Chapter Text
He was used to seeing things in black and white.
Literally.
Quite literally.
And when colors appeared, it meant he was in for a world of pain, ache, and unwavering hope, that would always get crushed.
Aleksander looked in the mirror, at his black hair and black eyes, and how they would remain so, how monochromic he happened to be for someone plagued with his curse. Irony and all that, he supposed. He wished he could say he had made one mistake and the curse was unfair in the long run, but truth be told, he had learnt to admit that maybe the malediction had been premature, but some of his further actions had made him worthy of such a burden.
Could you really be worthy of a curse? Had he made himself more deserving of it? Or maybe, it was not about him and what he had done, but who he had been and who he was trying to be.
He rolled his eyes at his line of pondering, and just made sure he was decent. In doing so, his eyes fell on the mark on his hand, that had become a part of him even though it was a result of his being cursed.
Back when he was young, and brash, toying around with the discovery that he was different, and would never age, he had seduced a woman, who was betrothed to another man.
Luda had been her name, and she was to marry someone of local power. Her family had been counting on the match to elevate their status, and who could blame them?
Ruthenia held so many promises, and alliance would indeed make or break a family, or rather a dynasty.
When Luda’s father had caught her with Aleksander, he had tried to beat the life out of him, but the young man being, well, immortal, he had gotten the upper hand in a bloody fashion.
Luda’s mother had taken her revenge on what he had done to her family, and forsaken him to a colorless never-ending life.
He could have endured that, so to speak.
However she had caught herself before her spell was cast, and had added this wonderful afterthought to her wording:
“Colors you will see when your intended’s path you cross, when they lay eyes on you for the first time. Black and white will plague you with the knowledge that they have passed away.”
When she had uttered the last word, his world had turned to Black, white and the necessary grey in between.
Naturally, he had used his Shadow Caster abilities – for Grisha was what he was – and killed her on the spot.
Not his brightest moment, but he had learned to admit, if not accept, his mistakes.
A millennium and then some gave you that wisdom.
The past could not be rewritten, and he would never get a chance to ask about the parameter of the curse. All he knew was that his intended would bring him light.
Luda went on to live her life, away from him, and he had wanted her as far away as possible.
He had gone back on his not-so merry way, with no bright or pale shades in his world. He had searched for someone who could lift his curse, but when his former lover had perished in childbirth with her daughter, that bloodline had ended.
Cursed be the witches and their blood magic.
He had found an aunt of the woman who had briefly shared his bed, and she had told him that his own bloodline was known to witches as being the so called love birds of Grishas: they only had one true love, one person who would make their life whole.
However, the terrified elder woman had not been able to tell him about whether or not his intended would have abilities like him, or be a common folk. Grishas were rumored to be subject to reincarnation, as their essence always needed a body and a soul to welcome it. He also discovered that his intended would become immortal if they chose to embrace the bond in their heart for the Morozova member. Then, they would be able to chose to start aging together, and when the time had come, die together if they wish to renounce the Morozova gift.
Given his father had died but his mother was still alive, poor old Baghra Morozova had not found her better half, and to hear her tell it, there had been no bond to be accepted, as she had hated the guts of her spouse. She had never taken his name and had given her own name to their child.
The cognomen carried weight amongst their peers, it had made sense, in addition to stressing out how much of a non-love match that union had been.
So he was left wondering…
A century or so later, while he had been at the Byzantine Court playing King or rather Basileus-maker, indulging in the dry irony of him deciding which purple born individual would reign over an empire, colors had come back.
He had been attending mass at Saint Sophia’s Church when that happened.
His breath had left his lungs, and he had remained frozen on the spot, while some patriarch had droned on. The onslaught of shades, the depth of the red, the intensity of the blues, and all the colors on that spectrum had been too much, and his brain had not been able to process it all. He supposed someone who had never seen and who had suddenly seized any spectacle before them would have felt as he did, like his legs would give up if he did not force himself to be still.
How he had wanted to kiss the floor, relish in the purple, study it until his eyes bled out, overcome with how much he needed color.
Aleksander however, and he would always hate himself for it, had not looked around, had not searched for his intended, not right then. He had watched that clergy man who just was not his soulmate.
