Owner	Pose
Vanya	Stroke, stroke, stroke... Far out in the Atlantic, the soft scent of wounded char tinges deep, salty water as a fish swims its way east. Dolphin-kicking along with legs fused just enough to form a finned tail, a dark-scaled and light-skinned merwoman is moving along, seemingly quite heedless to the trail she's leaving for deep-dwelling sea life. Long and deep gashes in her upper arms, shoulder, and chest are still holding together but not without the aid of stitches still holding her cleaved scales together. It's a different form than Vanya entered the water with and judging by the dull look on her whiskered face, it's not exactly her favorite. Who wants chimera for dinner?
Vanya	Stroke, stroke, stroke... Far out in the Atlantic, the soft scent of wounded fish tinges deep, salty water as an odd ray-fish swims its way east. Dolphin-kicking along with legs fused just enough to form a finned tail, the dark-scaled and light-skinned merwoman is a rainbow of mismatched colors and scents - tuna, trout, sardines, carp, char... human. Long and deep gashes in her upper arms, shoulder, and chest are still holding together but not without the aid of stitches still holding her cleaved scales together. It's a different form than Vanya entered the water with and judging by the dull look on her whiskered face, it's not exactly her favorite. Who wants chimera for dinner? "You look depressed. Or you ate a blob fish," Akula teases as she swims along through the water. "Do not be too sad, we'll be to the White Sea in no time. Then you can get something more ... terrestrial to eat, eh?" She's grinning widely, amused by the mild suffering of her erstwhile companion.     "All this swimming and not so much as a curious frilled shark has come to investigate. Am I the only fish in this ocean with the gills to go after an injured human?!" Vanya grumbles sharply as she undulates through the waters, moving more like a human than a fish at the behest of her mingled genes.     "And yes I'm starving, thanks for asking..."
Vanya	"I'll drag up something bigger if you need to eat." Akula stops and looks back at Vanya, all the humor gone, concern in its place. It's like she actually cares or something. "You're too high in the water to draw the big ones. You'd have to sink to get those." "I might take a bite out of you if we go too much farther without a nibble," Vanya cracks even as she drops in the water. Soft-scaled or hard-skinned the chimera's been swimming slightly up the whole way so far; her natural buoyancy wants to join the larger fare in darker seas. "I was hoping these scales would draw something's attention; at least a squid..." "All right. You stay here, I'll be back." Akula doesn't even wait for any further comment; she turns and rolls into the water, quickly disappearing out of sight into the deep.     There's nothing out here but cool water and sky as far as the eye can see.     "Hmph..." Vanya huffs as the shark swims off to banishes her rainbow scales with a growl of distaste, replacing them promptly with her distinctive tiger-striped sharkskin. The chimera's legs fuse the rest of the way back together and she flicks herself in an irritated circle. "'Stay right here' like I'm some pup..." And just like that she's swimming again, but at least for Akula's sake she's not moving fast. That might have been asking too much." Vanya gets a good couple hundred meters before there is an enormous SPLASH behind here. Akula breeches the water - with a massive, struggling tuna flying into the air above her, tossed like a penguin by a killer whale. "I HAVE DINNER!" she shouts as the tuna slams into the water and Akula lunges after it.
Vanya	Vanya's nostrils flare at the sight of the fleeing fish as she whips her head around. Before the tuna's even reached the water again, her eyes have latched onto it and teeth are bared to receive the panicked meal. A sudden thrash of her curved tail kicks up a spray of foam as the wereshark rushes into the water after the pair. "YOU $*!@ING SHOW-OFF!" she tosses back. Akula's tail slams the fish into the air again; its back broken in multiple places it sloshes back down onto the water, and the shark woman drags it back up so that it doesn't sink. She puts the animal out of its misery with a solid punch that caves in its brain case. "MAYBE I'M JUST TRYING TO IMPRESS SOMEONE!" she shouts back with a wide, fanged, Undyne-esque grin as Vanya swims over. And that's about as long as the tuna lasts as Vanya's teeth cleave off a chunk of the fish still in Akula's grip with a sudden snap while her sudden stop washes her fellow Russian with backsplash. The unlucky mouthful gets the bare minimum of chews before the hungry chimera gulps it down. Akula chuckles and makes sure Vanya gets as much as she wants to eat, holding it out to the other woman. "Eat it all if you want, you'll need your strength in the White Sea." She is pleased just to provide for her friend. ... Friend? Akula considers. Yes... yes, Vanya is definitely a friend, or at least she considers her one. There's too much to like in the other woman. One bite, two bites, Red bites... whoops, no more fish. Vanya's sawtooth teeth brush the scales of Akula's hand as the smaller wereshark devours her share of fish without the slightest pause for pleasantries. Thrashing her head to the sides and then upwards, she flings the last scrap into her mouth and swallows with a deep sigh. Predatory eyes look back at her fellow Russian's hand while she smiles a red smile, leaning forward to consider dessert... Vanya drags a tongue across her messy lips and teeth, and after a tense moment backs off. Her head raises towards Akula's though the second shark stays every big as close. Personal space isn't a major concern of hers, neither is stay a safe distance from larger predators.
