Sea and Stars - a Nikolai Lantsov x OC fan fiction

3

I SPENT MOST OF MY TIME in the Materialki workshops. I like it there.

Before discovering my power, when I was just a child, I would spend hours with my father in his own workshops. I would watch him work, but mostly I was just constantly building things, figuring out how stuff worked. A lump formed in my throat at the thought of my father and the way his eyes would light up when I'd show him how to work my tiny creation.

I would occupy my time and my mind learning how things worked. I've always needed my hands busy with something. I'd recently learned that that was a fabrikator thing.

The workshops simply give me a comfort no other place in the Little Palace did, though, and even though I was not a traditional fabrikator like the rest of the Grisha who use this room, they all still welcome me in with open arms. They would talk to me and listen to me, praising my small and seemingly insignificant discoveries.

I may not be able to work fluently with metals like the Durasts or concoct poisons and antidotes like the Alkemi, but my mind seemed to me to be constantly finding patterns and meanings no one else could see.

They would say they appreciate my "ingenuity", a word I felt all too inexperienced to accept, and they even told stories about how the youngest prince would study with them from time to time. My stomach fluttered anxiously at that.

"Does he come often?" I asked once, glancing apprehensively at the door. I couldn't help it. Princes were intimidating—even young, curious ones.

"He's not even in the capitol now," one of the other Fabrikators responded, noticing my restlessness. "He's not around as much anymore. Not like when he was younger."

"What's he like?"

"Ingenious. Clever. Always finding some new, innovative way of doing something. He doesn't believe in the word impossible."

"But some things are impossible," I argued.

"Don't tell him that," the Fabrikator scoffed.

"But some things are," I said, being unable to let things go. "Like, flying. People can't fly."

Somewhere in the room, someone chuckled softly. I had no clue why. The conversation came to a gradual close after that.

Overall, despite the warmth I felt around the other Materialki, I still couldn't help but feel like an outcast. I was a Materialki fabrikator who could manipulate light, not things.

No one seemed to think it was strange at all, though.

Everyone made a fuss about the Sun Summoner's impossible existence—Alina Starkov was supposed to be some great myth—but there were no stories proclaiming the great Starlight Fabrikator.

I was no legend. I was just a girl, a girl who was now scouring the workshops of the Little Palace for something to help me save my sister's life.

And alone in the workshops, I finally found something.

***

Author's note: Sorry I've been inactive on here for a while. I've been working on some big projects elsewhere, but I'm here again. In one of the next few chapters we'll get to meet our sassy lil prince, so stay tuned. xx