reznikolai | I N B O X

[ Alina has a difficult time resisting Nikolai's affections. She sways into his side, arm looping across his back. She is happy to to leave this topic of conversation back with Zoya.

Her arm tenses, body seizing momentarily as it becomes obvious she's not in the clear. Groaning, she rolls her head to the side. ]

I wasn't pouting,

[ she protests, absolutely pouting. She blows out a puff of air, frustrated but straightening up. She is at least trying to be mature about this. It's a thin attempt, but an attempt all the same. She doesn't want a repeat of Zoya butting into her relationship, although she guesses that's not fair. For one, Mal was never really hers (and he still isn't, she shouldn't resent him for for breaking the rules of a relationship that don't actually exist). For two, that General title hangs heavily in the air. A king and his general could never be together.

Then again, he's not a king here. She's not a saint. Zoya doesn't have to be a general. ]

I'll be as nice to her as she is to me.

Edited 2021-07-17 02:36 (UTC)

[An indulgent chuckle, as if to say of course you weren't, dear.]

That's all I ask.

[Despite her acid tongue, Zoya can play the diplomat perhaps half as well as Nikolai himself, and that half is quite a lot. Hopefully, there could be some measure of peace.]

I'm sorry for understating us. [Their relationship, in whatever strange shape it takes.] Seeing Zoya just reminded me of everything that's waiting for me back in Ravka. It made it almost palpable how different my life here is.

[He is rambling a little now, sorting through his head as they continue along the beach. His feet have no destination, no goal other than to keep moving. It's a mark of how close they've grown that he allows her to be privy to his thoughts before he's had a chance to line them up in order and polish them.]

Zoya is...rather involved in my personal life. You may recall that I was looking for a bride, or more accurately, she was looking for a bride for me.

[His sigh contains the bulk of his feelings on that. His fingers curl idly around the belt loop situated just above Alina's hip. His voice seems to sag, like a white flag of surrender.]

Evidently, the endeavor has been a success. [His eyes flick away from Alina, pointing straight ahead.] She brought me news of my engagement.

[ Us. There is an us. A pair. Another person to rely on when the going gets tough. There had been so few in her life that she felt would ever be willing to do that, even fewer that she didn't feel terrible asking them to share her burden. She wonders when that changed with Nikolai. Was it that the stakes of this place were so low or that she had come to know him so dearly that they finally let each other see themselves for the people behind their roles? Roles that they put aside to be together here, but didn't stop existing just because they were out of sight. Zoya was evidence of that, bringing news from Ravka. ]

[ News that lands about as well as a stone dropped into the ocean, sinking and unstoppable. ]

Oh.

[ Oh indeed. Zoya has always been annoyingly good at whatever job she tasks herself with. Alina does a rather poor job of schooling her features, turning her eyes out to the horizon. It should not change what they have now, but it is difficult to ignore the concreteness of a future when confronted with it. Nikolai is not hers to keep forever. This is and always has been a temporary diversion. It is selfish to think otherwise. He needs a bride and she will not be able to serve that role, for more than one reason. ]

Who is she?

[Oh, indeed. He can feel the shift in Alina beside him, and he can feel the same stone sinking inside.]

Princess Ehri Kir-Taban of Shu Han. She's beloved by her people and gifted in playing the 18-string khatuur. [He shrugs.] And that's about as far as my knowledge of her extends.

[He says it lightly like it might be a joke, but that doesn't cover the grim look in his eyes. Nikolai knew it would come someday, knew it was becoming more concrete as time ran out. Nevertheless, hearing that he's actually engaged to a perfect stranger hits him like a brick wall.

He also knew going into this relationship with Alina that it would be temporary. Stuck in his head is the image of those glowing flowers, wilting on the floor the morning after they first shared themselves fully with each other. We can have more than just this one night, he'd said. And they had. Each day is one more than they ever had together back home. But he doesn't forget that it will come to an end someday. Ravka needs them both, and back to her they would go. He to a time when she's already married, and she to a time when she might make a different choice, but the Nikolai of the past wouldn't be quite the same man as the one cradling her hip now.

It's difficult to think about, and not just because the tangling of time is confusing.]

[ A princess. Someone who can navigate the court with all the grace and diplomacy Alina never would have. Beloved by her people likely for more reasons than they are just desperate for something she can do. Not that those are things Alina necessarily pines for in order to be a queen, but it highlights the chasms between her and Nikolai that are closed by this place alone. ]

She sounds... talented.

[ A hilariously stiff compliment, courtesy of Alina. She lets a long measured beat of silence pass between them, listening only to the gentle rhythm of the ocean. A pain that feels close to longing echos between them, and in their tether she can't tell who it belongs to.

