#cswnpl

“That’s funny,” Sokol guffaws, a low, thick sound that says it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that to knock the wind out of him. In spite of the sharp pinpricks of pain that feels like he’d just tried to hug a cactus-- it’s not nearly as bad as Candice had made it out to be.

Most of these shallow cuts are barely skin deep anyway. It had been a knife fight-- well, the other guy had a knife, but Sokol had his fists, and he knew exactly what an amateur looked like with a blade, which also meant the knife eventually became his. Nothing too far from his excuse of stepping out to buy some vodka at the corner store.

Right now, Sokol's secretly loving the close-up, personal attention, tracking the model’s hands as she dabs at him with her dainty, stinging cotton balls. He’s probably just trying to play it cool, to mask the stupid rush of it, but he can't wait any longer to show off like a kid with a trophy.

He twists away from Candice's touch, catching her completely off guard as he proudly brandishes her prize: her watch, sitting small in his massive, calloused palms, which he offers up with a cocky smile splitting his face. “Got this back for you.”

He’d dreamt of this long enough-- to be somewhere the plants weren’t painted onto a backdrop, where foliage didn’t exist only for a purpose: hiding, distracting, camouflaging. Until now, greenery had been nothing more than visual relief against structures built for gunfire.

Here, in the South African jungle, was life.

Certain stretches of its barrenness recalled World’s Edge, yet here the land moved to its own rhythm. They passed farms, lakes, fields brushed with snow. It was mesmerizing-- the way everything glittered, the snow soft and pillowy, as if inviting him to sink his face into it. Cold wind seeped through the window as the car rattled on, its rickety wheels tracing the fingerprint of every rock.

Planets apart, as though from a world long left behind, and still it felt like home. A cliché, perhaps... but all the more real for it.

In that moment, he envied his tour guide (or should he say, an angel), slightly, yet was also drawn in-- as if her beauty were only a reflection of the land itself, shaped by it.

It was around then that Seer spotted the most magnificent thing.

Tall, gentle creatures with long craning necks, not unlike the cranes he’d once seen in the courtyards of World’s Edge. Their hides bore a mosaic, as if some patient hand had brushed them in fragments of ochre and clay. Prowlers struck without warning, but these moved slowly, unhurried, as if nothing in the world could trouble them. 

“What is that?” he thought to ask his blonde companion, rapt with attention.

Sokol thought the media had forgotten about him. After all, he hadn't been active in the hockey scene for at least two or three years, and the Payday crew had only gotten better at being more discreet. So it came as a genuine surprise when Candice discovered a feature of him in the sports section of a magazine, tucked in the pocket behind an airplane seat.

It highlighted him as one of the youngest players in sports history to be made hockey captain, next to the grinning headshots of celebrated legends like Larkin and Gretzky. The him from years ago would’ve been freaking out at the comparison. Now a criminal, an international one at that, Sokol’s priorities had shifted, driven by financial incentives that came with their own set of sacrifices. There was something melancholic about it all, like Van Gogh being recognized for his art only after his passing. Better now than never, Sokol supposed. 

While it wasn't exactly how he imagined success, being acknowledged—even in an in-flight magazine—was a pleasant surprise. With a smile brimming with pride, Sokol cheerfully clinked his Sprite can against Candice's champagne glass and snuck a couple of grapes off her fruit salad while he thought she wasn't looking.

“Hey, now I am famous. Almost famous just like you.” Sokol lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper, mindful not to stir the slumbering passenger beside him. “And the best part? People still do not know me.”

Antarctica takes everything to the extreme. The weather had bested them both-- leaving Candice, the more stylish one between the two bundled in a borrowed puffer jacket. Michelin woman, Sokol had teased, one to talk considering how he looks like he is permanently blushing from how red-cheeked he'd become from the cold. This is why people aren't drawn into those postcards, Sokol thinks. It must be nature’s way of protecting scenery as beautiful as this.

But as beautiful as the island is, with the moss-caped rocks and icebergs glistening like rock crystals, the photos on his phone are beginning to turn out the same. Candice, oblivious to her Russian companion's restlessness, breaks away from the tour group and teeters dangerously over the edge in her boots. She's probably hoping to catch a glimpse of the fabled orcas their guide had so reverently spoken about.

