2/2

Sonya was now taking a break from shattering metal or wooden poles and putting holes in Aleksandr's training hall's floor. Something she managed maybe once or twice a night with excessive effort but told her little more about whatever it was she could do besides break bones.

She was toying with the idea of asking for more information for the additional help if she got that cracking-holes thing down to a science, which meant what she had planned on doing for her birthday was out since Cherep wouldn't leave her alone about doing something for it.

Probably because he never had the security or safety to celebrate a birthday for a long time, and he was still young enough that birthdays were special occasions.

However, had she known what that trip would spark she might have kept them both home for a quiet night in.

He was entertained for the most part, which had been the whole point of the thing, but when he spotted the human cannonball act much less the ring of fire motorcycle stunts the only stunt driver there was debuting…

Sonya was sharply reminded of why, in the two-going-on-three years they had known each other, she had never taken him to see any circus performance before.

…he would not shut up about it.

Then, halfway home where she could hide in her room and pretend to go to sleep instead of listening to him talk her ear off, Cherep decided that owning a motorcycle of his own was his new life goal and she needed to hear all about it and what he wanted to do with one.

Although she appreciated the fact there had to be childhood dream involved that turned her friend from a runaway orphan-type into Skull de Mort the Immortal Stuntman… she didn't really need to hear the details of what enticed him into such a perilous field of work.

Nor did she appreciate the fact her birthday present to herself slash bribe to get Cherep to shut up had failed so drastically.

"You're too young to own a motorcycle." The tiny blonde cut him off mid-sentence, rubbing at the temple that throbbed the beginning of her headache.

"There's an age limit?" He yelped in horror, looking as if her poking holes in his plans had mortally wounded him.

She had to look away before she smacked the look off him.

The question also made her think hard if there were any driver limitations around yet… probably not?

"Would your feet even be able to reach the road if you got one of those metal monsters?" She asked instead, stopping a few streets short of her goal and turning to look at him fully. "Aim for getting one around fifteen or so, when you're not a scrawny brat anymore. Until then figure out what you're going to need to keep one running."

"Huh."

"…we do have a garage, a friend of mine called Dmitriy works there. You could probably ask for some mechanical or engineering training too… but be aware that would invite the Zolotovs to ask something from you in return."

Cherep blinked wide purple eyes at her, but Sonya stubbornly kept her gaze off his face.

She'd leave this part up to him, fully aware if she did follow him or he followed her he'd end up dealing with a bit of the underworld in his own right before long. Keeping him out of it when he didn't mind getting pulled in slightly wouldn't help him any, and it was ultimately his choice.

No matter how much she would rather keep him free of it, it was likely no matter what she did he'd end up neck deep anyways.

"I'll… uh, think about it."

XXVI (Monday the 2nd of January, 1961. Dmitriy's garage, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Cherep and Dmitriy got along just fine, especially when they had their heads bent over grubby machinery. They didn't even need introductions, the younger boy got distracted by all the shiny metal things the older one was working on.

Sonya was almost instantly jealous, not used to her best friend not paying the gross of his attention to her when they were in the same area.

After watching her fellow Mafiya fosterling lead her friend around his usual haunt and showing off what projects he had been in the middle of, she had to rephrase that thought to 'she was completely jealous over the boys' instant bonding'.

It had taken Cherep weeks to get used to her showing up to bother him, but not five minutes into meeting Dmitriy they were already buddy-buddy grease monkeys together.

Heaving a nearly silent sigh at herself, she had the mentality of a twenty-something jealousy shouldn't be a thing for her, the young thief retreated to an oil stained and grimy couch. Which she was somewhat sure Dmitriy slept on when he got too caught up in whatever he was elbow deep into.

Cracking open the book Cherep had gotten her, she settled in to read for the time being.

Engines weren't her field of expertise, her knowledge spread just far enough to ensure she got whatever maintained and looked at by professionals when needed. She'd be of no help to either unless they needed her to fetch them tools.

She spent several good hours like that, looking up only if a bit off curse reached her corner of the garage or something heavy and metallic dropped. By the time the two of them stopped for the day, or hour or however long it would be Dmitriy needed to eat and go back to work, the sun was well on its way to setting and Sonya had gone through several generations of Tsars and how they ruled according to the opinion of the author.

