A Golden Cage is Still a Prison

[Frankie Guidicini]

Timeframe: Night
Date: January 2nd, 1916
Place: The Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Status: Ludmila and Frankie, closed

"Rusalka."

Frankie had heard the word whispered or even spoken aloud several times by Tsar Nicholas since her arrival in Russia. But tonight, she outright heard the Tsar say the word to the small delegation of officers that he and his family dined with as they left the dining room. The young woman quickly helped the rest of the staff clear away the dishes and silver, all the while mindful of the Tsar's words.

Before she had been assigned to Russia, Frankie would have never known what a rusalka was. Sure, she knew that the fantastic existed; she was one of them and her comrades-in-arms ranged from pyrotechnics to werewolves. But the first time Frankie had heard the word, she had asked the head housemaid, who laughed. "It's just an old wives' tale about the souls of drowned maidens. Pay no mind to it." But the palaces of the Tsars possessed wonderful libraries, and Frankie was able to find out about rusalkas on her own.

So tonight, as soon as she had finished clearing away the table with the footmen and other housemaids, she murmured to Lara that she wasn't feeling well. This way, she wouldn't be missed at the servant's dinner. Even so, the brunette kept her housemaid's gear on: a plain navy blue dress, a white bibbed apron, and a cap that neatly held her voluminous chestnut locks.

The Tsar and the officers had left the dining room, taking the hallway leading directly to the throne room as opposed to the one leading to the staircases. Frankie followed after them, heart thundering in her ears as she listened for any rumble of voices. She didn't hear them; instead, she found the lights in the throne room on. No voices were heard as Frankie slowed her pace and came to a stop at a vase full of flowers brought in from the south during these winter months. She busied herself with plucking out the dead ones, straining her ears for any noise within the throne room. When she heard nothing, she turned and peeked around the door's frame.

The electric lights glinted off the gold molding and marble pillars of the room. The throne sat empty, along with the rest of the room. Why would the electric lights be on if --? Voices came suddenly, and Frankie was able to spy a small door, formerly hidden behind the plush red velvet draped behind the throne. She jerked herself back into the hallway and once more busied herself with the flowers in the vase as the voices grew more distinct and punctuated with laughter. The clicking of shoes against the floor and the echoes of voices gradually faded before a soft click informed Frankie that the lights had been turned off.

She replaced the dying flowers in the vase for now before slipping into the shadows of the throne room. Some light from outside granted enough illumination for her to find the throne and after groping for a few minutes behind the plush drapes, she found the small door. Stooping to enter, she passed through the door to find herself in a corridor with a large mechanical hulk of a door. The woman made sure the one behind her was closed before approaching the behemoth of gears and contemplating how to open it. Luckily, her thoughts were not needed, as a switch was quickly found to open the thing. She couldn't see another way to close it and instead descended the staircase it concealed.

What Frankie found then astonished her even more. Another corridor, studded with several doors, waited at the bottom of the staircase. What had she found? She didn't think that any of the other servants knew of this place; or if they did, they certainly hadn't told her. Her ears strained once more for sounds of pursuit or other explorers. Hearing none, the woman tried the door to her right, finding the doorknob unlocked. The room within held tomes of old and dusty books written in tongues and with letters she had never seen before. She left that room behind and tried the one next to it.

The most prominent feature of the next room was a large tank filled with water. Frankie's stomach tingled as she closed the door behind her, eyes intently staring at the water within which, whether it be due to the lighting or Frankie's eyes adjusting to the rhapsody of shifting levels of light, Frankie saw as murky. She decided to say a greeting; if nothing else, she'd only have embarrassed herself to a tank of fish. "Hello?" She asked softly in Russian. "Is someone in here?"

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

These man-made caves were quiet as the grave most days. The rusalka had nothing to do but swim idly around in the freezing water of her prison, occasionally peering out when the lights came on. She knew that the king of the humans (she'd heard other humans call him "czar") kept her down here to show to guests, and she remembered a lot of visits in the past. The king of the humans had changed several times, as it seemed humans aged rather badly. She could remember the first king coming down to see her every once in a while, and so had the second king...but these visits had grown rarer over time. The new king seldom bothered with her now.

