The Dowager's Farewell

[Axelu 4333]

THE DOWAGER’S FAREWELL

1722

[!] A portrait of Aleksandra of Vidaus, dated 1701

 

 

 

She remembered what her uncle, Robert, had once given her; A necklace with the insignia of a crow etched into it -- the woman had long since hidden the trinket, as a means to protect it from the toils of war. 

 

“Hrm,” She inhaled, reclining against a gargantuan tree trunk that had once been home to an abundance of life. Now, it was merely a husk of its former self; barren and devoid of youth, as she perceived herself to be. In reality, the woman was not yet forty and her youth still intact, despite her constant toils with the duties of motherhood.

 

Beside the tree was a cerulean mass of water, clear and untainted by the besmirching touch of other descendants. There, her eyes met that of her reflection’s: a blue-grey pigment laid within them, hardly distorted by the water’s rimples. That was the one thing that had not changed about the woman in all of her life - her eyes.

 

—

“Many will drown in your eyes, Sandra,” A gruff, yet mirthful, voice called out to the girl. 

 

Inattentive, she continued to traipse about her father’s study, a scowl drawn across her face. 

“Niet, uncle. I am not pretty enough.”

 

“No! Who told you that? You are beautiful. You remind me of your aunt, Elizaveta, when she was your age,” The monarch mused, gesturing for the onyx-haired girl to sit upon his lap. She begrudgingly complied.

 

“I niet know how you love me, Rob’... My papej doesn’t love me. He wants me to marry Kazimir… but he’s never around!”

 

“You are still twelve, my crow,” He states, irritated by the thought. “Whenever he says that, remember that it is your choice, not his.” Robert raps a singular index finger against the girl’s necklace, slanting his chin. “You are a crow, at heart, if not at birth -- remember that.”

 

-- 

 

The crone’s eyes open once more, beholding the encroaching sunset beyond the horizon. With an unappeased grunt, she rises and makes her way toward the roads.

 

“Evening,” A passerby states, their joy stifled by Aleksandra’s reply. “**** off.” And so, without further disruption, she meanders past the confines of Helena’s outer territory and towards Reza.

 

She exhales and makes her way into the city.

 

—

 

“Little Lady, you must learn to be more proper… It is for your own sake,” A woman not much older than the woman, sporting grey eyes and proper attire, stated as she tended to the girl’s hair. 

 

“I am not little anymore, Amelia… I haven’t been for a long time.”

 

“Hush, dear. You will always be little to me, you know that… You are like a daughter to me, truly.” The Horenic princess presses a kiss unto the sixteen year old’s forehead, smiling soberly at her.

 

“Tell me, have you heard word of that Kazimir? You should be wed soon, no?”

 

Aleksandra’s features darkened and tilted her chin away from her companion. She exhales. “Niet… I am not interested anymore, Amelia.”

 

“But why? He’s one of your only prospects, Aleksandra, and heir to a county too!”

 

“I do not wish to wed, Amelia. I wish to be a nun in a convent… That way, no rat can ******* try and hurt me… leave me,” She laments, shoulders squaring with resolve as she stares outside a window within the palace in Carolustadt.

 

“Aleksandra, you mustn’t be so withdrawn. You are an agreeable lady, and kind and such would show if you were to polish your… rougher edges.”

 

“I said I’m fine, Amelia,” The woman grunts, departing from the palace bounds with a solemn gait.

 

Without any protest, Amelia seats herself and exhales and eyes her growing son, Hadrian. “That tongue of yours will be the death of you, dear.”

 

-

 

Despite her previous altercation, Aleksandra makes her way into the woods beside Markev, muttering expletives to herself. And without further warning, the girl begins to sob. No would love her, she thought; everyone thought so. “******* ****,” She hisses, ramming her leather-bound fist against a frozen tree trunk. “I hate you, *****.”

 

“Stop talking about yourself like that,” A voice chimes in.

 

“And who the **** are you, eh?” 

