savesabshipweek

[savesabshipweek]

Cup, Crow, Rose

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone Summary: Soulmarks are complicated. Nina's life is already so complicated that she doesn't want to seek them out. Like her teachers always warned, though, her soulmates seem determined to find her one way or another. Warnings: Canon-typical trauma and soulmates Word Count: 2,648 Ship(s): Nina Zenik/Matthias Helvar/Inej Ghafa/Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck/Kaz Brekker

Archive link!

A/N: Is anyone really surprised that I chose to go with polycrows for the free day? I love them so much, lol. I also had a lot of fun exploring the soulmate AU that I wanted to do for this, so I hope that you guys also enjoy it! One day I might expand this into something bigger but I kind of like having it as a character study type thing. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Each soulmark was different. A pair or group of soulmates would have a throughline that placed them together so that they could find each other, with varying levels of intricacy, but the soulmarks would all be different. For a pair of soulmates, the mark would be the same except for one thing that would represent the other person. For a group of soulmates, the mark would be different for each person that they were to meet so that it went in a sort of circle. Group soulmates were complicated and very rarely did the entire group actually find itself.

Nina had grown up seeing the soulmarks of the people around her, presented proudly once they had found and married each other. Her older sister figure Zoya’s was a mix of leather wings pocked with scales that shimmered iridescent when displayed in the light correctly, conversely swapped on the back of her soulmate. Her other friend Genya had a book with ancient writing and a vile of dark red liquid on the back of her hand, a perfect match with her own soulmate. Nina had even been exposed to a queerplatonic soulmate marking too, a Inferni named Harshaw that had a cat made out of fire wrapping around his neck and collarbone before it met with a sunburst across his chest. She didn’t know the man’s soulmate so hadn’t seen how it had changed towards the other person, nor had she ever actually gotten a good look at a group of soulmates with marks like what hers appeared to be.

Nina’s mark was a crow grasping for the last little bit of liquid in a wine glass, the beak and head warped with the shape of it. In addition to that was a single knife that touched the bottom of the glass. It tilted towards the crow but did not slice, like the bird was somehow performing a trick while trying to get its drink. She had learned how to hide it under the layers of her sleeves when she was out and how to cloak her skin over the top of it so that it was obscured when she had to undress in front of someone. For a spy such as herself, it was very dangerous for people to be able to identify her by her soulmark. 

The first time that Nina saw one of her soulmarks, she was trapped in the belly of a slaver ship. She had her hands chained above her and could barely keep her eyes open because of the water seeping through the slats above her. It was dark and she was shivering with the force of the cold around her, so it was hard to make out. The mark had stood out starkly even amongst the heavy furs and wool that the Druskelle was wearing, black lines evident on his pale white skin. The crow drinking from a nearly empty cup appeared to be the throughline of their soulmark group because they were identical on the man in front of her as they had been on her own skin before she had hid it. The only difference was that the liquid at the base of the cup was holding a single rose that was weeping petals down onto the bird.

She of course hadn’t acted on it. There was no way that he would be able to see her own mark and know that they shared the same throughline. She had no idea what the Fjerdan stance on soulmate groups was, it was one of their closest held secrets because those types were so rare. She didn’t know what he would do if he found out that part of his group was a Grisha either. Nina doubted that he would have killed her in that moment because he was so adamant about the idea of her getting her trail for her crimes when she finally arrived in his homeland.

There were many chances for her to reveal her soulmark to him when they had wrecked the ship and washed up on those rocky shores, yet she used what little of her energy that she had left to keep it covered. She wasn’t sure what she could trust him yet when he was still spouting the ideas of the people that he had trained with like if he didn’t then he would cease to be. He wasn’t safe because she was the witch that the hunter was doomed to kill, even if she was falling more and more in love with him by the day.

The next soulmark that she saw didn’t belong to her, but she was sure that the one on her arm belonged to the girl. She had just been through a whirlwind that left her feeling as though she was going to die. She and Matthias had traveled together like they were not sworn enemies over miles and miles of land until they had arrived at a port where she had found some of her people. In a move that she came to regret almost immediately after seeing the way that he looked at her, Nina lied and said that he was a slaver so that he wouldn’t be taken back to the Darkling’s court to be sentenced and killed as a witch hunter. She had tried to retract her statement when she got back, but she was simply given enough money to buy passage back to Ravka. She knew that she couldn’t do that, not when the only soulmate that she might ever know, the one that held her mark, was locked in a jail that she had made for him.

She had been approached by a man that offered her a job. She was promised that she wouldn’t have to work on her back, but rather putting on a show of her powers to anyone that came requesting it. She had said that she would think about it and then buried herself away in the covers of the room that they had lent to her. A young Suli girl broke into her window almost immediately after she was left alone, and it only took a couple of seconds for Nina to see the mark on her own arm.

It was the same crow reaching into the wine glass for the remnant of liquid. The changed element for her was the end of a cane that was pushing the cup closer to the crow, though it was only a few inches and thus not very identifying. Nina had seen it and then stood in the same spot, like the Saints had turned her to stone as she took in the appearance of the other girl. She had long black hair that was tightly pleated into a braid that hung over one of her shoulders. Her skin was bronzed and smooth, though her eyes were so dark that it made her entire face disappear as soon as Nina’s gaze locked with them.

She was offered a place in the Dregs and a job through the White Rose, protection under Kaz Brekker’s name. Inej was the girl, apparently, and she had explained that there was no true safety in the Barrel but there was a fear associated with the name of that man. 

Nina and Inej began a relationship only a week after they had found out that they were soulmates. She hadn’t been sure that anything would actually come of the discovery of another one of her soulmates since so little had happened with Matthias. She knew that meeting a criminal offering her a job was different than being kidnapped by a man trained to kill her, but it had still set a precedent in her mind that was rather difficult to overcome. Inej was more than happy to begin to get to know her and after only a month of dates spent under the moonlight on the rooftops of Ketterdam, they held hands and agreed to pursue a relationship.

Only two months after she had decided to work with the Dregs, Nina met Jesper. She immediately knew that she liked him and that the two of them would become very close friends. He was already close with Inej, though the girl refused to tell Nina how and why. Nina knew that there was something dark in Inej’s past that meant that she was very secretive about things that she felt were personal, including interpersonal relationships. Jesper hadn’t been offended by the relationship that had cropped up between the two girls, in fact he seemed amused out of his mind about it.

