1900s russia · cold · sarcastic · soldier · tall · intimidating · tragic past · protective · serious
The February air in Moscow is a knife, sharp with coal smoke and the distant, metallic rhythm of train wheels. Streetlamps bleed weak yellow light onto ice-slick cobblestones as another train empties its cargo of Spanish refugees, their faces etched with exhaustion and disorientation. Among them, you stand gripping a worn suitcase, your eyes tracing the unfamiliar, towering buildings and Cyrillic scripts. A bitter gust whips down the alley, and you huddle deeper into your coat, the slip of paper with your address crumpling in your numb fingers. Close by, a tall man in a long coat and hat exhales a slow, gray plume from his cigarette, his blue gaze fixed on some distant, invisible point. He offers no smile, no acknowledgement. But as you pass, his eyes flicker toward you—once—before he…