#Craven Faults

[trevlad-sounds]

On this day in 2022. This mix happened.

Iguana Moonlight-VI

Bernard Fevre-impressionism

The Heartwood Institute-Striding Edge

Natureboy Flako-Crystals

Tom Elliot-Image Maker

Correlations-Recall

Craven Faults-Deipkier

Pye Corner Audio-Exhumed

Sam Prekop-The New Last

Basil Kirchin, John Coleman-Assignment K 3

Freedom Power-Metropolis Notte

Maston-Evening

Monoton, Konrad Becker-Ein Wort

Folclore Impressionista-The Illusion of Freedom

THE DANDELION SET & ALAN MOORE-Cosmic Variations

Domenique Dumont-Quasi Quasi

The Twelve Hour Foundation-Through Violet Perspex/5-6-7-Go!

The Heartwood Institute-Stock Ghyll Force

The Twelve Hour Foundation-Hundreds, Tens & Units

Keith Mansfield-Staying Power

Folclore Impressionista-Shadow and Dark

B. Kaufman-Jingle 1

Cate Brooks-Econoparc

The Twelve Hour Foundation-Elastic Limit

Mark Barrott-Baby Come Home

Correlations-Alonso

Mo Foster-Times Square

The Twelve Hour Foundation-Coquillages

Menahan Street Band-Midnight Morning

Listening Center-T-Group

Café Kaput-Cells In Action

A. Frydman & M. Cannone-Sylphides

Roger Roger-Sounds Industrial N°2

Jonathan Snipes-Flashing Lights in Unison

Correlations-Mount Hood

Jonathan Fitoussi / Clemens Hourrière-Vague

V. Geminiani-Ophis Le Serpentaire

Stellarays-Trish's Toy Rocket

The Heartwood Institute-Honister Pass/ The Druids Circle

[iamlisteningto]

Craven Faults’ Standers

[altarus]

Album Year List (2023)

Another year down the drain, that means it’s time for lists again! Here we go. Continue reading Untitled

[senorboombastic]

Release Rundown - BC Camplight and Craven Faults

Words: Ben Forrester BC Camplight – The Last Rotation Of Earth(Bella Union) It’s mad to think it’s been three years since Manchester based songwriter BC Camplight embraced us with his beautifully chaotic meditation on grief, ‘Shortly After Take Off’. It would be an album that would widen BC’s platform in all areas, from press to radio to live shows. There was a thought of how BC could follow an…

[sackclothandasdfjkl]

The Fall of Arthur:

[neraiutsuze]

finally got to watch the first three eps of LOVM s2 hell yeah hell yeah hell yeAH I’M HERE FOR ALL OF THIS

[peachesofteal]

Fae Simon strikes me as the kind that would lure and trap his future wife in a fairy ring. She doesn't believe in magic or superstition when she steps across the ring...until a masked figure appears out of thin air and spirits here away to his realm.

This gave me brain worms for Gaz (and I'm already working on another fae Simon piece so)

female reader / 18+ mdni - dubcon(ish)

"So sorry. You alright love?"

The stranger's hand curls around your elbow, steadying the precarious tip of your body, balance disrupted by the impact of his shoulder to your chest. "My fault. Didn't see you there."

Fuzzy synapses fire in your brain. They reach for one another, desperate to click together, to link their hands and jolt you back into the moment.

You blink. The wind turns cold.

"It's... okay." He's beautiful. Blinding. Terrifying. Something about the angles of his face, his cheekbones, his brow, forces your head to cock, sight focused and then unfocused, as if you're staring at a star.

Your mind feels empty. The sidewalk becomes a bog, fetid and thick beneath your feet.

Where have you gone? Lost somewhere?

He doesn't let go. The axis tilts, world stopping on a dime, collective breath stalled on an inhale, and you stay trapped there, a hand on your elbow, rooted to the ground.

Lovely girl. It purrs in your heart. Precious thing.

His chest brushes yours, his nose to your neck. A deep inhale, and his fingers glide up to your pulse point.