Vanya	"Fresh meat has been far too long out of my diet. Thank you for that," she purrs with relish. "You're quite welcome." She was aware of that look in Vanya's eyes and was ready to restrain her rather ravenous travelling partner. "Now that you are full, you might want to hang onto my fins, I'll swim us the rest of the way. You'll just want to rest as much as you can. If I need to carry you so that you can sleep, let me know -that- as well. It may be awkward but I have been told that my tits are good pillows." "Did you learn that on overnight missions with your commander?" Vanya cracks idly as she dutifully moves around to Akula's back and grabs on. Wait, 'dutifully'? A subtle feeling runs along Akula's skin and through ripples in the local electric field as Vanya's sandpaper scales soften and swell. "I sleep swimming just like you, but thanks for the offer. If you keep this up I'll call you Aktobus." "Which commander?" Akula asks, turning over onto her side to begin swim-dragging Vanya along. "Do not even begin to mention Winter Soldier. He is too good for such things." "Too good to use you as a pillow? That's just wasteful, in winter you sleep even with dogs," Vanya dismisses, keeping up her tease just a little as the air and water behind the grand shark changes in scent. It smelled a little like tuna before, now it really does... Ignoring the changes to her own body, the now less intimidating and more appetizing shapeshifter shifts her grip to hold tighter as she continues. "Why do you keep staying on the surface like this?" "So you're comfortable and can breathe," Akula answers honestly. Vanya frowns. "Well then you'd better dive, chum-for-brains. Did you think these scales were painted on?" she grumbles. Akula very abruptly dives, hard and fast, and if Vanya isn't holding on well she's doing to get left behind!
Vanya	'"Ah--! $!@# it, Ulya!" the were-tuna blurts in surprise as she's ripped from her saddle by the sudden lurch. Left in the shark's wake, she kicks the water behind her and does her best to swim after. She's slower now, much slower, and if the other Russian turns back she'll notice why; the formerly thick-tailed and fluid wereshark that set out looking for her is... well somewhat human and rather tuna-like. Scales of her recent meal are covering the tracks formerly paved by smooth stripes and where a proper, fully-formed arch of a tail had formed at her back, the were-woman's left with more of an overdeveloped set of flipper shoes on otherwise human but wrong-colored legs. And yes, there are a set of gills beneath her chest. That'll learn ya to mouth off, Akula thinks to herself. She circles up and back and swims towards Vanya, catching up smoothly, a poo-eating grin on her face. (( All right grandma. I'll try to keep your handicaps in mind next time! Hold on now, maybe I should stop trying to be nice to you and thinking of your well being! )) Still as dwarfed beside the shark as ever and now toothless to boot, the tuna-woman snorts to the side. She has to concede that point. (( Yeah, yeah, just quit acting like I'm some kid you pulled off the docks in Murmansk. I'm... )) Vanya looks down at herself with big, round fish-eyes and a D-shaped mouth and sighs, flicking her hands in the water to stir up bubbles as she treads. (( Okay I'm not much of a predator right now but give me a few hours and I'll be back to normal. This is what I meant about eating fish with self-respect... )) (( Sorry. It was good solid energy-packed food. First thing I found that I thought might be a good fill for an empty belly, )) Akula apologises. (( And I am not trying treat you like a child - I'm trying to make sure someone that I enjoy being around is comfortable. )) She smiles. More in genuine than in deviousness. (( At least it's not chicken, )) Vanya concedes, letting her hackles back down as quickly as they came up. (( Or pig. #!@# I would have to kill you over a pig... )) Looking over the mammoth shark before her, the were-tuna pauses thoughtfully. (( Just don't mistake me for an in-flight snack or I'll pay you back when I have claws again, yeah? )) she offers with... well she'd smirk if she could but really the D just kind of lifts on one side to show tuna teeth. (( I'm not some city girl who woke up one day and could turn into animals; I'm as much of a shark as the ones you swim with, these waters are my home too. )) (( As terrestrial as you seem to be, I never would have guessed, land lubber. )) Akula chuckles underwater, and turns back, holding onto Vanya, carrying her along under the water effortlessly. (( Where did you want to go first? )) she asks. (( I feel that if I go too close to home, there will be soldiers and KGB immediately. That would put our trip to a fast end. )) Vanya squirms a little as she's tucked like a football against a padded jersey until she wiggles her arms free and settles in comfortably below the shark, letting the flow of water plain her out to reduce drag. (( Hey, I swam to America same as you. Land animals are just more fun, )) she retorts casually, letting banter soften the conversation again. At the mention of their plan, the impulsive werewoman pauses, if only briefly. (( We're swimming halfway around the world, let the General Secretary himself come out looking for you while we're there. All their guns will do is make you itch and as soon as we're in the water we're free again. If you have eyes for it we can come at night. ))
Akula	(( You are terrible at answering questions! You have to tell me where you want to go, you silly old woman! )) Akula laughs, somehow, underwater. (( And they'll come with more than guns. The world has changed in regards to mutants. They have collars to weaken us now. ))
Vanya	(( You said first, )) Vanya dismisses easily. (( Arkhangelsk is closest. We can stop there, then keep going North. )) (( I can't believe you're from Arkhangelsk Oblast, )) she snickers, her voice distorted by water but otherwise intelligible as she elbows the shark's chest. (( I'm from Krasnoyarsk Krai, you're my greedy neighbor. ))
Akula	(( Strange bedfellows indeed. Though I am hardly from Arkhangelsk in the sense of having lived there. They declared me stillborn and took me away before my mother could even see me. The rest of my life was military bases, )) Akula explains, keeping up a rapid pace.
