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qqueenofhades · 4 months

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Completely shocking, out-of-the-blue prompt that I've never mentioned to you before, definitely not inspired by work:

Ivan is a grumpy librarian/archivist, and Fedyor is a researcher who comes by looking for information on Darklina and/or their connection to Nikolai, and he finds the background of a love story. Obviously, the main character is Ivan's Disgust at the Perception of Heterosexuality

The light in the windowless back office is dim, grainy, and often gives Ivan a headache within the first few hours of him getting to work, which is not ideal for improving his temper. (Then again, not much is.) And despite its flaws, he does vastly prefer it to actually having to interact with the library patrons, as there is literally nothing worse than that. Especially academics, who come in with their laundry lists and their obscure texts, their pet projects and their insistence that if he just looks harder, he's sure to find it this time. Ivan has entertained many, many happy visions of just walking out, locking the doors behind him, and setting the whole thing on fire. Not that he has done that, and he probably -- probably -- wouldn't. He needs this job. Employment for a notorious ex-special ops soldier is thin on the ground as it is, and especially when it means he can, if he plays his cards right, spend most of the day completely alone. But still.

It is now, however, winter break at Os Alta Imperial State University, which means the throngs of panicked students trying to finish their last-minute assignment have mercifully receded, and Ivan can mostly organize his boxes in peace. Or so he thinks, until the accursed tinkle of the Please Ring for Service bell summons him like a wrathful specter, sweater-clad and glowering, to the front desk. "What?!"

"Uh. Good morning to you too." The newcomer -- young, dark-haired, and holding a large manila folder which portends absolutely nothing good, raises both eyebrows. "Can I speak to the archivist?"

"You're speaking to him," Ivan growls. This welcome has caused more than one quaking undergraduate to flee in abject terror rather than ask for even one book, and he fondly hopes for a similar effect this time. But the newcomer -- too old for an undergrad, so probably an advanced doctoral candidate or junior lecturer -- is made of stronger stuff, and doesn't flinch. "Can I help you, Mr... ?"

"Doctor," the annoyingly handsome interloper (not that Ivan has noticed) informs him. "Dr. Fedyor Kaminsky. I'm the new lecturer in the history department, Modern Ravkan History, and I was hoping that you could retrieve a few records for me? Boxes..." He consults his notes. Ivan contemplates murder. "T-1343 and T-1345 especially?"

Oh, great. Not again. Kaminsky -- yes, he vaguely recalls that name, from a department telegram welcoming the new faculty and staff, but it is absolutely not germane to Ivan's further actions in any part. He knows what is in those boxes, and someone always thinks they'll find something there that hasn't already been found, removed, and/or heavily censored. Ravka's last tsar and tsaritsa, Nikolai Lantsov and his half-Shu queen, Alina Starkov, are a figure of fascination and mystery for plenty of people, even after the revolution and the establishment of the Konsilium and everything that befell them as a result. Especially their relationship with the so-called Darkling, Aleksander Morozova, one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures in all of Ravkan history. Doctor Fedyor Kaminsky thinks he's going to jump into his new job with that? Good luck.

"We don't have those boxes," Ivan says, which is almost true. The Konsilium strongly prefers, in general, that people don't look at them, and any other uncomfortable bits of their history. "Go away."

Fedyor Kaminsky folds his arms. "No."

Saints, Ivan thinks sourly. What has he done to deserve this purgatory? (The Konsilium has also tried to outlaw the Ravkan Faith, since they're all supposed to be modern and secular now and because nobody wants another Apparat, but old habits are hard to break.) He stares at Fedyor, who stares back. This is confounding. Why hasn't he run away in terror yet? Everyone else does.

"Sorry," Ivan says, and turns away. "Can't help. Good day."

Naturally, Fedyor Kaminsky does not take the hint. He's back again the next day, still politely and stubbornly repeating his request for those boxes, and when Ivan loathingly suggests that the library is on winter-break hours and does not have to accommodate him at all, cheerily asks if Ivan's boss, the director of special collections, would agree. The threat of workplace discipline (or Saints forbid, a note in his permanent file) is stiff enough to make Ivan finally, furiously recant. Fine. If Kaminsky wants to get himself fired before even finishing his first year, it's nothing to Ivan. Might be a perk.

So, when they're into the second week of the requests, Ivan gives in, stomps to the back, and angrily hauls down the boxes, which are gathering dust from all the times he has, according to the rules, refused access to them before. It's not wise for Fedyor to look at these materials in the open, so Ivan tells him to take them to one of the backside reading rooms -- which is right across from Ivan's office, and makes him grimly reflect that he should have planned it better. But Fedyor works steadily and mostly silently, which is always a commendation in Ivan's book, and finally, on one dead-silent freezing morning right after the Winter Fete, when they are literally the only two people in the library and probably all of campus, he gives in. "What are you looking for?"

Fedyor jumps, glancing up in patent surprise. They eye each other for a long moment, as if to be sure that Ivan Sakharov actually did, entirely of his own volition, initiate a conversation with another human being. Then finally, warily, he says, "What's it to you?"

