#acotar fandom touch grass challenge

[separatist-apologist]

Hey uh... is everyone okay?

[wildfirewritings]

An Empire of War and Ruin - Chapter 1

Rating: Teen and Up (May change later)

Fandoms: A Court of Thorns and Roses, Throne of Glass

Chapter: 1/?

AO3: Here

Summary: She had meant to break the barriers, to allow Rhys and her Inner Circle to flee. She hadn't meant to unlock a power that she didn't know was caging her very soul, tearing her from the world she knows and throwing her into a new realm.

Feyre Archeron - Cursebreaker, Spellbreaker, Converger of Worlds

The only way to uncover where she is, and how to get back home, is by making allies in a torn and broken world, even if that means searching for a lost queen, finding friends in the oddest of people, assisting in a war, and realizing that fae in this realm want her as dead as those in Prythian. (Diverges from the end of ACOMAF. After EOS. Eventual ACOWAR elements)

A little idea I've had for a while. Will I finish writing the whole dang thing? I don't know. But it keeps reappearing in my mind, so...

Deviates from the ACOMAF ending, straight to right after Empire of Storms. As the story progresses, some ACOWAR elements will appear. Woooo.

Chapter One: A Hidden Light

"If you're so willing to hand out bargains, perhaps I'll make one with you.”

Rhys—oh Rhys. Feyre knew him, knew him all too well, knew that he would do any and everything to keep his friends—his family—safe. To keep her safe. The King of Hybern could demand Rhys's head on a silver platter for his friends to have a guaranteed exit, and he would comply. The bounds of his love, of his selflessness, were limitless, and Feyre knew that if she refused to do anything, to let him find some sort of compromise, that there would be sacrifice.

She was healed, overall. Healed from Amarantha, from Under the Mountain, from those innocent lives she had to take. But that didn't mean she could handle whatever plan her mate had.

She couldn't see her family hurt anymore.

Her family, her friends. They were here, bleeding onto the cobblestone, staining the ground a sickly crimson. She had one task, and she failed them.

They didn't need her, not really. She had failed with being an emissary, and failed with the Cauldron. But them...the Third, the Commander, the Spymaster, and the High Lord. The Night Court needed them—Velaris needed them. She wasn't important. And they...they had all given enough.

So she could give up whatever she needed to. Anything to let them escape.

Her eyes flickered from her court, to her mate, to her sisters. They needed to leave.

Feyre was not afraid.

She collapsed on her knees in a spasm. Sobs escaped her gnashing, clenched teeth as she gripped her hair and pulled, the wracks that left her body so violent—

That spell the King put couldn't reach her in time as she exploded, leashed all that she possibly could, into breaking past that choking, iron fist.

Rhys reached for her, but she continued. All of her power reached out into pure, white light. Cleansing, purifying, washing her whole. She reached that flash into every dark corner and nook she could find. Past the spell, past the barriers and glamours...so far and thorough that she could feel something new arise.

It erupted through the room, breaking the wards and anything else it dared touch. She could feel it in the Cauldron, in the book Rhys hid in his jacket...in a fae, like molten lava pooling in her chest.

And in the first time in her life, Feyre felt something unlock within her. A key that unlocked her very soul.

The light was no longer Day's light that she had released for only her mate. It became something different. She could feel it prowl through her very bones, igniting each and every vein in her body, warming her insides until she felt like she was glittering—not like the glow that she released with Rhys in their private moments in the cabin, but...like the sun. Like a star.

Voices—there were voices somewhere. Hisses, cries of confusion and outrage. But they were all so far away, fading away more with each passing second. All she saw was light everywhere, whole, consuming—

“Feyre!”

The last of it released, and she felt herself tumbling into blackness.

The first thing that hit her was the smell.

She knew it well enough. Even before she had fae senses, her human ones could recognize the scent anywhere. Trees, the grass, a light breeze, damp dirt, and moss; a place of hunting and training.

A forest. So familiar, but different enough with the faint smell of the sea to let her know that it was no area she had ever stepped in.

The ground was next. Moist, firm, grass tickling the back of her neck and her ears. Then the sounds of ruffling leaves and buzzing insects.

And a massive headache.

A groan left her stiff lips. She fought to open heavy lids, only to be greeted with a blurry forest and cloudless sky. Another grunt past clenched teeth, and she blinked slowly several times until the view could focus. Tall trees surrounded her, with birds passing by with the flap of wings and the occasional fly flying far too close to her face for comfort.

Every limb in her body was aching and stiff. Even rising to a sitting position proved to be a challenge, arms wobbling and hisses of pain escaping her. Leaves were stuck to her leathers—and probably her hair, too—but she couldn't find it in her to care. Not when everything else was distracting her.

Rhys, Mor, Azriel, Cassian, Elain, Nesta...even those mortal queens and the King of Hybern, Jurian, and Tamlin and Lucien. No where in sight, and not a single sign around to indicate that they were in the area.

And that power that she had unleashed unto the world. She had meant to use it to break the wards so her friends could leave. She had meant to crawl to Tamlin and find a way to make his court fall. She hadn't meant to...do whatever she did.

She looked around, wincing at having to move her neck. Maybe in the midst of all the chaos, she had winnowed somehow. Or maybe Mor or Rhys did...as long as it wasn't Tamlin or Hybern. Reaching whatever magic she had left in her out, she tried to feel the bond, only to be met with...air. Not a wall or a cage, but she felt nothing.

The mating bond...she couldn't feel a trace of it.

 Rhys Rhys Rhys Rhys—

She was so preoccupied in her thoughts, so tired with the new soreness heavily weighing down on her muscles, that she didn't even hear footsteps until they were right behind her.

And the scent...definitely not anyone she knew.

Remaining sitting, she whirled her torso around, body protesting at the movement. There, standing tall, was a fae male she had never seen before, with silver hair, green eyes, tan skin, and tattoos in ruins she didn't understand decorating one whole side of his face, and downwards.

He gripped her shoulder, hard enough on the already aching area that a cry of protest left Feyre's lips. Staring deeper into his eyes, she saw nothing like mercy. Only rage and desperation.

“Who are you?” he seethed. “And who sent you?”

Thoughts??

I don't know, I've seen a lot of things where Aelin ends up entering the ACOTAR world, but I haven't really seen a lot the other way around, where Feyre (and possibly others?) enter the TOG world. I know the first one probably makes more sense (wyrdmarks, wyrdkeys, portals, yada, yada, yada) but I just want to see if I can do this. With it seeming believable.