i suppose you would know, since you've made it your personal mission to be a shadow over many a lantsov king's shoulder. tradition says it's your turn to perch on mine, but unfortunately for everyone, my reign has been highly unconventional.
the aviary was my idea. zoya wanted to play with your lungs until they burst like overripe melons on a hot summer day. however, i thought it would be very unfair to make anyone clean up such a mess.
It amuses me that you think I had much of a say when it comes to shadowing the Lantsov line. You should really be thanking your ancestors for that. Though, I will admit, your reign has been by far my favorite if I had to compare them to your predecessors.
Lucky me to get the more pleasant option between captivity or being a playtoy. At least the latter would've proved to be more entertaining than staring at metal and glass for hours on end.
i won't purport that the lantsov line was ever populated with good men, and i won't make excuses for my father. neither will i claim the falsehood that your actions were ever justifiable. the blame might have been rotting for generations, but it falls on my shoulders to bear it. my gratitude for that.
zoya is not so forgiving. you should be thanking me. is there some other entertainment you desire? besides what you've already voiced, because i'm not so inclined to give you such a large favor when you haven't done anything for me in return.
[ He makes a little face at such eloquence and a fraction of a shrug that barely lifts his shoulders. Perhaps, if there were more decent kings in the long line of predecessors, the dynamic across the centuries would've turned out differently. Such wishful thinking. ]
I am well aware of Zoya's tendencies and I'm not one to give thanks for the bare minimum of holding back her desire to put me back on the pyre. Having your attention thus far has proved entertaining enough but if I'm allowed to make another, more suitable request, I wouldn't say no into be granted a book every once in awhile.
If my earlier...miss sent desire came with the price of a favor, all you had to do was lay the terms for it.
i'll send you one of my favorite engineering texts. it might do you well to put your mind toward the future.
[ it's unwise to make a deal with the shadows. nikolai has long since known this fact, but desperation pushes a man to make bad decisions — or maybe it's just written in his personality to make bad decisions and get himself out of them later with his own clever ingenuity. that sounds much better than being desperate.
there's a reason he's adamantly refused to allow zoya to pop the darkling's lungs. this is the man who cursed him, who placed the shadows across his skin and birthed the monster that lives caged within his being. it stands to reason that this is the man who can do something about that little problem as well. ]
you wouldn't be interested in calling your monster back, would you? collecting your lost things, and all that. you seem to have so little left.
[ Engineering wasn't exactly his forte, hadn't been for some time but the refresher on the subject could do him some good; now that some priorities had been lifted from his shoulders. Returning to old subjects was an unaddressed comfort.
Having to start new lives all over again multiple times, material possessions weren't exactly high on the list on things to be recovered. There were only a few of his things that he actually worried of their current well-being, hoping they weren't tossed into a fire for the sake of wiping his memory from his old rooms. ]
I quite like where its being kept at the moment. However... if you have had your fill of my little gift, I would not be opposed to seeing if it would like to be recalled.
don't thank me yet. i'm having second thoughts that you might find a way to turn it into a weapon. therein lies the trouble in being so untrustworthy.
[ and yet he's still entertaining this conversation. the perils of being unable to sleep. ]
don't take me for a fool. tell me definitely what you know. it didn't disappear as your other shadow monsters did when you died, so forgive me if i doubt your understanding on the subject.
With the amount of supervision your guards have over me, I doubt I could make your favorite text into a weapon without some kind of intervention.
[ He knows he'll never truly regain any amount of trust anyone had in him but that is a risk anyone is going to make if they intend to keep him alive in a cage. Had he never made the puppy prince a shadow, he knows he would not be here at all. ]
I cannot say that I've studied the subject of merzost in length in recent centuries nor had the opportunity to, what I did to you was an experiment of sorts and I cannot give you more of a definitive answer without testing firsthand what your demon's reaction to me may be or whether or not, it wants to rid itself of you. I may have poured over my grandfather's journals for a time but words matter little without action to match.
i doubted you could've come back from the dead, and yet here we are, exchanging pleasantries.
ruining my life was an experiment of sorts? you wound me.
[ and therein lies his answer, or precisely the lack thereof. the darkling doesn't know. after so many harrowing nights trussed up chains, the truth leaves him impossibly weary. ]
a scientific approach would be the wisest one in this circumstance, but there is the issue of conducting trials and inquiries with a war criminal. still, if my monster is going to accidentally kill someone, it may as well be you.
