🇸🇺🇵🇪🇷🇧🇺🇸 / 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚

       🌙 ❝ even i wanted to cut pyotr’s head. if irina did that, it’s only another thing for she to be deserving of my affections. ❞ he laughed dryly. he wanted to be there to see pyotr’s blood spilling from his neck --- it would be one of his happiest days. ❝ but no, i am not. i fear that someone else will do that. ❞

       🌙 ah, his wife. it was about time someone asked about her. ❝ i don’t think i would love her, as my heart belongs to another, but if she had accepted her new home, name and culture i would be more lenient with her. it’s a shame she didn’t. ❞ nagasani was everything a man would seek in a woman --- but yuri loved his homeland more and wanted to marry to someone that already loved it, or was willing to love it. russia deserved the best --- and not just foreign crumbs.

       🌙 for the first time, yuri was speachless. did he truly regret his feelings ? the memories ? ❝ you caught me on that, huh ? but i don’t. know somedays i do regret it, especially now that all of these ... things are happening. when he was on the war and his death news reached my ears, i also regretted it. but in some other days, why would i do it ? it was a good time in my life. ❞

       🌙 ❝ in the eyes of who ? his wife ? ❞ yuri had overcome his insecurities regarding his brother. it was worse when he was younger --- yuri was the cneter of attention only in the normal days. when there was royality visiting or festivities, dmitry stole his spot. ❝ i’m just less than him because of a title, if i could remember. i’m sure in the next generations they’ll talk more about tsarevich yuri than tsar dmitry. ❞

       🌙 for many years, a younger yuri thought of that. he was jealous of dmitry --- well, everyone liked yuri more than they did with dmitry because of the flamboyant personality of the youngest tsarevich, but dmitry would always have the glories of lead such a strong empire as the russian one. ❝ when i was young, yes i did. but now ? only if someone else ruled for me. i would love to have the glory, the crown, everything good that comes with that title --- but the responsabilities ? nah, i’ll pass. ❞

    🌙 ❝ no. ❞ yuri answered straightforward, shrugging. ❝ everyone knew about my reputation. if people got hurt, it wasn’t my entire fault. i can sometimes be a little too blunt, but i can’t help myself. but sometimes i think of them. when i’m feeling too nostalgic. but in defense, there isn’t much people. two, maybe three.❞ 

location : the common grounds. 

   🌙 yuri was liking bellinzona more than he thought he would. without the presence of his wife & not needing to be with his family ( mostly dmitry and yekaterina, as he cherish the company of his dear sisters ) all the time, he felt free. if yuri were younger, he would love that freedom. he always felt like a caged bird within kremlim castle walls --- especially when tsar ivan was still alive, and his iron gaze would follow yuri whenever he went. sometimes, he could still feel that gaze. it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. if he could, he would erase all the memories of his father from his mind. 

but the beauties of bellinzona didn’t escaped his eyes. he took a day off to be alone and venture in the city --- a day where he wasn’t the tsarevich, the brother of the tsar. he was just yuri, a man that enjoyed the renaissance art. yuri felt like the young boy he was observing the painters doing their work --- they remind him of the few artists in the russian court on his father reign. stepping out of an atelier, yuri spoke to the unfamiliar face who was near. ❝ it’s amazing how they can create life with a few brushes and ink. ❞

location  :  the main hub of activity around bellinzona  status  :  open to both sides of the peace treaty

he had given her a task, he had entrusted his vision, his voice and his message within her very mouth ( her tongue suddenly thick and heavy behind small pearls of ivory ). the sultan would join her soon, or so he had said. but till then, she would be amiss of her two younger children; her dear husna and habib, who were to be nurtured by the consorts and the sultan himself. 

she strayed from the confines of sasso corbaro to take to the common ground, her traditional garments put aside for warmer wear - western clothes pared with her nath piercing worn, a large ring decorated with amber jewels given upon her wedding day by the sultan himself. her older children were left with their nalini, a nanny who both educated and cared for them in gulbadan’s absence. 

it was perhaps overwhelming for the consort, as she stepped into a world unfathomable to the loyal people of the mughal empire. and yet, she tried. her mind cast back to the teachings of the goddess lakshmi; for she was the one who would take gulbadan’s hand, guiding her forth to opportunities of the west. 

