there's a muffled sound of scurrying, movement. he can smell burning wood, fragrances, can hear the wind shifting outside. his limbs feel… heavy, and for the first time in months, koschei realizes that he actually feels as if it's harder than usual to open his eyes out of bleariness.

and, well. something else. he can still tastes the remnants of it in his mouth: the poison. it was subtle in the tea, overpowered by other things but in waking, he teastes what no living man can say they have: remnants of death, of coming back to life after having enough posion in him to kill probably two or three men at once.

he swallows thickly, shifting in the bed. the furs slip off of his form, and when he looks towards the door, he can see his wife there, his hair down, carrying a tray that contains a basin of water, towels, and what he was certain was also a goblet of water, koschei able to see clear to the golden bottoms of both. he looks up, a scowl on his face. "you poisoned me."

"i did," asa doesn't bother to deny it, "you wouldn't sleep, no matter what other action i took." he takes a seat beside him on the bed, eyes roaming over him. "you were not making sane decisions anymore."

"i was," koschei argues, sitting up more. he looks around: at the fact that nothing has changed on it's face, that the domovoi are eager as ever, that he can feel fundamentally, everything in buyan is the same. even though he was out for hours, even though asa could've taken things by the throat, it is the same. "what sort of wife poisons a husband?"

"one concerned about their well being," asa replies, and koschei finally snorts, pushing himself further up. for all of that, he can see in the reflection of the water that he looks ten years younger than he has. he can see it on his hands when he reaches for the water, drinking the cold water down in long draughts. "it seems i was right to do so; you look the way you did on our honeymoon."

koschei would love to be angry at him. he would love to snipe at him, demand but the truth is the truth: he feels better now, thoughts working in order, feels better as he reaches over, grasping asa by the robe, dragging him right back to the bed.

the soju is almost entirely gone, but the vodka isn't. asa is already in a pile of robes, face flushed, laughing, hair in a disarray as he looks at koschei, eyebrows raising. "could you sing it again? what you sang before?"

surprise washes over koschei's face at the request asa makes. he hadn't been sure that asa could even hear him when he'd come in earlier that night, from another campaign. they aren't exactly as close as he'd like them to be, not yet. they share the bed now easily, they touch and talk. asa accepts the gifts he brings from his travels, they eat and drink together but they aren't close but he's no fool. he knows what it means for asa to ask for this.

saying no doesn't even cross his mind. he opens his mouth and begins to sing. it's an old war standard, in chinese. it's something he learned when he fought with leraje's men, voice lifting up, filling the room. the firelight flickers, burns and he sings with it, voice hitting familiar notes, stanzas. it's different to be like this, with his wife drunk and happy, and watching than it is to sing for men who've fought in battle with him. it's more intimate, more pleasing to have asa watch him, to see him enjoy how he sings.

when the last note finishes, there's a warm silence between them. koschei doesn't offer to sing more, simply holding asa's gaze for a moment, until asa says, "could you sing more?"

koschei smiles.

"are you happy here, jai?" he asks, the words weary. they both have to admit that buyan hasn't been the same since asa died. they both have to have this conversation, here and now or it will never happen and it will be much, much too late. koschei knows he looks like a gaunt, blood flecked terror. he knows that as he gathers the food on the plate, that this is the first time he's eaten in maybe five months. "if you aren't, i can send you back to your home. it's — i understand things have changed."

jai takes his time, as always. his hands move the tea on the the tray, and he looks up at koschei with more age behind his eyes than before. even if koschei was able to get some magic to slow his aging, he is still painfully, mortal. "are you asking this to see if you may be rid of me without regret? are you asking this because you believe we cannot be friends with the death of the firebride? or as you asking because you still seek company?"

they're all pointed, firmly said. koschei knows that he doesn't even have the energy to be angry if it was truly something said that was incorrect. he doesn't have the energy to even summon anger. "i ask because i ask."

a sigh leaves the man. "i stay because we are friends. i stay because i do not wish to be a pampered prince. i stay because i cared for asa, and i care for you."

"but not enough to be immortal, to stay," he says it bitterly. he doesn't even feel anything more for jai, never has, except the idea that he will die too, one of the few people who knew asa, pains him. at least, immortal, jai could help remember him, at least jai could tell if he was losing himself.

