Tumgik
#darkling x reader
devilishcupid · 10 months
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hot evil characters who i want to fix but will make me cry if i actually meet them in real life>>>>>>
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kasagia · 10 months
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My love will never die
Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/General Kirigan/The Darkling x moon summoner! reader Summary: You knew Aleksander before he was a Black Heretic, a foldmaker. You married him and promised to be by his side through thick and thin. And you never, ever regretted your choice. However, one day, your paths parted in an unfortunate way, and you both believed that the love of your lives was gone forever. After many centuries, you meet again with a man very similar to your Aleksander. And you start to wonder... maybe your love never die after all? Warning(s): ANGST, de@th mention, the reader yearns for Aleksander, and Aleksander yearns for the reader :c I USED FRAGMENT OF THE SONG "Jeg Saler Min Ganger" FROM THE SERIES "LOKI" Nonsense from me: So this is request from @morrigan-crowmwell Thank you so much, I was super excited to write this! I hope this is more or less what you asked for and that you like it.♡♡ I'm sorry it took me soooo long! ♡♡ Word count: 13k
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"Aleksander Morozova! You'll be late to meet your mother!" you squealed as he stole another long kiss from you. "We don't have time for this, Sasha." you moaned, when he moved his lips to your sensitive neck.
"Nonsense… I always have time to properly say goodbye to my wife before I leave." he murmured against your skin, sucking on your weak spot behind your ear. He smiled slyly, hearing the sweet moan coming from your red lips, swollen from kissing.
Saints, he could stay in your arms for the rest of eternity.
"As much as your wife loves your goodbyes, she'd rather her mother-in-law didn't wander in the middle of one, looking for her spoiled son."
"This is how you say goodbye to your husband, lapushka? Calling him spoiled and hurting his feelings?" he asked indignantly, hovering over his beautiful wife and looking at her intently. He wanted to burn the view below him into his mind until he was back in her arms again.
"I have been "goodbye-ing" you for three hours, Aleksander. Don't you think that's enough for a 4 day trip?"
"I need at least one more hour to enjoy you." he murmured, placing more kisses on your already-marked neck.
"If Baghra finds us…" you moaned as he bit your neck gently, effectively silencing you, and got out of your head all the reasons why he should go now.
"It would be helpful if you would stop thinking about my mother while I try to kiss every inch of your gorgeous skin. Besides, don't worry about her. She likes you—sometimes even more than her own son, I have to admit. If anything, she'll blame me."
"Don't worry, sobachka (puppy), you'll always be my favourite." you smirked, flipping him onto the mattress of your bed and straddling him, marking his skin with your lips, making sure you'd give him back the same favour.
"I thought we didn't have time for this?" he purred meanly, pleased with your attention.
"Shut up and kiss me, Sasha." you demanded with an equally malicious gleam in your eyes, knowing full well how this would end. Bagra was right. You had him wrapped around your little finger. Which was good considering how many female Grishas wanted to catch his eye.
"As you wish, milaya." without a second's hesitation, he grabbed your cheek and pulled you into a kiss, pinning you back under him on the mattress.
Disappointment, as usual, overtook you after waking up from this beautiful dream. During those few centuries, flashbacks about HIM only became more frequent. Someone should hang that fool who said time heals all wounds. In your case, it only made it worse.
You'd give anything to go back a few hundred years and not let him go alone with his mother on this trip. You didn't even remember why they went to Aleksander's sister.
You had a vague memory of that day, only remembering the morning with your husband and the fragments of the Fjerdans' attack on your village.
But the moment you found out you were a moon summoner will forever be etched deep in your memories.
You helped your best friend's family and herself escape when the men attacked you. You defended yourself using all the tricks and attacks Alexander had taught you, but it wasn't enough against a band of trained soldiers.
Just as he was about to slash his sword at you, you felt heat radiating deep from your chest. You screamed, falling to your knees as light began to emit from you, blinding some soldiers and killing those close to you. The first time you've used the cut and your power.
You escaped with your friend and her brother - the last survivors, and hid in the city, pretending to be siblings who managed to survive the great fire caused by Grisha.
It was hard to pretend to hate your own people and even harder to hide your new powers. But the hardest thing was going through all this without Aleksander by your side.
You tried to contact him, search in every possible way. But the world was different back then. Your attempts in advance were doomed to failure. And you knew it. But your stupid heart made you search for your husband until the end.
And you did. Until the news of the Black Heretic, the shadow summoner, who died while creating the fold, spread across the world.
You mourned Aleksander for a long time. Your life went on, but the wound of losing your husband never healed. And you knew it wouldn't. He was your great, true love. Your end game. It was impossible to let him go, to make place in your heart for someone new.
Time passed, and everything around you slowly changed. Except you. Your friends got old, grey, and wrinkled. And you remained the same as those decades ago. Then you discovered your second curse. You were immortal.
You and Aleksander could have lived together forever if not for Shu Han's and Fjerda's people.
It was the time when you vowed to finish Aleksander's work at any cost. His sacrifice will not be in vain. You were supposed to build a Ravka safe for the Grishas. All you needed was a sun and shadow summoner.
So you waited. At any sign of the sun summoner's presence. You knew Aleksander's lineage was fine. People often spoke of the descendants of the Black Heretic. You've never come close to them. You didn't want to relive the pain that would be associated with being with a member of his family. Aleksander had no children, but his sister probably did; maybe even Baghra found someone - you weren't sure about the old woman's fate.
The past centuries have not been kind to you. But this month was fruitful in terms of good news. The sun summoner has been found, the king of Ravka was ill, and your men were on the trail of Morozova's deer.
And that's how you were on your way to meet Alina Starkov and the descendant of the Morozovas, General Kirigan.
You were supposed to change the world together - in memory of your Aleksander.
~•♤♤♤•~
Aleksander had never been in such a hurry to get home before.
He was so desperate to have you in his arms again that he even ignored all of his mother's taunts, remarks, and other snide comments. All that mattered to him now was coming home to you.
That's why he bravely endured his mother's teasing remarks as they rode horseback towards your cottage.
He was excited, only moments away from returning to the love of his life.
He missed you more than he dared admit to anyone. And he was a little ashamed of how an ordinary woman without Grisha's powers, like you, could have such power over him.
NO. You were not ordinary. You were his wife, friend, lover, support, rock, asylum, home. The only one to whom he entrusted his heart and soul voluntarily and without the slightest hesitation.
And with this gift his sister gave him, Aleksander will make sure you stay with him forever. That you'll live as long as he does. Neither of them, nor he, Baghra, nor his sister knew if this "gift" would work.
But Aleksander would be damned if he didn't try to keep you in his arms forever.
It didn't matter how many times he failed, trying to make you his equal, trying to turn you into a Grisha with similar powers to his. He was ready to do everything for you.
Aleksander sped up seeing your house. In his haste, he didn't even notice that he had lost his mother and that the scenery around him seemed to be getting darker and more frightening.
He practically leapt off his horse and raced to the door, opening it and rushing inside as fast as he could.
"Y/N?! Sweetheart, I'm home!" he shouted, expecting that as soon as you heard his voice, you would come running, throwing yourself into his arms.
But he was greeted by nothing but a terrible, deadly silence.
The scattered things in the corridor made him slightly anxious, but he dismissed his dark thoughts by saying that you were a little mess. However, after he still didn't hear any response from you, he started to worry.
He entered the living room only to find shattered furniture, an overturned bookshelf, and a broken window.
He panicked. He went mad with fear, screaming your name and running around the house like crazy, looking for you or any clues to where you might have run away.
His heart stopped when he found your battered body under an overturned wardrobe.
In the blink of an eye, he got you out from under the furniture and took you in his arms, trying to bring you back to consciousness.
"Y/N, please, Y/N, open your eyes! You can't leave me, not like that! Y/N! My sweet wife, my heart, please open your eyes!" he was shaking you in panic, begging all the saints to prove his dark suppositions wrong.
"Aleksander?" your quiet, tearful whisper both relieved him and broke his heart.
You lived. He hasn't lost you yet.
NO.
He couldn't lose you. He has to take you to the healer.
"Yes, love, it's me. Everything is fine now. I got you. Just stay with me until I get a help."
"You promised to protect me... why didn't you protect me, Aleksander? Have you stopped loving me?" your desperate whimper tore his soul in half. He began to shake all over, despising the feeling of helplessness and distress that had completely taken over him.
"What? No, I'll always love only you..." he felt your body suddenly go limp in his arms. He gripped your shoulders even tighter, shaking you in his panic attack. "Y/N? Y/N?! Y/N open your eyes! Y/N no! Don't leave me! Darling, no!" he screamed desperately in pain, burying his head in your hair and crying as he knelt on the floor and rocked with your cold body in his arms.
~•♤♤♤•~
Aleksander sprang from his bed.
The general was breathing fast, trying to calm himself after another nightmare involving you.
His beautiful wife. His epic love.
For hundreds of years, the day he lost the only love of his life played out in his nightmares in different ways. This time, his subconscious was kind enough to let him talk to you for a while. Usually, he finds your body either impaled or dismembered. He never managed to save you. With none of those dreams.
His dreams might have macabred the events of that day, but he had never, in all those hundreds of years of his life, forgotten what really happened. He has not forgotten the grief, anger, sadness, and despair that overcame him when he and Baghra found their village burned to the ground without any trace of you.
Despite his search, he still didn't know what really happened to you, and he doubted he'd ever find out the truth. If all this had happened a few years later, if he hadn't been a boy just discovering the true power growing within him then, but the man he is now, you'd never despair like that. You'd never leave him to mourn over the future you two could have if only he was more powerful.
He was trying to fool himself. Telling himself that if you survived, you would have lived a much better life than you'd lived with him by your side. What could he have given you, then? An uncertain future, living in hiding, being hunted by the king's men? You were worth much more. You were worth all the jewels and treasures of this land, safety, peace, family, and happiness. Aleksander couldn't give you that. Not then.
He couldn't remember how many sleepless nights he'd spent wishing he could meet you now, to have you by his side, when he was this powerful man who could look after you properly, who would throw the world at your feet or burn it to the ground, depending on your humour.
But every time the sun came up and he had to continue playing his new role, the bitter reality made him realise that he would never have you again. He will never feel your soft skin under his fingers again, never lose himself in those beautiful, mesmerising irises, never run his hand through your hair, never take in your wonderful, intoxicating scent, and never taste your alluring, feisty lips again.
He was alone. And he will be until the end.
Until he widens the fold and makes sure no more Grisha dies at the hands of common otkazat'sya. That none of his people will repeat your fate.
He was supposed to change the world - in memory of his Y/N.
And then, maybe fate will be kind enough to reunite him with his beloved wife on the other side.
~•♤♤♤•~
Alina Starkov was a pain in the ass.
It took the girl only 15 minutes to run away from Kirigan's Grishas and get herself into trouble. She has damn luck that you decided to follow her and rescue her sunny ass.
You disappeared as soon as you made eye contact with her after you burned the Fjerdans with your pale, white light.
You wandered through the forest, cursing under your breath at the carelessness of both sun and shadow summoners. You didn't know which was worse, the impetuous girl or the thoughtless general who just let her get away.
With helpers like that, you'll have to work twice as hard to make the fold bigger. Fate really had no mercy on you.
You stood by the river, sighing in relief as you washed the blood from your face with cold water.
Your moment of peace didn't last long, however. You sensed an additional presence—someone creeping towards you. You took out one of your daggers and braced yourself for an attack.
But the moment you turned to face your opponent, you froze.
Aleksander...
He was standing in front of you. In a black kefta, a man so like your husband that just looking at him hurts you more than any blade could. This gaze, this face, were hunting you each night, every time you closed your eyes. And now he was standing right before you.
And the worst of it all was that it wasn't your Aleksander.
Only his descendant looking just like him. A shell that resembles the only man you've ever loved.
In your rage, you attacked him first, taking out your anger on him for the saints for continuing to play you mercilessly by putting your husband's doppelgänger in your way.
But Kirigan did not give up so easily. As soon as you moved towards him, he too snapped out of his strange daze and drew his dagger as well. The clang of metal echoed across the clearing as you both tried to find the other's weak spot. Oddly enough, you both did it at the same time.
"Put that down and I'll consider whether or not to spare your life." he growled, holding your arm in a tight grip as he felt your nails digging through the skin on his hand.
"Femoral artery. You'll bleed out faster than me." you replied with a malicious smirk, ignoring his threats.
"Who are you?"
"My mother taught me better than to make friends with the stranger freak in the forest, sir. Especially when they have a dagger dangerously close to my back." you kicked him, pushing him away from you, and attacked again. The clanking of steel against each other echoed across the clearing as your daggers met halfway. You growled in frustration, pushing him away.
"Your mother should teach you not to attack everyone you meet. You may encounter someone much stronger than you." Kirigan recovered faster this time, storming at you.
You ended up in a rather uncomfortable position as you held the steel against his heart and he wrapped his arm halfway around you, pulling you close. You didn't know if you were more dissatisfied with the metal digging into your chest or with his hands on you.
"And yours that you shouldn't raise a hand against a woman. I guess they both failed."
Did you both just say the exact same thing when you first met your husband? Yes.
Will he get lenient treatment from you just because he looks like your Aleksander? Absolutely fucking no.
Taking advantage of his moment of inattention as he stared at you distractedly, you pulled out the second hidden dagger and placed it against his neck. You tried to push his hand away from you, but the man, feeling the extra-cold blade against his skin, woke up from his trance and grabbed your left hand aggressively.
He moved your blade away from his neck and pinned you to the tree, slamming your left hand hard against the trunk, making the weapon fly out of your hand and bury itself in the ground near his foot.
Kirigan pressed his dagger to your side, leaning closer to you. He stared intently into your eyes, and for a brief moment you saw longing flicker in his dark eyes, which then gave way to rage and frustration, equal to the one that exploded inside you the moment you saw him. The moment you noticed that saints still played cruel with you by creating someone so damn similar to your husband.
He has no right to have the same face and eyes as your lost love.
"What. Are. You?" he asked, pausing on each word to intimidate you and bring his face closer to yours. But you didn't care much. You have hundreds of years; nothing, especially the doppelgänger of the man you love, could scare you.
You stared at each other with hostile eyes, and for some reason (other than your dagger at his thigh), he had some sort of hatred for you as well. So much so that he didn't notice how your powers reached for each other where your skin touched.
Strangely, it felt familiar to you. HE felt familiar.
You stared into each other's eyes as you unknowingly leaned in closer. You were about to try to break free from his grip when a sudden snap of branches caught your attention.
"That's you! She saved me from the Frejdans, sir." Alina's voice pulled him out of this strange moment between you two.
You wanted to find a sun summoner. You spent several hundred years on this, but the girl had hellishly bad timing.
Kirigan moved away from you, but you both continued to aim your daggers at each other, not trusting each other for a moment. Even though Alina just admitted that you saved her life.
"Why did you do that?"
"Someone so powerful like you should recognise when they stand before their equal, general Kirigan." you sneered, glancing for a moment at the woman standing next to both of you. Fortunately, nothing happened to her. She had a few scratches, but nothing that even the most ordinary medic couldn't heal.
"And how exactly are we equal?"
You smirked mischievously as you slipped the dagger into your sheath.
You linked your hands, focusing on the warm feeling of your light coursing through your veins, and without taking your eyes off the general's, you pulled them apart, revealing a thread of white light. You spread your arms wider, causing the rays to illuminate the clearing around you.
They both stared at you in amazement as your light turned into stars, which then arranged themselves into constellations. Figures of saints ran around you until you flicked your wrist to make them disappear.
"Melinoe Petrova. Moon Summoner. I think the three of us are going to change the world together."
You watched the speechless Alina with satisfaction, but your smile faded as you shifted your gaze to Kirigan. You had some difficulty reading him, but even more so understanding the longing in his eyes.
It seems your problems with a shadowman have only just begun…
~•♤♤♤•~
Kirigan didn't trust you.
You weren't surprised by it, but you hoped it would be easier for you to manipulate him. Apparently, the descendant of Aleksander inherited family cunning and distrust.
It's been a month since your little encounter (and fight) in the woods. In the meantime, you've been living in the Little Palace with the other Grishas; you met the king and got your own fancy kefta.
Black kefta. With moons, stars, and so on.
You wouldn't care about the colour of the fabric if it didn't turn out that only Kirigan wore one. Bloody Alina was the first to find Genya and get herself a blue one. So you stayed in your black kefta, pretending the general wasn't trying to mark you as his property.
But the son of a bitch liked your look in his colours too much for you to accept it.
It didn't help that he was too much like your Aleksander, either. Many times you've held back from taunting, making snide comments, or yelling at him just because those fucking dark eyes looked at you, taking you back hundreds of years to the time when HE was by your side and looked at you like that.
The similarity between them was not only in appearance. They had a lot in common when it came to character traits. Stubborn, mischievous, prescient, well-read... sometimes, when you spent too much time in his war room, you found yourself thinking of him as your Aleksander.
So slowly, despite all your self-loathing, you fell in love with the general.
That's why you were hiding from him in the library, hoping Alina, Zoya, or anyone else would keep him busy tonight enough to forget that you were supposed to meet him after dinner.
You had to suppress that stupid feeling. He was not Aleksander. He was just your husband's doppelgänger. Just a shell of your lover.
"Mel? Are you okey?" Alina's soft, concerned whisper snapped you out of your thoughts.
"I'm fine. Another nightmare?" you asked, patting the space next to you and opening the edge of the blanket for the girl to sit with you.
Your beginnings with Alina were not colourful; the sunny girl irritated you and could easily throw you off balance. But as time passed, you became friends to the point where you comforted her after her nightmares about the fold and the deaths of her loved ones. Sometimes you would read her old Ravkan fairy tales or sneak into the kitchen for hidden sweets. In more critical situations, you would drag her outside to the gardens, where you would sit on the pier by the lake, watching it gleam in the moonlight.
In a way, you too found solace in comforting the girl. It was nice to have company after being alone for so long. Fighting your past, which was showing up in your dreams, was easier with a ray of sunshine by your side.
"No. This time I can't sleep."
"Are you bothered by overly comfortable pillows, or maybe our princess felt a pea under the mattress?" Alina snorted, shaking her head. It took her some time to realise that your sarcastic remarks were not intended to offend her but merely to make her laugh.
"I'm thinking about Mal."
"Oh yeah… your boyfriend and childhood friend, what's up with him?" you asked, slamming the book shut to turn all your attention to the black-haired girl.
"He's not my boyfriend. We are only friends." she murmured, blushing, obviously awkward at your apt comment.
"Sunshine, I can recognise the face and eyes of a woman in love. You can't hide your feelings from me."
"Well, you're not the only one with this gift. Kirigan also gives you an infatuated man's look. Don't deny it! Even Ivan can see it. I think that already half of the second army knows about their general's fondness for the moon summoner." she teased you with a cocky smirk on her face. You rolled your eyes, returning your attention to your book.
"Please, half of the Grishas look at me like that."
You knew what Alina meant. Kirigan looked to you as the solution to his fold problems - as did the other Grishas. Little did they know that instead of being their saviour, you gonna be their worst nightmare... a White Heretic.
"No, not in that way. They look at you, at us, as saints, as saviours who can destroy the fold. He admires you, not your power. And judging by the fact that you're still wearing a black kefta, he's not indifferent to you either."
You inadvertently snuggled deeper into the black material. Alina was partly right; maybe you didn't want to get involved in any romance, but it would definitely be easier to manipulate the general who is infatuated with you. You could have taken advantage of the fact that seeing you in his colours put him in a strangely pleasant mood. You've used your black clothes more than once as a weapon in your negotiations with the dark general.
"I have a black kefta because some irritatingly fast sun summoner found Genya first and got herself a dark blue one. You didn't leave me much choice, Alina."
"How sorry I am for that. By the way, Kirigan asked about you. He waits in his chambers, longing to finally see you after you've been ruthlessly ignoring him all day."
"I'm not done with you, Starkov!" you shouted after her, but the girl was already at the door, sticking her tongue out at you.
"See you in the morning, Petrova! You will tell me about your meeting with the General." she said as she walked away, slamming the library door.
"That little bitch." you muttered under your breath, wondering if you should go. You could have lied to him and said that you didn't meet Alina and forgot about your meeting. You only doubted the sun summoner's loyalty to you...
However, you started gathering your things, knowing full well that you would have to leave the library anyway.
You frowned as you heard soft footsteps behind you that probably no normal human would have heard… at least not one who hadn't lived at least a hundred years of hiding and running.
"Ivan." you greeted him without turning to face him. The man stopped, obviously surprised that you sensed his presence. However, he quickly returned to his unemotional mode.
"Miss Petrova. The General requests your presence in the war room."
"I was on my way." you replied, knowing full well that the man knew the truth. More than once, he chased you around the Little Palace at the general's behest. Fortunately, he had enough sense in his head not to make Kirigan aware that your memory was reliable and you didn't meet him only out of your own reluctance (actually, a huge desire to see him). "Alina just told me he wants to see me."
Ivan nodded and waited for you to escort you to the war room.
~•♤♤♤•~
Considering the fact that you were a regular visitor to Kirigan's war room, you should know the way to his chambers. But each time, you seemed to take a completely different route than the last time.
Ivan had to repay your elusiveness by making the longest trips to the general's room.
But this time, heartrender quickly dropped you off at his general's door and, wishing you good night, disappeared into one of the corridors.
You sighed, not wanting to face your growing infatuation and subsequent attempts to manipulate the general into carrying out your plans today.
You opened the door, entering the "vestibule". You pricked up your ears as you heard Kirigan talking to someone very familiar. Zoya.
"You used to call on me. On times like this. Your table wasn't messy, and in bed, it was me instead of these books. I can help you make it all right. Just let yourself relax." without knowing why, you wanted to go in there and interrupt whatever plan she had to seduce him. And not because you felt jealousy eating you up inside. You were supposed to be the one to lead him by the nose to do whatever you wanted. Not that windy bitch who was ruining your plan.
"I shall relax when my moon summoner comes here to help me with this. With her by my side, you don't need to worry about me anymore. I'm with the perfect helper." you chuckled internally, wanting so much to see the look on her face after he had rejected her. You figured this would be the perfect time to step in.
"Am I disturbing?" you asked as you walked inside.
If Zoya was an inferni, the general's room would probably go up in flames at the sight of you. Kirigan, on the other hand, seemed very pleased to see you. His eyes were focused only on you. And your black nightgown, over which you threw on (also the black) kefta he ordered.
"Not at all. Zoya was about to leave a few minutes ago."
"General." he said. Kirigan did not even glare at her as she bowed to him. She walked past you, giving you a hostile look, which you only smirked at.
"Didn't you forget something?" Kirigan's sharp question broke the silence between the three of you. Zoya stood immobile, as if engraved. She stared at the general for a moment, then clenched her hands into fists and bowed to you.
"Miss Petrova." she growled, then stormed out of the war room, slamming the door.
"It wasn't necessary. You'll only infuriate her more by forcing her to show me respect." you said, turning to face the general, who was suddenly right behind you. He was the only one who could sneak up on you. A skill he used extensively.
"You're the moon summoner… you'll get all the respect you deserve. I'll make sure about it." he murmured, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear.
"You can't make people do it. Respect is something that has to be earned, something that has no meaning if it is given involuntarily." his silence surprised you. He usually answered your words with 10 of his. But now he was staring at you silently, which didn't help your already fast-beating heart. "So what do we have on the agenda today, general? Arguments about whether we really need First Army soldiers or you don't know where Loavana is."
"I know where Loavana is. I was tired then, and besides, you were the one who turned the map and misled me."
"Of course, general." you snorted, smiling teasingly. You moved to the other side of the table, tactically increasing the distance between you. "So, did you summon me for any reason other than staring at my natural glow? Because honestly, I'm getting a little bored." you said as you sat down on the table and casually reached for one of the orders he had written.
"Always impatient." he muttered, suddenly appearing in front of you and gently taking the paper from your hand.
"Always too mysterious."
"This may surprise you, but I have other things on my mind than your natural glow, little moon."
"What a shame." you murmured, placing your hand over your heart in a hurt gesture. But you became serious when you saw him staring dully at the map. "What's bothering you?"
"The Fjerdans have moved closer to our border."
"How many?" you asked, jumping off the table and turning your full attention to the distressed general.
"Several branches. Enough to get our attention and attack one of our regiments." he replied, pouring himself a glass of liquor and handing you your own.
"We need to speed up Alina's training. Before all hell breaks loose and our great king orders our troops to be divided to fight the Fjerdans. The fold case must be finally closed. Before we go to another war. For now, we have to send some of our healers and additional troops there. If there are more of Grishas there, no Fjerdan will dare attack them. They will shift their attention to the soldiers of the first army, and this will no longer be a direct problem for us." you turned to him, confused by his silence. Kirigan stared at you with a gentle, tender smile on his face and a longing, dreamy look. The silence between the two of you and the gaze he was giving you embarrassed you. "What? Why are you looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong?"
"No." he grunted, shaking his head as he blushed slightly when you caught him staring. "I just... I was fighting this war alone for so long."
This was the moment. You had to cast your net over him, surround him at his most vulnerable, and make him fall for you.
But you forgot to guard your own heart in the process...
You grabbed his hand. Your powers combined as usual when your skin touched, causing you to be enveloped in the utter darkness of his shadows, with only the white light emanating from your joined hands illuminating your faces.
"You're not alone." you whispered, afraid to break the spell between you. Afraid that the moment your voice reaches him, those damn hypnotic eyes will tear away from yours. Afraid your mind is about to scold the stupid heart that beat for the man before you. A man who, for the sake of your sanity, was too much like the husband you loved.
"I've been waiting a long time for you." he replied just as quietly, afraid to break the sanctity of the moment. Afraid it was another of his cruel dreams where he would have your dead body in his arms again. But the reality was even more brutal for him. Because the woman who stood before him, the woman who looked exactly like his wife, wasn't her at all. And that didn't stop his cold, centuries-old heart from beating for her.
"Believe me, not as long as me." you whispered. Tears began to gather in his eyes, threatening to spill out as he raised his other trembling hand and cupped your cheek. The feel of his cold hand on your face made you realise what you were doing. He was not Aleksander. He wasn't yours. And you will never be his. "I think I should go." you grunted, stepping away from him.
His shadows returned to him, as did your light. Everything has returned to normal. Except for the frantic beating of the hearts of the two of you.
"Don't forget about tomorrow's ball. We're supposed to put on a little show for the king and his nobility."