Alone and away from the tour group, Sokol gets some time alone. He closes his eyes, savoring the relentless wind nipping along his chin freezing his smile numb. Who knew there existed a slice of Russia on Penguin island?

When he opens them again, Candice is calling for him. She wants a picture! The fairytale is still intact. But the nightmare begins when Sokol's fist closes around cold air, and is hit with the realization that his phone isn't in his hand.

He feels around in his pockets (wasn't it just in his hand earlier?) and instead ends up with a gloveful of lint. Torn between trying to not look like a fool for desperately feeling around for his phone, and assuring himself it's probably in that one hidden pocket that he can't reach, a braying noise snaps him out of his reverie.

It's an Adélie penguin, one of those short, shrewd-eyed birds with something gripped precariously in its beak. With a prideful flap of its flippers, it brags to its dwarven colony that it has caught a fish. A shiny, oblong-looking fish…

“What the fuck!” Sokol blurts out, loudly enough to turn the heads of the other tourists. “Candice, you won’t believe this! The little shit—ah—bird took my fucking phone!

It's a different skyline, a different currency lining his pockets, and like every token Russian plucked out of the bosom of his motherland, Sokol sticks out like a sore thumb.

Exhausting as it may seem to others, Sokol does enjoy trying a little harder trying to carve out a place of belonging in every city or county he travels through. If those thick-framed sunglasses from the dollar store or that poorly adapted Southern accent is anything to go by.

Not Candice Swanepoel though. Blue-eyed and blonde, Candice looks like their kind of people. Or their kind of girl. Parked right by the gas station, there's been men all shapes and sizes coming up to their car, all wanting to catch a glimpse of the belle beside him (or, if they're discerning enough, the bricks of coke piled in the backseat and the unruly man guarding them). And even though Candice doesn't let her smiling facade slip, the look in her eyes through the rearview mirror say it all.

The next time a gentleman slants against their vehicle, Sokol leans forward from the backseat to roll down the window on Candice's side. He makes a show of taking a comically long sip from Candice's large caffeinated drink from Starbucks, relishing the ice crystals melting on his tongue the way a villain soaks up the silence before his monologue.

"You uh, looking at my wife?" Sokol isn't quite sure how common the Russian mafia is common around these parts, but it isn't too difficult to muster up his best impression of one. Hopefully the arm wrapped possessively around her shoulders to tug her close does something. Or, the pistol he now has prodding the man's gut.

It's the least he can do as passenger princess. He has precious cargo to protect.

Nari scrunched her nose up in deep thought, considering the idea. At first, she didn't think it sounded too bad. After all, the sisters would definitely have a blast if they were under the same roof. Maybe they would have way too much fun, but Nari didn't want to scare Candice off with her occasional insomniac tendencies either.

"Don't tempt me!" Nari exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "I already don't want to go back home." Slumping over on the floor, Nari stretched out her arms and legs, as if she were preparing to make a snow angel. Of course, there was no snow in the apartment. Instead, there was just a rather defeated Nari, trying her best not to give in to the wonderful idea of rooming with her sister.

Suddenly, an idea sparked in Nari's mind. "What if we found a place that's even bigger? I'm talking about a three-bedroom apartment! We could decorate it however we wanted!" The wheels in her head began to spin with possibilities, and Nari couldn't help but imagine the endless opportunities that a bigger space would bring.

N A R I, yes! a sleepover is long overdue. i'm in town now, so let's do it asap. have you also been visited by ghosts of the past recently? well . . . a ghost. 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥

❛ ︎♥ i did, though the ghost seems to be almost apprehensive at showing himself after all these years. i might have to physically go and drag him out. which i might just do if my patience wears thin.

“Ms Swanepoel,” Obi smiled, and the metal piercing his mouth glimmered. “Did you read up on me?”

A stir of his coffee, and Obi watched the milk foam swirl. “I did consider. But I do not think running away would change my fate.” 

Running away was never an option, not when those pale, blue eyes followed. Eyes that drew the ire of his community, which they saw as the harbinger of destruction.  

So he decided to embrace it all- the naysayers, the persistent ostracism, with an open heart and an open mind. When cornered with brutality, it was with grace and elegance where Obi outmanoeuvred his opponents. Soon, he rose to become an advocate for those gatekept from the fringe of society. He finally found his own people, and his calling.