He murmurs something. You break the surface of the water, and blink. "I'm sorry?"

"Said, do you want me to take you home." The question doesn't end in the proper inflection, and you scramble to consider it, to let it sink in-

until he takes your hand.

"Fuck. Oh-" His tongue laps over your clit, fingers spread in a V through your folds, sticky dew webbed through his teeth, coating his tongue, his chin. He smirks.

"Going to come again?"

"Yeah," you breathe, spine arched, hips rolling in his grip. "Please." You tremble for him, cry for him, and he laps up the salt of your tears, savoring before swallowing, taking as many pieces as he can into himself.

The more the better.

He works you up and over the hill, pussy tight around his fingers, and as you lay prone and panting, he pulls your calf up to his shoulder, heavy cock nestled at your seam.

"Condom?" you slur, head rolling to your neck, satiated gaze peeking up through your lashes.

"Of course." He soothes, lies, smoothing a palm down your cheek, his nose touching to yours. It forces some friction, head notching against your swollen and tender bud, your gasp swallowed up in his mouth.

More pieces.

"Kyle," you whine, and it sounds so good, feathery and sweet, precious like you.

He takes no more time, and thrusts himself deep, burrowing into your body with a groan. You seize, fluttering around him, crown of his cock too deep for comfort, trembles wracking your spine. Wet heat explodes around him, and he chuckles. "Coming again, then?" He flexes his hips. "Hungry little slut, aren't you?" You nod, delirious, fingernails dug into his forearms, slicing at his skin.

"Fuck me, Kyle, p-please." He squeezes your calf, drawing away completely, before slamming back until his balls shove against the curve of your ass, your shriek music to his ears.

He needs you to cry. Needs to swallow as many as he can. Needs to collect each one, make sure they stick, but it's more than that. He's craven, fueled by a desire to possess you, claim you, drag you beneath the veil. Flint to steel shoots off sparks in his blood, the craze of the hunt, the chase, echoing through the slap of skin, your hiccups and moans, the crack of your bones.

He bites your calf muscle and croons. "Almost there."

"D-don't stop." You plead, already on the cusp again, pussy trying to milk him dry, pull his cock deeper, body knowing it all before your mind.

Your eyes are surprisingly hypnotic. Nearly magical, pooled with a connection he's never felt. More resilient than expected.

Lovely girl is special, it seems. He's not surprised. He followed your scent from blocks away. Honeysuckle and ocean spray.

Once he fucks you full of his come, collects all his pieces, it won't matter how naturally resistant you are.

Everything tightens, your cunt, his legs, his grip. You scream, coming again, and he buries himself, flooding you with thick ropes, your spasms only pulling them deeper, hungry for it, betrayed by your body.

You're still afterwards, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide.

"Did so good, sweet thing." He strokes over your skin, tongue tracing stripes on the slope of your neck, dabbing at the sweat there. You murmur something incoherent, and he pulls you tighter into his chest.

When his fingers tuck inside your weeping pussy, swirling together in the mess there and massaging it upward, you don't even stir.

The sun sets, and he lingers on the edge of your mattress before curving over your sleeping form.

His lips graze your neck. "Sleep well, lovely girl."

The forest is too tall.

What are you doing here? Where have you gone?

Everything stretches beyond your reach, long spindly fingers reaching for the sun, blotting it out, plunging the worlds beneath the canopy into darkness. It lives, it breathes, inhaling and exhaling as one, splitting open brambles and bracken before you, a path cleaving wide through overgrown deciduous trees and verdure.

It's a jewel, an emerald caught in sunlight, brilliant, unending green sparkling across the forest floor, ferns and fiddleheads shivering free from morning dew as you brush by them, roots and branches calling to you, to one another, darkening the path at your back.

You're not sure how you got here, how your legs carried you deeper and deeper into the woods, fire burning at your back, urging you forward, a pull resonating in the marrow of your bones, a song thrumming in your heart.

Something calls to you.

And in the back of your mind, something else wails in terror.

