#Nesta as human? ferocious

[flowerflamestars]

What is the timeloop au?

No Grave Can Hold My Body Down a Lucien/Nesta friends to lovers, trapped in a timeloop AU.

A one day loop is a curse, a twenty year loop is an impossibility: which is exactly where Lucien Vanserra finds himself for centuries, until he realizes he's not so alone after all.

Primarily a fluffy, murderous romp through alternatives to the whole Hybernian war and what follows, but at some point the sheer misery of the canon timeline does, in fact, catch up. Does the past matter more, or the future? Just how many Courts can Nesta Archeron bring to their knees? How did Lucien ever, ever, miss her?

[sad-scarred-sassy]

Light me up

A Neris two-part story. @nerisweek Free Day

Summary: Nesta Archeron is given as a living sacrifice to the dragon of Velaris. The only problem is he doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Inspired by a prompt made by @writing-prompt-s on tumblr.

Notes: Happy Neris week! I wanted to make a little Neris one shot to celebrate so here it is! This is a low stakes, silly little fic about a dragon and a lost girl finding solace and understanding in one another. I hope you enjoy!

Read on AO3 or keep reading below the cut.

In the mountain hill of Velaris, hidden in the shadows of an abysmal cave, lay a centuries old fire breathing dragon. He had resplendent scales of crimson and wings so big you could hear its beating from miles away. The few who had seen him and had stared at their terrified reflection through his amber eyes had proclaimed he was the biggest, most ferocious beast they had ever seen. The village feared him, venerated him, for very few knew where he came from and why, but they understood that his appeasement came at a price, and for years they earned the dragon’s graces with presents and sacrifices. That was until one fateful day when the centuries of peace came to an end, when the village decided to send the dragon of Velaris a human woman to burn.

Eris woke up that morning already with a migraine.

He stretched his great wings with a big, monstrous yawn that echoed through the whole cave. The soft light of dawn filtered through the open ceiling of the ancient place, the one he had inhabited for at least one hundred years now, a hollow mountain in the outskirts of a small town, as far away from his old home as he could have possibly gone.

Today marked the anniversary of that fateful day he had landed there, when the villagers had freaked out and had offered him goods in exchange of their lives, even though Eris had no intention of killing any of them, but in his monstrous form, he understood the fear.

He had welcomed the village’s offerings year by year– coffers of gold and rubies (when the economy allowed it), carts filled with fish or harvested goods, chickens, livestock (he had no use for) and even sculptures of his likeness. He still had those stacked somewhere, the big mighty dragon of the hill carved in stone and marble, the copper statue of the feared monster of Velaris.

He liked the arrangement, for a century he lived alone, ate alone, slept alone and knew peace. The villagers would only come once a year, leave the offering and then retreat back to their lives. Eris didn’t care for more.

Today wouldn’t be any different. He waited, with his enormous crimson wings tucked in, for the drums to start, and soon enough they did. He listened to the vibrating beat of their drums as the humans made their way to his lair. The villagers surely liked their shows, always making a big fuss about things. Couldn’t they just leave the damn thing and let him continue with his uneventful existence? His migraine was getting worse.

They were a bit more enthusiastic this time, he pondered with annoyance, as he heard soft chantings coming from the multitude. He rolled his big amber eyes at them as he heard them come.

“Purify us!” He could suddenly make out. “Sacrifice the sinner!”

“Burn the witch!” They chanted. “The Dragon will burn the witch!”

They continued on as Eris simply listened in slight curiosity. Surely it wasn’t what he thought it was. No, it couldn’t be.

He heard the humans opening the cave entrance, rolling the big slab of stone as they continued the chanting and drumming. When they opened it the yells reverberated through the whole cave, he swore sometimes he did regret not just killing them.

From his hiding place he could make out the silhouettes in the opening, the humans were energetic as they brought the offering, and he could suddenly make out a slender form being dragged from the crowd and pushed inside the cave.

“Oof” He heard a soft voice say.

“Burn the witch!” The villagers chanted.

Before Eris could even move his large body the humans had retreated and pushed the entrance closed again, leaving the creature inside his cave.

“Fuck” He heard the voice say again. It was indeed a woman. Eris watched her in utter shock and irritation.

What in the godly realms was this?

Nesta Archeron had seen better days. Well, not in a long time, if being practically homeless and so rotting poor she had to resort to hooking up with men for money counted as better days. It probably did, since now she was lying on the floor of a cold, moist cave, where an ancient dragon lived, and she was to be his next meal.

She couldn’t even say she was surprised by the turn of events. She knew that town had always hated her guts, and were always looking for an excuse to send her to rot. She didn’t think that hooking up with men from town would be the thing that’d do it, though.

Her sisters had warned her, damn them they had, they had kissed her cheek and told her to try and be nice, be likeable. Nesta’s situation wasn’t as bad as it now was when they had wed and left town, she had a house and a job, a quiet but peaceful life, even if she hadn’t had many friends.

But then she had gone and fallen in love with that Knight that everyone loved, and suddenly they all really hated her.

How could she be with someone like him? A mere peasant woman courting the Lord of Velaris’ favorite Knight. And when the pressure to be someone she wasn’t had become too much for her and she couldn’t continue it, he had turned on her like she was spoiled goods, and damn her but she wouldn’t be the one to apologize, even if by being on his bad side had utterly ruined her reputation.

At first when the villagers started spreading rumors of breaking Sir Cassian’s heart by supposedly cheating on him she didn’t care. She kept on with her sad stupid life, but the rumors worsened. Suddenly she was a witch who had charmed him in an effort to secure power for herself. It got so bad she eventually lost her job for it. It was all a downhill from there.

The struggles, the long days and nights with no food because everyone refused to even serve her, her only chance at survival being the hungry men she met at slum taverns.

She was a pariah and soon enough when the annual offering to the dragon of Velaris came to be, and they realized the economy was so bad that by taking the witch of the slums to be eaten as a sacrifice to the beast would be like killing two birds with one stone, they had jumped to the opportunity.

Nesta rubbed her eyes as she assessed the place. It was dark except for the soft light coming from the open ceiling, vines were hanging from above and crows were croaking somewhere in the dark. Other than that it was quiet, so quiet and so still. Nesta shivered, tucking the old wool around her body.

When they grabbed her from the warm bed of one of her lovers they only allowed her the dignity to wear an old worn cloak someone had thrown at her and then they were already pushing her.

She had seen Cassian looking at her when they took her, and he had done nothing to save her. Just like he had done nothing when the rumors got worse, when they called her a whore and a witch and she had to beg people to sell her food. He just looked at her and then dropped his gaze in disappointment.

Nesta couldn’t believe it. She really did it this time. She had tried so hard to fit in, had done everything she could and it still hadn’t been enough. She was still despicable Nesta, she was still useless and unlovable.

She couldn’t help the tears now forming on her eyes and she let them fall for the first time in a long time. She was going to die anyway and no one would see her cry. She just wished the dragon would finish the job already so she could finally get some peace.

As if on cue, she heard a rumbling, heavy scraping on the rocky floor reverberating through the whole cave, and then there he was, huge amber eyes looking at her through slit pupils like a cat’s. Nesta’s whole body shook as she saw the horns as big as her whole body, the teeth, the gleaming blood-red scaled body and the huge mighty wings tucked behind his back.

With a voice she could only describe as demonic, he said: “You have five seconds to run, human”

Humans were very stupid apparently.

Eris stood there in front of the thin woman in all his mighty beastly form and instead of running, or screaming, or even begging for mercy, eyes the color of a stormy sky met his with unfaltering determination.

Had she not understood him? He knew his voice was rusty for lack of use but he still got the message out. Maybe she was a foreigner.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you not hear me human? Run!” He roared, the sound making the whole cave shake. The only thing that moved was her long hair from the force of his breath, he noticed.

Then, she finally fisted her hands as he noticed the tears streaming from her eyes, and the woman stood up.

“I can hear you, dragon. I’m here to be eaten by you as a lame excuse of offering from the humans, so please grant me the honor and light me up on fire or maybe even rip my head off my shoulders, I don’t care. Just do it!”

Eris’ head was pounding now. He really wished he would have just killed those humans all those years ago.

Eris simply huffed an exasperated breath as he stared her down. Her feeble form was covered in a simple grey cloak that was obviously not hers, her long light brown hair was messy and cascading down her back and those flame-like eyes were still digging into his. He hadn’t been this close to a woman in so many years, it felt utterly strange.

“I have no use for human women, especially witches, as they called you” He bluffed. He wanted this day to be over already.

“Then just kill me and be done with it” She insisted. Eris narrowed his eyes at her boldness.

“What is this insistence on getting killed, do you really want to die, woman? The crows would be the ones to eat your body as I have no taste for it”

“I already told you what I want” She affirmed.

“I have no intention of killing you, but I will if you don’t stop messing with my morning” Eris turned to retreat further into the cave. “Go back to your village, human, tell them I do not want you”

As he moved he heard a soft bitter laugh that made him pause.

“Not even the fucking dragon wants me for anything” She said to herself. “Please just spare me having to crawl back to that place and be burned at the stake with those idiots watching me like I’m a show. Just kill me” She said, and Eris watched as she dropped her head.

He could not believe what was happening.

“Don’t be dramatic, just tell them I am content with last year’s offering, and won’t require anything else, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Now, don’t let me lose my temper, go” With his snout he pointed at a small opening on the cave.

“I can’t go back”

“Go, I said”

“Please-“

“GO!” He roared again, and this time he watched as the woman hugged her arms around her body, as silent tears dragged dirt from her face and she pressed her lips together, her eyes shocked and wide. Monster, he was a monster, he reminded himself, he shouldn’t feel any remorse.

He turned to go deeper into the cave then, and a few moments later he finally heard her leave.

Eris lay on the ground, determined to have a good two day long nap and forget all about that incident. But the crows were too loud, and the dripping of water from stalagmites too bothersome, the grey from the sky too poignant. An hour, two hours, five had passed and still he could not find peace.

Was the woman in earnest when she said they would burn her at the stake? Eris tried to ignore the nauseating feeling that thought evoked in him, he snuggled into his wing, it was none of his business. If she died or lived, it was none of his business.

Then make it your business . A soft voice in the back of his mind said.

No, I am at peace here, no one bothers me, no one tries to murder me, it is not my business!

Eris affirmed his thought, the woman dying should not bother him, she was a stranger to him, a witch according to the villagers, she probably deserved what she had coming anyway.

Did you? The voice sounded inside his head again. The images of torches following him to his house in the night appeared in his mind, the shouts calling him a freak, his mother’s screams. No .

With a groan Eris, the mighty dragon of Velaris, stood up from his comfortable chosen napping area and with a few flaps of his colossal wingspan, flew out of his lair for the first time in one hundred years.

Nesta wasn’t surprised as much as she wanted to be. She wanted to be surprised that the moment she stepped out of that cave, four men snatched her and when she tried to explain had immediately told her she would be burned at the stake for cowardice as well as practicing of witchcraft. She had simply rolled her eyes.

They had tied her up and had placed her in the middle of the town’s park to be burned just like she predicted, as a show.

So now there she was, hands and legs tied around a big pole right atop an array of logs and dried hay. Her bare feel ached, her hands were numb. The town began to gather around her, dozens upon dozens of eyes staring at her pathetic self. She just wanted it to be over.

“Nesta Archeron” Said the executioner over the loud drums of the crowd, she didn’t even look at him as she placed Cassian’s eyes looking at her from the far edge of the crowd, his significant height making him unmistakable. “You are to be burned at the stake in the name of God, for the crimes of cowardice and witchcraft…” Nesta stopped listening, the dizzying drums continuing, the world blurring as she finally accepted her fate, to be burned slowly, painfully, in front of all these people, in front of the one she once thought loved her. She wanted to vomit. She wished the dragon had granted her the mercy.

Somehow she realized the executioner had grabbed a torch and was now approaching the pyre at the base of her feet, she focused on the dancing flames on the torch, how they moved freely, just like she did when she danced, unaware that their dancing would kill her, painfully, slowly.

The executioner stood right in front of her pyre and she closed her eyes, one silent tear falling down her cheek. She waited for the heat to come, for the fire to roar and consume her, but it never came.

Instead she heard a boom on the ground, and a loud, ferocious roar coming from behind her.

She saw the executioner’s face drain of color entirely as he dropped the torch at his feet and looked like he may die of fear staring at something behind her. The dragon.

The whole crowd scrambled to get out, people pushing each other to get away from the sheer fury of the beast still roaring at them like some type of demon that had materialized.

Nesta was absolutely petrified as she saw him walk past her, still tied to the pole, while he paced, each step reverberating through her body, scaring the shit out of the whole village.

Then, she saw his enormous head turn towards her, monstrous body turning to her and she finally thought she would die. At least, she conceded, it would be by a dragon’s fire.

But when he opened his magnificent jaw, the fire did not come, she felt him move towards her slowly, hooking one of his sharp teeth to the ropes on her hands and freeing her. Nesta gaped at him.

“Wh-what?” She could not understand.

“Free yourself” The dragon spoke. Nesta didn’t think twice as she removed the remaining ropes from her feet and torso, then just as she wobbly stepped out, she felt a tug from her waist, and suddenly the ground was no longer beneath her, in fact it was getting smaller, and the whole village fell from her as she realized the dragon had taken hold of her and they were now flying.

Nesta screamed.

“Could you not? That is awful for my headache” The dragon grumbled, confusing her out of her fear.

Nesta focused all of her attention on her breathing as she tried not to scream with every look down, with every sinking feeling in her stomach. When they finally landed inside of the cave again, she was so stiff in the dragon’s claw that she had to take a moment to stand, and even then her knees were still trembling.

When everything came back to her, she fell to her knees and sobbed.

“Lady” She heard the beast say. Nesta only cried harder. “Lady could you please stop crying?”

“You-you saved me” She sobbed in shock and disbelief. Her heart was going to beat out of her chest.

“One could say that” She heard him say. “Now please stop crying, I could take you somewhere else, where do you wish to be?”

“I don’t have anywhere to be” She continued crying, now looking up at the dragon’s enormous face, she couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with a beast and that she would have been dead if it wasn’t for him. It was fitting, she thought, as she felt just as much a monster as he looked. “My sisters they’re“ She began but couldn’t stop the freaking sobs. “They’re better off without me” She felt the tears streaming down her face. “I don’t have anywhere, I am a monster, just leave me here to rot in this cave. You’ve done enough”

Nesta curled into herself, trying to warm her body out of the shaking sensation of her sobs.

There was a long pause and then she heard a loud burning sound, like a flame consuming paper, and when she looked up she didn’t find a dragon’s eyes looking at her, but a man’s.

Nesta pushed herself and landed on her ass when she saw the tall, naked man with flaming red hair staring her down. She noticed his amber eyes first, his nakedness second, and his horns and claws third. He moved slowly towards one corner of the cave to retrieve a cloak she hadn’t seen before, covering his magnificently muscular body from her sight. His hands and feet were reddish even though it looked like normal skin, his face was gorgeous and angular, his black horns cutting through the strands of crimson hair that cascaded down his body all the way to his hips. When he turned to her, she realized she had been staring, absolutely agape.

“I don’t appreciate being stared at, but at least I got my point across” He said, his voice like silk coursing through her body. “You say you’re a monster, well, then there’s two of us”

“You’re the dragon, the dragon is a man ?” She spoke mainly to herself.

“I’m Eris, and yes I’m a dragon” He walked casually towards her and held his broad, clawed hand for her to take. She hesitated before she placed her palm inside of his warm hold and he pulled her up. The force almost made her crush onto his strong front, but she steadied herself with a gasp.

“I-“ She was still looking at him absolutely dumbfounded, scared, but mainly enthralled by this new discovery. “I thought you were just-“

“A beast? You wound me, didn’t you see the horns? Of course I’m a beast still” He said somehow a bit self-deprecatingly. “Now, lady, stop wasting my time, what is your name?”

“Nesta” She could not stop staring at his sharp, beautiful face. “Nesta Archeron”

“Well, Nesta. I don’t see any horns or claws on you, so I wonder why you think you’re a monster” He smiled slightly, sharp canines greeting her as he did so. She noticed an array of freckles on his nose.

“I-“ she pondered. “You have freckles”

That took him by surprise. “What of it?”

“Well, I’ve never seen a monster with freckles”

“This must be your lucky day” He turned around and left her standing there. “You said you wanted me to leave you here to rot, but I wouldn’t appreciate the smell of all that, so why don’t I offer you an alternative?” He said as he walked further down the darkness of the cave.

She followed him hesitantly.

“What alternative?”

“Well, I take you as a prisoner, what do you think?”

“Are you asking me to be a willing prisoner?” She asked as she saw him light up a long corridor with just a flick of his wrist. Magic, he also had magic.

“Mmhm” He said as he continued on. “Be my prisoner and live here, do whatever you want but stay out of my business and I would too, you’d be free to leave whenever you liked though, as long as you don’t tell anyone about it”

“About what?”

He stopped, dropped a small sigh as if resigning himself to whatever he was about to say and then straightened.

“This” He said, moving to let her see the small passage, she looked beyond the gap and found an enormous cave alight with flames and a huge tree with glowing orange leaves in the middle.

She gasped at the view.

“Exactly” He said. “I found this place centuries ago, and decided to have it all to myself” He crossed his arms and admired it. “The only way you are leaving this place alive is if you vow to never speak of it” He said in a seemingly threatening way, but Nesta wasn’t scared anymore, she was in awe.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me to marry you” She said not looking at him.

“What? No I’m not” He said. “I’m saying you’ll be my prisoner”

“Willing prisoner that will take a vow and can leave whenever she pleases, sounds like marriage to me” She said and found his shocked expression almost funny.

“Not marriage. Imprisonment. Gosh, humans are so strange” He corrected, rubbing his temples with his hands. She remembered he had mentioned a headache.

She stepped towards the dragon-man slowly, then placed her middle finger onto his temple making him jump and flinch away slightly.

“What are you-“

“Stay still, you said you had a headache?” She said, feeling out the cold flame power surging from inside of her.

“Yes… why-“

She let her cooling power seep through her fingers, letting its essence cool his temple. He let out a sigh of relief.

“What are you doing? How?” He frowned, voice breathy, clearly relieved of the pain.

“They weren’t completely lying when they said I’m a witch, in a way I am. I’m just… repaying you for saving my life today” She said, dropping her hand as Eris stared at her dumbfounded.

“Don’t mention it” He mumbled, seemingly unsure of how to proceed. She felt almost as lost as he looked, still confused and shocked by everything that had happened in such a short amount of time.

“Why did you?” She felt the need to ask.

“What?”

“Save me”

“You’re being dramatic”

“I almost died” She added with a frown.

He sighed. “Well, I simply would have liked if someone had done that for me. Is that enough of an answer for you, lady?” He rolled his eyes and she narrowed hers.

“You can just call me Nesta” She said, crossing her hands over her chest. “If I’m to be your wife”

“Prisoner”

“Sure”

He sighed again. “Follow me” He said, and Nesta did.

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Begged & Borrowed Time (iv, ao3)

(Chapter four: In the Hewn City, the Attor is interrogated. Back in the mortal lands, Nesta posts the letter to the human queens, and isn't happy when a certain overgrown bat accompanies her. (TW: mentions of blood and torture) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

Screaming.

Ferocious screaming cleaved the rock in two as Cassian descended into the Hewn City, cold stone walls pressing in on either side. The passage narrowed until he was forced to tuck his wings in tight against his spine, the oppressive weight of the rock bearing down on him on all sides. He glowered in the darkness, and the screams echoed, drifted up to meet him. A macabre welcome.

Down, his steps carried him. Down and down, until he knew that he was deep in the belly of the mountain. Further still he descended, the sloping rock floor beneath his feet carrying him steadily further into the darkness, until he reached a door. Solid and thick but doing nothing to drown out the screams from beyond, Cassian paused behind that door. Took a breath before lifting the iron latch, preparing himself for whatever he was to find on the other side.

It was Azriel he saw first. Standing in the darkness with bloodied hands, face grim, Azriel held the blade in his hands, dripping with silver blood. The light streamed in thinly through a small crevice in the walls far, far overhead, and something, somewhere, was dripping. A steady drip, drip, drip that echoed on the rock. There was growling, too. From beneath the rock, through a grate in the floor, Cassian could hear the beasts below growling, waiting for their pound of flesh. The Attor whimpered, sitting as it was in chains, battered and bleeding and breathing in ragged gasps. He might have pitied it. Might have felt a glimmer of sympathy—

But it had attacked Feyre.

Azriel lifted Truth-teller again, and all feelings of sympathy vanished. Cassian said nothing, only leaned against the rough-cut walls and folded his arms.

“What does your king want with Feyre Cursebreaker?” Azriel asked, his voice lethal and deathly cold. Truth-teller glinted in the weak light, the edge already dripping the creature’s blood onto the floor. Cassian cast a glimpse down to where it ran like a river, away from the chair where the Attor was chained, all the way to the grate, dripping onto the snarling creatures beneath.

Perhaps Nesta had been right, he mused as the Attor tried to laugh. It came out as little more than a wheeze as Azriel flipped Truth-teller in hand, his fingers wrapped tight around the hilt. Perhaps they were monstrous. Brutes, the lot of them.

The Attor didn’t answer Azriel’s question. It winced as the spymaster’s eyes darkened, but still, it did not answer. Wouldn’t answer, Cassian suspected. Oh, he had no doubt that the wretched thing knew exactly why the King of Hybern was after Feyre, but if Azriel hadn’t managed to torture the answer from it already…

It was Rhys they needed. To steal into the Attor’s mind and pluck the information they needed like grapes from a vine.

“How did you find her?” Azriel pressed. His face was unreadable, his eyes void of anything but his dark purpose as Truth-teller tasted blood one more time. And still— nothing. The Attor coughed, lungs heaving, silvery blood spilling from its lips. Still, it gave them a mocking smile, a teasing, taunting grin marred by the blood shining on its teeth. Cassian had never seen a beast so horrific, all gangly limbs and sharp bones, pallid skin and dark mouth. It tried to laugh again, hissed when Truth-teller split the skin above its knuckles, and Cassian could only glower in the darkness. There was nothing else he could do, no other use for him, as he stood there, watching. Confined to the sidelines; his own talents, his own power, no real use at all.

