I Will

Be

Anička didn’t think that there was anything wrong with being particular. She had long been so when it came to this magazine. She had built this place from the ground up, and she wasn’t going to take anything less than perfections when it came down to it. They had published their latest issue two days ago, and she thought that there had been several pieces in it that were well written and done nicely. There had been a piece on the gala, though it wasn’t as complete as she would have liked it to be. She thought that she would have to let that go though, because she knew that Shaera hadn’t actually been there. She had been home with her children and had had to work off of second hand notes. There were a couple of faces that she hadn’t seen at the gala that were here in this office, but one of them that she did see was Genevieve. Lady Burke had most certainly been there, and she thought that she had seen her on Lord Macnair’s arm.

The tiny witch didn’t know anything about the man, but she had seen the woman’s ex-husband and his new wife there too. That was a complicated situation, but it was one that she knew better than to ask about. Anička had been learning a lot about the women that filled this world around her, and so far, she had found that there was one thing in common every time. They all wanted to be more. And surprisingly, they were all talking about each other in a positive light. They weren’t trying to belittle one another or cut one another down. Every person that Anička had asked so far, who they admired the most, it had been another woman. It had been a witch that they wanted to emulate. That they wanted to try and be like, just for a day. That was something that she thought that she could get behind. Those were the types of movements that they needed to see. They needed to support one another.

She believed that. Anička truly believed that they needed to support one another. That equality, gender equality, was something that they needed to strive for in the United Kingdom. And it was something that she was much more vocal about now. Something that she was allowing herself to be more invested in. She didn’t think that Malcolm minded. He didn’t mind that she wore pants on occasion. He didn’t mind that she had opinions at all. He loved her for who she was, and she was finally learning to embrace the things that she hadn’t been allowed to think before. The things that she couldn’t speak on. She was a princess. She had a voice, and she was learning, finally, how to use it. She was going to learn to do some good with it. But she had other things that she needed to attend to as well, and she thought that she was balancing rather nicely for today.

Stepping out to run some errands earlier, Anička was making her way back through the office when she caught sight of the woman that had been on her mind on her way up. The click of her heels echoed through the room, even though it was far from empty. No one spoke when Anička wasn’t in her office. The place fell silent for her, and she appreciated that. She never had to raise her voice, because it carried so easily through a still room. “Lady Burke, would you join me in my office please?” There was a smile on her face as she said it, but Anička knew that she had a reputation here. This was her baby, as much as her babies were, and she took it very seriously. But she thought that they all knew that she would do anything for them, so long as they continued to meet her expectations. They were important to her. Without them, there would be no magazine at all. Her eyes fell briefly on her daughter as laid the bag that she was carrying over the edge of the desk, “For you, Milaček.” She didn’t wait for an answer before she swept around her office to stand behind her desk and look over the things that had been left there since she had left. She waited patiently for the younger woman she had called on to join her, turning one note over in her hand to read the back of it.

@genevieve - 756 - anička's outfit

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The gala had been...a partial success, in her opinion. Well, she didn't know as far as the hospital was concerned and didn't much care about it. It was a nice thing, the Children's Wing and all that, Gen thought that it was a worthy pursuit. Her son and her brother were definitely excited about it. However, with the amount of purebloods that had been present, she was sure that the Director would have all the funding he could ever want for that - and then some more. If there was something purebloods could do was throw money at things that they thought would benefit them. Such open, public sort of helping the less favoured of society would be seen as the perfect excuse and Director de la Vega likely couldn't have foreseen just how successful his little bid would be. That aside, though, the gala had been a good thing for Genevieve in a personal note. It had been her first actual, public appearance with Eoin. They'd gone on dates before, very public ones, but thankfully people didn't much care about the life of the scorned ex wife of a lord anymore and nobody had mentioned anything to her, not even her family - other than Mel, but she'd asked her sister about it anyway.

Now, though- they knew. Her mother was the one she was dreading and avoiding - easy enough to do, consider Stella was fussing over Pansy and Charlotte - but her brothers...that had been a fun conversation. Daniel was the easiest one, he knew her better than she knew herself sometimes. Her half the same way Harrison was Melanie's, in a way. Well, maybe not that much but close. He wanted her happy and whilst he was worried, he was also supportive. Harrison- he'd accept and move on. It wasn't like she was asking for permission anyway, even though she rightfully should have. It just tasted bitter on the back of her throat, the thought of another Lord Burke dictating her life when she was finally happy. She'd been sold once, hadn't she? And look how well it ended up for her. Her children were something she'd never regret but her marriage- Harrison couldn't have been unaware that she'd been steadily humiliated by the fact her ex husband refused to keep to her bed. As someone so disgustingly in love with his wife, her brother had to understand her. How she could want more now that her only option was to move forwards.

