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[commandership]

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[commandership]

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.

[reznikolai]

[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.

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[commandership]

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 — ]

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[commandership]

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.

[reznikolai]

[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?

[commandership]

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.