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Daughter of the Rain and Snow

Concept: Around ten years after the events of Crooked Kingdom, 25-year-old Captain Inej Ghafa frees Maya Olsen from a pleasure house in Ketterdam. Maya is looking for revenge against the man who put her in her position, a man who she knows nothing about except his name: Kaz Brekker.

Tags: @wraith--2 @lunarthecorvus @just2bubbly @real-fragments7 @cartoon-clifford @origami-butterfly @lady-a-stuff @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @inej-ghafa-deserves-the-world @thatdelusionalnerd

If anyone wants to be added let me know :)

Content Warnings: in more general terms I want to remind people to be aware of the nature of Kaz and Inej's experiences and relationship since even if I'm not directly addressing these things they tend to be implicit in any writing about them, but specifically to this chapter there's death, non-consensual drug use, addiction, misogyny, persecution, dehumanisation, implied sa references (through unwanted marriage), ptsd references, implied homophobia (including implied use of slur), implied abuse references, and violence

Note: I just want to say such a sincere thank you to anyone and everyone who has been reading and interacting with this fic it means the absolute world to me. I have adored writing this story and I am so glad that you've all been enjoying it too, I really can't believe we've reached the end! I might take a brief break but then I have every intention to continue writing, and I very much look forward to being able to share more with you in the future. Thank you all so so so so so much <3333

AO3 link: Daughter of the Rain and Snow - Chapter 146 - She_posts_nerdy_stuff - Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo [Archive of Our Own]

Epilogue - Juliana

By the day that Juliana Wexner died, she had forgotten her name.

She had forgotten that she was once someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s wife. Someone’s mother. She had forgotten that she liked dancing, or that her favourite colour was the pale, sort of twisted and swirling blue of the sky behind the mountains when midday bleached them golden and glistening silver. She had forgotten that her favourite sweet was semla with almond paste. She had forgotten the first day she went to the seaside as a child, discovered the ocean and its vastness and grew a dream in her heart of one day crossing the True Sea on the deck of a beautiful, perfect boat, to become an explorer. She had forgotten that her favourite flower was the snowdrop, because they meant that spring was coming and they had begun their first step out of the dark. She had forgotten that she also liked the irises her husband had given her when he proposed, even if they weren’t her favourite. She had forgotten that when she was seven, and her parents discovered she was drüsje, they had argued over whether they should keep her. She had forgotten that when her father won the argument her mother had left the family behind her, saying that she would not go against his wishes but she would not stay in a household that had rejected Djel. She had forgotten that the last words she ever heard her mother say to her were that she was a mistake, and that her god hated her.

She had forgotten the day, when she was fifteen, that her older brother had taken her to the bay and she’d followed him excitedly into the waves. The beach was empty but for them, glistening beneath the cold morning sky, and Oskar had helped Juliana button herself into a sort of bathing suit that was the tightest thing she’d ever worn.

“This is what the divers wear,” he told her, tying up the last bit near her neck, “When they jump off the fishing boats. It has to fit you this close so you can move quickly, and so it can insulate you. You tall enough to tie mine up?”

“Of course I am,” she said indignantly, leaning up onto her toes.

Oskar ducked a little so she could actually reach, and both of them giggled. The water was so cold it made Juliana squeal as the waves crashed against her legs and up over her hips as they waded deeper, her hand clutched in Oskar’s to keep balanced. Juliana had never felt as alive as she did in the water, swimming and jumping off a rock and clinging to the thin mast of her brother’s little paddle boat as the waves knocked it this way and that, sending excited peals of laughter through her chest. The water was freezing but it was invigorating; the wind on her face was a kind of magic that could never hurt her. And all of it had been amazing, until the figure of their father had appeared walking down the beach, and started shouting. Juliana shivered, staring up at Oskar.

“You didn’t tell him we were coming?”

He looked away.

By the day she died, Juliana had forgotten about the long hour she’d spent sitting in an armchair at home with a blanket over her shoulders and a mug of tea clutched between her palms, listening to her father shout at Oskar in the next room. Her own lecture had come first and been much shorter - what in Djel’s name did she think she was doing running around in such a way, wearing such an outfit, acting so unseemly? Did she not realise she was taunting fate by getting so close to the water Djel had cursed her with? She was left with instructions to get changed and wrap herself up in a blanket, then take her medicines and keep quiet. It didn’t sound like Oskar was faring so well.

