The Cowardly Duchess [PK]

[MotherLay 815]

The Cowardly Duchess

 

Marjorie Baruch, before weight loss journey (circa. 1735)

[!] TW (self-harm, suicide)

 

   One fateful night, within the extended residence of the Valwyck keep, Marjorie Baruch stood by the window, watching as the rain pattered against the glass. What was once a calming sound to the woman, was a dreaded one; menacing. It seemed to have a voice within it’s droplets, egging her on to do what she had told herself that she would.

 

   Marjorie watched this go on for a long while, her eyes widening slightly every now and then as lightning struck close. Peeling herself away from the window was hard, her gaze shifting to the end table that awaited her fate.

 

   It is with pure self-hatred that she moved towards the object of fate; the glistening silver of the blade she chose. 

 

   She had ruined herself by shutting herself in, too consumed in self-induced solitude to have noticed the horribleness of the woman she was. Absent in her children’s life- absent in her own. She was not the Duchess this family was meant to have. She was nothing.

 

   If only she had gotten over her fears, if only she had tried harder. It was too late now, either way. Her children hated her, the rest of the family estranged, she was no longer Duchess and could not make up for her lack of activity. She could not twist back the time and change the fate set herself in. If only she could go back to those youthful days, if only she could stare back into the eyes of the love of her life and tell him that she would run away with him like he asked. 

 

   If only.

 

   She did nothing. She was nothing. She is nothing.

 

   So, the middle-aged woman lifts her sleeve, revealing the self-hatred cuts along her arms. She picks up the dagger; her fate. She accepts it. She left no note; no reason. Nothing.

 

   The cowardly woman was no longer what she thought she never should have been.

 

Alive.

[Herod 802]

"Do vy really enjoy it, that bleak feeling of nothingness?" Snapped the younger Kaustantin at Marjorie as they sat opposite each other in his office. "I do enjoy the loneliness Kaustantin. I really do." Marjorie replied calmly and nodded.

A sigh escaped his lips as he recalled that memory, he shook his head. The man was stuck in thought, should he have pressed Marjorie to stop that habit? He did not prepare for the worst and the consequences were severe. He continued lamenting in his office, fasting for three days in the memory of his dear Aunt.

[garentoft 8353]

Eirik knocked gently on Marjorie's door, having come to visit her for the first time since Ruslan's dead, or was it the first time ever? He didn't recall. Nevertheless, no response came from his mother's room, and he took it upon himself to enter regardless of his mother's tendency for solitude. The sight that befell him was more gruesome than he could have imagined, immediately filled with immense anger over his mother's cowardice. She had never been there for him as a child, and now that he was an adult and the Duke, she had chosen the path of ultimate abandonment - Death.

 

He battered his hands bloody against the door, before it broke and fell from its frame. A servant who had come upon hearing the commotion was simply ordered to find somewhere appropriate to bury his mother, and to get a woodworker to replace the door.

[Mady 3037]

Upon hearing the cries and banging caused by her brother, Margot Baruch would hurry over towards the sounds, the tightness in her chest becoming more and more prominent as she realized which room it was coming from. "Already..?" She spoke softly for once, shock and hurt laced in her words. Looking past Eirik, her eyes fell upon the remains of her mother. Unlike seeing her father, Margot did not cry this time. Her heart beat quickly and her face hardened into a cold, unfeeling expression. "Ah will ge' someone t' bring a mop." She simply said to her brother. Spinning on her heel, the Baruch girl would leave the mess behind her and begin a walk out of the castle, not doing as she said she would, but instead walking into Karosgrad to escape the death which lingered at Valwyck. 

[GMRO 5251]

The girl's father, Maric var Ruthern  looked softly over the last vestiges of lift which slowly sapped away from his daughter's life with remorse. He began to think over the life he had guided whilst still alive. Had she ever truly been prepared properly for the life which awaited her in Valwyck? To marry a man she did not love over some peasant boy? No, not truly. He had sought the best for her with a suitable marriage, but perhaps not everyone was built for such. He had failed his youngest had he only listened to her. It was too late to go back now.

[crazedpudding 2120]

Eleanora Amador was drowning in grief.

 

Her father had met his end. She neither slept nor ate, the only thought consuming her was please, Godan, take me as well. She did nothing but sit and wail into the night, collapsing every few days into an exhausted sleep plagued by nightmares. She felt none of the happiness she once did, none of the good health she'd enjoyed. She kept to the bed she shared with her husband or to the balcony overlooking the courtyard, only sobbing her pain to the night sky when her children and husband slept and were unlikely to hear her. 

She could not think, she could not hear, she could not see. The Viscountess could do nothing except sit. 

It was night when that same maid approached her again with news of the death of the only mother she had ever known. Eleanora could not breathe. Abandoned by the first mother and eventually by the second. What a bitter thought. She remembered spreading flowers down the aisle before any of her siblings had even been born, remembered looking for her father only to find him sitting tensely in the theater with Marjorie. She had been so hopeful.

 

There was no hope anymore.

[camocat9 1021]

Christopher Asul'onn de Astrea had already been in a bad place. Since the passing of his wife, Amicia de Astrea, he had few left to turn to. Upon hearing word of Marjorie's death, he felt another wave of grief sweep over him- she had been a long term friend, even after he realized he wouldn't be able to court her as he truly wanted to when he was younger- he had loved his wife, of course, but he couldn't help but wonder what his life, and Marjorie's life would have been like if her father had made a different decision. ( @GMRO ).

 

Instead, Christopher simply returned to his room within the Elysium Palace- disappearing from the public eye once more, his door barred much the same as it had been before.