"Get your bloody hands off me!" a scratchy and distinctly Anglican voice yelled from inside the room. Several maids-in-waiting stood outside the door, waiting for their cue to come in and all wearing similar looks of surprise and shock. There was a large thump from the room, as if something heavy had fallen, and a squeal quickly followed.
"We should go in and help them!"
"No! We'll get in trouble!"
"Then call the butler!"
"This is ridiculous!" A rather small maid pushed past the others and threw open the chamber doors, her blonde hair bouncing behind her in pigtails and a pair of spectacles resting on the bridge of her nose. With a huff, she took several strides inside and calmly assessed the situation.
"What the hell is going on here?!" The room was a mess. Blankets were strewn all about, and a suspiciously toppled chair lay by the giant armoire, which looked a bit worse for wear. The maid by the bedside shifted anxiously, her hands to her chest. She obviously had no idea what to say. The other maid, standing in front of the bed, seemed close to tears.
"That's what I'd like to know." A mostly naked blond man was in the corner, holding up his pillow threateningly. The small maid—Alice—found herself blushing heavily. She looked away, but not before noticing the flying mint bunnies on his boxers. After a second to gather her thoughts and strengthen her resolve, she turned back to the man, now confident she wouldn't freak out while seeing him without his modesty. However, just as she was about to administer a swift and harsh scolding, she was stopped by the striking sight of her eyes... on his face.
She froze. How could there be someone who wasn't even family with her eyes? It was impossible. The eyes were a genetic trait, passed down through her line only. It had been a matter of pride in her family before they fell from grace. When she looked closer, Alice saw his straw blond hair and the perfectly-normal-thank-you-very-much eyebrows covering half his forehead. He really could have been a member of the family, but that wasn't possible.
She would have known, unless… No, that was too absurd to even think about. Francis promised he had taken care of it. Sure, she trusted him about as much as she would trust a pit viper, but he wouldn't—he couldn't!—lie about that.
Arthur was briefly just as surprised by Alice's appearance as she was by his, but he shook it off in light of more looming worries. He waited for something to be said as he regarded her and her broom. She probably wouldn't think about twice about using it as a weapon. These "urban" folk were all uncivilized fools. A shiver ran down his spine at the thought of the broom hitting his bare skin.
Wait... his bare skin? Where the devil were his clothes?! Arthur blushed furiously. He tried hiding behind his pillow, but to little effect. He was done. It was all over. He couldn't live like this. Arthur was definitely going to drop dead any second now. The embarrassment was too much. In just about five seconds he would go insane.
He could feel the emotions welling up inside. Sadness, fear, confusion, fear, a touch of rage, fear… It was all there, and he couldn't handle it. Arthur was sure it couldn't get any worse when, out of nowhere, a wave of new smells hit him all at once, thousands of them, all overloading his senses. He couldn't breathe, his lungs constricted. Arthur was panicking. What was happening to him? He had never felt anything like this before! His breaths came out in shorter and shorter bursts.
Alice was finally snapped out of her stupor by the hyperventilating man. She nearly smacked herself for her stupidity. The smell was as clear as day now. How could she have missed it? The poor Omega was terrified. Alice rushed to Arthur and wrapped her arms around him. She could feel him shaking.
"Shhh, you're okay. Nothing's going to hurt you," Alice crooned. She ran her fingers through Arthur's hair, like her mother would do when she was a child. "You're probably the safest person in the kingdom. Now look at me." There was no reaction from Arthur. Alice sighed and forced his face up.
"Okay, I know you're scared, but that's perfectly normal. You're in a new place. You probably don't remember much. The same thing happened when the last Queen was chosen. It's okay."
She gestured for the other maids to leave. They hurried out, relieved to escape the drama unfolding in front of them and joining the other maids outside the room. All of whom were gossiping about the Queen, and his arrival in the room after allegedly feinting in the Oasis of light.
Alice's comforting seemed to be working. Arthur's breathing had slowed down. He was beginning to get a grip on himself.
"There we go. Take some deep breaths. In and out. Come on, you can do it." Arthur followed her mantra of 'ins' and 'outs', taking in breaths in time with her words. Though he was started to calm down, he was still very troubled. What was happening? Why hadn't his magic worked earlier, when he had first woken to strange people trying to do... something? And what were these strange smells?! He just felt so weak. Arthur wasn't used to feeling this unsure. His eyes watered just the tiniest bit. Was he going to cry? No, of course not! There was just some dust in his eyes. He raised his arms around the now silent Alice and, before he even knew what he was doing, began sobbing into her shoulder.
Alice was taken aback by the sudden onslaught of tears, but still she pulled him closer, easing the two of them to the floor. Though she was never one to comfort others she, for whatever reason, was feeling abnormally affectionate today. She would worry about her problem with Francis another time. For now, the Queen was her responsibility.