“You are supposed to be responsible,” shouted their father, “You are six years older than her and you should know better, you should protect her instead of taking her head first into whatever stupid danger you’ve decided to take up each week!”

“She wasn’t in danger, she loved it, she-”

“She is a small, sickly child!” her father yelled, and she could imagine the way he was pointing at the door she sat behind, “And you are supposed to look after her!”

“She’s sickly because you never let her use the water!” Oskar shouted, and Juliana felt the panic surge in her chest, “You know it makes them sickly when they don’t use the gift, if you-”

“It’s not a gift, it’s a curse.”

“It makes her better!” cried Oskar, as Juliana leaned forwards with shivering hands to set her mug back onto the table before she spilt the tea and burned her lap, “If anything is cursing her it’s you, stopping her from using it and making her ill!”

He’d gone too far. She knew he’d gone too far. They all knew he’d gone too far.

There was a quiet moment where Juliana could only imagine what her father was saying, soft and low and cruel, then the shouting started again - and not just about her anymore. About the things they kept secret for Oskar too.

“What did I do for Djel to curse me with two such useless children?” their father shouted, “A drüsje and a-”

Juliana flinched, shoving her fingers into her ears. The door was thrown open and Oskar burst through it, shame and fury burning red in his cheeks, and he hurried straight towards her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, again and again and again.

Juliana didn’t understand. Not until she heard what her father had called it all: the last straw.

By the day that she died, Juliana had forgotten the strangeness of one minute being so alive, so excited, and the next sitting in the back of a carriage, studying her hands neatly folded over her skirts, trundling away to a convent-run finishing school. Oskar hadn’t been allowed to say goodbye. By the day she died, Juliana had forgotten that she would never have chosen her marriage but that he was the best of the boys who asked her father if they could court her as soon as she turned eighteen, and in time she had learned to care for him as best she could. She had forgotten the way her silly, childish dream of becoming an explorer had quietly died, and that she had never touched the ocean again. She had forgotten the moment, when she was almost twenty and enjoying a split second of relief after fighting through the most painful thing she’d ever experienced, that she was told her baby was a girl; how frightened it had made her to know that her child could never be safe. She had forgotten the awfulness of the understanding that struck her in that carriage, the way it twisted her stomach into a knot. She had forgotten how terrible a realisation it was: that her father would protect her as a drüsje, but not as a woman.

By the day she died, she had forgotten her father and her brother and her husband and her child. And she had forgotten the day the Drüskelle came.

She had forgotten the way she’d screamed, scrambled desperately against iron-clad grips to try in vain to fumble her way back towards the house. She had forgotten the begging sobs she’d released, not just to the men dragging her away but to her husband as well. She had forgotten the way she screamed his name as they pulled her by her hair, shouted at her, hit her and forced her to her knees. She had forgotten the terrible, terrible understanding that not only tied knots in her stomach but burned through her entire being like someone had hit her over the head with a hammer, when she saw money changing hands and being slipped into her husband’s pocket. She had forgotten the way his dark blue eyes had fallen against hers, hard as stone, and the acknowledgment of why he’d done this smacked her across the face - she was too much, she was too headstrong, she had spent the past year with all the airs of a proper Fjerdan girl but never stopped fighting his attempts to control her for more than thirty minutes total. He hated her for it. She had forgotten that when she realised that, she stopped crying out to him; her begging and choking sobs moved away from his name and instead to someone else’s. She had forgotten that in that final moment, as they bound her hands and dragged her away, it was her baby daughter that she began to scream for. Her tiny, innocent baby daughter. Left with this monster. For him to control.

