Wayward is Rasputina (Patreon)

There are deaths, dear reader, that deserve a dirge. And then there’s Miss Rasputina’s—more of a drunk Cossack dance on an icy cliff’s edge, wobbling between tragedy and farce, before finally plunging into the abyss with a vodka-soaked howl.

Miss Rasputina—blessed, or perhaps cursed, with the unholy combination of mystical powers and British charm, was a woman as small as she was confounding. Picture, if you will, a figure more likely to be knitting jumpers for stray cats than advising the Tsar, and you have our heroine—cuter than a matryoshka doll and just as full of secrets. But like everything in Russia, she was also deeply, profoundly doomed.

She was the right hand of Tsar Sergei—a penguin so laden with KGB honours that one wonders how he waddled at all, never mind the sardine addiction that kept him both plump and paranoid. Yet, despite this peculiar loyalty, the court had grown weary of Rasputina’s ability to survive what no one should—a fondness for dodging bullets, drinking poisons, and giving side-eye to all and sundry.

So, they hatched a plan. A dinner, naturally, for what better way to betray a woman than with a meal she didn’t even want? Miss Rasputina, trusting as a lamb to the slaughter (or, more accurately, as a woman who’s been through this nonsense before), arrived. They fed her cakes—cakes laced with enough cyanide to fell a regiment, let alone a slightly tipsy mystic.

But Rasputina, ever the stubborn Brit, ate with the kind of detached politeness reserved for bad weather and worse company. And when the cake failed to kill her—because, of course, it did—the knives came out.

Oh, the stabbing! In the dim light of that cursed room, they fell upon her like wolves on a wounded deer. She was punctured, perforated, practically diced—but all the while, Rasputina remained standing, like some bloody parody of St George. She even managed to throw them one last look of disdain, as if to say, “Is this really how you want to do it?”

But Russian ingenuity, even when drunk on its own vodka-soaked legend, eventually triumphs. When the knives failed, as they inevitably did, the bullets followed. Tsar Sergei, waddling in with a grace that belied his rotund figure, fired the final shots himself. Bang! Bang! And just for good measure, bang again.

Only then did Miss Rasputina—gutted, poisoned, shot, and stabbed—finally collapse into the arms of Mother Russia, or at least onto the floorboards of a not-so-impressive dining room.

One can almost hear her thoughts as she lay there, the blood pooling around her like a tragic tableau. Perhaps it was, “I always knew it would come to this,” or maybe just, “This is why I never trust penguins.” But those thoughts, like so much else about Rasputina, will remain forever in the realm of speculation.

In the end, the court breathed a sigh of relief, as Russians do after a long night of misery—a sense that, perhaps, this time they’d finally rid themselves of the girl who wouldn’t die. And Tsar Sergei, ever the stoic bird, returned to his chambers, where a fresh pile of sardines awaited him, and no doubt, the ghost of Rasputina hovered somewhere in the background, still judging his every move.