Author's Note: First time writing for a fandom other than Inuyasha in 20 years, wow. I hope you enjoy!
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What Am I, Though?
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"What am I, though, without my instinct?"
The words fall from the lips of the man beside me, sitting slouched in his armchair, overlooking the fire that burns under the mantlepiece. A glass half-drunk clutched in his hand, it gathers and drips condensation onto the rug beneath our feet as he slowly spins the solid block of ice soaked in kvas.
The game of chess we played has long been forgotten as conversation has turned, as it always does, to the deeper thoughts we haven't yet worked through.
"You have instinct, Mal," I say, my own glass of kvas downed long before his. I've grown somewhat acquired to the taste, or maybe, more to the pleasant buzz I can fold my own thoughts away into, though Mal has always been fond of the drink. I gulp it quick, and he savors the taste with each sip until he thinks aloud the words he chooses to lock away.
His lips pull at a smile but it doesn't reach his eyes, hooked on the flames as they are, the heat licking his invisible wounds.
"You know what I mean," he says. "Sometimes when I'm out at the edge of the woods, I think I can hear the trees calling out for me like they used to."
"The trees spoke to you?"
His smile grows in response to my cynicism, but his eyes keep their grief. "Yeah, in a way."
I stand from my chair, my bare feet cushioned by the area rug, and take the few steps to reach him. His gaze withdraws from the fire and fixes on my own, watching me in that way he does. A hunger that is never satisfied. It makes my heart thud heavily in my chest, and I wonder if I'll ever get used to it. When we were young at heart and naive about the world around us, I used to look away, afraid of what he might see in my gaze, but now I keep his eyes locked to mine, drinking him in as much as possible.
He's on borrowed time as much as I am. I want to gather up as much of him as I can.
I reach over and take the dripping cup from his hand, the only sound the clinking of ice against glass and the crackling of dry tinder at my back. Mal pushes himself up from his slouch and sits back in his chair, preparing himself for what he knows I'll do next.
I put his half-drunken kvas on the chess table, then slide my chilled fingers over the back of his neck as I slip onto his lap. His arms embrace me naturally, one hand at my back, the other pulling my legs up over his knees. His chin tilts up so my forehead can rest against his. His eyelids close and he breathes in deep and I can hear the small quiver that he tries to hide.
I know how he feels, and wonder if any other in the world has felt this before? The deep emptiness, the mourning of something intangible. Sometimes he wonders if it was ever there at all. Sometimes I wonder the same.
"I just want to be of use," he says; a whisper.
My free hand traces the scar at his chin, my thumb over the bottom crest of his lip, memorizing the lines of his face with my fingers, the same way I might with a pencil in my hand.
"You're much more than your instinct," I say, willing him to believe the truth. "You did so much more."
His hand is at my back, tracing small, lazy patterns along my spine. "I wake up every night thinking I've lost you to something mundane, like a mudslide," he says and chuckles at the ridiculousness of it all. And it is ridiculous, compared to the fold and the darkness that lurked within. "But I still lose you," he continues, "and I can't do anything, because your heartbeat no longer calls to me."
My fingers on his neck trail into his hair, pressing a light massage to keep him calm. "Your instinct helped to find what we needed, but instinct isn't what kept me safe," I insist, and his cheek presses against my chest, his head a perfect perch for my chin.
"I still want to keep you safe."
"Can you still fight a Grisha?"
His snort is light and playful. "Of course."
"Can you still wield a knife? Shoulder a gun?"
"Like the best of them," he says, and I can feel his shoulders relax.
"If you had to do it all over again without your instinct intact, would you?" It's an unfair question to ask. We both know the impossibility of such a task as a mere otkazat'sya, but he doesn't hesitate.
"Always." The word is simple but filled with that same intensity that he carries for me in his eyes, and I wonder how I got so lucky, how we found our way, how we ended up here.
I tilt his chin up, an ask for a kiss, and he obliges. He tastes just as good as when he first pressed his lips to mine on that snowy, rocky field inTsibeya, insisting that we belonged together, filled with anger for our time apart and yearning for what stood before him.
Sorrow has replaced his anger now, these years later, but with every glass of kvas, he releases more of his sorrow, and I get to reassure the man who refused to leave my side.
