#dear darkling

I know I have only just sent you a letter, and I haven’t the slightest idea if you will receive this before a reply, but I must send another.

It’s much harder to share things when there simply isn’t a way for me to just... tell you in person.

There was the most beautiful sunrise today- it glittered over a small lake, I think I’m inbetween Ulensk and Adena? If I’m correct in the direction I’ve headed, I should be. Otherwise, I fear I may be in Caryeva, and may be on my way into Shu Han.

That is besides the point, though! I was watching the sunrise- or moreso, the sunrise woke me up in Trackers place, as I think he may have run back to the palace for pickled eggs and the likes, fed to him by hand from the King.

I woke, and aside from the cool air, there was little wrong with the day so far. The sunlight scattered across the water, and everything was bathed in this golden glow, and the sky was solid pink for a short bit, like the dresses the queen used to wear.

Do you get to see the sunrises? What about the sunsets?

I realized there truly was one thing I missed- waking up beneath a canopy of stars. Despite the gloom of a black room, it felt comforting on even the worst days to feel surrounded like that.

I suppose there was no real reason for me to write to you, other than to say I simply miss going to bed or awaking with you there on occasion. I’m glad you aren’t, though, because I probably would scream if you appeared out of the darkness in the middle of the woods.

Eager to hear from you soon,

Please remember that the ink reserve belongs to the both of us. 

Try to guess who's blood this is written in. 

I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been far too involved with my ongoing romance with Tracker to keep up with writing to a ghost. Finding a proper outlet for my growing love for a roosters crow in the morning is hard, all the same with the joy in my heart when he steals my bread in the morning- but I hope you’ll find this letter fitting.

Seeing as how the most interesting thing I can write about is a chicken, I won’t keep you guessing on how things are going h

I will spare you from what I was going to write, if only to save myself from the impending sense of doom I feel with each false pretense that I’m content here. I can’t for the life of me figure out one detail of this charade we’ve held thus far- why you insist on giving the notion you just happened to leave this mortal plain so quickly. Congratulations on that, by the way- you really threw all of us for a curveball by just up and dying.

After all, it seems your family just enjoys doing that.

Leaving, when things can maybe start to be okay.

Deciding on your own that we all could do better without your presence in our lives.

It really feels good, knowing that a real difference could be made, and then you throw yourself off a cliff, destroying the one real friendship I had made bleed out in the sand, leaving behind a broken country with broken people to pick up the pieces.

Maybe the slivovitz is getting to my head, but I’m mad, and you don’t deserve to get off the hook, not after all you did.

It almost makes me wonder if you planned to do that all along. Build us all up, tear us all down, and leave to let the adults clean the wreckage.

But, wait- you’re the oldest, and that’s the best part! You’re the adult, and you made the kids pick up.

Enjoy your solitude. At least the chicken comes back when he’s done.

Have you ever seen the wolves that wander the outer edge of Ravka? I haven’t seen them before, but I also don’t think they wanted me to see them.

They remind me of Nikolai, both in how they seem to shift effortlessly between calculating hunter and caring companion, and the canine lineage.

I’ve seen them two days in a row now, and I am beginning to think they see something in me that’s invisible to me now. Perhaps it’s the stag, the knowledge I stopped hunting it, that I was willing to lay my life down for it.

Or, it’s because I look weak enough to be an easy kill.

Did you know wolves grieve their dead? When one is missing, they look for them. When one is found in a worse state, they can hardly bare to come back to the site of death. They don’t sing their haunting songs as a pack- they do it alone, the wails of a family destroyed. You can feel their grief in your bones, sending chills up your spine.

I believe that is what has happened, why they seem to be so un-elusive. They just don’t... seem happy. How long will they take till they can overcome their sadness? How long till they are back to normal, minus one?

How long till I am back to normal?

If I get to pet one, you’ll be the first to hear about it. If I get eaten by them, I’m afraid I won’t be able to tell you much, unless you’d like to take up conferring with spirits.

Perhaps, if you find your way here, you can hear them too. While heartbreaking, it does make my body want to sing along in our shared loss. A shared dance in the layers of sorrow can be a very beautiful sight indeed.

