peasant | TFLN/INBOX | OCT 2020 "it is insane, isn't it? to accept a proposal of marriage from someone you've known for such a short time without the guarantee of love. and when i asked i didn't even think you liked me very much."
peasant | TFLN/INBOX | OCT 2020 "we're all jaded about marriage and silently horrified at what we have to do, but for the good of the country we'll still do it without complaint. well, without much complaint. i do plan on complaining."
peasant | INBOX | OCT 2020 the pounding in his skull is mostly forgotten, relegated to the back of his mind to make room for more pressing thoughts, like the warmth of alina's tongue and the unmistakable bite of her teeth.
peasant | INBOX | NOV 2020 maybe they've changed too much, or maybe they're only just seeing each other for the first time. the things kept hidden away, the scars and the darkness and the words left unsaid were bound to see the light eventually, and now? now they can no longer pretend. he wanted this dalliance to last a bit longer, but of course fate had other plans in mind.
peasant | INBOX | DEC 2020 her hand fits into his, and when he pulls her close it's even more difficult to stomach the clear detachment in her gaze. he's never been foolish enough to think he could marry for love, but he at least hoped that they would be able to stand each other. trying to find their way back to that seems like an impossible dream.
peasant | PICTURE PROMPT MEME | JAN 2021 waking as a prisoner in his own palace is a new feeling. the shackles around his wrists are uncomfortable, but it's nothing like the one around his throat — that one feels dehumanizing in the worst way, like he's the mongrel he's been likened to his entire life.
peasant | TFLN/INBOX | FEB 2021 "to be fair, the saints do attract a rather zealous and exasperating bunch. you're the only one i like. on the bright side, it was a rather memorable send-off for your tour of goodwill and magnanimity and we didn't even have to plan it."
peasant | MIDNIGHT TEXTING | MAR 2021 "what on earth are you doing? did you threaten to have a tsibeyan church torn down? news travels fast when it's the sun summoner acting up."
peasant | PICTURE PROMPT MEME | MAR 2021 his heart, heavy with the battles he’s been fighting, the constant struggle to keep himself from succumbing to the dark, soars when he feels alina in his arms. propriety is the last thing on his mind.
peasant | TFLN | APR 2021 "i assume if we're writing letters these people are still alive to read them, which i suppose is heartening information. this is quite a bit of blood, though."
peasant | TFLN | APR 2021 "see how well this tour of goodwill and magnanimity worked? the people love you, and more importantly, they had time to miss you."
peasant | TFLN | MAY 2021 "are we entirely sure it's not? a demon spawn, i mean. hypothetically speaking."
"the most beautiful part is i wasn't even looking when i found you."
peasant | REALISTIC COLLEGE AU MEME | DEC 2020 he doesn't fault her for holding personal information close to her chest and firmly out of his reach. it's three in the morning, they're the only two at this laundromat, and they are technically strangers. it's not his finest moment walking in with someone else's lingerie, either.
peasant | INBOX | JAN 2021 in any case, he shows up promptly at the agreed upon time, and bearing gifts — a mason jar full of handpicked winter wildflowers dotted with white and yellow and blue, a gesture he hopes comes across as just right instead of too much.
peasant | TFLN/INBOX | JAN 2021 "i will admit at the time i was concerned when you didn't reply to my first ten messages. now that i'm painfully sober, i'm concerned as to why you didn't block me after the next hundred or so."
( mal & alina interlude a. ) peasant & sunsoldier | TFLN | FEB 2021 "i know it’s easier for you to blame this on nikolai but you should be blaming my life decisions instead."
