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wh0refornikolailantsov · 11 months

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Prompt: “I shouldn’t be in love with you!”

For Matthias x Grisha!Reader please!!

Bestie, your testing my writing capabilities with Matthias and you know it, I will try my best but I don't think I got the skills to write him well

I Didn't Ask To Have These Feelings For You - Matthias Helvar

Content Warnings: Fjerdan Views Of Grisha. Canon Complaint Threat And Violence. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Heartrender Reader.

Love is the death of duty, those words have never meant much to Matthias, they were something he would hear people say outside of Fjerda, when he was travelling with the Drüskelle, but they didn't reach him, they didn't mean anything to him. Not until you.

He had not known you were grisha at first, you had found him, unconscious by the waters, the ship he was on had gotten lost in the fog on the trip by the Bone Road, and he had been headed for Vilka, under orders to bring back what he would undoubtedly find there. But he never quite mad it to Vilka, the black waters and the heavy air had gotten to his head and he got off the ship before they correct course. Matthias had planned to get himself back together and then continue his journey, but somewhere along the line things had gotten messy, he had been knocked unconscious by strangers that mistook him for a threat to them, and maybe he would've been, had he known they were grisha to begin with.

But when he had woke you had been cleaning the cut on his head with a warm rag and you offered him salted fish and honey water and he had not known how to respond to your kindness. You had been nothing but gentle, and welcoming, and he was a stranger in your home. Your home which you had brought him into, knowing what a danger he could pose to you, even if he didn't know it at the time, you had. You are grisha, and a Fjerdan is always a risk to you, but a Drüskelle, that's inviting a death wish into your home, and yet you couldn't just leave him for wilderness, for all the rolling fields and mountains, the landscape wasn't all that forgiving to strangers, you hadn't doubted someone from Fjerda could understand what what was like.

"You live alone?" he had asked you and you had laughed it off, typical for that to be the first thing he would ask.

"Yes," you had told him, "it's not as uncommon as you might think."

"Yet you brought me into your home," he stated. You had waited a moment for him to elaborate and when he hadn't you refilled his drink with a sigh and a gentle shake of your head.

"You have to believe there is good in people still, White Wolf," you had told him. He had ragged a hand across his blonde hair at that comment. "It's about honour is it not? Your whole thing?"

"Drüskelle are honourable," he had stated.

"Well I brought you into my home, unarmed and unchained, to tend to the wounds of a strange I had found who would've surely died or succumb to some dreadful fate, not being from this place, and being so close to the castle ruins, you're inviting danger in that. So surely, if Drüskelle are such men of honour, I had no reason to afraid, because what honour would there be in doing harm to me after that is what I have done?"

Matthias hadn't had a response to that, because you were right, you had shown him kindness, and you were to expect nothing in return except the respect to not harm you for such kindness, as a Drüskelle he meant you no harm if you were not a threat, and he saw you not as a threat at all. He saw just gentle smiles, and healing hands and slightly burnt bread in attempts to make him food.

He saw only how you hummed to yourself while you cooked, how each time he ate he felt better, he felt stronger, and how you could tell so much about the day by looking at the sky. You had asked about his home, about his faith and he had talked to you with more comfort than he would've expected, but you were quickly becoming a stranger no longer, and instead someone he knew. Someone he felt he knew.

You hadn't planned on falling in love with him, you had hoped that maybe through kindness and companionship he would grow to see you as a person, before he had any idea you were grisha, and you hoped that knowing you before he knew would give him grounds to consider that maybe grisha were more than witches. You knew it was a risk, but considering being found out would mean the Kaelish would come for your blood anyway, you weren't a stranger to the danger on the doorstep. Also knowing Fjerdan's were on the Isle's looking for grisha meant the risk was already at your doorstep, and you could run, you could fight, or you could try and change their minds, even if it was only one at a time.

You'd hoped to gain his trust, maybe even cultivate a type of friendship between the two of you, something that might withstand learning that you were born to use The Small Science.

But somehow it had gotten itself further along than that, deeper rooted, and you could feel him in your skin as you walked beside him. You'd fallen in love with a Drüskelle. And part of you was willing to believe he had fallen in love with you too.

That's what makes this moment, this moment you knew was going to come eventually, but you hadn't pictured it like this. One of the kids from the isle had fallen from the rocks and had hit her head, and despite keeping to yourself for your safety, the kids in the area knew you well enough as the one with the medicines. So it was no surprise when the kids turned up at your door searching for help.

You treated the girls wounds with the medicines you had, bandaging up the wounds, and while the kids paced outside you listened closely to her heartbeat, counting her breaths, assessing her quietly, in the way only you could. You felt Matthias watching you, but you knew it's all concern and not suspicion. But then you feel it, the cracked bone that is lodging itself in tissue where it will only do harm.

"Matthias," you said softly, "can you pass me clean water?" Your attempt to send him on an errand long enough to do what you can for the kid was well thought out, and it should have worked. But when the bone snapped back into place it was Matthias's sharp inhale of breath that you heard.