Apart from the czar and his companions, the rusalka's only company were a caged goblin who had had his tongue ripped out by angry villagers and her keeper, Aleksandr Vadimov. The latter fed her and studied her, but mostly ignored her attempts at communicating with him. In fact, he seemed to believe she could not actually talk and was merely imitating words she had heard.

The rusalka softly blew bubbles out between her lips and watched them drift to the surface. The lights were out save for those that lit her tank. She then let herself sink to the bottom of the tank and lay there, her eyes closed. Again she tried to return to the strange world she had seen during her previous imprisonment. She vainly called out to the kindly elf who had led her through the lands of slumber, but no reply came.

Her mind then drifted back to her first days on the Earth, the days when sadness, boredom and pain did not really exist and the world was only her river, the sky and the sun. She remembered the rushes and the birds, her Mother's warm smile and green hair, the fish that swam lazily in the river's murky depths...and sadness came again. A deep and unending sadness. Why did humans treat her this way? She watched and listened to them intently and tried to show them that she too could be like them. But what did she get? Nothing. They locked her in a cage and laughed at her.

The only time she'd seen sympathy was when a little boy had come in with his parents and the czar. She had given them her usual sad stare, and to her surprise, the boy had turned to his mother and asked:

"Mama, why is she kept in here?"

For a moment his mother had been at a loss for words, but had eventually replied: "She's not like us, dear."

"But she looks so unhappy!", the child protested. His father smiled and shook his head.

"A dog may look sad after being beaten, Vasili, but it's still a dog."

Those final words had cut deeper than any blade, and the rusalka had spent days huddled in a corner of her tank, refusing to show herself. It was only the thought of the little boy that had carried her out of her sadness and renewed her hope. Humans were not born this way, she had concluded. They simply grew up in an unkind world and became callous and harsh.

The nameless rusalka's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a dull flash of light. Her eyes opened, revealing two completely white orbs. With a shove she righted herself and faced the front of her tank. Someone had switched the lights on. Was it visitors? Her keeper? As the rusalka swam closer, someone stepped into her field of vision. The visitor's body was slightly deformed by the tank's glass, but the rusalka was able to tell that she was in the presence of a young human female.

"Hello?" came the human's muffled voice. "Is someone in here?"

It was then that the rusalka swam right up to the front of the tank, her golden hair billowing out behind her. She came to a stop only a few centimetres from the thick glass, pressing both her palms against its smooth and cold surface. She stared intently at the woman for a few minutes, her white eyes almost glowing in the light, before cocking her head questioningly.

[Frankie Guidicini]

The books Frankie had flipped through had romanticized versions of the rusalka: heavenly looking aquatic maidens that reminded Frankie of mermaids. If there was indeed a rusalka behind the glass, Frankie had prepared herself for a creature that would look similar to her, except... fish-like. She was not prepared for the silhouette that came racing forward from the water's shadows.

The woman was emaciated, but as she glided forward from the depths of the water, golden hair haloed around her face, giving her a hauntingly beautiful look for a brief moment. And then the eyes, those monotonous white eyes that seemed, simultaneously, deathly and curious. The woman in the housemaid's clothes gasped involuntarily and took a step back. Her shelter adolescence and even her espionage training hasn't prepared her for the rhapsody of beings the world held.

The maiden did not speak. No, instead her palms pressed against the glass and her head cocked to the side, questioningly. For a moment, Frankie hardly dared to breathe, but then she remembered why she came down here. Finding her voice and pushing aside her alarm, the undercover spy took two steps forward, bobbing in a slight curtsy when she stopped.

"Hello," she said again. Though she had been taken aback for a brief moment, her tone was now as casual as if she encountered this woman on a stroll through the park. "If I am intruding, I apologize. I had just heard... Are you really a rusalka?" Her first instinct had been to introduce herself, but (assuming the rusalka could talk), that might get her into trouble in the future. Frankie had paid for bring indiscreet in Germany, and while this was one of the farthest things from discreet, she would do her best not to repeat the mistake.

But what if rusalka couldn't talk? Or maybe she could, but the water in the tank didn't allow it? Frankie hadn't thought of that until now. She offered a sheepish grin to the person in the tank. "My apologies. This is rather rude of me but -- if you can speak, may I speak with you? Or if you can't, perhaps we can find other methods of communication... If you would like to communicate with me."

