Katerina Vorontsov
December 11, 2020 4:53 PM
Beginnings and Endings and Beginnings by Katerina Vorontsov
OOC: It should be assumed all dialogue is in Russian BIC:
Katya’s things were all packed away, either put away for the year or to go with her to Sonora, but it was impossible to tell that the volume of things in the room had decreased in any way. Both beds were covered in dresses, hats, headdresses, and other articles of clothing; the floor was scattered with pairs of shoes, and the dresser with jewels. She raised an eyebrow, looking around at it all and then to her sister.
“I would have thought you would be sick of wearing green,” she remarked.
Tatiana shrugged, one thin shoulder rising and falling. “Vladya asked me to tea,” she said, continuing to brush out her long brown hair. The brush, Katya knew, had been sprayed with Florida water, scenting her hair with a bright scent not dissimilar to orange blossom honey. Tatya had, of course, worn her hats most of the time when they were outside over the summer, except for games of Quidditch and tennis, but while the usual battery of lotions and creams had mostly preserved Tatiana’s complexion, the sun had gotten to her hair a little, lightening it and bringing out glints of what might have been dark gold in the wavy brown mass falling over her shoulders. “It is the first of September,” she continued, turning her head slightly before the mirror. “On the first of September, we wear green.”
Katya shook her head. “Once I leave Sonora, I’m not sure I’ll ever wear green again.”
“Oh, but you must! You look so pretty in emeralds.”
“I think they look better on you,” she demurred. “Remember when Mama lent you her emerald earrings for the Orlovs’ ball?”
Tatiana smiled, either at the memory or at her own pretty reflection in front of her. “You wear too much pink,” she said,” she said, and then added, seemingly unconnected to the previous statement, “you should ask Sonia to borrow her ruby necklace at Christmas.”
“Maybe,” said Katya. “So. Vladimir Brockert. He already wants to see you again?”
“You make it sound so remarkable,” laughed Tatiana. “But I suppose so – if he didn’t, why would he invite me to tea?”
“Do you think he will propose by Christmas?”
Tatiana was so surprised that she pulled her own hair with the brush. “Vladya? Are you crazy?” she laughed. “Why would Vladya propose to me?”
“You both have to marry someone,” said Katya sensibly. “It would be a good match for us. We would get a good connection to the American families, and he is half-Russian. And an only son,” she added pointedly. “And he’s handsome enough, too. Not bad for the third daughter.”
“Or the fourth – since it sounds to me like you want to marry him, Katya!”
Katya shrugged. “I would consider it, if he paid court to me, and if you don’t want him,” she said. “I’m not as picky as you.”
She tried to keep her tone neutral, but Tatiana clicked her tongue anyway. “Oh, another lecture before you go?” she said, and Katya could tell from her tone that she was preparing to be stubborn. “You spend too much time thinking about me, Katya – you should worry about your own hand, if you’re going to worry about such a thing.”
“I don’t have to worry about mine because I do things correctly,” she replied. “I will be fine. You…” She gestured around at the chaos of clothes. “Look at this. You are eighteen, and you are pretending you are still a schoolgirl!”
“You are taking everything so seriously. It is not very much fun,” observed Tatiana.
“I just want you to be sensible,” said Katya.
For a moment, she thought Tatiana was going to flash her temper at her, but her sister seemed to rethink the matter. “I won’t have much of a chance to do anything else,” she said. “Not with Anya and the baby under my feet all the time. I’m sure Anya will do as good a job of reminding me to be dour and get married as you would, malen’kaya,” she teased, and Katya wrinkled her nose as the ‘little one’ designation.
Tatiana had pinned her hair up to go see Katya leave with Mama and Papa for the wagon, looking all the part of a respectable older sister as they had exchanged kisses and assurances that they did love each other really and promises to write often. As soon as she was back upstairs, however, she began pulling pins and undoing twines, then brushed it out again before picking up a green kokoshnik and pushing her hair back from her face with it, turning this way and that to see how it looked with her hair loose and the veil still attached to the back of it. Should she take off the veil, if she was going to wear it like this?
She felt a flicker of guilt, but quickly suppressed it. It wasn’t, after all, completely a lie, what she had said to Katya. She knew that Anya was much of a mind with Katya about what was proper and what was not. She was just counting on her eldest sister being too busy with her baby and her husband and her calendar to supervise her and nag her as much as Katya might like….
Part of her was not looking forward to telling her best friends that she was going to spend most of the next few months in Russia, living with her eldest sister on the pretext that she was there to reconnect with her own people, but it had to be done. It was not, she reasoned, as if she was really going to be that much further away from them than she would have been had she stayed in Volshebnaya Derevnya; indeed, she might even get to see them more often, without Mama and Papa looking over her shoulders for sheer lack of anything else amusing to do. Still, though; to announce she was going somewhere else, that felt like underlining that they could not always be together as they always had been…
Still, there was nothing for it, so she might as well get on with it – or, for the moment, double-checking her host-gifts for Vladya and his parents, and her just-because gift for Dorya. She had a little time before it was time for her to go, just enough for that and deciding what to do about her headdress.
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Katerina Vorontsov
Beginnings and Endings and Beginnings
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