She twists her head looking up at him. ]

Don't. [ And then she panics, not entirely knowing where it came from. ] I mean... not don't. [ She worries her lip between her teeth. What does she mean? She ducks her head, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. ] Don't if it's only for political reasons.

[ Her eyes flick up and then focus back out on the sea, too afraid to look at him straight on for the next part. ]

You deserve someone who will love you.

[Someone who will love him... While Alina looks out over the sea — and the waves glitter in the sunlight, more peaceful than his mind and heart at present — Nikolai watches her. His mind pulls back to that night a month ago when she'd washed dirt and blood from his skin and he begged her to remind him of his humanity. I see someone that I... How had she intended to finish that sentence before she thought better of it? He has circled back to that question every so often in the intervening weeks. Each time he wanders into it, he quickly backs away.]

Ravka can't afford to wait for me to fall in love, Alina.

[While his voice is gentle, his words ring with the same cold finality as steel. Nikolai stops walking then, and he tugs at her waist to stop her from taking her next step. Folding in to face her, he brushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His fingertips linger there on the curve of her jaw.]

I've always known that when I married, it would be for politics. It never bothered me when I was younger. I had my heart set on the throne, and I was ready to sacrifice whatever I must. Then...

[Then he met Alina. As he got to know her, he realized that he might have both: political alliance and, someday, love. Of course he grew too attached to that ideal, as he does to all of his ideals. Suddenly, it hurts to touch her.]

Then I thought about what it would mean, to have to play a role every day of my life, not just in public but in private too.

[He almost tells her that he still wishes she would have said yes, even now. But what good would that accomplish?]

Edited 2021-07-22 20:20 (UTC)

[ A painful thread of longing aches in her stomach, gnaws at her chest. Her legs feel as heavy as lead, blood pooling as if readying to sprint away across the beach suddenly foolish and embarrassed. She feels as if his tone is one you might take with a child, gently explaining that the fairy tales of fantasy and romance where the prince finds happiness and the kingdom has peace and the saint finds her quiet retirement in the countryside exist only in storybooks.

Duty or fate weighs heavy on them, she feels it slipping back around her neck like a leash yanking a feral dog. Like a noose where only one end is possible and inevitable. Her voice is so thin, it almost cracks when she speaks. ]

It's not fair.

[ For as much responsibility weighs on Alina's shoulders, it's easy to forget that she is young and impulsive and impatient, that her tone wouldn't seem out of place stomping her feet and petulant.

Her hands slip across his forearms, gripping them to steady herself. It isn't fair, like any of her life could be considered anything close to fair, but this is the closest thing to it, a wide open path full of choices in front of her and she is greedy and desperate to hold onto it. ]

Edited 2021-07-23 02:39 (UTC)

[It's a little frightening, feeling someone else's emotions trembling inside your own heart. He doesn't know where his end and Alina's begin, because in this moment their separate hurts echo one another. It's the ache of wanting something, and being able to close your hands around it, but knowing you can never keep it.

Despite that ache, Nikolai can't help but sigh a smile at her petulant response. It is the farthest from how a queen ought to act, but in this moment that's part of why he loves her. Her unrefined honesty, her yearning for more choices than the narrow path placed before her. All of her unapologetic. It's because of those qualities that he could let go of all his masks around her.

(He doesn't think the word, love. He doesn't dare approach it, but he feels it anyway. That he has no control over.)]

Perhaps not. But it's the life I've chosen.

[With his thumb he traces over Alina's cheekbone. He thinks about what it will be like to return to that life when this interlude reaches its end. The Grand Palace will feel hollow after the coziness they've imbued their home with here. How long will it take him to stop expecting to see her when he looks up from his dinner? To stop reaching for her when he wakes up in the morning, alone in his bed? (Not alone for long, he reminds himself cheerlessly.) As he caresses her face, he doesn't know who he's trying to soothe, him or her.]

Today though...I am all yours.

[He can't promise her a lifetime, or any of the usual romantic little pledges that men lavish on women. But they have today, and tomorrow, and perhaps the next day.]

[ She collects his hand against her cheek with her own, closing her eyes to relish in the touch. It is not Zoya's fault that they are both marching towards different ends, but her presence is an acute reminder of the temporary nature of their arrangement.

Like flowers wilting as summer turns to autumn and to winter.

She turns to press her lips against his palm. ]

You are more self-sacrificial than a saint.

[ To lend himself to her when each day makes their impending separation more painful. She draws his hand to her chest, leaning into his seeking the comfort of embrace. She too is not used to openly seeking the comfort of another. Her survival instinct and stubborn streak are too strong. Her responsibility too heavy to ask anyone to bear with her.