"How could I forget that we're supposed to be circus monkeys tomorrow?" you asked with a pugnacious smirk, to which he just shook his head in amusement.
"Don't let anyone else hear it. I don't want to visit you in a dungeon… however tempting you look in chains." his bold suggestion shocked you, but you decided to play on without giving him a chance to have the last word. You walked over to him and, ignoring his intense gaze, whispered in his ear with your lips brushing his earlobe.
"I'm not that easy to put in chains, general." you brushed his cheek with yours and disappeared from the war room at the speed of light.
It was something you could do. Game, flirt, chase, challenge—all kept away from any emotion other than lust. It was a game. Manipulation game. And you were going to win it. For your Aleksander and other Grishas.
~•♤♤♤•~
Your dress was so beautiful and wonderful. You admire Genya's skills, but what she did for you this time was indescribable.
With trembling hands, you smoothed the fabric of the dress around your waist, admiring the intricate embroidery of the constellations. The white and silver threads shone in the candlelight like real stars on your dark blue dress.
You didn't like getting dressed up, getting your hair up in a fancy hairstyle, or wearing those uncomfortable ball gowns. In fact, you've only worn formal clothes a few times in your life. But only twice did you feel like a true goddess, a queen. Today and on your wedding day.
"Who put that veil on you?" Baghra's grumpy tone snapped you out of your thoughts as you looked at yourself in the mirror. You had a lovely dress, even considering that neither you nor Aleksander and his mother had as much money compared to other families. But it didn't matter. Not for you. The most important was Alexander and you. And not the judgmental looks of other people. It was your day and no one could ruin it for you.
"Myself. Something's wrong?"
The woman sighed as she walked over to you and unfastened it with unusual delicacy for her, mumbling something about your blindness as she adjusted your crooked veil.
"Now. You look almost properly. You're missing one thing."
"Which is?"
She reached into the pouch strapped to her side and pulled out something shiny. She gestured for you to turn towards the mirror. You did it while watching a woman put the most beautiful necklace you've ever seen around your neck.
"Bagra is… it's wonderful. I can't…"
"Yes, you can. And you will be. I won't let that old hag gossip about my daughter looking like a poor peasant on her wedding day."
"Thank you." you whispered in a shaky voice, more concerned that the woman called you her daughter than the ridiculously expensive and beautiful necklace.
"Come on. Don't cry, or you'll turn red and scare everyone, including my son. You'd better hurry up. The boy is about to have a heart attack if you're another minute late. If it wasn't for Ulla, he would have run here 10 minutes ago."
"Did she manage to come?" you asked as she took your arm with the obvious intention of walking you down the aisle.
"Of course. That's my daughter. She wouldn't waste the opportunity to tease her crazy-in-love brother." you giggled, not missing her little smile. The woman stopped right in front of the exit door, giving you a serious look. "Y/N, are you absolutely sure you want this? You know our true origins, my boy's character, and all the dark things our family has been through. Are you absolutely sure you want to join this mess? 'Cause once we walk through that door, there's no turning back."
"I think we both know the answer to that question, Baghra."
"No. I need to hear it. Do you truly want this?"
"I dream of nothing more than marrying Aleksander, and spending my whole life with him, no matter how long or short it may be."
The woman nodded silently and opened the door.
A wide smile appeared on your face as soon as your gaze met the clearly nervous Aleksander. He calmed down the moment he saw you, an equally goofy, in-love smirk playing on his lips. And when he finally had you at arm's length, he didn't hesitate to grab your hands in his firm grip, never taking his eyes off yours for a moment.
It was just you and him. Lost in your love.
And so began your little eternity together... shorter than either of you would have liked.
You'll always remember that day, even if it was associated with bittersweet memories of your all-too-short marriage. A single tear fell from your eye. You wiped it with the sleeve of your dress.
Your hand automatically wandered under your dress, absently stroking the Baghra's necklace to which you had attached your wedding ring. The only memento of your past.
In another life, you and Aleksander could have had it all.
"Little moon? Are you ready?" Kirigan entered your room." We're going... soon." you could see in the mirror how he froze as his eyes met your reflection in the silver mirror.
You turned to him, making a sweeping movement with your skirt. You wouldn't waste your chance to be a diva. However, you yourself soon succumbed to a similar blackout as his as soon as you assumed the general's appearance.
The saints really liked to torment you.
There was no other explanation for why the man in front of you looked almost exactly like your husband on your wedding day.
Aleksander couldn't take his eyes off her. She was perfect. Ethereal, otherworldly, and breathtaking. His Y/N... No. She wasn't her. No one could be her, not even a woman with her face. Which didn't stop him from giving himself to this dream that it was his wife standing in front of him. He spent hundreds of years in suffering; maybe this one night he can afford to live in his most beautiful dreams, where SHE would still be with him.
He cleared his throat, snapping you both out of the strange, nostalgic atmosphere.
"You look amazing." you blushed as you turned back to the mirror, pretending to consider the truth of his compliment.
"Thank you. Genya makes wonderful dresses." you reached for the kefta thrown over the armchair, but the man beat you to it.
"Please, allow me." you nodded to him. You turned your back to him, waiting for him to put the kefta on your shoulders.
He smoothed it out, letting his hand brush the fabric of your bare collarbones for a moment too long. You shivered as you felt the tiny touch of his fingertips on your bare skin. Good thing the kefta covered most of your bare arms. You didn't want to give him satisfaction for how he was affecting you.
But judging by his dilated pupils, you weren't the only one who felt the attraction between the two of you.
However, you will definitely not be the one to give in to such trivial desires. He was not Aleksander. Nobody could.
"Thank you again." you murmured as you pulled away from him, smiling. You preferred to act oblivious to his advances rather than risk giving in to the lust that was evident between the two of you. Although you knew there would come a point in your little game where you'd have to seduce him a bit to lull his guard down. And you feared that moment more than entering the fold.
"Anytime, love. Shall we?" he asked, offering you his arm. "I hope you spare me at least one dance." he murmured, smiling at you with that flirty twinkle in his eyes as he kissed your hand.
Wonderfully. Now he was supposed to be your personal bodyguard for all night.
You sighed, grabbing his arm. Kirigan pulled you closer as he escorted you through the maze of corridors.
It was going to be a really tough day. - you thought, allowing yourself to steal a glance at the general who was already watching you. - Especially with those eyes so focused on me.
~•♤♤♤•~
The Kirigan left you alone for a moment just before entering the ballroom. You were to wait for him and Alina, and then the three of you were to give little shows of darkness and light.
So you waited patiently until someone bumped into you, knocking you to the floor.
"Watch where you walk!" you growled, dusting yourself off as you got up off the floor. The hooded figure stopped and turned to you. You both froze when you saw your faces.
"Y/N?" Baghra asked in disbelief. "It is impossible." she whispered, coming closer to you and catching your hand in a strong, bruising grip, only to grab your necklace later, which had slipped out from under your dress after you fell. She looked at him tenderly, shifting her gaze to you.
"Hello mom." you whispered uncertainly, fearing your mother-in-law's reaction. She liked you, it's true, but in the meantime, you managed to disappear without a trace for hundreds of years. You didn't know what your relationship was like now. But rather, neither of you could be hostile to the other.
"It's really you… But how? I… we thought you were dead, child. Where have you been all this time?"
"A little here, a little there. Forgive me for not writing or coming. I think you understand perfectly well why I didn't."
"Not even a bit, actually." she replied, confused. You frowned. You've never seen Baghra confused. It was a strange sight, to say the least, and definitely worth remembering.
"You know how dear he was... Aleksander is to me. After his death..."
"Death?" she asked. You didn't know if you misheard or if the surprise in her voice was genuine. She rather knew about his death, didn't she?
"Yes. While creating a fold." you explained, looking at her intently. But Baghra's face never betrayed anything. Not any single emotion. She tucked the necklace under your dress and grabbed your shoulders.
"Oh, my dear child. For all this time..."
"Baghra!" Kirigan's scream echoed through the empty corridor. The woman stepped back from you like she was burned, watching the general with contempt as he approached the two of you. "What are you talking about with my moon summoner? I hope she didn't bother you too much, Miss Petrova."
"Not at all. Actually…"
"I was just leaving, moi soverenyi." the woman interrupted you, giving you an enigmatic look, before she turned her back to you two. "Enjoy yourself, Miss Petrova." she threw over her shoulder as she walked away.
"Crazy woman. But he teaches the young Grisha well. What did she want from you?"
"Nothing special. She asked where I was from and what I was doing here. I don't think she's heard of the new moon summoner yet."
"Probably you are right. Let's go. We've got a show to play."
He took your hand gently and led you to the centre of the room, where Alina was already waiting for you.
You had a simple task. Kirigan summons shadows. Alina, on the other side of the room, her golden rays, and you, the white moonlight that was supposed to connect with her powers, then break up into several constellations.
A child's trick and spectacle for the common folk who treated you like toys all rolled into one.
Everything was going smoothly. Suddenly, the room was completely dark. You waited patiently for Alina's light to appear on the other side of the room. When suddenly someone approached you from behind.
"It's okay, it's me. It's just me, you're safe."
"What are you doing?" you asked as he wrapped his arms around you from behind, taking both of your hands in his.
"Don't you think this is the best place to watch the whole show?" his question confused you. You turned in his arms, miraculously seeing those bloody, dark eyes in the darkness. The mischievous sparks both made your chest feel warm and terrified. The bastard was up to something.
"I doubt it; with my light, you'll barely see Alina's trick."
"Works perfectly for me, my little moon." he whispered against your ear. You tensed as you felt his soft lips on your earlobe.
Suddenly he leaned in, the tip of his nose tracing a path from your ear down your skin, sending shivers down your spine as he inhaled your perfume and those damn distracting lips slid from your ear to your neck.
He started placing small, wet kisses there. Your brain has melted. It stopped working while the general was kissing every sensitive spot on your neck. He read your body so damn well that if it weren't for his quick reflexes and his hand over your mouth, your loud, obscene groan would have echoed in the darkness of the ballroom.
You felt the light involuntarily escape from you and thanked all the saints that you lost control just as Alina finished her part.
You tried to push the shadow summoner away from you, but your attempts were so futile (and reluctant) that you quickly gave up, focusing on doing your job with his intoxicating mouth and roaming hands on you.
The son of a bitch was lucky to stay in the shadows, unseen by anyone but you.
You internally cursed yourself for how much easier it was to do the whole trick with him around.
To your great disappointment, he moved away from you just before the grand finale. You were panting, trying to calm your wildly beating heart, and breathing as the light began to take over the ballroom.
And those fucking dark eyes and smug smirk were the first damn thing you saw when you and Alina lit up the room.
People started applauding. Kirigan came up to you and grabbed your hand, and after Alina joined you, you bowed to everyone, gathering an ovation. You glanced briefly at Kirigan, who was staring at your neck. You just hoped he didn't leave a hickey in plain sight. But judging by the way his smirk widened and the way he ran away from you as soon as you were surrounded by a crowd of people, you assumed you had a new, not-so-visible yet bruise on your skin.
You'll kill him as soon as you get your hands on him.
~•♤♤♤•~
You stand in the darkness of his war room, waiting for him to finally appear. You played with the dagger in your hands, contemplating meeting Baghra. You felt something was wrong, something was missing. The woman's behaviour both helped you and, after the general's arrival, gave you a lot to think about. She was hiding something. But what?
you sighed. If only Aleksander was here. It would save you a lot of trouble. Among other things, intimidating his doppelgänger, who started to stick to you too much - much to your tacit approval.
But you were aware that this attraction was only due to his resemblance to your Aleksander. In a few decades, Kirigan will die too. And you will be completely alone again.
The sound of his boots hitting the floor snapped you out of your thoughts. You braced yourself for an attack and jumped on him just as he flanked the door and stepped inside. You pinned him against the wall with a dagger to his neck as he gave you a surprised, amused look.
"Hello, moonlight. Do you like the ball?"
"What the hell was that?!" you growled, pressing the blade against his skin as you made a small, harmless cut.
"You put a dagger to my neck far too often, darling." he noted, frowning as droplets of blood decorated the silver metal.
"Don't change the fucking subject! You have no damn right to act like this. Lay your hand on me like that again, and I'll make sure you don't have anything to summon your shadows with, general."
"So my lips on your incredibly alluring soft skin were no problem for you, my sweet moon?" he asked maliciously, raising an eyebrow. You growled, irritated by his arrogance. You guessed you preferred it when he responded to your attack with his own dagger.
"Do that again, and you won't live to see another moment to find out."
"You forget..." he mumbled, suddenly grabbing your hand holding the blade and wrapping his other around your neck. He pinned you against the wall, making sure there was no space between you two. "That you're not the only one with power here."
"You'd better let me go, little shadow, before you unleash hell you can't stop." you growled, summoning your light, which immediately met his shadows. You fought, jostling with your powers and staring hard into each other's eyes. You weren't going to lose this fight.
"You underestimate me, darling. I'm more than able to face any of your hell."
You didn't know why, but that sentence, the confidence in his eyes, the arrogance in his voice, and the same immense need that was hiding under both yours and his mask of restraint changed something between you two.
His already dark eyes were practically taken over by black pupils that stared at you lustfully. The intoxicating smell of his perfume, the warmth of his body, and those damn big, cool hands on your hot skin only made you accept your spur-of-the-moment decision.
With his hand still tightly wrapped around your neck, you leaned forward and pressed your lips against his.
You both groaned in unison. Your only consolation in this situation was that before your hands hooked on his strong arms, holding on tightly for fear your legs would give out, you could hear his dagger first drop to the marble floor, seconds before your blade.
You only broke apart for a moment before quickly removing the other's kefta and catching the other's lips again. You fought for control, biting into the other's lip every now and then, which only met with more resistance and the will to fight. Neither you nor he were made to lose.
At one point, he grabbed you by the waist, wrapping your legs around him as he carried you to the nearest flat surface—the war table. With one flick of his hand, he swept all the maps, papers, and other stuff off him onto the floor and practically threw you onto a wooden table.
You gasped in shock as your body suddenly hit the wood, which Kirigan quickly took advantage of. He dug into your mouth, his tongue grazing yours as he tried to dominate you once again.
You growled, grabbing the back of his black shirt and tearing the fabric to get to his skin, where you didn't hesitate to leave blood crescents in the shape of your fingernails.
He hissed away from your kiss-swollen lips and bit into the same damn spot on your neck where he had dared leave a hickey before.
Aleksander...
You froze. It wasn't Aleksander. It will never be your Aleksander again. No matter how damn similar they were.
Kirigan continued to kiss your neck when you finally decided, with a heavy heart, to push him away with a gentle kick.
You both stared at each other, gasping for breath. Kirigan took a hesitant step towards you and raised his hand to gently stroke your cheek. But you jumped off the war table before his skin could touch yours and start your kissing session all over again.
You had to escape from there. As soon as possible.
"I... I should go." you mumbled, shoving past him to pick up the kefta that had been thrown on the floor by him.
"Wait a second..." he followed you but stopped the moment his eyes met yours again. You both wanted each other. You were both held back by the very same thing that attracted you in the first place.
"We have a hard day tomorrow. Make sure Ivan wakes up Alina; she's not such an early riser after all." you mumbled in panic, backing towards the door.
"Melinoe." he tried to stop you, but your hand on the doorknob was faster. You opened the door, and without looking back, you threw over your shoulder:
"Good night, general."
You ran to your room, and before anyone could stop you, you shut the door. Tears began to flow freely from your eyes as you slid to the floor.
For a moment, a fleeting little moment, you were Y/N again. You were that 20-year-old girl kissing her husband again. But Kirigan could never be Aleksander. And even if you gave him your heart, he would shatter it to pieces over time when he, like other descendants of your Aleksander, reached old age. You were doomed to be lonely. But the fact that a person with eyes, a face, and a mind so like your husband was at your fingertips wasn't helpful to your already broken soul at all.
You just wanted to have your husband in your arms again. Was it so much for the saints to accomplish? You sobbed piteously until you fell asleep on the floor from exhaustion.
Little did you know that a few floors above you, someone was also mourning their dead significant other. And he also cursed fate for putting in his path a woman so similar to the one for whom he would give everything he held dear.
One thing was certain. The longer you stayed in the presence of the other, the more you lost your mind. But neither of you was ready to deprive yourself of the toxic pleasure of seeing the living face of your beloved, lost spouse.
~•♤♤♤•~
As planned, the next day you headed towards the border with Fjerdans. Neither you nor the general spoke to you most of the way, which Alina and Baghra noticed. Yes. Baghra went with you. The general was just as shocked as you, but surprisingly, he didn't argue with the woman about her unannounced presence.
The only thing you were afraid of during this trip was crossing the land where your village used to be. Aleksander's house and yours. It also didn't help that you were supposed to be there on the exact anniversary of his death - the creation of the fold.
You thought it would be easier for you to ride a horse through the only place where you were happy, but the wave of memories flooding you did not allow you to pass by indifferently.
"You'll never catch me!" you run away from him, laughing.
"If I catch you, the game will be over. But since you're insulting my capabilities…" you yelled as you ran away when Aleksander rushed to you.
You ran along the river, looking over your shoulder every now and then to make sure your boyfriend wasn't right behind you.
Suddenly, a cloud of shadows appeared in front of you, from which your Sasha came out and grabbed you by the waist. You thrashed in his embrace, causing you both to fall to the ground, laughing.
"Aleksander! You shouldn't use it in public!" you scolded him, punching him lightly in the chest.
"We are in the middle of the forest. There are only us and some animals."
"Still it is risky for you. Don't make me tell your mother about this."
"Could you please stop threatening me with my own mother?" he groaned, throwing you off him, to which you squealed indignantly. You stared with your daggers at the man lying before you with a mischievous smirk and an amused twinkle in his eyes.
"Since I found out she likes me and trusts me more than you? No, it's too funny, my grumpy shadow-man." you laughed. You rolled your eyes as you watched his expression growl. You climbed on top of him and kissed the crease that had formed between his eyebrows from your comment. "I'm soooo sorry, Sasha. You know how much I love you, right? You're the most important person in my life, Aleksander Morozova."
"And you in mine, Y/N Y/L/N." he murmured, grabbing your cheek and pulling you into a sweet, slow kiss. You purred, enjoying the feel of his lips on yours - something you'll never get tired of. He pulled away from you far too quickly. He licked his lips, looking at you nervously. You raised an eyebrow, questioningly. "Y/N... can I ask you a question?"
"Right now? I thought you gonna kiss me a little longer, but if it's so important." he chuckled, shaking his head, as he leaned down to catch your lips in a kiss again.
"Happy, lapushka?"
"Not really, but I'll try to survive a few minutes without your lips on mine." he chuckled, but you knew from the features of his face and the gentle clasping of his shoulders that something was bothering him. You just hoped he wouldn't have to leave with his mother again... "What did you want to ask me?" Aleksander cleared his throat, taking your hands in his trembling.
"You know that I love you. I can't imagine how my life would have turned out if you hadn't put that dagger to my throat five years ago right here."
"I knew I recognized this place from somewhere." you cut him off, looking around the clearing. Aleksander laughed, catching your attention again as you blushed at how stupidly you interrupted him. But it seemed to help him relax, judging by the way his hand confidently reached out to cup your cheek.
"You make me laugh. Even on the darkest, worst of days. Just one look at those wonderfully beautiful eyes is enough to completely change my mood. One word from you and all my plans and beliefs fall into oblivion. You are the light in my darkness. The only good thing that happened to me. The only person who isn't afraid of what I can do. The only person who looks at me with such adoration despite my shadows."
"You know I love them. I love all of you, Sasha. Nothing will change that." you replied with tears in your eyes, suspecting what his confession would lead to.
"I know I have nothing worth you and that the life I can offer you is nothing compared to what you deserve, but you know me better than I know myself... I would go crazy if I wasn't the only man who has the privilege of seeing your face first thing every morning and falling asleep in the presence of your beauty. I'd go crazy if someone else could be called yours..." Aleksander took a simple gold ring with a small black gem from his pocket.
You gasped, knowing full well how much money he must have spent on even such a simple engagement ring. Baghra was supposed to skin your fiancé when she figured out what he wasted their money on.
"Sasha..." you whispered, crying, moving your gaze towards him.
"Y/N, kei onolich yash (will you marry me)? Will you be my wife?" too moved to answer him, you pulled him into a kiss. You both smiled like idiots. "I'm guessing it's yes then, but I'd rather hear it from you before I tell everyone else."
"Yes. Yes, I will marry you, you idiot. You didn't have to buy me a ring, Sasha. I would say yes without it."
"I wanted to make sure you wouldn't reject me." he replied with a mischievous smirk, putting it on your finger. You huffed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. The ring sparkled in the moonlight. Your face hurts from smiling. "I promise you, Y/N one day I'll give you the prettiest, flashiest ring in all of Ravka."
"And I will still prefer the one you gave me today." you replied without a second of hesitation, pulling your fiancé into another kiss.
The Kirgian ordered a stop, which everyone accepted with gratitude. And when others Grishas dispersed to their tasks, you decided to go to the place where your house and Aleksander's once stood.
Since you were already a stupid girl, as Baghra so nicely called you, this little trip shouldn't hurt you. You'd rather be stupid and crazy—completely mad from love—than ever forget about Aleksander and move on.
And that's how you got here. By the river, close to the place where you used to be the happiest in the world, and now you were shedding a sea of tears over the life you lost.
"I will build you a palace."
"What?" you asked, giggling as you looked away from the stars to your husband lying next to you on the grass.
Sensing the movement of your head, he turned around to look at you closely. You both loved nights like these. Your hands intertwined as you both lay on the ground looking at the stars and talking about your day, your plans, and your dreams. It was a sacred ritual between the two of you that you performed at least once a week.
"A palace. For you and our future children. A safe place where we can live with our little family."
"Sasha... I don't need a palace to feel safe with you. You are my shelter. My protector. What we have now is more than enough."
"That little hut where we barely fit in with our stuff, even though we don't have much anyway? NO. You deserve all the treasures of this world, Y/N" he murmured, stroking your cheek tenderly.
You sighed, pressing your cheek against his hand, enjoying every ounce of his attention. It's been getting more and more dangerous around here lately. You seldom had time to spend together; you were too busy with the Grisha needing your help. But you didn't mind. As long as Aleksander's eyes gave you that loving, adoring look at least once a day, you were ready to face anything to get back into his waiting arms.
"I already have one." he raised an eyebrow questioningly, looking at you in surprise. You just smiled, pulling him to you by the chin and connecting your lips in a kiss. Aleksander rolled over and hovered over you, not breaking your tender kiss. You placed your hands on his cheeks and gently pulled him away, looking into his eyes. No stars in the sky could match the brilliance of his dark irises. "You are my treasure. With you by my side I want nothing more. You're all I need to be happy, Sasha." you mumbled, stroking his cheeks with your thumbs. Aleksander buried his face in your hands, closing his eyes for a moment and surrendering to this tender gesture.
"You deserve much more, milaya. And I promise, by all the saints and stars in the sky, I'll give you the world."
"Everything in time, Aleksander. Now, kiss your wife and show her how much you love her." you giggled as his long hair tickled your cheeks as he dutifully caught your lips in another sweet kiss.
"Was he really worth it?" Baghra's question cut through your sobs. You wiped your tears, not wanting to cry in front of her, and turned to face her. "Wouldn't you rather curse him for creating a fold and for leaving you than mourn the bastard that was my son? Y/N, child, you have eternity ahead of you. An eternity where you can be happy. Is Aleksander worth wasting it?" you laughed bitterly, knowing the answer to her question all too well. Nothing has changed over the centuries. And you knew nothing would change your feelings.
"You know very well that I will never know happiness again. Not without him. I've never done that in all these years."
"There had to be a moment. Even the smallest." she tried desperately to convince you. You dropped your head, remembering those few moments between you and Kirigan in Little Palace.
"There was. Next to a man who looked like him. But after a while, it dawned on me that he would never be Aleksander. Call me and think about me however you want. Pathetic child, crazy woman… But the truth is, I loved your son, Baghra, and I will always love only him. Our hearts were created by the saints as one and divided in two, placing one in Aleksander and the other in me. There is no one in the world I could love like him, with whom I could be truly happy. This type of love never dies, Baghra. Even separated by a grave."
"What if you got him back? If he was with you, but he wasn't the same man you remember?"
"It wouldn't matter. We are all changing. I know I would love him as much as I did then."
"I just hope you know what you want, child. And that maybe he'll go back to who he used to be because of you." she sighed, leaving you alone with your grief. You frowned, analysing her vague words.
It wasn't until it started to get dark that you got up from your knees and brushed the dirt off your clothes. You were about to leave when the crunch of branches caught your attention. A foolish hope rose in you and you lifted your head, only to meet your eyes with the Kirgian.
"General. I was just returning to camp." he nodded his head without a word.
Taking that as your cue to leave, you turned to take one last look at what used to be your home. You sighed tremblingly as a lone tear rolled down your cheek.
And you whistled.
It was a fragment of an old Ravkan song about lovers returning home after a long journey to throw themselves into each other's arms, longing for separation. You and Aleksander adored it. And you decided that every time one of you left home, you would whistle that particular verse that stuck in your mind.
In storm-black mountains, I wander alone
Over the glacier I make my way
A cool breeze caressed your hot (from crying) skin. But the goosebumps that formed on your arms weren't from the cold at all.
"In the apple orchard stands the maiden fair and sings, When will you come home?"
You froze. Incapable of anything but breathing. You misheard. It's just one of your stupid fantasies, your mind playing tricks on you, or another cruel dream about how you got back the man you loved. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be real.
But the man holding your arm in a tight grip and turning you around to face him felt very real. AND ALIVE.
"Sasha?" you whispered tearfully, shaking all over, and if it wasn't for his strong grip on both of your arms, you probably would have fallen to your knees in front of him long ago, unable to do anything other than stare hopefully at the man in front of you.
Aleksander's heart shuddered and threatened to burst as the pet name, unused for hundreds of years, reached his ears. In an instant, you were on his chest as he hugged you with all his might. With your ear to his heart, you listened to his beating, and for the first time in hundreds of years, you cried WITH HAPPY.
"It's me, milaya. My sweet Y/N, my moon, my heart, my wife. It's me."
You heard him through a haze, too intent on his eyes to understand anything more from his speech. It was him. Your Aleksander. All this time. He was saying something to you, but you completely ignored him as something gold around his neck shimmered in the moonlight. You pulled the chain from under his jacket, sighing as you saw his wedding ring hanging securely on his necklace. A sob of disbelief escaped you. It was really him.
