Fimbulvetr

by Alkarasu

7: Griðungur

"You not Wild one?"

The question stopped Vsevolod's pounce like a wall. He flapped his wings and tumbled down to the horse creature hooves. His desire to claw the heart out from under the brown coat had evaporated completely. The creature no longer looked hostile, and even hadn't used its chance to attack when he was recovering from his fall.

"So you can talk normally?" He asked, trying to hide the embarrassment of his less than dignified position of being entangled in his own limbs.

"I can a bit Old Speech. School. Everypony can. If not Wild one, you Return, yes?" The creature was hard to understand, it hadn't used half of the proper grammar, and some words sounded strange, but it was much better than before. Vsevolod picked himself up from the floor and prepared for a long talk.

"First thing, I have no idea what is that 'Wild' or 'Return' you are talking about. Second..." His questions were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Alien horse looked at it with an unsure expression, and then cringed like it just had its teeth removed. It then hoofed the blanket to Vsevolod and motioned to the oven. The griffin decided to play along and jumped to the corner, hiding under a blanket. The horse then imitated a loud yawn and shuffled to the door.

"Coming!" it called, raising the latch. The door opened with the bang, and through it came the new herald of insanity that filled the world around Vsevolod. He was able to see the newcomer through the small hole he left in his blanket cover for air. He wished he didn't.

The guest was a minotaur. A very large and very muscular minotaur, or, at least, giving off such an impression with his thick hands and shoulders that nearly hadn't fit in the door. The beast was wearing a thick and long winter coat, almost covering his furry legs. On his head was a hat that Vsevolod knew pretty well. He just never expected to see one of the Greek mythical beasts wearing ushanka. The front of the hat was adorned with a cocade in a form of big red letter 'M'. The long horns of the minotaur were capped with a pair of large corks, one painted bright red, other - bright blue. The sight was so out of place that it took him all his willpower not to laugh. The minotaur gave a polite nod to the horse, before entering the room and taking off the hat.

"Top of the morning to you, my dear Teplovoz!" said the guest, radiating as much of false cheerfulness as it is possible for a bull-headed beast. His Russian was less accented than the horse one. It took almost no effort for Vsevolod to understand him. "The new year is upon us, and it came to the notion of the Labyrinth, that you are willing to give your annual donation to our worthy cause! It is a heartwarming thought that there are still ponies in this world so concerned with the well-being of our poor Returning kin..."

The door that the minotaur just closed, slammed into the wall once again, nearly hitting him in the process. The startled bull-man turned to the door with less than pleased look on his face. Outside, from what Vsevolod could see, stood a large brown-haired wall. Only when he noticed the antler on a string, he realized that it was the same elk he met in the forest earlier. The second antler was missing, though, and the fur in his broad chest was bloodied in many places. The elk had to crouch low to be able to look through the door, and the look he gave the occupants in the room was far from polite and cheerful.

"Maks'sa is Kalushatak wip?" roared the beast, putting his head in the room. The rest of him didn't fit the door. "Silama asha'a kisa!"

"And hello to you too, esteemed Los'," forcefully smiled the minotaur. "I'm very pleased to see your kind not violating our treaties and not barging into the honest pony's home demanding the Wild. Now, I would be even more pleased if you remove yourself from our presence, since we have no business with you and a lot of it among ourselves."

"Kalushatak se masakara! Maks'sa! Didsera mok!" disagreed the elk, attempting to enter the room once more. The minotaur sighed, put his ushanka back on, and then put his hand on the elk's muzzle. Then he made a step outside, moving the huge creature out with no visible effort. He carefully closed the door after himself, and then the outside exploded with his irritated roar. Vsevolod had no idea what they were screaming about, they were using the weird elk-speech, but somewhere in the middle of it they came to blows. The house shuddered. The alien horse just covered his face with a hoof and moaned something under his breath. He turned to Vsevolod's hiding place, motioned to him to remain hidden and started talking in a low voice, shuddering every time the house received another hit from the battle raging outside.

"Sorry, little one. You must confused. You so young, and still you have to go through this. I can't explain everything, I'm no smart city pony, but I try. Never had to explain to youngling, see. You come from time far, far away. Hundreds of years passed since time you come from. I not know how many. I know, that last day you remember being human was day when world was made proper. Magic came to it, and lawless humans were banished into streams of time by Great Spell. When humans atone for sins, they Return, like you, blessed with a proper form. You come scared, you come weak, yet you kin, so we help. We know word of great Archive, who shines beyond seas and teaches us proper way.

"You should be wary, though. Not everypony hears word right. Servants of Labyrinth hear it differently. They 'help', but you no want their help. Los'... they do not know word, they no kin. They fear the Return, they hate Wild ones, and they will kill you if they learn of you. Little one, you stay hidden when Copeynik returns, or I won't be able to protect you. I help you when he's gone."

Vsevolod could only nod. The truth of his position was heavy enough to let 'little one' slide. He was much smaller than the alien horse, after all. The idea of 'world made proper' and 'magic' sounded a lot like something a cult will come up with, but he assumed the part about the hundreds of years at least looked plausible. The rest was, probably, just a way natives had decided to explain the time-hopping and form-changing. Archive, most likely, was a prophet or the church. The roar and violence outside was no less than a full-scale religious dispute. With the puzzle finally clicking into place, the griffin felt himself relaxing a bit. The sounds of the polite disagreement outside also started to recede.