She had forgotten, by the day she died, the humiliation of her trial and the years she spent in a cell at the Ice Court waiting for them to kill her - she was pretty sure they’d kept her in her strange white cage for almost 8 years. She had no way of tracking time, but she could roughly - and based on how malnourished she became almost definitely unreliably - guess at when each month had passed. She wondered what had happened to Oskar in those years, and if he knew the full story of what had been done to his baby sister. She wondered what had happened to her baby, what she looked like now, if she was safe and if she was happy. She knew that she wasn’t, of course, because she wasn’t naive enough for that anymore. He’d robbed her of that bliss. But she tried to picture her like that anyway, happy and smiling and running through a field of snowdrops. Maybe she liked to wear bluebells in her hair, or geraniums, or peonies. Maybe she had a rebellious streak, and would one day get herself a tulip-shaped tattoo. Maybe her daughter was wild and free and dancing on the ice somewhere, fighting imaginary pirates and preparing for her own future explorations. Juliana imagined her every night, doing something new that her mother had never been able to. She tried to convince herself that was true. It drove her slowly insane, she was quite sure.

And there were so many things she didn’t know. Juliana would never know that after she was gone, her husband had banned Oskar from ever again seeing his beloved niece. She would never know that he had threatened to spill her brother’s secrets if he ever came close to them again, and then moved himself and his daughter across the country without ever telling anyone where they went. She would never know that her husband had not profited off her alone, but had found his sick ways to profit off her daughter too. She would never know that her daughter lost the chance to have a grandfather or an uncle - an uncle who adored her and would have celebrated her and maybe even would have taken her to swim in the ocean and taught her how to love the water that Djel had blessed her with. She would never know that Oskar had never stopped looking for his niece, that he had been ripped to pieces when he lost Juliana but that secrets be damned he still committed himself to tracking down her child. And maybe, if they were incredibly lucky, one day they would find each other. But if Juliana did know one thing, it was that luck, if it existed at all, shone only on other people.

For 8 years, or something like it, she clung to the very few things she knew for certain. She was Juliana Wexner, she was Juliana Olsen. She was 27 years old, probably. She was a sister and a daughter and a mother and a prisoner and a Grisha and a small, sickly child and a lonely young woman and a future explorer. She was a thousand things. But she was not a wife.

By the day Juliana Olsen died, she had forgotten her name. She had forgotten the child who loved the ocean and the woman who smelled of roses. She had forgotten the little girl she’d conjured as a comfort and a torture in her mind. She had forgotten everything in the haze of an orange gas, once again filling up her lungs and dancing in sparkling fizzes down her limbs. She had forgotten what the first high even felt like and yet she was still seeking it, even as the drug she did not even know the name of finally finished closing its jaws tight over her body. She had forgotten who it was that she wished she was talking to when she sank to her knees, pupils dilated, limbs thin and cheeks hollow, and whispered her final words, and she had forgotten that they were the very words she’d once screamed as the Drüskelle dragged her from her home:

“Me jer jonink, Maya. Me jer jonink,”

Forgive me, Maya. Forgive me.

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kaz brekker six of crows page 204

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Daughter of the Rain and Snow

Tags: @wraith--2 @lunarthecorvus @just2bubbly @real-fragments7 @cartoon-clifford @origami-butterfly @lady-a-stuff @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @inej-ghafa-deserves-the-world @thatdelusionalnerd

If anyone wants to be added let me know :)

Content Warnings: in more general terms I want to remind people to be aware of the nature of Kaz and Inej's experiences and relationship since even if I'm not directly addressing these things they tend to be implicit in any writing about them, but specifically to this chapter there's ptsd references, anxiety, violence references, blood, wounds, and fear of losing loved ones

Note: Oh my goodness we only have the epilogue left to go... this is insane I can't believe we've reached the end

AO3 link: Daughter of the Rain and Snow - Chapter 145 - She_posts_nerdy_stuff - Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo [Archive of Our Own]

Chapter 144 - Kaz

At least the Crow Club was back in working order. Beyond that things weren’t looking at their best. Kaz knew from Anika and Pim’s reports that the damage was mostly repaired and they’d reopened the closed wing a few months ago, but he also knew from the income reports Yara had been sending him that they’d taken a hit. Her projections looked sunnier for next month, but Kaz wasn’t feeling particularly confident. There was a nervous energy about the Slat when he walked in, still as rowdy as it usually was in these early hours of the morning but with a slightly frantic edge. Kaz had known his extended absence would take a toll, but he’d tried to keep in control of what he could.

“I assume there are rumours going round about -”

“Your mysterious disappearance? Yeah,” said Anika, “We’re treading water trynna cover up for you being missing,”

“Anyone get wise?”

“To the fact you weren’t here or to what you were actually up to?”

