Title: Things I Should Have Remembered (or Four Things No One Tells You About Being a Grand Duchess)
Author: SomewhereBeyondReality
Rating: K
Summary: "You were born into this world of glittering jewels and fine titles. But I wonder if this is what you really want." The problem with being a long-lost princess, Anya discovers, is that it means you haven't been a princess for a long time. Canon-compliant. Anya introspection and Anya/Dimitri romance.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own rights to this masterpiece.
A/N: I did my periodic Anastasia rewatch this week and remembered for the hundredth time how amazing this movie is and how much I love Anya and Dimitri. (Seriously they have the best slow burn build up for an animated movie and don't get me started on Dimitri's tragic Princesses-don't-marry-kitchen-boy's angst). One thing that gets me every time is how Anya must have felt going from penniless nobody to Grand Duchess overnight. Yes, she regained her memories as Anastasia but she was Anya the orphan much longer than she was the Tzar's daughter. I always thought that her choosing Dimitri instead of reclaiming her title wasn't just about her "giving up" that life for him, but also her acknowledging that she changed as a person and that she had much more in common with a scrappy, former kitchen boy than the wealth she was born into. The film hinted that she was uncomfortable with her new royal status but this fic expands on that. Hope you enjoy!
"But sure, I guess every lonely girl would hope she's a Princess."
X-X
The problem with being a long-lost princess, Anya discovers, is that it means you haven't been a princess for a long time. Vague memories of whirling dancers and glittering lights aren't enough to prepare her for her past life; they certainly can't make her Anastasia again. Even Dimitri's Vlad's lessons can't recreate that eight-year-old Grand Duchess.
Of course she's overjoyed to find her family, she'd never regret that. Grandmama takes her home that very night, and they laugh and cry and cling to each other for hours. Sitting in the Marie's parlour, surrounded by portraits of every generation of Romanov and curled on a chaise lounge worth more than every item in her old orphanage, Anya's memories flood her mind. Puzzle pieces of herself interlocking until she almost feels like a whole person for the first time in her life.
(Almost a whole person? There shouldn't be anything missing! But somehow she flashes back to dancing on board the Tasha, calloused hands laced with her own. But that was Anya – fragmented, confused Anya. Anastasia is whole and complete and right. (She's Anastasia, she reminds herself, you're Anastasia)).
Grandmamma pulls her in, and Anya rests her head on her shoulder, delicate hands stroking her hair. The world of the parlour and everything outside fades away, and she breathes in the scent of peppermint and nestles the soft velvet, letting her questions be. She's found her grandmother and if that feels right, then surely the details will follow.
X-X
It's just –
She knows the Dowager Empress's house is her own now. It's her birth right, the home she looked for all these years, it's where she belongs. But… it's not exactly just her and Grandmama.
There are footmen stationed at the doorways. Serving boys bowing in the hallway. A gardener peering over the hedge. When Anastasia wakes up on the first morning a maid watching her over a loaded breakfast tray.
Anaya yelps, instinctively yanking up her covers. Years of sleeping in a crowded dormitory have taught her be on guard at being watched – it's rarely a good sign.
"Oh your highness, Mademoiselle, so sorry!" The maid curtseys, bobbing her curly head. "I did not mean to startle you."
"No, no." Anastasia shakes her head, "It's fine, I just…didn't expect it."
The maid apologies again and places the breakfast tray over Anya's knees. Anya expects her to leave, but the woman continues bustling around the room, straightening the dressing table and fluffing up the covers. She even flings open the wardrobe and rifles through the clothes in there – Anastasia can see someone has already put away the dresses she brought with her last night. The maid flicks past Dimitri's sky blue gown and Anya suppresses the life-long instinct to slap away someone touching her things. (It's not like thieves and pickpockets are rare in Russia).
Instead she squirms and takes a bite of her croissant.
Later that day she mentions the exchange to Marie. "You have a lot of servants Grandmama." Anastasia comments as they're sitting down to lunch, the serving boy ladling out soup. "It's a lot to get used to."
The Dowager Empress smiles fondly, though a faint frown creases her forehead. "This is nothing compared to what your family had at the Winter Palace." She says lightly. "My, there must have been hundreds of staff there, your parents had quite the handful managing them. Do you remember?"
Anya does remember surprisingly. The household had had a near-army of servants at Anastasia's beck and call, but the details are distant and blurry now. (Not from her amnesia, just because it was all a long time ago). What she remembers better is the orphanage jammed with children battling their own worries and fears and struggles. With everyone just trying to get by, no one paid a single girl that much attention.
