#silverbirching

Unfortunately, it was happening again.

By "it," you'd think I mean the other stupid things that occur in my job whenever humans wander off to attempt ill-advised stunts that always result in me having to slog in there and get them out, same old same old. And to be honest, I think I would have preferred a good old corporate murderplot (Murderplot for Murderbot! It's catchy! Shut up!), vicious GrayCris assassin boogaloo, ART pretending to kill itself (for which I still have not forgiven it, don't get me wrong) or straight up wormhole-related lost-colony strange synthetics bumblefuckery. Any of that would have been far preferable and far more comprehensible than the horror that was currently happening to me. And I mean, this time it genuinely was bad:

I was being forced to celebrate Wintersolstice on Preservation Aux, and there were PEOPLE there.

I don't just mean my usual humans, like Mensah and her spouses, Amena and the other kids, Gurathin (who looked stupid, and you can tell him I said that), Ratthi (who didn't look stupid, but you can't tell him I said that), Bharadwaj, Pin-Lee, Arada, Overse, and all the others. ART and its crew had been invited, but ART had a pressing engagement holding another hapless planet hostage or something like that, and probably to Preservation's relief they hadn't actually come. Which was fine with me, because I didn't like holidays and I didn't miss ART anyway, so I wasn't upset about that. I was upset because I was being forced to sit at this enormous table full of happy hippy-dippy Preservationers who wanted to hold hands and light candles and share gratitude affirmations about the harvest and the winter season and other absolutely terrible things like that. I sure as hell did not hold anyone's hand. I kept my head down and checked SecSys to ensure that nobody was sneaking up on us. Hey, if they're all going to imbibe inadvisable quantities of intoxicants and forget all sense of perimeter control, someone's gotta do the job around here.

(And it's me. As usual. Ho-hum.)

Anyway, this was what I was doing, after having escaped to stand in a corner and investigate some drones that didn't really need fixing, when there was a sound at the door and I looked up to see Amena. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "Come back here. Mom's upset that you ran off in the middle of dinner."

I grimaced. Unfortunately, Amena has recently discovered the Guilt Trip Me About Mensah move and I've gotta say, it works... somewhat better than I would actually like. I checked SecSys. Sadly, only 10% ambient threat level, and most of that came from the possibility of one of the hippies choking on a turkey bone or falling over while intoxicated. (Humans. I tell you.) I was hoping it would be a little (okay, a lot) higher so I'd have the chance to bust out of here and do some convenient ass-kicking that would keep me away until well after the party was over, but no luck.

I looked at Amena.

Amena looked at me.

I looked at the ground. (Eye contact, you know.)

"Come on," she said, holding out her hand. (Ugh! Horrible! Why!) "Can you just stick around until we're done eating?"

"I don't eat," I said. Incredibly logically, all things considered.

"I know that." Mini-Mensah rolled her eyes. "That's not why we invited you. So unless you want me to go get second mom and explain to her that you're having another meltdown -- "

"I am not having a meltdown," I said stiffly. She was still holding out her hand, and I was trying not to look at it. I just told you that I don't hold hands. I wasn't planning to start now.

"So?" Amena challenged. "Are you coming back to sit with the rest of the family or not?"

I vainly checked SecSys one more time. The threat level had risen to 15%. I attributed this to one of the Preservationers about to stand up and make a speech, though the threat level was due to more to me having to listen to it than anything else. Sadly, it wasn't anything more acute, and I was ignoring the way that word -- family -- twisted in my stomach just a little. I've mentioned this, but humans are weird. This is their weird problem, and not mine.

Amena, however, was clearly not about to be thwarted, and I couldn't see anything else to do. I sighed gustily to express my continued displeasure and did not take her hand, but allowed her to escort me back in the direction of the dining room. As we entered, Gurathin looked up sharply and gave me an irritating look, so I was thinking of some incredibly witty comeback that would just absolutely wither him (it was going to be great, I swear) when all of a sudden, Mensah stepped between us. "Ah, SecUnit," she said, in that way Mensah does when it sounds like she's being polite but actually means she will fuck shit up if you don't listen, so I listened. "So glad you're back."

"Yes," I said stiffly. "Amena made me."

