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wowafish · 2 years ago

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Some background on Oak and Suren for anyone who needs a refresher (with new edits)

This is after Cardan became a snake

This after Cardan’s head was chopped off at the coronation during the sentencing

Here are my thoughts

SOOO first thing that confused me with the description was that Holly called Suren the changeling queen (check my edit!) !!! One bc she is technically no longer a queen and two in order for her to to be a changeling Suren would have had to leave fairy for the mortal world!!!

But the discription also calls her a runaway soooooo maybe she ran away from fairyland and became a changeling that way (check my edit!)

Also let’s not forget the boon she owes Oak!!!!

Or that they were almost betrothed lol cute

So a reluctant prince on a quest with a scary queen

Hmmm

sounds a lil familiar

I can just imagine Cardan saying that the Greenbriar men have a pension to both being lazy and besotted with terrifying women

I’m so excited for this book

Edit:

TOTALLY MISSED THIS!!

@painfullysensible

SHE IS ALREADY A CHANGELING so ur telling me this poor 9 year old child was raised in the safety of the mortal world ONLY TO BE DRAGGED BACK TO END UP LIKE THIS!!!!

(From Suren’s wiki page)

So you mean to tell me that poor baby Suren was raised as a happy little changeling child going to school in the mortal world (where her evil parents dumped her for their own greedy purposes) playing video games and having a safe normal mortal life….

Until her wicked parents FORCEFULLY dragged her back to fairyland when THEY decided she would finally be useful to them.

AND THEN PAINFULLY ENSLAVED HER

they bound her with a cursed bridal and stitched a crown permanently onto her head and chained her wrist BY PENETRATING HER SKIN AND PUTTING A CHAIN THROUGH IT TO LEASH HER

What THE F&$@ I’m livid

So my NEW THOUGHTS With this additional information:

First of all Suren is a FANTASTIC CLONE CHARACTER TO THE WHOLE DUERTE FAMILY

Vivi was taken to the mortal world to be protected but then was forcefully dragged back around the same age that Suren was, by her own evil parent who wanted to use her (remember the Prophecy that made their mother run in the first place! It went something like: Eva’s child will be a more powerful weapon than One that Justin could ever forge) Madoc wanted that weapon

Jude and Tayrn also we’re stolen from the only life they ever knew. And Jude ended up being that weapon from the prophecy and Madoc knew that and definitely wanted to manipulate her to gain control

Suren is also a clone to Cardan, who was physically abused his family (like she was) and then was used as a puppet king (like she was) (yes jude treated him way better but it was still what happened)

AND OAK OMFG DONT GET ME STARTED ON HOW OAK AND SUREN CLONE AND FOIL EACHOTHER

The tl;dr Suren suffered the fate that Madoc would have subjected to Oak to, furthermore their lives and stories clone the other’s

A royal heir stolen away as a child

Lived a normal life til the time came for their parents to exploit them

To be used as a puppet king/queen

So they were again stolen away from the only life they ever knew

Also bonus their lives have been split between elfhame and the mortal world at opposite times of their lives

Let’s get into it

Madoc LITTERALLY was going to use Oak as his own puppet king!! It’s the whole reason Jude went through with everything!!! She sent Oak to the mortal world to protect him from that horrible and dangerous fate!

Oak was a royal heir stolen by Oriana. Then he was raised and loved by her, Madoc and his adoptive sisters.

Oak was SO LOVE IN FACT that when the opportunity came for his father to exploit him, his adoptive sister literally took over the country to prevent it from happening

Right before Jude found out about Oak, Vivi was like come back to the mortal world with me. Jude was like I’m not sure if I know how to be a human anymore… maybe I could learn, (learn to not be a power-hungry monster girl anymore) I could just turn over Cardan to Madoc, he’s never done anything for me anyways, maybe I could be human and live with my sister. BUT THEN SHE FOUND OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT OAK FROM ORIANA and so she had to construct the whole plan to betray Madoc and Cardan and to take over Fairyland.