But they can rest together along this long road. ]

And that is why you are a better king than Ravka deserves.

[ Brave and giving of himself. It was once ambition that drove him to the throne, and now it's something so much greater. He is strong enough to do what is right, proudly putting his duty in front of himself when it would be so easy to make other choices.

And in that moment, that is part of why she loves him. How cruel this universe is that it took until now to see it, to see him without his mask.

She murmurs into his chest: ] But please be mine for now.

[As she tucks herself into his chest, he wraps his arms around her, as if that might hold them in this impermanent moment. He cradles the back of her head, petting her hair.]

I don't know if it's self-sacrifice so much as stubbornness.

[Nikolai has long understood that he and Ravka are intertwined. They are one and the same. Turning his back on his country amounts to giving up on himself — when one drowns, the other goes under too.

Here and now, he reminds himself, as he often has since they began down this path together. When the weight of the responsibilities waiting for him in Ravka start to drag him into the the darker depths of his thoughts, she keeps him afloat. Tucking his chin to kiss her hair, to breathe her in, he exhales what might be a chuckle if it had any weight.]

It's far too lovely a day to be this melancholy, Alinochka.

[Nikolai slides his hands down her back and into the pockets of her shorts. Playfully, he grabs her rear and pulls her into a swaying pattern with him. This end of the beach is sparsely populated — a group of friends relaxing on a blanket here, another pair kicking through the surf there. They're granted privacy by their lack of titles and by this culture's habituation to public displays of affection. They are just another couple on the beach.]

[ How does he do that? Just charges forward even when the strings of fate that hold them in the positions the play for Ravka make themselves known. He doesn't shake them off, doesn't fight against them or run away like she's inclined to some days. He accepts them, stubborn and relentless in a way that deprives them of their power.

Still, she wonders what ambition he might have followed if he wasn't bound to the throne. Is that indeed what he wants? She is afraid to ask, because if she asks if he wants to be a king, she may have to answer if she would choose to be a saint.

It's not a question she intends to contend with today or maybe ever. Instead, she relents, softening into his embrace, grumbling in a way that is more exaggerated and playful than genuinely mournful. Her weight sinks against him as she loops her arms behind his neck, swaying from the ball of one foot to the other with him. They get to be so freely affectionate here. Even in the alternate impossible future they might have had together, she can't imagine the scandal a scene like this might have caused among the royal court. ]

I'll have you know I can be melancholy no matter the weather. [ She can't keep a straight face when he is already successfully cheering her up. ] Unless you have any suggestions for brightening my mood.

[His time here with her has only thrown into sharper clarity what he has decided to sacrifice for the sake of his throne and his country. It's another life that they live here, where they are not king and saint but just a boy and a girl. The longer he indulges in this life, the deeper he sinks into its little routines and pleasures, the harder it becomes to sever himself from it as he knows he must someday.

But today is not someday. Today they are still Kolya and Alinochka, free to do as they please without consideration for the consequences. Free to be reckless in ways he cannot entertain in Ravka. His only duty is to cheer her up, which he does by ducking in to sneak a soft kiss when she lifts her head from his chest. Her lips still taste like the sherbet they'd finished in tense quiet after parting ways with Zoya.]

Have I mentioned how lovely you look today?

[What a fine time to remind her, in case there remains any lingering soreness he must soothe after their encounter with Zoya. Flattery comes easily to Nikolai after so many years of navigating court, but his words carry a warm gleam of honesty that Alina should recognize by now. He continues swaying back and forth with her.]

Or shall I remind you of what an ass I made of myself on this very beach the last time we were here?

[When he had reunited with her — hungover, with his clothes clumsily cropped and his phone loaded with all kinds of damning evidence — he accepted her teasing with as much grace as he could muster. His eyebrows lift as if an idea has just struck him, and his grin turns sly.]

Ah, do you think I could do a better job of cheering you up if we found somewhere more private?

[He emphasizes the last word with a gentle squeeze of her ass through her pockets.]

Edited (sees a typo a day later) 2021-08-07 21:52 (UTC)

[ Her lips pull into an even larger grin, ducking her head as she stifles a laugh. Oh, she remembers... well, she at least remembers better than Nikolai apparently did, which is impressive considering how much Alina had imbibed that night as well.

Slipping her fingers through his belt loops, she tugs him to stay flush against her body, jerking in surprise but ending with a laugh as he gooses her. ]

Yes, if I remember correctly you promised to find a way to repay me in person after our little chat.

