YOUR FATE CANNOT BE AVERTED. YOU'VE INHERITED IT.
✧ ⸻ [ ewan mitchell, non-binary, they/he ] ; welcome back to the rider’s quadrant, ALEKSANDER KOZLOV, we’re so glad to see you’ve survived for your THIRD YEAR ! you may be TWENTY SIX years old, but it’s your signet of WEATHER MANIPULATION, and your proclivity for being DUTIFUL and METICULOUS, that let you get this far. i see you’re just as ABRASIVE and RETICENT as you were before, rider. your dragon is the male, BLUE SWORDTAIL dragon named KOSCHEI, right ? rumor among the riders is that you remind them of love like a jail, extraordinary always just out of your reach, the itch of a scar never-ending, but who takes stock in that ? do try to stay in line, won’t you ? ╱ nimah, 24, they/them, nzst.
"i am going to make a man whos never felt happy for a moment" me, sending in my application at 3am
trigger warning for sibling death / child neglect / emotional abuse and neglect
critically the most important thing i can say is that therapy is needed
second child out of three, absolutely idolized his older brother ilya (who was clinically, eldest daughter complex but also the perfect child) and it's the dead child who's forever living on the mantle and you'll never be good enough (pov i am explaining ilya to you: everyone keeps talking about what a bright future he could have had! what a wonderful child he was! what a good person and how they’re going to miss him so much and you're standing right there with your grief. your grief doesn't matter and they only want him back. they're refusing to let go of a memory of a dead child to accept and love the living ones. you’re begging them to accept you and love you for who you are! but they don’t care. you’re alive and they only care about the dead one)
anyways
but ilya dies. he dies helping put down the civil war (and what a good child! how noble and brave! who rode such a ferocious dragon and did such good and you and your sister are sitting there with all your accomplishments and they mean nothing) and the only thing that his parents want is their son back. aleksander and his younger sister mean nothing. the desperate forever trying to live up to your dead brother, it's never-ending. so they make it into the infantry (and the nepotism about just how brave and skilled his brother is, it wasn't just death, it was a sacrifice to save the rest of his squad, it was to save civilians, it doesn't matter what it was but his ghost cannot stop haunting you.) it was nepotism because their brother was so perfect and it was his downfall because he's never quite enough.
so it comes down to dying or claiming koschei. threshing day comes and he's set his eyes on the prize. it's living up to their brother, claiming the dragon he rode into battle to prove you're just as worthy as he was.
(and you succeed. not without a little maiming. everyone jokes that the dragon only bonded with you because he thought you were your brother. the worst bit is that sometimes you hear the wrong name being whispered through the bond).
the very first letter he gets from his parents is the only one they received in his second year. it makes no comment towards said maiming, no asking how well the scar has healed or should his vision have returned, it only asks if the dragon is well. if their beloved dead son's dragon has been well.
you're never going to escape these ghosts.
wanted connections: i am explaining to u how funny it would be to accidentally call aleksander, ilya because they look so much alike and ur asking if i am mentally well friends (reluctant and also weirdos). ppl who knew his brother. "friends because our dragons are friends/mates and i guess we should be too". worlds slowest and most fucked up slow burn.