The stories say they're meant to turn back into a handsome prince. But if you like him at his slimiest ...
( it's difficult to feed that light-hearted mood further, like trying to fan a dying ember, in the wake of alia's confession. small, maybe, if it were anyone other than alia — all toothy grins and buoyant steps, as though the world is incapable of touching her. as though even the wind cannot, a daughter of the desert, refusing to be eroded by furious sandstorms. )
If anyone can withstand holy fire and live to tell the tale, it would be you. But I'd rather you didn't put that theory to the test.
Do you have a suitemate? Don't tell me they're someone insufferable to be around.
Mmmm, I prefer frogs to princes. Less likely to demand political alliances or marriages of convenience. More likely to eat flies.
[Alia feels the slight shift, and something in her chest grieves it, even as she tucks herself into her bed, pillows her cheek on one arm and types out her messages with one forefinger. Her moods have always been intense, swinging from delight to despair, from rage to ardor at the slightest provocation. This too shall pass, two days nothing in the face of eternity.
But the fact of it: she is lonesome. She is alone.]
I will not, then, if you'd rather me whole and unburnt and unblemished. My scientific pursuits shall have to turn to examining the pond fronds and lake creatures, once more.
I have not met him. He is a stranger to me. [It's a weird sort of petulance, a reluctance to meet new people, almost childlike in it's fear: what if they don't like me?]
( isn't your brother a duke? she types, then deletes in a whirlwind of self-doubt. paul would be irritated with her pushing the point, like a scab she can't stop picking at, but — it's only fully occurred to her what that well-bred lineage entails. vows exchanged for an alliance, bloodlines secured — not so different from nikolai's need for a queen to bear ravka an heir, a baby to bandage together their country's gaping wounds. self-punishing, she has to tighten her fingers together to resist from striking send, to resist from asking alia what suitors have come knocking at her door.
stupidly happy to live in cowardly ignorance, she pauses, lets the blip of bubbles that pop onto the screen disappear. she could admit to nikolai's proposal, still gnawing at the back of her skull. could confess to the cautious thought it might truly usher in a new era of unification for ravka.
she opts for something lesser, instead. )
Most people in Ravka marry for practical reasons. Farmers and royals alike. I'm probably more suited to frogs. At least you can throw them back into a pond if they're a terrible husband.
( she falls silent again, fumbling with her attempt at offering comfort from a distance. she knows how paranoid it would sound to warn alia away from strangers, so, a pivot: )
Your fourteen novels would have come in handy. Have you read anything else while we've been trapped inside?
Most Fremen as well. [Alia is careful, tactful, aware that they are straying dangerously close to a topic that stings and rankles at her, even here. Stilgar had spoken of it, in the days leading up to the end, had insisted Paul find her a suitable husband, someone politically and socially appropriate, an outlet for her budding hungers that would still serve to secure Muad’Dib’s influence. Her mother had thought the same, thinks it still, how it would’ve been wise to secure the Harkonnen line within an Atreides, rather than Margot. The Womb of Heaven is in high demand, after all.
Jessica would’ve frowned upon any and all dalliances outside of the Golden Path, outside of poor dead Chani and poor bitter Irulan and poor artificial Duncan. She frowns on those, still. Alia finds her mouth flooding with bitterness at the idea of her mother scrutinizing and critiquing Alina, sizing her up against the Kwisatz Haderach and noting all the ways she falls short. Everyone falls short against a messiah, it is the nature of a messiah. Alia has never blamed Paul for that.]
You suit all manner of things, Alina. I read a tale of a prince who turned into all manner of creatures, and whose lady needed simply to hold him tight until he was his own true self once more. It seemed unfair, to her.
The fairy tales, mostly. This one and others, old ones I half-remember from my nursemaid. Also an account of a vampire and a girl in a rainy land, beset by many trials, most of which seemed caused by stupidity and lack of communication.
I would've thought the desert would be more freeing. How do Fremen choose their partners?
