The Lady of Snow and Sorrow - 3. The orphaned band
The woman stretched her long slender arm towards Kai, and the drummer obediently took her hand. The next second, with an unhuman strength, the lady pulled the man onto the seat behind her and stepped on the gas...
Fandom: Wintersun
Characters: Jari Mäenpää,Jukka Koskinen,Kai Hahto,Teemu Mäntysaari
Genre: Gen,Het,Slash
Rating: Adult
Normally, Kai was a kind, good-tempered person, but since the not-so-good concert in St. Petersburg things started changing rapidly.
He started drinking like hell, it was too much even for a metal-head. He said that Wintersun was no longer a worthy metal band, and that Jari had lost the taste and the feeling of the music, writing some "teenage-girls-crap". He regretted not getting a "normal job" instead of "fooling around" with the band. He mocked the tenderness between the two guitarists, often referring to them as to "our schoolgirls." Most often he looked as if seized by infinite sadness. Sadness and hate.
But still, he was their drummer, they could not and they did not want to replace him. Jari was doing his best to keep an eye on him, but that was not an easy thing to do, because now the drummer prefered to stay by himself. Sometimes Kai Hahto complained on hearing strange drum beats in his head that had nothing in common with the things they played, and these beats did not allow him to sleep enough.
Jari was sure that this weird transformation was somehow linked to the Snow Queen, but couldn't make out why She chose Kai instead of him. None of the band admitted the Queen had ever visited them too.
It was a short break in the rehearsal, when the disaster came. Jari could have guessed it was near by the unbearable cold, accompanied by a bitter wind and wet snow, not typical for the beginning of June - even in Finland. Teemu approached Jari to ask the lead guitarist to help him with a particularly difficult piece of the song.
"Will you stop it?.." Kai grunted, as if he wanted to pierce someone's eye with a drumstick. He had been already boozy when he came to the rehearsal, but still he noticed everything he didn't like. "It's disgusting when you hold hands like small children. Fuck! That's really dumb!.."
"Don't like, don't look," Teemu answered curtly.
"Great idea!" Kai exclaimed. "I need to smoke."
Jukka wanted to follow the drummer, but he grunted again.
"I'm not a fuckin' kid, Jukka. And I don't need your company either."
"Whatever..." the bass guitarist shook his head and turned on the coffee machine. The drummer left the room, coughing loudly. Jari was watching his friend through the window, as Kai went outside, lit the cigarette and brought it to his lips.
Suddenly he heard a motorcycle roar. It was strange, because the windows of the rehearsal studio normally did not let in any sounds from the street. The next second, the Wintersun leader understood everything and bolted outside, following his friend.
Jukka and Teemu could see a mighty slightly motorcycle slow down near Kai Hahto, a motorbike driven by a tall long-haired albino beauty clad in all-closed, but tight silver clothes and heavy boots.
"Man, don't look at her! Don't come near!" shouted Jari, running towards the drummer. Alas! He tripped over an empty can, fell, and two precious seconds were lost.
The woman stretched her long slender arm towards Kai, and the drummer obediently took her hand. The next second, with an unhuman strength, the lady pulled the man onto the seat behind her and stepped on the gas. Jari rushed about two hundred meters behind them, but could not catch up with the bike that gained speed in a heartbeat.
Kai didn't ever turn his head. He was silently holding tight the woman's ice-cold waist, her hair waving around his head. None of them cared about wearing a helmet.
"Kai! Please, don't !.." Jari roared in vain, feeling no more strength for the further pursue. The guitarist suffocated, his lungs, heart and blood vessels were about to explode. Finally, he leaned on a lamp post, watching the bike and Kai the drummer jump upwards and dissolve in the air.
Drained, Jari returned to his friends, not knowing what to tell them.
"Relax, man," Jukka said softly, as Teemu silently embraced the lead guitarist's shoulders. "Everyone would enjoy a good ride with a beautiful chick. Especially when one is so troubled as our Kai now is. Perhaps this is what he was lacking all these months."
"You don't understand! Oh, you don't understand, Jukka! He won't return..." Jari yelled.
"I think you're taking this fairy-tale too close to heart. As well as your strange dreams," Teemu objected. "Dreams usually don't come true until you believe in them that strongly."
"You're stupid, both..." Jari hissed.
"We've got one more bully now," sighed Jukka dialling Kai's number. But the drummer did not answer - neither that evening, nor the next day. He did not appear at home, and no friends have seen him since that unhappy day. The police could find no traces of Kai Hahto, either, and the street cameras that might have registered the abduction, had gone out of order seconds before. The band had to literally hide from the press, as no one of them desired to discuss their loss in public. Rumour spread around Wintersun like a forest fire, but the men didn't care to deny anything.
Jari bitterly blamed himself for his drummer's disappearance. He shouldn't have left Kai alone, not even for a minute, despite all his dark mood and hostile behavior. He was responsible for his band members, and this time, he fucked his duty up.
It was a gloomy Sunday, when the rest of the band were sitting in Teemu's neat apartment, attempting to work out a plan. They had to cancel all their European shows, and this resulted in a huge money loss. But now that was the last thing to disturb them.
"Where does She live, in the Arctic?" Jukka said. "I don't think that Nuclear Blast will fund our journey there..."
"We could join a group of scientists or crowdfund our journey," Teemu proposed.
"Just listen to yourself, men!" Jari argued. "What shall we say to these people? "The Snow Queen stole our drummer,and we're going to look for him throughout all the Arctic, not knowing where exactly he is?" What sane person will ever fund such a rescue operation?"
"We could play a charity concert on the North Pole and shoot a video as well," said the bass guitarist. "To save narwhals, for example. I love narwhals, they are the unicorns of the sea!"
Suddenly Teemu bolted from his armchair.
"Hey, listen to me, guys. Now I think it's no use to look for the Snow Queen in this particular world, for her realm does not belong to it. We'll sooner die in the Arctic ocean than bring our Kai back. But, as far as I know, there are some "interchange stations" on the Earth.
"These sci-fi books of yours!" Jari sighed.
"Any other suggestions, my heart?"
"Go on," said Jukka. "Your idea can't be stranger than the things that happened".
"What we should do, it's to find a knowing person, who may take us to this kind of place," continued the younger man. "I guess, Anne should know something."
"Who's that?"
"A master of Runes. Something like a witch, but a good one. She made this thing for you, Jari," Teemu pointed to Jari's small wooden pendant with a Runic inscription carved on it. The young guitarist gave it to his friend as a birthday present, and Jari only took it off while taking a bath.
"We've tried everything. Why not try this?" Wintersun's leader sighed.
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