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Yelena Greco was born cursed.
The 13th child, she was but another mouth to feed in a family buckling under the weight of its size. Even before she had taken her first breath, she was nothing but a burden, her arrival regarded with dread and worry. The 13th girl, she was but another disappointment in her father’s hopes for a son, an heir to carry on the family name.
As the years passed, her misfortune only continued. Unlike her other sisters, Yelena was always pale, weak, easy to tire. Perhaps it was the lack of food, or perhaps it was her natural constitution, but she never grew well, lagging significantly behind her peers in terms of height and weight.
While her sisters were strong and hardy, helping out with the household chores or tending to the orchards, she was small and fragile, prone to fainting spells in the summer heat. Fortunately, the harvest months were cooler, but not too cold, allowing her to contribute to the family in some capacity. Even so, she was clearly the least favored child, the one whose name was forgotten during family prayers, who sometimes had no place at the dinner table, who had to forgo any chances of a formal education, however limited, because there was simply no money left in the house.
Still, not all was bad. She might have been a cursed child, but there were good days where she could feel the cool spring rain on her skin, taste the sweetness of fresh blood orange on her tongue, and see the white peaks of Mount Etna framed by the pure blue sky. On good days, her older sisters would take turns teaching her what little they knew - how to read, to identify numbers, to memorize the Lord’s Prayer.
On the best days, her older sister Marian would be with her, their laughter carrying through the rows of orange trees. Lying on their backs in the sun, they would listen to the rustle of leaves in the wind, the song of turtle doves in the trees, the flutter of their wings as they took flight.
“You’re just like a dove,” Marian would sometimes tell her. “Small, fragile and beautiful, but so much tougher than you look.”
Yelena would pout, unsure if it was truly a compliment she was being given. She knew that turtle doves were often considered a nuisance, had heard the sound of guns as hunters went after them. But she also knew that they were considered a symbol of hope, that it was a dove bringing back an olive branch that told Moses the flood was receding.
What would she be, she wondered, a nuisance or a symbol of hope? Would she be the light she was named for, or would the curse of her birth continue to darken her every step?
It did not take her long to find out the answer.
She was a little older when they crossed the sea, chasing the outlines of a dream in a distant land. Disembarking on shaky legs, one hand clutching firmly to Marian’s, little Yelena had felt a sudden burning pain in the left side of her chest. The pain seared through her fragile body, sending her crashing to the ground before she had taken her first full breath on American soil. Dimly, she was aware of her sister calling her name, the rattle of suitcase wheels and the sound of the waves accompanying her in her descent to merciful darkness.
When she awoke, she learned just how much the Lord seemed to loathe her.
She was lying in an unfamiliar room, on a bunch of boxes that had a towel thrown over the top. Only Marian was by her side, whispering desperate prayers that sounded less like words than they did nonsensical noises. The pain in her chest was gone, replaced by a pain in her hand from her sister’s desperate grip.
“Marian, that hurts,” she croaked, her throat surprisingly dry.
“Yelena! Thank the Lord!” Marian’s grip went from her hand to her torso, the force of it nearly knocking the air from Yelena’s lungs.
“Too… rough…!” she gasped, flailing pointlessly against her sister’s hold.
Marian refused to release her, though she did lighten her hold somewhat. “I… I thought we might lose you.”
What a start it would have been to their life in America, Yelena thought, her own death - would it have been a good omen, a removal of the family curse, or would it have been a sign of bad times to come? Most importantly, what did her family think, had anyone else been by her side while she was unconscious, or was Marian still the only one who truly thought of her as a sister?
“What… happened?”
Her sister’s expression darkened - no, that was not the right word. She looked as if she had just gotten the fear of god put into her, her face almost paler than Yelena’s own.
Death was not the only curse the Lord had in His arsenal. In fact, death seemed more like a release than anything else - though Yelena wasn’t quite sure if she would be going to Hell at the end of it, too.
Marian fiddled with the collar of her shirt, clearly uncomfortable about the topic at hand. “Do you… do you know what a soulmate mark is?”
She remembered hearing about it in passing, from some older kids exchanging furtive whispers behind the church. Her mother had been very disapproving when she came home to ask about it, saying she was far too young to be talking about something that unclean.
