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A machete is the only sort of sword the average modern day man has accesses to, and it's made for chopping up vegetation, not people. Although it also over achieves when it comes to chopping up people. Brutal, ugly, a great big wide slab of steel available in various configurations, each uglier than the last. Very powerful, made for hacking and slashing, not dainty thrusting, for a certain kind of person it is infinitely preferable to delicate swords, and living so late in the lifespan of the world is not such a sad thing.
It is summer, off season at the infamous Durmstrang Institute, and therefore the best time of year. The children have gone home, the teachers have gone home, mostly, and there is no ice or snow, only the massive lake, the surrounding mountains, and all the mosquitoes one could desire. Tourists occasionally bumble up to a very specific area of the north side, near the border with Finland, stumbling upon the wreck of a Norman fort standing stark and proud on a hill, where they develop dissociative amnesia, and leave again, disappearing back into the wilderness from which they came. Often disappearing forever, lending the north side of the lake a haunted reputation, which over time has caused it to be universally avoided by muggles born in the country it inhabits.
Most people have gone home, taken a train to St Petersburg and beyond, but not all. No, up in the headmaster's office on the third floor of the gothic fantasy captured in red stone, the very Western castle which exists behind the Norse illusion, the headmaster, the youngest for many a century thanks to the combined might of Borgia cunning, nepotism, and a comforting name, stands at his window, staring out at the wide wilderness, his hands behind his back.
Lounging at his desk is a woman in crimson red, with hair of the same shade. Between her hands fly playing cards, which shuffle and reshuffle themselves each time she finishes enjoying a game of Solitaire. Solitaire, a great game to play when one's husband is busy doing boring paperwork.
"What are you thinking, my love? And is it thinking or scheming?" she asks.
The man at the window shifts his weight, and looks over his shoulder. "Both. The weather is too good to waste, and I need a break from scrawling my signature on acceptance letters. I'm going to chop things up with a machete."
Sending her cards flying into their box, Wanda uncrosses the legs propped up on the ornate black desk, and stands up, lifting herself from a chair like a throne made of ice and antlers. "Fabulous."
And by chop things up, Yuri means he's going to physically wield the tool, with his own muscles, and not have magic do it. It does not make sense to him why wizards complicate everything. Instead of using a slicing spell to dice up their carrots or whatever, they'll use magic on muggle implements to make them cut up their vegetables, only to turn around and look down their noses at the non-magical. He doesn't look down his patrician nose at muggles, because he doesn't consider them at all. He'll use their inventions no problem, if they serve him in some way.
"How pretty is this thing?" he asks, when he's divested himself of his cumbersome robes in favour of something like a muggle hillbilly slash possessed scarecrow outfit, with the avant garde choice of having one of the straps of his overalls remain unattached so that part of it flaps down rebelliously to reveal the black wife beater he's wearing underneath. Jason Voorhees: Male Model Edition. All he needs is a bag on his head and a pitchfork or pickaxe. Such is the way of purebloods when it comes to attempting to wear the clothing of their non-magical brethren. He's talking about the Latin machete he's holding, black, long, and aesthetically pleasing in its proportions, but his wife, leaning on the bedroom door jamb, grins and chooses to assume he means something else. It's tough being beautiful.
"Yup, very pretty," she says, looking everywhere but at the blade in his hand. "I have no idea where in the world you picked up a pair of dungarees, but I'm all for it."
🌻🌻🌻
Outside, the castle takes up a large chunk of the sky, although it's nowhere near as large as it's sisters in Britain and France. Super compacted Gothic design, like the Cathedral in Cologne, helps create a hyper imposing silhouette, helped along by its maroon stone, which appears black in low light. Its strange to see it stand empty, without the sound of tears and wild laughter and explosions ricocheting around its ultra thick walls. Somehow it feels even more like a living thing when empty. There is nothing to distract one from its ominous good looks.
Beneath its looming mass a couple walk, striding across bright green grass and over mossy rocks, towards docks on the shore of the lake, underneath which sleeps an ancient ship. Because they both enjoy it when the galleon rises from the depths, Yuri casts a spell that only he, as the headmaster, knows. A great bubbling afflicts the ever moving blue, multiple whirlpools forming on the surface, before first the crow's nest and then the other upper parts of the great ship emerge from the bottom of the lake, the keel heaving high before crashing back down with a boom, water raining and rushing from the masts and sides and decks. Once floating on the surface of the lake, the enormous ship, though of a later style to the castle, nonetheless compliments it - remnants of a hard, warrior, glorious past. If any muggles managed to pierce the protective wards around the castle grounds, they'd see nothing but a particularly beat up swan boat.