( mal & alina interlude b. ) peasant & sunsoldier | INBOX | FEB 2021 "sometimes i can't help but feel like we're just in a game they're playing and they make up whatever rules they want as they go along."
peasant | INBOX | FEB 2021 "i like to think there's a difference between keeping you in the dark and sparing you from something that is likely to get ugly."
peasant | INBOX | FEB 2021 he knew this was a mistake from the moment alina arrived looking pretty as a picture in overalls that nearly gave his mother an aneurysm. he should've taken the yacht himself and invited zoya and mal to join them — that would have been a different sort of disaster, but a preferable one to this.
peasant | TFLN/INBOX | MAR 2021 "there’s a proper way to join someone’s family and that, my dear, is not it. i prefer you alive and unmurdered by a certain lantsov matriarch. speaking of dresses, what shall we wear to aleksander’s doomsday celebration? we must go shopping."
peasant | INBOX | MAR 2021 the top floors are silent, his light footfalls the only sound as he picks his way to aleksander's pristine office, slipping on a pair of gloves before he quickly picks the lock and lets himself inside.
peasant | INBOX | MAR 2021 his home feels empty without alina, all those little spaces he would find her tucked away in now abandoned and desolate, and when he can no longer take the sight of those hollow vacancies, he finds himself at dominik's grave in the middle of the night asking a headstone if he hates him, too.
peasant | TFLN/INBOX | MAR 2021 "well, you did tear a shelf off the wall. kind of like mal and the veranda and i know he doesn't like me very much. but you wouldn't be so wrong to."
peasant | SEXTING MEME | APR 2021 "in a remarkably uncharacteristic display of irresponsibility and poor planning, i failed to realize i have a 30 page paper due at 11:59 PM tonight. important question: do you think adderall will dissipate the effects of weed?"
peasant | TFLN | MAY 2021 "have i mentioned that i'm sorry? this may also be a good time to mention that i may be gone for more than just a few days. maybe a week. or weeks."
peasant | TFLN | MAY 2021 this is a bad idea. he knows this. and yet he balances the cake box carefully and fumbles for a moment to twist the knob with the heel of his wounded hand, finally successful at the third attempt. without invitation, he steps inside, his chest immediately tightening at the sight of alina as if it's been years since he's seen her instead of just a few weeks.
peasant | TFLN | JUN 2021 "i'm not picking a fight. i'm just appalled. i didn't return anything of yours you've given me, because i have manners. just because my life is in shambles does not mean i'm not capable of unwanted platitudes. what's criminal is the fact that you boxed all my gifts up and left them behind."
peasant | OPEN POST | JUL 2021 the place looks like as uninviting as when he'd left it, devoid of the life alina had breathed into its empty rooms and sprawling spaces. something in his gut had told him that maybe she'd moved back in like they'd agreed upon, as cantankerous as that decision had been. but his foolish hope has always been just that — foolish.
peasant | TFLN | SEP 2021 "how can i put you in a charitable mood? i need a favor that involves you being here. something you promised, if i may remind you, but have yet to follow through on. i happen to be a very forgiving person, however, so you're still on my list of people to call upon for unsavory favors despite your general unreliability and duplicity."
peasant | TFLN | NOV 2021 "feeling combative? you just called me unfunny AND nauseating. is it gold? how many karats? any precious stones? i'll find it for you. if i'd known you were not only coming by but also going to search the house i would've cleaned up a few things before i left."
Edited 2021-12-09 01:56 (UTC)
( psl — not caring while caring deeply au, nikolai/kaz )
"in the dream i don't tell anyone, you put your head in my lap."
levers | RANDOM SCENARIO MEME | MAY 2021 kaz's decidedly unfriendly disposition comes as no surprise at this point, even when he's in need of aid, and nikolai is a breath away from pointing out that he simply cannot keep bleeding onto his deck when kaz seemingly relents, giving orders as if nikolai is not still a king at heart.
levers | SHIPPING PIC PROMPTS | JUN 2021 another thing not allowed, apparently, is keeping secrets from brekker. he has not listened to a word since unraveling the map, too busy trying to formulate an idea of how he can surreptitiously jail himself for the night, but the silence stretches for a moment too long, snapping him back to the present. what did he say?
levers | OPEN POST | JUN 2021 he flies to the deck, lands with a rattle of chains — and then spies movement. panic seizes him, and he loses his tenuous bit of control. kaz brekker is on the deck, maybe going to his cabin, maybe prowling the ship in sleeplessness or deep thought, maybe defying his orders just for the hell of it. nikolai has never wanted so badly to hit someone in his life. he has never wanted to hurt someone less.