Kaz shot her an unamused glare. Clearly he needed to stop telling Anika up to 50% of the truth, because she was getting too good at picking up what the rest of it was.

“I don’t think so,” she said, “Not with any proof you weren’t around. Few people here and there are convinced you’re dead,”

That didn’t particularly surprise him.

“Any attempts at territory grabs since you last wrote?”

“Liddies are still riled up, but nothing new except a pretty hollow looking threat from Black Tips,”

Kaz sighed. They weren’t staying in Ketterdam for long, he’d have to get through work quickly and make a few choice appearances if he could spare the time.

As far as Kaz and Inej knew, the plan was for them to drop in on Jesper and Wylan for the afternoon, then go to the house overnight whilst Nina stayed on the Geldstradt. They didn’t have the space to have her at the house by the harbour - especially when Alyssa was staying with them too - and anyway she would only be kept up all night by Sadja. But apparently Jesper and Wylan had other plans, as soon as they were through the door it was all but a demand they at least stay there the first night. They’d even set up a room for Alyssa upstairs, so she was close if Inej or Sadja needed her.

“How are you feeling?” Kaz had asked, watching Inej’s hand find the railing on the porch of the Hendriks house.

“I’m fine,”

Kaz shook his head, looking down at Sadja.

“Once you can talk I’m going to teach you to shout at your Mama every time she says that,” he told her, gently readjusting the sling in hopes of helping her settle.

Nina laughed.

Sadja had done well on the boat, Kaz thought, for a stubborn two month old who had never travelled further than the Grand Palace until a couple of weeks ago, but she hadn’t slept well last night and still didn’t seem to be interested in sleeping now.

“Kaz, really,” said Inej, shaking her head, “I’m okay. I’m just tired,”

Kaz nodded, but he and Nina had shared a brief glance. Inej rang the doorbell and Sadja immediately jutted out her bottom lip in indignation; for a moment Kaz thought she was going to cry but she settled again, still looking a little grumpy. He readjusted his cane so that he could remain balanced whilst he offered her his finger, and once she’d acknowledged it he gently rubbed his hand up and down her tiny tummy.

“Do you not like doorbells, Sadja?”

“I think it’s quite normal for babies not to like loud noises, Kaz,” said Nina, peering over the sling, “You’re okay, aren’t you Sadja? You’re a brave little muffin,”

“Brave little muffin?” asked Kaz.

“Hey, that is just about the highest compliment I’ve ever given anyone,”

“Well, you are brave aren’t you Sadja? You’re just like your Mama,”

She wriggled a little in the sling, as though she was trying to look up at him properly, and smiled. Kaz glowed.

The door had barely been opened when they were met by the practically shouted words:

“Where’s my niece?”

“Well, hello to you too, Jesper,” said Inej, sharing his soft laugh.

She leaned into the arm he offered and he kissed her on the cheek, ushering her over the doorstep. Kaz followed, nodding at Jesper.

“Saints, I’ve missed you,” said Jesper, hugging Inej again.

“Oh, I’ve missed you too,”

Nina cleared her throat, glaring teasingly at Jesper. He threw an arm around her shoulders.

“I’ve missed you too, darling, obviously. And I guess I missed you Kaz,”

“Always with the compliments,”

Where’s Wylan?” asked Inej.

“Couldn’t get out of a meeting,” Jesper replied, shaking his head, “He won’t be long. Now, where’s this little Sadja you’ve been withholding from me?”

“Withholding-? She’s only been alive two months - and you were in Novyi Zem for one and a half of them,”

“Withholding,” Jesper repeated

Inej laughed. Kaz gently scooped Sadja out of her sling and into his arms, rocking her for a moment before he passed her to Inej so Jesper could lean over and greet her. He looked like he was about to burst with glee.

“Oh my goodness, you two she’s so beautiful. Aren’t you? Yes you are, yes you are,”

Jesper looked up at Kaz and Inej, grinning.

“She’s wonderful,”

“She most certainly is,” Kaz smiled, pushing the door to behind him before they walked together towards the living room, “It’s good to see you, Jes,”

“You too. And honestly you with a baby is quite possibly both the funniest and cutest thing I have ever seen, so thank you for that,”

Nina snorted. Kaz glared at them both.

