[Witches' Horses] Vasilisa
Title: things you'd rather not see
'Verse/characters: Vasilisa; Vasilisa, her Doll
Prompt: zero_pixel_coun: "thin cold hands, skin-and-bone, clutching"
Word Count: 404
Notes: while they're in the terem, so between come into my parlour and pacem.
(the Dormouse threatened me with sticks unless I produced some of this story. *solemn!*)
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Vasilisa is having one of those days. First, the machine she's been using to cook with died a nasty, sparking death just before lunch, and then her second-smallest screwdriver disappeared. So she's hungry, and frustrated, and hits the wall-panel a little harder than she usually does when the hinges stick.
She doesn't scream when the hands come out of the wall panel, but only because she's too scared to take a deep enough breath. The hands are thin, long bony fingers clutching at her hair, her clothes, and it feels like they're trying to yank her into the wall, so she shoves blindly away, stumbles a few steps back and nearly bashes her head on the other side of the narrow hall.
The hands don't follow her, and she thinks a quick, devout thanks for that, too afraid to speak the prayer in this house, while she stares at the hands, waiting for them to move, to rise again and reach for her.
"Grandmother," a voice says, and her heart crawls further up her throat because for all the world it sounds like her own voice, "whose hands are these?"
"Hm?" the wall asks in reply, half absently, and Vasilisa has time to look down at her toolbelt and the doll. The doll, standing upright in her pouch and looking straight up at Vasilisa, has her whole hand pressed thumbside first against her painted lips, indicating Vasilisa stay silent.
So she does, and tries not to shiver as the gravity wobbles around her, growing heavier then quickly lighter as the voice in the wall snorts a rough dismissal. "Oh, him," it says, and Vasilisa is scared to realise she can hear that the terem's owner is no longer paying much attention, "he thought to bind my teeth together, but I bound his, instead. Is he in your way?"
"A little," the doll replies, still in Vasilisa's voice, and there's a tremor of fear, not nearly as much as Vasilisa would show herself in speaking right now, because she's still watching the hands, waiting for them to move like a wired-up puppet, but enough that she doesn't sound bored.
The owner of the terem notices boredom.
"Shove him aside, then, or go and see to something else."
"Yes, grandmother," the doll replies, and reaches up to catch Vasilisa's thumb, tug her gently towards the corridor's end, away from the dead? maybe? hopefully? man's arms.
'Verse/characters: Vasilisa; Vasilisa, her Doll
Prompt: zero_pixel_coun: "thin cold hands, skin-and-bone, clutching"
Word Count: 404
Notes: while they're in the terem, so between come into my parlour and pacem.
(the Dormouse threatened me with sticks unless I produced some of this story. *solemn!*)
---------
Vasilisa is having one of those days. First, the machine she's been using to cook with died a nasty, sparking death just before lunch, and then her second-smallest screwdriver disappeared. So she's hungry, and frustrated, and hits the wall-panel a little harder than she usually does when the hinges stick.
She doesn't scream when the hands come out of the wall panel, but only because she's too scared to take a deep enough breath. The hands are thin, long bony fingers clutching at her hair, her clothes, and it feels like they're trying to yank her into the wall, so she shoves blindly away, stumbles a few steps back and nearly bashes her head on the other side of the narrow hall.
The hands don't follow her, and she thinks a quick, devout thanks for that, too afraid to speak the prayer in this house, while she stares at the hands, waiting for them to move, to rise again and reach for her.
"Grandmother," a voice says, and her heart crawls further up her throat because for all the world it sounds like her own voice, "whose hands are these?"
"Hm?" the wall asks in reply, half absently, and Vasilisa has time to look down at her toolbelt and the doll. The doll, standing upright in her pouch and looking straight up at Vasilisa, has her whole hand pressed thumbside first against her painted lips, indicating Vasilisa stay silent.
So she does, and tries not to shiver as the gravity wobbles around her, growing heavier then quickly lighter as the voice in the wall snorts a rough dismissal. "Oh, him," it says, and Vasilisa is scared to realise she can hear that the terem's owner is no longer paying much attention, "he thought to bind my teeth together, but I bound his, instead. Is he in your way?"
"A little," the doll replies, still in Vasilisa's voice, and there's a tremor of fear, not nearly as much as Vasilisa would show herself in speaking right now, because she's still watching the hands, waiting for them to move like a wired-up puppet, but enough that she doesn't sound bored.
The owner of the terem notices boredom.
"Shove him aside, then, or go and see to something else."
"Yes, grandmother," the doll replies, and reaches up to catch Vasilisa's thumb, tug her gently towards the corridor's end, away from the dead? maybe? hopefully? man's arms.