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

The visitor's eyes widened and she took a step back, but the rusalka's gaze remained unwavering. She'd seen surprise or fear before, and curiosity always prevailed in humans. After remaining quiet for a moment, the young woman stepped forward again and did an odd knee-bending movement.

"Hello", she said, "If I am intruding, I apologize. I had just heard... Are you really a rusalka?"

She had said hello! Nobody ever greeted the rusalka; they just stared and pointed at her. She swam a little back from the glass and smiled, nodding vigorously in answer to the human's question. Oh if only she could talk! Being a water spirit didn't make her capable of speaking underwater, and the only times she could talk were when her keeper opened the hatch at the top of her tank.

The human seemed to realise that and said: "My apologies. This is rather rude of me but -- if you can speak, may I speak with you? Or if you can't, perhaps we can find other methods of communication... If you would like to communicate with me."

The rusalka shrugged and shook her head. The shrugging was something she got from her keeper, who was quite fond of making this gesture when talking to other people. She then looked around her and placed a finger over her lips.

Now if only the hatch was open, thought the rusalka. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind that she had an idea. The hatch could only be opened from the outside, so maybe her visitor could open it! Suddenly excited, the rusalka pointed frantically to a ladder on the side of the tank. She then swam rapidly upwards, almost too quickly for the eye to follow, and stopped where the hatch was. She began to knock on it with her fist, producing a hollow metallic bang.

[Frankie Guidicini]

She nodded!

Frankie clasped her hands together in joy and could not help but allow a toothy smile to part her face. Though she had spent most of her life and formative years keeping her emotions under lock and key for fear of them overwhelming her and unleashing her bones, she was better trained now, and a little bit of excitement wouldn't muddle things up in the least.

"How wonderful!" Frankie breathed. In this palace full of servants and aristocrats that she didn't feel any kinship with at all, the young woman suddenly felt a surge of comradely for this water-maiden. They were both oddities to the world and Frankie was just so pleased that the Tsar hasn't been idly gossiping!

The rusalka gave a shrug at her query of communication before resting a hand against her lips. "Right. Apologies." Frankie whispered, creeping closer to the tank. Now, she was at a loss for what to do. What could she do with the knowledge of this fantastic maiden other than talk to her, since she appeared sealed in that tank?

But then, the rusalka seemed to have a spark of recognition and motioned towards the rungs of a ladder before swimming up to the top of the tank. Frankie quickly understood her meaning and, gathering the bulk of her skirts in one hand before putting a booted foot on the bottom rung, Frankie began to scale the ladder.

As she climbed, doubt suddenly crept into her head. Was this wise? As soon as her head popped up to look at the top of the tank, a dull thinking came from a hatch leading down into it. Rusalkas were supposed to drown their victims, were they not? What if this Rusalla wanted to drown her? Frankie had never drowned before, and she didn't fancy trying it.

But if she wasn't going to communicate with the rusalka, what did she come down here for anyway?

Her fingers tightened around the wheel for the hatch -- the last person to close it must have had tremendous strength -- and the woman put her entire weight into twisting it. The wheel was well-oiled and made no noise when it finally gave. Frankie finished opening the hatch and, with a soft grunt, hoisted it open. On hand clung to the wheel, just in case the rusalka had sinister thoughts, and the other hand was offered, should the rusalka wish to hoist herself out of the tank, though Frankie didn't know if she could survive outside of water.

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

The rusalka waited, floating beneath the heavy metal hatch. The human clambered up the ladder and disappeared onto the top of the tank, her light steps banging faintly on the metallic cover. Finally, the tank vibrated with the sound of grinding gears, and the rusalka saw the hatch above her shift, exposing a disc of faint and watery light. Through the prism of the water's surface the rusalka saw the human leaning forward, her hand extended towards her.

Slowly the rusalka emerged from the water, letting the freezing water run slowly off her face. For a moment her pale oval face seemed to float on the water, white eyes gazing intently up at her liberator.

"H...", she said hesitantly. She hadn't spoken to anyone for weeks, and her tongue seemed to be tying itself into knots. "H...hello."

