The Sounds of Silence
Chapter 1
Behind the towering pine groves that crowned the East Mountain´s summit, the moon moved smoothly, reflecting off in the thick snow that the late winter had left behind. It´s light glowed in the darkness of the night, driving away the ghostly frame that loomed over the valley and far away from Leningrad's fields. The owls hooted between the branches of the pines that, still covered with a thin winter frost, were led astray by the forces of the winds.
The warmth of spring had not yet reached those dreary lands. The travelers and explorers who wandered through its forests, back in the hot summer days, had left in the first months of winter, chased away by the thin ice and the stormy blizzards. The birds had migrated to warmer climates, and bears and panthers were still in their long winter slumber. Only the bravest vermins ventured out to face the dead silence of the Russian tundra – owls, opossums and foxes seemed to be the only sigh of life in that desolate wasteland. There was life there, however. Human life. And in such circumstances, that seemed to be quite a challenge.
Somewhere in that snowy immensity, a soviet campfire had been settled. In the last few weeks the weather had covered the 25 tents occupied by the 103 division with a thick layer of snow. That night the common soldiers, -who unlike their superiors, passed their nights in scratchy sleeping bags, wrapped in old grey blankets that didn't shelter them from the coldness of winter- kindled a fire that now viciously crackled in the center of the encampment. There, trying to forget the numbness that overcomes the cold within the low temperature, gave rise a curious conversation that was spoken in Russian words, but that in English would have been more or less like this:
"I cannot believe that spring is already coming." Berlioz murmured, who had been impetuously rubbing his hands, trying to warm up his trembling fingers. "If the weather does not change anytime soon, we´ll all die frozen." He spat with frustration.
"Well, it´s good to see you as optimistic as always, Mishka." Nikolai say, tired of the demoralizing comments that Berlioz had been throwing at them since the last few hours. His comrades were depressed enough because of the weather, and Mishka´s deadly premonitions weren´t helping. "At least we know that the cold Leningrad´s weather cannot freeze your ravishing mood."
"You can deny it if you want, but that doesn´t make it less true. You´ll see. In just a few weeks this shitty snow is going to bury us alive, and then, with quivering teeth and a frozen tongue, I would have the pleasure to say ´I told you´" And with that, Berlioz gave a loudly grunt, and took one more sip of his canteen full of whisky.
Back in Moscow, when he was still living in a little apartment with his former university colleagues –who were, indeed, so broken as him- he had been a fat, plump man, whose cheeks were always red because of the powers of good Vodka. In that time, respond to the duty call and go to war to ´defend the honor of his country´ had seemed an attractive life choice –at least better than bankruptcy and homelessness, in fact-. Now, trapped in that no man´s land, with a food scarce and a distasteful bottle of alcohol that couldn´t get him drunk properly, the latter option sounded more agreeable.
Most of his comrades, however, did not seem to agree with him. And one of them, named Alexei, had begun to get really tired of his selfish, childish attitude.
"Damn it, Mishka!" He practically screamed that night, tired of the stupid comments of the complainant soldier. "There´s no room for doubt anymore. You truly are a coward." He said, and spat that last word like if it was the worst insult of all. "We are in January already! If the cold didn´t kill you during winter, it´s not going to kill you now!"
Antonin Dovetchko -who, in order to seem professional, didn't allowed his comrades to call him anything but his last name- laughed at the situation, and then said, with a monotonous, slightly amused voice. "I wouldn't underestimate the weather in that way if I were you." Then he looked at Alexei, with strange, bright blue eyes.
"The snow haunted by the wind is like a retreating army." He said. "In the battlefield, it is organized into armies and battalions, and when it finds the appropriate moment, it corners its foe. If it can take cover, it doesn´t hesitate. Entire platoons of man had tried to protect themselves from it, hiding behind fallen walls of concrete or in the deepest caves. Whole regiments had tried to defeat its force, but in the end they are always outnumbered. They are attacked. The snow falls over them, bury and choking them. And as fast as it started, the battle is over."
The entire 103 division fell silent at that. Probably not scared, but stunned by his speech. Latter they would notice that Dovetchko was very little lucid, and that such a nonsense was only originated by his curious, and sometimes hilarious need of scare people around him when he was drunk. Then Nikolai talked, with a hoarse and tired voice "Maybe, if we stop talking about the cold, we could forget about it."
