Lyra wallowed in the soft confines of her bed, not eager to face the bigger world just yet. Her snout was the only thing sticking out of the wool covers, an appetizing aroma tickling her nose. Taking a couple of sniifs and jogging her memory, Lyra was delighted to identify it as the smell of scrambled eggs. She'd never say no to free food, of course, but it was still a bit strange, she could've sworn it was her time to cook breakfast, not Bonnie's.
She appreciated this random spurt of generocity nonetheless, opening her eyes ready to shower her roommate with praise. Her plans shattered against the wooden roof of the second story bunk bed she was laying in. The memories of the past day flodeed into her, the walk in the forest, the dinner, the bad news. She frowned, remembering how harsh Oleg was yesterday's evening, hoping he was feeling a little better in the morning, or at least was willing to talk about it.
Getting out of her bed, taking extra care not to put too much weight on her left hoof as she hit the wooden floor, she stretched a little, wincing from the pain in her abdomen. She followed the sizzling sound, her gaze falling upon the man who saved her life. He stood beside a burning stove, wearing the same clothes he was yesterday, with a pensive expression on his face.
Just as Lyra approached him, soft clopping of hooves against hard wood eminating through the cabin, he turned to face her, his expression instantly switching to a shallow smile. "Good morning." He said impassively, turning back to watch the eggs. "Slept well?" Not liking the tone of his voice, Lyra circled him to look him in the eyes.
"Yeah, your bed was very comfy!"
"That's what she said." He gave her a mirthless chuckle, looking at her with irritated eyes.
"Oleg, have you been crying?" Lyra approached the man as he turned away from her, laying a hoof on his arm. "I'm here if you want to talk about-"
"Breakfast's almost ready." He cut her off, keeping his eyes on the scrambled eggs. "Go wash up, bathroom's the first door to the left." He said, brushing her hoof off. "There's a couple unopen spare toothbrushes in the cupbord, take whatever."
"Okay..." Lyra replied, getting the hint that the man probably wasn't ready to talk about it yet, trotting to the bathroom. "I'll be right back." After entering the bathroom and brushing her teeth she came back, finding the man eating his breakfast, looking into a small black rectangle in his hand. She climbed onto the bench, and sat down on it, proud to have done it herself. Looking down at her plate she finds an simple serving of scrambled eggs with a side of dill and a piece of rye bread, accompanied by a steaming mug of black coffee.
All in all, the breakfast wasn't too shabby, but she wished she had some milk in her coffee. Seemingly noticing her uncertainty, he put down the rectangle and gave her a quizzal look.
"Something's wrong?"
"No, the food's good! I just wanted to ask if you had any milk." Lyra said in an awkward tone, shrinking a little as he kept looking at her. "If you don't mind, that is?" She finished in a small voice.
Oleg scratched his stubble with a thoughtful expression on his face, before standing up from the bench. "Wait a moment." He opened the fridge, scanning it's contents for the milk. Finally he fishes out a small bag of milk, a somewhat weird sight for the unicorn, before pouring the coveted milk into her coffee cup. He returned the bag to the fridge before sitting back on the bench, picking up the rectangle once more.
Lyra picks up a fork with a grateful smile. "Thanks for the milk, but you didn't need to bring it over. I could've done it myself if you told me you had it." She recieved a somewhat offended scoff in return, as the man waved his hand at her dismissevely.
"What kind of host would I be if I had my guest prancing around to get a bag of milk?" He questioned, turning his attention to the rectangle when no answer came from Lyra. "Bon appetit, by the way."
"Fank you." The mare replied with a full mouth. Her gaze traveled to the odd device in his hands, and she couldn't help but ask, making sure to swallow before doing so. "What's that thing you're holding?"
"This?" He raises his right hand a little, holding the device. "It's a phone." Getting a questioning look from Lyra, he continues. "A device that allows to talk to people from afar, among other things." He says nonchalantly.
"Like one of those mirrors princess' use to each other when they're far away?" Lyra asked in amazement.
"Don't know." He shrugs, looking back to his phone. "Never seen them."
"Oh." An awkward silence descended onto the room as Lyra finished her meal, a sudden thought entering her mind. "Can't you contact your kind through it? Tell them where you are?" She asked with a hopeful expression.
"I don't know where I am." He said curtly, pocketing his phone with an annoyed expression. "Besides, this thing never had reception, too far from a cell tower." He perched his head upon his right arm, looking at the window behind Lyra.
"Why do you have it then?" She asked, curious.
