#feysand hivemind

[climbthemountain2020]

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) - Chapter 7/Loop 33

I Know You, I Walked With You Once Upon A Dream

Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter. 

Until one day, it doesn't. 

Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact. 

A "round robin" style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt. 

Warnings: mild canon-typical violence, NSFW, sexual content

Rating: Explicit

Chapter Word Count: 4k

Notes: Surprise! I am part of the hivemind! I am not subtle, lol.

I literally cannot tell you how much fun I have had with this wonderful group of people plotting and planning and cackling over all these chapters. @feysand-hivemind it’s been so fun to match your freak! I’ve had such a blast being a part of this.  <3 Thank you @popjunkie42 @tunaababee @witch-and-her-witcher and @rosanna-writer for the beta help! <3

Tumblr Masterlist | Read on Ao3 or under the cut.

Dead again.  

This time he hadn’t even known that something was wrong. He’d had a grand plan, a measured procedure for how things were going to go. Perhaps, he’d thought, if no one interfered at all, she would make it through the trials on her own and then the two of them might start with a cleaner slate. 

He should have known that she wouldn’t survive without any interventions at all. She was so lovely and beguiling, so smart and scrappy, so willful and stubborn, that it was so simple to forget she was also so tragically fragile and human. 

It had been two weeks since the last death, the reset having taken him by surprise, but he was biding his time now. Not intervening hadn’t worked, intervening too soon was equally disastrous. So instead, Rhys was performing his least favorite activity as he wiled his time away Under the Mountain: he was being patient. 

Blessedly, Amarantha had been sidetracked. Two uprisings in Day and Winter had kept her furious and occupied since he’d last awoken in her bed. The silence and privacy he’d been given in her distracted absence had left him time to think about what other approaches he might take to see this through to a different end. 

He sat on his bed in the darkness, the stress of the past two weeks compounding as he wondered where his little painter–where Feyre –might be now. He let his head sink into his hands, the pounding headache moving from his temples to the base of his skull. After fifty years, he thought he’d grow used to this living space, these bare, windowless walls, the stuffy and stagnant air. Normally, he could shove that claustrophobia, that need to breathe , somewhere deep down and far away. But today? Today Rhys had reached the end of his rope almost immediately upon waking, the walls closing in and sending his mind racing against the base need to feel open air on his skin. 

How many times was he going to live this torture?

He had wondered more than once about the potential merits of writing all the details down, even just to see them there on the paper. Would it make it more real? Would it make it more tolerable? At the end of the day, he’d decided over and over that it would be no use. He took nothing with him when the loops restarted–nothing but memories and the ever-growing desperation that this might be the punishment he’d earned for a lifetime of idiocy. 

And truly, he had earned this. He had done everything for the selfish benefit of keeping his home and his family safe. He would beg, barter, kill, and steal to keep them well and away from this, even knowing what torturous and questionable things he’d be required to do by Amarantha. He thought of his family as he so often did– Azriel’s brooding kindness, Cassian’s easy, teasing smile, Mor tossing her head back in laughter, and Amren’s harsh but loyal nature. He’d do it all again for them.

This time, though, the images didn’t end with them. They floated effortlessly into swirls of golden hair, freckles, and gray-blue eyes. They echoed with her taunting tone, her words–both sharp and curious–, her smile. Feyre was the key to this loop, somehow, and Rhys was going to figure it out even if it killed him. Again.  

Tonight had seen Rhys plagued again by nightmares. He had awoken in a cold sweat, the guilt and nausea eating at him as he’d shot awake in the dark room. Every night, he’d relive the light leaving her eyes as she died, that bright spirit guttering out as she searched for him across a sea of faces.

Feyre. Feyre. Feyre. 

He felt her name pulse through his mind like the beat of his heart. 

He was overcome by a need to see her, to assure himself that she was alright and unharmed in Spring. 

Without further time to hesitate, Rhys shot from the bed, tossing on clothes and sliding into the hallway. There were no sounds in the empty night, everyone having retired for the evening. The halls here were eerie even in the best of times, but Rhys hated the creeping feeling that was unique to this cursed place. He crept along the rock-hewn hallways, moving as silently as a specter and listening for even the smallest of sounds. There were no signs that Amarantha had returned, her quarters still quiet as the grave as he walked past. He sensed no thoughts from within, and hoped it meant that she was asleep or gone. 

He walked through the last of the halls to the tunnels, easily finding the door where he’d released the bogge. It had only been days ago, but lost in these loops it felt like it could have been years, lifetimes. As soon as he left the stifling swell of the wards, he was winnowing, taking the short bursts to Spring. The closer he got, the clearer the air smelled, that comforting and familiar tang of moss and honeysuckle and grass prickling at his senses. Long ago, he’d considered this place another home. 

He shook his head at the thought on his final winnow, arriving at the edge of the Spring woods, the magic of Tamlin’s wards shattering at a mere touch. 

Tamlin still couldn’t be bothered to fix his shitty border magic, despite the circumstances. No loops ever seemed to change that. Rhys could see the manor up ahead, a towering mass of marble and vines in the moonlight. The air around him was so warm it nearly felt like floating in a still sea as he moved closer and closer, following that lively trail of lilac and pear to the window he remembered as hers. 

That felt like years ago now, too, since he’d come here to find her and Tamlin embracing in their sleep. He shook his head again as if to dislodge the image as he materialized on the balcony’s edge. The security here would be laughable if it didn’t make him worried for Feyre’s safety. 

She slept with the balcony doors flung open, the gentle breezes of Spring dancing over her skin. This time, blessedly, Feyre was alone in the bed. She was faced away from him, curled on one side with her hands tucked beneath her chin. He could see the freckles across the bare expanse of her shoulders, and just like before, he ached to touch them. Rhys released a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding, the tension already allowing his shoulders to sink back down. Just the sight of her, her mere presence, worked like a balm on his soul. 

He looked over to the door, laughing at the haphazard trap she’d rigged up for anyone daring to enter. By his calculations, she hadn’t been in Spring for long. She and Tamlin were clearly not together yet. An emotion flashed in his chest at the huntress’ rope and curtain contraption at the door, an odd flare of something at her audacity, her will. It was becoming harder and harder to not feel things for this ferocious human girl, the ache within him calling to her even when it would all be so much easier if it didn’t. 

But there she was, sleeping peacefully and silently on the bed. She wasn’t dead, wasn’t broken. Her throat wasn’t ripped out, she was not being taken by wounds or choking to death, and Rhys could hear the steady thrumming of her heart from the open doors. It took every bit of his willpower to not slip inside the room, to inhale that sweet, light smell of her greedily like a man starved at his final supper. 

Rhys knew what the right move was. Feyre was safe and dreaming and that should be all he cared about, especially since she wasn’t with Tamlin. But…

But…

No. 

It was not Rhys’s place to be here. He had come to see that she was well, and she looked well. This Feyre didn’t know him, and even the Feyres that did know him wouldn’t have wanted him lurking in her bedroom while she slept. He had to admit he felt a little bad about skulking around Spring to watch her sleeping in the first place, and that creeping thought of truly being the creature of nightmares bit at him. But he’d needed to see her, assure himself that she was living and breathing and okay. Seeing her comfortable and at peace was enough for him. If all went well, he was sure he’d see her again soon enough. 

After giving her one more look, committing the soft sighs and smooth lines of her face to memory, Rhys turned to go. But as he turned to step back through the balcony doors and take off into the night, her sweet voice permeated the air. He whipped around faster than a flash of light, worried he’d been caught, but Feyre still slept, turned towards him now, her eyes shut tightly and a murmur on her lips. 

Rhys stood shell shocked, unable to draw his eyes away from her form, naked from the waist up. He couldn’t look away from her, even if he’d tried, his mouth suddenly dry and jaw slack. She moved again beneath the sheets, the seam of them dropping even lower down her waist against her writhing. 

The smell of her arousal hit him like a brick, and suddenly he was grasping the door frame, cracking it beneath his hands in his grip before his mind could catch up. It was like getting hit with a tidal wave–a heavily perfumed, absolutely delicious tidal wave. Rhys wasn’t one to fall to his baser needs, but the scent was the most overwhelming thing he’d ever experienced. His grip on the doors tightened and the wood warped and cracked beneath his palms. He couldn’t inhale fast or wholly enough, filling his lungs greedily with the scent of her. 

His Feyre.

He needed to leave right this second. He needed to get out of there before he did something he would regret.

Touch, claim, mine.

Turning from the room was the most difficult thing that Rhys had ever done in five centuries of living. Moving away from the delicious smell of her nearly broke him, but he needed to go before it was too late. As he turned to jump and winnow, her voice rang out quietly into the silence, so soft that he nearly questioned if he’d heard it at all. 

“Who are you?” His eyes shot to hers, but he found them still closed, eyelashes settled on her freckled cheek. She moved her hand over her face, rubbing the heel of her palm into her eye as she sank down further in the plush down of the pillows. “Come back.”

Now that she’d beckoned him, called out as though just for him, he knew he couldn’t leave her, even if he should. He could deny his painter nothing. 

She rustled beneath the sheets again, murmuring and moaning softly, and Rhys slipped quietly and gently into her mind, just for a moment, he swore to himself. 

Rhys was immediately struck by the smell of her, somehow even more potent than before. In her dream, she was on the same bed, the soft light of the moon filtering in through the windows. She was no longer sleeping beneath the covers, but kneeling, her legs spread wide and naked save for a pair of lacy, navy underclothes.

There on the bed, there was a figure curled lovingly behind her, his hand over hers as it moved methodically within her underwear. The figure was blurred, features not clear in the dreamlike state they were in. It looked nearly like a watercolor, the purples and blacks and blues all running together and unfocused. Rhys walked around the bed, keeping his eyes on Feyre’s writhing frame. The realization struck him as solidly as her scent had, the equivalent of running straight into a marble wall. It was him who cradled Feyre in his arms, the raven black hair and violet eyes beholding himself like a mirror as the hazy image came into focus.

He hadn’t projected that–hadn’t gone into her head to touch her. Had she been dreaming of him as he'd dreamed of her? His little painter…had some memory stuck, or was she dreaming of him in all the loops before they'd met? Had it been him the same way that he'd seen her in his?

He wove those tendrils of power out into the fabric of her dreams, caressing the fragments of sparkling night over the mirror image of him that had hands on her. With a flick of his wrist, dream Rhys was gone, the open air suddenly cold behind Feyre causing her eyes to fly open and land directly on him. 

Rhys stuttered a step, ceasing his motions. She shouldn't be able to see him here, not unless he'd willed it. But she was staring right at him all the same, a blush rising on her cheeks. 

Rhys was entranced by her, his eyes darting across her freckles, her smile, her hooded eyes, too much and not enough of every little bit of her, as though he couldn't pick just one thing to behold. 

Despite dream-Rhys’s removal, Feyre had not removed her own hand, keeping it pressed motionless to herself.

“Hello.” Her voice was thick and smooth as honey, and just as sweet, the sound coiling around Rhys’s ears and going straight to the base of his spine. Feyre looked at him from beneath lowered lashes, and his body itched to step closer. “You came back.” Rhys nodded, the action entirely out of his hands, still completely unsure of how she could see him in this dream without him willing it. 

She stayed as still as a statue, eyes firmly planted on Rhys. “Will you tell me your name this time?”

“Rhysand,” he answered without thinking, without planning, cursing himself inwardly as the word left his mouth. But Feyre just smiled demurely at him, the motion lighting up her entire face. 

“Hello, Rhysand. I'm Feyre.” 

“Hello, Feyre darling.” The greeting purred out of him as naturally as anything, and he could see her breath catch. She sat back on her haunches, that beautiful blush creeping to her neck and decolletage, but still, her hand remained where it was.

“I've dreamed of you before. But you never interact with me. It’s always just flashes, but you're here now.” Her voice had dropped, the husky tone of it driving home that force of arousal building within him. She was so beautiful, so lovely. And in this loop, even if it was just a dream, she wanted him. “This is another dream, right?”

He shouldn't. This was wrong . 

She thought it was just a dream, that there was nothing to it. But the way she was looking at him, the way she smelled. He inhaled again, even halfway into her mind the scent was overwhelming. The loveliest thing he'd ever had the pleasure of scenting. 

“This can be whatever you want it to be, darling.” He saw her breathe in deep, nostrils flaring as her wide eyes fixed on him.

“Would you, I mean, if you–” Her words failed her, but the intent was clear as she began to move those fingers that had been stilled the whole time. 

It was an invitation. She wanted him, her open blue eyes begging for contact. 

Fuck it. 

“Would you like a hand, love?” He could see the hitch in her throat as she inhaled, her eyes sparkling at the timbre of his voice. She was so responsive, her nipples tightening against the thin lace of her top and leaving nothing to the imagination, and he took a single unbidden step towards her. 

She nodded eagerly. “Please.” He felt delirious with want.

Rhys bit back a groan. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it in all these loops, what her skin would feel like against his, her soft warmth against the hard planes of his body. He circled the bed and watched as she took another deep breath, letting her eyes slip closed. He magicked his boots and tunic away, leaving him behind her in nothing but pants as he crawled into the bed. 

It isn't a good idea, his thoughts whispered, but as he touched her shoulder and a crackle of something zapped through his veins, he knew he wasn't going to stop unless she asked him to. 

She sighed languidly as his fingers danced over her shoulders and played up and down the sides of her neck. He pressed the length of his exposed torso against her back, her skin scalding against his at the contact. He swallowed back a sigh that seemed to emerge from him unbidden, but Feyre simply laid her head back on his shoulder, wordlessly expressing the level of comfort she already felt at his presence in her dreams. 

Rhys ran his hands along Feyre's sides, watching as her flesh prickled in response. His fingers slowly crept higher and higher, the silky smooth texture of her skin driving him wild. 

“Touch me.” Her voice was a whisper of smoke in the wind, but nothing had ever sounded clearer to him. 

He didn't need to be told twice, his magic racing out to mist the thin layers of lace into oblivion. His deft fingers wasted no time in cupping her breasts, feeling the heavy weight of them in his large hands and tugging gently on her nipples as she let out the most delicious sound he thought he might have ever heard. Her soft sighs and gentle moans were like music to his ears, her whimpers a song that he’d been waiting for his entire life. He touched her chest, gently and playfully touching and circling them until Feyre was gasping and wiggling in front of him, her body rubbing against his like a cat in heat. He was painfully hard by the time she was begging and pleading for his hands to move lower, pulling them with her own until they reached her sex. 

Rhys hardly managed to bite back a groan of his own when he ran his fingers through her wet heat. She was soaked entirely through, her arousal running down her thighs as he spread her open with his fingers. 

“All for me, Feyre?”

“Gods, please .” 

He grinned as he pressed hot, open mouthed kisses to her neck and shoulders, dipping his fingers barely into her and circling them around her as she cried out. Nothing has ever felt as good as Feyre trembling against him, nothing had ever sounded as nice as his name on her lips. 

“Rhysand,” she gasped as he pressed a finger into her warmth. 

“Rhys. Just Rhys.” 

“Rhys,” she murmured, turning her face to his and capturing his lips with hers. When their mouths met, Rhys swore the world shifted on its axis, the arousal and emotion and feeling in his chest threatening to explode under the pressure. The light around them went soft and hazy as they moved together, the glow blurring around them like the dream was ebbing in and out with their shared breaths.

He added another finger as she undulated against him, each and every point of contact shooting sparks into his bloodstream as he gasped aloud. She responded by doubling down, reaching behind her to toy with the waistband of his pants. 

He felt nearly embarrassed, reduced back to a youngling as he bucked forward into her touch, his rhythm momentarily stuttering. 

He tried to pull back, resuming his own ministrations, but she wrapped her fingers into his waistband and pulled him back to her.  

“I want to touch you.” He couldn't argue with that. 

Rhys shoved his pants down, his erection jutting against her back. Feyre wasted no time in grabbing it with enthusiasm, Rhys's mind reeling with the pleasure of it as she began stroking up and down the length of him. The movements were somewhat jerking with the angle, and Rhys still thought as he brushed against the cheeks of her ass, that it might be the most magnificent thing he’d ever felt. Despite the angle, the rush of it all overtook them quickly, the natural back and forth of it seeming as easy as breathing. Before long, they were both a breathy mess, her head resting back against his shoulder and his forehead against her neck while they moved together. 

