The Winter Rhymes Game — A Steem Promo Story — Part IV, Finale

manoldonchev (69)in #fiction • 5 years ago

Greetings, everyone!

This is part of a story, one of the four that I wrote this year for our @steemfiction project. The first two were included in anthologies that we published on Amazon, striving to bring some more attention to the Steem community and the possibilities for creative collaboration one can find here.

Stage III and Stage IV did not go to the end, though. Lots of persons, lots of personal reasons. Anyway.

I decided I should at least publish my story here so that the community for which it was written can read it. So...it's here in four parts.

Here you can find

The Winter Rhymes Game — Part One

The Winter Rhymes Game — Part Two

The Winter Rhymes Game — Part Three

And here's the last one. Happy Solstice!

The Winter Rhymes Game

continued...

When he finally gets there, he secures the bike to a tree in a garden nearby and enters the lobby dripping water from his suit, carrying one small backpack with his courier’s weather-resistant equipment, and another, much longer and heavier sack. A valet rushes to his help with a portable dryer and another offers to carry the luggage for him. That he declines, much to the amazement of the personnel. The elevator to the twenty-first floor seems to be taking forever to get up there.

The door to room 2112 opens before he reaches for his electronic key. She is standing there, framed in the soft glow of candles behind her, outlining the curves of her lithe body through the fabrics of translucent sleepwear.

“Is that a body you’re dragging in that bag?” A.J. sounds cheerful despite the comment.

“Eh…,” manages Ash. Then a little more. “No. It’s our new skis. I planned on taking you out for a tour...”

“Great!” She launches herself at him, embracing his torso with arms and legs, almost knocking him down. He drops the bag to hold her, instead. The kiss that follows lasts about half a minute, then A.J. rushes back inside to change into clothes more appropriate for the outing.

“Damn,” is the only reaction Ash could make to this turn of events.

Sweet intimate night
Brutally sabotaged by
My own plan working

“I’m beginning to like this haiku stuff.”

“What?” A.J. has to raise her voice from deeper into the apartment.

“Nothing, I need to change, too,” Ash replies and drags himself inside, if only for a couple of minutes.

They ski down from Perun Hotel all the way to the relatively flat central part of the city. Then it’s time for Olympic style running along alleys shared by them, mounted patrols, and other crazy sport-heads.

Ash and A.J. often stop to sit on the railings of bridges or overpasses, to enjoy the sights and talk. Little by little, they make the promised tour. They pass around the shrines of the Slavic deities, the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish temples, the steaming natural pools near the Triangular Tower and the restaurant where Ash had gone as an escort the night before, the Lions’ Bridge, the archery grounds, the Woods of Tangra park, where they watch for a while as an owl is silently hunting, the Koloba Engineering and the Ion R&D skyscrapers, the observatory and the main complex of the University of Sredets, and more. All the while A.J. is taking infrared pictures.

They head east through the vast Central Park, the frozen bumpy alleys of which are shining in the moonlight. Skiing is difficult but they are deeply immersed in close contact with nature. Then Ash decides to bring A.J. to his favorite tree, the one with the well under it, to get to which they have to navigate the concrete and steel maze of the Sun Quarter project.

“Wait,” calls A.J., trying to catch her breath. “I think I saw someone down there.”

She is talking about the same excavation that Ash has already seen two nights ago. It seems eons have passed for him since then.

“I can see no one on the infrared,” she adds, her voice and breathing easier to control now. “I must have been wrong.”
“No, wait, I saw someone, too. Before we met. Just for a second, that is. But I am sure she was topless.”

“She? It was quite manly a figure, and I am positive about that.” She makes a pause, lifts her face from the camera viewfinder and looks at Ash. “Do you think somebody needs help?”

“Yes,” he says, laughing. “We do!” And he pushes his skis down the street with A.J. following a few seconds behind.

When they find the abandoned plot, it’s surrounded by plastic yellow tape. But it hangs loose on one side, torn in two. They click their skis off and go to the well, hand in hand. Ash knows it’s filled up with dirt and rocks.

Only, this time it isn’t.

Mouth agape, he fumbles for his phone to shine its flashlight down there. A.J. manages to find hers first. There’s water fifteen feet below, covered with a thin crust of fresh ice.

“Shall we toss coins?” Without waiting for an answer, A.J. starts fumbling through her zippered pockets again.
Always overly organized about his whatever finances he has, Ash quickly hands her one nickel lev, held between his forefinger and his thumb, while he holds another with his ring finger to the soft of his palm. Both pieces catch the moonlight before plunging into the dark. One of them cracks the ice below and the other follows with the satisfying sound of a good splash.

“What if those were the last of my money?” This seems to be the perfect time to make it sound like a joke.

“Well, then I hope you made a good wish,” A.J. sounds as joyful as ever. “Besides, you still look to me like a healthy young male. You’ll be fine.”

Oh, many times
You’ve heard the same.
But…

“Look!” The girl pulls Ash by the hand and drags him closer to the tree. “There’s something written there.”
There are, indeed, three lines in charcoal on a smooth place where the bark looked almost naturally peeled back. Smudged a bit from the moist but still easy to read.

The path we step on
The choice we make at Solstice
The spirits we bind

“I promise you, it wasn’t me,” says Ash, feeling a little numb in the mind for all these miracles. But then again, he has not slept for the past two nights.

“Promise it will be you next time!” And with that taunt, she runs to her skis and signals the beginning of yet another race.

The return to Perun hotel drains what feels like the last of their strength. They stumble against each other in the elevator. They stumble against each other under the shower. They stumble together to the double bed. Clothes mark their winding path along the floor. The light of dawn seeps through the window curtains.

“Happy Solstice,” mumbles Ash, lying face down on the covers which none of them have yet removed.

“Happy Solstice,” A.J. chirps back. Then, powered by a final rush of adrenaline, she jumps out of bed. “I almost forgot! I told you I had something for you, too.”

She returns with some piece of paper. Ash grunts as he turns and leans sideways on his elbow.

“Thank you so much,” he says even before he knows what it is.

It is a return ticket to Reykjavik. And the choice that goes with it. One with great power if a rhyme in charcoal on a tree is to be trusted in matters such as these.

Should he go to Tokyo and become a shark? Should he listen to that part of him which would go home to the familiar game and even more familiar life? Or should he stick to the one person he now believes in?

Looking into her eyes, he knows there is no choice at all.

“We have a song to write together, don’t we?”

The End... Or is it?

Somewhere outside of the youths' hearing...

Well played, kolober, well played!
It took you the child
Of North and South
To draw away from me
The grandson of Ognyan.
But come next Solstice,
There will be another boy
To hear my samovila call.
This prison cannot last forever.
I win one game,
And all you did will be undone.

Now it's the end ;) Seriously. Happy Solstice!

Let me know if there's anything in there that you would like to learn more about.

Huge thanks to @janenightshade and @jayna for all the help with editing my piece of our collective winter holidays effort.