Checkmate Dear; Ruby Queen

[Tigergiri 3073]

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Checkmate Dear; Ruby Queen

 

 

 

Everything and anything was all a moot point when it came down to life. No matter what the achievements one feels they have accomplished, if they are not immortalised, nothing can be done. Blood splatters that line the hall, a chase and a fatal end. A gruesome scene outstretched the very place that used to be safe. The lining of a cosy room that once held laughter and tea. That had a woman reading at night to catch up on the trends and fashions. Her head buried papers written by her staff. Everything that was ever done in this room. Washed away by the sea of blood. A massacre of her very self. Thoughts never raced so much.
"Was this truly the end?" her words raced into the very being of herself. 

Blood lined her corridor, the blood trails that led to her room. She couldn't run away. No, not on the trail she left. "Why me?" she breathed, huddled between her desk and her bed. Praying to God to save her. The banging on the doors, their voices echoed in her head. "Please, please, if you have any heart, please save me. I do not wish to die here. " In her terror, the wound on her side was bleeding, dragging and ripping her clothes to cover it. The sheets that made up her lonely bed were torn and blood-stained. Her hushed breathing as the door splintered open. Her life was flashing before her eyes. 

 

Anna's bright smile and hair, her ageing appearance flashing by. The whispers of her words haunt Elisabeth's very eyes. "The world wasn't ready for us, yet here we are." the soft resounding voice of her own, "Yet here we are." 

Her most beloved friend, Amiee, and all her hardships. Their tea parties and working on building a strong marriage. "I am only telling you this because I trust you." 
"I'll never let anything hurt you. I'll even go after him myself." The vengeance on her own voice she had barely known. But the cost of their friendship was too much. 

Anton, a man she so hated, but yet so loved. Each moment was playful to argue she had grown up with him, and in the end, she tossed him aside when the going was rough. God had no mercy for her. Maybe she indeed deserved the end? 
"Y'enjoyed... this?"
 "A'course." He remarked. "Admittedly, I don' care for these sortsa' events. But, meetin' your peers in society mus' be..." He thought. "Enjoyable, as y'said."
"You can speak plainly with me. I will not take offence. It is enjoyable, but I guess if you have naught an inkling of it, it can appear rather boring, like the groundings of idle chatter in a courtroom." She remarked, her blue eyes trailing the roses as they gleamed in the main hall. "Though it intrigued me to ask what you find to tickle your head to be fun."

She remembered their first big fight. The screaming and crying rang within the Dobrovian walls. Never in her life had she wanted to hit someone, scream, slap, yell at all of them. The ball before was a disaster, and as she had to put on a brave face, the whisper of being Ruby did- it had gotten to her. The pressure to succeed. And in the end, Anton took the hit for it. Their words haunted her very being. Her child, like herself, was so much different. More... freeing. 
One young Elisabeth, a twinge of annoyance flickers in her eyes as her small rage focused on Anton, "Says the man who finds crowds and parties stuffy, but is within the House of Commons where it's nothing but that but fancier words." She quipped; she didn't mean the words, but she seemed frazzled.
Anton d'Amato-Orlov paused with this notion, stared unbroken. "Maybe," he remarked. "At least there's some substance." He shrugged. "-No offence," he briskly appended with a modicum of authenticity, seemingly.
Her glare was unnerving, "you wouldn't last a day- not a minute of the swarms of girls and dances. At least you get to sit and deny the men and women around you different policies. You can speak your mind; that is easy; but you wouldn't get off scot-free with your mannerisms as they are now. " She hisses out her hand, gripping her quill a few feathers crumpling.
"No offence." She mocks.

Her brother quipped into the conversation. If only she had listened to his words early on. "Nothing in this life revolves around luck or divine will. It revolves around choice. We choose to do things--it is not predestination."
 Elisabeth Leopoldine sighs deeply. "I will choose... eventually."