“You're exquisite,” he whispered into her hair, the smell of her so potent and overwhelmingly lovely at this proximity. 

He could feel her fluttering around his fingers, feel the echoes of her impending orgasm grasping at him desperately while she moved her hand faster around him. Rhys was glad she was close because he was losing control, the feelings thundering through his chest and threatening to burn him alive wrapping down around the base of his spine. 

He pressed the heel of his hand into her as he pistoned his fingers in and out, the movements becoming more intense as she responded in turn, their touch reaching a crescendo. 

“Come for me, Feyre.” 

She clenched around him. “Only if you come with me,” she responded huskily, even as she herself tipped over the edge. Rhys followed immediately, his vision nearly blacking out for a moment as he did. 

He wasn't sure when he'd eased them to the bed, their breathing evening out between their twisted limbs, sticky with sweat and cooling in the Spring night air. Rhys felt weightless, the dream or the satisfaction allowing the pull of the world to work differently around them. He brushed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear and tugging her back to his chest tightly. 

“That was incredible,” she whispered, and Rhys fought the urge to preen. 

“It was. You are.” 

She laughed softly, turning her head to look at him. Her eyes looked like the sky after a storm, the heavy clouds that used to roll in over the snowy peaks of Illyria. Home. 

She pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and Rhys wondered if he'd ever felt so sated in his life. His time here was limited, but he was going to enjoy every single second he had allowed himself.

She had dreamed of him, recognized him. She had wanted him here. 

“Will I see you again?” she murmured quietly as he brushed his fingers up and down over her thighs and hips. Her eyes were already beginning to flutter shut. 

“I would be willing to put money on it.” His voice was tinged with relief, with laughter, with joy he had not felt in ages.  

“Do you have to go?”

“I’m sorry, Feyre. I do.” 

She was mostly asleep by now, sighing lightly as her eyelids finally shut and stayed closed. “I’ll see you soon, Rhys.” He smiled despite himself, brushing his fingers lightly across her forehead then placing a kiss there as her breathing evened out. 

He carefully eased himself out of her mind. Outside of her dream, he was still leaning against the door to the balcony, the distance between them feeling near-painful now, a throbbing ache in his chest that demanded he step closer. Rhys resisted this time, knowing that the dawn would be coming soon and turning from the room with one final look at his painter. 

As he winnowed back to the grounds, walking around the property to the woodline under the cover of remaining night, his thoughts were lighter than they’d been since all this loop nonsense had begun. She’d dreamed of him, his face, his voice, his touch. If she could seek him out in her dreams this way, think of him as a soothing presence instead of something evil, how might that change the future of the loop? 

Next time, it could be familiarity and not fear or mistrust that guided their interactions. 

Why hadn’t he considered this before? It changed everything . 

Rhys rounded the final corner of the manor that bordered the woods, light on his feet and his spirit buoyed with this newfound, unfamiliar, but welcome hope. 

The last thing he saw was the form of a sentry, the sword already flying through the air and aimed directly at his neck.  

Well, fuck.

[feysand-hivemind]

Sneak Peek

Rhys looked up, noticing the sky, so full of stars that he almost convinced himself that he was back home in Velaris, on the rooftop of the townhouse. His family was on their way over for dinner, and they would laugh, and annoy each other, and talk about Night Court business, and drink long into the night. They would then retreat to their respective bedrooms at his place, too drunk to find their way home.

Forcing the tears threatening to fall back in, he made himself snap out of it. This wasn’t home. The sky was the same, and the stars were pretty, but nothing compared to the glimmer they held for the Night Court. The stars hadn’t been shining the same in nearly five decades, and he hadn’t seen his family in just as long.

Rhys was all alone, and he didn’t know how much more of this he could handle.

[amnevitahwritesstuff]

Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter. Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact. A "round robin" style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt.

Part of the @feysand-hivemind

Pairing: Feyre/Rhysand

Rating: Teen

Triggers: Murder, (Temporary) Character Death

Surprise! Bet you didn't think you'd see me as a part of this project (except you probably did because I haven't been nearly that subtle these past few months)! Anyway, please enjoy this (very short!) silly little palette cleanser of a chapter before I hand you back off for our regularly scheduled angst.

Tumblr Masterlist | Read on Ao3

Chapter Five: The Mermaid (Loop 26)

“What the-?”

Arielle blinked her eyes open in confusion at the waves and ripples that had disturbed her slumber. She had just settled down for the night, in her bed of waterweed and algae, when- 

There, towards the little shore of her pond, she spied a pair of feet wading through the water followed by the sound of drunken laughter. Were they…? Oh Cauldron, they were!

The mermaid grimaced in disgust. 

Did the high fae not teach their children any manners? Honestly!

Clearly some people still needed a reminder not to encroach upon the homes of others. 

While river mermaids were somewhat different from their sea dwelling cousins (primarily in that they were lazier and more prone to napping in the sun rather than luring sailors to their deaths) they more than made up for their lack of blood thirstiness with pettiness and a zero tolerance policy regarding home invaders. 

Especially if said invaders were trying to get frisky right on her front doorstep. 

“Excuse me!” She said tersely as she swam towards the intruders. “Don’t you know this is private property-”

And that was right about when one of them decided to step on her hair. 

Arielle shrieked, jerking back in pain and shock and knocking the perpetrator clear off their feet. She felt them crash into the water with a cacophonous splash while their companion seemed stunned into stillness at discovering that this pond was, in fact, home to something other than a few frogs. 

“First you invade my pond without permission and then you attack me in my own home?!” The mermaid screeched furiously as she grabbed ahold of the figure trying to scramble back to their feet and pulled them back underwater. 

They toppled into the water and while they were still disorientated, the mermaid wrapped her fingers around the figure’s skinny little neck and squeezed. Their hair floated prettily around them like gold thread as the fae thrashed instinctively before their neck…snapped.

Arielle blinked. 

Surely fae were sturdier than that? She’d pulled several down into her pond in the past for one reason or another and they always managed to fight her off easily enough. So why did this fae have such a breakable little neck?

Wait…no. Not fae. 

Human. 

The mermaid stared down at the intruder, puzzled, noticing rounded ears and tasting the whiff of mortality that hung around the creature like a cloud. 

What was a human doing in her pond?

They were Arielle’s last thoughts before a different set of hands grabbed ahold of her and tore her out of the water. 

She thrashed. 

Until she came face to face with the High Lord of Spring himself. 

And he was furious. 

“Do you realize what you’ve done?!!”

“Do you realize how rude it is to invade someone’s home?!” The mermaid couldn’t help but snap. High Lord or no, it was terribly rude to gallivant through her pond without so much as a by-the-by. 

“She was our only chance of breaking the curse! You’ve ruined us!”

For a moment it felt like the High Lord was speaking in riddles. Curse? What curse? But then…

“…Oh. Well that’s not good.”

The High Lord didn’t answer, only exploded in a flurry of fur and claws and Arielle’s pond soon ran red with her own blood. 

In the shadows of the trees, Rhysand banged his head against a tree and moaned in agony and frustration. 

“How the fuck did I not know there was mermaid in there?!”

[feysand-hivemind]

Surprise! Lovely @darling-archeron is part of the feysand hivemind. Chapter four is up now. Enjoy!

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it)

chapter four: until the night is over: loop seventeen

Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter.

Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact.

A "round robin" style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt.

Warnings: canon-typical sexual violence, canon-typical violence, temporary character death

Rating: Explicit

Chapter Word Count: 7.5k

Notes: Behold, my humble contribution to @feysand-hivemind's timeloop fic! Working on this story with all of you wonderful, talented people has been an absolute delight.

Tumblr Masterlist | Read on Ao3

Another failure, and Rhys was back where he had started.

Again, the dream. The wolf, the arrow, and Feyre, sharp hate in her eyes. And he was back in Amarantha’s bed.

The loops were starting to pile up. There had been far more variables, far more failures, than he had hoped. Would there be a limit to the number of second chances he was given?

Beside him, Amarantha stirred. He tensed, shifting his gaze over, but she only adjusted her head before falling still again. Her long red hair fanned out across the bed, brushing up against his shoulders. 

His sleep in Amarantha’s bed was almost always shit, so the good news was that he had plenty of time to think.

In nearly every loop so far, save the first one, he had tried to change Feyre’s path early on. The window between Feyre letting go of her hatred of faeries and beginning to trust Tamlin was practically non-existent. Either she didn’t trust him because he was a faerie, or because he was an enemy of the Spring Court and obviously sneaking around.

The first time, she had progressed the farthest – but exposing her to Amarantha’s ire, when she was still on edge, had been disastrous.

There had to be some kind of middle ground.

He loathed the idea of letting her go back Under the Mountain. He wouldn’t watch Amarantha break her again.

And yet – what if Feyre going Under the Mountain was the key? It was where they had, at least, gotten closest, with Feyre admitting her love for Tamlin, even if it had been too late.

The far easier option would have been to get her to admit her love for Tamlin sooner, before she even stepped foot in Amarantha’s court. But what if that wasn’t enough? His appearance at the Spring Court in the first loop hadn’t been enough to spur her on.

All he had were theories, the best of which had been strung together with hardly anything to hold them.

Clare Beddor – that was the name Feyre had given him in place of her own. Had he given that name to Amarantha and told her that Tamlin had brought a human to the Spring Court, he would have been spared in the first loop. Of course, that didn’t exactly solve anything, because Feyre still wouldn’t have.

Of course, that was assuming Amarantha found her under that alias. As long as she was in love with Tamlin, he doubted Amarantha cared what a human’s name was.

But what if Clare hadn’t been fictional? It was an unmistakably plain, human name, perhaps belonging to someone from wherever Feyre had once called home.

Even if it wasn’t, was it possible for him to orchestrate things so Amarantha’s ire fell on someone who wasn’t Feyre?

The makings of a plan began to take shape in his head.

It wasn’t a particularly honorable plan. It involved putting Feyre in danger, it involved at least one scapegoat. But he had already lost his – his Feyre too many times. And he knew, deep in his heart, that he would do whatever it took to keep it from happening again.

He knew by now that sleep would elude him the rest of the night. His mind was restless, but any moment of repose was strength.

There might not have been any more dreams ahead of him tonight, but Rhys lay awake and went through his usual ritual, picturing those he loved and wondering what they might be doing right now. Tonight, he dared to add one more name to the list.

I will not fail you, Feyre.

-

The previous times he had felt the call to seek her out on Calanmai, he ignored it. This time, however, it would be necessary.

And Rhys couldn’t deny that he felt a little thrill at the idea of seeing her again.

It was a perfect spring evening. The air was cool and fresh on his face – something he never took for granted anymore. He didn’t know how Amarantha could stand to spend most of her time Under the Mountain, choking on the same stale air year after year.

Cloaked in shadows on the edge of the tree line, Rhys observed the nearby figures, only illuminated by firelight. The drums had been beating for hours now – it wouldn’t be much longer before they reached their peak, and Tamlin would select his maiden. He bit down a wave of revulsion at the thought of Feyre being selected for such a ritual.

Luckily, if her thoughts from the previous loops were any indication, it wouldn’t come to that.

Not far from where Rhys stood, there was a group of half a dozen male lesser faeries. Loud, bawdy, and vulgar. After a moment of combing through their minds, Rhys saw that their thoughts were equally foul.

He selected the worst three, and then planted the seed of an idea in their heads.

Go and see what kind of trouble we can find. Plenty of fresh meat on a night like tonight.

As the minutes crept on, the pulling sensation in his chest drew tighter, and he scanned the firelit crowds for the shape of his painter.

Where are you? Come, find me. Go see Calanmai, he urged, even if she wouldn’t hear.

At last, he caught a glimpse of her weaving through the crowd, alone.

Any other time, he would have been angry that Tamlin didn’t have any protections on her. Wandering alone on a wild night like this only meant trouble for a human woman.

However, in this situation, it played right into his plans.

Feyre wandered through the crowd, likely searching for Tamlin or Lucien. Slowly, she wandered away from the throng, closer to his edge of the woods.

Closer to where he had led the males.

He watched from afar as they approached Feyre, nearly cornering her. One of them leaned in much too close –

And Rhys winnowed, right behind Feyre, catching her as she stumbled back on a piece of loose rock.

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

-

The first meeting on Calanmai set things into motion. Though he had longed to linger, he had kept things brief, not getting as much as her name out of her.

She had thought he was the most beautiful male she had ever seen.

Why did the knowledge bring him such pleasure?

The name of the game was to still appear intimidating and a bit frightening, but not so much that he couldn’t be trusted. He couldn’t let the mask drop the way he longed to, but it was better than nothing.

He hadn’t been able to avoid taking the head, branded with the Night Court sigil, to the Spring Court a few weeks later. If he spared the faerie Amarantha had initially chosen, she would just pick another. However, he was able to put it somewhere else when he delivered it.

It was simple enough. He winnowed to the Spring Court and immediately sought out Feyre’s room. He could sense her even without having her in his sights, still fast asleep in the time just before dawn.

He cast his magic towards her, dragging her subconscious into a slightly heavier sleep. She would sleep halfway to noon, but that would give Tamlin plenty of time to deal with his little gift – and even if he didn’t, she would be far less likely to see it in the smaller garden where he left it, spiked on the ornamental fence.

He saved Feyre from the horror, but Amarantha expressed her displeasure that he had picked somewhere too subtle.

Her nails were sharp on his bare shoulders, tendrils of red hair brushing his neck as she loomed above him.

“What happened to your sense of theatrics, Rhysand?” she crooned. “Perhaps I need to put on another show, to give you some more inspiration to work with.”

Encased in the ring on her finger, Jurian’s eyeball spun. If the male was still in there somewhere, at least one of them could be panicked about the situation.

“If you wish it, my queen,” he crooned.

Whatever he could do to satisfy her nearly unabating thirst for violence before Feyre arrived.

-

Weeks passed, and Rhys spent hours trying to find another way back to the Spring Court. Every little interaction he had with Feyre before she came Under the Mountain could be crucial to their success.

Unfortunately, Amarantha’s paranoia only stretched so far.

“Why so eager to go back to the Spring Court, Rhysand?” Amarantha mused one night, when he had again suggested it. “One might think you’re hiding something there.”

He forced himself to stay calm, to continue rubbing her shoulders to relieve the tension from them.

“Only eager to see Tamlin flounder, my queen. You must admit, his attempts to break the curse have been laughable.”

“Which is why I’m hardly worried now. You serve me here, Rhysand.”

For not the first time, Rhys wished the bed would open up and swallow him.

-         

In the days leading up to the curse’s deadline, Amarantha finally loosened his leash as she had in the first loop. He knew the terrible things he would have to do in the days to come, but he also couldn’t deny his excitement at seeing Feyre again. Other than the day he had left the head spiked for Tamlin, he hadn’t so much as glimpsed her.

The bustle and brightness of spring greeted him as he winnowed onto the front lawn. Even with a fraction of its denizens, the manor was busy, as always.

Last time, the way things had unfolded was accidental. This time, he needed to keep this part as close to how it had first happened as possible.

He let scraps of his power wash out before him, alerting the whole manor of his presence, strolling into the dining room that only appeared to hold Tamlin and Lucien.

This time, he immediately noticed the third plate betraying her presence. He swore he could sense her, too. How had he been so oblivious the first time around?

He let the same words as before spill from his lips, as if he was acting out one of the plays Mor loved to watch at the Velaris theatre. Taunting Tamlin and Lucien, pretending to be surprised when he let his gaze land on the third plate.

When Tamlin’s glamour fell from around her, he had to hold back his sigh of relief. She was still safe and whole – lovely, with the midday sun at her back, bringing out the gold in her hair.

“I remember you,” he said softly. “It seems like you ignored my warning to stay out of trouble.”

It was all he could do to keep up the familiar song and dance with Tamlin and Lucien. The urge to reach for her, make sure there wasn’t a single mark on her, was stronger than ever.

Instead, he reached for her mind, seizing it between his mental hands. As he traced his finger across her collarbones, her throat, he felt her fear.

“Don’t be afraid, darling,” he whispered into her mind.

