Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the endless, nothing space between life and death, Matthias has a lot of time to think.

Mainly, he thinks over things, his life, his death. Nina is almost always included. Sometimes, he thinks of what could have been but gives up halfway through as it will never come to fruition.

Limbo, as Matthias has come to think of it, is a grey place. He'd thought that with death would come his release, that he would go into the waiting arms of his God happily. Of course, it turned out, he didn't.

Limbo is cold. Or is it? Things are hard to feel here. Sometimes Matthias thinks he can feel the icy burn of wind against his cheeks and others he hardly feels as if he has a body. But back to Limbo, it's a forest. At least Matthias believes it to be a forest. There are trees - or what he remembers as trees - and occasional bushes, their branches thin and breakable, like a child's interpretation.

The ground is covered in snow - or maybe it's just white? - and lacks any sign of life. There are no new sprouting plants, reaching out from the ground like a drowning man's hand stretched out looking for salvation. No neat little paw prints trailing away into a warm den made in the ground. There is only nothing and the sound of wind whistling against his ears. The sky is dark but no stars pinprick it, no clouds cross it and the moon is gray and distant, it has turned its head away from the landscape to answer a question leaving Matthias all alone to think and think and think. The world is a blank canvas begging to be painted.

Matthias thinks of Nina often. The feel of her next to him, her voice muttering something snarky under her breath, her hair, pooled on an animal pelt, catching the moonlight, a star thrown down to earth to rest next to him in the dark of night and the paleness of morning. Nina, he thinks, was never something I would be able to keep. How did I not see that?

But the time for scorn has passed. There is nothing Matthias can do for it, he cannot turn back time, and he cannot reach out an arm for Nina to grab so she can haul him out the barren wasteland he will never call home.

Sometimes, he thinks of the others, Kaz, all sharp cruel teeth and a soft soft tongue, Inej, a warrior Saint prepared to do battle, unsheathing her daggers and cutting the laws that tied her to the earth. Matthias may not believe all the tales of Saints and saviours, but he's sure that Inej will be made one after her death. He'd quite like to have another conversation with her.

Wylan, Matthias thinks for the hundredth time, large eyes and gently curling hair, bombs in his hands and soot on his cheeks, a light in his eyes Matthias never saw in his own eyes. Jesper was a meteor, flying high and burning out too soon. A bright flash before something hard hits you in the face, and you realise you were too dazzled by the light to see it glint off the metal of a gun.

Nina, Matthias thinks for the billionth time. Sassy, soft, smart Nina. Dangerous, dark, 'the enemy,' Nina. Her smile as she look back at him from a doorway eyes bright enough to light the cavern inside his chest. Smile sharp enough to cut steel. Grisha Nina. 

Matthias never could have kept her with him, never could have kept her safe enough. She wasn't his to keep. Not in this life, at least, maybe in another far away, one in which they would have had more luck. Had she not been born a Grisha and so so stubborn, had he not been born defensive and on the wrong side of the fight, maybe they could have sunk their teeth into each other and not let go.

But her stubborness and his instinct to snap back at anything wronged him was imbedded in their persons. They wouldn't have been themselves without it, and so Nina wouldn't have slotted so neatly into his arms as she did. They wouldn't have worked.

Or maybe they would have, just not as themselves. As strangers from another life. 

Matthias thinks that he'd rather this universe than one where he wasn't himself. One without his God and her Saints. Without Nina Zeniks' stubbornness, there'd be a lot more to go around, and that decidedly was not a good thing.

The wind whistles sharply, again slicing past his ears and howling desperately, an animal caught in a trap struggling for its life. Matthias had set plenty of traps for animals in his short life. Seen the rope snap their necks, and their bodies go limp and swaying. He'd roasted the meat over fires with the other Druskell, smiles shared and laughter echoing out into the never-ending night. They'd wake in the morning snow, crusting their boots and the smell of fire soaked into their clothes. Trassel would bound up to him, his eyes sparking with the smell of prey, and Matthias would let himself be lead to a bird, a squirrel, a rat, or a mouse. Take it back to be cooked again.

And the cycle would repeate. Until Nina. She'd kicked over his life and stomped all over it, Matthias couldn't be more grateful. Her tongue would spit insults with such familiarity and smoothness that he couldn't help but to be impressed with the Grisha temptress that cursed him like she breathed. The Grisha that challenged his every belief like she was eating a particularly delicious fruit or sliding a soft kefta over her shoulders.

