Anastasia

[TearsoftheWorld]

There was a time, not very long ago, when we lived in an enchanted world of elegant palaces and grand parties.

The air outside was chilly, and snow continued to fall, coating the ground in a fresh blanket. Horse drawn carriages continued to parade down the streets towards a large palace, the black iron gates opening up widely to allow them inside. Lights gleamed from every window, and the sound of music filled the air.

A party was being held...

A grand party to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of Imperial Romania. It was, as well, the 300th anniversary of the rule of the Romanov family. Hundreds were invited from all over, and the grand ballroom was alive with the sound of cheers and laughter, and the dance floor was never empty.

A grand party... that was not meant to last.

"What is going on, grand mama?" a young girl with red hair and bright blue eyes asked as she ran up the carpeted stairs leading up towards the Dowager Empress, a woman of aged beauty and unparalleled intellect.

Yet for her granddaughter, Marie had no answers.

She, along with the young Anastasia, was forced to watch as their former adviser, Ironav, entered into the palace and began cursing the royal family. Mystical energy had swirled about him, and the lights inside turned dark...

"I'm scared," Anastasia mumbled as she huddled close to her grandmother. All the Dowager Empress could do was rub her shoulders gently, softly humming their favorite lullaby.

Ironav's curse began workings its unholy magic, and within a fortnight the country was up in arms in rebellion. Years of unrest finally broke through, and the spark of unhappiness in Romania turned into a living flame

Rebel soldiers had fun storming the castle, slaying nearly every member of the Romanov family.

All, except for the Dowager Empress and the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Through the help of a kitchen boy, Dmitri, the last surviving members fled the palace and escaped. In their attempts to escape into the countryside, Anastasia became separated from her grandmother, and falling she hit her head, knocking her unconscious.

Upon waking, Anastasia could not remember who she was, or where she came from. All she had was a simple necklace around her neck, a charm with the words, 'Together in Paris', written on the front, and the name, 'Anya', written on the back.

As a young child of only eight years, Anastasia found her way to an orphanage. She kept the necklace, thinking that one day she would set out on her own to find out what the world had in store for her.

To find out who was waiting for her...

===

Ten Years Later

===

"I'm leaving!" Anya said loudly, placing the dark cap over her head. The matron of the orphanage was practically shooing her out, cursing and mumbling and complaining about how unpleasant Anya had been while staying there.

Waving to the rest of the children, Anya couldn't help but smile at them. They had been her family for the last ten years, and she secretly wished to see them again. But now it was time for her to set out on her own.

"Little miss Anya, it's time to take your place in life. In life, and in line! And be grateful, too!" the matron said sternly, almost condescendingly. Anya mimicked her tone of voice, earning a fierce glare once she realized the matron had heard her.

After their own "private" goodbyes, Anya finally left the orphanage and set out on the road. Snow once again covered most of the ground, but it hadn't yet piled up so walking wasn't much of a hassle.

"Hmmm, left or right?" Anya asked herself as she came to a fork in the road. To the left was...

"Well I already know what's to the left," she grumbled.

"Anya the orphan," she added. Her bright blue eyes looked to the right, and the sign was pointed in the direction of St. Petersburg. A devilish little smile came across her face as her fingers played with the charm wrapped around her neck.

 

[ChasNicollette]

The snow wafted from the sky, countless tiny flakes gathering together to form drifts that covered over pathways and to climb the walls of buildings.

December in Saint Petersburg.

Dmitri gazed out through a frosted window, standing in the ballroom with his hands in his pockets as he watched the snow come down.

(Of course, they didn't call it that anymore. "Saint Petersburg." What was it this week? Petrograd? So many changes between February and October.)

But this wasn't October. This was December.

And as with every December since that one ten years previously, he remembered. Remembered the fire and the screaming and the secret passages all royal palaces have and all the servants know.

It had been in this very building, a building that even in its beauty had never ever recovered from having its family, its royal inhabitants, torn away from it so viciously. It never ever had recovered, and it never ever would.

(There had been a government here for awhile. Between February and October. But they had not loved this place like its family had done.)

It made him think. Because while it had been this very building, it had not been this very December.

He had changed a lot. He was a handsome brown-haired deep-eyed fellow, eight years of rebellion alternating with hard work plus ten years on his own on the streets.

(Well, not entirely on his own.)

Claws clicked over the ornate tile of the floor, blues and purples and golds and reds, and a quadruped bounded up onto the windowsill of the window through which Dmitri gazed.

Dmitri barely blinked, but the cat's tail was twitching uncontrollably.

"Y'know what I like best about Winter in this town?" the cat opined, gaze lazy as he followed Dmitri's eyeline through the glass.

