Post by Toz76 on Mar 31, 2023 18:43:52 GMT -5
40 YEARS BEFORE THE RISE OF THE HORNED ONE
Elvira Constantinovna Komarov loved her dog.
Truthfully, Boris wasn’t really her dog, he was the family dog, and had been there since before she was born. But the dog and the girl had grown up together. Now that Elvira was 10 and Boris was 14, the old hound was showing signs of age, preferring to nap rather than chase, but Elvira loved him all the more.
On a warm April day (well, warm for the Russian steppe), Elvira was sat in the main room of her house, with Boris curled up at her feet, snoozing as he was wont to do. Her father, Constantine, sat at the table across from her, reading today’s paper. Her mother was outside, taking advantage of the warm air to do some laundry.
There was an unexpected knock at the door. Boris stood and barked, his usual attempt to chase away intruders.
Into the room marched Anatoly, Elvira’s older brother. In contrast to the humble farmhouse, the college-age man was dressed nicely, in a proper suit. He carried himself with a probably feigned air of confidence. But Elvira was a bit too young to pick up on that. She just saw her brother, who she missed.
“Tolya!” She exclaimed, leaping up for a hug, which the brother returned.
“Ah, Elvira, look how much you’ve grown!” Anatoly laughed.
“Did you bring me any presents?” Elvira asked.
“Not this time, my dear,” Anatoly said. Elvira looked disappointed, but Anatoly had a twinkle in his eye. “Unless... hmmm, I might have... this!”
From his pocket, Anatoly produced a massive chocolate bar, with an unfamiliar English word printed on the wrapper. Elvira’s eyes widened.
“Thank you thank you thank you!” she chanted, hugging him again before returning to her seat and tearing the wrapper open.
Constantine glowered at Anatoly, setting the paper down. “You shouldn’t be giving your sister that stuff. Is it even legal to have?”
“Oh, father, so old-fashioned.” Anatoly scoffed. “American things are so easy to come by these days. It’s just chocolate.”
“It’s full of sugar and chemicals,” Constantine retorted. “And what about what it represents? You’re teaching my daughter to love American things and hate her country.”
“Nonsense!” Anatoly retorted, clearly ready for a fight. “It’s a global world now! America isn’t our enemy anymore! Haven’t you heard about perestroika?”
“Perestroika is a mistake and Gorbachev is weak,” Constantine sniffed. “He’s trying to turn our country into America, and we know how terrible life is over there. Everyone struggles to find work, no one lives a meaningful life because they’re all obsessed with getting money, and their society is so unequal. You know this.”
“Maybe so, but life here is not perfect either! And Perestroika has done good for us, too! Just last year, Gorbachev made it so farmers can sell some of their crops instead of giving it all to the state! That benefits farmers like you, don’t you see?”
“I give every stalk of grain I grow to the country. It is my civic duty.” Constantine could tell that the debate was going to get heated, but he was just as prepared to dig his heals in as his son.
Elvira, for her part, wasn’t listening. She was lost in a world of sensation and flavor. The chocolate bar was huge, but could be broken into a number of smaller rectangles. She would set each one on her tongue, letting it melt in her mouth and coat it with flavor. Boris whined at her feet, and she graciously decided to share, tossing him a single rectangle of chocolate, which he wolfed down happily.
The argument continued. It was a pretty common occurrence at this point. Anatoly and Constantine did love each other, as sons and fathers do, but they disagreed on much.
“It’s not so bad in America anyway. Have you ever seen an American film? I think you’d appreciate them, father.”
“Bah.” Constantine scoffed. “Kids these days, they go off to college and their professors fill their heads with all these crazy right-wing ideas.” He returned to his newspaper, as Anatoly prepared the next volley in their verbal conflict.
Elvira finished the chocolate and decided to go play, leaving the wrapper on the table. Boris followed loyally.
Elvira’s mother, Ekaterina, was observing the sky nervously as she hung her clothes up to dry.
“There’s dark clouds to the south, no good, gonna be a storm tonight, I can feel it,” she muttered to herself as Elvira and the dog ran past.
To the south of Elvira’s home was the town cemetery. It had been used as a cemetery for decades at least, and most people avoided it out of superstition, but it was Elvira’s favorite place to play. She loved chasing Boris through the rows of tombstones. The storm clouds continued rolling in, but Elvira didn’t notice.
Today, though, Boris was less energetic than usual. He was struggling to keep up. And then suddenly, the old dog collapsed by an ancient tombstone.
Elvira ran to Boris’s side, worried. “Boris! Are you okay?”
The old dog was not okay. He was foaming at the mouth and his eyes were wild. Elvira had no idea what had caused this sudden illness in her previously healthy dog. She knelt by Boris’s side as the dog writhed in pain. His breathing slowed. His heartbeat stopped. Boris was dead.
Elvira knelt beside the old dog. She had never known death. She knew of death, she had vague memories of a grandfather who no longer was, but she had never lost someone she truly loved. She buried her face in the dog’s fur, tears filling her eyes. And then she screamed.