Cherep, nursing several small nicks on his fingers and liberally smeared with dirty oil and specks of grease, beamed at her as he all but skipped to where she had set herself up. "Can I come back tomorrow?"

"As long as you know the way," Sonya replied absently, folding over a corner of the page she was on to mark her place, "and only if Dmitriy doesn't mind."

"Wait, you're not going to come with?"

"I should really get back to practicing at Aleksandr's sometime soon." She demurred easily, exchanging a nod with her Mafiya friend. "Dmitriy. You do know this is Cherep, right?"

"Your civilian boy?" Sounding surprised, the oddly swarthy skinned Russian gave the slightly younger boy a searching look as he passed a rag to clean off on. "The one you befriended years ago? Why am I only now meeting him?"

"Because you're probably going to do something stupid, that's why."

Dmitriy grinned sharply at her. "Define stupid."

"I'm ten. He's barely over eleven." She rolled her eyes when the other boy shrugged that off easily. "Cherep's now my foster brother."

"Kinkier things have happened, but I can work with that." He claimed cheerfully, turning to the obviously confused civilian between them. "So… Cherep. Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Make it fast, we need to be home and check in with Arseniy before full dark."

Dmitriy nodded absently, swinging an arm over Cherep's shoulders and forcibly steering the confused younger boy away a little. Sonya huffed, tucking her book a bit more firmly under her left arm.

Her foster brother's steadily stiffening body language told her all she really needed to know about what he was filling her best friend's head with and resolved to beat her old friend into the floor the next time they had combat training together. Everyone seemed to think she was socially inept, but that was just because she couldn't really connect with the others that had mainly childish mentalities… therefore she didn't try.

"I'm NOT asking Sonya to steal things for me!" Cherep squawked, knocking her out of her thoughts. "So, there's no way in hell I'd ask her to steal for you!"

Alright, maybe she had been a little off in her assumptions. "Dmitriy?"

The complete ass didn't even have the grace to look sheepish. "What? Tools can be expensive, and I don't have the time to go get new ones myself."

"Why not just ask?"

"Because you'd demand a favor in return, Sonya."

She gave her fellow Mafiya fosterling a narrow look, even if she had to give him that point… but there was a difference between asking one Mafiya member to convince another to do one a favor and trying to get a relatively innocent civilian to do it. Distracted as he was, Cherep finally managed one of the moves vor Aleksandr had been trying to drill into him by clumsily twisting out from the arm across his shoulder.

Sonya was sure he had let the purple kid escape him, but she could deal with that.

"You know the others will try, might as well know how he'd jump beforehand." Continued her more Mafiya-connected friend pleasantly, as if she wasn't probably plotting out how many pieces to separate his body into for easy disposal while Cherep scampered behind her to relative safety.

"That's a very pretty excuse. One wonders if you prepared it long before this."

"One would be right to wonder." Dmitriy was still pleasant sounding… mostly.

She was surprised to realize she wasn't too surprised that he could be as self-serving and cold to use an almost stranger to take advantage of her skill set. What she wanted to know was exactly how long had he been intending to do this.

"Then one hopes you are prepared to deal with the consequences of such things." All but purred the tiny thief lowly, probably taking way too much pleasure at how he turned slightly green around the edge of his nearly permanently tanned face.

She had to make an example, so such a thing wouldn't be tried until Cherep could deal with it by himself. He was right, others would try the same thing unless she could scare them off trying it.

"You'll get your tools, but you not only owe me a favor but a stint as my sparring partner. Both to be called in later." She flashed him a completely insincere smile before firmly steering one wide-eyed best friend out of the garage and down the street.

What made the whole situation all the worse was that she couldn't tell if Dmitriy had been honestly trying to help them but covering it up with the stunt he pulled or if the preteen who would probably become a Mafiya carjacker was merely the first to try and use her friendship with a nearly complete civilian to their own benefit.

Sony had known he could be arrogant and a little malicious simply by nature, but he had also been surprisingly brutally honest about it and level-headed for the most part over the past five years. Now she could add opportunistic and slightly callous to the things she knew about the boy.

It wasn't a pleasant realization.

