Work Text:
In Sneznaya there is many a cozy storefront and quaint cafe, as is expected of any large gatherings of civilisation.
Fey and humans bustling by in the frozen streets, many a man barely catching themselves barely from slipping on the unsalted pavement, tourists lamenting their forgotten cloaks, children laughing as they built snowmen, all seen from the window of one particular quiet establishment.
Today behind that window are two people. One tall and one small, both sporting a very similar burst of bright wavy blue hair.
The girl pokes at the dish in front of her with her pinky. Where only minutes ago she was enthoused to sink her teeth into the bar of candied fruit and local nuts, now she only stares at her plate, all appetite seeming to have left her.
The man opposite her frowns, imperceptible to the girl because of the many layers of dark feathers dressing his face and shoulders and above all the hard leather mask obscuring every contour of his face. Behind the blood red tinted glass hiding his blood red tinted eyes he watches her every move with the utmost care of a scientist.
"Something wrong with your food?" he remarks, causing the girl to squirm.
Her flinching interests the man, looking for meaning in decisions, value in her life, something to make this excursion worth his while. He hasn't found it yet, and he will not find it, not today. But he has, at the very least, found something that'll hold still his unceasing mind, if only for a moment.
Meanwhile the girl has to handle the strain of looking for a memory she cannot quite grasp, flaying open her soul as it keeps slipping away. She remembers the taste, the smell, the sound, the heat, but never quite the shape of what is in her head.
"It reminds me of home," she eventually concludes.
"Does it now?" the man croons, "would you say that causes you to remember anything?"
There is a Sumerian dish much like this one. Hardened syrup and crispy nuts, although to someone who has grown up with the Sneznayan version of the dish it will forever hold is mildly uncanny feeling to it. And vice versa, naturally.
The man has been informed of the girl's faulty memory, although he is not yet sure whether to believe her words.
The girl doesn't remember much indeed, she remembers being alone, so very alone, she remembers falling, and stronger than anything else she remembers anger.
The girl shrinks into herself, folding her arms around the knees she has pulled up to her chest, her small wings furling around her light frame, "They didn't want me I think," she admits.
Then, glancing away she continues, "I can't remember but.. I think I deserved it."
She squeezes her eyes shut, looking as if she's about to cry.
Even at sixty five years old some ancient understanding blooms within the man. A sore spot, a wound that never quite healed over.
Twenty, maybe thirty years ago such a feeling would not spark within him the fondness it does now.
Of course, outside of the place he once called 'home' people are foolish all the same.
The man scoffs, "Nonsense," he says, giving her a somewhat light wack on the head, startling the small girl out of her stupor, leaving her to stare at him with wide eyes, like she's expecting more. An elaboration perhaps.
"From my experience, people rarely know what to do when they find something extraordinary," he explains to her, off handedly, as close to patience as he can get.
"Now, let's simply order you medovik instead."