Young Writers Society

Nikolai's eyebrows shot up.

Leaving tomorrow? He almost laughed at the thought. Sure, they were talking about it here, now, but it wasn't like he was treating it as a plan for himself. Maybe for her, but he wasn't going anywhere. Where could Mel have misunderstood that he was willing to...?

A thought hit Nikolai suddenly, and he groaned, wishing he could go back in time like Mel had, just for a few minutes. That way he could knock his past self out before he started explaining everything.

He had to be the dumbest person in the world— he'd just told her everything she needed to know. Nikolai might as well have given her the exact details of every single step she'd have to take to get there. He hadn't noticed how lonely the past few weeks had been, and although he was very much an introvert, he had no idea how much he'd missed company and being able to talk to someone. Well, that had worked nicely in Mel's favor.

Now he didn't feel like laughing anymore. Nikolai buried his face in his hands.

"Nooooo," he said, drawing the sound out so it was somewhere between a moan and a sigh. It sounded very weary. "No, thank you. I am tired and I do not want to go out in the cold and I do not want to be in St. Petersburg."

Mel shrugged, using the blanket to dry off her hair as she squinted at Nikolai in the dim light, trying to read him. He looked tired and grumpy. Maybe he just needed some sleep.

"Eh," she said as she shifted the blanket to the other side of her head to dry her hair. "I didn't say leave now. We can leave tomorrow in the morning after you wake up. Also, can I sleep here?"

Was she being a bit brash? Maybe. But she was tired of being yanked in different worlds and just wanted to find her way home. Plus, she was also literally tired. Although her mind was racing with a million thoughts a second and she felt a bit more awake from the tea, her body was exhausted from the trek through the caves and longed for rest. Or more talking, if he wanted to do that. It was kind of entertaining to hear him ramble.

Nikolai let out a long sigh.

"Of course, I was planning to let you stay as long as needed. There's no way I could just send you back out into the cold night, you'd freeze to death by morning if I did." He looked back up, blinking tiredly and rubbing his eyes. "But I had no intention of being dragged into something."

Mel seemed the adventurous type. And she was claiming that the two of them had been on a quest before in some caves. He didn’t know how that could be possible, but at the very least it made sense that she’d want to have some fun travels.

But he was pretty sure her idea of fun travels meant danger.

“Why on earth would you want to attend a meeting in a hostile city you don’t know that isn’t even for your guild?” Nikolai was baffled. “And why would you want me to go with you?”

Mel's face softened as Nikolai answered her question with such gentleness and kindness she didn't expect. Even though she had no bad intentions, it was awfully nice of him to open up his home to a stranger like herself, and even offer the invitation for her to stay as long as she would like.

... Which wasn't long at all, really. She wanted to leave tomorrow to get to the guild meeting.

The pleasant softness and surprise melted away as his next questions rolled out of his tongue, and she sighed. "It's not that I want to go," she said as if it were obvious, tightening the blanket around her some more. "I just don't want to stay in this cold dinky place forever, so I figure that this guild meeting can point me in the right direction to get home."

She paused and squinted at him in the dim light. "I could go by myself," she said after some thought. "You don't have to go. I'll just, ya know, use your hand drawn map to figure out where I'm going. And I'm sure I can ask the townspeople for directions."

Nikolai closed his eyes to think. Of course she wants to go home. That was completely understandable, and he knew what it was like to be in a place where you didn't belong. Mel had every right to not want to be here— even though he wasn't entirely sure what "dinky" meant. He'd never heard his father say it. Well, he took it as another sign that she didn't like it much here. He wasn't offended, though, since living off in frozen, snowy woods wasn't for everyone.

And now he felt bad. Nikolai hadn't said his own guild could help her much, but he'd told her about the guild that could possibly time travel. He wasn't sure if that was really true, or if they would send her back, or even if there was going to be a connection present at the meeting. But now Mel was excited.

She had her heart set on a risky, uncertain endeavor, and he was the one who'd gotten her hopes up about it.

He had to have some responsibility for that. When he opened his eyes again, Nikolai sighed, looking at Mel with a solemn expression.

"That's far too dangerous a plan to accomplish on your own," he said quietly. "There's a reason we don't travel alone. Not only that, but you won't have heard of known vigilantes, so you won't know to stay away from those, and my map was drawn in under two minutes, which means it's hardly reliable. It's a bunch of lines. You wouldn't be let into the meeting without someone who's in it. And don't forget it's below freezing all the time now..."

The more he kept talking, the more reasons he could find that no one should try this at all. But Nikolai bit his lip, and his shoulders slumped a little as if admitting defeat to her. He wasn't about to talk her out of this choice, even though he felt like she didn't understand all the risks behind it.

"If you're doing this, it's probably best I go with you."

Mel had been leaning forward with anticipation as Nikolai kept talking, but when he said he would go with her, she just about jumped out of her seat.

"Sweet! Yes! Nice," she said with a beaming smile and nod, standing up with the blanket still draped around her back. "I knew you'd come around. It seems real boring here, so maybe an adventure will do you some good."

And do me some good too, because I was getting used to boredom.

Still smiling, she noticed that he looked so tired. "Are you, uh... sleepy? Need rest? Big day tomorrow."

Considering Nikolai let out a long tired yawn even before she’d asked the question, that was a response in its own right, so there wasn’t any need to point out that he’d be going back to sleep the moment he could. His exhaustion had caught up to him in the last few minutes.

“I prefer the term ‘quiet’ over boring,” he said with a bit of a chuckle. Still, he’d gotten bored here all the time. It wasn’t an unfair description, especially when he’d been alone for weeks already.

He glanced around the space, thinking.

“Like I mentioned, we’ll be needing a troika, so we can go down to the village for that, and we’ll buy train tickets when we get to Novosibirsk. My family’s always kept a stash of food supplies for emergencies, so we’ll take what we need from there.”