“It’s a sign that someone has been chosen just for you,” she said slowly, carefully.
“That’s right,” Marian nodded - was she, too, being careful about what she said to her baby sister, too young to know the truth of the world? “It appears when you grow bigger, and it tells you when your soulmate was born. That is how you can find each other.”
Gently, Marian reached out to touch her chest, the left side where her heart was supposed to be, but wasn’t. Curious, Yelena nudged aside her shirt, her eyes widening as she took in the black numbers etched into her skin.
A birthday, it was supposed to be a birthday. Yet it was smudged, a mess of gray, with only the last four numbers visible.
1991.
For a long moment, she was silent. The weight of it was too much for her to bear, a powerful hopelessness rising from the ground and swallowing her whole.
Oh Lord, what had she done wrong to deserve such ire? Was it not enough that she was unwanted and forgotten, her body weak and prone to sickness? Was it not enough that she lived more like a stray animal pawing at the door than a daughter of her own family? Was it not enough that she was useless, a burden upon those whom she loved the most?
Why, why was the one person chosen for her someone she was unlikely to ever see?
Yelena Greco was born cursed.
Schneider, on the other hand, was different.
When she chose that new name, she was not too much older or bigger than she had been when she arrived in Illinois. But she was wiser, sharper, colder, more knife than girl.
America was not quite the dream her father had envisioned. Her mother struggled with English, as did a number of her older sisters, too set in their ways to learn anew. Jobs were hard to come by, and the family worked long hours for low pay in order to survive.
Schneider, young and stubborn, took to this new world like a fish to water. She learned quietly, out of sight, observing the world around her and teasing out its hidden sides, unspoken rules and underhanded dealings. Taking advantage of her fragile appearance, she learned to carry weapons, to fight in ways that would allow her to overcome a stronger opponent.
In no time at all, Schneider found herself in the sights of the Italian-American mafia.
At first, it was difficult. They were condescending, entrenched in their old ways, refusing to believe that a girl could ever become a mafioso. They thought her soft, weak, called her a fragile pigeon who would do better as a wife than a killer.
With a gentle smile, she proved them wrong.
Her ruthlessness almost scared Schneider herself - she had not expected to enjoy power as much as she did. Yet she was thrilled, her blood singing in excitement, as she put a bullet through a man’s knee and taunted him about blood debts and how the mafia would always collect. She found herself unable to resist the urge to laugh as a man begged for his life at her feet, his face bloodied, his limbs broken, his dignity shattered to pieces.
It felt good to see fear and pain spread through a man’s eyes as he knew he was about to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. She loved the anger that would flare up in most of them at the thought of being put down by a little girl, the delicious shame and helplessness burning in their eyes…
Most importantly, that ruthlessness gave her a reputation that protected her as much as any gun could. Once word got around in the underworld that Schneider forgave no wrong and overlooked no debts, they began to respect her and the members of the small gang she was running with.
Instances of other gangs encroaching on their territory began to dwindle, their boundaries acknowledged and (sometimes) respected. Some of the other gangs even began to talk shop with them, including them in the massive network that ran America’s most profitable criminal enterprise - bootlegging alcohol. Her notoriety began garnering her so much respect both inside and outside her gang that, within the year, she found herself crowned the youngest (and probably the only female) mafia boss in all of Chicago.
Standing over the empire she had built with blood and death, Schneider wondered if this was why she had been cursed. A ruthless woman such as herself deserved no mercy, no kindness, no love - that was why her soulmate would only be born after she was gone, dooming her to loneliness.
No, no, she was not lonely. Schneider did not need a soulmate to escape loneliness. She had built her own family, gained the respect and loyalty of dozens of young Sicilian immigrants who would fight to the death for her sake. She did not need the Lord - she would not wait faithfully for a miracle, but go out to create it with her own bloodied hands. She did not need a soulmate - she had a large family: 12 sisters, not-very-great parents and several dozen young Italian men chasing the American Dream through Sicilian methods.
Despite her curse, Schneider was living life as best as she could. She did her best to play her cards well, to pick the right allies, to defy the odds and survive. She watched the power struggles of various gangs play out, picking her battles carefully to ensure the safety of her family. The money she earned kept them alive, comfortable, and most importantly, thanks to the bribes she paid certain officials, safe.
