a semi-russian fairy tale...of sorts
So I was fiddling with the Ravenclaw Library today, which actually houses quite a few short stories and fanfiction done by a few eagles and non-house members. As I was modifying the writing challenges, I figured I'd write another really short short to add to the shelves, so to speak. Anyway, I'm pretty sure my thought process and inspiration emerged out of Orson Scott Card's Enchantment, the overall Slavic folklore, and the dark, twisty themes in my current read (Laini Taylor's Lips Touch: Three Times).
I've momentarily called it "Yelizaveta" for lack of a title, and "Untitled" is so lame. If anyone comes up with a better title, I'll love you forever :D
On other notes: I'll update about last weekend tomorrow or sommat >_>
Yelizaveta
July 2010
Yelizaveta never took to liking fairy tales. In fact, if there was a word to express her opinion on them, it would be closest to unfathomable hatred. And that in itself might be too generous of a description. She utterly, truly, adamantly-and without so much of a blink-despised them.
Her mother had explained this unnatural repulsion as a childhood trauma, an unpleasant encounter her daughter experienced while playing in the woods, which was a ten-minute walk across the lake that separated their rickety old house and the trees. There was always something magical about the deep, dark forests of old Russia, and it would have been no surprise if a mystical zhar-ptitsa or a harmless niavka would prance within the outskirts of the lush, mysterious greenery. Superstition was still strong within those who lived around Krasny Bor, and even in a modernized world, it was still hard-pressed to find Russian workers willing to disturb the spirits living within.
After Stalin’s fall, Krasny Bor had become a ghost-forest, where the restless undead sometimes climbed from their hidden graves and roved the area, in search of the culprits who’d abruptly sent them to their deaths so many years ago. Yelizaveta could not remember the horrible time period, but sometimes she’d seen her mother Sofiya look forlornly outside her window, past the lake, and into the forest. Sofiya never told her Essi, her daughter, about the sound of gunshots she sometimes heard at night, which would jolt her awake, shivering and frightened. Yet there was little credence to the rumors of the undead, since Sofiya’s beliefs sank deeper into the more dangerous forest spirits inhabiting Krasny Bor.
Amidst the clamor of a social event, Sofiya Petrova was always asked to retell the story of finding little Essi running across the lake, disheveled and wet. Very few children played near the forests, and those who had were almost always never found. Essi was a novelty, a miracle; she’d avoided the child-snatcher and the changelings longing for a playmate. Whatever danger she had come up against, she escaped with scratches and bruises, and a memory that haunted her for the rest of her days. When Sofiya found Essi emerging quickly out of the forest, she rushed to her daughter and scooped the crying child into her arms, rocking her gently to and fro. Yelizaveta was only seven then.
“Has Baba Yaga found you?” Sofiya asked her child softly, in a reassuring voice that implied not to worry, child, for I’ll keep the hideous, child-eating hag away.
Wordlessly, Yelizaveta clung to her mother, unable to describe or comprehend the meaning of what she’d seen in the forest. Only that it went further than the laments of the undead and the sometimes mischievous, mostly harmless spirits of nature. It had gone further back, deep into wild Russia, where children were unsafe from the clutches of a witch in a chicken-legged house. It went further into the territory of the monstrous creatures, the likho and the rusalka that lured adventurers in with sweet temptations, only to be led into a haven of cobwebbed skeletons and disappearing footprints.
The woods weren’t safe.
No modern fairy tale would have prepared Yelizaveta for what she’d seen in the Krasny Bor clearing. All the happy endings that she’d read growing up had disillusioned her. Princesses and princes, knights and dragons, what were they all to a girl who had experienced the original fairy tales of her country? The darker, more menacing fairy tales. The ones that ended badly for the heroes who failed, and ended soporifically for the beautiful princesses who lost their heroes.
Yelizaveta despised fairy tales, because in her heart, she believed in them. She believed in the magic and the creatures. She believed in the potent herblore and the practice of healing and witchcraft. She believed in the magic of the woods.
And none of those stories had happy endings.
I've momentarily called it "Yelizaveta" for lack of a title, and "Untitled" is so lame. If anyone comes up with a better title, I'll love you forever :D
On other notes: I'll update about last weekend tomorrow or sommat >_>
Yelizaveta
July 2010
Yelizaveta never took to liking fairy tales. In fact, if there was a word to express her opinion on them, it would be closest to unfathomable hatred. And that in itself might be too generous of a description. She utterly, truly, adamantly-and without so much of a blink-despised them.
Her mother had explained this unnatural repulsion as a childhood trauma, an unpleasant encounter her daughter experienced while playing in the woods, which was a ten-minute walk across the lake that separated their rickety old house and the trees. There was always something magical about the deep, dark forests of old Russia, and it would have been no surprise if a mystical zhar-ptitsa or a harmless niavka would prance within the outskirts of the lush, mysterious greenery. Superstition was still strong within those who lived around Krasny Bor, and even in a modernized world, it was still hard-pressed to find Russian workers willing to disturb the spirits living within.
After Stalin’s fall, Krasny Bor had become a ghost-forest, where the restless undead sometimes climbed from their hidden graves and roved the area, in search of the culprits who’d abruptly sent them to their deaths so many years ago. Yelizaveta could not remember the horrible time period, but sometimes she’d seen her mother Sofiya look forlornly outside her window, past the lake, and into the forest. Sofiya never told her Essi, her daughter, about the sound of gunshots she sometimes heard at night, which would jolt her awake, shivering and frightened. Yet there was little credence to the rumors of the undead, since Sofiya’s beliefs sank deeper into the more dangerous forest spirits inhabiting Krasny Bor.
Amidst the clamor of a social event, Sofiya Petrova was always asked to retell the story of finding little Essi running across the lake, disheveled and wet. Very few children played near the forests, and those who had were almost always never found. Essi was a novelty, a miracle; she’d avoided the child-snatcher and the changelings longing for a playmate. Whatever danger she had come up against, she escaped with scratches and bruises, and a memory that haunted her for the rest of her days. When Sofiya found Essi emerging quickly out of the forest, she rushed to her daughter and scooped the crying child into her arms, rocking her gently to and fro. Yelizaveta was only seven then.
“Has Baba Yaga found you?” Sofiya asked her child softly, in a reassuring voice that implied not to worry, child, for I’ll keep the hideous, child-eating hag away.
Wordlessly, Yelizaveta clung to her mother, unable to describe or comprehend the meaning of what she’d seen in the forest. Only that it went further than the laments of the undead and the sometimes mischievous, mostly harmless spirits of nature. It had gone further back, deep into wild Russia, where children were unsafe from the clutches of a witch in a chicken-legged house. It went further into the territory of the monstrous creatures, the likho and the rusalka that lured adventurers in with sweet temptations, only to be led into a haven of cobwebbed skeletons and disappearing footprints.
The woods weren’t safe.
No modern fairy tale would have prepared Yelizaveta for what she’d seen in the Krasny Bor clearing. All the happy endings that she’d read growing up had disillusioned her. Princesses and princes, knights and dragons, what were they all to a girl who had experienced the original fairy tales of her country? The darker, more menacing fairy tales. The ones that ended badly for the heroes who failed, and ended soporifically for the beautiful princesses who lost their heroes.
Yelizaveta despised fairy tales, because in her heart, she believed in them. She believed in the magic and the creatures. She believed in the potent herblore and the practice of healing and witchcraft. She believed in the magic of the woods.
And none of those stories had happy endings.