So, Elizaveta began her servitude, making meals and rearranging bedrooms, whether they be inhabited or well emptied. Katya had instructed her to do so, because she was knowledgeable as to what that king desired.
It was far more exhausting than the fresh slave supposed it to be. There was such an abundance of rooms with an abundance of dust, and an abundance to clean. The Hungarian was simply surprised that there were indeed so many phantom chambers for so few. Had the servants ran? Had those places served the mere purpose of guest rooms? Those spaces looked as though they had been occupied at one time, perhaps sometime far earlier and much more blissful. But to glance upon those areas and even fathom that such a palace was once mirthful…No. The entire asylum was kept in a constant state of dour misery. If one was told that such a mansion had ever seen a single shining day, immediate disbelief would strike as potent lightning from an azure sky.
But there was not complaint. Elizaveta knew that her keep would be well earned and earned honestly.
Clothes were allowed to that new arrival in lending by that large breasted woman. There was obvious insight that garments would need to be fashioned at some point soon. But there was hardly time for rest, and any time for short break was used in a near hypnotic sleep, because creating an immaculate home took grand amounts of energy. And such strength was never in gratuitous quantity.
And within a week of being captive inside that gilded tower, Elizaveta finished her work before lunch, having taken no sleep the night before to simply complete that piled task before those breaking fingers, and thus having the remainder of that expansive day, she wondered into the garden, its flesh painted in new born white and its appeal something null.
Of course, even the garden was a horribly dead flat.
But there was not comment, and the tired woman found an emptied bench and scrubbed the snow from its grateful brow, sitting against it only counts proceeding.
The area was quiet, those petit pearl flakes joining their brothers against that repressed grass; it was almost as though they were the dead ash of a volcano, those heavens far too dark and oppressive to allow even a pure snow fall to be so pleasant.
In the distance, Toris and Eduard could be seen moving firewood from a minute and faltering shed. They held the airs of expended men, far too frail and starving to relocate even another twig.
Elizaveta secured her coat around those sagging clothes Katya has allotted her, once again creating hope for either of them.
It did not seem correct that Ivan Braginski was given the bone structure and apparent strength of a fierce bear and only sat within that pleasant office every day, marking documents with his iron brand while the others were forced to arrange heavy and dead limbs created for burning. They had even stocked the cave in which that beast took his daily residence.
Their rooms were still well frigid.
Even Elizaveta's body cried of wallowing ache, bruises seeming to appear against her sorry flesh for no given reason. And she slept as an unholy corpse.
Fingers brushed past the heavy fur of her glorious outer layer, and the woman gone so worn, wrapped in such decadence recalled her lover, her Roderich.
She had not reminded herself of him due to that staggering amount of work, those articles bathing in their dirtied age devouring every sanction of her poor and rushing mind, and there was not space for that beautiful musician, no occupancy for the ephemeral songs that had been so freshly lost. Elizaveta had not yet picked at her healing wounds.
Nor had she bandaged them.
So she sat, the image of her darling Austrian imbedded within her crumbling psyche, blades wishing to ease against his beautiful visage, vision longing to devour those glistening orbs and kindly lips. Appendages begging to capture his entire figure within an affectionate embrace the woman hoped would not meet premature death.
Elizaveta desired to brush her digits past those deepened midnight locks, and to remove those polished spectacles. To kiss that honeyed mark beneath Roderich's well constructed mounds...
She only wished to have her other back, someone she did not know how to function without. It was as losing sight, or voice, or taste. Without that man, the other section of her lonesome soul, Elizaveta was nothing. They had been within one another's presence for such wondrous duration, it was uncertain as to how they should part. Good-bye meant dust. It was flavored in bitterness. It was a phrase with so little meaning, a shallow conciliation.
True farewell was locked within aching stomachs. Because no word could express how much they meant to one another.
The Hungarian woman recalled their wedding day, her figure clothed within untouched lace and flowering silk. And her Austrian within tailored formal attire. He was so handsome. Roderich was always handsome.
They had been wed for their countries. And before then, they had not truly been acquainted, only finding one another occasionally and never speaking more than a few mangled greetings.
But despite marriage to a near stranger, Elizaveta was clothed in joy. Within her palm, there lied a sensible husband, and a gentleman, none the less. What more could a foolish young thing desire? She was giving so much more than her simplistic innocence and her frivolous movements. That great sacrifice was for their very constitution, and completing such nobles acts should be cause for some sort of twisted bliss.
And then, after swallowing expectations as bitter medicine, they began to know one another. Roderich was usually busy with one thing or another, but a point was made of taking time to become familiar with his new wife, and Elizaveta appreciated his made time more than phrase could very well express.
He showed her music; he even taught her to sing and dance. Just as she showed him that gorgeous world beyond his inexperienced welcome mat, those foods and he wondrous appeal of inhabiting such a glowing city.
And they introduced one another to endearment; that unfettered adoration so many wished to hold as glorious riches within their cupped palms.
No longer was obligatory sex had. Love was made. And that caused the pair to fall even more deeply in love with one another. Their arms were entangled, their forms something inseparable and admirable. Trying to isolate them was as trying to rip a tree form its earth by means of only strength.
Not even divorce could hinder that bond.
Neither wanted that ugly separation, the mere idea something foreign. But as they were married for their countries, they were torn from one another's grasps for their countries, even though a constant stream of letters was formed between them, and the Hungarian woman would visit her darling, sometimes for even months at a time.
But now there was true loss. There were no visits, there were no telephone calls lasting numerous hours. There was only parchment lathered in deformed longing, and that primary note had not been received. But Elizaveta knew Roderich had sent her message. That was simply the caliber of man he was.
And those predictable emotions took their birth, chilled palms finding security upon twisting lips as that crystalline substance poured. Numerals collected those salty instances, the owner of that silent outburst trying within all her pathetic might to execute those sobs, and those sentiments and the very lonesomeness itself, the virus that brought each of those relentless symptoms.
Attention was not placed upon dropping shoulders or poorly masked upset. The two men continued their miserable work and the woman only regarded, once again praying that life give them even a fragment of benevolence. Their souls were kind and they did not earn their rotting agony.
And Elizaveta retreated into that numbing edifice, lunch scheduled to arrive within fleeting minutes.