His hand cupping your cheek caused your watery gaze to shift back to those dark, beloved eyes.
"No more tears, milaya. You do not have to worry. From now on, I will never leave your side again. Not for a single bloody second."
And that was enough for you.
Grabbing his hair, you pulled him closer to you to feel his lips on yours as soon as possible. It wasn't one of those soft, gentle, unhurried kisses that lovers share after they meet after some separation.
It was intense, desperate, and needy, expressing your deadly longing for each other's lips through those painful years without each other. You didn't have the strength to hold back, to pretend you didn't miss that exact feeling all those lonely nights.
It didn't matter that your tears mixed and you could taste their salty taste on each other's lips. It didn't matter that your lungs were burning for air. It didn't matter that you had already fallen to your knees, too shaken by the feeling of the other's lips, but both of you longed too much for this closeness between you to deprive yourself of the warmth of the other's body even for a millisecond. It didn't matter if your lips were too swollen to decently go back to camp and pretend nothing had happened between you two.
You sincerely doubted that you would be able to take even a step towards the camp. Not after you trembled in Aleksander's lap as his hands caressed every inch of your skin.
But the moment came when you had to pull away from each other, cursing the need for air. You rested your forehead against his, inhaling his scent and clinging to his kefta to be as close to him as possible.
You both knew that there was no way you were going to be an arm's length away from each other. And you were seriously considering sticking with him permanently. His dark cloak looked big enough for you to hide under it too.
You couldn't believe your luck. He was here. With you. You had his arms around you again as you both clung desperately to each other.
Your Aleksander. Your husband. Your loved one. Your heart.
He had you again. His wife. His soulmate. His sanity. His equal. HIS EVERYTHING.
You wanted to pull away for a moment to look at his face again, but something tugged at your neck, bringing your head to Aleksander's shoulder. You looked down. Your necklaces are tangled.
"Seriously? It couldn't have happened a month ago?" you groaned as you tried to untangle your chains. You smiled, hearing how your husband laughed carelessly for the first time in centuries, since the day he lost you. "We'll never hear the end of it from Baghra, you know about it Sasha?" you asked, resting your forehead against his as you gave up on releasing the two of you. It didn't matter that everything was against you again. At least now you finally have Aleksander with you. YOUR real Aleksander.
"She had already called me a blind fool before she made me come here. I think we'll hear a lot from her about our stupidity." he murmured. You shivered as you felt his fingertips on your neck as he untied your intertwined necklaces effortlessly. He unclasped yours and, with great delicacy, placed the ring on your finger.
"Remind me to thank your mother for making you come here later." you replied, making sure his wedding ring was on his finger as well. Maybe you won't scare all the bitches away from him, but at least you'll make it clear that he belongs only to you. After hundreds of years without him, you have the right to be territorial.
"Later?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You don't think I'm going anywhere other than your tent and your bed right now, do you?"
"Our bed." he murmured before grabbing you in bridal style and heading for your tent. "By the way, I must commend you for how bravely you resisted the charms of someone who wasn't me. I barely managed to kiss you properly before you pushed me away."
"I don't know what I should do to you. Slap you for groping someone who had my face, or kiss you for only being attracted to my beauty."
"You have to admit, you didn't resist me much back then, my little saint." he murmured, kissing you again. He ran his hand through your hair, pulling you all the way onto him so he could feel your weight on him. You were with him. Body and soul. And it wasn't a dream. "Let's go to that tent before I have my way with you here and now." he muttered, getting up.
"Wait." you grabbed his hand. He turned to you, giving you a questioning look as he found you still kneeling on the grass. "Before we do anything. We both agree that we are not going to destroy the fold, right?"
Aleksander held his breath. He forgot how damn perfect you were. How you fit in and understood him in every way. And only the slight ounce of control he had left was keeping him from lunging at you right now as you kneeled in front of him with those beautiful, mesmerising eyes staring at him.
But after all, Aleksander was only human. A man whose cruel fate separated him from his beloved wife for many centuries…
He pulled you close to him in one swift motion. You crashed into his chest, completely unprepared for the sudden movement, but his intoxicating lips on yours compensated for your shock.
You moaned into his mouth as he pulled away from you so as not to lose his control completely.
"Saints, you have no idea how much I've missed you, my little moon."
"I'll take it as a yes." you replied, giggling as he put his arm around you. As you'd guessed, you fit perfectly with him under his cloak. You sighed, intoxicated by his scent.
"You know so well that I'll do anything for you. The fact that our plans coincide only proves that we belong to each other. And only to each other."
"Always, Sasha. I'm yours for eternity." you replied, smiling slightly as you turned to steal a glance at him.
"And I'm yours for the rest of our lives and beyond." he murmured, kissing your forehead.
You practically ran through the camp, ignoring Baghra's knowing, malicious look and the shocked expressions of Alina, Zoya, and Ivan (at which you giggled, causing Aleksander a small, tender smile) and Fedyor's smirk. You entered his tent, laughing as you started kissing while taking off each other's clothes.
"I hope you realize we don't leave this tent for at least a week?" he asked as he laid you down on the bed. However, the bastard didn't wait for your response, stealing a kiss from you.
"They'll be looking for you, Sasha." you mumbled between your kisses and grabbed his cheeks to make him focus on something other than your lips.
"What a pity I'll be too busy with my wife to notice anyone else but her." he lowered his head to your neck, making your hands tangle in his hair. You sighed, feeling his tongue on your skin just before he gently bit you.
"I thought we had a battle to win." he suddenly stopped all his movements. He intertwined your ringed hands and cupped your cheek with the other, forcing you to look into his eyes.
"My little moon, I'll postpone any goddamn war for you. There is nothing in this world more important to me than you and never will be." he promised, pressing his lips to yours.
You moaned, enjoying the long-forgotten feeling of his skin against yours as well as knowing that your love would never die.
1K notes · View notes
dearmantis · 1 year
Text
Back from the dead
Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/The Darkling x Reader
Summary: As a new servant hired to help out in the Little Palace you have a bit of trouble finding your place in the new, unfamiliar environment. It doesn't help that some of the people there seem to know you.
Warnings: mentions of death/dying alone, bleeding out
Word Count: 4k
Authors' Note: I have written something. Congrats to me. I'm not sure if I like it. This isn't edited and I'm not a native English speaker.
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"Who is this for? There's no name." You ask with a frown, holding up the dark brown wooden hanger. Usually, the clothes you're supposed to deliver to the Grisha have their name and order on the hanger, but this one is empty.
The other servant in the room with you, Mira, who is currently busy hanging the Kefta of a Tidemaker onto a dark blue hanger, looks up, eyes scanning the wood before her face contorts into a grimace.
"That's for Baghra. She prefers to wash her clothes herself, but once a month, the General asks us to steal her clothes and wash and repair them. Small warning: she's probably going to yell at you when you give them back."
You pull your eyebrows together, a deep wrinkle forming between them. "Wouldn't it make sense to just put them in front of her house in a basket or something instead of giving them to her personally? Or waiting until she's out again to bring them back inside?"
Mira shakes her head quickly. The movement makes her hair look like the most expensive black satin available.
"She has definitely noticed that someone took her clothes while she was out training the kids. She's waiting for someone to return them to let out some of her anger. There's no way Baghra is leaving her house until her clothes are back and she got to verbally abuse someone. I'm sorry."
Her attention goes back to the Tidemakers kefta, her long fingered hands carefully smoothing any wrinkles out of the material while her gaze checks the clothing item for any loose threads before hanging it up on the clothing rack next to her and moving onto the next item, a cream coloured cotton blouse with some beautifully carved wooden buttons.
Your hands dig slightly into the dark fabric of the dress you're holding, trying to determine if Mira is just trying to mess with you for fun or if she's seriously trying to warn you. You've only started working in the Little Palace a week ago and rumours about Baghra quickly found your ears as well, but you foolishly assumed that you would never have to interact with her after finding out that she usually only terrorizes the kitchen staff who bring her her meals.
Carefully looking through the other clothing racks for other dark brown, unnamed hangers, you end up with eight items before you finally leave the room, Miras "good luck!" following you through the halls like a death sentence as you move to leave the Little Palace.
You want to get this done quickly, trying your hardest to talk some bravery into yourself. Getting insulted by the old woman is basically a rite of passage according to some of the things you've heard over the past few days, like getting scared to death by the General or one of his Oprichniki randomly appearing behind you, getting into a fight with a servant from the Grand Palace after they said something mean about the Little Palace, and slipping on the stairs that lead to the kitchens.
You will survive this. Many have survived this before you, and many will continue to survive this after you.
The sun is slowly disappearing behind the palace, dipping the sky into a lovely shade of bright orange, pink, purple and grey-ish blue, reminding you that you will probably be done with work soon after this delivery. You will eat dinner with the other servants, who will probably want to gossip about Baghra with you, and then you will go to sleep for the night. It'll be a nice day, maybe, after you're back.
And then a new day will begin, and hopefully, someone else will be tasked with bringing her clothes back next month.
Of course, there's still the risk of being asked to steal her clothes, but you'll simply try to avoid joining the group scheduled to collect dirty laundry, at least when it's time to sneak into her house.
You've never been a fast runner, and you can't run for long either. She would catch you and beat you to death with that stick you've heard so much about before you even realise that she noticed someone breaking in.
When the house finally becomes visible, you can feel your muscles stiffen, but you force yourself to keep going. This is your job, after all. It's already a big miracle that you got this position in the first place, considering you have no training or experience as a servant. You really can't afford to run back into the palace and cry that you're too scared of the old woman to bring her her clothes.
And saints, what if she finds out you're that scared of her? Your mother always said that people only bully you to get a reaction out of you. They find the fear in your eyes amusing.
And that's what the old woman is, right? A big, old bully who kicks the children she's supposed to train around like pebbles and verbally abuses everyone who gets a bit too close to her.
You can't be weak in front of her. You won't be weak in front of her.
You can't see the woman, but you know she's waiting. You can feel her, somehow. She's lingering in that house, waiting for you to step closer, for your shadow to come just a bit too close to her door, and then she'll rip it open before you get a chance to knock to scare you as much as possible.
It's predictable, simple, and childish, and for some reason, it feels exactly like something Baghra would do. Which is weird because you don't actually know her. You've only heard what the servants and Grisha have gossiped about in the halls of the Little Palace.
But you feel like you've known her. Back when... when you were a child, maybe? No. You grew up in a village so small that the testers don't even bother to go there anymore. You would remember a woman like Baghra, just like you remember everyone else who has ever lived in the village.
Readjusting your hold on the old woman's clothes, you finally get close to the house and take a deep breath, waiting for her to rip the door open. Your steps become heavier and slower a few metres away from the door, hopefully catching her attention before she slams it right into your face.
The plan works. When the door gets thrown open, it misses you by two whole steps. You only feel a bit of air move against your face when an older woman steps out of her home, her dark eyes focused on the clothes bundled up in your arms.
Her thin lips open, ready to begin her verbal attack and insult and ridicule everything about you, when her eyes finally move up to your face.
The words get stuck in her throat and she simply stares at you for a few seconds, eyebrows pulling together as she looks you over.
"I have your fresh laundry, Miss." You announce, trying to make your voice sound as even and calm as possible.
She. doesn't. scare. you.
You might be scaring her a bit though.
A deep frown appears on her face, quickly turning into a scowl when you hold the clothes out to her.
"Did he hide you from me for all this time? Or did you hide yourself from both of us and decided to come back because he has more power now?"
Now it's your turn to frown, confusion written all over your face.
Baghra rolls her eyes, clearly already tired of you and whatever game she thinks you're playing. You try to prepare yourself for some other speech, some explanation of whatever she believes is your plan, but then she says your name, the name you've never given her, and any form of control you had over your body seeps out of it like water through a cheese cloth.
"You supid child. Faces reappear through history, and so do voices. But both? Together? And exactly the same as the first time? Impossible. I'm not gonna fall for your schemes. Take what you need and leave before he sees you. I don't need to hear his pathetic sobbing again. I had enough of that when you first died."
Her thin arms reach out to rip the clothes out of your graps before she moves to return into her house.
"Or, well, didn't die." the old woman murmurs, her gaze finding yours once more. "You really should just stay dead."
Slamming the door shut behind her, she leaves you to stand in front of her house, completely speechless.
What just happened? What was that?
You slowly turn around and walk back to the Little Palace, unable to tell if you can actually feel Baghras eyes following you, her gaze burning itself into your back, or if its a wave of paranoia making you think that that's what's happening.
Of course you're scared. Someone who's not supposed to know your name knows your name. Nobody knows a servants name – except other servants, of course – because no one ever bothers to learn their names. That's just how it is. You're background characters who clean up and take care of the main characters. Nobody learns the name of a background character because they don't matter.
You don't matter.
But why does Baghra know? The only explanation you can come up with is that she harassed some other servant to find out everything about the new servants in hopes of scaring the absolute shit out of them. But why bother with that? For fun? Is she that bored?
Huffing quietly, you slip back into the Little Palace and go back into the basement, simply letting out a deep sigh when Mira asks you how it went. She smiles encouragingly and promises you to give you half of her desert at dinner tonight in hopes of cheering you up a bit.
You have trouble sleeping that night, and it doesn't get better the next night, or the one after that. Instead, you dream more vividly than ever before, waking up completely exhausted rather than well rested like you should be after six to eight hours of sleep.
You never remember what you dreamed about.
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"You didn't have to..." You say quietly, carefully cradeling the fresh herbs.
"Well, if you don't want them-" The man playfully reaches out to take the bundles back, but you move them out of his grasp quickly, accompanied by a bright laugh. "Come on, I can give them to someone else. I bet my mother would appreciate them."
"You are not going to re-gift these, Sasha! They're mine now." You giggle. "I have some flowers you could bring your mother though! I doubt she's going to openly appreciate them, but she might like them. You know, in her own way."
He smiles and takes a slow step forward, his face hovering directly over yours.
"I will bring them to her later. Right now, I just want to focus on you."
A soft smile paints itself onto your lips and you wait for him to lean down and press a kiss against them.
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Your laugh echoes loudly through the house when he finally catches up to you, his arms wrapping tightly around you.
"Caught you," He huffs, his head bending down to lean against yours. Your hands move to his, holding onto them tightly as you let yourself sink down onto the soft carpet in your living room, pulling the man down with you. He sits down before you get the chance to, pulling you onto his lap, his lips pressing small kisses onto your shoulder and neck.
You lean back against his chest and soak up the warmth his body gives off. "It's not fair. Your legs are longer than mine. Of course you're faster than me."
"You were the one who suddenly ran off and yelled you'll have to catch me first! when I asked you for a simple goodbye kiss." The man laughs, and you can feel how the amusement and joy you felt before disappear slowly.
"I don't want you to go, Sasha."
You don't like admitting it. It makes you feel weak. A voice in the back of your mind whispers that he would never miss you the way you miss him. It sounds a bit too much like his mother, and you wonder when your inner voice of self-doubt started copying her voice. Since when do you even care what she thinks?
"I know, lapushka... But I'll be back soon, I promise. It'll be fine. You won't even notice I'm gone. Everything will be alright. I would never let anything happen to you, I swear it."
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You can't hear anything.
You can't tell if it's actually that quiet or if your body is starting to give up and you lost your hearing. Hopefully, it's just silent. It would be a shame if you could never hear Aleksanders voice again.
But silence isn't good either, you think. There are supposed to be screams around you. If they stopped screaming, that means they're dead. That means you're next.
But you can't be next. Aleksander isn't here yet, and he promised he would be back. He promised, and he never breaks his promises.
He has to come back. He swore he would make sure you would be safe, and while you told him that that's a stupid and impossible thing to promise someone, you did believe him when he said it.
But where is he?
How are you supposed to keep your own promise if he's not here to save you?
You said you wouldn't leave him behind, but you can't keep that if they burn you. You're not strong enough to withstand flames and endless torture. No one is.
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It's shocking how bad he is at cooking. He's completely devoid of any talent.
Sure, simple broths and soups are no issue, but as soon as the recipe requires a bit more thought, he is suddenly helpless.
Of course you would never tell him that. Not when he always tries so hard to help you, eyes wide and pleading as he begs you to let him take over some of the work.
"Please. I promise I won't mess up."
He always does, but you love him anyway.
He is a fantastic baker though. Every loaf of bread he works on, every cookie and every cake, turns into something perfect. As soon as sugar is involved, he suddenly becomes the most gifted man in all of Ravka.
Probably because he doesn't want to waste precious sugar, no matter what shape it comes in. Honey, fruit, berries, it doesn't matter. If it's sweet he loves it. That's just how he is.
He has a big smile on his lips when he shows you the freshly baked loaf of bread he worked on that day, already talking about what he's going to pair it with later when it's finally cooled down.
You know you should tell him not to eat so much sugar, to instead pair the bread with some of the cheese you still have in the house, but his smile is such a rare sight nowadays. You can't bring yourself to ruin his good mood.
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Your head is resting on his chest, ear pressed against his skin to listen to his resting heartbeat. His face is relaxed.
He looks younger like this. Every time he is awake he looks and acts like the fate of the whole world rests on his shoulders, but when he's stuck in the world of dreams he is completely calm.
He looks like the boy he was never really allowed to be.
You're glad that he managed to find rest relatively quickly considering how outraged he was after his fight with his mother just an hour before, his loud voice booming through the small abandoned house you're hiding in.
"Who does she think she is to keep trying to force her opinions down my throat? I don't care about what she thinks. I get to choose who I want to spend my life with. She has no say in this. She doesn't even know you! You would never leave me, right?"
A quiet mumble leaves his lips, his arms moving to wrap around you, pressing you closer to him before he rolls to his side and presses his face against the space between your neck and shoulder, his warm breath brushing over your skin and pulling you out of your thoughts.
You try your hardest not to flinch at the sensation, no matter how much it tickles you. Instead you start to brush your hands through his hair, carefully massaging his scalp with your fingernails. His body tenses slightly, just for a few seconds, before he fully relaxes again, letting out a content sigh that sounds suspiciously like your name.
Smiling weakly you press a kiss onto his neck before closing your eyes as well.
"I promise that I won't leave you behind. I'll stay with you until the end of time if you let me. I swear it, Sasha."
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Baghra is oddly possessive of her son considering she clearly doesn't like him.
That's the only thing you can think about as you watch her fuss over the boy she has tried so hard to keep hidden from the rest of the small Grisha village.
You want to talk to him. Everyone your age wants to talk to him. There aren't many teens in the village and while you all like each other, you're getting a bit sick of each other as well. Having someone new here to talk and play with could help soften the rising tension.
But that woman... she just shoos you all away as soon as you get too close to her precious son. You can't help but notice that he doesn't seem particularly happy about her behavior either.
He always looks so sad when he watches you and the other play and train, desperate to join you and have some fun instead of helping his mother wash dishes and fix clothes.
Most people would've fought back at some point, would've tried to defend themselves against their mother, but he just sits there and takes it as she scolds him over something stupid again. It's always something stupid, and he just listens to her words with that sad look in his eyes before his gaze begins to wander in hopes of finding something else to focus on, his face flushing from embarrassment.
This time his gaze find you, and even from several metres away you can see how his ears turn red. You try to give him an encouraging smile, but his attention snaps back to his mother before he can see it.
You really need to get him away from her, at least for one night. Maybe you could convince him that you could hunt together or something. He deserves some normal interactions without his mother hovering around him like a bird of prey.
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There are screams again, and you're almost glad. Almost.
It's cold now, and it keeps getting colder with all of the blood seeping out of your body, stealing all of the warmth from your limbs and spreading it on the dusty stone floor you're laying on.
You're not sure if its just the exhaustion making you hallucinate or if the shadows are truly moving in your little cell. It would make sense. Aleksander always draws pictures and scenes onto the walls or floor when you can't sleep. Nothing relaxes you more nowadays, except maybe his voice and touch. If your body wants you to stay relaxed as you slowly die, it would probably show you that, right?
You can feel how your powers try to put your body back together. The familiar, almost tingling sensation spreads all over your body, but the blood is still seeping out of you like a small river.
You will die here, you realise. Aleksander hasn't come back and you will die, leaving him behind. He will be on his own again.
You both broke your promise.
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Your mind feels like a glass bottle, ready to burst at any moment. You feel fragile and weak, disoriented and somehow... misplaced. You're not where you're supposed to be and you don't know how to get back to your original position.
Where do you belong?
Your physical health deteriorates further as well, alongside your mental health. You're often confused and lost, and your body never stops shaking, forcing you to wear the long, three coloured scarf you used to wear back when you still lived on your families little farm. It's against the uniform guidelines, but no one ever says anything because of how pitiful you look.
Mira compares you to her little siblings a lot, which is always followed by a sad sigh. Both of them are sick, which is why she works at the Little Palace, so far away from home. She sends the money she makes home to make sure they get the medicine they need, and now she takes care of you, giving you easy tasks like repairing small tears in clothes, sowing buttons back on and, of course, bringing the clothes back to their original owners.
You're never asked to go to Baghras hut again though.
"It would just exhaust you more, and you already look like you can barely stand. I don't want you to collapse."
That is Miras' official explanation when you asked why she didn't want you to go, but you're starting to question that reasoning now. If she really wanted to protect you from fainting, why did she send you to bring the General his clothes?
That seems a lot more exciting than being yelled at by the old woman again.
The basket filled with his clothes is also quite heavy and hard to hold with your sweaty palms, a lot harder than the eight hangers that you could simply hug against your body, letting the clothes drape over your crossed arms.
But you really don't want to tell Mira that you don't want to bring him his clothes. It's already embarrassing enough that you are officially no longer allowed to bring clothes to Baghra because of your illness. If you now say you can't bring the General of the Second Army his stupid socks, you might as well resign from your position and go back to your families farm in the middle of nowhere.
He's probably not even in his office. He's a busy man, after all. You will just swoop in, place his laundry basket on the floor next to the door, and take the basket with his dirty laundry back to be cleaned.
A simple job. You're scared for no reason. And even if he is there, he never interacts with the servants. You haven't seen him once since you started working in the Little Palace, and you know several other servants who have been here for longer and have never seen him either.
It'll be fine.
You repeat those words to yourself over and over until you finally see the dark, beautifully carved wooden doors that lead to the Darklings quarters.
The oprichniki standing in front of them eye you suspiciously, but they knock and open the door for you anyways, stepping aside to let you in.
They close the door behind you as soon as you're inside, and your gaze automatically swoops up to the man sitting at the desk at the other end of the room. You planned to just drop the basket off and get the dirty one, but now that you're actually here and in front of the General, you can't bring yourself to move.
There's a tingling sensation at the back of your neck, like your brain is trying to dig up a memory that isn't there anymore. Like you've seen this man before, but you don't remember where.
He's bent over his desk, his dark eyes reading through a thick, several pages long letter, paying you no attention while you shamelessly stare and try to remember where you could've possibly seen him.
He has definitely never been to your village. He is the Darkling.
A sigh leaves his lips after a few agonizing seconds, but he does not look up.
You're starting to get a headache now. The bottle feels like it's going to burst.
"Drop the basket off at the door. The dirty laundry is in my bedroom. Simply go through the door on the right and you'll find it."
You take a step backwards, your back hitting the door as you try your hardest not to drop the basket. There is a name right on the tip of your tongue, demanding you speak it into the silence lingering in the room.
The headache is now a sharp pain, right at the base of your skull. It feels almost like a warning. Like your body is begging you not to say it. To simply get the laundry and leave and never come back. To not let the botte burst.
"Aleksander?"
He looks up, eyes widening when his gaze finds your face. He whispers your name so quietly you almost miss it.
The bottle bursts.
2K notes · View notes
hopingforrainydays · 1 year
Text
birth of the bone-breaker | general kirigan
pairing: general kirigan x fem!reader
warnings: descriptions of blood and gore
word count: 2.3k
summary: soft times with the darkling as he comforts a traumatized grisha; in other words, a story in which a healer becomes something else and finds solace in the shadow summoner
author’s note: so so excited for shadow and bone season two. this one has been sitting in my drafts for a long time, and i’m happy to finally share it with y’all!
requests are open!
--
You were dragged through the palace gates at Os Alta, your limp form tugged forward--and held up--by the red-clad Grisha on either side of you. You barely registered their forceful motions, keeping your chin tucked into your chest. It was sodden with dirt, blood, and what could only be assumed to be some other form of bodily matter. But that wasn’t a bother. You barely registered that either.
It had been a long enough journey, but you had not fought the Grisha hauling you by horse, carriage, and on foot. You weren’t a fighter by nature, and even so, any of the adrenaline that flowed through your veins had ebbed away. Besides, you deserved whatever they had planned for you. The iron grip of the Corporalniks prevented any attempt of a struggle. The black detailing of their keftas marked them as Heartrenders; they could take the air from your lungs or crush your heart in a matter of moments.
But you could do the same, couldn’t you?
The shadow of the Little Palace loomed over you, and yet your gaze did not falter from its focus on your muddied feet. It was the only thing grounding you to this moment, no matter how you wished to glance upon the palace one last time. Once inside, you found small purchase on the smooth marble floors, the tips of your toes tripping at the quick pace set by your companions. A part you, deep inside, was apologetic of the mess you were bound to leave behind: muddy, bloodied footprints.
It wouldn’t be your first mess.
The First Army soldiers flanking the grounds had kept their hands on the trigger of their rifles and any Grisha that now flock through the halls followed your every movement, hands clasped in front of them. The dark forms of the oprichniki walked ahead, leading you to your doom. A strategic hold on your arms forced your hands to be kept apart.
You understood, in part, their caution. It still pained you. The presumption that the Grisha--your family--looked at you as though you were a monster clogged your eyes with tears.
Saints, you deserved whatever awaited you.
The Grisha soldiers brought you to the end of the hall. Ornate double-doors pushed open, and you were marched to the center of the large room. The bruising hold on your biceps ceased, causing you to fall to the ground in an ungraceful heap. You caught yourself against the ground, eyes trained on your bloodied fingertips. Your fingers folded into tight fists, the jagged edge of your fingernails cutting into your palms. You winced at the throbbing pain, but dug your fingertips further into the soft flesh. In the wild panic that rose in your throat, in the unsurety of the future, and in the potential meeting of your gruesome fate, you found that it was the one thing that reassured you.
“What is this?” The voice came from in front of you. It was cold and calculating, and one that you faintly recognized from your years spent training at the Little palace. General Kirigan.
