i'd be, half the

woman i am

if it wasn't for a woman

It wasn’t that she was mad. She wasn’t mad. She was just… Frustrated. Ella was frustrated that she didn’t have a say in the rest of her life. And she knew that that was part of the deal. She had known that that was part of the deal when they had told Táto that she knew. It had been a secret for a long time. But there was no denying that she knew. Ella knew who she was, and he had done what he had done last fall. And now he was well aware of the fact that she knew who she was.

She was the first-born child of the king. And she knew that she was technically illegitimate. Ella was not naïve. She knew that people weren’t going to like it when they found out who her otec really was. According to the world, it was Andrew. He was the one that had raised her. He had thought that he was her otec. And that was exactly how it was supposed to have been. But Máma and Táto had a plan, or it seemed like they might have always had one. But now they were going to start putting it into action. And that meant that lives were changing. All of their lives.

The changes were subtle enough that it could be explained away through other means. The ICW showing up was almost convenient, for them. They were increasing security; they were stepping back into roles that meant that they were once again serving their people. The Czech people. The Slovakian people. They were being princesses again. They were being strictly royal. And Ella had known that that was going to come at a personal cost, but there had never been all that much of her personal life that was her own anyway.

They had been grooming her for this. Or Matka had. Since she was a little girl. Part of her wondered how long she had really known. If the slip when she had been a small child had been purely accidental when they hadn’t seen Andrew in so long, and Josef had been there nearly every day, or if it had been something more? If she had been aware, on some level, even then, of who she was? Because she was not just another princess. She was the heir. She was Táto’s heir. And now it was time to earn that. Duty before all else. Or something like that.

Matka had been speaking in ways that Ella had never heard her speak before for the last three days. Nothing was personal anymore. Nothing was off limits. Everything about their lives was in the open for one another. And it had been that way between them for a long time. They had never had secrets. They couldn’t. They had struck that deal twelve years ago. Ella didn’t lie to Máma. Máma didn’t lie to Ella. And it had been working out, until now. Until she wished that she could lie. Until she had wished that she hadn’t told her everything. But it was too late to take it back now.

They were in this. And Táto had given his order. Máma was going to teach her. She was going to make sure that she was ready. And come January, the responsibilities would become hers. She would have to take on the role that she was born to play. At least for now. It was time to grow up. That had been what Táto had said on the phone the other night, and Ella wanted to scream at him. Grow up? Vážně? She had been through plenty in her life. The last thing that she needed was to be told to grow up…

But there was a part of that that Táto understood even better than Máma did. And after she had yelled at him, she had listened to him. He could talk to her the same way that he could talk to Máma, and Ella thought that there had to be some visual evidence of what he did. Something that seemed to deflate their anger. That shrunk them back down to normal size. She had seen him do it to Máma, and she thought that he must have done the same thing to her. Because for the last three days, she had gotten dressed, and she done her hair and makeup with far more precision than she had for her hospital shifts, and she had appeared at Máma’s side at seven thirty in the morning.

The Ministry was something that she was going to have to get used to. The world of desks, and paperwork, and politics. It was far different than the hospital had been, but it was the world that she was supposed to be in. She wasn’t a lawyer. She hadn’t gone to law school, but she knew that it had been suggested. Her psychology classes had not been taken away, but her medical ones had. As had her medical career. Eleánora belonged to the crown now. And so did Máma…

Sighing, the slight witch looked around the shop that they were standing in, and then back at the door that Máma had disappeared through a few minutes ago. Meeting with Aunt Kat was something that Ella had not had in the schedule. But she thought that Tempe must have, because her mladší sestra had arrived only moments after they had. Whatever was going on in there had more to do with the fashion line and the magazine than it did with being a princess. But in some ways, they were one and the same. Ella flicked through her iPad, and then her eyes darted back up to her sestra. “Does she have any more of these in your daybook that aren’t in mine yet? She blindsided me with this like an hour ago…”

