ᴢᴏʏᴀ ɴᴀᴢʏᴀʟᴇɴꜱᴋʏ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
commandership) wrote2021-09-12 03:54 pm
commandership) wrote2021-09-12 03:54 pm
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« gruzeburya »
TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION
ZOYA NAZYALENSKY ✦ GRISHAVERSEINFO ✧ PERMISSIONS ✧ KINKLIST ✧ EXTRA
« gruzeburya »
TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION
ZOYA NAZYALENSKY ✦ GRISHAVERSEINFO ✧ PERMISSIONS ✧ KINKLIST ✧ EXTRA
Consider myself already burdened.
Being targeted because of your lie was a new experience I have no interest in repeating.
[ an experience that, as it happens, not even the indulgence of breakfast can soften. ]
If I didn't know better, I would suspect this was attempt to keep me overnight.
I would have thought you would have a fawning, soft-hearted tryst to come unshackling you in the mornings and kiss it better.
Being targeted because of your lie was a new experience I have no interest in repeating.
[ an experience that, as it happens, not even the indulgence of breakfast can soften. ]
If I didn't know better, I would suspect this was attempt to keep me overnight.
I would have thought you would have a fawning, soft-hearted tryst to come unshackling you in the mornings and kiss it better.
Edited 2022-02-02 03:22 (UTC)
I know that looking for sympathy from you is like wringing water from a rock. I didn't message you hoping for gentle words.
But I have come to expect that when I request your help, you answer. You may be free of your obligations to Ravka here. Our titles may be useless trinkets. You may be perpetually disappointed in me, or annoyed with me, or whatever it is that keeps you away. Regardless, I count you among my friends.
As it happens, I have willing candidates enough to be my keeper a few nights a week.
[Though, only Matt could accurately be described as a "fawning, soft-hearted tryst"...]
I won't force you to take up an unnecessary burden.
But I have come to expect that when I request your help, you answer. You may be free of your obligations to Ravka here. Our titles may be useless trinkets. You may be perpetually disappointed in me, or annoyed with me, or whatever it is that keeps you away. Regardless, I count you among my friends.
As it happens, I have willing candidates enough to be my keeper a few nights a week.
[Though, only Matt could accurately be described as a "fawning, soft-hearted tryst"...]
I won't force you to take up an unnecessary burden.
Why I stay away should be obvious enough. You have no need for me here, as you've just reminded us both.
[ i have nothing to offer you now, she does not say. why do you continue to fool us into believing there is? ravka had woven them together in crisis, in duty — but that thread seems ragged when there is nothing to offer but her company. as though she could ever be well-suited to this new peace, this new life. everywhere she grows, thorns follow. ]
Don't mistake that for an attempt at self-pity. It's simply a truth you and I both know well.
I swore to carry your burdens the moment I became your general. That has not changed.
Make a request and I will come, but do not throw me scraps.
[ i have nothing to offer you now, she does not say. why do you continue to fool us into believing there is? ravka had woven them together in crisis, in duty — but that thread seems ragged when there is nothing to offer but her company. as though she could ever be well-suited to this new peace, this new life. everywhere she grows, thorns follow. ]
Don't mistake that for an attempt at self-pity. It's simply a truth you and I both know well.
I swore to carry your burdens the moment I became your general. That has not changed.
Make a request and I will come, but do not throw me scraps.
Edited 2022-02-02 06:03 (UTC)
[For a second, he hangs on the precipice of dismissing her. Fine then. He'll keep his so-called scraps. But the thought of allowing this wall between them to endure — perhaps to stand taller — pauses his thumbs over the keys. Finally, he settles on a simple truth:]
Just because I have no duties to assign you, it doesn't mean I have no need for you.
Just because I have no duties to assign you, it doesn't mean I have no need for you.
Prudishness is reserved for saints.
[ of which she will firmly, insistently, press that she is not. ]
I'm not going to give you the gory details of my sexual exploits, Nina. They're not for the faint of heart.
[ of which she will firmly, insistently, press that she is not. ]
I'm not going to give you the gory details of my sexual exploits, Nina. They're not for the faint of heart.
Time will tell.
You've taken to this life well. I'm not suited for it.
[ time will tell — if what he says is truth, and not the pinings of nikolai's romanticism. if there's more to this tenuous connection between them than an alliance forged in conflict and war, two enduring souls brought together to build a country from ash.
it's doubtful that they would have ever tolerated another's company otherwise. still. she stares at her screen, considering, and then — ]
You've taken to this life well. I'm not suited for it.
[ time will tell — if what he says is truth, and not the pinings of nikolai's romanticism. if there's more to this tenuous connection between them than an alliance forged in conflict and war, two enduring souls brought together to build a country from ash.
it's doubtful that they would have ever tolerated another's company otherwise. still. she stares at her screen, considering, and then — ]
Enough of that. You know sentiment gives me indigestion, Lantsov.
[ like all unsightly things, time to sweep that strange vulnerability beneath the rug. ]
Stock up on that breakfast tea I like. I'll bring spare sheets for the guest room as a precaution, in case your thread count isn't up to my standards.
[ like all unsightly things, time to sweep that strange vulnerability beneath the rug. ]
Stock up on that breakfast tea I like. I'll bring spare sheets for the guest room as a precaution, in case your thread count isn't up to my standards.
[You've taken to this life well. It might be a barb, but it's also the truth. The restlessness that stirred him in the early days faded as he found ways to occupy himself — as he found that, unfettered from the crown, he was free to pursue his own interests. Free to be his own man and not a figure publicly owned.
Could he ever have even a fraction of that freedom in the country he's devoted himself to?]
