The Hunt
"Sister," Anatole drawled out, leaning his elbow back on the banister and staring up at the chandelier. The regality in his tone told her everything she needed to know: their parents sent him to her. "I have a question for you," Helene was on guard. Not a day, hour, or minute went by that she was not, really, however now it showed in her posture. In the way her eyes shifted from the rings on her fingers to him for the briefest of moments. It was a silent conversation, eyes not moving off one another. The moment it broke, the façade would too. Whether they were being watched or simply listened to Helene did not know, nor care to find out. Looking at Anatole meant a small ease in her stress; if Aline and Vasily were there, she was better off not knowing. She nodded him on slowly, taking a single step in his direction before stopping. It was a dance they had been doing for years now. The Kuragins had done everything for years: "new" had never been a fathomable concept. They were trained to routine-a break in it and they were good as dead. Anatole cocked his head slightly, biting the insides of his cheeks as he took a gliding step towards her.
Anatole, for as drastic as he was, could be a master of subtlety. He was a lost cause in etiquette, but he was not the idiot people took him for. Not with Helene at least; to have the two children on the same plan was as lethal as one could get. His perceived stupidity became an advantage in more situations than it wasn't. No one, certainly not Vasily, would have expected this to a dance of words and hand signals they were engaging in. It was quiet and smooth: the epitome of the Kuragin charm being worked over in real time. Vasily could read Helene eerily well, but his son was not so simple. Knowing this meant letting Anatole do the talking.
"What is it?" Her voice was level. Expecting. Unclear otherwise. She held three fingers up to her lip, drumming them gently in a symbol of impatience. Their eyes never moved off one another. Anatole gave a subtle nod, confirming exactly what Helene expected. Vasily knew his daughter well, and often forgot she had been trained to watch his every movement: from his facial expressions to what it meant if he drummed his fingers on the table thumb first. The man was predictable and his decisions distinct. He had questions, and sending Anatole to answer them had a stronger likelihood of getting honest answers.
"You spent a lot of time with Pierre," Anatole declared, clearing his throat. Blue eyes ran over her face, over her three fingers, slightly spread out over her lower lip, waiting. "How did it go?"
"I do not like him much," She mused, stating only the obvious and nothing more. She was not stupid. She was no fool as Pierre was, and not as bold as Marya. She was careful. Measured. Anatole took a small step closer to her.
"A true misfortune,"
"Indeed,"
The silence was long.
She could see in the way his eyes moved over the detailing on the ceiling trim that he was formulating his thoughts, and Helene would not rush him. She, if anyone, understood that perfection took time. Anatole often did not care for the thoughts and opinions of others, but their parents' position in his life specifically these recent weeks had become more embedded. He could not simply step over the cracks they'd made in the family. Not now, at least. it was one of the few times Helene had seen him care about anything, and his time mapping the conversation was spent by Helene wondering if this change was a relief or frightening.
He and Helene would let themselves fall from grace at a later time when Vasily was asleep. Right now was as much of a game as any. And they liked to win.
"How did you like his friends?" Helene shouldn't have been shocked; she could feel Aline's eyes on her when she played with Marya's desire. Yet still, somehow, she expected less boldness from a woman who'd she'd seen bent over her husband's desk with the chauffer. The brunette tapped her fingers on her hip, clearing her throat.
"Pleasant," Helene did not give first names just in case; it was a futile attempt to avoid any future interruptions, because Helene had learned to memorize names from the best.
"There was a girl you got along with as well, too, right?" Anatole knew that. Helene knew that Anatole knew that, and now was aware Vasily did too. Whether that was Aline's doing or his, Helene did not know. She did not care to inquire further, either. This was about her, and their father would not settle for less. This was a dance neither of them wanted to partake in, and an apology was in Anatole's eyes. He was aware Helene would never hold this against him, because she knew the process of getting pinned like this first hand. This was not the first time, nor the first, second, third, tenth, twentieth-the list went on. Perhaps when they were young and their ages were still in single digits they would have considered this a betrayal. It had become survival since then.
"Pierre's good friend, yes. A Dmitrievna child," her words were careful, constants sharp on the woman's last name. They had money. Everyone knew they had money, and financials could be a Kuragin's excuse for anything. Thinking back to a time they had been unsuccessful in doing things for money and getting out of them the same way would have taken her back to maybe four years old: some time too early for Helene to actually recall. She was pulling at straws here. Trying to pull on reason she did not have. It made sense by their family's rationale, and the compliance to it would have shocked no one. If one thing was going to save her and allow her to indulge in pleasures, it would be mention of the finances.
What could Helene really say that money didn't?
Bless her brother, able to read her better through a span of seconds. He hummed, rocking back on his heels, blue eyes flickering towards the hallway lined with chrome at their base. Following his stare, she could see flats standing still and the slender legs they belonged to through the reflection of polished floors. Helene couldn't decide in that moment if she was more shocked, or horrified.
