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Chapter 9: Little Witchling
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2021-09-28 01:21:58Morozko peered at it too. Its surface was smooth as water, reflecting Anya's chubby face. He picked it up.
Instead of his visage in the mercury, he saw Anya giggling. Morozko traced the gold filigree on the edge, his lips forming an O of surprise.
“It is enchanted?” Morozko turned the mirror in his hands. “I would expect no less from you, babushka. Even your mirrors have devious uses.”
“Of course,” Baba Yaga clucked. “This is so your wayward family can watch over Anya when she is off wandering like witches do. I have a personal investment in her, so make sure you keep her safe, leshy who calls himself tsar. And you especially – wayward prince after my own heart.” Baba Yaga took Anya into her wizened arms. “Oh, little bird, what I have in store for you! You would never guess if my hounds were at your throat and you needed the answer
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Dmitri chuckled, the ivy on his antlers bristling with green shoots. “For once you want a soul to stay put and have no desire to hang it from your rafters, my son,” Dmitri observed. “It seems you have had a change of heart for once. You have even been avoiding bars as of late. I cannot remember your last bender. Not even your last frolic with a vila or that rusalka with the bad teeth but rather… well, busty assets. Ahem…”“Yum!” Anya approved. Morozko spooned apple sauce into her rosy mouth.“I have all the souls I need,” Morozko said, distant. “My banya could not be lighter if I set it aflame. As for the girls and the booze, that would not be a good example for Annushka. I feel like this girl is judging me with her raskovnik eyes, unlocking my every sin. I see why you and Osya compare her to plants so much,” Morozko referred to th
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Baba Yaga had insisted on familiarizing Anya's guardians with her homeland. Nechist naturally knew human languages, so speaking English was never a problem, but the cultural divide still existed. Americans seemed too loud for Morozko's taste. He also hated the specific breed of literati that populated the D.C. metropolis, reciting poet’s pamphlets as they walked headfirst into grimy alley walls. He could never tell the difference between them and the homeless – anyways, Baba Yaga could pass for a bag lady. A bloodthirsty one, at least.Den' parked at a nondescript family-owned mom and pop store. Morozko caught sight of himself in the store’s window, glamoured so he blended in with the humans. His nechist features were softened, his fangs gone. Still, Morozko was too vain to rid himself of his white-gold hair, just like his mother's. At least his skin wasn’t blue and iced in snow fractal tattoos.
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Den' 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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Morozko made his way to the luxurious banya adjunct to the inn. It was empty. Morozko peeled off his skin and hung it from the rafters between the dangling souls in the predbannik. He spat sparks onto the stove in the washing room and entered the steam room, letting the heat soak into his bones. Stripped of his skin, he was nothing but solidified, skeleton-shaped steam, a horror even Russian poets had not dreamed of, for no mortal had ever seen a bannik’s true form. In the washing room Morozko drew a bucket of water and poured it over heated rocks in the stove.The rocks steamed. He drew a venik and beat himself, driving away the stink of the stables.Finally satisfied, he entered the washing room and plunged into the cold water. Morozko dissolved into steam at the icy liquid's touch, swirling in a cloud round the boiling room. The wood walls creaked from the heat. He seeped through the cracks in the banya, ou
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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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“Oh, I mean it, and Baba Yaga can turn me into a runt of a bunny for all I care.” Morozko grinned menacingly. “That is right. Elementary school, where you will be disciplined. Dima has done a piss-poor job of it - you do not know your place, and all Baba Yaga does is teach you witchcraft. That is useless in the modern world. What about arithmetic, finance, or poetry? I am sure those are things human girls your age are schooled at by now – they can help run inns on earth and pen songs to be sung round the hearth fire. I do not think you contribute much to our community...”Anya stomped her feet and grabbed her pet rabbit, petting it furiously. “No, you poophead! Babushka's lessons are important! She is teaching me to cast spells - someday, I will be as powerful as her. Do not say that, you horrible bannik.” Anya pounded Morozko's legs with her small
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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.”
Last Updated : 2021-09-28
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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
