(belarus)
"Devushka Natasha, you can't wear that one."
"Why not? It's pretty and I like it and it's just sitting here in my closet doing nothing but collecting dust." She took it off the hanger anyway and held it to her body, whirling around to make the skirt spin out and flutter around her ankles. "Do you think Vanya will like it?"
It was a low-cut v-neck coloured gold with fringed sleeves that floated to her elbows. The skirt was fastened down to mid-thigh, and below, left open where it showed a silk panel the colour of pearl that felt like liquid and moved as gracefully. How anybody could not like it was a mystery to Natalya.
Natalya's handservant, Grusha, sighed and explained, "That is your debutante dress, Devushka, you can't wear it tonight because you have to wear it when you're presented at court. It's unfit for a formal dinner."
Natalya glared. Sure, the sleeves were a little longer than they should be but who would really care? With a plunging neckline like that, they'd all be distracted by her decolletage. "I'm wearing this one and that's final."
"Devushka -"
"I can't wear any of the others, anyway. They're all dirty." She was already undoing the buttons along the back of the dress - there were so many! - to be able to slip it on.
"They can't possibly all - oh," Grusha ran through the closet. "You're right. How can that be?"
"No clue," Natalya replied, shoving the pretty dress on. "Buttons?"
Grusha grumbled but moved to her back to start with the fastening. "Gospozha Yekaterina is not going to like this," she grumbled.
"Who cares?" Natalya asked impulsively.
"Your sister cares! And now that someone has seen you in it we'll have to have the tailor make you another one!" Grusha ground out.
"Oh, please," Natalya waved. "Why does it matter what I wear? I am not the most important person at this event, I don't have to be in black tie, I can wear what I want! And Vanya says that spending all that money on fancy clothes isn't good for the Empire anyway. If someone really gets offended because I wore the same dress twice, I will ask them why it matters so much that I spend some four hundred dollars of Empire money to play real-life dolls."
"I suppose you can always suggest that Spiridon Marinin of Olyokin lied," Grusha admitted, "and wear it again for your court appearance." Lying about what a young girl wore to a dinner party with family and friends. What a terrible scandal. "Come on then," Grusha said, smoothing the fabric flat over her bulky corset, "hair and makeup next." She picked up the brush.
.:.
Natalya was the first one in the drawing room, so she took a seat on the lounge and waited, toying with the cuff of her gloves. ("Don't do that, Devushka," she heard in her mind, "it's not polite to fiddle.") A few minutes later Katya showed up with her bondsgirl.
In dresses. Both of them.
Katya. Wore a dress. Tyen'ka - Katya's little shadow - wore them often but Katya, never, claiming it was easier to move around in trousers.
Natalya sat up straighter and tried not to look disturbed.
Her sister's dress was plain but pretty - a striped, high-cut, dark blue twill thing, with a double-breasted jacket and a bustle so large it made her chest look proportionate for once. Natalya had never seen her wear it before, but that didn't mean it was new; the dress could be ten years old for all she knew.
It was nice enough on Katya, but it was certainly foreign, and Katya seemed to realise it herself. No part of her looked uncomfortable but she knew her sister well enough to recognise the signs. She walked differently, held herself differently. Katya seemed like a statue now, posed instead of natural. She gave her sister a half-grin in support which Katya didn't return.
"What are you doing in that?" Katya scolded. "That's your debutante gown!"
Natalya shrugged. "All the others were dirty."
"All the - of course. You wear dresses every day, no wonder they're all dirty." Katya groaned and checked the time. "It'll have to do. Where the General's tits is Vanya? He's supposed to be here before you, he's the host."
"I'm sure he'll be here soon," said Tyen'ka. Part of Natalya wanted to snap at her but it was just because the girl had beaten her to the punch in defending Vanya. Of course he would be here. Vanya didn't like Marinin but her big brother was polite and graceful, a paragon of virtue and social grace.
They waited another fifteen minutes. Six-fifty-two and she stood when their guest tonight showed up. Spiridon Marinin of Olyokin was a portly man of medium height, dark-eyed, pale-skinned, with long white hair tied back with ribbon. You didn't usually see men of that age with their hair long enough to tie back, she thought, but it suited him. He carried himself with that certain commanding presence and dignity that she found attractive and welcoming in men. He was courteous and welcoming. She liked him immediately.