Copeynik returned to the hut missing one of his horn-corks, with several deep cuts in the coat, sporting a black-eye and carrying the antler with him. As no elk made any further attempt to search the house, Vsevolod assumed that today the concept of mysterious Labyrinth had won the day. The minotaur was happy to confirm that.

"The nerve on that one! Breaking the treaty, arguing with an officer of the law, and calling me a cow! Won't be doing that no more. Teplovoz, what was he whining about you hiding the Wild one?"

"How could I do that?" The surprise in the horse voice was so genuine that the hidden griffin concluded, that whoever was those Wild ones, they wasn't too cooperative. "I still have scar that chick gave me last year, I know you can't talk them, first-hoof! There was Wild one nearby, last week. Likely after the foals. We sent word, haven't heard since."

"Honestly, deer priests get more senile every day!" sighed Copeynik. "Next they'll say that you hide Gorynych in your stove or something!"

The horse and the bull shared a laugh, though Teplovoz's sounded a bit forced. The horse pulled a big sack from under the bed and tossed it to the minotaur.

"Here, this is all. Hope it helps."

"The Labyrinth expresses its most sincere thanks for your contribution, good citizen!" smiled Copeinik, weighting the sack on his palm. "If only every pony was this reliable. Now, if you don't have a dragon hidden somewhere, I need to depart. This day is only beginning! I have three more villages to go through, and I've already had a nice talk with an elk executor! Good luck murdering the trees!"

With that, the minotaur left, whistling a non-melodical tune. Teplovoz waited a bit to ensure he's gone, and then locked the door.

"You come out now, little one. He won't be back to our village until summer. He calls it a donation drive. I call it robbery. Those who do not donate to Labyrinth decide to resettle into it one night. They never decide to resettle back." The big stallion sighed once more, and then rummaged inside of the oven's opening, retrieving a large pot from there. "You hungry, little one. I don't have meat that you griffins like, it not proper for pony to have it. But this should be enough to get you back in shape. I'm afraid, it is not safe for you here. Tomorrow, before sun is up, you have to leave. I will explain road, tell which ponies you may trust. But you can not stop anywhere before you reach Tula, and no pony except those you can trust must see you. If deer spot you, you die. If Wild ones spot you, you die."

The tone of the large stallion voice was grave and grim. For Vsevolod, who abandoned his hiding spot and was greedily consuming buckwheat porridge from the pot using large wooden spoon, it was clear that he doesn't really believe in his chances to reach Tula safely. It was also clear that getting much more information from Teplovoz would be impossible, the pony was straining with words as it was, and was visibly tiring from that. One question, though, he had to ask.

"You keep calling me 'little one', why? I know that I'm smaller than you, but when you do that I feel like I'm ten years old all over again!"

"Sorry, little one, I had to ask your name first, not insult you." Teplovoz looked genuinely ashamed at his mistake, "And forgive me if I got your age wrong. I know how hard to be reminded of when you were ten when you're twelve."

"My name is Vsevolod, and I'm 35 years old." said Vsevolod, finishing off the porridge. "I'm sorry, I ate it all."

Then the part about the age had caught up to him.

"Shit."

Author's Note:

A bit of exposition dump this time, but that's the point I can't keep him completely in the dark anymore.
Next stop - Tula?

Comments

[Seeking Dusk]

Minotaur Cult Mafia, Fanatic Uplifted Creatures and a humble and grounded earth pony to give our hero his first big quest. It's like we are just finishing up the tutorial stage of a video game XD

So temporally shifted and deaged. I can totally understand why Vsevolod never realized though. Major age lost though. Like 65%.

[Alkarasu]

6611358 It's not Cult Mafia... not always.

[Seeking Dusk]

6611369 Sure it isn't, sure it isn't

I should have picked up on the age thing from the 'hunt with your parents' line though. Shame on me.

[Alkarasu]

6616418 How old were you picturing him?

[Doppler Effect]

I'm sure the name Labyrinth probably has more to do with minotaurs than cult films, but I can't help but imagine it as being a religion based on David Bowie as the Goblin King...

[Alkarasu]

6616822 What an interesting and disturbing picture!

[Celefin]

Ah, crazy elk shamans and racketeering minotaurs. Beautiful. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I know how hard to be reminded of when you were ten when you're twelve.

Shit

An eloquent and encompassing summary of your situation. Yes yes.

Shame on me for only getting around to read this now. I love your worldbuilding, seriously. Your characterizations are vivid and your pacing has found a nice, well, pace. Can't wait to see what happens next.

[Alkarasu]

6620705

An eloquent and encompassing summary of your situation.

Unfortunately, that's the part that was lost in translation. I simply don't know a proper single-word expletive in English expressive enough to really convey all the meaning of the word he really said.
I know six of them in Russian, though.

[Gotland]

Well, the spell being used on PAP universe never 'corrected' their world, the 'great time spell' was supposed save everyone from dying because of magic. But of course this is a story, so you can ignore this comment if you wish to

[Alkarasu]

8184025 I think you are trying to argue with Teplovoz here, not me.
He admits that he's not the most knowledgeable pony on that topic, so his explanation might be quite a bit less accurate than he wants it to be.