❛ IF THEY CANNOT SURVIVE, LET THEM DIE ❜
Children born into the shadows of war are never quite right. It is a truth that Vasily Aleksandrov has always known. He has never known peace, though he longed for it.
The Old Gods did not give privy to thos...
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HER EARLIEST MEMORY WAS OF THE weight of a gun in her hand. Nearly half her size, she remembers how her arms strained under the bulk of it as she trembled in terror. Her mother had been beside her, heavily pregnant and sobbing as she clawed at the arms of the Mirtovorty man holding her back.
Though the memories have faded with time, she has not forgotten the feel of a gun in her hands, or the resounding noise that came when she pulled the trigger.
It is the memory of her executing her own father that often haunted her on the darkest nights. Try as she may to bury these fragmented echoes of the past, on the days when the nights were long and consuming, she recalls the resignation in his eyes.
Like her, he knew that death came for them all in the end.
At only seven years old, Tatiana found herself burdened by the guilt of his death — a consequence of his own actions, actions she did not fault for him, because she would have done the same thing. When faced with losing life or limb in war and being by his family's side, he chose the latter.
Tatiana did not fault her father for this anymore than she did not resent her mother for blaming her for his death.
It is because she cannot sleep that Tatiana finds herself in the company of a homely young man by the name of Ivan. A pale, wispy thing with a nervous disposition. He had always been a welcomed change to her usual patrons. Only a few months older than her, but not yet old enough to be drafted into the war, Ivan frequented the bawdy house during the late hours, hoping to catch her unoccupied.
He treats her with a kindness that is unexpected in such an establishment, but Tatiana was thankful for it during times like these.
Ivan is below her, flushed and softly panting with each cant of her hips. He calls her name in a voice that is sweet, and had her heart not hardened over the years, Tatiana could have loved him for his sincerity.
Her hands caress the gaunt edge of his cheeks and he sighs, irises glazed over and hands wavering in their grasp of her hips. "Tatiana," he sighs out her name, expression gentle with affection that she had only known from a rare few. "Please."
