highfaelucien

[highfaelucien]

https://gofund.me/6d71eba8

A friend helped this precious little stray floof but she now seems to be having difficulty giving birth and may need emergency vet intervention. Could people please share around the link and help if they can??

[highfaelucien]

Me: what if...i just....just fucking rewrote acowar onwards....but mor/nesta.....what then?

[highfaelucien]

I would like to apologise to anyone who has expected fic from me in any sort of timely fashion. I have 12 WIPs. I have finished nothing. I am a trash fire. I am sorry.

[highfaelucien]

I HOPE YOU BOTH LIKE IT WHEN IT'S READY AHHHHH

@highfaelucien I LOVE YOU

[highfaelucien]

WHAT is the point of continuing to exist if I can't have Az fuck with his shadows?

[highfaelucien]

A Quiet Beyond Silence - A Mor/Selene Fic

I spotted Mor walking with Viviane and a stunningly beautiful young woman who looked like either Viviane’s twin or sister. Viviane was beaming, Mor perhaps more subdued for once, and as she twisted—

Viviane began to lead Briar away, chattering merrily, and Mor and Viviane’s possible-sister lingered to watch them. Mor said something to the stranger that made her smile—well, slightly.

It was a restrained smile, and it faded quickly. Especially as a High Fae soldier strode past, grinned at her with some teasing remark, and then continued on. Mor watched the female’s face carefully—and swiftly looked away as she turned back to her, clapped Mor on the shoulder, and strode off after her possible-sister.

This is all the canon content we got from them in ACOWAR and from that I turned into over 10k of wlw fic :) This is part one. Please enjoy. Tagging @confused-as-all-hell​ and @queen-hypaxia​

Title: A Quiet Beyond Silence

Length: 5k

Warnings: Internalised homophobia from Mor’s POV. Mentions of past homophobia by family.

Summary: After her fight with Feyre in ACOWAR, Mor seeks solace in the Winter Court camp and runs into an old flame, Selene, Viviane’s younger sister. They revisit their history with one another. MOUNTAINS of hurt/comfort and some angst. But soft angst.

Rating will go up in the next part but this one is SFW. Mor’s POV, Canon compliant.

Teaser:

‘“Fifty years apart, or five hundred, it makes no matter. I know you.”

Mor’s anger recedes at those words, at the truth contained within them. She does know her, she always has. Even from that first moment that they met, she had looked into her eyes and known. Known that something darker than the bright sunshine she coated herself with lurked beneath her warm eyes. 

She’s always had this effect on her. Has always been able to gentle her, quiet her, soothe her with a few soft words. Bare her body with some soft touches. Brush herself against her very soul with a kiss.

“I know when something is wrong,” Selene continues, every word carefully selected. Controlled, quiet, precise, as they always have been, “What happened?”’

Link: AO3

                                                           ***

The thick heat of the Summer Court is near suffocating as Mor prowls through Adriata, still on edge from the battle. The air is wet with blood after a day of battle and the mourning tears that followed. 

As she steps into the Winter Court encampment, it still somehow feels cold. Comfortingly so. A sharp breeze lifts, tugging at her hair, stirring it around her face, as though trying to pull her away somewhere. She ignores it.

She’s still in the clothes she had worn when she’d descended down into the battle, not bothering to strip out of them. The armour feels like a lead weight now, dragging her weary limbs down. Exhaustion gnaws at her and she should sleep, should go back to her own camp, her own tent, curl up and let that fatigue drag her into tomorrow but…

She had needed to get out, to get away from all of it. 

Cassian’s injuries had rattled her, even if the stupid prick would be alright. She had been there, feet from him, as he’d been torn apart before her eyes. She’d felt sure she was watching his death. Again. As she had watching his wings shredded in Hybern. And she’d been helpless. Again.

 Helpless when she had returned to the camp and found Feyre gone. 

Helpless as she had fought to restrain herself from shaking that sister of hers to make her tell her where she had gone so she could find her and drag her back. 

Helpless as she had looked into Rhys’s terrified eyes and been forced to confess that she had been tricked, that she had been lied to. Again. That those closest to her would rather go behind her back than trust her and tell her what was happening. Would rather make her helpless again than let her in.

She despised it. 

When she had woken at seventeen, after bleeding out, too agonised and exhausted even to crawl for help. Waiting there to die. Before Azriel had found her. She had sworn to herself that she would die before she ever felt that way again.

That had been a lie. Another lie. A comforting lie that had made her feel better. But now she knew how hollow and empty that was and it tore at her, and nearly succeeded in tearing the tears she’d been fighting back for what felt like months.

Then the fight with Feyre in her tent after she had returned. In one piece, thank the Mother… But the things that she had said to her, the things she had heard come tearing from her friend’s lips…

She closes her eyes, hugging herself, her fingers gripping onto her arms until it hurts, fingernails biting into flesh. 

That breeze lifts again, carrying with it the tears that burn her eyes fall as she bows her head, shaking, failing to master herself.

They’re at war. She doesn’t have time to sit here and feel sorry for herself. She doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart. She’s never had the luxury. They need her. She’s their Third. She’s the Morrigan, she can’t do this.

She should be in camp, helping, planning, doing something. 

Instead she’s sitting here like a child. Pathetic and frightened and helpless all over again. 

She holds her head in her hands, shaking, not caring who sees. None of the Winter Court soldiers are likely to bother her. They would have to come seeking her, where she’s huddled on the edge of this war camp, overlooking the battle field that Feyre had tricked her onto, where Cassian had nearly died right in front of her, where-

She looks up at the soft, lithe footsteps that sound at her side. 

A beautiful Winter Court fae stands there, looking down at her. Selene. Viviane’s sister. 

It’s been decades since they’ve been this close to one another, not since before Amarantha. Yet she hasn’t changed. Like Mor’s memory made manifest before her, she stands. 

A tall, willowy pillar of frozen steel, cold and unyielding, precise and elegant as a sculpture. Her long silver hair restrained by a thick braid wrapped around her head like a crown. She looks strikingly like her older sister, except her eyes, they’re sharper, colder, and of a steely grey. The windswept mountain to her sister’s bright ocean sapphire.

For all they look alike however, there are no squealing outbursts and desperate hugs between the two of them. Only quiet. The same kind of quiet that always fills Mor whenever she looks into those pale, fathomless eyes. The same kind of quiet she wishes she could exist in for the rest of her life. 

The tension seems to bleed from her as that silence sweeps through her, a bone deep calm that she only ever feels around a few people in this world.

Wordlessly, taking Mor’s lack of brusque demand for her to leave her alone as acceptance of her presence, Selene carefully lowers herself down onto the ground. Then passes over a cup of tea from underneath her thick fur mantle. 

Mor accepts it gratefully, holding it between her hands to warm them from the chill night that’s starting to draw in around her. She sniffs at the tea before she takes a sip. The mixed scents of citrus and apple draw a small, sad smile from her. All these years…All these years but Selene still remembers her favourite blend.

They sit in silence for a long moment, sipping their tea. Mor is grateful for the other female’s company, despite the faint knot of tension that starts to pulse in her stomach at her presence. 

So long, it’s been so long since they were together. All this time, both likely fearing the other lost after Amarantha’s conquest and yet…Yet still the quiet embraces them, holds them tight, somehow more intimate than the embrace Viviane had swept her into when they had seen each other again.

It’s a gift, this respite that she offers her. But eventually, Mor finds herself breaking it, needing to ask the question.

Quietly, she murmurs, “How are you?”

Selene stiffens almost imperceptibly, takes a sip of her own tea, mint, if Mor isn’t mistaken. Even without the scent she would have known. She remembers her too. 

Then she says, “Well.” 

Her voice is the same as she remembers it, like snow melting from a mountainside, cool and heavy and smooth, with that soft rasp to it that makes her shiver.

It had been a loaded question, a question asking after how she had fared all these years they had been apart, with the distance of grief and loss between them. That she had chosen not to answer it, to confine their discussion to the present…Says all she needs it to.

She turns to face Mor, her eyes seeming to glow a dark silver as the light from the camp behind them catches in them.