"I have a feeling you're about to tell me," Dmitri replied.

The cat, orange with brownish stripes, muscled well with paws and tail just a little too chunky for his body, forever a kitten waiting to be a full-grown tom, glanced around quickly at Dmitri and squinched golden-brown eyes.

"I love listening to the mice in the walls," the cat mused happily. "Reminds me that for once I don't have to go out to eat."

"While the rest of us still have to wade out into the snow to scrabble and make a ruble," Dmitri drawled, shaking his head, "and wait in line for crumbs of bread."

The cat seemed to contemplate this. And as he contemplated this, he lifted his left forepaw slowly and thoughtfully to his face and began to lick it slowly.

"It ain't a perfect world," he eventually concluded. And then he eyed Dmitri. "There's mice in your walls, too. So ta speak. I can almost hear 'em scuttling. You okay?"

"Yeah, fine," Dmitri dismissed, at first. "Perfect."

He hesitated. "It's just that--"

The cat looked at Dmitri expectantly.

There was real pain in Dmitri's eyes.

That never happened. Dmitri was the most Method con artist that the cat had ever met. He never ever broke character-- this was a hard-learned survival skill --he was always the cool customer, the man whose charm and wit and charisma had no limits, the man whose charm and wit and charisma got bread onto the table when nothing else could.

"I don't want to spend another Winter in this town," he murmured. "I have to. I have to get out of here."

The cat blinked. He had to chew this over for a moment. He hadn't been expecting a response of that magnitude.

He licked his lips.

"Well. I'm sure that. Something'll. I mean--"

A wood slammed against wood somewhere nearby and far away and there came the sound of a voice singing some foreign-tongued opera at the top of his lungs.

And in that instant, the sound of the slamming entrance, the pain left Dmitri's eyes and he was back to being the coolest customer on the planet. After all, even a talking cat was easier to talk to than another human being. (And dogs were another matter entirely. Dmitri hated dogs -- he was allergic.)

Vladimir was home.

Dmitri turned away from the cat as if the moment had never transpired and walked to meet his only two-footed friend.

The cat stretched and yawned and sighed audibly. "Glad we had this little talk."

And then he bounded down from the windowsill and followed Dmitri.

(Maybe Vladimir had brought him a pigeon he'd found frozen in the snow. Sometimes he did that. Vladimir had always been nice to the cat.)

They found him banging the snow off of his boots, leaning against the wall beside the loosened boards they all used to get in through what had once been the picture window over-looking The Palace Square.

His eyes were dancing in time with his singing, a roly-poly giant round strong man with thick brown hair and a stylishly-maintained beard.

(How he managed to stay so well-fed-looking given the poverty of the world around them, the cat would never understand. He must have been a Talking Bear in a previous life, and must still have some hibernation fat somehow left over from that life which he'd somehow managed-- against conventional wisdom --to take with him when he went. To carry over with him.

Either he'd been a Talking Bear, or some other great large species of Beast.)

And with him, now placed on the floor a short distance from the snow that had clumped on Vladimir's boots, was a great leather satchel.

"Did you find anything for us?" Dmitri wondered.

The cat trotted right up to the satchel and, after a moment of nuzzling it firmly, stuck his head under its flap and into its interior, devil-may-care, utterly curious. His voice came out from under the satchel's flap, muffled: "Is it a pigeon?"

"Of a sort," Vladimir smiled smugly, triumphantly.

The cat withdrew his head from the pack and grunted disappointedly up at Vladimir.

"Oh," he lamented sardonically. "Only 'of a sort.'"

Dmitri arched an eyebrow, intrigued. "Who's the pigeon?"

"The Dowager Empress," Vladimir puffed proudly. "She is looking for her granddaughter, and she is offering a tremendous reward. She is looking for Anastasia."

Dmitri digested this for a moment. "Aren't all her granddaughters dead? Anastasia included?"

Vladimir clapped both his hands to his girthsome stomach and smiled as delightedly as could be: "Oh, most assuredly. But that is not stopping her from looking. And neither should it stop us from 'helping' The Dowager Empress to find 'her.'"

A light dawned in Dmitri's eyes, a slow burning light that grew until it threatened to wash the Petrograd winter away: "This is. A very good point. There are no better men in all of the nation or all of the world better equipped to 'help' her to find 'Anastasia' than we two."

"Da," Vladimir grinned. "These are my thoughts exactly. Give me a moment to get feeling back into my fingers, and we can go back out and 'ask around' until we find 'her.'"

"And people call me a predator," the cat smirked to himself, cleaning his whiskers, sounding rather impressed.