Disclaimer: I don't own the Grisha Trilogy and its characters – it belongs to Leigh Bardugo. I do not own the Shadow & Bone TV series, which was developed by Eric Heisserer for Netflix and based on Leigh Bardugo's books. Any recognisable dialogue is from the books or TV show – some lines may be included verbatim, others in an amended form.

The Morozov Foundation

Alina wakes at 5am.

A dozen times, she almost talks herself out of meeting Morozov.

In the end, though, she boards a bus and takes deep breaths to calm her racing heart.

This is just a meeting. She's simply curious and she wants to resolve all the questions Morozov's words have stirred up inside her so that she can stop feeling so wretchedly confused all the time.

It's not an endorsement or support, although she hasn't told the Apparat where she'll be because she doesn't think he'd understand.

She takes more deep breaths. This is fine. She can do this.

The Morozov Foundation doesn't look like other charity headquarters she's seen – a floor of a tower block or neat, uniform office buildings in the city – but just like a small private estate.

Grisha Avenue is a long street, but there are only about six properties on it.

The Morozov Foundation is made up of one large house and half a dozen side buildings. The driveway is huge, with eight cars parked on it and space for many more. As she walks towards the entrance, she spots a large lawn behind the house where a group of children are playing.

She watches the children for a minute, a little envious of their laughter and friendly jostling. At the Duke of Keramsov's home, here had never been other children to play with during the rare times she wasn't in singing lessons or at an event, and the staff had always scolded her if she made too much noise while she was playing.

"Good morning, Miss Starkova."

Alina jumps as she realises Morozov has come outside to meet her.

"You … you can call me Alina, I guess," she mutters, half-reluctant.

He smiles a little teasingly, "Alina, then. And you may as well call me Aleksander or Sasha."

She nods, feeling awkward and unsure and very out of place.

As if sensing her unease, Morozov gestures inside, "come on, Alina, I'll give you a tour."

"What is this place?" she asks as she follows him into what appears to be the reception, where an older woman waves cheerfully at Alina and tells Morozov that she's been baking before handing him a stack of three brownies she's saved for him.

His eyes light up and it's funny, she thinks, to learn something about Morozov that has nothing to do with his political views. The man clearly has a sweet tooth, demolishing two of the brownies in record time before giving the other to Alina (it's delicious, gooey and full of chocolate chips).

"Once," Morozov tells her, "this was my family's Os Alta estate. I still live here," he points out of the window and to one of the side buildings, a small but pretty sort of cottage, "but it's far too big for one man. I sold some of my family's other properties and refurbished this place so that I could help people."

"Help people?"

He laughs wryly, "denouncing corrupt monarchies and self-serving politicians isn't all I do, you know."

Alina's cheeks flush with embarrassment, but he seems amused rather than offended.

"I didn't mean –"

"Don't worry about it," he waves her apology away, "and we do a lot of different things to help people. Come on, I'll show you."

The whole place buzzes with activity and energy and Alina is amazed at everything that Morozov shows her.

There are so many different classes throughout the week. Today there's painting, pottery, IT Skills for Work, Ravkan as a Second Language, and Mathematics. On other days there are different adult education courses, budgeting and money management classes, poetry, a number of art classes, various music lessons, dance, sports and more.

There's a few rooms devoted to assisting people with job applications and practice interviews. One of the rooms is filled with donated work attire to help out those who might not have a suitable outfit.

"We offer childcare for babies, toddlers and children up to fourteen as well," Morozov tells her, "so that their parents can go to work or even just have a few hours to run errands or take a class. We try and organise trips for the older ones as well, to theme parks or theatres, and we run short holidays to the Balakirev dacha I inherited from my family."

One of the side buildings is a small free clinic, and another has a few rooms for one-on-one or group therapy sessions.

"A group comes in once a week for animal therapy, and we sometimes have petting zoos visit."

Alina asks a few questions, but she's a little taken aback, having never seen anything quite like this.

She's visited many charities with the Apparat, but it's always been office headquarters and never anywhere that let her see the practical help the charity might offer.

She remembers being in the orphanage, before the Apparat found her, and how drab and dreary it was. Hand me down clothes and toys, and day trips only to the local park. There was never anything available like the Morozov Foundation.

"Do … do you get orphans or foster kids here?" she asks quietly.

Morozov's eyes shine with sympathy. She thinks he must know her background, since the Apparat likes to emphasise in interviews how good it was of him and the Duke of Keramsov to whisk her away from depressing state-sponsored care to a life of luxury.

"We have connections with Os Alta social services, and they often send their kids here for activities or trips. We fundraise for them as well, especially at Christmas – social services try their best, but budget cuts have been hell on them."