Trust me, I'd much rather have had more time in the afterlife before being dragged back here.
Would you have preferred if I had said that I was all-knowing and knew exactly how to fix something that was so incredibly unpredictable and that I had previously thought out every possible outcome down to the smallest detail the moment I made that glob of shadow go down your throat?
Would you have slept better at night knowing it would've been that easy?
[ Turning the king's soldiers into the volcra and making the young king a better 2.0 version definitely wasn't his passion project but it still intrigued him nonetheless. And the mere thought of the possibility to study it further, well, he isn't going to be bouncing in excitement like a child but there is the faint zing of exhilaration. ]
If you have managed to keep your demon a secret thus far, I'm sure your kingly abilities can keep any amount of scientific trials and inquiries just as hidden. You can even keep your heartrenders and Zoya on standby to put me down should you suspect I am overstepping my bounds. It certainly wouldn't be the first time something I created tried to kill me.
if it's anything like elizaveta's floating fortress of seemingly nondescript horrors, i must question your taste.
i already knew you weren't all-knowing. you're hardly smarter than i am. but i have spent some time thinking of how much your glib moment of rage has cost me. i find i have much more time to ponder how much i dislike you when sleeping can endanger the entire population of ravka.
[ zoya would never agree to this, but zoya rarely agrees to any of his schemes and still stands by his side regardless. to ask her to aid him in this, however, feels like a slight. nikolai might bear the darkling's punishment across his skin, but zoya's scars run deep. she trusted the man in a way nikolai never did, believed in his cause, took shelter in the shadow of his protection. there is no coming back for them. no, he cannot subject her to this.
but he cannot take much more of this without seeking out his own answers. his mind wasn't built in a way to simply not know. ]
it will be you and i alone. i won't put any more pieces on your board, and you can rest assured i'm well suited to confrontation. an audience requires good behavior from me.
Hardly. If it was, I would be complaining that she took her sweet time trying to resurrect me.
I should feel honored that you spend as much of your waking hours thinking about how much you absolutely loathe me. The lack of sleep, however, doesn't suit you even with the danger you pose to the country in the dark; you really should try to get some semblance of sleep before the night is through.
[ The Squaller he'd known since she was a child was never going to forgive him, he knew this, just as he knew many that were formally kept under his wing wouldn't forgive him either. It was the price that he paid alongside the many that were lost. Faces and names that haunt him on the regular when sleep evades him. Perhaps, there is some good in it to exclude Zoya from these experimental trials. For now, at least. ]
Then the matter is settled. You and I, when you decide to call upon me, it's not like I have anywhere else to be. I look forward to seeing the refined teeth you bare, up close, sobachka.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
( tfln overflow — whisperedshadow )
i suppose you would know, since you've made it your personal mission to be a shadow over many a lantsov king's shoulder. tradition says it's your turn to perch on mine, but unfortunately for everyone, my reign has been highly unconventional.
the aviary was my idea. zoya wanted to play with your lungs until they burst like overripe melons on a hot summer day. however, i thought it would be very unfair to make anyone clean up such a mess.
no subject
Lucky me to get the more pleasant option between captivity or being a playtoy. At least the latter would've proved to be more entertaining than staring at metal and glass for hours on end.
no subject
zoya is not so forgiving. you should be thanking me. is there some other entertainment you desire? besides what you've already voiced, because i'm not so inclined to give you such a large favor when you haven't done anything for me in return.
no subject
I am well aware of Zoya's tendencies and I'm not one to give thanks for the bare minimum of holding back her desire to put me back on the pyre. Having your attention thus far has proved entertaining enough but if I'm allowed to make another, more suitable request, I wouldn't say no into be granted a book every once in awhile.
If my earlier...miss sent desire came with the price of a favor, all you had to do was lay the terms for it.
no subject
[ it's unwise to make a deal with the shadows. nikolai has long since known this fact, but desperation pushes a man to make bad decisions — or maybe it's just written in his personality to make bad decisions and get himself out of them later with his own clever ingenuity. that sounds much better than being desperate.
there's a reason he's adamantly refused to allow zoya to pop the darkling's lungs. this is the man who cursed him, who placed the shadows across his skin and birthed the monster that lives caged within his being. it stands to reason that this is the man who can do something about that little problem as well. ]
you wouldn't be interested in calling your monster back, would you? collecting your lost things, and all that. you seem to have so little left.
no subject
[ Engineering wasn't exactly his forte, hadn't been for some time but the refresher on the subject could do him some good; now that some priorities had been lifted from his shoulders. Returning to old subjects was an unaddressed comfort.