Vanya	(( Like north Novaya Zemlya? )) Vanya asks, throwing out a guess.
Akula	(( Something like that. It was... more secret, )) Akula explains. She has no idea where the location of her training facility was. Few other than those who ran Directive X did.
Vanya	(( Like Dikson? )) Vanya supplies gamely. (( You know the Kara sea, yes? I'm from the capital of the arctic! ))
Akula	(( Sea ports I know more than land, )) Akula confesses, and describes her knowledge of the area, likely touching on things familiar to Vanya ... and yet not. Akula describes underwater terrain and even drifts a little into missions she carried out against western submarines and ports. (( They had me memorize maps of New York, for example, should I ever need to strike. ))
Vanya	Vanya laughs as she listens the longer Akula talks with a mirthful smile now stuck on her face. The shark has brought back old, old memories. (( You know my home waters better than I do! I fished but I never swam in them when I was younger; too much human skin, not enough blubber. )) (( Those were a different time, )) the old Soviet admits, her thoughts turning wistful. (( Hehe, when I was little it felt like winter nights lasted forever, but oh three months of sunlight were fun... I was hunting with the locals when I was young, shooting elk when you were shooting people. ))
Akula	(( I always wondered what it was like. To be free to be myself. To wear dresses and pick flowers. To hunt for mushrooms and deer and wild boar. To go to school. To have a family. I never knew it. Winter Soldier was the closest thing I had, and even then, he was just someone to admire and look up to, )) Akula states somberly, thoughtfully.
Vanya	(( It's different... I'd offer you mine but I'm sure they're all dead by now, )) Vanya admits to the larger beast. (( Maybe I have some nieces alive there but they would only be family in name... )) The chimera goes silent for a few seconds, reflecting, thinking. It's an unnatural thing for her instinctive and impulsive way of living. (( After we leave Arkhangelsk, let's stop on the southern coast of your Novaya Zemlya before we reach Dikson,)) she decides non-sequitur. (( There's something I want to us both to see. ))
Akula	(( I don't think I want to go to Arkhangelsk. There's nothing for me there anymore, )) Akula replies, less rambunctuous than her regular self. (( I'll go to Novaya Zemlya first. ))
Vanya	(( You think there is anything in Dikson for me but memories and snow? )) Vanya retorts. (( We're visiting the Soviet Union to see what it's become, aren't we? Besides, we pass it on the way. ))
Akula	(( Apparently there is SOMETHING or you wouldn't have said 'there's something I want us both to see', )) Akula points out with a smirk. She's keeping a steady pace. They'll be in Russian waters within minutes. (( I guess I don't want to see Arkhangelsk. When you've been away from your ghosts for thirty years, why go back to dig up graves? ))
Vanya	(( I've been gone for fifty, little girl, )) Vanya is quick to retort. (( Arkhangelsk could be nice, I never saw another city except Dikson. The closest thing we had was the radio and the plane that came every Friday with supplies. )) (( All that's in Novaya Zemlya are memories too - and maybe a little monument, )) she considers with a quiet grin. (( You can say we're both an accident of the Soviet military... ))
Akula	(( Very well. Hope you don't mind the cold. )) Time passes and before long the two are coming into the shallows of the White Sea, at the bay of Arkhangelsk. The statue of the Archangel Michael looks over the bay, the image of the namesake of the city. (( Hmm. Seems a little cleaner now, )) Akula muses thoughtfully, staying out of the sight of any boats or any at the shore.
Vanya	Somewhere along the way, the shark's squishy tuna passenger swells back out and darkens as her own shark scales return. (( Finally... )) Vanya purrs as she kicks her reformed tail along with Akula to help propel them forward. It makes the inhumanly short swim just a little bit shorter and her eyes - back to blue - shift to a pale yellow as she peeks her head out of water to look towards the shore. (( What the heck... it looks like New York, )) she blurts first and foremost.
