#to ignore all the good nikolai had done all the blood sweat and tears he’d put into ravka before he’d been crown and after

[sanktnikolais]

This has been bugging me for the past week, and I just knew I had to write it. :<

Her legs gave out even before she could reach him.

           The aftermath of the war still hung heavily in the air, the stench of blood and smoke and earth invading Zoya’s senses, but her attention was solely focused on the boy lying on the ground just several yards away.

           And he looked deathly still.

           Zoya willed herself to stand up on her feet again and continued her way towards Nikolai. She ignored the panic that started to cloud the logical part of her mind as she crashed down beside him because Zoya Nazyalensky did not panic at the most crucial times in her life.

           But now, seeing the boy—the man—she had grown to love and care for so much for the past few years dying on the very land that he had protected with everything he had, Zoya realized things she did not want to admit out loud.

           “Nikolai,” she said, letting her hand come up to the side of his face to turn him to her. She tried to ignore how the lack of warmth of Nikolai brought her mind to a panicking mess. His pulse wasn’t there. He wasn’t breathing. “Lantsov, damn it. Open your eyes.”

           Too late.

           No, not yet, she told herself. She wouldn’t give him up just like that. She wouldn’t.

           Zoya gritted her teeth as she reached down to whatever was left of her strength to call upon the blue glow that was starting to form in her hands.

           Zoya’s putting her own life at risk too, she heard an all too familiar voice in her head as she remembered when she was once in the same position, back when she was helping a bunch of proper thieves.

           She doesn’t strike me as the type.

           You’d be surprised.

           Nikolai hadn’t doubted her capabilities. He never did. Even if she had at some point, she always knew he never did.

           Zoya slammed her hands on his chest, feeling his body react under the pressure of it. Nikolai’s body thudded back against the ground, and she put her fingers against the spot under his neck for a pulse.

           It still wasn’t there.

           “Damn it,” Zoya hissed as she gathered up her power once more. She felt her vision get blurry in frustration, looking down at the pale face of her king. “I swear to all the saints if you survive this, I’m going to kill you myself.”

           If he survived.

           She was beginning to feel desperate, Zoya knew, and her remaining strength was slowly dissipating into nothing.

           But she still refused to give up on Nikolai.

           There were still too many things she hadn’t told him yet. Too many things.

           Zoya tried to think about his optimism, how he had never seemed to fail to think that everything will be alright, that they would always find a way to fix the problems that came crashing to them.

           Because it was Ravka, the ever-more-bad-news-to-come-Ravka, and Nikolai was ready to lay down everything for it.

           Even his own life.

           She slammed her palms to his chest for the second time, and his body reacted once again. She waited a few agonizing seconds before checking his pulse again.

           When she felt that there still wasn’t, she gritted her teeth in frustration and anger. “Come on, Lantsov. You’re stronger than this,” she growled, clutching onto the collar of his undershirt in a fist. “Not like this.”

           Zoya knew that a third shock would be dangerous, even at the lowest intensity of her abilities. But she was willing to try another time, if it meant bringing him back.

           Especially if it meant possibly bringing him back.

           She started to draw from her strength again, but her hands had already started shaking and her whole body felt bone-tired. The blue glow in her hands was already too faint, too faint to be seen if one were to look even at a short distance.

           “No, not like this,” she rasped, staring at her still-shaking hands and hoping that if she willed herself hard enough, she’d be able to summon lightning one more time.

           But she couldn’t.

           It was too late. She couldn’t save someone important to her. Just like she couldn’t save her aunt back then.

           It was then she felt her face become wet, and she realized that tears had gone free and fell down in continuous bidding. The act had become strange to her, she didn’t remember when she last cried—she had steeled herself enough to any emotions that might affect her line of thinking and decision making.

           You’d give him up so readily?

           She heard Elizaveta’s old words in her mind suddenly, and she felt another wave of determination surge through her.

           Zoya clenched a fist and slammed it down to his chest. “Wake up.” 

          Thud. 

          “You’re stronger than this, come on, damn it.” 

          Thud. 

          “Damn it, Nikolai, Ravka needs you.” 

          Another thud, and her tears didn’t seem to stop from flowing. Please, not like this. 

          “Saints, I need you.”

           Her fist came back down one last time, and she released a sob that she had been holding on since she first saw his body from afar. The thought of completely losing him hadn’t crossed her mind even once before, even though she had sent him off to find a bride and she knew she would keep a far more distance to him than she had before, because she knew they’d still be who they were. The ones who kept each other marching.

           The king and his general.

           Sturmhond and the Storm Witch.

           Nikolai and Zoya.

           Now that thought hit her full force, and she absorbed the impact with everything in her. “Come back to me,” she whispered brokenly, resting her forehead on his chest, and continued to sob.

           He was gone. Nikolai, the one who fought tooth and nail for his country on the verge of falling, the one who always saw the good in everything, the one who understood Zoya more than anyone despite her rough edges and her sharp tongue, was gone.