Ella had been trying to listen to Tempe. To learn from her as much as she was trying to learn from Matka. But assisting was something that she apparently had to do from out here. Because Matka had shut the door between them when she had disappeared into Aunt Kat’s office. It was hard to assist if she wasn’t going to let her in. Some part of her was surprised that she hadn’t let Tempe in, this was her area, not Ella’s, after all. But so far she was out here too. And it looked like Aunt Kat’s assistant was equally as busy at her desk. Apparently no one was allowed in these meetings…

Temperance Lucille Mountbatten • 1093 • eleánora's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Tea parties & pecan Pies

Make me think of her every time

Yes sir, yes ma'am. It wouldn't be who I am

Life was always about adjusting. Changes were always going to keep coming. Some were bad, others worse, and even others still were good, even great. The loss of otec in the fire was obviously one of the worst life changes that the Mountbattens had endured...though Temperance was uncertain if she felt more pain at the loss of him or having learned the truth of what sort of man he was. Both made her ache. 

The epidemic striking all of the wixen United Kingdom had been a heartbreaking change for so many across the countries. Temperance felt the loss of her magic daily. She felt the loss of her control over her elemental connection. She worried about the danger she posed now. She worried about that all the time. 

She did not want to put anyone in danger. It was usually easy to stay calm. Braithwaite performance season on top of this most recent change that Matka had thrown at her was making that difficult, though. There were a lot of stressers making calm hard to come by. But at least, Drahomír was around. If she got out of control he could apparate them away from people. That made her f eel a bit better. She was rarely in the muggle parts of town where apparation was not really a viable option--and she just needed to keep it that way. Stay calm and stay places where they could leave very quickly.

Matka was not making it easy to stay calm. Or Josef... or whoever was really to blame for Anička to start spending time at the Ministry instead of at HOME during Braithwaite spring performances. Sure, the ICW arriving had set all this in motion, but couldn't the Czech people have been represented by someone other than their princesses for a few more weeks?! Having the changes and added stress delayed just through the end of performances would have made things so much easier for Temperance. 

But even as she felt stressed and overworked, she did not complain. She did not guilt her sestra or matka. She would never do that. She accepted the changes and did her best to support the two other women through them.  Eleánora had lost and given up so much. Temperance was not going to make the struggle of this transition about her, not when it was obviously so much more severe for her sestra. Eleánora had been healing people. She had been bringing new life into the world. Now, she was stuck outside a closed door  with Temperance. 

It had to feel less important and worthwhile. 

But no matter how it felt, Eleánora was taking it in stride. She was embodying that duty over personal desires lifestyle that royals---proper, good royals had to embrace. Whether they were in London or Prague, there were millions of people who trusted in the Wentzell line to represent and govern them. Ares faltered in respect to that legacy by failing to rise as a capable Minister here in England. He should have made smarter choices. He should have made allies instead of letting his heart lead him into mistakes. Eleánora had already shown she was smarter than that. Temperance took the example of Ella's marriage to heart. Her sestra had not married for love. She had married pure. She had married neutral. She had married someone who would be kind. Those were the makings of a good husband and father.

Anička's second marriage was less impressive to Temperance. She did not begrudge the other woman's decision, but there was much that Tempe did not understand about it. Malcolm was moderately good looking, though his features were too Anglo-Saxon in her opinion. He was just unimpressive, though. He had married up in marrying her matka--and Temperance was not always sure that the man appreciated that fact. The whole arrangement struck her more as a matter of convenience. Her matka had not known how to not be married, how not to belong to a man. Malcolm just happened to be the man present. The point being that Temperance meant to follow the example that her sestra had set rather than that from their matka on the matter of marriage. Not that there was really any talk of that for her in the near future. The only marriage being discussed was that of her dvojčata. Temperance had opinions about that, too, but no one asked for them, so she kept them to herself. 

Her mind had been wandering to a composition she had been working on the night before when her sestra addressed her. Temperance pursed her lips and scrolled through the calendar in her tablet. "Maybe," she drawled as she moved over to stand next to the other woman. They were barely as tall as the racks and mannequins, but the Czech men that stood at the door towered over it all. "You have the three-thirty...and that eleven o'clock tomorrow." Temperance peaked over at the screen her sestra held, adding a few notes on her own. "What about the standing two pm on Tuesday? That one won't always happen, but I leave the time blocked off. It gives me a time slot to play with when things need to be shifted around or something comes up unexpectedly--and then if I don't fill it Thea usually has something she is ready to show Matka then." There was nearly always someone who wanted the hour of Anička's time. Years of experience made it so Temperance just knew who her matka actually was willing to give that time to. 
 

