open ☀️ he said don't put all your eggs in one basket

[peasant]

CHARACTERS: alina & you
LOCATION: various places on the station
DATE: throughout october & until the start of the next mission
CONTENT: post-mission catchall
WARNINGS: none aside from mentions of injuries, but will update if any others pop up!

I. INFIRMARY

[ it takes her one entire night to find herself in the infirmary, waiting for a quiet silence to fall over the ship before stepping inside. a deliberate move, on alina's part; if nothing else, keramzin had given her a valuable life lesson in hiding her weaknesses, locking her vulnerabilities away to guard them from sight. save your pain for later, before someone comes along to make it worse. coupled with the first army's education in basic first aid —

she slips toward the cabinets with the confidence of someone who has found herself in this situation too often: licking her wounds clean in private, thieving from supplies to bandage her hidden wounds and scrapes without ana kuya becoming wise to alina's mishaps. caring for herself when she had been that sickly, straw-thin girl. not much has changed, since then — even the looming height of the cabinets, too tall for alina to reach on her own.

this routine is familiar, too: scaling up onto the countertop on her knees to swing the cupboard of medical supplies open, just to be able to reach the top shelf. as her luck would have it, though, there's nothing silent about her scavenging, much as she tries to keep the station from waking. a few pill bottles fall out in her search for a curative to soothe her aches and pains, rattling as they collide onto the counter.

alina winces, flashing an accusatory look at the jumbled bottles crashing to the floor. for the moment, she chooses to ignore the chaotic mess she's leaving behind, as her good arm reaches for the gauze at the very top of the shelf — the movement revealing a starburst pattern of fading bruises stretching along her ribcage, those wine-red blemishes disappearing beneath the hem of her pajamas. ]

II. SUNLIGHT ROOM.

[ the sunlight room's sprawling meadows have nearly become a second home. more often than not, alina can be found among the fields of wildflowers — escaping to what feels familiar, despite the empty space next to her that mal had once occupied. a permanent reminder of their separation, of the grief burrowing into her chest to nest there — not unlike how alina herself has nested here, claiming this spot for herself, with a circle of art supplies around her.

her sketchbook lays abandoned to the side, a half-formed outline of a boy open on the page. in front of her, there are often splashes of paints in varying colors and a canvas of watercolors dripping down into its white, blank space. on some days, her paintings are views of the flowerbushes in front of her, of the simulation room's streaming lakes; on others, there are portraits of unknown faces and some that might be more familiar, painting other orbers from memory — or from where they might be sitting ahead of her, oblivious to her study of them.

what remains a constant is that she's always messy and disheveled, her fingers and strands of her hair coated in drying paints. if someone sneaks up on her, her sweaters find themselves condemned to the same fate, trying to hide her work from view by (not so) subtly hugging it to her chest. especially if she's been painting you, looking extremely sheepish to be caught in the act.

other times, she can be found sitting cross-legged in the grass, practicing with her abilities. a single snap of her fingers seems to draw the light to her, the air around her flickering as sunlight gathers in her palms. that fiery orb hovers, slowly drifting down a path in front of her, dodging past anyone in its way.

after some particularly drawn-out training sessions, she eventually dozes off, so hidden in the grass that stepping on some part of her is ... well, inevitable.

with a huff from below, ] Ow.

III. WILDCARD

[ feel free to bump into alina on any other place on the station! other than the places above, she can be found lingering in her room or stuffing her face like a gremlin in the kitchens. ♥ cool with any ideas, if you want to fling a different starter at me in the comments or plot via nereids. ]

Comments

[cruelyethuman]

Reasons change.

[Glacial-slow, like tectonic plates shifting under his feet. But it has happened, the Fold is the biggest one. His reason for creating it, crumbling in the centuries that have passed. His carefully crafted persona, the mask he hasn't shed in decades, slipping by inches the more he's around her.

Yet another reason to stay well away.

To keep to his shared room, to keep watch for Alina before entering a room. There has never been one like her, in all of his long life. No one more frustratingly stubborn that he couldn't get rid of, or sacrifice for the greater good of Grisha. Because he doesn't want to, she's the fire that burns in his dreams. Temptation and damnation both, and the Darkling didn't forget how willing he had been, to let the mission crash down around them, if it meant one more minute of Alina's lips on his. Her hands tight in his hair, her nails raking over his scalp.