Slowly she extended her own hand and took hold of the human's. The woman's flesh felt incredibly warm against the rusalka's freezing hand. The rusalka tightened her grip around the human's hand and began to hoist herself out with surprising strength. Her wet skin slapped onto the metal cover of the tank and glistened softly in the light. The rusalka looked all around her, eyes wide and mind giddy. She had been locked up for so long!

Once she'd hoisted herself out, the rusalka sat down on the edge of the hatch with her legs dangling in the water. She was utterly naked save for her hair, which clung to her body like a golden cloak.

"Hello", she said again in a voice as clear as a mountain brook. "I haven't been out for a long time."

Out of the water the rusalka looked even more emaciated, but her behaviour and curiosity indicated a healthy mind and body.

"It's so boring in there", she said, looking down at her tank, "there's nothing to do except think and dream. But anyway, who are you? Where do you come from? What do you do? Are you friends with the czar?"

The rusalka had shot out each question with machine gun-like precision and rhythm, barely pausing for breath, and now she looked intently at the woman before her.

"Do I scare you?", she asked, her voice suddenly tinged with sadness.

[Frankie Guidicini]

Fingers tightening, Frankie braced herself to be drug down into the tank, or to support the rusalka's weight -- whichever the situation called for. When she surfaced, Frankie held her breath for a moment. The way her face broke through the water and the halo of her golden hair was mesmerizing. Beautiful was too weak a word to describe it, and yet Frankie could think of not better word as she looked down into her milky eyes. The hesitation in her voice coupled with the greeting caused the brunette to grin at the woman in the water. "Hello." She replied back, unsure of what else to say.

Frankie was unsure what to expect when the rusalka's skin touched hers -- not scales, no, but the cold was something she was unprepared for. Gritting her teeth against the clammy flesh, Frankie leaned back to act as a ballast for the woman, but she lifted herself out with a might that the spy had not suspected. Struck dumb for a moment or two, Frankie could just sit back on her heels with a half-smile on her face.

"Are you cold?" The young woman suddenly asked, reach back to untie her apron and loop the bib over her head as she did, knocking her cap askew. "It isn't much... but it's something." She didn't ask out of concern for modesty, for she suspected that being nude was rather a norm for the rusalka, but her flesh had been downright frigid, and Frankie didn't mind giving up her apron for now.

"How long?" Frankie asked, her eyebrows knitting together. The Winter Palace was centuries old -- what if they had been keeping her as a prisoner here? Would Frankie's government be able to free her? But then there was the whole to-do of smuggling her out of the palace, and a war was on, and Frankie had the royal family to protect -- One thing at a time, Frankie, the young woman chastised herself.

And just in time, too! "I would imagine it's --" Frankie began, but then the rusalka fired off a string of questions that left Frankie speechless for a second, and then laughing the next. She weighed her questions heavily before answering them -- a first name wouldn't hurt; after all, to those at the palace they only knew her as Katja Katalinikov. "My name is Frankie. What's yours?" She began. "I'm not from Russia; I'm from an island very far away, but I'm a housemaid here in the palace." A first name could be permissibly, yes, but not too much detail. While this was, according to the rusalka, the first time in a great while she'd been freed from captivity, Frankie could not let her cover be blown again. A smile danced on her lips and she shook her head. "No. I clear the dishes from the table after His Imperial Majesty and his family have finished dining. And I clean, make beds, and arrange flowers."

Her last question astonished her, and Frankie vehemently shook her head. "Not at all, no! I just didn't expect to find you." She smiled and leaned forward slightly. "I'm... well..." The young woman looked to her hand and wondered if she could loose one bone without triggering the rest and shredding her clothing. And would that be such a wise idea? Perhaps not, but Frankie found the kinship she felt with this person reignited once more. She longed for a bit of closeness, if even for a moment. "Let's just say..." A smooth thorn-shaped bone suddenly slipped out of the back of her hand, glistening in the light as it did. Wickedly curved, the tip of the bone seemed to be sharped down to a needle's point. "It takes a great deal more to scare me, and you not at all."

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

The rusalka looked at the offered clothing in confusion. What was cold already? She then remembered the people who had dug her up all those years ago and how they shivered in the wind. The cold wind.

"I can't feel cold", said the rusalka, idly kicking her feet about in the water. A keen observer would have noted the presence of thin sheets of ice floating there too. "I've seen humans feeling cold, though. They shiver a lot."

