Christmas was quite good too. By far my favorite gift were the rabies and toxoplasmosis plushies (I researched those diseases for The Misdiagnosis of Sandy Tabori~) and I also got a Zune and webcam that I have yet to play with. Oh, and an external hard drive, so I won't have to worry about losing a ton of crap if I happen to drop my laptop again XD
And I saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Which not only inspired some crackish plotlining involving Roderich being dragged to a death metal concert, but which was also generally awesome. Check out their carol of the bells arrangement if you haven't heard it; that was pretty much the inspiration for that TOA Death of Friendship fic I wrote a couple years back.
Anyway. Writing. Brace yourself. XD
First off, I'd like to pimp some of the places where I've been roleplaying recently.
Hospitalia - A really entertaining hospital-themed AU with the Hetalia characters. I'm enough of a dork that I made my character (Roderich) an infectious disease specialist, which means I end up researching all kinds of bizarre and nasty things to mention in my threads. XD There's a lot of very interesting and talented people on this one, as well, and I'm looking forward to getting more involved in it.
World of Steam and Gears - A steampunk-themed forum run by a friend of mine. It still hasn't really taken off yet, but I've got a version of Saniper on there, and I'm seeing a lot of possibility in the future. And yes, I mod it because I more or less insisted on helping with the plot (man, I go so nuts when I have the chance to worldbuild. XD)
Facebook - Yeah, I've got a couple of these now--Roderich, Yeager and Marion. Roderich's the most active at the moment, and he and Halle have ridiculously snarky conversations on his wall. XD Lighter reading than the paragraph-style RPs and really quite funny.
And now, fics. (I'm going to actually split this entry because I have so many. XD)
Title: Realistic
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Gilbert's mouth and Roderich being a nutjob.
Notes and things-to-know: Remember when I realized that Roderich was actually delusional at one point? This is more or less that applied to my AU (which I really need to revamp sometime, since I've changed it up quite a bit since I wrote it about it.) And Roderich rambles enough that I think it's otherwise self-explanatory.
Summary: Gilbert comes to negotiate the end of a war. Roderich is not so keen on compromise.
“I want to see him,” Gilbert growled. “I’m here to negotiate. Let me see him.”
“We have strict orders not to let anyone in, including members of His Highness’ own court,” the guard to the right of the doors said, holding his polearm across the doorway.
“But I told you—I’m here to negotiate. Look. I even brought the goddamned white flags,” he declared, gesturing to the small entourage of soldiers behind him, each carrying a small flag. “At least let him know I’m here.”
“His Highness wishes not to be disturbed. He’s in a highly classified meeting with his advisors.”
“Well, their advice is going to change as soon as I say what I’m going to say. Just go in and tell him I’m here. I’ll wait.”
“His Highness—”
“Tell His Highness I rode all the way from the German front to talk to him and I am not leaving his doorstep without getting the chance to,” he snarled, leaning close to the guard’s face.
The guard exchanged glances with his fellow, then, after a moment’s deliberation, turned and pushed open one of the heavy oak doors. It slid shut behind him with a loud thud, leaving Gilbert in tense silence on the steps for a couple minutes.
When the guard returned, his face was oddly pallid. He gestured half-heartedly to the door. “Go on.”
“He’ll see me now?”
The guard nodded.
Gilbert wasted no time, shoving the door open and crossing the front hall, mud-caked boots leaving marks on the tile. As he came to the base of a staircase, it dawned on him that there had been no servant within to direct him—that he didn’t actually know where he was going. He turned in a circle, glancing at the oak doors of shut-up rooms, and yelled, voice echoing off the high ceiling and glimmering chandelier.
“I’m here, Roddy!”
There was no answer. Gilbert did, however, catch a shuffling noise from somewhere down the hall beyond the curving stairs, and directed his path in that direction, motioning for his soldiers to follow.
He came to another set of double doors, white-painted and neatly carved. One door was slightly ajar and he directed two soldiers through it, again surprised that there were no servants about. Not even a single one to announce his presence—what did Roderich have them all occupied with?
“Your Highness,” one of the two soldiers declared awkwardly, just to keep custom, “Markgraf Beilschmidt.”