Vanya	o/~ Let's do the time warp again o/~     As the ocean waters get colder, Akula's little shark passenger gets plumper and softer as extra blubber fills out her figure and a thick coat of fur sprouts from the gaps between her scales, quickly overtaking them completely. It's not quite a complete transformation, sparing the chimera's shark-toothed face the few patches on her torso where gills reside, but the now very fuzzy-tailed creature is distinctly ursine by the time she finishes growing.     "Do you know the worst thing about not remembering a blood frenzy? I don't know most of what I've eaten until I try to turn into it or something brings it out."
Akula	"I wish I had that problem," Akula replies glumly. "When I berserk, people I care about die." It's not a happy memory for her, and all the more reason that Akula tries to avoid too much contact. Even around Vanya she can't entirely relax.
Vanya	"I'm telling you, god mixed us up," Vanya quips. "Almost blending in with humans is nice but I would literally kill to be able to eat fish without growing whiskers and frills..."
Akula	"That's the problem. You believe in god," Akula teases. "There is nothing fair in this world. Only our strength and what we strive for. If there is a god, it does not care what happens to its creation, or its people. The gods I have seen are no better than jumped-up gutter trash."
Vanya	Vanya laughs. "Now that is truth you're speaking, friend. God, magic, radiation, luck... call it what you want," she amends, smiling toothily amidst a face of fur. "People complicate things too much.." "Surface, can you? I think I see land ahead."
Akula	Akula turns upwards and swims, torpedoing to the water's surface. Carrying Vanya along -- she lunges upwards and catches a sea bird in her mouth at the height of her breach. Light snack needed.
Vanya	"Woah!" the chimera in her undercarriage shouts gleefully as she's taken into the sky as well. "Hahaha, very nice eyes, Ulya. I didn't think you could see that!" And speaking of seeing... land ho. Stretching out in the distance, a dark, rocky, and frozen landscape sits stalwart against the lap of arctic waves. Fully within the Arctic circle, a side-long sun illuminates dry shoreline and far-off, icy ridges in the from a few hours above dusk - the highest it's been all day. There's a glimpse of plant life further inland, the hardiest of moss and grass, but otherwise the beach is still and completely devoid of life. Welcome to Novaya Zemlya.
Akula	Akula puts the seabird down with a quick bite, and finishes it quickly, before she can even splash back down. Floating with Vanya she laughs. "I see very well, but I smell better than I see. Which depending on what I've eaten, can be quite a smell." She takes in the surroundings and takes a deep lungful of air, closing her eyes, feeling the cold breeze. She nearly wants to cry. The smell and feel of home. It's been a long time coming.
Vanya	Vanya for her part kicks away from her shark taxi and tilts herself up to put her head fully above water. Rolling slowly, her eyes sweep across the blue, cloudless sky, brush over the island ahead, and land on the low-hanging sun over its red-tinted horizon. A softer, warmer smile fills the old Russian's face as she ends her roll with another swish of her tail and makes her way towards the shoreline, beginning to hum something as she swims.
Akula	Akula is lost in thought. It hits her harder than she expected, her brow troubled, her countenance fallen. She stares at the sky and the sea, floating on her back like so much flotsam or foam. She has ceased paying attention to Vanya, caught up in her mournful internal reverie.
Vanya	Meanwhile Vanya has reached land. Despite what she's said in her defense it truly is her native element and as the last scales recede to a pair of thickly furred legs and the were-woman stands, a gust of arctic wind blows through her soaking hide. She shakes, flicking herself dry, and takes three heavy strides up the rocky coast to clear the lapping waters. Her eyes shift back to pale yellow as she looks around, wide and attentive at the desolate coast they've come to, at the sky, at the sun... The old Russian takes a deep breath into her lungs and lets it out slowly, softly. It's some time before she even notices Akula hasn't joined her yet. Turning back towards the sea, she whips her arm inland. "Hey, my friend, you've been left behind!"
Akula	"... I don't know if I can set foot on the shore," Akula replies glumly. "It feels ... wrong, somehow." She means it. She walked away from her country, and it fell. Guilt rises up in her, however unwarranted it may be. She turned her back and her country fell. How can she look on her homeland knowing she wasn't there to stop that?
Vanya	Vanya smirks reassuringly and waves the soldier into the shore again. "That's just the radiation."
Akula	Akula smirks and turns over, facing forward. "It's been long enough that the radiation isn't a factor anymore!" she shouts. "It's just ... this," she says, gesturing to the land. "I do not know if it's right to walk upon the grave of my homeland."
Vanya	Vanya turns fully and strides purposefully back to the water's edge as her grin falls into a teeth-bearing show of light annoyance made perhaps worse by the muzzle she's negotiating. "This isn't Moscow, vata. You're in the Arctic, /my/ home, now get up here," the Bolshevik chimera presses.
Akula	"Are you really going to order me around after I beat your ass?" Akula smirks. "Fine, fine, grandma, have no respect for the feelings of the soldier when she is about to set foot on her country's grave. I see how it is." She acts mock insulted, swimming to shore, beginning to walk up out of the water, arms folded over her chest.