"How 'hard it must be, being the center of attention surrounded by y'admirers lookin' for some so-called status. At leas' I get policies, si, for some change. Not just some well-mannered marriage by who's choice? Not luck, surely." He trailed on with nonchalance in his voice intonation, sighing. "But, my notion is in the minority, so..." He trailed off, clicking his tongue, gaze diverting finally; he hummed.
The feathered quill broke in her hands, seemingly putting everything on the seat and getting up to watch her brother's friend. Her frown deepened, her usually happy smile soured into a scowl. "How hard, indeed. To make sure your friends are not poisoned, you hold your head high and look nice, so your family's status isn't torn into the ground. One, and I mean one wrong step, and it's over. Politics are not forever; it gives you neit joy. Who shall you show your achievements to? When does everyone you love no longer live with you? The men, your friends? Who may only be there to undermine you?" Each word was spiteful as she grew a step closer in a rather dark way... Something she has learned from her family...
Franz Nikolai's face turned into a frown upon hearing his sister's reaction. "Anton was--......" No words found their way out that had any meaning, so he kept quiet as Anton responded.
Anton d'Amato-Orlov promptly paused, practically faltering with her harsh words, expression unchanging from its faux amusement: a thin veil prolonged. "What, then?" He eventually asked, quieter therein. His eyes flickered away from her and the vibrant rug. "Distractions... thas' all any of it'a is." He remarked, rather earnest in juxtaposition to prior instances. "We try to be blunt, and we try an' make a change." Anton shrugged, inclining his back, digits tracing the wall at his flank. "I wish you the bes' with the, um, season." He offered a slight curt dip of his head, never smiling yet.
Elisabeth Leopoldine stops in front of the man. Her head tilted downward as a shadow crossed her face, the words he spoke deepening her anger, her fingers clenching, growing white as she seems to just shake from anger. "You do not try to be blunt; you are blunt, a Daft man, a -a Dratted lickspittle." Flushing from anger, every minor incident of today bubbled up inside her as tears from the corner of her eyes just held them as she blinked them back to keep as strong as she could. "You don't get to say when you can leave in front of a lady. You do neit get to dismiss me while I’m addressing you." Watching as he dipped his head at her, the words came out of her mouth quicker than she could think of them. "What gives you the right? To -to just be… you" her hand falling away as it just fell to her side, her words falling short as the tears spilt anger still hard in her blue eyes."Let. Him. Speak. As he much enjoys doing so."
It was blatant that she'd hit a nerve, and Anton scowled. "Wha' gives you the right to live in this God damned lie?" He lifted his volume, his eyes growing wide. "A dratted lickspittle. Maybe, at leas’ I'm honest. I don' get much more. I don' get to jus' be." He hissed, fuming. "I don' get to live in your seasonal playground surrounded by maniacs." He inhaled a keen breath, catching his words. "Si, si, fine, I'll talk. I'll try. You too." His breathing was heavy therein. "You act like it isn' your choice. You jus' don' care and you're a hypocrite. Why? I dunno. But, I'll say it forthright." He stared, his chest rising and falling with every breath he took in and sighed out. He murmured, a scarce, contrasting volume, 'twas fretful. 
"No one has the right."
"What gives me the right? What gives me the right?!" Her voice rose with his words as they stood toe to toe. The draft of the cold made her shiver, or was it the anger that she was feeling? "You think I'm not honest? Do you believe me to be a liar? Never, NEVER have I been dishonest to anyone I have come in contact with." Her hand gripped the side of her dress, "Manic, At least I'm not down each other's throats with papers and quills! As you call it, my playground is the height of society, the weight of the world around us. What I say impacts the people around me. It is networking at its finest." Getting into his face as best as she could at her shortened height. "I'm the Hypocrite?? Look around where you stand?! WHERE DO YOU STAND, ANTON? In the house of your friend who is on the same 'playground'."Her voice was quivering as she seemed to just shout at him. Just a full blast of anger and tears. "I have been given the right to live in my world. Why? This is the only thing that keeps me going. Only. Things. And I will not have myself criticised by a man who knows nothing about what he says." The air was cold, and mood had already soured did it not 
He stridently exclaimed; he squawked in a jarring yell. "I didn' call you a liar!" He paid minimal acknowledgement to the haunting echoes of an old tune, only to her retorts and his. His eyes were locked into hers, full of outrage. "Like hell, I dunno, but I'm trying for God's sake! This keeps thin's' going; it keeps me going." His words narrowly mirrored hers, involuntarily. "T-thas' your problem, and everybodys. The whole world balances on yours, an' what does it impact? What impact does it have? What is its impact?!" He demanded; his voice boomed through the old walls, reverberating in incoherent echoes. "Whas' it for other than another marriage with a duke, a duchess, all who'd much rather be somewhere else from what I've seen? Maybe I don't know, but I know you're self-isolated in a system you ******* built." He fumed, visage so very red and twitching. His mouth hung ajar, silent, apart from his idle breathing. "It isn't fun. Not for you- it isn't fair." He paused, deflated as all his steam and heat had left his figure, but another reverberation. "I... I-I'm sorry." 