( what she doesn't say: it's disappointing to discover, even in the heart of sands and dunes, there's no escaping one's shackles, no hope that she might ever find a place that doesn't expect more of, and from, her. what she doesn't say: she isn't suited to anyone. not mal, who wishes she could shed her power with the ease of a snake changing skins. not nikolai, who longs for a queen the way a king longs for another jewel on his crown: an accessory, an extension of his rule, no matter how benevolent. not the darkling, whose idea of love is a prison, keeping her like a spinning ballerina in a music box. )
Love is rarely fair, from what I've seen. Maybe it was worth it, to her.
It's freeing in that the choices are usually their own, though made for much more practical reasons. One family needs what another has, usually. Not so much resources -- all is shared, there. But one man may have a weakened mother and need the care of a woman's healer brother, or they may wish to consolidate the talents of a bloodline into stronger and hardier offspring. Bene Gesserit ideals run deep on Arrakis.
[A note of bitterness, indistinguishable in text -- from the moment of Agony, Alia had seen and understood the long, elaborate manipulations of the Sisterhood on her homeworld, how insidiously they'd infiltrated the people's minds and souls and beliefs. She'd always been taught it was the only way, that the Kwisatz Haderach was destined to arise from a place as powerful and valuable as Arrakis. He who controls the flow of spice and all that.
Now, she wonders.]
The princes always are, to the princesses. I wonder if she was angry, though, to realize he'd kept such an important secret from her. Would you be?
[Wow, the subtlety.]
A creature that feeds upon human blood. We call them desert-spirits, demons on Arrakis. This one calls itself Edward.
It's only royalty that marry to secure bloodlines, where I'm from. But I've heard old stories ( from baghra, taking the most powerful heartrender she could find, for the potential of his seed. for the creation of aleksander morozova, taught that he was above an equal — special, singular. ) of my people choosing each other for their power, or ... finding themselves drawn to it. Like calls to like.
( she pauses, uneasiness prickling at the back of her skull. it's impossible not to think of nikolai — changed, by the power aleksander placed inside of him like a parasite waiting to grow, hatching sharp claws and sharp teeth. impossible not to consider aleksander, the half-truths he had kept in the dark.
impossible not to consider her own best kept secrets in this manor, purposefully stripping herself of her shine, to see if she might be wanted for more than what she is. loved as a woman is, as a girl is. )
Wouldn't you be? Secrets benefit their keepers, never the person they're being kept from.
Oh. That's a little gross. Isn't it? I think I might have preferred the werewolves.
Edited (ignore that this edit cane hours later at 3 am pls...) 2024-08-11 07:21 (UTC)
Like calls to like. [There’s a pause, Alia turning the words over and over in her mind, feeling the odd lyrical lilt of them. They mean something else, something more, something that shows a little keyhole of the world Alina comes from. They ring out like the voice from the outer world or he shall know your ways as if born to them.
So she lets them pass, like the rumbling of Shai-Hulud beneath the sands. Let it go, let it return to the worlds they’ve left..] Perhaps it’s similar. Or perhaps it’s just for survival, a desire to raise children who have the best features of both parents. Good hunters, or skilled wormriders.
It would depend on who was keeping the secrets. I have different rules for different people, as do most, whatever else they may say.
It is, yes. But it’s written very romantically, and our heroine doesn’t seem overly put off by it. Oh, then I have WONDERFUL news about the second book :)
Well, I'm not one of those people. Favoritism doesn't make someone's lie easier to swallow. In fact, it makes it so much worse.
( genya, worming her way into alina's graces under the guise of friendship. the darkling, laying her out on his war table — too stupid to realize he had spread her out among his maps and pawns like another piece on the board. an object in play, no matter how well-cared for.
her fingers twitch, repressing that crawling urge to peel off her skin, every time she thinks of that night. how valued she had felt. how worshiped. how none of it had ever been true. guility, she tries to choke down that sourness, tries not to let it ooze like something rancid, tainting alia's excitement. )
I've never heard someone describe blood-drinking as romantic. No. Don't say it.
