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+----- Thread: Collide | Levilia (/showthread.php?tid=1042)
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RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 07-26-2026
He wanted out.
It was more than obvious to Lev that his cousin - the girl his family insisted he marry - was mentally ill.
Nothing else could explain her erratic behavior and her determination to undermine him at every turn. Liliya was a mistake his family had foolishly tracked down, deciding to saddle him with the responsibility of her for the rest of his life. It wasn't that the man didn't think he could handle her. It was quite the opposite. Lev could absolutely handle Liliya - if he chose to take extreme measures with her. The only thing stopping him was his own restraint. Not his father. Not Nadezda. Himself.
None of his family would blink if he was harsh with her.
And therein lay the problem, didn't it? All of them told him to be stricter. To leash her. To do what he must to get her under control. There was no out for him; only punishment if he didn't do as they requested. It was tragic, really. A boy, who all his life strived for excellence, obedience and strong family ties.
Condemned to a life of constant headaches and temper tantrums.
If only he were the type to hit a woman. Perhaps his life would be less stressful. In any case, once she provided him a son - two ideally - he could resume his life pretending she didn't exist. He would apparently suffer until then. Perhaps when his father was dead, he would have her committed to St. Mungo's. Lev smiled at the thought, fiddling with his watch as another uninteresting conversation ended.
Liliya wore that deranged smile she had displayed all night.
“Conversation twenty-five: done. Who next?”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, already exasperated with the night he'd been sentenced to at her side. "Surely there's no end to brainless people you can charm," he said lightly, making no effort to hide his distaste for her, "They're all as shallow as you."
Remarkable, really.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 07-29-2026
His contained irritation seeping through the cracks poured over her like warm summer rain. She had neither been particularly good at gaining his approval nor his satisfaction, but she certainly excelled at keeping him annoyed. After two years of fruitlessly trying to be what she wasn’t, letting go and giving up to drift on waves of carefree unconcern was freeing on a level she hadn’t been able to imagine. She should have stopped caring way sooner.
"Surely there's no end to brainless people you can charm. They're all as shallow as you.”
Lev continued to be a negative Nancy — as he had been all evening — clearly unappreciative of her witty jokes and jests. Poor man. Was he aware of the general concept of fun and happiness? Liliya feared he wasn’t. What a tragic existence.
Head turning to gasp in mock, she lightly squeezed his arm. “Brainless, shallow people?” she asked, feigning indignation before shaking her head in equally faux disappointment. She clicked her tongue and turned her gaze ahead again. “Don’t let your guests hear you call them names. They would not want to make conversation or business with an heir so rude."
With a tilt of her head, Liliya's gaze found back to his face. "Being nasty to them is beneath us,” she finished, repeating the words he’d said to her before, smile growing wide. Fucking hypocrite. Perhaps he hadn’t said it to anyone directly — except her — but the room was crowded enough to risk being overheard.
But anything went if you were the heir, right?
Liliya chuckled to herself, idly continuing to weave a way through the crowd. She felt rather thirsty after all this talking. A glass of champagne sounded like just the thing she needed. Lucky for her, a servant passed by just then.
“Thaaaaank you,” she beamed, plucking one of the glasses off the waiter’s tray before turning her attention to Lev once more. “Fantastic evening, isn’t it, Alec? Oop!” Her eyes rounded as though surprised she had misnamed her fiancé on accident alone and not for her own sick pleasure of dangling the man she was having an affair with right in front of his nose, solely to see his reaction. Giggling softly, Liliya waved a hand. “I mean Lev, of course, silly me.”
Lev as in Lev, just as the Brit pronounced it, rather than the proper Russian intonation she had used since their first time meeting. Dull and flat, just like the man himself.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-01-2026
"It is not being nasty to them," he insisted. He said nothing to them. As far as all these people were concerned, Lev was the picture of a polite, well-mannered gentleman. He was sure they had private thoughts about him as much as he had about them, but that was what they were. Private.
He cared little for what Liliya thought, or the words she attempted to throw back in his face. Her insults, her jabs and little grins that spoke volumes about how she thought she was 'winning' did nothing. Perhaps if he actually felt something for the girl beyond annoyed obligation, it all might land harder.
As it was he didn't, and they didn't. It was just another tiresome little show he had to endure until the night was over and then he'd go back to pretending she didn't exist.
“Fantastic evening, isn’t it, Alec? Oop!”
His eyes cast sideways at her, but he didn't react. Instead, he lingered on the drink she'd plucked from a passing tray. He didn't know who Alec was, nor did he care to ask. Likely, it was just some made up name she'd thrown out there to try and irritate him.
“I mean Lev, of course, silly me.”
"Yes, silly you," he answered, taking the glass from her hand, and downing it quickly, before she could try and snatch it back. "Your faculties are already compromised." She thought she was clever wasn't she, pronouncing his name like the English did? He'd had enough of her antics, and he could be just as irritating if he really wanted to. "No drinking for you tonight. No eating either. You're getting a little round in the middle."
He placed the glass lightly on a side table, before turning his gaze back to her. "Skip a meal or two. It will do wonders."
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-02-2026
No matter how hard he tried to hide it behind his perfect veneer of composure and indifference, Liliya knew inwardly he was wringing her neck. And she relished every second of it. Because if she couldn’t bend herself enough to make him like her, she would be insufferable until he hated her.
She thought she might be close.
