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Mirela Blog Entry |
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August 20, 2022, 4:00:14 AM 8/20/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Chess." I did two different arts today! Firstly, before I found out the new theme: Today's character from my anthro WWII storyline (yes, I did another) is Mirela...no last name ever given. She's Romani and carries quite a grudge toward the bad guys who tried capturing her (and did capture her father). There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding her design...I only just realized I forgot to give her earrings! 😱 Well...uh. Crud. Maybe another time. TUMBLR EDIT: I'm afraid I don't know a terrible lot about Mirela yet, though that's never stopped me from rambling, right?? Mirela's one of the intermediary-phase characters from the Trench Rats series. She's not old and not new. She may have been developed specifically for the version of the story I started posting online in the early 2000s (I'm not sure of the exact date but I just looked and the existing text was posted to Writing.com between 2001-2, and there's mention of it being posted on Fanfiction.net (now FictionPress) before that. Hm, a bit older than I thought, but fits with the 2002 character list, I guess.) Mirela is actually the one who starts out the story (well, that version of it) when her father is captured and she's rescued by the Trench Rats while fleeing the Nazis. Why are Nazis chasing them? Mirela and her father--since named Nikolas--are Romani, Gypsies. A people the Nazis hate about as much as they hate Jews. I imagined this chase scene, BTW, set to Pat Benatar's "Promises In The Dark." No, the lyrics have nothing to do with it, it's just an awesome tune I grew up listening to on 8-track. (Yes, 8-track. Google it.) Here, let me hook you up. Take a listen and imagine two anthropomorphic rats riding a pair of dogs trying to race away from evil Nazis, then come back here. I'll wait. Wasn't that awesome? Okay. That there is Mirela's song, I guess. Though when I finally look up the words...it honestly seems better suited to someone like Klemper. Hm. Anyway. Turns out, in the original text, Mirela is actually PISSED to be rescued--she'd wanted her shot at the Nazis. Plus, I don't think it's in the text but it's implied she's anguished about the Rats not succeeding in rescuing her father as well. She was intended to spend a good deal of the story being in Trench Rat custody and feeling extremely bitter about the fate of her father, trading lots of barbs with Cpl. Gold Rat, who's portrayed as a...hm, not really a chauvinist, definitely not a misogynist, but in today's world most of his commentary would fall under sexual harassment. He engages in LOTS of flirting and innuendo, even--especially--toward women he's not even interested in getting with; he means no ill by it, it's just his thing. LC Lyndsey Skye, the only female Trench Rat in the story (recall Cpl. Anna Julian is long dead), is a frequent target of his attentions, I mean, there aren't exactly any other women to hit on. She puts up with it and even flings back some saucy comments of her own; both of them know where the other stands and so no offense is taken. Other women react differently. Some accept it, some get angry. Mirela, she gets angry when Gold flirts with her, especially considering that the Nazis who'd been chasing her made comments that made it clear they had some unpleasant intentions for her. Let me share that exchange!--this version of the story is unfinished but fully extant, after all! Seeing her standing up defiantly, the first one laughed even louder. "Look," he yelled to his companions in German. "She doesn't want to be friends, she wants to play target practice. Doesn't she make a lovely target?" "Come on," a second one retorted. "I thought we were going to have some fun." "And this isn't fun? You need to get out more. I'm saving you the trouble of bothering with the trashy little thing. This'll be a lot more fun, I promise. Then we can all go out on the town, mission accomplished, what do you say?" The second one muttered to himself but offered no argument. The others hooted and catcalled when the first smiled again and aimed the gun between her eyes. She stood up as straight as she could and shook her fists at the air in a defiant gesture. "You want to shoot? Go ahead, big man, show me that your gun's really got some bullets in it after all!" A burst of laughter from the others. A surprised, then furious look crossed the soldier's face. "Mouthy little whore," he hissed, cocking the gun, finger pulling back the trigger. (I recently read that depicting guns being cocked in fiction is dumb and should be avoided--I guess it's more for looks and isn't necessary, though I thought it was?