hey, I just found your blog! Do you have any fic recommendations? I haven't found any so far.
Omg hi!!! Thanks for asking! Here’s a few Daevabad fics I’ve been enjoying recently! All of these can be found on Ao3
Universe Expanding:
World of Diamond by tarnishedbrass follows the post canon adventures of Zaynab, Aqisa, and Dara as they try to rescue slave vessels from the Ifrit. Completed, 51 chapters, 113,517 words. I’m actually not finished with this one yet, but I love it so far :)
Nahri/Ali:
Call Me Friend (but keep me closer) by Musogato is clips of Nahri and Ali’s relationship developing in the years following Empire of Gold. I love how it showcases their individual growth as well as their growth as a couple. Very sweet and illustrative! 4/7 chapters, 8,559 words
Nahri/Dara:
tripping, falling, with no safety net by littlethiefs is a modern AU Dara/Nahri fic where Dara’s a lawyer and Nahri’s a med student. I always love a modern AU and I think the friendship between Dara and Muntadhir is really cute in this. Not completed yet, 9 chapters, 23,165 words
Jamshid/Muntadhir:
if they set me on fire it would leave no trace by AuroraWest is Muntadhir moving into Jamshid’s house post EoG. Fluff, smut, reflecting on their past and future, emotions, apologies and lots of plain old gorgeous love. 1 chapter, 5,076 words
kissing your once-lover-turned-enemy-turned-ally-you’re-still-in love-with-and-never-stopped-loving’s tears away as they cry over the fact that you’re leaving can be something so personal
pairing: dara/nahri
word count: 1750
summary: nahri has some news she isn’t sure how to deliver.
notes: part of a series of self indulgent, happily ever after oneshots following dara and nahri post-eog. read at your own risk
i will not let anything take away what’s standing in front of me
Nahri knows long before most expectant mothers that she is pregnant. She feels the change in her body as it begins to accommodate new life as acutely as if she’d pricked her finger. It’s the strangest experience, to be so attuned to the development of a second life within her.
It’s one that fills her simultaneously with warmth and dread.
In all her dreams for herself, becoming a mother had never been one, not for lack of want of children but because it had seemed out of reach growing up on the streets of Cairo and with the tumultuous circumstances surrounding her marriage to Muntadhir.
It had never been a realistic dream, and frankly, its importance had paled in comparison to her other ones, so she had kept it carefully out of bounds.
Now that it’s happening, however, she’s not quite sure what to do with her wild tangle of emotions.
She has accomplished so much more than she had ever dreamed of. As Daevabad’s chief healer, the director of the hospital, the master that apprentices trained under, and one of the Daeva representatives on Daevabad’s council, the once far fetched desire to study in Istanbul seems vastly underwhelming compared to her reality.
And yet motherhood seems a far more daunting task than all of her professions combined.
She has never pictured herself as a mother, partly because she has always had bigger aspirations for herself and partly because she has little idea what constitutes a good one.
Or a present one.
While taking life’s punches in stride has always been a specialty of hers, it’s different when the punch is another life. One she is irrevocably responsible for.
And though it shouldn’t come as a surprise — her and Dara hadn’t been trying but they also hadn’t not been trying — the realization that she is still manages to take her breath away.
She lays a hand over her stomach, though the life is still far too fragile and new for her to feel anything, and exhales.
Another adventure, she thinks.
x
She doesn’t tell Dara right away, even though she’s near bursting at the seams with the news. She knows how much this will mean to him, and even though she still hasn’t sorted through all of her own emotions yet, she can’t deny that she’s excited to share this with him.
Nahri is well aware that after everything, Dara’s dreams are much more humble than her own. She knows that if she wished it, he would be more than willing to content himself with only her and the house on the outskirts of the city he’s building for them, where he can keep a stable.
She is excited to give him this, this little life growing inside of her that’s equal parts him and her, so that maybe both of their dreams can be complete.
It’s precisely for this reason that she waits. She knows enough of pregnancy to know that nothing is for certain, especially not so early, and she doesn’t want to give him false hope.
She locks her jaw against the words for one month, and tries to pick through her jumbled thoughts of motherhood.
She presses her lips together for another month, and resigns herself to the fact that she will probably be equal parts fear and tenderness indefinitely.
Near the end of the second month, she sits in her office in the hospital, tuning out the awareness she has for all her patients’ and apprentices’ bodies.
One manages to slip past the careful wall she puts up to separate herself from her abilities, if only temporarily, but she pauses. This heartbeat is different.
It’s fainter than most, fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. It’s also not coming from around her, almost like it’s coming from within…
“Oh,” she gasps quietly, looking down at her stomach, her own heart stuttering in her chest.
In the privacy of her office, Nahri laughs.
x
She has had months to craft the perfect way to tell him, but when she sees him in the courtyard, waiting to walk her home, all of her carefully worded plans dissipate.