"Yes, silly you,” he said and snatched the glass right out of her hand, not inquiring about the name she’d just dropped. That was fine; she hadn’t expected him to anyway, and it wasn’t as though she wanted him to know. All of this was for her own entertainment. Unexpectant of his interference, however, Liliya watched him down her champagne with surprise.
"Your faculties are already compromised.”
Ah, there it was. He was bothered by her, perfect. She gathered that the mispronunciation of his strong, Russian heir name had been the bigger driver in this endeavour, and Liliya took a mental note of that. Maybe she should just continue with that all evening long; might as well. It seemed to be working wonders.
"No drinking for you tonight. No eating either. You're getting a little round in the middle. Skip a meal or two. It will do wonders."
Liliya’s smile returned, broad and sly, brows raised high. “Right,” she said, unaffected by his meaningless words. She knew damn well what she looked like and he did too, and none of it came close to what he claimed. Naturally he wouldn’t know the full scope of it though; he wasn’t the one undressing her. But they both knew he was reaching, and Liliya didn’t care for the sharpness in his words.
Taking a step closer, she grinned up into his stoic face. “I want to see you try and stop me,” she said, keeping her voice low and pleasant. She could do what she wanted, and she would. He wasn't going to stop her.
On the verge of another giggle, she leaned in a little further, dealing an insult for an insult. “Mudak,” she whispered, making to swerve past him and towards the buffet.
Mudak - dickhead, asshole
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-05-2026
She grinned, leaning towards him, closer than he would have preferred. He pulled back, his eyes narrowing slightly as he sized her up, trying to understand what it was she was doing and wanting no part of it. She'd never leaned into his space like this before, even in her most unruly moments.
“I want to see you try and stop me."
She wanted to...what? His scowl deepened, her words understandable but her meaning lost on him. Stop her? Stop her from what? Making a fool of both of them? Angering the family in a public way? It couldn't be allowed. Her little incessant need to try and irritate him was one thing. Making a display, outright defying him in front of all their guests? It was a step far further than he was willing to tolerate.
But she wouldn't. The girl new better.
“Mudak."
The disrespect had taken a leap over the last of his patience. As she tried to duck past him, he was quick, snatching her upper arm hard and yanking her back towards him with a rough tug. A few guests nearby gasped, another few murmured, but the two betrothed went largely unnoticed. His eyes bore into hers as his hand tightened, deep enough to leave a bruise. She was insolent and immature and unbelievably stupid.
Why their family had ever saw value in retrieving her from the dirty orphanage she rightly belonged in, he'd never understand. It was a failure on his cousin's part, thinking she could groom a street rat into a polished Zdravkova girl. Her father had been the traitorous, weak-spined sort as well. Why would any of them ever think his bastard daughter would be any different?
"I said no." Low, dangerous and fully through with her games, his voice passed quietly between them. "You'll listen." There would be consequences otherwise, but Lev was certain he didn't need to spell them out for her.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-08-2026
She barely took a step before Lev’s hand wrapped around her upper arm, yanking her back. She let out a little gasp as she bumped into him, startled by the strength of his grip, growing even stronger as their eyes locked. Pain swelled beneath her skin, enough to make her wince, but Liliya bit her tongue.
He would not get the satisfaction of hearing her cry out.
Her gaze continued to bore into his, defiant and challenging. Anger simmered behind his, visible at last, and Liliya could feel the triumph dance through her chest. His flawless composure of stone — finally cracked and in public no less — one month of hard work paid off. The tiniest hint of smugness curled around her lips.
"I said no.” Lev’s voice came like a warning dripping in arrogance, low and wholly unimpressive. Liliya’s lips spread wider. "You'll listen.”
For a moment, she merely stood there and grinned at him, long past the point of his influence on her. Once, she had felt intimidated by this man, dependent on his approval and his goodwill. Now, all she wanted was to see him break, no matter the cost. If she had to go down to see his composure crumble, Liliya would be glad to put it all on the line, just to drag him down with her.
She hated him. She hated his fucking guts and that insufferable, aggravating look on his face he got every time he glanced at her. Like he was superior, and she the vermin under his shoe, always in need of control.
If he wanted to control her so badly, she’d give him something to control.
She narrowed her eyes at him, edged with the sharpness of her disdain. “No,” she said, voice no longer a whisper, but firm, loud enough for the people in their immediate vicinity to hear. “Let go, you’re hurting me.”
Heads turned. A few conversations faltered and then died; the weight of curious eyes shifted their way and stayed. The atmosphere changed like the snap of a finger, whispers beginning to rise, exposure like a light hanging directly above their heads. Liliya didn’t look away from him. Her smile had long faded, in its wake nothing but the glare of her eyes. The pressure of his fingers burned into her arm, but she almost relished it now.
“Go on,” she murmured just for him to hear, disgust swinging with every word. “Control me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Her voice softened even further, lips snarling faintly. “Show everyone how you do it then.”
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-12-2026
He didn't care. He didn't care if he was fucking hurting her. He didn't care if her arm bruised so badly she wouldn't be able to move it for a week. He didn't care if she cried or screamed or...
A pause, as Lev untangled himself in the uncharacteristic fury that had taken hold of him.
What the fuck was he doing? Grabbing her arm like this? Especially in front of guests? He'd never taken a harsh hand with a woman before. He'd taken Liliya by the wrist now and again when he needed her attention, but he'd never put his hands on her in anger. The man was always in control of himself and his reactions, trained from infancy on how to contain himself and present with a calm if not cold exterior.
Somehow, she had managed to get beneath his skin and drag it out of him. Even his father hadn't managed to evoke the angry, reckless sort of reaction coursing through him now. Not in years. Not since he had been a boy, too young and stupid and willful to understand that losing one's temper only handed everyone else a weapon.
