A girl with ashen hair was running through a spring meadow, from one flower to another, running like a fidgety mouse, who can't see or hear.
"Hey!" Roderich tried to catch her hand. "Stop it and sit down! Do you hear me?"
Girl laughed, running straight to him but jumping aside before he can reach her. "Catch me if you can!"
Roderich finally stand up, swept away leafs from his coat and put her down next to him. She didn't care anymore, busy with stranding a flower wreath. Golden light of the settling sun made her hair honey with bronze shades. Roderich blushed, partly with irritating and partly with a diffidence.
"Would you marry me?" he ask.
"No," answered the girl.
"Why not!?"
"Because I wanna be the king."
"You cannot be the king, you're a girl!"
She put completed wreath on the head, smiling.
Roderich slowly approached. "Why won't you became an empire with me?"
The girl looked up to the sky, like she haven't heard him. "I want marry Feliks."
"What!? He's your cousin!"
"He can ride a horse..."
"I can do it too!"
"Have you seen him shooting arrows? He's amazing!"
"Just wait. I'll make the greatest empire in the Europe and then I'll marry you! You'll see!"
The girl followed him with her laugh, when he faded from one dream to another. Suddenly there was bright blue night, small balcony above the Prague, fluttering curtains and summer sky with thousands of stars. Girl, who was no longer the girl, but a lady with a shot gun in the hand. And he, who really made the empire - not that great as he wished, but huge enough to collect also her country.
"Stop that revolt and I'll marry you," he said, because he was afraid.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"All right," she nodded, because she wants to be his equal.
A blink and he appears in another dream, in the white Vienna cathedral, with Elizabeth on his side, walking to the entrance.
But the girl also came, as a curly haired woman in the folk costume. She carried a vase full of winter roses, which she smashed on the floor before them. "Fortune for you!"
Roderich heard a jingle of fragmented glass, and when he looked down, the reflected light from those pieces hit his eyes and woke him up.
He wasn't surprised. Personifications normally dream about their past, sometimes about their wishes and very exceptionally about their future. And these moments have actually happened...
The engineers work room was clean and spacy, even with its own library and alcove with chairs and coffee table. Roderich wasn't good soldier - they let him to fulfill his tasks towards Reich as the engineer and constructor. That's why he seemed tired and annoyed.
"How many time should I told you what to do!"
Roderich was loudly shouting all over the place. The poor german officer nearly kneeled under his mighty complaints.
"I told you, I want exactly black brazilian expresso with shot of rum and what you brought? You really suppose I will drink this shit!? Be sure I'll tell on you to Ludwig!"
He has been secretly watching Czechs reactions - she stood near the second work table, less than six steps from him. Since he requested her here as his assistant, she was rejecting to speak about anything else than about the work, and even now she remained silent, with utterly cold face. Somebody had to break the ice.
"Oh, damn you, I should not exasperate, oh..." Roderich theatrically put a hand on his heart and started to totter. "H-h-help..."
He saw a face of shocked man and he felt how Czech supports him from behind and puts him down. "Stay away, it's anaserpent spinosa!"
"O-o-oh..." added Roderich.
"I'll bring a doctor..."
"No way! Give him that coffee, hurry!"
They waited until the soldier lost in the bend of the corridor. Then they looked at each other and started quietly, gleefully laugh.
Czech shook her head, meanwhile she helped him with standing up. "I've never imagined you to do something crazy like this."
"Me too," Rodrich agreed. He noticed how different is her face and that overwhelmed him for a second. Without thinking he said: "You're smiling..."
Czech bowed her head and blushed a little.
How would it be, if he didn't marry Elizabeth, but her? Surely dumplings instead of goulash. And lot of crazy matters...
"By the way, what's anaserpent spinosa?"
"Excessive wool curling."
Ludwig flipped to the first page and started with re-reading of his own military garrison list all over again. For the third time. If he at least knew, what to search for! They all looked so normally, with the normal names and utterly normal pasts. But there was one of them, who knows very dangerous facts. Facts, with was Ludwig able to hide before his closest friends, before his boss, even before himself. His feelings...
