#;; baghra morozova ;; rel: aleksander morozova

[kasagia]

Innocent

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/General Kirigan/The Darkling x fem! heartrender! reader Summary: You're not like the other Grishas. It took you some time to master your power, but you're still unsure of your control over it. That's why it scares you when you're chosen for a special mission in Fjerda. Luckily your general cares about all his people... or at least about you... actually way too much, but you're not going to complain at all. Requested by: @dreampissybaby I hope you like it! 😊💙🖤 Warning(s): the reader is unsure of herself; the reader does not want to kill (but is ultimately forced to for Aleks); blood; mentions of murder; sharing body heat, Aleks comforts the reader; Words count: 5,7 k ~•♤♤♤•~ Aleksander Morozova's Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~

The time has come. Your first mission.

You spent years in the Little Palace training, going to classes with other heartrenders, practicing under the supervision of Baghra and Botkin. And you had potential. You were the most powerful of all the heartrenders in the Little Palace...

There was only one 'problem' with you.

You didn't kill. Nor control your powers as you should.

You were supposed to be a healer. This is what you always wanted as soon as your Grishas powers as Corporalki manifested. But due to fate and the fact that there was a greater demand for heartenders in the Second Army than for healers, you became someone you did not want to be. You were supposed to take lives, not heal or save them, and you never really came to terms with that.

Not that anyone asked for your opinion. Certainly not Baghra, although she was one of the few who noticed that the problem with mastering your powers was in your head and not due to lack of control or powerlessness. Which didn't mean she didn't give you a hard time at every training session you had. You would rather have Botkin's training than spend your time in that's hag's hut.

That's why you laughed at Fedyor when he told you that he chose you as a replacement for Ivan (who was unexpectedly sent on another mission) as an additional heartrender for their secret mission in Fjerda.

"Very funny. Be careful, you start to adopt Ivan's sense of humor." you say, walking with him towards your rooms after sparring together. However, you start to get a little worried when he doesn't respond to your taunt. "Saints, Fedyor, it was a joke, right?"

"You have to go on your first mission someday. Besides, it will be an easy and simple task. We'll do some spying and go home. A few weeks and you'll be back in the Little Palace, and I promise I'll watch over you."

"Have you lost your mind?! I will get stressed, reveal my powers, and the Fjerdans will skin us faster than you can eat sweets from the palace kitchen." you lament, imagining all the worst-case scenarios.

"Nothing will happen. Besides, general is coming too. With him, no Fjerdans or Drüskells will attack us." you freeze at his words, realising how much worse your situation suddenly is with this one statement.

"What?!" you ask, but Fedyor has already disappeared into his and Ivan's room.

You start to get even more nervous. Since you had relatively completed the most important parts of your training, you were often at either Fedyor's or Ivan's side, 'improving' your skills and getting used to your new role in Little Palace.

This also meant often being near General Kirigan's side. Who was dangerously becoming more and more curious about you (at least that was what Fedyor was telling you in great secrecy.)

And his unexpected interest in your abilities only grew when Ivan blurted out to him that Baghra was also training you to be a healer, not only a heartrender. You don't know if this little act of mercy by the old witch was to help you overcome the internal conflict inside you since you put on the red-black kefta of a heartrender or if it was another one of the woman's ways of ruining others' lives.

Anyway, one day you walked into Kirigan's war room behind Ivan and the Black General's dark eyes, and instead of being glued to the maps and reports in front of him as usual, they were focused only on you. A shiver ran through you as you felt his piercing gaze on you. He seemed to be assessing your capabilities based on the rumours that Ivan and his men had been feeding him. You knew that he was judging how useful you could be to him. You held his gaze for a moment before looking down at the maps on the table, hiding slightly behind Ivan as he began to give him the most important information from the camp closest to the fold.

Since then, you've been seeing him more and more. Be it on your way back from Baghra's hut to the palace, in the library, or even late at night in the gardens or other parts of the Little Palace when you never expect him to appear.

He was always polite and nice. He spoke to you in such a gentle and calm tone, so different from the way he spoke to other Grishas, that it took you a moment to adjust to the soft side he was giving you. You didn't expect that the Darkling would ever be understanding of your insecure, shy nature or try to help you control your powers and come to terms with them by giving you small advice and even giving you accessories from Materialki, which allowed you to feel more confident while using your little science and controlling others hearts, bodies, and minds.

But that didn't matter anymore. Any sympathy or hope he had for you and your powers would end in the coming days when he saw that you were actually a nobody and were only wasting your power, which someone else could better use than you.

You might as well start preparing to be sent across the fold to Western Ravka and certain death at the hands of the volcras.

With trembling hands, you tied your small bag to the saddle of your horse. Fedyor, Zoya, Inferni, and Tidemaker, whose names you didn't know, were also preparing their horses to leave.

You were about to leave the Little Palace in a few minutes. The only person missing was General Kirigan.

Which made you very happy. You had trouble tying that damned bundle so it wouldn't fly off your horse's back. You weren't going to ask anyone for help and show how weak and hopeless you were in the group from the very beginning. You won't be defeated by something like this. If you were going to embarrass yourself, at least in a fight… or at least not before you set out.

But as always, you must have been unlucky.

"What are you doing here?" the general's question didn't make you the only one to freeze. The rest of your companions also stopped what they were doing and now looked at you with interest while you were trying to calm down your beating heart and respond to the Darkling. You turn to him and hold your little bundle of belongings that you failed to tie to your horse behind your back, so he can't see it.

"Fedyor thought I would be suitable for this task and appointed me as a second heartrender, sir." you reply without looking him in the eyes.

"He did?" he asks unemotionally, turning his gaze to your friend. You swallow nervously, waiting for his next words.

"Yes, General. Y/N is doing better and better. It's time to test her beyond the walls of the Little Palace, so she can use her power in a more beneficial way." Fedyor responds as your main "mentor". If you were brave enough to raise your head, you would surely give him a grateful look for the confidence with which he assured the general of your readiness.

"Well then." The general nods. You see him send a stern look at the rest of the Grishas, who are still staring. They immediately go back to their preparations.

You mentally curse as the horseboy leaves the general's horse next to yours. You try your best to ignore him as you continue to tie the damned bundle with trembling hands to your horse. And at the same time, you try to reject the uncertainty and doubts that began to grow even more intensely in you after the general's question.

"I don't see you being particularly excited about your first mission." the general's remark made you turn your head towards him. You shivered as soon as you realised his piercing gaze was directed straight at you. "Nervous?"

"A little." you admit, glad he's not a heartrender and can't hear your heart beating madly. You're about to have a heart attack here... if you don't first make a fool of yourself and cry from helplessness in front of the general. You were so pathetic...

You are brought out of your dark thoughts by the sudden presence of someone behind you. The general's warm, large hands gently take your bundle with your things from your hands and tie it to the horse's side. And if you didn't know better, you'd think he was extending the moment on purpose, just to keep you pressed against his chest, embraced by his arms, a little longer.

