#i alr kneel for what 5 Gods what else. do. i. need. to. offer.

[gomzdrawfr]

I went fishing with my friends :3

some funnies...

[rhysanoodle]

In My Blood

A/N: In which Cassian again participates in the Blood Rite and both he and Nesta must deal with the consequences, post-ACOFAS

Nessian angst

Word count: 1839

AO3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Part 7

The night passed with little incident. At one point Nesta needed to shake Cassian awake again as she awoke to the noise of him thrashing around and sweaty with fever, but after helping him down another draught and changing his sheets, she was able to find a few hours of her own sleep before awakening at the crack of dawn.

Gods, she really needed more comfortable sleeping arrangements, she thought to herself as she brewed the strongest coffee she could muster but still struggled to stay awake as she cooked breakfast. For her, some eggs with sausage, but for Cassian, luckily, she just needed to reheat some stew from last night. She had some fairly strict orders about what she was allowed to serve him, which worked just fine for her. It made her job easier.

Thankfully, he’d managed to keep the meager amount he’d swallowed last night down, but she knew she’d have to force him to eat more today and drink more fluids. His healing would only be slower if he continued to deprive himself of the essentials.

As she carried the tray laden with stew and a glass of cold water on it into the bedroom, she was surprised to find Cassian already awake. He was staring at the bed roll on the floor with a pained expression, and Nesta was unsure if it was at the now-sober realization that she had indeed spent the night here or if he coincidentally needed a refresher for the pain draught.

He quickly glanced up at her as she entered, and held her gaze as she helped to prop him with some pillows and then set the tray on his lap.

“Is there anything else I can get you right now? I know it’s a little early for it, but I can grab some more pain medication from the kitchen. Or you can just wait until lunchtime and take it with the healing tonic. Whatever you want really.”

Why the hell was she babbling so much? She just needed to shut the hell up and go grab another cup of coffee. It was promising to be a long day already, full of trying to skirt around the unspoken issues between them as they were stuck together all day long. Six more days.

Cursing herself for the awkwardness, she turned to leave when he still hadn’t responded for a few moments, but he gently caught her wrist, wincing a bit at the motion, and Nesta spun back around.

Cassian awkwardly point toward his head and shallowly bit out, “My hair is in my face, and it’s kind of hard to eat. He mimicked the fact that he couldn’t really reach much farther than his mouth and slowly at that. Right. And after the thrashing of last night and the fact that he hadn’t bathed, it was a tangled mess around his head.

Nesta nodded and quickly went to go fetch some supplies. She came back with her hairbrush and a leather tie and got to work. Kneeling next to him on the bed, she gently coaxed the snarls free on one side of him and then the moved to the other, doing her best not to pull too hard or have to run her own fingers through it too much. The small shivers she felt anytime her hands made contact with his scalp were unnerving her, and she carefully avoided Cassian’s gaze, staring at the brush in front of her, not brave enough to want to find out if she had a similar effect on him.

After a few minutes of detangling, she neatly tied his hair back with the piece of leather and made her way back to the kitchen to eat her own breakfast without looking back or giving him a moment to respond.

By midday, the urge to crack open a bottle of wine was grating on Nesta. She had a few stashed away but knew she’d never live it down if Feyre showed up to find her drunk today. Maybe that would get her out of this responsibility though and she could just leave Windhaven… She was still warring with herself internally when a loud knock sounded at the door.

Thank the Mother.

Feyre and Azriel filed in followed by one of the town healers. Nesta gave them each a curt nod, told them Cassian was definitely still alive, and bolted out the front door. Let them have their privacy. She sure as hell needed some of her own right now.

She wandered aimlessly through Windhaven, having absolutely no clue where she was headed. It had been so important to her to get out that she hadn’t really considered what she would do with her free time. Ideally she would be alone at home with a good book and a glass of wine, but that wasn’t an option right now, and in her haste, she hadn’t thought to bring a book out with her.

After wandering the perimeter of the camp enough times that on any other day, she thought she might truly go insane, she found herself stumbling into Emerie’s shop.

The bell above the door emitted a soft tinkling noise, and Emerie glanced up from the book she always had stashed underneath the counter for slow days.

“You look…” Emerie clearly was trying to gauge Nesta’s mood, “...like absolute shit,” she laughed and gestured for Nesta to join her behind the counter.

“I’ve been trapped in that cabin all day, and honestly, I thought I was going to explode if I had to stay there a second longer,” Nesta admitted. “I don’t know why I offered to help him. It was a moment of weakness, and…” She was at a loss for words.

