I'm such a nerd - Fic: As of yet untitled (Carla/Stella) Prologue
Prologue
The trees look strange at night. Unfamiliar dark shapes, like black remnants of creatures frozen in place at the time of their sudden, collective death. Nothing moves, not a branch, not a leaf. The quiet stillness scares her. It’s like she’s been dropped into the surreal surroundings of a painting. The only living, breathing thing on a canvas of black and grey and pale moonlight behind impenetrable clouds.
A shiver passes over her like a cold, receding wave.
She came out here to find solace, to get out of the confines of her suite where the walls were closing in on her and the windows started to fade behind a layer of iron bars right before her eyes. And she knew she had to get out of there before she was back in solitary confinement even if it was only in her head.
Sophia was sleeping like the angel she was and so she didn’t think twice before she grabbed her coat and barrelled out of the front doors and onto the grounds. She didn’t think twice before she left her daughter behind.
Again.
No, actually she did think twice before she left her for the first time. Before she allowed her brother to send her to prison because she would rather die than leave him in control of her father’s business. Now that she thinks about it, the fact that she made a conscious decision to leave her daughter behind for a business - be it her father’s or not - makes it all the worse. How could any mother do that? How could she ever decide to leave her child behind?
What kind of a person does that make her?
A bitter laugh forces its way up her throat. She bites down on the sound before it escapes her lips. Now she’s suddenly scared of breaking the heavy silence that has settled down on her shoulders, wrapping her in its cocoon of quiet stillness.
How was that? A cold, heartless bitch. Yeah, that surely seems fitting. After all, one pretty much has to be a cold, heartless bitch to leave their infant child behind just to stay in control of a company. Geez, and there she was, doing her best to convince Stella Mann of the contrary. Of the fact that she actually gives a damn about people, that she isn’t really like that, that her family is the most important thing to her.
Most important thing. Yeah, right!
Except for
- not letting Ansgar get the holding,
- staying in control of her father’s business,
- not disappointing a dead man.
The sneer waits patiently in the corners of her taunt lips.
How ironic that she now has to admit that her administrator was right all along. And just when said administrator finally seems convinced she was wrong. How very ironic.
Except, it isn’t. It’s sad and tragic and pathetic and a million other things. And it makes her feel empty and hard at the same time. Like a glass statue that becomes conscious of the void, transparent space that is her insides. And for a second her thoughts stray to the others. To the people she calls family. She wonders if they’ll notice too. If one day soon they’ll open their eyes and look at her body of glass and notice how there’s nothing behind it. Nothing inside it.
She wonders what they’ll do then. If they’ll feel so betrayed they’ll just take her and smash her on the floor to watch her come apart into a million tiny shards. Ansgar would, the very second he gets his chance. She knows that. It doesn’t scare her. Not anymore. He’s done the worst possible thing he could to her. There’s nothing left to fear of him.
She fears the others, about as much as she fears for them. Who are they going to lean on once she’s turned out to be unfit for that particular post? And what are they gonna do once they realize she isn’t all that she’s made up to be? Who will she be to them if she’s no longer their pillar of strength? That is, if she’ll even be anyone.
Years after years of the one and the same lesson now comes back to haunt her.
Be Strong. Be Resilient. Never Show Fear.
Never disappoint people because they just might not come back to see you’re so much better than that.
Somehow in the back of her mind she thinks it shouldn’t feel so much like failure to admit you can’t fulfill unfulfillable expectations.
But the stray thought drowns immediately in the rush of blood in her ears. She’s scared. And she’s angry. Angry at everything and everyone. Angry at her dad for dying in the first place and leaving her in all this mess. Angry at Leo for not stepping up and taking charge. But most of all she’s angry at herself. Angry for not being able to be what everyone seems to need her to. Angry for not being the mother Sophia deserves. Angry for not being able to just get it right.
She’s angry at herself for being weak.
It’s not who she is in her mind. Not who she wants to be. And not who she needs to be. It can’t be her.
She shivers again. It’s cold out here. It’s cold everywhere.
