(A/N: Hi Anastasia fandom! I've low-key obsessed with Anastasia since I first saw it a few years ago. Just the other week this simple idea about exploring Dimitri's and Anya's thoughts and motives popped in my head, nothing to crazy. Being a history major I like to make sure my stories have a decent amount of historical accuracy to them buttttt that all kind of went out the window with this since there's so much inaccuracy in the movie. I could write a list but I won't. Some people literally despise the movie for being so inaccurate but...its an animated movie. I don't mind it. I just wanted to write about the characters I love :) Or maybe I'm just obsessed with the whole discovering you're a long lost princess trope.)
The Boy and the Opening in the Wall
If there was one thing the Bolsheviks were good at, it was restricting travel within Russia. And if there was one thing Dimitri was good at, it was forging false travel papers to con the Bolsheviks.
Dimitri was good at conning in general. A man had to make a living somehow.
He picked up the exit visa he had been forging and held it close to his face as he used the light from the fireplace behind him to make sure he crossed all his T's and dotted all his I's—everyone was suspicious of everything. Once satisfied with his work—as he always was—Dimitri sat his pen down on the desk, a desk once used by royal advisers who worked within the Catherine Palace years ago. He recalled regularly exiting the office when he was younger was an older man with a long neck that Dimitri always made fun of. It must have belonged to him. Now, Dimitri was using it to forge paperwork since it was one of the offices with a formal desk left partially intact to write on.
The dusty grandfather clock chimed in the corner of the room—a miracle it still worked. 3pm. Just in time. The woman was most likely waiting outside already.
Dimitri grabbed his coat and papers and headed down the hall. After going down a few flights of carpeted stairs, he veered into a smaller hallway—servant's passage—instead of heading towards the main entrance. The dim, narrow, cobweb-filled hallway took him past the kitchen and to the back entrance where food deliveries were made in the past. As he passed the kitchen, he glanced into the abandoned room, a room he remembered once always bustling with action. People needed to be fed and the chefs worked continuously. Dimitri despised most of them; they bossed him around, always unappreciative of all the dishes he washed and messes he swept up, but Chef Ivan was his favorite. The young chef always snuck the boy some sweets after witnessing his hard work, claiming he knew it was difficult.
Nine years had passed since Dimitri last saw the man, and he hoped that somehow he was doing well, if that was even possible anymore—certainly not within St. Petersburg.
It was strange how Dimitri found himself hanging around the place he had once been forced to call home, although it was now a temporary arrangement. He simply needed an abandoned, inconspicuous place to work out of and for the people to know where to find him. Of course, he had every ability to write himself some travel papers and start somewhere new right that minute, but St. Petersburg was a bustling city, full of poor, miserable people. They were people who were willing to pay anything for a chance at a new life—the perfect people to sell forged travel papers to or to con in the black market, both ways to make some money for a new life. It was all about playing the cards right and waiting for the big ticket out.
Hopefully, his current arrangement wouldn't last long. Dimitri hoped the second half of the decade would be better. He already had plans in the making with Vlad. Rumors had widely been spreading for years that the Grand Duchess Anastasia was still alive and only in need of being found. Well, perhaps Dimitri could find her. Oh, he would find a grand duchess alright. Whatever reward her grandmother would offer in return would be his, and St. Petersburg would be in the past. Easy.
Smiling to himself at the idea of his plan, he arrived at the delivery door. Pushing it open, grunting at the weight of it, he found the woman waiting outside. She turned around, slightly startled at the noise.
A scarf wrapped around her neck now better covered the hand-shaped bruise around her neck that had been visible when he first spoke with her despite her earlier attempts to hide it with her coat. Her black eye was progressing in color. A hood over her head covered her auburn hair, snowflakes softly falling upon her.
Dimitri stared at her for a second. She was the right hair color, proper skin tone, stature, pretty, everything someone would want in a grand duchess—but her eyes were brown. Anastasia's were blue—the Romanov blue—a bright blue that captured the sky on the sunniest day. It was a shade Dimitri would never forget.
He mentally cursed himself, for staring at the woman who was already embarrassed and for having such a vivid picture of what Anastasia would look like. Obviously, a wrong eye color would have the woman dismissed with a glance, but Dimitri even would find himself staring at blue-eyed women who resemble the duchess and would dismiss them himself since the shades were not exact. Why was he being so picky?