Good, Ivan thinks. Good instincts, just in case I was in fact an informer for the Konsilium. "I don't care," he says aloud. "I was just curious. They seemed so important to you."

"I'm just working on something," Fedyor says, after a long pause. "Confirming a hypothesis. It'll probably get me into trouble, but -- " He shrugs, with no small amount of bitterness. "I'm used to that."

Ivan thinks about it. This can't go anywhere good, but they've been made a strange sort of partners in this buried secret, and he's almost gotten used to Fedyor working away outside his door. "What?"

"I think they were lovers," Fedyor says, after a final, reluctant moment. "Alina and the Darkling, that is, and then also Alina and Nikolai, and maybe all three of them together. I think it's a love story. And as for why this matters, well -- it wouldn't change anything about our own history right now, how it all ended. But the narrative has always been that the Darkling was this awful monster who had to be destroyed, and the Grisha were his secret shock troops determined to overthrow the country on his behalf, and that pulled Alina and Nikolai into some regrettable circumstance they couldn't control and that led to their tragic downfall -- you know. It's just..."

"What?"

"I don't think it's true." Fedyor shrugs again. "I think everything we know about our own past, about the fall of the Imperial House of Lantsov, and about the Grisha, is a lie. And if that's the case, then the Konsilium knows it, or has covered it up, and that means -- "

"Shut up," Ivan interrupts roughly. "Saints. Don't talk like that. Someone could hear you."

"You could hear me." Fedyor smiles a little, a shadowed eclipse, and it does something very strange to Ivan's innards. "Does that matter?"

"I... " Ivan's mouth is dry. He can't look away. Not for any reason that means anything. "Never mind," he says, which seems the best and safest option, if it isn't already far too late. "Go back to work."

Fedyor eyes him a moment longer, then nods, a deliberate motion indicating that he knows and understands Ivan is choosing to keep his secret. Ivan himself doesn't know why, or what it is about Doctor Kaminsky, the feckless and foolish and fearless, that's gotten under his skin. It could be -- but no, it's not, it can't be that. From time to time, the very brave or very stupid actually think that Ivan himself is good-looking and try to flirt, and once a woman actually asked him on a date, which was the worst moment of his entire life (does he look like a heterosexual?!?!) But it's just shallow, surface-level, not like they're seeing him. Not like they know what monstrosity lies beneath. I think it's a love story. As if love matters. As if love, and the simple truth of it, can change the course of history.

Ivan shudders, once and then again. He looks at Fedyor for a very long moment, allowing himself -- just for that short and fleeting instant -- to imagine something he can never, never have. He grieves for it as if it was real, and then he lets it go. Turns, and walks away.

#mearcatsreturns #ask #fivan #fivan ff #heartrender husbands #darknikolina #winter prompts

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starlessvsaint · 2 years

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UNSAINT TRINITY IS REAL💖❤️‍🔥😈

Daddy and his sugar babies

#GIVE ME A GOOD FIC #darknikolina #darkolai #nikolina #darklina #alina starkov #nikolai lanstov #aleksander morozova #shadow and bone #ben barnes #jessie mei li #patrick gibson

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waldensblog · 1 year

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Reading Ruin and Rising

So I have finished The Grisha Trilogy! Overall, I quite enjoyed the book series after watching the show, and I will continue on to the Six of Crows Duology and then the King of Scars Duology. Below the cut are my thoughts on the final book in the trilogy.

TL;DR: -I liked how Alina grew more ruthless, really was full fledged. Her ending is tragic. -The Darkling basically won, and was taken down by his weakness: love. Still a Darklina stan, what a tragic romance they had. -I like Nikolai overall, and his ending is likewise sad, as he now is possessed. Kind of Darkolai ending for him. I like Nikolina too. -Mal isn’t the literal worst the entire time, but I’m not a fan of him still. I think he was not a true amplifier but a curse to whatever Grisha killed him. His happy ending comes at the expense of literally everyone else’s and the good of Ravka. -Story is overall a tragedy. A good tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless.

Alina: Although she once again starts in a position of weakness, underground, recovering from the Chapel fight, I found myself loving the start. Alina’s developed into a morally grey and ruthless character, and I love this. She’s stuck with the apparat, but biding her time.

Her tether scene with the Darkling shows how far she’s come. She reached out to him, which surprised him, and stroke his face, taunted him with their love story - hell yeah, it was a very strong start for me.

When escaping the apparat, she almost kills (again), but only ends up branding someone. Again, loving this gray and ruthlessness, and all the inner thoughts about how very much like the Darkling she is becoming.

Alina eventually meets back up with Nikolai and they’re at the Spinning Wheel, where she trains more with Baghra, and gets stronger and stronger. During the escape from the Spinning Wheel, she uses the cut to kill someone, for the first time. She is disgusted with herself in part because yeah splitting someone in 2 would be pretty gorey, but also because of how... easy it was, how good it felt. She knows she’s going down a dark path, and I personally love to see it - because it breaks the hero archetype, giving her more an anti-hero arc.

I’ll discuss the ending itself further below, because I have a lot of thoughts on that, but to keep it brief here: the end of Alina’s story is, to me, tragic. She’s a tragic hero to me. I overall like her character, though I definitely have gripes about her at times, mostly, the Mal addiction.