 

 

Thinking back, maybe both sides should listen to their arguments more. Perhaps nothing that has come to pass in their background has come to this point.

 

Each piece of chess played over the years with her dear brother Franz Nikolai.  His onyx pieces, his strategy was nothing like what was laid before her. The white piece she held ever so dearly in her heart.

A stage was set. Before they even knew it, a single pair.  The words she had written as a child came back to haunt her. For without one whole, 
We are naught but pawns. Set across the board. Whom she had thought to be a queen. Powerful and loving. In reality, the pawn of a stage set. 
A final end. 
A checkmate with an empty spot for a king. 
Her king. A man had been missing for years. She remembers their laughter. She remembered their dances, and she remembered their marriage. Short, bittersweet. Like a chip of chocolate, it can only bring you happiness for so long until it disappears.

The tears flowed down her eyes. An empty spot for a king was a checkmate, to begin with.
Three Onyx Knights surrounded her Ruby Queen, her pawn turned Queen. 
A false idol that could never truly live up to its standard.
Checkmate, 
Dear Ruby Queen,
Mate Dear, 
Elisabeth Leopoldine Carrion-Tuvyic.

1835 11th first seed. 

 

[JoanOfArc 4604]

Nikolai recalled much brighter days when the sun over Dobrov remained in the sky for what felt like days.

 

"The Tuvyic curse," he repeated as his uncle Sigismund says, or did say, before he went into the ground below, "O Lord pluckest us out."

[rukio 8924]

Spoiler

My beloved daughter 😭

 

[Maevlin 724]

Anna d'Arkent sprinted when she heard the scream. Upon seeing the blood, she slumped down against the wall. She remembered the first time she met Elisa, at their own season now so long ago. At first Anna just wanted her to feel safe with all the attention she was getting as Ruby, but as the pair grew into friends, she found a younger sister she loves as much as her own family. "Please let her be happy, please let her find her way home..." Anna prays as she leans against the wall opposite to the room where she found the blood.

[Taketheshot 3834]

Joseph d'Azor frowned as he puffed out a breath at such a missive shaking his head "Poor Elizabeth, she deserved a longer life." He thought back to the social season which she had done so well in and their interactions beyond that. "She deserved so much more..." He mused.   

[zuziee 4004]

Maisie's lips pursed - throwing the notice into the fire. "Mary will be pleased." 

[Lhindir_ 3691]

An entity from beyond watched, as its last living kin dwindled by the day.

[EmiliainWonderland 2311]

It seemed Amie was a bit late to find out, her eyes puffy already from the loss of yet another friend. The news came to her ears and she fell still. Her heart beat slow in her chest but it pounded audibly in the empty room.  Suddenly she burst forth, the room disturbed all at once as she began throwing things to and fro.

"WHY?! WHY MUST YOU TAKE EVERYTHING  THAT MATTERS TO ME?!" The woman shouted, her voice hoarse from all the sobbing and shouting. 

 

Suddenly, her voice fell to a hushed whisper, despair laden in it's tone.

"And how much more can I be expected to bear, GOD? Before I too lose the strength to go on." Her chapped lips closed with a heavy sigh, tears that she thought dried up by now falling anew on her scarred cheek.