#honestly probably madoc too

[troublesomeobsession]

[iheartgracie]

jude duarte sad quotes

“She wasn’t even scared. She wasn’t sure she felt anything at all.”

“She couldn’t imagine how it had felt, and as the years went by, she couldn’t make herself feel it again. The horror of the murders dulled with time. Her memories of the day blurred.”

“I know it’s an honor to be raised alongside the Gentry’s own children. A terrifying honor, of which I will never be worthy.

It would be hard to forget it, with all the reminders I am given.”

“We are getting older and things are changing. We are changing. And as eager as I am for it, I am also afraid.”

“You may think salt is sufficient protection, but you children are forgetful. Better to go without. As for dancing, once begun, you mortals will dance yourselves to death if we don’t prevent it.”

I look at my feet and say nothing.

We children are not forgetful.”

“To go inside, we must ride between two trees, an oak and a thorn, and then straight into what appears to be the stone wall of an abandoned folly. I’ve done it hundreds of times, but I flinch anyway. My whole body braces, I grip the reins hard, and my eyes mash shut.”

“Oriana steps forward, probably to remind Taryn and me of all the things she doesn’t want us to do. I don’t give her the chance.”

“I turn my gaze to the floor. Though I hate it, I sink to the ground on one knee, bend my head, and grit my teeth”

“Valerian gives my braid a hard tug. I wince, useless fury coiling in my belly. He laughs and moves on.

My fury curdles into shame. I wish I had smacked his hand away, even though it would have made everything worse.”

“I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less.”

“I’m so tired,” I say out loud. “So tired.”

I sit there for a long time, watching the rising sun gild the sky, listening to the waves crash as the tide goes out, when a creature flies up to alight on the edge of my window. At first it seems like an owl, but it’s got hob eyes. “Tired of what, sweetmeat?” it asks me.

I sigh and answer honestly for once. “Of being powerless.”

“He doesn’t understand how much that makes them loathe us.

Not that I am not grateful. I like the lessons. Answering the lecturers cleverly is something no one can take from me, even if the lecturers themselves occasionally pretend otherwise. I will take a frustrated nod in place of effusive praise. I will take it and be glad because it means I can belong whether they like it or not.”

“There is nothing I can say to make them stop, and I know it. I have no power here. But today I can’t seem to choke down my anger at my own impotence.”

“What they don’t realize is this: Yes, they frighten me, but I have always been scared, since the day I got here. I was raised by the man who murdered my parents, reared in a land of monsters. I live with that fear, let it settle into my bones, and ignore it. If I didn’t pretend not to be scared, I would hide under my owl-down coverlets in Madoc’s estate forever. I would lie there and scream until there was nothing left of me. I refuse to do that. I will not do that.”

“When I was little, I used to sit at the bank all day, staring at faerie countenances instead of my own, hoping that I might someday catch a glimpse of my mother looking back at me.

Eventually, it hurt too much to try.”

“I want to scream at him: Do you know how hard it is to always keep your head down? To swallow insults and endure outright threats? And yet I have done so. I thought it proved my toughness. I thought if you saw I could take whatever came at me and still smile, you would see that I was worthy.

You’re no killer.

He has no idea what I am.

Maybe I don’t know, either. Maybe I never let myself find out.”

“I pinch my leg until pain washes everything away.”

“Do you know why Madoc won’t let me try for knighthood? Because he thinks I’m weak.”

“Jude,” she cautions.

“I thought I was supposed to be good and follow the rules,” I say. “But I am done with being weak. I am done with being good. I think I am going to be something else.”

“when the fun wore off and I still couldn’t stop, it was just terrifying. It turned out that my fear was equally amusing to him, though. Princess Elowyn found me at the end of the revel, puking and crying.”

“Here’s why I don’t like these stories: They highlight that I am vulnerable. No matter how careful I am, eventually I’ll make another misstep. I am weak. I am fragile. I am mortal.

I hate that most of all.

Even if, by some miracle, I could be better than them, I will never be one of them.”

“Is this fun?” I call to the shore. I am so furious that there’s no room for being scared. “Are you enjoying yourselves?”

“My foot slips on slick rocks, and I am under, swept downstream helplessly, gulping muddy water. I panic, snorting into my lungs. I thrust out a hand, and it closes on the root of a tree. I get my balance again, gasping and coughing.”

“We can curse you to wither away for want of a song you’ll never hear again or a kind word from my lips. We’re not mortal. We will break you. You’re a fragile little thing; we’d hardly need to try. Give up.”

“Never,” I say.”

“I think about how much I hate them and how much I hate myself.”

“a different person is looking back at me.

Maybe the person I might have been if I’d been raised human.

Whoever that is.”

“But when I see human families all together, especially families with sticky-mouthed, giggling little sisters, I don’t like the way I feel.

Angry.

I don’t imagine myself back in a life like theirs; what I imagine is going over there and scaring them until they cry.

I would never, of course.

I mean, I don’t think I would.”

“Knighthood would have been boring anyway,” Vivi says, effectively dismissing the thing I’ve been working toward for years. I sigh. It’s annoying, but also reassuring that she doesn’t think it’s that big a deal, when the loss has felt overwhelming to me.”

“not giving her the satisfaction of being shocked by what she said about our parents. She acts like we don’t remember, like there’s some way I am ever going to forget. She acts like it’s her personal tragedy and hers alone.”

“A wave of panicky frustration comes over me at the sight of her intent expression. I so badly wanted her to choose me to be one of her knights. And though she can’t now, a sudden awful fear that I couldn’t have impressed her comes over me. Maybe Madoc was right. Maybe I lack the instinct for dealing death.

If I don’t try too hard today, at least I never need know if I would have been good enough.”

“My stomach is sour with the lack of food, but I no longer feel hungry. I feel sick, eaten up with nerves. I try to ignore everything but the exercises I move through to limber up my muscles.”

“There’s no shame in surrender. As Taryn said, they’re just words. I don’t have to mean them. I can lie.

I start to lower myself to the ground. This will be over quickly, every word will taste like bile, and then it will be over.

When I open my mouth, though, nothing comes out.

I can’t do it.”

“I stagger past the tournament tents to a stone fountain, where I splash my face with water. I bend down, starting to clean the gravel from my knees. My legs feel stiff, and I am shaking all over.

“Are you all right?” Locke asks, gazing down with his tawny fox eyes. I didn’t even hear him behind me.

I am not.

I am not all right, but he can’t know that, and he shouldn’t be asking.”

“What happens when they turn out my pockets? What happens when they rip my stockings? What happens when they scatter my salt in the dirt?”

[bloody-wonder]

starting new series

in order to balance my reading i like to track the progress i'm making with old series vs how many new series i'm starting. my loose goal is usually to finish/catch up on at least five and start at least ten new series in a year - which turns out isn't as difficult as it sounds bc we're not even halfway through the year yet and i already hit the latter mark! here's an overview of what i read and my opinions :)

series that were so good i immediately read all the books available:

doctrine of labyrinths by sarah monette (book one: mélusine). okay so this was life-changing. not sarah monette inventing dark aroace romantasy in 2005! they hated her for her slay so much she had to start writing cozy fantasy under a pen name! this story is so weird and unique i honestly have no idea how to pitch it except to say that fans of books like the locked tomb, mdzs and captive prince will very likely enjoy it too. the fact that it's not a depraved booklr cult classic by now is a travesty. but we can still make it happen so if you fall into this particular reader category (and wouldn't be put off by the fact that someone may or may not want to fuck his brother a little bit) please do yourself a favor and read this series! check the trigger warnings first tho

the cemeteries of amalo by katherine addison (book one: the witness for the dead). i liked the goblin emperor, didn't love it, but after binging doctrine of labyrinths in less than a week i sorely needed a cure for my book hangover so i decided to pick up this spinoff series and wouldn't you know it - i binged it too lol. ig february was my monette/addison era. amalo felt like course correction after the goblin emperor and, while it's set in the same world and written in the same tone as that book, many of its aspects reminded me more of doctrine of labyrinths which is probably why i ended up liking it more - and was surprised by that too since i typically don't like this slow meditative writing style in fantasy but ig sarah monette just brings a certain je ne sais quoi to her books (emotional whump). the third book is coming out next march and i'm very excited to see what the saddest gay priest detective will do next👀

the stolen heir duology by holly black. to be completely honest i don't think these books are necessary. ig it was cool to return to elfhame several years post tfota and see some of my favorite ya fantasy characters from outsider pov but i found the main couple quite bland, especially in the second book where they are predictably overshadowed by jude & cardan in every respect. jude & cardan are simply The Power Couple, i love them and i appreciated the opportunity to revisit them in their 20s. madoc, everyone's favorite worst dad, has some nice scenes too but apart from that this installment was neither adventurous nor action-packed nor particularly romantic. it's clear now that holly black plans to continue writing in the elfhame universe and i sincerely hope she will try to shake things up by going full adult and/or changing the genre (i have this galaxybrain idea of a wwdits style mockumentary about madoc's exile in the human world which i'm trying to telepathically plant in holly black's brain as we speak)

evander mills by lev a. c. rosen (book one: lavender house). lavender house was the first book i read this year - i picked it up on a whim, honestly not expecting much, but ended up liking it a lot. in many respects it's a pretty basic closed circle murder mystery but with an all queer cast, whereas the second book has our gay detective investigating blackmail. the fact that the story takes place in the (homophobic) 50s and the queer victims are not protected by the law whatsoever adds an interesting spin to the whole idea of seeking and serving justice. i never thought i'm a serialized detective story type of person but ig if you make it queer enough i'll read anything lol so now i'm eagerly awaiting the next andy mills mystery which will come out in fall.

series i'm maybe going to continue reading later:

aubrey & maturin by patrick o'brian (book one: master and commander). seeing all the old man yaoi on a boat memes on tumblr rapidly propelled this series to the top of my tbr. now i have finally read the first book and,, liked it? lol idk the prose was very good, aubrey & maturin's friendship was sweet and the reading experience was cozy, with funny moments here and there, but overall i wasn't gripped by the plot nor did i particularly connect to the characters. i'm glad i read it but rn i'm not planning to continue this (extremely long) series any time soon. the book did have a delightful nautical atmosphere tho so there's a chance i might return to aubrey & maturin's adventures one day, if the mood strikes

page & sommers by cat sebastian (book one: hither, page). this one i didn't like at all tbh. i think cat sebastian just isn't the author for me and i should quit trying to read her books. however, i am both blessed and plagued by completionism and this series only has two books so i might read the second one this year just to appease my demons lol

series i'm not going to continue:

adam binder by david r. slayton (book one: white trash warlock). someone on tumblr recced this book to me ages ago and i wanted to read it ever since - purely bc of the title tbh😅 something i failed to consider tho is that urban fantasy is probably my least favorite subgenre of fantasy. and this book unfortunately didn't feature any memorable character moments or mind-blowing plot bits that could have broken through my unimpressedness with the urban fantasy setting🤷‍♀️

rook & rose by m. a. carrick (book one: the mask of mirrors). okay now we're entering the Dislike & Disappoint territory. i got interested in this series bc i heard it being compared to gentleman bastard but the similarities end at the renaissance venice setting and a conperson protagonist. the mask of mirrors completely lacks the rizz and swagger of scott lynch's writing and its characters just don't have the oomph of locke lamora and his team. so that was disappointing. on top of that the book is extremely long and convoluted with a worldbuilding that bothered me a lot and i couldn't put my finger on why until i read the themes section on its wiki page - ah yes, the us politics, again, using a foreign setting as a window dressing, again. listen, ik the us politics are important for the us authors to write about but when i pick up a book inspired by the italian renaissance what i want to get is themes and motifs representative of that time and place, even if we modernize them by (honestly lackluster) queernormativity and gender equality. i was mildly curious about the identity of the rook but now that it's been revealed i see no reason to continue this series.

the masquerade by seth dickinson (book one: the traitor baru cormorant). i intended to finish this book last year and leave it there but it was so unbelievably boring it put me into a reading slump for like two whole weeks and i ended up finishing it in january. i noticed that books about colonialism often try so hard to strike this solemn literary tone and say something profound that characters and plot just get bulldozed over by that dedication to conveying this very serious theme. admittedly, baru isn't as bad as that - i'm just biased bc she was pitched to me as a character in the same category as lymond and tyrion lannister so i was disappointed on that account seeing as it was the only reason i decided to give this book a try. i will say the general concept of the story and the plot twist at the end were indeed good but the overall reading experience was so aggressively meh that they just weren't worth it for me and so when the Big Thing happened i was still underwhelmed.

emily wilde by heather fawcett (book one: emily wilde’s encyclopaedia of faeries). i wrote a long ass goodreads review about why i disliked this book so much but let's see if i can be concise for once (ha, as if). i'm a big fan of olivia atwater's books so based on all the buzz around emily wilde i thought i was picking up a similar faerie story. turns out this was more like an "elevated" cozy fantasy version of ali hazelwood's books featuring howl in leather pants (tweed pants?). where atwater uses faerie tale tropes and fae lore to explore classism, neurodivergence and nuanced romantic and platonic connections, fawcett seems to write from a perspective that is decidedly normative. just like emily wilde, half a soul has a heroine who reads as neurodivergent but the narrative is always firmly on her side, whereas the moral in emily wilde seems to be that she has to smile and socialize more or smth. just like emily wilde, a thousand stitches features a faerie as a love interest but in this case he indeed reads like a whimsical magical being, so similar to humans and yet so different at the same time, whereas mr cheap howl knockoff reads like a quirky human man who is an asshole sometimes and can do magic. atwater's books are fairly popular but emily wilde is the book that has mass appeal and ig i shouldn't really be surprised bc when have the stories that question the status quo ever have been more popular than the ones that reinforce it? so i'm not really surprised but i am bitter. this book left a sour taste in my mouth and made me feel really bad about myself which was something i hadn't reckoned with when i picked up this cozy fantasy. tbh i initially was going to masochistically read the sequel out of morbid curiosity but then i remembered that i can read literally anything else instead lol the hater gods spared me just for once😅

2024 reading updates | goodreads

[rriavian]

A magic tool exists that allow you to change the canon plot of the sandman, what 1 thing you'd like to change or add?

(Yes I'm aware that's basically writing fanfic is xD but anyway-)

Ahh this is such a good question! Ok, so, anyone who knows me is probably already aware of my feelings about the canon ending for Dream…but strangely enough I don’t think that’s what I’d change. Not in canon at least. Fanfic is another thing altogether but it’s too integral to the series as it stands, and I’ve made my peace with Sandman canonically wanting to tell a story that, for many reasons, I will personally never find satisfying.

But as far as one change to the canon plot goes—I have to say that I want more for comic Calliope, because I adore her.

She’s one of my favourite characters in the show but when I read Song of Orpheus, (and the issue that handles her arc with Madoc) I was really disappointed. Maybe the show spoiled me! But I think I’d have her take Orpheus with her/try and take action to protect him after they speak for the last time in that forest…because I honestly can’t see why she didn’t.

It might not change anything in the end but I think Calliope deserves the chance to try and save her son.

[battlefanlefthelper]

I was curious about "the folk of the air" trilogy, but one of the first things that I found out was that jude's parents killed a pregnant woman to stage eve's death. I felt bad enjoying something building stone for which was some woman and her child's death.

Then I heard Madoc's story. It was so tragic and intriguing that I began to read it. Madoc is not without flaws, to put it mildly. But he was betrayed in the most cruel way by someone he fully trusted. As a tactician, he probably didn't trust anyone. Just eve. Falling out of love is sad, but eve didn't even have a decency to tell it straight to his face. Probably, he would not let her go, or maybe he would but kept vivi with him. Madoc loved her, and she, at least once, thought that she loved him as well. He deserved not to be left mourning, thinking that his wife and child were dead.

