my wish, for you is that this life, becomes all that you want it to

Anička's Outfit

Tag: @dorian

Married... Married was something that she hadn’t planned on being again after Andrew had died, but only because she hadn’t known what this was. She hadn’t known what it felt like to love. To be loved. Not in a way that mattered for a marriage. Anička loved her children, and her Matka, and she loved her rodina, but loving a man... Loving someone that loved her back... That was new, and exciting, and something that she thought that she would never really get over. This was the life that she would have wanted for herself all along, if she had thought that it existed. Because she hadn’t believed in love, not this way. He had changed that, he had changed every bit of that, and Anička was so incredibly grateful that he had. He had given her this, this wedding, and this life, and this new sort of family. Her family, and his, together on this island. Blended. That’s the term that people used, they were a blended family, and yet, they had had two of their own as well. Twins, Izák and Eve. They were four months old, and Anička had succeeded in passing both sleeping twins off to someone else for the moment. That was something else that she had never had before, the support system. She had her kids, and her Matka, and she had the Notts. They were her family now too. And families looked out for one another. Their problems were her problems, though Anička sincerely hoped that her problems never had to touch them. It didn’t seem like they were going to though, Matka had kept her promise, Josef hadn’t shown up unexpectedly. Anička has walked herself down the aisle, she had given herself away, and really, she was sure that she had given herself away to him a long time ago now. But their problems... They were problems that she wanted to be a part of. They were problems that she would gladly be there to support Malcolm through. Because she knew her role. She knew how to be supportive, and quiet, she could keep her mouth shut unless she was asked for her opinion, and her opinions were strong ones. There was very little doubt about that, but her opinions on choices that had been made didn’t change her love for someone. It had been a strange year, and Anička thought that in a way, she had come to love Malcolm’s younger brother in a way that almost helped to take the edge off of how much she missed Dominick. Her own younger bratře was dead, killed by muggles in London, a year and a half ago. She missed him. She missed him terribly, and she knew that he would have loved this. He would have loved Malcolm, and Pippa. He would have been thrilled with Izák and Eve... Both girls would have had necklaces of their own from their uncle. She would have let Dominick give her away today. She would have danced with her bratře in lieu of a father-daughter dance. The glaring truth of her family situation wouldn’t have been so harsh. It wouldn’t have been staring her in the face that she had lost so many people, so many people that were supposed to be at something like this. So many people that were supposed to love her, and look after her, and all of it. She wanted all of it. But that wasn’t an option. Josef wasn’t getting anywhere near her. And Dominick was gone. Growing up she had had two brothers, the middle child, and then she had had none... Now... Well now she didn’t know if she had brothers, but her husband did. He was the middle child too. Two brothers, older and younger, just like she had been. Lester and Dorian were still right here. They were both at this wedding right now. They were here, exactly where brothers should be. And she wanted hers. She wanted the brothers that she had known as a little girl. When they have been nine and seven and five. When nothing had hurt any of them yet. When they had all been children, and no one had started shaping them into monsters... Today, those were the brothers that she wanted. Making her way through the party, and what now consisted of nearly her entire family Anička smiles a little bit when she saw Dorian standing alone on the edge of the deck. “Geia soy, adelfέ.”

And if you’re faced with a choice
+ you have to choose I hope
You choose the one that
means the most to you

❧

Dorian hadn’t slept well since they’d arrived.

Even the distractions of the villa had done little to dull the sharp knife that Camille Ridley seemed to be running across his brain. She was everywhere, it seemed. He was remembering nights spent tangled up in the sheets and days spent pouring over books in the apartment. Every time he tried to think of something other than her, it was like she was trying to shake him out of a trance. She was hundreds of miles away and yet…she still had such a pull on Dorian. As he stood in the middle of the reception, Dorian felt like a ghost drifting among the living. His brain recalled beautiful scenery in Romania…his eyes were drawn to the landscape outside of the party, his feet absentmindedly carrying him towards the very edge of the deck where he was alone with his own thoughts for the first time since he had arrived in Africa.

He understood, now. Or at least, he made himself believe that he understood. They weren’t good for each other. They never had been. They were like two unlit matches playing with fire and expecting the whole house not to burn down. It was ridiculous of them — it was childish. And it was no more. Dorian knew after everything that he had been through — after everything they had been through — he couldn’t go up in flames like that. He wouldn’t risk what he had spent a year building. He wouldn’t risk his relationship with Pippa, or the twins. He wasn’t like that…not anymore. He was different. And Cami? Well, it seemed like Cami was the same as she had been all those years ago.