The rusalka looked up at the ceiling in thought when the human asked her how long she'd been imprisoned. Sadly, the only time indicator she knew were seasons and there was no such thing down here. Finally she shrugged.

"I don't know", she said, "I was imprisoned in another place before. A place where humans bury their dead. They dug a hole and put me in it, you see. When I woke up people were dressed differently. Oh! But I do remember the czar. His name was Alexander Two. I always wondered why they put numbers behind their names...until I met his son. He was called Alexander Three! I heard I was supposed to be a gift for Alexander Three, but he didn't come and see me very often."

The rusalka sighed, her white eyes filled with melancholy. "And the new czar, Nicolas Two...he almost never comes down here. Sometimes I think that they've stopped caring and that I'm going to stay locked up here forever."

When the human introduced herself, the rusalka smiled and lightly clapped her hands in delight.

"That's a nice name", she said, "nobody tells me their name. I just listen to peoples' conversations. The only human who told me his name before you was..."

The rusalka's melancholy air seemed to deepen, and she sighed heavily. Her innocence and liveliness vanished, replaced by a sudden weariness.

"...my knight", she said, "my good, brave and handsome knight."

The rusalka felt tears brimming in her eyes, but she wiped them away and focused her attention on Frankie. An island? That was interesting. The only islands she'd seen were small and covered in grass and trees. Were there bigger islands in the world?

"But...but why can't the czar do it himself?", she asked, baffled, "is he lazy? Making other people do his work sounds terribly unfair."

This information cast a new and unpleasant light on the human world. The rusalka could remember how badly other magical creatures treated her and her kind and she knew that there were strict hierarchies. She'd never thought humans did this too, and she felt slightly disappointed. Disappointment soon turned to quiet anger, though, and she vowed to find a way to knock those hierarchies down and make everyone equal.

Everyone.

But this was not the only surprise Frankie had. The rusalka's eyes widened in astonishment when she saw the strange, thorn-like growth sprout from Frankie's hand.

"Can all humans do that?", she asked before adding, "some people are scared of me because rusalki drown humans. I used to drown people a long, long time ago, before I met my knight. I couldn't think much, and I was compelled to try and harm people, but when I met my knight...something happened. It was like I'd been living in a dark cave and I'd suddenly found a way out, into a completely different world."

The rusalka went silent, and again the weight of her years (or rather centuries) showed. After a lengthy silence, she looked at Frankie again and asked:

"What's happening outside?"

[Frankie Guidicini]

"Oh." A faint flush crept up Frankie's cheeks, and she awkwardly replaced the bib over her head and hastily tied the apron back around her waist. "I wasn't sure -- this is my first time meeting a rusalka." She pushed away her embarrassment and hid it with a smile. Fish were cold-blooded, were they not? But this was not a fish -- this was a person, a sentient being, and it felt dishonorable comparing the woman before the spy to a fish. Some of her embarrassment suddenly owned to that -- Frankie would have been mortified for the rusalka to know what she was thinking. How rude and insensitive could she be?

Seconds ticked by before the rusalka admitted that she did not know how long she had been imprisoned here. Frankie's brows knit together in sorrow and concern. Did her kind have families? Did they live long? Or was she stolen from her family to be nothing more than a treasure? All these questions were too impertinent to ask, but Frankie wondered them all the same. But it sounded like she had been buried, and then brought here, and... Alexander the Second? Frankie's eyes widened and she clasped her hands together. The rusalka had been here longer than the spy had been alive!

"That is so utterly terrible that I feel my words cannot adequately say it." Frankie breathed. She thought about calculating the years and telling her just how long she had been here -- but she seemed sad already, and Frankie didn't want to upset the interesting woman with a count of the years lost while she was captive in this tank. Not unless she asked, at least. "Do you... do you think there's anything I can do?" Again, she wondered about telling her superiors and seeing if the rusalka could be rescued from this place, but what if they said no? What if she gave the woman hope only to have it dashed to pieces?

