#can u tell i'm in denial abt david being dead but still craving that angst lol

[little-cereal-draws]

ok sab season 3 theory time!

It's really more of an au; I'm calling it a theory because it's based off how they left season two and what they have potential to do with the story but I don't think it'll happen

David is going to be on parem

ok I know it's a long shot but hear me out. It's based off four points they ended season two with.

We didn't see his body so by film rules he's still alive. And no one ever says he's dead either. All Genya says is, "I can't feel his heartbeat," and they leave it at that. That doesn't 100% mean he's dead, it could just mean he's not nearby; especially because she wasn't amplified like she was the first time she found his heartbeat

They introduced Saint Neyar, the Durast. Of course, this was for Jesper's character arc but it showed the audience how powerful and deadly Fabricators can be even though they're the Grisha order used in the war the least

They introduced parem and how it affects Grisha. In that one coronation scene, it showed the physical toll it has on Grisha and addictive it is, how it amplifies their abilities to insane levels, and how Fjerda has access to it and is using it on Grisha

They're only loosely basing their plots off the books and they changed how David dies so why not change the rest of his story too

Now back to the theory/au. David isn't stupid. Even though he stayed to protect Genya, he knows there's nothing he can do against a being made of shadow. He pretty much just doomed himself. He's got too much to live for -he was going to propose for Saint's sake!- so there's no way he's going to stand there and die or try to futilely fight it. He was never a fighter anyway, so he runs. Maybe out a window, maybe out the door, idk but he makes it out. He does get seriously injured though; hence the giant blood splatter Genya saw later.

He doesn't have time to check the elevator for Genya; he's being chased, the fold is expanding, he's bleeding, he needs to get out of there and hope she did the same. He'll come back and find her later he decides. He runs through the woods for a while until he can't take another step and collapses. Eventually he gets found by a Fjerdan scout. They take him back to their camp where a few other Grisha they found fleeing are also being held.

Flashforward a little while: Nikolai is the king, Alina is struggling with her new powers and public backlash, and the newest threat to the barely stable country is parem attacks. They've only increased since the first one at the coronation and everyone's afraid. Grisha are going missing left and right only to return fatally hooked to the drug and Otkazat'sya are calling upon their king to end the new bloodshed by Grisha against them. Tensions between Grisha and Otkazat'sya are running high again and there have been many fights have broken out from it.

Nikolia, Alina, and probably The Crows too get roped into trying to stop the murder of civilians while figuring out a cure for the drug. Along the way, they hear whispers of the most fearsome parem warrior of all. Not the inferni who can destroy ten houses with one shot, not the tidemaker who can pull people's blood out straight through their skin, not even the heartrender who can kill fifty people with one flick of their wrist. No, it's a fabricator. He can level whole buildings with one look and is untouchable by any weapons. He'll strangle you with your own clothes and even the out-of-the-box thinkers who tried to take him on naked got horribly mutilated. It turns out bones are just calcium and blood is just iron.

Our team of protagonists get ready to stop them but when they get there, they see something that stops them in their tracks. It's David. He's the one all the whispered rumors are about. He's alive but looks only just, like a moving corpse. This wasn't something they planned for and are completely thrown off. While they try to regroup and come up with a new plan, Genya steps out. They lock eyes and for a second Genya thinks he recognizes her until she feels her necklace digging into her throat. She's choking and gagging but doesn't stop looking in his eyes as she scratches at the metal. Just as her vision begins to fade to black around the edges, his eyes grow wide. That ruby... he knows that ruby. He was going to use it for... something, he doesn't remember what, but it was important. And if this woman has it than she must be... David holds his hands up placatingly and Genya falls to her knees coughing and gasping for air.

David doesn’t do anything for the rest of the battle which gives our protagonists a slight advantage. It’s still a strenuous fight and Alina has to use her new shadow powers to win, which she was very conflicted abt, but they beat them. Some of the grisha get killed, they can’t help it, but Nikolai made it very clear when these attacks started that they’re going to try and take everyone alive and see if they can help them first. There's a bit here about Alina being harassed by the public for her shadow powers even though she was saving them. Right as another fight is about to break out, Nikolai decides it's time to leave.

