The Last Romanov (Under Editing)

Falling Suspicion

Anastasia stared at the mirror. She no longer recognized the woman – the girl – who looked back at her: her face was gaunt with illness, her skin had taken on the pallor of flour, her eyes were sunken into her face; for almost two weeks, she'd been horribly sick, throwing up just about everything she ate, and the toll it was starting to take on her physical appearance was... she might have said impressive, had it not been such an awful ordeal.

But, she had to keep up appearances: she didn't want anybody to think she was unhealthy.

So, she applied make-up. Foundation under her eyes so the bags weren't so dark, blush on her cheeks and gloss so she wasn't so pale; by the time she was done, she didn't look like she was sick.

At least, not as sick as she truly was. Looking as if she had a common cold was one thing; looking like she was as sick as she was was absolutely unacceptable.

Better, Anastasia thought as she began to brush out her hair. Much, much better.

There was a knock at her door.

"What is it?" Anastasia asked, looking over her shoulder and at the door.

"It's the laundry, your grace," someone said from the other side of the door. "May I come in?"

"Come in," Anastasia said after a few seconds.

The door to her room slowly creaked open and a man she didn't recognize walked in, carrying the pile of fresh sheets she'd ordered into the room with a basket.

"Shall I change your sheets for you, your grace?" the man asked with a slight bow.

"Yes," Anastasia said with a flick of her wrist and looking back at the mirror. "And when you're done, see yourself out."

"Yes, your grace." She heard the man moving around behind her, the sound of fabric against fabric the only sign that he was even there, still.

Anastasia focused on what she was doing: making herself look as if she weren't sick. She put some hair in little braids, then tied those together with a slender ribbon at the back of her head. The way she always did. She brushed her bangs, only to discover that they were getting far too long: they were almost past her eyebrows, now. She would have to cut them, soon, but not yet. As of right now, they covered her sweating forehead.

Finally, she began to maintain her mechanical arm and the bullet wound in the skin of her shoulder just beyond the seam. The doctors had told her that with the fresh wound, courtesy of her encounter with Sasha, Nadezhda, and the damned rebels that broke them out of prison, it was even more important that she keep the arm clean. If it were to rust, it would make the wound fester, and she would be even sicker than she was, now. And she didn't want that to happen-

"Your grace, may I be so forward as to ask you a question?" the servant changing her sheets asked.

She frowned and turned to look at him. She'd never had a servant be so forward, before: it was odd, but... kind of welcoming.

"What is the question?" Anastasia asked.

He didn't seem all that hesitant about asking: "Czarina, are you feeling alright?"

"Am I feeling alright?" Anastasia repeated.

"Your sheets... I'm sorry, your grace: it just looks like they're covered in vomit," the servant said.

Anastasia didn't know what to say to this servant: she'd never had one talk to her like that, before. At least, not since she was a little girl. Who was he? And why had he decided that it was okay to speak to her like that? Why didn't he behave like the others?