We are water

I feel you pouring through

Every inch of my soul

Marrying Elliot had been as much about helping him out as it was about getting away from her Strýc. And she knew that on some level, that was silly. Because she hadn’t had to worry about Strýc doing anything. If he would have, if he would have made a different choice, she could have been Eleánora Lestrange right now. Not that she thought that Matka would have let that fly. But she knew that the Lord Lestrange had asked for one of them, and Strýc had told him no. Not that it was really Strýc that got to make that choice, but still. She didn’t think that anyone wanted that. And she was very glad that she was not married to him. Instead she had married one of her best friends. The one that wasn’t her cousin and wasn’t a girl.

Because there were three people that Ella had considered her best friend. And Nick was the first one. He would always be her best friend. But he was also her cousin. They had shared a crib when they were infants. They were not the type of family in which you married your cousin, and he was a halfblood in the first place. She wouldn’t do something like that. The level of weird that she had felt marrying Elliot would have been more than tenfold if she would have married her cousin. And she couldn’t marry Delilah, because for starters, Delilah was a girl. Which probably wouldn’t have bothered Delilah all that much, but certainly didn’t do much for Ella.

No, she had married Elliot MacGuffin. She had become Eleánora MacGuffin. And one day, hopefully decades from now, they would be the Lord and Lady MacGuffin. They would be the ones that were tasked with making sure that the name carried on. Because Elliot was the only son of the main line. He was the only one that had a chance of passing on the name, and she thought that they would. She would have a few babies, eventually. They would have a couple of little MacGuffins running around. And boys or girls, she would love them just the same. But she knew that eventually they were going to have to make sure that they had a boy. Probably even two. She had seen the strain of being the only one on Philip. She didn’t want that for her own son.

But they weren’t ready for babies yet. And she thought that talking about such things with her sister-in-law was likely to make Lucy excited. And she would want to tell Hazel that Ella was even thinking about it, and Ella worried about disappointing her mother-in-law more than she worried about nearly anything else. Because she knew that she wasn’t what anyone could have chosen for Elliot. She knew that a Death Eater’s daughter was never going to have been the choice. But Ella was not Otec. She was Matka. And Matka’s choices were always to protect her rodina. Which was exactly what Ella planned on doing.

She was going to take her role seriously. And she was going to protect her rodina to the best of her abilities. And she was a Wentzell. She knew how to protect what was hers to protect. “It is very different. But I learned it first, and I’m trying to teach your bratr. I think I’ll spare him Slovak though. It’s just that much more different.” She knew that Elliot was picking it up bit by bit, but she thought that it would take a while. It was the indoctrination into the family that really caused someone to learn. Because it was not a common language here, but if you were with them long enough, you learned, or you weren’t going to be able to keep up.

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It was really silly of her, being nervous like that. It wasn’t like there was much she could do wrong. There might be minor mistakes, but all in all nothing she did could be as bad as have consequences. She couldn’t think of any. Maybe she’d end up asking stupid questions, or clapping at the wrong time, or tripping over her feet when leaving the box, or ripping her dress. All things she had already managed to do in the past, and that several times. It hadn’t bothered her then, there was no logical reason why it should bother her now. She’d finally have to view her sister as just this: a sister just like Elliot was her brother. There was a difference between them, and Lucy didn’t know whether she’d ever truly understand her — which was a striking contrast to Elliot. But still… Ella didn’t demand or even expect her to change, to become more like her. Of course, she didn’t, it’d be weird and alienating if she would. It was nobody else but herself who felt like she had to. She wanted to be a kind of perfect that just wasn’t her. And it was stupid and pointless. Ella had accepted her long ago as she was, and it wasn’t like Lucy could fool anyone by pretending to be someone she wasn’t. She had no talents for acting and it made her feel exactly one thing: uncomfortable. And feeling uncomfortable was definitely not the point of spending an evening with her sister.

It shouldn’t be that difficult to have a good time. She knew exactly that nobody was watching her and her actions apart from herself. Ella might sometimes roll her eyes internally at her ignorance and clumsiness, but that was nothing new. She usually found it funny in other people. But then “other people” weren’t married to Elliot. It was still slightly weird. Her brother, her big, protective, kind, perfect brother, married. She hadn’t expected him to do that any time soon; not until he had told her he had to, she had thought about it. So, she didn’t know what she would have expected of her future sister-in-law if she had had the time to picture one. Probably she’d have expected someone who was more like Elliot. More like herself. Someone who liked simple things and the open sky and the wind and life. Listed like that, it sounded weird. These were things everyone loved. Lucy felt what she meant, but whenever she tried to put the concept into English words, they became meaningless platitudes. Ella loved living in the country, dogs, Elliot, most importantly… this was enough life, and yet, it was not the sort of life that would make her feel living. But in the end it didn’t matter how she needed to be to feel alive. Nobody asked her to change. She’d have to stop thinking she had to try. They were different, but that was not a problem she needed to solve. They could both be as they were and be friends. It had been this way before — not that they had been very close, but she had been Elliot’s friend since forever, so Ella had always been there. And now, it was just official. Not different.