"no," jai's voice softens only a little. "my gods hold that immortality is a prison. to be unable to pass on is a pain i do not wish to have."

koschei lets the silence overtake them.

the fish turn elegantly, swiftly in a red ribbon of movement in the water for tatiana. he watches as she directs them, feeds them.

asa used to swim in this pond. he remembers vividly coming in from a war party, feeling his brain turning over in annoyance, worried about the numbers, and seeing asa alone there, on his back eyes closed. he remembers joking that asa could find a better place to sleep, and the way asa's face had flushed. and too, he remembers taking off his boots, his robes, his gear and coming to swim with him.

he thought he'd be angry to see her here, at the pond, enjoying it. he thought that it would maybe make him feel hurt. except tatiana has never bothered him, never questioned the fact that she can't go into certain rooms or wings. she's honored that, and watching her at the pond, directing the fish he'd gotten for her makes him feel something he can't quite name.

he makes it a point that night to ask jai to make her something special.

the horse is larger than any one that leraje ever gave him, with a coat black as pitch, eyes just as dark. koschei smiles at him as he rubs his maw, voice soft as he says, "if you wish to leave me, you can old friend." they have had decades together, with conquests and parties and quiet walks together. he doesn't know if the horse is immmortal, he doesn't even know if it's truly a horse. "i am leaving, and perhaps, this new place isn't for you."

the horse whinnies, paws the earth. he nuzzles koschei's hand, and slowly, sits down, clearly waiting for koschei to mount him.

asa's hands flutter nervously around the wound. which koschei thinks is understandable; he wasn't raised around war, he wasn't a warrior himself, and normally this wouldn't be something he'd do. except koschei had come home like this, one of leraje's arrowed aimed true. "i don't—" ash's hands flutter again around the arrow, even as kosche's throat swells up from the poison.

"you have to break off the two sides," koschei isn't going to die, leraje knew when he launched the arrow. it was just going to make him hurt, force the posion into his blood until the arrow was completely removed. if anything, it was a sign he was really getting under the daemon's skin. he can feel his tongue swelling, words getting more difficult, ash's face worried. "quiver, arrowhead. then pull." his eyeslids flutter. "you've never done this, i know. but you can."

he can't give anymore reassurances, hardly sitting on the chaise. sweat drenches down his forehead, unable to lift his arms, hardly able to get the armor off. he looks at asa, voice hoarse, "now."

there's pain when asa grips the arrowhead, and his vision tunnels.

the dancers spin, whirl on stage. their limbs reach up, then cascade back down. he thinks of what it would be like, to have asa here, to watch these human bodies try to touch heaven.

the raven lands in front of her, scaring her enough that the boat almost tips over. these waters are treacherous, and shantipriya knows that to have a raven land on her boat is not something that is a coincidence. her father told her stories of her grandfather, about the things he'd seen, the things that he'd heard, the matters of his disapperance.

she remembers that a name was spoken to him by a raven. she knows that this raven's eyes are too intelligent to be normal, and shantipriya grips her side, staring back at it, unafraid.

the raven opens it's beak. "papa koschei is coming for you, shantipriya."

"were you not satisfied?" he asks her and she knows that he does not understand what it does to her, to be in this country of magic, day after day with him. to be here and not have his magic, his guile, his wonder at her finger times. he does not understand what she wants, what she yearns for. what it is like to live in a place that is half a tomb, half kingdom, and all she does is turn away from him, going up the steps. she leaves him alone, and shuts the door to her room herself.

no. she is not satisifed.

he's too weak to cast any sort of magic, to pull on any string he has. the light comes on sometimes, where he can see people coming in and out. he's hoisted up, beaten, spat on, tortured as much as they can. every day, every hour that drags on, he tucks himself deeper into his mind, taking himself from the pain dealt to him. in his mind, he can wrap himself up in old dreams of rusalkas in water, of wives who smile and tell jokes, of a country that he could call his own, of a mausoleum built with his own hands. he stays there, and only comes back to the basement when he's forced to.

"do you ever want to go back?"

"back to where?" he pulls from the water given him, to keep out of the heat. fighting's stopped for awhile, and he knows that soon, it'll come back when it's not so hot, when everyone can move again. it's likely that the cowboy beside him, the one who'd given him the water, won't live. he he has that look so many other mortals get when they're tired of living, when they think the end is near, when they have to take a catalog of others around them before they ride to their deaths or someone elses.

"home," the cowboy says as koschei rubs at his beard. by all rights, he's taking water from someone who actually needs it, who's human and vulnerable, who will be hanging by a thread in the next hour or so. "don't you wish you were back there now, instead of here?"

koschei knows he's thinking of his home country, of a place called russia. home, though, isn't there anymore. it's buyan, with the hair and skin, with the magic, with the mausoleum, a mix of good and bad memories. home is there, and he sealed it shut, unwilling to go back.

"no."

ash looks at him with a questioning, curious look. koschei pretends he doesn't see only for a moment, standing outside of the palace that used to be his, the place he abandoned and swore to never return to. he can feel the memories, the years here, and for the first time in centuries, steps forward, offering his hand to his returned wife.

offering sanctuary to others is still, at times, a new thing. accomodating for someone who did not live on land, who needed fresh water and a stable enviornment that couldn't be found on land might prove different.

still, buyan is his. it is his place to bend to his will.

so he visualizes it: something fathoms deep, full of treasure, of coral. of fish that were multitudinous, of other creatures that would make a mermaid or a rusalka happy. a place that would be safe.

and buyan bends to the shape he wishes, demands it to be just like that.