#if I tried any of that at his age with my parents I'd be practising hand shakes with the Grim Reaper | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

marcythewerewolf · 7 years

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Hi - back with another request if that's okay. I spent like an hour going through your writing tag and fell in love. So I was wondering, could you write something where Andrew and Nerissa stayed together? With Mark and Helen (or...Miach and Alessa) as teens/young adults? It could be anything you want; I'd just like to see what you think it'd be like :)

Of course! Fair warning, this one got long (a solid 5k or so) as well. I just really love Nerissa and the Seelie Queen, a lot.

If you’re looking for more very good Nerissa fanfiction, you might be interested in the works of @andrew-blackthorn. Charlotte isn’t in the fandom anymore, so don’t go bothering her about it, but she does have quite a few good stories from a few years ago in her Lady Nerissa tag there, and her take on her influenced me a lot.

Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori

“It is decided. The queen will see you.”

Mark and Helen looked up to see their aunt emerge from their mother’s rooms, ruffled but less destroyed than they had expected. The Lady Nerissa took no prisoners, not even with her sister. In contrast, Aunt Nene was soft and gentle and reserved, making the occasional glimpses of intrigue they snatched all the more intriguing. Surviving a tongue lashing from mother was no mean feat, and this was the first time they’d watched Nene walk away from a sisterly argument victorious.

“What, she agreed?” Mark said, baffled, “That easily?”

The Seelie Queen didn’t like children. Mother and Father didn’t like her seeing Mark and Helen. The arrangement suited everyone, even now that they were grown, big enough that if they’d been faeries full they might have been serving in her retinue.

Aunt Nene sighed, whisper soft. Her hair was wrapped in ropes of ivy today, and leaves occasionally fell off to the floor, where they vanished. “It was not a matter of debate, my sweet Miach. The Queen does not make requests, she only gives orders in a genteel manner. Now come, I will take you to her.”

She held out both hands, like Mark and Helen were toddling children again and needed to be watched in case they wandered into a bottomless pool or made a deal with someone they oughtn’t to have.

Mark and Helen traded a look, a secret communication between siblings. ‘Not much we can do about it,’ Mark shrugged, ‘She is a queen.’ Helen scoffed, and her meaning was clear. It would be best if Mark let her do most of the talking.

Only seventeen and she thought she ruled the world. Mark despaired of older sisters. He liked his Shadowhunter ones better, they never gave him this much trouble, if only because they were too little to.

“Our dad is going to be mad about this when he comes back,” Mark warned, and took his aunt’s hand. It was warm and dry and her skin had a powdery softness about it.

Aunt Nene did not look very impressed by the wrath of Andrew Blackthorn. They didn’t get along. “He may feel however he chooses. This is the Seelie Court you are being raised in, and the Seelie Court you must obey.”

Leaving their mother’s chambers and venturing out into the wilderness of the open was always a shift. It meant going from Helen and Mark to Alessa and Miach. Their mother had named them both, but she prefered their human names better, liked the foreign lilt and the romance of them. She’d brushed their hair once and crooned to them. It had taken years before Helen and Mark had realized “tragedy” wasn’t a pet name.

She had a very odd sense of humour, their mother. All of the folk did, and only now, growing up, were they starting to grow away from it, starting to strain against the boundaries of their mother’s well appointed rooms and carefully picked out abandoned haunts to play in and learn and train. Father could see it too, and so could Aunt Nene.

So, it seemed, could the Seelie Queen.

Aunt Nene warned them, before she walked them in, to mind their manners and mind their tongues. She seemed nervous, which Miach couldn’t quite understand. This was her employer.

On the other hand, the Queen was the lady of all things fey, and that meant she was dangerous. It was built into her very bones.

She was waiting for them in a bower growing over with multi-colored, glowing flowers and mushrooms. From a distance at revels and courtly gatherings, she was a hummingbird among sparrows, small and shimmering and brilliant and very, very sharp. Up close her beauty took on a more luminous aspect. The surface of her skin seemed slightly reflective, giving her a glow that was not quite oily so much as iridescent. Her hair, bright red like blood in water, and her oddly pale eyes stood in contrast to the rich, living darkness around her.