When he had regained reason if not consciousness, mass was done and people were walking out of the building. Beggars were waiting, patrons were indulging in their mandated charity, and Aleksander had looked everywhere, yet found no one.
How the hell had he been supposed to know who his intended was? Had he perhaps glanced at her face and not recognized her?
As he roamed Constantinople day and night in search of the elusive one who would color his life a new light, he had had to embrace some of his biggest fear: what if she was not Grisha? What if this was his only chance of finding her and giving her the gift of immortality?
He never found her.
When colors left him shortly after they had come back, he had been devastated at his own inaction, at how unprepared he had been. He had despaired at the thought that if his intended was human, then he had not only lost hue and shades, it would mean that he was condemned to live a life where no one could be his equal.
Prior to that, he had been reluctant and doubtful about the concept of someone being his soulmate, mostly out of posturing. Men were not taught to need a better half, only a warm body to give them children and make their existence easier. However, Young Aleksander had had a fondness for romance, something he kept secret. He had been torn between no wanting someone who would be his match, and just wishing this was all non-sense and he could get accustomed to living a colorless existence.
He had spiraled down, feeling like he had lost his whole reason for being, even though he had tried his best not to give it too much thought. Later, much later (six decades had gone by), he had managed to get himself working again, scheming again, in mourning. He had been hit with the realization that without his unintended, and while he had never wanted to give up on being eternal before that, he would never get the chance to , well, die. Without her, eternity seemed more frightening, and inescapable.
When colors had popped again in his life less than a century later, he had hoped, looked around in the crowded Hamburg streets he was in, begged the Saints, and those who were just holy, for help. He had felt so blessed at this second chance. His intended had to be Grisha, reincarnation gave it away, right?
He had looked everywhere, had met every Grisha in town, had narrowed down a list of Grisha women who would have been in the vicinity when he had gained his complete sight again. None evoked any desire to have a life with them. They had been so… bland. He had kept looking, and looking and searching, but Hamburg in the 1100 had been crowded, full of people coming to and leaving the city each day.
The world had gone back to being monochromatic. He had lost his mind.
And thus had begun the cycle, rinse and repeat, as said the youth nowadays (or the generation before that). Colors would appear, and he would be filled with hope, but as they went out and came back, dread and despairs were always his companions.
He would go searching for his intended about his days when the colors appeared, but after a while, cities became even denser, and it was just a fool’s errand to search for his intended.
That witch had gotten him good, but he had not been innocent.
His life moved between colors and black and white. He welcomed the first, hated the latter, but he could only make do. It was his burden to bear, and was it heavy on his shoulders and his soul.
He would relish the thought that wherever she was, his soulmate was alive. He could not know if she was a young girl, an adult, or even an old woman when their steps had sort of met, but he liked knowing she was alive. He hoped she enjoyed life.
(He missed her so dearly, even though it made no sense to miss someone he had never known)
He took comfort in the little things. He tried his best to go on.
A honk resonated, and he was pulled out of his black and white reverie.
He had work to do. He grabbed his computer and papers and put it in his bag.
Today was the first of the term, a brand new batch of student would be coming in.
He was teaching Russian history, most specifically the history of the Rus of Kiev, which had given birth to modern Russia.
He could never let his students know he had been there for the events he would be depicting, but he could share the insights he had gotten from looking back and reading, hearing and more about what he had lived.
He liked it. It was a little niche, but so was he, in a sense. Removed from Grisha society, no longer playing with the powerful and those who wished to become so, he had found peace for now, being Aleksander Kirigan, an academic.
When he walked on campus, long before it would be filled with students new and returning, he felt a tingling in the back of his neck but did not give it much thought.
He prepared in his office, worked on his syllabus and more. When he was ready, he went for the huge classroom that would be his for the term to come.
As he wrote his name on the chalkboard, preparing for his first class of the term, something old-fashioned, for sure, he pondered how much larger his pool of students would be with the latest development in the Kremlin, the show of force the Russian had engaged in. It was bound to draw a larger, wasn’t it?
That was when his world turned to color, and his heart started beating madly. She was there.