Just so Oak could have a chance at the normal life she and her sisters never got so to protect him they stole him away from the life he had always know to live in the mortal world

JUDE WENT THROUGH HELL TO KEEP OAK SAFE, yes she kept at it bc of her lust for power but it all started with her love for Oak. This is how Loved Oak was. His family, specific Vivi, Oriana and Jude, went to great lengths to protect Oak

BUT POOR SUREN

she was royal heir stolen away to the mortal world and was raised their until the time came for her parents to exploit her

She was then again stolen away from the live she had always know and was abused and exploited as their puppet queen!!!

No one protected her

Except for Oak.

The boy prince who almost suffered the same fate as she did. Oak Interceded for her and was the reason she was granted Leniency

THE STOLEN HEIR WILL BE AMAZING

I can’t wait to know the actual canon back story for surens life in the mortal world and how everything went down ABBDJSUSHDHE AHHHHHH

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wowafish · 3 years ago

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this ain't no ordinary romance - elucien oneshot

Summary: Lucien's POV of Solstice in acosf.

Is it an elucien fic when they aren't together yet and it's angst? We'll go with yes.

Read on AO3 | completed for an @sjmkinkmeme prompt | tagging @my-inner-crisis for reasons

***

Lucien slid a finger underneath the strap of Elain’s nightgown. “Would you like me to touch you here?”

She whimpered in the affirmative. He pushed the thin strip of lace to the side and pressed lips to the warmth of her shoulder. Breathing in deep, he noted every shift in her body: the way that she pressed her thighs together, the pressure of her fingertips into his forearm where she kept herself steady, the tilt of her head as she told him where she wanted his mouth without saying a word.

Mate, mate, mate.

Lucien had been waiting for this moment, when he could give in to the roaring in his blood that dulled the longer he was gone, but never fully went away. He brushed his lips over the pulse in her neck, barely enough to be sure that he was touching her. He heard the rush of blood as her arousal grew and wondered what was real, unsure of what he knew through his own senses, and what he was able to glean from the bond.

“Lucien,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” Lucien asked against the curve of her jaw.

“Yes.”

He tangling his fist in Elain’s hair and pulled her towards him, his mouth meeting hers while his other hand pressed against the small of her back. As his lips explored the curve hers, he splayed his fingers across the width of her back, exploring the angle of her waist, and pressed her body into his hips.

Elain clutched the lapels of Lucien’s jacket and stood on her toes, making small noises of desperation. She pulled him closer while refusing to take the next step, and so Lucien parted her lips with his own and swept in with his tongue, tasting her deeply.

He felt her grasp on his lapels slacken and Elain lowered as her legs failed her and she stood back on her heels. Lucien placed both hands on either side of her waist and lifted her up, setting her on the table nearby.

Lucien broke away and Elain gasped, unaccustomed to a prolonged kiss. As Lucien placed a series of kisses along her jaw and down her throat, he grabbed at the skirts of her nightgown. His fingers found the bare skin of her thigh and slowed, dragging his knuckles over her. His thumb retraced the path back down towards her knee and she lifted her foot to wrap her leg around his hips, encouraging Lucien to go higher. His hand traveled back up her leg and he let the pad of his thumb linger on the edge of her bare hip.

Elain fell back across the desk, her legs wrapped around Lucien’s hips, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

So little. All these months apart and all this time waiting, and now so little remained between them, between Lucien and what his blood, his soul was screaming at him to take. From the other end of the mating bond, he could feel the sound building in Elain, too. If only she would open her mouth and let the noise run rampant.

Lucien looked at her face long enough to make note of her closed eyes, the pink of her cheeks, the way her mouth parted in readiness. He angled his palm so that his fingertips inched closer to where he knew that she grew wet. He felt the shudder of her body as she tried to keep herself from taking his hand and pressing it against her sex, riding him until she felt release.

What little control Lucien had, he was in danger of losing. But he needed to know, to hear the words from her, that she felt the same.

Lucien leaned over her, his breath disturbing the curls framing her face as his arms bracketed her underneath his mass.

“Tell me what you want, Elain,” he said against her jaw.

She stiffened beneath him. Still as a doe in the sights of a hunter. Her legs fell away from his body, releasing him.

“Tell me,” he repeated. “Tell me that you want me. Or tell me to go.”

Elain remained still, her breathe halted.