And there he was, practically placing it into Liliya's hand himself.
“Go on. Control me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Lev's gaze dropped to the fingers buried in the flesh of her upper arm. For a moment, he simply stared at them, before letting go. Not gently, or with any sort of display of apology, but simply. His hand opened and dropped, falling back to his side with a slight flex, as though the appendage itself had betrayed him. Angry red marks already stained her pale skin and his stomach tightened at the sight.
Shit. A murmur somewhere behind them reminded him they weren't alone.
Lev's eyes flickered beyond Liliya for the first time since he'd grabbed her. A pair of guests had turned away a fraction too quickly. Another woman suddenly seemed fascinated by the drink in her hand. No one was staring outright, naturally. These people were far too well-bred for that.
They had seen, and heard, and the realization, his jaw locked.
This was exactly what Lev had spent his entire life learning not to do. Whatever happened behind closed doors was one thing. Whatever anger existed between family members belonged there, contained within stone walls where outsiders couldn't dissect it over drinks and turn it into gossip by morning.
And he'd just given them something to talk about, but worse, he'd let her do it.
No, he corrected himself, that wasn't right either.
Liliya had spent the entire evening provoking him. She'd needled, mocked, deliberately twisted his words and thrown every little failure back in his face with that infuriating smile of hers. She had called him by another man's name, mispronounced his own like some ridiculous little joke and finally stood there daring him to stop her as though his patience were nothing more than another boundary she could throw herself against until it broke.
But she hadn't closed his hand around her arm. He had. The realization only made him angrier, and all at once, Lev realized he couldn't fucking do this anymore.
Lev inhaled slowly, forcing the heat out of his nose through one measured breath at a time. His shoulders loosened, his fists unclenched and by the time he looked at her again, the calm...the mask had returned. Eyes cold and devoid of feeling, exactly where he wanted them.
She had wanted a reaction out of him all evening. This was the last one she would get.
"Go eat. Drink if you like," he said simply, without feeling or malice behind it. It was dismissive and almost bored as he adjusted his cuff and straightened his shirt. He already knew there would be consequences for the display they'd just made. There was no reason to dig himself deeper at this point. "Nadežda can handle you for the rest of the night. I'm finished." Without another word, he turned, leaving his cousin to herself as he made to leave the hall and resign himself to the courtyard until his father inevitably called for him.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-17-2026
She had won. For once, she had fucking won.
Liliya watched his face as he let go of her, his eyes flicking towards the guests she had made their audience. She could still feel the indentations of his hand around her arm, angry and hot. Her hand flexed, but she resisted the urge to rub over her sore skin and ease the pain, unwilling to give it power.
Instead, she claimed every moment of it as her own.
His perfect composure and unaffectedness had finally cracked open, revealing the real man beneath — furious and unafraid to use force when all else failed. It appeared he wasn’t much different from the one ruling this family. Liliya supposed it was no surprise.
She did wonder what Daddy would do with his golden son when he heard he’d lost control in public so dramatically, though. Give him a good beating? Hopefully.
When Lev’s gaze returned — cold, bored, back to the disinterest and hauteur he liked to regard her with — Liliya’s was gleaming in disdain. He could pull his mask back in place all he liked, but she had seen it slip. He could act as untouchable and lordly as he wanted, but she had seen that image crack. And she knew she could do it again. This was only the beginning.
His words were meant to cut; she was sure of that, but Liliya wouldn’t allow them to. She glowered after him for only a second. Taking a breath, she forced a smile and turned, finding the first waiter with a tray. Snatching a glass of white wine, she gulped down half in one go before heading towards the buffet.
────────────────────
Monday, 13 November 1922
~ 5:26 pm ~
Harewood House Entrance Hall
───────────────⋅☾ ☽⋅───────────────
Monday, 13 November 1922
~ 5:26 pm ~
Harewood House Entrance Hall
───────────────⋅☾ ☽⋅───────────────
Liliya entered the house with a flurry of cold air and rain, Nibby the house-elf quickly blocking the nasty British weather out with a shove to the door.
“I’m sorry, Nibby,” Liliya said, grimacing at the trail of mud and leaves she had dragged inside, her overcoat dripping water into a puddle as she shrugged it off. “I didn’t know it was this bad up here.” Arundel sure as hell hadn’t been drowning in a storm like this.
Nibby accepted the drenched thing that was her coat. “No, no, Miss Liliya,” he said, already going about drying the wet rag with a snap of his fingers, floating it in mid-air. “There is no need to apologise to Nibby. Nibby can clean everything up in no time! Nibby is really good at cleaning things up fast!”
Wasting no time, he stumbled over his own feet in his hurry to prove just how fast he could be. Liliya chuckled, pushing wet strands of hair from her face. “Of course,” she agreed, “that’s why you are my favourite.” She booped his long nose, sending them both giggling.
A far cry from the girl who had first moved into this house over half a year ago, and she loved every second of it. As if life itself had returned to her very soul, visiting Rosie and defying Lev had worked like a cure to the blackness that had seeped into her body. She hadn't even noticed it, not until its tendrils had begun to withdraw, and now she finally felt as though she could live this life somehow. She only needed to cling to moments like these in between, and it would all be fine.
Watching Nibby for a while longer, Liliya turned at last.
The easy feeling dissipated from her chest the moment her eyes landed on Lev's face, but she kept the smile in place. "Thought you were doing business," she said with a small sigh, making her way towards the stairs to push past him. "Or did you lose your shit with them because they didn't give you what you wanted?"
