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& turn the tower did

Kuwei Yul-Bo grows up like every other child in Shu Han: with the knowledge that to have power is to be a miracle, acknowledged and praised by the Tabans themselves. His father, Bo Yul-Bayur, is lauded as Shu Han’s greatest, the uncrowned king of the royal labs, and Kuwei wants nothing more than to be like him. But when the appearance of Ravka’s new Sun Summoner sparks a nation-wide testing spree in Shu Han, Kuwei quickly discovers that the price of miracles is not one he’s willing to pay. Or: On being more and less than human in a country that would devour you whole. Word count: 16.8k Fandom: Six of Crows; minor references to The Lives of Saints and The Grisha Trilogy Note: so pleased to have written this kuwei backstory for the @grishaversebigbang this year! it was an honor to have art made by @fricklefracklefloof (x), @kuwei-yul-arson (x), @doorhandle16 (x), and @soupdreamer (x), and to be beta'd by @poeticor (whose banger of a fic is available here). best gang fr! this is cross-posted to ao3 but you can read it under the cut!

In the time before the six nations came to be, when they were less than soldiers gathered under one banner, when they were simply ideals and nothing more, tales of powerful individuals spread far and wide. They crossed land and ocean and, some liked to say, reached the heavens, though at first they were dismissed as rumors of madmen seeking to sow chaos. What else would a rational individual accept? Power is only safe to trust when you hold it in your hands. Easier, then, to doubt stories than to confront an uncontrollable reality. But doubt does not change the truth. More and more evidence rose, from all corners of the world, and soon it was fact that such magics existed. That those who wielded it were capable of feats no ordinary person could achieve: they could call on wind and lightning, sea and flame; they stopped hearts just as swiftly as they compelled them to beat; they made unbreakable blades such that one could triumph against a ten thousand-strong army. Some said they were more than human. (Some said they were less.) Ravka dubbed them Grisha in honor of a Saint who would become the first teacher of their fabled Second Army. Fjerda named them drüsje, witch, and set to eliminate their unholy sorcery from the world. Kerch saw what it could stand to gain from such power, and so they were known as the winstgevend, the profitable. Blighted by sickness in the body and land, in the Wandering Isle, they were welcomed and hailed as slánaitheoir, saviors. In Shu Han, they were called sheng ji. Miracles; holy relics. No one knew where the first sheng ji came from, only that they brought blessings wherever they went. In those days, Shu Han was little more than a dozen villages scattered across the land, each one eking out a peaceful life. Peace, then, was sustained by power, by protection. In those days, sheng ji were the deciding factor between affluence and ruin, conflict and security. Some could call on the sea and wind, while others could summon flame. Some were masters of fate, cradling life and death in their hands, while others crafted marvelous inventions, that their people would know an age of prosperity. Little by little, a settlement of a handful of families turned to villages turned to walled city-states. And so the sheng ji were named as such, for much of their effort contributed to each city’s success, and they were beloved of their people, for they brought blessings when sometimes none could be found. The most famous of the sheng ji became Saints: Sankt Kho of good intentions, for the clockwork soldiers he created to defend his people, and Sankta Neyar of blacksmiths, for a sword she forged that could cut through shadows and laugh at steel. It was their actions that paved the way for the first queen of what would become Shu Han, the Taban yenok-yun, the storm that stayed. And so the sheng ji, who were known as miracles, became known as holy, though not all were Saints, and were venerated throughout the land as such. The sheng ji then entered the service of the Taban queens and pledged to bring miracles to Shu Han forevermore.

