Meet Me At Dawn [Yuliya and Henry]

[HENRY STARK]

---------The time before dawn was always cool, the heat of the previous day long faded into a relative coldness which varied in degree from season to season. Despite it being Summer, this morning was colder than most around this time of year and thus Henry added a light-weight forest-green cloak to his attire. It was somewhat uncommon when fashion was taken into account, but his mother made it for him and as such it was precious. He would chose it over a fine new jacket any day.
---------With a backpack slung across his shoulder, he hurried along to the area near the Rec Building where he was to meet Yuliya. He woke up two hours ago and only just finished his rounds for dropping off supplies. As he approached, he could see his friend already there. She was as she was the day before, sitting in the grass writing with her animal friends resting around her. "Yuliya!" he called out as to not scare her when he approached in case she did not notice. Quickening his footsteps he came to a comfortable distance, by her standards rather than his, and stopped.
---------"I have something special for you," he said, not wasting a moment before dropping down to his knees with his backpack on the ground. He rummaged for a moment before pulling out a hard-bound copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes. "I remember you mentioning that you had a lot of books before coming here and I know that aside from the Rebellion, most inmates don't really have easy access to them." He stood up and walked forward to a middle point between the, placing it on the ground before returning to where his backpack was to sit down. Until she indicated otherwise, he would respect her cautious distance.

[YULIYA DUKHKIN']

xx

Dawn and dusk were Yuliya's favorite times of day, though she had no reason to like the dawn. She was named after the dusk, her Cossack name being Zorya, the evening star, for she was the messenger of the night, she was the night, her insomnia proved this. But she couldn't help but feel some sort of connection to the dawn, like maybe one day she would have one, she would awake from her life that had been a dream and she'd be able to exist again. Maybe this was a dream, and when she woke up her parents would be standing by her bed in her room instead of a hospital, and there would be sunflowers in the vase at her bedside table.

She she was sitting and awaiting the sunrise again, writing a poem into her journal that she had just thought of. It was simple, but fun to write. She had been quite calm when she heard her name being shouted and she turned to see...Henry, yes, that was his name, Henry was coming towards her. She'd almost forgotten that he said he wanted to see her again, it had been such a surprise. This was the first time she had seen someone twice who didn't yell at her or make fun of her. It was...odd. It reminded her of that one friend of Amri's who was very nice to her, but he'd moved away.

She was even more surprised when he said he had something for her. People never had things for her, except Amri, he used to bring her things almost every week, epoisse cheese or her banjo or little horse figurines. The only thing he hadn't brought her were books because Amri had no idea which ones were good and which ones were bad and that was at a time in Yuliya's life when she had the luxury of being picky when it came to what books she read. Which was why it was overwhelming to see that he had brought her a book, and not just any throwaway book, but a beautiful hard-cover collection. Not often did it show in Yuliya's behavior that she had been brought up in a wealthy household, but one thing that did was her soft-spot for hardcover books.

She was a bit overwhelmed. Having a person be nice to her. Having the same person be nice to her twice. Having a book. Him noticing that she liked books. She looked back and forth between him and the book before reaching out to pick up the book and look down at it. “T-Thank you,” she said, blinking back her happy tears before letting a real smile show on her face.

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OOC:: ooc notes here
LYRICS:: Unwell - Matchbox 20
CREDIT:: by Goldy for Yules because she is so totally awesome and stuff

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[HENRY STARK]

---------Cautious as always she picked up the book. Henry's worries that she would not like it all vanished as the look of happiness and gratitude came to her face. She smiled, a genuine happy smile, and he could not help but smile with her. Her blue eyes seemed brighter, more alive, and in that moment it was as if some of the sorrow and pain in her heart faded.
---------He leaned back to look up at the slowly brightening sky, letting his arms support him. "Those were my favorite stories growing up," he said. "My mom used to sit with us in the evening, me and my sister, and she would read to us before we went to bed. She had all these different voices for the characters and the way she read... it was like the story was coming to life." Henry watched a few whisps of cloud as they drifted across the sky. It was a bit strange how much he had been talking about his mother. He hardly ever spoke to anyone about her, perhaps because they all already knew and shared his pain, but something about Yuliya made him want to tell her everything about the wonderful woman who inspired him to be the person he was.