Alexei, who was well known to be an intense, passionate orator, didn´t miss the chance to speak his mind in other of his overused, patriotic speeches. "My friends, Comrade Kolia couldn't be more right!" He proclaimed in a solemn voice. "I think – and I do believe that most of you share my thoughts - that there are more important things to worry about than the change of weather." At that, he waved his hands in the air, trying to give emphasis to his words. "I mean – we have been here for nearly three months and in all that time or superiors have given us not a single task, nor a single order. They just send us in useless recognize missions all over the tundra and pretend that nothing wrong is happening." Then, he made a characteristic, dramatically pause, and continued with a dark voice. "But, my comrades, something is happening."
Suddenly he stood up and tall, and kicking the snow out off his way, he made a curious motion with his left arm to point the landscape around them. "While we are here, seated in the snow and complaining about our frozen butts, there are soldiers –real soldiers- dying in the battlefield, right on the other side of that border – giving their lives for our country." He pointed then at the East Mountain that was the only thing that separated the 103 division from the War Zone in the Finnish border. "Personally, I think that being the soldiers that we are, it wouldn´t be fair it we did any less than them. We should be there, fighting along with our comrades!"
"Could you, please, stop saying ´comrades´? You are getting on my nerves!" Nikolai cut him off, not wanting to star with another exchange of views that would eventually end up in a political debate. Alexei, slightly embarrassed by the interruption, and seeing how his inspirations slowly faded away, decided to not reply to that, and with sluggish movements he go back to his seat between Dovetchko and Berlioz.
"I wouldn´t say that we never find anything." Dovetchko say, in a slightly drunk voice. "The other day Ivan and I found something interesting." Ivan Bajlín tensed at that and throw a nervous look to his partner. Dovetchko didn´t noticed, however, and looking how the soldiers around him had gotten closer to listen better, he decided to spill the beans and end up with his confession. "Colonel Todorov calls it an 084. He says that we couldn't talk about it, at least for now. But…"
"Wait a second. What does it mean ´something´ in this context?" Berlioz asked, suddenly interested in the conversation. Dovetchko hesitated, doubting whether or not to answer that question. He opened his mouth, and then close it with a deep frown.
"Rather than saying that we found something…" He finally said, speaking very slowly. "I should say that we found someone." That last statement generated a series of murmurs and whispers around the campfire. Nikolai, who was a selfless and hard man to impress, found himself interested in such a story, and decided to make more questions. He hesitated, however, and he asked with a cautious voice.
"Friend or enemy?"
"We don´t know." Was Dovetchko´s simple reply. "He didn´t have neither uniform nor credentials. And from what I have heard, he´s not talking either." Then, the soldier looked suspiciously around him and above his companions head, like if he was making sure that nobody else was listening. "He´s not a civilian. Colonel Todorov thinks that he is some type of soldier."
"And why does he think that?" Alexei´s voice was strangely pitched – excited at the idea of having a German soldier under their custody. Dovetchko and his partner shared a strange look, and this time was Ivan the one who answered.
"He wore some type of… armor." Most of the soldiers looked impressed and full of curiosity, but Berlioz, instead, tried to laugh at the statement.
"Armor? You mean, like a knight´s armor?"
Ivan, indeed, wasn't sure of how to respond that question, because while the one that the Unknown Soldier wore was made of metal and gold, it wasn't like any other armor that he had ever seen in the battlefield or even in history books. "Kind of…" He decided to respond. "Just less… flashy." At that Berlioz looked confused, and with a deep frown and an almost indignant voice, he said:
"That doesn´t make sense! What would a knight be doing in Leningrad?!" Berlioz seemed reluctant to believe what he was hearing, but before he could say anything to refute Ivan´s words, Nikolai´s deep and serious tone cut him off.
"I would not worry about that if I were you." His companions looked at him with confusion, not quite understanding what he meant with that. Realizing that they did not understand the gravity of the situation, he continued. "If what you are saying it´s true, the bastard most be tied up in the thirteenth tent, with a high rank officer monitoring him, and the only thing that matters is that he stays there." Then he took his cup full of black coffee and took it all in one gulp. "In the middle of a war, a 084 is never a good signal." He said under his breath, more to himself than to anyone else
_-._-._.-_
"He was unconscious when he arrived." Dr. Moskvin said, carefully eyeing the contents of a small manila folder.
The medical history of the patient, which had been carelessly spread all over his desk, was too long -having in count the short time that he had spent under the care of his nurses-. More than long, the history was tedious, incomplete, full of loopholes that he could just fill with protocolor palaver. Not so long ago, he had decided that try to put together a record of this particular subject was a waste of time. Dr. Spalko, however, -unlike the other interrogators that had approached the nursing´s tent in the past few days-, listened attentive and carefully to everything he had to say about this patient, like if she, indeed, believed that it was going to serve her for something.
