#by cass

[mcufam]

[grishaverseonline]

WINTER FÊTE 2020:  6th Place (tie) — Tamar Kir Bataar

Above all else, Tamar Kir-Bataar prided herself on being a loyal soldier. It’s what she’d been taught to do as a child on the run - obey first, ask questions later - and it had kept her alive ever since. In Novyi Zem, on Sturmhond’s ship, in the Little Palace, and that fateful night on the Fold; she’d followed her orders and her leader, and lived to see the next dawn, even when those around her fell like toppled chess pieces, chests stilled and screams quiet. 

Those around her seemed to believe in luck more than anything else - that was pirates for you, sailing steadfast with their supersitions - but she’d never been so sure in it. If luck, fate, whatever you wanted to call it meant anything, then everything she’d done and lived through wasn’t due to skill, or planning, or strength. And she didn’t like that at all. 

She liked to feel as if she were in control of her own fate, of herself. It was one of the reasons she’d so honed herself as a warrior, as a Heartrender. She wouldn’t let anyone else control her body if she could help it. 

So she worked. She studied her saints, her languages, her maps. She trained with knives, with guns, with axes, and with her power, slicing open her own palms until she could knit them back together without a sweat on her brow. From there, she’d moved onto bigger things, her brother, mostly. She knew it was odd, and slightly morbid, but some of her fondest childhood memories with her brother involved enacting violence on one another. It’s what they had to do, their father had told them, and she’d believed him. She still did. The stronger force won in life and in war - so there wasn’t a point in living, in fighting, if you couldn’t. She had plans for this earth, plans for Ravka, and for herself. She wasn’t going to let any power stop her in her tracks before she’d begun. 

So she worked. For herself, for her brother, for the country she’d learned to call home, and for the saints and kings she served under. Because all she is, all she knows, is the life of a loyal soldier. What else is there for a child of war?

[daisygifs]

You want to say “I told you so”? Not really. 

[pikeildansource]

pike trickfoot and vax’ildan   ↳ if the raven queen fucks with you, or hurts you, or doesn’t change you for the better, she’s going to have to deal with me, and we’re going to have a problem

[pikevalsource]

pike trickfoot and percy de rolo    ↳ It will keep you safe.

[pikeahliasource]

vex’ahlia and pike trickfoot ↳ requested modern au

“they’re finally down,” vex says as she pads into their bedroom moving to join her wife on the bed.

pike falls sideways from her previous sitting position so she takes him both sides of the mattress. a tired hand covers her face and she groans softly. without uncovering her face she mumbles, “i don’t want to leave again tomorrow.”

“you love your job, darling,” vex murmurs softly, they do this every time. every month or so pike boards a ship and takes out onto the open sea. tracking currents and testing the creatures and plants below. “i know you miss us, but i also know you miss being out there.”

she smooths a gentle hand over pike’s hip, giving her time to look at her again on her own accord. never pushing her.

after several silent moments, pike is upright and facing vex in a single movement. she grasps her wife’s hands and places them in her lap, taking a beat to run her thumbs over them.

“i just,” pike looks down at their intertwined fingers, “i just feel guilty.”

vex sighs and removes one of her hands, a finger crooks under pike’s chin and tips her head up until they’re eye to eye. “there’s no need to feel guilty, love. truly, truly.”

[mcufam]