“What exactly happened?” Emerie nudged her for more information. “One day we’re all in camp waiting to see the results of the Rite, and the next pretty much all of the Rhysand’s Inner Circle has descended into town and are acting like they’ve got sticks shoved all the way up their asses.”

“Cassian made it to the peak of Ramiel. That’s all I know, but he almost died in the attempt. I assume they’re doing damage control while they wait for him to come back up to speed and he is able to attend his own coronation, but it could be days from now...at least a week? I don’t know.” Nesta fought back the tears that were threatening to burst out of her as she finally said the words she’d been thinking aloud, “I’m just here until he recovers. After that, I’ll probably go find another camp to live in.” The words were barely a whisper.

“What?” Emerie snapped back at her.

“I’ve promised to stay and help until he’s able to care for himself, but I think it’s time for me to move on from here. He’s about to hold a significant amount of power over me, and it’s clear that I’m unwelcome. I don’t want to go back to Velaris, but I can’t stay here either.”

Emerie was silent for a minute, before flatly saying, “You could try out Stormridge.” Nesta was grateful her friend had abstained from any other scathing commentary.

“What’s that?” Nesta asked, feeling hopeful for the first time all week.

“It’s another camp which isn’t terribly far from here, a few towns over to the east. You’d still be able to visit me occasionally, and I hear it’s going through some interesting changes as well. The bastard son of their lord was the only other contestant to make it to the summit. Some say he actually saved Cassian’s life. It’s all rumors at this point, but he’s likely to gain a position of power soon if it’s all true, and he seems like a good kid. He flies over here daily now, supposedly checking on how Cassian is doing,” she responded.

Nesta mulled it over, not liking how close this person supposedly was to Cassian but realizing that if he indeed end up leading this other camp, it still would be better than any of the other misogynistic lords she would’ve had to have put up with elsewhere.

“Thanks,” she said, offering Emerie a small smile and getting up to leave. She had a lot more to think about now and only a short while left before she knew she would have to relieve her houseguests.

“But I swear on the Cauldron, if you disappear without a trace, Nesta Archeron, I will hunt you down and haunt the shit out of you,” Emerie yelled at her as she was stepping through the door. With a laugh, Nesta turned and gave her a vulgar gesture before beginning the arduous walk back to the cabin.

Nesta was slowly, silently walking up to the house when she heard the voices pouring out of the open window. She froze in her tracks, noting that she was downwind of the cabin so they likely hadn’t sensed her approach.

“No, I don’t want to move somewhere larger. I like this cabin just fine, and besides, this is the camp I grew up in...for the most part.” Cassian.

“But don’t you want to start over somewhere new? I thought after everything these people had put you through and the last year you’ve spent in this house, you’d be amenable to us building you some sort of nicer estate.” Feyre.

“No, this is my home, and this bullshit isn’t going to change that.” Cassian.

“What are you going to do about Nesta?” Feyre.

“What do you mean what am I going to do about Nesta? What are you going to do about Nesta? What is Nesta going to do with herself?” Cassian.

“Cassian.” Feyre’s tone could be considered a warning. “I know it’s been a rough year or two, but she did volunteer to stay and help you. And she lives here too.”

“I’ve told you a thousand times already. Just because you know I’ve had feelings for Nesta in the past doesn’t mean I can live like this anymore. You’ve left me out here with her for over a year, Feyre. I’ve tried. I did everything I could think of to pull her out of that place she’s been trapped in in her head for months. Eventually, I just had to get used to pretending that I live alone. She’s been a ghost. I can’t just ignore her anymore, but I also can’t keep doing this.”

“Cassian.” Azriel. At that, the Shadowsinger quickly glanced out the window, catching Nesta’s gaze for a moment before averting it and continuing the conversation as if he hadn’t just been informed that she had heard a decent amount of the conversation happening in that room.

As she backed down the street again to pretend to find something to do for the next thirty minutes before innocently making her way back home, she hoped his shadows hadn’t also been able to sense how her already-fractured heart had somehow broken on those last words.

Tags: @porcelainart @theartfuldodgcr @tswaney17 @lordof-bloodshed @aelinashgalathynius @aedionashryver-wolfofthenorth @anyone-anything-canbetrayanyone @refreshtoexpress @mikaylamee @wolffrising @tiredbutstillreading @velarxs

< Previous  Masterlist  Next >