2/2

There were also some very interesting wooden cases for loose gems taken, because of the interruption startled Ziven into grabbing whatever and running with them. He basically lashed them to the back of his backpack using the rope they had used to get into the store, but the slim cases with the velvet lined partitioned insides gave her an idea.

Emptying out the contents, she stored some of the colored gems she would be walking away with inside. A neat label written by Lisa, and the blonde had cases of gems to try to give whatever Sky, Lightning, and Mist she might run into within the clan. The remaining one was stocked with portions of the blue shaded jewels and would be sent on to Dmitriy to test out.

Tatiana pouted, but gathered up the yellow gemstones she'd be trying out in their individual little velvet bags. She really had nothing to complain about, all the purple and red stones Sonya now possessed were in the same little pouches.

She wondered if she should try to entice Galina to try the green gems, who was showcasing all the signs of being an Inverted Lighting, or if she should wait for her foster sister to realize it. She decided to wait, because she already had the redhead and Dmitriy to cluck after.

Although she'd take all the loose gems in certain colors, and a couple gems that had to be pried out of their settings even though she was dubious over the opals, Sonya was getting just as much as the others if getting paid immediately.

Very little of it was usable by her for purchasing personal things, but she didn't really care.

With a broken hand and a whole lot of empty months before her, the younger thief left the last of the sorting to her foster family and assorted thieves and instead spent a very nice New Year's Day with Cherep instead. They went to go see the fireworks, buying dumplings from street vendors and watching other children build snowmen and forts.

"Of course, you'd be stuck with a broken hand when you finally spend time with me." He quibbled at her dryly, hunching into his coat when a rather stiff and icy breeze tried sticking fingers of cold air down his back.

"You almost sound as if you think I deserve it." Biting into hot dumplings with only one working hand was a trial, because she couldn't really control her right very well and the cast prevented three of her fingers from moving.

When she burned her tongue, she couldn't yank the little meat pastry out and instead tended to drop it. Right now, they were cold but still tricky to eat with her left hand.

"Err… I don't. Really. It just sucks."

Sonya nodded absently. "Next time I have to do that, I'm bringing the thrice-blasted warhammer with me."

"Isn't that… I don't know, obviously identifying?"

"Aww… Cherep! Are you worried for me?"

Cherep's rather deadpan expression switched to a mischievous one.

"Of course, little sister." The sickly-sweet coo was paired with him wrapping an arm around her thin shoulders, and he knocked their temples together. "Do you need some help eating? Should I feed you?"

"Cherep… just because my right is broken doesn't mean I can't punch you with my left."

He let go of her with a laugh covered by a cough, backing up hastily. "Alright, let's not get violent. So, as for the hammer issue… how are you going to solve that?"

"The same way I solved my last issue." Propagation could do more than multiply, or the ability of Clouds everywhere would've been called that. She should be able to make something tiny become big, and that was her next project.

After her vacation.

"But for now, we're wandering. Aren't we?"

Her foster brother nodded a few times. "We are. Wander away, Sonya."

"Um… I was following you."

"But I was following you."

He blinked, then grinned as Sonya sighed. "I take it I should get us back to known territory?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose with her only working hand, ignoring the grease that had been on her fingers getting transferred to her skin. "If you would, please."

Cherep had never let her live down the occasion she had gotten lost going around the block back when he lived in a flophouse. The fact he had better navigational skills than her was a source of endless amusement to him.

The fact he could make it home from anywhere in Moscow was something he was stupidly proud of.

LXVI (Friday the 22nd of March, 1963. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

It took Sonya a week to get bored. She hadn't realized how much she had been doing before, after her first heist was over with and Cherep ran into trouble until her latest and greatest job to date.

Instead of going back on her word, because she was going to have a vacation even if it killed her, she took a hard look at her bedroom. Her tomb of a library type bedroom, which had the bare minimum of space needed to move around free and bound stacks of paper everywhere else.

Towering stacks of paper everywhere, including places that weren't even 'hers'.