Mensah made a small, amused-sounding noise in her throat. I had the concerning feeling that she didn't actually believe me. Then she went to the table and took some kind of plant necklace -- it had these green leaves and red berries and was clearly supposed to be festive or something -- reached up, and slipped it around my neck. It didn't really go with my mesh armor jacket. Not that I care about that or anything. It just looked dumb, that's all. But she had put it on me and she clearly cared that I wore it, so I wore it. Whatever.

"SecUnit," Mensah said, urging me toward the table without quite touching me, to an empty chair at her side. I paused, then grudgingly occupied it. "Now that you're back, I was going to say that you are in fact one of the things we're the most grateful for, and I wanted for everyone to acknowledge it. So -- "

While I was still processing that mortifying utterance and wondering if this called for extreme emergency jettison manuevers, Mensah reached for her glass and raised it, and the rest of the table did the same (even Gurathin, though he still looked stupid). "To SecUnit," she said. "Preservation Alliance, our home and our family is infinitely better for you being part of us."

"To SecUnit!" all the guests chorused, and drank their intoxicants. I wanted to disappear on the spot. Except Mensah was looking at me with her eyes shining and like she was in fact the happiest she'd been in a long time, and there was that weird warm feeling in my organic parts again, and I was actually relieved that no GrayCris assassins leapt out of the ceiling to disrupt it, which was so bizarre that I made a note to overhaul my as-ever-wonky threat assessment module later. Hippies. I don't know what to say. Eventually they get to you.

"Happy Wintersolstice, SecUnit," Mensah said to me, under her breath, in the clamor of the humans drinking and eating. She was still smiling. It kind of hurt me to look at it straight on. "I really like you."

Ah, fuck it.

Listen, I have definitely recommended this series on Tumblr about a million times, but maybe not to you directly, and etc etc we are attached at the brain and remember what I did with Rook and Rose. SO: the Green Bone Trilogy (Jade City, Jade War, Jade Legacy) by Fonda Lee. They are three honking long-ass fat books, but they are FANTASTIC. It's like a cross between superheroes and gritty 1970s Hong Kong gangster films. I want Michelle Yeoh to play my favorite Garbage Lady martial-arts badass, Ayt Mada. The other badass martial arts lady is Kaul Shae. They hate each other's guts and literally try to murder each other MANY times, but I still want them to kiss.

The condensation on the grimy windowpane drips slowly onto the scarred wooden sill, the Ketterdam winter light slants like iron and frost from the high garret windows, and as she sits on the bed and watches Matthias wrestle with the embers in the dirty fireplace, Nina wonders timidly if she should get up and help him. Not that he needs it, not in the least. Aside from the general ferocious competence, she can't fathom how anyone could grow up in the frozen boneyard of Fjerda and not know how to make a decent fire. Of course, it's not as if Ravkan winters are a basket of roses, but Fjerda has always seemed much colder to her, in any number of ways. Yet it's the principle of the thing, one of the thousand tiny struggles and questions she's been left with ever since their fraught reunion and Matthias's eventful extraction from Hellgate. Does he want her help, or would it seem patronizing, pointless, stupid?

Uncharacteristically paralyzed with indecision, Nina doesn't move until Matthias utters a sound of triumph and gets to his feet, regarding the restored fire in the hearth with satisfaction. Saints, this is excruciating. They've been shut up in the attic for two days, waiting out the aftermath of the prison break, and Nina has a feeling it will either repair their bond in a surprising fashion or sunder it for good. Kaz probably also wants to see if they're going to kill each other before he really commits to anything, or a further employment of their services. For which it's hard to blame him, but --

"There," Matthias says. He doesn't turn around, but his voice is likewise somewhat less cold than before. "That's better."

"Yes," Nina says, after a fraught pause. She watches the glow limn the fine blond hairs on his arms, the scruff of his beard, the back of his neck, the roughness and the scars that she doesn't remember from before, which must be another poisoned gift of Hellgate. She doesn't want to ask too closely, even though she should. They've spent much of the time so far like this, in lapses and pauses, walking on eggshells and flashes of guilt and anger alike. He knows he should be grateful to her and the Crows for getting him out, but when it seems like just another manipulation, another necessity, using him worse than Jarl Brum ever did and not even having the decency to admit it --

"Matthias," Nina says convulsively. His name tastes odd in her mouth, sharp and dry, and he looks up with a bit of a start. Do you hate me, will you hate me forever -- the only question she wants to ask, the only one that seems to matter, but she can't get her tongue around it. Instead, as he looks at her expectantly and her words fail, she gropes for an acceptable, less-world-ending alternative. "It's almost the Winter Fete," she says, as if what either of them really have on their mind is the holidays. "Is there -- do you want to do anything for it?"

