Athena might have been the Darkling's daughter, a general in the making since the moment she discovered her powers, to heal the hearth of its woe, to freeze the water wheeling underneath the Little Palace pipes, but she was still a kid looking for the love of a father that never could offer more than he asked for. She was precocious, talented beyond her years, a natural in her bending of the human blood, of the steam in the air and the dew on trembling leaves, but she was no sun summoner, no saint to grant her father an equal. But that did not mean she didn't try: to charm her father with merciless slaughters of Fjerdans that she mourned in her sleep, with the way she led armies of Grisha into battle at only 15 years of age, with her discoveries of transfusions and transplants, with battles won, with legislations passed by curtesy of wooing the king, of letting his hand wander where they were not welcomed.
It was only greed her father sought, for power, for love that lasted. And his daughter, with her blue and red kefka, with her perseverance, with her power did nothing but make him mourn his failed attempt at creating someone that mattered to him. Of course, he still needed a powerful soldier, one above all heartenders and squallers alike, to be his second. So, he was cold and deceiving and rarely kind. But Atena continued on being ambitious and mighty, blank-faced and never seemingly disappointed. Secretly, she cherished the present of a new kefka, the stolen smiles, the abnormal praise. But it was only borrowed time she was hanging on, a slippery rope that would be tied around her neck.
She knew it, but never fought it. She searched for friends in the most powerful and scornful of people, in dull-eyed and ruthless Ivan and merciless Zoya. But she found what she sought in kind Fedyor and never frowning Nadia. The orders never saw eye to eye, but for the meddling of one abnormal Grisha, they would respect each other. Because even before Alina came on a white horse and with a gleaming prince in her tail to propose a new order of things, the Corporalki and Etherealki already faced the inevitable, the need of collaboration, from the pushes of an onyx eyed witch that drank too much kvas at parties and made it her friends' problem to take care of her.
But let's go back to the beginning: a slayer of armies, an underestimated daughter seeking affirmation with a mighty fist and finger that could drown a whole city in the ocean's icy water. Let's give her the pain of a soulmate that kept himself away at sea, that never felt the torment of constant battle, the trauma of shadows, the choking feelings of approaching death. Let's make her feel the pinch of a needle in her right hip, the cut of a letter opener, the whole of a bullet in her left leg. And let him figure out his own aches and pains, the slashing of a shoulder, a broken hand, a stab in the back, each and every pain, shared.
That would count later.
But for now, this is what we have: a skiff full of people awaiting a trip to Novokribirsk. A Grisha with power to shield the mast with tick ice and stop volcra's hearts, a tracker that loves fiercely and acts to quickly on it, a storm which that never saw light this bright and a sun summoner who didn't know it yet.
Everything happens as we all know it. Except, on the front of a ship a Grisha in red and blue kills dozens of volcras with a twist of her fingers and shields the passengers and first armies in a bubble of ice. Alina hears whispers about saints and glances at this Grisha with blazing eyes and assured stance and wonders about what could have happened.
And then a bullet misfires.
The mighty Grisha is hit somewhere underneath the collarbone and hits the ground, shaking, trying to heal a deathly wound. She is bleeding in the darkness that calls for her, for a salvage, for the blood of a daughter that should have been more.
The ice melts and the mast is turned into a puddle of gore, blood and grim dirt, too cold water and falling corpses.
Athena, fighting unconsciousness screams at Zoya to get them out, screams for the pain in her chest, in her bleeding tissues, in her scornful heart and tries to keep herself standing.
Mal, always courageous, but never thoughtful, fires his weapon at the volcras that try to eat the woman that stood in front of them all, the woman that was bleeding for them. A man who could never leave another soldier behind, a saint that could never save her best friend.
The light came, blinding and pure and so long expected. When they reached the docks outside the Fold, Athena was still trying to heal her collarbone with shaking hands beside a tracker that is so much more and the girl that would offer her father the world and take it back.
It isn't much different. Except, when the darkling askes for a retelling of the events on the skiff, is his famed daughter that answer, as if offering a report, as if she wasn't dying mere minutes ago. He didn't ask about her smeared kefka, about her grimy face, about her pain. He asked for his general, for the raw facts, for the mere possibility his dream might become true.
