˚₊‧ ( 𝓚 ) 𝒀𝑶𝑼, 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑮𝑨𝑹𝑫𝑬𝑵 & 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑮𝑹𝑨𝑽𝑬 a private & highly selective rp blog for koschei the deathless from slavic folklore. portrayal is not canon-specific, but set within its own fabled universe drawing influences from slavic cosmologies, turkic mythos, and fairytales as collected by andrew lang and alexander afanasyev. | crowned by caliope ( 30 , she / her, pst ) est. 2020
studying . . . the slave who flew too close to the sun & the dragon who swallowed it, the devil in the garden, opening forbidden doors, the ugly truth behind the fairytale, escaping death but never the hunger, the demonization of magic & paganism, and the endless cycles of love and war | also found at @lebedevya
𝒐𝒏𝒆. you know the drill by now, no meanies, no god-modding, tag your spicy images etc. i'm limiting this blog to a handful of mutuals and long time friends until i get back to an active pace. will be very slow to reply to threads and dms until then, but please don't take the delay as a lack of interest ! i'm working with very short bursts of free time and poor time management skills here :') as a general rule, you can expect me to be most active on early week days.
𝒕𝒘𝒐. muses from the historical fiction space are super welcome, but as a personal preference i will not interact with muses based on real life historical figures. generally, i'd also prefer to plot crossovers or aus that allow for koschei's fantasy universe to be recognized. it's where i'd feel most comfortable exploring his themes, so really appreciate working with me on this ♡
𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆. mature content will be present, so i will not be interacting with anyone under the age of 21. there are lots of themes of war, violence, and romance here, but i will be sure to tag anything particularly triggering or suggestive as ___ tw. if i miss one of your triggers pls lmk. for me, no need to tag anything except your us.fw/ns.f.w
rejection was normal. rejection was real. an ordinary staple in every day life. yet james felt the shame of it heat his throat anyway, his nape, his temples, a light pink flush creeping across porcelain skin. so spoiled was romeo on the acceptance of others that he did not expect koschei's distaste. not really, anyway. somewhere in his mind he'd entertained possible doubt, a hint of weariness or mistrust he could smooth with a blink and a well-meaning smile. but never this. james's hand remained extended for just a few beats longer, brows knitting like his body hadn't caught up to the reality of the scene just yet. by the time koschei trailed off, though, he lowered it, rubbed it on his coat front, smoothing fabric, brushing away failure and letting his palms sink comfort in the pockets of his trench.
then he tried to speak again, dimmer this time though no less stubborn. his mouth tauter, his shoulders stiffer. defiance glimmered there in his grey eyes, a hint of the real personality that lurked beneath a veneer of manners and private schoolboy charm. (he both hated and liked koschei's perceived immunity, it was a jolt to his carefully crafted expectations.)
❛ you— ❜ a subtle inhale. (easy now, james. you are going off script, but control is still well within your grasp.) ❛ you misunderstand. i'm not in charge of anything, and we're not at war, good lord. we're academics... most of us, anyway. ❜ a fact he'd come to forget in the bloody years that followed. ❛ forget the others. i speak for only myself when i say i don't want to be lumped with him. richard's a dickhead, an anomaly in our department, and you're already looking at me like i'm bad, too. is it any wonder i felt the need to plead my case? ❜ he was a fool to expect an answer to a rhetorical. ❛ ... i'm not fucking off. ❜
koschei hadn't bothered to wait on a reaction to get on with his trek to the studio— until the small note of james' enragement reers its ugly head, cuing him to stop. spin back on the sharp pivot of a heel. ❛❛ 'you', what ? ❜❜ he eggs, teeth bared and eyes narrowed; half-amused and far more curious to see how mr. congeniality's wish for world peace might finally come to a crumble in front of him. ❛❛ academics— ❜❜ he couldn't help laugh at that, ending the bout with a piteous humph while james continues to drawl on. the boy really is a lost little pup, isn't he? broadwater, illinois was a far cry from yale or princeton or wherever else his oh-so-supportive and oh-so-securely-invested parents must have graduated from, to let their son go on believing this was anything akin to the academic's path.