He wouldn’t risk falling back into addiction. He couldn’t do it. Not when his entire world had been flipped upside-down. If she wanted to go down that path, he could not follow. That was what he’d said to her before he left that night. Before he packed up his things and followed the rest of his family to Africa to celebrate Malcolm and Nika.

So it was time to move on. Hell, maybe it was even time for Dorian to forget about her altogether and finally get back on the train like his family wanted him to. Lester would be happy to see his youngest brother married to someone like Anička, wouldn’t he? Dorian let out an external chuckle. Where the bloody hell was he ever going to find someone like Anička, anyway? His brother had hit the jackpot with the lass. All Dorian could hope for was a solid pureblood witch who possibly didn’t look like a troll from all the inbreeding they did here in the UK.

Dorian stood staring at a bottle of whisky on the edge of the deck. His hands rested like vice grips on either side of it, the internal struggle almost obvious. Maybe he was hoping and praying that it would somehow spill out of the bottle and come crashing right into his mouth. Maybe a part of him hoped that it would shatter and dissipate before he could even taste it. As he released his right hand and reached for the bottle, he heard a voice behind him. Soft, sweet, and exactly who he needed at that precise moment, he turned around to see his brother’s new bride walking towards him with a grin on her lips. He shook his head — apparently his new family knew a hell of a lot of languages — he much preferred English. But hey, he’d tried to learn a little bit for the wedding. “Hey to you too, sestra,” Dorian said, his English accent butchering her native language.

618 ● @anicka ● Outfit

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My

Wish

This was something that she wished that she would have had sooner. Maybe not all along. Because she did love her children. And she did love Pippa and changing too much would have taken them away from her. But years ago. She would have taken this a few years ago. Their lives could have all been so much different. And whether or not they would have saved Issa… That would have been something that she didn’t quite know what to do with. Things would have been different. Everything would have been different if some people had made different choices. But she had a feeling that even if she would have met Malcolm Nott a few years ago, she wouldn’t have been Anička Nott now. He wouldn’t have been the kind of man that took another man’s wife. And she had been Andrew’s property. That had been made pretty clear throughout a good deal of the darker side of their community. It made her worry that they knew. That Lester and Dorian knew…

And maybe they didn’t. She didn’t think that either one of them were going to be the type that would have been in on something like that. But even with the mark on Lester’s arm… She knew that he could have known Andrew’s price. What it meant to be her back then. It wasn’t a secret that was all that well kept. And she knew that sometimes she still got lingering looks for it. Eyes that were unwelcome in a crowd. That was part of the reason that she didn’t like crowds. But she knew that she was safe now. That she was safer than she had ever been before. She was a Nott. And she had a family system unlike any that she had had before. Because she knew that her husband had brothers. That they cared about one another. And she didn’t care that Dorian had made mistakes. She loved him too. Yes, they were mistakes that went against what she believed in. But Anička tolerated muggles.

She had to. She was their princess. If she went home, she was their princess, and she had to act like it. She had to tolerate them around her. Praising her. Loving her. She knew that technically they should have gotten married in Prague. That they should have gotten married in a church, with flowers, and a long white train behind her dress. They should have had all of it. But they didn’t. She hadn’t wanted that. She had wanted this. She had wanted their family, together, on this beach. And she wanted it to be peaceful. She wanted this island, their island, to not have any of the drama. Just one night, with everyone together, and she wanted it to be perfect. So far it had been. There wasn’t anything here that she thought that they needed to really worry about. They were all going to get along, they weren’t going to talk about the things that they knew that they were eventually going to talk about. Anička was Malcolm’s wife, but she was also a Princess Royal. She knew how governments worked.

What they had done for Dorian was simple enough. She probably would have done the same thing. A fine was a slap on the wrist, but it was enough to appease everyone politically. Any actual punishment had to come from within the family, and she knew that she didn’t want to think about anything like that. She loved him. He was Malcolm’s younger brother. He was supposed to be the one that they protected. But she hadn’t been able to protect her own little brother either. As she came up next to him she saw the bottle sitting on the edge of the rail. A twitch of her fingers at her side and the bottle was gone. Disappeared back inside the house, like it had never been there at all. Maybe she couldn’t protect her own brother. But she could try and protect Dorian. Even if it was from himself. Chuckling Anička shook her head as she leaned on the rail next to him. “It’s se, like sex. Not say. Sestra.”

