[[open post: a new friend!]]

[ravkanwitch]

After speaking with Sagramore at the dance, Nina now has her heart set on finding a pet of some sort. She isn't necessarily lonely, not with so many friends, but sometimes when she lays in bed alone at night and thinks about her past, her memories, and her worries, it all feels... a little too quiet and empty-- alright, maybe she's slightly lonely. But only at night. And only when her mind gets away from her. That's why after her morning walk, she's planning on going to ask Aziraphale about producing a rabbit for her.

Is a rabbit right for her, though? She considers this as she takes one of her favorite routes through the forest; it eventually leads to a small waterfall and she's enjoyed watching it slowly freeze into ice and then slowly start melting again. She doesn't mind the cold too much, not with her Ravkan blood and Fjerdan tendencies, and this forest is starting to feel like home. Only on short, ambling walks, though. She enjoys her solitary walks and the feel of the wind and sun on her face -- but at the end of the night, she wants to be in a soft bed with silk sheets.¹

Perhaps rabbits are too skittish, too terrified of loud noises, Nina thinks to herself. She is a loud talker. She does like to talk to herself and sing terribly. Right as she considers these thoughts and as she makes her way past a large pile of rocks, she hears a low wuffling sound emerge from it. She pauses. A rabbit?? A small squeak emerges that is distinctly not rabbit-like. She walks towards the tumble of rocks as it squeaks again, and she stoops down to peer into a crevice followed by another. On the third try, small beady eyes stare back at her. She offers her hand to it, tentatively. In a flash, a small furry blur streaks out and up her arm, ending up on her shoulder. She screams -- stifling it and feeling slightly silly when she realizes that the definitely-not-rabbit is just sitting on her shoulder and not attacking her. She slowly turns her head, meeting eyes with a very self-satisfied, mischievous little face.

"Hi," she says, cautiously reaching up to touch it. The ferret makes a soft dooking noise. "Aww," she says, petting its head, at which point the ferret gently nips her and then makes a dash for her jacket pocket, making a huffing laughing sound. "Ow! You rascal." Nina's already gone. Head over heels. What a perfect little creature. As she makes her way back out of the forest and indoors, anyone is welcome to meet the newest resident of the mansion.

¹Nina Zenik, you would love glamping.

Comments

[ravkanwitch]

"I don't think Temeraire would like to be called a pet either... We have stories of dragons in Ravka, but I've never seen one¹." Nina edges over to a chair and sits, still a good distance from Lan Wangji. "The rabbits look a little stressed, so I'm trying to get Khitka used to them from the start."

¹This is dramatic irony for Nina's AU future.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji has already been through something like this once, with Drosera, but the danger there felt mitigated by the fact that Magnus can speak directly with Drosera. "Mn. They are prey." It serves them to be easily frightened.

[ravkanwitch]

"Have they been adjusting to the mansion since Aziraphale created them?" Her brows knit briefly. "Do you think they have angelic abilities?" Nina's unsure what that would constitute, exactly, since all she has seen so far has been Aziraphale's stage magic.

[lightbearinglord]

Regrettably, one person from Gusu and a second person from Ravka have a poor chance between the two of them of knowing much about angelic abilities. Lan Wangji glances down at the rabbits, the tiniest hint of fond warmth at the corner of his mouth, and gives Xiaoxue a gentle stroke between the ears. "They have made a father figure of Claudius. Is that angelic?"

[ravkanwitch]

"I'm not very close with Claudius -- but I think it'd be inaccurate to describe most things about him as angelic," Nina says diplomatically, with a hint of mischief. She doesn't have anything against Claudius, not since their first disastrous meeting; they just run in different social circles.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn," Lan Wangji has to agree, inasmuch as he knows anything about what might make a person angelic. "Aziraphale and I have not met." Perhaps he ought to seek him out and thank him for the rabbits, come to think of it.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina brightens slightly at the mention of Aziraphale. "Oh, you should! I'm so surprised you haven't crossed paths with him in the library. He's always there -- unless he's with his husband, of course."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji has glimpsed Aziraphale in the library, but he is always utterly absorbed in a book and utterly unmoving, like a beige statue dedicated to the concept of scholarship. So he has never felt compelled to disturb him, and Aziraphale has never glanced up from his reading. He might tell Nina that, but his attention snags on a different part of what she says, and with an incredibly mild expression of surprise, he asks, "Aziraphale and Crowley have already married?"

