@demijn asked : ❝ They don’t know who we are. Not really. " / crooked k.ingdom starters . - selectively accepting .
if there is a heaven , or something beyond sainthood in whatever comes for people of their mortality , the king is fairly certain kaz brekker won’t be found there . with a reputation as dirty as the canal he crawled out of , as dooming as the city he commands , maybe even as broken as all the bones in his body that never healed as they should , he is not made for pristine skies or golden harmonies . made for gold , and for silver , and for stacks of fortunes - and made of titanium , yes , all of these things . but wherever kaz would end up , would end up looking vastly different than paradise . the thought does not comfort fox much , but neither does it move him to the point where he’d try to mend the prospect , he knows he can’t . he knows most of the sins he heard the other committed are either too low a prospect to their actual sum or nothing more but foreplay for whatever the whole story had in store , the whole list . there are good deeds nestled in between all that pitch-black , slivers of silver linings in a starless night , and most of them are personally motivated than actual gestures of projected charity . those silver linings are more vivid because of that , clearer , for if there is one thing going in the crow’s favour it is his personal investments paying off for the people he lets close - or not even close , just close enough to scratch his orbit and bask in the positive effects of his business deals and relations and successes . silver linings aren’t cheap , they’re earned . and maybe this is the last piece of hope left in kaz that could get him out of the worst . that could give him the chance to swim to shore with more than a dying rudder . hope , nikolai has learned , can get anything done . it can even save lives .
( it saved his . ) if there is no paradise for kaz , there won’t be one either for nikolai - and this thought comforts him more so . he is stacked together out of broken edges , a ruin parading as a full-fledged palace , nothing holy having resided in him for years . he is ghosts rattling against his rib cage , graves haunting him like the living never could , empty screams that don’t sound empty in the dark of the night . there is guilt the likes in him that can not be compared , the amount astronomical even for the standards of someone who has been walking around as the footloose presence of grief for years now , the only thing keeping him together all the things he is not - all the things he makes the world believe he is . and the masks he wears are as numerous as they are vibrant , not one duplicate to be found , golden bird to fox to wolf of the sea , tailor-made for a man void of the freedom to be selfish while drowning himself in his selfishness . the depths of his rottenness have manifested themselves in the worst way imaginable , gloves covering his scarred hands all the time / more black stains on his back / scarred skin on his face unable to be remedied ; and the entire thing eating away inside of him the worst of all . they are signs , road marks , that nobody ever really knows him or who he could be . that there are no fairy-tales where the prince ends up being the monster . where a tsar can never win against his own country . he is not the material of fairy tales , or legacies , or psalms . he has become all steel - nobody knows him , nobody is supposed to . they could not bear the truth anyway .
the only person to see through all of the stacked smoke surrounding him is the only other person to fathom how deep his own grave runs , how far he has already dug , because working hands recognize each other . it is , to own surprise and not one ounce of surprise at all , the tailor made and razor sharp reaper of the dregs’ who can see beyond the gilded facade and golden mirrors to find something that he might have found at the bottom of his own deepest pit . a likeness that they share in their worst parts , in the places they don’t show to anybody else ( ambition could kill , memories could murder , people who already lived past their own expectation of morality have little left to lose ) and in the way they convey something to the world that masks all of those things . kaz does not see a king in him , not even a privateer anymore , and more than anything either an opportunity or a convincing investment - maybe both are the same and it doesn’t matter at all . the presence of the other is still accepted , one of the few people a steady flow of contact is one that is not only politically motivated for the king either , and hazel eyes don’t waver when they look at kaz’s sharp feature . unreadable , and somehow more open than he might show on the street , his cane a solid weight against the side of the seat he has found himself in ( and fox wonders for a moment how much of his leisure is contentment and how much of it hides the pain of the hours standing and walking and doing saints-know-what ) , his voice steady gravel down a steel drain . there are no waves when he speaks , it is like hearing bone being stripped off its flesh cleanly as a butcher would , but nikolai has gotten used to the sound as a vote of confidence most times . he does not mind . he takes honesty over performance any day when it comes to his own personal investments . “ never one to back down from a bold claim , are you , kaz?” he replies , not questioning the barrel boss per se , more about gnawing at the ropes just for the amusement and the sake of it . this is how they work , an engine perfected by two outstanding engineers . no one else would need to understand , communication flows as well as a good undertow on a clear sea day with strong wind . “ liking yourself to royalty . but i suppose you are not wrong . quite remarkable , wouldn’t you agree? the unlikeliest pair the world has ever seen , us two . no wonder they don’t know anything about me or you .” the rest goes unspoken : they could not take it .
