The Last Romanov (Under Editing)

The Coronation

Sasha sat up in his bed, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth coming from his new, mechanical arm. It had been maybe two weeks since he'd sold his soul to the devil, and about one week since he had a surgery to give himself a mechanical arm. The doctor said that he was healing nicely, and he now had permission to not have that bandage around his jaw and to walk around a little bit. Mostly, he just wandered down to the hospital cafeteria to get himself food whenever he was hungry and to go use the outhouse outside, to which he always ended up having a nurse escort him to, since he wasn't exactly well at that point. The good news, though, was that he was getting better. The doctor even told him that he would probably be released from the hospital, soon, with an understanding that he wouldn't do anything too vigorous for another couple of weeks.

Of course, that news came a few days before then, with some less welcome news. A White Army soldier came right after the doctor explained everything to Sasha, carrying a bag from the military tailor.

"What's that?" Sasha had asked.

"Take a guess," the soldier had said as he gently put it on the chair. "The Grand Duchess's coronation is this Saturday: you're to be there in this dress uniform."

Great, Sasha had thought. She really is going to be Czarina, now, isn't she?

And at that moment, he found himself staring at the tailor's bag, wondering what would happen if he claimed he was sick and couldn't go or something.

A nurse came into the room, presumably to help him get into his uniform. He was pretty sure that that one was... Maria. Maybe? He didn't know: there'd been plenty of women in his life, at that point. "Do you need some help getting into that uniform?"

Sasha sighed and stood up, ignoring the ache in his leg. They hadn't ended up amputating, thank God, but they had to do some surgeries to fix it. As of right now, they had him in a leg brace that kept him from bending his knee too much, so he could let his leg heal. It meant that he had to walk with a cane if he was going too far and that he had a pretty bad limp, but he guessed that was just the price of living.

"I guess I probably will," he said as he walked over to the garment bag. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course not," Maria said as she walked into the room, closing the door behind her. "This is the sort of thing I get paid to do." She grabbed the garment bag before he could. "Now, sit down, before you mess that leg of yours up any more."

Sasha sighed as he obeyed he nurse's orders, defeated. In his opinion, this was he worst part of being in the hospital: people doing everything for him, especially dressing himself. He wasn't totally helpless; surely, he could get dressed on his own if he tried, but the doctors wouldn't even let him try in fear that he would accidentally mess something up. It made him feel like a child, and damn, did he not enjoy that.

The nurse unzipped the garment bag and jumped, as if she was surprised by what she saw.

It made Sasha horribly nervous. There wasn't anything wrong with it, was there? He didn't think that the soon-to-be czarina would be very happy if he showed up to her coronation in a defective uniform.

"Is there something wrong with it?" Sasha asked. What would they do if there was something wrong with the uniform? Would they be able to get a tailor to come and fix it before the coronation? Not likely; not only was he not even sure where to find a tailor in this city, but he didn't think he would be able to find one and get the uniform properly fixed in time for the coronation in an hour, hour in a half. Basically, if there was something wrong, he was screwed.