“Forgive us, moi soverennyi. It’s a matter of grave importance,” said one of the Heartrenders. From what you could tell, they were stood not far behind you. Ready, in case you were to attack. 
There was a shuffle of feet behind you. One of the Grisha, a Squaller, stepped forward. Her voice cracked as she said, “We were meant to deliver a few supplies to the Second Army regiment posted outside Chernast. When we arrived, they were–” she paused, taking in a shaky breath. She whispered, more to herself than anyone else, “Saints, they were all dead.”
“Except for them,” the other Heartrender spat. There was a sharp tug to your hair, yanking your head back. You let out a yelp, wild eyes meeting the cool stare of your general. “We found this one near the Fjerdan border, not far from the rest.”
“Release her.”
“General, you should know it was a massacre.”
“Release her.”
The hand in your hair released. Your head slumped forward, a throbbing pain forming at the back. General Kirigan stepped toward you, his finger reaching out to lift your chin. You flinched. He hesitated, the finger hanging in the air for a moment before retracting entirely. Instead, he crouched, his eyes now level with your own.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice softer now than when he spoke to his soldiers.
“Our best guess is drüskelle-”
“I wasn’t asking you,” the general snapped at the Heartrender. He turned his attention back to you, waiting patiently for your response.
You shook your head back and forth, frantic. The memories of the attack had plagued your mind throughout your journey from Chernast to Os Alta, but you were always quick to shove them away. You didn’t want to remember.
The general’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. His dark eyes roamed your indiscernible features, watching as your eyes darted to look at the Grisha beside you. With a frown, he rose to his feet.
“Leave us.”
One of the Corporalniks made a noise of disagreement, but with one look from their general, quieted. The remaining Grisha left the room in slow, hesitant movements, as if they thought General Kirigan would change his mind. With a final bow, the Squaller closed the door behind her.
There was a tense silence as you remained on the floor and the general leant back against the round table. You were afraid to move, though most of the stress in your muscles had eased at the near-isolation.
“Can you stand on your own?”
You didn’t respond.
“Are you injured? I’ll send for a Healer.”
“No,” you were quick to dismiss the idea. The voice that left you did not feel like your own; it was rough as sandpaper, and a lot louder than you intended. Noticing the general’s taken-aback-expression, you were quick to whisper an explanation. “The blood isn’t mine.”
With a sigh, he moved towards you. He reached his hand out in front of you, mindful to keep his movements slow and stay a respectful distance away. You eyed his hand before placing your palm into his own.
He turned it over, brushing his thumb over the deep crescent marks left by your fingernails. A trail of blood ran from them down to your wrist. The look he gave you had your face burning in childish embarrassment, as if you were getting scolded by a parent.
“You’ll visit the infirmary later. I’ll have a servant come to clean you up, lest you’re hiding anymore injuries.”
You wanted to scoff at his choice of words. A small mark of self-mutilation was hardly an injury, and would never compare to the harm you brought to those in Chernast. Instead, you settled on a frown. He hoisted you to your feet and set you straight. As he moved to leave, you caught his arm.
“Wait,” you said. He looked at you expectantly, and you found yourself at a loss for words. You weren’t sure where you were going with this, but the idea of being left alone terrified you. The idea of being left alone with one of the servants terrified you even more. You wanted to believe it was because of the looks the other Grisha had given you upon your arrival--distrust, discomfort, and horror. You would never admit it, but you knew the true reason: you weren’t afraid of what they’d do to you, but of what you’d do to them. “Stay.”
After a beat of silence, you cleared your throat, pulling away from the powerful man. It was foolish, you were foolish. You leaned against the table, propping yourself up with both arms. The strength it took to hold yourself up became too much, though, and your arms trembled with exertion. 
General Kirigan reached out to catch you, balancing your weight on his forearms. He didn’t say anything, didn’t react to your request, or reprimand you for being so forward. Instead, he wrapped an arm around your back, supporting a majority of your weight as you leaned into his side.
He mumbled encouragements as he led you to a side room, resting you against the cool surface of a sink. You observed the new environment, the realization that he had brought you into his washroom dawning on you. The room was large enough, with a tub seated in the center. General Kirigan was beside it, turning the handle to allow water to pour from the faucet. As the tub filled to a level of his liking, he set out a variety of soaps and sponges off to a table on the side.
He took a few tentative steps in your direction, as though he were approaching a wild animal. Maybe he was. He gestured to the door you had entered through. “I’ll be in the other room.”
With a flustered expression, he shut the door behind him. It took you a while to get the motivation to move, to make any progress toward the bath. The ruined garments decorating your body would not budge under your trembling fingertips, so you eased into the tub fully-clothed. The water was scorching hot against the exposed parts of skin, but as you adjusted, you found that you preferred it. The bitter cold of the Fjerdan border still bit into your skin, so you welcomed the hot pain.
Cold. Chernast. Pain. Burn. The connection formed before you could stop it, and you were plagued by the memories from days before. You whimpered, curling into a fetal position. You remembered your weak attempts at healing the fatal injuries that littered the bodies of your fallen friends; the Fjerdan warriors charging you, axes raised to cut you down; the burning rage as your hands moved in ways they never had before; Fjerdan blood mixing with Grisha as it splattered into the snow.
The rap of knuckles against the door startled you out of your trance. The general’s voice sounded from the other side, “Is it okay to come in?”
You froze. Had it really been that long?
The door creaked open. He stepped into the room, his eyes finding yours. He let out an exasperated sigh at your state: curled in the tub, clothed, the water barely warm, and skin still dirty. His figure disappeared into the other room, bringing back with him a wooden chair.
He took a seat by the tub, reaching forward. His hands rested on your shoulders, smoothing over the fabric as his fingers moved to work at the buttons of your ruined kefta. The general was close enough now for you to smell him. A whirl of musk and spice filtered through your nose. You inhaled deeply, the scent strangely calming you.
The rest of your layers were stripped from your skin, and he folded the garments--Saints know why; they were beyond the help of any Fabrickator. You were left in a loose shirt and pants. The muck and grime caking your skin itched, and it took everything in you not to scrape it off. Your fingernails dug into the fat of your calves, jabbing through the thin material of your pants. You curled further into yourself, head rested against your knees. The pain brought you to the present, and it was all you could do to focus on that.
“What did this to you?” the general asked, rolling up his sleeves. He rubbed a bar of soap against a damp towel until the suds grew to his liking. He pressed the cloth to the skin of your hands, gently rubbing away the grime.
It was a different way of asking what happened, with an implication that you were not the cause. If only he knew that you were. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”
“You’re a Heartrender, no? You must remember the attack.”
“I’m a Healer.”
The confession stalled his movements. His grip on your wrist loosened, but he continued his work in the silence that followed.
“I do,” you whispered, after a moment. “I do remember.”
Kirigan didn’t say anything. He glared at the bruises marking your arms from the Heartrenders’ grip.
“Fjerdan warriors attacked in the night. We never saw them coming. There was so much blood, so many bodies.”
“But you weren’t one of them.”
“No. I was trying to help those still alive. Heal them, if I could. Saints, at that point I was saving them just for them to die again.” You swallowed, thick and teary-eyed. “One of them found me, in the midst of it all. He pinned me to the ground. I saw the axe raise. And I just…panicked.”
By now, Kirigan had moved to cleaning your face. He dabbed carefully at your forehead.
“My hands were on his chest, and I felt every bone in his body break.”
You were disgusted with yourself. You were a Healer, not a Heartrender. It was your chosen specialization because you could not stand the thought of causing another person pain–you wanted to help. And yet here you were, one massacre later.
His finger smoothed the crease of your brows. “That sounds like self defense to me.”
“It could’ve been. If I hadn’t hunted down every warrior after that.” He gestured for you to stand. A fluffy towel wrapped around your shoulders, soaking in the sopping wet material of your clothes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” he asked as you stepped from the tub.
“Taking care of me.”
“Someone needed to.”
“You didn’t have to.”
A pregnant pause. You thought you may have overstepped or offended him. He pulled you close by the towel on your shoulders, fingers gripping the sides of your jaw. His thumb rubbed against your cheek. “I did. I know what it’s like to feel like the monster.”
“General–”
“Kirigan. Just Kirigan.”
“Kirigan.” You smiled, if only a small one, for the first time in weeks. “Thank you.”
--
buy me a coffee
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littlelordfuckler0y · 7 months
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Ben barnes x fem!actress reader Instagram au
context: reader is good friends w Freddie
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yourinstagram Freddie’s cooler friends from s&b🤭
@Jessie_mei_li Said the coolest person in town
@Yourinstagram I LOVE YOU
@Y/nfan1 THIS IS SO CUTE I CANNOT
@Y/nfan2 Y/n cameo in shadow and bone when??
@Amitasuman When do we get to see you again😣
@Yourinstagram soon I hope :/
@Jackwolfe Funny because we know you as Freddie’s cool acting school friend
@Fabienfrankel *coughs in cool friend from the dragon show*
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benbarnes Sadly I did not get any spoilers for house of the dragon 💔
tagged yourinstagram
@Kittheyounger That is after 92 attempts and a blank NDA contract
@Benbarnes We all have our vices don’t we
@Yourinstagram I cannot be HBO’s weakest link I’m sorry😔😔
@benfan1 HES SO UNSERIOUS LMAO
@Y/nfan1 fan behaviour like he should YASSSS
@Freddiecarter Y/n would fold over a chocolate bar just saying
@Yourinstagram no I would not????
@Oliviacooke y/n!!!! Our strongest soldier when it comes to spoilers! (She would in fact fold over a chocolate bar)
@Freddiecarter See @Yourinstagram
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yourusername said he knew a spot
@Jessie_mei_li is it really worth 4 extra miles?
@yourusrname I mean😭😭
@Freddiecarter Great! I can barely feel my legs now!
@benfan1 THEYRE SO CUTE OML
@Benbarnes Why thank you :)
@Benfan2 Are they dating??
@Y/nfan1 the photos seem from a camping trip Freddie posted about but who knows
@Benfan2 they’d look so good together tho
@Jackwolfe what a day!
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daniellegalligan_ dumb and dumber
tagged: yourusername benbarnes
@Amitasuman are we surprised
@Y/nfan1 THEYRE SO FRICKING CUTE
@benfan1 DANIELLE FEEDING US CRUMBS YES
@yourusrname the caption…can’t even do goodwill these days 😔
@Freddiecarter could’ve just walked across mother teresa
@Benbarnes in her defence we didn’t know there was a door there
@Callahan.skogman @benbarnes how else do you think people would get in the place…at all?
@Kittheyounger dumb and dumber indeed
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chibipeachu · 4 months
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Pretty Songbird || Aleksander M.
A/N: I watched snakes and songbirds and had this ideas stuck in my head ever since i saw it last week, idk if it's gonna be a series, if you have any ideas pls tell me!!
WC: 1311 Warning: Fem!Reader, the moon summoner trope, not proof read so i take credit for mispelling or mistakes..
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Alina sighed as herself and Mal walked into a busy club to get away from their pursuers.
“It should be too crowded to notice us in this crowd, just keep the hood on.” Mal whispered to Alina as they moved closer to the stage where others stood, waiting for the performer. 
“Want something?” 
Alina turned and nodded as Mal gave a quick nod before walking to the bartender.
As alina went to stand near a corner of the crowded club she bumped into another young girl. “Aww, sorry..” “Ah, i’m sorry.”  They both apologized to one another.
“It’s alright, just a throbbing but it’ll go away with a drink.” The girl brushed it off and gave alina a smile. 
“You look familiar..” Alina felt her heart drop, as the expression the girl made was of realization. “You’re her aren’t you?” Alina tensed up and lifted her hand in case she need to summon to stop the girl from doing something.
“It’s alright, your safe here, i just recommend the further booth over there if you don’t want to draw attention..” Alina followed the girls direction and saw an empty booth and nodded at her. “Thank you..?” She waited for a name.
“Y/n, i’m a performer here tonight.” She smiled and pointed towards the stage were drunks and many excited people stood waiting.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
People whispered to one another as they noticed the brooding, darkling who was accompanied with other grisha, they all had looks of distaste on their faces as they scanned the club. 
Alesksander’s attention jumped as two women in front of him talked about the performer. 
“Is it true she can summon?” 
“Rumors say she can but was sick during her testing and got dismissed.” 
Before any of them could provide aleksander with information, a young woman, dressed in a loose blouse and what looked like the first army pants.
“Based on all the chatter I could hear from back there, I assume it’s about myself?” You grinned as you scanned the crowd.
A mixed of positive responses came from the busy club.
Aleksander noticed how each of his grisha searched the crowd.
“Aww stop it, i’m blushing!” You playfully waved to the crowd before turning to the band who waited for your sign to play.
As the band started up, you danced around the stage a bit.
“So if you don’t know, i wrote this many, many, many years ago when i was stuck as a showstopper for tow men on each side of the fold, one more then the other..” You referenced to your pants before raising an eyebrow.
Aleksander wasn’t surprised, zlatan of course wouldn’t share a summoner with anyone, especially the king and aleksander.
“Can’t take my charm,
Can’t take my humor,
Can’t take my wealth, cause it’s just a rumor.
Nothing you can take was ever with keeping.
No nothing you can take was every worthing keeping.”
As alina listened to your singing she glanced around the room and froze as she spotted aleksander and the other grisha in the club.
Alina subtly nudged mal who popped up and ushered alina through the crowd to leave quickly.
As you took a breath, you felt yourself stop for a moment, as you took note of the dark eyes of the darkling.
“Thinking you’re so fine,
Thinking you could have mine.
Thinking in control, thinking you can change me, maybe rearrange me.
Think again if that’s your goal.” 
You stomped your boots at each sentence, making the crowd cheer.
Through the small break of your singing, you held strong eye contact with the darkling, from what zlatan had told you, he was saving you from the general who had “tossed your abilities aside” those were the only words you believed from the first general, you had tried to get test when you were a teen but got reject when you said you could summon.
“Can’t take my sass,
Can’t take my talking.
You can kiss my ass,
Then keep on walking!
Nothing you can take was ever worth keeping,
Oh, nothing you can take was ever worth keeping.” You stared him down while continuing to sing.
Zoya scoffed as she followed your and aleksander’s gaze to one another. 
Aleksander looked away from you to look at the sour expression on her face.
“She’s insulting you to your face..” 
“I know..” He responded, his eyes moving back onto you which your eyes were closed as you finished the song.
“Nothing you can take from is worth dirt,
Take it cause i’d give it free, it won’t hurt.
Nothing you can take was ever worth keeping..”
As you finished the crowd cheered making you grin and gave a bow before walking to your bandmate and motioned for behind the stage before exiting, they band continued to play as you left.
Aleksander hadn’t noticed zoya rambling on how disrespectful you were, he piped up as you left the stage. “I’ll be back.” He told zoya before walking outside the club.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
You quietly exited from the building and leaned against the building.
You were now screwed, after many blissful years away from zlatan and kirigan it had to come crashing down.
Being upset you got up and kicked the tins in the back alley of the club.
“That was quite the show..” You jumped at the general’s voice.
“General kirigan..” You greeted, walking to pick up the fallen over tins. 
“You worked under zlatan?” He questioned, making you chuckle. 
“What made it obvious? My clothes or the song?” You asked, putting the lid back on before turning to his figure.
“He rarely sent letters to the palace grounds to let us know of anything.” 
You scoffed, knowing where he was trying to lead the conversation.
“Bullshit, don’t play like you never knew about me, I stood in front of grisha testers and was denied a retest because of my ability, each test is shown in front of you, in your lap to see the newest grisha!” You walked closer to him as you went on.
“Nice try to play that card but the only words I ever believed from zlatan was that you tossed me aside.” You brushed past the darkling and went to enter the club again but was stopped by him grabbing your wrist in a tight grasp and pulling you back to face him.
“You could train in the little palace with others, be with your own kind.” He tried to convince you.
“You missed that train where I wanted to fit in with others badly, I will not be trained to replace your little sun summoner.” You ripped your wrist form his grasp and walked back into the club.
Aleksander stood by himself in the alley, shocked you had decline his offer.
After he collected himself he walked into the club to collect his grisha.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Weeks had passed since the incident at the club.
Aleksander hadn’t been expecting a meeting with the king, he was confused at the sudden arrangement.
“Tsar.” Aleksander greeted as he entered his war room.
“General.” King Pyotr greeted, letting aleksander step in further before continuing. 
“Is there a reason you called upon me?” Aleksander questioned.
“When you were visiting ryevost, did you happened to see this girl?” The king unfolded a drawing of the singer he had a conversation with weeks ago.
“She’s rumored to be a moon summoner, if anything, everyone’s after her. And i believe she’ll do good here in the little palace under your control.” He continued, aleksander studied the poster.
“I’ll send grisha to find her…” The king smiled and nodded in aleksander’s direction before getting up and leaving.
Once gone, aleksander picked up the paper to admire your beauty. 
“I’ll find you, songbird..” He muttered as he read over the paper.
Y/N Y/L/N  - GRISHA - WANTED BY KING PYOTR AND GENERAL KIRIGAN.
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thyme-in-a-bubble · 1 year
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let me be yours
a/n: this (and so many other ideas omg) was just sparked when he said the whole let me be your monster line in s2
warnings: aleksander morozova x reader, enemies to lovers undertones, love confession
∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽
masterlist | join my taglist
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“See, you may think you know what you want, but you don’t,” Aleksander explained calmly as he slowly stepped closer towards where you stood, leaning against the palace wall, “no, I know exactly what it is that you really want,” he came to a stop right in front of you and breathed, “what you truly desire…” his obsidian gaze so fierce that it sent a shiver down your spine. 
Your heart nearly beat completely out of your chest, not only by his arrogant assumption but also by the unfamiliar intimate proximity, “you want a challenge,” he continued, “you want a love that consumes you,” you sucked in a sudden breath as one of his hands unexpectedly came up to gently swipe your hair back over your shoulder, his fingertips lightly ghosting over the side of your exposed neck as he did so, “one that’s so all-consuming that it blurs the line and you confuse it with hate.”
“You, my little bird, don’t want a hero,” the room around you two seemed to dim slightly, letting you focus on him and only him as he uttered, “you desire a monster,” his tall frame towered over yours as he proposed fervently, “let me be yours.”
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© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble 
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hiddndaydreams · 3 months
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The Hunt - The Darkling x Reader - Part 1
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The Hunt - The Darkling x (she/her)Reader [AO3 Link]
Summary: The Darkling is on the hunt for the reader. She is bonded by him, unable to escape their connection. Displeased by her defiance, the Darkling shows her how much she will regret leaving him.
Warnings: Blood, violence, angst, dark content, manipulation, toxic. Read at your own risk.
“I’m disappointed in all of you.” He started, his hands clasped behind his back.
A sense of exhilaration could be seen within his eyes. To see them groveling at his feet, begging to be set free. The group of grisha shivered and trembled on their knees. Tears streamed down some of their faces. Even though they knew what they were risking in defying their general, fear of a terrifying death plagued their minds. 
“Have you forgotten the atrocities the royal family have committed against us grisha? If it wasn’t for my family, they would have hunted every single one of us until we cease to exist.” He lectured. 
“General Kirigan, please forgive us for our misguided actions!” An inferni pleaded
The fear in their voices as they pleaded for mercy and forgiveness would send chills down anyone’s spine. But to Aleksander, he couldn’t find forgiveness in betrayal. They were all traitors and there was only one solution. 
With a deep inhale, the black veins crawled up and protruded from his neck. Shadows emerged into ominous figures that towered over the cluster of people. Fear etched into the grisha’s faces as they cowered together. Some of the grisha soldiers stood up, summoning fire and wind to attack the Nichevo'ya. But with each attack, the shadows grew bigger. Some squeezed their eyes shut and accepted their fate. Terror paralyzed the grisha soldiers, making it easy for the Nichevo'ya to rip through the crowd. Screams permeated the air along with the thick metallic scent of blood, while the Darkling stood proudly as his monster ripped the limbs of the traitorous grishas. 
The milky warm bath water helped relax her aching muscles after a long day. She scrubbed the dirt off her skin, trying to clear her mind of stress. A sudden sharp pain stabbed her mind, pulling her into a different reality. At first, her vision was blurry, all she could make out was the silhouette of trees. Slowly, as the headache faded, all her senses became clear. 
She was greeted with an eerie silence. Her hands shook as she slowly stepped forward, scanning her surroundings, a palpable wave of terror swept through her. The stench of blood and death filled her nostrils before she realized she was looking at piles of bodies of grisha donned in blues, red and purples of various ranks. 
A sharp gasp escaped her lips, her throat squeezed tight at the horror. These were grisha who trained under Aleksander. All of them learned from him, looked up to him… and here they lie… dead. Her nose burned as tears streamed down her face.
“Do you see what you did?” 
The sound of the Darkling’s voice from behind made her body freeze up in place. Her lips quivered with a shaky breath. Her trembling hands curled over the fabric of her coat, clutching tightly to hide her fear. He walked around her body until he stood in front of her. 
“Y-You killed them all…” She stammered, failing to conceal her terror. 
“Their blood is on your hands.” He asserted.
The back of his hand brushed against her wet cheek, making her shiver. His thumb traced along her jaw before grabbing a tight grip of her chin, forcing her to look right at him.
"You were supposed to be their s-savior." Her voice broke as more tears poured down her face. 
“You were supposed to be my salvation!” He snarled, aggressively pressing his forehead down against her.
She winced at his closeness, seeing black veins emerge from his neck. He inhaled deeply, taking a moment to calm his temper, shoulders straightened with his head held high. 
“This is the result of your defiance. You will be forgiven if you come back to me.” He reasoned, then brushed his lips against her cheek. 
“I will never!” She hissed, jerking away from his grip. 
He sighed, disappointed by her stubbornness. He could care less of her sanctimonious glare. He needed to find a way to convince her to stand by his side once again. 
“How long do you think you can hide from me? We are bonded.” He reminded her, gesturing to her wrist. 
She resented the way they were connected. If this was any indication of control he had on her, she felt powerless to fight him. 
“Not for long.” 
His jaw clenched at the determined look in her eyes. Her desire to sever their connection filled him with anger. How dare she threaten his power? 
“If you continue to challenge me, you will see the consequences. And there will be more blood spilled.” He warned. 
She couldn’t just stand there and take his threats without feeling cautious. The piles of dead bodies was a statement that he would not be above more violence. He would slaughter an entire village if it meant he would get through her. 
Before she could answer, her head felt woozy and sore. Her vision began to blur and her body surrendered to the darkness. The next thing she knew, she woke up gasping and coughing up liquid. Her throat burned and eyes welled up fighting for air. Once she was able to catch her breath, she realized she was completely wet and naked on the harsh cold floor. 
“Saints, you gave us a fright! What the hell were you thinking?” Nikolai scolded, hovering above her. 
“W-What happened?” She asked, pulling her knees to her chest to hide under the frightened eyes.
“You were submerged in the bath, for saints knows how long! You stopped breathing!” He exclaimed. 
Her fingers shakily brushed through her wet hair, trying to piece what had happened in her mind. He sighed and walked off, leaving her in silence. How was the Darkling able to pull her to his location? She glanced down at the tattoo swirling on her wrist. Was it because of the tattoo? What did she have to do to sever their bond?
Before she could formulate an idea, Nikolai returned with a towel and wrapped it around her shivering body. 
“You’re going to catch a cold. Let’s get dressed.” He suggested, helping her up from the floor.
She obediently followed him back into her room. She held onto her wrapped towel tightly as she watched him place freshly new clothes on her bed.
“Let’s talk after you’re dressed.” He said and left the room to give her some privacy.
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stillinracooncity · 1 year
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I'm still waiting for new updates because my body doesn't accept only one shots, it needs a complete story full of drama from beginning to end…
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aphroditelovesu · 8 months
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I'm so glad you write for shadow and bone now! can i request yandere the darkling/ Alexander Morozova with a reader who is not grisha? it can be platonic or romantic..your choice 🌷
''You are my salvation.'' - Darkling.
❝ ✟ — lady l: I just wanted to say that I am completely hungry for content from this man and I hope you guys like how I wrote this headcanon ❤️❤️.
❝tw: obsessive and possessive behavior, mention of death and torture, mildly suggestive, unhealthy romantic relationship.
❝✟pairing: yandere!darkling/aleksander morozova x otkazat’sya!reader.
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Aleksander didn't like that at first. He didn't hate you, he hated the fact that you were mortal, an otkazat'sya, but not you, never you. Perhaps he resents the fact that you're human, but he didn't hate you. He could never hate you no matter what you did.
He met you by pure coincidence for you, but for him it was fate. Destiny, maybe the Saints, brought you to him. You were the newest cartographer in the Second Army and you were still getting used to it all, being in the army and with the grishas. You didn't hate them, but you couldn't say you loved them, you were neutral towards them.
There was nothing special about you. Just another mortal serving the military like most did. You didn't hate being a cartographer, but you couldn't say you loved it. It was your duty and that was it. Aleksander has paid attention to you since your first day, but you haven't noticed General Kirigan's curious and terrifying gazes on you.
He was content to just watch you from the shadows for a while. Learning everything he could about you that he could later use to get closer to you. You totally missed his looks, the way he seemed to devour you. He was the General and you were a simple cartographer, there would hardly be any interaction between the two of you. But there was, and he was hungry for more.
The first real interaction the two of you had was during a cold night at the military camp. You couldn't sleep and decided to take a walk, late at night and when most soldiers and grishas were asleep. Except you and him. You sat in a secluded spot and shivered in the cold. When a blanket was draped over your shoulders, you looked up to the one who gave it to you to thank them and found Aleksander's mesmerizing eyes watching you intently.
Aleksander never forgot your shy look and lowered head, as if you were too scared to speak to him. He never forgot your calm, low voice when you thanked him for the blanket, as if it was the only act of kindness you had ever received in your whole life. And he found himself wanting more, desperately wanting to hear your voice and the sweet sounds you could make. He didn't understand why he was so attracted to you, he hated the otkazat'sya, so why did he see himself wanting your attention and love?
He didn't understand his feelings for you, how desperately he wanted to protect and care for you. He's never felt this way before about anyone but himself. Aleksander just knew that he wanted you, that he needed you with him one way or another. He desperately needed you and he didn't know why, but that only you had to be his. And you would be his.
