#she’s my little traumatized baby gorl

[czernyss]

THE NIGHT HOURS 🫀

 → ilia lantsov 

“She was born to die, and resurrected again, the Corpse Princess with a shadow in her stead.”

 The youngest heir to the Ravkan Royal Family, Ilia Lantsov should have had all the luxuries afforded to a royal child. With her eldest brother Vasily first in line for the throne, both her and her favourite brother Nikolai were allowed to do as they pleased, to live life as they so choosed. Nikolai did as he wanted, denouncing all responsibilities, sometimes gone from the palace months at a time. In her dreams, Ilia went with him, travelling the world with nothing but adventure and adrenaline at her side. 

But fate had other plans. Ilia Lantsov, precious daughter to the Queen Consort, was born a Grisha. 

Showing signs even before she was tested, it was announced early on that the Princess was Corporalki, a Healer, and tensions soon rose over whether she would be kept in the Little Palace with the others, or stay as Princess. Little was done to quell the rumours soon spreading across the land, and it seemed the King and Queen themselves were not sure what to do with their daughter. 

All that came to an end on her 10th birthday, when Ilia escaped the confines of the palace for a stroll in the woods. There she was set upon by a horde of Drüskelle. Beaten within an inch of her life, Ilia was saved by the leader of the Second Army himself, General Kirigan, and brought back to the palace. Her limp body was presented to her parents, blood coating so much of her it was hard to tell whether she still had a face. 

That day, in the throne room surrounded by nobles and Grisha alike, Ilia Lantsov died. 

But in their grief, the Royal Family refused to believe that was their child’s fate. One storming night, the Queen arrived on the Darklings doorstep, and pleaded that he bring back her precious daughter. The General warned Tatiana of what could come of such darkness, that Ilia might never return, and if she did, she would not be the same. But the Queen did not care, and so Kirigan set about resurrecting her child.

For three days the Darkling stayed with the corpse of Ilia Lantsov, and for three days all of Ravka seemed to hold it’s breath. On the fifth day the General emerged, his clothes sweat through, blood pumping from his nose. Inside the room, shadows seemed to dance, and a foul stench pooled at the edges of what was real and what was delusion. But there in the centre, on a bed of the deepest crimson, the Princess was reborn.