 

Aleksandra’s eyes settle upon a boy not much older than her, aged eighteen or so. He was garbed in makeshift furs, despite his prominent Marian features, and seated before a bonfire. “Sit and stop complaining, goblin girl.”

 

“Don’t ******* call me a --” She once interjected by the boy.

 

“Sit or leave and complain to someone else, but you can’t have both.” His lips offer the girl the suggestion of a smirk as he gestures to the empty space upon the log.

 

“... Just because it’s ******* freezing,” Would be all she said, perching on the wood.

 

--

 

With a grunt, she pushes past the gates of the Alimar manor. Without much care, she set her things aside and meandered upstairs -- paying no heed to her quarreling children by the stairs.

 

“Oi, rats! Get on up here.”

 

There was no direct reply to the woman, only the amplification of their strife. She murmurs the usual, “Idiotic rats.”

 

She eyed the confines of her bedroom, desolate and empty. Upon looking to her right, she could still note the imprint of her husband’s frame on the mattress. 

 

“You promised you wouldn’t leave me, Josef.”

 

Her eyes were vacant of emotion as water brimmed their lids; she clenched the sheets that surrounded her, croaking harshly.

 

“Kazimar… Kazimar… Amelia?!” She beckoned for her eldest two once more, but they did not come.

 

She shut her eyes and forced herself into a fitful slumber.

 

—

 

“Mametr!” A shrill voice exclaimed, followed by a similarly sized girl of his age, and two toddling youths.

 

“Da, rat? What the **** do you want?” She hissed, shirking her chin at the children with a lour plastered across her lips. 

 

“Nothing, mametr,” The princeling withdraws, merely shaking his head at his siblings before slinking away.

 

“Aleksandra… you should be more patient with them.”

 

“Niet, Amelia. They are rats,” She mutters, pressing the purlicue of her hand against her forehead.

“They are your children, Aleksandra, and they are they only ones you’ll have,” The woman murmurs as she stands, stirring with enviable grace toward the distraught Haeseni.

 

“You are a princess, and matriarch, now -- as I am, little lady… And so you have been for many years. Do not let sadness engulf you… You are strong. I know how much Robert and Eliza meant to you.”

 

“They died too quickly, you *****; can’t you get it? And… much too soon,” Aleksandra snaps in return, burrowing her face within her arms. 

 

“You will always have me,” The aging Horen reassures, planting a cadaverous palm on the Alimar’s plump cheek. 

 

“I know, Amelia… I know.”

 

—

 

Aleksandra would wake, groggy from the prior days occurrences. She slipped on a new set of clothing and planted the aurum coronet upon her head. She exhaled, and departed from her manor, shoving her hands into her pockets.

 

As she set off to make her daily rounds, she had remembered how her son had begun to work within the palace under the Lord Justiciar.

 

‘Kazimar, my pride,’ she thought of the Grand Prince; he had become the pillar of grace and regality that she, or her husband, could have never been. 

 

She smiled and ascended the steps leading up to the Prikaz, where she was bombarded with the sounds of approaching footsteps and dry chuckles.

 

—

 

“We must be the epitome of elegance, right girls?” Stated the stern, feminine voice of the Empress-Mother, Maria Viktoria, the partial namesake of Aleksandra’s eldest daughter.

 

“That’s ******* boring,” a teenaged Aleksandra resolves, slanting her chin away from the congregation of ladies as they issue her a disapproving glance.

 

“Aleksandra, why are you so upset all the time?” Inquired young Analiese Ludovar, glancing up at the elder raev with broad eyes.

 

“Shut up, rat,” Aleksandra retorted, merely baring her teeth at the flaxen-haired child who promptly lulled herself against the flank of her confidant, Princess Anabel of Curonia.

 

“Always so cruel, Aleksandra,” chimes in the Devereux with contempt laced in her tone. 

 

“Always so pissy, Anabel.”

 

Both Maria and her protege, Amelia, exchange glances before they rise. “Right, well… this room is becoming awfully crowded. Let us retire elsewhere.” And without further discussion, the slender matron leads the women downstairs. 