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-17-2026
Lev had tolerated her disrespect for the last time.
Over the past several months his relationship with Liliya had deteriorated from one of tolerance to outright disdain. The girl he was supposed to call his fiancée, if not at least his cousin, had not only defied him time and time again, but he'd discovered she was deceiving the family.
His suspicions had begun to raise in October, when she continuously called him by a name he didn't recognize, almost meaning to taunt something out of him by it. Perhaps if Lev had felt any sort of romantic attachment to Liliya, it would have driven a jealous sort of character out of him, but as it was, he didn't and her words didn't. Rather, it only made him suspicious, wanting to understand what she was getting up to that had her so emboldened.
It had to be something. Until the day she'd caught him with Rimma, she'd been at a minimum, trying to make herself fit where they both could probably agree now that she didn't belong. And while Lev would acquiesce that she had a right to be angry about that situation, it wasn't enough - in his mind - to devolve into what it had.
It had started with that little bracelet she wore. A tracking charm, subtly added when she'd removed it one evening before going to wash up. He'd slipped into her room, a quick flick of his wand, and her whereabouts were no longer only hers to know.
She'd been sneaking out to Arundel Castle, which Lev knew well enough belonged to the Laurences. That in itself wasn't groundbreaking news. He knew their wayward girl, Rosalie, was one of her best friends and he told himself he would have been amenable to them meeting now and again at Harewood, if she'd only asked. Of course, she hadn't, because she thought herself smarter than the rest of the family.
A quick ask around to the more trusted help, and Rimma revealed that she knew one of the valets at Arundel, having attended finishing school with him. It wasn't long before the rest came to light.
She was having an affair. Not with a Laurence, which, all things considered, Lev may have been able to tolerate and even turn a blind eye to. But with a stable boy. The lowest on the ladder of hired help that acquainted himself with beasts and horse shit. The very notion of a Zdravkova girl lowering herself so absurdly, and then allowed it to give her the confidence to disrespect and defy him...?
He couldn't even begin to imagine how she saw this ending for her, but Lev was finished trying. His father had commanded he get her under control once and for all, and he would. No longer would he suffer her insults on his chin or remain stoic while she had her tantrums.
Liliya had been shielded from her consequences for far too long, and the bell was finally tolling for her.
"Thought you were doing business. Or did you lose your shit with them because they didn't give you what you wanted?"
A cold smile appeared on his lips as she tried to shove past him, but he was faster. He stepped in front of her, his hands folded calmly behind his back. "You think you're so clever don't you, Liliya?" She tried to push past him again, but another swift step and he remained in her way. He wasn't doing business. It was a ruse to get her out of the house while he informed Nadežda of what her precious niece had been up to. "You think you've got me - all of this - all figured out."
His voice lowered, dark in the way that only his brothers had ever heard. He took a step closer to her, filling any space that had remained between them. "Did you think this could go on forever? Did you think I'd tolerate your insolence for the rest of our lives?" He waited a beat, before pouncing. “No Zdravkova woman...no wife of mine makes a spectacle of this family and then smiles in my face as though I’m too stupid to see it.” His expression went flat. "You wanted to prove no one could tell you what to do. Let's see how clever you feel when you explain yourself to Nadežda."
Without warning he grabbed Liliya by the arm, yanking her roughly with him as he turned and dragged her down the corridor towards the entrance to the basement where her punishment would be waiting.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-17-2026
He stepped into her way, with that smug, little smile on his face that she hated so much. Why did he have to ruin the lingering happiness of a good time so soon? Couldn’t he have at least waited til dinner? Insufferable man. The smile faded from her lips.
"You think you're so clever don't you, Liliya?”
Liliya didn’t care. She tried to step around him, uninterested in engaging with whatever he thought he was doing, but Lev blocked her off again. Annoyed, she sighed, meeting his gaze. “What do you want, Lev?”
"You think you've got me - all of this - all figured out.”
Frowning, Liliya regarded him with exasperated confusion. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about; maybe it’s time to see a psychiatr—” He stepped closer, and she fell silent, taken aback by the glint in his eyes. Something about it sent a cold shiver up her spine, a tingle into her muscles that told her to run. He always wore an air of superiority, but this felt different. Threatening somehow. Liliya took a subconscious step back as he continued to speak.
"Did you think this could go on forever? Did you think I'd tolerate your insolence for the rest of our lives?"
She wanted to snap back, say something clever, something snappish and unbothered, but her mouth had gone dry. Something was wrong. Something about his demeanour was different. Why was he acting like this so suddenly? So serious and cocksure, even worse than usual. Dark. She had never seen him like this before, heard his voice drop so low it scraped against her bones.
But…he couldn’t know, could he? Not really. She’d been careful.
“No Zdravkova woman...no wife of mine makes a spectacle of this family and then smiles in my face as though I’m too stupid to see it.”
The beat of her heart felt like a drum against her ribs, real fear gripping around her chest, freezing her into place. She’d never been afraid of Lev, not once, until now. All these times she had needled and poked at him, the worst he’d done was bruise her arm, but suddenly she felt foolish. How far was he willing to go? When he eventually broke and truly lost his composure? What measures would a man like him find appropriate in putting his fiancée back in place? Had he found out?
When his face fell, Liliya set her jaw, bracing herself. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t break. She had survived worse than—
"You wanted to prove no one could tell you what to do. Let's see how clever you feel when you explain yourself to Nadežda.”
