La Froideur de Tout [Open]

[Vivienne Rousseau]

OOC - Translation from French: "The Coldness of Everything".

Country: Germany
Area/Setting:
A work camp/moderate base for soldiers. It's pretty much what one would think: barbed wire on top of chain-link fences, towers with manned guns...that kind of thing. Only thing is, the prisoner quarters are a bunch of small cells - this camp is a hotspot for prisoners who need "breaking".

Current Time: 23:46
Weather Conditions: Freezing cold, light snow, slightly chilly breeze. The temperature is four degrees below freezing, with a windchill that totals to -8 degrees Celsius.

- = = -

Everything was clad in a layer of ice. The New Year was soon upon the world, and the Germans could be heard celebrating loudly, dancing and prancing around in the nearby mess halls. They had their fine food, their spirits and their women, and they would probably be celebrating until the dawn. Vivienne saw them only as pigs, indulging themselves loudly enough for their prisoners to hear, taunting them with the freedom the Nazis had. The giantess's blood boiled just enough to remove a touch of cold from her body, but not enough to shake the chill entirely, her back and legs suffering for it. Unlike the barracks of her captors, the cells were not heated.

A wet, fierce cough echoed down the corridor, and above the cells, a dim light figured. The coughing continued for a couple of minutes, the owner of it sounding ill. It belonged to a Resistance fighter brought in not too long ago; Vivienne and him had shared a cell until he was moved down a few. Apparently, the Nazis were afraid the two Frenchmen were planning something, and broke it up as soon as possible. Still, that didn't stop Vivienne from calling out to him when none were around.

"Cyrille," began Vivienne when the coughing stopped, "comment allez-vous, Cyrille?"

There was a sharp intake of breath, and another cough. Vivienne had heard rumours of some sort of ailment in his chest, but nothing was confirmed. Thankfully, it didn't seem to hinder too much as he said hoarsely back, "...Je suis…Mlle de gestion...Vivienne…."

"Quel est le problème avec vous? Est-ce vos poumons?" the giantess asked quickly, her half-blind eyes narrowing. A few more breaths came, and then, Cyrille spoke again.

"Il est…dans mon coffre…mais I…vivra...." However, he sounded weak. Cyrille had dissapeared a few days earlier, and when he had come back, he had been unable to stand, dragged back to his cell by the guards. Bloody and clothes ragged, Vivienne was convinced that he had been tortured for information regarding the Maquis, and possibly even the Allies. He was a brave man for making little noise after returning, even though he sounded to be in a great deal of discomfort.

"...Cyrille?" Vivienne asked again, but was cut off by the sound of the prison block's door opening. Petite, light footsteps sounded in the corridor - not a woman's, but a child's. If it was a woman, then there would be a tad more hardness to the step. It had to be a Hitler Youth boy - after all, they seemed to get a lot of the dirty work for boys of their age. The Nazis had indeed sunk low.

Tensing slightly, Vivienne felt her lips pull back, much like a defensive animal's. She was ready to put on her scary face, snarling and growling and snapping at anyone who came too close. If the boy was coming to spy on them...well, then she would just have to chase him out, now wouldn't she? She couldn't fight him, but Vivienne could be frightening enough by herself....


==============================

Translations:

How are you doing, Cyrille?

I am...managing...Miss Vivienne....

What's wrong with you? Is it your lungs?

It is...in my chest...but I...will...will live....

[Aksel Bavenn]

Aksel followed the stony steps towards the disgusting cells below, his body shivering and not just because of the cold. He was scared but he couldn't exactly tell the officers that, could he? But he was. He was so scared.

What if the prisoners attacked him or...or...worse? He had never been in the cells before and didn't know what to expect, only that the men who were held within them were better off dead and buried.

Aksel opened the wooden door with a sharp creak and stepped tentatively into the room. He realised that his fears of being attacked would be unfounded; most of the men looked like they could barely stand up straight. Is that what we're doing to them? he thought horribly to himself. Is that what I did to Herr Sowerby?

