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aysegust · 21 days

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JUST A HEALER. - K.B

Pairings: (Kaz Brekker x Reader) A/N: Hey Everyone! I hope you all are fine and feel good. May goodness be with you… So this is a new fiction of mine. About Kaz Brekker… Well, I was so stressed about my studies so I wanted to write something to keep my mind occupied. English isn’t my native language, as reminding it again, I might have mistakes. If you saw it feel free to correct it with kindness of course! I hope you’ll like it. There will be a part two. Warnings: Kidnapping, Pekka Rollins, mention of Kirigan. It is mostly based on the first season of the series but I changed things. Word Count: 1.997

You can read the last part here: More Than A Healer. - K.B

A soldier, a healer.

That was all you were to him. A soldier, a healer. Well, the story of you and his crossed in a different path. You escaped from the Little Palace and took a ticket from an unknown ship, with that you went overseas.

As the ship sailed to the shore of Ketterdam, the city where every young-blooded Ravkan wanted to see, you were finally there. Freshly dressed and eager to see a new world. Other than forced to work under king’s command. Well, the missing state you were in probably put a traitor stamp on your name but you didn’t care.

Your parents died, because of Ravka. Because of their policies about taking Grisha’s away from their parents. Your parents die because they never wanted you to be taken from them. They died, because you were a Grisha… You blamed yourself for it from such a long time. But in reality, the blame wasn’t on you, it was on them.

A week passed since you were in Ketterdam, hiding your powers and blending into public. Well, it was safe to say that you were expecting difficulties. You had nothing so it would obviously difficult.

However as the weeks passed, you were able to find a shelter to stay, foods to feed yourself and a job. Well, you were taking care of wounded people, they thought you were talented. Not a Grisha. They thought this woman, you, are just talented and hardworking about what you do. But inside of every touch of yours, you were slowly recovering them faster.

Of course, you bandaged them, cut them, stitch them, clean their wounds but without the people of Ketterdam’s knowledge, as every slight touch of your fingers did the magic.

However, as you were so good at what you do, people talked. Pekka Rollins, offered you a job which you declined smoothly a time. He was pissed but you told him you work openly. But you treated his wounds so that’s why you were still alive.

Even Pekka Rollins didn’t realize you were a Grisha but a certain man, who likes to stay in silence and sees everything in a different gaze, such as reading between the lines, he noticed it.

That night you were going to your home, you heard a sound. It terrified you, so you touched your gun. Then you understood the sound of the cane, was on purpose.

The alley was empty. It was just the two of you, you thought. “It is not a daily thing you see a Grisha in Barrel.” As hearing his words, you turned to him slowly.

“Who are you?” You said to him coldly. He looked at you ruthlessly. As you were looking at his eyes, it was harsh, you felt goosebumps. “The right question is… why a Grisha is doing in the Barrel, Miss L/N?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “I don’t know who you are, but you surely are mad.” He smiled to that. But the smile didn’t match his eyes. “I wouldn’t say that.”

He stepped firmly into your way, you didn’t back away. You wouldn’t show any weakness to him. You were a soldier.

“There’s no need for fighting, I present you an offer.” You looked at him with curiosity after hearing his crooked voice. “I’m listening.” You said firmly.

“You can work for me, and I’ll keep your secret.” You looked at him bitterly. “I don’t work for anyone.” You looked at his eyes. “Believe me, Miss L/N, in the Barrel, a woman like you would be a great investment.” He stopped briefly. “I have been watching you, and it wasn’t hard for me to understand of your little powers.” He looked at you so smoothly.

“Bold of you to assume, that I’ll work under you.” You said it confidently. He looked at his gloves for a moment. “If they finds out you are a Grisha, you won’t last long.” You squinted your eyes. “Is that a threat?” You said.

“No, it is just a warning.” His glances wasn’t disturbing it was frightening. “I give you a day, you can find me in the Crow Club.” Then he disappeared into shadows without even waiting for you to say anything.

After that night, you thought many things. You didn’t know the man, so you pulled strings and searched his name. The Dirtyhands. Bastard of the Barrel. The owner of the Crow Club. Kaz Brekker.

Kaz Brekker.

The Dirtyhands.

He had people work under him. The Wraith, The Sharpshooter… The Dregs. The informations you learned about the infamous Kaz Brekker, led you to his Club.

As you stepped into the Club, it was lighting with warm but sharp colors. You heard every laughter on gambling tables. Some smiling like devilishly, some whine in losing.

You stepped surely to inside. As your gaze fell upon to the upstairs, your eyes met in a brief moment. From the moment you stepped inside to the Club, he knew you arrived.

He made a small gesture, the way his face turned slightly to side, it was a gesture for you to come closer.

You walked slowly into his way, as he lead you to his office. Your gaze wandered the room. The walls were covered in a thick layer, the furnitures are covered in black as the way he dressed. The room looked tidy but his desk was filled with full of papers which looked pure chaotic.

The light of the room was dim. It was weirdly calming but as his body turned to you, your gaze met his. He looked like a wall. No emotion, not even a slight expression.

As you looked at his face, two days ago, looking at him briefly on the streets was not enough for you to look deeply into his features.

Now that you see him, well, he looked beautiful. In a disturbing way, he was looking good. Except for the fact that, he knows your secret and he is threatening you. Also, adding the fact that he is the Dirtyhands. You heard rumors about him before.

“So, you heard about me.” As he broke the silence, you nodded. “The Dirtyhands.” You said with a straight impression. “I heard about you.”

He leaned back on the edge of the table. “Then you heard all the things they said about me.” He replied.

“Look, Mr. Brekker, I don’t work for people. I don’t want to make enemies.” He almost laughed at that. “No, Miss L/N, the clear thing you don’t understand is…” He paused briefly. “Eventually, when people find out who you are, you are not gonna survive a day in here.” He looked at you sharply. “I won’t expose you, but, imagine if Pekka Rollins finds out?”

As he said it, you turned your gaze into one of painting on the wall. “Okay..” It was reasonable. You turned your gaze back to his. “I’ll work for you but under one condition.” You said. “I want a good check.” He looked at you.

“Then we have an agreement.”

Yeah, after that day a year passed as you worked under the Dirtyhands. Well, he didn’t trust you a bit and you weren’t trusting him too but you just had to trust the promise he made.

You were clearly a good asset to him. You treated Inej and Jesper’s wounds. Other members of his crew too. Also you were a great soldier so when a mission arrives, after some time of him trusting you about coming to his thefts, you were quick, strong and loyal.

He even gave you a new identity. Helped you to have a new identity in Ketterdam. So, you wouldn’t suspected to be a Grisha, a Ravkan.

But Pekka Rollins wasn’t happy about the idea of you working under the Bastard of the Barrel, which caused you some headaches. However, Kaz was cautious about everything.

A soldier, a healer.

You were all that to him. Well, you got along with Inej and Jesper. They had unique characteristics. You could feel the joy around Jesper while feeling safe around Inej. She was quiet but she made you feel comfortable.

You can’t say much things about Kaz. He was complicated. Never trusting you much, always prepared for everything and too cautious, too careful. As you observed him through the months, you saw how he deprived himself from touching. You saw the sour face of his after someone in the crowd bumped him with no intention. They thought it was just Kaz hated people. But to you, the way he looked with every little touch the furrowing brows of his tells a different tale.

Which you were curious about it. However, you never had the intentions of learning it. So you slipped the thought away and got along with your life.

You were walking around the corners of the Barrel, you wanted to be alone, as you blended in with the others, the crowds noise was silencing your thoughts. Well, under Kaz’s command, it wasn’t very easy but you felt safe and powerful. The threats of Rollins wasn’t new, but it didn’t scare you that much. Since you were a traitor in Ravka. You flied away from there and left the Army.

Of course, over the time passed Kaz learned why you were in Ketterdam as you told him the story of your life. You thought he would judge you but he was no better man. So he just didn’t mind it.

You earned his respect with how much you cared for his crows. How you treated their wounds after a fight very gently and how you were loyal to him and his team. It didn’t slip from his gazes.

As you turned around the corner, you felt a pair of hands grabbing your mouth harshly. You panicked just for a second. Then you tried to fight back to the man who held you tightly. You took a knife out of your pocket and hit him on his belly, as he whined in pain, you freed yourself from his prying hands. As you turned to look at the man, you heard a strong accent.

“I can say, I was very disappointed to hear you began to work under- Mr. Brekker, aye?” As you heard his voice, you turned to the owner of the voice. Pekka Rollins.

“What do you want?” You said sternly. He approached to you. “It is such a clever move, I say,” He looked terrific. As meeting his gaze, Pekka’s gaze didn’t seem to move away from you. “Hiring a healer? A Grisha.” He smiled. “A traitor…” You look at him disgustingly.

“Well, I don’t know what you are talking about.” You said it dumbfounded. He looked at you with range. “What should I do to you, Dame Blanche, huh? Or should I say… Miss L/N?”

You looked at him with anger. “I don’t care what you’ll do. I won’t back away from a fight.” You said it confidently. He looked at you with smug smile. “Oh, I won’t do you harm, The Black General, I think he is going to do.” You looked at him disbelief. As two of his guy grabbed your shoulders, you fought to get away from their grip but you couldn’t succeed.

Pekka approached to you and squeezed your cheeks in a hurtful manner. “After what would done to you, you are gonna regret to work under that bastard, lass.”

The next minute, you felt pain on your back as slowly, your vision blurred and your eyes went black.

As couple of hours passed and you opened your eyes, the sharp pain on your head was making you feel uncomfortable. You tried to open your eyes but your eyelids were too heavy and you feared.

What if Kaz couldn’t find you?

What if Kaz wouldn’t find you?

What if he doesn’t care about your sudden disappearance?

What if he,

if he thinks you betrayed him too?

#kaz brekker #shadow and bone #reader insert #kaz brekker angst #kazzle dazzle #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker x fem!reader #kaz brekker x you #kaz brekker x y/n #kaz brekker imagine #kaz rietveld #kaz brekker fanfic #shadow and bone series

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ellewritesalright · 2 months

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The Lost Princess - Part 1

Kaz Brekker x fem!reader

Synopsis: The old Queen Mother of Kerch's former royal family is offering a hefty reward to whoever returns her rumored-to-be-alive granddaughter to her. Kaz being Kaz hears about the reward and hatches an elaborate plot involving a fake princess. Reader is a lowly amnesiac orphan and escaped indenture who flees to Ketterdam where she gets tangled in Kaz Brekker's plot.

A/N: Hello friends!! Here is part one of a series I started writing a few years back but never published. It's inspired by the movie and musical Anastasia. I hope you all enjoy, and I hope it makes enough sense haha

Warnings: sickness, mentions of death, mentions of drowning, mentions of violence. pls let me know if I've missed anything

Word Count: 2056

..........

It was happening again.

You sat upright in the bed of your cheap lodgings, swinging your legs to the side and touching the floor. The threadbare rug was itchy against your toes as you took deep breaths, a desperate attempt at grounding yourself. Still, the dizziness did not subside. It came along every so often, never without the cryptic nightmares. There was always vertigo and memories of plunging into dark waters.

At least, you thought they must be memories. There was a significant gap in your mind from birth to the age of about ten, and the first thing you could remember was waking up on a fishing boat on the True Sea. The fishers handed you over to their boss, a wealthy merchant named Devisser, once you made port, and you were made to work for him in a fifteen-year indenture. You had worked as a scullery maid in that man's second home on the southern shores, but you managed to escape your indenture five years early, running off to Ketterdam.

Nowadays you were free to do whatever you pleased--if it was within budget, of course. You had precious little in your life, and you couldn't squander your money in the gambling dens of the city.

You had to be smart if you were to make it to Os Kervo. Another maid at the house had said that there was a better chance of smuggling yourself to Novyi Zem than to find a safe passage to Ravka, but you didn't let her sway you. You had to get to Os Kervo. It was difficult to explain, but you felt instinctively that someone was waiting there for you. In your dreams, the better and brighter ones where you could feel the warmth of arms around you, there was a voice that whispered, "I'll meet you there, my little tiger. We'll be together in Os Kervo."

The only trouble was how you could get there. You had no travel papers or identification, and it was difficult to obtain any--even fake ones--with such little money. It was a difficult position you were in.