If someone I love would betray me, deceive me, steal my child, and leave me mourning him for a decade, I would want a sword through him too.

Not just that. Eve didn't want to leave elfhame once she found out how bloodthirsty Madoc is. She got bored. She enjoyed everything life with him could give and then got tired of it. That had nothing to do with Madoc' nature.

Justin was just as bad. He enjoyed Madoc's hospitality, sat at his table, broke bread with him. Acted as a friend. Was treated with respect, all while in the land where humans are despised and considered lowly creatures. And then proceeded cheating with Madoc's wife.

It is weirdly downplayed that duartes killed a woman. Maybe she wanted to live, wanted her child to live. Maybe there is a husband left somewhere also mourning his wife and child or not knowing at all what happened to them . They just thought that their lives were more important than anyone's else.

And how were they found? justin bragged too much that he stole secrets of faerie's and a bride. He attacked Madoc first, and honestly, I don't know what was he expecting? To kill the high general in one blow? eve also doesn't seem heartbroken over her dead husband. She tries to run away. Fucking where? And leaving her three daughters with someone she just called a monster?

And then Madoc does, in my opinion,the most mind-blowing thing. Not only he takes all three of them because feels responsible for children he met minutes ago. He loves them. Not only provides them with "roof and table", he treats them as his own. Personally instucts in the "art of fighting", plays with them, lets them "sit on his knee and eat of his plate." Madoc doesn't know any freaking fairy tales, so he reads them battle strategy books. "Insisted on treating them as though they were his own born daughters, kissing them on top of their heads and resting his clawed fingers protectively on their shoulders". Public affection display of the freaking high general?! That melts my heart.

And how angry he was after Jude's faerie fruit incident?! It is not "they disrespected me", its "they've hurt my daughter and I will kill them"

He lets taryn marry locke, even though, seeing the disaster a mile away, but doesn't want to bend her will. Tries to save "taryn" from the trial. He doesn't want Jude to become dain's knight, because he already plans to act against him.

He keeps fucking things that justin made in case his daughters want to have something from him.

He loves Oak as his own too. Madoc is all "if a child is under my roof, it is my child. Even when I have to drag them under the said roof"

Madoc did many bad things. But I always believed that one truly redeeming quality is enough for a chance.

I hope he learns to control his bloodthirst. I hope he gets pardoned. I hope he teaches his grandchildren to fight, lets them eat from his plate and reads strategy books before bed. I hope he gets happy ending.

[adonis-koo]

Book Review: Folk of Air

I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to write this but I felt like I’m order to review the books, I wanted to read all of them before I gave a review! (Mind you I’ve read the main trilogy but I’m aware there are two complimentary novella books that I’ve yet to read, so I will not be touching on them.)

There was definitely aspects to this book that I absolutely adored, one of those things are surprisingly the first person POV, I feel like anyone who’s been on my blog for awhile probably knows by now that I’m not a fan of first person stories (particularly in the YA genre for many reasons) but I adored Jude’s narration.

Her grapple with feeling powerless and wanting power had me right there with her, on the edge of my seat rooting for her even in her worst moments, her powerful declaration of becoming worse then her enemies if she couldn’t be better. Willingly positioning herself to make herself stronger. But more then anything, I personally enjoyed the fact that Jude doesn’t try to justify her actions.

She’s very aware of what she’s doing, she knows her actions are heinous from the very moment she joins the Court of Shadows. It was such a slow trickling water fall of disaster honestly, I loved the slow build up in the series of Jude’s lust for power, first starting with the gias to not be charmed, twisting into grappling for the crown and eventually taking Cardan under her control.

Not only this but her sheer determination to do something was thoroughly enjoyable to read and watch unfold, even when she lost the battles or took the hits, watching her grit her teeth and her back up was easily one of my favorite aspects of her character (also her pure spiteful nature deeply resonates with me so maybe I’m biased)

I was also highly enjoyed her complex relationship with Madoc which was tainted from the very moment the book started. Him murdering her parents and fostering her and her sisters. The constant push and pull of their relationship and going from family to enemies.

Cardan was also a very fun character to read! While he was indeed cruel in the first book. There was just something so charming about his delivery, the longing stares that are filled with both yearning and anger. Not only that but the way he transitioned into enjoying his position as the king in the second book.

‘kiss me again, kiss me until I’m sick of it’ 😵‍💫

There’s so many things I enjoyed about this series, but out of all of them, I somehow really enjoyed the first book the best, watching Cardan and Jude continuously attempt to one up each other on pranks, and it eventually leading to her killing his best friend was just…🤣 horrendous but somehow amusing (granted she didn’t kill him to spite Cardan but you get my point)

But while I enjoyed this book, now that I’ve read the main trilogy I can’t help but wish there was more too it. Holly did an amazing job on some aspects of this book, but there were others I felt that severely lacked.

(I would also just like to state that these are my feelings and opinions and that while I feel it’s shame, I still believe it’s a great series to read!)

A lot of the characters felt very one demisonal to me, and maybe it’s because I’m a writer and reader who enjoys character relationships, I feel like they really make the story great, a great plot helps, I feel like strong we’ll rounded characters count the most. There’s more then plenty of examples.

The first being Jude’s sisters, Taryn and Vivi. We know them but at the same time we really don’t. Vivi was the one who swore to never forgive Madoc and so I assumed she would play a much bigger role in the series then she did, she’s a typical eldest rebel child who is, at most, a minor annoyance to the dad. I was really hoping we would see more of her pain and anguish against Madoc for murdering their parents (as she was the oldest and probably remembers it the best). But the most we see is a lack luster character who kinda remains me of a sassy Y/n from a draco x reader fanfic on wattpad.

(I’m writing this at 2 in the morning with only four hours of sleep so please bare with me)

We do get to see more of Taryn’s side of things during the first book, but once Jude decided to join the court of shadows, all bets are off, and so I felt like that would’ve been a good jumping off point to dive into the riff and feelings of alienation from her sister. But alas, that wasn’t really there either.

We also have Orianna, she first read as “the ugly step mother” trope but turns out she is just a very mild version of it and only to Jude due to how rebellious she is, and I once again would have loved to have seen their relationship played out in more detail.

The last character is unfortunately Cardan, and listen I LOVE him, I truly do, but I feel like we as the reader, don’t know much about him. I find it a bit odd that despite having two books titled after him, there really isn’t many scenes in the story with him in it, not only this but at the end of book one, he becomes the pentacle of the whole plot.

So I feel as though he should’ve been more included in scenes or had more then he did, and furthermore, their relationship. I went into the book knowing the romance was a subplot, but when the feelings are that conflicted by book two…😭 I’m sorry but it felt like it really should have been more at the forefront of the plot.

My policy with writing is “show don’t tell” so while I know Jude was conflicted with her feelings for Cardan is was shown so little that it felt only a little forced, especially given their lack of scenes together. And listen I’m not advocating for more romance. But moreso advocating for better tension, it the conflict is brought up during narration a lot but we don’t see it in action during the scenes except for a few times throughout the whole series. I feel like telling that side of the plot rather then showing it really didn’t help it’s case.

Cardan has some very memorable lines he says to her but it was difficult to really feel into it because they really only have about four scenes in the whole trilogy where there is tension of feelings involved. And if Cardan was a side character this would have gotten a pass, but he isn’t, he’s the main supporting male in the series that is at the center of the plot. Objectively, it all would’ve felt a lot more seamless to me if the conflict was more present in the plot then it was. This wouldn’t have required a lot of changes imo, just more dialogue between them with the right wording in any scenes and it wouldn’t just have to be them.

My point being it could have been worked better into the main plot that takes center stage.

I don’t want to be too harsh on the series of course! I still enjoyed reading it! But there was definitely some unmistakable flaws in the story that are difficult to forget. Publishing houses can be picky with word count so maybe a lot of things had to be edited out to fit a word count. It really seems that way because there’s so many characters and so little time to go into depth about all of them.

That isn’t to say it’s neccasary to go into depths with all of the characters but a heart to heart conversation between some and Jude would’ve done them a lot of favor in making them more fleshed out. That’s really my biggest let down with the story, so many characters have potential but a lot of them fell very flat. Another example being the gang at the Court of Shadows. We were introduced to Roach, Ghost and Bomb but hardly got any screen time with any of them during book 1.

But I wanted to wait for judgment on that because I thought we’ll maybe this is just setting the stage for book 2, and while in a way it very much was. We still didn’t get to see much of their side of things or really see them build any relationship with Jude.

In closing I definitely see the appeal of the Folk of Air series, it was very captivating and I thoroughly enjoyed the plot of Jude’s rise to power, the grapple to control it and her fall from grace. The ending was very nice! I was really curious to see how Madoc’s ending would play out as he is an integral character to the series but up until the moment I couldn’t see any other ending for him aside from dying by Jude in someway. I really enjoyed the plot twist of exiling him to the mortal world!

Even more so I loved that the series started in the mortal world and it ended in the mortal world with the final toast to scheming good schemes. All in total I’d rate the series a

⭐️ 3 out of 5 ⭐️

If you have any book recommendations you’d like to give or her my thoughts on please let me know down below! 👇

[lananiscorner]

The Sandman rewatch - Calliope

So I like to do this thing where, if I didn’t consider a show a complete waste of time and if it does have an actual arc spanning the season, I watch the season twice–once as a binge watch and then once more episode by episode, because it helps me notice things I didn’t notice at first, especially in cases like this where I’m almost entirely unfamiliar with the source material.

I apologize that the second part of this episode is coming so late—I got a new PC and had to set everything up again properly, so I didn’t have time for it until now.

Trigger warnings: mentions of sexual abuse and rape beneath the cut.

Also, lots of swearing because this one… is kind of personal for me.

Well, we’re starting off with a statement that’s very relatable to any writer: the character comes first.

Wow, way to crush the soon-to-be doctor’s writing dreams, Richard.

Yeah, this Erasmus Fry guy is not suspicious and unlikable from the start AT ALL.

Ok, so Erasmus desperately wants a bezoar for it’s detoxing qualities. Can I infer that he’ll be dead soon? Good.

So not only does this old bastard keep a muse locked up against her will—he keeps her locked up in a dusty old storage room. The actual fuck.

Ah, the old “I’ll set you free before I die” promise. Yeah, I don’t think that one’s ever been upheld by anyone.

She is literally |this| close to decking him in the face. I wish she had, but there’s probably some kind of spell preventing her too.

And we can add “victim-blaming coward” to the list of descriptors for her captor. Fuck you, Erasmus Fry.

“But I must say I found force most efficacious.” Holy. Kangaroo. On. A. Pogostick!

Alright, so actual props to the writing team for saying “rape” without saying “rape”, but what the actual fuck… Erasmus deserves whatever nastiness is coming to him.

Oh, and we’re using the “she’s not human, so it’s ok” defense? Fuck you, Erasmus Fry.

That little smirk on Calliope’s face though, when he says that all his work is out of print now. We stan.

“Little cow”? What the actual hell…

Wow, this guy even negs his fellow writer. What a specimen.

Okay, Richard, this is where you say “you know what, I don’t like this, you can go”.

But nooo, instead we’re installing a second lock on the door! That will surely inspire trust and collaboration!

“Do you think you could… help me first?” Dude, you literally just took slave ownership of an immortal being AND INSTALLED A SECOND LOCK ON HER DOOR in a clear sign of your lack of trustworthiness, what the fuck do you think? Do you even have a brain?

Calliope’s not buying it. Good for her.

Blinking Cursor Of The Empty Page is honestly the most relatable character in this so far.

Yeah dude, don’t open Reddit, Twitter or Insta when you’re trying to write. That way lies the devil of distraction. You should know better.

Okay, so, I can’t believe I am writing this, but I will give him credit for making an ATTEMPT at the entire wooing thing at least. Should he have asked her first what “wooing” exactly means for a muse? Yes. But an attempt was made. He gets a D for effort.

“An artist prays to the muses. He offers vows of service and devotion to the goddesses in exchange for divine inspiration.” Memo to myself: build small altar to Calliope.

“You gave Erasmus Fry what he wanted.” DUDE… Which fucking part of of the word “force” do you not understand??

Dude… your lack of creativity and poor financial choices are NOT comparable to decades of captivity and sexual abuse. Get your head out of your fucking arse.

Daaaamn, Calliope all but saying “yeah, I hear you and I’ll help you, just free me”. She is way too good for this dude. I would have been like “fuck off back to your empty pages” already.

And fuck you too, Richard Madoc.

Once again, props to the writer and director for making very clear what’s happening without being gratuitous about it—that fade to black, the sound of the lock, Richard’s half-buttoned shirt and the scratch on his cheek are really all we need.

I love that they are referencing the 3 OG muses here in Calliope’s prayer (meditation, remembrance and song). They are so much less known than the 9 Calliope belongs to.

Oh hey, it’s the fates! Please don’t give her some cryptic bs advice that won’t help her at all. She’s already dealing with enough shit.

Alright, so I know that this exposition dialogue about Calliope’s relationship with Dream is supposed to be very tragic, but imo the real tragedy here is that Calliope and Morpheus had a son and named him… Orpheus. You are a literal muse and the king of dreams! You have literally endless inspiration and THAT is what you name your child? I can’t.

Well, at least the fates were not being super cryptic or vague this time.

“I think it probably speaks to the author’s pretension.” YOOOOOO! Go off, random lady!

“I do tend to regard myself as a feminist writer.” FUCK YOU, RICHARD MADOC!

Okay, but this line hits pretty hard upon rewatch, because in my current active franchise (FE3H), we literally just witnessed two users getting bullied off social media by a bunch of Reddit dudes who use their “defense of a feminist icon character” as a moral shield, painting themselves as feminists while harassing RL people, some of whom are women. Like, this is just so fucking vile.

“From the women in my life.” That’s a very nice way of putting “from the woman I am locking up and raping in the room upstairs”, Richard Madoc. God, I wanna strangle him and Erasmus.

And of course he’s now four successful novels into his career and STILL not letting her go.

“Can you not allow yourself to enjoy our success?” Oh, you mean “can you not allow yourself to enjoy me getting rich off of literally raping you for inspiration?” What a pretentious fucking prick.

That tiny smile of hers when she sees that the sleeping sickness is over and puts 1 and 2 together. <3

Ooh, and it’s the melody of the Dreaming making its comeback as she goes downstairs to look for pen and paper! <3

Bwahahaha, he said the name for her. Congrats, Richard, you just fucked yourself.

Richard about Erasmus: “He was… very kind.” As kind as a chain saw to the nuts, you mean.

Ahahaha, he poisoned himself! Serves him right, old bastard. Good fucking riddance, Erasmus Fry!

Alright, now this scene with Calliope and Dream… this fucking scene. There is so much goodness here, especially if you have personal experience with being an SA survivor, which I unfortunately do, so here’s a numbered list before I start screaming into the void:

Note how Dream, who was imprisoned for longer than Calliope, lost his beloved raven, and then had to deal with Joanna, Lucifer, John Dee, the Corinthian and a fucking Vortex to get any semblance of normalcy back into his life, instantly, and without hesitation, states that he thinks that what Calliope went through was worse. It is SO freaking common for men to not take SA seriously, so to hear someone who’s canonically a bit of an insensitive prick who went through plenty of trauma himself STILL acknowledge it for the absolute fate worse than death that it is is just so… validating? Tearjerkingly heartwarming?

“Comparing our suffering only compounds it.” What a raw line from Calliope! No, we’re not here to play Suffering Olympics. We both went through awful shit. The best we can do is try to move on.

Calliope, who said that she despises Dream, still acknowledging that what he went through was awful and she’s glad he’s free (even though she literally is not, right now). No jealousy, just relief. What a queen.

Calliope to Richard: Please free me? Richard: lol nope. Calliope to Dream: Please inspire him to free me? Dream: All that and more. -- Absolute legend.

