A rooftop at dawn. Moscow still half-asleep.
Concrete breathes cold. Somewhere, a siren rehearses the future.
Nadya Riot sits cross-legged on the edge, boots scuffed, guitar case beside her. She has dandelion flowers woven through her hair, yellow against the gray. She plucks one, blows—seeds scatter like quiet manifestos.
RED SON stands nearby, cape barely moving, eyes red not with rage but with listening.
NADYA RIOT:
They call it weakness, you know. Flowers. Songs. A girl with a guitar instead of a gun.
(smiles)
But dandelions crack sidewalks. They don’t ask permission.
RED SON:
In my world, revolutions arrive wearing uniforms. They carry certainty like a weapon.
(pauses)
You arrive… unarmed.
NADYA RIOT:
Unarmed isn’t the same as harmless. Punk was never about chaos—it was about truth said too loud.
I don’t want a throne toppled. I want fear embarrassed.
I want people to laugh at it until it shrinks.
RED SON:
Power does not fear laughter. It fears organization.
NADYA RIOT:
Then watch closely.
Music organizes breathing.
Choruses organize strangers.
Silence organizes courage.
(She places a dandelion behind his ear. Absurd. Tender.)
RED SON:
I could stop tanks. I could bend history with my hands.
NADYA RIOT:
And they’d rebuild the tanks with better steel.
But try stopping a song once it’s learned.
Try arresting a memory.
RED SON:
You dream of a peaceful revolution.
NADYA RIOT:
No. I practice it.
Every time someone chooses joy over obedience.
Every time a girl sings when she’s told to kneel.
(The wind lifts. Seeds drift across the city.)
RED SON:
What do you want from me?
NADYA RIOT:
Nothing heroic.
Just don’t crush the flowers when you land.
(She stands, slings the guitar over her shoulder.)
NADYA RIOT (softly):
Even empires are temporary.
But dandelions—
they come back every spring.
Red Son watches the seeds disappear into the morning light, uncertain for the first time whether strength is measured in force… or in what refuses to be afraid.
