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The thing Aglaya Lilich remembers the most of the first night she ever spent with Alexander Block was his eyes.
Perhaps, even with all her experience, that was what shocked her the most. The windows to the human being behind the war hero.
Even with all that, that was something that shocked her even more. That something was the fact that she wanted to care for him. To offer him some re spite, some rest among the tides that shocked him and took him from one place to another in that thing he had to call his life.
She had seen the turmoil of lives like his. Lives that had been cut short under the terrifying weight of a fame that crushed their shoulders until it grinded them to a paste.
Funnily enough, it was not until she met Alexander that she… That Aglaya actually cared.
Of course, that was not good.
Caring was not good. Feigning to care was excellent, after all, that was part of her line of work.
Actually caring complicates things, both in her line of work and in her life in general. She is not used to this.
She is not used to care. Nina took that away from her, little by little, until she realised that not caring was safer, better.
Not caring allowed her to live.
Specially in cases like this one. Because she has found himself caring not for a normal man, but for the poster boy of the institution that is the eternal enemy of the one she works for.
To say that this complicates things is putting it very nicely.
And yet, Aglaya cares.
She cares for this man who is carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders. One that no one should carry, even less someone as young as him.
Aglaya knows that this will spell her doom, sooner or later.
But, as she watches Alexander, after all these years, asleep in her arms, comfortable enough to be vulnerable in her presence, Aglaya knows the risks of caring have been worth it.
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Artemy Burakh’s gaze could cut the most unbending steel.
And yet it fascinates Aglaya, no… It shocks her to her very core, to understand that no matter the appearances, he is motivated by one thing and one thing only.
That thing being love.
She has watched him from afar, gotten information about him from the most unsuspecting and suspecting sources alike, and yet nothing did prepare her for the moment she met him.
For someone who has suffered so much (and for what? For a story that has a predetermined ending? An ending that will never be fully happy or fully under his control), she feels an overwhelming sense of love that surrounds him.
Love for this Town that welcomed him with sharpened knives.
Love for the Kin who will not fully accept him. Not yet. Not until he sheds enough blood to cure the world again.
Love for every single being.
Even love for her.
He will try to save her. He always does, even if those efforts are met with failure.
(How do you know this, Aglaya?)
And yet she loves him for this.
The realisation hits her like the same wave that took her by surprise in that trip by the sea. Nina laughed when she landed, face first, on the sand.
She is surely laughing right now, wherever she is.
Nowhere. Anywhere. Everywhere.
And yet there is less of an oppressive feeling in her heart after she meets him. As if Nina didn’t have a hold of it anymore.
As if Artemy Burakh was telling her that there’s a chance for something else.
As if he offered her a new world, wrapped in that love that he has never realised he has.
Even if it is only a chance, it will be worth it.
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This is not the first time she meets Lara Ravel.
Even if Aglaya is sure that she does not remember her. After all, a young girl being introduced to the most select circles of Capital Society barely has time to pay attention to some woman in one of the many parties she attended that year.
The woman who offers her a place in her home to shelter her from the soldiers that are searching for her to perform her execution is a very different one from that girl she got to meet.
There’s still a kindness to her, but it is protected until walls of bitterness and grief, over the loss of a father she truly misses.
(Aglaya wonders is she would have felt the same regarding Nina if things had been different between them. If they had…)
But she accepts her. Even if the sole act is already putting her at risk.
Aglaya wishes she knew why Lara did it, thankful as she is for it.
It might be that almost suicidal dedication that she once saw in her father. It might be the hatred towards the Army for having taken him.
Some the enemy of my enemy is my friend path.
But it might be that, in the depths of that heart that wants to seem uncaring, Lara Ravel does actually care, even for someone who is an apparent stranger.
Or maybe it is just her helping her friend. After all, after his return from the Abattoir, Artemy seemed insistent to the point of desperation in saving her.
But all thoughts go away when Lara touches her hand, and despite her own misgivings, smiles at her in the most reassuring way possible.
“Everything will be fine.”
------
They all share a bed now.
It is probably an ending none of them expected, but Artemy and Lara saved them both. Out of love, even if what Lara always says is that Alexander’s life is just hers and she will not let The Powers That Be lay a hand on him before she does.
Whatever the reason, though, here is an ending none of them expected.
(With Artemy probably being the exception, but who knows. He will not tell.)
An ending where Alexander and her were both saved.
An ending where Lara and her can get to truly know each other and see beyond the masks of that same meeting.
An ending where Artemy makes good on the chance he gave her, despite everything that had been against it.
She feels Artemy’s strong arms embracing her from behind. Lara’s hand is set on her shoulder, and Alexander’s on hers, and a calm that she does not remember ever feeling washes over her as she falls asleep.
No matter how long this story lasts, for once, she truly feels that there’s a future beyond simple tragedy.
And that she can share it with them all.