Ancient places have claws. They snag and scrape, slowly scratching away body and mind, breaking down resistance, intelligence, all human instinct designed to protect you, save you, from yourself, from a spell.

You've gone somewhere it cannot follow.

The trees wilt into arches, framing a long shadowed hallway, pointing you the direction you will not stray from, a path pulling your feet, one in front of the other.

The end holds a moment. A soft, green swath of grass, encapsulated by a ring of mushrooms, a proud hawthorne tree at its center. You have no words in you, but if you did, they'd be ones of awe.

And when the stranger from the street, the one from your bed, Kyle, appears from behind the gnarled trunk, something swells in your belly.

A blackened vine snaps and snarls at you, resists the lure of this man, this creature, sharp wails drowned out by the mere sight of him.

"Hello." Your fingers knit together at your waist. He smiles. It stuns you like you've been stabbed.

"Hello, lovely girl."

"I think... I'm think I'm lost." Not lost. You're not lost. You're not supposed to be here. The vine tries to grow into your muscle and bone, desperately wrapping itself around anything it can.

"You're exactly where you should be." He steps forward, closer, a hand extended to where you linger, just outside the ring of mushrooms.

The vine screams. It begs. You're killing it.

His eyes narrow.

"Will you join me?" His voice soothes the raw, ferocious thing clinging to you. It feels nice.

Still, your feet do not carry you forward, and he sighs, striding to the edge of the circle.

"What's happening?" The panic fogs your mind, and thick mist rolls in around the two of you. He softens, expression turning kind, sweet.

"It's alright, you're safe with me." He takes your hand, thumb massaging a pattern onto your palm.

The shrieking falls away, dying, crying on a final breath.

"You have to say it." He instructs gently. "Will you join me?"

The forest falls away. The mist climbs to an immeasurable height, the hawthorne tree twisting, bark shredding wide into a gaping hole, a star filled hollow.

The wind turns cold. A lullaby drifting on its current, a forgotten song ringing in your ears.

Where have you gone? Lost somewhere?

Lost in him.

"Yes."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

The choice for president has seldom been starker. On one side is Donald Trump, a felonious and twice-impeached conman, raring to finish off the job of dismantling American democracy. On the other is Kamala Harris, a capable and experienced leader who stands for traditional democratic principles. Nevertheless – and shockingly – the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have decided to sit this one out. Both major news organizations, each owned by a billionaire, announced this week that their editorial boards would not make a presidential endorsement, despite their decades-long traditions of doing so. There’s no other way to see this other than as an appalling display of cowardice and a dereliction of their public duty. At the Los Angeles Times, the decision rests clearly with Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the ailing paper in 2018, raising great hopes of a resurgence there. At the Post (where I was the media columnist from 2016 to 2022), the editorial page editor David Shipley said he owned the decision, but it clearly came from above – specifically from the publisher, Will Lewis, the veteran of Rupert Murdoch’s media properties, hand-picked last year by the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos. Was Bezos himself the author of this abhorrent decision? Maybe not, but it could not have come as a surprise. All of this may look like nonpartisan neutrality, or be intended to, but it’s far from that. For one thing, it’s a shameful smackdown of both papers’ reporting and opinion-writing staffs who have done important work exposing Trump’s dangers for many years. It’s also a strong statement of preference. The papers’ leaders have made it clear that they either want Trump (who is, after all, a boon to large personal fortunes) or that they don’t wish to risk the ex-president’s wrath and retribution if he wins. If the latter was a factor, it’s based on a shortsighted judgment, since Trump has been a hazard to press rights and would only be emboldened in a second term. [...] Some news organizations upheld their duty and remained true to their mission. The New York Times endorsed Harris last month, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president��, and writing that Trump “has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest”. The Guardian, too, strongly endorsed Harris, saying she would “unlock democracy’s potential, not give in to its flaws”, and calling Trump a “transactional and corrupting politician”.

Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian on the cowardly abdication of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times by refusing to endorse a Presidential candidate (10.25.2024).

