Word Count: 12,011
Summary of Events:
Nikita arrived home with his father's body and told his mother the news before heading out to start digging the grave. Gavriila was finished with packing, but didn't want to leave and came up with the idea of masquerading as a boy to keep her family safe. Nikita attended his father's funeral and helped cover the body before going to visit his mare. Gavriila's family hurried home from the funeral, but soldiers were coming down the street, so Gavriila quickly made herself look like a boy and went with the soldiers. Nikita asked his mother about the things his father had told him about and got a surprisingly foul reaction. Gavriila arrived at the army camp and was kitted out by a rather terrifying one-handed old man.
Excerpt of the Day:
""These are not your things!" his mother hissed. "Davyd merely stole them from a rich, foreign man, and he wanted to give them to you."
"And why shouldn't I receive them?" Nikita asked.
"Because they are not yours!" his mother snapped. "They belong to someone else, and they were stolen from him!"
"Well then, should I return them to him or his heirs?" Nikita asked.
"No!" his mother shouted — although it sounded somewhat mixed with a scream as well.
"You don't like stealing Mother, and you always told Father to return what he stole," Nikita said. "Why should I not return these things on his behalf if that is what you so wish?"
"I do not wish for them to be returned!" his mother spat. "I wish for them to be destroyed!"
"And waste such a fine sword Mother?" Nikita asked. "It is of such fine craftsmanship, I don't think I've ever seen a sword that could possibly compare to it."
"It all needs to be destroyed!" his mother barked. "It has caused enough ill in this household!"
"Ill, but Mother, how has it caused ill?" Nikita asked. "Do you think it's to blame for Gennadi and the rest?"
"No!" his mother replied in that same shout-scream, this time reaching out her hand and slapping Nikita's face.
Nikita shifted his jaw to ease the stinging pain. He didn't know what had come over his mother. He'd never seen her this angry or violent. Obviously these things were a source of some kind of pain to her. He didn't think they would've belonged to her father, after all, Father had a strict code about taking women as plunder.
"Mother," Nikita said. "It seems a shame to waste this handiwork, it's–"
"I do not care if it is wasted!" his mother interrupted ferociously. "You will not have it and it will not be in my presence a moment longer!"
"Mother!" Nikita cried as she seized the handle of the sword with both of her hands.
She pulled on it, but could only draw it out less than a quarter of its length. Nikita managed to pull the sword out of her hands and pushed it back into its sheath by pressing the hilts-piece into his side.
"Mother, I promise, I will destroy it," Nikita lied; he needed to placate her. "I will not look at it, I will not look into it. I will destroy it."
Her eyes blazed. "It is destroyed tonight," she said through her teeth.
"I promise Mother," Nikita said. "Please, I will go do it now."
She nodded succinctly and stalked off toward the sitting room again. Nikita looked at the items. He ought to destroy them, too. He had the freedom to, after all, as Father's tags said they belonged to him, and he felt rather unsettled by the possibilities they suggested.
But Mother's reaction left Nikita thinking the opposite more. He didn't want to destroy them, he wanted to keep them, and he wanted to find out who they belonged to, and how they'd come into his father's possession."
Davyd: dayveed
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