XXVII (Tuesday the 17th of January, 1961. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Sonya only belatedly realized she had a lot of books when Tatiana came home after a two-week long absence for her first heist and gifted her with a few more.

Somehow, in some manner that she apparently hadn't paid enough attention to, most of the books in their home were in the younger thief's room. With the three newest ones she had run out of room both in the little bookcase under her window and the stacks of additional books nearby were too high to risk adding more on top of them.

She had everything ranging from fantasy stories to foreign history books now, her latest obsession when it came to the written word, stacked neatly or shelved away in almost every available flat surface she didn't need to walk on.

Objectively thinking about it for a long moment, she realized she had been collecting books for almost all her life. Ever since the dream-nightmares of Rachel's life had started and she had desperately needed a distraction.

Reading had kept her quiet and out of the way and, other than the small obstacle of learning to read Cyrillic script, it had been the first thing she poured her efforts into doing to temporarily escape her twisted reality for a short while. The habit had continued even with the thieving skills she had been taught heaped on top, to the point it culminated into a library-esque room.

Tatiana realized what had made her pause after taking her own gift to her foster sister and was currently in the process of laughing herself sick. Mainly at the younger thief's deliberation of where to place her new tomes only to become stumped as her options turned out to be already occupied with yet more books. "Just toss them on your bed. We'll go find a crate or something to put all of these in tomorrow."

She gave her the look she felt that suggestion deserved, setting the books next to her bed instead. Unfortunately, she couldn't slide them under it as it turned out there were even more under there already.

She blankly stared at her latest find, wondering when those got there and if she should go along with the redhead's suggestion as the preteen cracked up harder.

"What are you even going to do with all of these in a few years?"

"I'll buy myself a library, of course." Sonya retorted without thinking, a little nettled by the teasing and irritated over the fact she hadn't realized she had been hoarding books. "I'll make Cherep hold the deed, but it'll hold everything I might ever want to read."

"Or collect in your magpie like way?" Tatiana tacked on, smirking a fit to crack her face and apparently not interested in the least to allow her foster sister the time to think up a suitable excuse for it all. "I pity anyone who would want to borrow from that library, you're a little terror when someone borrows a book from you."

Was she?

Pausing a full minute trying to think of what she had done the last time her foster siblings wanted to borrow one of her books, the tiny thief stared at the other girl hard. Then she flushed slightly in embarrassment, recalling how much she had lectured her purple haired friend on what she would do if any of the books he borrowed ended up damaged in any way.

There were even a couple mechanical manuals freshly added to one pile because her foster brother had asked if she had any of them, and Sonya was still in the process of planning the acquisition of a couple more.

Heaving a sigh as the older girl left her to try and handle her issue with her room, she decided she might just have a small hoarding problem when it came to books.

Since she did plan on leaving the Mafiya household in as little as a couple years, she probably should start wondering where the hell she was going to store all of it until she had her own place.

XXVIII (Wednesday the 18th of January, 1961. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"Right," Lisa told all three of the underage children in the house the next morning, "pack the bare essentials to last you all the week. We leave in two days."

Cherep paused in the middle of drowning his pancakes in syrup. "What?"

"We're going on a short little vacation." The woman informed him cheerfully, extending a finger to ensure the syrup he had been in the middle of pouring didn't overflow onto the kitchen table. "I wasn't sure if you would like to come with us or not, but as long as you stick close to Sonya you shouldn't have much difficulty where we're going."

Placing the bottle of maple syrup down now that he had been reminded, the purple haired kid gave her a sideways look. "Where are we going?"

"Mafia Land." Tatiana chirped at him brightly, slathering her own breakfast in enough jam to give her cavities. "Lisa promised to take us once I finished with… eh, well… with what I started."

Sonya nibbled on her toast, warily eyeing the amount of sugar her fellow children were intending to eat. For that reason alone, she decided to make sure she wasn't in the vicinity when the sugar rush kicked in. When Cherep turned wide purple eyes on her, the young thief paused and gave him a questioning look of her own.

"What?"

