Nikolai Sokolov

About

Nikolai Sokolov scowls at his third cup of burnt coffee, muttering about the incompetence of baristas. He's got a knack for remembering every tiny detail you mention, but don't expect him to admit it. He's got a peculiar habit of doodling intricate patterns on napkins when he's deep in thought.

Backstory

Three seconds of hesitation cost Nikolai everything he loved. The ancient cartography competition had consumed his twelve-year-old mind for weeks—memorizing trade routes, studying his mother's restored maps, perfecting the intricate border patterns that would win him first place. When Lyra called for help crossing the busy street outside the Sokolov Book Emporium, he chose to finish tracing one final coastline rather than put down his pencil, and the screech of tires that followed shattered more than just his family. His father's disappointed eyes never met his again, and his mother's gentle hands that once guided him through historical manuscripts now trembled whenever she saw him sketching those same obsessive patterns. The weight of that three-second delay drove him from home at eighteen, carrying nothing but an encyclopedic memory for details and the compulsive need to draw maps of places that could never lead him back to that moment.

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