"You don't have to." he whispers, responding to your earlier words, and pulls away from you as if nothing had happened. He went to finish his preparations for the road himself, leaving you with the feeling of his warm breath on the back of your neck.

You get goosebumps and feel your cheeks heat up. Your hands tingle in the place where the general's hands were on them a moment ago. And your traitorous mind imagines what it would be like to feel his touch entirely somewhere else.

You shake your head and get on your horse, praying to the saints to help you survive this journey with dignity. Or at least that you'll come back alive. After all, you should keep your expectations low.

Surprisingly, you managed to survive the first week without any relative disasters. It was more than you could expect from yourself. Things may not have gone as you expected, but at least you all managed to ride safely through Ravka to the border with Fjerdans.

But every day you got closer to the border, your fear grew more and more.

You set up camp in the forest, each following your established routine. The General and Fedyor went out scouting, exploring the surrounding areas, when the rest of you were setting up a small camp and trying to hide it from human eyes as much as you could.

You were feeding and watering the horses when you suddenly heard a heartbeat next to you. You didn't even try to explain to yourself how you knew or when exactly you started to recognise General Kirigan's heartbeat. It just happened over time. And you didn't have the courage to admit to yourself that it meant something more.

The general took one apple and gave it to his black stallion, tenderly stroking its muzzle. You couldn't hide your small smile at how gentle he was with his horse (whose name was, ironically, Nightfall).

The black bastard even had his mane braided by him. Not that you watched closely as his hands braided it for the whole 6 minutes before Fedyor noticed and started teasing you about how your heart would go into failure from pumping blood so fast. You had never considered being a horse, but in that moment...

"Anything funny, Captain?" he asks, and if you hadn't learned over the course of this week the difference in the tone of his voice when he was teasing, you would probably have died of fear there.

"Nothing, General." you reply with a smirk, laughing in your head at your own ridiculousness and the stupid attraction you had for him. "How long do we have to be in Fjerda?"

"Until we get what we came here for. But I think it will take us two weeks at most. The Little Palace can't stay unattended for long."

You nod, partially satisfied with his answer. But you can't shake that unsettling feeling that something bad will definitely happen by then. Either you ruin the entire mission or you die miserably at Fjerdans' hands, revealing your powers in enemy territory.

"What's wrong?" His voice breaks you out of your thoughts better than the hand he suddenly wraps around yours. After thinking about it for a while, his touch shouldn't be that familiar to you.

"Nothing, General. I was lost in thought." you lie, trying to hide your insecurities and fear by looking down at your hands because you know he can read people like an open book.

"Don't insult my intelligence. I won't be convinced by such a flimsy excuse, and you definitely have better, more persuading answers." he takes a step towards you and gently grabs your chin, forcing you to look into his piercing, dark brown eyes. "What's the matter?"

"I..." you stutter as you get lost in his eyes, which are studying you so intently, as if the answer to his questions were written in your eyes.

And for a moment, you want to tell him.

You want to say that you are afraid of your powers and that you don't know if you will be able to control them when you are in a critical situation and help others. That you don't know if you'll ever get used to the role you've been thrust into. That you don't belong, and even his soothing presence isn't worth the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty you're going through every day. That you want to be someone completely different, but you know that you can't be a brat and throw away an opportunity that thousands of Grishas in your place would gratefully accept.

But you can't show him that you're broken...

"Y/N. Talk to me." he says  firmly.Worry and concern are obviously written on his face, and it irritates you that you are unaware of what's causing it. That you don't know why he even cares to notice, let alone ask you what's bothering you.

"It's nothing serious. You shouldn't worry about me. I'm perfectly fine, sir." you say it emotionlessly and move away from him. You turn your back at him and start to comb your horse's mane.

But he doesn't give up. He places a hand on your shoulder and holds it in a tight grip, turning you back to face him.

"Something's clearly bothering you. You're going to tell me this now and here. This is no longer a question, Captain." if possible, his eyes will become even darker. But he's not the only one who's starting to get mad. Unlike him, you can't keep your emotions bottled up inside you so well.

"Why do you even care?! I'm just a captain, another one of your heartrenders; you shouldn't care about me at all!" you shout at him, shrugging his hand off your shoulder. Ivan would have a heart attack if he saw you talk with the general.

But Kirigan also seems to forget that you should be more respectful towards him... or maybe he's relieved that you're not as afraid of him as everyone else, and this new revelation is refreshing for him.

"It's not up to you to judge what I should care about. Even a blind person could see that you've been behaving strangely for a week and that something is tormenting you. Your hands tremble more often, you are more silent and paler, you eat less, your eyes no longer shine like they used to when Fedyor teases you, dark circles start to appear under your eyes, and every night I hear you rolling over next to me on your sleeping place. So you are going to tell me now what's wrong, so I can fix it."

His long speech leaves you stunned. You didn't realise that he noticed things like that or that he watched you closely enough to find a difference in your behavior. And what bothered you most was the reason why the Black General knew you so well.

And you probably would have crumbled in pieces there in front of him and poured out all your insecurities and fears on him if the sudden crunch of branches hadn't caught your attention.

You didn't even have time to blink before you were behind the general. He holds your arm with one hand, making sure you stay behind him so he can shield you from any danger. And in the back of your mind, despite how enchanted you were by his closeness, the thought occurs that you should be the one protecting him...

Then he threw his dagger in the direction the sound came from. After a while, a painful groan echoed through the clearing.

"Fedyor?!" you ask and run out from behind the general when you recognise your friend's voice. You disappear behind the trees, finding the heartrender, who was wearing a regular cloak (you had to drop your keftas since you were getting closer to Fjerdans), leaning against a tree and holding his arm where the dagger was embedded. "What the hell?! You scared us!"

"Well, you're not the one with the dagger stuck in you. It was starting to get dark; the others sent me to get you, since we are practically on Fjerdans' territory."

You nod and help him sit on the ground. After a while, the general appears behind you. You see him blush awkwardly, realising who his dagger hit.

"My apologies, Fedyor. You shouldn't have sneaked up on us like that, though."

You take the opportunity to have your back turned to him and roll your eyes at him. While Fedyor is busy answering him, you quickly take the dagger out of him. He hisses in pain and gives you an offended look.

"What? Would you rather I count to three?" you ask sarcastically, pulling back his coat and lifting up his shirt to place your hands on his wound. Blood sticks to your fingers, staining the sleeves of your shirt.

"The last time you did that, you took the arrow out of me before you could count to two." he grumbles as you begin to heal him, the wound tingling unpleasantly as it closes up.

"I don't remember you complaining when I let you eat my chocolate cookies later. At least I wasn't the first to get hurt; you should be proud of me as my mentor." you don't miss the general's quiet chuckle behind you as you taunt with your friend.