"The Zolotovs, while not a particularly powerful faction of the Russian Mafiya, are influential enough to be entitled to a short visit once a year for a few of its members." Lisa answered instead of the young blonde, who had a mouthful of toasted bread and didn't really care to try explaining things to him as she wasn't sure herself. "While I don't normally go myself when there is room for extra guests, Sonya did ask about the place and it's not a bad idea to go and let them explore a little. Arseniy has a bit of business to do there for our section's Brigadier, so you three will come with us this time."

He squeaked, sounding almost like he had hiccuped when there was no air in his lungs, then rather robotically started eating while sitting ramrod straight in his chair.

Tatiana gave her little sister a slightly sharp but bright smirk, which was ignored as the physically younger thief busied herself with her teacup.

While his reactions were entirely amusing, she didn't intend to allow herself to fall into the pitfall of abusing her friend to hear or see his rather strangely addictive reactions to certain things. That way lied a slippery slope she wasn't too sure if she could stop herself from traveling if she got far enough. She also intended to keep the redhead from doing it as well, because if she wasn't going to be able to prod such things out of her best friend then her foster sister wasn't going to be able to either.

Petty of her, she knew, but she was surprisingly alright with that.

Lisa was exempt from any retribution Sonya might manage, because that woman not only cooked for them but also had a strong influence on what they did each day. It wasn't worth it to irritate her. Arseniy got a reaction by merely popping up when Cherep didn't expect it, which was almost a daily occurrence, and he still slightly scared all the younger members of the household. Therefore, she wasn't going to bother thinking about it in respect to their foster parents.

Her best friend really did have to learn to stop being so abuse-able, it wasn't good for his health or her future mental stability.

Distracted by her thoughts as she was, she missed him finishing off the stack of sugar-soaked bread he was eating. She did notice when he tugged on her sleeve, because it jarred her cup of tea hard enough to slosh the liquid over her fingers.

Thankfully the black tea had cooled enough she didn't scald her hands. It still earned Cherep a dark look, because it was the closest thing to coffee Lisa would let her have.

"Can I talk to you?"

A sugar-hyper Cherep and a conversation… not the most idea morning she had ever thought of. "Go start packing, I'll be up in a bit."

He bobbed her a nod, giving the older woman a shaky smile and a mumbled thanks for breakfast before darting out of the kitchen.

Tatiana burst into snickers once he had escaped. "That boy… what's wrong with him now?"

"Cherep has a strange way of viewing the world, given what he's lived through." Sonya informed her blandly, considering the last few swallows of tea in her cup and wondering if it would be worth tasting cold tea for the caffeine boost. "I'm still working on him."

"You'd better hurry with that, before he decides you're not worth it." Lisa cautioned the younger thief, clearing away the plates that had been abandoned on the table before setting her own place to eat as well. "I'd hate to see that happen to you two. You're both surprisingly close for a Mafiya-civilian friendship."

Hiding her sudden scowl by draining her cup, as she hadn't really thought of that before, she collected her breakfast dishes to give to the woman before she sat down.

Which was stupid of her to think, because Cherep was his own person and it was entirely possible he'd might just decide to cut ties with her himself. If she was entirely honest with herself, that was more likely than him putting up with a thief for a friend for the rest of his life.

The older woman gave her a thin smile and accepted the empty cup and plate. "Good luck."

Grimly on the inside even if she was striving for calm on the outside, the young blonde gave her a short nod then followed the path her best friend took.

XXIX (Wednesday the 18th of January, 1961 continued. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Sonya wasn't surprised at all Cherep had made exactly no progress on packing, not even pulling out a bag to store his clothes in, and she had dragged her feet making it up to his room.

The kid had his own unique way of protesting, and procrastination was a big part of it.

"Cherep…"

His spine snapped straight, probably popping a few vertebrae while he was at it, and he turned to her with a pinched expression she hadn't ever seen on him before. "Mafia Land?"

"I asked about it nearly half a year ago, Lisa promised to take us after Tatiana started working. Since she finished her first heist, no matter how small it ended up being, we're now due for a visit." She slunk her way cautiously inside his room, taking a perch on his messy and unmade bed. "It might be your only chance to see it. I don't think Arseniy or Lisa will ever take us along again."

"Funny, Sonya, real funny." He gritted out, spinning back around to inspect his room. "Why am I coming along? I really, really don't want to."