He misses her. He misses Jesper and his stupid bad-timed jokes. He misses Inej and her shadowed company. He misses Wylan and his hidden danger. He even misses Kaz - the demjin - and his oil slicked eyes. He misses the tang of smoke in the Ketterdam air. He misses the sight of Jesper lazing on the sofa, Wylan pillowed on top of him while Nina deals them cards as Kaz and Inej have one of their silent staring matches.

Matthias misses everything. Food, heat, breathing. He doesn't even breathe in this strange world. 

Everything here is strange, Matthias thinks not for the first time. But he has thought over all these things many many times, and after however long he's been here, every strange thing has dulled to something not normal exactly, but expected. Matthias expects there to be no animals, no dead leaves littering the ground, no bright shining sun finally rising over the ignorant dull moon, no stars blinking in the blanket of night so dark it looks artificial.

There is nothing to look forward to anymore. So, Matthias thinks. And thinks and thinks. 

His family takes residence after he has exhausted all thoughts of his other family of his friends. 

His mother, his father, and his little sister. They fade occasionally, they slip from his mind so he has to clutch at the memories with all his might less they fall away forever, and he would lose the only thing he had from them. 

His father - Magnus, Matthias has to remind himself. He didn't even really know his parents names when their village burned. He had to learn from the list of casualties - had his golden hair. It blurs inside his mind until Magnus becomes nothing but a blur of gold and a loud stomach-aching laugh that Matthias was unfortunate enough to not inherit. 

His mother - Nadja, it means 'hope'. The irony is not lost on Matthias - her hair was dark, but her eyes were glaciers. She smelt like cotton and pine trees, and her eyes crinkled when she smiled. Matthias got her laugh, a soft tentative thing that turns loud and cackling when pressed. It suited her more than it did, Matthias.

And his sister, she is the one Matthias has the most memories of. He doesn't even need to dig for her name, Ola. A baby, red and horse from screaming, immediately stopping her shrieks, as Matthias held her cradled in his arms. Her red pudgy hand wrapping around his finger as he thought, yes, this is my sister. Ola bounding down the hall dirt staining her hands and knees. "Matthee!! Matthee!! I got him!" She would spit - a lisp inherited from infancy and carried into childhood - a mouse caught between her hands, a smile cradled between chubby cheeks. Her little feet padding down the wooden floors to his room, a delicate knock before she burst in and tackled Matthias in an unending hug. 

A choking smell of wood charring. Matthias standing up from where he was crouching in the woods and stumbling his way back as the smell of smoke got stronger and stronger with every breath. As the dread settled deep within his stomach, grew heavier and heavier with every step closer. Until he saw the flames licking their way over his house. He saw the charring wood and his home - the one he knew his entire life - crumple in on itself, an old thing buckling under its own weight. An old fox finally surrendering to death and slumping down into a heap on the soil. 

The rest of that day was a weak blur, and Matthias doesn't want to remember any of it. Some things are better left to rot in his memory.

Because he remembers small charred bones wrapped in larger ones. Huddled together neatly, a puzzle finally fixed

He'd blamed it on the Grisha inferni, but had it been them? Anyone could invent a fire in some random village. All it would have taken was a match in the right place and his village would have lit up like a pyre, sentencing his family to a life of burning and Matthias to a life of fight and anger. Anger had been his lifeline, he'd clung to his anger and to his hatred, it kept him going through the long, long years.

Matthias lets the string of thoughts go and lies back on the white ground. He looks up at the blank sky and tired moon. Maybe if he stares long and hard enough, stars will peer their shy heads out the folds of night's cloak and give him something to look at. 

Maybe he should have been a poet. 

Chapter Text

Matthias can't remember how long he has been here. It feels like an age, and no time at all, all at once. Time floats, like ducks on a pond, it drifts past him and he doesn't even know it's gone until it is. 

Everything is still the same, white snowy ground, dark looming trees and a sky, barren of stars. Matthias can only barely feel himself, his body isn't there anymore. Come to think of it, has Matthias ever tried to look at himself? He doesn't know. What does he know?