His hand yanked her forward before she could react. For a moment, ears ringing, Liliya was rendered speechless, motionless besides the stumbling steps Lev forced her body to take. Nadežda. Not...
All at once, dread spread through her veins like wildfire, shocking her alive. “No,” she gasped, suddenly unable to breathe, heartbeat frantic. “No. No, no, please, Lev, stop.” She stumbled after him, pulling against his hold on her, fingers of her free hand clawing at him. Panic exploded, blind and raging. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be serious…this couldn’t…
“Lev!” Her voice cracked, raw and pleading, void of every ounce of confidence she has ever held. Every sliver of pride, gone. She couldn’t do this, not again, not Nadežda. Her heels dragged against the polished marble floor, fighting for purchase, but his grip was like iron around her arm, pulling her along as though her weight meant nothing. As the door to the basement came into view, Liliya lost all sense of decorum.
Terror squeezed her lungs, barrelled adrenaline into her muscles. “Please, Lev, stop." Liliya tried to pry his fingers from her arm, her voice a strangled sob, movements growing frantic. "No, no, no, no, no.” Her breaths shuddered through her chest, eyes wide, knees giving way in a desperate attempt to break free.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-19-2026
Her screams did nothing to sway him.
She wasn't sorry or repentant. Just a few moments ago, while she still thought she was getting away with it, she'd tried insulting and disrespecting him again. Liliya would learn, one way or another, how this life - this marriage - was going to go. He'd tried being patient with her. He'd tried correcting her calmly. He'd tried reasoning with her. Lev had exhausted all of his peaceful options months ago and had paid the price with his father's ire.
Weak. Pathetic. Coward.
His father's words rang over and over and over in his head again, drowning out everything until that man's voice was all he could hear. Lev had never wanted to become Oleg Zdravkova. He had never wanted his father's voice to be the one that dominated his thoughts. He had never wanted to lay his hands on the woman that would be his wife - or any woman for that matter - but what choice did he have left when she'd rebuffed every other attempt he'd made to put her in her place and diffuse the situation?
He was stuck in this arrangement, for the rest of his life.
When he was first told of Liliya, he wasn't completely against the idea. Rather, he'd been receptive and agreeable to the match, willing to lead the girl through the mechanisms of the family and help groom her into the ideal matriarch of their family. He'd been willing to protect her from the more insidious nature of the family and had even made excuses for her to cover up her less-than-desirable behavior.
And this was how he was repaid.
Her fingers clawing at his hand went unnoticed. It was remarkable how she could pronounce his name correctly now.
“Lev!”
He swallowed hard, his jaw setting as he remained steadfast, dragging her down the corridor. By now, half the manor would likely be alerted to her cries of terror, but none of them would come barreling in to her rescue. His father certainly wouldn't. Danika knew good and well to stay out of it. The others were all off at school, and even had they been there, none of them - especially Drago - would have dared to interfere if they knew what she had done.
"You made your bed, Liliya." His voice was even now, devoid of emotion, even as his hand loosened for just a brief moment. He'd never heard her like this, but he supposed it was what to be expected if she knew what was to come. Liliya was defiant and knew what Nadežda was capable of, and she'd chosen this. She had done this to herself.
“Please, Lev, stop."
When her knees buckled, he stopped, stooping down to pick her up in one smooth motion. Such a ridiculous scene, he thought, but he kept quiet, carrying her down the winding stone staircase into the dark.
Nadežda waited for them in the center of it, her face cold and donning its usual scowl. Her eyes remained on Lev for only a moment before drifting to her niece without a word. A quick flick of her hand, and Lev obeyed, dropping Liliya to her feet in front of her aunt. Without a word, he bowed his head briefly and stepped back, allowing Nadežda to take over.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-21-2026
His grip broke, but only long enough to pick her from the ground. Lev ignored every plead, every attempt to free herself, every panicked breath and trembling word. He swung her over his shoulder and stepped through the door.
Nibby’s horrified face was the last thing she saw before the basement door thudded shut — eyes wide, nervous hands pulling long ears towards his mouth to cover the shock. Darkness engulfed her and Liliya knew this was it. No one would come, and no one would care. No one would have anyway.
A sob crawled up her throat, desperation thickening, cold and useless as it froze her blood. Her body stilled, the thrashing stopped, and Liliya stopped fighting.
No one cared. No one ever had. This was it. Nadežda would shred through her mind until her brain turned black, and afterwards, when she couldn’t think straight anymore, she’d be faulted for that too. She couldn’t win, ever; she’d never even stood a chance. As the door disappeared above them, stone swallowing the last sliver of light, and every step Lev took resounded through her body like another death sentence, Liliya finally faced the truth.
She had been foolish to assume he wasn’t quite the same. That he wouldn’t go this far. Arrogant. Blinded. Stupid. Always stupid. Always wrong. All she’d ever wanted was to belong, and when she couldn’t, when bending had almost broken her, she had vowed to achieve the opposite. But even that she wouldn’t be allowed to claim.
No. If they couldn’t shape her into perfection, they would instead mangle her into obedience. Tame her into docility through capitulation. They would kill her fucking soul before they’d ever let her go. It was pointless, and it always had been. All of it.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs — the room like a tomb that encased her, swallowing her whole — and Lev made her stand to face her aunt's cruelty, Liliya felt like the hollow shell of a girl who had once wanted nothing more than family, now left in the wake of a child’s foolish dream. As Nadežda’s cold, blue eyes pierced through hers, Liliya allowed herself the thought for the first time.
She hated them.