Gilbert stepped in after them, holding out his palm to tell the remaining soldiers to stay behind. He stopped in his tracks for a moment to survey the room—a wide, airy ballroom, with tall windows that did nothing to hold back the winter’s chill—and blinked, feeling deep confusion wash over him.
Roderich sat in the middle in a small upholstered chair, hands resting on its armrests as though it were a throne. Around him were what Gilbert suspected to be all the servants in the building, standing in tight-knit groups and rows, surrounded by white, staggering lines painted on the dark parquet floor. He couldn’t make out any rhyme or reason to their positions—they were too random to be dance formations or divisions by rank. He couldn’t imagine why Roderich would allow someone to take a paintbrush to the polished floorboards.
He wanted to give a nice, direct, ‘what the hell is going on’, but all the servants were looking at him and something strange in their expressions gave him pause. He ventured politely, “What’s all this?”
Roderich surveyed him coldly. Gilbert stared at him and realized that the green thing circling his powdered wig was a wreath. It looked absurd, but for some reason, he couldn’t laugh.
“I’m making plans,” Roderich said. “This way I can see them.”
He rose and pointed to a few of the groups and lines. “This is the northern front—France’s forces and mine. Here is where you are concentrating on Germany, while your other troops are scattered about northern Italy. Russia is currently here, and—you, disperse. That is not for him to see.”
Roderich waved at a group on the right side of the room. The cluster of servants stepped from the lines, revealing a space that Gilbert recognized as the sharp tip of Turkey’s lands.
“Roddy, can we talk somewhere private?” Gilbert asked, before Roderich could wave another few servants away from their spot. “I have some propositions to offer you.”
“I don’t answer to ‘Roddy’, Markgraf.”
“Herzog, then. I want to discuss—”
“Austria,” Roderich corrected. “You want to try and appease me, don’t you.”
“Look,” said Gilbert, arching an eyebrow at his frankness. “Hear me out. I’ll say it straight if you want—I don’t want the fighting to go on the way it is. Sure, maybe I thought Prussia could get something out of it before, but things are getting too bad. I’ve been running short on men and resources since you cut my supply lines. You’ve already taken two of my lower provinces. Winter’s going to hit soon and I really don’t want to try to hold those mountain passes once the weather turns nasty—in short, I’ve got a lot of reasons to want to quit this war. And I’m willing to give you some things if you let me.”
“I’m not interested. My plans are in place and I mean to continue.”
“Silesia—I’m willing to hand over Silesia.”
“I would rather take Silesia than accept a handout,” declared Roderich.
“And Germany. Seriously. I’ll turn that treaty right back on its head.”
“I see no need to bow to your wishes when I have the ability to procure everything you’re offering.”
“At what cost? Hundreds more men?” Gilbert shook his head, flabbergasted. “What happened to averting war? Marrying off your nobles all over Europe to keep blood off your hands? All the time I’ve known you you’ve gone on about how barbaric violence is. And now you’re, what—sending horde after horde to take over my country because you think you can?”
“Times have changed, Markgraf. The only way to ensure national safety is to eliminate outside threats—both extant and possible. Your nation was and will always be an army at heart, out to seize what you can. The best solution—the sole lasting solution—is to do away with it entirely.”
Roderich approached him with his arms folded, passing through what shafts of light from the windows were left uncovered by the standing servants. “I assure you that I can. Your willingness to negotiate only confirms it.”
“You’re going to destroy Prussia?” Gilbert’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You’ve been planning to take over my whole nation?”
“For the sake of my people and their safety, yes.”
“How the hell is destroying a nation outright justified by safety? Do you have any idea how much you’re going to lose?!”
“The results will be worth the sacrifice. My people will never suffer at your hand again.”
