Here's one my first prompts I've written. Send a prompt through my PM, and I'll write a fic to the best of my abilities :)
"you were worth every mile between us until the roads came along and ran over us"
Prompt: You don't marry someone you can live with—you marry someone you cannot live without.
Nesta smoothed down the pale, peach gown twirling around her ankles. She stared at herself in the golden embroidered mirror, at the exterior of a hardened, beautiful female. Crystals embed her bracelet and large jewels fix onto the high heels. Her long, straightened hair fell flawlessly above a shoulder.
The door opened, and she turned her head to regard the intruder.
Elain.
There's a sad smile tucked under her younger sister's face. Elain, the blooming flower in this cold, seeping world. Indeed, there's a bouquet of tiger lilies clasped into her own pale hands. They had both agreed on not having roses, the thorns Nesta would have most likely used to stab out the eyes of her husband.
The way he looked at her, like he wanted to devour her, own her, have her submit completely —
Her posture did not falter. This was for her family. To repay Feyre for the hunting in the coldness she had to endure. To repay Elain for never letting her see beyond these walls in her form of protection.
Her penance.
A marriage in which her family would be given a warm home and money to eat. A marriage in which she would be trapped with a male who loved his ego and easy smiles. A marriage in which she'd be giving up her last part of herself that remained:
Love.
Elain set the flowers on the vanity table, and stared at the window. "The crowd is here. The town has shown up. Our father is not."
Nesta didn't expect anything else. Not when their father had arranged the marriage in the facade of a business transaction. Not when their father had arranged the marriage with the person that had taken away Nesta's virginity. Not when their father had arranged the marriage between her and Tomas, the man who had hurt her where she should have been worshipped.
A tear slipped down Elain's porcelain face. There had always been a fragility surrounding the Archeron's youngest, and thus the need to protect her young heart and mind from the intruding shadows and sinking darkness that whirled around their society.
"I'm sorry," Elain sobbed, standing a distance away from Nesta. Regret lined her face, an emotion Nesta had lived with every time Feyre had slipped from the house and returned, her body shivering and frailer.
But she learned to not show regret, not when it would be used against her. Because when she allowed herself to give a few smiles, her offerings had been turned against her when her body had been violated.
"I know you're doing this for me," said Elain. "But I want you to know that I cannot accept this. This gift of freedom and wealth you're giving to me—I cannot take it."
"Feyre is not at the reception." It's not a question, but a statement.
A slow shake of Elain's head, her curls bouncing. "She's…" Devastation lined her face. "She's restraining Cassian."
This time, Nesta turned her head away.
Cassian.
The man who had fought for her when no one else would. The man who had asked her permission to end Tomas. The man who had loved her when she could not love herself.
The man she one could have seen herself marrying. She'd never live to tell him that, not when serving her family came first. He'd find another female to satisfy him, Nesta was sure. Cassian had everything, while she had nothing.
The Archerons lived in squalor while Feyre's recent friends from the other side of the wall had the riches to buy their town out and bribe every resident to search for a new home. The first time Nesta had met Cassian, she'd mistaken him as a peasant.
He had been crouched over in the soil, attempting to plant a flower. A iris, to be precise. She had stooped down and asked him why he was bothering to spend time on a piece of nature that would wither away soon. Cassian had merely replied that the iris stood for hope, and cherished companionship, something he'd been looking for all his life.
"Would you be my iris?" He had dimpled, shoving his soiled hands into his pockets, his hair mussed.
Nesta had scoffed, and wondered why she had bothered to waste her own time on a stranger she'd most likely never seen again. She was familiar with all the faces in the town, but had never seen his before. Nesta had told him that.
Cassian had cocked his head, and raised a brow, an almost comical expression she'd soon associate with him completely. It was then he told her he belonged to the other side of the wall, where all the flamboyant lives flaunted their wealth.
Nesta had agreed to be his iris, telling herself it was because he lived among the upper class, not because she'd fallen for the sight of the strong male trying to create life among penury.
"Are you ready?" Elain touched her arm, and gave a single sniff.
Nesta nodded, and walked towards the door. She'd already denied Tomas's demands to wear a white, stuffy dress. To wear a veil and not show an inch of her skin.
"I cannot wear white when I am no longer pure." She had stared into her finance's eyes, fiercely glaring at him, forcing herself to not toe the ground. She had steeled herself into a pillar of ice. "White will not suffice."
She had denied the veil as well, desiring every emotion of silent rage to be written across her face. Wanted the pictures to show that she had not been willing. That she did not fully submit herself to a monster.
She could live with this marriage for her family. She could live with this marriage so Feyre would be showered with jewels to buy paint and canvases. She could live with this marriage so that Elain would not be encircled and stuck in their poor excuse of a home, shivering their insides and reducing their souls of flaring embers into burnt ashes.
She could accept this marriage as a means to seek revenge on her husband.
She could be strong.
Nesta flung open the door, and stalked down the corridor. Elain hurried alongside her.
They both stopped at before the corridor, where the red woven path led to the entrance, the center under a dome of where she'd begin her first steps towards her husband.
"Nesta," Elain said, sadness etched onto her brows. "You don't marry someone you can live with—you marry someone you cannot live without."
Cassian. If she peered down the hallways, she could imagine that the fringes of darkness would be his ink-hued hair, fleeting within her conscience. She could see the shared memories in which happiness had finally become a facet of her life. She could see the stars in his eyes as he offered the Universe to her.
She swallowed, and lifted one leg forward.
She could do this.
Nesta grabbed Elain's hand, and squeezed. She would not think of the male who had taught her to smile, not when if he were here, he would have soothed a hand down her back or stroked her inner palm with his thumb.
This was a future of where she could give her sisters everything they desired. She could give them a chance to live again and start anew. Without her.
The oldest and youngest Archeron sisters rounded the corner, stepping into the gazes of those that filled their town, the people who had turned their backs against them when their father's business failed.
And Nesta slowly walked down the aisle, into the nest of snakes and vipers, casting any inkling of Cassian out of her head.
Because he was the Sun and she was the Moon: they were never meant to collide.