[PK] SHARDS OF A RUBY

[aldskar 842]

Spoiler

 

TRIGGER WARNING: This post includes brief mention of suicide, please continue with your discretion!

 

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SHARDS OF A RUBY

 

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Juliya supposes there was a time where she was able to glance upon her mirrored reflection with bliss and not with the urge to shatter said mirror into a hundred shards with one ageing fist. That time had now passed.

 

“My Rose,” Her aunt Helena dotes upon her, as she did at the one of many summers spent at Rosemoor. Born only eight years earlier as Juliya Rose Basrid, all she truly knew was the love of her family and the glory of her Empire. She grew to be quite the cultured young lady, an aspiring poet with a burning love for not only her country but indeed the world and the many vast countries that occupied it.

 

Elizabeth Anne, her grandmother and her greatest inspiration besides her father. At the time she was heading the legendary Rosemoor Bill. The Princess Imperial was a woman many women aspired to be and the young Juliya was no exception. To be a woman, Juliya thought even then, was to be graceful just as her grandmother.

 

“Grandmother, are you not scared of getting older? Time never stops, it must be quite scary..” She remembers asking in her teenage years, the ageing imperial sitting beside her in the Augustine gardens. “You should not be afraid of time, my dear Rose, for it can bring great things. Like you, and your family. Without time I would not even have your father.” Juliya noticed that she did not mention the wrinkles.

 

There was even pressure for that grace in her adolescence, a war in her mind to stay poised. The only way to ease said pressure, in her mind, was the title of Ruby. A tradition started by her own, of course she had felt it. Tireless work, physical-upkeep, jealousy and loathing, and the title was hers. Then she was truly a woman.

 

She married young, perhaps that was her first mistake. Though not that she knew it. To be a princess, an estate on a hill with rolling cliffs for miles and rose bushes surrounding her, it was a dream. Her first son was born, and she loved him.

 

After the birth is when she was truly able to fulfil her lifelong wish. Employed under the ministry of foreign affairs, she travelled tirelessly between Oren, Yong Ping and the Fakhr Oasis much to the dismay of her family at home. “You are selfish, Juliya,” remarked the Baron Carrington to her one particularly dramatic afternoon. She only wept for he was shouting.

 

If it was selfish for her to enjoy her life in the sandy desert, then so be it! She was selfish. Of course she would never admit it, but she knew of her selfishness. How her family, her child, longed for her back home. But how could she go home now?

 

But she did. No more of the colourful oasis, the joyous people and the exotic animals. The stone of Providence was where she was summoned. She thought it would be alright, at first, giving birth to three more children though she knew it would never last. Even the walls of Aldersberg now began to suffocate her just as the city did. Mid-thirties and, with the death of her father and muse, she remarked quite morbidly to her husband that her time was running out. One grey hair, even, was enough to keep her inside for days. 

 

As age came so did her obsession to stay young. She was ungrateful, undoubtedly so. Often complaining to her confidants that her life was falling to pieces, how she felt unloved by her husband. How spoilt, they must’ve thought to themselves. In her mind, she was no longer that ruby or that budding rose. But what was she without that?

 

“Perhaps that is why you favour Georgiana, in your own words, for she encaptures quite the beauty a youthful woman is able to keep.” A doctor questions to the Basridi princess, ordered to the Aldersberg estate by her husband after her most recent spur of melancholia. “Think carefully, Juliya. If she was not so beautiful - or youthful - would you love her any less than you do? Even in the slightest?” 

 

Only a few months later, the sickness that had plagued her firstborn daughter since birth at last claimed her. Georgiana Maria had passed.

 

Many more bouts of melancholy and public meltdowns in Providence pubs, salons, and boutiques and it became conspicuous to all that her daughter was the last string holding Juliya together. No longer would she engage with her dear husband, nor her remaining children. Bedridden, melancholic, unresponsive. Mad. 

 

Perhaps, in some sick way, what really died with Georgiana was not the love of a daughter, but the timeless obsession with beauty and youth that lived through her.

 

And if that were true, cue a bath filled with rose petals. One for melodrama, always, a glass of red wine in one hand and two razors in the other, she would not make it to see morning. 

The rose had wilted, and wilted was Juliya Rose.

 

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An announcement on behalf of the County of Aldersberg. 

 

It is with great upset that we may publicly announce to the citizens of Orenia that the Countess Aldersberg, Princess Juliya Rose, has passed peacefully in her sleep due to unforeseen circumstances.

