Six of Crows One-shots

Never there... in time

Major Character Death

Inej thought back, her fingers knotting together. She remembered the moments with him. The slamming of a door as she raced in to see him fresh from the seas and hearing of Dirtyhands latest schemes, always covered in blood and wounds with a smile on his lips, she was always never there in time to save him from his enemies. Now, she was worried she may have been far too late to even be fair. His usual smile and reassuring words didn't appear. No blood, no wounds. No real sign of anything, when Inej got there. Everything that made Kaz... kaz, was wiped clean. No snarky comments, no blood or wounds that would signal somebody that Kaz wasn't strong when he was very much so. That was his trick... and though Inej thought she hated it, now she missed it. Because where blood is still coming something is alive. Something was so.

She wouldn't look at the stone. Though she stared right at it, she couldn't see it. Couldn't read it. She was alone with nothing but the wind and the small meadow of grass. "Your late-" the wind whispered in a rasp familiar to her ears. Kaz's crow, who Inej didn't know about because she had been gone so long, was fluttering nearby. Tapping the ground as if trying to awaken what was below ground. "I know..." Inej whispered back, dropping her head and tears falling without her control. "This isn't real..." Inej whispered, watching as Kaz kneeled down in front of her, putting a hand to her jaw and brushing it with icy fingers. Inej leaned into the touch only for it disappear. His image, fake or real, gift or curse Inej couldn't be sure went with it. Yet now she was alone again in the meadow.

"You shouldn't have come." He rasped, wincing as Inej dabbed at his red and black eye, swollen closed. He was still bleeding, but he didn't feel much of it and was about to fix it himself. Inej rolled her eyes. "I will always come, Kaz. I promised you that..." word didn't travel so quickly on the high seas, it had taken weeks to locate Inej's ship and send the letter, took Inej several weeks to in remotely consider the possibility as she traveled toward land. She felt that to accept it would be to let him go, to accept it would ruin her. "I broke my promise.... I didn't come." And she hadn't. She hadn't been there when he was bleeding from a gun wound, in his gut that would slowly kill him. Didn't get to hear his final words, didn't know if he died fighting or finally resting. She bit down on her lip. She wasn't their for the funeral. She heard the crunch of grass so far away it sounded like an echo from another land. That's how she knew it was real, that it was there. A solid hand rested her shoulder, it trembled slightly with memory of emotion.

She let her head drop. Of all the things that she promised Kaz, she had never sworn him her heart. Never told him she needed him, alive and well. Needed his company, his affection, needed to heal with him and yet she never showed it as she went out to sea. The ugly truth of the matter, was Inej turned her back on Kaz. She didn't look back, she didn't ask if he was alright when she saw longing and pain in his eyes. The sea stole her away from Kaz, and she played a part in his death by her absence. She let the bullet steal him away from her without so much as a single protest. She might as well have watched him bleed out, she could imagine Nina... who had found him. She didn't know if anything Nina said about what it was was true. If she was sparing Inej the truth, in hopes of saving her from further damage. If the whispered words Kaz had told Nina to repeat were really his. Finally her eyes traced the letters, again and again till they started to become clear in her head, started to make sense.

Here lies Kazimir Lucin Rietveld (Brekker).
An amazing leader. A good brother. A strong and loyal friend.

Inej didn't read his birthdate, his death-date, there wasn't a point behind it. It wouldn't change the fact he died young. That he deserved a longer sentence, deserved a better life. Inej looked up Nina as she squeezed her shoulder once. "Make it go away, Nina." She said, a sob threatening to tear a whole through Inej's throat and chest if she held it in any longer. "He can't be- were talking about Kaz! Bullet wound or no bullet wound..." she looked down at the grass in front of her again as Nina started to hug her, she shook her head. "I don't need a hug, I need him." "I'm not going to leave you alone. I've been through this all before. He would want you out alive." Inej knew that was true but she couldn't agree. The pain in her heart, she needed to get away.., but she couldn't move her feet.

"He loved you, Inej. I know so." Nina assured, Inej looked down at the ground. "I did to, I just was too afraid of my own fears to acknowledge it. So I never let him know. He died in the dark Nina... and I didn't have the courage to say goodbye...." her throat was raw, she could feel the lump and it was only growing. "Sometimes, their isn't a light to guide us back Inej... sometimes we need to let go to the shadows." Inej shook off Nina's words. "I can't let go. Because then I will lose all that we tried to gain. Don't you see? If I let him go... I will never see him again. I need him to stay here with me...." Nina only pursed her lips before nodding and standing. "Come inside in five minutes then...." Inej nodded, and looked down at the grass once more. Embedded in it, with grass already trying to grow over the half buried glass box, was a crow cane, gloves at the bottom of it and a hat resting halfway over the top. Inej had scowled when she was the gloves, they were Dirtyhands gloves... they did not represent who he was... yet they were placed beside him. His armor protecting him from things above as he slumbered below them.