It’s not gay if it’s on the Mississippi (6/12)
Last time on ~It’s not gay if it’s on the Mississipppi~: Local garbage love interest Nicholas made Silver sit next to known waste of space Lee Bassinger during dinner, and it did not go over well to the utter surprise of absolutely no-one. Also, there was more sexual harrassment than you can shake a dick at. The same as every year, James.
If you want to read the whole debacle from the get-go, start here.
Note: I’ve noticed this is a mess in mobile version, but I don’t really know how to fix it, sorry!
Crossposted on tumblr.
Like the first rays of sunshine of early dawn, we begin this chapter with the appearance of Вест Вой Валя™.
A yellow satin gown was delivered to the stateroom by Valentin shortly before six the next evening. He stood in the doorway, the brilliantly colored garment draped over his arm, a pair of yellow satin slippers in his hand, and a faintly apologetic smile on his lips. “Nicky sent these. He thought you’d be a trifle more comfortable at the dinner table tonight wearing something more appropriate.”
“I’m not surprised he feels a whore’s gown more fitting for me.”
He sure had to put up with a lot of shit as Nicky’s de facto manservant until he finally got the reward of owning his estate, huh :(
Also, this scene is pretty much a direct Gone With The Wind ripoff. Margaret Mitchell disapproves.
Silver asks why Mikhail left as soon as he brought her breakfast this morning and she’s been alone since.
Valentin made a face. “Nicky decided you needed time to ponder and told us we weren’t to approach you.”
Now I just want Valentin and Mikhail break Silver out and go on a merry gay road trip to solve this pseudo murder mystery themselves while letting Nicky take his blueball rage out on Bassinger. Why can’t we have that instead. (ಥ_ಥ)
Silver tries to focus on feeling pissed off to get over her unfortunate affliction.
By all that was holy, now it was a silken gown! Damn Nicholas and his crystal chandeliers, soft velvets, and fine damask tablecloths. How easy life was for him.
Check your privilege and fuck off kindly, Nicholas.
When she thought of the comparison between his life and Etaine’s, she wanted to take a tomahawk to that arrogant golden head.
If only you would!! Peace to the shacks, wage war on the palaces!!! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
And now Nicholas’s actions were making life even harder for Etaine by preventing her, Silver, from being close enough to help when needed.
Good to know you actually still remember the girl exists. Am I talking to the novel or Silver here, you ask? Yes.
Valentin urges her to just cooperate and tell Nicky where her uncle is, but she insists it’s more complicated than that.
“I suppose you’re right. But don’t be so-” He broke off and turned to go. “It’s no use talking to you any more than it is to Nicky. I’ll be back for you at eight.”
Valentin, why is no-one ever listening to you.
Also, he warns her that Nicholas insisted she wear the gown because he’s “sick of looking at her frumpy school uniform” and I want in equal measures to point out again how it stresses she’s a penniless kidnapped teenager and throw up. Excuse me for a moment :’)
Silver would love to simply not attend the dinner, but she needs to be outside her room to literally jump ship later that evening when they are close to the sandbanks. However, she can’t be level-headed for more than a second, because she still really wants to give a last fuck-you to Nicholas and ponders if he has a weakness she could exploit. (Kick him in the groin!!)
Valentin had said Nicholas was very possessive of her and she had noticed signs of that quality in him herself.
Did you, now. Really. How odd. It was probably very subtle, amazing that you noticed.
Her gaze shifted abstractedly from the gown on the bench to the bed. There had to be something … She froze, her eyes widening, and then threw back her head and began to laugh in sheer delight.
I think she’s finally snapped and I’m dreading finding out what brilliant idea she just had.
When Valentin shows up to pick her up in the next paragraph, she’s wearing a blue cloak over her dress, and he’s sure she’s up to… something. You can’t con a con artist.
Valentin opened the door and then hesitated. Silver was glowing, blazing with vitality and an excitement that made him vaguely apprehensive. “I’m glad you took my advice.”
Silver sailed through the doorway, smiling sweetly at him as she passed. “I think you’ll agree that I’ve tried very hard to obey Nicholas’s command. May I have your arm?”