 

We ask that respects may be paid wholly during a mourning period so as not to disrupt regularities. We also ask for our apologies to be heard as the family of Novellen-Aldersberg undergo their own period of mourning.

 

Rest in peace.

1808 - 1860

 

HIH, George Alexander, Count of Aldersberg

HL, Edward Clement

 

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Spoiler

I was a little reluctant on whether or not I should write a PK for this character as I do not play her anymore at all, though I felt I owed it to myself to do it just because Juliya was my first character and I was frankly obsessed with her story for quite a bit of my LOTC life.

 

First of all, thank you massively to @BobBoxfor allowing me to play this character in the first place! It was extremely fun and I could not have imagined a better way to introduce myself to LOTC. Rip Deadthony. Thank you also to @Axelufor telling me about it and taking me in so wholly!!! I do not know what I would have or even currently do without you <3.

 

Thank you @Ivoreyyfor the incredible roleplay on Juliya, you were honestly a driving force for the path I chose to take on this character! Thank you to @Matheawwfor playing such a sick husband. Thank you @Mannyyfor playing such a sick son (literally. frail boy.) Thank you @neiifor playing Georgiana even though you don't anymore!!!

 

Thank you to the Fakhr Oasis crew, specifically @Heart_Spam@lindseymy biggest regret is not rping there more but I was on a huge hiatus sadly. Thank you @tadabug2000for hosting me in Yong Ping that one time your character is awesome I am obsessed with her. Thank you @Maevlinfor all the ministry roleplay, too!! This has gone on way too long but ty everyone who I RPed with on her and rip Juliya.

 

[zuziee 4004]

A figured donned in black recalled the many times she had offered Juliya a cigarette. Sighing out, no longer she thought. 

[valecu 2128]

A sickly Pruvian hears about the death of his first love, signing the cross over himself. "Oh, Juliya... - why did I abandon you?"

[Franczhiz 4437]

"NOOOO..." Joseph Clement de Sarkozy dropped his bottles of Carrion Black on the ground. "Oh God.. poor Edward now.."

[Mattiii 1663]

George Alexander leaned on the rim of the basin, arms crossed, looking down at his deceased wife. The basin was littered with rose petals and matching wine-colored water. “You were always away at the Oasis.” He spoke to her with accusation yet her features remained still. He remained there, waiting for a response he knew would never come. Even if she was to miraculously respond George knew her answer would be “It was for work”. He had heard it every time she was going away and the more often he heard it, the less convincing it was. There was no reason that could come to his mind for a Princess so wealthy to work so tirelessly as she had. George looked across the room to the large floor-to-ceiling mirror he had spent countless hours staring into. He hadn't changed much since the day prior except for the pronounced wrinkles on his forehead. Juliya’s features on the other hand were much more pronounced since the day they first met, the corrugator was all the more noticeable but so too were her smile lines. The aging Count finally stood from the rim of the basin and waved Ethel forth. “Take her away,” he muttered, and as George began to leave the bathroom he glanced once more at his reflection in the mirror, finding no smile lines.

[Cubicita 640]

“May my cousin finally rest…” The forgotten Basrid noted, coughing in her bed. “We should visit her son, Mi Chera.” The woman spoke to her daughter.

[Axelu 4333]

The Dowager Countess of Temesch anguished greatly over the loss of her rose.  Ever beautiful, ever vain, and ever prone to wilt as was,  Helena could not comprehend the loss.

[Mannyy 982]

       The Baron of Carrington, Wilhelm Lucius hears the news of Juliya's departure. It never truly gets easier, does it? The loss. Wilhelm had lost so much in his 57 years on the planet, starting from when he was a boy to now. The now elder man remembered a fateful night in the vineyards with Juliya, where he had gifted her a pair of ruby earrings, and proposed. He thought of how hurt he had been when she declined, and all the mean things he'd say thereafter, followed by a small grin as he remembered when he'd apologized to the Princess, and their evening in the maze together. Truly to Wilhelm, she was the one who had gotten away.

 

 

 

       Edward Clement sits at home one lonely night, accustomed to spending nights in Aldersberg by himself at this point when he hears an unusual sound coming from his mothers room.. He slowly creeps down the hall, unsure what to expect. Was his mother finally home? The young man cracks the door to discover the lifeless body of Juliya Rose, shocked into silence as he closed the door quickly. Tears in his eyes, he began to find his father, the Count George Alexander, whilst Edward himself simply locked himself back in his room.