YAGA | ✓

SIX

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YAGA WAS NOT ONE TO BE AFRAID. It was something that she'd always liked about herself when she'd been a child - when others had screamed in presence of spiders, she'd been the one to laugh, the one to get out of bed, fearless of the darkness that swallowed children like her whole, and blow out the candle as everyone else cowered under the covers.

Monsters weren't real, she would say, unimpressed by everyone's irrational fears, even her patience for Lilyana wearing thin despite how much she loved the girl. Crouched on the floor, Yaga peered under the beds at sleepovers, assuring the trembling girls that there was no monster lurking where the candlelight didn't then. Then, she'd always pause, widening her eyes and opening her mouth into an 'o'.

"Maybe -- no, it's just my eyes. I swear I saw something..." Yaga enjoyed murmuring, trying to hold back her glee as the terrified child would gasp. There was never anything - she just liked to toy with them, fiddling with their emotions like the stringed puppets they were.

Now, however, Yaga wasn't so sure as she sat on the bench, impenetrable black engulfing her. The fire was a little too close to the edge of the camp, a little too close to the starving mouth of the forest and the belly of the beast that waited inside.

Milena looked at her in adamant silence, gaze flickering between the tailor's girl and the fire. For a while, they simply sat, neither speaking or moving, until - at last - Yaga plucked up the willpower to converse, raising her heavy eyelids.

Just as she was about to open her mouth, Lena cast her a long, scrutinising look. "The fire's eaten up the wood," she said matter-of-factly, heaving a log and tossing it into the hazy flames. They both watched it between, settling an uneasy alliance for as long as the fire lived on.

Yaga wondered how long it would last, how long until Milena lashed out and killed her, there and then.

She bit her lip as the boy she now knew to be Nikolai settled on the dirt, his wolf-like grey eyes illuminated by the mixture of moonlight and firelight that shone through the clearing. He busied himself with skinning a rabbit, not meeting either of their eyes. The humour he had shown mere hours before was completely gone, replaced with aloofness. Yaga followed his gaze as it moved towards a figure that had emerged from the darkness -- soon becoming an old woman, with worn grey hair and weathered skin toughened by years of too much time outdoors.

Walking towards them, she raised her head, a heart-shaped face that might've once been beautiful catching the moonlight as she closed her dark eyes. When she spoke, it was smooth and lilting, a stark contrast from her gnarled appearance, as if the magic in her blood resulted in the musical tone of her voice.

With an exhale, the old woman ran a hand through Yaga's hair. "Nothing like the smell of woodsmoke. Heavens, doesn't it remind you of the mob, Yaga?"

Yaga's lip curled, stiffening with the feeling of the woman's long nails tugging at her scalp as she pulled her amber hair into a braid. That was what she guessed, at least, from the movements of her slender fingers. She had a delicate yet firm grip, reminding Yaga of her mother's tailoring.

"Where are you from?" Yaga found herself asking. She had never seen anyone from a different country before, and Salovo's schoolhouse didn't educate children past the age of twelve, when it was deemed necessary for them to start working. Geography back then had barely extended to Nova Kaznya, which, as their country's capital, was all they needed to know. She turned around as the woman finished, looking over her shoulder to study her face.

"Everywhere and nowhere. My name is Johana." Around them, the air suddenly grew searingly hot, and Yaga flinched at the sudden burst of warmth, so different from the icy wind that had been biting into her skin mere seconds before. The heat was blazing but it made Yaga yearn for more, making her envision a land of golden sand and rivers of milk and honey, of flashes of colourful silks and whispered lullabies.

A land that she would never see, for she knew that she was destined to rot in Salovo -- she'd always known.

Trying to clear her mind, Yaga bit her lip, but the image lingered in her head and she clung to it, longing to return to it and escape for a moment longer. At last, she forced words into her mouth, straightening her back to look Johana dead in the eye.

"What's your poison?" she asked, as lightly as if she were asking about the weather.

Johana laughed, a ring-covered hand gesturing all over the clearing. "This life." She sat down, stretching her legs out. One of them was made of wood, peeking out from under the hem of her long dress. "Scared the elder," she told Yaga as she caught her looking, "he slept with his sword -- I forgot." Quickly letting it drop to the ground, Johana's eyes became hollow as she stared into the fire.

"A few years ago, I was starving on the streets of Nova Kaznya. It was at a fundraiser held by one of the Grand Barons -- you may have heard of what happened."

Yaga had heard. It was a ploy, an event held by one of the elite members of society, a man who drank and gambled and did all sorts of unholy things; but who also supposedly held a great sympathy for the city's huge homeless population. He'd, according to what Dimitri had learnt from his father, brought in a few thousand of them into a ballroom, showering them with food and promises of a better life.

Then, he'd killed half of them and left the others wishing they were dead -- and Johana was one of them.

"They were screaming, so many of them. So I took the fire and...I-I...it was the only way I could save my life." Johana's brow's furrowed. "I didn't know," she murmured weakly, her voice thick with suppressed tears. "The voice of reason is a cruel one," she breathed at last, not meeting Yaga's eyes.

The fire died.

Yaga heard the flames weep for their fallen queen.

She swallowed.

Finally, Johana spoke.

"But you don't have to be like me, Yaga. Child of the gods. Daughter of milk and honey. One day, the Saints will bow for you."

The wind howled.

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