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1. long story short, i survived
It could not come at a worse time, truly.
The jewelled letter opener gleams greedily with what little light there is in Nikolai's office. It trembles slightly, because the hand holding it is trembling and Zoya wants to chalk it up to her tiredness (she is so very tired these days; a war can do that) but it is likely more so related to her rising heart rate.
"Zoya?" Nadia asks her from the entryway, and Zoya quickly turns to her, glad to have her focus shifted from the envelope carrying a letter, not for Zoya Nazyalensky, but for the daughter of Sabina Garin.
"Yes?" She asks, a little too harsher than necessary. Saints, get a grip. She is no longer nine and desperate for a mother’s love and attention. She’s a soldier in the second army. A general now.
(Her mother is dead. Her mother is dead. Her mother is-)
Nadia wavers, hesitantly testing the waters, “I have the death toll-” Here, Zoya notices the papers she is holding, a stack too thick for Zoya’s liking, “- but… I could come back later?”
Zoya opens her mouth to say That’s not necessary because it isn’t, but Nikolai is quicker to say “That would be lovely, Nadia. Thank you.” And a soldier never disobeys her king (neither does a general - at least not in public) so Zoya closes her mouth, and waits until Nadia has left before speaking her mind.
“That was not necessary.”
“It’s obscenely early to be doing paperwork, don't you think?”
Zoya’s eyes narrow. It’s clear he’s deflecting, and normally, she’d be calling him out on it, but she can’t pretend she’s not glad for it. When she doesn’t respond, he tells her, in a softer tone, "Go home, Nazyalensky,"
(For a brief moment, she thinks he is talking about Pachina. But, of course, he is talking about her quarters in the Little Palace.)
"Is that an order?"
"Does it have to be?"
Zoya doesn't respond, stares more at the letter opener and briefly imagines stabbing someone with it, before bowing her head in acceptance and defeat, grabbing the letter that will tell her exactly what she suspects after a moment of hesitation.
"I'll see you tonight."
—
Later that day, Zoya is wrapped in a coat as she makes her way to Nikolai's bedroom. The coat's length ensures that the hem of her nightgown shows - short enough to give the guards ideas, long enough that it appears as though she's doing all she can to hide her actions.
Although, with the state she's in, any harebrained attempt at pretending to be caught up in a sordid affair would be completely transparent.
She looks, to put it plainly, like a mess. Her eyes are swollen and sore, and the skin under feels too tight. It's been pretty clear that she's been crying, and she's too sick with grief to even do something to hide it. Nikolai notices something is wrong as soon as she enters, too observant for his own good. Still, he doesn’t probe, sneaking glances at her out of the corner of his eye.
She picks the settee farthest away from the bed and draws up her knees to her chest, not bothering at reading. Because of the way the room is arranged, this means her back is to the window and although his curtains are drawn, a little sunlight peeks through the gaps, abstract geometric shapes of light striking Nikolai and the bed he is sprawled on. The light is doing things to his hair, which is doing things to her.
Even through this odd mixture of rage and loss, a singular thought seems to rise through the fog in her brain. A thought that Zoya immediately tamps back down. (Really? Zoya wants to scream at herself. His hair? You've seen him bare-chested for several weeks by now, and it's his hair that has got you entertaining these absurd thoughts? But that’s not true. It’s not just hair, it’s everything about him. He’s a magnet, drawing everyone in his radius to him, and Zoya is not even close to being unphased by him.)
It's almost a relief when the sun finally sets, and the golden warmth of the room is replaced by the cooler shade of moonlight. Nikolai finally sets down his book, and, thankfully does not breathe a word about Zoya's disconcerting staring, when he turns to her.
Sighing, she makes her way to him, his bindings held in one hand. It should be more uneasy for her to be this close to him, but it's not. They fall into a comfortable silence as she works, tying him to the bedposts. When finished, she surveys her handiwork and is satisfied enough, she turns to leave.
