Shadows and Sunshine in Berlin
Elias Volkov was a man accustomed to order. His life ran on the steady rhythm of schedules, routines, and precision—an orchestration he had long since perfected. The sprawling campus of the Berlin university, with its tangled paths of ivy-choked stone and archways older than most of the nations he studied, might have seemed like a labyrinth to others. To Elias, it was a map etched into muscle memory. He could navigate every lecture hall blindfolded, count the steps from the old library to the military history wing, and trace the cracks in the cobblestones with the same familiarity most men reserved for the lines on their palms.
Disruption, therefore, was not something he tolerated easily.
So when Professor Reinhardt summoned him to her office on a crisp autumn morning—when the air tasted faintly of rain and smoke, and the chestnut trees dropped their leaves like bronze coins—Elias expected little more than a correction to an essay, perhaps a discussion of archival work. Certainly not this.
"Volkov," Professor Reinhardt began, her voice as dry and clipped as the scratching of her pen, "I have a special assignment for you."
She sat behind her oak desk, holding her pipe as delicately as one grasping their most treasured possession, whose cherry scented smoke enveloped the air around her, stacks of books rising like small fortresses at her elbows. Reinhardt was a woman of precise intellect, sharp as flint, yet her gray eyes often carried a mischievous spark that Elias had never trusted. Today, the spark roared into flame — wild, perilous, and poised to unravel the tight weave of his serious, measured world.
He shifted his weight, folding his arms with studied neutrality. His notes on Napoleonic campaigns & the impacts of them still lingered in his mind, an unfinished pattern broken by her call. "I'm listening."
"A new freshman has arrived," she continued, tapping the stem of her pipe against a brass ashtray, which released an eager, wispy, puff of smoke, "and I need someone to show her around. Orientation, campus life, introductions—the works. She is quite, peculiar... an amazing specimen of human genius..."
Elias raised a brow. It was not the kind of task typically given to third-years, who spent most of their hours buried in dusty records, pushing themselves to endure the final year's relentless assignments.
"That," Reinhardt said, her mouth quirking in amusement rather than concession, "is precisely why I am asking you. Because you are not one of them."
A frown threatened his composure. "And why me, exactly?"
Her eyes narrowed with a professor's patience, the kind that both measured and tested a student in the same breath. "Because," she said slowly, as though weighing her words, "she is the polar opposite of you."
Elias blinked. "Opposite?"
"Yes." Reinhardt leaned back in her chair, smoke curling lazily from the pipe in her hand. "She is bright, cheerful, endlessly curious. Loves history, literature, political science, anthropology. Fluent in German, already well-versed in world structures, sharp to the point of precociousness. Fearless. Possibly even…"—she let the pause stretch—"overwhelming. Especially for someone who prefers quiet order."
Elias's jaw tightened. To him, "overwhelming" was just another word for undisciplined.
He wanted to object, to argue that guiding a new student around campus was neither his duty nor his inclination. Yet there was something in her tone—a deliberate weight, as if the assignment had already been decided. Refusal, he realized, was not on the table.
"Her name is Eurus Paule," Reinhardt added, finally setting down her pipe. "She arrives today. I expect you to meet her, show her the campus, introduce her to a few professors, and ensure she feels… at home."
Elias allowed the faintest trace of a smirk to tug at his mouth, a rare breach in his composure. "And try not to frighten her off, I assume?"
Reinhardt's eyes glinted, but she did not answer.
When he stepped out of her office, the corridor stretched long and sunlit before him, every echo of his footsteps marking the shape of his routine. And yet, for the first time in a long while, he felt its rhythm falter.
A girl who was his "polar opposite." Bright, unrestrained, irrepressibly curious.
He had always considered the world easiest to endure when it fit into neat, disciplined order. But he found himself wondering—grudgingly, almost against his own nature—what sort of chaos a person like Eurus Paule might bring into his carefully measured life.
Elias stepped out of the administration building just as a soft breeze stirred the air, carrying with it the faint fragrance of budding linden trees and damp stone. Early spring was tentative in Berlin—sunlight broke through in patches, uncertain, but enough to warm the cobblestones beneath his shoes.
At the bottom of the steps, a figure caught his attention immediately. A young woman stood near the balustrade, her posture a mix of composure and unease. One hand gripped the strap of a worn satchel slung over her shoulder; the other pressed a thick, battered history textbook against her chest as though it were both shield and compass.
When she noticed him, she straightened at once. Her eyes—clear, alert, and alive with curiosity—fixed on him with the kind of directness Elias rarely encountered.
Kamusta! It's nice to meet you, you must be Elias Volkov, correct?" she asked. Her voice was steady, but the edges carried that bright, unmistakable nervous excitement of someone stepping into a new world.
"Yes," he replied, his tone precise, clipped. He kept his gaze on her, noting the subtle details: the way her fingers lingered over the frayed spine of the book, the small quirk of her mouth as though amusement was her natural state. "You're Eurus Paule, I presume."
"That's me," she said quickly, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was unstudied, almost careless, yet it carried a certain quiet confidence. She glanced down at the volume in her arms, then back up at him, a small smile tugging at her lips. "I thought I'd get a head start. The campus has so much history—I like knowing the layers of a place before I walk through it. Seeing the world through different eras, you know? I like noticing things through a different lens, if I don't do so before I enter a new environment, imagination takes me by the hand and leads me away to the road of distraction."
Her words had an odd weight—not rehearsed, but earnest. Elias studied her carefully, wary of the easy enthusiasm. She wasn't brash, not loud or clumsy as he had half-expected. No, she was… observant. Radiant, in a way, though not with ostentation. There was a light to her presence that stood in sharp contrast to the measured control he cultivated in himself.
"I see," he said at last, inclining his head just slightly, as though granting her observation a place in his world. "We'll begin with the campus itself. I've been asked to show you around."
Her smile deepened, quick and genuine. "Lead the way, sir. I promise I won't get lost."
Something in the tone—half teasing, half earnest—disarmed him more than he cared to admit. Against his better judgment, he allowed the faintest smirk to cross his features, a brief slip in the armor he wore so naturally.
She was intelligent, yes—he could already tell from the way she looked at things, the curiosity that seemed to shape her every word. But there was something else as well: an imaginative spark, an openness that could not be mapped or charted. Elias recognized it instantly as the opposite of his world of strict lines and schedules. And yet, strangely, that recognition did not unsettle him.
"Good," he said simply. "Follow me."
They set off down the cobblestone path. The campus stretched wide around them—stone arches and ivy-draped courtyards, the echo of footsteps mingling with distant laughter of other students. Sunlight broke through the passing clouds, catching briefly in Eurus's hair, turning it to gold against the muted gray of the buildings.
Elias felt, with a quiet jolt, that this task was already slipping out of the safe category of "simple assignment." Guiding her would not be a matter of routine.
It would be something else entirely.