The Folly of a Princess

[Phersades 1165]

Spoiler

 

 

 

The Folly of a Princess

 

 

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“Listen…”

Mariya loved how soft her mother spoke during their morning walks, it was almost as if she was attempting not to disturb the mists in the air. She did not have the luxury of many memories with the woman, but she remembered the way it felt to hold her hand as they walked through Reinmar. Some days they visited the Duchess who shared Esfir’s raven hair and green eyes, Other days were used for the two to just spend time with each other. The small Princess waddled beside her Serene Highness, arm stretched upwards so that her hand could remain in her mothers own.

“Do you hear that, Ma princesse?”

It was the song of crows, their shadows soaring over the two royals. They called out into the air, their voices mixing with that of a sorrowful mourning dove hidden in the treeline. Those black birds began to circle, watching something that laid where those rows of roses ended. Mariya felt the Grand Princess lift her up, carrying her in her arms as they moved to investigate. What was it those crows sought after? What were they watching? The closer the two got, the more fearful the small Barbanov grew. Surely it would be a monster, something vile that would rip her from her mother. The crow's call was nothing but a warning. Alas though, upon their arrival, all Mariya and her mother saw was a dying hare. It was covered in a crimson that spilled from its sides, the only telltale sign of its life was the slow breathing, and the occasional kick of a hind leg.

Mariya gripped the collar of her mother's coat, hiding her face in it to shield herself from that sight. Esfir cooed, rubbing a hand over the four-year-olds back as they watched those birds jump around that animal in its agony.

“Seems the poor thing was attacked, probably from Krusev.”

“Will et be okay?” The young princess asked, mustering up just enough courage to look at the scene from over her own shoulder.

“Probably not. It will pass soon, and it will be given to the grass and the birds.” The future queen gestured to that cloud of crows that remained in the sky. “You know, they say that bad things are to come when the crows circle. A bad omen. Oh the hare will not be fine, but this happens to everything at some point, nothing to fear, Ma princesse”

Mariya did not understand that, could they not just help that writhing rabbit? Patch it up with herbs from the clinic. They could nestle the creature in Esfir’s coat and carry it all the way back to the city. All would be alright, wouldn’t it?

“So bad things will happen tae us?” The little princess asked in fear as she leaned back in the woman’s grasp, eyes searching over the Grand Princess’ face.

Esfir seemed taken back by that question, unsure of what to think of it before the laughter erupted from the Kortrevich. “Well… I do not personally believe that, they are just tales, superstitions. No, My lovely girl, you will live a long and happy life. Your father and I will ensure that too, don’t you worry.”

Despite the dying creature that laid just beyond the fence at their side, Mariya felt safe and hopeful. The head of that tiny girl would rest against her mothers shoulder, snuggled in the expensive furs of that coat as she was carried all the way back to the Morrivi.

 

---

 

Mariya didn’t cry when she found out about the Queen's passing, but the look of her father when he was faced with telling her was a sight that would never leave her mind. The way he paled, the shatter of the glass against the southern palace floor. Mariya couldn’t cry though, she had to be strong for her father, or her brothers if she ever got to see them.

The words blurred, the things that were said, but Mariya sat there and held the king tightly in her arms like she was his caretaker. The warmth that radiated from Georg gave her a sense that everything was going to be alright, but she knew that she had to be strong so that she could see her father smile again one day… Maybe she would not get the same comfort once she left the Balian palace, not back in Haense. It was all pity. The people that walked up to her, they watched her like a wounded dog, apologized for a loss that nobody truly mourned in that kingdom.

She could not cry in front of them. How could she be so weak? 

She did cry in front of Johanes though. She knew it was not right of her to go to Adria, but there was something about that town that brought her peace, even in her most dreadful times. He was her friend even though he was an odd character. Mariya took comfort in his attempts to cheer her up and the way he smiled at her through that roguish beard. He let her sit there in the courtyard of the keep and cry her eyes out. It was a cry that she needed, one that was built up from years and years of loneliness and pain, one that needed an out with the loss of Queen Esfir. The Duke offered her handkerchiefs and space, he did not try to hold her hand, and there was no selfishness in his actions at that moment. He made her feel safe, so she sat and sobbed her heart out until there was nothing left.
 

Mariya grew to love the people in Adria, the way they treated her and respected her despite the fact that she was the Princess of an enemy nation. She couldn't imagine raising a sword to fight any of them, especially those who grew up alongside her.