[ravkanwitch]

"They're-- they weren't already married?" Nina's brows knit in concern. "At Wanderer's Gather, the way they were speaking about the bookstore, as if they both lived there--"

[lightbearinglord]

Frankly, it is not difficult to see why Nina would believe otherwise, but Lan Wangji is all too aware of just how recently Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship became overtly romantic. He tears off a leaf of gai lan and offers it to Danding. "No. They were not even courting one another until a handful of months ago."

[ravkanwitch]

"Oh." By her estimates, Nina had just slightly over two years with Matthias. From pure hatred to friendliness back to hatred, then being forced to work together, then to love. Two years of a complex relationship have given her a lifetime of regrets that she's still working through; she can't imagine a few hundred, maybe even thousands (?) of years of that. "Well, that's tragic."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji watches Danding chewing busily on his gai lan, then passes another piece to Xiaoxue in the interest of fairness. "If they had not come here, they would still be waiting for one another."

[ravkanwitch]

Khitka is still curled on Nina's shoulder, smushed against her neck, but she lifts her head slightly in interest, tracking whatever Lan Wangji is feeding the rabbits. "There are a lot of things many of us would not have found if we hadn't come here," Nina muses.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji watches Khitka and, expressionless, offers her a third gai lan leaf, quick about the motion so that she will feel no temptation to come nearer in search of it. As for Nina, he looks back to her with an expression of understated ruefulness. "True."

[ravkanwitch]

Khitka sniffs the gai lan leaf and then turns her head away in disdain. So bitter!! Nina giggles slightly at that reaction before her expression turns curious. "How did it happen? The two of them ending up together?"

[lightbearinglord]

The rabbits will be more than happy to consume Khitka's unwanted offering, then. Lan Wangji's face takes on the ephemeral impression of a frown as he thinks. How did Crowley and Aziraphale stumble their way into one another? "I believe I know only half of the story," he admits. "Crowley did not heed my advice."

[ravkanwitch]

"What advice did you give him?" She frowns slightly, thinking about another absolutely obstinate should-be-couple. "That everyone could tell and they needed to stop making longing eyes at each other and pulling knives on people out of frustration and just talk to each other? Except minus the knives."

[lightbearinglord]

That is so obviously an invitation for another story that Lan Wangji nearly abandons her question in favor of pursuing it. He does not, but he makes a little note to himself to remember this for later before he says, "I told Crowley to tell Aziraphale how he felt without delay."

[ravkanwitch]

"Did he?" She thinks she knows the answer to this.

[lightbearinglord]

Indeed, Lan Wangji sees no reason to answer this one aloud. He only gives Nina an eloquently evocative look that plainly asks, What do you think?

[ravkanwitch]

Nina giggles a little and reaches up to pet Khitka, who tolerates it well enough. "Is that why they were dancing with everyone except each other at the dance?" She had a lovely dance with Aziraphale that evening and at the time, did wonder if they were going through a rocky patch with the way they kept purposefully not looking at each other.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji is light on details about whatever happened that evening, but he did get the chance to see Crowley the following morning and to note his generally dejected air. "Claudius described it as a misadventure." Obviously, this was quite generous of him.

[ravkanwitch]

"True love always finds a way in the end, I suppose." Nina smiles a little. She's surprisingly not the overly romantic type. She's usually thrilled and over the moon for everyone involved, of course, but it's a bit difficult to be a romantic with her history.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji considers that assertion quietly. Arguably, he should be the first person to agree with it. His found its way. But that was hard-won, and it came at the cost of Mo Xuanyu's life. "Sometimes."

[ravkanwitch]

"Sometimes it gets muddled," Nina allows. Khitka creeps back into her pocket, sensing a boring conversation. "My friends have been desperately in love for years, but I'm not sure if they've worked it out yet."