The sky darkened. The storm broke. The rain fell in torrents. Lightning struck a tree at the far end of the cemetery. And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. The storm clouds drifted north. The sun came back out. And Boris stood.
Elvira cheered, hugging the old dog. Sure, he was moving a little more stiffly now, and there was something different about his eyes, but Boris was okay! She practically skipped back home, Boris following at her heel.
When she got home, Eketarina was bemoaning the flash storm, which had soaked through all the clothes she wanted to dry. “I should wash them again, all kinds of chemicals in the rain, radiation from Chernobyl, yes, wash them again.”
Anatoly and Constantine had migrated to the yard, but the fight continued, although the subject had changed slightly.
“And how can you know that there is something beyond reason?” Constantine scoffed.
“How can you know there are not? There were no clouds in the sky, then suddenly it was a thunderstorm, and now the sun’s back! There’s no rational explanation for that, therefore the existence of the inexplicable can be assumed a priori!”
“Enough with your Latin, boy! Surely a weather scientist could explain that storm.”
Elvira ran up to her brother and hugged him. “Hi, Tolya! What’s a priori?”
Anatoly smiled. “It’s a Latin phrase that means something that you can know through logic, without needing evidence. You know, like how we know that time is real even though we can’t see time.” He wasn’t sure how to dumb down concepts like that for a little girl, but he did his best.
“Cool!” And Elvira ran off with the dog close behind.
Anatoly found his eyes oddly drawn to the dog. It was walking differently, more stiffly and jerkily. During the two days of his visit, he kept noticing oddities with Boris. He would only ever follow Elvira around, and would spend a disconcerting amount of time just standing still, not even visibly breathing. And he started to smell. On the final day of his visit, Anatoly swore that he saw the fur fall of one leg entirely, leaving only bare bone.
Anatoly didn’t really think that much about it, though. He was under a lot of stress at college, and within a few days of returning to his studies, he forgot all about Boris’s condition. Maybe if he had bothered to investigate more, he would have noticed that the ground in the cemetery had started moving, as if something underneath were trying to get out. Maybe the tragedy that befell this town and this family could have been prevented.
Or maybe not. No one knows why some people are gifted with magic instead of needing formal training. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s a result of living near a magical hotspot. Only one man ever developed a workable theory, and as we’ll eventually see, everyone thought he was crazy. But for those people who are naturally gifted, tragedy always seems to follow. They do not realize they have this power until it is too late, and what has been done can no longer be undone. Many in the Magic Underground would call being naturally gifted, but I believe we can know a priori that poor Elvira’s talent was not a blessing, but a curse, and she would pay dearly for it in the coming decades.
Elvira Constantinovna Komarov loved her dog.
Truthfully, Boris wasn’t really her dog, he was the family dog, and had been there since before she was born. But the dog and the girl had grown up together. Now that Elvira was 10 and Boris was 14, the old hound was showing signs of age, preferring to nap rather than chase, but Elvira loved him all the more.
On a warm April day (well, warm for the Russian steppe), Elvira was sat in the main room of her house, with Boris curled up at her feet, snoozing as he was wont to do. Her father, Constantine, sat at the table across from her, reading today’s paper. Her mother was outside, taking advantage of the warm air to do some laundry.
There was an unexpected knock at the door. Boris stood and barked, his usual attempt to chase away intruders.
Into the room marched Anatoly, Elvira’s older brother. In contrast to the humble farmhouse, the college-age man was dressed nicely, in a proper suit. He carried himself with a probably feigned air of confidence. But Elvira was a bit too young to pick up on that. She just saw her brother, who she missed.
“Tolya!” She exclaimed, leaping up for a hug, which the brother returned.
“Ah, Elvira, look how much you’ve grown!” Anatoly laughed.
“Did you bring me any presents?” Elvira asked.
“Not this time, my dear,” Anatoly said. Elvira looked disappointed, but Anatoly had a twinkle in his eye. “Unless... hmmm, I might have... this!”
From his pocket, Anatoly produced a massive chocolate bar, with an unfamiliar English word printed on the wrapper. Elvira’s eyes widened.
“Thank you thank you thank you!” she chanted, hugging him again before returning to her seat and tearing the wrapper open.
Constantine glowered at Anatoly, setting the paper down. “You shouldn’t be giving your sister that stuff. Is it even legal to have?”
“Oh, father, so old-fashioned.” Anatoly scoffed. “American things are so easy to come by these days. It’s just chocolate.”
“It’s full of sugar and chemicals,” Constantine retorted. “And what about what it represents? You’re teaching my daughter to love American things and hate her country.”
“Nonsense!” Anatoly retorted, clearly ready for a fight. “It’s a global world now! America isn’t our enemy anymore! Haven’t you heard about perestroika?”
“Perestroika is a mistake and Gorbachev is weak,” Constantine sniffed. “He’s trying to turn our country into America, and we know how terrible life is over there. Everyone struggles to find work, no one lives a meaningful life because they’re all obsessed with getting money, and their society is so unequal. You know this.”
