Ok but I need to talk about this.
Maybe it's just because I'm coming from a lot of regency-to-turn of the century fandoms, but this little moment kinda means everything to me.
Ivan knows Alina. He spoke to her outside the carriage, there was an exchange. He was there in the general's tent, that's all established.
So they're all in the coach together and Ivan is being himself, not saying anything, looking out the window. They've been riding in silence. Because Fedyor can't just start chatting out of nowhere.
He and Alina haven't been introduced.
He's being polite! It's phenomenally rude to start having a conversation with someone who doesn't know your name. He already knows hers, she's a known entity, but she'd never met Fedyor before.
Ivan is being difficult and ignoring social mores because he doesn't care to talk to Alina. It's Fedyor who has to nudge him. Fedyor who has to remind him that this is a chance to be pleasant and social with the fucking sun summoner.
Then Ivan gives the absolute barest minimum, which is all Fedyor needs to start talking about keftas and the second army and philosophy.
Fedyor is a well-brought-up and polite young man and I will fight for him forever, thank you.
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Siege and Storm- Chapter 11 -(Leigh Bardugo)
So the Darkling sent his second-in-command and some random dude in red to guard the newfound Sun Summoner? Wasn't he a part of Aleksander's inner circle like it seems in the show?
Let's see:
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 14
So his assignment was new. The only other time we see him, is during the carriage ride in chapter four:
That indicates some level of familiarity between the two. Non-verbal communication of this kind usually requires you to know what the other's thoughts on situation will be. Sure, you can glance at a total stranger and know you think the same, but it's much less common.
He's no rookie. He's either able to figure out the situation by himself, or he was taught what it looks like.
His reaction to Alina's denial is patience and reason. That makes him more thinker than mindless repeater.
Now it's starting to look like a pattern. Ivan and Fedyor have non-verbal communication as a part of their common language.
Oho!!!
Fedyor doesn't have an amplifier and it's a sensitive topic for him. Ivan's smug cunt about being daddy's favourite.
Ivan's threatening, while Fedyor's the one to think about socio-political impact.
Again, Fedya assumes the role of a teacher.
He's interested in Alina's life. Polite and friendly.
I love that if we put this together with his show!personality, it makes him into:
Alina's "How can KILLING save people?!" confrontation fits into it nicely.
This is SO FRUSTRATING!
Fedyor's interactions with Ivan are so vague, they could be interpreted as co-workers trained in the same place or professional couple able to separate work and private life! WHy?!
In crisis, Ivan's ordering Fedyor, not "Kaminsky". They're on first-name basis.
With them, or AMONG them?
To sum up what we've learnt- Alina figured out Fedyor's only good, but not important, because he doesn't have an amplifier and Ivan's the one calling shots.
Both is circumstantial evidence at best.
Ivan and Fedyor are friendly at least.
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Completely shocking, out-of-the-blue prompt that I've never mentioned to you before, definitely not inspired by work:
Ivan is a grumpy librarian/archivist, and Fedyor is a researcher who comes by looking for information on Darklina and/or their connection to Nikolai, and he finds the background of a love story. Obviously, the main character is Ivan's Disgust at the Perception of Heterosexuality
The light in the windowless back office is dim, grainy, and often gives Ivan a headache within the first few hours of him getting to work, which is not ideal for improving his temper. (Then again, not much is.) And despite its flaws, he does vastly prefer it to actually having to interact with the library patrons, as there is literally nothing worse than that. Especially academics, who come in with their laundry lists and their obscure texts, their pet projects and their insistence that if he just looks harder, he's sure to find it this time. Ivan has entertained many, many happy visions of just walking out, locking the doors behind him, and setting the whole thing on fire. Not that he has done that, and he probably -- probably -- wouldn't. He needs this job. Employment for a notorious ex-special ops soldier is thin on the ground as it is, and especially when it means he can, if he plays his cards right, spend most of the day completely alone. But still.
It is now, however, winter break at Os Alta Imperial State University, which means the throngs of panicked students trying to finish their last-minute assignment have mercifully receded, and Ivan can mostly organize his boxes in peace. Or so he thinks, until the accursed tinkle of the Please Ring for Service bell summons him like a wrathful specter, sweater-clad and glowering, to the front desk. "What?!"
"Uh. Good morning to you too." The newcomer -- young, dark-haired, and holding a large manila folder which portends absolutely nothing good, raises both eyebrows. "Can I speak to the archivist?"
"You're speaking to him," Ivan growls. This welcome has caused more than one quaking undergraduate to flee in abject terror rather than ask for even one book, and he fondly hopes for a similar effect this time. But the newcomer -- too old for an undergrad, so probably an advanced doctoral candidate or junior lecturer -- is made of stronger stuff, and doesn't flinch. "Can I help you, Mr... ?"
"Doctor," the annoyingly handsome interloper (not that Ivan has noticed) informs him. "Dr. Fedyor Kaminsky. I'm the new lecturer in the history department, Modern Ravkan History, and I was hoping that you could retrieve a few records for me? Boxes..." He consults his notes. Ivan contemplates murder. "T-1343 and T-1345 especially?"
