[Witches' Horses] Winter
Title: shhh.
'Verse/characters: Morozko; [nameless]
Prompt: 33A "bitter pill"
Word Count: 278
Notes: prompted by a poll response.
She's clenching her jaw by the time the sledge drifts to a gentle halt, refusing to let her teeth chatter. It's cold. So cold. But she chose this, and she won't give the satisfaction to her stepmother's voice in her head.
She sits, with her back against the wall of the sledge, feeling the cold seep in past her furs, and waits. She thinks she will sleep, before the end, and will not feel it. She's listened to her great-grandfather's stories, about the cold's tricks.
She jerks, when something hits the sledge, afraid that it's her father back again, too soon, or worse one of the young men, come to steal her away and take the choice from her. She's not sure she wouldn't say yes, now, and that leave a bitter taste on her tongue. She is so cold.
But it's not her father's voice, or one of the men she knows, who sing-songs "Are you cold?" through the wall of the sledge.
She has to unclench her teeth to answer, but she's obscurely pleased by the calmness of her tone. "No."
"Are you sure? People say it's very cold, out in the black alone."
"I am warm," she replies, and flinches, slowly, as something tears at the side of the sledge.
There's light, behind the figure who enters, making him nothing but a black shape in furs, and the light fades too fast, his door closing behind him, for her to get a look at his face before they're both in the deep twilight of the sledge.
"Are you cold?" he asks again, edging closer, and she wonders if he is a hallucination, some personification of death she's pulled from stories she doesn't remember anymore.
"No," she says again.
'Verse/characters: Morozko; [nameless]
Prompt: 33A "bitter pill"
Word Count: 278
Notes: prompted by a poll response.
She's clenching her jaw by the time the sledge drifts to a gentle halt, refusing to let her teeth chatter. It's cold. So cold. But she chose this, and she won't give the satisfaction to her stepmother's voice in her head.
She sits, with her back against the wall of the sledge, feeling the cold seep in past her furs, and waits. She thinks she will sleep, before the end, and will not feel it. She's listened to her great-grandfather's stories, about the cold's tricks.
She jerks, when something hits the sledge, afraid that it's her father back again, too soon, or worse one of the young men, come to steal her away and take the choice from her. She's not sure she wouldn't say yes, now, and that leave a bitter taste on her tongue. She is so cold.
But it's not her father's voice, or one of the men she knows, who sing-songs "Are you cold?" through the wall of the sledge.
She has to unclench her teeth to answer, but she's obscurely pleased by the calmness of her tone. "No."
"Are you sure? People say it's very cold, out in the black alone."
"I am warm," she replies, and flinches, slowly, as something tears at the side of the sledge.
There's light, behind the figure who enters, making him nothing but a black shape in furs, and the light fades too fast, his door closing behind him, for her to get a look at his face before they're both in the deep twilight of the sledge.
"Are you cold?" he asks again, edging closer, and she wonders if he is a hallucination, some personification of death she's pulled from stories she doesn't remember anymore.
"No," she says again.