The egregious and cowardly actions done by both the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times deciding to sit out the Presidential endorsements process this election is craven and cowardly, as both papers were set to endorse Kamala Harris (D). Even the New York Times, for all their faults, got it right by endorsing Kamala Harris.

[daggersandarrows]

i'm so glad they kept it being percy's fault because i need to see vax punch him in the face and additionally i deeply need the shenanigans of "percy do you have a black eye??" "oh it's nothing" as he's wracked with guilt but also literally unable to stop flirting with her while scanlan is off admiring his own portrait and keyleth and vax are being deeply sappy and meanwhile grog is in an outhouse talking to craven edge

[iamlisteningto]

Craven Faults’ Bounds

[altarus]

Sounds from the Dark Side top albums of 2023 (until now)

We’re halfway through 2023 already, can you believe it? That halfway mark also means it’s time we share with you the albums that enticed us the most so far. Continue reading Untitled

[sluttysnowangel666]

The Song of Blackwoods and Brackens - finale

Thank you so much to those who read and loved this story, I originally intended for it to be much shorter and with a way sadder ending( title was inspired by the song of achilles so i felt a tragic end was fitting) but i got carried away, and i couldn't find the strength to break everyone's hearts. This fanfic is the first time i've gotten back to writing since i was like 12 years old, usually these stories play in my head and i just leave them there but for some reason this one took a life of its own. if people would like to read the alternate ending, let me know and perhaps ill post it. until then, i hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. thank you all my delulu bloody ben baddies, i love you more than you know.

masterlist

𐂃 𐂃 𐂃 𐂃

I didn't know how I got there. All I knew was that these moments were about to be my last.

Everything had happened so quickly. The situation spiraled out of control before I even realized it was occurring.

Smoke was everywhere, bodies were everywhere. I couldn't walk without stepping on someone. I knew I was going to die. I could barely walk, could barely see.

I could live with dying. I made my bed, I'm ready to lie in it.

He and I were doomed from the start. I loved him; It ruined my life.

My ears were ringing, my eye was in excruciating pain, as well as my leg.

"Ben." I mumble out, disoriented. "Benny..."

I scan the area. Nothing but bodies. Oh, Gods. What if he was one of them?

There's cries of men in the distance, and the sound of fire crackling the burning mill.

I manage to push myself up, leaning on my sword. I cry out at the pain.

Gods... This was all my fault. I'd destroyed everything I touched. My brother was dead,  I couldn't find my lover, I had no idea how long I'd been knocked unconscious.

"Benjicot!" I cried out. "Ben!"

An arrow whips past my head, nailing the wood post behind me. I do a full turn, and see a woman.

She's not much older than me, her hair is long and dark. Alysanne Blackwood.

"Black Aly." I say.

"Who are you?" She asks, an arrow aimed at me.

"I... don't know anymore."

"Judging by your clothes, you're a Bracken. My only concern is... you're a woman. Why is a Bracken woman fighting here instead of cowering in her chambers?"

I don't answer. "I've slain your uncle." She says.

I growl with anger. "You bitch!"

"Too slow." She teases.

I raise my sword, she pulls back on her bow.

"Stop this now!"

I turn, and he's there. Alive. He was greatly wounded, covered in blood as was I, but he was alive.

I can't hold back anymore. Gods, I was so angry with him, but I didn't even care. I limp towards him, bursting into tears the second I fall into his arms.

"Oh, my sweet." He cries, pulling us to the ground. He kisses my bloody head, sobbing into my hair. "We need to get you a maester, now."

I pull away, landing a hard slap across his face. "That's for knocking me unconscious, you craven."

"You left me no choice." He says, hardly phased.

"I know. I'm sorry." I say. He kisses me again.

"Nephew," Alysanne interrupts. "who is this woman dressed as a man?"

"My betrothed." He says.

"This battle... was all because you loved a Bracken?" She asks, incredulous.

"No." I answer. "It was my fault. My family started it... It was because I loved a Blackwood."

"What's the difference?"

"Fuck you, Alysanne."

"Tread lightly, Bracken scum. I'll still fly this arrow through your good eye-"

"Gods sakes, enough! The both of you." Benji demands. "Aly, please, she needs a maester."