 

“I am not cruel,” she murmured, assuming a more rigid stance as she passed the throne room. “People are simply sensitive.”

 

—

 

As she picked up the heavy tresses of her gown, the woman stopped short of the Prikaz doors, only to be jerked back as one man’s hand took hold of her shoulder, while another thrust his blade into her stomach.

 

Everything became a blur, but from the corners of her eyes, the woman could note a brigand encircling her, along with the terrified screams of Reza’s denizens as the scrambled to bar their doors against the invading force. 

 

As she parted her lips to speak yet another inflamed utterance, the man’s blade dug into her gut not once, but four times more.

 

And so, her eyes shut, and her head thumped against the pavement.

 

The Dowager did not feel them leave, or how her assailant’s eyes lingered upon her corpse with regret. 

 

He observed the woman and her features: her visage was indeed pallid, and habitually described as stern, yet in slumber, it seemed to have seeped into a remarkable state of peace. 

 

In that moment, far away from the husk of the matronly woman in Reza who had been left on her lonesome all of her life, a girl opened her eyes; she had a kempt mane of long hair and starkly-pigmented eyes.

 

“Aleksandra? So you’ve woken.”

 

Before her was a familiar figure, blurred by the light that surrounded them.

 

She inhales sharply and proceeds to smile, her doe-like eyes roving over the being’s visage.

 

“Da, it seems I have, rat.”

 

 

Bolted unto Reza’s notice board would be a decree of death.



---

 

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

ALEKSANDRA VAS DEMETRIUS RUTHERN [1685-1722]

 

 

HAUCPRINZENAS VAN MULDAV

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

2

Spoiler

OOC:

While the character herself is not dead, a large phase of her life is; as Aleksandra, she made enemies, friends, and everything in between. As the character transitions into a new stage of her life, I wanted to write up a post that encompassed my rp with everyone whilst on her. For those that I’ve rped with not mentioned on her, thank you for joining me! (I’m just extremely lazy to write any further).

 

[Lirinya 4021]

"*****," the woman's eldest daughter, Amelia Viktoria, stated without delay upon her reading the notice, uncaring of her siblings proximity. @Silverstatik

[Silverstatik 218]

Kazimar Lazar would frown at the notice of his mothers passing, raising a brow to his sisters reaction before plodding home to to the ever growing silence of the family manor.

[trinn 5146]

Amelia Philippa rests her head within her hands, the aging woman's countenance dark in grief. “Why must God take you away so soon, little Lady? Sooner than my own life, when your youth still had not left. God torments me, he does.”

[Bisscy 64]

“Such a ***** leaving the rest of her family behind” Roderick would say as he clenched his fist ”GOD have mercy on your soul Mistress and may you find Josef’s side for eternity.”

[MongolKhan 255]

Vladrick, the mad prince of the Muldav stood by his older sisters side. A harsh smile resting upon his lips. “Deserved.” He stated harshly- with little care left within his tone. “A **** mother and a **** person, may she live in darkness.” He stated with little care for those around him. 

[Ivoreyy 2303]

Mariya Angelika finds herself seated upon the balcony of the Prikaz. The woman had been her only resemblance of a mother, her seemingly only confidant in a continual world of distress. 

 

“You will find happiness, rat- I promise. If I did, anyone can”

 

She was no longer sure if such words could hold weight.

---

 

Within a far off home, the ageing face of a Duchess-Dowanger would forever hold a frown. She only wished to see her children, though guilt riddled her from the time and love she’d failed to give them. Alone on her small balcony, she looks out upon the skyline of Reza

 

“One day, I will return. When I walk upon Reza’s doors, I only hope I’ll see each of them”

 

 

[Baudouin 160]

May you rest in peace.

*Theodosius signs the Lorraine Cross in Cascadia*

[JuliusAakerlund 2402]

Josef only gave his wife a widened smirk. “In life or in death, forever yours goblin girl.”

[osumanduas 1442]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or any FM and we'll restore it.