Work Text:
Beyond all roads, where the pines tree stood buried beneath snow.
The white that knows no end descended in endless veils, and the wind did whisper. The muted crunch of boots on brittle ice bore witness that something still lived in that place.
Shadowed only by his faithful hound, the hunter moved alone. Upon his back was slung an old rifle. The game he sought withdrew further each year, retreating into forbidden wilds where the ley lines disturbance still stirred, and the snow concealed what had been buried. Long since.
Then he saw another figure among the trees.
He was not lost. He was not merely wandering either. His coat, deep as twilight, trailed behind him. At his neck, a puple blueish scarf twisted and curled with some intent that did not belong to cloth. Ashen hair caught the faint light through the boughs. On one side of it, a mark glimmered faintly.
The same mark that once belonged to the envoys of the Heavenly.
The hunter halted, and the hound beside him lowered its head without a single growl.
And the stranger turned and faced him.
For a long moment, the two regarded one another across the falling snowflakes. Neither offered a greeting, nor was one required. The forest remained holding its breath.
At length, the stranger’s lips curled in a knowing smile, as though he had awaited this meeting since the first snowflake ever graced the earth.
“Thou walkest far from the radiance of men.” His voice was mild, yet it carried through the still air. “Most who venture this deep seek only to leave. Yet thou remainest. As though waiting for something the snow has not yet revealed?”
The hunter's gloved hand rested nigh the strap of his rifle, yet closed not upon it.
“I follow tracks,” he answered. His voice was rough, like wind through dead branches.
“Sometimes the tracks lead where no map dares to follow.”
His look lingered upon the glowing swirl on the stranger's hair.
“And sometimes,” he continued, quieter still, “the tracks belong to things that should not be found.”
The stranger’s smile deepened yet further. The mark upon his hair brightened for the span of a single heartbeat, then dulled once more, as if acknowledging it had been seen.
The living scarf stirred. It reached toward the hunter, then faltered and drew back before the gesture was finished.
Thus did the hunter and the divine stand face to face for the first time, whilst yearning to behold who would turn away, and who would remain.
Neither did turn away.
“Strange paths indeed are the only ones left that still hold truth,” he spoke quietly. “The roads of mankind have long since been paved over with comforting but lies.”
He cast his gaze downward at the device held loosely in his hands, that strange instrument which yet throbbed with retained Kresnik energy, and seemed then to dismiss it, tucking it away within his coat as though it mattered no longer.
“I am called Mitya,” he said at last, “Although names, in the end, are only the softest of chains.”
The hunter inclined his head but once.
"Alyosha. I am nobody but a hunter."
No further titles were spoken, only the name, given freely beneath the watching trees.
Mitya’s gaze lingered upon him, thoughtful on his own, nigh unto searching. The living scarf uncurled a fraction, reaching toward the space betwixt them ere it withdrew once more.
“And what brings thee so deep into these snowlands?” Mitya asked, yet curious. “Few souls venture this far without some hunger sharper than cold.”
Alyosha was quiet for a moment. Snow settled upon his shoulders like a cloak. Then he answered.
“My people in Sretomorozsk suffer the long winters with empty larders and thinner stock of Kresnik kristall each year. I shall follow the tracks others will not, so that they might have enough to endure another season.”
He paused, then added more softly, almost to himself,
“I have always wanted to help them. Even if the forest takes more from me than it gives.”
The living scarf stirred, curling closer to Mitya’s throat as though listening.
“Ah, a kind soul,” Mitya murmured, and there was something almost fond in his tone. “Rarer than gold in places such as this. To risk the everwinter for the sake of those who might never know thy name… that is no small thing, dear hunter.”
He tilted his head. Strands of his ashen hair shifted.
“Then walk with me a little farther, Lord Alyosha,” Mitya said quietly. “The snow is deep, and the noon grows long."
He turned without waiting for an answer and began to move deeper into the lacy blanket beneath them.
For the span of a single breath, the hunter was still. Then did he followed.
They walked side by side. Snow settled on their shoulders and on the scarf that never stopped moving about Mitya’s neck.
Also, Tugarin, the Hunter's hound, trotted ahead, glancing back yet never straying far. Only the rhythm of boots and Mitya’s unending voice disturbed the hush. For once the forest had met a presence it could not quiet.
Mitya talked without pause, as if silence itself had been defeated long ago.
