* all we know for sure - - OPEN

[Lyubochka Pasternak]

Suka.

That was one word that kept ringing in her ears. Suka. Bitch. You defiled my daughter, bitch. Do you understand?

And she had. She'd understood him clearly, but she hadn't responded. All she could comprehend was Ksenia behind him, shaking, not being able to look Lyuba in the eye anymore. She didn't do anything, because for some reason, she'd just felt broken. She just stood there, fumbling like an idiot until- -

Lyubochka, are you done with those dishes yet?

Lyuba blinked once, bringing her back to the present. This clear reality, where all that existed was soap and bratty royal babies and gravy needing to be scrubbed off plates. She coughed, looked over at Evgenia, an older servant. "Almost, I just need to finish these last few." Evgenia responded with something about going to her quarters, and asking Lyuba to lock up the kitchen after she was finished with her dishes. Lyuba nodded, wrung out her cloth again for better effect of trying to get off a particularly stubborn stripe of something (she never knew exactly what it was, all the sauces usually mixed together to create something crusty and undesirable), puffed out her cheeks, sighed.

She knew she had to stop thinking about what happened. This, right here, this was her life now. This existence, no matter how mundane, was all that mattered, all she had to throw herself into. That night, three years ago, she told herself she'd start over again. She'd hold things close, only tell people the basics, cover up the details she needed to. It was lonely, yes. But that didn't matter at this point. One day, when she got enough money or the circumstance was right, she go back for Ksenia, find her if her father sent her away. And they'd go somewhere far, far away, where no-one knew them or people from their old lives and things would be good. They'd be happy.

Lyuba picked up the plate with the mystery crust on it, scrubbed a bit more vigorously. Too vigorously, in fact, as the plate slipped from her hands, crashing to the floor. "Dammit, dammit," she mumbled as she crawled around on the floor picking up the bigger shards of the expensive porcelain. This wasn't helpful in the slightest, and the last thing she needed was to go off and break banquet plates or whatever these were.

- sorry for the suckishness. D: i'm still kind of finding my sea legs with this character, and i promise the next ones will be better!

[Ivan Silvashko]

Ivan had been toiling away in the sun all morning, and had acquired a crispy golden brown glow to his skin as well as a dampness to his shirt. His back and arms were beginning to ache in that familiar way that said he'd been working a little too hard, but it wasn't like he could simply decide to drop everything and take a vacation. He couldn't even take the afternoon off for a nap in the shade. Who else would get the garden work done? Sure, there was an entire regiment of servants trained the exact same way he had been, but none of them had the green thumb he had (which although prideful was quite true) and none of them would do it right. They'd rip out the roots and ruin the plants if he let them do his job. Not just anyone could pick potatoes from the ground with the care, concentration, and skill that Ivan had. He'd been born and bred for the job -- well, maybe not specifically for picking potatoes. Those were relatively new, and very strange, speaking of. Not to the country. Ivan didn't know much about history, but he did know that the Spaniards had brought the weird root-y things home from the colonies, except nobody had liked them or wanted to grow them. Until recently. They'd been introduced to the garden and Ivan'd been taught to pick them and now he was a potato-picking master, self-proclaimed. And nobody else was allowed to touch the potato patch, because they would ruin it.

Also, this had nothing to do with his father. And the fact that his father was always around when Ivan was working, but would never look at him. Would never tell him he was doing a good job, or even that it was doing a bad job - he sent other people to do that. Maybe Jovan Silvashko didn't even know that Ivan knew that he was his father. Maybe he was too busy screwing young noblewomen to even care. Anger had nothing to do with the fact that Ivan had pulled potatoes out of the ground with such ferocity that morning that he had strained a muscle in his shoulder. Especially not anger at his father. Anger that flared and swelled when he thought of how his mother had been sent away, could be alive or dead now, and Ivan's father didn't give a damn, because somehow he had a full supply of younger, more appealing ladies. True, hard work had kept the groundskeeper fit even as he aged, and his features were strong and chiseled like the stone statues in the gardens, and the sun bleached his greying hair blond so that he didn't look a day over thirty, no matter what age he really was, but - Ivan lost track of where the thought was meant to be going, and thought hard for a moment.

Oh yes. Despite his young appearance, he was a dirtbag, and it ought to be obvious to everyone, not just Ivan. Stupid smarmy bastard. Didn't the higher-ups around the castle know that he'd left his son for dead when he was only a baby? Well okay, it made sense that they didn't know, because obviously they didn't care, but the point was that Ivan's father was awful and Ivan himself was very angry and he wasn't even allowed to stomp around because then the dirt from his boots would get all over the floor and make more work for some other poor servant and that simply would not do. So he had to make do with scowling and doing his best to accumulate an atmosphere of anger and stormy darkness around him. (Unfortunately the effect was much awe-inspiring, as an English maidservant noted quickly before running off to giggle with her friends about the young Russian servant boy who looked like he'd eaten a bad "kielbasa" - which met even more laughter because honestly, as one lady pointed out, all kielbasas were bad.)