--I don't get it--so aside from all the Russian roulette in the story--there's just a weird amount of Russian roulette--I intend to TRY to avoid this from now on. I know zilch about guns. I'll just say that now. My mother once showed me a hidden compartment in the bathroom closet ceiling and I shrieked like a little girl when a handgun fell out. Turns out it was a BB gun she'd taken from my brother long ago and had forgotten about but it looked dangerous enough to me, how could I know? There's this entry's nice little anecdote, hope you enjoyed.) Well, Gold's flirting doesn't go over well with Mirela, and she mouths off to him quite a bit. He's not a complete troglodyte and eventually lets her be. This aspect of Gold's personality, by the way, remains in the current version, though it's a little more nuanced. He flirts, he makes vaguely sexual comments, he'll even touch a woman's arm or take her hand or give her a once over. If she shows discomfort, he backs off. If she flirts back, he keeps up the exchange, though usually with no intention for it to go further. And if she actually tries to take it further--as Didrika pretends to do--he gets extremely flustered and REALLY backs off. He's genuinely not interested in banging every woman he sees--he just overcompensates for his own intense insecurity by acting like a douche toward women. (And toward most guys, too.) So of course when called out on it, he doesn't know how to handle it. (As with most other aspects of this story, please don't take this as me excusing such behavior in the real world. In FICTION, I like to try to put myself in the minds of people who engage in behavior that'd be odious and possibly unforgivable IRL, to try to make characters who are three dimensional, and not just caricatures--anybody can write a male chauvinist or an evil Nazi. I want characters who aren't JUST that, characters you want to hate or love yet you find yourself feeling a bit of the opposite, too. Complicated characters. I don't know if I'm succeeding since the story isn't written and I don't think anybody is reading all of this. But that's my intent. Not any sort of sympathy toward Nazis and sexual harassers and murderers and whatnot, just an attempt to write in shades of gray rather than black/white.) Gold's actual reason for being so intensely insecure, BTW, only recently came to light; I was going to share it here, but I intend to get his portrait out of the way soon so I'll save it for that. ANYWAY. Mirela's upset that her father is still in Nazi custody but can't immediately do anything about it. As the circa-2000 version of the story went, she was intended to be in Trench Rat custody for much of the time but at some point started trying to take on the Nazis in her own ways. The details were never ironed out before I stopped writing. A couple of...ahem...romantic scenes exist, between Mirela and, of all people, Lt. Ratdog. Originally, these two were intended to have at least a brief relationship, though I can't recall if it was meant to last; I don't think it was. Not positive. (My adult scenes, BTW, are the catalyst that rebooted this story in my head last November when I wondered what would happen if I paired off Papillon and Drake...that scene started to run long, plot developed, then for some bizarre reason a swarm of new characters started pouring out of my head demanding my attention. So...thanks for getting it on with each other, guys, I guess? o_o ) In Mirela's and Ratdog's romantic scenes, it's depicted as a sort of love/hate thing, starting out almost like a rape as Mirela tries numerous times to attack Ratdog and he has to restrain her just to protect himself. (Why are they in each other's company in the first place? I have no freaking idea.) They warm to each other, though Mirela struggles with her hatred of the Nazis and by extension how she feels she SHOULD hate Ratdog. (Ratdog isn't a Nazi and was never written as one, far as I can recall. Him being an unofficial member of the Wehrmacht is a retcon and a newer development, but he was never a Nazi. Mirela just sees no distinction--he works for a Nazi (Schavi--know what?