Vasilisa the Brave - Chapter One

Her hair had been beautiful, once, but now as she looked upon herself, Vasilisa wasn't sure what to think. The local barber, the same old man who cut her father's hair, had given her a knowing look when she asked him to cut it all off. She had pointed to an image on his wall, of a proper young man, hair parted to one side and trimmed short on the sides.

It had cost her a few rubles, less than a visit to a hairdresser, at least, and then Vasilisa had bundled herself up and snuck out of the shop and back home, a scarf over her head. It felt colder without her long blonde hair. But it was necessary.

Many things were necessary, and necessarily painful.

She stood in her home, the apartment that was hers and her father's. It was small, but comfortable all the same. On the third floor of one of the new constructions, before the wall went up. She could see the top half of the great ferris wheel in the centre of the city if she angled herself just right and looked out of the window.

Vasilisa put that out of her mind.

At the moment, she stood, undressed, in the bedroom she'd shared with her mother. Her hair was a man's. She tilted her head left, then right. It looked... manly? Yes, that would pass. Her face however. She frowned at herself. Her chin was too slight, her eyes a little too large. Too feminine.

She cleared her throat. "I'm Alexander," she said. No, that was too deep, comically deep. "I'm Alexander," she repeated. Then again. "I'm Alexander."

Better, at least to her ear. She sounded a little like some of the younger soldiers out on the streets, those that were hardly men yet.

With a nod, Vasilisa started to garb herself. Underthings first, then she found a length of cloth, formerly a scarf, and wrapped it tight around her chest. She tried breathing, and found it somewhat difficult, but not so bad. It flattened her chest, hid what she had.

That would do, for now.

She found trousers and tugged them on, then buttoned up the front. Should... should she stuff a sock down the front? She considered it, then dismissed the idea. It might well slip and fall, and then she'd need to explain that. Better to be simple.

A button-up shirt, the same dull green as the army boys, then a baggy men's coat that stopped by her hips. She found a scarf next, and wrapped it thickly around her neck and lower face. It hid her jaw some and might muffle her voice. Then thick army boots and some bulky leather gloves. It wasn't yet winter, but it was always a little cold. This much wasn't unreasonable.

Vasilisa walked up and down the room. Was she walking as a woman did? She had never really considered that before. Did men stomp as they walked?

She tried to remember how her father walked. Big steps, confident. She didn't have that same gait, but she could try. She puffed her chest out, then walked with great big movements of her shoulders. "I'm the biggest, I'm the strongest," she muttered to herself.

Then she held back a laugh. No, that was too much.

The last thing she had to grab was a small backpack. A simple thing, a deep blue, with a few pockets sewn onto the outside. Within was food, all of her money, a few maps and simple tools, and some room. Lots of room, actually.

She hesitated as she decided where to put the last thing.

The most important thing.

It had been hidden under her pillow. The last memento given to her by her mother before she passed. Vasilisa's greatest secret, kept even from her father. It was a motanka doll, its dress was bright colours and its face three curved lines of string on a pale white piece of some rag tied off around the neck.

It was a child's toy, but also more.

She tucked it into the deep pockets of her trousers, then she tightened the trouser's belt a little more. The weight of the doll against her leg was a comfort.

Finally, Vasilisa looked at herself in the mirror once more.

Before her stood a young man, maybe a little baby-faced, but in rugged gear. The kind of thing worn by off-duty soldiers. Short, for a man, but not too much so, with short-cropped blonde hair. Yes, it would do. "My name is Alexander," she repeated. "And I'm going to save my father."

The last was more for herself, than anything else.

She touched the doll through her pocket, then tugged the coat on straighter. It was baggy enough, and long enough, to hide her chest and hips and anything else that might give her away.

Vasilisa moved around their house one last time. She shut off the heating and twisted the valve on their stove to shut it down as well. The lights were all extinguished, and everything was squared away. A small letter sat on the table in the kitchen, angled up, with the landlord's name written across it. There were several crisp bills within, the rent for the next month.

She didn't doubt that the fat landlord would poke around the apartment some, even after finding the letter. He was that kind of man, but he was honest too. They'd have a home to return to. After that... she wasn't so sure. Maybe it would be like Miss Afanasief across the corridor, who lived on very little, but made due anyway. She always said that her husband would return someday. No one believed her, but it was hard to squash hope when there was so little to be found in this city, in this era.

Vasilisa slipped out of the apartment and locked the door. Then she paused. Had she forgotten anything? She didn't think so.

This was... a risk. A stupid one. She'd end up dead, and gone. Her best option was to go back in, give up on this. Dress herself up properly. Maybe she could find some work again, accumulate enough to get by for a while. Then let her hair grow back, maybe find one of those soldier boys who had no wife yet and...

She shook her head. The thought was not pleasant. What she was doing now was the wrong thing.

But it was also right.

She left the door to her apartment behind and made her way down the stairs. She almost bumped into someone, an older woman who shied to the side. "Pardon," she said, only remembering to deepen her voice at the very end.

That would require some practice, practice she could ill afford.

Once outside, Vasilisa tugged her pack up, then started towards the centre of the city. It was a long walk. She didn't want to take the bus, not when they might ask her for ID. So she took some time to practice her gait, eyes scanning over the few men on the street and watching the way they walked.

Did all men have to step so wide? They were so strange.

Vasilisa had a few places to visit before she could take off. The first of these was nearer to the centre of the city. A small, run-down building that her father had brought her to a few times when she was younger.

The place smelled like cordite and cigarette smoke, and there were a few men by the entrance chatting. She nodded to them, that quick up-down gesture boys did to each other in passing. They barely acknowledged her. A minor victory, that!

Stepping in, Vasilisa glanced around. The place was filled with posters. Recruitment ads, some for guns and peripherals. She heard the echoing crack-thump of guns being fired deeper within. That wasn't what she was here for.

Off to the side, past a heavy door with a glass square in it just across from the man taking care of the entrance fees was a room lined with metal lockers. She tugged out a key, checked the number on it, then matched it to a rusty locker near the back. Her father's.

She slipped the key in and opened it.

Within were a few small boxes, old cardboard, and a few guns.

Vasilisa hesitated before the selection. But no, if she wanted to do this, she'd need these. The first she grabbed was a tiny handgun in a leather sheath. It had a cheap bakelite grip with a medallion imprinted on it. She found a box of the right bullets for it, and two magazines.

This was the gun her father had taught her to shoot. He'd taken her out of the city, before the Zone, before everything, and had helped her shoot some cans with it. She could remember the kick still.

The rifle was an old thing, her grandfather's, even, from the last great war.

These would be her tools, the tools she'd need to find her father and make him return.

***