And there were things they did have in common, like growing up with two languages. It was something that was so easy to forget when always talking in English. She didn’t know whether Czech and French were comparable, but they were geographically close enough that Lucy decided to assume they were. “Elliot’s trying to learn? How’s it going?” she asked eagerly. “Are you going to visit Czechia in the summer? Promise to take a lot of pictures!” Leaning back in her seat, she smiled to herself. “Growing up bilingual can be so chaotic,” she said. “My mother has a lot of quotes from when we started talking. Oh, and you’ve got little sisters, you probably remember such stuff from them.”

---

Words: 667

We are water

I feel you pouring through

Every inch of my soul

Maybe it was in her blood, to be protective. Or maybe it was learned behavior. But either way, Ella was sure that she had gotten it from her matka. She was sure that she had gotten everything that she was, and everything that she was going to be, as a manželka and as a matka, from her own matka. She was going to be everything that she was supposed to be. Princezna, manželka, matka. She could be it all, and she planned on doing so. Those were the things that she was born to be. She was born the dědic. Matka’s dědic, anyway. Otec had had Philip, and that was good, but Ella had been Matka’s.

She still was. The fact that she was a MacGuffin now didn’t change that. She was the Wentzell dědic. Well, there was always Sylvestr, but everyone knew how that was going to go. Really, she was surprised that he hadn’t already ducked out. For now, though, Ella was still third. If Matka had to go home, if she had to go back to Česká, republika, back to Praha, Ella would go with her. She would have had to. If Matka went back, that meant that Sylvestr had stepped aside. And Ella knew that she could have gone back anyway. That she could have gone back, and that she could have told Josef what she wanted. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t go without Matka.

And she didn’t want Matka to worry about that either. That if anyone were to think anything of her going there, of her talking to her strýc… Well, Ella didn’t think that they needed that. She didn’t think that she needed to raise any more red flags. Not after what Malcolm had done. Not with the way that Josef treated them all now. It was as if he knew who was holding the cards. No one was going to touch Matka anymore, and Ella wasn’t going to stir the pot by going to Praha on her own. She didn’t think that she needed to. Liberec she supposed, she could go to Liberec.

But Ella didn’t want to go to Česka at all. She didn’t think that that was necessary. There was too much to do here. She could get away with staying away from her duchy for a couple of years. She would have to go eventually. The same way that Matka went to Praha. The way that she made appearances all over the country from time to time. She was not a working royal. Not like Josef, or Matylda. But she was still their princezna. And Ella was a duchess. She would have to go at some point. Healer training was a good way to get out of that for now. And then there would be children, and it would be harder for a while. She would avoid it as long as she could.

Being who they were was not a simple thing. In fact, it was a rather complicated and convoluted thing. But she thought that they made it work. They were very good at that, taking the opportunities that they were given, and working with them. She thought that they were going to be that way for the rest of their lives. They were just those people. That was how they functioned. That had been what marriage had been. It had been an opportunity for both of them. It had saved her from marrying someone that she hated, and it had saved him from marrying someone that he didn’t even know. It would work. They would make it work.

Chuckling a little, Ella flipped her program open on her lap and looked it over as she answered her švagrová. “He’s trying. You have to, really, if you’re going to keep up at family dinner.” Czech was the first language of nearly everyone in the family. Even Nick had learned Czech at the same time that he had learned English. “Not this summer.” Her smile faded a little bit at the question of whether or not they would be visiting. She didn’t really want to talk about it, but Lucy moved on quickly enough. “I do. We grew up with a weird mix of Czech and English, and Slovak, and I distinctly remember my cousin getting sent to the principal in year one of primary school, because he refused to speak English out of spite. There was never a dull day growing up a Wentzell.” There was half a second’s pause before she corrected herself, “Mountbatten.”

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There was nothing arty about herself, and this had never bothered Lucy. It was not a quality she had, and there was no point bemoaning this fact. Humans were different, and she could appreciate those with a natural sense for the human-made beautiful. She liked what they made, and she had a basic cultural knowledge that told her when something was supposed to be well made. But she was the first to admit that she could as much admire a cheap fake as the invaluable original. As long as it looked pretty, she was happy with it. Whether it was worth a Knut didn’t matter as long as she got pleasure from looking at it. As much as she admired and was thankful to those who had the creativity to paint or compose or engage in any other artistic field, she couldn’t produce something beautiful.

She had other talents, and she was sure that in her own way she also brought others joy, even if it wasn’t lasting like a beautiful painting. But she could give attention to the sick at St Mungo’s and make their pain a little more bearable — which was a wonderful thing to do. She was deeply grateful for her work, so much so that she had sometimes wondered whether she wasn’t spending too much time on her Magizoology studies. She intended to make life for animals better, that much was true, and she was very passionate about the well-being of all creatures. There was just the question whether it justified spending less time with her human patients. It was an idea, though, that was easy to shake off. It wasn’t like she was the only nurse at St Mungo’s. If she wasn’t there, someone else was. Because there were so many wonderful people who lived to make everybody’s life easier. Everybody in their way was contributing something to help society. And her own passion was with animals, and she was sure that understanding them and their needs also profited humanity as a whole. Awareness of each other was vital for them to work together the best way possible. Not even Lucy, try as she might, could completely ignore that there was conflict in the world, but it didn’t stop her from being confident that it could all be solved easily once everybody was on the same page. It was without a doubt impossible that anyone did really want to cause harm. As basic as her education was, she blindly agreed with Plato that it was impossible to act badly once a person was aware of what “good” really meant.