--screw it, my autofill is nagging me and I'm just gonna go with it now, I will refer to him henceforth as Schavitz), so to her, that's bad enough.) Ratdog, for his part, only struggles to keep Mirela from killing him. (Even after they do the deed she tries again to finish him off.) He's rather a man-whore, goes both ways, and isn't picky. If someone is interested in him, generally he's good to go. He honestly doesn't get why Mirela keeps trying to kill him. But anyway, that was how the story was originally intended to go. Ratdog's character arc has developed in a different direction since then, however. As things currently stand, Private Godfrey Klemper is his true love, though it takes him quite a while to realize this, and his initial lack of interest in relationships is ironically what pushes Klemper--who's definitely interested in him--away. I'll try not to get overly into it since this isn't their entry, though I didn't cover it in their entries, so...Ratdog's idea of "love and romance" is just no-strings-attached sex, and he hooks up with numerous parties for brief times only--this is how he ends up a single father. After the death of his young son, he just doubles down on going to bars, getting drunk, and taking someone home or letting them take him home. That, and shooting Trench Rats (whom he incorrectly blames for his son's death), are his sole motivations in life. Klemper, meanwhile, suffered a horribly abusive childhood at the hands of his drunken father, lots of internalized self-hatred over his romantic interests (it's like his father's voice acts as his conscience), shooting his own father when he was just ten years old, growing up VERY fast by joining the Wehrmacht at age thirteen, getting hooked on methamphetamine, and going through a series of incredibly dysfunctional "relationships" that were actually either him being used and dumped by the other party, or just outright raped (he's underaged throughout most of this, as he's only around seventeen or eighteen when Ratdog, probably in his late twenties, meets him). Klemper is desperate for acceptance and love, to the point of always ending up victimized; this, his abusive childhood and self-hatred (his father molested him with a beer bottle to "scare him straight"), and his drug addiction combine to make somebody who's VERY muddled and bitter and broken. He's constantly angry and lashing out, he literally regresses and runs away when he feels overwhelmed, yet the moment someone shows him an ounce of compassion, he latches on and doesn't let go--until they inevitably let him down, of course. Then he hates them with a vengeance. The rest of the time he spends in a twilight daze, high out of his mind and often mixing up childhood events with the current situation; sometimes he just completely zones out. Literally the only time he's really functional is when he's fighting or performing military duties that require him to focus; if not for that he'd just completely fall apart. Oh, right--and the Wehrmacht punished him just when he was starting to show promise by demoting him from sergeant to PFC and denying him the right to progress further, when news of his fling with a male Jewish partisan leaked out (the ONE positive relationship he'd had, as it is). In short, he's an utter mess, and he's only in his late teens. This is the state he's in when he's tasked with assisting and protecting Ratdog, a sniper who's granted the honorary rank of first lieutenant (oh wow does this detail rankle Klemper, who worked hard just to get demoted). He also hates Ratdog's drinking and whoring tendencies. After Ratdog's initial attempt at kissing Klemper results in Klemper kneeing Ratdog in the groin, elbowing him in the chin, and yelling, "SCHWUCHTEL!!" before running away, Ratdog successfully seduces him (Klemper is young, fit, Aryan, somewhat effeminate, and good looking--basically, a twink) and they spend a night together. Klemper catches feelings. But Ratdog thinks it was just some harmless fun and keeps whoring around. Klemper gets steamed. When Ratdog makes a move on him a second time, Klemper smacks him and snaps, "You want to get laid so bad, go pick up someone at the bar like you usually do!" Ratdog...isn't that bright. In fact he's kind of stupid, it's one reason he's assigned Klemper in the first place. He's mystified why Klemper is so mad. Klemper's commanding officer, Lt. Dasch (he and the men in Klemper's unit are the only people he trusts anymore), enlightens him a little while also threatening to mess Ratdog up if he upsets Klemper too badly. Ratdog's never had or wanted an emotional relationship while that's the sort of relationship Klemper's been seeking all along, yet can never find. Ratdog used him just like the other men he's known; of course he's spiteful. Somehow, Ratdog starts warming to the concept of being monogamous, if it means Klemper will be with him, though it takes an incredibly negative experience of his own for this to happen: Ratdog actually takes Klemper's advice to go to the bar for a one-night stand. He turns down the sergeant who hits on him, however, since something feels "off," and heads home alone. Unfortunately for him, he just turned down Sgt. Lange, who's so sadistic the Nazis sometimes use him as a torture device in his own right. Lange doesn't take this well, and follows Ratdog back to his apartment. You can guess what happens. Klemper shows up the next morning when Ratdog is late and sees the state he's in (his eyes have been blackened, and