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Matthias Helvar knew they didn't like him.
Brekker and his crew needed him. Matthias had learned the difference long ago. He had learnt the difference when the boys his age turned away from him. He had learnt the difference when Viktor Brusk has thrown stones at him for being taken under Jarl Brums' watch. He had learnt the difference when he and Nina swam across miles of sea.
(Miles upon miles of empty sea with only the screams of his family to accompany him and Ninas occasional snipe.)
But Nina hadn't abandoned him when they reached the shore. Of course she might have needed him to get to the nearest town but at that point Matthias was as lost as Nina had been and she hadn't left him in the snow like his drüskelle brothers would have.
(ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina)
Like they should have, he reminds himself. You would have left your brothers behind. It's the right thing to do.
(But those thoughts are getting increasingly muddied. Why leave somebody you've known all your life behind? Why wouldn't you try even if you fail? Why not at least try to bring a brother home? 10 is better than 5, after all)
Because they were still his brothers. He was dead to them, but they were, of course, still his brothers. He had been betrayed by a Grisha they would probably start to look at him strangely - perhaps even with disgust. That wasn't a nice thing to think about - but he would be offered solace.
(ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina)
He did have friends. Even if he couldn't recall their faces.
(They had faded into the background of prison life. Fight, eat, sleep if you can fight, eat, fight again. Sometimes, he had thought he saw them out of the corner of his eye. A glimpse of a face. Pale. Blonde hair. Watery blue eyes. Long hands. Flashes of things long forgotten.)
Then Nina Zenik, in all her majesty, came along and ruined the little peace he had accumulated. Wreaking through his carefully built walls with a hammer and helmet.
(And those hips his brain supplies)
She had ripped through those barriers like a storm to a wooden house. That's what Nina Zenik was. A storm. A house fire. An annoyance Matthias can't seem to stop thinking about. Murderous thoughts, of course. Only murderous ones.
(And perhaps the feeling of a pale naked thigh resting against his shin, but that is neither here nor there.)
Because Matthias thinks to himself, life truly is such a pain sometimes. It drags you along on a leash, expecting you go go willingly to the slaughterhouse, then acting surprised when you struggle away. "What? It's not a slaughterhouse! There's cake in there!" But how could you really know that? There's a sign with slaughterhouse on it. Warnings about bringing children. What else could it be? "Ah ah ah!" Life says,"Don't you see the wet paper sign advertising cake? Next to the big red one saying slaughterhouse! Why don't you think outside the box more!?" Life scolds. But how would you see that when your eyes are blinded by the flashing lights of the slaughterhouse sign?
(ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina)
Matthias is tied to the leash. Brekker is the slaughterhouse/cake. Commiting treason against his country by letting 5 (hardened) criminals break into his country's headquarters? Or going back to Hellgate, where he'd have to kill wolves again and again and again. He was sure the organisers had rigged that spin. The Ferjan drüskelle fighting a wolf? Who wouldn't wish to watch? If he had been raised in dreary damp Ketterdam where the best entertainment is watching people get mugged out all their life savings or a fight to the death he isn't sure he wouldn't pick fighting to the death.
(ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina)
He does really feel sorry for the children of Ketterdam. The guttural sound of their language must be grating to hear even against newborns' ears. He wonders if the Kerch train their newborns in gang slang. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised.
(He doesn't dwell on the fact that the Kerch he learnt in jail is obviously not reminiscent of all Kerch. He will stereotype as he pleases)
The wind whistles past his ears, and the salt stings his eyes. The buzzcut they gave him in hellgate offers no protection from the wind like his old hair would've given him.
(He still hasn't gotten used to the slight fuzz hellagte gave him instead of his shoulder-length hair. Perhaps even his blonde hair has dulled in Ketterdam)
The skiff their travelling on is small - for him - with only a few rooms downstairs and a little deck to escape the damp smell of the wooden slats that line the cabins.
(The wood was never damp when he was a drüskelle Matthias thinks to himself.)
The bronze girl - Inej - was injured. Badly, it seems. He is sorry for her. To work under the eye of a demjin like Brekker. She was a key part of them getting out of the docks alive. Brekkers' little show was interesting. A testament to how deranged the demjin has become. Become? No. He obviously came out the womb - if he was even born and didn't hatch from an egg - swinging that infernal cane and acting like a rabid beast.
(A rabid beast who reminds you so much of Eljena, the voice in the back of his mind, whispers. Your little sister who would march around the classroom looking for any bullies to tell off.)
Inej, Nina, the strange quiet boy, Jesper, The Demjin. Weren't they a strange team?
Nina, his mind whispers for the millionth time. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina. Nina.
Nina. Nina. Ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina.
Witch, embarrassment, blood witch, terror, annoyance, little red bird, the girl who knows no shame.
Ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina.
Nina.
The undercurrent of her name through his mind is giving Matthias a headache.
(ninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninaninanina)
Because you see the truth is Matthias wants.
He wants Nina to touch him. Not even in the way married people do. Matthias wants to touch and be touched, and it is the most ridiculous feeling he has ever experienced.
His mother used to run hands through his hair when she brushed it.
("Like spun gold." she'd whisper into it once she'd finished)
His father used to sling him over his shoulder and carry Matthias somewhere while he giggled.
("My little soldier." His father would say followed by the big bellied laugh Matthias was unfortunate enough not to inherit.)
His sister would throw herself onto him whenever she'd get the chance. Hugs, tickles, pokes, whatever she was big enough to reach.
("Math-e-ass!" She'd shriek with joy whenever he came home from school)
Then there was Nina. Nights spent huddled under reindeer furs while the stairs shone above them. Ninas skin pressed against his.
(You can probably tell he's had a lot of time to think over things in Hellagate)
He craves it. Like he used to crave violence. Like he used to crave the feeling of his wolves fur against his bare cheek. Like he used to crave forging in the forest for berries every winter. Like he used to crave his father's warm-bellied laugh. Like he used to crave the harmony of his mothers voice. Like he used to crave the shrieking of his sister. Like he used to crave noise and chaos and the pandemonium of his old home consumed by the flames and dragged down to the earth instead of the cold emptiness and yelled commands that rung out in the surrounding stone. Words that never rung out the same as his fathers comforting voice in the twilight of hunting.
He closes his eyes and lets the wind carry away his thoughts.