So you went about your life, picking up odd jobs using fake names. Your name is already fake as it was. The surname, Vos, was given to you by one of the more kind fishers who pulled you from the water. He gathered a mound of blankets around you and sat with his arm around you, trying desperately to keep you warm. Sometimes you wondered about him, wondered whether he was still fishing for Devisser. Perhaps if the captain of that ship had not seen fit to hand you over to their boss the kind fisher would have taken you in. Life might have been better if you had been offered a chance at a family instead of an apron and a crushing daily workload.

Your feet carried you to the wardrobe in this shabby lodging room. You had to sweep a spider off your jacket before you slipped it on. The morning air was a nice reprieve against your warm face as you walked down the streets. Shops were opening, food vendors were starting the fire in their ovens; Ketterdam was waking up.

You meant to walk further than the Barrel, but you stopped as you saw the window of some sort of pawn shop. There was a dress in the window. It was the emerald green of a kind of fabric you had never owned but knew instinctively would be smooth to the touch, like a flat stone one might skip on the ocean. There was something so familiar about the short ruffles of the over-the-shoulder sleeves; perhaps you had seen a guest at the big house wearing something similar when you used to spy from the door to the servant's quarters.

There was no way you would be able to purchase such a beautiful gown, you barely had enough money to get by as it was, but you were drawn into the shop because of it. You had to spend some more time around it and the other beautiful items in the shop. You hadn't been around such lavish things since… well, never.

The bell above the shop door jangled, alerting a woman at the counter to your appearance. She smiled, but the sight struck you in the chest. As an amnesiac orphan, you learned early on that people saw you as weak, helpless, and naive. For your youth and lack of guidance, you were perceived as easy pickings, and people tried their tricks on you more often than you could count, especially here in Ketterdam. You'd learned to tell what was genuine and what was fake when you interacted with others, and the woman's smile was the first real smile you'd seen in a long time.

"A beautiful dress for a beautiful young lady," the woman said.

You shook your head with a pleasant enough smile. "I was just looking. I could never afford such a thing."

"And yet here you are in my shop." She followed your eyes to a case of assorted valuables. When she saw the dull music box you stared at she hummed. "Would you like to know a secret?" You turned to her "That music box is from the old palace. It belonged to the missing princess herself, I swear on Ghezen and the saints."

You pondered the validity of her words, keeping a level expression so as not to upset her with your doubt. Everything you heard about the dead royal family seemed like it happened a lifetime ago, and no amount of rumours about one of their daughters being alive somewhere would make it any less a ghost story.

Still, you smiled politely. Despite her pleasant expression, she was only trying to sell you something, something you would not need even if you could have it. It wasn't even the most eye-catching thing in the display, just a decrepit old music box of tarnished silver. The music probably didn't even play anymore.

"It's lovely," you lied, "though I don't believe I could afford it."

"I could give you a special deal. I like to think there's something in my shop for everyone. The music box deserves to go home with you."

"That's generous, but--truly--I cannot make a purchase."

She tilted her head at you. "What is it you want, my dear? You've come into my shop, looked around, and you have the nerve to refuse my generosity--what is holding you back?"

"I've already told you," you said, "I couldn't afford it."

"And if I gave something for free?"

You brushed her off. "That's a terrible business model."

"Perhaps. But I like you, little runaway that you are. You're a long way from home--you deserve something nice."

You felt your pulse quicken. She shouldn't have known that. You weren't on the list of runaway indentures, so the stadwatch wouldn’t be looking for you. You breathed in before you could turn to her, balancing your composure with great care. Emotions were not useful in situations like this. "What brought you to that conclusion?"

"You keep your head down, which is normal in the Barrel, but you're not doing it out of habit, you're doing it out of fear. You must be hiding from something--from someone."

She was apt, you'd give her that. The trouble was figuring out the degree to which you could trust her. She could sell you back to Devisser in a second if she wanted to, but she could also be willing to help you. After all, she did say she liked you. You looked her in the eyes and then spoke.

"I'm trying to get to Ravka. The thing is, I don't have the money for travel papers, be they legal or illegal. I can't afford even that, and I could never afford anything in your shop." You straightened out, about to leave. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time--"

"Brekker can help you."

You stopped in your tracks.

“He can get you to Ravka, no travel papers necessary.”

You faced her again, questioning, “Where can I find this Brekker?”

“He owns a club down the road from here. The sign has one of those annoying blackbirds on it.”

“A raven?”

“No, a pesky crow.” She fiddled with a set of keys around her neck. “Anyways, he can help you on your way. I assure you.”

“How much will this information cost me?”

“Nothing, my dear. I hope you make it to Ravka.”

You thanked her, ducking your head as you left the shop. You kept a wary eye about you as you wove through the streets, finding your way back to your lodgings. There was little trust in such a wicked city as Ketterdam, specifically here in the barrel, and you were constantly looking out for any sign of danger. The shopkeeper wasn’t dangerous, not from what you could tell, but you had to keep your wits. One false move and you could be sent back to Devisser.

You couldn’t let that happen.

..........

Kaz stepped out from the back of the shop after the bell above the door rang out once more, signifying your departure. He was lucky to have been behind a particularly packed shelf furthest from the door, else you would have seen him and wouldn’t have explained your plan to Eugenia, the shopkeeper. Eugenia, for her part, did well to nudge you in the direction of the Crow Club. Undoubtedly she would want some credit for that, he knew. And, just as he thought, she brought it up as soon as he reappeared.

"I've found your missing princess for you, Kaz," Eugenia smirked. "And how valuable she'll be for you."

"You didn't do anything for me, Eugenia. She'll be just as impossible as the others," he retorted.

He'd been auditioning young women to play the part of the missing princess for months now. Ever since he'd heard of a hefty reward posed by the old duchess and grandmother to the princess, he'd devised a plan, learning everything he could about the toppled royal family.

"I think she's the one. Do you know why?"

He kept his stare neutral, but the disapproval remained on his lips in permanence. Eugenia liked to speak as though she knew best, leading tourists and tramps into traps as she sold them tin under the guise that it was rare silver. Even wisdom offered by her would be false.

She continued. "She'll play the part--and she'll be damn good at it--because she's desperate. Desperation makes us do what we otherwise would not."

He tilted a brow at her. "What do you want?"

"Waive six months of my rent," she said. There was no way she thought that he would accept this deal. He didn't even have confirmation that you would find him or that you would be willing to go through with his masquerade. Eugenia was a fool.

"If she is a good fit for the princess, I will waive one month of your rent," he bargained.

"Hold on, she is going to make you a million Kruge--I deserve more than a month for that."

Kaz frowned at her, leaning into his cane. Who was she to make demands? "Firstly, there's no guarantee that she can do the job. Secondly, even if she is a good fit, I don't owe you anything. You decided to send her to me before you thought to broker a deal; I don't owe you a thing."

She thumbed at her ring of keys. Eugenia was upset with herself and with him, he could tell.

"If she can play the part," Kaz said, straightening out, "I am willing to waive three months of your rent on the condition that you supply me with whatever I might need from this shop free of cost."

"Whatever you need for the job, right? I can't just give you anything you want from now on."

He nodded. "Just for the job. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal."

Kaz left the shop without the rent that he'd initially come to collect, but with something much more valuable if he played his cards right. He'd only caught a glimpse of you, but he was inclined to believe what Eugenia said. Desperation makes us do what we otherwise would not, and you had sounded plenty desperate.

..........

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feel free to like, reblog, and comment if you want to read more, I really appreciate the feedback! If you want to be tagged in the other parts of this series please comment on this part or send me an ask. And if you want to request a fic, please feel free to send in an ask. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day/night :)

Masterlist

Tags: @justvibbinghere @happyhauntt

#kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker x you #kaz brekker fanfic #shadow and bone fanfic #grishaverse fanfic #the lost princess

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corpsebasil · 1 year

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The Second Son 18+ parte uno

When the Queen of Ravka is widowed and her place on the throne is challenged, the second son must find a way to be there for her.

Y/N pressed her head against the tomb-stone, closing her eyes against the sheer weight that was resting on her shoulders. She’d grown thinner and seemed to drain of color the past few weeks, dealing with daily state meetings, funeral preparations, and planning.

Just last night she’d been yelled at in a meeting, told that she would be forced to step down due to her lack of a son to pass the throne to. Nikolai Lantsov, the man that was technically her brother in law, had thrown a glass about three inches shy of the man’s head, shattering it against the wall.

The message was loud and clear: don’t disrespect Y/N, or Nikolai will deal with it.

He was there now, at the wake, his hand resting carefully on one shoulder as silent tear’s ran down the girl’s face. He had no idea how to truly comfort her—how to comprehend that sort of loss. Vasily had died, died somehow in his sleep, and instead of being sympathetic the members of court had accused her of killing him, had blamed her for her lack of a child, and had utterly abandoned her when she needed them most.

“I’m here for you, you know that.” Nikolai murmured, running his hand along her back. She sniffed and glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes red and cheeks tear-stained.

“It feels like—” her voice caught and he crouched on the ground beside her, looping his arm around her back. “like I’ve lost everything. My husband, my dignity, any friends.” She shook her head, eyebrows pulling together as her pretty face began to crumple. “I have nothing left, Nikolai.”

“You have me.” He assured his queen and, damn the onlookers, he pulled her into him, holding her as close as he dared as she wept against his chest.

The next few months were torture for Nikolai.

It felt like nothing was good enough, nothing could help her. It amazed him that she managed to get herself out of bed, her miserable gaze growing cold and steely when accusations or criticism were thrown her way. She went to every meeting. Deflected every harsh phrase. And Nikolai had to watch as the woman that had always been so full of life, the woman he’d known since they were teenagers, slowly turned into a shard of ice.

“Y/N,” he called, following after her down the hall one afternoon. Her handmaidens, carefully selected by Y/N herself, all fixed him with territorial gleams in their eyes as he approached. “what do you think of a walk in the gardens?”

“She is busy, Sobachka.” One of the girls practically sneered, looking down her nose at him.

“If she wishes to walk in the gardens,” another argued, looking at her fellow maiden. “then she can with us. We will keep her safe, prince.” She smiled at Nikolai, almost sympathetically, as Y/N’s cool stare found his own.

But whatever she saw on his face had her own eyes softening, and she laid a hand on the girl that had practically hissed at him’s shoulder.

“Easy, Marian.” Y/N sighed, then nodded to the other girl. The third was still silent, peering over the queen’s shoulder with an almost childlike shyness. “Delia, Anika, will you please visit the dogs in the kennels? I hear a new batch of puppies was born and I’d like to hear if they’re worth the company.”

The shy one, Anika, immediately lit up, grasping the other two girl’s hands and rushing away, the three laughing as they raced. Nikolai had never seen such whimsical behavior in his court; it warmed him momentarily, only until the one named Marian shot him a look that promised a horrifying death if anything happened to her queen.

“My handmaidens,” Y/N mused, watching as they linked arms and began skipping as they rounded a corner. “are quite energetic. But they keep me sane.” She sighed, turning back to Nikolai, and tilted her head to the side in a ridiculously adorable way that had Nikolai feeling strangely flustered. “They are also trained killers. Wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you will.”

“How um—” Nikolai cleared his throat, nodding his head towards the garden. “How lovely. I do think that Marian wanted me dead on the spot.”

“She’s my cousin.” Y/N admitted, surprising Nikolai. “She came all the way from our northern cities to be at my side during this time.”

“I like her already.” Nikolai said, offering her his arm. “I’m a bit scared of her, but I like her.”

Her laugh stunned him enough that he shot her an incredulous look, one he quickly wiped off his face when she looped her arm through his own. How she could even smile with what she was going through was beyond him. But he saw the darkness under her eyes; he could see the way she seemed to sink down into herself, like she had a permanent exhaustion wrapping around her.

They moved throughout the hallway, passing into the gardens, the sweet smell of flowers floating along the air. Y/N let go of Nikolai to kneel by a rose bush, inhaling deeply. She seemed calmer, now. Less tired. She tipped her face back into the sunlight and closed her eyes, and Nikolai’s heart almost stopped.

He’d seen her do that same gesture about a hundred times but now, watching her that afternoon, she seemed more radiant than ever.

“You look—” he started, then stopped. Her eyes cut to his, wide and gorgeous, and he wasn’t sure why his chest had grown tight. “beautiful.”

Something in her face changed, a subtle twitch of the mouth, but she seemed to straighten, a sheen of delight appearing slowly in those captivating eyes of hers.

“Thank the Saints someone thinks so.” She said, laughing half-heartedly, and turned back to her flowers.