He knows Nina, he knows love and warmth and the familiarity of closeness. He knows his family, his friends. He knows that they were together but when he tries to think why, it slips through his fingers, like an eel. Slippery and impossible to hold. He focuses again, and again, and again, trying to remember, but the memory has been burnt away. Never to be seen again. 

He wants to cry. He can't, does he even have eyes? Tear ducts? Emotions? He feels numb, numb to everything. The branches he walks (?) past don't seem to touch him, and if they do, he can't feel it. Nina, he says, he knows Nina. Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan. He knows these people, they are his family, but where are they? Family doesn't leave family, so they should be here. Why is Matthias here? He just can't think. Why can't he think?

Everything he knows is slipping away, faster than Matthias can grab for it. He can't even bring himself out of numbness to feel anything about it. The memories leave and Matthias watches, powerless, or maybe just indifferent. He's floating higher, somewhere everything he knows can't follow him. 

Then, everything stills. For a second, even though Matthias swore nothing was moving, everything, impossibly, stills. It's as if time itself has died, and been left to rot. He tilts what may be his head back and stares at the starless sky, hopelessly searching for a moon that will not be there.

Something ripples. It breaks through all of time's barriers searching for Matthias. He feels it, actually feels it, it echoes through his bones and his body - that he can feel! - and finally, finally, the numbness that has invaded Matthias slinks away and he feels. Happiness, or shock, or confusion. It has been so long but he sucks something in, a real, tangible, breath, after so long, and lets it out.

The wind shrieks and Matthias turns towards it gladly, it scrapes against his cheeks and Matthias feels that there could never possibly be a better feeling. The ground slips away, easily, under his feet. It goes seamlessly, so seamlessly, Matthias hardly registers it, so high on the euphoria of living. 

He sees Nina, his Nina. Her hair is blonde now, her eyes an icy blue, but she is his. He knows it, as she plunges the shovel into the snow-frozen ground, he knows it. Nina is panting, her breath comes hard and there, beside her, lying still on the cold ground, is himself. It should disturb Matthias, and maybe, somewhere it does. But for now, all he can feel, is joy. Nina found him, Nina knows. She knew he was lost and she found him and now, finally, she is setting him free. 

He watches her dig his grave, his final resting place, forever and always, the icy dirt piling up beside her and then, his body is laid down in his grave. Matthias can feel the dirt on his back, in his hair, scattering across his eyes, but this means that, finally, Matthias is being let go. 

Nina becomes cloudy. Matthias is drifting away and he allows the pang of grief to echo through him. But he will see Nina again. Not soon, but one day. However far away that day is, Matthias can wait. He'll wait, however long she needs. Matthias is a patient man.

He turns towards his God. Djel has no physical presence, but its arms are open nonetheless, and Matthias walks towards them, his head held high.

He thinks as he walks. Kaz, all his ambition, all his vengeance, a demon. A boy, who can't show people he loves them. He thinks of Inej, a ghost-girl. A spirit inhabiting a human body. A girl, hurt and thrown to rock bottom, but soaring higher than ever. He thinks of Jesper, stupid, wild Jesper. Racing against the time he thought was running out, running away from something he didn't know. He thinks of Wylan, weak, weak, Wylan. Strong Wylan. Stronger than Matthias, scared in his own home, a foe in the shape of a father. 

He thinks of Nina.

Of course, he thinks of Nina. He always thinks of Nina, she is his driving compass, she is his light, she is what Matthias cannot have. She is his love, forever and always. He will love Nina until the end of time, he will love Nina when she moves on - he hopes she will - he will love Nina when he sees her again.

Matthias takes his final step. Trees brush against his cheeks, snow crunches under his boots, and falls, gently, from the sky, collecting in his hair. The wind howls, and it scrapes against his cheeks. He feels fur brush against his palm and Matthias sets his hand on top of Trassels head, feeling his soft fur underneath his fingers. He knows it's Trassel, like he knows the trees around him are pine, like he knows when he opens his eyes, the stars will be bright, and the moon will be full.

Matthias breathes. The action, no matter how simple it seems, shocks him whenever he does it. After so long without breathing, its euphoric to finally feel human again.

He will remember his friends, his family, forever. He hopes they will give him the same treatment, to be immortalised in memory, is there a better fate after death? Matthias will be remembered, and will remember in turn.

A martyr no longer, he steps forward into his forest, a child forever, but a loved one. Matthias was loved before he died, and that, matters most.