But just like that, the disposition of the water-maiden turned to one of joy, and Frankie couldn't help but mirror her smile. "Thank you. That's very kind." She was just about to tell the rusalka that her proper name was Francesca, but only her father and mother called her that anymore -- when the water-maiden's voice suddenly darkened and became heavy with the potency of exhaustion. Frankie fell silent as the rusalka spoke a few words about her knight and, daring, she asked softly, "I'm guessing that he wasn't in shining armor or riding in on a white horse, then?" The white eyes became water-laden, and Frankie drew her handkerchief from the pocket of her apron. The rusalka had already wiped away her tears, but the spy gently placed the handkerchief within reach should it be needed.

But the conversation changed once more, and Frankie laughed at her questions about the tsar. "No! I am compensated for it -- it's just that he is a leader, and he can't spend his time doing things like clearing away his dishes! He has a country to rule and... an army to command." Though, if recent reports were accurate, he wasn't very good at doing either.

With the subject of the tsar and Frankie's bone, she found that the conversation was lightening somewhat. Frankie smiled again -- it seemed she had never smiled before as long as she was in Russia -- and she shook her head. "Just me, as far as I know. I don't know -- I don't know if I am human or if I'm something else. I've just always been this way." And the rusalka divulged a little bit more about herself and her life. Frankie wouldn't admit that she had been worried about being drowned, but she just nodded. "I've... I killed a man who tried to mug me. And before that day, I was kept locked up -- in my parents' house and with things to do -- but... sometimes it takes something drastic to allow us to really... see things, I suppose."

It was astonishing how the rusalka could talk so easily and then have lapses where it seemed she was as old as the earth itself! Frankie could not help but try to maintain a respectful silence, for the most part, during these times. She did not want to poke or prod or pry excessively, especially when the rusalka had not spoken to anyone else before.

Luckily, the rusalka asked a question she could easily answer. "A great war is raging across Europe and has been for two years. Russia and England are fighting Germany and Austria. There are terrible methods that haven't been used before..." Frankie had only read stories of the trenches in the papers, but she counted herself lucky that her sex only allowed her to participate in espionage. "A lot of old griefs and grudges are being fought in this war. I honestly don't know who will win."

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

The rusalka clapsed her hands together and became misty-eyed when Frankie asked about the knight. The truth was that even after all this time and how badly she'd been treated, she still thought about the knight fondly.

"His horse was black", she said, Frankie's reference completely lost to her, "and he was beautiful...but I don't know if he was good. The villagers were going to burn me alive, but he stepped in and said I should be imprisoned on consecrated ground instead. So they wrapped me in chains, put me in a coffin and buried me in the graveyard. I had a cross wrapped around my neck...in fact, it's over there."

The rusalka pointed at a small wood and glass display case facing her tank. In it nestled an ugly Orthodox cross wrought from iron as well as a set of heavy chains of the same material. As the rusalka's gaze rested upon these objects, her expression darkened. When Frankie told her about the terrible war being waged across the land (the rusalka didn't know what Europe was), her eyes widened in horror.

"That sounds horrible", she breathed before naively adding: "I wish I could help somehow, but nobody will let me out of here."

The rusalka then fell completely silent. For a few minutes she let her ghostly gaze wander over the room in which her tank sat. Every minute spent with Frankie reminded her of what she had given up, and how lonely and miserable she was now. Had it even been worth it? Her knight was long dead and buried, nobody considered her human and she had exchanged one prison for another. The rusalka turned a baleful look on Frankie, and spoke grimly. Her voice seemed to have lost its child-like breathiness, instead becoming a tired, monotonous sound:

"I tried so hard to be like a human", she said, "I watched and listened, I tried to talk to my keepers...yet nobody listened or noticed. They don't care. I'm just another circus animal to them. Now they're not interested any more, the circus animal has grown tired of performing tricks and has lost its only purpose. One day the czar will stop showing me to visitors and I'll be left to die like a cat in a bag."

The rusalka turned away from Frankie, but this proved to be a mistake. As soon as she had turned away, her eyes fell upon a painfully familiar object: her comb. The ivory white object sat in a sealed glass case nearby, inaccessible and a permanent reminder of her foolishness.

"Baba Yaga was right", she whispered, recalling the ancient witch's ominous warning. "And I was a fool. I still am."

