REDESIGNMENT | #BWWM | RomePi™

15 ɤ The Curse (BWWM) 📋

-MONEY+LOVES+POWER-

DISTANT PAST

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton

Katya Petrinka Torgev was believed to be a descendant of a Russian noble family. It was said that her grandfather married a preternaturally golden-haired beauty.

The sixteen-year-old gold-eyed butcher's daughter was named Yekaterina Nikolayeva.

The young girl was trained by her family to be a docile mate to whatever man was selected as her future husband. She was taught to cook and clean. Yekaterina also worked side-by-side with her mother to make sure the household duties were executed smoothly and to provide care for their rather large family. She was well known for never deviating from her training or displaying any signs of a rebellious nature.

The town's people went on about how Yekaterina embodied every characteristic any man would be lucky to gain in embodied in the wife of his household.

The moment Sergei Torgenev first laid eyes on the blonde enchantress, he searched for her parents to secure her hand in marriage.

Initially, Sergei was turned down because the girl's babushka/grandmother claimed that on the same night of the proposal, she had experienced one of the worst nightmares she had ever seen. During the dream, she watched as the Nikolayeva's family home became consumed by flames and burnt down to the ground. Because the old woman believed all she had seen to be an omen warning against Yekaterina marrying the stranger, she insisted the two should not be united.

When Sergei learned of the family's decision to turn down his request, he presented them with a monetary gift no man would've been able to refuse. The money was used to bolster a positive impression of himself onto the family. It was his desire to convey that he had the means to care for their daughter and that he would treat her like a princess if only they would accept his proposal.

Against the wishes of the grandmother, Sergei Torgenev and Yekaterina Nikolayeva were married after seven months of courting. The winter after Sergei's wedding, he was so emboldened by the acquisition of his young bride that he boasted and bragged to all he met that he had been gifted an angel.

For three years, the couple enjoyed a life of untold riches. Due to his father's business acumen, Sergei's family wanted for nothing. Every day, he lavished his wife and children with all that their hearts desired.

Unfortunately for him, when his father succumbed to a bout of pneumonia, Sergei's decision to never learn about his father's businesses left the family devastated because he possessed none of the skills required to maintain the same level of success his father had once commanded. Once the decline began, their financial windfall dried up leaving them exposed to the debt collectors who sought them out to confiscate much of their material trappings.

Sergei's mother decided that she would rather die than live the life of a pauper, leading the elderly Mrs. Torgenev to visit a well-known witch for assistance in the matter. The ved'ma provided the conniving woman with a potion that was to be used to trick an unsuspecting individual to drink their own death. Sergei's mother was instructed that a blood sacrifice would return her back to the life she craved.

One day, the widower invited her son and his wife to visit her home for a late lunch. She instructed her maid to give a certain cup to her daughter-in-law hoping to finally be rid of the peasant that her son had chosen to marry without her approval.

Since the old woman was cruel to the servant who was forced to work for the Torgenev family as a result of her father's debt, the young maid handed the poisoned teacup to the elderly Mrs. Torgenev.