He's extremely overprotective of you, but how could he not be? You were so young, so helpless and so human. It was his duty to look after you to make sure you were well cared for and fed. Needless to say that you would get the best rooms, the best clothes and the best food. No one can even think of inflicting any harm on you, whether human or grisha, they all know you are off limits and must be protected or they will suffer the Darkling's wrath. And his wrath is not taken lightly, especially when you're involved.
Aleksander adores you, he loves you, or so he believes, but he hated your humanity. He hated that he was deeply involved with an otkazat'sya, but eventually he came to see the advantage in it. You weren't grisha, you couldn't defend yourself against him or run away if those were yours wishes, you were at his mercy and he grew to like that very much. You were in his hands as much as he was in yours, and he loved that. You belonged to him and he could do what he wanted with you, shape you any way he wanted and he wouldn't have to worry about you rebelling against him. At least that's how he thinks.
He'll manipulate you with no qualms, whispering sweet words in your ear as he worships your body and the next moment he's pouring venom into your ear, saying things like how perfect you are, how you should never leave his side. How he is the only one who loves you and who will take care of you for your whole life. How you were made for each other and no one deserves you more than him. You must always remain loyal to him and he will give you the world if you ask him to.
You became everything to him as you grew closer and closer. Aleksander will become more and more obsessive and possessive of you. He won't like it one bit if someone flirts with you, otkazat'sya or grisha, you're his and he won't let anyone steal you from him. He will show no mercy to anyone, destroying them in horrible ways, to set an example to anyone who has bad intentions towards you. You are his and he is his.
This isn't how you planned your love story with General Kirigan to go, but you're too wrapped up in his clutches, in his promises of love, to realize how wrong it is. You were so in love with him that you never noticed or cared about anything but him and the manipulations and horrors he will commit in the name of love. None of that will matter because you're together. An otkazat'sya and a grisha together forever. It would be you against the world and Aleksander will be your only company, the only one you will ever need.
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hottpinkpenguin · 1 year
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"Just because all the others never showed you love doesn't mean no one ever will." This one with the Darkling with angst to fluff? Like maybe he keeps pushing the reader away because he's new to affection and doesn't know what to do?
A/n: this request felt so spot on for our favored tortured villain <3 thank you for the message anon!!
Darkling X Reader Word Count: 1656 | Warnings: not proofread, brief mentions of battle, hints at past abuse if you squint, super angst turns to tooth-rotting fluff
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Note: dorogoy is the Russian for 'sweetheart' “Leave us.” 
The Black General strode in, his eyes murderous and his fists balled at his sides. Despite the warm summer night, the chill in his voice was enough to send a shiver up everyone’s spine. The two Healers rose from the sides of your cot where they’d been tending your injuries. They bowed quickly and kept their eyes glued to the ground as they scuttled out of the tent, leaving you and the Darkling alone. 
When the sounds of the retreating Healers’ footsteps had been swallowed in the gentle murmur of the camp outside, his eyes finally met yours. He looked as if he were about to break apart, his body practically abuzz with barely contained rage. 
“Aleks, I’m fine,” you chided him, rolling your eyes at his dramatics. “It’s just a burn. I’ll survive.”
Darkness blossomed around him, swallowing the dim candlelight on the inside of your tent. His jaw was clenched so tightly you worried he’d break a tooth, the veins in his forehead pulsing as he tried to regain control of himself. You’d seen his power a thousand times, but even still it startled you. You smoothed your face into a mask of calm, refusing to show him your instinctual fear. 
“You almost died, dorogy.” He sank down on the edge of your cot as the shadows receded into him like water soaks into a sponge. “You are decidedly not fine.” 
You smiled at him, shifting slightly to make room for him on the cot next to you. He was watching you, his eyes drinking you in. You could hear his next question before he even asked it. 
“Are the Healers treating you fairly?” The whisper of a threat hung off Aleksander’s words. You knew that his fear was that the other Grisha would shun you because of his affection for you. A fear you’d tried to quell a thousand times before. If only he knew how terrified the others were of hurting you, of disappointing you, or of otherwise mistreating you… 
You reached out, running your fingertips lightly along the back of his hand. He watched you, waiting for an answer. 
“They’re treating me perfectly,” you assured him emphatically. “I have everything I need.” 
He didn’t respond immediately, transfixed by the circular patterns you wove along the back of his hand. His eyes glazed over, his shoulders dropping slightly as he let the facade of the Black General relax in your presence. You watched him carefully, wondering how he managed to maintain such composure and control in the midst of battle. You’d seen him out there, on the battlefield: an avenging angel, all rage and cruelty, his black kefta fluttering like a flag, cutting down wave after wave of Fjerdan. He’d barely flinched, barely shown any sign of his powers draining him. It filled you with a strange combination of sorrow, pride, and lust. 
“Aleks?” Your voice, though quiet and gentle, snapped the moment like a dry twig. He looked up at you expectantly. “Are you alright?” 
You could tell as soon as the words left your lips that you’d said something wrong. He recoiled away from you as if he were the one that had been burned. His eyes widened in a mixture of shock and horror, followed immediately by self-loathing. You reached out, but not quick enough. He rose from the cot, stepping away from you. 
“How can you ask that of me? After what you saw today? After what I put you through? You want to know if I am alright?” His composure was unraveling, his dark eyes turning into bottomless pits of fury with nowhere to go but inward. He’d once told you that the most unexpected part of living so long was the extent to which he had come to loathe himself. You hadn’t understood it then, but now you caught a glimpse of just how deep Aleksander’s malice towards himself actually went. 
The shadows sprung from his fingers with ease, devouring the tent’s light and swarming around you like bees. The air around you crackled with their presence, although they didn’t touch you. Across the tent, consumed by a darkness so complete he almost vanished entirely, Aleksander shook with the explosive force of his power. His chin was tipped back and his mouth open as if screaming, although the only thing pouring out of his throat was more darkness. His eyes lost their whites, now just two blackened sockets, lifeless and unholy-looking. 
Terror seized you. Your heart jolted as adrenaline ricocheted through your veins. You knew Aleksander would never hurt you, although you weren’t sure how much  of the man you loved was still with you in that tent. 
You called out to him, but somehow your voice vanished in the space between you two. As if you’d been plunged underwater, your scream sounded distorted and dull. Aleksander didn’t even flinch. 
Wincing through the pain, you flung your legs over the edge of the cot. The shadows made way for you like a river parts around rocks. The hairs on the back of your arms and neck stood up straight, your instincts screaming at you to run! Leave! Kill him! Get out! 
Summoning your strength and with a sharp inhale, you forced your legs to hold your weight as you stood. The burns that climbed up the left side of your body from your kneecap to your jaw felt white hot, but you grit your teeth against the urge to pass out and took a shaky step forward. Again, the shadows pouring out of Aleksander moved to allow your passage. A distant part of you idly wondered what the rest of the camp could see, if anything, of the spectacle unfolding around you. 
Your feet almost slipped out from under you in the damp grass. Your reflexes dulled by exhaustion and pain, you lost your balance and pitched forward. You struck out with your arms to brace your fall, twisting your face away from the direction of impact. There was a moment of free fall before you felt strong arms catching you, artfully avoiding your burns. 
Aleksander lifted you easily off your feet in a sweeping motion. You didn’t open your eyes until you felt your back settle against the cot. When you did, a familiar face hovered over you. All trace of his shadows gone, all you saw now was a man. A leader, a saint maybe, a King certainly: but a man still, exhausted and confused. 
Before he had a chance to speak, you pressed a finger to his lips. Your head was spinning with pain, but you forced yourself to stay present. 
“I’m not afraid of you, Aleks,” you insisted. You held his gaze defiantly, challenging him to argue with you. For once in his stubborn life, he held his tongue and let you finish. “I don’t resent you for who you are. I don’t fight because you command me as my general, or even because you ask me as my lover. I fight beside you because I love you, and I believe in what we’re doing.” 
For all his wisdom, you knew that there were parts of your heart that Aleksander would never understand. You’d accepted as much a long time ago. But you’d be damned if you let him rip himself apart over it. 
He swallowed thickly, as if trying to take in what you’d told him. 
“I don’t… understand. How you can feel that way. About… someone like me. Someone who is what I am. There’s… sometimes-most of the time- it doesn’t seem like there’s enough left of me to love.” You let him finish, his words coming out chopped and halting. It seemed to take almost as much out of him as his powers did, and the sincerity with which he spoke made you smile gently. When he was finished, you reached up and cupped his cheek, your thumb carefully tracing the ragged volcra scar that bisected his cheek. 
“Aleks. Just because all the others never showed you love doesn’t mean no one ever will.” 
You watched as his memory clicked into place, recognizing the very words he’d said to you the night he’d finally gotten you to tell him about the others. The men before him. The ones who’d tried and failed to love you, and the ones who’d only wanted to hurt you. Those had been the words he’d said, and the reason you’d fallen in love with him. You hadn’t realized how long you’d been waiting to give those words back to him. 
He marveled at you for a moment as if seeing you for the first time before he spoke. “I wasn’t talking about any others,” he said quietly. 
You shook your head, smiling. “Of course you were,” you answered. “The other lives, the other versions of yourself. That’s all you talk about because it’s all you know. You’ve lived with yourself for so long you’ve forgotten that there’s any way to feel about yourself but hatred.” 
You let your hand drop, a sudden wave of exhaustion crashing over you. He noticed, catching your hand halfway down and guiding it to the top of your sheets. 
“Dorogoy,” he started, hesitating a moment on the pet name he’d given you. “Where have you been all my lives?” 
You beamed at him, finally hearing a break in the tension of his voice. He smiled back - not a broad smile, but enough to touch his eyes. 
“Right here, Aleks,” you replied as you let your eyes drift closed for sleep. 
You didn’t let yourself fully succumb to rest until you felt his warmth lay down next to you, his arms ever so carefully snaking around your torso. He tucked you closer to him, and you buried your head in his neck, breathing in the scent and the feel of him. You felt yourself slide off into sleep just as he started singing you an old Ravkan lullaby…
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thebigsl33p · 3 months
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Last Words of A Shooting Star AU ideas
Aleksander Morozova X Fem!Star!Reader
Like, this has been sitting in my head for so long but anytime i try to put it on paper it comes out shite, but I need to share it so...
Stardust AU! where the reader falls to Earth when Aleksander is a teen, they have a little romance yadayada, but the reader clearly isn't quite human. So when he creates The Fold and she gets lost inside it, he's all crying mourning ahhh angst for three hundred years.
And one day, there's reports of a light from The Fold. Distant, mild, but definitely a light.
And he's like ahhh what the fuck, sends out one of them little ship things to investigate and like ppl die but the surviving crew is just 'oh shit, there's a sparkly woman' and they take her back to the camp, and the little palace and bros just flabbergasted but also very in love.
And like, it takes a while for both of them to recognise each other, this tall intimidating General, so different from her Sasha, and this scrawny, damaged woman with a familiar sparkle, so different from his zvezda but like oh shit that's her.
and then sweet little renuion ahhhhhh
ah what the hell I'm gonna write it
Edit: I am currently writing it okayyyy yipeee it's gonna have four parts, which is...uh...well, I've never done a miniseries before.
ITS UP
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kasagia · 11 months
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I'll be back for you
Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/General Kirigan/The Darkling x reader, Kaz Brekker x reader Summary: The Moon Summoner ran away with Alina from the Little Palace with the help of Kaz Brekker's crows. The group successfully escaped from Darkling's hands, but that doesn't mean he will forget about his Y/N. He's going to chase her until she is in his arms again. However, Mr. Brekker did not let his childhood friend disappear without a trace from his life again. He will protect her. For all costs. After all, she was his newest investment. Warning(s): Darkling, Kaz fights haphephobia (but not as severe for him ), reader argues with Baghra, reader has internal moral conflict, curses, fights, and their red aftermath, I used a quote from TVD and The Invisible Life of Addie Laurie because… they fit and I love them veeery much It's my first one-shot for both Darkling and Kaz, so please be gentle (I'm very nervous and excited at the same time to publish it) <3 Word count: 14k (too long, someone should take me away from the keyboard in the middle of this)
~•♤♤♤•~ Part 2 (end) ~•♤♤♤•~
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Every night since you escaped with Alina and Genya with the help of your childhood friend Kaz and his crows from Ravka, you've been haunted by nightmares. No. Not the usual horrible flashbacks of your past in Ketterdam or the Little Palace.
HE visited you.
The Darkling. The Black Heretic. The man who promised to keep your heart safe and broke it in two along with your trust.
Genya has a right to warn you about powerful men. But you, the lost girl kidnapped by slave hunters from Ketterdam, the girl who has nothing to lose and was happy enough to somehow end up in the general's tent and find out about being one of the most powerful Grisha, didn't want to listen to her.
You foolishly believed that you, of all people, were able to charm the most dangerous man in all Ravka with your beauty, character and mind.
You believed that sweet words, longing glances and tender moments between you were real, that they meant something.
But it was all just a game. A game that brought him your affection and blind trust. And Kirigan, Darkling, or Alexander played in it like mastermind.
You should have listened to Genya. At least those damn dark eyes wouldn't haunt you every time you closed yours.
With the taste in men you have, you should have predicted that the first guy you hooked up with would be a psychopath. Fate could only be a little bit more favorable to you and not connect you to the hundreds-year-old black heretic who created the fold.
You've always had a weakness for villains and gray characters.
Your first teenage crush only proved it.
Because who else but you would fall in love with a bastard boy from the barrel who started his criminal career with the Dregs, who couldn't stand the touch of other people, and who wanted nothing more in his life than revenge on Pekka Rollins?
If I survive this shit, I really should find someone normal to be with.
You thought before you somehow managed to fall asleep for the first time in a month, hoping that your bond with the Darkling would weaken for those few hours when you tried to find peace.
~•♤♤♤•~
It was pure darkness around you. Not that one when all the lights went out and it's only you and your bed. No. They felt too familiar for you to confuse them with anything else. Those were his shadows.
He must have been near, playing with you as he always had.
You carefully took one step forward. The shadows parted in front of you, so you could see the ground. You bent down to your boot and pulled out a dagger, hiding it behind the sleeve of your blouse. You had to be ready for anything. Even if it meant fighting the shadow lord himself in your own subconscious. You sighed, stepping uncertainly into the darkness.
Your eyes quickly adjusted to the place around you, allowing you to move faster along the path. You recognized this bloody spot. The path in the woods you raced down when he took you for your first ride. Then he dragged you to HIS fountain, telling you nonsense about how it's only here among other Grishas that you discover your true self. He was already weaving his manipulative web around you, and you fell into it like an oblivious fly.
The snap of a twig stopped you. You looked around, not seeing anything at all except for the fountain in the distance. You flinched as his shadows gently pushed you forward.
"I'm not going to play another of your games, General!" you screamed as you spun around, walking forward. If he was already disturbing you, at least he might have had the honor to step out of the shadows.
"Call me Aleksander…"
You shivered as you felt his soft whisper against your neck. You spun, summoning your light and shooting into the space behind you. Unfortunately, it didn't encounter any Black Heretics on its way.
You huffed angrily, continuing your walk until you reached the fountain.
It was different than when he brought you here last time. The engravings have changed. They no longer told the story of the Black Heretic who created the fold. They were of you and Aleksander. Slowly falling in love.
"The union of darkness and his light." you felt your body tremble as the fabric of his kefta brushed your hand.
"I would never have taken you for such a sentimental fool." you turned to face him, taking a step back to increase the distance between you. With a very smug smirk, you noticed that he had dark circles under his eyes. Good. At least the son of a bitch suffers as much as you do. "Especially not after what Baghra had told me."
"My mother has the amazingly irritating gift of ruining my plans. She also doesn't like the people I care about much."
"Hmm… what a pity. Maybe if you weren't planning to use us as weapons in your plans, I'd care more. Also, don't try to tell me that there are people in this world who are more important to you than yourself. We both know I'm not going to fall for it again."
"I understand your resentment." you laughed, shaking your head in disbelief as you turned your gaze back to the fountain. "What's so funny?" you relished every irritated word directed at you. Maybe you couldn't seriously hurt him physically, but at least you could be a pain in his ass.
"I just forgot how easy it is for you to choose words that both tell the truth and work in your favor. Please, continue. I didn't truly laugh for a very long time."
"You're making a mistake." he stood next to you, grabbing your arm to turn you toward him.
You yanked your arm out of his grip as soon as your powers met in that familiar dance of dark and light. You both sighed, stunned by the sudden combination of your powers coursing through your veins. You opened your eyes, which you closed in the flow of the moment, meeting his tender, longing gaze. The man reached out to cup your cheek, but you pulled away from him before your skin had a chance to touch again.
"Funny. That's what I heard from your mother before she made me realize what shit I got into."
"One conversation with my mother, and you're ready to give it all up? Just because she was faster than me? Because she revealed a truth about me that she had no right to? What if I wanted to tell you right after I dealt with the group that wanted to attack you and Miss Starkov?" the grudge in his eyes only fueled your anger. He had no right to resent you for running away from him at the earliest opportunity when he had been hiding this important piece of his past for so long.
"What does it matter, general? None of it was real anyway." you growled, turning your back on him again so as not to reveal your hidden emotions to him. You didn't want him to know that you still cared. Indifference was a worse punishment for him than your wrath.
"So c'mon. Prove your point. Turn around, look me in the eyes, and tell me that you didn't feel anything towards me for even the slightest moment."
You wanted. You really did. To look directly into his soul-black eyes and say that he meant as much to you as the dust under your shoes. However, you both knew very well that it would be just a poor lie. And you both knew each other well enough to know when the other was lying.
"Just because my foolish heart longs for something, it doesn't mean I'll give in to its stupid desires. Wasn't you the one who told me that wanting makes us weak?"
"You should know I've changed my mind by now." the sound of leaves crunching under his boots was the only warning you got before you felt his presence behind you. "You. You are changing my mind."
"Don't tell me I have any influence over you. It's a poor play. You can do better, Kirigan."
"You and I may change the world, Y/N…" you flinched as you heard the exact same words he said here so many months ago. You turned to face him when you felt the coldness of one of his shadows wrapping around your leg. You pointed your dagger at the man standing only one, little step away from you. He didn't seem affected at all as you pointed the dagger at him. He didn't even look at it. His eyes were only on yours. "You may not see it now, too blinded by your righteous, but not entirely fair, anger at me, but deep down, you know that we are destined for greater things than others. You, me, and Alina together can be the strongest creatures in the world." 
"You know very well that we never wanted to live like this. Neither of us."
"Do you? Alina maybe doesn't want to be the Saint, but you, Y/N?" you took a step back and another as the black heretic approached you with his every word. He stood in front of you, letting the dagger you were holding in your trembling hands touch his chest. He smiled almost mockingly, seeing that your weapon against him was exactly the same one he gave you on your birthday, provoking your anger again. To spite him, you summoned wispy beams of white light that began to radiate from your hand to chase away his shadows.
"You don't know what I want." you growled, pressing the dagger harder against his heart to remind him that you were in control here. He could sneak into your dreams, but at night you were the most powerful Grisha in this bloody world. And even he had to reckon with your power.
"Yet I still see a desire in your eyes." you shifted your gaze to him, watching him silently and with hostility as his face was illuminated only by your powers. You were disgusted to find that, despite his betrayal, he was still equally handsome to you. "Not only for me but also for my power. You, my little moonlight, you want to be just like me. Strong, powerful, and ageless." he raised his hand deftly, dodging your dagger, and, under your watchful gaze, brushed a strand of hair behind your ear, stroking your cheek as he did so. He took a step towards you, causing you to press the blade against his neck as he got close enough to whisper in your ear. "You can run as far as you want, but you don't run from the truth that's inside you. And when you finally understand what you really want, I'll be there for you, waiting with open arms for my saint moon."
"Have fun waiting for this day, Morozova." you whispered, not giving in to his piercing gaze.
"I am a very patient man, after a thousand years on this earth, you will be too, Y/L/N."
"I'm not you, Aleksander. I don't wanna live forever, and I'm not gonna. I won't see the only people I truly love and care about die before me. Even eternity and unimaginable power are not worth it."
"They're still people you love and who can share this fate with you. Who will live long enough to be with you forever." one of his shadows began to wrap around your hand, forcing you to remove the dagger from his neck.
He leaned closer to you and rested his forehead against yours. You sighed, shivering as the scent of his familiar perfume enveloped you after so many weeks apart. You were tempted to give in to him again. And that dark desire in your heart terrified you more than the capabilities of the Black Heretic caressing your cheek.
"This isn't love. It was just a game. We were just playing a game. The same one you created a long time ago to earn my trust. But I'm no longer that naive girl who is desperate for somebody's attention and love. You made me stronger, crueler, ruthless. And believe me, general, I'll repay you for all you have done."
"You don't believe that. You can't have believed my mother that I am your villain so easily." in other circumstances, where your heart wasn't beating for his, you'd probably laugh at the desperation in his voice. But now that every fiber of you longed for the man before you, there was only one thing you could do.
"Then tell me, Aleksander..." you leaned in to him, rubbing his nose with yours as he closed his eyes and waited for your lips to finally touch after weeks of craving your slightest touch. "Why was I so tempted to do this?" you dug into his tempting mouth, giving you both what you needed.
In your head, you explained this crime against your friends as wanting to do what was originally intended to be your primary goal. The gentle prolongation of your longing, amazing, desperate kiss before you plunged the dagger into his side without the slightest hesitation wasn't your fault at all. Aleksander moaned into your lips, pulling away from you as he felt blood trickle down his side.
"Leave me alone, or I will make myself your villain." you whispered into his mouth before you somehow managed to get yourself out of your "dream".
~•♤♤♤•~
"Y/N?" Alina's soft whisper wakes you up. You opened your eyes, feeling how your chest was burning for fresh air and your heart beating faster than it should. The woman was sitting next to you, holding your hand.
In the corner of your eye, you can see Nina standing in the doorway of the room Kaz graciously assigned to you after you arrived in Ketterdam. You can swear on saints that Inej was looking through your window before she went - probably going to tell Kaz about your fourth nightmare this week.
And it was only Tuesday.
You felt attacked from all sides. If not Inej through the window, then the madmen through the door or in your dreams.
"What are you doing here? It's well after midnight." you asked her, gratefully accepting a towel from Nina to wipe the sweat from your face. Alina and Genya lived far from the club, in motels on opposite sides of the city.
"Just in case someone betrays us. At least one of you will save yourself if the Darkling comes to these parts."
Brekker's brilliant and preventive mind had already terrified you before you stepped off the boat onto the familiar land of Ketterdam. The fact that he thought through and arranged your accommodation before anyone could ask him was either another display of his otherworldly mind or a blatant act of arrogance and overconfidence in his strength against the Darkling. But you knew Kaz too well to assume that he underestimated the power of the Black Heretic even for a moment.
"Nice to see you too. Kaz sent for me."
"Since when does the sun summoner do all the Dreg king's orders?" you asked, making Nina laugh.
"Since the moon summoner is constantly skipping her bedtime. You have to sleep. You can't always be on Jesper's special energetic drinks." she scolded you like a little child, to which you snorted indignantly.
"I will take a gorgeous, lovely, very long nap right after we kill Kirigan. Before then, nobody can make me do that. And tell Kaz I remembered him as braver the last time we saw each other on your way back to the motel."
"We are just worried about you, Y/N. You slept the whole night only once since we left."
"Don't tell me you're surprised. If you were me, you would do the same."
"Maybe. But we both know you're stronger than me. I know you can beat him, and even if you can't do this alone, which I doubt…" she wrapped her hand around yours, making you look into her eyes again. "You must know I will always be by your side, like you by mine. It's you and me against the darkness, Y/N."
"You know, you've spent way too much time on that boat with your toughts. You sound like an old uncle giving good advice or something."
"Speaking of advice, if I were you, I wouldn't insult the only person who can wake you up from… this." Nina waved her hand in a circle, pointing to the miserable state you were in.
"You should see Kirigan. I stabbed him." you replied with a self-satisfied smirk, watching the heartrender gasp in shock and Alina shake her head in disapproval.
"What have I told you about starting unnecessary arguments with him and maiming him?"
"That this is a good way to vent my anger and frustration?" you asked innocently with a huge smile.
Alina drew breath to argue with you, but a knock on the door distracted her. You glanced at Jesper, peering into your room, and wrinkled your nose at the light-burnt sheets you and Alina had left.
"The boss wants you, moon girl."
"Not only him." you murmured, pulling the remnants of the quilt from yourself. You took your clothes out of the closet and turned to the people in the room with your hands on your hips. "Are you leaving or staying for the show?" Alina mumbled a silent apology, blushing in embarrassment as she left, along with a laughing Jesper and an amused Nina.
You sighed as you stood in front of the mirror and brushed away the sweaty hair that was stuck to your face. Thanks to Inej and Kirigan, it looks like you'll have a long conversation with Kaz about your safety again. Your friend was sometimes a bigger pain in the ass than you—an achievement that wasn't granted by you to just anyone.
"I just fucking hope you're writhing in pain right now." you muttered to yourself, not believing for a moment in the sincerity of what you just said.
~•♤♤♤•~
"You wanted me." you entered the Dirtyhands' office without knocking, taking a place of honor on one of the two comfortable armchairs in the room. Kaz didn't look up from his papers, but the slight crease of irritation on his forehead told you he had noticed your presence. You were surprised that, after years of separation, you could still read him easily. "It's rude to ignore your guest."
"It's rude to come in without knocking." he replied to your provocation, tracing something he had just written. You snorted in amusement, seeing that you managed to distract him.
"Well, I didn't come here for no reason. You sent Jes for me."
"Jes?" a diminutive you used for his sharpshooter, has earned the man's attention. He gave you a questioning look, throwing the papers on his desk.
"What? Can't I make a friend other than you?"
"I'm your boss." he hummed, getting his cane up from his desk and walking to his dresser. You rolled your eyes as you watched the man's back. The son of a bitch knew perfectly well that you hated it when he didn't look at you during a conversation.
"Sure, if it helps you sleep, tell yourself what you want, Brekker."
"You live at my club, sleep here, eat with my crows, and waste my time taking some useless gossip from downstairs." he enumerated, turning over his things and searching persistently for something.
"And I'd been doing this for four years before you became Mr. Scary Dirtyhands from the Barrel. You just proved my point, Kazzle. We are friends."
You got up from your chair and stood next to him. You glanced at the contents of his drawer and frowned, noticing something familiar. You reached for a small silver box with his REAL initials on it, but the man slammed the drawer shut before you could get your hands on the find. You snorted indignantly as you noticed the smug smirk on his face as he nearly clipped your fingers for your meddling.
