commandership | (no subject)

( oops tmw u fuck up so bad

be cool, darkling. )

I'm sure.
Unfortunately, I've lost my taste for you.

( uninterested now in nikolai lantsov's sloppy seconds. except for when that's alina, apparently. let's not talk about it. )

How novel to meet yet another man who closes his windows when storms come.
Fortunately, I've never had a taste for cowards.

[ read: it's not novel at all. self-important men never are. it might have stung her as his prized pupil, so long ago, ravenous for that approval — but she's long since shed her need for his recognition. ]

I'm much more concerned with you losing your taste for life.
Since you insist, we can start with carving out that tongue of yours. You've always liked to hear yourself speak too much for my liking.

And yet you lay with the Lantsov king.
Or had that changed, now that he prefers the company of Alina Starkov?

( petty, he knows. yet — fueled with understated curiosity. just how deep do zoya’s insecurities run? he remembers the girl in the forest, protecting tiger cubs. he remembers that girl in his bed, flushing under praise. when they’re both castoffs from their chosen others, where do they fall? in with all the other abandoned children of ravka, perhaps — bastards, monsters, forgotten. of course, aleksander got sainthood out of it. zoya got that and the dragon, and the throne.

so, he supposes by some standards, she’s won the power game. but he hasn’t lost, which is all the same to him. people will praise his name. she will have to hear it. )

Your threats warm me, Sankta. From you, they’re like a blessing.

Have you not heard?
Don't play coy. You must have tasted me on the Sun Summoner.
It seems you do have a taste for me, after all.

[ it hardly matters that it isn't true, necessarily. if the darkling thinks to prod at her with ravka's rumors of her role as a king's whore, to stab into her soft underbelly and hope she'll bleed out like a hurt child for his entertainment, he has forgotten how equipped she is to return the favor. a strategy, on zoya's part, allowing him no leverage while hunting for answers of her own — any scrap that might confirm her suspicions.

and, barring that, any sliver that will lodge into his skin to irritate him.

mine, she pointedly does not say of alina — and she does not allow him to claim the ownership of ours. neither is alina starkov ravka's sun summoner to seize like property, permitting only powerful men to belong to themselves. the sun summoner, belonging only to herself. ]

Threats are idle talk.
Come closer and I'll gladly show you what divine wrath looks like.

I am not surprised.
You always aim above your rank.

( fucking powerful men to feel powerful — why would alina be any different? zoya is a snake with the sweetest venom, monstrous in the way of beautiful witches in storybook tellings. irony is not lost on the darkling, with zoya now being if not the most physically powerful person in the world, than certainly in terms of affluence. the suli dragon queen, the grisha commander made head of ravka. she's higher now than when the darkling had started off with her.

but a lot of power is in perception, and aleksander doesn't perceive himself as bowing his head to anyone. she may be queen. it doesn't mean he thinks any less of himself, the role he had as her mentor. )

Don't invite me to a meeting you have no intention of showing up to.

I have no betters.
You were always beneath me. How does it feel to crawl in the dirt with the rest of Ravka's filth?

[ whore. bitch. it's not so much as a sliver to wedge in the pieces of her armor, forged from the merits of her own earned power. of course men, even those that believe themselves refined, would stoop to such childish barbs — they always do, when their pride has been pricked by a woman that's proven to be their better. ]

I have time to show you how much lower I can force you to sink.
If you're done stealing your insults from infants, that is.

[ you big child. ]