When he makes Alina's light sing, Athena is not jealous, nor amazed. She is sorrowful, at the look of wonder on her father's face, at the fact that she was never offered such a gift. She keeps her eyes opened, pupils getting smaller and smaller, and takes it all in: the pain in her chest is comforting in comparison to the sight of the sun summoner, found, at last.
When it all stops, she blinks three times, keeps the tears at bay, and offers Alina her kefka. Her father didn't ask it of her, like he didn't ask her to fight, kill and serve, but that did not mean he didn't expect it. Ivan, always the silent type of kindness, comes to sit with her in the couch, in front of this newfound saint, and makes her heart rush in her chest three times. It seemed like nothing. It meant the world.
When they heard the screams of the tracker, asking for his feelings to matter, they turned their back, kept their eyes motionless, soldiers marching on. They took the scorn of the sun summoner with something that resembled ease but was closer to resolution.
When she asked why Athena gave her kefka they explained they were bullet proof. It wasn't what she meant, of course, but Alina didn't know how to push if it wasn't for other people. And, after all, the weird Grisha before her had her chest punctured and was still standing, she wasn't someone she should cross.
But Athena could offer her a crumble of truth, a warning disguised as nothing more. She knew the weight of being different, to some extent, of being seen as something abnormal.
" You have a long journey ahead of you" Literal and not really. Alina could only guess the meaning behind the warning, reading between the lines. Later, when Genya would tell her the Darkling had hoped for decades for a sun summoner, had tried to create one himself, she would look back at that couch ride, at Athena's steady glance, at her cold words and even colder eyes and put it down to hatred. To resentment. And for once, the hate she received, made Alina feel like she deserved it. Zoya's bigotry was lacking meaning, was a children's tantrum and nothing more. But Athena had reason to hate, had a motif to isolate her. And still, she didn't.
When the Fjerdans came, she left the couch first and put up shields of ice. Felt for steady heartbeats born in the cold ice and crushed them with little mercy. Searched the perimeter for more enemies and breathed out when she realized all were dead. Alina watched her then, that glowing women with fair skin and flowing hair and thought for a second she should have been fitted for an icon. A warrior stance, a saint-like face.
When the Darkling arrived, Athena was checking Ivan for injuries and cleaning up the scene. „Report." He simply said, as if not speaking with his daughter but simply with one of his soldiers. To some extent, she was only that.
Alina still ended up riding with the Darkling, because in every world it was only a pretense of protection covering a want for closeness. At his command, Athena kept her head high, her gaze on the embroidery of his kefka and simply nodded, returning to the couch, Ivan beside her.
Alina spoke her inquiry about the reasons and got the general chuckle and smile at her. Even now, his charm was misleading, always a way to hide his true nature, never something for nothing.
Alina, awestruck from the marvels of the castle, forgot about her travel buddies until, from her window, overlooking the gates of the capital she saw the couch caring them home. She saw Ivan help Athena descent and how she shortly squeezed his hand, three times. When the servants dispersed, she even smiled, and Alina felt awestruck again, at the sight of the woman, at how the tips of her mouth were raised the tiniest bit.
From the grounds, Athena counted the heartbeats swarming in the walls of the Littla Palace and found an accelerating new one somewhere on the western wing. She calmed it senselessly and went back to work.
There were students to teach, laws to be passed, armies to organize. The appearance of the sun summoner only added paperwork on her desk that her father didn't bother to fill, too excited to show his new discovery to the king. When the whole parade took Alina in front of the court, Athena was with them, as the custom demanded, in front of the orders, the two arranged on each side of her, leaving the materialki at the back. Not her preferred choice, but if she was to correct each corruption into the Little Palace, she would lose her mind.
When Alina lighted up a third time, Athena buried her face in her collar, counted her heartbeats, as even as ever, and waited for it to end. When it all was done, she curtsied to the royal family, said her regards and led the Grisha back to the Palace. She left them to their shenanigans and returned to the pile of papers she had to go through.
Her office was on the left to the darkling's quarters, smaller in comparison but still glorious. The walls were painted a deep royal blue with burgundy motifs shinning in the sun rays. The furniture was rigid and solid, with red engravings and made out of a strong marron wood. Always a symbol of power, never one of taste.