here were creatives. madmen. alchemists, even. and their struggle to turn a dream into gold ( or a truly immortal legacy ) was about as terrible and raw and cut-throat as any other war. most dreams were guaranteed not to survive it. it's why the conservatory culls the weak and mediocre far before they even reach their senior years. so why bother to make friends? or fear to make an unsolicited enemy or two when it was the stinging but most tangible proof of genius?
koschei remembers sitting through the flickers of james' own, when lebedeva had dragged him to see hamlet in support of a friend; even as a five-minute fool, preening for royal favor, there wasn't a single seat in that audience that hadn't been endeared to him. he'd loathe to admit himself briefly included. even now, immeasurably annoyed as he'd been, it was still a deliberate effort not to fall prey to james' well-spun charms.
❛❛ well. if it's all the same, i would much rather just not look at you at all. ❜❜ it was about as close to a compromise as they'd get, it seemed. ❛❛ either of you. you're both dickheads. ❜❜ now, might tybalt actually make it to his rehearsal? apparently not. hardly making it two steps before he turns to a dragging backpedal, tongue swelling for just one last bite at that grating savior's complex. ❛❛ — him for being inhumanly insufferable, and you for being a performative bore ! ❜❜
⊹ , there is no room for misgivings, no soft place to land, or net to break her fall. ambition had made her reckless enough already. if she had been anyone else there would have been no way to claw herself out from the bottom. a torn acl stealing not only her pride but years for blood, sweat, and tears. it was a grief she nearly hadn't been able to recover from, mourning a success that never quite met its fruition. this was why she could barely stand the sight of him, the ballerino's presence alone plucking at her past. while the stage dressing was no comparison, the ambition matched only by the elegance of dance was enough to remind her of her days upon the ice. all the reckless ease he moved with, gliding through the world with the firm belief of invulnerability.
how she would bite, tear, and scratch at the sky to even taste that divine intention once more ( a surety in one's purpose ) she would have to settle for whatever semblance of it she could steal from claiming his body for her own. a mutual exploitation although what he receives from her is the promise of denial rather than any meaning in her bones. perhaps, a problem to be solved or another woman to be ruined but he is far too late to receive such an honor with the musician. he can only map out the remnants of the wreckage with his too-eager hands. the raised skin of scar tissue he grazes as his hands move up from her calves to her thighs. underneath her he is all lean muscle and demanding compulsion. he could have here yet he is choosing to yield to her whims.
❛ or desperation more like… ❜ which smells like sweat, the muggy arrival of arousal. bent over his reclining form, the thin strap of her dress tumbles down her shoulder. while she may speak in harsh indifference her chest begins to heave and the peaks of her breasts are no mere outline against the thin satin of her dress. fingers becoming curious, finding the buttons down his shirt and tugging them free one by one. golden skin and golden hair there should be no coldness to him but his eyes are shards of ice that betray his true nature. they reveal the cruel creature beneath the very man who disrobed and became more himself under the spotlight each evening. ❛ don't be so easy for me, kostya. aren't you supposed to be playing the villain this season — just like every season before. ❜ a pursuit that was far too willing, the wanton path of his hands, nails scrap along his ribs as she frees him from the trappings of the forced formality of this whole affair. ❛ yet the altruism practically seeps out of you, can't say the same for myself. ❜ guiding their hips together into a blissful collision, the damp seeping through lace which he didn't get the satisfaction of feeling directly just yet.
