I want;

a girl is told she is nothing. she hums into the soft dark - just wait,till i come back & eat you bare.till your heart cries blue. till your bones are fear. Tatiana Lantsov. 20. Lady-in-waiting. Ravka. Name.

[tatianalantsov-blog]

lukamravinsky:

She didn’t speak the language of rejection, it seemed, and he reckoned that she wouldn’t be able to define the word “no” without the aid of a dictionary. Her tongue knew only the dialect of decrees, and he shouldn’t have been so surprised, really, that his brush-off was utterly lost on her. 

I want to talk to you. I want, I want, I want. Did the girl know no other words? “I can’t imagine why,” he grumbled, brows furrowing. He was taken aback by her confession (or was it a command?), for Luka was a half-alive ghost, a quiet creature of translucence who moved about the shadows of the Little Palace unnoticed, and his company wasn’t particularly in high demand. Her motives were unclear, her wants even less so, and he wasn’t quite sure how to field her demands. But Luka was smart, smarter than most, and he knew a lost cause when he saw one. There was no arguing with the likes of Tatiana Lantsov, it seemed, and so he obliged her. Who was he to deny the wants of a make-believe princess?

“As you wish, printsessa,” he sighed grudgingly, taking a seat beside her, spine erect and jaw clenched. It was an infectious thing, indulgence—and she practically dripped with it. Her eyes were honeyed and hooded with excess self-gratification, and Luka, a crusader of self-control, had to make a conscious effort to remain unaffected by the Lantsov girl’s greed.

A tall, lanky man approached the divan with two glasses of kvas balanced on a gilded tray. Luka, wanting to spare the servant Tatiana Lantsov’s notorious ridicule, took one of the glasses and passed it to the ill-tempered duchess, muttering, “For you, I believe.” The servant moved to offer the remaining glass of kvas to Luka, but Luka held up a hand of refusal and thanked the man kindly, sending him on his merry way—and wishing he could follow in suit.

“Well – you don’t have to”, she cooed. And he truly, truly didn’t. He only needed to look pretty, and perhaps not be an utter bore. Tatiana didn’t know whether she held much hope for the second part.

There was a smile, then, satisfied as they came. The irony to the title went over her head and Tatiana was only triumphant, a cat with a mouse under its paw. She took the kvas with a languid gesture, flattered by what she could only see as subservience.

“Yes…” Had she not been so bored and his refusal wouldn’t have held her interest. As it was, Tatiana took the chance to bite. “And what of yours? Most men are fond of their drink.”

[no-w-a-y-jose]

Visit Original Link

[lesgardenias]

I wanna take you for all that you got

[tatianalantsov-blog]

valerianpetrov:

Valerian’s anger almost vanished as he witnessed the causer of his fall, replacing his rage with sharp, cutting laughter. How could he be angry at a drunken girl’s stupor? Clearly, she was far beneath his state of mind as she tottered on the spot, almost making a greater fool of herself than he was, sprawled on the marble floor. 

He picked himself up with such ease, such grace, it seemed that he had planned the whole theatrics of his collision. He stood above the girl in the beautiful gown, leering down at her contorted face with a seething smirk flashed across his pursed lips. Her anger, that he had once felt moments ago, was comical to him as he viewed it reflected on another’s face. 

“Darling, you know as well as I do that I can destroy your very existence right here,” he purred, now side stepping his nimble feet as he circled around the girl. He was the predator, she was his helpless prey. “I don’t need to know who you are, I just need to know that you’re weak. And trust me, seeing your performance tonight has really solidified that for me.” He let out a short laugh, not letting his gaze or his movements enable her escape. 

Tatiana’s eyes, big and black and ravenous as they came, widened at the revolting sight of his arrogance. He took her for a hen, she thought, for one of the rose cheeked girls gossiping in their corners. The rage was strong enough to make her tremble. A nameless grisha, a nothingness - who was he to match his flame against the thickness of royal blood?

“Stupid little pyro”, she taunted, her teeth bared in something that didn’t vaguely resemble a smile “You can’t harm me. They’d hang and cut you if you tried!”

She had half a mind to cut him herself when he spoke of weakness. Tatiana wasn’t weak. The unease he brought her was insignificant, a smudge of irritation she quickly brushed away. She saw the fear in the servant’s eyes at her passage, the way girls her age would quiet in her presence. Weakness was for poor and the plain. She was a Lantsov.

“Weakness? That I might drink while you have to serve?” The laugh that came was mad and bitter, and it only made the hatred with which she looked at him all the more sudden. “You’ll regret this, you charred little freak.”