Nikolai, however, seems to have other plans as he grabs her wrist, twisted into a position that looks to be beyond uncomfortable.
"Zoya," he says, voice low and raspy from disuse, "Could you read for me? For just a while?" The words I can't sleep are left unsaid, but that is how they work, Zoya and Nikolai. For every word said, there are three more unspoken but understood just the same. And as much as she wants to refuse him, she also knows intimately the terrifying reality of sleepless nights and being left victim to your own mind. And she can imagine how much worse it must be for him, to be left without the thoughtless pastime of pacing. To be trapped in both your body and mind.
Silently, she drags a chair to the foot of his bed, and then trails her finger along the spines of well-worn books that decorate his bookshelf. She's slid a fairytale book that every child in Ravka knows by heart halfway out when she pauses, grappling with two sides of her mind. After a few seconds, she returns to the chair empty-handed. Pouring herself a glass of champagne - the high-end one he keeps stocked in his bedroom - she starts, voice low, "When I was nine, my mother tried to barter me off in marriage to a man more than four times my age."
He does not sleep even when she finishes, late into the night, and she briefly wonders if she did the right thing by telling him this. He wanted a monotonous tale he could fall asleep to, not something so visceral and raw and steeped in varying shades of grief and anger and loss.
Her worry is put to rest when, as she rises, he says, "Thank you."
He pretends not to hear the sniffle that follows, the red nose, and bloodshot eyes as she nods.
(She falls in love with him a little bit more that day.)
2. if the shoe fits, walk in it everywhere you go
“How did we get here?” Nikolai sighs theatrically, and Zoya does not deign to look up from the papers on her desk. It’s the seventh time this hour that he’s gone on this tangent and sure, she hates paperwork, but she just might hate him more. “We used to be war heroes, Zoya. War heroes.”
“You’re drunk,” Zoya huffs, “I can practically smell the kvas from here,”
“Would you like some?” This time, Zoya does look up from her paperwork, finding her king reclining in his chair, abandoning any pretense at productivity. He looks more like his alter ego than he has for months. His coat is a clear relic from his days as Stormhund, his hair is mussed, and the first few buttons of his shirt are undone, exposing smooth, tanned, golden skin. Zoya’s gaze skitters away, lest she start thinking about what else lay beneath his clothes and-
“No.”
(She is saying this partly in response to him, and partly to her own brain. This sort of thinking is, worryingly, happening more regularly these days.)
“Nazyalensky, look at your desk. You couldn’t finish it if you stayed up all night for a week to do it. Why’d you agree to do David’s paperwork anyway?”
Zoya rubs her eyes, turning back to him blearily. He’s straightened up now - thank the saints - and looking at her seriously. He’s right, of course. There is no human way she can complete the monstrous amount of paperwork on her desk.
“Because Genya asked nicely.”
“She blackmailed you too, didn’t she? What does she have on you?”
As if she would say.
“What does she have on you?”
Nikolai laughs, and it is a delightful thing. “Well played, General. I believe that deserves a glass of the finest kvas money can buy, eh?”
His attempts to cajole her into abandoning her work are painfully transparent. Likely, he has resigned himself to a week - or two at this rate - of sleeplessness and is hoping to drag her down with him. It's working too. Objectively, Zoya knows that even if she is unable to finish all the paperwork by tonight, it is better than putting it off for another day and prolonging this unique type of hell, but that bottle of kvas is a sight for sore eyes, made more tempting by the fact that Zoya knows from personal experience that the kvas in that bottle is better tasting and more expensive than any she could possibly buy.
“One drink,” she concedes.
“That’s the spirit!”
But the kvas just tastes too good to waste and one drink becomes two becomes too many. She loses count of how many shots they down, but they start daring each other somewhere along the way. A disastrous decision because both of them are competitive, the only difference being that Nikolai tries to hide it and Zoya does not. He finally dares her to walk naked into the freezing pond, and, when Zoya displays self-preservatory instincts, declares himself the winner. She is not ready to concede defeat all that easily, however, and through a myriad of excuses successfully negotiates a different dare.
