So, about that "fic will be up last weekend" thing...I kind of stumbled into the kink meme. Also Thanksgiving happened, but generally gkm was what drew most of my time away from this fic. This week is reading period for me, and then next week is finals, plus I'm now attached to a fill on gkm (my own fault), so it might be a while before I'm able to wrangle out another chapter. To be safe, let's just assume that I'm going to update every two weeks, and any sooner than that is a bonus and/or me willfully ignoring any homework I might have. Okay?

FYI, I was doing some story planning (which would have been intelligent to do before starting this story but w/e), and this fic will end up being a little over 20 chapters. I haven't quite got the timing worked out on the last few chapters, but my planning is solid for at least the first fifteen. :P

Disclaimer: I really wish that any of these characters were mine. Especially Kurt(ya) or Blaine. But they aren't. I'm just a poor college student. Please don't sue me *hides*

Oh, and to the anon reviewer 'Klainers': thank you! That means so much to me! Please come off anon so I can actually throw sunshine and rainbows at you from this side of the internet :) or come bother me over at my tumblr lizzard713[.]tumblr[.]com


From within the snow-laden building, a cacophony of cries and laughter echoed out into the winter landscape. The faded sign that read "People's Orphanage" announced that this was a home for children, and very noisy ones at that. Much of the noise seemed to emanate from the front of the building, where a few children stood at the windows or just inside the doorway as they shouted at the two figures moving toward the iron gates.

The first, a slight, middle-aged, fair-haired woman, tried to ignore the noise as she barked out to the figure ahead of her. "I got you a job in the fish factory," she said, a little exasperated. "You go straight down this path 'til you get to the fork in the road. Go left–"

"Bye!" the other figure – a young man with fine brunette hair and delicate features – shouted, waving in the general direction of the orphanage and at all of the children in it.

"Are you listening?" she asked sternly.

"Bye everybody!" the young man shouted again, waving at the children within the building. Then, his expression turned serious as he looked back at the woman."I'm listening, Komrade Sylvestrova," he said through gritted teeth.

The woman did not reply, choosing instead to grab onto one of the ends of the boy's long black scarf and begin tugging him closer to the gates. On another occasion, he may have commented on being dragged about like a mutt, but this day was different. "You have been a thorn in my side since you were brought here," the Komrade muttered as she continued to tug him along, "acting like the queen of Shebah–"

"Bye!" he yelled out again, twisting against the slight tug about his neck to take a last look at the structure he'd called 'home' for as long as he could remember, before turning back towards the gate.

"–instead of the complete no-account you are!" she finished, holding the now-unwound scarf from her hand as she wrenched the gate open. "For the last 10 years, I've fed you, I've clothed you, I've–"

"–kept a roof over my head," he muttered, having heard this tirade many times before and knowing what Komrade would say nearly word for word.

She whipped around to face him, a hard glint in her eyes. "How is it that you don't have a CLUE as to who you were before you came to us," she asked incredulously, "but you can remember all that?"

One of his hands moved instinctively to grasp the skinny chain that hung about his neck as he began to defend himself. "But I do have a clue to– "

"Gah! I know," she snarled, snatching the chain from his hands and grasping the small, circular ornament that hung from it. On one side of the ornament, six teardrop-shaped aquamarine-like stones were arranged like a flower, with the name 'Куртя (Kurtya)' etched into the topmost petal; the other side was etched metal (Kurtya believed it to be gold, but Komrade Sylvestrova insisted that it must have been polished bronze) that contained an inscription, which the Komrade read aloud. "Together in Paris," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "So, you want to go to France to find your family, hmm?" Kurtya nodded enthusiastically, having dreamt about crossing Europe to find people who loved him ever since he'd first read that inscription. The Komrade scoffed in his face. "Kurtya, Kurtya…it's time to take your place in life," she said with frustration, shoving the boy towards the open gate. "In life, and in line. And be grateful too!" she shouted as she wrenched the gate shut behind him.

As Kurtya began to walk away from the gate, he felt something hit him in the back of the head. Turning around, he saw his scarf lying on the ground, realizing that Komrade Sylvestrova had still been holding it after their exchange and that she must have thrown it at him through the gate. Kurtya looked up to see her standing against the bars. "Together in Paris!" she yelled sarcastically, before cackling and turning back to the orphanage. He scowled, picking up the scarf and stuffing it in his pocket, and stormed away.