He had not seen the Englishman since he had victoriously captured him in France and he suspected that he was perhaps down here. Or dead, if Rheinsmetall and his cronies had no use for him. People had congratulated Aksel; clapped him on the back, cheered him on when he returned with a prisoner and stated that two Britons lay dead. That had felt nice. The battle hadn't.

The boy was thrown out of his thoughts by the sight of a huge...creature standing before him within one of the poky cells; a giant. He vaguely remembered being told tales of giants living in the mountains as a child. He furrowed his brow. He had grown up in Denmark. There were no mountains in Denmark...

He closed his mind and shook tales of giants and...mountains...from his mind, concentrating on the task at hand. That bald officer had sent him down to see if any of the prisoners were ill or otherwise unwell; if any of them were, then he was to report back to him immediately. Apparently, they wouldn't have bothered in another sitution, but there was a high-ranking enemy amongst the sea of gaunt, soulless faces before him and that if they ever wanted to ransom him off, they wanted him free of infection.

"Prisoners of the Hitlerjugend," he began. He felt almost vulnerable when he spoke German, almost naked, and so he spoke it slowly and surely. "Is anyone here sick or...or...hurt?"

Aksel sighed as his eyes darted from one pathetic specimen to another. Who wasn't?

[Vivienne Rousseau]

It was the accent that struck her first. Instead of the deep, rough accent she had come to expect from many German soldiers, this one was light and soft. The German words fit poorly into it, and Vivienne tried to imagine the boy speaking English. That mental sound fit him much better. She had heard it before, but where...?

Cyrille let out another wet, hacking fit, betraying his illness. Vivienne however, cleared her throat loudly to mask the noise, and slowly stood to her feet. Her arthritis was bothering her slightly, but not badly enough to keep her from moving. The Frenchwoman fixed her eyes upon the boy, even though she could barely see them in the dim light, and she spoke in broken German to him.

"Sie, Junge," growled she, her voice deep and booming. "Kein Geschäft von Ihrem, wie wir gehen. Kommandant von Ihrem töten vermutlich weg Kranken, um Raum zu bilden. Erklären Sie ihm, den wir verurteilen."

"Viv...Vivienne..." came Cyrille's weak voice, followed by another outburst of coughing. The giantess's eyes flickered over to where the harsh sound came from, then back to the boy. Her lips curled back and she growled threateningly, getting down on one knee to look at him better. He would leave the Maquis alone.

Vivienne's thoughts then flickered back to his accent. She had heard a great deal of accents in her time, and this one was familiar. It was not like French, where the note rose at the end of a sentence...and not like German...British? Maybe. But if he was British...then what in Heaven's name was he doing in Nazi Germany?

"Junge," said Vivienne, "hergekommen. Wünschen Sie ich Sie betrachten."


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Translations:

You, boy.

No business of yours how we fare. Commander of yours probably kill off sick to make room. Tell him we fine.

Boy, come here. Want I to look at you.

[Aksel Bavenn]

As the giantess laid her eyes on him, Aksel realised he had never been so scared in his life, even if he could only remember a fraction of it. Her German was even worse than the boy's but she was fluent enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Hergekommen. Wünschen Sie ich Sie betrachten," she seemed to hiss. Aksel trembled slightly. Giants killed and ate children, he remembered that at least. But then, he hadn't thought of himself as a child for so long. He was a...a soldier. A soldier who had killed before. And was likely to do so again.

Despite his fear, Aksel was intrigued by the beast before him and so he took the few tentative steps towards her cell, his hand tightening on the cold metal of his pistol in case she tried anything. As he neared the largest group of the cells - little better than common cages - he could see just how many men were forced to live in their own filth; at least twelve
haggard faces stared at him, one or two of them blindly, and he could feel his flesh crawl as he moved ever closer to the lion's den.

He stopped moving just before the cage and made stiff eye contact with the prisoner, as he had been instructed by the Junior Officer Reichmand Kartsenn. Let them no whose boss. Easier said than done, Aksel thought to himself, when he was a skinny thirteen year-old boy and she was a huge monster who looked like she could turn him to stone just by looking at him.

