Author's Note
Yay for more weird magical stuff happening in sports!
This is a retelling of "Brewery of Eggshells" in the Celtic Fairy Tails unit. And it's yet another storytelling with a hockey twist, this time featuring rookie changelings. I'm going to bring back characters from Week 6's storytelling; most notably Sasha. If you don't feel like clicking on the link, all you really need to know is that Sasha is the captain (but not real life captain) of the Wilkes-Barre Penguins (the AHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins).
Prior to the events in "The Boy in the Hockey Helmet."
This story has multiple POVs and multiple timelines which will both be divided by "-x-"; "-" will indicate a change in scenery/setting but still within the established POV/timeline. Cast of characters at the bottom.
Fun Facts (because that sounds better than Terminology):
- Sophomore Year: a player who is in their second year in a league; still a rookie
- Sasha is the Russian diminutive for Alexander; Zhenya is the diminutive of Evgeni which is in turn the Russian equivalent of Eugene; Seryozha is the diminutive for Sergei. Links will take you to the pronunciations (Sasha is pronounced just like it's written).
- The Superleague is the prior incarnation of the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League, formed in 2006) which is made up of various European leagues, most notably filled with Russians, Finns, and Swedes who couldn't make it in the NHL; along those same lines, not as prestigious as the NHL. A lot of KHL players are paid higher salaries than NHLers, though they may not be as highly skilled - a lot of times, it comes down to patriotism. Or blackmail. Just ask Evgeni Malkin.
- Prior to the events in "The Boy in the Hockey Helmet." So, if you're in a shippy mood, you can read this as pre-slash. (If you don't know what this means, ignore it and don't ask questions.)
- This is Mike Johnston - he's the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. And this is Jim Rutherford, the GM.
- When someone in hockey has "soft hands" it means they're great at controlling the puck - a useful thing in a game of inches and bounces.
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| "Sasha" - Alexander Mogilny |
-z-
Once, back when Sasha was still young, still only having just broken into the Superleague, he had
watched his captain, Seryozha, sputter and curse low under his breath, glaring
at a rookie, Zhenya, next to Sasha’s stall.
It had taken only a few minutes into practice before Sasha had seen the changes
in Zhenya that his captain had seen.
But Sasha didn’t ask questions, he just kept his head down – keeping one eye on Zhenya and the other on Seryozha.
-x-
Little Nicky is wonderful in practice until he isn’t. Until he’s fumbling around, talking in a
language no one on the team has ever heard – effectively ruling out Russian,
Czech, German, Swedish, and Canadian French – muttering as he pulls his gear
on.
“What do you think?” Archie asks, leaning deep into his
stall, projecting as much nonchalance as he was able to.
“I don’t know,” Sasha answers truthfully, pretending – just as
Archie was – that he wasn’t as bothered by the goings on as he actually was. It’s
hockey, he tries to tell himself at first, magical
shit happens all the time.
-x-
It had started off with a simple voice change – Zhenya’s
voice was always light, bordering on squeaky.
So when it suddenly deepened, sounding like a he’d spent the night
screaming, Sasha had just assumed that puberty had finally settled in (Zhenya
had been all of 17 when he’d been swallowed into the Superleague, a fast skater
with soft hands and a hard shot wasn't about to be allowed to slip off to North America).
On the ice, Sasha watched as Seryozha circled Zhenya occasionally,
his sharp eyes that saw every open (or about to open) passing lane during a game turned on Zhenya as if he were a particularly tough defenseman to figure
out.
Sometimes Zhenya ignored him; sometimes Zhenya snarled out a
curse that was quickly followed by a rough shove. Sasha tried once to step between them, but
Seryozha had carefully corralled him away.
-x-
Despite what Sasha often tells him, Nicky is not
little. He’s long and lanky, all stringy
muscle that he probably won’t grow into.
So when he takes to looming over Sasha, Sasha finds it
harder to pretend that nothing’s wrong.
-
“What is it, little Nicky?” Sasha asks.
Not-Nicky doesn’t answer, just stares at him with blank eyes
that only occasionally flicker with something like rage. Sasha tries to control the feeling of
indignation welling in his chest – this creature had no business messing with
his teammates, much less one of his favorite rookies.
“I know what you are,” he says.
“I doubt it,” Not-Nicky says, then slowly and deliberately,
he moves away.
A breath Sasha hadn’t realized he’d been holding whooshes
out of him, leaving him to slump against the wall of his stall. He waits until the rest of the locker room is
empty before he pulls out his cell phone – dialing a number he hasn’t called in
a long time.
-x-
Whatever happened between them happened off-ice and away
from the arena. All Sasha knew was that
Zhenya’s deep voice was high again, that his quick temper had been soothed.
Zhenya was also loathe to wander too far from Seryozha
except during a game, the coaches figuring out they had to physically shove
Zhenya into position during practice – Seryozha chuckling all the while.
-x-
Sasha hangs up with a promise to call Seryozha once it was
over (and more often than once a month).
He leans forward, puts his head in his hands, and thinks about what he
has to do.
-
It’s easier than he’d thought it’d be to get Not-Nicky
willingly into his truck. He sits quiet
in the passenger seat, doesn’t even look at Sasha as Sasha drives.
It takes two hours to get to Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon.
 |
| Pine Creek Gorge, a.k.a. The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, in autumn |
“Do you know why we’re here?” Sasha asks, walking Not-Nicky
to the edge and praying that security wouldn’t find them until this was over.
“You can’t kill me,” Not-Nicky says.
“No,” Sasha whispers – but then his hand lashes out, grabs
Nicky by the collar and swings him around so that Not-Nicky’s feet were
slipping at the edge. “But I can make it
look close.”
His words are chased away by a shriek on a sudden gust of wind.
“Don’t you hurt that boy,” screams an old woman – her face
was twisted, her fingers gnarled as she scrambled up the steep sides of the
gorge.
“Give me back my
boy,” Sasha yells, pushing Not-Nicky still further backwards – the changeling’s arms windmilling
as he tries to keep his balance.
“He’s right behind you,” the old woman screams again as she
reaches them – taking Not-Nicky into her arms and pressing him against her chest,
cooing softly.
Sasha whirls around – sees his Nicky standing there, his
eyes wide and his face pale.
“God,” Sasha
whispers, but then he’s rushing forward and wrapping Nicky into a hug. And Nicky hugs him back just as tightly.
-z-
End.
-z-
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| "Nicky" and "Not-Nicky" - Marc-Andre Fleury |
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| "Seryozha" - Sergei Federov |
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| "Zhenya" - Evgeni Malkin |
It was really cool that you were able to incorporate something that you liked so much (hockey) into your story. With all the extra background information that you gave, it was a good idea to put your author’s note at the very beginning. That being said, all the required background information kind of took away from the retelling of the story for me. I feel like this would have been better as a longer piece of fiction.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s really interesting that you chose to do a hockey based story. It’s so underrated down here in the south but it’s actually pretty fun to watch. I have been to a few OU hockey games and I had a blast. I don’t know a lot about hockey though so your Author’s Note was very helpful. One aspect that I really liked about your story was the dialogue between the characters. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Kirsten! I love your posts that accidentally become about hockey. I think I've said this before, but it's really smart that you put your author's note at the beginning of your post. It helped me be fully prepared to read your stories. My favorite part was how you assigned each character a person/picture. It really helped to provide a mental image for the story. Thanks for the post. I enjoyed it!
ReplyDelete