❝ Anitchka, Anitchka, will you not invite me in? ❞
In which a girl is indebted to a wintry demon for saving her life, and the gold from her fingertips is a magic whose price she must repay tenfold. Unless she guesses his name first.
| loosely based...
"Then I want an honest answer, Count," she says dubiously. "What brings you to my doorstep?"
She steps behind, holding her breath, awaiting the faint sigh that escapes him outside. "I am here to collect what was indebted to me twenty years ago."
Her voice is small in comparison, disappearing where his commands. "And pray, what would that be, Count?"
Anitchka pushes her hair away from her face, ear lined against the door. The question hangs unanswered before he swallows the syllables whole.
"You."
It is then that she swings the door open, allowing the wind to bite her skin, the ice to whisper on her shoulders whilst he is unblinking, lashes wet with frost. Mist escapes her lips, breathing heavy. He reads her expression, pulls the cap from his head and tucks it under his arm in an act of chivalry. Medals shine across his chest, proud and gleaming, but they are not his own. They belong to the skin he wears, the face he claims tonight. "I hope to have you accompany me to the realm beyond."
"Then you are mistaken, Count, you cannot deal when there is no debt. And I haven't bargained with you."
She sees him now - the face of her peril, from the planes of his face to the faint scars peppered along his neck, his dark curls smooth and tame behind his ears. It is a face he wears so easily, it frightens her, this deceit.
But it is those cold eyes caught in the embrace of hers that sweep a chill in Anitchka. Much like the endlessly long winters that devour little women whole.
A smile cuts through his lips, a pearl studded mouth full of lies. "Your mother did. The demon saved your life on a night much like this and in exchange, you were promised. I waited for countless winters to seek you, Anitchka."
The space between them is vacant, demanding closure in light of the indifferent nightfall. Then he is stepping away, an arm extended in permission, donning the calm features of a charismatic man with finesse. "If you may. I will never persuade you for something you are not willing to give."
Lies. She laughs mirthlessly, the sound hollow to her ears. "Besides my freedom, I suppose."
"Anitchka," he pleads, and whether it is a lie, she cannot tell, "It was a deal and all magic has a price."
His words stir the snow around him and it churns, pushing, pulling, flowing in waves under his feet, seeming to close around her ankles and drag her into its punishing void. He makes no move to enter her doors, and she wonders if it is more because he can't rather than anything.
"Come with me," he repeats, voice a little above a whisper, a little below a plea, the persuasion as promising and daunting as eternal sleep.
"No." She pulls away from the beckoning of his lure, and shakes her head. "You're the demon who has stitched the souls of people away in your kingdom."
If there is anything even a girl tucked into the corner of the hamlet would know, it is this. The Reaper is cruel and cold and vicious. He takes and takes and takes until there is nothing to give.
The Count, if he was one at all, or perhaps the calculating, scheming demon of her darkest, deepest dreams, fixates his gaze on her. It reminds her of the moment when he had caught her eye from the windows, unwilling to look at anywhere but her. Then he is reaching for her hair, for that wretched ribbon fastened around the strands, hand falling when he realises that she has not let him in, not yet. "You really did it," the demon utters in awe, fascinated with the ringlets gleaming like a sun he had never seen before. "Anitchka, you spun it to gold."
"I-," she begins, unable to explain any of it. "Please, leave."
His smile reaches his eyes, wide and sharp with indescribable scheming, and that is when she knows that trouble has wound itself into her. "You are magic."
Without a word, she shuts the doors and turns away, back pressed against the roughened cherry-wood. His voice knocks on them again and again, "Anitchka, you must know that a deal made must be repaid. Yesterday you have spurned me, tonight you spurn me once more, but the night of the longest winter will reap what was sown."
She knows that, she has heard the rumours and the whispers and the warnings.
The snow makes it hard to hear, but his words swallow the cold, washing it down like wine. "I have come to collect, and collect I will. Whether it is tonight or tomorrow."
An eerie silence blankets her, settling on her shoulders as she proceeds to drop to the floor.
Winter is prolonged when death fills her cheeks, kisses her brows, steals her breath.
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a/n: this is part 1 of the quarantine series where i'll try updating as much as i can even though i'm supposed to be studying for finals. tried hard to vibe winterfell and anna karenina with this but i don't think it shows.
