It is with a heavy heart and a very cliche, lifestyle blog-esque statement that I'm closing up shop on Corinthians. While fanfiction was my first love, it's not my only love and things like life, university, and my original works of fiction need to take precedent.

(This probably isn't coming as a surprise to anyone, since I haven't updated in months.)

Originally, I set out to create a story unlike any other I'd seen in the VA fandom and while the saga of the many children of our beloved protagonist has spiraled a bit out of control, it's always been my favourite and most beloved story I've written. (Excluding Stygian. Ya'll just love a PJO/HP crossover, don't you?) Through Valya's tale of self-discovery, I met some of my best friends in the fandom and sparked a hotly-debated VA Wiki entry about Janine Hathaway's love of applesauce, made far too many moodboards and discovered a penchant for mixing up my present and past tenses that annoys Amy to this day. Corinthians (along with the unpublished Monarchists, Mavericks, Illusionists, and Reckoners) was my biggest undertaking and I strived to outwrite anything I'd done before while also including some stupid-ass tropes to keep everyone interested, including myself.

Instead of writing Corinthians, I'll be focusing on more original works. I started writing fanfiction a decade ago, and I'd like to think I've improved since my early days of flames. Now that I know I can write a story, I need to make the nuanced characters to back it up. Maybe I'll post a thing or two here if I end up writing it in my spare time. And who knows? Maybe one day you'll see Valya and Sasha and Leigh, not as they are here, but as the heroes of their own stories on the shelves of a really nice Barnes and Noble. Maybe the one in downtown Philly; that place is like four stories tall.

To Amy, Em, and Gaya, the last three VA fans in the universe:

Wild young girl gets into massive amounts of trouble, sasses everyone while doing it.

Go to the next chapter if you want to see how Corinthians would have ended. If not, I hope you had a great time reading this fic. I sure had a great time writing it.

Of course, I'm still going to publish anything I've already written. There's 30k of Monarchists lying around. You didn't think I was getting soft, did you?

ADDED: ONE DAY AFTER THIS CHAPTER WAS REPORTED

Alright, motherfuckers. Since someone apparently reported my heartfelt goodbye to the greatest fic I've ever written and the greatest fans I've ever had, citing some old-ass rule that chapters can't be pure author's notes (something we all ignore constantly), I'm adding in the next scene in Corinthians. It's unfinished, but it's part of the story, so if you try to get this one removed and have the gall to send me a guest review that I can't reply to, take your business elsewhere. I'm just trying to wrap up my story and be a fair fic author.

Have some sad Sasha backstory. Go wild.

Valya walked back from the gym, her clothes soaked with sweat and more than a few bruises beginning to form on her knuckles. She was always shit at wrapping her own hands and couldn't be bothered to find any gloves, but after a morning of one father finding her on top of another human sans clothing and another father glaring at her throughout a team briefing, she really needed to punch something. Unfortunately, Dimitri Belikov's face was not available and she had to settle for the punching bag in a shadowy corner of the gym. She could tell that a few of the trainees were staring at her during her full-throttle session, but she didn't care. If word got back to any of her dads, even better.

Except Adam, she liked Adam.

"Valentina."

Valya stopped a few feet shy of Dimitri, who was dressed in clothes that were one size too small, likely from the stores in the lowest supply level.

"Cowboy," she replied. She could hear a sharp intake of breath from Dimitri. "Where are you heading?"

"I was looking for you," he said. Somehow, the clothes, no matter how ill-fitting, made him seem even more imposing than before. It was laughable seeing him in the uniform of Corinth, but Valya realized that if he'd trained here, he would have rivaled her mother as their strongest warrior.

"I have somewhere to be," Valya said. She averted her gaze to the wall and began walking. "Keep up if you want to chat."

Dimitri fell into step beside her. "Do you live in Cadet Amin's unit?"

She rolled her eyes, stuffing her hands in her pockets in favour of answering.

"He seems to be a nice boy."