[Frankie Guidicini]

Frankie immediately regretted her sarcastic comments that were completely lost on the rusalka for all they seemed to do was reopen an existing wound -- or at least rub some salt in it. Part of her wanted to shy away from the anguish on her features, but she would not. Instead, Frankie listened to her words, a hand suddenly reaching to touch her lips as she described what this knight had done to her. The spy felt as though she had swallowed a bucket of frozen nails and a shiver ran up her spine.

She was not unlucky to have only been confined to her home by her parents. At least her parents loved her and cared for her. Frankie was reminded once more of how unfortunate she could have been.

Speechless, Frankie followed the water-maiden's gaze to the display. "I'm... I'm sorry." Stumbling over her words, Frankie's copper eyes looked back to the rusalka's white ones. "I should not have... That's so horrible. I wish you did not have to endure such things. And... this." The room was not unattractive, nor was the tank, but the harshness of confinement did not soften just because your surroundings were pretty.

"I..." It was not Frankie's place to offer assistance when doing so could quite possibly interfere with the reason why she was in Russia at the first place. But ever since the thought had entered her head, Frankie could not push it away. She could think onto being kept at her home and compare it to the rusalka's situation all she wanted, but at least Frankie had a governess and George to play with and a mother to tell her stories. The rusalka had nothing but her own thoughts in her tank. "I want to help you." The young woman confessed, looking to the rusalka's eyes. "I don't what how I can, but I want to and... if I found you, do you think I could somehow smuggle you out of here? The Neva is not far -- If I get you to the Neva, could you be free?"

A silence that made Frankie somewhat uneasy fell upon the room and the young woman almost squirmed. She was unsure of what to say, and waiting for the rusalka to speak only seemed to be respectful. When she finally, Frankie wondered whether this was a good idea at all to come poking down around here. Her tone and expression were one of utter lamentation. Frankie's heart could not help but feel pity for the woman and a desire to help her. But Frankie was just a girl playing war for her country; how could any of that help a being that seemed to have suffered so greatly and was currently a perennial captive?

"You are not." Frankie found herself insisting. "If one does not make mistakes, they cannot learn or progress. You are not a fool; you have just had too many misfortunes thrust upon you. There is nothing foolhardy in that." Offering a shaky smile, Frankie added, "At least, you have not struck me as a fool in our short time together, and I refuse to think you are such when I have seen no proof of it."

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

"Rusalki are not meant to be like me", the rusalka told Frankie, they're meant to stay in their mother river and protect it. We're not meant to feel love, happiness or anything. We're not meant to think for ourselves...I'm a mistake. An accident. Well, at least in the natural order of things."

The rusalka gave a wintry sigh and became lost in thought. The Neva was such a distant memory now, so distant in fact that she sometimes wondered if it wasn't a dream. Life in captivity had blurred some of the lines between memory and dream, often leaving Ludmila in doubt.

"Well...", she said, looking back at her comb, "if you could get my comb out of that case I might be able to sneak out. But then where would I go? The Neva won't take me back and I haven't been outside for, um...well a long time. I don't even know what the world looks like any more."

The more she thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed. She knew that the case was protected by an alarm system, but other than that she knew nothing of the dangers lying in wait for the potential thief or rescuer. She did know that trespassers would be severely punished if found, as the czar and his entourage were keen on keeping the likes of her secret.

"Think about it", she told Frankie, "if they find you down here you'll be in terrible trouble. They might even kill you or put you in prison..."

Suddenly a gruff male voice called out, interrupting the rusalka's warning: "Who's there?"

"Oh no! My keeper!", whispered the rusalka, fear showing on her pale face. "Go, Frankie, I'll draw his attention."

Heavy footsteps were heard coming from a nearby corridor, and the rusalka pushed at Frankie.

"Go!", she said.

[Frankie Guidicini]

Slowly, Frankie's brow knit together once more as the rusalka spoke of her oddity, at least where her kind were concerned. In Frankie's opinion, that didn't sound like living. Without love and happiness, wasn't life just existence? She was already feeling impertinent when it came to this woman -- she had asked questions she probably shouldn't have and Frankie was feeling a foreboding when she thought of trying to bolster the rusalka with kind words once more. But Frankie couldn't help herself. "I know that I would rather feel something than nothing at all. Otherwise... what would be the point of all of this?" She spread her arms, palms open, and gave a little shrug. Frankie had spent too many years controlling her emotions and striving to become unfeeling. There was nothing on earth that could tempt her to do it again.

