Muhtesem Yuzyil Imagines ♡

Ibrahim x Nigar Kalfa (moonbeam_lightning)

On her way to the gates Nigar was once again stopped by Daye Hatun.

"Where are you going Nigar?" Daye Hatun asked.

"To my house Daye Hatun. You can't stop me. Please stop interfering. Who can stop me if the Pasha wants me? You will be the one who is harmed," Nigar whispered, anxious to not be heard.

Daye Hatun swallowed the mean words that came to the edge of her lips and dragged Nigar to the way of her room. Nigar insisted on not going but ultimately she obeyed her superior.

Once in Nigar's room, Daye Hatun sighed. "Nigar, let's be frank shall we? You tell me that I will be the one who is hurt. But you yourself will definitely be hurt once this gets out. I only want what is best for you".

"You wouldn't try to keep me away from him if you wanted what was best for me!"

"Don't you understand! He will leave you once his fancy is past. You will be left on your own, without provision, without somebody to rely on! And with a huge secret weighing on you!"

"What is done is done! I can't walk it back now!"

"No! You are still nominally a respectable woman who was just divorced because of a factor outside of her control. Nobody knows of your, your immorality!"

Nigar looked at Daye Hatun with those pleading eyes that always softened a spot in the older woman's chest.

"All I am saying Nigar, is that you can still marry! What age are you? Thirty-four? You still have time to have children! After all, your infertility is a lie! Marry a respectable man and have a family of your own!"

"But I don't want to have a family with anyone but him!"

"Don't act like a child! He already has a family. And he doesn't love you in that way, I know it!"

Nigar suddenly started to cry. This wasn't the mere teary-eyes she employed to play to Daye's emotions, no, she was full on crying.

"Don't you think I know it! He will never love me the way I love him! And this is the part that pains me the most!"

"You love him that much?" Daye asked. It was a silly question, she knew, it was evident how in love she was.

"Ye... yes".

Daye Hatun was at a loss of words. She had loved Nigar and kept her under her wings the moment she arrived at the palace as the 17-years-old Maria, still speaking with a Romanian accent. She quickly won her regard with her quickness, wit and work ethic, and Daye assisted her on the way of her becoming the youngest Kalfa this palace had ever seen. They worked together many years, and Nigar never disappointed her; even all those years during which Nigar advocated for Hürrem's antics, she had a point. Nigar was almost never wrong, and Daye didn't only love her like a daughter, she respected her. And now she was crying in front of her like a lovesick fifteen-year-old over an upstart Pasha who had always left Daye cold for some reason.

"Why, why do you love him?" Daye asked like a desperate mother trying to placate her child.

"He is so great. He knows so many languages, he is a brilliant tactician and he can play the violin..."

"You yourself know four languages and can play the oud. And you are a brilliant tactician yourself even if not on the battlefield, especially when you have your head on your shoulders which is not often these days."

"It's... it's not the same thing, you know it."

"My point is... You don't need him."

"Oh, but I do."