"He was uninjured, relatively healthy, with just a couple of bruises. So, in the beginning, we didn´t worry too much about him." Spalko, who didn't bothered in taking seat in one of the chairs in front his desk, nodded in understanding. Her hands clasped behind her back and her proudly lifted chin gave her a military essence that the doctor found strange in a woman.
"Then, when he wake up, the diagnosis changed." The words came slowly out of his mouth, and Dr. Moskvin adjusted his glasses as he went to another page of the file. "Though he didn´t spoke at first, when he did he… started to show some problems." He licked his lips before continuing, and looked at Spalko in a strange way. She noticed, and frowned. "Severe problems."
"And what would those be?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.
The doctor went quiet for a while, thinking in what answer could he give. "He´s… totally disoriented." He said, shaking his head, as if his own diagnosis startled him. "He doesn´t know where he is, nor what day it is. He's not capable to answer our simplest questions…" Then his voice trailed off, and he looked at the woman in front of him straight in the eye. "Look, you are not the first one that comes to interrogate him. Many other soldiers had come in this tent for the same matter and none of them managed to make him talk. Supposedly, I´m his doctor and he does not talk to me either… I can sure, Lieutenant, that to this point, that man is not going to say anything."
Spalko pursed her lips in distaste at the statement, but didn´t say anything. She was not sure about it - she knew that she could make him talk. She just needed some time alone with him and a little cooperation. Spalko always had success in her interrogations, and this would not be the exception. The doctor, in the other hand, looked troubled by his patient, she could tell. Most of the soldiers of the 103 Division -specially the high rank officer- found unbearable and even worrying the fact that Dr. Moskvin and his nurses took care of every sick or wounded man that entered in their tent, no matter if it was friend or enemy. Spalko too found it disturbing.
"He´s an impressive man, despite everything." The doctor said, his eyes lost in the medical history again. Then he took off his glasses and looked back at her. She found a little spark of amusement in his gaze. "The first time he wake up he was agitated, nervous, slightly aggressive. Colonel Todorov sent two of his man to restrain and he knocked them down." Spalko narrowed his eyes at that, and tried to ignore the grin full of pride that crossed the doctor´s face. There was something impartial, unprejudiced about this man that she deeply disliked.
"They could control him with five, maybe six man, and they ordered my nurses to inject him stellazine, to put him to sleep." He continued, he´s features full of excitement when he handed her the medical history. Spalko corroborated the dose in the bottom of the third leaf, and something changed in his features. -Moskvin couldn't have said what-. "Whe give him enough drugs to knock out a bear." He said, biting his lower lip and with an odd expression in his face. "The man stayed on his feet. He didn´t even get to blink!"
Spalko pursed her lips once again, and she casted one last look at the document before closing the folder and put it under her left arm. The excitement in Moskvin´s face disappeared, realizing that he was telling this peculiar anecdote to the wrong person. She carefully removed her black gloves, and pressed them between both of her hands before start talking.
"Five persons came in here before me." She said, making the sign of five with her right hand, in such a brusque manner that made the doctor jump in his seat. "And he has been in this camp for over three days now. Even if he didn´t answered their questions, he most have said something, -anything-, yes?" Dr. Moskvin looked blankly at her for a few seconds before he responded.
"He gave us a name. That´s everything we got. " He said dryly. "Is in the underside of the folder." She turned the folder and looked absently at it for a moment, before returning her heavy, critical gaze to him.
"Loki?" She said aloud, frowning.
"Loki." The doctor repeated, scratching his forehead. "No last name. No second name. Just Loki." He added when he stand up. "I don´t think that is his real name, though. It sounds more like an alias to me…"
Spalko looked at him, then back at the folder and back at him again. Finally, she returned the documents to under her left arm, and a wide, unexpectedly warm smile appeared in her face. Though there was something strange, wicked in that expression, Moskvin really, didn´t know what it was.
"I would like to see this Loki now, Doctor." She said in an even voice, heading to the exit of the tent. "Let´s see what our common friend as to say." He swallowed, and looked at the woman one last time; her lifted ankles, her hands behind her back, and her straight military frame.
He pursed his lips in distaste, and followed her.
