Chapter Update! Horsie Fic

[feckyeslife]

Title: Where Hoofbeats and Hearts Thunder - Ch 4
Rating: T
Fandom: Shadow and Bone (TV)
Pairing/Characters: Aleksander/Alina Starkov
Critical Tags: Horses, Gift-Giving, ~Drama~
Chapter Summary: Alina's next lesson with the general is more eventful than she hoped. Later, they get a chance to speak one on one before he leaves again.
Excerpt:

“I figured it out finally. Summoning. On my own.”

Kirigan’s eyebrows lifted. “That is fantastic news,” he replied. There was a grin slashed across his face that Alina felt spreading to hers as well. “Since when?”

“Just today, just for a bit, but I managed it without Baghra’s help.”

Alina felt pinned by Kirigan’s gaze. They had both stopped their horses, and he was looking at her with that level of intensity that made her feel like they were the only two people that mattered. “Just today?” She couldn’t puzzle out if he was disappointed or just confirming what she had said.

“One second,” Alina said. She looped the reins around the horn on her saddle and breathed carefully in through her mouth, out through her nose. Closing her eyes was difficult to do. She could practically feel Kirigan’s still on her.

Out here just like by the window in her room she could feel the sunlight all around her. It wasn’t blocked by heavy curtains or the fire’s heat as it was in Baghra’s hut. Alina still had to concentrate to let it in through the wall that she had been keeping up for years without knowing, but at very least she could feel the sun now. Taking hold of it and bringing it to her took a twist of her hands and a cant of her wrist which still didn’t feel quite natural but--

“There it is,” Kirigan breathed.