@ dorian - 696 - anička's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRPHY 2.0

AND IF YOU’RE FACED WITH A CHOICE
+ YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE I HOPE
YOU CHOOSE THE ONE THAT
MEANS THE MOST TO YOU

❧

For a moment, all Dorian could do was blink. The bottle in front of him disappeared with no sound to be heard and his eyes lifted quizzically towards Nika. He sometimes wondered why they tried so hard – her and Malcolm. He supposed it had something to do with being family, but Dorian could never quite understand it. They were purebloods – the highest caliber of purebloods in his mind – and they let their reputation be tarnished by him? Even as a child, he had never been like his siblings. Yes, he shared their fascination with the Dark Arts and all associated with it, but he’d always been a troublemaker – a rebellious soul that had a mind all of his own. He had been the one better suited to a career in Quidditch where he could drink and shag himself silly; he wasn’t meant to be a pureblood Lord. But his family still saw him that way.

They still saw him as a part of their bloodline – which meant that he had a certain code of conduct that he was required to abide by. As a pureblood Lord, he couldn’t just help muggleborns escape from his own brother’s entrepreneurial enterprise. He couldn’t harbor a fugitive for months. And he certainly couldn’t sleep with her without repercussions. Of course, Dorian somehow thought that his family chose to remain blissfully ignorant of the last tick on his list. Still, he had been caught. When Cami had turned herself in, it was Dorian’s name that was drug through the mud. His pureblood name. Lord Nott helped a muggleborn – a mudblood. So, there had been punishment. It was a mere slap on the wrist, though. It seemed a little farfetched, though Dorian supposed the old saying rang true: blood was thicker than water. His family would always consider him a part of their bloodline. At least, until he did something unthinkable.

But he didn’t want to cross that bridge. Over the past year, he had developed a friendship with his niece, Pippa. He’d become closer to Malcolm than the brothers ever had been. And he’d also established a friendship with Nika…as farfetched as he had once thought it. There had been hesitation at first – meetings in the study with her crown held high and her dog on high-alert. But after a few months, things settled. The dust between them returned to the floor and they could see each other more clearly than they ever had before.

He was thankful for the friendship. Nika was his brother’s wife, now, but more than that, it was a relief to have someone that seemed to be rooting for him. Even now, staring at the place where the bottle had once stood, Dorian realized that they wouldn’t give up on him. Not even after everything that had happened. Of course, now wasn’t the proper time to talk about all of that…not when they’d just gotten married. Now, it was time to celebrate – it was time to be thankful for everything that they had given each other as a couple.

Raising an eyebrow, he looked up at her and offered her a cheeky grin. Nika always had a way of meeting Dorian where he was. Equating the way to say something to a word he was very familiar with? His sister-in-law was clever. “Ah, se, like sex,” he said with a laugh. “Sestra.” This time it was better.

All the temptation was gone. At least, he reasoned that it was out of sight and therefore out of mind…but Dorian couldn’t deny that there was a tickle in the back of his throat that constantly reminded him. Dorian just had to ignore the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Cami and alcohol. At least, for another few hours. “Thanks,” he let go of the deck, flexing his fingertips as he drew in a breath. Now that the bottle had disappeared, Dorian felt like he could think more clearly. “You have good timing,” What would have happened if he had started drinking? Would he be able to stop? Dorian reasoned he was liable to upset the whole party so perhaps it was less Nika saving him and more of Nika saving the rest of the household. Either way, he was thankful for her. “Saved Mal from a lifetime of loneliness, right in the knick of time.”

@ nika | 724 | Outfit

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my wish

for you

is that this life becomes
all that you want it to

Did she worry? Of course, she did. Anička had worried about this day from the moment that marriage had been brought up the first time. The night that she had laughed, and told him that it was 2017, she hadn’t needed a ring to have a baby. Two babies. Even then, she had been worried about what it would mean to be a Nott. About what they did or didn’t know… Because she wasn’t a fool. Anička knew that it was very possible that Lester knew, at least a little bit, about what had happened before. About her first husband, because there had been a price. She had been a bargaining chip. And while she knew that he didn’t exactly give her the impression that he knew, she also knew that her new brother-in-law could have just had an excellent poker face.

Of course, she knew that there was far less likely of a chance that Dorian knew anything about it. She knew that he had been the one that hadn’t taken the Mark. The same mark that she had on her own arm. That she had hidden tonight. Muggle makeup, and concealment charms wiped it away. Her arms bare, and exposed. Grecian. A nod to Malcolm’s mother. Anička had designed her dress herself, and she had done it with every intent that she was going to be a Nott. That she was taking his name, that she was going to be his wife. And she had done this in every way that she could think of. She had tried to be respectful of who they were, and of who she was.