But even the sheng ji could only do so much. There was once a king who lived in what is now known as Ahmrat Jen, who was crueler than the sharp peaks of the Sikurzoi mountains and colder than the fierce winds that swept through from the north. The king was a bloodthirsty man, and a greedy one, and so he once set his army out to conquer that which he thought owed to him. Power and glory were the honors he sought, and bloodshed was its price — but not one that he paid. His army, great as it was, tore through city after city after city in service of their king. Some capitulated, and so all their warriors, ordinary or sheng ji, were absorbed into the king’s army, and the king took ownership of the city’s land and resources. Some fought on, only to fall in the end. But the army grew too large to maintain, to sustain. Eventually, the king’s army wore down to nothing, impaled on the jagged edges of his ambition, with no one to honor them but a king who howled and cursed in rage upon hearing of their failures. It was not grief that drove the king to wrath. It was grief that drove his enemies to march upon his helpless kingdom, their weapons glinting, their losses a bleeding wound with no salve. And so Sankt Kho, who was then but a simple blacksmith, forged a new army for his kingdom. Sankt Kho had little loyalty or love for the king, but he could not stand against him, for the king had all the resources afforded to him by his station. What he could do was labor, day and night, for years and years, over inventions that might yet save his people whom he loved greatly. He had lived his life forging blades they carried into war; he desired to forge tools that could save them instead: clockwork soldiers that would never rust nor tire. Sankt Kho had been working on these soldiers for years, and yet, he could not find the right miracle. But with the invading armies approaching, Sankt Kho grew desperate and afraid. He did not wish to see his beloved city pay the price for one man’s arrogance. What makes us different from you? Sankt Kho demanded of an uncaring king. What makes us any less worthy of life? What makes us so lesser that you would sacrifice us without a second thought? The king was cruel, but above all, a coward. He spared no thought for anything but retreat. Sankt Kho was loyal to the kingdom, not the king; Sankt Kho loved the people, not their ruler. He thought of them when he returned to his forge, when he crafted his soldiers, when he dug out a miracle from somewhere deep within him. When his work was at last complete, he brought the soldiers before the king, and they laid waste to the enemy with terrifying, brutal efficiency. And the king, who once thought to abandon the people he demanded die in his stead, committed the worst of his betrayals: he set the clockwork soldiers to conquer, and conquer, and conquer, indiscriminately. Some say that Sankt Kho’s fury was such that he stole into the king’s chambers one night to depose him, only for his own creations to kill him where he stood. Others claim that the king, for he was as ruthless as he was selfish, ordered Sankt Kho’s arrest, and that Sankt Kho, unwilling to raise even a hand against the people he so loved, surrendered and languished in prison until he eventually died. More still believe that, ashamed of the cruelty his clockwork soldiers wrought, Sankt Kho disappeared to lands unknown. But the reason for Sankt Kho’s absence mattered little: in the end, he was only legend, language, memory. And so, when even the king grew bored of endless bloodshed, no one could halt the swing of their blades as they tore cities apart, for the king was the soldiers’ owner but not their master. It is said that the king descended into fury because the soldiers did not heed his commands. He wanted to conquer the continent, and the soldiers fulfilled his desire — but he knew, even then, that he would be helpless to their violence if they one day turned upon him. He knew that there was only one person who could put a stop to the brutality, and that he was long lost to time.

The sheng ji, too, fell to Sankt Kho’s clockwork creations, who became heralds of death and destruction throughout the land. The king’s wish for annihilation was fulfilled at last, an inevitability. There was no messenger to warn of the soldiers’ arrival, no possibility of forewarning when all that was left in their wake was ruin. But absence echoed, too, and Sankta Neyar stood waiting by the city walls, watchman to her people’s reckoning. It was only when at last the distant footfalls of metal grew closer and closer that Sankta Neyar left her post. Sankta Neyar was the first and only child of a noble family since lost to time. Despite her status, Sankta Neyar never once thought herself above labor, and she was skilled at forging. She whispered prayers over her sword until it was strong enough to laugh and steel and sharp enough to cut through shadows, and swore to protect her people with all her might. She could not yet ask her people to retreat when she did not know if the soldiers would attack them or the city first. Better for them to remain inside the walled city limits where she could better protect them. If even her miracle failed, she would stall with all she had until they could escape. And this was the story that stayed: Sankta Neyar of the Six Soldiers, who forged the unrusting Neshyenyer, who battled Sankt Kho’s clockwork battalion for three days and three nights. Sankta Neyar, who saved Shu Han from the despotic king that ruled over it. It was Sankta Neyar who paved the way for the first queen of Shu Han, the Taban yenok-yun, the storm that stayed. When the Taban yenok-yun descended from the mountains of Sikurzoi, Sankta Neyar appeared before her throne in Ahmrat Jen: not to depose another tyrant, but to offer her loyalty. To you, Born of Heaven, Most Celestial Highness, I gift my blade, said Sankta Neyar, and bowed low before the first queen of Shu Han. May you, too, be sharp enough to cut through the shadows and strong enough to laugh at steel. Long may you reign, with the blessing of the heavens upon you. The Taban yenok-yun, pleased at the show of sincerity, offered Sankta Neyar a place in her court — the first minister of what would become Shu Han. And so Sankta Neyar was celebrated in Shu Han thereafter. She pledged her life in service to the Taban queens, and together, they united Shu Han from the shores of Bhez Ju to the hills of Koba. Where they went, they mended the destruction the king and his clockwork soldiers had wrought, returning peace and prosperity to the land. Word of their rule spread far and wide, and soon more and more cities willingly accepted the Taban yenok-yun as their Queen. With them, more sheng ji came to swear fealty to the Taban yenok-yun, and Sankta Neyar gladly took it upon herself to lead the sheng ji in guiding Shu Han to a better future. And so the sheng ji were revered in Shu Han, as integral to the country as the sea and sky and land, such to the point that Shu Han became known as a country of miracles. It has remained so until this day.

#this shit tore me apart #CRYING IN THE CLUB #YOUR WRITING IS SO. SO.#RAHHHH #this fic is amazing #kuwei yul bo

calicoquinn

Sankt Wylan Van Sunshine - Dawn - 1/7

For the @grishaversebigbang 2023 as my first serious foray into fanfiction writing!

