Hi sweethearts! You see, recently I saw the film Anastasia, I was surprised that there was no tale nor book behind and decided I would have to do one myself. If you like it, please do leave reviews, they make me happy :)
Our story starts with a music box set on a brocaded red pillow.
It is a little box that will be handled by a small pair of hands. Made of wrought gold shaping little flowers, small pearls outline the border between gold and green velvet that precedes the lid.
A necklace with an emerald flower and Together in Paris wrought on its back is the destined companion and key to the music box.
It was a farewell gift from a grandmother to her beloved granddaughter, and so the butler who carried the gift was very careful in his every movement while carrying the pillow in which the music box sits on to his mistress, for he knew that where anything to happen to the present she had ordered her personal jeweler to craft for her grandchild what the mistress would first want would be his head.
He raced out from the front door, careful to balance his precious cargo on the pillow, its fragility playing with his nerves and wills himself not to sigh in relief when, finally! he sees the horse-drawn carriage standing outside.
An escort of Cossacks waited with its impatient horses for the carriage to move, it was so very cold outside, poor horses he thought while he saw steam shooting from their nostrils, he understood their hooves prancing, they surely were trying to regain some warmth.
The Empress Marie, stood beside the carriage door, dressed in red, gold and black full evening clothes. He bowed to her and presented the box, and she took it from the pillow and put it carefully in her beaded clutch.
Then he retreated and fought just for a little more time the urge to get back inside, where it was warm.
A footman opened the carriage door, and the empress climbed inside. As soon as the door was closed, the carrige took off, preceeded by the thundering Cossack horses.
The butler was then able to sigh at last, steam shooting from his own nostrils and mouth.
And, finally! he went back inside.
Marie's carriage raced through the street in San Petersburg's night, her honor guard of horsemen cutting a path ahead for her.
There was a time, not very long ago, when we lived in an enchanted world of elegant palaces and grand parties.
Her carriage reached its destination and the gates swung open for her.
The palace was lit up with a celebration, its guests streaming inside with their opulent clothes, and as always a sense of rightness and pride flowered in her belly when they all bowed to her carriage which was pulling up.
The year was nineteen hundred and sixteen...
Music poured out from inside when the doors were opened to her. Even the dancing couples bowed to her.
And my son Nicholas, was the Czar of Imperial Russia.
It was a Fancy Dress party and all the attendants were dressed in 17th century costumes, waltzing couples filled the main hall.
She liked the orchestra, and the feeling of greatness that emanated from the whole palace, but what she liked the most from being there, was not the opulence of the palace, was not the golden shine of everyone and everything, no. What she loved the most was the joyful look on her son and granddaughter's faces, they were dancing and playing and it brought warmness to her heart to see them so happy.
"Hello darling!"
We were celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of our family's rule...
"Go, greet your grandmama little devil." Nicholas whispered playfully to his youngest and laughed when her response was sticking out her tongue mockingly.
"Oh Papa!" She said before running off to her grandmother.
And that night, no star burned brighter than that of our sweet Anastasia, my youngest granddaughter. She begged me not to return to Paris - so I had a very special gift made for her. To make the seperation easier for both of us.
Through a secret opening in the wall behind the Empress's chair, a servant boy of no more than ten years leaned out to eavesdrop.
The Empress and her granddaughter chatted for some time, that kind of chat that one can only have with a child that warms your heart because it' sin credible that someone can be so innocent and have such a pure heart.
The exchange of presents was started by Anastasia, who gave her a drawing she herself had made, Marie felt her lips curling in a loving smile at her granddaughter's gesture.
And then it was her turn to hand her her present, her little girl gasped enchanted by its beauty.
"For me?! Is it a jewelry box?!" While she shouted expressing her gratitude, the butler caught the spying boy.
"Dimitri!" shouted the man angrily, as if this wasn't the first time he had caught the boy spying on the royal family. "You belong in the kitchen!" And with that stated, he dragged him quickly into the secret door while he protested:
"Let go!"
"Look." Said Marie, who had not noticed what happened behind her back, and took out the key to the music box, as it had the shape of a necklace she put it on the back of the said music box in order to wind it and show her granddaughter the true function of her gift.
"It plays our lullaby!" She whispered, more for the intimacy of the moment than for trying to keep anyone of hearing what she was saying to her grandma.