“Tell me.”

—

Lucien woke, blinking at the ceiling. It took him a moment to regain his bearings and remember where he was. The night was somehow darker, deeper than usual, like a blanket that had been laid over the world to comfort it while its creatures slept. Lucien preferred the open, honest light of day, but it was difficult to avoid the dark when he was visiting the Night Court. Especially on the longest night of the year.

In the guest bedroom of the river house that he usually took when he came for visits, Lucien tossed and turned in the bed, his hot cheek meeting the cool silk of his pillow. The relief was temporary, as the rushing of his blood would heat the bedclothes soon enough.

Seeing Elain there, tonight at the Night Court’s Solstice celebration, he’d been anticipating it and dreading it in equal measure for months. To see her there talking with Cassian, laughing with Mor, and avoiding Azriel’s gaze, it had been enough to make him crawl out of his skin. The sense of what could be lingered just between them, and Lucien could barely meet anyone’s eyes without seeing pity in them.

He’d had enough of that in his life, he wanted to shout. Living in Beron’s home under a tyrant everyone hated but no one challenged, then as the buffer between Tamlin and his increasingly tenuous grip on the Spring Court, and now watching Vassa and Jurian put distance between themselves when he entered the room. He had rolled his eyes the first time they done it, told them that he was well aware of what was going on, just to be a bit more quiet about it in the dead of night. But he still couldn’t help wonder how they would behave around him if he didn’t have an unrequited, unresolved mating bond hanging around his neck.

All he could do was talk with Cassian and Rhys about sports, as if he cared about that. Pretend to be unbothered as the link between his soul and Elain’s grew thicker, pregnant with proximity and possibility. He might have been able to thoroughly throw himself into the conversation if his senses weren’t aggressively reminding him of Elain’s scent, helping him memorize the way her voice raised at the end of a question and lowered at the end of a statement. The conversation didn’t prevent him from noticing that she was always the first person to offer to help someone sit, to take whatever they carried, to ensure that glasses were full and the fire was fed.

If Elain noticed him, if she felt anything, she didn’t let it show. Perhaps there were tells, something Feyre would have noticed that he hadn’t. He didn’t know Elain well enough to know what hid beneath lies and smiles, and yet he suspected that if he looked at her long enough, he would be able to discern the truth of her.

And she didn’t want that. No, his beautiful, kind, infuriating mate wouldn’t look him in the eye for fear that he would see right through her. She ceased speaking when he approached as if she thought he were going to scold her or kiss her or something even more unseemly - profess his love. He could learn more about her by standing across the room, observing how she interacted with those fated hadn’t quite literally tied her to.

After these years in the Night Court, Elain seemed a bit too eager to please, still, too quick to stand and offer assistance, always the first to laugh at someone’s joke or fill in the lulls in conversation. Like she were trying to prove she had a true place there.

Lucien was well acquainted with the tedious smile Elain pasted onto her face in front of the family, and wanted to shake it off her. But what lie beneath? Lucien wondered if he would ever know. He doubted it would be during this trip, as he had plans to leave immediately the next morning.

So Lucien turned again, cooling his other cheek, trying to find rest while knowing that she breathed, and moved, and would sleep beneath the same roof.

His dream had been more of the same. Sensing Elain just on the other side of the bond, watching and waiting for her tentative forays as she - as they both - explored the limits and possibilities of a soul-deep connection that neither of them had asked for. At first, Lucien had played it off as fantasy, wish-fulfillment, his subconscious telling him to go to her. But as time went by, he realized that it was indeed Elain who had appeared in his dreams. Not a figment of his imagination, not what his subconscious had supplied in lieu of actual knowledge of her. It was Elain herself who shared Lucien’s dreams.

Or their dreams. He wasn’t sure anymore, what was his and what was hers, or what was theirs.

The glory of the mating bond, indeed.

He measured time in visits to the Night Court; six months until Solstice, four months until a meeting with Rhys and Azriel, another nine months again until he might see his mate. Watch her watching him, waiting for the slightest sign that what he had felt through the bond was more than his imagination, or for her to acknowledge what they had said and done under cover of a shared psychic connection.

