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THE CRANE WIFE [PK]


milkyi
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Spoiler

 

 

 

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He has taken her skin,

offered his cloak,

a poor exchange,

the tattered threads

of binding.

 

Like love unraveled,

he bids her home,

to unwashed dishes,

a bed that smells

of cinders.

 

Children without feathers

she must mind for years.

And tears which, as a swan

she never had to shed,

so she can be close to the skin.

 

Whoever says love can save

has never been a wild bird;

from egg to sky, that small leap,

wind and rain harder than tears

her only master. 

 

– JANE YOLEN

 

 


 

 

From a young age, Eugénie de Savoie had known happiness. It came to her easily. As Eugénie danced across the polished tiles of the Orenian courts, eyes from all around graced her appearance. When she was a child, she delighted in playing among her older peers. Participating in papers and Rosehelm, she had always known peace and prosperity. Sadly, all things must come to an end, and her lineage, the very thing that gave her the right to such unadulterated happiness, was what started her descent.

 

As a young woman, Eugénie met what she thought would be her future. A bright light that would cast her forward and help grow the family that she desired. Separated mostly from the rest of her kin, the hopeful youth met a man in her solitude. A man by the name of Viktor Baruch. They married quickly, a facet of her personality that would be reinforced in the future, though at the time she chose it due to her desires to flee from the family name that had been tarnished.

 

There was little love in their relationship. Two separate people in one house. She spoke when spoken to, and was rarely listened to in return. She was tamed slowly. By this first husband, she learned silence. Respect for someone above her, though they had no reason to be as such. A wife in name alone. The man believed in himself, his bloodline, and little more. To him, there was little that was important about his simple wife. Any time Eugénie would bring up her family, she was berated for the mere thought. A life that was behind her, he said. A life that was not hers, for she was his. A crane no longer. Though he likely knew not of what he did, his eyes unable to see the unnatural form he had forced her to take.

 

Relieved of her duties as a woman, she was given the duties of a wife. In this, her husband had great ambitions for her. Should she perform her duties perfectly, there would be no cause for strife. Alas, a woman is not privy to the fate that is divined upon her child’s conception. She bore several children to the man. With each female child, he grew only more bitter. Until eventually, she gave him the male heir he was seeking. A child to uphold the family line. A child of use. Even upon her eventual success, Eugénie was afforded little respect. First as a wife. Now as a mother. For she was only a mother when it was convenient to him.

To the girls, Eugénie was the only light they would see. A roughly worked single parent, pushing her hardest for her kin. While the man stood back. Cold. Distant. If they would not benefit him to raise, he would not raise them. Marriage stock needed not the skills of a man. Yet the opposite was true of her son. When it came to the boy, she was not a mother. She was a provider. She was to provide food and shelter. He was to provide substance. Viktor would whip the boy into shape, and the boy would grow strong. For this was what mattered. What was right, to the man who owned her.

Years upon years passed in this farce of a marriage. When her spirit was all but broken, Eugénie gathered the courage to leave him, the two mutually dissolving their marriage. And where once there was a pristine crane, now she had left herself behind. The whole of her happiness. Bearing the shreds of her hope and her daughters on her back, she fled to the once Empire of Oren. A place of opportunities, so she had been told. In this place, she met her second trial. On the streets of Oren, she found herself missing the warmth she had once felt. The woman cast her mind towards men she thought could fill the void that was missing in her heart. Even going as far as to have an affair with a priest, though the memory pained her later in life.

 

The once-crane sat alone once more. In a heap, with the pile of her feathers, one would have wondered how she could repair her spirit. 

 

A spirit that was ultimately allowed freedom, from both her burdens, and her body. As a child, she had found herself struck by the peculiar nature of the land known as Dobrov. Following this drawing she had found herself lost in the land, met with a beast that had by chance chosen to spare her. Such an encounter left a mark on the woman. A feeling of excitement. This one place where she had experienced the rush of fantasy. Though dangerous, it had embedded itself in her mind. 

 

A moment of freedom.

 

So she found herself once again in the lands of Dobrov. Devoid of her husband, devoid of her sense of self. She pressed into the ruins, seeking out an experience that would trump the one she had so long ago. An experience that this time, would be her last. Upon arriving she found herself caught in the web of one such creature. A being of the night who seemed almost as stricken with her as she was with it. Fyodor was his name. By chance, they met.

 

In the starlit night, draped in an air of misery by the Demon of Dobrov, the two found each other amidst the ruins. Two souls, cut from quite different cloth. So they sat. So they talked. Of life. Of meaning. Of purpose. At that moment, they had an understanding. And when they gazed upon each other, they saw each other for what they truly were. Two beings, fallen from grace, once gorgeous cranes. One transformed into a meek beast of burden. The other, a ravenous wolf, bent on the end. They understood each other without a single word more. The wolf would relieve her of her burden.

 

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And so, though her first husband wilted her beauty, she was given one last chance to be seen as pure. Pure in spirit. Pure in blood. Dripping down from the fangs of her final end. As her hands grew cold in his grip, her eyes dimming, the crane finally regained her rightful form. Words slipping from her lips: "Thank you, Fyodor . . ." And as she slipped from his grip, she slid down against the dirt, her body floating gently into the waters of Dobrov. Her ethereal form drifting away. Free from the burdens of the earth.

 

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“Those who abandon their families… shall die a lonely death.” Muttered Kaustantin to his wife as they sat opposite of a crackling fireplace at the edge of Valwyck. Despite his harsh words, Kaustantin did not know what prompted Eugenie to do all her actions, perhaps he shall ask her when his time comes, he thought.

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Originally Maria Frederica von Preussens, and the eldest daughter of the now deceased Eugenie- had sought to ferociously clutch at her stomach 'pon the annunciating of her mother's late death. The color that had once infiltrated the cerulean gazed woman had then diminished, a sickly look materializing itself atop her usual jubilant expression. One that was consumed in that very moment, and concealed until further notice: "Oh, mother. You always spoke of death so fondly, I'd never would have known it would feel so heart-wrenching until GOD reclaimed you." She'd reluctantly utter up at herself, dome drooping groundward in an affix amidst her cries.

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Henrietta Halcourt could barely recall the distant memories she had of her great-aunt, whom she had never really had the opportunity to become close with. Despite the estrangement that she shared with that side of her family, the Baroness d'Artois sent her condolences to Eugenie's Preussens' offspring, feeling sympathy for her relatives.

Edited by sondher
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Nikoleta glanced to her husband, letting out a laugh as she clinked glasses with Emerentia and Eugenie. Her new drinking group. 

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"Dravi Mamej." The Baroness Concert smiled as she dropped a single dramatic tear to the ground

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