See GORGEOUS art: HERE (By @irreplaceable-ecstasyy) HERE (SPOILERS for Part 5) (By @doorhandle16)

Additional thanks to the lovely and patient beta of this fic: @poeticor

AO3: (to be linked)

Summary: Wylan Van Eck has always loved the sun, a little more than anyone he's ever met has, but that doesn't mean it isn't a shock when he discovers he has the power to harness it, especially when said discovering comes in the middle of him escaping yet another assassination attempt.

Wordcount: 6,143

TW/CW: (better safe than sorry) brief alcohol use, non-consensual drug use, violence, kidnapping, suicidal thoughts and ideation.

Chapter One

His mother called him ‘sunshine’, for when he smiled it was as if her whole world lit up and, much like those mothers thousands of years before, every night she was wracked with anxiety of if he would rise again. Even if it was nonsensical.

His father gave him no nicknames, though he was sweet to the boy and indulged his requests for sweets, or a hug, or to play in the garden when he had the time. The boy lit up just the same.

Though the mother had never had children before, she thought her son acted strange. When she brought them up to her husband she was given a cursory ‘boys will be boys’ to excuse his son's weird habits.

For the boy often hid in the cupboards, and underbeds, shutting himself away in the darkness. Both parents and house staff had stopped being worried when he wasn’t anywhere to be seen around the fifth time he had hid himself away in the wardrobe.

The boy’s mother had been told that children were afraid of the dark, and she believed it - it had been her own childhood fear, too. The other councilmen’s wives had told her many children were too scared to sleep without a lantern on their bedside. But her son was different. It was as if he couldn’t sleep unless it was complete darkness.

“The fire’s too loud,” he’d say, when she put the lantern on his bedside.

“The stars are too noisy,” he’d say, when the curtains weren’t drawn.

The other councilmens’ wives told her not to worry, as they watched their kids run around the grasses. They reassured her that children say odd things all the time, when they don’t yet have the language to say what they really want.

The boy’s father was only proud. “He’s already so mature,” he’d say, patting his son on the shoulder, “he already has the mark of a great man. He has already discarded the childish comforts the other boys need.” The boy’s father smiled, so his mother smiled too, and hoped it would all be alright, that she really was overthinking things.

___

Wylan wondered if kidnappings were like exponential equations in the way they worsened. The first time would be shocking, of course, but seem small by comparison if every subsequent time he was handled rougher, he was tied up tighter, and it seemed twice as hopeless. This would lead, however, to mean that at a certain point it looks, at least on a graph, like it barely gets any worse.

Of course, this hysterical thought was probably due to him being in shock, due to him being in the midst of his second kidnapping. A second instance of it is hardly enough to make a peer reviewed paper of the subject, though. Much less a mathematical equation.

He’d ignored the letters showing up at his door for almost two months now, using them to help fuel the hearth as the months got colder.

It had been a good day, before the whole kidnapping ordeal.

Waking up with the sun, getting stuck into his work and the rhythm of the tannery, going to the local bar with his peers to celebrate a good day’s work with a drink (a typical after work tradition). A boy across the bar even winked at him, and sent him a drink. Wylan blamed his subsequent red cheeks on the alcohol. He danced across the floor with some of his workmates, and a few strangers. Wylan was the first to admit he wasn’t the most talented when it came to his footwork, but the tavern jigs were easy to get swept up in and enjoy.

He’d been having such a good day he didn’t realise there was much wrong when his head felt light, his legs tangled together when he walked, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Later he’d remember the stark relief of fresh night air dimmed by the fog in his brain, and the stone of the alley jumping to meet his gaze. He didn’t remember the rope being tied and tightened around his limbs.

___

Wylan woke slowly, then all at once. Every sense alarmed.

The rough rope scratching at his wrists and ankles, the cloth cloying his mouth, the blooms of pain across his skin. His equilibrium swayed until, for a moment, Wylan was weightless. Soon, the moment passed. Pain rocketed up his side as it collided with wood that rocked beneath him. A small boat.

As soon as he hit the boat, Wylan’s breathing came fast, he squirmed as much as he could, against the restraints, trying desperately to get them off. Wylan felt like a feral animal. All yells for help he cried muffled by the gag and transformed into yowls and caterwauls. He stopped abruptly when a boot kicked at his shoulder.

Wylan stared up at the man above him. Not so much grizzled as tired, still young but as if life itself exhausted him. The gauntness of his cheeks and the slump of his shoulders didn’t do much to keep it a secret. He pressed his boot into Wylan’s chest, prompting a choked gasp quickly out.

“Look, kid,” the man said, as if lecturing a child. “This is just business, nothing against you, but could you at least be quiet? My sister’s wedding is tomorrow.” The boot was removed and Wylan’s panic turned silent, but shaking, his whole body quivering as if cold. The man’s friend, the other who had held him, who spat out the chewed jurda between his teeth, jumped into the boat with a grunted affirmation.

