#Matthias interjects a la Princess Bride

[fericita-s]

The Princess and the Barbarian

“It’s a tale not unlike ours - one of countries at war and a brave Fjerdan warrior who wanted to save his country from darkness.  Of a Ravkan woman who was far from her home but determined to return.”

“Hmmmm,” Matthias murmured and Nina saw the corner of his mouth turn up into a smile.  She dropped her voice to a whisper and ran a thumb across his lips.

“It’s the story of The Princess and the Barbarian.”

As Matthias recovers from a gunshot wound, Nina tells him the story of the Princess and the Barbarian. He interrupts a lot as his Fjerdan sensibilities are bothered and the Ravkan propaganda gets to be unbearable.

Rated T for now, some later chapters will be rated E for sexy cave times. Told over the course of 15 chapters, 10K words total, will be posting daily. Chapter one below the cut.

Thank you @theburnbarreljester​ for your fantastic ideas and suggestions that gave this story shape and for your timeless and wise counsel that canon is just a suggestion, that everyone, not just the Grisha at the Little Palace, wants to read about a barbarian stealing away a princess, and that the guiding aesthetic of this piece should be "Wow, look at his abs glistening in the moonlight."

Chapter 1

It was maddening. 

They were finally free after weeks of living in a damp cemetery, months on a perilous mission that crossed a sea and a hostile nation and brought Nina to the edge of sanity and control, a year with Matthias in the worst prison and her staggering under the weight of knowing her words put him there.  They’d had daily brushes with death and the dead and his own blood had soaked both of their hands, the life bleeding out of him before she drew out the death. 

They were together.  Alive.

Able to trust and love each other in the splendor of the Hendricks Mansion with servants eager to demonstrate their allegiance to their young master and his curious band of friends.   

And they couldn't enjoy it.

Wylan brought his mother to the city and Jesper escorted his father out.  Inej and Kaz disappeared and reappeared without speaking to each other, though Inej always spoke with Nina, bringing news of the Druskelle ship stuck in port and a warm blini or two from Little Ravka. The city remained frozen in place, the barges lined up like an armada ready to carry away the dead who succumbed to the Queen’s Lady Plague. And Nina kept watch in an overstuffed armchair two feet from the bed where Matthias slept day and night, his groans waking her from any fitful sleep she found.  

Nina knew that none in the city had firepox, but death still lurked too close to Matthias.  She’d drawn the death out of him but there had been no healer to repair what remained.  They’d carried him to a guest room with large windows that cast beautiful light during the day and accorded a gentle breeze at night when his fever reached its nightly peak. The laundry maid came to fetch his soaked sheets every morning and the housemaid put the fresh ones on while Nina and the steward rolled Matthias to one side and then the other. The steward had a bed brought in for Nina on the second day.  The cook brought up broths and ales that Nina fed Matthias gently, wiping at his mouth as he swallowed and breathed in fitful bursts, eyes not open, his scent and his manner not his own.

She wanted them to be feeding each other waffles in bed, to be sketching out plans for the horrid Fjerdan costumes she would wear for their missions, to be discovering more about his body than if it was hot to the touch.  She wanted to be studying his face and the way his eyes changed as he caught on to her jests, not examining the edges of his puckered and swollen wound, anxious as she compared them to her memory of how it looked yesterday.  She wanted to be exploring the gardens with him, finding hidden alcoves and just what kind of sound he would make if she kissed him in the spot behind his ear that turned red just before a blush bloomed on his cheeks.

Instead she never left the room, wanting to stay with Matthias as much as she wanted to avoid seeing the gaping hole in Jan’s study, too close to the shape of the gaping hole in Matthias’s middle that seeped red.  

A few months ago she would have been able to effortlessly bind it together with her powers.

It was maddening. 

She paced and rearranged his pillows and accidentally summoned dead tulips from the neglected terrace.  She read and reread the novels Inej brought her from Little Ravka, her native tongue a balm.  She yelled at Kaz and then watched, glowering, as Kaz brought a terrified looking medik into the room.  He administered a draught of something that smelled horrible and looked worse and then covered the wound in a thick paste.  She spared him her singing, but whispered stories and promises, fussed with his hair, alternated a cool washcloth from his neck to his forehead, ran her hand along his arms before entwining her fingers with his.

His fever broke on the tenth night. 

When he woke, sweaty and pale, he reached for her and Nina clasped his hand so tightly he winced. 

“Little red bird.  You didn’t go.”  

“No Matthias, I’m here with you.  I’ll stay here with you.”

He ran a hand over his face and then let it fall limply to his side.  Nina dipped the washcloth in the bedside basin and traced the path his hand had made. “Keep resting.”

“Tell me something.”

“Anything.  Everything.  What do you want to know?”

“Just talk to me.  So I can hear your voice.  So I know you’re here.”

He closed his eyes and Nina thought about the stories they had told each other in the Ketterdam-bound ship, her body weak from parem.  The stories they had told each other at night in the whaling huts and winter encampments that helped them survive the ice.  The ones she had been telling him for the past ten days, stories of what they would do when he was recovered.  Her eyes settled on the pile of books Inej had deposited by her bed and Nina smiled.

“I know just the story to bring you rights.  It’s a tale not unlike ours - one of countries at war and a brave Fjerdan warrior who wanted to save his country from darkness.  Of a Ravkan woman who was far from her home but determined to return.”

“Hmmmm,” Matthias murmured and Nina saw the corner of his mouth turn up into a smile.  She dropped her voice to a whisper and ran a thumb across his lips.

“It’s the story of The Princess and the Barbarian.”