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It's an unassuming spot, the cenotaph.
It wasn't intended to be a cenotaph, of course. There was originally a body in the middle of that burial mound, encircled by stone. The body was just not there now.
How long ago was that, even?
Russia wasn't sure.
There was no one here, it was early in the morning after all. Staraya Ladoga is an old village, it's in the name, there's bound to be some Varangian leftovers found. And here she was, sitting right in front of one. A burial site, for her.
It's a weird feeling—staring at her own grave, knowing that no one's in there. Because she's here, alive, and breathing.
Could it really be her, though? Far from it, she was alive, the one who's intended for this grave on the other hand, was not. Seven hundred and seventy years have passed since her death.
She, Russian Federation, is alive.
The same cannot be said for Rus Land.
Was she even alive in the first place?
No, she's not. She's been dead for nearly eight centuries by now. She has never been fully alive since then. Was she ever alive in the first place?
Russia didn't know how the funeral procession happened. Of course she didn't, she was dead, she was the one being buried in the ground, one with the Earth once more.
But she can imagine, that all her principalities came to this place—a rare moment indeed—to watch her for one last time. Her, Rus Land. Not who she was now.
To an extent, she really did die. Because she did, she still remembered the pain of being shot by an arrow, but she meant that differently. Though she may be alive right now, she wasn't alive as Rus Land. She didn't come back with the same identity.
What was Rus Land had been shattered long ago, with the fall of the sense of unity. Its fate had just been sealed when the horseback archers came.
She came back with a lack of an identity. What she represented was no more. Rus Land really was no more. What returned was an empty shell of what once was.
And they say, with the replacement of Kiev with Vladimir, it was obvious who the succession would go to. Her only biological son had forsaken the right of principality and chose to be a republic after all.
But no, that was not the case. Because here she was, ready to reclaim the throne. For as long as she still lives, no one else would be what she once represented. Do you regret what you did to Tver?
When she returned was born from the ashes of what Rus once was, it was then when her principalities began to doubt. What was she? How was she supposed to answer that? She didn't know. She wasn't anything, as far as she was concerned.
But Russia was always known to be the liar.
Oh, Tver...
Everyone has their own doubts. She has her own fair share of doubts. It was through sheer grit that she managed to claw herself back up to the high position she now held. She has no idea how many of her principalities she had eliminated in the process. What a liar, of course you know. You can't forget. It will forever be ingrained in your mind, how much of your own family you tore apart.
It really wasn't her fault. Hardly has it ever been. She was a victim like how everyone else was, when has the politics of this world ever cared for her own personal relationships with her people? Never. Why would it ever care, after all? It cared for nothing but finesse over power and control.
How could it not be her fault, if she was the one enforcing it?
Everything is done for a reason, there was a reason why her own principalities called herself The Callous. That was why she survived, and not them. Because she made herself, as they say, callous and unfeeling. Unfeeling but you regret everything you did?
It was a hilarious joke, really. Maybe the one in the grave really was her, she just didn't want to take in whatever it might imply.
Funny, why was she in front of her own grave in the first place?
To reminisce about all the people that had once stood in her way in the odyssey to recover the old lands? To weep over old acquaintances and relations?
There was no one inside the grave after all, and she knew that, she was proof.
Maybe she still cares.
