Tatyana Nekolaevna Romanov was not drawn to festivities out of their excitement or gift of respite; she avoided the crowds of Fairy Tail and Blue Pegasus party go'er's, and even more especially the darker seeds that mingled in with them in what was ostensibly a neutral territory. There would be so many people. There would be too many people. Women and children and tired, aged men; and adventurers or mages from all walks of life coming together to party away their daily troubles in the various attractions this hot spring hosted. They were in a resort - and Tatya maintained a prison for herself, shied off in a corner and stalking lamely through the shadows.

She'd pull her fur-lined hood up higher, covering her nervous-twitching lops and the russet hair that spilled down a sharp expression. Her hands would linger at her sides under a coat that seemed to swallow her whole, circling the edge of her auxiliary belt and the various weapons she held. Daggers and throwing knives, a fencing blade and a pistol, not to mention the hand-mounted crossbow tipped with basilisk's venom or the shortblade hanging from the back of her waist. Her eyes held their own power, glinting an unearthly blue whenever a streetlight almost caught her in the winter's day. Spring could only come soon. She hid a shiver in her shackled comforts, turning at the bend of a table on her way out of the square and with the movement snagging a bottle of whisky. It ferreted under her cloak, adding it to her arsenal.

She felt the tug. The pull. She could smell everyone in the air. She could taste them on her lips, breathing and exhalating frost that almost sparked with the electricity on her tongue. Her vision would blur red then a blue so luminescent she felt her plasma turn neon; and she'd clench her eyes shut and shake her head, shakily uncorking the pilfered liquor and bringing it up to her mouth around the corner of a tree. She sucked down hard and fast, allowing the warmth to counteract the chill in her bones and the heat that was trying to swallow it into itself in the pit of her chest. This was a bad idea. She had a contract for a man in Hosenka - and the poor timing with its host event wasn't lost on her. She couldn't do this. She couldn't be here.

She downed another shot, gasping out and laying back against the tree as the dizzying warmth helped to stave off the urge she felt. Her hood loosened down her head, her eyes closing behind the rim of her glasses. Maybe she could do one more lap and catch him before he returned to his family ...

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