Nina Zenik (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
neversmall) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
raianet2021-07-08 05:30 pm
neversmall) wrote in raianet2021-07-08 05:30 pm
Entry tags:
video @nina
[ You can make VIDEOS ON THIS THING.
Now that Nina knows this, no one is safe. Well, okay, not true, because she's still got to get the hang of it. You, the viewer, are once again treated to a vision of... the Aid Station wall.
Nina: "Where's the camera again?"
John, her long-suffering patient who isn't suffering as much as he is laughing at her: "On the corner, there."
Nina: "But that means I have to hold my wrist like--" Abruptly, the picture changes and now Nina's squarely in view, "--oh yes, you're right. That's a better idea."
John: "...so are you gonna say something or?"
Nina: "Oh Saints, is it recording already? Blast--"
Bright smile is go! ]
Hello, everyone! If we haven't met yet, I'm Nina Zenik.
There are so many of us here from so many different places. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two months, and now more of us are coming. I’m not used to making announcements like this [ some noise from beside her, Nina looks toward John and corrects: ] -- or, posts? Apparently they’re called posts. -- but even some the Adament crew I’ve spoken to are interested in my questions, so they’ve assured me they don’t mind if I - post - with this.
So tell us - what’s it like where you’re from? What are the legends that are most popular? What are the courtship practices? [ She’s absolutely not crafting this whole post because she’s searching for ideas on this, nope. ] Are you one of those of us have been fighting a war -- excuse the question if it’s rude, there just do seem to be a lot of us. I’d ask you to talk about your favorite foods instead, but that might be more depressing than helpful. Oh - here’s one: If you’re from an Earth, how do you know it’s a different Earth than all the other Earths? And if not, does your planet have a name or is mine the only one that doesn't?
Now that Nina knows this, no one is safe. Well, okay, not true, because she's still got to get the hang of it. You, the viewer, are once again treated to a vision of... the Aid Station wall.
Nina: "Where's the camera again?"
John, her long-suffering patient who isn't suffering as much as he is laughing at her: "On the corner, there."
Nina: "But that means I have to hold my wrist like--" Abruptly, the picture changes and now Nina's squarely in view, "--oh yes, you're right. That's a better idea."
John: "...so are you gonna say something or?"
Nina: "Oh Saints, is it recording already? Blast--"
Bright smile is go! ]
Hello, everyone! If we haven't met yet, I'm Nina Zenik.
There are so many of us here from so many different places. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two months, and now more of us are coming. I’m not used to making announcements like this [ some noise from beside her, Nina looks toward John and corrects: ] -- or, posts? Apparently they’re called posts. -- but even some the Adament crew I’ve spoken to are interested in my questions, so they’ve assured me they don’t mind if I - post - with this.
So tell us - what’s it like where you’re from? What are the legends that are most popular? What are the courtship practices? [ She’s absolutely not crafting this whole post because she’s searching for ideas on this, nope. ] Are you one of those of us have been fighting a war -- excuse the question if it’s rude, there just do seem to be a lot of us. I’d ask you to talk about your favorite foods instead, but that might be more depressing than helpful. Oh - here’s one: If you’re from an Earth, how do you know it’s a different Earth than all the other Earths? And if not, does your planet have a name or is mine the only one that doesn't?
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We do. Several different kinds, actually. Though I'm afraid lore was not an area I particularly studied, so I could only tell you the basics.
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（ he's got a soft spot for keeping old stories alive. ）
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so even though the specifics of her story escape him, he gets it — water as a metaphor for the underworld. uŋȟčéǧila drowned people too. ）
So was the moral there to beware of love, or princes?
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It could be. Or it could be [ she leans into the tiny camera slightly: ] don't get caught.
[ She leans back. There are terrifying things in the world. Sometimes it's not a matter of if, but of when. Growing up with that, the question of the moral of the story has not been a heavily trafficked thought pattern for Nina. ]
Sankta Juris' tale is much more straightforward.
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（ but he's smiling as he says it. she has the natural theatrics that come with being a storyteller, and he's enjoying the way she leans into the tales. ）
So are you going to tell me, or make me ask?
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Two tales to none is a pretty poor bargain. I don't know if I could hold my head up in Kerch if I made such a thing.
