Blossom Witch

You are a Russian grand duchess in a time of revolution. Ben Hardy is a British government official tasked with smuggling you across Europe. You (don’t actually) hate each other.

This is a work of fiction loosely inspired by the events of the Russian Revolution and the downfall of the Romanov family. Many creative liberties were taken. No offense is meant to any actual people. Thank you for reading! :)

Song inspiration: “the 1” by Taylor Swift.

Chapter warnings: Language, grief, some angst, mentions of death and childbirth.

Word count: 4.5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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Once, years ago, while we were holidaying in Crimea and standing ankle-deep in golden sand and the cool swirling rush of the Black Sea, Anastasia invited her sisters to play a game.

“Invent a new color,” she said in Russian, grinning, brash with her crooked teeth and her undignified freckles, the same ones Mother was always imploring her to conceal, demonstrating how to use chalky powders and demure smiles to no avail whatsoever. Anastasia resisted domestication as doggedly as a bear: claws out, fangs bared, a growl rumbling deep in her belly. “One that nobody has ever seen before.”

“Easy,” I replied, being the most well-read of us, the most creative. Tati and Maria had already turned to me; Olga was shielding her nervous, crinkly eyes with one hand and studying the horizon, where charcoal-grey storm clouds were just beginning to brew.

“Go on then,” Anastasia prompted.

Well here’s the trouble: I swiftly realized that I couldn’t think of a new color. Not a single one. My mouth opened and absolutely nothing came out. I closed it again, perplexed.

“Blue-green,” Maria offered proudly. “It’s blue and green mixed together.”

“That’s teal, you idiot,” Anastasia said. “It has to be a new color.”

“Oh.” Maria flushed and tried to hide it by bending down to fish seashells out of the surf with her plump white hands. Then she looked at me expectantly. They all did. And I tried to invent a color, but I just couldn’t; I even cycled through the colors of other languages—noir, arancione, purple, viridis, marron, bleu, rosso, indicus, red, jaune—but they were the same as ours, just with different names. It wasn’t possible to conjure up a color that I’d never seen before. It was unfathomable.

6 x Florence Pugh & Sebastian Stan

“Starting over can be the scariest thing in the entire world, whether it’s leaving a lover, a school, a team, a friend or anything else that feels like a core part of our identity but when your gut is telling you that something here isn’t right or feels unsafe, I really want you to listen and trust in that voice.”

VIOLET MCGRAW AS YOUNG YELENA BELOVA