KING OF SCARS

                 ❝   Are you quite sure? Your smile is betraying you, Лиска.   ❞   While eyes shine with mirth and teeth glow in amusement, a slight flush cannot be stopped from colouring the girl’s cheeks with pink.

⊰ ♚┊ korolrczni.

                     ❝  A PRINCE you say?  ❞ Royalty meant little to her beloved, yet a great deal more to ravenous brother. Viy took particular d e l i g h t in recruiting noble blood into his sprawling ARMY, winking pieces of gold and silver scattered throughout the land. Ever a girl, inquisitive and strong of will, Masha Morevna took heed of whispered curiosity; placid smile served as greeting, a l i g h t in azurine gaze betraying the greed so cultivated by life’s tsar.

                                           ❝  I cannot recall when l a s t we had so ESTEEMED a guest.  ❞

               ‘ PRINCE, privateer, soldier, inventor, puckish rogue... take your pick, really. i’m a very versatile fellow. ’ a smile as dazzling as sunshine met hers and he bobbed a short bow; propriety’s boon, perhaps, or recognition toward someone else of station. nikolai cast a glance around with the same easy air, though hungry eyes drank in the sights. it was within his own creed to never believe a thing to be impossible--and he had seen no small share of wonders--but this was new, even to him.

          Blessed, perhaps, that she heard little of her brothers’ passing. What murmurs reached her ears suggested cruelty, a betrayal not only of their hospitality but of the common decency of spirit expected by all good men. And what decent soul would sentence two boys to their deaths for mere impertinence? The Old Gods witnessed Theon Greyjoy’s crimes; so long as he remained within their sight, retribution would surely follow. 

            “And I must offer mine as well,” she murmured. “Loss of family stands an ache that never vanishes, no matter how much time one manages to traverse afterwards.” Strange how innocents oft carried their elders’ burdens, punished by circumstance, forced to carry on feuds long after their progenitors lay rotting in loamy soil. Would her children still scrap and claw with lions when she perished? Her children’s children? Pure lunacy, though Sansa herself heard the call of vengeance, a white-hot pulse along her veins, an imperative nigh irresistible to all save the staunchest minds. A fall from her tower, a push off that narrow walk…vicious whispers which promised to solve all hurts, yet poisoned the listener with every syllable. “You speak with a wisdom beyond your years, my lord. Your people must count themselves most fortunate to follow a leader of such great sagacity.”

               nikolai was an old hand at covering old hurts, veiling them in layers of leather or careful woodwork or a crafted veneer of bravado. this one did not cut as close, perhaps, as it should have; he felt the scar tissue marring his soul but it did not pull across his conscience as tightly as others did. vasily was family, in a sense, and the loss did carve something within him, but there were other losses that dug in deeper, crawled beneath his skin. these were the things that tormented him at night ( night, when he could not stand the darkness; when he could feel the darkling’s power curling in the tendrils of shadow, boiling beneath his flesh ).

i see ??? OTHER GRISHA BLOGS????

       ‘   probably her way of trying to get you interested.  alina practically abused you,                            & yet you were proposing all the same.  perhaps zoya’s taking pointers. ’ 

               ‘ saints, are you implying i have a type?

               ❝   Active imagination? At night? Why I find that to be most curious…   ❞

               ❝   Oh, truly? And would you reveal me what  ideas  and  reflections  occupy your mind at night? I am sure they are most interesting!   ❞

              ‘ it would had to have been deserved if she was the one to punch one; were it anastasia, or even i, it might have been a bit premature, but tatiana and maria are not ones to resort to violence unless necessary. ’

               just wait until i tell papa at supper, she thought to herself, grinning absent-mindedly as she reached for the bloodied cloth he held to his nose. ‘ first order of business is getting a clean cloth and some water to get rid of the blood; somehow i don’t think my mother would take too kindly to finding blood on the carpet. do you think it’s broken or just a bit –– - beat up? ’

                nikolai winced as she reached to move the cloth. ‘ it’s broken, alright. believe me, it’s been broken enough times that i should know. usually i hope it just gives me a sort of roguish charm, but-- ’

                          he seems so happy. 

