#iichliwp drabbles

[ncssian]

if i can’t have love, i want power (i)

a concept fic about nesta��s descent into darkness where each part is based off a different song from halsey’s latest album, IICHLIWP. set in an arthurian/medieval-inspired au b/c canonverse is lame.

tw: mentions of depression and suicidal thinking

Part One: The Lighthouse

“Have you heard? A third man was found dead on the shores of Westmoor during patrols last evening.”

Rhysand held out his goblet to let Feyre fill it, but her hands had paused on the pitcher at hearing this new information. “Really?” Her eyes widened. “Who was it this time?”

“A knight in training named Bellius,” Cassian grunted somberly, confirming the news for the rest of the table. The women had yet to hear it, of course. The women were always the last to know things in the kingdom of Velaris, despite all of them currently sitting around Rhysand’s round table as equals. There was Feyre, Mor, Amren, Elain, and—

“Did you see anything of this, Nesta?” Feyre said as she spun to her eldest sister, who sat beside her husband Cassian at the table. “I know you frequent those islands often.”

The Westmoor cliffs led down to a very thin strip of beach that Nesta often liked to take walks on, despite the cragged rocks and risk of high tide sweeping her out into the ocean. Cassian hated the danger it posed to her, though he could hardly stop her from going every day.

Nesta’s favorite part about the beach had nothing to do with the beach itself: when the tides pulled back, they revealed a path of black rocks that led out to even more islands of slippery rock jutting out of the water. The islands had a radius of no more than six feet, and yet when she stood atop those jagged boulders with her bare feet, she might as well have been standing on a new continent. So wondrously removed from life was Westmoor’s shore.

In response to Feyre’s question, Nesta lifted one graceful shoulder in a shrug. “There were no dead bodies on any of my walks, I’m afraid.”

No one that had been dead yet.

She didn’t know how or when it first started. Whether it was from almost being drowned by a kelpie, or being rescued by the Devil himself… or maybe it started long before then, when she first said “I do” on an altar across from Cassian.

She didn’t know when this rage had started.

The kelpie had revealed how truly weak she was, that night she almost drowned at the bottom of the ocean. No one would come to save her, because she had left that palace with the intent to die. Only when she was struggling under liters of water, fending off claws and sharp teeth with nothing but her frail limbs, did she decide that she wanted to live.

Her wish had been sent out into the depths of the black waters, and the Devil had answered.

Arms of corded muscle and bronzed skin had dragged her away from the beast, up onto the rocky outcropping. Gleaming hair of gold was haloed by moonlight, and a secretive smile sealed Nesta’s wish with a kiss.

Not only had she lived, but she had returned to life. That night, the endless cloud of fog she’d been living in had been brushed aside like cobwebs, replaced by something hotter. Darker. Like magma flowing beneath the crust of the earth.

To this day, her lips tingled with her savior’s kiss. Not in a romantic or sensual way, but in a way that let her know— whatever promise she had made with the Devil, he was still reaping it.

Bellius had deserved it, though. He’d deserved being chained to those rocks, gasping for breath as the tides grew higher, until eventually his head could no longer peek above the waves. So had the two men who’d come before him, Beron and Tomas.

Nesta sighed aloud, poking her fork at the roasted pheasant on her dinner plate. “What a shame for Westmoor to have to witness such brutality.”

She felt a gauntlet-covered hand on her thigh, and turned to find Cassian’s face hardened into serious lines. “Don’t go for any more walks on the beach,” he pleaded with her. “Not until we find whoever is doing this and put a stop to him.”

Nesta looked into his earnest eyes that held such deep care for her, and only offered a bland smile of agreement. “Of course, my love.”

wrote this in like twenty minutes so dont take it too seriously. we’ll see how far i get with this but i dont consider it an “official” fic lol

taglist: @hellasblessed @sjm-things @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @valkyriewarriors @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @cupcakey00 @sayosdreams @rainbowcheetah512 @claralady @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @everything-that-i-love @cassianscool @swankii-art-teacher @wannawriteyouabook

[ncssian]

if i can’t have love, i want power (ii)

link to part one

cw: idk bro it’s nesta being so depressed she turns into a villain so anything other than depictions of SA and suicide is free real estate

Part Two: Whispers

Before

Everyone had told Nesta that her wedding day would be the happiest day of her life. They had been right, for every day after Nesta’s wedding was less and less happy, until she no longer recognized herself or her marriage.