He felt Rhys’ talons brush against the barriers of his mind, and he didn’t bother to mask his relief as he threw down his barriers, lowered every wall.

Anything? Rhys asked, his voice soft inside Cassian’s mind. A lethal softness, he knew. There was a deadly lilt to his voice that betrayed the chasm of rage beneath, the fury that Cassian had glimpsed in his lord’s eyes the moment he’d returned from the woods.

No, Cassian answered, glancing again at Truth-teller, dripping with blood like the maw of some dreadful, almighty beast. Az has gotten everything he’s going to get. It’s you we need now.

Inside the cavern of his mind, he felt Rhys sigh. Felt him shake his head. I’ll be there soon— we’re accompanying Nesta to the village first. As soon as she’s posted the letter… I’ll be with you, and I’ll break the damn thing’s bones myself.

Cassian blinked mildly at the snarl in Rhys’ voice, the momentary lapse in composure, but practically shrugged as he replied, Leave Nesta to post the letter. You’re of more use here.

A snort, one that echoed inside Cassian’s mind, was Rhys’ response. As Azriel sliced his blade strategically across the Attor’s skin again, eliciting another scream that bounced off the stone walls, Rhys said, Do you trust her?

Cassian kept his eyes forward, kept his arms folded and his gait easy as he hummed down that mental channel, a non-comital sound.

Did he?

Yesterday he wouldn’t have trusted Nesta Archeron as far as he could throw her. When she’d walked into that dining room, he’d thought her callous and cold. Selfish and shallow. He had been so determined to hate her, so willingly prepared to cast her off altogether. Yet now… Cassian felt something else now, too. Something he couldn’t name and didn’t understand, something that had starting tugging at him the moment she had shrugged him off at the dinner table. There had been some kind of pull, some gravitational shift, that meant his eyes kept searching for hers, moved with her as she crossed a room. He had thought it was just the warrior inside him reacting to her, trailing her like an opponent, sensing the danger below the wall and keeping tabs on her like he would any potential threat.

But then the Attor had attacked, and he’d been left alone with her, and he had seen something in her,  something she tried to hide. It had caught him by surprise, set him so off balance that he’d uttered what was quite possibly the most ridiculous thing he’d ever said in all his five centuries: you remind me of my mother.

Fucking hell, he didn’t know why he’d said it. It was true, yes, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t have kept it to himself. Didn’t mean he should have voiced it aloud. It was just the way that she had quietly sacrificed so much, the way she carried herself and her stoicism. Her refusal to be bent, to be broken, all of it reminding him of his mother, and now he felt like he was stumbling in the dark, grasping for an impossible answer.

Cass? Rhys said, giving him a mental nudge that forced Cassian to drag his thoughts, unwilling, away from the eldest Archeron to answer his High Lord’s question. Did he trust her?

Yes, he answered slowly. Yes, I trust her.

She incited him, worked her way under his skin and made his temper trip with her insults and quick words, but— yes, he found that he did trust her. Something pulled in his chest again as he thought of her, a tug deep inside, hidden. He thought of how she had thanked him for protecting Elain, how she had been so startlingly sincere, and wondered how he could ever doubt the look that had shone in her storm-cloud eyes. She had left him speechless, blindsided, and Mother above, Cassian didn’t know how and he didn’t know why. All he knew was that she’d managed it with just a couple of words, when no other soul in five full centuries had even come close. And there it was again, that damned pulling, a tugging behind his ribs. Suddenly, he wanted to see beneath her mask again. Wanted to be granted just one more moment in the presence of the real Nesta Archeron.

He didn’t even know if that was her real name, or what name she had taken when she married. And Cassian found himself standing in the belly of the mountain, bathed by the darkness and shrouded by screams, wanting to know her name. Wanting to speak it again— Nesta. Nesta, Nesta, Nesta.

That was why, he supposed later, he made his next suggestion, sent the words down the bond to Rhys before he’d really thought them through.

I’ll go, he found himself saying. If you’re adamant that someone has to make sure the letter gets sent, let me do it.

No, Rhys began, but Cassian shook his head vehemently and, without a thought for protocol or etiquette, stopped his lord before he could finish his sentence.

Let me do something, Rhys, he said firmly. He looked at the Attor, at the black eyes, and wondered what other horrors Rhys had beheld Under the Mountain. Living shoulder to shoulder with creatures like this, what brutality had his brother been forced to witness in those long, long decades spent alone? Helplessness surged anew as Cassian stood against the wall, watching as Az worked. He leaned against the rock, looking menacing but doing absolutely nothing else of use, and suddenly, he was back in Velaris, back to being locked away and unable to do anything— And sickness was thick in his gut, because he’d failed today, hadn’t he? General of the armies, chief defender of the Night Court— who had allowed its newest, and perhaps most precious, asset to be attacked in the woods. He supposed he was still trying to figure out who he was in the wake of Rhys’ freedom, in the aftermath of the curse, trying to remember all of the things he’d thought he’d never forget.

You locked us out once before, he continued darkly, looking as Azriel drew blood again. Don’t do it again.

There was a flicker of guilt down the channel between his mind and Rhys’, but the silence echoed, so loud Cassian could hear it ringing in his ears, drowning out the Attor’s screams.

I’m your general for a reason, Rhys. Let me do my job.

More silence, and Cassian knew that Rhys was looking through his eyes, knew that he was seeing what he saw. That Azriel was at the limit of what he could do, having gotten all he could from the creature chained to the chair. After a few moments, Rhys sighed.

Alright, he said warily. I’ll be there soon.

“I don’t know how the king knew she was there,�� the Attor said at last, it’s breathing laboured, head dropping forwards onto it’s chest. “I don’t know how he found her.” With a bloodied grin, it looked up, black eyes narrowed yet gleaming with malice.  “I don’t know how he found that house, the one with all the windows. The pretty grounds.”

Cassian felt his blood suddenly run cold, sluggish in his veins. The Attor heaved another weak laugh, one that petered out into a shaking cough as it’s lungs struggled to keep up. Azriel had dropped into a crouch by the chair, a stone-cold predator as he hovered Truth-teller’s sharp end right over the Attor’s heart. It laughed again, but Cassian didn’t hear the question Az posed next, didn’t hear anything over the roaring in his ears.

The damned thing had been silent this whole time, and yet now— now it was playing with them. Baiting them, even as it’s blood slicked the floor. “The one where her sister lives,” it continued, ignoring the way Azriel had his dagger pressed to its chest. “The pretty one.”

Cassian sought his own blade. Elain was an innocent, brought into all of this through no will of her own, and gods, he wished he had an Illyrian sword strapped to his spine. Longed for a broadsword, something heavy and sharp enough to cleave the Attor in two. He curled his lips back in a snarl when it looked at him, its repulsive gaze making his skin crawl, and as blood flowed anew from a slice across it’s cheek, it tilted it’s head. Saw something in him that made those eyes - those dark, bottomless pits of cruelty - linger on him.

“And the other one, too,” it hissed, and Cassian could feel the dread curling in his chest as it spoke, could feel his hand tightening unconsciously around his blade. “The king could find her. Find them both. He’d like the pretty one, but the other… he’d like her even more. The one with grey eyes. Her name— I heard the Cursebreaker say her name. Nesta—”

The mention of Elain had Cassian reaching for his dagger, longing to spill the Attor’s blood himself. But the mention of Nesta…

Cassian couldn’t bear the beast knowing her name. Knowing where Elain lived. Suddenly, the temper he’d kept tightly reined since hearing of the attack was snapping his restraints, and there wasn’t enough time in the world to make the Attor suffer as much as it deserved. Suddenly the blood on the floor wasn’t nearly enough, and at the sound of her name, Cassian pushed away from the wall at last. He stalked forward, silvery blood staining his boots, as a fury unmatched by anything he’d ever felt took him over. He snarled again, the force of it echoing off the rock.

“Slit it’s fucking throat Az,” he said darkly. “Before I do it myself.”

Azriel looked at him curiously, a brief flash of emotion breaking through his veneer of stone-cold purpose. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, what happened in that morning room while we were all gone? What did I miss?

The Attor wheezed another breath, and Cassian’s eyes narrowed as he looked it over once more. His fingers twitched around his blade, and gods, he wanted to drag the steel across its throat for daring to mention her name. His other hand curled into a fist, tight and merciless, and it took everything he had not to plunge his dagger through the creature’s chest. It was only the thought of Rhys, of the information he could plunder from its mind, that stayed his hand. The threat to Elain had ignited something, set fire to his temper, but the threat to Nesta had decimated his control, his ability to sit back and watch as Azriel worked. Mother above, Cassian wanted to take it’s pitiful neck between his hands and wring it until it had no fucking breath left.

Azriel looked up again, silent question in his gaze. Cassian only snarled once more before sheathing his blade and turning away.

“Rhys is on his way,” he said lowly. Azriel nodded, but Cassian still didn’t dare turn as he left, didn’t dare glance at the creature who had uttered her name.

He didn’t think he’d be able to stay his blade a second time.

***

The Archeron manor was calm when he arrived. Silent and still, not a soul within a mile of the grounds. He knew— he’d checked. Twice. Flown overhead and scouted the perimeter, ensuring there were no more beasts like the Attor lurking in the trees.

Yet when he landed, pounded on the door with his fist, there was none of Nesta’s earlier gratitude. She pulled the door open with a hiss, fingers wrapping in his leathers as she hauled him inside.

“You’re late,” she scowled. “Feyre said you’d be here within the hour, and that was over an hour and a half ago.”

Cassian shrugged, and all of the fury, all of the anger the Attor had elicited… dissipated. The sight of her, standing stubborn and resilient, almost made him forget the sound of her name on it’s filthy tongue.

“I was checking there were no more monsters waiting in the woods sweetheart,” he said casually, his voice dropping as her frown deepened. A matching frown settled on his own brow. A peace might have been reached between them earlier, but he’d known it was only temporary. Known it wouldn’t last. As she looked with distaste at his boots, spotted with the Attor’s blood, he felt something inside him reacting, unbidden, to her. To her every word, every move, every breath. Yet again she slipped under his skin so effortlessly— needled him with just a handful of words that set him on edge.

His siphons glimmered, even dulled as they were by the wall, as if they recognised her as a worthy opponent, and as he frowned, she bristled. Folded her arms across her chest. Cassian mirrored her, wondering what it would take to bring that glare of hers out in full force.

“If I can’t be trusted to post this damn letter on my own, the least you can do is show up on time when I’m forced to wait for you,” she continued. Another scowl graced her face, another glare that set his blood hammering. He felt that tugging again, that pull that drew him, endlessly, towards her. “Instead of flapping around like an overgrown sparrow.”

“Is that all you’ve got?” Cassian asked, his voice thick with sarcasm. He raised an eyebrow as satisfaction burned through him, some unexplainable kick he got from riling her. “Come now, princess, you can do better than sparrow.”

“You’re a brute,” she said flatly, glaring at the blood on his boots again before turning on her heel and collecting her cloak. She fastened it about her shoulders and tucked the letter into a pocket as she called out a farewell to Elain.

“And you’re a haughty witch,” he shrugged. “Seems neither of us are perfect.”

She huffed, but he could have sworn he saw some kind of… amusement flicker in her eyes for the barest of seconds, the briefest of heartbeats. It was madness, unrelenting madness, but he could have sworn it was the most alive she had looked since he’d met her. She buried it. Whatever that spark was in her eyes, she doused it before it had a chance to burn, and Cassian felt himself losing his grip. Something deep and primal awoke inside him, and he didn’t know why— couldn’t explain why he taunted and teased her. Why all of his quick remarks and witty comebacks turned to ash around her.

He looked at her. Studied her.

Two souls raised in poverty, standing under a gilded ceiling, trading insults like pleasantries.

He almost wanted to laugh. Instead he only rested the heel of his palm on the pommel of his dagger, and nodded to the door.

“After you, then.”

***

“Keep five steps behind.”

“I’m glamoured, sweetheart. Nobody can see me.”

“I can see you,” Nesta countered with a glare. “And I’d rather not.”

Cassian smirked, casting his eyes to the trees bordering the road. Not a soul moved. Not a flicker of life to be had in those trees, and even with his fae hearing, all he could hear was silence. No scuffle of wildlife, no call of birds high overhead. It was as though the Attor being in the vicinity that morning had terrified each and every creature for miles, sent them all running. Still, he felt the muteness of the wall pressing on him as he walked, and the glamour he’d woven wasn’t nearly as comfortable as Rhys’. It wasn’t a skill he’d ever really had to hone, glamouring. He was a warrior— far more used to fighting in the open rather than hiding in the shadows, and where Rhys’ glamour had felt like a veil, his own felt like a shroud. Suffocating.

And still Nesta saw through it.

Remarkable, he thought as he trailed her on the path snaking ahead, uneven underfoot. Even the sky was bearing down on them, swollen and grey and promising rain. He watched her back as they walked, noted her posture and ram-rod straight spine. Immaculate— she was immaculate, even in her threadbare cloak. A perfect picture of nobility and gentility, and as he watched her step lithely over the uneven road, he wondered why he let himself be so affected by her. Why she got under his skin so easily, when no other had ever managed it quite so spectacularly as she.

The only consolation, he supposed, was that he got under her skin, too.

After half a mile, Cassian sighed. He lengthened his strides until he wasn’t five steps behind, but right beside her. She turned to glare at him, those tempest eyes filled with discontent as his steps fell in time with hers. He only shrugged.

“It’s a long walk,” he said casually. “We have to pass the time somehow.”

“No, we don’t.”

“How about a game. Question for a question.”

“No.”

“An observation, then.”

She didn’t answer, only tilted her head skyward and took in the gathering clouds. Cassian took that as a victory, grinning as he hummed. His eyes roamed over her, wondering where to start. He was used to assessing a battlefield. Poring over maps and noticing details, ones that others would often overlook. It was why he was commander of the armies, why he had spent so long in his post. He could have mentioned her sleeves, the ones he’d noticed when she stood in that doorway, the very first thing he’d noted about her. He could have brought up her posture, how he was certain she’d had lessons in dance. As he watched her looking at the sky, Cassian drew his gaze to her hand, the thin wedding ring encircling her finger.

“You’re unhappy,” he said at last.

Nesta tensed, and her steps suddenly became heavier, more forceful. As if she were hoping the ground would crack beneath her and swallow her whole. Cassian didn’t need anything else to prove he’d been right.

“One civil conversation and you think you know me,” she breathed. “But I told you before. You know nothing.”

“I know enough,” he shrugged. “I told you. I’ve met plenty like you.”

A lie. He’d never met a soul like her. She was entirely Illyrian in spirit, familiar to him somehow, but an enigma all the same. Utterly one of a kind, and there was that humming again, that feeling of something else as he looked at her. It slipped through his fingers before he could place it, but when he looked at her, he felt the edges of the world blur a little.

“Do you know grief, general?” she asked suddenly, her voice soft but still breathtakingly venomous.

Cassian bristled. “Of course I do.”

“No,” she countered. “How can you know loss and suffering, when your lives are unending and loss is rare for you.” Her eyes drifted closed for a half a second before she shook her head sharply, turning to look at him and pinning him with a glare that would make death gods tremble. Her steps were faultless, carrying her forwards as her scowl turned into a glare. “You don’t know me at all.”

He stiffened, and even though he owed her nothing, no explanation, he gave her one anyway. “Our lives are longer,” he conceded darkly. “But not without pain and suffering. Believe me.”

All those days in the snow, alone and starving. All those decades in Velaris, waiting for Rhys to come home, not knowing if he ever would. He thought Nesta might understand that, somehow. Might know what it was to be powerless, unable to do anything to save the ones you loved. And loss— he was a solider. Loss had long since stopped feeling foreign to him. He had lost so many, friends and lovers both, and as Nesta sneered, looked at him as though he couldn’t possibly understand…

It ignited him.

“I have fought wars,” he continued. “I know what loss is well enough, but where you endure only decades of life without those you love most, we have centuries to suffer through. Longer.” He thought of his mother, then. How the overwhelming majority of his life had been spent without her, and how that grief had never really gone away, never, even after all this time. It was unbearable, and as his steps echoed Nesta’s, walking beside her on that uneven road, he felt something inside him simmering. “If you think I don’t understand your pain you are mistaken. You and I are more alike than you realise.”

“No,” she hissed, halting and turning, lurching, to face him. The grey sky overhead reflected in her eyes, the steely-grey cold and furious. “You and I are not even remotely the same.”

“You can tell yourself that,” Cassian answered, stepping towards her until all that separated them was a matter of inches. “Tell yourself that you have nothing in common with the fae above the wall, but you know what I think you need?” He leaned forward, and his voice was sharp and dangerous— far more predatory than he had really intended. “I think you need a good fight, sweetheart.”

“We’re not all brutes,” she answered tartly, and a smirk pulled at his lips, dark and grimly victorious.

“I can see it in you,” he continued, dragging his gaze languidly over her. “Practically writhing beneath your skin.” She folded her arms, shuddered as his eyes roamed her again. Something inside him recognised it in her, all the frustration and anger and grief and bitterness she kept bottled, kept buried deep inside. He could sense it, could feel it calling out to him. Like to like. “There’s an anger you can barely conceal. A ruthless streak.”

She hissed again, a sound of abject fury, and Cassian felt his siphons flare. He could have sworn he felt an echo of her anger, somehow tasted it on his tongue, and it was so alike his own, so akin to his own grief, his own bitterness. She didn’t move away, didn’t widen the distance between them, and Cassian knew that she hissed not because he was wrong— but because he had been the first to see it. The first to ever really notice what lurked beneath that elegant facade.

He might have said so. Might have found more ways to point out how alike they were, but before he could even form the words, Nesta was lunging forwards, far quicker than he had anticipated. Much more agile on his feet than he’d expected. She lunged, reached for the dagger he’d taken his hand off, and Cassian didn’t stop her. Couldn’t stop her. Breathless, words failed him as the hilt of his weapon found itself, for the very first time, in the grip of someone else.

***

Within a breath, his hand was closing about her wrist, his callouses whispering against her skin. Heart in her throat, Nesta didn’t let go of the dagger, kept her fingers wrapped around the hilt even as his hand engulfed hers. His skin was warm, and though she’d expected revulsion to pulse through her at the contact, it surprised her that none came. She only kept her hand on that blade, unable to pull it from the sheath, but, for some reason, unwilling to let go altogether.

“Do you even know how to use that, sweetheart?” he asked. Taunted, with a voice like honey, thick and smooth.

She swallowed as she felt the leather of the handle beneath her fingers, worn from centuries of his grip. She felt the valleys left by his fingertips— a phantom touch, the ghost of him in the hilt of his blade. Her fingers settled into the grooves, almost as naturally as if this were her own blade, and she might have let go— but there was something about holding that leather-wrapped hilt that made her pause, something about her fingers in the imprints left by his that she couldn’t explain.

His hand was still about her wrist, his touch light but damn near scalding, as she shook herself, forced herself to remember who she was, who he was. “Don’t call me that,” she spat.

His lips kicked up at the corners, head tilted to the side. Lethal— he was lethal, and she had been a fool to forget it. Yet here she was, her hand on his dagger and not a soul around to hear her scream. His voice was low, almost seductive, as he looked down at her fingers still curled around the hilt his had shaped.

“What does your husband call you?” he asked, a low hum that set her world on fire.

“That’s none of your concern,” she hissed, stepping back so forcefully she almost lost her footing. The gravel beneath her feet shifted, crunched, and the warrior before her blinked slowly, that smirk still tugging at his lips.

She kept her hand on the hilt of that dagger. He kept his on her wrist.

“Call me curious.”

“Curiosity killed that cat,” she deadpanned, wondering what it would take to kill him. She debated pushing him into the overgrowth lining the road, but knew she probably wouldn’t be able to move him an inch. He smirked again.

“Oh?” he said, his voice somehow dropping even lower, his eyes somehow burning all the more. “Your husband doesn’t call you sweetheart then, but I think I will. I like it.”

Nesta’s chest heaved as the breath left her, incredulous. “Did you hit your head with those monstrous wings of yours?”

He hummed. Tilted his head again - this time in the other direction - as if she were a landscape he was trying to puzzle out, trying to map a path across. She almost shifted under that gaze, almost shied from it, because for the first time in her life, she felt…seen, and she didn’t know whether it terrified her, or comforted her.

At last, she pulled her hand away from his blade. His grip relaxed, and she felt the cold air kiss her skin in the wake of his hand, the absence of his touch jarring as she took another step back.

“What does your husband call you?”

She blinked. Folded her arms back across her chest. When she made no move to answer his ridiculous question, he took a step forwards, reclaimed the distance she had relinquished.

“Why did you marry him?”

“I’ve already told you why,” she answered coldly, curtly. Insufferable, he was insufferable, and Nesta grimaced as she looked at his wings, at the spread of muscle and leather. That handsome smile and glinting eyes— in-fucking-sufferable.

“No,” he pressed. “You told me why you married. Not why you married him specifically.”

Silently, she seethed, gritting her teeth as she clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palm to the point of pain, but she didn’t unclench her hand, and she didn’t answer him, either. He tilted his head again, and Nesta felt more observed, more carefully studied, beneath his gaze than any other.

“You don’t exactly seem like a blushing bride overcome with passion,” he shrugged, continuing as if this were a wound he was determined to dig deeper, and she hated it— hated that she succumbed to it, that she couldn’t just rise above it. Above him.

And it didn’t make sense. He was a brutal, vicious creature, and yet he had let her keep her hand on his dagger for far too long, when it would have taken him but a breath to take it himself and drive it through her heart. He hadn’t even stepped back, hadn’t moved, as her fingers had stilled in the grooves made by his. She swallowed, thinking of how he’d protected Elain and Feyre. How he had looked at her with heartache in his eyes when he mentioned his mother. Something about him made the truths trip off her tongue, made her lies crumble. Perhaps it was that smile, that arrogant, cocky, insufferable smile— or those eyes, glimmering and bright and warm—

“Not many men will accept a bride that comes without a dowry,” Nesta said, answering his question at last.

