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When Aleksander Morozova was to leave his rightfully earned spot as the Darkling, the General, Commander of the Second Army, it had been for one reason only: Alina Starkov. He would have reasonably had a couple more decades left before he needed to play is usual act of „dying“, just to return as his own descendant a (far too long) while later - that is, if he had even wanted to do that this time. Really, with the current king in charge and the country being in the state that it was, the Darkling couldn’t fathom waiting any longer with the meticulously planned out coup that he’s been setting up for centuries.
But then again, of course, life was never easy, was it?
Because instead of putting plans of rising to power in place, Aleksander found the sun summoner. The sun summoner, whose existence has been rumored for so long that he’s long given up hope of finding his equal, his balance, his match. The only fault in his plan, the only reason why he may not end up being the rightful ruler of Ravka. It had been equal parts frustrating and exciting, and it had really only taken mere moments for him to realize that he was utterly fucked. That Alina Starkov - orphan, budding first army cartographist, sickly, tragically unaware of the sheer power she held - would turn his world on its axis.
And sure enough, she did just that. Mere months of her living in the little palace had him undone in a way that no other person had ever managed in his centuries of existence. It felt so strange to feel that ounce of hope, so dangerous. This girl- no, woman had the potential to share eternity with him, to complete him, to make him into a better man. But likewise, he knew that she had the ability to foil his plans. And he knew that he had the potential to make her worse, to turn her into a monster. Aleksander didn’t know how much it would take, but he knew that he could do it. A few well placed lies, some feigned affection, Saints, he could manipulate her like a puppeteer, tug on her strings to make her act exactly like he wanted her to.
The problem was that he didn’t want to.
The problem was that the more time he spent with Alina Starkov, the more he got to know the sun summoner, the less he wanted to do that.
So obviously, there was only one solution to all of this, to the utter internal chaos that her discovery had alighted within him.
To leave.
Because he couldn’t stomach the idea of manipulating the only person who might actually live for as long as he did, but she would not let him follow through with the plans that he’s made. Alina Starkov, sunlight in (almost) human form, would not let him commit regicide, no matter how much their people were suffering under his reign. She was too good for that, too young, not shaped by years and decades and centuries of suffering yet.
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Coward, his mother had hissed at him when he had informed her that he would go away for a while, somehow able to see right through him like she always did. His only companion for centuries, and yet stepping into her too-hot hut didn’t bring a sense of comfort or familiarity. Instead, he’s rigid, tense, hovering near the door, trying to ignore how her words still manage to sting, even after all these years.
What Baghra didn’t know, however, was that he wasn’t a coward. Sure, it may seem like he was running away from his duties, his responsibilities, maybe even his feelings, but he was actually doing the strong thing.
The difficult thing.
Leaving Alina may as well be the hardest thing he’s ever done, even if he’s only known her for mere months at this point. But the thought of not having those beautiful wide eyes glancing up at him anymore, that sugary sweet voice of hers shyly ask about war strategy or proudly proclaim her latest success in training, well… Let’s just say there was a reason he hasn’t let himself get attached to anybody ever since Luda, and the knot in his stomach at the idea of leaving her seemed to speak volumes as a reminder.
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And so he leaves.
He’s going to the Shu border, he announces to those that need to know.
Needless to say, Alina is not among those that he considers necessary to inform.
A goodbye would have just make it harder on her, he reasons, as if he wasn’t running from this laughably young woman like a skittish little kitten.
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The distance doesn’t help.
If anything, it makes it worse.
His days are filled with military strategizing, with figuring out troop movements and the logistics of making sure his soldiers have enough to eat every day - that is, when they’re not being attacked.
But even the thoroughly satisfying feeling of letting his shadows slice through Shu soldiers who want to see his kind dead can’t fill the void that his few months with Alina have left. For centuries, he had been content with being alone, had welcomed it, even. But now, he was aching for those late night talks when she couldn’t sleep, or that sweet little laugh when he stopped by training in the middle of the day.
Aleksander hated every single second of it.
He wasn’t some lovesick school boy, he was the most powerful man in Ravka, maybe even the world. It was downright ridiculous for him to act this way.
He needed to find a way to get over it.
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The days are short, but the nights are long. The losses are brutal. His rage is bright white hot.
Weeks pass, and then months.
Os Alta seems like it’s lifetimes away, and yet it’s only been the blink of an eye.
Time is relative, and when you’ve lived for hundreds of years, two month is a laughably short time.
And yet, it feels like eternity without seeing his sun summoner.
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The war drags on, like it always does. Rationally, the Darkling knows that he needs to be back in Os Alta, coordinating this three-fronted war from the center of it all, but he can’t bring himself to return to the Little Palace until months have passed, and the thought of seeing Alina didn’t evoke quite the same sharp pang in his chest. Or at least, until he was better at telling himself it didn’t.