_-._-._.-_
Loki believed, -and were those beliefs' certainly truth- that when you found yourself in an awkward position, with very few resources at your disposal, the best thing to do is gather information and wait for the right moment to use it at your advantage. Knowledge is, after all, the upper hand in every successful scheme, and the lack of it might as well lead you to failure. That´s why, when he gained enough lucidity to understand where he was and what had happened to him, he had been hit by the realization that his first attempt to escape had been a rather lamentable spectacle, if not, a regrettable display of reckless and stupidity.
In that moment, willfully ignoring the prick of earthen floor under his bare feet, Loki would sit upright in the uncomfortable mattress where he was currently lying. He would look at the metal handcuffs that bound him to the back of the bed, and would remember, with a shamefully grimace in his face, how he had rammed against every living thing in his surroundings when he had first wake up, in an sloppy attempt to escape from his -at that time- unknown captors. He had never been one to handle hazardous situations with raw power, but when his mind had been cleared of the heavy fog of a deep slumber, and he had find himself tied up to a stretcher, surrounded by a group of strange people pointing needles and unknown instruments at him -his ears still buzzing at the so long forgotten existence of sound-, break free and runaway had seem the most likable option.
Now, that he was lying face up in the uncomfortable mattress with which he had been provided, and the sign of movements outside the tent seemed to grow faint, he gave himself the luxury to review the information that he had obtained during the past three days, just looking around the place, and carefully examining his healers and the peculiar warriors who occasionally came to interrogate him. In the first night of his imprisonment, -basing his assumptions on the number of moons of the planet and in the order of its constellations- Loki had concluded that he was in Midgard.
Therefore, he had remained silent, and had ignored -if not dismissed- all the interrogators that have come to the tent to question him. Not a single word, not a single sound had come out of his mouth since his arrival, and they had, apparently, taken offense to this lack of cooperation; he could tell, by the metallic warmth of blood in his mouth and the painful pang in his ribs. Nonetheless, he continued to resist them. He was well aware that Midgardians ignored the existence of Yggdrasil, and any of the other Realms that comprise it, and in the actual scenario, going out rambling about life in another planets and the existence of powerful, omnipotent beings above our heads simply didn't seem like the best thing to do. And although been the one who unveiled the truth of the Three of Life to humankind, and being worshiped as an all-powerful being for the mortals did sound like a pleasant idea, they would most likely not believe him, and would merely throw him in the nearest Healing Chamber, to start a suitable treatment for his delusional mind state. So civilizations react when they are show more than it should have.
With each passing day, Loki also began to suspect that he was currently living in a War Zone. The encampment hadn't been under any type of attack, and he had not yet contemplated any sign of violence between the warriors that guarded him. He would notice, however, the suspicion that glittered in their gazes every time they looked at him, and would take mind of that heavy tension that filled the air around him - that electricity like sensation that make him tense and wary every time the movement outside the tent increased, and the shadows in the other side of the carp marched into a martial gear. In those moments, his ears would be filled by a deep, throaty sing, intoned by thousands of voices in a rough, frightening language that he had never heard before, and he would uncomfortably stir in the mattress, wrapping his head in an old grey blanket in order to turn off the sound.
That had gave Loki the idea that he was outnumbered, without having to face neither the outside world nor the warriors who inhabitant it. If his supposition was correct, and the men in the other side of the carp were as strong as the ones who had handcuffed him to the back of the bed, then escape would prove to be a difficult thing to go.
Once again, Loki looked at his handcuffs and sat upright, frustrated. The manacles, really, weren´t strong enough to immobilizing him, but if he wanted to gain more information out of this situation, it would be best to keep the appearances: Right then, see subjugated and restrained seemed to be one of them. During the past few hours he had been approached by the strong inkling that a watershed event in his life as prisoner was about to take place. He did not know if it was an opportunity to seek information, or a sudden change of the scenario that would allow him to escape -or maybe something else, he wasn´t sure-. But a nervous excitement, that did not allow him to eat, drink or sleep, was stirring within him - boiling in the bottom of his stomach. He licked his lips, trying to ignore the tingle around his wrist, and lay on his back again, patiently waiting for something to happen.
Because he knew that something, whatever it was, was about to happen.
What can I said? This was Spalko´s first appearance and I'm just so excited! She´s a really fun character to write about; so strong, intense and confident... I love her! XD
Also, I had never written about Loki, so this was quite a challenge to me. I hope he´s not to much Head Cannon. I wanted to picture him as a good, smart warrior, but I didn´t want to cross the line. Normally, fanfics over exagerate his inteligence... (?)
Anyway, Thanks for read! :D
P.D: In my mind, this Dr. Moskvin is played by Martin Freeman. So, enjoy!