“And he did? How gallant.”

She wondered if she could make for that dagger again. Her eyes flitted to it, dipped to the sheath buckled at his hip, but before she could reach out, he had her wrist back in her grip. Her skin sang beneath his touch, but she fumed at the transgression, at the indecency of it.

“I’ve seen pigeons with more grace,” she spat, feeling his fingers flex around her wrist as he laughed. He laughed, and gods, she wanted to hit him, the stupid, stupid fucking bat.

“Grace? Sweetheart, you haven’t seen me fight.” His smirk turned wicked, those warm eyes darkening until he looked devilish. Sinful. Positively fae, everything her mother had ever warned her about, and though she knew all of her senses should have been screaming at her to run, run, run… they were silent. Silent as the grave as he ran his eyes over her slowly, his thumb daring to stroke over her pulse. “Watch me run a man through and then talk to me about grace,” he murmured. “Shall I start with your delightful husband?”

His eyes dropped to the ring on her finger, and Nesta found herself pulling away, yanking her hand back and tucking it beneath her folded arms.

“You’re the most insufferable creature I have ever had the displeasure of meeting,” she said bluntly.

“Likewise,” Cassian answered flatly.

She started walking again, the sky above heavy with rain and about to burst. In the silence she wondered if he’d meant it. Wondered, secretly, if he could tell that she hadn’t. If he had been lying, too.

***

The village post office was small, and Cassian kept close to Nesta’s side as she pushed open the wooden door, setting a small bronze bell above ringing. He told himself it was because there wasn’t the space to stand apart. It was cramped and close inside— that was why his arm brushed hers, why he kept himself right beside her. For no other reason but the lack of space.

No other reason at all.

He watched as she handed over the letter, placed it on the counter alongside three coins to pay for its passage.The Night Court seal looked so out of place in such a mortal setting, the wax so dark it seemed to absorb all light that landed on it. The clerk looked at it curiously, but one look from Nesta, one imperious arch of her eyebrow, silenced the questions rising to his lips, and Cassian watched in awe as the clerk said nothing about it, only nodded briskly and stuck a stamp in the top right corner.

He hoped it was worth it. Hoped that when they read that letter, the queens on the continent would not leave them to face this war alone.

Her role in all of this done, Nesta turned and left the post office without sparing him so much as a glance. Cassian followed her still, kept close to her as she hurried away from the market square and towards the edges of the village, to a path that, he presumed, would take her home. The rain began to fall at last, the sky darkening, and Cassian followed her still, hand back on his dagger.

The dagger she had reached for. The one she had grabbed, as though he were no better than a novice.

He spent years drilling it into his men. Never let another get their hands on your blade— never. And yet with one step, Nesta had done exactly that, wrapped her fingers around the hilt and left him entirely speechless. Nobody else had ever looked at him the way she did. Nobody else had ever spoken to him the way she did, and nobody else had ever reached for his fucking dagger and managed to get a hold of it. Granted, she hadn’t lifted it from the sheath but… she’d been close.

And it had shaken him to his very core, emboldened something that had begun to stir the moment he set eyes on her. His attention was fixed on her, now, as she walked away, and it was senseless and reckless and stupid, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave, couldn’t go without saying goodbye.

He kept five steps behind her, just as she’d asked, and when the rain fell on her golden-brown braids, Cassian wanted to… shield her. Wanted to go back to Velaris and buy her a better cloak, one with a damned hood. Mother above, it was madness, but he followed her anyway.

He was done for.

From the moment she’d grabbed that dagger— done for.

At last, Nesta turned to look at him. She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t risk words. Not when they were still so public, he gathered. Not when there could be anyone within hearing range.

“I’ll be going then,” he said casually, his steps coming to a halt. She gave him nothing but a small, barely noticeable nod. Her eyes scanned the edges of the village behind him, and when she found nothing, nobody, she nodded again. Wordlessly, she turned.

He waited for a full minute, waited to see if she’d say goodbye. As she walked away, he watched until that tugging, pulsing feeling in his chest was almost too much to bear. He took a step forward and called out a farewell, his words echoing, cutting through the falling rain. But Nesta didn’t stop, and her steps didn’t slow. He saw the half-turn of her head, saw her lift her chin as she looked just barely over her shoulder. He didn’t know why, but he longed to hear her voice again, wanted to hear her call him a sparrow just one more time.

She didn’t make a sound, and Cassian felt something in his chest stutter as she left without saying goodbye. He returned to Velaris, but the entire flight home, all he did was wonder— Wonder when he would see the eldest Archeron again.

tagging: @hiimheresworld @highladyofillyria @wannawriteyouabook @infiremetotakeachonce-blog

[unhealthyfanobsession]

Soft Drabble: established Nessian, dancing, and the House being a mother hen.

Cassian would never be able to step into a melody the way that Nesta did. He would never be able to give every muscle in his body over completely to the will of the music. It wasn’t in his blood, to let his body relax and become so open and soft and vulnerable in the way that Nesta was whenever music filled the room.

It was an interesting symmetry that existed between the two of them. His body fell into fighting stances and swung his sword as an extension of his arm without thinking about it, simple and natural as breathing. Nesta, over the decade that they have been mated, has become a brilliant warrior, and a fierce Valkyrie... but he can still see her thinking about where to put her body when she fights. He can see the combinations in her brain a heartbeat before they burst out of her sword.

When music plays, however... that is when Cassian becomes unarmed. His brain fires at high alert, struggling to keep up with the easy way that Nesta’s body melts into nothing but a slave to her basest instincts.

And that is why the version of his mate that stands in front of him right now, still wrapped in sweaty Illyrian leathers, hair half escaping her braid, illuminated by the setting sun, is his favorite.

Ten years and he still savours the look in her eye when he casually taps the top of the Symphonia, filling the room with pulsing music. It isn’t a sweet smile or a beautiful glimmer... it is the spark of a huntress whose body is giving itself over to what it was created to do.

Cassian smirked, but he didn’t hold out his hand to her, didn’t offer to lead her into this dance, because here... she is the one in charge. They both knew who would lead them into the song as she sauntered coyly into his arms, circling him for a moment as the violin strings peeled.

This was his favorite version of Nesta, not because she pressed her body unabashedly into his, not because her skin- so smooth and perfect and positively burning against his own- grew loose around her muscles as she melted into his arms and the lilting song in the same instant. No, this was his favorite version of Nesta because it was when she was most herself.

Here, arching her back into his touch and pulling against his hold to spin wildly away, he was reminded of the mountain cat he met in the human world so many years ago. The beautiful, sparkling predator that he wanted to claw and bite and tear at his skin. Which she does... often.

Nesta grinned in savage triumph as she spun not away from him but around him, one hand snaking roughly across his chest, her body whirled around his own until there was nothing and no one in the world except for her.

Nesta finished spinning, settling herself comfortably into a more traditional waltz position as the song changed, growing lighter, sweeter. A melody that she once told him made her feel as if she is dancing across one of the large pink clouds that surround Thesan’s palace in the Dawn Court.

“This is a nice surprise” she sighed into his shoulder, head resting on his chest. Cassian tucked her even closer to him, not leaving a breath of space between their bodies.

“I think that we should dance more” he whispered against her hair “it’s not as though doing it requires a special occasion.”

“Hmm” Nesta grinned lazily “I think you finally realized that I’m going to catch up to your skill before you do mine.” she had been particularly ferocious in training that day. Even if he wouldn’t let her move to a higher weight bracket on the abdominal exercises.

“Please” Cassian scoffed, sliding his calloused thumb under the skintight top of her leathers to stroke her back “maybe in 500 years I’ll start to worry about that.”

“Arrogant bastard” she leaned up on her toes to scrape blunt teeth across his earlobe as she spoke. Cassian went stiff.

“Haughty witch” he grinned, returning the favor by running his tongue down the column of her neck.

Nesta slowed her movement, eyes locking with his, lined with smoky gray. Cassian inhaled deeply, hands tightening around her waist. He was just about to lift her up and let her wrap those very skilled feet around his waist when a loud slam sounded through the room.

Nesta looked over his shoulder and laughed.

There, behind them, a little table with two chairs appeared out of nowhere. Nesta shrugged and moved to kiss him.

Thud

2 place settings appeared on the table. “We’ll eat later” Nesta groaned at the house, already moving nimble fingers to Cassian’s belt.

Thud

A small mountain of food overtook the table. Far more than two people could possibly consume and Nesta rolled her eyes. “This House is a more insufferable mother hen than you and my sisters combined.”

Cassian laughed, letting his hand squeeze her waist in a promise of things to come before he pulled back “the House is right. You shouldn’t be skipping meals right now. Especially with all of the exercise.”

“We are not having this argument again” Nesta scowled “Madja said it’s perfectly safe for me to continue my regular training as long as if feels comfortable.”

“Regular training” Cassian sighed, pulling out a chair for his mate, and kneeling down beside her as she sat to press a quick kiss against her barely swelling belly. “Not trying to add another twenty pounds to your crunches”

“Gwyn and Emerie are getting ahead of me!” She griped, spearing a buttered asparagus with her fork.

“You’ll catch up, Nes.” Cassian smiled, taking his spot across from her.

Nesta ran her tongue across her teeth, eyes narrowed “if I can’t up my exercises for the next 8 months then neither can you.” She declared and Cassian nearly laughed “see how it feels to watch your brothers train harder than you.”

“I could not up my exercises for a decade before Rhys caught up to me” Cassian scoffed “Azriel won’t let me live it down, though.”

“Good.” Nesta smirked as if she looked forward to mocking him with his brother.

“Alright, we’ll be in this together then” he declared without a second of hesitation. She could ask him to give up flying and it still wouldn’t come close to the gift that she was giving him. Gifts in fact, according to Madja at Nesta’s 2 month appointment.

An announcement that had been met with popping bottles and impossibly loud squeals that echoed across the mountains of Velaris.

Nesta’s face softened and she reached a hand across the table, her fingers interlacing with his “all of it” she said quietly “we’ll be in all of it together. We have to be because I-” Nesta paused, looking down “it’s the only way I’ll ever be ready for this.” Cassian’s features shuttered, and his body made to stand, crying out to wrap himself around his mate in this moment of doubt, but he knew by now that she wanted to work through it herself. To feel the pain and let it wash over her. She was the rock against which the surf crashed. No matter how much he wanted to battle the surf to death in that moment, he let it crash against her, and watched with admiration as she banished the waves back out to sea. “Sometimes I get so scared that I’ll be like my mother. That I’ll shut down again or— or” she swallowed “whenever I have those thoughts... I take a few breaths and just remember who I’m doing this with. You are going to be an amazing father, Cassian.”

Nesta was a fierce enough Valkyrie without weathering this alone, Cassian decided as the tears stung his eyes. He never let go of Nesta’s hand as he stood, lifting her into his arms and kissing her so deeply her head spun a little.

They could eat later.

“You are going to be an amazing mother, Nesta. And not in spite of everything that you have been through, but because of it.”

Nesta’s lip quivered, a single tear rolling down her cheek that Cassian brushed away with his mouth as he pushed open the door to their bedroom, laid her gently on the mattress and braced himself on his forearms so that he could look directly into her eyes. “I’m here.” He whispered.

“I’m here.” She smiled back with the brilliance of the sun that set around them.

[nikethestatue]

Forbidden

Elriel Month - Day 4, Forbidden

Pining, a little bit fluffy, a little bit angsty and plenty of Nyx if you like him

The weather was miserable, and Azriel was miserable as well.

After finishing his work at his office in the city, he would’ve typically walked, but the freezing sleet that bombarded his wings didn’t inspire walking. His mood only worsened the moment he stepped out of the building, and he found himself hating everything. Hating himself, for being a coward, hating Rhys, hating the completely innocent Cassian and Nesta, who were absolutely gracious towards him, and allowed him to remain living in, what was technically, their house now. He rose swiftly in the air, flying towards the red stone monstrosity that was carved into the mountain, while the cold rain pelted his already-freezing wings. Everything was freezing. He could’ve thrown a shield over himself, like a smart male, but he wasn’t being very smart lately. He just didn’t fucking care.

Petulant and morose, he wondered for a millionth time when and why everything went wrong for him? Why was it that the thing he loved and relished the most in his life—his family—were now the cause of his greatest despair? How could his brother, the brother who gave him his new life, who cared for and protected him, who did not judge him and gave him the opportunity to live the life Azriel wanted, who paid him generously and allowed him the freedom to operate as he saw fit—how did this brother suddenly became the impediment to Azriel’s happiness? The brother that Azriel loved and admired now outright forbade Azriel’s happiness. And over what? The ginger princeling that Azriel didn’t care for at all…as he didn’t care for the entire family. He had to sacrifice his happiness to please a Vanserra! The mere thought of it enraged him so intensely, he almost crashed into a roof. As he banked to avoid the green tiles slick with rain, he wondered if Lucien would act as honorably if the roles were reversed? Would he maintain his composure like Azriel always tried to do in Lucien’s presence? Would he fly him in his arms? (Truly, a rather horrifying memory, if Azriel had to admit. Carrying fucking Lucien Vanserra in his arms, like a babe. Like he’d carry Elain. Or even Feyre. He was forced to cradle Lucien!). Would he avoid Elain?

Elain.

Azriel wanted Elain. He always wanted her—wanted her giggly laugh, the sparkle of her caramel eyes, the flip of the braid, the surprisingly firm touch of her calloused fingers, the scent of her, the rosy blush of her cheeks. Even though he was forbidden from courting her, or pursuing her in any fashion, they still came together at family gatherings and Azriel learned of her sharp, sometimes brutal sense of humour, of her inquisitiveness, and of things that surprised him. She let it slip that she wanted to travel, wanted to see the world, the continent, all the Courts. Wanted to eat exotic foods and go to museums and botanic gardens and drink coffee in small cafes. She told him that she dreamed of going to the beach and lazing around in the white sand.

Fuck it.

Tonight, he wanted Elain. He wanted to see her with a desperation that almost hurt his bones. Even if for a few moments. Maybe just at dinnertime, under Rhys’s annoying scrutiny, but he could do it. For her, he could do it. Forbidden or not.

So, he made a sharp turn and flew away from the House of Wind, toward the River Estate. The rain was now relentless and even in his sour mood, he had the presence of mind to finally shield himself, though it did little to dispel his gloomy thoughts.

The house wasn’t warded against his entry—he still had a bedroom and an office in there, though he used it very infrequently now. Shaking off the water that was sluicing off his wings as much as he could, he opened the door and entered.

A roar greeted him. A despondent, angry, colossal roar that came from the pudgy baby that currently wheeled into the foyer in his wooden walker. Nyx was screaming like he was being gutted. His perfectly round face was wet with tears, scrunched up and so red, that Azriel feared that his nephew might be having a conniption.

“Hello?” Azriel called out, as he removed his sodden jacket, and then considered, and removed his boots, so not to drag the water and mud across the marble floor.

Nyx was still screaming angrily, looking at Azriel with a weird challenge in his blue eyes.

Shaking his head, Azriel muttered, “What is going on with you?” and then sent a coil of fluffy shadow towards Nyx. Usually, it was enough to placate the baby and allowed for a moment of reprieve. Nyx, however, watched the shadow with disgust, and as soon as it approached him, he swapped at it with his fat hand, trying to slap it away. The shadow attempted a little jump, eager to play with him, but it only caused a further scream of outrage, as Nyx lunged at it with ferocious hatred, swatting it away, until Azriel pulled all the shadows back, so not to aggravate the situation further. Nyx’s soft baby wings were tangled behind his back, since he kept flaring them in his rage, and then unsuccessfully snapping them back, so Azriel squatted in front of him and began to gently dislodge and straighten them, while Nyx wailed and squirmed in the walker. “What are you, possessed?” muttered Azriel and pulled Nyx out of the walker, and was immediately rewarded with an even louder scream, as snot and drool flew everywhere.

“Azriel!”

There she was.

Everything stopped. Azriel no longer heard Nyx’s grunting and angry squeals, as he held him and stroked his head, gently smoothing down the silky black hair.

He’d never seen Elain so…frazzled. And so beautiful. So…human.

The girl he loved was always put together, even when gardening, in her floppy hat and dungarees, she looked picture perfect. In the kitchen, in her colourful aprons that she bought from one specific shop, she was pretty and pristine. But standing in front of him right now, this was the most lovely Elain that he’d ever seen. Cauldron boil him, but Elain was wearing black…tights? Hose? He didn’t know what they were, and even if he did, he probably couldn’t form a coherent thought in his mind, because he’d never seen Elain quite so…exposed. Those long, slender legs were clad in skin-tight black tights, and there was no escaping the shape of her body, of her lean thighs, of her lovely bare feet and her manicured toes. But what jolted him even more was that she was wearing HIS shirt. One of those shirts that he wore around the house, sparred in, and generally discarded into the laundry hamper when he was done with his exercises. His mind reeled. She was wearing HIS shirt. Why? Gods above, this was the most delicious sight to ever grace his eyes.

Azriel has had many women in his life. Too many females to count. He’s even been with human women, those who dared, and wanted a bit of their own winged Fae experience. He’d seen them naked and prone, had seen them flushed with climaxes, screaming louder than Nyx was currently doing. He’d felt, tasted, touched and filled bodies of every colour and shape. Yet nothing prepared him for the barefoot Elain in her black tights and his shirt. Nothing.

Where was Rhys, for gods’ sake? Where was Feyre? The twins? Servants? Why was he left standing here, with the most desirable and gloriously attired female, all alone? His wings flared involuntarily, his body wanting, yearning for her. Wanting all of her. All of this. Everything that was forbidden to him.

Her braid was loose, honey-coloured strands escaping wantonly and spilling over her shoulder, framing her pale, rosy cheeks.

“Az, you are here!” she exclaimed, eyes widening with what he could only mark as excitement. Maybe even pleasure.

“Good evening,” he tried to sound normal, though his voice felt deep and hoarse and suddenly dropped a couple of octaves. “What is,”

“He lost Brute!” she cried in desperation. “I’ve been looking for fifteen minutes, and I can’t find it! Please,”

“Got it,” he said, tucking Nyx under his arm, like a sack of potatoes.

This was dangerous ground.

 Following their unnecessarily lavish mating ceremony, Cassian and Nesta went on their honeymoon. In Illyria. When Azriel found out, he gagged. Cassian laughed. “You can’t take her somewhere better?” Azriel wondered, shaking his head. “Anywhere is better. The fucking Spring Court is better!” Cassian slapped his shoulder and argued, “Pretty, but deadly. At least to me. I’ll kick the bucket if I spend more than 15 minutes in Spring Court and Nesta will have to bring my dead body back here.” Azriel shrugged, “Might be worth it, if she avoids going to Illyria”. “You are too harsh, brother,” was all Cassian said, though Az felt like he wasn’t harsh enough. Nevertheless, Nesta and Cassian went to Illyria and to everyone’s shock, Nesta loved it! She loved the open spaces, the rugged, wild terrain, the forests and the picturesque lakes. She liked Cassian’s secluded bungalow, which he built himself—actually, the three brothers built it together, back in the day.

One day, there was a country fair celebrating some Illyrian war hero, and Cassian made a date of it. It was a surprise for Nesta, who’d never been to one, and they spent the day wandering from attraction to attraction, eating too much fried food, riding rollercoasters, which made Nesta scream until she was hoarse, and playing games. There was a shooting competition, and Cassian insisted on participating, though he wasn’t an ace with a bow and arrow, but he figured that he was still better than the average Illyrian. He wanted to show off in front of Nesta. Turned out, the average Illyrian was in fact better than the Commander General of the Armies of the Night Court, and Cassian came in third. Third. The prize was a small stuffed bat. Shamefaced, Cassian presented Nesta with the bat, promising to do better next time. So, so much better! Nesta named the bat Brute—after her mate—and upon their return from the honeymoon, she gave the toy to Nyx. And Nyx became obsessed. Brute and Nyx were inseparable and especially after Nyx began teething, leathery Brute came very handy, as Nyx chewed and gnawed on it mercilessly.

Azriel sent his shadows to search for Brute throughout the house, while he went room to room, looking in all the places that Nyx frequented in his walker. Nyx was only nine months old, but he already managed to say a few odd words. There was ‘ma’, “Lana”—which stood for Elain, “no”, and “Boot” or “Oot” or “Boo” which all referred to Brute. Nothing for Rhys yet, much to Rhys’s chagrin. Az got “Ath”, with a lisp. And of course, everyone’s favorite – “ass” for Cass.

“I already looked there,” said Elain, as she dove under an armchair, her tight little bum up in the air, while Azriel was cursing inwardly, unable to tear his eyes off the sight, disregarding Nyx’s slobbering over his arm. Nyx was getting tired of screaming—finally—so he was mostly hiccupping, sniffling and rubbing his eyes with his chubby first.

“I think I got it!” cried Azriel, once the shadows informed him that Brute has been located. He rushed up the stairs, taking three at a time, with Nyx bouncing under his arm and finally found the toy entangled in Nyx’s blanket. The first place Azriel should’ve looked. Both he and Elain were clearly off their game.

Nyx squealed with delight once Brute was safely in his hands and latched on to it with his aching gums. Tears were forgotten. Azriel lightly kissed the top of the baby’s head and then went downstairs.

Elain was awaiting them in the foyer and seeing the placated Nyx, she also gasped with delight, clapping lightly and then…she rushed and kissed Azriel’s cheek.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and he just stared at her, a smile on his lips.

“High praise for finding a toy,” he said at last, but Elain only grabbed his hand and threaded her fingers with his.

“No one is home?” he asked softly, and she gave him a knowing look, shaking her head. His thumb gently rubbed her fingers, as they walked to the kitchen.

“You will stay for dinner,” she said. More of an order.

“Yes.”

“We have to feed him,” she nodded towards Nyx.

