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ricardian-werewolf · 6 months ago

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Chapter 3: Some Corner of Ravka

Flashback chapter, baby! So much pain, but also sweetness!

Thank you to @lordbettany for mentioning I should write a Nikolai/Dominik one shot. This turned into quite something.

Ao3 link

Summary:

A flashback chapter to Nikolai and Dominik at Halmhend, and how the First Army became so devoted to their fox prince. Trigger warnings for ww1 style violence, blood, gore, and other horrors.

Chapter below the cut

Halmhend, 3 years earlier.

Halmhend was a massacre. Blood and smoke, its poisoned stench, filled Nikolai’s lungs as he walked across the field. His respirator, fogged up with his breaths, made him look like a nightmare. In the skirmish with Fjerda’s troops and their new machinery, they’d deployed shells filled with gas that blinded and corroded lungs.

Somewhere in this hell, Dominik lay. Nikolai found his fingers sliding to the prayer beads at his waist, knotted tight to his undershirt’s button loops. He fished for the one he’d added himself - Sankt Nikolai’s icon - reindeer antlers with a borough of food. Wordlessly, he prayed.

Not to any god or Saint, for those fiends had long since fled these men’s minds. But no, he prayed to some higher, older power. It was in this mindset, as his feet slid on the muddied duckboards and the roar of the guns pounding over his head, that he implored the fates to spare Dominik.

Bodies fell over living or dead, friend or foe alike. Dimly, he could hear a Fjerdan soldier crying out for water. But he didn’t start towards that man. Mercy had fled Nikolai’s mind alongside his sanity and hope. As he walked, rifle clutched in his muddy hands, his mind was devoid of all conscious and active thought.

The generals would have their aides write up after-action reports, lists of the dead would be shipped home in rattling, worn horse-drawn carts. Another sheet of names would be pasted in city and village squares. More homes would take up the black armbands and mourning wear, with the clocks inside stopped. The windows would be draped over with black fabric and the house shut up tight. All to ward off malevolent spirits.

Nikolai wondered numbly if the palace would do much the same when he fell. Would Ravka mourn their second son, or would the mummeries be merely a day and then let normality creep in like a late evening fog? He hoped someone would remember to keep his grave clean, to plant flowers from the hothouses he’d tended to in the fertile earth. Maybe some of the servants would leave stones or offerings of food in thanks for his kindness and service.

Then again, mayhaps not. He was surely beloved, but he deserved a soldier’s death. Dominik-

No. Do not think of Dominik dead. It��ll only make that come to pass.

Nikolai’s feet quickened, and he felt the mud grip tighter to his boots and puttees as he strode once more into the murk. The air was clearer now, so his fingers yanked up his respirator and he breathed in a gulp of dirty, filthy air. The mask made his face glisten with sweat, and the feeling of it was awful.

”Dominik?” He croaked weakly. Nikolai turned to searching blindly amongst the mud and khaki for those familiar deep brown curls he’d so often fisted his fingers into. Amongst a crowd of dead Fjerdans, Nikolai spotted Dominik.

Lying halfway down a slit trench filled with the dead of both sides, Dominik’s face was sickly pale. Yet, his mouth blossomed red with blood, like poppies in a snowy field. A flash in the dark, then gone.

“Dominik.” Nikolai croaked, stuffing his respirator away. He struggled through the mud towards him, then slipped down into the slit trench. Dominik stirred at the sound of his name and looked up.

His eyes, those dark, doe-like eyes, widened. “Nikolai.” He wheezed, reaching for Nikolai’s hands. Nikolai’s legs buckled under him and he fell hard on Dominik’s left side, mud splattering his face and chest.

“Where?”

”Bullet to the lung..” Dominik coughed.

Nikolai looked up wildly out to the battlefield. Lines of trenches they were supposed to take lay empty as the Fjerdans retreated in victory, having smashed the 22nd to matchstick shards. Accounting for the wounded alone, the total fatality rate was somewhere around eighty percent.

”Medik!”

But his call came unheard. Too many dead to tag, too many wounded to treat. Nikolai turned back to Dominik. Whipping off his helmet, Nikolai pulled out his canteen and handkerchief. Filling the bowl with tepid water, he dipped the handkerchief into the water and wiped off Dominik’s face.

”There, that's better?”