Spiridon made his greetings to Katya, who apologised for Vanya's absence. "He'll be here soon, I'm sure of it," Natalya spoke up, and her sister briefly shot her a look. (She was tempted to shoot one back but she remembered, "No, Devushka, do not manifest impatience," and Spiridon was studying her face too closely for her to do it anyway.)
"And this must be the lovely Natalya!" Spiridon exclaimed, and bowed, taking her hand to kiss it. She blushed. "I know I must not have met you before. Such a pretty face, I should remember clearly!"
"She hasn't been presented at court yet," Katya said, "Natalya has been exceedingly busy with her studies."
"I can -" speak for myself! she wanted to say. ("No, bad Devushka. Do not engage in arguments." So many damned rules. How by the General's hand did Vanya manage all of this?) "I can't wait for court life," she said instead, with a pleasant smile.
They waited and spoke lightly some more, keeping the subject off the missing member of their party.
Finally - at five-past the hour - Vanya found them in the drawing room. They could hear his footsteps from rooms away but not those of his bondsman - Eduard, a blonde and bright-eyed reedy thing of about Vanya's age, with a permanent snobby expression that was probably accidental but no less insulting. She'd been introduced only the once and then Vanya had retreated to his rooms, dragging Eduard with him, for more work.
Surprise; they would be six for dinner. Katya wouldn't like that, either.
"Good!" Katya said, "now that we're all here, we can begin. Spiridon, please follow me -" and she led him away. Natalya could hear the iciness in her sister's voice even if Spiridon couldn't; Katya was pissed. Vanya would have to figure out some way later to make it up to her. She gave her brother a questioning look but he returned it with only a smile and a wink.
Ivan Bragin was so rarely late she felt she could count the times on one hand. And ungracefully loud, bounding into the drawing room like an ungainly animal? He must be working too hard, she thought.
They were seated - the honoured guest at the head of the table with Vanya and Katya on his right and left-hand sides respectively. With Katya's Tyen'ka at Katya's other side and Vanya's Eduard on his, it left the opposite head of the table to her. Normally it'd be an honour if she weren't surrounded by bondspeople. At least Eduard was decently competent, as she found out.
"Gloves," he said under his breath, while Spiridon sparked an enthralling conversation about the weather at the other end of the table, "your gloves -" and mimed taking them off. She blushed and covertly removed them. ("Gloves are worn to the table but not at it, and only kept on at the table should there be some special reason the hands ought not to be shown," she remembered.)
"Thanks," she muttered flippantly, annoyed that the bondsman knew these things better than she did. ("Devushka. Be kind, even to servants. Come, now.") She sighed. "Sorry."
He explained himself under his breath. "Our courses of instruction are complementary. My education consisted of social manners and graces. And now I'm plunged headlong into politics. I know how it feels to be thrown off the deep end."
She gave him a weak, sheepish half-smile and felt guiltier for losing her temper.
The soup course was first; mushroom creme, her favourite, her only delight as conversation shifted, as she expected, from boring topic - weather - to yet another boring topic - mining operations in the southern regions of the union. ("Idle chit-chat only at a dinner party, so as not to offend.") It was kind of Spiridon to ask her opinion, but she didn't know much about mining. Thankfully Vanya leapt to pick up the slack.
And then steered the conversation towards contentious politics. Spiridon the guest didn't want to argue with his host, so the task then fell to Katya to somehow intervene without looking like she was intervening.
"This is like a snowball fight," she murmured in confusion, and while Tyen'ka didn't react, Eduard cracked a grin and stifled a laugh.
"I don't think my brother means that your support would be unwanted," Katya said, trying to be diplomatic.
Spiridon gave her a grateful smile. "Thank you, Katya -"
"Oh no, I most certainly do," Vanya insisted.
"Ah -"
"At any rate, Spiridon, my brother and you are alike in that neither of you support the business in Rezhivsk -"
SLURRP
"- with the oil fields," Katya finished, breathing deeply and over-enunciating her words.
Vanya just grinned around a spoonful of soup.
Next to her, Eduard was practically shaking with mirth. He coughed lightly, excused himself to her and Katya's bondsgirl, and sipped some more sherry. "Good sherry," he said.