"Was willst du, Dreck?" he said, his voice shaking slightly, hoping he sounded bolder than he felt.

Translations

Was willst du, Dreck?
- What do you want, filth?

[Vivienne Rousseau]

Vivienne growled lowly, just to let the boy know who was boss. She might have been chained up in a poor excuse for a cell, but she could still reach through and snap his neck. It had not been the first time she had met one of the Hitler Youth; in fact, a couple of the older boys had died by her hand a few months earlier. When angered, she did not hesitate to attack those who were supposed to be holding her back.

Then, a chuckle came. Some of the prisoners lifted their weary heads, those with better vision blinking rapidly when they actually saw her smile. One of her sausage-like fingers went and pressed itself against the bottom of the boy's chin, and if he didn't move or swing at her, she'd tilt his head up. Leaning forward, her scarred face would be lit up slightly by the light from above, her near-blind eyes examining the boy as best as they could.

He couldn't have been more then thirteen, maybe fourteen at the most.

"Ihr Akzent, ungerade," Vivienne said, but using a tone only he could hear. "Woher sind Sie?"

Her eyes then glinted mischieviously, and she licked her lips like a wolf over its kill. There was no malicious intent there, though - unless you counted the fact she was going to try speaking English to him. Maybe he really was a Brit, and there was a perfectly good reason why he was in a Hitler's Youth uniform....

"Or, can zhou underztand me, even vith my accent, and zhou're vhere I zhink you're from?"

Cyrille laughed weakly from his cell. "Aucune utilisation...Vivienne. Il…ne comprendra pas...."

"Peut-être, mais vous n'a pas dépensé une partie de votre enfance en Angleterre. Je peux encore me rappeler plusieurs des accents," Vivienne retorted. Cyrille laughed a little louder, but then descended into a coughing fit again, the laughter too hard on his lungs.

"Si…vous…dites ainsi...."


====================================

Translations:

Your accent, odd. Where are you from?

No use...Vivienne. He...will not understand...

Maybe, but you didn't spend part of your childhood in England. I can still remember many of the accents.

If...you...say so....

[Aksel Bavenn]

Aksel began to whimper as the beast's giant hands reached up to his chin, set to snap his neck. He closed his eyes and hoped that maybe this was just one of his horrible dreams and that he would wake up in a second and then....then everything would be alright...

He opened his eyes again and saw that this was all horifically real. On a battlefield, he was brave, he knew that at least. He knew how to shoot and how to kill - he was good at it - even if he didn't want to be, but this was different. He didn't want to die in a prison. He swallowed. That must be the thought that these pathetic creatures are struck by every second of every day.

Then the monster asked where he was from. He kept silent; he couldn't have spoken if he'd wanted to, he was rigid with fear. And then...then she began to speak in another language.

Aksel's blood turned even colder than before. He recognised the language and he knew that he hated it, even if he wasn't entirely sure why. It was Saesneg. Although spoken strangely, he knew that she was speaking the language of the enemy. He could only speak and understand some of the language but for some reason, he didn't want to speak any of it.

"Do not speak Saesneg," he said, speaking in the language he knew he hated, his eyes glaring at her through the cell. "German is good, Saesneg is bad. Do not speak Saesneg."

He heard some arubt coughing nearby and though to turn his head to see whether someone was in pain but he decided that any sudden movements could quite possibly be his last.

[Vivienne Rousseau]

Her mind began to work furiously to match the accent to something. The boy's hateful words did not faze her; it was merely a sign of just how brainwashed the Hitler Youth were. Instead, she merely placed a hand on the boy's blond head, leaning down slightly to look less frightening. Only a fool couldn't see the boy was scared of her.

"German iz az good az any ozher language, child," the giantess said to the boy. "And zhou should know, because your accent iz most definitely not German. Whatever zhose men above tell zhou ozherwise, it est a lie. Zhou must learn zhat, my child, for if you only know German, 'ow can zhou understand anyone who can't speak eet?"

