#ooc1 pretend the picture is a little bit more old fashioned

[ravkanfoxprince]

The smell of oil and and metal in the air, the clinking of adamant materials meeting each other and the hard floor under his back, Nikolai was half hidden under the newest of his experiments, working on putting it together piece by piece, fixing miscalculations. And he was doing so in his old-new space; with some Fabrikator help he restored the old unused stables and turned it into a private workshop, where he could tinker away as his heart desired without interrupting the poor Fabrikators in their workshop and without endangering anyone but himself if something went wrong.

It felt great, working with his hands, fixing things, fixing problems he had an idea of how to fix it. He had to agree to David, sometimes machines were easier to understand than people.

The conference with the cabinet wasn't entirely unsuccessful. The punishment for discrimination and persecution towards Grisha have been severly sharpened, and given the new threat that targeted them, they were offered to be trained at the Little Palace without the expectation to join the Second Army, just for the sake of their own protection. Ravka couldn't afford offering higher pay for Second (or First, for that matter) Army soldiers, not for all, so those who volunteered to guard the entries to the bigger towns would receive an extra fee. For as long as the threat of being captured for the new experiements wasn't erased, he made the suggestion that everyone who entered a new town must be written up by those guarding the gates, since everyone could be a potential danger. It was just a suggestion he wasn't sure if it was out of proportion.

And he put his mind to join the guards, traveling from town to town and contributing his share on increasing the people's safety. As Nikolai didn't feel much at home at the Palace in the moment, his absence wouldn't make a big difference and he was of more use in the front line. He certainly wouldn't progress in finding more experiment hot spots from keeping his ass on palace grounds either.

All of these things were waiting to be signed on Zoya's desk. Of course, even though he made the negotations, she was the queen and so it needed her agreement and signature to become effective.

Saints, he missed her. Being at the same place physically, being able to work together because they had to function, while simultaneously having rift between them the old Fold paled against was the worst. All he wanted to do was to walk up to her, to talk to her, really talk to her and make things even, but her anger (and fear?) made it a difficult approach. That, and the fact he didn't want to lie to her even more than he had already done. He was absolutely certain that Zoya's (and likely Genya's) unmoving stance on the situation, the goal, would be to get rid of Aleksander. And Nikolai wasn't sure if he wanted that. Sure he could think of plenty of other, less awkward and limited ways to have someone's company, than having a disembodied presence slipping into existence and ghosting out of it whenever the link let it happen. But getting rid of the person, however controversial they were, didn't sit well with him. Not anymore.

Something dripping down close to his eye let him snap out of his thoughts, recognizing that he'd been zoning out with a tube in one and a wrench in the other hand, about to check why the oil didn't go from one point to the other smoothly. With a laugh at himself, he put the tube back into the connection to keep more oil from running out and slid out from underneath the flying ship, grabbing his water flask.

Maybe being away from the Palace would be good for him. For all of them, at least for a while. The re-occuring thought that had also led him away to Caryeva a few weeks ago, solidified with each passing day.