Page 85 of Tiger's Trek
The big man sighed and leaned on his cane. “Young woman.Tsarevna,” he said more sharply, trying to get her attention.
To Stacia’s shock, the world around her had blurred again. The deep heaviness was back. It was pulling her down, down, down to the dark place where she didn’t want to go. While she’d been floating above her fallen form, she hadn’t felt anything—not cold, not pain, not emotions. Now she could. The pain was flooding in, and if she couldn’t find a way to hold it back, to numb herself from the waves, she feared she’d drown.
She heard the man say, “Look at me. What do you see? Focus.”
Something about his voice helped her rise from the turmoil happening inside herself. She managed to see him the way her mother would, taking in all the details, from his clothing to the way his boots were polished. Stacia focused on his hat, taking the time to look at the jewels and the shape of the dome, the star in the middle, and the ice-blue color and how it matched his robe and belt.
She was able to figure out the value of his gloves, see they were made of the softest kid leather, and notice how his cane was taller than he was, that it was meticulously carved and that only one section was covered with ice. Next, Stacia studied his boots, his thick, heavy coat lined with white fur, and she saw how his thick white brows were neatly brushed, as was his mustache, which was as long as his hair and beard, which ended just below the belt.
Though she suspected who he was immediately, it gave her a great deal of satisfaction to catalog all the details, storing them away in her mind. It made her think of her father and her mother. She could almost hear their voices speaking to her as her thoughts worked through each piece of his clothing. That he didn’t mind her scrutiny helped.
“You’re Morozko,” Stacia said at last. “Father Frost.”
“That’s right, young lady,” he said, gifting her with a smile that softened the lines of his face. “And I have a question for you.”
“Go on, then,” Stacia replied, expecting the typical question that came in the next part of the fairy tale. He was right. She knew it well. A kind widower with a daughter had remarried, and the new wife hated the daughter, so she forced him to leave his girl out in the cold forest. With no other choice but to make his new wife happy, he did as she asked. When Father Frost came and saw the shivering girl, he asked if she was cold.
She replied, “No, I am warm enough.” That night he left her a beautiful coat. This happened again. Each night he left her with gifts, jewels, and he eventually drove her home in his own sledge. The jealous stepmother then put her own daughter out in the cold, hoping for the same treatment, but her daughter complained instead and insulted Father Frost, calling him an “old man” and basically treating him badly enough he froze her.
When Stacia first heard the story, she asked her father why the father didn’t put the stepmother outside instead. Her mother had laughed at that. Then Veru had asked why Father Frost liked a girl who lied and said she wasn’t cold when she was. Why was that a desirable quality? She thought they were supposed to tell the truth. Stacia agreed with her sister. Their father hemmed and hawed a bit, saying something about humility and other such rubbish, but both girls agreed that the father should have been frozen for casting out his daughter.
Now here Stacia was, years later, wondering what her answer was supposed to be. When Father Frost asked, “Are you cold, child?” she could say something truthful like, “Hell yes,” or “What the bloody hell do you think?” She could play the diplomat and answer, “Niggling, Father Frost. Worry yourself not a bit.” Then again, she could say, “You do have eyes, don’t you?” or simply answer, “Obviously.”
Stacia didn’t think she had it in her to say, “No, I am warm enough.” She might as well shout to the sky, “No! I don’t need a family. No! I don’t care if I ever see my sister again. No! The empire my parents built means nothing to me. No! I don’t ever want to see the real world again!”
As she hovered there, almost trembling with a deep-seated anger at the injustice of the world and at the uncertainty of her place in it, she waited for his question.
Finally, it came.
Father Frost asked, “Do you have anything for me to eat?”
Chapter22
DON’T OFFER ADVICE TO THOSE WITH MORE EXPERIENCE
Pasha opened a passageway through the nearest large tree, grabbed Nik’s arm, and yanked him through the portal. Nik found himself caught in a strange twilight dimension, where passageways and doorways of every kind surrounded them. If it weren’t for Pasha, he would have no idea where to go or how to move. He relied completely on his strange guide.
After checking a few doors, Pasha selected one, twisted the handle backward and forward a few times and then opened it outward, peeking first to make certain it was the place he wanted to go. When he was satisfied, he tugged Nik along with him, and the two of them popped out of the in-between place and back into a forest, albeit a very different woodland than the one they had just been in before.
“Coach’ll be here momentarily,” Pasha said. “Gotta get you cleaned up before it arrives with the ladies. Hold still a minute.” The man gathered some water from a nearby leaf, rubbed it between his hands, and began painting the air. Nik could feel his hair moving as if invisible brushes were working at it. Then his arms lifted on their own, and he suddenly had the sensation of his entire body being scrubbed by something that felt unmistakably leaflike.
“Hey!” Nik complained as the invisible force exfoliated his body, shuffling even his underneath clothes while his body still occupied them. “Cut that out!”
Then it abruptly ceased, and he was just about to relax, when a sharp, stinging sensation pulled at his cheeks. He realized his beard had been shaved away brusquely. “Ow!” he screamed, rubbing at his jawline in a futile attempt to protect it. “Stop it. I wanted to keep that! It was just starting to come in nice.”
“Ha!” Pasha laughed. “Better nothing than that abandoned bird’s nest you’re tryin’ ta pass off as a beard. Trust me. Keep shaving for a bit longer, and it’ll start coming in thicker.” The shaving finally stopped, but Pasha still wasn’t done. Before Nik could guess what was next, his clothing was whisked entirely off his body, shaken in the air above his head, twisted, turned inside out, penetrated with water particles, steamed, and then shoved back on and laced or tied back up.
Nik was panting, red-faced and very angry, when his ablutions were complete. He pointed a finger at Pasha’s nose as the man began working in a similar fashion to clean himself. “Never, ever do that again,” Nikolai warned.
“What can I say, kid? You needed a bath. You smelled like death.”
Blinking, Nik realized the man was probably right, but said, “Nevertheless. I never want to experience that... that personal torture again. Understand?”
“Sorry if I offended your sensibilities, Princess,” the man said, his back turned to Nik. “I didn’t have time for your usual rose petals.” He snickered, then his clothes whipped off just as Nik’s had a moment before. Completely unembarrassed, Pasha turned around and stood there as naked and proud as the day he was born, with his fists on his scrawny hips as if daring Nik to say something.
“Uh, can you hurry this up?” Nik asked.
“What?” Pasha said. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” He twirled a finger, directing his clothes to be cleaned above him in the air. “Why do you think I gave you your bath with your clothing on? Delicate. That’s what I call you. Now me, on the other hand, I’m all man. That’s right. Behold my glory. I expect others to stare. I know. I’m impressive. Even my mother said I’m huge for a man my size.”
