Narcissa Rostand's Journal - The Rostand

Irwin Garotte nee Casanova's words that were never spoken

Narcissa Rostand.

Who could forget about her?

I remember well my childhood spent with her following me everywhere; while she was a bit boring to speak with, much too gone on becoming an exemplary Family Head, her appearance was striking enough to shock anyone: bright pink hair, most of it up in a practical ponytail but for the bangs framing her cheeks, making her blue eyes stand out from in between, just like the freckles over her nose.

She always wore elegant blue clothes, the mark of an Heiress in her family, and now, many years later, it's a bit easier to admit that she intimidated me: even in her youth she was so self-sufficient and even stronger than the rest of us simple children. Even when I was recognized as an adult she would still have no need for me to come running to her rescue - I would know; I saw her besting countless moffs-shifters in front of my very eyes.

She was impressive, I can't deny it.

For a time I thought she favoured me over any other of the many boys that flitted around her, but I could not trust such illusions. My brother sugested that I put her possible love for me to the test so to speak, so I could really believe that such a lady would take me even if only as her boyfriend.

The Garotte Family was an upstanding one, besides the fact that we the Casanova owed them a monetary debt. It was accorded that such would be waived if I were to enter a betrothal with any of her daughters, and Tamara was the one to propose to me.

The plan was fool-proof: if Narcissa really wanted me as her husband she would break off the contract between me and the Garottes, claiming me as her engaged and taking care of the debt for us as reparations for the breached contract.

Ah, what delusions accosted me as a young man.

I didn't love Tamara, nor did I love her passionately in the years we shared together. She was the woman I had to eventually marry so my older brother could have his happy life without debts interfering on it. The most we got to be to each other was friends, and at times it felt stilted.

I have asked myself if maybe I should have not heeded Lance's advice; the close relationship I had shared with Narcissa Rostand was lost once I started going out with Tamara to honour the contract. Never again did I hear, not even by chance, a secret of her.

I thought she would obliterate that betrothal once word of it got to her, that she would fight for me and stake the claim I thought she had on me.

Instead she married a Boruboni, and that did not surprise me in the slighest: the family was rich and had close blood relations to the Royal Family, unlike the Casanova - a has-been family, poorer than hers, far more smaller than hers or her husband's.

There was never a chance for a girl - a woman like her to ever fall in love with someone like me, despite growing up as neighbours and childhood friends.