Alyosha hearkened in silence, his gaze steadfast upon the path. However, at intervals his eyes did flicker to the faint brightness within the swirl of that ashen hair, and to the living scarf that curled whenever Mitya’s words grew most fervent.
At last, when a natural pause did arise between them, Alyosha spake.
“Thou art not of these woods,” he said, "Nor of any village I have known. Who art thou, truly?"
“And what errand brings one such as thee so deep into the woods?”
Mitya did not slow his steps, but only tilted his head a little, as though the question amused him more than it troubled.
“Haha,” he uttered almost lightly. “The question arrives at last.”
He was silent for the space of several heartbeats. Then he continued, still walking, speaking as though discoursing upon nought more remarkable than the weather.
“I was once made to love all things equally. That was the first law given to those of my kind—the messengers who once walked between the Heavenly and the earth of Teyvat. We were to guide. To offer light. To look upon every soul with the same care.”
The living scarf tightened for a moment about his throat, then loosened once more.
“I failed that law long ago,” Mitya said, and there was no drama in the confession, merely a quiet honesty. “Or perhaps I simply grew tired of it. Equality is a cold virtue when one has already begun to notice the particular shape of a single pair of eyes.”
He cast a sidelong glance at Alyosha, ashen hair shifting, the ancient mark glowing a fraction brighter.
“I am what remains of those messengers. An angel, if the old word still holds meaning. Or the reflection of one. I no longer remember which is more accurate. The distinction has grown… unimportant.”
He gestured vaguely toward the deep forest, toward the device half-hidden in his coat, toward the snow that continued its endless fall.
“I come to places such as this because farther from the watchful eyes of those who still serve the new order under Her Majesty the Tsaritsa."
"I measure what should not be measured. I seek to listen what the Heavenly Principles would prefer remain silent…” His voice eased.
He fell silent for a moment, then added, almost as an afterthought:
“Does that answer satisfy thee, dear hunter? Or shall I continue until the snow covers us both?”
Alyosha spake not at once. His boots kept their unwavering rhythm beside Mitya’s. The hound ahead paused, looking back once more, as though even it awaited the hunter’s reply.
When Alyosha finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before.
“It is answer enough.”
And so they continued walking, deeper into the white silence. Once the living scarf curled itself gently toward the hunter’s wrist, almost but not quite touching, before it withdrew again into the folds of its master’s coat.
They walked together for a span of time that neither measured.
After a time, the path before them began to diverge.
One track continued deeper into the forest’s dense heart, where the trees rose darker, and the snow lay undisturbed. The other curved gently toward lower ground, toward the distant suggestion of human trails and the faint possibility of returning to known places.
Mitya slowed, then came to a halt. He turned to face the hunter fully. The living scarf settled against his coat. Then he smiled a genuine smile, touched by something that was neither sorrow nor hope.
“It seems our paths must part here,” he said, voice gentler than it had been. “I go back farther among the living. Thou, I think, still hast business in the deep forest."
He tilted his head once more.
“It was… unexpectedly pleasant, meeting thee within this forgotten place. Most who walk these depths carry only fear or purpose. Thou carried neither so loudly.”
He turned to face Alyosha fully. The living scarf had grown taut about his neck.
“But at last the weather might turn,” he said, quieter than it had been all afternoon. “A blizzard gathers beyond the next ridge. I can feel the pressure shifting in the ley lines. This place will not remain kind for much longer.”
He cast his gaze upon the deeper path Alyosha had been following, then back upon the hunter.
“Thou intendest to continue,” he said. It was not quite a question. “Deeper still. Alone.”
Alyosha fixed his gaze on him and gave a single, certain nod.
Something close to worry crossed Mitya’s face.
“Rethink this, dear hunter,” he said softly. “The everwinter does not forgive. Even one who knows the tracks of beasts may still be swallowed when the blizzard arrives in full. There is no shame in turning toward safer ground while the choice remains.”
Alyosha’s gloved hand rested lightly on the strap of his rifle. When he spoke, his tone was immovable.
“I have come this far for a reason. The tracks I follow wait not for fair weather. I shall continue.”
For a long moment, Mitya looked upon him after a brief silence.
The ancient mark upon Mitya’s hair glowed somewhat brighter, then faded again, as though something at his core contended against the parting.
At last he exhaled, a quiet sound nigh lost to the swelling wind.
“…Very well,” he uttered. “I see I will not turn thee.”
He broke into a resigned smile, touched with that same strange fondness as before.