"You became my blade by choice and you're still my blade today," I whisper against his lips and take his free hand in mine, "and these hands will always keep me safe because even without your instinct, you're still Mal, still my blade, still where I belong."
He sighs again, and I can feel a bit more of his sorrow leave him, a bit more of his hidden thoughts put to rest, his mouth on mine, whispering beloved, my heart.
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"What am I, though, without my light?"
The words exhale into the dark beside me, that same frustration I've come to know so well falling from the lips of the woman I love. She's impatient and still temperamental when she's not drowning in her scattered nightmares and seeping sorrow.
The last of the oil from our lamp has burned up, and we're soaked in darkness. It's safe, this darkness, free from the monsters that hid in the shadows of our past, free from the men who would hunt us and the evils set to dominate her, and yet Alina still can't stand the dark.
My fingers work at the broken furnace, but they're big and clumsy and now I can't see, and the blizzard that has ascended upon us is determined to freeze us to death, just like the everlasting, northern permafrost.
"Are you scared, my little friend?" I tease, my favorite pet name for her ears only. I know she hates it but that she also loves it, and I cannot help but imagine the look on her face, working to figure out which side she lands on.
"I'm not scared," she replies after a pause, and I know it's the truth because hardly much scares Alina anymore. This dark is dark, but it's not true dark as we've known it.
I sigh and give up on the furnace. There's no point in working at it now. We've a large house with many orphans, stacked with blankets and furs, and wood for fires to warm the rooms, and a stash of food to last us the rest of the winter. So I give up and I turn to my wife and I pull her to me, opening my thick, wool coat and closing it around her tightly so she's pressed up against me, where she belongs.
"I want to help, I'm so useless," she says.
"I'll work on it in the morning, we'll make more than enough warmth ourselves."
She pinches my side and I yelp and try to wiggle away from her hands, but I refuse to release her. I'll never release her.
"I meant the fires, we'll light some fires," I chuckle into her ear, and I wait for her to laugh with me, but her nose is buried against my chest and her breath is deep - too deep, and I know what she's thinking.
"You're more than the light you've conjured," I say, and dip down to kiss her temple, "but I know you miss your light. I know you don't feel whole without it."
"I'm whole," she says, her voice muffled into my shirt, "I'm whole but I'm useless, and what am I made for now?"
The question that plays on her mind often plays on mine too: two people who have lost their purpose in life, our call to a greater meaning, the addictive nature of being something more.
"You were made for all of you, not just your light," I say, "but for your bright sense of justice, and your determined will, and your ability to inspire and lead; to persevere."
"I'm none of those things," she says, and I smile in the dark because I know so well how stubbornly self-conscious she becomes when she's frustrated.
"Nonsense, you're all of it," I insist, "I'd hardly follow any of the girls who let my bullies beat me up when we were children, and I'd hardly track down mythical beasts for anyone who would be so selfish as to leave me sitting in the orphanage to become a fancy Grisha."
"I became a fancy Grisha."
"Not by choice."
She falls into silence, and I wait. My patience pays off like it always does. She wraps her arms around my waist and pulls herself closer, and she raises her chin so our noses touch. I can't see her eyes in the dark, but her face is burned permanently into the back of my eyes, and I nudge at her playfully, stealing quick kisses until her quiet laughter spills open.
I could tell Alina that she was made for me, but it's not quite right, though she certainly fits in all the right places. I open my mouth to speak. Pause. Close my eyes and inhale the scent of her shampoo and skin, and I know, just as I've always known, what she's made for.
"You were made for you as you are, so I can belong to you," I say, and I hope she understands because I'm not so great at saying things. Words tend to stumble out of me in heated declarations, bottled up until I can't stand it any longer. "So I could become your blade," I continue, my fingers trailing into her hair. I gently tug, urging her back, guaranteeing access to her lips, "so you could save me in return."
She presses up to close the distance, and she's just as sweet as she ever was, just as whole as she'll always be, and she holds me just as tight as she always does, so her heartbeat is sure to match mine, and I pour into her every ounce of confidence I can give her.
Who needs the light? Alina is the light, and I whisper in her ear: my light, my love, and kiss her insecurities away.