Without releasing the baby, Azriel rolled up his sleeves and set to work. He washed Nyx’s wet, sticky face first, took out a fresh bib, which was immediately greeted with ‘no bip!”. “Yes, bib,” insisted Azriel, trying to tie it, while Nyx struggled and attempted to tear it off. Elain chuckled under her breath, watching the battle.

“He is like the Attor today!” groaned Azriel, as he finally succeeded in tying the bib, “is this how he always is? His parents need to discipline their damn kid better.”

She laughed.

“Where are they anyway?”

“The opera,” she explained.

Nothing gave Elain more pleasure than experiencing these stolen moments with Azriel.

A few months back, Rhysand, in no uncertain terms explained to her that at this point, a relationship between her and Azriel would be politically disadvantageous and therefore, ill-advised. The silver-tongued High Lord made his arguments clear, but with that irresistible firm gentleness that he employed on everyone, when he wanted something. Elain nodded, a neutral expression plastered on her face, while her heart shuttered, and something cracked in her chest. Whatever Rhysand was saying, the order was clear—she was forbidden from seeking Azriel out.

The ache…the ache inside of her only grew since then. It wasn’t an ache of sadness or despair, for deep down, Elain was absolutely sure that Azriel would find a way. He always did. And she trusted him unconditionally, knowing that nothing would stop him in his pursuit of her. Forbidden or not, they both craved each other with a wild, inexplicable hunger, and Azriel would find a way to circumvent all the restrictions that were placed on them. However, the knowledge did nothing to ease the desire that constantly coursed through her. Seeing him was a most delicious torment, a sweet, lacerating pain that never went away. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of Azriel, and when she went to bed at night, he was her last thought of the day. It was always Azriel.

He sat Nyx in his highchair.

“Are they coming back tonight?” he asked, without looking at her.

She turned away, and busied herself with Nyx’s dinner, mashing a carrot and a turnip together with a fork, mixing in a bit of cream, to make her nephew’s favorite dish.

“They are staying at the Grand Velaris Hotel for the night,” she said quietly. “Feyre just notified me. Rhys wanted to make…a night of it.”

Azriel couldn’t stop himself. Didn’t want to stop himself. Elain froze, when she felt him behind her, his enormous looming presence like a coiled string of pure strength and power. His beautiful scarred hand gently wrapped over hers, and they pressed the fork into the vegetables together, neither paying any attention to what they were doing. His breath was warm on the back of her head—actually the top of her head—for he had to crane his neck to lay his cheek against her own, while his other hand wrapped around her hip.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured, lips brushing over her ear, just short of kissing.

Absently, she dragged her fingers over the huge scarred hand that rested on her hip, her breath stalling in her chest. She became unbearably hot, heart beating so fast that she was sure that he could hear it.

“Will you stay?”

“Yes.”

His muscle-corded golden-brown arm tugged her closer, and she leaned into him, forgetting everything at once, only aware of this beautiful warrior behind her, as his powerful chest rose and fell against her back.

“Baby, I,” he began, and stopped abruptly, as if fearing that he’d made a mistake.

Baby.

‘Baby’ destroyed her.

She was never ‘baby’ to him before.

She was ‘Elain’ to him, in front of others. Once in a while, usually in Cassian’s presence, it was ‘Ellie’. More of a Cassian thing, but Azriel slipped occasionally and called her that as well. When they were completely alone, however infrequently, he let himself address her as ‘Lainey’. She loved ‘Lainey’. But he never uttered something so endearing as ‘baby’.

She turned around and looked up at him, caged comfortably within those massive arms, his golden-hazel eyes soft and loving. This look Azriel reserved for her alone. In his 539 years, no one, but Elain Archeron was privy to seeing him like this. He was undone. Ruined by this delicate woman who held his heart in her hand, as it burned with ever-present flame for her.

“Lana!” yelled Nyx, reminding them of his presence.

Azriel smirked and shook his head. She grinned and then cupped his face in her palm, as he began kissing her fingers, his hands resting on the counter behind her. For the first time, her plump, delicate breasts pushed into his chest, the material of his shirt providing bare minimum of a barrier, and he loved it, because she loved it. She loved it when he gingerly moved her breasts against his chest, and she pressed them closer into him, a silent invitation for more. More skin, more touch, more breath, more kisses, more of everything. Elain wanted everything. Elain wanted Azriel.

“Baby,” he began again, kissing the inside of her palm, “I like your shirt.”

Her brown eyes sparkled mischievously, and she looked down between their bodies, where they touched and fit together with strange, inexplicable precision, as if carved from the same flesh.

“I like this shirt too,” she assured him.

“I think you should wear it more, my beauty,” he suggested, his soft lips trailing from her wrist, up her forearm. “In fact, I think that you should wear my clothes as frequently as possible.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” she admitted, and lightly kissed his chin. Yes, she had to rise on her toes to reach it, but that stunning jawline of his was too irresistible for her to ignore any longer. She kissed the subtly scratchy chin again, and again, and then moved slowly, dragging her lips towards his ear. He tensed against her, his arms pushing against her shoulders, his wings flaring lightly behind him, cocooning the two of them in the velvety darkness.

“But,” she finally wrapped her arms around his neck, stretching her body against his, feeling every bit of him. “I was thinking maybe no clothes at all would be nice as well.”

“I couldn’t disagree,” he winked at her.

“Ath!” insistent drumming pulled them out of their mutual reverie. “Lana!”

“We have to be responsible adults,” she sighed, while Azriel kissed the tip of her nose. “And feed our child.”

“You feed our wayward child,” he decided, “and I will cook dinner.”

“You might very well be the perfect man!” she laughed.

“I might be,” he shrugged nonchalantly, kissing the top of her head and releasing her from his embrace at once.

Forbidden or not, this was going to be a very nice evening.

A very nice evening indeed.

[lectophile]

I Love Nesta Archeron

SPOILER ALERT for Sarah J. Mass's A Court of Thorns and Roses Trilogy.

With the newly-released title and release date of Sarah J. Mass's Nessian spin-off, A Court of Silver Flames, I have noticed that the YA fantasy community, or at least a good enough portion of it, has begun to become very vocal about its lack of fondness for Nesta and their displeasure at her being matched with Cassian, who they believe "deserves so much better". As the self-proclaimed number one fan of Nesta, I have an urge, that will not go unrequited, to dispel the idea that Nesta is a terrible person.

I have to admit, when I first read the series, I disliked Nesta, Elain, and their father an unfathomable amount. I relished in the idea that somewhere, later on in the series, they would each be served a mouthful of the crap they deserved. I would say, in terms of relativity, Nesta was highest on my dislike meter, Elain next, and then their father. Elain having bought Feyre the small tins of paint and Feyre's father telling her to never come back and live out her dreams were small redemptions in their favor. I admired Nesta's protectiveness over Elain, but disdained her for so easily having forgone attempting to protect Feyre, because, after all, she was the youngest.

After having read the series three times, and having deliciously bathed in gallons worth of putting-Nesta-and-occassionally-Elain-in-their-place, compliments of our wonderful, and even more scrumptious, winged friends: Rhys and Cass, I have come to the new conclusion about our dear Nesta. As the oldest, Nesta was able to receive the most education out of all three of the Archeron sisters. She learned valuable skills for women in society, making her a suitable match for eligible bachelors—but that was worthless when their family became poor. Nesta had no skills in surviving in a world where you had to fend for yourself. All she knew was which fork to use with salad and how to greet gentlemen. Feyre, on the other hand, had not even learned to read and write, making it easier for her to adapt to their new situation and assume the role of interim head of household while the rest of the remaining Archeron family pondered on a life Feyre had never had the chance to be a part of.

Nesta began resenting Feyre when Feyre successfully began taking care of their family. Nesta was being showed-up by a fourteen year old girl that couldn't even read, and all Nesta had succeeded at doing was mope around and wait to die. Nesta was ashamed of herself for this, blamed Feyre for her shame, and, in turn, wanted to make Feyre feel it as well—hence, abusing Feyre, I do not excuse it, but I don’t know when the book community decided to cancel characters for being terrible in the past and GROWING to become better people. Nesta also never looked after Feyre like you would hope an older sister would do for their younger sibling because Nesta didn't feel that Feyre needed taking care of. Feyre could hunt, make money, make food, and anything she set her mind to—she didn't need Nesta for anything. Nesta took this as a jab, feeling that if Feyre thought she was so good that she could do everything for herself, why should Nesta even lift a finger? Feyre was doing it all and seemingly handling it perfectly fine. Because of this, Nesta preferred Elain to Feyre; for one, Elain needed guidance and someone to follow, which appealed to Nesta's superiority complex; secondly, Nesta took care of Elain as she did because Elain gave her a purpose, to find someone for Elain to marry off to and care for her in the meanwhile.

Later on in the series, when Feyre shows up to their home as Fae and with part of the Inner Circle, Nesta feels a whirlwind of emotions, which makes her lock up even more than she always did. Nesta is scared of letting people see how weak and frail she is and how she has no real purpose in this world; and she is especially wary of letting Feyre see it because, even though she always resented Feyre, she liked that Feyre admired her for her steely exterior and unbendable will. For one, Nesta was shocked out of her mind because Feyre was Fae, something that all humans south of The Wall were taught to fear; Another thing Nesta felt with Feyre coming back into her and Elain's life was fear. Nesta feared that Feyre was going to disrupt everything Nesta had achieved while Feyre was gone: getting Elain engaged to Graysen. With Feyre gone and their father on his secret voyage, Nesta was finally the one in charge, the dependable one, the one protecting their family—even if that was only Elain—and Feyre was not only throwing off the balance, but threatening to destroy it altogether.

After having felt like we, the readers, had gone hand-in-hand with Feyre through everything, from the trials Under the Mountain to her neglect by Tamlin, we were angry and enraged that Nesta had the audacity to be so rude to Feyre, who had done absolutely nothing to Nesta all the months she was gone. For heaven's sake, Feyre hadn't even made contact with Nesta up until this moment. But, we have to understand, Nesta uses her anger to keep people out and prevent them from seeing how insurmountably weak and riddled with dark emotion she is. Feyre seems to have the world figured out: a mate, a close group of friends, wealth beyond imagination, and a beautiful home; and Nesta is upset that Feyre would want to take away the little her and Elain do have for, what she believes, is Fae business.

After having realized all of this, I loved Nesta with my whole heart—the most out of the whole Inner Circle, Az coming in close, close second. She reminded me of myself: flawed, jealous, wrathful, prideful, and resentful. Feyre seems to be some kind of unnatural super-being—ignoring the fact that she actually is for the sake of my argument—able to overcome everything in her way, making me want to be like her and making me resent the parts of myself that she overcame within herself. Nesta is Sarah J. Mass's way of letting us know, we can be powerful, strong, courageous women that surprise ourselves with our ability to do anything we set our minds to, as well as being flawed, broken, and distant. We do not have to be Elains: so kind that an other-worldly Cauldron gifts us power out of its sheer amazement at how lovely we are inside and out. We can be ferocious and take power for ourselves, just as Nesta had ripped power from the Cauldron with her teeth as repayment for making her and Elain undergo what they did. Nesta is devastatingly beautiful, graceful, collected, cool, intelligent, determined, curious, wrathful, prideful, resentful, and most of all, humiliated with herself for not being the strong person she wishes she could be. I love Nesta so, so much. I wish her all the luck and happiness in the world.

And, last but not least, something to remind everyone of. In A Court of Frost and Starlight, Nesta behaves outrageously—but this is her way of trying to cope, trying to get some sort of feeling back after having been turned Fae. Her transformation had occurred during the chaos of the battle to save humans from Hybern, and so there was no time for her to take for herself and understand what had been done to her. Once the adrenaline of battle and victory had faded, she was left with a hole within herself in a foreign body, leading an immortal life with an even more foreign power within her. Feyre also suffered from post-traumatic disorder, but in a different way—as all people go through trauma uniquely and individually. Nesta does not want to admit how broken, how weak, how confused she is, and all the Inner Circle wants to do is what they think will make her happy—but they don't get that she can't even feel. Personally, I find that everyone, except for Cass and Az, seems to have their own opinion of her behavior without really trying to understand why it's happening—especially Feyre. I think Feyre has always felt responsible for the well-being of her sisters, and so she does this the most. She has never truly understood Nesta, why she’s so closed off, why she’s so distant, and it hurts her as well, because Nesta is the only sort of mother figure—a strange one I know, but she was the oldest, wisest woman in her life for a long time—Feyre had, as their mother was basically absent and then died. Feyre is also young, so we have to understand that she does not truly understand how trauma can be different for each person, and so she tries to solve this by assuming that Nesta’s trauma may be similar in some way to that of what she went through in Under-the-Mountain. Feyre isn’t doing anything wrong, it’s just a younger sister trying to make her older sister as happy as she is—think Anna with Elsa. Also, Feyre is confused because she would have thought that the beauty and power of the Fae realm would have made Nesta feel better about being Changed, but, as I will dive more in depth below, the circumstances surrounding their views on being Fae are completely different, and frankly opposite for Feyre and Elain/Nesta. Feyre’s seeming misunderstanding and attempts at helping Nesta infuriate Nesta because she feels like some broken doll her sister wants to sew up new so that she can look pretty for the rest of them.

I also want to add that being Fae means completely different things for each of the Archeron sisters. Feyre loves being Fae, and I think it’s because she has associated it with the insurmountable happiness that has been brought into her life after she had Changed: she found Rhys, became strong enough to defend herself and anyone she cared about, was able to paint whenever, whatever, and however she wanted, found a family that truly supported her and loved her and required nothing of her, and was finally able to dream of a future that was only for her, not for her sisters or father. Elain hates being Fae, or at least hated it at first but seems to be adapting to it, because it took away the future she had always dreamed of. While Feyre never really had the chance to dream of anything for herself, Elain did—because, she’s sweet and I also love her, she really didn’t lift a finger until she shoved Az’s knife into the King of Hybern’s neck. Elain was raised in a society where domesticity are the best characteristics of a woman, and it is what she should strive for. She strived to be a loving wife, with a beautiful home to decorate, to have parties and socialize with everyone, and to be the sweet angel her husband came to after a long day’s work. She had that, and being Fae took that away because her fiancé hates the Fae. The man she thought would love her no matter what she was or looked like, hated her. I mean, if that happened to any of us, we’d all have been destroyed from within: she trusted this man with her heart, she trusted that he would always love and care for her—and for her to trust men was difficult because she had trusted her father to always look after her, but he failed her—and then he said he hated her for the abomination she was, for something she couldn’t control. Being Fae took away Elain’s dreams, and so it is not all the pretty, supernatural stuff that we, the readers, would love to be a part of—because, remember that the series was written in first-person from Feyre’s point of view, so obviously we’ll have some bias towards being Fae and her beliefs. Nesta hates being Fae. Nesta demands control over her life, she demands being the one in charge of it. If she’s gonna die, it’ll be because she said so; if she’s gonna eat, it’s because she said so. She will not let anyone or anything control who she is or how she lives her life, and then she was forced to be immortal. Imagine, feeling so lost, so insurmountably despairing, in an immortal body. While she was mortal she could at least wait for death to take her away from the tortures of being poor, cold, starving, and out of control, at least death was something she had decided on accepting, not forced upon her—but as a Fae, she would have to wait hundreds to even thousands of years for merciful death to take her away from all these feelings, emotions, and general environments that she has absolutely no control of and feels she could never truly be a part of. I have not ever been depressed or suffered from PTSD, but from what I have learned, I have heard that it feels like a never ending hole you fall into, where you are consumed by darkness and there is nothing else you can see, and anywhere you are within that hole, you are alone and no one can reach you. Imagine that, but feeling like you will feel that way for the rest of your immortal life.

Last, last thing: Nesta and Cassian are mates. If she had an instinct within her to call Cass from battle just in time to save him from the Cauldron; if her willingness to sacrifice her life so she could die with him because she could not live without him, didn't convince you of their status as mates, I *clap* do *clap* not *clap* know *clap* what *clap* will.

Anyways, thank you for reaching this point of my fanatic rant over Nesta.

[rufousnmacska]

Submersion

Back in 2018, I wrote a short nessian scene set right before the teaser at the end of acofas - Awakening (trigger warning - self harm, depression). Recently, it showed up in my notes. Then today we got the announcement of the title and release date for the nessian book. I went searching through my drafts and found the companion Cassian pov that I’d written for the scene. It’s been sitting there for two years. 😔

So, in anticipation of A Court of Silver Flames, and for the revived nessian fandom, I’m posting it here. I recommend reading Awakening first.

***Trigger warning - self harm, depression

Cassian had nowhere to go.

The townhouse had been taken over by Mor when Rhys and Feyre moved into the River House. The House of Wind was often overflowing due to the audiences now held each week. Velaris was a bustling city with no place for him to escape prying eyes.

He longed for the mountains, the crisp air, towering evergreens, the entire landscape sure to be frosted over with the change of season. The solitude, the lack of concerned stares and quiet pity … He so desperately wanted to fly home. But he couldn’t.

She was here. And despite everything, he couldn’t leave her. Wouldn’t leave her. No matter how much he wanted to go, no matter how hard she pushed everyone away, he knew Nesta needed help. He just didn’t know how to give it.

A group of children, some high fae, some not, ran past him as he trudged onto a small bridge over the river. The giggles and gentle taunts to continue their race home made him smile. But it was short lived. The scene stood in stark relief to anything he’d see in Illyria, where outsiders were shunned, and the boys and girls rarely played together.

Following in the wake of their joy did nothing to improve his listless steps across the bridge. His mood had been declining for some time and he wondered how much of it was due to Nesta, and how much was due to the problems at the camps. The ever growing discord among the war bands added to his itch to return to the mountains. Cassian found a secluded spot on the bank and sat down heavily, propping himself on bent knees.

It was late afternoon and he wondered where Nesta would be spending her night. How much longer could she continue like this?

How much longer can I, he thought bleakly, only to quickly chastise himself for wallowing. He’d been through worse, succumbed to his own demons and fought them off. How similar those demons were to Nesta’s, he could only speculate. But something told him they were. At least, closer than she could imagine.

How could he convince her that he understood? She wouldn’t speak to him, let alone allow him to speak to her.

Cassian cursed and stood up. Enough. Nesta was beyond him. He was going to fly home before nightfall. With a ferocious flap of his wings, he shot into the air.

Of course his route over Velaris took him directly above her apartment building. Cassian cringed at the shabby appearance. Even from the air, it looked dirty and ill-kept. While he respected Nesta’s desire for independence, admired it even, he couldn’t see the place as anything more than a sign of a troubled soul. As a human, Nesta had been impeccable, never a hair out of place. Being made into a high fae had not changed that. Despite being forced to live as her worst nightmare, she’d maintained that air of propriety, that harsh need for control.

All of that was gone now.

He found himself circling above the building, like some pathetic-

Out of nowhere a sharp pain flared inside him, jerking him from the air. Cassian landed on her roof and spun around, looking for the source of the attack.

But no. He slowly realized no one had shot him. This was Velaris. Its shields were intact, nothing was amiss.

The pain struck again and this time, some basic understanding flickered in the core of his chest. He ignored it, taking to the air and flying down to the street. Within seconds he was at her door, pounding his fist against it.

“Nesta?”

He heard a muffled curse and something clang onto a tile floor.

After a too long silence, he called out, “I know you’re here. I heard you swear.” He was struggling to keep the fear from his voice, trying to force levity into it to hide the shaking.

Cassian continued pounding on the door until he heard the locks begin to turn. His racing heart eased, thanking the mother that he was being let in. He didn’t mean to burst through the entry and when he saw Nesta forced backwards, he lunged to catch her.

But she steadied herself and immediately seemed to catch fire. As she berated him, Cassian glanced down at her arm. The pale skin was marred only by a fading pink arc. Searching her bare skin for signs of other wounds, he realized he’d find none. Her fae nature meant something small like a cut would heal rapidly.

Small, he thought, his insides turning to lead, threatening to pull him through the floor. A small cut. How many others had there been?

His eyes moved slowly to her bathing room, where a nasty looking knife lay on the floor. In a small pool of blood.

It had just happened. Is that why he’d been drawn here?

A small cut. A small pool of blood.

How long before small becomes big?

The thought rang in his ears louder than Nesta’s yelling. His body numb, he barely registered the impact when she shoved him against the door. For a split second, he saw pure terror wash across her face. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared and before he could speak, she’d turned and left him alone. The slam of her bedroom door vibrated through him.

Cassian blinked as if waking from a stupor, the feeling coursing back through every nerve of his body. He thought he might be sick.

That leaden weight within him longed to pull him down and away and ignore it, ignore her, give her space, leave her venomous tongue for some other fool...

Fly home and forget.

She would never ask, never say the word ‘help’.

But the knife, this filthy apartment, the drinking, the males...

It was all part of a scream that they had not heard. Or worse, ignored.

Fly home and forget.

Fly home…

He had to do something. He’d failed her so many times.

With an ache in his heart, he knew if he failed her here and now, it would be the last time. She was destroying herself and was so very close to succeeding.

Cassian strode into the bathing room and grabbed the knife. He made no sound as he left but his mind was roaring. Planning, turning over options, scenarios, phrasing that might compel her.

Unable to bear touching it for long, he threw the knife away as soon as he could, then flew to the River House. He would need Feyre for this, maybe Elain, possibly Amren. It would be difficult, and she’d fight them every step of the way, but he needed to get her out of here. Away from Velaris, away from their judging eyes and the dark vices in which she was trying to drown herself.

The moment Cassian decided to take Nesta with him to Illyria, his siphons had blazed, the lead weight constricting his heart had melted.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door to the study and found Feyre reading.

“I need your help.” His voice gave him away. Hell, his face must have too.

She sat up, eyes wide. “Nesta? What happened?”

“Nothing yet. But…” Cassian paused, thinking for the first time how this plan might seem ridiculous. “I want to get her out of here. Take her to the mountains. I think…” He paused, closing his eyes. “If I can get her away from all this, it might help.”