Kaz Brekker was sentimental enough to keep the ashtray you gave him.
You involuntarily remembered what you told him when you handed it to him.
"I know you don't smoke and don't celebrate your birthday, but I think that's a pretty nice metaphor and the closure you need."
"What? An old ashtray from the market? Which you probably swept from under the noses of some heavy smokers."
"No, genius, in case you haven't noticed, it has a special engraving. Read it."
"For K.R., let him rest in peace. What's that supposed to mean?"
"You can consider it what you want. A keepsake of your former self, a lost life you might have had, an urn for the ashes of your former self... we both know you're not the same man you used to be. And you have every right to be, Kaz. It's just... I think you deserve something commemorating your old self. The boy who stole half-rotten apples with me to survive. Now you are someone else—someone stronger, wiser, cunninger... but know that I will never forget Kaz, who was my only light when I was at my worst."
"That's pretty sentimental for you. Also, calling me light is not quite an appropriate metaphor." he replied coolly, returning to his book.
You nodded to him, saying goodbye. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him stroke a silver object for a moment and put it in his pants pocket. You smiled. Apparently, you weren't the only sentimental fool in Ketterdam.
"Then, as my friend, you won't mind telling me about that strange connection between you and the Darkling that keeps you from sleeping without threatening to set my club on fire with your dazzling moonlight?" he asked, snapping you out of your flashback.
"No, because, as my friend, you won't be nosy, and out of politeness, you won't ask."
"I anticipated this reaction. That's why I got this." a velvet ring box magically appeared in his hands.
"Are you going to propose to me? Oh, Kazzie, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this! You don't have to kneel, sweetheart. We can call Jes, and he'll do it for you. It's a perfect opportunity for him to practice before asking Wylan."
"Can you be serious for just one moment, please?" he asked, blushing slightly and trying to give you one of his famous menacing looks.
"Sorry, I couldn't resist. Besides, you could have foreseen in that plan of yours that I would never waste such an opportunity."
"Just open it." he sighed, tossing you the box. Too curious to find out what was inside, you decided to leave the poor boy alone and refrained from commenting further. You widened your eyes as you saw the real ring. "What? No enthusiastic and loud: "Yes, Kazzie, I'll marry you!", so my crows can tease me about it too? To be honest, I'm disappointed, Y/N."
"Well, I could have been joking about it when I didn't have a ridiculously beautiful ring in front of me. Sorry that I'm a little confused, Kaz."
"It's good you like it, but I'd rather know if it works as it should. Put it on your finger."
"As romantic as always." you murmured, trying on a silver ring with an opal and small diamonds around the stone. You raised your hand and, by using your power, increased the light reflected by the moon that was still in the sky so it could illuminate your new jewelry. "It's beautiful, but I have absolutely no idea what it is supposed to do."
"Protect you." you glanced back at Kaz, only to discover that he had been staring at you the entire time. The white sparkles in his eyes caused by your light captivated you more than the shining diamonds. You shook your head, remembering what happened the last time you gave in to your stupid crush.
"Protect me?"
"I've been doing some research with Alina and Nina about the bond between you and him, the amplifiers… we believe this will weaken the bond between you enough for you to sleep peacefully. He will not enter your mind uninvited." he said, spitting out the words about the Darkling like he was a plague. But you were more interested in something quite different from his open dislike of the Black Heretic.
"Why? Why are you getting through all of it for me? It's not your war to fight. You have no interest in it."
"I have. Since I got you out of the Little Palace, you've been my investment. And I protect everything I invest in and what's worth my time. No matter what."
"You do realize I won't bring you any profit? Alina would be a better choice than me." you questioned his choice. Kaz turned to the window, as if looking for Inej, whose arrival would interrupt this uncomfortable conversation.
Unfortunately for him, the saints had no watch over him. And one of them was waiting for him to gather his thoughts and answer her question. He had to do this without betraying the emotions that had been bubbling up inside him since he had first seen her at one of the Dreg's raids. He was lost the second he saw her and completely fated to love her after their first conversation.
But she couldn't know it.
She couldn't know that his heart was gone with her and that it took him ages to find himself after she disappeared. He promised himself to keep her away from him. To make sure he wouldn't fall for her beauty, mind, eyes, smile, and laugh like he had done as a child. But the second he saw her again, he knew that his heart was hers. Hers to keep, hold, break, play.
But she couldn't know it.... At least not now. Not when he had just snatched her from the Darkling's grasp.
Not when he wasn't ready to love her the way she should be loved.
"That's for me to evaluate and for you to make sure I won't regret this. Besides, I only invest in one-of-a-kind. I don't need more narcissistic saints to go into my office like it was their own." he said after a long silence, without taking his eyes off the window.
He was afraid that his eyes would betray the truth hidden in his stupid heart. He was grateful to all above that she wasn't a heartrender and couldn't feel his treacherous heart beating madly every time he looked at her. He just had to make sure Nina didn't reveal his little secret. He didn't know that the woman had been blackmailed into a similar case by the moon summoner.
"So I'm pretty lucky. I would die if I had to sleep on those inconvenient motel beds."
"Considering how much sleep you actually get, you're unlikely to notice a difference." you gasped, feigning indignation at the mischievous, amused tone of his voice.
"You're a cruel bastard, Kaz Brekker." he finally turned to you with a small smirk on his face. You giggled, only widening his smile.
"Go and check your ring. I hope you won't be threatened by any ugly faces."
"Yes, boss." you saluted, walking towards the door. You opened it and were about to leave when an idea popped into your head. You leaned against the door frame, looking at the man taking his place at the desk. "Kazzie?" you asked sweetly, biting your lip to keep from laughing too soon. The Bastard of the Barrel gave you a questioning look, fearing the familiar tone of your voice and the question coming. "As your fiancée, am I going to get half of your club?"
"Over my dead, cold body." he replied without a second of hesitation, perfectly prepared for such a provocation from your side.
"You know, you need to work on sharing if you plan to be husband material in the future. I feel sorry for your future spouse, unless it'll be your job."
"Go to sleep before I put you in bed myself."
"You should know better than to scare me with a good time, sweetheart!" you shouted back, leaving and pushing your way through the crowd of a few shocked Dregs who had probably heard the part about the fiancée and whom Kaz called to his office as soon as he saw them.
And as soon as he is done with them, Kaz will rip your legs out of your pretty ass. Even Alina and Nina will not be able to help you.
~•♤♤♤•~
The ring worked great. From that night on, you slept like a baby every day. The Darkling's face appeared only occasionally in your nightmares (both bloody ones and… more pleasant ones). But it wasn't REALLY him. Just a messed-up version of your sick imagination.
In the meantime, you trained with Alina and Nina (the woman needed the presence of other Grishas in Brekker's gang; besides, she was an amazing friend, and she also made wonderful waffles); you developed your powers; and you two gossiped with Genya, as she changed your looks every week so that no one would accidentally recognize you (by the way, you learned that David was heading this way to reunite with the love of his life).
You became close to Jes (you had the honor of being trained with HIS PISTOLS) and Inej, whose comforting company was invaluable (as well as the rooftop stealth lessons. Kaz cursed her after the first time you scared him by climbing through his office window and giving you a barrier. Of course you had your mind, and you didn't listen to him. Your unexpected visits to his office only became more frequent.)
So you could say that everything was on its way back to normality.
But it wasn't. Because one fine day, when the crows, Kaz, you, Alina, and Genya were eating breakfast at his club, someone showed up at your door.
Someone you didn't want to see more than the Darkling himself.
"What the fuck is she doing here, if I may culturally ask?" Alina gave you an apologetic look as Baghra walked casually into the crows' kitchen like she belonged here. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Kaz taking any sharp metal objects from the table that you might have used to attack the woman.
You and Baghra had a rough relationship. Due to the fact that you and Aleksander were something, the woman did not look at you very favorably. You had no intention of fawning over a woman who wanted to kill her own son, either. Maybe your feelings for the Darkling were... unclear, but you wouldn't wish anyone, not even your worst enemy, a mother who was willing to stand against her own child, to spurn him instead of doing... anything to help him out of his darkness. It was not in line with your moral views. But no one here seemed to care since they invited the mother of Satan to your table.
"It's nice to see you too, Y/N."
"I don't even have enough respect for you to lie to you and admit that seeing you didn't ruin my day. I will ask one last time..." you got up from the table, shielding Kaz and the crows as you summoned your power. "What are you doing here?"
"My son is looking for you all over the world, do you think I won't try to get to you first before he does?"
"Oh, you've already shown how much you care about outdoing Kirigan in reaching us. I'm asking you, what do you want from us?"
"I came here for you. Because of you, child." you stiffened slightly, wondering what else the old woman had to say. But you would die before admitting that Baghra's help would be invaluable to your little band of rebels. Your pride was both your greatest strength and weakness.
"Well, excuse me, but I have more important things to do than listen to some old lady's ravings. I haven't finished my breakfast yet, and I'm far too sober for another conversation about how everyone wants to use me as a weapon."
"Every day I'm less surprised by how you ended up with my son. You two are a perfect match for each other." she snapped, annoyed at your indifferent attitude.
"I'd suggest you get to the point. You were the one who wanted to meet with us. As our moon summoner mentioned, we don't have to listen to you. And trust me, I have absolutely no intention of stopping her when she wants to kick you out of my club." Kaz stood next to you, measuring the woman with a watchful gaze.
You were proud that he believed in your and Alina's powers and wasn't afraid to provoke the shadow summoner in your presence. You cast a fleeting glance at him, watching as Baghra gave him an appraising look.
"Mr. Breaker. It would be better for you and your club if work with the summoners of the sun and moon ended in Ravka. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."
"I never make ill-considered decisions, and certainly not out of fear." he replied with his poker, business face.
"This is only a trait of the greatest winners or greatest losers."
"You don't have to worry about him. Mr. Brekker is always on the winning team." you answered for him, having had enough of this woman. Unfortunately, it looked like she wouldn't be leaving you so soon.
"Turn that light out, girl, before the Grishas swarm here. I won't hurt your boyfriend and his friends." you frowned as you heard Jes coughing in the background, trying not to laugh. With a wave of your hand, the white light around you vanished. You watched in displeasure as a smirk began to form on Baghra's lips.
"He is/I am not my/her boyfriend." together with Kaz, you both uttered these words as Baghra pushed past you. This caused you to turn to one another and exchange equally awkward, perplexed looks.
"Whatever, just get your lovebird butts over here." she murmured as she unfolded the map on the table and took a few items out of her bag. You snorted at seeing a small wooden statue of Aleksander.
It was going to be a long and tiring morning.
~•♤♤♤•~
"We have to hurry before your boy gets here. Good thing he is walking with the cane, at least it keeps him from sneaking up on us." Baghra growled at you. She'd only been here a week, and she'd already ruled everyone. You were no longer surprised at where Aleksander inherited his incredible self-confidence and arrogance.
"For the love of God, I'm telling you for the last time, KAZ IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND. Besides, if I were you, I wouldn't underestimate him. You could actually learn from him. You'll need a cane soon, too."
"Can you two just stop arguing for once and focus on the task at hand?" the sun summoner lingered, following you to the basement of the Crow Club.
"I'm sorry, Alina, that I'd rather banter with that witch than figure out how to seduce her son, lull his guard down, pluck the antlers of a wonderful steg out of his hand, and break the link between us once and for all."
"Start by undoing a few buttons on your blouse and letting your hair down; that should be enough for him to lose his mind." she advised you, making you and Alina shudder, both equally abashed.
"Seriously?" you asked mockingly, giving her a disgusted look. Nevertheless, you followed the woman's suggestion. "What is the next step? Shall I wear some nice underwear?"
"Not necessarily, but it would be nice to take off that ring. I doubt Aleksander would appreciate that someone other than himself gave you such gaudy jewelry." you snorted, taking off the only thing keeping the Darkling from crossing the walls of your mind.
You bypassed Baghra's outstretched hand and handed the ring to Alina. The older woman snorted indignantly at what you stuck your tongue out at. She didn't expect you to trust her with anything, even something as small as Kaz's ring, right?
"Done. What's next?"
"You need to make a connection. Every time he thinks of you or you think of him, you seek each other out and make a link. Imagine his face, voice, and silhouette; recall some memory associated with him; do anything to have him in front of your eyes. It should work and take you to where he is now. Just like when you two were getting into each other's dreams before Mr. Brekker gave you this ring."
"I did not seek him of my own free will. It just happened." you defended yourself, not wanting anyone to think you were looking for the Darkling like a lost puppy.
"You know him. He will continue to invade your thoughts and your life to convince you of the error of your ways and choices. This ring can work now, but what happens when you two get stronger in the future? It will stop working. You will be condemned to endure his pervasive presence. In the morning, afternoon, nights, and midnights. He won't let you go. Never. You cannot extract the stag from your own body. So you must find a way to block him permanently. Not by some magic ring."
You sighed, realizing she was right. You will be free of him only when any bond between you is gone. The only thing you were afraid of was that it existed between you and the Darkling long before you killed the stag...
Darkness and its light. Moon and shadow. Destined to be together. United at the end of the day.
"And what if I fail and he chokes me, stabs me, or just uses the cut on me?"
"We will observe the energy around you. If we see too many shadows or your light, we'll pull you out."
"All right. Let's get this over with." you sat down, leaning against the wall of the Crow Club basement, praying to all of Inej's mighty saints that your plan would work.
You closed your eyes, remembering the moment before your big performance at the winter fete.
You had to pretend that you didn't know Kaz, and then you had no idea what he was doing here wearing one of the soldiers uniforms. He promised to explain everything to you, but then Aleksander came.
"I'll take her from here." he said to Kaz, letting him know that he was no longer needed.
But he has not left you. Aleksander ignored him, examining your kefta carefully. It was beautiful. Genya decorated it with silver threads and embroidered stars and moons in different phases. However, the fact that probably delighted him the most was its black (but actually dark navy blue) color. But he didn't care about the true color of your kefta as long as it looked black to any other observer.
A clear signal that you were his moon.
"I have something for you." he whispered as he leaned closer to you so that your noses were practically touching. He pulled something shiny out of his sleeve. He held the silver chain up to your eye level so you could see the pendant. Moon with a star. You shifted your gaze from the shiny object to those mesmerizing black eyes staring at you in pure adoration. "I know you're practically festooned with these symbols, but I wanted you to know..." he interrupted, brushing your hair over one shoulder so he could place the necklace over your neck. He planted a quick, tender kiss on your nape as he clicked the silver jewelry. "That you're not just a Saint Y/N, summoner of the moon. You're mine moonlight in the worst darkness of mine. My hope and peace. The only light I let through my shadows."
You grabbed the pendant, noticing your initials carved into the back of the moon.
"It's beautiful." you turned in his arms to whisper in his ear, making him shiver as you kissed his earlobe. "Aleksander..."
~•♤♤♤•~
You opened your eyes.
A dim light illuminated Kirigan's war room.
You did it. Now all you had to do was seduce him. Piece of cake.
You let yourself watch him flick through some papers, wrinkling his nose and occasionally running a hand through his hair. The exact same one with the stag antler still stuck in it. You shook your head, remembering your task. You had to outsmart him. And in such a wise way that it didn't cross his mind that you might have bad intentions towards him.
"Aleksander." you whispered as you stepped out of the shadows. The man either really didn't notice you or he was a brilliant actor, judging by the pure shock that painted his face the moment he turned to meet your gaze. "You seem surprised to see me."
"I am." his mask of indifference and self-confidence quickly fell back into place. "But perhaps I shouldn't be. I should have known you'd prove to be an apt pupil. Not many can learn that trick." he placed the papers on the desk and leaned against it. "But after our last meeting, I had the impression that you didn't want to see me again. What changed your mind to seek me out?"
"I hate to say this, but I realized you were right."
"How so?" he began to watch you with interest, too curious to know what you were going to say to repay you for stabbing him last time. The fact that he didn't pounce on you with his shadows the moment he saw you gave you an odd sense of confidence. Maybe you could have made it.
"I was meant for more. And you were the first person to see me as I truly am. First to help me realize what I'm meant for. First to tech me how to use my power and how to see it as something more incredible than terrifying. First to see, I was more than a scared little girl. That I was powerful Grisha and I can do anything I want." with every word you said and every step you took towards him, you could see his mask crack open, revealing his true emotions. However, there was still a shadow of uncertainty and suspicion in his eyes. You had to remove it if you wanted to win this battle.
"Was I? And what about Alina? Or your helpful friends that take you away from Little Palace?" you hoped you didn't show that his words affected you. You were afraid that somehow he might have discovered a little help from Kaz and his crows.
"They… they don't understand the power growing within me. I thought that Alina might share my feelings, but … it seems to me that we understand our possibilities completely differently when it comes to our powers. And my friends… I think they're more afraid of what I can do than admire it as… as you did."
"That's not their fault. I did try to warn you. Tried to explain that with so much power that flows in our veins, usually comes fear from the side of our loved ones."
"I know. I think I'm starting to finally understand that now." you took one slow step towards him, feeling his watchful gaze on you. "There are no others like us, and they never will be. We are connected by our powers. Alina can live without us, but you and me… you and me are destined to work together and to stand by our sides. There is no darkness without light, but it's the moon that brings it into the night and that lives among the shadows, working with them… Like calls to like, right, Aleksander?"
In his eyes, you could see how much he wanted to believe you, how much he wanted the words you said to be true... but you knew that Aleksander lived too long to believe only empty words. He needed conclusive proof that you were on his side and that you were only his moon. And you had to convince him somehow.
"As I delighted as I am that you found your way to me, what do you want?"
"That thing that binds us. I think you fear it more than you actually care to admit."
"I fear everything there is to fear; it makes me strong. I understand things about power that you've had years yet to learn, moonlight."
"Well, as you said, with a good teacher, I'm a very apt pupil. But I think we both know… that it's not all about power, though, is it?" you walked the distance between you two and stood chest-to-chest with him. "What about the other bond we share? That one I was avoiding for too long." you slowly cup his cheek, making him close his eyes at the touch of your soft skin. You tenderly stroked one of his black scars on his cheek, which made the Black Heretic sighe in relief. "I want you, Aleksander." he opened his eyes, looking at you in disbelief when he tried to seek any sight of lies on your face. "And being in your presence terrifies me as much as making me feel… like I finally belonged somewhere. Like I was made by saints to be next to you. It felt... right in some crazy way."
"Love is for madmen, Y/N. And I've already told you…" you shivered as his cold fingertips touched the hot skin of your neck. His fingers went to the silver necklace—your only sin against your friends. He took the pendant in his hands and kissed it, not taking his eyes off yours. "You're my moonlight. Nothing has changed, and I doubt it ever will... for both of us."
You pulled him by the hair to connect your lips in a long-awaited kiss, too annoyed with how long you had to work him out. (Or too scared that his words are true.) You moaned as he bit your lips, and in one sweeping motion, he scooped you up off the floor and sat you on his desk.
He pulled away from you, dropping his kefta on the floor, and went back to kissing you as if you were the only one that mattered in this world. But the next amplifier's whereabouts map you laid on as he kissed your soul out of you was a glaring reminder that you could never have truly had him.
You would never be his first choice.
"Forgive me for stabbing you, then." you whispered into his mouth as you broke apart for a moment to catch your breath. He pressed into you more fervently than before, caressing your waist tenderly.
"I will have kissed these tempting, sweet lips, even if it means I'll get stabbed by you, every time I do it."
That was good to know, you thought, throwing your arms around his shoulders and slowly pulling out the dagger from your sleeve as he continued to kiss you greedily, like he wanted to sate himself with you while he still had you in his arms.
"Your words, not mine." you murmured, catching his mouth with yours while driving the dagger into his hand. He snarled, breaking away from you and trying in vain to yank the metal out of your hand. You tried to pry the last stag's bone out of him.
But suddenly, just as you were about to do it, you find yourself back in the basement of the Crows Club.
You were breathing fast, frantically looking around the room. Kaz was kneeling a step away from you and watching you worriedly as you tried to calm down.
From the cane that was on your leg and his firm grip on your arm, you figured out pretty quickly why you suddenly came back. You yanked your arm from his hand in your anger, forgetting his phobia of touch and how much of an achievement it was for him to hold your arm.
"What the hell, Brekker?! I had him! I could end this right there! UGH! Why did you let him break our connection?!" you screamed in frustration, looking resentfully at Alina and Baghra.
"You nearly blew yourself out with your power, and they couldn't bring you back."
"I had it under control, Kaz!"
"Oh, really?" he asked mockingly, struggling to his feet with the help of his cane and walking over to you with equal anger painted in his eyes. "Because it didn't look good from my point of view. You could have blown up the whole club..."
"Of course you would only care about your stupid, fucking club! Forgive me, Dirtyhands. Next time I'm going to save the damn world from the Darkling, I'll pick up a place other than one of your fucking bases!" you yelled at him, pushing past a shocked Alina and Baghra.
"Y/N, come back here!" he shouted after you. The distinctive sound of his cane told you he was following you.
"I'm not your fucking property, Brekker! I can go anywhere I want!" you screamed, running as fast and far for him as you could, thanking everyone above that Brekker wasn't able to catch up with you. You needed a moment to yourself. And you only knew one place in all of Ketterdam where you could be truly alone.
~•♤♤♤•~
For a long time, you hated harbour. It was a reminder of your weakness—a reminder of a girl who got kidnapped by slave hunters. Then you met Aleksander and became one of the strongest Grisha. From then harbour was for you to remind you of the birth of Saint Y/N. Moon summoner. It was funny for you to see how easy it is to get on the ship and go anywhere you want. Be anyone you want. But you don't have this choice anymore. Not until your past stops chasing you whenever you close your eyes.
"I knew you'd be here." Kaz's voice below you made you shiver, but you didn't grace him with your gaze. "You'd be too merciful to me by choosing an easily accessible spot, wouldn't you?" he grumbled as he clambered next to you on the crates of goods. He sighed as he managed to climb up. He tossed his cane, catching it spectacularly and resting it against the crate beneath you. He leaned forward, staring out at the harbour with you, when the wind blew his hair, messing up his always perfectly styled hairdo.
"Nobody made you follow me around, Kazzle." you murmured, casting a fleeting glance at him, grinning mischievously at how tired he was of climbing crates. Someone here was in bad shape. Brekker must sit with these plans and papers for too long.
"I did." you turned your head to meet his piercing gaze. "I already told you. I take care of my investments."
"Maybe you're making a mistake."
"I'm never mistaken. I know when and how much to invest in something valuable."
"But what if I'm a lost cause? What if you're wrong this time? Why do you think I'm done with the Darkling? Me and him have so much in common... what if I become like him? Are you not afraid? That one day, in my naiveté, I'd decide Kirigan was worth a second chance and betray you? That one day I'll stop controlling my power and that I'll hurt you? How can you sit here so calmly and..."
"Because I know you better than myself. I may not believe in saints, but I believe in you, Y/N. I will always believe in you."
You swallowed, looking down in embarrassment. You didn't deserve this.
"I get caught up in it sometimes. That I return with memories to the Little Palace. I wonder what I could have done differently to prevent all this. How could I reason with him, what could I do to dissuade him from his plans. How to behave, what to say out loud, and what to keep to yourself. And I'm furious with Baghra that, being his mother, she didn't fight for him to the end; she gave up before we could do ANYTHING for him together. And I curse myself every time I feel guilty, knowing that I left him utterly alone. So tell me, Kaz, knowing now all these doubts growing within me, do you still believe in me?"
The killing silence told you everything you wanted to know.
"Come on. Go right ahead, Kazzie. Call me a fool, an idiot who wants to believe that everyone deserves someone close, someone they can trust. Who stupidly believes in giving people a second chance." you said, afraid to look up to see the revulsion in the eyes of the only person you could always count on.
Kaz said your name, but you ignored him completely, feeling tears slowly welling up in your eyes. Suddenly you felt the cold steel crow's head of his cane under your chin. Brekker forced you to look into his eyes. And you thanked all the saints for the tenderness that was still present in them.
"You know, I don't think that about you. You are a Grisha. The moon summoner. The only beacon of hope in the darkness. I think that in your job description lies faith even in the most deprived, lost, and broken souls."
"I didn't know that poetic side of you, Brekker."
"I've changed since the last time you saw me."
"Really?" you asked, nodding at his gloves and cane. He caught your eye, gripping the crow's head tighter. "Hey. You have every right to do that, Kaz, okay? I was kidding, and I didn't know it was still a sensitive subject. I'm sorry. Apart from that, I can name more. For example, you still have a stick in your ass when it comes to pranks. It was too easy to get on your nerves with Jes." you said, trying to make a joke to lighten the atmosphere.
"Looking now at you, it's better for humanity that you haven't become a saint. Saints, protect some wretch who would have asked you for help." you smiled at him, glad he understood your intentions.
"Now, I feel hurt, Kazzie. Wouldn't you pray to me if they hung my holy image up here somewhere?" you asked, offended, putting your hand over your heart.
He knew he would spend hours, days, and weeks praying to her, only to see her face again and hear the voice of the Saint of his heart...
"No. No saint has ever watched over me. It wouldn't make sense to pray to you either. Especially since I knew you personally before you became a mighty Grisha."
"Well, I'm no saint yet, but since I'm your newest investment, I guess that means I'm supposed to serve you in some way. And since I'm not going to be your errand dog or spy crow, I guess a good compromise would be if I became your bodyguard. Then you can't say that there's no saint watching over you."
"I don't need a guardian angel."
"It's good then that I'm far from being an angel." you stared at each other, the wind blowing your hair, as you enjoyed the understanding between you and the unspoken acknowledgment of your closeness.
Kaz Brekker could not have a weakness. This city would use it against him very quickly. But he felt that perhaps his weakness could be powerful enough to be his greatest asset instead of his darkest burden. Maybe he didn't have to worry about her that much.
"Ketterdam was boring without you. It was also harder to work without your… skills." he said uncertainly, averting his gaze from your piercing, mesmerizing eyes.
"Is that your way to tell me you missed me?" you were teasing him and pushing his cane. He almost fell over when you broke his only support. You almost couldn't prevent yourself from laughing.
"We could have gained much more kruge if you had been here."
"I didn't want to leave." you whispered, involuntarily remembering the day they kidnapped you.
"I know." he leaned towards you, forcing you to look into his eyes. "You don't have to worry about them. I made sure they were six feet deep underground before you even set foot in Ketterdam." your heart warmed at the thought that he was chasing them for you.