Vanya	"Is it disrespect to put your feet on Soviet soil or to swim for days only to stop in sight of it and put your tail between your legs?" Vanya smoothly retorts. "$!@@, call it German soil if you want now, this land was my home," she continues with a firm stomp that a small pebble into the air. As Akula comes ashore, the werewoman before her shrinks and dims from arctic white to fleshy pink as her transformation reverses. A muscular but unshielded body is exposed to the elements with only token bastions of brown hair sticking around as Vanya, for a moment, reverts completely back to human. "And it's where I turned from this..." she continues, looking dead at the towering shark with rich brown eyes that despite her form still glint with a hint of the primal vigor sheathed inside it. "...Into this," she finishes, and like that the humanity is buried again under an explosive *floof!* of sprouting fur and a stretching jaw.
Akula	Akula is less abrasive and just... steps out, and lets Vanya have her say, looking at it. She isn't sure what to say. All that exhuberance is muted and dulled. Even her colors don't look quite as bright. She reaches up, and wipes a tear out of the corner of her eye.
Vanya	Vanya smiles softly as she looks up at her fellow Soviet and reaches up to rub her shoulder. "This is really getting to you, isn't it? Maybe I lost something human on the way, I thought I might feel all verklempt here too but I just..." The werewoman looks longingly around at the beach, searching for something that isn't there to be found. "Heck I don't know how I feel right now..." she admits, her voice a tangle of expectation and uncertainty.
Akula	"It's probably a bad idea for me to be here. They were going to send me to the Red Room. They're probably watching us right now," Akula sighs, expression hardening. Something sweeps over her at that moment, something kicks her higher brain into gear. Her eyes show a little more age. Her face is inscrutable. She stands taller, one hand on her hip, tail swishing back and forth. "Attrocious. Everything I swum past is absolutely attrocious. Still... there will be one thing I'll have to stop for, on our way back. I'll need a waterproof case.
Vanya	Vanya cocks her head at the shark's sudden chance in countenance. "Well $!@# them I need to see something first and we are almost as far out into nowhere as it is possible to go on this planet." Turning, the were-bear trundles up the beach as she searches the landscape around them. Once again she's on the hunt and moving inland the view is more of the same; moss and light vegetation ease the darkness of the coastline and offer a hilly stretch before squat snow-covered mountains. Even if summer the weather is hovering at freezing, likely a few degrees below it. Akula is trusted to follow it seems, or at least not get in the way. Up ahead, with or without her traveling partner, Vanya comes to a stop at a small ridge no different in sight or scent than any other and stares up into the sky in a direction no bird is flying.
Akula	"Are you waiting for a plane?" Akula makes conversation as she notices Vanya suddenly stop and stare upwards, following along behind. Despite wearing what have become cold, wet rags, she doesn't show even the slightest sign of being bothered by the low temperatures. Her tail swishes idly.
Vanya	"No, I just found it," Vanya murmurs, not looking away from the sky. Her yellow eyes hang, glossy and transfixed by a memory somewhere in the empty, featureless blue. The werewoman raises her arm and points a single finger into a point in the endless sky. "I was standing here... and that's where the sky caught fire."
Akula	Akula walks up to stand beside Vanya, and, carefully, puts a hand on the other's shoulder. She says nothing. She simply offers support, as a good comrade would. Maybe even a friend.
Vanya	"Did you hear about that test?" Vanya asks wistfully, slow to lower her eyes from the sky. The landscape beyond the little hill is broad, rolling, a mix of small rocky rises, grassy plains, and small bodies of ice. In the distance, the ruined, rusted metal remains of corrugated steel buildings are intermixed with what precious little flora the arctic island supports. The island is desolate but not cratered; its emptiness is kin with any other shore this far north, eerily unremarkable. "I read about it afterwards. It was the Czar of all bombs, still the biggest thing anyone has ever detonated or even built after half a century. The pictures don't do it justice - it set the whole world on fire." The werewoman shakes her head and pries her gaze down at least to the Earth before them, pointing anew. "There was an outpost there before, a stopping point for ship crews mostly. $!@#, there's no crater at all... how does something that big not leave a mark?"
Akula	"I knew there had been a test of these things, but not when or where. It wasn't something I needed be made aware of. I was a soldier, nothing else. The most important things for me were how to tear out the hull of a sub, or how to properly clean and load a dragunov," Akula replies earnestly.
Vanya	"With weapons like these we didn't talk about soldiers. We had our Fellow Traveler, the first object into orbit, then we had Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space. The Premier had the world afraid of our rockets..." Vanya chuckles dryly as she looks out at the empty landscape. "I read that Khrushchev gave a speech after the bomb and tell the US he would show them Kuzka's Mother." "I guess that makes me Kuzka," she jokes dully, looking back up at the shark.