Now the Princess wasn’t stupid. Conflicts that reach so far can not be repaired with a band-aid, but there was so much love and compassion in the heart of that young Barbanov. Maybe she could show them, show her father that those in Adria were no threat, not one that mattered before the Mori. There was hope in her heart that if she tried hard enough that she could have aided in that attempt for peace. She would not have felt right in her life if she at least didn’t try, and try she did.

 

 

---

 

“He is not coming, they’re going to try and force me into Karosgrad… They’re going to kill me.”

 

Mariya paced around the courtyards of Sheffield in a panic. Georg had already sent the first letter stating that he would not show up to the keep and that he refused to meet with her there. She had already made the dinner that was to be served, some sort of stroganoff with a chocolate cake for dessert. She had been told that chocolate was her father's favorite, and this dinner was supposed to go smoothly.

 

Carolus knew she was a traitor, that subjective term. He knew of her trips to Adria and how compassionate she was, enough so that the Deputy Palatine attempted to suggest peace. Mariya's plan for this dinner was to bring the King to the military keep she called home and try to convince him to step forward with his own terms of peace. However, The Colborn had eventually gotten back to Mariya that he had succeeded in getting the King of Haense to consider such. The King was to call for a Herzenfest, gathering all the peers to a meeting where they would discuss and vote on how they would move forward. Elated by the news, Mariya decided that she would bring this up with her father as well, get information, and ask what changed his mind. Even if he was to discuss peace with the peerages, Mariya practiced caution, especially with the vicious attack on Lorena Gant for also being a traitor. There was a fear in the back of the princess's mind that should she walk into Karosgrad, her people would also beat her or threaten to take her head.

 

King Georg never showed up, only Ser Vanhart. The knight explained that Georg never came because they thought it was a setup, that the poor princess was being held captive and that a brigade of Adrians were waiting. That was not the case, and the only thing Vanhart was met with was Mariya, a few people who roamed or worked in the keep from time to time, and a dinner waiting in the kitchen. There was a confrontation as Ser Vanhart attempted to bring the princess back home to discuss everything with her father in Karosgrad. When she refused, Ser Vanhart left, promising the young princess, that seventeen-year-old, that he would find her on the battlefields because he was wrong about her. She pleaded for him to tell her father she was sorry, but the knight refused and insisted she wasn't.

 

This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. Mariya wanted peace for her friends back in Adria and for her family back home. Her father insisted that no matter what she would have chosen as her future path, that he'd have been proud of her - Orcish Shamanism, Magery, or being a ward in the Adrian courts should the war end. It didn't matter as long as Mariya was happy, then Georg was happy, or so he said.

 

In the end, it was best to just leave. She had decided that since Ser Vanhart wished to go home and lie to her father about her intentions, that she would pack up all of her things from that keep and head to Adria to stay. She feared that the Brotherhood would soon march on Sheffield, so as soon as the Knight left, Mariya did as well.

 

The days that followed were quiet and peaceful. There was still that fear that lingered in her thoughts, the regret knowing that no matter how hard she tried, her family now hated her. She would never see Aleksandr smile again, not at her... She would never again see Stefan’s stupidity as he moved about the square, messing with the young women in the streets. It was hard, but it was the path she chose in turn for the Duke’s hand, or the comfort of her friends and mentors who showed her more attention than her own blood.

 

Maybe one day everything would die down and she’d be able to hug her family once more, assure them that she still loved them. It would just take time, and even with this failure of hers, she would pick herself up and try again.

 

So there she sat in her new room, hopeful and bright as always, enjoying the air that swept through her windows. At least for a time.

 

Spoiler

Just want to give a big thank you to @marslol and @gusano for giving me the opportunity to play Mariya Karenina Barbanov-Bihar, and to the community of Haense for giving me the space to play Mariya, Lucia Rutledge, and Nikolai Kortrevich. 