"Yes. I can remember it now."
X-X
Grandmama doesn't plan to publicly present her Anya as Anastasia for at least a few days. They both need time to adjust and Anya thinks she could spend a year curled up with her grandmother and still want more.
But a few prying aristocratic woman – former members of the Romanov Imperial court – come calling on the Dowager Empress under the pretence of a genial catch up. As if the newspaper speculations and mysterious upcoming ball are pure coincidence.
Marie sighs when the butler announces the ladies' arrival. She and Anya are sorting through Nicholas's childhood possessions and her eyes are damp.
Anya expects the women to be sent away but her grandmother shakes her head ruefully. "Duty calls, even if it's conniving old vultures like these." She pats Anya's hand. "You don't have to come down my darling, they don't even know you're here yet, you can escape a while longer. But I must be courteous."
Anastasia nods and watches her grandmother straighten up – dabbing her eyes – and descend downstairs with a serene expression. Her voice floats up across the landing, greeting the women in measured tones and offering tea and coffee with no hint of disquiet.
Quietly Anya wonders if she'll ever be able to cloak her emotions that well or offer polite welcomes when she wants to snap. She's never held back on speaking what's on her mind, even with Comrade Phlegmenkof. Penniless orphans don't get anywhere in life if they keep their mouth shut.
Despite herself, Anya remembers the last time she visited her old home and far from exercising diplomacy she locked barbs with a smirking conman.
"Hey and why, why are you circling me? Were you a vulture in another life?" She'd demanded, words bursting out of her mouth before she had a chance to consider them.
Then Dimitri had launched back at her and never stopped, the two of them trading repartee every step from St Petersburg to Paris. And despite the hot anger that surges through her when she thinks of Dimitri, Anya admits she'd been invigorated by the verbal back and forth, appreciating someone who could match her banter with his own.
But none of that matters now. Dimitri is a fraud and Anastasia vows to learn diplomacy – she suspects these women wouldn't respond as well as he did to being called vultures.
X-X
Anya has never particularly wanted to see the top of people's head. Heads are – in her opinion – one of the least interesting parts of the body. She wants to see people's crooked smiles, the frowns creasing their foreheads, their crooked, broken noses and deep, melting eyes.
But since becoming Anastasia, she feels like heads are all she sees. Everyone bows to her. Everyone. Not just the servants, but the tailors who fit her court gown, Grandmama's lawyer, even Sophie and Vlad. Your Highness, they all say and bow. She tells them it's not necessary, that just Anya will do but they brush her off.
"You must allow us to pay our respects princess," Vlad says laughingly, his eyes twinkling. "You outshine even the most splendid of nobles now."
Anastasia smiles lightly, tracing the callouses on her palms. She remembers the Soviet officers who used to visit the village near the orphanage, riding by high on their horses and how everyone ducked their heads and stared at the ground as they passed. She'd almost looked up once but Comrade Phlegmenkof had smacked her down.
Comrade Phlegmenkof had been rather scarier than the Soviets come to think of it. The orphans were certainly more likely to cower in fear under her than any soldier. But with that fear came unity. They'd banded together under her rule, huddling under ragged sheets to stay warm in the midst of winter, helping finish each other's work and sharing slop at dinnertime. More than once Anya had scolded a new arrival who stole food from the smaller girls.
"They're just as hungry as you are." She'd snapped. "You don't deserve the extra food any more than they do. You're not more important just because you're stronger."
She wonders what the other orphans would say if they met her now.
She's still wondering that when she sees Dimitri again. Scrappy, damaged, fellow orphan Dimitri who is all too familiar with living a childhood fallen between the cracks and how it feels to be set adrift, young, unwanted and destitute in the barren wasteland of Russia. (His story, Anya's story, every child's story is far too common where they come from).
She snaps at him and he snips back, and it's cold and awkward – cloaked words and veiled allusions stopping their feelings from flying out into the open.
"Young man you will bow and address the Princess as Your Highness."
She tries to tell Major Domo that that isn't necessary, that this is Dimitri and he's spent the last month snarking about 'that skinny little brat' and isn't that the more accurate description after all so he's hardly going to use her title now.
But Dimitri, as always, surprises her. With something deep and aching flickering in his gaze, he bows low, hiding his face from her.
Abruptly her breath catches and Anya imagines what her life would be like if this was the only Dimitri she'd ever met. If she'd always been Anastasia and he'd always been a featureless figure bent before her. Would she never have known him at all? Would she never have seen the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed? Or heard him cry out in his sleep? Felt his hands tentatively guide her in a waltz? Would Dimitri just be another inferior citizen stooped before the princess?
