Chapter 7

It was fairly late when we arrived, around midnight if I had to guess. Anna did not come out and greet us, instead I was told that she would be expecting to see me tomorrow morning. I was disappointed yet at the same time I was unsure if I wanted her to see me in such a disheveled state.

Nikolai was in the foyer on stand by to greet me and my cohort. I had mentally prepared a little test for him to see if I could, if not trust him, at least not worry about physical or psychic damage around him. I was disinclined to blindly put my faith in him after learning he was close friends with a psychopath and whatever it was Andrei had going on. No matter how much people online sung praises about him "just being a little cold but a real sweetheart once you got past that" I had my reservations.

He looked virtually unchanged since I had last seen him in-game. To the point I wondered if he was wearing the exact same clothing. He was a little shorter than Andrei but still towered over me so it was hard to tell exactly how much shorter he was. His black hair was not the same coal-black hair I had, when the light shined at it from the right angle one would see a deep reddy brown color. His most noticeable feature were his large, golden eyes. They were by far the prettiest things I had seen in this world so far. He was, as a whole, incredibly handsome verging on beautiful. Andrei had his size and strength, Leo had his androgyny, but Nikolai outshone them both, despite being a Count, in being princely. 

"Is there a problem Princess," Nikolai asked me. His expression changed into one of genuine concern and I almost felt a little bit bad for scrutinizing him so harshly. He looked akin to a puppy I had just accidentally kicked. 

"Of course not. My apologies for staring, it has been a long journey and I have not had any time to relax these past two days," I responded.

He perked up almost immediately,"ah, yes, of course, you must be exhausted. I've prepared spacious chambers for you, I do hope you like them. They're just temporary, we will be sharing a room once we are married." 

When he said that last bit I could sense a hint of embarrassment in his voice and he momentarily blushed. This man, was he really getting flustered over something several layers of abstraction away from sex? 

'Stay strong Kitty, there could still be a monster hiding underneath that veneer of innocence,' I thought to myself before saying,"I wouldn't expect anything less from my soon-to-be fiance," I turned to face the small amount of servants that were milling about the foyer,"all of you except for Katarina, disperse please. I have some sensitive matters to talk to the Count about."

Nikolai became visibly nervous at this order but didn't protest.

Now with both relative privacy and security thanks to Katarina I felt free to proceed,"Nikolai, you seem like a kind enough man but I am no longer placing my blind trust in your type. I do hope you understand and forgive my impudence for testing you like this."

He sighed, almost as if in relief, before replying,"Normally your behavior would confuse me but Andrei has written to me saying you seem to have undergone a drastic change of personality recently."

"That brother of mine really doesn't know how to keep a secret. I expect the entire kingdom will soon be whispering about the cruel princess finally going mad but I digress. Yes, what Andrei has told you is the truth. I am not the Kitty you were formally engaged to nor am I content to roll over and perfectly play the role of the original Kitty either. However, it has been impressed upon me that I do need to follow suit in some things and as such I do believe the two of us are to be wed no matter what."

"What a relief," he said as he walked over to a chair and slumped into it,"I was prepared to deal with the headache of breaking off the engagement if you so wished."

A strange feeling welled up in my chest. At last a man who wasn't going to assault or murder me. He was even willing to deal with some discomfort for my sake. What a low bar and yet I still felt myself moved to tears.

 I slumped down in the chair next to him, saying,"You don't know how much of a relief it is to hear you say those words."

"I do have a request for you Princess."

"As long as it's not unreasonable I am willing to fulfill it."

"Although our marriage is a political one, I still don't feel right getting married to a stranger. If you wouldn't mind, I would like to push back our wedding from two weeks after the proposal party to a month after."

I laughed a little bit at his unexpectedly purehearted request before replying,"I wouldn't mind that at all."

As we sat in silence for a little while I found myself overcome with drowsiness. I couldn't tell you if it was a symptom of finding out the man I was to marry was not a monster or if it was being in a comfortable chair in a warm foyer.

Before I could fully drift off to sleep, I felt someone very gently pick me up out of the chair. 

"What are you doing," I could hear Katarina protest.

Nikolai whispered back,"be quiet, you'll wake her. Her room isn't far from here, let me spare her the walk. It's no trouble."

He was unexpectedly quite warm. I couldn't help but notice that of the three men I had had both the pleasure and displeasure of getting close to, he smelled the best. I was sorry that my room was so close to the foyer, only down the hall and up a flight of stairs, as I would have preferred being carried just a little bit longer. 

Once Nikolai left the room, Katarina helped my half-asleep self dress for bed. For the first time in a long while, not only did I sleep well, I also had a dream that wasn't a nightmare. The contents of the dream were fuzzy but I could still remember them upon waking.

It was nothing particularly exciting, I found it interesting that while it was understandably mostly composed of scenes from my previous life I could see some bits of my time as Kitty seep into the edges of the dream. I shook off the dream, as pleasant as it was, and got ready for my day.

For the first time since I had taken them into my service, I did not allow Olga and Alisa to choose what I was to wear for the day. Instead I went through the things I had brought with me and picked out a dress from among the things. I had brought this dress along specifically for this purpose although I knew that it would end up here no matter what I did.

It was a bit over the top for my tastes, even though I was enjoying the frilly dresses I had been wearing so far. It was a light green color, trimmed with a dusty yellow. It came down to my feet and had a billowing skirt which required me to take extra care when walking. When I asked Alisa why this dress was so much more difficult to put on and wear compared to my other dresses she tittered on about stays and chemises and what felt like a hundred different things that I couldn't understand. 

When I finally had the dress on I was unsure of what exactly to do with my hands. If I put them on my skirt I felt like I would ruin how the skirt sat but I couldn't fold them up against my chest not only because it would be improper but also because the bodice of the dress was too tight. 

I looked at myself in the mirror, maybe because I half expected to see my own face staring back at me, I was prepared to look ridiculous in the suffocatingly frilly dress but instead I just looked as beautiful as Kitty always looked. Despite the fact I thought the colors were a bit garish, Kitty wore the dress very well. I still felt like something was missing though. I thought about it for a bit before asking Katarina for the long neglected makeup box. The three maids all looked extremely surprised. 

"Which one of you wants to give me some very light makeup," I asked after opening the box and realizing I had no clue what most of the things in it did.

Although I asked for light makeup I found myself talked into more and more products until I was fully made up. Well I wouldn't want to make a bad first impression but it still felt like my nose was constantly itchy. 

Getting up from my vanity I went and inspected myself in the mirror yet again. Yes, there was no doubt about it: this was exactly what Kitty looked like at the tea party. I felt it was somewhat poetic to meet Anna looking exactly the same as the last time I saw her. I was unsure what drove me to this impulse, perhaps it was a latent need for dramatics. Whatever the case, I was ready to go meet the woman of my destiny.