You turned to him and his eyes were on you, wide and filled with a hurt you recognised all too well. "Matthias-,"

You don't get to speak before he has disappeared into the fields. You finish bandaging up the child and as she wakes you explain what to tell her parents and you watch the distance as they walk her back home. You've done this enough times, enough times that you probably should have been caught out by now. But some children talking of the healer in the woods, always sounded more like a folktale or an exaggeration than something to investigate and if they ever came looking for you, your medicinal practice you hoped would be enough to cover your tracks, no one had seen you were grisha, not until Matthias, not until now.

You're walking the lower rocks of the mountain, you're not sure if he has disappeared to never return, or if he plans to come back with reinforcement. The look in his eyes before he left is haunting you, like the ghosts you were told stories of when you were young.

You hear a heartbeat, steady and strong behind you, one that is familiar in it's rhythm, and you know you should feel afraid, he is Drüskelle, he has been raised and trained to do nothing but hate you, to track and capture and eventually kill you. But you can only bring yourself to feel relief.

"Matthias," you say without turning around.

"I was told that you were crafty and but I underestimated how deep that scheming can run," Matthias says.

"It wasn't a scheme," you say, keeping your back to him, scared to see what is in those icy eyes of his, scared of the hatred you might find there, the rage. You cling to the last memory you have of those eyes, all confused and hurt, because hurt you could accept, hurt you had earned. You had deceived him, you had let him believe things because you were sure you could bring something better out of it by letting him live in the lie for as long as you could, and you had known that was wrong, you had known the trust you were betraying but it was the only option you felt was there for you. It was that or send him on his way, and let him go on believing all that he was taught, save yourself the pain, and whatever may come, but never take the chance to change something. To let someone see, really see, where they have been misguided, and if you wanted to change the views of the world for anyone, you wanted that for Matthias. He is gruff and he is stoic, but there's a softer man inside the skin of the wolf, he has a hero's heart, not a warriors. And you might just die in choosing to believe that, and you are willing to play those odds. "I did not bewitch you Matthias."

"You lied to me," he says. You move to look at him, trying to gather the strength of heart to face him. "Don't turn around."

"Why not?" you ask. "Scared to look at me Matthias, scared of what you will see?"

"I am not scared of you," he tells you. You nod and spin on your heels, your stare burrowing into his and he darts a look away, scared that you will see the way his harshness softens at the sight of you.

"I am not something to be scared of," you tell him.

"You shouldn't have saved me," he tells you.

"Why?"

"Because I came here for you."

"Romantic," you say, the world brittle enough it nearly snaps on your tongue. He shakes his head at you.

"You shouldn't have-,"

"I shouldn't?" you ask. "I shouldn't have what? Cared for you? I shouldn't have saved that girl? I shouldn't have helped every broken child that has come to me? I shouldn't have given you shelter, and food and comfort? I shouldn't have shown you kindness and understanding, despite knowing what you are because of the knowledge that if you knew what I was you would not do the same? Are those the things I shouldn't do? Or should I not use the Small Science at all? Should I let my body grow sick by not giving it what it needs, let my gifts go to waste and not protect those I can from harm? Or are you Drüskelle still so naïve to believe that this gift, is something I chose for myself, and not something I was given? No, because you don't think we grisha are human, so you know at the very least it isn't that. Tell me Matthias? In all the time we have spent together, would you say I am not human? Would you put me on trail and call me witch because I dared to care about others enough to risk my life to act on it? Is that what makes me less than human, that I am willing to suffer the consequences of doing everything within my capability to help others? Is that what I should not have done, Matthias?"

"You healed me," Matthias says slowly, as it dawns on him after all this time.

"Slowly, in small ways," you admit. "I shouldn't have done that?"

"No!" he sounds angry now, but the anger isn't all at you, part of it is at himself and you can feel it in the cold air between you both.

"What about what you shouldn't have done?" you ask. "You shouldn't have let me finish what I was doing, you shouldn't have let me heal that child, you should have carted me off to your commander in chains, ready for a judgement you know will only get me killed."

"Stop," he says, and the roughness around the edges of his voice becomes more dulled.

"Where in the list of all the things I shouldn't have done, can we compare to those sins of your own Matthias, shouldn't you have left by now?" you ask. "What else shouldn't you have done? Befriends a girsha-,"

“I shouldn’t be in love with you!” He snaps.

You lose all your fight with one sentence. It had been foolish of you to believe his feelings were the same of yours, and it had been even more foolish of you to believe those same feelings could withstand the knowledge of what you are. You were a fool to think he would love you, and a fool twice over to think he would love you still, and yet.

"But you are," it's a statement but it feels like a question as you say it, as if you could still be wrong, like you might just be the fool yet. But Matthias is a fool twice over beside you, for thinking he could not fall in love with you, and then thinking learning what you are would be enough to severe those feelings. It was not, and he doubted anything could break what he feels for you from him, his feelings were a part of him, his feelings for you as much a part of him as the blood in his veins.