“How are you?” she asks in turn.

There’s enough pointed emphasis in the last word that Mor knows the female can still read her as easily as she remembers how she prefers her tea. 

She turns away, looks down the sharply sloping hill to the battlefield again, churned and ragged and raw. A good mirror for the way she feels. 

All she says in answer to Selene’s question is, “Fine.”

To her surprise, that response tugs a soft huff of laughter from the female sitting by her side. The sound still makes such a contrast to her. Legs folded beneath her, back perfectly straight, the image of a noble lady. 

“All these years, Morrigan,” she says quietly, taking a drink of her tea before shaking her head and adding, “All these years and you still think you can hide from me.”

She doesn’t look at her as she says it, continues gazing serenely out over the battlefield, stray locks of silver dancing around her face like lost spirits.

Keep reading

[highfaelucien]

Nesta/Az/Cassian for the ship thingy???👀🥺 we were deprived of their domesticity in the House of Wind

Pairings done so far: Luzriel

send me a pairing and I’ll give you some headcanons

falls asleep on the couch

-Honestly all of them. Azriel frequently finds Cassian and Nesta slumped naked on the couch after they had sex and then fell asleep afterwards. He makes a very miffed comment about them having fun without him. Cassian opens up a wing to invite him to join them, while Nesta sleepily flips him off. He acknowledges this is Nesta speak for the same thing.

-Cassian can absolutely sleep anywhere. In any conditions. The couch is absolute the least weird place Az and Nesta have found him napping in the townhouse.

-Nesta is guilty of staying up reading a really good book and then passing out. When Cassian finds her he flips to the end of the book and reads loudly from it to wake her up (though he doesn't ACTUALLY do this because she WILL kill him for spoiling her. So he makes up his own ending). Azriel, who is polite, picks up her book, marks the page for her, and takes her to bed.

-Azriel passes out, less likely on the couch, more so on his desk, working himself until he literally fades into unconsciousness. Nesta will deadass return the favour and pick him up and take him to bed. Where she will then grumpily sit on him so that when he wakes up he finds a tiny angry fae sitting on his chest glowering at him threateningly and telling him it is time to SLEEP. Azriel is a smart man so he doesn't budge. Cassian will ALSO carry him to bed when he finds him because Mother knows he needs it.

-Occasionally Cassian also finds Nesta and Azriel fallen asleep together on the couch after reading the same book together and having a lil book club over it. He fakes a HUGE tantrum over this because how COULD you do this without me!? you KNOW snuggles are my favourite thing ever!?!!?!?!?!?

makes friends with the neighbors

Cassian. Absolutely. The second they move in. And he puts in all of the 'friend making effort'. Azriel is a painful introvert and does not want to do this, but he's polite so he hovers awkwardly beside Cassian as he happily introduces himself.

Nesta stays inside and unpacks doing "something actually useful" as she pointedly yells at Cassian.

Cassian takes advantage of her absence to spin a long and boastful story to the neighbours about his dear wife Nesta. When he met her she had been cursed to just be the most hideous looking creature in existence. And you might think she'd have a good personality to balance that out? The sweetness of an angel, the most incredible kindness and generosity. Well you'd be WRONG. She's a monster. But I was patient and majestic, and I took care of her and cured her curse and- oh hello sweetheart.

As Nesta marches out of the house and GLOWERS at him then frogmarches him back inside. The neighbours are quite sure they will never see him alive again. Azriel is left standing alone outside. Gives an awkward little nod and tells them if they need anything to just let them know. Then he melts back into the house to prevent a murder.

is the adventurous eater

Cassian will eat legitimately anything. And there are very few things he doesn't like? but the things he doesn't like he dislikes VERY VIOLENTLY. If you attempt to feed this man peanut butter he will make your life miserable forEVER. He also likes to experiment in the kitchen.

Nesta is very much. She likes what she likes and she has no interest in adding to that. She's perfectly happy. She will make the effort and try things that Cassian specifically makes because she knows it's important to him. but she goes into it like she's headed to the gallows each time and as long as she takes a little bit that's fine. Nesta doesn't like new things or change in her established existence.

Azriel has a very discerning palatte. He can subsist on soldier's rations. But he's absolutely the obnoxious foodie of the group, surprisingly so to people who don't know him. Cassian considers it a Great Personal Achievement if, when he puts the first mouthful of food into his mouth, Azriel smiles.

hogs the covers at night

NESTA. She sleeps in between the two Illyrians, and no-one have any idea HOW but every night she manages to cocoon herself in blankets. Cassian has described her, lovingly, as his "little rotisserie chicken" assuming that she just...rotates and pulls the blankets in around her with every turn. Cassian and Az doesn't really mind, they have wings, and body heat, and have slept in far worse places. It amuses them.

forgets to do the dishes

Nesta. Azriel and Cassian both have that 'hyper neat military discipline' thing and they both get antsy if their spaces aren't clean. On very rare occasions Az will sometimes leave like the occasional tea cup or plate lying around and Cassian will take that as a cue to go and check in on him because he must be really distracted/bothered by something for that to happen.

tries to surprise their partner more often

Cassian does the surprising. Most of them involve nakedness and rose petals. He also occasionally does ridiculous things like hiring a band to follow Nesta around the city all day and sing a song of how much he loves her. Buys an enormous teddy bear for Azriel so he has someone to hold him while Cassian is at the camps - because sweet Nesta won't (sweet Nesta elbows him)

Azriel does like big important anniversary/birthday and they're always incredibly intricately planned and thoughtful.

Nesta and Cassian both tag-team Azriel for special occasions and force him to take some time for himself and they just make him do all of his favourite things and it's Wholesome.

leaves dirty laundry on the floor

Nesta, mainly, because again Cassian and Azriel are neat freaks. However, Cassian will take credit for doing this when he's stripping one or both of his partners for sex.

stays up til 2 AM reading

All of them, actually. Cassian far less frequently than the other two. Az does this literally every day until Nesta legitimately picks him up and carries him to bed. Cassian assists by whipping the remaining report paper out of his hands as they come in. Azriel grumbles about them fussing over him like a pair of mother wyverns. Nesta pointedly tells him he needs it and Cass agrees.

Sometimes Azriel returns to the favour with Nesta. Or he TRIES to. But he approaches and she just raises a finger, without looking up, and growls at him. Cassian claps a hand on his shoulder and tells him to just let her finish her book. He doesn't want to have to start writing that eulogy just yet.

sings in the shower

Cassian sings very very loudly. It is not good. He does it anyway. And he dances. Even when he's joined in the shower by his partners.

Azriel sings, but only when he's alone. Or with Nesta. She is allowed to hear, but only if she sings with him. It's quiet, and beautiful, and one of their bonding moments.

takes the selfies

Cassian. Frequently. Nesta is very changeable. Sometimes she likes it and poses with him. Other times he just gets a palm in his face and a rude gesture.

Azriel always point blank refuses to have pictures taken.

plans date night

Azriel usually manages it, Nesta is his co-planner. They both like things ordered, and controlled, and to know what's happened.

They let Cassian plan once and never again. for the general of the Night Court armies he's fucking terrible at managing restaurant bookings.

[highfaelucien]

may i request an amren / elain fic for pride month 🥺

You DEFINITELY may friend I am very hype about this.

Do you have anything specific you would like??

[highfaelucien]

A Quiet Beyond Silence - A Mor/Selene Fic

I spotted Mor walking with Viviane and a stunningly beautiful young woman who looked like either Viviane’s twin or sister. Viviane was beaming, Mor perhaps more subdued for once, and as she twisted—

Viviane began to lead Briar away, chattering merrily, and Mor and Viviane’s possible-sister lingered to watch them. Mor said something to the stranger that made her smile—well, slightly.

It was a restrained smile, and it faded quickly. Especially as a High Fae soldier strode past, grinned at her with some teasing remark, and then continued on. Mor watched the female’s face carefully—and swiftly looked away as she turned back to her, clapped Mor on the shoulder, and strode off after her possible-sister.