Lucien let a deep breath out through his nose, trying to calm himself from the dream, his frustration, to stop himself from replaying every second of that Solstice evening over and over, thinking about what he might have done better. Did he want these shackles or did he want to destroy them? Away from Elain, with Jurian and Vassa, everything was so much simpler. He laughed with them, forgot his concerns back in Autumn, released the burden of his concern for Tamlin, and went to sleep momentarily fooling himself into thinking he’d found a new home.

But none of it, nothing of his life with the Band of Exiles, compared to the sudden rush of breath and energy he felt when he saw Elain. She made him feel more alive, even as she extinguished his hopes with a glance.

Lucien was drifting between consciousness and sleep when he heard Elain’s footfall pass his doorway as she headed to the staircase. The house was silent but for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the entryway. Lucien thought he could hear the wheels of an office chair moving across a floor, but it was too far away to have anything to do with what Elain had left her room for.

Lucien slid out of his bed, ignoring the cool night air against his bare chest as he ventured to make as little noise as possible. Only his fae senses ensured that he was able to pierce the darkness of the room on his way to the door. When he was certain that Elain had passed and wouldn’t hear him, he turned his doorknob slowly, testing for any creaks in the hinges or wood as it opened. When it was open wide enough to permit him to pass, he slid through the doorway and walked on the balls of his feet until he stood at the top of the stairs.

Elain and Azriel were together and Lucien could see Elain’s flushed cheeks. They stood so closely that they could likely feel one another’s breath. On her chest rested a necklace that Lucien hadn’t seen her wearing before they had retired for the evening.

“Yes,” Lucien heard Elain say. He could feel desire coming from her, and he spun trying to decide if it was a remnant of his - her? - dream, if he could trust his senses now any more than he’d ever been able to when it came to her. And she had used that same hesitant, small, “yes,” that she had used with him, with the attendant refusal to say more. Lucien narrowed his eyes and tilted his head forward.

Azriel lowered his head to Elain’s - mate, mate, mate, Lucien’s blood reminded him, and he shoved the thought away, watching to see how Elain would react.

Elain closed her eyes. Tilted her head. Stood waiting, still as a statue. No hint of the bright, energetic woman he had glimpsed in his dreams, or seen chatting happily with Feyre or Cassian when she thought no one else paid attention. No, this Elain was the one who wanted something, and yet was too hesitant to ask.

Elain had looked at Lucien like that in the dreams where she would visit, at first pretending to be an idealization, until he understood that they shared the psychic space. Her expression was pleasant, content, expectant, yet indifferent. As if this were merely one moment amongst thousands of others, none meaning anything more than the last. Her expression was a mask as much as it was a shield.

Only now, Elain wasn’t with Lucien in his dreams. She was standing before a male who seemed to have very particular designs on her evening. Lucien bit his tongue until he felt blood but his feet remained rooted to the floor. He would not be a brute like his father. He would not let love turn him into the monster that Tamlin had let himself become. Lucien grasped the staircase railing so tightly that the wood groaned underneath his fist and he released it quickly. This scene had played out in his dream mere minutes before, and now Elain was here, re-enacting it with someone else. Or so she thought.

Something caused Azriel to stop.

Lucien heard Azriel murmur something, the word “mistake” being the only he could make out. Azriel stepped back, putting space between them. Lucien watched Elain’s expression shutter as her eyes searched the room, as if she would find the reason for the rejection just beyond Azriel’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Elain said.

“Don’t apologize.” More words that Lucien couldn’t make out. Azriel shook his head and then winnowed away, leaving Elain alone, an empty space where the male had been.

Lucien watched a frown knit in between Elain’s brows. He wondered how often she allowed herself to do that in front of anyone else. And then as quick as he could blink, Elain had schooled her features into neutrality again. She pressed her hands against the front of her dress, smoothing out wrinkles that didn’t exist. Then with a sigh, she turned on her heel to head to the staircase. Lucien ducked behind the wall but then essayed a glance downstairs again when he didn’t hear Elain’s footsteps continue. Instead, she was reaching up to her neck, fingers fumbling for the clasp of the necklace. A gift, then, from him.