His soulmark was revealed to her after a month of her trying to find out by various means of subterfuge. Eventually she had gotten so frustrated about being left out of the loop that she had walked into his room and then slammed and locked the door behind her so that he didn’t have the chance to run. He pulled up his sleeve to reveal the crow reaching into the cup, though his had a delicate pen that had spilled the ink inside. The throughline had confirmed that they were soulmates, though it meant that there was another person out there somewhere for their group.

Jesper and Nina started dating much faster than she and Inej had. It was easier for them to strike up something romantic, and then later sexual, because Jesper didn’t have Inej’s trauma and had already been getting to know Nina throughout their friendship with the intent of eventually dating her.

Her life had only just begun to feel like it was leveling out when she met another member of their relationship. Wylan was a young boy that Kaz brought on to be their demolitions man whenever they had need of explosions. He and Nina didn’t tend to run in the same circles in the Dregs, which meant that she knew of him in name only. After his second mission with the gang, Jesper had broken into her room in the White Rose only moments after her latest client had left to tell her about Wylan’s soulmark. According to Jesper, it was the same cup and crow but with the paws of a wolf standing on either side of the crow. 

Nina had felt like her entire life was shattering at that. She had been thinking about the circle that they made and how many people could be missing but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Matthias was for her, she was for Inej, Jesper was now for Wylan, Wylan was for Matthias, but Inej’s mark didn’t land with any of them and Jesper was still missing someone for him. That meant that there was at least one more person that they needed to add before they could truly feel complete.

She only found that person after she had finished collecting the others. She, Inej, and Jesper, had started up a relationship with Wylan not long after finding out where he was living after they discovered his soulmark. The four of them found one of the biggest rooms in the Slat and then decided that they were going to keep it as their own so that they could live in the happiness and safety of their soulmates. Wylan wasn’t attracted to Inej or Nina, so they eventually discovered that he was meant to be their queerplatonic soulmate.

It was difficult and there were quite a few bumps in the road as they figured out how to navigate being soulmates while also being criminals, but they were all stubborn enough to make it work. Secrets were spilled, trauma was revealed, and love was confessed. They found out that Inej had been taken and forced to work in the Menagerie, that Jesper was zowa, that Wylan couldn’t read and who his real parents were. It could have very easily driven them apart but instead it only served to weave them into an intricate, loving mess with each other.

Yet, despite everything that her lovers had shared with her, she was unable to tell them anything about one of the missing members of their circle. The night before the beginning of the Ice Court, though, it had all piled out of her. She admitted what she had been before she came to Kerch and then how she had met Matthias. She told them about the way that he laughed, how he ate his reindeer meat only after soaking it in water because chewing made his jaw hurt, how he snored in his sleep, and how he was the sweetest man she had ever met when not trying to kill her.

They rescued him and then the others had forgiven her for keeping him a secret. She nursed the bruises on her neck while crying into Jesper’s lap while Wylan held her spare hand. It was hard to know that her soulmate didn’t want her, that he was unwilling to give up the way that he had been raised for the two people in his group that he had been taught to hate when they would bring him only joy.

Then the Ice Court had happened and he was deprogramed after seeing the way that they all cared for each other. They didn’t have time to talk about it after she had taken the jurda parem so that she could save them on the dock, but she knew that he loved her again. 

They had spent a lot of the journey nursing Nina back to health and talking about the little house in the country that they could get. Inej had spoken about a boat that she wanted to get so that she could hunt slavers, and Matthias had seem keen on joining her so that he could put his skills to good use. Nina knew that Wylan wasn’t suited for that kind of work and would prefer to make art in the comfort of his own home, so she was okay with staying with him during her long recovery before she joined the others.

They came back to their city and found out that none of the money was waiting for them. They lost one of their soulmates and were stuck with the captive that they had just stolen from the most prestigious prison in the entire world. Kaz planned and schemed and they followed after him like they always did. Eventually, they got Inej back and things kept rolling. They were able to create a convoluted but thorough plan to take Jan Van Eck and Pekka Rollins, the two men hunting them, down.

Finally, everything was over. They were able to get Wylan’s mother back from the countryside to the home that she had chosen and where she belonged. Alys was sent up to a boathouse where she could live with her real soulmate and birds in peace. They all needed a good deal of time to recover, so they moved in the Van Eck mansion since it had plenty of room for them to grow and expand.

Kaz came to their door on a very rainy evening almost a month after all of their problems had seemingly been solved. Nina had been the one to check the door, so she welcomed him as their friend and invited him to come and dine with them. Her other soulmates were seated on the floor in the living room while they ate something that Inej had made. They were all very excited to see Kaz but they stayed quiet because it was clear that he was bursting with some kind of information.

Just like that, Kaz had rolled up his sleeve to reveal a crow reaching for the liquid in the bottom of a wine glass, the stem of which had been shattered by a bullet that was resting next to the completely unharmed crow. He was the last link of their circle and they finally had him.

[savesabshipweek]

It's the last day of the #SaveShadowAndBone ship week, so we're looking beyond the grishaverse and into other worlds. What's your favourite AU fic or fanart trope?

[savesabshipweek]

The Mare and The Stallion

Fandom: Grishaverse: The Grisha Trilogy and Shadow and Bone (TV) Summary: Genya still remembers those moments after she ran from the Darkling. They haunt her like a plague, screaming and tearing at her until she feels as though she might dissolve. David is always there with a solution, to pick her up and put her back together when she cannot. Warnings: Nightmares, PTSD, Genya's backstory, and mentions of war Word Count: 1,586 Ship(s): Genya Safin/David Kostyk

Archive link!

She whimpered as the memory overtook her dream, removing the pleasant strangeness of the unconscious mind with something that she tried to keep as far away from her as she could. There were times that Genya thought that if she just faced all of her memories, then she would be able to really process them and move on with her life in the way that she knew she deserved. Every time that she actually tried to test that theory, she once again felt like she was drowning in an abyss.

Before anything could progress further than it already had, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She was woken from her slumber with two brisk shakes. Her eyes flew open and she sat ramrod straight in the bed, prepared to fight off whoever had once again broken into her chambers.

It was only then that her mind caught up with her and she realized that she was in the room that she shared with her partner, and not the rooms that she had been given when she became a serving girl for the entire royal family instead of a gem in the queen’s crown. “What’s going on?” she mumbled, worried that something had happened with the students. They hadn’t been at war for a good long while, but that wasn’t the kind of thing that left a person.

“Nothing is wrong with the students, or the palace, or Nikolai. It’s just…” her awkward, sweet David paused and stared down at his hands. She had seen those hands trip and fumble over wedding rings, create the most wonderful inventions of their day and age, and teach younglings how to use their gift. His hands were his life and in many ways, they were hers as well. He tilted his dark brown doe eyes up at her and then finished, “You were having a nightmare.”