Her foster brother decided he wasn't going to help her with it and voluntarily went to practice self-defense under Aleksandr. Lisa simply gave her a stack of crates and boxes to help. Tatiana pretended her gang really needed her help with something before she could ask.

Arseniy was gone again for several days now, and she wouldn't have asked him anyways.

She mentally labeled them all cowards and dug into the mess one-handed. It might be the worst of the rooms she had to clear out, because there were more books in her sibling's rooms, but it couldn't be that bad.

She was wrong about that.

An avalanche of books was just as dangerous as one made of snow. Book-avalanches tended to give more paper cuts too.

It took her four days to work through her own room one-handed, another to pick up everything her best friend had been holding onto for her, an extra day to resort her various containers, and two to finish off what had been left in her foster sister's room.

The fact Sonya had a bookcase, it had just been overfilled and then had books stacked in front of it therefore she had long since forgotten about it, had been bemusing.

Then she recalled there were more books under her bed. Probably more under her foster siblings' beds too.

The grand total left her with four large crates, three medium-sized boxes, and a rediscovered bookcase full of books. Lisa did help her scrub down everything then sweetly asked a newly returned Arseniy to move the unneeded and packed up books up to the attic.

The tiny burglar still couldn't get over the fact she had floor space now. Occasionally she'd try to steady herself in the morning with a book stack and gracelessly fall to the floor instead.

That took up a week and a half.

Half a month out of the six she set herself. At this rate, she'd die of boredom.

Her next project was learning how to write left-handed. Cherep, who was left handed, decided to learn to write with his right at the same time.

They sucked for a solid month before any skill was perceivable. Before she got good enough to try her lefty skills with drawing she was cleared to take off the cast on her right.

It was sore and still a little swollen, but she rather adored her ability to use both hands again. It hurt, but it was the good kind of healing hurt. Mainly.

Tatiana found a gemstone by then, forgetting about it for a little while then practically trying a gem an hour and only looking for a good result, a yellow beryl crystal commonly named heliodor. She got a bit frustrated with the fact she couldn't instantly control the Sun Flames it emitted as a kind of glow instead of flickers of golden fire tongues, but it did radiate enough blessed heat to reduce the swelling in Sonya's hand when pressed into her skin and covered by Tatiana's.

It had to be repeated whenever the younger foster sister jarred or moved her hand wrong, or every morning, but the elder was curiously unconcerned by being used as a hot water bottle in that respect.

With her right hand now free, the blonde laboriously wrote up differently stripped copies of her research journal and gave the Sun one to her foster sister. The Sky, Lightning, and Mist ones were tossed into their respective boxes of gemstones. The Storm one was left on her desk, because even if she had a Storm Flame it wasn't her primary one and her Cloud might screw up her work on it.

In return the redhead safecracker lectured her on 'resting' and 'relaxing recent injuries for healing purposes to avoid relapse'. Lisa, overhearing the whole conversation/one-sided lecture, asked if the younger girl needed something else to do. When told yes, she left the house and returned with an amateur jeweler's kit.

Cherep laughed, and then nearly laughed himself sick on her very clean floor when she did make use of it to make a cheap, reusable bracelet setting for Tatiana's chosen gem.

The last three months of her self-enforced vacation was around the time the USSR entered the semi-thawed part of late spring. It was also when the circuses started doing outdoor shows again. The same time her best friend slash foster brother decided there was no time like the present to try his hand at scouting out one to join later.

Sonya ended up spending a large chunk of the petty pocket money cash Tatiana split with her on circus entry fees and snack food… and watching trapeze artists swing around in midair. She made dutiful note that her best friend gravitated to acts that had motorcycles in them, still. He didn't like the trained animal acts as much, sideshow events made him shy away, but the strong man affair made him smirk.

Probably because she could beat a strong man even with a broken hand.

The carnival tagalongs were what he spent the bulk of his time exploring between the big top shows.