“I’m sorry about Vasily.” Nikolai blurted, his heart rate speeding. Saints where was this coming from? “I know you loved him and—”

She startled him by cackling, a surprisingly witchy sounding laugh that sent the hairs on the nape of his neck on end. He stared, borderline stunned, as she covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes twinkling at the prince.

“What?” She gasped, fighting off her laughter. She glanced around to make sure no one was around and, almost conspiratorially, whispered to him, “I hated that bastard. He was an arrogant son of a—”

“But you—you cried. At his funeral.”

“I might not have cared for him but he was still my husband.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes. Then she took in his stunned expression and frowned slightly, reaching out to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I promise I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He only shook his head, but was unable to stop himself from leaning a bit into her touch. The wicked gleam in her eyes told him enough: she would’ve like to be the one that killed him.

“You wanted children, though?” He offered, moving a step closer, and was met by a rush of warmth when she made no move to back away. “You—you always told me you wanted…you told the court that you’d tried—”

Her expression darkened and she turned away, striding a few steps before turning back.

“The people of court know nothing about my desire for children, or how much I wanted to be a mother.” Nikolai was horrified to see tears beginning to form in his queen’s eyes. “They don’t know about my—” she wiped a hand over her face and gave him an agonized look. “he wouldn’t touch me. I couldn’t tell anyone. How am I to be blamed for being childless when he wouldn’t lay a single hand on me—"

“He what?” Nikolai interrupted, startled. The fact that his brother had never bedded her, hadn’t wanted to, was a fact that made absolutely no sense to him. He’d felt a stab of burning jealously in his chest when she’d said she’d tried to have children, and had chalked it up to fertility issues. “Not once?”

“He kissed me on our wedding day. During the ceremony. That was the last time.”

He only stared, briefly winded, and moved towards her. That she didn’t move away gave him courage, not even when he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gave her a look so filled with longing it took her breath away.

“I’m sorry.” He said, and didn’t move when she leaned closer into him. “If I would’ve known—I knew you wanted to be a mother. I would’ve liked you to have had that, at least.”

She nodded, eyes sad, and she surprised him by hugging him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He didn’t hesitate to hold her, breathing in her flowery scent, as she pressed her face against him.

“I won’t let go of my dreams.” She whispered, fingers clutching him tighter. “I will find a good man, a man who truly loves me, and we’ll have a family together. And I’ll be at peace, knowing I’ve gotten what I’ve always wanted.”

His arms seemed to loop around her further and she closed her eyes, absorbing his warmth the best she could. This was Nikolai, one of her closest friends, the boy that had teased her and played pranks on her throughout their youth. This was the boy that had once snuck her away to a village festival had spun her around so fast during a dance she was afraid she’d puke.

The boy who, during her wedding, had rose in the middle of the ceremony and left, a barely suppressed sob catching in her throat as she watched him leave. And now he was running a hand over her hair, his face dangerously close to her own, as she pulled back to look at him.

“I need time.” She told him, voice quiet, as she looked up. “I need time but—but if you care for me…in any way I might feel about you, then maybe..” she swallowed, glancing away. “I would’ve liked it to be you.” She admitted, and he could hardly hear her words over his pounding heart. “I never wanted him. It was always—” she couldn’t finish, her grip on him tightening, and he simply laid a kiss against the top of her head, a smile on his handsome face.

“However long you need,” he said, sliding a hand up to her cheek to pull her eyes to his. “I’m here. Always.”

The months seemed to fly by. Months of spending almost every second with one another; every morning, as a tradition, they had breakfast together. They took walks together, and horse rides, and he took her to see shows and slowly, slowly, she came back to herself. She became giddy at the sight of him, at his smiling face and his kind words.

Even Marian, the coldest of her handmaidens, took a liking to Nikolai. She annihilated him when they played cards, to his dismay, but even her steely, protective cousin began demanding when they could all see the prince again. And then came the night after he and Y/N had gotten a bit drunk, laughing and dancing around her rooms.

“This is not queenly behavior,” he laughed, watching as she twirled around and around, her crown tossed carelessly on a couch.

“I’m still a girl, Nik.” She grinned, flouncing towards him, and took his hands, forcing him to dance with her. “Come on, you lazy bastard. Dance with me.”

He laughed aloud, tugging her into him and, so fast he didn’t know what he was even doing, he dropped a kiss down onto her mouth. She froze in his grip, expression sobering as she pulled back, and he instantly regretted the decision.

“I’m sorry, I—” he felt panicked, watching as she stared at him so calculatingly he was sure he had made a gigantic fool of himself. “I didn’t mean to I just—”

But then she was lunging for him, practically tackling him over as she kissed him hard, with everything she had, and he tugged her roughly against him. A pretty moaning noise left her mouth when he lifted her, wrapping her legs around him as he moved to her bedroom.

“Nikolai,” she breathed, pulling back for only half a second to look at him. “please I—”

“Anything you want.” He murmured, kissing her again, before dropping her down on her bed. She immediately shoved him onto his back, straddling his hips, pressing as close to him as she could when he tugged her mouth back to his own.

It felt desperate, ridiculously so, this inevitable joining. He practically ripped her dress off as she tugged at his belt, her face flushed and hair tousled. Then she gasped as he slipped his hand between her legs, running the calloused fingers across her center, then inside.

Her head dropped to his shoulder as she keened out his name, feeling every single curl and thrust of his fingers into her. And gods, he was good. Especially when he rolled her onto her back, tugging off the rest of her clothing, and moved down between her legs.

Her head was spinning. Spinning, as his tongue dipped inside her and then dragged up, his hand still working her as best as he could. She clutched at him, anything she could hold on to, her face so warm she thought she was on fire.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” he mumbled against her, barely intruding the fog that had swarmed within her mind. “not yet.”

“That’s—” her breathing was ragged through the intensity of the pleasure. This had never been done to the queen before—never—and she was having trouble focusing on his words at all. “I want to make you—“

“Next time.” He promised, and with a particularly hard lick against her, his fingers curling to brush against that certain spot that made her head spin, she came, shaking so hard she had to grip him with both hands in order not to jolt away.

Then she laid spent, chest rising and falling at a rapid clip as he moved beside her, his lips pressing against her neck in slow, soft kisses.

“I want you to…do more with me.” She said, turning her head to face his. Lord, he didn’t even have sex with her and he looked completely fucked out. Her stomach dropped at the sight and her face warmed further.

“Later.” He swore again, bringing her mouth to his, then brushing his tongue against her own. “I want to make love to you until you can’t think of anyone else.”

“I never have.” She said, swallowing nervously. “Never anyone else.”

He ran his fingers across her cheek, smiling softly.

“You have no idea how much I care about you.” He breathed and then added, almost as an afterthought, “Your Majesty.”

“Oh hush.” She scoffed, climbing over him to straddle him once again.

They kissed long into the night, her fingers in his hair, a bruising grip from him on her hips. And then later, though not too long later, he’d tugged her up over his head, forcing her to grip the headboard as he licked at her until she broke again.

hi I feel jealous and also unhinged

#shadow and bone #nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai x reader #wattpad #shadow and bone imagine #fluff #six of crows #smut #sturmhond smut #sturmhond the sassy biotch #sturmhond x reader

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thebadgerclan · 1 year

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Jealousy

Pairing: Nikolai Lantsov x reader

Summary: Jealousy is a heady thing

In the four years of your marriage, you never had reason to doubt Nikolai. He was faithful, loving, adoring to a fault, always making it explicitly clear that he was yours and yours alone. And you were his, and you were happy. However, you were not only Nikolai’s wife, but the Queen of Ravka, and such a position came with more than a few smitten admirers.

Letters arrived at the Grand Palace daily, which were opened, read, and sorted by palace staff. It wasn’t unusual for upwards of 20 letters a week to arrive for you, most of which were declarations of love, sonnets of your beauty, pleas for you to abandon your husband and marry them. You found them humorous, but they sparked Nikolai’s jealousy. Letters were one thing, an abstract thing, easily tucked away, but when his courtiers, his advisors, and even foreign dignitaries expressed their desire for you, the King thought he could explode.

Nikolai knew that you were faithful, but he was a man: a man who loved and adored his wife more than anything else, and a man who was very protective of you. Of course, the King of Ravka attracted admirers as well; “An occupational hazard, my dear,” your husband said, but that didn’t mean either of you had to like it.

Now, you knew exactly how Nikolai felt when an advisor made eyes at you or a courtier presented a poem of your beauty. You were attending a state dinner held by the Shu, and as soon as the two of you had entered the ballroom, Nikolai was swarmed by all of the unwed Taban sisters and several of their ladies. As you’d stood in the entryway, waiting to be announced, your husband had taken your hand and pressed a lingering kiss to it.

“You are divine, my Y/N,” he praised. “The most beautiful woman to walk the earth.” You’d chosen a gown of deep purple, your skirts flaring out in a ballgown shape, the fabric light and gauzy. An amethyst necklace hung in the divot of your collarbones, matching gems hanging from your ears. Your hair was twisted into an updo, and the tiara perched there matched the precious gems on your neck and ears. When you were announced and entered, all eyes in the room turned to you and Nikolai, mutters in several languages filling the room.

But it was soon after that your husband was flocked by simpering women, all of whom clearly desired the man at your side. Nikolai kept you on his arm, positioning his left hand just so to show off his wedding band, but the Shu ladies seemed to pay it no mind. “Oh, Your Majesty,” one of the Taban princesses, Yenye, you thought, cooed in Ravkan. “You simply must stay here for a few days. Perhaps to receive a tour of the capital?”

Her attempt at flirting was shameless, and you fought to avoid rolling your eyes. But your husband simply smiled. “I would love to, Your Highness, but I’m afraid I must return home. My wife and I have much to attend to.” Nikolai had deliberately referred to you as his wife, but the women before him were not cowed. They continued to compliment the King: how intelligent he was, how brave he was, how handsome the Ravkan men were, all of which had your temper boiling.

At one point, Princess Kheru dropped her fan, and when she bent to retrieve it, gave your husband a rather opportune look at her bosom. Nikolai pointedly averted his eyes, squeezing your hand as he did. This song and dance went on for quite a while, but it was a whispered phrase in Shu from one of the princesses ladies that made you snap. “It’s a good thing that marriage is not sacred to the Shu…”

You pulled yourself upright, forcing every bit of regality and poise into your voice when you said, “But marriage is sacred to the Ravkans, and you will have no success in your pitiful attempts to woo my husband,” in perfectly accented Shu. The lady went ashen, and she bowed her head. “Your Majesty, I did not know you spoke Shu.” “I do,” you said, voice clipped. “Ravka, Shu, Fjerdan, Kerch, Zemini, but that isn’t the point. I understand the difference in our cultures concerning the sanctity of marriage, but allow me to make myself clear:

“I will not tolerate any advances towards my husband. He is devoted to me, as I am devoted to him, and if you think your pathetic attempts at flirtation could make him stray, then you are delusional.” The princesses and their ladies stood shocked, all staring at Nikolai, who merely shrugged. “My Queen, as usual, is correct. I’m flattered, ladies, but I only have eyes for my beloved. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

Your husband steered you from the ballroom, ignoring the questioning looks you received. When you were clear of the opulent chamber, you took Nikolai’s hand and dragged him back to the rooms you’d been given. Your husband followed you with surprised delight, which only increased when you entered your room, shut the door, pressed him against said door, and kissed him hungrily.

Nikolai was all too happy to let you kiss him and tug at his jacket until it was unfastened, but when you broke the kiss to press your lips over his neck, he smirked. “All Saints, you’re jealous, aren’t you, Y/N?” You didn’t answer, only pushed your husband’s jacket from his shoulders. “Sweetheart, look at me.” Something in his voice compelled you to lift your head, and you saw your husband gazing at you with infinite love and affection.

“I am yours, Y/N, I always have been, and I always will be.” “I hated seeing them look at you like that,” you admitted. “Like you were…theirs for the taking.” “I know, lapushka, I’m no one’s but yours. But perhaps you know what it’s like having all those men back home looking at you that way.” You nodded, feeling your jealousy and rage cool. “I suppose.” Your husband lifted your chin gently, his eyes locking with yours.

“I love you, Y/N, and only you.” “I love you too, Nikolai. I’m yours.” Your husband kissed you again, this kiss sweeter, more tender, but just as deeply and passionately. “We should get back to the dinner,” Nikolai said, pulling his jacket back on and fastening it. “How do I look?” “Perfectly rugged,” you replied, and your husband pecked your cheek. When you returned to the ballroom, no one mentioned what had occurred between the Queen of Ravka and the Shu princesses, nor did they mention that said Queen appeared to have been thoroughly kissed.

