Work Text:
twelve year old mal watches alina’s features scrunch: her lips pursed and a small frown beginning to etch into her forehead. her dark eyes focus on the slice of kurnik in front of her.
“what’s up?” mal asks her, breath catching as she looks up and immediately her scowl softens into a sheepish smile.
glancing around at the other kids sitting at the table, alina shakes her head. “i want nice hair,” she says, lips turning downward again, “like lelyah.”
mal looks at lelyah and her hair braided like a fjerdan schoolgirl. then, he looks down at his own two hands, slightly grubby and scarred. he’s good with his hands. that’s what the older boys say. they always ask him to the fiddly tasks because he is good with his hands.
mal wriggles his fingers and hopes alina doesn’t see him smile.
it’s a week later when, after scouring the whole orphanage, he finds alina in the pathetic back garden that’s long overgrown. her head is titled back slightly, eyes closed and the sun caressing her face. mal stops in his tracks, not wanting to disturb her. she always looks so tired, but in the golden warmth like this, it’s almost as if the sun was only made for her to bathe in its light. but she must’ve heard him because she opens her eyes groggily, giving him a small smile. mal silently scolds himself for not being lighter on his feet. the older boys always tell him he needs to be quieter.
“hey,” he breathes, still not quite over the ethereal moment he stumbled in on. “sorry.”
alina pats the grass where she’s sitting crossed-legged and he kneels down next to her, shifting as an unusual surge of nervousness swarms his body.
“i have something to show you,” he says.
alina looks down at his empty hands and laughs. “did you forget to bring it?”
“no!” mal doesn’t like this heat rising to his cheeks and he doesn’t like how fast his heart is beating. he’s never like this, not even when ana kuya caned him for accidentally breaking the vase which had been a gift from duke keramsov. “no, i, um— i learned how to plait.”
the grin that spreads across alina’s face like blossoming sunrise is more than enough for all of that awkwardness to be worth it. “really?”
mal nods and alina turns around. slowly, gently, he sweeps her hair back so it’s all collected in his hands. his fingers accidentally brush against her cheek as he does so and he pretends not to notice the way his heart skips a beat. alina’s always said that she hates her hair and that’s it’s too thin and flat and a weird colour brown. mal always defends her hair, saying that it’s pretty and the same colour as sankta neyar’s. to him, it’s the colour of the trees in the forest that feel more like a home than the orphanage ever does or the colour of the ink the cartographers use. it’s part of alina, and alina is part of him.
“there,” he says softly, tying a blue ribbon he found at the market a few days ago at the end of the braid to stop it from falling out. he places the braid so it’s over her shoulder and alina turns around, smiling brighter than the sun.
“i love it!”
mal laughs, more than ecstatic. “i’m glad!”
alina grabs his hand and hauls the both of them up and he knows where they’re going without her even having to say it. the meadow. chamomile flourishes in the meadow, painting the grass like a warm spring’s day. they make tea out of the plant sometimes.
the two of them pick handfuls until they’re covered in flower petal confetti, alina’s face being framed like a halo. then, mal carefully threads them through alina’s hair, and she slips a stalk behind each of his ears. the rest, they stuff in their pockets for later.
alina grabs his hand as they walk back to the orphanage. mal never wants her to let go.
seventeen year old mal can’t sleep. the ground is cold and hard and he’s scared that if he closes his eyes he’ll never open them again. between tolya’s snores and the quiet rustle of leaves in the autumn breeze, mal can almost feel a prayer bubbling to his throat. he’s never been one to believe in saints because saints mean hope and he’d long given up on that. what is there to believe in? a broken country that sends its children to war? a prince that kisses a saint without her consent? a man that murders thousands in the name of freedom? mal knows what it is like to live without hope. but he’s seen it in the peasant women who gave their babies for alina to kiss; in the men who cried when alina clasped their hands; in the children who sang and danced at alina’s feet. if the past few months have taught him anything, it’s that the heart is strangely stubborn.
there’s a crunch and mal is on his feet before he can even process what the noise came from. it’s alina, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, face dimly illuminated by the smouldering campfire the rest of their friends are curled around.
