#and if he does come back on god Nahri needs to STAND UP

[fulltimeviking]

was i meant to be hopeful when it was hinted that dara might still be alive at the end of city of brass. say swear rn

[astarisms]

five stages

pairing: implied dara/nahri word count: 1624 warnings: character death, self harm summary: she puts on a brave face, but alone, she’s still grieving. post CoB, pre KoC. happy (belated) birthday @chasing-djinnis!

His absence is a physical, tangible thing.

In those first few days after his death, her grief consumes her. The space he occupied is stripped of his presence and refilled with his absence, suffocating and cold, oppressive in its weight. 

It presses on her lungs, it steals into her heart, it spreads through her veins until she feels nothing but the anguish of his death and the fierce denial that it is permanent. She feels not her hunger, nor her exhaustion, nor the sharp pain of the wood shard cutting into her skin over and over and over again. 

She knows nothing but that he is gone, and she is alone.

She knows she will bring him back, because the alternative is too awful to bear. 

I take it back, she thinks, her lips forming the words but unable to make the sounds, her hands trembling as she presses the sharp edge against the inside of her wrist, trying to remember the words she’d sung all those months ago that had called him to her. Come back and I’ll take it all back. 

This time, she cuts a little deeper, a little higher than she had before in her haste. The new blood mingles with the old crusted on her skin, it catches on the ashes still staining her fingers and she shakes so violently the shard clatters to the floor. 

She tears her eyes away and leans over, heaving as the sight of him reduced to dust on the deck rushes back to her unbidden. But she hasn’t eaten in days and there’s nothing to throw up, her throat feels raw from screaming and crying, and the bile burns as she swallows it back down. 

I forgive you, she thinks hopelessly, broken nails digging into the carpet, I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you. 

She couldn’t do this alone. She couldn’t do this without him. 

Just come back. 

x

She misses him terribly some days, and she resents him for it. This is not like when he left to hunt ifrit, when she had his promise tucked away as reassurance that he would return. 

You are my Banu Nahida. This is my city. Nothing can keep me from either of you.

It’s a bitter memory now, in the weeks following that awful night.

Liar, she thinks savagely, in the solitude of her room after she’s retired from the infirmary, biting back the tears that spring to her eyes until her head pounds. Even then it’s a losing battle. 

She pulls herself out of bed, restless and furious. The wetness on her face only angers her more. She rubs the tears away roughly, but they’re replaced just as quickly. There’s been something festering inside of her for days now, something more than the hollow grief that’s plagued her for what feels like eons instead of a couple of measly weeks. 

She spots the pitcher across the room and crosses it, hoping that the water will cool the raging heat that’s threatening to consume her. 

It splashes when she lifts it with trembling hands — stop shaking, they’re always shaking — and tries to pour it into a cup.

Nothing can keep me from either of you.

The water spills over the sides, onto the table, onto the floor, over her bare feet, and with a shriek Nahri throws the pitcher against the wall.

It shatters, and she thinks the broken, cracked ceramic is awfully reminiscent of the state her heart is in. 

Liar, she thinks again, her anger fading into familiar despair. Death can keep you from both. 

But her outburst has alerted the guards posted outside her door, and she pulls herself back together before they can see her like this. She won’t let anyone see her weak.

Not ever again.

x

She prays every night now, partly because she had made a promise to be the Banu Nahida her people needed, the one they deserved, and partly because there’s still some desperate part of her that clings to hope. 

Keeping her altar lit and marking her forehead with ash becomes routine, she learns to ignore the meat platters in favor of the vegetable ones, but this part never gets easier.

She has never prayed before, save for that rushed plea as she stumbled through a Cairo graveyard so many months ago. The first few times she struggles to find the right words in the right order. What language appealed to gods? 

Please, she starts the first time, on her knees before her altar in the privacy of her room. I will give anything… I will do anything… Just bring him back to me. 

A sob rises in her throat but she swallows it down, painfully. She spreads her hands out in supplication, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that blur her vision. 

What did gods want? 

Anything, she thinks again, uselessly, because she has little to offer besides her weight in gold, and what use did gods have for gold? She has no power, no influence, and no voice, with Ghassan’s boot on her neck. 

Every night she returns to her altar and every night she pleads to empty air. 

I need him. 

Please.

Bring him back. 

I love him.

So many ways she finds to ask for the same thing, but the response is unchanging. It is silent and still, save for the flame casting shadows off the wall, dancing around the room. The gods have never cared for the poor orphaned shafit from Cairo, and they certainly didn’t care now. 

What do you want, she sobs one night, her forehead pressed to the floor. I will give you all that I am, if only you would return him to me. 

The fire flickers, the shadows dance, and Nahri stops praying. 

x

Her commitment to the Daeva and her resentment towards Ghassan are the only things that pull her out of bed in the mornings. 

She is exhausted, throwing herself into her training, into the wedding preparations, but keeping herself busy keeps her grief at bay, at least temporarily. Truth be told, as much as she wants to lock herself in her room and stay there, she knows that the work is all that keeps her from falling apart, and only just so. 

Nisreen looks at her with worry, but Nahri pretends she doesn’t notice the concern in her mentor’s eyes. She has a good idea of what she sees — the dark circles under her eyes and the way her clothes begin to hang loosely from her frame. 

She sleeps but it is never enough, not with the nightmares, and her appetite has all but disappeared. 

It takes more strength to concentrate on what she is learning in the infirmary, to focus on the wedding planner’s careful details, to listen when someone talks to her and hear everything they are saying than she would have thought necessary, and the effort always leaves her even more exhausted than before.

But she does it anyways, because she made a vow to her people and to herself, even if it gets harder to cling to the further she slips. 

She feels as if any moment, with the slightest misstep, his loss will consume her again, as it did in those first few days. 

She wants to let it. She so desperately wants to let it, to curl up and shut the world out. Daevabad had lost its luster, anyhow. The strange, beautiful, magical world Dara had pulled her into had become her cage. 

How could she enjoy the very place he had so longed for, the one he had been ripped from so violently, even if it had partly been his own fault?

She keeps her head up because she has to, but with every passing day she feels another piece of her crumble to ash as he had. 

x

It gets easier. Not her grief, no — that never goes away. But she learns how to lock it up, piece by piece, until her heart can beat without aching, until she can breathe without feeling like she’s suffocating. 

She learns to stop reaching for him. She learns to stop thinking of the things she wants to tell him. She learns to stop seeing him in every head of dark, wavy hair. 

He is gone, and nothing she can do can bring him back.

She moves forward, because it’s the only thing left to do. She survives, because it’s what she does best. 

When she successfully completes a new, complicated procedure, she feels a spark of pride. It’s the first time she’s felt something outside of the potent swirl of anger, regret, and grief that’s been drowning her for months, and it feels a little like hope. 

She can’t help the thought that he would be proud of her for it, or the tears that well up in response. But it’s easier now, to not let the dark tangle that accompanies thoughts of him consume her. 

She thinks of his smile and exhales, the tightness in her chest easing, just a little. 

And then she locks that piece of him away too, looking up at Nisreen. Her mentor wears an expression that’s both cautiously concerned and proud at the same time, and Nahri gives her a small smile. 

The action feels foreign, but the relief in Nisreen’s eyes is potent enough to keep it up for another minute. 

She could do this without him. As fiercely as she misses him, she could do this without him.

Nahri breathes out slowly, and stands up.

“Where is my next patient?” she asks, with renewed energy. Nisreen doesn’t smile, not physically, but Nahri sees it, anyways. 

It is enough. It will have to be.