Chapter Text
“Grandmama why do you have to go?” A young William looks up to his grandmama after hearing she is leaving to Paris.
“Don’t worry my dear William, I have a gift for you to remember me by,” she pulls out a small, green music box. She the proceeds to wind up the music box and it plays a small, familiar melody.
“Oh Grandmama, our lullaby! Its beautiful!” William says as the tiny figures of the Tsar and Empress of Russia spin as the melody plays.
“Far away, long ago
Glowing dim as an ember,
Things my heart used to know
Once upon a December.”
The Tsar and Empress walk in as the song ends. “Better prayers than music boxes in these times,” says the Empress.
“It’s simply something for the boy to remember me by,”
The Tsar holds his hand out for William and proceeds to say “the Tsar requests the first dance of the evening, sir,”
“My name is the Grand Duke William Byers,”
The Tsar and the young boy proceed to dance into the ballroom joining the party. As the party died down, the young prince heads to bed, but suddenly the doors of the palace are broken down as groups of men rush in with guns in their hands. William is grabbed by the wrist as his Grandmama pull him while the men try to chase him down the hall. They reach his bedroom and block the door as the men begin to break it down.
“Come this way!” A grubby young boy who works in the palace opens a door in the wall to the servants’ quarters and leads them outside.
“Wait my music box!” William runs back to grab it, but he’s grabbed by the men. The grubby servant boy and the Dowager Duchess pull him back. The music box falls to the floor as they run outside.
As they reach the trolleys, the Dowager Duchess is pulled onto the trolly, but William could not keep up as his hand slips out of his Grandmamas and he falls onto the tracks, hitting his head. The people crowd around him as they begin to cross the tracks, and he lays there.