#fyodorbio

FYODOR DRUGOV

TWENTY-FIVE ❈ HUMAN OPRICHNIK

* this character identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns

Death is impartial to many but a lover of few; it adored the few who evaded it, the few who had mastered its art, and the few who were terrible enough to do both. Fyodor was born an exception, a human to a family of Grisha, a heathen amid nobles, wild-haired and tempestuous while their siblings stood tall and noble, the earth at their pretty, little fingertips, ethereal and tangible and beautiful. A family of would-be saints and living marvels, and on a perfectly pristine tapestry, Fyodor was an unsightly discoloration, a stain, tolerated but never loved. They supposed they didn't make it particularly easy. They were wild, their innocence crafted as if an afterthought or disregard it altogether, in its place was an unearthly brutality born out of an inherent disconnect with one's own blood, one’s earth, one’s soul. They laughed at the sight of tears, tore through earth and sky like an erratic Valkyrie, and left nothing in their wake for their victims to cling to, not as a child, and never now.

It was more instinctual to hurt than to heal and to ruin rather than to mend. Bruises painted a prettier picture than kindness ever did, and blood seem to constantly run from their knuckles, be it their own or someone else’s unfortunate enough to cross paths. Their barbarity was palatable because of their beauty, but there was a primitive chaos they were growing into with each passing day, and their family could see it - a spreading plague threatening to ruin everything they’d worked for, all the prestige they’d earned in a society eager to demonize them. Fyodor became neither seen nor heard, their family had hidden them away in the lush prison of walled gardens and the refinement of pressed collars and fragrances. But chain a feral creature and it's rage returned twofold – dressing it up in powders and perfumes would not change its nature, nor would it hide the fangs. Fyodor accepted it simply because they didn’t think there was anything else they could do but play their inherited role of victim. And they played their part well when they felt like humoring and playing the part of the comedian - their family were lulled into relief by their silence, but really they ought to have been building their defenses and listening for a slow, burgeoning violence.

And when gardens and mansions weren't enough to contain them, Fyodor was sent to the First Army, but it wasn't until their first night that they realized what it really was: an exile in all but name. The perfect, upstanding Grisha family ridding themselves of their one embarrassment – it was irony in its finest form, even they could admit that. It was in the flames of battle that death came to love Fyodor– it watched as they danced between bullets and blades and wet their hands with the colors of Ravka’s enemies – all red. Looks of pity gave way to terror. Mothers pulled their children close whenever they passed, their fellow soldiers whispered of something unholy lurking within them that could turn at any moment, and that it whatever it was, it wouldn’t know the difference between enemy and brethren. But where mere mortals shrunk in fright, death embraced, decorated them in a crown of laurels and lilies. That in a family of Grisha, the only human would come to be regarded as the most aberrant, the most cruel was exactly in death’s humor – and Fyodor was nothing if not an entertainer. Their family, as it turned out, had been right in assuming the worst of them, for they were more vicious than anyone could have ever guessed, more primordial and savage than anyone could have known. The day they refused to bow to lesser folk who imagined themselves grander than their worth was the day death declared them its lover, the very day they turned to slaughter and decorated the white of their ancestral home with the red of their family. What monster kills five Grisha and walks away unscathed? The monsters The Darkling loved to keep in his guard.

They looked death in the eye, laughed in its face, and kissed it before it even had the chance to blink first. Ever since then, Death has been smitten– like a broken-hearted lover that clings to something that was once immaculate. Although, nothing about them have ever been holy. Not the words that spill from their lips – tunes that only the Devil cares to hear – nor the deeds that their hands have wrought. Yet Death considers them something holy. It lays bodies in their wake, corpses in the place of flowers, offerings not unlike those that are brought before gods. But even gods fair better than they, for the gods, at least, show mercy to those who bow before them. Mercy is a foreign language that Fyodor cares not to learn, no, not this chaos-bred child. All they offer is lightning in the place of blessings, wildfires where answered prayers might be, and storms when all cry out deliverance. One has better luck asking mercy from a wolf than asking it of them. Wolves, at least, know the order of nature. But Fyodor? They know only the beat of their own heart and what dark deeds bring laughter to their lips. When they laugh, though, oh when they laugh one cannot blame death for falling in love with them. 

CONNECTIONS

SVETLANA GAVRIKOVA & ADRIK VAHKROV: Together, they are the most feared in Ravka. Together, they are brutal. They all made a home in death’s maw and shadows, and all the familial attachment that had nowhere to go when Fyodor was growing up extended to this strange motley crew of fellow Ophrichnik. And just like them, their affection was consuming, biting, and unrelenting. The only loyalty they’d ever known so far and quite possibly the only they’d ever know, it’s an informed devotion, being aware of the kind of twistedness that existed in those they chose to call kindred and admiring them all the more for it. But predators never stopped being dangerous, and though Svetlana and Adrik’s lethality was more refined and restrained, Fyodor would never forget what they were capable of. What they all were capable of. Forgetting the nature of a beast was what got their family killed, after all. 

IRA SOROKIN: She is a wolf woman with a spine of stone and silver, feral and fierce and every bit a beast as Fyodor was, two predators born of different wombs. There is never a moment where they’re anything but dazzled by her, and they think if they’re well-adored by death, then she must be the sun’s favorite idol, golden and openly vicious in spite of all her enemies who had dug their claws into her heels, unstoppable all the while. Fyodor doesn’t make it a habit to know many Grisha, but the Durast is the very antithesis of everything their family had stood for: pride versus propriety, honesty versus refinement, torn dresses and loose hair and claws versus upturned noses and painted faces. She and them, what a wretched, perfect pair. 

DMITRI ALEKSEEV: The bloodletter thinks himself far too highly, and that’s all Fyodor has to say on the matter. To them, he pales in comparison to the company they keep, to the likes of Svetlana and Adrik and Ira and The Darkling himself, that his lofty arrogance is utterly laughable. He can play all the parlor tricks he wants, he can show off with all the easy targets he likes, but the second Aleksander bores of him, Fyodor will be there to ensure the rivers run red with his blood, and they’ll be laughing as death looks on, grinning and eager and reverent.