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WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
s&b ➙ row

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Two-hundred years. That's how old Elizaveta Morozova was. One-hundred and eighty-four years. That's how long she's been running. 

Being the daughter of an ancient shadow-summoner, sister to the infamous Darkling and black heretic wasn't the cake-walk one would have expected. Born with the power of eternal darkness, Elizaveta Morozova was well-versed with life in the shadows. First, being hidden away from those at little palace, and then being second-best to the second army general, her big brother. 

But she would've lived with it, all of it, for the sole reason of staying with her brother. Because despite being horrible and viscous and a menace, Aleksander Morozova had seen his sister as a saving grace. He'd taken her with him everywhere and trained her himself. He'd held her after the first time her heart broke and killed the boy who did it. She'd have lived a thousand lives never being good enough to the world if it meant being safe in his arms.

Aleksander Morozova was a liar. 

The day Elizaveta turned sixteen was the day she watched the love burn out of her brother's eyes. She recognized the darkness behind them and the manipulative lilt of his voice as he pushed her more and more towards merzost, a forbidden practice that devoured and destroyed. And when her mother came to her and told her that the man she was told horror stories about, the evil black heretic, was her brother, Elizaveta finally understood.

Aleksander Morozova did not love her as a brother loved his baby sister. Aleksander loved her as a madman loved his possessions. He saw her as the newest pawn in his game, the final piece needed to expand the fold that he had created. And so, with a heavy heart Baghra had sent her sixteen year old daughter running.

Elizaveta had managed to spend nearly two centuries running, evading the countless search-armies sent after her and never planting roots no matter how badly she wanted to. She survived off of the kindness of strangers and the occasional letters sent by her mother, and she'd accepted that this was the eternity she was subjected to.

Until Alina Starkov came blazing through the darkness, a bright light shining at the end of a tunnel.

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adelaide kane, elizaveta morozova

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official playlist, what we do in the shadows

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CONTENT WARNINGS

this book will contain graphic depictions of violence, torture, kidnapping and blood. this book will reference sexual assault and implied grooming, though brief and likely will not be touched directly. this book will likely contain mature, explicit scenes - however, any smut will be posted as its own chapter, that way if it's not your jam you can skip it without missing anything important.

this book will touch on and discuss topics such as: trauma, mental illness and aftermath of torture. this book will contain mature, adult content. this is the official warning for the book, as these are topics that will be included and discussed throughout the whole book and touched on in most chapters. if a certain chapter contains more extreme depictions of any of these, i will put an additional warning before said chapter, however it's important to note that any and all of these will be referenced throughout the entire book.

the media and content you consume is your choice.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

hello, all! so...it's been a while. but i'm back! this story has been in the works since joey convinced me to read the grishaverse books way back in march, so we can all thank her for this! we can also thank joey for the beautiful cover! before we delve into anything, there are some important things i'd like to note so please read:

i. while elizaveta is the darkling's sister, this is not a pro-darkling book or account. the darkling is a disgusting, horrible dude and elizaveta agrees. however, saying that she has a very black and white view of him would be a lie, as she grew up seeing him as a loving older brother (before she realized he was a manipulative p.o.s.) so we will definitely see her struggling with doing what's right, and what the darkest, hidden parts of her heart say.

ii. this will be following the books, starting with shadow and bone (and the rest of the og trilogy), and ending with king of scars and rule of wolves. therefore, it will most definitely contain spoilers. if you haven't read the books then proceed with caution. this also means the love interest doesn't come in until the second part, so that's something to note.

iii. this is a nikolai lantsov fanfiction. however, i know that we get into some murky territory when it comes to the very large and obvious age-gap between them. trust me, i know, i've ruminated on this a lot. 

here's what i've got on that: whilst, yes, elizaveta is literally 200 years old, she ran away from home at the age of 16. because of this, she's still quite young mentally (i'd say probably around the mental age of 23/24). i don't have time to really go into this, but trauma has a very big impact on our brains, and elizaveta's been through a lot of trauma - it's common that we see victims of trauma regress back to a younger mental state where they feel safe. now, i will touch on this more as the story progresses, and we will see this pop up in scenes with elizaveta and the darkling as well as her and her mother.

also, nikolai is quite a few years older than the rest of the crew, canonically. when he's introduced in siege and storm he's roughly 20-21, and while that's still quite young, he is fully capable of making adult decisions around romance and consent. additionally, i am 21 turning 22 and i took that into account - while i personally would never go for someone 180ish years older than me, i know a lot of people that would. and that's their perrogative, so maybe nikolai just likes older women, who's to say.

iv. lastly, this is a safe space. i will not tolerate ignorant comments whatsoever - that includes race, sexuality, ableism, etc. capish? great. on the topic of comments, there's a high chance i will delete your comment if you say some darkling-apologist bullshit, or anything ignorant or obnoxious surrounding him and the very real critiques of him that will be expressed in this book. just not gonna happen, so if that's what you were planning on doing, there's the door. this may seem extreme but quite honestly, this is my book and as previously stated, a safe space so i will not be allowing people to excuse and apologize for pedophilia, grooming, SA or mass murder.

that got a little heated, but anyways, hope you all enjoy, and welcome to this mess!