cloth. People may enter and leave them freely, taking advantage of the gaps in the bars to indulge in sexual acts with the veneer of anonymity. Sometimes, more than one person might find themselves in the same cage, or pranksters might close and lock the door behind them – oops!


• Spooky Story Telling! As evening falls, gather 'round in a crowded tent as a pair of story-tellers share and reenact tales of monsters and horrors past before opening the floor to the audience to share their own. Ten candles have been lit for the occasion, and one is snuffed out for every new story told. The air in the tent gets stuffy, made stuffier with the musky incense burning in the fire stoking the animalistic instincts of the participants until they give into fear and their more primal urges.


• A game going on throughout the town, regardless of whether someone consents to participation, is something the locals call Lock and Key. The rules are explained after you are grabbed and tied by your wrist (or ankle, whatever was available) to someone else: the locked binding tying you two together is blessed to be unbreakable until you each draw enough blood to soak through the binding... or find the key, stashed someplace on the festival grounds. Good luck!


• However, those who refuse to get in the community spirit of shared trust and pleasure may find themselves singled out by the Duchess' stewards for some personal, mandatory education on Rubean culture and traditions. They may be forcibly dosed with potent aphrodisiacs, locked into the cages or tied against the bars until they plead for Her Grace's mercy... or have satisfied enough of the sexual or sadistic desires of any passer-bys.

Throughout all of this, the general attitude from the local townsfolk may occasionally come across as strangely admiring or overtly hostile. While many of the common people of Rubilykskoye hold mixed personal opinions toward the newcomers to their town, two extremist groups have emerged with opposing viewpoints: some think you are benevolent, beneficent beings with nascent powers sent to lead and guide them and solve their woes. These people, called Blackguards, will do their best to make sure your participation in the festival is one of joy and pleasure. But others, called the Zlatniki, believe that the outsiders coming into their land have corrupted their fellows and seduced their Goddess, and will do their best to twist their native traditions toward cruelty and vindictive sadism when it comes to the Void-touched.

WRITER'S BLOCK?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try partaking in refreshments, give or follow commands, participate in events, be drafted into games against their will, or suffer the consequences of disobedience!

FOREST DEPTHS

Rumor moves through town quickly: two nights ago, a group of loggers went out into the wood and no one has seen them since. Anyone who wants to prove their worth to the community is encouraged to join the search parties going out to look for them and bring them back home.

As you and your fellow searchers venture deeper into the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. The white trunks of the bone trees stand out starkly in the darkness, though you will be warned away from coming too close. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day – eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches.

Many peel off, going back to the town proper. The searchers become fewer and fewer. Maybe some of them are going back home, but maybe they're getting lost. Eventually, you walk around a large tree, and you're alone. It's just you and the Void.

The air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.

Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body – what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?

Yet the further you go, the more convinced you become that the missing loggers are near by. You're sure you can hear them on the wind, their voices calling out between the trees. Did you just see something out of the corner of your eye? You have to find them. You have to make all this darkness worth it.

WRITER'S BLOCK?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger! Feel free to find the bodies of the missing logging party – or hallucinate that you did.

RELEASE YOUR INNER BEAST

Something's wrong here.

The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

Alas, its emergence is inevitable – sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.

Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back – sate the beast.

SOMEONE ELSE TRANSFORMS

Early one morning, alarm bells are rung. The people of Rubilykskoye are quick to explain while boarding up their windows and locking their doors: Cvetanya has transformed after a lover's quarrel turned into heartbreak. Her inner beast – duchozweirz, the natives call it – take the form of a giant snake propelled by hundreds of human-like arms that extend to seize its prey so it might swallow it whole.

Those who are lucky enough to escape Cvetanya's grasp will find that the red scratches left by her monster's hands darken to black and fill them with an icy chill. Warm compresses, hot baths, or some skin-to-skin contact might be necessary for those suffering from her attack.

(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson – feel free to invent your own NPC monsters and scenarios!)

YOU WAITED TOO LONG

At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.

Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.

As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Comments

[polishsausage]

( adder savors that kiss for as long as it lasts, slow and sweet. even as janosh breaks away, adder follows him to steal another kiss, reluctant to let him go just yet. and it's not just the kiss - he savors ever moment of this. janosh's laugh, his smile. they stir such a bittersweet feeling in his chest, but a deep, deep fondness, too.

it surely will be exhausting, this veering back and forth between the extremes of sadness and joy, but that's alright. they will get through it because they are together. they can do anything together. )

Me too, ( he says, and he means it with all of his heart. it surprises him a little. there are some days, especially here, that adder wishes he could see poland again so terribly it's like a real, physical pain tearing him apart. that's his home, not this festering pit.

but

janosh changes everything, as he so often does when it comes to adder's decisions. adder can endure a festering pit, he can love a home here as much as he would love a home in poland or bohemia or fucking hungary — love a home here more, even — if janosh is at his side. )

Do you think we're cut out for it? ( he studies janosh's face for what must be the hundredth time since entering this room. ) Peasant life can be shit, you know. It's easy to forget once you've been on the road as long as we have.

