It was nearing sundown when Beatrice managed to make her way to the ruins, a pink silk brocade dress hanging from her tired form, the corset digging into her fresh wounds as she walked.
"Hello." The brown eyed girl spoke weakly, her greeting met with a bright smile and a princess running towards her.
"Hello, are you well?" Katya questioned as she saw the girl up close, noticing that she appeared to have been crying.
"I fear that I am not myself today." Trixie replied, and the Grand Duchess figured that the girl was just nervous, as she herself was.
"I feel as if my skin is the only thing keeping me from going everywhere at once." The princess replied honestly. Trixie took a deep breath, knowing the secret she had come to tell and knowing the risk it was to tell it.
"There is something I must tell you." She spoke, trying to gather her strenght.
"And I you. Oh here, your book, you left it in the carriage yesterday." Katya said, rambling as she herself had a large confession to make.
"Your Highness..." Beatrice started, trying to get the other woman to truly listen to her words.
"Katya." The other woman interrupted, to which Trixie only shook her head, not feeling that it was her right to use the Grand Duchess's name.
"I can not stay long, but I had to see you. There is much to say." The servant girl breathed out, the weight of her message heavy on her shoulders.
"Come. I want to show you something." Yekaterina interupted again, taking the other girl's hand and leading her towards a room of the former building where nature had built a garden by itself over time, the trees growing taller and taller, and plants climbing up the stone walls.
"I used to play here as a little girl while my father planned how the new capital should be arranged. All of Saint Petersburg was created while he spent time here." Katya told the girl. Beatrice looked around, it truly was a unique sight, it's wonder indescribable.
"It is beautiful." The brown eyed girl said as birds sung around them.
"I have meassured my life by these trees. Starting here, to all the way up there, and still they grow. So much life to live. But I no longer imagine it alone." The Grand Duchess admitted.
"You are not making this easy." Beatrice spoke, knowing that this offer was built on a lie and that this... whatever it was, had to reach it's end.
"I have not slept for fear that I would wake to find this all a dream. Oh, but last night I had a revelation. I used to think that if I cared about anything, I would have to care about everything and I'd go stark raving mad. But now, I have finally found my purpose. It is a project, actually, inspired by you. And I feel the most wonderful...freedom." Katya spoke as she pulled the other woman close, leaning her forehead against that of the fairy-like creature in front of her.
"It was not me." The poor servant girl tried to explain as tears fell, but the princess would not listen.
"Valeriya, you are unlike any courtier I have ever met. Tomorrow at the masque, I shall make it known to the world."
The Grand Duchess did not aim to hide any emotion, laying her heart bare before the other woman.
"Oh why, why did you have to be so wonderful?" The other girl cried, the words of love and care hurting more than any scolding or whip ever could. The heartache of knowing it would never work being too hard to bare, but saying that out loud to the woman she loved, far too painful to do.
"Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?" Katya asked, only reading the other's emotion as the girl being moved by her words.
"Simply that last night was the happiest night of my life." Beatrice said as she turned to leave, the other woman pulling her back and into a kiss. Katya wrapped her arms around the girl, but the servant girl winced in pain at the action.
"I'm sorry." The Grand Duchess said, tho not knowing why the action had hurt the woman.
"I must go." The brown eyed girl spoke through unstoppable tears.
"Valeriya." Katya called after her, but the girl kept running.
"No.. no." Beatrice whispered to herself as the pain grew inside her. She had failed to do what she had come for, and even worse she now knew she risked hurting the woman she loved, far more than she could have ever imagined.
As soon as Trixie made her way inside the manor after changing back into her regular clothes, she was met with her furious stepmother and stepsister.
"Of all the insidious jokes, turning your mother into a Countess? Why, it's almost as absurd as a Grand Duchess who spends her days with a servant who sleeps next to the pigs." The Baroness spoke harshly.
"What bothers you more, Stepmother? That I am common or that I am competition?" The young girl replied with spite.
"Where is the dress, Beatrice?" Her stepmother yelled as the staff and the last Lady of the House gathered to see what the spectacle was about.
"I don't know what you are talking about." Beatrice said calmly.
"The gown, the slippers, they were in my room this morning, and now they are gone. You hid them! I know it!" Violet yelled.
"Where did you put the gown, Beatrice?" The Baroness pressed once more, and that was the last straw for Trixie.
Her heart was already shattered at the impossibility of being with the woman she loved, and so in her own eyes, there was nothing left to loose. For all she knew her stepmother could have sold more of her family's possessions, for she herself had not seen the the gown or the shoes since she gave them in exchange for the book that her stepsister mercilessly let burn.
"Where are the candlesticks, and the tapestries, and the silver? Perhaps the dress is with them!" The blonde girl yelled, her voice almost breaking.
"You'll produce that gown!" Her stepmother demanded.
"I would rather die a thousand deaths than to see my mother's gown on that spoiled, selfish cow!" She countered, regretting it moments later when she noticed the Baroness seeming far too calm.
"Well, perhaps we can arrange that." Irina said, and before Trixie knew it she was thrown into the wine cellar, locked up like a prisoner behind a barred door.
"Open this door and you'll wish you never set foot in this house." The young girl heard her stepmother tell the other servants.
"Violet, Courtney, gather everything that will fetch a good price. We're going to town first thing in the morning." The Baroness said as she headed back upstairs.
"Mother, it is only a ball." Courtney said, trying to make the woman see reason, being in grave disagreement with her mother's actions.
"Yes, and you're only going for the food." The woman replied.
The blonde girl feeling as important as a mouse as her sister and mother kept walking.
YOU ARE READING
Ever After ✔~ trixya
Fanfiction"Her name was Beatrice Mattel. And this, was her glass slipper. Perhaps you will allow me to set the record straight?" The Grand Duchess says as she picks a beautiful shoe out of the silver box. "Then it's true? The story?" The writer enquires. "Yes...
