#darkling angst

Request: Please do “You can’t love anyone. ‘Cause that would mean you had a heart.” with the darkling from Shadow & Bone series. Requested by anon.

Warnings: slight violence, mention of torture, emotional manipulation, angst.

Word Count: 1 K.

Fictober Challenge

Just as you were about to close your eyes and give up from being brutally tortured, you saw a bright light flood through the door of your cell. You raised a weak hand to shield your eyes, wincing at the sudden brightness. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the light dimmed.

“Did you miss me?” a familiar voice asked, smooth and taunting. No, this couldn’t be real. It couldn’t possibly be him. You blinked, your vision still blurry, and there he was- Alexander, squatting before you with that signature smirk playing on his lips.

“You’re dead. I saw to it myself” you spat, your voice hoarse, eyes narrowing as you glared at him. 

His smirk only deepened, a glint of amusement in his dark eyes “And what if I am?” he leaned forward, fingers reaching to brush your face, but you turned your head sharply to the side, recoiling from his touch. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

When you are listening to a song and you make up random scenes from a movie/series with you as a character. Yk those music videos with like random scenes from a movie/series which just makes sense with the song? And you like make up a whole as edit video in you head with you as a character? And it feels like it would be so pretty?

That was me today (I mean I have one of these imaginations like once at least everyday) with me as a moon summoner lover of Aleksander Morozova in a fuckin 'I knew you were trouble' Taylor Swift fmv with Alina as the jealousy point. (Like I love u queen but I want your interactions with Mr. Darkling)

tw: ANGST, small mentions of child abuse (blink and it's gone), not proof read, hopefully that's all

inspired by @stromuprisahat post (here).

Ilici, Ivan, Pyotr, Kazimir, Yuri, Aleksander, Aleksander, Aleksander!

"Mikail?"

The boy kept looking in the river's water. Each splashing drop flying on his skin, a name. Rushing over rocks and pebbles, foam cut through his reflection. Every current anew brought another face.

"Mishu."

The boy flinched. And cringed. His mother doesn't approve fear. They are above it, they are behind it, they are not cowered under it. And they are not allowed mistakes.

Mikail, Mikail, Mikail, Mikail... that's his name. His. Answer to it, boy! His mother would say, boring a glare through his fixed eye, he dares not move away. Mikail, Mikail, Mikail, Mikail, his name. Own it! A shook of his shoulders would made him remember. Even when it was just the wind, ruffling his ripped clothes.

Shifting from foot to foot, the boy stole glances at the clear stream still.

Ilici would have seen a crown of gold around a wide forhead. Piercing green eyes would lower to the ground whenever someone tried to meet them. He wasn't good at lying, his eyes, much less.

Ivan would have been starring at long, brown locks. Strands of hair always in his eyes. A long face, bones poking at his skin. He'd never speak, his voice changing too much.

Pyotr would look and laugh at the swollen nose between close eyes.

"Mishu!"

The boy snaped his head away. His mother was now in his sight, emerging the forest, dark and full of secrets. Blood hasn't yet dried on her skirts and bodice. Tailor's blood. Grisha blood.

The blood of the poor man who agreed to help them. Who pinched mother's face until it shriveled and wrinkled like an old crone. Who pulled at the boy's own until the eyes were but two holes, sucked in his skull by famage.

He trembled. One step of his mother, bringing her closer, one more scream of the dead man, one more image flashing before the boy's eyes. Darkness. A slashing sound, cutting the wind. But no. Not the wind. A body. The Tailor's body. Grisha body.

"Come on, boy, we don't have all day. Help me clean this mess."

"Yes, madraya."

New face, new behavior, new name. No matter what, though, the boy must always listen to his mother. His own, his family, his only.

His lips moved, but no sound came. The boy's mind was loud, though. Too loud. Enough to wake the entire clearing and the trees over the mountains as well.

His fingertips brushed the unknown skin of his fiftenth face. Or was it twentieth? Thirtyfourth?

Mikail. This one is called Mikail. Aleksander, a voice protested in silence. The boy pressed his palms over his ears. He can't hear it, he won't. He is Mikail. He has to be. Mother promised one day he'll have just one name, his first, his real one.