Still, it was comfortable enough to keep her toiling over deciding war budgets, building a bill that allows Grisha to own properties and getting founds for the school. It wasn't a job she wanted, but she was good at it. At convincing nobles to give them their money in exchange of a secret or a little help, to lure the king into believing that helping the Grisha would be beneficial to him. At her worn desk, she was crafting stories, lies and entire new world, while the darkling was fawning over his little sun summoner.
And from a distance, Alina chose her. The woman that offered her a shield in front of bullets and charged into battle to save her when her powers were dormant and useless. After dreaming of the stag, she visited the office Nadia and Maria told her about and the Grisha she heard dozens of whispers about, not with scorn or jealousy, but which some sort of respect. These gossipers, these people that torn Genya apart for being different looked at Athena and saw power. Saw a figure that commented them, that led them into battle, that saved them. Nadia told Alina how Athena saved her from bleeding to death on the permafrost and Fedyor about how she salvaged his arm in a skirmish with the Shu. Even ruthless Zoya with her scorn and merciless gaze saluted Athena at meals and talked with her in the corridors, sounding weirdly civil. With her nightmares, Alina didn't visit the darkling or even Bagra, but went straight to Athena.
Entering her quarters, Alina felt like a child back at Keramzin, awaiting judgment for the last mistake she had made.
But she was not in her old orphanage, and the askew woman that raised her was not here to punish her. Instead, before Alina was a Grisha with powers that conquered her own, writing a new report about the skiff that should have reached Novokribirsk. Athena might not have been kind or welcoming, but she was comforting. She didn't coddle her in promises or offered her the world at her feet, an amplifier as a gift. She simply comforted her beating heart, her nervousness and told her a myth, not solemn, but factual. About power and greed, about how men create atrocities and leave the world to deal with their messes. Of course, she had to explain what amplifiers were first.
" Why don't you have any?" a clueless Alina asked, wondering at how mighty the Grisha before her might have been.
" I have all the power I need" it was not greed that moved Athena, after all. It was the need for affection. It was duty and shame and no more of her power could ever be enough to fill the void of not being a saint. Alina would remember these words, after stabbing her best friend, her true love, the sharer of her pain, and wonder about the power of greed. Of the pain it brings, of the sacrifices it demands.
But in that second, she felt something like resentment in the pit of her stomach, something like pride. Athena left her with more questions than answers and directed her to Bagra instead. After all, she was too old to deal with children's nightmares and too young to figure out the meaning of the making.
Alina didn't push, but when the Darkling came blazing with seemingly all the answers she believed him, and his stories and his lies about wanting a safer Ravka for his people.
And Athena, always the dutiful daughter, watched. Watched how the fabrikators worked over creating a new black kefka with golden embroidery and wondered if she would have accepted such a gift if she had been just a bit younger and a hell of a lot more hopeful. Watched how the sun summoner made Zoya explode on the dueling grounds while training her tidemakers beside the lake, saw the anger in Zoya's eyes, the prideful fear in Alina's. Later, after trying to reason with the Darkling about needing Zoya to work with a pack of newly graduated students, Athena went back to her office, bottle of kvas in her hand, Ivan following her shortly, and poured herself a glass. Ivan would have preferred the wine in the cellars of the king, but he knew kvas was a favorite of his friend. So, he gulped it down, too exhausted to think about it and shared Athena's ebriety. He told her about his stroll with Fedyor and tried to make his heart not give him away. She saw through it anyways. She listened with a smile and made a mental note to talk with the heartender later about rose wine and someone's taste for traditional cakes.
When Alina received the new kefka and a coveted warning from Genya Safin, she visited Athena once again, saw her working on building a request for more founds for the heartenders pavilions, and wondered how on earth she looked gracious beside a pile of papers, and a mess of writing supplies. Athena would momentarily curse herself for being caught unawares, too troubled by her work to monitor the heartbeat approaching her door and ask Alina to take a seat.
"How did you choose your kefka?" Alina would ask, young and gullible, just as she has been in the past. However, this story has another powerful woman for her to look up to for counsel, and Athena was as wise as she was talented and calculated.
She told Alina about belonging, about not needing to create another order to be completely unique. She told her about the white waves cresting the hems, the swirls that unified the colours, the way she was respected and the way she was included.
" It's your choice, you are the saint, after all." She said steady, heartbeat in check, wondering what this girl would choose, what she would decide to be. She could never be sure these days. " But respect is earned. A coat will not give it to you.". Alina, 18 years of age, thought that night about symbols and pride, about being different and being unique, about who she wanted to be, who she wanted to have by her side.