There was no tiara in her curls. The earrings that she wore, and the diamonds in her hair were the markers that she was royal. That this was a royal wedding. Even if it was what was probably one of the smallest royal weddings in history. Today was not about flaunting who she was, or even who it was that Malcolm had become the moment that they had said I Do. They weren’t royal tonight, none of them. There were no queens on this island. No princes and princesses. There were no dukes, or even lords. They were just people tonight, and she thought that that was all that they needed to be. A family.

They had become a family, and she had gained two new brothers. An elder, and a younger. Like herself, Malcolm was the middle child, and Anička didn’t think that she could have begun to describe how much she wanted them to be around her. How grateful she was for the problems that they had. Problems that they could handle. That they could fix. Because she knew that Lester and Dorian weren’t on the best of terms, but they had nothing on the drama that had led to Malcolm killing her otec for her. They had drama that they could do something a little less drastic about.

Anička wanted to be a part of this family, and she wanted to help take care of Dorian, and she wanted Pippa to know that she loved her, unconditionally. She wanted all of this to work itself out. She wanted to be okay. She wanted all of them to be okay, and safe, and happy. Honestly, she didn’t think that she was asking for all that much, but she didn’t know. Perhaps it was asking for the world. “Better.” She laughed a little bit when he tried the Czech word again, and he was a little closer to how it was supposed to sound. “You’ll get it.”

It wasn’t just because it was her wedding night, it wasn’t just because she didn’t want things to end up poorly, Anička wanted to help him because she loved him. Getting rid of the bottle was an easy, temporary, solution. She knew that it wouldn’t solve the problem forever, but it would solve it for the moment. It would solve it until she could think of a way to help him get what he needed. To do what he needed. At his words she looked over at him again, making note of the tension in his hands, but trying diffuse it as best as she could with her laugh, and hopefully a distraction for her new brother. “I do my best. I think mainly I just saved him from a lifetime of the same five dinners on repeat.” Her husband wasn’t a terrible cook by any means, he was actually quite good at it, and she was certain that there were just as many vegetables that Pippa wouldn’t eat no matter who ate them. But it was still worth a shot.

@ little brother • 781 • anička's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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my wish

[attr="class","reasonsmall1"]AND IF YOU’RE FACED WITH A CHOICE + YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE I HOPE YOU CHOOSE THE ONE THAT MEANS THE MOST TO YOU

[attr="class","reasonbod1"]“Eventually, otherwise your children are going to ban me from the house for sounding like nails on a chalkboard,“ Dorian said as he folded his arms across his chest. Nika’s kids could all speak it fluently – he’d need to work double-time to catch up. Or at least, be able to converse intelligibly with them. But, one day, he would get it. Dorian would understand Czech and probably be able to speak it with the slightest hints of an accent. Because he truly believed that Nika and Malcolm would be together that long. He wasn’t romantic, really. It wasn’t like Dorian spent his life dreaming about happily ever after’s and happy endings, But, he certainly had faith that if someone could make it work, it was his brother and his new sister-in-law.

He wasn’t sure that he would ever have that luxury. Liesel had been his first love. But it was toxic and brought him to place that he couldn’t revisit. The only other woman that had ever made him feel something similar – something that he knew was akin to what Nika and Mal had – was Camille. She had been his saving grace all those years ago – an angel that had been hiding in daylight, waiting for him. Without her, there was no telling if he would still be alive today. But it had become more than that when he’d seen her at Malcolm’s company.

He’d wanted to help her, sure. But that had quickly turned into something else. Weeks turned into months and months into more and soon, Dorian wasn’t sure he remembered what it was like to be without Cami. She had become a part of him – his other half.

Dorian’s mother had once told him that there were three great parts to every love story. Three great loves they were handed to teach them the lessons of life. The first was their young love. The wild and free love. That was Leisel.

The second was the difficult love. The one that made you question and reevaluate everything. Dorian knew that this was Cami. She was the one that made him question what it meant to be a pureblood…what it meant to be a part of the Notts. But in the end, they had been wrong for each other, too.

And the last love? Dorian wasn’t sure that he had gotten there yet.

Maybe there was no endgame in store for him…he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that he couldn’t travel backward. Not when there was so much ahead of him still. He couldn’t go back to the person that he had been before. He couldn’t keep living in that way. So, the only way from there was…well, forward.

Not back to the bottle.

“Six, he at least had six,” Dorian would know – he’d stayed with them enough over the past few years to predict Malcolm’s menu just as well as Nika. He paused, mid-smile. “He’s happy with you. I’m happy for you both,” he said. Dorian wasn’t sure that he’d ever said it before – told them that he was happy for the situation that they were in, but he was. They were well-matched. She made Mal happy. She was his third love, he supposed.

[attr="class","reasontag1"]@ sister | 538 | OUTFIT

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