AN: So this was a weird idea I had for Luda, since she's a healer with a name meaning "love of the people." I couldn't help but wish they didn't create a love interest for the Darkling to fridge—and I wished she was a little more plot relevant if that was really necessary. That, and the firebird ballet, combined in my head to create the idea that Luda was the Firebird.
I hope you enjoy this little experiment as a result.
She should have died in that sanctuary. The life had drained out of her, her blood had spilled upon stone and snow. And yet, when has what died ever actually stayed dead?
It was in her last spark, the last possible moment of consciousness, of rage against the dying of the light, that she heard the song. It was the most beautiful song she'd ever heard, she'd decided. The song that must have played at the making at the heart of the world. It was the celebration of life, the lament of death, and the triumph of love over all.
And it sang her name.
Luda.
She was no longer a dying woman, a woman who had somehow defied the odds and lived a hundred year, with the promise of a hundred more on the horizon. She was no longer a mere Grisha. The fire burned within her, the fire she had forgotten when she had taken this shape. Her fire would forever burn on as wings and plumes.
She was myth, she was legend—her song created peace, her tears were more precious than gold, her wings carried the future and the promise of tomorrow.
Luda knew that she would never truly die—she'd tried to tell her beloved Aleksander that in the ways she knew how. He had entrusted her with his secrets. And yet, no matter how she tried to tell hers, the words would not come, they were misunderstood.
But she was alive again, reborn. Luda would live and fly again, rise into the sky and wander the woods of her home once more.
She flew out of the roof of the sanctuary—she would return when it was safe, she would come to Aleksander again.
After all, theirs was a love that would last forever. They lived in a thousand moments—surely he would know, that they would meet again?
That day came too late. It was easy, to put off the reunion, to forget when she was in this shape, as the firebird. She had seen centuries come and go, as she had hinted to Aleksander when she told him that she could easily live a hundred years and more. She had seen what her beloved shadow had become.
After all, she had been there, that horrible day he had cut into the making at the heart of the world, when he turned men to monsters. She had to fly away, from where she'd perched in the trees. She'd been unable to bear it, to see the Darkling's birth.
She did exactly what she'd done when her first lover, the first King of Ravka, had died. She fled. She fled far away, taking refuge in this shape as a bird.
But she could not hide from the world, not forever.
Not when the Sun Summoner, with her connection to Aleksander, had come looking for her. She had been in the ruins, in the mountains—that was where they had found her.
She'd attacked them, before she'd realized who Alina Starkov was, the Sun Summoner, the savior. The one who was so deeply connected to her Darkling, to the very magic of Ravka and their world.
Before the tracker could shoot her, she transformed before them, becoming Luda once more.
"You've seen him, Aleksander," she said. "What has he done now? You must take me to him."
"Luda?"
She turned from the party of adventurers to see her Darkling, her Aleksander, standing there in front of her once more.
"I may not have told the whole truth when I said I would likely live another hundred years and more," she said with a sad smile.
"I thought you died." His voice cracked, his quartz eyes somehow had that way of bringing her back to life, making her human once more.
"I did," she admitted, stepping towards him. "But a firebird that dies never stays dead."
She took his hands into hers, her smile fading. "And I never wanted to leave you."
"Why didn't you come back to me?" There were tears in his eyes.
"I thought we'd have enough time." There were tears, clear and shining like diamonds, forming in her own. "I'm sorry."
She watched as a anger, denial, sorrow, it all passed in shadows over his face. And still, he touched his forehead to hers, raising her hand to his lips.
Because if there was one thing the two of them had learned from eternity, it was that as much time as they thought they had, it was never enough. They had spent so much time apart, him in his grief and rage, and her in her fear and sorrow. They would not spare another moment apart.
Fire and shadow surrounded them as they kissed, rising in the air. It was said that the Firebird's kiss could heal all wounds—even those in the heart of the world.