Sunset ^beta

There was something in Marial that could never be still. Couldn’t be satisfied with her lot in life, certainly couldn’t be humble. Couldn’t be grateful to be alive after she’d faced the prospect of choosing between a bear and a bullet.

Perhaps it was the knife edge that every member of the Russian court lived on: being rescued from one bullet didn’t mean you wouldn’t face another in a day or two. Or a bear. Here you were the trusted confidante of the empress – there you were on the outs, with your past loyalty doing fuck-all to help you.

Well, perhaps it did do a little something. Marial had to admit that anyone else as cheeky as she was might face some kind of repercussions for walking up to the dejected empress and proceeding to be a massive bitch to her.

“Congratulations.”

Catherine sighed and sounded utterly bone-weary when she replied, “Marial, can you just not?”

Marial couldn’t just not. Did she feel mildly sorry for Catherine? Yes. If they’d still been friends, she would have taken her back to her rooms and gotten her drunk and listened to her grousing. But this was a problem entirely of her own making, from her bloody-minded adherence to her stupid utopian ideals, and if she was going to be a bitch to Marial then Marial was going to be a bitch back.

She dropped down on the step to the dais beside Catherine. “Monkeys eat rats like bananas,” she said in a very reasonable tone, because it was a reasonable point. “So it is the step forward we dreamed of when we risked our lives and planned the coup against your husband.”

What was galling about her was that, in her own way, she could be as bad as Peter. Did she want to be better? Of course, and that was why Marial would love her fiercely for the rest of her life. Catherine wanted to live in some beautiful fairyland where people listened to reason and acted altruistically for the common good, and that was a lot better than ruling like a madman with his brain in his prick, but it was just as unworkable.

“Please go.” But Catherine obviously didn’t want her to go. If Catherine wanted her to go, she’d damn well make sure that Marial went – she wouldn’t just sound defeated and worn-out.

“I have something to say.” Marial had many things to say and they both knew it. That had always been the fucking problem for both of them, that Marial would run her mouth to an empress more than was wise. “Oh, sorry,” she went on, knowing that she was pressing on the bruise, “would you rather I not tell the truth the moment I have it to hand? Or are we not free to speak our minds in your court?”

Because that was the thing, wasn’t it? Catherine had very high-minded ideals about free speech and free thinking that she fervently believed in, but she hated that people used them to disagree with her. She wanted people to free-thinkingly come to the same conclusions as her, because she was so sure she was right about everything. It was a delicious little hypocrisy that made Marial like her even more.

“Speak it if you are confident it is a mind worth revealing.” The bite was half-hearted. Catherine knew what Marial’s mind was perfectly well, and that it was worth revealing even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

And what Marial had to say would be about as welcome as a priest in a whorehouse, and equally irrelevant to this whole Nakaz business. “Simitz wasn't there today,” she announced as though she were talking about the weather, mentally squaring up for a boxing match. “You notice that?” She let Catherine think about that for a moment, let the issue float into the rapids and pile up against everything else to hopefully create a dam. Catherine knew – the empress knew that Peter was an idiot, that he could never be the consort she needed, that he was always going to do as he pleased and damn the consequences. Which was a lot like Marial, except that Peter typically bounced back into Catherine’s good graces by fucking her, an option that didn’t seem to be open to Marial. Unfortunately.

“You should go home. It's been a big day,” she finally said in a tone that was, frankly, so condescending it nearly made her giggle. “No doubt your devoted husband is running you a bath.”

She was about to stand up and wittily remark that he’d prepared her a bloodbath when Catherine finally turned to her with a surprising vigor (hadn’t she been worn out from standing in front of the Nakaz and declaiming all day?) and pinned her to the floor. It was most impressive, how she managed to maneuver like that in a hooped petticoat.

“Why do you have to be like this?” Catherine demanded. Her skin was so pale that the blotchy flush of rage always appeared immediately when her temper was up. “Can you just fucking stop for five fucking minutes?” She wasn’t shouting, but there was a manic edge in her voice.

Marial kissed her. Well, it was worth a shot.

She didn’t really expect it to work. Catherine would draw back immediately, wiping her mouth and looking at Marial like she’d betrayed her, and Marial would play it off like that’s all she was trying to do, shock her friend out of her depression, Marial’s so silly.

Her hands were on either side of Catherine’s face, holding her close, and the kiss was surprisingly soft and sweet. Marial’s kisses were usually somewhat acerbic, even with Gregor: there was always a bitterness that came through, a smoldering anger, the relic of her time spent as a serf when nobody would stand with her. But Catherine had stood by her – had even returned her to her proper station. Catherine, she could kiss with the sincerity she denied even her lover.

However, the kiss deepened, changed, heated as Catherine took it over. Catherine had a bitterness to her as well, the frustration that her kingdom and her life would not move along the course she channeled it into – rather a lot like Marial’s, in fact. And while Marial had left the material circumstances that caused her bitterness behind, Catherine was still well in the middle of hers. And she always would be, if she didn’t get a fucking move on and take care of Peter.

It might have been the best fucking kiss Marial had ever had.

Someone less principled would take advantage of this. That bitch Georgina would roll Catherine right over and go down on her before Catherine had even processed what she was doing (probably before Georgina had processed it either – she could do it on instinct), and then sweet-talked her into something idiotic that would be terrible for the crown but good for Georgina while she was still come-drunk. That was obviously something Catherine was susceptible to, given Peter’s continued existence.

Which was why Marial let Catherine break the kiss and slowly pull back, looking down at her with wide and confused eyes. Nobody would ever accuse her of being too soft, but at heart it was one of her major flaws. It was why she was still in league with Archie, after all (oh fuck, she did not want to be thinking about Archie at a time like this – her divided loyalties aside, he was hardly conducive to the moment). So she just looked back, and hoped that her eyes were speaking for her.

But Catherine pulled back further, sat back on her knees, scrambled to her feet among her petticoats, while Marial just turned onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow. “I,” the empress said, thrown in a way that Marial rarely saw, “I. I have to –”

She didn’t finish, just vanished through a door in the back of the dais with a rustle of skirts and the tap-tap-tap of her heels. The room, so full of unproductive noise all day, was strangely silent and calm in her wake, so quiet that Marial could hear birds calling to each other outside.

She lay back and smiled up at the ceiling.