( 'it' being 'yes alina there's knotting in the second book, aren't you so joyously happy.' )
Does it? I suppose you’re right. A serpent’s tooth still stings, even if it’s honeyed.
{There’s a pause, a beat, Alia’s lonesome, wild mind longing to reach out, to touch, to feel, to ascertain Alina’s feelings. But she’d promised, a vow she’d never given before or since, and she swallows back the urge. Instead she slips her mind’s eye over the vague tangle of thoughts closer by, like a bird’s eye view of all that Saltburnt feels and wants and longs for.
And, after that pause:] I do not like secrets. I will never keep them from you or Paul. [Except, except, her knowledge of the end, of how Muad’Dib’s tale winds to a bloody, blinded, banished close. That is less a secret and more of a burden that Alia swallows down like a bitter, burning coal.
Then, on to lighter, better things:] There are werewolves in it! :) But no mating, I fear. There is a great fuss made about all that. Insistence upon marriage and propriety. Seems sort of dumb.
( silently, she wonders if that could ever be possible, if there is such a thing as an open book of a person. no secret writings slipped between the pages, no hidden meanings to glean — perfectly knowable. maybe, her twisted hope says, still rooted in her belief that not every honeyed tongue is meant to disguise the taste of poison. or maybe they're all like genya, all like nikolai, all like the darkling — calculating what pieces of themselves to skin off and give away.
she shifts, like that might unclench the gnawing teeth that anxiety has on her bones when she thinks of it. the lack of acknowledgment, or even a refute to alia's declaration, might as well be an accusation for how loudly alina's pause speaks. )
You don't seem very fond of marriage. Every time it's brought up, you act like you've just swallowed a whole lemon.
[Alia knows she isn’t easy to read, that it’s hard to figure her out, but she tries to never lie, never present herself as anything what she is: dangerous and deadly and wrong, in so, so many ways.
Still, the question is a bit of a shift, away from the topic of books (and the werewolf knots that may or may not be within them). She rolls onto her back, holding her phone up as she types.]
My parents weren’t married, but they loved each other ferociously. I suppose that’s the main example of love I’ve seen in my life, and it wasn’t tied to marriage at all.
[She doesn’t mention the past lives, the memories she holds of ten thousand years of Bene Gesserit, who did not wed, did not tie themselves to one man, who were concubines and consorts and lovers and whores.]
Besides, I’ve always been prepared for my marriage to be a politically advantageous one. To further Paul’s role as Duke. And I like lemons. They’re good for preventing scurvy.
( your brother's a duke, alina's first envious draft blinks back. you don't have to wed anyone if you don't want to. doubtful that paul would ever command it of his baby sister, coddled with a family that loves her. coddled with a family that alina is distinct lacking — no one to guard her from what duty dictates. the second, once she's deleted the first: and your parents were never unhappy? the way queen tatiana's lover must have been, creating nikolai beneath the very nose of the king. the way mal had dug a chasm between them, impossible to bridge, the moment nikolai had set his sights on transforming her into a queen.
she deletes that, too, unable to stomach the jealousy that cramps her insides, suddenly, at the thought of being relegated to paul's secret, to alia's shame. to watching idly as the two of them marry themselves off to others, playing wife and husband to some nobleborn beauty, while she's shunted to a corner. meant to watch it all, like she imagines alia's parents must have, taking their respective alliances and only coming together in the dark.
her fingertips twitch, refusing to torment herself by rooting out the sordid details. instead: )
Not every political match has to be so terrible, does it?
( like a child, asking someone to tell them a scrape isn't as bad and bloody as it looks. she knows the answer, even as she asks it. a memory, curdled in her mind: wincing while she watches a young wife struggle uphill, salt strapped to her back. ana kuya biting back, to alina's questions: he doesn't need a donkey. he has a wife. the horror coiling inside of her as mal, oblivious, insisted he would one day marry her. ana kuya again, blistering, that's what happens to peasant girls who do not have the benefit of a duke's kindness.
alina swallows around a sour mouthful of nothing. imagines she must be the packmule, carrying ravka's burdens uphill for nikolai, tired and worn under the staggered weight. still, she types, anyway: )
Look at Nikolai and I. Some betrothals begin with friendship. Even if it never turns to love, we would still have Ravka's best interests in common.