Vivienne then patted the boy affectionately on the head, much to the surprise of everyone around her. By now, she probably would have punched him in the face through the bars of his cell, but she was being motherly with him instead. Had Vivienne Rousseau, the giant that many-a-Nazi feared, finally snapped from the cold and the darkness?

"I 'ave 'eard your accent before...but vhere, I do not remember," the giantess continued. "Vhen I was very little, younger then yourself, I 'ad to leave France because of a war. Many people zhought it was odd zhat a French girl was living in zheir country, just as I zhink eet is odd to 'ave a boy vith your accent living in Germany."

Vivienne then switched over to German. "Aber, 'Saesneg' nicht wird zu sprechen ich, wenn Sie bitten. Mein deutsch, schrecklich, aber es sind ich können sprechen am besten."

Removing her hand from his head and stepping back, Vivienne sat down cross-legged, giving the boy some space so he would have to worry about her snapping his neck. Sighing contentedly, the Frenchwoman then asked, "So was Ihr Name? Mine name ist Vivienne."


=======================================

Translations:

But not speak Saesneg will I if you ask. My German, terrible, but it is best I can speak.

So what is your name? Mine is Vivienne.

[Aksel Bavenn]

Aksel smiled with relief as the giantess removed her grip from his chin and re-positioned herself sat on the cold cell floor. He swallowed cautiously, however, as her eyes rested on him once more. Even though he was the one with the gun, it was clear that she was in charge.

He was surprised that the giantess even had a name; he had felt that she was some kind of...animal... and hadn't thought of her as...anything else, really. But Vivienne...it suited her, he supposed. The boy frowned as the words she had spoken some time ago sank in; everything they had told him was a lie? It was probably some trick or other, a cowardly French lie. He rubbed his tired eyes, only to zone back in on the scene as she asked him his name.

"James," he answered, without thinking, before staggering backwards, the feeling of nausea rising up in his throat. Where the hell had that come from? He felt beads of sweat appear on his forehead. He needed to...to lie down. But if he were to lay down...he would have to dream again...

Aksel breathed in and out slowly, calming himself as the doctor had taught him all those months ago. In and out. In and out. Calm. CALM.

"Aksel," he breathed at last. "Mein Name ist Aksel. Ich komme aus Dänemark," he added as an afterthought. "Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut entweder," he said, with a wan smile.

He wasn't sure whether he was meant to be speaking to prisoners but he didn't want to turn his back on her. Even if he didn't seem to be in any direct danger, he was still secretly terrified.

His fingers never left the handle of his pistol.

Translations

Mein name ist Aksel. Ich komme aus Dänemark.
- My name is Aksel. I am from Denmark.

Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut entweder.
- My German is not so good either.

[Vivienne Rousseau]

That was odd. He called himself James, but then, he went and acted surprised to have said it. Could the name belong to someone he had known before, and his tongue had slipped? Whatever the reason, he looked horrified now, and was beginning to panic. Vivienne's brow furrowed.

"Child...child, easy there - I mean, einfact dort. Einfach dort...."

She didn't dare put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, just in case she spooked him further. However, James - if that really was his name - calmed himself down, and then introduced himself properly. He now called himself "Aksel", and he said that he was from Denmark.

But that accent wasn't Danish. The note was raised at the end sometimes, like French, but not quite the same. Some of the r's were rolled, like a Scotsman or an Irishman would have done, as well as few differences. It was somehow British...her mind couldn't seem to reach back far enough into her memories of England....

"Franzosen, bin ich, aber Sie fanden das, ja heraus?" Vivienne replied with a chuckle. Aksel was far too nervous for his own good, but for good reason. The giantess's countrymen could be merciless, and when speaking of the Nazis, no child, man or woman was safe. It was this ruthlessness that many seemed to be surprised by, and a ruthlessness Vivienne kept close. Aksel, however...was different. He was obviously brainwashed by the Nazi regime, but Vivienne could still see innocence in him, even though one of her eyes was cataract-ridden, the other lacking good vision. The way he had reacted when he had said "James"...that also had her suspicious....

