Chekov traveled the hedge maze easily, like a rat following the scent of a rotten piece of cheese. It was more than instinct, he knew: he was being lured. Hopelessly mired in the middle of the puzzle, the Navigator turned a corner and froze. The path was blocked by a grizzled, fierce looking peasant man that dwarfed the slight young man.

There weren't any clues to get past this man in the fairytales of the Navigator's childhood. This spirit that appeared as a wizened serf guarded the far end of the maze and you simply didn't go by him if he appeared. You didn't belong any further: you were not welcome.

"I need to pass," Chekov stated bravely.

Grey eyes regarded him softly, and an unexpected glint of amusement warmed their depths. The serf backed away and his form dissipated into the hedge without a word.

Chekov straightened his shoulders, taking back control of his resolve. The spirit was there for a reason: you didn't come to the house's mausoleum except on appropriate Feast Days when you were expected there.

His childhood in Russia had been spent in a manor house, a government grant to his parents because of their extensive work in the rural areas of the Russian Federation. Andrie had readily moved in everyone that worked for them as well and Chekov's extended 'family' had been numerous and varied.

None of them had any real connection to the once abandoned house and land however: except for the somber trust for its care that they had accepted. Chekov had never felt comfortable in a mausoleum full of ancestors that were his only by their heritage. It made his skin crawl, even when he was taught to believe humans were welcome there.

He stopped when he reached the end of the maze and stood staring at the burial grounds spread out before him. He wasn't comfortable here either, and was tempted to turn and run back through the maze.

He had been led here, however: and he knew he would never find his way out on his own. There were plenty of stories of people trapped forever in mausoleum hedgemazes.

"Pavel: you came."

"You gave me no choice," Chekov replied as he turned toward the musical voice. Soulful brown eyes came to rest on the woman's wispy form standing amongst the gravestones. The sheer fluidness of her vibrant color and shimmering skin was nearly blinding.

A sight that he'd longed for all his life, a sense of loss slowly overtook him. He could no longer find a sense of enchantment in the sight of her, in the thought of her. The magic had dropped away from her like the morning dew from a leaf.

He was growing up.

Zharpesta cooed in distress at his expressed impotence, lashes fluttering over her large almond eyes. "I can't make you do anything: none of us can. We have no power over you."

His eyes widened, their dark depths unreadable. "You offer alternatives to cooperating that are often unacceptable."

"I cannot speak for the others: I only asked to be left alone," the woman hissed back, black eyes glassy as her hands gripped the stone in front of her. "It is your kind that always sought to cage me."

Chekov nodded in agreement and he paced slowly away in thought, his eyes scanning the world around them. "Zharpesta," he drew out with curiosity, its mildness feigned. "What you touch becomes beautiful because it is made healthy, doesn't it?"

"Yes," she replied simply, cocking her head to eye him with a note of surprise. "Was this so obvious?"

Chekov shrugged, thrusting his arms out to the world around them. "Here? Yes, it was." Scientists may have been able to convince him that the longevity of the humans here was due to genetics and medical advancements. Science, however, couldn't explain the flourishing gardens, orchards and fields to the Navigator who was raised around plants that still grew in the ground.

With such a finite amount of land and over-abundance of vegetation, the nutrients in the soil should have stopped producing viable crops long ago. Anything the peasants did manage to eek out of the ground wouldn't have provided them with enough nutrition to support the health they obviously exhibited.

Famine bread... Chekov thought dismally. The crops produced by such spent soil would be no better than famine bread. A touch of grain and several full measures of sawdust, a baked concoction to make you feel full while you're starving to death. It was a recipe the people of his homeland had perfected early in their history.

Modern agricultural science had thankfully eliminated the need for such concoctions. There wasn't any signs in this area of the planet of anything that would have kept the soil producing for as long as it had, however.

Except, of course, the touch of the Firebird.

She had ceased to be a mythological creature to him. A Starfleet Officer's duties on missions like this was in large part as an anthropologist, and her elusive beauty was now only one of the traits he noted. Her possible abilities and their uses became variables in important calculations he now began to verify.

"You've kept all of this–all of them–alive and healthy," he asked again for confirmation. The mausoleum and graveyard around it were sparsely populated for a community that had existed here since the 17th century. He let a hand brush over a chiseled stone and fixed his unreadable, dark eyes on her brilliant form. Her own hands held a stone with a gentle protectiveness.

"Grand Duke Ivan," he noted, with a put-upon affect of both surprise and alarm. "He did come with you."

"Of course," she answered and shook her hair, perturbed.

He stared at the cold stone and considered what it meant. "Ivan died," he observed. His wide eyes shifted back to the shimmering skin on her face. "Have a disagreement, did you?"

"It was a riding accident," she spat back at him. "I didn't reach him in time.

Chekov felt a tingle of warning along his spine. Not in time...

"Do you ride horses?" she continued, ebony eyes bright and fixed on him in a taunting, amused threat.

"No," he replied blandly, giving her no satisfaction. "I'm not fond of animals that are bigger and stupider than me."

Her ebony eyes turned glassy, understanding a veiled insult well insulated in the comment. "Peasant life obviously offers challenges for you," she came back.

Chekov folded his arms across his chest and glanced away into the nearby orchards in thought."You left the apple for me, didn't you?"

"Yes. Of course."

"That was rude," he observed. "There were two of us in the room."

"McCoy could pick his own."

"It may surprise you," the Navigator said as he paced a few steps away again. "But I have managed to reach an apple or two on my own during my life."

"My touch was intended for you."