"Memories." He murmurs, not interestend in elaborating. He seemingly dozes off, gazing at the white blizzard raging outside. A nostalgic expression graces his features as he closes his eyes and holds his breath for a moment, seemingly lost in his thoughts. It is quickly replaced with a forlorn one when he opened his eyes and sighed.
He carried his gaze to Lyra, looking at her with an oddly determined expression. "Ladno, hvatit nuni raspuscat'.." He said more to himself than Lyra, before adressing the latter.
"You said you come from a nearby town, da?"
"Kind of." She replies, making Oleg raise his brow in return. "I was born in Canterlot, but moved to Ponyville after I got my music's degree." She said with a hint of pride.
"There's a degree in music?" He said, incredulous, before shaking his head. "Nevazhno, how far is your town from this forest?"
"Not very far." She said, a sudden puzzled expression on her face. "Now that I think about it, why is Ponyville so close to the Everfree?"
"Point is, we need to get you back home, and fast." He said, pausing a little to gather his thoughts. "You've folks waiting for you back in town, right?" Despite his best attempts, a tinge of hurt was evident in his voice as he looked at the window again. "No need to keep them worried, da?"
"You're right, of course, but we won't be able to get back throught that blizzard." Lyra said, following his gaze to the window.
"Da, It's one hell of a blizzard, but it'll pass." He focused his gaze on Lyra once more. "The fiercer the blizzard, the faster it dies down." He stood up, empty dishes in hand, and headed for the kitchen sink. "It's been going for what, a day already? Things should calm down in a couple hours." He filled a small plastic basin with water and lowered the plates into it, adding a bit of dish detergent into the basin. "I'm honestly impressed how long it lasted already, blizzards usually die down after seven or nine hours tops."
"Really? Why would you schedule such a short snowstorm?" Lyra asked, dumbfounded. "I'm no weather pony, but that sounds like a waste of ponypower if you ask me!" Lyra watched the man freeze in place, before turning to her with a shocked expression.
"What did you just say?" He said slowly, his tone careful as if he was talking to a small animal.
"It's a waste of ponypower?" Lyra tried, not sure what the man was talking about.
"No, before that." He said, coming closer, sitting down on the bench.
"Why'd you schedule such a short snowstorm?"
"Did you just say schedule?" He said with disbelief.
"Well, yeah. Weather patrol teams get sent a schedule, and they do their best to stick to it." Lyra replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world, rolling her eyes. When she looked back at the human, she wilted a little under his scrutinizing gaze, ears pinning to her head involuntarily. After a solid minute of this impromptu staring contest, the human abated, rubbing his face with his right hand.
"You really are saying the truth." He stated with a sigh. "Tiho shiferom shursha, crysha ed'et n'e sp'esha..." He murmured to himself, before bringing his gaze to Lyra once again. "If this snowstorm is scheduled, do you know when will it end?"
Lyra put a hoof to her chin, looking at the ceiling in thought. "Yesterday was the ninth of december, today's the tenth... The weather teams missed the last week's snowfall... That means the snow won't stop falling for another two weeks." She finished, the weight of her words hitting her only after she spoke them. "So we're stuck here..."
"For two whole weeks." He said with a mirthless chuckle. "Blyat', this day just keeps getting better and better!" He finished, throwing his arms up in frustration as he stood up and made his way for the door.
A hundred thoughts ran through Lyra's head, none of them particularly good. Was he going to leave her here, all alone? If he was, then where was he going? Not waiting to find the answer the hard way, she jumped to the floor from her bench, doing her best not to land on her injured hoof. Just as he was putting on a pair of heavy-looking boots, standing on one leg, she ran up to him, enveloping his midsection in a tight hug. The force of the impact, combined with the factor of surprise made him trip, falling to the floor and dragging the mare down with him.
Recovering from the impact Lyra shook her head, finding herself sitting on Oleg's chest, pinning him to the ground. The man blinked a couple of times, his eyes focusing on his assailant.
"Oi, what was that for?"
"Please, don't leave me here!" Lyra pleaded, looking into the man's chestnut eyes.
"I- what-" He managed to stammer out, before a pair of adorable puppy-eyes shut him up.
"I'm sorry for trying to make you talk about the whole thing, I'll never do it again, I promise!" Tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes as she spoke. "I pinkie-promise!"
"Gospodi, woman, I'm not going anywhere, calm your tits." He said in an off-handed manner, scratching the side of his head.
