There's something fascinating about the General - call me Aleksander, he said, as if his name was just something Alina could shrug off. It's not common information: it's always General or General Kirigan or the Darkling. Never it's Aleksander, even in her wildest dreams, a name as common as dirt, easy to roll off the tongue.
She didn't even think he had a name, which, now that Alina paused and pondered for more than a mere second, it's a ridiculous notion. Everyone had names, even her - even if people didn't like how Ravkan her name was. Alina Starkov: Ravkan to the bone, her mother's tentative of making her less foreign in a hostile land.
But Aleksander never questioned her about being Shu, like other officers in the military had when they put their eyes on her. No, to him she was merely Alina, or even the formal sounding miss Starkov. And the way he looked at her - not like the others did, thinking her holy, or not how she was looked upon her entire life, like she was a Shu spy come to wreck havoc in their land. She just wanted to be seen like she was another Ravkan.
Aleksander looked at her as if she was just Alina. Nothing more, nor anything else. Not a Sun Summoner, tasked with closing the Fold. Not a sankta, a living miracle. Just a girl, with too much weight on her shoulders.
Sometimes she daydreamed, but it would never work: he's older and they both have complicated jobs and it's not like they can carry a romance like it wouldn't be written in her face. It wouldn't be good for either of them - but she was allowed to dream, even if for a moment, as he gave her her favorite flowers in a whim.