She didn’t have any proof that he didn’t love her. It was more like a voice in the corner of her mind, a voice that spoke up every time Cassian looked at Morrigan instead of her, or laughed at Feyre’s witty comments in a way he never laughed with her.

For every day that passed, that voice in her head seemed to ring more and more truthful. It also seemed more and more loud, to the point that nearly every waking moment was characterized by the most miserable shouts: Remember how they lied to you, remember how he never apologized, remember how she whispered secret jokes into his ear while you were standing right in front of them—

She could survive if nobody loved her, she told herself. Even if Cassian couldn’t be the husband she needed and his family couldn’t be the friends she needed, she would live just fine.

But she didn’t know how she could go on without the one thing she wanted most: a child to call her own.

By the eleventh month of trying and failing to conceive, hopelessness was starting to set in. Neither her nor Cassian would say it aloud, but it weighed heavy in the air every time they went to bed. The possibility that she was barren.

She’d always been a failure in many aspects, as Amren liked to remind her, but never had she been prepared for her body to be a failure as well. It was humiliating. Demoralizing. Every other woman could do it, but she couldn’t.

So when Feyre and Rhysand announced that they were with child at dinner one night, Nesta had to get up and excuse herself from the room.

Once she finally broke, there was no going back. The first spilled tear was like a crack in a dam, and she barely made it back to her and Cassian’s bedroom without her sobs echoing through the stone halls of the palace.

Cassian found her curled up before the hearth not long after that, her pained cries still wracking every bone in her body. But Cassian had never been one for words, so he could only leave the room and come back holding a tonic. “It’s for sleep.” He nudged the vial toward Nesta, imploring her to lift her head and take it. He knew that once she started crying, she was unlikely to stop. It was as if for every good day she had, two days’ worth of tears were bottled up and hidden away.

So he stroked her hair, rubbed her shoulder blades, and whispered meaningless assurances until she had the strength to lift her head from her arms. And then he helped tip the vial of herbal tonic down her throat.

He probably didn’t expect Nesta to take the tonic again the next night, and the night after that. He probably didn’t expect her to get a stronger prescription once the original medicine ran out, nor did he expect her to become addicted to the sweet numbness of the root-based remedy.

When she was numb, she couldn’t hear the cruel voice in her head. It wasn’t exactly bliss, but it was a relief. Even more so when she discovered that crushing the roots and herbs into a powder made the medicinal effect more potent than liquid.

No one knew that the bejeweled cross necklace that always sat heavily atop Nesta’s breasts was for anything more than decoration. Inside the hollowed out pendant sat enough herbal powder to send her into a coma—not that she would ever consider such a thing.

After

Bells rang throughout Velaris for seven days and seven nights to announce the heir to the kingdom’s throne: a tiny little thing called Nyx.

“He looks just like you,” Nesta hummed to her overjoyed sister, who couldn’t stop tugging at her babe’s little hands and feet.

“Does he really?” Feyre said with excitement. “Everyone says the opposite.”

Reaching out to stroke her sister’s hair, Nesta offered her a sweet smile. “May you die before he does.” It was a common blessing of longevity, a prayer that the child would live to adulthood in a world where few children ever did.

The perfect heir, she thought as she watched the babe writhe in Feyre’s arms. A son that would carry his father’s legacy of cruelty and kindness in the same breath, conquering new lands every day while claiming that it was the only way to salvation.

Nesta’s hand drifted to the cross at her chest, her thumb finding the top that could be unscrewed and removed. It still carried enough powder to send a grown man into a coma, though she hadn’t ingested the stuff in months.

A pinch of it would be seeing Feyre’s wine tonight, though.

Nesta still heard the voice every day, but she no longer shunned it away. She was no longer afraid of the truth.

taglist: @sjm-things @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @valkyriewarriors @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @cupcakey00 @sayosdreams @rainbowcheetah512 @claralady @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @everything-that-i-love @cassianscool @swankii-art-teacher @wannawriteyouabook @arinbelle @mehx1000