“Don’t – “ Feyre ground out, too afraid to say much more.

One day, I swear, I will make it up to you, Feyre.

He flipped through her mind – and curiously, found no memories of her being intimate with Tamlin. Only memories of Tamlin biting into her neck on Calanmai – only hours after he had first met her.

“Amarantha will enjoy breaking her,” he said, letting his cruel words settle over the room. “Almost as much as she’ll enjoy watching how you anguish over it.”

He was aware of Feyre’s growing apprehension as he threatened Tamlin, and he almost reached back into her mind, to whisper something more soothing to her, but he stopped himself just in time. 

Not here. Not now, when there were so many variables still at play.

Tamlin shoved at him, but he sidestepped easily.

“Not now, Tamlin. I’d hate for the lady to see you become a smear upon the floor.”

Tamlin fumed, but Rhys finally had an excuse to turn his attention wholly back to Feyre.

“What’s your name, love?”

He felt her hesitation – felt the lie in her mind before it formed on her tongue.

“Clare Beddor,” she gasped.

Rhys smirked. “I’ll be sure to give Amarantha your regards – all of your regards.”    

-

When Amarantha summoned him to the throne room for a full report, it was all too easy to tell the truth. To give her Clare’s name.

Anything for Feyre.

Now all that remained was to wait and see if his gambit paid off.

-

Two days later, and the Attor dragged poor Clare, kicking and screaming, Under the Mountain.

As he had expected, Amarantha made a game of pulling pain from her like notes from a violin. He stood there and watched, the same bored smirk on his face.

He went into her mind, took away her pain as easily as snuffing out a candle.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Clare. I know you didn’t deserve it, didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Please, just end this,” she begged, unaware or uncaring of who she was speaking to.

He hated himself a little bit more as he didn’t reply. For Feyre to be safest, Amarantha’s bloodlust had to be fully spent.

“I don’t have that power, but your pain is gone. Scream when she expects you to.”

Over the next few days, Rhys remained at Amarantha’s side, watching as she tormented Clare. Perhaps because he was a glutton for punishment, he delved into her mind to get a glimpse of the person whose life he was destroying.

She was a simple village girl. Kind, gentle, she loved teasing her younger brothers and caring for her family’s animals. She hated the taste of oatmeal, and shunned the Children of the Blessed when they came to town.

The days wore on, and finally, Rhys couldn’t take it anymore. He reached back into Clare’s mind and ended it, once and for all.   

-

All too soon, the doors to Amarantha’s throne room swung open again as the Attor dragged another human girl through its doors, throwing her on the ground before Amarantha’s throne.

Rhys felt the pain in her knees as they hit the marble, so sharply it might have been his own. He did his best to steady his breathing. If anyone sensed how quickly his heart was beating, he would be fucked. 

He had to focus. Amarantha couldn’t know that a single thing was amiss this time around.

“What’s this?” The False Queen asked, leaning forward in her throne.

“Just a human thing I found downstairs,” the Attor hissed, leering at Feyre, and Rhys fought the urge to mist the wretched creature then and there. “Tell her Majesty why you were sneaking around the catacombs – why you came out of the old cave that leads to the Spring Court.”

He watched as Feyre proclaimed her love for Tamlin in front of all seven courts, bargaining for his freedom. She practically beseeched him to say something, but he didn’t so much as nod. Only sitting there as still and unfeeling as his stone heart.

“Give me a single reason I shouldn’t destroy you where you stand, human.”

“You tricked Tamlin. He is bound unfairly.”

Amarantha prattled on, enjoying the sound of her own voice. Rhys would have blocked it out entirely if Feyre’s safety didn’t entirely depend on Amarantha’s words. What would come next was the one part he had truly been unable to predict.

After all these years, Rhys understood how Amarantha worked well. If he had gambled right, she would offer to a game with Feyre, string her along for a bit while dangling Tamlin in front of her like a carrot. Not an optimal outcome, but it would give him time to better understand Feyre’s purpose on this path. From there, he could formulate the rest of his plan.

After she had just torn Clare apart, doing the same to Feyre would be boring, predictable. All things The Deceiver despised.

“I should have listened when darling Clare said she’d never seen Tamlin before, or hunted a day in her life. Though her screaming was certainly delightful. I haven’t heard such lovely music in ages. I should thank you for giving Rhysand her name instead of yours,” she crooned.

Though he stood in the shadows, off to the side of Amarantha’s throne rather than directly beside it, he felt the eyes of the court turn to him. Feyre didn’t spare him a glance, her eyes locked on Clare’s mangled body, but he could feel the horror radiating off of her.

He had known Clare’s death would complicate things. But seeing Clare through Feyre’s comparatively innocent, human eyes – the weight of his crime crashed down fully upon him.

Another sin added to the list of reasons he would burn in hell.

Amarantha verbally toyed with Feyre for a bit longer, enough that Rhys’s dread grew as he started to wonder if he had gambled wrong.

But then she spoke the words he had been praying for.

“I’ll make a bargain with you, human.”

He saw Feyre stiffen – and he was far from relaxing, either.

“You swear you love Tamlin?”

“With my whole heart,” Feyre insisted, her voice heavy with conviction.

“Well then. Proving your devotion should be easy. You complete three tasks of my choosing – three little tasks to prove how deep that human sense of loyalty and love runs, and Tamlin is yours. Just three little challenges to prove your dedication, that your kind can indeed love true, and you can have your High Lord.”

She turned to Tamlin, spouting more nonsense about fickle human hearts. Rhysand’s mind was already racing.

Three tasks – they could be anything, with so many variables. How would Amarantha see fit to make a human prove her love?

Amarantha went on to list conditions, stipulations, throwing a riddle into the mix.

That made him relax a bit. Amarantha had never been as clever as she gave herself credit for. Even if she forbade everyone from giving Feyre hints, it couldn’t be too difficult.

“So – are we agreed?” Amarantha said at last.

Feyre glanced across the throne room once more, eyes locking on Tamlin, who still hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Agreed,” Feyre said.

Cauldron, please, tell me I haven’t just subjected her to a fate worse than Clare’s. 

And with Feyre’s words and a swing of the Attor’s clawed arm, ripping into her skin, her fate was sealed, and Rhys’s along with it.

-

Rhys did his best to monitor Feyre from a distance. She had appeared alright when Amarantha gave her the riddle shortly after her arrival. He knew Lucien had already been to see her and patched up her injuries from the Attor’s beating, but it wasn’t enough. He had to see how she was faring and start getting her to trust him.

Also, a selfish part of him admitted, he hated to be so far from her when she was at last within his reach.

Amarantha had given her one of the worst cells in the dungeons, which was truly saying something. It was foul smelling and damp, and perfectly situated so that the screams and groans of the other prisoners angled themselves into the cell.

When he winnowed inside, she looked so small, curled up on a palette of foul-smelling hay that threatened to make his nose start running. At least she had a cloak to keep her warm. She hadn’t arrived with it – Lucien’s, if he had to guess.

At first, he thought she might have been asleep, but she shot up, eyes flying to where he stood in the corner of her cell.

“Hello, darling,” he crooned, stuffing his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t have to hide his tense fists.

“What do you want?” she hissed, blue-gray eyes narrowed.

Good – the fire hadn’t gone from her yet.

“I’m only checking in on my favorite human. How are you faring?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of question is that?”

“An honest one.”

“I’m fine,” she said, scowling in a way that reminded him of Mor when she was irritated.

“Is that so? Because your situation would imply otherwise.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back.

“I mean you’ve come to claim Tamlin, without the faintest idea of what you’re getting yourself into.”

“You’re just saying that to get into my head.” Her voice was steely, but he saw a shiver shoot through her. Not just from the cold, although that was likely part of it.  

“I assure you, I only have your best interests at heart. And, just between the two of us, I’m happy to extend my assistance in any way I can.”

A dangerous, dangerous thing for him to say.

Feyre raised her eyebrows. “You want to help me? You’re Amarantha’s – her lackey.”

“That’s what everyone thinks,” Rhys admitted. “But have you never considered that I might have my own agenda?”

“Well, I don’t want any part of it,” Feyre spat.

Internally, Rhys grimaced. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with her today.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned a blanket he had stashed in a pocket realm earlier. It wasn’t anything particularly nice, and there was a hole worn through in the middle. One of the nobles’ discarded rags.

“Think on it,” he said, tossing the blanket towards her, and winnowing back out of the cell before she could reply.

-

A few more long days went by, and Rhys could barely stand the thought of Feyre alone in her freezing cell. He slept on silk sheets and ate some of Prythian’s finest food every evening. Not only that, but her first trial was rapidly approaching, and he had made almost no progress in gaining her trust. He hadn’t been back to visit her, but he had checked in on her thoughts a handful of times. They ranged from bored, to angry, to fearful. She was pondering the riddle but hadn’t come closer to the right answer.

Six days after his initial visit, he convinced himself that he had waited long enough. It was midday, and Amarantha was sound asleep. She had dismissed him after he had serviced her – a rare mercy. It also gave him the perfect window of opportunity to visit his painter again.

“Go to hell, Rhysand,” she said, sounding bored when he appeared.

“What – no Rhysand, apple of all eyes, or Rhysand, all my waking moments are consumed with thoughts of you?” he purred.

She glared at him - a sight that was becoming quite familiar. “What do you want now?”

“The same thing I wanted to do last time. To see how you’re faring down here, Feyre.”

“How the fuck would you be faring, in my shoes?” she spat.

“You’ll find you have no idea what my shoes are like,” he shot back. Cauldron, what was it about this woman that set him ablaze so quickly?

“How is Tamlin?” she finally asked.

“The High Lord of Spring is doing perfectly fine, as far as I can tell. Amarantha has been dragging him around like a puppy, but he hasn’t so much as budged.” He said truthfully.

That seemed to bring her some satisfaction. “Good,” was all she said.

“Does it bother you? That he hasn’t been down here to see you?” he said the question in his same coy, teasing tone, but he longed to know the answer.

“What does it matter to you?”

“Feyre, please. I – I can’t lose you again.” He blurted it out before he even realized what he was saying. But it certainly got her attention.

Fuck, this was really starting to wear on him. In his desperation to monitor Feyre at every hour, he had barely been getting any sleep.

“What?” That got her attention, and she turned to him at last. A crease formed between her brows, trepidation in her eyes.

How much could he tell her without obliterating any chance of earning her trust? With his powers stolen, he didn’t dare to go in her mind and wipe away the thought. As much as he hated to admit it, he was out of practice on human minds, and he certainly wouldn’t be testing his theories on his painter.  

But if he played it right – perhaps having her know could prove advantageous. He just had to make sure he didn’t sound insane.

Feyre was still waiting for his reply.

In the quiet, he used his magic to feel for any listening ears. Years of intuitively knowing when Azriel was nearby had honed his senses well.

“What do you think my goal is, here?”

Feyre frowned. “That’s not an answer.”

“Just tell me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I assume to save your own skin and piss Tamlin off however you can.”

Well, her assumptions could have been much worse.

“Feyre, I need you to listen to what I’m about to say, and not make any assumptions or jump to conclusions until I’m done.”

“Why should I trust you?” She spat. 

“Have I done anything to cause you harm thus far?”

“No, but-“

He cut her off, knowing he would never get a word in edgewise over his painter if he didn’t.

“I have been Amarantha’s lackey under this Mountain for forty-nine years. Most of them have been long, the same things happening year after year. But months ago, something changed. I had a dream.”

Skepticism danced across her face.

“I dreamed of a young woman, drawing her bow in a snowy forest. Aiming at a deer first, and then a wolf, which she shot with remarkable precision. It left me with a strange feeling in my chest, but I cast it aside, convinced it was only an exceptionally clear dream. But the feeling didn’t go away. On Calanmai, I felt a strange inclination to visit the Spring Court. Another unusual feeling – I’ve made a point to avoid that court and the sycophants that live there for years. So I ignored the pull. I barely believed you were real, much less human, until I saw you for the first time, in the dining room with Tamlin and Lucien when I interrupted your dinner.

“That’s not –“

He kept going, or he knew he would never finish. It was best to keep this part succinct anyway. “By then, Tamlin’s time was almost up. He sent you away to protect you, but you came back, came Under the Mountain, just as you did now. But your timing was poor, in a way you had no control over, and Amarantha was angry, and I tried to protect you from her wrath, but – things didn’t end well. We both died, and I was prepared to meet the Mother.”

“And then….I had the same dream, of you killing the wolf. And I woke up the same way I had the time before, and I watched the same events unfold before my eyes, only changed by my interference. Not just once. Over and over. You always killed the wolf, you always came to Prythian and fell for Tamlin. And eventually, I realized that I’m stuck in some kind of loop, reliving the same events over and over again.”

“You’re insane,” Feyre breathed, taking a step back.

No, no, no. He couldn’t let this go poorly.

“Let me prove it to you,” he said, extending his hand. “Mind to mind.”

“I’m not letting you in my mind again,” she said, taking another step back. “I felt you, back in the dining room in the Spring Court. Tamlin has told me plenty about you, you know. I’m not a fool.”

He took a step towards her, bridging the space between them. Even as both of their lives hung on the line, something was electrifying about arguing with her like this. It made him feel more alive than he had in a long time. He could admire her stubbornness, even as it worked against him.

“And what has Tamlin told you?” he asked softly.

“That you’re responsible for terrible things.”

“And you believe everything Tamlin tells you? Even when he concealed this whole mess from you?”

“That was part of the curse. He couldn’t help it.”

“Couldn’t he?” Rhys raised an eyebrow.

Feyre dropped his gaze at last, falling silent.

“I swear to you, on the Mother that I will not harm you. Nor will I enter your mind again without permission.”

He watched her consider for a long moment, fingers fidgeting at her sides in an attempt to appear unruffled.

“Fine.”

She didn’t hide her scowl as she held out her hand, and Rhys considered telling her that he didn’t need physical connection to initiate it, but refrained. This was, after all, the first time she had willingly let him touch her.

He took her callused hand in his – though his was much too smooth, after all these years away from weapons that had once been like an extension of his arm.

For a brief moment, he considered showing her Velaris, snippets of his happy memories. If things went awry, he could always start the loop over again. But even that felt too risky. He couldn’t divulge it.

Instead, he did what he had promised and entered her mind. Gently, like walking through a forest in autumn and trying to avoid snapping a stick.

“See? Not so bad, is it?”

“Can we get this over with?”

He caught brief glimpses of her thoughts. Wondering if he was insane, wondering if she was insane for letting such a mentally unstable individual near her.

A strong sense of curiosity, too.

Good. That meant that not all was lost.

He showed her his memories of the first time he had watched her shoot the wolf, and their meeting in the dining room, and standing before Amarantha. He skipped over their deaths – that was the last thing he wanted to show her. Instead, he skipped ahead through other loops, showing their interactions or things he had watched her do.

Selfishly, he tried to pick the ones that painted him in a more flattering light.

After he had sifted through all the half-decent memories from previous loops, he switched gears. She needed to see more of him to trust him, and Velaris was too risky. But there were other things he could show.

He sent memories of him drinking with Mor, sitting at a desk next to Amren, piles of documents surrounding them both. Flying with Cassian and Azriel.

He could feel her jolt of surprise at the last one, at the revelation of his wings.

How peculiar, for that to be the thing she found most shocking.

At last, the memories ended. He could have sifted through her thoughts some more to find out what Feyre was thinking, but he found himself wanting to hear her voice her thoughts on her own.

She was staring at him in stunned silence as she pulled her hand away from his.

“Well?” Rhys promoted. “I’m sure it’s a lot to take in.”

She took a few steps backward, dropping back on the pallet, eyes wide.

“So you and I are all just players in this sick game? No – I’m not even a player. I’m a pawn.”

“Feyre –“ he tried to interject.

“If we fail, you’re the one that has to do this all over again. I – this version of myself, and everything I’ve gone through – I don’t even die. I just cease to exist.”

Rhys thought he might have preferred being in her position to reliving the same months over and over, but he kept that thought silent.

“It’s not fair. But – we’ve never done it like this before. We have to believe that this time, we’ll make it through.”

“How many times have you said that to me?”

“Never,” Rhys admitted. “I’ve never told you that we’re in a loop before.”