The scarf stirred once, almost as a farewell to the hunter.
“I hope the path thou choosest now leads thee safely to whatever end thou seekest,” Mitya continued, still smiling. “And should the snows ever bring our tracks once more together… I would not mind hearing how some of thy stories…”
He took a step backwards, then yet another.
“Until that day, then.”
With that, Mitya turned and walked on, his coat trailing behind him like unto a shadow that had not yet chosen whether to remain or to fade. The living scarf lifted once in the air, waving, before it settled again.
Only then did Alyosha set the rifle back on his shoulder, murmur a low word to Tugarin, and look down at Mitya’s tracks, already blurring beneath fresh snow. Then he lifted his eyes to the place where the stranger had vanished.
An angel, he had said. A remnant of those who once walked between heaven and earth. A being who had failed the first law of his kind by learning how to prefer one soul over all others.
Alyosha exhaled slowly, his breath curling white in the cold air.
Was it truth, or but the wild poetry spun by a soul long exiled amidst forsaken places, weaving fable and memory into one?
He knew it not.
Yet as he turned at last toward the furthest path, the question did trail him like the endless cold.
Darkness came first, followed by a dull, distant pain. When Alyosha opened his eyes, there was nothing but white.
Snow drove across his face in furious sheets, carried sideways by a wind that seemed determined to tear through everything in its path. It found its way into his mouth and caught in his lashes, gathered cold against the hollow of his throat. He could barely see beyond the storm.
All that was left of the world was an endless roar of cold.
He lay upon his back, or what was left of it. The snow had already started to claim him — heavy across his chest and legs, pinning him as surely as any chain. Each breath scraped. Every small movement cost more than he could afford.
Just beyond his fingers, to the right, his beloved rifle lay half-buried. Dark wood and metal were already disappearing beneath the new drifts. He strove to reach it, but his arm refused to move.
His faithful hound companion, Tugarin, was long gone.
His bark had vanished as if it had never been. Only the blizzard’s unending scream filled the air, and the snow came down with slow, ritual weight, covering him the way the dead are covered. Alyosha stared upward into the pale nothing.
A strange calm began to move through him.
So this was the end, then.
It was not the deep forest he had chosen to follow, nor the tracks he refused to forsake. It was only this: lying broken beneath a storm that cared nought for hunters or their reasons.
He thought, distantly, of ashen hair and a living scarf and a voice that had spoken of angels as though naming the weather itself.
He wondered, whether the stranger would ever learn what became of the hunter who would not turn back.
The snow continued to fall heavily. There was nothing he could do.
Alyosha exhaled one last slow breath and let his eyes remain open to the white, waiting for the cold to finish what it had begun.
Sound became distant, as though the blizzard itself were receding into some far and unimportant place. Cold still held him, yet it bit no longer. A strange warmth had begun to bloom against his face.
A silhouette leaned over him.
Hair as white as the snowstorm itself fell forward, framing a face that seemed known even through the haze. Bright purple eyes looked down at him, too gentle against the endless snow. They held no panic. Only something near-tender, and warmth.
Two palms settled upon Alyosha’s cheeks.
Warm. Impossibly warm. The heat of them seeped into his skin, into the places where the cold had already begun to claim him. The stranger’s thumbs brushed once, softly, as though wiping away snow that no longer mattered.
A gentle smile curved the stranger’s mouth.
The hands that held his face began to lift him, raising him from the heavy cradle of snow with effortless strength. The wind still howled. The blizzard still raged. Yet none of it seemed to reach the space between them.
Alyosha’s vision swam.
He could no longer tell whether the warmth spreading through him was salvation, or something far less merciful.
The purple eyes remained fixed on his. For a fleeting moment he thought he saw something move behind them—something wholly kind.
“I told thee the everwinter does not forgive,” the soft voice murmured, almost fondly. “But I, it seems, am not so strict to come back."
Snow still clung to Alyosha’s lashes. The wind had not fully released him, yet something warmer than the storm now held him in place. A presence leaned close.
“I am pleased for the bravery, however.”
Alyosha felt himself drawn fully from the snow. The cold loosened its grip. Whether into safety, or into something that only wore the semblance of it, he could no longer say.
And the last thing he knew was the warmth of those palms against his skin, and the certainty that whatever had found him in the storm… had no intention of letting him go.
A thumb brushed once, slowly, along the edge of his jaw.
“So… it was thee, my promised eternal consort.”