He didn’t elaborate on what he meant, letting Feyre think whatever she wanted. She was his friend and high lady. He loved her like a sister. But despite the cruel words and disdain Nesta used to build her defenses, they’d all failed her. They’d all left her alone to fester in her grief and misery. He was ashamed to admit it, but it had been easier than trying to wrestle with a hellcat in pain.

“What do you need me to do?” Feyre was standing in front of him, eyes full of worry. But also, trust.

“I need you to kick her out of Velaris.”

*****

Thanks for reading!

My fanfic master list (includes links to ao3)

[houseofhurricane]

ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (7/32) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: There's a scene between Tamlin and Elain in this chapter that I really enjoyed writing... and also, this is the chapter where Things Start Happening. I hope you enjoy -- thank you for reading! ❤️

This morning, Elain had decided she was going to get information out of Tamlin even if she had to provoke him. After six weeks in the Spring Court and a month under Vassa’s tutelage, she’s had little more than small talk and some slightly awkward conversations with the High Lord. His remarks to Lucien over the dinner table are still strained, arranging visits to the villages but never the Spring Court borders, never anything of substance.

Yesterday, on her weekly visit, Mor had asked if there was any new information, and when Elain shook her head and forced a shamefaced little blush, the look on Mor’s face had shaken her. Mor hadn’t been disappointed. It was as if she’d always expected Elain to fail to gather the necessary information, even with her pretty speech about how Elain had the makings of a spy. Elain isn’t sure if this kind of look would have bothered her even a week earlier. She might have been happy at the possibility of giving up. Yesterday, though, she’d felt the acid inside her, the writhing wrongness that had plagued her in the Night Court, that feeling of being useless and unwanted. Even if the vision had been a lie. There were still valid reasons to talk to Tamlin, not least of which involved finding out why Elain would use the crown to compel him to her side.

Most nights, after Vassa has gone to Lucien, she studies the remnants of the vision. She’s brought herself, finally, to study her own expression, and the serene confidence on her face is startling, both because it’s foreign to her mirror, but also because that look seems to be the exact replica of the feeling inside her as she grasps Vassa’s lessons. Often she is reaching for queenliness, that stately assurance, but when it’s hers, just for a second, there’s a brightness inside her, the feeling that she is finally correct. It scares her and it doesn’t, which scares her even more, that she might still be on this path, that her best self could be a monster.

What Elain would never tell anybody, more secret than whatever lurks inside her, is what she thinks when she looks at Tamlin. The beauty of him. Now that she’s been around him in his own home, she recognizes a certain look, the controlled wildness of him, and while that sense is further muted by the Crown in her vision, she still studies the strain in his muscles, his shoulders and his thighs. She watches him try to fight the influence until all she wants is to rescue Tamlin from her future self, reach through the vision and pluck him from that dreary throne.

Last night she fell asleep contemplating the scene, the teeth of uselessness sinking deep inside her, so that when she woke up this morning, Elain was determined to get Tamlin to divulge something, anything that might help her follow a better path. If she were able to glean some information that the Night Court could use, so much the better.

She’d gotten up early, let Melis arrange her hair in waves clipped loosely and threaded through with fresh gardenias, put her in a day dress that’s nicer than the ones she uses for real gardening, white silk embroidered with some magicked thread that gives it a pearly iridescence, so that she’ll shimmer in sunlight. When she looks in the mirror, Elain looks too radiant to be threatening. Beauty is a weapon, Vassa keeps telling her.

When she descended the stairs for breakfast, she watched Tamlin walk through the front door of his estate, into the gardens. Elain’s stomach grumbled but as she watched him make a beeline for the trees, she’d only hesitated for a moment before she followed him.

Now Elain is sure that something is watching her behind the largest, farthest tree. She has no idea how Feyre wandered these woods alone, as human or High Fae, and feels the habitual guilt rise in her, intermingling with the fear that roils her gut and tightens her shoulders. The gardens aren’t so far behind her. She could still turn around.

She breathes deep and reminds herself that she’s looking for the most frightening monster in these woods. And surely, if Tamlin were near, he would come to her defense, so long as she screamed loud enough. If Azriel kissing her would be enough to create a political scandal, surely her death must be prevented.

Instead of imagining the monsters in the woods or those last furtive moments with Azriel, Elain focuses on silencing her steps. The process is easier in her High Fae body, but her slippers still seem to be drawn to the twigs that crackle most under her tread. She’d spotted Tamlin crossing the grounds and she’d followed him moments later, leaving her trowel and gloves behind. He can’t have gotten too far, even with all the training of his warrior life.

Ahead, the sunlight goes molten gold, and Elain follows the light into the clearing ahead. Her breath is harsh in her throat and she would like a moment to rest, to believe that whatever lurks in these woods would have the good sense to avoid exposure.

Instead, she steps right in front of a golden beast, fangs and horns and talons and a ferocious expression on its face, so that Elain is screaming before she realizes she’s seen those green eyes many times before.

When Tamlin’s hand covers her mouth, she’s surprised to feel his fingers on her lips. Seconds ago, they’d ended in claws. She’s never seen him in this form before, not that she can remember.

“Why would you wander in these woods?” His voice still belongs to the beast, a ragged snarl.

Elain presses her fingers to his wrist, moves his hand enough to speak.

“I was looking for you.” His fingers are on her cheek now. She can feel the callouses against her skin.

“There are terrible creatures who roam these forests. Do you have an urgent message from your High Lord?”

Elain’s mind whirls for a good reason. The only urgency truly at play is her own curiosity about her own future and how it intertwines with Tamlin. How she might prevent her vision from being her actual life.

Despite everything she’s learning, her first idea is to feign a crush, her old strategy in ballrooms. But she’s tired of being a pretty toy that men consider only in relation to marriage or lust. Maybe she’s listened at enough doorways and dinners to politick a little.

“There was a question,” she says, careful of her phrasing and trying for the tone that Vassa has recommended, relaxing her throat and not allowing her voice to rise with question or with hesitation, “about the security you’re providing at the border with the human lands. Whether another court will be able to break through and terrorize the humans.”

“Has Lucien started whispering in your ear? I thought you couldn’t stand to look him in the eye.” Again, the words are growled, ominous.

But instead of shrinking or collapsing, Elain feels herself smirking, the expression foreign and thrilling. She hopes he can read the expression with his fingers. Whatever the implications. Something in her feels wild and free as it never has before.

“This is an obvious problem,” she says. “Even I know that Beron will never agree to remain in his territory.”

“Your sister destroyed my peoples’ confidence in me. I cannot raise an army.”

It’s the way he won’t say Feyre’s name that snaps something in Elain, makes her feel truly fierce. However she might feel about the Night Court, Feyre is her sister, and Elain’s betrayed her too many times already.

“I thought you were skulking in the woods instead of building it back.” He’s quiet and instead of letting him snap back at her, she adds, “My sister destroyed nothing that wasn’t already rotten.”

“Why did you allow yourself to be sent here, then?”

There isn’t an answer that won’t get her thrown out, she thinks. He’d never allow her to stay if she knew her vision. He’s mad already, and though Elain knows Tamlin’s temper is dangerous, he might let something slip if she provokes him.

“Why did you allow another Archeron sister in your house?”

“Your High Lord did not allow me much choice.”

“You seemed willing enough,” she says, trying to muster the kind of confidence that blooms in Nesta. “I think perhaps you were lonely in these woods. That if I were here, Lucien would follow.”

“There’s an obscene amount of confidence in your family’s blood.”

It occurs to Elain, all in a rush, that if Tamlin were truly angry, he would be a beast, all roar and claws, and instead he stands tall, his body so close she can feel the heat of it, the subtle movements as he draws breath. She’s felt that hunger, for the warmth of another body, and the longing frightens her with its ferocity.

So instead of pursuing the argument they’ve been having, trying to stir him to a rage that will make him careless, she asks, “Why do you prowl these lands as a beast?”

Elain feels him go still, trying to sense what provoked the question.

“I am stronger in that form,” he says, finally.

“You’re High Lord of your court. Certainly you are more powerful than anything that roams these lands. If you could--” She’s about to say, if you could guard this forest when Amarntha ruled, but she’s not sure what that phrase would stir up. “Why are you afraid of being seen?”

He snarls but she stands firm. He cannot harm her; her sisters would destroy him in a blink. Anyway, she’s seen the future, and however horrible it may be, they’re both alive inside it.

She looks at him, braced for action, the only enemy her question, and Elain sees his eyes are dull and she sees the shadows under his eyes, the stubble on his chin, his weariness evident. Slowly, the snarl turns hollow.

“You know the things I’ve done,” he says, ducking his head so that she can no longer meet his gaze.

“Is that what you’ve decided to become, then? The blind and stupid beast?”

No bird sings into the silence between them. Even the leaves go still on their branches.

“They won’t even look at me in the village.”

“My fiancé--”

“You will not compare my people to a worthless human man who could not see your radiance.”

“All I was supposed to do with my life was marry well,” she says, hoping she’s not blushing at the barest hint of a compliment. “Don’t presume to know what’s harmed me, or its significance. What you took from me.”

At the last, he turns away from her, towards the deeper darkness of the forest, and Elain knows that if she allows him to slink away, he’ll never tell her anything. If he delves further into that darkness, she will have to follow him, compelled and compelling him until her vision comes true.

She darts forward, circles his wrist with her fingers. Looks right into his eyes so he’ll see the truth she’s offering, the secret known by a quantity of people she can count on her fingers.

“I see things, sometimes,” she says, her fingers braced against the bones of his wrist. “Futures that could be. If I try, they can be avoided.”

“Why did Rhysand send you here?”

If he had growled the words, she would have run toward the gardens. Instead Tamlin keeps his voice level, his green eyes on hers, steady as a leaf in late spring, confident of warmth and sun.

“I had a vision and you were in it.”

“What will I do?”

The thready whisper of his voice cracks something inside Elain. She’s about to tell him the truth, confess the lie, but he misreads the hesitation on her face.

“No doubt your High Lord bound you to secrecy. He thinks I’ll fulfill your prophecy sooner if I’m told.” His voice rises, angry.

“It’s both of us. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I was sent.”

He stares at her.

“What terrible thing will you do, Elain Archeron?”

She can feel her courage guttering within her. She could not admit the truth even to her sisters, even to Nesta, who would have ripped apart the world rather than let an unkind hand so much as brush against her skin.

“I’m trying to figure that out.” She swallows, gulping air. “How I’ll become a monster.”

His fingers reach for hers, and Elain realizes she’s never let go of his wrist. If he’d run into the woods she would have held on tighter, until he dragged her through the underbrush. Not even because she believed he’d reveal anything to her, if she’s being very honest. She would have held on until she could have revealed a bit more of her secret, the horrible being that lurks inside her skin.

“It’s easy to become a monster,” Tamlin tells her, once she forces herself to meet his eyes again. Slowly, one finger at a time, he releases her hand from his grip. “Becoming good again is what seems to me to be the impossibility.”

If he’d told her she was good, she would never have believed him. Instead, Elain gives a dazed nod.

“You have to keep going to the village,” she says. “Your people want to believe there is goodness inside you.”

This time, when Tamlin turns to the forest depths, Elain lets go of him and lets him vanish between the trees. Perhaps there is no saving either of them.

&

&

&

When Elain arrives in the kitchen, very late for breakfast, there’s an egg and scallion dish, still warm from the oven, which the cook offers her. He looks High Fae until Elain takes a closer look and sees the webbing between his fingers, the pupils which are shaped like leaves. When she asks, the cook will not tell his name, only that he prefers to be called Cook, and though Elain supposes this is not an invitation to further conversation, they pass a cheery hour as he complains and jokes about his preparations for this evening’s dinner. Elain almost managers to forget the conversation in the forest.

Eventually the food is gone, including the new cherries from the village which Cook insisted she sample, and there is kitchen business that requires focus, and Elain realizes she has no excuse to not be in the garden. Everyone would know that something was wrong if she did not make an appearance in some flowerbed.

She’s just picked up her gloves when she hears Feyre’s voice, looks around the room wildly before reminding herself that this is one of her sister’s new abilities.

I miss you, her sister says. Mor said she thinks you’re having a hard time. Do you want to come home?

I don’t know, Elain tells her, checking her mental shields to ensure Feyre can’t see this morning’s argument. Everything here is different than I expected. I think Mor thought I would be a better spy.

Even Lucien struggles with Tamlin. Mor can winnow you back for a short visit. There’s a new bakery I think you’d like.

Send me a selection the next time Mor visits.

There’s a silence, and Elain knows that Feyre is looking for a delicate way to ask her sister why she doesn’t want to be with her family at the Night Court, and Elain herself is building an additional mental shield around her conversation with Tamlin this morning, the knot of feelings and frustrations she doesn’t want to untangle anytime soon. She reaches for her gardening hat and jams it on her head, wishing for the thousandth time that she could design a hat that would better accommodate her ears without sacrificing any aspect of the crown or brim.

How do you like Vassa? Feyre finally asks, the lightness in the question a little forced.

She makes me scared of Koschei, that he could lock her up. I think Vassa could take over Prythian if she wanted. She’s teaching me about diplomacy.

I’m glad you have a friend, Feyre says, and sounds so relieved that Elain feels guilty again. She’d never tell Feyre how often she inspires that feeling. Elain deserves the shame. And how is Lucien?

I don’t see him very much. Technically this is not a lie. He usually leaves with Vassa in the morning, unless he has an errand with Tamlin. He’s perfectly pleasant at dinner.

He’s not--?

He’s perfectly pleasant.

It’s only that I thought he would want to protect you from Tamlin.

I don’t see Tamlin very much, either. I think the noise from the builders upsets him. Again, this is technically true. Tamlin likes Laella well enough, but he’s generally out of the estate by the time the noise begins, and on the rare occasions that construction has extended through dinner, she’s watched his jaw clench with every bang and clatter.

We can send Azriel, Feyre says, sweet and hesitant. Or maybe Nuala and Cerridwan can join you?

I have a maid, and Tamlin is very curious as to why three of us were sent already. I’ll visit when I have more information, I promise.

You’re sure you’re all right there? Nesta has been asking to visit but we’re not sure it’s the right time, given everything.

Even after everything, they still treat Nesta like an ill-timed explosion waiting to happen. Not that Nesta hasn’t had her awful moments, not that her powers, even depleted, aren’t fearsome, but Elain has always found her fury understandable, even deserved. It’s why those barbs hurt so much when they were pointed squarely at Elain.

Tell Nesta I miss her and that no one has laid a hand on me.

By the time she’s said goodbye to Feyre, Elain is in the middle of the garden, wondering if the lilacs could do with pruning. It’s difficult to judge with the flowers perpetually in bloom, and Elain has always preferred gardens with a hint of wildness, not those precise topiaries she hears were the fashion in the continental courts.

In the end, she spends the rest of the day wandering the garden, assessing and finding everything perfectly in place. Any visitor would be greeted by flowers of all colors, arranged to complement each other, would breathe in the sweet fragrances and want to linger on the new benches. Laella has asked Elain to consult on the interior gardens, but in a few weeks, when those are completed, there will hardly be any work for Elain, unless she decides on some silly reorganization to keep her busy.

In a few weeks, she will have no excuse to stay, and these gardens will be wasted on Tamlin, who seems to want to lurk in the woods until his court is in ruins.

Just thinking of the garden trampled is enough to keep Elain there until the sun dips beyond the horizon. She stays hidden on a bench until she’s sure that dinner is well underway, then sneaks up to her room.

Melis is waiting at the door to Elain’s closet, yellow silk beneath her fingers. When she sees Elain, her eyes are startled.

“I was about to sound the alarm for you,” she says, letting the hem of the dress fall to the ground.

“I’d like to have dinner in my room tonight,” Elain tells her, pulling the hat from her head, the gardenias from her hair. Even crushed by the day, their fragrance lingers.

“What happened?”

“I had an... encounter with Tamlin. I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.”

“If he hurt you--” Melis starts, but there’s no real threat in her voice, only worry.

“Nothing like that. Only an argument. Can you help me with these buttons?”

Elain splays her fingers on the desk, studying the lines of dirt that demarcate her fingernails. She’ll take a long bath tonight, really scrub until her fingers are totally clean.

Melis hasn’t left her post.

“Are you all right?” Elain asks, not turning to look at the maid, looking instead at the gardenias, the crushed petals already veined with brown. Later, she will regret this.

She hears Melis’ footsteps, soft against the thick carpet, but just when Elain expects to feel her fingers on the buttons of her dress, there’s a pressure on her throat, a rush of bright pain, a warmth pooling at her collarbone.

Blood.

“I need you to come with me,” Melis says, and her voice is buzzing, frantic, and Elain thinks only, I thought whoever killed me would be more sure of themselves.

“I’m not going with you,” she says, loud as she can, trying to reproduce the assured tone Vassa would applaud despite the pain which does not ebb, and still Elain is reaching for the knife at her neck, but Melis grabs her wrists and wrenches Elain backward, bending her nearly to the floor.

The knife presses in deeper. Any further and her throat will be cut. The blood is already flowing down her body, staining the white fabric of her dress.

“Let go of me.” Elain tries to scream the words, but Melis moves the knife back and forth and the scream turns into a whimper. Once again, she is helpless. She is bait.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll know when we get there,” Melis says, and she squeezes Elain’s wrists harder, and as the winnowing begins, the great winds between everyplace summoned by Melis’ magic, there’s a rent in the fabric of the world, a ripping noise as Melis pulls Elain, and as the bright room disappears into darkness, there’s a thump on the carpet, a thousand whispers emerging out of nowhere, but there are no voices and she’s in the dark with Melis, the knife still on her neck, and then Elain is gone.

[professional-anti-writes]

Another fix-it, this one featuring Mor/Nesta!! cw for trauma, trauma-related thoughts

Nest/a’s stomach threatened to kill her. It burned ferociously, and no matter how she arranged herself in bed, the pain continued. When she gave up on sleeping and walked around her small apartment, despair burbled up her throat. She tried to splash water on her face, the way she used do as a human, but the sensation of it against her mouth made her panic and retch. “I can’t breathe,” she told her reflection in the cracked and dirty mirror above the washbasin. “I can’t breathe,” she said again, and slammed her palm against the glass. An ache spread up her arm, and she cursed, falling back into her bed.

Now she couldn’t sleep, her stomach hurt, and her arm ached. Nest/a lay her hand on her chest and tried to feel her heartbeat. She counted five seconds, seven, before her heart pumped. Such unpleasant things came with being fae. The slow heartbeat made Nest/a feel as if she had already died. Which she had, in a way. Her muscles had shivered and split from the bone, her bone had cracked and the marrow had run. And then she’d been put back together, even more painfully. None of this body was hers. She owned no part of herself.

At least, back in that cottage, she had owned herself. She had not owned her time—that had belonged to her father and to Feyr/e and Elai/n—but she had owned herself. Now she owned her time, but her not her life. If only she could have both.

At last, she decided to go to the pub, though when she got there, there weren’t many options for company. An orange-skinned fae with five rapidly blinking green eyes played dice with a blue blob that seemed to form hands as needed. The bartender, who called herself Gin, after the drink, was wiping down glasses with two arms and pouring herself beer with the other pair. Her third pair of arms ran through the light yellow feathers on her scalp, setting them in order.

“The usual?” she said when she saw Nes/ta. Nest/a grunted and sat down. She preferred a blue, strong alcohol that burned her throat and stomach. She found the approximations of human drinks a bit off and preferred the totally strange to the eerily familiar. She had two thimbles of it in a row and was nursing the third one when the bell on the door tinkled. Immediately, movement in the bar stopped. The dice-players gawked. The woman sweeping into the room wore masses of golden hair like a crown and looked around with dazzling golden eyes. Nesta swallowed, hard.

“Mo/r,” she said. A smile burst across Mo/r’s face, and she took the stool next to Nest/a’s.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” she told the bartender, her voice, as always, like honey rolling on the comb. Nest/a felt herself growing hot, and turned back to her drink.

“I suppose Feyr/e sent you?”

Mo/r sighed. “I’m sorry, Nest/a. I know Feyr/e is being hard on you.”

“Beind hard on me?” demanded Nest/a. “She refuses to let me live my life. She wants me to suddenlly fall in love with that predator Cassia/n and swallow down my hatred of her mate.” She almost gagged on the last word.

Mo/r looked across the bar at a lonely purple pixie. “He looks sad,” she said.

“Everyone here is sad,” snapped Nest/a. “That’s the point.”

Mo/r turned her gaze back on Nest/a. “I used to think that Feyre was sent to save me.”

“I—what?” For the first time, Mo/r had said something actually interesting. Nest/a leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“When she first came,” Mo/r said quietly, “her emotions felt truer. She raged against Rhy/s. And I thought that maybe here was someone to oppose him.” She played distractedly with the collar of her red dress. Nest/a, against her better judgement, grabbed Mo/r’s hand. Mo/r looked down at it.

“Why are you still with him?” said Nest/a, her voice as low as she could make it. “Why do you stay?”

Abruptly, Mo/r stood. Nest/a followed her out of the bar into the alley. “Why do I follow him?” said Mo/r, standing against the brick wall of the pub. “Why do I follow him?” Nest/a could see Mo/r’s tears glinting in the starlight. “Who would love someone as dirty as I am? Who would love such a terrible woman?” Mor held her fists to her stomach, as though filling a wound.

Nest/a’s heart faltered. The chasm in her own belly threatened to reach up and swallow her beart. “You are not disgusting,” she said softly. “They treat us badly, they are careless with our hearts. They try to make us hate ourselves. That is their secret. One day, we won’t hurt this badly. And on that day, when we share the throne between us, perhaps we both will have someone to love. But we have things we must do first.” She took Mo/r’s hand again, this time with both of her own. “How does one go about bringing down a high lord?”

Mo/r smiled, trembling. “Oh, love.” She brought her lips to Nest/a’s ear. “I think I know the way.”

[lady-therion]

Homecoming: Part 2 [Nessian]

Summary: Cassian really misses his feisty mate.

(Post-bonding. Post-ACOWAR. NSFW.)

A/N: In which Nesta’s back and Cassian gets super clingy! Not that Nesta minds her big bad bae wanting all of her attention even if he’s being zero chill about it. 

