Finding love was one thing. Finding family was another. And for the first time in ten long years since that fateful night she’d lost her memory, Anastasia Romanov had both. She had the man who had gone from the kitchen boy as a child who saved her life to former conman to her dearest love, Dimitri, and she had her grandmother, Marie. Oh, and of course, how could she forget that silly little dog of hers, Pooka?

Sure, her family was smaller than it once had been… but what she had left was still hers. These were her memories, which she now had a chance to make more of. She had a chance at a future, not just for herself, but for generations to come, and she was going to make the most of it.

No more curses. No more Rasputin (who was now little more than dust in the wind).

She could just be herself. That’s all she ever wanted.

Upon the now-wedded couple’s return to Paris, Anastasia could’ve taken the throne; she was, for all intents and purposes, still a Grand Duchess… however, she much preferred a more common lifestyle than one bred in royalty, regardless of how nice the dresses were to wear.

Besides… if it meant suffering the same fate as her family – her siblings, her parents – she’d rather relinquish her titles and spend her days as just Anastasia rather than Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov. It was easier for everyone, which her grandmother fully understood; she’d nearly lost Anastasia once, she had no intention of losing her again.

That said, she pulled a few strings for the happy couple and set them up somewhere nice and quiet in one of the finer arrondissements Paris had to offer. Anastasia tried to turn her gesture down, but the Dowager Empress wouldn’t hear any of it – they deserved every square inch of comfort, after all.

She didn’t address herself as Anastasia in public, though, lest she be seen as another impostor – which, per her grandmother and Dimitri, had happened numerous times in her absence: young girls lining up in droves, all of whom claimed to be Anastasia, yet bore little to no resemblance to her. Quite frankly, for the real Anastasia, it was… weirdly flattering. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for some of those ‘auditions’…

Instead, she readopted her ‘Anya’ persona to try and keep her tracks covered. Dressed neatly, but not extravagantly enough to draw the eye. No one but those who knew her personally had any clue she was a Romanov, and she was more than happy to keep it that way.

Trips to the market were fascinating to her. She’d never really been to any market in the past, whether as a child or during her time in the orphanage, so learning the bare essentials from Dimitri was like a crash course in domesticity. And it was brilliant. Fresh fruits, vegetables, breads and cheeses galore, like nothing she’d ever seen in St. Petersburg. Truly extraordinary… until she lightly bopped Dimitri on the head with an apple on their first trek for joking about how she was the only person he knew who could get so mesmerized by bread.

As she perused the stalls with intrigue (seriously, the selections of bread here were exquisite), she ended up bumping into someone who had just as keen an eye on what she’d been looking at.

“O-Oh!” she exclaimed as she staggered back, one hand over her mouth while her eyes scanned the victim of her inattentiveness. “I’m terribly sorry – are you alright?”

Fortunately, they didn’t look too scuffed up. Once they confirmed as much, she smiled and let a relieved exhale spill from her lungs, her hand now over her chest, the other brushing back a lock of auburn hair.

“Thank goodness. Please excuse me, I should’ve been looking where I was going. There’s just… so much to see, you know? No matter how many times I come here, it always feels like there’s something new that I’ve never seen before that just catches my eye.”

And now she was rambling. That smile of hers soon turned a touch sheepish.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, she continued. “E-Erm… but anyway, perhaps I can make it up to you – please, let me pay for your shopping. It’s the least I can do.”