Alina can't meet his eye. She remembers seeing the current Prime Minister, an old friend of the Apparat's, at an event she was performing at. He'd been grinning with some of his cronies about cleverly diverting spending from social welfare funds to contracts for some of his friends. Alina hadn't really understood what he meant, at the time, although she realises now, after a deep dive through Morozov's videos, that it's awful. Still, even back then, it had made her uncomfortable. She'd never told anyone, especially the Apparat, that she hadn't voted for the man at the next election – he'd won anyway, but her small rebellion made her feel a little better about herself.

"Come on," Morozov's voice drags her out of her thoughts, "some of the younger kids have a painting class right now, if you want to help out. Gen says you like art."

"I drew a lot in the … in the orphanage I was in before I moved to the Duke of Keramsov's home. Paper and pencils were cheap, so the matron didn't mind me using them. I took painting lessons at the Duke's home for a while, but singing took up a lot of my time and I haven't been able to do it as much as I want to."

"Well, these kids are always happy to have someone new join them. It can get pretty messy, but it's always a lot of fun."

"Yes, I'd like that," Alina gives him a shy smile.

The room is a riot of colour, almost every inch of the walls plastered with different paintings. Some nothing more than handprints or smears of colour, others the typical family groups or funny-looking animals, and a few by older children who clearly have artistic talent.

This particular class seems to be for children up to about six or seven. They're giggling and laughing as they dip brushes, cotton-wool balls and their own hands and fingers into trays of paint.

"Sasha!" they let out a universal cry and rush over, nearly mobbing him with paint-stained hands. While most of the adults Alina knows would cringe away from such a mess, Aleksander seems unbothered.

"I wear a lot of black," he shrugs in response to her questioning glance, "and we use paint that washes out of clothes really easily, since we have so many kids involved."

"This is Alina," he tells them all, "she likes to paint too. Why don't you all find her a seat and show her what you've been working on."

Half a dozen hands reach out to grasp Alina's and she ends up sitting in the middle of a serious little girl of about five years old, who paints with the delicate brushstrokes of someone much older, and a rambunctious boy of seven whose sole goal appears to be getting as much paint on himself as on the paper in front of him.

"What shall I paint?" she asks the table at large.

She gets a dozen answers, and settles on a map of fairyland, since she's always had an interest in cartography. The children help further with suggestions for places on the map – including lots of castles, a smelly bog, a big maze, a mountain housing a dragon, and a forest full of fairies.

It's fun in a way she hasn't experienced in a very long time.

No worries about practicing scales and songs. No need to make sure her appearance is proper and demure. No feeling of the Apparat looking over her shoulder, either in person or through tracking what she's reading or watching or visiting.

It warms her heart, seeing the children smile and laugh and chatter enthusiastically. And Aleksander is so good with them, friendly and approachable and never treating them like they're a nuisance.

At the end of the session, Aleksander carefully lays the paintings out on a long table to dry, promising the children that they'll be able to take them home later on or, if they would prefer, hang them up somewhere in the house.

"You've got quite a talent there, Alina," he smiles at her Fairyland map.

"Oh, I'm out of practice."

"It's very imaginative and well done. And you enjoyed doing it, didn't you?"

"Yes," she agrees with a smile.

"That's what matters, really."

"I guess I'm not really used to doing things for fun," Alina admits, only to freeze when she realises she's giving personal information to Morozov of all people.

He takes it in his stride, though, and doesn't look at her with pity or derision.

"Do you want to see more?" he asks.

"I'd like that."

They pass a room where teenagers and university students are painting large poster boards and signs.

"There are a few different protests and marches coming up," Aleksander tells her.

The Apparat had always told Alina that protests were filled with rabble rousers and criminal behaviour. He made protestors sound like thugs taking any excuse to cause problems. The group here, though, don't seem anything like that.

"Is the minimum wage really that low?" she asks, frowning at one of the signs she can see, "and I thought the government had promised to clean up the Os Kervo beaches."

"Politicians have a tendency to bend the truth," Aleksander tells her, "or to simply lie. They're not all bad, but the ones in power at the moment are a bunch of self-serving, greedy, classist, racist, sexist bastards … if you'll pardon my language."

Alina blinks, a little wide-eyed. She remembers how passionately and vehemently he'd spoken the night she'd first seen him, but she's still not used to his level of frankness.

"I can lend you some books, if you want," he suggests, "feel free to refuse, but you seem like a bright girl, Alina, if a little … sheltered. And you might find your views rather skewed if you're only basing them on the Apparat's teachings."

Her instinctive reaction is to be defensive, but she manages to stop herself before she says something rude. After all, she came here because she had questions and she wanted answers.

"Yes, thank you. And I … I had some questions, if that's alright."

"Of course, Alina."

It's the one of the most eye-opening three hours of Alina's life.

Aleksander is intense and tenacious when it comes to defending his beliefs, but he never intentionally insults her, and he isn't rude or derisive when he talks to her.

