Pyroxene of the Heart [commentary]
I just like this color. It's the one that I keep in my PSP palette all the time, haha. But anyways! This is the "DVD commentary" for a somewhat-short prompt called "Pyroxene of the Heart." About the title, first of all! I tend to title my prompts after songs (same for logs), and this one was written when I had just gotten the Trusty Bell/Eternal Sonata soundtrack. This is the name of one of the tracks, but "pyroxene" was a word that I wasn't familiar with. According to Wikipedia, pyroxene is "pyroxenes are a group of important rock-forming silicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks." So it's a rock. How exciting. However, the etymology is much more interesting. "The name pyroxene comes from the Greek words for fire (πυρ) and stranger (ξένος)." Combining the two words effectively come to mean an impurity in an otherwise perfect thing (volcanic glass). So, an imperfection of the heart. Keep in mind that this takes place only a few years after Diva is released from the tower, so she's very new to the world in general.
She would never forget that winter, for as long as she would live. It was the most bitter, scathing cold that she had ever felt, and for two months at least, Diva wondered if going with Amshel had been the right idea at all. Of course, she knew that she had no other choice. To live was to be with her Chevalier, as he called it, and to die was to have walked on her own. That was what he told her, and it made sense.
Still, it was so odd to travel, endlessly it seemed, and see the world around her change. At first, it was absolutely beautiful. In the carriage, Amshel taught her every hour, but her eyes wandered still to the outside, seeing the vibrant colors that she had never imagined. The scenery was such a wonderful verdure that it amazed her. But, she also noticed, as they traveled, that the greens and blues were fading. It seemed like fire to her, as the trees became more brilliant still, as if a fire had been drawn into the leaves and absorbed the greens.
But even those colors disappeared. The leaves fell away, and they exposed something that she didn't like. Under the very beautiful cover of those leaves, she realized that there was something very ugly there. Diva saw the twisted, gnarled trunks of ash colored trees, and she couldn't believe that they were really the same thing she had seen only a few days before. They were ugly, twisted things, like a grotesque monster that had crawled out of the very deepest pits of Hell itself, and it truly struck her.
You'll notice that I use the word "verdure" whenever I can. It's my absolute favorite word ever. I can't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure that we had been reading Inferno when I wrote this. It's where the ideas of the twisted trees like humans came from. These paragraphs set up the harshness of Russian winters, which is a shock to Diva who has lived in Eastern France her whole life, but it also is kind of parallel to how harsh Amshel is.
How was it, she wondered, that something that was once so beautiful could become such a wretched thing?
“It's like a human,” Amshel had commented idly on her question, distracted by his own work.
A human.
It made sense to her. Humans, they were very interesting, pretty things, but they were so odd. Diva found them so odd, and from her limited understanding, she knew that connection. The humans she had seen and met after leaving the tower, they were charming, nice people, and they praised her as if she were some kind of goddess. She was beautiful to them, and she thought them very beautiful as well.
But Amshel told her to listen, just once.
With all her will, she did listen, and she heard. She could hear more, and she could hear so deeply, that like whispers of the wind, lost on a person's ears, she could hear something that was considered mystical. She could hear even those humans thoughts, just for an instant, and she heard them all at once, like a terrible noise against her ears. Their thoughts spoke of her as witch, a monster, a demon, to kill her, rape her, hurt her.
She never listened again, and over time, forgot how to listen to a human's thoughts. It was too much for her mind to bear, and she didn't want to hear those things anyways. She had realized that the people she thought so kind and gentle, warm and opening, were no more than Joel, and no more than, as Amshel said, food and prey in the basest sense.
And that was why she understood. Even the beautiful tree had a very ugly thing to hide from the rest of the world, but at times, you could see past that beauty to see the very ugly reality of what made the tree a tree at all.
Okay, what I talk about here actually got proved not true much later. Haha, like...December 2009-later. But I was trying to account for the weird give and take telepathy that the Chiroptera have. Here I made it so that she can hear human thoughts, but doesn't want to hear anymore, so effectively forgot. The novels instead say that it's only between Queen & Chevalier and Chevalier to Chevalier. So there we go. It still is to make the point that Amshel wants to distance her from humans, and succeeds in doing so by showing her all the short-comings of humanity before she learns of any of the good.
So, because of that, she thought it was very odd to meet him by a giant, twisted tree. It looked as if that tops of the branches were scraping the sky itself, but standing next to that tree was a very beautiful person. A very beautiful human. In the whitest landscape she'd ever seen, he blended right into it. That man had long, beautiful blond hair, pale, sickly looking skin, and eyes that she thought were once blue, but had been tainted by the landscape here. Even they took on a shade of the grays and whites, making them look dull.
“Diva,” Amshel had said quietly at that time, “I want you to meet a friend of mine. His name is Grigori. Grigori Rasputin.”
That beautiful man had bowed to her, and Amshel had pushed her forward, encouraging her to take his hand. For the moment before, she could only feel disgust, since she didn't want this thing, this very transparent human, to touch her. She didn't want to hear him either. Diva didn't care to hear what this human, this gnarled and twisted human, had to say.
“Welcome to Russia, my lady,” he had said with such smooth and warm words, “it's nice to meet you.”
She had paused, not sure what to say, just wanting to return to her Amshel. But for a moment, she decided to listen once more, just to hear what the truth of his words was.
All she heard was that this man thought that Amshel had lied. She was more splendid than he had said, this Rasputin had thought.
So she wondered if Amshel had been wrong after all.
And the first meeting with Rasputin! I kind of take this back later when I tell the story of why Rasputin is so pretty, but whatever. For the purpose of this prompt, Rasputin is beauty and kindness amongst ugliness and harshness, so she is able to accept him as her Chevalier. Of course, this was certainly meticulously planned out by Amshel, so there's his very subtle manipulation going on through the background of this whole story.
________
She kicked her feet on the chair, an obvious pout on her face. Diva didn't mind coming to parties like this, she just thought that they were terribly boring. She had to sit to the side while Amshel and Grigori went to talk to the people there. Her Chevalier had told her that she wasn't allowed to dance. She just had to sit and wait until the party was over, then they would be there to collect her and take her back. Diva honestly wished that they thought to not bring her.