Genya’s mind is racing the whole trip back to the palace. She wants to talk to David so bad and kiss and hug him, but she doesn’t know how much he remembers. He stopped just short of killing her before and she doesn’t want to push it. David’s thoughts are racing too. He knows that woman, he loves that woman, but his brain is too foggy to recall where he met her or what her name is. As the drug slowly wears off, he can piece together more and more until he finally remembers the last time he saw her. Genya.

By the time they make it to the Palace, all the remaining Grisha have come off their high and are begging for another hit. Their eyes are even more sunken than before and they’re shaking so bad they need help getting out of the wagon. When it comes to David’s turn, he looks at Genya and whispers her name. She instantly bursts into tears because he remembers. Shaking like a leaf in the wind, he reaches out as best as the restraints they put on his hands will let him and puts his hand on the side of her face. Everyone else is standing at the ready, weapons drawn, in case he attacks but Genya stands there and lets him do it. She bites her lip to stifle a sob and squeezes her eyes shut, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. He remembered. He still loved her. He was alive. And yes, they were a long way from ok but in this moment, but she has hope that they could get there some day.

The rest of the season goes on to deal with Alina's shadow powers and Nikolia sends The Crows to the Ice Court to see if they can find out where the Fjerdans are getting the parem or how they're making it. The captured Grisha are being kept in cells until they are over their addictions and it's a painful sight to see. Even though they're being fed, they're morbidly skinny. Even though they're warm, they tremble with each breath. Even though they moved beds into the cells, the bags around their eyes look like they haven't slept in years. They cry and beg and curse and yell; trying anything to get even the smallest amount of parem.

David offers to help in the effort to find an anecdote and tell them everything he knows, which Nikolai agrees to but refuses to let him experiment with any actual parem. Genya has never seen David react like that to anything before. The way he was pressed up against the bars innocently, politely offering his help to the king, listing his years of experience and qualifications then suddenly having the mask drop off his face revealing what he truly felt, rage. He paced his cell and threw a chair into the wall, yelling that they would never figure it out without him, they needed his help, and he only needed a little bit of parem, just a little bit. He scared her.

The cells are not fabricator proof, especially for one that has been affected by parem, and every night he bends the bars and goes out looking for where Nikolai is keeping his tiny experimenting stash. The whole palace can hear him tripping over things in the dark, opening and closing doors, emptying drawers onto the ground. It gets brought up in a meeting one morning. Alina wants to station more guards around the palace to stop him, but Genya argues that David hasn't hurt anyone, taken anything, and always returns to his cell in the morning so adding more guards is unnecessary. Nikolai says that his parem isn't in the Palace at all, it's in a secret outside workshop he's commissioning exactly in case something like this happened. Genya continues to press her point off of that saying that maybe this is something that David needs to do to recover. If he searches the whole Palace and sees that there is no parem there, he might be more inclined to cooperate when they say that they're not giving him any. Much to Alina's outrage, Nikolai takes Genya's side. Alina's powers start acting up and she has to step out and deal with that and the main plot.

That night is the last night David searches. In the very early hours of the morning, he ends up in Genya's room, hovering at the foot of her bed like a phantom. She could feel him coming down the hallway and is wide awake, but she still has her eyes closed and is forcing her pounding heart to slow. "Genya?" he whispers. "Genya? I know you have it. Please, Genya, I just want a little bit, just a little bit." She doesn't respond, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible and not respond to how desperate he sounds. The silence is so long she wonders if he fell asleep standing up. Suddenly he speaks again, voice cracking with emotion, "Saints, Genya... you're killing me." It takes everything in her not to sit up and tell him everything right then. Tell him where the workshop is, how to get in, and to please forgive her, she's only doing this because she loves him. He shuffles down the hallway and Genya cries. He doesn't leave his cell at night after that.

The season ends with all the addicted Grisha either receiving an anecdote, The Crows probably find something at the Ice Court, or getting over it from going cold turkey. Except now the problem is all these people's powers have drastically changed (think like Nina's powers after she recovered from parem). So now they've got this population of Grisha who have all new powers that have never been seen before and that sets up season four. David proposes to Genya for real and they finally get their happy ending and nothing bad ever happens to them ever again.