Chekov spun, fixing her with a dark look. "Why me? Why did you heal me?"

Cooing again, she made several noises of distress as she drew her delicate fingers along the top of the stone. "I miss Ivan," Zharpesta finally trilled in dismay.

"Why me?" he insisted. He knew that none of the spirits–especially Zharpesta–had any interaction with humans without ulterior motives. She wanted something from him.

He was counting on it.

Zharpesta trilled again, stretching luxuriously. With a graceful curl of her neck, the movement fluttered down in a wave over her shoulders and settled into a sensuous roll of her diminutive hips. "I told you," she cooed and fluttered her lashes over her ebony eyes. "I miss Ivan."

Chekov frowned, his wide brown eyes steady on her sinewy form. Were these spirits the architects of human feminine seduction, or had they simply memorized the talents of those they had shared the planet with? he wondered unhappily.

"I'm sorry for your grief, Zharpesta, but I don't see how it has anything to do with me," the Navigator lied.

"I rarely find humans that I can trust."

Chekov allowed his face to lite up with a sheepish, wry grin. There is was, then. He knew she meant human males. He also knew that for some bizarre reason, Zharpesta had obviously set her sights on possessing him.

It was clear to the young Navigator. He had seen the moon-eyed, calculating look now consuming her eyes before: usually in the gaze of girls embarrassingly too young for him to consider. Chekov sometimes believed that his wholesome good looks had forever doomed him to be the teenage crush of every one of his friends' younger sisters.

As he stared at the Firebird, he remembered that he had found that being presumed innocent did have distinct advantages. "And you think I can be trusted?" He grinned, dark eyes gleaming devilishly.

Zharpesta's shoulders fluttered in subtle triumph. "You haven't told your Captain about me."

"I will," he assured her somberly. "I did not have complete information yet."

Cooing in displeasure, she cocked her head askew and let her fingers trail through her hair. "This place offers Russia as it was meant to be. You know that."

"You'll excuse me if I take umbrage to slavery," he said, gesturing back toward the village.

"They don't consider themselves slaves, they're a community, a unit," she argued.

"They're property," he maintained. Not that it would do any good. He'd discovered females with this particular look in their eyes never heard anything that even had a touch of sense to it.

Long lashes fluttered over her brilliantly sad eyes again. "If you stayed with me, your soul will be on no ones tax records."

Chekov's eyes widened, but he forcefully fought back the smirk that threatened to erupt. "You want me to stay...with you?" he asked innocently.

"Yes," she said eagerly.

The Navigator grinned wildly and rolled his eyes outlandishly.

"This doesn't please you?"

He shrugged in futility. "I suppose I'm flattered: but I can't say I ever considered gigolo as an actual career option before."

The woman's face grew sullen, the sheen on her skin dimming in obvious disapproval. "I imagine you think that your mother would frown on such an arrangement for her son," she commented. "You're not her little boy any longer, Pavel Andrieivich: you're a grown man."

Clearing his throat, Chekov straightened and firmly ground his teeth together. Disapprove? Actually, the naughty idea would have sent his mother into throes of delighted laughter. Pavel was careful about entering into physical relationships and his mother pined about what her son was missing by exhibiting Andrie's conservative ways.

"Zharpesta," he finally said carefully when he'd got control of his quick humor. "I don't think you realize what you're asking. I wouldn't just be abandoning my true Motherland."

"Does space hold your heart that firmly?"

He shook his head slowly. It was important for Chekov to build as firm and wide a foundation as he could now. "It's not space I'm talking about. Staying here would mean turning my back on all my friends and my entire family: including my village. I'd never see any of them again and I'd be spitting on traditions you claim this place embodies.

"You know how central an person's village is to us," he elaborated. "The old internal passport system is technically illegal, but it's still an accepted tradition in rural Russia. My passport allows me to serve in Starfleet: I can't deviate from that without permission of the Village Council."

Shifting her shoulders, she tucked her hands behind her back and sauntered up to him. "That system is to ensure that you are as valued, needed, and cared about as you are to your home community. I offer more of that to you than you will ever find elsewhere."

Chekov was surprised that Zharpesta, of all people, would offer a one-sided picture of the passport system that he'd more expect to hear from a non-traditional Russian. Anyone from rural Russia would know the true purpose of the passport was to guarantee a person's happiness and self-worth. They made sure their community members didn't ever feel impotent and despondent. The Soviets had forever twisted the outside world's understanding of that.

"What do I tell them?" the Navigator asked with care as he studied her. "You've personally selected me: you get a companion, a replacement for Ivan." He shrugged then, pressing his lips together in a fine line as he said softly. "What do I get, Zharpesta?"

Startled, the woman's eyes widened and her features grew curious. "What?"

"What do I get?" he asked levelly again, smouldering dark eyes wide and depthless.

She smiled leisurely, with a note of ignorance in her eyes. "I can give a human that stays with me the gift of immortality," she answered simply.

Chekov's laugh burst out of him and he grinned purposely over-wild. He pointed at the tombstone behind her. "That doesn't seem to be a guarantee you can make, now does it?"

Shaking her head, she raised her hands in offering. "You know what we are capable of, Pavel Andrieivich. We offer you anything you want if you will stay here with me," she replied, ebony eyes shining.

Chekov could not truly find fault with her for having ulterior motives in dealing with him. He had not known what the cost would be at the time, but he had followed her summons with his own agenda firmly in mind. She had only to make the price clear.

For someone who knew about life's truths and their own insignificance in the universe, it was hardly a price at all.

"There's only one thing in this galaxy that I want."