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A Beautiful Burden


crazedpudding
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A BEAUTIFUL BURDEN


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A girl leaned against a wall on one of the balconies of the Nikirala Prikaz, the different floral scents of the Rose Wing surrounding her as she gazed out at the early morning sky. She was not yet a woman, no matter what the law said, and Klara Elizaveta only stroked the fur of the now ten year old dog she’d been gifted so long ago. Sigmar @AmazingAzura, her beloved cousin, slaughtered by the Orenians.

 

“Sigmar is dead?”

 

She remembers asking Ser August @Ziggiteethat question. Her heart had dropped as she watched the Lord Marshal push the captured Orenian knight to his knees in front of the chopping block. Her hand had found Margot’s @Mady, who’d stood by her side as they watched the execution. She remembers the numbness, the terrible apathy that tore into her soul. As Dame Tavisha @Althea_ swung her great axe, the young princess felt herself steel over. A thought passed over her, as her heart hardened. 

 

“Let the mercy of a quick death be the only mercy Ea give to those who would tear us limb from limb.”

 

There was a time she craved peace, a time where she wished for it more than anything. She’d fought in battles alongside her father and mother before she’d even come of age, but she still felt very much a girl. The eldest princess couldn’t bring herself to shed tears. She’d wept for so many already. An uncle, aunts, her grandmother. She could no longer weep for the dead, could no longer bring herself to show her grief. Tea and prayer only aided in sleeplessness for so long. There was a time Klara craved peace. No longer. 

 

Night fell, and only then did she realize she’d been sitting there for hours. Looking down, she went to rouse the dog that slept beside her, before slim hands met cold body. Brown eyes had clouded over so only a deep grey could remain, and she felt herself stiffen. It was no longer the dog in her lap, no, it was him, with his singular grey eye. As she brought her hands up to brush back his hair, she idly noticed that she was shaking. Breath whooshed from her lungs, and Klara turned away even as servants lifted the body of the well loved pet from her lap. 

 

She did not see an animal hanging there in the maids’ arms, only her cousin, the cousin who’d looked after her since she was but an infant. As the dog was carried away, she turned her eyes back onto the city with stiff movements. 

 

“Burn the body, and scatter the ashes in Richtenburg.”

 

As she spoke and the maids left, she finally allowed air to fill her lungs. The moon was high in the sky once more, full and bright, when she finally moved from the Rose Wing and into the gardens. Many flowers bloomed there, but she only had eyes for one. Daisies, like the ones he’d gifted to her with the dog so long ago. The same bouquet of daisies that sat dried and pressed in a book in her room. It was as if someone had wrapped her in wool, she could not hear or see or feel, but the daisies, those sweet flowers, they filled her with such anger. 

 

“We’ve all seen ye grow up into the youn’ woman ye are today, an’ Ah think ye truly have granted us tha’ clarity yer name destined ye fer. Clarity o’ a safe future, in the hands o’ a steadfast an’ ambitious new generation.” 

 

That’s what her uncle had said. Clarity. She had barely thought as she moved into the square, barely felt anything but the anger in her heart. If she was to be clarity, if she were to help guide her dear Hanseti-Ruska under first her father, and then her brother after him, she would steel herself. Safety, what a novelty in this new age of war and executions. She was supposed to be clarity, but how could she embody it when her own mind was so clouded? It always came back to harsh realities and harsh words that tore into her heart. She wished desperately for kindness, for safety and security.

 

Klara supposed that makes her a woman, the resolve to give her people that which she was denied, for surely she could not be called a girl any longer. What a burden it was, to give all of yourself to your nation, a burden that both humbled and exalted you. An overwhelming sadness washed over her, for if this is how she felt, she mourned the burden that had been placed on her dearest father. 

 

“But what a beautiful burden vy are, dearest Hanseti-Ruska.”
 

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