"Love is the death of duty," he says through pressed lips, eyes closed tight as if he could wish the twisting feeling in his chest away, the feeling that he is betraying all that he has ever known.

"Matthias..."

"And to do that, I betray my country, my home, I become lost and forsaken, Djel-,"

"You think your gods know not enough about love to forgive you for being in it?" You ask. "Does your god not believe in love Matthias?"

He ignores you. "Then I am a traitor, and I am dishonoured and renounced, and then what do I have?" He asks.

"Me," you tell him, "you would still have me." His eyes meet yours with such a ferocity you fear you might fall back off your feet, but you stand your ground. "Would that ever be enough?"

He is silent for what might have been a blink of an eye or years before he speaks again. "In another life, you and I would not have been born to these roles, we might have had simpler lives, one where I would meet you in a place where music is playing, that song you hum to yourself, and we would have met and I would have brought you flowers and sweet things and you would have walked the paths of the places we knew and nothing would have cause for this much pain," he says. "But that is not our lives. You and I cannot deny what we are."

"And what are we White Wolf?" you ask daring to step closer.

"Lost," he whispers, reaching out to place a hand on your cheek, "and in each other, found." He is not at peace with himself, you can see the war in his eyes and the fear in them, the desire to run and hide and pretend that you never existed. His world could be so much smaller again, so much easier, where the rules all make sense and everything plays into a justice he understands, what he was raised in. But that would mean leaving you, and leaving you would be as good as handing you over to them, because you are not safe, not in this place and not in this world, too soft and too openhearted. Matthias is unsure of what it means, on a large scale or a philosophical one, but he knows one thing, that as hard as it pushes up against everything he has ever known and believed in, threatening to tear it apart brick by brick, he knows must be true. Love might be the death of duty, but he can let it die, if it means he gets to love you.

#matthias helvar #shadow and bone #grishaverse #matthias x reader #matthias fic #matthias helvar x reader #six of crows #druskelle

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datura-meloxia · 27 days

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So, this may not be the typical iteration of this character that people would have expected, but I’d like to introduce my own version of our beloved Fjerdan, Matthias Helvar!!

Now, I’m neither 6’4” nor super hench like Calahan Skogman, so I kind of took that as the go ahead to make this version of Matthias completely my own. I was inspired by a lot of different fan art and then some specific details about druskelle taken from the books (and of course I had to fit Trassel in there too!!)

Getting to meet Freddy and Amita in this cosplay at MegaCon was so wild, and Freddy recognising it as Matthias was really really special. When I though it couldn’t get any better, I got to show Danielle pictures of the cosplay at the play she and Freddy were a part of, and she LOVED IT!! She even took photos on her phone to show to Cal!! (My friend managed to get some pictures of her reaction and it was the best thing ever!!!)

And to top it all off, Leigh Bardugo herself has now seen and liked my photos on Instagram… I don’t think I’m ever going to get over how WILD these last few days have been!

So with that being said, hope you all enjoy my Matthias as much as Leigh and the cast have :)) 🐺🤍

#sab #shadow and bone #six of crows #soc #crooked kingdom #ck #matthias helvar #Matthias #calahan skogman #jack wolfe #kit young #freddy carter #danielle galligan #amita suman #leigh bardugo #cosplay #trassel #fjerda #druskelle

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potatounicoorn · 1 month

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Army dreamers | Six of crows animatic

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I made my first animatic! Crooked kingdom spoilers ahead. Hope you guys like it lol :D

#Always wanted to do an animatic and finally decided to actually make one #Grishaverse #six of crows #crooked kingdom #Matthias helvar #kaz brekker #Nina zenik #Shadow and bone #Soc #Ck #Grisha #Fjerda #Druskelle #Animation #Animatic #My art #Grishaverse animatic #Grishaverse art #Youtube

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call-me-sunpaw · 1 year

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Believe me. It does make sense.

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 1 month

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Hi!! this is a kinda random question, but I was just thinking about it. So we know that the Druskelle (and presumably most of Fjerda) are bigoted, racist, etc.. Does that stem from their culture and like the wars and stuff or is that part of their religion? I guess hypothetically could Matthias/Maya/your other Fjerdan ocs have corrected their prejudices and still believed in Djel or do the two beliefs contradict? Just wondering what your take is :)

Hi, thanks for the ask!

I absolutely adore religion in the Grishaverse and a while ago I wrote quite a long analysis on Matthias and Inej's relationship with their respective religions, mostly focusing on Djel since I feel I know more about Fjerdan religion than Ravkan having read the soc duology a lot more times than the other books, and I talked quite a bit about some of these things so I'll link that here in case anyone is interested and below I'll put a couple of quotes from that more specifically pertaining to what you've said here. Essentially, I believe that the Drüskelle order is a cult and represents a warped version of Fjerdan religion and that Matthias' journey of self-discovery and of learning to find the version of Djel that he believes in and that aligns with who he wants to be is one of the most beautifully written character arcs I have ever read.

