[ota] sleeping under strange skies

[thepupthatmatters]

He's ready for this. Of course he's ready for this.

He wouldn't be here if he weren't ready. Holló wouldn't have sent him through without being prepared. This isn't, after all, the sort of place a person gets sent without it being purposeful. Even the people who wander here 'by chance' are the people who need to be here, he's been told.

So it's the right time for Aleksei Volkov to be stepping out into the cold sunlight barely warming the walls of the Castle Spades, newly minted and processed and told he'll have to start working his way up from Two now.

The few things he'd brought with him have been settled into the cramped quarters he'll be sharing with a few other recent arrivals. What's stuck from his grandmother means he'll be starting off under the apparently quite severe Spade kitchen staff.

Hopefully it isn't the end of the world that he needs to pause when he's sent out to Town to pick up a few extra bottles of truffle oil and vanilla extract. Hopefully being 'ready for this' doesn't mean he can't take a moment--take a deep breath--as he lets settle into his bones the fact that he's here.


{ooc; He can be bumped into at the castle or being lost in Town. Also tag plz?}

Comments

[theacethatmatters]

"And they've already got you working," but he doesn't sound surprised. "A Two, I take it." A little too young for them to have made him a Three upon arrival and Julien's particular sort of entrance was rather frowned upon these days. Well, that and they had someone with rather more backbone and a higher rank signing in the new folk.

"Your name?"

[thepupthatmatters]

"For now, sir."

Not that it would be a showy thing. Not the first few times. Quiet Challenges, Holló had told him, at least until he had some real experience under his belt.

"Volkov, sir." And he's still assuming he's fairly outranked here, so there's a brief dip of a clearly unpracticed bow. "Aleksei Volkov."

[theacethatmatters]

The accent had already more or less given the boy's place of origin away but the name clinches it. He nods slightly, tolerant of mistakes in those who simply don't know better yet. Besides which, for having just arrived this morning, he's doing quite well.

"Aleksei," who wasn't quite at the age where Julien would start calling him Mr. Volkov. "I am Julien, Nine of Spades." There is no hand held out to shake, there is no answering bow, there is still the very barest of hesitations between his name and his rank. Nine still fits wrongly in his mouth when Ace is what belongs there.

[thepupthatmatters]

For so many years, there had been nothing. No man. No memories. No photos. No name. For the last few months, there had been that, at least--a few letters to cling to that meant his father existed.

He hadn't particularly imagined what meeting the man would be like. If he could have had his druthers, it probably wouldn't have been like this. But... it was a settling. A piecing together of something that had been missing in his chest.

Hopefully the brief look of wonder would be taken as the respect of a Two for a Nine. "It's... an honour, sir."

I might be borrowing someone's wireless

[theacethatmatters]

His nod is perhaps a little distracted, since he's already thinking in to other things he ought to be managing.

"Most anyone in Town should be able to direct you to the Ivy after...if you don't find it on your own."

/r-reach /also sends Christmas luffs

[thepupthatmatters]

His father has a face.

And he's got to nod a bit hurriedly now, to duck a slightly deeper bow as he takes another half-step down the stairs.

"Of-- course, sir. Thank you, for-- all your help."