“God, Roderich, at least I never hid my ambition behind anything like that. I never told my people the dead would keep far more from dying. You know as well as I do that my wars with you have only been for bits and pieces, and you have got to be kidding me if you truly think it’s fair to—”
“It isn’t about what’s fair,” Roderich said curtly. “It’s about certainty. How do I trust that the wars will always be for bits and pieces? How do I know that my enemies will always work within the same boundaries? I’ve played the game of politics long enough to realize that I can trust no man at his word, written or spoken, because every great power on the world’s stage is a hungry dog just waiting for a chance to tear the others to shreds. At some point we ought to all throw down our polite pretenses and embrace the truth—the only way to ensure national peace is to conquer the conflicting interests, whatever the cost.”
Gilbert opened and closed his mouth, speechless. Roderich’s expression, which had barely changed throughout their conversation, remained grave, violet eyes icy beneath his prickled crown.
“Y—You’re crazy,” Gilbert stammered at last. “You’re out of your fricking mind. That’s not how it works. Politics—there is always uncertainty in politics, no matter what you do! There is always conflict! If you think you can fix things for yourself by destroying all your enemies, you’ve learned nothing in your time as Herzog! It won’t last—the people won’t take that kind of suffering, they’ll revolt, and your whole government will come crashing—”
“It will be better than now,” he insisted. “Now, when I am constantly met with insurrections fueled by you and France. When if I turn my back only for a moment, you will try and put a knife in it. You told me that, remember? You said that to me years ago and it has taken me until recently to comprehend that the rest of the world is like that, too. I cannot go on this way, with my people in continuous danger. I cannot function when everyone is so at each other’s throats.”
“You have to—that’s the challenge of being a leader. You have to be able to face the unknown. Roddy, you’re—you’re putting yourself before your people. You’re not doing this for Austria; you’re doing this for—”
As he’d spoken, Gilbert had instinctively raised an arm to touch his cousin’s shoulder, and as the duchy’s name left his lips, Roderich’s hand suddenly grasped and twisted his.
“Everything I have done,” he hissed furiously, “was for my nation. Everything I do is done in the best interest of my nation. You have no idea how much I have given up for it—how many times I have broken my own heart for some greater goal. I am Austria and you have no right to suggest otherwise!”
Gilbert yanked his hand from him, stepping back. For a few moments he and Roderich only exchanged glares, the previously chilly room stifling with heat.
“What happened to you?” Gilbert asked. “What the hell happened to you, cousin?”
“I became realistic,” said Roderich.
“You used to be realistic. You were realistic when we fought over Silesia, working out all your campaigns, catching me off guard a few times…I was almost proud to be able to match you, to have you as my opponent. You had so much less experience than me, and yet you were able to hold so much of your ground. You understood how war worked, what it was for, but…I don’t get what’s going through your head now. I came here to make a deal—”
“The only deal I’ll consider is your complete surrender.”
“Roddy,” Gilbert said slowly, making sure he took in every word, “I’m not making that deal, especially not with a man who’s turned his ballroom into a giant map and has a wreath on his head.”
“I did those things out of necessity,” Roderich insisted. “My advisors have been attempting to depose me, so I must be certain that I can make my own plans in the clearest manner possible. And in this time of war I have found it crucial to further profess my authority, but my crown was left back in Vienna—”
“Your advisors were trying to depose you?”
“Yes. They were plotting it in secret while resisting nearly all my suggestions. As I said, if I turn my back for even a moment—”
“Roddy, if you can’t even trust your own advisors, I think something is—”
“No one in this day and age can be trusted. Not you, not France, Spain, my advisors, my citizenry—you’re all greedy, self-interested, breaking terms left and right! Half a year ago, I thought I was at peace with France, and what happens? He invades my Netherlands. It was only after weeks of pleading that I managed to turn that disaster into a trade. I’m sick and tired of having to reason with all of you, to have to grovel at your feet, speaking of justice and upholding precedents when those concepts are obsolete in this field! My nation deserves certainty, even if it is in a world where violence is the only truly effective means!”
“I told you, you have to face uncertainty! You can’t win everything at once; you have to take trials as they—”
“I refuse to stand by and let outside forces dictate my country’s fate!”
“If you keep at this you’re not going to help Austria, your people are just going to—”
The sudden sharp hiss of sliding metal made Gilbert jump. He gaped at the point of the sword now inches from his chest, positioned at his heart.
“Don’t you dare speak for my people!” Roderich snapped. “You don’t know them! You have no idea what is best for them!”