At that, the tiniest sliver of amusement appeared on her face.

“Well, that would explain why you did such a piss-poor job of it.”

“But you believe me?”

She exhaled, letting out a huff of air. “Unless you have some insane strategy, I don’t know why you would be making it up.”

“I meant everything I said earlier,” he finally said.

This was so, so far off the course of his original plan.

“We have never worked together before. If we do, I believe we can get out of here.”

What came after that, he truly had no clue.

“What about those other memories, Rhysand?” she asked. “The ones that weren’t part of the loop? Were those just to make yourself look good?”

“Would you think worse of me if I said yes? I won’t lie, I’ve done some monstrous things. But they have all been in the name of keeping my people, my family, safe.”

That seemed to resonate with something deep in her, and he watched as she seemed to mentally to go some far-off place for a moment.

“And Clare?” she murmured.

He offered up another bit of truth. “It was her or you.”

A grim line of determination creased on her forehead, and Feyre was silent for a long, long moment. Rhys again had to stop himself from instinctually reaching into her mind to see what she was thinking.

“Alright,” Feyre said at last. “What’s your plan?”

Rhys could have fallen to his knees before her at the relief he felt.

“You go through the trials like nothing has changed, you’re still fighting for Tamlin’s love. I swear that I will be beside you every step of the way, keeping Amarantha’s attention off of you as much as I can. And for the love of the Mother, think on the riddle she gave you.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

“What about the trials? Do you know anything about those?”

He shook his head. Amarantha had been tight-lipped about whatever she had in store for “the puny human.”

The sound of footsteps drawing near to Feyre’s cell drew his focus. “We don’t have much more time.”

“I have so many more questions.”

“Next time we get a spare moment, I’ll answer them,” he promised, scanning her up and down as if signs of the truth between them could be seen on her.  

Before Feyre could respond, the door swung open, revealing the red-skinned, pot-bellied guards that escorted her everywhere. They tossed in a stale-looking piece of bread and a bruised, mushy apple.

It simply wouldn’t do.

Reaching into their minds was as easy as cutting through butter.

“No more of this slop. From now on, you’re to bring her a fresh, hot meal from the kitchens twice a day. Tell the others, and the kitchen staff, too. Stay out of her cell, and don’t touch her. If you do, you’re to take your own daggers and gut yourselves. Understood?”

Feyre straightened, staring at him with a mix of emotions he couldn’t entirely decipher – but Cauldron, how he wanted to.

“You’re welcome,” he purred instead. Her surprised eyes were the last thing he saw before he winnowed away again.

-

Rhys could scarcely believe how well things had been going.

Of course, if you considered his painter trapped Under the Mountain by a murdering psychopath “going well.”

If he had thought Feyre consumed his thoughts before, he had been wrong. Having her in such a close proximity, not loathing him, felt like a fantasy.

Rhys did his best to make good on his promise. Each day, he made a point to send a hot meal to her cell. He was getting the sense that Feyre’s first trial would be some kind of physical test, and she had to keep her strength up. He installed wards that muffled the sounds of the screams that tore through the walls to Feyre’s cell at all hours.

In his free seconds, he found excuses to sneak back down to the dungeons under the guise of emotionally tormenting Feyre.

In reality, he was doing his best to satisfy her insatiable curiosity. She did her best to act nonchalant, but Rhys recognized the curiosity, the stubbornness, behind the mask. He knew it because the same traits were reflected in him.

Talking with her was a…disarming experience. She had seen him without the mask he had worn for so long. She saw the desperation that lay underneath without him having to voice it. It only made him question more why the Cauldron had shoved them together into this wretched situation.

“A question for a question,” he finally said one night, after she pressed him for more information on the Night Court. “You’re learning all of my secrets, but I can’t say the same. I’ll answer one of yours if you answer one of mine.”

Pure selfishness, on his part. He couldn’t help it.

She raised her eyebrows. “What about me could possibly interest you, Rhysand?”

“Rhys,” he corrected automatically. “And I think you’re drastically underselling yourself, darling.”

She shifted uncomfortably on the hay pallet. Even after everything he told her, she was still fiercely protective of her secrets; especially the human family she had left behind.

“Fine.”

“You said you’ve seen this over and over again. How do they end? Is it always with me dying?””

“Not always,” Rhys replied honestly. “Sometimes I go first.”

That set her mouth in a grim line.

“I know you like to paint,” he said. “Why?”

She gave him a funny look. “I always enjoyed it, even as a child. My mother hated that out of all the talents that were suitable for a young lady, I had an affinity for the one that was as messy and wild as I was. And when things changed and my family lost our fortune, painting became a rare luxury. A bit of color in my dreary life, I guess.”

When they weren’t asking questions, Rhys prepped her about the different trials Amarantha might have in store. The first one was less than a week away, and he was still in the dark about it. It could have been some kind of duel, or puzzle, or perhaps an archery test. Amarantha had remained impossibly tight-lipped about it.

Whatever it was, Rhys knew Feyre would prevail. The hours he had spent in her cell, getting to know her, had only strengthened his opinion on that. And if for any reason, she stumbled, he would be there to pick her back up.

They had each other now, and this strange, tentative trust. They would not fail.

-

At last, the day of Feyre’s first trial was upon them.

The day prior, Amarantha had her lackeys bring in some sort of muddy labyrinth, hauled up from the catacombs somehow and reassembled in a giant pit. And in the early morning hours, when Rhys gazed upon the completed project, he knew what awaited Feyre in a few hours.

“Feyre – I know what your first trial is. She’s going to have you outrun and hunt the Middengard Wyrm.” 

He was at a loss for how to describe the wretched creature, so instead, he sent an image of it into Feyre’s mind, well aware of how terrifying the creature was.

He felt the tide of horror rise up in her mind.

“She wants me to kill that thing?”

“Yes – but Feyre, the Middengard has weaknesses. It’s blind, and it relies on smell. It knows its lair like nothing else, but if you can disrupt it, you’ll throw it off. I’ll be a second pair of eyes for you, too. Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” she responded, voice shaky.

Oh, she had no idea how not easy all of this was.

Later in the morning, he found himself back in Amarantha’s bedchambers, where she sat at her vanity and brushed out her long hair, her back to him. 

“Rhysand,” she mused as he came in. “You haven’t gotten anything else interesting out of the human, have you?”

“No, my queen. It seems she truly loves Tamlin. She believes with all her heart that she’ll be able to free him.”

The Deceiver scoffed. “And you haven’t noticed anyone helping her? Nobody developing any attachments.”

“Not at all.”

Her smile, slippery as a snake, curled upwards in the mirror’s reflection.

“Very good.”  

-

An hour later, Amarantha’s court had gathered around the pit that held the Middengard’s lair, waiting for Feyre’s entrance.

In a typical move for her, Amarantha had her throne moved into here so she could preside over the festivities above everyone else. A smaller chair had been brought in for Tamlin, who sat beside her.

That was another merciful thing about Feyre and Tamlin’s presence down here. It saved him from having to be at Amarantha’s right hand as often.

Feyre was brought in, escorted by her usual guards, and Rhys was again struck by how small she looked. But she held her head high, chin jutted out in defiance.

“So, dear Feyre, are you ready for your first trial?” Amarantha crooned. She looked especially bloodthirsty today, dressed in a long-sleeved black gown. There was a glint in her eyes that Rhys didn’t like.

In response to Amarantha, Feyre nodded.

“Well, I have been ready too,” Amarantha continued. “I’ve been excited to see how you’ll fare against the little surprise I have for you. But I suppose it won’t be much of a surprise, will it?” Her tone turned icy.

What?

“Imagine my shock, Amarantha said, “When someone came to me this morning with a full report. Telling me that someone’s been helping you the past few weeks. Fresh meals, warm blankets. Information.”

No, no no –

Who had betrayed him? He had been so careful.

He raked through his past interactions, doing his best to keep his face a blank mask, only cocking an eyebrow.

Amarantha’s hawkish gaze whipped around to him.

“Rhysand,” she hissed. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Gasps of shock and rapid whispering went up around the room.

“I don’t know what you're referring to, my queen,” Rhys replied smoothly. He wasn't afraid for himself - only Feyre. He had withstood Amarantha’s wrath many times before, and he would do it again.

“Liar,” she hissed, and before Rhys knew what was happening, a wall of force hit him, sending him crashing to his knees. 

No, not again -

He struggled to bring himself to his knees before another wave of her stolen power hit him, sending him back to the floor.

The throng of people that had been near him scurried out of the way.

“You’ve been helping her. Giving her comforts, preparing her for the trials.” 

Her questioning earlier had been a test.

“No!” A voice shouted from the other side of the room - Feyre’s. “He hasn't been helping me. You're wrong.”

Her attempt to spare him was touching, but Rhys knew it was too late for them. And it only turned Amarantha’s attention back to his painter. 

Tamlin seemed to finally remember that he could speak. “Amarantha, no. You can’t harm her, you made a bargain with her.”

Amarantha laughed – a horrible, high-pitched sound, and Rhys felt the pit of dread growing in his stomach. There had to be some way to salvage this. They had come so far.

“You’re finally defending her? When she only has eyes for Rhysand, of all people? The bargain is only upheld if the human’s heart is still set on you, Tamlin. And there is nothing in our agreement that stops me from tearing her apart whenever I please.”

Rhys stopped caring about Tamlin and whatever pathetic, useless pleas he had when Amarantha extended a clawed nail towards his painter. 

Her hand flicked, and Rhys watched, still crushed on the ground, as Feyre joined him on the unforgiving floor with a scream.

He knew this was the end. 

“You should apologize to me, human. I offered you a chance, I arranged this entire trial, just for you. And yet you refuse to play fairly.”

Her limbs twisted, going in directions that made him nauseous. 

His body was on fire, but he reached for Feyre’s mind.

 “Feyre,” he rasped, unintentionally saying it out loud, too. 

“Rhys, are you there?” Feyre asked.

He sent out a wave of comfort, as much as he could manage as he fought through the fog of his own. “I’m sorry Feyre, I wanted this to go differently.”

“If she spares you somehow – don’t let her find my family.”

He knew she wouldn’t, and the moment Feyre’s heart stopped beating, it wouldn’t matter anyway, but he didn’t say that.

“I won’t let her find them.”

“I guess you’ll see me in the next loop,” she said, sounding strained under the wave of pain, making her thrash and scream through gritted teeth.

He heard the snap, snap, snap, of her bones, and reached for her mind, to take away the pain as he had done before.

SNAP

A roar of pain coming from Feyre’s mind, and then, silence.

Amarantha had underestimated the durability of humans in her rage.

And this –

All of this – had been for nothing.

He had tried so hard to plan things out, to do it differently this time, and it was all for nothing.

Searing pain sliced through his body once more as he shifted, his gaze meeting Amarantha’s. She had stood from the throne, face twisted into a snarl above him. 

“Traitorous filth. After all these years, you try to deceive me?”

“I hope you burn in hell,” Rhysand spat with the remainder of his energy.

Her sneering face was the last thing he saw before the world dropped away into darkness.

[mmvalentine]

The Bargain Pt 4 | Feysand

Modern AU. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

Feyre’s last session was on a Thursday evening, Rhys’ last appointment of the day. And she was running very late.

Feyre rushed down the street, trying to scrape her hair back into some semblance of presentability, and narrowly dodged bowling an old man over in the street. She skidded to a halt outside the tattoo shop, spared just one glance at her reflection in the glass and then swept in. Despite noticing with horror the dark circles under her eyes.

She stood in the doorway, and watched Rhys look up from where he was sitting and sketching, probably startled by the clanging she was making by bursting through the door like this. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to him, still panting slightly. “I know I’m unacceptably late. Do you still have time to finish my tattoo?” Rhys put down his pen. "Of course," he said. "Are you okay?" "Yeah," Feyre said, looking away and self-consciously tugging on her dishevelled shirt. "I... got caught up at home, I'm really sorry." "That's okay," Rhys said. "Come on in."

They set up like usual, and soon Rhys was putting the finishing touches on Feyre's arm. She lay there and stared at the ceiling, Tamlin’s latest temper tantrum reeling through her head and still pounding in her ears. And this time, she barely felt the needles at all. She could hear the machines buzzing but the pain seemed very, very far away.

In all honesty, she was glad of a little pain today. Morbid as it may seem, her insides were churning so hard, the sharp physical sensation actually made more sense than the hurt and confusion that she felt every time Tamlin lost his cool. How strange, that being tattooed today seemed like just what she needed.

So she let Rhys finish the shading around her wrist, add dot work, and highlight in white, and just lay quietly. Better than opening her mouth and letting Rhys see what a mess she really was.

But Rhys seemed to notice anyway. He kept glancing up at her, as if waiting for her to resume their usual chatter. After about half an hour, he spoke.

"You know I'm really glad you're here," he said. "All day I've been tattooing this guy who just won't stop singing." It took a moment to filter through, but Feyre had to admit she was intrigued. Rhys went on, speaking quickly as if trying to fill the silence.

"Yeah, he's carrying on and on and even giving tips to Mor- she's one of the artists here, who's in a band. So he's telling her all these things about performing and vocals. Thing is, he's absolutely shite."

Feyre looked at him. Was Rhys… babbling?

"I had to make sure I talked to him the whole time, because if I stopped talking he started singing." Feyre snorted and Rhys smiled to himself.

"So here I am, trying to concentrate and tattoo as fast as I can, and trying to come up with lengthy topics of conversation before one of the guys comes over to murder me." "What did you talk about?" Feyre asked him. "Jellyfish," Rhys told her. "Jellyfish?!" "Yeah I've been listening to podcasts about ocean life and it's all I could think of at the time." "Okay," Feyre said. "Hit me with some jellyfish facts."

"Did you know," Rhys said, "that there is a species of jellyfish that never dies. It's got two life stages, sort of like you know insects have a larval stage, but it just shifts back and forth from one to the other indefinitely." "So it's immortal?" "Yeah, basically. Another species can glom onto each other and form a mega jellyfish, where like there will be a mouth jelly and an excretion jelly and all that but they're just one big jelly now." "Woah like hivemind jellyfish?" "Sure, except jellyfish don't have brains." "That's crazy." "Uh huh."

Rhys let Feyre ponder jellyfish facts while he went back up her arm checking for bits he had missed. Found a spot that would be shaded darker, and started on that bit. The needle bit into her skin with a whine.

"Hey," he said tentatively. "Are you okay?"

Feyre sighed inwardly, and wished fervently that she was the kind of girl that could make a guy laugh, and not worry.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she answered. "I'm so sorry I was late today. Looks like everyone else has pretty much packed up for the day and you're staying late because of me." Indeed the last artist had left the space ten minutes ago, and they were now alone.

"Well, actually," Rhys said, "I'm just about done here. Just have to finish up this bit... and we're finished." He sat up straight, put the machine down and wiped her down. Then he stretched in his seat while Feyre stared at her arm, turning it this way and that. A whorl of night sky and dreaming stared back at her, and for a moment she forgot Tamlin altogether.

"Rhys," she said, "this is incredible. Thank you so much. I…I love it." Loved the way it looked on her, actually. She had never been particularly fond of her own body, and couldn’t stop staring down at herself.

"You're very welcome. If you want, you can go look in the mirror and see then whole effect before I wrap you up."

So Feyre slid off the bench and skipped over to the full length mirror by the wall, and Rhys chuckled as he started packing his area down. She took in her reflection, this time bypassing her tired face completely and just seeing the ink in her skin. She had had the tattoo for months now, but it hadn't prepared her for what the finished product would look like. It looked like... like herself.

When she came back, Rhys wrapped her arm she paid the remainder owing. And then all that was left to do was leave. Go home. To Tamlin.

She stood on the spot, with one ankle turned out and her bottom lip between her teeth. Rhys paused.

"You don't want to go home, do you?" he asked her. And she looked up at him, and his searching, violet eyes, and couldn’t lie to him. She shook her head.

Rhys nodded. Looked around the empty studio, and then said, "Okay. Well I'll need another twenty minutes to finishing break down, and then I will tell you the rest of the jellyfish facts I know before you go. Deal?"

Relief slid into her veins. "Deal."