“I dare you to… to… Saints, I’m so drunk I can’t think,” Nikolai exclaims, face so contorted and comical that Zoya has to laugh.
She only stops when she meets Nikolai’s eyes and realises he’s staring at her, hazel eyes boring into her own. She frowns, straightening self-consciously and then stiffening when he leans in and tucks a tendril of hair that was hanging in front of her face behind her ear. All the breath in her lungs escapes once she notices the negligible distance between his face and hers. They’re so close now that she can feel his breath on her cheeks when he tells her, huskily, “I like it when you laugh. Especially when it’s because of me.”
The words are spoken softly but they hang in the air as heavy as stones. It feels like a confession somehow, and Zoya wants to respond in a way that can displace the sudden silence between them, but her mind is scattered and the only thing she is aware of is how close their lips are to touching. She won’t make the first move, but she is terrified that if he leans in, she won’t stop him. He closes his eyes, leans in until the distance is too little that they might as well be kissing and her heart stops then speeds up too fast to be healthy and she thinks, this is it and her eyelids slide down too and-
The kvas bottle comes crashing down, and they jerk apart, eyes flying open, trying to look everywhere, anywhere but at each other. Zoya sucks in a huge lungful of air. That they were so close to- to- that unsettles her. She needs to sober up now. Immediately. Right this instant.
Funny how that doesn’t seem to work. She mentally rifles through any way to dispel the sudden awkwardness between them. Any way for them to-
“Shakshouka.”
“What?” Now she’s confused.
“For the dare. I dare you to eat spicy shakshouka,” he clarifies.
“Okay,” she says, and that seems to do the trick. His face breaks into a smile, and Zoya has to be careful not to look too relieved. It was close, but they’re back on track now. “But where are we going to find shakshouka now?”
“I know a place.”
And that is how they end up stumbling into a Suli-Ravkan fusion restaurant on the outskirts of Os Alta. She’s discarded her fine silk coat because then she might as well scream out their identities for the entirety of Ravka to hear and assassinate them. They still get weird looks because now she’s underdressed, and also they can’t seem to walk straight but that’s not too out-of-place. Now, they just look like an overexcited young couple. A pirate and a prostitute.
She’s shivering and grateful for the warmth as soon as they’re inside. Nikolai orders shakshouka and then requests for it to be made 10 times more spicier.
The minute Zoya is served, though, the dish has her crying foul. It’s so spicy, just the smell of it has her close to tearing up and just the thought of eating it has her recoiling- another twisted attempt at murder, no doubt. Anybody sane would refuse. Unfortunately, she has Nikolai.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for such a coward, Nazyalensky.” He drawls. His attempts to rile her are as obvious as they are successful. And Zoya definitely blames this on the kvas, because the next thing she knows she's glaring at him, and then just to spite him, shoving a huge spoonful into her mouth.
Bad idea. Terrible idea. Her eyes immediately begin to water, and her tongue erupts in pain. She’s in so much pain that she’s fairly sure her tastebuds are shriveling up and dying. Come to think of it, she can’t feel her limbs too. And her eyes keep watering. She’s crying freely now, and he’s laughing.
Seething, she formulates murder plot after murder plot. No, murder is not enough for the filthy dog. He must be kept alive and tortured. Treason is looking particularly attractive to her now.
Now if only she could manage to open her mouth and tell him exactly that.
Still shaking with silent laughter, he slides a cup of milk over to her, and she gulps it down like a man starving.
“Shut. Up.” she grits out, after downing the entire cup. The fiery feeling is returning but slowly, with less intensity.
“I didn’t say anything,” he protests, before suddenly stiffening. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” she can barely hear him over the pounding in her head.
“I think,” he says slowly, “we’ve been recognised. Or more accurately, you’ve been recognised”
She’s not in any position to make a quick escape, but panic is clawing at her now. Her head is too lightheaded from the adrenaline rush and in a fit of desperation, she buries her head in his shoulder. “Do something,” she hisses.