“Hey, put that away! We all came unarmed, to talk—”
“I’m not going to listen to you lecture me about how to run my nation! As far as I am concerned the only valid purpose you have in being here is making a formal surrender!”
Gilbert felt a stab of rage. “You know what? I’m done with this. As far as I am concerned, Roddy, you’re not fit to be recognized as the leader of Austria anymore. You should be locked up in a madhouse—there’d be plenty of certainty for you there. Day after day in the same cell, chained to a wall, with all the time in the world to yell about how everyone’s ready to screw you over! Wouldn’t that be nice?!”
“I will not be spoken to in that manner!” Roderich swung the sword, barely missing Gilbert’s waistcoat. “Get out! Unless you will surrender I—”
“Surrender? You are going to have to wrench Prussia from my cold, dead hands!”
Gilbert spun on his heel and walked out of the room, crying, “Hell if I’m going to hand any part of my lands over to a lunatic! Keep making your goddamned plans, you’re going to need some fantastic ones to take me down!”
One of the soldiers he had left outside of the room followed close at his heels as he strode back down the hall and out to his carriage, fists clenched. “Sir, did you—”
“No,” Gilbert muttered, climbing in and trying his best to ignore the fear in the soldier’s eyes, in all of their eyes. “He’s impossible. I’m going to have to call a meeting when we get back—this is going to be a long winter.”
Title: The Reasons Why
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Johannes (Iceland) and Roderich's relationship in my AU fascinates me. I've written two fics about them already and have lately come to a better understanding of how I want Johannes to view Roderich--which is basically what I drabbled about here.
And yeah, if you want to see what goes on in Roderich's head, the fic above this one pretty much has it down. ><
Summary: Johannes decides to emulate Roderich, only to discover that Roderich isn't quite the perfect leader he thought he was.
For the longest time, to Johannes, he is perfect.
Coming into Schloss Albanstadt for the first time is like entering a different world, a realm above the cold and earth-toned atmosphere he is familiar with. His first impressions are of inconceivable brightness, of glittering gold and crystal-refracted light, of floors so polished that he can see his reflection in them. It’s blinding, bewildering, like being born, and he finds himself staggering as Halle lets go of his shoulder, nearly falling at the feet of the man on the throne before him.
He feels Halle move to catch him, but lithe, uncalloused hands get there first, lifting him by the armpits like a child. He hears a light, brief laugh, and when he raises his eyes he sees him—lean oval face, bare hint of a smile, eyes only a few shades brighter than Halle’s but so different, so much more sharp and alert and full of calm command. He is close enough to blot out the light, and for that Johannes is grateful. Johannes stays staring for a few moments, awed by this mortal face amidst the glory of the palace, wanting to stand within his shadow where he can see, where he can think.
So it is that is begins—Johannes’ following in His Majesty Roderich’s shadow.
Roderich is something altogether remarkable, straddling the line between high-blooded human and the ideal leader, interested first and foremost in the affairs of his state. He wears fine silks and lace and one of those ubiquitous white-powdered wigs, which makes him seem older than he is, more aged and worldly than wheat-haired Halle. His posture is flawless, his gestures are fluid, his expressions are neatly controlled and his manner is polite to a fault. Johannes goes to meetings with him and observes how he negotiates without anger, without drawing a blade and making demands, using words as his weapons and never giving in without a trade, without turning every failure into some sort of victory. Somehow, he is able to battle and not make enemies, to gain land and funds without starting wars, and it is a kind of politics violence-scarred Johannes basks in, tries to absorb every trick and tread in, because Roderich is loved for it.
He is loved by everyone, as far as Johannes can tell. He hosts grand balls and everyone that arrives respects him, bowing to him and asking him questions and savoring every word that leaves his lips. Woman after woman asks him to dance; man after man goes to him for guidance. There is hardly enough time for him to attend to them all. Somehow, too, he is never caught up in it, pulled along by the current of praise—he always remains rational, reasonable enough to avoid any action he’d regret.
He is, as far as Johannes can tell, exactly what a leader should be, and exactly what Johannes would like to be.
