There were tears those first few decades, lots of them. The Darkling felt them as a river, running through the palace.
Alina cried as she mourned her life from Before — things had been simpler when she hadn’t been Tsarista of a country at war, when her partner hadn’t been a Tsar she hated as much as craved, when the hunger for power hadn’t been carving out its place inside her bones. And when she’d nearly finished adjusting, she had to mourn her friends as they died — one, by one, by one, by one.
There were fights as they worked out what balance truly meant. Learning to take from the other the power they needed — that was easy. Learning to give? That was something else entirely.
By the time Alina had stopped crying, they had begun to unravel the mystery. By the time their fights more frequently ended in bed than in Alina disappearing for a season, the specifics were hammered out.
Merzost is a tricky thing, and the Fold its own separate beast. Between the two of them, though, his hands resting on her hips as she called on his power — and called and called and called, him a bottomless reservoir and her the full destructive force of the sun — between the two of them, the Fold shrank, shriveled, disappeared.
They stood on the hilltop, gazing at a desert visible for the first time in generations. Abandoned skiffs lined the flats beside the ruins of what had been there centuries before. It was almost possible, if the Darkling looked back on his whole eon of life, to imagine what might be there a hundred years hence.
He was not surprised to see tears falling from his Tsarista’s eyes as she stared over what had been the Fold. He was, though, taken aback at what he found trapped in the ink of his own lashes: a single teardrop, shining like a star.
The Darkling stands at the windows of the palace, watching the latest victim in his Tsarista’s quest to befriend everyone in Ravka walk away, satiated after a teatime full of biscuits and laughter with her queen.
Alina stands beside him at the window, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. This time, he does not say: You collect friends as other women collect jewels. She does not reply: And you collect enemies as I do friends.
Instead she suggests, “Have you considered making a friend, moi Tsar?”
He looks at her and thinks: I have what I need already, right here. If she is unaware he feels this, the fault is not hers. She looks back at him with the inscrutable gaze of her own that she’s picked up after all these years.
Perhaps she hears what he has not said, because she twines their fingers together and smiles. “At least you’ll always have me.”
He lifts her hand and brushes her knuckles with his lips. This time, when he doesn’t speak, it’s because he doesn’t trust his own voice.
Grisha prompt idea: Nikolai/Zoya, first wedding anniversary (sorry, I love them and want to see them together and happy so baaaaaad I could cry)
Nikolai woke to find Zoya already dressed and braiding her hair. He used his elbows to drag himself across the expanse of bed closer to her and watched her in silence for a few moments before asking: “Are you Grisha?”
Zoya’s hands paused in mid-braid, fingers curled around the dark locks of hair. She narrowed her eyes at him in the mirror. “What?”
“I said, are you Grisha?”
“Do not,” she warned.
“You must be a Squaller because you blow me aw–”
The sentence was cut short by a pillow that a gust had whipped from the bed and thrown straight at his face. Zoya had had to drop the hair from one of her hands to accomplish that feat, and now she shook out the partially completed braid to begin again, sighing dramatically in the process. “We’re married, Nikolai. You can stop with the pickup lines.”
“They worked the first time.”
“You being king was what worked the first time.”
It was slightly too true for comfort. He threw a hand over his heart. “And here I thought you had married me because I was best looking person in all of Ravka.”
“You’re not even the best looking person in this room.” She finished her braid and settled the silver crown over her hair before she turned towards him. She was spectacular in blue, as always; the sapphires in the crown perfectly offset the embroidery of her Triumvirate kefta. There may not have been any Lantsov emeralds, but over the last year it’d become apparent that jewels weren’t what made a queen.
She propped her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised in challenge. “Well?”
“You thought I’d forgotten our anniversary?”
“I’m not always sure what to think with you, moi Tsar.” Another truth. Beneath the sheets, Nikolai clenched his gloved hands into fists, fighting the panic that so frequently rose when he least expected it.
