prequel to Fate, and they can be read in any order (I wrote Fate first, though)
Yuri Plisetsky was always a regretful child. There was simply no other way to put it.
He got into fights, bloodied noses, screamed profanities at kids who barely even knew what those words meant.
He got into trouble a lot.
He sat in the time-out corner a lot.
"Do you regret your actions now?" his teachers would ask him, and he'd stubbornly shake his head no. And so they'd leave him there for a bit longer, hoping that he would eventually come around.
His mother died when he was four years old in a car accident. He moved in with his grandpa after that, and his grandpa was good to him. "Eat your vegetables and become big and strong," he'd say whenever Yuri sat glaring at the plate of vegetables before him.
But Yuri was a troublemaker, even to his grandpa.
He screamed and shouted and wailed. He broke into the cookie jar. He demanded things and yelled and threw tantrums. And none of this ceased until two months after he moved in with his grandpa. And although he was young, Yuri remembers this scene quite well: the two of them sitting on the couch, side by side, a young Yuri with his arms crossed, refusing to meet his grandpa's eyes.
His grandpa said to him gently, "Your birthday's coming up, isn't it? I'll take you somewhere fun."
"Fun." The word echoed in Yuri's mind, over and over. How could anything be fun now that his beloved mother was gone? People kept telling him not to worry, that she was up in the sky somewhere, but that was the cause of his worry – what use was she to him, way up there? And what if she fell?
When his birthday came around, he silently let his grandpa lead him somewhere unknown.
It was the ice rink.
His grandpa rented him some skates, laced them up, set him gently on the ice and told him to be careful, to hold onto the barriers for stability. Yuri wobbled, and his ankles hurt from trying to stay upright. But he had a natural talent for it, and it was fun. By the time his hour-long session had ended, he was passing other kids around the rink, smiling with glee as he went faster and faster.
Looking back, of course it hadn't been all that fast – but to little Yuri, it had been exhilarating.
"Was it fun?" asked his grandpa. Yuri said yes.
From then on, whenever Yuri got in trouble at school, his grandpa would say to him, "No ice rink for you today." And Yuri would pout in the corner and throw tantrums, and his grandpa would threaten, "If you continue, you won't go to the ice rink for two more days."
Yuri learned to shut up and listen.
Because he did regret a lot of things he did. He got angry easily and punched kids at school, and when teachers asked him if he regretted his actions, his mind screamed yes but the word that came out of his mouth was "no." When he said something mean, his heart panged, but he refused to apologize. When he yelled at his grandpa, he remembered all the things the old man had done for him, but he never once said sorry.
Around the time when he was in secondary school, he realized that his problem was pride.
But in any case, throughout primary school, Yuri would go to the nearby ice rink every afternoon and skate (unless he was in trouble, of course). He would skate loops around the rink, smiling with glee, nothing like the punk he was at school. Sometimes, he'd run into classmates, who never hesitated to shoot him dark looks whenever he got near. But instead of retaliating, he remembered that he was on the ice and went off to skate another lap instead.
It all went horribly wrong when he was nine years old. He had gone to the rink again, like usual. His grandpa had stopped accompanying him last year, trusting the adults at the rink and their small community to keep little Yuri safe. So he went off on his own, plodding along. The staff at the rink handed him his usual pair of skates and let him in. He had just stepped onto the ice when a boy came up to him.
"Hey, punk," he snarled, staring down at him. He was a head taller than Yuri, and possibly twice as wide, and he probably weighed twice as much. Yuri stared up at him, trying to look as intimidating as he possibly could with his tiny, thin stature and big eyes.
"What do you want?" Yuri demanded, wanting nothing more than to go and skate.
He was mad. Yuri could see that clearly. "You come out here to skate, huh?" he sneered, and suddenly Yuri remembered the time when he'd beaten this guy up a few years ago. He'd regretted it after he'd done it, but of course, he'd never apologized. "How girly. You're practically a girl, aren't you?"
As a little immature kid, Yuri had responded in kind. "Go away, I'm skating!"
"What, are you afraid?"
Yuri didn't like that.
"Not so tough now, are you, little girl?"
