You Know What I Want A Spin Off Of? I Want A Spin Off Of The Years Of The Darklings Life That Are Completely

— today i live for darkolai crumbs

The Darkling without his scars

does anybody else think about how all of the darkling’s survival techniques were taught to him by a woman experienced at surviving in a man’s world?

Sasha is trying to exchange husband for a daughter

i'm in darknikolina mood, so HEADCANONS TIME.

let's say pre-canon!darkolai happened at some point, and darklina obviously was a thing during the trilogy, and then nikolina got married because it's the ending we deserve. as a royal couple, they're expected to have kids at some point, and eventually they have a daughter. both, tsar and tsaritsa, have a lot of complicated personal and political feelings about a certain shadow summoner, but they name her sasha anyway. it silenced a lot of gossipers: they assumed the tsarevna was named after her unlamented grandfather, tsar aleksander.

(in truth, grand duchess aleksandra nikolaevna was named after the darkling, lamented by many.)

but then liza & co ressurect aleksander. and he learns that now there is a lantsov girl named aleksandra, who is in equal parts alina and nikolai, his most beloved people. and she possesses alina's beautiful dark eyes, and nikolai's golden locks, and alina's dimple, and kolya's sunny smile. and the girl is also a grisha (a little alkemi, because they deserve representation) - the grand duchess (aged three) did accidentally turn the darkling's brandy into water during their first meeting.

so, of course little sasha has big sasha wrapped around her tiny fingers in no time. all the tsarevna has to do is ask. and the scary, powerful, terrifying darkling would do it. like, once sasha said she would like to have an octopus as a pet, and aleksander immediatelly was like: "ulla, ULLA. get me the prettiest octopus in all three oceans of this world for baby sasha, please. you're her aunt too, by the way."

(aleksander: ugh, i hate the lantsovs, they're the worst. someone: but, your excellency, you are cuddling the tsarevna right now? aleksander, clutching sasha even harder to his chest: i said what i said.)

nikolai and alina are no help because they are aleksandra nikolaevna's loyal slaves too. as are aunt genya and uncle david. so, actual disciplining has to be done by aunt zoya, who is the only one immune to tsarevna's pleading eyes.

(aunt zoya is also little sasha's first girl crush, and she tells everyone that when she grows up she's gonna be general nazyalensky, and break hearts of boys and girls too.)

(alina is mentally preparing for the day sasha will have suitors because darkolai would try to decapitate anyone daring enough to ask their little girl out.)

and they live happily ever after, the end.

Grisha: “General, we have news of the Lantsov Prince”

The Darkling: “Good, good, what is it?”

Grisha: “He is throwing an engagement party”

The Darkling: “Now, of all times? Who is he marrying anyway?”

Grisha: “The Sun summoner, General”

The Darkling: “...”

Grisha: “Sir?”

The Darkling: “Leave”

Grisha: *excuses self*

The Darkling: “Fuck’s sake, Alina, I’ve already tried becoming consort to a Lantsov prince in the past it doesn’t solve anything.”

#i like to imagine he did try this angle already #and just no one bothered to read a history book#or perhaps someone scrapped it from the books because it was a shameful part of their history and now everyones forggoten

AU: The Darkling got the throne and captured Nikolai. After a while they realize their goals are the same and start to co-operate. To avoid attempts to overthrow Aleksander and install Nikolai, they fake Kolya's death and reclaim his rogue identity...

courtier: "Moi tsarevich?"

Nikolai: "Oh no, I'm Sturmhond, the famous privateer."

courtier: "Apologies, but you look just like late tsarevich Nikolai."

Nikolai: "Yeah, I get that a lot, but I'm ginger and much better looking, if we believe the Black Tsar himself."

courtier: "Well, certainly, I can see that now. Sturmhond, you said?"

Nikolai: "Please, call me Kolya."

courtier: "!!!"

~

courtier: "The likness, even your name... It's certainly curious, isn't it?"

Nikolai: "Oh please... half of the sailors is named after Saint Nikolai... Makes for riotous meetings and quite a challenge to command a crew."

~

courtier, sneakily: "Some might even want you to become the King..."

Nikolai: "Well, that can be arranged..."

Nikolai: *chatches Aleksander's eye across whole room*

Nikolai: *licks his lips seductively*

Nikolai: *winks*

room: *suddenly darkens a little*

— do you have a boyfriend?

— yes.

i had to do it to them

The children couldn’t understand what was happening. They were told that Daddy Darkling was bad but that couldn’t be true. He was always kind to them, told them stories while doing voices, played games with them, made shadow puppets and listened to them when they had something to say. How could Daddy Darkling be a monster like they said. Something wasn’t right and they were going to get to the bottom of it.

The kids waiting till the grown ups had gone to bed before meeting up outside by the lake.

“I never trusted that Sun Summoner, she wasn’t here that long and I thought she liked Daddy Darkling.” Said Anastasia.

“ Yeah, I saw them together and he looked so happy. I never liked Zoya either, she was always mean.” Said Vlad.

All the others agreed with them. Then the kids started to plan, obviously they had to help Daddy Darkling and what better way than capturing the traitors. They stayed up late getting everything ready.

Two Weeks Later

Honestly, this was embarrassing, they got out planned by little kids. Nikolai was both impressed and embarrassed by this. He was tied up along with Alina,Zoya,Toyla,Tamar and David. Standing all around them were the kids and Feydor.

Feydor had apparently been a spy for The Darkling this entire time. They should have seen it; his husband was on the Darkling’s side so it made sense he would be too.

“Good job little ones!” Feydor exclaimed.

“Thanks Feydor, we knew we had to do something to help Daddy Darkling,” they all proclaimed.

“ And helped me you did.” Aleksander himself said as he walked in with Ivan.

The Grand Palace had been taken over pretty easily. The Darkling now ruled it.

“This has to be the best thing I’ve ever seen, right Ivan?”

“ Definitely,” I an replied.

“ Now, what to do with you lot.”

There was much discussion where Genya convinced David to go back into his side. Which he did without question as he had always like Aleksander. Plus he’d be with Genya. Nikolai decided to see if he could make peace with Aleksander; he didn’t want to die.

The next few weeks were fast paced as Nikolai and Aleksander came to an understanding. Though Aleksander would never let him forget that he was overpowered by small children.

-just a fun little one shot

Adorable lil puppy 💞

this pic of paddy looking at ben is hilarious, but also. yes, that's how nikolai looks at sasha 99.9 % of time.