Johannes decides very quickly that Roderich is what he wants to be. He seeks to become him, to learn his ways, from his etiquette to his political techniques to his skill on the piano—more refined and beautiful than any music Johannes has yet heard—and Roderich considers all of his interests, appointing tutors to aid him and teaching him himself when he can. He is kind, compassionate enough to bend to his wishes, even though Johannes knows nothing in comparison to him, even though Johannes is the brother of a man who would like nothing better than to wreak havoc on Roderich’s forces. He is even interested in Johannes’ culture, willing to be taught as well as teach, and Johannes finds himself feeling like he is worth something, like he can be more than the boy who collapsed under the weight of his brother’s lent empathy.
Roderich gives him so much, and Johannes is honored to walk behind him like the rest, taking everything he says as truth.
For the longest time, he makes Roderich his symbol of truth and certainty, his flawless, perfect model.
This is why he changes his name. This is why, when Roderich explains that marriage is only allowable so far as it furthers the state’s well-being, Johannes believes him. This is why, when he catches Roderich shuddering and panicking, he thinks it must be a fluke, a reaction to empathy. This is why, when Roderich tells him he must be handed over to Russia’s brutal hands, Johannes bites his lip and nods and says that he understands, that he will go.
This is why Johannes does not believe it until he sees it for himself—Roderich half-dressed and holding Halle at the point of a pistol, alert eyes wild with rage, yelling about how killing him will bring certainty, precious, precious certainty to an insane world.
This is why Johannes feels blinded again in the end, as though he has come full circle and gone back to the stumbling child he was, trying to walk on a landscape that is slipping and sliding beneath his feet.
This is why, when Roderich comes apart, Johannes does, too.
Title: The Dress
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mention of a self-inflicted wound and loads of angst.
Notes and things-to-know: This is one of those interesting fics that I actually wrote off of a specific source of inspiration, that being the vid for Once Upon A December. It reminded me immediately of a character I haven't worked with much--Natalia Arlovskaya, who represents Belarus, and I had this really vivid vision of her dancing in some ruined palace with Roderich while wearing...well, you'll see. XD
Natalia has a rough history and is more or less known for being a quiet and somewhat violent woman with the desire to marry the one person who really protected her in her past--Ivan (Russia), her brother. Whether she's actually mental or not, I don't know, though she definitely comes off as starved of human contact to me, due to my headcanon that Ivan kept her in isolation most of the time as he managed her politics.
This is very roughly historical, taking place after WWI--i.e., after Austria goes bankrupt and splits from Hungary, costing Roderich his empire and his wife (Liz.) The rather gruesome action he did to himself is recycled headcanon from a fic I lost when my comp crashed, and is as he says it is--an attempt to make a point, namely, that the Allies were metaphorically doing that same thing to him by taking away so much that he loved.
Also, take note of when I actually start mentioning the characters' names. It's kind of interesting and perhaps symbolic.
Summary: Roderich seeks refuge in Eastern Europe after his losses. Natalia is deeply intrigued by him and the fact that he once knew love.
“Why are you here?” she demands.
He shrugs. “Because according to Europe, you’re all mad. I need some like-minded company.”
*
He doesn’t look it—not like her brother, at least. He has none of the fidgeting, grasping want in his hands, the asymmetric violence in his smile. He sits straight-backed in a time when no one sits straight anymore, holds his cup steadily as he brings it to his lips. He looks just like what she remembers of him, albeit vaguely, before alliances broke and treaties tore, the fragments bourne away on the winds of fate.
If it is anywhere, she thinks, it must be in his eyes. As he speaks she watches them flicker from the cup to her face to the background of the room, roving over dusty treasures and faded paintings. They are the youngest part of him, full of crystalline brightness against deep violet shadows, too bright against the worn, drawn landscape of his features.
When she addresses him and his gaze falls more steadily upon her, it is sharp and demanding and scrutinizing, as though half-expecting her to leap up and stab him. It is such a powerful look that she is half-inclined to take hold of the knife tucked beneath the waistband of her skirt, just to fulfill his suspicions, but at the same time, she can tell that the harshness is not meant for her.