Before he could think, Yuri had landed a punch square to his jaw. The boy flew backwards and hit his head on the ice as gasps came from around them. A crowd began to form. Yuri's lip trembled. He'd done something wrong again. Grandpa would be mad. He wouldn't be allowed to skate anymore.
The boy seemed okay, but his head was bleeding. He glared at Yuri. Adults took hold of Yuri's arms and dragged him away. Yuri didn't resist.
He stayed holed up in his room for three days straight after that, ashamed to come out and face his grandpa. And, even worse, he felt bad. He felt bad for hurting that boy, even though he'd been mean to Yuri first.
"Yuratchka," his grandpa would say patiently from the other side of the door, "will you come out and talk to me?"
"No," Yuri would sniffle, and that was that. His grandpa pushed little sandwiches and pirozhki under the door as best as he could, and when Yuri got hungry, he stumbled out of bed and grabbed whatever was available.
On the fourth day, his grandpa said, "If you've done something you regret again, Yuratchka, pray. Pray to God, and he will help you."
Yuri didn't know if he believed in God. Once, at school, he'd insulted a classmate's religious belief – and had received a massive time-out and a harsh scolding from his grandpa. He'd felt really, really bad.
He hadn't apologized.
But he curled up into a ball on his bed and squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to a God he didn't know. He prayed for forgiveness and for something that would make things right. He didn't even know what he was praying for, but he was praying.
He fell into a restless sleep and found himself in an ice rink that he'd never seen before. It was different from his usual one – the one he could never go back to, he thought remorsefully. They hadn't banned him, but nobody would ever treat him the same way again. He was no longer little angelic Yuratchka who loved to skate laps every afternoon. No – he was the demon now, the same punk he was at school.
On his feet were a pair of new skates, black and shiny and laced up. He took a few experimental strokes and then shot off, gliding around the ice happily, temporarily forgetting about his inner guilt and turmoil.
He was spinning around in circles when a voice said, "Having fun?"
He froze and searched desperately for the source of the voice, but nobody else was there with him. "Who's there?" he asked, wondering if he'd imagined it all.
"I am," said the mysterious voice. Yuri was intrigued. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. "How are you, Yuri?"
"I – How do you know my name? Who are you? Where are you?"
"Why did you wish so desperately to meet me?" Yuri thought he could hear the small smile that graced the other's lips. "Is there something that's gone so wrong in your life that you've finally given in?"
"Given in – " Yuri was confused. " – I mean, I..."
He trailed off, looking down at his feet ashamedly. He took a deep breath.
"I did something bad."
"I see," said the voice. "Do you regret it?"
Yuri's head shot up, even though he didn't know what he was supposed to be looking at. "Of course I do! He was mean to me because I was mean to him at school – and then I made him bleed!"
"I see," the voice repeated. "You are a very regretful child, aren't you?"
Little Yuri thought about it. He didn't really understand it. "That's what my grandpa says."
"How's this?" said the voice, and all of a sudden there seemed to be something barely visible swirling around him. Yuri squinted his eyes. "I'll make you a deal. I'll give you three chances to go back – three do-overs of your choosing, as long as you promise to use them meaningfully."
Do-overs? Meaningfully? "Like magic?" Yuri blurted out.
"Like magic."
Yuri thought about it. "Okay," he decided, "but what about when I use them all up?"
"Yuri, when you wake up, what's the first thing you should do?"
Yuri thought about it, but the answer was clear in his mind. He just didn't want to say it. "I don't know."
"Yuri, you do know. Think."
"I..." Yuri clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut. "I need to apologize to Grandpa!"
"Very good," said the voice soothingly. "And what next?"
"I need to – to – to apologize – " Yuri squeezed the word out painfully. " – to Bogdan."
"I'm giving you these three chances because you need to overcome these problems of yours," said the voice, and Yuri suddenly went blind. All he could see was a swirling wall of white. "Don't ever live your life in regret, Yuratchka. Don't use them unless you really, really need to. Because you can apologize, and you can give up your pride. And you probably won't understand any of this until you're older, but I know you can do it."
"Okay," said Yuri determinedly, not exactly sure what he was supposed to do. But he had understood the apologizing thing, and he understood that he couldn't do these bad things anymore. "When will I know that I can use them?"