Just a little perspective---Obviously this was written way before "From Russia with Love," but that prompt takes place in between the introduction and the rest of this prompt.
“Здравствуйте.”
Diva looked up with eyebrows furrowed, seeing a man now sitting beside her with a warm smile on his face.
“Как тебя зовут?” he asked, but her eyebrows furrowed further and she shook her head, shying away from him just slightly.
“I'm sorry,” she replied quickly in French, shaking her head, “I don't understand.”
He looked surprised for a moment, but shrugged, changing his own language quickly and seamlessly to French.
“I said, 'Hello', then 'What's your name', Miss. It's not fitting for a lady as pretty as yourself to sit over on the side here. It must be boring, I mean! You can come out to the floor and dance, or even just talk to some of the other guests. I saw you sitting over here this whole time by yourself.”
Diva looked to him cautiously, bunching the fabric of her dress in her hands. They had said not to talk to people at the party, but Amshel had also said that it was rude to not respond when someone addressed you. In this case, she wasn't sure which piece of advice was the correct one to listen to, but she was terribly bored, and enough for this person to notice.
“I'm...” she started quietly and hesitantly, “My name is Marie, monsieur. It's...nice to meet you.”
The Russian is exactly what he says. This is before Diva has a good grip on the language, so if you've ever had the experience of having actually pretty good knowledge of a language, but still struggling to be able to interpret a native speaker, that's what's going on here. It also shows an early character trait of Diva's, where she is rather shy and withdrawn around humans because she still fears them, slightly.
“Marie, huh? Well, it's nice to meet you too, Marie. My name is George. You must not be around here if you cannot speak Russian. We are in Georgia, after all, so most people know how to speak that. I'll guess that you're from France. Oh, and I guess with that person over there, too.”
These statements all seem totally obvious (minus the setting), but French is one of the languages that an educated and well-mannered woman would know. At a party that includes Russian nobility, the fact that she speaks French isn't unusual, but the fact she doesn't speak Russian well is.
Diva followed the nod that George had given, and surprisingly, he was nodding to Amshel. Grigori wasn't around, but Amshel was talking busily with an older man. Diva just nodded silently, surprised again by this person that had been able to figure that out so easily.
“Well, that's great, I'm right! I just had a guess, since I thought I heard that man speaking some French earlier too. But he can speak Russian, so he doesn't stick out as much as his daughter,” he said with a warm laugh in his voice, “but I guess you stick out on your own. You don't look like the girls around here.”
“I don't?” she responded quickly to that, not at all shy in that response, “Oh, that's not bad, though, is it? Amshel thought I wouldn't stick out too much, so that's why he let me come this time.”
He laughed at that, and Diva was so surprised and confused by his laughter that she leaned closer with an indignant expression on her face. But he took his chance quickly, leaning forward to meet her lips with his own, just a quick peck on her lips before he drew away with a grin. If she had been surprised a moment before, it couldn't compare to the moment after, where she just stared, taken aback.
Shyness overules her desire to do what Amshel wants. But the flirtatious kiss from George is very very forward for the early 1900's. Once the full introduction comes in, I'll explain his character a bit more, but it sticks out.
“I guess I went too far? But your face, it was really cute, pouting like that. Forgive me, forgive me~”
Diva brought her fingers up to her lips thoughtfully, feeling the warmth of his lips still upon her own. It was surprising, not because it had been a kiss out of nowhere, but rather for it being her first kiss at all. Yet she wasn't upset, just surprised and confused. She didn't know what this feeling was, or what the action meant at all. Never had she felt lips upon her own, and from this stranger, the action was completely foreign.
But he looked worried by her surprise suddenly, his eyebrows furrowed as hers had been a few minutes ago, and he spoke quickly, “Oh...Don't tell me that was your first kiss. A pretty girl like you, I would have figured that you had plenty of kisses by now...”
Diva watched him curiously as he glanced back over to Amshel, and she noticed that he looked relieved to see that Amshel was still occupied with his conversation. She didn't quite understand that either, but he laughed nervously, turning back to look at her again.
“A kiss,” she said curiously before he had the chance to speak, “That's what that is?”
That really took him by surprise, but he soon laughed again, quieter, but still with that same tone of warm amusement.
“A kiss, of course! You don't know? Marie, I'd think you were like Rapunzel locked in a tower by that!”
As an instinctive reaction, she just smiled.
Diva's first, affectionate kiss is from what amounts to a stranger. I just can't see Amshel being that outwardly affectionate to Diva, at least not until she starts to develop more of a sense of love and demands it from him. Affection is still very foreign to Diva, so it surprises her a lot. Also, at the end, his unknowing reference to a/the tower just gets a knee-jerk reaction of a polite smile.
“..But, yes, a kiss, well it's...” he paused, shrugging, “It's a kiss. It's a tender gesture for people that are close to one another.”
“Close to one another? Does that mean we're close, George?” she asked with even more surprise.
“Well...I guess we are now. I'd be lying to say that I don't want to be close to a pretty girl like you.”
The implications of that statement were lost on her, but before she had the chance to ask, there was a smooth and similarly warm voice, though in Russian, to interrupt.
“Why, Velikiy Kniaz, it seems that you found my good friend's daughter after all. I should have expected as much. You have quite the eye for pretty women, don't you?”
Grigori's hands came to rest lightly on her shoulders, and she leaned back just slightly to look up at him. There was a sweet, warm smile on his face, and the warmth wasn't lost on George, who grinned sheepishly in response.
This is all very childish responses to pretty normal things. Sexuality is lost on her, and Grigori's appearance is just a ":O" kind of response. Rasputin is already on good terms with the royal family at this point, so George knows of him. And this is a good time to mention that historic dates and dates in Blood+ don't match up to begin with, so I'm just handwaving the fact that George is still alive, haha.
“I suppose,” he chuckled in Russian back, “but I saw her sitting over here all by herself and I wanted to keep her company. She looked bored and lonely”
“Indeed. Ambassador Goldsmith cares deeply about Marie. He doesn't like to leave her home alone, but she's really not ready to come to social events like this yet. She's very sheltered, I'm sure that you see, after stealing the poor girl's first kiss.”