One look at her, his lips twitching for a second before he bursts it to a small laugh from Alina's hair slapping her in the face.

The sound it cut off abruptly, and he takes half a step closer, hands reaching out before he catches himself. The Darkling's face shutters as his hands curl in to fists, falling down.]

I cannot imagine a world without you in it. [and more quietly] I wanted you by my side, Alina.

[peasant]

[ not your reasons, she moves to say — but his laugh interrupts her before she can latch onto the words, before she can sink her claws into her frustration with his double meanings. she hates that sound, youthful and warm. hates how it seems to melt centuries from him, leaving behind what he might have been — could have been, before he was reborn as the darkling.

she hates that she doesn't hate it at all, really. for a moment, she wordlessly gawks at him, trapped by the traitorous clenching in her chest. recovering, alina becomes the very picture of petulance. her lips, parted in surprise, snap close to form an indignant pout; around her, her fingertips scramble, searching for —

an acorn she promptly flings in his direction, bonking him in the side of the shoulder. rather than feel any sort of satisfaction from it, she still feels unfairly unmoored by his laughter, by his longing, forgetting to hold onto her anger. knowing his confession was the same one she had been waiting to hear, trying to pry it from his tongue at the gala, only leaves her fumbling further.

i cannot imagine a world without you in it. it's for the best that he hadn't admitted it, then. hadn't used it to convince her to stay in his arms. ]

Didn't anyone ever teach you that laughing at someone is poor manners?

[ instead of the agitation she wishes she could summon, she only sounds as scolding as any schoolteacher would, fixing him with a reproachful look ana kuya would be proud of. ]

[cruelyethuman]

[Eyebrows going way up, the Darkling stops hard, barely breathing as the acorn bounces off of his shoulder and rolls away, disappearing in to the artificial grass under his feet.]

Did you-

[Another hard stop, mouth snapping shut with something closer to amusement than outrage at the affront afford him by that childish gesture.

Alina looks slightly disappointed, her lips pulled down at the corners. A look his own mother used to wear an eternity ago, when he forgot a rule or failed to pay attention. It doesn't look any better on Alina than it did on Baghra.

And it doesn't matter.

None of this does. His head tilts, taking her in. From the top of her head, escaping hair and all, to the tips of her feet peeking out from under her skirt, the paint-stained fingers and the smudge on her nose. The sun shining above them from a flawless sky, perfect in ways that Ravka never was. There's no distant sounds of war, no battle cries on the horizon.]

You know who taught me everything. Didn't anyone teach you not to throw things.

[There's just her, sitting in the sun warmed grass, throwing acorns, looking like every dream he'd ever had for a future.

The words he refused to give her in Braccia, slipping too easily from him under the station's sun. Pulled out by the heat beating down on them and the sight of her, looking free. Looking happy.]

[peasant]

[ his amusement isn't any better, alina finds, clinging to the laugh lines that crinkle his eyes. like he believes she's as harmless a threat to him as any other woodland animal, a squirrel tossing acorns from its tree when he encroaches on its nest. like — they're only two children playing at schoolyard games, and not divided enemies.

alina's arms cross protectively over her chest even as her chin tips upward, unapologetic, wearing her pride. ]

I was taught not to throw things in polite company.

[ the cursory glance she gives him, roaming him from head to toe, states all that it needs to. as impolite company, he's an exception to ana kuya's rules. after a moment of locking their gazes, alina is the first to look away, a little sigh drifting out of her mouth. a brush of fingers flicks dark, stray strands of hair aside to frame her face. ]

Did Baghra teach you the phrase "too little, too late?" [ it isn't enough, aleksander. that chimes with greater truth, now that he's come to her with mere scraps in offering. she's too well-fed with affection, no longer desperately starved, to fall for that. ] It's too little, and you're too late.

[cruelyethuman]

No.

[It comes out softer than he intends it to, the syllables rolling off of his tongue like a breath held for too long.

Alina looks away, and the Darkling cocks his head, trying to catch her eyes again. To keep her attention on him, letting it warm him more than the false sun the station has provided for them. Instead of letting that attention slip to something less. The grass around them or the muted sounds from other orbs also trying to find a little light in the midst of the darkness of space.

Alina is that light.