So it is that she fixes her own dark eyes on him and asks, “What exactly happened after the armistice? I’ve heard different things.”
He sips his tea and his tone is even as he replies. “Well, most importantly, I am no longer a nation in the personal sense.”
“So you were removed from your position.”
“Naturally. I inadvertently began the largest war this continent has yet known. Of course the others would desire a change in leadership.”
“So you are entirely cut off?”
He nods slowly. “No title, no empathy, no home. Only my possessions.”
“And the memories,” she adds.
Another nod, steady, unrevealing. “Yes. Those as well.”
“Did you really stab yourself in front of the embassy?”
He sets his cup down. For a moment, he is somewhere between rising from his seat and holding onto it, hand closing about the armrest, and his eyes are like glass in the glare of the sun.
“When the world would like nothing more than to be rid of you,” he says, “it takes drastic measures to ensure you are heard.”
She barely blinks, only inquires, “Were you?”
He shakes his head. “By that time, it was too late.”
“It is too late for a lot of things,” she says, and perhaps it is a trick of the light, but he seems to almost smile.
*
It is too late for dreams.
Oftentimes at night she ends up wandering the halls of the palace, crossing dirty marble floors and moth-eaten carpets. She carries a lamp and watches the little flame bend and buck with the breeze from the burnt section, where the chill seeps in through the fallen, snow-tinged beams. She goes barefoot, but she is already numb and does not feel cold.
After he comes she spends the dull hours looking through the furniture and the boxes he brought. They fill two rooms, hastily packaged and left spilling open by the workmen, and they remind her of the things she used to have. There is lots of gold and china, silk and brass, items belonging to an era that was beautiful, not in ashes.
He has clothing in there, formal ensembles from decades past, coats tailored to his slim frame and white gloves fit to delicate fingers. There are hats in velvet boxes and cravats folded into traveling cases, and because she does not know him well, never did, sometimes she lifts his garments to her nose.
They smell like sweet cologne and sour parchment, with the faintest hints of sweat, of humanity.
Her brother—he is too human, too full of the fragrance of sweat and blood. There is nothing nostalgic about him, nothing like the aroma of perfume lingering from glad times. This man is different, already mostly memory, tucked away from a future with little to offer him.
He kept everything, it seems. Somewhere in the midst of it all she finds gowns, corsets, petticoats, ruched lace and shimmering beads. They smell like potpourri and decay, and as she looks at them and imagines the skirts twirling and sleeves draping from strong arms she wonders if that is what love smells like.
*
He does not wear a ring anymore, but he thinks he does.
More than once she sees his thumb touch the base of his ring finger as though to make sure it is still gone. She watches him as he takes tea by the balcony and looks out through the glass panes, mentally wandering among the smooth, snowy hills. His expression is always the same—a bit distant, but somber as ever.
She stands beside him and says nothing and now and then he attempts to initiate one of those polite, meaningless conversations that belong to high-class engagements, but it never gets far. It is only to acknowledge her, she knows, and she is well-used to being a form in the background, a figure without worth. Besides, she is fond of silence.
Silence is relative peace. Silence is what exists between an ending and beginning and thus it keeps her going, balancing in limbo after the long, long ending that was her struggles. She only breaks it after days and nights of flickering curiosity, culminating in—
—“Do you miss her?”
At first, he only sighs, a soft and graceful sigh that may or may not be real. Then, “Sometimes.”
His expression is the same, always the same. His face is trained and frozen that way by years of careful composure. She touches his hand and she can feel it stiffen, drawing feeling inwards, and his eyes alight on her accusingly.
She smooths his fingers, one by one, until they are lithe again, limp like a dead man’s, and notes the slightest mark, the smallest depression from where his ring used to be.
That night, she searches meticulously, but she finds it nowhere among his things.
*
When her brother visits, the two men talk only briefly.
She listens by the door to the drawing room, ear pressed against the wood. Her brother’s voice is deep and echoing with a feigned friendliness that the other man sees through, hears the pain through. His voice, on contrast, is soft and coldly cordial, and in her mind’s eye she can envision him standing stiff and erect, neck craned to look her brother in the eye as he thanks him for allowing him to stay in the palace, half-ruined as it is.