"Come on, veteran." he pats Fedyor on his health shoulder. "Let's get back to camp before they send a whole search party after us, shall we?" he asks, his dark irises trained on you, watching as you let go of Fedyor's arm, which is fully healed now.

The general extends his hand towards you and helps you up. He doesn't shy away from grabbing your bloody hand; he holds it even tighter, making sure it doesn't slip away from his grip. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Fedyor give you a significant look. You roll your eyes at him.

"Here." the general says, and he hands you his black handkerchief to wipe the blood from you. But before you can take it from him, he catches your hands in his and wipes the red liquid from your hands himself. "Allow me." he whispers, looking into your eyes. Blushing, you realise that Fedyor is long gone from sight, leaving the two of you alone once again.

"Thank you." you clear your throat, feeling his fingers gently wipe the blood from your hands. And you feel ashamed, admitting to yourself that this simple touch makes you shiver.

"You should change that shirt when we come back."

You look at your shirt and see that it's stained with Fedyor's blood. You wrinkled your nose, knowing this was your last shirt. You will have to stay in it until you reach a village where you can buy a new one.

"I'll be fine," you say, trying to change the subject. You don't want to seem even weaker than you already are in his eyes.

The general frowns but says nothing more as you return to camp. And if he thought you didn't notice that he was still holding your hand and keeping you close to him as he walked lightly in front of you, he was sorely mistaken. You were glad that no one was around to hear your heartbeat and that his fingers avoided the place on your wrist where he could feel your racing pulse.

If anyone else notices that there is blood on your shirt, they don't comment on it. You go through your evening chores, and finally, after hours of driving and being on your feet, you lie down.

You put your small travel bag under your head and are about to go to sleep when suddenly you hear the rustle of fabric falling next to you.

You open your eyes and stare in surprise at the black shirt that is clearly an intruder. A shiver runs through you as you feel someone's burning gaze on you. You look up and see the general sitting a few steps away from you, watching you carefully.

If the delicate, skin-friendly material or colour of the clothes didn't give you a clue as to who they might belong to, then the look in those hypnotising dark eyes that didn't leave you until you took the clothes in your hands was an eloquent suggestion of the shirt's owner.

And after the intoxicating smell that engulfed you as you changed in a secluded place, you were even more overwhelmed by this unexpected gesture, knowing full well that you shouldn't recognise his scent that easily. Or wanting it to stay with you for a long time.

You walk back to camp and ignore the smirk Fedyor gives you as he stands guard by the fire. You lie down in your place and pull the blanket tighter over you, wrapped in a cocoon, with the general's scent wafting around you.

You shiver, feeling the chill of the night despite it. You roll the oversized sleeves of the Kirigan's shirt around your hands, limiting the air from reaching your skin. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the others move closer to each other, taking advantage of the warmth of each other's bodies.

You sigh, realising that it will be a few hours before you can do the same to Fedyor once he stands off his watch. Now you had to endure the cold that was starting to sting your cheeks and slowly seep into your uncovered skin.

You roll from side to side a few times, trying to find the best position to limit your heat loss, until you are stopped by strong arms that suddenly wrap around your stomach and press you against the hard and warm wall. You blush as you realise from the pounding heartbeat behind you that you're pressing against SOMEONE'S chest.

"It's a cold night." he whispers, his warm breath on the back of your neck making you shiver. "Do you mind, milaya?"

You shake your head slowly. You knew that right now you would do anything what he would ask of you. And you were both terrified and excited about that damn exhilarating closeness with him as he was sharing his warmth with you.

"Thank you, general." you whisper into the night, afraid to turn and look at his face lit only by the flames of the fire and the light of the stars, because you know that if you did, you would be lost for good.

You close your eyes, trying to protect yourself a little from your obvious feelings for him—the man you will never truly have.

"Call me Aleksander." he whispers in your ear, making you shiver. He takes this as a sign that you're cold and ends up pressing you closer to him, so that you feel every inch of his body touching you.

He could have anyone. And you knew both yourself and his habits too well to pull the wool over your eyes that you could ever be someone more to him... but that didn't mean you didn't enjoy this momentary attention he was giving you.

You relax and lean into him more as he buries his nose in your hair and falls asleep. His rhythmic heartbeat and breathing, his scent that immediately makes you feel safe and protected, and the warmth that floats around the two of you curled up against each other, lull you to sleep.

After all, it was a cold night. And General, contrary to all the rumours you've heard, turned out to be very warm... at least when he held you protectively close to his chest.

Fedyor watches the two of you with a mischievous smirk, knowing full well that he'll be teasing you with this the next day. He already knew what he would write to Genya and Ivan in his next letters.

Your informant did a good job. He perfectly determined the location of the hidden cellar in the Fjerdans' forest, where their soldiers' base was.

It took you several days to prepare. You were supposed to break in, steal the necessary plans and reports, and get out of there before anyone noticed you. Of course, everything went to hell as fast as it was possible.

At one point, you scattered, each trying to find a way out on your own, when one of the soldiers detected Inferni, who was with you and was using his powers to warm himself up.

You didn't know what happened to him in the end. Or with Aleksander, the rest of the group.

You ran forward, towards the exit you remembered, avoiding all heartbeats along the way.

You're walking down corridor after corridor, corner after corner, when suddenly someone grabs your elbow and pulls you towards him, keeping a hand over your mouth to block out any sound from you. You struggle for a moment until you hear a quiet whisper that haunts you both at night and in your dreams:

"It's me, milaya." you freeze in place at the sound of his soothing whisper in your ear. You turn around, wanting to make sure your mind isn't playing any tricks on you, and sigh in relief when you see Aleksander's concerned face in front of you.

"Where's the rest?" you ask, swallowing, trying to calm yourself down and maintain an appearance of composure in front of him. Even though your heart was now beating like crazy with fear.

"Fedyor and Zoya are outside. I'm not sure about the others." he says, taking your elbow and pushing you to the side of the hall so that you're more shielded from anyone's view. You frown, processing his words while he looks around to see if you can leave your hiding place and continue on your way to the exit.

"You came back for me?" you ask, trying to catch his gaze to read something in his impenetrable eyes.

You see the gears stop in his head, all thoughts of your escape and safety being forgotten as he stares at you, speechless.

You've never seen him like this. No words, no wise comment or answer. He just stood there and stared at you. A blush slowly took over his cheeks, and after hearing his heartbeat quicken, you had never been happier that he had technically forced you to qualify as a heartrender.

"Aleksander?" you whisper questioningly, waiting for any word from him that will either confirm your suspicions and make your wildest dreams come true or make him break your heart more than the most powerful heartrender could ever do.

You hold your breath when, after a moment of internal struggle that is going on inside him for some reason, he takes a step towards you and confidently cups your cheek with his hand.

"Y/N... I... For a very long time... I haven't met someone like you. I've never wanted to meet again. I've lost so many... But you... you make me question everything I promised myself a long time ago."