levers | OPEN POST | JUN 2021 a sense of unease rests heavily at his shoulders as they trek across the snow, and he's turning to tell kaz as much when anika disappears below ground. he barks out tamar's name when she goes after her, then has to forcibly haul kaz back before he loses him too — but then the ground disintegrates beneath their feet and they're falling, falling, and he can't move fast enough to stop kaz from twisting to take the brunt of their landing.
levers | OPEN POST | JUL 2021 after snagging two crystal glasses, he strides down to kaz's room and catches the healer leaving with a scowl. unsurprising — kaz is remarkably resistant to grisha healers. he's remarkably resistant to a lot of things, and surprisingly open to others, the most interesting puzzle nikolai has set his hands to in quite some time. he enters without knocking.
levers | OPEN POST | JUL 2021 kaz's bare hand is cool against the burning heat of his forehead, his eyes fluttering shut, and he's a breath away from leaning into him when he abruptly feels the loss of his presence, gone as quick as a ghost. kaz is somewhere else when he glances at him, blue eyes wide, staring down at his hands as if they've betrayed him. maybe they have. maybe he's feeling the waters again, feeling death and decay while nikolai strays further away from himself.
levers | OPEN POST | SEP 2021 he shrugs it off when tolya reports that kaz has sailed back to ketterdam, but he tries again that night to write a letter, hoping it will ease the perplexing ache in his chest. what can he say? his bed feels empty and so do his arms. he misses their late nights together, watching the candlelight dance across the angles of kaz's sharp face. the ground feels too steady beneath his feet these days, the gently rocking waves too faraway.
levers | OPEN POST | OCT 2021 he drinks until he can't see straight, then pulls out the little box left untouched since the moment kaz threw at it him that night they last spoke. he spends half an hour drunkenly trying to make sense of the puzzle, then throws a robe on and leaves his chambers, walking carefully down the darkened hallway toward kaz's suite, waving at the guard to open the doors for him. the perks of being nikolai lantsov. he doesn't bother announcing himself, slipping inside, half-expecting a knife to his throat as he slides heavily onto the bed, smelling of sweet brandy, brow furrowed, unfocused eyes trained on the box in hand.
levers | OPEN POST | DEC 2021 nikolai always knew that one day he'd enter the hellishly sunlit guest suite and find it abruptly empty, devoid of all personal effects, as untouched as before brekker had ever set foot in the palace, but it takes him by surprise all the same. foolishly, he turns over the pillows, opens the drawers, even runs his fingers behind the heavy paintings hanging from the walls, unsure of what he's looking for but hoping that he would've left something behind. a note. a puzzle. some clue for him to follow. even a sign telling him not to follow would have been better than the emptiness of knowing that kaz left without a word, without so much as a goodbye.
levers | OPEN POST | DEC 2021 he'd never join kaz's gang. things would always be like tonight, an extraneous addition, perhaps helpful here and there for his exceptional set of skills, but overall unnecessary. the last thing he said to kaz in os alta was that he didn't need him anymore, and now sprawled out on kaz's (small) bed waiting for the room to stop spinning, he realizes it's an enduring truth that's followed him all the way across the sea.
levers | OPEN POST | JAN 2022 it's dusk when he locks himself in the cellar with a stockpile of nourishment and brandy, iron fetters clicking around his freshly bandaged wrists and throat. the monster is starving, but he doesn't allow it a final hunt. his will is strong enough to get him through this. it has to be. it's the reason the darkling didn't choose imprisonment or torture to punish him with, fates too easy for him to endure. he thinks of his last words to zoya. it's not wise to starve a monster. but starve it he will, until it heels under his command once more. until one of them gives. it won't be him.