She mentally tallied up what he liked and what he didn't as they reached their foster home at the end of another day exploring whichever circus was locally set up. Trained animal acts were unfortunately very popular, and sideshow exhibits were a staple of most traveling circuses. Both were likely acts they wouldn't be able to avoid when Cherep insisted on joining one.

Right now, she was wondering if she'd make a good gypsy.

"Sonya? I'm stuffing some of my old clothes in your closet, okay?"

The young thief blinked, then bolted up the staircase in a near panic that had Cherep blinking dust from his eyes. "Tatiana, wait! I didn't clear out-"

The crash of someone hitting the floor cut her off, the following thumps informed her there would be another crate or box of books to be dealt with.

"-my… closet yet. You okay?"

"…Sonya? Come here and get your damn books off me."

LXVII (Wednesday the 5th of June, 1963. Mafia Land.)

Renato was not amused. "You have to be joking."

Little Sonya Nikishina merely sipped at the cream laced coffee in her hands and ignored him.

If the Russian Cloud hadn't been so interesting, the hitman would've up and left long ago.

However, Dying Will Flame Cloud users were middling rare. The Hard Flame type also didn't tend to travel well, not without a Sky personally budging them out of the little corner of the world they claimed as territory.

Little Sonya traveling so far from her territory just to do jobs in different parts of the world was atypical of her breed, which therefore made her interesting on top of being a rare sort.

The self-possessed little girl, who spoke rusty and accented but old-fashioned English rather well for a communist, was sharp enough to give Renato some amusement bantering with him. It made the whole fact she was barely thirteen worth it, and her wicked sense of humor that Clouds were not known for possessing he rather liked personally speaking.

Of course, if she kept on doing things Clouds were notorious for not doing or bothering themselves over he was going to start thinking she had a split-nature Flame. She probably actually had one or two more and was getting a kick out of baffling him with her other Flame tendencies from how often the girl smirked at him.

The little box of coffee, particularly espresso, flavored liquor filled candies sat on the table between them.

Little minx, the Italian thought huffily to himself. "What, exactly, do you feel like apologizing for?"

"Eight months without contact, Sinclair. I had not intended to, mind you. However, I broke my hand doing a job back home then spent four more months after it healed up on vacation." The blonde took another pointed sip of her drink, reminding him that he had practically been forced to play tea party with her until the very end of their last meeting. "It was frightfully rude of me not to try to get a message to you… but I have no way to contact you either."

"What made you think I care?"

She blinked at him slowly, then just as pointedly admired her coffee cup's design in the harsh tropic noon sun.

Renato had practically abducted her off the street the moment he spotted her, just to find out what the hell had taken her so long to come back to Mafia Land.

She might have a point there.

"You realize there are people hunting Flame users like us, right? I was merely concerned."

"I have heard of it." She informed him shortly, the self-smug tone of voice fading into something more like the stubbornly held in violent irritation like tone she had used when they first met. "And thus, my apology. I couldn't get word to you that I was fine, and it's why I'm bothering to apologize at all."

He eyed her, particularly her eye coloring, suspiciously for a long moment. They remained stubbornly grey, without a hint of any color bleeding through.

Whatever way she found out about the rumors didn't have to do with her territory then, or she had more than enough self-control to prevent her Cloud Flames from giving herself away.

Damn. He was more than interested to know how she managed the traveling when she had such a strong and Hard Cloud Flames before even hitting her early teenage years. They were all supposed to be territorial and snub socialization, but Sonya didn't obviously do either.

Mafia Land wasn't her territory, nor was it likely back in her native country. The girl didn't mind getting delayed returning or him pinning her in place using social niceties she seemed to have been drilled in complying to automatically.

It was entirely possible she didn't have one yet.

Renato would pay to get her to claim Italian territory for herself but knew well enough that any hinting he might do would merely make her stubbornly snub the idea.

There was no guard quite as good as a Cloud guard, but they tended to remain where they were found and couldn't be budged for love or money.

