The Spark That Ignites the Dawn

Chapter Three: the Swan that Cried for Freedom

A/N: Media is how I imagine Vasi to look. 

'There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.' - Maya Angelou

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Vasilisa stared at the pale fingers on her left hand for an uncharacteristically long time.

Vasi didn't like to sit still. The fact made her a very bad swan most of the time, as drifting across a lake during the day bored her, as swans were wont to do. But there was only around a half hour until dawn, and Vasi's spell would claim her once more, taking away the slender hands and the long limbs. She'd feel herself become small, webbed and necked as a swan once more.

She swallowed. She'd already left Sig on the pretence of returning home, as she did every morning. It had never seemed out of the ordinary before, and what Sig thought of her, she could only imagine. Most respectable girls didn't spend their nights wandering by lake shores, but then again, she could only imagine the sorts of girls Sig had spent time with. Certainly not ones that roamed out of their beds before dawn. But this time, telling Sig she was leaving, he had offered to walk with her. Almost presumptively, as though she would say yes. As though if not this time, then the next time, he would meet her family. He would see what sort of girl he'd asked an audience with.

Alone.

She wanted to curse Marya for letting it happen, letting him catch her alone, because she knew her friend had to be in on the secret. Marya had been mysteriously absent all evening, absent in a way that would have worried her if Sig hadn't been so obvious.

Siegfried, Prince of Illychia— their Sig— had proposed.

Vasi wanted to wring her hands in the lunacy of it. He'd brought wine tonight, and a beautiful silk blanket, and sat them beneath the wooded stars. Vasi had begun to realise, then, that something was up: no Marya, no laughter. A mood so sharp it would cut through the waters of the lake she was chained to.

He'd given this speech. Vasilisa hadn't known where to look, and being only the two of them, she could only look at him. At his eyes, following her too closely, too confident, with a desperation for a connection to her. Snatches of the speech still caught her ears, even as she tried hard not to listen.

'Your beauty captured me the moment I laid eyes upon you.'

Captured, he'd said. Like he had any idea what it was like to be unable to leave a place.

'I love you, Vasilisa.' He said it earnestly. Like he had any idea what love was.

Vasilisa's response had frozen at that point. Because how can you deny someone feels something? She couldn't, no matter how ludicrous Sig sounded, as though he thought they had been plucked from the constellations and written for one another. She couldn't deny that he felt he loved her, even when he knew nothing about her.

The Prince? Marrying a swan? She had chuckled, and then realised her mistake: the trembling of his hands. The way his eyes stopped meeting hers.

She took the proposal as only half serious, and truly hurt his feelings.

But that wasn't the worst part. For taking him half seriously, Vasi could be forgiven, one day. With a sincere apology. But that wasn't all that she'd done. The worst part came next.

Vasi's knuckles whitened as she clenched her skirt, borrowed from Marya. Oh, Marya. If Sig wanted real beauty, he only need look for the gentle soul that was her dearest friend.