#nikolai lanstov x reader #shadow and bone fanfiction #nikolai lantsov x you #shadow and bone reader insert

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marvelmusing · 1 year

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This post made me think of Aleksander's reaction to the Shadow and Bone book in IAL and the idea got its claws in me...

So the book is from her perspective, right? And Alina is an unreliable narrator...

What if, in the future, academic(?) Reader decides to do research on the popular historical work of the Diaries of Sankta Alina, otherwise known as the Shadow and Bone trilogy...

As Reader starts to dig in it becomes more and more obvious that Alina is not only an unreliable narrator but either pretty delusional or making up most of the stuff... or maybe both...

The research takes an even more interesting turn when Reader is able to track down Aleksander who is alive and well and...

(aaaaand I'm not gonna do spoilers in case I ever get to write this 🙃)

I am so in love with this idea

Imagine reading Sankta Alina’s Diaries (the S&B trilogy) and just fact checking all her comments about Grisha and the Darkling using official army documents and public records.

Imagine reading letters from General Kirigan to certain First Army officials and discovering what a delicate situation it was for Grisha. Seeing the almost never ending lists of casualties in battles and the number of Grisha missing (assumed dead at the hands of the Drüskelle).

Imagine reading diary entries from random Second Army soldiers who experience Grisha prejudice on a daily basis and were killed on the front lines fighting for Ravka. Imagine learning that they weren’t the spoilt people that Alina described when she lived at the Little Palace.

And managing to track down Aleksander?!? I’m picturing this as very modern-day Ravka, so is he still living in Os Alta as some sort of Grisha activist maybe? Is he still pretending to be his own descendant? And the reader has deciphered the intentionally complicated family tree of the Darkling (that Aleksander fabricated himself) to find him?

#aleksander morozova x reader #aleksander morozova #my mutuals are amazing #my mutuals (affectionate)#answered asks #thanks for the ask!

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jahayla-parker · 7 months

Text

King Of My Heart : Nikolai Lantsov x Reader Series

Part 3

For warnings, descriptions, and previous parts, see series masterlist here.

*Few Days Later*

Nikolai noticed Y/n was seemingly angrier than normal. He didn’t know why nor did he know why he cared in the first place. Maybe it was because she has been even less tolerable than normal? Whatever the reason behind his interest, he intended to figure out why she was angrier lately.

Y/n shot Nikolai a side-eye glare as she flaunted down the hallway towards the trade meeting. She was upset as it turned out that Nikolai had infuriatingly been correct on this matter. The council of the boring meeting he’d attended at the start of the week had expected both of them to be in attendance.

Y/n was certain Nikolai had told her parents, or told his parents who in turn told hers, that she’d skipped the first meeting. Because suddenly, when she woke the next morning, the servant that the Lantsov family had assigned to y/n informed her of her required presence at the meeting that day; and every day there after. Y/n was simultaneously informed that her parents were displeased with her having missed the first session.

So, as much as she found it to be pointless, having no true knowledge nor interest in trading policies or matters, y/n complied. Y/n promptly began attending. Much to her added frustration, due to her arranged engagement, during the course of the daily meeting y/n had to sit besides her nemesis and soon-to-be husband, Nikolai.

The trade meetings were held for a minimum of two hours each day of the week, apart from Sundays. Always at the same time and always in the evenings; during the one time y/n had initially expected to have time to herself. It was her fault. After all, y/n was the one who made the decision to cram her daily schedule as much as she had. Part of her reasoning was to make it easier to avoid Nikolai. While y/n undoubtedly had other responsibilities and meetings she had to attend with him apart from the trade meeting, there had still been too much leisure time. Y/n needed to fill it so she could be away from Nikolai without it being suspicious to anyone who might be scrutinizing their behaviors or relationship. Plus, it kept her from becoming bored or needing company during the day.

The other part of her reasoning though was far more logical. Y/n knew Nikolai wasn’t the Crown Prince. But, she’d be a fool to not be prepared should something happen in which she and Nikolai would have to rule. Of course y/n’s childhood and adolescence were filled with lessons in royal life, duties and responsibilities, policies, diplomacy and politics, studying other countries’ cultures and histories, etc. Yet, she felt severely under qualified to consider herself well informed on Ravka. Much less to the point where she’d feel confident enough to rule if needed.

Even as the soon-to-be Crown Princess of Ravka, y/n would have responsibilities that would require her to have a better understanding of the country. As such, while she could’ve scheduled in time for relaxation, such as her ballet, to hide from her fiancé in her free time, she couldn’t actually get herself to. Instead, y/n crammed her schedule with an overwhelming amount of classes. Most of which had her joining young Ravkans or new students of The Little Palace in their standard courses. As embarrassing as it felt to join in classes where the other students were less than half her age, y/n did it, for the sake of her country countries. It mattered to Ravka and it mattered to her country that she did well in her arranged marriage to Nikolai. Even though her home country had never treated her well, it was her duty to uphold this arrangement and make the best of it. Besides, her close friends lived in Ravka. And, even though she despised having to see Nikolai, she otherwise enjoyed the summer vacations in which they traveled to Ravka. As such, she’d suffer the embarrassment of these classes if it meant she was doing what was best for Ravka.

However, her sense of duty made it so y/n only had a brief two hour window to herself each night. Unfortunately, that two hour window was at the same time as the trade meeting. She hadn’t been alerted to that requirement when she was scheduling her days out. But, now she was committed to her courses and had now learned that she couldn’t skip the meeting. As such, y/n had lost what was the only time she had to herself; the time with which she intended to practice her dancing.

Y/n hadn’t been able to dance since the beginning of the week; the day after her arrival. It was now nearly the end of the week and it was starting to get to her. A week in, and she was already under a lot of pressure and has been experiencing so many changes she was expected to quickly become accustomed to. To make matters worse, y/n hadn’t been able to release her frustrations or other built up emotions through the rhythmic motions of her ballet dancing.

Ballet had been y/n’s one true escape at home. Her sanctuary. And while she was beyond relieved and extremely grateful that the Lantsov family arranged a private room for her to use, she had only been able to use it once. Y/n kept telling herself she just had to hold out for Sunday. There weren’t any classes or meetings on Sundays, so she could spend as much time in the makeshift dance studio as she wanted.

However, even that reminder wasn’t enough to keep y/n from feeling out of sorts tonight. They’d finished with the trade meeting over an hour ago. Normally she’d be heading to her chambers to study, bathe, or read. But tonight, Nikolai’s family had thrown another large party. The pressure to keep up appearances, especially towards Nikolai was getting to her. All she wanted to do was sneak away to spend time by herself, practicing her ballet. But instead, she was stuck here in the horrendously bright palace’s gathering hall. Surrounded by strangers she knew she should get to know, but couldn’t be bothered to care enough to even try to do so tonight.

Genya, Nina, and even Zoya had all checked on y/n various times tonight when they noticed she seemed off. Yet, y/n brushed off each of their worries. After all, while she loved her friends and knew they meant well, y/n had to upload her appearance. Even to them. Not to mention, if she began to complain about Nikolai’s irritating behavior -like the way he intentionally tried to embarrass her by holding her hand in meetings, or how good he was at keeping up the fake image of them being a couple in love-, y/n knew her friends would taunt her. And she couldn’t stand the idea of having to argue with anyone tonight.

As such, y/n was standing alone, sipping on the sparkling beverage the servants were carrying around on silver engraved platters for the guests. When her eyes searched the room as her mind counted down the hours until she could go to bed, she noticed Nikolai was watching her closely. She instinctively shot him a side-eye glare as she turned away from him.

Y/n decided she needed a breath of fresh air and a moment alone. She politely excused herself as she made her way through the crowd of guests. Y/n already felt slightly lighter as she creaked open the stained glass door that led to the palace’s patio and gardens. She could see there were a few other people outside, but they were spread out enough that she wasn’t troubled by it. Y/n knew the people were far enough away, and the sky dark enough, that she could still let herself relax some. Hopefully, even letting herself work through her anger, feelings of being homesick (not for her parents or country but rather for her bed, previous schedule, her own Palace gardens, and her original dance studio), and her need to be alone.

Nikolai watched as y/n slipped onto the patio; alone. He downed his drink and handed his now-empty glass to the closest servant. Nikolai respectfully excused himself from the Colonel he’d been chatting with. He did so with a simple explanation that he needed to go check on his fiancé.

Nikolai quickly made his way though the horde of guests his parents deemed important or otherwise influential to their continuing ruling. While he’d told the Colonel the truth, Nikolai wasn’t sure why he felt that way. Y/n could handle herself; Nikolai knew that much to be true. Yet, he still found himself being pulled to follow her outside.

Perhaps it was because it's dangerous to be alone in the dark. After all, even if though Nikolai hated y/n, the last thing he needed was his betrothed to be harmed on his grounds especially before they sealed the unity of their countries.

It didn’t take Nikolai long to find where y/n had wandered off to outside. He let out a silent sigh of relief upon finding her kneeling beside the lilies. Despite the cold air, Nikolai felt an odd warm sensation in his chest as he watched her breathing in the scent of the flowers. He couldn’t explain the sensation. Nor could he explain why he was still here. Clearly Y/n was safe, so Nikolai wondered why he was still standing here.

However, Nikolai soon found his mind turning away from questioning himself and towards warm thoughts about y/n. He couldn’t lie, he’d been relieved when he saw she was safe. But, he could at least claim it was because of his responsibility to ensure his future wife wasn’t harmed. Yet, that didn’t explain the warmth that filled his chest, the flush of his cheeks, or the way his mind began to burst with thoughts of y/n. And not the hateful, sarcastic, witty comeback type of thoughts Nikolai normally had towards her. These were very different.

Nikolai had first been surprised nearly a week ago when he saw how soft Y/n could appear when she let her guard down in the dance studio. But, this was something different still. This was more. This was true depth.

The Prince watched silently as a single tear dropped from Y/n’s face, shimmering in the moonlight as it cascade down her cheek. Nikolai surprised himself yet again when he found that he wanted to console her. He’d come out here out of annoyance over having to protect her during her fleeing of her responsibilities at the party, hadn’t he?

He reminded himself that even if he wanted to help, which he told himself was likely only because he couldn’t have people seeing his fiancé crying in his presence, he’d likely only make it worse. He suspected that Y/n wouldn’t want him to console her or even trust the sincerity of his offer or attempt. As such, he forced himself to remain still and silent as the Princess quickly wiped the tear from her own face. He listened as she took in a sharp breath, clearly trying to keep her composure. The act only made Nikolai want to help her more, he knew what it was like to have to compose yourself to fit the image of proper royalty, no matter whatever one was going through. But, he again restrained himself from acting.

Fortunately, Y/n seemed to regain her composure quickly. Yet, it made Nikolai solemnly wonder how often she had to do that. She was seemingly far too experienced in it. Although, he couldn’t figure out why he cared about that.

Nonetheless, Nikolai’s thoughts betrayed him again as he watched y/n tenderly hold the base of one of the lilies between her delicate fingers. Upon squinting, Nikolai could see what appeared to be faint traces of pencil lead marks on the soft part of her left thumb, likely having come from smudging some of the notes she’d made earlier. He wasn’t blind or ignorant, he knew y/n had been maintaining a full schedule each day, but he’d rather die than be caught asking anyone what it was she was doing during her day, even if his mind was almost screaming the curious question now.

However, the longer Nikolai silently stood there watching y/n, his mind drifted away from the gray smudges on her fingers. Instead, he found himself in deep thought as he watched her gently trace the petals of the flowers. Soon, the way Y/n was being so careful with the flower brought a once long-forgotten memory to the forefront of Nikolai’s mind.

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riality-check · 1 year

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more grishaverse au thoughts, continuing from this

If a person were on a quest to find the most boring place in Ravka, the dry docks at Kribirsk would more than satisfy them.

Eddie thinks this as he hauls yet another crate onto a skiff. Then another, then another. It’s slow, monotonous work, but Eddie supposes he should have been more careful about what he wished for. He wanted something different than the idleness and isolation of the Little Palace, and here he is, constantly busy and constantly surrounded by people.

Most people, he has learned in the two years he has been here, smell awful.

“Munson! Work a little faster, will you?” Ivan, the man next to him, says, passing him another crate.

Are we hauling bricks? Eddie thinks, nearly staggering under its weight.