Yelena Greco was born cursed. She was helpless and sickly, pale and fragile, a wilting orange blossom on the cusp of falling off the tree. Schneider, on the other hand, had dragged herself through blood and fire to emerge on top. She was a victor, a leader, the phoenix rising from the ashes draped in crimson flames, a survivor willing to pay any price to keep surviving.
Perhaps it was that keen survival instinct that enabled her to sense things no human should, things even arcanists struggled to pick up on. When the ominous rumbling of unnatural, arcane clouds began to stir over the horizon, Schneider had done everything in her power to grant her family safety.
Unfortunately, the world was not simple, nor was it kind. She knew of the coming Storm, sure, but that did not mean she could do anything to prepare herself for it, to ensure that her and her family would be able to weather it. The Foundation was not going to stick its neck out for the likes of them, common criminals without much strategic worth.
Backed into a corner, Schneider was down to her last, desperate option when she met him. Forget-me-not, he called himself, a name ill-suited to his appearance and personality. He was more snake than flower, cold, cruel and calculating - no, even snakes had their purpose in the natural order of things. He, however, was a monster, a heartless beast whose existence brought no good to the world.
Even so, he was the only one with the ability and will to protect her family, and beggars could not be choosers. For the sake of tomorrow, Schneider would gladly make a deal with the Devil - after all, it was the Lord who had forsaken her first.
Unsurprisingly, there was no trust whatsoever in their partnership. It was not quite businesslike either - while they were cordial, it felt more like a venomous snake wrapped around a scorpion, each aware that they could be killed as easily as they could kill.
Still, it was a simple enough job. Shoot a couple people, put on a show for some rich bastards at a speakeasy - nothing Schneider hadn’t done before. But then things began to get complicated, and by the Lord she could not understand why Marian was involved - it had to be that goddamn snake, the racist bastard, trying to sever her from her “adoptive” human family so that she would take part in his twisted plan for…
What was he planning on, anyway? Crashing Wall Street and sending humanity into a tailspin? How would that benefit him when the Storm was about to swallow everything, anyway? Or was he so petty that he wanted to torture his enemies in the seconds before their demise?
Knowing him, that sounded likely enough. He had probably been the type of child who pulled the wings off butterflies just to watch them suffer, twitching and helpless, until they died. He probably got off witnessing the pain and torment of others, a twisted sadist far more terrifying than she was.
She would not trust him as far as she could throw him. The moment the Storm came to an end, the moment she knew that they were safe, she would find a way to break free of his hold and seek sanctuary elsewhere.
Until then, she would play the part of an obedient hired gun, waiting patiently for the right opportunity.
That time came a little sooner than she had anticipated, on a lovely Valentine’s Day morning.
Mister Forget-me-not was a rather particular man, with a vested interest in seeing things done according to his… aesthetic. She’d been given a list of people to shoot several days before, and had obediently studied their faces, habits and voices to ensure there would be no mix-up in the execution. While it would have been easier to just clean them all up with a single car bomb, the good old Sicilian way, he wanted these killings to be more than just an execution. They were to serve as a message, from one racist to another, to let the human gangs know that arcanists were just as capable of avenging their own.
It should have been a routine mission - roll up, pull the trigger a couple times, admire the efficiency of arcanum-enhanced weaponry, do a final head count and body check and make it home in time for brunch. Unfortunately, a group of strangely dressed people had stumbled into her just as she was about to finish up, putting themselves between her and her final target. For a moment, Schneider was debating using more bullets than necessary to clean up, but thankfully, racism won big and the bastard decided to kill himself instead of facing the indignity of being rescued by an arcanist.
That interruption turned out to be the beginning of the end, not that she knew it yet. At the time, she had been relieved that her mission had turned out fine, and also intrigued by the strangers who had tried and failed to stop her. Aside from their strange clothing and bearing, they seemed to know that her mission was to “alter” the future, that it was more than just a simple assassination.
“Those unconscious arcanists behind you… they were the original victims, right? Are you bringing them back to Manus Vindictae?”
Oh, how exciting! Not only did this lovely young lady dress well and have a good heart, she knew how this moment was supposed to play out in “history” and even knew the name of the organization she was working for… Just who was she, and what role would she play on the bloodied stage that Mister Forget-me-not was preparing?