"Aksel," she began, "Ihr Akzent nicht Dänische. Ich weiß, ich höre viele Akzente, hier in den Arbeitslagern. Warum denken Sie Sie dänisch?"


=================================

Translations:

...easy there. Easy there....

French, I am, but you figured that out, yes?

Your accent not Danish. I know, I hear many accents, here in work camps. Why you think you Danish?

[Aksel Bavenn]

Aksel observed the giant coldly as she began to laugh cruelly at him. He decided that he didn't like French people. But seeing as they didn't seem to like him very much, he didn't suppose it mattered very much.

Then she questioned him again, a question he only partially understood. But what he understood he wasn't sure he liked.

"Ich komme nach Deutschland Zeit vor. Ich bin ein Waise, aber ich weiß, ich bin aus Dänemark, weil Herr Karstenn sagt, ich bin Herr Karstenn und hat immer Recht, und ich kann sprechen, Dänisch, die Sprache des Königreichs Dänemark. Und ich weiß nicht, was bedeutet, Akzent," he said slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. He didn't trust her; he knew that you should never trust a prisoner.

This prisoner was different to the others, though. She had something her companions didn't. She hadn't given in yet. The haggard men all around him looked like they were counting the days until their graves were dug, but she had spirit. And Aksel was all the more scared because of it.

There were not many things Aksel Bavenn knew.

He knew that he was fourteen years old.

He knew that he was from Denmark and could speak...Danish.

He knew that he was in the Hitlerjugend.

He knew that he was...a killer.

He knew that the pain hurt so much sometimes that he wanted to cry.

And he didn't want to know anything else. He just wanted to go home. Even if he didn't know where his home was. Aksel swallowed and waited for the prisoner to answer. Even if she was...French...

Translations

Ich komme nach Deutschland Zeit vor. Ich bin ein Waise, aber ich weiß, ich bin aus Dänemark, weil Herr Karstenn sagt, ich bin Herr Karstenn und hat immer Recht, und ich kann sprechen, Dänisch, die Sprache des Königreichs Dänemark. Und ich weiß nicht, was bedeutet, Akzent.
- I come to Germany before. I am an orphan, but I know I'm from Denmark, because Mr Karstenn says I'm Mr. Karstenn and is always right, and I can speak Danish, the language of the Denmark. And I do not know what means accent.

[Vivienne Rousseau]

"An accent is 'ow zhou say zhings, Aksel," Vivienne said, accidentally going back into English. His voice...she was close, but she still couldn't put her finger on it. "Like my accent - eet is French. Sometimes, your accent changes, and sometimes, it never goes away. Little boys like zhou often have zheir accents changing, especially vhen you live in a place vith a different accent."

Vivienne then became silent as she saw Aksel's face. He looked troubled, upset even, and more like the child he was then a hardened soldier. This child had no place in an army, not until he was older - what was Hitler thinking? Had the barbarian sunk so low as to use his nation's youth as cannon fodder, willing to rip them away from their families to kill and maim? Perhaps that was the reason why Aksel seemed so sullen. He had seen too much death and too much destruction, and he had probably spilt blood as well. Gone was his innocence, and his faith in everything lay in the hands of a man named "Herr Karstenn".

Silently, Vivienne vowed to one day snap the neck of this "Herr Karstenn".

"Aksel," said she, "I apologize for speaking in English, but I am not 'ere to 'urt zhou. From where I ztand, zhere is good in zhou. I do not mean to 'urt you, Aksel, but somezhing tells me not all is right."

The giantess then looked the boy dead in the eye, but her eyes were not intimidating. Instead, they blazed with determination and reassurance, meant to calm the boy-soldier. When Vivienne spoke again, her voice was firm, meant to show Aksel that was she said was absolute.

"Aksel," she said firmly, "you jump at ze name 'James', zhou you not? Zhour voice 'as not a Danish accent, but somezhing British. Also, remember zhat you have free vill, and zhat what another says is not always true. Zhese Nazis...they vant zhou to zhink zhat. But your thoughts are your own. Now - "

Once more, a finger went out to raise Aksel's head slightly.