Her children were another thing entirely and she knew very well that Edmund had been less than thrilled. Overprotective, perhaps, after what had happened. Wary of another man near his mother. Cute, really, her son was the sweetest. But she also had smiled at him, razor sharp, to let him know just how much posturing she would tolerate - and it wasn't a lot of it. The heir to the Rosier line that he might be, he was also her son. That would always weight more, as far as she was concerned.

Gen had been separating some papers to send over to Shaera, who had missed the gala because of babysitting. Worthy endeavour, in her eyes, and she would help the witch write her article as much as she could. There wasn't much she could tell, really, other than the basics - but it had been so drama free that Genevieve thought that even if Shaera had been there, the account would've needed some magical touch not to sound bland. Looking up as her boss called her name, Gen nodded and stood, smoothing her skirts. "Of course, my lady." She didn't know what Lady Nott wanted with her but she also didn't worry overly much. Whatever it was, her boss was a fair witch. It might not even be anything bad. Entering the office, she smiled at the older witch. "Yes, Lady Nott?"

tags: @ anicka

outfit

words: 644

I will be brave

i will be bold

follow my faith, to a higher road

There was a certain way that she did things, and Anička knew that it didn’t take long for people to realize that about her. Here in this office, she was in charge. It was the one place that she had had any sort of control over the situation around her for a long time. It was the one place where she had felt like she could be herself, and things had changed. She was not oppressed in that sense anymore. She was free to do what she wished. She was free to wear slacks if she wanted to. There were far less rules now that she was Anička Nott than there ever had been as Anička Mountbatten. That was certainly a name that she didn’t miss. There had been very little thought put into what her children would think when she shed their father’s name so quickly, but she hadn’t able to stomach the thought of keeping it any longer than necessary. She didn’t want to be that person, and so she hadn’t been.

Going back to Wentzell had been a choice that she had made entirely on her own, and it was one that she had made with haste. The woman that she had just called into her office had made a similar choice. She had gone back to her maiden name as soon as she could after her divorce. And while Anička had been widowed, she knew that the same sentiments ran true. Getting rid of the man’s name was something that had to come first. Before most anything else. But her name had changed again, as much as she hadn’t expected it, she ended up married again, but this time was different, nad she was going to continue to tell herself that. Because she believed that it was true. Malcolm was different. He didn’t treat her as an inferior. He treated her as an equal. As his wife. And as his partner, and she thought that that was how it was supposed to be.

She wanted that for her girls, she wanted that for her female staffers. Really, she wanted that for everyone that she came across. Without stopping to truly address anyone she had given her command and expected it to be followed. She might have been an equal at home, but here she was still the boss, and there wasn’t anyone that questioned that. Kate had a little more pull than Anička wanted to admit, but the girl had been here since they had opened the doors, and she trusted her. When she had had the twins, and Kate had left the Ministry at relatively the same time, she had promoted her, and she was pleased with that choice. But Anička was equally as pleased with the choice that she had made to take Genevieve Burke on. The woman was skilled, and she was probably one of the best dressed witches in the office. Which Anička took kindly too.

Learning to use her voice, and the platform that she had here with HOME was something that she was working on. She was learning on a curve. She was behind the times with figuring herself out, and she was going to make sure that they didn’t continue to make those mistakes. It was why she pushed her own daughters so hard. It was why she expected so much out of her employees. They were all so much more than what they thought that they were. They were all so much stronger, and she thought that pulling that out of them was necessary. They were breaking molds now, not conforming to them. “Good morning, Lady Burke. Anička, is fine behind the closed door. Please…” She held out her hand to the chairs in front of her Anička sank gracefully into her own. “You’ve been helping get things ready for Shaera, yes?” The third witch had missed the gala, after all, but Anička was confident that they could cover it anyway.

@ genevieve • 663 • anička's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[googlefont="Wire One"]

I Will Be

I saw the hope that lay just beyond the pain
The past is a prison and I won't wear those chains
And I won't hide, oh no

Working for a magazine hadn't been something Genevieve ever thought she'd do and, from the reaction she'd got from her mother when she started, neither did her family. And, if she was being honest, she hadn't thought she could've done it, that she was able to be that person. Independent and strong or whatever it was that people called women that didn't exclusively depended on their own husbands. Gen had never been raised to do it and she'd seen women who did so, for a long time, with a faint veil of distaste. Not because she thought they shouldn't be allowed to or that they were incompetent. Far from it, really. But, to Genevieve, pureblood women were supposed to keep a certain role, whether they wanted it or not. It was their sacrifice, to be forever relegated to doing things from the shadows and creating the foundations of the families who'd rule their world. Misguided, she could see now in hindsight. But Genevieve had grown up with Stella for a mother and married too young, young enough that she'd had no experience otherwise.