You see pain and longing in his eyes. You have no idea what he's been through or why he feels the way he does now, but you are sure of one thing. And you are ready to promise him this one thing, regardless of any consequences.

"You won't lose me." you whisper, looking into his teary eyes. He leans forward and rests his forehead against yours, closing his eyes and inhaling your scent. You shiver as your noses touch, brushing gently.

You open your eyes only to see Fjerdan behind him, pointing a gun at you two. You are both without your keftas, but you know that the Fjerdans know how the Darkling looks like and can recognise him.

You act automatically. You push Aleksander away and link your arms, stopping the man's heart in front of you before he can even put his finger on the trigger of his gun. The body falls to the ground with a thud, and a deafening, terrifying silence reigns in the corridor. The smell of blood irritates your nostrils.

You lower your hands shakily, only to realise that you've done more than stop his heart. The weight of the organ that ripped from Fjerdan's chest and flew straight into your hand weighs on you more than your growing guilt. Your heart falls out of your hands and onto the floor, and you still feel the blood staining your fingers.

You killed someone. You actually killed someone...

The cold permeates your body. You shiver uncontrollably as tears fill your eyes, and you stare at the dead body in shock until Aleksander stands in front of you. He cups your cheeks and pulls you closer to him, making you rest your head on his chest.

"Shhh... It's fine, milaya. We are safe, you saved us both." he whispers into your ear, hugging you even tighter as he presses you against his chest with one arm, and his other hand strokes your hair to calm you down.

"I… killed… I…" you can't stand it. You fall apart completely in his warm embrace, his coat perfectly soaking up both the blood you shed for him and the tears flowing from your eyes that you simply can't stop anymore.

The realisation comes to him with a delay, and you feel him freeze when he hears your words. He is wise. You know that he realises that this was your first... and that you never wanted to do this, and that this was what you feared most when going on this mission with them.

If possible, you sob and tremble even more, aware that soon his soothing embrace will disappear, that he will throw you out of his inner circle, and that you can start preparing to be sent out across the fold and to West Ravka since you have proven to be so useless to him.

But, much to your surprise, he didn't pull away. He didn't make any malicious remarks, and he didn't threaten to throw you out of the Second Army, as he often did in the worst-case scenarios your head could imagine.

Instead, he pulls you as close to him as possible and places a tender kiss on your forehead. You tremble as his hands cup your cheeks and gently brush away your tears before he presses his soft lips there.

"Shhh… I have you, lapushka." he whispers while kissing off your tears. "You did a good thing. He didn't deserve to live, moya milaya. He would have hurt us if you hadn't reacted first. And I gave you my word; this is the last time you have to do something like this." he says, pressing his lips to your tample in a promise.

He tangles his hand in your hair and presses your head against his shoulder. You bury your head between his neck and shoulder as he holds you tightly against him and strokes your back while cradling you.

You cry into him until you run out of tears. He is with you until the very end, silently comforting you with a warm hug and a gentle touch of his lips on various parts of your face.

He places one last kiss on your forehead and cups your cheek in his hand, lovingly wiping the tears from your cheek with his thumb. You instinctively lean into his touch and stand as if hypnotised, staring into his dark irises that look at you with so much affection and care like no one has ever done before.

You don't know who leans in first, you or him, or who is the one who kissed the other first. All you can feel, all you can think about, and all your world is limited to now is him and his soft lips caressing yours as gently as if you were the most fragile thing in the world. As if he was afraid that in any moment you would disappear.

At some point, his kisses became more intense. He tangles his hand in your hair and pins you to the wall, his hand making sure you don't hit your head against the stone wall as he doesn't let your lips leave his for the slightest moment.

He breaks the kiss and pulls away to look at you. You feel your cheeks turn bright red and your lips swollen from his kiss. You clear your throat and shyly look away from him as he watches you intensively.

"We… we should go… the rest are probably waiting for us…" you stutter. He lets out a soft laugh and leans in to steal another quick kiss from you.

"As you wish, milaya. This way." he says, and he grabs your hand, pulling you close to him. His shadows surround the two of you as he wraps his arm protectively around your waist and leads you outside.

When you walk with him with your hands together, you feel complete. Calm. And glancing at your general as he removes any Fjerdans from your path and surrounds the two of you in a protective shield of his shadows, you know that if you went back in time, you would do everything exactly the same.

You wouldn't change anything if it meant you would ultimately end up in the arms of the Dark General. He was worth evereything... maybe even losing your innocence too. Though something told you that he liked taking care of his little corporalki.

[aleksanderscult]

What do you think would have happened if he crossed paths with another shadow summoner before Alina came along?

I think that in the beginning he would be very wary around him/her. Also, full of questions. And that's because in order for that person to have shadow summoning powers then he/she must be related to Ilya Morozova.

Aleksander would suspect they were relatives, possibly siblings. But he would have so many questions and he would ask him/her many things.

If they were relatives then hooray! He would be happy 'cause he has someone like him! No more loneliness, no more feeling seclusive from the world etc.etc.

But! I don't know what he would do with him/her. To the world he was presented as the only Darkling. The other "Darklings" were his "ancestors" and he never put two shadow summoners on the spotlight (since no one knew that Baghra was a shadow summoner or that she was his mother). So would he hide him/her? Not allow to use his/her powers? I think that he wouldn't hide him/her but he wouldn't allow to use her powers in front of others. The way he presented himself to other people was important for him. The realization that two shadow summoners exist at the same time would cause an upheaval and confusion among the Grisha and even to the royal family. The royals would probably think that two shadow summoners are too much power for the Grisha to have as leading figures. So yeah, the probability of threat against his people would make Aleksander hide his/her powers from the world.

But he would still need a Sun Summoner for his own purposes. That wouldn't change.

[nya-in-the-multiverse]

DRs guide

(just wanna say that I did not shift yet, that’s why I’m specifying to what point of the media I’m shifting to)

the originals

name: Nya Mikaelson

age: 1030 if i got my math right

relatives: Kol Mikaelson (twin brother)

rest of the Mikaelson bloodline..

species: original vampire

shifting to: the originals s1ep9

mcu

name: Nya Stark

age: 18

relatives: Tony Stark (uncle)

powers: none

shifting to: 2016

different timeline: Peter already joined the Avengers and is 18, Steve brought Bucky as well. Civil War storyline did not happen.

stranger things

name: Nya Lehnsherr

age: 18

relatives: Erik Lehnsherr (father)

El Hopper (sister, not blood related)

powers: metal bending

shifting to: pre s3ep1

the s3 storyline goes all trough summer

fame dr

name: Nya MyCrLastName (which i will not be saying on here)

age: 23

occupation: actress

shifting to: 2017

my most known roles so far:

Vanessa Stark (mcu, my dr self basically)

Candace Carver (monster high book series adaptation by netflix)

Cinderella (live action disney adaptation)

grishaverse

name: Valerya Morozova

age: 400+ ?? a lot

relatives: Aleksander Morozova (brother)

Baghra Morozova (mother)

Ulla Morozova (sister)

grisha order: shadow summoner

shifting to: week or two before first trilogy storyline starts

the only reason why i’m changing my name in this one is because i plan to date Genya and our names would sound way too similar to my liking

[black-rose-writings]

https://at.tumblr.com/black-rose-writings/what-is-darkling-capable-of-like-what-are-all-his/8eil9ewg4eue

Thank you for answering my question! I was also wondering what type of grisha are there? And what powers and abilites do grisha have?