Calliope pointing out that no punishment could be enough—and you can see in Dream’s face that she’s got a point that he hadn’t considered, because no matter how awful he thinks Richard treated her, at the end of the day, he knows nothing of her pain, her loss, and vengeance will not bring back what he took from her. I wonder if he thought back to his conversation with Death in that moment—about how all he had been able to think about during his own imprisonment was vengeance, but when he finally got it, it wasn’t satisfying at all.

Calliope: Why? Because I was once yours? Dream: Because he hurt you. -- Do I have to explain this one? Like, honestly, one of the worst things about SA is how demeaned and devalued it can make a person feel, and I could only imagine how sharply Calliope must have felt that, given that neither Erasmus nor Richard considered her worthy of being treated with humanity simply because she is more than human, and here is Dream saying “you are enough—I don’t need a selfish reason to want to hurt the bastard—he hurt YOU, and that’s more than enough.” ;_;

Dream asking PERMISSION from Calliope to let him help her. She is the one who called for him, so one could say consent is implied, but after 60 years of her consent being denied, Dream realizes “implied” no longer cuts it and instead asks for her EXPLICIT consent. With a “please” on top! I’m not sure we’ve even heard him use that word in any other episode. Absolute legend.

That look of ice cold murder when she asks him what he’ll do to Richard. CHILLS!!!

And one final word in this scene: note how Dream does not touch Calliope. They were married once. They had a kid. He’s made it clear he still has feelings for her even though it’s been thousands of years and she said she never wanted to see him again… but he does not touch her. It’s such a small detail, but from the perspective of an SA survivor, that’s HUGE.

I just love every second of this entire fucking scene. Brb, gotta find and murder whoever is cutting onions here.

“Be quiet.” Jesus… Tom Sturridge does “unnervingly polite, tranquil fury” so fucking well!

“I will not call any HUMAN agency.” And that is when it probably dawned on Richard that he had fucked up.

The way Dream rose without blinking when Richard tried to weasel his way out of this—perfection! The sheer disgust with which he spits the word “defiled” (for anyone who hadn’t put 1 and 2 together yet)--sublime!

Dream here with the classical punishments—like, this is the kind of stuff you’d legit see in ancient Greek myth. Oh, you wanna see the future? I’ll let you see the future, but I’ll also make sure no-one will ever believe you. You want ideas? I’ll give you too many to handle.

Calliope’s smile when Richard asks her if she’s giving him nightmares now. <3

That moment when he sees Dream in the audience—perfection.

Okay, but most of his ideas are actually rubbish, which is understandable, give whose brain they are springing from, except maybe for the one of a city where the streets are paved with time. I would read that.

Imagine you’re a woman attending a reading by your favorite author and then he starts scribbling stuff on the walls in blood and talking about how he’s keeping a woman locked up in his mansion—like, at that point I’d just leave. Maybe call 911/equivalent on my way out.

And just when you think Erasmus Fry cannot get any worse since he is… you know… dead for several months at this point, we find out that the book he was particularly proud of and wanted to go back into print, was the one with the byline “She was his muse… and the slave of his lust!” FUCK THIS ASSHOLE!

Awww, Calliope’s back in her normal clothes with her traditional hairdo!

And just in case we think Dream’s thoughtfulness was a fluke, when Calliope says she’ll work to rewrite the laws she was bound by, because neither she nor her sisters had any agency in those, Dream assures her he’ll make sure to make those changes in his realm as well. Legend!

“I will not forgive what he has done, but I must forgive the man. Not for him. For me.” Translation: “I do not want to spend the rest of my eternal life feeling angry and hurt every time I think of this dude—I want him to become worm food like he deserves and let his memory fade into the sunless lands.” Kudos, Calliope.

And again, Dream being like “I don’t get it, I think you’re too nice, but it’s not about me, it’s about YOU and if that’s what you want, sure I’ll let him go”.

Meanwhile, in a nice little parallel, Richard Madoc is STILL not listening to a thing the women in his life are saying (i.e. not bothering to answer Nora’s questions).

Also, on one hand, yes, it’s very… Dream… of Dream, to stop the punishment he inflicted, but to do so in a way that’s even more punishing, but I think there’s another reason he did it too: at the end, Richard doesn’t even remember anymore who the woman he kept locked up was, which means he won’t be able to go after her and try to capture her again, he won’t be able to publicize what he did to her as some kind of vengeful, victim-blaming BS (see Erasmus wanting that one particular book to go back into print), and he won’t be able to try to go after her sisters either. He will no longer be able to reap any further benefit of the “gifts” he already took from her either, because he’s in no further condition to coordinate sequels, adaptations, interviews, whatever. Dream has made sure that Richard no longer has any avenue to hurt Calliope further or get further gains from the hurt he already inflicted.

Dream be like: okay, that was enough of an emotional roller coaster for now—the talk about our dead son will have to wait.

And at the end of it all, it is Calliope who touches him, not the other way around. ;_;

Finally, I love that we end this episode not with Richard or Dream, but with Calliope, happy and free. Perfect place to end it.

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

If the folk of the air was turned into a movie to TV series, who is your dream cast?

hmmm i'm gonna be honest, nonnie, ideally (for me) a film/tv show wouldn't ever happen.

i understand that it's some people's preferred medium (which is totally okay!) and i wouldn't blame Holly Black for taking a movie deal if one was offered to her because, as a writer, that's also a dream of mine. but as a fan, i've rarely seen a satisfactory film adaptation of a beloved book (with the exception of P&P 2005 and maybe the HP films).

having said that, here are some of my thoughts:

Cardan- Ezra Miller exudes ~the vibes~ but he's way too old. Timothee Chalamet would be okay but he's too short imo (would be a good SK Cardan tho 🙈).

Louis Partridge (if he were a little older) would probably be closest to how I imagine Cardan. or that one dude that another nonnie suggested months ago that i cannot for the life me remember his name or anything he's been in but i remember his face 🥴✌️

Jude/Taryn- hands down Isabela Merced. like she's it for me. i would also accept Natalia Castellar. Ana De Armas and Bruna Marquezine are good options for me too (in terms of looks), but they're too old.

Madoc- i've always imagined Madoc as a Richard Coyle sort of figure if Richard Coyle had green skin lmao.

Nicasia- idk what her name is (it looks like she's a model, but none of her pics are ever credited rip) but this lady is always how i imagined Nicasia:

Heather- Nyane Lebajoa is always how i imagined Heather.

i don't have any actors for anyone else because honestly, that's just not how i read 😅 i make up the image of the characters in my head and any person who appears like them irl is pure coincidence.

[snusbandxknifewife]