All of them.
She hated what they had done to her. How they had tried to erase the person she’d become through one of their own son’s doings, only to snatch her back and demand she behave as if none of it had happened at all. As if turning herself inside out were easy. As if thirteen years of survival had been her choice. And when she couldn’t do it, they had decided she was flawed, wrong somehow, and she’d believed that too.
Nadežda stepped closer, the echo of her heels thundering through Liliya’s heart, that beautiful face etched with nothing but stone-cold disapproval and cool contempt. Liliya stood rooted to the ground, rigid, and barely breathing as Nadežda’s hand lifted to grasp her chin, touch too gentle, too warm as it softly tilted her head. “Shame,” she said after a moment of quiet contemplation, regarding her like a failed project, almost wistful.
Without another word, Nadežda let go and the hardness returned to her eyes. Casting her gaze at Lev, she strode a few paces toward the plain wooden table that sat against the far wall. “You will stay until this is done,” she said, turning to lean against the edge, crossing her ankles as her attention returned to Liliya.
Swallowing, Liliya braced herself. Every inch of her inside crawled with fear, screaming at her to bolt and run and fight, fingernails biting the palms of her hands, but there was nowhere to run, and there was no one to fight.
Nadežda’s lips curled into the faintest smile. Her voice was laced with ice. “Tell us what you did, Liliya.”
The room fell deathly quiet, tense. Liliya’s lips pressed thin, gaze unwavering even as fear began to flicker.
Nadežda already knew. Whatever Lev had found out, he had told her everything, like the good little boy that he was. And because he was too incapable or too cowardly to do it himself, he had given her to the woman with the least amount of humanity left to deal out the punishment.
Liliya hated him the most.
Silence stretched until it grew uncomfortable. Nadežda’s smile deepened. Defiantly, Liliya took every memory of herself that she held dear, twisted them into a ball and encased them in stone, hiding away what they so desperately sought to destroy. Nadežda could take it all. The shame, the doubt, the resentment and the fear. Everything that hurt. But she could not have the rest. Rosie, Arundel, Nibby, Eira. That was hers, and she would bury it where Nadežda couldn't ever find it.
Casually, the woman took her wand from where it lay on the table. “It really is a pity,” she said once her gaze was back on Liliya. “Such a brilliant mind and there you go wasting it away. I do hope this time you will learn your lesson, Liliya. The first time was a taste; this one you will regret, and the next you won’t come back from the same.”
Liliya’s heart raged against her ribcage, breaths shallow and frantic, trembling through her body, but she fought the tears back down. The stone of memory sat inside her brain like a fortress, waiting for impact, every ounce of concentration working to fortify and harden. Everything else was forlorn hope. Cannon fodder for Nadežda’s rage to destroy.
“Watch closely, cousin,” Nadežda said to Lev, wand raising to point at Liliya. “You might want to remember this.”
For one fractured second, Liliya's eyes found Lev, desperate and accusing, simmering with rage.
And then Nadežda’s magic surged forward, striking Liliya’s mind with such force it felt almost physical, a violent pressure driving straight through her skull. Her head snapped back, a strangled gasp catching in her throat, and then her legs gave out beneath her. She crashed to her knees, catching herself on both hands against the cold stone floor. Pain the way she had never felt before cracked her skull into pieces in an instant, ripping through the fabric of her brain like claws shredding without aim, tearing through memories as though they were merely pictures on paper.
Liliya couldn’t breathe. Mouth agape in a silent gasp, she almost lost control right then, eyes staring at nothing, blinded by white-hot agony. Faces flashed in and out of existence, colours, sounds, emotions, and places, pulled through the surface, watched and judged, torn into little snippets faster than should be possible, all within the blink of an eye.
Only when the lack of oxygen nearly made her faint did Nadežda slow. Just a second, enough for Liliya to draw in a ragged breath, filling her lungs before Nadežda's wrath returned tenfold.
Pain erupted like a bomb.
Liliya screamed.
Shrill and guttural, the sound echoed off the stone walls as her nails scraped against the floor, skin burning raw as she began to writhe under the ironclad grip of her aunt's magic.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-22-2026
There was no need for him to stay.
Lev had never been responsible for punishing the women in his family, no matter how severe or not. His responsibility was the men, specifically his brothers and any younger male cousins that required it. Liliya was different in that he was meant to keep her in line, but when she finally needed a firmer hand in correction, that responsibility lay at Nadežda's feet.
It was how things had always been, and how they always would be. He would excuse himself, Liliya would receive her punishment and they'd resume their old dynamic of taming and guiding. She would hate him, he figured, but she seemed to anyway. At least this way, she'd hate him in silence and he could convince his father he'd finally gotten control of her.
He ignored the heat that boiled in his chest over her transgressions, convincing himself the root of it lay in the humiliation she'd brought upon all of them should the scandal ever get out. The humiliation he'd have to endure if people knew what his own betrothed had done. His father had made it clear that he'd handle the Laurence end of things with James in the effort to prevent any of it.
It didn't take the sting away.
He turned to leave, needing nothing more than the knoweldge Nadežda would handle it.
“You will stay until this is done."
His brow furrowed as his feet planted, his gaze flicking between his cousins in confusion. Nadežda didn't command him, and he didn't accept orders from her. In any other situation he may have refused, allowing her to take it up with his father if she felt slighted, but Oleg was already at the end of his rope with this situation. Lev knew he wasn't in a place to argue and likely his cousin...knew that as well.
“Watch closely, cousin. You might want to remember this.”