Kurtya walked slowly up the path away from the orphanage, trying to ignore the biting chill of the falling snow and icy breeze against his exposed face. As he got further and further away from his former home, he became more and more resentful of the Komrade's words. He resorted to something that had always helped to relieve stress that she had caused him: humorous imitation of his (former) guardian. He slouched his shoulders, morphed his gait into something of a shuffle, coughed a few times, and spoke in a particularly gravelly voice: "Oh, be grateful, Kurtya!" Then, dropping the act, he said to no one in particular "well, you know what, I am grateful." He paused, before shouting "grateful to get away!"

By this time, he'd come to a wooden signpost at a crossroads. The path split into two roads, with one road leading to the Fisherman's Village and the other leading to Leningrad (although below the word 'Leningrad' it was still easy to see where 'St. Petersburg' had been scratched out). Kurtya wandered up to the post, staring at it briefly. "Go left," he grumbled in his best impression of the Komrade's voice. "Well, I know what's to the left. I'll be 'Kurtya the orphan' forever." He looked wistfully down the road that led to Leningrad, and wandered a few steps in that direction. "But if I go right, maybe I could find…" he mused, dragging his necklace out from under his various shirts and staring at the inscription again. "Whoever gave me this necklace must have loved me…"

He then came to the realization of just how far-fetched his current train of thought was. "This is crazy – me, go to Paris?" he yelled to the open landscape. He let his head fall forward into his hands, massaging his temples. Oh, wonderful, now I'm talking to trees. He wandered back towards the signpost. "Send me a sign," he half-muttered, leaning against the post. "A…hint. Anything!" he said, raising his voice once more. Then, glad that no one was around to witness his apparent insanity, he sank down the signpost, curling into himself and resting his head on his knees.

He looked up with a start when something warm, furry, and very much alive began pawing at his shin.

Kurtya saw – though he couldn't begin to imagine where it had come from – a small dog with curly black fur and shining chocolaty eyes, sitting at his feet. The dog yipped, then darted forward to grab the edge of his scarf in its tiny jaws, tugging it away. "Hey!" he half-yelled, grasping for his out-of-reach scarf. He began laughing as the dog darted further away, again laughing "h-hey!" The dog ran around the signpost and behind Kurtya, before darting forward and barking once more, its tail wagging in the air in invitation as the scarf continued to drag in the snow. "I don't have time to play right now," Kurtya said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the post. "I'm waiting for a sign." Then, muttering, he added "and you're getting your slobber all over my scarf." The dog merely yipped again, running farther away and pulling the scarf with it.

By now, Kurtya was frustrated. He dove forward for the end of the scarf, but the dog jumped away, leaving him to fall face-first into the snow. Grumbling, he got up to his knees and grasped again, managing to grab one end of his scarf.

The dog, of course, saw this as an invitation to tug-of-war, and began yanking the scarf insistently in the other direction.

"Would you just leave me alone?" Kurtya said, exasperated, as the dog continued to tug. "Stop!" he yelled as it began to run in the other direction. "Give me that back!" The dog ran playfully around him, inadvertently tangling the scarf around his legs in the process. As the pup pulled away, the twisted scarf tugged Kurtya forward, causing him to tip into the powdery snow.

He started to get up, dusting the snow off of himself, when he noticed that the dog had now bounded a few paces away and was sitting on the path that led away from the Fisherman's Village. He huffed as the dog yipped happily around the scarf in its mouth. "Oh, great. A dog wants me to go to Leningrad," he said sarcastically. Kurtya sat on the snow surrounding the signpost for a few moments, before looking back at the path. He listened as the dog whimpered, its tail still wagging. It had now dragged his scarf a few metres farther down the city-bound path, and barked at Kurtya in a way he supposed was inviting. A dog as my sign, he thought pensively. It could happen, and it might be the only sign I get.

