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ruinatiion // MATTHIAS.

HE IS STILL LEARNING TO BE GENTLE, TO BE HUMAN. For so long he’s been a solid Fjerdan, who has never strayed from a mission that felt as if it were embedded in his bones. From his time with the drüskelle he has been hardened, has made himself much more serious than any child should have been at his age. He had watched his village burn and his parents perish, and Jarl Brum had become his secondary father. He had been given a pathway that he had never considered, no matter how many whispers there had been out there that the Grisha were nothing more than witches, a plague that needed destroying. All those thoughts had been drilled in him from such a young age, his heart anchored in the hatred from losing his parents, someone so young who was torn away from everything that he had once known. He had played with the other children that were meant to be his brothers when he became of age and resented every moment of it –– he was better than them in every way, and yet he had to make himself less in order to breathe their same air and to make his newfound father happy.

They were not his family, they would never be his family –– he had stood by their side for far too long, had captured Grisha and enslaved them on ships, taking them to trial in the Ice Court because he had merely believed that they truly stood trial. When he had been told to kill the captives? Something in him had turned raw, broken –– when the Grisha witch had been right, he had felt what remained of his fabricated life shatter into a thousand pieces. No matter how many times he had bitten toward Nina, he was nothing more than like Trassel –– he was desperate to stake his claim because it had been bestowed on him, but it was easier to place people away from him, to detach himself for the sake of his own sanity. If he did that, then he could keep being that soldier that made Brum proud. Without it? He wasn’t sure what he was.

He finds though that something warms in his frozen chest when Inej laughs at his joke; it’s akin to the way he had felt when Nina had commented on his ability to laugh, his once serious face collapsing and boyish laughter wracking through his body. It felt like something broke and thawed out in the summer heat –– Fjerda isn’t all that much warmer in the summer months, but it’s still beautiful when you feel it upon your skin. Sometimes he thinks there’s a way to all of this, to spending his time with these rogues. Djel had led him on a different path, one that perhaps he would’ve been meant for if his village hadn’t been burned down. Before he was filled with so much hatred and Jarl Brum had harbored that and made him a villain to his own mind. At one point he had felt so much love toward the other, and then the heaviness had filled his heart when he had seen the truth.

“I seem to do it best. It appears to be one of the Fjerdian features that actually become me,” is his light comment back, that ghost of a smile still hovering on his lips. Inej is easier to talk to than Nina –– he flounders for speech around her, becomes tongue tied until he thinks that the can’t actually speak any languages toward her. She fogs his head with silly ideals, ones that are written in picture books for children and he knows he needs to banish it from his thoughts. He’s found some sort of freedom though, hasn’t he? It’s now raw and broken open inside of him, a wolf howling underneath a full moon and waiting to hear his pack return the call. He’ll never hear it though –– Fjerda has turned its back on him –– he is nothing more than a traitor now, and it blooms in his head like the last flowers of summer.

Fingers falter where they’re moving against the silks, eyes darting toward the woman that is far more wise than what her years grant her. Inej has been a survivor for so long now, fighting besides Kaz and Jesper and Nina, finding their own form of camaraderie and family. They live in a lawless land where the Barrel dictates what happens around them –– their life isn’t as structured as his had once been. There is no need to prove yourself, not when you have the trust of those around you. Part of him wonders if he’ll ever feel that safety net, no matter where he is. He wishes to walk like he owns the streets just as Inej does the rooftops. He wishes to invoke the fear that Kaz does while still keeping those he cares about safe. He desperately wants the aloof personality that decorates Jeseper’s soul. And more than anything, he wants to allow himself the carefree nature that has carved Nina into who she is today.

Inej is correct –– there is more than surviving, because Kerch is home to her. Ketterdam is her playhouse –– she dances upon the rooftops at night and tucks herself beneath sheets during the day, resting underneath protection that has been promised to her. Survival brims at the edges of her mind but she does not let it consume her –– not like he has, as if it’s the only thing that drives him forward in the blackest of nights.

“There was a time when my arrow was aimed with the utmost finality.” He lets the saying roll around in his mind, over and over again; it’s a nice one, reminds you to stay true to your path instead of just leaping forward on an impulse. He thinks that perhaps her father is just as wise as she is –– he wonders if Inej gets her personality from him. He longs for a father that told him sayings like that instead of words dripped in venom. “When I was a drüskelle, everything had been simple. I thought I knew who I was and what the world was. What Fjerda was.”

His mind slips back to walking through the chambers, viewing the cells that held Grisha within them for experiments. For so long he had truly wanted to believe that they had stood trial for the crimes that they had committed, and yet it had been a lie. Blatant and in front of him, a warning sign that he had been so desperate to ignore. It doesn’t work that way though, not anymore. No, he’s taken off his rose colored glasses and can see the world for what it truly is.

“Now…I do not know what way to aim my arrow and if it would matter in the long run.” Eyes raise to meet hers, for a moment lost in the warmth in them, in the dark color that suits her features so well. His own blue eyes feel too sharp against his skin now, whisper desperately what he is when he tries to haunch his shoulders and blend in. “I cannot go home. Fjerda wants me dead for being a traitor. I could go with Nina, but I don’t know if Ravka is the true place for me, if I would even be accepted there given the state of the world thanks to my people.”