“excuse me,” she announced, her tongue rough and strange around western words as she held her hands upon her belly. “i am gulbadan devi sultan begum… i have just arrived from hindustan, and though i am late… i wish to extend courtesies from the sultan of the mughal empire himself. may i ask, how long have you sought sanctuary within these borders?” 

    🌙 yuri needed some time to himself. he was feeling too much things at the same time and he felt like his thoughts weren’t in the right place. a cup of wine would change that, if he was some years young. but he was now an adult --- had been for a long time, but just he was feeling like one. yuri was a father of two --- and if he was luckier, another one was on their way. but he also felt uneased by this --- what if dmitry didn’t accept his request to legitimize irinei ? he didn’t want to put another child in the world only for them to be another bastard. 

but a feminine voice took him out of his thoughts. at the mention of hindustan, he opened a big smile --- he didn’t hate them nor nagasani, the blame of his unhappy marriage he put on dmitry’s shoulders without guilt. ❝ hindustan ? then you probably are one of my in-laws. ❞ he smiled warmly at the unfamiliar woman --- he didn’t understand a thing about the hindustan titles, but she seemed to be a princess of sorts. ❝ i’ve been here for a week, maybe ? i can’t recall exactly, but it’s not much. ❞

She raked her eyes over him from top to toe. He was undoubtedly Russian. She knew, though technically Catholic, they kept to their own religion and customs. She wondered how different they were to Italy’s own. It was baffling, she thought, how many could worship in so many different ways. “Why does she think that?” She asked, in a tone that sounded somewhat like a demand. It wasn’t that she cared, really, though it was prudent to know whose company she had found herself in. 

“Well, as an Italian woman, and therefore your enemy, I would like to protest that line of thinking. I would not want to see myself crushed this morning.” She spoke drily, hinting at a humour that her face did not show. “I suppose the point of all of this is to figure out who our enemies truly are. I need not be yours.” 

    🌙 he wasn’t ashamed of the things he had done on his youth --- but telling such things inside a church made yuri a little uneasy. ❝ let’s say my reputation on my younger days weren’t the best. ❞ yuri explained --- such things weren’t supposed to be told in front of a lady, who looked like royality, just like him. 

ah, italy. it was a place that yuri knew verry little of --- russia wasn’t part of the contries ruled by the catholic church, and he knew what everybody also knew. ❝ well, my lady, you seen like you are a very nice person to talk with. i promise i’ll not crush you when the right time comes. ❞ yuri teased, yet a friendly smile took its place on his thin lips. battlefield matters were dmitry’s, after all. but at her words, his eyebrows raised. that was becoming interesting. ❝ i must agree with you. i’m yuri rurik, tsarevich of the russian empire. it’s a pleasure. ❞

Friedi nodded her head in confirmation. “It is Fahriye, now. Not so different to Friederike, really. But you may of course still call me Friedi. Unfortunately for my husband, that is who I will always be.” Loud, rebellious, unmissable Friedi, the rebel of the German court, the thorn in her father’s side. She didn’t wish to bring such a reputation into her marriage, but neither would she deny who she had always been. 

“Yuri Ivanovich, you never change,” Friederike said, not without fondness. Plenty had, whilst they had been here, down to her own name, but Yuri had been untouched like that. Even she was different now, she realised with a jolt. Plenty had impressed upon her how necessary it was to b a different, better person, and it wasn’t until that moment that she realised, though she had raised hell at the notion, she had changed. It was not the most comforting of thoughts. “Well, now that I have already been stolen, and there is nothing neither of us can do, why don’t we walk a moment? I am certain you have many stories to tell me.” She slipped her arm through his, steering him in the direction she wished to walk. “So what trouble have you been up to since I last saw you?” 