❛ convince me you'll make it worth my while. from where i'm sitting it doesn't seem like you'll last very long. ❜ between the two of them reaching for release was just as cerebral as it was physical. if the countless midnight phone calls were a testament to anything it was the way they could compel one another by voice alone. still, he is too greedy for his own good, his chin inclining begging for a sweetness she could part with. even in the throes of her indecency she had her glacial pride. pressing the pad of her thumb to his lips, hot breath careen across her skin. ❛ uh, uh, no kissing, remember what we agreed to. ❜ parting his mouth, pressing into his tongue. she grins at the sudden pliancy but welcomes the bite that may come from placing herself between his teeth.
no fanfare, no strings, no rules — the arrangement should be easy enough for two virtuosos to orchestrate on the sly. until the rules that weave themselves in — as they always do — only serve to keep her at an reachable distance. koschei should be glad of it. he'd sought an ice queen from the pit specifically to denounce himself from the unscripted dramas of the stage. or so he claimed. ambitious to a fault and caring more about the one eye that refuses to look at him than the hundreds who do, koschei had designed what he could to capture zoya's rapt attention. it's the oldest dance that serves the trick; and he couldn't say he minds it at all: being wanted by her in ways no one else knew about.
as long as no one else compares. ( as long as she keeps coming back. )
❛❛ altruism. is that what we're calling it? ❜❜ as if he'd even be here tonight if his own scholarship weren't on the line. or that he hadn't found himself cast in an underdog's position enough times to know the idea of this little torture ritual had been seeping from her head to the root all night. taunting and elusive as she seems, they're both where they want to be: poised in the balancing act between a fawn for the taking and a snake in the grass. he fawns just a bit longer. taken by how artful the flutist's fingers were with his undressing. her scratches over the deep-breathing drum of his torso have him suck in a sharp breath, loosened into a self-satisfied hum. ❛❛ you haven't heard then: i'll have to be a blue bird this season. rescuing maidens from the pasha. ever so eager to please a friend. ❜❜
his slow but inexorable growth ( not much of character just yet ) arches another teasing dig of unmet bodies. maybe the desperation does point to his untimely end. he knows she'd never let him live it down if it did. even if she conspired it over a lengthy week of late night calls and a dress tailor-made to rendering him a dribbling mess. but maybe more so, she underestimates the villain's flair for taking conspirators down with him. ❛❛ so what — are we trying to be here all night ? ❜❜ the intrusive press of her thumb against his lips and tongue serve a fine answer. there's the faintest taste of powdered sugar that he sweeps from the soft pad. not much, but enough to galvanize his mouth to water. his mind to soak further into the pits of all hungers. he bites her finger, only hard enough to keep her wrist in place, her hand for the taking.
❛❛ да, i remember, ❜❜ he mutters, lips left derelict yet struggling to remain vexed at the sight of that rare, nefarious grin of hers. ❛❛ just like you agreed to keep the claws to yourself. but i'm sure we'll forget that eventually, too. ❜❜ for now at least, the one hand he's overtaken is forced to hold still and interlocked with him behind her back. the grapple that ensues between them grows hotter, more possessive, but not nearly enough. he has to keep prodding and testing the bounds of her affection. met with the turn of her cheek once more, however, the pouting prince tears himself back to the bench with a dragged out sigh. nearly growling: ❛❛ where's the harm in kissing me, zoya ? you think i steal hearts from the mouth ? never seen one beat there before. ❜❜
eyes downcast and deviled beyond masking, the serpent finally comes to plot and rove over her an indulgent moment. nudges his way first to the underside of her chin. ❛❛ maybe here. ❜❜ he says, kisses planted over the pulse of her throat, while a finger deftly hooks and drags the strap of her dress even further down the slope of her arm. from there he could slither over the perfumed bridge of her sternum. to lavish the inner groove of her bare breast and the beat that brews a storm just beneath it. ❛❛ or here, ❜❜ his breath rakes. a detour of sorts, as lechery and magnanimity both bid him to take a shivered swell of flesh into the hearth of his mouth. famished for and then lost the music she makes, his hand has to find the way again. to the pulse at the crevice of her inner thigh. he plucks and pulls the damp lace curtain aside, and like a river stone lost in silt, in the dark he offers his fingers for her pleasure to better move through. ❛❛ or — right there. ❜❜
sharing a bed forced proximity trope except the staff did their job setting up twin beds and koschei's still just like "move over. little spoon coming through"
𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 consider this a plotting call ! feel free to give a like if you want to get some ideas going, but before you dooo i just kindly ask that you take a gander at his story arcs page. i've already laid out a bunch of plot ideas there! more so putting feelers out to see if anything piques interest! will start sliding in the dms later this weekend!