Tentatively, Lucien felt along the psychic thread that connected the two of them. He hadn’t had much practice, reaching Elain this way, but perhaps he could merely observe. Perhaps he could use this as a way to better understand what she wouldn’t even allow herself to feel.

When Lucien sensed resentment boiling on the other end of thread connecting him to Elain, he almost recoiled. But fascinated, he probed a bit more. Lucien pulled apart Elain’s emotions one by one, examining them each as a clue to finally figuring out what she wanted. Beneath the resentment was shame, embarrassment, and frustration. He hesitated to do more than observe, to feel with his mind. Anything more than that would be a violation and, he knew, would lead him to misunderstand her intentions. Better he heard those from her own lips.

Elain finally freed herself from the necklace and looked around the room. Satisfied that she had found the proper stack of gifts, she laid the necklace down neatly, ensuring its chain didn’t tangle, before gathering her skirts to make her way up the stairs.

Lucien was back in his room and between the silk sheets before Elain had even made it to the staircase.

When a knock sounded on his door, Lucien didn’t hesitate. “Come in.”

He lay on the bed, propped up by his pillows with his hands behind his head. “Elain.”

Elain paused before sliding in the doorway and shutting it behind herself. “You didn’t stop me.”

“No.” There was no use pretending. Lucien could hear her heart beating, its pace quickening with nerves as they found themselves alone for the first time since just before the war. Lucien assumed that whatever they had said then didn’t count, pre-war sentiments being desperate and having short expiration dates. And everyone else was so busy not interfering that they let Elain drift from one day to the next, never questioning what was truly best for her. Never suggesting that she bridge the remainder of the gap between them to speak.

“Why not?” Elain’s question was without guile. She seemed to have been laboring under the impression that a mating bond turned all males into beasts, but she had clearly only dealt with the males in Night.

Lucien slid off the bed, padded quietly across the room until he stood over her. “You belong to no one. Did you want me to become a brute? To roar in jealousy? Perhaps turn the Illyrian into a bloody mess in the middle of Feyre’s foyer? You’ll have to look for that behavior in someone else. I’m not here to tell you what you can do. Who you can do.” Elain flinched and Lucien paused, not waiting for a response so much as calculating his next words. “Did you ask him?”

Elain shifted slightly, increasing the distance between them almost imperceptibly. “Ask him what?”

“What you want. Did you tell Azriel what it is that you want? From him?”

Elain frowned. “He knows.”

“Are you sure about that?” Lucien reached up and stroked Elain’s bare arm. Her soft curls were subdued into a messy braid and he let his thumb become caught in one ringlet.

“Yes,” Elain said. She stood up straighter, squaring her shoulders. “It’s not complicated. We both know that.”

“Does he, Elain?”

“Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Why aren’t you answering them? Truthfully?”

“I am.”

Lucien shook his head and let out a sigh. He let his hand drop from her arm. She leaned into him again, asking for something that she refused to name.

“That dream we had tonight,” Lucien said, “Was that your mind, or mine?”

Elain shrugged. “What dream?”

Clearly, he hadn’t caught her off guard in the way he expected to. Lucien would have given her credit for that, if she weren’t the source of most of his frustrations.

Lucien smirked. “I don’t have to know you well to know that you’re a bad liar, Elain Archeron. You have to get better at being a con if you want to make a life here.”

“In Prythian? With the fae?”

“I mean in the Night Court.” Lucien’s expression darkened. “Unless, of course, you don’t think you belong here. Are you happy, Elain? I don’t mean today, or tonight, this year.”

Elain crossed her arms. “I am happy.”

“And do you find yourself fulfilled? Do you go to bed every evening…” he traced his fingertips along her bare arms again, suppressing a smile when he felt her flesh prickle with arousal. “Satisfied?”

“Why aren’t you angry with me?” Elain asked.

Lucien’s hand froze. “For what?”

“For trying to bed another male with you in the building.”

“Oh, my love,” Lucien said, and he leaned in close to her ear, whispering and delighting in the way that Elain’s breath quickened with his proximity. “I didn’t see a bed anywhere close.”