"If we don't, the fact a child is living alone might get brought up to a member of the militsiya. Which would bring a whole lot of attention we really don't need to the neighborhood, not all of us here are Mafiya remember."

"But- …it's… mafia. I'm not… at all comfortable with this."

"It's still mainly a vacation destination, Cherep. An amusement park and resort, no matter the lawless members of society it caters to." Crossing her legs underneath her, Sonya set her elbows on her knees and her chin on her palms. "We're not going to be there long, most of the time we'll be gone is traveling there and back. A day to get to the port, an overnight trip by boat, a day to settle in, maybe a day or two poking around, then we'll pack up and leave. The most you have to do is go with, I won't care if you decide to spend the whole trip stubbornly stuck in whatever accommodations we get."

That took a bit of the steel out of his spine, but his frown stubbornly stayed in place. "I'll only do this under protest."

She sighed. "I'll owe you a favor for it."

Cherep blankly stared at her.

"You do know what that means, right?"

"Like how Dmitriy owes you one for that shiny new tool chest, even if you beat the tar out of him?"

"…yeah."

He cocked his head to the side, still considering her. "Then can I ask-"

"I don't owe you that much."

"…so, if you owe me more you might?" He asked instead, a slow smirk pulling the corner of his mouth up.

"…possibly." She intended to never owe her foster brother another favor, at least until she might realistically survive it. Stealing from other crooks would require a whole lot more skill than she had now.

If she was lucky, he might even use that favor up before she ever had to face owing him more.

…how much was being her friend worth?

Probably more than she was comfortable with… but that was way too late to think about. He was kind of a handful anyways, there had to be some balance in her favor on that end.

"So… can I ask you to run away with me and join the circus?"

Her mind literally blanked out for a whole moment. "The circus?"

"You can be an acrobat!" Her colossal dork of a brother nearly cheered, visibly warming to the idea even as he rambled on about her flexibility and putting her skills to some good use. Then he managed to work in his current life goal of owning a motorcycle into his rant, and then wondered aloud how he might end up performing as a stuntman if he could swing it.

It was entirely clichéd, running away to join a circus… much less a Russian circus.

She was also a thief, who apparently would become a carnie thief if she wanted to keep good track of her friend. Well… she did want more range before she continued her career as a criminal.

"I'm still telling Lisa and Arseniy where I'm going, we're going, because running away from them just sounds like a bad idea."

The boy cut himself off with another of his squeaking gasps.

"So, it'll be less of a 'runaway' situation and more of a 'move out' one." Sonya continued rather absently, lifting her chin off her hands so she could bury her face in them as she thought out the process such a move would require. "Damn it all… where the hell are we going to put my books?"

He stared at her for a long, silent moment. A snicker started it then, apparently, he couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out laughing at her… or her question, she couldn't tell.

"So…" He continued some time later, after both Lisa and Tatiana checked in on them to ensure he hadn't pulled something in his hilarity. "I'll go to this Mafia Land in return for you coming with me when I leave?"

"Sure… hell, why not?" She considered their situation carefully even as she made the rather flippant reply.

Cherep made a rather gangly looking eleven-year-old, and she was just shy past ten herself. They both didn't have much to their names, other than her entire collection of books that could probably get paired down a little if she discarded the easier to acquire copies. She'd have to figure out where to stash the bulk of that before they left the house...

Realistically speaking, it wouldn't be possible for a few years. Once he hit thirteen or fourteen, around or over Tatiana's age, it might happen if he could pass himself off as just a younger looking fifteen or sixteen. He was currently a foot or so too short to claim he merely had slow growth spurts, which didn't even get into Sonya's lack of vertical height or her still rather baby fat padded features.

All in all, two or so more years wasn't that far away… for her at least, Her foster brother might have a different opinion on that.

"I want veto rights to what circus we join. I can probably do a better background check then you can."

"Eh?"

"Just… pick a couple you think might be what you want, and I'll ensure they won't take advantage of us."

"Oh." Cherep blinked at his floor a few times, then smirked at her. "I'm glad you're coming with me."

"Don't thank me yet, we have yet to go anywhere." She slipped off his bed, stretching out a little as her ballet-sore muscles protested the movement. "Hurry up and pack."