This is all the canon content we got from them in ACOWAR and from that I turned into over 10k of wlw fic :) This is part one. Please enjoy. Tagging @confused-as-all-hell​ and @queen-hypaxia​

Title: A Quiet Beyond Silence

Length: 5k

Warnings: Internalised homophobia from Mor’s POV. Mentions of past homophobia by family.

Summary: After her fight with Feyre in ACOWAR, Mor seeks solace in the Winter Court camp and runs into an old flame, Selene, Viviane’s younger sister. They revisit their history with one another. MOUNTAINS of hurt/comfort and some angst. But soft angst.

Rating will go up in the next part but this one is SFW. Mor’s POV, Canon compliant.

Teaser:

‘“Fifty years apart, or five hundred, it makes no matter. I know you.”

Mor’s anger recedes at those words, at the truth contained within them. She does know her, she always has. Even from that first moment that they met, she had looked into her eyes and known. Known that something darker than the bright sunshine she coated herself with lurked beneath her warm eyes. 

She’s always had this effect on her. Has always been able to gentle her, quiet her, soothe her with a few soft words. Bare her body with some soft touches. Brush herself against her very soul with a kiss.

“I know when something is wrong,” Selene continues, every word carefully selected. Controlled, quiet, precise, as they always have been, “What happened?”’

Link: AO3

                                                           ***

The thick heat of the Summer Court is near suffocating as Mor prowls through Adriata, still on edge from the battle. The air is wet with blood after a day of battle and the mourning tears that followed. 

As she steps into the Winter Court encampment, it still somehow feels cold. Comfortingly so. A sharp breeze lifts, tugging at her hair, stirring it around her face, as though trying to pull her away somewhere. She ignores it.

She’s still in the clothes she had worn when she’d descended down into the battle, not bothering to strip out of them. The armour feels like a lead weight now, dragging her weary limbs down. Exhaustion gnaws at her and she should sleep, should go back to her own camp, her own tent, curl up and let that fatigue drag her into tomorrow but...

She had needed to get out, to get away from all of it. 

Cassian’s injuries had rattled her, even if the stupid prick would be alright. She had been there, feet from him, as he’d been torn apart before her eyes. She’d felt sure she was watching his death. Again. As she had watching his wings shredded in Hybern. And she’d been helpless. Again.

 Helpless when she had returned to the camp and found Feyre gone. 

Helpless as she had fought to restrain herself from shaking that sister of hers to make her tell her where she had gone so she could find her and drag her back. 

Helpless as she had looked into Rhys’s terrified eyes and been forced to confess that she had been tricked, that she had been lied to. Again. That those closest to her would rather go behind her back than trust her and tell her what was happening. Would rather make her helpless again than let her in.

She despised it. 

When she had woken at seventeen, after bleeding out, too agonised and exhausted even to crawl for help. Waiting there to die. Before Azriel had found her. She had sworn to herself that she would die before she ever felt that way again.

That had been a lie. Another lie. A comforting lie that had made her feel better. But now she knew how hollow and empty that was and it tore at her, and nearly succeeded in tearing the tears she’d been fighting back for what felt like months.

Then the fight with Feyre in her tent after she had returned. In one piece, thank the Mother… But the things that she had said to her, the things she had heard come tearing from her friend’s lips…

She closes her eyes, hugging herself, her fingers gripping onto her arms until it hurts, fingernails biting into flesh. 

That breeze lifts again, carrying with it the tears that burn her eyes fall as she bows her head, shaking, failing to master herself.

They’re at war. She doesn’t have time to sit here and feel sorry for herself. She doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart. She’s never had the luxury. They need her. She’s their Third. She’s the Morrigan, she can’t do this.

She should be in camp, helping, planning, doing something. 

Instead she’s sitting here like a child. Pathetic and frightened and helpless all over again. 

She holds her head in her hands, shaking, not caring who sees. None of the Winter Court soldiers are likely to bother her. They would have to come seeking her, where she’s huddled on the edge of this war camp, overlooking the battle field that Feyre had tricked her onto, where Cassian had nearly died right in front of her, where-

She looks up at the soft, lithe footsteps that sound at her side. 

A beautiful Winter Court fae stands there, looking down at her. Selene. Viviane’s sister. 

It’s been decades since they’ve been this close to one another, not since before Amarantha. Yet she hasn’t changed. Like Mor’s memory made manifest before her, she stands. 

A tall, willowy pillar of frozen steel, cold and unyielding, precise and elegant as a sculpture. Her long silver hair restrained by a thick braid wrapped around her head like a crown. She looks strikingly like her older sister, except her eyes, they’re sharper, colder, and of a steely grey. The windswept mountain to her sister’s bright ocean sapphire.

For all they look alike however, there are no squealing outbursts and desperate hugs between the two of them. Only quiet. The same kind of quiet that always fills Mor whenever she looks into those pale, fathomless eyes. The same kind of quiet she wishes she could exist in for the rest of her life. 

The tension seems to bleed from her as that silence sweeps through her, a bone deep calm that she only ever feels around a few people in this world.

Wordlessly, taking Mor’s lack of brusque demand for her to leave her alone as acceptance of her presence, Selene carefully lowers herself down onto the ground. Then passes over a cup of tea from underneath her thick fur mantle. 

Mor accepts it gratefully, holding it between her hands to warm them from the chill night that’s starting to draw in around her. She sniffs at the tea before she takes a sip. The mixed scents of citrus and apple draw a small, sad smile from her. All these years...All these years but Selene still remembers her favourite blend.

They sit in silence for a long moment, sipping their tea. Mor is grateful for the other female’s company, despite the faint knot of tension that starts to pulse in her stomach at her presence. 

So long, it’s been so long since they were together. All this time, both likely fearing the other lost after Amarantha’s conquest and yet...Yet still the quiet embraces them, holds them tight, somehow more intimate than the embrace Viviane had swept her into when they had seen each other again.

It’s a gift, this respite that she offers her. But eventually, Mor finds herself breaking it, needing to ask the question.

Quietly, she murmurs, “How are you?”

Selene stiffens almost imperceptibly, takes a sip of her own tea, mint, if Mor isn’t mistaken. Even without the scent she would have known. She remembers her too. 

Then she says, “Well.” 

Her voice is the same as she remembers it, like snow melting from a mountainside, cool and heavy and smooth, with that soft rasp to it that makes her shiver.

It had been a loaded question, a question asking after how she had fared all these years they had been apart, with the distance of grief and loss between them. That she had chosen not to answer it, to confine their discussion to the present...Says all she needs it to.

She turns to face Mor, her eyes seeming to glow a dark silver as the light from the camp behind them catches in them.

“How are you?” she asks in turn.

There’s enough pointed emphasis in the last word that Mor knows the female can still read her as easily as she remembers how she prefers her tea. 

She turns away, looks down the sharply sloping hill to the battlefield again, churned and ragged and raw. A good mirror for the way she feels. 

All she says in answer to Selene’s question is, “Fine.”

To her surprise, that response tugs a soft huff of laughter from the female sitting by her side. The sound still makes such a contrast to her. Legs folded beneath her, back perfectly straight, the image of a noble lady. 

“All these years, Morrigan,” she says quietly, taking a drink of her tea before shaking her head and adding, “All these years and you still think you can hide from me.”

She doesn’t look at her as she says it, continues gazing serenely out over the battlefield, stray locks of silver dancing around her face like lost spirits.

 The calm, impassive set of her face implies that they might be talking about the weather.

Mor bristles. At the words. At the assumption in them. At the calm. She had loved it at times, yes. But at other times, times like this, times when she wants that mask to shatter and reveal the storm beneath, she hates it.

 “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands sharply, the words laced with a snarl that makes them harsher than she had intended.

Selene, as is her wont, remains utterly composed and unruffled by the display of aggression on her part. 

“It means that I know you,” she says simply. She takes another draught of tea then adds, before Mor can protest, “Fifty years apart, or five hundred, it makes no matter. I know you.”

Mor’s anger recedes at those words, at the truth contained within them. She does know her, she always has. Even from that first moment that they met, she had looked into her eyes and known. Known that something darker than the bright sunshine she coated herself with lurked beneath her warm eyes. 