“what’s wrong?” mal asks her.
alina shrugs. “i couldn’t sleep.”
“you need to rest.”
“i know.”
they always have this conversation. mal knows alina is kept awake by visions of engulfing shadows or the limp body of the sea whip. but it’s easier not to talk about the unavoidable things.
“why are you awake?” alina steps closer to him. “you need rest, too.”
mal is a soldier: the sol koroleva’s personal guard. who is he if not that? who is he without alina? everyone needs him for something. and he’s happy to give it if it means he’s useful; if it means alina would want him round a little longer. he stands up a little straighter. his eyes definitely don’t drift to alina’s hands.
alina yawns, clutching the thin blanket closer to her. she sits down and after a moment’s hesitation, mal does too. she looks at the fading campfire, not unfamiliar to warmth and compassionate light.
“if we were in keramzin,” she whispers, “i would make some camomile tea for the both of us.”
mal shakes his head, pressing his lips together. some nights he prays that this is nothing but a scary bedtime story one of the older boys is telling. some nights he curls in on himself and prays to wake up as the boy who laughed as easily as the sun rises in the sky. some nights he prays that the fear throbbing in his head would go away. soldiers are not scared. mal would die for alina, but the child inside of him needs to die first. there is no time for tears in a war.
“do you remember—“ the sentence forms but fades like campfire smoke.
“do i remember what?” alina looks at him.
that same restlessness that he thought he outgrew crawls all over him and he can’t meet her gaze. the girl in front of him is sankta alina; the sun summoner; the sol koroleva; the rebe dva dtolba. and who is he? mal. otkazat’sya.
“when we were little.” he stares into the lingering flames. “and you let me plait your hair.”
“and then we went to the meadow and we picked the camomile flowers.” alina completes the story that dances in his mind like a distant lullaby. “i miss that. being able to just…”
mal knows what she means. now he glances to her, her chestnut eyes reflecting the golden sun that shone bright in the sky that day. that oil-painting image of alina resting in the hazy warmth and how naturally she took to light. how the sun was made for her.
“can you plait my hair?”
mal tenses, looking away like he’s been caught with shattered pottery at his feet. “we need to go to sleep.”
alina shifts closer to him. “i’ll go to sleep once you’ve plaited my hair.”
“you’re insufferable.”
“i only learn from the best.”
after a slight hesitation, mal turns around so he’s facing alina, so she turns so her back’s facing him. his hands stop just as he goes to gather her hair. her hair is white now, not the same colour as sankta neyar’s; not the same colour as cartographer’s ink. it’s the colour of camomile petals. the colour of the heart of a sunburst.
fingers tentatively brushing through her hair as if she might disappear like a god if he came too close, mal begins to braid alina’s hair, the muscle memory kicking in: a ritual he knows better than himself. the late nights he spent as a boy with three scraps of rope he salvaged from the hunting materials and refusing to blow out the candle until the other boys tired of it and snuffed it out themselves, so then he’d raise the fraying rope to the decaying moonlight to try to perfect the plait. even then, he was willing to do anything for alina. almost everything has changed except for that.
“there.” his voice catches on insurmountable, hopeless nostalgia.
“i wish i still had that ribbon.” alina’s face is close to his now. it feels almost sinful to look at her. “or some flowers.”
the problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. that’s what the darkling said. mal remembers those bitter ravkan nights he spent in the mountains with alina recounting her time with the darkling through halting sobs. how he kissed her. how he promised her everything but freedom. mal held her and kissed her tears away. i love you, alina, he’d repeated over and over again, even the part of you that loved him.
mal clears his throat. “we can— put… leaves in it.” he says pathetically.
alina cackles, throwing her head back. there’s no sunlight to cling to her face in the dead of night, but she is the sun. she is the light that seeps into even the darkest crevices. “you’re such an idiot,” she says. “now, come on, let’s go to sleep.”
she reaches for his hand and mal tries to snatch his away but she’s quicker than she was even last year now that she can use her powers. she grips his and mal doesn’t know what to do. it’s almost blasphemous. he is a soldier, nothing more. but alina is determined to be close to him and, secretly, he’s grateful for it. honestly, mal is always surprised that alina’s hands are cold; only ever warm after she’s been summoning. maybe that’s another thing that hasn’t changed, either. alina wraps the both of them up in the blanket and he silently rubs his thumb along the scar on her palm.