”Thanks, Kolya.” Dominik wheezed. The wound was oozing too much blood. Nikolai’s fingers twitched instinctively, and he leaned forward. Pulling off his black calfskin-leather gloves, he pressed both hands over the wounds.

”Nikolai, what’re you doing?” Dominik breathed, gasping faster as Nikolai closed his eyes. Something within him was changing, something dark and powerful was surging through Nikolai. A darkness that shouldn’t be possible to any Grisha who practiced the small science.

”No, Nikolai!” Dominik cried, grabbing Nikolai’s sleeve. “Y-you can’t do this!”

“I can!” Nikolai snapped, his eyes opening to show his dilated pupils. Dominik could feel Nikolai’s hands shaking as he applied more pressure.

“This goes against everything we’ve been taught! Please, love, please…”

“There is a price that some men pay in blood, Dominik. I am not letting you pay that. You have a family. I-“ Nikolai broke off to weep, cursing under his breath as the bullet refused to budge. “What in the fucking hell did the Fjerdans put in these bullets?”

“Grisha steel.” Dominik hissed. “I tried to alter the chemical compounds but…”

“They’re using Grisha. Of course.” Nikolai’s low growl turned into a feral snarl. The balance of power tipped inside him and he felt the merzost he needed desperately, finally breaking out. Dominik’s eyes widened in further horror as he recognized that darkness flowing out of Nikolai and into him.

However, that darkness was benevolent, soothing. It melted the bullet, reformed the veins in his ruined body and did something to them. Something that made him more than human. He wasn’t entirely certain what Nikolai did, but the merzost’s toll was certainly there.

For as Nikolai finally finished pouring all of that energy into him, he curled in on himself and sobbed. The fox-bone amplifier he wore at his wrist cracked in two, and fell into the mud. Dominik went to reach for it, but Nikolai held him back.

Looking down, Dominik gasped. Black talons covered Nikolai’s perfectly manicured fingernails, and where Nikolai’s powers had once been warmth, now only cold darkness remained.

”The curse…” Dominik breathed, touching his fingers to Nikolai’s cheeks. Nikolai nodded mutely, falling against Dominik in exhaustion. The power of bringing Dominik back from the dead had brought him to the brink of collapse. Now, the two of them were stranded in No-man’s land, miles from the Ravkan lines.

“We need to get out of here, Kolya.”

”Too tired.” Nikolai whined, burrowing into Dominik’s chest. Tears poured down his face and he fisted his fingers into Dominik’s tunic. Beginning to weep, he cupped Dominik’s face in his hands and kissed him repeatedly till Dominik’s lips were swollen and Nikolai was breathless.

”I want to go home.” He murmured, sounding so childlike that Dominik’s heart broke in two. “With you, to that grotto we found in the palace gardens no one goes to.”

“Where we had our first kiss.” Dominik grinned. “After your name day party, when everyone else was wildly drunk on kvas and we were… 16?”

”Fourteen.” Nikolai corrected, a smile cracking his grayed and muddied face. “It was so warm that summer… remember?”

”Of course.” Dominik smiled, touching Nikolai’s cheek again. Blood leaked from a wound in Nikoliai’s temple, a mere scratch compared to the tissues healing under Dominik’s tunic. He sighed, shifted his weight up. Pain flared up, and he fell back.

”No way in the saints are you getting up, Captain.” Nikolai rose to his feet and glared back down the slit trench at the bodies of the Fjerdans lying there. He had a sudden, wild urge to grab his bayonet and entrenching tool and drive them into anyone still daring to live, but the rage passed. What followed was a surge of white-hot sickness and Nikolai soon found himself on his hands and knees, expelling his empty stomach into a shell hole. The reeking stench of dead bodies and shell-fumes made his stomach further unsettled.

“Don’t leave me here alone,” He found himself murmuring to Dominik as he picked up the boy he’d loved from when they were nine. A mishap in the schoolroom and several bruises across Dominik’s hand had cemented a friendship. Carrying the weight of his lover now, Nikolai found himself wondering what there was to life beyond this. The war between Fjerda and Ravka was eons old. Men just like him and Dominik had loved and died together, and yet… so little changed. Vasily had never tasted mud like this. It had never filled his brother’s nostrils, covered his flesh like some, reeking and putrid second skin. The sun over their heads broke through the cloud cover, casting the battlefield in a sickly yellow. Vasily would be drinking kvas in a command tent behind the lines, a cavalry officer who was never put into the line of fire. He’d never have to carry a comrade off the battlefield. While Nikolai fought for Ravka, Vasily fought for himself.