Unlike the Apparat, who declares his viewpoint and expects it to be believed without question, Aleksander can show her facts and studies that support what he says.

At first, she's somewhat shellshocked. After that, she finds herself angry.

"But why would the Prime Minister say that if it isn't true?"

"Did the old tsar's parties really cost that much?"

"Aren't you supposed to go to prison or get fined for tax evasion?"

"That … that's just cruel."

"Why won't they give aid?"

"I don't understand how they could do that?"

At one point, she bursts into embarrassingly noisy tears and doesn't stop sobbing for fifteen minutes.

"Deep breaths, Alina," Aleksander murmurs, squeezing her hands gently for reassurance.

"I don't … I'm not … I just … it's a lot … and they … and I …"

"Keep breathing, in and out. You don't need to explain yourself to me, Alina. I understand that this has been very overwhelming for you, and you've taken onboard a lot of information in a very short amount of time. It's not an easy thing to do."

"But I feel so stupid," she wails, "it seems … it seems so obvious now. And I just believed the Apparat without question, even when things felt off."

"You're allowed to make mistakes, Alina. And you've grown up in an environment that hasn't really given you the opportunity to seek out other viewpoints until now. Lots of people would just shut their eyes and cover their ears, but you've researched and opened your mind and educated yourself. You should be so proud of yourself, Alina."

"But I haven't done anything, really. I've just stopped being such a naïve idiot. You … you've made this place, doing all this good work."

Aleksander laughs, "oh, I wasn't always like this, you know. I was a privileged, snobby teenager who thought a lot of the same things that the Apparat does. And then I had a lecturer my first year of uni who made me really think for the first time. I hated him at first, until I actually read some of the texts he recommended and did my research and realised just how right he was. After that, I just couldn't stop. I saw the problems everywhere and I felt compelled to try and help in whatever way I could."

"Like the Morozov Foundation?"

"No, that came later on. When I was in uni, and right after, I went all over the place. Protesting, giving speeches, graffiti. I spent a fair amount of time in police stations, although I never actually got a jail sentence. There's a reason I can't host meetings on university property, even if it's largely students who attend my talks.

"Oh, that … that must have been …"

It's a lot, to hear how often Aleksander has been arrested for protesting. Instinctively, she thinks of the derisive way the Apparat has always spoken of hooligan protestors, but it doesn't match up with her image of Aleksander and all the good he's doing at the Foundation.

"Social justice issues are divisive topics," he tells her, "and sometimes you have to shout loudly and protest in ways people might not approve of in order to get your message across. It might seem like unprovoked vandalism, but in genuine protests, there's always a reason."

"It's funny really," he sighs, "they call me a radical, like it's some shocking, disturbing thing to want universal healthcare and support for the most vulnerable in society, or to think no one should be a billionaire because who needs that much money?"

And Alina supposes he has a point. When she first heard him speak, with a viewpoint so completely different to the one she had grown up with, she had thought him just that. A scary radical spouting dangerous nonsense. After all her research, though, and her time at the Morozov Foundation today, Alina is starting to realise that a different point of view doesn't mean a bad one. After all, what can be so bad about caring for everyone in society, and how can billionaires justify having so much when people all over the world are starving or homeless or in need?

Maybe it should alarm her how quickly her viewpoint has shifted, but the truth is that Alina never really thought much about these issues before Aleksander.

She listened to the Apparat and saw no reason to disbelieve him. She parroted his views with naïve confidence.

And now she sees how foolish she was, and the sort of man she had put her trust in.

Now, she knows she can't ever go back to the way she was. She isn't the same woman she was before she met Aleksander.

"This is one indulgence of mine," Aleksander admits as they walk across the grounds, "my family have bred horses for centuries, and I've kept up the tradition. There are a few paddocks attached to this place that are used for horse therapy, but when they're not using it, I like to go out and ride. Most of the horses are in a stable nearby, but this one is for my own horses."

He opens the stable door and she sees how relaxed and happy he is when he greets the two horses with affectionate pats and sugar lumps.

"Alina, this is Volcra," he points to a massive black stallion who looks ready to ride into battle, "and this," he gestures to a pretty golden mare, "is Sol."

"They're beautiful," Alina reaches out tentatively to stroke Sol.

"Do you want to go for a ride?"

"Oh, I … I've never ridden a horse before."

"I'll help you. I promise I've had plenty of practice – I assist with some of the children's lessons every now and then."

Years ago, tiny Alina had dreamed of horse-riding lessons.

The expensive boarding school she had attended as a ward of the Duke of Keramsov had been full of girls with horses of their own, many of them competing in competitions. The Apparat, however, had insisted that Alina had to focus on her singing, to the exclusion of every other possibly hobby.