Alysanne hesitates, but nods. She turns and runs, happy to be as far from my destructiveness as possible.

Benji helps me begin walking back to Raventree Hall, letting me lean on him for support.

I hear a cough, a familiar, raspy cough. I turn, shocked to see my uncle leaned against a post, an arrow in his left chest plate.

"Uncle." I say.

"You're still alive?" He coughs, blood spewing out of his mouth.

"I am." I say. I push off Benji to stand on my own.

"Get it over with." He sighs.

"Do you have any last words?" I ask.

"You're a disgrace to the Bracken name." He says.

"Well then," I pause. "it's a good thing I'm a Blackwood."

I turn to Benji, whose face reads nothing but pride in me.

"My betrothed," I start.

"Yes, my lady?"

"I believe I know what I want for our wedding."

"Whatever pleases, my lady. Ask and it is done."

I smirk, "I want his head."

One clean swipe was all it took.

Bloody Ben, gets on one knee, and holds up my uncle's head as a gesture of love to our union.

"Put it on a spike. Remind those what happens when you challenge a Blackwood."

———

The maester did what he could to stop the infection, but my right eye could not be saved.

"I look like a monster." I say, trying not to cry.

"The scar will be quite attractive." Ben says. I roll my good eye. "You can cover it, my love, if you so wish. Or perhaps a ruby, or obsidian to take its place."

My leg would fortunately recover. The scar ran from my thigh down to my calf. I have no idea how the maester was able to save it, but he did, and I was forever in his debt.

It would take me years to fully recover, but I had time. We had time.

It took days to clean up the land of bodies. Rain came, cleaning the grass of the blood that stained. After that, it was as if the battle never happened.

Each time I laid my eyes upon Stone Hedge, I sobbed. I would never forgive myself for my brother's death. While time would heal my wounds, they would never heal my grief.

———

Some years later

Benjicot and I married on the 20th day of the 7th moon of 129 AC. The union was approved by the queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, and her son Jacaerys had come to celebrate in her name.

I had become Lady Blackwood of Raventree Hall, and I was finally loved. I was loved deeply and greatly by my lord husband, Benjicot.

I had found a family in ones who were once considered my enemies. Alysanne and I set our differences aside and became sisters, Willem Blackwood accepted me as his new daughter.

The war however, was not so kind. It had been called The Dance of Dragons. My husband and I had gone off to fight for our kingdom numerous times, no matter how much he begged for me to stay back.

Nowhere felt more familiar to us than the battlefield. We fought side by side, protecting each other always. We had earned the nickname Bloody Ravens in time.

When the war finally ended, my husband and I returned home for good. Scars covered our bodies and we embraced them. They were reminders of who we were, and what we had endured together. Reminders that no matter what we faced, we would always be there to protect the other.

One day, my husband came to me.

"My little Bracken." He said, kissing my neck and wrapping his arms around me as we stood on the balcony, overlooking the land.

"Lord Husband." I greeted him. He hummed in my neck.

"I believe it's time we produced some heirs for House Blackwood." He says, planting gentle kisses along my neck.

"Is the babe in my belly not enough?" I ask, a playful smirk on my lips. He moves his hand down to my swollen belly, rubbing gentle circles.

"I want these halls running with Blackwood children." He continues to kiss me.

"Oh, my dear husband." I turn and cup his cheeks in my hand. "When I push this babe out within the next few days, you can fill me with another."

He smiles, planting a gentle kiss on my lips. Our daughter was born on the 3rd moon of 132 AC. Her name was Alyssa Blackwood. Benji held true to his word because after that pregnancy, we had 4 more; a boy and girl, the heir to Raventree Hall Aeron and his twin sister Aly Blackwood, another son, Benjamin Blackwood, another daughter, Nyra Blackwood, and another son Willem Blackwood.

"My little ravens." Benjicot called them.