We both know Paul would never stand for a political match made against your wishes, anyway. Especially if it's to a self-serving ass.
[Alia thinks of her parents, of the desperate, fervent, helpless love she had never witnessed firsthand, only felt in echoes from Jessica’s memories, from Paul’s, the two bleeding together like water-splattered ink. A waste of moisture, she thinks, sometimes, privy as no offspring should be to their parent’s passion – and ultimately, doomed, doomed in a way Jessica pretends she doesn’t regret. It had been necessary, Leto’s death, to usher in Muad’Dib’s reign – that has always been the lesson, the understanding. Sacrifices must be made, bloody and dear.
But Alia knows Jessica’s agony at the loss of her lover as if it had been her own. And she loathes her mother for that, for giving it to both children, for the thoughtless foisting of a pain she should have borne alone. Paul knows, in the deepest, darkest places of his soul, that while the Reverend Mother welcomed his ascension, Jessica wept for Leto and wished him back – perhaps fervently enough that, in her most hidden grief, she had wished him instead of her son.
But: that is not the question. And though Alia thinks of Irulan, pale and bitter and outshone by Paul’s devotion to Chani, by his refusal to touch or lie with the woman he called wife, she does not voice it.]
Not every one, no. Mutual respect can suffice.
[The mention of betrothal – Alina’s, specifically, scarcely alluded to and yet there, present like a burrowing root of rot at the core of the world she should return to – makes Alia wrinkle her nose, a bitter taste of jealousy and spite flooding her mouth.]
I cannot speak to a man I have never met, but if you vouch for him, I’ll accept that he’s likely passable.
[He sucks and she hates him on principle!!!!]
No, you're right. Paul would never let such a thing happen on his watch.
[But Paul isn't around to stop it, anymore. Only Alia and Irulan and two too-serious, too-solemn children.]
( sarcasm that could wither a garden, same as the dreams alina can see wilting, in real time, like falling petals in the spaces between alia's fingers. he'll love me, he'll love me not. i'll be happy, i'll be happy not. still, maybe that's all there is. maybe that's the best she can hope for. true love, dead on the stem. the whole of their hearts taken by ravka, dedicated to duty. already, mutual respect is more than any saint could ask for. better than losing herself to men who tolerate her best when she's stripped of power. better than becoming dust in the countryside with mal, with no shortage of guilt to spare, no limit to the revulsion she feels at herself.
better than being dead in the ground, only ever death's bride.
she eyes the heirloom ring tucked away on her nightstand, the rich emerald of lush forests. wistful, suddenly, for all that she's staved off homesickness. wishing nikolai had stayed, wishing her worlds might have converged as easily as a shore to a tide, if he had been here to know alia, know paul, and not — the rocky cliff face she feels like she's facing, sometimes, trying to reconcile the two worlds she has tried so desperately to belong to. )
You would have liked him. He had plenty of stories about his time on the seas. Exaggerated, knowing Nikolai's need to hear himself blather at all times. But he's a good man, and he'll make for a good king. Saints know all of Ravka adores him.
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no subject
A little bird told me he's one of those cursed princes you read about in stories.
Are you staying out of trouble?
And before you ask, I do remember who I'm talking to. That's why I'm asking.
no subject
If I kiss him, what will happen? I like him so much as a frog.
Begrudgingly, yes.
I've made no attempts to see if I can withstand holy fire.
But it's lonely.
no subject
But if you like him at his slimiest ...
( it's difficult to feed that light-hearted mood further, like trying to fan a dying ember, in the wake of alia's confession. small, maybe, if it were anyone other than alia — all toothy grins and buoyant steps, as though the world is incapable of touching her. as though even the wind cannot, a daughter of the desert, refusing to be eroded by furious sandstorms. )
If anyone can withstand holy fire and live to tell the tale, it would be you.