levers | OPEN POST | JAN 2022 he wakes alone in a bed in the safe house, the curtains cracked open to filter in the yellow rays of the afternoon sunlight. no chains. kaz must be feeling generous, or more likely has dimitri stationed outside the door, prepared to drop his heartbeat should the need arise. it won't. he feels like himself again, or at least the version of himself he's still growing accustomed to. it's tempting to consider pulling the covers over his head and remaining in bed until nightfall, but he forces himself to rise despite how his sore body creaks in protest.
skirka | GEN TEXTING | APR 2021 "if i take you on a cliffside walk, will you push me over and watch my body dash to pieces on the rocks below? a frightening thought. imagine all the citizens that haven't gotten a chance to admire my face yet."
skirka | CAUGHT IN THE RAIN MEME | MAY 2021 the acerbic tongue is unmistakable, not quite the right accent to be zoya's, which means then that it's another steel-spined harpy he's chosen to invest his time in. he attempts to rationalize it — the midnight letters, their mutual sleepless nights, the way he's used their correspondence as a way to avoid sleeping entirely so that the demon will have no chance to take hold.
skirka | GEN TEXTING | JUN 2021 "are you announcing a battle to win your heart? ten suitors fight to their bloody ends and the last man standing gets to put a ring on your finger and be called royal consort to her majesty the almost queen, thus earning the privilege to be eviscerated by your poison tongue each morning and night?"
skirka | MORNING AFTER MEME | JUN 2021 it's in that exact moment that cersei lannister appears before him with a very passable mockery of a demure curtsy that he knows to be even more insincere than most of the words he's uttered in this room just today. his smile, then, shifts to something that he has to cover with a cough.
skirka | GEN TEXTING | OCT 2021 his memory has failed him but his panic has not; it's inconveniently slipped its leash and is currently making a valiant attempt to choke his normally unwavering confidence into submission. there's blood in his mouth and he doesn't know whose it is. an animal, he tells himself. a formerly adorable and now very unlucky family of rabbits. he needs to gather his bearings, needs to get up and search for a body, needs to figure out where he is. all of these things seem impossible, his body lying uselessly in the dirt, trembling badly from the monster leaving his limbs. he wants to turn over and vomit.
safin | SMUT PIC PROMPTS | NOV 2021 | genya/nikolai, non-con, monsterfuckery, etc. he doesn’t want to look at her, but he does when he feels her foot touch him — and it’s a mistake. something wrenches through him, a violent shudder. the monster, still clinging to his bones, not done with him yet. a shame as precise as a dagger. how could he have let this happen? not genya. not her, of all people. of everyone in his court who’s ever been wronged by a lantsov king, this is surely the worst.
Edited 2022-01-04 03:32 (UTC)
( psl — nikolai is engaged to alina but falls for stripper zoya au, many ships)
ravkas & nanny | GEN TEXTING | FEB 2022 "do you want me to call you those things, nazyalensky? i wouldn't expect you to take the night off. i'd pay for your time, of course, but i'm not paying for an hour or two. i want your whole shift at the little palace."
ravkas & nanny | SMUT PIC PROMPTS | FEB 2022 alina's dresses are too small, a fact he'd known as he'd milled about prior to zoya's arrival. he'd had the dressers bring out a selection of different styles, things alina would never ask for but something more suited to the woman that's been occupying his mind as of late. what would zoya wear as a bride? plunging necklines, complicated lace, beaded corsets. he picks out something just for her and adds it to the line up, and he pays little attention to the other dresses, but when she dons that one —
ravkas & peasant | GEN TEXTING | FEB 2022 "i don't know, alina. maybe you should have considered answering this question yourself before you blew off your fitting and left me to drink all the champagne. i'll take a guess, though. now all the dressers think i have a mistress and that our marriage is a sham. don't worry. i told them you were deathly ill and looked too corpse-like to be seen in public."
nanny & peasant | GEN TEXTING | FEB 2022 "i fail to see where you think your read on me matters. or are you so desperate to justify getting fucked in my wedding dresses to yourself? that's it, isn't it. trying to rile me into a terrible reaction so you can call me the villain. i'm sure that will make you feel better for fluttering at nikolai's beck and call for a night or two. that's a really tired old trick, zoya nazyalensky. or should i call you sapphire?"
