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+----- Thread: Born Sick | Levilia (/showthread.php?tid=1009)
Born Sick | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 04-19-2026
4th August, 1922
6:45 PM
Harewood House
6:45 PM
Harewood House
"You wouldn't have to be watched, if you behaved."
Lev fussed with his cufflinks, silver bear heads with tiny blue sapphires embedded in the eyes. "You forget yourself." His quiet voice carried through the room as he studied himself in the full-length mirror, searching for any wrinkle or piece of fabric out of place.
Liliya, for all her training and discipline still behaved like a silly teenage girl when something excited her or tickled her fancy. He understood that her closest friend would likely be there tonight - another girl that she hadn't seen in years, but it didn't trump their primary purpose for attending the Graymere event.
"Father says this night has to be perfect. We can't afford anything less." The Zdravkovas were new on the British social scene - at least newer than these old English pureblood families that had been operating amongst each other for hundreds of years. Aside for Drago's introduction to the Nordstrom girl, there was the matter of securing new bonds and alliances, and more importantly new contracts with some of the more powerful families in attendance.
The more secrets their vaults held, the better positioned their family was.
Childlike squealing and chattering could wait for a less important event.
He glanced at her through the mirror, studying the dress she had chosen for the night. "You don't think that's too..." he mulled the thought over for a moment, a slight grin playing at the corner of his mouth, "...attention-seeking?"
RE: Born Sick | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 04-21-2026
The glare that landed on the back of Lev's head was ice.
Annoyance flared in her chest, mingling with a deeper feeling of embarrassment that she shoved down immediately. Her fiancé was nothing more than a babysitter, a watchman put at her side to monitor her every move and it scratched at the most vulnerable parts of her heart.
Because even after two years she still couldn't get it right. Couldn't control emotions when they rooted too deep, couldn't maintain discipline and restraint. That was the main purpose of their engagement, why she had to marry her own damn cousin. Supervision. So someone could keep her in check at all times, a constant presence to remind her of what was important and what wasn't, reigning in her selfish desires.
Because apparently she couldn't do it on her own.
It clung like bile to the back of her throat, and it tasted like failure.
Liliya didn't reply, jaw clenched where she sat on the ottoman bench by the end of the bed, adjusting the straps of her heels.
She shouldn't have told him about Rosie, or her hope to see her tonight. She should have just kept her excitement to herself — she didn't even know why she had thought to tell him in the first place. It wasn't like he'd care. Dumb mistake.
Rising to her feet Liliya smoothed over the front of her dress. "I know that," she returned, a hint of defiance swinging with her tone. "I wasn't planning on jumping up and down like a fucking child when I see her. And I'm not forgetting the main purpose of tonight either, no need to remind me."
How could she? It had been drilled into her brain for the past six months at least.
She turned her back on him as she faced her vanity—
"You don't think that's too...attention-seeking?"
—and straightened.
That fucking shithead, she could already see that stupid grin before she even turned.
And there it was. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him through the mirror. "What? Scared someone will look at my shoulders?" Her head cocked, the irritation she had contained suddenly too much to keep inside. "Would you like me to take a shawl so that Britain's society doesn't have to faint at the sight of me?"
RE: Born Sick | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 04-21-2026
"I know that.”
“You do not.” If she did, if Liliya truly understood what was at stake here, if she knew how to conduct herself appropriately, they wouldnt be having this conversation and she wouldn’t be glaring daggers into the back of his head. “You know I can see you, yes?” Mirrors were funny like that, and he dropped his eyes from hers, his smirk still lingering at the corner of his mouth.
His cousin - betrothed - was an unruly girl. Certainly not as wild and untamed as he knew many of her peers to be, and he gave her credit for trying. But there was still that orphan spirit inside of her that hadn’t quite learned how to take up the mantel for anyone but herself.
Selfish, yes. That’s what Father had called her. Until she could learn to be less so, her handler he would be.
Perhaps it wasn’t the most romantic beginning to what was going to be an inevitable marriage, but Lev wasn’t overly concerned. Those things could come later, should they ever develop that way, and if they didn’t, it didn’t matter. They’d be married anyway.
The sooner Liliya figured all of this out, the easier both their lives would be.
"I wasn't planning on jumping up and down like a fucking child when I see her. And I'm not forgetting the main purpose of tonight either, no need to remind me."
“I’ll remind you of whatever I like.” Another adjustment of his collar and a quick tug at the bottom of his suit jacket. His voice was calm and level. It was rare that Liliya’s biting words or tone phased him; she’d grown up around brutes without class.
Did he curse? Certainly. But he wasn’t a girl.
As he glanced back up, he caught her eye, blue ice staring him down through the mirror and he lifted his chin only slightly in challenge.
"What? Scared someone will look at my shoulders? Would you like me to take a shawl so that Britain's society doesn't have to faint at the sight of me?"
His smirk grew into something wider but no less amused. She could flounce about and throw her little tantrum all she liked. “Yes,” he said, turning finally as he reached for the cologne on his wardrobe and gave himself a quick spritz. “Wear the grandmother cloak. To cover your…offensive shoulders.”
In truth, he cared very little of what she wore as long as it was appropriate. Should she show as much skin as it seemed she intended to? He’d let Nadezda be the judge of that. “Surely you wouldn’t want to catch the eye of one of your soft British boys.”