A beacon that he cannot keep away from, despite all the signs saying that he should. He doesn't even want this, this helpless feeling of being pulled in to her orbit. The way his breath catches and his heartbeat reverberates through him like roiling thunder.

This wanting that leaves him weak.]

There is no such thing, Alina. It will never be too late.

[Stepping closer, toes digging in to the grass near her feet as he towers over her, his shadow throwing her in to darkness.]

Not until we're both dead.

[peasant]

[ frustrated, she pinches her eyes closed and scrubs a hand over her face with a heaving sigh, fingers settling under her chin. alina gives a little insistent shake of her head, then, staring off into the sky. ]

We were always a losing game, Aleksander.

[ and she's tired of playing in those games. the outcome only repeats itself — one victor (him), one loser (her) in this war with no end in sight. so she does what he refuses to, forfeiting the battle, sparing herself the casualties only her heart seems to suffer. for a man with a void in the middle of his chest, no less, devouring all that was once light and bright within him.

she won't search for something that's already dead. whatever he had been before he became the black heretic lost itself to darkness, the moment the fold was born. she's certain of it, now — as certain as their misaligned fates. aleksander, born too soon. her, born too late to save him from himself, to spare ravka from the pain that followed. a losing game, like the world itself had conspired against them.

unsurprising, alina thinks. the world has never been kind to her. equally unsurprising is aleksander's refusal to walk away as she has, looming above her — refusing to yield, believing he can conquer this into submission, too. never knowing when to stop when alina wishes he would.

sitting in his shadow only makes her feel — small, when she has vowed to never be so vulnerable in his presence again. rather than succumb to the need to fold into herself protectively, her spine straightens, not unlike a bird puffing itself up in the face of a threat. making sure it doesn't look like appetizing or easy prey, as if to say these colorful feathers aren't just for show. ]

That day might come sooner than you think, anyway. [ cautiously, her neck cranes to peer up at him, leaving her with a crick in her muscles. belatedly, she realizes how much that sounds like a threat without clarification. her brows furrow, amending, ] If we meet another Cheri.

[cruelyethuman]

I can be a very patient man.

[Despite the surge of anger and impotent, unfocused frustration, he keeps his voice soft, barely veiled longing. Because it wasn't supposed to be like this, with Alina looking away towards a different horizon or a different sky.

She had been so full of fear, in Ravka. While faced with all that he was, everything that he had done, she had refused to listen and had run away. To find her tracker and the paltry remnants of her old life. The life of a mouse, grey and fading.

Alina was well away from that boy here, there was no first army to tempt her away. There was nothing but him and the promise she made him in return for his. And still, it isn't enough.]

If we meet another like her, we will prevail. Again. I've told you, Alina, the only thing more powerful than you or me, is the two of us together.

[She has to feel it, that pull in the back of his mind that tastes like her and summer sunlight. The ripe sweetness of peaches and the feel of her hair against his skin.]

[peasant]

I wouldn't suggest holding your breath, or you'll drop dead.

[ her fingers curl into her palms, then unfurl like five-point petals straining toward the sky. trying to nurture calm back into the roots of her heart, failing to work out the tense anger creeping back into her bones.

she knows how patient he can be, lying in wait as all hungry beasts do, pouncing at his opportunity to unseat the king. planning for her existence before she had been even a glimmer of light, looming at a war table full of strategies and schemes. it's an eerie patience she is painfully aware she does not have as she's standing in the shadow of his own composure, feeling more and more like a tantruming child that's been put in time-out.

as though he has the right to be disappointed with her behavior, saying i'll wait until you're done pouting about it. her lips roll, teeth biting into her cheek in all of her failing efforts to contain herself, only for the words to inevitably burst out in a torrential flood. ]

What do you expect is going to happen? I'll finally get tired and bored of feeling betrayed and go along with whatever you want from me?

[ she plants her palm against the earth, scrambling up to her knees to glower at him from below. it doesn't give her the height she had wanted, but it's a step toward not feeling so insignificant beneath the towering pillar he is. ]

That's not how forgiveness works, Aleksander. That's not how any of this works. Maybe you should try being someone worth forgiving.

[ she shakes her head, eyes glancing away to the side of him. ]

Perhaps there was a time when you were someone worth forgiving. Once upon a time. [ before. before he had ever been the black heretic. before he had become ... this. ] Let me know if you ever find that man again. I might have liked him better.

