long before their journey to rome, vasily had likened the archduchess to a bat. a bat hates many things: people who clap at plays, people who laugh inside ice mazes, sweets, light, love –– anything that deals with living that isn’t for a self-interest. and like a bat, too, she had clawed at the the upholstery that is the title of prince of the blood imperial, which is to say; useless, and not the first in succession of the throne. so when vasily padded on her invitation, he knew it better to be a summons to the villa.
at alix’s offering of tea, he receives it with thanks and neatly between his two hands, plated nicely on silver. he, too, has become good at this—entertaining or otherwise hosting; holding laughs and doling them out appropriately, pressing hands and clasping them between his own because it’s important that his envelop rather than be enveloped. it is the playacting of it, of building the moment, biding his time. so it begs to consider what others believe what power is: money and the exhibition of it, silks and satins stretched out like a spindle and ornamented to enchant the eye. others would say it was the puppeteer with strings crossing all over the city, or the iron fist claiming its purloined crown.
vasily wonders what power means to the archduchess. —riches, connections, or control?
“oh?” his gaze slides from the tea to alix, studying her openly. for now, there is nothing aggressive in the action. vasily finds it a curious thing to not bother pretending, especially when she pleases him with rarities of faraway lands that have long ago earned his interest with their weight in gold, spices and gunpowder. “must be good frrriend. whether perrrsonal one, ally, orrr trrrade parrrtner to holy rrroman empirrre.“
“and yes,” comes the answer, baring pleasantry all the more that the news makes her sound as if the air around her has been pinched out of her. “it surrrprrrised us. i imagine same vill happen at courrrt when we rrreturrrn with child, but it’s all the morrre to look forrrvarrrd to now.”
There was a skill that Alix had perfected over the years, one that had served her well in the Holy Roman Empire. It was not one she needed to utilise with the Empress, who she loved above all others, not with her husband, as she cared little if he felt the full force of her scorn. With her brother-in-law, though? It was a skill that served her well. Alix had the well-practised ability to be unfailingly polite, charming even, but still make her feelings known. If she did not like somebody, she could instill that very feeling in them without saying a word - and she did not like Vasily. Charlotte did, though. Her gentle, frivolous little sister who never reached for anything better in her life. If she would not do so for herself, then it fell to Alix to do it for her.
Did Vasily have ambitions of his own? It was impossible for Alix to say, though in the brief times they had crossed one another’s path, she thought she had seen it. She had asked him here to dig deeper into the core of who the man was - and what he wanted. More than anything, she wanted to know if the goals in his heart, for all men had them, aligned with her own. Could the Prince of Rostov be useful to her, or, like every other man she had known, was he too a disappointment?
“They hope to be,” was her simple reply. Alix didn’t have friends. She had her mother-in-law, her position, and her own keen wit. She didn’t need anything, or anybody else. And yet, there were still people who sought to buy affection from the archduchess, who would give her anything for the pleasure of causing her to smile. There are rumours from Russia, whispers in the darkness that Vasily has such friends, too, that there are those that put more faith in him than their future tsar. It is Alix’s job now to see if there are truth to their words. “Do you know what I mean by that?”
Alix cannot deny that the news of the pregnancy does not please her. Charlotte had never had anything that Alix had not already played with and grown tired of first, and yet her own womb remained empty, and her bed devoid of visits from her husband. “Do you not plan to send the news ahead to Russia? They may think you’ve brought back a little Italian foundling if you do not.”