Nikolai spat out a wad of bloodied spit and flexed his fingers inside his gloves. He’d need to hide his new nails better. Dominik understood the curse that Nikolai had been born with, yet no others would. All around them, the sounds of post-battle chaos filled their ears. The men who’d been left to die in no man’s land were the first thing that Nikolai heard, and he stopped.

“I’m going to leave you with the mediks and get back out here.” He murmured, kissing the crown of Dominik’s head. “If it gets hairy, have a runner come and fetch me.”

”Alright.” Dominik murmured, touching Nikolai’s cheek with a sense of adoration. The pain of nearly dying had made his body ache, and he could barely focus on Nikolai’s face. Nikolai stroked Dominik’s cheek again, and smiled faintly.

“Rest, love.” He whispered as the hands of his fellow men thrust up from the depths of their trench to help Nikolai back to shelter. Nikolai passed Dominik onto the stretcher bearers waiting, and whistled sharply for Isaak.

Since Isaak was his batman, he came charging out from the officer’s dugout, mud in his hair and his face smeared with soot.

“Major.”

”I need bandages, a few stretcher bearers and anything else the mediks can spare.”

Isaak nodded, looking nervously at his commander. “W-what are you intending to do, sir?”

”The wounded out there… need my assistance.” Nikolai looked out to the expanse of no man’s land. His boots were caked in mud and blood; his hands were clawed monstrosities, and yet. He still willed himself forward, to help those who couldn’t help themselves. He willed himself towards the ladder of the parapet, and scaled it effortlessly. Looking out from the long-glass in his hand, he spotted no enemy positions as active.

The merzost and darkness within him stirred, pulsating and purring. It hungered for blood. Nikolai peeled off his gloves. Let the Fjerdan come with their tanks and Drüskelle. He’d be waiting.

Halmhend was a disaster in the official reports. The 22nd reported an 80% loss rate. Over half of its officers were killed in one surprise attack from the Fjerdan regular forces with combined tank units. Yet, what came after was remembered with far more fondness in the minds of the First Army Soldiers. Where before Halmhend, Nikolai’s respect had only been curated amongst his men of his company, now the entire First Army was ready to put their lives down for him. Vasily received no such honors. When the Crown Prince met his brother at Chernast that winter, Nikolai wore bandages on both arms and his hands were once more covered by scars. Vasily was clad in a fur cape and his only new scar was from an accidental knife wound. Nikolai had been shot in the lung, and torn the bullet from his own lung while still giving orders to his men. The differences between the two were at their starkest, and yet… if Vasily ever became king, his standing army would abandon him.

They followed Nikolai with a devotion bordering on saintly, and even the commanding officers - General Pensky and Vladislav, had to admit that this was unseen. Yet, the tide couldn’t be stopped. Victory after Victory fell under the 22nd, and when men fell in the fight, Nikolai moved to have their bodies brought home and buried with full honors. No matter if they were a private or a commissioned officer. The war had nearly killed the man he’d loved, and now, he swore up and down the line that he’d do better.

He vowed it with the blood of his own body, his tears and the soot of his bullets. That whispered vow to Dominik that he’d not leave him alone became a prayer in of itself by his men. For where hellfire reined and shells burst, Nikolai Lantsov was there to be the steadying hand that the chaplains couldn’t even replicate. Even after he became Sturmhond, the rumors and reverence persisted. The fox in rampart - his royal seal, became a rallying cry. A sign of honor and respect, Nikolai vowed to his men that once he was king, he’d make decisive changes for an army so often overlooked.

As the years passed, that reverence and honor brought the First Army fully under his banner. Not even his father would be able to sway them back. That honor, too, would rot like a cancer as the years passed, and with the Sun Summoner becoming part of Nikolai’s household - it seemed that Nikolai was thrice blessed.

It would be up to the Saints to see if that blessing held with what would come to pass.

#nikolai lantsov #shadow and bone #alina starkov #nikolina #dominikolai #shadow and bone fic #shadow and bone au #fic: I don’t want to set the world on fire #wyn rambles

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