Oh, great. Not again. Kaminsky -- yes, he vaguely recalls that name, from a department telegram welcoming the new faculty and staff, but it is absolutely not germane to Ivan's further actions in any part. He knows what is in those boxes, and someone always thinks they'll find something there that hasn't already been found, removed, and/or heavily censored. Ravka's last tsar and tsaritsa, Nikolai Lantsov and his half-Shu queen, Alina Starkov, are a figure of fascination and mystery for plenty of people, even after the revolution and the establishment of the Konsilium and everything that befell them as a result. Especially their relationship with the so-called Darkling, Aleksander Morozova, one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures in all of Ravkan history. Doctor Fedyor Kaminsky thinks he's going to jump into his new job with that? Good luck.
"We don't have those boxes," Ivan says, which is almost true. The Konsilium strongly prefers, in general, that people don't look at them, and any other uncomfortable bits of their history. "Go away."
Fedyor Kaminsky folds his arms. "No."
Saints, Ivan thinks sourly. What has he done to deserve this purgatory? (The Konsilium has also tried to outlaw the Ravkan Faith, since they're all supposed to be modern and secular now and because nobody wants another Apparat, but old habits are hard to break.) He stares at Fedyor, who stares back. This is confounding. Why hasn't he run away in terror yet? Everyone else does.
"Sorry," Ivan says, and turns away. "Can't help. Good day."
Naturally, Fedyor Kaminsky does not take the hint. He's back again the next day, still politely and stubbornly repeating his request for those boxes, and when Ivan loathingly suggests that the library is on winter-break hours and does not have to accommodate him at all, cheerily asks if Ivan's boss, the director of special collections, would agree. The threat of workplace discipline (or Saints forbid, a note in his permanent file) is stiff enough to make Ivan finally, furiously recant. Fine. If Kaminsky wants to get himself fired before even finishing his first year, it's nothing to Ivan. Might be a perk.
So, when they're into the second week of the requests, Ivan gives in, stomps to the back, and angrily hauls down the boxes, which are gathering dust from all the times he has, according to the rules, refused access to them before. It's not wise for Fedyor to look at these materials in the open, so Ivan tells him to take them to one of the backside reading rooms -- which is right across from Ivan's office, and makes him grimly reflect that he should have planned it better. But Fedyor works steadily and mostly silently, which is always a commendation in Ivan's book, and finally, on one dead-silent freezing morning right after the Winter Fete, when they are literally the only two people in the library and probably all of campus, he gives in. "What are you looking for?"
Fedyor jumps, glancing up in patent surprise. They eye each other for a long moment, as if to be sure that Ivan Sakharov actually did, entirely of his own volition, initiate a conversation with another human being. Then finally, warily, he says, "What's it to you?"
Good, Ivan thinks. Good instincts, just in case I was in fact an informer for the Konsilium. "I don't care," he says aloud. "I was just curious. They seemed so important to you."
"I'm just working on something," Fedyor says, after a long pause. "Confirming a hypothesis. It'll probably get me into trouble, but -- " He shrugs, with no small amount of bitterness. "I'm used to that."
Ivan thinks about it. This can't go anywhere good, but they've been made a strange sort of partners in this buried secret, and he's almost gotten used to Fedyor working away outside his door. "What?"
"I think they were lovers," Fedyor says, after a final, reluctant moment. "Alina and the Darkling, that is, and then also Alina and Nikolai, and maybe all three of them together. I think it's a love story. And as for why this matters, well -- it wouldn't change anything about our own history right now, how it all ended. But the narrative has always been that the Darkling was this awful monster who had to be destroyed, and the Grisha were his secret shock troops determined to overthrow the country on his behalf, and that pulled Alina and Nikolai into some regrettable circumstance they couldn't control and that led to their tragic downfall -- you know. It's just..."
"What?"
"I don't think it's true." Fedyor shrugs again. "I think everything we know about our own past, about the fall of the Imperial House of Lantsov, and about the Grisha, is a lie. And if that's the case, then the Konsilium knows it, or has covered it up, and that means -- "
"Shut up," Ivan interrupts roughly. "Saints. Don't talk like that. Someone could hear you."
"You could hear me." Fedyor smiles a little, a shadowed eclipse, and it does something very strange to Ivan's innards. "Does that matter?"
"I... " Ivan's mouth is dry. He can't look away. Not for any reason that means anything. "Never mind," he says, which seems the best and safest option, if it isn't already far too late. "Go back to work."
Fedyor eyes him a moment longer, then nods, a deliberate motion indicating that he knows and understands Ivan is choosing to keep his secret. Ivan himself doesn't know why, or what it is about Doctor Kaminsky, the feckless and foolish and fearless, that's gotten under his skin. It could be -- but no, it's not, it can't be that. From time to time, the very brave or very stupid actually think that Ivan himself is good-looking and try to flirt, and once a woman actually asked him on a date, which was the worst moment of his entire life (does he look like a heterosexual?!?!) But it's just shallow, surface-level, not like they're seeing him. Not like they know what monstrosity lies beneath. I think it's a love story. As if love matters. As if love, and the simple truth of it, can change the course of history.
Ivan shudders, once and then again. He looks at Fedyor for a very long moment, allowing himself -- just for that short and fleeting instant -- to imagine something he can never, never have. He grieves for it as if it was real, and then he lets it go. Turns, and walks away.
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