“Maybe so, but life here is not perfect either! And Perestroika has done good for us, too! Just last year, Gorbachev made it so farmers can sell some of their crops instead of giving it all to the state! That benefits farmers like you, don’t you see?”
“I give every stalk of grain I grow to the country. It is my civic duty.” Constantine could tell that the debate was going to get heated, but he was just as prepared to dig his heals in as his son.
Elvira, for her part, wasn’t listening. She was lost in a world of sensation and flavor. The chocolate bar was huge, but could be broken into a number of smaller rectangles. She would set each one on her tongue, letting it melt in her mouth and coat it with flavor. Boris whined at her feet, and she graciously decided to share, tossing him a single rectangle of chocolate, which he wolfed down happily.
The argument continued. It was a pretty common occurrence at this point. Anatoly and Constantine did love each other, as sons and fathers do, but they disagreed on much.
“It’s not so bad in America anyway. Have you ever seen an American film? I think you’d appreciate them, father.”
“Bah.” Constantine scoffed. “Kids these days, they go off to college and their professors fill their heads with all these crazy right-wing ideas.” He returned to his newspaper, as Anatoly prepared the next volley in their verbal conflict.
Elvira finished the chocolate and decided to go play, leaving the wrapper on the table. Boris followed loyally.
Elvira’s mother, Ekaterina, was observing the sky nervously as she hung her clothes up to dry.
“There’s dark clouds to the south, no good, gonna be a storm tonight, I can feel it,” she muttered to herself as Elvira and the dog ran past.
To the south of Elvira’s home was the town cemetery. It had been used as a cemetery for decades at least, and most people avoided it out of superstition, but it was Elvira’s favorite place to play. She loved chasing Boris through the rows of tombstones. The storm clouds continued rolling in, but Elvira didn’t notice.
Today, though, Boris was less energetic than usual. He was struggling to keep up. And then suddenly, the old dog collapsed by an ancient tombstone.
Elvira ran to Boris’s side, worried. “Boris! Are you okay?”
The old dog was not okay. He was foaming at the mouth and his eyes were wild. Elvira had no idea what had caused this sudden illness in her previously healthy dog. She knelt by Boris’s side as the dog writhed in pain. His breathing slowed. His heartbeat stopped. Boris was dead.
Elvira knelt beside the old dog. She had never known death. She knew of death, she had vague memories of a grandfather who no longer was, but she had never lost someone she truly loved. She buried her face in the dog’s fur, tears filling her eyes. And then she screamed.
The sky darkened. The storm broke. The rain fell in torrents. Lightning struck a tree at the far end of the cemetery. And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. The storm clouds drifted north. The sun came back out. And Boris stood.
Elvira cheered, hugging the old dog. Sure, he was moving a little more stiffly now, and there was something different about his eyes, but Boris was okay! She practically skipped back home, Boris following at her heel.
When she got home, Eketarina was bemoaning the flash storm, which had soaked through all the clothes she wanted to dry. “I should wash them again, all kinds of chemicals in the rain, radiation from Chernobyl, yes, wash them again.”
Anatoly and Constantine had migrated to the yard, but the fight continued, although the subject had changed slightly.
“And how can you know that there is something beyond reason?” Constantine scoffed.
“How can you know there are not? There were no clouds in the sky, then suddenly it was a thunderstorm, and now the sun’s back! There’s no rational explanation for that, therefore the existence of the inexplicable can be assumed a priori!”
“Enough with your Latin, boy! Surely a weather scientist could explain that storm.”
Elvira ran up to her brother and hugged him. “Hi, Tolya! What’s a priori?”
Anatoly smiled. “It’s a Latin phrase that means something that you can know through logic, without needing evidence. You know, like how we know that time is real even though we can’t see time.” He wasn’t sure how to dumb down concepts like that for a little girl, but he did his best.
“Cool!” And Elvira ran off with the dog close behind.
Anatoly found his eyes oddly drawn to the dog. It was walking differently, more stiffly and jerkily. During the two days of his visit, he kept noticing oddities with Boris. He would only ever follow Elvira around, and would spend a disconcerting amount of time just standing still, not even visibly breathing. And he started to smell. On the final day of his visit, Anatoly swore that he saw the fur fall of one leg entirely, leaving only bare bone.
Anatoly didn’t really think that much about it, though. He was under a lot of stress at college, and within a few days of returning to his studies, he forgot all about Boris’s condition. Maybe if he had bothered to investigate more, he would have noticed that the ground in the cemetery had started moving, as if something underneath were trying to get out. Maybe the tragedy that befell this town and this family could have been prevented.
Or maybe not. No one knows why some people are gifted with magic instead of needing formal training. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s a result of living near a magical hotspot. Only one man ever developed a workable theory, and as we’ll eventually see, everyone thought he was crazy. But for those people who are naturally gifted, tragedy always seems to follow. They do not realize they have this power until it is too late, and what has been done can no longer be undone. Many in the Magic Underground would call being naturally gifted, but I believe we can know a priori that poor Elvira’s talent was not a blessing, but a curse, and she would pay dearly for it in the coming decades.