Yours truly,

Do you believe in ghosts? You should. There’s been plenty talk abound on the palace grounds that a ghost does, in fact, haunt the halls. Mysteriously it seems as though the ghost has gone, though. Odd occurance that is.

Of course, I speak of the ghost of Vasily, who I have taken along to keep me going with marriage proposals even from the dead. Taken along, you might be asking yourself? Why yes, I am once again off into the world to become another grangy mutt and listless orphan within the confines of my reach. 

Regarding your last letter, please only dream of me as I am. I do not need to be  a reverie of dark silk and dazzling, dark curls. I am but a simple woman, in a simple white kefta. I fear it may dirty itself far too soon, but perhaps all the better to fit in?

 Fret not though! I do have proper attire packed for the warmer months, and perhaps as you hear of my travels I will recognize the glances and too-stiff movements of the grisha you claim to be such wonderful spies, and change into my more... elegant ensemble. 

Wouldn’t that be fun, hearing your spies got more than an eyeful of me? Would you have fun dreaming of that, lyubimiy? 

Perhaps, just this once, someone else can tell you what I showed them in the dark. I’d find quite a bit of joy in that, I think.

Please, feel free to write back soon- though no guarantee I’ll get it,

Vash Solnyshka P.S. Making me blush does not take you off the hook. It’s rather easy to fall in love with you, rather than just your power, when your facade cracks. Keep that in mind, perhaps.

I found it hard to respond, more out of sheer embarassment than anything. Till, that is, I took a nightcap and suddenly the words flowed like the firefalls. 

You know, we’re still at war. With each other, we are dancing around and just trying to find our footing to jab at the other. 

Is it always going to be like this? One of us bringing up an unforgettable detail on a mortal scale, the other bringing up one on an immortal scale, going back and forth till we find something new to stab fight with? Your penmanship a reminder that you still know exactly where you are, compared to my chickenscratch showing how lost I am?

You know good and well enough what I want. But we can’t have that, can we? That’s the real bittersweet, though mostly bitter, truth. I still can’t help but wonder, though-

How long will you hide? 

Till our Good King falls? 

What if we are invaded? 

The threat will always be there, bristling at the fact Grisha are considered equal beings to The King.

Will you let everything crumble? 

Maybe I’ll wear my winter fête ensemble, the one I had made just so I could reminisce in our room. Genya wasn’t very happy about my choice, though. 

You know, since black was kind of your color.

But maybe- just maybe- they will think I am the darkling, and run away. Maybe you’ll see me, a dark mass standing on the warfront.

Or, a dark mass, laying on the warfront, having had no real good way to protect myself, and no one to pull me off to the side to go into hiding, trying to save themselves from also being killed. 

At least Genya can make me pretty, if she survives, right? 

That is, till I wake up in the middle of slicing into my in my bed, hurt, but alive, since that seems to be the road I’ll go down if I’m anything like you.

Please write soon, as I don’t think my head can take many more of these nights of drinking,

You and I both know it is only proper etiquette to meet in a neutral place, free from

Enough pretense. The streets are too filled with prying eyes, but if I MUST pretend I’m simply writing to a lover of considerably different circumstance, I will.

Why do you think I’d just ask for you to show yourself? Perhaps you think I may not be too naive, but naive enough. I learned the price of what it meant to ask you to appear, and I won’t so easily forget that. I find you, on my terms, because that is how you can grow forgiveness.

I’m not any more reckless than when I was on my own before. I still don’t stand a chance of hiding from a tracker for long, but I make do. Sleeping in ditches and at the bases of apple trees really do suit me, you know.

I may even be able to drudge up a bit of Fjerdan in my mind once more. Did you ever receive my letters from Halmhend? Vad sags om Felsted?

Don’t worry. The last time, they worried I may have been dying, they may now think I’m a ghost in my all white, or one of their spirits come to visit the outskirts and fields of ice. There is no mercy from the divine ghost of a previous saint.

I will spare you once, though- a family may be nice, but I don’t want a child of mine to be hunted, nor taken away after only a few years with them. I don’t wish a family, not unless I know I can procure the safety of it, a relationship still only feels like something I used to be able to worry about. My future is set already.

A watchful guardian to keep greed and power at bay.

Stay safe, Alekusya.

-Alina