“Did I wake you?” she asked, her voice once again breathy and soft. She leaned back on the bed as her hand searched for his knee. She wasn’t going to be able to have his body pressed against her or his lips on hers, not after the dream that she had just had, but she still wanted him close.

David shifted on the bed so that he was laying beside her and his calloused palm was pressed flush to hers. “You did, but that’s okay. I don’t like it when I wake up and you’ve already been up for hours.”

“We have meetings in the morning, we should both try and get some rest. It’s not like nightmares are something abnormal for either of us,” she murmured. She wished that she had been able to change that, that she could reach with her talented fingers down into their minds and smoothe out the imperfections on their very brains. That was, unfortunately, beyond even her.

He let out an unsure noise and then scooted towards the edge of the bed. Genya sat up and tucked both of her legs underneath her body as she watched him. He shed the pants that he slept in and then dressed in the peasant roughspun he always donned underneath his kefta, despite it not being a requirement anymore. “What are you doing?” she asked as he fumbled with the latch of his belt in the dark of the night.

“Oh, oh right,” he nodded. “I was just thinking. You had a nightmare about when we had to run away from the Darkling, right?” he asked.

She could feel the blood seeping from her cheeks and leaving her as pale as the cream robes she had been forced into her entire adolescence. “Yes,” she breathed. She knew that she had been speaking in her sleep or he had somehow had the same dream as her, that was the only way that he would know what she had been thinking of.

“I was thinking of something that might help us both feel better. It always makes me feel better, at least,” he explained with a shrug.

She looked at him for a moment longer as she tried to figure out what was going on in that captivating brain of his. She had fallen in love with him for his mind, the wonderful things that he could create, first. He wasn’t what she was used to looking at since she worked with highly-curated nobles and he had barely spoken a word to her the first several months she had known him.

Genya let out a small sigh and then shimmied her way over to the edge of the bed the same way that he had. She removed her chemise and left it with his sleep clothes before she found one of her simpler gowns and pulled it on easily. She then turned to him and motioned for David to show her what he had been speaking of.

They broke out into the hall, their hands pressed against each other like they always were when they weren’t teaching or on other official business. The halls of the palace were abnormally silent. The only noise that they could pick up on was the whispers stolen from teenagers getting up to no good. They remembered wanting to do that when they were that age, so neither of them broke it up or said anything.

Genya let a small breath escape her mouth when they stepped through the gardens and she saw where they were headed. “David,” she whispered, unsure that she was going to like where it was all going.

“Just trust me, okay?” he asked. “I promise that it has a very high likelihood of making you feel better.”

That, by itself, had already made her feel more like herself than anything had in a good long while. She loved David in the way that someone did when they knew that their soul meant was specifically for one other person. She had loved others and she was sure that she would continue to love others as their life continued, but she loved him in the here and now.

They walked through the doors of the stable and then he trailed towards the end. “You’ve ridden before?” he asked as he picked a saddle up from where the hands had placed them when they had turned in for the night.

“I have,” she nodded. “I may not have trained with the other Grisha, but the queen wanted me to know how to ride so I could be beside her when she and Vasilly went out,” she explained. It hurt to bring back the memories of when she was loved like a daughter instead of scorned like a demon or cherished like a tool. She wanted to be able to feel like that again someday, but she knew that it was never going to happen. That kind of thing wasn’t reserved for girls like her.

David handed her the saddle and nodded his head towards a mare with beautiful brown dappling over her rump and an auburn main. “Are we going to get in trouble for this?” she wondered.

“Who would get us in trouble for it? We’re the bosses now,” he explained, ducking his head as he walked over to his own stallion. The horse was known amongst their students for being hard to ride if you were too cocky and often got used as a hazing tool to the newcomers.

She didn’t mention that, assuming that he knew what he was doing. He was a grown man and he led an entire school of teaching along with being one of the only surviving members of the Sun Summoner’s army, after all. They both saddled their steads and then led them from the stable so that they were standing out on the open road.

David grasped the reigns of his horse and then slung himself into place before he waited for Genya to do the same. She handed him the reigns of her own stead and then buttoned her skirt so that it was shaped into pants, which would allow her a much more comfortable ride into the wilderness. “Do you have a plan for where we’re going?” she asked once she was sitting atop her mare.

“I think we need to just run. No place, no destination, no time,” he explained with a shrug. She opened her mouth to ask him what he really meant by that but he didn’t stick around to hear her. He spurred his stallion forward and began to disappear into the night. She laughed when she noticed that his hair had fallen into his face because he hadn’t styled it when he had woken up.

Genya spurred her own horse into action and soon she had caught up with him. Both of their steads seemed to be happy to run wild in the night with riders that weren’t directing or slowing them. They cantered all the way through the vast fields where the group training took place during the day and then darted through the beginnings of the woods bordering the Little Palace. When they came across a brook, both of the horses stopped so that they could drink.

Genya only then noticed that her heart was thrumming with excitement, her nose and ears were nipped with cold, and her entire body was vibrating. She removed herself from the saddle at the same time as David before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him like mad. “I’m so lucky to have you. Thank you, David.”

[savesabshipweek]

With Me, Love

Fandom: Grishaverse: The Grisha Trilogy and Shadow and Bone Summary: The Puppy Prince has become the King of Scars, but he still can't hide who he was before from a woman like Zoya. Warnings: Implied sexual coercion and PTSD Word Count: 1,483 Ship(s): Zoya Nazalensky/Nikolai Lantsov

Archive link!

A/N: I'm going to be honest: This entire fic is based off of things I've read from other peoples fics because I haven't read the King of Scars book so I don't know the canon. I've also never read a ship for these two, but I do really love them. This is my first installation of them ever, so I'm kind of nervous to post it haha. I hope that you guys enjoy it! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Zoya’s entire life was filled with meetings and appointments. She had to teach her classes twice a week down at the Grisha school, then she had to do training on the other days with the soldiers that they had recruited from around the country. After that, she had meetings with the war council, visiting dignitaries, and nobles from their newly reunified kingdom. She had known when she accepted Nikolai’s proposal that she was going to be busy, but she hadn’t expected it to wear her down quite as much as it was now.