"Fine. I accept your apology then, Sonya." He had started it, however it began with her aid delivered by a flying rock, so he had to continue with it.

If the hitman ever wanted backup in the form of a violently protective Cloud user, he could afford to indulge her a little. Having Sonya obliterate whatever was between him and her if he needed the aid in the future was well worth the headaches she delighted in giving him.

All Hard Flame Clouds got progressively more violent as they got older. This little Russian Cloud was just young enough to retain some measure of forbearance unless it was really required.

Screw the ribbing he got when he was spotted having a drink with a little girl, she would eventually drift over to the hitman side of the island to feed that lust for violence.

When she did, Renato would have the last laugh.

LXVIII (Sunday the 25th of August, 1963. Aleksandr's basement, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Two Mafia Land contracts done, Sonya returned to the USSR three months later slightly sunburned but at least majorly uninjured.

She had sought out and obtained permission to use the Zolotov retained suite of rooms in a Mafia Land condo to stay in while she got herself caught up on her duties to the moving island. The clan vory coming and going had ignored her easily.

The contracts themselves were fast becoming less interesting, but she still liked the convenience and the traveling she could do with them. Sinclair's visits were becoming the highlight of her trips, depressingly enough.

More importantly, Aleksandr was finished with her proposed alterations to her Bec de Corbin and returning to Moscow got her in range to play with her new toys.

The warhammer/pick shaped polearm was now the length of her palm, two spinel gems embedded into the sides of the head. The extra material, since even though her miniaturized weapon was solidly metal they had a decent amount left over, had been fashioned into similar little weapon shaped charms. They were lacking gemstones, only waiting for her to confirm spinel was the gem she was going to use for anything Cloud Flame orientated or if she got good enough not to need them.

Cherep peered over her shoulder to see what she was smirking over. "I don't get it. It's tiny."

Ziven, who had somehow decided the blonde burglar was a very good friend of his and therefore her friends were his as well, looked equally unconvinced of the lethality of her tiny warhammer.

Taking a deep breath, Sonya gripped the head of her Bec de Corbin. She had more than enough control with a gemstone to funnel Flames into them just like Dmitriy could, and her polearm obediently grew with the more of her Flame's heat she pressed into the jewels.

The boys' expressions when she finally had a fully sized, if a little too big for her hands, Bec de Corbin made the whole nearly yearlong wait worth it.

"I get it." Her foster brother amended hastily, wide purple eyes on the wickedly sharp pick end of the hammer head. "Don't think I wanted to, but I get it."

She tried not to stagger under the weight of the metal, breathing rather hard for such a simple exercise. Apparently, she needed a lot of practice before using the Bec de Corbin could be more than just an emergency option.

"You sure you can use that?" Ziven asked lightly, eyeing her and the weapon she grew from a toy-sized one.

She had to let her Flames go, mentally noting she needed a lot more Flame practice with and without the jewel focuses. Her Bec de Corbin shrank slowly, the spinel gems retaining just enough and bleeding purple-tinted energy off slightly to ensure that while it would shrink if she lost hold it wouldn't turn into a palm-sized bit of metal before she could grab on again.

"At the very least, it's better than breaking some of the bones in my hand again." The younger thief informed him as evenly as she could, tapping the end of the staff on the ground as it shrank even more and finally was shorter than she was tall.

The spinel gems had fractured burn marks from the amount of Flames she had poured into them, unfortunately. Or maybe scorch marks from her wavering control?

The metal looked okay as it returned to palm-size, but Aleksandr would judge that himself when he looked it over closer than she could with an unpracticed eye.

While she had to have skin contact to the gemstones to Propagate the metal right now, it was at least likely it would hold up to Cloud Flames being poured into it on a semi-regular basis once she managed to figure out how to use them in a fight.

She would have to grow and shrink the polearm a couple times a day to get used to the effort, and likely pair that with trying to find a Cloud gem resistant to cracking so easily. She could conversely resign herself to exchanging the gems every time she used the weapon, but… she didn't want to do more jewelry stores so no.

