kind of feel crappy this week. sorry. replies'll be next week...
...motivation is really dying. but as you all know, i'm starting to eliminate everyone, so we'll start with the lovely mystery we finished last arc with.
we'll also find out what happens to arthur this chapter! i guess everyone's been missing him...
as always, i do not own the selection nor hetalia. these belong to kiera cass and himaruya hidekaz respectively.
Spades.
Dearest Natalya,
I hope that you are in good health after the attack. It was sad that I could not talk to you, but you must understand with all the people around us that we would get caught! Please extend my words to Katya after I have left...
Her maids, probably frantically trying to clean up now that the soldiers from Clubs had left, caused the commotion outside her room as she sat on her chair. The letter had arrived only this morning, and to her relief it was still marked as a plain envelope even though he had personally delivered it to her by hand.
I hope little Alfred is not treating you too bad. If he is, though, please tell me! I will be there as soon as possible to fix this situation.
"If you would only let me go home, then you would," Natalya muttered angrily. She had tried to contact him last night when he was, for some reason, in the Spades palace, but he had looked distracted the first night and somehow managed to get into a fight with Alfred, of all people. What a way to be tactful, indeed.
But I must ask you to stay in Spades a little longer, please? It is still not safe over here, and Katya is too busy with her duties to visit as much as she would like. I mean, if you have fallen for the prince I mean-
"Shut up," Natalya shot back, not really caring that she was practically talking to herself at this point. "I don't need to fall for him to not want to be there anymore."
She knew it was true, being in Clubs was the one of the last things that she had wanted to do ever since she had moved to Spades.
…but is that the real thing? Is that the only thing keeping you from going back home?
She scoffed mockingly at herself, but a quiet knocking at her door interrupted her thoughts and she got up from her chair.
"Lady Sakura and Lady Emma came on a little earlier to look for you, but I said that we were still busy and that you still wanted some time to yourself," Jamie, her maid, said nervously. His fingers were twiddling nervously, a nervous tic that he had had ever since the first day they had met. She couldn't help but feel like she had made it worse because of her cool demeanour the first time she had stepped into that room of hers. "Also, we had to, um, move that pillar out of the way. It's out now, but you might want to be careful of the stones…"
"All right. Take a break after cleaning my room." she said shortly, and pulled up her dress to sidestep the little bit of debris.
The silence of the palace was only permeated by the clink of her heels on the steps as she walked down to the dining hall. Strangely, even then there was no commotion, no sign of chit chatting.
The dining hall was packed with the other five, but the mood was a lot more somber than it had before. Alfonso and Emma were sitting the closest next to the prince, but they were only whispering amongst the three of them. Arthur was staring determinedly at his tart, a fork on his hand, but he wasn't actively eating the food. Interestingly enough, his right hand was heavily bandaged. Sakura was eating as well, but she seemed to ask him a question. As Natalya took her place, he shook his head, visibly upset, and she nodded gently, but a troubled look on her face. However, she perked up when Natalya managed to sit in the seat next to her.
"Natalya! Oh, good morning." she said, and Natalya acknowledged her with a half smile, letting her silvery blonde hair fall in her face.
"G…good morning, Sakura," she said in reply. "I don't suppose you know what happened to everyone – oh, some pancakes would be good." she said to her butler.
"Werl, Arthur seems upset about something that he wirl not tell me about." Sakura said, casting a concerned glance onto the other boy.
"More drama with Alfred, honestly. And, uh, his hand?" she said. It hadn't even been the first time, she still remembered their huge fight after the whole caning, but they were a territory that she didn't even want to get into.
"…they are finding it very difficult." Sakura said awkwardly. Natalya could guess that she found it difficult to gossip about others.
If only she could say the same about herself.
She watched Arthur snatch a glance at the other boy, but Alfred was clearly occupied. She wondered if Arthur had deliberately waited when he was not looking as to clue himself into his own emotions.
"Can you do it? Can you take care of Emma for me?"
Natalya shook her head quickly as to clear her own thoughts and turned back to the shorter girl, a confused expression on her face.
"Yeah, sorry. What?"
"Ah…it's just that I am thinking of rea-leaving soon." she said.
Natalya's eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Why – why tell me?"
"I thought you might want to know." the other girl said evasively, turning back to her food. Those black eyes stared, almost mournfully, in her direction. Natalya wanted to say something, but a hiss from across the table directed her attention to Marianne instead.
Months ago, she should have learned how to handle herself around the other girl. Some sort of alliance was formed in the early days with her and Clare as she found out that even her stupid little pact with Arthur didn't mean he would act around her as a guise.
Somehow he managed to get all buddy with Leon, who got himself into a mess, and now he was still chummy with Alfonso she wasn't even sure how that had managed to happen.
And instead of Emma's little niche group breaking apart, Avie had to leave.
So she was stuck, with no excuse as to not spend time with Marianne. Great.
"Ugh – give me a hand, Nat!" Marianne complained. Natalya swung her thoughts over to the blonde, who had one hand on a strap of a dress that definitely wasn't suited for everyday use.
For one thing, the colour was a cream white, which would stand outside the palace as it was declared too cold to go out for activities tonight. The neckline was a lot more plunging than she would have let herself be comfortable, but…
Marianne was very beautiful, that was for sure. The only thing that set her apart from being stupid and seductive from clever and seductive was that she knew how to use her beauty to get what she wanted.
Who said she wanted love, anyway? Natalya had thought the Deciding was some kind of scripted show where the prince had to choose the one that he could stand for the longest. And hell, that was what, a maximum of five years before he found a mistress?