He made sure you were 100% safe and comfortable before he brought you back home. Home. You didn't think you'd find him among the crows, thieves, and the Dreg Club. You didn't think you'd feel this way about him—one of the men whose lifestyle was far from normal and safe.
"You're getting soft in your old age, Brekker." you replied with a half smile, holding back unwanted tears. You weren't that weak girl anymore. You were Grisha. And thanks to the man sitting next to you, you were (almost) free. You grabbed his cane, right next to the crow's head, where Kaz's hands were. His gaze flicked to where your hands were so close together. He turned his head to meet your watery eyes. "Thank you, Kaz. For everything. It means a lot to me. Even if it was foolish to break into the Darkling's palace and kidnap us like sacks of potatoes."
"It was the perfect plan! Nobody noticed us." he was indignant, immediately defending his action.
"Yeah, but what I and Alina get hit with every time Jesper and you steer that wooden cart over rocks is ours. You could really choose a path that wasn't made of stones."
"Next time, it's up to you to make a plan to escape the 500-year-old shadow summoner. We'll see how you do." he snorted, offended, but didn't move an inch. Contrary. His hand moved closer to yours, wrapping precariously around yours on his cane.
"Less than a week back in Ketterdam, and you're already letting me into your plans? Aww, I love you too, Kazzie."
He would give all the kruge of this world to hear those words from you for the rest of his life... and it surprised him that he wasn't afraid to admit it to himself at all.
"And I almost forgot how annoying you can be."
"Don't worry. I have all the time in the world to shrink your inflated ego and remind you of that, boss." Kaz held his breath. He stared at you searchingly, trying to find in your face the answer to whatever question he was asking in his head. You unknowingly scooted closer to each other so that your shoulders rested against each other.
You were much closer to each other before. Kaz (on his good days) even felt comfortable hugging you for a while. After years apart, you thought it would take ages for him to get used to your presence again and the brief touch without going underwater with Jordi.
But you were here. Holding hands, leaning against each other, and staring into each other's eyes.
You shivered as you felt his breath against your cheek when he leaned a little closer to you, testing his border.
"You're shining." he whispered softly, hypnotized, afraid to break the silence between you.
"What?"
"Your eyes are shining." his trembling hand took your cheek as you were watching him speechless. Even in your wildest dreams, you wouldn't suppose he would hold you like that. He truly changed. He beat Pekka, and now the King of Ketterdam was fighting with his demons. You were so proud of him and also sad that you weren't with him at the beginning of his road to healing. "And the light is coming out of your skin. You're shining like a star for lost souls."
"You're not lost... not anymore." you whispered, your voice trembling, fully understanding what he had left unsaid.
"I was. But now the moonlight is lighting up Ketterdam's darkness again."
"Kaz... I..." you held your breath, staring at him in anticipation. You didn't know what for. All you knew was that taking your eyes off him for even a second was an unforgivable crime.
Your noses were almost touching, your lips were the closest you've known each other. And Kaz was as calm as if he'd never had a haphephobia. As if the situation with Jordi never happened. You were afraid his waters would finally rise, interrupting your moment, but as soon as your foreheads touched, all the logical thoughts in your head went to hell. It was just you and him.
And you would still enjoy that closeness if the sound of breaking glass and Jesper's curses hadn't driven you apart.
"Here you are! How the hell did you get in there?! Get down! We're leaving in half an hour!" Jesper shouted to you from below and disappeared as quickly as he appeared. You cleared your throat, realized what Jes said after a long moment.
"We are leaving?" you asked, surprised. Bastard didn't say a word about going anywhere.
"Yes. I'll explain everything to you on the ship." he gave you a brush-off as he began his downward journey.
"On the ship? Kaz, what have you planned?!" you shouted angry as you followed him.
~•♤♤♤•~
"This is the dumbest plan ever made, and believe me, I've been to more than one of his idiotic ideas." you said, pointing at the offended Kaz.
Your great friends (and Baghra) have decided to sneak into the Darkling's palace, steal his maps and war plans, and set the Little Palace on fire.
You started to doubt their good sanity... or sobriety.
"Sooner or later, we have to sneak in there. Aleksander has stolen from me all the books and records of our ancestors; he is in possession of immense power, and we can not allow him to make use of it." you clenched your fists, almost ready to pounce on the woman for revealing the Darkling's true name.
"Who is Aleksander?" you ignored Kaz's question, nervously twirling the ring he gave you on your finger.
"Was he able to steal something from YOU? And you let him do it? How surprised I am."
"What are you implying?"
"I implying that we are in some huge coach driven by your men, leaving Ketterdam on your initiative and entering the lion's mouth because you said so. In my place, you'd be suspicious too."
"The odds of me betraying you are as high as the odds that you will."
"And why is that?" you hissed, furious at how easily she got on your nerves.
"Aleksander has a knack for manipulating people. A few sweet words, and even your boyfriend won't be able to count on your devotion anymore."
"Watch your mouth. I'm not her boyfriend." Kaz growled, tensing up next to you, thereby stopping your quarrel. Baghra shrugged, continuing her quiet conversation with Alina. In your mind, you were planning the old lady's slow death until someone's hand grabbed yours in a strong grip.
You turned your head towards Kaz. He stared blankly out the window, completely ignoring your gaze. Instead, he started drawing circles on your palm, trying to calm you down somehow. You turned your head in the opposite direction, smiling to yourself at the tender gesture. Unbeknownst to you, Kaz had the same smirk as yours on his face.
The rest of the trip to the city was uneventful. As planned, Alina and you stayed in Baghra's secret stash while the rest went off to play heroes. Your job was to distract the Darkling, and Alina was supposed to watch over you.
You'd agree to their plan if your role wasn't just to stand by while others risked their lives trying to get the information you all needed.
But you decided not to argue with the others about it this time. After all, they couldn't control you once you got into the palace. You might as well have snooped around, looked for what you needed, and done most of the work for them. Closing your eyes and getting ready to connect with the Darkling, you only hoped that your little disobedience would go unnoticed.
~•♤♤♤•~
You just finished searching Kirigan's study, war room, and bedroom. You were on your way to the last room - the library, when you bumped into the one person you wanted to avoid.
You were paralysed as soon as you saw him walking down the hall. You hoped he wouldn't look in your direction, but the general (alert as always) glanced at you briefly before disappearing from your view. You had the faintest hope that he would think you were a vision, but all of it vanished when you felt a hand gently wrap around your neck and pin you against the wall.
"You either have too much free time or you enjoy haunting me at random times, little moon." you didn't answer, too scared that the moment he touched you, all your power took on a life of its own, merging with his shadows, as it usually does when your skins meet for the first time after a long separation. You were defenceless. Kirigan frowned, watching you with growing interest. "Speechless? Not any irritating responses? Do you fear me, Y/N?" his taunts brought you to your senses, forcing you to calm down immediately. You couldn't wait for Alina to be rescued. You had to fight him yourself.
"That's what you want, isn't it? To have everyone and everything under control, too scared to say or do anything against you."
"Fear is a powerful ally and also loyal."
"Not as loyal and lasting as love, trust, respect." you tried to break free from his grip, but all attempts to remove his hand from your neck proved futile. You were lucky that instead of tightening the grip and cutting off your air, he just wrapped his other arm around your waist, pulling you closer so that your faces were mere millimetres apart. "We could have had it, Aleksander. All of it. All you had to do was set me free and make me your equal."
"You'll come to feel it towards me someday. For now… even though I truly want to, I have no time for you, moonlight. Your friends are waiting for me. But don't get the wrong impression…" he leaned towards you, stroking your cheek tenderly as he whispered in your ear. "I will be back for you, my Y/N. Wherever you are hiding from me."
You shivered as he kissed your temple, making this terrifying promise to you. At some point, his shadows enveloped you completely and sent you back to the room where you and Alina were hiding.
And after one look at the sun summoner, you both knew what you had to do.
~•♤♤♤•~
You couldn't remember the last time you ran so fast in your entire life. It must have been back in your Ketterdam days, doing some little errands for the Dregs.
But this time, you weren't running to save your life. You ran to save Kaz Brekker's ass, who was the only one (not counting Inej, who was already hidden somewhere with Alina, waiting for you in harbour) who didn't return from his mission. As you expected, everything went to hell without you, and if you and Alina hadn't arrived, half of the crows (including Baghra) would have been captured by Aleksander's grishas. You wouldn't feel sorry for the old woman, but Alina insisted on saving her.
Jes, Wylan, Nina and Baghra searched other parts of the Little Palace, trying to burn everything in their path. You could still make it. If only Brekker hadn't gotten lost in the meantime. You knew you should go with him. You've always been a team player, and pairing you with Alina for this mission and leaving you behind was their worst idea.
You promised yourself that the next time you'd strap that risky idiot to your hip.
That's why you breathed a sigh of relief when you saw him at the end of the corridor. But instead of running up to him and yelling at him for his thoughtlessness, you hid in the shadows as he backed away slowly. Someone had to catch him. You caught his eye for a moment, glad he noticed you and started to head your way. Thanks to this, you could assassinate his attacker and try to escape from the palace.
Piece of cake. If he wasn't talking to a fucking Darkling.
"I know you kidnapped my moon summoner. Now you're going to tell me where you stashed her." you cursed internally, feeling yourself start to panic. You guys were officially screwed.
"We didn't take her. She fled on her own." you marvelled at how Kaz could still keep his composure with an angry Darkling a few feet in front of him. Sometimes you forget how mentally strong he was.
"I don't doubt in it… where is she? I won't ask you again."
"I don't know. I don't own her… but it's pretty clear she wasn't interested in being a captive anymore."
Aleksander got even angrier at the little insinuation that Kaz took better care of you, that he didn't treat you like an asset, unlike the general. You cursed Dirtyhands for wanting to mock and taunt the Darkling, even though you could see that he wasn't so confident around him.
"I heard about you. And your crows. It would be a shame if something happened to such a talented group." the Darkling summoned some of his shadows, causing Kaz to back away and reach for the light grenade that you and Wylan had prepared. "It's good for you that you have the decency to show signs of fear."
"I'm afraid of what I must."
"And yet you are not so defenceless." Kaz raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Don't make a fool of yourself, Mr. Brekker. I can feel my moon's power everywhere. Especially when it's imbedded so much into one small object."
You tensed, remembering that you had given Kaz the necklace before he left for the Little Palace. A necklace whose pendant you poured so much moonlight into that no shadows could surround him while wearing it or only holding it.
Defence against the Darkling. Specially prepared for situations like this. However, handing it to him, you hoped the two would never meet, growling at each other like two rabid dogs.
"Y/N must have strong feelings for you to give you some of her power. And you for her. Putting your people and yourself at risk, your profit, your club. In the name of what, Mr. Brekker?"
"If you did thorough research on me, you'd know that all of Ketterdam knows I don't need a reason to do things."
"You'll never fully appreciate what she really is. But that's alright. Because I do." Aleksander let Dirtyhands' insult pass over his ears, trying to annoy him that much, so he let his guard down. You knew very well that method, just like you knew that Kaz wasn't foolish to fall for it.
"You've right. I'll never use her as a weapon or treat her like a saint. That's not what she wants. You may understand her powers, but you have no idea who she really is. What's in her mind. What are her dreams and desires. All you care about is her power, which I don't give a damn if she has or not. You see her only as a moon summoner. Not Y/N. You don't know the woman she was before Grisha's thing. You will never know how amazing and indescribable she was before Ravka. This is part of her that only I was allowed to see. You can't change the fact that I know her better than you."
"You're forgetting one important fact. You are a child, and she is Grisha. Y/N may take years to forgive me… but I can wait. Take away my shadows, and I still have something you don't. Time. Meanwhile, you will grow old. Your hair will grey, but she will remain ageless. Like me. Not mention your little inconvenience. Do you think you'll be able to touch her for more than a few minutes before your body grows old? That you'll be able to give her the life she deserves? We both know that one day, maybe a year from now, maybe fifty, she will realise that she has only one equal. There are no others like us, and there never will be. Even you can't change that, Mr. Brekker." he gave him a hostile look, laughing mockingly as he noticed that Kaz continued to back up with each step the Darkling took towards him until he did not stand in front of your hiding place. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill you. Time will do it for me." he summoned more of his shadows, wanting to scare him with his power. You three knew very well that with your necklace around his neck, no cut would kill him."You should have stayed in Ketterdam, Mr. Brekker."
At this point, you both decided to step in. Kaz threw his grenade, and you summoned your power, blinding the two of them. You grabbed Kaz's arm, and you both ran (as fast as his leg would allow). You stopped only a few corridors and stairs further, at the crossroads where you were all supposed to meet. Along the way, you avoided several fires that the tidemakers were busy with.
"What are you doing here?!" he growled furiously at you as you finally stopped, only making you more angry at his recklessness and attitude. He attacked and insulted the most powerful grisha. An 18-year-old with a cane and no powers.
"What am I doing here?! You tell me, what are you doing! You made him mad for no reason! You think now that he knows your identities, he'll let you go so easily? He will hunt you as long as he lives, just like me and Alina! Congratulations, Brekker!"
"I knew the risk." he replied angrily, looking around all four corridors.
"No, you didn't. You'd know a flimsy toy like that one, fucking grenade wouldn't be enough for him with all the amplifiers he's got."
"Well, I guess your little gift was strong enough to protect me. Which brings me to the question… why am I the only one blessed with this power from you?" he asked as he walked over to you, standing a few inches in front of you. You were both panting with quick anger, rage, and adrenaline, which was slowly draining from your systems.
"It's not your business, Brekker." you growled into his face and took a step, trying to avoid him, but his firm grip on your elbow stopped you.
You turned to face him, ready to yank your arm out of his grip and scream at him to fuck off, but all thoughts flew out of your head as soon as you looked into his mesmerising eyes, which were looking at you with concern and… love.
"It is my business." he leaned closer to you, just enough for you to feel his warmth and his scent, and far enough away not to touch you any more than he already did. "You... you're my most important business. And if something happens to you, if he catches you again..." he sighed, shaking his head, trying to find the right words as he licked his annoyed lips, unconsciously drawing your gaze to them and making you hold your breath for a moment, wanting something as forbidden and holy as kissing them. "I don't know how to... express my feelings. I don't know if I even understand them well enough. All I know is that I would rather die than see you enslaved and sorrowful... and it pains me to know that I'm too weak to protect you. That I'll always be too weak FOR YOU."
"You are literally everything but weak. In my eyes, you're the strongest person I know, Kaz. One of the very few to whom I would entrust my life in the blink of an eye."
"And yet I'm not enough for Grisha's love."
"How could you not be enough for something you already have?" Kaz's head snapped up as he watched you, befuddled in complete silence. You hesitantly reached for his hand, giving him enough time to pull away. He did not do. "And because I love you, I cannot be selfish with you. I cannot risk your life just because I have loved you since we were stupid teenagers." he squeezed your hand, too overwhelmed by his emotions to say anything. Fortunately, you understood him without any words.
Slowly, as if time had slowed down just for you two, he leaned towards you, resting his forehead against yours. You stood like that for a moment, enjoying the other's presence, forgetting that the palace was burning around you and probably 100 Grishas were chasing you.
"I will have you, Kaz Brekker. But only when it's safe for both of us." you promised him, whispering with your eyes still closed. "And for that to happen, I have to stay here. I have to make sure he doesn't go after you, that he will be distracted by me instead of planning your death.." you were about to extricate yourself from his grip, but the man only pulled you closer to him, not wanting to let you go.
"Please, don't. Stay with me. You're not a saint or a hero. You said it yourself. More than I could count."
"Kaz…" you took the ring off and put it on his little finger. "Keep it for me until I'm back. As a promise that whatever is going to happen next… I will be back for you." testing your luck, you placed a quick, tender kiss on his finger, feeling him tremble under your lips.
Before you got a chance to change your mind, you ran in the opposite direction, following the voice of the fighting Grishas.
You didn't turn around. You didn't steal a second glance at him, even though you knew he was watching you until you were out of sight. You knew the moment you looked into his eyes again, you'd change your mind.
You had to be strong.
For both of you. For your common future.
~•♤♤♤•~
When you regained consciousness, you weren't surprised that your hands had been handcuffed, so you couldn't use your powers. You were surprised to be greeted by the familiar sheets of Aleksander's comfortable bed.
And the Darkling himself was lying right next to you with his face towards you.
His eyes were closed, giving you a good look at the darker shadows under his eyes than before. Without knowing why, they disturbed you more than those lazily hovering around the bed. For a moment, you listened to his measured, calm breathing, which would probably confuse anyone else and give the illusory belief that the man next to you is sleeping. But you knew him much better than to fall for such a simple trick.
"I know how you breathe when you're sleeping, Aleksander."
"Maybe I was trying to fall asleep."
"Wearing a kefta? Doubtful." he opened one eye, staring at you silently. You felt your heart start beating faster from the nerves. You had no idea why you were here. Or at least you didn't want to admit it to yourself, so you decided to play the fool. "Are the dungeons undergoing some kind of refurbishment, or are they so full that you haven't found another place for me?"
He stared at you silently, deep in thought. He took his time to answer, playing with the strands of your hair that had escaped your bun from an earlier fight.
"It didn't seem like the right place for you" he finally whispered, making you even more suspicious.
"And where is my right place? After I stabbed you in the back so many times? In your bed? In your arms? As a weapon for your use? Where do you see me, Aleksander?"
"By my side. I've always seen you by my side." he answered at once, without a trace of hesitation in his voice. His shadow circled the room, caressing you from time to time. You didn't know if he was planning to let your guard down or if he had completely lost his mind.
"I don't understand. You should be mad at me. Why don't you hate me? Why are you still looking at me like... like you really have feelings for me? This is another one of your games, right? You want me to go completely crazy this time, don't you?"
"No, my little saint moon." he whispered, undaunted by your anger, gently cupping your chin so you had to look him in the eye. "All I ever wanted was someone equal to me. Why should I get mad at you when all you're doing is trying to find your way to me?"
"I don't…"
"Then why did you let them catch you? Don't try to lie to me, Y/N. I was there. I saw with my own eyes how you backed away from running away at the last moment. Why?"
"You know why." you whispered in a shaky voice. You closed your eyes, trying to protect yourself from the Black Heretic's penetrating gaze and show him the tears beginning to form in your eyes. "I have a million reasons why I should give you up, why I should hate you more than anyone else, but the truth is… my heart wants what it wants. And I don't think I can resist this anymore." you couldn't control your tears, but from the tender touch of his hand as he wiped them from your cheek and the clank of the handcuffs opening, you figured they were necessary for him to believe you.
"You have no idea how long…"
"No." you cut him off before he could say anything more." I have one question for you. Answer it right, and I'll forget about the last few months. Answer it right, and I promise you that you will never have to be alone again, that I'll always be by your side, along with your shadows and everything else that you truly are. That I will accept my destiny as being your moon. I won't let anyone scare me away from you ever again. I just… I need you to be completely honest with me. This one time." you cursed yourself at how weak your voice sounded when he grabbed your hand, kissing tenderly the places where the handcuffs were marked. "You don't have to tell me your whole plan; I just want to know… are all of these lies, battles, wars, deaths… just to keep the Grishas safe? You have no other intention behind this than to give our people home, where they don't have to be afraid of people who hate us and our powers?"
"I swear to you, my little moonstone, there is no other reason. I'm not a maniac drunk on power, as everybody tells you. I just want our people to be safe; I want to give them a world where we can explore the abilities of our power without fear of getting killed for being extraordinary. I can only do this with you by my side. As my equal. As a person who thinks like me and can keep up with my plans. As my partner. As the only one I can trust."
"Good." you nodded, cupping his cheek as you pulled him closer to you, so your lips caught each other again.
And maybe it was naive to think he bought your story about being completely devoted to him; maybe it was just another one of his games; maybe this time he really believed your words. Or maybe he was tired of pretending you didn't feel that strange attraction every time you were together.
You did not know. And you didn't want to know.
You gave into that burning desire every time you were near him, explaining to yourself that you had to earn his trust.
But there was much more to this one kiss than just lust.
It was a promise to you.
You will break his heart and make him hate you. You will drive him mad, drive him away, and then he will cast you out. Aleksander will come to think of you not as his lover but as his greatest enemy. Alina, Baghra and you gonna end the circle of unnecessary deaths.
And then you will finally be free...
Or at least... you will kill you both while trying to hate him as you should from the beginning.
1K notes · View notes
dearmantis · 9 months
Text
Golden Crown of Sorrow
Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/The Darkling x fem!Princess!Reader
Summary: After sending dozens of letters begging your father to help you flee from your betrothed and his family, someone finally comes to save you
Warnings: domestic abuse, neglectful/abusive parents, sexism/violence against women, mentions of suicide, murder, mentions of child murder, mentions of getting attacked by an animal (if you get bitten by something, even a human, get checked by a medical professional), Fjerda slander, mention of pregnancy
Word Count: 4k words
Authors Note: This was originally part of A little loss of Innocence but it works way better as it's own one shot. Also, please pay attention to the warnings. English is not my native language and I didn't edit this
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"Did my father send you?" You ask as you settle in the carriage, voice timid and quiet in a way that is so unlike the version of you that he knows that it throws him off for a second.
You haven't spoken at all during the ride here, contempt in burying your fingers in the mane of his horse or sleeping as he led it away from the house of the family you were promised to, and starring at the forest or the small fires he lit to cook food during the breaks.
His gaze wanders over you, taking in the way your shoulders are pulled together to make you appear smaller, the small, almost invisible cut on your left cheek, the way you keep wincing when the carriage shakes a bit, and how your eyes keep jumping around, gaze always flickering between the window and the position of his hands.
He can't lie to you, he realises. You're suspicious and filled to the brim with fear and paranoia. Whatever happened in Fjerda has shaken you to the core and thrown you right into survival mode. If he lies to you and you find out, you will never trust him with anything ever again.
Because even if you recover from this, you will always remember the fact that he lied to you when you were in your most vulnerable state. And Aleksander needs the trust of the royal family, as much as he might despise that fact.
"No"
You bite your lip harshly, teeth digging into the chapped, dry flesh before you nod, eyes finding his. The suspicion in them is stronger now, accompanied by a bit of confusion.
"Then why did you come? What's in it for you?"
Aleksander frowns. "Excuse me, your highness?"
"Why are you saving me? Why did you decide to come here instead of letting me die in Djerholm? My own family was ready to watch me perish there after all."
There is no anger in your voice, no sadness, nothing. Just this monotone, quiet, submissive voice that doesn't fit someone born into the status of royalty.
But your gaze is scrutinizing, clarifying that every question you ask is a test designed to make him trip in hopes of revealing his true motivations. You're expecting him to lie to you. In the back of your mind you're probably already planning how to weasel the truth out of him, so all he can really do to take control over the situation and reassure you into trusting him is to reveal the truth and in turn his playing cards for this specific game.
You want him to lie, and he has never enjoyed doing what the royal family wants.
"Glory"
Your surprise is like a shooting star: Visible for a singular heartbeat, then gone forever.
"Glory?" Your eyes look back down to your knees, your hands playing with the fabric of the skirt of your dress while the volume of your voice drops into a whisper. "You won't achieve glory like this. You will most likely be punished for saving me, and I'll be sent back."
Your behaviour is starting to bother him. It was a welcome change when he first got you out and traveled through Fjerda with you on the saddle in front of him, but now all he wants to do is shake you until the words start falling out of your mouth.
He thought you were just quiet because you were scared of being caught, but evidently, nothing has changed for you after he led you across the border to Ravka.
Maybe it would've been better to lie? To tell you that he was some kind of chivalrous knight in shining armour who had come to Fjerda out of the goodness of his own heart to save his struggling princess?
"I doubt that you'll be send back, your highness," he responds carefully. He never thought about the fact that your family might be upset about him saving you. They did give you away after all, and he simply acted on the assumption that they love you and want you to be safe, like all parents should. He should know by now that many parents don't love their children.
"I hope you're right," you mumble, averting your gaze to look at the scenery of Ravka rushing past the window, "For the sake of both of us."
You sink back into silence after that, and the letter still stuck in a pocket of his kefta is suddenly heavy as a bag of bricks. It's a short one, written on a scrap of paper that you must've somehow smuggled out of the house of your betrothed. It had ended up in his mail one day, either through an accident or through a servant who couldn't continue to watch the king ignore your cries for help.
Please father. I don't know how much longer I can survive this. I dream of taking a knife to my throat every day. I'm not strong enough for this.
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The next time you speak, you're less than ten minutes away from the town where he planned to take a break, your quiet voice piercing through the air like an arrow.
"Do you have to bring me to my father?"
Aleksander looks up from the documents he had been reading, a deep frown on his face. "Where else would I bring you, your highness?"
You mirror his facial expression. "You could hide me at the Little Palace."
"No, I can't. What if someone catches you?"
"Nobody would catch me, I promise. I would be so quiet, I would never leave my rooms I would-"
"No. End of the discussion, or I'll tell the coachman to turn around and bring you back to your betrothed."
His voice is sharp and cold, the stress from the last few days finally boiling over, and you flinch back from him so harshly that your head hits the wood behind you. Fear burns like a small fire in your gaze, your frame curling in on itself even further.
You don't talk at all for two days straight after that. The only time he hears your voice is when you scream and cry at night, probably due to nightmares.
Looking back, he probably overreacted a bit.
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The next time you talk, it's only because he asks you a question.
You're both sitting in a tavern, quietly eating together, and while your gaze keeps jumping from the three other people around you to the door and the windows, his is glued to you.
He has collected a thousand questions on his tongue in the last few days, and his mind works overtime trying to discern the differences between you now and you before all of this. Before the betrothal, before your travels to Fjerda.
"What exactly happened to you in Fjerda?"
Your attention shifts to him, brows furrowed.
"The same thing that always happens when a woman of Ravka gets betrothed to a man of Fjerda."
In the back of his mind, he remembers the death of Princess Fruzsina. How her brother, crown prince Konstantin, didn't let anyone see her or her newborn daughters corpse when they were transported back to Ravka, not even her own parents.
"Nobody needs to see this. It's better to remember her the way she was when she was still here."
He feels acid rising in his throat.
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You talk again a few hours later, attention flickering from the window of the carriage to him and back a few times before you finally manage to find your voice again.
"Why did no one ever betroth you to someone?" You ask carefully.
Aleksander looks up from the book he has been reading, a small spark of annoyance visible in his eyes at the interruption.
He regrets it as soon as he sees you flinch again, his mind immediately travelling back to that young woman completely wrapped in shroud, her small babe right next to her. Just bundles of linen, not a milimetre of skin visible.
