[Witches' Horses] Winter
Title: riches
'Verse/characters: Morozko; [nameless]
Prompt: 18B "dark"
Word Count: 311
Notes: when poked with a stick, coastal_physics gave me 'brittle, broken metal' as a spark. follows questions, answers.
She wakes with a start, realising that she'd fallen asleep while they were talking, and is about to apologise when she realises she is alone in a dark sledge, and that what woke her was her father's voice.
'Oh, no,' she thinks, rises to her knees, scoots her way to the other side of the sledge, across something that jingles and complains at her weight, presses her hands to the wall and calls to her father, tells him no, not yet.
There is a muffled exclamation from the other side of the wall, and then metal breaks with a brittle *snap*, shows her her father's face, and the hammer in his hands.
There is a puff of chilly, damp air as the sledge and its surroundings equalize, and she blinks to realise that she feels it, then her father is dragging her out of the remains of the sledge's hatch, into his arms, muttering her name over and over, and he is crying but the tears remain on his face instead of turning instantly to salty skin.
She reaches up, brushes her glove against his cheek, wondering if she is dead, and this some strange remaining dream of the life she'd left behind, when her stepmother--and please all gods let her not have to spend the time waiting for her next body with her stepmother, surely she's paid that due--asks her in a strange, high voice how she came by these riches.
"Morozko," she replies, unthinking, and then blinks, looks down at herself, dressed in the stranger's coat above her own, turns to see her sledge coated in a thick layer of sublimating ice, peers inside the darkness and sees a scattering of tools and metal pieces strewn like snow.
Presses a gloved hand to her own face, whispers, just to herself, like it is a kiss, "Morozko did this."
'Verse/characters: Morozko; [nameless]
Prompt: 18B "dark"
Word Count: 311
Notes: when poked with a stick, coastal_physics gave me 'brittle, broken metal' as a spark. follows questions, answers.
She wakes with a start, realising that she'd fallen asleep while they were talking, and is about to apologise when she realises she is alone in a dark sledge, and that what woke her was her father's voice.
'Oh, no,' she thinks, rises to her knees, scoots her way to the other side of the sledge, across something that jingles and complains at her weight, presses her hands to the wall and calls to her father, tells him no, not yet.
There is a muffled exclamation from the other side of the wall, and then metal breaks with a brittle *snap*, shows her her father's face, and the hammer in his hands.
There is a puff of chilly, damp air as the sledge and its surroundings equalize, and she blinks to realise that she feels it, then her father is dragging her out of the remains of the sledge's hatch, into his arms, muttering her name over and over, and he is crying but the tears remain on his face instead of turning instantly to salty skin.
She reaches up, brushes her glove against his cheek, wondering if she is dead, and this some strange remaining dream of the life she'd left behind, when her stepmother--and please all gods let her not have to spend the time waiting for her next body with her stepmother, surely she's paid that due--asks her in a strange, high voice how she came by these riches.
"Morozko," she replies, unthinking, and then blinks, looks down at herself, dressed in the stranger's coat above her own, turns to see her sledge coated in a thick layer of sublimating ice, peers inside the darkness and sees a scattering of tools and metal pieces strewn like snow.
Presses a gloved hand to her own face, whispers, just to herself, like it is a kiss, "Morozko did this."