But I'd rather you didn't put that theory to the test.
Do you have a suitemate? Don't tell me they're someone insufferable to be around.
no subject
More likely to eat flies.
[Alia feels the slight shift, and something in her chest grieves it, even as she tucks herself into her bed, pillows her cheek on one arm and types out her messages with one forefinger. Her moods have always been intense, swinging from delight to despair, from rage to ardor at the slightest provocation. This too shall pass, two days nothing in the face of eternity.
But the fact of it: she is lonesome. She is alone.]
I will not, then, if you'd rather me whole and unburnt and unblemished. My scientific pursuits shall have to turn to examining the pond fronds and lake creatures, once more.
I have not met him. He is a stranger to me. [It's a weird sort of petulance, a reluctance to meet new people, almost childlike in it's fear: what if they don't like me?]
no subject
stupidly happy to live in cowardly ignorance, she pauses, lets the blip of bubbles that pop onto the screen disappear. she could admit to nikolai's proposal, still gnawing at the back of her skull. could confess to the cautious thought it might truly usher in a new era of unification for ravka.
she opts for something lesser, instead. )
Most people in Ravka marry for practical reasons. Farmers and royals alike.
I'm probably more suited to frogs. At least you can throw them back into a pond if they're a terrible husband.
( she falls silent again, fumbling with her attempt at offering comfort from a distance. she knows how paranoid it would sound to warn alia away from strangers, so, a pivot: )
Your fourteen novels would have come in handy.
Have you read anything else while we've been trapped inside?
no subject
Jessica would’ve frowned upon any and all dalliances outside of the Golden Path, outside of poor dead Chani and poor bitter Irulan and poor artificial Duncan. She frowns on those, still. Alia finds her mouth flooding with bitterness at the idea of her mother scrutinizing and critiquing Alina, sizing her up against the Kwisatz Haderach and noting all the ways she falls short. Everyone falls short against a messiah, it is the nature of a messiah. Alia has never blamed Paul for that.]
You suit all manner of things, Alina. I read a tale of a prince who turned into all manner of creatures, and whose lady needed simply to hold him tight until he was his own true self once more.
It seemed unfair, to her.
The fairy tales, mostly. This one and others, old ones I half-remember from my nursemaid.
Also an account of a vampire and a girl in a rainy land, beset by many trials, most of which seemed caused by stupidity and lack of communication.
no subject
How do Fremen choose their partners?
( what she doesn't say: it's disappointing to discover, even in the heart of sands and dunes, there's no escaping one's shackles, no hope that she might ever find a place that doesn't expect more of, and from, her. what she doesn't say: she isn't suited to anyone. not mal, who wishes she could shed her power with the ease of a snake changing skins. not nikolai, who longs for a queen the way a king longs for another jewel on his crown: an accessory, an extension of his rule, no matter how benevolent. not the darkling, whose idea of love is a prison, keeping her like a spinning ballerina in a music box. )
Love is rarely fair, from what I've seen.
Maybe it was worth it, to her.
What's a vampire?
no subject
[A note of bitterness, indistinguishable in text -- from the moment of Agony, Alia had seen and understood the long, elaborate manipulations of the Sisterhood on her homeworld, how insidiously they'd infiltrated the people's minds and souls and beliefs. She'd always been taught it was the only way, that the Kwisatz Haderach was destined to arise from a place as powerful and valuable as Arrakis. He who controls the flow of spice and all that.
Now, she wonders.]
The princes always are, to the princesses. I wonder if she was angry, though, to realize he'd kept such an important secret from her.
Would you be?
[Wow, the subtlety.]
A creature that feeds upon human blood. We call them desert-spirits, demons on Arrakis.
