Arkhangelsk
by Rae <artemis@wn.com.au>
I was sitting at my table alone when she came in. I was merely waiting for an arrival, but she, I could tell, was deeply alone. She took a seat quite near me, and ordered a drink from the waiter in a voice clearly distorted by strong emotion. The waiter delivered the vodka quickly, but she didn't drink immediately. Instead, she simply held her glass and stared at it for a long time, watching the ice cubes melt into the potent spirit in oily swirls.
I watched her, surreptitiously, until she seemed to sigh slightly and knocked back the drink in a single gulp. The ice clinked as she set the glass down on the bar. "Another," she rasped.
I studied her profile from the corner of my gaze. She was young, I saw, surprisingly so for a stranger in such a small village. Some distance north-east of Arkhangelsk, this small home was little-known and less-frequented. And yet, this woman, barely more than a girl, was here, and speaking with an edge to her accent that rang unpleasantly of North America. Time was, I reflected, a wholesome-looking creature such as this would never have roamed freely in this area. Long, long before. Nonetheless, I found myself rising to approach her.
The look she pinned on me would have felled Pegasus. I refused to be deterred, and sat at her table. "I couldn't help but notice you are bothered," I told her quietly. "Would you like to be listened to?"
Her lips twitched. She was very attractive, I realised, and possibly not so young as I thought. The lighting was dim, and I had not looked closely for fear of being seen staring.
"It's a very long story," she warned. "Are you certain you wish to hear it?"
"Da," I answered. "I have nothing better to do tonight."
"Very well." The waiter exchanged her glass for a new one, and she was silent for a few moments, again gazing into the depths of the transparent liquid as if searching for something. Apparently without conscious intent, she stirred the cubes in the glass. They tinkled gently as she began to speak.
"Many years ago, I was... lost," she told me. The tip of her tongue tasted the chill drink before her, and she grimaced. "It was many years more before I was found again. I did not, at the time, realise how difficult my return would be." Another clink, and then a soft, sharp crack as an ice cube broke in the glass. "Along the way, I discovered love." Clink. "It was..." She hesitated slightly here. "Intriguing."
"What happened?" I prompted.
"Both nothing and everything." Clink. Swallow. "We never chose to act on our love. Or she never chose, and I never thought to. Finally, we returned here."
"This village?"
"No."
"Ah. I think I place the face."
"Just so."
"What happened after that?" I was curious, now, for some things about her I had heard. Many, I did not doubt, inaccurate.
"Too much. Too little. We had missed our opportunity."
"Unfortunate."
"Indeed. We parted ways quite recently."
"What brought you from her to here?"
"I wished to be far away from her." She smiled faintly. "I was sent, for whatever reason, to Arkhangelsk." I was surprised, but pleased, as the perfect pronunciation tripped lightly from her tongue. "Then I walked, and found here."
"It is snowing outside."
"Da." A faint smile accompanied the mimicry of an affirmative less native to me than she believed.
"Did no-one warn you of the storm?" I asked, concerned now.
"Yes. In Arkhangelsk."
"You walked from there?"
"Yes," she said. My soul cried the opposite, for the glow of a beauty too intense for even my eyes was shining from her eyes, and I knew suddenly she could see me better than she should have. My task, however fated, is rarely easy.
"Exigua pars est vitae quam nos vivimus," I whispered, aching with pity for this child in the body of a woman. I rose from my chair and extended a hand. "I am sorry, daughter."
The light was falling through her fingers now. She could not have raised her glass had she tried. "I don't understand," she told me, fear in her eyes.
"Watch," I answered, and illuminated with a glance the way through the dark and frozen night to a dark, huddled mass now disappearing beneath the snow. "You should not have walked from Arkhangelsk."
"What are you?"
"What do you think?"
She smiled wryly now. "Arkhangelsk. I should have guessed."
"Perhaps. Peace be with you now, daughter."
She smiled at me, more fully than I had seen before, as I touched the soft, golden hair, and knew without doubt that she would soon swell the ranks I too was a part of.
As the last of her spirit shimmered into the storm, I dropped a handful of credits on the table. The waiter smiled at me. "Anything more?" he asked.
"A... friend... is missing in the storm," I answered. "In the morning, a search party will be needed."
"It will be seen to. Don't give up hope. The storm tonight is fierce, but nature is kind."
"Not nature, child," I answered, not looking at him. The body was lost from sight now. "Something more than nature. Just make sure they scan for metal beneath the surface, or she won't be found."
"I'll call for assistance from the fleet," he promised. "Go safely."
"You too."
I left, and hated my job.
finis
* Exigua pars est vitae quam nos vivimus - The part of life we really live is short