is a "toto we're not in kansas anymore?" comment necessary or...
darling, we are not nor would be caught dead in kansas.
except a few times with warrants
we donโt have warrants now!
The Chernosvyat is mostly emptied of life, aside from one main person inside of it: Koschei, the Deathless. Perhaps, Koschei the Alone is more apt these days, given the gathering dust in the palace that he resides in. The only creatures there with him that he could communicate with anymore were the domovoi, who's small forms couldn't be divorced from the place, from Koschei.
Unwilling to, really.
And right now, in this time, he stares out of the windows of the great palace, his eyebrows running together, dressed only in an old pet of a great wolf he had slaughtered. His hair is river of silver running down his back, and the cold doesn't affect his almost emaciated form.
When was the last time he'd taken a bride? When was the last time he had sought company?
His memory turns and turns. The last few times, he had rejected the people summoning him for one reason or another — more and more, he knew that he no longer had the heart to try to keep replacing what was lost, who was lost. He could go on in his life, he could keep having a thirst for the future, for more.
But to replace Ash, to finally have love again, he couldn't go on with that anymore. It just wasn't an option anymore. No one had come close and if truth be told, he was starting to get tired of it. Tired of trying, tired of the charade, tired of —
A shiver runs through his spine. He's being summoned by someone who wanted to be taken, someone who wanted him.
For a moment, Koschei frowns at his reflection in the mirror, in the snow landscape of Buyan. He thinks about digging his heels in, but whoever this is, they have a strong pull. And so Koschei finds himself being pulled from Buyan, his form shifting. The land he's being summoned to isn't one he's been to before, yet Koschei looked like a Tsar, from his uniform to the black boots that crunch on the ground without warning, the flames flickering with his arrival. The wildlife goes silent with his arrival, and in this foreign land, Koschei knows that even here, he is powerful. He looks down at the person in front of him, at this tall form, at his assured tone. Koschei hums, his eyes burning in his face.
And slowly, as is tradition, he kneels before the one who summoned him, his hand going over his heart. "I am ะะผะฟะตัะฐัะพัั ะัะตัะพัััะนัะบัะน ะะตััะผะตััะฝัะน, and I have come as the groom you have summoned." It is part of the ritual, unignorable. "I never ignore a plea from a bride; but I confess, you will have to convince me that you are one for me to keep."
ash and koschei
wife.
darling.
don't darling me. you โ you set it all up!
i certainly set up getting you drunk.
and us meeting. don't be coy. jesus christ... d'you know how long i thought that was a trick?
probably a very, very long time. at least ten years.
that ain't the point. the point โ the point is how scared i was.
me? scare you?
....the last thing you did before you died was. something like that. and baba yaga was still in my head.
i apologize, it was the only way i could get you to stop and listen to me.
thank you. i'm just ... i wasn't expecting it.
neither was i, but you were much different than i remembered as well. i wasnโt going to get stabbed.
stabbed again, jesus mary and fucking joseph!
vera and koschei
is there anything else i need to know about this time period, other than -- stop fucking with one's own legacy, etc.?
well, it doesn't smell good, a lot of people here are... probably gonna be crueler compared to what you think. but it's how we thought back then, on a lot of stuff.
i'm no stranger to cruelty, it's more the butterflies in time that i worry about. hygiene is equally significant, but a rather secondary topic in comparison.
butterflies in time, well. i'm not sure what to do with them. that's something i'm totally a stranger to, frankly. you got people to run into?
distant cousins, of a sort; the american side of the family is decidedly more impulsive than the english. you've never, in all your years?
americans being impulsive idiots tracks. no, never. i have vast amounts of life and magical knowledge but time travel isn't something familiar to me. it may not work the way we think; or if a paradox exists, it's something that isn't destabilizing.
thus, my askance.. but i also can't tell -- and i say this with good humour -- if that last part's comforting or insulting.