    🌙 yuri wasn’t the best at the arabic languages --- he knew a little of ottoman turkish, because they were allies, and a few words in persian, for the sake of his wife. but fahriye seemed a strong name, like friederike was --- and she would need to be. yuri saw the struggles nagasani went through to adjust to the russian court --- he hoped the sehzade would be a better husband than he was and is. ❝ it’s a beautiful name. did you chose it or others chose for you ? ❞

he smiled. ❝ why would i change ? ❞ yuri teased, yet he thought how much he had changed --- not to his friends or family, but for those who only saw him as the bohemian tsarevich of the russian empire. but he didn’t do it because of them --- it was because of his friends and to show to the courtiers that he could be a decent father. he hummed in acknowledgement of the german words, walking in the direction friederike was going. ❝ well, i’m a father now. nagasani gave me a little girl, karina yurievna rurik. she’s a blessing, i never thought i could love such a small human being. ❞ he also wanted to tell friedi about irinei, but the boy wasn’t legitimized yet. but yuri smiled --- irinei was his pride, but karina was his joy. 

they had always worked on the same path, finishing sentences or whispering shared opinion. so it came to no surprise that yuri had also been thinking of their son. so she hummed loudly for him in appreciation, her body pressed into his own as she felt his hands explore with greedy, essential touches. “do you swear it?” irina asked, her voice slow and needy as she peppered kisses yet upon his neck, tasting the salt of his skin as her hands ravaged the neat wave of his hair. “swear on your life that you will legitimise irinei, make him yours once and for all. he would make a loyal subject to his family, a great general in time… or whatever other skills present themselves,” irina cooed, playing with the length of his hair as she felt his hands toy with the tie of her dress; he was perhaps lucky to know that she was wearing a simple garment in preparation for bed. 

he was a lover. so that was why he had sought her out, with knawing teeth and jutted chins. she could not blame him, for yuri was to be obsessed over; to be devoured with dislodged jaws and sharp teeth. yet still, she yearned for his eye to be on her, to REMAIN on her person as she tugged on his hair - a sharp pull, with enough power to make her chest heave with desperation. “what would you do, my yuri, if he tried to hurt me? to hurt your true son?” she asked, wishing to hear anything as long as it ended with simeon’s death, as her palms pushed upon his chest, luring him back into the chair by the window as she moved her skirts this way and that to climb atop his lap. 

without a word to her recruited maids, they left - leaving irina to kiss her truest of loves with a passion reserved for sweethearts made of sin and blood. but she was needy after months of being alone! after keeping herself pure as she watched her son ( their son ) grow fat with strength and purposeful movements. her hand pushed aside cotton, leather, fur and silk as she went for the hardened front of his hose, finding his intimacy with a gasp that came swollen from the core of her throat. “i would kill him for you, my love… for us… tell me, yuri, when you legitimise my son and give me another babe, will i live beneath your roof now i am free of that monster once known as prince?” 

    🌙 what irina asked that yuri didn’t do like one of the loyal subjects of his brother ? the idea of legitimize irinei was on his mind since the brith of the boy --- he hated the fact of knowing that the boy was his, yet he didn’t held the rurik surname nor his patronymic. or to see pyotr belskyi near the infant --- the old man was probably too ignorant ( yuri doubted that ) or didn’t see that the child wasn’t him for a reason. but the tsarevich smiled at her words. he knew that both of his children were destined to glory. ❝ you don’t trust on my word, irina ? irinei will be a rurik before you can blink your eyes once more --- i swear on my life and on the life of my dead mother. ❞ he doubted that his mother would approve such a thing --- but she won’t deny another grandchild from her favourite son. 