"Say zhat name again. 'James'. Vhat does it mean to you?"

[Aksel Bavenn]

"Say zhat name again. 'James'. Vhat does it mean to you?"

Aksel suddenly felt numb. It was as if the whole world had turned to ice. He suddenly became unaware of the other inhabitants of the room that was little more than a graveyard. Mist seemed to stretch all around him.

He staggered backwards, almost without noticing. It was happening again. He could feel the invisible hands tightening around his neck. The boy spluttered and gasped, his eyes bulging out of his sockets as he realised that he was going to die. The doctors had said that the...the hands...were figments of his imagination, but nothing this real could be fake.

He felt himself topple hopelessly to the floor and began to thrash around pathetically, screaming for help in his own language. He couldn't breath...

The boy remembered the word the physicians had told him; he was having a fit. He didn't understand what the word was, exactly, but he understood what it effectively meant. His head was swimming and his vision becoming blurry. He didn't want to die here.

He could hear footsteps coming from down the stairs. Maybe someone had heard his screams? He knew that even if they did, it would be too late. He looked up into the eyes of the giantess, all he could see through the mist.

"James," he murmured incoherently. And the world turned black.

[Vivienne Rousseau]

The mention of the name again sent him into some sort of fit. Vivienne quietly gasped, swiftly striding over to the cell bars, watching as the boy screamed and writhed on the floor. He was screaming something in some sort of language...it sounded like a word she had heard before, cym...something-or-other....

But the accent fit. His ethnicity was on the tip of her tongue. She just had to think, think hard and ignore the screaming, ignore the prisoners who were asking just what she had done to the boy -

BANG![/b]

"SIE! WEG VON DEN STÄBEN!!" barked a German voice. His gun was raised, the smell of gunpowder strong in the air, the bullet having glanced off one of the nearby bars and creating a small notch. Vivienne snarled viciously at the Nazi, and stepped back into the darkness of the cell, watching as the soldier ran to Aksel's side. He knelt down and placed a pair of fingers on the side of the young boy's neck, nodding soon after when he was satisfied with a pulse.

"In Ordnung, was? Geschah!" barked the Nazi, raising his gun again. "Was dem Kind? Geschah! Beantworten Sie mich!"

Vivienne said nothing. Cyrille coughed loudly, but he said nothing as well. The Nazi, fuming, glared at the prisoners and fired off his gun again, hitting a light. Several of the captives yelped and jumped backwards, sparks flying from the destroyed lightbulb and plunging part of the corridor into darkness.

"Markieren Sie meine Wörter, Sie sich findet viel mehr in den Schmerz dann vorher, wenn Herr Karstenn an Sie gelangt! Dieses ist sein Sohn, den Sie die Schmerzen haben!

With that, the soldier gingerly picked up Aksel's limp body, and quickly ran up the stairs, screaming for help. Vivienne growled and glared at him as he ran; that Nazi would one day have his neck snapped by the giantess. He sounded to be the type of person that would gladly wave his gun around to prove a point, but probably wouldn't stand a chance in real combat....

But then suddenly, something clicked in the back of Vivienne's head. The giantess gasped, and her heart skipped a beat. Her mind flashed back to her memories of Britain, of a country to the west in Britain's southern areas. The trill of its people rang in her ears, and she remembered an old woman who knew her Aunt Margaux, both of which who spoke the country's language fluently because the former had taught it to the latter. Vivienne couldn't believe she hadn't remembered it beforehand.

The boy was Welsh. Welsh. And he was in Nazi Germany.


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Translations:

YOU! AWAY FROM THE BARS!

All right, what happened?! What happened to the child?! Answer me!

Mark my words, you will find yourselves in a lot more pain then before when Herr Karstenn gets to you! This is his son you have hurt!

[Daniel Brennan]

Mod-Post:

CP:
James Aksel: 7CP

Viv: 7CP


~Dan