She’s always had this effect on her. Has always been able to gentle her, quiet her, soothe her with a few soft words. Bare her body with some soft touches. Brush herself against her very soul with a kiss.

“I know when something is wrong,” Selene continues, every word carefully selected. Controlled, quiet, precise, as they always have been, “What happened?”

Mor closes her eyes, looking away from her. When she opens them, she lets her gaze stretch to the endless horizon beyond. 

Out past the bloodied battlefield and the crows that are starting to gather in clouds above it. A feast of the dead that she does not want to look at or think upon right now. 

Her throat tightens as the memory again surges. A part of her wishes to shove it down, wishes to continue insisting that everything is fine.

Yet...Yet it’s not fine. And she hasn’t seen this woman in fifty years. But it’s as though they’ve been together through it all. Side-by-side as they once were, as they perhaps should always be. And the words come before she truly gives them permission to. 

A world in which she feels the need to hide from this woman, this woman, who has seen and knows every inch of her body, her heart, her being...Is one she might not feel inclined to save any more.

“I had a fight with a friend,” she confesses tightly. 

Selene’s eyes slide to glance at her, though she remains facing the field, without turning her head. But she notes the tone, the rawness in Mor’s voice, as though the aftermath of the fight still stings at her throat, ravages the words when she tries to speak of it.

“About the war?” Selene enquires carefully, slender silver eyebrow arching. “Surely that is not enough to-“

“No,” Mor grits out, voice brittle. 

She takes a deep breath, clenching and unclenching her hands in her lap, a gesture that isn’t missed by Selene’s razor eyes. 

“Not about this. About. About-“ 

She can’t say it, can’t get the words out, not even to Selene, who knows, who understands she can’t she- 

Mor doesn’t realise how violently she’s shaking until she feels Selene’s hand on her back. Ice seems to spread from where they connect, the cold spreading through her, soothing her. Like a cool balm on a feverish ache.

Swallowing hard, Mor lets Selene gently rub her back in big, broad circles, unable to bear, for all her cool indifference, seeing her suffer this way. 

The touch is intimate, deeply personal, and again it feels like no time has passed between them. Like it was only yesterday they were bundled naked together beneath furs, in front of the roaring fireplace in the small mountain lodge that Selene called her home.

Finally, Mor manages to say tightly, “She knows.” Selene stiffens, her eyes going wide in surprise, “About me. About-“ 

She doesn’t have to finish, the way she squeezes her shoulder communicates well enough that she understands.

Mor bows her head, thick golden hair falling over her face, shielding the pain carving lines into her skin, hollowing out her eyes. 

She had been careful, she had been so careful all these years. She had hidden all those she had been with, all those she might have fallen in love with...All those she had fallen in love with to keep herself safe. 

If the Circle knew, the male lovers she had taken confused them enough that they kept quiet, kept wondering but never...Never in five hundred years had anyone challenged her the way that Feyre had.

They’re quiet for a long time, until a tear finally breaks free of Mor’s iron restraint and slides down her cheek. Before she can lift her own hand, Selene is there, pale, delicate fingers brushing it away, strengthening her.

 “Don’t you think,” she asks, voice quiet and measured but with a tightness that hasn’t entered it since she joined her here. A tightness she hasn’t heard for fifty years, “Don’t you think it would be so much better for you if you just told them all?”

There was no judgement in the words. None. There never had been. Not from her, never from her. She understands too well, understands her and understands this. What it feels like to be asked to bear such a tender, delicate part of herself that has never been seen, never touched before by any who don’t have a similar part of themselves to protect.

“Don’t start that again,” Mor snarls viciously, pulling away. 

The words snap out of her and she regrets them the instant they leave her mouth, as Selene’s hand leaves her back but...She can’t go through that again. Not with her. Not now. Not so soon after Feyre, when everything is still so raw.

Selene holds her furious stare, her own burning gaze meeting one of calm, tempered ice. Neither of them look away, neither bending or breaking, but it is Selene who speaks first. 

“I only want you to be happy, Mor,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically soft and gentle, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I know, I know,” Mor whispers, dropping her eyes at last and staring at the hands that are now fumbling uncomfortably in her lap to keep them from seizing one of Selene’s. “I’m sorry,” she mutters, quiet and brittle.

Selene surveys her for a long moment without saying anything, then, “It was bad?”

Mor can’t bring herself to answer her, the words jamming in her throat. She only manages a tight nod.

Selene draws in a heavy breath, fidgeting, uncharacteristically, with a loose thread in the fitted silver tunic she wears. 

Selene rarely wore dresses, feeling out of place and uncomfortable in the flowing silks and frills that Mor and her sister so loved. She had coaxed her into a few over the years, and the sight of her in them always damn near destroyed her. But there was something right about Selene in the tunics and jackets and furs of her court.

Finally she says quietly, “I was pleased to see you, today, you know.” 

Mor blinks in surprise, not having expected the conversation to take this turn. 

“I know I may have reacted...poorly, especially compared to-“ A muscle feathers in her jaw as she snaps her mouth shut, forestalling the comparison to her sister. A slight shake of the head, “I apologise,” she says stiffly. Too stiffly.

A soft smile brushes Mor’s lips for the first time that night. “You seem to forget,” she says quietly, reaching over and slipping her hand, warm from the tea that’s slowly growing cold, into hers. “That I know you, too.” 

Selene looks up at her, those impenetrable grey eyes yielding just a little for her. Her thumb strokes absently over the back of Mor’s hand. She shivers at the contact.

“I had thought you must be dead,” Selene says quietly, “After all that time, no word from you in that court. Even...In that place...”

Her eyes darken at the mention of Under the Mountain. Mor stiffens at the mention too. She had gone with Kallias that day, his right hand, his sworn shield, had remained there with him during Amarantha’s reign. From Rhys, Mor knows some of the horrors she experienced there.

Selene swallows hard, composing herself, pushing down whatever dark memories had reached up to take hold of her and Mor realises...Realises that she knows this woman but...There are scars that she doesn’t know, demons she has not yet met, ghosts that have not been buried.

However, her voice is perfectly steady when she resumes, “I thought of asking Rhys for news of you,” she says quietly. “I was never close to him, rarely spent time with him, but I knew he was your cousin, knew he cared for you, trusted you and yet...The mask he wore there, the things that he did-“ 

She cuts herself off when she feels Mor starting to shake beside her. Her thumb strokes over her hand again and her voice is controlled when she continues, weighing each word.

“I was not sure if I could trust him. I wanted to ask after you to know if you were safe, if there was even a shred of hope but...” She bows her head, shaking herself. “I told myself it would be worth it, whatever bargain he might strike with me, whatever wicked price he might compel me to pay it...It would have been worth it...For you.” 

Mor swallows tightly past the lump in her chest, struggling to remain grounded, present.

 “I was a coward,” Selene whispers, hanging her head, her eyes closing, though she doesn’t pull away from Mor, their hands remaining entwined, bridging the distance between them.

Mor opens her mouth to push back, to counter her, but Selene is already going on, speaking her words into the dark, cool night that’s slowly starting to unfold around them, darkness embracing them both.

“I should have asked him. I should have asked after you then I would have known. Then today perhaps I-“ 

She straightens her spine, exhaling, her breath blowing out in a cloud in front of her. Reasserting her famous control.

She turns at last and looks at Mor again as she says, “Seeing you again today, it was a shock. After all this time I, I-“

She stops herself, turns away again, unable to say what she feels for her in this moment. But Mor hears it all the same, echoing across fifty years spent in fear and uncertainty and distance, the longest they had ever gone without seeing one another. 

I missed you.

The argument with Feyre keeps playing over and over in her head. A never-ending echo that makes her feel an odd combination of emotions.  Anger and fear both strong amidst the torrent. 

Then there are the feelings that Selene has now stirred, the lust, the want, the desire. With the words, spoken and unspoken...It’s too much. 

They all rage within her, a fire that’s blazing out of control, setting her on edge and making her wince as every movement sends it flashing through her raw nerves.

She wants the softness she knows she can draw from Selene. That tenderness she isn’t sure anyone else has ever truly known from her. Not in the way she has. The ice in her touch would be the most welcome thing in the world right now, to still the inferno within.