[tatianalantsov-blog]

gavrikova:

Jaw clenches softly, but she still doesn’t turn to look at the younger femme. How arrogant she is, how reckless of her to speak this way. She’s seen aristocracy get drunk on their self-importance before, but she’s heard, this one, this gluttonous girl was the worst of them all. There is nothing she can do, really. There is also nothing truly offensive about her question either. It is true, she is a glorified pet of the second most powerful man of Ravka.

Moi soverenyi, everything she lives and breathes for. Moi soverenyi, the ungrateful bastard. 

She has brought him everything he could ever dream of, she’s brought him the Sun Summoner and yet …  –– Nails dig into the palm of her hand as fist clenches, ruby lips pressed into a tight line. Jealousy tastes bitter and unfamiliar on her tongue, she cannot wait to get rid of it.

‘   Less rewarding than I’ve expected, Your Grace.   ’   She answers then, finally looking at the pretty, pretty duchess. She knows jealousy too, Svetlana thinks, there is too much greed in those dark eyes not to.   ‘   But aren’t we all servants of one kind or another, in this life ? We all serve the king, some do sankts and sanktas, and I, I serve another master too.   ’   It is not all I am, though.

 “Why would you expect?”

Her forehead crinkled, and there was more confusion than hostility to her voice. When Tatiana spoke, it was in the slow and impatient manner in which one explains a painfully obvious fact to a child.

“Servants get nothing.”

Nothing other than the little they were owed. It was the way of the world. They were unappreciated, unrewarded, unseen. Tatiana would have withered and died before living as they did. She threw her head back, proud.

“I serve no one.”

But the words turned to ash in her mouth the moment she uttered them. And what of darling Ana? Did she not serve her? Her pretty little cousin, with their pretty little vacant head. A wasted life, filling the idiot’s hears with compliments, disregarded by the ugly suitors who fluttered around the princess like moths… Perhaps it was foolish to let the thought twist her lips, widen her dark eyes with hunger.

“The day will come when I’ll serve no one.”

[wordsnquotes]

I’m a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (via burningnights)

[disasterwithin]

a mix for narcissistic queens that know they’re better than everyone and aren’t afraid to flaunt it   //   [listen]

[mysharona1987]

Of all the female sins, hunger is the least forgivable; hunger for anything, for food, sex, power, education, even love.

Laurie Penny, Unspeakable Things. (via mysharona1987)

[imgonnaeditstuff]

[tatianalantsov-blog]

rheateresh:

If Rhea be the panther laid out across a tree’s branches, looking out on all who approach with a stygian glint in her eyes, then Tatiana would be the leopard in the plains adjacent with her fickle nature ( especially when in absence of Ilya Tsarov, and in his presence as well ) and the habit for injury. Though, predator as she may be, there is a lacking sharpness where arrogance has swelled in her being — always taking a form larger than necessary, as is its prerogative. 

She’s overstepped, seeking to insult a beast with more prowess, but that is, ultimately, what makes her so amusing to Rhea in the first place. A joke, if you will. Tatiana could’ve been the leopard if she wished, but it seemed she was content to be a house cat beneath all that potential, purring at her lover and possessing a soft hiss, drowned out by so little as a pin drop.

A joke, indeed, as the Countess takes up deep concern of the other’s hands — more specifically, a particularly barren place upon her left ring finger. “How do you suppose?” she seeks to insult without so much force, if only to show with what little effort she could inflict shame by drawing immediate attention to the diamond glittering that vital digit of her own. 

You are outmatched, she seeks to say with coy indirectness. 

“I’m not sure it’s a question of worth, Tatiana,” her voice remains soft for what it implies, the dangerous indication that fault lay not in those around her, but in the royal cousin herself. She has much to learn, Rhea thinks, about what pain may be inflicted without so much as a single, straightforward insult. 

Conversations with Rhea always left her strangely irritated, reaching for an insult that was only ever implied. What a dull, nasty woman the Countess was – the bareness of her finger, barely a concern a moment before, turned to bile in Tatiana’s liver. It widened and widened until all she could see was a pale patch of frail skin.

Tatiana turned her head, a childish rejection of the glittering diamond in the other woman’s hand. If only she could hold it against her lips…

“It’s only in the way you carry yourself. Such - dignity must come from hardship, no?”

Such a large stick up one’s ass, she meant.

“What do you suppose it is, then?” There was anger in her voice, then, hint of a mania in her smile. Insult me, it said, I dare you. She’d take teeth over indifference any day. “Perhaps your coyness comes from people’s absolute lack of interest in hearing your thoughts but I, for one, would be thrilled.”

[quotasia]

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.