he winces when he sits down); Ratdog claims it was a bar fight, but Klemper has enough experience to know better. This time Ratdog is the one to get uncharacteristically angry and snap at him to leave but he refuses. He gets even more protective, and when the two of them run into Lange at a party and Lange makes some lewd comments to Ratdog, Klemper shoves his pistol in Lange's gut and threatens him. Lange backs off--that time. Later while his and Klemper's units are searching an abandoned house, he attempts attacking Klemper and manages to pin him to a bed, but Klemper is amped up both on meth and on years of rage at being victimized, so despite being much younger and smaller and frailer than the sergeant, he headbutts Lange with his Stahlhelm and then proceeds to beat the s**t out of him until Dasch arrives to break them up. ("A misunderstanding," Klemper simply says when Dasch asks WTF happened.) Ratdog gets a look at Klemper's blackened eyes afterward and finally understands. He isn't interested in casual flings anymore, he wants to be with Klemper. Klemper wants the same but is understandably reluctant by now, yet Ratdog is persistent. Even while they pursue a relationship, Klemper continues to insist it won't last: "Everyone leaves. No one comes back." At one particularly self-aware moment, he tells Ratdog, "It's not your fault. I was already broken...you just came along too late to make a difference." Those are the better moments; at other times, he lashes out in a rage since he's still an addict and he's still never resolved all his painful experiences--in one scene when Ratdog attempts to confiscate his Pervitin, insisting he doesn't need it when not in combat, Klemper punches him, locks himself in the bathroom, takes the drug, then regresses to his childhood when Ratdog breaks in the door, putting his arms over his head and wailing for Ratdog not to hurt him, he promises he'll be good. Both of them make a good-faith effort but it's difficult, and Ratdog has to put up with some abuse himself. Ratdog gets called to appear before Wehrmacht authorities when they discover Schavitz's appointment of him as lieutenant isn't legally valid, and when he tells Klemper, the private is resigned to never seeing him again. Ratdog insists he'll come back, but Klemper dejectedly says, "Everyone leaves. No one comes back," and walks away, waving off Ratdog's promises. WELL...Ratdog is preoccupied dealing with this legal issue for quite a while, and even ends up in jail as it turns out Schavitz never bothered to clear his appointment with the Wehrmacht, and doesn't even respond to attempts to get him to speak on Ratdog's behalf. A-hole. Instead, to Ratdog's surprise, another party arrives: Capt. Otto Himmel of the SS, whom he and Klemper had interacted with earlier (Himmel's the one who explained the circumstances of Klemper's demotion to him, as the SS were responsible for the investigation). Himmel vouches for him, with a signed letter from his superior, Maj. Jäger, to back him up. The Wehrmacht authorities are reluctant but decide to reinstate Ratdog's "unofficial" status, albeit with a warning. He's released, and wants to immediately return to Klemper, but Klemper's unit is constantly on the move and he has no idea where they are. Himmel gets on the radiotelegraph and asks around before pinning down their last known location, although it's a few days out of date. Ratdog makes his way there anyway. Asks passing Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops for info as he searches. Finally, as he's walking through the woods one day a voice hails him by his first name, Adel--only Klemper calls him that. In Ratdog's absence, Klemper had grown so despondent that Dasch put him on lookout duty to distract him, and he just happened to see Ratdog's approach. "You came back," he exclaims. "You came looking for me and you found me. You came back! You found me!" Suffice it to say, from that moment, Ratdog wins Klemper's heart permanently. Although they have to separate at times, emotionally they're inseparable, and Klemper devotes himself to Ratdog completely. They still have their volatile moments, but Klemper finally finds what he's been looking for, and would literally lay down his life for Ratdog from now on. (Ratdog is used to his independence, and Klemper's clinginess is something he's unused to, but it grows on him.) Throughout the story these two occasionally run across resistance fighter Didrika and her men. Didrika is Romani like Mirela, and like Ratdog, she's a skilled sniper. The Germans are weirded out by women taking on men's roles; Ratdog couldn't care less, but Klemper, ironically (given that some of his own actions don't exactly fit gender norms), is quite offended by her temerity. When he first sees her with her rifle (actually, her