I have only seen the show and I'd like to know more about grisha and their abilities!

So, firstly, there are three "Orders" of Grisha

Etherialki (aka Summoners) - control "liquid" elements. Powerful etherialki can create the Cut (impossibly thin and powerful "blade" made out of their element which can cut through basically everything with ease).

Materialki (aka Fabricators) - control solid materials, including plants

Corporalki - control living matter

Then, each other separates into different types. It should be noted that the types are not completely exclusive and it is possible for a Grisha to learn the abilities of a different type or order. It is however done relatively rarely in modern times.

Etherialky sub-types:

Tidemakers - control water in all states (liquid, vapor, ice)

Squallers - control the air - they can manipulate air pressure, create wind and control temperature around them (Squallers are known to work as living air conditioners in Kerch). With some skill, they are also able to create lightning, though this ability is rarely taught in the Second army as it is considered too volatile and hard to control once created. Powerful Squallers (or groups of them) might also be able to manipulate weather for the reasons mentioned above. They might also be able to teach themselves how to levitate. Anything beyond wind and temperature manipulation is considered advanced and only very powerful and skilled Grisha will be able to do it safely (meaning with a reasonable elvel of control)

Inferni - control fire. Or, more specifically, flamable gases. They still need something to ignite those gases, so many Inferni in the book carry around a lighter (or whatever it's called) and in teh show, they appear to have special gloves that give can create sparks with certain movement, allowing them to create fire more quickly (the gloves might also provide a level of insulation from fire, as I think we don't know for sure how fire resistance Inferni actually are).

These are fairly common. But there are also two "special" types of Etherialki.

Shadow Summoners - they control shadows. There has only ever been two known Shadow Summoners, Baghra and Aleksander. Baghra is the daughter of Ilya Morozova (cringe) and it is possible her powers are the result of his meddling with Merzost. Shadow Summoners are extremely powerful and do not appear to age significantly once they reach maturity (in the books), as Aleksander is described as looking to be maybe 20-something and while Baghra trips everyone's "ancient" alarm, she physically looks to be maybe in her 30s. (more on Grisha aging at the end)

Sun Summoner(s) - control light. There has only ever been one known born Sun Summoner (Alina). It is up for debate whether the Sun Summoners created at the end of R&R are real Sun Summoners. Sun summoners are able to conjure beams of light and bend it to make themselves or things around them invisible.

Types of Materialki

Firstly, Materialki types are more akin to specialisation than hard(ish) division like for Etherialki. There is a huge overlap between the two types. But in short:

Alchemi are magical chemists. They manipulate matter on molecular level. In practice, they make things like explosives, salves and drugs. They can also do thing like removing poison from water.

Durasts primarily work with solid material - bones, wood, stone, metal, glass etc. They are effectively telekinetics. They can also change shape of those things and mold them together. Skilled and powerful Materialki can also affect elements on a subatomic level, changing one element into another (though without further help, such as parem, the resulting material will be radioactive).

They can also leech color from things (such as plants), force plants to grow/flowers to bloom.

Types of Corporalki

Again, Corporalki types are specialisations. In fact, we are told that there is a great degree of choice in which path a given Grisha takes and there's a great overlap between what they do (A Healer can do basic Heartrending and Heartrender can do basic Healing.)

Healers are exactly what it says on the tin. They can heal people - speed up healing of skin and flesh, fix broken bones etc. Resulting scarring, residual pain and speed of the healing appaears to be based on the Healer's power and experience.

Heartrenders, on the other hand, manipulate the body in "damaging" ways. They can damage internal organs, cause pain etc. They can also sense heartbeats of the people around them and can manipulate the speed of the heart and blood pressure of themselves and others. Some heartrenders can also learn to manipulate people's emotions by making their brain release certain chemicals (this is Nina's specialisation in the books).

Special Grisha

There are also Grisha, who don't really fit into any of these boxes.

The only one of these types we meet in the books (or show) are Tailors (like Genya), who are between Corporalki and Materialki. In later books, any Corporalnik can learn Tailoring, but their results are going to not be as high quality or last as long.

You might also count "Zowa" as their own separate thing. Generally, "Zowa" is a Zemeni (people from Novyi Zem, Grishaverse's black ethnicity) term for Grisha, however, as they learn and teach their powers differently from "mainland" Grisha, they do and up not being as closely confined to their orders/types.

(Spoiler) Jesper's mother, who taught him how to use his powers, is mentioned having abilities, that might reach into healing or water manipulation, despite being classified as a Durast. I have an old post, where I go deeper into the Grisha/Zowa thing.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just what I can come up with from memory.

[ullaofthewaves]

ULLA MOROZOVA [MOBILE BIO]

canon-divergent, headcanon-based. est. march 2022

FULL NAME: ULLA MOROZOVA NICKNAMES/ALIASES: URSULA, SENJE ULLA OF THE WAVES, SEA WITCH, SORCERESS, THE TEMPEST, THE DREAMWEAVER, THE FORSAKEN ONE, QUEEN OF THE FORSAKEN PRONOUNS: SHE/THEY AGE: A LITTLE YOUNGER THAN ALEKSANDER MOROZOVA EYE COLOR: SILVERY BLUE EYES / DARK BROWN WHILE POSING AS A HUMAN HAIR COLOR: DARK HAIR WITH SILVER HIGHLIGHTS UNDER THE MOONLIGHT SPECIES: SILDROHER/HUMAN ABILITIES: SONGCASTER & GRISHA SHADOW SUMMONER RELATIVES: BAGHRA (BIOLOGICAL MOTHER) / ALEKSANDER MOROZOVA (SIBLING) / DECEASED UNNAMED SILDROHER FATHER / DECEASED UNNAMED ADOPTIVE SILDROHER MOTHER PARTNERS:  SIGNY AND ROFFE PLACE OF RESIDENCE: ICE CAVES OF THE NORTHERN ISLAND OF FJERDA 

They told you the story wrong. Roffe, Signy and I weren’t friends, like they say in those books. And we were not poor commoners manipulated by a pretty prince either. We were inseparable. The three of us. I loved them. Enough to kill for them. Enough to take a human life and breathe the eternal flame into existence so they could have their fairytale, so he could be king and she could be his queen. And I—— well, at the time,  it didn’t seem to matter who I would be in the end. I didn’t care for power nor for the crown. I cared about music, knowledge, adventures and them. They were the constant. No matter how I would wander, they remained my anchor. Everything else would fade eventually. But their love—their love would last, or so I thought. 

