Deathless

There was a lot of blood on the floor.

“I’ll get that.”

Kikimora startled where she stood frozen over a dirty table with a handful of half-filled bottles.

“Oh. You’re back. He fine?”

“He thinks he’s immortal,” Yaga grunted. “Of course he’s not fine.”

Where a few hours ago there had been a party, there was a dark mahogany stain. The chairs have been moved aside, for the ease of clean up, and it helped her move around. The table was pushed from the centre of the room towards the small window, and in the middle of the checkerboard linoleum floor, the blood still pooled.

Yaga licked her lips.

“Did you touch it?”

“He going to be alright?”

“Mora,” Yaga called louder, “Did you touch the blood?”

“What?” Kikimora lowered her eyes to the surface of the table. “No…”

“He’ll be alright. Give me a hand?”

The kitchen was tiny. There were multiple cupboards strewn across the walls, collected from different sets of furniture from different years, if not decades. The sink was filled with dirty dishes left over from the dinner and the party, mugs, and cups popped up all over the counters, and multiple rugs were thrown over the chairs. The windowsill was mostly house plants, save for the shadow of a body frame in the middle. Next to it, another unfinished bottle.

On the floor right in front of it, a blood spill.

“Mora.”

“Sorry,” she turned around. “What did you want?”

“A bowl and a cloth,” Yaga found them by her chair the moment she asked for it. The next moment, she moved herself to the floor and touched her fingers to another shadow of a body. A shiver ran through hers, and on the third count, she breathed out and started to collect the blood.

Kikimora didn’t move a single voluntary inch in the time that elapsed since.

“Mora, dear,” Yaga asked, squeezing the cloth in the bowl and running blood-stained fingers through her hair. “Would you get the dishes?”

“Did I cause it?” Kikimora whispered in response.

“No, dear, now get the dishes.”

“But in my house…”

“Mora,” sterner, “dishes.”

Without looking up from the blood, the floor, and the bowl she had busied herself with, Yaga finally heard Kikimora move across the kitchen. When the water ran, its liveliness wasn’t reflected in anything else: the room was stagnant in time. The window in front of her was dusted but the light made it through, and Yaga could see all the small evidence of life in this apartment suspended in the air. It didn’t dare fall.

All the better, she thought. She needed it that way.

“Where is he?”

“In the hospital. Are you done?”

“When is he coming back?”

Yaga hesitated. “Are you done?”

The dust in the air shivered.

“Yes.” Kikimora went around the room to the window. She ran her fingers above it and turned around to meet Yaga’s eyes. “I can help you…”

“I’d much rather you didn’t,” Yaga replied immediately but before she could get the last word out, Mora was on her knees, hands hovering over the floor.

Yaga stilled, watching her watch the blood. Kikimora’s face didn’t betray any emotion; it was calm but she emanated strong energy, one Yaga was familiar with but couldn’t quite place. From around her knees, the fog started to spread over the stain, barely low enough to touch it. Opaque, it didn’t let the light through.

“Mora.”

The fog perked up at the voice.

“It wasn’t… It isn’t your fault.”

The fog bit into it. All of it.

Yaga narrowly avoided her legs being pulled along but the cupboards, and the floor, and the walls in a flowery paper, all of it slipped and gave way.

“My house,” it rustled.

“Just a place.”

“Not just a place…”

“Not to you,” Yaga agreed, “but to a wretched mind like his, just as good as any.” She paused. “I guess, we should be thankful it was better than any other. This,” she indicated the suspended dust with a flick of a wrist, “You are saving his life.”

The fog tensed, the dust in the air flinched.

“And this,” Yaga nodded at the bowl, drowned in the murk, “I am preserving your efforts.”

The air wobbled, moving around the place, and Yaga heard a distant laugh, whispers, and jokes, a stray scream, a gushing, a wild alarm from outside the window. 

“What is… death, really?” Koschei, lodged on the edge of the windowsill, swings the bottle in a wobbly arc, nearly missing the wall. “Like… What is it, you know?”

Babay, seated at the table right across the window, watches him with round eyes, a cup of amber liquid in his hands. “What exactly are you asking about?”

“Death. Didn’t you listen?”

“Death,” he nods. “What about it?”

“What the fuck is it?”

“Live long enough and find out!”

Koschei splutters, waving a hand in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!” He points the finger at Babay. “Wait and find out? And if I don’t wait, what then? And what if I… What if I, say… What if I don’t want to wait? What then?”

“I’m not sure what you want from me, to be fair…”

Under a collective shaking laugh, Koschei gasps and stumbles to his feet on the windowsill.

“Ok.” He rights himself, “Ok. Hear me out—”

Kikimora interjects, “That a dangerous position—”

“Hush! Hear me out,” he finally cracks the bottle on the wall, and the beer comes pouring down the wall to where the glass has fallen on the floor. There’s a loud screech as Kikimora gets to her feet.

“Get off the window—”

“Shut up—”

“Koschei!”

“Immortal until proven mortal, eh?”

There’s sharp glass in his hand. There's sharp glass to his hand. There's sharp glass through—

"Mora!"

Kikimora fell to all four, and the room fell quiet and clear.

“See,” Yaga prompted. “It couldn’t’ve been less of your fault, alright?”

Mora nodded.

“Now go find your family. By the time you are back, it’ll all be gone.” She waved around at the mess in the kitchen but finished the action by pointing at herself, too.

“He’s not welcome here anymore.”

Yaga smiled.

“I’ll pass it on.”

“Swiftest recovery.”

“Bye, Mora.”

She didn’t move, but the next moment the air around Yaga was empty and a door slapped a dozen halls away.