“Me? Why me? You’re the one who was-” he breaks off when the unknown person comes closer.
“Zoya Nazyalensky?” the stranger asks. Nikolai is quick to rebuff him, but then the stranger asks him if the-woman-who-is-not-Zoya is okay because it’s clear that she’s crying and Nikolai stumbles, clearly not having expecting the unbelievable amount of nosiness his subject is exhibiting.
“Yes, we’re- we’re okay. My- er… My wife has just experienced the loss of her… her father, you see, so I’d appreciate privacy,” He says, apologetically enough that the stranger murmurs their condolences and moves on.
"How is your lying that bad?" Zoya murmurs into his shoulder, and it's only because she's so close to him that she can hear the slight hitch in his breathing, almost as if he's only just remembered her position. Her hand is pressed to his chest, and even though the position's awkward, it means she can hear the rapid thrumming of his heart. Or is that her heart?
“I was distracted," He defends himself, voice strangled. And then after seconds that feel both too long and too short somehow, "You can lift your head now."
They pay for the food as quickly as they can and practically sprint back to the castle.
Which is where, because life has some sort of long-suffering grudge against her, they bump into Genya and David. Genya surveys Zoya’s state of undress, her mussed-up hair and swollen lips, and thankfully says nothing.
(But the looks she shoots Zoya for weeks after that encounter speak volumes)
3. (how evergreen) our group of friends
They’re both far from the soldiers they’d been on various battlefields throughout their lives, but it’s still a part of them, and Zoya feels that feeling again. That strange mix of acceptance and regret, co-existing in a way that should not be, but is, peaceful.
Zoya keeps her head high. It’s hard to preserve dignity when brought down mercilessly, but even worse when the enemy is inevitability. It was so good while it lasted, and now one of them’s gone and his absence feels like a gaping wound, a sword buried to the hilt inside her.
Zoya keeps her head high because her dignity is all she has left now.
Nikolai looks a lot like her - like calls to like is true in more ways than one, it seems - back straight, chin up, a soldier awaiting his death.
Zoya hates him like this.
It’s so deeply coded into the very atoms that make up her being that Zoya can live with her guilt, but Nikolai wears his with grace and humility. It fits him like a glove, a second costume that he is constantly throwing onto himself, and that makes it worse. He hurts like he wants to, like he has forgotten how to be happy. Zoya is rigid, and unbending because that is her. Lightning does not bend when it strikes the ground. Rain does not curve around one’s body; it assaults directly and straight. Nikolai, on the other hand, is fluid - he is the roaring waves crashing against the rocks ferociously, he is the low tide caressing a little child’s body, coaxing giggles and laughter and joy. He is Nikolai Lantsov, he is Sturmhond, and he is still enough either way.
(Zoya knows she is enough, but sometimes, she wonders if she is not enough in the correct way. Now that’s enough of that, she tells herself firmly, putting an end to that string of thoughts. You are Queen now.)
There’s a garden in the Grand Palace, a barren, neglected thing that has fallen prey to the wastes of time. She’s standing in the garden now, kicking pebbles as she contemplates what to do with it. It is the least important thing in her schedule, but she has no mind to do the other things she has to do. (More paperwork. Heaps and heaps of paperwork. She’s sure Nikolai didn’t face this much torturous paperwork when he was King.)
“So,” he starts, “what’s The Dragon Queen doing here?”
Zoya makes a face in response. The Dragon Queen sounds great, but now that she’s been made into a Sankta and a legend, she finds that not many people are willing to accept that she’s human, too. It makes life frustrating for her, especially when her advisors dance around giving her their concrete assessments, choosing to talk in hypotheticals. They’re either too afraid of angering her or are driven by faith, convinced that nothing she does will ever go wrong.
But she doesn’t want to discuss courtly matters with him, not when he’s back from his first voyage in a long time as Stormhund. When her eyes flick to him she sees that there’s the beginning of a smile on his face. It suits him.
