#aristofake

* home, love, family ( 8 / ? ) .

“ who else could pull it off but ME & YOU ? “

@aristofake  | .  SEND 👫 FOR FOUR HEADCANONS

  okay but hear me out . they met once or twice when anya was a child , and anya didn’t know any better . they didn’t know each other terribly well , but anya liked pulling on his beard . 

whilst she finds dmitry rude and abrasive, she likes vlad, even if she finds him a bit ridiculous at  times .  initially she sticks it out for him . when she’s down , she can be found sitting with vlad , and he’ll pour her a cup of samogon . even if she doesn’t like the taste. 

he often tells her tales about the court , from his own experience . it works a lot better than just rattling off history lessons , and that’s why she finds him so engaging

     “You said you were once a member of the Imperial courts, but...” Sapphire eyes took in the figure before her curiously before looking away with a sigh and shake of her head. The memory just refused to surface of ever seeing him there- but then again she had the same of every aspect of her past life. Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaievna Romanov. It didn’t sound right though her chest warmed at the familiar name. Fingers brushed along the side of the worn stool she sat on across from Vlad as legs swung slightly back and forth.

“ Your Imperial Highness, your family has held the throne for 300 years. After so long, do you think that a little unrest would unseat them? ”

He doesn’t believe this, not as the full truth, but he fervently wishes to be so certain that this revolution will fail. In the years after the revolution in 1905, he’d received letters from his father telling him that in fact, all was not better and much had broken down: schools shuttered, for a start. Internally, Vlad’s done his best to remain impartial; he’s not a monster, but he has enjoyed his life as a count and isn’t quite ready to let it all go.

“ In a few years, we’ll all have a grand laugh about this and how silly we were to worry. ”

        the tremor  in her hands has persisted for hours now   ---   it refuses to go away.   a part of tatiana is convinced that these are the first signs of fever, that she will succumb to the same sickness which has confined their siblings to their sickbeds...   and the very idea brings a new wave of dread, fresher than the gunfire and hollering in the distance.   safe behind palace walls, whatever chaos is ensuing without seems very distant...   but it grows closer with each hour, and the sick feeling grows and grows, until it can no longer be contained.

    is this what they have spent their entire lives dreading?         is this  r e v o l u t i o n ?

        ❛    i  don’t  think  you’ve  mentioned  how  you  and  dmitry  met  yet.    ❜   a  part  of  her  is  too  scared  to  ask  if  it  was  because  they’d  already  groomed  an  impostor  before  (  another  part  of  her  is  worried  about  whether  they  succeeded  or  not,  if  ever  ),  but  she  also  doubts  they  could  call  each  other  old  friends;  dmitry  was  young  enough  to  be  vlad’s  son.   still,  anya  was  curious.   ❛    how   did  your  path  cross  his ?    ❜

@aristofake​  /  random sentence starters :  “ love never really goes away, it just changes sometimes. ”

@aristofake​​​​​​  /  ✦✧ : ❛ do you think we have any chance of surviving this? ❜

    THEY ARE OUT OF OPTIONS.  There’s no turning back now, not when the Bolsheviks are hot on their trails hanging up wanted posters with their faces plastered on them, and certainly, not with the fatal boom of the officer’s pistol and Anya’s involuntary cry resounding in their ears. Vlad’s question is spoken in a sharp whisper, but Dmitry thinks he can hear growing hysterics in his friend’s voice, see the shock ( or is it fear? ) still paling his face when the train roars back to life. And for once, Dmitry wholly shares his partner’s panicked apprehension, especially after Anya stands up amid the compartment’s chaos, white knuckling the windowsill, and declares that they’re getting off.

the crown weighs heavy perched on her golden curls, and her gloved fingers trail along the scarlet silk, edging around the glittering jewels and beading she could have never imagined wearing before this week, but her eyes are trained on the family portrait in front of her. anya feels like a new person, surrounded by this foreign opulence, and she wonders if this is what coming home is meant to feel like. it’s the sweet smell of orange blossoms, the puzzle of her past fitting together, and the familiar tune of a lullaby that often persuade her it must be, but something is missing. her teeth begin to worry her crimson stained lips and she has to reprimand herself to stop. something tells her that coming home shouldn’t feel so... lonely.

after all, anya has her grandmother and a whole court of people she must have known once upon a time, but even then, she only remembers them in faint pockets of memories, in words that she had heard her father saying once, in the stories vlad and dmitry had told her. she doesn’t truly know them, but it’s like a party trick when she does recognize them. so when she sees vlad rounding the corner, how he stretches out his arms, and the note of pride in his voice, anya can’t help the grin that lights her face. finally, someone familiar, someone she knows. that little girl in the portrait is not someone she knows yet.

“all grown up.” anya echoes back, twirls to prove her point, but her gaze flickers back to the painting on the wall, smile falling slowly. there’s a question on her tongue that she’s been dying to ask. “you knew them, right? do you think they’d be proud?”