George laughed again, standing to take his leave, but not before taking Diva's hand and placing a polite kiss upon her hand.
“Diva,” Grigori spoke in French, “this is Grand Duke George Alexandrovich Romanov. One of my patients.”
At that, there was some level of understanding, and as if something had been triggered in her mind, she smiled politely to George, giggling just lightly.
There are lots of little, important details in here. Amshel, for one, is an Ambassador to Russia, but this will very quickly change into a weapons dealer to support the revolution. He's only an Ambassador now so that Grigori can get his foot in the door. This is already happening, since George is one of Rasputin's patients. Essentially, that means that he's doomed to die anyways, since Rasputin's studies are in their infacy.
And lastly! We get the full introduction of George. He's a member of the royal family, obviously, but he's also third in line to the throne, which is pretty high up, considering. Now, this whole story sprung from George's unusual character and his even more unusual death. I was researching members of the Russian family when I was trying to fill in the blanks for Diva's background, and I coincidentally found George. George is a very good person and was remembered as such by the rotal family. George was clever, outgoing, athletic, worldly, and had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a nice guy! However, he had various health problems throughout his life, which is why he would get Rasputin's attention as a "patient." Similarly, he died very unusually: "George died suddenly, on 9 August 1899, at the age of 28. He had been out alone on his motorcycle and some hours later, when he failed to return, his worried staff sent out a search party. By the time they found him it was too late. A peasant woman had discovered him collapsed at the side of the road, blood oozing from his mouth as he struggled to breathe." So that's how he caught my interest, and he's a interesting fellow. You can read more on wiki~
________
“So you really want to go out for a drive, Marie?”
Diva turned, looking at herself in the mirror. She couldn't say she really liked these clothes. The pants were men's clothes, and she really didn't think they were flattering on her. Neither was the tight fitting jacket, but George insisted that she wouldn't be able to go if she didn't wear clothes like this.
“I promise, you look fine, Marie,” he said, coming closer to turn her around, and away from the mirror, “We'll only be out for a little while anyways. It's a bit warmer today, so I wanted to take you for a ride on the motorcycle that Papa got me for my birthday. You haven't even seen it yet.”
She started to say something to protest, but he quickly gave her a kiss, which she returned with a smile on her lips. George took her hands instead, pulling her towards the door.
A few months have elapsed, and in that time, Diva has a much stronger sense of herself (shown by her dislike of the clothing) and of sexuality, which developed between George and Rasputin, haha.
“Even so,” she started with a laugh, “is it so bad that I'm scared? I mean, George, you know that I like carriages, not these new cars or motorcycles. They move far too fast! Even a horse, there's security on a horse...”
“You only say that because you've never ridden on one. Horses are just as dangerous Marie, if not more, since they think and can trample you too. I broke an arm that way when I was a boy, actually. I bet I still have the scar. I haven't checked in a long time.”
“You check?”
“...Well, only when I remember. Like if I wasn't already wearing my coat, I'd show you! It's shaped like a letter of the alphabet, actually. Don't know how that happened, but it's kind of interesting.”
He's a goober. It's not on Wikipedia, but he really did break his arm by falling off a horse.
Diva only laughed at that, shaking her head as she let him lead her. He went on as they went through the halls, telling jokes and stories as he always did, until finally they came to the small garage that had just recently been built. With all these inventions, the Russian imperial family insisted on staying up to date with technology, since they believed that would bring greatness with it. Diva thought it was just silly, since a contraption that spewed smoke and fire would surely never catch on, but so it was. And George really loved to ride this two wheeled car, a motorcycle. He pulled the black metal beast out of the garage, starting the thing up with an awful roar, beckoning for her to come closer.
You can't write a period anything without a joke about how some technology will never catch on.
“I'm telling you, it's perfectly safe, Marie! Come on, it'll be fun!”
“B-But...! What if Grigori or Amshel find out? They'll be cross with you, George! Especially Amshel, since he doesn't want me doing anything dangerous!” she yelled back, over the sound of the monstrous engine, but she saw him laughing like that was the funniest thing in the world. She couldn't hear what he said over the noise, but she saw the word that he mouthed nonetheless.
Scared?
George always managed to catch her with that question. After all, there was nothing for Diva to be afraid of. Yet the terrible sound still made her heart race. But that questioning of whether she was scared or not , that was more than enough for her to trot over timidly, hopping onto the back. The engine roared again, and Diva clung tightly to George's back, squeezing him tightly enough for her to feel him flinch from what she guessed was pain. She loosened her grip, but only to cling tightly once again, because they were moving forward.
She shut her eyes tightly. Diva wouldn't admit it, but she was absolutely terrified. It was stupid, she thought, for an immortal vampire to be so scared of riding on some kind of mechanical horse, but the noise, the cold, and the speed, they were just so scary that she couldn't bear to open her eyes and see the endless white scenery rushing past. Just imagining it made her dizzy.
Diva has her moments of weakness where she is scared by very human things. Obviously she's not afraid of them anymore, but the noise and speed scared her the most. But the fact that she got on at all shows that she does trust George enough with her safety. Big change from earlier where she thought all humans were disgusting trash.
Open your eyes.
It was just a whispered word, but she did open her eyes in surprise, looking to George's back. He was still riding forward, a grin on his face, and oblivious to her change in position. It was someone else's voice. But that voice was gone just as quickly as it had come, and besides that, Diva had no time to consider it. After all, her eyes were open.
The scenery was rushing by so fast that her eyes couldn't see the trees or houses, just a blur of color. It was like a streak of a painter's brush against a blank canvas, the beginning of a great painting. There wasn't any detail, just bright contrasts of color. The deep blue sky turned into the line of chocolate trees, and then to the ash colored snow. She couldn't believe how beautiful those colors that she hated really were.
Even the very horribly bitter cold, it felt oddly warm. She didn't understand what that warmth was from at first, but then the realization that it was his back that was so warm made her laugh to herself. It was because he was bearing the cold for her, shielding her from it, and then giving her his own warmth. That was funny, in a way she couldn't quite place.
She closed her eyes again, this time not out of fear, but out of an odd, warming feeling that she couldn't place.