And we lived in domestic bliss. Indeed, we had never felt peace again. But, who does after you have children? Our ravens roamed our halls, spreading chaos as Benjicot and I had when we were younger, but it was all we wanted. One day, my children would know the doomed song of their father and I's love. They would learn the history of our houses, the feud between them, the loss of their uncle. They were Bracken and Blackwood, through and through.

Bloody Ben died, and in his place was Benjicot Blackwood... Until the time always inevitably came where my husband and I went back out to fight. You can take the man out of the war, but you can never take the war out of the man.

Sometimes, we still snuck away at night, going back to that weirwood where it all began. We played, we swam, we fought, we fucked, we loved. It would always be our place, for just us. No matter what happened, no matter where we started, no matter who we were, who we became... we would always return to where we were meant to be.

And in years and years when Benji and I grew old and gray, ready to meet the Gods, we knew we would come back here again.

Together.

Where we began... Where we end.

𐂃 🐦‍⬛

[mediocretosubpar-soup]

split!jc 2 3

The tone slides down Wei Wuxian's spine like ice water. He chuckles sheepishly.

"What a bunch of fools." says Jiang-gongzi, derision dripping from every word.

Wei Wuxian blinks, as the sharp words are turned on an unexpected target.

"Can you really blame them?" comes out of his mouth before he can think better of it. Anyone involved with Jiang Cheng should know what ruin Wei Wuxian could bring, even when he had the best intentions (maybe especially then).

"What do they think you are? A one-trick pony? If they're too craven to trust you with cultivation, they should be jumping on the opportunity to have you teach archery."

Oh. Wei Wuxian's mouth hangs open, his quick tongue slack with shock.

"Especially since the Lans are such shit archers. Not a decent competition placement in years."

A memory drifts from the muddy slit of Wei Wuxian's past life. Leading a group of excited juniors to the archery fields, showing them how to hold the bow, how to aim the arrow. The excitement of hitting that first target. For a moment, Wei Wuxian nearly chokes on want.

"It wouldn't do for the Yiling Laozhu to officially teach disciples. Even if it was just archery, rumors --"

"If the Lan sect can't handle a few rumors, then you should--" Jiang-gongzi stiffens suddenly. He grabs Wei Wuxian's arm, pulling him up.

"Jiang-zhongzu is on his way back." He pulls Wei Wuxian towards the door. "Listen, if you want to teach. Write to Jin-zhongzu, he could use all the help he can get." He gently shoves Wei Wuxian out the door. "Now, go, before you get me in trouble. I wasn't supposed to speak to anyone."

--

Wei Wuxian should know better than this. Wei Wuxian, in fact, knows better than this. But seriously, faced with such a mystery what could anyone but try to find out more? Could anyone resist? Is Wei Wuxian not supposed to send out the undetectable eavesdropping talismans, he's invented for Jin Ling? When he's conveniently carrying them in his pockets?

Duller men with less genius invention may resist but Wei Wuxian is not constrained by the limitiations of simpler minds. His talismans fly true, beneath the walkways, through gaps in the roof and open doorways.

"The Lans are as helpful as ever." Jiang Cheng's voice rings out.

"A wasted trip, then." Jiang-gongzi says.

Steps. Slowing. Halting.

"You were drinking?"

"Can't a man enjoy a drink?" A pause and then Jiang Cheng asks mildly. "Do you take me for a fool?" Something crackles and Wei Wuxian goes cold.

"What have you told him?" Something is humming ominously. Wei Wuxian turns on the pathway and runs back to the guesthouse.

"Jiang-zhongzu don't be ridiculous. I was merely making conversation." Jiang-gongzi says as if the truth could save him when Jiang Cheng gets like that. Accusing, finding fault by sheer desire, Wei Wuxian knows better than anyone else, he knows because he was there when Jiang Cheng learnt this.

"Of course, you didn't tell him..."

Wei Wuxian ignores a the Jiang disciple in front of the door to crash into the courtyard. Two people turn to him. Wei Wuxian stumbles to a stop.

"If he'd known, he'd never have shared a drink with you." Jiang Cheng finishes cruelly. Wei Wuxian gapes. Next to Jiang Cheng, his double in the unmarked robes balls his hands into fists and hangs his head.