“goodnight,” he whispers.
“goodnight.”
in a heavy, drowsy afterthought, blurred by a dream dragging him away from the waking, mal tightens his grip on alina’s hand. he wakes up in a meadow.
sixty year old mal opens his eyes as amber sunlight begins to trickle in through the curtains, like he’s done for the past forty-four years of his life. beside him, alina is still asleep, curled up on her side. slowly, mal rises, careful not to wake his wife. the bare floorboards don’t creak as he sets his feet down on the dusty wood. he exhales. takes in the bright spring light. the chirping birds. the hushed voices of children starting to stir downstairs.
just as he’s about to gently open the groaning wardrobe, alina lets out a groggy moan. mal turns around to see her half-awake, squinting in his vague direction.
“sorry, love,” mal whispers, voice still thick with sleep, “did i wake you up?”
“no.” the word is heavy, alina clearly still half dreaming. she stretches out on the bed like a cat. “no.” yawning, alina props herself up on her elbows. “i was having a strange dream.”
despite the decades that have past since alina’s martyrdom, both of them still see nichevo'ya spilling into their room in the dark corners of night. alina wakes up choking, a hand grasping at her neck. mal can barely step outside when it snows.
“a good strange?” mal asks tentatively, perching on the end of their bed and taking her hand.
alina’s forest-brown eyes meet his. “i don’t know. it was just— about when we were young and…” she shakes her head.
mal takes a moment. he grinds his teeth together. squeezes her hand. “can i plait your hair?” he asks, that childish awe he once thought he lost blossoming through him as alina grins as if he just told her a secret.
a small, breathy giggle escapes her, like how she laughed when she was a little girl and the wind whipped through her hair as they ran through the dew-studded grass in the spring. still wrapped in a bundle of blankets, she turns around and clutches a pillow to her chest. mal takes the comb from the bedside table and carefully brushes through her silver hair. she’s stopped hiding it at the market now that his curls are a similar colour.
mal is good with his hands. he always has been. he can shift to be whatever someone wants him to be. a tracker; a general; a weapon. but alina never wanted that. she always wanted him. she always wanted the boy who could never stay still; the boy who played hide-and-seek with her on rainy weekends; the boy who would sit with her when she cried and tell her stupid jokes. and he lost himself for a while, but he’s found himself again.
“there,” he says, surprised when his voice catches.
alina’s worn hands fly to the braid and she immediately scoops mal up onto her lap. neither of them ever really lost the muscle they built up when they were young: mal can fit a child on each shoulder and alina can piggyback two kids at once. mal leans his head to her chest. listens to her heartbeat. it’s a promise they share: i am here and i am not going anywhere.
“i love you.” alina presses a kiss to the top of his head.
“i love you, lapushka.”
they stay like that for a while. listen to the rest of the house wake up. then alina lets out a small gasp clambers out of their bed, still hugging the blankets close to her body. mal watches her open the dresser drawer and take something out. a golden ribbon. he bought it for her on sankta alina’s day years ago. the colour’s slightly faded and it’s fraying at the ends but alina insists on keeping it, even though he’s offered to buy a new one. she places it in his hands and when his eyes meet hers they’re both grinning as wide as each other.
“the kids will undo it,” he says as he double knots the bow.
“no they won’t. you tie the tightest knots in all of ravka.” alina lands another kiss on his cheek. “come on, let’s get dressed. we have somewhere to go.”
“where’s that?”