He doesn’t miss the way that Ivan laughs at him. Hell, if it were anyone else, Eddie would laugh with him. It’s been two years since he came into Kribirsk with three gold coins and no work experience and took a job on the docks because they were always hiring. Two years, and almost no muscle to show for it. Then again, Eddie had always been a little sickly.

Eddie loads the crate onto the skiff. As he lifts his straining arms up, he feels the sweat roll down his back underneath his shirt.

He looks up at the sun, annoyingly cheerful and annoyingly hot in the bright blue sky. It can’t be any earlier than midafternoon, so he has at least five more hours of work. The same work, day in and day out.

What joy.

“Munson!”

Eddie fights to not roll his eyes and turns to see Dmitri, his boss, standing on the skiff and looking down on him in the condescending way he’s so fond of. Eddie wants to mouth off, say something to wipe that look off his face, but the last time he did that, he was mysteriously out of work for a week. He could barely afford the bread he made stretch through that week, and he shudders to think about how hungry he was.

So, he bites his tongue so hard he might be tasting blood.

“Yes, sir,” he grits.

“You’re on the skiff this time,” Dmitri says.

Eddie feels his heart drop in his chest.

It’s not uncommon for dockworkers to accompany cargo every once in a while. More valuable products need more protection going across the Fold, and sometimes the skiffs come into Kribirsk with less men than they started with.

Eddie tries to shake that thought out of his head, but it’s a little difficult when the Shadow Fold is right in front of him: a wall of roiling darkness stretching up to the sky and as wide as Eddie can see it. Going around means crossing the borders into brutally cold Fjerda or the brutally hot Shu Han. Going over is impossible: the darkness can’t be scaled in any way.

The only way to the coast and to West Ravka is through.

Eddie thinks about growing up near the coast. He remembers the smell of salt and the constant noise of the waves, remembers the way his hair curled up in the salt air, remembers days spent playing in the waves and lazing on the sand.

Hell, if he goes through the Fold, he’ll get a job in Os Kervo and stay near the sea. He’ll miss a letter from Steve, but he can always send a letter with his new address.

That sounds like a good idea, except for one thing: going through the damn Fold.

Eddie would rather freeze his toes off in Fjerda than go through. The darkness is unnerving and unnatural, chilling him to his bones in a way that real cold never has. He has heard every story about it, about the disorientation of it, about the long, long time spent there. He has seen corpses come out of it daily, bodies deposited on the dry docks of Kribirsk, and he has seen every sketch of the volcra that has ever been published.

He shudders to think of the volcra, of their sickly pale wings, of the sickening amount of teeth in their mouths.

“Did you hear me?” Dmitri asks.

“Yes, sir,” Eddie says, rather than voicing any of that. He’s a coward to be afraid of a little darkness, and they’re better defended against the volcra than they ever have been. Eddie has seen fewer bodies this month than he has in the past two years, so that must mean something good, right?

Eddie is a coward. He has known this since he was very young, but he won’t let anyone else find that out.

“Good,” Dmitri says. “Grab your things, then get on. We leave in ten minutes.”

He walks away before Eddie can ask anything about how many provisions he needs, if he should bring a weapon, before Eddie can ask anything at all.

Prick.

Eddie grabs his bag, the one he’s patched with various scraps of clothing, the one that has little bits of gold thread sewn into all of the patches. Every time he sees it, he smiles because that gold thread was Steve’s.

If you’re going to go, he had said, plucking some of the embroidery out of the cuff of his sleeve, then take me with you.

Eddie had wanted Steve to come with him, and Steve had wanted Eddie to stay, but they had moved past the screaming matches about that to not talking about it. Instead, they write letters. One a week, more if they have time. Eddie tells Steve about city life, the good and the bad because he is nothing if not honest, and Steve writes back about the happenings in the Little Palace.

From his letters, it seems like not much has changed since he left, except for the fact that Steve seems to talk to more people now. That’s good. They were both two lonely boys when Eddie left, and now they at least have friends outside of each other. Eddie has a group of guys he goes drinking with after the day’s work ends, a group that will happily accompany him on whatever he chooses to play that night.

Steve writes about other Grisha he’s friends with: an Alkemi named Robin, a Durast named Jonathan, and a Heartrender named Nancy. They seem to be wonderful in all of Steve’s letters, even Nancy, who he was seeing for a while. They’ve since broken up and seem to be good friends.

Eddie was deeply jealous of her, but he really had no reason to be. He’s been in love with Steve since he was sixteen years old, but it means nothing because he hasn’t told him. He doesn’t want to tell him in a letter, not when it’s unclear if Steve has someone else, not when Eddie still can’t make himself return to the Little Palace, not when Steve still can’t leave, for whatever reason.

It’s a paradox in the worst kind of way. Eddie Munson, long-distance lover with nothing to show for it.

He shakes himself out of those thoughts and climbs up onto the skiff. They’re strange structures, halfway between boat and sled. When he climbs on, he moves to right his feet, but he doesn’t need to. The sand might shift, but it is much steadier than the sea.

It’s so strange, and they haven’t even started moving.

He walks over to the stairs in the deck, but he’s pulled back by the strap of his bag.

“Nope,” a woman with dark hair says. She’s dressed in a blue kefta with red embroidery, so she must be an Inferni. “Can you fire a gun?”

“Yes,” Eddie says. He’s known how to do that since he was eight years old, thank you dad.

“Then you’re staying above deck.” The Inferni turns to walk to the bow of the skiff.

“Do guns fend off volcra?” Eddie finds himself asking.

She says, over her shoulder, “They don’t hurt. Grab one from the rack on deck if you don’t have one already.”

Eddie sighs and grabs a pistol. It seems woefully small and ineffective in his hand, but he loads it with ammunition and releases the safety.

He stares ahead at the Fold and tries to breathe.

“We’re off!” Dmitri calls.

Eddie turns back to see the ropes be untied from the docks, to see a blond man in a blue kefta, evidently a Squaller from how the sails billow when he moves his arms, push the skiff into the dark.

The Fold swallows them, blocking out Kribirsk - good riddance - much faster than Eddie expected.

And the Fold is much louder than Eddie expected.

He assumed that complete and utter darkness came with complete and utter silence, but it doesn’t. The Fold feels alive in a very awful way. Volcra shriek close by, shrill enough that Eddie nearly covers his ears, and the skiff hisses on the sand, a quiet rush that matches the louder one in Eddie’s ears.

People mill about on the deck, holding swords, guns, and, in the Inferni’s case, fire. The Squaller continues to man the sails, and they make their way through the Fold in eerie silence.

The fire in the Inferni’s hands glows orange. When she extends them, it billows out into beautiful shapes, fractals on fractals resembling snowflakes, until she curls her fingers, forces the fire to coalesce into a scene, that of a fox chasing a rabbit. It makes the people near her on deck laugh softly.

Eddie doesn’t miss much about the Little Palace, but he does miss seeing the extraordinary on an ordinary basis. He has long grown past wanting to be Grisha, though, so he watches with the rest of them and privately, and a little pettily, thinks that he has seen better from Wayne.

The fire makes him nervous before he remembers that the volcra are blind. The fire will do no harm. The laughter, however, sets him on edge.

The skiff continues to rush over the sand, and the laughter subsides, and the fire resumes a normal shape, and Eddie relaxes, just the tiniest bit.

And that, of course, is when it all goes wrong.

Even with the light of the fire, Eddie can’t see the volcra as it swoops down. He does, however, hear the ear-piercing shriek it lets out, followed by the scream of a man plucked off the deck like a piece of candy out of the bowl.

“Fucking idiot,” the woman next to Eddie swears, immediately raising her rifle. She uses the light from the Inferni to fire at the volcra. Her aim is true, and the volcra and man fall as one to the sand.

Eddie privately thinks that the gunshot might have been dumber than the scream because the scream was involuntary, but it doesn’t matter what he thinks, not when the whole deck erupts into chaos.

The Inferni’s flame grows bigger, lighting the whole deck. Eddie sees the way they all cluster around the Squaller, the way the Squaller doubles down his efforts on getting them through this cursed place, and the volcra swooping down. Gunshots ring out, as well as the shrieks of volcra and the screams of people taken or sliced open.

It’s madness, so Eddie does what he does best: he runs.

He runs to the bow of the skiff, where there are fewer volcra. The Inferni burns them with her fire, over and over again, but more swoop down near the Squaller. Eddie watches as she swears and runs toward the stern of the ship, largely leaving him alone.

And in the dark.

He shoots what he can manage to see and runs out of ammunition very quickly. He fumbles to reload his pistol, swearing as he drops bullets, and tries to tune out the sounds of people calling for more guns and ammunition, calling to the Saints, calling for their mothers.

As soon as Eddie reloads, there’s a volcra in front of his face.

He can smell its rotten breath, so he raises his pistol and fires where he thinks its mouth is.

The noise is deafening. Its corpse falls onto his legs, and Eddie scrambles away from it before the blood soaks into his pants.

Then, there’s another. And another. And another, and another, and another-

Eddie fires at every inhuman shriek he hears and runs out of bullets, for good this time, very quickly.

He makes his way over to the stern of the ship, surrounding the Squaller like everyone else, and hopes that the protection of other bodies is enough.

Something screeches in his ear, and something slimy and sharp grazes Eddie’s shoulder, drawing blood.

As soon as he realizes it’s a volcra, he throws up his hands and screams.

The world behind his eyelids grows very bright, his hands feel very warm, and then-

Everything.

Goes.

Silent.

Eddie can feel himself shaking, can feel the sweat all over his body and the buzz in his ears from the shots and the screaming, but he refuses to open his eyes.

Someone hauls him up by the arm.

“Look,” a woman’s voice hisses in his ear. The Inferni.

Eddie opens his eyes, and he sees the sky.

Did they make it to Novokribirsk already?

But then he lowers his gaze and sees that, on all sides of a perfect circle, the world is pitch black.

He looks down to see that same perfect circle on the ground, surrounding the skiff. The sand is awfully gray.

He looks back up to see everyone on deck staring at him. The Inferni’s grip on his arm is bruising.

“What are you?” the Inferni demands, shaking his arm.

“I’m not Grisha,” Eddie says because that is a fact he has known since he was nine and was sent to live in a place he did not belong.

“We’ll see about that,” she says. Then, she looks at the Squaller, and says, “Turn us around.”

So much for getting a job in Os Kervo, Eddie thinks.

The other people on deck brace themselves for the darkness. Eddie hopes he’s taken by the volcra.

Because he knows exactly where he’s going. Back to the Little Palace. Back to that feeling of suffocation he’s only just gotten rid of. Back to not belonging, to being something other, something less than.

But, the annoyingly optimistic voice in his head says, that means back to Steve.

And while that should definitely be a good thing, the thought makes Eddie want to check his hair and his clothes, two things he wouldn’t care about otherwise, in the pitch black.

Oh, Saints. He gets to see Steve again. He’s going to have to tell Steve he loves him because that’s what he promised himself he would do if he ever went back to the Little Palace.

He only ever thought he’d go back for Wayne’s funeral.

But now, he has to wrestle with the fact that he very well could be something neither otkazats’ya or Grisha, something entirely new, as well as brace himself for the likely possibility that Steve does not love him back.

After all, it’s been two years. It’s been two long years of letters, and Steve could have anyone in the world, since he’s the most beautiful person in it.

Why on this earth would he even consider picking Eddie?

#ria writes #grishaverse au #steddie #steddie ficlet #stranger things #stranger things ficlet #just finished drafting this now #and had the Urge to post #st #st ficlet #sun summoner eddie

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unrequitedloveletter · 2 years

Note

happy fall!

you’re laying waste to halloween

can i request a nikolai x reader enemies to lovers fic, please? she/her pronouns for the reader :D

maybe one where the reader is a kaelish princess whose family is searching for suitors for her, and nikolai just so happens to be a potential suitor. similar vibes to when they held a ball in king of scars to find nikolai a wife, but its for a kaelish princess! :D

i think it'd be cool if the reader befriended zoya, who tries to get the reader and nikolai to get along. i love the dynamic where one of them's a tease (nikolai) and the other (reader) pretends to hate it, but secretly gets butterflies every time. eventually, they begin tolerating eachother and end up confessing to another. (cue zoya emerging from the corner screaming "i knew it!")

i don't mind how long you make the fic, but i do prefer long ones :]

have a great day!

-velvetarcane

The Ravkan Gardens- Nikolai Lantsov

Okay, hi!! I'm sorry that this took me ages to write out, but I hope you enjoy it as it is! Also, forgive me if the enemies to lovers isn't my best work, it's the first time I've written out the enemies to lovers trope in the context of a fic that was a large one-parter rather than a slowburn multi-parter.