The Darkling: My favourite still. The Darkling is to me an anti-villain - he does bad things for the right reasons. In another story, he may have been the anti-hero, not the one Ravka deserves perhaps, but the one Ravka needs (*Batman theme plays*).

The Darkling has basically won by the start of the story. He’s ruling Ravka, he can expand the Fold any way he wants, the King is on the run. He can ensure Grisha safety, stop the wars... he’s won. His weakness is what he always said: wanting, or more specifically: love.

When his mother jumps off a cliff, it’s because she knows this. She knows he would go after her - try to stop her from dying. Alina feels him try to pull her into the tether afterwards, and can feel his overwhelming grief. She refuses the call, but she knows. And in the Fold, when Alina loses her power - she doesn’t need the tether to feel his grief. Her metaphorical death there was too much for him. It wasn’t only about loneliness, but love. He wanted to rule with her - he wanted to his soulmate by his side. He wanted a partner. He goes about it poorly - having learned cruelty and abuse from his mother, and never breaking the cycle.

It was clear to me that they loved each other deeply as much as they hated the fact. In the tether, when he kisses her neck as she’s against him, the attraction, the pull, is very strong. At the end, she’s crying as he dies, and he just looks at her and is happy to know at least someone will mourn him - that he was loved.

I absolutely lose my mind about the fact that his body was burned alongside Ruby’s-disguised-to-look-like-Alina’s, because that was absolutely not for Ruby - who probably would not like that - it was not for him - because he probably wouldn’t like that either (though would be happy she respected his wish to burn the body) - it was certainly not for Ravka, who complained about it - this was for Alina. Alina asked for a Grisha effigy of herself to burn next to him. Her metaphorical funeral. Side by side. The immortal rulers of Ravka that could have been. As she watches this, she whispers his name in a sob. Dear.God. what a tragic lovers-to-enemies romance this is. I do wish there were more tether scenes, but I loved the ones we did get.

Nikolai: Nikolai starts on the run, and without tether scenes, we don’t get to see him for quite a while. When he finally does show up, I cheer. Yey! Our pirate prince is back! I loved all the scenes with Alina, and found their chemistry intriguing. I do feel that they could have been happy together, King and Queen of Ravka - a Grisha Queen which may have helped bridge the gap between Grisha and otkazat'sya, even leading to a Grisha king if they had a son. Certainly, that’s what both Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising were saying was supposed to happen. I would have accepted this end, even if it wouldn’t have been my favourite, because it would be a bit status quo-y. As good a King as Nikolai may be - a great one with Alina at his side, he is still ultimately a monarch, and a mortal man. His descendants may not been as good - we could hope, if they’re Grisha, that they would be. He would have died as Alina remained ageless, so this would still have a tragic end for her. I like Nikolina, but it’s still a second choice to me after Darklina. I did have a pretty big gripe about Nikolai at the Spinning Wheel though: when it came to Genya. Sure, it’s great that he took her side, but his punishment to his father is so... what a slap on the wrist. Oh you abused this woman, well off to a warm retirement you go, I’m the King now, dad! To me, the fact that he didn’t stand trial kind of tells me the nobility will always get away with more under his rule than peasants would. He may not be the Worst, he may be a good and great king - but at the end of the day... a monarchy is still a monarchy.

The Darkolai vibes here were great - fucked, but great. The Darkling saw Nikolai at the spinning wheel, Mal too - and could have a) killed one or both, b) infect them with nichevo’ya. He specifically targeted Nikolai for option b - instead of killing the King, instead of killing Mal or infecting him. Why? Jealousy because Alina showed interest in him? Because he never saw him during tether scenes and therefore knows Alina does have genuine feelings for him? Or because... secret option C? I mean the tendrils down the throat is bit... not-hetero. They both ultimately want the same things, and in another story, another life, they may have been allies. At the end, Nikolai is still ultimately scarred, and the shadow demon-ness is not gone. A part of the Darkling lives on inside Nikolai’s body, so we... sort of have a Darkolai ending, don’t we?

The Darknikolina-ness of no tether scenes when she’s with Nikolai, the shadow demon and emerald ring, trying to cure via her light, the tendrils down the throat. My god. I am still on about this, yes. Imagine the possibilities...

Mal: Mal was not the literal worst in this book like he was in Siege and Storm. He’s finally gotten past being a drunk, angry, asshole, and now sees himself as a tool in a war. I’m glad he’s had some development, and that he’s accepted a position as not-Alina’s-lover. I find his tracker abilities absurd at times - what the hell do you mean he can target a beetle and shoot it to make a bomb explode?! WHAT? What in the world does that have to do with his being the firebird anyway? On that note, I posted this elsewhere, but I have a theory that Morozova’s third amplifier - the firebird - Morozova’s daughter and her bloodline, so Mal - is actually not a true amplifier, but a curse. Any grisha that dared kill the firebird would lose their powers, and a bunch of nearby otkazat'sya would get them. Kind of a monkey’s paw situation (you want power? wish granted - they get the amplified power, not you). Not that Mal would know that. I also think that this curse is partially why Alina was so drawn to him. It’s a bit tragic really - they think it’s a sincere affection, but it’s really the amplifier, a trap, pulling her in, luring her. It’s unfortunately dismissed immediately by Mal when Alina brings it up - what if everything between them was just the amplifier? I personally think it was. I also maintain that he was very much a drug for her. He wanted to carve out her power, and in the end, he basically did. She goes back to being “useless” Alina, and unhappily staring out a window, longing for her powers. Once again, Alina tries to tell us she is happy - despite the evidence suggesting otherwise.