never making a carrd in my life ever again, but there you go!! everything you need to know about this freak and his fairytale epic in the cleanest way i could do it !! some things you might already recognize, but in his dossier i included a pre-history about his parents and went full throttle with breaking down all his story arcs. there are many many plot ideas sprinkled in between there, so if you read nothing else please check out that page!! big shoutout to my editor and loml @laperlina for holding my hand through this! it probably never would have gotten done otherwise 💀
never making a carrd in my life ever again, but there you go!! everything you need to know about this freak and his fairytale epic in the cleanest way i could do it !! some things you might already recognize, but in his dossier i included a pre-history about his parents and went full throttle with breaking down all his story arcs. there are many many plot ideas sprinkled in between there, so if you read nothing else please check out that page!! big shoutout to my editor and loml @laperlina for holding my hand through this! it probably never would have gotten done otherwise 💀
me, locking tf in on this carrd !! sorry it's taking me so long, but it's for our own good!! i've got six years worth of dots and plots i'm finally jotting down, but in the end you'll get pretty much all the details of his story (ivan days included) and a clean breakdown of his world conflict, as well as all the plot hooks that we can play around with so i no longer have yap a storm in your dms !!
𝒯𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒊𝒓; dense, pricklous crystals the color of white, or silver, or even nothing at all in the eyes of a human. But to a perisi, those creatures made from perfume and dew and light thrice bounced from jewels, the air looks much like a shattered rainbow-- a kaleidoscope they'd entered of broken opals and shimmering confusions to which only those truly tethered to the water may attune. And though Adella had so long ago been cut from that ligature that binds together all folks of the Sea, it is not so easy to forget the shores that first bore you. It is not so easy to forget your home.
For once, she obeys Koschei, if only because the tessellated micas that made up the scales along her joints shiver upwards. Between his first words and the last sweet kiss of his breathing upon her brow, she sifts her reaching fingers through the air, knowing that these clusters of fresh, saline pinks and cyans, so unlike the parched and ugly grains found high in the towers of the Chernosvyat, can only mean one thing. And her heart, in a defiant act of mutiny, climbs up her throat-- to demand at last its share over her senses.
Sands that shade of Caspian black, a sea glade of grown lavenders, waters braided with brack; forgetting both herself and the very notion of speech altogether, eyes gone fluttering and wide, she wriggles like a taffy newt out of his grasp, perhaps too dizzy to notice that familiar hex of shards upon her toes when she stands on her own. She looks back at him just once, but it is a very long once, an afraid and true and Marzanna-named once, and then darts ahead.
It lasts a while, all her playing. All her testing of the might of the Tsar's enchantments between her curious fingers, and the limits of her own nature for prying very deeply into things. Several times did she chase and try to catch the shadows as though they were fireflies, sipped from the flowers so nurtured by the mysterious Black Sea, and many, many times did she feel among the waters the way a sailor clutches his maid after a lonely and long voyage. So full of frenzy and distraction was she that, when tiredness at last began to take its place inside of her, she had forgotten to discard the greater portion of her feeling into the wind; a routine that she nearly never neglected.
Time passes. Then, like a ribbon of falling silk, she drifts slowly into the magicked edge of the shore, sitting among lapping foams and ghost crabs that wander and click sweetly by the hem of her wet dress. And when Koschei takes his equal place beside her, he cannot see her face-- she is hiding it away in the safety of her palms.