Then there was darkness.
The beauty motif returns as Diva realizes that George is someone she trusts, and if she could have identified it, she would say that she loved him. She sees beauty in the scenery instead of ugliness, and realizes that George is protecting her.
________
“...ase! Wake up! Marie!”
She awoke with a feeling that she hadn't felt for a long time. There was such a sinking, burning feeling in her chest, and she could smell smoke, and something burning. There were hands propping her up, then suddenly dropping her with an exclamation that she didn't understand. Diva coughed, and felt the warm, slick feeling of blood spilling out of her mouth, dripping down the side of her face.
Diva knew this feeling.
She had died.
Her eyes opened, and she saw, very clearly, the skeletal branches of a bare tree, and the snow falling down towards her. In her field of vision, there was all of those same colors, but she found that they were no longer beautiful. They were just as they had been, very cold and unspectacular. She was in that snow too, which chilled her to the very bone, unforgiving of the body that laid upon the soft blanket.
Yet, he failed to protect her, and the grotesque trees and plain, ugly scenery returns. Oh, and the motorcycle crashed, which I just assumed was because of an icy patch on the road. I didn't include it because it wasn't important, haha.
“What...”
His voice drew her attention again, and with that sensation in her chest gone, Diva sat up, looking at George. He was sitting several feet away from her, looking absolutely petrified. She knew that look, but she felt nothing.
“What are you, Marie?!”
There was an odd feeling at that, and she tilted her head, crawling closer to George on her hands and knees, not speaking. He scooted away quickly, looking at her now like he was almost angry.
“Stay back! You...you...!”
She reached out towards him.
“...Monster!”
George is human! So he is obviously very shocked by the fact that he just saw Diva die and then come back to life. I'm never specific about her injuries (once again, not important), but she hit her head hard enough to where it would be a shock for her to just get up as if nothing happened. At the beginning, there's also the jaded reaction of feeling nothing at her staring at her like she's, well, a monster.
Her hand dropped, and she stared for a few moments, deciding to stand instead. That word, she hated that word. It made her chest tighten, and it was...painful. It made her chest hurt, which she didn't understand. It was as if Joel's knife was right above her heart, but when she looked, there was absolutely nothing there.
“My name,” she started quietly, without a trace of emotion, “is Diva. Marie isn't my name, George.”
“I don't care what your name is! You're...what are you?! You have to be, must be...a demon, a succubus, that's it! You're going to kill me!”
Yeah, they totally had sex (a lot), so him calling her a succubus isn't that weird. But more importantly, there's the very first feeling of Diva being affected in any way by someone shunning her. George is close to her, so she's upset that he calls her a monster, but she doesn't understand the feeling.
That hurt too. But she was suddenly, and very clearly, aware. Her mind reached out, and she knew that Grigori had followed her, and he was nearby. So she ordered for him to come to her. It wasn't even a moment before he stepped out of the trees, coming to stand beside her. His hands were behind his back as always, but as she glanced at him in the corner of her eye, she saw that slightest of smiles upon his face, and she realized why he had followed.
“I am a Chiropteran, human,” she spoke calmly, walking towards him again, but this time, George stood and walked quickly to Grigori.
“Rasputin, she...! This monster, surely you can kill her!”
He closed his eyes, placing his hands very gently on George's shoulders, which seemed to calm him considerably. It was as if he was reassured that he would be safe, as like as His Friend was here. Diva's expression stayed perfectly and absolutely cold, unwilling to feel any of the emotion that she felt idly in her chest.
The person that told her to open her eyes earlier was Grigori. Amshel isn't around anymore, so Diva is directly under Grigori's care. As such, he knows that he will get his ass kicked if Diva gets hurt. He told her to open her eyes in a moment of affection, though. Rasputin is a different Chevalier because he is a teacher. He doesn't like Diva being ignorant of the world, so he tries to open her to it, which is why he wanted her to see the scenery. But then it backfired, oops.
And at the mention of wanting to kill her, Diva is almost completely detached from George.
“Velikiy Kniaz, I surely cannot. You asked Marie to be your empress, but it is Diva who belongs to me as my Queen,” Rasputin said smoothly, making George freeze in realization, “We are not human, but it is the Ambassador and Diva who will burn the entire world. Not the other way around.”
Diva turned to face Grigori again, waiting to hear what he had to say.
“And Diva, what you're feeling is pain. It's not the same as Joel's pain, but it hurts just as much, I know. Humans, they're not as perfect beings as you, after all.”
Diva paused, and she noticed the gnarled roots of the tree behind both George and Grigori. She turned away, feeling an even sharper pain to see the grotesquely twisted bark. Her hand was upon her head, her face contorted in pain, but she spoke clearly.
“Kill him.”
She sees the short-comings of George, who she had thought as the exception to the rule, so she wants to get rid of him. The only way she knows how to do that is by killing. Interestingly, Rasputin enforces Amshel's lesson here (but with the idea that humans are imperfect and need to be elevated, whereas Amshel just wants to continue to possess Diva), but also mentions that the people that are going to destroy are Diva and Amshel--he doesn't include himself. He thinks of himself as elevated beyond that, because he's a humanist, in a weird, twisted way.
“I can't do that either, Diva. Amshel said it must be you.”
She straighted quickly at that, but she didn't turn. The idea that they, or that Amshel at least, knew, it bothered her. She didn't know why, but it bothered her. But after that moment, she turned to face them both, her expression absolutely cold.
“Fine. For my Amshel, I'll do anything at all.”
Diva took a few steps forward, and George started screaming, crying, no longer the laughing, teasing man she had known ten minutes ago. It was, to her, nothing short of disgusting.
She thought, later, that his body looked beautiful after he died. Absolutely, perfectly beautiful.
It looked like a spring bough to her.