"Mmhmm, you can play it at night before you go to sleep. And pretend that it's me singing." Neither of them could keep themselves from singing the stanza that the music box was playing. It was too much of a temptation for them.
On the wind,
Cross the sea ,
Hear this song and remember.
Soon, you'll be home with me.
Once upon a December.
Ended the sound, Marie gave her the key and urged her to read the surprise she had prepared for her.
"Read what it says."
"'Together in Paris.'" Anastasia had some trouble seeing what she had to read but when she saw it, excitement poured through her veins. "Really? Oh, Grandma."
Excited herself as well, Marie smiled and nodded at her as gracefully as gracefulness went before embracing her.
But we would never be together in Paris. For a dark shadow had descended upon the house of the Romanovs. His name was Rasputin. We thought he was a Holy Man. But he was a fraud, power-mad and dangerous.
Suddenly the lights fell off and the crowd went silent and parted before a dark figure. A bat swooped down, landing on the dark figure's shoulder.
People fell back in fear and surprise, crushing champagne glasses underfoot.
The figure reached the Tsar, who stood firm against him. Nicholas was scared to the very core of his soul but no one would be able to tell, for he had practiced all his life the art of not letting his feelings show on his face.
"How dare you return to the palace?!" He spat angrily.
"But I am your confidante." He responded mockingly.
"Confidante, ha, you are a traitor." He spat again. "Get out!!" He yelled. He wanted that man out of his hospede. Out!
"You think you can banish the Great Rasputin? By the unholy powers vested in me, I will banish you with a curse!" Rasputin shouted.
Again the crowd gasped in fear.
"Mark my words." He whispered dramatically. "You and your family will die within the fortnight. I will not rest until I see the end of the Romanov line, for ever!" He shouted and raised a sickening green reliquary, which shoot a green lightning to the Chandelier above his head, which crashed to the floor.
When light was restored, Rasputin was gone.
Consumed by his hatred for Nicholas and his family, Rasputin sold his soul for the power to destroy them.
Once alone, in his lair, he put his curse on motion.
"Go fulfill your dark purpose, and seal the fate of the Tsar and his family once and for all."
Green smoke wisps came from the top of the Reliquary, assuming the form of Rasputin's minions.
From that moment on the spark of unhappiness in our country was fanned into a flame that would soon destroy our lives forever.
The Minions attacked the chain holding the gate shut, breaking it, and letting communist demonstrators pour into the palace, bricks smashed the glass windows of the palace, crowds with rifles stormed the palace grounds. The revolution was on.
The Romanov family was in bed then, and so they had to hurry in their nightclothes, half asleep and running down a hallway not entirely sure of what was happening or if it was a nightmare but knowing it would not end well.
"Hurry children!" Was shouting the Tsar, when suddenly, Anastasia stoped in her tracks, as her family continued down the hallway.
"My music box!"
"Anastasia! Come back, come back! Anastasia!" Marie tried to stop her from running back to get it, but she was unable to do it so in the end she ended up following her.
Once in her bedroom, Anastasia grabbed her music box with Marie rushing in at her back.
Shots were being heard when from the wall panel a boy emerged, none less than the eavesdropper himself, Dimitri!
"Please hurry! Come this way, out the servants quarters."
"Hurry Anastasia!"
Marie entered the secret doorway, and Dimitri shoved Anastasia in behind her, accidentally knocking the music box out of her hand.
"My music box!" She exclaimed.
"Go, go!" And just as he had pushed her through the door, angry revolutionaries came into the room.
"Comrades, in here!" He exclaimed, his voice rusty and terrifying. Soon, Dimitri knew he had reasons to fear them, because before asking they would act. And with that philosophy on mind one of them, the bigger one of course, slapped him hard before asking:
"Where are they boy?" The who were where, was implicit. Maybe, he took one too many seconds to answer because out of patience the men knocked him to the floor with the butt of his rifle.
"Uh, ah." Chin bleeding and on the floor, Dimitri reached unnoticed for the princess's music box. He could not let them take it, it had been hers and they would not care for it. It had been hers and it may be the only thing in the world that he would ever have from her.