yuri knew what to do if simeon hurted them --- he had thought about that the entire trip, and way back when he heard about his arrival in the swiss’ lands. ❝ i will order his death, if i don't kill him myself. ❞ he whispered only to irina to hear. he wasn’t a fool --- irina could trust her maids, but yuri didn’t. and he wasn’t a fool, even if looked like one --- to express the death wish of someone who was influential at court could cost his own head. yuri sat at the chair obediently, undoing the last ties of irina’s dress. pulling down, leaving her collarbone exposed and kissed the soft skin there. 

he groaned at the feeling of irina’s hand. how he had missed that --- it felt like irina was made especially for him by anyone who wnated to please him, God or Devil themselves. holding her by the neck, his cold fingers caress the thin skin of irina’s throat, a place where yuri loved to leave a trail of kisses that would probably leave a mark in the next day. he hummed happily at her words --- yuri would never stain irina’s beautiful hands with simeon’s blood. yet, he valued knowing that she was willing to do so. ❝ irina ... you know that this is one my biggest wishes. maybe this time we’ll have a baby girl, huh ? but when these peace bullshit is over, i’ll manage a way to neutralize nagasani. maybe a lover of her own would to that, what do you think ? ❞ the tsarevich didn’t care if he created another war --- irina was his helen, he would do anything to be at her side. 

post  count  this  week  (  09/05  to  16/05 ):  n. of replies ( 11 ) + n. of tasks ( 0 ) points  gained: 11 points + 2 bonus point for 5 replies = 13 point  allocation: influence +4 ; intelligence +3 ; wealth + 2 ; physical +2 ; luck +2 ; health  total: 63  /  150.

Her head whipped around to face the new arrival, one eyebrow quirked at the boldness of such words. “Are you a heretic, then?” She asked, though there was no accusation to her words. “Or simply a sinner? The church takes rather a dim view on both, I believe, though I cannot remember which is supposed to be worse.” She turned to face the window once more, squinting as the glint of the sun caught her eyes. 

“Perhaps he is,” she murmured. “If I were a God, I would be tired of pandering to the fickle prayers of those who do not even try to help themselves.” It was a dim look on things, but Lucia knew there was only two things that could invoke a true, honest prayer - desire and desperation. “If you do not come to speak with God, then what is it that you’re doing here?” 

     🌙 yuri wished he was a heretic --- at least, things would be easier. he wouldn’t be supposed to attend to events that he thought to be purely hypocrites. ❝ i don’t consider myself to be any of the borth, but i think i’ve heard my sister in law calling me a sinner. ❞ with a cocky smile on his face, yuri sat down on one of the chapel benches, watching the cross with the Christ. would he ever forgive him for his flats or yuri would burn in hellfire for eternity ?

yuri pondered on the woman’s words. he fitted on them --- the only time yuri for a only time was when he heard about simeon’s return. but if were God, he also would be tired of people like him. ❝ i agree with you. i also would be tired how we behave in times like this --- we started the war, we weren’t supposed to seek peace until our enemies were crushed. ❞ thank god he wasn’t the tsar. yuri saw the peace gathering as bullshit --- the two factions would never agree on something. ❝ i’m just an admirer of the catholic arts. ❞

From the moment Friederike had first stepped foot in Russia, she had felt a kinship to their people. Though she was visiting her aunt, she had quickly befriended the Ruriks, Irina, and plenty of the other courtiers. Russia offered her a sort of freedom she had never found in Germany, and as she grew older, and her relationship with her father became more strained, she would visit far more frequently. 

Chief among those who made her life their so much simpler was Yuri. First they had met, he had propositioned her - a flirtation that fell flat when she laughed in his face. From that grew a friendship she treasured, as she treasured his sisters and Irina. At the sight of him, she could not help a wide grin spreading across his face, and she opened her arms to invite him into an embrace. “Oh, Yuri! It is so good to see you again,” She wrapped arms around his shoulders, squeezing him in a tight hug. “I count myself amongst them, these days. Did you not hear that I have converted?” she chuckled, withdrawing from him to look into his face. “We have so much to catch up on, my friend. The last few months have been something to behold.” 

