Koschei

• Immortal and honestly having such a good time right now
• Vaguely evil even though she isn't really doing anything clearly evil
• Keeps a journal she intends to turn into a "History book on small miracles"
• Vaguely ethereal and always pops up in thunderstorms
• Ascended demigod though not ascended enough to be a real god

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Koschei was a presumably deathless creature in a body that wasn’t entirely hers. However, Koschei was not the kind of person to listen to convention or rules. It was just her, the boneyard, and Ivane who was searching up ahead. She trudged in lightly to meet her friend, and called “Did you find anything yet?”

“No.” Said Ivane in a flat rattling tone. She held up a skull and Koschei assumed by the similarity to Ivane’s fleshless skull that it once belonged to a very strange looking Bogsneak. “Keep looking. We’re scouting for tracks, not keepsakes.”

“Ivy-“ Koschei launched herself into Ivane’s side and she didn’t even budge. “I’m bored outta my mind. You can’t blame me for looking for more interesting stuff,” she continued. The bag hanging from her side shook with bone fragments and rocks. “Nothing ever gets away from you so you might as well give them a head start right?”

“Once again, no.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I know.” Ivane responded, and she turned, gently nudging Koschei back into the direction she had come from. “Tracks. Back to work. We don’t have an eternity to do this.”

“I do,” Koschei hissed quietly and she stomped on back. She didn’t crush bones under her claws like Ivane did and she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous about her lack of intimidating qualities.

A gentle crack stopped her in her tracks and she looked down thinking she had suddenly become an iota stronger. Instead, she found her claw resting on an egg amongst the bones with just the smallest dent in it. For once she resisted the urge to chirp and yelp whenever she found anything shiny and instead hoisted the egg out of the bone pile to look more closely. It felt slimy and cold in her hands and she could swear it was pulsating. Koschei assumed what she felt at that moment was love, and she threw her head back screeched in abject delight.

Ivane came running, leaving a wake of shattered bone in her wake. “Koschei, what is wrong with you?” She growled, skidding to a halt. “ I thought a snake had jumped up and bit you in the-“ her sentence trailed off once she saw why Koschei was holding onto. “Where did you get that?”

“It’s a bone baby!” Koschei held the egg up to the scalding sun and the vague, slightly odd looking silhouette of a hatchling inside was illuminated. The egg’s shell took on the sulfurite color of the sky in the light. “This is so much better than rocks.”

“We don’t need a baby, Kos,” said Ivane, pinching the bridge of her nose. “The boss certainly doesn’t. Put it back where you found it.”

“It needs a name,” Koschei excitedly whispered, disregarding whatever Ivane might end up saying. “Oh my stars, we’re going to be parents!” She held the egg to her chest and grinned up at Ivane. “We should get married!”

“If you want to, but ask me properly,” grunted Ivane, and she started to reach for the egg. “Don’t ask me while we’re deciding to do with an abandoned egg. The thing inside is probably dead anyway, put it back where you found it.”

“But it cracked!”

“It cracked because you stepped on it, *******-“

In that moment, the egg Koschei held wiggled and one more crack formed on it. Then another. The egg was getting chipped open violently from the inside. Ivane stopped reaching seemingly as a precaution, Koschei put the egg back amongst the bones and leant down with a delighted feeling swelling in her chest. “Fighting spirit!” She exclaimed, her tail batting the ground in an erratic manner.

The first visible feature of the hatchling was its pale slimy snout, full of teeth. It ripped the shell around it and with shaky movements, it sat up and looked up at the bogsneak and mirror before it with a curious look. Its green and orange hide shone in the harsh sun.

“That’s… Surprisingly mundane looking, if gross.” Ivane whispered. She lowered her fins briefly as the hatchling blinked in an odd discordant manner, one eye after the other. She promptly turned to look at Koschei. Koschei was holding on to her ear fins, her mouth hanging open in an expression of pure joy. “Kos-“

“They’re disgusting, I love them!” said Koschei, picking up the hatchling and bumping up her nose against theirs. “Wormwood, I calling it Wormwood.” The hatchling let out an excited chirp she took as a yes. “Oh, we gotta show the boss Ivy!”

“… Maybe later,” said Ivane. “Tracks first. Let’s just uh… Keep Wormwood with us for now.” She hesitantly patted the still damp hatchling on its head and turned around. “Let’s go.”

“We really do need to get married though,” Koschei insisted.”

“If we find a nice spot.” Ivane responded, trudging on with Koschei in tow.