"Genya's waiting for us," Nikolai says when she doesn’t answer. Zoya turns her head slightly, meeting his eyes, taking his arm when he offers it to her. She hears the words he doesn’t say. I love you.
“Well,” Zoya grins, “let’s not keep her waiting.” I love you, too.
There’s this unspoken agreement that she and Nikolai seem to be toeing the line of. It’s coming to a head now, but in a nice sort of way - like when the harvest is finally ready after months of hard work. There is no desperation that comes with the foreboding sense of doom they’d been plunged into for most of Nikolai’s reign. Instead, it feels comforting, a little like going back home. It’s like coming out of the dark and feeling the kiss of the sun against your cheek for the first time. Like the first droplet of rain after months of drought.
When they enter the room, Genya’s eyebrows rise slightly. She looks like she’s mentally filing something away for another time because a second later, they lower again. Genya is a perfect darling - she knows when to push, and when not to. Zoya distinctly does not want her to push, because this strange, pleasant impasse they’re at now will change, but it’s nice and she’s determined to enjoy it for as long as she can. She’ll enjoy the feeling of butterflies and joy in her stomach, and thinking, That’s mine, He’s mine, without the guilt and shame and longing for something she’s convinced she’ll never have following.
Around her, Genya has spread out small dishes of eye-watering food - everything from quail egg pie to candied plums - propped up by stacks of paperwork. Zoya groans when she realises what Genya intends for them to do.
“I’m Queen,” Zoya insists, “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,”
Rolling her eyes, Genya gestures for Zoya to sit down, not even wasting her breath calling out Zoya’s blatant lie. Dutifully, Zoya sits down before the Pelmeni, removing the dish before beginning the arduous task of doing the paperwork of that particular pile. She has no particular preference for Pelmeni, but it is the stack that is the shortest in length, and Zoya’s starving. It’s a game David had come up with, a way to entice themselves with the promise of food to do paperwork.
(Zoya hates paperwork. Loathes it. The food doesn’t make up for it, doesn’t even lessen the burden, but the communal act of doing this, of sitting down cross-legged and silent, used to give her comfort. It still does, truth be told, but now it is a misshapen, malformed, not entirely easy sort of comfort. Every time they do this, they invoke the ghost of David, and maybes, and what-ifs.)
About three to four hours pass before Genya gets up, and lets out a celebratory whoop when she surveys the room, finding only empty plates, and stacks of paper neatly arranged on Zoya’s desk. Nikolai lounging on the sofa, head tipped back and lightly dozing, startles and falls to the ground in a heap, and Zoya’s snigger is almost an automatic response.
Opening Zoya’s closet, Genya only emerges when she’s found the bottles of cider that Zoya keeps stocked and hidden. She hands them to Nikolai and Zoya as she collapses beside them on the ground. “To paperwork,” she crows, and they echo, with Zoya amending it to finishing paperwork.
“To family,” Nikolai crows
“To surviving,” Zoya murmurs quietly.
It takes them only thirty minutes to finish their bottles before Zoya staggers up to get more. Time seems to pass by sluggishly, the three of them too caught up in reminiscing, and Nikolai telling them about his time at sea. Embellishing it only slightly, he claims. Zoya suspects there is more than a fair amount of embellishment going on though, and her suspicions are confirmed, when, without even a trace of humor, he tells them so very seriously about a sildroher, who, while attempting to seduce him, had been seduced by Stormhund’s boundless charms and pledged his undying allegiance instead.
Zoya looks over at him, leaning back with a hand to support herself, and looks at Genya, and tries very hard not to think of him, and then it slips out. “I wish you’d come back to court, Kolya.” She says it with very little weight because she doesn’t particularly wish for him to come back as much as she wishes for the old times.
But it’s like a lightning strike, the immediate change in atmosphere. Nikolai straightens, looking her in the eye when he swallows - and maybe it’s the alcohol getting to her but Zoya finds herself admiring his Adam’s apple and flushed neck - and asks, “And how would you have me join your court?”