           There were still things Zoya wished to say (admit), and she had hoped he would survive the chaos for her to be able to be honest to him. Even just this once.

           She loved him. She loved him more than she was willing to admit. She had been alright with the fact that she’d just watch him from the distance when he declared his engagement with the Shu princess and that Nikolai could never love someone like Zoya.

           It had been the thought she instilled in her mind, and she had hoped that after the war with the Fjerdans she’d be honest to him.

           But that time would never come. Not when—

           “—aints,” a soft rasp cut through the thoughts in her head, so soft that she thought she might just had been imagining things.

           Zoya snapped up in an instant, her heart in her throat, and blue eyes met with hazel ones.

           Nikolai blinked, his eyes looking a bit distant before sharpening at the sight of her. “Zoya?” he managed to say, and Zoya could only stare as felt her tears falling down her face again. His eyes flashed with worry, then he was slowly starting to sit up with a wince evident on his face. “Are you alright? Were you hurt?”

           All thoughts and restraints slipped from Zoya’s mind as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders tightly, both of her thighs coming to rest on both sides of his hips as she settled herself on his lap. She heard him grunt a little, and felt his arms around her a mere second later, strong and comforting and warm at the same time, and she buried her face on the side of his neck. He smelled of blood and sweat and all-Nikolai.

           “I feel like I’ve been run over by a coach,” Nikolai said weakly, his arms tightening around her. “Did one just come by?”

           Zoya half-laughed and half-sobbed in his neck, relishing the familiar air of having Nikolai around her again. She pulled away a bit a few moments later, meeting his eyes again and that moment she knew she would never get tired of looking at them.

           “Hi,” Nikolai breathed, his brows slightly furrowed as his eyes searched her face. He brought a hand up, his thumb gently brushing her temple. “You look like a mess. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

           Of course he would ask her if she’s okay. Even though he had been the one who had been dead just moments ago, he’d always think of others before himself.

           Zoya didn’t know what came to her, she just knew that she was done holding back, that she was being selfish, and she just crashed her mouth into his. The air around her felt electric, the warmth of his lips sending shivers down her spine, and everything focused on the man in front of her.

           Nikolai was breathing. He was real. He was alive.

           A hand came to the back of her neck, and Nikolai angled her head to the side and kissed her deeper, the act so intimate that she felt her skin burn with want and need for him that she had suppressed for a long time.

           Only when she felt her face wet with tears again did she pull away reluctantly, her hands on the sides of his face and her forehead on his, as he felt his lips kiss their way to the corner of her mouth, and to her jaw.

           “You were dead,” she said, the words tasting bitter in her mouth, one of her hands creeping up to the back of his head and holding him closer. “You were dead. You weren’t breathing.” She paused as her breath got caught in her throat and another wave of sob threatened to hit. “You were dead.”

           Zoya felt his lips trail kisses up to her temple and lingered there, his other arm tightening its hold around her waist. “I’m sorry,” Nikolai murmured against her skin. “I’m still here.” He pulled away to look in her eyes. A hand came to cup her face, his thumb caressing the tears on her cheek gently. “I’m not going anywhere.”

           “I love you,” Zoya blurted out, and Nikolai froze. “I didn’t realize how much until I thought I lost you—”

           His lips drowned out the next words she was about to say, and she just clutched him tighter instead and kissed him back with much fervor she could muster. They stayed like that for a long moment, kissing amidst the aftermath of the war around them.

           “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to hear that from you,” Nikolai said when they pulled away later, when the need of air became necessary. “I love you.”

           Zoya looked into his eyes and saw the raw honesty behind the tiredness of them, and she closed her eyes as she rested her forehead to his. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

           Nikolai chuckled, the sound warming Zoya all throughout. “My ruthless Zoya, I’ll always come back to you.”

#zoyalai #king of scars #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lanstov #kos #i'm crying #this has been longer than necessary #i tried tho

[dregstrash]

Hi I don’t know if you’re still doing non-fluff requests but if you feel like it could you please write a Zoyalai hurt/comfort where Nikolai is the one hurt?

Thanks for sending this in anon! I’m sorry it’s been really slow on the fic writing. I have so many planned fics, and requests and it’s the end of the semester for me. So I’ll try to get these out as soon as I can!

Zoya’s world used to consist of two things: power and her aunt. 

One of those things increased while the other….was taken from her.

But in the years after the war, her world had somehow expanded to include…Nikolai.

For as long as she could, she kept telling herself that it was because he was her king. Shouldn’t a general worry about the well-being of her king after all? But somehow that loyalty warped in on itself. The clear lines she’s drawn over her loyalties had blurred like words written on sand– washed away with an uncertain tide. And she tried to ignore it. To pretend that her feelings hadn’t become a jumble inside her. Saints, she tried so hard to ignore the extra skip in her heart when Nikolai’s eyes stayed on hers for a second too long. Or when they spent hours in the war room discussing logistics, strategies, and they became one person going around and around the same issues. There were times when they went to visit their battlements that she forgot about his engagement or the fact that she had other things to worry about then serious relationships. 