“Miach, Alessa, children of my vassal, born in my domain. How you have grown, and in such a short time. Please, sit.”

Aunt Nene hovered in the background, protectively, and Mark was suddenly very glad of her presence. She could be a bit unpredictable, but she was family. At the very least, she could be counted on to not let them disgrace their bloodline.

“You honour us, your majesty,” Helen said, sitting, and Mark marveled at how elegant she looked, in her loose linen training clothes with her hair braided up. At some point, she’d gone and turned into a real person on him, not just an obnoxious older sibling. He could see their mother seeping from her every pore. “You are the queen of the Seelie Court and we are, as you said, children.”

“But not for much longer,” the Seelie Queen mused, tapping her lips with one gilded nail. “As I said, you’ve grown so fast. Meliorn, could you?”

A knight in interlocking seelie armor was standing over them in a heartbeat, inspecting them with a practised eye. Aunt Nene gasped as he checked Mark’s pockets, touched the back of Helen’s neck with a detached air, and then nodded to his queen. She smiled.

“Please, do sit back down. I’m sorry about that. I simply wanted to see if you had any magical items on you.”

“Mother doesn’t let us carry weapons unless we’re practising with them,” Mark blurted. “She says it breeds an atmosphere of violence which she will not have in her abode.”

Helen tried to shush him, but the Queen merely laughed. It was a tinny sort of laugh, reminding Mark too much of canned laughter he’d heard on television shows when Dad brought them to the mortal world for a weekend.

“That is quite a policy. I only wish I could enforce it with the whole court, but sadly there are not enough patdowns in the world to part a Seelie warrior from his weaponry. No, I am more concerned with your aging. Your father spends his time as a Shadowhunter, does he not? Let us kindly call it a hobby. He has a brother up there to look after. And yet he always comes back to find his children aging the right way, never goes back up to find a hundred years have passed. I’ll admit on reflection I found it curious. Your mother has magical talent, your aunt is one of my most capable handmaidens and healers. Even they do not possess that much power though, and Nene swore ignorance of the mechanism through which you are kept in step with the world of men.”

The Queen was waiting, patient as a spider for their answer. Helen bit her lip, looked for a second to her frozen still aunt, then answered. Truthfully. She could lie, Mark knew she could, but after a childhood of truth it did not come easily to her. “Our mother has an enchanted object in her possession. A gift once given to a human who found favour with you, my lady. She keeps it in her rooms, takes it with her when she goes out, and we are protected.”

She nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, I have been known to give those out, on occasion. And Nerissa was always a collector. But you do not have it on you now, do you? So if I were to let time slip away a little faster here…”

Next to him, Helen stiffened in fear, but Mom wouldn’t have let them go to see the Queen unprotected, would she? It wasn’t her style. She had been distraught, not insensible. Mark thought for a second. Then, instinctively, his eyes darted to his aunt and her draping dress, folded back up a dozen times to create huge carrying pockets, the dress of a handmaiden expected to keep any number of objects on her person in case her lady needed them.

The Seelie Queen followed his gaze and smiled. Aunt Nene’s pockets turned up any number of healing salves, potions, a hairbrush, a folding fan, and an embroidered belt of gold cloth, folded up and tucked behind their aunt’s back. The Queen took it delicately and turned it over in her hands while Aunt Nene hovered, looking worried, though it was hard to tell for who. Mark held Helen’s hand tightly. He wished their mother was here, or dad.

“Nerissa was always the clever one,” the Queen sighed, “She was a shining credit to my court. What is it the humans say? The good die young. The exceptional always seem to burn out and end up putting us all in strange situations.” She looked up at Nene’s desperate face and smiled. “Worry not. It is hers by right, however she came by it. Please, return it to her.”

“You are always righteous,” Nene whispered, retreating to stand behind Miach and Alessa.

“I am,” the queen agreed straightening her dress, which seemed to be made of frost. “When one of my ladies took a fancy to a Shadowhunter, I let her keep him, though it made the Clave most vexed with us. When that same Shadowhunter and his brother fled from us, leaving one of my subjects with two children and a broken heart, I gave her a pension and freedom to raise them quietly according to her own means.”

According to their parents, it hadn’t gone quite like that, Mark recalled.

