All By Design: A Nikolai Lantsov Series

Just a Short Time Chapter Three: my hand was the one you reached for

this time: Alina Starkov is somewhat of an enigma. No one quite knows where she came from nor how she was found by Aleksander. Mal would know, but she cannot reach him no matter how hard she tries.

Alina Starkov is not very sure of anything that she is going to do with her life, but in all fairness, she's hardly started. The truths of her apparent innocence are everywhere she looks. The doorman at her shiny new apartment, the one her label bought for her, still calls her 'kid' with that same guilty tone under his breath, like even he regrets the role he has in bringing her closer to the sort of life that can only pull you down. Alina doesn't scare easily, but she doesn't like it when others do. Not here.

Alina does not have much of a sense for the temperaments of big city residents, but from what she can gather, they range from colorful to fiercely independent to devastatingly sorrowful. She wonders what they'll paint her as later, when they stop seeing her eyes as just wide and hopelessly naïve. Maybe she'll be a martyr, maybe a temptress, maybe a ruination. All three seem equally impossible.

So too does the fact that she's even here at all. Alina was fully prepared to live and die in a small country town, and never come all the way to the flashiest city this side of the True Sea. Keramzin is a smudge on a map, hardly labeled unless by orphan cartographers in need of proof that they came from anywhere but the dust and ashes of everyone else. Alina has always been fond of maps. Even when you're far from home, you can trace your ink-stained finger back over the worn paper and let your soul slip back to familiar territory if your body cannot.

She's truly far from home now. Gone are her acres of gardens, her back roads leading nowhere, her former life. The only sign that Alina hasn't gone and left the planet altogether is the fact that she can still look up and see the sun and moon dangled in the heavens every morning and night. Even those familiar sights are changed, though; the endless light in a city that never sleeps means that Alina catalogs her days under starless skies. The only constellations she'll get are the flickerings of lights left on in towering skyscrapers, and even those must go out on occasion.

Alina supposes that she's meant to be more grateful about all of this. Most people would sell their soul to leave Keramzin, and the fact that she's already been accepted by such a prominent record label is nothing short of stunning. Aleksander is well known for his power, his influence. As long as he's in her court, she can surely have nothing to fear.

Yet Alina's still hunting for some sign that she could ever return home. She misses her old life, that much is true. She misses it more than anything, but not more than him. There's a boy waiting for her at home, if he hasn't already moved on. His name is Mal Oretsev, and he's the reason that Alina will never truly be satisfied here. The gaudiest cities could feel like home so long as he was there with her. Even when Alina had no home, no family, she had him.

Thus the loneliness cuts like a blade. Separation has never been Alina's best friend, and it's her cruelest enemy right now. She tries to throw herself into her work, hoping that the anguish of wanting someone with you like a phantom limb means she'll have more inspiration for her songs, but it doesn't work, not really.

The disappointment only ever belongs to Alina, apparently. She's unsatisfied with her debut album, seeing only half efforts and incomplete goals, but to the general public, it's the work of saints. Copies fly off the shelves, and people are streaming her music like it's pure sunlight, all they need to get through a day with a smile on their face. Alina smiles and accepts their praise, but all she can think is that this means they'll need her here for longer, that her departure date is pushed off again, if it ever existed at all.

Throughout it all, Alina keeps writing home. Mal should have her address, she made sure to give it to him before she left, but her mailbox is empty of letters bearing his name. She writes damn near constantly, keeping him up to date on everything from the thrills of guitar practice to the pitfalls of having to negotiate with record label execs, but nary a response ever returns to her. Alina counts the days since she's left until they grow far too great in number, but even then, she still harbors a secret hope that he might come back. She just has to get through this, that's all. At some point, it will end. It has to.