#otp: he’s flint you’re tinder

[deathsweetblossoms]

Cardan: if I fulfilled that prophecy—I ought to be stopped. And I believe that you would stop me.

Jude: Sure. If you’re a huge jerk and a threat to Elfhame, I’ll pop your head right off.

//

Jude after spending hours in the brugh with Snake-Cardan: I’ve been telling him how he can’t hold me to my promises

She told Snake Cardan that he shouldn’t hold her to the promise to stop him if he became a threat to Elfhame 🥺 the fact that she spent such a long time in there that she lost track of time, that the snake got so cozy he closed his eyes, that she was only three feet away from him when nobody else could get near him without fearing for their lives.

[deathsweetblossoms]

God, YES.

Even in Cardan’s deleted TWK chapter, when he’s recalling the night he got shot, does he admit that he only knew Jude in his drunken haze.

He recalls lying on a bed in the old room and the sharp, hot pain of a crossbow bolt grazing his side, the smell of spilled wine all around him, a girl screaming.

And then Jude.

One of my favorite parts of HTWOELTHS is how his thoughts always stray back to Jude. She truly is an anchor for him “in a world of ghosts”; it’s so touching and deeply spiritual.

Cardan had some bangers throughout the series but nothing, I repeat nothing, hits me as hard as “I knew little else, but I always knew you.” Because you realize that he’s not talking about just the time he was cursed, he’s talking about every other time before. Years before. And everything that’ll follow after.

In his novella, we go through his life since he was a kid. When Balekin took him home, when he met Nicasia, when she took him to the Undersea, when he went to the mortal world to the first time. And the one thing common in all this was that he always mentioned Jude, or that mortal girl, at least once (I’m serious, go open HTKOELTHS quick and check each chapter.) He’s always felt like she’s the only real thing, she kept him grounded. When he was hurt beyond measure and not in his senses for days after Nicasia and Locke’s betrayal and rode into the palace school drunk out of his mind, it’s Jude and her voice that cuts through everything and brings him to his senses. He said the sight of her, of the hatred in her eyes, warmed him! He knew only her, even then.

Because he felt like she saw who he really is. He might have hated it at first because he’s been hurt so many times he didn’t want anyone seeing him for who he is beneath his mask, but this very thing also lead to him falling madly in love with her. So yes, this line is one of the truest and deepest things he’s ever spoken and I will love it to death. 😭😩

[deathsweetblossoms]

I force my feet to move across the wilted and blackened grass. ... “Cardan,” I say in a whisper... As if in answer, the serpent draws back, neck curving in a swinging movement as though evaluating how best to strike.  “It’s Jude,” I say, and my voice cracks. “Jude. You like me, remember? You trust me.”  The serpent explodes into motion, sliding fast over the grass in my direction, closing the distance between us. Soldiers scatter. Horses rear up...Kelpies run for the sea. ... But the serpent pauses perhaps ten feet from where I am standing, winding around itself.  Looking at me with those gold-tipped eyes. 

I woke up in the early hours of the morning thinking about this scene, and how Snake Cardan heard Jude whisper his name from thirty feet away (It's canon that he's thirty feet away from her, by Jude's guess when she first sees him in the clearing). At the sound of her voice, he rushes across the distance between them and stops in the security position for snakes. (Snakes winding around themselves aren't positioning to strike. They're moving into a protective position.) What strikes me the most about this scene is that Cardan later tells Jude he only knew "hatred, terror, and the desire to destroy". So much so that he blackened the land and the trees wherever he slithered. So much so that anyone who came near him died.

He was himself, but he wasn't. But even in this stripped down form of himself, the mere sound of her whispering his name draws his attention, and he immediately RUSHES toward her and just...stops to rest in front of her. It's such a deep, primal sense of knowing someone and it makes me go absolutely feral. Even in snake form, he trusted her.

This also somewhat parallels the hedge maze scene in Cruel Prince, although I'm not sure it's intentional, when Cardan is high off his ass but still recognizes Jude by the sound of her cough.

I start coughing immediately. At that moment, Cardan's gaze goes to me. His eyes are barely open, but I can see the shine of them, wet as tar.

We talk a lot about how many small details Cardan notices about Jude's appearance from the get-go, but recognizing the tenor of someone's voice from a COUGH? Hearing their voice from thirty feet away when they're WHISPERING and you're A DAMN SNAKE???? HELP.