At the Feet, she waltzed into the room, blue kefka with golden embroidery and held her head high. Used her powers freely, without enhancement, and glanced at the darkling half through, but kept Athena's blurry face, shinning with something like pride in the periphery of her view. Athena thought about Alina's grace and power, looked at her freely and smiled, just the tiniest bit. Later on, when Nikolai Lantsov would propose a ridiculous golden kefka, Alina would laugh in his face and tell him she didn't need new colours to be powerful or respected, Athena's words resonating in her core.
The Darkling did not blame his daughter for the summoner's choice, but that did not mean he didn't see Alina looking for her in the crown, as if searching for a thread of life. And his greed lashed. Demanded compensations, his jealousy bigger than the whole sky. This was his sun summoner, his light, his weapon. Athena was only a pawn, a mean to an end, a casualty. So, he took the easy way out. Ordered her to travel to Tsibeya, overlook the boarder and if a pack of trackers came back with the stag, the better. Athena, 20 years of age, a teacher, a diplomat, a commander, felt her heart heavy with all the things she was caring, with all the duty she would have to carry into the snowy hills of the border and accepted her faith. She kissed her friends goodbye, hugged Ivan tighter, Fedyor softer, squeezed Zoya's hand and embraced Nadia. On the steps of the Little Palace, she said goodbye to her students, threaten them into practicing more and told them she will return soon.
Alina didn't go say her goodbyes, didn't know how. She only glanced out of her window, heart weirdly at ease, and watched the Grisha leave, worry slowly creeping into her heart.
When Alina disappeared, shed kefka laying on a grimy floor, Athena was still riding into the cold night, making notes in her head about duties and responsibilities, about what she ought to do when she returns. And if the image of the sun saint in her gloriously blue kefka might have wondered into the picture, that did not matter. Athena was nothing but practical. Swipe the unwanted elephant in the room, and think of something easier, of how to organize the soldiers on the border now that she was there to see the ugly work done.
The making at the heart of the world didn't spin the gilded thread of their soul together just to pull them apart. There was another soul out there that knew the pain of a gun wound in the collarbone, the searing pain felt in their retina, and it was not Alina, not her dear friends, not anyone Athena cared for. And if she happened to fell the dulled pain of a sabre cut on her bicep, Athena would ignore it, always the practical mind, always a solitary soldier, marching on. This world was not created for soulmates, this world was created out of pain and guilt, duty and war. Love was what they made out of what they had, not out of children stories about destiny and faith.
After all, Athena grew up with her father sneering remark that wanting makes people week. So, she never wanted a thing. She took it, got her hands on friendship forged on the battle field, on the respect of soldiers that needed to be embedded to someone, on a position she had to wonder if it was worth it at night, on victory. On getting the sun summoner consideration. On living a life she could half be proud of.
Alina, on the run, would feel a twisting knife in her lower stomach and wonder what her best friend has gotten himself into, too scared and afraid for her own life, for her own showing mortality to stop. Athena, while patrolling the tower overseeing the border, always counting heartbeats, saw, in the distance the massacre of soldiers, heard gun shots ringing dully in the distance felt Fjerdans hearts beating steady. But she was too late. An entire unit of trackers lost into the foolish search of a fairytale myth, dead for the pride of a greedy man and his despicable intentions.
All but one, deeply wounded, but still somehow alive. Athena, 2 soldiers in tow, healed his wound enough for it not to be deadly and carried him to the base, her own kefka smeared with his blood. There were other healers stationed on the borders, other second army soldiers to carry their fallen, but Athena took responsibility. Over her father's greed, over his misleading commands, over these people whose names history won't remember.
When Mal would wake up in an infirmary bed, his friends would have been buried on Ravkan soil, a headstone bearing their names and letters send to their families by way of a competent messenger. When he would wake up, there would be no scar for him to remember the dead by, there would only be his empty hands, his sorrow and his accelerating grief.
And still, his heart would beat and even rhythm, the same Grisha that saved them on the skiff arranging supplies.
Athena was still a soldier, still a healer at her core. She needn't ask about his injuries; they were all healed. She couldn't apologise for his loss, but she could ask for a report. Just as his father used to do it, steady and expectant.