He said nothing, but nodded, standing still as Nadežda rounded on Liliya. His fiancée's eyes found his, angry and accusing, but they were past sympathies. He knew what to expect - or thought he knew - having seen this before and having it done to him when he was younger. It would be fast. A simple invasion of the mind, and then it'd be over. Unpleasant but not anything like what Father cast down upon him and Dragomir -
Her scream shook him from his ruminations.
She crashed to her knees as the sound ricocheted off the stone walls, filling every inch of space until the air was sucked completely out. Lev's eyes hazed against the sight, his expression unchanging but horror he didn't expect to feel washing over him. This...wasn't what they had discussed. Nadežda hadn't implied her worst, despite what Liliya had done, and the young man's muscles stiffened against the sound that came louder and shriller with every passing second.
He watched as her nails dug into the stone, cracking while blood dripped from the broken skin of her fingertips. Her head snapped back like he'd seen in others, like he'd experienced himself and watched in Drago when Father had forced him to witness his brother's own mental torture. "Nadežda." His voice came forceful as he took a step forward, uncertainty lacing his tongue, his eyes moving from Liliya to his elder cousin.
She was only meant to push a little. Enough to frighten the girl into submission, not torture her until her mind caved in on itself.
Liliya's behavior had been beyond the pale. What she had done was reckless, stupid, humiliating and deserved consequences.
But not this.
"Enough. This isn't what we discussed. Let her go. I'll handle her." Uncertainty left him, replaced in the idea that this was already going far beyond what he would allow.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-24-2026
Everything around ceased to exist. Time, space, light, and air. The very fabric of her being. It all dissolved until nothing remained. Nothing but the agony slashing through her brain. Darkness and pain. Endless.
The noise of her own scream echoed through her head like the amplified cries of a thousand tortured souls, begging for relief. Her nails scraped, digging into her scalp as though trying to claw their way in, through skin and bone, to rip and tear and jerk, to end the torment that was the grip of her aunt’s magic on her mind.
But nothing gave. Nothing helped. It squeezed and twisted until she thought she was dying. She couldn't take this anymore. She couldn't—
“Stooooooahhhhhhhp!” Her body thrashed against the floor as the torture continued without a flicker of hesitance, the crack of her voice like a knife down her throat, but she couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel anything but the death of her brain.
Nadežda didn’t flinch.
Smiling faintly, she kept her wand pointed at the girl pleading for mercy, her posture that of a woman who had done this a million times before—unaffected, too relaxed. She ignored Lev as he said her name. This was a lesson for him, too; he just didn’t know it yet.
Only when he dared to raise his voice and give commands as though he had a right did she turn her head. Her gaze snapped to meet his, anger edging her face and burning cold inside her eyes.
“You’ll handle her?” she spat, never breaking her spell on Liliya. The incessant screaming made it almost impossible to hear, and Nadežda had half a mind to silence the girl. But as it stood, that was part of Lev’s lesson, and it appeared to be working.
Snarling, Nadežda scoffed. “You can’t handle her. None of us would be here if you could. She’s arrogant, selfish, and entitled because you let her. Limp and sloppy, that’s what you are.” She paused, eyes travelling down his front and up. “I gave her to you so you could tame her, prove that you can, but apparently that was a mistake. I should have done it myself.”
Flicking her free wrist, Nadežda conjured an invisible wall, so casual it almost looked accidental. It wrapped itself around where Lev stood, trapping him in a half-circle against the wall, impossible to breach. Her gaze turned ahead once more, paying Lev no further heed.
For another ten minutes, Nadežda didn’t stop.
The screaming filled the room until slowly, it began to soften into whimpering, interrupted by weak sobs and words too incoherent to understand, the frantic thrashing reduced to twitches and jerks. At last, Nadežda lifted her spell, looking down at Liliya with still, hard eyes.
After a moment, her gaze turned to Lev. “Take her upstairs.” She swished her wand his way, and the magical barrier vanished. Without another word or glance, Nadežda strode from the room.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 08-25-2026
“Stooooooahhhhhhhp!”
It was a sound he'd heard before, broken and desperate, filled with the type of pain that couldn't be described, only felt. Mangled and sharp, breaking somewhere in the middle that filled Lev with a coldness he'd become too familiar with over the years. It was a sound that had been clawed from his own throat. For 'training'. For strengthening. To make the boy understand the cruelty he was meant to endure in the effort to become an acceptable Zdravkova man.
His family touted its merits, never wavering to reserve the torture for just their enemies or opponents, but lavishing it on their own children, the worst of it coming in the form of punishments. As Liliya's voice tapered off and something more animalistic took its place, he was a teenager again, watching Dragomir endure under the wand of their father. He was twenty again, listening to Danika's screams and cries echo through the house, unrestrained.
He was twelve again, before his father and uncle, on his knees, holding his own head the way Liliya held hers.
Training was one thing. A light punishment was another. What he and Nadežda had discussed was an extraction, a consequence for his cousin's actions. Enough to make her understand what would be tolerated and what wouldn't. To send the message that enough was fucking enough. This was what they reserved for the worst of them. It was what Lev had been subject to when he'd first tried to take a swing at his own uncle when he'd disparaged Lev's dead mother.
He hadn't agreed to this.
“You’ll handle her?”
Her spell didn't stutter or break, but Lev wasn't one to be dissuaded. "I said let her go." He didn't care who she answered to, who he answered to, or who ranked higher. If Nadežda knew what was good for her, she'd listen. He'd deal with his father and uncle later.
