Natasha begged the sky for advice, those cerulean orbs well inhabited in their anguish. Her face was exhausted, insomnia marring that visage as though it came equipped with sharpened claws, vindictive as daggers.
The porcelain doll had finally shattered, sanity leaking from her around the pavement beneath those once clean shoes.
No longer could she rest; no longer could she work; no longer could she cry; no longer could she feel, all accept for the sudden and violent flashes of terrible rage. At times, things would lie destroyed in her wake, broken and crippled against lavish mats and ancient boards. She left them incurable. Fragmented and forever paralyzed.
Ivan had spoken to her about it. He pulled her aside. He told her she couldn't break his things when that impassioned wrath struck as lighting from the gods. He told her that it was wrong.
And to that, she said nothing.
He told her that she needed to control her emotions.
And to that, she said nothing.
He told her that she needed to calm herself.
And to that, she said nothing.
He told her that she needed to move forward.
And to that, she said nothing.
Then he asked her what exactly she had to say for herself, after breaking his pretty vases and knocking those handsome paintings from the walls.
And she rose, coming to those dancing flames birthed from their toils, from Toris' calloused flesh and Eduard's hackneyed shoulders.
"Natasha."
"It was cruel. What you did to me, Ivan. How long have we known each other? Years now. And all of those years, I have been good to you. I've done every last task you've given me. I've never complained. I loved you even when you began to lust for Katya, even though those times were seldom. And I still love you. But I can't articulate how hurt I am that you could not simply give me the truth…I could have at least given more of my heart to Toris and not felt so horribly guilty when I ceased lying. We're all hypocrites, aren't we? You use me. I use Toris. Elizaveta uses you. Or maybe she does love you. But you weren't first. That Austrian will haunt her until the day she leaves this place."
There was silence.
"Perhaps I shouldn't break your things. But you've made me this way."
"I haven't made you any way. No one asked you to destroy everything you come into contact with."
"No. But perhaps if you wouldn't have been such a liar, I wouldn't be so upset. I almost feel as though I should tell Miss Héderváry that her letters are being burned. I think she'd appreciate knowing where exactly they've been going." They glanced to one another. "Don't you think she should be aware of how awful you are?"
"You wouldn't dare."
"Oh? You don't think so? I have no qualms of shattering your things. Why not your relationships, Vanya? After all, you've shattered mine."
The world grew still.
"I'm sorry Natasha."
"How sweet. You pretend to care."
"Please, Natasha."
"Tell me why I shouldn't. Finally, I have you right beneath my thumb."
Again, a torturous moment of angered gazes, fighting in their fury.
Then Natasha left, taking the neck of a porcelain vase sitting near the fireplace and swinging it hard against the wall, once handsome glass transmuted to a grand mess of ash and broken bone. There were no words to accompany that violent symphony. Only silence and the raw clicking of Natasha's heels.
And Ivan sighed; his very affection was dangling by a fine red thread, supported by that girl's ruthless pinky finger. And she treated that delicate bond as a mere toy, bounding it up and down until the line threatened to snap clean in two.
Mr. Braginski went back to work.
For the first time, he felt powerless. And he was.
So Natasha glanced into the light, guilt present within her blood, but it was an action that needed to be completed, because for so very long, that poor child had been a slave. Not only to the Russian, but to sentiment itself. Love bound her limbs and cracked her bones. It slashed her vision with its talons and it wound her lips shut.
Then it intoxicated her.
And then it demolished her.
She was left with nothing when her sight healed and her fragmented limbs were set in casts.
Had Natasha not been such a rancid cripple, her fits of passionate destruction would have been far stronger. There was still an inkling of affection remaining for Ivan Braginski.
But she hated Elizaveta. She had always hated Elizaveta.
She detested her because the Hungarian had been correct.
She detested her because the Hungarian had predicted the bitter future.
She detested her because the Hungarian had come and stolen away that glorious man, all before her hands could claim him, before those sights could even admire him fully, although vision had been cast upon his pearly flesh for so many years. And while Elizaveta committed those felonies, she made treason; she lied. The words constantly spilled from her lovely mouth always rang of her honeyed core to the mythical God, who no one had truly laid their observation upon. No. He was the deity who appeared only inside a pretty envelope, and then was burned alive by the vindictive palms of the thief who had possessed Natasha's poor and disabused crux.
It was so very wrong. To say that one is in love, and restate it, and restate it and restate it, and then snatch the golden egg from another's destitute hands. In such a short while, that nun so obsessed with her very own fidelity had turned a wanton whore, capitulating Mr. Braginski as though he was nothing but a boy, in love for the very first instance. Sickened by infatuation drowned in that unending desire that gnawed at him. A perpetual phantom.
However could her heart be joyous? However could the young woman bear to lay eyes against her counterpart; her nemesis? It was as though she was attempting to capsize a windmill with her bare and calloused palms. All she had located was a weak spot, and despite her harsh exterior, and all those frigid threats, the child did not have it within her to ruin such a precious article. It belonged to her former lover, and despite her anger, there was still a fragment of her that could not be wiped cleanly away by that powerful acid.
So the warrior did not turn the windmill, nor did she strike it.
She only walked away far more beaten by the horrid journey than the conflict itself. Because all that was given to her had been faux.
And Natasha cried. She had rendered herself useless; the desire for mangled revenge was potent as opium taken to overdose. So the porcelain doll remained, sobbing in internal bleeding.