❝ Why...? Why did you... ❞ It is enough that her voice cannot manage to unquiver itself; the state of her eyes and mouth and whatever it is that stands in place of a soul cannot be known too. ❝ I don't understand. ❞
the balancing act of disarming a threat and courting a lover crumbles slowly, but so inevitably it's a wonder how either one of them hadn't seen this coming. she looks at him once — that rigid mountain of a man — and he nods a silent encouragement, promising to watch on should anything go wrong. as any other pillar of rock would, he shows how far he's melted over the kiss and crash of these ebbing encounters only after she parts from him. when at her back, he could look at her a fool. an ivan-named fool. it all seems mystifying to him too: the way she moves through the water, the way she gorges on scent, the way she enraptures herself in his illusions with more trust than he's ever been owed. but always, beneath the growing murmur of these frankest of feelings, there's a cowardly maggot of an idea that speaks from the cavity where the fullness of his heart should be.
it speaks of how easy it would be to leave his death untouched while the chance remains. ( — just a pinch of sea salt, that's all. in an instant, she would be boiled up in your cauldron. her skin no more than a fragrant froth. her bones turned into a suite of the rarest jewels ) . . . even if he'd been desperate enough, there was no such chance. for whatever the reason, koschei had been deliberate in his escorting her here with his pockets emptied of treachery. convincing himself that seeing her vanquished rather than conquered would be too costly for the war effort. that he still had control over himself and the situation. see how serenely she drifts back to the bank? at last perfectly subdued and content, he thinks. no sooner does he inch toward her than he finds himself sorely mistaken.
❛❛ why are you weeping ? stop it, ❜❜ he says — infected by the sudden burst of adella's overwhelm, though hardly in a position to demand a thing, with his being compelled to his knees over it. she fails to abide him, so his long fingers shuck past the shell of her hands. to cradle and caress her raw pearl of a face. ❛❛ adelinka . . . i do not wish to sew your eyes shut, but i will; your tears are too precious to waste over cantrips. ❜❜ terribly selfish as he could have been, there were men who would have done the unthinkable for just a drop of her sorrow; and try as he may to cheapen his gestures, this at least— the sharp discomforts that remain intolerant to her anguish, the care with which he kisses her lids to staunch her tears — was a very real and very weighty thing.
he contends with it for only a strand of a moment further, trying to understand the meaning of all this for himself so that he might get the better hold of it. all could have been understood and conveyed to her with three mad little words, but stubbornly he settles back to his most practical though no less honest answer. ❛❛ it was an awful thing that was done to you. an awful thing to be forced out of your home. i know buyan might not ever be the same, but where i can, i make it my duty to make it something better. for you — as much as any other subject, i suppose. ❜❜
tagged by: @archaeval smooching your forehead ty
tagging: @laperlina, @daylighter, @dvaurga, @eintraums, @compunctions, @exitvelo, @maleuficent, @narrated and whoever else wants to get silly
re. koschei's regional epithets ( & variations of his fairytale )
i'll touch on the origin of these epithets a bit more in koschei's full chronology & magical ascension metas, but essentially i want to get the idea across that any tales that your muses might hear about koschei prior to meeting him will vary greatly and also be a bit regionally dependent, the reason being that: 1) koschei's impact on certain areas and their tales are dependent on where he was and what he was up to during certain chapters of his life; and 2) that's just the reality of how folklore and mythmaking works. it's almost a game of telephone where each mouth and ear that passes down the tale could get a detail wrong or embellish the iterations as they go, but over all the gist is this:
•➤ in the central lands ( those closest to where he was born, the isle of buyan, and where he currently reigns ) his main epithet would be the flame king or dragon king since this is where his appearance as a dragon was/is most frequent & apparent. the radius of his dragon sightings have been relatively kept within his home base because, as a lich, he can't conjure or sustain the transformation without the availability of the chernosvyat's bloodroots / exterior mana stores. i mean... technically he could, but then he'd be completely reliant on his own mana for one spell/transformation which makes him subsequently powerless for longer than he's willing to risk or tolerate.