Gathering his thoughts again as he glanced down at the papers in his hands, he cleared his throat and handed them over to the woman. "Katarina, these are your papers. Whenever you hand them over to someone for inspection, make sure you do so with confidence. Confidence is key. You shouldn't have a problem regardless. They're fool proof."
"Thank you," she softly replied, taking them. She reached into her pocket and pulled out some coins. "I'm sorry, but this is all I could scrounge up."
Dimitri studied her. She wasn't Anastasia, not even someone to play her imposture. She was a woman who needed a fresh start. She was the reality of St. Petersburg. He was playing a part in helping her escape to safety, a task he realized was difficult the day the Bolsheviks first overthrew the Romanovs.
He shook his head, pushing the money back to her. "Don't worry about it. Put that money to good use elsewhere. All I did was write up some paperwork."
"Are you sure?" she again offered him the money.
"I'm sure," he nodded. "Goodluck, Katarina."
"Thank you!" she exclaimed gratefully before heading off to start her new life.
So, he lost some money, but it wasn't as if there wouldn't be other opportunities, opportunities where lives weren't so evidently at risk. It was a shame he couldn't offer her a new life by taking her to Paris under the identity of the lost duchess.
He watched as she walked away until he could no longer see her. Then, he returned inside, stomping his shoes to remove the snow.
Dimitri was always on the lookout for a woman who could portray Anastasia, but what if he could find the real Anastasia? Where was she? No one knew. Dimitri had personally witnessed her and her grandmother take the servant's passage to safety, or so he had hoped. They were not with the rest of the royal family when they were slaughtered, so it was assumed she had escaped death by the Bolshevik firing squad. Her grandmother was alive and well in Paris where Anastasia should have accompanied her but mysteriously did not.
He made his way up a staircase, to a room that was one of the most heavily looted; everyone wanted to get their hands on something that once belonged to her. Dimitri came to a door that was left busted open since that fateful day and entered. The room was dusty and items were thrown everywhere. A window was shattered, large cracks ran up and down the glass. The dollhouse the young duchess used to play with was knocked over and broken. Expensive sheets from her bed were stolen. Anastasia's room was hardly recognizable.
Reaching into his pocket, Dimitri pulled out a music box. It had once belonged to her. She had dropped it as her grandmother pulled her away. He had found and kept it, not wanting it to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks. His childish self thought perhaps he could return it to her one day. As he got older, he knew that was unlikely, and realized he could instead make a fortune by selling it off. But he could never do that knowing she cared for it enough to risk her life to go back for it. Dimitri did, however, decide that it would be key in passing off an imposture to her grandmother. Knowing the box could at least essentially be returned to her grandmother helped take some of the guilt away.
Fiddling with the golden box between his hands, he walked over to the wall behind her bed. Dimitri ran his hand along a panel, his fingers tracing the edge of the hidden door. It was where he last saw the real Anastasia. He had seen her go back up to her room to fetch her music box and had followed her through the servant's passage. When officers broke through her door, Dimitri knew his passage was the only escape. He quickly informed her grandmother of it. She pulled her granddaughter along through it, and Dimitri closed the panel, stopping her from foolishly going back.
When he shut the panel, her blue eyes staring back at him were the last thing he saw.
Dimitri left his hand drop, his eyes returning to the music box. It was possible rumors were just that, rumors, and somehow she was captured during her escape—the servant's passage did not guarantee safety. And if that was the case, well, there was still a princess to be found, even if, to his disappointment, she lacked royal blood.
He couldn't wait forever for a fantasy to find him. No, he wanted out of St. Petersburg sooner rather than later. Dimitri would have to create the fantasy, his big ticket out. Such a con just might be the greatest moment in his life if he could pull it off, which he knew he would.
Her bed—if you could even call it that—loudly creaked underneath her as Anya adjusted her blanket and rolled over to get more comfortable, which was impossible. The lumps in her mattress felt like hard rocks underneath her and her thin blanket that did little to keep her warm had a musty smell to it, not to mention her deflated pillow, which even failed to block out the noise of the other children when she placed it over her head.