They began to row.

They rowed away from Ketterdam.

For a moment, Wylan was gripped by hope. The Council of Tides watched over the Kerch waters, making sure those who entered or left were safe, both from rogue ships and from harsh waves. They’d realise, with their sense of water, that there was a boat out. A boat that wasn’t supposed to be here. They’d come and investigate. They would! They’d see that he’d been kidnapped, and they’d stop the boat. They’d save him.

But… the other men were utterly calm. Talking quietly between efforts as they rowed about a new drink they had. They weren’t trying to be stealthy, or disguise themselves or what was happening in the boat.

He wanted to yell at them to talk to him. He wanted to ask why they were doing this, why they’d kidnapped him.

He knew.

He wanted to question them with a knife to their throats, demanding answers of how they’d known where he was, who had paid them off.

He knew.

He’d known since they’d grabbed him, really.

He must’ve.

There was no other option. Especially if the Tides did not bother to stop them.

The Merchant Council and the Council of Tides had a tension filled relationship, but they worked together, they compromised. And this must’ve been one. He wondered what it had cost, really. How much was his father paying? In coins, in possessions, property, promises. How much was he worth getting rid of?

It was a demeanted spark in his chest that pointed it out. One that had warped from the pride he held from being his fathers son, to the pride he felt, now, being worth enough he is willing to pay so much to be finally rid of.

He let the spark and its equated tightness in his chest fall away as tears ran down his face.

He shuffled and winced as his hand grazed harshly against a loose nail. Ideas flew through his mind and he quickly put a lid on his facial expression, keeping it tight so it didn't fall into a hysterical grin. He wedged the nail between the tied ropes on his wrists and started sawing. He tried to do it subtly, disguised by his squirming. Wylan squirmed to such a degree the taller man stamped a foot down on his thigh. Wylan screamed, he couldn’t help it. All he got in response was a mumbled retort from the kidnapper to keep quiet and stop rocking the boat.

He keeps rubbing his hands against them in time with the waves, focusing all his sense of it to quell his panic, quell his fear.

The rope hadn’t frayed enough yet, but he still held hope. The repeated motion and chance for survival was more than enough to distract him from his pain. He took a deep breath. He had escaped kidnappers seeking to kill him once, he can do it again, right? Surely it’s not much different, he thought; his own mind's optimism poisonously saccharine, as he watched the docks edge further backward, and the absence of boats around them grow stark.

There were still lights he could see, even more people behind them that he couldn’t. Glowing. Glinting off the windows of warehouses and watchtowers and streetlamps. A few taverns filled with light and music and strangers. All unaware of his peril.

The ropes weren’t cutting.

Doubt. It built up in him like tar, filling his gut and making him nauseous. No one would come for him. No one cared. He wasn’t anything to anyone anymore but an obstacle. A placeholder.

Even if he was to survive this, if his father had found him and come after him twice already, what would stop him from doing it again? He had escaped a single assassination before, could he really do it again? Or again after that? He felt useless, stuck on the ground of a boat, leant against the side in a way that made his neck ache, and the shadows on his kidnappers face seemed starker.

It welled up in him more. A liquid, filling the all available space in his body.

Wouldn't it be better, if he was dead? If he was able to join his mother in whatever afterlife awaited him? His father would tilt his teary face towards the newspapers, to win sympathy and attention, because he just can't handle that loss of his beloved son so soon before his new child’s birth.

That’s why he is so insistent on drowning, isn’t it? His body washed upon shore, pale and blue and lifeless. If his body was discovered stabbed or strangled or shot, there is cause for doubt, especially so soon after his new marriage. If he drowned instead, well, he was always a sickly child. Maybe he slipped. Maybe he did it himself.

What a legacy that would be to leave behind. A failure on all counts except death, which his father will orchestrate like he’s never known his place outside of a musician’s chorus. And the public will listen. When he’s dead, when he has no voice, he’ll become the perfect victim. He’ll stay that way.

Wylan became so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t realise when the men stopped rowing their boat. He didn’t register when the men began to stand until he's lifted by the ropes tied around him.

Wylan couldn’t bring himself to move, staring up at the sky, watching grey clouds float across the moon.

The men swung him and Wylan, for a second, accepted it. He’d never admit it, to anyone. Possibly never even admit it to himself. But in this second, he gave up. Wylan knew that it would hurt so much more to struggle, and hadn’t his life been already so pained. Maybe it would be better to lay down and die.

Would he gain back dignity, if he made that choice? Instead of resisting, does it become a suicide? If he shifted the frame and it’s no longer a surrender to the inevitable but a last stand against his warring noble silences and feral childishness. Maybe, he just dies. That is how the story ends. Without happily ever afters. Without hope and joyful epilogues.

In the span of a third in the moment, as Wylan’s body is swung, and he hung in the air in the second before he swung back the other way, he decided. It all flashed behind his eyes. Not his life, not moments that passed, but what futures could be. He made his decision.