For what? A bitter voice chipped at his heart. Why hold on to that name, that's not on anyone's minds, or lips? What is Aleksander, but the name a child calls a flower, a ragged doll, a bird they nurtured and left and no one but the child speaks of it? And if he hade made a friend, he wouldn't care for Aleksander. But for Ilici, Ivan, Pyotr, Kazimir, Mikail.

People give names to what they hold dear. A name is meaning. A name is longing and love and respect. Towns and villages have names to be called upon when one is lost. Few high peaks have names to recognize their majesty and unyielding might. Even forests and rivers, flowers and trees are given the gentile mercy of a knwon by all name.

Aleksander is nothing. Means nothing. Weights nothing.

One day, he won't have to be what others see when they look at him, he could be himself, madraya sweared.

Who is himself? The boy is a white canvas, waiting for its artist, a rough wood to be carved over and over again. The boy is that soft clay, passed through too many hands and wasted for now it cannot stand molded in neither chosen form or shape.

One day, he will grow old with the same features of long, long years unchanged...

...The same features, but not his own. Madraya tailored him since as long as he could be on his feet. Before that, he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember if he looked like her, with dark, black eyes like the shadows they control. If he had hair in the color of blackberries or raven feathers. He might have had a round face, or a square one, oval, long, shrimped. So many options, so in vain.

Years later, when he made the choice to ditch each, any and all names, the boy's – now a determined man – felt a strange relief wash over him. Numbness. And in it, peace.

The Darkling: a title to gain power, traction and build a future that for now existed only in his dreams. He designed his appearance to be pleasant, inviting. He needs not be intimidating and thus, scary when threading unsure territories of politics.

He became cold and rational, not out of neccesity, as many are quick to believe. But because he didn't know what else he could be. When his mother left him on his own madness, as she called it, when so used to be beneath, people starting to look up to him instead of projecting their ideas onto the growing boy, he searched for something inside.

A flaming coal to lit up. The name he shoved away and could now reclaim and the person behind it that was pushed so deep inside he could no longer feel it, find it. He searched for something that was never there. So he had to conjure an inner treasure up.

Who was the Darkling would become the burning question of all ravkans, fjerdans and shu alike. Even those farring blissfully away in Kerch, Novy Zem and the Wondering Isles would be drawned by the mistery of the living myth.

Who was the Darkling? Nothing. No one. Ilici, Ivan, Pyotr, Kazimir, Yuri, Mikail, Eryck and many more. Aleksander. Nothing, then. And no one.

the darkling x reader

summary: after the past months of neglect from your lover after the arrival of the sun summoner you decide to leave during the winter fete.

warnings: just a bit of angst I guess.

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you hadn't know how long you had been running but it felt like an eternity since you had been lying in his arms. The tracker you had saved from death was equally as fast at running as you but you could tell the both of you were losing your stamina and quick.

but you had no time to stop your search because if you weren't quick enough in finding the sun summoner Aleksander might just be able to carry through with his plans of expanding the fold.

You had met Aleksander when you were eighteen and you had been the cause of an accident with blasting powder that was in prototype for the war- it would've caused an entire area of the little palace to burn to ashes had inferni's not been present at the moment.

It had taken a while for the both of you to admit to your feeling but in the end it was all worth it.

Until it wasn't.

The arrival of the sun summoner had caused an invisible wall to grow between you two- and the sparks you once felt and the promises he once made all fell into a pit of nothingness.

Which had lead you to where you were now; hiking through the Forrests of Os Kervo with a tracker who was trying to track the sun summoner after you had both escaped the wrath of the Morozova's.

"we must be close" Mal you think his name was muttered.

"pray and tell how do you know we're close " you asked completely frustrated; but in your defence you had been at this for hours and though you were a usually patient person- not having the warmth of your kefta was taking a toll on you.

Mal crouched down to the ground only for his fingers to trace over some foot prints that had been marked in the mud. "these are her foot prints"

"and how exactly would you know these are her footprints tracker." you raised a mocking eyebrow.

Mal winced at the nickname and tone you were using but chose to ignore it. A boyish grin broke out on his face as he jumped up "I don't!" he exclaims like a child on Christmas before running ahead and following the footprints.