LOTS OF LITERARY THINGS HERE, JUST FOR YOU FARRAH. Haha, no not just for Farrah. There's a lot of the motifs throughout that come together in the ending bit. The theme of beauty is the largest, but there's also trees. So, Diva feels here that seeing George as what Amshel has told her humans are, being disillusioned, is disgusting. It's partially because she's been hurt, but the disgust is also directed towards herself because she feels like because she defied Amshel's warning, she got too close to a human, and was harmed because of it. It's only once she's killed him that she sees him as beautiful and desirable again. He can't hurt her emotionally, but he retains the charm of the memories. Yet, rather than a branch in winter, like what she keeps seeing, she visualizes him as a spring bough, instead. His dead body represents a renewal, but it's in the wrong things--her renewal is in terms of her faith that Amshel will provide for her and knows what's best.
She would never forget that winter, for as long as she would live. It was the most bitter, scathing cold that she had ever felt, and for two months at least, Diva wondered if going with Amshel had been the right idea at all. Of course, she knew that she had no other choice. To live was to be with her Chevalier, as he called it, and to die was to have walked on her own. That was what he told her, and it made sense.
Still, it was so odd to travel, endlessly it seemed, and see the world around her change. At first, it was absolutely beautiful. In the carriage, Amshel taught her every hour, but her eyes wandered still to the outside, seeing the vibrant colors that she had never imagined. The scenery was such a wonderful verdure that it amazed her. But, she also noticed, as they traveled, that the greens and blues were fading. It seemed like fire to her, as the trees became more brilliant still, as if a fire had been drawn into the leaves and absorbed the greens.
But even those colors disappeared. The leaves fell away, and they exposed something that she didn't like. Under the very beautiful cover of those leaves, she realized that there was something very ugly there. Diva saw the twisted, gnarled trunks of ash colored trees, and she couldn't believe that they were really the same thing she had seen only a few days before. They were ugly, twisted things, like a grotesque monster that had crawled out of the very deepest pits of Hell itself, and it truly struck her.
You'll notice that I use the word "verdure" whenever I can. It's my absolute favorite word ever. I can't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure that we had been reading Inferno when I wrote this. It's where the ideas of the twisted trees like humans came from. These paragraphs set up the harshness of Russian winters, which is a shock to Diva who has lived in Eastern France her whole life, but it also is kind of parallel to how harsh Amshel is.
How was it, she wondered, that something that was once so beautiful could become such a wretched thing?
“It's like a human,” Amshel had commented idly on her question, distracted by his own work.
A human.
It made sense to her. Humans, they were very interesting, pretty things, but they were so odd. Diva found them so odd, and from her limited understanding, she knew that connection. The humans she had seen and met after leaving the tower, they were charming, nice people, and they praised her as if she were some kind of goddess. She was beautiful to them, and she thought them very beautiful as well.
But Amshel told her to listen, just once.
With all her will, she did listen, and she heard. She could hear more, and she could hear so deeply, that like whispers of the wind, lost on a person's ears, she could hear something that was considered mystical. She could hear even those humans thoughts, just for an instant, and she heard them all at once, like a terrible noise against her ears. Their thoughts spoke of her as witch, a monster, a demon, to kill her, rape her, hurt her.
She never listened again, and over time, forgot how to listen to a human's thoughts. It was too much for her mind to bear, and she didn't want to hear those things anyways. She had realized that the people she thought so kind and gentle, warm and opening, were no more than Joel, and no more than, as Amshel said, food and prey in the basest sense.
And that was why she understood. Even the beautiful tree had a very ugly thing to hide from the rest of the world, but at times, you could see past that beauty to see the very ugly reality of what made the tree a tree at all.
Okay, what I talk about here actually got proved not true much later. Haha, like...December 2009-later. But I was trying to account for the weird give and take telepathy that the Chiroptera have. Here I made it so that she can hear human thoughts, but doesn't want to hear anymore, so effectively forgot. The novels instead say that it's only between Queen & Chevalier and Chevalier to Chevalier. So there we go. It still is to make the point that Amshel wants to distance her from humans, and succeeds in doing so by showing her all the short-comings of humanity before she learns of any of the good.
So, because of that, she thought it was very odd to meet him by a giant, twisted tree. It looked as if that tops of the branches were scraping the sky itself, but standing next to that tree was a very beautiful person. A very beautiful human. In the whitest landscape she'd ever seen, he blended right into it. That man had long, beautiful blond hair, pale, sickly looking skin, and eyes that she thought were once blue, but had been tainted by the landscape here. Even they took on a shade of the grays and whites, making them look dull.
“Diva,” Amshel had said quietly at that time, “I want you to meet a friend of mine. His name is Grigori. Grigori Rasputin.”
That beautiful man had bowed to her, and Amshel had pushed her forward, encouraging her to take his hand. For the moment before, she could only feel disgust, since she didn't want this thing, this very transparent human, to touch her. She didn't want to hear him either. Diva didn't care to hear what this human, this gnarled and twisted human, had to say.
“Welcome to Russia, my lady,” he had said with such smooth and warm words, “it's nice to meet you.”
She had paused, not sure what to say, just wanting to return to her Amshel. But for a moment, she decided to listen once more, just to hear what the truth of his words was.
All she heard was that this man thought that Amshel had lied. She was more splendid than he had said, this Rasputin had thought.
So she wondered if Amshel had been wrong after all.
And the first meeting with Rasputin! I kind of take this back later when I tell the story of why Rasputin is so pretty, but whatever. For the purpose of this prompt, Rasputin is beauty and kindness amongst ugliness and harshness, so she is able to accept him as her Chevalier. Of course, this was certainly meticulously planned out by Amshel, so there's his very subtle manipulation going on through the background of this whole story.
________
She kicked her feet on the chair, an obvious pout on her face. Diva didn't mind coming to parties like this, she just thought that they were terribly boring. She had to sit to the side while Amshel and Grigori went to talk to the people there. Her Chevalier had told her that she wasn't allowed to dance. She just had to sit and wait until the party was over, then they would be there to collect her and take her back. Diva honestly wished that they thought to not bring her.
Just a little perspective---Obviously this was written way before "From Russia with Love," but that prompt takes place in between the introduction and the rest of this prompt.
“Здравствуйте.”
Diva looked up with eyebrows furrowed, seeing a man now sitting beside her with a warm smile on his face.
“Как тебя зовут?” he asked, but her eyebrows furrowed further and she shook her head, shying away from him just slightly.