Tea ✅
And not the awful kind in those little bags. Since you apparently need to be reassured that my excellent taste hasn't faltered. The sheets in my guestroom are as soft as clouds, I'll have you know.
[After a moment, he can't help but add:]
What will you do with yourself if we ever manage to build lasting peace and stability in Ravka?
Could he ever have even a fraction of that freedom in the country he's devoted himself to?]
Tea ✅
And not the awful kind in those little bags. Since you apparently need to be reassured that my excellent taste hasn't faltered. The sheets in my guestroom are as soft as clouds, I'll have you know.
[After a moment, he can't help but add:]
What will you do with yourself if we ever manage to build lasting peace and stability in Ravka?
Feeling philosophical, are we?
[ feel philosophical elsewhere, her fingers nearly bite out, a thousand teeth lining her words on a screen. she hovers, instead. lets herself indulge this conversation, the way she might cup a snake — expecting that, inevitability, it will show its fangs. ]
Candles always burn out.
It's the burning that interests me, not the smoke when it ends.
So no, I don't consider inevitability to be such a pressing thought.
[ feel philosophical elsewhere, her fingers nearly bite out, a thousand teeth lining her words on a screen. she hovers, instead. lets herself indulge this conversation, the way she might cup a snake — expecting that, inevitability, it will show its fangs. ]
Candles always burn out.
It's the burning that interests me, not the smoke when it ends.
So no, I don't consider inevitability to be such a pressing thought.
Edited 2022-02-15 02:07 (UTC)
Then the detoured stops here don’t bother you at all?
I can’t stand all this knowing.
( in fact — he thinks the only one who could understand that molecular revolt is, in fact, zoya. being stationary doesn’t suit either of them, the way it (apparently) suits both nikolai lantsov, and alina starkov. peace is such a novelty, so far off from his future, it feels entirely artificial here, like looking at the world as a snow globe, or seeing it through the translucent wings of an insect. fragmented and odd and displaced, too unfamiliar to get used to. )
I can’t stand all this knowing.
( in fact — he thinks the only one who could understand that molecular revolt is, in fact, zoya. being stationary doesn’t suit either of them, the way it (apparently) suits both nikolai lantsov, and alina starkov. peace is such a novelty, so far off from his future, it feels entirely artificial here, like looking at the world as a snow globe, or seeing it through the translucent wings of an insect. fragmented and odd and displaced, too unfamiliar to get used to. )
[ yes, but zoya has grown used to sprinkling those wayward emotions into a gilded box on her vanity. a trinket to remove at the end of each day, inconsequentially tossed into the sea of jewels stored away on her vanity. something worn and immediately shed, locked away from view until her fingers manage to dig it up again.
the darkling's probing fingertips stain those thoughts, now. draw her attention to what she's stowed away. still, she has the self-respect not to confess the first ounce of bitterness that skims her mind — that of course it bothers her to be sealed in a dollhouse, having her limbs pulled in some vain attempt to pretend she fits in this space. ]
I allow myself to be bothered only by important matters.
What's the real issue? You can't stand to be unimportant, Aleksander?
[ a pointed choice of address — retaliation for his choice to weave this illusion of camaraderie between them, as though they share the same threads of purpose. as though they're created from the same fabric. ( perhaps that's truer than she'd like it to be; she, too, can't stand to see her work no longer matter. can't reconcile her existence, now that she is no longer serves as an important fixture to ravka. ) ]
the darkling's probing fingertips stain those thoughts, now. draw her attention to what she's stowed away. still, she has the self-respect not to confess the first ounce of bitterness that skims her mind — that of course it bothers her to be sealed in a dollhouse, having her limbs pulled in some vain attempt to pretend she fits in this space. ]
I allow myself to be bothered only by important matters.
What's the real issue? You can't stand to be unimportant, Aleksander?
[ a pointed choice of address — retaliation for his choice to weave this illusion of camaraderie between them, as though they share the same threads of purpose. as though they're created from the same fabric. ( perhaps that's truer than she'd like it to be; she, too, can't stand to see her work no longer matter. can't reconcile her existence, now that she is no longer serves as an important fixture to ravka. ) ]
I've seen your updated wardrobe.
[ she doesn't examine why her mind has clung to that observation, of all counters she could come up with. it prickles, all the same — as though it's another piece of evidence in her vault, another display of how he's transformed from the king she had known in ways that go beyond thread-deep. a change that had occurred without her to witness it, some emergence from the cocoon that had trapped him in its ravkan casing.
a metamorphosis into what he truly wants to be, without ravka's chains barring him. ( isn't she, by that measure, just another shackle fastening him to an undesirable life? )
she lets her statement sit in their back-and-forth, uncharacteristically stalling. finally: ]
There is no such thing as lasting peace.
Ravka is an unruly toddler at best. Don't expect it to grow out of its tantrums so soon.
My plans for retirement will have to wait a handful of centuries.
[ she doesn't examine why her mind has clung to that observation, of all counters she could come up with. it prickles, all the same — as though it's another piece of evidence in her vault, another display of how he's transformed from the king she had known in ways that go beyond thread-deep. a change that had occurred without her to witness it, some emergence from the cocoon that had trapped him in its ravkan casing.
a metamorphosis into what he truly wants to be, without ravka's chains barring him. ( isn't she, by that measure, just another shackle fastening him to an undesirable life? )
she lets her statement sit in their back-and-forth, uncharacteristically stalling. finally: ]
There is no such thing as lasting peace.
Ravka is an unruly toddler at best. Don't expect it to grow out of its tantrums so soon.
My plans for retirement will have to wait a handful of centuries.
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