Then her brother is out, and in a separate room she is alone with him, and he is saying, “I know what you want to ask of me. You should not bother.”
“I must,” she responds. “My nation needs it.”
“It is not about your nation.”
“It would help my nation significantly. I need to be on higher terms with you to make sure my people are heard.”
“My rule is enough. This is only you being ridiculous.”
“I need,” she says, passion hardening her tone, “to marry you, Brother.”
“No. For the last time, no.”
“At least let me go with you, be with you. I need that. My nation needs me by your side.”
“You will stay here,” he orders. “It is best for you to be here, out of the way.”
“You have no idea what is best for me!” she spits, and then she is angry, so frustrated that she lunges at him, arms out. He catches her, of course, pushes her back with thick palms and plants a fist into her jaw, and she finds herself on the floor, scowling up at him with fingers gingerly touching a forming bruise.
“I know much better than you,” he tells her on his way out. “I always have.”
“You never have!” she yells and she swears, words full of the poison that obstructed love brings. She swears at him and pounds the floor and takes one of her knives to the tattered rug, slashing back and forth, back and forth because she cannot cry, cannot cry, is much too far gone for crying.
When she rises and exits, the other man is lingering there, turning quickly to pretend he was not listening. She seizes his arm, stops him in his tracks.
“When you stabbed yourself,” she demands, “where was it?”
He touches his chest.
“And you died?”
“I survived. I missed my heart,” he says, almost shamefully.
“And still no one listened, as you were recovering?”
He nods, brow furrowed, trying to comprehend what she is thinking.
She presses on the spot he touched, hand slipping beneath his suit jacket and waistcoat, kneading the thin fabric of his shirt. There is no scar there, at least that she can feel.
“Would you have liked to die?” she asks.
His eyes are glassy. “There would have been no point in it, if I had.”
She takes a step back, nodding a little, understanding. There would have been no point in it, when he would have only come back. There is no point for either of them.
She leaves him in silence for there is nothing more to say in their limbo, thick with the metallic taste of stillborn happiness.
*
A few nights later, she discovers that the dress fits.
It is wide-skirted, meant for a crinoline and tight-laced waist, and she disregards both undergarments for her own comfort. It fits nonetheless because she is thinner than the one it was tailored for, and while the bodice is a bit loose in the chest and the inner petticoats are itchy on her bare legs, she likes it. It is pure white silk, after all, dripping with lace and sheer, gauzy layers, and goodness knows she has always looked her best in white.
She finds the veil and the elbow-length gloves near it and dons them as well. She practically runs, skirts rustling, down the hall to her room to gaze at herself in her mirror, that rotting-potpourri smell hanging in her nostrils, and for a long time she merely stares. She smoothes the pleats of the fabric, clutches the veil about her like a shawl.
She wonders again about love, what it smells like, what it tastes like.
She wonders if, when he touches his ring finger, he remembers.
He is still awake when she comes into the library, bare feet soundless on dark floorboards. He is up, stretching to pull a disintegrating volume from a shelf, and at first he does not notice her. She clears her throat.
He turns and for a moment he seems to freeze, time stopping around him. He tenses, balances with his chin still inclined and hand holding the book, and then the world tilts and the volume hits the floor with a loud thud that sends tremors through her feet, through the foundations.
She walks to him. He stares at her as though she is an apparition, a guilty fantasy brought out of the shadows of his mind. When she is near enough his fingers come down on her shoulders, digging into flesh.
“Natalia, I…” he starts to say, but cannot finish.
He misses her desperately. He misses the woman with the long brown hair and thick, toned arms, or perhaps he misses the idea of her, the sensations—holding hands, embracing, the warmth of her beside him in bed. He grips Natalia’s shoulders in an effort to hold onto reality because he is slipping fast, and he is leaving marks on her skin but she is well-used to pain.
She runs an index finger down the slope of his cheek. “Roderich.”