She examined him, expression unreadable, and after a moment sank down onto the edge of their bed. One corner of her lips twitched up and she pulled his fist from beneath the covers, gently stroked the leather on the back of his hands. “A year ago, things were –” She stopped, looked down, the curls left out of her braid hiding her face from his view.
“Difficult,” Nikolai filled in.
She nodded. “The Triumvirate was new, you had just become king, Fjerdan Grisha were running high on jurda parem.” She looked out the window, tapping her fingers on his gloved knuckles. “You convinced me that this marriage was for the good of Ravka and I believed you.”
“I’d say I’ve been proven correct several times over by now.” He tilted his head to one side. “Though Ravka may not have been prepared for a queen who was quite so … vicious.”
She smirked. “Is that a problem, Highness?”
He returned the expression. “On the contrary — it’s one of the reasons I love you.”
Another person might have shown surprise at hearing the Tsar drop those words so casually for the first time, but Zoya just grinned. “And what are the other reasons?”
He tugged at a loose curl, halfway between a promise and a tease. “I’ll tell you this evening.”
“It had better be a good long list by then.” She stood, adjusting her outfit in the mirror, turning to make sure to examine every angle. “How do I look?”
“Even more beautiful than the day we got married.”
She snorted. “Well, that’s impossible.” She met his gaze in the mirror and gave him a small smile. “But I love you, too.”
The king of Ravka lay in bed a few more moments after his wife had left, a strange feeling in his chest. It wasn’t until he heard it aloud that he realized it was a laugh.
The Darkling paused, spoon halfway out of his mouth. He’d worked hard to create a reputation that didn’t lend itself to pet names, to be a person whose ‘Aleksander’ would never be shortened to ‘Sasha.’ For the Tsarista to have suddenly taken to calling him ‘honey’ … had it really been so long since he’d Cut someone for no reason at all?
“I said,” Ravka’s Tsarista and Sankta repeated, tapping her fingers loudly on the table between them, “can I have some for my tea or were you planning on eating all the honey?”
The Black Heretic, The Darkling, Tsar and Terror of Ravka and possessor of a major sweet tooth, exhaled in relief. He took one last spoonful of honey before relinquishing the jar to his wife.
okay so when you get inspiration or even if you don’t that’s fine- nikoloya, “are you bleeding?”
“Are you bleeding?”
“Whab? Nbo.”
Zoya narrowed her eyes at the Tsar and held out a handkerchief. “I can see the blood sleeping between your fingers.”
Nikolai took the cloth with his free hand and pressed it against his nose, tilting his head forward to stop the flow. He glanced down at the hand he’d first used to pinch his nostrils, now dyed the deep crimson of his decidedly non-Lantsov blood. “Oh no,” he said ruefully, enunciating better now that his hand wasn’t covering his mouth, “my favorite pair of gloves.”
Zoya was unamused. “The gloves are replaceable.”
“Genya can fix my nose.”
“It’s not your nose I’m worried about, Nikolai.”
“You think you couldn’t replace me?” He widened his eyes in jest, but the blood smeared across his upper lip made the undertone of his question harder to hide, betrayed the insecurities behind the mask: Would she be happier with a different husband? Could Ravka find a better Tsar?
She snorted, unwilling to indulge his turn towards the morose. “I think you’re an idiot for testing your own flying contraptions, is what I think.”
“Luckily,” he waggled his eyebrows at her, monarch grin back in full force, “I have a Tsarista around who will make sure the winds always keep me afloat.”
Zoya rolled her eyes. “As useful as I may be, I can’t save you from your own stupidity before you even get off the ground. Did you really not realize the door would open into your face?”
“I thought I’d be better at ducking.” Nikolai lowered the handkerchief slowly and lifted his face towards his wife. “Better?”
“Better,” she confirmed. “But I’m not helping you test this thing until you fix the door.”
“Deal.”
He leaned towards her and she ducked away smoothly. “And I’m definitely not kissing you with all that blood on your face.”
That seemed reasonable. But because he had to ask: “How about after I clean it off?”
She sighed, and even though she was rolling her eyes again, a smile tugged her her lips. “After that? Of course.”