"You're not?! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She chattered, hugging the man tightly once more, nuzzling the side of his neck.
"I- uh- sure. Don't mention it." He said, hesitantly wrapping one of his arms around the mare, with another one following soon. Seconds passed as the two wallowed in the warmth and comfort of his embrace, until Lyra though it was prudent to ask something.
"But if you weren't going to leave me, where were you going? If you don't mind me asking, of course!" She said, raising her head and looking at the man once again, finding his cheeks to be a little flushed.
"I was going to check if we have enough firewood to last us two weeks, but somepony was feeling clingy all of a sudden." He pouted, not making any attempts to dislodge the mare from himself. A realization dawned on Lyra, one that made her blush.
"So you weren't going to abandon me?" She asked awkwardly.
"Chto? No! Of course not!" The man protested, grabbing the mare under the armpits and gently putting her on the floor. "You're my responsibility now, and I'll make sure you'll get home safely." He said with a certain sense of duty, before finally putting a second boot on his foot. "Besides, does it look like I have a place to go to?" He finished with a bitter smile, donning a thick winter jacket and a warm-looking, if slightly worn-down ushanka.
"I'll be back." Before Lyra could stop him, the door opened and closed, and the man disappeared into the white storm.
Thankful that her saviour wasn't going to abandon her, she turned and regarded the room once again.
"What's the best way to pass the time?" Lyra asked herself, looking at a tall cabinet full of books.
Half an hour later Lyra was comfortably laying on a lower bunk of the two-story bed, engulfed in a frightening, but interesting story. Most of the books she's found were, unfortunately, written in a language she didn't know, only a hooffull of books out of the whole cabinet being written in equish. Still, even the books she could read were a complete to her, names of the authors utterly foreign.
Now, Lyra knew that judging the book by its cover is a foal's errand, so instead she was going to judge them by the names of the authors. That wasn't made into a proverb, so it was completely fine to do.
"J. R. R. Tolkien, Mikhail Bulgakov, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy... " She muttered, looking for a name that would peak her interest. "Aha! G.P. Lovecraft! With a name like that, his stuff has to be good!" She exclaimed to the loneliness of the cabin.
That was twenty minutes ago, and boy, Lyra was not ready for what she ended up reading. By all means, the story should've been about a discovery of a new kind of color, or a 'first contact' type of story, judging by the title. What she found, however, was a horrifying series of unfortunate events, that spiraled deeper and deeper into madness with each passing page.
Yet despite all that, Lyra found herself unable to stop reading. That is, until a loud slam broke her concentration, the book plummeting to the mattress. Lyra huffed in annoyance, before leaving a bookmark on the page she was reading and going to meet the returned human.
Oleg was currently disrobing in a quite agitated manner, judging by the angry-sounding stream of what was likely foreign profanities flowing out of his mouth.
"Suka blyat, youbany rot, ya tak i znal! Vsyo ne slava bogu, da chto zhe eto takoye nahuy!" He grumbled, hanging his winter jacket and stacking his boots in the corner. His frustrated gaze landed on Lyra, making her wilt a little. Noticing this, he softened his gaze and gave her a weak smile.
"So, I take it something's amiss?" She asked as the man walked passed her and dropped to the mattress with a heavy sigh.
"Gee, what gave it away?" He sneered, before sighing and shaking his head. "Sorry, It's just... blyat'..." He rubbed the bridge of his nose as Lyra jumped up to the bed and sat on her haunches beside him.
"I've got bad news and good news, which do you wnat to hear first?" He said, his left hand's fingers rapping nervously on his knee.
"The good news, obviously. We haven't got much of them lately!"
"Well, it seems that my banya, a bathhouse basically, has made it's way here relatively unscathed, so if you want to relax and clean up, you're in luck." He said with a mirthless chuckle.
"And what's the bad news?" She said, sensing she wouldn't like the answer.
"The shed where I kept most of the firewood is nowhere to be found." He said grimly, clenching and unclenching his fist. "At best, we have enough wood for a week, maybe less, and that's if we use it sparingly." He shook his head.
"So you're saying we could... freeze to death?" Lyra said, horrified by the possibility.
"Maybe..." The man aswered after a prolonged pause. "The cabin's insulated, so it keeps the warmth well... But it can't keep it forever." He said with a determined expression. "I'll go find anything we can cover ourselves with, you stay here for now, rest." He said, standing up.
"No! I can help!" Lyra protested, trying to stand up, wincing from a jolt of pain from her abdomen. She yelped and fell back on the mattress, grabbing the man's attention.
