#grishaverse mini bang
For the Grishaverse Reverse Mini-Bang 2021, run by @grishaversebigbang, and with stunning art created by @wqemzz-blog - click here for her incredible illustration of Kaz and Inej!
Captain Inej Ghafa has returned to Ketterdam for the first time in three years. In all that time, The Wraith never docked at Berth 22 for more than an afternoon, and the crew never strayed further than the harbour front.
Could she have stopped by sooner? Absolutely. Did she choose not to for entirely business-related reasons? Absolutely not.
She has no idea what her friends will make of seeing her again after so long, least of all Kaz. But there is hope - hope that in that time, he will have grown as much as she has. That he will be the kind of person that she can share a pot of tea with without a thought of how he might feel about her.Because Inej isn’t done with being a pirate yet. But it doesn’t mean she wants to be at sea forever.
I had the best time getting to write thisfic based on the idea proposed by Emma.So much of a good time, in fact, that I overwrote it by around 4k words in the end… This is the much more civilised 2k word version - the full iteration of the story will be posted on my AO3 at some point in the future (currently still the same version as here), but this significantly neater version will remain on my Tumblr for good.I really hope that you like it, and check out @wqemzz-blog for all your beautiful art needs!
Link to the fic on AO3: ‘Hope is the thing with Feathers’
And available to read below the cut here:
Yes hi hello “Hope Is The Thing With Feathers” is a wonderfully written fic by @katyamorrigan that you should go read immediately… or else >:(
Set three years after the end of Crooked Kingdom, Inej voyages back to Kerch shrouded in the legend of the Wraith, a pirate queen feared and hated by the slavers and brothel owners of the red light district in Ketterdam. Having docked in the city’s harbour for a short visit, she reunites with the friends she left behind and a certain Barrel boss that has been eagerly awaiting her return.
This story is a part of the reverse mini bang, hosted by @grishaversebigbang , and based on a concept by yours truly! I’m personally blown away by the writing for this project, and I’m pretty chuffed with how my illustration turned out, so I hope ye enjoy both!!
For the Grishaverse Reverse Mini-Bang 2021, run by @grishaversebigbang, and with stunning art created by @wqemzz-blog - click here for her incredible illustration of Kaz and Inej!
Captain Inej Ghafa has returned to Ketterdam for the first time in three years. In all that time, The Wraith never docked at Berth 22 for more than an afternoon, and the crew never strayed further than the harbour front.
Could she have stopped by sooner? Absolutely. Did she choose not to for entirely business-related reasons? Absolutely not.
She has no idea what her friends will make of seeing her again after so long, least of all Kaz. But there is hope - hope that in that time, he will have grown as much as she has. That he will be the kind of person that she can share a pot of tea with without a thought of how he might feel about her.Because Inej isn’t done with being a pirate yet. But it doesn’t mean she wants to be at sea forever.
I had the best time getting to write thisfic based on the idea proposed by Emma.So much of a good time, in fact, that I overwrote it by around 4k words in the end… This is the much more civilised 2k word version - the full iteration of the story is on my AO3 ), but this significantly neater version will remain on my Tumblr for good.I really hope that you like it, and check out @wqemzz-blog for all your beautiful art needs!
Link to the fic on AO3: ‘Hope is the thing with Feathers’
And available to read below the cut here:
‘Hope is the thing with Feathers’
It occurred to Inej as she entered Kaz’s office for the first time in three years, that in the past she might have second-guessed the meaning of his offer to have tea together. They had just spent a few hours talking during dinner – mostly talking over Jesper and Wylan, who had hosted the meal and were either polite or forgiving enough to allow them to dominate the conversation with reflections on Inej’s time beyond Ketterdam. Three years was a long time when you had last been teenagers breaking into the Ice Court together, when you were now the owner of a galleon that hunted slaver ships from Fjerda to the Wandering Isle. There was plenty to discuss between them, and it seemed that Kaz had changed enough to ask her to stay with no apprehension, so that they could be in each other’s company a little while longer.