You roll your eyes but there was a twitch in your lips almost as if you were attempting to suppress a laugh before running ahead to catch up with him.

and low and behold asleep on a rock with a wool cloak covering her shoulders you had finally found Alina Starkov.

and this time you didn't bother suppressing your laugh of glee.

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There were times were Ivan genuinely wanted nothing more than to be a normal boy once again. Running in fields with his brother whilst his mother and father watched from their little home. When he didn't have all this pressure on his shoulders.

But right now he wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and die. There was no way he could allow Feydor to give this news to the general at risk of meeting the end of the darkling's cut- but pacing outside of his war room his heart beating out of his cage he wished he had given this task to Feydor.

Hastily knocking on the door a horse "come in" sounded through the door. Ivan opened the door to find the Darkling pacing around the war table with his hair a mess and the sleeves of his kefta were rolled up at the cuffs.

Kirigan narrowed his eyes at the normally stoic heartrender looking everywhere but him.

"is there a reason you've interrupted me Ivan." He queried calmly- but anybody could sense the anger and annoyance radiating off of the general.

Ivan opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water; attempting to find the right words in his mouth.

Kirigan let out a frustrated breath.

"Ivan, if you have nothing to say leave." he demanded more forcefully.

just as the general began to turn around Ivan managed to get part of what he needed to say out. "She's gone!"

the shadows in the room began to darken even more than they once were.

"Ivan, I already know Miss Starkov-" he exclaimed angrily his temper rising; obviously not expecting this from one of his most trusted men

"y/n she's gone!-" the shadows dissipated and the words seemed to be spewing out with a mind of their own "-the servants you sent to collect her had gone to look for her but there was no sign of y/n- and her chambers well they were completely trashed"

it felt as if a knife had been stabbed into his chest and his heart had been physically split in two. You wouldn't leave him- you had made a promise to each other.

"we can be run aways together" you had told each him.

In an eerily calm voice he turned back around to the heartrender with a stone cold mask.

"and do we have a lead on who the abductors could be?"

Ivan gulped before addressing the heart breaking bit to his Grisha leader. "that's the thing sir there was no sign of struggle so we believe she left on her own accord." he said avoiding all eye contact with the general who looked about ten seconds away from burning down all of Ravka just to find you.

Without wasting a single second Aleksander ran across the palace, ignoring the odd looks his Grisha would send him, and ran straight into your room which as he was told was a mess.

There was clothes thrown about as if you were in a hurry to leave- your purple durast kefta was lazily thrown onto an arm chair and the large window to your room was left wide open from where you had jumped out.

He cursed himself for not noticing the signs sooner. You had been distancing yourself ever since the sun summoners arrival or rather he had been distancing himself. He had put the invisible barrier up-forcing you to run away.

He had been so focused on getting his plan for the fold to work he ended up loosing his sun summoner and his first true lover ever since Luda on the same night.

A letter with your beautiful cursive writing on caught Aleksander's eye and hastily picking it up he carefully opened the seal. Almost reminiscing in what could be his last contact with you.

No. He refused to believe this would be the last he would see of you. Because you were his as he was yours.

Aleksander,

My love I'm sorry Ive had to end things this way- or rather you ended things the way you did. I should've seen the signs earlier on and heeded others warnings about you.

I'm sorry I wasn't good enough for you and I understand why I never was the one- for there's truly no point in watering a dead flower when you have a new and beautiful one sprouting that shines like the sun.

Maybe in another life we can be runaways together.

Love from,

Y/N

and for the first time in decades the darkling broke down- for you had been his rock who had stood by him through everything.

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Part One of the Blood Moon series

A/N: for A/N see after the fic

Blood Moon summary: Lena (pronounced as Le-na, not Leena) is a renounced witch, a grisha feared. Aleksander goes by many names, not many of which ring true. The pair is similar in more ways than one, but also as different as can be. One seeks power, another fears what the hunger might cost them both, however there is something about the darkness that invited them both. They meet in the middle, where the world collides. 

Important info: this takes place before the shadow and bone/six of crows, before there even is a shadow fold, and there isnt that much information about grishaverse in those times (note i havent looked much outside what books provide) i am taking a lot of creative freedom with it!

enjoy!