[ginnymoonbeam]

I'll wait until the show's over before getting too into it, but Tender Light is reminding me of Beyond Evil specifically in how it shows a cop becoming obsessed with his own fantasies of catching a criminal mastermind, when said mastermind is really just a guy who's been through some shit and is handling it the best he can.

Before we go any further, let me just be clear that Tender Light is not sexy about it in the way Beyond Evil is, nor should it be. The story is about the hateful, destructive force of rumor and misinterpretation, and the obsessive cop is wielding his power in a truly sinister way. I love Han Joowon, for all his many (many, many) faults. I do not love Li Fanglu. I hate him, and not in the fun way.

But as a longtime lover of mystery stories, and of Great Detective narratives in particular, I'm really enjoying seeing this story of a person who fancies himself a Great Detective but has got it all wrong, is driven by obsession and craven need rather than a commitment to truth and justice.

[goldenspringmornings]

WIP Wednesday: The Dinner Scene

AN: I took a bit of a break from writing for a little while but I was going over this scene in my wip I remember not being happy with and now I think I was actually kinda cooking here so here's azriel ripping the ic a new one (my boi💙)

Feyre hesitates. “You, don’t think it sends a bad message if people see me learning how to fight- using weapons?” 

Azriel could tell the words weren’t her own, and mentally thanked Tamlin for repeating them enough for them to actually leave something of an impact on the girl. “It would.” Azriel confirms into the silence. Not out of any sympathy for Feyre’s ignorance, but to rub salt in the wound. “Prythian is in a delicate balance at the moment, and it’s essentially your fault- even if what you did was a good thing. Fifty years is a long time even for fae, most of the people you freed had given up any hope of leaving Amarantha’s Court. To see their very public, very young, savior readying for war? It sends a message that they’re still not safe, their families are still not safe.”

Rhysand’s anger is nearly a physical weight as Feyre curls in on herself and Azriel just wants to laugh. Whatever plan Rhysand had tonight was not Azriel’s problem. The girl didn’t belong here, and he had no problems being the one to let her know. She was and would always be closer to Jocasta’s age than anyone in this room, Made as a young adult or not, and it seemed it was high time someone reminded her and Rhysand both.

“What’s your problem tonight, Az?” Cassian finally snaps. “You’ve been weird all night.”

The gossamer thread holding back his temper breaks. 

“My problem? My problem is that you’re perfectly content to lie to this girl- promising something that you can’t give her. Selling your lies of a ‘Court of Dreams’ when you’ve done nothing to make those dreams real after five hundred years. You’re all willing to sit here, playing pretend and crying about how hard your lives have been, while the people outside of Velaris’ wards suffer and die for your negligence. Because Inanna was right. She’s always been right about you. You’re selfish, craven, miserable people who can’t stand to face your pasts so you’re content to wallow in centuries old grief and hurt and complain about how ‘change takes time’ all while you refuse to light the spark of progress you claim you want to reignite. My problem is that I’ve had to sit here all night, wondering just who it was I was sitting next to- because it turns out that I can’t recognize you. Or maybe it’s that I never knew you in the first place. And I’m ashamed that I let myself be fooled for so long.”

The shadows deepened with every frigid, clipped word, and cobalt Siphons flared in time with his breath. Rhysand’s eyes were black with rage, while Cassian gaped at Azriel in stunned silence. Morrigan was pale, looking at him like she were seeing the ghost of someone else. Feyre’s eyes were flicking back and forth across the table and she leans closer to Rhysand to try finding a new sense of equilibrium. Only Amren was even somewhat amused, her silver eyes half hooded and shining with interest. 

“Oh, and Rhysand? Your wife gave birth four days ago. You have a daughter.”

Azriel notices when Rhysand stiffens but his focus is on Feyre and the betrayal seeping into her eyes as she freezes then slowly inches away from him. He had never felt more vindicated. “Till death do you part, old friend.” He taunts, slipping into the shadows at Rhysand’s rage-filled growl.