"Indeed," Natalya replied, her eyes narrowed.
Another slurrp from the other end of the table - right in the middle of something Spiridon was saying, too - and Eduard took a larger sip of sherry. "Very good sherry!" he whispered, gritting his teeth.
What the hell was Vanya doing?! Was he not feeling well? He must not be feeling well, she thought. After all, he knew these social rules better than she did.
So many things to remember - don't do this or that, and General forbid you do this, et cetera - she didn't really like playing princess (besides the dresses) and she found it so difficult to concentrate these days, on anything at all. She wasn't the biggest fan of most of her classwork, either. With enough politics thrown at her every day with schooling, she didn't need more at the dinner table.
And yes, it was for her own good, it was what Mom and Dad would have wanted, she agreed. But Natalya was still unimpressed and as good as she might be at it after ten years of lectures, she didn't like it. But she couldn't take any lessons for fun until she took on a few administrative cases. Good experience, Katya had said, good experience for a girl who would one day share in the ruling of the entire empire (no pressure, or anything).
She'd rather leave it to Vanya. Vanya would be a better emperor for certain, and Olyokin preferred men in power anyway. One of the reasons that he'd been in de jure power with his sister since they were 7 and 11 respectively.
But leagues of advisors to help children govern a country or not, it had been difficult. For the Empire not to dissolve into anarchy they had required someone, and although Katya and Vanya were both still too young, their parents had consigned the name and line and devoted it to the ruling of the entire country. The Empire had needed a brash act of leadership following the surprise triple assassination of her mother, father and aunt.
That's what the history books said, anyway; it wasn't like Natalya had been old enough to remember this, being an infant at the time.
All three of them had had their lives planned out since birth. Natalya just wished it hadn't been so soon -
"Claret?" Eduard asked, and she remembered two rules then - one, the men offered to pour the drinks for the women, and two, it was most commonly done to revive a silent member at the table. ("You're being too quiet, Devushka," she heard in her head. "Stop spacing out.")
"Please," she accepted, so he re-filled her glass. The meat course must be starting soon.
Indeed, it was being carved at the sideboard and placed on a platter by Prosha, acting as their waiter tonight. He passed the platter to Katya first, who took a modest amount and passed it counterclockwise to Spiridon, who took some and passed it forward to Vanya.
Vanya, for his part, took much more than a modest amount and had hardly off-loaded the rest to Eduard before he dove in.
Had he always chewed so loudly?
She was so preoccupied with Vanya's strange antics she almost missed the twitch in Eduard's lips as he received the platter. Eduard was smart, he saw things Tyen'ka tended not to, that's why Vanya had him cooped up in his rooms trying to fix half the problems in the Empire - he knew something -
Oh, by the General, she realised. Vanya's doing this on purpose to offend Spiridon. And suddenly everything Vanya did became hilarious.
Almost on cue, Vanya began - his mouth still partially full of fowl, honestly, Vanya! - "So! I hear you're interested in my sister's huge tracts of land!"
Spiridon went bright red. Huge tracts of - oh, the devil take you, Vanya, that was bad.
"Dark or light meat, Devushka Natalya?" asked Eduard, shakily, sounding like he'd break out into laughter if he said anything more.
Thankful for the distraction she said tightly, "Dark, please," and bit her lip in an effort to keep it out of a grin. She let him fork a few slices onto her plate before she took the platter and passed it to Katya's bondsgirl, breathing deeply to quell the giddy bubbles of laughter that she prayed would stick in her chest and not escape.
Katya's Tyen'ka, red-faced, did not seem nearly as impressed, and neither did Spiridon or Katya who tried to resuscitate the conversation (although Vanya claimed he was just talking about the Southern regions rich in minerals that Katya had overseen since she was a little girl, and what did Spiridon think he'd meant).
The conversation proceeded - a little tightly. Natalya was grateful that at least there was less room for destruction here with no soup -
SCREECH
"My apologies," Eduard said, "my knife slipped on the china. Please, Gospodin Marinin, continue?"
This time it was Vanya who was bright red, hiding a smile.
Eduard gave Natalya a sly wink.