Anatole seemed less concerned than she was, which helped as much as it could. Aline was a tool just as they were, but being a mother had done nothing to make her sympathetic. Vasily hearing those words was one thing, Aline hearing them could mean just about anything. Helene did not like chances, and she didn't like not knowing. Anatole offered her a small smile, tight and knowing. The information would get back to Vasily no doubt, but in what capacity what he heard would be true was a mystery.
"She was a good excuse to Pierre to drink a cocktail," Helene proposed after a pause. She clasped her right hand over her other wrist, nails digging into her skin in an attempt to calm herself down. It wasn't a big deal. It was just a meeting. Nothing more. And even if it had been, that was plainly irrelevant now.
It would stay that way until she saw Marya again, and forgot every hidden warning in the way Anatole eyed her.
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Marya and Pierre had been friends for years. He valued her opinion-or well she thought he did until he disregarded her comments completely.
Always an idealist, Marya was not surprised at his reluctance to heed her warnings, but the vehement denial was something else entirely. She watched him with horrified curiosity. He continued to pace along the perimeter of his bedroom, eyes down on the ground as his arms flailed about.
"How can you insult her?!" Pierre exclaimed, looking more hurt than angry. "She was so nice to you!"
Marya pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. His steps stopped and when she looked up she was met with the face of a man who was completely and utterly hopeless. "Pierre, I have been here for no more than a few weeks and I have already heard of this woman's reputation, and I just don't think-"
"Reputation means nothing!"
"An entire room of 100 people all thinking the same thing means nothing to you?"
It was odd to see Pierre like this; Marya had known Pierre to think of the fantastical and the absurd, but it was things about space and time, or politics and philosophy. It wasn't about a girl he clearly barely knew. Someone Marya had been closer to than himself. She knew Helene was a whole type of enchanting, but to see her power working real time only grew vines of doubt that pricked at and choked her insides.
What game had Helene been playing, and piece of it was Marya completing?
"Did you see how she was looking at me?" He questioned incredulously, and painstakingly. Lovestruck. Marya tried to keep her swears from reaching his ears. For heaven's sake she was speaking to him while Helene's teeth still marked her throat.
"Pierre you deserve someone who values you, not someone who is using you to-"
"Marya you can't insult her just because she wasn't afraid of you!"
"Well-" Marya began a sentence with the intention of finishing it. What that sentence was going to be she didn't know, because what he had just yelled registered first. "What?" Pierre seemed to realize what he said and swallowed hard. But he did not take it back, and in the redhead's eyes that was impossibly worse. People were rash and impulsive creatures-said things they did not mean-yet that had been Pierre's truth. "What does that mean?" Pierre looked away. Anywhere but at her. he took off his glasses just so he could stare at them instead of meeting her intense stare as she took a step closer. "Pierre?" She prompted him through gritted teeth.
Pierre stumbled out his words. This did not, nor should it have, surprised Marya. The man could barely speak as is, and to put him under fire would never yield any other results. Though Marya, all fire and no patience, would not untense her muscles until she received an answer. Pierre would not give one until he knew Marya wouldn't kill him for it. Marya was a woman of unwavering loyalty and devotion, but she was not one who folded over easily. Realistically, she did not fold at all. She did not cry in private or mull over arguments because she doused that fire before the match hit its target. That, or she'd take a flamethrower to it first.
"S-Sometimes, it feels like...Mary and Natasha are quieter, and..." Pierre took a deep breath, hand subconsciously reaching for a bottle that was not there. Marya raised a brow, frown growing deeper set in her features. "Forget I said anything..."
Marya scoffed. "You got this far!"
"I think she wanted to get to know you, and it made you apprehensive," Pierre declared hesitantly, though the pace of his words sped up to a point they were barely coherent. She was only able to understand him from years of witnessing him try to speak in difficult situations. "And you are t-trying to come up with reasons to dislike her, because if she is dating me, she will get to know you better, and-"
"This has nothing to do with you, Pierre," The disillusionment was baffling to say the least, but Marya had the decency to keep quiet on it. "I promise you that," She did not mention the things that occurred in that hallway. She would never speak of them to anyone, because something deep down cautioned her on a 'just in case'. Marya had been wondering how to disclose that she didn't dislike Helene at all-far from it-yet his remarks made her question how guilty she would really feel not telling him.
Presumptuous was not a good color to paint on yourself, especially when arguing with Marya Dmitrievna. Marya was a sharp-tongued, hard-lined woman, yet she was a stubborn one. She promised herself success and no less; if Pierre wanted to be the deer, he was clearly set on the path, and she was not going to scare him off it.
She decided in that moment to not tell Pierre what had happened between them.
She decided in that moment she would not necessarily prevent it from happening again.
Marya was a good friend, but she was not merciful. And to make assumptions made her all the more compelled to prove him wrong.