Post by Lyubochka Pasternak on May 23, 2010 18:12:52 GMT
LYUBOCHKA PASTERNAK
" there were cracks; and through them we saw the world fall "
" there were cracks; and through them we saw the world fall "
FULL NAME lyubochka pasternak
ALIAS lyuba
AGE nineteen
NATIONALITY russia
OCCUPATION servant
PERSONALITY
Lyuba is naturally a little standoffish. She keeps to herself, doesn’t associate with many, and doesn't speak more than she needs to. three years with the royal family have taught her to keep her mouth shut, her hands clean, and not to ask questions. She is an obedient girl, hard-working, and gets her dues in the end. She has a few close friends, but is in neither a position or state of mind to be very sociable. It's bad, she knows, but she's working on it.
She is a very technical person who thinks in series of numbers and charted situations; everything is an equation and everything happening is doing so because of some cause and effect. She's not an extremely religious individual, doesn't think things are caused by sin or a father figure in the sky. The equations don't have to make sense. They just fall into each other, make themselves for purposes that may or may not exist. For her, the universe is a place of circumstance and everything happens for being in the right or wrong place in the right or wrong time (how you get to those places, though, is an entirely different story).
SEXUALITY lesbian
APPEARENCE
Classically defined, Lyuba is not pretty. She's a sort of pasty pale and very spindly-looking with odd features. She's a short girl, coming up to a little over five feet with a slim body. Her waist is nipped in, but the rest of her body is relatively boxy. Her profile is nothing shapely, as she has a rather flat chest and small backside. Her hair is a small bit past shoulder length, either a dark blonde or a light brown. It's neither thin nor thick, and is usually quite straight, although it does fall into waves on occasion. Her hands are calloused and red from soap and cleaning.
Her face is oval, with a soft chin and large, staring brown eyes. Her eyebrows are thin and her nose small, her mouth evening out the mix by being average sized. The teeth inside them are straight, but the front two are prominent and slightly large. Whatever attractiveness she holds, however, is usually smoothed out by her servants uniform: a grey, homespun dress, a white apron, and a white scarf covering her hair and keeping it away from her face.
PLAY BY Hannah Murray
MOTHER natalka pasternak
FATHER anton pasternak
SIBLINGS none
PETS none
HISTORY
Lyubochka Pasternak was born in the dark of early morning, sometime in November. The groans of childbirth pains were outmatched by the pummeling rain outside, slapping wet against the already thin mud. The few who did hear them were in the one-room house with Natalka, the mother as she cried her way through the ordeal, gripping her husband's hand with the strength she wasn't using to get the child out of her. Two hours later, a screaming baby was released into the world, eyes shut in fear of the candlelight, fists thrusting into the air.
They named her Lyubochka, lyub, the root, meaning love. It was a sign of good faith, good luck, and a hopeful prayer that she might feel the love of God, who may one day bless her with a comfortable home, an easy life, and healthy children.
--
Lyubochka spent the majority of her childhood inside - mending the neighbor's clothes, looking after their children. She had always had a sort of quiet authority with them, being able to discipline a noisy child with just a look. She read to them what she could from the Bible, mispronouncing some words and figuring out letters as she went.
Her young years and early adolescence went by without incident, and she remained close with the daughter of a neighbor, Galina Yakovlev. She didn't associate with many others, and grew up with a respect and reverence for hard work.
--
Her eyes grew used to the appearance of light slowly, a single candle burning on the nightstand. She sat at the edge of the bed, blanket covering her legs, the thighs of which were pressed against her torso as she stared out the window, arms wrapped around her knees. "Are you alright with this?" she asked. She heard the sheets rustle behind her, cool hands press against her shoulders as warm lips pressed themselves to the base of her neck.
"Of course, Lyuba," Ksenia said, pressing another kiss to the place where her neck and shoulders met. Lyuba turned around to face Ksenia and smiled, intertwining their fingers. Ksenia, the daughter of a carpenter recently moved into the village, the girl she had just shared the most intimate moments she could imagine with; their hearts belonged to each other, something purer than she could ever imagine.
They fell back together, and Lyuba let her lips brush themselves, paper-light, against the gentle curves of Ksenia's body. Her nails left thin lines of red along Lyuba's back as she trembled under her. They both came with shudders, and Lyuba loved it so - how they could almost read each other's minds, how they moved together into something that was so natural. (There was a reason not to want it, but at the moment, she had forgotten).
She rested her head against Ksenia's chest, listening to the fast paces of her heartbeat. She was scared that Mr. Kaminski, Ksenia's father, would hear them - the both of them were, she knew. It mattered what they thought, and if they ever found out, she wasn't exactly sure what would happen. It would be bad, though. She knew that much.
"Ksenia, I love you."