Gillian Flynn, Dark Places (via quotasia)

[tatianalantsov-blog]

margaretestarikov:

It felt oppressive to stand in the middle of the bustling ballroom—there, she could almost feel all their hearts beating out of tempo, driving her nearly insane in the process. Oh, how she longed to single out the laggers so that she could quicken their rhythms to match the rest. Instead, in a moment of self-contained control, she moved away from the center towards the vacant corners of the room where hopefully she could remain undisturbed for the rest of the long night.

Her plans, however, never fully came to fruition; as she ambled to the outer regions, she was thoughtlessly interrupted by the girl who liked to masquerade as a princess. She wasn’t one to memorize the faces of the otkazat’sya, but Tatiana had a way of demanding such attention, a trait that was especially evident now as she haughtily ordered Margarete to amuse her on what seemed like a whim.

“Who, me?” She asked, feigning shocked ignorance. It was easy for her to play stupid, people were so eager to accept it as truth without question and the irony was not lost on her—how many times had the “clever” fallen for her guise of demure innocence? In truth, she was still counting. Taking a breath in, she dropped her gaze briefly before speaking again, “I’m hardly fit for the job.”

Hardly fit, she had said. And the more Tatiana looked at the girl, the more she agreed. The grisha was a little doll, small and vacant as they all were, and Tatiana had been known to crack hers against the ground as a child. But she supposed they had provided some entertainment, for as long as they had been intact.

“Yes”, she insisted, “you”.

She beckoned the girl to sit, eyeing the crowd for the one she would have truly wanted by her side. Would a pretty thing compliment or upstage her? Tatiana watched Margarete’s breathing with a hint of severity before deciding her to be below her concern. The girl’s frail beauty was half youth, she was sure, surely insipid in the eyes of man like Ilya.

“You’re young. I suppose you must be unaccustomed to this sort of event?”

She didn’t much care.

[tatianalantsov-blog]

lukamravinsky:

Luka’s lips knew not the bitter kiss of kvas. Patrons of liquor most always fell victim to impulse, and Luka was too fond of his inhibitions to part ways with them, even in the name of revelry. Restraint was the only religion he knew, and he practiced it with rigor, never bowing to whim or temptation.

Luka’s lips knew not the bitter kiss of kvas, no, but the same could not be said of Tatiana Lantsov’s lips. The pseudo-princess was quite intimate with kvas, it seemed, and it showed in the way her fingers, nimble and well-practiced in the art of snapping, coiled around a glass of clear liquid like most girls’ fingers coiled around the stems of pink roses: adoringly.

She beckoned, but he didn’t heel. Eyes hooded, he inclined his head marginally, and only just; princes and princesses were owed sweeping bows and bent knees, but spoiled girls who barked orders were owed nothing. “I fear you wouldn’t find much value in my company.” A politely impolite rejection. And it was true, was it not? They had nothing in common except this: they were both rotten. She was spoiled rotten, and he was rotten rotten, and such creatures were not meant to coexist in harmony. “Perhaps they might better suit your tastes,” he hummed, jerking his chin in Arsen’s direction. And that was also true, was it not? Arsen, sharp-tongued and sharp-toothed, had a better chance of surviving the likes of Tatiana Lantsov than Luka, and his bratva couldn’t fault him for trying to pawn the pretty nightmare off on them, could they?

Perhaps some might have been ashamed, taken aback by the polite rejection. To Tatiana, it was little more than a dare. She could never be less than thrilled by someone’s hesitance to be in her company. She was owed a tinge of fear after all, from the blood and the name and the beauty. The possibility that the little grisha might simply not want her company didn’t even cross her mind and his companions didn’t merit more than a passing glance.

“Perhaps”, she mused, “but I want to talk to you.”

Tatiana had picked her trinket for the night, and may the Saints help anyone that tried to pry it away from her greedy hands. She needed someone by her side if Ilya were to show his face in the ballroom and lay his grey eyes on hers, if she was to let him know she could entertain herself just fine without him.

“So why won’t you quit being dull and sit by my side?”

There was no ambiguity to her tone, then. Duchess Tatiana Lantsov was giving an order.

[tatianalantsov-blog]

heartrendvng:

“Is that a request?” Voice like silk, deepening as the next words slither from his lips, slick and venomous. “Or demand?“

She thinks too highly of herself, this Lantsov, thinking she can pin him down with her authority and force him to humor her. The gesture to take the empty seat goes ignored. Dmitri is far from a tame dog like the rest of the Grisha. He will not sit, he will not heel, but he will stay of his own choosing, only because Tatiana is easy prey. She is ripe and heavy, sprawled on the divan like a plucked peach, left abandoned and unwanted to rot.