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（ as much as he could just give her a rehash of any of the disney movies he's watched with his nieces and nephews, or the kids at the center, he doesn't mind giving her back something real. after a moment, he begins to speak — it's clear he's as fond of telling stories as he is of listening to them. ）
On the coasts of Ireland, there lived a beautiful lass — a fisherman's daughter, who dearly loved the sea. From afar, a selkie king — a man who could shift his form and become a human, or a seal — watched her, and came to love her, and in turn she fell in love with him. But they were separated by the lands of their birth — one could not live in water, lest she drown, and one could not live on land, lest he die.
When they met, each proclaimed they would prefer to die than to live apart, and each abhorred the thought of losing their lover. The lass had an idea — to speak with her grandmother, who had lived long beside the ocean, to see if there was some spell or magic charm that could allow them to live together. Her grandmother spoke of her own mother, who had herself been a selkie, and buried her sealskin beneath a tree. Anyone who wore it could themselves become a selkie.
The lass found the spot it had been buried, and dug up the magnificent sealskin cloak. After donning it, she was able to transform into a seal herself, and thus join her beloved in the ocean.
（ he leans his chin into his palm, playfully. ）
Your turn.
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Nina is an attentive listener. She leans in and smiles at appropriate times, her brow is furrowed at others. He's a good storyteller, and when he's finishes Nina blinks and glances down.
Yes, she got to be with the one she loved, but all she had to do was give up all that she was, leave everyone else that she loved behind, and change herself almost beyond recognition. That strikes a familiar chord with her, almost painfully so. And the mess of unnamed uncertainties she feels are strong enough to be momentarily visible, to the observant, in the tightening of the corners of her eyes.
She takes a breath because all she can answer to her own heart's question of Is it worth it? is So far, yes. ]
I hope she found many wonderful things under the ocean, [ Nina smiles a little as she lifts up her gaze. ] Well, let's see if I can tell this like a story:
Sankt Juris was a fierce warrior. No one he met could challenge him for long; he always returned victorious. When he heard of a dragon in forest, threatening neighboring villages, of course he road into action. It wasn't hard to find the dragon, and Sankt Juris wasted no time in admiring the beast - he gathered all his power for a mighty first strike! The dragon sustained it, and attacked him in turn. He withstood the flame, and attacked a second time -- and once again, the dragon managed to withhold him. No foe had ever lasted this long. Sankt Juris attacked a third time -- and this time, his attack pierced the dragon's defenses, even as the flames of the dragon consumed him. Neither one of them was ever heard of again.
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That's two for two on stories that end in horrible death.
（ he says it mildly. sure, it's an equally common theme in things of earth. hero and leander ends in them both being drowned.
but sankt is also german for saint. he walked through half a dozen towns named after one or another, after al-hajarah.
come to think of it, juris is — latvian? 'nina' was a short enough collection of syllables he'd been willing to overlook it as one of those commonalities humans are good at, like how most languages have some form of the sound no, but he's starting to wonder if their worlds are really as separate as they appear. ）
If the next one you've got is about someone who dies in a mudslide...
cw for... horrible... Grisha deaths, I suppose
No, I don't know any stories like that. [ There's Sankta Lisbetha, who was drawn and quartered for being unable to repeat a miracle, and Sankt Emerens who was abandoned by the people he helped and left to suffocate, forgotten so they could feast, and who could forget Sankta Anastasia, who discovered her blood could heal and gave and gave and gave of it until the last drop was taken from her and she turned into a husk - or was executed by being thrown to savaging wolves who left nothing of her. ]
...though come to think of it, death is rather a theme in the stories of my people. I suppose that's not surprising. It's the getting to it bit that's interesting.
[ Which way will they kill us today? How, then, will we live?
Fighting. And that was a fight she hadn't truly given up, even if she'd walked away from the war. ]
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（ it's heavy, though. ）
You should come up with your own. Something a little less macabre.
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I'm Ravkan.
[ It's said as if this is a sufficient explanation, and perhaps it would be if you were, you know, from the same planet. ]
I doubt anything I come up with would end any differently, unless I was making up a dream.
[ Or a lie. ]
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（ which, you know, has its own struggles. there's a reason he and billie got a divorce, after all, and it surely wasn't happily ever after. but. live and learn. ）
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No one would believe that. [ Then she sobers a little. ] Although I suppose we would like to. That's the kind of story that has you waking up stripped in an alley in Ketterdam.
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instead: ）
Ketterdam. Rough place?
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Let's just say it has a reputation. [ A half shrug. ] I haven't spent much time there, myself. It's the capital of another nation.