The attic room was identical to her memories of it but her gaze was drawn to Kaz, with ungloved hands, stooping to open the cupboard and bring out two tins. With a tentative look at her, he placed them on the desk and opened them. Inej couldn’t help laughing.
“When did Dirtyhands start keeping cookies in his office?” she teased. “Two kinds, as well.”
He gave a permissive smile. “Nina may have had more influence over me than I would like to admit. She sends them to me from Ravka.”
Feeling a bittersweet rush of longing for her friend, Inej reached over and helped herself to an iced biscuit with a red star on the top as Kaz took the other tin and started to make them tea. The room filled with the smell, quiet clinking noises coming from the cupboard again as Kaz fetched cups and saucers, and Inej watched him from the corner of her eye as she nibbled. He had taken off his jacket, and Inej could see the strong line of his shoulders as he prepared their drinks. Yes, a younger version of herself would have been much more flustered than Captain Ghafa, as she was now. She might have told herself stories about how invested Kaz was, about his tactics and techniques for making her trust him – for making her want to stay. Now she had no such worries. She was in the bedroom of an old friend – an old partner, in many ways – and they were sharing a pot of tea.
Inej smiled as she turned away from sneaking glances at Kaz and looked out of the window instead, at the uncharacteristically beautiful light that was shining in. The fog of the early afternoon had lifted, and Ketterdam seemed to concentrate every scrap of colour on painting the evening sky in crimson and gold. It felt like a personal display from the city, like it was finally welcoming her in. She couldn’t believe that she had been away for so long.
“Can I open the window?” she asked. Kaz chuckled.
“You have never once asked my permission to open a window.” Kaz brought over their cups and placed them on the sill, where Inej was now sitting, and obligingly opened it for her.
A gentle breeze entered the room, tickling Inej’s cheek. She closed her eyes for a second and forgot that she had ever been away. The sensation of being here – in Kaz’s office, on the windowsill, letting the fading sunlight warm her skin – made her feel so young and so old at the same time. It was like slipping into an outfit she hadn’t worn in years, feeling the ways it had always fit her, and the ways that she had grown since. Inej was nothing like the girl that Kaz had once known, but she didn’t feel so different when she was back here, just a little taller and a little more forgiving.
Kaz brought over a plate with more cookies, taking a large one heavily studded with chocolate, and leaned against the wall. It had been three years, but still they were so comfortable existing in a space like this together, breathing in the warm air. She took a sip of her tea, and tasted honey. Just the way she had always liked it.
“You look well,” he said, not breaking the silence but disrupting it, like ripples on a pond. “The sea suits you.”
“Thank you. I rather like it too. Ketterdam has continued to suit you – is that a new scar on your jaw, or have I just never noticed it?”
“It’s new. About a year ago I was very nearly shot in the face by a Razorgull. Fortunately Jesper manipulated the bullet at the last second and I was only burnt.”
She inhaled sharply in sympathy, and Kaz shrugged. “It healed quickly, and that’s all I ask for.”
“Do you ever think you’ll end up more scar than skin?” she said, half in jest and half with sincerity. As the words left her mouth, she thought of how closely her question came to the kind of Suli proverb that she had goaded him with previously. That she had tested him with.
“Not anymore.”
His reply was unexpectedly thoughtful. Inej turned to him, and he gave a soft smile.
“The Dregs don’t get caught up in the same trouble that they used to. There’s less chance for me to get hurt.”
“I’m glad.”
She took a cookie, a chocolate one like Kaz’s, and bit into it. It crumbled instantly, scattering crumbs all down her chin and the front of her waistcoat. Kaz saw; there was a beat of silence and then laughter, Inej’s giggles muffled by the cookie.
“You pirates make our manners look sophisticated,” he commented. She swatted the air in front of him.
“My manners haven’t suffered at all, I’ll have you know!”
“My poor windowsill. I’ll have to clean it now.”
“It could probably do with a clean if you’re anything like you used to be,” she replied, and Kaz raised an eyebrow at her.
“I always cleaned the windows frequently.”
“Specifically the windows.”