“You can’t handle her. None of us would be here if you could. She’s arrogant, selfish, and entitled because you let her. Limp and sloppy, that’s what you are.”
Her words meant nothing to him. Where his father's judgment landed like a hot blade on his skin, Nadežda's rolled off like water. He'd never held affection for the woman, nor did he place any value in her opinions. His father had raised him to despise her, but even had he not, there would have been no love lost between the two. Nadežda was cold and heartless, and while Lev recognized her strengths and usefulness, he also knew her to be callous and cruel.
He should have known better than to trust her with this.
“I gave her to you so you could tame her, prove that you can, but apparently that was a mistake. I should have done it myself.”
Another lie. Liliya was given to him so no one else would have to deal with her. He wasn't dumb, nor was he too arrogant to believe he'd been given responsibility over the girl because of his superior ability to control her. He was convenient. Close enough in age to make the arrangement feasible, obedient enough to his father to accept without argue.
There wasn't time to argue now. With each moment that passed, more unnecessary pain was inflicted on Liliya. As Lev moved to try and take hold of her and put himself between his cousin and the spell, Nadežda hit him next. Not with pain or to incapacitate him, but to simply hold him in place. An invisible shield locked around him, pinning him against the cold stone as the woman returned her attention to his cousin.
"Nadežda!" Lev's fury suddenly burst forth in an explosion of sound, liberated after years of cold restraint. Every bitter part of him that he'd buried suddenly rose from its grave as he was made to watch the girl that he'd loathed for the better part of three months now fall to pieces. He...he didn't understand the wave of conflict that rose within him, drowning him with each lap of memory that broke against his chest.
He hated her.
For three months, Liliya had occupied a place in his mind carved neatly beneath resentment. He hated the way she looked at him as though every word from his mouth was an insult waiting to be returned. He hated her lies, her arrogance, the smug little lift of her chin whenever she thought she'd gotten one over on him. He hated being saddled with her, hated being blamed for her behavior, hated that every conversation between them seemed destined to end with one of them wanting to strangle the other.
It didn't explain the way his stomach twisted and curled every time another scream broke out of her. It didn't explain why seeing Liliya crumpled beneath her aunt's wand felt like watching something he had an inexplicable, furious need to protect being torn apart in front of him. It was the same feeling that had come over him watching Dragomir. The same listening to Danika.
Somewhere, deep inside his chest, the heart that Lev rarely gave attention to, began to thunder.
He knew there was no way out. Nadežda had ensured he'd left his wand upstairs. 'No interference.' An entire crock of shit, Lev was beginning to realize. All he could do was stand, and seethe, and keep his eyes on the girl he prayed could withstand the attack a little longer.
It felt like hours. Little by little, as Liliya's screams quieted into whimpers and soft sounds that gripped him harder than her screams, Lev felt something inside of him coming undone. The forced stoicism he always wore was gone, his eyes softened into regret, his face twisted with something almost close to sorrow.
It was pathetic. He was a man. What good was a man that fell apart at a little girl's screams?
“Take her upstairs.”
For a moment, he didn't move, feeling every bit the young, pathetic boy they obviously all saw him as. He waited until Nadežda's footsteps disappeared down the basement hall. He swallowed hard and took a few slow steps towards his cousin who lay crumpled on the cold floor, twitching with weak, soft whimpers. He crouched down, surveying Nadežda's work - his doing - before laying a gentle hand on the side of her face.
"Liliya," he whispered softly, his head dipping slightly to try and get her to look at him. When she didn't answer, he remained still for a moment, unsure of what he was supposed to do. It was a strange cacophony of confusion and fear for the young man who had always been confident and certain of his role and actions, now reduced down to nothing more than a nervous boy, saddled with a half-broken girl.
Slowly, he took her carefully into his arms, rising with her as he held her closely against his chest. "Ya ryádom, díkaya moyá." Without another word, he turned to the stairs. He'd fix this somehow. For the moment, he needed to get her to bed. Danika would come and help. He just needed to hold it together until then.
RE: Collide | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 08-26-2026
Liliya didn’t feel Nadežda’s spell lift. The threads of her consciousness were too frayed to hold on to reality, the darkness too thick, the agony too deep. Nothing remained but her broken mind unravelled and dissolved in pain, a pit of soul-wrecking despair, and in its centre, a floating ball of stone. Uncracked.
She couldn’t let it break. It had to survive.
Fingers weakly clawing at the floor, Liliya didn't realise the torture had ended.
All that existed was the desperate determination to protect the last thing she had left. Endure, duck low, resist—as long as it took, and forever if she needed to. Every bit of stubborn determination to defy and refuse to break flowed into fortifying that knot of memories. Lost in rebellion.
No one would take that from her. No one would get to touch it. She wouldn’t let them. It was all she wanted; they couldn’t have—
Her body suddenly shifted, and pain washed into her head like a surge of boiling water, drawing a panicked, whimpered gasp. Head lolling, her hands blindly reached for purchase as she tried to open her eyes to see, to push, to fight. Nothing obeyed.
Eyelids barely lifting, her eyes rolled back.
One hand found something smooth and soft, warm underneath. Desperate, fingers caked in blood curled into fabric as though holding on for dear life, the other twitching as though trying to reach for something she couldn’t see, just beyond her awareness.
There was a sound, something deep, vibrating just beneath where her hand was, but she couldn’t understand where it came from, didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know anything. Nothing existed. Nothing made sense.
Only sadness.
Sorrow and grief drifting beneath the resolve, dolefully floating on ripples of pain.