commandership | (no subject)

I am whatever Ravka and Nikolai need me to be.
A lesson you should know well, yourself.

Edited 2021-12-14 23:02 (UTC)

I thought he might have been lying.
But it's so clear now.

Of course when Nikolai asks you to be queen you accept.

[ impossible. zoya's heartbeat stutters, paralyzed with strange dread, before she shakes the frost from it. ]

Take your tantrum elsewhere. I'm done humoring it.

Edited (MY DUMB TYPOS) 2021-12-14 23:14 (UTC)

Fine. Lie like Nikolai. I'm done living through it.
The only person who hasn't decided they know better than me when handling my fate is Aleksander.

Tell that to the collar around your neck.
He certainly cared to leave your fate in your hands when it leashed you, didn't he.

You want to be a fool? Then be a fool.
I won't stand here and be your target for a crime I haven't committed, or a practice dummy for your own pain.

[ Zoya's point is as sharp as an arrow. Still, Alina will bleed out before she admits that. ]

At least I know who he is.
I thought you were my friend.

Apparently you don't, since you so easily forget what he's done to you. What he has done to all of us.
But your childish pride must mean more to you than the monster that lives on in Nikolai, or the scars carved into every part of Genya. Go ahead, then. Betray us all. I won't be the one to stop you from your little rebellion.

When did you consider me a friend, Alina?
Was it when you ran to Aleksander, and then never had the respect to admit it to my face?
Or was it when you then had the nerve to turn around and accuse me of some unknown betrayal I've taken no part in?
Based on rumors and gossip, no less.

The only traitor here is you.
It must be easy to believe everyone around you is a liar when you, yourself, are the greatest liar of them all.

Oh you're so pious, Sankta Zoya.
Like you didn't fantasize about feeding me to volcra when I first arrived.
Like you didn't roll over and show him your belly because before you were whatever Nikolai needed you were whatever Aleksander needed.
Like you were never blind to him because he made you felt wanted. Necessary.
And you have never looked backwards?
Never faltered, never made mistakes?

Well then good for you Zoya. How smart and wise and wonderful you are. How generous that you take that burden and give Nikolai the freedom of the seas.

And the worst part is I still think you'd be a great queen. Even when I thought the Darkling was lying it still made me hopeful because it was you.
And I thought I wouldn't be alive to see it. Nikolai told me the fold was destroyed but he didn't tell me of my fate specifically.
I thought it would cost me my life. That that was the fate you were shepherding me back to so eagerly.

Instead I just get to die an otkazat'sya.
Half of who I was.

Edited 2021-12-15 00:01 (UTC)

The difference is I have learned from my mistakes. You are so eager to run toward them and commit them again.

For a woman who claims she is no saint, you certainly love to play the part of the martyr.
Did no one tell you that you have to be selfless to be a martyr?
Because all I hear is the lamenting of a selfish child, with no regard for anyone or anything other than her own pain.

Your petty jealousy is disgusting. Over an event that has not happened for me, no less. That will never happen.
At least you are still so painfully transparent.
Nikolai's truest love has been and always will be Ravka. What you are saying is an impossibility.

What friends you must have thought we were, Starkov, for you to naturally assume I was ushering you toward death.
Did you ever stop to ask Nikolai what the truth was? Did you ever stop to ask me?
Would you have believed me, if I told you that your power was lost?
That your tracker was the one you were meant to marry?
Don't fool us both by saying yes. We know that would be a lie, too.
You didn't ask because you didn't care to hear the truth. You wanted the life you lead now to be the truth.

It is not my fault you both decided to live in your fantasies rather than address your reality.
You want the truth, then here it is: you wanted to live in that lie, Alina. And now you must deal with the consequences.
You and Nikolai brought this mess on yourselves.
Not me. Not Aleksander, much as I loathe giving him any credit at all.

What do you hope to accomplish here? Blaming me for both yours and Nikolai's sins?
Rallying against me out of spite because you long for the future you claim I have?
Leave me out of it. My future, whatever it may be, is no longer your concern.

Edited 2021-12-15 00:17 (UTC)

I don't know what I would have believed.
But I had no choice. That was taken from me.
How was I to know to ask?
How easy paths diverge, choosing right or left.
Do you think you'd still be his pet if I was never in the fold that day?

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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