GYWO Yahtzee 2023 1/5

[reneescarted]

Title: Memories in Paris
Fandom or Original Universe: fanfic for Broadway's Anastasia
Rating: Mature
Word count: 666
Summary: The Eiffel tower still reminds Anastasia, now just simply Anya, of her past.
Warnings/triggers: mentions of shooting, death, killing (it relies on the history of the Romanovs and the Russian revolution)
Writing Prompt: pp055

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, now just simply Anya Romanova, stopped in front of the Eiffel tower to take a moment for herself. She still remembered the first time she saw it, all the joy and fear bubbling up in her as she was finally in Paris, right where she was supposed to be. Back then, she wasn't quite convinced that she was really the Grand Duchess, the last surviving member of the Romanov family, who somehow miraculously escaped the rain of bullets that was supposed to end all of their lives in Yekaterinburg. She just knew that she wanted to find herself, and find whoever was waiting for her in Paris.

All of that she had found, and more. As horrible as it was to finally know who she was, and face the fact that her family were all cruelly gunned down, to sometimes dream of their faces or even their screams, at least she found some peace. She didn't know why she was the only one who survived. To this day, she didn't know how she got away. The most plausible theory was that one of the soldiers took pity on her, felt how wrong it was to kill all of them, and saved her life to ease his own conscience.

As bad as it was to have to live with the knowledge, at least Anya also found her Nana, bringing some kind of peace to the old woman, too. She was old and fragile, and Anya feared that soon she would have to say goodbye to her. There was so much loss in this last year - with her memories returning, it felt like losing her family all over again, and then Dmitri, someone she came to trust and maybe even love, left her without a second thought as soon as he got his hands on the reward money. Anya really thought her feelings were reciprocated, but the young man proved to be no more than a conman.

And then there was Gleb, the Russian officer who came as far as Paris to find her, who took her at a gunpoint but then decided to spare her life. She remembered Gleb with a twinge of fear, yet her last memory of him, collapsing on the floor and struggling with his own inner demons, didn't match the image she built of him in her mind. She hadn't heard of him since his return to Russia, where he spread the rumor that the real Anastasia was gone, and the old Maria Feodorovna adopted a convincing impostor just to quell her own pain and misery.

Russia moved on, and Anya tried her best to do the same. Most of the Russian nobles in Paris still held onto their old lives, but she was looking ahead. In the past, there was nothing but bloodshed and pain, and memories of a family that she will never see again. In the future, there was only her, as Anya, giving comfort to her old grandmother, working as a nurse in the hospital, making an honest, simple living.

Sundown was coming, painting the sky behind the tower with reds and pinks, signaling that she should get home before Nana started worrying. She shook her head and cast the memory of Russia, Dmitri, Gleb and the old ways away. She was simply Anya now, lucky to be alive, but just a young woman nonetheless.

The police were patrolling the streets, keeping order. Anya knew that, yet still the uniforms made her uneasy - she used to spend too much time running and hiding whenever officers would draw near, and the habit never quite disappeared. But then one of the men looked her way and changed his course, the setting sun casting a shadow over his face. Anya tensed but told herself not to run, that she was doing nothing wrong. Then she saw the face of the officer, and the name broke free of her lips in a shocked little gasp.

"Gleb."