He tilted his shoulder and looked out across the city. The gilded roofs stretched from the harbour all the way to the Barrel. Inej watched him as he absorbed it all, taking a sip of tea, adjusting the cup in his bare hands. He looked exactly the way she had hoped to find him – a little stronger, a little harsher, that new scar dimpling the line of his jaw like a tally on a gun barrel, but unmistakeably the same Kaz that she had left behind. He looked every bit the young man that he was – handsome, clever, mean.
“You loved to sit here and look out. I always made sure you’d be able to.”
“Oh.”
She was glad he kept looking at the view. To lock eyes with him then might have done something to her – made her feel another way. A way she had felt for a long time, that she had stifled. Inej focused her gaze on the broken pieces of cookie in her hand, crumbling it more. Everything felt quietly loud; gentle, but unrelenting.
The familiar click of claws on tiles came from a little further along the roof.
Kaz leaned towards the sound. “They must have recognised you,” he smiled, “The crows have come back.”
Inej made an elated noise and turned herself to look. There they were – a little murder of crows, with sharp eyes and sharp beaks, cawing as politely as crows could.
“I can’t believe it,” she murmured.
“They stopped visiting when you left. They knew you were here.”
“No,” she said, delighted but disbelieving. He nodded.
Inej watched them move, alert and intelligent, talking to her. She remembered Kaz’s decrial of them as mannerless and untrustworthy, but when she scooped up some cookie crumbs and held them out, they arranged themselves neatly to feed from her hand. Her hands were rough now from the years of sailor’s work, but she could still feel the smoothness of their beaks as they pecked and the trace of their feathers on her fingers.
“I missed them too.”
Kaz took another sip. “Were seagulls not friendly enough?”
She laughed. “They were friendly in their own way – they certainly ate up scraps quite well. But I couldn’t feed them like this. They didn’t wait for me like the crows always did.”
“They were always looking for you to come back.” His voice was as gravelly as ever, but Inej felt a hint of longing as he spoke. With the last of the crumbs gone, she brushed off her hands and turned back towards the room, to look at him. The expression he wore was the one that she remembered most vividly, and with the least joy; that inscrutable intensity that made her feel transparent. He was looking inside of her, and she struggled to translate what he had seen from the look he was giving her.
“Do you ever wish you had stayed here instead?” Kaz asked.
Ah. The question that she had expected to be met with – it had been avoided all evening while they were with Jesper and Wylan, but now it emerged while they were alone. It was a question that she knew the answer for. Whether it was the one he wanted or not, it was the one he would get.
“No. I love being on the sea. I love having a purpose that I can enact so clearly. Everything I told you over dinner was true – it has its challenges, but I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
Kaz nodded, and she saw pride lock into his eyes.
“You’ve become somewhat of a legend to the sailors who come to Ketterdam now,” he said, a grin building. “Men who arrive shaken by what they saw at a distance – of a pirate queen in blue and gold invading slaver ships and leaving them to die. It has certainly damaged West Stave.”
She touched her earring. “It has?”
“Of course. The bulk of working girls in any of the brothels are stolen, and with so few slaver boats succeeding in bringing any ashore…”
Inej grinned back. Her only hope when she finally decided to leave Ketterdam had been to bring justice to those children like her, but to know that her efforts were ruining trafficking from the ground up… It was almost too much. Her face hurt from smiling, and Kaz turned away from her to look out of the window again.
“How long are you staying here for?” he asked.
Another question. So much easier.
“Two weeks. My crew have been given leave in that time, but I’m hoping that they will all want to sign on for the next stint.”
“And you?”
“I have given myself leave, yes, Kaz,” she chuckled. Kaz huffed self-consciously. “I’ll be around, is what I mean. If you wanted to have tea again some time.”
“Yes.”
Their eyes met, and she was a teenager again. Inej hadn’t thought about Kaz in that way for a long time. Hadn’t allowed herself to. She knew that the moment in which she let the thought of anything tender and vulnerable growing between them take root in her mind again was the moment in which she would have to rethink her answer to that tricky question. But Saints, it had always been hard not to.