lover Boris's Russian rifle), he shouts, "Hey Flintenweib (Rifle Broad), didn't your mother teach you you belong in the kitchen?" Didrika shouts back, "Looks like you still belong with your mother, little Toy Soldier!" Ratdog can't help it; he laughs. Klemper and Didrika trade verbal barbs every time they cross paths, and Ratdog and Didrika are obligated to try to shoot each other, though there's more grudging respect involved than anything. They even end up aiding each other more often than not, with Ratdog and Klemper secretly turning on the Nazis and directing refugees in Didrika's direction. Toward the end of the war, within days of each other, both Boris and Klemper are wounded. Ratdog comes across Boris hiding in a trench; he's been shot in the gut, is in great pain and bleeding out slowly, and Ratdog has nothing on him with which to help him. He removes all but one bullet from his pistol and gives it to his enemy, the implication silent but obvious. When he turns to leave, Boris aims the gun at him (this would've been one of those cocking-gun moments 😒 ) and says, "I can at least take out one of you Krauts before I die." "Would it be worth it, though?" Ratdog says, and leaves without looking back. Some distance away, he flinches when he hears the gunshot, then keeps walking. Not long after (at least, I think it's in this order--unsure), Klemper is also shot. He initially looks as if he'll make it, when Ratdog removes the bullet and takes him to his forest home to recover; but Klemper dies in his sleep, bleeding out from another wound that Ratdog had overlooked in the initial mess of blood. The loss strikes him especially hard, not just because he lost his love, but also because he feels he let Klemper down, plus his negligence is reminiscent of the time he lost his son. He buries Klemper beside his son, not far from his home. While trekking through an open space a bit later, he hears a bang and feels a burning in his side--somebody has shot him. He collapses and, hearing footsteps, looks up to see Didrika approaching, gun still aimed at him, hate in her eyes. She found Boris after his suicide, and recognized Ratdog's gun in his hand. She deliberately wounded rather than killed Ratdog because "I want you to know it was me, and I want you to suffer slowly." "Like he would have?" Ratdog says. When Didrika angrily insists Ratdog could have helped Boris, he says he couldn't, and that what he did was the only solution he had. She threatens to shoot him again and he snaps, "Go ahead! I have nothing left to lose. My life is gone already." Didrika doesn't shoot, however; her breath starts hitching and her eyes fill with tears. "I loved him," she says, voice cracking, and sinks to her knees. "I should have been there with him"--and she breaks down crying. Ratdog's own eyes blur looking at her--they've both lost everything--but before he can say anything else, he passes out from blood loss. He comes to a while later in his own home, in his own bed--where Klemper had died--with his wound patched up. As soon as Didrika saw just how badly injured he was, she'd yelled, "Not you! Not you too!" and managed to get him back to his home and stop the bleeding. They haltingly begin to talk. She'd noticed the fresh grave decorated with Klemper's Stahlhelm and Iron Cross; she remembers the "Toy Soldier" who used to call her Rifle Broad. "I loved him," Ratdog echoes her own earlier words, and just as she had, breaks down. It isn't something that happens instantly, not by a long shot, but Ratdog and Didrika end the story as a couple; post-Ultima Thule they even have two children, a son Didrika names Godfrey, and a daughter named Tatiana (after Boris's deceased sister). They never get married, and never are what you could call husband/wife or even boyfriend/girlfriend; the best term I've found to describe them is partners. They respect and care for each other, and take comfort in each other's company, but I don't think they ever truly fall in love with each other. Rather, they act as each other's placeholder, temporarily filling in the hole in each other's heart. They know neither of them can ever replace their true loves, they're just there to ease the grief and loneliness for now. (BTW, I'm pretty sure that in a much earlier entry I described a different version of a scene with Didrika tending to a wounded Ratdog. That started out as this scene but has obviously changed. I like the dialogue from the earlier version, so it may be otherwise incorporated.) ...Why did I go into all that when this is Mirela's entry? Well, because I can, and because I didn't get the chance in the previous entries. But also because it leads into why Mirela's plotline changed. As it stands now, the previous idea for her fling with Ratdog doesn't hold up as well. I like the idea of them still