#whitherward

I thought I'd never see

Inspired by the breathtaking fic save the undone years by Whitherward @whatanybodygets which is an AU about Kaz and Inej during WW1 where Kaz is a soldier and Inej is a nurse. This moment that stuck with me:

“All this waiting, and his brother appears at his bedside like a ghost in the night. [...] [Captain Reitveld] simply drops onto the edge of Kaz’s mattress and yanks him forward by the shoulders, wrapping him into a tight hug.

She sees Kaz go tense for a moment, and then relax, bury his face into his brother’s shoulder.

And then he begins to sob."

-

Been working on this for a month. I can't put into words how beautiful of a writer she is. I am always in awe and must drop everything for it.

Bonus: process

kanej author recs | Whitherward

Notable/Favorite works:

roomy, and drenched in sunlight

It was a story they’d told each other often, over too much kvas. A running joke between them, what they would do if they ever decided to leave it all behind. She’d never dreamed they actually would.

Rating: M / Quirks: Broke-Up Kanej/Developing Kanej, (Heavy) Angst with a Happy Ending, Kanej's Children

save the undone years

He’s like all the others, when they bring him in. More than half dead, covered in mud. Leg almost hanging off him, just a mess of torn flesh and exposed bone. Likely won’t survive. God knows Inej has seen better off than him succumb to their injuries. Northern France, 1917. In a battlefield hospital, Corporal Kaz Rietveld lies gravely wounded. His nurse is determined that he will not be another thing she loses to this war.

come to me in red

by alltheworldsinmyhead and Whitherward

In the middle of a long summer, Inej takes Kaz home to Ravka for a festival, determined to make her parents accept him.

Neither of them is ready for what they find there.

***

“Kaz, look,” she says, barely above a whisper, but silence reigns now and he hears her loud and clear. “It’s a girl.”

He goes slowly to his knees beside her, one gloved hand rising to cover his mouth as he looks at the baby. She waits, for what she doesn’t quite know. For him to speak, for him to leave. After a long moment, his hand drops from his mouth, landing with a dull thump on the bloody sheet beside her hip.

“Inej,” he rasps, and his voice is strangled, like it’s an effort to get the words out. “What have we done?”

***

come to me in red / Chapter II

by Whitherward and alltheworldsinmyhead

In the middle of a long summer, Inej takes Kaz home to Ravka for a festival, determined to make her parents accept him.

Neither of them is ready for what they find there

This has to be it, now. She’s pushed herself too far. Her parents, whatever Kaz may think of them, will surely not begrudge her for stopping. She’s done her best for them. She tried. And she’ll come back to him, the way she is now. Right there with him, and no one else. 

When she leans her head on his shoulder, still dressed in her fine silk, he kisses the crown of her head and ignores the way her mother stares. He’s exhausted, weighed down with relief, and he falls asleep quickly that night with the knowledge that this will all be over soon. 

The Corporal

“A nurse ought not to have favourites, especially in a place like this. Like having a favourite lamb in a slaughterhouse. But still. This one clung so tenaciously to life, she can’t help herself.”

from save the undone years by Whitherward @whatanybodygets

—

kanej author recs | alltheworldsinmyhead

Notable/Favorite works:

l'appel du vide

“He was hoping that bringing a famous prostitute on his arm to the saloons and ballrooms of the rich and the powerful of Ketterdam would at least bring him some entertainment if nothing else. But what Kaz did not take into consideration was what marrying a woman like Inej really meant.”

Rating(s): M / Quirks: Developing to Established Kanej, Canon divergence, Marriage of Convenience, Angst with a Bittersweet ending, Kaz's POV

and it's all to come series (WIP) | collab w/ cameliawrites

Kaz and Inej in Lij, together on a threshold on winter and something far greater

Rating: G-M / Quirks: Established Kanej, Post-Canon AU, Fluff, Kanej Children

+ bonus

come to me in red | collab w/ Whitherward

In the middle of a long summer, Inej takes Kaz home to Ravka for a festival, determined to make her parents accept him. Neither of them is ready for what they find there.

once again thinking about roomy and drenched in sunlight by whitherward @whatanybodygets . Lol this is getting to be too much. This is a thing now. Feel free to unsubscribe. But this fic makes me so happy! And its been so great. I kept thinking about this moment because it’s so funny and touching: “He seems fascinated by Genna’s hands, Inej has noticed, and her feet. She often observes him holding them between his fingers, scowling like they have personally wronged him, pressing them against his palm as though comparing the size.”

Also I realize Inej would probably be on the bed watching but this is more fun. Also had to redo this several times because Kaz always looked scared.

the other moments I drew are:

“He begins to refer to himself in the third person, Genna, look at Pa and can you open up for Pa and no don’t poke Pa in the eye.”

“Genna is gazing steadily at Nina with the neutral expression she tends to display for new people. Inej imagines how Nina must be seeing her - wide mouth, pert nose, sharp eyebrows; every inch Kaz’s child. When those eyebrows draw down into a vaguely suspicious frown, the resemblance is so startling that Inej has to smother a laugh.”