His words are soft but haunted –– it’s the first time he’s spoken them out loud, has confided in someone that he isn’t sure where his path truly resides. They could cross into the borders of Fjerda if Nina allowed it, but what good would it do? Matthias would be easily recognized. Nina could be tailored, but he would not allow himself to be altered. He has lived a false narrative for far too long and doesn’t wish to have it on his back once more.

“But your arrow has landed a long time ago. I don’t think it’s me who cares for him, Inej.” Such careful words in passing, but eyebrow raises ever so slightly, almost tempts her to deny his assumptions, ones that everyone with eyes and hearts can see clear as day. “Perhaps I’m just envious that you have such a direction to follow.”

“It might not seem like that,” There is only softness in her words, the sympathy of one who knows the feelings he so tentatively shows all too well. Inej had been lost too, for a while; surviving one day after the other, anything beyond that forgotten. There had been more than saving her own skin, even then, but she had not considered her path, where she meant to get, what she wanted to be --- not even when faced with the offer of four million kruge. The old answers had been repeated over and over: after getting back her freedom, she would go back to Ravka, find her family. It had taken a lot for her to truly think about it, consider whether that was sincerely what her heart desired, imagine what came after. Only then realization had come that going back would not make things the same. The broken parts in her would remain broken; and could she adjust to that life again, after all of this? She knew the answer now, if she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it before. “But I... understand, not knowing where your place is.”

“I never felt like I belonged with the Dregs,” A sentiment shared by them, if Jesper’s admission of how little she had in common with them was anything to go by. Inej thought it was; she had never been too interested in indulging their vices, and after the Menagerie she had been skittish in general. Her arms hug her legs tighter, and her gaze wanders to the others, observing them from afar without paying much attention. “And I can’t really go back home either.”

Her parents were alive, Saints willing, but still beyond her reach. Even should she find them again (and the certainty the attempt would be made, at least, remains steadfast), that would no longer be her home. The girl she had been would not have fit anywhere else; but she was that girl no longer, for better or worse, and the certainty she belonged with her caravan had long since been left behind. It’s not the same --- the opposite, even, with Matthias being too good for a country that harbored so much hatred, while Inej and her bloodstained hands did not fit in with a people better than she was. But the feeling, at least, she understands; wanting to go back and not being able to, being unsure even of the desire to go back, lost between what was and what is, not knowing what will be. “Finding purpose isn’t easy, but it’s worth it --- all the more because it’ll be your purpose this time.”

No longer something instilled in him by others, no longer merely what he had been taught. There was a choice in it, in the path he would seek forward, a choice that was all his, even with all his love for Nina. She understood a little bit of that, too. Dark eyes meet his once more, no longer avoidant. “You may not know it now, but you’ll find it. And even if that arrow doesn’t find its final goal, it’ll be worth it because the path will be the one you chose.”

In different ways, they are both poor fits for Kerch. Matthias is too honorable for its schemes, too brave for all its deception, too good for its greed. Inej has no fondness for lies, loathes hurting innocent people, but she learned to use her claws in order to survive. His broad figure may have stood out regardless of it, yet the pale skin, light hair and blue eyes denounced him as fjerdan; as much as she, dark hair and dark eyes and brown skin, was unmistakably Suli.

The rooftops had become her domain, nevertheless; a piece of the city all her own, unreachable to others. Her place, carved in Ketterdam as Ketterdam had etched itself in her. For all she stood out, there had been a place for her. There could be one for him, too, were it his choice to stay. It wasn’t a good place, but it wasn’t Fjerda or Ravka, and there would be no one to prevent him and Nina from staying together here. “It’s said there are many people from Ravka and Fjerda both moving to Novyi Zem to escape the wars. There are always other places to start over.”

“--- And there’ll always be a place for you with us, too.” Only then tension that had been upon her shoulders vanished, her hug around her legs relaxing. Her words are sincere; she wouldn’t say it for the sake of it. He should know it by now. Inej had not held back from saying he ought to do more to deserve Nina, before they had reached the Ice Court. He was one of them, too. “In Ketterdam or to hunt some slavers, if you need time to figure out what path do you mean to follow.”

“It’s not that simple.” There is a whisper of denial there somewhere, however inaccurate it might be. It isn’t a lie, though. I want you, Kaz had said that night in the boat, but she wouldn’t settle for so little as a request to stay with no attempt to try. Her tone is quieter than before, and without meaning to her gaze turns away again, stealing a glance at Kaz before it falls to the ground in front of her. “Of course I care for him, but it’s not like that.”

It had never been simple, with them. Besides, her intent wasn’t to stay; she’d leave to the sea and he’d stay and rule Ketterdam. It would be a lie to say she had not wanted more, longed even for a reason to stay, but it had not come, and the path she meant to follow wasn’t his. Understatement as her admission of care might be, there is no desire on her part to further delve into that particular subject. Even Nina hadn’t been successful to get her to talk about it, and as open as conversation with Matthias was, she did not feel more inclined to discuss that either. Instead, focus is turned to his next words. “I do have a direction and it feels right. I didn’t always know, though, that’s fairly recent. You’ll find it too, Matthias.”

#ruinatiion #* in character: THE TRICK TO FALLING IS IN GETTING BACK UP.#* general: THE WRAITH.#I love them being friends................

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