I did do it a bit differently to how you'd requested (the only difference being that, instead of a ball, Nikolai sends out an invite for the reader to stay for two weeks as a sort of like, compatibility test thing? I came up with the concept when I was tired so forgive me if it doesn't make much sense) and I did it in second person because that’s just how my brain defaults to writing requests a lot of the time, but if you want me to rewrite and put it in third, please don’t be afraid to reach out and let me know!

Anyway, thank you so much for sending this in, and though this isn't my longest fic on this account, it's certainly up there with the longest for Nikolai (it caps at 4.3k words) and I really do hope you enjoy!

Fic type- fluff

Warnings- mentions of alcohol (wine and champagne, specifically)

DAY 4/14

Nikolai Lantsov was tall, incredibly handsome, and, in general, a man excellent in the art of charming others, but for some reason, as you took every meal with him, interacted with him more than thrice daily, and generally tried to find something about him that you could’ve liked, it seemed you were almost resistant to those charms.

It wasn’t anything particular about him that you hated—or, anything you could place a finger on—and it seemed that you just weren’t the kind of person who could much like the kind of person he was. He was a charmer, someone who knew exactly what to say all the time, and as much as you wanted to like that, you couldn’t find it in yourself to manage it.

“You’re here for ten more days, Y/N. May as well try to make them a bit more worthwhile,” Zoya said as the two of you walked through the corridors of the Little Palace, heading for the gardens.

You’d been in Ravka of your own volitions, staying there to see if there was any chance yourself and Nikolai could ever be compatible. It felt like something out of some cheesy, royal era romance novel, but if it were truly a romance, wouldn’t the circumstances be better? Wouldn’t yourself and Nikolai be interacting because you enjoyed one anothers company, not because there was the underlying truth that you were both in need of a spouse?

Ravka needed a queen, and you needed an escape from the Wandering Isle, from the place that you hesitantly called home. It seemed like good enough reason to stay in Ravka for two weeks, but four days into your stay, you were regretting having accepted the—largely random—invite at all.

“I’m thinking about going home early,” you said. “Nikolai clearly can’t stand me, and I don’t want to exist wherein my presence is not welcome.”

“The idea to invite you here was his, not mine,” Zoya said as you walked. “Rumors of the replacement of the heir in the Wandering Isle have become rather rampant lately. He figured you could use a break from constantly being told you needed to find someone willing to propose, so he invited you here under the guise of an attempt at courtship.”

“The future king of Ravka invited me to his palace with the intent of giving me a kind of vacation?” You asked, momentarily rethinking all of your prior assumptions, the ones you’d gathered over the days you’d stayed at the Little Palace. “I feel the need to thank him now, I must admit.”

“He also looked at a photograph taken of you during this past summer,” Zoya said. “I presented it to him when trying to find a way to set him up with someone. I think you’re about the only woman he’s ever called beautiful without trying to be a charmer for one reason or the next. Give him a chance, Y/N. You might come to not regret it.”

“I’m here for another ten days,” you said as finally, the gardens came into view. “I’ll do my best, Nazyalensky. For you, if for nobody else.”

Zoya grinned. “If you hate him by this time next week, we’ll drink to it,” she said. “The kitchens have delightful wine.”

“Thank you,” you said with a grateful smile. Genya approached, whisking Zoya away and leaving you to observe the gardens alone.

You stood, idle as you took note of the flowers that were blooming, the apple trees with leaves that rustled in the wind. The view of the gardens was one you would’ve been content to stare at forever, the view itself likely being the only reason you would allow yourself to stay as long as you’d been invited to.

“The gardens are beautiful in their aestheticism,” came the voice of the blonde you’d come to dislike. “If you’ve got a talent for art, I have no doubt that this view on a canvas will go for at least ten or twenty thousand. I’ve seen the versions of it less grounded in realism sell for more than that.”

“And you think a piece depicting exactly what it is meant to look like will, perhaps, go for less?”

“I do,” Nikolai said. “Though, to be fair, I’ve barely known you long enough to form an emotion other than dislike and mild hatred, so I don’t know. I don’t even know if you’re talented in the realms of art.”

“I am not a painter, no,” you said. “You’re right in that.”

“I think you don’t want to be here,” Nikolai continued. “That you’re here because you need a husband just as much as I need a wife, and that if I propose, no matter how much you hate me, you’ll say yes for the good of the Ravkan people.”

“Ah, look at that! You’re correct again,” you said. “I would accept a proposal from you, Lantsov. I would do so to get out of the dreadful place that I call home, if for no other reason.”

“Have you seen the libraries?” Nikolai asked. “I’ve noticed you love to read.”

“Trying to be civil?”

“I can only realize what kind of person you are if civility is something which I decide to give a shot,” Nikolai said. “Getting to know you is my end goal, Ms. L/N. If I jump straight onto the wagon of hatred, we both end up stranded, and that is the last thing that my kingdom needs.”

“I make no guarantees that civility is something at which I will excel.”

“As I look at you now, there are a thousand different insults that come to mind,” Nikolai said. “However, I will not say a word of them. No more insults or jabs. Not from me.”

You said nothing, did nothing, just turned your gaze back to the garden, trying to look for every single one of the details you hadn’t noticed in your mere glimpse. Nikolai stayed with you, standing a few feet off to your right, the two of you watching the garden in silence.

Later, you found yourself in the library, sat in a far off corner with just enough light to allow you to read without difficulty. You were reading a book of sonnets recommended to you by Tolya. The book was called ‘To Love In Spring’ and every single poem was written in old Ravkan.

“Making yourself comfortable?” Nikolai asked as he walked down a row of bookshelves, finding you sitting and reading at the end of them. “You do look a fair bit like you’re in your element here, Y/N.”

“And you look quite so like you’re entirely out of yours,” you said, the quip falling from your lips before you could’ve thought about it. In response, you got a laugh.

“Oh, you wound me,” he said. “Your words cut deep, darling.”

“That’s entirely my goal, Lantsov,” you said, successfully ignoring the butterflies that came to light in your stomach with the use of the nickname.

“Well, it’s not quite working,” Nikolai said with a grin. “I find myself too enamoured by your gorgeousness to be too hurt by the words you use as weaponry.”

“You and your silly little compliments,” you said, once again unable to think before the words had fallen from your lips. “I don’t need, nor do I want, your flattery. I just would like to spend the days I have here as usefully as possible.”

“Is getting to know me not useful to you?”

“To be honest, I don’t think it is.”

“Again, Y/N, you wound me,” but he was smirking as he spoke, running a hand through blonde hair. “How about this: any time in which you decide you hate me less, come seek me out. We’ll learn about each other, see if the hatred that exists now is really as necessary as we clearly think it to be.”

You paused for a moment, thinking about the proposition. Getting to know Nikolai, see beyond his blonde hair and his charm and the fact that he normally seemed quite capable of saying the right thing at the right time, it might not have been something you particularly expected to happen often. It was something you expected to occur rarely, for in the four days you’d been there, you hadn’t hated him any more or any less than you had when you’d arrived and gotten a good look at him, a sense of who he was.

“All right, then,” you said. “You won’t be seeing much of me outside of the meals we’ll take together, though.”

“I’m going into this expecting not to see you outside of those times at all,” Nikolai said. He turned on his feet. “Enjoy your book, darling. I’m not much for poetry, but right now, I could be possibly be convinced to read a few pages.”

“Old Ravkan works, that can be found in the classics section, are quite wonderful.”

“Familiarized yourself with the library already?”

“I’ve only looked where it’s mattered,” you said. Nikolai walked off with that, and for some reason, you couldn’t pull your eyes away.

DAY 7/14

“My favorite color is dark blue,” Nikolai said. It was morning and you were standing in view of the garden, sleeves of the beige sweater you wore rolled up to your elbows, mug of your hot drink of choice tucked into your hands. “Or, the space between dark and light, I should say. Not so light that it is pastel, but not so dark that it’s navy.”

“Space blue?” You asked. “I’ve noticed you wearing a muted version of that color a lot. It suits you, Nik.”

“We’re using nicknames now?”

And, with the way that he points it out and you realize you’ve used a nickname for him, you pause.

“No,” you said after a moment. “It was a one time thing.”

“That’s disappointing, then. I usually hate nicknames.”

“Space blue is your favorite color?” You asked, desperate for a change in the subject and for anything to take your mind off of the embarrassment of having called the man who you’d convinced yourself you weren’t falling for a nickname, let alone one that he said he didn’t hate.

“Yep.”

“My first memory from when I was a kid was running in the palaces,” since it had been made, the deal had changed a bit. Nobody sought anybody out, most of your meetings were by chance. If Nikolai found you, he gave away a small piece of himself, a favorite color, a favorite season. You gave something like a childhood anecdote, a fact about yourself that nobody else knew, and vice versa.

You laughed as you recalled it. “Those palaces, the endless corridors, the vast windows, they used to be my favorite thing growing up. I wanted to learn every room, every place where I could hide when I didn’t want to be found. At twenty-three, I have learned every place in the palaces like the back of my hand, and most days all I want to do is escape them.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“I have yet to find good enough reason to go,” you said. “I’ve had my life threatened when I explained that I wanted to abdicate.”

“So do it,” Nikolai said. “Write a letter of abdication, and stay in Ravka.”

The words as he spoke them almost made you laugh. “Where would I stay, Nik?” There it was again. The stupid nickname that you’d claimed to be a one time thing the first time—though it was such, really.—but, if Nikolai was listening, he definitely assumed that it was more.

“As I’ve gotten to know you, darling, you seem less and less terrible by the day,” he said. “The room here, if you do not marry me but end up abdicating, will always be yours.”

“I appreciate your kindness,” you said. “I shall take it into consideration, Nik.”

“That nickname is going to stick around, innit?” You finally turned, met his gaze, as you brought the mug to your lips and sipped from it. “I really can’t say I hate it.”

“If David used it, would you react the same?”

Nikolai laughed as he thought about your question. “Most likely not, no,” he said.

You began to turn, intending to head back up to your room. You were about a third of the way down the first of many halls when finally, you heard Nikolais voice.

“Three days now,” he called. “I’m not so terrible, am I?”

The question, though clearly both question and quip, was enough to make you laugh.

“Perhaps not, Lantsov,” you said. “We have one more week together. Ask me then.”

“My mother used to say I was infected by wanderlust,” you said with a slight smile as Zoya tipped a book off the shelves in the library. “I always wanted to leave, to go somewhere. I never really got much of a chance.”

“Did she ever realize you don’t want to wander, you just simply want to leave?” You leaned against the shelf, opening the book you’d grabbed whilst glimpsing the classics section.

“I imagine she’ll figure it out when I go back with all of my exciting tales to tell.”

“Oh, yeah,” Zoya said, nodding with her agreement. “All of the details of the garden, at which you looked longingly for hours will be so much fun to regale, Y/N.”

“The books I’ve read will also be mentioned, and the food, and the company,” you said pointedly. “The hours spent looking at the garden will mostly be left out of it.”

Zoya laughed, eyes scanning the cover of the book she’d grabbed before she put it back disinterestedly.

“Wise choice,” she said. “You’ve got one more week here. Are you excited to go back?”

“I’m heading into the city for a week after I leave here,” you said. “I need to think about things, and I need to do it without the prying eyes of the observers, staring at me whilst they try to dissect my every thought. Nobody has ever really seen my face, either, so I’ll go without being recognized while I’m there.”

Zoya looked at you, quirking a brow. “My my, has Nikolai given you something to ponder?”

You grinned, feeling almost a little defeated. “He’s different,” you said. “Different than I thought he would be, is all.”

“You’ve given up on hating him?”

“I still hate him, just less than I did three days ago,” you said. “He’s sensible. Goodwilled, strong. He seems like he cares about the people here, and I just find it a tad bit admirable, is all.”

“So, I was right, is what I’m hearing?”

“Not yet, Nazyalensky,” you said. “I’m learning what about him there is to like, not falling head over heels.” At that point, though, you could’ve guessed that you’d be romantically inclined toward Nikolai by the end of your stay.

“You will,” Zoya said with a teasing sort of grin as she pulled another book from the shelf. “In five days, at least, I’ll be telling you that I told you so.”

You laughed again as she read the cover, deciding to keep that book on her person.

