So the duchess converted to a queen stole her throne within that warmed chamber. They regarded her as something misplaced, a chicken amongst geese, a lotus amongst roses, a pear upon the peach tree.
And as they filed in, she gave them all the same duty.
"You're off today."
The reaction was always the same.
"Truly?" Or, "Do you mean that, Elizaveta?"
And to that, there was only, "Yes."
All accept for Natasha, who glared in blatant indignation.
"Didn't you hear me?" Elizaveta leaned far forward upon the bureau's slick and busy surface. "You're free. You can have the day to yourself." The sound of her crinkling silk made the girl feel as though she was chewing upon foil.
"Why would you give us time away from work? Ivan would never do anything of the sort."
"I'm not Ivan. And I'd like you all to be happy. I'm not a tyrant, Natasha."
Those gazes fought with wicked daggers.
"Has he taken you yet? Is that what this is about? He puts you in charge because you satisfy him?"
"That's none of your business."
"Has he? I thought you were too preoccupied obsessing over that Austrian of yours…No. You were busy removing the pearls from my necklace."
"Natasha, please leave."
"No."
Another barrage of glares.
"You deserve to be lied to. People like you ask for these things. You're so aggressive and paranoid and when things don't turn out the way you want them to, you blame everyone other than yourself. Perhaps if you weren't so frightening and possessive, Ivan would love you. That man only needed someone to be kind to him and show some caring. Not behave like an obsessed child. You made him uncomfortable. Of course he didn't love you. And he was so afraid of telling you the truth that he couldn't. That you would act in this manor, breaking things and leaving the entire house tarnished, so poor Katya has to clean up after you. If you're so willing to work, then work. I'll give you a job and you can do it. But until then, why don't you shut your stupid little mouth and get out of my sight? I'm growing sick of even glancing at you."
So Natasha left and traveled down those coiling corridors, rage swelling within her veins. She knew the empress could not be attacked, that her guardian would tear the assassin limb from limb.
But her chamber was another matter.
How many appendages would pay that thickening price?
Natasha passed her housemates, her former lovers and her deceased friends. Then she arrived against the concubine's doorstep, that ancient white threshold. Finding her form encased within that twisting dream.
She had to stop.
There were all the things she desired.
A pretty vase overpopulated in happy red roses, a coat rack supporting that handsome pearl garment, polished wood, completed by Ivan Braginski himself. A bed enveloped in blankets radiating within their warmth. Pillows grown fat with perfect feathers and perfume sitting upon her night stand.
Perfume.
Perfume.
Natasha took those innocent crimson blooms and sent them into gravity's horrid wake. Those pillows were torn by the fragile doll's brutal strength, possession sent into the hell fire screaming within the donor's furnace. Drawers were ripped from their positions, ancient notes from that kind Austrian strewn all about the floor, amongst the feathers from all those murdered creatures. Some even shattered, nails gone rusty and converting to foul dust; wood breaking into thousands of miserable fragments.
Silk was thrown, tarnished, torn, impaired, fractured, ruined.
And finally, Natasha landed upon those filthy sheets, embedded with the scent of Ivan Braginski and lingering sex. Her chest was heaving, and her eyes were littered with all her ill sentiment.
She looked upon that world, that realm left a pulp by her barbed claws and her venomous fangs. The ruin, the carnage, and then the jar.
The jar with that tiny crack within its luminescent forehead. She looked upon that body, stuffed with such potent innards.
Natasha came to that poor and hurt container, the bandit who had murdered and pillaged and found innocence upon that dirt floor, sobbing innocence, begging for a mother who could not be resurrected.
And the criminal swept up that world of secrets; she took it and left.
Elizaveta had not heard the destruction. Her chamber was placed far away, not within earshot of all that crying silk and porcelain. It was the gunshot no one had caught, the great scream of sound and the bullet no one had been able to pinpoint. Not Katya, not Toris, not Eduard, not Raivis, no one.
But that woman did return.
And she found her room askew.