It made her wonder if they'd planned it, or if they just happened to be like-minded enough to pull off something so devilish.
.:.
Natalya wasn't entirely certain how, but she managed to get through the next three hours and five courses without erupting into hysterics. Eduard kept a straighter face than she did, but anybody who knew Vanya and saw how he was acting couldn't sit through three hours of the same without it actually getting funnier.
She came dangerously close to losing it at dessert. Vanya had made such a fuss of going for seconds and prolonging each course as a result, no doubt tripling the work of the kitchens to keep things timely.
That was why it surprised her when he passed on dessert - Arisha's chocolate-pecan cake, which typically, he very much enjoyed. Shouldn't he be helping himself to, like, half the cake?
"I cannot tolerate the nuts, I am afraid. Gives me quite the upset stomach, lots of gas!" She barely contained a snort. A blatant lie, and not something Vanya would ever say to another person who wasn't his medic, let alone at the dinner table.
"Vanya..." Katya began warningly.
"It's true," Eduard piped up, "as his bondsman, I can attest to this."
"Yes thank you for sharing moving on now -"
"I thought you said he didn't employ your services," Spiridon said, with a suspicious look.
"Oh, I don't!" Vanya laughed. "That would be uncouth."
Natalya covered up her giggles with a small cough and a sip of dessert wine, pretending a dry throat.
"I share his chambers," Eduard commented, with the dry levity of someone speaking about the weather. "That's really enough."
"I could not agree more," Katya ground out.
She tried not to cry with laughter.
.:.
Natalya and Eduard barely held it together for Katya, Vanya and Spiridon Marinin to walk out of the dining room before they both doubled over, hysterical.
"This is not funny!" hissed Katya's bondsgirl, taking her napkin off her lap and throwing it on the table in anger, which only made Natalya laugh harder still. "Your brother embarrassed himself and the Gospozha! That man will never come back here again!"
"That's such a pity," Eduard joked, and Natalya bit back a loud cackle.
"I expected better from you," Tyen'ka said to Eduard, and got up from the table in a huff.
"Worth it," he said, breathing deeply to try and calm down, and taking a long drink of his wine.
Good point, though. "You won't get in trouble with Katya, will you?" Natalya asked.
He shrugged. "Maybe. I don't think I'll get in much trouble with Vanya, though, and he's the master where I'm concerned, so he's got the last say."
They heard Katya and Vanya from rooms away - Spiridon must have left the premises because with Katya's screeching and Vanya's shouting, the only way their guest wouldn't hear that row was with the foot of steel in the Duma's outside walls.
"What the fuck is your problem, you boor?!" she heard Katya yell.
"My problem?! You're the one deluding yourself into being courted by that - that - snivelling insect!" Insect was harsh. Spiridon hadn't been that bad... Though he had drunk an awful lot of their wine and she'd caught him during dessert with his eyes on her chest.
"It would be an agreeable match for the Empire. Marinin is one of the few Vitim with very strong Kilnus connections that I could exploit for the sake of the Union."
"He's disgusting," Vanya countered, "I can't believe you would seriously consider debasing yourself with such a turkey. If Father knew -"
"Ohh, don't go there, brother," Natalya warned under her breath - like either of them could actually hear her, and even if they could, Vanya would probably pay no attention and say it anyway. "He always goes there -"
Sure enough, Katya's voice became dangerous. "If Father knew," Natalya heard, and now she really did feel awful for listening in because despite how loudly they were both speaking she knew Katya's trigger was any mention of their father or mother, "then we would not have this problem because it would mean that he were here, and that he would be the head of the Empire instead of my immature little brother, and I wouldn't have to deal with upstart rodents with businesses over the border because Father wouldn't've minded if I never got married at all!"
"Then don't," Ivan spat icily. "Stay unwed and honour his memory appropriately instead of tarting yourself out to his would-be usurpers -" Too far. Far too far.
The slap she heard made both her and Eduard jump in their seats. "Do not talk to me of honour. And do not. EVER. Speak to me of our parents again. Do you hear me?"
And then there were the sounds of stomping footsteps and slammed doors, just like a couple weeks ago when Vanya had gotten all weird.
Eduard drained his glass to the sound of don't you dare walk away from me! "Well. I need more wine. More wine?" he offered.