Some quotes from my previous analysis:

"Theoretically, the Drüskelle are raised (forced) to believe the same basic principles of the religion that most of the religious people in the country are [...] However, what’s taken completely further is that the Drüskelle are told that the only way to be truly respected by their god is to take decisive action against Grisha people for their power, because it’s “demonic” and a warping of Djel’s gifts. Now first of all, none of the religious teachings we learn about as the reader even remotely suggest this, which suggest that it’s a baseless prejudice for which religion has been used as an excuse for so long that it’s become culturally ingrained and believed."

"Matthias even shows particular pride that he was personally told the secret of the second glass bridge by Jarl Brum himself"

"And this is the thing, ok, because by claiming that Djel will show the boys the path and then telling them himself (!!!!!!!!) Brum is claiming far more power than a servant of Djel and or Fjerda. No, now he turns himself into a messenger of Djel, a prophet if you will, just to reaaaalllly double down on that religious trauma he’s giving these kids. He is putting himself into the Messiah-like position; he’s saying that Djel sent him to them to tell them that they must kidnap and kill people to earn his love."

"in his own practice Matthias would appear to see Djel as a benevolent god"

"presented himself as a Messiah-like figure and effectively forced these young boys to believe that betraying him is akin to betraying Djel"

Okay I'm restraining myself from adding more to that list because I'm just sitting here reading through the original analysis going "ooo add that" "and that" "that too" and I'll just end up copy and pasting the whole thing if I carry on like this, so if you'd like to read more I should've linked it at the top :)

I'm gonna talk a bit about Djel and relationship with religion in terms of my Fjerdan OCs here, if anyone is interested but hasn't read the fic you don't have to have done to follow the religion info but it's worth knowing that it's set almost entirely in Ketterdam and takes place nearly 10 years after Crooked Kingdom :)

For my Fjerdan OCs religion is very much on my mind whenever I'm writing them, and I find it a very interesting thing to consider. So, I have three Fjerdan OCs in Daughter of the Rain and Snow: Maya, a Tidemaker and our titular character, Celina, a deceased (pre-events of the fic) otkazat'sya whose body was burned and who therefore cannot reach Djel, and Fiona, a Heartrender who lost her relationship with religion a long time ago and has no interest in taking it up again. I'm going to start with Fiona because I haven't really explored her relationship with Djel very much since she has had less scenes than the others thus far, but I tend to have quite fleshed out backstories for my side characters even if they don't make it into the story lol

Fiona is 22 during the events of the fic and has been working with Inej and the crew of the Wraith for almost four years. She made her way to Ketterdam at 17 after her family discovered she was Grisha and threw her out. In a desperate attempt to flee Fjerda - and notably not knowing any Kerch language - she signed an indenture contract with a Kerch merchant who offered her safe passage to the country. She did not know what she was signing, and her contract was written in Kerch, but she just wanted to get out of Fjerda as quickly as possible and this seemed like her only option. She was freed and ended up working with Inej when she was 18. Fiona had battled with her relationship with Djel for a long time after discovering she was Grisha and keeping it secret, but when her parents learnt the truth and started abusing her and eventually turned her out with nowhere to go and no protection to be found she adopted atheism completely, akin to the way Kaz and Wylan found their atheism. -

“Saints speed,” she said to Inej, who echoed the words she knew were said for her benefit alone.

Fiona had given up on Djel, the god she was raised with, and had no interest in taking up another. (Chapter 8) (I feel so weird quoting my own writing)

Religion is very much at the forefront of everything I write considering Maya and Celina, particularly since Celina only appears as a character in Maya's POV chapters (she exists more as a concept to Kaz, Inej, and Aimee, who connect her to things she represents to each of them but whom they never knew as a real person). Maya battling her relationship with Djel is very much in the forefront of the story and one of my favourite chapters is when she goes back to the tree she cut down in anger and prays for it; the chapter is essentially a long monologue of Maya talking to Djel and voicing every side of her argument out loud. I won't list everything here but I'll add this quote from the chapter:

“I’ve tried it every way,” she whispered, failing to fight the sobs that were growing in her throat, “I ignored it, I tried not to use it, I used it for others, I used it for myself, I used it for You. And I have somehow failed You every time. Maybe I deserve to burn now, but they say you are born Grisha. Did You really look at me and always know I would deserve to burn? From the very moment I was born? Perhaps this is all I am in Your grand tapestry of destiny; a game for You to play, a doll that You can take apart and stitch together at wrong angles. I am a broken toy that can be discarded and burnt whilst the world moves on as though I were never here. I made the wrong choices, but I thought they were the only ones left. You could have let me stay at home. You could have let her live - let both of them live. And I never would have done anything like this. I’m so sorry…” her voice broke and she felt the tears flooding over her cheeks as she collapsed over the ruined tree trunk and cried into its empty flesh, “I’m so sorry,” (Chapter 66 on tumblr, chapter 67 on AO3)

And the chapter ultimately ends with Maya asking Djel to teach her how to deserve forgiveness from Inej and the other characters for everything she'd done, or to at least teach her how to forgive Him.