The ending: I’ve already touched on the ending above a fair bit, but to summarize, I interpret the ending as a tragedy. Alina is a tragic hero - she tries to make things better, but she didn’t fix Ravka, there are still wars, and people still hate grisha. She loses her powers in the process, dying a metaphorical death and burning herself alongside her soulmate who she killed - our anti-villain, the Darkling. Nikolai is scarred, possessed, and left to rule alone, as Alina removes herself from society, sadly looking out the windows at the sunlight and wishing she had her powers, as Mal - the only happy one at the end has succeeded in keeping her weak. I know many hate the ending - I don’t, but it’s because I view it as a tragedy.

#Grishaverse #ruin and rising #grisha trilogy #darklina #nikolina #darkolai #darknikolina #anti malina

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stromuprisahat · 4 months

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How would you have concluded Shadow and Bone? What would be ideal ending to you?

I'd scratch all the shit from second season. Truly, there's nothing really worth salvaging.

I wouldn't interfere with the Crows. Hurrying up their plotlines and engrafting them into TGT was a huge mistake. TBH Ravkan cameos sucked even in the books. "Everyone meets everyone" trope's rarely well-handled.

I wouldn't erase Grisha genocide and Ravkan wars, I wouldn't blame them on the Darkling, I'd make the heroes attempt to solve those realistically. Hard decisions, moral dilemmas and dead ends included.

I'd skip idiotic speeches. I know US-American probably love those (judging from their stories), but that shit's pathetic. And a nice speech isn't really likely to open the masses' eyes and turn them into accepting philanthropists.

Alina would grow into a critical, active figure caring for more than Mal (plus like two more people ~sometimes~). Actually caring, not making a speech to three point half Grisha about... whatever was that "My beloved Second Army..." shit supposed to be. Oh, and she becomes less self-centred and more compassionate. Ironically, the pig-headed teen from books had more empathy than her allegedly more mature show!counterpart.

I'd never erase Aleksander's pragmatic, more ruthless streak, and while I cannot see a good ending for him in books, in show he feels much younger, more hopeful... less dead inside?! So even though I wouldn't make him into the brain-dead simp the second season did, he and less short-sighted Alina might work something out in the end.

Oh, and Nikolai would be introduced as the lonely, clever boy with need to prove himself. Anyone else sees Darknikolina possibility?

TGT ends because Alina's robbed of her nature, I think it should end with her fully embracing it, duties and responsibilities included. You cannot control other people's faith, but I'd want her to reject her alleged Sainthood, since Ravkan religion likes to use it to keep dehumanizing Grisha. I don't mind her becoming Queen- for more self-aware character it might be a good way to be able to influence people without that Sainthood she'd give up in my scenario.

I'd like to see her destroy the Fold hand in hand with the Darkling. She might have the power, but she doesn't know shit about merzost, and wouldn't it be a beautiful parallel? The first time they enter it, she believes him The Evil and he's forced to make her use her powers in order to expand it, the second time they both go willingly, and she trusts him enough to allow him to use her power, taking down the thing bit by bit.

Since we're keeping it, we'd need to address the wars and Grisha oppression. The ending doesn't need to mean something definitive- life doesn't work in absolutes-, but Ravka's lack of resources considered, they're in no position to end anything, unless they give up... or conjure something their enemies cannot trump. Excluding merzost, threefold amplified Sun Summoner under more experienced Shadow Summoner's guidance could make a unit small enough to infiltrate enemy territory and target strategically chosen places. With invisibility on their side, they might go unnoticed except for the traces of their activity. They're at that stage of history, when nations are starting to pull out nukes, and Ravka happens to own two fully conscious ones. With Grisha it's much harder. There might be laws, treaties and agreements, but those are just words, and words are wind. What deed might change one person's mind, can only reinforce another's prejudice. This is a nightmare to solve, but education, laws and black magic seems like the only way to go.

So that's the end I got to today. These three forcing Fjerda and Shu Han to lay down their weapons and agree to treat their Grisha in humane way, OR...

#reply #Shadow and Bone #What if/AU/...#Grisha #Ravka #Alina Starkov #The Darkling #Nikolai Lantsov #Darknikolina #General Kirigan #grishanalyticritical #A lot of it depends on making Alina grow #but...

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vorbarrsultana · 1 year

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darknikolina won again

#grishaverse #nikolai lantsov #aleksander morozov #alina starkova #darkolai #nikolina #darklina #darknikolina #we are you....... we are one......... OKAY??¿¿?#darkolina

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marvelmusing · 1 year

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This entire video fed at least four different ship pairings but I’m choosing to fixate on the darkolai scraps we’ve been given

#the darknikolina vibes were exquiste too #darkolai #darkolina #darknikolina #nikolai lantsov #alina starkov #aleksander morozova #the darkling #shadow and bone

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nikolailantsovhoe · 1 year

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Nikolai: I can't decide what I should get Aleksander on his birthday. What does he like?