He wanted to live.

He struggled. He kicked and punched and bit at the gag in his mouth. He screamed against it and scratched at whatever skin he could reach. The two men stumbled at his sudden rebellion. He managed to even get the shorter man across the face with his nails, causing him to hiss, and kicked the taller man in the balls. The man behind him wrapped his arm around Wylan’s throat, and squeezed as he struggled.

By the time the men throw him overboard, he was already halfway to unconsciousness. His adrenaline was leaking out, the day caught up to him, he was as weak as a kitten. In the moment it takes the water to reach him, cold, and wet and dangerous, he screamed. He screamed he wants to live.

He wants to work at the tannery. He wants to stay with those coworkers who are slowly becoming his friends. He wants to be able to earn his way. He wants to be his own person. He wants that, badly.

He wants to go to bed tired but wake up well rested. He wants to eat sickly sweet stroopwaffles while drunk. He wants to go dancing with friends. He wants to feel the grass underneath his feet and the wind on his face and he wants to lie down in the sunshine on a summer's day and soak it in.

His life, in that moment, his breath still catching up, his throat aching, his wrists and ankles tied and rubbed raw, and the cuts across his skin burning, the cold of the ocean biting and the wind howling above, flashes.

His mother painting him as he tried hard to sit still, the last thunderstorm he’d endured inside his father house, his father applauding once he completed his piano piece, the letters, haunting him in the boarding house, being pushed around by councilman’s sons, being teased and pushed inside the tannery, kissing his tutor and the fire that welled up inside him, kissing others after drinks at the tavern, soaking up the sun as a child, as a new adult, lying in it. Stretching out in the hot weather when others sought shade.

He dug into the part of him, in his chest, at his heart, that ached and pushed and pulled and he screamed now into the water as it pushed him in on all sides, and the cuts he endured screamed at the salt scratching at it, as blood rushed to where his bruises lay.

And everything erupts into light.

___

He’s panicking in the water. Arms splashing, legs kicking without rhyme or rhythm or swimming technique, just a struggle to keep his head above the waves. His chest hurts from breathing hard, his limbs are already aching from keeping him above the water. The ropes around his arms and ankles have fallen off, thank Ghenzen.

He looks around and finds… the boat. Overturned, half burnt, one side completely blackened, there are pieces of wood scattered around. One knocks his head painfully.

He scrambles beneath the water until he grabs a hold of a smaller few planks, still attached to each other, that may have once been the boat’s bench inside. It's ugly, soaked, and spotted with black, but it floats.

He can't see his kidnappers, but Wylan thinks it's better that way. If he cannot see them, there’s a chance they don’t see him either. With that brash feeling of safety, he lets his mind drift, holding onto the plank and floating, focusing on breathing, on kicking lazily. He loses time as he swims to the dock.

The city seems more aglow, through the haze in his mind. More candles in windows, and boats once abandoned now manned with soldiers holding lanterns out over the water. People have exited from their taverns and homes, and gather on the dockside, looking out. The customary fog of the Kerch oceans at night has returned, though, and the silhouettes have receded in number over time. Whatever they might have wished to see would have been covered by the night mist anyways.

Wylan finds a ladder on the dockside and takes longer than he should hauling himself upwards, his arms wrapping around the rungs as his feet threaten to slip and his strength still waivers in his shivering body. He’s soaked, dripping. The quiet of the night means those drops on the pavestones sounded that much louder. Paranoia claws at his mind. Any person on these docks could have been hired by his father. To watch out, to make sure he died. How many other people were watching to see if he emerged from the waters. How many were ready to take him out and hold him under. What was it, about the rule of three? He may not escape if one more person attempts to hurt him.

Wylan shuffles himself, when he sees no one looking in his direction, into the shadow of an alleyway between warehouses, huddling down behind a few empty crates, resting against the walls.

Where could he go, then? The boarding house was out, his father knew where that was. He’d love to go to his friends from the tannery, but if his father knew where he stayed and was willing to come after him there, or when he was out with said friends, there’s no real guarantee that his father wouldn’t go after them as well.

His glance ahead was all it took to realise. A warehouse. Of course. Hide himself within storage. Wait out the night, plan, emerge with the morning crowds. If nothing, it would buy him time.

He grabs the empty crate beside him and, though it takes a few tries, the window breaks with its impact. He pauses, for a few minutes, listening closely for anyone that might have heard and come to check, but nothing happens. Only the wind whistles above him. Wylan manages to shuffle himself inside, with minimal additional cuts.

He chooses to settle himself in the opposite corner to that of where he found his entrance, wedged between a foul smelling barrel, and a wooden crate with feathers poking out of the cracks, Leaning heavily on the stack of boxes behind him to keep him upright. For a second he feels… steady.

The feeling falls apart much faster than it came. His body relaxes. He quickly devolves into a quivering, crying, soaking wet mess, the chill of the night returning with a vengeance.

