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The Problem With Light
a/n i literally did not mean to write this, i was working on requests and then my mind was like ‘remember that lowkey love triangle kaz brekker x reader x darkling thing you always say you're going to write’ so yeah,, here we are :)),, two longer fics are coming!!
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Summary: Kaz changes his plans after meeting the Sun Summoner and Kirigan teeters on a line the reader isn’t sure she wants.
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Chapter One: The Conflicts of Prayer
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Narrator.
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Kaz knows a lot about patience. He knows how to bear the weight that the passage of time thrusts onto one's shoulder. He knows how to cultivate the seeds that he sews. If he wasn’t like this he’d stand no chance at one day avenging the ghost that refuses to leave him.
But Jesper is almost an hour late. Kaz has been standing in a dimly hit branch of a relatively important hallway in the Little Palace. Jesper was supposed to come while in disguise to bring Kaz his new disguise and his newly repaired cane. Kaz’s hand flexes again, wishing he could feel the detailed head of one of his few comforts beneath the broken-in leather of his gloves. A bitter part of him claims that if Jesper isn’t injured once he arrives, he’ll be injured once Kaz gets his hand on his cane.
He shifts his weight, the pain in his leg starting to take its toll. The slight relaxation disappears once he hears footsteps. Kaz turns, ignoring the ache the motion brings him. His entire body hardens, preparing for a fight. He doesn’t look like he belongs here yet and there’s nowhere to run. The person crossing his path will need to be taken care of--knocked out or something more permanent.
The person only pauses to look at him when Kaz angles himself forward in a fighting stance. He watches the person, a girl, shifts back slightly, eyes wide and defensive. She’s a mess--hair disheveled, nose slightly bleeding, and dirty kefta. Her appearance isn’t why Kaz finds himself frozen, not because of the girl’s appearance but because she’s her. Y/n l/n. The Sun Summoner.
“Sorry! I--” She almost winces, but then her eyebrows furrow together. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Kaz’s jaw locks. He could take her physically, but for all he knows she could raise her arms and blind him permanently with her light. “That’s okay,” she breathes, something in her looking a little relieved, “I’m not supposed to be here either.” Kaz watches her oddly, wondering if her trustingness is a trap in itself. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
It’s a joke. That much is clear by the gentle uptilt of her lips. It’s as if she doesn’t know she’s bleeding and looks like she just ran out of a fight. Her expression doesn’t harshen at his silence. Kaz finds himself disliking that. It’s not enough that she can summon the sun, she also has to seem like it.
He needs to say something. Jesper was supposed to be watching her and now he’s not here and she is. The plan is unraveling and if he talks she’ll stay here or reveal where she’s going to next. That’s the kind of thing he needs to salvage this.
His lips part, but he’s not sure what to say. “You’re not supposed to be here?”
She shakes her head once. “No--I’m supposed to be in personal training, but I kind of got my ass kicked in group training and my pride needs a break.” The admission leaves her sheepishly. “It’s probably for the best, becoming a Sun Summoner overnight has given me a bit of an ego.” She sighs, the sound strangely light. “Then again, I kind of need an ego for what’s wanted from me and if one bad fight is all it takes to kill it then it’s not strong enough, considering--” Kaz tenses as she cuts herself off. “Sorry, I’m rambling, we both have places to be.” Hope presses into him stiffly. She’s going to say it. “Where--where are you supposed to be?” She shifts back slightly. “Not that I have to know, but you’re not from here, and--”
Kaz steps forward, pushing through the stiffness in his leg. Y/n’s gaze drops. Kaz’s discomfort worsens, someone like her doesn’t need to know his weaknesses. “Are you here for me to pray for you?” She scratches her arm, “I-I can, but I tell everyone I pray for I don’t consider myself a Saint.”
The honesty of the comment twisted something in Kaz’s thoughts. “Yes,” he lies, partially distracted by the beginnings of a scheme. He can feel Inej’s future anger as he lies again, “I’m here for prayer.”
“I spent so long rambling,” she says in a tone that implies apology.
He nods once, wondering how someone could be that apologetic and survive. The weight of such power must strangle someone like her. That could be a good thing. Someone like her must be spiraling with all this change and sudden strength. Maybe this could be simpler than an abduction plan, a few choice words and he could convince the girl to come with him. He could get her to believe there was something she needed to do in Ketterdam. If she went there willingly, things could be much more efficient.