They’d swore they’d love me through it all and I believed them. But when another power burst out of me, when the truth of my true heritage came out of the shadows (literally), I saw nothing but fear in their eyes. And when I foolishly thought they’d come around, that they’d accepted who I was, that their love was truly unconditional like they had said, they left me for dead on land. Once I recovered from the wounds they’d inflicted me, I summoned the most violent storm ever known to this world and shattered their pretty little kingdom to pieces like they’d shattered my trust, my heart. I built my own palace in caves of ice and welcomed poor unfortunate souls into my embrace, making all their dreams come true as long as they were willing to pay the due cost of my benevolence.    

[starsspin-a]

b.aghra hitting a.lina with her cane { mutuals may reblog; personals do not touch }

[qqueenofhades]

Whew!

Darklina + academia AU? (Professors, students, whatever dynamic you find most interesting)

Alina Starkov has always loved maps.

There’s just something about them: the deeply human struggle to understand the world, to sketch it out, to imagine fantastic beasts and lands and people on the margins, here be dragons. It’s half illusion and half reality, a guidebook both to what lies out there and what is dreamed of. She is fascinated by the relative accuracy of maps drawn long before satellites and space photographs – that, say, the sixteenth-century Europa recens descripta à Guileilmo Blaeuw does look pretty much like the modern continent. Well, mostly. She wrote her undergraduate senior thesis on the fictional island of Frisland, long believed to exist in the North Atlantic Ocean just south of Iceland, and its role in premodern cartographic and geographic imagination. Rereading it now gives her a twitch, as it always does with academics trying to revisit their past work, but it’s not all bad. It won her a prize and it impressed Professor Baghra Morozova, the fearsome head of the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University, Vienna. (Best method to survive her class: Pray.) And it’s why Alina, still feeling very, very much like a terrible fraud – though she’s been assured this is likewise common to academics, so yay? – is working late in the main library on Quellenstraße, stifling yawns. She has a supervision meeting tomorrow, and if she half-asses this, Baghra will eat her alive.

Alina has been working for a while, pausing only to slug lukewarm coffee from her travel mug and answer texts from her flatmate Genya, when she becomes aware that there’s some other late-night diehard skulking in the stacks. This isn’t uncommon, but this guy doesn’t look like your usual desperate slacker. He’s tall, lean, and elegant, wearing a black shirt and crisp slacks, and – Alina has eyes, sue her – he’s extremely good-looking. Thick dark hair with a bit of a curl, a sharp dark gaze, and although he has his own stack of books, he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to any of them. In fact, he is looking – a little unsettlingly – directly at her.

Oh, hell. Alina hasn’t spoken to him before, but she knows who this is. Aleksander Morozov is an urban legend at CEU, for rather ominous reasons. He is rumored to be in some indeterminate year of his own PhD, but disappears at long stretches for “research trips,” and nobody is any the wiser about what he’s actually doing on them. Noting the similarity of surname, Alina once asked Baghra if they were related, and got a face that looked like someone had died. “Unfortunately,” her supervisor said, lips pursed, “he is my son. But I assure you, his presence on this campus has nothing whatever to do with me.”

Understanding that familial relations were, to say the least, chilly, Alina hasn’t pushed it. She’s also not sure what to make of her professor’s estranged (and disturbingly attractive) offspring sitting here and watching her study, as if he has nothing better to do than haunt first-year PhD students like the Ghost of Bad Decisions Yet To Come. At last, she gets up and marches over. Keeping her voice at librarian-approved levels, she hisses, “Excuse me, can I help you?”

She speaks in English, the lingua franca of CEU, though the Morozovas are political exiles from the Putin regime, like White Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks once upon a time. Alina herself is ancestrally Russian – born in Moscow, adopted by a nice British couple out of an orphanage and raised in suburban Sussex – and as Aleksander Morozov flicks those onyx eyes up at her, she can sense him weighing how to respond. As if he wants to test her, examine her bona fides, and Alina’s Russian is limited to “da,” “privyet,” and “dosvidaniya.” Not that he should know that. Not that he should know anything about her.

“Good evening,” he answers, also in English. His Received Pronunciation is even more posh than hers. “I wasn’t aware that I was disturbing you.”

“You’re – ” Alina wrestles with herself, tells herself not to be rude. It’s not a crime to sit and watch someone study, even in a mildly creepy fashion. “You’ve just been watching me for, like, an hour now.”

“Ah.” He doesn’t apologize or explain why that might be. He sits back in his chair, studying her like a piece of rare porcelain. “My apologies, Miss Starkov.”

Alina glances at him again, despite herself. There’s an undeniable thrill at actually talking to the campus heartthrob, even if the reason for it leaves something to be desired. She should say something else, when she becomes aware that he’s addressed her by name, and she doesn’t remember introducing herself. That doesn’t exactly do anything to convince her that he’s not a stalker. A little uneasily, she says, “How do you know my name?”

“You’re my mother’s student, aren’t you?” He cocks his head. “Alina?”

“I – yes.” That does explain it, although she didn’t realize the two of them were on speaking terms, or that they discussed her. Her name sounds unusual in his mouth, deliberate in a way nobody has spoken it before, and all at once, he gets to his feet. He stands several inches taller than her, and he starts piling his books into his bag, as if to discreetly absent himself now that she’s noticed him. “You don’t – ” she starts. “I didn’t mean to – ”

He looks at her again, sidelong. Then he says, “I should go home and get some sleep. I’m returning to Oxford tomorrow morning anyway.”

“Oxford?”

“I went to school there.” He utters a short, dry laugh. “All the good Russians do. And they live in Londongrad.”

That explains the accent, at least, and he seems to have some other business there, whether it’s another of the “research trips” or a guest lecture or whatever else. (Alina hasn’t seen his CV, but she has a sneaking feeling it’s the kind of thing to make her throw her drafts in the trash and never do anything in academia again.) Despite herself, she’s curious, and even though she has just told him to get lost, kind of, she wants to know. “Will you be back?”

Aleksander Morozov studies her with utter, unblinking intensity, as if he sees past flesh and bone, blood and sinew, to the very core of her, something that even she does not fully comprehend. Then he shrugs, his eyes never leaving her face, until Alina feels a shiver travel down her from head to toe, cold and powerful, twisting in her stomach. “Perhaps I will. Good night, Miss Starkov.”

With that, he nods to her, then turns on his heel, vanishing into the shadows as effortlessly as if he is made from them. No sound, no breath. Simply there one moment, and gone the next. Alina rubs her eyes, but she is alone in the library. Just as she wanted. Wasn’t it?

She can’t help her eyes from searching for him, or rather the vanished impression of him, the flutter of a curtain after someone has left the room. Before she can stop it, she has the thought that he very much is a map of his own, a path that leads into a strange dark land beyond the boundaries of the known world, a dragon or a doorway, a dream of what could be. Maybe something entirely ordinary. Maybe something not.

