Testament to Time - darklina fanfic

Chapter 1 - Taste

"We could have had this. All of it. You could have made me your equal. Instead, you made me this"

Stepping back she pulled his hand away from her chest.

"You don't care who suffers, as long as you win."

Aleksander felt her words bury themselves in his chest, his cold composure slipping into hurt so freely shown on his face. He had expected her vitriol, of course. After her departure, the thought of her compliance in following his carefully crafted plans proved to be nothing more than fantasy. That much had been clear even prior to visiting her tent.

"I'm not your enemy Alina"

She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

"Then prove it," she said "Let us go."

He had wanted her allegiance and had worked for it. After all, were their interests not aligned? By all accounts, she should have been able to see that despite his methods he only wants what is best for Ravka.

"And then what." He said, an edge finding itself into what was hardly a question. "I let you and your beloved tracker go and you'll what? Settle in the countryside? Raise a pack of children along with some cows?" The thought of his Alina bedding another, the tracker no less, was enough to turn his stomach.

"Somehow I find it difficult to believe you'll be happy herding sheep and shoveling manure," Aleksander paced forward and extended his arm to grasp at a fallen strand of her hair. "But then what Alina?"

Her eyes remained hard and steady as he twirled her hair in between his fingers but he knew what to look for. The way she suppressed a small gasp, how her hands gripped the edges of her coat. He leaned closer, their faces mere inches apart. He set her hair down.

"His hair will turn grey. His face will wrinkle and you will remain ageless and untouched by time. Slowly you will watch your precious tracker grow old and weak and eventually you will bury him" A tear slipped down her soft cheek and Aleksander reached in to wipe it away.

"You have only one true equal, running for me will prove to be an exercise in futility."

"Then let us go," she pleaded. "Let me have that life with him if you are so convinced I'll return to you."

Her insistence was unsurprising but her comment still irked him. "Are you truly that naive?"

She ignored his question, simply raising her chin.

He had known the tracker would prove to be a problem after fulfilling his task, but the depth of their bond was proving to be stronger than he originally imagined. He knew a thing or two about love– and loss. A bond is not something easily severed. Yet she refused to see sense, their inevitable end. He had thought that the past few days of misplaced optimism had taught her a lesson, but it seemed she was stubborn in her ignorance.

"Oh, Alina. You won't find any life with him" he stroked her cheek, the tenderness in his gesture at odds with his harsh words, "only death."

She shook her head and grabbed his wrist pulling the hand that had been resting on her cheek away. "You're wrong. I will never turn to you. Not after everything you've done."

She was young and utterly foolish, he knew that, but still, he felt his temper steadily rising to the surface. It would be difficult to have her with her head so consumed by the boy.

Could she not understand? Did she really think she could outrun destiny, that she could stay away from him when any and all have turned back to dust? Perhaps this is what youth tastes like. Perhaps he used to be like this as well in a time long forgotten to him. In his centuries of experience, countless lovers lost, friends buried, he knew better. And perhaps that's the only remedy for the situation: patience and time.