nanny & peasant | GEN TEXTING | FEB 2022 "I’m emailing a list of new escorts for Nikolai, ordered from most promising to least. Make sure he sees it."
ravkas & nanny | SEXTING MEME | FEB 2022 "you know what i would love? to accompany you to the grocery store. to sneak chocolate croissants into your basket and then eat them in bed together and get crumbs everywhere. i wouldn't say no to your idea, either. but i really just want you here in any capacity, so i can hold you and we can fall asleep under the dome window, right beneath the stars. i can't stand being alone."
nanny & peasant | SMUT PIC PROMPTS | FEB 2022 funny — zoya mentioned never having to see or talk to her again. but when alina and nikolai saunter through the ornate doors of the little palace, zoya feels an idea brewing somewhere in the blackened pit of her belly. something that reeks of revenge and maybe a little bit of jealousy, if she's honest — but it's such an ugly, potent emotion, she can't be sure where the sharpened tip of her arrow points towards. nikolai? alina? maybe all and everyone is a victim of zoya's greed, the worst of her emotions always coming out in rage induced embers.
ravkas & peasant | TFLN | FEB 2022 "i'm far too depressed and lonely to think about sex, alina. the coffee table? how cruel can you be? do you know how far that is from the bed? i'm in no shape to traverse such distances."
stalks & peasant | TFLN | FEB 2022 "almost positive? is your old age giving you memory problems? anything must be tiny and little in your massive paws, mister morozova."
ravkas & nanny | SMUT PIC PROMPTS | FEB 2022 zoya is nowhere to be found. several possibilities cross his mind. she's entertaining privately in the back rooms, a thought that makes his fingers tighten around his mezcal. she's murdering alina in aleksander's office (unlikely, as alina is probably too busy getting her back blown out by now, seeing as she isn't answering his frantic texts). or she's pointedly avoiding him and intends to do so all night, and nikolai simply isn't built to withstand that type of treatment for prolonged periods of time.
ravkas & nanny | TFLN | MAR 2022 "Why do you want me to be friends with your wife, Nikolai? I told you I have no interest in being convenient in your life. Or have you gotten lazy already? Two women aren't easy to juggle, but that's what you wanted."
ravkas & peasant | TFLN | MAR 2022 "you just had sex on the floor of a mcdonald's bathroom (which i support) but you draw the line at being my honeypot? zoya's not going to kill you. what's the worst that could happen? you have a nice brunch and someone compliments your hat? zoya reveals that she secretly lusts for you in the hours that she ignores my texts? it's a win for us both. that's what marriage is about. winning together."
ravkas & nanny | SMUT PIC PROMPTS | MAR 2022 a dozen words come rushing up, all neatly cut off the moment zoya's strong fingers cinch his throat. it's exhilarating, and a little worrying, which only adds to the aforementioned feeling, but nikolai knows when he's done wrong and he knows he's landed an unintentionally wounding blow to zoya's delicate heart. or perhaps intentional. perhaps it needs to be this way, to pry the truth loose from a woman who holds secrets closer to her chest than her own breath. nikolai would be lying if he said he didn't relish a fight now and again, and maybe it's why alina often ends up setting their household belongings on fire in her frustration toward him.
ravkas & nanny | SMUT PIC PROMPTS | JUN 2022 swiftly, he digs around the pillows for the source of his discomfort, snatching up his still buzzing phone with every intention of throwing it aside to focus on the highly important matters at hand, but a stream of messages light up his screen, alina’s name catching his eye. everything in him goes very still — blood, bone, even the pulse of his heart stops, every thought cutting itself on one very old, very familiar fear.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
( psl — some awful amalgamation of forced marriage/master/slave au, nikolai/alina )
( psl — college au, nikolai/alina )
( psl — not caring while caring deeply au, nikolai/kaz )
( psl — conceited bitches accidentally developing feels au, nikolai/cersei )
misc —
( psl — nikolai is engaged to alina but falls for stripper zoya au, many ships)