She really likes pulling him into her self made messes, doesn’t she.
“Then why don’t you take me to the head of the table at once so that Nicholas can make his decision about which of these gracious individuals he wishes me to get to know this evening?” Silver asked softly. “It will save time.”
Valentin looked at her suspiciously. “Silver-”
“Hush, Valentin.” Silver didn’t look at him, her gaze on Nicholas.
This is the point where he should have simply dragged her out again by whatever excuse necessary and got them both on a lifeboat and skedaddled.
Nicholas’s gaze flicked over her once again, a smile of satisfaction touching his lips as he saw the yellow satin slippers peeping from beneath the hem of her cloak. “Take off your cloak, it’s quite warm in here. I want to see how you look in something besides that uniform.” He smiled lazily. “I thought yellow would quite wonderfully complement your hair.”
This entire scene just makes me realise that Nicholas here is basically taking the role of Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean. Our romantic hero, ladies and gentlemen!!!
Originally posted by micomplicated
Silver tells him that the dress didn’t fit, so she’s not wearing it, but that he won’t be disappointed. Now, what dumb thing could she have done?
“I believe you told Valentin you wished me to look more womanly.” With one swift gesture she slipped the cloak from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. “Now, what could be more womanly than the woman herself.”
“Oh, my God,” Valentin murmured, closing his eyes.
“It’s the bed curtain.” Then he yielded to temptation and looked again.
Silver, so hot she can even turn moneysexual aces straight for a second.
The sheer white batiste had been fashioned into a simple loose Grecian tunic, leaving one shoulder bare and falling straight to the floor. Silver’s smooth golden skin, taut pink nipples, all the secret places of her body, were only lightly veiled and could be seen in all their ravishing loveliness. She looked as wildly beautiful and shockingly desirable as a high priestess in the temple of Aphrodite.
The whole “dress made from curtain” thing being again wholesale stolen from Gone With The Wind aside…. It was brought in the first chapter already, but why are there sheer bed curtains. What’s the use. Are they supposed to be mosquito nets? I have questions;;
Nicky orders Valentin to put the cloak back on her, but Silver doesn’t let him.
She shook her head, a reckless smile on her face as she continued to back away. “I’m not uncomfortable like this. I’m Apache, remember?”
I’m sure by pissing him off and making yourself the target of every horny dude present, you really raised your chances at getting free access to the deck in order to swim over to the shore! Genius! (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑
Nicholas stood up so suddenly that his chair crashed to the floor behind him. “Then, by God, you’d better learn to behave like a white woman. I won’t have you stripping yourself for every man to gape at like some-”
“Put on that cloak or I swear you’ll regret it, Silver.”
Then she was gone, flying down the length of the saloon toward the door leading to the deck, her straight dark hair streaming behind her in a wild, shining banner. She heard Nicholas call her name, but she ignored it. Fierce joy was surging through her veins. She had done it! She had bested Nicholas and now she would complete her plan.
Silver actually makes it to the deck and jumps overboard as Nicholas and Valentin chase after her.
“You’re going after her?” Valentin asked as he watched Nicholas jerk off his boots and toss them aside.
I imagine he’s standing there with his wine glass still in hand, and will probably just toast to Nicky when he jumps after her. Godspeed, friend. Thanks for putting me in your will as your sole heir. Dasvidanya.
Nicholas is worried because of the dangers of currents.
Where the devil was she? Then he saw a gleam of moonlight shining on a seal-wet head and felt a relief so intense it made him dizzy.
Native speakers who might read this, is seal-wet a thing? If not, can we make it one? (◕‿◕✿)
He dove into the river and struck out after Silver, cleaving the water with powerful strokes. His heart was pounding with fear as his eyes strained in the darkness. Incredibly, he found himself muttering a prayer beneath his breath.
I hope you end up drowning by inhaling water that way, you utter idiot.
He of course ordered Valentin not do dispatch a rescue party until morning, because why would he do anything logical.
Valentin presumably just went back to dinner and drank a bottle of champagne to his hopeful early succession.