Would their paths continue to cross in the days leading up to the Storm? Lovely, Schneider could hardly contain her excitement - she found herself already missing the girl before they had even parted ways. Her hair was such a gorgeous color, cream but not quite cream, and her eyes… they were breathtaking, brilliant yet sorrowful, as if she had seen the worst the world had to offer but was still trying to find the beauty in it.
Their conversation was supposed to be a simple necessity, a buying of time for her to complete the teleportation ritual, but Schneider found herself enjoying it far more than she should. While the orange haired old lady was… a bit of a stickler, a little too firmly entrenched in the pro-human camp for an arcanist, this one with the pale hair was different.
“So tell me,” she purred, “Who should die in this massacre, humans or arcanists?”
“No one should be killed.”
How idealistic of her, to seek a world where no life weighed more than another. Schneider would’ve liked to see a world like that, but she knew she had no choice - trapped in the dark mud that was Manus Vindictae and Mister Forget-me-not, burdened by her human blood, she had no idea if there was any other way she could survive.
Even so, she hoped she would be able to meet the sad-eyed girl again.
“Don’t forget me.”
Because I will never forget you.
Those unsaid words were dangerous, conveying a level of interest she could not afford to have. If only they had met earlier, before the Storm had formed over the horizon, or earlier still, before the Greco family arrived in America and sealed her fate as a bloodthirsty killer.
In the end, that meeting was still enough to sow a seed of doubt in Schneider’s chest. Another group of arcanists, ones who were not quite as racist as the Manus. Another group who knew her future as their history, who could potentially find a way to outmaneuver the Storm.
Another way forward, with her. With the girl whose shadows dance with ghosts, whose heart remains soft through tragedies, whose eyes are clear and honest.
It was that seed that led to her downfall, standing on the stage of the Walden as the curtains began to rise on the era’s end. Just one look from those lovely, sorrowful eyes and she could hardly breathe, the gun in her hand seeming to weigh ten times more as she pointed it at that pretty face.
How laughable. Was that all it took for the heart in the wrong side of her chest to get stolen away? A pair of sad eyes and a soft word, a hint of kindness, and she had fallen hook, line and sinker.
What a beautiful heart she was. If they could make it, if she could live with her, would life finally be more than just a desperate struggle for survival? Would she finally be free of her curse, of her responsibilities, of everything…?
Would there finally be mercy for her? As she lay there, getting shot again and again, Schneider wondered if she could take enough bullets for her sins to be forgiven. If she bled enough, would the Lord finally take pity on her and give her the happiness she had spent so long searching for?
No, probably not. This was most likely the most her penance could earn her, a painful, drawn-out death at the hands of someone she could not help but love. The plan that she had tried to come up with, cornered in those catacombs, was unlikely to stand in the face of this many wounds. A single shot through her left, she would survive, but this… Layer on enough non-lethal shots, and it will be the bleeding that gets you.
When she closed her eyes in that bar, Schneider had no idea if she would ever open them again.
But she did.
It was the pain that greeted her first, burning through her entire body and forcing the air from her lungs. She gasped, choked, and opened her eyes to the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
Vertin, her beautiful, sad-eyed lord.
In that moment, Schneider felt hope for the first time in what felt like forever. Hope for a miracle. Faith, not in the Lord, but her lord, gentle and kind and sorrowful. Love, not borne out of duty, but born from gentle touches and kind eyes.
What a gentle soul her lord was, to worry to the brink of tears for someone who had, up until a moment ago, been her enemy. What a beautiful heart her lord possessed, to come to the rescue of someone who had once put a bullet through her.
Could Vertin really show her another way? Could she… could she really get out of this mess without the help of Manus Vindictae? Would she be able to get away with Marian, to find shelter from this mysterious Storm alongside her lord?
As the Storm continued to rumble closer, Schneider quickly came to realize that it wasn’t the case. That, as lovely as her lord was, she was still mortal, that arcanists could not fight and defy fate any more than humans could. Vertin was but a single leaf swept up in the storm, amazingly unharmed but helpless to do much against it.
If only she were an arcanist, perhaps she could have stayed. She would have promised everything, anything, accepted even the loss of her entire family, but…
As soon as she felt that nagging hunger, as soon as she saw food on the table where her lord said there was gold and money, Schneider knew she was gone.