How We Got Here/Where We’re Going

Hello yes hi! I am proud to introduce my gift for the lovely and amazing Tess, @clockworkgraystairs ! This started out as a wedding fic, but I couldn’t get it to work right until I was giving @wanderingpages her regularly scheduled Mayari update and saw her asynchronous pregnancy au and was like “!!!!!Holy shit that’s it.” So, without much further ado, I present the beginning of “How We Got Here/Where We’re Going”, an all human, modern au where Cardan and Jude have been a thing since college, ended up getting pregnant and having a daughter and marrying in their late 20s. Now it’s their honeymoon and they’re looking backwards at their past and forward towards their future.

~~~~~~~

Outside, fluffy grey clouds hung over a soft blanket of snow, masking any sound that might’ve accompanied the rising of the sun. Her bed was soft, her sheets warm, her room quiet. Jude couldn’t quite figure out what woke her up. Then, as she stretched out, her fingers hungrily searching as she fought sleep, she realized what it was: Cardan was missing.

Sitting up, her eyes bleary and drool dried on her cheek, she pouted. When she remembered that she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on—and that, plus a snowy log cabin, makes for freezing nips—she grumbled and burrowed back into the comforter.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the little cabin bedroom as Jude Greenbriar tumbled around in her nest of blankets, dragging them with her to grab underwear and pajamas and socks and fighting to avoid any cold air as she dressed. Cussing and tripping as she went, Jude scowled into nothing and cursed her fiancé—

Wait. Husband. It’s husband now.

—she cursed her husband for abandoning her to the elements and taking his space heater of a body with him when he went.

Jude wrapped herself up in her ball of bedding and went out the door, now awake enough to listen for movement in the small cabin. A pot clanged from the downstairs kitchen and her husband yelped and she smirked.

That’s what you get, loser.

As Jude walked down the stairs, she couldn’t miss the chaos of the living room. Most of their suitcases were still packed up and set by the fireplace, their skis and snow jackets barely made it in the door, and their wedding clothes were strewn haphazardly across the sofa. She was honestly impressed that they’d made it inside the house.

Just as she made it to the bottom of the stairs and headed towards the sofa to run her hand over her wedding dress, she heard something that made her stop.

“—And how should I know? Honestly Nic I’m not even sure how to bring it up to her,” Cardan sighed from within the kitchen, bustling around like he was making breakfast. “I think it might be good for us. Still, with how everything went when we had Faye, I don’t want to pressure her.”

She couldn’t help but frown in concern as her mind flitted back through everything she could remember about their first daughter and her pregnancy. From the confusion of her missed period to the worry as they waited on the test to the way Cardan’s eyes had lit up when the Ob/Gyn told them they were having a little girl.

What on earth would Nicasia be talking to him about?

Jude tried to tell herself that it was obvious, Nicasia was only days away from popping, and her pregnancy had been a bit of a nightmare. Maybe she was just nervous? But, then again, why ask Cardan about giving birth? Jude had been the one who carried Faye and, far more importantly, Nicasia’s own wife, Taryn, had already had a child herself.

Completely ignoring the fact that calling a man away from his wife on his honeymoon was probably in poor taste, but she digressed.

She kept herself as still as possible, angling her head so she could hear better.

“Yes, I know that, Nic,” he let out a little frustrated laugh, and Jude could just picture the way he would be pinching the bridge of his nose. “But Faye will be starting school soon and that’ll be a circus in it of itself, never mind adding on the stress that this would.”

He went quiet again and Jude crept back towards the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t walk through the kitchen door and catch her spying.

“I know you and Taryn want the little man to have a friend, but you remember how tough it was for Jude our first go round.”

Oh.

Jude’s hand flew to her belly and she had to jump to catch the falling blankets before they made a sound and alerted her new husband.

So she wasn’t the only one who was getting suggestions about expanding the family.

It made sense, everyone had been talking to Jude about the idea as the wedding had gotten closer. Oriana had been completely starry eyed ever since Taryn’s firstborn, Rosemary, had graced them with her presence. In fact, their stepmother had barely batted an eyelash at Jude’s worries when she’d fallen pregnant during college, she was far too excited at the idea of another grand baby. Madoc had gotten past the shock and the disdain for Cardan enough to be hounding them for a grandson. Taryn thought having cousins the same age made for perfect best friends. It was a mess.

Sure, Nicasia being pregnant had bought them a little respite, but she could go into labor literally any minute, so there went that.

Jude rolled her eyes and began loudly making her way down the stairs again, giving her husband fair warning this time as she walked through the living room and towards the kitchen.

“Hold on, here she comes,” he whispered, low enough that he likely thought she couldn’t hear. Then, she hit the kitchen door with her mobile blanket fort and he spun around with a: “hey Hot Mama!”

“Stop calling me that, you dork,” she made a face, instantly regretting her decision not to sneak up and scare him.

He’s stood there by the stove, wearing nothing but his low-slung flannel pajama pants and grinning at her like an idiot as he leaned back against the counter. She refused to let her sneer fall, only growing more annoyed at how he could walk around half naked in such a freezing house.

“Huh?” He must’ve forgotten he was talking to Nicasia because he seemed surprised when she began speaking on the other end of the phone. “Oh, yeah, Jude’s finally awake. Y’know I kept her up last night, heyo.”

Jude let out a disgusted groan and he just started to laugh, giving her an exaggerated wink and thrusting his hips forward in a way that absolutely did not put butterflies in her stomach, thank you very much.

He tilted his head, listening to Nicasia for a moment before finally giving up. “Here I’ll put her on speaker.”

“Hey Nic!” Jude smiled, finally dropping her pretenses and walking over to give Cardan a big, blankety hug and morning kiss. “How did Faye do last night?”

“She was great! Didn’t get up until about seven this morning. Of course the little man already had me up, fuckin’ kid always sitting on my bladder,” Nicasia griped through the phone and Jude snorted. “I don’t know how you and Taryn both did this it sucks.”

“Yeah, but the payoff is really cute,” she shrugged, leaning her head against Cardan’s collarbone. “Especially when they have your nose or your eyes or they start saying how much they love their Mommy.”

“Is Rosemary ready for baby?” Cardan asked as he wrapped his arm around his blanket bundle of a wife.

“You know how she gets, she’s super attached to her moms. Well have to see once Taryn and I actually bring him home.”

“I’m sure she’ll be a great big sister, she’s always been wonderful to Faye,” Jude offered, smiling as her husband pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “She was very sweet when Faye was a baby.”

“She was three then. Seven-year-olds have much bigger personalities.” Nicasia sounded exhausted, more exhausted than a normal pregnant person would be and Jude worried at her lip.

While they hadn’t always been the closest, she and Nicasia had grown into a really solid friendship ever since the other woman had begun dating Jude’s sister, and she didn’t like to see her struggling. Nic had been a huge help in Jude’s own life and relationship, she’d been an amazing friend to Cardan, she didn’t deserve anything but the best, happiest transition to a family of four.

“Well she takes after her mother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Jackass?” Nicasia laughed at Cardan, her voice sounding like the tension broke a little.

Jude opened her mouth to give some word of advice or make some statement about how sure she was that it would be ok, but got cut off by the sound of commotion on the other end of the phone.

“What? Oh, yes Faerie-Faye it’s Mommy and Daddy,” Nic said, sounding far away from the phone. “Of course you can darling, here you go.”

Jude’s heart swelled and tears unexpectedly pricked at the back of her eyes as their daughter fumbled with the phone. She felt guilty, having forgotten for a moment that they were on their honeymoon without Faye. It was their first trip alone since her birth, and they’d both been on pins and needles when they’d said goodbye to her at the reception hall last night.

“Mommy?” Faye’s voice, tiny and soft like the twinkling of a wind chime, came through the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey little elf! How are you? Mommy misses you so much,” she gushed, reaching out and taking the phone from her husband in a mindless attempt to feel physically closer to her daughter. “Have you been good for Aunty Taryn and Aunt Nicky?”

Jude listened attentively as her four-year-old prattled on about everything she’d done since she left the reception hall with her aunts and cousin last night. To hear her tell it, Faye had had a great time. While it made her happy, Jude also found herself a little sad at the idea that her baby girl was doing so well without mom.

“And Daddy, Aunt Nicky let me touch her tummy when baby cousin kicked!”

“Were you gentle, Princess?” Cardan asked. He always called their daughter Princess, had since the first moment he’d held her in his arms. “Remember what we’ve said about soft hands.”

“Yes Daddy I used soft hands and nice words!”

“That’s my girl,” he said, that proud grin he always got whenever Faye listened to them plastering itself across his face.

The phone fell away and they heard some distant talking before their daughter was back on.

“Ok Mommy and Daddy, Rosemary is awake and we’re playing Rome. I love you, bye-bye!”

And she was gone before either of them could say another word, likely dropping her Aunt’s phone on the floor, if history could serve as a teacher. Jude tried not to let it hurt too much, she knew how seriously Faye took Rome—her word for the pretend gladiator-style tournaments her and her cousin put on. On any other day she’d be slightly smug at how well her kid swung a sword, but today she was away from her daughter and it really sucked.

“Sorry about that, I’ll make sure she stays on longer tonight,” Nicasia promised before either of them said anything. “But you know gladiator is a serious time in our house.”

“Oh to be sure. My wife is raising a little killer.”

“Looks like it runs in the family,” she laughed back. “Listen I’ll let you to go do gross honeymoon shit. Love you both, I’ll let you know if baby boy makes an early appearance.”

“Love you too, tell Faye we love her,” Cardan said, taking his phone back when she ended the call.

And, just that quickly, the little cabin in the snow-laden forest was silent again. Jude in her mountain of covers looked up at her new husband, her pout from earlier back as she tried not to cry.

“Awe, don’t do that to me Mama Bear; you know she misses you,” he frowned, pulling her close and kissing her temple.

“She’s my baby Cardan,” Jude whined, her voice muffled against his chest. “When did Rome become more important than Mommy?”

He scoffed, gathering her and her extra padding and setting the whole pile atop the kitchen island. “Rome is not more important than Mommy, you know that.”

“Rome sure sounded more important than Mommy.”

He turned his back with a roll of his eyes, reaching for the coffee that he must’ve been brewing before she woke up. She stopped her pouting long enough to take in the sight: Cardan’s messy black hair, his low-slung pants, the blatantly obvious fingernail marks carved up his back from last night. It was certainly a sight for sore eyes; it’s not every day you can wake up to something like that when you’ve got a toddler in tow.

“When you’re done ogling, would you like a cup?” He looked over his shoulder quickly, catching her in the act. His eyes twinkled so bright and full of mischief she didn’t even feel bad about being caught, she just smirked at him as she nodded.

Jude looked outside and saw that the heavy grey clouds had given up the fight and large, fluffy snowflakes were falling, bathing the world in yet another layer of snow.

“I hope Nic doesn’t go into labor early, we may be stuck here if the snow doesn’t stop,” she observed, suddenly quiet as she took the cup from his outstretched hand and brought it to her face, soaking in the warmth.

Cardan followed her gaze as he leaned back against his own counter, sipping from her Mrs mug that Liliver had gotten her as a joke. He looked pleasantly tired, not wired like he’d been after an all nighter in college or exhausted the way he was when Faye’d had a bad night as an infant. He looked like he was fit to curl up in bed with a book and be lazy all day, content with his place in the world.

It was a good look on him.

“She told me earlier that her doctor said she was only at 1.5 centimeters, she should make it to her due date.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well you were full of surprises with Faye’s pregnancy,” he mock-glared at her and she chuckled into her drink, remembering the look on his face when she’d told him her water had broken in her final.

Then his words hit her and her smile fell as she remembered what she’d overheard him saying to Nicasia. Cardan, well tuned in to her body language after so many years, noticed instantly.

“What?”

What good is spying if you narc on yourself?

She sighed and stared into her mug, trying to figure out the words as he watched her, worried something was wrong. Then, finally, “I overheard you talking with Nic about my pregnancy with Faye.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Just the end, you talking about how tough it was, how you didn’t want to pressure me,” she admitted, continuing before he could respond. “I don’t want you to think you’re pressuring me I know we’ve talked about it and I—“

“Woah, woah, woah, calm it down Hot Mama let me explain,” he cut her off, taking her cup from her hands and setting it down in the counter so he could hold her. “That conversation wasn’t about the pregnancy, just the timing.”

“What?”

He sighed, his jaw working like it always does when he’s a little frustrated. “Nic called right after I got a text from my brother. I should’ve talked to you first but the timing just worked out weird.”

“From Balekin?” She crinkled her nose in a frown that she knew he found adorable. “What could he possibly want? He knows he literally missed our wedding, right? The wedding that was yesterday.”

She cursed herself internally as she saw his little wince. She shouldn’t have said it so harshly, it just pissed her off that the man who raised her husband would refuse to be there when they got married.

“No, from Dain,” Cardan said, stopping her thoughts right in their track. “It’s about the company. Rhyia is apparently sick of being CFO, wants a peace of the trust fund baby action like me.”

She couldn’t help but grind her teeth at that, remembering that glorious fight all those years ago at his family’s mansion when he’d announced their pregnancy.

“So what do you have to do with it?”

“Dain wants to keep it in the family,” he chewed at his bottom lip. “Remembers I was in for business and you were in for finance. Thinks we could make a go of it together.”

“Oh so now you’re family,” she laughed angrily, her blood already boiling again after four years of avoiding the subject. “You weren’t family when you were a defenseless kid and you weren’t family when we were pregnant and fucking panicking but now he needs something—“

She broke off with a huff, flexing her fists and aching for her punching bag back home in their basement. It really wouldn’t do getting this riled up, it hadn’t helped them before and it wouldn’t help them now.

“Cool it, Supervillain, I see that look in your eyes,” he chuckled, forcing his hands under the blankets so he could grab her by the hips.

“I’m not a supervillain,” she grumbled.

“You’re my supervillain,” he cooed back, leaning forward to press soft little butterfly kisses to her jawline. “My sexy little supervillain Hot Mama.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

She decided not to answer as he continued kissing down the line of her throat, his breath hot over her pulse and his lips soft against her chapped skin.

Jude couldn’t help the way she tilted her chin up, the little grin that graced her face as her eyes fluttered closed. She missed moments like these, times when they could be overly affectionate without having to worry about the baby seeing and yelling about how gross it was.

He pulled away and her eyes shot back open, ready to complain until she saw the look on his face. He was troubled, almost apprehensive.

“I was honestly thinking about agreeing,” he admitted before she could ask what was wrong.

Her brain short circuited for a moment, too distracted by his kisses to remember what they had been talking about. When she finally connected the dots, she frowned. “But you bought out of the company years ago, babe. Why go back to the headache?”

“A higher paying job,” he sighed, stepping away to run his hands through his messy hair and lean against the counter again. “I don’t like the idea of charging your sister more for my help, but I still want to make sure we have a secure future.”

“Baby, I know our finances. We are fine.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Even without my paycheck.”

“Still, I’d rather be safe. Plus Faye will be going to school next year and I’ll have all that extra time on my hands,” he looked away from her, chewing at the inside of his lip as he watched the snow fall. “We’d be able to really change how we live if we took this job. A better house, vacations, secure college fund for the kids.”

Jude studied Cardan, her eyes roving over his midnight black curls, down his ears—which used to be stretched—across the tattoo of her and Faye’s birthdates at his wrist, and she smiled. He’d changed so much since they first met, given up a lot of his more daring, self-destructive ways to provide for her and their family. He’d stepped up when she needed him to, he’d stepped up in a way that no man in his family ever did for him. She was proud.

“I thought kids is what you’d been discussing with Nic.”

His eyes shot back to her, but his head didn’t turn. She was quiet, almost nervous as she said it. They’d talked about maybe one day having more kids, mentioned it the same way one might say they wanted to hike the Appalachian trail some day.

But it had been so scary with Faye, so hard figuring out how to become parents, how to maintain their relationship and build a home, all while they were just barely adults. The pregnancy had been tough and full of shock, the family had been kind of a mess on both sides. It was just a disaster from the word go.

Still, Jude remembered how Cardan looked when he first saw that positive pregnancy test all those years ago. She remembered how he used to love waking up at night to feed the baby, called it his special Daddy-Daughter Time. She saw the way he still held one of Faye’s sonograms in his wallet every time she took her birth control.

“Did you now?” Cardan barely sounded like he was breathing.

She nodded. “I heard Nicasia giving you the same guilt trip Taryn gives me about cousins.”

“They do seem to think that baby boy should have a friend.” His face didn’t give anything away. He was, for the first time in years, so carefully blank around her.

“What do you think?”

The air, still frigid enough to keep Jude wrapped up in her nest, seemed charged with electricity as Cardan finally turned his head back to face his wife. If she’d gazed upon him with an untrained eye, she would’ve thought he looked like the picture of cruelty, an evil sneer pulling at his lips as he studied her through lidded eyes.

But Jude’s gaze wasn’t untrained, she knew her husband. And, so, she knew that the man in front of her was absolutely terrified as he said: “I think there might be some merit to the idea.”

He took a long sip of his coffee to hide his smile as Jude worried at her deformed ring finger.

“You?”

Well, here goes nothing

“I was thinking about stopping my birth control,” she quietly said, trying not to let her heart leap at the slight quirk of his brows. “Maybe not actively trying but, y’know, also not actively preventing.”

As soon as the words were out, she felt kind of panicked. Up until that point, everything they’d done—moving in after they got pregnant, getting engaged, marrying—had felt kind of inevitable. But having a second baby wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion. Talking about it felt nerve-wracking, like they were actually moving to make their family a reality.

“You want a kid with me?” Cardan sounded kind of awed, his jaw a little slack as he watched her.

“I have a kid with you, babe.”

“No,” he held a hand up. “No it was different with Faye. She wasn’t planned, she just happened and we figured out how to make it work.”

He set his drink down and once again crossed the distance between them, digging in to her cocoon as he pressed his forehead to hers.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Faye with all my heart, she’s the best thing that’s happened to me,” he continued. “But the idea that you’d be more than ok with, that you’d literally want a child with me—“

“Does it shock you?”

He let out a small laugh, shaking his head as if to clear it before gazing up at her with love in his eyes. “Yes, Jude Greenbriar. Yes it does.”

“Well it shouldn’t,” she snorted. “I carried a little you once before and she turned out pretty damn cute.”

“I think I’m going to need to hear you actually say it.”

She laughed, her head thrown back as the sound filled the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around Cardan and kissed his temple, holding him close and thanking the gods that they’d made it to that point.

“You need to hear me say what?” Jude teased, her grin contagious as Cardan looked up at her.

“Jude, my darling my dear, my sexy little Hot Mama,” he started, dutifully ignoring how she dramatically protested at the nickname, “I need to hear you say that you want to have my child.”

Jude leaned forward, taking in the soft, earthy scent of him with a mischievous smile.

“Cardan, my love my sweet, my amazing sexy husband,” she imitated him, tilting her head to drag her teeth across his jaw.

He leaned back, giving her the room to slide off the kitchen counter and into his arms. The blankets fell off her shoulders, exposing her to the cool air as she pressed herself against him, already feeling just how desperately he wanted her.

She let her hands wander the expanse of his chest, her fingers ghosting over his skin until she could reach around to the nail marks on his back. With a smile, she traced them, remembering how he’d earned those scrapes when he spread her legs open on the floor last night after they’d given up on making it to the couch.

Cardan grabbed her by the hip, sliding one of his knees between her thighs and locking his eyes with hers as he waited with bated breath for her to finish.

Jude, not one to deny herself a good time, let the strap of her pajama shirt fall off her shoulder as she bit her bottom lip, leaned forward, and whispered--

“Put a baby in me.”

~~~~~~~~

A/N: Ok so a few things, one the tumblr app wouldn’t let me copy and paste all the story on mobile so I had to retype some online so I’m sorry if the format fucked up. Also I have a bunch of ideas for these kids so if you want to see any more of this AU, feel free to send in requests! Happy holidays @clockworkgraystairs , I hope you enjoy cute Parent!Jurdan doing cute adult shit!

Tag list: @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @hizqueen4life @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @thewickedkings @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @cheekycheekycheeks @queen-of-glass @b00kworm @doingmyrainbow @jurdanhell @thesirenwashere @illyrianwitchling @courtofjurdan @clockworkgraystairs @st00pid231 @booksandlewks @fateandluminary @addies-invisible-life If you want to be added, just let me know!

[thatbrownb1tch]

I have a post TWK prompt Jude meets her mother’s wealthy parents and they try to set her up for an arranged marriage, And Cardan rescues her

Edit:

I definitely did not base everything off of Gilmore Girls.

“We have grandparents?” Anger fumed through me while Taryn stood in shock. “And you chose to keep this a secret for how long?”

“Jude, I didn’t tell you for many reasons but now that you seem to be, well nearing the end of your peak you must get some family if you’re not willing to settle down,” Madoc leaned back into his chair.

“What do you mean settle down? What? I’d marry some random monster like Locke? I’d rather die than ever marry anyone that I don’t care about,” I spoke the truth right now. Something I rarely did with Madoc.

“Taryn?” He moved off of me trying to figure out what his other daughter was feeling. It took a lot to get me to agree to meet with Madoc but it was even more difficult to get me to be in here with Taryn. I’m only doing it in case they try to kill Cardan or something but right now it doesn’t look like it.

“Where do they live?” Taryn finally spoke.

“Right outside Elfhame, in a large house by the country. They have many connections and you can easily go back and forth in case you’d like to form a connection which I’d rather you not do,” For someone so against us meeting them he’s telling us an awful lot about it. “Look, if you guys want you can see them, but you don’t need to, I was just doing my job,” He stood and began to make his way out of the room.

“You’re a little too late,” I called after him.

“At least he told us,” It’s typical of Taryn to do that. Agree with the one who caused us the most pain. This is exactly why she’s known as the optimist and why I’m the pessimist.

“Wow! It’s so great that he finally told us! Madoc is such a good person because he told us about our only biological family still alive that can possibly help up a decade after he kidnapped us!” Sarcasm erupted, it’s something I try not to do with her but right now she was really getting on my nerves.

“Jude,” She began, “I’m sorry. I understand why you’re so angry but please, let’s go see them.”

I narrowed my eyes, “you can go see them. But I’m not ruining their lives on top of what they already went through.”

“Excuse me?” Was she really this stupid?

“Don’t be so naive. They obviously had to go through the death of their daughter after she ran away. What do you think they went through after mom came here? And then after like 30 years we show up at their doorstep claiming to be their daughter’s kids? They probably haven’t even gotten over her death. Maybe you didn’t love our parents like me but I still mourn them,” I knew the last part wasn’t needed but sometimes she really made me feel like that. Taryn moved on so much faster. Vivi remembered them very vividly and had a good reason because of that but I never did. They just said I was being difficult for no reason when I was forced to live among monsters after I saw my own mother and father die by the hands of the man who’s been taking care of me.

“You really think that? I hope you know that I grieve them just like you and Vivi do. The only difference is I can hide it better unlike you two. Jude, deal with it. You’re not the only one with traumatic events who’s empathetic towards other people who lost their family. Don’t you think it’d make them feel better to know that they still have a piece of mom left?” How could she be so optimistic? If I was in their place I’d wish to forget everything, I’d wish to die in peace knowing that no one else would need to go through the pain I felt. Maybe something was just wrong with me.

“Fine, I’ll go but if everything goes wrong don’t blame me.”

She smiled sweetly, “Thank you.”

Vivi drove us to mom’s parent’s house. Well, technically our grandparents but I’m not sure if it’s okay to call them that yet. Vivi had called them earlier and made sure they knew we were coming, she said they’re sweet.

“Alright, we’re here,” Vivi didn’t leave the car, she didn’t follow us to the doorstep. She was related to them yet she didn’t come with us.

“Are you not coming?” I asked.

“Why? You guys deserve an actual family, I don’t want to see any more. They’ll just ruin my life again,” Every word she spoke made me feel more normal. I didn’t want more people to interfere when I was doing what I wanted. I was so close to getting a higher place on court.

“Alright then, Jude we better get going,” Taryn pushed us away from the car before I changed my mind. The house was gigantic, it was like a mansion, much bigger than a regular family-sized house. It was like Locke’s estate but more homely. It had a beautiful garden with a large driveway. It was in an ‘u’ shape. The house looked newer than the estates in Elfhame but it was still very grand and kept well for its age. I heard that most houses get very old here and start to crack but this one was taken care of.

“I don’t want to go,” I stated flatly as we reached the front doors. The door has a gold knob with a glass window but there were designs on it to keep people from outside to look inside. It was like a privacy barrier but it worked very well because I didn’t see the owners my grandparents walk up to the door and open it. I jumped a little, I wasn’t expecting that but Taryn was very ready with her gigantic smile.

“Hello girls!” The woman grinned widely while looking between the two of us. It was as if she was picking apart everything in our face and bodies, but we were identical so I’m not sure why her head went back and forth.

