( 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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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.