Nikolai Korobeiniki
atroscence
- Created
- 8 months, 26 days ago
- Creator
- atroscence
- Favorites
- 24
Profile
01 — Profile
A powerful esper, Nikolai sacrifices his heart and soul to serve and protect the rest of the Investigation Division. He carries himself with the steel spine of a soldier, always appearing to be somewhat serious and stoic around others. It's hard for him to drop the intense look in his eyes -- except when he softens around the people that he cares about.
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Jacket may be drawn open or closed; note that the inside is lined in red.
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Can be drawn with or without gloves; if without gloves, he has an EQE bracelet on his right hand.
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EQE bracelet glows red when channeling essence.
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Important to draw with collar chain, since it marks him as part of the Investigation Division.
- Original Profile
02 — Personality
Nikolai -- called Kolya or Kolen’ka by the few people he considers close -- seems to be, at very first glance, a soldier. He walks tall, with a spine of steel and a cold expression that only rarely breaks into a small smile. He’s blunt and straightforward, never mincing his words or dancing around the point of what he’s trying to say. There’s a certain drive in the intensity of his expression that is often difficult to fully meet; strangers tend to find it hard to maintain eye contact with him, let alone a conversation, given how he talks like he’s constantly in the middle of an interrogation.
Despite how intimidating he can be at first glance, underneath his flat mask is a man who is loyal -- nearly to a fault. Nikolai constantly feels like he has to keep his composure because, well, if he can’t keep himself standing, who else can? The sense of responsibility that he constantly carries with him veers close to self-sacrifice, at times, as he recklessly throws himself into danger for the sake of the people around him. There’s very few people that he doesn’t feel like he has to protect, and once you’ve gained his loyalty, it’s difficult to do something that he’d consider traitorous enough to break it. He deeply cares for the people that he’s met and connected with, rarely forgetting even the briefest of names and faces. Those that he lets his guard down around know a Kolya that’s far kinder and far more forgiving than his initial guise would make him seem -- even if it’s difficult for him to truly remove himself from the role of the protector that he’s become.
Decisive and logical, Nikolai often serves as the leader in any group that he ends up falling in with. He’s not afraid to take responsibility and deal with whatever problems get in his way, using the resources that he has at his disposal wisely. It might not seem like it, but Nikolai is, genuinely, a people-person; he enjoys being with company and listening to people talk, even if he finds it difficult to find much to say of his own. He has a knack for peeling away subtlety, often understanding a person’s feelings before they’ve even said it themselves. It doesn’t make him any better at comforting them, but the solid weight of his presence often serves as enough to make up for his words.
Hidden in the core of his being, however, is a sharp edge of anger that seems oddly incongruous with the rest of the person that Nikolai seems to be. Despite his best efforts, he’s never quite been able to get rid of the intensely vindictive fury that rises out of him whenever he truly believes that he’s been wronged -- or ever quite control the lengths he’ll go to whenever he feels like he deserves some sort of justice for how he’s been wronged. If only a few have been able to see Nikolai’s more vulnerable side, even fewer have seen Nikolai when he’s truly, desperately angry. It’s a part of himself that he keeps controlled under lock after lock, key after key -- and, as he believes, for good reason.
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Sweet, sugary coffee.
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Excessively hot showers.
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Watching over or taking care of children.
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Embroidery.
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Secondhand embarrassment.
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Inconsiderate people.
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The cold.
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Being patronized.
03 — Background
Past
Born as a pyro esper to a single mother of three, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Korobeiniki quickly grew used to the fact that he would often be the only person in the household capable of taking care of... well, the household. His father had disappeared before his younger sister was born, so his mother was forced to work long shifts to provide for Nikolai and his two sisters; at the same time, his elder sister Yulia rarely spent any time at home, disappearing when Nikolai was 16 the same way that his father did. As a result, the younger Sonia depended on Nikolai for nearly all her needs throughout her childhood.
Nikolai learned to cook, clean, mend clothing, and provide for both himself and Sonia all throughout his childhood and teen years -- and even though, logically, he understood why his mother was constantly absent, it didn’t stop him from wishing that he sometimes had less to bear on his own shoulders.
When he entered college, Nikolai vowed that he’d at least make enough money to set up his mother and sister with enough funds so that Sonia could finish her education after him. He trained his essence use as he studied, hoping to gain enough mastery of it so that he could apply to some specialized job that would provide both him and his family the benefits they needed to lighten their load. The Virion Project was one of the many applications that he sent out during his senior year -- but when they came back with an acceptance to the Containment Division and an employment package that seemed to fit all his needs, Nikolai saw little choice but to accept. With the Virion Project helping him cover the costs, Nikolai decided to undergo an EQE implant surgery, installing an EQE bracelet onto his right hand in order to channel essence more efficiently and protect him from the risks that Containment inherently entailed.