hooking up, but it'd most likely have to occur much earlier in the plot, before he gets serious with Klemper. I toyed with the idea of Ratdog cheating on Klemper just once, but considering Klemper's extremely fragile mental state, I don't think it'd go well. So I'm not sure how this plot point goes yet. It may even be that Mirela simply tries to seduce Ratdog as part of a ruse (more in a minute), but then she tries to kill him before they get far. I lean most toward this because it can then occur later in the plot, Ratdog can maintain his faithfulness to Klemper (however barely), and it's more in keeping with Mirela's character than the existing scenario is. Mirela's character is that she's been sheltered and protected by her doting father most of her life but she longs for independence, to have a purpose. His capture by the Nazis just strengthens this resolve and she wants to do anything in her power to get him back--except she has no power, no skills to speak of. She despises depending on the Trench Rats--she despises depending on any men. She'd like to learn from a woman, and she'd like to learn from the best. She'd like to learn from Didrika. The Rats, after processing the people they've rescued, attempt to relocate them to the most appropriate parties--some go to the partisans led by Champere, some to the Diamond Network, some to Didrika and some lucky ones back to their surviving families. (Though the Network occasionally takes in rescues permanently--for example, Helena Urbach, and the Wolfsteins--Champere doesn't, and Didrika accepts only men who know how to fight. Otherwise, they just help shuttle these people to safety.) Didrika's not interested in taking the time to train anybody, especially a woman who's nowhere near as valuable as a male fighter. (Yep, kind of ironic, considering.) Still, Mirela tries to argue her case. Didrika's not too convinced, but Mirela's really passionate about her cause, and being Romani like Didrika doesn't hurt either. She agrees to take Mirela on, just temporarily--"Until you get your father back"--but Mirela has to keep up and hold her own. Didrika's not going to slow down the rest of her men for Mirela's benefit. Oh, and Mirela will have to look out for herself around all those men, too. Mirela agrees as well, and starts her stint learning how to fight alongside them. She's...really not good at it, at first. Clumsy, soft, weak. Tears fill her eyes easily but she just wipes them away and keeps trying despite how much she fails. More than once Didrika threatens to just leave her behind, and more than once Mirela does almost get left behind. She really does try, but it gets hard to keep her spirits up when she just sucks so much at everything she does. This scenario popped into my head literally as I was typing this. Didrika quickly gets fed up with Mirela, but it turns out she has an unexpected ally. Boris, usually no-nonsense, blunt, and unconcerned about anyone but Didrika and the few of his men who deserted the Red Army with him and joined Didrika's forces, takes pity on this young, slight woman who can't get anything right but keeps trying anyway. Without Didrika knowing, he takes her aside and offers to train her himself--he's not Didrika, but he's the best she'll get. When Mirela asks why he's interested, he admits she reminds him of his late younger sister, Tatiana, who also fought in the Red Army: "She never f**king gave up anything, got her killed, but she never did quit." Mirela accepts, and whenever there's a spare moment he teaches her various skills such as shooting (both with a pistol and with a rifle) and hand-to-hand fighting. She does learn, though she's still just not naturally skilled like most of the others, and this frustrates her. Boris advises that it's a matter of her finding her own particular skill. It's not shooting, it's not fighting, what is it? Mirela has no idea. Boris hands her a knife, demonstrates how to use it, and tells her to give it a try. Mirela comes remarkably close to hitting the target on the first try. Tries again--bullseye. Repeats it. Fights to contain her excitement; Boris just smiles and says, "So you're not a gunwoman, you're a knifewoman." (Hey folks! Story creation in progress! I literally just came up with that whole bit right now. And yeah, it's similar to a (unfinished?) scene in my adult Ameni Chronicles series with Tas'hukh and Ri'hus, I believe, except that involves archery. Anyway. Oh, plus I looked to see if "knifewoman" has a German translation similar to Flintenweib. The term is Messerstecherin. This literally means "knifer" or "stabber." HAHAHAHAHAHA YES.) Mirela never really gets better than average when it comes to shooting--which is the majority of activity Didrika's men engage in--but she practices constantly and gets really good with the knife. She