Inej won’t like this, and for this to work he’ll have to think of the right way to present the plan to her. He weighs his options and the details as y/n whispers words with her eyes closed and hands folded together. The words he can make out are kind. He expected that, but what he didn’t expect was the earnestness of them.
She means each part of her prayers. Kaz regrets noticing that.
“I can’t promise my prayers do anything,” she finishes, voice returning to its normal volume, “but I hope you get what you need.”
What he wants is within his grasp now that he knows what to do. “I’m sure good things are near.” It’s the most honest he’s been since her arrival.
Y/n nods once, “I should go before my reprieve costs me more than it's worth.”
He watches her disappear down the hallway. Her movements are light, calm and unweighted.
“Boss,” Jesper’s appearance is brash, “I’ve spent this entire time looking for her. She was in training like she was supposed to, took an awul blow, delivered an even meaner one, and then disappeared.”
Kaz tries to imagine the same hands that were just so neatly folded in prayer as fists. “You just missed her.” He doesn’t wait for Jesper’s reaction, he just takes his newly repaired cane back. “And we’re changing the plan.”
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Y/n.
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I tried going to Baghra. I told someone who believed my prayers meant something that I was going back to training. But then I remembered her words from last time and the shame I felt when I could not create light. I haven’t summoned light once without Kirigan’s touch.
I’m the Sun Summoner--I am the person that summons the sun by themselves. Kirigan and I aren’t the Sun Summoner together. I’m pathetic. And instead of trying to get better, I’m wandering the library because all anyone can talk about is the way Zoya punched me in the face.
Baghra picked me apart when I looked shiny. I can’t imagine the kinds of comments she’d make if she saw me with a bloody nose and dead leaves in my hair. I’ll go tomorrow, once Genya fixes both my matted hair and cracked self esteem.
For now, I have the one thing that’s always comforted me. My books. I wander the library, trying not to think of anything. Of Baghra, of Zoya, of the strange man in the hall.
He seemed weighted by something. I always wish I could do more for those that ask for my prayer, but the longing is sharper now. I don’t know him, so it’s ridiculous to want to help him so badly, but my uselessness itches beneath my skin in a way I’m not used to. I don’t know why I feel more protective about this stranger than others. I’ve had people fall to my feet weeping, begging for me to save them. That hurt me, but the desire to help this one stranger burns in a way I’ve never felt before.
“I don’t know why they don’t look for you here every time you disappear.” His voice is as soft and subtle as a shadow. “They’d save so much time.”
I fight the urge to defensively grasp the first book I can reach. “You’re making it sound like I have a habit of vanishing in order to make a point.” My defense is weak. We both know that this isn’t the first time I ran away from something here. “Sometimes absence is just that.”
“When you’ve waited for someone as long as I have, all absence is significant.” The words are not harsh but they should be. I don’t know how I could respond to that.
He steps forward easily, as he always does. I keep myself still despite the way that warmth settles against my chest uncomfortably. I manage to hold onto my stillness even when he raises a hand, one gentle finger brushing above my top lip. I tense at his lingering touch.
Kirigan turns his hand slowly, exposing the red on his fingertips. “How di--”
“Training,” I interrupt quickly, “I promise I got a decent hit in as well.”
When he nods, his expression is clearly weighted but I cannot interpret it. He almost always looks like that. I shouldn’t find anything about the man that stole me from everything I’ve ever known (even though he had good reason to do so) alluring, but I want to understand him. It’d feel like knowing a secret the rest of the world is desperate for.
For a moment we just stand there, Kirigan closer than he’s ever been. Sometimes when he’s quiet I think he knows my secrets. All of mine. Even my curiosity about him. “I don’t doubt that.”
At least he tries to be nice to me sometimes. It’s more than anyone else here can say. Except maybe Genya. “You don’t have to say that.” He knows it’s true. “Keep in mind you found me in the library, hiding from Baghra.”
He hesitates. “No one likes training.”
“I think I’d find it tolerable if…” Can I say this to him? Admit the extent of my helplessness? He looks at me patiently, waiting for me to give something to him. “I’m the Sun Summoner--that’s supposed to be me. That’s supposed to be mine, and I can’t do it by myself.”