[ She presses up on her toes, dotting his lips with a teasing kiss. Of course he had repaid his debt several times over, but she has no problem lovingly taunting him about it now. ]

I hope you have somewhere more private than the rocks in mind. Somehow I think your judgement might have been a little off that evening...

[Nikolai has the grace to look sheepish as she pokes at one of the more questionable decisions he made that night. While he has little memory of, ah, getting a little too excited right there on the beach, the photo evidence stands as a testament to his reckless abandonment of propriety. And while he has repaid Alina with all kinds of favors in the intervening weeks, he doesn't bother to argue the point. He enjoys spoiling her with attention, now that she's so receptive to it.]

My judgment was drowning in a preposterous quantity of liquor. A rather gruesome death, drowning is.

[Over her head, he surveys the stretch of beach. Up the shore stands a cluster of wooden partitions housing showers, for beachgoers to rinse the sand and salt out before they leave. It's partially hidden by an explosion of bushes with broad leaves and bright yellow flowers. Nikolai cants his head toward the showers with a raised eyebrow.]

I have somewhere in mind...

[Drawing away from Alina, he turns his back to her and squats halfway to the sand. The look he tosses her over his shoulder is playful.]

Your steed awaits, my lady.

What are you—

[ She stops, laughing as he squats down and realizes he's offering to carry her, like one might carry a child. She rakes her brain trying to remember if anyone has ever offered her such playful affection and she comes up short. If they ever have, she was certainly too young to remember.

With a smile on her face, she climbs up onto his back. ]

A steed that's more noble than feral, I hope. I'm sorely out of practice riding and even the Little Palace horses acted like I didn't belong...

[Once Alina clamps onto his back, Nikolai reaches behind to support her thighs and straightens out. Across the sands they go.]

Now, don't be so modest. You've done quite well with riding here.

[Of course there's a suggestive curl to his words. He enjoys feeling her body pressing into his back, her arms wrapping his shoulders. After carrying the metaphorical weight of an entire country on his shoulders for years, it's freeing to have only the weight of one soul to worry about. As he walks, he focuses on that weight and lets it become all that matters right now.

Even when they cross the threshold of the showers, he doesn't pause to let her down. The floor is made of smooth slabs of white stone. The walls rising around them are more like wooden screens raised on metal legs, and the ceiling is simply the open sky. The wooden partitions form a central hallway that opens up to a few shower stalls on each side. Quiet envelopes the place, removed from the clamor of the beach.]

It sounds like we're alone.

[ Alina feigns a scandalized gasp as he makes salacious entendres at her with his less than innocent references to riding. The slip of her hand across his chest and the affectionate press of her lips to a spot behind his ear suggest that she really is anything but. ]

We better make the most of it then.

[ She whispers directly into his ear, holding back a lighthearted giggle (Saints, who ever thought Alina would be chipper enough to giggle). Her hand at his chest toys with one of the buttons on his shirt as she presses light kisses to his jaw and neck. ]

I have no intention of sharing you now that I've got you alone.

[He cants his head just a few degrees, inviting her kisses with a quiet sigh, just the barest shift in breath.]

And I have no intention of looking anywhere else but at you.

[Because her selfishness enables his, just as his enables hers. If either of them broke the circle, the reality kept at bay beyond would flood in and threaten to drown them. Right now, he doesn't want to think of the reality awaiting him in Ravka. He wants only to lose himself in her, in this thing that might be perfect if not for all the reasons it cannot last.

Nikolai turns into a stall at the end of the hallway. There, he finally eases Alina down to the floor. No sooner has he straightened again than he's turning to curl his arm around her waist and tip her chin up towards him for a kiss. The words even his clever tongue can't form, he puts into the hungry push of his lips. As he kisses her hard, he guides her backwards until he has her corralled against the wall.]

[ Alina meets him eagerly. She is bold in the way she opens her mouth to him. There is no finesse or teasing, she is hungry for him and the affection he feeds her so easily. She wants him to bull his way in between her thighs while clever fingers start making quick work of the buttons of his shirt. ]

You know that night, I couldn't stop thinking about you. [ She pulls back, speaking through panted breaths and half-lidded eyes. ] I couldn't wait for you to get back. I touched myself thinking of all the ways you would touch me.

[ She closes all the spaces between their bodies, feigning a doe-eyed look. Usually she is the one granting him mercy but perhaps she has not been on her best behavior recently. ]

Should I have been good and waited for you?

[Just as he has learned the geography of her body in all the time they've spent exploring each other — the days strung together into weeks, the weeks into tentative, hopeful, foolish months — so too has he learned the language of her body. He can read Alina's desires in the bold push of her lips, as if he might slip away if she doesn't forcibly pin his mouth with hers. In the impatience of her fingers pulling his shirt open.