“And how are you?” Jesper had asked Inej, as they sat on the sofa together.

It was about twenty minutes later and Wylan had just got back, all apologies for being late and overjoyed to see them all again. He was now sitting in between Inej and Kiada with Sadja in his arms, smiling.

“Well, I haven’t slept in about two months,” Inej smiled, leaning her head onto Jesper’s shoulder, “But other than that I’m doing pretty well. How are you? - How was Novyi Zem?”

“I’m good, we’re all pretty good at the minute, actually. And Novyi Zem was lovely, good to see my Da, and everyone did a very good job,�� he squeezed Aimee’s hand lightly, from where she was perching on the arm of the sofa next to him, “There were a few moments where we thought we’d have to come home early - that was always in the plan as an option, if anyone needed it - but we ended up staying the whole time,”

“How’s Colm?” asked Nina, leaning forwards to pick her coffee up from the table.

The conversation floated on, and Kaz had drifted in and out of paying attention to it as he kept his eyes on Sadja. She started wriggling uncomfortably and Wylan passed her back to Inej, then a moment passed before she started crying.

“Is she alright?” asked Kaz.

“She’s just hungry,” said Inej, looking at Kaz in a way that meant calm down, she’s a baby, she’s going to cry, you do not need to worry as she stood up and gently rocked Sadja against her chest, whispering to her in Suli, “I’ll take her upstairs,”

At some point, Kaz wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been, it was only him, Nina, and Jesper still sitting in the living room. Focus had switched freely: the trip to Novyi Zem - two weeks with Colm followed by a month and a half through in Weddle and Shriftport, then another two weeks with Colm - Kiada had struggled with the boat, Aimee had struggled on the farm, Kiada has struggled in Weddle; news on the Ravkans and their new little prince and princess, twins about three months older than Sadja; Clemmie Boscht had started renting an apartment in the city and came to the house to share roast dinner with the family once a month; updates on something Kaz had forgotten to pay attention to as he was wondering how long Inej and Sadja had been gone and if he should go upstairs to find them. Now Nina was asking about wedding plans - the original date should have been last month, but it hadn’t been set in stone when Kaz and Inej first went to Ravka so Jesper and Wylan had decided to postpone and visit Jesper’s father instead of him coming out to them.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jesper was saying, “Nothing will ever make up for the fact that Kaz Brekker got married before I did,”

Nina flopped against the back cushions of the sofa.

“Yeah, it’s a real blow to the ego isn’t it?”

“Aren’t you two just the height of comedy?” said Kaz drily.

“To be fair, Jes,” Nina added, “I think we were all surprised you weren’t the first to get married. I mean how long had you two known each other before you moved in, two months?”

“No, well I really only joke,” said Jesper, glancing briefly at the door and lowering his voice, “Wylan told me ages ago he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get married, after everything with his parents he just kinda… lost faith in it,”

Jesper had told Kaz about it at the time. It was years ago, around the time of the Van Eck trial, and Wylan was having an unsurprisingly bad time of it. He said he’d burst into tears and told Jesper that it had been evil of him to trap him in a relationship that would never go anywhere, and that he could leave if he wanted to and Wylan would understand. Apparently Jesper had stared at him for almost a full minute, and then said:

“Wy, you’re seventeen,”

“Well, clearly,” Kaz had said, “You handled that well,”

“I helped him afterwards!” Jepser had cried defensively, “That was just my first thought,”

Now Kaz sat behind his desk at the Slat, flicking through the endless pile of papers laying in wait and watching the hands move on his timepiece. Almost five bells. He wanted to be back by six.

Sadja had woken up not long before three bells, screaming loud enough to bring the entire house down. Kaz fumbled in the dark, searching for his cane, before Inej turned on the gas lights and handed it to him, smiling and shaking her head. They sat next to each other on the side of the mattress as Sadja nursed, and for about half an hour afterwards Kaz was still rocking her slowly whilst Inej lowered the lights and lay back down. Sadja seemed on the verge of settling back to sleep and Kaz stood to return her to the cradle next to the bed, only for her to immediately start wailing again.

“Well I hope you’re not still hungry,” he said softly in Suli, giving her a gente bounce “I think Mama’s asleep,”

She flailed one of her tiny fists into the air and it whacked lightly against Kaz’s chest.

