#shadow and bone updates | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

happyhauntt · 27 days

Text

stay, i pray you — nikolai lantsov.

series masterlist | writing masterlist | askbox

─── summary: nikolai has a decision to make. anya makes it for him.

─── pairing: nikolai lantsov & anya kamenev (original character.)

─── warnings: takes place during seige & storm just after sturmhond reveals himself to be nikolai. angst, hurt/no comfort, pre-established relationship. this one's gonna hurt.

─── word count: 2.1k.

"I've had an idea."

The military encampment at Kribirsk is as familiar to Anya as the freckles on Nikolai's nose, the garden of her father's estate, the brittle ache of her injured knee. Crashing the Hummingbird had not been part of the plan — and her body had certainly not appreciated the impromptu swim in the nearby lake — but the First Army officers had recognised her and Nikolai, affording them all the honours of their stations and escorting them to the commander's tent.

Anya hadn't felt all that comfortable with it. She may have been Lieutenant Corporal before her discharge, but it has become increasingly difficult to love the army that raised her while it serves the country that abandoned her. General Raevsky had once been her commanding officer. She and Nikolai had served under him on the northern border, oh, how many years ago now?

They'd both been green as grass, infantry grunts who'd never handled a rifle, never fired a shot or seen a battlefield begin to bleed. Raevsky greeted her like an old friend when they stumbled onto shore, asked how she was fairing as if he hadn't seen her only a few months ago, before she helped the Sun Summoner flee Ravka by smuggling her onto a ship bound for Novyi Zem.

The tent Anya finds herself in is small but serviceable, with clean, fresh clothes laid out on the bed and a small plate of food waiting on the table. Nikolai disappeared shortly after their arrival, most likely to offer up an explanation to the commanders, but when he finally reappears, he finds Anya combing out the knots of her damp hair with her fingers, changed into a clean, loose shirt and army-issue trousers. She feels as if she never left the army and the thought makes her nauseous.

"You have an idea?" She raises an eyebrow at him as he steps tentatively inside, allowing the tent flap to fall closed behind him. A playful smirk dances over her face. "Given that your last idea sent us crash-landing into a lake, I must admit I feel a little apprehensive."

He huffs at her, an almost-chuckle that sends alarm bells ringing in her mind. A jibe like that would usually send him on a ranting spiral, fussing all about how his invention hadn’t been the reason they crashed and had, actually, worked exactly as intended for the majority of their journey.

Teasing him is easy, and the way he smiles when she does sends warmth pouring through her. Seeing him so subdued is… troubling, to say the least. He hangs up his sword and crosses the tent to perch on the edge of her bed. His eyes remain fixed on the floor the whole time.

Kneeling in front of him, she allows her fingers to graze over the bruise blossoming on his cheek. His eyes fall closed for a moment. "She really got you, didn't she? Our dear Sun Summoner has a mean right hook."

"Believe me, I know. Scrappy little thing." Nikolai flexes his jaw and opens his eyes, and all once, Anya knows. It's written in the tiny lines between his brows and the quirk of his mouth and the ache in his eyes.

"What is it?" she murmurs. Her fingers linger on his face, and he leans into the warmth of her, just slightly. Her knee protests, but she doesn't dare try to stand up. "What's happened?"

He swallows roughly. "I've told you before, haven't I, about coming back here and helping Ravka. About fixing it before it's too late."

Whispered conversations in a dimly-lit cabin flutter through her mind. Wishes pressed against her skin with kisses, hopes and dreams caught up in a lover's embrace. I could be better than Vasily, he'd said, and she had believed that, the way she believed the sun would rise in the morning. I could save Ravka.

She hadn't told him the truth, then. She'd taken his dreams and folded them up into her own chest, to keep safe beside her heart, but she hadn't wanted it the way he did. Anya would sooner see Ravka burn. She cannot bring herself to feel mercy, not where this Saints-forsaken country is concerned. Not after it abandoned her when she needed it most.

Now, she nods. A damp tendril of hair falls past her eyes. "I remember. You said you... you would find a way to convince Vasily to step aside, and your father would make you the heir. But it wasn't a plan. You said you didn't know how you'd do it, yet. Just that you wished you could."

She may never forget it. The panic that struck her, bone-deep. The way his ambitions have haunted her ever since. He may not have known it then, but a ticking clock had been set that day. Anya never knew when their time would run out. Only that she would never be ready for it.