Elain jerked back. “How dare you insinuate…”

“I didn’t insinuate anything, Elain. You were in the family room, in full view of several couches and a delightfully tasteful rug. But no. There was no bed. I doubt there would have been any bedding. Rutting, perhaps, on that tasteful rug.”

Elain turned pink, putting her freckles into relief. “You’re a scoundrel.” Her hands had formed small fists at her side. Lucien wondered what she would do if he pinned them there and took what she had offered in their dream.

Lucien shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. By people who know the true meaning of the word.”

“And so you are unbothered, then? Knowing what I might have done this evening?”

“Well, Elain, pet, you said it yourself. It was meaningless. Uncomplicated.” The corner of Lucien’s mouth curled up quite against his will as he articulated each syllable of that final word.

Elain flushed as her own words were used against her. “I am perfectly content, I will have you know.” Lucien appreciated her attempts to divert the conversation as he had done. She was a quick learner. “I wake every morning with purpose,” Elain continued, “With a place to go and tasks to complete, and the people here have welcomed me. They are lovely.”

“Except for the Court of Nightmares,” Lucien interjected, “Dreadful place, if the rumors are true.”

“Well, that hardly matters,” Elain stammered. “The Night Court is lovely, and it’s my home. Rhysand is a good High Lord and Feyre is a kind High Lady. The Rainbow is a wonderful place to visit. It’s much better than where we lived below the Wall.”

“You sound like a travel agent, my love. I am sure that the Night Court has its sights and scenes and attractions. As well as its seedier places that a young woman like yourself has no business with.”

“Why do you care?” Elain asked. “You’re never here.” These last words she hissed through her teeth, and for the first time that evening Lucien felt that he’d had a genuine expression of emotion from her.

“No,” he admitted. “I’m not.” He took a step back from her, and felt cold air replace the space between them. “And you never ask.”

Elain shook her head and looked down at the floor. Her hands flexed, her fingers spreading and then contracting into fists. Was she preparing for fight, or flight, Lucien wondered. He crossed his arms and waited. Cocked his head as he watched Elain at war with herself. He could hear the tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock downstairs in the absence of their voices.

“In our dreams,” Elain finally said, “Sometimes I pretend that you aren’t real. I pretend that you’re a figment of my imagination and so if I tell you anything real, it’s like I’m talking to myself and it doesn’t matter, not really. I can tell you anything and no one ever has to know because it’s just in my head. It’s just because of the mating bond. And you’re never here, so I never have to look at you and know that you’ve seen parts of me that I’d rather not... But I always know. I know you’re real, and that I am real, and I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I am supposed to do when my soul is telling me to run to you, while my mind is left wondering why I should.”

Lucien let silence take up space between them again. When he spoke again, he chose his words carefully.

“When I met Jesminda, I thought that I would never need anyone again. I thought that every question I’d ever asked had been answered. When my father killed her, I thought it would kill me. I thought that we were mates, and that losing her would have torn me apart. But it didn’t. And I know now, after meeting you, that the mating bond is not nearly so simple. It doesn’t always answer questions, and I think for us it merely raised new ones. I learned, a long time ago, Elain, that holding out hope for the impossible can be foolish, not optimistic. Whether that is getting an old lover back, or going back to a life we once loved. I don’t have Jesminda. You don’t have Graysen. But we have this, Elain. This mating bond. And I can’t decide if it’s the best or worst thing to ever happen to me.”

Elain looked up, eyes wide and searching Lucien’s expression.

“And so when you told me ‘yes’ tonight in our dream, was that real, or was that the dream, Elain? When you told Azriel ‘yes’, which Elain was speaking? This one in front of me, who insists that the Night Court is a lovely place to work a fulfilling job and raise a family with a pet dog and visit the Sidra on weekends, or the Elain who wants to know what else she is capable of?”

“I don’t know,” Elain said, her voice small. “How do I know?”

Lucien reached behind Elain and she stiffened until she realized that he was opening his bedroom door. He held it open for her until she stepped over the threshold.

“Only you can decide. But there is no more ‘yes’, Elain. The next time we meet, you are going to tell me what you want. And then you are going to beg for me to give it to you.”

Lucien closed his bedroom door, leaving Elain on the other side. Mere inches apart, but as far away as she had ever been.

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