“I'm sorry,” she replied quickly in French, shaking her head, “I don't understand.”
He looked surprised for a moment, but shrugged, changing his own language quickly and seamlessly to French.
“I said, 'Hello', then 'What's your name', Miss. It's not fitting for a lady as pretty as yourself to sit over on the side here. It must be boring, I mean! You can come out to the floor and dance, or even just talk to some of the other guests. I saw you sitting over here this whole time by yourself.”
Diva looked to him cautiously, bunching the fabric of her dress in her hands. They had said not to talk to people at the party, but Amshel had also said that it was rude to not respond when someone addressed you. In this case, she wasn't sure which piece of advice was the correct one to listen to, but she was terribly bored, and enough for this person to notice.
“I'm...” she started quietly and hesitantly, “My name is Marie, monsieur. It's...nice to meet you.”
The Russian is exactly what he says. This is before Diva has a good grip on the language, so if you've ever had the experience of having actually pretty good knowledge of a language, but still struggling to be able to interpret a native speaker, that's what's going on here. It also shows an early character trait of Diva's, where she is rather shy and withdrawn around humans because she still fears them, slightly.
“Marie, huh? Well, it's nice to meet you too, Marie. My name is George. You must not be around here if you cannot speak Russian. We are in Georgia, after all, so most people know how to speak that. I'll guess that you're from France. Oh, and I guess with that person over there, too.”
These statements all seem totally obvious (minus the setting), but French is one of the languages that an educated and well-mannered woman would know. At a party that includes Russian nobility, the fact that she speaks French isn't unusual, but the fact she doesn't speak Russian well is.
Diva followed the nod that George had given, and surprisingly, he was nodding to Amshel. Grigori wasn't around, but Amshel was talking busily with an older man. Diva just nodded silently, surprised again by this person that had been able to figure that out so easily.
“Well, that's great, I'm right! I just had a guess, since I thought I heard that man speaking some French earlier too. But he can speak Russian, so he doesn't stick out as much as his daughter,” he said with a warm laugh in his voice, “but I guess you stick out on your own. You don't look like the girls around here.”
“I don't?” she responded quickly to that, not at all shy in that response, “Oh, that's not bad, though, is it? Amshel thought I wouldn't stick out too much, so that's why he let me come this time.”
He laughed at that, and Diva was so surprised and confused by his laughter that she leaned closer with an indignant expression on her face. But he took his chance quickly, leaning forward to meet her lips with his own, just a quick peck on her lips before he drew away with a grin. If she had been surprised a moment before, it couldn't compare to the moment after, where she just stared, taken aback.
Shyness overules her desire to do what Amshel wants. But the flirtatious kiss from George is very very forward for the early 1900's. Once the full introduction comes in, I'll explain his character a bit more, but it sticks out.
“I guess I went too far? But your face, it was really cute, pouting like that. Forgive me, forgive me~”
Diva brought her fingers up to her lips thoughtfully, feeling the warmth of his lips still upon her own. It was surprising, not because it had been a kiss out of nowhere, but rather for it being her first kiss at all. Yet she wasn't upset, just surprised and confused. She didn't know what this feeling was, or what the action meant at all. Never had she felt lips upon her own, and from this stranger, the action was completely foreign.
But he looked worried by her surprise suddenly, his eyebrows furrowed as hers had been a few minutes ago, and he spoke quickly, “Oh...Don't tell me that was your first kiss. A pretty girl like you, I would have figured that you had plenty of kisses by now...”
Diva watched him curiously as he glanced back over to Amshel, and she noticed that he looked relieved to see that Amshel was still occupied with his conversation. She didn't quite understand that either, but he laughed nervously, turning back to look at her again.
“A kiss,” she said curiously before he had the chance to speak, “That's what that is?”
That really took him by surprise, but he soon laughed again, quieter, but still with that same tone of warm amusement.
“A kiss, of course! You don't know? Marie, I'd think you were like Rapunzel locked in a tower by that!”
As an instinctive reaction, she just smiled.
Diva's first, affectionate kiss is from what amounts to a stranger. I just can't see Amshel being that outwardly affectionate to Diva, at least not until she starts to develop more of a sense of love and demands it from him. Affection is still very foreign to Diva, so it surprises her a lot. Also, at the end, his unknowing reference to a/the tower just gets a knee-jerk reaction of a polite smile.
“..But, yes, a kiss, well it's...” he paused, shrugging, “It's a kiss. It's a tender gesture for people that are close to one another.”
“Close to one another? Does that mean we're close, George?” she asked with even more surprise.
“Well...I guess we are now. I'd be lying to say that I don't want to be close to a pretty girl like you.”
The implications of that statement were lost on her, but before she had the chance to ask, there was a smooth and similarly warm voice, though in Russian, to interrupt.
“Why, Velikiy Kniaz, it seems that you found my good friend's daughter after all. I should have expected as much. You have quite the eye for pretty women, don't you?”
Grigori's hands came to rest lightly on her shoulders, and she leaned back just slightly to look up at him. There was a sweet, warm smile on his face, and the warmth wasn't lost on George, who grinned sheepishly in response.
This is all very childish responses to pretty normal things. Sexuality is lost on her, and Grigori's appearance is just a ":O" kind of response. Rasputin is already on good terms with the royal family at this point, so George knows of him. And this is a good time to mention that historic dates and dates in Blood+ don't match up to begin with, so I'm just handwaving the fact that George is still alive, haha.
“I suppose,” he chuckled in Russian back, “but I saw her sitting over here all by herself and I wanted to keep her company. She looked bored and lonely”
“Indeed. Ambassador Goldsmith cares deeply about Marie. He doesn't like to leave her home alone, but she's really not ready to come to social events like this yet. She's very sheltered, I'm sure that you see, after stealing the poor girl's first kiss.”
George laughed again, standing to take his leave, but not before taking Diva's hand and placing a polite kiss upon her hand.
“Diva,” Grigori spoke in French, “this is Grand Duke George Alexandrovich Romanov. One of my patients.”
At that, there was some level of understanding, and as if something had been triggered in her mind, she smiled politely to George, giggling just lightly.