This one calls itself Edward.
no subject
( she pauses, uneasiness prickling at the back of her skull. it's impossible not to think of nikolai — changed, by the power aleksander placed inside of him like a parasite waiting to grow, hatching sharp claws and sharp teeth. impossible not to consider aleksander, the half-truths he had kept in the dark.
impossible not to consider her own best kept secrets in this manor, purposefully stripping herself of her shine, to see if she might be wanted for more than what she is. loved as a woman is, as a girl is. )
Wouldn't you be?
Secrets benefit their keepers, never the person they're being kept from.
Oh. That's a little gross. Isn't it?
I think I might have preferred the werewolves.
no subject
So she lets them pass, like the rumbling of Shai-Hulud beneath the sands. Let it go, let it return to the worlds they’ve left..] Perhaps it’s similar. Or perhaps it’s just for survival, a desire to raise children who have the best features of both parents. Good hunters, or skilled wormriders.
It would depend on who was keeping the secrets. I have different rules for different people, as do most, whatever else they may say.
It is, yes. But it’s written very romantically, and our heroine doesn’t seem overly put off by it.
Oh, then I have WONDERFUL news about the second book :)
no subject
Favoritism doesn't make someone's lie easier to swallow. In fact, it makes it so much worse.
( genya, worming her way into alina's graces under the guise of friendship. the darkling, laying her out on his war table — too stupid to realize he had spread her out among his maps and pawns like another piece on the board. an object in play, no matter how well-cared for.
her fingers twitch, repressing that crawling urge to peel off her skin, every time she thinks of that night. how valued she had felt. how worshiped. how none of it had ever been true. guility, she tries to choke down that sourness, tries not to let it ooze like something rancid, tainting alia's excitement. )
I've never heard someone describe blood-drinking as romantic.
No. Don't say it.
( 'it' being 'yes alina there's knotting in the second book, aren't you so joyously happy.' )
no subject
I suppose you’re right. A serpent’s tooth still stings, even if it’s honeyed.
{There’s a pause, a beat, Alia’s lonesome, wild mind longing to reach out, to touch, to feel, to ascertain Alina’s feelings. But she’d promised, a vow she’d never given before or since, and she swallows back the urge. Instead she slips her mind’s eye over the vague tangle of thoughts closer by, like a bird’s eye view of all that Saltburnt feels and wants and longs for.
And, after that pause:] I do not like secrets. I will never keep them from you or Paul. [Except, except, her knowledge of the end, of how Muad’Dib’s tale winds to a bloody, blinded, banished close. That is less a secret and more of a burden that Alia swallows down like a bitter, burning coal.
Then, on to lighter, better things:] There are werewolves in it! :)
But no mating, I fear.
There is a great fuss made about all that. Insistence upon marriage and propriety. Seems sort of dumb.
no subject
she shifts, like that might unclench the gnawing teeth that anxiety has on her bones when she thinks of it. the lack of acknowledgment, or even a refute to alia's declaration, might as well be an accusation for how loudly alina's pause speaks. )
You don't seem very fond of marriage.
Every time it's brought up, you act like you've just swallowed a whole lemon.
no subject
Still, the question is a bit of a shift, away from the topic of books (and the werewolf knots that may or may not be within them). She rolls onto her back, holding her phone up as she types.]
My parents weren’t married, but they loved each other ferociously.
I suppose that’s the main example of love I’ve seen in my life, and it wasn’t tied to marriage at all.
[She doesn’t mention the past lives, the memories she holds of ten thousand years of Bene Gesserit, who did not wed, did not tie themselves to one man, who were concubines and consorts and lovers and whores.]
Besides, I’ve always been prepared for my marriage to be a politically advantageous one. To further Paul’s role as Duke.
And I like lemons. They’re good for preventing scurvy.
no subject
she deletes that, too, unable to stomach the jealousy that cramps her insides, suddenly, at the thought of being relegated to paul's secret, to alia's shame. to watching idly as the two of them marry themselves off to others, playing wife and husband to some nobleborn beauty, while she's shunted to a corner. meant to watch it all, like she imagines alia's parents must have, taking their respective alliances and only coming together in the dark.
her fingertips twitch, refusing to torment herself by rooting out the sordid details. instead: )
Not every political match has to be so terrible, does it?