For a second a fleeting memory of warmth passes over her. With the feeling comes the face and the name and the sensation of holding someone in her arms. Hanna. Then the features change and morph into the laughing face of Susanne; Susanne before everything became bad and twisted and painful. And then the face changes again and becomes the open smile and twinkling eyes of her current administrator.
And she has to stop herself from actually smacking her head at the implications of her subconsciousness. Stella Mann doesn’t give a shit about her boss apart from the work relationship they need to have. And if she ever allowed herself to think any differently she must have been delusional. Sure, the blonde seemed happy enough to see her when she came back home to the castle after her stay in prison (for a second her mind replays the hug she found herself in and she has to supress the urge to just cry and cry and cry) but as soon as the initial joy at her return has passed and Stella had some time to think, she’s pretty sure she will come to the same conclusion as she did tonight. She’s a smart woman, after all.
And boy will she be furious with her. She can tell that Stella Mann doesn’t take easily to being deceived and to her it will feel like she did just that. She was all set about her boss being cold-hearted and unfeeling. And then said boss had to go and make her change her opinion only to reveal now that Stella was right from the very beginning. Great. Just great.
And part of her wants to cover in fear. Because Stella isn’t someone who wrapps her words in candy cotton to lessen the force of the blow. And she isn’t sure if she can take her judgement and disapproval on top of the biting voice in her own head.
But that’s not who she is. She isn’t one to cover and run in fear. She’s one to see things trough til the bitter end. She’s one to stand upright and take everything square to the chest until the fight is over and she can crumble in solitude. She doesn’t see why that should change for one Stella Mann.
So if lack of feeling is what she’s going to be crucified for anyway she might as well use that cold front to its fullest. If the cold-hearted bitch is who she’s gonna be seen as anyway - no, who she has proved to be, she reminds herself. It’s still far too easy to deny that even to her own heart - she might as well go with it. Might as well go with the numbness that’s in her heart and the heaviness on her thoughts. That’s who she is - Carla von Lahnstein, heartless, arrogant bitch. No use pretending any different any more. No use wishing any different.
She lets the cold take over.
The trees look strange at night. Unfamiliar dark shapes, like black remnants of creatures frozen in place at the time of their sudden, collective death. Nothing moves, not a branch, not a leaf. The quiet stillness scares her. It’s like she’s been dropped into the surreal surroundings of a painting. The only living, breathing thing on a canvas of black and grey and pale moonlight behind impenetrable clouds.
A shiver passes over her like a cold, receding wave.
She came out here to find solace, to get out of the confines of her suite where the walls were closing in on her and the windows started to fade behind a layer of iron bars right before her eyes. And she knew she had to get out of there before she was back in solitary confinement even if it was only in her head.
Sophia was sleeping like the angel she was and so she didn’t think twice before she grabbed her coat and barrelled out of the front doors and onto the grounds. She didn’t think twice before she left her daughter behind.
Again.
No, actually she did think twice before she left her for the first time. Before she allowed her brother to send her to prison because she would rather die than leave him in control of her father’s business. Now that she thinks about it, the fact that she made a conscious decision to leave her daughter behind for a business - be it her father’s or not - makes it all the worse. How could any mother do that? How could she ever decide to leave her child behind?
What kind of a person does that make her?
A bitter laugh forces its way up her throat. She bites down on the sound before it escapes her lips. Now she’s suddenly scared of breaking the heavy silence that has settled down on her shoulders, wrapping her in its cocoon of quiet stillness.
How was that? A cold, heartless bitch. Yeah, that surely seems fitting. After all, one pretty much has to be a cold, heartless bitch to leave their infant child behind just to stay in control of a company. Geez, and there she was, doing her best to convince Stella Mann of the contrary. Of the fact that she actually gives a damn about people, that she isn’t really like that, that her family is the most important thing to her.
Most important thing. Yeah, right!
Except for
- not letting Ansgar get the holding,
- staying in control of her father’s business,
- not disappointing a dead man.
The sneer waits patiently in the corners of her taunt lips.
