korezni : nikolai lantsov.
possibilities are endless as long as the right state of mind and a willingness bordering on reckless is accompanying the plan , but he thinks about how much of it he can disclose . royalty usually does not say things like that , but then again charlotte has never known him as a foreign born royal but just as a foreign born diplomat - both usually frowned upon by someone like her , he knows , and yet they somehow manage to thaw the lines between each other . he thinks it has something to do with the fact that he is not involved in murder or any of the dooming secrets she works on uncovering . not to mention how much her presence warms something in him - the same way sun-kissed ocean waves manage to ease something inside his chest - and he does like to not be so weary around somebody else around here .
“ i did not - i am deeply sorry . i’d like to say i wore a captain’s hat , but that wasn’t mandatory on my ship . we weren’t so uniformed , in fashion and behaviour , ” he lets her in on , now putting his elbow on the bar before them and putting his chin in the palm of his hand as he looks at her in the dim light . she’s got so much inside of her , such a wilderness , and he knows it would only rot away in the confines of her current life . wasted potential , the greatest tragedy of all maybe . a death of a person without the offered kindness of dying . “ how about leaving? i remember how badly i wanted to leave home , after coming back from my service . and so i just - i ran . i left . it sounds easier than it’s done , but it can be done . ”
❝ hmmph ... that is too bad. maybe next time you return to the sea you’ll choose to wear one for me. ❞ charlotte hums with a smile while a hand falls from where it had been entangled in her own locks to grasp her champagne - filled glass, then taking a long sip and pretending to enjoy the taste of the bubbles on her tongue. out of the corner of her eye she scans the room for a familiar waiter, the one with a tray of wrapped chocolates, all while the voice in the back of her mind begs him not to appear. she wanted this one night to herself, with a handsome man who didn’t have any intentions of buying her company or her body, who listened when she spoke and cared about what she had to say. now if nikolai did in fact have those intentions, he hadn’t shown them yet and was exceptionally good at hiding them. ❝ if i didn’t know any better, i’d say it sounded like you were a gang of pirates, nikolai. ❞ the thought makes her grin, nearly entices a laugh from her red - painted lips. she thinks he would have made a fine pirate, for he looks like the type who’d be capable of handling a sword better than most. charlotte thinks she would have made a decent one too, not for any particular reason other than her spirit.
there is no reason to pretend she doesn’t want to leave, because she does. she wants to see the world, start anew and mold her life into one of her choosing, one without brothers in law whose unwanted gazes linger too long & colleagues who take but one look at her and consider her nothing more than a pretty face. but in order to leave, she would need money, and even for a working girl like charlotte, that much money is hard to come by. still, she entertains the idea, as much for herself as for nikolai.
❝ i would like to leave berlin. go to france and see paris, wander the streets of the city of light. or maybe to the united states. ❞ so many stories must lie within his mind, of his past travels and adventures some of which charlotte considers herself lucky enough to have been told. she would like to hear them all in time, but she knows this won’t happen. one day she’ll walk into moka efti, scour the room for his blonde hair and find nothing hopeful clients. he will have moved onto his next adventure, while she stays in the same spot she’s always been in. that is how their story will end. ( charlotte knows this because she is not foolish; she has a brain as well as she does a heart. ) that is why despite the unfamiliar want to let her guard down & allow nikolai to take down the makeshift shield surrounding her heart and soul, she keeps it up, preparing for the goodbye she will have to say one day. ❝ tell me. where did you run to first? ❞
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