( like a child, asking someone to tell them a scrape isn't as bad and bloody as it looks. she knows the answer, even as she asks it. a memory, curdled in her mind: wincing while she watches a young wife struggle uphill, salt strapped to her back. ana kuya biting back, to alina's questions: he doesn't need a donkey. he has a wife. the horror coiling inside of her as mal, oblivious, insisted he would one day marry her. ana kuya again, blistering, that's what happens to peasant girls who do not have the benefit of a duke's kindness.
alina swallows around a sour mouthful of nothing. imagines she must be the packmule, carrying ravka's burdens uphill for nikolai, tired and worn under the staggered weight. still, she types, anyway: )
Look at Nikolai and I. Some betrothals begin with friendship.
Even if it never turns to love, we would still have Ravka's best interests in common.
We both know Paul would never stand for a political match made against your wishes, anyway.
Especially if it's to a self-serving ass.
no subject
[Alia thinks of her parents, of the desperate, fervent, helpless love she had never witnessed firsthand, only felt in echoes from Jessica’s memories, from Paul’s, the two bleeding together like water-splattered ink. A waste of moisture, she thinks, sometimes, privy as no offspring should be to their parent’s passion – and ultimately, doomed, doomed in a way Jessica pretends she doesn’t regret. It had been necessary, Leto’s death, to usher in Muad’Dib’s reign – that has always been the lesson, the understanding. Sacrifices must be made, bloody and dear.
But Alia knows Jessica’s agony at the loss of her lover as if it had been her own. And she loathes her mother for that, for giving it to both children, for the thoughtless foisting of a pain she should have borne alone. Paul knows, in the deepest, darkest places of his soul, that while the Reverend Mother welcomed his ascension, Jessica wept for Leto and wished him back – perhaps fervently enough that, in her most hidden grief, she had wished him instead of her son.
But: that is not the question. And though Alia thinks of Irulan, pale and bitter and outshone by Paul’s devotion to Chani, by his refusal to touch or lie with the woman he called wife, she does not voice it.]
Not every one, no.
Mutual respect can suffice.
[The mention of betrothal – Alina’s, specifically, scarcely alluded to and yet there, present like a burrowing root of rot at the core of the world she should return to – makes Alia wrinkle her nose, a bitter taste of jealousy and spite flooding her mouth.]
I cannot speak to a man I have never met, but if you vouch for him, I’ll accept that he’s likely passable.
[He sucks and she hates him on principle!!!!]
No, you're right. Paul would never let such a thing happen on his watch.
[But Paul isn't around to stop it, anymore. Only Alia and Irulan and two too-serious, too-solemn children.]
no subject
You're quite the romantic.
( sarcasm that could wither a garden, same as the dreams alina can see wilting, in real time, like falling petals in the spaces between alia's fingers. he'll love me, he'll love me not. i'll be happy, i'll be happy not. still, maybe that's all there is. maybe that's the best she can hope for. true love, dead on the stem. the whole of their hearts taken by ravka, dedicated to duty. already, mutual respect is more than any saint could ask for. better than losing herself to men who tolerate her best when she's stripped of power. better than becoming dust in the countryside with mal, with no shortage of guilt to spare, no limit to the revulsion she feels at herself.
better than being dead in the ground, only ever death's bride.
she eyes the heirloom ring tucked away on her nightstand, the rich emerald of lush forests. wistful, suddenly, for all that she's staved off homesickness. wishing nikolai had stayed, wishing her worlds might have converged as easily as a shore to a tide, if he had been here to know alia, know paul, and not — the rocky cliff face she feels like she's facing, sometimes, trying to reconcile the two worlds she has tried so desperately to belong to. )
You would have liked him. He had plenty of stories about his time on the seas.
Exaggerated, knowing Nikolai's need to hear himself blather at all times.
But he's a good man, and he'll make for a good king. Saints know all of Ravka adores him.