Nikolai answers in kind, wedging himself between her delightfully bare thighs to let her feel the beginnings of his arousal, thick and hot through the light fabric of his trousers.]

You only would have been very disappointed if you'd waited for me.

[His low laugh rolls against her ear. As he seizes another kiss, his fingers make fast work of the fastenings holding her shorts up, letting them slouch down her waist.]

I left you high and dry that night... [He draws back only far enough to allow him to yank the shorts down her thighs, sending the garment to the smooth stone floor.] Or not so dry, I should think.

[Rolling his hips against her, filling in the empty space between them like a hungry stomach as they slot together.]

Edited 2021-08-28 19:50 (UTC)

[ Alina has gotten greedy, learning to relish the heavy and delightful weight of his body pushed against. Would she ever tire of feeling so openly desired? Chosen freely? She doesn't think so. But her thinking isn't even that deep right now, focused far more in the slide of Nikolai's lips, the slip of her tongue, the taste of him against her mouth, than fixating on all the improbabilities that had to line up for this moment. ]

No not dry.

[ She laughs her confirmation, kicking her shorts off her legs and losing a sandal in the process. Lifting one leg, she hinges her hips open, ass against the wall of the shower stall as she hooks a leg around him with precarious balance. ]

Just frustrated until I decided to use my own hands. [ But her tone is still teasing, a light air in her cadence, brushing her fingers against his bottom lip, trapping them there as she presses up for another kiss, hungry for him in all the same ways like she was that night. ] Remind me what yours can do?

[He has become quite good at pretending with her. Not in the way he had done so all those years ago, with so many masks in place he himself hardly knew which version of Nikolai was the true one — in this way they've invented together. This little fantasy that he can't help but wish were a viable path instead of a dead end.

Nikolai runs his hand from the hook of her knee to her thigh, squeezing the curve of her ass, playfully snapping the band of her panties.]

Next time we decide to be indecent in a public setting, you might consider planning ahead, Alinochka. Wear a skirt and forego the underwear.

[Taking another kiss, capturing her bottom lip with his teeth, he sets to reminding her of how well his hands treat her. He tugs aside the narrow stretch of fabric hiding her cunt and tests his fingers at her entrance. Already slick. Expectant. He strokes her, coaxing her further down the twisting path of pleasure.]

[ She swats at him, feigning scandal, but she is hardly protesting. Her head tips forward, burying it against his shoulder with a pleasurable groan. Her fingers curl in his shirt of balance as he slips his fingers between her legs and makes easy work of her while a stupid little fantasy intrudes into her mind. ]

Don't make promises you won't deliver on.

[ Of course she knows there is no threat of that. She doesn't make a habit of wearing many skirts, but she knows he wouldn't be able to keep his hands to himself if she tempted him at brunch.

But that isn't the image that holds her attention. She thinks of his him ducking out from underneath a long gown, his face smug and slick as she grips a marble column of the grand palace for balance behind her. ]

Ah— [ She swallows, trying to push it out of her head. ] You're the schemer anyway. And I can't make things too easy for you.

[A similar fantasy may be fluttering somewhere in the back of his thoughts too. She hardly ever wears skirts or dresses here, but in Ravka, if he could have made her his queen... Well, the Grand Palace has so many alcoves and out-of-the-way rooms they might put to better use. It would be easy enough to smooth her skirts back into place after they'd had their fun, to carry on as if nobody could interpret the real meaning of their flushed faces.

This is nothing more than an idle what if, of course. Alina's warm body under his touch, however, is incredibly vivid. He grips this present thrill in the fore of his mind. Her hands balling in his shirt, her lovely mouth groaning against his shoulder, her body blooming for him as he strokes her folds in a steady rhythm.]

I'm quite serious about my pledge of public indecency...

[There's a touch of irony in their talk of promises and pledges, when he cannot make the kinds of vows he most wants to offer her.

If she wants him to be hers, for now — if she wants to forget that it's only for now...he intends to do all he can to make that happen. He kisses her hair as he pushes a finger inside her, brushing his thumb against her clit.]

Mhm.

[ Her mouth opens against the skin on top of his shoulder, drawing a decadent groan as he slips a finger inside of her. She is warm, wet, and welcoming to him. ]

I wonder what else I could get you to promise me.

[ It sneaks out of her mouth against her better judgement. She doesn't have a whole ton of that to spare in the first place, but Nikolai's eager fingers easily coax her into admitting the little intoxicating thoughts that flit across her mind. ]

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definitely turning nsfw

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