“Not bad form,” he told her, “But you need more strength behind it if you want to do real damage. We’ll work on that when you’re older. What can we do to help you sleep now though, hm?”

Sadja wriggled in his arm and Kaz moved to sit on one of the armchairs so he could set down his cane and support her more comfortably.

“I don’t have anything new to read to you,” he said, “But I could tell you a story if you’d like,”

There was a pause broken only by Sadja’s impatient cries, before Inej’s soft voice came from the darkness on the other side of the room:

“You know the whole idea of us using one language each with her whilst she's still learning kind of depends on you speaking to her in Kerch, right?”

Kaz looked up.

“Inej? I thought you were asleep,”

“Kaz, if you think anyone could fall asleep through this then I have serious concerns about your hearing. And, again, you’re supposed to speak in Kerch,”

“I’m still not convinced that’s going to work,” he replied, “Isn’t she just going to hear us using both with each other anyway?”

Inej groaned.

“It’s three in the morning, Kaz, can we talk about this later?”

He laughed softly, nodding though he wasn’t sure if she’d see in the dark. He’d known that he needed to go to the Slat - the last word from Anika and Pim had been concerningly vague - but he could stay here a little while yet, couldn’t he? What harm would it do, just to stay here for a little longer? He sighed.

“You need to go, don’t you?”

He didn’t know how she did that.

“It can wait until tomorrow,”

“You can’t,” said Inej, quietly, “Go on. I’ll get her settled, just don’t be long, okay?”

“Never,”

He really needed to stop watching the clock, or he wouldn’t get anything done and have to bully himself into staying longer. It was a good while past five bells when he left, ignoring the shouts for attention that followed him from the crowd. The Hendriks house was mostly still sleeping, though Wylan was unsurprisingly up and in the kitchen making coffee by the time Kaz arrived at six bells. Inej was awake but she was still upstairs, not long dressed and part way through brushing her hair when Kaz knocked softly on the door. She opened it slowly, pressing a finger to her lips as he slipped inside.

“Sadja’s asleep,”

Kaz stood over the cradle for a moment, watching her. She really was perfect. Inej appeared next to him, her arm slipping around his waist once he’d nodded confirmation. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“She already looks like you,” she whispered.

Kaz shook his head.

“She’s beautiful. That’s all you,”

Inej shook her head then, her hand finding his and slipping beneath the rim so her fingers brushed his wrist. Kaz’s heart leapt, thinking of holding her on the floor almost a year ago, a knife in her gut and her blood soaking over both of them. He swallowed and she felt him tense, starting to pull away to give him space. His fingers tightened over hers, holding her to him.

“We’ve not…” she hesitated, “We’ve not talked about a plan for where to live. For what to do next,”

Kaz had been avoiding the conversation, because he didn’t actually know what he was going to say. But it was a year ago when he couldn’t tell her everything he’d thought he should be able to say by now -

Their happiness, together. In Kerch, in Ravka, they could move to the permafrost in Fjerda for all he cared. He would carve a life for her in the face of a mountain, if that was what she wanted.

- and so much had changed since then. He should be able to tell her that now. And he did.

Inej turned and leaned her face up towards his, glowing in the soft dancing light of dawn leaking through the window, her dark eyes shimmering. She lifted a hand up to cup his cheek, and slowly they leaned into each other. Their foreheads pressed against each other, Kaz’s hand slipped down Inej’s back, and their lips met in the warmth of spring and joy and a family that for so long Kaz had convinced himself he didn’t want, because he never thought he’d be able to find it.

The entire world was golden.

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 3 hours

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#the way I read them in their voices #especially the last one #dr who #doctor who #doctor who text post #queued post

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grover: so… i’ve seen you’ve been spending a lot of time with annabeth recently

percy: no, grover, it's not what it looks like, i swear

grover: oh really? so no reason for me to be jealous?

percy: no! you’re the only one for me

grover: is that so?

percy: i promise! annabeth and i are just dating, okay?

grover: so there are no best-friends-feelings involved?

percy: you are still my one and only best friend! she’s just the love of my life, that’s it!

grover: but i’m still the platonic love of your life, right?

percy: of course bro!

grover: bro…

annabeth: what the-

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Jesper: What’s that?