For the ship prompt: Zoya and Nikolai, and the single word "honesty".
“Do you even listen to the things that come out of your mouth?” Zoya snapped, rubbing her eyes with considerably more force than was called for. She usually tolerated his jokes better, so the late nights must be wearing on her; the rest of the Triumvirate had gone to bed hours earlier, but she and Nikolai were up working, searching for solutions for their broke and broken country. She’d made it clear months ago that dedication to Ravka was the reason she stayed working so late, that she wasn’t there just because she didn’t like being alone once the sun had set; he had agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly and added that his own attendance wasn’t motivated by a fear of whatever nightmares awaited him in bed – just in case anyone had thought that.
“Not if I can help it,” the Tsar retorted, running a hand through his hair and grinning his newly-minted monarch grin. He anticipated the eye roll that he got in return – but it was the small smile that followed it, sad and sincere, that he had been hoping for.
Some day he’d tell her that her smile took the edge off the darkness that always lingered just beyond his vision, that those glimpses of the real Zoya were the only thing that made him glad he had survived the war.
But for all his talking, the King of Ravka was still too broken and too scarred to give voice to the things that mattered most. For now, all Nikolai could do was smile back.
80. “How can you think I’m anything but hopelessly in love with you?” Alarkling :)
After about five seconds I realized I wouldn’t be able to pull off this quote for them without making it feel OOC (or writing 200k words to lead up to it and no one needs that!) so you’re getting a fic that does not use this quote but is how I imagine they might have this sort of conversation. <3
Oncat’s great-great-great-great-and-another-dozen-or-so-greats grandkitty Chatul batted a paw at whatever butterfly or monster troubled his sleep, a motion resulting in the claws of one paw scraping the cushion of Alina’s throne. She ran a finger along his soft exposed stomach, moving just in time to avoid a swipe at her hand.
“Another one?” Her husband strode across the still-empty room and mounted the dais easily, settling into the dark seat beside her. His gaze flicked downward as whiskers twitched against her thumb.
“You always complain,” she observed, rubbing a knuckle across the fur between Chatul’s ears, “but I’m starting to think you actually like the kittens.“
He set an elbow on the arm of his throne, propped his chin on his palm, and lifted one eyebrow a millimeter – true disbelief. “You think I like kittens.”
Chatul opened his mouth into a wide kitty yawn. “I see the way you are around them when you think no one’s watching.”
Her husband glanced towards the closed double doors of their throne room, the first petitioner of the day not yet arrived. “And how is that.”
“You’re different than when you’re here. You have fewer angles, you’re softer.”
Her husband gave a low growl of disagreement and Alina pressed her lips together, a half-hearted attempt to hide the grin that crept across her face as she reached down towards the sleeping cat again. She wasn’t quick enough on the retreat this time, and a drop of blood welled where a claw had pricked the back of her hand. The man beside her tensed at her quick inhale of breath and she could feel the tether between them go taught.
They stared at her hand in silence for a beat, both well-aware that he despised cats and that if the wound turned out to be anything other than trivial he would ensure that this particular kitten wouldn’t scratch anyone again. But the scratch was shallow and she felt him shift as he deliberately relaxed the link between them and channeled his energies into a blackness that began to pool around their feet.
“Sometimes,” she continued, still looking down at the most recent addition to Oncat’s lineage, a kitty that would live to see another day, “you act protective towards them. Almost loving.”
A sliver of shadow paused where it curled around the edges of his throne. “Am I supposed to believe we’re still discussing the cats, Alina?”
She looked up at her husband, eyes wide. “What else would we be talking about?”
At that moment, the doors at the end of the hall opened and Tsar and Tsarista turned to watch their foreign minister approach the dais, his steps echoing in the silence between them. Alina couldn’t keep her lips from twitching upwards as he bowed deeply before their thrones.