Alina, glancing at Alexander, who's been eyeing Nikolai up: Other people's boyfriends, apparently.

#shadow and bone #darknikolina #darklina #darkling x alina #darkling x nikolai #darkolai #nikolai lantsov #aleksander morovoza #alina starvok #sab #incorrect quotes

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goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 10 months

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dual-part fic prompt: first a moment where nikolai ran across the darkling as a little boy, potentially even a scene where he'd broken into his private rooms and was hiding or something, and then a moment where he's mocking nikolai sometime circa R&R or KOS just before the monster takes over again (can be real or a hallucination)

Not the exact same concept but I was already working on a one shot with vaguely similar elements! Pre KoS I had a lot of thoughts about the Darkling resurfacing as basically a voice in Nikolai’s head. So I’m leaning into that with this.

***

At first, Nikolai thinks he is going mad. Ever since that fateful night, where he plummeted from the sky, still more monster than man, the Darkling’s power rapidly fading from him, but not quickly enough, he’s felt it. There’s an ice in his chest, always with him, an invasive presence chilling him to the bone. There are thoughts, urges, he doesn’t quite understand, that don’t quite feel like his own. When he dreams, even his nightmares aren’t fully his.

He might dream of meat, of sprouting talons and wings again, of losing sanity and taking flight. Or see his family dying at that last wretched dinner in his honor, gruesome memories from the army, from his time at sea. Those things are horrible, but they’re familiar. They’re not foreign things lodged into his mind.

Other nights though, he dreams of traveling endlessly, changing names with every village and city, always looking over his shoulder for fear of being discovered. Of hands holding him underwater, in an iced over lake. But in the most frequent dreams, he is only terrified of being alone in the all-consuming dark.

Then there are the dreams of Alina. Her hands, her neck, the feel of her. The way her face betrays her every single emotion. And the collar. Always the collar. Mine, a quiet, resentful voice whispers to him. She should have been mine. Mine to shape, mine to guide. My balance. My right.

It would be simpler to call it madness. But of course, Nikolai would never have such good fortune.

He’d hoped it— whatever it was— would go away with time, that it was just a matter of readjusting to life as a mere mortal again. That it was only the simple business of becoming reacquainted with trivial civilities such as speech, and literacy, and complex thought. But no, even as his monstrous foray feels more and more like a dream, Nikolai continues to feel distinctly altered.

Sobachka, he’ll hear the ghost of the Darkling say in his head. In the dark of night, half-ensared by sleep, when he will not fully remember. Usurper, he calls him. Thief. You foolish, boy-king. Your life is like a flicker of a candle, snuffed out before it’s begun.

The voice persists, grows stronger with each passing day, seeping into his waking moments. A nagging, bitter thing, a wound he cannot help but worry at, and feel it grow even more painful, inflamed.

Sometimes when the nightmares are at their worst, they’ll leave him thrashing in his bed, stumbling out of it with a will he doesn’t fully understand. Sometimes he’ll come to in the halls of the Little Palace, having slipped past multiple sets of guards, and through the wooded tunnel in his sleep. Usually he wakes before he gets too far— after all it’s always the same route, to Alina’s door.

This time, he wakes with his fingers— always stained with black, he still shudders at the sight of them— curled around the cool metal door handle. He recoils, almost stumbles, and he is about to turn away, but then the door opens a crack and he can see her peering out at him.

“Nikolai?” Alina says, voice raspy like she’s been asleep or perhaps crying. He can see the warm glow of lamplight behind her. She’s told him she cannot stand the dark anymore. That makes two of them.

He runs a hand through his hair, not quite fully awake yet. That dreaming urge to be near her still eating at him. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“Is something wrong?”

Tell her you’re pathetic, a drowning child, foolish enough to wade out into the sea. Instead he blinks, tries to smile. “I couldn’t sleep.”

She finally opens the door all the way, gesturing for him to come in. His gaze flickers to the antlers at her neck, the scales at her wrist, and the second fetter, bone white but delicately carved into the shape of talons clasped around her other wrist.

He always wonders if she’d requested that bit of obfuscation, or perhaps David had been feeling artistic. It’s weakness. Even now she refuses to face difficult truths.

She ushers him through the impersonal audience chamber and to the hexagonal bedroom all in shades of black. He wonders idly if she’ll ever change it.

She fusses over him to sit by the fire. He hadn’t realized he was shaking.

“I’d ring for tea,” she says. “But you hate it, and it is unreasonably late.”

“It is an abominable hour isn’t it? I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

She smiles faintly, fetching glasses and a bottle of brandy instead. He takes his own glass gratefully, tries not to spill it. He wonders how drunk he’d have to be before he stops hearing that cool voice in his head, trickling through his own thoughts like meltwater.

It hasn’t quite been a year since the Shadow Fold was destroyed. Since she drove a dagger in the Darkling’s heart to do it.

