A Diary Entry - Veronika

[kuerbis 3802]

 

✠ DOMINVS VOLVIT, SIC FACTVM EST ✠
 

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[!]

Upon her eventual return to Rittersburg, Valentiná made one last entry into her private diary before putting her pen aside for the coming years. It was a simple sentence, though she had hovered over the page for a long time and caused multiple ink stains in the process before writing it in her unsteady hand. Surely, many things were on her mind, but those things would never be found in writing. 
 

Spoiler

 

 

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12th of Godfrey's Triumph 646;

 

-✠-

“So many look to her, who wears the Crown of Empress, for hope. They shall find you, as they find me. We must remain strong for them, but even more for each other.” - “I am here for you, as the crown bids; and as my dear friend.”
 

“It won’t be as bad as we might think. We shall simply brave each storm as they come. But Marcus, we must always be honest with one another. I think we owe each other that much.”

-✠-

 

Spoiler

Far off from the nearest bit of civilization, she sat on the dusty wooden floor; the body of a blonde woman beside her. Valentiná was still trying to get her breathing under control. Her hands shook violently as she stared down at them, a feather pillow laying not too far from her grasp. Widened eyes peered upon the scene she had created as ichor dripped down her brow, where she had been scratched. It would surely form a scar.

 

Veronika, that was her name, did not move anymore. An expression of genuine terror lingered upon her deathly pale countenance. Despite her frail stature, the woman had put up quite the fight, nearly turning the tables on Valentiná towards the end of their struggle. 

She was a beauty, even in death. Her full lips, though now blue from asphyxiation, stood slightly agape in shock. Her wide doe-eyes were fully open, and bloodshot, the view of her murderess still burned deeply into them. There was blood and flesh under her nails, blood she had drawn from the unexpected visitor she received that afternoon. 

 

No-one had expected things to go this way, least of all, Valentiná. She merely wanted to question the other woman, to explain to her how she was ruining her marriage; oh she had only wanted to ask her to take back that boy of hers, so things could go back to normal. For that reason, Lady Valentiná visited her without an escort, and unarmed.

 

How long has it been? Veronika’s flesh already started to lose its warmth. When the afternoon sun gave way to the full moon and her many stars, she shone a dim, and judgemental light onto that scene, full of depravity and desperation. Their struggle had been a loud one, but the only thing that resounded throughout the small cabin  now were the labored breaths of Valentiná, as she sought to swallow her tears. Murderers do not deserve to cry, she thought.

 

Veronika had lived the life of a simple woman, commonborn and ostracised because of the child she bore a stranger, out of wedlock. She was an unfortunate soul, someone who barely ever got by, taking on any work she could find and putting her young son to work on the farmsteads across the woods. 

 

What an odd occupation for a child that was supposed to have Dragon’s Blood.

 

On this afternoon, when Valentiná stood at the threshold of the woman’s wind-bent front door, a gentle simper spread across Veronika’s face. Perhaps this could have been her way out of poverty; they do sometimes speak of royalty’s tendency to favour the poorest of the poor.

 

Their conversation started out normal enough, but Valentiná soon painted herself not as a generous benefactress who was tired of seeing someone else’s son loiter around her own brood, but rather as a woman scorned; one, who made firm demands of Veronika. 

How dare she, that royal hussy? She thinks she gets to make demands of me, just because she was born blue-blooded? Just because she was lucky enough to marry a prince, she gets to decide that I shall keep living like a beggar?

 

“…and once your bastard is back home, I shall send you a thousand Imperial Farthings as compensation. You‘ll move and we‘ll never hear from you again.” The Crown Princess believed this to be a fair deal; what more could this woman want? Her  belief caused all the more confusion, when the common woman broke out into laughter, which, to Valentiná, sounded like a mockery.

 

“Highness,” she spoke at last, a hand pressing itself over her bosom, “what about next year, when the money runs out? What then? A relocation costs more than you might think, and to feed an adolescent boy as well? No, no. I have a better idea. Surely my son’s father might find pity in a woman whose poverty he caused. Prince Marcus is known for his mercy.”

 

The insinuation was not lost on Valentiná, who stewed over her untouched herbal tea with growing ire. “So you think he will take you in? Let you move into the palace to live among us, as though you were one of us? You think he cares for a peasant whose son might just be someone else's? Heaven knows what other sins you have committed in you li-” a sharp sting upon her cheek cut the Princess off, her mouth now falling agape with astonishment.

 

How dare she, that common harlot? She thinks she can command me, simply because my husband might have sired a bastard by her?  Just because she was lucky enough to temporarily catch the attention of a prince, she gets to mistreat his lawfully wedded wife? 

 

Within the same moment, Valentiná jumped up and threw her fist against Veronika‘s jaw. Her adversary toppled to the floor, and just as Valentiná was about to lecture her about daring to assault royalty, Veronika had risen up and reached for a kitchen knife. The Imperial, now cornered, found a pillow upon the simple straw cot; and by a stroke of luck, she managed to disarm Veronika of her knife.

 

The blonde took the momentary loss of her weapon in stride by throwing herself at Valentiná. The two landed on the floor with a loud thud. A shriek escaped the Princess; one that no-one could hear. A punch thrown there, some hair pulled here, a vase thrown and a pot smashed later, the commoner had triumphed over Valentiná, choking her throat with bare hands. There was one key difference between them, a stroke of luck Valentiná used to her advantage. Veronika was malnourished and sickly, she would most likely not survive the coming winter, as per her own writings. Valentiná managed to wrestle herself free from the chokehold, and reversed the situation on poor Veronika. 

 

The two women struggled between the knife and the pillow, and despite Veronika‘s weakness, Valentiná started to become tired. She reached for the pillow… After all, Veronika only had to be knocked out, right? 

So Valentiná pressed the pillow down on her enemy’s airways, trying to keep her hands steady despite Veronika‘s desperate flailing. In the moment of fury during this action, Valentiná hardly registered the nails scratching down her face or the hopeless kicking and gasping for air. 

 

Valentiná only stopped pressing down after she was certain the woman had stopped moving. A sigh of relief escaped her, as she lifted the pillow again. Her mind already shifted over to how she could finally depart that crooked hut, but upon seeing how Veronika’s eyes had glazed over, Valentiná froze for a moment. Shocked upon realizing that this was not unconsciousness, she jumped off of her victim.

 

“Oh GOD!” feeling horrified over what she had caused with her own two hands, Valentiná reached for Veronika’s shoulders, shaking them again and again with growing despair. “Oh GOD, no please, I did not mean to! I did not! Please wake up!”

 

As cruel a joke as death often was, something in Veronika stirred briefly; and hope found itself in Valentiná‘s heart. Silently, she pleaded to GOD and all his aenguls: I will house her; and her bastard too, pay for his education and find Veronika a suitable position, I promise, I promise I will, if only she comes back to life.

 

… but the sound Veronika made turned out to be a posthumous release of air that had become lodged in her throat.

 

[mothsthetic 2250]

Spoiler

this is literally the juiciest situation i've seen on this server in so long i am EATING ts up. keep this up diva

 

[TaraJess 2848]

Spoiler

 

[Tide1 4535]

Somewhere at the Imperial Palace, a boy whose life had been upturned swept the floors. He wondered if, between chores, he would ever get to visit his ailing mother again? The thought alone was a source of motivation.