I think one of the most important aspects of religion in terms of this and in terms of Maya and Celina's relationship with each other is that even though Celina knows Maya is a Tidemaker neither of them ever talk about it and Maya reached a point where she was actively afraid to bring it up because she didn't know how Celina felt about Grisha and she didn't want to jeopardise not only what is the only relationship she has with anyone right now but arguably what is the first relationship she's ever had that wouldn't be considered abusive (her relationship with her father is kinda up in the air, I know, but considering that he sold her I don't think it's a spoiler to say I hate that man's guts even though y'all have a little bit more to learn about him yet) since realistically Celina was the only person she had a real conversation with for three years and the only other people she spoke to in that time would be clients, Yennefer, and occasionally other girls at the Tulip Mill. Maya even saw Yennefer's death more as vengeance for Celina than she did for herself, saying that Yen's death was for Celina and Kaz's death would be for her before she finds out that Kaz was partially responsible for Celina's death in the worldview that she holds - and as Kaz considers himself no less responsible for her death than Rollins was for Jordie's. I don't know if I'm explaining it quite right but the fear that Maya developed surrounding other people's perspective on Grisha power preventing her from being able to share her feelings with Celina I found a really heart-wrenching detail to write and I was definitely hoping to present the idea that even if religiously the ideas don't contradict - considering that we see Celina adapt her belief in Djel to say that anything that she does at the Tulip Mill will be forgiven because she has no choice over it - culturally speaking it's still such a complex and difficult thing to move past that Maya isn't even sure she can ever express it to the only person she trusts, and I also hoped to touch on this idea with the flashbacks to the Ravkan boy at the Grisha workshop with Maya who didn't trust her because she was Fjerdan even though she was Grisha and had literally fled Drüskelle and her home country

Anyway I hope this made sense, it's starting to feel very rambly and random, and I hope that it was interesting to read. Thanks so much for teh ask and for your interest in the fic! <33

#maya olsen oc #six of crows #grishaverse #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #six of crows fic #six of crows duology #kanej fic #asks #grishaverse religion #djel #fjerda #druskelle #my ocs #matthias helvar #fantasy religion

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lesbiansoncaffiene · 1 year

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Religion/Spirituality in the Grishaverse (I am thinking thoughts)

I wanna talk about Leigh Bargudo’s handling of religiosity in the Grishaverse, especially within the Crows (Inej and Matthias) and how much it means to me as a religious person

So. So so so so so. I’m not sure how to exactly explain this feeling but I’m in love with the way Leigh wrote the religious aspects of Inej and Matthias’ characters, and how much it spoke to me as a religious person the same age as the characters (16-18-ish)

For both, their religion is something they grow up with, ingrained in them throughout childhood and while it may have wavered within both as they go through life (Matthias meeting Nina and Inej getting kidnapped) they still maintain a connection to their respective higher powers.

And that’s something you don’t really see a lot in books, especially YA books, since it’s either never mentioned or rejected by the characters/society (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but this characterization of young people who are tasked with so much and still choose to believe in something greater than themselves is very personal to me and a big split from the usual narrative.

I dunno, but the little aspects of their faith journeys, like Inej saying a prayer after winning a fight or Matthias staying connected to Djel in Hellgate, that really speaks to me. Because religion doesn’t have to be this huge show, it really can just be a girl thanking her Saints for her life.

And on the topic of Saints, I’m high-key obsessed with Leigh’s decision to make Saints as opposed to a bunch of gods/demigods. Saints are something that are mostly seen in Catholic/Christian doctrine, and seeing her include Saints made me feel more connected to the universe she created, as someone who is a practicing Catholic.

(Also Inej naming her daggers after Saints?? Icon)

Another element I found to be really touching was the fact that both Inej and Matthias are shown struggling with their faith. A lot of times, characters are shown being pretty cemented in their faith if they have ones and we get a glimpse of two kids (cause they are) who are struggling with the things they’ve done and things that have been done to them, and still maintaining their faith.

Especially Inej, grappling with the fact that she’s a whole ass-assassin, and still maintaining her faith for forgiveness. Which, I for one, fully believe that she would be forgiven, cause she has a good heart, and does what she does to survive.