[deathsweetblossoms]

(Prince Dain) has seen something in me, something Madoc wouldn't see, something I have yearned to have acknowledged... - The Cruel Prince

I start to tremble all over, the adrenaline draining out of me. Courtiers, waiting for better battles, study my bruises and evaluate my prowess. No one seems particularly impressed. I have done my best, have fought my hardest, and it wasn't enough. Madoc didn't even stay to watch. - The Cruel Prince

vs:

"For a moment," (Cardan) says, "I wondered if it wasn't you shooting bolts at me." I make a face at him. "And what made you decide it wasn't?" He grins up at me. "They missed." ...So, too, can he say something that ought to be insulting and deliver it in such a way that it feels like being truly seen. - The Wicked King

[deathsweetblossoms]

I rub my thumb over the stub of my missing finger top, bitten off by one of Madoc's guards, and realize abruptly that if I told Cardan about it, he might understand. Maybe more than anyone, he'd comprehend the odd mingling of fear and shame I feel -- even now -- when I think of it. For all our conflicts, there are moments when we understand each other entirely too well. (Jude, QON, Ch 20)

He considers explaining how much he despised the palace as a child, how he dreamed of escaping Elfhame. She knows most of that already. (Cardan, HTKOELTHS)

Once, she told Cardan the story of confronting Madoc after she'd drugged him, but before the poison began to work. (Cardan, HTKOELTHS)

Soft evidence of Jude and Cardan removing their armor, “one piece at a time”, via sharing their stories with each other.

[deathsweetblossoms]

These tags, good gawd.

To add onto this, he gives her this “steady” look (imagine him just staring at her, not looking away, unbreakable in that gaze) after they’ve finally done something more intimate than kissing. It’s like, he realizes a lot in this moment about who they possibly could have been if they hadn’t been at each others throats. During his proposal, he even admits “faerie suffered when we were at each others throats” and uses that as a selling point to get her to marry him. However, he’s saying it here specifically after sex. Which says a lot, and this is a pretty vulnerable moment for him (imo) in terms of what he’s unintentionally revealing in the timing of saying this.

A truce is an agreement between enemies to stop fighting — and all they have been doing is fighting each other. Undermining, betraying, backstabbing, one-upping, etc etc. A lot of these were games to hold the other at arms length, but I think in this moment Cardan starts to see how similar they are and how well they work together. Especially after she’s played along with the “I hate you” litany, which Jude herself admits was protection against what she really felt. To me, it’s a round-about admission of how good their little tryst felt to him, and he’s frustrated that they’ve been at each others throats when this could have been the alternative had they called a truce.

I also think it’s multi-layered, like so many things in this series. Because, right before they start banging, he’s confronting her about the letter from Balekin and asking why he’s suddenly allowed to see it. I believe he’s also realized at that moment that she can only do so much by herself, from the position of seneschal, without him truly helping her instead of avoiding responsibility.

So, yeah. Their truce could have benefited them in more ways than one, but especially in the fun way 😜 not just the political way.

Which one of you smart ones can explain/clarify what Cardan meant by this

[deathsweetblossoms]

“Please,” I say to the dirt floor of the brugh, to the earth itself. “I will do whatever you want. I will give up the crown. I will make any bargain. Just please fix him”

The fact that Jude is saying this is no small thing. Power has been her sole motivator for most of the series. She has fought so long and so hard for her place in court, for a seat of control over the players on the chessboard. Being accepted by the land was a profound moment for her, and here she is WILLING TO GIVE ALL OF IT UP, to place her will into the confines of another bargain (ANY BARGAIN, whatever is necessary) in order to save Cardan.

I… have no words. I cannot even describe in words how incredible this moment of character growth is. How suddenly, everything she worked for is worth losing if only it brings back Cardan.

[deathsweetblossoms]

“Do you ever think about how Cardan—“

“Do you ever think about how Jude—“

Yes. I can guarantee you the answer is yes because I think about them every day.

[deathsweetblossoms]

The creature wouldn’t allow us to approach it. He’s fast and deadly, and his poison seems inexhaustible.

I sit on the dais, perhaps three feet from him. He has grown so used to me that he’s closed his golden eyes.

It was like being trapped in the dark...I was alone, and my instinct was to lash out...I could not reason. There were only feelings -- hatred and terror and the desire to destroy.

And you.

I knew little else, but I always knew you.