@irinatrubetskaya !!
he had not gone with them, to bury his father. he did not remember the days surrounding it --- how the horror had spread through the castle like a darkened disease, how the whispers had followed. how he had encouraged such whispers. ( HER, HER, HER, she killed him, her, she did it; devil woman, evil woman, cursed woman, her, her, her. ) he did not want to meet her then, in the aftermath, and so her image in his head sat and rotted with his father’s corpse. weeks passed, and he was able to breathe without her stink surrounding him.
but journeys end in lovers meeting, and she returned --- his father’s wife, pavel ( the little fool ) by her side. simeon would know irina trubetskaya anywhere; he would know her blind, even though he had never before met her. she walked into the reception room, returned from burying his father for several days now, and a chill passed through him. how often he had thought of her; how often he had dreamed of her --- of her in the ditch instead of him, of her festering and rotting and --- he wasn’t ready to meet her, but she was here now.
he turned around to finally see her.
she stood, lovely and flushed and --- if he had his sword, he would have run her through right there.
“you,” he spat. he had a plan, a plan. her suffering, glorious, at the center of it. but he forgot it now, forgot everything he had come to switzerland to do. she was wrapped in furs that were so beautiful, and he focused on that. ( who bought them for her? was it his father? was it yuri? ) he stumbled forward, and he wanted to rip them from her, but they were not alone, and he was taking a breath, he was breathing, he could wait, he could wait, he could wait. he clenched his jaw and turned away from her, clasping his hands behind his back to stop their shaking. he could not look at her. he felt himself as someone far away, as someone wavering between here and there. “we have not met yet. i am pri --- lord simeon belskyi.”