“Come in, please,” The man pushed his wife away a little and welcomed us inside. He was tall, and wore spectacles. They had a thin metal frame and were small for his face. They were circle shaped and he wore them a little done on his nose, it definitely made him look old. The woman had a short blackish Gray shirt and she wore a red pantsuit.

“Thank you,” Taryn was the first to speak between us and I could tell this was how most of the trip would end up going. They’d ask a question and Taryn would answer, and I’d just nod along. And like usual, I was completely right, an hour in and somehow the only thing I said was “thank you”. The man had introduced himself as Richard and the woman had said her name was Emily. They seemed like lovely people who wanted to get to know their grandchildren but we were all definitely uncomfortable and I was definitely a huge reason behind it.

“So, Jude, how are you?” Emily said it directly to me so Taryn couldn’t answer for me.

“I’m fine, how are you?” I would’ve used her name but I wasn’t sure if she’d like that.

“I’m great, so what are you two doing? School? I assume you’re around 17?”

“Uh, well I did go to school,” I started not sure how to explain to her that my foster father killed the prince during his coronation which made him a traitor and then the person who I thought cared about me actually loved my sister. Then, I made my enemy the king so that my little brother wouldn’t need to be on the throne and so that my foster father wouldn’t be given any power and now I’m the high king’s seneschal.

“We did but we graduated,” Taryn interrupts us so that I wouldn’t say anything stupid. That’s a great way to put it.

“That’s nice, so are you guys going to college?” Richard asked.

“Yes, well not exactly but we have jobs,” Another lie. Taryn is really going all out today with the lies.

“Is college even a thing there?” Emily looked at me.

“Where?” I wasn’t sure if they knew about Faerie but I couldn’t risk it.

“That place, the one which stole our daughter from us, the one which caused her death,” Emily said in such a sweet voice you wouldn’t be able to feel her rage unless you were looking directly at her eyes.

“Yes, we live there. College isn’t a thing and honestly the only thing we can do is either become a knight, a member of the court, or just get married,” I explained.

“So where are you two on the list? I’ve heard that girls get married around your age and we have a couple of boys that we’d love to set you two up with. They can also get you to very high places on the list, almost near the top with the king,” Richard jumped in.

“Well, you can’t help Taryn, she’s already found a place,” I felt their eyes on me and I had to get it off.

“Oh! Are you-?” Emily began.

“I’m betrothed,” Taryn finished with a glare that was shot in my direction.

“That’s great! Is he a good man? Will you be protected? Do you truly love him?” A ton of questions spilled out of Emily and all I could see in her face was grief. She missed mom and all of her questions gave away her intentions. She wanted to make sure we were safe, she wanted to make sure we weren’t going to make the same mistakes. I don’t think they’re that bad anymore. They’re trying to save me from Faerie. Something that only one other person has done and that’s Vivi.

“Yes, I really do. He makes me feel like I’m flying,” She gushed.

“Well that’s great, but please be careful, think it over before you say ‘I do’,” Richard looked at her sternly.

“I will, I promise,” Taryn said looking down at her hand where a small gold ring laid on her ring finger.

“What about you dear?” Emily’s attention turned back to me. Now, I really don’t have anymore saves.

“I’m not planning on marrying anyone there,” I heard a snort come from Taryn but moved on. I could tell she was thinking about my relationship with Cardan which was very simple. “I have a place in the court, I’m not sure for how long I can secure it but I’m happy with where I am,” I didn’t want to give too much away.

“Really? Are you a knight?” Richard leaned forward interested, to know how I got a place without a mans

“No,” I laughed, it was my dream but I was definitely not a knight and I’m not sure if I could be trusted to be a knight anymore. Cardan would choose me to be a part of his personal guard just to annoy me and I’d probably end up going to the tower of forgetting to kill him. “I’m actually connected to the high King,” I wasn’t sure how much I could say but my wording was really bad and I could tell the second they left my mouth. Richard looked surprised while Emily looked disgusted for a split second. She covered it up but it was there. “Oh! No, not like that! I am definitely not connected to him like that! I’m just his seneschal,” I scramble to get the words out.

“Oh, that’s a lot better,” Richard recovers a lot faster than Emily. “Alright, well it is time for me to get back to work but Emily, you’ll be here with the girls?”

“Yes, don’t worry I’ll still be here and if you guys do decide to leave, please do think of coming here,” Emily does seem very sweet and honestly it’d be a lot better to live here than in the tiny apartment with Vivi and Heather, oh and of course Oak.

“Yes, don’t worry if I ever do plan on leaving I know where I’m going,” I grinned hoping they know that I’m trying to accept them. Taryn doesn’t say a word, it’s obvious she doesn’t like them. You couldn’t tell at first but now she’s not being as friendly. Maybe because of the way they talked about her marriage but I’d say the exact same thing if we were still on better terms but now we barely even acknowledge each other.

“Now, Jude, I really do think we could set you up with someone. We could at least throw you a coming out party! Oh, please Jude! It was my favorite thing to do with your mother! Please?” She seemed so excited and I know I should’ve said no but what’s the worst that could happen? I’d just say I’m better off with no one and they of all people should understand that.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“What?” Taryn asked, not expecting that.

“Great! Alright I’ll get started on it and you two should sleep here for the night, tomorrow evening you will have the best party ever!” Emily stood up excitedly as a maid came in to show us to our rooms.

“Actually I have to go home. Locke is expecting me,” Taryn escaped, leaving me alone. Right before I was planning on going to sleep a short lady walked inside. She had a straight cut that went up to her chin and she had black cat-eye glasses on.

“Hello, stand up straight please,” There was a hint of Russian in her accent. She walked up to me and began to measure me. My waist, my hips, my bust, she measured every curve on my body. “That’ll be all, a dress will be ready for you tomorrow,”

“Thanks,” I didn’t understand exactly what happened but I think I have a dress now. It was a sleepless night, thoughts filled my head but it wasn’t the worst night of sleep due to the bed I had. I don’t even have anything to compare it to. Somehow I didn’t think about Cardan once throughout the trip. I was afraid of leaving for a day like this, I told him I may be out for up to a couple of days since I kind of wanted to stay with Vivi and Oak for a day but I didn’t realize that I would like Emily and Richard so much that I’d be okay with spending a night.

The party started out great, over time the garden was filled with men who all fought to get to know me. I didn’t enjoy the fact that I was actually missing Cardan right now. Usually right now he’d say something to give me something to overthink, laugh, or mostly panic about but right now I was stuck with a bunch of boys who all wanted my hand. As if they really expected me to choose and on top of it, Emily was very keen on me choosing. She had told me she had about 5 batches so I can have a party each night of the week. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her or anything but, I just could not deal with a room filled with rich people like this. I know I’m supposed to be happy that there’s a room full of people ready to marry me at any second but right now all I wanted to do was run all the way back to the palace. To bicker with Cardan and fight with Madoc at council meetings. I finally found an empty area , a couch in the corner of the garden, somehow no one was to be found. I sat as politely as I could incase anyone was watching but I ended up leaning back and closing my eyes trying to process every person who’s introduced themself. Within minutes later I felt a thud next to me on the couch, I tried my best not to groan and turned my head. I attempted to have a sweet smile but I’m pretty sure it was a glare from the moment I looked over.

“Why the face?” The boy had a sly grin on his face as my eyes widened.

“Cardan!” I hissed. “What are you doing here?” How did he even know about this party?

“Taryn told Locke and Locke told me about it,” He replied coolly while he took a bite

out of something he was holding.

“Who’s at the throne? Oh my god, is it Madoc? He’s going to kill everyone,” I started to panic thinking about what was happening in Elfhame with Cardan and I back here.

“Don’t worry Lo-“

I cut him off, “Locke! You put Locke in charge? He’s going to kill everyone and lock us out!” I almost stood up with even more panic spread throughout me. At least Madoc was logical, Locke thinks everything is a stupid game.

“Locke called for the court of shadows and now they’re doing whatever it is that you do,” Cardan finished.

I took a deep breath, “Oh thank God.”

“So, what did you do to get a party for yourself? I doubt you’re actually planning on choosing someone,” I could tell he didn’t like the idea of me marrying someone just for the sake of it.

“After Locke, I don’t think I’ll ever rush into love at all,” I forgot who I was talking to for a second, I let my guard down stupidly. I could tell Cardan didn’t like the fact that I said Locke but he let me continue before I stopped talking, “I’m just doing this because they miss my mother and Em- she pleaded. How could I refuse a stupid party that caused her more excitement than to know that she had a piece of her daughter left.”

He smirked, “Well, I know something that’d cause her even more excitement.”

“What?” I could already tell this would end with a dirty joke.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I was just going to say that if you chose me, you could pretend you’d live with me for a while,” His idea was great except for the fact that she’d freak out to know that I planned on running away with a boy that she doesn’t even know.

“I think she’d have a heart attack.”

He snorted, “Well, we won’t know until we do it.”

“Cardan!” I gasped.

“Also, who’s ‘she’?” I realized I never actually explained to him who my grandparents were.

“The woman who gave birth to my mom.”

“So ‘he’ is the dad who caused his wife pleasure and pain so that your mother would come out of ‘she’?” He could make even the stupidest things sexual.

“Yes Cardan, please talk about the way that my mom was conceived. Please, I’d love to know more,” sarcasm filled my voice.

“I’d love to but ‘she’, is coming down here’,” my heart stopped for a second. Was she going to recognize him? He did glamour himself so hopefully she wouldn’t, and she probably didn’t know how the new king looked anyway.

“I see you’ve made a friend,” Emily winked at me.

“Yes, I did, but I think it’s time w-“ I stop myself quickly, “I go back home.” I smile as naturally as I can but I can tell it looks too artificial.

“Yes, well I’d like to get to know him a bit before you go,” Emily looks at him. “Have we met before?” She’s catching on.

“I’m not sure, maybe you knew my father?” Cardan played along but maybe he wasn’t. He sounded serious, was he actually asking my mortal grandmother whether or not she knew the old high king?

“Where’s Richard?” I blurted, hoping that she doesn’t figure out who Cardan is.

“Yes, I’m not sure where he is, but Jude. If you ever do feel comfortable, I’d love for you to call me your grandmother. And the same goes for Richard,” This was it. The conversation I least wanted to have and on top of it we were doing it in front of the boy I hate.

“Well, I hope you wouldn’t be calling him grandmother,” His laugh echoed through my body.

“Oh Yes! My wording was not that great,” Emily began to laugh. I’m surprised she didn’t snap at him but again, I think I’m just one who has no filter when it comes to Cardan.

“Emily, dear. Oh, hello. Jude, did you find someone interesting?” Richard inquired as he walked up to the trio.

“Yes, I did, now I really must get going,” I just wanted to leave and Cardan was not helping at all. I glared at him hoping he’d catch the hint.

“Well, it was great meeting you two but, I too must get going and well, I would just love to give Jude a ride back to her house,” Cardan stood up.

“Jude, will have to go her own way,” Emily interrupted. I wasn’t sure whether or not these people knew I was from Faerie.

“Yes, I hope I can see you another time,” I knew if I didn’t go with him I’d be stuck here for at least another day. My eyes burned hoping he’d come up with something else, anything else.

“I don’t think you understand, I know of Jude’s home very well and am offering to take her with me. I’d love to see where she live as I live there too,” Cardan said again. His voice was commanding, just like how it is when he’s in the court.

“Y-yes, of course, you may definitely take her with you,” Richard stammered. He was definitely afraid but I’m not sure what he was afraid of. I looked over and Cardan looked like his normal glamoured self. Emily stood there, as if she was struck by lightning.

“Emily, you’ll walk them out?” Richard looked over to his frozen wife.

“Yes,” She began to walk next to me while Cardan was a step in front of me. Once we reached the front door I began to say goodbye. I hugged her first, I kissed her lightly on her cheek as I saw everyone else do. She did the same to me but lingered a little longer. She whispered into my ear, “You could’ve just said no. You did not need to drag him here to save yourself. The next time you come here, I expect you to leave him there.” Her words were stern and I could tell she wasn’t joking around. She was right, I could’ve just said no but I did not bring him here. He came himself but there was no point in arguing. I wasn’t sure if she knew he was king but I could tell they knew he wasn’t mortal.

“Good bye,” Emily said quietly as we began to step outside the door, “and farewell, your majesty.” The last part made me freeze for a second. Cardan kept moving but he grabbed my arm quickly. Emily definitely saw it, she knew she was right.

“What did you do?” I asked once we were out of sigh.

“Nothing, just unglamored myself for

a second so they saw my crown,” Cardan shrugged as we continued to move.

“You did what?” I froze.

“Well, what did you want me to do?” He grabbed my arm again and forced me to start walking again.

“Anything other than that!” I couldn’t believe him.

“Hey, you needed rescuing so I rescued you.” He brought me to the horse he came here on.

“Thank you,” I said as I threw myself over it.

“You’re welcome, just make sure the next time you plan on getting married,” I turned my head to look at him as he talked, “Make sure it’s to me.” And with that, we started. I didn’t say a word on the the ride back not sure whether or not he was joking. But even if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter because that’s not my priority. We reached Elfhame by dawn and I made a decision. That was the first and last time I’d ever go back to their house.

[s-n-a-k-e-p-i-t]

alright x3, i just finished the folk of the air series and biiiiiiiiitch

first of all, I would like to curse myself into oblivion for not reading this book sooner. was it recommended to me? yes. did I not read it because I was unsure about faerie stories? you bet. and yes, don’t worry, I know I’m an idiot for that. 

however, I am OVER THE MOON that I finally decided to give it a go because OH MY GOD. And before I jump into this I just gotta address something, because I watched a tiktok last night of this girl RIPPING INTO this book and it honestly pissed me off. I’ve seen a lot of dislike for this series on, as mentioned, tiktok and goodreads. And I get it, I understand why people don’t like the conflict in the first book because it seems juvenile... but we also gotta remember the characters are young and in school, so naturally they have problems that may be difficult for someone not in high school to vibe with, but THAT’S YA FICTION BABY! (and that’s why I love it tbh) I’m very glad I ignored all that slander and picked this lil baby up, because it was right up my alley.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE CRUEL PRINCE, THE WICKED KING, THE QUEEN OF NOTHING 

Let’s go. 

First of all, the first book had me from the first chapter (my friend also had me at ‘enemies to lovers’). And Cardan had me from the first mention of him (and the rings on his hands). He was my ideal awful favorite character and I absolutely loved the entire arc of hating to loving to hating to loving him throughout the entire series. I absolutely LOVE when a character has that much substance. 

I think Jude is one of my favorite female protagonists. She’s morally grey, gotta love it but she’s also a badass and I loved being able to see the way her mind works. It was fun to try to piece things together as she too tried. It was also a kick to the gut with every reveal (cue ONLY DEATH) to a riddle I couldn’t figure out. Though when I first heard the riddle, I imagined a bloody Cardan just sorta walking out of the dark or erupting from the floor, but maybe not being entirely himself, but I quickly forgot the thought and kept reading. 

I loved how I never trusted Locke and how The Bomb stole my heart instantly and I really owe that all to the writing. Just like faerie it was carefully planned out and every gesture meant something, and those two characters I feel were really well executed. I loved the diversity of the couples (Vee and Heather yee yee) and I liked that it wasn’t forced into the story the trademark bi couple whose problems stem solely from coming out. Which is really freaking refreshing from the more recent years of inclusion. 