“Do you remember how her Shadowhunter hurt her, darling?” the Seelie Queen asked, looking over Mark and Helen’s head, at their Aunt. “She might have died, if you hadn’t brought him back to her. And I tolerated that as well, that man of thorns sneaking into my court at all hours, ferrying his half Shadowhunter children in and out. I was most fair about it, I think. And we have sweet Miach and Alessa to thank for it.”

Miach resisted the urge to roll his eyes. What could she have done, without violating the accords or upsetting mother, a powerful figure in politics even in her seclusion? She could have told the Clave, who didn’t exactly know Mark and Helen Blackthorn, well, existed, but that would have only brought scrutiny down on her court. He was young, but he listened to his mother. He knew how this game was played.

“But now they are grown,” the Seelie Queen finished mournfully, “Alessa, you are nearly of age, by the standards of your angelic kin. And the political situation here has… shifted somewhat. So I must reconsider the leeway I have so graciously extended.” She wasn’t looking at Mark, only his sister, as she rested her chin on one tiny balled fist.

“I will speak with your mother, of course, and perhaps your father too, but I wanted to see you both before I made a choice. Alessa, you seem to be of a good temperament. I know you have lived her, but visited the human world often as you’ve grown, and that is a rare upbringing indeed. What have your parents taught you?”

Helen started, “Um, languages, history. They both like stories about the past. My mother tried to teach me magic when I was young but I’m not good at it. We were trained in combat as well.”

“In the Shadowhunter style?” the queen asked, looking them both up and down, clearly looking for runes. Mark felt a chill spread over his skin, though he knew every one of the sparse marks on their bodies were covered up, with wrappings and thick cloth.

“In both,” Helen said defiantly, sitting ramrod straight and staring her down.

The queen smiled. “Quite. Well then, my offer for you, fair child, is this. I have decided your father is no longer permitted in this realm, not unless he comes with a Clave delegation and all the appropriate paperwork. The time of leniency is over. You will soon be an adult as well, and if you will be a Shadowhunter, I must extend the same restriction to you. If you will be a faerie full, I must demand some service from you. I would like you to serve as my handmaid, as your aunt does, and your mother did when she was young. Then you may stay here, with your mother.”

Mom and Dad looked pale as Helen recounted the tale of their audience with the queen, with occasional helpful additions from Aunt Nene. Dad had come down from above, with letters from the twins and new knives and a box of scones from Eleanor, only to find a disaster waiting from him.

Since everyone else was distracted, Mark was eating the scones.

“Surely she can’t demand that,” Dad said, looking frazzled. He looked frazzled often. Not only did he have a lot on his plate, he had been born, as far as Mark could tell, in a base state of frazzlement. His glasses were permanently askew.

“She can,” Mom said, low and sad. She was holding Helen close and stroking her hair. “This is her realm, to the utmost degree. The question is, why? Why now?”

Dad paused, thinking about it. “There have been rumours of Valentine Morgenstern coming back. Maybe she just doesn’t want a risk like that?”

Aunt Nene interrupted him in a delicate flurry of hands, hesitant and retiring, but nevertheless insistent. “I think I must recuse myself now. If the queen asks, I do not want to know your plans.”

Mom looked at her over Helen’s head, sorrowful but steady, “I trust you to do what is best, sister mine.”

That only seemed to make Aunt Nene more agitated, “I know not why, when I have betrayed that trust in the past!” she said, in a high tone that Mark recognized as the closest she got to hysteria.

Her sister nodded, “Which is why I have faith you will not make the same mistake again.” Nene fled and Mom looked at Dad with a hint of a smile. “There is nothing like good faith to make the faithless run and hide. Now, what are we going to do?”

He sat down next to Mark on the wide, velvety bench next to the bed and took a scone, biting into it absently. “I’m not sure. Could we negotiate with her?”

“Perhaps, but we have little leverage,” Nerissa said, pulling Helen into her lap, though her daughter was almost an inch taller than her now. Helen squirmed.

“Mama,” she said, “I could work for her, I wouldn’t mind.”

The day had changed so quickly. It seemed odd to be holding a war council in his mother’s bedroom, where Mark had slept until he was five, with the big bed that could fit a dozen people and the swan down mattress, “But I would,” his mother sighed, “And that would still not solve the problem of your father being separated from us.”