Wasn’t there something else? Nikolai’s gaze landed on the blanket Mel had dried her hair on. Not the best use of a quilt that was a work of art in its own right, but she had to get dry somehow. He’d hang it up to dry before they went anywhere.

“And we’ll have to be really careful about staying warm, so you’ll need something better than that.” He winced, wishing that he didn’t have to break it to her. “Sorry, Mel, you’ll need to get used to the fur layers or you’ll risk freezing.”

Mel looked at the blanket draped around her, scrunching her face as she imagined it being a pelt fur. Did she feel bad to be wrapped around in the carcasses of the innocent animals? Yes. But did she want to die? Eh...

She let out an loud sigh. "Fiiiine," she grumbled. "But I'm not hunting!" She looked up at Nikolai to shoot him a serious face and while wagging a finger out in front of her.

Nikolai nodded. "Don't worry about that. We'll have supplies, so we won't need to."

It wasn't like he was any good at hunting, and Mel's culture didn't seem to include much of it, judging from her reaction to the fur pelt. So the two of them probably wouldn't have been much good if they needed to do it anyway.

Nikolai's father hadn't bothered to teach him. If he was a normal, non-gifted hunter, then surely he would have. But his son had entirely different abilities, which meant Nikolai wasn't meant to be a hunter. He was an artist, and so he'd learned the same skills his mother knew. Her gifts were more suited for painting while his were best for sketching, but she'd taught him more than anyone else.

As a result, Nikolai hadn't gone on more than two or three hunting trips in his life, and even then he never actually did anything. The only eventful thing he'd done on them was falling into a nearly-frozen river the last time he'd gone. After that his father had decided the trips weren't for him and it was probably wisest for him to remain back home.

It was hard to believe there had been days when his biggest worry was getting frostbite, compared to all his present fears. Good times.

"Do you have any..." He paused as he tried to think of the English word. "Allergies? Food you won't eat?"

"Huh?" Mel looked up at Nikolai, and she realized for the first time that she was so hungry. It felt like ages since she last ate anything.

She stood there looking at him with her mouth open and smiling, blinking. Would it be rude to ask him to feed and house her?

Eh. What did she have to lose at this point?

"Nah," she answered. "Except, uh..." She scrunched her nose again. "Not meat. Bleh. But everything else is fair. Speaking of which, do you have food?"

No meat. That was a shame. Even though meat was more expensive than other foods, it was hard to eat well in Russia without it. Nikolai couldn’t imagine giving up so many great types of food, but maybe things were different where she was from.

“Alright, I guess that’s important to know.” He thought for a few moments. “I’m not a super great cook, and I probably won’t do so great when I’m this tired, but...”

What could I cook up without any chance of burning it?

“I, um... Maybe I could make some mushroom blini for tonight.”

Mel's eyes lit up. She had no idea what a blini was, but it sounded good to her. "Sure!" she replied a bit too enthusiastically.

But NIkolai's words hung in her ears: when I'm this tired...

Right. She had woken up in the middle of the night and disturbed his sleep. But still, he let her in, listened to her, made her tea, showed her his power, accepted the trip, and was about to cook her food. Mel was starting to feel like she was a childish, spoiled brat.

Which, to be fair, was only because this all felt like some bizarre dreamy adventure. She wasn't normally this brash.

"I mean..." she began, dialing back the enthusiasm a bit. "Unless you're tired? I still have my own snacks I can eat. You should get some rest."

Nikolai hadn’t been hoping she would say that, but he still felt a bit relieved at her words. He felt like he was lacking the mental energy to get up and make food, let alone the physical energy. His mediocre skill at cooking would not exactly be improved if he was standing over a fire, eyes sliding shut, and feeling just about ready to use the stove as a pillow.

In fact, that sounded like what his stepmother would call a recipe for disaster. Nikolai could be pretty clumsy a lot of the time, and being tired didn’t help. Putting him in the kitchen right now could go wrong so many ways.

“If that’s okay with you,” he agreed. “And I can probably make us a proper meal in the morning, when I’m feeling awake.”

Mel nodded and smiled. "Of course!" she said. "That would be nice."

She had practically given away most of her snacks from the mysterious people of the caves, but she still had one last one left. And unlike the mysterious people of the caves, she was going to break the bars into pieces and not ruin her teeth. But Nikolai didn't need to know any of that right now.

"You should get some rest," she reiterated again. "I've still got a lot of energy from the weirdness of everything, but don't worry, I'll sleep eventually, and I'll get up when you get up."

Mel then gazed around the dim room. She had no idea where she was going to sleep, but honestly, at this point, she was fine with the chairs. She'd sleep on the floor if she had to. Anything was better than a musty cave floor... or cold, wet snow. Iccck.

Nikolai nodded, smiling as well, but he didn't go anywhere quite yet. He seemed to be thinking about the same thing as her, watching her glance around.

His cabin wasn't small, because it wasn't like they were competing for space with other buildings. Sure, there was the creek on one side and the woods all around them, but they weren't too cramped. Even so, there wasn't really a space for guests, mainly because they never actually had anyone visit. It might happen once a year, and when anyone did come to stay for a bit...

"Ah, you could sleep on the couch," he said, patting one of the cushions. "I'll admit it's not the best, but it's comfortable to sit on, so I hope it's not the worst place to fall asleep. I can bring over a pillow or two if that helps."

He could snatch those from his parents' room. The master bedroom probably wouldn't be the best place for Mel, since Nikolai couldn't exactly hide a deer head on the wall. It'd probably seem like the animal his father had kept as a hunting trophy was staring at her with its dead eyes. Mel probably wouldn't be able to rest very well afterwards if she saw that.