We then get what was probably meant to be a super gripping paragraph, but to me just reads absolutely hysterical instead:
She swam steadily, drawing closer, closer still. Soon she would be here. Stroke, breathe deeply, another stroke, breathe deeply, str-
Blackness! A gnarled, scaly monster bearing down on her!
There were no river monsters, she thought wildly, no monsters here.
The monster struck! She gasped as an avalanche of pain tumbled through her head. Dizziness. Pain. Blackness. She must keep moving. But she couldn’t remember what to do, how to move her arms. Panic ripped through her. She was going to die. She was going to be with Rising Star.
Oh, God, she didn’t want to die!
She ends up blacking out, thinking of…
- Her mother figure, Rising star ?
- Etaine, the girl she wishes to rescue ?
- Nicholas, the abusive jerk who’s the reason she’s in this mess in the first place ?
Sadly, neither of them drowns, and Silver wakes up presumably hours later considering her shirt is only damp and that Nicholas has got a good fire going in bloody Louisiana.
Nicholas’s face was intent in the firelight, a slight frown knitting his brow. His golden hair was touseled and a little damp and he was wearing no shirt. That was strange, she thought vaguely. She had never seen Nicholas when he was not faultlessly dressed. “Where’s your shirt?”
His eyes flew up to meet hers and relief flooded his face. “I’m sorry to appear with such a shocking lack of decorum, but I thought you needed it more than I did,” he said lightly.
Each time he has a somehwat charming line, I somehow just hate him more. It’s fascinating.
Silver takes a moment to remember what happened, recalling the “monster” that attacked her.
“Lie back down,” Nicholas said, trying to push her onto the bed of moss and leaves. “There was no monster.”
“There was.” She dazedly lifted her hand to her head. “I saw it. Black and scaly and-”
“It was a log being carried by the current,” Nicholas said. “No monster. It struck you a glancing blow on the head and stunned you.”
God forbid she’s too capable without having to be rescued once. And of course she would jump to silly conclusions, as women are prone to :’)
“Hush.” Nicholas’s arms were suddenly around her, rocking her as if she were a dearly loved child. “Don’t think about it. It’s over now.”
“I thought I was strong enough to win over anything. But I wasn’t.” The shiver had evolved into shudders that racked her slim frame. “I was so frightened.”
And clearly, what you need isn’t better planning, less reckless behavior or trusty allies, but a hot man in your life. I mean. It’s obvious.
Nicholas suffered a poignant ache deep within him. God, she was young.
How long ago it had been since he had believed he had the strength to win every battle, vanquish every foe, even one as powerful as death itself.
What do you mean “how long ago”, you still walk through life with that exact arrogance! You kidnap women with no proof of their guilt, you argue to know people’s sexual desires better than they themselves, you pretty much tell the Tsar to go fuck himself to his face… But yes, you’re so mature and wise at the ripe old age of 27-ish.
“It’s all right to be frightened. No one expects a wo-” He stopped. This was not a comfort Silver would be able to accept.
Sometimes, purely by accident, the stray synapses in his mind actually brush against each other and let him have something ressembling a thought. It’s a rare, beautiful moment we get to observe here /single tear
She lifted her head to look more directly at his face. “Why are you being so kind to me?” she asked haltingly. “You were very angry with me in the saloon tonight.”
“I’m still angry with you.” Something flickered in the depths of his eyes and then was gone. “But I’ve never enjoyed a battle against an unarmed opponent, and I believe it’s safe to say you’re amazingly defenseless at the moment.”
Our noble hero, everyone!!
She’s upset she was being a stupid damsel but says that as soon as she’s recovered, she’ll back to her feisty self.
“I’m well aware of that, but for tonight, at least, we’ll call a truce. I gave orders that a boat not be launched until dawn, so we must rely on ourselves until then. Lay down your weapons, Silver. I promise I’m no threat to you and I’ll protect you from danger.” His ebony eyes twinkled in the firelight. “Including river monsters.”
