"Stat me."

"I'm in the clear. So are the others. Everybody but you."

"I'm workin' on it."

- Viper

"Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat; when they shot him down on the highway, down like a dog on the highway, and he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat."

- Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman

"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the neurosis that requires a $500 an hour shrink!"

- Darkwing Duck


It was all the horrible noise that brought Katya out of the woods. There was the sudden gust of fire. There were sounds of glass shattering and stones crashing against bricks. There was distant panicking and screaming. But what worried Katya the most were the small explosions—volleys of short, quick crackling that would echo once and leave pockets of silence afterwards. Someone with less keen ears might mistake them for the sound of fireworks, a regular occurrence on the royal grounds. But this was different from the usual party ruckus.

The towers of the palace were burning over the horizon like flames on a mile-long Roman candelabra, but no one came to extinguish the fires. The only thing being extinguished here were lives. Katya saw towering black shadows cast on the walls of the faraway building. Smaller shadows moved frantically between the taller ones, running in every direction while never actually going anywhere. Then another volley of crackling explosions could be heard, and several of the shadows would disappear from the light cast by the fire. The smaller outlines that didn't collapse under a cloud of gunsmoke were dragged away with bayonets pointed at them.

The sky was changing dark red as falling snowflakes became indistinguishable from blazing embers. The burning winterscape wasn't quite Hell, though. Hell would have been a preferable place compared to this.

Katya quickly made a cross and turned her eyes away from the terrible sights, only to glance on the very thing that must have brought her here. At first she thought it was a simple lump in the grass, but then it started to make a sound. Blinking, she realized there was a person collapsed on the ground under a thin blanket of fresh February snow.

What Katya found was barely a woman, only 15 or 16 at the most. Her skin was turning as pale as the snow. Her long flowing gowns were as fine as the snow. The light pink and ivory fabrics in her dress worked almost like natural camouflage, making it difficult to see where the ground ended and the girl began. The only thing that stood out were the small black and red dots that covered her body. Out of the ballroom and straight into the Inferno was this one.

It was clear from her positioning that she'd fallen while she was trying to flee. Body curled in agony. Legs twisted in a failed pirouette. Whoever was responsible had shot her down like a deer in the field and simply left her like this. But surely, they were going to come back to collect their trophy once they were finished razing the palace.

It was 17 years into the 20th century. This poor lass would be lucky if she made it 17 years into her own life.

Under her disheveled tiara was a stunning reddish-brown curtain of hair that seemed to glow even brighter in the reflection of the fire. There was no doubting it. She was one of the Tsar's cygnets. But Katya had a sinking feeling he wasn't going to be able to repay her for her services any time soon.

Not that it mattered. Her idea of a good life was living in the wilderness with the rest of the woodcutters. The only rewards she valued involved a bit of drinking, a lot of gambling cards, and maybe saving a life or two from time to time. She never had any sons or daughters of her own.

Katya had returned from defending the motherland in the Great War only a few weeks ago. A nurse by trade, she'd settled back in with the rural locals and thought she was done seeing the horrors of war under a mobile surgeon's tent. Yet this crumpled heap of capes, laces, and painful squeaking noises was among the more desperate cases that had been laid out in front of her. She felt perturbed toward fate for interfering with her peaceful night, but felt pitiful toward this abandoned girl. She knelt into the snow to give the victim a closer look, and just maybe stop her little spirit from escaping to Nebesa.

The wounds seemed to puncture her arms and torso on every side. Entry wounds and exit wounds didn't match any particular direction. There were at least six Katya could see with her plain eyes. Either the shooters were surrounding her when they opened fire, or she was running with her back toward them and she started to turn as she fell…

Katya tried to peel back her ornamental shoulder sash without moving her around too much, as tattered and tangled as it was. Blood was seeping through the muslin bodice in spots, changing the glittering silver diamonds on the front of her blouse into precious crimson rubies. Several diamonds along her left breast were scratched and chipped. Katya deduced immediately that some of the bullets had been diverted by the jewelry and just barely missed their mark.

"I'm… they… they… they all… Ta… Ma… Al… Pa…" the young woman in royal finery gasped deliriously. The abnormal sounds she was making when she struggled to speak meant her lungs were slowly filling with blood. A few more minutes like this and her brain would start starving for oxygen.

Anything the girl tried to say, it all came out in an unsteady voice tortured with immense agony. The only emotion conveyed in her fading murmurs was sheer terror. She was critically hurt, in body just as much as in spirit. But she was also a fighter. She had to be if she could even manage to breathe like this. A stubborn young thing after Katya's own heart.

The girl was three short paces away from St. Peter's gate, but she still had a chance to live. Katya quickly shuffled through her apron pockets for anything that could help, even though she only carried basic medical necessities when she was out walking. Everything else she needed would be back at the cabin, a hike she could make within five minutes as long as she wasn't lugging around boulders.

She used two fingers to tuck a small herb leaf between the girl's left cheek and her teeth. Its chemicals would dull some of the pain and help her sleep, if nothing else. If she had a little more weight on her bones, Katya would consider letting her have a chug of the extra vodka flask stored in her purse. But this one was so light and already lost enough blood that the slightest taste of hard alcohol might just bring her teetering closer to death.

Katya lifted the girl off the ground if she were just a bundle of soft flowers. Mindful of her surroundings, she brushed the ground with the bottom of her boot to erase the outline left by the girl's body and overturn some of the blood-spattered snow. Her friends often joked she could outwrestle a wild bear if she got agitated enough, but right now she was devoting all of her strength to carry this frail little thing out of harm's way.

"There, there, poor devushka. Old Kat will sort ya' out. Let's hope you just forget about all of this," the woods woman said with a cadence that was mostly grandmotherly and just a little bit brutish.

"Aa… an… a…" the girl choked in grief, her voice shrinking into a whisper. Then she stopped making noise completely.


Author's note: It's the year 2021 and prior to watching the Anastasia musical a few days ago, I can safely say I never thought I'd see a mainstream Disney-esque adaptation where the cute dainty main princess reenacts Willem Defoe's scene from Platoon.