“i think you know.”
the ribbon like a halo framing her camomile-petal white hair, alina gives him a look like the one she used to give him after she squeezed herself into the tiniest hiding place during a game of hide-and-seek and not even mal the tracker could find her. mal’s heart bursts like a sunrise.
after promising the staff they’ll be back before breakfast, the two of them rush downstairs in a childish frenzy. they’ve always raced each other down the stairs, ever since they were little and the servants called them malenchki as they ran between their feet. they even steal plums for the both of them, alina sneaking them into the pockets of the cardigan mal knitted her for her birthday a few years ago.
mal always loves it when alina laughs because he once went so long without hearing it. now, it echoes throughout the hallways. alina grips his hand fiercely until he protests that she’ll break his fingers (“who’ll plait your hair then?”).
and she’s right: he knows exactly where they’re going. the welcoming spring light spills from the sky and embosses the scenery with a silvery tint. mal sucks in a deep breath. after everything, there is still beauty. there is still love. there was time where he didn’t have hope. things were always bad so why should he believe that one day they’ll be good? there was nothing good promised for the penniless orphan boy whose only job was to do what he was told. but after the war, things started to shift. despite everything and everyone they had lost, he and alina still had each other. and that was when he realised that that was what hope is: surviving one day more. daring to believe that, tomorrow, your heart will be a little less heavy.
the meadow is blooming with camomile flowers. he used to dream about this pasture, the white petals drenched crimson as alina tore the knife from his chest. now, he watches as alina spins, laughing as the morning dew seeps into her shoes. mal could watch her dance forever. she picks fistfuls of flowers. the damp petals stick to her fingers. at one point, mal looks away, feeling as if he was intruding on something so beautiful, no mortal should ever be allowed to see it. alina hasn’t been a saint for decades now, but sometimes he can still see a haze of a halo around her head. or hear the chanting ringing in his ears. she’s always been so luminous. the sun has always favoured her especially.
then, alina is running towards him, like fate to an orphaned soldier. he sweeps her up and they swing around and this time there’s no blood. alina’s laughing with her eyes closed.
“i love you,” he says.
“i love you more.”
“no you don’t.”
“yes, i do.”
they argue over that all the way to the stream that gurgles a short walk away from the orphanage. mal carries alina bridal-style the whole way there. they sit down on the bank and stare at the sky for a moment. the sunrise is lingering, almost as if it was waiting for them to watch. the whole sky burns amber, golden clouds illuminated by the sun. mal hears alina suck in a breath. he gets it. it hurts, still. pain and grief never goes away. sometimes he catches himself straining to hear the rustling of animals in the forest, the same way alina sits by the windowsill and twirls her hands. nothing ever comes. yet they always expect it to.
“can i put the flowers in your hair?” he asks.
alina sits on her knees and reaches up and tucks a stray curl behind his ear before placing a flower behind it too. “yeah,” she says. “you should grow your hair out so i can learn to plait it.”
mal responds by saying, “i’ll think about it,” and kisses the tip of her nose before she turns around and mal begins to thread the flowers through her hair. she begins humming a song as he does it, one the children won’t stop singing. the petals don’t contrast like they did when they were little, but the centre of pollen makes it seem as if tiny sunbursts are breaking through the clouds.
“we should be getting back,” mal says once he’s finished. “it’ll almost be breakfast.”
alina nestles herself against his chest. “five more minutes,” she mumbles. “we can eat the plums.”
so they do. alina laughs at him when the juice dribbles down his chin so he threatens to wipe his sticky hands on her. alina pushes him into the stream and he takes her down with him. it’s freezing cold but alina’s love is warm. they’re both left gasping as they begin their way back to the orphanage, alina’s cheeks as rosy as an apple. he takes her hand, and she doesn’t let go, not even when they’re home; not even when they lay the table with the children; not even as they eat; not even when they make camomile tea together. and that same tender flush sweeps through him: hope. wanting does not make you weak; it makes you strong. and alina is all mal has ever wanted. the whole of his heart.