So he starts his journey back to the heart of Ravka, because his country needed him to win this war and end all of this suffering.
(And if anybody suggested his move was motivated by a little bird telling him that Alina and her little tracker have been seen getting awfully comfortable, well, he really wasn’t above using his powers on semi-innocent people, was he?)
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It’s winter by the time the Darkling returns to Os Alta, and his presence is more than needed. There’s no time to dwell on his confusing feelings for Alina, or to even properly go and see her, because he’s immediately dragged back into trying to win this war. The king demands results - Aleksander’s fingers twitch, shadows flickering in the corners of the throne room, poison on his tongue that he needs to swallow down. This child was sitting on an opulent throne, save and comfortable and throwing parties for his peers, while his people were dying all throughout the country. While Grisha were dying all throughout the country, fighting for Ravka, for their freedom. How dare he demand anything from-
„And the sun summoner, when will she be ready for use?“
Another flicker of the shadows, more notable this time, enough to make some of the people filling this room glance around nervously, before his hands relax, his shoulders straightening. This disgrace of a king would use his Alina as a weapon over his dead body, but that was not the right answer, the smart answer.
„Your Highness, her training has been progressing nicely and she should be ready to turn the cards in our favor soon. In fact, I’m planning on taking her out on a training excursion myself on the weekend, to test her progress after my time away.“
Somehow, that satisfies the king, and after a few more comments the Darkling is finally released to spend his time in more useful ways.
Namely, informing Ivan to let the sun summoner know of her upcoming training excursion.
„Oh and Ivan? Don’t tell her who she’ll be leaving Os Alta with.“
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He hadn’t expected snow.
He should have, surely, since this is hardly his first Ravkan winter, but he’s been so swept up in the war (and in his pining for Alina from afar) that he had somehow been caught by surprise.
They had been halfway to the camp he was planning on taking her to for training when the snow had started to set in, and at first they had both laughed it off - awkwardly, of course, the distance between them thick and uncomfortable after all these months. Along with the oprichniki and Grisha around them, taken for protection, they made it for another hour before they had to admit that the snow was getting too heavy for their horses to continue to trek. Even turning around and returning to the Little Palace wasn’t feasible anymore with how this sudden change of weather was progressing, and so they end up at a little inn, wanting to rent out all of their rooms.
Except, of course, that they weren’t the only ones with that idea, and there’s only one room left by the time they make it there, not even the promise of riches or the threat of his title working to persuade the inn owner to give them more rooms.
So his people end up occupying just about every space in the tavern, drinking and eating and apparently getting more comfortable by the moment as the snow outside came down faster, thicker, heavier.
Well, almost all of his people, because Alina doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself as much, awkwardly hovering around, quietly talking to some of the Grisha she knew, repeatedly glancing over at Aleksander only to quickly blush and avert her eyes whenever their gazes met. Which of course meant that he was watching her, less than subtly, but he couldn’t help it, felt himself so drawn to her presence after all this time apart that he was helpless to do anything but watch her.
All night.
Until the impromptu celebration dies down, and people start settling down for a night of sleep on whatever chair, bench or other surface they can find.
„Miss Starkov.“
His voice is quiet as to not draw the attention of everybody around them, but firm enough that Alina’s head snaps up immediately when she hears it, momentarily distracted from the task at hand of somehow making a corner on the floor comfortable enough to sleep.
„Moi soverennyi,“ she responds dutifully, almost knocking the air right of his chest, and he needs to count to three in his head to collect his composure before he responds.
„This is hardly an appropriate sleeping location for the sun summoner, is it, now?“
She blushes them, sweet and alluring and young as she is, and shrugs her shoulders. No longer does she look sickly, fragile, thin, worn down by years of suppressing her powers, but she’s still so small, so timid, so obviously not used to the title she now holds. „It’s no problem, General, I’ve slept in much worse places with the First Army.“
As if that would make up for it, instead of just reminding him of how furious he was about every person in her past, how he wanted shadows to swallow up every person who’s ever caused her harm, who’s ever caused her to keep herself small, who’s ever made her believe she was anything less than extraordinary.
„There is a perfectly good room upstairs. I’ll take you to it. And that is an order.“
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Except, of course, it was hardly seemly for the General of the Second Army to sleep on a tavern floor with all his soldiers, either. A fact that Alina doesn’t tire to remind him of as they make their way upstairs, and proceed into the one room they had managed to secure. Which of course only holds one bed - a big one, but still just one - because it would be too easy for it to be set up in any other way. The universe has never made things easy on him, after all.