Zoya frowns at this inane question. It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? He has a ship - he can always waltz back into court and have her proclaim him some sort of naval- oh. Oh. Zoya straightens too. This isn’t exactly how she imagined this happening. For one, she has no ring on hand, and neither does he. For another, they’re very drunk, and this is decidedly unromantic. Also, Zoya has always been under the impression that a marriage proposal requires one party to ask the other to marry them, with the other party responding. What is occurring now seems to be more of a collaborative effort. Still, she finds herself squaring her shoulders, before saying in a tone of voice that comes out more confident than she actually feels, “As my husband, of course.”
There’s the smallest second of stunned silence before Nikolai pipes up. “This isn’t at all how I wanted it to go,” he begins, shaking his head slightly, with the widest smile, before dropping down to an unsteady knee, “but. Zoya Nazyalensy, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Zoya cries. She’s still sitting, so she’s beaming up at him when it hits her, the enormity of what he’s doing, and she sobers up for a second to correct herself. “No.” Nikolai physically wilts at that, and she rushes to explain, “Wait. Yes, I will marry you. No, not like this. It’s a hellish hour, you have no ring, and we’re both looking like a mess. Propose to me next week, after I’ve had an hour to get ready,”
“But I just proposed! I can’t just take it back. What would we tell our children if they asked us when I asked you to marry me?”
“You’ve asked me to marry you many times,” Zoya replies haughtily, “What’s one more?”
“Better yet.” Genya adds sagely, a silent observer of these proceedings. “Ask her next month. I’ve just gotten on top of all my paperwork. Do you know how much work planning a wedding is?”
They dissolve into fits of laughter after that, laughing until their stomachs hurt, and Zoya feels wetness on her cheeks. Happy tears. Zoya looks down at her hands - corded into Nikolai’s and feels a sudden swell of fondness.
Yes, she can get used to this.
+1. show me the places where others gave you scars
When Zoya walks into her quarters, she isn't surprised to see Nikolai. She’d seen him lurking about the palace throughout the day - and although she’d been sorely tempted to - hadn’t acknowledged his presence with anything other than a shallow nod.
He's like a dog (and she says this with the utmost affection; dogs are delightful little things), her Kolya, and like an animal, he needs space and time to lick his wounds.
Which isn't to say that he is healed, yet. The wound is still open, and will continue to be open for a long time, she suspects. It's been a month, just about, since the funeral, and this is his first time back here since then. That's bound to dredge up painful memories, especially since he grew up here.
Zoya had dealt horrendously with her mother's passing, and she shudders to think of the wreck she would have been had she been forced to spend that period of mourning in Pachina.
Which is not to say that Nikolai's relationship with his mother was the same as Zoya's with her mother, but there is that thread of regret and longing and loss that runs through the heart of both of them. Zoya's mother trying to marry her off to the highest bidder, and Zoya agreeing to please her is not entirely comparable to Nikolai's mother's having an affair with Magnus Opjer and dooming Nikolai even before his birth, and the myriad of smaller injustices that loom heavily over someone even when the exact instances cannot be recalled, but both of the relationships occupy the delicate space between love and hatred, even if Zoya's is skewed more towards the latter.
When Zoya's mother died, she buried herself in work, piled heaps of it over herself in a bid to distract herself. When David died, Zoya had immersed herself in work by necessity as much as choice. With a third of the Triumvirate gone and Genya in a state of catatonic grief, Zoya had needed to shoulder most of the work. Work has always been an effective outlet for Zoya, but she has begun to see that the same cannot be said for Nikolai.
When Zoya's mother died, the wound had scabbed over on its own. She hadn't needed to pour her feelings out to someone as much as come to terms with them herself, but the second she enters her quarters and spots Nikolai staring out the window, a half-drunk bottle of spiced wine clutched firmly in his white-knuckled grasp, she knows it will not be the same for Nikolai. If she doesn't broach the topic now, the wound will continue to fester and spread.