I could go on (I could write a whole essay about this fr), but these are just some main thoughts on religion in the Grishaverse and how much it means to me as a religious person (a folk Catholic, specifically). My religion is a big part of my life because of the things that have happened in it and my reaction to them, and it’s really cool to see that reflected in YA literature

#i just be saying shit #grishaverse #leigh bargudo #six of crows #inej gafha #matthias helvar #sankta alina #religion in the Grishaverse #crooked kingdom #druskelle #folk catholicism #fjerda #ravka #things in literature i could write an essay about fr #the crows #ya books #soc duology

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sissytobitch10seconds · 2 months

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Febuwhump 26: Tear Myself Apart

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone Summary: Nina would do just about anything to protect what she sees to be hers. Warnings: Major character injury, war, graphic depictions of violence, and implied character death Word Count: 3,585 Ship(s): Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik/Inej Ghafa/Kaz Brekker/Wylan Van Eck/Jesper Fahey

Archive link!

“Nina! You have to help them!”

Zoya’s voice ripped through her mind in a matter of seconds. She had been standing on the edge of the sick tent with her entire body frozen in place. It was like a vine had wormed its way around her ankle and over the rest of her leg to keep her in place, she physically hadn’t been able to make herself move. The only thing that she could do was stare directly ahead at the mess of bloodied, beaten bodies that were crowded around the cots.

She had known that this was what she was going to be getting into when she signed up for this. She had to remind herself that this was what war really looked like, not the paintings that they were shown when they were walking through the halls of their school. There was going to be no firebird flying over the dead bodies of the Fjerdans that had tried to attack the village on the edge of their borders. There was going to be no saint that would come by and touch them to heal their wounds so they could fight again.

She had to be the thing that put these people back together, even if they were all her partners.

The voice snapped through her body so that she was suddenly in motion. There would be no stopping her until the task was done once she had gotten moving. Zoya knew that, which was why she had snapped at her in that way anyways. It was the reason that Nina and Zoya had been able to work together better than Nina had with Genya.

She stepped up to the first cot and then grabbed the kit that was offered to her by one of the students. She tried not to pay attention to the way that Inej’s brow was placid but the rest of her face was contorted in pain. She carried every inch of burn and hurt in the way that her eyes scrunched shut and how her jaw became clenched tightly. “I’m here, love, you’re going to be okay,” Nina said, but even she didn’t believe it. The waver in her voice was stronger than the shaking of her left hand, the one holding the kit.

Nina set the medical supplies that she needed down on the bed and then closed the kit so that she could drop it down next to her feet. She reached down to Inej’s shirt and lifted it up so that she could see the grizzle wound leaking blood all over the bedding she was on top of. It was a stab wound about as long as Nina’s finger and piercing all the way down to the bone within. That wasn’t something that they saw commonly with the Druskelle, not since they had developed the smoke bombs that obscured vision enough that they could shoot without hindrance.

She knew how to deal with knife wounds regardless since blades were still favored by the Kaelish and the Shu, however. She reached for the water bottle that she was offered and then used it to douse the sterile gauze she had pulled from the packet. She then swiped it over Inej’s torso to get rid of some of the blood, so that she could better assess the wound. When Nina was finally able to see it, she had to wonder if the Shu were actually working together with the Fjerdans because no cut that clean could have come from a Druskelle.

The thought crossed her mind as quickly as it left and she was refocused back on getting her girlfriend into living condition. “I don’t have anything to pack it with for the pain,” Nina called into the tent, only to be ignored. She had always heard of people running out of things to help medically, but she had supposed that pain medication was going to be one of those thins that was used with a bit more forethought. It turned out that she had a lot more to learn about warfare than she had originally thought.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she plunged her fingers down into the wound in Inej’s side. She had to close her eyes in the attempts to block out the scream that the other woman let out. She knew that the nerves were already on fire, she could feel the signals that they were sending up to Inej’s brain to let her knew that what was happening shouldn’t have been. There was nothing that she could do, though, not if she wanted the other woman to live.

Nina traced her fingers along the base of the skin on the other side of the cut so that they knit themselves back together to become one. They would scar and be very ugly, but at least the veins there had stopped bleeding. She had to slowly draw her fingers back up until she had gotten about half of the blood vessels and other severed items pushed back together.

She felt a pair of hands grasp her shoulders and then shove her out of the way with a single swift movement. “Zoya!” she squawked when she saw that it was the very same mentor that had told her to do this in the first place. She hadn’t wanted to plunge her own fingers that deep into her girlfriend, to know what Inej’s life force felt like most intimately, but she had anyway. Fury was rushing through her now that she was distracted from her work. She knew that almost none of it had anything to do with Zoya and what she was doing but rather with what she had been forced to do. Her hands were slick with Inej’s blood and her girlfriend’s cries of pain were still ringing loud in her ears.

“You’re too slow, move onto someone else so that Ghafa doesn’t die,” Zoya replied.

Nina opened her mouth to argue but clamped it shut. She as petulant and a bit of brat, difficult to work with because of her arrogance about her own abilities. She knew that now wasn’t the time to let that part of her personality shine through. She had been given an order from a superior officer during a time of crises, so she had to follow it. Zoya was also originally in the same order as Inej, so the two of them had more things connecting them together on a comfort level than Nina did. She was only a Grisha and dating the other girl, not a Squaller and a Suli woman.