    🌙 at first, friederike was an enigma to him. how could a woman deny his advances ? everyone on the russian court would be honoured that the tsarevich was flirting with them --- however, most foreigns thought little of it. he had to grown used to it, after all. but he found in friderike a fried that yuri didn’t knew that he needed. and for that, hw would always be grateful to her. 

hugging his german friend, yuri laughed at her words. ❝ did you change your name too ? or i can still call you friedi ? ❞ he teased. of course yuri knew that she needed to do that --- nagasani did too, when she married him. but the russian name his wife had chosen was quickly forgotten and he wished that could happen to friederike too. ❝ of course we have. i’m sad that i wasn’t there to see you married, but maybe it was for the better or i would fight with the groom for stealing you away. ❞ yuri laughed, loud and ostentatious, like everything he did. 

location : sasso corbaro. 

     🌙 the days when yekaterina, still as a german princess, came to russia to marry dmitry brought something that yuri almost forgot he had: anxiety to know more the future. at first, he wasn’t happy to have a foreign in his family --- he would preffer if dmitry had a russian wife, like yuri wanted to have one too. but yekaterina conquered a place on his heart and everything that she brought with her too. especially duchess friderike, someone that first yuri tried to gain as a lover, but in reality, he gained a dear friend. it didn’t take much time for the tsarevich to adopt her as his younger sister number three --- he missed yelena’s company, and friderike brought ease to his mind. 

he was quite upset to miss her wedding like he would be if he missed sophia’s. however, spotting the now ottoman princess in one of sasso corbaro corridors, yuri couldn’t help himself to mess around with her like he did with his own sisters. ❝ looks who’s there ! ❞ he exclaimed, a teasing smile on his face. ❝ it seems like the both of us are married to muslims believers. life is quite crazy, little friedi. ❞

Location: A Bellinzona Chapel

It had been a long time since Lucia had prayed to any deity above. She still attended mass, as she had to to keep up her facade, though you would have to be close by to hear that no sound came as her lips mimed the words to the lord’s prayer, that when hymns were sung, she did not lift her voice to the Lord. A part of her had turned her back on her beliefs. She did not believe in God, nor heaven, nor anything but the world they lived in now. Another part of her, the part that had been brought up in the way most Italian ladies were, refused to pray because she was angry with Him. After all these years, her rage had not ceased. Perhaps the blessings in her life, the husband she loved and the children that she adored, should have tempered the fire inside her. Instead, it only made her more determined to take action. To finally know what it was to hurt the House of God as she had been hurt. 

Though she did not come to church to worship, she found them an excellent place for reflection. For thinking. Her anxiety had calmed itself, and she no longer feared for her children as she once had. Things seemed to be calming, but she was no longer certain of their safety. She could not leave, not whilst there was still work to be done, but she had their safety to think of. Were they better here, under her protection, or should she return them to Italy, out of the way of Swiss dangers, but out of her sight, and perhaps into an entirely different set of perils. 

She studied a stained glass window, admiring idly how the light filtered through, painting the dusty chapel in reds, blues and greens. So lost in her thoughts was she that she did not look up as another entered, did not even realise she was no longer alone until their footsteps drew closer. “Are you here for answers too?” She asked, turning her gaze to the newcomer. “I must warn you, The Lord is not feeling particularly talkative. Though perhaps you will have more luck than I.” 

