12-11-2025, 05:39 PM
Moscow in January felt sharper than Seren remembered. Not colder – Wales had a winter bite all of its own – but brighter, in the way want always sharpened in the dark. People desired more fiercely when the world was frozen: warmth, purpose, distraction, comfort. Everywhere she walked, the golden motes of other people’s longing drifted and pulsed an overlay in the air — sometimes faint as mist, sometimes bright as fireflies.
She’d lived here nearly a year now. Long enough to memorise the metro lines and the late-night cafés where mystics and conspiracy theorists gathered. Long enough to bury herself in libraries, in folklore archives, in scattered academic scraps about magic. Long enough to accept that the announcement revealing channelers to the world didn’t give her answers about herself – only the terrifying possibility that the world was wider, stranger, and closer to her than she ever imagined.
She’d returned to Wales for Christmas, hoping the distance would settle something in her. Her mother hugged her tightly, fed her too much, and did not ask why her daughter spent her days hunting legends like she was chasing ghosts. But even home felt small now. Safe, yes – but small.
And she was done feeling small.
So she’d come back to Moscow for the new year, carrying the same hunger she’d had when she first arrived. Magic could be seen now, and that meant her own seeing wasn’t madness. If nothing else it at least seemed proof there was a world behind the world – one she could finally step into, if she could only find the right door.
At the outdoor market, Seren walked slowly through the rows of brightly covered stalls, letting the crowd move around her. She wandered past steaming food stands, knitted hats, carved toys, incense vendors. Snow drifted sideways like sifted flour, heavy and quiet. It hissed on the stove tops and clung to scarves and eyelashes. Around it all the motes of golden desire danced for her just as thickly in the cold air – bright near lovers, erratic near the anxious, dull around the bored and tired. A man near the entrance burned with the sharp, familiar want for money – quick, easy, now. A woman lingered over a table of scarves, her want soft and steady: warmth, comfort, beauty she believed she didn’t deserve. A teenager wanted to be anywhere but here.
Seren kept her awareness wide but dull. Focusing made everything clearer. Sharper. Harder to ignore. She was only here for something simple. Something grounding. Something she could control.
A new journal.
The stall she stopped at was small and temporary – handmade notebooks laid out in neat rows. Leather, linen, and intricate wood-burned covers. The vendor arranged them with careful optimism; the motes around him flickered with the quiet, steady want of someone hoping for a good sale but expecting nothing. Only a small, sparse drift of gold shifted towards her, barely noticeable unless she looked right at it: a want to be noticed. To be seen as something more than another vendor in another winter.
Seren didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she reached toward a deep-blue journal with a brass clasp. When she opened it, the paper was thick, soft under her thumb. Enough weight to anchor thoughts that otherwise scattered. Last year I filled half a journal with theories, she thought. Half a journal with dead ends. Maybe this one will be different.
She flipped through the blank sheets, and a snowflake melted on the first page.
The market buzzed around her. A child’s want flared bright and brief – a desire for a sugared bun from a nearby stall. A moment later, an adult’s sharper want collided with it: the want for silence, for cooperation, for a moment of peace. There were other, harmless longings – someone craving mulled wine, someone bargaining too eagerly, someone desperate to get out of the cold. It all drifted like soft sparks in her periphery.
But one presence broke the pattern.
A sudden, bright flare of golden sparks. Sharper than desire. Cleaner than lust. Focused, searching, intentional. Someone nearby wasn’t craving warmth or food or company. Someone was seeking.
The same flavour of want she carried like a heartbeat.
Her body reacted before her mind did, a stillness settling through her spine. She kept her shoulders relaxed, gaze on the journal, senses open just enough to see that flare again when it pulsed – close, close enough that if she turned, she might see the person’s outline haloed in motes. So she did; just slightly, enough to see where the shapes were leading, leaving the glimmer unfocused – safe. The crowd shifted.
Someone stood behind her. Or moved past. Or lingered.
The vendor cleared his throat gently. “You… like that one?” he asked, accent thick. A soft drift of longing unfurled from him – not for her, not romantically, but for connection. For conversation. For a sale. For something small but meaningful in the cold.
She smiled faintly but didn’t look directly at him. “It feels right.”
The answer fed his want harmlessly. A safe interaction. Easy. She set the journal on the counter and reached for her purse.
– and that searching pulse flared again, filling her periphery with precision. Close enough that she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it. Her hand stilled on her bag. Someone around her wanted what she wanted. Or wanted her because she was searching. Or wanted something she didn’t yet understand.