Others had fled from it, had turned their backs on her, not wanting the cold, distant woman. Mor had never understood how they’d been unable to see the light that burned in her eyes when she set them on fire. There was a Starfall whenever they were entwined. 

She longs for it, has longed for it all these long year. She had never thought to have it again. Had never thought to even have a chance. Had never thought to be this close again.

Mor realises that she’s leaning into her, instinct drawing her forwards. The same kind of force as the pull that ties her to the earth, irresistible, inevitable. She wants this. She wants her. 

She wants the soothing calm that always floods through her whenever they’re together. Other lovers have set her on fire, stoked the flames that writhe and dance in her blood, in her heart. Selene...Selene had soothed it, had gentled it, had made it all stop for the first time in her life. 

When she had taken her to bed that first time, all those years ago, on a diplomatic mission to her court...She had never experienced anything like it before.

Selene was so often dismissed, so often in her sister’s shadow. Many made the mistake of assuming she was bitter about that, that she disliked the attention lavished upon Viviane but...She had confessed to liking it. The two of them understood one another and Viviane’s shadow, quiet, calm, peaceful, was exactly where Selene longed to be.

 She would have died for her sister. A hundred times over, before letting so much as a scratch touch her soft skin. That was Viviane’s power, her charm, the way wielded the beauty the Cauldron had given her, deflected attention from her reserved sister but Mor…

She loved Viviane dearly, the two so alike in personality and taste that they had connected at once, all bubbly laughter and excited shouts. Viviane was alive with energy and joy and yet, despite that shine, that presence, that magnetic pull towards her...The moment Mor had set eyes on Selene she had wanted her.

She had not taken a female lover since Andromache’s death but when she saw Selene...Her heart had constricted, her lungs emptying of breath. The world around her had gone quiet and dark and cold and she had never wanted it to switch back on, had not wanted the raucous laughter or pounding music to distract from this.

Mor had looked at Selene and she had been home. She was Velaris when it came alive after the sun had set and the stars scattered themselves about the sky above. 

She was the quiet time she spent during the nights. Alone on a balcony, the cool air a fresh and welcome touch upon her skin, fever hot from dancing and singing and laughing at Rita’s. 

She was the heavy embrace of the darkness gilded with moonlight that made her feel safe, cherished.

Their courtship had been quiet, tentative. Mor had made excuses, so many that Cassian had teased her mercilessly, and Az had quietly asked if everything was alright, to return to the Winter Court to visit her. 

She pretended it was for Viviane, their friendship so open, and the letters they sent one another so constant that no-one questioned it. But as soon as she could she went to Selene.

It took her time to open up, to trust Mor, to let her in. But before long she had been showing her the court. At first just the cities, her favourite places to eat or to shop. Different from the bustling places Viviane had dragged her too, but still within the cities, safe, distanced.

Then something had changed between them. Selene had softened, a more vulnerable side emerging, and she’d taken her to all of her secret, intimate places. The places she had only ever gone alone, and had never shared with another soul before her.

Mor hadn’t been able to get enough of her. There hadn’t been enough hours in the day, enough weeks in the year, enough years in her eternity to spend with her. 

She had been so timid, opening up to her, revealing how she felt about females. It had been easier with Andromache. She had been human, separate, distinct, from the world she hid herself from so keenly.

Selene was fae, was part of that world, could have ruined her so easily and yet... She had not been able to help herself.

That first time they had slept together had been the first time that Selene had seen Velaris. 

She still remembered it so well. Mor had taken her to all of her favourite places, shown her everything she could all in that one visit. She had been sure she had overwhelmed her, sure she would simply wish to return home the next day, exhausted.

But instead they had ended up in that cabin in the mountains and Selene had stared with wonder at the night their court was famous for and then...Then she had kissed her.

They had tumbled into bed that same night. And Mor had not known pleasure like it since Andromache had died. She had never thought to feel that kind of pleasure again. Everything had gone quiet and still. She had forgotten that there was a world out there beyond that cabin, beyond the space where their bodies connected.

It had not lasted. 

Reality had rushed back in. 

One particularly bad visit to the Court of Nightmares had caused her to end it in a blind panic. She had been unable to stop herself imagining all of the things that her father would do to Selene. Her beautiful, wonderful Selene. 

If he had ever found out about her, about what they had, he would take it. He would take it, and he would break it, and she would be as helpless as a child before him again with that power it would have given him over her.

 That terror had been too much. She had handled it badly and Selene...After all the time it had taken to build up her trust, her interest, she had ruined everything between them that night.

Yet it hadn’t ended there. 

They had both been young and foolish and Mor was still connected to that court through Viviane. Selene, it seemed, had never explained to her sister what they had had, what they had been to one another, what they might have been had Mor not rejected her. Viviane had, eventually, dragged her into staying with her once more and when she had seen Selene...She had broken.

She had confessed everything to her that night. The Court of Nightmares. The vitriol she had grown up with. What her father and Eris had done to her after she had slept with Cassian and ruined her betrothal. 

Selene had listened in that way of hers, that quiet that somehow went beyond silence. A calm so razor-edged and lethal that Mor had seen the wild thing stir to life in her eyes. They had fallen into bed and into love with one another all over again.

But it had still ended. It always ended. 

Mor panicked. Or Selene needed more than she could give her. The distance grated on them. The need for secrecy and lies broke them both.

 Something always happened to tear them away from one another. But then something always happened to bring them back. No matter how far she ran, no matter how far apart the world pulled them, something was always stronger. It always brought them back. Even conquest and war and tyranny had not been enough to separate them.

Here they were again, on the precipice of the dawn of the new world, and they were together. They had survived. They were here. And Mor wants her. She craves her. She needs her.

Not just for the reckless defiance that blurred the lines between sense and spite after the argument with Feyre. 

Not just because she needs something, anything, to take her away from the horror of this war. 

Not just because she’s desperate for a distraction from the prospect of watching those she loved die around her. 

Not just because she wants someone to just hold her for one damned night where she can be soft and vulnerable, and something less than strong. 

Because she wants her. She needs her. She always has. A part of her likely always will.

Selene feels her stare and turns slowly to her. Mor catches a flicker of lust lighting the deep slate grey of her eyes, making the silver dance through them. Then they slide down to her lips. Remaining there. 

She does not look away this time, does not flinch from the heat and lust that she must be able to feel blazing from her, that she can surely scent with so little distance between them.

Mor moves closer to her. They’re out here in the open, a stone’s throw from the entire Winter Court army. Her own army is camped not far from there, her own father among them.

But she feels reckless, defiant in the face of Feyre’s accusations, the words she had hurled at her. 

Liar. Liar. Liar. 

She squeezes her hand tightly, their lips a mere fraction from one another.

She feels it, tastes it, when Selene whispers, “Mor.” 

It’s a warning, a reproach, a hesitation...But she does not pull away. Her eyes flutter, half-closed, her lips part slightly, seeking for Mor’s.

A flicker of uncertainty stirs inside her as she realises how close they are, how open and exposed and vulnerable. 

She covers the moment, getting smoothly to her feet, as though this had always been the intention, the moment that had passed between them just now nothing more than a tease. 

“Come,” Mor murmurs quietly, not taking her eyes from the female still sitting primly upright on the grass, not having moved.

Mor holds out her hand. Invitation. Offer. Plea.

“Mor-“ Selene begins, still not moving.

She keeps her hand held out to her, says once more, not bothering to try to hide the faint note of desperation in her voice, not from her, when she says again, “Come.”

Selene takes a breath, closing her eyes, pressing her lips together. Then, faster than Mor can see, her hand shoots out, closing around Mor’s own, her grip death tight. 

A moment later she’s winnowed them, drawing them both into darkness and shadow. Away, away, away. omewhere they can be alone together at last.

****

[highfaelucien]

Okay but Lucien chilling and eating with everyone with a mouthful of apple pie just listening to everyone talk.

Across the table, Elain offhandedly asks Cassian what he thinks of it (Cassian gets all final food approval) and he tells her it's very good.