Matthias's mouth twitches in something almost like amusement, but he duly ponders the question, more than it deserves. She can't fathom what a celebration might be like in Fjerda, or even if they allow such things; it seems like it must entail hours of prayers on cold stone floors and the penitential consumption of lutefisk. Or maybe there are parties for the common people, but not for the drüskelle. Not for an orphan boy raised in the Ice Court, a child soldier just like -- well, just like her. Back in Os Alta, Nina might have had the benefit of a lavish party in the Little Palace, feast and merriment and festivity, but it would all be under the watchful eyes of Tsar Pyotr (well, Tsar Nikolai now) and General Kirigan (well, before Alina Starkov killed him) weighing them up and deciding where to send them into the field, as soon as the winter snows melted enough to start the spring campaign. Nina can't remember any time when that awareness didn't shape her entire existence, and how little she thought of it, at least until she did. Until she decided that it was profoundly wrong for Grisha to be bound in lifetime service to anyone, and took the job as a freelance intelligence agent. It gave her the illusion of freedom, that way. The illusion of choice. And with Matthias, for such a short time, the illusion of love. But that's the thing about illusions. They're not real. They never were.

"We... didn't do much," Matthias says at last, half to himself. "Prayers, mostly. The winter solstice is a moment of great importance for Djel. Was," he corrects himself, as if he too doesn't know what's next, what he believes in, any of it. "What about you?"

"I don't know." Nina looks down, twists the worn quilt between her fingers, forces herself to speak. "Well, we did have a party, in -- in Os Alta, but I don't think either of us would be up for it now. The old traditions all seem a bit... empty."

Matthias considers that for a long moment, unhurried and remote, implacable as a glacier, tall and solid as stone -- still there, still unbroken, still him, even after everything, and it closes Nina's throat. Then at last, he moves over and sits on the bed next to her, not too close, but just enough for their fingers to brush. The silence aches, all the space and all the hurt between them, the way they fell into each other's arms and then fell out almost as quickly -- Ravkan and Fjerdan, Grisha and drüskelle, ancient enemies by right and yet just two scarred lonely children who just didn't care about that, not really, when they were desperate to take hands and walk together. Nina aches with her whole being to take his hand again now, but she doesn't. After what she did, she has no right to presume.

"Well," Matthias says at last. He gets up, digs around in the wardrobe, and finds a pair of candles, which he sets on the mantel. Gets a taper and lights them -- a small flame, especially compared to that in the hearth, but still a beacon of simple and quiet hope, a moment of truce, the first one they've really had. "We'll have to start somewhere with making new ones, won't we?"

Fivan, Any Continuity, Lost in the Forest (and Ivan won't admit they're lost)

HAPPY PUMPKIN SPICE SEASON

Amusingly enough, someone also asked for this same prompt last year. Apparently, what the people need is The Terrifying Ivan Sakharov Getting Soundly Beaten By Trees.

"Vanya," Fedyor says dubiously, when they have made yet another circle of the thick dark undergrowth, cast out in search of any nearby heartbeats, and have been finally forced to admit that they can't hear, see, or sense anything except the empty and forlorn howling of the darkening wind. "I think we might be lost."

"We are not lost." Ivan angrily brushes a thicket of dead pine needles off his kefta and glares at the glowering wall of trees, as if this is entirely their fault. It's definitely not his. He and Fedyor have only been fully-ranked Heartrenders for less than a year, and now that they have earned their stripes, it is apparently their job (horrible) to take their turn in teaching the younger cadets. They have therefore been put in charge of two dozen aspiring Corporalki, the oldest of whom is eighteen and the youngest is ten, and taken them to the wild woods outside Os Alta to practice their tracking, hunting, and survival skills. All of this land is owned by the tsar, and nobody else is allowed to set foot here on pain of death, so it's become as tangled and thorny and blackened as any Dark Forest in a fairytale. Ivan half-expects to see Baba Yaga leering back at them from the branches.