Alina shivers again, and returns to her carrel. She sits down and pulls the next book toward her, forcing her tired eyes to focus. Just because Aleksander Morozov – Aleksander Morosov – is a map, albeit the strangest one she has ever seen, it does not mean she needs to follow where he leads. She knows damn well the danger.

(And yet, despite herself, she wants to.)

[amiramorozova]

Soulmates? pt. 11

Pairing: Dual Summoner Amira Silina x Vampire Darkling General Kirigan/ Aleksander Morozova

wordcount: 1303

I realized while standing there with Baghra in the forest that she had lived a long life and my grandmother was probably around the same age as her if they had known each other when they were little girls. I wondered what that meant for me, for my father...he would outlive my mother. Grandmother would outlive my grandfather and even then we were here. The thought hurt me more than I cared to imagine it would.

I needed to figure out how to keep them both alive for as long as possible, any friends I would have I knew were only fleeting beings if they were human. The idea that Grisha aged so differently than humans still bothered me. I have attached to the idea of humanity something other Grisha could not understand. We lived such long lives and yet humans were just mortal and full of life. 

"You and my son are two different people, I don't see how he is your soulmate." Baghra said, snapping me out of my thoughts as I knew that was true. I sighed as I started to walk away just wanting to go home, I didn't care at the moment if I felt the tingling signaling that he was close. "Thank you for the training , Baghra." I said as I kept walking.

I don't know how far I went but I kept looking over my shoulder realizing I might have gone the wrong way. I thought I'd turned toward the house but instead, I was getting lost and it was getting dark. Every noise made me jump now cause I didn't know if I was close or not. I started to run faster as I soon bumped into someone looking up meeting his gaze. I was afraid at first but when I saw Aleksander I calmed down.

"Amira, you're out here in the forest. Do you know how dangerous it is?" Aleksander asked

I opened my mouth to say I was training with Baghra and I must have taken the wrong way but nothing came out. He sighed as he picked me up and then before I knew it we were outside my grandmother's house. I realized just how useful his powers were and I was thankful it was him and not someone else. "Be more careful next time." Aleksander said 

I knew that I needed to be careful but as he led me to the door I was quiet. I had a feeling something in the woods was watching me in the shade. Something that might be like him but didn't have the same power to get out in the sun. Grandmother Catalina answered the door and I went over to her as she hugged me. "Baghra said you got emotional and started leaving by the time she went after you she couldn't find you." Grandma Catalina said, then I felt her look behind me. "It's a good thing you were able to find her General, who knows what could have happened." 

"The woods are not safe for any Grisha, especially one with the power of sun. Were one of the vampires outside the fold they would want a taste of the blood that could give them time in the sun." Aleksander said to Grandma. I looked at him knowing he was the only vampire that I knew of outside of the fold that no one knew about except his mother. Maybe all these deaths were not all of him but he was unsure who it was either from the look. "Would you consider joining the 2nd army, Amira?" Aleksander asked 

He can't be serious? If I went there then I would leave everyone here with the sun in danger. I thought 

"No, not unless I don't have a choice." I said as Grandma left us to talk and since he'd already been invited I had no choice but to tolerate him. He stood where I could look at him "You don't get it, do you? Sunlight may harm them but you are a walking target being my soulmate." Aleksander said as I just wanted to refuse. "You're coming to the little palace where you can stay safe. You put the other sun summoners at risk if you keep staying and it won't be long that those who dislike me that are like this will kill all you care about till you're the last one standing." 

I was shocked hearing that but that made me reconsider a lot more than I was already going on. I needed to protect them but I didn't want to leave either because it felt like I was going to give up my freedom. "Fjerdans are hunting Grisha, you draw quite a lot of attention." Aleksander said as I sighed a bit. I'd heard of Fjerdan hunters looking for Grisha but then I heard someone walk-in "She's not going alone." Aidan said 

We both looked over at my brother knowing he was just a squaller but that was where his powers differed from mine. Adrian walked in as he was visiting with aunt Analise. "We want to protect her too but we can't do that if she leaves." Adrian said. I backed away as I remembered the fete and what happened. "No, I'll just go to another town and make due. I don't need your help or the little palace." I said 

"Amira, please. Your safety is important and the little palace is the best place.." Aleksander said as he reached for my wrist but I backed away. I knew what the shadow summoners were, living amplifiers and I didn't need that right now. "You saved me and for that I am grateful but no." I said

Looking at me I had never seen someone so annoyed by the fact I could refuse, I would lead and defend this family. I would face the Fjerdans and protect this house if I had to, they wouldn't be coming after this family. "You cannot do this alone." Aleksander said as Adian and Adrian got on each side of me. "She's not alone, she has us to help her." They said 

Aleksander was not threatened by my blood relatives but what he didn't like was the fact I was still holding strong to refuse to go to the little palace. We were not going to be dealing with the little palace. We were not his Grisha, we belonged to ourselves but he grabbed my hand pulling me to him. "I cannot lose you after finding you, I've waited so long for you and now you're within reach and yet you refuse." Aleksander said, "I built the little palace so people, our people could be safe and here you want to stay like this."

"Coming from someone who never changes his life and leads every time. I don't need your pity." I said with a slight glare as I was ok with being alone if that was how it had to be. "There is another party coming around, the annual masquerade party. Say you'll come and let me have a dance with you." Aleksander said as I knew he was not going to give up on having his soulmate and for now, I could humor him. "Fine, I will go." I said 

"Excellent, I'll be sending your dress for the event and then we can discuss more on your time." Aleksander said as noticed it was dark and kissed the top of my hand. "Good Night Amira, please get some sleep." I felt my heart twitch and knew we'd shared a kiss but that wasn't what bothered me. I was holding strong as I knew it was best this way. "Good night, have a safe trip back." I said as he left and I went to take a bath before heading to bed. 

Taglist: @lifeisingrey

[youlooklikebadnews]

Ik this isn't something Taylor related but I just saw Shadow and Bone on Netflix (It's an amazing show guys! Highly recommended!) And I have a major question! Why do people not like The Darkling/Aleksander/General Kirigan? (Lol yeah guys got a lot of names) And this is not me being a Darkling apologist just because he is played by an extremely hot dude (Have had a huge crush on Ben Barnes since he played Prince Caspian)

Episode 6 when Baghra explained to Alina how the Darkling only wanted to use her to expand the fold so that he could rule over the entire Ravka, I was like fuck you Broody McBroodster and I was totally onboard for Alina to runaway with the Crows or maybe endup finding Mal. So I was really happy when she was finally with Mal and relatively safe. So yeah during Episode 6 I was full on riding on the "Fuck you Darkling for playing with baby Alina's feelings" train.

