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[sunmon]

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alina starkov, 20

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[sunmon]

I guess it can't hurt to learn.

[princess_of_ida]

I'll put a practice dummy together out of Viola - one of my skeletons.

Hey, are you doing anything for Resurrection Day?
Wait, that's a stupid question. It's a Nine Houses holiday.

[sunmon]

Is it this time of year?
We can celebrate, if you want. You'll just have to teach me how.
As long as there's no eating people involved.

[princess_of_ida]

Toward the end of next month, if I'm right, as this place seems to follow a First House calendar. It's a celebration of the Great Resurrection. The Third hosts the best RD party, there's a huge waiting list to be invited.

It's mostly a secular holiday outside of the Eighth. For spend time with family and loved ones, exchange gifts, a reminder that this was why the Lord of the Nine Renewals brought humanity back. That last part loses its shine once you know God, but the rest is important.

I want to take you out for Resurrection Day. Like a real date. Fancy dinner - no human meat involved - you in your kefta. Then back to my place for drink and gifts. I know it's like a month out, but I wanted to ask you before someone else does.

[sunmon]

[ it feels serious, this staking of a claim. alina wonders if she shouldn't speak to nikolai about it. if she shouldn't remind ianthe that she has agreed to marry him, not just for ravka, but for herself. that he is an anchor point for her that keeps her oriented, reminds her that there is something good in her still, and that she can't let that go.

but she doesn't want to do that. not really. it might mean losing this thing she has with ianthe. she depends too wholly on ianthe's affection to be generous enough to sacrifice it. ]

I'd like that.
I appreciate the warning, in fact. It'll give me a chance to find a suitable gift.
In Ravka, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Nikolai this time of year. But it's just feasting. We don't exchange gifts or anything.

[princess_of_ida]

[Thankfully, due to an ill-advised drunken conversation, Nikolai knew exactly what Ianthe felt when it cane to Alina. He had every opportunity to tell her about the marriage, to establish boundaries wren it came to Alina, but he didn't. In fact, he encouraged a threesome, helped drown their mutual frustration about Alina in each other.

Still, Ianthe knew she was the outsider. That she only got Alina for what limited time she had. It twisted her up inside, but it was a sensation she was used to. Her whole life, watching the people she wanted wanting someone else. But she remained, swallowed it down, and took what she could.

Like this date. She had plans for it. And yet, she was so surprised Alina said yes.]

Really? Thank fuck.

What did Saint Nikolai do?

[sunmon]

Sankt Nikolai sailed the Bone Road, a dark and frozen stretch of the True Sea, and when his ship became trapped (as they often do), he found some sort of magical forest in all the ice that allowed him to feed his crew.

He has this magical sack that's always full of food. I think he found it in the wood? Or maybe brought it with him. I don't remember.

Anyway, when the voyage was ended, he brought it around Ravka, feeding the hungry by sharing a feast with them from inside of it.

[princess_of_ida]

That's one hell of a sack.

Does anyone know why he sailed the Bone Road in the first place?

[sunmon]

I'm sure it's in the Istorii Sankt'ya, but I never read it closely enough to say.

[princess_of_ida]

Is that your religious text? With prayers and stuff.

[sunmon]

A version for teaching children.

[princess_of_ida]

Ah, more stories than prayers and such. We you all made to read it, in the orphanage? Like how compulsive is religion in Ravka.

[sunmon]

I actually never got a copy until I was brought to the Little Palace. They keep it in the library, there.

I wasn't as interested as I should have been, except for the parts about Morozova's stag. The amplifier I mentioned, made by Sankt Ilya from his finger bones.

It's just one of those things everyone knows about but doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about.

[princess_of_ida]

[And now Ianthe thought of this special stag as being a bone construct, because how else did one make a giant deer using phalanges?]

I suppose having a living God does make it easy to encourage religion. Prople can buy posters of God or individual lyctors.

Are there any other saints alive aside from you?

[sunmon]

No.
It's only me.
Honestly, I think Ravkans prefer dead saints. Easier to control.

[princess_of_ida]

That's not surprising. Do you think things would be different regarding the way you're thought of by Ravka as a whole if you'd been a public figure before?

[sunmon]

Like a boyar or something? Probably.

[princess_of_ida]

What do you think would be different?

[sunmon]

They'd take me seriously.
They'd see me as Ravkan.

[princess_of_ida]

Definitely the latter. Maybe not the former. Sometimes when people know you, know of you, for so long, is hard for them to accept that you're more. Being an unknown quantity is very powerful. They're not going to have a choice with you, soon enough. They'll have to take you seriously.

Sometimes I want to look up my poster sales, but I know better.

[sunmon]

Poster sales is a little vain, isn't it?

[princess_of_ida]

The fame was part of the appeal. First person in ten thousand years to become a lyctor. You could get posters of all of the lyctors, and here I had proved I was good enough despite everyone thinking I wasn't capable. I proved that it was possible. Should have been an inspiration to young necromancers throughout the Empire.

But that was before I knew what was really going on, what it meant to be a lyctor, because of course that was kept from everyone. And that nobody really cared. My own parents didn't even celebrate my ascension.

Checking the sales would just prove that I'm the least liked lyctor. And I already know that.

[sunmon]

If the lyctors are so important, why didn't they celebrate?
I don't understand. You seem to be quite the patriot. I don't see why anyone wouldn't like you for it.

[princess_of_ida]

Because I'm not Coronabeth. I played my part too well.

Corona was captured by Blood of Eden - the insurgents - at Canaan House shortly after everything went to shit, along with the other survivors that weren't me and Harrow. Neither of us even knew. When John showed up to collect us, they were gone. No bodies, just gone. So they were declared dead.

My parents were notified, just like every House was, of the dead and of the two new lyctors. To my parents, I was a lyctor, and Coronabeth was dead. They declared our birthday as an official day of mourning.

[sunmon]

And now that you've learned that she's not dead?
I know it doesn't undo the grief, but surely there's no reason for a memorial.

[ ianthe thinks she's a terrible person so often, but in this moment, alina can't help but feel awed that ianthe persists in loving coronabeth, where alina would have learned to hate her for this. ]