Mal, the most adapted of his friends, would fit the uniform he was given, and offer what was asked of him, the raw facts, nothing but sobriety. Athena, just the same, in her now changed kefka would act like a general, her weight to carry, and would thank him, so unlike her father.
" Rest, caporal Oretsev. You might have to depart soon to bring those news to the Little Palace." Something resembling an order, something resembling an option. The news of the sun summoner disappearance did not reach this frozen land, Athena still believed her safely tucked into her silk sheets, gossiping with Genya over a plate of code. She still believed she would have a choice.
Mal would leave the next day, but not in search of the general, but of the sun summoner. And Athena, would await a call home. The only thing that came was her father with his troops, David Kostyk in tow, searching for the famed Morozova's stag. He would not ask for her help, for her insignificant powers but she would offer them anyways. Her father, skeptical, but with Ivan on his right, the excellent gamble on his hands. When they witnessed Alina cuddling the stag, Athena could only be terrified and confused. When her father ordered her to kill the tracker she not so long ago saved, she kept very still. Ivan, always ruthless, always the kind of friend to save you from making the difficult decision took the reign, kept Mal down, and begged the saints Athena would forgive his cruelty.
Athena would witness her father taking control of the sun power, putting the antlers around Alina's neck, and promising the Grisha a world worth living in. She would follow them on the skiff, Ivan holding her hand, and would hope this much cruelty would be worth it when the Fold would come down.
How mistaken she would be, how marred her mind, when she witnessed with horror how Novokribirsk, the city that she gave Zoya leave to visit, crumble under the darkness, her attempts at ice domes, at feeble protection struck by the cut, by merciless hands.
" What have you done?" she would scream at her father, at the man that raised her to be a general, at the monster that would eradicate a city just to prove he could. And he laughed. At her cluelessness, at her pain, at her mortality, at her stupidity of believing he would care for human lives.
" Did you really expect mercy from me, daughter? If you were there, I would not have hesitated." In Athena heart, something crumbled, a tower falling in the dulling sand. Her father might believe her powerless and naïve, a casualty in a war, a mean to an end. But she was a soldier first, and she would hold her ground.
She would make him bleed, like all the people he has sacrificed did, and she would make him suffer. Damn his frozen heart, damn his lies and pride. To hell with it, to hell with it all. The light faltered and the ice rose to keep them from harm. The Darkling crumbled on the mast, holding his chest, smiling like a maniac.
" All that you got, Athena?" And he unleashed those cursed demons, those atrocities. And send them towards Ivan. Wanting makes you weak, Athena would remember in those seconds, as she rushed in front of Ivan a cut of her own trying to slash the darkness, a dome of ice to protect her friend. Athena, tears on her face, hair swirling in the wind, face glowing with power, would be their only salvation after Alina took her powers back, after she made a run for the light at the other end of the fold. Athena with her shoulder blade bleeding from the Nichevo'ya, with her beating heart faltering, commanded the squallers to take them back, away from the ruins of Novokribirsk, away from the darkling fighting with the volcras, away from this pain and mourning.
And they listened. To the general that saved them in dozens of battles, to the women that would bleed for them, would keep them safe from harm's way. In another world, they might have thrown her to the volcras, adoring the darkling more than their own life, but in this one, where Athena looked over their wounds, trained with them on the grounds of the Little Palace, let them visit family on numerous holidays... In this world, they would follow her, like they did thousands of times before, soldiers marching on.
They would return to the palace and start a civil war. Athena, always the diplomat would charm the king into offering her the command of the Grisha, would bemoan her father's sins to the apparat, would wail the destruction of Novokribirsk. And, behind the walls of the palace would work with the Grisha on ways to create artificial light strong enough to defeat those demons. Would train the materialkies in combat without the scorn of any heartender or squaller alike. Would train the young tidemakers into controlling blood and popping hearts, because she wanted to give them half a winning chance.
She toiled over them all, armed them with all the weapons she could find, and hoped the next time they would be attacked, the darkness won't be the one winning.
YOU ARE READING
A funeral march for the passing of gods - Shadow And Bone- Nikolai Lantsov/OC
Fanfiction„This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in." Commander, general, half-saint, the daughter of monsters, the daughter of men that hold immortality in one hand, greed in the other. Athe...