Elain just beams and says she's happy because this is the first one she's made completely by herself!

Lucien chokes.

I think without a doubt the FUNNIEST thing about the ACOTAR fandom is the sheer number of fics written where basically one mate accidentally passes a cookie or something to the other at the dinner table and everyone is like *GASP* oh no they almost accidentally mated!!!!!

And it’s funny because this mating bond has been so poorly explained that there is actually no canon explanation for if this is possible or not...

Like thank goodness feyre and Nesta don’t know what a stove is but what about Elain? She be cooking all day so does Lucien just constantly parkour around her at dinner so she doesn’t pass him anything? I need answers!!

[highfaelucien]

I've ranted about this in longer meta posts, but taking a post for it:

I'm so sad that Maas nuked all of the support Mor and Azriel had for each other as soon as Mor became queer?

It was like as though as soon as they couldn't have a romantic connection anymore they couldn't have ANY connection? (save for Az's now incredibly unhealthy and one-sided, unwanted pining)

They used to watch out for each other. Mor met Azriel whenever he returned from missions. She wore him down into actually opening up and having some healthy talks with someone. He sought her out and was able to comfort her when she was scared and jittery.

Now there's just NOTHING. Nothing except Mor being suddenly afraid of Azriel and his emotions (buuulllssshhiiiiiiit) and needing Cassian to buffer them because she's so uncomfortable with him.

And it could not be clearer that Maas has absolutely no interest in exploring m/f dynamics when there's no possibility of them fucking anymore.

Why explore a complex, deep, nuanced, centuries old friendship where two traumatised survivors are each others safe space and comfort person if they can't bone, right?

And I would like to personally revolt against this bullshit.

[highfaelucien]

You know what the most infuriating thing is? I really loved Elain and Azriel's dynamic/exploring that before it turned into unhealthy horny fest 3.0. But now I feel I cant explore that at all without the feral e/riel plague descending.

[highfaelucien]

EVERYTHING with them is a fantasy, though.

He has no thoughts or plans beyond sexual fantasies (which still makes me grumpy to think about but hey whatever. Az's character has been on a steady decline since ACOWAR let's be honest).

When he talks about her being his mate it's an idealised version of reality in his head - a glorious fantasy where his brothers are mated to three sisters.

It has nothing to do with Elain herself. It's not about her as a person. Or their connection. Or even his current feelings for her. It's just this idealised version of her as almost an object that he deserves because of what his brothers have.

His entire "relationship" is an idealisation or fantasy version of both Elain and reality. And it's not healthy or fair for either of them.

It feels a little weird to me that Azriel started his bonus chapter by saying he “had been planning his own victory for a year now” (snowball fight). But when Rhysand asks him what he’s gonna do about Elain, the woman he loves and wants to be with, Azriel thinks that “He hadn’t gotten that far with his planning”....

Ms Maas what are you trying to tell us? Was this deliberate?

[highfaelucien]

I need to write more Queer Content for pride month. More Mor/Nesta and Mor/Elain bc they are Quality Contents. And more bat boys/Everyone bc they be gaying y'all.

[highfaelucien]

Would anyone like to be tagged in my Emotional Gay "Mor has a long history with Viviane's sister fic" when I post it later???

[highfaelucien]

Ardere - A Helion/Lady of Autumn Fic

y’all heathens made me have feelings so i wrote a thing. hurt/comfort, angst, all sorts. Tagging some folks who inspired this with their emotional dashboard shenanigans/that I feel would Appreciate the content. @exiledelain @confused-as-all-hell @asteria-of-mars @ratabrasileira @ladyvanserra @vanserrasvalkyrie @rarephloxes  @queen-hypaxia

Title: Ardere

Length: 3.3k

Warnings: Mentions of domestic abuse, given Lady Autumn’s situation

Summary: Set during the High Lords meeting in ACOWAR. Canon compliant, I suppose, but do any of us care about that anymore?? Hestia, the Lady of the Autumn Court, seeks her oldest lover and comfort Helion for a stolen night of love and reconnection. Helion POV, emotional hurt/comfort, bit of angst.

Teaser:

‘" Hestia,“ he whispered, with the same reverence he’d speak the name of a goddess in her holiest temple.

Instinct bade him go to her, and he did not fight it. He didn’t even try.

For a moment he thought she might refuse him, might insist upon caution. But the next she was in his arms, and as he held her close and breathed her in, he knew he hadn’t been truly warm since last he’d been able to embrace her.

"Helion,” she murmured into his chest.

The sound of her voice wrapped around his name was the sweetest torture he’d ever known. All Hyben need do to break him was ask him to defect in her voice and he would obey without a thought.

AO3: Link

“I cannot spare long." 

The book he’d been flipping idly through dropped at once from his fingers at the sound of that voice.

Before he’d finished turning to her, her scent hit him. So warm, so inviting, it nearly knocked him back into his chair.

Then he beheld her.

The first time he’d clapped eyes on her, all those centuries ago, she’d left him breathless and stunned. 

Like an Autumn storm that had ravaged every part of his being and left him, naked and awed, before its power and majesty. She had blown into his life with an unexpected abruptness as yet unmatched.

He’d been an arrogant prick at that age. Cauldron, he was still an arrogant prick. But he’d been used to everyone’s eyes, male or female, following him as he moved through a room. 

Those gazes found him and they didn’t leave. He was High fae. He was a High Lord’s heir. He’d been made to rule Day and to look damned good while doing it.

 He’d been accustomed to being wanted, to inspiring lust and envy by simply existing.

Never, before her, had he been on the other side. 

He’d never seen someone so beautiful. So consuming and captivating that he hadn’t been sure of being able to win their lust and love with a simple smile and an effortless word.

She’d shaken something in him that day. She had entered his world and unmade him with a glance. Then reconstructed him, exactly as she’d found him, with one stark difference. At the core of the man she had rebuilt was a need for her. Not merely her beautiful body, but her heart, her soul. He’d known, in that moment, that she had him. And always would.

The years had taken much from her. And holy gods, did he know it. But they had not taken this, her ability to so thoroughly destroy him that he was reborn at once as her servant in but a single glance.

” Hestia,“ he whispered, with the same reverence he’d speak the name of a goddess in her holiest temple.

Instinct bade him go to her, and he did not fight it. He didn’t even try.

For a moment he thought she might refuse him, might insist upon caution. But the next she was in his arms, and as he held her close and breathed her in, he knew he hadn’t been truly warm since last he’d been able to embrace her.

"Helion,” she murmured into his chest.

The sound of her voice wrapped around his name was the sweetest torture he’d ever known. All Hyben need do to break him was ask him to defect in her voice and he would obey without a thought.

For all that he made a show, and tell, if he was fair, about what the Cauldron gave him with regards to his body, particularly his glorious thighs, that wasn’t his true pride.

No, the thing he held most valuable was his mind which contained the knowledge of a thousand libraries and more.

He didn’t earn his name by clearing through spells with his thighs. Fuck no. His wit, his cunning, his intellect, that was where his true power, his true strength as a High Lord came from.

That was why Hestia had always managed to claim him so thoroughly. All these centuries later and he still couldn’t think around her. Couldn’t form a single coherent thought while her scent filled his lungs. It travelled from there directly to his brain, and filled it with stolen afternoons and illicit nights spent in the only place they truly belonged.

Drawing away, in itself an agony, but one he was rewarded for, as it let him look into her face.

He cradled it between his hands, so careful. so delicate. She was not a fragile woman, he knew that well. She was of the forge, with fire in her veins, and iron in her bones.

The world saw the silence, the frailty of her body, and the resignation of her fate and mistook that for softness, and docility. He knew better.

This woman put the heroes of the War to shame. Her strength, her courage, her will - if they had any idea they’d have written epic poems about her resilience and ballads to her spirit. 

Drakon wouldn’t have lasted an hour in her place. Had she been in his, the damned War would have ended so fast they wouldn’t have been able to call it one.

Yet he held her with all the gentleness that was in him. Not because he feared she might break without it; but because he knew she would find none elsewhere.