Wylan: Electrical plans for the building

Jesper: Should I be scared?

Wylan: It was driving me crazy trying to figure out what that switch does, so I went down to the stadhall and I got these. All I had to do was pay 25 kruge and wait in line for 3 hours

Jesper, sarcastically: Wow! If only more people knew

Wylan, sincerely: Yeah!

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 4 hours

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"they fear you as i once feared you, he said. as you once feared me. we are all someone's monster, nina"

matthias helvar

six of crows duology leigh bardugo

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 9 hours

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Daughter of the Rain and Snow

Tags: @wraith--2 @lunarthecorvus @just2bubbly @real-fragments7 @cartoon-clifford @origami-butterfly @lady-a-stuff @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @inej-ghafa-deserves-the-world @thatdelusionalnerd

If anyone wants to be added let me know :)

Content Warnings: in more general terms I want to remind people to be aware of the nature of Kaz and Inej's experiences and relationship since even if I'm not directly addressing these things they tend to be implicit in any writing about them, but specifically to this chapter there's ptsd references, death references, non-consensual drug use references, mention of past overdose, grief, implied sa references, implied violence, implied abuse references, and trafficking references

AO3 link: Daughter of the Rain and Snow - Chapter 144 - She_posts_nerdy_stuff - Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo [Archive of Our Own]

Chapter 143 - Maya

Maya’s entire life had been about following rules or facing the consequences - or often having to face them anyway. She didn’t know how to exist here, where everything worked so differently. When she was first taken to the Little Palace they showed her to a bedroom - a real bedroom, with a wardrobe and a desk and a cupboard with an empty shelf she could put her belongings in. Maya didn’t have any belongings.

She’d had an unexpected audience with the queen of Ravka the day she’d spoken to Brekker about her father. When she got back to the room she’d woken up in, Fiona was still standing anxiously over the unconscious guard and impatiently beckoning Maya through the door before she let him wake up.

“You didn’t have to stay out there,” said Maya, as Fiona closed the door behind her, “You could’ve been caught,”

“I didn’t want him to wake up,” Fiona ushered Maya to sit down, which was probably a good idea because she was starting to feel a little dizzy, “Did you get what you needed?”

Maya swallowed stiffly, then nodded. She thought about telling Fiona everything - part of her wanted to - but she ended up keeping quiet and twisting the fabric of her shirt tightly into her fist. She’d been back for about an hour, almost asleep in her chair and trying to force herself not to drift, when a sound she only realised was a knock on the door after she’d jumped out of her skin rang through the room.

“You’re okay,” whispered Fiona, standing up, “I’ll check on it,”

Maya shivered, watching with intense suspicion as Fiona opened the door and said something quietly - in Kerch. And then the queen of Ravka was standing in front of Maya, and Maya was wondering whether, if she willed it hard enough, she could just disappear.

“Do you know what you did to him?” she asked, watching Maya.

She shook her head.

“You could be very powerful, Maya. You are very powerful,”

��I can’t summon a raindrop without it exhausting me,” she shook her head, “I don’t know what that was. It wasn’t… I don’t know,”

“That was raw emotion,” said Zoya, “I want to teach you to control it. I can pay off your contract with the city; you can stay here, go to the school at the Little Palace, learn what it means to be Grisha,”

“And…” Maya swallowed, “If I don’t want to?”

Zoya shrugged.

“Then I can pay off your contract and send you on your way. But I can’t promise you’ll be safe anywhere else; if you do something like that again in front of the wrong people, they might find a way to use it against you,”

“But I can leave? If I want to?”

She nodded.

“If you want to,”

So Maya agreed, even hesitantly. The last time she went to school she was a small child, she hadn’t even known that she was Grisha yet, and she’d learned little more than the fundamentals of reading and writing - neither of which she could do in Kerch, and was probably questionable at in Fjerdan. Now she was practising writing in Fjerdan, and learning Ravkan from scratch. There weren’t many other students at the Little Palace who spoke Fjerdan but a few did, and a few spoke Kerch as well, but Maya spoke little to anyone except for Vera Fleck, a Fjerdan Tidemaker a few years older than her who had mostly grown up a the Little Palace. Vera had been told to look after her, Maya knew, but after a few months of nervousness and discomfort she’d slowly warmed towards the girl. Even if she didn’t entirely understand the way this place seemed to work.