She turned on her heel and then moved onto the next cot. Wylan was sitting up and grasped the bottom of his leg, which was coated with a thick white pigment that she had never seen before. “What happened?” she asked as she looked him over. She reached for the medical kit that had already been placed at the end of the bed just so that she would have something to do.

“I- one of the bombs that I made misfired and it got all over me. This stuff is kind of like napalm, I’m terrified it’s going to go off and start eating through my skin,” his voice was shaky and scared as he spoke. His entire body was quivering with the force of his fear, but his hands were steadfastly in the same place that they had been before. Nina was able to see after a moment that he was keeping it in place with his powers, pushing it back and down every time the throbbing material tried to get further up his skin.

“How do we get rid of it?” she asked. She held out a gloved hand, one of the garments made with the rubber material that was supposed to be disposable and far more sterile than cloth, towards him.

Wylan yanked himself back and shook his head. “I need Kuwei or Jesper to help me. Kuwei knows how to burn it off without burning my skin and Jesper has been helping me make it in the lab, so he knows how it works. Now you have to leave me alone, I really need to focus on this.”

She opened her mouth once more to object, but she found that there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t make her seem like a child that was throwing a fit. Wylan knew best what was going to help him with the specific problem that he had accidentally created because he was one of two people that really knew how it worked. Despite how much she wanted to be able to alleviate the pain that was plaguing him, she knew that she was one again useless.

The best thing that she could do was move onto the next partner, who was on the other cot next to Wylan. She carried the medical kit with her as she tried to keep her tears inside of her eyes. The last thing any of them needed was for her to be crying when she was trying to mend them, not only because it was unsanitary but because it would upset them when they were already in so much pain.

Matthias was hunched up on the cot, one of his hands nestled against his chest. She could see that he was slowly drawing the water in the air towards the end that was holding his arm so that he could cool down the wound and ease some of the pain. “What happened?” she asked as she began to unpack the medical kit.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Trassel give a rough noise from underneath the bed. The Isenulf had been Matthias’ most trusted companion since he had arrived at the Little Palace a couple of years ago. The poor wolf had blood caked into the white fur around his maw and was cradling his own foot close to his body. She was going to have to get a look at him as soon as she had stopped the other Grisha from dying.

“I got bit by one of the Isenulf,” Matthias bit out. He turned so that he was facing towards her, offering his arm out to her. The blood had streaked on his white shirt, his blue kefta hanging open to reveal the peasant roughspun underneath that had been damaged from the fighting. She noticed that he hadn’t moved the hand that was supporting his arm, likely to continue to do his trick to dull the pain. She had seen him do it with wounds that were far smaller back when they were training.

“Right,” she nodded. She sat down on the edge of the bed and then placed his arm down into her lap so that she could examine the wound a bit closer. She had to brush her fingers over every single individual tooth mark so that she could make sure none of the bone had chipped off and wormed its way into the flesh where she couldn’t see. Then she had to do it again so that she could draw out the infected blood which carried more white than red blood cells. She had never been officially trained as a healer, she only had the cross training that all Heartrenders got now that Queen Alina had changed the way that the Second Army worked.

She had been so focused on the work that she was doing, trying to get the wound healed while using her spare hand to numb the nerves further up his arm, that she hadn’t noticed the commotion outside the tent. “Nina! We need you over here!” Fedyor called as he walked in with a very unconscious, very limp Kaz in his arm.

She sprang from the bed, forgetting that she had been holding onto Matthias’ arm. The infection was only half out and there was a lot more work that had to be done, but she could already see the way that Kaz’s leg was contorted in a shape it never should have been. He already had problems with his joints at time, so this was very bad.

Guilt washed over her like the waves of an enraged ocean sinking a Druskelle ship when she heard the grunted noise of pain Matthias released. She collapsed back down onto the bed beside him and reached out for her powers again. She felt like she was digging into the dirt to get to the water of her power, like the well had gone dry and she was pulling from the spring next to it that was far less refined. She could do it, but it took so much more energy than it had originally.

“Lay him down on the bed and I’ll get to him when I’m finished with Matthias,” she said. The words felt like she was leaving her boyfriend to die, but she knew that if she didn’t help Matthias then there was a chance that he was going to be far more hurt than he already was.

“What’s wrong with him?” Fedyor asked.

“He has a wolf bite. I’ve already got a bit of the infection out,” she explained. She didn’t know what kind of sick bastard would actively coat their wolf’s teeth in poison so that when they bit, they tore the skin and tainted the blood at the same time. She had to get it out of him before it spread further and he had to spend months fighting it off, even with the help of a proper Healer.

“That’s way to refined for you. Switch with me,” Fedyor said.

Nina tried not to show on her face how much this was affecting her. She knew that she wasn’t the most skilled when it came to her powers, but she was better than some yearling. She could kill someone or manipulate their very glans after only briefly seeing them on the battlefield. But none of that mattered when she was supposed to be a spy, when she was supposed to be able to heal the people she was with that got hurt or change their appearances so they didn’t get caught again.