To do both, she'd have to go through a lot of her stock of spinel gems anyways while she looked for a more resistant one.

If she needed more, she was going to buy the damn things.

"That's kind of cool, really… other than the fact you can carry around a warhammer easily without anyone noticing." Cherep spoke up, plucking the tiny form of her weapon out of her hands to get a better look at the queer metal.

"So," Ziven interrupted with a grin, probably tucking away what she had just shown him in a corner of his mind to dwell on later, "hand-to-hand practice then?"

Sonya gave the teen a disgusted look. He was going to kick their asses, then probably do it all over again and again before the day was over. Fighting against him with bare hands was just as bad to the ego as fighting against her with a staff.

He knew it too. He was one of the blonde burglar's fellow disciplinarians Aleksandr stuck tetchy Mafyia brats with eyes bigger than their brains on when they annoyed him too much. Getting one's ass beat by someone that didn't need a weapon was humbling, so was getting whacked upside the head with a pole repeatedly.

"One of these days, we have to see which is better. Your hands or my staff."

"So long as it isn't' the warhammer you're using, maybe." Ziven temporized instead of giving an agreement, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"It's a Bec de Corbin. It's technically a counterbalanced military pick on a stick."

They both blinked at her correction, looked at the tiny copy in Cherep's hands, then back to her.

"Still… I refuse so long as you want to use that." The hand-to-hand combat specialist in the making informed her seriously. "Tiny hammer toy or not."

LXIX (Thursday the 5th of September, 1963. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Sonya had fucked up.

At least she knew it now.

Sprawled out on her stomach on the floor of her clean and orderly bedroom, she paged through all the information she managed to gather. From herself, from Dmitriy's plodding progress in her footsteps, and Tatiana's slow but steady developing mastery of using her heliodor crystal to make pretty yellow fire spring up at will.

She could've been stretched out on her bed doing this, but meh.

Rewriting it all into her main research journal took up a decent block of time and told her she hadn't left enough blank space between Flame type polarizations as she probably should have. At least there would be enough room for Cherep to add his side of the Cloud Flame equation later.

How did she screw up?

There had been no reason for her to break her hand on that last jewelry store job.

Adrenaline being what it was, it was entirely likely she would've broken or fractured some bone anyways. It had been a tight spot, the militsiya might have been only moments to minutes behind them, and screw-ups happened.

However, Propagation being what it was Sonya had known she didn't multiply her integral musculature in any great degree to obtain the strength she had. She remained a gawky stick of a girl no matter how hard she was trying to hit things.

She could recall that Skull de Mort could increase his muscle mass via Cloud Flames, but it was something he concentrated on doing and it was more showy than useful. Cherep's unconscious use of internalized Flames likely helped in preventing any terrible damage from being made internally.

...or covered it up.

Her initial use of Cloud Flames was her Propagating force. Her first unconscious use of it had dented brick walls and shattered wooden staffs, but she didn't incur damage from doing something no human could physically match without Flames. Unless whatever shattered under the force of her blows blew backwards and nicked her, but that had been a much later discovery with intentional usage.

She had just wanted to hit really, really hard… so that's what happened.

Multiplied force meant the former pickpocket could lift more by augmenting the force she pushed up with, hit harder with what she pushed out, and go farther than normal twelve-year-old girls using a fraction of the energy… so long as she had the Flame for it. She hadn't run out on the long trek from her service tunnel emergency exit to the clan meeting spot for her, but she had been nearly exhausted from the effort.

The entire fact she might have run out of Flames if the journey had been even a bit longer… was scary. She had just gotten tired of the weight, not noticing anything else about her exhaustion or thinking it odd. She was well trained, in both ballet and gymnastics, and so rarely tired herself out anymore.

...rather, she had thought she was well-trained.

If she seriously thought about it, she hadn't gotten exhausted for a very long time now. Unless it had to do with the amount she slept, but that was shaken off quickly these days.