He intrudes, tapping his fingers on the back of the empty chair to hide the slipping of his power past her skin, into her vessels where the blood pumps thin and diluted with too much liquor. They are far enough from the crowd for her heart to be deafening, and it pulses and kicks, offended by the invasion. He should have asked, perhaps, before wrapping around her most intimate parts. But he has little enough respect for her to concern himself with boundaries.

Tatiana wishes to be entertained. So be it.

“Tell me two truths and a lie.” He folds both arms on the back of her seat and demands, “Don’t waste my time being demure about it. If I guess right, you take another drink, and I get another turn.” He will control this game, or he will take his leave.

“I’m not sure”, she lied, “perhaps you should guess.”

The ghost of a smile had lingered in her liquor stained lips, but it soon faded into something almost weary. It was as if Tatiana could feel her own heart, warm and hungry and vacant as it was, exposed for all to see. She did not like the intrusion and she did not like the man – and a woman of her station had no need to waste time on things she didn’t like.

And yet, Tatiana knew what kind of girl would cower out of his game. The sort of ordinary little trollop she had never been, the sheltered bird who would shiver at sight of the bad, mad grisha. But she was a Lantsov. They had a tie of servitude to her kin, and refusing his game would only degrade her. Her posture, careless and languid only a moment before, grew aggressive, her burning eyes firmly set on the man before her.

I’m not afraid of you, you loathsome bastard.

“I have spilled blood today. I have stolen something. I’ve made someone cry.”

[tatianalantsov-blog]

gavrikova:

She’s been roaming the ballroom restlessly in the past hour, looking, searching for something she could not put her finger on. Was it entertainment ? She cannot be sure. Even the Oprichnik was supposed to lay down their weapons and enjoys the festivities tonight and yet, Svetlana was alert, as always, bright opal hues never missing even a flash of movement around her sovereign. Perhaps, something was to happen tonight that made her so very jittery, she was certain even the right amount of kvas couldn’t calm her nerves now.

She stops, pale digits running through fire red locks when the younger femme’s voice reaches her ear. Eyebrow raises and she hesitates quite obviously before obeying and stepping closer to the duchess. Foolish girl, Svetlana thinks, she has no real respect for her, her title or anything she might believe has the power over her / and yet she knows a scene is best avoided in circumstances like this. And from what she’s heard of the dark haired femme, causing a scandal around Svetlana disobeying her does not stand very far from her nature.

‘   I’m not sure entertainment carries the same meaning to you and to me, Your Grace.   ’   Svetlana bites on the inside of her cheek, keeping a small smile forming on her countenance.

Your grace – how sweet the term sounded from another’s lips, how righteous.

Her gaze landed on the girl’s red hair, and she was taken by a rare curiosity. It was odd to think of how many held a certain fascination with the grisha, of how it was nearly up to par with the revulsion their people caused in so many others. Tatiana herself felt nothing, and couldn’t understand why anyone else would. But for all her disinterest, even she could recognize the Darkling’s human hound. 

A pretty little dog, she thought, and then she hated a girl a little, as she hated all pretty things she didn’t own.

“Likely not”, she agreed, thinking of all that separated her from the once nameless Svetlana. And it was the kvas that pushed a question out of her mouth, slow and languid.

“How is it like – when the point of your life is to serve someone else?”

Dreadful, she was sure.

[kangschuls-remade]

ultraviolence // lana del rey

[eveninglesbian-deactivated20180]

Would it be too childish of me to say: I want? But I do want: theater, light, color, paintings, wine and wonder.

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (via eveninglesbian)

[tatianalantsov-blog]

CARELESS PEOPLE

date: december 21st location: the grand palace ballroom time: 9:00 p.m. availability: open to all

Only the poor and the dull counted their glasses. Tatiana, for one, hadn’t been keeping track of the amount of kvas already filling her belly, making stars out of the lights. She walked with her head held high, scanning the crowd with slight contempt.

It was infuriating to think of how wasted she was on them all. Her beauty, her nobility, her charm - all disregarded in favor of plainer girls and vacant banter. None of them was even worthy of a tinge of her attention and the only one who was was nowhere to be found.

Bored of standing around, Tatiana looked for the nearest divan and draped herself across it. She wanted to dance, but no one was asking, and she wasn’t about to stand in a corner like a pitiful little virgin. With a snap of her fingers, a servant brought another glass and she glanced at the other end of the room once again. There was nothing.

There was, however, someone standing close by. Tatiana had no idea when they had arrived, but she waved at the seat next to her with an idle gesture.

“I’m bored”, she said, her tone more languid than usual, but no less demanding, “entertain me.”