Nikolai doesn’t remember this part, or well, he shouldn’t remember, he wasn’t back to himself by then. But somehow he knows. The roiling, cold thing, whatever remnant of the Darkling still exists inside him, it remembers. How could I forget? When I was so close to my purpose, so close to lifting this country out of its misery.

After all was said and done, Alina had quietly accompanied him back to the capital. The Saint at his side to bolster his claim. She’d weathered the coronation with him and the chaos of drawing Ravka back from civil war.

But mostly she just sequesters herself in this room and its funerary elegance. He wonders if she likes it because it’s so miserable, or simply because it belonged to the Darkling. It’s a strange shrine to a dead man.

He’d proposed to Alina yet again, after everything, and she’d rejected him firmly enough that he’s resolved that it will be the final time. It had stung though, so much that he doesn’t like to think about it.

Even an orphan girl that comes from nothing will not have you. How humiliating.

Nikolai wants to say, if certain dreams are anything to go by, then it appears you’re in the same boat. But he catches himself before he does.

The most frustrating part of this, beyond the confusion and the unnerving distraction of having a foreign voice nattering in his head, is that more often than not he cannot reply. Nikolai has always been uniquely terrible at keeping his mouth shut. Over the years he’s become very adept at knowing the right thing to say, but simply staying silent is not one of his strengths. It’ll be just what he needs, walking around arguing with an invisible adversary.

He can see it now. Mad King Nikolai, remembered for his good looks and the pesky habit of interrupting nearly every conversation with entirely irrelevant, but admittedly clever, insults.

Alina lets him drink in silence, waiting for him to collect himself long enough to speak.

“There’s something wrong with me,” he says finally, more bluntly than he’d like.

“What do you mean?”

There’s too much open concern in her eyes, startlingly dark next to the rest of her face. This close he can tell that she has been crying. For her tracker no doubt. Wasted tears on an otkazat’sya who was only ever born to die.

He must really look wretched, because she touches his face gently. It’s meant in simple comfort but for a helpless moment he wonders if she’s trying to hurt him.

That’s pity on her face. She sees you for the broken, repulsively frail thing you are. A clock with a missing cog, a puppet with cut strings. Pathetic.

The firelight catches in her pale hair, makes it into a halo. It gleams off the amplifiers too, turning the bone white of them to a warm gold. He doesn’t like the way his eyes keep catching on them. And the place on her shoulder, where beneath the nightdress, he shouldn’t know she has a scar.

He pulls away, looking to the fire, the rest of the room, anything but her.

Despite everything, his wounded pride and his wounded heart, he’s glad now that she knew better than to accept his hand. Perhaps she sensed it somehow. How he is still stained by the Darkling’s mark.

“I’m not entirely certain yet,” he tells her, attempting for a light tone and failing miserably. “There’s a few possibilities, I don’t much like any of them.”

“Well, what are they?”

He remembers, as a child, in his rowdier days before anyone had come close to mastering the art of making him sit through an entire lesson at a time, he’d actually snuck in here. It’s virtually unchanged since then, the same carved forest on the walls, the same chips of pearls on the ceiling. He’d known no tutor would dare to look for him in the storied Darkling’s quarters. And he’d been right.

Unfortunately the room’s occupant himself had the audacity to be there, sitting by the same fireside with a book. Nikolai still remembers how towering the Darkling had seemed to his child’s eyes, gazing down at him with a bemused expression. The smoothness of his gestures nearly uncanny, almost serpentine as he approached him and crouched to nearly eye level.

“Moi tsarevich, it’s an honor,” he’d said, too seriously.

Nikolai had only backed towards the door, unnerved.

“I assume you have very important business.”

He’d nodded. “I snuck a live lizard in tutor Mitkin’s lunch and now he’s very cross with me.”

“Hm, a noble endeavor. Stay out of my way and tutor Mitkin needn’t know where you’ve taken refuge for the moment.”

And then the Darkling had offered him cake.

It’s an odd memory he can’t quite reconcile with everything that came after. Far too ordinary.

Should I have poisoned you? I believe that’s your brother’s wheelhouse though.

“Insanity,” he tells Alina, moving to stand. He feels restless in this confined space. His skin itches, feels too tight, ill fitting and wrong. “Which would certainly be a very interesting way to start a reign.”

Alina lets him pace, watching him quietly. “The other options?”

“A very creative imagination. Rather unlikely, I would say.”

“And?”

“The Darkling has taken up residence in my mind. Somehow.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s like he’s whispering in my ear. Like I can feel him, taking root inside me.” He still vividly remembers the shadows pouring down his throat. The strange wrenching feeling in those moments before he’d turned into the Darkling’s creature. “Unfortunately he fancies himself a conversationalist.”

“Oh. That sounds unpleasant.”

“It is.” He sits down beside her again. Feeling rather defeated and sorry for himself.

“Aleksander,” she whispers.

And the voice that answers is not his own. “My Alina.”

“I killed you,” she breathes. But she’s also drifting closer, like she wants to touch him— the Darkling, not Nikolai, he knows that— but is afraid to.