"Yes please," she said, probably too quickly.
"And another thing!" she heard, paired with another doorslam. Natalya tried not to listen - "that little brat of yours, I didn't buy that thing for you so you could train it to help you be the biggest troll in the Empire -" but not very hard - "Don't you dare bring him into this! Katya where in God's name are you going get back here -"
"What ... happened, during the Counterstrike?" Eduard asked. "All I know is - there was some giant assassination."
Natalya shrugged. "I only know what they teach in my classes," she lied.
Vanya reentered the dining room, followed closely by Katya. Katya's bondsgirl waited at the threshold of the door, wringing her hands (with good reason, thought Natalya, because both Vanya and Katya were angry enough to start throwing things and Vanya had amusingly bad aim). "What do you plan to do about that anyway?" Katya cried.
"Give him extra homework. I don't know. He hasn't done anything," Vanya sneered.
"By the General -!" Katya looked over to Eduard and shrieked, "If you were mine you would be so fucked right now." She turned back to Vanya, "It doesn't even do that for you, it's useless!" And then she stormed out the way she came in, followed by her little shadow.
"See?" thundered Vanya. "Seeee, 'Tashka? This is why it's wrong to own a bondsman. They are Real People with Real Feelings!"
"Oh please do not drag me into this," Eduard muttered.
Vanya slammed the dining room door so hard it rattled the hinges. At first Natalya thought he'd go chase after Katya and yell at her some more but he cried instead, "I am going to the tavern. Well done, sister, you've driven me to drink, again!"
Not the only one, Vanya, she thought, sipping her wine.
"Enjoy it you fool I hope your liver falls out!"
Eduard and Natalya sat in silence until the doors stopped slamming and there was finally some measure of silence.
At long last, she said softly, "I would claim that they are not always like this, but that would be untruthful."
"It's the first time I've heard anything so terrible between them," Eduard admitted, "although I haven't been here very long. It doesn't surprise me. That their difference of opinion on governance should bleed over like this... no, that doesn't surprise me." But his hands still trembled when he picked up his wine, and his nails were white from gripping the bowl of the glass so hard.
She felt bad for him and sighed. "It's ... you have to understand, Katya has had different experiences than Vanya has. Or I. In fact my childhood was - was almost normal, if you forget about the fact that my parents were assassinated." Which some might even argue was an occupational hazard!
"Yes, well."
"It's worse because Vanya and Katya knew them. Katya particularly. The stress of this job gets to both of them, they just deal with it in different ways." She drained her wineglass before continuing. "Part of the problems the old Empire had was inconsistency. When the ruling power reigned for decades it was easy to take - things don't change too often. But there was two hundred years where the longest rule was a little over fifteen years, that's too unstable for so big a place.
"During the Revolution, our family dedicated themselves and all generations to come to the protection and governance of this country. I guess to some it looks like a fantastic opportunity - what says status upgrade like forever being the ruling family. But it's really not. My life - and Katya's, and Vanya's - all our lives were permanently decided for us the moment our family took power. Same with those of our sons and daughters. And their sons and daughters. Everyone with the last name Bragin will have this predestined occupation. Everyone. No exceptions."
"I see," Eduard murmured with a feeble nod.
Which was when Natalya put something else together. "That's why he's uneasy with you, isn't it? You're just like him. Your parents decided for you what you would be, and so you became it. It's the same with us! Our parents decided we would become public servants. That it's the top office doesn't matter. They picked our professions for us before we were born and - and we had no choice. Maybe Vanya's just upset because you accept so readily what you are and he still struggles with his own misgivings."
"Do you accept what you are?" he asked.
She didn't even have to think about it. "Of course! Someone has to do this job, and I have the training." It might as well be someone like her, and her brother, and her sister. And for all her family's failings, corruption was not one of them. Yes, it might as well be them.
He nodded in understanding and smiled. "I feel exactly the same way, Devushka," he said.
"You can call me Natasha, I don't mind." Not when Tyen'ka went and called her Natasha and she liked Eduard a hell of a lot more than she liked Tyen'ka. She raised her glass, and clinked it softly with his. "To making the best of one's life that one can, with exceedingly unpleasant jobs," she offered.
And to unexpectedly kindred spirits.