•➤ in the western lands ( think of it as the dark wood or where most of the grimm fairytales take place-- or any land pretty removed from where he originally came from ) his main epithet would be the steel man or iron-bones. in his earliest lich days, when he was exiled by dazhbog and still formulating his plans to become king in buyan, the tower of bones ( his main residence / magic fortress ) would have been located within this dark wood. many of his confrontations with the locals were in an era of his life when he was still adjusting to and testing the limits of his lichdom as well as the changes to his magic. he was captured and killed a lot during this time, so most folks here witnessed the body horror of a man that couldn't be struck down with normal weaponry or whose skeleton often walked off from the witch pyres to wreak havoc.
•➤ in the eastern lands ( pretty much the areas more predominantly dominated by the nomads clans, desert empires and far-east kingdoms ) he'd be known by a couple epithets including the kara han meaning "ruler-of the land", the red wind or the red horseman. before officially becoming king in buyan, he unified a great portion of the nine horseman clans. to this point, koschei was in possession of one of the fastest mythical horses in all folklore and was also the last surviving son of a khan, which helped legitimize him as the kara han ( essentially the sanctified leader of multiple clans ). the red horseman epithet then came from his riding with a red cloak ( like his mother's ) and similarly the red wind was an epithet derived from his speed on the field and eventually his appearances as a dragon-- though the connotation here was more positive and protective within these allied regions.
now, just for funsies if you're curious to know where i'm drawing these from, i figured i'd summarize the real-life variations of his tale from across various regions, and from these i think you might see why different iterations of koschei's tale (including mine) describe him as having (sometimes all at once) a dragon's, a horseman's, a sorcerer's, or an iron-skeleton's appearance.
eastern europe : the story of argilius & the flame king
primarily a tale from hungary, although there's also a german adaptation of it called "zauberhelene" or "magical helen". the story of argilius follows the same pattern as the marya morevna fable, where instead of a prince ivan, it's a prince argilius who seeks to marry his three sisters off to three magical kings: the sun-king, the wind-king, and the moon-king. afterwards, he travels out to seek his own bride -- the warrior queen kavadiska. after they marry, her duties call her to leave the castle for a time, and she warns argilius never to open the last chamber of their castle. he disobeys and inadvertently releases the flame-king called holofernes ( you know... like the biblical one from the caravaggio painting... who was seduced and beheaded by the widow judith ... food for thought food for thought ).
holofernes appeared to argilius as an old man with a beard of fire, his body bound to the wall with three rings. he complained about the heat of his beard and asked the prince for two goblets of wine and finally one of water, which restored his strength and allowed him to escape and kidnap karadiska. the rest you can guess at, with the varying details naming the flame king's incredibly fast horse taigarot and argilius ultimately triumphing by claiming an even faster horse from iron-nose ( a variation of baba yaga). during the final pursuit, this horse convinces taigarot to serve one master and not let the flame king goad him with his fiery spurs any longer. taigarot takes the advise and kicks the flame king off him, breaking his neck and killing him in the process.
central europe : the man of steel
based in the austrian / drava region, this version of the tale has three brothers tasked with marrying off their three sisters to an eagle-king, a falcon-king, and a buzzard-king. during the journey back, the youngest brother slays a dragon that emerges from a lake while his elder brothers are asleep ( recalling some elements of ivan and the firebird fable). he also thwarts a group of giants who mean to kidnap a princess. her father hears of this and rewards him with her hand in marriage as well as keys to his castle, telling him never to open the ninth door. he does so and releases the steel man who kidnaps his wife and keeps his strength inside a butterfly, inside a bird, inside a fox, etc. an albanian tale also refers to the villain in their variation as "the half-man-half iron" whose soul is kept within three pigeons, hidden inside a hare, inside a boars silver tusk
serbia / turkiye
the tale of "the wanderer and the red wind" sees three brothers marry their three sisters to the first passers-by before camping out in the woods and killing three dragons. the youngest brother finds a group of robbers who want to invade the tsar's palace. in his saving day, he goes on to marry the princess and (as always) disobeys the order of leaving a certain door in the castle untouched. in opening the door, he releases an imprisoned man known as "the red wind", which is believed to be a variation inspired by a turkish tale called "the wind devil".