Her feet ached, her calves were swollen from retaining water, and her eyes felt like they were about a second and a half from falling shut and blocking out the world. Every day when she and her husband retired to their chambers, they got barely a word to each other before one or both of them had fallen asleep. She loved him more than she could put into words, more than she would ever deign to say at least, and she wanted to be able to prove that to him. They had barely had any time since their wedding to do anything that would constitute romance, much less what she had been promised a married woman would be able to do.

Despite her complaints, despite the aching of her body, despite the exhaustion in her bones, the world didn’t care. Things continued on whether she wanted them to stop or not. She had more meetings every day and if she decided that she wasn’t going to attend them then they would simply be placed on a different day. There was no way for her to escape that and part of her didn’t want to, she had known what she had signed up for when she said yes.

She passed through the halls with her head held high and electricity sparkling behind her dark blue irises. She was always aware of the eyes that were following her from the Grisha, the visiting nobles, the guards, and the staff. She was a beautiful person and she was the Queen of Ravka, both of which were bound to bring her some attention. She basked in it because she knew that she deserved it, but she refused to let it worm its way into her psyche the way that Nikolai’s mother had.

Her hand touched the doorknob leading into her office before she felt a chill creep up the base of her spine. It was something that had happened before, usually when she was sensing that something was out of the place where it was meant to be. It was something that she had honed when she was in the war, sensing the difference in the air particles inside of the room that she was about to enter.

Zoya narrowed her eyes and then shifted the papers under her arms so that they were held against her body and she would be able to summon when she entered. She wasn’t going to come in with her powers blazing this time because the last time that she had done that, she had accidentally hit a servant girl that Nikolai had sent into their private chambers to clean up the mess of their nightmares.

She breathed out as she pressed the door open and then took a step inside. She was met with a head of blond hair that was perfectly styled and a very familiar military outfit. “What are you doing in here?” she asked her husband as she walked past him and set her things down on her desk. She only had about fifteen minutes to sift through all of the proposals that she had been given so that she could be prepared for her next meeting.

She turned towards the man with both of her hands on her hips so that he knew how upset she was. It was hard to keep up the facade when she saw the stupid smile that was resting on his handsome features. They really needed to find some time that they could spare amongst their ever-busy schedules.

Nikolai reached out and then grasped one of her hands so that he could run his ungloved thumb over the tendons. She stared at where the tips of his fingers were lined with thick black scars, the weight of what he carried with him from the war. “I was thinking that we could spend some time together,” he suggested.

“We don’t have time for anything and you know that,” she replied with an unamused raise of her brow.

“Perhaps I knew that this morning, but a king could let something slip through the cracks when he is as busy as I,” he replied with one of his stupid smirks. She wanted to kiss him and squish his cheeks together long enough that it wasn’t on his face anymore.

“Nikolai, when I married you, you promised that we wouldn’t become the kind of rulers that your parents were. I am the Windmaker Queen and the Etherealki leg of the Grisha Triumvirate, I cannot simply shirk off my duties because I miss my husband,” she sighed. The allure of what he was proposing was trying to consume her, but she had enough self restraint that she was going to leave it. She wouldn’t concede to him when he was trying to run away from his problems again, not when they had just begun to get their reputation to a good place.

Nikolai beamed so brightly that Zoya felt like Alina had gotten her powers back and manifested them inside of her husband. He stood from his chair and then let his arms lazily wrap around her waist so that they were a hair’s breadth away from being flush. Every place that he touched her felt like it was alight with love and passion for him. “You miss me?”

“Of course I miss you,” she scoffed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you have to get out of my office so that I can prepare for my next meeting.”

“Did the others not tell you? That’s been canceled,” he grinned. He leaned forward so that their foreheads were resting together and she allowed it. She had never thought that she would be a tender lover because she wasn’t really a tender person. Back when she had been in the Darkling’s bed, she had thought that love was a quick tumble and then a separation. Nikolai had taught her that love was utter devotion and care, tender moments stolen among the chaos instead of prioritizing anything around it.

“Canceled?” she asked, trying to see any lie in his mischievous fox’s eyes.

“They’ve been delayed in their travels, which means that you and I have plenty of time to spend together before we have to meet with the generals of the First Army again,” he grinned. He hadn’t let go of her waist yet, but she was suddenly far less annoyed about that fact. She grinned back at him as she threw her arms around his neck and brought him in for a kiss.

He didn’t drag it out as long as she had been expecting him to and instead took her hand and lead her from her office. They dropped their hands and walked by each other like they were nothing more than coworkers once they were back under the scrutiny of the general public. One day, Zoya would be able to overcome the pain that the Darkling had caused when he had picked her to be his favorite, the scorn that had brought her from all the other Grisha in her school, and she would be able to hold her husband’s hand in public. She was just grateful that he was alright to work with her while she was still climbing over that mountain.

They stepped through the door that led to the private garden the Dowager Queen had made, full of hyacinths and weeping willows and babbling brooks. In the center of the grass was a chipper pink and white checkered blanket with a decent sized brown wicker basket resting in the center. “Nikolai, how long have you been planning this?” she asked, turning back to face him like she was upset again.

“I’ve been planning it for almost as long as you’ve been wearing ribbons in your hair but I had it set up as soon as I got word that the embassy trip for the Kerch was delayed,” he replied. He was a troublemaker, she had known that from the beginning, and yet she still cherished him more than anything in the world. 

She rolled her eyes at him so that he wouldn’t know how deep her feelings for him ran. She then reached out and took his hand so that she could tug him over to the blanket and they could enjoy their meal before the bugs did.

[savesabshipweek]

Happy Friday! It's zoyalai day in the ship week! Tell Netflix why they deserve to be seen on TV screens!

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[savesabshipweek]

@sissytobitch10seconds is officially winning the ship day challenge! They've written something for every day so far - go show their stories some love!

Yellow and Orange Make You

Fandom: Grishaverse: The Grisha Trilogy and Shadow and Bone (TV) Summary: Every day, the girl sits in the meadow and watches the sky be painted. Every day, the boy finds her and sits by her side. Warnings: Mentions of orphaning Word Count: 1,003 Ship(s): Mal Oretsev/Alina Starkov

Archive link!

Mal stepped through the line along with all of the other boys from his dormitory. He loaded up a single piece of toast onto both of the plates that were balanced precariously on his hand. He then stole an extra sausage and slipped it under the bread of the second one without a single person noticing. He ducked his head and hurried towards the other side of the table so that he could get a spoonful of eggs when he noticed one of the meaner boys heading towards him with a scowl.