@ sestra • 936 •  Zimmermann Wrap Dress

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

i'd be, half the

woman i am

if it wasn't for a woman

She was going to have to learn. That was all that there was to it. She was going to have to learn everything that she could in the next seven months. Because they were expecting her to. They were expecting her to take Matka’s place as the Foreign Delegate. And then what? What was she going to do after that? Convince her máma to just switch her places? She was going to need an assistant. She already thought that she needed an assistant. But the best assistant that she had ever seen was standing right next to her. And she knew it.

Ella was well aware that Temperance had Máma’s schedule, and really her entire life, down to nearly a science. It was impressive, and she knew that she had a lot to learn from her sestra. She could see that clearly enough. Ella knew that she was at a disadvantage. Máma had been grooming Temperance for a very different sort of life. She had been grooming her to be her. To take over the magazine. To take on that persona. To take on that public life. And she knew that she would be good at it. Her sestra would made a good editor someday.

But Ella needed to know something entirely different. And she needed to know it faster. She needed to know it in a matter of months instead of the years that Temperance had had to learn. And she knew that she had to do better. That she had to not complain, because there were so many people that were so less fortunate than she was. She was going to be Královna. That was the only reason that they would be doing this now. They were going to make a change. They were going to do something drastic, and that meant that things were happening. Things were changing.

Whatever it was, she didn’t know if they were ready. She didn’t know if their family was ready. She didn’t know if Elliot was ready… Merlin, she had to tell Elliot. But she didn’t know how to tell him that her father wasn’t really her father. And that the man that she had told him was her dad, wasn’t. That she didn’t really have Mountbatten blood at all. She was a Wentzell. A true Wentzell. The first true Wentzell in Merlin only knew how long. But they had done it on purpose. And she knew that. She knew that she hadn’t been an accident. They had had her on purpose.

And this was her purpose. She was going to learn. She was going to do it without complaining. She was going to step into those shoes, and she was going to step up. She was going to be the princeszna that the country deserved. She was going to make sure that they knew that she loved them. The first chance that she got she was going to go back. Just for a little while. They needed to see her. They needed to know her. And she knew that. She knew that if she was going to lead them, they couldn’t watch her life through Thea’s telephoto lens. And she let them see her. Ella had let them see her for her entire life. She had never shied away from that.

It wasn’t a desire for the spotlight, though that had partially been the reasoning behind her being a ballerina in the first place. She had enjoyed that spotlight. But there was something more important about it than just being on stage. She needed exposure that was going to prove to her people that she would be a good leader. That she was going to listen to her advisers. That she was going to take all of this seriously. Because she wanted to take it seriously. Even if right now that meant that she was waiting in her great-aunt’s shop with her sestra.

Managing her máma was a full-time job. Let alone getting everything else done that she was supposed to be doing as her assistant. And Ella knew that she was even more than a normal assistant. Because she was going to have to do Máma’s job in a matter of months. She was shadowing her, more than she was assisting her. And she thought that she very well needed her own assistant for that. “I have the three-thirty, and the eleven.” She nodded as Tempe rattled off appointments. Flipping the screen on her iPad she shook her head, “No, Tuesday at two is still blank. Standing appointments… Who does she usually want to see?”

Thea, she had just said that, but there could be others that that time slot was blocked off for. Tató, maybe even Malcolm. She didn’t know what her máma normally did with that time, but she was sure that there was something. Ella thought that if she had a standing hour appointment that she didn’t get filled, she might use it to take a nap. But she knew that her matka would never do that. “What about the four-thirty tomorrow with the delegate from Italy?” She thought that she had told Tempe about that one already, but she didn’t want to have missed it, and have her sestra blind-sided either.

@ sestra • 876 • eleánora's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0