Now she snorted, a snort that turned into raucous laughter. "You hate him, don't deny it." Then, under her breath, "You wouldn't be the first one."

He didn't answer and picked a spot on the wall ahead of them to stare at.

"Well, if you're really sure, you can come with me to pick him up for dinner." Valya chose her own spot on the wall to stare at. "I have to swing by where he works."

Dimitri smiled to himself. "Alright."

The school was in a small section of Corinth through a hallway off of the main living space. For all it was worth, it did look like a school, with different boxcars painted with the name of their classes and the teachers that worked there; bright blue boxes with daisies on the side and midnight black boxes covered in messy depictions of the planets painted with a child's hand filled the space. On the first level there were classrooms for the younger members of Corinth, then as the units were stacked higher, the students were older.

Valya glanced at her watch and then at Dimitri. 8pm. School had gotten out hours ago and children who were orphans or whose parents were on the night shift would be in the back in a warm orange unit painted to look like the sun.

She grabbed Dimitri by the wrist and led him between rows of classrooms. He was warm to the touch, but still he stiffened under her grip. She could feel it, that buzzing inside him telling him to react and the willpower it took to push that feeling down; she felt it everyday.

What odd creatures they were, the Belikovs.

"Russian?" The word fell out of Dimitri's mouth as they passed a classroom covered in Cyrillic.

"Yeah, it's required," Valya replied. "That or French, and who the fuck wants to take French?"

Dimitri smiled for a moment and Valya had to convince herself she'd seen it. They reached the open door of the classroom and she dropped his wrist, indicating that he should wait as she went inside.

"Valya!" A flash of red hair launched itself at her, giggling wildly.

"Saskia!" Valya said, imitating the girl's enthusiastic tone of voice. "How are you?"

"Good!" Saskia brushed long, copper curls out of her face. She was barely four feet tall and on the cusp of turning eight years old. In a flash, she took Valya's hand and tugged her further into the classroom. "We've missed you."

"I was on a mission, malyshka." She squeezed Saskia's hand. "Is Sanya here?"

Saskia nodded vigorously. "Sanya's not been answering any of my questions about you. He's not very helpful."

"Saskia!"

"I'm not wrong." She shrugged. "He had us make paper lanterns for a whole hour and wouldn't say where you were. I was dying."

Valya kneeled down to be on eye-level with Saskia and brushed a strand of hair out of her face, smiling warmly. "Well I'm here now."

Saskia led Valya to the far corner of the classroom, which was covered in various art supplies. Paint was precious, so the children often worked with other things like paper, cardboard, fabric, and metal and there, in the middle of the mess, was Sasha Amin covered almost entirely in feathers.

"Sanya!" Saskia called, drawing out her vowels.

Sasha's head whipped up from where he was helping a boy twist wire on a sculpture. Feathers floated into the air. "Valechka."

Valya plucked a feather from his hair. "I like the feathers. It's a good look on you."

He broke into a smile. "Come to help me herd cats?"

"Something like that." She sat next to him and brushed feathers from his face before placing a peck on his cheek. Valya gestured with her thumb towards the door. "I have an unfortunate tag-along."

Sasha glanced at the doorway, where Dimitri was leaning against the frame, observing the chaos that reigned in the art room. Valya was unsure if he felt out of place more than he had in other situations at Corinth; there was something about his quiet, composed stare that said he didn't mind a bit of chaos now and then, he might even miss it.

Did he have any children of his own? She wondered.

"Has he come to help me get twelve wriggly kids to express themselves through art? Because if so, tell him to grab a chair and get Aaron Teller to stop putting glue in Nicola's hair." Sasha organized a stack of papers on the nearby desk. "God, I don't think this place has been cleaned in weeks. Let me add that to the growing list of things I have to do."

"You worry too much." She smiled and stole another quick kiss. "I'll put him to work, if that's what you want."

"Definitely," Sasha replied. He gestured to Dimitri and waved him in.

"Sanya," Saskia whined. She clamored into Sasha's lap. "I finished cutting up the paper. What do I need to do next?"