Having to start new lives all over again multiple times, material possessions weren't exactly high on the list on things to be recovered. There were only a few of his things that he actually worried of their current well-being, hoping they weren't tossed into a fire for the sake of wiping his memory from his old rooms. ]
I quite like where its being kept at the moment. However... if you have had your fill of my little gift, I would not be opposed to seeing if it would like to be recalled.
no subject
[ and yet he's still entertaining this conversation. the perils of being unable to sleep. ]
don't take me for a fool. tell me definitely what you know. it didn't disappear as your other shadow monsters did when you died, so forgive me if i doubt your understanding on the subject.
no subject
[ He knows he'll never truly regain any amount of trust anyone had in him but that is a risk anyone is going to make if they intend to keep him alive in a cage. Had he never made the puppy prince a shadow, he knows he would not be here at all. ]
I cannot say that I've studied the subject of merzost in length in recent centuries nor had the opportunity to, what I did to you was an experiment of sorts and I cannot give you more of a definitive answer without testing firsthand what your demon's reaction to me may be or whether or not, it wants to rid itself of you. I may have poured over my grandfather's journals for a time but words matter little without action to match.
no subject
ruining my life was an experiment of sorts? you wound me.
[ and therein lies his answer, or precisely the lack thereof. the darkling doesn't know. after so many harrowing nights trussed up chains, the truth leaves him impossibly weary. ]
a scientific approach would be the wisest one in this circumstance, but there is the issue of conducting trials and inquiries with a war criminal. still, if my monster is going to accidentally kill someone, it may as well be you.
no subject
Would you have preferred if I had said that I was all-knowing and knew exactly how to fix something that was so incredibly unpredictable and that I had previously thought out every possible outcome down to the smallest detail the moment I made that glob of shadow go down your throat?
Would you have slept better at night knowing it would've been that easy?
[ Turning the king's soldiers into the volcra and making the young king a better 2.0 version definitely wasn't his passion project but it still intrigued him nonetheless. And the mere thought of the possibility to study it further, well, he isn't going to be bouncing in excitement like a child but there is the faint zing of exhilaration. ]
If you have managed to keep your demon a secret thus far, I'm sure your kingly abilities can keep any amount of scientific trials and inquiries just as hidden. You can even keep your heartrenders and Zoya on standby to put me down should you suspect I am overstepping my bounds. It certainly wouldn't be the first time something I created tried to kill me.
no subject
i already knew you weren't all-knowing. you're hardly smarter than i am. but i have spent some time thinking of how much your glib moment of rage has cost me. i find i have much more time to ponder how much i dislike you when sleeping can endanger the entire population of ravka.
[ zoya would never agree to this, but zoya rarely agrees to any of his schemes and still stands by his side regardless. to ask her to aid him in this, however, feels like a slight. nikolai might bear the darkling's punishment across his skin, but zoya's scars run deep. she trusted the man in a way nikolai never did, believed in his cause, took shelter in the shadow of his protection. there is no coming back for them. no, he cannot subject her to this.
but he cannot take much more of this without seeking out his own answers. his mind wasn't built in a way to simply not know. ]
it will be you and i alone. i won't put any more pieces on your board, and you can rest assured i'm well suited to confrontation. an audience requires good behavior from me.
no subject
Hardly. If it was, I would be complaining that she took her sweet time trying to resurrect me.
I should feel honored that you spend as much of your waking hours thinking about how much you absolutely loathe me. The lack of sleep, however, doesn't suit you even with the danger you pose to the country in the dark; you really should try to get some semblance of sleep before the night is through.
[ The Squaller he'd known since she was a child was never going to forgive him, he knew this, just as he knew many that were formally kept under his wing wouldn't forgive him either. It was the price that he paid alongside the many that were lost. Faces and names that haunt him on the regular when sleep evades him. Perhaps, there is some good in it to exclude Zoya from these experimental trials. For now, at least. ]
Then the matter is settled. You and I, when you decide to call upon me, it's not like I have anywhere else to be. I look forward to seeing the refined teeth you bare, up close, sobachka.