Any of those possibilities could be dangerous. Or the start of exactly what she came back to Moscow to find. Seren closed her hand around the journal. She let the snow fall, let her breath fog, let the moment stretch like a held note.
She didn’t turn. She waited.
She’d lived here nearly a year now. Long enough to memorise the metro lines and the late-night cafés where mystics and conspiracy theorists gathered. Long enough to bury herself in libraries, in folklore archives, in scattered academic scraps about magic. Long enough to accept that the announcement revealing channelers to the world didn’t give her answers about herself – only the terrifying possibility that the world was wider, stranger, and closer to her than she ever imagined.
She’d returned to Wales for Christmas, hoping the distance would settle something in her. Her mother hugged her tightly, fed her too much, and did not ask why her daughter spent her days hunting legends like she was chasing ghosts. But even home felt small now. Safe, yes – but small.
And she was done feeling small.
So she’d come back to Moscow for the new year, carrying the same hunger she’d had when she first arrived. Magic could be seen now, and that meant her own seeing wasn’t madness. If nothing else it at least seemed proof there was a world behind the world – one she could finally step into, if she could only find the right door.
At the outdoor market, Seren walked slowly through the rows of brightly covered stalls, letting the crowd move around her. She wandered past steaming food stands, knitted hats, carved toys, incense vendors. Snow drifted sideways like sifted flour, heavy and quiet. It hissed on the stove tops and clung to scarves and eyelashes. Around it all the motes of golden desire danced for her just as thickly in the cold air – bright near lovers, erratic near the anxious, dull around the bored and tired. A man near the entrance burned with the sharp, familiar want for money – quick, easy, now. A woman lingered over a table of scarves, her want soft and steady: warmth, comfort, beauty she believed she didn’t deserve. A teenager wanted to be anywhere but here.
Seren kept her awareness wide but dull. Focusing made everything clearer. Sharper. Harder to ignore. She was only here for something simple. Something grounding. Something she could control.
A new journal.
The stall she stopped at was small and temporary – handmade notebooks laid out in neat rows. Leather, linen, and intricate wood-burned covers. The vendor arranged them with careful optimism; the motes around him flickered with the quiet, steady want of someone hoping for a good sale but expecting nothing. Only a small, sparse drift of gold shifted towards her, barely noticeable unless she looked right at it: a want to be noticed. To be seen as something more than another vendor in another winter.
Seren didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she reached toward a deep-blue journal with a brass clasp. When she opened it, the paper was thick, soft under her thumb. Enough weight to anchor thoughts that otherwise scattered. Last year I filled half a journal with theories, she thought. Half a journal with dead ends. Maybe this one will be different.
She flipped through the blank sheets, and a snowflake melted on the first page.
The market buzzed around her. A child’s want flared bright and brief – a desire for a sugared bun from a nearby stall. A moment later, an adult’s sharper want collided with it: the want for silence, for cooperation, for a moment of peace. There were other, harmless longings – someone craving mulled wine, someone bargaining too eagerly, someone desperate to get out of the cold. It all drifted like soft sparks in her periphery.
But one presence broke the pattern.
A sudden, bright flare of golden sparks. Sharper than desire. Cleaner than lust. Focused, searching, intentional. Someone nearby wasn’t craving warmth or food or company. Someone was seeking.
The same flavour of want she carried like a heartbeat.
Her body reacted before her mind did, a stillness settling through her spine. She kept her shoulders relaxed, gaze on the journal, senses open just enough to see that flare again when it pulsed – close, close enough that if she turned, she might see the person’s outline haloed in motes. So she did; just slightly, enough to see where the shapes were leading, leaving the glimmer unfocused – safe. The crowd shifted.
Someone stood behind her. Or moved past. Or lingered.
The vendor cleared his throat gently. “You… like that one?” he asked, accent thick. A soft drift of longing unfurled from him – not for her, not romantically, but for connection. For conversation. For a sale. For something small but meaningful in the cold.
She smiled faintly but didn’t look directly at him. “It feels right.”
The answer fed his want harmlessly. A safe interaction. Easy. She set the journal on the counter and reached for her purse.
– and that searching pulse flared again, filling her periphery with precision. Close enough that she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it. Her hand stilled on her bag. Someone around her wanted what she wanted. Or wanted her because she was searching. Or wanted something she didn’t yet understand.
Any of those possibilities could be dangerous. Or the start of exactly what she came back to Moscow to find. Seren closed her hand around the journal. She let the snow fall, let her breath fog, let the moment stretch like a held note.
She didn’t turn. She waited.