I also can’t believe how fast I tore through this. I mean I know my fanfic period of September-Now has rapidly increased my reading and with work, having to read fast is literally the only option, but still I was not prepared to finish this series in two days. I started The Cruel Prince on Monday at around 5p (ish??) and then just finished The Queen of Nothing today (5p) okay so yeah, it took me two days--and that includes a full time job and a hefty workout schedule--so good for me :) But the ferocity I ripped through this with was such a good feeling that I love and honestly haven’t felt in a while (probably since Shatter Me) 

Also as much as I love my sweet Warner, I think Cardan just stole the spot of guy to beat. His cunning and trickster ways was just such an interesting read--cue me screaming into my pillow when Carden exiles Jude and laughs at her when she announces she’s queen-- I was FUMING about that for hours. My sister was like ‘can you like chill’ on our facetime call... and honestly, no I couldn’t. I was shaking with anger, in disbelief he would do something like that after all we had been through (yes, we, I went through it too) and I even tweeted Holly Black and I was like UM WTF... (I sent her a nice tweet after finishing QoN don’t worry, don’t worry) 

Also as someone who sorta dozes off with war strategy, I felt like this was not too confusing and still compelling and I think that goes back to what I said earlier about us being inside Jude’s mind as she tries to piece everything together. Like it was interesting enough to have all the different Courts and to understand their motivations and their alliances and stuff, normally that stuff wigs me out and I just re-read the same sentence over and over, but here I was pleasantly surprised reading all the differing opinions and arguments of what they should do and when.

Ugh and then when the loml slays that fucking snake boy and he hugs her for the first time and just holds onto her in the middle of fucking battle. CAN WE TALK ABOUT AN ARC I am just still reeling from those emotions. And then when Nicasia is like “he sent you the dress for the coronation” I just about rolled off my chair. *chef’s kiss* brilliant.

Feel like a Madoc death would’ve been lit, but his existence in the mortal world and without violence, seems like death to a part of him so I’ll take it. 

I also will never get over Chapter 21 of The Queen of Nothing. So much that I re-read it the second I finished it. “Come here” It’s a miracle no one came to check on me from the sound I made. ANYWAY..

Overall, I just can’t find enough words to describe how amazing this series was and how honored I was to finally take the stick out of my ass and read it. I can’t wait to come back to it one day, maybe a year or so and completely immerse myself in it all over again. CANNOT WAIT. 

It’s safe to say I found yet another series that made me feel things the way Shatter Me did. It’s been a HOT minute since a (non fanfiction) book has done that. (And I separate the two because fanfiction I know the characters and with original works I actually have to get to know them but whatever, not important) anyway, it was amazing to be so in love with words again... and even in hate a little bit too, but hey that’s jude x cardan.

Okay the end, off to tackle more books on my 50+ TBR list yee yee

[aelin-queen-of-terrasen]

Could you do a fic where Jude gets amnesia and Cardan has to take care of her? (In elfhame and none of the people known what sickness she has lol). Please make it angsty and fluffy at the same time sjsjjsjs. Thank you so much if you do this! 💗

Ofc, love! I wrote this like, five times and just before I reached the end, I'd delete it so I'm quite proud for finishing at all.

Full Masterlist

cry me a river . . .

I wake up in an unfamiliar room, far too extravagant for my taste.

I grunt, momentarily blinded by the light seeping inside the chamber from the window before someone pulls it closed. The tall, lean figure comes over to sit at my bedside, touching the back of his hand on my forehead as if he is checking for fever. His hand feels warm against my skin and I almost whine when his touch disappears. Black dots swim across my vision and I have to blink a few times before I recognise the person sitting beside me.

Cardan Greenbriar.

If he has ever looked worse before, I cannot remember it.

Tear streaks run down his painted cheeks, glitter smeared all over. His coal black eyes, swollen and red, are fixed on me. I have the strangest feeling that I have seen this sight before, even though I have no recollection of seeing him so vulnerable. It is not something so small that I'd forget.

Did he find out I killed Valerian? That would explain the tears.

Perhaps he wants to finish what his friend started. It seems unlikely that he'd know but I can't think of another reason Cardan would abduct me and risk Madoc's wrath. It has to be the reason—

"Jude? How do you feel?" he asks.

He looks at me like I'm the most precious thing in his world. It scares me more than his hatred ever could.

"Stop," I choke out, stomach sinking more in fear with each passing second. "Tell me what—how am I here? If Madoc finds out you've been hiding me here, the consequences won't be pretty." I don't have to worry about him lying, because no lie can escape his tongue. I know faeries don't need the ability of lying to deceive someone.

Cardan frowns at me. "Liliver found you wounded across the clearing. You went to run an errand, got hurt and collapsed near the palace." I know what the words mean individually, but put together in one sentence, they don't make sense to me, which puts me further out of ease.

"Liliver?" The name tugs at my memory but I can't remember it.

He looks wildly concerned now. "The Bomb, Jude. She found you," he tells me before someone knocks on the door.

The Bomb.

Liliver is probably her true name; or part of it, at least. I wonder how Cardan knows it. I remember her as a part of Dain's court of shadows. The tiny, delicate girl slips inside the room when neither of them answer. Liliver holds a steaming bowl of soup in her hand, which elicits a series of rumbles from my empty stomach. I try to remember when I last ate and the moments from the previous night come crashing down on me: the horrible coronation, Locke's behaviour, her dance with Cardan and their peculiar conversation, then finally the butchering of almost all of the Greenbriar family.

I remembered running away with Cardan, hiding him in the court of shadows and the kiss we'd shared, my blade pressed against his throat. The implication that he liked me and he hated it. Surely, my present condition couldn't have something to do with it?

No, it couldn't have.

"How are you out of the office?" I turn to Liliver, who raises an eyebrow at me. "Who let him out? He is my prisoner, and you shouldn't have decided when he leaves." They exchange confused glances with each other.

Cardan furrows his eyebrows. "Leave? Jude, love, is this some kind of test?"

Balekin and Madoc planned against Dain and he is dead and the protection he'd given me could be over now. Cardan could glamour me into believing anything he wanted to. For all I know, he already has. I shove the panic down, resolved to find out more. If he had glamoured me, I'd be doing whatever he asked with blind devotion.

I ask the first of my questions. "Does Madoc know that I'm here?"

Both of them exchange worried looks. Liliver places a hand on my shoulder and says softly, "Jude, Madoc is in exile in the mortal world. He knows you're in the palace, of course, and we informed Vivienne you hurt yourself on a mission—she's probably on her way—so he also knows you're hurt, I think." My head swims. I can't wrap my head around all the information.

I blurt out the thing that shocks me most. "Madoc was exiled?!" Maybe everyone found out about his plot against the crown—

The doors to the bedroom are thrown open and there's commotion outside. I hear a voice I recognise well and Vivienne enters the bedroom, fuming and covered in sweat. She is panting, out of breath as she comes over to my side, discreetly pushing Cardan back. I am grateful for the familiarity but I cannot help but wonder if this is some elaborate game Cardan is playing, if it's really my elder sister or a product of faerie magic.

Vivi sits by my side, looking offended. "Do you have to face up all the dangers in the world alone, Jude?" Liliver observes me with a curious look. However, it is not her gaze that unnerves me but his. It sends shivers down my spine and I pretend I do not notice it. Vivienne is still talking to me, "honestly, would it kill you to share some load with your husband, Jude?"

I blink. "My husband? What—"

"Jude," The Bomb interrupts, "what is the last thing you remember?"

I am confused and scared and unsure if I should tell her. But she is from the court of shadows and I trust Vivienne. Cardan's presence is unsettling but there is no hint of cruelty and neither of them seem disturbed by his presence. So I tell them. "It was the coronation, Balekin—he killed Eldred and Dain is dead and Cardan and I escaped together and I took him prisoner." A blush rises to my cheeks when I realise what happened next, despite all my hatred for the youngest faerie prince—no, not the youngest. I recall my conversation with Oriana, Taryn's betrayal, Locke's lies and Madoc's plan. "Oak is the next in line for the throne, he's—Dain's child." No one looks surprised at the news, not even Vivi.

Cardan says with deliberate slowness, "Jude, you mean you don't remember anything after the day? Do you remember the arrangement we made?"

"What arrangement?" I don't know what he's talking about. It puts me at a disadvantage against him.

Cardan brings his hand close to me, as if he expects me to shatter. I do not shatter but I do flinch away from his touch. He looks like he wishes I'd struck him instead, blinking rapidly. For a moment, I swear those are tears in his eyes before they disappear.

"Jude," Vivienne says, breaking the silence, "I think there's something you should know."

⊶ ⊷ ⊶ ⊷ ⊶ ⊷ ⊶ ⊷

I listen in horror and fascination and barely supressed surprise as Vivienne narrates the tale to me. Cardan sits beside her, pitching in with details she doesn't know whenever the situation demands it. I grow more and more certain that this is something strange I have dreamed up with every word my sister utters.

It makes the perfect sense—my plan against Balekin and Cardan's role in it.

I remember thinking along those lines when I went to sleep that night, the only question being how I could secure Oak's throne. To be his seneschal but have the High King of Elfhame under my command—the thought alone is enough to make me heady with power but it grows worse as Vivienne reaches the part where Cardan asks me to marry him. I can tell they both tiptoed around what happened in the Undersea, Vivienne because she does not know what happened in there but the uncertainty in Cardan's eyes leaves me with no doubt that he knows what happened there. Perhaps I told him.

It is surprising that I am able to read him so easily, and the ease with which he talks to me implies he is comfortable around me. I keep looking for some hint of cruelty and rage and anger but he is all love and adoration and concern.

Vivienne reaches the part where Cardan turns into a serpent and I'm convinced this is some prank of theirs. Even in faerie, that sounds ridiculous.

But they can't lie, so when my apparent husband says, "It was hell, Jude. I didn't talk about it but it haunted my dreams. You told me it haunted yours too."

"I did?" It doesn't sound like me. "What—how did you come back?"

He looks at me, and his eyes shine with love and sincerity. "You brought me back. Madoc offered you a golden bridle to control the serpent but you chose to end it's life, even though keeping it as your slave would have made you an unchallenged queen of faerie."

Why? The words don't leave my mouth but sensing the question, Liliver answers. "Because you loved him, Jude, you chose to free him. You chose his peace above power, not knowing if he'd come back—"

"—but then he did," I finish for her. "I slayed the serpent and he came back?"

They all nod. I am surprised to hear the details, that the Undersea came to our aid. But it was out of love for Cardan that Nicasia allied with us. They recollect the aftermath to me, Madoc's exile and some of the events after.

Vivienne leaves to fetch me some water and mortal soup for quick healing. Liliver excuses herself soon after. When I look at him, there are tears in Cardan's eyes again, flooding down his cheeks. He makes no effort to hide them now.

"Why are you crying?" I ask, my voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

He shakes his head at me. "You forgot all the good parts, Jude. Without the good parts, I'm just a monster who gave you every reason to hate me."

"I don't hate you." The truth behind those words surprises me.

Even after all I've been told, the fact that I fell in love with Cardan Greenbriar is the one that makes the most and the least sense both at once.

"I—I need to be alone." Cardan's face morphs into one of hurt, and I feel the need to soothe it: "It's just—I need time to wrap my head around this."

He nods, "Take all the time you need."

Then he lifts an unsure hand, reluctant, and wipes a tear away from my face. I hadn't realised I was crying until now. He turns to walk away, his tail curled around his calf.

I say, "I'm sorry I lost all our memories."

"It's okay. We'll make new ones," he promises in a firm tone. And for a brief moment, I see what he talked about.

I see myself in love with him, so in love that I was prepared to sacrifice ambition for a small chance to have him back. I see us living together, teasing and taunting and completely in love with each other, ruling Elfhame side by side. I feel his phantom touch on my body from the night I danced with him at the coronation ball, before everything started—before our story began.

And even when the moment passes, I realise I can love him still, all over again.

⊶ ⊷ ⊶ ⊷ ⊶ ⊷ ⊶ ⊷

I know I say it after every fic but this one was hard so even if it's bad, I'm proud of it. I tried writing from the first person pov, so what do you guys prefer? This or the usual third person limited?

tags:

@courtofjurdan // @thesirenwashere // @nightbringer // @queenofgreenbriar // @jurdanhell // @sweetlyvillainous // @clockworkgraystairs // @blog-lady-vi // @the-dark-swan //@storiesandschemes // @fangirltrash74 // @augustintodarkness // @jurdan7 //@queen-of-glass // @aesthetics-11 // @mijaldraws // @hades-flame // @sensitivehighlord // @annejulianneh111 // @b00kworm // @mysweetvillain // @doingmyrainbow // @curlyredqueen06 // @chaotic-fae-queen // @thewickedkings // @thesurielships //@df3ndyr // @clouds-and-peonies // @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln // @thefolkofthefic // @st00pid231 // @iminsanenotobsessed

[calliope-king]

The Cruel Prince/Folk of the Air Series Book Review:

I just binge listened to the entirety of The Folk of The Air series in like four days, and I have thoughts! That’s over 32 hours of book. I can hear Brian David Gilbert in my head yelling “which is more!” Minus the 1 hour I skipped at the end of the last book (never underestimate my ability to give up at the finish line). I don’t have a Good Reads, but I have thoughts, hence my post here. I know that this book series and my review does not matter, but I’m on winter break, it’s pandemic 2.0, and I’m taking time off to do nothing, so why not?

Warning! Most of my thoughts are negative, but I did have a lot of fun listening to it in general. Some of my points here were carefully thought out, but honestly, most of them are petty and ‘me-issues’. If you don’t want to hear negative opinions about this series, just don’t read this post :). There probably will be spoilers.

Book One, The Cruel Prince: Just to get this out of the way, I thought it was bad, like very bad. That being said this made it incredibly fun for me to consume. There was a good ten minutes where I was hysterically laughing on the floor, saying “not Burning Man” over and over (Getting indentured by some magical fairy dude to work as a house maid until you die for attending a Burning Man festival and stealing a slice of bread or a cube of cheese or whatever is honestly so embarrassing; I hope y’all never catch me slipping like that). Good times. I’m just going to break down my thoughts on the plot, the writing, the characters, the romance, etc.

The Plot: Messy. Way too much going on. The first book had no business being as complicated (or as long) as it was: spy kids, high school bullies, evil twins, government coups. (Why does it low key sound awesome when I put it like that?) Plot lines were picked up and dropped as soon as it stopped being convenient. Often, they would be brought up again out of no where, and by that point, I remembered nothing. Luckily, the author repeats herself a lot—forgive me for the cliche, but she’s literally a broken record—, or I would not have been able to follow anything. It’s really the little things in life, you know.

The Writing: This book was extremely repetitive and greatly struggled with show-and-don’t-tell. Maybe instead of saying 100 times that Jude loves her adoptive father Madoc even though he murdered her parents (Yes, that’s a real story line in this book. That’s very healthy and normal), show us. Give us some good flashbacks. Make us feel those emotions too. However, the second books improves on this as it does most other things. The writing is also repetitive in the way that I’m convinced Holly Black frequently copies-and-pastes multiple paragraphs and then pulls up a thesaurus to get the job done (As a college student, I have to respect it though. No shade). Also, sentences like “my stomachs growls”, “I want to scream”, and “I fight back the urge to [insert violent act here]” can be found littered through every single goddamn page. Not that I would know, because audiobooks, but the narrator certainly said it a lot. Also, I know it’s YA, but Holly Black does a lot of hand holding with her writing. Nothing is left subtle, unsaid, or mysterious. That’s probably the number one reason why I didn’t like these books because I love overanalyzing entertainment that I consume, looking for subtext and digging for deeper meanings (based on this review alone, that’s abundantly clear). But there was nothing to dig for here, what you see is what you get.

The Characters: I say characters, but I just mean Jude. I’m going to complain about Cardan in the next section, and I would mention side characters, but to me, none of them were memorable.