Lyub. It was an innate part of her, a prayer from her parents. It just wasn't the same kind they wanted.
--
"What are you doing?"
Galina's voice froze her, and the hands that just a second ago gently rested on Ksenia's hips were behind her back, her lips that had been warm and eager suddenly gone ice cold. She stole a moment's glance at Ksenia, who had gone ghostly pale, eyes turned to the ground.
It was after church, and they thought they had been safe in the forest, but they'd kissed each other a second to long, left a second too early. Something in their plans had been off somehow, and now Galina, her best friend, was staring at her in shock and something resembling disgust, having witnessed between two girls that they had always been taught belonged between a man and a woman.
The next few hours were a blur of yells, tears, cries for redemption. She heard somewhere a mention of Satan, felt the back of Mr. Kaminski's hand against her cheek.
"We have to send you away," Papa said, the first definitive thing Lyuba had heard since that morning. She looked up from her hands, brow furrowed.
"What?"
"There's something here that's wrong, and... it needs to be fixed. We have to send you away."
"It's a good place, zoyushka, and a good life to lead," Mama said, kneeling down next to Lyuba, "God will fix this. God can fix anything. If you do well, he will forgive you." Lyuba reached out to touch her mother's tearstained face. The fact that her mother turned her face hurt more than the swollen cheek she was developing from Mr. Kaminski's slap.
--
Her forearms hit the ground first. She looked behind her, cursed the fact that her habit was caught in the convent gate. She pulled at it and tore it free, scrambling to her feet as it was. They couldn't call her name - the convent required a vow of silence. She didn't care about God anymore. God did not have the right to condemn the one thing that gave her livelihood, happiness, a sense of security. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and screamed as loud and shrill as her throat would allow her.
The second thing she did was pick up the skirt of her habit and run the opposite direction, not looking back.
--
Three years had passed since then, and through the the great excess of Russian royalty, she was given a job at the Peterhof palace. She did the same duties she had done as a child - tending to children, mending clothing, cleaning. She told no-one who she was, what she was, where she came from. The people she associated with knew only the bare minimum.
It was best to keep it that way for as long as she could.
NAME kaboodle
AGE 15
GENDER girl
TIMEZONE pacific standard
ROLEPLAYING EXPERIENCE nearly four years (god do i feel old)
OTHER CHARACTERS n/a
PASSWORD once upon a december
ROLEPLAY SAMPLEIt’s cold.
And there’s an overwhelming sadness filling her, inching up from her ankles to her scalp that causes a slow, quiet shiver. It sounds like water behind her ears, lapping at the sides of her, washing her empty and it aches and soothes all at once. It’s sapping all her energy from her, and she barely hears River ask Amy, what’s wrong?. Her only response is to move her eyes (no matter how heavy they feel) up to gaze at her, mumble “Four.”
She sits down on the rock behind her and moves her shaking hand under her hair, her chilling fingertips raking softly at a small, pin-like pain in her head. It’s all she can do to lay down, cover her face with her slippery mane of red hair and curl up in fetal position. There’s a feeling in the base of her throat, where it feels like there are soft sobs about to come up but never end up doing so; she wouldn’t want them to, anyhow. She’s not exactly sure she’d have enough will to make sound to accompany them. Never in her life has she just wanted to lay down and sleep more than now.
Vaguely, she hears River ask for a med scanner and feels her arm being pulled up, away from her face, pushing her hair away. She makes a small noise of protest, so quiet that it’s pretty certain she’s the only one who can hear it. It doesn’t matter though, because River’s wrapping something around it (blood pressure cuff... ice pack... could be lots of... lots of things) and saying something to Father Octavian about how they’re going to wait for the Doctor.
She’s stopped being able to make out the words now. It’s all jumbled up; grunts, sounds, syllables strung together, swimming past her. She counts to ten to calm herself (only gets to three, but that’s beside the point), but she’s not sure why - she feels calm, eerily calm, just... sad. Lonely. Fogged.
Bishop, the angels are in the forest.
He’s here. And she doesn’t want to run with him right now, because she’s done that enough at this point.
I found a crack in the wall, a hole in the universe.
”What was it?” she asks, a rasp sounding in the back of her throat.
The end of the universe. Let’s have a look, there.
”What’s wrong with me?” she asks him, opening her eyes to that ridiculous bowtie, his furrowed brow as he looks at a little rectangular device, beeping. Nothing, you're fine, River says.
You're dying, is the Doctor's response. The scary thing is that the news doesn't shock her, doesn't make her want to cry. She just sinks down further into the mud that is this thing that she's feeling and she just... accepts it. She shouldn't. It's not right. It's all very real though and it's happening and she just needs to sleep now. They need to just let her rest awhile.
The angels are coming closer.
"Three."