Wanda chuckles. "I wish any of the superhero organisations who are always attempting to recruit me, had a tall ship in their fleet. Maybe then I'd join them."
Her husband lights a cigarette using a flame flickering at the end of his wand. "I wish they would stop attempting to recruit you. The most annoying sort of muggles are military muggles. I struggle not to curse their uniforms to be pink and blooming."
"I wish you'd join the Avengers, my love. I really need to see something like that happen to Stark."
"From what I've seen, he'd just enjoy it. Also, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I am not in your or their league. Nor will I wear spandex."
A mischievous look twists Wanda's features, and her eyelids lower. "First, nonsense. Piet was an Avenger, and all he does is run fast. And they have a guy whose entire thing is being a muggle with a bow and arrows. Second, don't make me make something happen that means you'll be the next Stephen Strange."
"Woah, zaika. Too soon."
The duo move on, heading towards one of the many seemingly endless forests which cover Mother Russia the way fur coats and hats cover her children. The dark trees are ever on the march, their roots chewing up the earth, each generation another rank in the green army. The ground between them can be soggy, marshy, and back from the shore the undergrowth is thick, posing a danger in summer, when wild fires are a risk. The point of one man slashing away at it is just fun and exercise. Never know when one might have need of a practiced swing with a machete.
"Tourists and their trash cause most of the fires," says Yuri, as he hacks and slashes at choking bracken, decapitated fronds flying through the air, the insects sitting on them going for an unexpected ride. "It's terrible to watch the flames from the castle."
"Remind me never to invite Piet to stroll through the forest in summer…" muses Wanda, her mind filling with images of her brother and his superspeed, and all the unfortunate consequences that could result from that.
More fronds fly, Yuri glancing around frequently to make sure that his wife hasn't wandered into striking distance. "Yes, please don't. The school and the village are protected but its hateful to be surrounded by black and smouldering ruins for years on end."
"You can grow the trees back fast though, can't you?"
"Yes, but that means taking pupils out of War Magic and putting them to work in nature. That's not what the Institute is about."
For the nth time this trip, a devoted looks overcomes the Scarlet Witch's face. "You know, I love it when you get all institutional and teachery."
Marital hormones mean the couple quickly forget about tearing up the undergrowth with a serial killer's implement of choice, and instead go for a walk through the forest full of wolves and who knows what, hand in hand, Yuri switching his machete to his left hand, where it casts a long narrow shadow on the ground beneath it.
But distraction means they end up deeper within the forest than they intended, having wandered off the path when Wanda teased her man by running away from him, and wandering off the path is always inadvisable, always when weirdness occurs. Using his machete once again, the headmaster of Durmstrang, who comforts parents and children alike by possessing the same name and title as a recent predecessor, that is - Professor Karkaroff - chops a particularly thick mass of bushes down, letting himself and his beloved through into a clearing.
Straight into a situation unheard of in the annals of magical and muggle alike.
A…thing…stands in the clearing. Lurks. Alone. Or seemingly so. Thick as a redwood, its green and hairy trunk pulsates with the water being drawn out of the ground by monstrous roots, as well as the sap flowing around its veins. Hairy leaves flex, curl and uncurl in the sun, and petals the size of yellow canoes attached to a black face flop over, exhausted looking. It's late in the season, and that gargantuan face droops towards the ground, the head of the monster laden with thousands of seeds, each one black and pointed and shiny and the size of an SUV.
Witch and wizard stare, open mouthed, for a couple stunned seconds, before the machete falls from the latter's weakened grip, thumping softly onto a patch of bracken. With a creaking like the world is breaking apart, the terrible sunflower lifts its head and stands upright suddenly and hideously fast, the petals encircling its head jerking back to a sharp straightness.
There is no waiting to see what will happen next, the couple screaming and grabbing for each other, one of them teleporting them away from the beast of a flower, ignoring Durmstrang entirely and both Petersburg and Moscow in favour of travelling thousands of miles away to a wholly different giant lake.