Jude is a very, very frustrating protagonist. I know people seem to like her, but I don’t get it? She does have some girlboss TM, ‘this is modern feminism’ moments, but uh that’s it? Although, never doubt her ability to make the worst possible decision. Ever. Constantly. Without fail. Yes, let me kill Valerian literal minutes after Dain made me stab through my own hand for hurting that man-child. (That moment when you kill your high school bully and literally bury him in your back yard. Cleaning up a crime scene is evidently not one of her strengths. Only made better yet by her hiding the body under her bed at first because she doesn’t know what to do with it. Can you hear me scream laughing in the distance?). I know it’s supposed to be a turning point for Jude because she just says ‘fuck it, imma kill everyone who crosses me’, but because it comes mere minutes after her test of loyalty to Dain, it makes her seem erratic. Fuck the plan, I guess. Despite the fact that we see her rationally breakdown information and dissect problems, her rage consistently gets in the way of her ability to effectively solve those problems. Which is frustrating! I’m not sure a protagonist whose only personality trait is anger issues is capable of carrying this series, but whatever.

Also, maybe this is a flaw of first person narration, but being privy to a protagonist’s every thought allows the audience to draw their own conclusions about the character’s intelligence. Because we could see how Jude pieced together clues, put together plans, and made decisions, I’m not sure she’s as smart as she thinks she is or as other characters think she is. This really made me lose respect for the character and question the narrator’s reliability.

All that aside, Jude really drove me crazy when she just could not communicate anything. When she’s playing at part-time spy in the first novel (don’t even get me started on that plot line), she has all this evidence and on-going theories about the poison and about the decoy spy they killed, and she tells no one. I swear if they had all sat down in a room together and talked they could have figured out the plot twist way earlier and stopped the assassination. The whole thing just made no sense and could have been avoidable if anyone did their job. Also, when Vivi glamours her girlfriend, Jude has a lot of thoughts about it, but she does not clearly explain to Vivi why it was unacceptable. She could have saved everyone a lot of heartache. In conclusion, I’m not a fan of Jude, but I liked her more in the last two books.

The Romance: I am starting to realize… (And I know this is so controversial during this time. Please don’t come for me) that I don’t think I like the enemies-to-lovers trope. I’m not completely dismissing it, but I think it sounds like a better idea in theory than it is in practice. My only actual experience with enemies-to-lovers in fantasy books is Nina and Matthias from Six of Crows and I guess now Cardan and Jude, and honestly, I’m not a big fan of either of these relationships. That’s probably not a big enough sample size, but because they differ vastly both in concept and in execution, it’s probably safe to say this trope is just not for me. I think enemies-to-lovers often sets up problematic and/or toxic relationships or enables writers to rewrite history and never truly resolve problems between characters. Although if you have book suggestions that you think will change my mind, I’m very down.

More specifically for Cardan and Jude, it’s like you fell in love with the boy who pulled your pig-tails during recess, but instead of pulling your pig-tails, he actually tried to drown you. Also, was complicit in ‘pranks’ where you were drugged without your consent. Ummmmm, so yeah, I really want no part of that. (To be honest, Jude is not much better). I know Cardan gives some half-assed explanations that are supposed to exonerate him, but like I don’t really care that he wasn’t actually going to kill her or if he stepped in eventually. It’s still god-awful. I know he was abused and neglected, but being abused does not excuse his abuse of others. Cardan did not deserve to be abused, no one does, but I don’t feel sorry for him. The whole thing felt like a cheap grab for sympathy instead of a real, constructive, and thoughtful commentary on the cycle of abuse. Maybe this is asking too much of YA (Disclaimer! I’m not dismissing YA. I love YA. Hunger Games and Six of Crows are my shit, but I know the bar for YA is often lower, and sometimes it’s reasonable to curb your expectations), but I think it’s unhealthy to present this relationship as an ideal to teenage girls.

Unrelated, but I saw someone on Good Reads compare Cardan to Will Herondale from Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices series, and I cannot begin to tell you how vehemently my middle school self disagrees. Take it back.

Literally Everything Else:

The second and third books were either a lot better or I developed Stockholm Syndrome.

Even I thought that Cardan was giving Jude a loop hole in her exile by saying “until or unless she is pardoned by the crown”. The fact that Jude didn’t get something so obvious because she was blinded by rage is truly so in-character. Hats off to Holly Black, I guess.

Is the worldbuilding bad or did I just retain none of it? We will never know.

2/5 stars

[clockworkgraystairs]

Christmas Dinner || Jurdan X-mas in July

AHHHH there is more Christmas!Jurdan!!!!!!!!! 🎄🎄

Rating: T

Summary:  The Duarte's are hosting their Christmas dinner and Vivi sets a trap for Jude to bring his boyfriend and introduce him to the family.

I guess this can be considered a little prequel to You got me trippin? 

This is also my first time posting somethin in 1st person sooo...let’s see how it goes lmao

Tags:  @jurdannet @jurdannetrevels @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @sweetlyvillainous @aesthetics-11 @thesirenwashere @jurdanhell @demydreamer-otaku-and-book-lover @nightbringer @b00kworm @mysweetvillain @thefolkofthefic @yafandomsdotnet @vanessa172003​

[if you wish to be tagged/untagged or if I forgot to tag you pls let me know!]

A massive thank you to Becca @sweetlyvillainous​ for betaing this for me!! Love u 🧡

Masterlist             Read on AO3

This is a terrible, terrible idea I keep repeating myself.

If I’d shown a little more steadiness with my sister I wouldn’t be in this situation. I knew she was nervous about presenting her girlfriend to the family, specially to our father. And because she is extra as hell, she couldn’t choose another date that wasn’t on Christmas Eve. For weeks now she’d been texting me, grumbling about how was she going to be able to pull it off. I told her to relax and just go with it.

What I didn’t expect though, was for Vivi to arrive out of nowhere to the school where I work, talking nonsense about me bringing a fake date to dinner with hopes of taking the attention away from her. 

After spending 15 minutes trying to convince her it is not necessary for me to do that, her insistence is such I end up babbling how bad that idea is since I already have a boyfriend, and fake dating someone else would certainly create problems.

Big mistake.

Looking at me with something like betrayal in her eyes, now she starts questioning me about that boyfriend who I’d never talked about before. I bite my lip. When it comes to personal stuff I prefer to keep it private, even with my own family. I have my reasons. 

And just because luck is not on my side today, in the middle of her inquiries I hear a faint “Hey, babe!” behind me. I groan. Of course. Of course he had to arrive in that moment. 

We both turn to look at him. Cardan approaches us wearing that mischievous grin reserved only for me, so different from the polite smile he uses with his students. His hair is tied up in a bun as he also wears it for work, few curls escaping it in the most adorable way. 

With a pang of panic, I notice Vivi noticing how dumbfounded I’m looking at him. Her eyes light up in a way that I know means nothing good. I frown at her. 

“I was looking for you on the cafeteria, one of your students told me you were here.” He pauses. “I- didn’t notice you were busy though, sorry.”

“Not at all!” Vivi says with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I’m Jude’s older sister, Vivi! You must be her lovely boyfriend.”

“Oh, yeah I am. Nice to meet you!” If I didn’t know him so well I wouldn’t notice the slight blush on his cheeks or the way he looks at me in contained alarm.  

It’s too late by the time I put the pieces together. When I realize what is about to happen, my sister is already handing Cardan a rolled piece of paper.

“I came to make sure Jude invites you to our family Christmas dinner! She’s so absentminded sometimes isn’t she?” 

I’m going to kill her. Slowly.

Horrified, I stand there and see Cardan take the invitation, grinning. His polite, charming smile.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” He says. “Thank you so much Vivi.”

My sister turns to me and whatever look it’s on my face makes her hesitate. Although, not enough. She claps her hands once and makes an excited squeal. “Well I must go now! But I’m so excited you’re coming to join us Cardan, see you there. Ciao!”

With that she turns and leaves.

-

So here we are. My boyfriend driving by my side, as we are about to arrive to my parent’s house.

My knee bounces without control as I twist my scarf between my fingers. At any moment now, I’m sure my heart is going to bolt out of my chest. 

“Jude dear, is everything ok?” He asks. I notice I’ve been quiet almost the entire road.

I turn to look at him. He looks dashing, even if it’s not a strictly formal dinner he always finds a way to dress as it was. Black ensemble and green scarf that stands out his pale skin, though his nose and cheeks have a touch of color because of the cold weather. 

“Yeah it’s just... My family is a little,” I pause. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

We are not the type of family that introduces romantic partners, ever. My twin sister tried to do it some years ago with a terrible and embarrassing outcome. At some point in the middle of breakfast, she’d asked her daddy to pass the salt. Both our father and Locke moved to grab it at the same time. What came next, well… if that Locke dude had restrained himself to make a sarcastic and really tacky comment about it, maybe he would still be welcome in the house. Alas, he is not. 

Ever since that day, every time someone brings a guest to the house my father gets in a mood that is pretty uncomfortable for everyone. Sooner or later he makes everyone run.  Not exactly the first impression I want Cardan to have. 

We’ve been together for some time now, about eleven months. But the topic of introducing our families has never been on the table so far. I know he comes from a problematic family even if he doesn’t talk much about them. As for me, I have to admit I’ve grown so attached to him that I’m terrified of Madoc, or any other of my relatives, scaring him away.

He takes my hand in his, warming it, and smiles softly. “It’ll be ok. Breathe.”

I sigh, hoping he’s right and grip his hand tighter.  

The inside of the house looks as if Santa’s bag had exploded. There are lights and ornaments everywhere. Even the tree is bigger than previous years. A delicious smell of food fills the place. As I stare in awe I hear voices coming from the living room.

“Jude? Is that you?” Hurried steps sound in the wooden floor and a few seconds later my little brother appears wearing an absurd red and white onesie. He crashes against me and I laugh, hugging him back.

“You do realize that’s for little kids don’t you?” I ask. “It looks good on you, though.”

Oak scoffs and pulls back. “Well of course it does. I look good on everything.”

Cardan chuckles next to me and for the first time my brother notices him. His eyes and mouth open widely, blinking at him and then turning back at me. Once. Twice.

“Jude,” He murmurs. It cracks me up how shy he can get around new people. “Who’s this?”

Ah, here we go. I take a deep breath and grab Cardan’s hand again. 

“Don’t be rude,” I warn him. “His name is Cardan. Cardan, this is my brother Oak.”

Cardan greets him, extending his hand to him. Oak shakes it, visibly puzzled. “And Cardan is…?”

“My boyfriend.” 

A slow, mocking and devilish smile spreads on his face. I swear to god that kid was taken out from the movie Cheaper by the Dozen. All the shyness is suddenly gone.

“You and Vivi are really trying to give dad a heart attack today aren’t you?” He turns to Cardan and adopts a serious expression I almost believe. “Please tell me Jude doesn’t call you daddy.”

“OAK!” I hiss. I look at Cardan and he gazes back with amusement, I notice he’s biting back a laugh. 

“WHAT? I need to know earlier if I need to take my phone out, last time I didn’t have time to record when dad…” He motions with his hand. Yeah, I remember.

“She doesn’t.” Cardan affirms. Mimicking my brother’s mischievous smile he asks. “Is there a story there I need to know?”

Oak hesitates, even though I’m sure he’s dying to spill it out.

“Taryn would kill you.” I remind him.

“She’s not coming. For what I’ve heard, either it’s Locke’s turn to visit his family or something about dad running him under the car if he dared appearing. I’m not sure.”

Great. 

“What if I beat you at Mario Kart?” Cardan asks, pointing at the console resting next to the tv. 

Oak squints at him. “Are you challenging me?”

“It’s not a challenge when I know I’m going to win.”

Turning to me, my brother grins. “I like him.”

-

I know this is the first time I’ve brought someone home, but still I don’t know if I should be offended at my parent’s surprised faces. Oak had to tell my mother twice that Cardan is my boyfriend before she nods in understanding.

On his side, Cardan is being the full gentleman. To be fair he always is, but I notice the extra effort he’s doing today. It warms my heart. The only sign of nervousness I notice in him are occasional deep breaths he takes when he thinks no one is watching.

We get to meet Heather too, who is adorable and I honestly don’t know how on earth she fell in love with my lunatic sister. In a matter of minutes Cardan is already friends with her which helps with her evident tension. Vivi seems to relax as well. 

Christmas music plays on the background as we eat. This is probably my favorite part of the evening. Don’t get me wrong, I love gatherings with my family but food calls me on a spiritual level. Cardan knows it too, chuckling at my excitement while I’m serving us mashed potatoes. 

“So, Cardan.” My father starts, serving the wine. My heart leaps in my chest, oh no. “You met my daughter at work?” 

He nods. “Yes sir, I arrived there about two years ago. I teach preschool and first grade.” Winking at me he adds. “Jude used to hate me.”

Madoc turns to me, frowning. “What happened?” I roll my eyes, classical worried dad.

I take a long drink from my wine and shrug. “Nothing, he stole the ‘best teacher award’ from me, on his first six months. I’m pretty sure he bribed the students that year.”

To my surprise, my father barks a laugh. We all stare at him wide-eyed. 

“Keep repeating that to yourself, love.” Cardan teases. “It was a clean triumph.”

“You’ve always been competitive Jude, that’s no secret.”  Vivi adds. “It’s nice to finally meet someone who can pull up with that.”

I turn to glare at her. You and I are going to talk later. She sticks out her tongue at me. 

“Do you guys have sex?” 

“Oak!” My mother shouts as my father and I both choke on our wine.  

-

When Cardan parks the car outside my apartment it’s already past midnight. 

Surprisingly, this turned out to be one of the best Christmas celebrations I’ve ever had. My boyfriend somehow managed to not only avoid any uncomfortable moments around my family but also to wrap them up around his little finger. With jokes and tales about us the night had passed incredibly fast. 

Toasts were made, hugs and gifts were given. By the end, we were sprawled on the floor wearing silly sweaters and watching the merciless Mario Kart match between Oak and Cardan. It ended up in a tie. Rematch was already set for New Year’s Eve.

It was everything I never thought it would be.

“Well, did Vivi’s plan work?” Cardan asks.

I turn to find him already looking at me with a knowing smile on his face. Still, it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“C’me on, you weren’t really planning on inviting me to your family’s dinner. Something was surely going on the day she gave me the invitation.” 

Sighing I whisper. “I’m sorry.” 

He knows me too well, more than I even know myself sometimes.

“Don’t be, it’s not a topic we usually discuss.” He shrugs, reaching my hand with his. His thumb makes slow circles on my skin “Still, I should’ve asked if it was ok with you. Forgive me if I crossed a line.”

“You didn’t. I just wasn’t planning for you to meet my family yet.” I regret those words the moment they leave my mouth, knowing how they sound. Cardan doesn’t let go of my hand but he stops his ministrations. “Wait, that wasn’t…”

“Jude, it’s ok.” He says, turning to the windshield. I know him well enough too, and notice the touch of sadness behind his words. 

“No it’s not. Please listen.” I insist, my heart is beating fast now. That look on his eyes is exactly what I tried to avoid the whole night. “The reason why I wasn’t thinking to introduce you to my family is that they’re ridiculously hard and annoying with every new person that visits. And this is the first time I took someone home and…I don’t know, I-”

“You thought I’d leave?” He turns his gaze back to me, warily. 

At the beginning of the day I did. But I don’t find the words to admit it, so I don’t answer.

After a moment of silence he asks “Do you want to know why I agreed to go?”

I swallow and nod. Cardan inhales deeply..

“We’ve been together for some time now. And you know, you must know, I’m not playing around Jude.” I start to say something but he silences me with a soft finger against my lips.  “I love you. If I agreed to whatever scheme your sister had in mind it was because I wanted to show you that I’m not going away. No matter what.”

“My family…”

“They love you. It’s only natural for them to ask what my intentions are… and maybe tease us about it too. I’m willing to admit your dad is a little scary. But not enough to make me run away.” He winks, cupping my face.“There is nothing on earth that would make me want to run away, Jude. That’s how much I love you.”

Feeling my eyes sting I blink. “I love you too.”

We’ve said those words before. But I find that they acquire a different meaning, somehow deeper. My chest is suddenly too small to hold everything I feel for this man. He’s not going anywhere. He loves me. I’m grinning like an idiot and I’m proud of it. 