Lips dropped and shock set as alcohol in the blood.
Elizaveta screamed in an unfettered rage, fists clenched and that utter destruction choking her constitution as a virus without cure. That jealous siren had given her that irrational anger, and in those horrid flames, the Hungarian bolted along those grand hallways, rushing towards the spoilt child's room and kicking open that frail porthole.
The subject was inside her container.
"How dare you ruin my room, you little bitch? How dare you?" Elizaveta stepped onto that chamber, slamming her knuckled against the wall. "I should murder you!"
"You're a hypocrite, Elizaveta. You tell me I'm wrong, but you do the same things. You lie to Roderich. I lie to Toris. We both take Ivan. He just loves you…" Those brows creased within frustration. "Whore."
And to that, that once kind woman converted to a primal warrior, lunging at that girl and catching her foolish prey around the throat. Her hands tightened, and within seconds, Natasha was against those dusty boards, skull knocked upon them as branch to the drum.
"You little bitch! You little bitch! I should knock your goddamn teeth out! I should strangle you until you stop breathing! I should throw you from the window and pray that you break your spine!"
The young thing gasped for breath, kicking her legs and clawing at the harpy's grasp, but to no avail.
"I should wring your fucking neck! I should break your ribs!"
A wheeze. "Please…Stop…"
"Stop?" The hold grew even more intense. "Stop? You didn't stop! You never stopped! Stop? You stop!"
The fool was allowed free, her neck bruised and her wells overflowing. And they stared at one another, the elder still possessed in her conflagration.
"Elizaveta."
"Don't you speak!" A fist drove against those cheek bones, knuckles fast and hard as was physically possible. Anger was transferred from those brutal arms to the doll's visage, as though causing Natasha to revert to base hues, magenta, rose, azure, and crimson would heal all the world's problems.
Her nose bled. Her sockets were marred shut. She adopted unwanted splotches upon that canvas, the woman placing them against that appealing parchment as an artist taken within impassioned feelings, flowing through her veins in such lighting speed. An animalistic scream left her churning lips, sobbing, hollering and continuing to brand that murderer in her tarnished pigmentation.
And so suddenly, she was yanked form that cadaver, the soul having fallen unconscious and the corpse made to inhabit the same fractures she had inflicted.
And Elizaveta turned to the one who had taken her from the dead anatomy, throwing force into that susceptible form.
She clocked Toris.
He landed upon the floor.
"Elizaveta, stop!"
The siren was sucking in breath as though a marathon had been completed beneath her tired heels, sweat drenching her brow and those once gorgeous strands in plain disarray; the silken cat with its fur standing upright.
"Stop!" The Lithuanian took blood from beneath his nostrils. "Can't you see that she's unconscious? You won! Just stop!"
The world kissed the woman, embracing her tingling flesh and bringing exhaustion upon her feral heart. Her heaving figure collapsed upon that calming ocean of sheets, and her eyes caught the man.
"Why did you do this to her?"
Stillness.
"Why did you do it?"
"I'm sorry, Toris…I'm sorry I hit you." Drying heaves. "She destroyed my room. Tore up my pillows and gowns and broken my things. All of them…That's why."
The man was rendered stupid.
The woman began to cry.
And inside that bitter peace, that mistress driven to insanity came to the balls of her feet and drifted away, leaving to their horrid scene and their discomfort.
The hurricane had dried up. The tsunami had receded. The earthquake had ceased. Then all that remained was the aftermath, the malcontent ruin. The rubble. The mockery. The heart break.
And the disaster came to her refuge, ruined by the storm, and fell against that shredded mattress. She drank of her delusions, as an alcoholic to the finest of reddened wine.
The morning would not be the same. The fracture afflicting that once pretty mannequin would not subside in young hours. The Lorelei's chamber would not be set back to its embellished state. Ivan would not return to play the mediation.
The sword cut to the marrow, and no doctor was present to place bandages.
So Elizaveta slept. For it was all she was capable of.