Giving me to you

February

Natalia's brain was a muddled mess as she came out of the assembly, a emergency meeting with all the girls and Madam B. Dreykov was there too, it meant that the issue was greatly serious. 

And indeed, the issue was....

Natalia swallowed hard and shuddered. Two of the widows, Eleana and Eva fell in love. They were found out, and a bullet was put into their temples. Love was not allowed to live, not in the icy realms of the Red Room.

Natalia never really knew what love was, only that it was forbidden, and would make her end up in bad places. It was banned for her ever since she was young. Just like Dreykov said, it was not a necessity, but a sinful luxury, one that she did not need. 

'Love is for children, and children are weak, defenseless.' Alexi often said, and Natalia agreed with the man on that one, Melina, undoubtedly, would agree too. They have no love for each other in their eyes, and they are alive, successfully alive. Natalia insisted that there was a connection between that. 

"Pst... Natalia..." Her younger sister nudged her on the way back, her eyes shining with curiosity. "Can girls and girls... be together?"

Natalia's step faltered, grabbing her sister by the shoulder. "Yelena, you must not speak of those things. Look at what happened to..."

The big hearted blonde shrugged, insisting on her questions. "But women and women together, I have not seen that before in the movies. It was always the men that are with women, no?"

Natalia's memories drifted back to when Yelena, Alexi, Melina and her were living in America, it was too long ago, at the edge of her mind, but there was a couple, in their middle ages, who were both women, and they looked... happy..."

"I think it is allowed, in the outside world...." Natalia's attention snapped back to the more serious matters. "But Yelena, you must be careful. If we were overheard..."

"They would not." Yelena comforted. "They are scared of me and you, because we are strong. They would not come near us."

"Yet negligence...."

"Natalia...."Yelena interrupted. 

"Yes Yelena?" Her green eyes softened again as they met her sister's brown ones. 

"I will be very happy, if you and Aria are together." Yelena said, her face serious, as if a priest announcing the ceremonies of a wedding. "I really like her, and won't mind sharing her with you." 

Natalia flinched. "Yelena. I don't think...."

"But you need to be nice to her, because if you are purposely mean to her, like you usually are, she's going to run away." Yelena continued. "And I won't have a nice sister-in-law that I like."

"Yelena!" Natalia covered Yelena's mouth with her own hands, her face felt like it was burning. "You are ten... Where did you...How do you know of these things"

"It was the TV that they show us." Yelena blinked, surprised. "In family analysis lessons, the ones about how to break families apart. But you need to promise to be nice to her."

"It's the psychology lesson you mean. And I am nice to Aria." Natalia protested. "I treat her like everyone else."

"You don't," Yelena insisted. "You won't look at her eyes, Madam B says that if one person is not looking at another person's eyes, they are likely to be hiding somethings. Every widow should train to talk whilst looking at other people's eyes because it lowers suspicion."

"Maybe I just don't like her eye colour." Natalia was slightly annoyed, which was unusual, she gets annoyed a lot, yet never at Yelena. 

"But her eyes look nice." Yelena stuck her neck out like a little bull, ready to argue back and defend her brown eyed friend. "And she is nice to you, nicer than she is to others."

"You don't know that." Natalia pursed her lips. 

"I do!" Yelena insisted. "She looks at you... Like... Like... like you are the cutest puppy in the world."

Natalia furrowed her brows. "Yelena!"

 The young girl did not stop. "She is happy whenever you are there, unless you are mean to her, which you often are."

"I..."

"We talk about you a lot as well, I tell her about Mom and Dad, and everything that I could remember. " Yelena continued. "She admires you, look up to you."

Natalia's eyes became cold as she pressed her hand down over her left chest, which had a weird tingling feeling. "Enough Yelena."

Her younger sister looked up, surprised. "Nat..."

"Enough." Natalia licked her lips. "What does it matter to me?"

Love kills people, makes them lose control. Love is not allowed in the Red Room, not between anyone, no matter if one of them is Madam B's favourite and the other one special enough to escape the cruel trainings. Love means death in the Red Room, emotions mean destruction. 

Aria... This... This girl with eyes too soft and a frame too fragile... She made Natalia's heart beat faster, makes her on edge, makes her heart uncomfortable. It surely means that Aria is not liked, Aria must been seen as a threat... It must have been her sixth sense warning her that....

"You are being cruel to her again." Yelena huffed unhappily, striding away from her sister, stomping her feet slightly as she leaves her sister in a turrent of thoughts and struggle. "But she is nice to you and me. You shouldn't do this."

"It is her choice to be nice to me, Yelena." Natalia bit her lip angrily. Why wouldn't her sister understand that living, surviving, doing what that has been asked and not more, not less, is the only path that the two of them would get out of here alive? Rebellion can be made, in secret, in areas tolerable, but not for this issue. 

"Love is for children." Natalia repeated to herself, her green eyes blanking, turning glossy and empty. "Love is for children, and children don't survive in the Red Room."