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Chapter 13: A Frost of Sundown
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2021-09-28 01:25:10Den' awaited Morozko in the parking lot beyond. The horse-turned-car drove pell mell back to Baba Yaga's. Baba Yaga was in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe as the moon sailed past. The smoke formed wisps of worms and inched off into the horizon slowly.
Den' shifted into a mare and stooped low so Morozko could dismount.
Baba Yaga wrinkled her nose, spotting the red on his teeth. “I can smell the delicious sweat, blood, and soul of a human on you. A hapless young woman, as usual?”
Morozko shrugged, taking the groceries from the horse's back onto his shoulder. “I have my dalliances, just like you. Banniks always love souls, after all.”
“Pah. My dalliances are more of the eating limbs and bone variety, not easy seductions of boring mortal maidens. You kept me waiting, boy! My hut is not just a door you can stroll through at your own leisure. This place is the watcht
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Baba Yaga whistled.A stallion red as the sun galloped from the woods to the driveway. Solntse, Morozko thought. Baba Yaga’s pride and joy, whose hooves could leave fields aflame in their tempestuous fury.Solntse neighed, shifting into the form of a red VW Bug with a shining Slavic sun decal. The nechist and Baba Yaga piled into the car haphazardly, with Baba Yaga at the wheel. She drove like a speed demon past buses and Washingtonians onto the highway and followed the Beltway to Washington, D.C., enchanting her way into not paying at the parking garage. They found themselves strolling along the National Mall, obelisk of the Washington Monument penetrating the sky like a needle.Baba Yaga doted on Anya, pushing her in a stroller. Anya giggled, pointing at the clouds. Time spun on its axis, and Baba Yaga pushed her through summer and fall, through winter and spring, round and round the years until Anya
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Anya returned the next day in tears and ran straight into Dmitri’s arms in the dining room, her bright pink backpack unzipped: “They made me learn! My teacher made me learn! I do not want to learn! I want to fight Genghis Khan in the woods with my bunnies riding Kolya-the-horse’s back and pick flowers with Liza! Liliya is a good Genghis Khan. Why do I have to learn addition and subtraction? It is awful!”Dmitri bellowed with laughter: “Darling Annushka, tell me, did you make any friends? And math is important: Someday you shall inherit all my verdant fields and rolling forests. There will be grain stores and villagers to keep count of, the royal coffers to keep track of-“But da that is so so boring! Put me down, please.”Dmitri did and sighed. “I suppose elementary school will take some getting used to then, my dear.”
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Anya flourished in school, deftly walking the realms between man and spirits. Keeping the secret of her family was like breathing. She felt like a visitor to the Earth, a cast-off ship of dreams, left to travel the world with sails the lapis blue of things forgotten.Anya often pondered forgotten things, like her beloved nechist and how they had faded from Russian memory, relegated to the realm of myths. No one in America knew of Baba Yaga, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where Morozko took her to parks and museums, why, there were no gods at all. Anya wondered if, when the Zoryas shone down on Russia, if their starlight was tears at being forgotten by their humans they so so loved. Dmitri never spoke of when the borders between Buyan and Earth were open, and as Anya grew, her monstrous family took her less to the human world – only Morozko.“So what are the virtues of birch venik? Of oak? Eucalyptus?”
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Anya sank onto the bed, head in her hands. “No,” she whispered. “That is not right. You disgusting liar.”“Would I lie to the daughter of a goddess?”“The gods are gone. They abandoned Buyan eons ago. You are delusional, you bastard.”“Which is perhaps why Baba Yaga found you on Earth, little demigod.” Kashchei sat beside Anya and put his arm around her. She was too panicked to resist.“No.” Anya looked out the open window, at the treacherous beauty of the land of the deathless. Anya clutched the firebird pendant at her throat and inhaled sharply.“And here Baba Yaga has raised you all this time, keeping you in the dark about your heritage so you could be her perfect little pawn.” Kashchei tapped his shoeless feet on the ground. “Cruel, really. Keeping your true family from you.”&l
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 40: Glazed
Ded Moroz's eyes seemed to pick the meat clean from Morozko's bones. Father Frost stroked his hoary beard, glacial icicle spiked crown resting atop his brow. His courtiers thronged round his throne, whispering at the scandal of his scion, the bannik bastard born out of wedlock to Snegurochka.“So,” Ded Moroz boomed. “You wish to be reinstated to the family legacy and become my heir? A responsibility you have shirked since your birth, all to save some orphan witch?”Morozko sweated, the furnace in his belly roaring. “Yes,” he said, temple throbbing under the scrutiny of his forefather, a man he had never wanted please.A thin smile graced Ded Moroz's lips. “I cannot say that I am glad that it has taken so long for you to accept your heritage. But for the love of a woman, you are willing. So be it. I will give you your crown, my grandson.”Morozko let out t