“Thank you for staying,” Zoya said after a long moment of silence has passed. “You could’ve left when you decided you hated him, but you didn’t. Thank you for that, seriously.”

“Your company has made it the most worthwhile so far,” and the views, of course. The food, the excellent wine, the books that lined the shelves of the library and the scent of the roses in the garden. All of it made for a worthwhile stay, but Zoya was what made staying seem like the most logical decision. The truth may have been that you hardly knew her, but even as such, Zoya had become a fast friend, someone you would’ve hated losing. “Seriously. Thank you.”

“I’m glad I could assist in keeping you around,” Zoya said as she opened the book, reading the dedication and skipping the table of contents to get to the first chapter. “I do hope that you’ll find it in yourself not to hate him.”

“I’m learning what about him there is to like. If I do go without the intent of coming back, I promise to write.”

“And I promise to respond,” Zoya said, the two of you lapsing into a comfortable silence thereafter.

DAY 10/14

“I’ve never quite been able to pick a favorite time of day,” you said as you approached. Nikolai was facing a window in a common room within the depths of the Little Palace, hands leaning against the ledge as he looked out on the view from the second floor. You could’ve laughed as you realized that he was brooding, but you didn’t.

“Some days, I wake up early enough to see both sunrise and sunset. Other times, I particularly love the afternoon, when the sun is right overhead. I tend to gravitate towards the evenings, lately. In the past six days, I’ve found myself most at peace after the sun has set, when I can escape the Little Palace for a bit. Did you know that, when you escape the cities, the crowded streetways and the houses that’re lit up like trees at Christmas, you can actually see the stars? On nights where you’re lucky enough, you get glimpses of the other planets that exist within our solar system.”

“That’s the reason I haven’t been able to find you past eleven?” Nikolai asked.

“I go out with Tolya, Tamar, Nadia, Zoya, Genya and David. Every other day. You should come, we’re going tonight.”

“My favorite time of the day is the morning,” Nikolai said. “Everything feels so spry then. I feel ready to get on with my day. Nights always leave me feeling a little empty. I’ve never much been good at handling too much quiet.” You walked up to him, standing to his right. Carefully, you moved an arm so that it was within the same space as one of his. If Nikolai moved his hand just a bit to the left, he would be able to take yours if it was something he so pleased to do.

“Nights won’t feel so lonely if you spend them with the right people, my lovely enemy,” you said. He didn’t look at you, but when you rested your head against his shoulder, he did not move away.

He rested his cheek against the top of your head, neither of you saying a word as he did.

“Do you still hate me?” Nikolai asked.

“A lot less than I used to,” you said. “Let me guess, when you look at me, your heart and mind fill with nothing other than sheer resentment?”

He took your hand in his as he laughed, eyes still on the view of the gardens, apple trees rustling with the wind.

“Not exactly,” he said.

The two of you stood, in relative silence, watching the garden together, much like things had been almost a week before, except the hatred you felt for one another was largely gone, having been replaced by the starts of romance.

Nikolai found you a fair bit later, as the sun was setting and you were standing in the middle of the garden, book in hand. You were completely enthralled in it, and even though speaking was his first instinct—the act of revealing a small part to himself, one of many things that made him who he was—having almost become reflexive after nearly a week, he stopped himself. He merely leaned against the door, content to just watch.

As he did, he found that he was completely enamoured, just as he’d been when Zoya had dropped your photo onto his desk. You were naturally beautiful, a woman who everyone was jealous of. How Nikolai had hated you upon your meet ten days before was something that almost became a bit of a mystery to him as he looked at you, watched you run a hand through your hair as the breeze picked up, seeming to move around you in an almost perfect arc of wind.

“I can feel you staring at me, Lantsov,” you said. Nikolai almost flinched, having been caught off guard, but managed to maintain most of his composure. “Are you ever going to allow words to leave your lips?”

“You leave me speechless,” Nikolai said, turning on the charm before he can even think to do otherwise. “Though, with how beautiful you are, how any man who looks at you isn’t also rendered speechless is an absolute mystery to me.”

“I do not look beautiful,” you said. “Not right now, anyway.” You were wearing a dark maroon shirt with a black skirt, hair styled as it normally was, and between the fact that there wasn’t a day Nikolai had seen you looking anything less than gorgeous, and the fact that he’d let you into his heart, he realized he could’ve been happy to die right there, as he was.

“You do,” he said. “You look absolutely incredible.”

You grinned, and yeah. Nikolai was done for. He absolutely could’ve died happy in that moment.

He stepped forward as you closed the book, objecting to merely hold it at your side.

Eventually, you were standing close, your hand against the side of his face, one of his hands on your waist, the other resting at the bottom of your cheek and on your neck.

“Your company is not nearly as terrible as I presumed it would remain ten days ago.”

He gave you a grin, asked if he could kiss you, and when you said yes, he did.

As he felt your lips against his, he felt, for the first time in a while, the monster as it grew quiet, seemed to step away, and Nikolai felt well and truly happy.

When you pulled away, you pressed your forehead against his.

Neither of you had perfect lives, just moments wherein they felt perfect, but it was something neither of you minded.

DAY 12/14

“I knew it!” Zoya shouted as Nikolai pulled away from you, your hands still remaining entwined as the moment you were sharing was interrupted. You were in a common room, having thought yourselves mostly alone, the conversation you’d been having only having been interrupted by a kiss for a split second, though it was one Zoya, Genya, and Tamar had happened to walk in on. “I fucking knew it!”

The common room you were standing in was the one you’d been in in the days before, the one on the second floor with the view of the gardens, walls painted the colors of the royal emblem, light flowing through the window naturally.

“Well, Tolya officially owes me quite the pretty penny,” Tamar said. “Congrats, you two. When did it happen?”

“It’s happened gradually over the past week,” Nikolai said.

“Your first kiss happened five days ago, and you didn’t tell me?” Zoya asked. You shook your head.

“It happened two days ago,” you said. “I guess it slipped my mind.” You shrugged, giving Nikolais hand a squeeze. He squeezed your hand in return as you adjusted, hand slipping from yours a moment later, in favor of an arm wrapped around your shoulder.

“Slipped your mind?” Genya asked. “You both realize this means we have a wedding to plan?”

“Not for another quarter,” Nikolai said. “Saints, Genya. You’re getting too far ahead. I haven’t even thought of proposing yet, and if I do, it won’t be until December. A proposal always tends to go over better during the Christmas season.”

“Or you could propose at the end of this month and we could do a December wedding,” Zoya suggested. “It’s the beginning of October. A month of courtship, a proposal, and then you get another two months of courtship before the wedding.”

“Don’t get too far ahead of yourselves,” you cautioned. “We’re taking it slow.”

“A June wedding could be lovely,” Tamar said. “The weather is warm, lots of guests could come, and a coronation to have Y/N in the palaces as queen could be a lot easier to do around the spring or the summer, I would assume.”

“I’ll start planning the wedding in December,” Genya said. “Zoya, Y/N, you help me every step of the way. Promise it.” She looped her elbow through Zoyas, running a hand through vibrant red hair as she did.

Your gaze met Zoyas, and the both of you burst into laughter as Nikolai pressed a kiss to the side of your head.

“Deal,” you said.

“Promise,” said Zoya.

“Tonight, with dinner, we’ll have champagne,” Tamar said. “In celebration of the happy couple, of course.”

You wrapped an arm around Nikolais waste, leaning up and pressing a kiss to his jawline as you did.

“In celebration,” you said, Nikolai nodding his agreement.

It was odd, really. Twelve days before, you’d hardly expected to have anything to celebrate, and yet there you were, with a relationship and potentially a marriage.

AUGUST

You grinned as you caught sight once more of the ring on your finger. It was something you hadn’t gotten used to, even though it’d been two months since the wedding, since your coronation.

“You look wonderful, as always,” Nikolai said as he entered the room you shared. You were in bed, book in your lap, just as it’d been since that afternoon. It’d been a book given to you at the recommendation of Tamar, a fantasy novel that was an absolute page turner. “I’m relieved, personally, that we finally have a chance for a moment away.”

“A trip to Novyi Zem sounds wonderful about now,” you said as he pressed a kiss to your cheek. “I’m thrilled about it, really. Being a queen is a lot more than I expected.”

“Well, for the next two weeks, queenly duties be damned,” he said, acknowledging the trip you’d leave for early the following morning. “I love you, my dearest wife.”

“And I you, dearest husband,” Nikolai joined you in bed as you dimmed the reading light you’d been using, eventually putting the book down and falling asleep next to him, just as you’d done since before your wedding, with every bone in your body overflowing with content.

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #shadow and bone

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daily-ravka · 1 year

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Keeping Up With The Grishaverse

Missed the clips? The interviews?⎮ March 9th, 2023

⚡️IT’S LA PREMIERE DAY

Interviews and Articles with the Cast or Creators ⎮ Video Format

Black Girl Nerds - The 'Shadow and Bone' Cast Find Nice Things About Each Other to Say

DC Film Girl - Shadow & Bone Season 2 Cast Interviews! Jessie Mei Lei, Ben Barnes, Lewis Tan, Freddy Carter & more!

Interviews and Articles with the Cast or Creators ⎮ Reading Format

'Shadow and Bone' Season 2 Soundtrack Reveals Haunting Track "I Can't Lose You" [Exclusive]

🚨Official Content🚨

Season 2 Cast Premiere Pictures

Season 2 Full Soundtrack by Joseph Trapanese

Others ⎮ Season 2 Premiere Albums

Jerod Harris

Amanda Edwards

Lisa O’Connor

Charley Gallay

Links marked with asterisks (**) may contain plot details and spoilers

✨Need the list of interviews of a specific cast member? Want to know which article your favourite ship was mentioned? Looking for something specific for your edits? Our ask box is open!✨

- Full Masterlist now on our pinned post.

#shadow and bone #six of crows #Grishaverse #shadow and bone netflix #ben barnes #freddy carter #jessie mei li #amita suman #kit young #lewis tan #Anna Leong Brophy #jack wolfe #daily list #daily ravka #daily ravka list

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blairwaldcrf · 1 year

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Now deal us in brother. Who's ready to test their mettle?

Tamar Kir-Bataar in SHADOW AND BONE - 2x02

#tamar kir bataar #tamar kir-bataar #shadowandbonecentral #dailyshadowandbone #tamarkirbataaredit #shadowandbonedit #shadowandbonesource #daily-ravka #*by me #sab

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dreamsatdusk · 6 months

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I've been thinking about this a lot and I need to share it with someone: I'm not going to lie by saying that I understand the feudal politics of tsarist Russia, but, at least on a superficial level, it's incomprehensible that no peasant resistance movement and no peasant uprising has taken place in Ravka after years of intensified exploitation and precariousness made worse by the geopolitical/war scenario.

Like… From what we can see of court life, the royal family and the nobles - although they don't live as luxuriously as they might if the country wasn't in the situation it was in - continue to live a comfortable and carefree life, with items that should be delicacies in that situation being part of their daily lives. This shows that the taxes collected from the peasants have increased so that their greed can continue uninterrupted, doesn't it? And, in a reality where the citizens of Ravka are being crushed by the price of lack of assistance to the families of deceased soldiers, of the maintenance of the national army, of poverty, of servitude (work accidents, planting difficulties, hunger, taxes) and of The Fold, how come they haven't done anything yet?

PS: As someone who hasn't consumed the official Shadow and Bone media, I have another question. Do you believe that Ravka's trade relationship or even political alignment* with Fjerda and Shu Han was maintained on some level during the reign of Alexander III, since the monarchs of the countries technically did not have a divergent policy (the tsar did not take any active steps to protect the grisha to keep them in a state of vulnerability and to control the power of the Second Army)? In your perception, how and why did or could tensions between them exist beyond the grisha problem?

* I faithfully believe that the leaders of these countries – or at least of Fjerda and Shu Han armies – could meet unofficially, as many liberal and far-right leaders have done in history, with the British royal family and Hitler being an example.

First off, huge apologies for the delay on responding. I’m working on replies to all three Asks and will post each as I get done. I’ve been dealing with some health stuff and between pain and tired brain, my focus for writing (and tons of other stuff, sigh) keeps getting zapped. But I really appreciate the messages! Hopefully the replies are at least somewhat worth the wait.

I think the question of revolution in Ravka is a very interesting one and likely has several aspects feeding into it, both in-universe and out of universe.