He tells her to rest while he’ll get food. Now. It was already past 8pm when they went overboard and it’s been long enough for her sodden clothes to be only “damp” a this point. Boats will arrive in the morning. You will be fine without dinner for one night, so how about not stumbling around in the swampy dark of unfamiliar terrain? Why is everonye here so dumb :’)
I’m fairly certain the entire point is only brought up so Silver can have another moment of I’m not like other girls™:
“I can help,” she said eagerly. “Apache girl children are taught exactly the same skills as boys until they reach the time for the rites of womanhood. I can travel forty miles a day through rough country. I can trap and hunt and fish and I was the best tracker in the village.” She frowned. “Though some of the warriors wouldn’t admit it. I told them-”
“I’m sure you did,” Nicholas interrupted, his eyes dancing.
His oh so charming habit of interrupting everyone speaking positively of her, including herself, how I’ve missed it :’)
He burst out laughing as he rose to his feet. “I assure you, my entire existence hasn’t been spent in marble palaces being pampered by armies of servants. I’ll find you something to eat, Silver.” He glanced down at his bare feet. “Though I have no intention of hunting or trapping tonight. I know what stones and brush can do to unprotected feet.”
As the grandson to the de facto leader of a Cossack group, I am very learned in foraging for food in the south of the United States! I can make a wicked gumbo from scratch, I’ll have you know, and I*ve only ever mixed up severely poisonous mushrooms native to the US once! We’ll be fine (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑
She gasped, her gaze fastened in shock on the long line of his back. White scars crisscrossed his flesh from his shoulders to the base of his spine, scars that could only have been inflicted by the lash of a whip.
You know what’s interesting? This is not the first time in the novel we see him shirtless. Simon Bentsen, the enovy of that detective agency, sees him stark naked in the first chapter and is having a severe gay crisis about his ~strong shoulders and narrow waist and tight buttocks~, you’d think he’d mention at some point “Oh, also his back is absolutely scarred from corporal punishment, what is going on in the Russian army” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Then he faded into the dense forest shrubbery with a silent grace that surprised her.
To quote a school friend of my sister’s: “You move as gracefully as a deer… Or what are these animals with the large grey trunk called again? “
She sat frozen, staring after him in the darkness. She felt … strange. What kind of a man was Nicholas Savron? She couldn’t really know, since their every encounter had been colored by anger, conflict, and lust.
You know, aside from the fact that he kind of…. had you kidnapped. And thinks that you’re a whore. And that your uncle killed his cousin. You have a lot of insight into his character already, girl, more than most people have of potential dates. Get it together.
He had saved her life! The realization came with the shocking force of a blow. “No!” She didn’t wish to owe Nicholas Savron anything. He was the enemy.
He abducted you and never clarified he wouldn’t harm you!! He’s indirectly responsible for you almost drowning trying to get to safety!! You don’t owe him shit!!
Pleasant. It was not a word to describe Nicholas Savron. He dazzled and wooed, he struck with the glittering sharpness of a renaissance dagger and then danced away to watch with an entrancing smile as his opponent crumpled.
I’d say he’s more like an unpeeled birch wooden club smashing in someone’s face and then trampling over their corpse in a hissy fit because the colour of their bloor reminds him of his harlot of a mother, but you do you.
Her hair was nearly dry. She must have been unconscious longer than she had believed, yet the blow had been really nothing. It was very puzzling.
Dear heaven, surely she hadn’t swooned? Indignation surged through her at the thought. She couldn’t have been such a ninny. She had been frightened but she did not swoon. It was ridiculous and she-
Also… If you pass out that long, that’s not a good sign. If a man makes you swoon that hard, it’s more likely you punched you into brain trauma tbh.
Nicholas returns with a rich harvest of raspberries (GOOD JOB!!), and once more Silver has a line that makes me almost warm up to her:
“I like to eat. There are so many wonderful tastes.” She sighed blissfully.
Nicholas gazed at her thoughtfully. Sitting there across the fire, she
was a wild, lovely pagan, completely at home in her surroundings. She
radiated a natural sensuality that formed an aura of heat that reached
out and touched like the warmth of the fire itself. If she was so
responsive to taste and scent, how much more responsive would she be
to touch?
Please take your fetishizing of foreign women elsewhere and fuck off.