"What do you want?" she said stiffly, pushing away her thoughts. Marianne shot her a glare in reply.
"You know about my plan to get Sakura out of the palace." she huffed, sitting in front of her mirror. "Any updates?"
"She said she's leaving any day now, anyway. Something happened. God, Marianne, what if the others found out?" she shot back, pulling up the tops of the dress. "Fates, at least put some jacket on. It's December."
"We're nearly up to the top three, remember?" Marianne ignored her, quickly trying to hide her excitement and failing. "Just a little push tonight will do him over. You know he's prepared to end it soon, anyway."
A little push? Knowing the other girl, a little push definitely was something more physical and seductive than what it usually meant. Not just a little flirty glance over dinner or a making out session behind a bookcase, she was talking about going full circle. The thought of it made her uncomfortable, anyway.
"Whatever suits you, I guess. I'm not here for this stupid idea of finding love this way, anyway."
"True," Marianne said, leaning closer into her mirror and dabbing a little at her bottom lashes. "Love just isn't in the equation for us two, huh? Even I could use the cute brother to get to the main prize, anyway."
"Guy's an Ace." Leave him out of it. Drag him out and keep the number of pawns to the least.
"Yeah, so? He and Alfred are close, anyway. I bumped into him the other day, and he was definitely taken with me when I looked at him." Marianne boasted. "One good word about me from his brother, a little more persuasion, going a little more public every day, and he'll think I'm more important and worth it than that brunette. Did you see the way she was prancing on about that damn date she had last week?"
"Didn't stick around to hear it," Natalya muttered, taking a chair behind her. "Uh, spill," she said after a moment, mulling it over in her mind.
As much as she liked Sakura, she honestly couldn't stand the brunette. All right, she and Alfred were having this fairytale romance and he kissed her on average eighty three point seven times a week. Blah.
But Natalya was tired of her showing off her trinkets and constantly squealing - had she mentioned the squealing? Well, not even an hour-long sermon about it would solve it, anyway – and so after a while she decided to just drift away when it happened.
"Something about Alfred giving her some stuffed animal. What are they, six?" Marianne snorted.
"Please, please don't tell me she named it Waffles," Natalya snorted, and Marianne twisted around her chair and nodded with mock wide eyes. Her ridiculous expression made her want to sneer, but she couldn't help it in the end and ended up snorting loudly, covering her mouth only out of habit.
"Though, I mean, do you think she's the only threat?" Marianne asked, examining her plait that her maid had done earlier on in the day. "Alfonso's quiet about the whole thing. We don't know anything about his relationship with the prince."
We? Does that between you and me? Honestly, you mean you and the little piece of blue and gold that's going to be sitting on the top of your head if you manage to pull this off.
"Arthur too," Marianne continued, blinking harshly at her reflection. "Who knows, between those two, Alfred could have proposed to either of them and they just want to keep quiet about it."
"Arthur's too messy in his relationship with Alfred," Natalya said, three quarters meaning it and a reluctant quarter upholding their agreement at the beginning. He hadn't done anything to sabotage her, anyway. Why should she throw him under the bus? "Doubt it. They fought again yesterday. Alfonso, though. You are right, he's a real black sheep. Who knows about him?"
"Focus on getting Emma out of the picture." Marianne said, although it sounded like a command more than anything. "If you're saying that Sakura's gone, she's the next one between us."
Natalya's jaw clenched at being ordered around like that. She was tired of being a pawn in yet another game of someone else's.
But if she didn't, she'd leave the game entirely. So she tried to focus on the few things she did agree with Marianne on.
"She acts like she's won this whole thing already. Like she's gotten Alfred all snug and wrapped up around her little finger. I won't believe her until she's gotten a ring on her finger and has that child."
"So a marriage won't do, but a baby?" Natalya said mockingly. She knew what it was first hand. Marianne probably didn't even know how painfully true it was when it happened halfway across the world.
"Marriage is just in name for some people," she responded dismissively. "A baby's a physical thing. Especially since Hearts basically means that anyone can have a child nowadays."
"A baby's supposed to be the next step, though. It's like a chain, binding the two of you as a couple." Natalya said.
"It's not supposed to be a chain," she replied, sounding a little confused. "It's supposed to be a physical manifesto of your love. How much you care for each other."
"Oh, it's so adorable that you think that's the only reason babies are born." she replied flatly. "As you said, we have more than one way to get what we want. It's a chain, binding you to power, to the other person, to whatever you want. You can't undo a baby that easily. If you had a child with him somehow, then that crown's yours. He's honourable enough to not kill you right after."
The other girl nodded slowly, as if she was pondering that method. But Natalya knew first hand how carrying a child of someone you didn't love hurt. It tore women – and men - apart, let alone their children. Natalya had seen those cold, loveless children in the streets, their clothes stained with ice and their feet bare and blue among the snow. Sure, Marianne would get her crown, but the only thing it would do was that it would make her and Alfred unhappy, stuck with a future neither of them truly wanted. If the child grew up knowing neither of their parents loved them, well. How broken would they be?
On these thoughts, Natalya hastily bid goodbye to Marianne, wanting to be alone with her thoughts.
Her deep, dark thoughts of a past she so badly wanted to forget, but thanks to him she couldn't.
Even if she tried. And Duchess, had she.
bah i'm so sorry i'm so quiet this chapter. i hope it'll be better next week
to all my USA readers, happy thanksgiving!
reviews, favourites and follows are what will keep me writing, so please go ahead and leave them! pls
