commandership | (no subject)

Let me ask you this first.
Do you think you would be queen if you hadn't given up your power?
Is that why you're so resentful, Starkov?

I wouldn't bother with that line of thought.
Aleksander might have seen a use for you as his pet, but Mal and Nikolai both saw the value in choosing me over you.

You know what?
I am a fool.
Have them both, I don't care. Have them all.
No one sees all of me and wants all of me. Not Mal, not Nikolai, not Aleksander.
And if they think they do, it's not really me. It's the story they told themselves about who I am.
You know who I thought might?
You.
I am not jealous of your crown.
I'm jealous that you are free.

And your solution to that was to come to me and call me a traitor. A fraud. A liar. A pet. A whore.
You don't want to be part of someone else's story, but you have neatly placed me in the role of your enemy all on your own. Those are the parts of me you wish to see.

Continue your insults, if that's what makes you feel better about your own fate. It's nothing I have not heard a hundred times before.
But don't expect me to lay down and take it.

[ it hardly matters, zoya tells herself. it has never mattered until she has wanted those titles to matter — insults, twisted to her advantage. if the little palace would believe her to be a prized whore, she would play the doe-eyed whore. if they believed her to be their enemy, she would revel in their fear.

i thought you were my friend, she hears alina's voice chime. so had zoya, until now, but lamenting it changes nothing. ]

I didn't know to ask.
Well, I did.
I asked Inej when she arrived.
She told me I became a martyr as most saints do.
Of course I know it was not her lie.
She was just repeating one of my own back to me.

Edited 2021-12-15 01:19 (UTC)

[ truthfully, she debates deleting the message entirely. ignoring the mess she doesn't want to clean.

that's what you do best, she imagines genya might say, if she were here to cluck and roll her eyes — henpecking, nurturing beyond what zoya has ever been capable of giving. she would be right, in this case; despite how many political knots she has untangled, no matter how many nights she has leashed nikolai's monster, it's far easier for zoya to seal the doors, frost the windows, and freeze alina out in the cold.

a personal matter that needs no attention from her. she deals with a king's quarries, not the stupidity of the selfish man beneath the crown.

unfortunately, the sun has its own means of peeking through the windows, even on the most frigid days. zoya ignores it for a handful of hours, before her message comes — not a testament of her own willpower, she would claim, but knowing alina's persistence may rival her own.

it's better to deal with it now, before it festers. biting the bullet, so to speak. ]

And what is your excuse for not asking after Nikolai made his truths known to you?

[ between the lines of what she does not say, but what she is certain alina can gather: you'll have to do better than that. ]

Edited (oops) 2021-12-18 03:33 (UTC)

It's not exactly easy dinner conversation.

[ Her weak attempt to avoid Zoya's striking criticism, although she knows it won't satisfy her. If anything, she thinks the excuses make it worse. Alina squirms, as if she's sat on a tack, grimacing like she's about to face Ana Kuya's switch. ]

He told me I found the third amplifier and I destroyed the fold.
Honestly, I was surprised to hear I lived past his birthday knowing what I planned to do.
And how many happy endings have you read in the Lives of Saints, recently?

You deflect as poorly as he does.

[ veiling it behind humor, as though glib excuses and poor distractions could soften the point of a knife. it's not a learned habit on alina's part, she's certain — but it grates zoya's nerves as it has always grated her nerves, needing to sink her claws in to rip past those layers until nikolai bleeds the truth.

starkov is no better. perhaps they had suited each other after all. ]

Did stealing this happy ending for yourself make you feel any better?

[ an ugly and jagged question to ask, knowing it will slice and carve, but zoya has never shied away from the grotesque truth. ]

No.
Worse actually.

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