[YULIYA DUKHKIN']

xx

It was strange for Yuliya to hear someone talked so enamored of their life at home. She’d read about it in books but had never actually witnessed it. Seemed like everyone always had something to complain about, something that made things less than perfect, even if sometimes other peoples’ lives did seem perfect. She remembered listening to Amri’s friends complain to him. One complained that their dad beat him, one complained that their parents bought them a car in the wrong color…but nonetheless everyone complained. But he hadn’t done that yet, and it was an interesting note for her. It often seemed like the reason people got along was because they complained about the same things, and Yuliya had never really been one for complaining, it seemed silly to her after reading through history books where much worse had happened. And maybe he agreed, that it was a silly thing to spend your time doing when you could be thinking about the things in life that made you happy.

Though she would admit to a slight feeling of longing at his words. Being read to sounded lovely, but that had never happened, not even when she was learning to read. She herself had enough read aloud to her animals, since they could not read and she wanted to share stories with them. But that was the extent of her knowledge on the subject. “T-that sounds...lovely,” she said softly, casting her glance away and looking downwards. She liked the word 'lovely,' for it meant exactly what it sounded like, soft yet heavy, beautiful yet unobtrusive.

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OOC:: ooc notes here
LYRICS:: Unwell - Matchbox 20
CREDIT:: by Goldy for Yules because she is so totally awesome and stuff

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[HENRY STARK]

---------"She had the most beautiful voice," Henry said, continuing on the tangent of his mother's stories. His eyes became a bit wistful and reminiscent as he looked up at the brightening sky. "Like honey and springtime and flowers all mixed into one. Her actual voice when she was talking not as a character, that is." A touch a smile came across his lips as he spoke. It was strange, but it was a good kind of strange. As if just speaking of the good memories chased away the pain of the bad. "It's what I remember most about her. She sang too. And she sounded beautiful when she sang. I used to brag to my friends at school and tell them about how my mother sang like an angel," he laughed lightly. "They said I was exaggerating but they never heard her sing. If they had..." he trailed off then, a touch of the solemness from before.
---------He suddenly turned over so he was lying on his stomach on the grass and looked over to her, propping his head up on his hands. "Do you think of yourself as a mother to your animals?" he asked curiously.

[YULIYA DUKHKIN']

xx

It made her happy that he got along with his mother and seemed to really love her. Yuliya loved her mother too, but she had not been allowed to show it. She was a graceful, elegant woman who believed strongly in the powers of education but who married a man known more for his brawn and his ambition than his intellect because try as people might biology is the order of the day. She had a few memories of the short time before she was diagnosed of her mother singing lullabies to her until she fell asleep and her father tucked her in, back when it had been okay for her to wrap her arms around their legs. But now touch was a rare thing, something that Amri did every once in awhile and it alarmed her.

It question startled her for she had never considered it before, and she took her time in thinking of a response. She thought about all the animals who had ever been her companion and never once had she felt like a mother to them, they knew so much more than her. She was an admiring student, the kind who raised their hand in class and stayed to help afterward when it came to learning the ways of animals. She found it much easier to speak when the subject of animals was brought up. “I am...a sister....and sometimes the child. A-apollo was my father...and Luna...s-she was my mother.” It wasn't odd that Yuliya saw herself as a sibling to animals, seeing as in her eyes sibling relationships were the most loving ones, at least in her experience.