How ironic that she now has to admit that her administrator was right all along. And just when said administrator finally seems convinced she was wrong. How very ironic.
Except, it isn’t. It’s sad and tragic and pathetic and a million other things. And it makes her feel empty and hard at the same time. Like a glass statue that becomes conscious of the void, transparent space that is her insides. And for a second her thoughts stray to the others. To the people she calls family. She wonders if they’ll notice too. If one day soon they’ll open their eyes and look at her body of glass and notice how there’s nothing behind it. Nothing inside it.
She wonders what they’ll do then. If they’ll feel so betrayed they’ll just take her and smash her on the floor to watch her come apart into a million tiny shards. Ansgar would, the very second he gets his chance. She knows that. It doesn’t scare her. Not anymore. He’s done the worst possible thing he could to her. There’s nothing left to fear of him.
She fears the others, about as much as she fears for them. Who are they going to lean on once she’s turned out to be unfit for that particular post? And what are they gonna do once they realize she isn’t all that she’s made up to be? Who will she be to them if she’s no longer their pillar of strength? That is, if she’ll even be anyone.
Years after years of the one and the same lesson now comes back to haunt her.
Be Strong. Be Resilient. Never Show Fear.
Never disappoint people because they just might not come back to see you’re so much better than that.
Somehow in the back of her mind she thinks it shouldn’t feel so much like failure to admit you can’t fulfill unfulfillable expectations.
But the stray thought drowns immediately in the rush of blood in her ears. She’s scared. And she’s angry. Angry at everything and everyone. Angry at her dad for dying in the first place and leaving her in all this mess. Angry at Leo for not stepping up and taking charge. But most of all she’s angry at herself. Angry for not being able to be what everyone seems to need her to. Angry for not being the mother Sophia deserves. Angry for not being able to just get it right.
She’s angry at herself for being weak.
It’s not who she is in her mind. Not who she wants to be. And not who she needs to be. It can’t be her.
She shivers again. It’s cold out here. It’s cold everywhere.
For a second a fleeting memory of warmth passes over her. With the feeling comes the face and the name and the sensation of holding someone in her arms. Hanna. Then the features change and morph into the laughing face of Susanne; Susanne before everything became bad and twisted and painful. And then the face changes again and becomes the open smile and twinkling eyes of her current administrator.
And she has to stop herself from actually smacking her head at the implications of her subconsciousness. Stella Mann doesn’t give a shit about her boss apart from the work relationship they need to have. And if she ever allowed herself to think any differently she must have been delusional. Sure, the blonde seemed happy enough to see her when she came back home to the castle after her stay in prison (for a second her mind replays the hug she found herself in and she has to supress the urge to just cry and cry and cry) but as soon as the initial joy at her return has passed and Stella had some time to think, she’s pretty sure she will come to the same conclusion as she did tonight. She’s a smart woman, after all.
And boy will she be furious with her. She can tell that Stella Mann doesn’t take easily to being deceived and to her it will feel like she did just that. She was all set about her boss being cold-hearted and unfeeling. And then said boss had to go and make her change her opinion only to reveal now that Stella was right from the very beginning. Great. Just great.
And part of her wants to cover in fear. Because Stella isn’t someone who wrapps her words in candy cotton to lessen the force of the blow. And she isn’t sure if she can take her judgement and disapproval on top of the biting voice in her own head.
But that’s not who she is. She isn’t one to cover and run in fear. She’s one to see things trough til the bitter end. She’s one to stand upright and take everything square to the chest until the fight is over and she can crumble in solitude. She doesn’t see why that should change for one Stella Mann.
So if lack of feeling is what she’s going to be crucified for anyway she might as well use that cold front to its fullest. If the cold-hearted bitch is who she’s gonna be seen as anyway - no, who she has proved to be, she reminds herself. It’s still far too easy to deny that even to her own heart - she might as well go with it. Might as well go with the numbness that’s in her heart and the heaviness on her thoughts. That’s who she is - Carla von Lahnstein, heartless, arrogant bitch. No use pretending any different any more. No use wishing any different.
She lets the cold take over.