belarus : janko and the king's daughter
one of a few variations from this region!! as his father's last dying wish, prince janko is tasked with marrying his sisters to whomever appears after his death ( raven ravenson, eagle eagelton, and zander zanderson). he later sets out to visit his sisters and steals three magical objects from some quarreling folk along the way. he then uses these objects to woo a princess into marrying him. she gives him a set of keys, forbidding him from opening a certain door. he does and releases a dragon, who kidnaps his wife. similar to the flame-king story, janko's horse convinces the dragon's horse into kicking him off. in that way, the dragon being describes as riding a horse is very clearly an instance of him being some a transformative sorcerer, which comports with another belarusian version where the prince opens the chamber and the trapped villain presents himself as a handsome human-looking youth. in another variation, they name the kidnapped princess as alena the beautiful and the dragon/human sorcerer keeps his power inside an egg inside a duck inside a hare inside an ox.
the mari people : the tale of ivuk
the mari people are an indigenous group from the volga region who have an iteration of the tale in their mythology where an old village couple lives with their two elder daughters and a youngest son named ivuk. handsome strangers come to court each of the sisters and in both cases, they fall in love and vanish overnight. when he grows up, ivuk decides to search for them. he obtains magical objects from trickster demons, one of which transports him to the palace of the man who married his eldest sister, myra. he then finds his second sister anna married to a lord of birds, who tells ivuk about a beautiful princess who lives in a dark city ruled by an evil sorceress queen. ivuk decides to search for this princess and is gifted with a strand of hair from each of his sisters to summon them with should he face too much trouble. utlimately, he defeats the sorceress queen and marries the princess, but later finds a huge rock with a door in the middle of a forest. he opens the door, and the prisoner begs him for deer meat, etc. etc.
the komi people: the tale of ivan's life
a tale that follows the same vein as the rest except ivan has to venture to make a princess laugh in order to marry her. after her father passes away, the princess inherits keys to the castle, hands them to ivan and bids him never to open the twelfth door. he does so and finds a twelve headed dragon who asks him to bring two kegs of vodka, etc, etc. ivan wins out by finding a magical horse with 13 wings and goading the dragon's horse ( again, a human sorcerer ) to throw him off.
can we talk about buyan's oldest ruins being 12,000 years old vs koschei at his peak reigning years being about 200 years of age (and ~400 towards the start of his downfall)?? likeeeeeeeee IT'S SUCH A SHORT AND INSIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME in the grand scheme of things but it feels like centuries because well ..... even 10, 50, 200 years is a very long time when you're actively living through it.
just really puts into perspective how as much as koschei comes across as an ancient being to a regular mortal... he really really isn't!! even as king you have to understand he isn't all-powerful either!! he stepped into this position through an ancient rite of mortal combat, but at the end of the day he was still a nobody!! ruling over families, courts and groups that date back thousands of years!!
in a lot of cases the forces and traditions he's carrying as buyan's king go sooo much deeper and are sooooo much bigger than him, and so it really is a miracle that he managed to change some of the things that he did (like allowing folks from all walks of life to enter alatyr academy based on merit instead of family prestige and heritage!!) but there are some things that he can't fuck with (like the sunfeast and the alliances that keep buyan hidden and free from invasion by the seas for example)
name: koschei bessmertny ( true name: ivan )
nickname: kostya ( or vanya )
gender: cis male
romantic orientation: panromantic
sexual orientation: pansexual
preferred pet names: intimate diminutives get him feeling fuzzy and feral for sure, but if you ask him he finds name-calling more endearing 💀 first derogatory thing he gets hits with he's taking as the preferred pet name
relationship status: fucked ( at any given time he could be single, could be divorced, could be involved with a whole troop of lovers or obsessively pursuing someone across oceans of time and incarnations. really just depends where his pendulum and plots are swinging )
opinion on true love / opinion on love at first sight: i don't think he believes it until he actually gets hit with the notion for the first time. even then, usually too many obstacles and tragedies standing in the way so he never gets the happy end first go around, which then causes him to idolize that first love. oftentimes, he's trying to replicate that feeling or rectify the past, but i think the point of most of his romantic arcs is to challenge this and the fairytale of what true love looks like entirely!