The patheticness of my struggle hits me in full force. I drop my head as he weighs my words. “It’s in you,” he says it so surely I don’t think I could argue.
I smile politely. “Thank you.”
Kirigan reaches downwards, towards my wrist. He latches onto me so quickly I’m too surprised to back away. “Light,” he prompts like it really is that easy.
I know I can do it with him, so I don’t see the point in showing it. “It doesn’t count if I get help.”
“Y/n.” Sometimes I think his voice is softer when he speaks my name.
I raise my hands, overlaying them, letting the hand that he touches make up the base of my cup. Reaching into myself, I search for the power beneath my skin. With him, that power seems to sit directly beneath the surface, desperate and greedy. I don’t call to it, instead I simply let it flow. The light bleeds from me, a sphere of blinding light bursts into my hands. It’s bright, burning, and desperate to escape my control.
My mind clamps around the power tightly, restraining it without choking it out until the light in my hands is exactly as small as I want it to be. I hold it there, letting its warmth melt away all of the bad. I let it grow, the light illuminating a path I can barely see--a path in which I do not disappoint those that need to have faith in something and for some unknown reason decided to place it in me. I hold onto that feeling, and then I let the light disappear.
I smile at my hands. The only good that’s come from this is the way the light makes me feel. “Y/n.” I look up at Kirigan, who’s showing me both of his palms. “That was you.”
A feeling better than the light coils up my stomach and into my heart. I grin. I did it without him. I can do it without him. “That--how did you know that would work?”
“I knew that you could do it, you just needed to see it.”
Warmth fills me, light and easy. A little too light. I have to work at not reaching for him, not because I need to, but because I want to. “Thank you.” This time I mean it.
“Your gratitude is premature,” he warns, but nothing about it is harsh, “I’m here to send you back to training.”
At least the thought of facing Baghra no longer devastates me. “There’s always a catch.” I smile, hoping he understands what he’s done for me. “But I think this time it may be worth it.”
He almost smiles. “Tell me if you still feel that way after spending time with Baghra.”
A fair warning. It’s more than I expect from him. “Will do.”
Kirigan’s expression threatens to soften, but he turns away from me with a soft nod before I can try to decipher the look. I let him leave before disappearing down another hall, forcing myself to look for Baghra. I think of my interaction with both Kirigan and the stranger, at least Baghra won’t be the weirdest part of my day
T.W Mentions of Sensitive Topics (SA)
It’s honestly just heartbreaking what the king did to Genya. Also, imagine just how many times that asshole used her for her to be able to go through with her plan. She’s also been shamed for what was between her and the king when she had absolutely no power over it. And that’s another thing that breaks my heart. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it so she just let it happen until she had the gathered the courage to actually do something about it.
I have finally seen my beloved Wesper together, I can finally die in peace. But not now because I need to watch season 2
The entire fandom went absolutely crazy over a 17 second video. What do you think’s gonna happen to us when season 2 comes out?
That’s it. Kit Young has officially broken us.
The Six of Crows fandom is being well fed
It’s shocking how much joy Polaroid pictures can give me. It’s not even HD yet I’m already sobbing
Maybe if we pester the shadow and bone cast enough, they could tell us where the portal leading to Ketterdam is located
Do you think the S&B cast knows just how much it means to their fans when they view our stories which is why they continue to do so. Like, imagine them on their free time just tapping through the dozens of stories that mentions them just so they can put a smile on their fan’s faces
I will never shut up about how perfect the SoC cast are for their characters. The casting directors really outdid themselves
One of my biggest fears rn is that when I go to sleep, someone would drop SoC bts content and I’ll miss it
Don’t you love just how every one of the crows are criminals that’s done nasty things but none of them has a toxic relationship
Whenever the S&B cast posts a story with most of them together, you can visibly see a camera somewhere. I just want to know how many pictures they’re gatekeeping from us and when we’re gonna see them
Comparing Kanej to a mafia romance should be illegal. Mafia romances have toxic men that gets into toxic relationship which is ultimately unhealthy for the poor love interest. Kanej has a twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken man that is willing to pull himself together into some semblance of a man for his love interest. They’re not the same