All the same, she prefers to ease into the heavy conversation that looms heavy over them with each passing second. "Have you seen Genya yet?"
He shakes his head, swallows a mouthful of wine before asking her, "Will it ever get better, do you think?"
Well, there goes that plan.
She nods, before slinking towards him slowly, like one might approach a spooked animal, "It gets better, eventually. But I don't think that it's her death alone that's bothering you." Zoya pauses here to look at Nikolai through the side of her eye, wanting to confirm if she's severely misjudged the situation. "Is it?"
"You've always been perceptive," Nikolai replies, drily. "I couldn't go to Genya just yet." I love Genya, and I love my mother, and I hate that I still do when she's caused so much pain to the other person that I love.
"Your mother was not a perfect person, Kolya. But Genya would be the first to tell you not to hate your mother on her behalf. Especially if it's causing you pain."
He shakes his head, "I don't, though. I don't hate my mother because of what she did to Genya, although that's a part of it. I hate my mother because what she did to Genya was a manifestation of a part of her that I can't make my peace with."
"You don't have to." Oh, and how Zoya knows this. Zoya is still only half-sure if her mother loved her, and yet she still can't seem to suppress that thing inside her that longs for her mother. Sabina was a cold woman, but she'd thawed out for Zoya sometimes to braid Zoya's hair and call her pretty. Just enough to give Zoya a glimpse of what she could have had, had the circumstances been different.
"And there's this other thing," Nikolai says, his voice a touch softer, and Zoya knows that what is coming next is a confession that, if approached wrong, could shatter him completely. "She was the last of my blood. Vasily is dead, and Magnus Opjer is dead and- And now it is just me, left to bear sins passed down my mother and my fa- The old King and my brother. Sins that I cannot possibly atone for, but have to anyway."
It is not an easy thing for her to accept, that he can even possibly think this. It sinks slowly into her mind, settles there like a heavy stone as she turns it over and over, examining the sharp angles and its jutting hardness.
Nikolai, you foolish, foolish man.
Zoya moves to sit on her bed, twisting and turning her engagement ring. It's a small thing, a solitary sapphire set in a silver band - easily the least ostentatious thing she is wearing at any given time.
Zoya loves it.
All the same, she remarks coolly, "Perhaps you should have gotten me a bigger ring."
Nikolai's head jerks up from the rim of the wine bottle, brooding momentarily forgotten, "You wanted a small ring."
"I know." Zoya hums, still examining her hand.
He moves toward her, aghast, "I wanted to give you a sapphire the size of an acorn, and even that wouldn’t have been enough."
"I know- "
"I insisted on it, even, only to have you spend a good hour lecturing me on fiscal responsibility and being a good ruler- "
By this point, he is looming over her, eyebrows drawn up and twisted into a comical expression and Zoya. Cannot. Laugh. She's trying to make a point here and as entertaining as it is to egg him on, she interrupts, archly, "I never said I want a bigger ring, Nikolai. I said that maybe you should have gotten me a bigger one. Perhaps then, you would actually have been able to get it through that thick skull of yours that I am your family now too. Whatever sins you foolishly seem to think you have been burdened with are now mine to carry as well. You are not alone, moi sol ye tsolai."
It's like he's a marionette suddenly cut from strings, the way he crumples to his knees in front of her without warning. For a second, she's deathly worried and seriously contemplating screaming for the royal physicians until he pulls her in, wrapping his arms around her as he buries his face into her stomach, and his whole body jerks with heavy sobs.
Through the heavy fabric she wears, she hears him repeat a particular phrase over and over, "Zyoma maya olya, eya fyela chi."
(In a few hours, she will have to venture out of her quarters again, tending to mundane businesses that are just important enough to require the Tsaritsa's seal of approval. For now, though, she will stay here and clutch him as tight as he is clutching her and hope that he understands how fully he occupies her heart.)