how ‘romantic’ are they?: holding your hands when i say this: i fear the lich's greatest magic trick is convincing his lovers ( and often himself ) that he's an intense, romantic, deeply devoted partner -- when in actuality . . . he's hardly putting any time or true effort in build lasting emotional depth and vulnerability with anyone. this isn't something that's easy to put a finger on at first. for all intents and purposes one could easily think he's head-over-heels. he's always trying his best to be present, would kill for them, bring down the moon & stars, shower them with kisses and pull off all the grand gestures. and yet there's always a feeling of distance that starts to pervade over time. he'll build-up romance only to certain tolerable level and then make himself so scarce (by going to war or getting caught in his duties) that when any little bit of romance finally shows up again it feels all-consuming and passionate. but he can't sustain that feeling for long as that'd actually require some risk in him making himself known, divulging some vulnerability and going deeper which he can't or refuses to do.
ideal physical traits: dark hair. long enough to hold a whole coffer of jewels and to strange him with. also that one tweet that's like "ass or tits? her right hook im bleedkajshdak"
ideal personality traits: "I AM A DEMANDING CREATURE. I AM SELFISH. I AM CRUEL AND EXTREMELY UNREASONABLE. MY MATE CANNOT BE LESS THAN I !!!"
unattractive physical traits: it's not "unattractive" per se, but his back would really prefer not to try kissing short people
unattractive personality traits: morally upright, incompetent, unintelligent or lacking in critical thinking, religious ( although he'll still tempt them out of spite )
do they have a type?: he's either going for the freak or the sweetest person on earth, bonus when they're a mix of both with him
average relationship length: at least a couple years because again he's really good at slow-burning a bad relationship and will keep you forever if you let him
past relationships?: wHat pASt reALaTIoNshIPs?
favourite canon ship: koschei x the work horse he names wolf-food -- you think this is a joke, but i'm so fucking serious. it's a dead give away of his true name being ivan . . . ivan in the fable chose the path where he'd live but his horse would get eaten by a wolf . . . imagine sacrificing and then mourning the loss of your first work horse so bad you name every work horse afterwards wolf-food !!! like he's gotta laugh about it or else he'll cry
favourite non-canon ship: koschei x nana barbara -- the kooky but well-meaning foster grandma / landlord from illnois whose basement i'm letting him live in for ballerino verse
tagged by: @laperlina muah muah 💓💓
tagging: @nightorne, @vivrez, @compunctions @inthecemetery @travmsoldat @skyheld @narrated @lavorrire @lamourstre @maleuficent and whoever else wants to do the thing!!
leaving town to join my sister for world-cup & beach things, but should be back around monday! also been working on revamping koschei's carrd and adding a world guide / main verse timeline to help with plotting, so soon as that's done i'll get a ploting call going!
not 100% sold on this yet i have to do more lore research but i'm thinking asoiaf verse is probably the one verse where viy and koschei actually did team up as a crazy duo for a little while there. they would have been born during the age of old valyria and their family would be part of a proto-dothraki tribe that ultimately got seized bc ivan the fool was out catching a firebird (*cough* wild dragon *cough* ) and threatening to expose some truths that the valyrians didn't want out there blah blah blah both probably taken as slaves to mine the fourteen flames blah blah blah here comes the catalyst for the doom
