Claiming:Camp/Alice Aslanov

Name: Alice Aslanov

Gender: Female

Godparent: Nyx, Hades, Cybele

History:

Not all of us are born into the same world. My earliest memory is of a dark cell; a 12 by 12 space in which I rotted for the sins of the man that gave me life. Maybe he was a debtor, or a thief, or maybe something more, but what does it matter; none of it does when you're born into Russia's criminal underworld, not kicking and screaming but whimpering and whining for a nonexistent escape. I think that I hoped, in the early days, that there would actually be a way out of the cell. It was a notion soon discouraged by the gouges in my hands, and the indomitable fact that the concrete wall had not budged an inch over the many painful months. Yet even above the hopelessness, there was something far more oppressive in that cell: the darkness. The dim fluorescent bulb on the ceiling had burned out long ago, and no one had thought to replace it, making the dim glow beneath the door the only source of light I had ever seen. The darkness bore down, utterly inescapable, and for the longest time it terrified me like nothing else.

Eventually, however, I came to see through the darkness; a fact that I didn't find odd in the slightest, as I had known nothing else. The thing that had once terrified me, soon became my closest companion: almost my protector. Eventually, I could move the darkness, and when I thought hard enough, it would move entirely on its own. I named it, when it moved, and soon I had a company of friends. Of course, in retrospect, they were a little odd; amalgams of the different parts of people I'd seen, the mouse that sometimes poked its head from the wall, and the raven I'd once seen in a picture that had somehow entered under the door. The Raven was my greatest friend, and the most interesting since it had appendages I simply didn't understand. What could wings possibly be for? Not long after this discovery, my father must have died, because I was thrown from the prison into the cold of the Russian winter. You must understand, the world as I then witnessed it was a strange place, the darkness lurked only in corners, and everything I saw was new to me; from the sky above, to the smallest cobblestone beneath my feet, to the soaring Ostakino Tower dominating the skyline. At first I hid in the shadows, but then hunger came to bite harder than it had ever before, and I collapsed by the side of the road.

I was rescued by a tourist, some kind young woman and her apprehensive husband who I now know had repeatedly insisted that I was not worth helping. I could not speak, neither Russian nor their thickly accented American English since I had never even had a conversation with a real person, but I could understand generosity when it was thrown in my face. The food they ate was delicious, the bed I was provided with softer than anything I had ever felt, and for the first time the darkness left my life almost entirely; my former friend and protector pushed aside by the comforts of a world so different from the one I had known. After I had been nursed back to a stable condition, and mostly locked in my own room by the worrisome man, his arguments must have won over as I was soon returned to the streets from whence I came with a sizable sum of cash and no knowledge of what to do with it. Again, the cold tried to claim me, and after crudely offering literally all of my rubles to a shopkeeper, I found myself sleeping in a lukewarm basement with a few rags to separate myself and the hard floor below.

Unfortunately, when I awoke, I was somewhere else, and found myself in the grasp of the same miserable world I thought I had escaped. Seeing that I was at least adolescent by that point, it had been decided that I was of suitable age to sell myself. I never saw that man again, but the scum who had purchased me ensured that I saw plenty of others in more intimacy than I'd now prefer. As much as you might want to hear them, the details of this period aren't about to be divulged, and so simply understand that in those years I finally mastered language, and a better understanding of the world. From my memories of the tourists, I extracted the name 'Alice', which I then assigned to myself along with the surname of one of the more friendly and conversational customers: "Aslanov". Being, for lack of a better term, a whore, was not nearly as bad as the cell, nor the cold streets in which I had almost died. But, the darkness began to creep back into my life, and during the silent hours of the night, the Raven kept me company. I expressed delight as it, for the first time, flew; an ability it gained as I had now seen birds moving through the air, and understood the purpose of wings, even if I didn't understand the connection between this and the Raven's new-found flight. It occurred to me that birds were meant to fly, but if that was what birds were for, what was I for? What was my purpose, to do as my 'owners' told me? To pleasure men for money I would never receive? The Raven flew, and so too must I.

It was then that I left. The darkness helped me escape of course, destroying the doors that had me confined, and batting aside the pathetic attempts at containment by the men who kept me there. I don't know how many were killed, or if any actually were, but I had moved on and that was what mattered. As I stepped onto the street, the darkness fell in at my side; no longer an entity acting seemingly of its own accord, but something powerful and utterly under my control. I felt strong, independent, and then I realized that while the Raven flew, what I could do was so much more. My purpose, my reason to exist, was to command the darkness; to make it a part of myself from which I could never be separated. It was my weapon against the world, and had I not remembered the benevolence of the other Alice, I loathe to think of where my power might have taken me. The world was harsh, but between the cold and pain and suffering hid spots of decency; like the shadows within cracks and crevices, or as others might say, a light amidst the darkness. Not to say that I've ever truly understood that latter idiom, since the darkness is really quite friendly once you get to know it.

I took the cash from the men who had kept me, and booked a flight to New York. Moscow had nothing for me anymore, but maybe America, the home of the tourists, would. Of course my expectations were too high, and the United States would have treated me nearly as badly as my homeland if it were not for the darkness. After some time I got the attention of a young man, apparently quite disturbed to find me making a two-way conversation with myself, and doing so while sitting on a bench facing a strange bird. After his cautious advance, he explained that nobody else could actually see the Raven, aside from himself because of some sort of magical mist. Both of us thinking the other entirely insane, our language barrier and this fact kept us apart for some time. He explained that he was the son of someone especially good at fighting, and that this was quite similar to my own powers. Ignoring that he was the only person to even acknowledge my abilities, I noted the absurdity of this statement and sarcastically suggested he join the military, so he responded by daring me to knock him out. I obliged, planning to leave as soon as he was on the ground, but remarkably he didn't seem to be affected in the slightest. The man then proposed to take me to a camp in the middle of the woods, an offer I considered most suspicious, but, emboldened by my powers and the desire to see more of what could only be lunacy, I followed along.

After an extended stay at this camp in the woods, I have come to acknowledge the truth behind everything I have lived. I am a daughter of Nyx, I have been through a series of miserable experiences, and there is a world beyond that which dominated my life for so long. The world I was born into is a harsh place, something I would never wish upon another, but it made me who I am. I may see clearly now, but the darkness will always be my protector, and the Raven; my friend and inspiration.

Flamefang (talk) 04:11, June 3, 2013 (UTC)