She didn’t have to skill to do any of those things, so when she was in that situation she was shipped between things that she would do mediocrely until someone that was better came to take over. It was exactly what was happening now, but she was also having to deal with the fact that it was her partners that she was failing to save.

Instead of focusing more on the brutal feelings that were eating her from the inside out, battling with the exhaustion from focusing on something that hard, she rose and walked over to Kaz. “I’m going to touch you,” she told him plainly as she reached down and then shucked off his trousers. She would have cut them, but she didn’t want to waist time trying to find a knife so that she could get at his lower leg. She placed both of her hands on him, one over his ankle and the other on his knee.

A massive burst of power was going to be required to help him. She could feel where the bone had split down the middle, which would account for the strange shape. It had cut through some of the muscle and tendons, but it had also splintered and then sliced through the nerves next to his knee. “Kaz, hold still,” she instructed. He gave her a shaky nod and then moved his glassy brown eyes to stare up at the ceiling. She saw his gloved hands move down to the bed beside him, clenching at the stained sheets so that he could deal with the pain.

She scraped lower into the water beside the well as she pulled mud filled bucket after mud filled bucket up to the surface. It wasn’t as good as a Healer, but it was enough that she would be able to stop the wound from worsening at least a little bit.

She pushed down with the handle on his ankle and up with the hand on his knee so that the bone got back into place. She sped up some of the healing so that she didn’t have to set it. He wouldn’t be able to put a single bit of pressure on the appendage until they got it healed the rest of the way, though. She then began to work on searching for the bone, before she felt another person bump her out of the way.

Outside of being hurtful, being shuffled from job to job was also becoming annoying. If she could just focus on one person then she wouldn't have to wrack her mind for something that she hadn’t learned enough of every single time. Her powers were draining her, in addition to having to figure out a new thing every time she moved to another cot.

There was absolutely no arguing with Ivan, though. He barely spoke since he came back from working for the Darkling, many years ago, but he was still just as powerful without any of his words. Nina dropped her hands from Kaz’s leg and then made her way over to the last cot. She saw that Jesper was laying there, his face contorted with pain and his hand over his shoulder.

“What happened?” she asked as she reached for the medical pack on the ground.

“I got shot,” he ground out. “And as much as I would love to flirt with you while you stitch me up, I can’t get this blasted bullet out.”

“I’m a Heartrender, I’m here to help you, not to flirt,” she retorted. She would have thought that Jesper, of all of her partners and mentors, would have been the one to trust her abilities. He had in the past, when they were sneaking into homes to steal Grisha children before they could be murdered or seducing their way into the homes of upper class Kerch Merchants.

She batted his hands away with one of her own and then placed it over his shoulder. She could feel the cold iron sunk low in his heated skin, around the blood. It was a familiar sensation due to the amount of the metal that was already in someone’s blood, but it was such a concentrated version of it that she wasn’t going to be able to draw it out herself. She focused instead on the structures around it, what it had cut. She used the broken tendons and nerves to pass the bullet slowly up and out of his flesh.

It was something that she had only ever heard about, never seen it done before. She knew that it took the utmost focus and deliberate movements, something that she had always struggled with. She could vaguely hear Jesper shouting and screaming as she played with the parts of his body to draw out the bullet, but she wouldn’t let herself fully acknowledge them. If she broke her focus then it would recede back into him and all of the progress that she had just managed would be gone.

She felt a hand on her wrist just as she got the bullet out, and then she was pushed away from him. Her hands were coated in the blood of four people that she loved with the last now struggling so badly that his entire body was shaking to try and keep the poison in place. Nina turned around and looked over the tent, trying to assess where she was most needed.

There was nowhere. Each bed had someone that was more capable than her, more tender than her, caring for her partners. She was useless when she was in there, so she had to leave so that she could find a better place to put herself to use. The battle was still waging outside of the healers tent, which was something that Nina could actually handle. She could feel the glowing exhaustion that came with over using her powers pulling at her but she ignored it. She had other things to do, this wasn’t something that she could be anything but exceptional at.

People were swarming around each other as they tossed down Fjerdans with wind, water, and huge arcs of fire. She could see Heartrenders in the distance bringing others to their knees or healing the people that they could see. Even the Durasts and the Alkemi were using the earth and bombs to take down some of the forces.

Nina charged into battle without a second thought. She could see a group of Druskelle with their fearsome battle horses coming up around the back of the group that was fighting alongside the General, so she brought her hands up and stopped the animal’s heart. She felt bad for having to do so, but there was no other way that she could save the lives of her friends.

“Get the witch!” the commander shouted as he got off of the beast that he had been riding, pointing towards her. Nina placed her hands out in front of her body just as her eyes began to sag. She tried to push back the waves of black that were threatening to overcome her, to cling to the last bit of energy that she had, but there was nothing.

She felt the hands of the Druskelle taking hold of her before everything faded out.

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