unburden | you say all you want is a kiss goodnight

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alexander molokov

you say all you want is a kiss goodnight

The revelations were growing more disturbing by the day. Not only had three months unearthed very little in the vein of potential ways off the island, the phenomena which took over Darrow in any number of ways, from fog to the reawakened, were also making Rukia more uneasy by the minute. Some people might have been accustomed to the idea of there being multiple verses functioning in any number of ways, but to Rukia, there was only her world. There was only the balance that she'd learned of her whole life, the divide between the living and the dead, a cycle which tossed about but rarely tipped.

Darrow changed everything.

While able to keep a straight eye for most of it, sometimes Rukia found herself needing an anchor. Today was one of those days, Rukia making her way over to the town park and stretching her muscles out, testing out a few basic forms in her tank and capris. To anyone watching as she passed through the basic hakuda moves, it was pretty clear that Rukia had some level of experience.

But no one would have been able to mistake her for someone with decades of it. She kept her moves casual, hoping to slip under people's radar, because this was a time for thinking. Not explanations.

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Molokov hadn't so much given up on trying to discover who had kidnapped them and why as he had pushed that problem to the side. He was not going to get very far without more information then he had and he wasn't going to get that if he could not find himself a position in the government and work his way up. His new goal, therefore, was work towards that end.

For the moment, he was not working towards anything except a circuit around the city. It had become part of his routine and though he was very careful to make his wandering unpredictable on the off chance he was being watched, he did not feel right if he did not get out and about.

He was glad he did when he came across the striking looking woman in the park. She moved with a kind of grace he usually associated with dancers and he had to force himself to clear his throat and speak before she caught him staring.

"Please forgive me, I do not meant to interrupt you but what you doing, it is very beautiful."

Caught slightly off-guard by the idea that someone would intently watch her at all, Rukia came to a quick stop in her motions and blinked in the direction of the man. She wasn't dressed for optimal practice — the denim capris she wore were a bit restrictive at best, although her t-shirt proved easy to move in — but the idea was, after all, to make her look like a casual artist.

She grinned quickly enough, a purposefully shy expression before she clasped both of her hands before her and offered a bow in gratitude.

"Thank you," she said, wondering if there was anything inappropriate in his attention. On this front, the clashing of cultures in Darrow made it hard to understand other people at any given point. "I didn't know that anyone was watching."

The bow was very elegantly done, Molokov noted with approval. The shyness was just the icing on the cake, as it were, and he had to remind himself to stay cool and collected. He wanted to know more about her, yes, but he would get nothing if he was too eager. Slowly, slowly was the rule.

"I did not mean to watch," he confessed. "I happened to be passing by the park and you caught my eye. I do not think I have ever seen anything like that before."

Her hands were still carefully folded in front of her person as Rukia tilted her head curiously at the man. Why he was taking such interest in her, she couldn't tell. There was something about his behavior that seemed a little more keenly interested than one's average passerby, but without any real reason to feel that way, Rukia could only continue to smile and reply as politely as an average person might in that situation.

"It's just some of my basic hakuda forms," she admitted, keeping relatively humble. As she ought, really, not having stretched herself to her limits in that short period of time. "Have you never watched people practicing combat?"

Molokov shook his head. "I have, it is true, but it was nothing so fine as what you were doing, not so skilled. What is it you called it - hakuda? It seems a much more elegant discipline then what I had saw being practiced before."

Affecting sheepishness, he bowed his head and held out his hand. "Please forgive me for not introducing myself before. I am Alexander Molokov."

Rukia blinked, staring at the man with some amount of reserve. Elegant? There was no doubt in her mind that there was a certain amount of elegance which came with the discipline, of course, but Rukia also knew that the overall look and feel varied greatly depending on who was practicing and for what purpose. Hakuda could just as easily be used to kill as to disarm, although the former was something that Rukia generally tried to avoid when possible.

But she had no reason yet to be anything but gracious in accepting the praise with a slight tilt of her head — after all, perhaps this man was simply offering what was standard for his people. Cultures varied all the time.

"Oh no, there's nothing to forgive. Thank you for the compliment," Rukia smiled. "My name is Rukia."

Although she felt that her surname was probably more than distinctive enough, Rukia carefully kept her family name to herself. Just in case.

Rukia. That was not a name Molokov had heard before and though he tried to place its origin, he came up blank. It was an Eastern sounding name but more definite than that, he could not say. He would have to ask about that later, when he was certain he would not cause offense.