Anastasia wonders how many more people in her future will be faceless nobodies. And how many people in her past already were? Like that servant boy who opened the wall: No matter how much she searches through her newly returned memories, she can't remember seeing him before that moment. He probably worked at the palace for years yet she can barely remember his face. How many others will slip through the cracks because you bow to a Grand Duchess, not speak to her?
As Dimitri runs out of the room Anastasia stands there, resplendent in her gown, and wonders who the real fraud is after all.
X-X
The diadem is beautiful no doubt; Polished, gleaming and crusted with so many diamonds Anastasia wonders if there's any substance left underneath. It's her Romanov legacy, her mother's last gift, the symbol of the power she should have wielded.
But it's also really heavy. Anastasia knows that's such a cliché to say but she can't help it. The head grip digs into her scalp and her neck aches from keeping her head level. Her lower back aches as well, from being laced in by the corset and the voluminous, embroidered skirts hanging off her hips. She's terrified she's going to knock into something. The blue sash – only permitted to be worn by members of European royal families – is drawn tight across her chest, biting into her shoulder.
All Anya can think is it's inconvenient. Not only does the sash make her a target by telegraphing her royal status but it's so easy to get caught on. She'd have strangled herself if she'd been wearing it on that careering train. And how would she have stopped Dimitri from falling to his death in these skirts? Or leapt off into the snow heaps with the diadem teetering on her head? Lugged around chains and grappling hooks in these draped sleeves? This Anastasia wouldn't have survived ten minutes of their journey to Paris.
Dimitri's her blue dress hadn't felt this heavy. It had flowed simply down her the curves of her body, cinching at her waist but loose enough that she could spin in circles and kick Dimitri if needed. Even the lovely, purple dress Sophie bought her floated around her figure rather than encased it, the short skirt whirling around her knees and leaving her legs free. She could dance to the can-can, climb the Eiffel tower and dodge around the street mime. She could have been any modern young woman exploring Paris.
As Anastasia prepares to step into the ball room, she wonders if she can ever be that woman again.
Bizarrely, when Rasputin's forces attack her, her first thought is Well at least I can move now. His minions tear off her sash, knock away the diadem, shred through layers of her skirt, and a small part of Anya goes You do you realise you just made my life easier?
When Dimitri bursts into the fight – throwing himself down the bridge to grab her hands – his palms are as rough as her own and Anya thinks that he deserves a woman who isn't wearing a corset to battle an undead sorcerer. So she hoists herself up, bracing her knees against the cobble stones and ignores the sound of ripping silk.
And at the end of it all, with Dimitri crumpled among the wreckage – (dead, no, no he's not, she won't let him be) – and Rasputin howling in the background, Anya hikes up her skirts, far higher than any Grand Duchess should and smashes the reliquary under her heel.
This. This is for me.
X-X
"Anya, no." Dimitri pleads over the diadem she's holding between them. "I can't make you do this. You can't just throw your life away."
Anya smiles slightly. "You know it's adorable that you think you can make me do anything."
"Anya – please." His voice cracks, something so deep and broken in his expression that Anya pauses despite herself. "I – You can't ruin your life for someone like me. You deserve better, you deserve to be happy."
Anya glances down at the diadem and then looks steadily back at him, the diamonds digging into her palms.
"I know I do."
Anya tugs Dimitri up the stairs, out to the top of the ship so the whole Seine is spread out before them. The deck is deserted and passers-by on the river bank don't pay attention to another love-struck couple laughing together on a warm Paris night.
"Do you think you can manage to keep up this time?" Anya snarks, spinning on her toes to face him.
Dimitri smirks, his expression open and shining in a way she's never seen before. "Is that a challenge?" He throws back.
Anya mock-curtseys, making sure to keep their eyes locked and grabs his hand, entwining their bruised fingers. Her ragged skirts fly out as they dance and Dimitri scoops her into his arms, crumpling the gown. He spins them around and the rest of the world fades out around them.
And Anya? Anya laughs.
X-X
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! (Yes I switched between Anya and Anastasia a lot there, but that was deliberate). I tried to keep it consistent with the movie, but add in enough extra off-screen scenes of Anya adjusting to her new life. In the film it's unclear how long there was between Anya and Marie reuniting and Anya and Dimitri eloping at the end. I figured it had to be at least several days given they had to sort Anya's new dress, organize the ball and the newspapers somehow found out about her. And that worked well for this fic. As always, please review! Are there any Anya/Dimitri fans still out there?