So she sat a stool in the corner of the studio while Rhys pottered about, putting things away and sanitising his station. Then when he was done, he pulled up another stool and sat opposite her, and told her everything he knew about scyphozoa while she picked through his sharpies and drew pictures in the blank spaces on his left forearm. It was only fair, she had said, since he had inked hers. He even had her sign the work, just below the heel of his palm.

"I'll get it tattooed," he said, "and then when you're world-famous I'll be a collectible item." Feyre laughed. "Okay, well then I'll give you a nice artistic autograph so you don't have to have some random girl's name tattooed on you." She scribbled her signature, and Rhys turned his wrist around to read it. "Oh so by artistic you mean illegible," he said. “Wouldn't want to upset any love interests," Feyre said, "I can't fight for shit." Rhys laughed. "Well there's no one to fight, but thanks for your thoughtful consideration."

They smiled at each other for a minute, until Feyre’s heart squeezed painfully and she forced herself to stand. "I should go," she said. Rhys took his markers back, and walked Feyre to the door.

And yet still, she couldn’t quite walk out.

"So, I guess this is it," Feyre said. "Thank you for everything." She lingered. "You know, I still think we could be good friends, you and I."

Rhys put his hands on the top of the door frame and leaned against it. The hard muscles of his triceps and forearms framed his face, and the light from the shop spilled around him.

"I'll make you a bargain Feyre," he said. "When you're getting tattooed you're really vulnerable and it can be easy to latch on to people who make you feel safe. So, give it six months, and if you still want to be my friend, I would love that. Okay?"

Feyre nodded. "Okay."

She turned to go, but before she did, Rhys reached out one last question.

"Feyre?" She turned. "Are you going to be alright?"

And Feyre put on her very best smile, smoothed it over her face like lipstick, and tried to photograph him, there in the doorway, in her mind.

"I'll be alright," she told him. And she waved and walked home.

****

This is based on actual conversations that I had with my tattoo artist recently, and he assures me all of those jellyfish facts are true. Mind blowing stuff.

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-loml @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @thebonecarver @rowaelinismyotp @loosingdreams @whythefuckdoiexist @inejsarrow @swankii-art-teacher @sjmships @courtofjurdan @teddytdr @positivewitch @thalia-2-rose @darling-archeron @rapunzel1523 @fairchildjace @asteria-of-mars

[starfaells]

how have we, collectively, as a fandom, decided that feyre & rhys’s first child is called squishy and wears a purple onesie?

[feysand-hivemind]

WIP WEDNESDAY

You’re most probably wondering “Can things get any worse for poor Rhys?” and we’re here to tell you that yes, they can (and they will). Poor guy. 😉

Anyway, here’s another look at a future chapter:

***

Taking a deep breath and trying to calm his racing heart, Rhys checked if anything else was amiss.

Everyone looked miserable. The Attor was accounted for, the bitch standing next to him. Every High Lord was present—

Almost everyone, he thought to himself with a growl. Tamlin was unaccounted for.

He cast his mind all over this sham of a court, the usage of his powers draining him more and more by the day, until he found both of them, their presences next to each other. Tamlin’s mind was a fortress, but Feyre’s… she was screaming every thought down the bridge between their minds.

More, more, more

[feysand-hivemind]

Sneak Peek

Deep in the Spring Court, not far from the High Lord’s manor, there was a pond. The Pool of Starlight some called it. And this pond was home to a mermaid.

A river mermaid, named Arielle.

Now river mermaids were somewhat different from their sea dwelling cousins. Lazier. More prone to napping in the sun than luring sailors to their deaths. But what Arielle lacked in bloodthirstiness she more than made up for in pettiness and a zero tolerance policy regarding home invaders. Especially if said invaders were trying to get frisky right on her front doorstep.

[feysand-hivemind]

WIP Wednesday

How about a little sneak peak of a future chapter? You ever once thought, "Man, it sure would be nice if Rhys got to tell Amarantha what he really thinks about her..." Well my loves, today is that day.

“Has anyone ever told you what an insufferable creature you are?” She paused, almost as if in shock. Rhys had never spoken to her like this before. Not in all his 50 years under this godsforsaken mountain. He had always been such a good boy to her face. But none of that mattered anymore.  Besides, it wasn’t like she would remember any of this anyway.  “Oh, forgive me,” he continued. “Were you not expecting that from me? Have I played your adoring pet for too long? Well let me set the record straight here and now. You repulse me.” His face twisted into a snarl. He was sure he looked more wolf than fae in that moment.  Amarantha said nothing, still caught by surprise. The arena had gone silent. No one dared make a sound as Rhys voiced everything no one else was brave enough to say out loud.  “You’re pathetic. Whatever happened to that great and ruthless general I wonder? The one who struck fear into the hearts of her enemies? Are you so helpless and pitiful now that you had to bind all of Prythian through trickery? Have you grown so miserable and weak that you are reduced to playing games with a human? A child?” It felt so good to say this out loud. To finally tell her what a vile little cretin she was.  “I’ve met rodents more appealing than you.”

[feysand-hivemind]

Sneak Peek

Violet eyes that were too beautiful to be her father's human brown eyes blinked at her. Stars twinkled and vanished in their depths, shadows gathering on the edge of his irises as if he were in pain.  "Feyre, please," he begged. "Trust me."

Have a clue which canon scene is getting a twist?

[feysand-hivemind]

We love you @rosanna-writer, your wet, wrinkly brain and your beautiful, wonderful way with words 💜

Thank you to @yourstarsmyscars and @tealeaves-and-rosepetals for the tags <3

1. How many works do you have on A03? 26!

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 264,972, but I don't think this is entirely accurate; some of those works are co-written for events and include stuff written by other participants.

3. What fandoms do you write for? ACOTAR

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try my best! I'm here to make friends, so if you're in my comments section I'm like HI HELLO NEW BESTIE. But tbh I get distracted and don't always remember.

5. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Nope

6. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have! I participated in a writing circle event last summer, where each fic was three chapters with a trio of authors writing each one, and I'm part of the @feysand-hivemind writing a "round robin" style fic.

7. What's your all-time favorite ship? It's probably a tie between Feysand and Sherlolly

8. What are your writing strengths? I'm good at coming up with buzzy, high-concept ideas that you can describe in a few words and still make people go "ooooooo I'm already obsessed, I need that NOW"

9. What are your writing weaknesses? I'm so bad at "crunchy specificity" - I tend to gloss over description or use descriptors that are too generic to be effective. With fic, I sort of use canon as a crutch and borrow a lot of descriptive language (or just say fuck it, the audience knows who these people/locations are lol), and it's a weak spot for me.

10. First fandom you wrote for? Artemis Fowl, baby's first book boyfriend, and I'll ship him with Minerva and defend her until the heat death of the universe

tagging @popjunkie42, @secret-third-thing, @cauldronblssd, @whatishowedyouinthedark, and anyone else who wants to jump in!

[feysand-hivemind]

Welcome to the time loop!

What is this project? time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) is a work of fanfiction written in a loose "round robin" style. The fic is one work intended to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different member of the Feysand Hivemind. Our goal is to create a patchwork quilt with contributions from writers with different styles who are united by our passion for Feysand.

Fic Summary

Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter.

Until one day, it doesn't.

Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact.

You can either read it Here on AO3 or find a masterlist of chapters Here on Tumblr.

[belabellissima]

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it)

Written for the @feysand-hivemind timeloop fic!!!

Pairing: Feysand

Fic Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter.

Until one day...it doesn't.

Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up in Amarantha's bed Under the Mountain - over and over. Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact. 

Chapter Summary: Rhys wakes up and suffers a lot. He meets the girl of his dreams only to lose her. He enters a timeloop. Good luck buddy, it only gets worse from here.

Chapter Warnings: Amarantha being Amarantha, references to rape/non-con, blood and gore/violent deaths, brief canonical animal death (andras), mentions of canonical child death (the winter court children)

Read on Ao3 or chapter 1 below!

The forest was a labyrinth of snow and ice. Rhys hadn’t felt cold like that - fresh, biting, like the winters in Illyria - in decades. Since before Amarantha had come and tricked them all, trapping them beneath stone.

His body - not his, but rather the body he saw through - shivered at a gust, and though it was briefly discomforting, he relished in it. Relished the way he inhaled deeply, the cold stinging at his nose and throat, chilling his lungs.

He could smell her, the way her hair blew around her face. The little wisps that escaped the braid she’d used to tie it back, the short pieces above her eyes she’d cut shorter to help keep her forehead warm.

His painter.

Her stomach rumbled, and the feel of a bow in her hand made sense. She was hunting, hungry and desperate enough to brave the woods to change that. They looked familiar, like the woods on the slopes of the Winter Court mountains. Rhys had never gotten a glimpse of the surroundings with such detail before, never been able to guess where his painter lived. Where her small cottage resided. But given the snow, the chill in the air, the forest…

Winter Court.

So close the Middle, to the Mountain and Queen trapping them all.

He heard the deer at the same time she did, saw it when her own eyes alighted on it.

Alighted on the wolf as well.

As was the way of dreams, time flowed strangely. Hours seemed to pass as she held the bow and arrow, but at the same time, Rhys felt as if the waiting, agonized and fraught with tension, lasted for the mere length of a breath.

Then she loosed the arrow, and it hit its mark with the kind of accuracy that only came from years of practice.

His painter was also a huntress, it seemed.

She drew another arrow back as she waited for it to die, her heartbeat strong enough he could feel it moving her chest with each thump; hear it in his ears, like the blood rushing through. It was a dull roar, as if he was a child again, holding a shell to his ear because his mother told him once they all held the soul of the ocean, and you could hear the waves if you listened closely.

Time moved again. The blood was sticky on her hands, hot and steaming as she skinned the beast.

Its eyes were the same color as the fae he’d had to kill for Amarantha mere hours before. Glassy, turning dull the more time passed.

Rhys tried to pull back, tried to not watch the gore. He’d seen so much of it the past forty-nine years. The past five centuries of his life. He didn’t want to watch it in his dreams too, in the respite these minutes with his painter brought him. She was supposed to be safe, be the one good thing left in this world.

Not have blood on her hands, because starving was the alternative.

But try as he might, he couldn’t pull back. Couldn’t close his eyes, turn away from the blood before him. The color was so bright against the snow, so red.

Red, like Amarantha’s hair, her nails. The color she painted her lips before sitting in her throne, the color she made him draw from her victims time and time again-

Rhys’ heart pounded in his own chest, as if to make up for the poor creature’s loss of one, faster, faster, until with a gasp, he shot up in bed, awake.

The room was dimly lit, the faelights extinguished but the fireplace still emanating heat from the steadily glowing embers. He couldn’t suck in air fast enough, couldn’t get his hands uncovered long enough to see that the sticky blood wasn’t there, that it had just been a dream-

The sheet ripped in half with his desperation, but he could finally see them. Saw that they were a sickly, greyish brown from the lack of sunlight, not red from blood. They were shaking, a fine tremor that he often couldn’t stop from appearing first thing after waking, when he still did not know whether he was still stuck in his nightmares or back in the land of horrid, waking tortures.

Past the walls of this room, beyond that door, he was the nightmare. But inside, where no one could see - not while Amarantha still slept, at least - the nightmares ruled him.

Rhys shoved his hands through the damp hair sticking to his forehead, pushing it back and calming his breathing.

He could still smell her. It was strong enough that if he closed his eyes, he might think her laying beside him in bed.

Part of him wanted to pretend.

Pretend it was her instead of Amarantha, who somehow still slept on, unbothered by his sudden movements.

He dropped his hands, slumping back down to lie flat on the bed and stare blankly at the ceiling. It was hewn from obsidian, so it wasn’t entirely smooth. There were waves and divots in it, places with the carver hadn’t been able to - or hadn’t intended to - make it look like anything other than a uniquely shaped cave.

Rhys didn’t love much about being trapped there, but the ceiling was one of the few things he managed to find beautiful. Each stroke of the chisel, each divot in the stone - they looked like the path falling stars would take. Like clouds in the sky; like the scales of a fish or any number of things he missed from the Above. Anything he hadn’t been allowed to see in decades, had taken for granted in the centuries of life preceding confinement.

Rhys let himself wallow for only a minute more. One minute to grieve, one minute to let himself be fragile, here where no one else could see. Then he rolled out of the bed, using a wisp of his magic to replace the ripped sheet with another from Amarantha’s collection, the torn one appearing in his hands. It was a good thing she’d hogged the blanket, he supposed. It would have been harder to replace the lush bedding than a simple top sheet without getting caught. Besides, there were plenty of fae trapped down here too that were freezing while he had a fireplace and access to as many blankets as he could want. Might as well drop it off in one of their cells.

Let someone benefit from his nightmare.

~

Amarantha held her goblet out to him, not even bothering to look. She was reclined in her throne, overseeing the revel below like a wicked goddess searching for her next favored one. Never an honor to be chosen, but a terror. No one enjoyed having the eye of an all-powerful entity fixed on them.

But Rhys didn’t appreciate her disregard either. He was a High Lord, Cauldron damn it all, and he’d been reduced to being her cupbearer. But it was better than being her toy that night. The other High Lords watched from the corner of their eyes as he picked up a nearby pitcher, filling her cup with wine again.

He wondered idly how easy he might poison her drink. Slip in faebane, nightshade, anything.

“Rhysand,” she drawled, still focused on the scene before her. On the lesser fae with delicate dragonfly wings that was sobbing as one of the Attors’ ilk tore at them, reveling in the screams. Rhys blinked a few times, forcing the delicate mask to stay on his face as he waited for her to speak more. “How long has it been since I last sent a gift to Tamlin?”

“A week, my Queen,” he answered immediately. It had been a puca - a vicious way to die, to be sure, but not nearly as bad as some of the other monsters she had in her arsenal. “It should be arriving in the Spring Court any day now.”

Amarantha smiled, her lips splitting like a flytrap flower, the pink of her lips enough to entice anyone foolish enough to get too close. “Wonderful,” she crooned, finally turning her head to look at him and crooking one finger his way. He let his lips curl into a returning smile, passing the jug of wine to the nearest courtier so he could slide his hands into his pockets as he obeyed, so she wouldn’t see the way they curled into fists, nails digging into palms.

“Go into the catacombs, Rhysand, and release the Bogge.”

He dipped his head in a bow to hide his apprehension.

If he had access to his full magic, to his full might and power, he’d be able to mist the damn thing the moment his acknowledgment made it real. But as he was, the best he could do would be to wound it enough to chase it out from the below.

Amarantha had to know that, but she also didn’t care. What did it matter if Rhys was injured obeying her? That’s what he was for in her eyes. To be the sword that struck down her enemies, the shield that took blow after blow in her defense.

Stolen from its rightful wielder.

None of her guards or soldiers stopped him as he descended. He sent out mental suggestions to the servants, invisible as they walked the halls, to vacate the area. Any who were still in their rooms he had drift further into sleep for the moment. Then he came to the door, wooden and fragile looking, that marked the entrance to the catacombs. The majority of Prythian fae were locked down there, not lucky - or unlucky - enough to be needed for growing and producing food, nor high enough in status to warrant being a guest in the Court Under the Mountain.

Rhys unlocked the door with a twitch of his finger, the magic costing him more than it should have. Such a thing wouldn't have even registered before, just one more unconscious act he would do daily in order to burn off the excess power. But now, he felt it. It wasn’t much, comparatively, but he shouldn’t have felt it at all.

The door swung open on its own, and Rhys felt the presence of the Bogge immediately. It guarded the door, hunted and consumed any who grew too close, too wild to control. It focused all that attention on him. Rhys stared at the ground, refusing to return the stare.

He backed up a step, turned his back to the creature, though his neck prickled with the sense of danger as he retreated back the way he came. It followed him, whispering at him to pay attention, to turn around, to look, to look, to look…

Rhys walked and walked, the door that the Bogge had once guarded snicking shut again. He kept his hands in his pockets as he walked, his shoulders relaxed. He cast his mind out again and again, turning away any who started to head in their direction, until he’d made it to the long hallway that led to an exit. He couldn’t leave, not with Amarantha’s magic keeping them trapped, but he was able to walk right up to the door and open it with her order freshly loosening his leash. Sunlight blinded him, and he sucked in a sharp breath, hissing as he threw up a hand to protect his eyes.

