Well, hello there :) I've read a couple of really beautiful backstory pieces on Dimitri, but I've noticed that there is a scarcity of ones for Anya/Anastasia, so I decided to try my hand at it. I'll probably be changing things here and there, but feel free to enjoy as is and review if you like. But I'm new here, and this is my first ff, so be nice. I don't own Anastasia and the like. Just so you know.
2 Months
"Hey, stop! Somebody stop her!" A burly red-faced man shouted in Russian, running and pointing.
In a flash the girl ducked into the nearest alley, the loaf of stolen bread rapidly disintegrating in the desperate hold of her dimpled hands. She ran full out, skidded to a stop in front of a fetid trash can, and quickly squatted down behind it in the stale shadows and rank puddles. And she waited.
And waited.
The man must have given up the chase. There were no more heavy footsteps behind her.
She breathed a sigh of relief, a difficult prospect for the way her chest was still heaving. Looking down at the bread in her hands, she stuffed what was left into her mouth, nearly choking with the effort of getting it all down. She was so hungry. Not really wanting to steal, she'd wandered past the man's food stall several times before hunger took over and she'd snatched that very enticing loaf off the edge of the table. It had been four very long days; she didn't know when she'd see food again.
6 Months
She dragged her feet as she walked. Saint Petersburg bustled around her, its people jostling each other and shouting to friends and neighbors as they trudged to work in the cold, or bought fish and liquor from the hawkers at the market. All the while, the haughty soldiers on horseback kept watch from the fringe, glaring at anyone who dared look them in the eye.
The girl saw no reason to rush, aimlessly kicking up dirty snow with the toes of her worn slippers as she crossed the train tracks for the hundredth time. She didn't know where she came from. She didn't know where she was going. She ate what she could, when she could, be it a small piece of fish offered by a kind vagrant or the crusty remains of some meal left over by a patron of a restaurant.
There were blisters on the soles of her feet and holes in the ratty coat she'd been wearing since the night she woke up next to the train tracks with a small gash at the base of her skull.
What she did know was the hunger that never really went away, and the thick fog of her existence that could not tell her who she was.
And the cold.
7 Months
"Come, child, it's alright," said the old woman, gesturing for the filthy child to come inside her tiny home from the threshold of her front door.
The girl froze, too afraid to move from her spot on the ground, even though it was on the woman's front steps. She hadn't meant to fall asleep here last night. But she'd been so tired after being chased by dogs, and the cold wind didn't whip through her coat quite so badly when she'd curled up here a few hours before dawn. She'd only meant to rest for a while before she resumed her endless journey and went back to hoping with each step that by the next step she would remember something, anything.
"I'm sure you must be hungry." The woman was plump, and her thin white hair was frazzled, but her toothless smile and the profusion of thick wrinkles around her eyes were kind. Timidly, the girl smiled a little in spite of herself and stood, bones aching from the awkward way she'd slept.
The old woman stepped aside, allowing her young visitor to pass.
The girl stepped forward, but her numb limbs caused her to trip over the brick step and scrape her knee. She took one look at the welling blood and started to cry, but the old woman laughed long and hard as she helped her up and ushered her inside.
"Your name must be Anya," she chuckled, reaching out to close the door behind them. "The graceful one."
10 Months
"Please," she whispered, tears brimming in earnest blue eyes, like sapphires in the waning light of the day. "Please don't leave me."
"Don't worry, little one. They will take care of you here. " The old woman was dying. She'd taken care of the little frightened child as long as she could. A brittle wheeze rattled in her chest.
The heavy door of the People's Orphanage creaked open and a squat woman in a drab brown apron appeared at the entrance, her lined face puckered into a scowl. "Is this her?," she asked, her voice a deep rumble, her Russian accent the heaviest the old woman had heard in a long time. The girl stared hard at the hairy mole on her chin.
The old woman nodded and gently disengaged the trembling child's hands from her skirts as she nudged her forward.
"I am Comrade Phlegmenkoff." There was no kindness in her voice, only the harsh rasp of time and withered hopes. She coughed rather violently before she continued. "You will do as I say from now on. What do they call you?"
The woman seemed to be as cold and unfeeling as the large gray brick building behind her, and the girl instantly disliked her. "I – I'm Anya," she said.
Comrade Phlegmenkoff seized her by the shoulder, her tight grip causing her to wince. "Well, Little Miss Anya, you belong to me now." She smiled, revealing several missing teeth.
Anya watched the old woman turn away just as the door banged closed behind her.
11 Months
Every fiber of Anya's being was repulsed by the questionable gray slop that had been put on her plate.
"What is this?" she asked Comrade Phlegmenkoff as she waddled by the table of chattering children in the lunchroom.
The mistress of the orphanage narrowed her eyes. "It's breakfast."
Anya, sitting up perfectly straight, delicately placed her hands in her lap. "I don't want it. Don't you have anything else?"
Comrade Phlegmenkoff's eyes widened just before she glared at Anya and placed a hand on her ample hip.
"And just what would Her Majesty like?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Anya looked back at the quivering mass, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Anything but this…ma'am."
The old woman suddenly chuckled darkly. "I'm not going to force it down your throat. Eat or not; that is your choice. But you eat that like the rest of your comrades" - she pointed a bony finger at Anya's plate - "or you starve." And with that she sauntered off. The room had grown silent as every pair of eyes stared at Anya, watching and waiting.
She resolutely picked up the spoon, scooped up a bit of food, brought it to her mouth, and mechanically chewed, grimacing the entire time.
3 Years, 8 Months
"Fight! Fight!"