Akula	Akula just smiles and chuckles a bit. "You're old enough...." There's a wink. The shark looks up at the sky. "And there I was... in the first war we truly lost. Badly. Not quite as glorious a first."
Vanya	Vanya takes a deep breath of arctic air as a breeze crests the hill and plays through her thick coat of fur. She opens her mouth and recites mutedly to the landscape... «Zhdi menya, i ya vernus'. Tol'ko ochen' zhdi, Zhdi, kogda navodyat grust' Zheltyye dozhdi, Zhdi, kogda snega metut, Zhdi, kogda zhara, Zhdi, kogda drugikh ne zhdut, Pozabyv vchera. Zhdi, kogda iz dal'nikh mest Pisem ne pridet, Zhdi, kogda uzh nadoyest Vsem, kto vmeste zhdet."
Akula	Akula has but one response to the song. She puts her arms out, standing behind Vanya, and wraps them around the other in a consoling embrace.
Vanya	Soft arctic fur compresses against Akula's scales until she reaches the body underneath, warm inside its coat and inside her embrace. Vanya lifts her hand lightly to the shark's arm and presses it into her. Her heartbeat is faintly felt. "We're home, comrade. Almost home..." she says, sniffling before she looks up the see the shark that towers gently over her. She musters her trademark smirk but it doesn't sit as well as usual.
Akula	"It's as hard to be here as I imagined it would be," Akula murmurs, continuing to hold Vanya for as long as the fuzzier of the two wants to stay there. "I suppose I am a coward after all. I ran from this feeling for a long time."
Vanya	Vanya's tail, pressed against the shark's thigh, lengthens and swells until it can complete a loop up and around her waist. It's a small gesture from the human, and the Siberian tiger, through the arctic bear, to Akula. "It sucks, doesn't it?" the smaller werewoman admits, holding onto her characteristic bluntness even as other trappings have fled. "We're almost done. I haven't seen Dikson yet... and now I'm not sure I want to." Looking out at the island again, Vanya takes another deep breath, forcing herself to breathe in. A small smile manages to thaw on her face as the cold air leaves her lungs. "This island is like us; it has barely aged a day. It hurts but it feels... right."
Akula	"If it is too hard, then we don't have to go. There is only one thing I want, and I am not sure I want to go to Arkhangelsk either. There is very real danger... but it will be strange. To see home that is not home, and never will be again. Like walking across the graves of your comrades," she says with a certain mournful, wistful tone.
Vanya	"I had a friend with me when the bomb hit. We're standing on one now." Vanya confides, still holding onto the little smile while she can. "Sofia Shostakova."
Akula	Akula's face pulls into a line. "... You picked a fine time to tell me!" she mutters, letting go and stepping back. She may be a rough and tumble shark woman, but there are certain standards even she adheres to.
Vanya	"Not literally," Vanya chides, turning around. She was starting to ease into the shark hug. "I was in no condition to bury her. Your friends in the Navy took care of the body. They probably dissected it in some lab..." Vanya raises her hands palm-up and lets her genes run free again, invading white fur with tiger stripes, lupine grey, and others. "She died and I became an immortal beast; the greatest predator on this planet - next to you." The werewoman's winter coat returnsand abruptly, the old Soviet looks back towards the shore, her mirth and cheer spent. "That's enough memories from here."
Akula	It's not hard to pick up the bitterness there. Vanya's practically broadcasting it. She's not quite sure what to say to that; to be the best predator was not really her goal. She only wanted to be a soldier worthy of the ideals of the Union. There was nothing else given to her to be. She follows out towards the sea. "To Dikson?" she asks.
Vanya	"Da," Vanya answers as her tail fattens and fins even as it droops, preparing to merge with her legs as she enters the water. "We visited your Arkhangelsk. I won't have an excuse if we don't visit my Dikson." At the water's edge, the werewoman turns back and looks up at the sky, filling her lungs with one last breath of the cold air of her second birthplace before descending into the sea.
Akula	Time passes as the two swim side by side under the waves, headed towards Vanya's home town. Akula is lost in thought for the better portion of the trip; she catches a few large oily fish and shares them with Vanya, to help her finish healing, and give her strength. The fish she chooses are swift swimmers, so at least, there's some dignity in what Vanya might eat.
Vanya	Compared to the swim already behind them, the path through the Kara Sea is brief; a few hours and not much more. Shielded from the ocean by the island behind them, the water is calm and fresh, and giving just a tiny bit less of the arctic chill. Vanya for her part is equally quiet and the voracious predator eats one fish, then stops. "I'll want fur again when we reach land..." A dark shape slowly fills the endless void of water; the edge of a continent, of Asia, the former Soviet mainland. Strong, stubby piers reach out into the sea to offer shelter and moorings to a fleet that isn't there. The dock system is squat but nestled into a massive natural cove; shelter big enough for even the largest of the Arctic fleet with slips to support a ferry staff of shuttle boats. The water shallows rapidly as it approaches the coast and on the bottom are rusted bits of wreckage; bits of hull, railing, and nets from fishing ships. "We're here," is all the native says as she turns her eyes up towards the surface. Even in summer, a portion of the still arctic sea is choked by ice and a lack of icebreaker activity has build the city a small natural shield.
