Ben Barnes Requests

PLAYING THE VIOLIN (Darkling)

REQUEST: ok so ive this headcanon that aleks can play the violin and now i cant stop thinking bout kat and him happily married with a baby, and he plays smth to calm the baby down

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Today was rough. He spent the whole morning and afternoon at the mercy of the Second Army in the Little Palace; watching all the practices for at least half an hour — analyzing all the soldiers by at —, listening to reports from the regents of each Grisha order, making solutions and amends for a few problems... And then, when The Darkling arrived at his private wing at dusk, he had to head to the war room to be informed of Ravka's Army.

He didn't even see his wife and daughter since he left in the morning, the two of them still asleep at the time. Aleksander thought of waking up Katherine to let her know that they wouldn't have lunch together today, but changed his mind when saw that she was drooling on the pillow. The witch was finally having her well-deserved sleep after another exhausting day being a mother.

The General takes another sip of the cup with kvas and vodka, a mixture he had done to put on with the night work, and rests his head on the chair he's seated on. He's so tired. He just wants to silently lay on the bed with his wife and daughter and stay there till tomorrow.

The Darkling looks at the papers on his desk with a grimace. He's spent all day working restless, so if he doesn't take some time for himself, he'll surely go mad.

Aleksander's gaze soon stops at a black box on the bookshelf and the corner of his lips quiver in a small smile. He goes there and picks it up, opening to reveal an old violin, one that was bought a long time ago without anyone's knowledge. When that happened, he used to play it every time he felt uneasy and needed a distraction. Its melody always had an effect on him, relaxing every tense muscle in his body and cleaning his mind from all the frustration he had to tolerate.

The man hasn't played it for years, decades, even.

Therefore, he cleans the instrument and verifies if it's in tune. Then, he puts it on his shoulder and begins to play what comes to his head. When the notes start to echo in the war room, all the weight of being the Grishas leader is soon gone off his shoulders. Right now, he's just a boy showing his love for music.

Not The Darkling, not General Kirigan, not the Black Heretic, but Aleksander Morozova.

The man is so focused on the song that he doesn't hear a baby's wail followed by some movement on the private wing's hallways. Katherine went to check if their daughter was hungry or dirty. Since those were not the cases, she simply picks up the crying little girl from the bassinet and goes with her for a walk in search of her husband.

She frowns at the sound of a song, a sweet melody that seems to be played by a violin, and slowly follows it. The witch is surprised when she notices that it's coming from the war room. Her light green eyes widen in complete shock as soon as she sees The Darkling playing the fiddle. However, that is rapidly replaced by a smile.

Katherine didn't know that her husband knew how to play an instrument, especially one as difficult as a violin. Her heart warms at the soothing view of him with closed eyes while his fingers reproduce whatever's in his mind. Aleksander is feeling the song, not just playing it for pleasure.

The woman though rapidly realizes that she's not the only one enjoying the melody when a baby cooing echoes through the room. She gazes at the little bundle of joy in her arms, the smile increasing as Kaltain blinks her tears away.

The Darkling couldn't hold back a chuckle as he looked at them. His wife's clearly tired, with dark circles under her eyes — now so small that she could easily sleep while standing —, yet she still gathered energy to give him a smile. His daughter, on the other hand, is very much awake. Although the tears have stopped falling from her eyes, they were replaced by confusion. She seems to be battling herself between letting out her frustrations in wailing or following the delicate symphony that hypnotizes her into calm.