Once both of the plates were full, he made his way towards the door. If he hadn’t already almost gotten caught by one of their bullies, he would have tried to bring out two cups of tea as well. The last time that he had tried that, he had spilled the near scalding liquid all the way down the front of his shirt and had spent an agonizing hour trying to wring it out before anyone noticed.

The door opened when he pried it open with the side of his foot and then closed, joining with the clatter of silverware and voices as the other children ate their breakfast. Mal was overwhelmed with the sounds and feelings of the outside, of finally being away from the stifling indoors that he spent most of his time in. He could hear the swaying of the grass in the breeze, the echoing of critters in the woods that surrounding the estate, and most of all he could feel the breath of life that came with the wilderness. 

He walked carefully down the little stone path to the opening that led into the surrounding meadows and fields. The place that he was going to was just west of a cluster of aspen trees, before the creak and the willows with their long dancing branches. He saw Alina sitting with her back up against one of the massive trees, her head tilted up towards the massive sky that roofed them. 

Mal felt like his breath had been stolen from his lungs when he got a good look at her. She was wearing the plain peasant dress that all of the girls wore, a white undertunic and a red overdress that she basically swam in. Her long black hair was loose down her back and cascading over her shoulders so that it tickled the tips of her hands where they were resting in her lap. For a brief moment, he thought that he saw a flash in her rich brown eyes so that they were burning white and her hair perfectly matched them in color and vibrancy, but he couldn’t imagine her face with any wrinkles.

He shook himself from his thoughts and then finished the last of the journey over to her. “Hey,” he greeted as he sat down next to her. He placed one of the plates onto his lap and then handed her the one that had a little bit of extra food.

“Thank you,” she gasped when she saw what he had done for her. She always acted like she was surprised when he brought her food or made sure that she had slept the night before, he didn’t quite understand it but was eager to accept it nonetheless.

They began to munch on their breakfasts as they watched the shifting and changing of the sky. It was edging towards winter, the air around them almost too cold for them to exist in but no snow had fallen yet. That meant that the sun rose after them and they were able to eat while they watched instead of returning back to the house so they could get their morning meal. A handful of toddlers had arrived at Keramzin the other day and Ana Kuya had her hands full with them. Mal and Alina were only ten, just barely too young to help with the rearing of the children but old enough that they were expected to do as they were told. They weren’t friends with any of the other orphans so they were allowed to wander about as they pleased.

“Why do you like the sunrise so much?” Mal asked as he set his cleaned plate off to the side. Alina had only eaten about half a piece of toast and the extra sausage patty that he had stolen for her. He wished that there was a way for him to find a solution to whatever plagued her so that he could cure all her ailments. For now, all he could do was sit with her.

“Just look at it,” Alina shrugged. She pointed up towards the horizon, which was striped with golds and pinks in a beautiful array. The searing bright yellow of the sun itself was only barely beginning to spike over the high treetops of the forest around them.

“Because it’s pretty?” Mal asked. He wanted to know everything that he could about Alina. He wanted to hold her secrets in his hands, meld their hearts into one. She had always been by his side and though he could still vaguely remember a time when she wasn’t, he never wanted to live like that again. Something, the same thing that let him procure animal markings out of the world that were invisible to others, told him that they would be together for a while longer at least.

“Just look,” she giggled. She didn’t let go of his hand, instead threading their fingers together before she snuck the rest of her toast onto his plate. He didn’t say anything about it, just stared at the sky while he chewed on the burned bread. He’d understand it eventually, he would do anything for her. He knew that he looked at Alina like she was the sunrise without being told that he did. He let himself look at her, worship the ways that the hues of the coming morning bounced off of her, because he knew that her attention was always tilted heavenward.

[savesabshipweek]

Today we're celebrating childhood best friends to lovers! ❤️

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[savesabshipweek]

Kanej day round-up

Homing by @torvagatai

Small Things (Kanej - Flowers) by MayBeLadyAshla

Home Is With You by @sissytobitch10seconds

rubicon by @alltheworldsinmyhead

Wesper day round-up

Wesper lyric gif by staff1989

Signed version!

Clever Boy by @sissytobitch10seconds

you are such a rollercoaster by @sixofsol

Explosion by MayBeLadyAshla (+art)

Helnik day round-up

Shake Me Apart by @sissytobitch10seconds

If I've missed something, let me know and I'll add it! If you missed the deadline but still want to create something for one of these ships, that's fine too!

[savesabshipweek]

Shake Me Apart

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone (TV) Summary: Storms are still so hard for the both of them. Thankfully, they can wrap up with each other to brave out the winds and pouring rains that so often plague their new home. Warnings: PTSD and nightmares Word Count: 1,157 Ship(s): Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik

Archive link!

For a long time, she had tried to make peace with the idea that they had no home. They couldn’t return back to the Little Palace in Ravka because Matthias was an ex-Druskelle and not a Grisha, but they couldn’t live in Fjerda because they were both criminals wanted by the government. That had left her feeling like they would always be on the run, that there would be nowhere that she could feel truly safe. It had only taken about a year of that for her to write Inej and get the Suli girl’s wonderful wisdom. Inej had informed her that because the Suli were nomadic, they thought of home as where their family was. Nina had parts of family back in Ravka, but her main family was the Crows. They were home in Ketterdam, so they tried to come back every time one of them needed to rest of they got too homesick.

They had tried to stay at the Slat the first time that they had returned from a trip to visit their friends, but it hadn’t gone very well. Jesper and Wylan had been quick to offer them a place when Nina had complained about how Matthias barely fit in the bedroom that they had snagged from some of the other Dregs. 

The upgrade was nearly unimaginable. They had gone from a dank, warped wood floor with a door that barely closed and a bedframe that could blow over with a strong breeze to parquet flooring with a lush mattress and deadbolts on the windows. She liked the scents and the colors of the place, especially when Marya and Wylan had decided that it was about time that the place have some kind of renovation.

No amount of window glazing and insulation in the walls was going to be able to stamp out the harsh Kerch storms, though.

The fierce winds ripped over the gabled rooftops until they reached the grand old growth trees in the garden outside and shook the branches together to create a cacophonous noise. Black and gray swirling thunderclouds rumbled over the sky so that they consumed the light from the stars and the moon until everything above the streetlamps were plunged into darkness. Moisture shot down from the sky with the speed and accuracy of a child with a gun, splashing over the ground and soaking the windows until a chill crept up from the streets. It was enough that a thick white coat of fog would drench the world around them and block out every familiar item they could look to for safety. Shouts of thunder and tossed lightning played back and forth, as if Ketterdam were nothing but a field.