***

   Cassian couldn’t stop kissing her, couldn’t stop touching her, couldn’t stop breathing in his mate’s intoxicating scent like it was some kind of ambrosia.  

   “Mongrel,” said Nesta.

   “Your mongrel,” he purred into her neck. “You love it when I’m all over you like this. I can tell…”

    A red flush bloomed across her cheeks, making him greatly aware of where else he could make it appear on her body. Cauldron, he was half-hard already from her squirming in his lap—no matter that they were in their High Lord’s tent and thus in plain view of anyone who happened to walk by.

   Apparently, there was no shortage of busybodies eager for a glimpse of his fearsome mate.

   “Stop that,” she hissed, swatting the hand roaming along her inner thigh, its destination clear. “Everyone can see...”

    “I want them to see,” he crooned. “I want them to know that you’re mine, Nesta Archeron. More importantly, I want them to know that I’m yours.”

   He nipped at that sensitive spot below her ear, his teeth and tongue coaxing out a lovely whimper that went straight to his cock.

   “Mother’s tits, how I’ve missed that sound,” he said, worrying at the same spot over and over until she was shivering—whether from desire or frustration, he didn’t know, but it was delicious all the same. “I’m going to devour every inch of you, sweetheart...”

   “More like...mmm...the other way around,” she said, so breathlessly he was tempted to just throw her onto the floor and mount her right there. “Idiot.”

   Funny how Nesta’s insults had begun to sound like terms of endearment. And funny how they only whet his ravenous appetite for her, instead of incensing him as they once did. Fucking hell. What has she done to him? At this rate, he’d probably have to stride out of there, cock aching, and his wicked little minx knew it.

   “You wanted me to remind you of what you’ve been missing,” he said. “By tomorrow morning, you’ll be wearing all my reminders on your skin.”

   “Oh?”

   She turned to face him, something simmering in those steel blue eyes of hers. Something fierce and greedy and so utterly possessive that it both thrilled and terrified him in unending measure. All he felt for her. All she felt for him. That feverish and raging intensity that could only be described as a chain forged in flames between their two warring souls.

   Nesta...my Nesta...

   Cassian...

   It was the obnoxiously loud noise of someone clearing their throat that broke their thrall.

   “If you were two are done being absolutely disgusting,” said Rhys, appearing at the tent’s threshold. “I’d like a word with my emissary.”

***

   Nesta almost started as Cassian’s arms wrapped around her like a vice. No doubt some primal instinct overriding what little shred of good sense he had. From the way her mate was snarling at the High Lord, hackles raised, one would think he was about to snatch her away.

  Now now, my love, she murmured through the bond, each word a cool and soothing caress. Behave...

   Rhysand, wisely, stayed where he was. Though his expression was practically gleaming with wry amusement.

   “You’re one to talk,” she said, primly. “The way you carry on with my sister. But please, do provoke him. I’ve been in dire need of entertainment since my extended leave of absence.”

   A small tug at the corner of Rhysand’s lips. “Well, I’m sure my brother will provide all the entertainment you need.” He winked. “And then some.”

   The low and guttural noise that erupted from her mate’s chest was like nothing Nesta ever heard. Though she had seen firsthand how...territorial fae males could be. It frightened her sometimes. How deep her mate’s feelings for her could run—as deep as the root of her own soul.

   She reached for him, cupping his face between her hands, thumbs smoothing over that dreadful scowl until it melted away under her touch. “Dearest,” she murmured. “You’ll have to let me go if I’m to parry with the High Lord.”

   Cassian did no such thing.  

   She pursed her lips, then leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Beloved…”

   Her mate stilled, a small tremor running through the great folds of his wings—just as it did the first time she called him so.

   Nesta had many names for her mate. “Idiot” and “fool” when she was cross. “My dear” when she was absolutely livid. She called him her “dearest” when she wished to be listened to and “my love” when she wished to calm that ferocious predator lurking beneath his skin. But she knew her mate loved it best when she called him her “beloved” because it meant that he belonged solely to her. Not to his armies. Not to his friends. But to her, and her alone.

   The first time she said it, she could feel...such unfathomable joy. His, as well as hers. Their happiness entwining like two creatures curling into one another. Nesta didn’t realize how much it would mean to him. How whole it made him feel to have someone claim him as their own, after a lifetime upon lifetime of being cast out and unwanted...

   “Beloved,” she whispered again. “The sooner I speak to your brother, the sooner we can leave.” She bit his earlobe—hard, the way he liked. “And the sooner we can play together…”

   That seemed to capture his attention, his soft rumble of approval saying more than words ever could. She rewarded him when he loosened his hold, grazing his cheek with the tip of her nose, taking in that familiar scent of earth and sky and woodsmoke.

   She didn’t go far (it was just across the room for Mother’s sake), but she could practically feel the sharpened end of her mate’s glare as it narrowed in on their High Lord.

   “You spoil him too much,” said Rhysand.

   She arched a haughty brow. “I hardly see how that’s any of your business, seeing how much you spoil Feyre in turn.”

    He grinned. “Fair enough, dear sister.”

    She scoffed. They walked through different hells, the two of them. Rhysand sacrificing his life. Nesta sacrificing her humanity. Yet despite everything they had been through, despite the mutual love they shared for their Commander (and High Lady), it would take Nesta a long time to get used to calling this self-satisfied and arrogant male her family.

    He earned her respect, however. Begrudgingly so, but he earned it. And they both supposed that was a start.

    She reached into a small leather satchel below her belt, handing him a finely wrought scroll box bearing the seal of a rising phoenix—the house crest of Queen Vassa. Rhysand took it with a curious glance, a glance that turned even more curious when he rattled it about.

   “Sounds like you included more than just a written report.”

    Nesta shrugged. “I may have taken the finger bones of an errant queen or two.”

   Rhys’ eyes widened. “If only the Carver were still here...I imagine you have quite the story to tell.”

   “Not quite as interesting as coming back from the dead,” she quipped. “But interesting enough to keep you preoccupied for the evening. I assume you already gleaned what you needed to from Morrigan?” A curt nod. “Then you’ll know that Lucien has chosen to stay behind to tie up loose ends.”

   “I’m sure Elain and Azriel will be heartbroken to hear the news,” said Rhysand.

   A knowing smirk passed between them.

   “Do you think the Lord of Foxes will elect to stay there permanently?”  

   Nesta shook her head. “I don’t know that he’ll go so far as to declare allegiance to Vassa’s court. But he fits in rather well on the continent and has become a very passionate advocate of her reign. She inspires something in him, I think.”

   “Not entirely surprising,” said Rhysand. “I hear like calls to like.”

   She snorted.

   “And how was the rest of your journey?” said Rhys. “Aside from the bloodshed and all the courtly trappings of political intrigue?”

   She paused, considering. “Long, tiring. The world is so much bigger than I thought. There’s so much to see, so much life that's worth protecting. Still, I'm glad to be here. Glad to be...home.”

   With him, she said, mind-to-mind. Him, most of all.

   Rhys tilted his head, those starlit violet eyes quiet and observing.

   “I may have underestimated you, Nesta Archeron,” he said finally. “You are...not at all what any of us has expected.”  

   “Let Feyre know that I’d like to have that as an engraving.” She turned back to face her mate, who had been watching the entire exchange with a look that could have charred raw meat. If Illyrians had been born with tails as well as wings, she knew Cassian would have been swiping his back and forth in irritation. “Now, if you’re done wasting my time, I have a mate to spoil.”

   Nesta strode towards him, her long and delicate fingers reaching out to grasp his rough and callused ones.

   Strange, how it reminded her of that first time...in the foyer of the town house, shortly after his return from the Battle of Adriata. She had been so worried for him then, so confused by her own emotions that she had been unable to tell him so. And he had not thought to come speak to her at all, because he didn’t know if she cared whether he lived or died.

    Everything was so different now.

   They were different now.

   She knelt before him, using her other hand to stroke those dark locks from that beautiful face—the face she conjured in her dreams all those lonely and uncertain nights without him.

   “To bed?”

    He wasted no time scooping her up into his arms, his body thrumming with longing and anticipation. They swept past a very smug looking Rhys, launching into the night sky without a backward glance.

   The boom of wings that followed could have been heard across the mountains.

***

   Cassian’s tent was stationed far above the main pavilions, surrounded by a rocky outcropping that shielded it from the high winds.

   “Why so far away from the camps?” she asked, when he set her on her feet. During the war, he kept his quarters with the rest of the legions. It seemed strange that he would now choose to lodge somewhere more...remote.

   “Not sure,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Old habits, I guess.”

    A sharp pang rippled throughout the chambers of her heart, a pain so cutting she wondered if Cassian could feel it. Of course, she thought. As a bastard, he had been driven out and shunned for merely existing. With Hybern, his proximity to his soldiers had been a practical necessity. But out here on the Steppes, among his people and their cruel ways…

   He had been forced to live on his own, to struggle and steal and survive any way he could. Alone. Not even a headstrong younger sister to...to turn to for...

   “Hey now,” he whispered, tipping her chin up. “There’s no need for that.”  

   Nesta loosed a breath she didn’t even know she was holding, her emotions threatening to overwhelm her. What did Cassian see? she wondered, looking into his hazel eyes. That maelstrom of feeling brewing inside her? The guilt? The anger? The sorrow for all the wrongs and hurts of the past?  

   “Sweetheart,” he said, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. “The only thing I see is a woman who drives me mad with wanting.”

   The kiss he gave her was a chaste one, yet the intimacy—the shelter—it promised made her burn for him all the same. So she returned it with enough fire and fervor to make him pulse with pleasure, his Siphons flickering.

   “Let’s take this inside?” he asked, his expression positively feral. “Unless you’d rather have a go out here.”

   She rolled her eyes before ducking into his tent.

   It was just as large as Rhysand’s, though sparsely decorated. There were no exotic cushions or carpets or frivolous setees to be had. Just a bed of furs, a rack of steel, and a dummy that wore a set of armor hewn from dark red scales—scales that could supposedly repel weapons tipped with faebane. A gift, he told her, from the clever tinkers of the Dawn Court. Should Cassian deem it worthy, they would begin outfitting the rest of the legions.

   There was also a war table, dimly lit from a lantern of faelight swinging overhead. It was overflowing with all manner of maps and scouting reports. But what caught Nesta’s attention was a small stack of letters bound with a dark blue ribbon.

   Her letters. Her ribbon.

   “You kept them?”

   “Of course I did,” he said, embracing her from behind, chin resting against her shoulder. “I wouldn’t have been able to stay sane otherwise.”

   Again, that naked sincerity. Her mate could be so...impossible sometimes. Impossible for her to understand. His heart was bared for all to see, his intentions pure and and clear and unmuddied. How she wished she could be as open as he was, as free.  

   But for now, she was content to lay aside her walls for him and him only. And as for sharing her true self with others...perhaps that would come with time. Time they both now had.

   “I’ve been wondering where this ribbon went,” she said. “I thought Feyre or Elain might have borrowed it. And here they say I’m a thief.”  

   He chuckled, the dark and warm sound sending a flutter through her belly. “You can have it back if you want. I have others.”

   “Others?”

   He nodded towards the swords he kept on the nearby rack, each one of them of varying length but just as deadly as the next. But upon closer inspection...

   “Cassian! Are those…?”

    All of them. All of his swords had her ribbons—black and gray and ivory and emerald—wrapped around their crossguards in haphazard knots.

    “What did you do? Plunder my whole vanity?”

    He shrugged, like it was all perfectly natural. “More or less. I don’t see what the fuss is about. I can get you new ones if you want.”

   “But why…?”

   “Why?” He yanked her against him. “Why?”

    And here his voice grew hot and honeyed and oh so very, very dangerous.

    “Because Nesta, there wasn’t a single moment that passed when I didn’t think of you.” He kissed the back of her neck. “Didn’t think of holding you...” His skimmed the curves of her body. “Didn’t think of touching you…” He cupped her breasts. “Didn’t think of fucking you senseless.” His cock pressed into her backside, hard and throbbing. “I needed something, anything, to carry with me, to remind me of you. How you smelled. How you tasted. How you look at me when you…”

   “Stop talking,” she said, breathlessly. “Just...stop talking.”

***

    They went for each other, the heat between them exploding like wildfire. Grasping turned into clawing. Kissing turned into biting, just a hair’s breadth away from vicious—but Cassian wouldn’t have it any other way. With Nesta, he could go as rough as he wanted because she understood all jagged edges as much he understood hers.

    Cassian...Beloved…

   He surged for her, the both of them colliding into the table so hard that it scraped a few inches across the floor. Frantically, she began to undo her leathers, her clever fingers fussing over the intricate hooks and ties. But Cassian had never been good at waiting and he had been so, so patient.

    “Nesta,” he groaned. “I need...I need to have you.”

    Here. Now.

    So he released a small wave of his power—a warm red light washing over them both. Until all their clothes shredded and melted away, belts and daggers and Siphons clanging noisily onto the floor.

   They stood before one another, caught in the tempest of their own lust. It stunned him. How beautiful his mate was when she was like this—bared to him in the most carnal of ways. And Mother above, she was practically soaking between her legs, his cock twitching at the devastatingly erotic sight, blood pounding madly in his ears.

   Then she sank to her knees, pressing kisses to the trail of coarse, dark hair beneath his stomach, and it was a wonder that Cassian didn’t simply die right there from bliss.

    She lapped at the tip of him, almost purple now with strain, before opening that wicked mouth of hers to take in his entire hot length, deep enough to hit the back of her throat. She had been so nervous the first time she tried this, wary and unsure and a little more than self-conscious. It had been pure curiosity that drove her to perfect her pleasuring of him, and Cassian could only marvel at her eagerness to love him this way, to put aside her own desires to stoke his own.

    Then all thought drained from his mind like water in a sieve when she began to swirl her tongue under the ridge of his flesh. And when she clasped him with her fingers and began to stroke him in earnest, back and forth…. back and forth...her head bobbing... It had taken nearly half a millennia of training to keep his legs from buckling underneath him like some unblooded novice warrior.

    And if she continued her passionate onslaught this way...

   “S-stop,” he choked, hands tangling in her hair. “Sweetheart...no...I can’t...no....”

    She suckled and stroked him a few more times, slow and steady and agonizing, her lips making an obscene, wet sound when she pulled away.

   “But I wanted to spoil you,” she said, pouting in that mocking way that only worsened his frenzied arousal.

   Without preamble, he hauled her over his shoulder like a sack of grain and carried her to his bed. There was a lot of vulgar cursing that followed. “Stop squeaking,” he said, reaching up to spank her (and damn him if she didn’t just moan aloud as he did so). “You say you want to spoil me?” He threw her down, pinning her beneath him, wings flaring to their full span on either side. “Then come ride me, girl.”

   His mate’s nostrils flared when he rolled them over, his rough hands seizing her hips until that sweet, glorious cunt was poised above his length just so. And although he was panting through his nose like an agitated bull, he stilled...and waited. Waited until those blazing eyes of hers softened. Waited until she reached up to undo those braids, those golden-brown tresses falling over those gorgeously full breasts of hers.  

   Then she slid something around his wrist, and he turned to see her tie a new ribbon around him—bright and scarlet as freshly spilled blood.

   The color of his Siphons.

   “I thought of you too,” she whispered, her emotions swirling to the surface once more. “I thought of you often...I missed you so much…”

   Shock. Awe. To think that Nesta Archeron would confess to something so raw and intimate—to him, of all people. It was though she had stolen away his very soul...and maybe she had.

   “How much did you miss me?” he asked, thumb circling over a rosy nipple. “Tell me, Nesta. Tell me how it felt.”

   Again, that strange and preternatural simmering behind her eyes, like tendrils of smoke under shards of glass.

   Then slowly, sweetly, she took him inside her—singeing every nerve inside his body until he was nothing but liquid fire.

    So full, she crooned to him. So right...

    “Fuck!” he roared, head thrown back as the sheer ecstasy of being joined threatened to shatter him. All traces of coherency deserted his senses, his words slurring into grunts and growls as his beautiful mate rode him….and rode him hard. Up and down in a steady and unrelenting rhythm. Her cries rang out from their tent—and possibly into the camps below. If anyone didn’t know his name before tonight, they would by tomorrow morning.

   Good, he thought. Let them hear. Let them know she laid claim on him.

   “Being without you…felt like….felt like starving,” she gasped, her inner muscles clenching him so hard that he had to grit his teeth. “N-nothing could sate me...not even my own hand.”

   He whined at her. Actually whined. “More...tell me more.”

   “I touched myself anyway...thinking of you...of what we have….” She bit her lip, eyes screwed shut against the mounting pressure between them. Any moment now, she would break apart in his arms. He eased the way, guiding her hips to roll at a faster pace. “I thought about what you do to me...the fire you make feel...even when we aren’t...ah...like, like this…and, oh...oh Cassian...”  

    It was the blooming of her own climax that sent him hurtling over the edge. He sat up, taking her shuddering body into his arms as he came, spending himself inside her as he chanted, “Nesta, Nesta, Nesta,” like a prayer against the crook of her neck. It could have been minutes, it could have been eternity—but by the old gods, he was still coming even as Nesta collapsed against him in boneless relief.

    By the time he was done, he felt barely alive and there was nothing but silence and softness between them. Their desires sated...for the moment.

   Then…

   I love you...I love you, Cassian.

   His eyes burned at the wetness against his shoulder. A wetness that had nothing to do with the sweat between their bodies.

   “I know,” he said. “I...I love you always.”

    There had been a time where Cassian had been terrified to say those words aloud, of what they would unleash, of what they would set in motion. But there were no regrets as he held her close to him, nose buried in her long and lovely hair. Gods, this woman, this female. So strong and so very, very precious to him. Would Nesta ever really know how much he treasured her? If not, he would spend the rest of his life proving it, starting with tonight as he had her again.

    And again and again and again.

   And by the time the sun rose on the distant horizon, his mate indeed wore all his reminders on her skin.

   Just as he wore hers.

***

Also, huge thanks to everyone who enjoyed Part 1! You guys are so filthy and wonderful—ilysm :) Also tagging @aelin-and-feyre because she asked so nicely (*tosses trash bag of steaming hot cuddle-smut through her window*).

Other chapters be found in the Masterlist in my Bio / I am Lady_Therion on AO3

[unpopularcharacterstan]

I definitely think Nesta has some real-world PTSD that’s part of what’s causing her to pull back. First, she had her mother die and then was stuck watching her father let her starve. Then, he abandoned the family and she had to navigate that world for herself. Then, she had the trauma of being kidnapped and thrust into the fae world, where her body stopped belonging to her, but she also had to watch her sister get turned as well. She literally had to fight the Cauldron - the essence of life, death, and creation, for some unknown amount of time, suffering something so personal and painful she could barely even speak about it. She also had to watch cassian nearly bleed out (three times!). That’s not even counting her near rape by Tomas and the humiliating, isolating experience of all of the sudden being forced into being a penniless, friendless fae stuck waiting on the condescension of R and F to keep her fed, housed, and clothed.

So, there’s the normal trauma she’s experienced, but I also think there’s something deeper and more magical at play. The moment she stares at the head of Hybern she’s almost like a feral animal - like she’s lost inside the moment of his death somehow. And then she collapses into that empty, silent despair for the rest of the book. Then in acofas there’s the moment where she and cassian are talking and it says a void entered her eyes, an endless, depthless void. That void seems like more than just sadness, since it’s also a theme of F’s conversations about the artist’s weaving called Void. We know from the bone carver that nesta has something inside her so ferocious that it struck him with awe. Whatever power she showed against hybern was pretty weak, so it can’t be that. There’s something inside her that’s massively powerful and I think it’s eating her up inside.

I think a big part of what’s causing nesta to isolate herself between acowar and acofas is her desire to protect the ones she loves. She fears what’s inside her, recognizes that it’s massive and destructive and dark, and that’s why she’s trying to make herself as small as possible. It’s when her feelings get activated that it seems to threaten to overwhelm her, so she’s trying to pull back from anyone who might trigger those feelings. She seems to work hard to turn everyone away from her, even amren. I think it goes back to what feyre said about how nesta would tear herself apart to protect the ones she loves - that’s exactly what she’s doing.

And the nameless males she sleeps with are either just an attempt at self-punishment Bc she hates herself and this life she didn’t ask for, or an attempt to have some kind of temporary respite from her self-imposed isolation, with people who don’t threaten her emotionally. Or maybe a bit of both.

But bottom line, I think there’s more to Nesta’s withdrawal than just human-scale PTSD. I think she has death inside her, and she knows and hates it, and is trying in her own very Nesta way to sacrifice herself to save everyone else. And the IC can’t see that bc all they see is her usual arsenal of self-defensiveness and coldness - they can’t see that the things she once used to keep her safe are now the things she’s using to keep them safe.

Nesta,Her Father, And Cassian (Also Bryce and Hunt)

I've touches base on this subject before, but I feel like I've never done a full exploration of it, So let's talk about why Nesta's father's death is hitting her the hardest. And why it's easier for Feyre and Elain to accept it than for Nesta. I’ll also be exploring Nesta and Cassian’s relationship especially the moment during the battle and I’ll also be using reference from Crescent City, The Orignials, and Legacies to help prove a few points. And yes there will be major spoilers for all 4 so proceed with caution.

The answer itself is that Nesta blames herself for her father's death. It's as clear as day to anyone who pays attention.

Now for everyone who read ACOWAR, we know what happened. Nesta in an attempt to kill the King of Hybern and to distract him long enough for Feyre to get to the cauldron, Nesta volunteered herself as bait. She didn't think about the fact that the king had other plans in mind.

Now wwhen we're at Nesta and the kings final showdown, we see him look towards something and winnow What we didn't expect was for him to have a human shield. Nesta's father.

Now a lot may speculate how exactly the king knew he was Nesta's father to begin with and I firmly believe it was because he saw the ships. Saw the names on them. And saw that the ship he came in on was the Nesta. Therefore in that he found the perfect revenge for the girl he had been hunting. The girl he wanted to make suffer for taking the cauldrons power and putting a thaw in all of his plans.