"Kirigan is going to kill us," Fedyor mutters, as if that's something either of them don't already know. This entire situation was incredibly avoidable, because strictly speaking, Fedyor and Ivan are not supposed to leave the oblivious youths to just fend for themselves. But after a day of drilling them hard, they were interested (ahem) in other kinds of drilling each other hard, and therefore snuck away from the campsite for a bit of private consultation. Now, after full dark has fallen and they've been distracted enough to lose track of time, they've forgotten which way they came from or where to return, and they have nobody to blame but their horny, horny selves. "And if we're lost, we're supposed to stop moving. Sit down and wait for -- "

"I said, we are not lost." The only thing worse than getting caught sneaking off to have furtive sex with his boyfriend (who he has only recently admitted is, in fact, his boyfriend) would be losing their bearings and having to get rescued by the hapless juveniles they have already callously abandoned to the mercy of the wilderness. You'd hope that two dozen Heartrenders, pipsqueaks or otherwise, could avoid getting eaten by wolves, but Ivan doesn't trust children in the least and therefore has his doubts. Even more, if the cadets find out that Ivan Sakharov, already more feared in the Little Palace than battle-hardened warriors twice his age, committed this blunder --

No, no, no. Nope, no, not happening, no. Ivan glares one more time at the trees, ordering them to part (can you Heartrend a plant? He doesn't think so, but he's tempted to try). They don't. He stands still and listens hard. Nothing. No sound. Anywhere. Saints, those infants haven't already gotten devoured, have they? Just think of the paperwork back at the Little Palace. Terrible.

"Vanya." Fedyor tugs on his sleeve again. The situation is genuinely ominous, but he seems to be biting a smirk. "We might have to huddle for warmth again, eh?"

Truth be told, Ivan doesn't mind that part of it, if only he could be assured that nobody, ever, would find out about this. He ventures a few steps into the thicket, then stops short when it quickly becomes too infested with gorse to continue. He kicks at it a few times, which fails to do anything except make his foot hurt. He snorts, steps back, briskly brushes his hands off, and announces curtly, "Well, it's definitely not that way."

"One must respect the serene natural beauty of His Majesty's Ravkan kingdom," Fedyor piously intones, sounding exactly like the Apparat at his most insufferable. "Those who kick bushes are frowned upon by the Saints."

Ivan throws him a dirty look. "Why do I like you, again?"

"Because I put up with you." Fedyor snuggles closer, still obnoxiously untroubled by the prospect of having their reputation ruined for at least the next ten years. "And I'm also very cute."

/squints

WHY HELLO, CHARMING AND JOLLY GENTLEMAN WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT @silverbirching, NO SIR

Why what is this? SHADOW AND BONE FIC RECOMMENDATIONS, YOU SAY?

Love is War (and War is Hell)!

It has EVERYTHING:

Half-dead Ivan on the couch, furiously irritated that Jesper is doggedly befriending him and won't stop? CHECK!

Absolutely FUCKING HILARIOUS Jesper narration? CHECK!

Makes show!Wylan into an actually interesting character? CHECK!

Badass Nina who is Also Going Through Things and giving us all the Feelings? CHECK!

Is Ivan in any way whatsoever Foster Father Shaped? NO. HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT! CALUMNY? CHECK!

ANYANWU! I say no more??! CHECK!

Kaz and Ivan having a whole conversation through silent furious glares and mutual disdain for Jesper? CHECK!

IVAN AND JESPER BUDDY COP SHENANIGANS WHICH ARE GOING TO BE AMAZING?!?!?! CHECK!!!

Does this sound like it was written just for me, you say?

Well it kinda was but

(I got 99 problems/visits of this fic but the fic ain't one etc)

READ IT READ IT READ IT IT'S SO GOOD IT'S LITERALLY A GIANT CHOCOLATE CAKE OF EVERYTHING I WANT IN THE WORLD

YELL AT SAM

INDUCE HIM TO UPDATE MORE

I HAVE NO INTEREST IN THIS OR ANYTHING