Chapter Text
In the year and a half that Zoya Nazyalensky has been attending Ravka Law, she’s managed to establish a bit of a reputation for herself. She knows this, knows the pieces people have put together about her.
That Zoya never looks anything less than fully put together. Long black hair perfectly combed and tied back with a blue ribbon, favoring blouses and pencil skirts to her classmates’ hoodies and sweatpants. That Zoya is always extensively prepared for class, never jumping at the chance to answer a question like some of the other students so desperately seeking approval from their professors and admiration from their peers, but perfectly content to reveal the extent of her intelligence through perfectly poised cold calls alone. That Zoya’s near the top of the class - though her GPA isn’t something she’s ever shared with anyone outright, the entire rest of the school seems to think they know it anyways.
But most importantly, that Zoya Nazyalensky works alone. No study groups, no shared outlines, no joint commiserating about the workload.
So why, then, is she seated in this classroom for orientation to a program that, by its very nature, requires working with another person?
(She knows the answer to that. Her mentor, Professor Juris, had more or less implied that having moot court experience on her resumé was a necessity to land one of the postgraduate fellowships she’s so desperately coveting. And so, here she sits.)
In a normal classroom setting, she’d sit towards the front of the room, preferring to limit her distractions. She’d rather be seen than have to see anyone else. But today she’s in the back - she has to pick a partner by the end of this, so she needs to weigh her options carefully, and a spot back here gives her the opportunity to scope out who else has signed up for this competition.
Even though she’s only doing this because she has to, Zoya doesn’t do anything in halves. She intends to win, and in order to do that, she needs a partner who doesn’t suck.
She’s early, as she often is to these sorts of things, so the room hasn’t filled up yet. Of the people who are here, however, she’s not particularly keen on any of them. Not to mention that more than a few of them are in fervent conversation with another person, indicating that they’d made their partnership selections long before showing up today.
As more people gradually filter into the room, she assesses every one of them. Some are slightly more promising than others, and she makes a mental prioritized list of who to approach about a potential pairing after this meeting.
At the front of the room, Professor Yul-Erdene pulls up the powerpoint slides, and starts speaking right at the hour mark.
“Welcome to this year’s moot court competition,” he begins. “This semester, you’ll have the opportunity to work with a partner to assess an open-ended legal question, draft a brief arguing your side, and engage in oral arguments against your fellow classmates through multiple rounds, culminating in one winning pair.”
Approximately five minutes into the presentation, the door at the back of the classroom swings open. It’s loud enough to be noticeable, but Zoya doesn’t turn towards the source of the noise to see who their late arrival is.
It’s only when that arrival plants himself in the seat next to her that she pays him any sort of attention, her eyes sliding over to the body now occupying the space beside her.
Nikolai Lantsov. Because Zoya doesn’t make much of a habit of getting to know her classmates, everything she’s learned about Nikolai has been against her will. He’s apparently the heir to some multi million dollar empire, though she’s not actually sure what the Lantsovs made their money in. He’s also apparently wildly popular with the girls at the school - and some of the boys too. The combination of family wealth, admittedly not-terrible looks, and a decent sense of style has a certain allure, it seems.
Academically, he’s not entirely useless either. Though he jokes with the professors during class more than she’d prefer - she’s rolled her eyes at one of his cheeky responses to a professor’s questioning more than once - it’s clear that he understands the material and knows how to make a decent argument.
He doesn’t bother pulling anything out of his bag for the presentation, doesn’t bother taking notes on anything, just lounges in the chair next to her as Professor Yul-Erdene at the front of the room continues on about timelines and minimum requirements.
When the professor finally finishes his speech, answers the few lingering questions from students, he dismisses them, with one final reminder that they must submit their intended pairings by the end of the week.
She’s tucking her laptop into her bag, preparing to stand from her seat and seek out a partner, but instead -
“Nazyalensky.”
She turns to the boy next to her, still lounging in his chair like he owns the place, and raises a single judgmental eyebrow.
“Can I help you?”
“You can, actually,” Nikolai replies. “Or, more accurately, we can help each other.”
“With what, exactly?”
“I want you to be my partner for this.”
He says it like he’s giving a gift. Like he’s just presented her a golden opportunity that she couldn’t possibly say no to. Were there not broader considerations - like winning the competition - to think about, she might have rejected him purely for that.
“And why would I do that?” she asks, the challenge evident in her voice.
Anyone else would probably wither in their seat. Zoya’s natural state is one of abrasiveness - she’s never been soft or demure or kind, any of the things that naturally ingratiate a person towards her.
But Nikolai doesn’t back down in the slightest. Rather, he cracks a grin, one side of his mouth just a bit higher than the other, carving out a dimple in his cheek, giving the impression of sly amusement rather than fright.
“Because you want to win, and I want to win, and together we will.”
“You seem rather confident about that.”
“As I should be,” he replies. “You’re ruthless, and I’m charming. We’re the perfect pair.”
“Are you suggesting that I’m not charming?” she questions in response.
She knows she’s not - charm implies a sort of inherent palatability, and Zoya has always been bitter, sharp, unsettling. But for some reason, she wants to see if she can make him squirm.
But he is, once again, woefully unaffected. “Oh, I would never,” he says. “Just that your talents lie more so in making our opponents piss themselves in fear.”
She considers his offer for a long moment. His assessment of their partnership is a solid one, a balancing act of two personalities that would likely be a well-suited pairing for something like this. He’s also clearly competent enough to get the job done, late arrival to this meeting notwithstanding. And he doesn’t seem put off by her sharp words, doesn’t seem to cower under her glare. Though she absolutely intends to run the show for this thing, there is a certain appeal to working with someone who appears unlikely to simply roll over at her every demand or burst into tears if her brusque nature crosses the line to flat-out insult.
Running through the mental list she’d created of potential partners in this classroom before the meeting, Nikolai Lantsov is probably the best she’s going to get.
“You have yourself a deal,” she answers.
“Excellent.” Then he holds his hand out. “Here, let me give you my number. We can plan a time to meet and get started once the problem is released.”
She unlocks her phone herself, pulling it up to the new contact screen so that he doesn’t get a glimpse of anything else on her phone, and hands it to him.
He makes quick work of it, inexplicably adding a fox to the end of his name, entirely unaware of her ardent hatred of emojis in people’s contact names, sends himself a singular text, then hands her device back to her.
“One more thing,” she says, tucking her phone into her tote and standing up from her chair. “If you’re five minutes late to any of our scheduled meetings, I’ll make sure you’re the one pissing yourself in fear.”
For some reason he laughs at that, like she’s just told him a joke instead of issuing a threat. “I’d expect nothing less.”
She leaves him there, headed off to the library to get a head start on her Evidence reading for next week.
She still hates that she let Professor Juris talk her into this.