"Sanya?" Dimitri muttered to Valya out of the corner of his mouth.

"Saskia's a fan of nicknames," she clarified. "They found her in a house that had been hit by Strigoi, only two years old and babbling in Russian about this or that." She paused. "Actually, I think it was Sasha's team that found her. It was one of our local training missions."

Dimitri clasped his hands behind his back. "He is very good with children, your boy-"

"Don't," Valya interrupted. She absentmindedly played with a feather on the ground. "Don't call him that."

Silence stretched between them as they watched Sasha guide Saskia's hands to complete the art project. He was patient and kind, a model citizen in anyone's eyes.

"He doesn't have to be here anymore, you know," Valya said. Her eyes felt strained, red. She blinked away tears that were threatening to form. "They gave him community service for it, but he finished up those hours months ago."

Dimitri remained silent, but Valya could feel him shift next to her, something in him moving, permeating their conversation. After a calculated moment, he asked, "What did Aleksandr do?"

She sighed, exhausted and fiddling with the edge of her shirt sleeve. "Sasha's not like the rest of us, you know? He wasn't born into this, he didn't choose it. Sometimes that's hard on him. He likes choice, freedom." Valya paused for a moment. "So when he finally got his arrival file out of Hollis's cold, dead hands he knew what he had to do."

Her hands began shaking. She wasn't there to witness it, not even close, but something terrible invaded her thoughts any time she thought of this story. No mission could even come close to the idea that someone she loved could do something so terrible; not even her nightmares of Rokin came close.

"He tracked him, and you're not supposed to do that here," Valya continued. Her voice wavered slightly. "No secret missions, no private vendettas. Everything we do is for the benefit of the community; there's no room to pull punches in the dark. He made sure to find his way onto a mission that was heading to New York. I don't know how he did it, he still won't tell me."

She paused for a moment, the sureness of Sasha's fingers as he folded paper, the brightness of Saskia's curls catching her eye. So quiet, so pure.

"They found the guy's body the next morning, Sasha's hands covered in blood. Only, it wasn't the right man, this guy was human. Working with a blood-running syndicate of Strigoi, but still human." Valya tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze trained downwards. "He came back in handcuffs. I'd never been so terrified."

A minute passed as Valya let out a frustrated breath, attempting to find the right words. Dimitri put his hand on her shoulder. She sat there for a moment then, ever so slowly, she laid her hand on top of his.

"I don't know why I told you that." She laughed humorlessly, her voice just above a whisper. "It's been almost two years; I've never told anyone, everyone here just knows. We don't talk about it, but we know. The way people look at him... like he's a monster."

"We all do what it takes to quiet the demons," Dimitri said, his voice a low rumble. "We are not the sum of our actions."

Valya leaned her head against his arm. "I hope so."

Dimitri looked down at her and for a quick moment, a gaze of understanding passed between them, then, a flicker of recognition surfaced in his eyes. He knew her, Valya thought, somehow. Maybe he was seeing her mother, whole and alive, flesh and blood.

"I know so."

A childish squeal pierced the air and shook both of them from their reverie.

"Valechka!" Saskia sat with paper stuck to her hands, looking quite distressed.

Valya chuckled to herself. "Duty calls."

She stood and knelt next to where Saskia was working, gently pulling the paper from the little girl's fingertips. "Next time, don't glue things to your hands, solnyshka."

"That's what I've been telling her, but she never listens." Sasha ruffled Saskia's hair as he picked up pieces of scrap paper off of the floor.

"Sanya!" shouted Saskia indignantly. "I was just doing what you told me to!"

Sasha shook his head and continued on to the next table, cleaning as he went.

"Don't listen to anything he says," Valya whispered to Saskia with a small smile. She arranged Saskia's art project on the table. "He likes to make you crazy."

Saskia frowned. "That's mean."

"That's life, solnyshka," Valya said. She locked eyes with Sasha from across the room as he was being pestered by a young boy with dark hair. He mouthed 'I love you' and broke out into a grin. "For better or for worse."