But the flashback in Episode 7 just broke my heart. Aleksander didn't want to yield the power like Morozova from the start. He only did it because his poeple were in danger. He legit won a war for the king and instead of appreciating him that chucklefuck was like "nope, you have become way too powerful, time to lock you up and murder your whole kind." Like bishhhh whaaaa 🤡👀🤨.

The king's soldier had already killed Luda. At the sanctuary they had surrounded them, so if Aleksander hadn't done anything they would all have been killed. Ik accidentally creating the fold wasn't the most logical way to go but did he have any option? Even if he had surrendered himself, the army would have killed the rest of the Grisha and his mother. He had already lost the (potential?) love of his life and now he was about to loose his poeple as well. He did not have a choice.

And after the flashback I can now totally understand why he must want to rule over the entire Ravka with the help of Alina. People for centuries have been vilifying the Grisha. They were makers and healers. But it was the king and the general publics unjustified bigotry at them that angered them. That angered him. And tbh if someoned killed the person I love and then threatened my entire kind, I would also go all Bellatrix Lestrange on their ass.

[cactusfinch]

Alina in Rule of Wolves: The Ret-cons keep coming and they don't stop coming.

In the final confrontation in Ruin and Rising, Alina takes the third of Morozova's amplifiers and immediately loses her ability to Summon.

"'We need more light,' he said.

A choked laugh escaped me. I held up my hands, pleading with the light and with any Saint who had ever lived. It was no good. The gesture felt false. It was a pantomime. There was nothing there.

'I don’t understand,' I cried as I pressed my wet cheek to Mal’s. His skin was already cooling.

Baghra had warned me: You may not be able to survive the sacrifice that merzost requires. But what was the point of this sacrifice? Had we lived only to be a lesson in the price of greed? Was that the truth of Morozova’s madness, some kind of cruel equation that took all our love and loss and added them up to nothing?"

At first she thinks this is a consequence of merzost, or that Morozova's goal was to punish overly greedy Grisha from beyond the grave. But just a few pages later, once the Soldat Sol start showing themselves to be Sun Summoners now, Alina thinks this:

The Darkling’s words came back to me, spoken on a ship that sailed the icy waters of the Bone Road. Morozova was a strange man. He was a bit like you, drawn to the ordinary and the weak.

He’d had an otkazat’sya wife.

He’d nearly lost an otkazat’sya child.

He’d thought himself alone in the world, alone in his power.

Now I understood. I saw what he had done. This was the gift of the three amplifiers: power multiplied a thousand times, but not in one person. How many new Summoners had just been created? How far had Morozova’s power reached?

This is a huge realization for her, and it lines Alina up with saints again. She is like Sankt Ilya instead of like the Darkling. She reunited the amplifiers and used them for their purpose; taking the great power of one individual and dividing it among many. (My pet theory that Morozova already underwent this process once, hence why he was a Grisha with immense ability in multiple orders, but now the Grisha are relatively weaker and only able (for the most part) to use one, also explains why Baghra and Aleksander, ancient Grisha who never did this, are so much more powerful than everyone else).

Anyway, super important revelation for Alina, the Morozovas, Grisha-relations, and the books in general. Almost a satisfying reason for her to lose her powers, and has interesting implications for Grisha integration into society and the long time separation of those who can practice the Small Science from those who can't.

Which is why this Alina quote from Rule of Wolves hits like a sucker punch:

“I didn’t sacrifice my power. It was taken from me because I fell prey to the same greed that drove you. I paid the price for tampering with merzost. Just as you once did.”

Okay, so we're throwing away your Big Realization from the end of your trilogy...why? Like, even from a she's-lying-to-hurt-him stance it doesn't make sense.

One: The Darkling used merzost over and over with little to no consequences and has no regrets about it. Like, I guess we can say that his use of merzost led to Alina's which led to her stealing a bit of his power which led to her being able to stab him with the shadow knife. I guess. But for the most part, he doesn't face consequences for the magic. Alina thinks he's a bit thinner in Siege and Storm, but he is fighting a civil war so he has some other reasons for skipping meals.

Two: He would have been 100% more hurt if she said she willingly gave up her power (the thing that connected them) as opposed to having it taken from her unwillingly. She could have twisted that knife deep in here.

Three: If she didn't want to go that route (because lying is morally wrong or whatever) she could have just told him the truth. Morozova's amplifiers were meant to do that. His grandfather helped cause his downfall and Alina was able to steal his family (Baghra, Ilya, and even Mal) from him because he was such a sucky person. I think that'd be more destabilizing to him than Alina's merzost-is-bad (which we know the Darkling doesn't care about) comeback.

Basically, this just acted as another example of Alina (and the narrative) retconning her/itself. And considering this was such an important reveal (like Darth Vader is Luke's father, Harry Potter is a horcrux, level stuff) in the text it makes no sense why it was just swept under the rug and then actively denied later. Was there another draft that LB wrote where the loss of power was actually a punishment for merzost?? Did her editor make her change that and her revenge is just ignoring that in later books? Make it make sense!!

I really hope that if LB ever writes another book in this universe (or starts another long series) that they employ some sort of continuity editor for her. Because this is just painful.

[degenderates]

Aleksander Unsatisfied, passionate, brooding Relative of Baghra Morozova, Ilya Morozova, Malyen Oretsev Lover of Alina Starkov Who feels hate, love, darkness Who needs shadow, balance, power Who fears being alone Who gives surety Who takes freedom Hails from Ravka Morozova

[starsspin-a]

I would burn a thousand villages and kill a thousand people to keep you safe.

endless edits of baghra.morozova ft: aleksander { @aleksling }

[ao3feed-grishaverse]

The Lost Descendant of Ilya Morozova

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3vWuSVX

by wesper_supremacy

Some say she is a Saint. Others say she is a myth.

It is said in an old child's story that Ilya Morozova had a second otkazat'sya daughter. Her name was Natalya.

In the same story, it was illustrated that she had an otkazat'sya daughter named Serafina.

However, it's common knowledge that fairytales lie. Especially when the person who wrote it doesn't want to be found.

Nonetheless, everything is found eventually. Because after all: like calls to like.

---

Credit to Leigh Bardugo because I own none of the characters, except Serafina Morozova and Natalya Morozova.

Words: 60, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, M/M

Characters: Inej Ghafa, Kaz Brekker, Jesper Fahey, Matthias Helvar, Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Original Female Character(s), The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova, Ilya Morozova, Alina Starkov, Baghra (The Grisha Trilogy), Mal Oretsev, Ulla (When Water Sang Fire)

Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Original Female Character(s), Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik

Additional Tags: The Little Palace (The Grisha Trilogy), Ketterdam (Grishaverse), Ravka (Grishaverse), Shu Han (Grishaverse), Fjerda (Grishaverse), Ice Court (Grishaverse), shadow summoner, Amplifiers (The Grisha Trilogy), Fanfiction, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Long Lost/Secret Relatives

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3vWuSVX