"Herr Commander, herr Edelstein is here," reported officer, as he was opening door for Roderich to enter.
"Let us alone," ordered Ludwig and took the sullen man to the distant part of his office. Here he was sure that no one can hear them.
"What is this about? Secret revolt meeting?" asked Roderich acidly.
Ludwig quietly examined this man and thought about his answer. "No. I need your help."
Roderich raised his eyebrows. "Um... what?"
"You didn't heard me?"
"I did, but I don't understand."
He changed, realised Ludwig meanwhile he examined him once again, his now cold and sarcastic attitude with utter displeased expression. He was more like Ludwig himself. Like soldiers they both used to be, surrounded by problems and their primary goal to stay alive.
Ludwig reached into his pocket and pull out a folded paper. Roderich adjusted his glasses, when it passed to his hands. It could be some scheme, or something... He read the first word, "die Nürnberger" and stopped.
"Why are you showing me that?"
"You know what it is, you also know what's happening to the jews..."
Roderich turned away in unconcealed disgust. "From all you have done -..."
"It's not my idea," defended Ludwig his honor.
"Don't say," frowned Roderich.
"I'm just a soldier, I cannot decide about this."
Edelstein remained silent for a while. "So? You want to save some transport?"
"I told you, it's not in my competence." Ludwig sigh. "I'm talking about Czech."
Roderich tensed. "Our Czech? I thought she's doing well, at least you don't want her completely dead, like Feliks, for example."
Ludwig didn't spoke and only his evasive glance revealed, that he's sorting his thoughts. Finally he said: "She's dying here."
Roderich slumped his shoulders under Ludwigs disarming glance. It was not simple interest - he was somehow sad. And that's what frightened Roderich the most:
"What do you want from me, Ludwig?"
It seemed that German suddenly quickened, how fast he started to speak: "Hard to confirm it at first, but now, when most of jews and gypsies ends in camps, she's technically aryan-slavic half breed -..."
"Spare me the details."
"No - if you want to help me, you shall hear it all," said Ludwig stubbornly.
Roderich turned his eyes to the ceiling. "Fine. What about that?"
"I would have to kill her, soon or later. No matter what I want, it'll just happens. But there's still a chance how she can survive."
Roderich looked like he haven't decided yet, if he wants to hear the answer. "How?"
"As one of us."
"That's ridiculous, she's not german..."
"Yes, but half-breed." Ludwig raised the papers in his hand. "Applies, that germans and people of related blood are not allowed to have children with jews, gypsies et cetera. But not if germans have child with people of related blood, or even with half-breed of german and slavic ancestors. That's the weak point of those laws..."
"Maybe, but child and its parents are two different things," pointed Roderich.
"Sure, but for normal person. Not for personification."
Roderich froze. "Wait... This is the plan? It would never worked; she can't survive connection with someone like you..."
"I didn't talk about myself."
For a few seconds Roderich couldn't do anything, besides to watch his cousin with astounded awe. Is this real, or one of his weird futuristic dreams? Ludwig was motionlessly paying his gaze, totally determined and sure about everything he just said. So, this is it, thought Roderich inside his mind. You have broke the promise of marriage and it caught you at the end, including interests.
Ludwig stepped more closer, almost whispering: "Imagine - how could they dare to kill the mother of Austria's royal offspring. The New Austrian Empire."
Roderich lowered his eyes. Offspring, his only son... He never thought about that, nor his dreams were depicting anything like this. He realised with dismay, that he's imagining the boy, and shook his head to fight off that idea.
"No. She'll never agree with that..."
"She don't have to."
Roderich sharply looked up to Ludwig. "What!?"
"She likes to drink, if we..."
"Shut up!" Roderich waved his hands, forcing Ludwig to keep bigger distance from him and set off to the exit. "You're damn sick!"
Roderich wasn't sure, how he managed to find his bedroom despite all that exasperation. He put off the jacket and boots, and unable to do more, he fell to the bed. He tried to think about anything else, but Czech was still appearing in his head, in the white Vienna cathedral as his bride.
You've promised...
Roderich fell asleep and for once he saw the future. A blurry figure of small boy, running and yelling at his mother. But she was turning away, ignoring him completely.