It takes another 15 minutes of arguing back and forth between them - if you could really call it arguing, with how obviously nervous Alina was to cross any boundaries with her superior officer, years of living in an orphanage and the First Army having instilled a proper respect for authority and hierarchy within her - for her to finally get into the bed. The Darkling himself settles onto the rug next to the bed, figuring that sleeping on the floor here would be much better for his reputation than sleeping on the floor downstairs, but he’s far from ready to rest.
In fact, just hearing Alina breathe in the same room was making him feel wide awake, even as he dims the lights with his shadows, blanketing the room with what he thought to be a comfortable darkness.
„Moi soverennyi?“
Her whisper is timid, quiet, and for a moment, Aleksander freezes up, wondering if she was uncomfortable with his shadows. For someone so painfully aware of her presence in the same room, he certainly had easily forgotten that other people don’t usually enjoy this sort of darkness.
„Would you like me not to darken the room, Miss Starkov?“
Despite the inner turmoil he felt, his voice is perfectly calm, unaffected, detached. Distanced, how he needed to be in order not to lose his mind.
„No, no, I- this is nice, it’s very soothing,“ she’s quick to reassure, and the Darkling is grateful she can’t see how his eyebrows knot together in confusion. Has anybody ever called his shadows soothing before?
„It’s just, this bed is so big, and I feel terrible that you’re sleeping on the floor. Maybe we could just- I don’t know, share it?“
It’s not that the thought hadn’t occurred to Aleksander. If anything, the thought has occurred to him far too many times, to share a bed with the sweet likeness of his sun summoner, but he knew that it would not lead to anything good. Knew that he would just become more confused, more thrown off balance, and it would be at the cost of his people, for he needed to set his plan in motion to save Grisha lives.
And yet, the suggestion is so tempting that he can hardly take In a full breath, suddenly feeling as if his own shadows were suffocating him.
“I’m perfectly content down here, Miss Starkov, no need to feel guilty. I, too, have been with the army for many years. There’s been worse quarters.” To return her own arguing back at her, something that was surely foolproof and-
“Please?”
She sounds tired, now, and not in the way that sleep could fix it, and suddenly he’s wondering how those months of distance were on her. Wondering if her tracker could fill his absence, or if she had even felt an absence in the first place.
Aleksander lets out a heavy sigh, then, and gets off from the little nest he’s made out of his kefta on the floor. Perching himself on the edge of the large bed, he takes in the vague shape of her small body in this bed, surrounded by his darkness. She was right, there was plenty of space left for him to lay down, and it didn’t have to mean anything, they would simply share a bed for the practicability of it all and-
“As you will, solnyhsko,” he murmurs, his own exhaustion settling into his bones, as if being in her proximity was enough for the events of the past months, years, centuries to catch up to him.
Still, even as he’s settled onto the plush mattress, sleep doesn’t overtake him. He’s too aware of Alina laying just inches away from him, her body heat radiating off her enough that he can feel her, her even breathing lulling him in and yet keeping him awake.
Until she speaks up, catching him off guard for he had thought her to be asleep, her voice a bare whisper in the darkness.
“Why didn’t you say goodbye before you left?”
It sends a sharp jolt through his chest, the revelation that his sudden departure had left a lasting impact on her, rather than making it easier as he had wanted it to be.
There’s something about the warmth of the moment, the darkness, the unexpectedness of it all that makes him answer truthfully, so much more honestly than Aleksander Morozova, the Darkling, the creator of the fold, ever was.
“I didn’t think I would have left if I had done that, Alina.”
He’s unsure who’s more surprised by the confession - her or him, but suddenly there’s a dim light between them, a tiny sun floating above the bed, chasing his shadows away so he can see her warm expression.
“I wish you hadn’t.”
The words hang between them heavily, and for the first time in probably centuries, he’s rendered speechless, incapable to come up with a smart response, or a way to spin the situation in his favor.
Instead, he takes a deep breath, and reaches between them to intertwine their fingers, the simple gesture making his heart stutter. It’s more intimacy than he’s allowed himself ever since watching the woman he loved die in front of him, because of him. He didn’t know what it meant, or where this would take them, but he knew that for the moment it was more than he could have ever, ever hoped for. It was everything that he’s been trying not to think about for months, everything that would be his downfall.
“Me too, Alina. Me too.”
And so with the snow falling around them, and their people slumbering and keeping watch downstairs, he finally slipped off into sleep, still holding the sun summoners hand.
It could all go so terribly wrong, that simple confession simply the tip of an iceberg of hidden feelings and potential conflict, but for the moment Aleksander wasn’t the most powerful and haunted Grisha in the world. For the moment, he was just a man, laying next to the woman who turned his world upside down. And somehow, that was more than enough.