[hungariansausage]

[ Janosh smiles against the follow-up kiss, happy to receive it. they've already kissed at least a hundred times since reuniting, but he'll always want more.

would Poland or even Hungary be better than whatever this hell hole is? it would. but Janosh also knows that they can do anything together, and that's the most important thing. maybe they can find a way out, maybe they can find a way to undo what that french asshole did. it's crazy and impossible, but so is all of this right now. you can't blame a man for wanting to hope, even if he knows better than to get too many hopes up.

here and now, that's what's important. that keeps a sliver of grief at bay. ]

Fuck if I know. [ he laughs briefly, watching Adder as Adder watches him. he doesn't want to stop studying his face either. studying it and kissing it and knowing it will still be here even if he does close his eyes for a little while. ] But we'll do it together. We always have.

[ he'd already said it, Adder is what's home to him, anything else can change or challenge them and they'll figure it out. ] Even if we have to go back to sleeping and shitting in the fucking woods, hey? I'll do anything if it's with you.

[polishsausage]

Yes. ( adder's smile stretches wider, determined. ) And if we decide we want to live in the fucking castle, we will take it for ourselves.

( lofty goals considering janosh definitely hasn't seen a castle since it got swallowed by the void. ... and adder actually hasn't either. he just keeps hearing people talk about it. but it really doesn't matter - it's all just to say that he, too, will be happy wherever they end up. forest, castle, whatever.

at least the regular old peasant life, dull as it might be, will be a nice break for a while. things got so bad so quickly right there at the end back home, and even worse after adder died. it'll be nice for the two of them to have a chance to just live life. (surrounded by emotionally-stunted locals, monsters, people from other worlds entirely, and near-constant public sex. yeah.) )

Though, I have been doing regular work, ( adder goes on, thoughtful. ) Hauling sacks and the like for a local brewer. He's an odd fellow — too fascinated by foreigners — but I get free beer out of it so I put up with him. It's almost what I'd call a nice break from our usual jobs.

...

Don't tell anyone I said that, though.

( in other words living their best peasant life might be a little boring compared to marauding, yeah, but it should be nice. at least for a while. )

[hungariansausage]

[ Janosh laughs again at that. he hasn't seen any castle, but if that's what Adder wanted, he would do it. he's ready for a little break, after everything. he's ready to take care of Adder like he's never been able to before, but also just to settle back into the routine they had built up over so many years. as much of the routine as they can emulate with all the ... differences of this world. ]

You? Hauling sacks? [ he teases gently. doing it for beer of course makes it all the more fitting it's what Adder's chosen for work. Janosh supposes if he's got to do 'regular' things, he might end up back in a kitchen. that's fine of course, but the kitchen in their home will always be first in his heart. ]

I'm not telling them shit. You crazy? [ he grins. if he tells people that Adder might be enjoying something like that, then people are going to start expecting things from them! and then they'll be stuck in those expectations. hell no.

it's janosh and adder's life from now on. ]

You want me to join you?

[ not to sound like he's a little nervous about letting Adder out of his sight, but. he is. they haven't languished away together in this room nearly as long as they need to for him to feel okay with that. ]

[polishsausage]

( adder can't seem to stop smiling now, cheeks a little sore from it as he grins. it's just... okay, apparently the novelty won't be wearing off anytime soon. every moment he spends with janosh here in this bed reminds him of another little thing he's missed so much. janosh's smile, his laugh. even the way he phrases certain things. adder can't believe he has it all back. )

Of course I do. Even just to watch.

( and heckle and pester and adder can tell him to fuck himself and so on and so forth, as is the way of things. he's on a similar train of thought as janosh, though, so he adds: )

But I think you could find work cooking — the tavern would be foolish not to hire you. These locals could stand to try some good food.

( the cuisine here is okay. it's fine. adder's just a hater.

also maybe this conversation could wait until they're not laying naked in bed together but whatever!! they have so much catching up to do. even better if they can be naked at the same time, in adder's opinion. )

[hungariansausage]

[ unless they're going to fuck again, Janosh seems perfectly content right now to be lying naked in bed with Adder even if they are just talking about work or whatever else. he could scarcely be happier, even with the way their emotions are frothing about. ]

Ha! As if you would only let me watch.