"Your three chances? Oh, you'll know." There was the invisible smile again. "And your decisions will change your life – and my life – forever."
Yuri blinked. "Your life? Who – Who are you?"
There was a burning sensation on his left inner elbow, and he gritted his teeth as a fierce wind began to swirl around him. "I'll see you soon, Yuri," said the voice, and Yuri squeezed his eyes shut as the wind picked up speed –
"Wait – I still don't know who you are!"
His eyes flew open. He was in bed, in his room in his grandpa's house. He was shaking all over.
He stared down at his hands blankly, trying to figure out how to recover from such an intense dream – a dream that had forced him to think and rethink his life. He wished his mom was here with him, because she would comfort him and hug him and tell him that everything would be okay.
Something black caught his eye, and he glanced at his inner elbow – where three tiny hourglasses were printed. He nearly leapt out of the bed in shock – his dream had been real, and magic was real, and he had magical powers –
"Yuratchka?" came his grandpa's voice at the door. Yuri blinked, trying to recover from his shock. "Yuratchka, would you like to join me for breakfast? We can go get hot chocolate from down the street."
Yuri stared at the three hourglasses, printed there like a tattoo, like a reminder of his resolve. He slowly slipped off his bed and opened the bedroom door. "Okay," he said, and his grandpa smiled.
[ Three months later ]
Yuri hadn't gotten any time-outs for three entire months now, and his grandpa was rewarding him with a trip to the second-closest ice rink, because Yuri had ashamedly said that he didn't want to go back to that one. So his grandpa had just nodded and taken him along.
He told the front counter his shoe size and received his skates, and then he plodded along to the bench to put them on. "Be careful," said his grandpa, like always. Yuri just nodded.
His first step on the ice, after so long, was shaky, but he quickly got the hang of it. He was going faster and faster, looping around the ice, and finally, he smiled again. It was exhilarating.
Well, it was exhilarating until he crashed into someone – someone bigger than him, who wore a long coat and gloves. He fell on his butt and looked up to meet a pair of turquoise eyes. He suddenly wondered if this stranger would be mad at him, because he hadn't been looking –
"Are you okay?" asked the silver-haired boy, extending an arm out to him. Yuri looked at it for a moment before taking it and letting the older boy pull him to his feet. "I'm so sorry – I wasn't looking, and – "
"I'm sorry," Yuri said quickly, before he could regret something again. The boy beamed at him, glad that everything was okay.
"Oh, good. I'm Victor, by the way. I was watching you skate earlier. You're very good, Yuri."
Yuri froze. "How do you know my name?"
"Oh, I heard your dad talking to you," said Victor casually. Yuri shook his head.
"I don't have a father."
Turquoise eyes widened, horrified. "I'm so sorry – your grandpa, then?"
Yuri nodded silently.
"You know, you're really good – you should come to Moscow to train with me and Yakov!"
"Who's Yakov?"
"My coach! He's a grumpy old man sometimes, but we have a lot of fun!" Victor beamed at him. "I'm just here for break, but I'll be returning soon. What do you say? You could just show him your skating and let him decide! Don't you want to skate forever?"
Yuri nodded, because he did.
Victor smiled even bigger, if that was possible. "See? Yakov's a great coach, actually – you should consider it, really! Here – Here's his business card that I'm supposed to keep on me just in case I need his number – you should ask your grandpa. Maybe we can even train together!"
It was a strange meeting, for sure. Yuri, even at that age, constantly felt like Victor had something up his sleeve – like he knew something Yuri didn't.
His grandpa let him go to Moscow by himself. Yakov said yes. They would begin training in a year, when Yuri moved to Moscow by himself. Yuri was a little scared, but he remembered Victor's turquoise eyes and he watched him on television at the Grand Prix Junior Finals.
He'd met a celebrity.
He was going to train under the same coach.
He fell asleep one night, only to dream of the ice rink where he'd talked to the mysterious voice. And it was merely a dream this time, but the voice seeped in anyway –
"Don't live your life in regret, Yuri."
Yuri turned around and skated away, willing the skate rink to extend on forever, and it did because he had absolute control in his dream –
And, although he never looked back, he thought he had caught a glimpse of those turquoise eyes.