Virion Project
Despite having entered the Project for such a seemingly-mundane reason, Nikolai ended up quickly growing attached to his job -- he saw no qualms in putting himself in harm’s way for what he perceived to be a just cause, and as the cases of viscerosis the Containment Division encountered grew worse and worse, his commitment to ensuring that his team was kept safe only grew firmer and firmer. As long as somebody could be saved, he volunteered himself for the job; even though he had to sleep for days after particularly intense cases of essence use, he justified himself in the belief that without him, the casualties from each outbreak would be even worse.
The head of the Containment Division, Lucius Zuciane, saw little to no reason to stop him -- and Nikolai quickly grew used to the smoke breaks that the two of them would take together, often accompanied by the Forensics virologist Tolys Mareika. The three of them would chat over their work on the porches and balconies of the Virion Project’s main building, building a slow friendship as the years passed by.
The Outbreak Incident, however, led the otherwise-collegial atmosphere of the Project to quickly grind to a halt. Nikolai was present during the containment procedures, and witnessing the deaths of nearly the entire Containment Division and the injuries of the then-Investigators only made him wish that he had somehow done more to prevent the Incident from ever happening. The voices of the people around him constantly claiming that he was somehow ”lucky to have gotten out alive” only made him feel worse about having gotten out in the first place.
Public pressure was on for the Virion Project to start showing results -- and the actively-growing number of viscerosis cases only made Nikolai more determined to take an active role in the organization outside of just preventing what he hoped would have never happened in the first place. Nikolai would become an Investigator, alongside, to his surprise, Lucius and Tolys -- as well as the only remaining member of the original Investigation team, Aaron Vesre.
As Sonia enters her final years of college, Nikolai knows that, no matter what he has to do, he has to be part of the cure to cure viscerosis -- if not for himself, for his sister to get his degree and work with essence without fear of potentially losing herself to it. It’s a cause that he’d choose to willingly stake his life on.
04 — Trivia
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Nikolai had long hair throughout his childhood, only cutting it in college because it would get in his face when he would study. He cut it again when he joined the Virion Project, only to start regrowing it with the encouragement of his coworker, Lucius.
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Usually doesn't drink because he's a lightweight. Can be pressured to, however, when he's with friends. Getting him drunk is typically the only way you can hear him actually laugh.
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Very much a "glass cannon" of an esper. Can channel a lot of essence in powerful bursts of fire, but afterwards, he's exhausted, sleeping away entire days to recover.
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The hairtie he wears to tie his braid was a gift from his sister when he first joined the Virion Project. He's never seen without it.
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Wears gloves because he gets cold easily. Any temperature under 75F/23C degrees is considered "too cold" for him.
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Taught himself how to sew, knit and embroider when he was younger. While he initially did it out of necessity, he still sometimes embroiders flowers and animals in his free time to relax.
05 — Relationships
”...Tolys? He’s fine. I like how he smiles. People say he does it enough to make up for mine.”
Nikolai and Tolys have been close even prior to the two of them becoming Investigators, no matter how unlikely of a pair the two of them seem to be. Tolys talks enough to fill Nikolai’s relaxed silences, and Nikolai enjoys listening to everything Tolys has to say, always having respected how knowledgeable he is in his field and how he seems to always know exactly what Nikolai needs to calm down after the workday is over.
Nikolai’s comfortable enough to try to wisecrack back at Tolys, even though he’s embarrassingly aware that not all of his jokes land the way he intends them to. If Tolys offered him a cigarette and dinner and a chat at the end of the day, Nikolai’d never say no.
”Lucius and I have been around each other for a long time. Hm... I wish we could talk more. I think he’s smart, definitely. And he feels like he could do whatever he wanted to do, so I’m grateful that he chose to be here.”
Initially having met as part of the Containment Division, Nikolai’s always held a great deal of respect for Lucius, seeing first-hand his quick thinking and decision-making in the heat of battle -- especially as a non-essence-user among what was essentially a division of essence-users fighting Vessels gone mad.
While Lucius initially acted distantly from him, Nikolai’s glad that the years have softened their relationship, making their smoke breaks much less awkward than they were when he first joined the Division. The Investigation Division might be capable, but Nikolai knows that in a crisis, he’d fall back to Lucius for support -- and that Lucius would probably be the one to find a way to get them out of it.
”Oh... haha. Sorry. Aaron makes me laugh. It’s comfortable to be around him, in a way that makes me feel like I’ve known him since I was in high school. I like buying him coffees, even though I know he can probably afford it.”
Prior to the Outbreak Incident, Nikolai had never directly spoken with Aaron -- always seeing him with the other members of the Investigation Division instead. The Aaron that Nikolai met when he joined as an Investigator, however, was a far cry from the laughing, charismatic man that he was used to seeing in the hallways. Nikolai’s always felt a sense of odd empathy for him, having been caught in the Outbreak Incident the same way that he’d been; after the two of them started working together, they’ve only grown continually closer, often sharing companionable silences in the morning as they make coffee or go over case files at the same table together.
Nikolai feels like Aaron understands the sense of responsibility that he feels better than any of the other Investigators on the team -- and his dry sense of humor better than anybody else in general, given that the two of them are often the only ones that laugh when either of them try to tell a joke.
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