So focused on being moody, Ivan misstepped as he descended the stairs down to the kitchen. The dirty burlap sack slipped from his arms as he windmilled about, breath caught in his throat and completely certain that he was about to smash his face on the cold stone floor and then his nose would be crushed backwards into his brain and well, then he'd be dead. As if this wasn't awful enough, potatoes were rolling everywhere like miniature boulders down a mountainside, dust was rising in a giant cloud into the air, filthying up the worksurfaces nicely, and he could hear a dish shattering in the distance. He just had time to swear passionately before his palms slammed into the floor with bruising force.

Ivan laid his cheek against the dirty, rough floor and simply laid there for several moments. He was vaguely aware of someone swearing nearby, and thought that, when he felt up to getting back up, he really ought to apologize for this whole thing.

Finally he peeled himself of the stone, wincing everytime his hands made even the slightest contact with something, and looked around at the chaos he's created. Potatoes were spread to the four corners of the room, and everything was covered in a thin layer of soil. There was one lucky break for him - the kitchen was empty but for one servant girl, who was scrambling to collect pieces of shattered porcelain of the floor. The young Russian sighed and ran a dirty hand through his equally dirty hair, wondering where to even begin to fix this. "Wouldn't it just improve everything if a foreign nobleman walked in right now?" He asked sarcastically, more to himself than to the girl. "I'm very, very sorry for making a mess, and startling you. I'll clean that up, if you'd like. I'm going to have to mop the floor and every surface in here anyway. It's not your fault you dropped the plate, I wasn't looking where I was going..."

Ivan descended into a morose silence as he begin to move around the kitchen with the burlap sack in one bright red hand, the other hunting down tubers. Honestly, the things he got himself into...

[Lyubochka Pasternak]

A cascade of potatoes came rolling in from all directions, and Lyuba furrowed her brow. Next came the cloud of dust, making her cough a bit and she looked up, seeing a dirty man who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He was sweaty, gave off a bit of an odor, causing Lyuba to have an internal urge to dash him with some of the soapy water in the dish bucket. He was lying down, cheek pressed to the cold floor. She sat up, looked at him for a second, waiting for a sign to say that he wasn’t unconscious, or dead. “Excuse me- -” she began, but he stood up, sighed, grimaced.

Wouldn’t it just improve everything if a foreign noble walked in right now?

Lyuba gave him a small, closed-lipped smile and wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh, yes. That would be the best part of my day.” She put the larger pieces of porcelain in a pile, getting up to find a broom to put together the smaller ones. She wondered how she hadn't heard this man coming, why she didn't notice him until potatoes came rolling into her line of vision. She'd been distant lately, tired. Perhaps that was it.

I'm very, very sorry for making a mess, and startling you. I'll clean that up, if you'd like.

“It’s fine,

[/color]” Lyuba began, walking over to the pile with the broom, “It was my fault, anyhow. I was trying to scrub something off and it didn’t work out well for me.[/color]” She'd never seen this man before, which was odd, but not altogether surprising. It was rather well known that the Russian Royals hired far more servants than she needed, and there were girls that were in charge of singular hats, manservants whose only job was to refill a pipe. Lyuba, in addition to rather mundane cleaning duties, had the fortune of working with the children of the nobles, who were hard to discipline and barely had respect for anyone, let alone her.

She observed the man as she walked over, deciding that he was either her age or younger. His skin had a brown tinge, a clear sign of a servant as all the nobles she knew tried their hardest to stay as pale as possible. He was sweaty, a slight pet peeve of Lyuba's, but he had a pleasant face nonetheless. It was odd how red and calloused his hands were, given his age. That meant he was a laborer of some sort, perhaps a carpenter or some sort of manual repairman.

I'm going to have to mop the floor and every surface in here anyway. It's not your fault you dropped the plate, I wasn't looking where I was going...

"Honestly, don't make such a fuss. It's no trouble.[/color]" She moved the broom across the mess of porcelain bits, the branches making up the bottom of the broom making thin raking noises. She remained silent for awhile, not wanting to make this awkward situation even worse. She didn't do well with other people, never honestly knew what to say and often put an awkward chuckle or a nod where a proper reply should be. She scanned the room, counting the amount of potatoes that had appeared out of nowhere (although logic dictated that this man had brought them down here). Gingerly, she stepped around them, shoes clacking lightly against the stone floor. "Is there any reason why you have so many potatoes with you?"[/size][/color][/font][/blockquote][/blockquote]