There are lots of little, important details in here. Amshel, for one, is an Ambassador to Russia, but this will very quickly change into a weapons dealer to support the revolution. He's only an Ambassador now so that Grigori can get his foot in the door. This is already happening, since George is one of Rasputin's patients. Essentially, that means that he's doomed to die anyways, since Rasputin's studies are in their infacy.
And lastly! We get the full introduction of George. He's a member of the royal family, obviously, but he's also third in line to the throne, which is pretty high up, considering. Now, this whole story sprung from George's unusual character and his even more unusual death. I was researching members of the Russian family when I was trying to fill in the blanks for Diva's background, and I coincidentally found George. George is a very good person and was remembered as such by the rotal family. George was clever, outgoing, athletic, worldly, and had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a nice guy! However, he had various health problems throughout his life, which is why he would get Rasputin's attention as a "patient." Similarly, he died very unusually: "George died suddenly, on 9 August 1899, at the age of 28. He had been out alone on his motorcycle and some hours later, when he failed to return, his worried staff sent out a search party. By the time they found him it was too late. A peasant woman had discovered him collapsed at the side of the road, blood oozing from his mouth as he struggled to breathe." So that's how he caught my interest, and he's a interesting fellow. You can read more on wiki~
________
“So you really want to go out for a drive, Marie?”
Diva turned, looking at herself in the mirror. She couldn't say she really liked these clothes. The pants were men's clothes, and she really didn't think they were flattering on her. Neither was the tight fitting jacket, but George insisted that she wouldn't be able to go if she didn't wear clothes like this.
“I promise, you look fine, Marie,” he said, coming closer to turn her around, and away from the mirror, “We'll only be out for a little while anyways. It's a bit warmer today, so I wanted to take you for a ride on the motorcycle that Papa got me for my birthday. You haven't even seen it yet.”
She started to say something to protest, but he quickly gave her a kiss, which she returned with a smile on her lips. George took her hands instead, pulling her towards the door.
A few months have elapsed, and in that time, Diva has a much stronger sense of herself (shown by her dislike of the clothing) and of sexuality, which developed between George and Rasputin, haha.
“Even so,” she started with a laugh, “is it so bad that I'm scared? I mean, George, you know that I like carriages, not these new cars or motorcycles. They move far too fast! Even a horse, there's security on a horse...”
“You only say that because you've never ridden on one. Horses are just as dangerous Marie, if not more, since they think and can trample you too. I broke an arm that way when I was a boy, actually. I bet I still have the scar. I haven't checked in a long time.”
“You check?”
“...Well, only when I remember. Like if I wasn't already wearing my coat, I'd show you! It's shaped like a letter of the alphabet, actually. Don't know how that happened, but it's kind of interesting.”
He's a goober. It's not on Wikipedia, but he really did break his arm by falling off a horse.
Diva only laughed at that, shaking her head as she let him lead her. He went on as they went through the halls, telling jokes and stories as he always did, until finally they came to the small garage that had just recently been built. With all these inventions, the Russian imperial family insisted on staying up to date with technology, since they believed that would bring greatness with it. Diva thought it was just silly, since a contraption that spewed smoke and fire would surely never catch on, but so it was. And George really loved to ride this two wheeled car, a motorcycle. He pulled the black metal beast out of the garage, starting the thing up with an awful roar, beckoning for her to come closer.
You can't write a period anything without a joke about how some technology will never catch on.
“I'm telling you, it's perfectly safe, Marie! Come on, it'll be fun!”
“B-But...! What if Grigori or Amshel find out? They'll be cross with you, George! Especially Amshel, since he doesn't want me doing anything dangerous!” she yelled back, over the sound of the monstrous engine, but she saw him laughing like that was the funniest thing in the world. She couldn't hear what he said over the noise, but she saw the word that he mouthed nonetheless.
Scared?
George always managed to catch her with that question. After all, there was nothing for Diva to be afraid of. Yet the terrible sound still made her heart race. But that questioning of whether she was scared or not , that was more than enough for her to trot over timidly, hopping onto the back. The engine roared again, and Diva clung tightly to George's back, squeezing him tightly enough for her to feel him flinch from what she guessed was pain. She loosened her grip, but only to cling tightly once again, because they were moving forward.
She shut her eyes tightly. Diva wouldn't admit it, but she was absolutely terrified. It was stupid, she thought, for an immortal vampire to be so scared of riding on some kind of mechanical horse, but the noise, the cold, and the speed, they were just so scary that she couldn't bear to open her eyes and see the endless white scenery rushing past. Just imagining it made her dizzy.
Diva has her moments of weakness where she is scared by very human things. Obviously she's not afraid of them anymore, but the noise and speed scared her the most. But the fact that she got on at all shows that she does trust George enough with her safety. Big change from earlier where she thought all humans were disgusting trash.
Open your eyes.
It was just a whispered word, but she did open her eyes in surprise, looking to George's back. He was still riding forward, a grin on his face, and oblivious to her change in position. It was someone else's voice. But that voice was gone just as quickly as it had come, and besides that, Diva had no time to consider it. After all, her eyes were open.
The scenery was rushing by so fast that her eyes couldn't see the trees or houses, just a blur of color. It was like a streak of a painter's brush against a blank canvas, the beginning of a great painting. There wasn't any detail, just bright contrasts of color. The deep blue sky turned into the line of chocolate trees, and then to the ash colored snow. She couldn't believe how beautiful those colors that she hated really were.
Even the very horribly bitter cold, it felt oddly warm. She didn't understand what that warmth was from at first, but then the realization that it was his back that was so warm made her laugh to herself. It was because he was bearing the cold for her, shielding her from it, and then giving her his own warmth. That was funny, in a way she couldn't quite place.
She closed her eyes again, this time not out of fear, but out of an odd, warming feeling that she couldn't place.
Then there was darkness.
The beauty motif returns as Diva realizes that George is someone she trusts, and if she could have identified it, she would say that she loved him. She sees beauty in the scenery instead of ugliness, and realizes that George is protecting her.
________
“...ase! Wake up! Marie!”