His fingers tenderly brushed her hair from her eyes. Like her, their, son’s it was a red as sure as blood. But hers spiralled from her in a cacophony of raucous curls. They were contained, now, with a thick leather band around her head. He would always remember them wild, and free, as she was meant to be.

Keep reading

[highfaelucien]

Ardere - A Helion/Lady of Autumn Fic

y’all heathens made me have feelings so i wrote a thing. hurt/comfort, angst, all sorts. Tagging some folks who inspired this with their emotional dashboard shenanigans/that I feel would Appreciate the content. @exiledelain @confused-as-all-hell @asteria-of-mars @ratabrasileira @ladyvanserra @vanserrasvalkyrie @rarephloxes  @queen-hypaxia

Title: Ardere

Length: 3.3k

Warnings: Mentions of domestic abuse, given Lady Autumn’s situation

Summary: Set during the High Lords meeting in ACOWAR. Canon compliant, I suppose, but do any of us care about that anymore?? Hestia, the Lady of the Autumn Court, seeks her oldest lover and comfort Helion for a stolen night of love and reconnection. Helion POV, emotional hurt/comfort, bit of angst.

Teaser:

‘" Hestia," he whispered, with the same reverence he'd speak the name of a goddess in her holiest temple.

Instinct bade him go to her, and he did not fight it. He didn't even try.

For a moment he thought she might refuse him, might insist upon caution. But the next she was in his arms, and as he held her close and breathed her in, he knew he hadn't been truly warm since last he'd been able to embrace her.

"Helion," she murmured into his chest.

The sound of her voice wrapped around his name was the sweetest torture he'd ever known. All Hyben need do to break him was ask him to defect in her voice and he would obey without a thought.

AO3: Link

"I cannot spare long." 

The book he'd been flipping idly through dropped at once from his fingers at the sound of that voice.

Before he'd finished turning to her, her scent hit him. So warm, so inviting, it nearly knocked him back into his chair.

Then he beheld her.

The first time he'd clapped eyes on her, all those centuries ago, she'd left him breathless and stunned. 

Like an Autumn storm that had ravaged every part of his being and left him, naked and awed, before its power and majesty. She had blown into his life with an unexpected abruptness as yet unmatched.

He'd been an arrogant prick at that age. Cauldron, he was still an arrogant prick. But he'd been used to everyone's eyes, male or female, following him as he moved through a room. 

Those gazes found him and they didn't leave. He was High fae. He was a High Lord's heir. He'd been made to rule Day and to look damned good while doing it.

 He'd been accustomed to being wanted, to inspiring lust and envy by simply existing.

Never, before her, had he been on the other side. 

He'd never seen someone so beautiful. So consuming and captivating that he hadn't been sure of being able to win their lust and love with a simple smile and an effortless word.

She'd shaken something in him that day. She had entered his world and unmade him with a glance. Then reconstructed him, exactly as she'd found him, with one stark difference. At the core of the man she had rebuilt was a need for her. Not merely her beautiful body, but her heart, her soul. He'd known, in that moment, that she had him. And always would.

The years had taken much from her. And holy gods, did he know it. But they had not taken this, her ability to so thoroughly destroy him that he was reborn at once as her servant in but a single glance.

" Hestia," he whispered, with the same reverence he'd speak the name of a goddess in her holiest temple.

Instinct bade him go to her, and he did not fight it. He didn't even try.

For a moment he thought she might refuse him, might insist upon caution. But the next she was in his arms, and as he held her close and breathed her in, he knew he hadn't been truly warm since last he'd been able to embrace her.

"Helion," she murmured into his chest.

The sound of her voice wrapped around his name was the sweetest torture he'd ever known. All Hyben need do to break him was ask him to defect in her voice and he would obey without a thought.

For all that he made a show, and tell, if he was fair, about what the Cauldron gave him with regards to his body, particularly his glorious thighs, that wasn't his true pride.

No, the thing he held most valuable was his mind which contained the knowledge of a thousand libraries and more.

He didn't earn his name by clearing through spells with his thighs. Fuck no. His wit, his cunning, his intellect, that was where his true power, his true strength as a High Lord came from.

That was why Hestia had always managed to claim him so thoroughly. All these centuries later and he still couldn't think around her. Couldn't form a single coherent thought while her scent filled his lungs. It travelled from there directly to his brain, and filled it with stolen afternoons and illicit nights spent in the only place they truly belonged.

Drawing away, in itself an agony, but one he was rewarded for, as it let him look into her face.

He cradled it between his hands, so careful. so delicate. She was not a fragile woman, he knew that well. She was of the forge, with fire in her veins, and iron in her bones.

The world saw the silence, the frailty of her body, and the resignation of her fate and mistook that for softness, and docility. He knew better.

This woman put the heroes of the War to shame. Her strength, her courage, her will - if they had any idea they'd have written epic poems about her resilience and ballads to her spirit. 

Drakon wouldn't have lasted an hour in her place. Had she been in his, the damned War would have ended so fast they wouldn't have been able to call it one.

Yet he held her with all the gentleness that was in him. Not because he feared she might break without it; but because he knew she would find none elsewhere.

His fingers tenderly brushed her hair from her eyes. Like her, their, son's it was a red as sure as blood. But hers spiralled from her in a cacophony of raucous curls. They were contained, now, with a thick leather band around her head. He would always remember them wild, and free, as she was meant to be.

As he moved them aside, he saw the shadow of a bruise around one of her beautiful russet eyes. Hidden well, but...

His body went taut, jaw clenching instinctively. She felt the tension coiling in him, and laid her hands gently over his.

"Don’t," was all she said, voice soft, but unyielding, like the sun’s gentle rays as it rose each morning.

"Not a heartbeat has passed for me since that day," he rumbled, voice deeper and darker than his usual light, playful timbre." That I have not thought about the choice that was made, and begged the Mother to let me change it." 

She faced him steadily and said, " You know I made the choice that was available to mem" she moved closer, her body melting against his, like the hot metal of a blade folded around itself to create something more, "Not the one I wanted."

"I know, my hearthlight,” he whispered softly, sensing her smile at the old pet name he used for her, “And I would never blame you for that. But as for myself-"

A coward. This woman. This holy, burning creature. This caged forest fire... She loved a coward.

Hestia placed a finger to his lips, silencing him, " What good does it do," she murmured the rich warmth of her voice caressing him like a thick blanket on a cold winter night, “To dwell upon the past? To linger, in misery, and shame in a single moment of your immortal life?”

He opened his mouth to answer her, but she knew him too well, and silenced him with but a single look.

"Will your regret force back the sun?” she demanded with that quiet spirit he loved so keenly, “Will your sadness take us back? Will your guilt rewrite the pages of the history books which have been gathering dust in your libraries for centuries?" 

She was such a small thing. She always had been. And seemed more so, held between his muscular arms. Yet she dwarfed him now.

Like the flicker of a candle flame catching and summoning a raging inferno to remind him she was but a fragment of a force of nature, bound in skin, but never truly caged.

"If I could have," he said at last, voice a little hoarse as though he'd inhaled thick smoke, “I would have done so a thousand times over. And paid any price to do so."

He had tried. He'd never confess it to another soul, not even to the Mother herself upon his deathbed, but he had tried. Tried to rip apart the fabric of all reality with nothing but his bare hands and love for her.

A part of him was still surprised that it had not been enough. Because it was. Reality had simply not accepted that particular facet of its existence.

"I know you would have, lucky fluke," all these years and still she called him that. 

A name she'd hung on him to tease the first day they had met. He'd baldly called their meeting the Mother's own ordained fate. She'd laughed, with a sound like falling leaves, and named it, and him, lucky fluke. 

Then, the words had been edged with mockery. Now they echoed with all of their history, with all of their fondness, and all of her love.

"But time goes on. That sun of yours still journeys East to West, and we still live with the decisions we made upon a summer's night a million fireflies' lifetimes ago."

" Hestia-" he began, but she quietened him once more.

"When I wish to look back, Helion, I shall find myself a mirror,” she said, with the strength that had held her together all these decades of pain and misery, turned upon him now to remind him that she would not yield.