"Blyat', almost forgot." He said, sitting next to the pony and laying a hand on her withers. "Lay still, I need to change your bandages." He kept one hand on her withers, while reaching for something under the bed with the other. After a few seconds of rummaging, he pulled out a sizable red box with a white cross on it.
"Is this necessary?" Lyra asked, fidgeting in place as she watched the man grab a pair of sharp scissors out of the box. "I'm feeling fine as is!" She assured, looking at the scissors incredulously.
"I still need to check how's the wound healing, you don't want it to start rotting, do you?" He said, alligning the scissors with Lyra's bandages.
"NO!" Lyra yelled, ears pinning to her head at the horrific thought.
"Then be a good little pony, and stay still while I check your wound, horosho?" He said in a caring tone of voice that made the unicorn blush.
"O-okay." Lyra replied, closing her eyes and trying not to shiver as the cold metal touched the coat on her back. She heard a faint snip, and a pressure she didn't know about disappeared from around her lower abdomen, as the bandages fell to the bed. She yelped, opening her eyes when a sudden force turned her around on the mattress, laying her belly-up, the mare's front legs laying crossed on her chest.
She watched as the man's small, chestnut eyes looked at the wound on her lower abdomen, one she didn't dare to look at herself, with equal parts worry and relief. She gasped as his warm, soft fingers held the side of her belly, his other hand holding a cloth that smelled strongly of alcohol.
"Now, I'm going to disinfect the wound once again, before wrapping it up." He warned her in a soft yet stern tone, waiting for her reaction.
Lyra gulped, captivated by the sight before her, before shaking her head and finding the words to say. "Is it going to hurt?" She asked, sure that the man will find some comforting words to soothe her nerves. A warm smile creeped into his features, only solidifying her belief.
"Like hell."
Before the mare could react, the cloth plunged towards her belly, touching the wound. Lyra almost screamed as she waited the pain to come... But it never did. There was a prickling sensation coming from where the wound was, sure, but it was nowhere near as bad as the man made it out to be. Actually, the circular motions he was making with his other hand over her belly were pretty relaxing, making the mare yawn. She heard the man 'daww', focusing her attention on him once again.
"Hey, why'd you do that?!" She pouted, playfully hitting his hand.
"Do what?" He asked innocently, putting the cloth away.
"Scaring me like that, what else!?" She replied, undeterred by his soft fingers continuously rubbing her belly in a circular motion.
"I just over-exaggerated a bit, to distract you from the actual thing." He said with a sly smile, ceasing his belly rubs to grab a roll of bandages. "Besides, it worked, didn't it?" Lyra kept quiet, having no rebuttal ready. "Now stay still, I'm going to wrap the bandage." He did just that, carefully wrapping it around the wound several times, before carefully tying it into a knot.
"It's not too tight? To loose? If it is, you'll have to tell me asap, neither are good for you." He said, putting everything into the red box before stashing it under the bed.
"It's fine, there's a bit of pressure, but nothing uncomfortable." She answered from her lying position.
"Glad that's taken care of." Oleg said, getting up from his sitting position, giving the mare an amused glance. Noticing it, Lyra couldn't help but blush.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked shyly.
Oleg bit his lip and averted his gaze, inwardly debating wether or not to tell her. Finally, he turned to her with a sheepish smile.
"Promise me you won't get angry." He asked uncharacteristically timidly.
"Sure." Lyra replied, now eyeing the man with concern.
"I had a cat that used to lay on my bed when I came home from uni, and you kind of remind me of him right now." He said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.
Lyra laid motionless, trying to proceed what she'd just heard. She reminded him of his cat? That's not bad, right? Cats are usually considered cute. Does that mean he thinks she's cute?
"Sorry, that was kind of inappropriate, I'll be going now-" He was about to walk away from the bed, when a golden aura tugged at his shirt, prompting him to fall back to the mattress.
"Ow." He said rubbing the back of his head, laying sprawled on the bed beside Lyra. "Guess I deserved that." Lyra scooted closer, hugging his side.
"Dang right you did, I'm way cuter than any cat." She proudly declared, nuzzling the side of his neck.
"L-lyra?" He stammered, his cheeks bright red. "W-what are you doing?"
"I'm just saving heat." She replied, just as flushed. "You don't want to get cold, do you?" She teased.
"Nyet." He said, reciprocating the hug with full force, turning to lay on his side, yet looking past Lyra's mesmerising golden eyes.
"I don't."