He looks up and smiles at her. It’s a rare day when his demons aren’t snared in his eyes, and seeing that today is one of them, the admission almost comes tumbling from her lips before she realizes they’re not alone. There are others idling in the courtyard, sitting along the edges of the fountain, weaving slowly through the breezeway.
She smiles at her patients, nodding to them as she makes her way to his side. He respectfully clasps his hands behind his back and walks alongside her, and Nahri can’t tell if she’s annoyed or endeared by how old fashioned he still is.
They’ve been married for longer than her and Muntadhir had been, and yet Dara still insists on propriety, at least in most instances.
He asks her about her day and inquires after her patients. For someone who rarely ventures beyond the courtyard and her office, she thinks he might know more about the goings on in her hospital than most of her apprentices, just from listening to her.
She asks after him as they meander through the streets of the Geziri quarter and through the Grand Bazaar, though the pace is making her restless, eager to be home and deliver the news.
Her Afshin, ever diligent, stops mid sentence to appraise her.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, and Nahri forces herself to slow down. She has waited two months, but the thought that the reveal was minutes away has her overeager.
“No,” she says calmly, even as she spots their home in the distance and feels her heartbeat pick up in anticipation. “Just the opposite, in fact.”
“Oh?” He sounds curious but she resists glancing at him because she feels the words rising inside of her, trying to escape before she wants them to.
She hums in affirmation, her eye trained on their door growing closer with every step.
“Is this news you feel like sharing,” he inquires lightly, “or shall I start guessing?”
“That might be fun.”
“Is it that Bahram has finally passed his stones?” he guesses, and she can’t help the snort that escapes her. She feels only mildly guilty for it. She knows that diamonds were no easy stone to pass, but Bahram is so insufferable and demanding in his complaints, she might have guessed he had swallowed them himself just so he might have an excuse.
“If only the Creator would be so gracious,” she teases. She meets his amused gaze, and glances away just as swiftly as they reach their door.
“Hmm… could it be—“
“Dara.” He closes his mouth immediately as they slip inside and Nahri shuts the door behind them. “I’ve been keeping something from you.”
He raises a brow, looking at her expectantly.
She should wait until they get comfortable, until they’re doing something other than standing in the doorway, but Nahri is tired of waiting.
She takes a deep breath.
“I’m pregnant.”
She watches him closely for his reaction, but it’s like he’s frozen in place, staring at her. She searches his expression for something, any indication of how he’s feeling, but there’s nothing for a long moment.
Then he blinks.
“I— you…” His eyes drop to her stomach, and then dart back up to her face. “Come again?” he asks weakly, and all the humor he’d previously possessed has disappeared.
“I’m pregnant, Dara,” she says, softer this time. She steps closer to him and takes his hand, pressing it against her stomach and holding it there, even though she knows the fetus is still much too small for there to be any indication of its presence that he can see or feel. “We’re going to have a baby.”
He’s looking at her stomach again, where their hands are laid over it, but when he meets her eyes again, his are damp. She smiles and reaches up to catch a tear as it falls, despite his efforts to blink them away.
“Truly?” His voice has dropped to a whisper, as if he’s afraid anything louder might shatter this moment. Nahri smiles and nods, feeling tears prick at her own eyes.
“I can hear the heartbeat. Feel it. I wanted to wait to tell you until I was sure…” she trails off, because the look of wonder that crosses Dara’s face steals her breath. She hadn’t been sure whether or not he’d be upset at her keeping this from him for so long, but seeing him now washes all those fears away.
“There’s a heartbeat?” he asks, fingers flexing under hers, as if he could feel it himself if he tries hard enough. Nahri nods again, the weight of his reaction stealing her words.
She had known, always known, that he wanted children. She had known that not being able to have them, to give them to her, had devastated him, once upon a time. But nothing could have prepared her for this, for the way his hand trembled underneath hers, the way his breath caught, the disbelief and joy blurred beneath the tears clinging to his lashes.
To her, children had never been the miracle people claimed they were. She had figured out the mechanics of growing another life and she had been a firsthand witness to the devastation it wrought on those around her.
But now, she thinks she might understand the sentiment. To Dara, this was a miracle. A dream that had been stolen from him so long ago, only for it to finally be in reach.
Her heart stutters in her chest and for the first time she doesn’t feel any of that familiar fear, the uncertainty that comes with parenthood. How could she, when her partner is so eager and ready?
They had started this adventure together that night in a Cairo graveyard, and went their separate ways for years, growing individually until they were ready to fit together again. And she’d be lying to herself if she said she hasn’t been wanting another one with him.
Dara sinks to his knees in front of her, and Nahri smiles so wide her cheeks hurt when he kisses her knuckles, then her stomach underneath. He’s murmuring something into the fabric of her gown that she doesn’t catch until she leans down to brush her lips over his hair, thrilled to be sharing this moment with him.