“I will not live my life wading through times I have already endured,” she said, voice softer now, but no less intent, “I have no wish to allow him to cause me pain in the few and rare times that are my own. I shall make pleasant moments here, with you, and that is what I ask of you. To be with me. Here. Now. And to love me while we can."

"I am yours, Lady,” he breathed. 

With the same breath he’d first pledged that to her centuries ago. Before the world had taken the freedom she craved so much, and given him a power he’d never wanted. A tattoo of her heart had etched itself over his own, in a vibrant red, a marker of the bargain he’d made. Unintended, but not regretted. 

“From now until my sun fades from this world unto the next," he promised her once more, one hand over his heart.

"Until I find you there as well," she replied, as she had all those years ago, leaning up, while drawing him down, and touching her forehead to his.

He loved her. Oh, Cauldron, he loved her, and whatever the Mother had used to make her, he loved that too.

"Come," she said softly," Let us make the most of what time we have."

So they did.

"What do you want from me, Hestia?" he whispered, pressing the worlds into her thick hair, his face buried in the crown of her head.

She looked at him, and answered as she did each time with aching certainty, and absolute truth." Everything."

"Then take it." he whispered, a devoted priest at last within the presence of his deity, “All I have, and all I do not. Take it all."

So she did.

They had no need of words in that hallowed space when bodies and beings connected, skin to skin, and soul to soul.

The breath it would have cost to provide a vessel for their thoughts would have only felt like a barrier between them.

They had no wish for that.

He knew her thoughts. And she knew his. They did not need to share them with the air and fireflies. 

For themselves, they gave voice to those thoughts in the lost language of lovers. Spoken in the gasps of breath and sweating palms.Thundering hearts, and hungering lips. Gasping lungs, and grasping touch.

And every thought the same: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Then came the quiet. The gentle tangle of limbs. Eyes closed, heartbeats aligned. Willing the dawn to wait for them.

They did not sleep. They would not waste time on dreams when they already had everything they could ever hope to find in that untamable oblivion already contained within their embrace.

"It has been some time," Helion said at last, loath to break the spell of the silent commune of their souls, but such was his nature,"I thought the most of you I would ever make love to again was the echo of our last time, the memory of you."

He shifted slightly, so that he could see her face, all peaceful lines and soft curls, her eyes still closed.

"Why now, Hestia? With him," his jaw tightened at the mere mention of that excuse for a male, "So close the risk-"

"Is minimal," she interceded smoothly. Still without opening an eye, she continued." I drugged his wine. He shall sleep until daybreak. At least."

Helion opened his mouth, then closed it, refusing to be drawn off course "You didn't answer my question."

"I thought the answer would be obvious to you, lucky fluke," she murmured.

"You know you reduce me to the wits of a mere mortal, hearthlight," he said, half burying the words in her thick hair.

" Hmm," she hummed, thoughtful, "Must I spell it out for you, then, brightheart?" 

"If you would be so good, my lady." 

She was quiet so long he thought she might have succumbed to sleep, despite their pact.

At last she said, quiet as an Autumn breeze, " Each morning, when I open my eyes, and watch the sun rise beyond my window, I prepare myself for pain." 

He flinched, but she seemed not to notice, continuing calmly.

"This has been my burden to bear through all my years of marriage And I have borne it well, without falter, or complaint.

"I have known pain in many forms, and I have carried every one. But upon the horizon, I saw a new pain. One I had not confronted for so long. And I knew, in my soul, that I was not equal to it. That, at last, I would meet a battle I could not win. And so I found a way to avoid fighting it altogether."

"What did you foresee, hearthlight?" he forced himself to say.

"This war," she murmured, her ever-steady voice cracking in a way that made him pull her closer still. "This war came. And it claimed you. It took you from me when you had not been mine in centuries. And I could not abide that."

"I am always yours," he whispered fiercely. 

"Peace, brightheart," she soothed, "I know that. But I had to feel it. I had to erase the idea that last time was the last. I had to have you, and hold you, and love you once more before the end. Or else I knew I could not face this war. Not alone."

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and held it, eyes closed, heart pounding, fighting every urge not to speak the words batting past the lump in his throat. But he had never been as strong as her.

"I cannot let you go this time, Hestia," he groaned, " I cannot sit idly, and smile, and tease while I've willingly let you go again."

"If I can find the strength to do what must be done," she said, with iron in her words, "Then you must find the strength to let me."

"I can't," he said, voice breaking. She found his hand and squeezed it, "I am a High Lord in my own right now, Hestia." he breathed to her." I could-"

"No, you could not." she said, firm, unyielding, a rock in an icy stream, with waters all around, that had not moved in centuries, and would not now.

"There is a war coming, Helion. Win or lose in a fight for me, it would shatter this fragile alliance, and any hope for Pythian. So you will do no such thing." she went on, before he could protest, "For we must win this war. For our courts. For our people. For our freedom. And for our son."

For the first time her voice broke. Before they fell, his fingers had already lifted to wipe her tears. the only ones she would shed. Not for herself. Never for herself. But for her, for their, son... She had never confronted him with it so boldly before.

He closed his eyes, unable to deny her. Unable to even deny her.

"We have to tell him, Hestia," he said, so softly.

"We must," she agreed, "But I have not been allowed to see him in almost three hundred years. And I will not have you tell him alone. As much for his sake as for yours."

He nodded, head bowed. 

"Together, then. If I make it through what is to come."

Reaching up she took his chin between her fingers and drew his face down to meet her eyes.

"You will not die this war, Helion," she told him.

Her words flared with that fire she was forced to hide from everyone, everyone but him.

"Because if you try, I will drag the Mother by her hair to your grave and force her to dig you up for me."

He smiled at those words, at the certainty that she would do exactly as she said.

"That almost makes me want to try it, you know," he purred, tracing vague patterns into the bare skin of her shoulder with his thumb as he spoke, "Just to see you do that."

She actually growled at him which, from her, was enough to utterly dissuade him from the notion.

They lay in gentle silence together, until the velvet blackness of night bled to indigo, as the careless artist of time spilled the white she used to craft the stars into the sky itself and melted its darkness.

"I've always found it ironic," he mused, "That being High Lord of Day hasn't blessed me with the power to halt the sun, and stop the day from intruding."

"That is your duty, brightheart." she replied with a soft smile." You must assert yourself upon the land, its sleepy lovers, and restless thieves alike, and force them to make haste and more. Without you there would be no growth, no change, only stagnation and decay." 

She cupped his face in her hand, a hand now lined, to show the life she'd lived. Without him. His heart lurched at the thought.

But her voice drew him back to her as she said, "And without Day, the nights would not seem nearly so precious."

He pressed a gentle kiss to her waiting mouth, silent thanks for her words, the feeling behind them. He held her eyes a moment more. spinning out this last bit of thread, like a frugal weaver making the most of fate's allotment.

Then he said, irritably, "I'm still going to have words with Thesan later today."

She laughed as he said that, but she laughed as she withdrew from him. 

How fittingly ironic that the sweetest sound he'd ever heard paired in this moment with the bitterest sorrow he'd ever felt.

He watched her as she withdrew the new gown she'd thought to bring. At a silent glance from her he rose, still naked, and helped to seal her back into her cage of cotton and lace.

He combed and braided her hair, as he'd done a thousand times before. Then, heart aching, as it had a thousand times before, he spun a ward around her, to mask his scent where it mingled with hers. She could carry no reminders of this night save fragile memory.

Then, like the night, with one final kiss, she was gone. The chamber felt cold, even as it was bathed in his light.

Wordless, he pulled on a robe and strode onto his balcony to greet the rising of his sun.

It was a hollow warmth, compared to her, and brought him little comfort. 

As he gazed ahead into his eternity. Alone, once more. Lonely in a way only she would know. For the world saw the friends he surrounded himself with, and the lovers he brought to his bed, without ever knowing the gaping void in his soul that he could never fill with them.

Closing his eyes, he drew in one last breath of her, of them, their scents still mingling on his skin, then banished it.

He turned towards the light, facing this new day, and begged the Mother to lend him even a fragment of his heartlight's strength that he might face it.

***