and she hates it. unable to read beyond the mask, she thinks he is playing a game with her, first smiling when she bumped into him, then smiling when she insulted him, extorted him, and now smiling again when he moves to uproot a society weed from the mud. it’s only the rich who can afford such gaiety no matter what ( she refuses to think of ella ). and peering up at him and his playful damnable smile – as if they were mere children romping about ! – she feels something snap off inside of her. he could not imagine the depths of her humiliation as spectators peep about them. 

white hot tears and hatred (though was it as herself for causing it to begin with?) broil within her, knowing what little power she has to retaliate. how oft she had seen her own mother bite back poison in the presence of superiors. ❝ i’m quite fine, thank you, ❞ she manages at last, but her voice shakes a little as she rises, skirts heavier. ❝ pretty things don’t belong much anywhere. ❞ she says it without thinking, just to defy him a little more. but if anastasia had thought about it – she did know the truth of it now, that it was up to fate. she didn’t belong much anywhere, but she made do with her lot. ❝ . .  . your majesty, ❞ she adds after, fear still mixed in tantrum.

anastasia then makes to wipe the side of her cheek with a smudged hand– but only succeeds in streaking more mud across it; she repeats the mistake again when she attempts to wipe that off. a soft shudder at the realization stops her hand at last, and she stands before him a petulant child with sludge on her knees and face. self-consciously, her eyes dart at the people around them and she thinks to run off now after a curtsy, but – the weight in her hand concerns her. she has the coins still, but she knows what she can buy with it; she can’t pry her fingers from them now.

               people were a mess of complications, a hundred hypocrisies gathered and twined together. first, penitence, then stubborn rebellion course through the young woman in front of him; he suppresses whatever amusement might have flickered across his features and instead maintains the air of the chivalrous prince ( king, now--benevolent, caring, the sort that would stoop to assist even the least of his subjects ), removing a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his coat and offering it to her. 

               ‘ i’m not sure i’d agree with that, madam, ’ he says smoothly. ‘ i happen to have great use for pretty things. otherwise, i’d be quite useless, myself. ’

               his smile holds a cool glint, oblivious to ( or perhaps thriving on ) her vitriol. he encountered no small amount of sneering from the bureaucrats in court, but her particular brand of distaste was something he rarely came across anymore. anyone could call him a boy king behind his back with a curl of their lips, or question his legitimacy to the throne. it took someone special to throw goodwill back in his face. it was too easy to antagonize people like her. he’d almost missed it. 

        ❝MY MISTAKE THEN. What is it like? Sailing the ocean, I mean.❞

               at this, a smile devoid of its routine roguishness crosses his lips.

          Words seemed to strike her like a cloud of gnats, unexpected and prickling, a thousand minuscule collisions from which Sansa learned — his brother has died. Yet rather than unshed tears deepening his voice, she recognized propriety’s buoyant imperative, which forced aside all grief and pain so that instead one might not subject their company to such unpleasant sentiment. In each waking moment the girl too disavowed perished kin, treating every other as though already claimed by the Stranger; to drift alone through perilous waters inspired deep sympathy, no matter that perishing a fool still earned the dead more honor than leaving this world a traitor. “I — I have lost my brothers as well. Two children in truth, mere boys when our home was overtaken.” For a moment Sansa seemed inclined to continue, before a breath returned her gracious smile. “But of course you shall have my word: not a whisper of your knavery will ever leave my tongue.”

          ah, how cruel the world was. vasily was a fool, and in trying to secure the relationship with their enemies, he had quested for his own death. of all people, nikolai should feel scorn for his passing--he should feel that it was justly deserved. after all, hadn’t it worked in his favour? succession passed to him, an obstacle removed. 

                   ‘ i can see that, yes. ’

                  she realises that laughing was most certainly NOT an acceptable response, and while she does try to suppress the one bubbling in her throat, she can’t quite manage it, and clasps a hand over her mouth.

                   ‘ i could, uh, try and take a look at it, if you’d like? I’m not quite as talented as my sister is with injuries such as these, but I imagine that I’ve learnt a thing or two by this stage. ’

               ‘ yes, i’m well aware of her skill with injuries. she was the one who punched me. mind you, it was deserved, but i typically like a bit of warning first. ’