Then he turned his back to the glorious sight, looking straight at the Bogge. “Your lady requests you visit the Spring Court,” he said, stepping aside out of its way, ready for it to attack. It looked like it would listen to its orders, but take him along as a snack for the road.

The Bogge lunged for him. Rhys ducked, kicking out as it landed on his other side. It fell backward through the doorway, and Rhys slammed it shut in its face.

The Bogge howled its displeasure from the other side, but finally ceased after a minute, off to obey its queen.

And Rhys did the same, walking the hallways back down into the belly of the mountain, until he stood once again at the Deceiver’s side, holding her damned cup.

~

He dreamed of her again, almost every night for weeks. He’d never gotten so many flashes from her life, his painter, his huntress, never seen so clearly the dreams she constructed in the night.

But here, with the end of the curse so close, he did. He recognized it too - those were the hills of the Spring Court, so different from her normal scenery. Kallias had a secret city just like he did, somewhere hidden away where Amarantha couldn't find it, and after that glimpse of the wolf, Rhys had hoped she was safe there. Rhys would do anything to protect Velaris, and he knew Kallias would do the same, so though he watched the High Lord of Winter closely, he said nothing. Let the male plot in the shadows.

What Amarantha didn’t know, she couldn’t order him to uncover.

He thought, briefly, of trying to find his painter. Thought, perhaps, he could see her with his own eyes, rather than her world through hers.

But then he remembered the fae whose wings Amarantha had torn off. Remembered the way she’d laughed, and he’d heard that laugh even in his own dreams.

His painter was safe. That was the important thing. Safe and far, far away from Amarantha. And probably not even real; just some figment of his imagination spawned from the torment of so long compartmentalizing, from wearing a mask and doing horrible things to protect his own people. Even if she was somehow real, how could he go to her? How could he stand before her and let her see the blood on his hands?

Blood he’d put there willingly - not from a desperation to not starve, from hunting for food like her own occasionally were, but rather from the savagery being stuck Under the Mountain brought out in him. Brought out in all of them.

No. She was a dream. A beautiful dream, yes, but one time would soon fade. A dream to keep him sane down here in the dark. Better to leave her there, in the light.

Far away from him.

~

Calanmai came and went. His painter’s dreams shifted. The bonfires gone, the portraits increasing. More fae faces, masks covering their eyes.

Rhys lost track of the days, letting the hellish monotony of Under the Mountain pass him by.

Would Tamlin manage to break her curse? He hadn’t rooted for his old friend in decades, hadn’t wanted him to have happiness in the wake of his betrayal, but he begged the Mother to grant him that this one time.

The thought ran through his head over and over as he watched Amarantha torturing some poor fae. He remained in the shadows, holding the fae’s mind, while Amarantha dug her nails into his neck, pulling flesh and blood out with her nails. Rhys held back his wince at the sound of the fae choking on his own blood only from the practice he’d had doing the same for years.

It was a truly vicious and horrible way to die, and one Amarantha delighted in. often cooing to Jurian’s eye that he should be used to such a sight. Rhys wasn’t sure how anyone could grow used to such a thing, but Amarantha was the proof, he supposed.

Finally, the poor creature succumbed to his injuries, but Amarantha didn’t stop until she’d used her sharpened nails to fully tear the male's head from his body. Blood splattered her neck and face, coated her dress and arms. A puddle surrounded them, and when Amarantha returned to her throne, the head clutched by the hair in her hands, her dress dragged the puddle into a smear across the red marble.

She sat back on the throne, tilting the head back and forth on her lap as she observed it. Her red lips puffed slightly into a pout, then she held out a hand palm up.

“Give me your ring, Rhysand.”

Rhys slid the signet ring off his left pinky, dropping into her cupped hand. Everything in him recoiled at the idea of her touching it, an heirloom passed down from High Lord to High Lord from the very first one to exist. The flat side of the signet, with the etching of Ramiel’s peaks and the three stars above, should never have graced the skin of a usurper. And yet Amarantha took delight in Rhys’ revulsion, the way she always did whenever she desecrated something sacred to Prythian or to him.

She rolled the ring between her fingers until she held it between her thumb and forefinger. “Beron,” she called, waiting for the High Lord of Autumn to approach her before ordering, “Fire.”

Rhys could do nothing but watch as she then carefully held his ring over the fire Beron held in his hand. It turned red quickly, and Amarantha pressed it to the head behind the ear. Her own fingers didn’t burn, protected by the spell she’d used to seal their magic. She could have heated it herself too, if she didn’t find pleasure in ordering the High Lords around.

The smell of burning meat filled Rhys’ nose. He fought back the gag with practiced ease, holding his breath until Amarantha pulled the ring back and tossed it through the air to him. It was still warm enough to hurt, but not enough to scar him too as Rhys tucked it into his pocket. He left his hands there too, hidden as he flexed his fingers, subtly wiping his palm off.

His hands were covered with metaphorical blood already. They didn’t need burned flesh on them too.

“Take this to Tamlin,” Amarantha ordered, holding the head by the hair again out toward Rhys. She was already looking away, looking toward the crowd for her next bit of entertainment. “Put it somewhere he can admire it.”

Rhys took it from her, dipping his head as he left.

Amarantha didn’t bother to watch him go.

~

Spring was… bright. Bright and loud, so busy after Rhys had spent so long in the dark. He couldn't even imagine how much brighter it would get as the sun continued to rise, as dawn melted into day. It was easy enough to slip into the minds of the morning gardeners and turn them to other tasks, to walk right up to the heron fountain and spike the poor fae’s head to the beak.

He stared for long enough that another servant began to come his way, and Rhys slipped into their mind on instinct. He was about to turn them away when he caught a glimpse of their thoughts.

Clean the area for the Lady. She wanted to paint here today.

Rhys froze for a heartbeat. Could it be?

He winnowed past the worker closer to the manor, hiding himself in the shadows still cast from the lingering night. He’d made it two steps before he caught the scent on the air, familiar and close and so, so real.

Cauldron, she was real.

Real, and he’d not come to Calanmai. Not come to the time he could have actually seen her, talked to her. But he could still see her now.

The scent was strongest coming from the open doors of a second floor balcony, and Rhys winnowed there before he’d even made the conscious decision. Soft curtains drifted with the morning breeze, and he approached on silent feet, slowly enough his own movements wouldn’t cause a stir.

He saw the bed first, then the two bodies tangled up in the sheets. Tamlin, eyes closed as he slept, and Rhys’ painter next to him. Her face was pressed into Tamlin’s neck, one arm thrown across his torso. Her hair was bunched up around her face, preventing him still from seeing her, but the sheets were pushed down to their waists, revealing his painter’s back to him.

She was beautiful, with freckles across her shoulders that looked like stars to him. He wondered if they coated her face as well. He wanted to trace the dip of her spine, press his face to her and hear her heartbeat, tangle his fingers in her hair.

His hands trembled at his sides from the wanting.

From the sick pit in his stomach as he watched. His painter was with Tamlin, a golden prince with a beautiful land to match. Her skin was a canvas, one he had no interest in marring with his own touch, his own stained hands.

He dreaded what would happen when Tamlin’s time ran out. Amarantha would slaughter her out of jealousy, unless Tamlin sent her away, back to Winter.

Amarantha would not suffer that a female like this could capture his attention, when she received only his scorn.

Tamlin had better send her away before then. Rhys wouldn’t survive it if she died. Wouldn’t survive seeing her beneath stone, torn apart at Amarantha’s hands. He’d rather die himself than watch this last good thing be taken from him, like everything else he’d lost in his life.

A fresh gust of wind blew then, inward toward the sleeping pair. Tamlin remained asleep, but his painter stirred, shifting slightly and stretching as she woke. Gooseflesh erupted across her back, and she blindly reached down to feel around for the sheets to pull them back up and over her chin. Rhys allowed himself the last look, then winnowed away before Tamlin could wake as well.

He landed at the tunnel entrance and stumbled, hand coming out to catch himself on the stone walls. Tearing himself away from her had felt like tearing a piece of himself away, and he had to breathe through it for a long moment before he could stand straight again. He brushed his hands off, making sure not a speck of dirt was on him as he set his face back into his Lord of Nightmare’s mask.

The Mother had been kind to give him such a gift, the chance to see his painter even once. Even if it meant seeing her with his enemy.

It had been enough. Would have to be enough.

~

Barely a few weeks later, Winter rebelled. Amarantha had grown so angry, Rhys feared she would bring the whole mountain down on them all, regardless of the fact that the rebels had already been slaughtered.

“Ungrateful,” she hissed, pacing back and forth in her room. Rhys tracked her with only his eyes, not daring to move a muscle and draw the ire onto him. “I allowed him to remain here, I host him and his nobles, bestow gifts on him, and he has the audacity to try and usurp me? Just like his father, to revolt. To ignore everything I’ve given them. See if I don’t kill him too.”

“He is the last of his line,” Rhys cautiously said. “Who would the magic go to?”

“I do not care, Rhysand. Perhaps it will go to someone who can do as they're told and obey their Queen properly.”

Rhys couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t let his painter’s High Lord suffer for something he didn’t even know about. Enough had died, and if they ever made it free of Amarantha, he doubted his painter would appreciate her home being in such upheaval from losing a second High Lord in the span of fifty years.

“My Queen.” Rhys stepped closer, knowing he was inviting more pain on himself as he did so. “The rebels are dead, and Kallias could not have known of the attempt. He is as loyal as any of us. He knows he is only High Lord because of you, and I do not believe he would be so foolish as to attack you and your authority in such a way. If they had come to him, he would have gone straight to you. You know I keep an eye on them for you. Even if he hadn’t gone to you, I would have.”

Amarantha watched him approach her back through the mirror on her wall. A test. Rhys reached out to put his hands on her shoulders, gently digging his thumbs into the muscle to try and relax her. Make her a little less volatile. Slowly, her tension seeped away, until she leaned back against him, eyes closed.

Rhys’ stomach roiled at the sight, but he did not stop.

“Perhaps I can excuse his ignorance this once,” she sighed. “Enough to spare his life. But he still needs to learn to keep a better hold of his people.”

“Perhaps a trip to your dungeons, my Queen. Just long enough for the message to… sink in.”

Amarantha cracked open an eye, lips curling with pleasure at the thought. She hummed, then righted herself and stepped away from him. She strode to her desk, quickly scribbling out a message before vanishing it with a snap of magic. Orders for her soldiers to carry out.

She returned to him then, raising a hand to trail it along his cheek. “Such a good little pet,” she cooed.

Rhys smiled at that. Imagined tearing out her heart with his hands.

Amarantha took his hands in her own and led him over to the bed, and Rhys did his best to not think at all.

Hours later, a knock came from the door, then the Attor stepped in. “It is done, my Queen,” it said, grinning at Amarantha. “They were unprepared for the attack, and our forces found no resistance. The example has been made.”

Rhys’ heart dropped. He reached out with his mind, tried to find what soldiers she might have sent, somewhere nearby in the Winter Court.

He found them easily enough, but stopping them…

It was beyond him. Rhys scraped at their minds, but Amarantha’s spell held him back. They probably couldn’t even feel it. But he could feel them.

Could feel the way they relished in the pain they caused. Pain that was hours old already. The carnage was done. There was nothing he could do anymore but bear witness through memory.

Rhys watched what glimpses he could get, and was horrified.

Children. She’d sent another daemati to slaughter children.

A dozen of them, minds wiped to nothing.

In bed next to him, Amarantha nearly purred with delight as she dismissed the Attor and turned back to him, hand trailing across his skin.

He thought again of just reaching out and attacking her. Of tearing her apart, or at least trying to. Maybe she would kill him too.

Then he would never have to face Kallias.

Never have to face the knowledge of how he’d failed his painter and her people so spectacularly.

Instead, he let Amarantha crawl over him. Looked up at the carved ceiling, and pretended he didn’t care.

~

A few days later, Amarantha ordered him out again. It seemed the closer they grew to the deadline, the more freedom she granted him as her paranoia grew.

He couldn’t deny that most of him wanted to go simply to see his painter again, one last time if it were possible. If she was still there, if Tamlin hadn’t sent her away yet. Even if she hated him for failing her people. He didn’t know which he dreaded more: not seeing her, or having to be the reason she left. Having to terrify Tamlin enough that he ordered her to flee.

He’d do it, but it would hurt.

That was the price of protecting those he loved. He was well used to paying it.

It was a relief to not hide his power this time around. To stroll right down the gravel path cutting through a manicured lawn, up the marble steps of the grand entrance. It was easy to bind the sentries to their places, prevent them from stopping him as he walked inside the manor.

He cast his attention outward to find Tamlin, sense the power roiling beneath his skin, and headed toward him within moments. Lucien was there as well, and Rhys could sense their fear as walked closer, their apprehension rising with every step he took, every scuff of his boots on the black and white checkered floors.

They were trying to be casual when he walked in. Tamlin was cleaning his nails, and Lucien stood by the window, gazing out as if waiting for his lost love to return from the dead.

There was no painter.

“High Lord,” Rhys crooned, hiding his disappointment and his relief.

“What do you want, Rhysand?” Tamlin growled at him, flicking his eyes up without moving his head, the hint of fangs at his mouth.

Rhys smiled, putting a mocking hand over his heart. “Rhysand? Come now, Tamlin. I don’t see you for forty-nine years, and you start calling me Rhysand? Only my prisoners and my enemies call me that.” A lie, of course. He’d seen plenty of Tamlin not even a few days earlier. He didn’t want to think too long or hard about why Tamlin hadn’t been clothed in that bed, why his painter hadn’t either. So he looked to Lucien instead.

“A fox mask. Appropriate for you, Lucien.”

“Go to Hell, Rhys.”

Didn’t Lucien know he was already in it?

“Always a pleasure dealing with the rabble,” Rhys said, pushing that bleak thought from his mind and turning to Tamlin. He’d much rather antagonize him and cause him troubles than think about his own. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting.”

“We were in the middle of lunch,” Tamlin said.

How boring. Rhys almost frowned, but instead purred, “stimulating,” with as much derision as he could manage.

“What are you doing here, Rhys?” Tamlin demanded, still in his seat.

“I wanted to check up on you. I wanted to see how you were faring. If you got my little present.”

“Your present was unnecessary.”

He was one to talk. Tamlin didn’t have to witness the poor creature's bloody death, pick out the burned pieces of their skin from his signet ring and wash it in boiling water just to get rid of the smell. He wanted to cut at Tamlin, make him feel a sliver of that horror too.

Rhys clicked his tongue and surveyed the room. “What a pity that you must endure such… torture up here in the sunlight and fresh air. It really is such a hardship, isn’t it?”

Tamlin sighed, resigned to his fate as he rubbed his temples. “Save it for another time, Rhys. You’ll see me soon enough.”

True. Only a few more days and he’d be beneath the mountain with the rest of them. Rhys wanted to stay while he could, soak in as much sunlight as he could, but Amarantha had ordered him not to linger, so Rhys turned, preparing to leave the way he’d come.

“She’s already preparing for you,” he warned. “Given your current state, I think I can safely report that you’ve already been broken and will reconsider her offer.”

He ran a finger along the back of one of the chairs as he went, and he would’ve kept going if Lucien’s breath hadn’t hitched as he did. What was making him nervous?

“I’m looking forward to seeing your face when you—”

He cut himself off, noticing it at last. The third, half-eaten plate of food. Tamlin’s before him, Lucien’s to Tamlin’s right, abandoned when Lucien had decided to stare out the window, and a third…

Lucien went stick-straight as Rhys lifted the goblet by the plate, sniffing it once before setting it back down, the lingering traces of his painter’s scent on the rim.

She was here, she was still here. “Where’s your guest?” he asked, the sound casual when his thoughts were anything but.

“I sent them off when I sensed your arrival,” Tamlin lied coolly.

Rhys hid his snarl with a mask void of emotion, turning to face his fellow High Lord. Where could he have hidden her? Rhys would have seen her flee the room from where he’d entered the manor, and none of the windows were open-

The windows.

Lucien.