Akula	"It's beautiful!" Akula praises as she finds a portion of broken ice to breach up through. "Nice and cold. The ice is pristine," she sighs. This is pure heaven for her.
Vanya	Vanya frowns quietly as she braces for the surface but says nothing. A spray of water and a shock of air admit the pair of Soviets onto the preserved ice shelf. Hours later the sun on the horizon has barely moved; it's now at dusk, turning the southern sky a deep red and casting long shadows across the landscape. In Spring, in Summer, in Fall, in Winter, any time of year the land this far north is covered in snow and Dikson is no exception. White, a blaze of white light reflecting off powder and frozen snowbanks, and then the city is revealed as the glare parts; it is in every way quintessentially Soviet. Boxy, 5-story communal housing with close-packed windows, squat and thick-walled constructions of square, utilitarian stone, and roofs either completely flat or barely sloped and caked with sheets of ice. Even without the sun direction is easy to tell - everything in the city is frozen on the northern side, waiting another year until the peak of Summer for the next chance to thaw. Mismatched and aged paints makes the buildings a small grab-bag of faded colors; dull reds, greens, and grays. The snowy paths are strewn here and there with a few unmoving vehicles and by the closest living quarters are a set of timeless little durans - the simple, single-cylinder snowmobile of Russian fame for two centuries running. Vanya shakes herself free of seawater and her eyes shift back from blue to yellow as she looks out at her hometown from the icy edge of its dock. There's a distance to her even expression, muted by the decades and decades she has to reach back to remember the view before her.
Akula	Akula's admiration ends, and goes quiet. This must be harder for Vanya than she thought. She'd rather support her... Akula pauses. Friend. It's true. She does consider Vanya a friend.
Vanya	Vanya sniffs the air as she wanders ashore, the thick, gripping claws on her feet digging easily into the stiff snow underneath for purchase. Arctic scents fill the air, snow and sea and rust, ancient concrete dust and a hint of mold clinging to life in a few warm crevices. Off in the distance, one building stands out starkly with its proud red bricks and rounded golden domes; a tiny Orthodox church sits by a floodlight as tall as its peak. "Where is everybody?" the old Soviet blurts, furrowing her brow. "It's the middle of Summer; there should be kids out here, and open piers for the fishing boats..." Vanya moves further inland as she sniffs again and peers around. "I don't smell anyone."
Akula	"..... It's abandoned," Akula states after a moment. She hauls herself up onto the ice - ice that can hold her - and makes her way to the shore to look around.
Vanya	"What the $!@@, who abandons a city? The fishing is great here and by ship is the cheapest way across the arctic," Vanya disputes, springing on top of a snowbound half-track to get a better view as the fur along her nape starts to rise. Still no scents and still no sounds except the two old Soviets and a dusting breeze that sweeps between the buildings. A tired metal creak snatches the werewoman's gaze - but it's only the sagging limb of an old radio tower briefly freed of an anchor of ice.
Akula	"It was never meant to be anything more than a stopover for the Northern Fleet," Akula explains. "When the ships had better ports to travel to, there was no reason for it to continue to exist." She wonders if she has told Vanya that she was in that fleet. She can't recall off the top of her head.
Vanya	Vanya turns around and glares at the shark over her shoulder. "So they shut down an entire city because you found a better place to get fuel? This is the capital of the Arctic! Thousands of people were here!"
Akula	"They left. Once the shipping stopped, they moved away. By the time of the August Coup, there were less than five thousand. It was never connected to the rest of the country. It was never meant to be a permanent residence for anyone," Akula explains. "... I did tell you I was in the Northern Fleet? We stopped docking here decades ago. Orders from above."
Vanya	Vanya's hand half-clenches as her claws enlarge and her forearm trembles in its coat of fur. "So it wasn't even starved by the collapse of the Union - the General Secretary abandoned it?!" she growls, her eyes boring angrily into the towering shark.
Akula	Akula makes a face. "There wasn't even a census until 1989. Diksen didn't even officially exist," she explains simply. She knows that it will only make Vanya angrier, but she would rather tell the truth than lie.
Vanya	"So what?!" Vanya snaps, her teeth bared and her claws showing. "It had people the government fed and housed and taxed and drew labor from. Even if we were an outpost we were part of the Union too!" Whipping her head away from the shark, the unsteady predator sweeps her eyes across Dikson's abandoned streets. The werewoman's broad shoulders shudder and her hands tremble between half-open and half-closed, aching for the relief of something to carve into.
Akula	"There's nothing to be done now. The people that made those decisions are no longer in power. The nation that tolerated it is dead," Akula points out calmly.