57. “Teach me to fight.” for Ivan and the Darkling please. It would be so cool to get a deeper glimpse of their commander/subordinate relationship.
set in The Shadow of War universe, from this meme
Lieutenant Morozova led his division back to camp for the night, making his way through miles of snow punctuated only occasionally by a bush or mountains in the distance. His toes had gone numb hours ago, but cold he was used to, cold he could handle. He had his own heat burning inside of him, a fire that licked at his bones and made him stronger.
A habit of volunteering for and surviving what command considered to be suicide missions had earned him respect and quick advancement in rank; his recent promotion had made him the youngest lieutenant in the Ravkan military by a good stretch. As such, he’d been given the opportunity to hand-select his own division. When he looked back at the women and men in his division as they entered their camp now, he saw his own fire reflected in their eyes, an anger honed to a sharp edge. He’d chosen his people well.
He had just begun to unlace his boots when he heard a muffled shout outside, a scuffle. Seconds later, the flap of his tent opened and one of the men he’d left on guard shoved another man through in front of him.
“Found him on the edges of the camp, Leytenant,” the guard explained. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence; rebels sent scouts to find Ravkan military installments and they occasionally came across Lieutenant Morozova’s. It didn’t concern him much since they never made it back to report on his whereabouts.
The man the guard brought in straightened and looked the lieutenant in the eye, defiant.
But it wasn’t a man at all who stood there in a threadbare coat, shaking slightly from the cold. It was a boy.
“Leave him.” The guard lifted his eyebrows but exited the tent without further comment. The lieutenant remained seated, examining the intruder, waiting for him to speak.
“I know you’re looking for the rebels. I can help you.” Words tumbled out of the boy as if off rocks in a stream.
“How do I know you’re not one of them?”
The boy blinked – he hadn’t thought of that before. “Because I’m not.”
So, not the brightest. And young. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
“She’s dead.” His voice had a hollow note to it, one the civil war had made too common. “My father, too. Killed by the rebels. My uncle raised us, but he’s gone now. My older brother fought at Nabendzhik last year.” Everyone in Ravka knew that name; it had been a massacre. “And my younger brother –” Here he choked, squinted.
The lieutenant might have had sympathy, but this was war. He waited for the boy to regain composure. “I couldn’t save him,” he whispered.
“You want to fight the people who murdered your brother.”
The boy nodded, eager. “I’ve heard of you – everyone says you’re the best. And I can help you, I know the area.”
“I don’t need surveyors, I need soldiers.”
“I can be a soldier.”
The lieutenant leaned back in his chair, ran the tip of a thumb along his jaw. “How old are you?”
The boy lifted his chin. “Old enough.”
“Old enough to be drafted?” The lieutenant was aware that approaching his twenty-first birthday didn’t put him in a position to hold anyone’s relative youth against them, but he didn’t need a child in his division.
“Old enough to volunteer.”
Seventeen, tops. “Can you fight?”
“Teach me.” The cords in the boy’s neck stood out, desperate and strained. “Teach me to fight, and I will be the best soldier you have.” He took a few breaths and lowered his voice, serious. “Give me the chance to help end this war, and I will fight for you for the rest of my life.”
The lieutenant stood and walked around him in a slow circle, taking in every detail. The boy was nearly as tall as he was and probably still had a couple years left to grow. His cheekbones formed hollows but his frame was solid; six months of regular food and training and he’d be one of the largest in the division. His boots had holes but the stance of his feet showed promise, fearlessness. And in the boy’s eyes that glared so desperately into his own, he saw that same spark of fire.
“Name.”
“Ivan.”
“Ivan,” the lieutenant repeated. “Tell the guard to take you to Genya. She’ll see you settled. And be back here tomorrow morning at four.”
Ivan scowled, surprised. “For what?”
The lieutenant sat back down and resumed unlacing his boots. “Training.”
He didn’t see the expression on the boy’s face, but he didn’t have to. Ivan was an orphan – the lieutenant was familiar enough with the desperation and anger that accompanied the loss, the gratitude of finding a home. A few seconds later he heard the flap to his tent open, and he was alone again.
Soldier by soldier, he was creating a division of the best fighters. His fighters. He removed a boot and needles of warmth pricked painfully into the bottom of his foot.