wins a fight or two against Boris but he says the real test is Didrika herself. Takes some convincing, again, to get her to agree to a fight, but she finally does, to get Mirela off her back. Mirela loses--but not before slashing Didrika's arm open. Everyone holds their breath as Didrika clasps the wound--expecting a tirade--but Didrika merely looks at her and says, "Now you need to learn to aim for the throat." (Privately, Didrika finds out Boris had a hand in this and exclaims, exasperated, "Seriously? You did this? What exactly are you trying to do or to prove, are you trying to make me look stupid?" Boris scoffs back, "Come now! You can't tell me you don't see yourself in her anywhere?" Which shuts Didrika up, because it's true, and likely the reason she's been reluctant to train Mirela--she doesn't like how she reminds her of her own past. She's a bit sore at Boris for the stunt, though.) Why knives? I haven't looked back at the original adult scenes (they're cringey to me by now) to make sure, but as the two of them fight, Mirela grabs a sharp implement of some kind and attempts to stab Ratdog with it; I think she does cut him, similar to this Didrika scene. So that still fits. It also fits with the idea that in order to kill Ratdog, she'd have to get close to him, so using seduction as a ruse seems likely. (Plus this here is something Didrika can help with, as she's had plenty of experience with that.) I'm leaning toward the new scenario including Ratdog STARTING to fall for Mirela's ruse, but quickly noping out when, y'know, she tries to stab him. He succeeds in subduing and disarming her, but she pulls a Klemper and jams her knee in his groin, then headbutts him to get him to let her go. Her plan is thwarted but she escapes unharmed. Ratdog, meanwhile, is later confronted by Klemper, who gives him a sour look, arms crossed, and simply says, "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" Ratdog's got nothing. Except a sore head and groin, I guess. I already mentioned Mirela's initial interactions with Cpl. Gold Rat. Late in the story she comes back into touch with him; by now, he's been promoted to sergeant to assume the deceased Black Rat's place, and is recovering from serious injuries of his own. (Like Black--and like Black's killer, Schavitz--he loses an eye, and I think his leg or arm is mildly injured as well but as things are coming to a head, he insists on remaining in service.) His formerly brash, casual attitude has been tempered quite a bit and Mirela is surprised at how he's changed; he's surprised by how she's grown up and changed as well. As they interact she finds herself drawn to him, though he shows no signs of reciprocating, so she assumes he isn't interested. He learns that she's still hoping to find her father, though her hopes have dimmed considerably given the passage of time. Gold asks LC Mahogany Rat, who was able to find out what had become of Helena Urbach's husband, to try to do the same with Nikolas. It takes quite a bit of digging but Mahogany finds out the camp he was first brought to, then follows the trail to track him down to his last known location--as it turns out, the nearby concentration camp headed by Commandant Klaus. The Allies have just moved into the city and are in the process of liberating the camp, but it's a huge camp, so this will take a while. The fleeing SS guards made off with their records and everything's confusing at the moment. This is a combination labor and extermination camp, so Nikolas's current status is unknown, and it could take weeks to find him, if ever. And that's only if he's alive--if he was gassed immediately on entering the camp, there may likely be no record of him whatsoever even if the Trench Rats locate the records. Gold decides to take a risk. Maj. Klaus has been captured alive and is well known for his proclivity for taking bribes and making bargains, so Gold makes a bargain with him: He won't be executed for war crimes, if he provides what info he has on his inmates. (Gold doesn't really have the authority to promise this, so presumably there's a bit more involved than just his word.) Klaus agrees, and gives up what he knows regarding not just the possible location of the confiscated records, but individual details of his own recollection. Did his camp have any Zigeuner (Gypsies), Gold asks? It did, Klaus replies. Gold keeps asking questions to narrow it down and finally thinks he may have accounted for Mirela's father being in the camp, still alive. Klaus isn't sure of his exact location but gives a general idea of where the Zigeuner inmates were last located. As Gold departs, Klaus calls out, "You may want to hurry yourself, Herr Gold, most of 'em weren't in great shape. Killing 'em off would've been a mercy." Gold, Mahogany, and Mirela--who's not aware of