In the castle behind the stream behind the woods he waits with his years heavy in his chest, with his eyes as dark and shadowed as the window-arches of his palace. His skin is eggshell thin, furred down to his boots and old like parchment. In a land where the frost is carved down into the rocks and the wolves themselves, his lazy movements shine with a terrible light - a fat sun dying, or a funeral pyre.
And while his life is etched across every surface and every air molecule of his home, across the leylines of his claimed country, the delicacy and brutality of the impression both show in turn how unfamiliar he is with the concept of owning, of ruling not just in responsibility but in love (and in responsibility too, a little, a triumphantly sarcastic undertone to his careful steps as he makes his way to the old oak door) which shows in turn his own clumsy grip on the position the unearned uneasiness to common to pauper-made-princes, to legends that were born before they were made.
Make no mistake - the land is his. The legend is his. He seeped the land from mountain to frozen sea in his lifeblood, in his unhidden truths and his necessary lies, in the steelbending will that mortal kings dream of imposing. The castle is his. The stream is his. The woods are all his and every forest tree and shadow and every reflected glint of light in a wary animal eye is his and his kingdom of existence covers where the sun falls and where the moon cannot, seeps sediment into every dim animal brain - dog and falcon and human, human, human, the pumping whispered core of St Petersberg and Stalingrad alike, the cold shiver of old days gone and new days to repeat them.
Make no mistake. You cannot build a palace in a land that is not yours, not in truth, not if you want it to be a real palace. You cannot set a throne down on earth that refuses to recognize you, cannot set foot on a path you are not meant to tread. It’s like a fairytale. The internet shimmers overhead like a thousand faded flireflies, but it’s down to the bones now. Make no mistake. The trees in his path bend back from him. This land is his. And he - he is the land’s.
(and he listens to it, and he is told the very second that the trees twist away from someone else, the very second that a second kingdom is established. a crown of blood, and only one thing that it can mean. he knows. he does not prepare. he pours over his pale gold and shells his eggs and needles himself and he prepares to die. no combs, no horses, no tinderboxes. no tricks. one way or another, something of his will bleed out in the snow downing his front porch. it should be fun. timelessness was getting old. deathlessless was getting boring - having finally discovered the penchant for change his frozen existence began to earnestly chafe for the first time since he was a child.)
A foot in the forest on the edge of his awareness. A flutter of bluebirds. A frozen stream. The doors ease themselves open without his apparent input, the cold air blowing in. Someone is coming for him, faster than the fastest colt in all the worlds, angrier than the richest prince, filled up with the knowing of him better than the bravest warrior royal - ha. Let him come. Let him see.
He listened to the legends, to the stories. He knew them just about as well as his own. The Tsar of life, he'd chosen this time. The irony was enough to make one choke on it. But the opposite of life was death, and he had more than enough blood on his hands to take up the mantle. A mantle he'd been asked to take up years ago, if only She could see him now.
The moment he stepped into his land, Viy could feel him everywhere. It was like coming home, in some inexpiable way. It nearly soothed him, lulling him into a momentary sense of security, of coming home. But they both knew this was no homecoming. This would be a War, and Viy was very familiar with war.
Make no mistake - the land might be his, but Viy had no use for more land, land that was as much Viy's. Viy wasn't here for material things, and everyone knew that. He was sure Koschei knew it too. He was here for Koschei.
The land may be his, and he the land's, but this was no fairytale. There would be no happy ending. They would be lucky if there was even an ending for them at this point.
He may belong to the land, but Viy did not. Viy belonged to death iself, as he always had and always would, She twined herself through every footstep he took, every breath he took. But She wasn't what drove him into Koschei's land, it wasn't Her words in his head, Her lips at his ear. Koschei could keep his eggs, his needles, his gold. Viy had no use for them either. Death had no use for trinkets meant to keep Her out.
He didn't try to mask his presence. Viy wanted him to know. He was here. And he saw perfectly.