She had not been chosen to weather out the Storm.
There would be no mercy for a monster such as herself, no punishment heavy enough to absolve her of her sins. Not only would she fail to save her family, she would not even be able to save herself.
It seemed that even Schneider would not be able to escape the curse that choked at Yelena.
Even so, part of her hoped, childishly, that a miracle would come true, that she would be granted a stay of execution moments before the blade were to fall, seconds before the guns were to fire. If she did not deserve hope, at the very least, could she deserve to pretend she had it, to enjoy her final moments with her lovely lord with sorrowful eyes?
Yes, just for now, under that red umbrella she could imagine was the setting Sun, Schneider could trick herself into believing that this could last. She would be able to go home with her lord at the end of the day, to shelter from the Storm side by side until the end of time itself.
They would find happiness in the shadows of the night, breathing hope anew into every sunrise. She would find the Lord there, in the messy afterglow, in the taste of her lord’s lips and the warmth of her lord’s touch, not in those hallowed halls where her family’s prayers went to rot. She would make her own miracle, carve out her own happy ending in the spaces between her lord’s ribs. She would etch her lord’s name into her own bones, devote herself wholeheartedly to her lord’s goals.
Just for now, she could lean down and kiss her lord and pretend it would be the first of many, the beginning of forever after. That adorable squeak of surprise, the sweet flush of scarlet across pale cheeks… if only she could freeze that moment, spend eternity in this special space where only the two of them existed…
“Don’t suddenly get so close to her!”
Unfortunately, they had quite the unwilling audience. With a little giggle, Schneider drew back, gently brushing pale strands from her lord’s lovely face. For once, there was no sorrow in her eyes - instead, the young lord was thoroughly flustered, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
“Y-you…”
Vertin touched her lips gently, almost as if savoring the warmth that lingered. The movement bared a sliver of skin against the side of her neck, a sliver of skin marked with the same dark, blocky numbers as Schneider’s chest.
22.10.1911.
She froze.
22 October, 1911. Wasn’t that…
Her own birthday.
Her lord… had a pretty decent chance of being her soulmate. The one created just for her, the love of a lifetime every human being was supposedly promised, the happy ending that most people dreamed of attaining.
And yet this was how they met, in a mess of time where the rain fell skyward, in a world that was already on its last legs, in the middle of a fight they could not truly win.
The cruelty of it made her want to laugh.
So this would be how their story played out, a pair of souls whose births were separated by 80 years. So this was the surprise fate had planned for them, a meeting and parting lined up so closely after each other that they would barely have time to love.
It did not matter that her lord was most likely hers, that she was most likely her lord’s; the Storm still had not chosen to spare her. The few moments that they shared, half of them covered in blood or in the thick of battle, were all they would ever get.
“What do you wish for?”
A different fate, she wanted to say. A truly merciful Lord. A life with you. So many things that I cannot have, that you cannot give. My dear lord, I wish for you.
But she didn’t.
If their ending was going to be a tragedy, then Schneider would do her best to ensure that their final moments together would not be tainted by grief and sorrow. She would continue to lie, to play the part of the Greco family’s adopted arcanist, ready and capable of greeting the sunshine beyond the Storm.
Was this how Judas felt at the last supper, the weight of his lies heavy around his neck? Did he feel guilt, shame or fear as he stood there before his Lord, ready to wound him in the worst way possible? Had it been a challenge for him to eat, just as it was for Schneider to swallow past the lump in her throat?
The food tasted like ash on her tongue, dry and powdery, but still she ate. Her lord was casting those beautiful, sorrowful eyes across the room, probably taking mental note of who would still be there once the rain stopped. When those lovely eyes reached her, they lingered, the brief flash of relief that shone within shattering Schneider’s heart.
Her lord had fallen just as easily as she had, it seemed, and was too young and sweet to read between the lines, to find the meanings hidden in the words Schneider had chosen not to say. A more suspicious person might have noticed that Schneider had never called herself an arcanist of any description, merely a person with poor arcane skill. A more suspicious person would have harbored doubts, maybe concocted secret tests, or hell, even just asked her outright. Fortunately, or unfortunately, her lord was too naive for that.