Andrew’s forehead was wrinkled up into a lava field of thought. “I think there’s only one solution,” he said, finally. “You’ll all have to leave.”

“What?”

“Wait, really Dad? Come live in LA, all of us?”

It sounded like a dream come true. Mark adored Los Angeles, adored his half siblings and Eleanor and the beach and the sun. Helen liked the library, the people, seeing other children, not just their mother and their aunt. Visiting there was always a delight, and he was always a little guilty about how much he enjoyed it. Faerie was his home, yet he could imagine Los Angeles replacing it all too easily.

Nerissa shook her head. “It wouldn’t work.”

“I think it would. There’s room enough in the Institute. There’s no rule against it, if only because no one’s bothered to make one. I- ah- Eleanor and I have discussed it before. She wouldn’t mind. The children would love having Mark and Helen around all the time. I think we could make it work.” Dad’s eyes were shining and Mark was taken over by a sudden sense of hope. Mom still looked unconvinced.

“I am not sure it would be wise, Andrew Blackthorn,” she warned.

He came over to kneel in front of her and held her hand, “Is it Eleanor?” he asked, looking worried. “Because you know she likes you. She didn’t always, but she does now. Things are better now than they once were. ‘Fluctuat nec mergitur’. It has been shaky, but it has not sunk.”

It had been a close thing there for a few years, Mark knew. His parents’ relationship was complicated, to say the least. They had loved each other once, utterly and effortlessly, and then that love had floundered. Something to do with Aunt Nene and Dad’s brother, an uncle Mark had never met. Dad had left, Mom had made him, and he’d forgotten how he’d loved her, forgotten the children they’d had together.

The Clave had given him a Shadowhunter job and he’d married a Shadowhunter woman, unaware that Mom was getting sick out of lost love for him far away in faerie land. The fey were fragile when it came to matters of the heart. Losing dad had hurt her so.

Aunt Nene hadn’t been able to stand the sight of her sister wasting away, so she’d gone and brought Dad back, shown him Mark and Helen and Mom on her sickbed. She’d told him his wife was still alive, that he had children besides. It had been years, but the story of Andrew Blackthorn: Accidental Bigamist, sad and romantic, was still a somewhat ridiculous one.

Mark could still remember it, the strange human man scooping him up in his arms and crying, and mom weeping of joy and fear.

Dad had been furious. He’d also refused to abandon Mark and Helen. He and Aunt Nene nursed their mother back to a modicum of health. Then Dad had taken her and Mark and Helen up to meet his Shadowhunter wife, the woman he now loved.

All things considered, Eleanor Blackthorn, newlywed and with a baby, had handled the whole situation very well. The grownups had disappeared for a while while Mark and Helen played with baby Julian there in the Sanctuary of the Institute, and when they emerged from their huddle it was all sorted out. Mark and Helen would stay in Faerie with their mother, and their father would visit and teach them about Shadowhunters and the other world, in between running the Institute and caring for his Shadowhunter family. For the children, betrayals would be set aside. There was still mistrust, but it could be mended, given time.

When Mark had been ten, his parents had gotten back together again in a measured, quiet way, having consulted everyone twice. He gathered that this wasn’t normal among Shadowhunters, but for the fair folk it was sensible. Something had happened between the three of them, Mom and Dad and Eleanor, not a whirlwind romance of youth but the steady march of family inevitable. Love, once given, was hard to take back. It lingered in strange places, and when you were raising children together it was hard not to forgive and forget. Mother’s health had improved significantly after that. Even heartbreak could heal.

The scar tissue it left was significant though.

Mom laughed bitterly, “I hold no grudge against Eleanor and she holds none against me. I love her. I would not have taken you back into my bed if I did not. No, I am worried about your Clave, about these children of ours, raised in secret, against all their rules. I am worried about wandering right into Valentine Morgenstern’s hands or whatever else it is that has my queen so frightened.”

Dad looked serious, “Do you think I haven’t thought about this? The Council won’t be happy, I’ll admit. But we can reason with them, convince them that it was impossible to bring the children anywhere else, impossible to give them the standard upbringing. As for Valentine… he’ll be beaten again, I’m sure of it. He was always a bit insufferable.”