[ they would definitely have to do the work together, cussing each other and the brewmaster and the brewmaster's mother out the entire time.

but Janosh feels warm again as Adder follows along on that train of thought he'd had. of course, he'll always be happy to hear that the food he makes is good but coming from Adder it means all the more.]

Maybe I'll cook for them. Maybe not. Hey? [ he smiles again, waving his hand dismissively. his priorities at the moment consist mainly of Adder and nothing more. ] I don't give a fuck about them right now.

[ it can all wait. this can't. ]

[polishsausage]

We can haul sacks together, then, and when Vitus comes asking me about the Lord I'll send him your way instead.

( better vitus's curiosity about their faith than the zlatniki's hatred, but adder still finds the brewmaster to be a bit of a pest. especially when he's just trying to get his boring, mundane work done. )

Anyway, I never give a fuck about the locals. ( a lie. there are more than a few he'd help if they were in trouble - poor, odd vitus even ranks among them. ) They can fuck themselves. Now that you're here, that's all I give a shit about. Us.

( ok and also henry and hans but. you know. details. )

[hungariansausage]

What, I'm a fucking priest now?

[ Janosh chuckles because that's funny and Adder knows it's funny too. though he probably would talk the man's ear off about bible stories if he really wanted him to. another thing that's kind of funny is that Adder is trying to tell him he doesn't care about anything, which Janosh of all people knows is not true.

he's angry and he's brash and he's nasty, but Adder cares. it doesn't take much for Adder to care, and that's just one of the things that Janosh loves so much about him.

of course, Janosh will also give a shit about Henry and probably Hans (look, he doesn't know him that well yet), but that's a given. so he keeps these thoughts mostly to himself, holding Adder close to him like they haven't been attached this entire time. ]

Yeah, yeah. Sweet Adder, I know. Janosh and Adder, together like prick and cunt. [ truly, their love is profound and poetic as can be. ] I love it.

[polishsausage]

( the thought of father janosh the priest is quite funny, and adder snorts. )

Fuck, if Godwin’s a priest, any of us could be.

( dry words, though he's quite fond of godwin for how briefly he's known the man.

but he's not here to think about godwin. or henry or hans or his weird boss or anyone else, as janosh holds him tighter and utters those magic words: sweet adder. doesn't matter how many times he says it; that silly nickname will always manage to melt adder completely. he hums an appreciative note in response that quickly drops into a chuckle. they really are the pinnacle of romance, aren't they? )

Me too. ( i love you, is more what he means of course as he nestles his head as comfortably as he can against janosh's shoulder and shuts his eyes. even something this simple — the warmth and familiarity in how janosh's body fits against his — is just another thing he'd been taking for granted for years. he knows that now. ) It's perfect for a couple of fuckers like us.

( sentimental and happy as he is, he knows he doesn't need to say "i missed you" a hundred more times, so he settles on this instead: )

If I doze off - ( he easily could like this ) - you'd better still be around when I wake up.

[hungariansausage]

[ another laugh for that, since Godwin truly is a miracle of science. he's fond enough of the old guy too by now. grateful to him, that he gave Adder what blessings he could in their lack of time.

he doesn't want to think about that either, or let his thoughts drift to dark places again. instead, Janosh soaks up Adder's words and movements. he'd shut his eyes too, but something about that restful face he sees keeps them open. that's the kind of expression he wants to see on Adder's face all the time. he wants him to be warm, and comfortable, and safe. he wants him to be happy and loved. if he never knew he had all those things in their life before, Janosh will make sure he knows from now on. ]

Yeah, perfect. [ he agrees, almost dreamily. they are a couple of fuckers, and he wouldn't change it for the world.

leaning in to place the lightest of kisses against Adder's eyelid, Janosh once again hurts his face from smiling too much. he could stay up and talk and kiss forever, or he could get some needed rest, safe in the warmth that Adder gives him. either way sounds like the closest he's ever been to heaven. ]

I'll be here. I promise.

[polishsausage]

( adder smiles at the kiss, and the soft tickle of janosh's mustache against his brow. )

Good, ( he murmurs, voice already going a bit gravelly with sleep. he knows he's going to wake up grumbling and cursing that they didn't do any cleaning up but right now he can't muster the energy to care. that's what a good hot bath is for, anyway. he's happy now, just as they are - warm and comfortable and, yes, safe. not even the zlatniki darken his thoughts, as they so often do these days.

the emotional ups and downs of their reunion are taking their toll on him, though. now that their conversation has slowed, a bone-deep tired settles in, and it doesn't take long before he's snoring softly against janosh's shoulder.

no doubt this is going to be one of those naps where you wake up not sure what year it is, let alone the time of day. )