She would not know until the end. She would not be ready to lose Schneider, and that would hurt, but could a person ever truly be ready to lose someone they loved? If Schneider had told her from the very beginning, would the mental preparation make their parting any easier to bear?
She didn’t think so. After all, Schneider had known the truth from the start, held onto hope when there was none, bargained with a Lord she no longer believed in. The inevitability of their goodbye had not made it any easier to let her lord go, to accept her fate and go quietly into the long night.
Sitting at that long table, Marian by her side, all Schneider could think of was life, of how much she wanted it. A survivor through and through, she had never desired life as intensely as she had in that moment, listening to the sound of the rain against the… roof of the suitcase? It was such a strange, surreal moment, to be sitting inside a magical pocket dimension in the midst of an era-swallowing magical storm, the table headed by a young woman from the end of the millennium.
What a peculiar thing life was, capable of taking on the strangest of forms. What an unpredictable thing fate was, to connect two souls from near the start and end of a century as soulmates. What a fragile thing the future was, to slip between your fingers like many grains of sand.
One by one, the dining room began to empty. The random refugees went first, one by one then all at once. For some strange reason, they left their clothes behind when they disappeared, littering the floor with shirts and shoes that no longer had any owners. Their goodbyes grew more rushed, panicked, the reality of their imminent doom sending those who remained into a frenzy as they awaited their own disappearance.
Under the table, Marian took her hand. She was shaking, of course she was - who could remain steady and unaffected in the face of death?
Quietly, she whispered reassurance to her beloved sister, hoping the words would sound less empty than they felt. Thankfully, Schneider’s voice and body did not betray her, remaining strong and calm as she squeezed Marian’s hand.
The next wave came and went. The number of people continued to decrease, sounds of muffled sobbing beginning to fill the dining hall. Schneider took a deep breath, held it, and by the time she released it, Marian was gone.
Just like that, without a single warning, a life had come to an end. Marian’s clothes crumpled in a heap, sliding off the chair and onto the floor where it joined the growing pile.
Gently, her lord reached out for her, those sad eyes weighed down by even more sorrow. How many times had she witnessed this scene play out, Schneider found herself wondering, how many goodbyes had she held within this little suitcase, heavy with the weight of the world?
“Goodbye.”
It was not for her, but Schneider knew the time had come. There was a strange feeling in her ribs, a ticklish sort of pain that clawed its way through her chest.
“My lord…”
“Schneider, I’m sorry…” Still, she didn’t understand. The tears she was struggling not to shed were not for Schneider, but for the sister she had lost, the family that had dissolved in the rain. “Your family…”
“That’s not it, my lord.”
She rose, stumbling only slightly as she threw herself into her lord’s warm arms.
“Hold me.”
At last, her voice had cracked - she was human, after all, and even she had her limits.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, nestling further into her lord’s embrace. She smelled woody, warm, like a well-loved personal library. “I’m not a real arcanist.”
Her lord stiffened, a strangled breath escaping her.
“What do you mean? I-I don’t understand.”
Vertin’s arms tightened around her, like a child gripping on to the string of a balloon for fear it would fly away.
“I was always hoping for a miracle, but…” she laughed softly, sadly. “I think I should say goodbye now.”
Panic filled her lord’s eyes as she gasped, “Goodbye?!”
Her grip grew even tighter, so tight that Schneider would probably be left with finger-shaped bruises if she lived til tomorrow. Her voice was thin with panic, struggling to accept the truth that Schneider had so cruelly dropped upon her.
The airy feeling in Schneider’s chest grew stronger, as if something were trying to pull her away from the inside out.
“It’s time, my lord.”
She leaned closer, so close that her lips were almost touching Vertin’s. Gently, she brushed her fingers along the numbers in her lord’s neck, watching as her eyes grew wide with understanding.
Slipping the front of her dress down, she smiled faintly as she watched her lord’s cheeks color.
“Please…”
She saw the exact moment Vertin’s eyes reached her mark, the mass of cloudy gray followed by the only clear numbers: 1991.
“Schneider, you…!”
“Please, carve the sound of my heartbeat on the right into your memories.”
Panic. A quick stab of pain as her lord’s fingers dug into her skin, and then nothing.
If this was what dying felt like…
It was surprisingly kind.