Vanya	"Yeah, so's every$!@#ing thing else here..." Vanya growls in a low voice carried back on an arctic wind. Suddenly the werebear lunges forward and thrusts her claws deep into the frozen earth, then wrenching them out and shoving her other set in, then back, then forth... a pure, primal sound wells up from the old Soviet's throat, of anger, frustration, sorrow, and grief that culminates in a roar as she shatters the underlying ice and pierces elbow-deep into permafrost.
Akula	"And now you know why I had reservations about even coming to shore," Akula sighs, grimmacing, as she watches Vanya unleash some well-earned rage.
Vanya	Vanya slumps forward over her embedded arm and digs her free hand into the fractured surface, pressing her forehead to the snow. The snow-white fur on her back begins to darken and grey, turning a familiar nightmarish black starting from her arms - another manifestation of the werewoman's troubled mind. "What the $!@@," she swears in weak disbelief. "What the $!@@, what the $!@@, what the $!@@..." The black hellhound coat stops before it can spread to the center of her back, leaving the shapeshifter a conflicted, two-tone color against the snow-white street.
Akula	Akula walks over to Vanya, kneeling beside her in the snow. It's not hard to have the desire to comfort the other in this time. She does what she can, trying to put an arm around Vanya's shoulders in sympathy, knowing that Vanya may still lash out. She doesn't mind. This is a trying time for both of them.
Vanya	Vanya jumps at the contact but doesn't lift from her crouch or move away. Whether she realizes it or not, Akula has made an impact on the wild woman too; even large bears don't attack their own kin.
Akula	Akula continues to just hold Vanya. "I am sorry," she murmurs. "Perhaps ... I should not have come here, not enticed you to come here, at all."
Vanya	Vanya's eyes are clenched shut in the snow as ragged, unsteady breaths steam out her mouth as rolling white fog in the frigid air. It takes time but gradually, the werewoman's black coat recedes in time with a smoothing and softening of her back stretching and shrinking with air. There's a curious double-rise and double-fall from the bear in Akula's arm, a wrong kind of lungs; the chimeric Soviet is no more truly a bear than she is truly human. Wrestling herself back under control, Vanya lifts her head from the snow and wraps her arm around her fellow Soviet's side for support. She looks out at the abandoned duran nearby with the same intensity as ever in her pale eyes, unable to seem any other way. Some small portion of humanity is lost in the tides of animal genes that define the chimera. "$!@# it, if I'm the last Diksonii and even the government's abandoned it then this whole place is my home, from corner to corner," Vanya concludes with a firmness that challenges the snow around her to disagree.
Akula	Akula smiles at Vanya's newfound resolve. There are more similiarties between them, she finds, the more she spends time with 'grandma'. "Hah! We should have suckling pig and caviar then! You own a whole city!"
Vanya	Vanya gives the shark's enthusiasm a weak smile. "I'm sure with no pigs and caviar in it... Let's at least spend the night here and rest before we go looking for your bauble. I'm sure we can find a case for you to use here too."
Akula	"Sleep outside of the water will be good. I agree. Let's see if there's anything left that will still hold it's heat," Akula nods, ready to go off and search along side Diksen's new Mayor.
Vanya	Holding onto the large shark for support, Vanya grunts as she wrenches her arm back out of the ground, spraying the pair with bits of snow and ice before standing up. "These homes may not be air-tight but it's that or we build an igloo," she assesses, shaking herself at least slightly cleaner before pointing to a green-walled tenement building nearby. "That one."
Akula	Akula gives Vanya support to pull free that arm. "Base camp it is. Looks like my old training will come in handy yet." What a strange situation to be in. Hopefully, with luck, there might be a pot or even a fireplace to burn something for warmth. She doesn't need it, but her furry companion will.
Vanya	With Vanya's puffy white coat, she might be able to weather the arctic chill if pressed. There's certainly a roundness to the fluffy chimera that wasn't there in the water, as well as an added softness from extra fat within her skin. "What does your old training have to do with sleeping indoors? If you can sleep in the water, this will feel warm," the feral Soviet asks as she leads Akula to the door. It's perhaps out of habit that she knocks. "Hello?!" Vanya calls in.
Akula	"It's about making shelter in abandoned environments. Surviving the winter in Stalingrad. Keeping you warm," Akula points out. 'hello'. The shark giantess rubs her face slightly. "I'm sure the ghosts will be happy to share the beds with us. They don't take up much space," the taller woman laughs, as she pushes the door open, shearing off the bolt in the locking mechanism so they can get inside.
Vanya	Vanya grimaces a little at the ease with which Akula forces her way inside before stepping in ahead of her, slow to cross the threshold. "You will need plenty... maybe we'll push three beds together to make one for us," she considers with less of her peppy verve as her eyes shift mildly in structure and color to adjust to the dimmer indoors. The were-woman's claws click quietly on the floor as she leads the pair inside.