He never had any intention of letting their father live, he just wanted to make Nesta suffer before he killed her. (killing her father in front of her, threatening to cut her magic out of her when she begged for her father's life, injuring Cassian to the point of near death) every move was set to break Nesta. I also had a theory that he may have been trying to take her a s a weapon for his own using. But that’s just a theory.

Then the kind despite Nesta saying she would do whatever he wanted to keep her father safe. kills him. And what hits her harder is that her father admits that he’s always loved her ever since he first held her in his arms. (Which I find emotionally manipulative but that’s just my perception.)

And that was hard for her to hear. Hard for her to process, Because now she had hope. She had hope that they could repair their broken relationship. She had validation of her father’s love for the first time in her life, but that still didn’t excuse his neglect of her. Still didn’t excuse what he did to her and her sisters. she still wanted explanations, but she was willing to try not specifically for his sake, but for hers.

Another thing to note here is after losing her father, she nearly lost Cassian as well. I couldn’t imagine the heartbreak Nesta must have felt after losing her father because the king was trying to exact his revenge on her, to nearly killing Cassian so he could do the same thing, The king was observant. He ever asked Nesta if Cassian was the bastard that was crawling towards her that day in Hybern. And that was when Nesta got pissed. It was the time she fought back. She already had her motivation to kill the king before but now it was kill or be killed. She knew he wouldn’t listen to reason. That there was no way he would just kill her.

Truthfully I love the scene where she tells him that she’s going to kill him after seeing the state Cassian is in. (Especially his wings since Nesta knows that losing his wings would physically kill Cassian.)

But I want to focus more on the scene where Cassian professes his love for Nesta. Because this one is extremely important. He tells her his only regret is that he didn’t have time with her. That he’ll find her again in the next life. He promises her that. (Keep in mind Nesta is huge on people keeping their word) (I also have a theory that Bryce and Hunt are reincarnation of Nesta and Cassian, mostly because of the phone call conversation Bryce and Hunt had in Crescent City and the similarities I see between Nesta and Bryce and Hunt and Cassian) Maybe I’ll do a post on that later of how they have a lot of similarities.

But it’s also important to note that he made such a big proclamation after the one she heard her dad make. And she was also unaware of how deep Cassian’s love ran for her. She was aware of the attraction. Aware there was something stronger between them. Aware of her own feelings. But she wasn’t aware that he felt the same way. A lot of his actions didn’t prove that to her and of course she would have mixed feelings just like Cassian does. (It also reminds me a lot of when Bryce tells Hunt she loves him when he’s nearly dead and then he gets pissed when she’s about to die and tells her to come back and say it to his face. Same concept)

Then after that and making a proclamation of her own she shields Cassian’s body with her own, she refuses to leave Cassian behind, because she knows that Cassian has felt like he’s been walking alone his entire life. And she wants to show him that someone will be there for him. Even though it’s shown from Cassian’s POV that she was terrified, Him wrapping his arms around her in that moment in a gesture of comfort and showing that she also wasn’t alone was one of the best moments this realtionship has had (I love Nessian. There’s a reason they’re such a huge ship)

But then Elain comes and stabs the king of Hybern. And Nesta finishes the job and kills him. ( I love when the sisters work together. No one should discredit Nesta or Elain for this. They both took out public enemy number one and neither got the recognition they deserved. (Another reason why the IC pissss me off. I can still like them and admit that they have problems.)

And I’ve already touched base on how killing the king affected Nesta because it was her first time taking a life. (Nesta values life and she hates playing God. She even says as much in Wings and Embers).

Also during this scene, we see Nesta fully consumed by her rage. In Feyre’s words, Nesta became brutal. She became consumed in her anger, in her rage and hatred. It was the moment she let herself become death itself. And she was so lost in it that it took both Cassian and Elain to pull her back.

That’s an important scene because it was the moment her old self died. The moment where she lost a part of herself that she valued. And killing the king was self defense. He was evil, and she may be conflicted in killing him because at that moment she didn’t feel sorry for taking his life. Because she knew so many lives would be lost if he lived, but it doesn’t mean that doing that doesn’t leave a mark on her soul (a reference to this is when Elena Gilbert kills the vampire hunter in season 4 of Vampire Diaries, Nesta feels the same way Elena did in that moment.)

She may also be keeping her distance from Elain and Cassian, because of this moment, because of the fear that may have shown in their eyes when she looked back at them. She may have also felt like she was a monster in this moment. (Nesta has her morals just like everyone else and she went back on her morals to save others lives) Also Cassian was pretty severely injured. There’s a lot of case scenarios that may have happened. From Cassian maybe dying and Nesta having to heal him and bring him back to life therefore making the bond between them nearly unbreakable and stronger. To Nesta realizing the mating bond than and their because weren’t they also looking at each other wide eyed when Feyre was pulled away?? To Nesta feeling the cauldron breaking which would have the most severe effects on her because she’s bound to it. To seeing the grief their fathers death caused Elain. (She was crying over his body when Feyre got pulled away) Imagine the guilt Nesta felt in that moment. Because she felt as if she failed all the people she loved the most. She also probably got no thanks or reasssurance that she did what she has to do to make sure they all survived, she also got no thanks for what she did nor did they tell her that her fathers death wasn’t her fault (remember Feyre also struggled with similar problems in ACOMAF, but this is Nesta’s flesh and blood. it’s different by a fair margin) More in part 2

[flowerflamestars]

Part 2 on Effloresce update. I wonder what Azriel/Shahar could've been. Very chewy possibility. Cassian has barely been breathing this entire fic, I am impressed he hasn't swooned or had a fit of the vapors. Elain's wing-shield circle thing. Nesta and the logistics of Illyria. Nesta and her consuming rage. Sisters discussing murder. ILLYRIANS BEING IMPORTANT. ILLYRIANS HAVING A CULTURE. HUMANS HAVING A CULTURE. The villagers KNOWING. Cassian's very dramatic entrance with TOLLING BELLS!

Absolutely delighted by this.

So, Azriel and Shahar was probably always a tragedy. I've talked about it here, and the story is going to unwind it a bit more, but basically, Azriel's choices are even more circumspect than Cassian's.

Because he has so much less.

He did what Cassian did- he followed the pull of the wind and the rightness of it in his heart all the way to where he thought it was taking him: the left hand of the throne, shrouded in the dark. Rhysand's father pulled him out of hell, but he bought him too. Azriel belongs to the Court, in no uncertain terms. He went in willing. Thought he knew what it was.

He was meant to be useful, to Shahar. Was brutally utilized for that exact purpose. Cassian was meant to be close- the united kingdom needed the strongest Illyrians on side- Rhysand was meant to be loyal- to be given what he wanted and never reach further, to protect his sister- and Morrigan was supposed to marry Rhys, bringing all the bloodlines together under Rhain's secondborns ferocious rule.

Shahar died when she was seventeen.

Azriel didn't know what she was to him until she died.

It's possible she could have grown up, seen him in the shadows, and settled for nothing less. It's possible she could have ruled the whole of the North like the dark, terrible miracle that she was, Azriel behind her, her servant, none more loyal.

It's possible she would have tried to marry him, and not actually been strong enough to hold it all together.

Cassian is very soon going to surpass vapors into pure, blackout rage, so that's fun.

Nesta, Elain, and Lucien are just like. A string of volcanoes, yeah? An island chain. Nesta's seething up a new continent beneath the sea, Lucien's slow moving lava is about to destroy a civilization and Elain is diligently poisoning the air, a prequel to the whole ocean of molten rock they share blowing skyward in a cataclysm.

The bell to warn of the end and warn of danger, yes!!

[courting-stories-blog]

Fae Characters

Earlier in the year, I posted a list with brief descriptions of the major mortal characters in the ACOTAR series but never got around to posting about their fae counterparts - who I, personally, find much more fascinating. 

**caution spoilers ahead**

Tamlin:

Tamlin is, in all honesty, one of my least favorite characters in the series. Not only is his personality unappealing, he is, quite frankly, not well developed. In the beginning of the series, he is the “beast” to Feyre’s “beauty,” a terrible High Lord with incredible powers and the ability to shape-shift. He is the one who steals Feyre from the mortal realm and forces her to live amongst those she hates and fears the most. However, he loves her. He loves her incredibly, and deeply, and unconditionally - according to the author, Sarah J. Maas. However, his actions do not always reflect this professed “love and devotion.” Rather, he is easily influenced by the opinions of others and does not consider the happiness and wellbeing of those around him, instead choosing to act in accordance with his own desires. These characteristics conflict with his position - as High Lord of the Spring Court, he is expected to be gracious and good, full of innocence yet wizened by his years. However, the youthful innocence of spring manifests itself in Tamlin as ignorance and selfishness, two negative characteristics which reveal themselves increasingly throughout the second and third books in the series as Tamlin’s childish “love” for Feyre blinds him to her personal growth, well-being, and mental health. He tries to control her and manipulate her into believing she needs him for survival, that she cannot do anything by herself and should remain dependent on him. **much dislike**

Image by @morgana0anagrom

Rhysand:

Rhysand is hands down one of my favorite characters in the ACOTAR storyworld. Mysterious, handsome, and secretly kind despite his cruel facade, Rhysand shines with inner light - though he is the High Lord of the Night Court. Throughout the first book in the series, readers were unsure of Rhysand’s position and motives as he was one of the only High Fae who retained some semblence of his former status in Prythian under Amarantha’s rule. However, by the end of the book, we realize that Rhysand was one of those who suffered the most during Amarantha’s reign. He essentially became her “boy toy,” enduring rape from Amarantha and ridicule and disgust from the rest of his fellow Fae. In enduring this fate, he was able to protect an entire city of people living in the Night Court, the City of Velaris. He also helped Feyre through her trials at the end of ACOTAR, though he never never failed to remind her that she is strong of her own right. Rhysand is widely known as the most beautiful and most powerful of all High Fae, with the ability to control, shadows, darkness, and  minds. He is also Illyrian, meaning he comes from a tribe of ruthless and talented warmongers, gifted with the ability of flight and bat-like wings. Rhysand is Feyre’s mate, meaning they are destined and meant to be together. 

Image by BloodyDamnIt

Lucien Vanserra:

Lucien is, by blood, a member of the Autumn Court, youngest son of the High Lord of Autumn, Lord Beron. However, Beron is known for his cruelty and his sons for their bloodthirsty competitiveness, so when Lucien fell in love with a lesser Fae female, his older brothers held him down as his love was executed. Following this devastating event, Lucien fled to the Spring Court as he was on very good terms with Tamlin. Lucien was appointed as Court Emissary for the Spring Court and had one of his eyes ripped out by Amarantha. Now, Lucien is a staunch supporter of Tamlin, though he also became fast friends with Feyre. Conflict arose as Tamlin decided to remain loyal to Tamlin despite going against Feyre’s desires for herself, and also after a mating bond snapped with one of Feyre’s sisters. 

Image by @morgana0anagrom

Morrigan:

Morrigan, more formally known as “The Morrigan,” but more affectionately called “Mor” is a member of Rhysand’s inner circle. She is third-in-command of the Night Court and daughter of the ruler of the Court of Nightmares, the Hewn City. Now, Mor is overseer of both Velaris and the Hewn City, Court of Dreams and Court of Nightmares. However, as she was female and both powerful and beautiful, she was seen as a prized bargaining chip to be used for breeding by her family. They promised her to the eldest son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court, Eris, who was known to be cruel, against her wishes. So, knowing that she was prized in part for her virginity, Mor had sex with Cassian, the most powerful Illyrian in the Illyrian camps. Following the incident, Eris no longer wanted to marry her, so her family tortured her to the brink of death, then left her on Autumn Court lands with a note nailed to her abdomen, telling Eris that she was his problem. She was rescued by Azriel who brought her to Rhysand in the Night Court where she thereafter remained. Despite - or perhaps because of - the trials of her youth, Mor is strong, fierce, and capable. She also has a soft side and cares for her loved ones deeply. 

Image found here

Cassian:

Cassian is widely known one of the most powerful of all the Illyrian soldiers. He holds the position of General Commander of the Night Court’s Armies and is a member of Rhysand’s inner circle - and is Rhysand’s childhood best friend.  Like Rhysand, he has bat-like wings and fights ferociously, though he also has the ability to siphon his power through 7 stones to channel his raw power into usable energy. Cassian has a quarrelsome personality and often likes to pick fights, though he deeply cares for his comrades. He is close friends with Azriel and takes on the task of training Feyre for combat. He is mates with Feyre’s sister Nesta - a point of tension.

Image found here

Azriel:

Azriel, like Cassian and Mor, is also a member of Rhysand’s inner circle. He too is an Illyrian solder, though his powers are less flamboyant. Rather, he is a shadowsinger and uses his heightened sensitivity to spy on Rhysand’s enemies. Azriel too had a hard childhood - he was the bastard son of a high fae. His stepmother confined him to a locked windowless room. Thus, he was unable to learn to fly or fight, though once freed, he became one of the most powerful Illyrian soldiers in existence. Azriel is generally soft spoken, though he is known to banter with his good friend Cassian, and often provides valuable insight to issues at hand. He is also gentle and understanding with Feyre when she struggles to learn to fly, Mor throughout all of her many moods, and Elain as she struggles to adapt to later books.

Image by @merwild

Amarantha:

Amarantha is the main antagonist of the first book in the series. She hails from the land of Hybern where she was a military general, though she took the title of High Queen of all Prythian after invading. She is cruel and malicious, finding joy in the murder of innocent fae. She lusts after Tamlin, but after he rejects her advances, curses the entire Spring Court such that they all have masks permanently affixed to their faces - unless Tamlin agrees to become her lover. Tamlin refuses, so she turns his heart to stone, saying he shall stay that way until he can convince a mortal to fall in love with him within 49 years. This leads to the retelling of Beauty and the Beast between Feyre and Tamlin. She also forces Rhysand into being her lover as she waited for Tamlin to fail. Basically, she is evil to the core and harbors immense hate against both fae and human alike. 

Image found here

These are just a few of the main characters -- some are more present in ACOMAF and ACOWAR than in ACOTAR, but I thought it would be valuable to include them anyway and along with their character descriptions, share a little more about the realm of ACOTAR. Hope y’all enjoy!

[aliciasqinnet]

All That I Am ; An Elucien Fanfiction — Part 1

a/n: so i just randomly got the idea for this fic and decided to start it. it’ll probably be 3-4 parts in the end. i’ve never written elucien before, so i hope that this is okay! thanks so much to @sarahviehmann​ for helping me edit and giving me constant support, i love you!

Rating: T

Word Count: 3,813 

Part 2 / Part 3

No one is there for Elain. Not with Nesta standing by, in all her loud, violent glory. Nesta screams for days, until her voice is hoarse, even after that, and Elain doesn’t know how anyone can bear to be around her anymore. But then one day, she stops. Elain is there to watch her, sitting on a bench at the edge of one of the many terraces in the House of Wind. Angry tears drip down her sister’s chin, her face contorted. She’s holding onto the metal railing, the only thing keeping her from vaulting herself over the edge. And then it melts beneath her touch, just like that.

Nesta pulls back quickly, staring at her hands as if they were something foreign. Elain thinks that maybe they are. A flicker of a flame dances across Nesta’s fingertips and she yelps. One of the warriors comes running when Nesta stops screaming, worried she’d been hurt, but Elain doesn’t care enough to see which one it is. All she sees is him leading Nesta back inside, talking excitedly about her new power, and a glimpse of Nesta’s teeth as she smiles. Elain is left alone. Forgotten. Ignored.

After a couple of weeks, Nesta no longer resents herself. Elain’s sister, proud and stubborn to the bone, knows that she was never at home in the human world. She was too strong, too rugged for their liking. But here, in Prythian, she thrives. Feyre’s court flutters around her eldest sister, never leaving her alone for more than a few minutes, but no longer to monitor her, but because they enjoy being around her. As it all turns out, that damned Cauldron was the best thing that could have happened to her.

Elain only shrunk away more and more. She took her meals alone in her room; no one came to join her. She’d always thought that the one thing she could count on, if nothing else, was her sister. Nesta had been her rock ever since they’d been children, taking care of her, watching her, protecting her. Theoretically, Elain didn’t need protecting anymore. Her new Fae body had elongated her legs and the shape of her face, taking her from faintly beautiful to a striking, dangerous, inhuman creature. It was almost impossible to hide her ears, the tips of each coming to a devilish point.

A few weeks into their stay at the Night Court, Elain tried to cut them off. She put a towel in her mouth and brought a knife she’d found in one of the training rooms she’d followed Nesta to up to her ear. The knife wasn’t sharp enough, it was too difficult to cut through the cartilage and by that point, she was already crying and screaming against the pain. She gave up and her ear healed quickly. This made her cry even more.

She curled into her bed, a pillow held against her stomach and let herself weep. Elain had never cried as much as she did in the weeks after her transformation. She wept for Graysen, her love that now could never be. She wept for Nesta, a sister she was losing, slowly, but still losing. She wept for Feyre, too, angry at the role she’d played in all of this, sad that Elain had never been the sister Feyre deserved. But most of all, Elain wept for herself. She wept for the body that she’d loved and cherished and was forcibly taken from her. For the loss of her home, her father, her family. Elain cried and cried and clenched her fists so hard they broke the skin. No one came to see her, to check on her, make sure she was okay.

Elain had always been the gentler sister, kinder, more accepting. Of course, if Nesta had found a way to live in her new body, to thrive in it, Elain had, too. No one paid attention to her silent screams, most didn’t even notice she had holed herself up in her room.

Nesta had come in one afternoon to invite Elain to train with her and Commander Cassian. Her elder sister had smiled, actually smiled, and held her hand out. Elain had told her she hadn’t slept well the night before and wasn’t feeling up to it, but maybe next time. Nesta pressed a silent kiss to her sister’s forehead and left. Once the door had shut, Elain heard her sister already talking animatedly to the commander.

Elain had not discovered any powers yet. She didn’t know whether to be grateful or not. Nesta’s powers had completely changed her outlook on her new body, new species. Elain had wished for days that she would wake up one morning with the ability to manipulate water. The more she thought about it, the more the thought made her feel sick. What kind of abomination could manipulate things the way the Fae did? Not to mention that it seemed Nesta’s powers were different from the other High Fae.

No, Elain did not want powers. She was enough of a monster already.

~

“We’ve made the decision. Tamlin has demanded you two be… returned to him,” Rhysand scoffed at the word. “He’ll have no idea what hit him. The two of you are much more powerful than he could ever imagine.”

Elain fought the urge to scream that she was no such thing.

“You’ll have to be careful,” Cassian said, his eyes trained on Nesta, as they always were. She glared back at him, though playfully. “He’s not expecting you to fight back. You must do your best to keep it that way. If Tamlin suspects anything at all, we’re all screwed.”

We’re screwed anyway, Elain thought bitterly. Of course, she wanted to help Feyre, but she knew she would be of no use. She wasn’t as smart as Nesta, wasn’t as powerful as Nesta, wasn’t as daring as Nesta.

Her sister was saying something to the group assembled, but Elain didn’t process any of it. Her mind was back in their small town, back in Graysen’s house with the iron wall around it. She now knew that iron would do nothing to deter her, but it was the intention behind it that mattered. Elain would never be loved again, not in this body. How could anyone love a beast?

She thought of the tight-lipped smiles Lord Nolan had given her when Graysen had first shown her the house. Graysen had led her first to his bedroom, then to the chambers that would be hers once they were married. He’d held her hand the whole time, his dark skin in deep contrast with her fragile, pale hands. When they’d reached her future living quarters, his hand had glided up her arm lightly as he pressed careful kisses to both of her cheeks, then her nose. Elain’s cheeks were burning with blush by the time he’d reached her mouth.

He had loved her. And she had loved him. She did love him. Graysen hated the Fae as much as his father, but he had always been gentle with her, gentle with everybody. The servants of their household adored him, his younger sisters always crowded around his legs. When his mother was sick, he’d been the one to make her stay in bed and tend to her.

Elain missed him ferociously. Yet she knew that if she ever took a step anywhere near his estate, she would be killed. Rightfully so. She was a monster. There was nothing to keep her in check, no way for her to not be dangerous. And that was without any powers.  She shivered, thinking what Graysen would say if he saw her now.

“Elain?” Nesta mumbled, her hand pressed lightly to her sister’s shoulder. Elain snapped out of her daze, smiling faintly and sweetly up at her sister. Nesta relaxed, falling back into the familiar understanding that Elain was fine and happy. Beneath the table, Elain’s fingernails pierced the skin of her palm. She hid the blood with her other hand.

Azriel spoke. Sweet, kind Azriel who Elain had thought to find a friend in. Thought that he might notice her absences, her lack of concentration and care.

“You leave tomorrow.”

~

Elain felt more like herself again. They’d given her clothes much more familiar to her, minus the layers of petticoats. Her dress was a stiff material, but soft. In the human realms, she would have worn a corset under it, but the High Fae had told her it was unnecessary and not in fashion in Prythian.

There was a floral design coating each plait of fabric, falling all the way down to the floor. Her hair was braided into a careful crown around her head, wisps of curls escaping to frame her face. Unfortunately, her ears were on full display in this hairstyle. She tried desperately to pull the tight braid down, force it to cover the fact of her abomination, but Mor had done her work well and it would not budge.

She held on tight to Nesta’s hand as Mor took hold of them both, abruptly winnowing them into the Spring Court without so much as a goodbye from the other members of Rhysand’s court. Elain lurched out of Mor’s arms the second they touched down, doubling over. Winnowing was an odd sensation, and one she’d only felt once before. Winnowing out of Hybern had not been a pleasant experience, especially after the trauma of the day, and the feeling of going from nothing into something set her off balance.

“This is where I leave you,” Mor said. They’d agreed the day before that it would be too dangerous for Rhysand to winnow them into the Spring Court, and just as dangerous for Morrigan to take them all the way to Tamlin’s estate. “The manor is less than a mile past the top of this hill. You two can walk directly North and you’ll find it. Follow the tree line. Good luck.”