"Alright!" he said, getting up and walking toward the joyous, yipping ball of scarf-stealing fur. "I can take a hint," he added, addressing the universe as he gingerly picked the scarf up from where it now laid: in the snow at the feet of the hyperactive dog. As he looked down the road to Leningrad, a sudden fear washed over him. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, before opening them and taking the first tentative step. "Heart, don't fail me now. Courage, don't desert me – don't turn back now that we're here!" he sang softly to himself, his boots crunching in the snow as he trudged forward. "People always say life is full of choices – no one ever mentions fear," he continued, moving to follow the dog that had bounded ahead of him, yelping and growling whenever his progress paused. "Or how the world can seem so vast," he sang, staring out at the seemingly endless whiteness of the snow-covered forest, "on the journey to the past."

A few miles down the road from the signpost, Kurtya encountered a horse-drawn sleigh – or rather, he encountered the snow that was kicked up by its long blades as it passed. He'd been knocked against the snow bank by the force of the spray, and had to dust himself off thoroughly before continuing. (He had to dust himself off again when the dog decided that the best place to shake the snow off of its fur would be well within Kurtya's vicinity.) But, though annoying, the sleigh had done nothing to detract from his will to reach Leningrad, and he began his journey again with renewed vigour. "Somewhere down this road, I know someone's waiting – years of dreams just can't be wrong," he sang, recalling the many times he'd sat in the orphanage, cold and lonely, dreaming of a family he hoped he still had. "Arms will open wide, I'll be safe and wanted finally home where I belong," he sang louder, wrapping his arms around himself. In the 10 years of memory that he did have, he'd never been hugged – such was life in an orphanage. The dog then bounded up to him and began pawing at his leg; reluctantly (though secretly grateful for the contact), he picked it up and held it snugly in his arms. "Well starting now I'm learning fast, on this journey to the past."

Leningrad was nearly a day's journey by foot, and the sun was hovering perhaps two hours above the horizon by the time he stumbled upon a small cottage, its interior lamps already blazing. Kurtya could see that, inside the small structure, a family was stationed by the window, staring down the road towards the city. He stopped across the road from the cottage in order to watch the people within the structure. "Home, love, family: there was once a time I must have had them too," he sang, staring longingly at the small family. He watched as a man approached from the other side of the road – coming back from work in Leningrad, perhaps – and saw the children within the cottage burst through the door in order to greet him. He heard them yell happy greetings as they hugged the man's legs; sighing, he turned away from the domestic scene and continued his journey down the city-bound road. Before he'd rounded the bend away from the cottage, he looked back once more, to see that the entire family had now congregated outside. "Home, love, family," he sang softly, a sharp pang of longing striking his heart as he observed their happiness, "I will never be complete until I find you!" He turned away once more, a distinct sense of emptiness filling his chest. He felt tears pricking his eyes, and wiped them quickly away as he walked.

By the time he reached a sign that said 'Leningrad – 4 km', he was sweaty, sore, and covered in snow. (The dog, of course, was energetic as always, and continued to bounce about and yip as if it had not covered even half the same distance that Kurtya had.) His feet ached inside of the cheap boots he wore. "One step at a time," he sang to himself in encouragement, gritting his teeth as he scrambled, ungracefully, over a fallen log, "one hope, then another, who knows where this road may go?" He thought about the possible journey he would take in making his way across the continent. Yes, he knew that this trip would begin with Leningrad, and end with Paris, but oh! – what marvellous places he might end up at in between! In his remembered life, he had never travelled outside of the orphanage, but now – now he might see much of Europe, by train or boat or maybe automobile. Bolstered by his adventurous thoughts, he continued down the road with renewed vigour. "Back to who I was, on to find my future, things my heart still needs to know!" he sang with enthusiasm, even as he continued to slip along snow-covered (and partially icy) path. It was nearly sunset, and he'd just passed a 'Leningrad – 1 km' sign: he was getting close. "Yes, let this be a sign!" he sang as he leaned down as scooped the dog into his arms. "Let this road be mine! Let it lead me to my past!" he sang joyously, running toward the top of the hill that marked the end of the road, beginning the short descent into Leningrad. When he reached the pinnacle, he paused, catching his breath and staring out over the city: the cathedrals, the factories, the homes, the life. Before descending, he took a deep breath, and shouted "and bring me home at last!"


I love writing Sue, in any iteration. I'm kind of sad that we won't get to see her again, though :( Have fun guessing who the dog (sort of) is - though you'll get a hint once it has a name next chapter.

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