“And I’ll haunt you for it.”

Alina takes a shuddering breath. It looks like she might cry again.

He doesn’t expect her to kiss him. He barely feels it, though his body responds regardless, hungry, possessive. At least for now, the Darkling’s voice is blessedly silent.

#ideally I’d edit this but I’m too busy so woo hot mess version instead 💖#I’ll get back to it one day…#grishaverse #shadow and bone #darklina #nikolina #alarkling #darknikolina #kind of?#nikolai lantsov #alina starkov #aleksander morovoza #the darkling #i ramble sometimes #a string of words #all the bendy punctuations #*writer’s cap*#silence

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lassieposting · 1 year

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S&B Characters + Sleep Headcanons

Aleksander Kirigan doesn't get a lot of sleep. He claims it's because he's an incredibly busy man, and that's often true - long hours are basically part of his job description - but in truth it's just as likely to be any of a dozen other things keeping him from his bed; nightmares, occasional merzost headaches, intrusive thoughts, the ghosts of fuck-ups past, the relentless stress and worry of trying to keep Ravka's borders secure with dwindling funds and forces. Over the centuries he's learned to bury himself in his work to avoid his demons, and he's become one of those people who's perfectly functional on four hours of sleep, considers six a lie-in, and will sporadically go days at a time without sleeping when he's not doing well.

For most of his life, he's been immensely wary of falling asleep beside a lover - there are few worse ways to discover your bed partner was just out to kill you for bone jewelry than waking up mid-assassination attempt. If he's keen enough on them to not have them leave after a casual encounter - say, Zoya - he'll usually stay with them until they fall asleep, and then get up and go quietly do some work or read until morning. He's willing to adapt, though, for the right person - Nikolai and Alina can both settle him enough to stay with them all night. The trick, as it turns out, is playing on his touch starvation; on the rare occasion he finds someone he can actually trust, he likes to be held, and affectionate little gestures like playing with his hair or scritching his stubble or massaging his shoulders will melt him and flick his OFF button real fast. He's surprisingly cuddly, though he'll swear blind that he just gets cold easily and Alina and Nikolai both run hot.

Nikolai Lantsov is very tactile and affectionate in general, so when he's sharing someone's bed, he likes to cuddle. Like most soldiers - and kings who have survived more assassins than anyone should ever have to - he's a light sleeper, but he also drops off easily, the legacy of learning to get his head down wherever and whenever he can in an active warzone. He likes to sprawl out over or wrap himself around his lovers, and he does a lot of idly playing with hair or repetitive stroking up and down random stretches of skin, almost like he's self-soothing by comforting someone else.

He's been known to react to things happening around him while still asleep - pulling Alina in against his chest if he feels her shiver, or rolling over to throw an arm over Aleksander and mumble easy, Sasha if he's having a bad dream. He has nightmares of his own - he spent his military service on the front lines, not safe in an officer's tent like Vasily - and he tends to burrow into the closest warm body for comfort, burying his face in Alina's chest or Sasha's shoulder to ground himself. Aleksander will almost always wake up for this and react, reassuring and resettling Niko. Alina, not so much.

Alina Starkov sleeps like the dead. Once she is out, she is Out, and she'll sleep through pretty much anything short of a bomb being dropped on the palace. For quite a while this actually frightens her - she worries she won't wake up in time if she's attacked - but Niko is a light sleeper and Aleksander startles awake if a butterfly sneezes in Novyi Zem, so once they're all sharing a bed she's perfectly safe to conk out like a light. She's always had very vivid dreams, but she doesn't remember them for long after she wakes, so she keeps a sketchpad by the bed so she can draw any ideas or lingering impressions she wants to hang onto after she wakes - a concept for a machine Nikolai might want to build, a kefta design Aleksander would look devastatingly good in, old memories from the war she needs to exorcise, random nonsense that makes no sense outside of the context of her dream. She's usually the last to wake - Aleksander and Nikolai are both military and ridiculously busy besides, so they're often up with the Saints-forsaken sun, but Alina loves a lie-in, and would much rather stay up late than wake early.

Mal Oretsev is used to taking turns on watch with other soldiers, so he tends to sleep in short bursts of a few hours at a time. This poses a challenge once he takes over the Volkvolny - he has a lot of extra time to sleep now that he didn't have before. He spends a lot of it painstakingly working his way through the collection of books in Sturmhond's - his - stateroom. If he's to play the role, he should probably have the knowledge, and he'd rather be able to pull his weight without getting in the crew's way. He enjoys the engineering manuals and seafaring tomes, but mostly uses the ones on statecraft to make himself doze off when his brain doesn't want to shut down and be quiet.

Genya Safin is a paranoid sleeper. Her bed is positioned and angled so she can watch the thin strip of light visible beneath her closed door, waiting for the old king's loathsome shadow to block out the glow from the other side. Long after his death, she'll wake and go rigid at the sound of footsteps in the hall. It takes her a while to actually let David into her bed, but when she does, she realises she finds him comforting, actually - he's so logical and steady that he can talk her down from even the worst of her dreams. He doesn't mind getting up to prove to her that her door is locked, or reassuring her nightly that the old king really is dead.