"Excuse me, your highness?"
"Why did no one ever betroth you to someone?" You repeat, "Or one of your ancestors at least. Wouldn't that make sense? Tie you and the Darkling line to the royal family through marriage and kids, force allegiance that way?"
Closing the book slowly, he lets your words roll over in his head.
"The Darklings have been loyal to the Royal Family since the Black Heretic died."
"Yes, but wouldn't it be better to tie the families together forever? It would also help to smooth over past animosities, I think. Suddenly, the king isn't just a stranger. He's the current Darklings father in law or uncle. And the Darkling is no longer a random stranger to the Princes and Princesses either. He's their cousin."
The idea is simple and logical, he has to give you that, but he has also spent the last two centuries making sure he wouldn't be betrothed to anyone. It kind of ruins his whole "faking his death and pretending to be his own son" ruse, after all. But he can't explain that to you, can he?
"No ravkan king would ever betroth their child to a Grisha, your Highness. Not when all over the country highborn children are still drowned in lakes and bathtubs as soon as they show their abilities." The words come out harsher than originally planned, but he doesn't correct himself. "Why are you thinking about this? You've never shown interest in Grisha, me, or the politics surrounding us."
He has to wait almost thirty minutes for an answer to that question. He's gone back to reading, carefully annotating his thoughts and questions, when your voice rings through the carriage once more, almost getting swallowed by the noise of the horses outside.
"At night, when I couldn't sleep, I often asked myself if I had other options. If I could've gotten betrothed to someone else. One of the only men I could think of that were still eligible is... you. And as soon as I realised that, I also noticed that the Darklings have never married someone highborn."
There's something else, he can tell by the way you speak, slow and careful like you're holding something back, but before he can even think to push you the carriage shakes and your face contorts into a pained grimace.
He doesn't have to see the skin hidden by your clothes to know that you're probably covered in bruises and cuts, maybe even some animal bite marks.
You should rest, and he can still interrogate you later, so he slowly nods and returns to his book, his eyes gliding over the paper without absorbing a single word. His mind stays with you.
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You start having an easier time moving and walking a week after escaping your betrothed and his family, but you're still visibly keyed up and stressed. Everything scares you, everything wakes your suspicion, everything worries you.
He hears you mutter under your breath sometimes, especially during the late hours of the night and the hours before sunrise, convinced that he must be asleep. He can never quite understand what you're saying, only catching a few words at a time when it happens. You whisper about wolves following your scent, of someone sending you back into the north, of shoving a knife into your neck, deep enough that not even a well trained healer would be able to save you in time.
Your lack of sleep worries him as well. The only times he has seen you truly sleep well were at the beginning of your travels. You almost slept for two days straight, sitting in front of him on his horse, his arms keeping you stable in the saddle, only waking up after he made camp for the night and forced you to drink and eat. Now, the only sleep you get is through small involuntary naps in the carriage, when the exhaustion claims you like it did in those first two days.
The nightmares that wake you as soon as you fall asleep don't help either.
You're petting and brushing the horses while the other Grisha accompanying you fill the water bottles at a nearby river, your only guard being the General himself sitting a few metres away, eyes on the forest surrounding you.
"I was surprised how much I missed you," you say after a while, your attention still fully on the beautiful horses in front of you, carefully brushing the dust and dirt out of their fur in hopes of making them a bit more comfortable, "I missed my brothers, of course, and my friends and servants as well. I missed the gardens of the Grand Palace, the beauty of Os Alta, my own bed. I missed being home and not being scared for my life. But I also missed you a lot more than I thought I would."
You don't look at him, your voice light as if you were talking about the weather.
"I kept thinking about how much time I spend bothering you, how much my own parents brainwashed me into disliking you, and how much you must've suffered because of that. I was a brat before I was sent north, I know that now, and I want to apologize for my behaviour. I can't thank you enough for coming to save me despite everything."
Aleksander is speechless for longer than he would like to admit, starring at you with visible shock on his face. It takes him a while to shake it off, to find the right words to respond to you.
"You were a child for most of it, Your Highness. It would be stupid of me to hold a grudge because of that."
He has held grudges because of less, but you don't need to know that. You're the first member of the Royal Family to actually apologize to him. Sure, you're probably only doing it because he saved you from your betrothed, but he can tell that you genuinely feel bad.
"It wouldn't be. I was a terror as a child and grew up to be a brat."
The Darkling frowns weakly, watching you carefully as you move onto the second horse to brush it.
"I was a brat, and stupid too. I heard the story of Princess Fruzsina a thousand times. I even dug through the archive to read the reports from the Healers. I know everything they did to her. I'm probably the only person alive that actually still knows, since no one ever bothers to read through those documents... and I went north anyway. I betrayed her memory. She begged in her last letter before she was murdered that they could never send another ravkan girl north, and I went anyway."
He shakes his head, responding to your words before he even realises that he opened his mouth. "You did what your parents wanted from you. They were the ones suggesting the betrothal, and they encouraged you to go through with it. If anyone betrayed Fruzsinas' memory, it's them, just like they betrayed you when they suggested the betrothal without educating you on the sensitive political climate in Fjerda and their exact traditions and rules."
"I'm a woman grown, General, and I did research on Fruzsinas murder on my own. I should've done the same with the treatment of women in Fjerda instead of blindly believing my mother when she assured me that the men in the north don't hit their wives anymore. That they wouldn't dare to hurt a girl from a royal family. I'm a stupid little girl, nothing more."
"You believed that your parents would keep you safe instead of selling your life away for a political alliance. You assumed that your family would do what they're supposed to do. That's not a sin, your highness."
"Oh, but it is!" You bite back, eyes finally meeting his. There's anger and hate flickering in your irises, but he knows it's not directed towards him. It's directed towards yourself. A weapon pointed at your own heart and soul instead of his head. "I'm old enough to think for myself, to make my own decisions. People expect it of me, but instead of using my head I follow my mother and father around and copy them in everything, playing the obedient little princess instead of developing a personality and beliefs of my own. It took a man beating me half to death in front of his men to change that, to free me of the shackles I put onto my own wrists and ankles."
Your voice is sharper than a knife, colder than the permafrost up north, and your breathing is getting harsher. Gone is the sumbissive, quiet thing he pulled out of that house in the middle of the night. "I did everything to apease my parents, to be the perfect princess in their eyes, in everyones eyes. I loved what they loved, hated what they hated, and did what they did. And for what? To be sold off like an animal to a slaughterhouse?"
A scoff escapes your lips, an unladylike sound that you would've never let yourself make before. He guesses you stopped caring. There are many unladylike noises that you've probably made while laying in your own blood, cowering from the man who was supposed to protect and cherish you.
"That's what I meant when I said that they will send me back. I had the help of two of the servant girls. They smuggled letters out for me and sent them off to my parents, but no answer ever came. The only reason why I got out is because you somehow knew that something was wrong and wrongfully assumed it was an opportunity for you to gain glory."
He doesn't mention that he knew of your predicament because one of your letters ended up with him on accident, nor does he disrupt you for any other reasons. This is the most you've spoken since he dragged you out of that forsaken house in Djelholm and smuggled you out of the city. It would be insane to cut you off now and risk never hearing of your thoughts and opinions ever again.
"It's ridiculous. Even if a miracle happens and I don't get sent back immediately, they will simply betroth me to someone else from Fjerda, like that's somehow going to fix the years of tension between our countries. I will never be safe again. I will never be allowed to stay here. I will never be free the way I was before all this. I didn't even realise how privileged I was."
There is a way to save you from that fate. Several, actually, but one of them would play right into his hands if he simply played his cards right.
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Aleksander suggests it two days before they reach Os Alta while they sit in the carriage.
He doesn't do anything special, doesn't prepare anything or bothers to give a speech. It would be filled with lies and manipulation anyways, and you would probably be able to tell. He hasn't officially accepted your apology for your past behaviours, after all. He just says what he wants you to do, nothing more.
"Marry me."
Your head whips up, attention dragged away from the book you had been reading.
"What?"
He smiles. "Marry me."
The carriage is currently driving through a town, the noise of children playing and people talking filling the silence between you two.
"Why?" You finally ask, suspicion barely hidden in your body language.
He has many reasons to make a suggestion like this, of course. Tying himself to someone, an otkazat'sya no less, is incredibly risky for him, after all. It needs to be thought through carefully, which he has.
Aleksander feels like he has done nothing else other than think since your rescue.
You're popular with the people, ravkas beautiful rose, kind and sweet and obedient. If the commoners found out what happened to you, what your parents knowingly put you through with this betrothal, they would riot in the streets. It would only get worse if they found out that they sent you away from your lover.
The story basically writes itself. It would be easy to plant rumours amongst the merchants and peasants, make them believe that you were in love with him and planned to run off with him, knowing that the king and queen would never allow for your love to flourish. That your parents found out and sent you away for a betrothal to a harsh and violent man as a punishment. That he saved you because he loved you so deeply, marrying you on the road back to the Grand Palace in a small chapel, hoping that the marriage will tie your souls together forever even if he gets killed for disobeying the wishes of the king and queen.
If he does it right he can claim that your father attacked you and that he killed him and the rest of the royal family to defend you, or that Fjerdans assassinated the royal family in revenge for the failed betrothal and that Aleksander somehow managed to save you, placing you on the throne, him right next to you.
He would no longer be General, then, but king consort. Your reputation should be high enough with the otkazat'sya to balance the hatred they have for him out as well. The rose of ravka would never fall for an evil man, after all.
Of course, this plan could backfire horribly. What if you hate him after he slaughters your family? What if you don't want to be queen? What if one of your relatives manages to kill you before he can kill them? He would have to claim the throne through right of conquest, and the people would hate him for it, would turn your family into martyrs and put his Grisha at even more risk.
But the risks might be worth it. He just has to be smart.
And he'd be saving you from an awful marriage. He could be a god husband to you. He could make you happy.
Probably.
Of course, he can't confess these things to you. The best way to force you to participate in his plans is if you don't know that he's planning anything at all.
"They can't send you back if you're married. You'll be mine. I'd be able to hide you away in the Little Palace, just like you wanted."
You make a face, clearly not convinced.
"They'll just order a priest to annul it or kill you to make me a widow and renew the betrothal," you warn.
"Your highness, as much as I respect the swordsmanship of the guards, I sincerely doubt that they would be able to kill me. Besides, I don't think that they would be able to betroth you to a fjerdan man after we consummate the marriage."
The book you've been reading drops to the floor of the carriage with a quiet thump, but you don't even notice that it has left your grasp, your full, undivided attention on him.
You're probably trying to discern if he's serious, and if you should slap him for even suggesting something like this.
"There's a chapel in this town, and a small tavern right next to it," he murmurs after a while, offering his hand to you, "It wouldn't be like the royal wedding you probably dreamed of, but you would be safe. I swear it. I protect what is mine."
He watches you swallow, traces the movement with his gaze, gleeful at the visible effect his proposal has on you. He can see the temptation in your eyes, the battle you're fighting in your head.
Are you willing to go behind your parents' backs to marry him? Are you willing to become the Darklings wife, to carry his children?
You grab his hand slowly, the look in your eyes vulnerable.
His smile widens when his fingers wrap around yours, his hand moving to knock against the wood of the carriage to get it to stop.
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rainydays1234 · 5 months
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Oh god this man…
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Amongst the two of us
General Kirigan x princess!reader (one shot)
Word count: 3.4k
Warnings: Period drama misogyny, arranged marriages, arguments, angst, I’ll proofread in the morning pls sorry
Summary: The general and his wife of differentiating moral grounds make their marriage work somehow
An: This one was sitting in my drafts unfinished for so long and it was an alternate ending for another Aleksander fic which I never ended up posting but I worked on this one bc s2 darkling arose a LOT in me so oh well
This one is spoiler free for S2 :)
There were two sets of council meetings ever since the General had married the lady y/l/n. For one her name weighed a lot of political power, being the noble lord’s daughter, the princess it was a prestige to have that power at little palace, someone of that huge a name by the general’s side. Well the General himself never cared for the affection of it all, he was too smart the man to see past any political benefit. Y/n, in the peak of her youth had dreams and hopes for her marriage which her soon crushed one after another with every bit of unfolding of her relationship with Aleksander, coming to realise she hadn’t married an affectionate man, not even caring but someone just so powerhungry and cold he doesn’t think twice to bend his morals. Is what y/n thought of him coming to know so more and more of him but remained not so phased after a while, a year into the marriage she would just look back thinking how foolish she it was to expect anything of the man she married.
Yet she thought it worked just fine, if she truly meant to marry for love she might’ve had a summer fling, elope with some stable boy and call it love to be living in some cottage far away…but no, she was destined for duties more than that. She had her own first army council at the little palace, the king’s army. But the king never bothered attend. The Lady Kirigan, the princess, was considered capable with the set of officers she had for most decisions.
Your husband doesn’t share a bed with you but at least you’re the head of first army council meetings. Your husband rarely shares any intimate moments with you but at least you get to see him from camp base to camp base. And of course the most infamous facade of being the pair that does share affection for each other in the glamour dinner parties amongst drunk lords and ladies who believe it just fine.
Honestly on the political front the first army felt more liberated and open with less of the general’s inputs given he wouldn’t join their meetings anymore ever since Lady y/n was placed there neither were the first army officials…mortals rather, allowed in any second army business. “Leave, the room.” Too much for uninterrupted business, the general barged into the meeting room where Lady y/n’s first army officials were having an ongoing discussion given the maps and the reports laid out on the table. “I have some important matters I need to discuss with my lady wife.” He announced as the matters seemed to be quite the work regarding, given he had a letter or document scroll in his hands and it was the general himself who visited.
With a short nod from y/n the officers left the room leaving the two alone, y/n did feel a tad affront on him just barging in through her ongoing meeting well aware he wouldn’t have entertained it if it was the other way around but she wished for whatever matter it was to get done with sooner so she chose not to speak on it “What is it?”
Aleksander placed the letter in his hand on the table for her to read, as she picked it up he spoke “Its a letter to Lord Eldon, a dear friend of your father’s who’s not so particularly fond of me, we need his aid for more men by the Ravaka front since the second army is occupied by the fold but he wouldn’t comply if the letter went from me” Aleksander let out a short scoff on the fact that some lord of a land that covers barely about 5 villages would be distasteful to him, the general, the shadow summoner. But in his opinion these noble lords were so petty about their allies and Aleksander knew he wasn’t that friendly “I need you to sign that letter.”
Y/n had her eyes fixated on the letter reading through till the end, the letter written in a first person way with wordings seeming as if she did write it herself “Did you write this?” She asked looking up from the letter.
“No.” Aleksander replied flatly, surely the general wouldn’t be as free as to go about writing framed letters himself.
“Well next time you feel like writing a letter on by behalf know that I wouldn’t be this straight forward to a dear friend of my father’s who has know me my entire life…” her voice trailed off with a suppressed chuckle that Aleksander didn’t even seem to check the phrasings of the letter once.
“Alright then you write it yourself” He spoke sliding a blank paper across the table to her “Make it as authentic as you’d like.”
“I could write it but I am not going to sign it.” Y/n spoke with sincerity but she was calm to lay it out. “I don’t condone it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Aleksander said raising a brow quite phased that she would choose a decision revolting his.
“If I sign the letter Lord Eldon will surely send his soldiers given he is to watch over a larger estate with his handful of army it would be unwise so no…”
“That is exactly why I want you to sign it. If the letter is from you he will send his men-did-did you not hear me correctly the first time?” He asked budding quite misinterpreting what she meant to say as whole.
“I heard you just right and I am saying no.” Y/n still had a calm yet firm tone of her voice despite his obvious annoyance “Lord Eldon isn’t a sovereign lord his army is the third half of the Royal army…for him to send his soldiers, the domesticity of the people of his land would be compromised. I am not going to sign the letter and bind him with a moral obligation.”
“The domesticity of the people?” He repeated her words with a taunting amusement “You are crossing unnecessary lengths to spite me…just sign it.” Aleksander sighed not considering her genuine people caring intentions behind it.
“Oh I surely do have other things than to be free enough to spite you, General.” Y/n said crossing her arms to a firm stance “Should Lord Eldon send his men for you the crime, the looting, the disruption will increase in his lands with less men on patrol, when he doesn’t even have enough as it is. I am sorry but I cannot sign it.”
“Don’t you understand? This is important. We need those men and it requires just a mere signature of yours!” He exclaimed, very agitated as he let out an exaggerated sigh rubbing his eyes to get over the unwanted annoyance.
“It’s as if I am talking to a wall…you aren’t even trying to understand.” Y/n spoke shaking her head, Aleksander truly believed that y/n’s barrier for the sign was not the honour and morals she abided by but…pettiness. “If you need the soldiers so bad then write the letter yourself. Sign it and send it as yourself the general because frankly ‘we’ don’t need his men…the second army does, you do.”
“Y/n you don’t get to—“
“Lady y/l/n.” She corrected him mid sentence shrugging her shoulders, he wasn’t on first name terms with his own wife even the marriage was quite formal and political, should he believe that he had the authority over her to by using her first name in disdain she’d rather prove him wrong.
“Y/l/n.” He corrected his words with gritted teeth “Sign it. Be done with it.” Aleksander was running out of patience to convince or put forward any debate whilst she remained calm as ever as if he stance his words had no effect on her.
Y/n exhaled and she took the paper in her hands walking across the table to him, she looked at the letter one time as though she were considering signing it right before she tore it apart in his face and let the pieces of paper fall to the floor “I won’t.”
Aleksander huffed, he stood as if that action did not phase him, something he expected at the start of their conversation “It is almost humorous and immature to see how low you are willing to steep just to get a rise out of me.”
All of this over a sign…y/n said in her head yet she knew this conversation would only go further and further to no end. Aleksander was so head strong out of all she tried to explain it why she wouldn’t sign the letter he stood the same ground, “Ah yes of course my favourite hobby!” She said sarcastically rolling her eyes as she attempted to walk past him.
Aleksander stopped y/n in her tracks holding her by her upper arm, taken aback by this sudden action she tried to maintain her distance yet he gave her a firm tug towards him to sound more sincere “You might think you are so much above me with your moral grounds and your honour, silver spoon fed princess y/n, but you stand here, at the little palace, taking your council meetings as the general’s wife…and that’s what bothers you so much doesn’t it?” He sneered “It hurts your petty conscience…however you put it y/n you are not much different than me—you married me.”
“You know Aleksander, I did not have a say in this. It was announced I was to be married to the general…you. Before our wedding I didn’t even know what you looked like, my beliefs had nothing to do with our marriage my father simply married me off to a stranger on the king’s orders. You are just too arrogant to be around.” so much for the spoiled princess. Y/n replied bluntly as she looked at him and he seemed lost at words letting go of his grip on her arm. He instantly regretted his phrasing aware that must’ve stung her, he was not one to apologise but before he could even show his slight remorse for the words he chose she was already walking out her office, leaving him alone…a frequent sight for him. Sight he didn’t want to admit to but hated being used to, her walking away.
A distasteful marriage had both Aleksander and Y/n bound to societal presence of being a rather joyous couple, hand in hand and smiling at the guests of the gala. One of the king’s many monthly amusements. Gather Royal gossiping and as Aleksander put it, arse kissing guests time to time for fine dining despite of what goes on within the country. Y/n was raised amongst these dinner parties of fake smiles and niceties, just assuming her smiles wouldn’t be as fake around her own husband was something she hadn’t planned. But there they were, the general and his wife, y/n graciously laughing at his comments as they talked to the Royal guests, arm in arm as if it wasn’t mere hours ago that two of them had an argument over council matters. “Ah Y/n!” One of the ladies from the Royal guests called her as she approached her and Aleksander. “General” the lady nodded respectfully. “You look lovely tonight princess-or should I say lady general now?” The lady commented as she let out a cheerful laugh.
“You wound me by addressing me with titles when you’re quite literally my favourite!” Y/n exclaimed with a courteous smile, “You are on first name basis hmm? Don’t insult our bond with titles!” Truthfully y/n didn’t even remember the name of the Lady who so cheerfully greeted her and Aleksander, she remembered her face from a few of royal dinners and galas from earlier and that was about enough for a small talk. However the ‘first name basis’ was a taunt to Aleksander which he must’ve registered the way his lips fell into a thin smile to seem as if he wasn’t phased.
“They say marriage changes people quite a lot but you two just as gallant as your wedding day!” The lady exclaimed.
“Why thank you that is very polite.” Aleksander spoke with a short nod, he was never the one to get so much involved in any of the small talks it seemed his wife was quite the master with remembering a lot of details about almost every royal guest she did most the talking for him while he’d stand there with small courtesies.
“Surely! And for a marriage to change you it requires quite a lot of the couple to be so present don’t you agree?” Y/n said to the lady in such a subtle manner though her words weighed heavy sly comments directed to Aleksander.
“Oh you are so right! As workaholic as the general is I imagine it is difficult to get his time.” The lady joked unaware of the original scenario of their marriage being worse than that. Y/n didn’t get his time, his thoughts or attention outside of these dinner parties anyways. She never took it up with Aleksander of course, it was bound to be met with disdain. Yet it didn’t stomach her well how getting Aleksander’s time out of his ‘workaholic’ schedule seemed something difficult to the lady and not y/n’s time. She was on the first army council herself and worked just as much…nothing new.
“Happens so often…” y/n’s voice trailed off as she chuckled at what seemed to be a light hearted mention of her husband’s businesses to the lady, “you’d be surprised” y/n added softly for Aleksander to hear. And he did, he’d been hearing these comments and taunts quite a few times in the course of that entire evening.
He thought maybe it had something to do with the correlation of their argument earlier, wether it was or wasn’t his patience wore so thin. After the dinner of snide remarks it almost seemed endless to Aleksander. Once it was over he walked back to y/n’s chambers with her, they left these events together so it would seem that they had the same bedchamber. However when y/n got inside hers thinking Aleksander would walk further down the hall to his, he walked inside the room with her. Y/n simply turned around when he entered alongside her before she could begin to ask the reason for it he shut the door behind him and stood afar exhaling “What was all that about?” He spoke and it seemed so demanding.
“What?” She asked truly clueless, she didn’t think those comments would actually get to him, most of those she most probably forgot even making.
“You kept on taunting me the entire evening!” He said crossing his arms trying his best to maintain his composure yet his body language was so angry and frustrated.
“Oh did I now?” Y/n asked tilting her head trying to go though some of the conversations in her head where he must’ve felt that she had done that, maybe.
“Y/n it-“
“Uh?” Y/n interrupted him mid sentence as he used her first name.
Aleksander spoke further regardless “It was disrespectful to me.”
“Are you going to have another one of your tantrums again? I did not have enough wine for this…” y/n sighed with her subtle composure and if only irritated Aleksander more and more. However much he tried to result her misconduct to her she seemed to be treating it so trivially.
“I am serious.” He said flatly and brisk of frustration lingered his tone.
“So am I. I truly did not drink enough to go through this again” Y/n said raising her brows at him, she gathered that if she reacted and engaged with him seriously, it wasn’t as if he was going to listen secondly he was awaiting for her to react the way he wanted her to so he could tell her how much of an inconvenience to she was to him. To his plans.
“You can’t just ignore me with sarcasm!” Aleksander exclaimed and he felt as though he would loose his temper so he exhaled taking in a breath for that situation to not arise, he wanted to prove his point across and it wouldn’t happen if he acted rather harshly or she wouldn’t be open to listen to him “I am your husband-why don’t I get to call you by your name?”
“Why? Lady y/l/n, lady general, lady wife doesn’t suffice?” She replied leaning on the table in the large bed chambers where he still stood by the doors.
“I address you with titles when you are surrounded and in meetings out of respect but amongst the two of us—“
“There is no amongst the two of us!” Y/n said this time as the subtlety of her tone leaving her. It was beyond her understanding how he his thought process counted her the harbinger of their unpleasant marriage. She threw her hands in the air pointing this to him “This might just be one of the few times where we’re ‘amongst the two of us’ behind closed doors and we are arguing! That’s the most you see for us.”
“Why are you so strongly opinionated towards me? I have never wronged you in any way!” He said exclaiming as he walked a few steps towards her both of their tones so above decency as their conversation got heated.
“Me? I am strongly opinionated? My husband doesn’t even share the same bed as me and you are saying that? Under different circumstances you wouldn’t have married me I’m not your like am I? I am not grisha—had it not been for your political status you wouldn’t even have this conversation. Me! It’s me-I am the one who has never wronged you yet I despise you that much.” Y/n spoke as her voice cracked by the end of it, she had went through this in her head a lot. Everything she could be doing right for him to stop being as cold to her until he drove her to stop believing in them.
Aleksander took a long pause before he spoke, he had never realised that this is what she’d been feeling due to him but it wasn’t is intention. “You…you don’t despise me.” He spoke looking away from him almost as if he couldn’t meet her gaze.
“Alright…sure! You can say anything you want to have the last word of this argument but it does not change the truth!” She spoke frustrated just then Aleksander leaped towards her grabbing the sides of her arms and pinned her to the wall, y/n just started at him blankly just registering how fast that had happened.
“You want to know the truth y/n? The truth is I am exhausted to see you disregard my love for you over and over because you do not fathom it. I have always hated those galas and dinner parties yet you make me await them so I could get to be close to you, if only for the mask of being a happy couple but I so miserably await being close to you. It is difficult to even work around you knowing out of everything I could want of the whole world I want you, your love and it is the one thing I can’t have—you don’t deserve my infuriating love, the darkness of it and had I not pushed you away you would’ve loved me like someone entitled to. I don’t want that entitled, dutiful love…I want it yours. Wholly yours. But it is getting difficult to push you away..” he finished as the two of them gazed into each other’s eyes for quite the long moment. This was the most close they had been and neither seemed to move.
“Aleksander…” finally y/n said softly as her gaze softened towards him. Comprehending everything he just said. His expressions were truly taken aback when she said his name, for someone wanting to be that long buried part of himself, “Kiss me.” She looked at him unfaltering, as he pulled her into him from the waist letting go of her arms and crashed his lips onto hers. Such strong desire of a pushed away love, heavy, unfathomable, messy love. Y/n wrapped her arms around him as the two of them kissed their wearies away.
I’m going to write more w s2 plots so let me know if you want to be tagged or request something <333
Hi pls if you’re supposed to be studying or doing anything future you would hate you for being here instead of finishing that please go do it I am in fail girl summer rn and I regret it I love u
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