She awoke with a feeling that she hadn't felt for a long time. There was such a sinking, burning feeling in her chest, and she could smell smoke, and something burning. There were hands propping her up, then suddenly dropping her with an exclamation that she didn't understand. Diva coughed, and felt the warm, slick feeling of blood spilling out of her mouth, dripping down the side of her face.
Diva knew this feeling.
She had died.
Her eyes opened, and she saw, very clearly, the skeletal branches of a bare tree, and the snow falling down towards her. In her field of vision, there was all of those same colors, but she found that they were no longer beautiful. They were just as they had been, very cold and unspectacular. She was in that snow too, which chilled her to the very bone, unforgiving of the body that laid upon the soft blanket.
Yet, he failed to protect her, and the grotesque trees and plain, ugly scenery returns. Oh, and the motorcycle crashed, which I just assumed was because of an icy patch on the road. I didn't include it because it wasn't important, haha.
“What...”
His voice drew her attention again, and with that sensation in her chest gone, Diva sat up, looking at George. He was sitting several feet away from her, looking absolutely petrified. She knew that look, but she felt nothing.
“What are you, Marie?!”
There was an odd feeling at that, and she tilted her head, crawling closer to George on her hands and knees, not speaking. He scooted away quickly, looking at her now like he was almost angry.
“Stay back! You...you...!”
She reached out towards him.
“...Monster!”
George is human! So he is obviously very shocked by the fact that he just saw Diva die and then come back to life. I'm never specific about her injuries (once again, not important), but she hit her head hard enough to where it would be a shock for her to just get up as if nothing happened. At the beginning, there's also the jaded reaction of feeling nothing at her staring at her like she's, well, a monster.
Her hand dropped, and she stared for a few moments, deciding to stand instead. That word, she hated that word. It made her chest tighten, and it was...painful. It made her chest hurt, which she didn't understand. It was as if Joel's knife was right above her heart, but when she looked, there was absolutely nothing there.
“My name,” she started quietly, without a trace of emotion, “is Diva. Marie isn't my name, George.”
“I don't care what your name is! You're...what are you?! You have to be, must be...a demon, a succubus, that's it! You're going to kill me!”
Yeah, they totally had sex (a lot), so him calling her a succubus isn't that weird. But more importantly, there's the very first feeling of Diva being affected in any way by someone shunning her. George is close to her, so she's upset that he calls her a monster, but she doesn't understand the feeling.
That hurt too. But she was suddenly, and very clearly, aware. Her mind reached out, and she knew that Grigori had followed her, and he was nearby. So she ordered for him to come to her. It wasn't even a moment before he stepped out of the trees, coming to stand beside her. His hands were behind his back as always, but as she glanced at him in the corner of her eye, she saw that slightest of smiles upon his face, and she realized why he had followed.
“I am a Chiropteran, human,” she spoke calmly, walking towards him again, but this time, George stood and walked quickly to Grigori.
“Rasputin, she...! This monster, surely you can kill her!”
He closed his eyes, placing his hands very gently on George's shoulders, which seemed to calm him considerably. It was as if he was reassured that he would be safe, as like as His Friend was here. Diva's expression stayed perfectly and absolutely cold, unwilling to feel any of the emotion that she felt idly in her chest.
The person that told her to open her eyes earlier was Grigori. Amshel isn't around anymore, so Diva is directly under Grigori's care. As such, he knows that he will get his ass kicked if Diva gets hurt. He told her to open her eyes in a moment of affection, though. Rasputin is a different Chevalier because he is a teacher. He doesn't like Diva being ignorant of the world, so he tries to open her to it, which is why he wanted her to see the scenery. But then it backfired, oops.
And at the mention of wanting to kill her, Diva is almost completely detached from George.
“Velikiy Kniaz, I surely cannot. You asked Marie to be your empress, but it is Diva who belongs to me as my Queen,” Rasputin said smoothly, making George freeze in realization, “We are not human, but it is the Ambassador and Diva who will burn the entire world. Not the other way around.”
Diva turned to face Grigori again, waiting to hear what he had to say.
“And Diva, what you're feeling is pain. It's not the same as Joel's pain, but it hurts just as much, I know. Humans, they're not as perfect beings as you, after all.”
Diva paused, and she noticed the gnarled roots of the tree behind both George and Grigori. She turned away, feeling an even sharper pain to see the grotesquely twisted bark. Her hand was upon her head, her face contorted in pain, but she spoke clearly.
“Kill him.”
She sees the short-comings of George, who she had thought as the exception to the rule, so she wants to get rid of him. The only way she knows how to do that is by killing. Interestingly, Rasputin enforces Amshel's lesson here (but with the idea that humans are imperfect and need to be elevated, whereas Amshel just wants to continue to possess Diva), but also mentions that the people that are going to destroy are Diva and Amshel--he doesn't include himself. He thinks of himself as elevated beyond that, because he's a humanist, in a weird, twisted way.
“I can't do that either, Diva. Amshel said it must be you.”
She straighted quickly at that, but she didn't turn. The idea that they, or that Amshel at least, knew, it bothered her. She didn't know why, but it bothered her. But after that moment, she turned to face them both, her expression absolutely cold.
“Fine. For my Amshel, I'll do anything at all.”
Diva took a few steps forward, and George started screaming, crying, no longer the laughing, teasing man she had known ten minutes ago. It was, to her, nothing short of disgusting.
She thought, later, that his body looked beautiful after he died. Absolutely, perfectly beautiful.
It looked like a spring bough to her.
LOTS OF LITERARY THINGS HERE, JUST FOR YOU FARRAH. Haha, no not just for Farrah. There's a lot of the motifs throughout that come together in the ending bit. The theme of beauty is the largest, but there's also trees. So, Diva feels here that seeing George as what Amshel has told her humans are, being disillusioned, is disgusting. It's partially because she's been hurt, but the disgust is also directed towards herself because she feels like because she defied Amshel's warning, she got too close to a human, and was harmed because of it. It's only once she's killed him that she sees him as beautiful and desirable again. He can't hurt her emotionally, but he retains the charm of the memories. Yet, rather than a branch in winter, like what she keeps seeing, she visualizes him as a spring bough, instead. His dead body represents a renewal, but it's in the wrong things--her renewal is in terms of her faith that Amshel will provide for her and knows what's best.