Elain thought she saw Nesta give the female a hug out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t be sure. She was too consumed with the landscape around her. The air was slightly brisk, but not uncomfortable. She could smell pollen and the mixed fragrances of flowers and pines in the air. Elain closed her eyes. If she didn’t think too much, she could pretend she was standing in her garden back at their manor house. Nesta had helped her replant it when their fortune had mysteriously returned, something that she now knew was her sister’s ex-fiancé’s doing.

Elain hated him with a passion that she’d never felt before. It was his fault she was like this, even more than it was Feyre’s, but she couldn’t deny how grateful she had been for their lives to return to normal after so many years crouching in the hovel they called a home.

Mor left them in less than the blink of an eye. Nesta immediately began trudging up the small hill in front of them. Elain followed obediently, doing her best to keep pace with her sister.

Nesta had been training for months now and her body had gotten strong. Where both had previously had sharp corners from their near starvation, Nesta now had steady curves of muscle following each stretch of bone. Their months in the Night Court, as Fae, had healed them both better, but Elain had rarely left her room. She wasn’t weak—it was impossible to be as a High Fae—but she wasn’t nearly as strong as her sister. Nesta forged ahead, covering the mile in less than twenty minutes. Elain did her best not to show her exhaustion.

When they reach the outskirts of the manor, Elain’s mouth almost dropped open. The grounds were covered in the most beautiful gardens she’d ever seen. Roses and hyacinths and water lilies and hydrangeas. A small pond to the left of where they stood held lily pads that seemed to move across the surface of the water. The scent of the flowers was even stronger here. Elain fought the urge to rush into the middle of all the flowers and run her fingers along them. She wouldn’t have minded if a rose bush pricked her.

Elain was so happy to find some sense of normalcy, some aspect of her old life here in this strange new world that she didn’t notice her sister running through the double doors towards them. Feyre crushed Nesta into a hug first. Nesta hesitated, but eventually gave in, burying her head into Feyre’s shoulder. Nesta would never have showed that she was scared for her sister, worried about her, but Elain had known better. She knew that Nesta stayed awake some nights, wishing that Feyre was safe, her door locked against any of the vile males in her presence.

Nesta did her best to protect her family in whatever way she knew how. Elain could only imagine what she would do if harm were to come to either of them now. Burn the world down, likely.

Feyre muttered something in Nesta’s ear that Elain couldn’t decipher from where she stood, still looking longingly into the gardens.

Her younger sister found her next. Elain hadn’t felt so comforted in a while. Silently, she cursed herself for wanting protection and comfort from anyone, but she melted into Feyre’s embrace anyway, clutching onto her sister for dear life.

Maybe Feyre would see what was happening to her. Maybe she could help. Elain cast the idea out of her mind. Feyre loved being High Fae. It was who she was meant to be. Elain saw that in her now, just as she had the first time Feyre had come back to their manor to ask for a meeting place. Elain shrunk away from her embrace and Feyre looked into her eyes. Elain saw a hardness there that she hadn’t noticed before. Months in the Spring Court had not been kind to Feyre.

Elain looked up and saw Tamlin traipsing about the gardens, leisurely making his way towards the three sisters. He looked wary. It had been too easy to get Rhysand to agree to send them to him. When he finally stood in front of them, Feyre turned and plastered a smile on her face.

“Thank you, Tam.” His eyes softened as he looked down at her. In some twisted way, he did love her. The thought made Elain shiver. She was sure Nesta was thinking the same thing. Elain moved towards her and grabbed her sister’s hand, squeezing lightly to reassure her. Nesta was at a constant risk of exploding, and that would only blow their cover now. As much as she hated herself, Elain loved her sisters more. She would do anything to protect them.

“Anything for you,” he said, pushing a piece of hair behind Feyre’s ear. Elain didn’t know how she fought a flinch.

“Thank you, High Lord,” Elain said finally, curtsying. Just because she was a beast now didn’t mean she couldn’t be polite. He nodded at her in acknowledgement. “Come, we’ll get rooms set up for the both of you. You’re family now.” Elain shivered at the thought.

Tamlin led them through the garden’s paths, guiding them into the manor. Elain looked to her right, trying to survey the gardens, and she saw a Fae male watching her cautiously. He was standing a good distance away, but his red hair gave him away. The long locks were braided and thrown over one of his shoulders and his metal eye glinted in the sunlight.

When they’d first met, he’d told a room full of both enemies and friends that she was his mate. She felt nothing to indicate that what he’d said was true. She didn’t even really understand how the Fae notion of mates worked. He kept his distance. Elain was grateful.

She hurried into the house after her sisters. The marble floors were beautiful. The whole house was beautiful. It was a place Elain would have been able to picture herself living, under different circumstances. She loosed a sigh and began climbing the stairs. Tamlin gestured towards her bedroom. It was right next to Nesta’s, which comforted both of them a little bit.

Tamlin told them that he’d let them settle in. Dinner would be ready shortly and he’d have someone come to retrieve them. The sisters eagerly escaped into their rooms.

~

Elain didn’t want to go to dinner. A servant stood at her door, waiting for her to pull herself out of the bed she’d been given. Elain’s chest was tucked tightly under the plush covers, her hair frizzy and askew from the fitful sleep she’d been in just moments before.

Begrudgingly, she tugged herself out of bed, carefully brushing off and straightening the thick fabric of her dress. She nodded at the servant and the stout female led her downstairs. She ran her hand along the bannister as she descended the stairs. Everything felt like it was thrumming with life in the Spring Court. Elain silently wished it wasn’t enemy territory.

The hall they were to take their dinner in was larger than any single room Elain had ever seen. It was at least three times the size of her bedroom. Elain wondered why anyone would need a room so magnificent. The table in the center of the room was already mostly filled when she got there, only two seats left empty. Nesta sat to Feyre’s right, who sat to Tamlin’s left. Elain took her seat across from Nesta.

The table was already heaping with gorgeous plates of food: roasted chicken, pureed cauliflower, a tureen of some sort of vegetables mixed together. Elain’s mouth watered. This food looked familiar to her, though she knew that the taste would far surpass anything she’d eaten in the mortal realms.

Everyone was silent. Nesta was clutching her fork so hard that her knuckles were turning white. Feyre’s hand was tentatively set in the palm of Tamlin’s, and Elain knew that the touch made her sister’s skin crawl. Tamlin held Feyre like he was afraid to let go, like taking a finger off her would cause her to revolt, to destroy something. He was gentle with her as much as he was forceful. Though Elain assumed that he wasn’t treating her sister much better than before save for showering her with gifts and allowing her a somewhat free reign of his estate. He’d allowed her outside that day, to meet them in the gardens.

The doors clanged open and Elain heard footsteps crossing the floor, a sword clacking against something metal, servants shuffling to make way.

“How was it today?” Tamlin’s voice echoed through the hall.

“Same as always. They’re staying off our borders, for the most part.” Elain knew the man with the gruff voice behind her was Lucien. By now, she thought she would have been able to recognize his voice anywhere. She had nightmares about that day often, when she had been forced into the Cauldron. Every one ended with his voice uttering the same words. My mate.

Elain’s body tensed as Lucien sat down beside her, the only open seat. It was no coincidence that she was sitting next to her supposed mate. She looked up from her plate at Nesta. Surely she’d planned this, or Feyre had. Nesta glared back at her. She could hear what Nesta’s words would be. Gain us the advantage, Elain.

Elain didn’t feel comfortable manipulating this male into telling her enemy secrets, but she knew it was what had to be done. They’d talked about it for a couple of weeks now. He deserved it, she told herself. He’d contributed to her demise. He’d helped steal her from her betrothed, her beloved. She fought the urge to kick him under the table.

He didn’t acknowledge her. Elain had to admit, it hurt a little bit. He was supposed to be attracted to her or in love with her or something like that, right? But all he did was slide his jacket from his shoulders, sling it across the back of his chair, and start serving himself.

The rest of the table dug in as well. The only noise in the room was the clanking of metal against china as they each piled food onto their plates.

~

Elain had been right; the food was divine. She had to stop herself from taking second helpings of everything. When everyone had finished, she politely excused herself. Elain found her way to the gardens. The sun was still setting, a perk of it always being spring here, and the flowers were painted with oranges and pinks of the most brilliant shades.

She let herself walk around for a while, naming the flowers she knew as she passed. She found a batch of tulips that looked a little dry, so she searched for a servant to try and ask for some water for them. There was no one around. Elain let out a short huff of frustration. She just wanted to be able to control something as simple as flowers. She realized that she was even less important here at the Spring Court than she was with Nesta in Velaris.

“Looking for this?” The deep voice rumbled behind her and she shivered. It felt extremely odd hearing the voice of her nightmares while she was awake. She turned to see him holding a metal watering can. She nodded and stood to retrieve it from him, returning to the flowers as quickly as she could. She could still feel his presence behind her.

“I like the gardens, too,” he muttered. It was as if he felt uncomfortable talking to her. She surely felt uncomfortable talking to him.

“They’re… comforting.” It was silent for a minute as she tipped the water into the flowers, careful to make sure it spread as evenly as possible. Her hand reached to touch the petals. It felt like home.

“I could ask Tam to section off an area for a garden of your own,” he said. “Only if you want.”

Elain smiled a little to herself.

“That would be very kind of you.” She turned to face him. The tips of his pointed ears were turning red. It was strangely endearing. He was being careful with his words, making sure not to scare her.

“Maybe you’d let me help you?” His hands tugged nervously at the tips of his long hair. Though she wanted to say no, she knew it was her duty to her sisters, to everyone, to say yes.

“Tomorrow?” She said, smiling faintly at him. It wasn’t a real smile this time. He nodded at her and turned to go back inside. Elain sat in the garden for hours, until everything was pitch black and she could only smell and touch the beautiful bulbs of tulips.

[togreblog]

Nessian Collab - Part 22

Sorry I took so long writing this, but to make up for it, it is extremely long (relative to the other chapters). Just for anyone following it, this is part of my collab with @cataclysmic-star . She is amazing!!

Parts 1, Previous, Next

Nesta POV (2460 Words)

Having spoken to Elain I was feeling more positive. I would wait until the war was over to try and mend fences with Feyre, she had enough on her plate as it was. After all, this was her court now.

I had also tried to start attending the meetings with Cassian and had been proud to contribute. Mainly I pointed out issues that they would need to address, which though annoying and negative, I had been told was helpful. I had only gone a couple of times, though, Cassian and I in the same room wasn’t exactly a recipe for productivity.

It didn't matter, though, I fitted in at the camps and with all the female hating pricks gone, it was easy to forget that these women were only a few weeks into training, running their own camps in which some of them had previously been forced into menial labour. At first, many of them had continued to be angry at the men, some trying to form a rebellion, planning to use their new found skills against those who had withheld them from all women for so long. In the end, I had given up trying to talk them round and had just taken them into a camp to watch the punishments given out to men who conspired. If they wanted to be treated like equals then, though I didn’t want to inflict pain on the women who had become my friends despite the differences in our opinions and ranks, I would treat them the damn same in every aspect.

I had become so attached to my life at the camp, that when the week leading up to our attack approached, I was suddenly nervous. Not about the possibility of the loss of the lives of those I cared about, or even of myself, but the loss of the normality that I had finally accepted about this life. I dreaded the idea that after the war, if these women proved themselves, they would be integrated into the camps and I would loose my haven. Many of the friendships each of us had formed would be split up. The comradery I had come to cherish wouldn't be there anymore. I didn't even let myself think about what would happen to me if most of them died because the only way to not feel nervous about that was to not think of it. I think it was just the nervousness that had been making me feel uneasy, but I hadn't been able to shake the knot forming in the pit of my stomach, no matter how many times I watched the women beat the crap out of some of the most highly trained and respected Illyrian commanders, reassuring me that if this is what new recruits could do, we would be fine with a whole, lethal army. They weren't allowed to cause each other any serious damage due to the upcoming war, but the enemy wasn't going to be practising, so they had to train properly. 

I had spent the whole of this particular Friday, exactly a week before we were to march on Hybern, training some of the weaker women. By the time I flew home, I was exhausted. After only being mated for seven weeks, I already loved coming home to mine and Cassian's home. We usually alternated the cooking, but since I felt ill, I decided that it was probably Cassian's turn to cook. So, I trudged into our bedroom, The house that we shared had two upstairs bedrooms and one downstairs one. At first we had taken the master bedroom, the largest of the three rooms, with views of the surrounding mountains away from the camps and a balcony with sliding doors to give you a view of the whole horizon, but as stunning as this room was, I could never be bothered to walk upstairs when I came home tired and so we had adopted both rooms. Crashing out on the downstairs bed when we came home, but keeping all of our belongings and still sleeping in the master bedroom.

When Cassian came home that evening, he found me curled up on the bed restlessly tossing and turning, it wasn't unusual for me to wait for Cassian to come home, only feeling safe enough to sleep when curled against him, but today it was different, I couldn't put my finger on it, but something just didn't feel right, even after Cassian had joined me. After lying there for five minutes trying to fall into sleep's sweet embrace, I rolled over in Cassian's arms. He opened one eye immediately and when he saw me looking at him, very much awake, we both sighed and sat up.

"I knew you weren't asleep, what's wrong? and don't even think about pulling all those girly mind games where you just say you're fine and you aren't, I can feel it remember."

"Honestly, Cassian. If I knew, I would tell you. My stomach has just been hurting all week and today my head has been pounding. I almost fell over in training it was really embarrassing."

I regretted telling him the moment I had done it because Cassian was my mate and that meant he didn't just care for or about me, he was ferociously protective. He made me stay in bed and went to fetch a healer... from Velaris. He said that since I had had it for a while we could wait for a better healer because it was unlikely to be anything too bad. 

Fortunately, the healer didn't stay long, it only took about three questions and they knew what was wrong. I was pregnant. Although the morning sickness usually set in during the sixth week, it had been seven weeks since Cassian and I had mated so it was probably just coming on slowly said the healer. Cassian's demeanour changed when she said it and the healer wasted no time in giving us the relevant information and leaving.

I would like to say that we were both immediately overjoyed, but there was an awkward moment where we looked at each other.

Come on, we took far too long being honest about being mated. Just tell me HONESTLY what you're thinking. And remember, I can feel if you're lying.

That had become a very common phrase between the two of us. More of an inside joke than because we often kept secrets from each other. I used it now and gave him a mischievous smile, to relieve some of the tension, but without giving away my thoughts on the pregnancy. Seven weeks in we hadn't exactly spoken about what we wanted from our infinite lives together. Being a bastard child, I had assumed Cassian wanted a family, but now???

Cassian watched me cautiously, trying to gauge my reaction to his words as he spoke.

"Nesta, we are in the midst of a war, this is a wonderful thing at a terrible time. I wanted a family with you. I really did and I am happy that we are going to have a baby, but as a male, I have a need to protect you, which will only double now that there are more lives to protect. You, we, need to leave." 

I had agreed with him up until that last bit.

"But you said it yourself Cassian, you need to protect me, and that means we need to fight against Hybern and destroy him before the baby comes into a world where he rules. I'm a maximum of seven weeks in we don't need to leave. Unless there's something about fae pregnancies you need to tell me?" I was genuinely concerned for a moment before Cassian huffed a laugh, I knew that was practically a roaring laugh a given the mood.

"Genuinely though Cassian, is there going to be any difference?"

"As much as it pains me to tell you, they are actually a little bit longer, so you are less far into the pregnancy than you would be as a human, but you are not allowed to use that against me. Also, it should be less painful, as a fae you'll have a higher pain thresh hold, but there aren't exactly any women who have experienced childbirth in both forms to testify to that and I still hear the screams from across the camp when a new Illyrian is born. Hey maybe he will have wings, I mean regardless he will have your magic, because children generally take on the stronger magic, puts a spanner in the works of quite a few marriages that one, so he, or she I mean, will be able to conjure them, but you asked about pregnancies and wings can sometimes complicate the birth." I smiled at him, truly happy that he was excited about the prospect, regardless of the stomach ache I could still feel before the medicine kicked in and the looming war.

There was a knock on the door and both of us silenced, I raised an eyebrow at him in silent question and tried to move off the bed. Cassian looked at me as if to say really, but then remembered I was new to this whole territorial thing

"Nesta, I need to keep you safe, so you cannot go to war. If you try to put yourself in harm's way it will cause me a lot of emotional stress. I don't even want Rhys or Azriel here, but since I am not leaving you to go speak to them, they are allowed in the living room. I know they won't force me to fight, so please agree to leave with me."

He was my mate so I didn't even try and fight him on it. I just nodded, relaxed against the pillows and said you know I'm going to take full advantage of this pregnancy, so get ready for 40 weeks, or however long this goes on for, of waiting on me hand and foot. Now go get the door, Rhys and Azriel will think they came to the wrong place otherwise.

"No, they won't, Rhys knows what it's like to have a mate."

Cassian stalked out of the room, audibly taking deep calming breaths. I wondered if he was going to let them into the living room or whether he was going to make them have this conversation outside just to maintain the distance. I almost wanted to go outside just to spite Cassian, but as I thought of him feeling panicked, I felt panicked, damn shared feelings. I instead sent soothing words down the bond.

I am safe, I am happy, I am healthy, I love you, Rhys and Azriel wouldn't (and probably couldn't) hurt me, deep breaths, tell them that I get to break the news to Mor, Amren, Feyre and Elain.

They stopped being soothing after a while and I just enjoyed talking to my mate down the bond, trying instead to make him laugh and ignore the fact that, even though they were his friends, the two most powerful faeries in history, besides himself, were only a flimsy wooden door away from his mate, his pregnant mate. Nesta caught him thinking about this as he caught on to her distracting technique and she poked at his mental shield still talking to him through the gap he left just for her. Stop it Cassian. You're being stupid and if you're going to be like this I will send you off to fight Hybern and have Amren look after me. His thoughts stopped and he just gave me a feeling of confusion and disbelief. Yes, I said Amren, I would rather put up with her unsympathetic and generally unhelpful attitude during this pregnancy than your irrational worry. He growled at me for suggesting I would stop him from protecting me during this pregnancy, before beginning to speak to Rhys and Azriel, from the downstairs bedroom I listened tentatively.

“What’s wrong Cassian?” It was Azriel speaking, sounding genuinely concerned about him. Rhys spoke next, rather less patiently, “this is about Nesta, Az, clearly. For starters, she is nowhere to be seen and he is practically growling at us.” Addressing Cassian now, he spoke again, “are we going to be able to have a ration conversation or do you need to bloody us up a bit first?” His voice was a slow, teasing drawl and both Cassian and I felt the fire Rhys had been provoking rising up at the implied threat on Cassian, the promise of a fight. But Cassian took a breath, “I don’t need to punch anyone, unlike you, I have self-control, even when it comes to my mate.” And though a snarl slipped out, he felt a little bit of satisfaction at beating Rhys at being ‘less territorial’, which fueled his ego, easing the small need he had begun to feel to punch Rhys. “I actually want to talk about next Friday, Nesta and I won’t be joining you.”

Rhys sighed putting his hands on his face and gestured Cassian to take a seat on the sofas, regardless of the fact that it was our house and Cassian hadn’t wanted them to sit as it implied that they were welcome and that they were staying. Neither of which Cassian wanted.

"Cassian, I have a mate, I don't want her to fight either. Congratulations on persuading an Archeron to sit out, but you can't just move to a cabin so far from civilisation that nothing can hurt her. Letting Feyre go to the Spring Court was so hard, but it helped because now I know she can do it and it's easier to trust her with her own safety. You have to do this to help suppress the urges of the mating bond, it will be horrible, but it's for the best." 

"She's pregnant." He ground out, indignant that Rhys would think Cassian was just fussing. Rhys and Azriel stood immediately. Sensing how unwelcoming two males were, so close to his pregnant mate. Both of them quickly agreed that Nesta shouldn't be allowed to fight and as they turned to leave, much to Cassian's relief, he remembered to tell them not to break the news to Mor, Amren, Feyre or Elain on pain of death. I smiled down the bond, my mate would take care of me, but he would do it his way, because he was overbearing and territorial and mine.

[flowerflamestars]

Timeloop snippet

It gutted to nothing, not even smoke, and Nesta smiled. “You see me? And Lucien?”

  Fire and light forever- fierce and gentle- apple blossoms carried on the wind, over fields of gold and yellow. Her dearest hound- her dearest- a murderous scowl that hid abject adoration, not here, not yet, out there waiting for her and here too, in this-

  The dizzy world righted so, so slow behind her eyes, and they waited for her.

  Brighter, lighter than she’d felt since the last time she saw her baby sister’s human face, Elain laughed.

  Opened eyes she hadn’t even realized she’d shut. “Where’s Daisy?”

  Wordless, Nesta hauled her into a ferocious hug, holding Elain’s shoulders hard enough nearly to hurt. It felt right- Elain felt right, like she’d stepped out of chaos once she’d put her feet on a familiar path.

  “Eating legs off chairs at my mother’s house, I think,” Lucien told her, through a soft laugh, invisible past the fall Nesta’s unbound hair. “I’ll write.”

  Elain could write a letter. She just had to remember the right name.

  But there were more pressing matters, including that she was on the floor in some horrid, beribboned concoction of a nightdress.

  “Just give me a moment,” Elain sprang to her feet on legs that felt new, coltish long and yet- she could remember learning them. Remember falling down oh so many stairs, trying to get the hell out of this house on them. “And I’ll be ready to leave.”

  In silent agreement, Nesta pulled a handful of pins from her pocket, and began to make quick, neat work of pulling back her hair.

  “Where are we going?” She heard Lucien ask as she stepped out of the room, coming to the sprawling wardrobe stocked with about a hundred outfits that bared either all her legs or back or stomach.

  It took digging, to find something remotely comfortable, much less sensible. The black didn’t suit her in the slightest, but this was Velaris- they were a breath from Sangravah, the weaving capital of this continent- Elain would be damned, if she couldn’t find a single lovely dress.

  Nesta didn’t answer until Elain returned. “You know, I feel like pie.”