They were so loud tonight, and Anya was so tired. Headmistress Phlegmenkoff had made her do all the laundry as punishment for her "attitude" earlier that day and now she simply wanted to go to sleep. Usually Phlegmenkoff would be in to order the children to go to sleep by now, but she was probably delaying it in spite of Anya's desire to sleep. Instead the children, especially the younger ones, continued around the room making a ruckus.
Anya groaned, removing the pillow from her head and moving to lay on her back. She stared up at the ceiling. Oh, how she hated the orphanage, but it wasn't like she could remember any other life.
No, she couldn't remember how her eight-year-old self ended up alone and without her memories. Yes, she already tried to remember. Nothing came to mind. All she had was her necklace.
Together in Paris, it read. Anya played with it between her fingers as she often did. Who was waiting for her in Paris while she was stuck in this gloomy place? She hoped she could find the answer one day, but she knew it would be difficult. Paris was a large city, and she had no idea what she was looking for, not to mention how she would even get there.
Anya had a year left at the orphanage, and then afterwards, she knew she would be given a job at whatever factory or mill within the area was hiring where she would work her life away. As much as she hated the orphanage and Phlegmenkoff's chores, her life would most likely only get worse. Lives within factories could be demanding and excruciating. It seemed like all there was to do in the country was work one's life away for little in return.
She had heard stories of how better life was before the Revolution, not perfect, but certainly not this gloomy. Some of the children even younger than her could remember bits and pieces of the world before the chaos, but Anya remembered nothing of a life under the reign of the executed Romanovs.
Anya wondered what it would have been like to have been one of the princesses—no chores to do, a part in a big family, a room to herself.
A room to herself was all she ever wanted, a place where she could be left alone, peacefully get some sleep, and a place to call her own.
She closed her eyes and imagined a royal bedroom of her own. It had fancy, decorative walls covered with large paintings of beautiful places and many smaller photographs of people who had been in her life. Tall windows let the sunlight in to brighten the room. They offered a view of the palace's snow-covered courtyard...Anya could watch a younger boy with a limp run around in the snow.
The room was large and offered space for seating, dressers, vanities, a phonograph, and more toys than an orphaned child could have dreamed of owning! A large castle to house dolls sat on the floor by the window—the warmth from the sun making it the most optimal place to play. A table behind it held many art supplies, mainly paints. A large, blank canvas and easel sat in the corner of the room next to her bed.
Her bed! A proper bed all to herself! It was large and comfortable, not to mention warm. Layers of soft, warm sheets kept her warm at night and the satin pillows were always fluffy. Oh, how comfy and warm it was to snuggle in on a cold night!
To the left of the bed was a table with a flowered lamp sitting on top. However, it did not sit right beside the bed. Between the two was a gap, enough open space in front of a wall panel to allow it to open.
From inside her room it did not look like a door. There was no handle, and when completely shut it blended in completely with the lines of the wall. Anya's eyes shut tighter as she fought to recall. The room grew darker as the sun went away and it snowed heavily outside. The wall could be opened wide by a boy with messy brown hair. He wasn't much older than her, and he ushered her through the opening. A sense of urgency hung in the air.
Anya struggled to picture the inside of the secret passage. Where would it take her? Why—
"Ouch!" she opened her eyes and sat up; a hand moved to her head. Looking beside her, she found a small ball that had hit her, bringing her out of her imagination and making her curious visions disappear back into thin air.
Anya picked it up and threw it back at the younger boys who stood laughing on the other side of the room. "I'm trying to sleep here!"
With a grunt she rolled over, bringing her blanket all the way up to her head as she attempted to hide within herself and stay warm. What was she thinking about again? Oh, yes. Just how nice it would be to have a room to herself where she could sleep in peace.
One more year sleeping in the orphanage sounded too dreadful. Afterwards, she would most likely still share a room with other women near whatever factory she would work at. At least they wouldn't be ill-behaved children.
It wasn't as if Anya hated everyone who lived at the orphanage. She made friends and helped to comfort some of the younger children. Many of them could remember the families they had lost. Anya supposed she was lucky in that regard; she couldn't remember who she had lost. But she also couldn't remember who she hadn't lost. She was the one who was lost. Someone hadto be out there searching for her. Someone in Paris.
As she closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep despite the noise, Anya knew there had to be someone out there to fill the agonizing void in her life and make her more than just the nameless orphan she was.