“I can tell stories about Captain Ghafa while you’re gone, if you’d like.” Kaz’s smile was sharp. “Make sure that everyone in Ketterdam knows the name and fears it.”
Her heart betrayed her so, so quietly.
“You don’t need to,” she said.
“Why’s that, Inej?”
Three years of never letting herself near him, just in case the possibility of a dual life came back into play. Three years in which she only regretted one thing.
“I’ll be back again before too long.”
A/N: This is my first mini bang piece! I had so much fun writing this, and working with @kingdombrekker and @anubem was an absolute delight. Please check out their amazing art that goes along with this. Now without further ado….Howl’s Moving Castle! Zoyalai au
@kingdombrekker‘s piece: x
Summary: Nikolai is just a man with a boat repair shop. Well, he would say an incredibly good looking man with a boat repair shop. But nevertheless, he lived a simple life with dreams that reached higher than the clouds. One night–one successful card game–has his life turned upside down. And the only one who could make it alright was the infamous witch Zoya Nazyalensky and her odd moving castle.
It started out simply enough. A friendly wager between two strangers in dark and dusty rooms. On a night that whispered of magic and misfortune, Nikolai remembered only the warmth of drink and the sweet taste of chocolate still lingering in his mouth.
He probably should have called it a night as soon as most of his opponents had folded in their cards and bid him a dejected good night, but the stranger that had entered the bar looked so perfect for the taking. His glittering black clothes that spoke of the kind of wealth that corrupted men, the sharp looks he cast around the room as if he were the predator instead of the prey, and the slow smirk that prickled against Nikolai’s pride–it felt like the perfect storm.
For all of Nikolai’s supposed cleverness, he should have seen the scared looks of the other patrons of the bar. He should have paid closer attention to exactly what was making the rings on his hand dance with a light that did not belong to the dimly lit tavern. For a man who had grown up dreaming of meeting witches and wizards, he should have noticed the clear markings of one. Especially one who was so bad at cards.
“Interesting playing cards.” The stranger had mumbled. His pale fingers tracing the intricate patterns of his deck.
“Thank you kindly,” Nikolai had grinned. They were magic proofed. He had bought them from a travelling merchant just this morning. The woman who had sold them to him had even guaranteed that these cards would make even the dirtiest cheat honest.
“It’s hard to come by this very fine bit of magic.” He murmured as Nikolai dealt another hand. “Pray tell, how did a man such as yourself come by these?”
Nikolai hummed as he looked at his cards then placed his family’s ring to the pile of small treasures that contained most of Nikolai’s money and his opponent’s multitude of shiny trinkets.
“I’m not one to be divulging my own secrets to strangers,” Nikolai smirked as he settled his cards. “However, if you win, my dear sir, I might be persuaded to say.”
His opponent didn’t smile in return. His black beetle eyes simply studied Nikolai intensely before glancing briefly at his own cards.
Wordlessly, the stranger flipped his cards and Nikolai’s smile could only widen when he presented his winning hand.
“Better luck next time, I’m afraid.”
The man tapped his knuckles frantically as Nikolai started to shove his earnings in his bag. It was late and he had stayed way past his curfew as it is. If he hurried, he could catch a few more hours of sleep before he had to wake up with the tide tomorrow.
“Well, that would certainly teach me to play with someone with more talent than I,” The stranger finally said as Nikolai began to leave. He offered a hand, “Good game, Nikolai.”
Nikolai shook it and felt a sharp snap go through his body.
He had exited the tavern whistling softly. The night air was cool and the road was empty as he made his way home–never pausing to wonder how the stranger had learned his name.
It had been a long while since he’d felt this alone in the dark. It had been a long while since he’d felt this much of anything.
Here’s my piece for the @grishaversebigbang Mini Reverse Bang! @tirkdi made an amazing fic to go along with the art pieces @kavinskysdick and I created. Go check it out: “An Ancient Echo, At Home”
** DO NOT REPOST OR EDIT MY WORK **
