Yelena "Pritcha" Bulgakova

"“Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked...”" "― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita"

=╬ the gist ╬ =

An unremarkable woman, Yelena carries herself with a sure step and a faint scowl. There are wrinkles settling in the corners of her mouth and eyes and her straw-like hair seems worn and thin. Her smiles are so rare, her smoke is so acrid, and her jokes are so rude and awful that they do not exactly earn her friends. She emits an air of entitlement and pride unmatched by even the most self-absorbed Templar. A faint Eastern European accent perpetuates her speech. She doesn't hide her heritage.

She lights another cheap cigarette and tells you to kindly get out of her way.



=╬ the past  ╬ =



A monastery turned to ash. A legacy scattered to the wind. A coven dispelled, a Staraya Vera demolished with a flick of a wrist. Old gods change to new, regimes shatter, but manuscripts do not burn. Memory shifts, and bits and pieces of it dissolve with the upcoming decades. A political upheaval. Another. A country in ruins, a country rising again and again, and every step is perpetuated by the shattering screams of a shotgun. Never tied up, always running, always searching for something more, something better. Always for the country. Always for the faith.

All in vain.

Fast forward, change the tape, wait for the recorder to stop spewing nonsense and erase the white noise. A quiet war settles across the globe and falls in an iron curtain. Loyalties split. The movements of the world are nothing to the whispers of the hives, nothing to those really pulling the strings.



The Orders are a mystery. The global chase is nothing in the hands of those that wait, and one heart is too old to forget. There's a ring, and something silly, something about promises and a future overseas. Something about failing institutions. Something about a new world - again and again. Nothing matters but the weight of another hand in hers, nothing has meaning but the future they carve with blade and ash. And then a nun becomes an executioner and there's little to look forward or back to anymore.

But fast forward again.

More decades, years, months, all a blur. Extortions, exorcisms. The Knights of the Eastern Europe. An eight-person squad, Piter's Third Supernatural Division, disappears in the Ural mountains after yet another fire. A captain with no team is no captain.

Yelena Bulgakova is picking up scraps.

=╬ the partnership  ╬ = “Might I say, Captain Bulgakova, that it’s been an absolute pleasure having my delicate operations interrupted by that someone with all the tact of a bull in a china shop and that I look forward to doing….whatever the hell this was….at some point in the future.” He quips as he motions between the two of them.

She plucks the card with her fingertips and exhales a long plume of smoke. An impassive glance over, another, and it’s slipped in her pocket. Right by the lighter.

“Flattered. Truly. Say, next time a dangerous and moody abomination decides to refuse your negotiations and take a bite out of your backside instead, I’m a phone call away. For a price, of course, but let’s assume that saving your hide and keeping the details of this incident undisclosed for as long as necessary to be an act of philanthropism.”

She rolls a shoulder and leans back on the chair.

Somewhere out of the earshot, a large brown bird takes off the rooftop and books it for the woods.

The card simply reads:


 * Allister Tenpenny
 * Director of Anima Management
 * x

Over the years the title would change countless times, the latest of those changes being. “Head of Anima Accounts Recievable”. Honestly, it was hard to tell what Allister even did for these people. The card itself, annoyingly enough, would always be on hand. Even if she didn’t want it. Even if she tried to get rid of it. The small piece of card stock was as bothersome and pretentious as the man himself.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, Captain. You have a nice trip back home.”

Tenpenny turns on his heel and disappears into the crowd with relative ease. He’s nothing but another face amongst the chaos now, but it didn’t matter. After all, she could spot him from two hundred yards away. =╬ the rest  ╬ = You might know Yelena "Pritcha" Bulgakova if-


 * You've worked with the Templar divisions in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.
 * You've dealt with small-scale exorcisms or extortions in Eastern Europe.
 * You're a mechanic that has had the misfortune of helping tune up and fix her out-of-production model motorbike.
 * You're an Illuminati that worked closely with a Templar division at some point.
 * You're a librarian an you are constantly haggled to get rare and utterly boring books (Orthodox Iconography: A Journey; Your Venus Fly Trap And You; 1001 Ways to Influence Friends And Earn Enemies; Fun With Cigarette Stubs; etc.)
 * You're an avid houseplant blogger.
 * You frequent incredibly obscure cafes and unsuccessful restaurants and hole-in-the-walls run by suspicious people of various European origins.

Inspirations
Yelena has been inspired by many things - namely, the things plucked from the Russian culture, Slavic mythology, literature, history and cinema. In no particular order, these include:

Master&Margarita, The Night Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko), the city and history of Ryazan monasteries, Constantine (Hellraiser), John Dies at The End, Zemfira (PB), Marla Singer (Fight Club), Cybil Bennett (Silent Hill)

Inspo tumblr

Soundtrack

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