He smiles, now. A rueful thing. There is no need to hide with her, no need to put on that winsome devil-may-care act he wears like armour. She is not a politician he can sway to his side, nor a danger he can charm his way out of, and yet he smiles at her. She is so beautiful, and soft, and she's not wearing her armour, either. Not here, not with him. There is nothing to smile about, and in a few moments it will all be different, but right now she is his, so he has to smile. He has to.

He may weep, otherwise.

"Kolya." Her voice is so quiet, barely more than a whisper, and he is so sure that she knows, already, without him having to breathe a word.

His throat goes horribly tight, an invisible hand wrapped tight around his windpipe, as if that will stop his confession. His eyes flit to the roof for a moment. They start to sting.

"Alina's power is the key to Ravka's survival," he says. Every word feels like lead on his tongue. "The Apparat has turned her into a living Saint, and the people love her. If I'm to make a bid for the throne and convince Vasily to step aside, it can't just be that I'm the best man for the job. That won't matter. But an alliance with the Sun Summoner might sway the odds in my favour."

Anya watches him for a long moment. He holds his breath as time stretches, and eternity seems to pass before she even blinks. She withdraws her hand, allowing it to rest lightly on his thigh. The absence of her touch lingering in his face burns like a fresh bullet wound.

He wonders if you can die from missing someone who hasn't gone anywhere yet.

"An alliance with Alina." Anya narrows her eyes as the pieces click together in her mind." You mean—"

"I'm going to ask her to marry me." His throat feels rough as sandpaper. "A political marriage, in name only. The game has changed and Alina is the only one who can level the playing field."

He keeps talking, but Anya can hardly hear him. Her brain began to buzz with white noise the moment she heard the word marriage, as if her skull is home to a thousand angry wasps and someone suddenly decided to shake the nest. She can feel her blood rushing in her ears, her heartbeat thudding in her throat, but she doesn't dare give herself away.

Anya Kamenev is a soldier, but she is also a future duchess. Her mother would be proud to learn that all those etiquette lessons didn't go to waste. Summoning a decade of training, her old governess' instructions rattling through her mind, her face remains delicate and empty. Not a muscle twitch or a quiver of her lip, not a hint of sorrow flashing in her eyes. She might as well be carved from marble. Her heart sits in her chest like a stone.

"Nastya." The nickname he gave her in their army days is salt in an open wound. Nikolai reaches for her, grasps her hands in his as if she is all that can anchor him to this world. "I don't know what to do."

"Of course you do." Somehow her voice is gentle, even though she feels jagged at the edges, like touching her might make him bleed. An instinct tugs at her, to curl her fingers around his own and hold him just as tight, but she can't bring herself to move. "You wouldn't bring it up to me if you hadn't already thought it through. You're a clever man, Nikolai. The cleverest I know, and don't let that go to your head. You know what you have to do now. You just want my permission to do it."

Is it crueller, somehow, to ask for permission? To hand over her heart, and the knife too, as if that will make it hurt less when he carves it from her chest?

A wet laugh bubbles out of him. "Trust you to keep my ego in check even now, Anya."

"Someone has to," she says. She heaves herself into a standing position, wincing as her knee cracks and tiny bolts of lightning spike up her leg. "Although I think Alina will do a brilliant job. I don't mind handing over that responsibility to her."

"Don't." Nikolai is on his feet in a moment. One hand remains in hers, his grip tight as a vice, but the other curls around the back of her neck. His thumb brushes softly over her cheek. The warmth of it makes her shudder. "Don't say that like you're going anywhere. I'm not sure I can do any of this without you."

"Of course you can," Anya murmurs. Saints, she isn't sure the torture she endured at the hands of Shu Han's scientists hurt this much. If she closes her eyes, she can almost believe he's taken a blade and gutted her right here, like a fish on the deck of his ship.

A ragged breath tears out of him as he says, "Alright, perhaps I can. But I don't want to."

When he kisses her, it doesn't feel like a kiss goodbye. It doesn't feel like their last kiss in a thousand. There's a ferocity to him as he clutches her, teeth clashing, but that doesn't change the truth of it. He can hold her as tightly as he wants, but they both know she has always been smoke in his hands.

“I would give you anything,” he says against her mouth, pressed together like hands in prayer. She feels his breath stutter against her tongue, hitched with a sob he will not set free. “Name it. Palaces and jewels, the moon, a temple built in your name, the heads of every man who ever harmed you served on a silver platter. Name it and it’s yours. Just stay.”