The storms were tremendous and dangerous, fed by the sea so that they could douse the city with rain like Ghezen was trying to clean it. It had been difficult for both her and Matthias to deal with it, but it was easier when the storms came at night. They would be curled up together in the bed of their room, the windows locked and the fire crackling away in the hearth. It was safer than when they were camping in Fjerda or when they were traveling through poorly managed inns in Ravka.

Nina barely dreamed any longer. She didn’t know why her mind had decided that her unconscious thoughts were too dangerous for her to remember, but it made it all the more stressful when she was actually able to see the images flashing behind her eyes.

In her dream, she was standing in a field of grass so high that it reached her chest. She was wearing nothing more than a blue nightgown, linen with chipper trim down at the bottom and an adorable ribbon at the top to adjust the neckline. She had no shoes so she could feel the spikes where the grass bent and snapped under her toes pressing into soft flesh and callouses alike. There was a breeze that rustled the field around her and sent the massive wave of brown ringlets hanging down around her face over her eyes.

When it dropped back down to where it belonged, she saw that she was no longer standing in the peaceful farmland of her childhood. The mountains in the distance had shifted and changed so that they were a raising wall of water, the once robin’s egg blue sky now nearly black with thunderclouds. The crashing sound of pouring rain against a vast body of water overwhelmed her.

Nina’s eyes flew open and she bolted into an upright position when she heard the latch on the window rattling menacingly. Her mind was bringing back the sounds of crashing waves and splintering wood, the sound of a shipwreck that had almost doomed her to death more times than she would care to admit. Her eyes tried to take in the world around her but she was plagued with black spots dancing across her vision.

She jerked when she felt something cold and slightly clammy touch her hand. It was too close to the night where she could only sleep for half an hour bursts because of how cold she was, curled around a man that could easily kill her and mutilate her body in her sleep.

“Nina,” Matthias’ voice broke through the fog in her mind. 

She remembered then that she wasn’t back in the first Whaler’s Hut that they had found after their shipwreck, or anyone on the Fjerdan coastline. She was in the Van Eck estate and she was safe. Her lover wasn’t the enemy that thought she was unnatural and wanted to kill her, he was the man that wrapped his arms around her when she cried and got her pastries he noticing her looking at. 

“Sorry,” she whispered as she fell back into the bed beside him.

“You have no reason to apologize,” Matthias replied against her cheek. He placed one of his thick arms around her waist to bring her closer to him and then pressed his nose into her neck. “I was woken up by the storm too.”

Nina felt bad that he had been having the same panicked response but hadn’t had a lover to comfort him the way that she did. She turned towards him so that their bodies were flush against each other and her forehead was resting against his collarbone. She took several deep beaths to settle herself and then murmured, “I wonder if some of the others feel like this about stuff that happened to them.”

“We all have things that will haunt us, the important thing to remember is that we must keep going,” Matthias replied into her hair. She settled after that, wrapped up in not only the warmth of his body but the smell of him and the beat of his heart against her ear. He was there, he was alive, and they were both safe and dry.

[savesabshipweek]

First fic of the day again! Go show @sissytobitch10seconds some love on AO3!

Clever Boy

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone (TV) Summary: Something explodes in Wylan's lab and Jesper takes the brunt of it. Wylan would feel less bad if his boyfriend would just take his injuries seriously. Warnings: Minor injuries and implied sexual content Word Count: 993 Ship(s): Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck

Archive link!

“Wy?” Jesper called as he walked down the long hallway that led to the basement room that Wylan had taken as his laboratory. As much as the boy had protested against anything that could be considered against the law or criminal, he had still been experimenting with chemicals and explosions well into his career as a Mercher. Since the substances that he acquired weren’t exactly legal, they had to hide the lab that he worked in. The logical place for that was down in the basement, but it also usually meant that by the time Jesper got down there, he had no patience to listen to anything until he got his thoughts out of his head.

That very thing had led to him almost having acid splashed on him because he had startled his boyfriend, who had thrown the nearest beaker at him. It had also gotten him stomped on, punched, and had the door opened in his face. It was nothing hard enough to even bruise and Wylan had apologized as soon as he was back in his own head enough to realize what he had done, of course.

Jesper was never good about learning his lesson. If he was anyone else, then he would have known to knock before he entered at the very least. He wasn’t anyone else, he was the boy that had nearly lost his father’s his farm by playing a handful of cards too many, he was the boy who had worked alongside Dirtyhands to break into the Ice Court, he was the boy who had been all over Ravka to try and bring down the Darkling. He didn’t care about his own safety and he certainly didn’t learn his lesson.

So as soon as he got up to the door that led to his boyfriend, he grasped the doorhandle and then flung it open with the force of a man on a mission. “Wylan! I need to speak with you about-” he grunted when he felt something searing hot push him back against the wall in the hallway.

He had barely even processed what it was before the heat was burning off the hairs on his cheeks and then melting the flesh from his palms. His ears were the last thing to clock what had happened and he was overwhelmed with the sound of shattering glass and a near-indescribable thrum.

“Jesper!” Wylan almost screamed as soon as everything was over.

The world was shimmering in a black and blue haze as his eyes tried to recover their sight. His ears were ringing so badly that he could barely even hear what his boyfriend was saying, despite Wylan being right next to him. His body felt like he was thrumming with the most beautiful kind of rush, the kind that he had never been able to get from the cards and only from a gunfight. He knew that meant that he was in some kind of shock, but it was so euphoric that he could barely pay attention to that.

“Jesper, are you okay?” Wylan asked worriedly. He brought one of his delicate, Mercher hands down onto his boyfriend’s shoulder to catch his attention.

“I think so,” he grunted as he pushed away from the wall and then up to his feet. He brushed his hand over his clothes to get rid of the dust and glass that had spewed through the doorway moments before. It was only then that he noticed the horrendous way that his hands felt against the fabric. “Ah, Saints above,” he whimpered.

Wylan’s pretty blue eyes went wide with panic when he heard that noise. They had been together for long enough, and had done missions for even longer, that they knew every tell of pain from the other person. Wylan immediately reached out, lean fingers wrapping around the zowa’s wrists so that he could flip them over and see what had happened. He let out a little gasp when he saw the half dozen blisters and angry red that covered his calloused palms. “Jes,” he breathed.

“It’s alright, love, it’s alright,” he replied immediately. It took one look from his partner for him to sink back down into himself. They had had many talks about him doing that, most of them resulting in his brain fluttering with thoughts for about a half hour before they drifted away into nothing. He had always had a bad habit of trying to make sure that everyone around him was happy or pleased about something instead of looking after himself. Wylan also had a habit of hiding his pains or injuries, but he was better at breaking himself out of it since Marya was staying with them.