I lean to rest my forehead against his. “Since it’s our first Christmas together… and you already met my family.” His smile widens at that. “Would you like to stay the night?”

“There’s nothing I would like more.” Cardan angles his head to give me a kiss that I accept gladly, coiling my arms around his neck.  “I usually spend Christmas alone, I guess it’s time for new traditions.”

We remain entwined for some minutes, it fastly turns into something hotter and desperate. I’m already straddling his hips when I pull back a few inches. I bet my lips are as swollen as his. He is looking at me with hunger… and love.

“How about a tradition in which we spend Christmas night undressed and watching some crappy Netflix movies?” I suggest.

My toes curl when he leans to bite my lobe and purrs. “Yes, please.”

[leupagus]

My Stationery Box, or: The Douche Chest, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Being A Terrible Parody Of Myself

So I really love to write letters, and have since i was a kid — when i cleaned out my grandparents’ house I found a few I’d written in grade school, and my parents’ files are chocablock full of the weird collage type things I sent to them in college. 

I’ve also been a huge insufferable fucking snob about stationery since way too young (yes I did have a fountain pen phase, no it did not go well) and have been collecting fancy paper and cute cards and assorted weird writing paraphernalia forever. Up until recently, things were just kind of haphazardly stuffed in various drawers and shelves and I could never actually find any said fancy shit when I wanted it; but a couple of months ago I discovered an adorable little chest of my late mom’s that had previously housed, I think, her knitting and has mostly just been collecting dust since. And voila: The Douche Chest was born:

(Pictured with my elderly laptop and coffee with my coffee warmer, which I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE everyone to buy one day when we’re not under worldwide quarantine, seriously it will change your life.)

Keep Reading for some top tier stationerdery

First off, the stuff that helps me write! I still use my family address book, which was purchased sometime in the early 80s and has the name and address of everyone my parents ever cared enough about to want their name and address, which is actually not that many people. I keep it updated and have added a few people, but mostly rely on my phone’s address book. Mostly I like it because it’s got a lot of my mom’s handwriting.

My planner, which has a whole correspondence section where I keep a record of who I write to regularly, when I write to them, and what kind of stationery they usually get (because there are different types and you don’t want to give a correspondence an inconsistent letter-reading experience! Yes I know, I can’t believe I’m like this either) indicated by the m, s, x, l, b notations. That will be relevant later. Also yes the planner is where I scribble down both story ideas and my gratitude journal. This is what I’m saying in re: yikes.

At my own house, I have a whole huge box of letters I’ve gotten over the years, mostly organized by sender and date. Since I’m at my aunt’s house for quarantine, my correspondence is all being kept in my dad’s old... I dunno what to call it, basically it’s a trapper-keeper type thing that I literally never saw him go to work without. (A running theme of this tour is that a whole lot of this stuff is inherited from/given to me by my parents and grandparents.) Inside is also various labels that have come in handy when addressing packages etc, as well as our local neighborhood directory.

Next up is my pen bag, which is — I mean, it has my pens. I prefer writing with a black .5 tip rollerball type pen, and by “prefer” I mean “I cannot abide writing letters with anything else and will go to Staples and buy a new box rather than use a ballpoint pen except obv not right now, which makes the bag real important for keeping track of all my special pens.” Also pictured: my grandpa’s ancient letter opener that I’m pretty sure he stabbed multiple people with, and my blue Le Pen which I use to annotate my letters when I’m reading them through before sending. I KNOW.

This is my assorted letter-writing stuff storage box (no we’re not even at the cards yet this is TERRIBLE); please note that I sort of jerryrigged this box together myself, which will be another running theme of this tour. Glue, roller whiteout thingies, washi tape (which I don’t really use but people keep sending me?) post-its and my address stamp because no matter what I do, the fuckin’ Audubon Society refuses to send me a single donation request with cute stickers showing my address even though they’ve sent my deceased dad like three THIS YEAR. Anyway. Also please note the incredibly awesome initial stamp thing — I came up with the rough design in college and use it in place of my name a lot, but I went to leoniebunch and they transformed it into this super professional and lovely design that I want to use for the rest of my life. Not pictured: the fucking wax seal I also had made with that design, because yes, I’m like this.

WE’RE STILL NOT DONE WITH THE PARAPHERNALIA: here’s the other misc. stuff that I use on the regular. Cup with sponge because we’re not really licking envelopes these days: tons of weird stickers that I’ve collected, YET MORE PENS, including rainbow ones because one of these days I’m going to write to one of my friends with alternating rainbow colors and they’ll have to murder me. Also pictured: the letter opener which I forgot to put back in the pen bag, as well as my dog’s nail clippers and brush because that’s a handy place to keep them. Also also pictured: my dog, who does not help in any way with letter writing.

OKAY FINALLY ONTO THE STATIONERY, Jesus just writing this all out is making me both proud and ashamed.

I’m sure you noticed in the first pic how everything is meticulously, not to say monomaniacally, labeled. Some stuff might require a little bit of explanation; some stuff is pretty wysiwyg though. For example, BEAR CARDS, which:

(These are sent exclusively to my nephews, who go absolutely apeshit over them every time. Come to think of it, I have a LOT of cards/letter stock/etc that is just for one person or one set of people, which maybe I should talk to my therapist about.)

PUN CARDS are likewise exactly what you think they are; they’re the most recent addition to my hoard, having found them at Powells when I went to Portland in February. They are extremely My Kind Of Thing.

Then you’ve got things like BIRTHDAY CARDS, THANKS, POSTCARDS which like — guess what:

(Please note that of these birthday cards, all but two were actually inherited from my grandmother who passed away in 1986. See if you can guess which two are my purchases.) (Also I’m running out of thank-you cards but to be fair I am rarely grateful so this should last me another few years at least.) (Also shit, I didn’t take a picture of the postcards I don’t think? Whatever, they’re postcards that I’ve either inherited from my parents or collected over the years. There’s also a very odd collection of wolf-themed cards that SOMEONE in my family collected, and that I have been using exclusively for allighater because she’s the only one who could ever appreciate them enough.)

Then there’s the BLANK CARDS and BLANK AND WRITTEN CARDS WITH/WITHOUT ENVELOPES, because sometimes I just need to know what I’m getting into before opening the boxes. I’d say a good 50% of these were inherited from my folks, with the cutsier ones being my own purchases. The cards that these boxes originally contained are looooooooong since used up but they’re nice boxes and that meme about adulthood being an endless debate over whether or not you should keep a box because it’s a really good box is accurate as all hell. 

(There are a lot of cards in here that I bought when I was like, in college — those square ones, for example, were purchased at Faces in Northampton when I was in college and I’m probably never going to actually send them which is kind of ridiculous but see: this entire post.)

And finally, the actual letter-letter stationery! Which I also have an embarrassing amount of! First up is what’s labelled MADOC TREE CARD/LETTER because I honestly had no idea how else to describe it; it was inherited from my grandma who everyone called MaDoc (on account of her being both a ma and a doctor, go figure) and it’s really lovely. I doubt it’s the original intention, but I like to unfold the paper and use both sides of it, because I always have a lot to say. These are used only for family members on MaDoc’s side, and of those, only the ones I really like, which accounts for there still being a lot left.

Then there’s the X-LARGE paper, which isn’t actually that large — it’s just normal computer-sized — but in context is the biggest stuff I’ve got. All of this paper is from my mom, who loved using cute themed paper, and I use this stuff mostly for the friends of hers I keep in touch with (which is actually kind of a lot).

Then there’s the letterhead I use for — okay, so like, we know by now that I’m deeply weird, but this is probably just DEEPLY WEIRD, but whatever, you came this far. So I found a metric shitton of 6 3/4 envelopes in amongst my parents’ office supplies — I have literally zero idea why they had about 5 100-count boxes of these envelopes but I’m one of those people who can never, ever throw shit out, so! I gathered together all the letterhead that they’d also collected over the years from the various universities and hospitals they worked at, cut said letterhead down so that it a) didn’t have University of Tacoma or whatever still on it and b) perfectly fit a 6 3/4 envelope if folded three times. The resulting shape is a little... odd, I’ll admit, but it pleases me greatly and that’s the important thing. In fact this has been my go-to correspondence choice for a couple of months now.

(Also pictured: the cover for this hinky-ass box I made out of a Beekman 1802 box from when we went to their store for their Rose Apothecary popup shop. Zero regrets. Not pictured: the really cute pad of paper I also use for these envelopes that’s a more normal size and shape because where’s the fun in showing you normal stuff?)

And finally, my pride and joy, my Crane Stationery, some of which I have had since I was in high school and my mom bought me a box of it for my birthday (I told you, running theme). It comes in small, medium, and big; yes, I absolutely have rules as to who gets what size of these, too. The medium box kind of fell apart a few years ago so I cobbled a new one together; Crane stationery is notable for not being as exciting as that cover might imply. I’m also kind of pleased that I still have the airmail stationery that I got in college that apparently isn’t sold anymore, which I find baffling because what the fuck is the point of international correspondence if you don’t have to use special stationery? Anyway:

(In re: the lined sheets — I actually have them for every size, because I loathe lined paper but also loathe writing crooked, hence these guides that I put under each sheet as I write. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

So that’s the complete guided tour! If you aspire to have a collection as viscerally unnerving as mine, feel free to send any questions my way. You’re welcome/I’m sorry.

[sarahjtrash]

Cardan Spills a Secret

A/N: I had a hc that Cardan cannot keep quiet about his marital status. Enjoy!

Jude has been exiled for six months.

For the same duration, Cardan has not slept well and as many of nights has not slept at all.

Elfhame teeters on the brink of war, and all Cardan wants is the return of his Queen.

Not that he would dare admit his desire or his marital status.

No, these past six months have been filled with bargaining and discussion and headaches.

Madoc attempts to twist his arm at every turn, Orlagh threatens war with every ambassador that comes to a revel, and Nicasia drapes herself over him every night.

He both pities her and is disgusted by her.

When her skin brushes his, he wishes it were the warm mortal blood of Jude. When her lips brush against his ear to tell him something that does not need to be shared so intimately, he hopes it were a different voice.

In some deep part of him, Cardan recognizes that he may be slightly in love with Jude.

Tonight her absence feels particularly keen, and he’d consumed perhaps a few too many cups of wine for someone desperately trying to avoid a war.

Nicasia has attached herself to his arm for the evening, following him from conversation to conversation throughout the revel.

He knows objectively that she is spying on his conversations as much as she is trying to be more intimate with him.

Aside from that night where Jude convinced him to seduce Nicasia in which they did not more than kiss, Cardan has never and will never again be intimate with Nicasia.

The only way he’d made it through that seduction was through imagining it was Jude he was pleasuring.

Still, he allows Nicasia’s paltry attempts at his affection if only to appease the Queen of the Undersea.

Her attachment this evening is quite silent, a blessing in and of itself.

However, once his conversation with a particularly angry ambassador has ceased, Nicasia leads him to the side of the ballroom where a more private conversation may occur.

“You look dashing tonight, Cardan,” Nicasia hums as she runs a hand down his chest.

He knows he shouldn’t allow such casualness to their interactions, but Nicasia reveals more when she believes him to be hers.

“As do you,” he replies. It is not a lie. Nicasia is objectively beautiful.

She looks away from him for a second as though lost in thought. “Do these trivial matters and delicate balances of avoiding war tire you, Your Highness?”

It is a loaded question, one he cannot answer honestly, so he leaves it at a vague, “I find that being King is not a labor less position.”

She hums. “Perhaps you should no longer face it alone.”

Cardan fights to roll his eyes. For months, Nicasia has attempted these vague suggestions of their union. If only she knew how vile he found that arrangement.

Instead he feigns to be ignorant of her advances and replies, “I do not face it alone. I have courtiers and advisers who assist me.”

Nicasia seems put out by his brusqueness, before a challenge alights in her eye. “I grow bored of this evening. Do you think it possible we could have some tea in your chamber?”

He acquiesces, excusing himself from some unfinished discussions with various ambassadors with little discussion.

As they walk down the hallway, Cardan feels as though the hallway has tilted. He trips on his feet, only for Nicasia to laugh and catch him.

Perhaps he drank more wine than he thought. He chose to forget his recent attempt at soberness, and now only a few cups can make him tipsy.

Once they arrive at his rooms, Nicasia asks for tea, which is brought promptly in front of the fire.

They lounge on the couch, Cardan skillfully places a few inches between them.

As they sip their tea, Nicasia speaks of their shared childhood. Cardan finds her stories dull and her voice shrill. She continues to speak, oblivious to Cardan’s lack of attention.

He stares at the swaying flower overhead, and remembers the last time he had seen them bloom. It was on his wedding night, and Jude had sat on this very couch. He’d felt dizzy then too, but tonight it felt warm and soothing. As the vines swayed back and forth, Cardan felt himself drifting off, his eyelids growing heavy.

Nicasia cleared her throat, and pulled his teacup from his hands, asking him something. Distantly, he knows he shouldn’t agree, but he's too tired and hums at her.

It was clearly the wrong answer.

Before Cardan can even think, she’s straddling him and crashing her lips into his.

Cardan eyes fly open, and he finds himself to be incredibly sober.

Nicasia’s hands cup his face, and Cardan tries to gently pull her off.

She only sighs on his lips, before trying to kiss him again.

Cardan feels absolutely disgusting for letting it get this far, and shoves her off, standing up and chest heaving.

Nicasia is quiet for a moment before saying, “Last time we kissed, you halted my advances. If since becoming King you wish to be more chaste, then so be it. We can wed right here if that is more to your liking.”

Cardan laughed at her assumptions and spun around to face her. He’d said almost the same words to Jude almost months ago. It feels vile to hear them come from her lips.

“Nicasia. We can never wed.”

She stands. “My mother,” she starts as she walks towards him, “grows impatient.  She would like to share that if we do not wed by the next full moon, there shall be war.”

Then war there shall be, he thinks.

“But,” Nicasia purrs as she halts almost chest to chest, looking through her lashes at him. “If we were to marry, her army is your army. Her word is yours. We could be very powerful, Cardan.”

Again, such causality should be punished, but Cardan deigns to permit it.  As he opens his mouth once again to respond, Nicasia advances in a way he never thought possible.

Her hands brush against the buttons of his breaches, and Cardan feels sick and jumps back.

“Can you please take my denials as an answer?” He all but yells. “I do not desire you, nor do I love you. The thought of being your betrothed, while not only impossible, disgusts me. Nicasia, you were once dear to me, but those feelings of long ago, no longer persist. I do not know how to communicate this more clearly to you.”

He breathes heavily as they stare at one another.

Nicasia licks her lips three times before finally responding. “I shall leave this room and never return, but before that, I have but one question.”

Cardan raises an eyebrow, not trusting himself to say more.

“Why is it impossible for us to wed?”

Cardan pales.

Nicasia stalks towards him. “You did say that, did you not? Why can you not wed, Cardan Greenbriar?”

Maybe it’s because he’s drunk, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want Nicasia to touch him anymore, or maybe because he's tired of keeping Jude his secret, but he says, “I am not a Queen-less King.”

Nicasia stares at him in shock, but he can see the gears turning in her mind, the answer probably already at the forefront of her mind. “To whom?”

He knows Jude will probably murder him for this someday, but he can’t help the smile that overtakes his thoughts as he admits. “My wife is your High Queen, Jude Duarte Greenbriar.”

Nicasia looks murderous, and Cardan almost instantly regrets admitting to anything at all.

“I hope that you know your union will bring the death of you both, and this land,” she hisses before storming out of his room.

For a moment, Cardan lives in bliss, imagining a life where him and Jude could be happily married and not hide their feeling in secret.

For those that follow, Cardan realizes the stupidity of what he just admitted. He tells the guards outside to assemble his council.

It was time to plan for a war.

My masterlist