He moved past her with an easy gaunt to rummage through his desk. Tucking a few cards and a cigarette for later into his pocket, he holstered his wand and looked her up and down. “Should I carry your wand for you?” His eyes drifted over her briefly. “Since you have no place to keep it?”
Perhaps if she had worn longer sleeves.
RE: Born Sick | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 04-23-2026
He was infuriating. The smart-ass comments, that slight grin, the way he looked down on her with an air of amused yet composed superiority. Like some kind of unphased teacher lecturing a child.
And the worst part was that he knew that she knew, that he was right. Holding up a mirror to her flaws with cruel indifference. She hated it.
She didn't hate him, not really. He was family and sometimes even funny. There were moments too in which she found his presence steadying, like a guiding light she could turn to when things got overwhelming. Someone to hold onto. When frustration or annoyance tugged on that part of her that forgot all composure, threatening to let loose that unrestrained bite she'd forged into the very fabric of her bones.
Suddenly improper. It had allowed her to survive over a decade of orphancy, and now it was her greatest flaw.
But it was no matter how hard they tried to pry it from her, Liliya knew that part of her would never die. She wouldn't let it; she clung to it with silent, desperate defiance. It had become her armour and weapon alike, when fate had left her lost and away from what she could have had, should have had. It was ironic that the same family that had made her into what she was, now worked overtime to turn her inside out. She could control it, sometimes. When it was most important.
With Lev though — right now — all sense of caution died, synapses firing through and pushing for provocation. It's like he did that shit on purpose.
"Yes. Wear the grandmother cloak. To cover your…offensive shoulders. Surely you wouldn’t want to catch the eye of one of your soft British boys.”
Liliya narrowed her eyes. "I was actually aiming for the hot ones. You know, the big and sexy guys?" Her head angled in challenge. "Was kinda hoping for someone to take me home but I'll see who's there and let you know." Asshole.
He rummaged through his desk, but turned to face her a moment later.
“Should I carry your wand for you?” His eyes travelled down her front and up again, with that cool, quietly judgmental demeanour that drove her up the wall. “Since you have no place to keep it?”
For a second, she just stared him down, still as a tree.
And then she lifted her foot, slamming the sole of her shoe against the edge of her vanity, revealing her thigh as she pulled the hem of her dress above her knee. "Why," she quipped, indicating with her hand. "I can just strap it to my offensive leg."
RE: Born Sick | Levilia - Lev Zdravkova - 04-23-2026
Lev didn't see it as his job to 'tame' Liliya, despite what some of their elder family members might say. Watch her, guide her, correct her when she started to get out of sorts, certainly. All of that could be perceived as coming from a place of care, which, regardless of what Liliya might think, Lev actually did. He cared in the way she was perceived by those outside of their family, and the way those perceptions could reflect upon them all.
Taming her wasn't necessarily on his list of objectives when it came to his cousin. All of them had their tempers. They all had their quirks and mannerisms that made them unique. It was how she wielded it that concerned him.
The sooner she relented, the sooner the family would.
"I was actually aiming for the hot ones. You know, the big and sexy guys?"
That caught his attention. His smirk fell slightly as he cocked an eyebrow. Bold of her to venture there, considering the family all knew good and well her history. She'd had a boyfriend at Hogwarts some years back, and the tongues had never stopped wagging. Unsuitable. Wrong sort.
In his opinion, that meant 'soft' and beneath them.
"Was kinda hoping for someone to take me home but I'll see who's there and let you know."
“Big and sexy is a generous improvement on your usual type. I’d call that progress.”
There wasn't a grin to accompany it this time, especially when she slammed her foot at the edge of the vanity. He had half a mind to ask her what the furniture had done to be the target of her temper tantrum, but he merely folded his hands behind his back, his eyes flickering to the ivory skin of her thigh only momentarily, before returning to her icy blues.
"I can just strap it to my offensive leg."
“Thank you. You’ve made my point for me.” He shook his head slightly and made his way towards the door. "Put your dress down, Liliya. We're meant to be remembered for the right reasons tonight."
When the door opened, he gestured her out. They were running behind and the family wouldn't be kept waiting.
RE: Born Sick | Levilia - Liliya Zdravkova - 04-24-2026
A grounding kind of anger bloomed in her chest, hot and quiet. Settled into her blood, slowed the beat of her heart, deepened it to something furiously composed.
Eyes hard, she watched him head for the door, unmoving for a moment.
The disappearance of his dumb grin had felt like victory. Wiping off that smug amusement, the subtle tease in his eyes. Replacing it instead with this stoic impassiveness he usually wore, his heartless mask of indifference.
She preferred that.
Better to be regarded with cruel disappointment than mocking tease — she'd rather he stared at her with those eyes of frosty steel forever than having to endure his smirk for one second longer.
It needled her in a way she couldn't explain.
Liliya didn't obey his command immediately, pulling the defiance just that little bit more taut. Dragging it out as long as she dared, using up every drop of rebellion right before the moment it would drag her down to hell. Only a few seconds. Then she put her leg down, the skirts of her dress flowing back to her ankles to cover her up, rustling faintly in the deadly still room.
Stepping her right foot behind her left, Liliya lowered into a mocking curtsy, gaze boring into his. "Yes, Sir," she jeered, a sarcastic smile stretching her lips.
Her face settled back into stony resolution and she snatched her wand from her vanity, making for the open door with long, undeterred steps. She slammed it to his chest as she strode past, eyes holding his for a mere second before she let them cut ahead, entering the hallway without waiting for a reaction.
fin.