Lucy was not philosopher enough to know that she thought this way. It seemed natural to her, and so she did like she did most things because they felt natural. And she managed to feel natural pretty much everywhere. If she didn’t feel comfortable, she’d try to figure out why improve whatever was wrong. Being uncomfortable near Ella, though, wasn’t anything that she could think of changing. She couldn’t avoid her, for she loved her brother’s wife far too much for that, nor could she tell Ella what was wrong — because obviously the problem was not with her. She was just too perfect. And as hard as she tried, Lucy couldn’t get rid of the feeling that in her company, she had to adapt — which left her feeling decidedly not-perfect.

Ella’s family too had always seemed like an impressive but unapproachable block — a little like Aunt Eleanor, but as Lucy didn’t have to interact with them, it had never bothered her until Ella had become her sister. To hear personal stories about them for once was therefore a welcome surprise. Lucy smiled a little at her own stupidity. Of course they were human and wonderful people. Ella was one of them after all, and Ella had married Elliot, and this was the most perfect thing to have ever happened. So how could her family be anything but perfect too? “It sounds wonderfully chaotic,” she said blissfully. Her sister always seemed so controlled, almost frighteningly so. Control meant nothing to Lucy unless her lack thereof would annoy Ella — which she couldn’t let happen. She would never be able to forgive herself if she did something wrong in Ella’s eyes. “Oh, this is sad,” she said consolingly when Ella’s smile faltered for a moment talking about Prague. She must miss the city very much. “He did? Does English sound so awful compared to Czech?” she asked, amused. “Or what had English done to him?” English was for her connected with her father as long as she could think — maybe he would have rather spoken Irish with them, she didn’t know, but with her he had only ever spoken English. And it could never have been a question that she didn’t speak back the same way. French was reserved for Maman, it was as simple as that. From what Ella said, it didn’t sound like there had been such a clear distinction for her.

We are water

I feel you pouring through

Every inch of my soul

Praha was always a tough subject. It was hard to balance the image, and what everyone else knew to be true, with the actual truth. But it was a balance that she had been working on for over a decade now. Ella had known the truth for nearly her entire life. It was a problem, knowing everything the way that she did. She knew so much, and the better that she grew to know someone, the deeper the things that she seemed to be able to tell. She knew things about their futures. About their pasts. She simply knew things that were happening now, and that were going to happen in a moment. It was a hassle.

Her whole life had been that way though, and while it wasn’t exactly a secret what she could do, she didn’t broadcast it to the masses. She didn’t know if Elliot had told Lucy at all. If he had, she didn’t know what they were going to do for the rest of the evening, because her švagrová was nervous. She could tell just by being around her. It was a blessing and a curse at times to know everything about their lives. To know how people were feeling, and the general mood of the room.

There was an air of anticipation in the crowd as she lights flickered once. The show would start in five minutes, and Ella thought that that was really all the time that they needed. They had come to see the show. And she missed performing. Going to see Tempe, or Connie perform was not the same. She missed the stage, and the lights. She missed looking out towards Matka’s box, and knowing that she was up there, watching. She never missed a show. Not for any of them. She went to everything, and Ella had never really understood how she had come up with all of that time.

But she had, and she had been there, and she had been supportive. And part of her wished that her otec would have been there. That he would have watched her dance. Andrew not being there had made it harder. She had given it up and gone to work at the hospital. Training for something else entirely. A different life. One not made of dance, and music, and art. One that she knew that she could succeed in. She would learn, and she would grow, and she knew that being a healer was not something that anyone had expected from her, but it was something useful. It was something that she could learn to do and be.

Something that she could put her mind to and succeed at. And she needed that. She needed to succeed. She needed something that they could be proud of her for. And she thought that she had found it. They could be proud of her for being more than a ballerina. They could be proud of her for stepping up and doing something good. He had made her a Duchess when she had gotten married. There was a time when she had to start acting like it. And growing up… She had always known that she was going to have to grow up.

Marrying Elliot had been about growing up. It had been about making the decisions that would benefit the country, and the people, and it had been a little about saving him too. Her life hadn’t belonged to her for a long time, but now, more than ever, she just wanted to do something good. She wanted to be something more.

Smiling at her sister-in-law she nodded, “It was. But I loved it.” She still loved it. The bond with her family, her matka especially, was one that she was never going to take for granted. She knew better than that. And she knew just how fast you could lose someone. “It’s very different. Czech is more natural. Matka spoke it exclusively when we were little, so that we would learn.” She knew that it wouldn’t be quite as simple with the new twins. But they were all going to teach them every language that they needed to know. “Nick’s always been just a bit stubborn. But I think the teacher was just being cruel…” She shrugged a little bit, they hadn’t gone to nursery school, or primary school. They had had private tutors, and lessons had been conducted in Czech.

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