Your heart. The tear slides down her cheek unbidden, and he kisses it away as he has done a thousand times before. She catches his lips with her own and kisses him again, fingers tangled in tendrils of his hair, still rough with saltwater no matter how many times he washes it. Your heart, your hand, a life with you away from this Saints-forsaken country.

She’ll stay. She will, because Anya is a soldier, and though she no longer has any loyalty to Ravka, she still believes in him. And there is no pain in the world that could hurt more than abandoning him now, no matter how much she wishes she could.

“Anything.” His voice, barely a whisper, a plea to those forgotten saints who have never seen fit to bestow a miracle upon them. “Anything, my darling.”

He sinks to his knees before her, presses his forehead to her stomach. She leans and kisses the crown of his scalp, lingering a moment to breathe in the salt and sea of him. Ravka will never know how lucky it is to have a prince so loyal. She doesn’t know what they’d done to earn such devotion.

“I know.” Despite the tears, her voice is deceptively still. Your heart. But he had already sworn it to his country, long before he ever loved her. “I want the same as you, Nikolai; peace and prosperity for Ravka.”

He snorts against her stomach. His arms wrap tightly around her middle. “Liar.”

“Always.” Pushing him away would not be the worst torture she has endured, but she worries it will scar her far longer than any blade could.

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov fanfiction #nikolai lantsov fanfic #nikolai lantsov oc #grishaverse fanfic #shadow and bone fanfic #shadow and bone oc #six of crows fanfic #* fic: gold rush.#* chapter update.

71 notes · View notes

happyhauntt · 1 month

Text

if my wish were granted — nikolai lantsov

series masterlist | writing masterlist | askbox

─── summary: anya likes teasing nikolai. it’s far too easy to get under his skin. this time, enjoying some peace aboard the Volkvolny, anya claims that she prefers sturmhond’s rugged looks over nikolai’s princely features.

─── pairing: nikolai lantsov & anya kamenev (original character.)

─── warnings: fluff, a lil angst if you squint, this is steamy with sexual references but no actual smut, i'd still put it as 18+ just in case, pre-established relationship, this might be the closest to smut i've ever written and i need validation so please tell me i did a good job even if it's a lie, mentions of past injury. oh and krysa = rat.

─── word count: 1.4k.

The gentle rocking of the ship is a soothing lullaby to Anya. Curled up and warm beneath silk blankets, she feels like she is small again and her mother is humming a sweet Old Ravkan song in her ear, familiar and strange all at once.

Her mother, of course, did no such thing in Anya's youth — all those nursemaids and nannies — but the rhythm of it is still a balm on her soul. The rocking of the ship, the steady beat of Nikolai's heart beneath her cheek, the scent of saltwater on his skin. This is home, she thinks. She has never felt contentment like this before. She fears she never will again.

Nikolai stirs beneath her. He toys absently with the loose locks of her hair, curling honey-coloured strands around his fingers. A soft smile stretches over his face, and when he speaks, his voice is low and husky with the remains of sleep. "What are you thinking about?"

She looks up at him, so close she can feel the warmth of his breath on her face. His lips brush her hair as he speaks, and something lights up inside her chest. A spark she prays will never go out. A sense of safety that settles over her only when he is near.

She doesn’t respond at first. She raises her hand, draws a gentle line down his face, from his brow to his chin. Nikolai shivers beneath her touch. Her finger lingers on his nose for a few moments, brushing lightly over the tailored crookedness of it. Nikolai tilts his chin and kisses her fingertip.

“Not much,” she says, finally, and it’s the truth. Her mind feels fuzzy and warm, and the air in the cabin smells like candle wax and salt. Though their country is wartorn and her thoughts are forever occupied with other, more pressing matters — here and now, her mind is quiet. Anya will savour this bliss, these fleeting moments of peace between them, for as long as she can. It is the only time he belongs to her, and nobody else.

His grin is wide and smug and edged with lovesickness. The tips of his fingers draw abstract shapes on the bare skin of her shoulder. “That’s quite an achievement. I must have done a fantastic job, if you’ve managed to lose your thoughts. I had worried it couldn’t be done.”

Anya scowls mockingly at him, but she cannot fight the smile that curls at the edge of her lips. “Alright then, sobachka, you asked for it. I was just thinking that I quite prefer your nose like this. All rugged and handsome.”

He chuckles, a deep, rumbling sound that makes Anya’s stomach do somersaults. Muddy green eyes rove over her, as familiar to her now as Nikolai’s usual hazel. “I think I prefer when you used to call me krysa.”