"That would be fun," she says, trying to seem calm but probably betraying her excitement, if the smile on Aleksander's face is anything to go by.

They spend some more time with the horses so that Alina and Sol can get to know each other. She's a friendly horse, helping Alina's nerves to calm.

Aleksander finds some boots in the right size for her, and shows her how to mount a horse and the best way to hold the reins and direct Sol.

"She's used to new riders," he tells her, "she sometimes helps out with the youngest kids who haven't ridden before, since she has such a calm temperament. Quite unlike my Volcra, who can be somewhat tempestuous."

It is clear, though, that Volcra trusts Aleksander absolutely. The two of them seem to communicate without words, on a level Alina can't hope to understand. It's sweet, to see the man she'd once found so intimidating coo at his horse and feed him more sugar lumps and some apple slices.

The paddocks are empty as they ride around for almost an hour.

To begin with, Alina gets used to riding and to directing Sol. After that, Aleksander encourages her to just have fun.

There's a moment, once she's a little more comfortable, that Alina throws her arms out, the wind whipping through her hair and her face tilted up towards the sun.

It's probably not the most sensible thing for a first-time rider to do, but the temptation is too much, Sol is a sweet-tempered horse and they're barely trotting at this point.

She's never felt quite so free in her life, like she could do anything she wanted if she only put her mind to it.

When she glances over at Aleksander, he's watching her with a soft expression and a fond smile. She's suddenly struck by how handsome he is, with windswept hair and a wide smile, and she has to look away to calm her racing heart.

"I can see how horse therapy works," she says a few minutes later as Sol comes to a halt next to Volcra.

She's rarely felt as calm in her life as she does now. There's something amazing about riding out in the fresh air that lets her forget all her worries.

"They're wonderful," Aleksander agrees, stroking Volcra.

The two horses seem disinclined to move on just yet, rubbing noses and whinnying.

Alina laughs, "they're having a conversation!"

Aleksander nods, "they're always doing that. I think there might be a foal or two next spring."

He leaps down from Volcra's back with ease and then offers a hand to help her down, "come on, these two can have a little more exercise in the paddock for the moment. I'll walk you back to the house."

Being back on the ground seems to make Alina feel awkward all over again. The confidence she'd had while riding Sol remains somewhat, but she's once again overwhelmed by everything that she's learnt recently.

To her horror, she feels tears beginning to well, and she hastily swipes them away. To his credit, Aleksander politely looks away while she gets herself under control, clearly understanding that she doesn't want him to mention it.

It's silly, really. It's been a wonderful day, after all. But she supposes it's been hard too, having her whole worldview well and truly upended.

"The tsar turned up outside my class a few days ago," she admits quietly as they walk, looking for something to say to break the awkward silence, "he says it was just a spur of the moment visit on his way to a meeting, but he … there were so many people and reporters around, and he was … he acted strangely. I didn't like it."

Aleksander frowns, "did he make you feel uncomfortable?"

"He … he's always been my friend, sort of, but it was very public and I just think … it seems like he was trying to suggest something to people that isn't true."

"The monarchy is a divisive institution, Alina. Gone are the days when they were seen almost as gods, or at least with a divine right to rule. It's a nice tourist attraction, but a lot of money spent for a small group who don't really do much at all. We've got an elected Prime Minister, after all, however much of a self-serving bastard the current one might be, so why do we need such an expensive figurehead? Nikolai Lantsov knows that the monarchy has suffered setbacks recently, and he's looking to do whatever he has to in order to increase its popularity – a supposed love story with you would certainly do the trick."

"No, he's not … he wouldn't … he wouldn't do that."

She means it to be a statement, but it comes out more as a question.

"You know him in a way I don't, Alina," Aleksander says gently, "but just be wary, if he should make more … obvious overtures towards you."

They reach the front door, the natural ending of their day together.

"Thank you," she tells him, truly meaning it, "you gave me so much of your time when I know you must be really busy."

"It was a pleasure, truly. I'll give Gen those books I mentioned earlier so that you can read them."

Alina nods, not quite sure how to say goodbye.

Part of her doesn't want to leave, especially not knowing when, or even if, she'll see Aleksander again.

"I …" she trails off.

"Feel free to message me if you have any questions," he says, "or you could … you're welcome to come and visit this place if you want. I'm here most days."

"Yes," she nods, "I might do that."

"Great … good … great," he reaches out and pats her shoulder, "it was nice to see you, Alina. I'm pleased you got to look around at what we've built here."

She smiles at him, "I'm glad too."

As Alina is walking out of the driveway and towards the bus stop, her phone pings with a notification.

A reminder that the Sankt Nikolai Foundation fundraiser is coming up in a few days.

And what, she wonders, is she going to do about that?

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.

You can find me on Twitter under the username Keira_63. I pretty much just post mini prompt fics.