When his mind finally pulls itself together, only one question stays on his mind.

What was that light? All around him. Like lightning, without the thunder. Blinding him. But it was not storming tonight. Not even raining, barely even overcast. It had released him from his bonds… possibly… or maybe he just slipped out. He took a look at his clothes. Around the areas he had wounds, strikes with knife or with boot, the tattered remains were spotted with burns, and soaked with water besides.

There was no one else on the water that night, certainly not any close enough to cause it, that he could see. And the men were unlikely to have blown up their own boat without of way to bring it back to shore.

His mind stuttered to a halt. Had it come from him. No… cause that would mean. No. It couldn't be. There was no way.

Wylan wants to laugh.

But…

What was the harm in trying anyways?

Wylan tries to focus on some abstract idea of a Grisha power. What could be his Grisha power. Wherever it was it came from. It had to be the heart? Right? If he was going full impossibility, it came from that nebulous thing such as a soul.

He squeezes his eyes shut and imagines something in his chest, that light, as if it was coming from inside him. He focuses on it then, trying to imagine it coming out of him. He imagined it, and it was so, so vivid, behind his eyes, flowing through the veins in his arms like water on a window, down to his fingertips.

When he opens his eyes, there it is, settled on his fingertips.

Light.

Wylan would never admit to anyone later that he screamed. That he desperately tried to shake his hands, flicking his fingers away from him, to try and get the light off, like one would an annoying fly. He would never admit that it took him multiple minutes to realise it was safe. And that it was real, in the first place. That he’d done it.

Grisha. Wylan thinks, in the moment, astonished. I’m a grisha. A… A fire grisha.

He squeezes his eyes shut and imagines pulling that flow of light back into his chest. When he opens his eyes again, it’s gone.

He tries it again, this time concentrating on a single fingertip, less on his finger but above it, while taking deep breaths. It flickers a bit once he gains the courage to look at it. Bright and almost a pale yellow or orange, like the essence of a flame, concentrated. Pulsing like a heartbeat above his finger.

With a few more deep breaths he tries to manipulate it, and after a few tries, in stops and starts, the orb becomes larger, and settles itself in the crook of his palm.

Taking his other hand and settling it stops the light, he feels no heat, no warmth, just brightness.

When a full body shriver racked his body shortly afterwards, an idea struck him, he focused his mind towards the light. Ideas of warmth. Settling in front of a hearth, or holding his hand above a candle, or being settled under warm blankets on winter nights, and just on that feeling of warmth. Of fire. He could feel it heat up in his hand, though the light did not change. Wylan focuses his mind on making it larger until it is the size of a pillow. He cradles it into his body and sighs at the relief of its warmth against him, the water of his clothes slowly turning to steam against his body.

It is there, in that warehouse, on the cold and cloudy night, wrapped around a light of his own creation, his clothes no longer soaking, and his body no longer cold, his mind slipped away, and he was soon asleep.

___

Wylan has always risen with the sun, as his father said. Teasingly, once upon a time, later only passive aggressively, when he seemed to always think Wylan’s footsteps in the early morning were too loud for the house.

It was no different this morning, despite the fact, by all accounts, he really should be sleeping well into the afternoon given the entire ordeal of the previous night.

He gets up, almost reluctantly. He manages to find some basic cloth and clothes and swaps his ruined ones out. He unlocks the door from the inside, glancing through the warehouse windows to make sure no one saw his departure. He closes it behind him.

The Ketterdam streets were beginning to rouse from slumber. Shops open their doors, putting out signs, yelling hellos to people as the early wakers make their way to work. Wylan sits in wait, in the shadow of a different alley, by the market, listening to the buzz of it all. He feels the wave of people wash over him; their speech a pleasant hum. Wylan wishes he could sink into that instead, but here he was, in the alley, waiting to figure out how he’d ever continue.

Then he hears the first person say ‘Van Eck’. Wylan straightens but stays silent, watching the young woman, who is gesticulating boldly to her companion, walking past quickly. Then, another. ‘Van Eck’. He doesn’t connect it at first, when he hears the word ‘daughter’, but a few minutes pass and a young newsboy is yelling. A few alleyways down from him, but in the middle of the street.

“Councilman Van Eck's family welcomes new daughter!”

Oh, Wylan thinks, it all makes sense.

He takes a step out of the alley and soaks in the comments.

Some are pleased, joyful. Talking about sending congratulations. Others shoot back with huffs and annoyances over the ordeal and the hype. A girl setting up her stall for the morning market comments to her partner about how adorable the baby looked in the paper’s illustrations. An older woman, helping the girl by laying clothes over the tables, responds with speculation that if they got it to print so quickly, she bets they drew it before the birth even occurred, as no mother could possibly look that good after giving birth.

Oh, Wylan thinks, That was why his father had moved so quickly to kill him.

