1st 5 Pages September Workshop - Pohl

Name: Laura Pohl
Genre: Young-Adult Fantasy
Title: FIREBIRD

The smell of blood always reminds me of my dreams.

It penetrates the whole body through the nostrils, pungent and
feverish. The prelude to death.

That's what the cabin smelled like -- as soon as I opened the door,
there was that overwhelming smell of blood. The smell of death. I knew
I was in the right place only by that.

I ignored the creaking door and the breeze that the wind brought
inside -- the winter was gone past and I had no fear of winds. A raven
cawed outside, the single noise among the deadness of this place.

There was no avoiding what came next -- there never was. I didn't know
how many times I had done this before -- how many scenes like this, to
the point where I was not able to distinguish which ones are dreams
and which are real. It didn't matter anyway.

The body lay on the wooden floor. It was a woman and she had been
stabbed multiple times. I tiptoed my way around the room, avoiding
where the blood had touched. After all this years, I had learned not
to stain my clothes. I held my breath as I smelled her death, her
blood and her nightmares. Her nightmares smelled like shadows and her
death sang around the room. I did not know this woman's name.

But she knew mine.

"Tatiana Koscheiovna" she said, with her last will. Her final
words.Daughter of bones, daughter of blood, daughter of death. "Have
you come for me?"

There was no relief on her voice, like there isn't in any of the
others. She knew she was as good as dead. Her body lay violated and
broken in her own house, having suffered the most violent of deaths.
My appearance only confirmed what she already knew.

"Yes" I answered. "I have come for you."

#

Outside, the smell of death vanished. For a moment I almost forgot I
was awake the entire time. It was not often that those who had died
violently saw the spirit of the violent death in person before they
left this world.

My hands slided back to my fur coat. I could barely remember the woman
in the cabin, her bones already forgotten by this world. Sixteen years
of ferrying the spirits and it never got any easier -- at least, not
for me. The third daughter of Koschei, born on the dark winter night.
Even the one who wasn't wanted had duties to fulfill.

"Did you find it?" Morena's voice echoed in the clearing in front of me.

In a moment, the raven materialized into shadows and then into the
goddess of nightmares. Her appearance never failed to take my breath
away, as if for a moment my nightmares had come alive. She stood with
her dark clothes and dark skin against the bleak setting of the dying
woods, a vision among mortals. Her crow pendant hung from her neck,
bright silver, the only color among her figure.

"Yes" I answered through gritted teeth.

I threw her the bloody dagger, still wet from the body that was not so
cold inside the wooden cabin. An anonymous cadaver. Morena caught it
with extreme ease. Her eyes turned to appraise me, dark and
mysterious, a pitch of endless black.

"Are you awake or asleep?"

It took me a few moments. "Awake."

"Very good" she nodded her head. "How did you know?"

I wanted to answer her that I know by the smell. That I know what it
feels like when I ferry the souls awake or when I am asleep. In truth,
neither of them matters -- they always come to me, no matter what. If
I don't come to them, I'll find them when I close my eyes. In this
world, there is no such thing as escaping duty. And my own burden is
this -- ferry the souls of those who have died a violent death.

My father tells me it's a noble duty. My sisters tell me I am lucky to
have such an important task.

None of them ever have to see the body.

"Luck" I answered instead, and Morena scowled.

I was not in the mood for games today. I walked past my godmother,
wrapped in my own fur coat as I stepped further away from the cabin
with the dead body. This had been one of the closest I ever came to
the mortal world -- I usually only came here through dreams. Now, more
than ever, Morena allowed excursions. She thought distinguishing
dreams from wakefulness was important. To me, it never mattered. Both
of them smelled alike.

Neither of them really belonged to me.

"Are in you such a hurry that you need to forget your lessons?" Morena
asked, keeping pace with me. She's several feet taller than me, her
eyes and cheekbones set perfectly in her aristocratic face. She's a
true goddess, while I'm the shadowy copy of what ought to be one.
"Tatiana."

She called my name and it sent shivers down my spine. Morena's voice
was powerful, as if she could break through all of my fears and
nightmares and expose them to me until I had lost my mind into
darkness.

The difference, of course, was that my fears were already all laid out
before me. There was nothing left for her to take.

So I kept walking, my boots pacing evenly against the ground on the
mortal world. Where my lungs breathed a little easier, where my bones
weren't killing me for staying where I didn't belong. I walked back to
the carriage that took me to the Other Realm without looking back.

#

There was something strange about the Other Realm. I never put my
finger on it -- the stark whiteness of the walls, the lack of color
that filled everything. The magic of death that flowed between the
walls and in the air, and that enclosed everything that didn't belong
in the mortal world. The gods were fueled by it, fed by it, and
thrived on it. The same death magic that my Father controlled better
than anyone else in the kingdom. The same magic that kept balance on
the entire universe. Were Koschei to fall, the entire Other Realm
would.

This would never be a problem. My father was as ancient as death
itself, and his magic never wavered. Here, every creature that needed
magic to exist was protected. Everyone except his own daughter.

The crows flocked around Morena in our arrival, greeting their master
but went without acknowledging me. I blew past them in a hurry to get
to my room.  I could still feel the smell of blood in my hands, even
though I knew it was only paranoia that was putting it there. There
was no blood in my hands, and if I could help it, there never would
be.

I escaped Morena's gaze and went to my room as fast as I could,
leaving her to her crows and servants. My room was on the distant part
of the palace, on top of one of the towers. On the better days, I
could fancy myself as a princess from the old tales, awaiting the
rescue of a brave knight. On the worst days, I could look in the
mirror and face the truth that nobody would come and rescue the third
sister. Not when the only word that followed her was death.