Then reality came crushing back in and she bottled those thoughts back up. Pretending they had never escaped in the first place. Because it wasn’t going to do him (or her) any good. 

But like always, her plans were thwarted. They were thwarted by a stray bullet and a handful of very incompetent Corporalkis. 

“Out of my way!” She didn’t realize she was yelling until Tamar raised her eyebrow at her. Still, the group surrounding Nikolai’s prone form took a step back. Zoya knew he shouldn’t have been up on that line. She told him time and time and again kings do not fight with the infantry. But no he had to be a saintsdamned hero who has no care for his own life.

Zoya saw the bullet wound in his stomach and reached under him. She breathed a small sigh of relief as she felt the exit wound that had been at least plugged by some moss the soldiers had on hand. 

“Zoya,” Tamar said beside her, “Let me do this. Your powers are too new–”

“Shut up, Tamar.” Zoya growled as she closed her eyes.

This is beyond you, Little Dragon, Juris said from inside her mind. But her reaction to Tamar remained the same for the aged saint.

Either help me or be quiet. She snapped in her mind. Zoya felt the dragon grumble within her, but felt the siphoning of his knowledge.

Zoya opened her eyes, and knew that slits of silver replaced the clear blue. Tamar hissed out a breath, but she ignored the other woman. 

The other Grisha had already stripped away his coat and the ruined undershirt. Leaving his bloody mess of a torso on full display. With the dragon’s eyes and Juris’s power, Zoya could feel the slowed heart of her king. She could sense the tear of muscle and blood vessels and the missed organs. All she had to do was knit it back together. She could just knit it back together and he’d be okay– he had to be okay.

She felt sweat break out on her brow as she knit back the muscle, tried her best to renew the blood cells that were lost, and stitch the skin back together. But she would do this. Nikolai wasn’t going to get away from her. Not that easily.

After what felt like hours, Zoya heaved a huge sigh of exhaustion as she stepped away from the Medik table. The pallor that came over Nikolai was gone, and replaced with a healthy color. She placed a hand on top of his chest and felt the steady beat of his heart. His skin a warm comfort against hers. The place where the bullet had entered him was gone and all was left was the dried blood crusting on his skin.

“It looks like you’ve got everything handled here.” Tamar said, but Zoya heard her distantly. She heard the tent flap shut and before she even realized it she had reached across his body for a wet rag, and started to systematically clean the blood off his stomach. 

“Are you being nice to me, Nazyalensky?” Nikolai’s voice interrupted her ministrations, and her eyes snapped to his. He peered at her from slightly open eyes, and she supposed that the quirk in his mouth would have been a smirk if it didn’t so much resemble a grimace. 

“It’s not very kingly to have blood splattered all over you like a gutted pig.” She avoided his gaze and going back to cleaning the last of the blood. 

“Your bedside manner could use some work, General.” He laughed under his breath. Zoya was just about to say something when he started to move.

“What are you doing?” She snapped again. Forcibly pushing him back down to rest on the small pillow under his head.

“I thought that was fairly obvious.” He said trying again to raise himself by his arms. In which he failed as Zoya glared harder. “Am I going to have to order you to release me?”

“You are in no condition to be moving, Lantsov. I may have done most of the work, but I couldn’t replace all the blood you lost. So you need to rest. Your body needs to adjust, and you also knocked your fat head when you fell from the bullet wound. So you’re going to rest for the night.”

Nikolai’s perfect hazel eyes regarded her curiously. 

“Did I hit my head too hard then? When did you become a Medik?”

“When idiot kings don’t listen to me. I told you not to go out there. And I told you that–”

“I’m sorry, Zoya.” He interrupted her suddenly. He grabbed the hand that was clutching the bloodied rag. His hand fully encompassed hers, and when he tightened his grip it felt like her heart was the one that felt it. “I should have listened to you.”

“Yes, you should have.” She was staring now. She could feel herself staring. Staring at the pulse at his neck. Staring at the swallow of his throat. Staring into his eyes. He was alive. And maybe that’s what gave her enough excuse to be upset with him for getting hurt. 

“Next time,” Nikolai pulled her closer and she let her feet get dragged towards him. He laced their fingers intertwine ever so briefly, “I won’t worry you.”

Zoya opened her mouth to protest that she wasn’t worried, but she felt the damp rag in her hand. He’d see through that protestation in a heartbeat. So instead she just leaned forward and was looking right at him when she said.

“I’m holding you to that, Nikolai.”

#zoyalai #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #nikolai x zoya #king of scars #kos #can i petition for more overprotective zoya? #because we have jealous nikolai #and we need a counterpart #so im petitioning for overprotective zoya