Fiona had stayed for a while, before she went back to the Wraith. When Maya was first taken to the bedroom - her bedroom - they gave her a blue kefta and the first few nights, whilst she was still in the last bout of recovery, it had hung ominously at the front of the wardrobe. She felt like it was watching her. And when she was supposed to wear it she tried to put it on, she really did, but twenty minutes later Fiona found her on the floor, crying, the kefta lying splayed in front of her like the skin of some dead animal. She sat down next to her and offered her hand, but Maya couldn’t take it.

“I can’t do it,” she’d whispered, eventually, forcing the words past her lips, “It feels like wearing the costume,”

“You don’t have to wear it,”

“I’m supposed to,”

They would be angry with her.

But Fiona had relayed the message, in part, to Vera waiting in the hallway.

“You don’t want to wear it?” Vera asked, leaning on the doorframe.

Maya said nothing. She braced herself.

“Then don’t,”

“I… what?”

“I’ll wait downstairs,” said Vera, turning away, “Try not to be more than half an hour,”

Maya still hadn’t worn the kefta. It was hanging at the back of the wardrobe, hidden by the set of clothes she’d been given, waiting for if she’d ever manage it. Now she sat at the desk as she plaited her hair for the day, watching the rush of colourful specs hurrying about in the courtyard far below. The room was hardly big but it was comfortable - though Maya spent most nights’ sleep between the two armchairs she had pushed together each evening and parted again each morning, and painstakingly ruffled and remade the bed every morning so if anyone came in it didn’t look unslept in. But she liked the window. There had been a mirror but after a couple of months, when she felt like she was safe to, she lifted it off the wall and turned it round, so now she plaited her hair without reference and didn’t care if it looked neat or not. She could never wear a crown of braids again, not without being sat at the vanity with Celina’s hands in her hair and trapped in all the terrible moments that came afterwards, but she felt funny about wearing it down. So a long pair of plaits it was, falling over her shoulders and ending tightly near her waist.

She knew that Inej and Kaz had left now, to go back to Ketterdam with their new baby. She didn’t know if they were coming back or not - Inej had been to see her a few times, but of course had stopped once the child was born. Sadja, someone had told Maya they’d named the little girl. It was a few months ago that the others had come to see Inej, and brought Aimee and Kiada with them. Maya took the opportunity - asked if she could see them, to apologise. She’d sat uncomfortably on a little chair opposite them both, watching the way Aimee had begun to stretch a little string in different shapes between her fingers and Kiada had fallen almost completely still. Inej had sat there with them, but she didn’t say anything.

“I also know,” Maya said, slowly, once she was done, “that Alby Rollins had something to do with… with Yen trying to overdose you both, the night we left. I don’t know what he did, but he told me he arranged for it. I thought that you deserved to know,”

There was a pause. Aimee stood up.

“Are you done?”

She did not want to forgive her and Maya didn’t expect her to, but she felt a tug of something she couldn’t identify when the girl made to leave. Aimee had heard all this before, of course, when Maya was barely able to hold herself upright and was sitting on the floor of the office on the Geldstradt. She remembered what Aimee had told her, and that she’d kept her word at giving her no response or reaction to the words. As Aimee began to walk towards the door and Kiada watched her nervously, Maya dared to say:

“You should tell them about your brother, Aimee,” the girl froze, but Maya had started now and she wasn’t going to stop, “It’s not your fault. You can’t… it’s eating you. Tell them,”

Aimee’s eyes were cold as she turned back to look at Maya, but all she said was:

“I already did. And for that, I do thank you,”

Then she was gone. Kiada shuffled.

“Why?” she asked, quietly, after a long time.

Maya swallowed.

“I wanted to protect you, I swear that’s all I wanted. I just really fucked it up,”

“You did,” she said, “But you tried to fix it too. Maybe one day you’ll be able to,”

And then she had left as well.

Maya finished her plait and stood up, slowly. Breakfast was waiting for her, and then a list of other tasks. All these things were waiting for her, but she could only breathe and hope to succeed in one at a time. Breakfast, and then the chance at a better life.

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