“I will not bring the wrath of the Shadowhunters down on your family and your pregnant, sick wife!” Mom insisted, pulling her hand away from him. “I love you too much to do that, and I love our children too much to make such a cruel choice. Your people have been too terrible to mine. There must be some other option.”

His face paled, “Your people have been terrible to mine as well, my beldam,” he said softly and that was enough to make Mom turn away.

Helen and Mark were both watching, rapt and frightened now. This was the closest they’d ever seen their parents come to a fight. There’d been arguments, mostly behind closed doors, and most of those had devolved into loudly quoting poetry at each other until one or the other gave up. This was something different.

“Mother, please!” Helen threw up her hands, throwing herself in between her parents, drawing attention to herself and not whatever quarrel was taking place. “Let’s think about this sensibly. I can’t stay here. Dad can’t stay here. We can either leave to Los Angeles or go somewhere else. What about the Unseelie Court?”

She actually considered that one before shooting it down. “It has not been friendly to Shadowhunters as of late, and my talents would offer little to the king. If he wanted a war with the Seelie Court, perhaps that I could assist with, however that seems like a poor strategy.”

“Los Angeles then,” Helen pressed, “It wouldn’t be that bad. We could find a house outside of the Institute, maybe?” She looked to their father, uncertain of mortal economics. He shrugged.

“Probably. Most Shadowhunters don’t deal with the real estate industry directly, but then again I doubt you would be either.” Mark looked around the room, the bright light and stone walls and delicate feathery wall hangings. He had lived here all his life. He couldn’t imagine leaving.

Helen was a woman on a mission. “It might work,” she insisted, “You could have privacy, mom, and we could still be away from the queen and close enough to the Institute. We could see the kids every day!”

“We could get a television,” Mark added helpfully. He’d been rather in love with them since he was small and had seen them in a shop window.

Mom shut her eyes and shook her head. “No, no, no.”

“Why not?” Helen demanded, “Mama, please.” She was jumping between languages now, English and the language of the fey. Nerissa had raised them speaking both, and it made things dizzying when they were in a mood. Helen was getting more and more upset, Mark could tell. He didn’t blame her, he wasn’t the one being kicked out of the only home he’d ever known.

“Nerissa…” Dad said, sounding tired.

“It’s the iron,” she snapped. “The city is full of it. I would die, in time, were I to spend my life there. And while I would gladly die to see my children safe, it would be sooner rather than later.”

Mark blinked, then realized she was probably right, at the same time Dad and Helen did.

She was of the gentry, older than old and born in the lands of Faerie. Iron burned her, salt made her wince. She hated rowan and Saint John’s Wort, and charms of every sort, meteorite iron and . Though she had visited the city, it was always brief, and it always seemed to make her uncomfortable when she did. Other faeries could tolerate small amounts of mortality, but the very old and noble found it more difficult to stomach

She could not lie. If she said living there would not be good for her, it would not.

They all slumped, helplessly, trying to think of a way out. Moving the Blackthorn family was impossible. Eleanor had a baby in her stomach, and she had been unwell for several months. Dad thought she might be ill. Besides, there were the children to think of, bright Julian and shy Ty and loud Livia and little Dru. Moving Mom was similarly impossible, the world of humans wasn’t made for someone of her stock.

Mark moved to the bed and the cluster that was his family, or at least that half of it which lived here. Then he said quietly, “You know Helen has to go.”

Their mother shook her head, wheat coloured curls going everywhere. “No, no. I won’t allow it. I cannot lose my children.”

“It does seem less than ideal,” Dad agreed. “No, you don’t understand,” Mark said, sitting back. “I’ll stay, and rather than dad coming to visit us, me and mom will come and visit you guys. It’ll be okay that way.”

“Will she let you stay here?” No one needed to ask who ‘she’ was.

Everyone was looking at him now, waiting for some explanation, Mark tried to look certain. “I think so. She thinks I’m just a child, you see. She was mostly paying attention to Helen. She- she looked at Helen and saw our mother. I’m not sure she saw much of anything in me.”

“My smart boy,” Mom sighed, resting her head on Mark’s shoulder. “I’m sure you’re right. I don’t want my daughter to leave me, I will admit. But it might be the best choice. And it is Helen’s decision, in the end. Alessa, Helen brave, you know you don’t have to do this?”

