I'm just a soul whose intentions are good (for Dorian). on Teppenpaw Commons

Katerina Vorontsov

August 14, 2018 6:43 PM

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good (for Dorian). by Katerina Vorontsov

For as long as she could remember, Katya had accepted the idea that Tatya was cleverer than her as a fact without much in the way of dissent. In fact, if she was to be honest, she could even say she somewhat admired her sister. The qualities that made Mama cluck about Tatya being willful and which made Papa laugh and say Tatya should have been a son were those which opened doors to both of them - including the doors to Sonora Academy.

If she was to be yet more truthful, Katya might have admitted that she had almost resented the opening of those doors before she had arrived. She was glad that Tatya had given her the opportunity to study English - Katya liked languages - but going to an American school was not something she would have chosen for herself. She would have felt much surer of herself at school in Russia, she had thought. Since arriving, however, she had had other things on her mind, such as picking the absolute perfect book out of the history section of the library.

Meeting Dorian Montoir at the Opening Feast had cinched Katya's opinion of her sister's superiority, along with adding a touch of wonder to it. She had always thought of Tatya as clever, but too impatient to really know anything systematically - this was more or less what Anton Petrovich had said when Katya, anxious, had asked him once if he thought she would do as well as Tatya in American school. To keep such company as she evidently did, however, it was clear that Tatya must do better here than she did at home among their parents and siblings. If Katya wanted to keep up, she was going to have to prove she was just as polished and accomplished as her sister's circle, and it was with this thought in mind that she had evaluated every book she could find in the library which dealt with Byzantium.

Many had been too difficult for her to work through the English, but finally, she had narrowed down a pool, then made a selection, which she had now wrapped in pale blue tissue paper and tied with white string. Five times, to get the bow Just So - it would not help her case to look sloppy. Once she was satisfied at last with that, she had unlocked her writing slope and gotten out her French dictionary to compose the accompanying note in her best handwriting.

Dear Monsieur Montoir,

Since you said you do not know much about Byzantium, I found a good book about it to show you. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for your company at the Beginning Feast.

Sincerely,

Katerina Andreyevna Vorontsova

PS - the library says I may only keep the book two weeks, so if you can return it to them or to me by then I would appreciate it very much.

OOC: To be clear, the note is supposed to be in slightly imperfect French IC - my own just wasn't quite up to writing it that way.

16 Katerina Vorontsov I'm just a soul whose intentions are good (for Dorian). 1418 Katerina Vorontsov 1 5

Dorian

August 22, 2018 10:32 AM

Please don't let me be misunderstood. In so many senses... by Dorian

Dorian was rather surprised by the parcel that appeared on his pillow a few days into term. It was far too early for any of his relatives to send his birthday presents, even though that occasion occured only a short way into the school year, and - had they been thus prepared - they probably would have given the book (there was no point pretending he didn’t know what it was) to him to bring with him. There was no reason why any of his friends would send him a birthday present early, or send it at all, given that they would all see him on the day.

He picked up the note. At first glance, it looked a little like Tatya’s hand but he somehow knew it wasn’t. When he reached the signature, that made sense. He passed his eyes over the note again, trying to work out where they differed, so that he would be able to better tell them at a glance in future. Katerina’s writing was, he found himself forced to admit, somewhat neater. He definitely did not allow himself to think that her French was also better and that she made more effort in sticking to it than her sister would have done, because that felt disloyal to Tatya’s considerable efforts over the last two years to make him feel at home. Once again, he was forced to conclude though that Tatya was just like Émilie, whose own writing was messier than his, a fact which was no longer excused by their ages, and who could not stick to a single language because she was too keen to get her thoughts out. Katerina was very much not like his younger sister in any of those literal senses, although he found something about her rather sweet and appealing nonetheless, and still felt very much moved to look after her.

He was relieved to know from the note that it was just a nicely presented library book, because a real gift from Katerina would have been rather strange at this stage. A real gift might have made him uncomfortable so early in their acquaintance but a thoughtfully chosen library book seemed like a sweet gesture, and he read nothing into it beyond kindness and an attempt at furthering their acquaintance - something he definitely was not adverse to.

He sat down, taking his time to compose a reply but finding he could not match anywhere near the level of proficiency she had shown in his language when trying to reply in hers. He was going to have to try harder…
Dear Katerina Andreyevna Vorontsova, the letter began in Russian. This had been enough of a challenge and he had thought he might fall at the first hurdle, as he had not felt at all confident at trying to write Katerina’s name according to his own interpretation of the sounds. Luckily, he had remembered that in the very early days of the Club of Tongues, Tatya had given him various people’s names as Cyrllic practise and he had dug out his first year notebook, finding the list of their friends (or her versions of their names, seeing as Jehan in particular just did not work in Cyrillic), the staff (Фокс-Рэналдс was, he thought, passable) and her siblings (his guess of ‘Катэрина’ with just the middle vowel altered by Tatya - ‘Катeрина’). He had their family names too, courtesy of Tatya.