"Have you been here very long?" he asked curiously. "In this city, that is."

"I..."

And there was where she paused. Only for a second, and perhaps in a way that wouldn't be at all noticeable, save for the people who were waiting for a specific answer. She hadn't been in the city very long, after all, but she'd been in it as long as she was sure that anyone else had. Her brow furrowed before she offered a smile, one hand raising to push back at her hair, nudging it behind her ear.

"I've been in Darrow since April first of this year. So not very long, I guess, but long enough to have a good sense for, erm. The flavor of the city, I guess."

That pause was very interesting indeed. There were almost certainly something more behind this, some secret that she was keeping about her arrival here or even about the city itself. Molokov wanted to know what she knew and no matter how long it might take, he was determined to find out.

"I have been here that long as well," he answered. "It is certainly nothing like Moscow. I am still not sure whether this is good or bad."

"Oh good!" Rukia exclaimed, and although her voice remained quiet, it was nonetheless excited and clearly held a deep tone of relief as she smiled, ducking her head. "So you're not one of the many here who seem to think that Darrow's the only place they've been in for years, or that there really isn't a world outside of it." Even as she spoke, she glanced around, and far off into the distance, wondering where exactly that boundary between Darrow and the outside world lay. She'd explored it any number of times, but it always seemed as though her mind grew fuzzy when she approached it, sending her hurtling right back.

"I've been wary," she explained. "Of speaking to those people. They don't tend to take very kindly to the idea that this place has ever been abandoned."

"No," Molokov answered, understanding now the reason for her pause. "No, I am one of the lucky - or unlucky ones who woke up on a train going to this place. I cannot blame you for your caution - there are so many who seem to think they were always here. I tried to explain this was not so. Once. It did not, as you can imagine, go so well."

This collective amnesia/delusion was something that worried him. Such effects were possible by drugs, of course, but to drug so many and for so long? How was that possible? Would he too become affected and wake one day to think he had been here all his life? The thought of this was absolutely terrifying.

"But they may have been here for a long time, it's true. The city was empty when we first arrived, but we don't know about what happened before April. Maybe everyone was here, but somehow they were taken out for a couple of months. Taken elsewhere," Rukia considered. She'd talked over the entire situation with Ichigo any number of times, but it didn't hurt to volley her ideas off of someone else.

"It's just that their memory is incomplete, which makes me worry, of course. This man people forgetting everything? It's dangerous. Whoever or whatever did this is very powerful," she added, belaboring the obvious, a furrow forming in her brow as she continued to speak her way through her thoughts.

"That is something I had not considered," Molokov said, annoyed that this possibility had not occurred him. He had been working on the premise that the city had been set up specially for them and the people simply imported in as some kind of test. There was no reason at all why these poor people could not have simply been there first and taken away.

"But this frightens me. All of this frightens me. I have had some... experience with government with power but never anything like this. What can we do to protect ourselves against someone who can wipe away memories or disappear an entire city?"

"Think creatively," Rukia suggested, voice quiet as her gaze skimmed across the ground. "And do your best to avoid their notice. That's all you can do." It was a greater amount of wisdom than most expected of her, but if there was something to be said about Rukia's life, it was that she'd faced a much greater amount than most humans ever did. Than most shinigami ever did. Trouble seemed to follow her around as though her life were made for it.

If nothing else, she was glad for how it'd helped her develop thick skin.

"You can't beat them directly," she pointed out, glancing up. "You don't have that kind of power. I don't have that kind of power. You just have to hope that in a population like this one, you can slip by and figure things out while that power's busy looking somewhere else."

"You are right," Molokov said. "It is very difficult to admit or even say, but you are right in that there is little else to do but hide and wait and hope you find something that will be of use."

He paused for a moment then offered her a smile. "At least we do not have to do this alone. I am very glad I have met you. It makes all of this easier to bear."

At that, Rukia couldn't help but manage a small smile, licking her lip subtly and ducking her head down. While she wasn't sure that she was ready to spread her hypotheses through the whole of the city, she did trust that this man had a true desire to escape the claws of whatever held them in the city.

And maybe that meant that he deserved enough to know the best way to slip through the cracks. Slowly, everyone could. One by one.

"I'm glad I could help," she says with a polite nod of her head, sliding one hand up her arm until it tucks next to her elbow. "And I have somewhere to be, so... I think I have to end this early. My apologies."

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