    🌙 yuri didn’t held any bad blood towards the catholics --- he would much preffer marrying a catholic woman, whose faith was the most close to his than a muslim one. he wasn’t a believer, attending the mass and the festivities for the sake of politics and his image within the russian people. but he was a scout of beautiful things, especially the arts. he wasn’t a painter because his father never let him to study such things --- in the late tsar mind, yuri was supposed to be a military man, like his older brother would be. and that infuriated yuri. but now tsar ivan was dead and his youngest son was free to do what pleased him. 

visiting catholic chapels wasn’t his hobby --- but the liked to see their architecture and their interior decoration.

but he was not expecting to find an unfamiliar face inside the second he entered. he needed to purge out of his mind the thoughts of simeon and his return to the dead. he thought it was a joke that God himself was doing with yuri --- to punish him for being a stray sheep and an unfaithful husband. ❝ it is a miracle that i managed to enter here without burn with hell fire. ❞ with a smirk on his face, yuri get closed to the unfamiliar woman. ❝ and i doubt he would preffer talking to me than to you, my lady. maybe he is just tired of dealing with us. ❞

simeon heard yuri approach, and like a cornered animal, he withdrew away, taking as many steps back as yuri took forward. angry — how easily yuri thought he could guess simeon’s feelings. if it was only anger in his heart, how straightforward this would all be! but there were too many things there, too many feelings that were too large for the whole of simeon’s body. anger, grief, betrayal, loss, love broken, love lost, love twisted, and so many memories, dancing and disjointed inside him. 

the world believed that simeon belskyi had actually returned. that was a lie. the man that came back was not even a shadow. he was a thought, a dark thought, whispered in the space where hope should have been: destroy them all like they destroyed you. 

“why does it matter to you, солнышко?” the old nickname did not sound the same anymore. it was twisted with bitterness — a sun eclipsed by darkness. “perhaps i am here to serve the tsar once more; perhaps i am here for a wife. that seems the popular course of action.” 

he let out a laugh, cruel and bitter, and the fear of seeing yuri died, replaced with the spreading of that dark thought. he turned toward yuri, taking steps forward to meet him, until they were hardly a foot apart. simeon could kill him here, and then, maybe, he too would be allowed to rest. 

no. it would not be enough. 

“or perhaps i’m here to haunt you. am i real to anyone else?” had he ever been? “a ghost — i like that, as it turns out. what shall i do first, yuri?” he grabbed the collar of yuri’s shirt, leaning forward. ( he had grabbed yuri’s collar before he left, when yuri was angry and he felt his future twist. i’ll be back, simeon had said. i’ll come back for you. ) with a snarl, the past disappeared, and simeon was left in the cold present. “should i whisper all the things i don’t remember?”  

    🌙 little sun. that seemed ages ago; a time where yuri didn’t had a worry on his body, where everything was too good to be true. everything seemed right then --- yuri was happier, if he was honest enough. his world still hadn't turned upside down; his family was happy, his mother was alive and he enjoyed the beauty of being in love for the first time. now, the old nickname didn’t brought the same reaction it did years before --- the redness of pale cheeks, a shy smile. now, yuri lips were a thin line and he didn’t blink. 

❝ this is bullshit and we both now that, simeon. you can fool my family, but can never fool me, самый дорогой. ❞ yuri wasn’t sure of his words but the more he thought, the more it made sense. however, he still hoped that simeon wasn’t up to do harm --- yuri hoped that they could be on good terms. he knew the friendship nor the relationship they had could be repaired. and that was yuri’s entire fault. everything that was happening was the consequences of his doings. 

he didn’t move a muscle with simeon’s moviments. to be so close to him again after so many years made yuri’s heart race --- made yuri feel things that he thought he would never feel again. simeon was his first male lover and after his death, yuri swore he would be the last. it was difficult --- he craved the touch of a man as much as he craved irina’s one. yet, he brought his head close to simeon’s, almost touching his nose. if that was a game, yuri would surely win. 

❝ or should i remember them to you, simeon ? it seems like you forgot how much i enjoyed fucking you. ❞ he whispered. ❝ or how i used to whisper your name, too. would you like a demonstration ? it’s been years, but at least i remember it. ❞