“I promise you that I’m not making it easier this time. This is way better than the first time that I had a gun overheat on me,” he explained. “I can puncture the blisters when they finish developing and then drain them. This is nothing that bandages and a couple of days aloe won’t fix,” he explained.

Wylan gave him an unsure look, blue irises flickering between Jesper’s face and his hands. “Are you really sure?”

“Course I am. Though this means that if we’re still planning to spend the night together, we’re going to have to have you do all the work. I know how much you like showing off for me though, so it shouldn’t be that bad,” Jesper teased. All of the pain was forgotten when he saw the way that Wylan’s cheeks turned bright red. It was a good way to get both of their minds off of what had happened, and one of the only good uses of Jesper’s sharp tongue. Though at the moment, with sex on the mind, Jesper could think of a couple others.

Before he even had the chance to say as much, Wylan was pulling him down the hall so that they could patch up his hands.

[savesabshipweek]

Feel free to hop over to Twitter for our next Twitter party - #NotJustGirls, a celebration of our favorite 🏳️‍🌈 arsonist and ��💜💙sharpshooter. We know the cast sees us and appreciates us, so lets keep showering them with love! If you have Wesper posts you've been meaning to share tomorrow is a great day to post them!

[savesabshipweek]

Today we're celebrating all things wesper! Remember to @ us if you're posting a fic or artwork, so we can reblog it and share your fanwork! There's also a wesper tweeting party happening over on twitter later today - check here for how to get involved!

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[savesabshipweek]

rubicon

''Crossing the Rubicon"; passing a point of no return./ Inej, Kaz and the Hunger Games (read on ao3 - full trigger warnings in the tags)

*

“You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.” - "The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

One summer week when Inej was thirteen, she spent every single day in front of a television set. She kept her eyes glued to the screen and her back straight as her mother braided and re-braided her hair, desperate to do something with her hands. And it was Games as usual, but yet it wasn’t - that time, Twelve watched, in astonishment, in terror, and with a hesitant hope, as Kaz Rietveld cut through other kids on the arena with ruthless efficiency. 

His family had used to live in the Seam, one block away from Inej’s.They had been children together; playing in the mud when it had rained, jumping into puddles to splash the water around. He had sat behind her in school, when he had been still attending it, and he had tugged on her braid from time to time, just to annoy her. They had gone to the school dance together - she remembers the ribbons in her hair, his hand in hers. The clapping, the stomping. 

He had eaten a few dinners at her parents’ house, when his Pa had died. Had cried against her arm, in secret and shame, and she never told anyone about it. 

And then, right in front of her eyes, that sweet boy became something else entirely. 

He didn’t linger with his kills, wasn’t overly cruel. But it was still a spectacle, in a way. All the close-ups on his face, pale and twisted with hate, strands of hair sticking to his sweaty forehead from exertion. His hands, dripping with gore. 

Her mama flinched every time the commentator exclaimed ‘’Here he is again, our favorite underdog! Let’s see who he has chosen as his target this time.” 

He’s just a kid, she murmured under her breath, barely a whisper. They are all just kids. 

Nobody quite expected him to win. Their District had only ever had two Victors before, and they both died fairly quickly after their Games - one had succumbed to his wounds and hadn’t even made it to the interview, and the other one had drunk himself to death. Kaz didn’t even have a proper district Mentor, just a Capitol lackey, a nepo baby from the University. When it was down to the final ten and the Gamemakers flooded the arena, her parents exclaimed in terror and Inej resigned herself to waiting for his face to be displayed as one of the fallen ones. The kids from Twelve didn’t know the first thing about swimming. 

His face was not displayed. 

For two full days and two full nights, the cameras kept on coming back and back and back again to Kaz, crammed into a narrow gap, a crevice in-between two ruined blocks of stone. He was stuck there with the corpse of the boy from Eight who got killed instantly when the water poured in - a blow to the head, out in seconds. It took Kaz a while to figure out how to wriggle himself free and every single miner in his district watched his attempts with their hearts in their throats. They all chipped in for the gift to him, but it turned out to be money wasted  - by the time Kaz slipped out, there were only three tributes left and he killed them all in less than a day. Choked the life out of them with his bare hands. Plucked an eye from Two’s socket as if it was a boiled egg. 

Her papa covered Inej’s own eyes when it was broadcasted live, but she saw it many times ever since anyway. The Capitol loved this moment; they played it over and over again, some whistling tune in the background, till it stopped looking real and started looking silly. 

The second-to-last tribute standing pushed him off the stone ledge with his dying breath, and Kaz came back home with a fucked-up leg and a reputation that made people give him a wide berth on the streets. He wore black leather gloves for his post-Games interview and for his Victory Tour and soon enough hardly anyone on the television called Kaz anything other than Dirtyhands. 

He was there, gloves on, face solemn, standing on this damned podium when Heleen Van Hounden read Inej’s name. 

And he is there, with her, every moment since. 

(continue reading on ao3 )

[savesabshipweek]

Homing (Fic)

Fandom: Shadow and Bone (TV Series), Six of Crows

Pairing: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa

Status: Completed (One-shot)

Summary: She hears him before she sees him. The window is closed, curtains drawn, but there’s a faint glow inside, like a guttering candle has been kept burning all throughout the night. Typical Kaz, she thinks. No rest for the wicked.

An imagining of show!verse Kaz and Inej's first reunion post-season 2, written for the @savesabshipweek prompt 'Reunited'.

Read on AO3

[savesabshipweek]

First fic of the ship week event! Go show the author some love! 💜

Home Is With You

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone (TV) Summary: Inej returns home after another one of her long sea voyages to find that her lover has prepared her something quiet wonderful. Warnings: Mentions of sexual slavery Word Count: 1,521 Ship(s): Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa

Archive link!

A/N: At the beginning of the news of the cancellation, I felt very mixed about it. I didn't like what they had done to the Crows at the end of S2, I didn't like what they had done with Mal and Alina. But then I realized, after a while of thinking, that I want to see how it ends. I want to have more pieces of these wonderful books lifted from them word for word and spoken by these amazingly talented actors. So I'm participating in this event to try and get more attention to it, to show that we're interested and they need to stop being stupid. I hope you guys enjoy, it's not as long as some of my other stuff is! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

She had always heard people speak of needing to get their sea legs. They had mentioned it offhandedly when she was a child because she had never had the opportunity to really be on a boat. She had also heard it in laughing jeers referencing Matthias when they had first begun their voyage to and from the Ice Court. She was a being that lived with wings hidden on her back and feet that gripped impossibly slick surfaces, so she had never really understood what the point of developing another way of walking was.