Rhys lashed out at the subtle magic surrounding Lucien, ripping away the glamour Tamlin had thrown over Rhys’ painter to keep her hidden. He couldn’t stop his rage then, couldn’t wipe it from his face as he finally saw hers for the first time, terror stricken as she met his eyes with her own.

Lucien just pressed her harder into the wall, his whole body a shield between them. As if he would ever hurt her. As if he would punish her for the glamour, when it was Tamlin that had done it.

Tamlin’s chair groaned as it was shoved back. He rose, claws at the ready, always one to react first and think things through second. Rhys ignored him, finding that his painter was a far more captivating sight.

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” Rhys said, the truth ripped from him before he’d had the chance to shove it down.

He turned to Tamlin, intent on covering that little slip. “Who, pray tell, is your guest?”

“My betrothed,” Lucien answered, the one lie Rhys would never believe.

He laughed, loud and long, then said, “did you know she’s cuckolding you, then? With your own High Lord, no less. I saw her in his bed that morning I dropped off my little present.”

He stalked closer, relishing the way Lucien’s eyes flickered over to Tamlin in apology while Tamlin’s own lit with fury. Lucien pulled his sword free, intent on running Rhys through with it, but Rhys merely batted it away with some of his lingering magic. The sword went flying, smacking the far wall and slicing into the wallpaper. Rhys couldn’t be bothered to look, even as he brushed Lucien aside with his magic as well.

His anger with Tamlin was growing, even as he thanked the Mother over and over again for having a second chance to see her, to finally glimpse her face, the shine of her hair, the way her bangs were just long enough to curl right below her eyebrows, the way her rounded ears held back the rest-

Rounded.

Rhys’ stare fixated on them for a moment, then he took her in in her entirety.

She wasn’t a Winter fae. She was human.

No. No.

Even if she loved Tamlin, Amarantha would slaughter her for daring to exist. Breaking the curse didn’t mean she would be safe - not at all. It would only bring a target down on her back even more so than before.

He had to scare her away, terrify her enough that she sprinted back to her side of the wall and never even thought of looking back.

There was a knife in her hands, and Rhys gently reached out to take it from her. When her weak, human grip failed her, he sent the blade in the same direction as Lucien’s sword.

“That won’t do you any good, anyway,” Rhys said to her, hating every moment of what he was about to do. He gave himself one last look at her, then reached into her mind, holding it gently in his mental talons. Her whole body stiffened, and he felt the pulse of fear deep in his gut.

“Let her go,” Tamlin said, bristling, but didn’t advance forward, panicked that Rhys might crush his painter’s mind for the attempt. “Enough.”

“I’d forgotten that human minds are as easy to shatter as eggshells,” Rhys mused. He brought his hand up to her neck, running one gentle finger along the base of her throat, feeling the pulse of her heart fluttering like a trapped bird. His painter shuddered at the contact, and Rhys would have given anything for her to be shuddering for a different reason than fear. “Look at how delightful she is—look how she’s trying not to cry out in terror. It would be quick, I promise.”

The thought of using his gift to kill her… to melt her mind into mush in the space between breaths. Rhys was almost sick at the thought, and to distract himself - hurt himself, really, with the things he knew he would find - he pushed past her fear and drew forth her memories of Tamlin.

“She has the most delicious thoughts about you, Tamlin,” he said, finding the thoughts he’d been searching for. “She reminisced about the feeling of your fingers on her thighs—between them, too.” He chuckled. “Not just fingers, either.”

“Let. Her. Go.” Tamlin’s face twisted with such feral rage that it struck a different, deeper chord of terror in his painter, and Rhys turned that over for a moment. She cared for Tamlin, but feared his rage too.

Just not enough to outweigh her love.

“If it’s any consolation,” Rhysand confided to him, “she would have been the one for you—and you might have gotten away with it. A bit late, though. She’s more stubborn than you are.”

Rhys caressed his painter’s mind one last time, then retreated. His painter gasped as she sank to her knees, reeling, desperately trying not to scream.

“Amarantha will enjoy breaking her,” Rhys said. “Almost as much as she’ll enjoy watching you as she shatters her bit by bit.”

Tamlin was frozen, arms limp at his side. “Please,” he said.

“Please what?” Rhys coaxed.

“Don’t tell Amarantha about her.”

“And why not? As my ruler, I should tell her everything.”

“Please,” Tamlin managed, as if it were difficult to breathe. As if he had any of the same struggles that Rhys faced, as if he faced even a fraction of the pain Rhys did.

Rhys turned back to his painter. “What’s your name, love?” He hadn’t meant to let the word slip out, but Cauldron, if being perceived as sarcastic was the only way he could voice that truth, then who was he to stop himself?

He waited, nearly impatiently, as his painter held out. He was about ready to gently coax it from her mind when she said, “Clare Beddor.”

Rhys blinked once, the corner of his mouth pulling back. It was such an obvious lie. She didn’t look like a Clare, didn’t say it with any sense of honesty in her voice or demeanor.

But he supposed it was better, safer, that she lie. If only it hadn’t ripped at him to still be left unknowing.

“Are you going to tell Amarantha?” Tamlin interrupted.

Rhys smirked. “Perhaps I’ll tell her, perhaps I won’t.”

Never. He’d never tell her about his painter.

In an instant, Tamlin was on his feet, fangs bared to Rhys’ face.

“None of that,” Rhys tutted, clicking his tongue and lightly shoving Tamlin away with a single hand. “I best be off, back to her. But this was entertaining - the most fun I’ve had in ages, actually. I’m looking forward to seeing you Under the Mountain. I’ll give Amarantha your regards.”

Then Rhys winnowed away, the last thing he saw the terrified face of his lovely painter.

~

Amarantha was eager for his report, dismissing the Attor from her side the moment she saw Rhys walk back into the throne room. He slid his hands into his pockets as he climbed the steps up to her throne, dipping his head in a bow before sliding into place at her side.

“Well?” Amarantha demanded.

“He is resigned to his fate, my Queen.” Rhys lied smoothly. “I saw no evidence of his attempting to break his curse. Just him and the fox moping, drinking away the last of their wine before they come below to your court. Even his servants avoid him, disgusted with his lack of effort.”

Amarantha smiled, her red lips pulling apart like a wound, revealing bone beneath. “Good,” she mused. “Very good. Perhaps this whole thing will be easier than I expected.”

Rhys smiled, but inside, he was screaming.

Three days later, Tamlin arrived Under the Mountain.

He didn’t even bother to fight.

Rhys wondered why he’d ever expected differently of him.

~

Two weeks passed. Two weeks of horror, of Tamlin sitting at Amarantha’s side, his face as stone-like as his heart. He didn’t bother to speak, didn’t bother to give any indication that he’d almost broken the curse.

Rhys was glad for that much at least. Even if it meant he’d never see his painter again, at least Amarantha would never see her either. If she never suspected, then how would she ever know?

Rhys had grown used to hell. He could survive it.

And then the worst happened.

He’d been by a table in the throne room when the Attor had dragged some poor soul in. Rhys waited to see if Amarantha would call for him, but she never did, so he resumed browsing for something to eat. None of the items seemed particularly interesting to him, not when his stomach has been roiling with nausea for nearly an hour.

He tried to tune out the Attor behind him, tune out the torture that was sure to come. But then he really registered what the Attor had said - Just some human thing I found downstairs. Tell Her Majesty why you were sneaking around the catacombs—why you came out of the old cave that leads to the Spring Court.

Rhys spun toward the sound and his heart lurched.

No.

No.

There she was, his painter, on her hands and knees and glaring up at Amarantha like she had a death wish.

It was a lucky thing indeed that no one was near him, because Rhys couldn’t stop the panicked sound that ripped free before he managed to strangle it down.

The Attor kicked her in the ribs, sending her back down as its claws pierced her ribs. Rhys took a few steps forward, already shaking his head as the Attor demanded, “Tell Her Majesty, you human filth.”

“I came to claim the one I love,” she said quietly, looking at Tamlin.

“Stop,” Rhys whispered, but his painter did not hear him. Did not heed his warning.

“Oh?” Amarantha said, leaning forward in her throne, her painted nails already starting to dig into the armrests.

“I’ve come to claim Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court.”

Slowly, Amarantha turned her head to look at Tamlin, seated impassively next to her. He hid it well, but Rhys could feel his terror, his dread. There was no hiding this anymore.

When she realized Tamlin wasn’t going to speak, Amarantha then looked for Rhys. People backed out of her line of sight, leaving a clear path right to him.

Amarantha was quiet as she said, “You… lied to me.”

Rhys was trembling, barely holding back from rushing for his painter, from straight out attacking Amarantha. He’d fail, but it was better than nothing, right? Better than watching as she killed his painter.

He didn’t have time to react. She raised her hand and blasted him back with a wall of white light.

He hit the far wall of the throne room hard enough to crack the stone, and landed face first on the ground after, whole head ringing and bleeding from multiple places. He couldn’t even see, was too dizzy as his ears rang, desperately trying to shake it off and get back to the fight.

Distantly, he heard screaming.

By the time he finally shoved himself back to his feet, whole body swaying and sight doubling every few moments before returning to normal, his painter was already broken on the floor.

Amarantha towered over her, kicking over and over at her ribs, snarling insults at the poor girl desperately trying to curl up to protect herself. Tamlin was thrashing on his throne, held in place by more of Amarantha’s guards.

His painter was already black and blue, blood pouring from her nose and mouth, one arm broken so far the bone stuck out.

Rhys managed one step toward her before the Attor was by his side, grabbing him and shoving him down onto the ground again, sprawling across the stone. Rhys hit his chin on the ground, biting through his tongue hard enough that blood filled his mouth. He spat it out and pushed to his knees, crawling all of two feet forward before the Attor grabbed his ankle and yanked him backward again.

In the crowds, the other High Lords watched, horrified. Terrified.

Unwilling to aid him.

Of course they were. When Amarantha was on the warpath, one learned to get out of her way, not step directly into it.

The Attor stepped on Rhys’ back, digging its claws right into his spine. Directly between where his wings sprouted when they weren’t hidden away. It leaned down over him, hot breath making Rhys cringe as it hissed, “You thought you could lie to Her Majesty and get away with it? She will deal with you soon enough.”

Cauldron, he couldn’t move.

Couldn’t get to her.

His painter screamed again, the sound so loud and sharp that Rhys flinched, before it cut off halfway as Amarantha grabbed her throat and squeezed.

Rhys flung his magic at Amarantha, scrambled to get a hold on her mind, but his mental talons simply glanced off, nothing more than an irritating bug.

Tears blurred his eyes as he lashed out again, and again, each time failing to land a hit.

Amarantha snarled at his painter, then let go of her throat to return to raking those claw-like nails down her skin. His painter screamed again, and this time, Rhys reached for her mind instead.

He seized it in his talons, wrapping them around the girl like a protective cage, bars to block out any threat.

He made her continue to scream, but inside, she no longer felt pain.

Just confusion at what had happened. How she’d gone from sneaking down the hallways to rescue the one she loved to bleeding out on the floor within minutes.

Confusion at where the pain had suddenly gone. If it would return. If she was going to die.

Rhys shuddered at that thought.

Yes. Probably.

And he was a fool for ever thinking he could have protected her.

I’m so sorry, he whispered to her.

Her mental attention latched on him. Rhysand? Is that you?

Rhys closed his eyes, letting his head fall to the ground. He didn’t want to see what Amarantha was doing anymore.

Yes, Painter. It’s me.

What’s happening?

She sounded so small asking it, even in his mind. Scared.

I took your pain away. But I… I can’t save you.

There was a pause, during which he forced her body to scream again, to beg for mercy he already knew Amarantha would not give.

You didn’t tell her about me. You lied to her.

Yes. I knew she would hurt you if I told her the truth.

You lied… to protect me? But I thought you and Tamlin were enemies.

Yes, Painter. He sighed. Tamlin is my enemy. Him. Not you. Never you. And I would rather he have won than Amarantha, anyway.

Rhys looked back up at his painter, lying there broken on the floor. Amarantha’s whole body was heaving with her furious breaths. Blood covered her whole face, and she paused her torture long enough to wipe at her face, smearing it across her mouth. Then she straightened, rolling her shoulders back as she stared down at the human at her feet.

Why do you call me Painter?

I do not know your name. You gave a false one.

Amarantha backed up a step, then kicked one last time at his painters ribs. The crack of her bones was loud enough the entire hall could hear.

You knew?

Even her mental voice was starting to weaken.

Rhys mentally nodded. Yes, Painter. I knew.

Amarantha tilted her head back and forth, cracking her neck like she was just getting started.

Rhys didn’t see where she could go from there. His painter was already standing with one foot into the land of milk and honey.

Will you tell me it? He begged.

It came through like a sigh. Feyre. My name is Feyre.

Rhys closed his eyes, the sound of the name an answer to a question he’d been asking for years.

Rhys?

Rhys’ heart jumped at that. At her calling him Rhys instead of Rhysand. Even without being asked.

Yes, Feyre?

She's not going to let either of us live, is she?

Rhys’ cheek was wet against the ground from his own tears as he said, No Feyre. She isn’t.

Rhys?

Yes, Feyre, darling?

Will you stay with me? Until the end?

Rhys sobbed. Even the fae around him looked over in shock, having never heard him utter such a sound.

“Always,” he whispered, both aloud and to her mind.

And some of the fear in Feyre’s heart seemed to melt away at that. At knowing she at least wouldn’t be alone.

And then Amarantha, apparently done observing Feyre beneath her, said, “You mortals are so fragile. So easily broken. But I’m not done having fun yet. Thesan? Heal her while I deal with Rhysand.”

Rhys’ heart stopped.

Amarantha was going to kill him, yet bring Feyre back.

Over and over, if he had to guess, until she eventually tired of torturing her. But Rhys would no longer be there to take her pain. To talk her through it. To be there with her when she eventually died.

He had promised her she wouldn’t be alone.

He would rather suffer another five hundred years Under the Mountain than ever see Feyre suffer like this again. Ever leave her alone, let her feel the pain of every excruciating minute.

Even if it damned him. Even if it broke something in him. At least he would die quickly afterward.

Feyre, darling?

Yes, Rhys?

I’m so sorry, love.

He didn’t give her the time to realize his intention. Simply dug those once-protective mental talons into her mind, and let her slide into peace without any more pain.

Amarantha didn’t even notice her precious plaything die.

Rhys felt every excruciating moment. Letting Feyre slip away, leaving only emptiness behind in her wake, was a new form of torture he didn’t think even Amarantha could have invented. His mind wanted to tug on her fading presence, hold fast to it and keep her here still, safe and coveted, and it took everything in him to relax his hold. Let her slip through his mental talons and vanish at last.

Rhys couldn’t look away from Feyre’s body as Amarantha approached him. He saw Thesan crouch over her body and pause, then look over at him, understanding what Rhys had done. Thesan shook his head and backed away, already gesturing for his court to leave if they could. Escape the coming storm. The other High Lords noticed and began to do the same.

In his throne, Tamlin stilled, staring down at Feyre as the last of his hope died.

All of them could go to hell, as far as Rhys cared.

Amarantha crouched at his head, reaching down to run her fingers through his hair and grip it tightly. The Attor finally removed the claws in Rhys’ back, stepping aside so Amarantha could pull Rhys up by the tight grip she had on him.

Rhys spat in her face, finally letting down the mask he’d had up for five decades. It was petty, perhaps, but he grinned anyway as Amarantha flinched at the sudden wetness on her face.

Then she snarled at him, the sound beastlike. Wholly animal.

She didn’t give him the chance to speak before she’d dug her nails into his neck and pulled it out, dropping him back to the ground as he choked on his own blood.

It was painful, but Rhys relished every moment. He deserved it, really, for his part in Feyre’s death. For not protecting her enough, for not killing Amarantha fifty years ago when he had the chance.

But Amarantha wouldn’t get to hurt Feyre anymore, at least. Would have to find someone else to torture. And to Rhys, that was enough.

His vision slowly began to fade as he coughed and sputtered, never able to get enough air, but he knew where her body was at least, and no one was holding him back anymore.

Rhys crawled to her, sure he was leaving a trail as he went, finally collapsing at Feyre’s side.

He barely heard it as Amarantha screamed, finally realizing that Feyre was already gone. It didn’t matter anymore.

He’d lost.

