Tatiana Vorontsova
May 05, 2021 7:15 PM
I can handle myself. by Tatiana Vorontsova
OOC: All dialogue is, to the characters, in Russian, hence the lack of classic Tatiana-speak. BIC:
Anya’s tiny face was screwed up into a peculiar expression as Tatiana sat down across from her in the drawing room, as though she were trying to look concerned or disapproving or both at once. Tatiana, therefore, was quickly on her guard.
“What is it, Anya?” she asked, not asking before she poured herself a glass of tea. There were privileges, after all, to sisterhood, even in a house which was definitely Anya’s and not Theirs.
“We need to talk, Tatya,” said Anya. Tatiana refrained from pointing out that this was, in fact, something she had guessed from being asked to come down here. Anya made another face and smoothed the front of her robes, which were a thoroughly matronly shade of mulberry, with a band of flowers embroidered from neckline to hem. “I’m worried about you.”
“You have no reason to be,” said Tatiana, stirring her tea as the lump of hard sugar at the bottom began to melt. The podstakannik was all metal, all wrought into elaborate swirling patterns, and Tatiana could feel the heat of the glass slightly through the metal handle. Not the best work, she thought; she ought to tinker with these sometimes. “Everything is well with me.”
“So you may think,” said Anya. “But you have been with me for almost a year and a half, Tatya, and sometimes I think your reputation gets worse every day. When Alyosha was here, it wasn’t so bad, but since he left….”
“I have done nothing any more disgraceful than I did when he was here!” Tatiana snapped, knowing it was arguably a lie. She didn’t feel she had done anything shameful, but it was possible that Anya, offered a full list of all her activities for the past year and a half, might see it…differently. “Who has said otherwise?”
Anya sighed. “No-one, and everyone, and no-one again,” she said. “It is…not bad, exactly, Tatya, just…you are so forward with everyone, and you’ve gotten enough proposals that it looks badly, that you don’t accept any of them…people will wonder why, if they don’t already.”
“Because I don’t want to marry any of them,” said Tatiana flatly. “And Mama and Papa always said that none of us would ever have to marry someone we didn’t want.”
“But why don’t you?” asked Anya in exasperation. “You know that no-one who would be allowed at any event you’re at would be someone of poor character or a bad family, and you have your pick of looks between them.”
“Good character and a good family is hardly a reason to marry someone,” said Tatiana. “Any more than just a pretty face is, when I can dance with them all I like without having to take any of them home with me.”
Anya laughed out loud, then looked surprised she had. “Tatiana!”
“I’m being perfectly serious,” said Tatiana, and Anya quickly began to look worried again.
“It’s really just vanity?” she asked, and Tatiana glared at her. “Don’t look like that,” she protested. “You ought to know how it is here by now, how many people there are who have nothing better to do than gossip and make up tales – I just don’t want them to think you have some…some sort of common person for a lover and that’s why you won’t marry anyone…”
“Ah,” said Tatiana crisply. “So that’s it. You think I do.” Anya blushed. “Well, I don’t,” she continued. “I know how that kind of thing goes, Anya. Love – that’s a stupid idea, at least that kind, and it’s nothing to risk anything over.” She had half-wondered, for a while, if maybe Dorya was right about that after all – if she was the odd one for feeling the way she did, that it was awfully fun to dance and to flirt, and in the past year and a half to experiment with a bit of kissing, but that it was absurd to get so attached to kissing one person that one would risk one’s comfort over the matter, when there were always plenty of others one could kiss without making things complicated. Then, of course, Dorya and Jean-Loup had not lasted six months in the real world, and she had been able to return to feeling confident that while Dorya might be much better than her at many things, right-headedness about Feelings was not one of them.
Dorya, she thought, was a darling and her brother, but he was sometimes difficult to fathom, and nowhere more difficult than in this matter of men. One day, it was all true love, he couldn’t just go kiss privately and then go about his business, it was very important to kiss in front of everyone – and then, no, that hadn’t been the true love after all, which made it seem to her as if he’d driven a wedge between himself and his family (and possibly had something to do with Jean-Loup’s departure from his, after what had happened with Matthieu; she wasn’t sure, she’d never asked, but she had felt enough as if someone in her family had done something bad when she’d found out about the split that she had sent Jean-Loup a somewhat apologetic note with her condolences, and had debated including a ruby ring, for lack of anything more practical at that time, before deciding to spare his pride and keep herself at least somewhat out of the middle of the drama), alienating himself even from his beloved Emilie…all for no particular reason at all, other than silliness and recklessness. To Tatiana, it was dizzying and seemed like more trouble than it was worth and just a way to get hurt and hurt other people, and she was back to being firmly glad that she thought she was not constructed in a way that allowed for Falling In Love.
“I think we can agree that I am not stupid,” she said. “And so you don’t need to worry about me when it comes to boys, Anya-darling. I can handle myself. You need to worry less overall, it will give you wrinkles. Now, if that’s all, I must be going – I have an invitation to Lidya’s tea room.”
She did take the coach down to Lidya’s, and went in and drank tea with a few other young people, and had a merry time conversing and playing board games with them. After a while, though, she excused herself, started toward the upstairs parlor, went instead to the water closet, and Disapparated.
How, exactly, this had come to be her life, she had no idea. She knew there must have been a beginning, and that she ought to remember how it had come about, but she really didn’t. At one time, she had simply been here, meeting other people of her own sort and age and going to, for lack of a better word, lessons in the sort of magic she would have learned more of had she gone to school in Russia. Then, she’d continued doing those things, but had also begun doing this….
She drew her hood up as soon as she re-materialized and then knocked on the door. Marius answered the door on the second knock.
“Tatiana,” he said, speaking Russian but with a strong German accent. “You’re here again.”
Tatiana smiled at him. “Just as I promised,” she said lightly.
“May I take your cloak?”
“Of course.”
She handed over the outerwear, but then put her hand out again, over his, and was amused by how flustered he seemed by even that. “I almost forgot,” she said, and reached into the cloak pocket to retrieve a few coins. “Your fee, of course.” At one point, it had been three galleons, when she had simply been the rich Russian woman who had inexplicably offered to help him with his Russian grammar and then asked for a favor in return; from the look on his face at the moment, it might drop again soon.
She allowed one of her fingers to run the length of his palm as she withdrew, and then lost interest in this aspect of things. “Now,” she said. “To business. I hope you took very good notes for me in our classes today?”
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Tatiana Vorontsova
I can handle myself.
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