The chorus of hoots and yelling and the pounding of dozens of pairs of feet as they hurried up the stairs to see the spectacle sounded muffled in Anya's ears. Chest heaving and fists still clenched into tight balls, she looked down at the blonde-haired girl that slept in the cot next to hers as she lay sprawled on the floor, rolling back and forth and moaning as she covered her nose with both hands. Blood spurted between her fingers. Anya's right hand still throbbed as though she had punched a brick wall.
"Comrade Phlegmenkoff's coming!" someone shouted above the din.
Anya didn't care. The girl had tried to take her necklace, the delicate gold chain with the pendant that read "Together in Paris". It had been so lovingly inscribed it brought tears to her eyes whenever Anya would stare at it in the moonlight, late at night in her squeaky cot when everyone was supposed to be asleep. She never took it out any other time, and before she came here she didn't take it out at all. As soon as she realized she had it, she'd kept it hidden away next to her heart, even though it could have kept her fed for weeks. But she'd never sell it.
It was the only thing in the world that was hers and hers alone, her only clue to who she was. No one would take that away from her.
"What is going on here?" Comrade Phlegmenkoff demanded loudly as she barreled through the door.
Anya still burned with fury, and her eyes were like blue flame when she pointed contemptuously at the girl on the floor and said, "She tried to take my necklace – "
"Downstairs,"the burly woman interrupted, roughly pushing Anya toward the door. "Now!"
7 Years, 2 Months
"Do you ever wonder if there's someone out there looking for you, Anya?" Svetlana's head and shoulders hung off the side of her cot as she stared at Anya upside down.
Anya's small smile was bittersweet. "Sometimes. But everybody does here, I guess," she replied softly, thinking of her necklace.
"Well," Svetlana sighed, sitting up. "I know better." She tossed her stringy brown hair over her shoulder. "I don't know who my father was, and they told me my mother was sixteen when she brought me here. They say she was real pale and sickly." Pulling her knees up to her chest, she rested her chin on them. "I'm pretty sure she's dead by now."
Anya gazed at her friend in wonder, amazed by her nonchalance. "How do you know that?"
"I know my mother loved me. She would've come to get me by now if she could."
Uncomfortable, Anya changed the subject. "Won't you be eighteen in a couple of months?"
Svetlana smiled then and stretched. "Yup."
"What are you going to do when you leave here?"
"Well, Comrade Phlegmenkoff " – she deepened her voice to imitate her, making Anya laugh out loud – "seems to think that I'm going to work in the fish factory, but she has another thing coming."
Anya chuckled. "You're not going to the fisherman's village? I thought everyone did when they left."
"Oh, I'm going alright. But I learned to sew pretty well while I was here. I figured I could put that to good use as a seamstress somewhere after I get there. The fishwives need dresses, don't they?"
"I suppose so." Anya's smile faded and she grew quiet again, idly picking at the rough woolen blanket she had wrapped around her body, so Svetlana returned to their previous conversation. "Don't worry. If there's someone out there looking for you, they'll find you." When Anya didn't respond, she lay back on her cot.
Anya sighed and leaned against the cold bricks of the wall. The floor was damp and just as cold, but it would have to do since Comrade Phlegmenkoff had taken away her bed months ago for insubordination. She stared up and out of the window. It was a full moon tonight.
She didn't tell Svetlana that she'd been hoping every day and every night since she arrived that there was someone out there, wondering what had happened to her, hoping that she was safe and warm wherever she was. But when three months turned into six, and two years melted into four, she began to hope less and less.
Pulling out her necklace, she tenderly stroked its pendant. The gentle tinkling was comforting in the silent dark. Her parents…any brothers or sisters she may have had…somehow, deep down in her bones, she knew. There was no way she could explain it, but she did.
She knew no one was coming for her.
10 Years, 2 Days
Comrade Phlegmenkoff grabbed the long orphanage-issued woolen scarf around Anya's neck and began to drag her toward the front gate of the orphanage through the deep snow.
"You've been a thorn in my side since you were brought here…acting like the Queen of Sheba instead of the nameless no-account you are!"
Anya sighed and disengaged herself from the woman's hold.
Comrade Phlegmenkoff continued, "For the last ten years, I've fed you, I've clothed you, I've – "
" – kept a roof over my head…" Anya finished for her, rolling her eyes.
The old woman turned back from opening the heavy iron gate and glared. "How is it you don't have a clue who you were before you came to us, but you can remember all that?"
"But I do have a clue to – "
"Ack!" Comrade Phlegmenkoff scoffed as Anya pulled out her necklace. "I know. 'Together in Paris'. So…you want to go to France to find your family, huh?"
Anya nodded vehemently, but Comrade Phlegmenkoff only laughed.
"Little Miss Anya," she said, calling her by the nickname she'd given the girl when she saw her for the first time. "It's time to take your place in life – in life and in line, and be grateful, too." She tossed Anya her scarf and clanked the gate shut. "Together in Paris!" she sang, mocking her, then turned to walk back to the orphanage, cackling and coughing all the way. Anya sent a dirty look at her hunched back before she started down the trail.
When she reached the fork in the road, she paused, looking from the heavily trodden path to the fish factory on the left, to the sign announcing the wide road to St. Petersberg to the right. Now was the time, she thought.
Go left, stay Anya the orphan forever.
But go right…she smiled to herself, even as the snow melted on her ill-fitting boots, numbing her toes. She was sure of what she was going to do. She was going to Paris.
And she started walking, delicately planting one foot after the other into the virgin snow of her future.