Without even thinking, Wylan walks over to the newsboy, still yelling at passersby. Wylan glances at the paper and it looks… fake. It’s his father in the image, for sure, and Alys, and the baby looks like a baby but… it's happy. They’re happy. A full happy family and his father is smiling in a way he can’t ever remember seeing at Alys and the baby in her arms. Alys grin is tempered. More demure than usual. They look like something from an inn painting. Little substance, plain decoration. Pretty enough to be shown but not enough to be bought.

He’s broken out of his reveries by a sharp “Oi.” He turns to face the newsboy. “Either buy it, or leave.”

Wylan leaves.

He walks down the street, against and with the gathering torrents of people. He catches others talking. There’s rumours. About him. That he’d gotten a girl pregnant and been forced to raise a child with her in the countryside. That he’d run away with his music tutor. That he’d actually died and his father was so struck with grief he wouldn't speak of it. He cringes away from it all.

There are also people talking about him in a different way. The light off of the harbour, in the dark of night. Rumours of Tides roaming the streets questioning people about it. Some,he hears, laugh it off, calling it a joke the viewers must be playing. A prank. Others call it truth, a conspiracy by the Ravkan grisha to start waging war with the Kerch. A sun summoning grisha, some say. An inferni, others recall. A bomb, or a large firework, the elders would say, while the children say they heard it was the sun, who forgot when it was supposed to rise.

Wylan steadies himself against a jewellery maker's stall as the chatter starts to make him nauseous.

“Something for a special someone?” The seller queries. When Wylan meets his eyes, the man quirks an eyebrow. “Should I wish to see the other guy?” The seller taps a long fingernail against his eye.

Wylan mirrors the man, a hand up to his own face, and catches on the tender skin of a bruise. He shrinks into himself, hurries away from the booth. He brushes his fringe over to one side, to hide the bruise as much as he can. He rolls down his sleeves and pulls up his cloak while he’s at it, as surely there’s more wounds close to their edges. Wylan would rather not deal with the questions.

He catches sight of Klaris. A friend, from the tannery. Wylan is struck with the urge to go and greet him. To plead and beg for help. But he quickly decides against it, opting to hide in the swaths of people while he moves his cart along the street.

He couldn’t go to Klaris, could he. If his father had known where he lived, he must’ve known where he worked, and someone’s must’ve told him. How else would he have figured out where Wylan was staying? But who would’ve sold him out? His boardmates? His coworkers? For a moment Wylan thinks any. That they all could’ve. Any sensible Kerch person would give up secrets to a councilman in an instant. Especially if there’s coin to be made. He’s best to avoid them all, both for their safety and for his.

But where should he go, if nowhere in Ketterdam was truly safe for him at this point? Without his job, without his room, where would he go? Where would he stay?

Well, Wylan realised, if he couldn’t stay in Ketterdam, why not leave it? What did he truly have left for him that he could return to?

___

Wylan made his way to the docks promptly, eyes scanning for appropriate vessels. He needed a ship that took passengers, as he doubted he’d last as a stowaway, and preferably stay away from the ships controlled by his father, or his allies, which was easier said than done.

On the docks, movement was constant. Loading and unloading ships, joking and smoking while dangling legs over the side. Wylan walks along, passing all those that held the Van Eck logo, or those of the councilmen even loosely aligned with him.

In the middle of his wandering, too distracted by the various ships he notices, he bangs into a large, muscular man, who’s barked orders stop abruptly. The man spins on him quickly, hand reaching towards the swords on his back, but freezes just as quick. His hand instead goes to Wylan’s shoulder, giving just enough pressure to keep him there. Wylan’s pulse begins to race. The man yells out at the others, presumably of his crew, taking crates on and off, to continue, before meeting Wylan’s eyes.

Wylan looks away as soon as he can, instead eyeing the ship the man commands the crew of. Sleek. Plenty wide but especially long, like a bird’s beak. Three large masts adorn the deck, and there is a name, written on the side, Wylan cannot decipher. It’s not a storage vessel. Maybe… just maybe.

He tries to remember his Shu,clawing at his brain for the words he needs. “Do you-” Wylan turns back but the man’s golden eyes are piercing, and the words catch in his throat. He coughs to disguise his panic. “Do you give passage for work?”

The man lifts an eyebrow and gives Wylan a slow onceover. Wylan can’t stop his own squirming shuffle in response.

“We’re heading to Novyi Zem. Are you looking for a passage there?”

Wylan thinks for a moment. He could work there, surely. Find a tannery job like the one he had here, restart his life, far away from the rest of kerch. Wylan nods. “Yes.”

The shu man tilts his head. “Are you grisha?”

“No.”

Wylan realises he might’ve said that a bit too quickly as the man’s eyes narrow.

A loud noise goes off behind him and Wylan jumps, spinning quickly to face it. One of the men had dropped a crate on their toe, he guessed, given how they were now, almost comically, agonising over it. The others helping him had stopped to laugh, and pick it up between them, continuing on.