their actual purpose for visiting--arrive and witness the chaos going on within and around the camp, swarms of half-starved inmates crowding near the fences, many sitting or lying on the ground, at least some of them already dying. Allied troops weave in and out but are easily outnumbered by the vast number of prisoners. The three start walking along the fence, Gold and Mahogany trying to ask about Nikolas, but everyone is either ignorant of his whereabouts or too weak to respond. Mirela walks off ahead of the other two, staring dejectedly at the hollow-eyed captives, but halts when she realizes someone far off is calling out, "Mir? Little Mir!" That was the pet name her father used for her, even right down to while they were being chased by the Nazis. Mirela glances around, calls out, "Papa--?" but can't see him anywhere. Paces back and forth along the fence, crying out at the voice, before the crowd thins out enough for her to catch a glimpse further inside. There, sitting in the yard, too weak and injured to do anything but crawl, his eyes nonetheless light up when he sees her--Nikolas. Mirela panics a moment trying to figure out how to get into the camp to reach him; Gold and Mahogany locate an opening in the fence and she rushes to her father, dropping down and throwing her arms around him. He's near skeletal, quite ill, unable to walk, and was most likely due to be gassed sometime soon, but he's alive. This whole time he'd assumed that she'd ended up captured as well and was likely tortured or killed; it was only looking up at the moon at night that convinced him to hold on, as this was something they used to do together, and he wanted to believe she was looking at it too. "Herr Gott has brought you back to me," he exclaims; when Mirela shakes her head and says, "Nein...they did," and gestures at Gold and Mahogany, Nikolas replies, "Herr Gott had them bring you back to me." Nikolas is in bad shape, so they immediately take him back to Trench Rat Headquarters for medical attention. He has tuberculosis and both of his feet are badly infected; Burgundy warns he may not be able to save his left leg; Nikolas replies that he can live without his legs, he can't live without Mirela. Burgundy and LC Amaranth Rat do their best, and amputate Nikolas's left leg below the knee. Mirela keeps him company as he recuperates and is treated for the TB, and he can't help but notice how she looks at Gold when he visits; she denies it at first when Nikolas asks if she has feelings for him, but finally admits it, though she adds that 1. Gold isn't interested in return, and 2. he's a gadjo, an outsider. Her father asks how does she know he isn't interested, and finds out she's never asked him; regarding the other, more pressing matter, Nikolas says, "You really think such a thing matters much anymore...? When they've killed most of us? I do not even know if the rest of our clan is still alive or not." If Mirela is truly interested in Gold, and if Gold at the very least treats her well and with respect, he sees little wrong in the two of them being involved with each other; he promises to give his blessing. Mirela confronts Gold and decides to just out and ask it: "Do you like me?" Gold just stares at her for a moment before saying, "What...?" Mirela promptly loses her nerve and tells him never mind but he adds, "Wait--what do you mean by 'like'?" but by then Mirela is just utterly humiliated, tells him never mind again, and turns to leave. As she steps away she hears him call out, "I think you're beautiful." Mirela halts, slowly turns back. "And smart," Gold says. "And brave. And clever...and kind." Mirela hesitantly says, "So...you do like me?" to which he replies, "I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it." When she exclaims, "But--you never said anything," Gold furrows his brow and says, "Me?...you never asked." So, despite their rocky beginning, Mirela and Gold end up a couple after all. They show up again in Ultima Thule with Gold heading to the Alpine Fortress with the main group (including Ratdog and Capt. Himmel), while Mirela remains with the others (including Helena and Didrika) who man the radio to maintain contact. After the war, she and Gold and sometimes Nikolas often stop by to visit Himmel and Johanna Wolfstein at the big country mansion they share with Himmel's adult son Kolten and the various children Himmel and Johanna adopt, as well as Ratdog and Didrika and their children, and Jakob Wolfstein and the occasional other Trench Rat who remains in the country. I'm not sure if Gold and Mirela ever have any kids of their own (if not, it's not by choice, it's just what happens), though whatever the outcome, I'm sure Nikolas doesn't mind; they're alive, they're happy, that's what counts. [Mirela 2022 [Saturday, August 20, 2022, 4:00:14 AM]] |