“Ah,” she says, “but I didn’t kiss you then, did I? I’d call you krysa and push you into the nearest puddle. And you certainly weren’t this handsome then. You were still a boy, prim and proper and clean-cut.”

"But I was a soldier, darling, and you did manage to fall madly in love with me.” A muscle jumps in his jaw, and Anya feels like she’s won some kind of prize. “Is that not ruggedly handsome enough for you?"

"I'm in love with you, am I? That's news to me."

A low growl rolls through Nikolai’s chest and suddenly she's beneath him. He hovers over her like a Saint of all things unholy, propped up on his palms with a wicked grin slashed across his mouth, and he kisses her deeply, tongue lashing over hers before he trails lower, peppering open-mouthed kisses over her jaw, her chest, her stomach.

A calloused hand wraps gently around her thigh. The rings studding his fingers are cold against her skin. He kisses her broken knee, softly, reverently. Looks up at her through heavy-lidded eyes. "How is it now?"

"Much better." It had never healed right, but the pain of it doesn’t bother her much anymore. Anya is a soldier, after all. The salty breeze and the warmth of the air have eased the brittleness of her bones. Ravka's cold will be the death of her someday, she's sure.

The scar that remains is little more than a puckered white line, disguising the sort of damage that will never go away, not completely. She had a cane made for when the pain is at its worst, when the chill makes her bones feel like knives beneath her skin and she can no longer put on a brave face. For the most part, it remains hidden out of sight. She despises feeling weak.

"We're about an hour out from port," Anya murmurs, as Nikolai trails another line of kisses up her body. He ignores her for a moment, choosing to wrap her leg around his waist instead, humming against the column of her throat. "We should get dressed."

His heart sinks at her words, and he buries his face in her neck. He feels her hand curling into his hair, stroking idly through tailored-red strands, and he wishes there was some way to stop time.

He wants to press his lips to hers and kiss her until she's breathless. Wants to fuck her hard into the mattress until the rest of the world melts away and there's just this room and him. Wants to make her come so many times she can't remember her own name. Anything to keep her for a moment longer, soft and safe and happy, where the hell of reality can't touch her.

But Nikolai has no such power, and in the next moment Anya is pushing him away, shimmying out from under him until she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, feet planted firmly on the floor. He reaches out with desperate hands, tries to latch them around her waist, but Anya merely casts an apologetic glance over her shoulder.

The battle is lost, Nikolai knows, and so he sighs. Settling back on his elbows, he watches her retrieve some of their discarded clothes from the floor.

“You look better in my clothes than I do,” he tells her as she tugs his shirt down over her head. She turns to face him, silhouetted against the golden light as it spills through the window. His shirt is long and loose on her, gaping at the chest where she’d pulled the ties undone. The hem just brushes the top of her thigh, leaving the rest of her long legs exposed in a way that leaves him breathless.

She reaches up and sweeps her hair out of the collar, allowing it to fall in tangled curls down her back. “That’s because I’m wearing them, and you’re not. Up now, Kolya. Procrastinating will not make me stay longer; we both have schedules to keep.”

When the Volkvolny finally docks in the port at Os Kervo, Nikolai kisses Anya just before she reaches the gangway. He keeps a tight grip on her waist but his lips are soft, tender, and Anya knows that if kisses could have a flavour, this one would taste of sadness.

Saying goodbye is always the hardest part.

When he pulls away, finally, he keeps her close. Their foreheads press together and his eyes are closed, as if he can keep her that way, as if the secret to making her stay is pretending she will always be there.

She runs her thumb over the bridge of his nose, over the knots of ill-healed bone that Tolya put there, to disguise Nikolai’s true features. When he opens his eyes, they are green and not hazel, and a bolt of grief streaks through her. She misses them. She misses him, so much, and he is still here.

She wonders if there will ever come a time when one of them isn’t always leaving.

Two weeks after she leaves, a letter from Tamar appears, delivered with the rest of Anya’s correspondance. Her laughter peels out of her office and if her employees wonder what has made their boss, usually so stern and sober, sound so utterly giddy, then none of them mention it.

Please tell the captain that you think he’s handsome as-is, Tamar writes. He keeps goading Tolya into actually trying to break his nose. Anya laughs until tears drip from her chin and the ink smears across the page. And if her next letter to Nikolai is a little more complimentary than usual, well, that’s a sacrifice she is willing to make.

55 notes · View notes