Summary:
Bellona longs to fulfill her demanding mother's expectations, and become the bloody war-wreaking incarnation she's named for. If only her irritating twin brother would stop hogging the spotlight as heir... Ah, well, 'accidents' can always be arranged, can't they? [Fem!Bel] [AU] [Semi-SI]
.
Disclaimer:
I don't own KHR! or the cover picture.
.
Quotes:
"For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity." - Jean Debuffet
"But there's a difference between having artistic interests and being psychotic. That's more than a fine line of differentiation, and I do see that a bit too much." - Crispin Glover
"Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be." - Princess Diana
"Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust." - John Webster
It all starts, as such things typically do, during an unfortunately stereotyped dark and stormy night.
Well.
Okay.
Not exactly.
Weather conditions, despite the tense and irritable and expectant atmosphere draping clingily over the ominously looming castle-on-a-hill, persisted petulantly in spewing forth a sparse flurry of lazily drifting snowflakes, making it an otherwise perfectly pleasant and comfortably crisp winter afternoon.
December 22nd, as noted in the future medical files of-
Oops, gotten a little too far ahead there.
(Specifics, specifics…)
At any rate, King Alexandru Veles, the feared and somewhat-legendary ruler of Sangevechi (every Sangevechi ruler has been 'legendary,' even if they really did nothing worth notice, because it pleased them to be known like that, and a displeased Sangevechi ruler can easily make the lives of their subjects very unpleasant indeed), can quickly be found leaning against a stone wall, carefully still, in front of a closed door in one of the Sangevechi Castle's corridors.
(Not that anyone would really want to find him at that moment; they all know the king has been on edge ever since the queen's pregnancy was officially confirmed, and when King Veles is on edge, those who rub him the wrong way are guaranteed to soon be impaled on the edges of a pikestaff.)
The door creaks open, a properly dramatic sound achieved through years of purposeful neglect and fiddling, admitting a darkly mottled, bony hand to gesture for Veles to enter.
While normally the king will not hesitate to kill someone daring to give him orders, today is a special occasion.
A very important, very special occasion.
(A VIVSO, if you prefer the acronym.)
His wife is in childbirth for his first child, and future heir.
Queen Catalina Volkov-Veles, as visibly tired as she is, still manages to muster up one of her coolly unimpressed, scathing expressions that she usually graced her husband with.
Theirs is a marriage of politics and convenience and infrequent stolen moments of fiercely ferocious hate-sex; no love lost, in other words, between the frigidly stunning pair.
(Brains and brawn and bitingly brittle bitterness.)
The nurse, who has, at the Sangevechi Castle, fulfilled the necessary role of the wise and cryptically prophetic crone for longer than anyone cared to remember, hands Alexandru a weighted bundle, with about as much emotion as a dead fish.
He glances down cursorily at the red-faced, squalling baby in his arms, swaddled in luxurious gray furs, and notes the damp wisps of fine blond hair on it's scalp.
Hmph.
Well, it certainly isn't a definite sign of legitimacy, but it didn't count against it, either, since Alexandru and Cataline are both blonds.
His wife, as empty as that title is, never struck him as the type to seek much sexual gratification, so there is also that, although there is always the distant possibility of her having an affair just to spite him.
('Distant,' because he didn't care, and she knew that he didn't care.
Enemies are closest, haven't you heard?)
"Name and gender?" Alexandru demands, stone-faced and terse.
Catalina sneers back at him, haughty, snippy, and not bothering with eloquence, "Raziel spelled with an 's', archangel of mysteries, keeper of secrets, ruling prince of the 2nd heaven, like we decided. Male, elder."
"Elder?"
He cuts a sharp look over at the old woman, lurking silently and gloomily off to the other side of the bed, with another bundle in her spindly arms.
She takes the cue, obediently stepping up to display another infant, noticeably quieter and calmer than the first, also swaddled in the traditional wolf furs.
"Female, younger. Twins," she recites tonelessly, with the same droning, tiresome, weary-of-life air that surrounds most Sangevechians.
Alexandru scoffs and turns, already dismissing them in his mind.
"I don't need a spare, and especially not a worthless female spare. Rasiel will be heir, and I shall raise him. Do what you will with the other; you were always too soft-hearted," he departs on that note without further ado, sweeping out of the room, his king-robe for daily use swishing near noiselessly around the corner.
Catalina presses her lips together with silent fury, and sets her jaw decisively.
(Only Alexandru would accuse her of being too soft-hearted.)
She impatiently gestures for the nurse to close the door and hand over the second child, then ignores her presence altogether; this nurse had been her nursemaid, once upon an age ago, and Catalina can say (with as much assurance as she is capable of personally believing) that she is one of the very few people she still trusts more-or-less conditionally.
(Nobody has her unconditional trust, except perhaps herself.)
Examining the warm body that lies cradled in her arms with a look of clinical observance lacking any vestiges of motherly affection, the Queen of Sangevechi bows her head slightly, and traces a few Russian characters over the child's bare, perfectly smooth forehead.
"You shall be Bellona," the last of the Volkovs whispers, hisses, really, with a fierce, faraway thoughtfulness. "Bellona, my bloodying war goddess, my little bell, my heiress. And I will teach you well, well enough that you'll best that brother of yours and prove that arrogant bastard of a sire wrong.
"Hopefully, you'll get my Mist Flames, little bell. If not, it's no big loss; I can tell even now that whatever Flames you get will be strong and pure and worthy of our royal blood. Our 'ancient blood', which is, you will learn, the meaning of 'Sangevechi', and the blood of the Volkov nobility.
"My Bellona, my goddess, my bell, my heiress, my princess," she purrs out, relishing in the taste of the words rolling off her tongue in a perfect fit.
For a split second, the two women think they see the newly named Bellona give a tiny, satisfied, contented sigh.
Both pass it off as a trick of the light, for surely no infant can be self-aware barely an hour after birth.
(... It isn't.)
#
#
#
9/20/15 revisions: added content, changed her name from the Russian Kolokol'chik to this one, because 1., it's easier to spell than constantly copying and pasting, 2., it's a Roman goddess of war, which I figure has a larger connection to Italy, and 3., it's quicker to relate to 'Bel', and can be a suitable swap for 'Belphegor,' who is a demon prince of Hell.
#
#
~Please Review.~