He was loved, once. He is gangly and bony and his eyes are too bright for his lined face but someone loved him, and to her it is hardly fair. Part of her wants to hate him for having had the opportunity, while the other part sees him starting to tremble and has to try—has to see that perhaps if she—then he will—
She leans forward and touches her lips to his. She pauses there, waiting half an instant before something answers within him and he moves beneath her, kissing her hard and long and passionately, hands floundering, tangling with her long platinum hair. Her arms find their way around his waist, clinging to him, and he smells different than his clothes—more sweet, with a fresh masculinity that is very much alive but not stifling. He makes small, muffled sounds, half-words, and she only breathes, breathes, breathes of him and revels in the immediacy of it all.
Minutes pass as they kiss and grasp and fumble. She touches his coat and his neck and his hair, feeling all the way around him, all the angles of the bones and tendons. At the base of his jaw she can feel his pulse and it is fascinating to her, that he is vulnerable, that his heart still beats when they are both so like ghosts.
It is not love but curiosity and pretending, but to her that doesn’t matter at all.
He is flushed and embarrassed when he pulls away. His cheeks are damp with tears and she dries them with her veil, keeping an arm about him to prevent him from stepping back. He tries to speak but the words turn incoherently in his throat. She doesn’t bother trying more than a whisper.
“Why did she leave you?”
Roderich shuts his eyes. “…She didn’t like the way I treated her.”
“What did you do?”
He doesn’t reply. She rests her head on his shoulder and nuzzles his neck, coaxing out a choked response.
“I gave her orders. I attempted to make her polite, ladylike, and she—I was only trying to do what was best for us and my nation and she—”
“You did not know what was best.”
He nods, admits it. He is crying again, silently.
She begins to sway from side to side, as though the movement will comfort him like rocking stills a child. It takes some time, but it draws forth a memory and she hears him start to hum some waltz under his breath, thin, saccharine notes that were too sentimental to survive the years. His hand grasps hers; their fingers entwine.
They travel in slow step about the room. She has not danced in ages and her movements are clumsy, dragging along, but he does not mind. His steps are perfect, posture effortless, and when his mind wanders sufficiently he manages a smile. She can see it in her imagination—a glittering gold ballroom lit in heady gaslight, filled with the sounds and smells of guests in silk and gemstones, with the brown-haired woman that to her is faceless holding him and loving him while he surely feels as though everything, everything is right—
But now he has only the trappings of completeness. She thinks about them as they pass crumbling books and darkened windows—all of his beautiful things, left boxed and stowed away. Maybe if they took them out, furnished the palace with them, they could underpin this fantasy they are treading in, make it so a dance in the dust is a turn through bliss for her, too.
With the dress on and rustling like windblown leaves, after all, it feels so like love, even though it is not love, cannot be love.
It is a play of sensations that she realizes is a service, for him and for her, when he parts from her and bows at the waist, his dry smile thankful.
Her lips thin, and it occurs to her that for the first time in a long time, she is smiling too.
*
He does have a scar on his chest.
It is slight and she is only able to discern it when she strokes a fingertip across his bare skin. She tilts her head and kisses it long enough to feel his chest rise and fall with breathing. He makes a light, relaxed sound.
He is in his nightshirt with the collar left unbuttoned, she in the dress. She is beside him atop the covers of his bed, a looming four-poster draped in velvet, and she is awed that the scar is so thin for the manner of wound he inflicted on himself. It is almost pretty.
His violet eyes are deep and glimmering at the edges like gold leaf as he surveys her. “Natalia?”
“What?” she asks.
“Why are you here?”
There are many ways she might respond. There is curiosity, there is comfort, there is the potency of pretending. There is the notion that if she remains long enough he might sleep and she might sleep and awake beside him, and perhaps he will shift in the night to drape an arm across her and she will know how it is, to wake in an embrace. There is the simple truth that she has no future and little past, that he has no future yet so much past, and that through him she might fill herself halfway.
They are both partial people, uselessly alive. She has no great reason to give him, really. Her brother will not return her feelings and his wife will not reconcile with him, not after all that happened. Neither of them have much of a reason.
She only says, “Because I like your company.”
He nods, understanding. It is a mad and futile pretext, maybe, but he allows it nonetheless.
His silence lets her stay.
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