When he turns back he sees the man staring at his bruised eye. Wylan fidgets and pushes his hair back into place overtop of it.

“Stay.” The man says. Wylan takes the order truly, as if his feet were glued to the ground, as he watches the man disappear onto the ships deck and towards a door. He enters and, after a few minutes, exits with a red-headed man, who places one hand leisurely on the ship's railing and lifts an eyebrow at Wylan, who quickly averts his eyes. He can see them moving, in his periphery. The shu man is once again in front of him and nods his head in the direction of the boat. The man walks away and then turns, signalling with a waving hand at Wylan. Wylan almost stumbles over his feet in the effort to catch up.

The shu man leads him in the direction of the red-haired man. He gives Wylan another once over.

“So, I heard you’re seeking passage for Novyi Zem?”

Wylan responds with a nod, “Yes, sir.” He stops himself from cringing at the address.

“And what might your name be, then?”

Wylan barely hesitates. “Hendricks.” He stops himself from cringing at that too. He’d already used his mothers name, with the boys in the tannery, and at the boarding house, but his father wouldn't exactly be looking for him across the ocean, would he?

The man in front of him snorts and holds out his hand with a cavalier smile.

“It’s a pleasure to have you on board, Hendricks. You may call me Sturmhond.”

Wylan shakes his hand.

Maybe, just maybe, things are looking up.

___

Earlier that morning…

The sun crawls lazily over the horizon. There were no birds in the day’s dawn chorus, but rather the ambient noises of squeaking hinges as doors open, and the scrape of metal as stores undid their locks and began to arrange their storefronts. The sound of shoes clicking across the pavement built up in the early morning hours like a band’s percussion.

Oscar went about his own morning duties.

The tannery where he works was located at the edge of the smaller docks, on the outer edge of both the town and the dock, near the sea, where the wind would often take away the scents of chemicals and Sarah, the resident squaller, could manoeuvre it make it so even when there was no breeze. He unlocks the chain around the large barn doors and opens them with a loud creak.

Workers trickle in over the next hour, going about their own daily rituals, and starting their tasks. Klaris was one of the last to come along, with a wagon of hides freshly washed and ready to be tanned, knocking shoulders with Oscar as he walked past, and winking at Sarah when she caught his eye.

A round of greetings echoes around the warehouse. Klaris eyes the room, then pauses.

“Hey, Oscar, where did Wylan get to?” Klaris scratches at his beard.

Oscar, too, then glances around. “Well… I don’t know actually.”

“Did he not show up?”

“Nah, but you know the boys are pretty shit at letting me know when they’re out sick.”

Klaris screws up his face. “He’s been here for a good half a year, surely he hasn’t gotten cold feet this late in the game.”

Wylan wasn’t the youngest of the tannery’s crew - that went to Thomas, apprenticing under his father - but Klaris hadn’t seen Wylan ever miss a day and, screw it, he liked the kid, for all his nerves and his seeming obliviousness, he’d been nice to talk to over a drink, endlessly curious.

Terry elbows Klaris on his way past, shouting over his shoulder: “Maybe he’s responsible for the light show last night!”

“The light show?”

“Yeah, did you not see it? About midnight, night turned to day for a solid hour.”

“Pfft, yeah, sure, that happened for 5 minutes max.” Hallison corrects.

Oscar scratched his chin. “Well, I did go to bed early, but even then, that sounds like you were pretty into your cups there last night, huh?”

“No, no! It actually happened.” Sarah calls. “Ozzie down at The Dragon thinks it’s a sun summoning Grisha. Apparently some Ravkan tourists got pretty excited. Personally, I think someone accidentally made a powerful firework or summoned lightning or… something, and just set it off over the water.”

“That’s all good and fair but where is Wylan?” Klaris prompts.

“I’m telling you, maybe he was responsible for the day to night fiasco yesterday.” Terry says, tying his apron and putting on his gloves. There was a rumble of laughter around the room.

“That waif of a boy? A stiff breeze probably just knocked him over the side of the docks!” Hallison was then, quite suddenly, hit in the back of the head with Terry’s empty glove. An admonishment of ‘don’t be mean’ grumbled in his direction swiftly followed.

Oscar rubs his face as a scuffle between them begins to ensue. “Look, something must’ve come up for him to miss a day so let’s just leave him to it, yeah? If he really is gone, we’ll find out tomorrow, and deal with it then,” he raises his voice to the gathering crowd. “Get that?”

A chorus of scattered ‘yeses’ and ‘got that’ sounds from throughout the room.

Klaris soon unloads the awaiting skins and heads off into the morning rush of Ketterdam, sending a small prayer to Ghenzen. It may have been a bit presumptuous, already praying for a person who may not be missing’s return, but he often thinks it better safe than sorry, anyways.

#sobs #cries #rolls on the floor #READ THIS #ITS SO GOOD #I LOVE YOUR WRITING #wylan van sunshine literally #i teared up reading part 5

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