#nikborisov

🌠- A time they wished upon a falling star

Seven-year-old Paola Damasco is all angles and bone. Sheunderstands why the nuns do not dote on her her, why the patrons of theorphanage see only a shadow in her place instead of a little girl hoping to beseen. Hugging me hurts, she remindsherself to dim the sting of being overlooked, I’m too boney.

Seven-year-old Paola Damasco tries not to want it, but shecan’t help the way her eyes keep coming back to the same scene to her left: a youngcouple speaking to adorably chubby, five-year-old Sofia who smiles with everyinhale and laughs with every exhale. They are already in love, she can see it.Their eyes are brimming with it, and their hope reeks of everything Paola is afraid to want.

She slips away, quietly and away from the red eyes of the orphanswho grow hateful from years of wanting and never receiving. She’s done finewithout a family – and if wanting one with all of her heart will turn her intoa bully, she will not want one. She is Paola Damasco, with only a name toreflect her origins. (Even this is a blessing – she is one of the few orphanswith a name given to her by her own parents and not the nuns. It was scrawledcarelessly on a piece of paper, and perhaps it meant nothing to them – but inan orphanage, every scrap is a feast.)

But that night, a star falls and the children of the orphanagecrowd the window in search of more. And as they all watch the sky with eyeswide open, Paola squeezes hers shut and screams from her heart, Please give me a home.

Eighteen-year-old Paola Damasco is all determination and hope.Her eyes are clear and dry as she says goodbye to the orphanage that raised herand the nuns who tried to love her into a saint. And perhaps she is one oftheir few successes – her first attempt to secure a job is met with a darksmile and a filthy, lucrative proposition. The emptiness of her pockets weighheavy on her thoughts and the stacks of cash he presents glitters like gold, butstill she refuses.

Eighteen-year-old Paola Damasco cannot be bought. She willnot let Rome purchase her soul.

She is met with similar offers all through the day, and eachrefusal becomes harder than the last. The sky is dark and the streets aregrowing crowded with demons and devils – and Paola has no place to stay.

Paola doesn’t sleep that night. She stays awake, hunched ina quiet and forgotten corner by a bookstore with a stolen blanket around hershoulders. She watches for threatening strangers, but mostly, she watches thestars. And when a shooting star comes into view, Paola smiles and wishesgently, Please give me a home.

Twenty six-year-old Paola Damasco is on a mission. The moneyshe’s saved – for a quiet cottage in a forest, for food and treats for an olddog to lay at her feet, for a delicate and modest ring to rest on her finger –is depleted by almost two-thirds for a car she doesn’t know how to drive.

It doesn’t matter. Paola gets behind the wheel and learnsbecause she must.

She parks to sleep in her car before continuing the journeyat sunrise, and as she lowers the seat to lay flat, Paola notices a shootingstar in the sky.

Quietly, Paola sighs. What does she have left to wish for?What can she possibly want?

A memory that comes with a picture they have

She had broken in through Santino’s window, again. It was quick and easy enough, and the only reason she had to force her way in was because she had forgotten her spare key at home. She hadn’t been in his room in months, and she found herself forgetting all about the reason she was breaking and entering when her eyes landed on what she saw on his dresser. 

It was framed carefully, although the picture itself was torn and wrinkled.

“Smile, mimma, look at the man with the camera.” her mother said, patting an eight year old Valentina on the shoulder and pointing to the stranger they had pulled aside. Her and Santino were flocked on both sides by their parents, who had taken them out to the park for the day and decided to have a picnic, after weeks of barely being home.

Valentina just wanted to go play, her eyes following the boys on the playground throwing sand at each other, the girls on the swings. She did as she was told, mimicking the smile Santi always had on. 

Her legs were covered in bruises from playing too rough, and her fingernails were dirty. Looking back now, knowing what was to come mere months after this picture was taken, she saw the signs of neglect clear as day. Her nails were long and dirty, her hair unbrushed, covered in bruises. Santino was in somewhat of a better condition, not as wild as she was, even then, but still unable to avoid the carelessness of their parents.

THISTLE: R E T A L I A T I O N

    “So this is how you wish to earn your keep?” There’s a breathless snarl that punctuates her sentence, marking it a statement rather than a question. Was Minerva ever known to be kind to those who had wronged her? If goddesses of old did not turn their other cheek, why should she? 

    He had thought to set ablaze the Twelfth Night Museum – paid in large quantites to do so at the bidding of a Montague, most likely. It was well known that Rafaella was prone to indulging her whims of overtaxing herself, content to fall asleep at a wooden desk, with paperwork as her pillow. But her paranoia had, not for the first time, caught the smoke before the fire could prove ruinous. 

    Before the creature of his making could sink its teeth into the place that held her heart. 

    She pressed the barrel of the gun closer to the back of his head, brutally kicking the back of his legs and forcing him to kneel. Grunts of pain escape him, the following laughter echoing in the abandoned space. Only statues and shadows would be witness to the death of the Icarus of Verona. The muscle of her forearm tensed and flexed beneath the dim light pouring in through the large windows of the museum, casting an orange hue on the two figures and the gun and silence that was held between them. 

    Instead of answering, he said, “Come on, zolotse, don’t let this one little spark burn down this bridge.” But he had tried to kill her. And what would happen to the Capulets if he had? Who would see the triumph of Juliana through? Who would see the fall of Damiano, if not her?

     There was a snort of derision and a harsh, quiet breath of air left the silencer of the gun. 

   Fire was a tricky thing. It seemed simple at first, only requiring two things: Fuel and a catalyst, but when not put into a controlled environment, it was chaos. Boris typically steered clear of such a thing, considering how volatile fire could be, he preferred to use other means to get his point across. It was far easier to use a knife or a gun to instill fear in someone, and without the added worry of unnecessary casualties. 

   And yet, here he was.

   He’d heard the name Borisov whispered through the voices of those whose English was just as abysmal as their Italian. At an early age he’d learned that knowing more than one language was always going to be an asset and set out to learn as many as his brain could manage. Years he’d spent living with the Montagues, Italian, Russian, English, and all manner of languages falling on his tongue, and still not one of them had thought to learn his native tongue. It was their loss, and his gain, he supposed.

   It lead him here, to a man he’d heard talked about in the whispers of the streets both in Verona and outside. Of a man whose love affair with fire was something to be revered...and feared, and Boris couldn’t help but put two and two together in his mind. He didn’t have any evidence that Borisov was responsible, but he’d learned to listen to whispers over the years, and when interpreted correctly they were rarely wrong. 

   Boris had followed a man with Borisov’s description to the library, and stationed himself outside as he walked inside, amused despite himself. In all the places he’d expected to find the fire-lover, it hadn’t been a library, the irony of so many flammable objects in the man’s hands made a low chuckle leave Boris as he settled on the bench nearby with his own book. If he had to wait outside all day, he would, and when the man finally emerged, Boris couldn’t help but call out playfully as he passed, “Find anything interesting?”