He is worried because seeing her like this makes him want to do things. It’s so hard, being a guy, you guys :( So he says he’ll go back to pick more berries.
“Are you angry with me?” She suddenly looked like a hurt child.
His frown vanished and he began to laugh. “I’m not hungry and I’m not angry with you. I was joking before.”
She gazed at him uncertainly. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said a trifle impatiently. “For God’s sake, can’t you tell the difference?”
“No,” she said simply. “Not always. I suppose I don’t really have a very good sense of humor. No one has really joked with me much.”
Maybe it’s also all the gaslighting you’ve put her through. Just a wild idea of mine.
Christ, why did she have to say things like that? Wild child, lost child, fighting for acceptance with every ounce of her being and nothing left over for laughter.
This chapter really quadruples down on the whole child-like imagery. I wonder if I should make it a drinking game just so I’m too drunk to get upset over it as much :’)
Comparing the woman who you constantly try to bang to a child is not okay, never hot, never sexy, stop it.
“And was some of the laughter unkind?”
“At times.” She lifted her gaze from the flames. “I am a half-breed.”
The simple words hurt. He couldn’t stand it. He deliberately shuttered his emotions and smiled carelessly. “So am I. Serf and boyar.” He continued lightly. “I never understood why a pure strain was considered more prestigious than a mixed. More is surely better.”
The issue is not with your heritage! You’re an awful person all on your own!!
“Valentin told me your mother was not of the nobility.”
His lips twisted. “Much to her dismay.” He shrugged. “When I was a small child I tried to comfort her by telling her about the firebird, but she dismissed it as foolishness.”
“The firebird? You called me that once.”
“Did I? I don’t remember. I recall thinking you reminded me of a firebird the first time I saw you.”
I remember. We all remember. You literally never shut up about it :’)
“The firebird is a half-breed too, Silver. Half diety of the sun and half mortal
bird.”
This is a typo, but I’m still loving it.
She asks him to tell her a firebird story.
“Tell me your favorite.”
He laughed softly. “My firebird isn’t a god but a goddess.”
“It would be,” Silver said dryly.
:’)
“She was a creature so magnificent, no words could describe her. Her wings were like flames and her eyes pure crystal. She ate only golden apples and just one of her feathers could bring light to midnight darkness and banish the fears of the night.”
“Beautiful,” Silver murmured dreamily. “She must have been beautiful.…”
“Yes, she was beautiful, but she was more. She was magical.” Silver’s eyes were shining in the firelight like the shimmering crystal of the firebird, and for a moment he lost track of what he was saying.
He tells her thee story of a cossack who met a firebird, but after a while of flying around he grew bored and was returned to riches and fame.
“The warrior became a great leader and won riches and fame. Many maidens wished to mate with him as the years passed, but he found he couldn’t bring himself to marry.
In a post-Omegaverse-world I just can no longer read the word “mate” without having a visceral physical reaction to it, I’m sorry :’)
The Cossack eventually grew unhappy being parted with the firebird, though, and searched until he finds a single feather and manages to summon her back.
“And they flew away together and lived happily ever after,” Silver finished.
“Perhaps.”
“What do you mean, perhaps?” Silver covered her lips with her hand as she yawned. “How else could it end?”
“This is a Russian fable.” Nicholas’s eyes twinkled. “Which makes it more complex.
There are two endings. In one, the warrior mounted the back of the firebird and became her mate forever. In the other ending, the firebird had been so crazed by her grief that her heart now held only bitterness for the warrior and she rent him to death with her talons.”
AN ENDING HARSH LIKE MY FATHER AND WINTER IN SIBERIA
She scowled. “In this country we would never permit such an ending. I’m convinced Russians must be a very peculiar people.”
You are from a tribe of people having been slaughered for decades now by those crafting the cruel mythology of Manifest Destiny. What the heck are you talking about.
“The first ending is correct. I’m sure of it.”
“Then who am I to disagree?” He settled down a few yards from where she lay, his eyes dark with secrets as they narrowed on her face. He didn’t speak for several minutes, and when he did, his voice was almost a whisper. “And who should know better … Firebird?”
Silver didn’t answer, and Nicholas saw that she was asleep.