Helen’s face made it obvious that she did not want it to be her decision. Eventually though, she stood.

“I’ll go. We’ll tell the Clave whatever we have too. I can help out with Eleanor and the kids, and learn about being a Shadowhunter and a human. Right, dad?” She turned to their father, looking for encouragement, and he put a hand on her back.

“You’ll be amazing,” he assured her.

Their mother buried her face in Mark’s hair. “You should leave as soon as possible,” she whispered, “If you’re gone before the Queen asks to speak to me, I’ll be able to spin this well, I think.”

Helen and dad departed reluctantly to go pack and Nerissa collapsed back on the bed, pulling Mark close to her chest like he was a squirming baby again.

“My Miach, my Mark Antony,” she soothed, “My glorious warriors two. The Shadowhunter name your father and I gave you was one of death and splendour. For your faery name I tried to give you hope. The first Miach died, you know, but even in his death he was beautiful. Thousands of herbs grew from his grave.”

Mark nodded, suffocating in the gossamer of her dress and her maudlin moods, and his own slowly growing realization that Helen was going to have to leave them. “I know, Mom.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I doomed you by naming you so, but I think the world was never meant to be nice to you. I wanted you to be prepared.”

“You prepared us,” he promised, remembering a childhood hidden away from the rest of the court, their aunt who treated them like glass, their mother who treated them like sad stories waiting to happen, their father who tried so hard but had so much to do for so many people. Training, magic, story after story after story. Latin, Greek, tongues older and more infernal still, all in a desperate attempt to protect them.

They loved him, he knew, but love could be a dangerous thing for his people. It was powerful. It held sway over you.

Julian greeted them at the door to the Institute, barefoot and smiling. He was getting big, and he had the slightly awed expression in his eyes that all the younger Blackthorns did when faced with Nerissa.

Mark scooped him up in a hug, and instantly regretted it when Livvy and Dru mobbed him as well. Having Helen in residence apparently hadn’t diminished their enthusiasm for their elder, faerie siblings.

Shadowhunters could be unkind, but children weren’t.

There were paper streamers wrapped around Livia’s arms and legs, he noticed, and the theme held as they moved through the front hall and to the kitchen, where Helen was reading with Ty and Dad was cooking while Eleanor, her belly round and her face wan, sat making comments.

After greeting Helen, Mom swept over and kissed her on the cheek.

“I brought some herbs for you,” she said gently, “And a plate of faerie fruit tarts.”

Eleanor looked at the tray with alarm, “Let’s not let the children have those, shall we?” she suggested weakly. She didn’t look well. Mom must have noticed it too, because her lips thinned and she sat down, with all the intent of an accomplished healer.

Juggling giggling siblings, Mark sat next to Helen and Ty, who greeted him with a fact about honeybees and a shy smile.

“How are you?” Mark asked, as soon as the delight of having Mark and Helen in the same room at once had dispersed a little and Livia and Dru had broken off to go bug Dad about cookies.

She grinned, “It’s- it’s not bad. Dad and I had to go to Idris and talk to the Council, I told you about that, but now things have settled down a little. Everyone here has been very nice. There have been some very nasty comments from other Shadowhunters, but the tutor here is fair and friendly. She says I have a good hand with a bow. How are things back home?”

It was still home to her then, Mark noted. He wasn’t sure whether to be happy or not about that. “It hasn’t been bad. It’s very… very quiet without you, sister mine. Our aunt misses you. Our mother misses you even more.”

“I’m sure she does,” Helen said sadly. “Let’s make the most of this afternoon then.”

Dad called them to lunch, and with them all sitting around the table in the sunshine filled kitchen, it felt almost right.

Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t a tragedy after all.

#m writes #fanfic #lord of shadows spoilers #the dark artifices #lady nerissa #andrew blackthorn #i couldn't ditch eleanor and the littles #they're a little messed up but still okay for the time being #not the healthiest of polyam relationships because nerissa and andrew's past is still messy but they figured it out #this was originally going to end with mark and nerissa alone in faerie but that was too sad it had to be the whole fam #helen blackthorn #mark blackthorn #eleanor blackthorn

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