He wished it could have been different. Wished he’d heeded the fucking warnings he’d gotten through his dreams. Hadn’t he dreamt of Feyre killing Tamlin’s sentry? It had been months earlier that he’d dreamt of a wolf in the woods. Months that he could have spent preparing. Planning. But he’d been too foolish.

What he wouldn’t give for a different outcome.

I’m so sorry, he thought toward Feyre’s body, the last thing he knew he’d ever think.

And then, finally, Rhysand slipped into unconsciousness.

Into death.

~

Death was… cold.

Rhys opened his eyes to a labyrinth of trees coated in ice and snow, with harsh winds gusting through and wracking his body with shivers.

Well then. He’d suspected, of course, that he wouldn’t make it to the land of milk and honey, but to actually see it? Feel it?

At least Feyre wasn’t there. She’d make it through the gates to the immortal lands. She deserved that, deserved an eternity of sunlight and warmth. Of flowers, and birds chirping. Of never feeling hungry again.

Not like Rhys did right then, his stomach growling.

He hadn’t expected that, at the very least. Hunger wasn’t exactly something the dead felt. But then again, who was to know for sure? The dead didn’t tend to talk.

A branch snapped close by, and Rhys’ attention snapped to it.

When he saw the deer, he froze.

This… was so familiar.

He pulled back the arrow - when had he picked up a bow? - and aimed for its heart, and then the wolf appeared.

He loosed the arrow. Approached the beast and watched it die.

Knelt in the snow to skin it.

Sat up with a gasp, hands turning to talons as he fell from the bed, hitting the ground hard and loudly.

Where was he? Rhys’ eyes wildly scanned the room, taking in the bedding, the chiseled ceiling, the fireplace glowing with embers.

“Rhysand?” Amarantha’s voice came from above the bed. “Did you just fall out of bed like a child?” Her mocking face appeared over the edge.

Rhys snapped, lunging for her. Her eyes went wide for a moment as his hands locked around her neck, lips pulled back into a snarl as he pressed down.

She’d tortured Feyre. Forced him to kill her to spare her any more pain. Killed him, then. She deserved to die. Who was he to waste such an opportunity?

He wasn’t sure how exactly he’d gotten it, how he’d survived getting his throat torn out, why Amarantha would have healed him. Have him returned to her room, her bed, to sleep beside her as if he hadn’t made it clear where his true loyalties lay.

Amarantha gasped uselessly for air, hands scrambling first at his face, then under her pillow. Rhys squeezed harder.

Her arm came back up, dagger clutched in her fist. She drove it into his chest and shoved him off her. Rhys didn’t even feel the pain as he toppled back to the ground, landing once again on the hard stone floor.

He could feel his heart fruitlessly trying to keep beating, to keep him alive, but the dagger had been true.

Amarantha sneered above him. “Really? You actually thought that would work? What a waste.”

Rhys’ vision faded again.

And again, there was cold. Hunger.

A deer and a wolf.

He woke quietly the next time. Eyes fluttering open to stare at the chiseled ceiling. The bedding. The fireplace. The Deceiver next to him.

What was happening?

Rhys rose from the bed, pulling on his sleep pants and quietly leaving the room. He winnowed to the throne room, stumbling slightly in his haste as he landed. The room was empty due to the time, and Rhys slowly padded barefoot across the stone floor.

There was no stain where Feyre had fallen. No trail from where he had crawled to her. There was no second throne beside the first for Tamlin to sit in.

Rhys stared at the spot on the ground, losing track of time until he heard soft footsteps. His head whipped up, and the lesser fae on the other side of the room jumped in fright at having Rhys’ sudden and full attention on them.

Rhys blinked.

He knew that fae. Amarantha had torn their wings from their back and sent them to Tamlin. They had died.

Months ago.

What was it he had thought, again? Laying there in a pool of his own and Feyre’s blood?

He’d wished it could have been different. Wished that he’d heeded the dreams Feyre had been sending his way for months.

Years.

What he wouldn’t have given for a different outcome.

It seemed the Mother had heard him.

Wasn’t quite done with him yet.

Rhys turned his back to the fae he’d startled, retreating from the throne room.

Feyre was coming, and he only had a few months to plan how he was going to save her. Change things, this time around.

He wouldn’t ever let her die again.

[rosanna-writer]

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) (2/?)

Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter. Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact. A "round robin" style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt. Warnings: canon-typical sexual violence, canon-typical violence, temporary character death Rating: Explicit Chapter Word Count: ~2k

To absolutely no one's surprise, I'm part of @feysand-hivemind! I am so lucky to be able to create something alongside the sweetest, most talented group of people with the biggest, wettest, wrinkliest brains (and the biggest wingspans to match). I love you guys so much!

Moodboard by @octobers-veryown

Chapter 1: now we're at the starting line (i did my time) - Loop 0-2 | Chapter 2: Loops 5-11

You can read it Here on AO3 or under the cut!

It had started with a deer and a wolf and a forest. Rhys supposed it could end there, too. There had to be a reason that he found himself back at this moment in particular, over and over.

Something momentous, something world-changing happened every time Feyre loosed that arrow. He knew that down to the marrow of his bones.

Perhaps, then, he’d been tasked with stopping it.

The biting cold and the gnawing hunger were there again, and along with her scent and the sight of her alive, it was nearly enough to distract him.

But her eyes landed on the deer. And then the wolf.

“Feyre!” Rhys called her name, the first time he’d ever dared to voice it aloud.

She turned, and the look she leveled at him was pure hate. A human with ice in her heart, indeed.

Faerie. Rhys heard her thoughts, and she’d spat the word, all venom in her mind.

He hardly noticed. His Feyre moved like an expert, drawing the bow and aiming before she’d even finished turning, loosing the arrow on instinct. It hit its mark, and Rhys couldn’t help but marvel—it had taken him years of training in Illyria to be able to hit a target while doing anything but standing perfectly still.

His painter was a predator, too. He wasn’t even upset she’d shot him.

Rhys’s hand drifted to the wound in his chest as he watched her. Feyre hadn’t wasted time watching to ensure her arrow had found its mark—no, she’d reloaded, and Tamlin’s sentry was already dying, too.

Blood was soaking through his tunic, and Feyre had reloaded again, clearly intent on shooting him a second time to finish the job. Relentless. She had exactly the sort of tenacity Cassian had always said was a hallmark of his most promising recruits.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Rhys said, putting his hands up.

Feyre nocked the arrow but didn’t draw it. “Your kind isn’t supposed to be on this side of the Wall.”

His head was swimming, and for the life of him, Rhys couldn’t tell if it was the blood loss or those blue-grey eyes that were making him dizzy. A giddy, delirious, decidedly un-High-Lord-like laugh bubbled out of him.

“And I would have done something about that if you hadn’t shot me,” he said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” She reached back for another arrow but didn’t close her fingers around it.

Darkness was already eating at the corners of Rhys’s vision; there wasn’t much time left. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Feyre said something else, but Rhys didn’t hear it over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. He swayed on his feet, stumbling backward until he hit a tree.

Something that might have been regret flickered in Feyre’s eyes.

The stain on his chest was growing, the fuzzy darkness overtaking more and more of his vision. Staying on his feet was too much, and Rhys tumbled to the ground. There wasn’t much time left.

Feyre didn’t kneel at his side or take his hand. He was dimly aware of her standing above him, watching silently as the last of his life drained out of him, probably just making sure he stayed thoroughly dead.

Good. She was being careful. Rhys had seen more than a few warriors die because they got cocky in the brief period between landing a killing blow and their opponent's final breath. Feyre was too smart to let someone she killed go down swinging and fell her too, and for some reason, knowing she could handle herself brought him an immense sense of relief.

Rhys faded out of consciousness, and with Feyre watching over him, it was almost…peaceful.

All too soon, he found himself right back where he started. A deer and a wolf and a forest. Cold and hunger.

Perhaps he’d frightened Feyre by calling her name so abruptly last time. He must have made her panic, so of course she’d reacted on instinct and let her arrow fly.

Rhys wasn’t stupid enough to make the same mistake twice. This time, he gentled his voice as he called her name.

And again, Feyre turned. And again, she shot him without hesitation.

But as he brought his hand to his chest again, Rhys noticed her cheeks had gone pink, most likely from the cold. Perhaps though…perhaps he’d overdone it and purred her name a bit too much like a lover.

He caught the tail end of her thought about him being the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and even as blood oozed from the wound next to his heart, Rhys wanted to preen.

He was running on borrowed time before he bled out and time reset. None of this mattered at all, so he said, “For what it’s worth, you’re the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, too.”

Just for that, she put another arrow in his throat. The world faded into too-familiar nothingness.

Deer. Wolf. Forest. Cold. Hunger.

Rhys had called her name, and that had been a mistake—as far as Feyre was concerned, he had no reason to know it. Though it seemed patently ridiculous, he didn’t want to frighten her into shooting him again, so he said, “Pardon?”

Feyre whirled around, blinking in surprise, and drew the bow. “What do you want, faerie?”

“You need to run. Do not return to this part of the forest. Please. It isn’t safe.”

Her thoughts were a whirlwind of confusion, churning so quickly that Rhys could hardly keep up with all her questions or even begin to answer them. Somewhere in the middle of it, the deer bounded off into the trees.

Feyre swore. As far as she was concerned, Rhys was the reason her only chance at eating that day had just slipped away. She muttered something about faerie bullshit and shot him in retaliation.

As life drained out of Rhys again, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d expected this to turn out any differently.

And yet, he tried again. Each time, Feyre either perceived him as a threat and shot him immediately, or enough time passed that the deer got away, and then she shot him in retaliation anyway.

Rhys had known his painter held hate in her heart for the fae, but he hadn’t anticipated just how deep it ran. In the few seconds he had before she let her arrow fly, it was impossible to get Feyre to trust him.

He lost count how many times she let him bleed out in the snow before he accepted that he needed to play the long game. That was fine—Rhys was an extraordinarily patient male.

He’d known that Feyre changed the world when she sank her arrow into the wolf’s eye. Perhaps trying to stop it was wrongheaded of him; it seemed as good a guess as any that these repeated deaths were a message.

Feyre needed to kill that sentry. Rhys needed to let her.

A deer and a wolf and a forest. Cold. Hunger. And a shadow, watching over all of it.

Resigned to do things differently, Rhys woke again Under the Mountain. He stared up at the ceiling as Feyre’s scent faded from his nostrils, and for a moment, he just savored the short-lived peace. It wouldn’t be long until Amarantha was awake, too.

Somewhere across the Wall, the Cursebreaker was slinging a carcass over her shoulders and trudging home.

And maybe one day, she’d bring Rhys and the rest of Prythian home, too.

[rosanna-writer]

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) (6/?)

Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter. Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact. A "round robin" style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt. Warnings: canon-typical sexual violence, canon-typical violence, temporary character death Rating: Explicit

We've had one short Feyre death interlude, yes. But what about SECOND short Feyre death interlude?

I had so much fun giggling with the rest of @feysand-hivemind over silly ways to kill Feyre amid all the actual plot brainstorming we did! Much love to this group of unhinged goofball creative geniuses <3

Read on AO3 or find the chapter under the cut! The tumblr masterlist for the fic is here.

Watching Lucien bring Feyre back to the manor hadn't been enough to ease Rhys's mind. Even as he'd hunted the faeries who'd nearly gotten their hands on her—and enjoyed it—he'd worried.

He slipped back into the manor to check on her. And call it intuition, a gut feeling, or an impossible reason he might sense things about her that Rhys refused to even consider, but Feyre was awake. And creeping down the stairs.

Cloaking himself in shadow, he followed her, footfalls silent. She made her way down to the kitchen, completely alone with all the servants still out celebrating Calanmai. There were still a few hours left until sunrise, and Rhys was sure the denizens of the Spring Court were fully intent on wringing every last bit of merriment out of their very last Fire Night aboveground.

He couldn't blame them. He wanted to savor these rare few hours of freedom, too.

It had been so long since he'd seen the stars.

But more importantly, he wanted to see for himself that Feyre got back to bed safe and sound. Blissfully unaware of the revelry outside, with its undercurrent of frantic desperation, she was busy gobbling down half a loaf of bread.

And an apple. And a lemon tart.

Mother above, the girl could eat.

She grabbed a cookie next and practically inhaled it, so quickly that she began to cough. The coughs became strange gurgling noises. Feyre's face began to turn blue.

Before Rhys could react, she'd keeled over. Her breathing stopped. He stood there in shock, unsure what to make of the fact that Feyre had just choked on a cookie and died.

Right after the mermaid, too. Perhaps everything in the Spring Court was trying to kill her.

The thought made his insides twist as the world faded to darkness and time reset again.

He followed the same steps as before; the sequence of events was becoming painfully familiar. Rhys wondered how long it would be before he could follow them without even having to think about it.

No—he wouldn't let it come to that. He'd break them out of this loop well before that happened. He had to.

After the last disaster with the cookie, he followed her back to the kitchen after Calanmai again. And because Rhysand wasn't in the business of making the same mistakes twice, when she bit into the cookie, he called her name.

Rhys knew their encounter had frightened her, even if he had saved her from the picts. He did the only logical thing and used magic to distort his voice.

Feyre flinched. And coughed again. The whole thing ended again much the way it had in the last loop, and for the life of him, Rhys couldn't decide if seeing Feyre killed by a cookie—not even once but twice —was a message or merely some sort of divine punishment.

At least the mermaid had only deigned to attack once.

He tried again, misting the cookie before Feyre could get her hands on it. She merely choked on the lemon tart instead.

Casting a glamour to conceal the food just resulted in a head injury when Feyre fell off the step stool she'd climbed, utterly determined to find something to eat.

In the next loop, he barred the kitchen door. She managed to injure herself attempting to pry it open.

The High Lord of the Night Court accepted that he'd been bested by a cookie.

The world remade itself again, and Rhys didn't attempt to dissuade her from the kitchen. He kept his distance. She lived.

Perhaps that was the lesson behind all of this—that Feyre was better off without him getting too close. Instead, he set to work hunting the picts, and as Tamlin bit Feyre's neck somewhere in the distance, Rhys tried not to sink further into despair.

[rosanna-writer]

20 fic writer questions

Thank you to @lady-bluebird-luv and @xxvalkyriesxx for the tag! Starting a new chain since the last one was getting long and tagging @thesistersarcheron, @shallyne, @trappedoutside124, @deaiquiri, and an open tag for anyone else who wants to jump in <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

31!

2. What's your A03 word count?

336,883 but some of it is collab fics, so I'm not sure that's accurate

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just ACOTAR these days!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

we said hello and your eyes look like coming home, The Dust of the Stars in Her Eyes, a simple name and everything has changed, to make them love me and make it seem effortless, Out of the Woods

5. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmmm...maybe we'll never make our parents' mistakes? it's a canon-compliant fic about Rhys and his sister, so there's a bit of a dark cloud over the whole thing

6. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably the rest? I like angst but not without a happy ending

7. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. People mostly leave me alone because Feysand, gen fics, and the occasional rarepair don't really catch any ship war bullshit

8. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

YES! I do a lot of established relationship smut because I love fluff and writing about my blorbos generally having a good time

9. Do you write cross overs? What's the craziest one you've written?

Not really. I have written retellings, where I "cast" the ACOTAR characters into roles in other stories, but not true crossovers where characters from different media meet.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, thank god

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but I'd be flattered!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

with the rest of @feysand-hivemind, the loves of my life

13. What's your all time favorite ship?

Feysand <3

14. What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever wilI?

I ended up having a really bad time at work about halfway through writing Karma Is My Boyfriend and needed to stop writing for a few days to take care of IRL stuff. That kind of killed my motivation to finish it, especially with the event week it was for being over.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Plot and pacing!

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Description, setting, memorable minor characters

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

It just feels like a flex (presumably you'd have to translate for monolingual readers anyway) lol

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Artemis Fowl! Mor is the Minerva Paradizo of ACOTAR, and I still love them both so much

19. Favorite fic you've ever written?

I have to answer we said hello and your eyes look like coming home or else that fic will come to life and shank me

20. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try my best! At the very least, I feel obligated to thank someone for taking the time to write me something nice, and if someone's engaging with me, I want to make friends!