"Privet, brother!" called a blonde woman with an admittedly large chest as she stepped into the cabin. The warm smell of pine and spice greeted her, with even the tiniest bit of vodka in the air. A large man walked through the door on the other side of the spacious common room, wearing an almost floor length beige coat and crème coloured scarf. He would usually wear his favourite green coat and hat, but he didn't need them for what they had planned today.
"Privet, Kat. How are you?" he asked with his trademark smile.
She laughed. "Very good! I finally figured out what was wrong with Mesto. It seems the other calves were being mean to him. I gave him a treat to help feel better. Is Natalia here yet?"
A worried look briefly crossed Ivan's face. "I don't know," he said, giving the closet a cautious glance, "but I have my suspicions."
Katya let out a weary sigh. Her siblings' antics were cute, but this was growing tiring. With a quick roll of the eyes, Katyusha strode towards the closet and wrenched it open. To the surprise of both her and Ivan, it was empty. Shuffling between the jackets and checking it both up and down just to make sure, Katya was forced to admit she must have made a mistake. Evidently, she didn't know her sister nearly as well as she had thought.
Katya's eyes began to water. She wiped away a stray tear and turned around to tell her brother about her failure as a sister. There she saw him... being terrorized by Natalia! She was hanging upside down from a rope tied to the ceiling. The rope led from its dropping point to a beam, then to another right above the closet—so she really had been in there! Katya knew her sister after all! Katya's eyes lit up.
"Privet, sister! How was your journey here?"
Natalia stopped her mantra of 'marry me' just long enough to answer. "Good."
She turned back to Ivan. "Marry me, brother. We'd be perfect together. Marry me, marry me, marry me..."
Ivan's face turned even paler. The second he had sensed her behind him after checking the closet, he went stock still in the hopes that she would lose interest and move on, or that Katya would notice and help him. Now he knew this was futile as Katya obviously wasn't going to be of assistance—she was busy going over what was for dinner—and Natalia could continue for hours. He sighed internally. With this situation, he only had one option left.
"Natalia," he said, softly. "Yes?" she answered in a monotone voice.
"I'm your brother!"
With that, he took off running into the nearest hallway and slammed the door behind him. He also stacked some of the hallway furniture behind it for good measure, then made a mad dash for his room. The door had only just closed when Natalia, who had appeared out of nowhere, tried to force her way in. He choked on his sigh of relief when she began scratching at the door.
She would moan 'brother' every now and again, occasionally throwing in a 'marry me' or two. There were times where she would stop and Ivan would hope she had finally calmed down, only for his heart to drop when she started all over again. Sadly, this sort of thing was happening more and more. Ivan knew something was up, or she wouldn't always be falling into this mania. Why was she contacting the spirits so frequently?
Downstairs, Katya was busy rifling through the pantry, looking for the ingredient she needed for dinner. She had set a pot of water over the fire to boil, a pile of beets and other assorted vegetables and meats set on a nearby table. What she was missing, though, was cabbage, and it was really beginning to annoy her. It was tucked away at the back of a small cabinet when she found it, or rather, when she found the remains. As exasperated as she was that no one had bothered to tell her to pick up some extra cabbage along with the other things she had bought, Katya couldn't bring herself to complain.
There was no point when she could just grow some more cabbage. It was too late to cook something else. During her search, she had been slowly making the borscht until the only ingredient she needed was cabbage. She couldn't just leave it out; she had never deviated from the recipe before and she didn't plan on starting now.
Katya grabbed what was left of the cabbage and exited the cabin through the kitchen door. There was a soft patch of ground just outside, and she kneeled down to dig a small hole, just deep enough for the cabbage to grow well. She found a patch of soft ground to grow the cabbage in. She kneeled down and dug a small hole, just deep enough for the cabbage to grow well in. After burying it in the dirt, Katya reached into the pocket of her overalls to grasp a small bottle of water. She pulled out the cork and poured a little bit of the contents over the mound of dirt.
Her hands now held out above the wet patch, she began to murmur ancient prayers to the Goddess of Harvest. The mound started to glow with a warm light. Slowly, she lifted her hands up, and a small head of cabbage sprouted up and began growing larger, as if chasing after them. The light eventually faded and the cabbage froze in its size. Right in front of Katya was a fully grown head of cabbage. She grabbed at the base and heaved it out of the ground, bringing it up to examine. Yes, this would do nicely.
Oooh~ Things are starting to get interesting, no? ^.~ Why are the braginsky siblings gathering? Sprits? What spirits? Did katyusha just use *gasp* magick?! What's the connection between Alice and Arthur?~
Thank you for reading thus far. I hope you're enjoying the story~
Let's give a big round of applause for SakuraMoriChan! Who single handedly saved your eyes from having to experience the toxic sludge that are my writing skills~(^.^)~ Ciao for now!