Thank you. He struggled, because he needed the word ‘for’ and that was one of those tricky little words that changed so much depending on context and he wasn’t willing to hazard a guess, so he instead was forced to break of the sentence and begin again, aware that he sounded frustratingly juvenile. The book is nice. I will like read. He looked at the verb he had just written, pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to end like that… Writing in Cyrillic was also hand-and-mind-crampingly painful. He tended to focus on speaking with Tatya, and when he needed to write new words so that he would remember them, he would do so in the Roman alphabet, getting her to either the Cyrillic for reference or at least sound the letters out to him.

At the weekend, I will find a book. Give to you. He had thought about using 'send' but without being confident of 'to' he thought he might be in danger of implying that he would mail Katerina herself. And whilst he was sure she would derive his intended meaning from context, he had no wish to make himself appear so idiotic. If one could see the linguistic pitfalls that might occur in a sentence, that was at least something, and an advantage well worth utilising. 'And study Russian. I am sorry, my Russian bad.

Dorian Montoir He copied his name out of the notebook, regretting that it was probably wiser to omit his middle name as Cyrillicised Chinese was a bit confusing and, without knowing that that was what one was attempting to read, it would probably confuse Katerina.

13 Dorian Please don't let me be misunderstood. In so many senses... 1401 Dorian 0 5

Katerina

September 10, 2018 7:41 PM

No one in life can always be an angel. by Katerina

Keeping her room tidy had always been easy enough – only half of it was even her own, and Nadezhda had always strictly supervised her and Tatiana as they had made their beds and organized their dresser and put away their dolls and doll-things and books – but keeping her various boxes neat was another feat altogether. It was simply, she thought as she looked into her white wooden work-box, too easy to allow the detritus of life to accumulate in them. She put a tape measure down quickly, without spooling it into its cowrie shell case – she left a needle outside the tiny felt covers of her needle-book – she put a few half-finished projects in the open space beneath the organizer tray, or accumulated scraps of fabric and lace left over from them – and it was untidy before she knew it.

Her work-box was, however, tidy enough to take into the common room, not least because it had to be. Nadezhda had taught her the stitches to make dresses for her dolls, but her study of sewing with her mother had all been in fancy-work, skillful, ornamental work which was done before company to show off feminine accomplishment. Mama said everything one needed to know about a lady, one could learn by watching her sew – her patience, her cleverness, her appreciation for beauty. This was concerning when it came to Tatiana, who had no more patience for sewing than she did for the sheer volume of unnecessary extra words in English and so always asked to be allowed to read aloud or play her balalaika while Katya and their sisters sewed, but good news for Katya, who strove to make time every evening to sit in the common room with her work before curfew, stitching or crocheting diligently on one or another small present she meant to present to one or another family or staff member at Rozhdestvo.

Truthfully, she preferred her writing box to her work-box, but the miniature stationery case, black papier-mache with a bright painting of apples and flowers on its top, was not fit to be seen in the common room. If she lifted the small lids off the nib or pen or wafer trays, they immediately disclosed jumbles – the pen tray alone held pens, pencils, loose sticks of wax, and a little silver seal – but if she lifted either part of the slope, one would reveal an untidy letter rack affixed to its back and both would reveal empty spaces filled with packets of stationery, a ruled sheet to keep those meant for public consumption tidy because she could not do it herself, a few sketches, small scraps of paper where she had written little poems or reminders to herself, half-completed assignments, envelopes, a glove without a mate, blotting papers, tiny hand-stitched notebooks, and yet more, sometimes more or less stacked into categories but just as often blended together in a papery mess.

For this reason, along with a sense of privacy, Katya attended to her letters in her own room and left her writing box there, locked to prevent any other Teppenpaw girls from snooping if one of them should go into her space and find the box there, when she was not using it. Her work-box, however, was also a private space in its way, just not one which one would expect to find a letter in, and this was why she had hidden Dorian Montoir’s response to her note in a little pocket cleverly hidden in the bottom of the top tray of her work-box, where she could enjoy the secret knowledge that she had a letter of her very own from someone who was not family in public without being seen to do so.

Admittedly, it was not perfect. She had hoped that the reply would be in French, both because it would give her something else to practice reading – something in the sort of French people used, rather than just her books – and also because she suspected that Monsieur Montoir’s writing was much more elegant in that language. Nevertheless, it was an impressive accomplishment for someone to manage, she thought, to write a whole note in Russian when that person had never known a Russian before meeting Tatiana. Further proof, had any further proof been necessary, that he was a Quality Person.

She smiled to herself as she looked at the work-box by her feet in the common room and labored on through the tedious business of her cross-stitch project. It was, she thought wistfully, almost a pity that it was in poor taste to brag.

16 Katerina No one in life can always be an angel. 1418 Katerina 0 5