It took her own divorce and meeting witches such as Lady Nott for her to realise that she didn't have to leave her life repressed inside a wizard's home, waiting on his pleasure and wasting away with all the missed opportunities. She didn't have to do that, to be like that. Genevieve could have a life that she wanted, a life that meant something and she didn't have to stop being a pureblood lady for that to happen. Gen could be both, it was possible to be both. She wished she'd known that before, before her insecurities and self loathing had gained ground and set roots. The witch could've used that knowledge every time she chided herself for wanting too much, for overreaching, for- many, many things that she now knew to be normal, to be healthy. Genevieve had spent half of her life recriminating herself for wanting things, for being a person beyond her role of mother and wife. When, in fact, she'd been doing nothing wrong. It was true, that they said, that hindsight was 20/20.

But Genevieve wouldn't dwell in the past . It was gone, over and done with and there was nothing she could do about that. That she wanted to do about that. Because the woman she was today, the witch she was today, was formed by her experiences, by the life she lived. And, pain and the like aside, Gen did like the person she was now. The people around her seemed to like to but the most important part was her loving who she was, the person she's become. Gen closed the door with a flick of her hand, softly, without even making a noise, and then sat down on the chair Anička indicated, smiling at her with a tilt of her head. "Good morning. It's Genevieve, then, Anička," because they were not so apart, in age and circumstance, and Gen genuinely liked her boss. She'd given her a chance when she needed it the most and believed she could do it even when Genevieve herself hadn't. "I have, yes. Shaera got some accounts from her sister, she told me, but I have some written notes and a few informal interviews that I conducted when I could." Gen smoothed her skirts, lacing her hands on her lap. "It was, in the end, a rather straightforward affair and Shaera and I don't anticipate any problems with the article. Would you like to see the picture she's separated for the spread?"

@ Anička ⁂ outfit ⁂ 600 ⁂ notes

i will be brave

i will be bold

follow my faith, to a higher road

There was something about building a team around her that Anička was proud of. This place was important to her, and she had learned to be a person here. She had learned how to be a woman that was in control of something. Because for everything that she had been born as, Anička had never really had anything to call her own until she had had this place. And Andrew’s name had been on the books, but the company was hers. They couldn’t touch her, in the aftermath of the war. She had diplomatic immunity, and she hadn’t been in the country when everything had happened. She had been in Prague.

If there was one good thing that Andrew had done, it was make sure that she and their children were not implicated in that war. Yes, she had that mark on her arm. Yes, she had taken that with him all of those years ago. Yes, she had killed Isaiah Durant in front of the entire world. But she would have done that without that mark. She would have done that because she was pissed. Her emotions over her late husband had always been complicated. And she had been furious that he had burned to death. Fire was her thing, and Durant had stolen that.

But she was not the same person that she had been then. She had grown since then. She had healed. And it was perhaps the healing that had turned her into the person that she wanted to be. It had turned her into the mother that she wanted to be for her children. It had turned her into the woman that she wanted to be, in order to be the wife that she should have been all along. The wife that she wanted to be. The wife that was an equal. Because Anička had learned her lesson. She knew how strong she was. She knew how good she could be. She didn’t need to be something worse.

And that hadn’t always been the case. She knew how much she had grown. She knew how much she had changed. She had embraced some of the things that she would have pushed so hard against before. But she thought that she had Thea to thank for that. Thea, and Malcolm. Because they had each played a different part in what she was supposed to have believed, and what she was now. Would she have gone back and changed it all? No. For all of the hell that she had bene through in her life, Anička wouldn’t have changed it, at least not the beginning of it. Not the part that had gotten her here, in this office. Not the children that had been a result. Those were the things that she wouldn’t change.

But she thought that there was something of a lie in everyone’s truth. That even in saying just that, she had lied, because there were some things that she would have changed. There were some lies that she wouldn’t have told. But there was no going back on those now. Not after all of this. Not with everything that was going on, not with the people that her children were becoming. She was proud of them. All of them.

The witch nodded in acceptance of the other witch’s first name and listened as she spoke. Anička had learned long ago that there was an image given for all, and then there was the respect, and the courtesy that she gave one on one, and she thought that the two blended well here. “From what I gathered of my own evening, there were quite a few options to choose from.” Personally, she had stayed glued to Malcolm’s side when they were moving throughout the throngs of people, and she had remained pretty fixed in her seat between he and Arista when the Director had been speaking. “If you have it, I’d love to.”

@ genevieve • 659 • anička's outfit

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