Sonya didn't think she even used her muscles much anymore, she couldn't recall the last time they burned like how she felt after a spar with a hand-to-hand combat specialist like Ziven. Which she had practically emptied all the Cloud Flames she could pull on into her Bec de Corbin beforehand.

She needed more physical training. Possibly a lot more, to make up for the last three years of skating by on unconscious use of Cloud Flames doing everything instead of her own body.

That would not be fun.

Back to her Cartier job, though. If she had ever thought their emergency exit plan would be the backup plan they had to utilize, she likely would've at least attempted to punch through ceilings before they did the job. It would've told her that while possible, it wasn't what she had to do to obtain that result.

Once she got better at using her Flame, it was likely all she would need for emergency exits like that was a mere tap of a finger. A flick, if she had to.

Not a punch that could break her own bones.

She'd rather not have to do that again, but backup plans were always useful and there was the fact she didn't really want to see the insides of a jail cell.

Her new plan for her mornings was to wake up, Propagate her miniature Bec de Corbin and hold it as long as she could, go to ballet practice, try to get a reaction from the purple and red gem of the day, eat breakfast, go to gymnastic training, then try to figure out her Storm Flame ability.

While Disintegration wasn't a thief ability of any real note, it was still a method of Disintegration.

I.E. covering her tracks if she ever needed it.

It also meant it wouldn't be possible to detain her. With Cherep's early childhood misadventure of the twisted kind and Sinclair's own recent mention of people with a similar outlook if unknown motive as those that assaulted her best friend… the ability to be a cheating escape artist when everyone thought she was a violent psychopath instead would be worth its weight in gold.

Not that anything Disintegrated weighed much, but the point stood.

Sonya needed to figure out if trying to use Storm Flames was different then all the times she had successfully used Cloud Flames for anything, if using the jewels and crystals did or did not hinder the ability to use Flames without them, and a reliable method to ensure she was using her own muscles most of the time instead of her Cloud Flames.

Most of her recent efforts in controlling her strength had been poured into not harming anyone accidentally, now she had to figure out how to turn it off completely.

Again, joy.

LXX (Friday the 8th of November, 1963. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Two months was the length of time it took for Sonya to stop feeling like an overcooked noodle all day. Now, she was to the point she woke up sore at the very least but still dropped into bed like a limp ragdoll.

Draining her own Flames every damn morning then going to dance and gymnastic practice had been hard, and there were a couple of days she had been severely tempted to cheat like she had been for years before. She stuck with it though, mainly because Lisa had become concerned by the sharp drop in her physical capabilities and asked about it.

Cheating under her foster mother's eye when she knew full well you weren't supposed to be doing it?

She knew less painful ways of committing an embarrassing suicide.

Shortly after she started trying to tackle her usual daily schedule without Cloud Flames boosting her, she had to compare Dmitriy, Tatiana, herself, and Cherep with other similar-aged children/teens in the neighborhood just to be sure there wasn't any other handicapping going on. While it was possible her brother had the same problem as her, depending on how much of himself was unconsciously Propagated at any one time, only their foster sister had another possible cheat when it came to physical work.

At least she knew why it was so damn hard to tire Cherep out for a day. He could wear her out more often, which told Sonya he was still stronger than her. She did wonder if she'd ever really catch up but then again, he did have about five years of major Dying Will Flame use over her. It wasn't that surprising that her only shallow attempts to control her own Flames had no patch on someone that could internally use his for years on end.

Tatiana could probably heal herself from anything that might happen, including the small tearing of tissue that built up muscles. It was likely only a recent problem if one at all, so while somewhat concerning it wasn't likely a factor just yet. They would have to wait and see if it was happening, then try to find a way around it if it did.

It might just be a fact that Suns needed more physical training than everyone else to equate the same measure of muscle growth, too. The former pickpocket didn't quite remember too well… but the white-haired boxer Sun guy from Vongola's Tenth Generation Guardians might have been that physically inclined just because he had to be, or he didn't bulk up at all.