On the latter point, I suspect broader political implications didn’t factor into what the author ’s plans were for the story. It was her first set of books, it was YA, she was very focused on the situation of Grisha powers, etc. There is a move to more storyline complexity in later books like SoC and in KoS, we even have mention of a revolutionary: Andrei Zhirov, who is indicated as having been a “radical” in Nikolai’s grandfather’s time, executed for treason.

In-universe, Alina just doesn’t strike as someone who was likely very exposed to those ideas. While her origins were a peasant's, it’s clear that upon arriving in Keramzin, she was brought up in an environment that supported the nobility and the royal family and did not think that highly of the poorer people of Ravka. If Alina was taught of past revolution attempts, I’m sure it was couched in denigrating terms. The Keramzin children may not even have been taught such things in whatever history lessons they received. Also, Keramzin itself sounded like it wasn’t a very fancy environment. It sounded like people were well fed, they shelter and beds, and all of that, but it wasn’t draped in the opulence shown of the rich in Os Alta. When Alina first walks through the Grand Palace and sees the decor, she thinks:

I’d always assumed that Ravka’s hungry peasants and poorly supplied soldiers were the result of the Shadow Fold. But as we walked by a tree of jade embellished with diamond leaves, I wasn’t so sure.

Later in S&B, Alina and Mal have a conversation:

He wasn’t at all shocked to hear of the contempt with which most Grisha regarded the King. Apparently, the trackers had been grumbling more and more loudly amongst themselves about the King’s incompetence. "The Fjerdans have a breech-loading rifle that can fire twenty-eight rounds per minute. Our soldiers should have them, too. If the King could be bothered to take an interest in the First Army, we wouldn’t be so dependent on the Grisha. But it’ll never happen,” he told me. Then he muttered, “We all know who’s running the county.”

So THAT is super interesting. We see that a group of people of non-Grisha, peasant origins, has noticed stuff sucks for them in their area of experience (the military) AND that they blame it on the Grisha/the Darkling to some degree and not the king alone. I know that some readers interpret some of the Darkling’s remarks to indicate he is deliberately trying to suppress Ravkan technological development to keep the Grisha relevant. And I can see how one could interpret the situation that way. But I have not done so personally, because it doesn’t really make sense to me in terms of the intelligence the story tells us he has and his long view of matters, his ability to read “flow of power”, all of that. Yes, he has recognized that technology will increasingly put more people on par with Grisha capabilities and that’s a threat. But it’s not a threat that’s going to stop increasing in OTHER COUNTRIES just because Ravka doesn’t have, for example, better rifles. There’s nothing to indicate he thinks that it will either.

I also don’t think the story supports the idea the Darkling is really running the country. That said, he may be a big part of the reason it hasn’t gotten smooshed by Fjerda recently or something, as he does seem to spend a lot of time in the field working with his people, while the King? The King does not.

Anyway, we see that finished guns are something that comes over the Fold to reach eastern Ravka. Seems likely most if not all of them are imports, which adds to the difficulty: we know there have been blockades of Ravka ports on the True Sea. I also suspect nice rifles aren't cheap. We also see that the nobles seem to have been resistant to upgrading what production capabilities they are responsible for on the front of things like textiles. Nikolai coaxed some into doing more; there is no reason to think his father was attempting that. Ravka is repeatedly mentioned as being behind other countries in innovation and I don’t think there’s solid reason to think the Darkling is to blame for their failure to weave cotton, etc. in a more efficient manner. . But I do think there’s a lot of anti-Grisha sentiment running through Ravka that IS to blame for the idea that unhappy soldiers would think so.

The situation is also complicated by the fact of what came up in the Crows books and Nikolai duology: things like Fjerda leveraging enslaved Grisha for all sorts of stuff. Again, (out of universe), I don’t think the author had conceived of any of that at the time of writing S&B. But now that it exists, it raises questions such as, okay, Fjerda’s technological development is apparently being accelerated by Fabrikators, etc. And furthermore, things are so incredibly locked down information-wise that the Darkling has no idea that his people are being used in that fashion and that it relates to why Fjerda is innovating more than Ravka. Some intriguing fanfic possibilities there though.

(I am now distracted by the idea of Tailor abilities being more broadly cultivated for espionage purposes, but that’s another thing complicated by the evolution of the books. Genya could only do little things, per her own words, in the original trilogy. But then later she’s doing MUCH more, people who aren’t specialized in it are doing much more, people with practically NO training are executing minor miracles…. Yeah, a small mess to rationalize.)

To bring it back around to the original topic, taken all together:

To an unclear extent and degree, there have been revolutionaries in Ravka’s past.

The power of anti-Grisha sentiment in Ravka has likely diluted the amount of blame placed on the royal family and nobility of Ravka, compared to similar situations in Russia.

Many people are not in a position to pull all the pieces together to understand why Ravka is in the state that it's in. That doesn't mean they would not revolt, but it would have an impact on their approach, the likelihood, etc.

Ravka, Shu Han, Fjern Relations

If we take all of the tidbits revealed across all of the Grishaverse books and put them together, I think it shows that there has been on and off war between the three countries ever since Ravka became a nation in its own right (and prior) and that they have had periods of relative peace between wars.

It seems like they were not actively engaged in a hot war, so to speak, at the time of the S&B trilogy, but had been engaged in combat with Fjerda not all that long prior to it - Nikolai fought in the Halmhend campaign against Fjerda during his stint in the infantry, when he was barely 18. He later refers to an area on the border as territory having been mostly taken back by Ravka during that campaign. There's also a quote somewhere in the trilogy that implies they aren't currently fighting on two fronts, but may be again soon.

We know from the end of S&B that there were ambassadors from Fjerda on the skiff when the Fold was expanded, as well as a “delegation” from Shu Han (they seem to be lumped into the overall ambassador group in later references). During KoS, a Fjerdan ambassador is at one of the formal dinners in Os Alta. Vasily negotiated with Fjerda in S&S, and even though it turned out they were in cahoots with the Darkling at the time, the point is that there was a BELIEF that good faith negotiation was possible. In RoW, we learn Tatiana, Nikolai’s mother, had been a Fjerdan princess: “a younger daughter sent far from home to forge an alliance with Ravka that no one intended to adhere to.”

In KoS, Shu Han is seen as an option from which Nikolai might find a suitable bride (though again it turned out that this negotiation was not actually in good faith). And I have suggested previously that the fact tea is readily available to all social classes in Ravka in spite of the Shadow Fold could quite possibly be due to ongoing trade with Shu Han.

So in short, I absolutely think there were ongoing non-war relations between the countries, with the degree varying at different times.

In your perception, how and why did or could tensions between them exist beyond the grisha problem?

That’s a really interesting question. For Fjerda, I would expect resource contention would be a factor regardless of the Grisha. Fjerda seems to be a conglomerate stand-in for Scandinavia, but it is entirely above Ravka, Tsibeya sounds like a stand-in for Siberia, Siberia has harsh, enduring winters, and yet Fjerda is north of not!Siberia? Where I’m going with this is I’ve long had questions about the details of Fjerda’s climate, farm land, etc. and what it means for their society and so on. So I suspect they'd really like some additional land that's not as cold.

She Han, I have less of a sense of what could be the in-universe drive, beyond also wanting more territory. It seems Shu Han though, likely has a nicer overall climate than the other two.

EDIT: I realized I should clarify on the point about Fjerda enslaving Grisha. I realize Fjerda was using parem and that situation is later than the Ravkan civil war. I have not gotten to the Crows books for my detailed reread yet and so have not confirmed the specifics of what's revealed about timing. But I do remember some things that at least suggested some of the coercion of Grisha predated the use of parem (obviously the options would have been different without parem). If I feel otherwise after the reread, I'll post about it at that time ;)

#Grishaverse #Grishaverse Meta #Shadow and Bone #The Grisha Trilogy #The Darkling

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stromuprisahat · 2 years

Text

Alina and the Darkling’s interactions, pt. 12

Siege and Storm- Chapter 1

Not only the Darkling has authority, he’s well mannered. He doesn’t need to be loud or violent, yet he’s commanding respect.

I wonder how did he find Alina. It had to be some magic!

Alina, you also thought he’s gonna torture you, when he just wanted to ask about your day. Not to mention calling him void of emotions, so sorry if I don’t take your psychological assessment too seriously... Calling the true Second Army “underlings” also doesn’t make Alina seem like unbiased narrator.

“Even Ivan looked a little ill.” Yeah, bet he was hoping to never see you again...

Of course she doesn’t look well. She barely started to heal after years of suppressing her power and now she’s doing it again.

There’s also the question if she’s not summoning out of fear of getting caught, or of Malyen’s reaction. We know he doesn’t like Grisha, but loves Alina weak and “pure”, and now he’s her only companion. Is it so impossible to summon warmth? Or just enough light to be barely noticable by human eye? There’s always risk for Grisha, but what about the benefits? A little bit of health...

Pretty sure being on the run from Lantsovs doesn’t make him healthier.

“A small price to pay.”

Small price to pay for surviving certain death.

Small price to pay for unlocking a new way to use power that wasn’t given to him (, therefore cannot be taken away on a whim).

Small price to pay for saving lives of like ?five? of his people from the skiff.

Small price to pay for saving lives of his people on daily basis. For nichevo’ya can be used instead of living, breathing human.

He’s literally ripping out pieces of himself every single time he forms one, yet it’s described as unnatural evil, not constant self-sacrifice. (This guy should really work on his boundaries.)

Calling on merzost was painful, like a breath torn from his lungs, a moment of terror as his life was ripped away to form another. Creation. Abomination. But he was used to it by now.

Rule of Wolves- Chapter 33

*singing* That’s ‘cos it’s truuuuuuuuue!

This is the man, who wants the heroine to grow, to thrive. The villain!

The Darkling likes to touch the Collar. Is it possessiveness? Of what kind? Does he touch it like extension on Alina? Is it because he killed it? Because it was his, then hers and now in a way both? Does he feel something, because it’s some Morozova’s mystical creation, and he his heir? (There’s a lovely theory about the Darkling being the true third amplifier...)

Why anxious? Too much talking? Is someone on their tail? Do they have something against the most powerful amplifier being wasted on ungrateful runaway? Do they feel like Darklina should get a room? Different one? It’s not fear of nichevo’ya, they’re not created for another page.

“His answer didn’t matter.” NO, it never did, did it?! Baghra’s claims found their use once again.

The Darkling’s regretting letting Alina close. Wanting did make him weak. Too weak to see her for who she is. Too weak to realize she’s gonna betray him, that she'll gladly sacrifice what matters to him most for undisturbed future of frail existence.

He always puts Grisha and Ravka first. That one time he wanted something for himself was obviously mistake that cost him layers and layers of his plans for better future. Now he knows better. He shouldn’t have gotten distracted by fantasy about companionship.

Honey, it's not our fault you can't count.

When we see the Darkling use his power (There’s intention, shadows playing friendly cats with the Darkling don’t count.):

Alina’s discovery

The Cut on drüskelle

The presentation to the Tsar

Winter Fete

Malina's capture

The “battle” on the Fold aka Slaughter on the skiff

That's like six...?

... and here they are- nichevo’ya. Creatures born out of desperation.

“... everything I knew about Grisha power”, which isn’t much, but nvm... I’m certain after half a year of basic education Alina’s an expert on such things. (I’m genuinely trying not to be sarcastic.)

Grisha loyalists: Move bitch, here comes the cavalry!

Alina, the narrator: ...the Darkling’s Grisha were cringing up against the walls in very real terror. This was what had so frightened them.

Seasoned soldiers, who have seen slaughters of battlefield and often other unimaginable horrors, are terrified of artificial canon fodder. Well-knowing that could’ve been them every single time nichevo’ya falls.

(I have a half-formed essay about “the gift the Darkling earned on the Fold” somewhere in drafts...)

What about the option that those Grisha might not fear him, but fear for him? Since it’s obvious using merzost costs the Darkling. These are people, who fought wars alongside him. They trust him with their lives and he doesn’t waste them. He protects them. But what if he miscalculates? What if by keeping a few from harm’s way, he dooms them all? What happens if the strain of creating new nichevo’ya proves to be too much? (For world without the Darkling see also: KoS duology, SoC to smaller extent)

How much did the Darkling know about their Tether? The nichevo’ya bite made it stronger- did he suspect? The monsters are torn from his life, they’re his autonomous extension in a way...

Or was the bite simple “eye for an eye”? I have a reminder of my grave mistake, you deserve one too, for fucking with me?

pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4, pt. 5, pt. 6, pt. 7, pt. 8, pt. 9, pt. 10, pt. 11

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