Tea With Royalty for Picfic Tuesday 7/16

[dixiebelle2013.livejournal.com]

Originally posted by dixiebelle2013 at Tea With Royalty for Picfic Tuesday 7/16

"It's so lovely to meet your friends, Illya," said Larissa Kirillovna as she poured tea for her guests. Illya, Trina, Napoleon, and Linda all sat around the table in Larissa's small but comfortable apartment.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Trina replied, smiling warmly at the older woman. "And your tea set is absolutely gorgeous!"

"Thank you." Larissa smiled. "It belonged to my mother. It was one of the few family heirlooms she was able to smuggle out when we had to flee to Finland during the Revolution."

"It must be very special to you, then," said Trina.

"Oh, it is," Larissa agreed.

"Illya tells me that you're related to Tsar Nicholas II. I've never met royalty before." Trina sounded a bit awed.

"My father was Cyril Vladimirovich, Nicholas' first cousin," Larissa told her. "Do you by any chance remember Anna Anderson?"

Trina frowned. "I've never heard of her."

"A few years after my father's cousin's family was executed, she came forward claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia who survived the massacre," Larissa recalled as she sipped her tea. "As badly as we all wanted it to be true, we eventually came to see that that wasn't possible. My father became quite angry at Anna, accusing her of being a manipulative fraud who wanted a claim to the family fortune. I myself always felt a bit sorry for her. Here she was, a woman all alone who'd just survived a suicide attempt and suffered from amnesia. Who could blame her for wanting to be able to claim some identity, even if it was a false one?"

"It sounds like a terribly sad story," Trina said softly.

"Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, dear," Larissa gently urged her.

"I'm afraid my story isn't nearly as interesting as yours is." Trina chuckled. "My mother had a miscarriage during an earthquake in Japan and wasn't ever able to get pregnant again after that. Years later they adopted me as an infant. My father lost his job during the depression and they almost lost custody of me as well. Later he got another job, and I was about six when they adopted my brother Randy. He was about three."

"So they got their happy ending, after all," Larissa said with a smile.

Soon it was time to say good-bye, and Illya took Trina for a walk in the park. "That visit brought back memories for you as well, did it not?" he asked her softly.

Trina stopped to pick a flower, then mindlessly twirled it around and around by the stem. "When I was little, my mother used to curl my hair so I'd look like Shirley Temple," she told Illya. "She'd seen all Shirley's movies. I remember watching one of the later ones with her. I wanted so badly to be just like Shirley, to be able to sing and dance just like her. Then I got sick."

"Bednaya devotchka." Illya put his arms around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"On the hospital ward, whenever one of the other children died or was sent home paralyzed or in an iron lung, the nurses would tell the rest of us that they'd gone for physical therapy. The next morning we'd see the still freshly-made bed and know what had really happened."

Illya snorted.

"They meant well, Illya. They just didn't want us to be afraid. But we were all scared to death anyway. We all knew very well what might happen to us."

Illya was silent. It was the first time Trina had ever been that open with him before, and although saddened by her revelations, he suddenly felt much closer to her.