BEFORE THE BOAT made it to Kerch, Victoria felt as if most of the shackles bound to her by blood were diminished. The trip there was through rough waters with rough people, a handful of them heavily intoxicated or just general arseholes.
Ketterdam, the capital of Kerch, came into view, and Victoria held her bag close to her, the new gloves making a creak as she curled her fingers around the strap.
-🐦⬛-
Over time, Ketterdam felt more like home than anything Ravka offered. The smell of revenge and the feel of rivalry thrived and Victoria loved it. She slowly began to build a reputation as someone who wasn't quite there - a shadow, the Skotos of Ketterdam.
No one knew who she was, who she used to be, and it made her feel seen. No longer was she a Grisha to be feared or an entitled monster, she was a thief and a shadow - and that was enough for her.
Victoria lived off of pickpocketing the rich and powerful in the barrel, often slipping into clubs and taking money, before gambling with a hope of increasing her funds, but being sure to keep enough for herself. If she were unlucky, she'd simply swipe the winnings unnoticed. If she were lucky, she'd take the winnings and leave fairly. Either way, she won.
Her life rolled out perfectly, until she stepped foot in the Crow Club, owned by the infamous Kaz Brekker.
Victoria glided through the crowds, slipping her hands into wallets and clenching coins in her gloves before sliding them into the pockets of her off-white blouse that she adopted, the only light part of the Skotos of Ketterdam.
Carefully, she took a seat at the closest table, with a few men clutching beer and tokens to bet with, and one Zemeni man, armed with revolvers. After a few rounds, Victoria got to grips with how to play and began to bet larger sums of money, using thieved coins to fund it.
Eventually, she used the last of the money and lost to one of the men with a large pile of cash, and Victoria said her farewells and left the table, sweeping by the man who had the winnings shoved in his grubby pocket, and used a small amount of her power to push the money out of his pocket, whilst making it fall far away enough that it seemed she dropped her own. Carefully, the woman scouted the coins and put them in her trouser pocket this time, not her blouse.
All was going smoothly as she stood up, pulling her gloves onto her hands firmly. That was until she felt a knife pressed to the back of her neck and a hand on her shoulder. Victoria felt dragged back to the Fold and her encounter with the volcra, before forcing the woman's hand off her shoulder but holding her hands in a surrender.
Silently, the woman with the knife to Victoria's neck led her to a secluded part of the club, away from where the public loomed. She was sent to a room with a desk, a strangely located tapestry and a man with eyes that masked emotion. The Bastard of the Barrel.
Victoria recognised him from her travels in the Barrel, as well as the few times she had neared the Crow Club, only to steal cheated cash from drunks leaving the place.
"Shadow Summoner." The man shook his head. "Ravka knows General Kirrigan, yet I've never heard of any Skotos." Words spoken blankly, yet Victoria could feel some form of emotion within them.
"Skotos was a name given to me by the barrel." She held her ground. It was true, the name was a whisper among wind that caught up with her.
"Nobody seems to know your real name, coincidentally." He countered, gripping the head of a cane, presumably his, tightly with covered hands. "So, Shadow Summoner, what brings you to Ketterdam?" Something told Victoria that finding out why she was here was his ultimatum. If it was, why bring a silent death threat into it?
"May I ask, Mr Brekker, as to why you're so curious?" The woman countered, her eyes moving to where the woman-with-the-knife was, before realising she'd slipped away - something that Victoria was sure she would've noticed.
"Well, you enter my club, steal money from a customer and then decide to not answer my questions." Victoria couldn't exactly argue, he was correct in every statement. Whilst he seemed a little proud, though he masked it, Victoria internally groaned.
"Well you get one of your friends to place a knife to my neck and grab me - which I must say was rather uncomfortable - and expect me to answer questions?" Victoria countered, straightening her posture as she realised how much she was slouching.
Kaz straightened his own posture, trying to come up with his own response. "It's my club, I expect answers from someone who steals from a customer." He spoke harshly, no change in tone from start to finish - like one rehearsed sentence.
"The barrel is full of thieves, can you be surprised to find one lurking in your club?" Refusing to directly answer, Victoria danced around the subject whilst holding her position.
"I just want an explanation. A Shadow Summoner that nobody has heard of in the depths of Kerch." Dirtyhands didn't bother answering her question, presuming that this woman knew the answer.
"I left Ravka and came to Kerch. Explanation done." She answered, crossing her left leg over her right one.
"And why was that?" Kaz pushed, determined to find out the ins and outs of the other side of the Fold - valuable information that could earn them coin in some job in the future.
"What do I earn from telling you? You have plenty of riches, most likely people in every corner of Ketterdam at your fingertips. What do I gain?" The woman asked, drumming her fingers quietly.
"I offer you somewhere to stay and you work for me - you operate in the club and get hired for jobs. As you said, people in every corner of Ketterdam." He proposed the idea. A supposed Shadow Summoner on his side? Sounded too good to be true with such an easy bribe.
"And how much of this money I'm earning you do I get to touch?" She enquired, ensuring she knew the depth of what she was getting herself into.
"Enough. Now, do we have a deal?" He cocked an eyebrow, loosening his grip on the cane.
"Suppose it's better than my current occupation. We do, Mr Brekker." Victoria confirmed. She didn't exactly want to shake his hand. Not that she was raised to be rude - her mother would probably have a fit if her two children were such heights of rudeness - but between her gloved hands and Kaz's, she assumed that he wasn't so dissimilar to her in at least one respect.
"And my name isn't Skotos, it's Victoria. Call me whatever you like, everyone else does." The woman stood, before sighing. "So, where exactly am I agreeing to stay?"
-🐦⬛-
wc: 1182
originally published: 07/07/24
sooo how we feeling?
I'm super excited because I know how this all turns out 🕺. But seriously. I need opinions.
Also massive thanks to BriasBookx for helping me not mischaracterise characters 🫶🫶
edit (09/09/24): total Fold corrections is now 3🧍♂️
It's becoming the bane of my existence atp
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SEVENTEEN GOING UNDER || k. brekker || CURRENTLY UPDATING
Fanfiction"FEAR SPARKS FROM THE NAME MOROZOVA" "THAT'S THE THING WITH ANGER, IT BEGS TO STICK AROUND" For Vi, fear sparked from her. Shadow Summoner and sister to The Black Heratic, Victoria Morozova, alternately Victoria Kirrigan, spent several hundred years...