If that was true, it was entirely questionable if he realized he had been different than others in that respect. Civilian kid, anyways. There wouldn't be any kind of help for him identifying any internal energy issues when it came to his Sun Flames.

Tranquility didn't have a physical impact, unless it was someone falling asleep standing up hitting the floor as consequence. Rains didn't seem to have any difficulty with physical ability, but once Dmitriy got his ability under control he would still be a rather tricky opponent to face.

Sonya had to rewrite her research journal on Dying Will Flames, because she had long since ran out of room when it came to Flames other than her and Cherep's Cloud. That task was still pending, because she wanted to see what her old friend, as the first person she helped learn the ability, got in the next few years. That would be both a 'Classical' and an 'Inverted' section together, which would let her make a more accurate judgement on how much room each section really needed.

She wondered, groggily as she pushed herself up to get ready for the day's ballet practice, if she should ask, bribe, or beg Sinclair to add in what he knew of Inverted Suns.

There was no way in hell her Mafia Land hitman coworker was a Classic Sun, he wasn't nearly as peppy or exuberant to pull that off. Hyperactive, possibly. Somewhat annoyingly persistent, of course.

No way in hell would she described him as 'peppy', 'bubbly', or even 'positively tempered'.

If he did decide to help a bit, she'd have a good idea what all the information on both polarizations would take up now and not later. That way she wouldn't have to rewrite the damn journal again if something came up and she needed the full thing.

Sonya abruptly realized she was stalling and pushed herself up off her bed. She did recall in time that her stacks of books were no longer around to help her stabilize, so at least she wasn't starting her day out with an unexpected meet and greet with her floorboards. She grabbed her recently unearthed desk chair instead, and since Tatiana liked her showers in the early mornings the younger foster sibling decided to get on with draining her Cloud Flames first.

Groping in the early morning dark for the tiny Bec de Corbin where she usually put it before bed got her a whole lot of nothing. Trying to feel around for where she might have put it last night merely got discarded shards of spinel gems stuck into the pads of her fingers.

She blamed the recent rather sore mornings she had the last few weeks for what happened next after she picked them out.

Frustrated, irritated, and sore was not a good general mindset for a Cloud. Apparently, it was only a good mindset only if said Cloud wanted to pull on and materialize their Flame externally.

She'd forever deny it, but she really did scream like the little girl she was when she realized her gem pricked hand was on fire.

The thump from the room next to her told her she'd scared Cherep out of bed. His little sister was a little too fascinated with staring at the multicolored fire flickering on her fingers… and the whole not getting burned bit, to care much.

Mainly light purple, even the light it was giving off was lavender in shade. Deep flickers of red near the base of her Flame, her Storm showing up less developed since she hadn't done much with it yet. Tiny fire tips in yellow showed the Sun she might gain control of eventually.

Sonya was in love. With her own inner fire. It was awesome.

Arseniy shoulder-checking her bedroom door open startled her into losing what little control over the Flame she managed to grab after having the life nearly scared out of her the first time. The vor, backlit by the hallway light in her broken doorway and having probably caught the sight of her being on multicolor fire but with no visible burns to show for it, flipped on her bedroom light to eye her severely first then a resigned look passed over his face before she could muster anything to say.

"Is Tatiana going to do that too?"

"…maybe?"

He eyed her severely again, and she was very sorry for probably startling him into charging for her room. Her father had likely been just barely asleep when she screamed out of fright.

He had an excellent reaction time regardless.

"If you burn the house down, you're paying for it."

"…noted."

AN#2 : Translations

Pirog – Pirog, or pyrih, is a baked case of dough with a sweet or savory filling. Usually meats and mushrooms, cheese, or fruit fillings within.

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).

Pakhan - is the Boss or Krestnii Otets 'Godfather' and controls everything.

Avtoritet (Plural Avtorityets) – Literally translates to 'authority'. A captain in charge of certain operations within a Mafiya syndicate, could also be called Brigadier.

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