With the palace in flames behind them, Marie ran with Anastasia across the path of ice and snow that was in the their way before the train station. It was cold, so very cold, it soaked through their skin, to their very bones. So cold Anastasia was trying her best not to cry, because she was a big girl and a princess and princesses are stone cold and unmovable and gracefully proper no matter what. Or so said her nurses.
They were crossing the ice under the bridge that cold had formed, and Anastasia was cold and tired of running and she couldn't remember why she was running and tried to slow the pace her grandmama had set.
"Grandmama!" She was about to tell her just that, that she was tired and cold and wanted to sleep because she had no more resolve to be a big girl-princes and be stone-cold and so on, but her grandmama answered faster than the words that were trying to get out of her mouth.
"Keep up with me, darling!" Anastasia was on the verge of crying and looked back to her home in flames and thought she understood from what she was running but not why they were still running, the fire would not reach them, would it?
It was then when she saw him, the culprit of what was happening. Rasputin.
"Yaeee!"
"Ahh!" She screamed in terror.
"... Ya... ha.." the man was holding her by the leg and she felt like an encaged animal, she was anguished, and tired, and scared and she wanted nothing but to get out, for him to let go, and she promised to herself that if she got loose of him she would run all her grandmama wanted her to run and would not even waste time in looking back.
"Rasputin!" Marie exclaimed.
"Let me go, please!" The ice was starting to brake and that made the situation even scarier.
"You'll never escape me, child, never!" His voice was mad, utterly and completely mad. And Anastasia wished she could forget she had ever heard him pronounce one single word of that sentence or any other.
"Oh, let me go!" She cried.
And then, miraculously the ice broke beneath him and he fell into the river. Anastasia wrenched herself free, and saw Rasputin thrashing about in the water. Anastasia was sure she would never get that image from her memory, she was going to die with that horrible moment printed in her retinas, the moment in which she saw a man drowning and could not help but feel relief because he had not taken her with him and he would never be able to encage her again.
In his final moment, he called out to his bat.
"Bartok!" He called, as if expecting that little bat to help him.
"Master!" He answered not fully understanding.
"Bartok!" He called him again.
"Oh ..." said pityly the bat. He could do nothing for his master.
Rasputin's fingernails digged into the ice, trying to hold onto something. But he could find nothing and was slowly dragged under, he tried one last desperate reach out of the water, but it was useless and he was sucked under by the current.
The only thing left from Rasputin, was the Reliquary slowly rolling away from the hole in the ice. Bartok, the bat, swooped down, scoop it up, and disappeared into the dark night.
Once in the train station, confusion was the general feeling that enveloped the place and the people in it, everyone was desperate to get on the train. As if that, was the only train that would ever take them out of Russia and the chaotic revolution that was coming. And maybe it was. Was it or not, everyone there decided to believe that was the only chance they had to escape what was to come, including the Great Empress Marie and her granddaughter Anastasia, who were fighting their way through the frightened crowd.
"Anastasia hurry, hurry!!" A good hearted passenger pulled Marie on board of the train but Anastasia was out of reach for him, so he could not drag her with her grandmother, she ran, madly and desperately she ran to catch up with the train that was starting to move.
"Grandmama!!"
"Here take my hand. Hold on to my hand!" Marie, was even more desperate and frightened than her, for she knew that if she was not able to pull her granddaughter with her, her little girl would be lost for ever. Anastasia managed to reach up and take Marie's hand and Marie thought that they would do it.
"Don't let go!" Anastasia cried. But her palm was sweated and she had no more strength in her, and as the train really started to move, her small hand slipped from her grandmama's grasp and Anastasia fell out of the frame.
"A-Anastasia!" Marie half cried half yelled as if her voice would levitate the little body of her granddaughter and bring her to her arms.
Anastasia stumbled, and hit her head on the ground.
"Ah!" The world, the cold and the people spiraled and black took over everything. She wished as the darkness enveloped her, that she could forget this horrible horrible night.
"Anastasia!" Marie's voice broke, she could not let her dear child there! She could not! She tried to jump off the train, but other passengers held her. And she watched impotently as the view of her granddaughter was obscured by that sea of confusion, despair and humanity that was then disappearing in the distance.
So many lives were destroyed that night. What had always been was now gone forever. And my Anastasia, my beloved grandchild ... I never saw her again.