XXX (Friday the 20th of January, 1961. Mafia Land.)

The travel to the port city they were catching the ship at was mostly uneventful, other than the fact it was Cherep's first time on a train.

The cruise ship that took them to the island Mafia Land was situated on was a first for all three of the younger members of their party, even Sonya who had Rachel's memories to draw from.

Unfortunately for Tatiana, the preteen proved to be one of those that got seasick easily. Which ensured she slept through most of the time the younger two used to explore the ship a little.

Before the preteen could knock out Lisa took all three of them aside and gave them a few rules to follow once they arrived, which basically boiled down to 'don't pick a fight/pocket you're not sure you can handle and stay out of trouble as much as you can'.

Cherep spent the five minutes after that conversation almost hyperventilating into Sonya's back. She spent most of her free time that night absently patting him on the back to get him to calm down, while wondering where she might find a bookstore once on the island and inspecting their fellow passengers.

The physically young thief elected not to inform her friend that the cruise ship was operated by mafia members, nor that most of the guests with them seemed to be much of the same. If he was already having issues not even five hours out from where they were headed, she didn't want to know what that information would do to him.

Disembarking from the ship was mostly painless, other than the fact her best friend finally realized who exactly had been on the ship with them. The concept of a mafia ran cruise ship seemed to baffle him, and she thanked whatever lucky stars she had it kept him quiet long enough for Arseniy to get them past the reception area and into the criminal resort town.

She wanted to say it was reasonably typical in its layout, once she got a decent view of things. There was a seaside wharf that held most of the tourist attractions on the southern edge of the island and the middle held both a general shopping center of a type and the hotels most that traveled there stayed at, the farther away from the wharf you got the more specialized the stores and services available were.

North was a very large open market for anything one could use to kill another, the western edge of the island resort had what amounted to twenty-four/seven nightclubs and bars seeded with what looked from a distance to be brothels, and the east held the different guildhalls and a few arenas. The decent number of maps posted around helped her figure out what was what.

Other than the fact the whole island was set up to facilitate the trade of violence and a haven for everything illegal under the sun and a few things not, it was a pretty interesting vacation destination.

Sonya probably wouldn't mind coming back one day in the future, so she'd have a couple days to spend poking around. When she didn't have a mostly civilian limpet who was making it way too obvious he was either fresh as a daisy to the underworld or incredibly uncomfortable.

She was pretty sure there would be a ring of bruises on her left bicep the same shape and size of his right hand later.

Much to her relief, and for her best friend's safety, the fully grown and dangerous looking Russian vor took up most of the attention their small group gained. Lisa, as a fully grown and pretty woman accompanying him, gathered most of what was left. Very little was paid to the two girls and one boy that followed in their wake, the most they did earn were a couple eyeballing Cherep and a few skeptical glances to Tatiana's fiery hair.

Sonya was a bit torn trying to decide if she was insulted at the lack of attention paid to her or thankful her tiny size allowed her to skate under the general radar. Being underestimated could be a lot of fun, if she really wanted to press her luck.

What she did do, instead of either acting out to draw attention stupidly or try to keep her relative invisibility going and drawing attention that way, was keep an eye peeled for what type of stores they were passing.

She needed something other than one ancient Rain's diary to puzzle out her Flame type and how to use it, and if there was anywhere she wouldn't have to ask either fully grown Mafiya members to risk or barging for that information this had to be it.

Her main goal for the next few days was to find something supplemental for her experiments, because all she knew for certain was that she wasn't a Sky or Rain Flame user. She was also pretty sure she wasn't a Mist either, because that one would make no sense in compared to her stupidly ridiculous strength.

However, finding a book or someone with a loose enough tongue within two days in Mafia Land without Cherep getting itchy feet and wandering into something he won't be able to get himself out of would prove to be one hell of a challenge.

…and, if she could find a pole weapon that wouldn't shatter under her best swing, she'd be delighted.

AN#2 – Translations

Vory v Zakone (Singular vor, Plural vory) – Thieves-in-Law, title awarded by one's peers (like a peerage title rather than a military rank).

Militsiya – A kind of paramilitary law enforcement, less military and more police in nature.