for the ask sending part of the WIP meme. well i don't know anything about the other fandoms so beyfae III it is, if you wanna share something lol!
OHHH thank you for the ask!! So (minor) spoilers and context, the main antagonist of BeyFae III is Rasputin, back from the dead to finish the work that he started before he was oh so unceremoniously bound and thrown into the frozen Neva River by Ekaterina, Svetlana, and the rest of the White Guard. In the process, Rasputin breaks the barrier between Iav’ (the world of the living) and Nav’ (the world of the dead), which creates all sorts of problems for Yuriy and the gang (it is quite unfortunate when all of the bad guys whom you’ve thought you killed for good in the previous two books are now back for revenge—). However, this does also make it easier for the good guys to raise other heroes from the dead. Probably one of my favorite scenes is when Yuriy is trying to escape a horde of hellspawn and he ends up summoning one of the previous Morozko for help — and in the process realizes why there is a period of time in the lives of his previous reincarnations from which he never regained his memories.
Blurb below the cut! Viy is kind of like the main demon/ruler of Nav’. Also, this takes place approximately 7 years after the events of BeyFae I.
To summon your past selves, you just need to dive deep and to call them by their name.
"Zhenya!"
Yuriy's voice echoed through the clearing. The horde stopped in its tracks, silent, as if blocked by an invisible wall, barely budging a centimeter forward.
Yuriy held his breath. Had one of the others caught up with him and cast a barrier or binding spell? Was it Ekaterina? Hiromi? Max?
And then he felt it.
The chill that ran through his hands and up his arms was so sudden and piercing that he had to drop the skull. As the skull struck the ground, the land beneath it flowered with frost that spread out from it like starving vines. The grass withered and died, the only sound in the entire forest clearing the ominous crackling of winter. Yuriy retreated a few steps back, his arms and fingers stiff but slowly - thankfully - regaining their feeling. As the frost spread beneath his own feet, he held strong, but the cold was like nothing he had ever felt before, cutting right through his very bones, into his heart.
The skull began to tremble, and Yuriy held his breath as it slowly rose into the air, a head enveloped by snow followed by a scrawny neck, small shoulders, a thin body, and gangly legs. The snow grew more and more dense, the outlines and details of the Fae long gone taking more precise shape, until before Yuriy stood a child no older than thirteen or fourteen, skin like ice, unkempt hair like a raven's wing - and eyes like those of a starved wolf.
The two Morozko held each other's gaze, the world around them ceasing to exist. Then, the shorter Morozko looked out at the horde of the undead standing frozen at the edge of the clearing. There was a small ripple of movement that went out through the hellspwan but they remained as silent as ever.
"Zhenya... Morozko," Yuriy spoke quietly, tentatively, licking his lips against the chill that kept them dry. "I need your help. Russia needs your help. Viy's demons have broken out from Nav'--"
"I know," the teenager replied, unimpressed, still surveying the horde. "I'll deal with them." They turned around, perplexed to still see Yuriy there. "You can go."
Yuriy hesitated. The way the threads resonated with the newly resurrected Morozko reassured him that he didn't have to worry, and Yuriy was eager to find the rest of his team, but still he didn't feel quite right about leaving a child to fend for themselves.
"You don't want my help?" Yuriy asked.
"No," Zhenya replied without sarcasm or malice, speaking plainly, just stating facts. "You're too weak. You'll get in the way."
And right there the conversation was over. The undead Morozko turned back to face Viy's army. As they stepped forward, the threads went taught, and the cold that struck was so biting, the air may as well have had teeth.
The horde grew agitated, a few demons snarling here and there until the ruckus spread and grew deafening, each hellspawn itching to be the first to sink their teeth into the new challenger Fae. At last, a single demon broke rank and raced forward. A handful followed suit, and then, like a flood breaking through a dam, the whole swarm of them surged forward.
Zhenya, unfazed, did not move.
As the demons neared alarmingly fast, Yuriy was ready to pull at the threads to strike them down, to buy Zhenya more time to remember how to use their magic. But he was too slow.
The threads vibrated and screeched high like the strings of a violin. The shorter Morozko raised their arms and the first rank of demons stopped dead in their tracks, covered in a thick sheet of ice. The hellspawn that did not collide with the frozen bodies halted, quivering in trepidation. Zhenya threw their arms down, a violent draw of the bow across the instrument, and hundreds of bodies rained down to the ground, shattered, in a cascade of tiny icicles. The sky above darkened and hail began to pummel down, the temperature dropping lower still as the threads grew louder and louder, like a dissonant orchestra.
“Leave, now!” Zhenya barked the order without turning around.
Yuriy didn’t need a second invitation.
And as he dashed away, the cold air burning his lungs as he ran, Yuriy finally understood. He understood why those few years during the Great War were a pitch black void in his memory. Zhenya was the cold and hunger that ravaged the world to its core, that struck down entire armies as if they were made of brittle paper and dry sand. Zhenya's winter was raw and unyielding power that only belonged on a war-torn battlefield. A power that no one could be allowed to possess or remember how to control.