David Kostyk is That Guy. He talks in his sleep - quadratic equations and theories of immutability and assorted Fabrikator shop-talk. He gets up and wanders around sometimes - usually to and from his desk, but occasionally down the hall. At least once he's gotten up, put on a housecoat, double-checked the lock on the door for Genya, comforted her after a nightmare, and gone back to bed himself, having never really woken up in the first place. This is a known habit at the Little Palace, and has caused plenty of entertainment and consternation - he's "caught" Nikolai sneaking out of the Black General's chambers back when he was still the spare tsarevich, he's wandered into the war room at four-thirty in the morning to explain a prototype to General Kirigan, he's been found ambling about the kitchens barefoot. Everyone who tends to stay up late - Kirigan included - has kindly escorted David back to his own rooms at least once. His saving grace is that he's really quite particular about his pyjamas - they're Durast-made to feel heavy, like a weighted blanket, and he finds it difficult to drop off without the grounding sensation - so at least he's never gone sleepwalking in his birthday suit. He wanders a little less once he starts spending his nights with Genya - if she's resting her head on his shoulder, or has an arm draped over his chest, he seems to be reluctant to move her.

Ivan Kaminsky has night terrors, the kind that wake him screaming and thrashing and completely disoriented, trapped in his own blankets - the legacy of the front lines at the Fjerdan border over a century ago. As a younger man, fresh off the front lines with nothing to his name but a medical discharge from active duty, he'd often find himself seeking out General Kirigan, stumbling into his tent or the Little Palace war room pale and shivering and still in his sleep clothes, all terribly undignified. Kirigan never seemed to mind, really. It was an understanding of sorts, between old soldiers familiar with the lingering spectre of war. He'd give Ivan a cursory once-over - "Evening, Kaminsky." - pour him a drink, and push a stack of papers across the table to give him something to do. He misses it, sometimes, the long nights spent working in companionable quiet. But now the General spends his nights with the sun summoner and the puppy king who's been making eyes at him since he was a skinny princeling, and Ivan spends his with his Fedyor, who has a truly remarkable amount of patience for being woken up at all hours by all the flailing and yelling. Ivan still hates talking about his night terrors - Fedyor is too young to have ever fought in the campaigns that got Ivan his discharge papers, and Ivan is reluctant to place extra horrors on his shoulders - but Fedya would listen, if Ivan needed him to, and in the meantime, he'll regulate Ivan's heart rate and breathing for him, deactivate the fear centre of his brain and flood him with signals telling his brain he's close to sleep, until he really is.

Inej Ghafa likes to sleep in Kaz's office. Back when he first bought out her indenture and took her from the Menagerie, that was where she felt safest. Only one door, locked firmly behind him whenever he ventured down to the rowdy Club below, where the raised voices of drunken men made her feel sick with terror. Two windows, left open at her fearful request - exits, if she needed them. A comfortable leather couch. The scratch-scratch-scratch of Kaz's quill on paper. Jesper used to try to reassure her - no harm will come to you at the Crow Club, you're Kaz's - and a small, wounded part of her took that to heart. If her connection to Kaz Brekker kept her safe, this man who showed more interest in her blades than her body, then she would rest where he could see her, where that protection would be a physical, tangible thing. And he let her. Never complained, though she knows now what he's like about his privacy. Just let her curl up on his Chesterfield. Draped a blanket over her when it was cold.

She's not that terrified girl anymore. She has her own lodgings, with her own possessions, though she still has a nighttime ritual for safety - one final sweep of the building, checking her escape routes, jamming a chair beneath her door handle. But she's quite capable of protecting herself now. All the same, when she is injured or sick or has been summoned back to the Menagerie on business, she'll still climb through his window, breathe out a sigh of relief at the inevitable, unsurprised, "Hello, Inej," and make herself comfortable on the couch for the night.

Wylan Hendriks sleeps curled into a ball. He's spent his share of time on the streets of Ketterdam and that's how he's learned to do it - hugging his meagre bagful of possessions, threadbare blanket wrapped around him and it. In Jesper's room at the Crow Club, he likes to burrow under the blankets; he'll rest his head on Jesper's belly to sleep rather than his shoulder, so even his hair is covered. It muffles the sound drifting up from the club floor or the street outside in the evenings - the shouting, the drunken arguments and bitter insults tossed around like knives, anything that might remind him of - anyway. He tends to turn in fairly early compared to the other Crows - while he loves the music of the city's bars and even enjoys the camaraderie of watching Jesper gamble, closing time in most of Ketterdam peaks at around midnight, and that's about when all the socialising starts to get a bit much for him. The Barrel stays open late, and Kaz doesn't kick out his patrons until the early hours of the morning, so most of the Crows have become night owls by necessity. Wylan uses the hours between making his exit and Jesper finally coming to bed to decompress - compose, play his flute, experiment with chemicals, look at the books Jesper got him, the ones with all the pictures to tell him the fairytales. After a few incidents where Jesper bursting in drunk and noisy left Wylan...a little out of sorts...he's learned to knock, the same pattern every time, before he lets himself in, and it's always easier to uncurl a little and relax with Jesper holding him.

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