943 words. So close!
This doesn't make much sense. I think I was trying to work out some more history between Grisha and Katerina, then Cassius had to be included (because, hello, I can't ever ignore him) so it's just a bunch of randomness that flip flops back and forth.
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In Russia he stands against the iced horizon; he is mountainous. The solid square cut of his jaw, the way he takes you by the waist without pretense and full of expectation, claiming territory to the land that is you. He does not whisper. He does not speak much (he may speak more now, but then so do you) at all, only covers the stretch of your stomach with his large palm, his fingers warm and smelling of the horses.
“A child?”
You find your voice too severe. The wind catches it but does not make it softer. “No.”
Grisha has the expression your father wears often – a mix of perplexity and disappointment. His jaw tightens and you touch your fingers to the spot nearest his neck. “What did you do?”
“What I chose to.”
“And you had me learn about your condition through household gossip?”
“Better than hearing it from the dogs.”
You are unfit for motherhood. You are unfit for your station, crippled and bound by the apex between your thighs, designated a worth by your womb. You would spit on your fate if you had the chance. Only this country seems appropriate – its desperate wildernesses and cold terrain, its perseverance.
But all things change.
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Cassius has his feet on your desk.
You scald your mouth on the fresh coffee a servant brings while absently tracing designs on parchment paper. Your hair smells like fruit from an afternoon in the orchard and you feel dissatisfied, thinking of polite conversation and the withering glance of a mother that is not yours.
“You could marry me. It might simplify things.” He plucks fresh grapes from a bowl, their coldness and fragility smooth between his fingers, sounding bemused. He uses the same tone after drinking too much wine.
“For who? One of history’s greatest Queens never married, and she was perfectly capable.”
“Yes, but you are not a Queen.”
You scoff and form a curving line into the branch of a willow tree. “If I was I’d order the end of this dreadful conversation. Besides, imagine how boring married life would be. We’d be taking all of the sin out of our arrangement.”
Cassius laughs though there is a tinge of exasperation to the noise. He is tired too you realize – more worn out and threadbare than you are and, for a moment, you think he will leave. He will take himself away from you and it won’t be for himself but as a punishment to you – for your selfishness and brazen disregard of the necessity that he is. You have done this, you notice, you have brought him single-handedly to a position he does not favor.
Pointedly, you place down your graphite and paper. (You sketch constantly. Even without an instrument your fingers trace designs.) “Do I displease you, my Lord?”
“Relentlessly.”
You laugh. Short, heavy, full of winter spirit. “A marriage proposal would not change that.”
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Grisha scrutinizes you, and you feel bare. Unaccustomed to it, you pull your wrap closer around your body. The hour is late, the night is cold, and the fire is dying. Your estate is becoming a graveyard.
“Leave with me.”
“I cannot.”
“Staying is futile. The fighting is increasing. You cannot last another winter without – “
“I am leaving, Grisha. I am just not leaving with you.”
He is silent. The fingers of his right hand curl in towards his palm, and you think he wants to be holding the reigns of some warhorse rather than sitting in such dreariness. Battle suits him. Discipline, regimented hours, the handling of so many beasts amongst gunfire. He is wasted here, no matter the amount of gold (and there is not much now) her father offers.
“Where is he sending you?”
You open your palms, smirking. “The New World, so I may be lost there and no longer a burden to him. The way you might send baggage, also, I might add.”
“Then I must leave with you.”
You shake your head, milk-skin bright in the darkness, and push aside your heavy hair. He belongs here more than you do, but it is more than that. You, simply, are not worth any man’s devotion. You could not bear to be followed, could not be trained or learn to trust like a faithful mare.
“I cannot endure you.”
He laughs. It is so loud that the dogs stir, whining.
It feels like you’ve broken a bone but worse because, for some reason, you wanted this to happen.
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In bed you trace his hip with your nails. Cassius kisses your eyelids.
A compromise, you think. The admission of tenderness. You tell him that your mother died in childbirth, that your father never forgave you for not being a son, and that he dwindled his estate on poor investments. You do not tell him that he died during a period of civil unrest – it does not matter. Instead, placing a hand on his chest and touching at his collarbone, you tell him that he should have been there then. Should have known you, should have been the first to take you and unbridle you.
Cassius has a twist of scar tissue along the collarbone you touch. He tells you it’s from his father. Tells you that he wakes some nights thinking he can still hear him hollering, still hear the pounding of his cane. He tells you that he abhors snow but he would have found you, even in all of that isolation, but that he abhors this more – these revelations between them – because he thinks you will use them as knives later, meant to cut and harm.
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