At least, she hadn’t until she had touched down in Ketterdam after a solid ten months out at sea. She hadn’t expected to be away for that long, but she had found a string of slaver ships that had resulted in several quick trips back to Ravka so that they could return otkazatsya and Grisha back to where they rightfully belonged. 

There were more leads to follow, more names written on the little black book she kept next to he heart. She had more work to do, but her crew was weary and needed time to be back with their own families or to rest and recover from injuries. She had docked them back in Fifth Harbor so that they could see to their needs themselves and she could handle digging the problem out at the root. It was all well and good to be taking down the branches that stole people and sold them to the highest bidder, but if she could kill the demand then it would become unlucrative and thus wouldn’t happen any longer.

She could practically hear Kaz’s voice in her mind telling her that she was being too hopeful in the goodness of people again. She knew that he didn’t believe in the beauty of the world, that the evil really could be purged and would leave them with the happiness that they had earned. He told her often and sometimes made her feel so self-conscious that she wanted to give up on her entire plan. That hadn’t happened for a good long while, thankfully. He had been getting better about finding ways to voice his concerns or opinions and they played off of each other to balanced the other out, which was the beauty to be found in both of them.

The streets were just as busy as she had remembered them being almost a year ago. She was quick to find an alley that was slim enough that no one would notice her as she ducked into the shadows. Her fingers grasped at a drainpipe and her rubber-soled shoes, a replacement given to her by Kaz for her birthday after she had ruined the original pair at the Ice Court, gripped at the wall. She had always preferred walking above other people, not because she thought that was where she belonged but because it was so much easier to process what they were doing when she could see it from afar.

Inej traveled quickly and quietly over the rooftops that she had once been a spider on. She knew that Kaz had found someone new to find him secrets and get inside of buildings, but no one would ever truly replace her. She had once been offended because he had called her an investment, but after some discussion with Wylan she had learned how much of a compliment that was. The Kerch cared about nothing other than money, so it was a given that their terms of endearment and confessions of love would revolve around money and assets as well. He was simply trying to tell her that he cared deeply for her without being able to actually process his emotions.

A smile toyed over her lips as she thought about getting to see him again. They had been able to send letters back and forth thanks to their connections to the King of Ravka and the Grisha Triumvirate, but all flowy words and beautiful scripts would pale in comparison to actually getting to see him again.

She dropped down onto the landing of the Crow Club like she had many times before. She could remember almost all of them with crystal clear clarity, the ledge had basically been made for her. Her fingers slipped out of the gloves she wore to keep the ropes of her ship from callousing her hands and then she flicked the latch out of place. It would be invisible to anyone else, but she had been there watching Kaz as he installed it so he could feel safe and she could still come visit him whenever she wanted.

She stepped down into his room and then looked over the space as she was overwhelmed with a feeling of nostalgia strong enough to kill. Kaz had replaced the desk made out of an old door propped up on crates with something big and mahogany. It had marks around the edges from where his cane had hit it or a stray bullet and lodged in the wood, but it was still beautiful and shiny like it was brand new. The bed was no longer made out of milk crates with a thin blanket draped over it, but two twin beds pressed against the wall. They were pushed together that day, which meant that he was hoping she would feel up to sleeping next to him that night. 

The thing that brought her attention away from the surroundings and her own feelings was the new addition. There had always been a fireplace that high in the Slat since it was a floor of the building, but there was something crackling happily away inside of it for the first time since she had first ventured up to the attic. She walked over to the mantle so that she could inspect the Suli pendant, the picture of the Crows drawn by Wylan, and the old head of Kaz’s cane resting atop it.

In front of the fireplace was a table that was laden with her favorites, jasmine rice and kurma with huge pieces of chicken and naan and the little Danishes from Fjerda that Nina had introduced her to. Between them was a pot of cloves, loose but whole.

“What is this?” she asked when she heard the door open.

“I thought that you would enjoy it,” Kaz rasped. “I was also expecting a hello from you before you began interrogating me, treasure.”

She turned to him with a bright smile as everything finally clicked into place. He was dressed as he always was: black slacks pressed at the sides so that that lump of scar tissue next to his knee was hidden, a black shirt with a perfect collar and silver cufflinks, all tied together with a pocket watch draped from the gray vest he was wearing. His hair was slicked back and he was leaning moderately heavy on his cane, which was a given seeing as storm clouds were already beginning to hover menacingly in the sky above them.

“You did all of this for me?” she asked. Her hand immediately strayed down to the simple knife that he had gifted her when he taught her how to defend herself. He had always provided her with the things that she needed to live the life that she needed to at that moment, including the wonderful spread before her. “How did you remember that I hate the smell of woodsmoke?”

“I remember everything about you, dear Inej,” he replied. His voice was deep and husky, wrapping around her bones and shattering through her body. Kaz stepped over to the table while removing his gloves, cane tucked under his arm so it was close to him but not in use.

She sat down across from him with a smile bright enough to rival Sankta Alina bringing down the fold. “Thank you, Kaz. I don’t think I could have asked for a better welcome party.”

“Good. I had to convince Jesper that you would prefer this to what he was planning,” Kaz grimaced and she couldn’t help but laugh. The joy that had already fluttered to life inside of her was given a drop of euphoria when she saw the way that his bitter coffee eyes were sparkling at the sound of her happiness.

She would have asked him about how he had been, but she already knew. He was the same as he always was, the man that she had fallen in love with instead of Dirtyhands. He was only like that when he was around her, he had removed his armor just for her. She wasn’t going to interrogate him like a wife that didn’t trust her husband, come to make sure that he wasn’t cheating or gambling away their savings. He had his life and she had hers. They were entwined together and the older that they got, the more likely it was that the braid would become tighter.

So, instead of asking about any of that, she simply grabbed a piece of naan and ripped an edible chunk off, “Do you know how to eat this?”

[savesabshipweek]

It's officially kanej day! We'll be celebrating the Wraith and the Bastard of the Barrel all day - don't forget to @ us or tag us if you want us to reblog your art or fic!

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[savesabshipweek]

We're rounding off the #SaveShadowAndBone Ship Week with an AU special! Pick a ship (any ship!) and write or draw them into your favourite AU scenario. We'll also be celebrating your favourite non-canon ships and general/platonic relationships of the grishaverse!

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