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OOC:: ooc notes here
LYRICS:: Unwell - Matchbox 20
CREDIT:: by Goldy for Yules because she is so totally awesome and stuff

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[HENRY STARK]

---------Henry thought over her animal family with interest and also worry. She filled in the gaps in her life with their companionship and though it was good that she found ways to chase away the emptiness, something inside of him hurt at the idea that her true parents could not be bothered to take on their appropriate roles in her life. And then there was the mention of siblings. Judging by her pattern he could not help but wonder. "Did you have an siblings? I mean, before Sangvene?" He asked the question a bit tentatively, worried that she might feel too pried upon concerning personal information. "I have a sister. Here, that is. Her name is Stella."

[YULIYA DUKHKIN']

xx

The question about siblings made her eyes light up, as it always did. Talking about her brother was one of the easiest things for her to do and she just loved to brag about her perfect older brother who was everything she couldn't be. It was like taking a complicated math test and finding the one question that involved the one formula you had memorized and you suddenly got all cocky as you wrote down the answer. “I do, I have an older brother his name is Amri,” she said without stuttering as it was a state-ment she was sure and proud of. She could be embarrassed about herself all she liked but there was no reason for her to ever be embarrassed about Amri.

“He is here with me and he looks after me and he is better than everyone else here.” That was not her opinion, as far as she was concerned, it was a fact. Her brother could make anyone do whatever he wanted and if they didn’t do it he would get rid of them. She would never have the courage to do that. If she ever wanted anything she just sat there hoping that one day it would meander on over towards her but Amri went and got it, that was one of the many differences between them and that’s why she would always rely on him, and why she looked up to him so much.

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OOC:: ooc notes here
LYRICS:: Unwell - Matchbox 20
CREDIT:: by Goldy for Yules because she is so totally awesome and stuff

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[HENRY STARK]

---------Henry was relieved to find that she did not shy away from the question. He had no wish to make her feel imposed upon. From what he gathered she had been through more than one person's share of emotional neglect and abuse in her lifetime and it made him cautious as to what he said, fearing that he might unintentionally trigger a response built up from years of mistreatment. Never the less he would not lie to her on account of this. He refused to degrade himself to that level and he certainly refused to give her that kind of disrespect. Honesty, as his mother had always said, was always appropriate unless your friends were dying.
---------"That's a bit of a..." he paused for a moment to think of the right words to say. "A bit hard on the other inmates. There might be some other nice people here." As soon as he said it he felt the urge to laugh at himself mockingly. 'Yeah. Nice criminals who just want tea and crumpets. Arrested for taking too much jam from the jam jar?' But he then reproved himself for the thought. "After all," he said, almost thinking outloud. "I found you here."

[YULIYA DUKHKIN']

xx

Yuliya shook her head at such a silly idea. “I am not to be compared with my brother,” she said quietly and simply. It was a ridiculous idea to her. Her brother was strong and outgoing and likeable and good at fighting and good at everything and girls always fell in love with him. She was a molehill to his mountain, a puddle to his ocean, and the fact that so great a person stooped so low to care for her…well that just highlighted how great he was. It was true there were some people here who did not treat her terribly, something that she found very odd…but how would anyone ever be able to compare to Amri? Family came first, didn’t it?

Then again, Henry did not know Amri so he didn’t know the extent of his greatness, and it was probably best it stayed that way for Yuliya was doubtful her brother would let this boy live. Amri tended to be a “kill first so I don’t have to ask questions later” kind of guy. But it saddened her that Henry would never get to know it. “He is stronger than everyone else, and he knows everything and everyone falls in love with him and he can protect anything.”

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OOC:: ooc notes here
LYRICS:: Unwell - Matchbox 20
CREDIT:: by Goldy for Yules because she is so totally awesome and stuff

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[HENRY STARK]

Henry laughed, hiding his face in his arms as he lay on the grass. "Everyone falls in love with him, huh?" he said, his voice amused though muffled a bit against his sleeves. He looked back up, resting his chin on his crossed arms. "Does that mean I would fall in love with him too if I met him?" Though he he grinned, there was a part of him deep down that wondered what kind of person her brother really was, but he knew this was no time to pry. He hardly had the right to ask such questions when he barely even knew her.