Williwaw

A young girl sat before the fire and listened to her father play the violin over the sound of the williwaw outside.  She closed her eyes and listened to the melody and before she knew it she had awoken to the sound of the door closing.  The fire had burned low and her father was not in sight.  She rushed to the window and gazed out at the latern departing into the woods of Ukraine.   She rushed to gather her overcoat and boots in order to follow her father.  This time of night and in the cold and gale was no time to be alone in these woods.  When she was ready she could only barely make out his latern still steadily moving through the woods away from the cabin.

The chill wind bit through her skin and the cloak over it, but on she rushed through the night trying to catch up to the latern ahead.  Around her she could hear the howls of wolves and other beasts of the night, and these brought to mind the fables of the beasts that lurked in the woods.  The dark crone Baba Yaga and the foul beastmen came to mind and this thought brought a chill down her spine, but what had always terrified her the most was the thought of the horrible banshee.  The spirit of a lost soul who could only wail of the torment they suffered.  With these thoughts in her head she picked up the pace trying to catch her father.

Suddenly she stopped and moved partially behind a tree.  The latern was clearly in view with her father next to it.  He sat upon a felled tree with the latern on it's stump next to him and was slowly smoking from his pipe as if waiting.  She did not have long to wait to find out who he was waiting for,  a pale faced man stepped from the shadows where no form had been before and sat besides her father.  She could tell they had begun speaking but was still too far to hear a single word.  She could see her father's face clearly and tell he was upset by whatever they were talking about but there was nothing she could make out of the face of the pale man beside him.

Slowly, silently she made her way forward, curiosity getting the best of her to find out what they were discussing.  As she crept forward under the cover of the next tree she could suddenly make out what the pale man said at the end of the conversation.  "The deal is made then, I go now to gather the soul of your daughter."  Her eyes widened with these words as she stared around the tree in disbelief at her father.  A sudden Williwaw wailed, stinding her eyes shut. She opened them again quickly, but her eyes found only a lantern which had burned out and an empty clearing.  She was looking in shock when she heard a footstep behind her.

A tall skeleton of a man stood over her, his weather face was covered in scars and his eyes were red as blood.  He reached out his hand and grabbed her by the chin, moving his face close to her's.  "I am Pain and forever more will be your patron.  You will never see your father again Miss Petrovich, and the cost for you of my protection is your life and voice."  With that he breathed in and Beautrix could feel her consciousness fade with the blue light that flowed from her body.  Before all went black she again thought of the beasts which haunted the woods, and the ethereal women with no voices.  Banshees, the wailing spirits of the wind.