 

[Mio 3771]

Aleksandr Otto found trouble keeping his composure…

 

[R]

[liz 962]

Lorena trudged through the forests of the Upper Petra, faded leather boots picking up more stubborn mud with each step. She was vigilant, her eyes darting about the open forest with each harmless drop of rain that pattered against the trees. It was as if she expected the Brotherhood - with her once-father at their head - to ride up and whisk her away back to Karosgrad, back to that gilded cage she had always so resented, any moment, though they never came. Lorena heard at last the signature cawing of a lone crow approaching at her back, along with the desperate beating of wings against the rain. She lowered herself to the ground, watching as the bird landed in its nest. It offered up a meal of earthworms - freshly uncovered by the falling rain - to its pack of greedy children. Lorena cowered, for she too had heard the tales of crows and their powers of portent, and she had believed them, once. Crows were masters of death, meant to be revered, but in spite of this she slowly made her way toward the tree and the nest within it. There was a sickening crack underfoot which sent Lorena stumbling backward. What she saw made her wretch: a baby crow struggling for life, calling out desperately to its mother in its final death throes. The mother never came for it, though, and it died only moments later. Lorena's eyes hardened then, and she called out heedlessly to the nest above. "This is how you treat your own!?" She bellowed, her voice hoarse with the memories of too many tears to count. With her call, the mother crow went flying off, and the girl below knocked an arrow. She steadied her breathing, pure hatred on her face, and loosed the arrow on the fleeing thing. She watched it tumble lifelessly to the ground, and Lorena thought that maybe this was justice for the abandoned chick, dead just moments before.

[sarahbarah 5021]

Spoiler

 

 

"You must forgive yourself, Amaya."

 

It was the words of the Grand Prince that rang clear in the Lady Colborn's mind as she retreated to the comfort of the Prikaz that wintry eve. An Adrian who made an attempt on her life would now suffer the same fate as so many of her kin did, bound to his own inevitable fate at the hands of the Haeseni guards who sought to protect her.

 

Yet, she was unsatisfied. She did not crave bloodshed - she did not seek vengeance, despite the anger that stirred in the very depths of her heart.

 

She wanted to forgive.

 

She wanted to forgive the Adrian man who made an attempt on her life. She wanted to forgive Lorena. She wanted to forgive Mariya, to ease the ache that so greatly ailed her being, to escape the anger that twisted her ideals, her morals.

 

"Am I weak?"

 

Rounding the corner, her feet trudged across the silken carpets that lined the floor. It was then that she came to a sudden standstill in front of a grand set of stairs, tall and imposing. They loomed over her much like the fearsome subject of war hung in the air, thickening it with tension. 

 

Amaya stood and she thought - she ruminated on the events that had transpired; Desolation rattled her bones and the vicious, gnawing sting of betrayal would not leave the forefront of her mind. She wanted to forgive, but she could not. Not herself, nor the enemy.

 

And so she ascended the stairs, leaving behind who she once was at the behest of this war.

[Nectorist 7423]

As the soft waves of the Kahaen Sea break against the study, fresh-cut beams of the new docks near Acre, Johanes and his aunt, Wilhelmina, (@Fie) sit atop their steeds and speak freely. Although she was only a month older than he, she was one of the few woman who he could tell his mind to. Perhaps it was the label of 'aunt' that made her wiser beyond her years, or just a product of her nature. Whatever the case, she was one of the few true confidants that the young duke could reasonably trust. He aimlessly rides about in circles, the rush of the scenery, from the soft, blue waters of the sea to the crisp, lush greens of the Acrean Forest, as vivid and unclear as the thoughts that swirled about in his head. That was always the case, though. It was difficult to pick one from the rest.

 

"...And what good is a loving devotion to my friends and family? Duty could be enough to drive me. It would at least ensure that, should some tragedy befall them, I am not left in ruin. I do not want to be the man who threw away his people's future over his personal whims."

 

Although his fury and madness quite frequently surfaced, vulnerability was something typically well-kept for the Duke of Adria. Now, though, as he waited to hear word of Princess Maryia's dinner with her father, his stomach turned. His nerves and fears, which he had thought were lost at Rolly's Field, began to sting him again. He had won his friend's hand in marriage on the back of words such as sensibility and pragmatism. It was all that he ought to have practiced. To blend the realm of personal and political, or to even practice the former, was to allow weakness to surface. Now, for the first time since he lay a butchered steer on the field of battle, he felt powerless, at the mercy of the turning of Fate. 

 

His aunt gave him a kindly look, one far beyond her years.

 

"You cannot be a stiff mannequin, Johanes. You must be a man. A man does not abandon his humanity to pretend to turn towards his duty alone. That is weakness. That is fear. Fear of losing those who you hold dear is not something you can stifle or remove. You must embrace it and let it move you. Young Lorena's father put his duty above her own life. His soul shall be tainted by his willingness to take his own daughter's life. If I can do nothing else, I will ensure that you do not make such a choice."