[ but she's not going to hold her breath hoping for that, either. that seems like a hopeless fool's errand. ]

[cruelyethuman]

It would take more than that to kill me.

[Knows intimately and from experience that it will take more. The countless assassination attempts and the poisons slipped in to his food too many times. Knows that he was created differently, that he is eternal.

The shadow to loom over Ravka, to shield their people from the worst of what the world has to offer, and his head tilts, an arrogant look crossing his face as he looks down on her. On Alina, almost kneeling before him in the green grass, and she looks anything but worshipping.

His own anger mirrored back on the sweet twist of her lips, the stubborn look in her eyes, and he has never wanted anyone like he wants her. Has never felt a yearning to sink to his knees before anyone, the way he longs to right now.

He could. Feet already bare and there is no one but Alina to see, could fall and say the words that might change her mind - lovely, empty promises of love. Of romance and sacrifice. Instead, his spine straightens as his eyes harden.]

I expect you to be all that you can be, Alina

[To face the fact that she can find solace in as many arms as she wants, and they will all die, while she will remain the witness to their decline. That she will have to bury every last one of them, and his offer is a kindness. To spare her the pain of watching them turn to dust.]

By my side.

[His devotion is like the cold embrace of the ravkan winter, hard and merciless.

Inevitable.

The Darkling takes a step back, hands clasped behind his back and eyebrow raised. She will learn this lesson, of loss and bitter grief, whether he is here to witness it or not.]

I am the same man that I have always been. No more and no less.

[peasant]

[ she lifts a little higher on her knees, a position of weakness turned unyielding in the curl of fists at her side. her chin tilts skyward, just so aleksander can witness every twitch of defiance that crosses her mouth when she grinds out a solid, ]

No.

[ slow and deliberate, she draws out the syllables so he can make no mistake of her refusal, cannot twist and mangle a simple word to suit his own agenda and interpretations as he has all of her other sentiments. if he can wedge that word between them, solid as steel in his own refusal, so can she.

at least he has done her the favor of admitting there is nothing in him that deserves absolution, nor any part of him that yearns for forgiveness — a confession written between the lines of all he says, and all that he refuses to say. there is no redemption for creatures that prefer the depths of their own darkness.

she reins in the part of her still naively stubborn enough to have entertained even a brief flicker of hope before he had snuffed it out, ignoring the stab of resignation and disappointment low in her gut. the way aleksander seems so keen to twist the knife, over and over again, as though to punish her for ever expecting differently from him. ]

I am all that I can be. [ the sun might sear in its intensity, but the world forgets the frigidness of a winter's day when the sun refuses to shine — distant and unreachable on the horizon, turning its back to cast them into the cold. alina's eyes turn as arctic, icy and closed off to him. ] And I've done it without you.

Your so-called patience will get you nothing from me.

[ and she won't bleed, won't slice herself on his harsh edges, trying to pry his chest open and find what he has nearly warned her isn't there, in his denial of what he's become. ]

[cruelyethuman]

Only time will tell.

[Beautiful and breathtaking, even in her defiance. His slow retreat coming to a stuttering halt at the sight of her, powerful beyond her wildest dreams before he came in to her life, and still Alina denies him.

Denies the connection forged between them before they were even born, before they were made in the Making and the threads that bind them.

Time will show her, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his words were meant to help. To shield her from the terrible reality of watching everyone she cared about wither and die. The heartbreak and the loss of that innocence that she wears so proudly.]

Why do you keep insisting that I am the villain.

[There are no words that he can find, to sooth her Sun. The fire and heat that calls to him, yet pushes him away. With her, Ravka stands a chance of entering a new period of peace.

He is not yet so far gone, that he doesn't see his own inhumanity. The way it keeps getting harder to reign in his anger or feel anything at all, how every new Grisha child brought to the Little Palace, feels more distant than the one that came before.

The warnings he had been told, and failed to heed, weighing on him as the years marched on and everyone he ever knew turned to dust. Transient and forgettable.

Except Alina, her face turned up to him and every emotion wiped from her features.

Without another word, the Darkling picks up his boots and strides away, head held high as he finds another sunlit spot to find shelter in, away from Alina and the coldness in her eyes.]