Even as the rusalka looked lost in thought, Frankie was trying to plot a plan for her escape. She could come in the middle of the night, and perhaps if the water-maiden could survive for without water (even for a little bit), Frankie could clad her in her spare housemaid uniform. And then they just had to get past the guards and to the water's edge -- somehow.

"Comb?" Frankie echoed quietly, following her gaze to the display. She chewed on her lip -- surely, one of her bones could break that open -- but turned back to the rusalka as she despaired. "There are people I know that are like me -- like us. I have to stay here, but perhaps I can get one of them to escort you somewhere safe. Somewhere you can learn about the world and adjust. Anything has to be better than fermenting down here." Her words came out in a desperate rush that left her with a look of supplication on her face towards the rusalka.

That was what the agency did; that was how Frankie came to be in her current profession. If they could take a sheltered girl who repressed her every emotion, surely they could help this woman and give her some freedom, at the very least! While the rusalka doubted, Frankie become more and more convinced that this was possible. The rusalka needed to be free, not some entertainment dangled in front of the Tsar's loyal subjects!

"I am thinking about it." Frankie replied. With a bravery that she didn't know she had, the young woman declared, "Neither of those options scare me. What terrifies me is the thought of you left down --" The treble of a voice cut her off. Frankie's eyes widened and she found herself straightening up. There was only one exit here, was there not? And Frankie had left the lights on in the corridor!

"But the hatch -- He'll know!" The spy declared, but the rusalka pushed at her, bidding her to flee. Frankie swallowed hard and gave two nods before crawling over to the ladder and beginning to descend. She had climbed down two rungs when she stopped and swore, "I won't forget that you're down here." And with that, the young woman continued down a few more rungs until she could safely hop to the ground. Since the door was the only way in or out, and the door swung open to the inside, the young woman lurked behind the door's reach. When it swung open, it would hide her, and as soon as the rusalka's keeper had entered the room and was preoccupied with whatever distraction the rusalka could dream up, Frankie would slip out the door and up the stairs.

[Ludmila Ilyukhin]

My final post! I'm ending this thread so Frankie and Ludmila can meet again later.

When the rusalka's keeper entered the room, she turned towards him and smiled brightly.

"Hello, keeper!", she chirped. The man started and looked up, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw the rusalka sitting on top of her tank.

"What the...how the bloody hell did you get up there?", he exclaimed, "get back in your tank now!"

"But...it's so nice to be out for once", gently protested the rusalka.

"Get back in your tank", growled the keeper. Not wanting to draw the man's wrath, the rusalka reluctantly slipped back into the water. Grumbling to himself, the keeper climbed the ladder and closed the hatch, screwing the handle closed.

"How the hell did she get out?", he wondered. Meanwhile, the rusalka swam down to the side of her tank and looked out to wave Frankie away. With the hatch closed, the keeper looked suspiciously around the room for any intruders. The rusalka sighed sadly, letting a small mass of bubbles go drifting to the surface. Frankie had promised not to forget about her, but would she be able to return?


Epilogue:

In the weeks following Frankie's intrusion, guards were placed inside the palace's basement and in front of the entrance, making any intrusion impossible. The rusalka waited for the rest of 1916, but eventually gave up hope. She remained confident that Frankie had not forgotten about her, though, and that the human woman simply couldn't get through the guards.

Unbeknownst to the rusalka, the year 1916 ground away in war. In Russia, civil unrest grew and the czar grew more and more unpopular. 1916 went by, and 1917 began; a decisive year in the history of Russia. In february the czar abdicated in the face of growing civil unrest and political pressure. Little did the rusalka know that her liberation would soon come, but from an unlikely source indeed. As unrest continued to grow, a man named Lenin returned to Petrograd.

Then came the final explosion: the October Revolution. As Petrograd fell to the Bolsheviks, the Winter Palace's last basement keepers blocked the door and bricked it up before vanishing. The rusalka was left in darkness for weeks, and it finally seemed like her end had come. Just as she had predicted, the czar had abandoned her.

But one day as she lay at the bottom of her tank waiting for death to take her, an explosion rocked the basement. Her salvation, in the form of a man named Pyotr Ilyukhin and a group of Red Guards, had finally come.