 

They spoke for longer about a great many things. Of life, of dreams, of the quality of the soil and the unsettling absence of bugs near some of the rotting tree stumps, but as they rode back to Adria, the Duke of Adria found himself reflecting on the words his aunt had told him. He was forgetting himself. Forgetting a great many things. He did not forget, though, that to be a man was not to turn from that which gave his life joy, but to run to it. He worried for Mariya's life, but he trusted that she would be safe in Sheffield, and her father would see reason in allowing her to come to Adria. It would be then that he would tell Mariya that he would profess himself to the cause of peace and seek only to build a good life for Adria, for his friends and family, and for the two of them.

 

Mere days later, these hopes played in his mind as broken memories while he drove his dagger into the neck of a grinning Haeseni knight. Tears for the captured Mariya stained his cheeks.

[BoyWonderr 148]

A blind Vilac sat idlily on the edge of a particular dock, a bottle of alcohol in hand. He stirred the contents of the bottle before taking a large gulp, "I'm sorry..."  he muttered to himself. He poured the rest of the alcohol into the ocean and promptly tossed the bottle, "That one's on me." The man went on to practically talk to himself. He spoke to the ocean, the seagulls, or even to GOD himself. Wilhelm had given up. He wasn't even sure who he was talking to. All he wanted was for someone to listen. He figured at least the seas would.

[CloudMagma 196]

"In times like this, we must not show weakness to the enemy, for they will never stop at nothing to take our happiness away. For our great Duke, I shall take the bones of my enemies from their corpses, as they have taken Mariya from our Duke. This is no longer a war for land or kings. This is a war for Morality. If we shall become the public enemy for taking revenge and fighting for what we believe in, then may the entire world come at us, for we shall not stop fighting until we have done unto them, what they have done unto us." Renata would write, upon a letter. He would nail it to the wall of the Adrian barracks, for any Greycloak to see.

[Fie 2521]

Wilhelmina was soon overtaken by another wave of sickness and unable to try and change a thing about the situation. The young van Aert shed a tear for her nephew and his intended,  hoping that neither of them suffered too much.

[Dymase 231]

Silence.
 

That was all that filled the Inquisitor's ears now as he sat in some dark corner of the Adrian chapel. Blood still drenched his gloves, dripping from the thumbs that he had jammed into the eye sockets of some Haenser. It was a brief solace, the sound of those pathetic screams of that man as Alikos knelt over him, the cracking of bones beneath each furious strike, the squelching of those blue eyes, turned red and bloodied.

 

His one regret of that murder, no, that execution was that he was pulled back before the bottle of Alchemist's Flame in his grasp was able to be poured down the Northman's throat. The hiss of the Adunian's emerald blade as it manifested above the Haeseni's neck, the thud of his head hitting the bloodied wooden stage...

 

All of it was now quiet. Completely, and utterly silent. Eventually though, as it must always be, that silence was broken.

"I am sorry, little one," rasped he, his voice ringing dully from beneath his helmet. That steel façade, that metal wall, blocking himself from the world. He did not think he would ever take it off again. "I have failed you... I will not allow this to happen again." 

 

His voice now hardened. Turned resolute. He knew now what he must do. And so he stood, gaze falling upon the crucifix nailed to the opposing wall. From beneath his visor, a grimace formed upon his lips. Without another thought, he strode out from the chapel, the door slamming shut behind him.
 

[CanadaMatt 689]

Anatoily Godunov walked the streets of karosgrad days after his oldest and longtime friends death constantly stepping into her old shop that looked put to the city square as thoughts ran through his head of thier time together "They say ea did the right thing, but all ea did was kill mea friend..." As he mumbled those words to himself he remembered what the Orc Rex told him a few years previously that mariya only had 3 years left to live.... and it had been three years. The Godunov would look up to the sky then "Forgive eam Riya, all ea wanted was for vy to stay in haense with eam...my intentions were to protect vy...niet kill vy" Anatoliys hands had blood on them, even though not physically in his heart the guilt and pain

[Pancho 2534]

Soprano Romano walked down the streets of Velec, heart heavy after witnessing death at the hands of his angered countrymen. He looked up to the sky, praying to God whilst whispering a short phrase. “Blood must have blood.”