Such ruin had befallen the once golden rimmed grasses of the Spring Court. Had the years taken such a toll, had the Cursebreaker's leaving left such wake to this court's High Lord? While it was well known that the Summer Court was making means to protect borders from riots or uprisings, it was equally well known that the Spring Court in all its High Lord's glory had fallen into despair. Swift soul-shattering wreckage overgrown with decay was this land's namesake. For what this part of the world could gather, it was over the loss of the High Fae who was none other than the High Lady of the Night Court, Feyre Archeron. Love had ruined this High Lord, where it had lifted another, the rumours had all but spilled from each court to the next. No doubt, this burned that arrogance and pride of the once grand beast known as Tamlin. The once beautiful and marked chosen of the cruel Amarantha. Ultimately, it had stale mated his heart to ever believing in such a thing as love. Despite this, I knew it was not the only reason he had suffered, for so long and so great. It was this that willed my steps, further into those borders with such peaceful grace that I was like a doe. I of course was no fool to believe that such steps would ever not be heard by one such as Tamlin, a single blade leafing through his palace would no doubt be reached upon his hearing.
Yet it was a risk I was willing to take, one that I had to endure and no longer could ignore despite how much it pained me. And those same pains ran rampant through my very veins the further into the dilapidated manor I stepped. Silence save for my steps was the blanket of comfort that perhaps this confrontation would not take place. I had not wanted to do so, not for these many centuries that which had tied me to this fate. The worst of it, was knowing just how long that I had been a part of this particular cruelty. It had not been by my design, the cosmos' own method of such twines of fate were hardly something even someone as myself could dare muster to aid. It would be highly unfair of me to state, though, in that same regard that my own abilities were not mastered to finite precision over the years, as they had to be.
Each step inward was more horrifying than the last, cobwebs and rats lined the broken carcasses of furniture and ornate halls. For the most part the entirety of the manor was quiet, but I felt that pull of my being inward, knew that I was not truly alone no matter how I would have preferred it. I would remain resolute, the time had come to save him, the High Lord, who never deserved it.
Turning a corner into one of the remaining untouched rooms, the stench filled my nostrils of rotted meat, of foul hygiene and worst, blood. Blood was a scent I unfortunately was all too keen to smell, yet I still peered into the crack of the door where a bounce of fae-light had bounded. Until the shadow appeared in front of the crack as silent as I had stepped, those crystalline green eyes peering at me almost demonic in his height. I did not gulp, never-mind that was my first initial instinct, instead I shifted to stand a poise until those eyes realized I was no threat to his fallen court.
Tamlin, the great Spring Court High Lord, merely shifted from the door, not pushing to allow further entrance or acknowledging me at all until he had returned to his frayed seat. So I entered in, taking in the disarray, that few weeks worth of clothing that this High Lord lived in lazily slung about the floor of the room. Bones were pushed to the corners, old meat lay on the table, dishes unclean and wine spilled and dried to the floors. It was all I could do to not show pity upon him, he who had made so many ..choices. The soft bangle at my wrist was shifting with its gentle music, the gentle sway of my robes shifted enough noise to rouse a theater as the breeze crept in the broken windows of the room. My eyes would finally befall him, tattered and torn clothing that looked as if he had shredded it halfway off revealing a more malnourished chest than I had ever seen of him. Even the gold of his locks seemed faded in such sadness. What was worse amidst those still high lordly features was the darkness of those green eyes, fitted for nothing but defeat.
"Have you come to gloat as well?" Tamlin roughly stated, his voice sounded as if water had not touched his lips in a week, and upon a closer glance to see his lips chapping seemed to provide such as proof.
"If I have come, do you truly think it is what drove me to such lengths?" I said coolly.
"Many have come to see the fall of the High Lord of the Spring Court...to see him wallow ...to mourn his bride to be.." Tamlin croaked, waving a hand nonchalantly as if he still held some manner of charm about him.
"The High Lady of the Night Court has been married for some time...to her mate." I cross my hands to my front where they would rest between my hips, idly holding each other as if to wait on the High Lord's wrath to come. It did not.
Tamlin sat quiet a moment, observing a moment the particular garb I wore, the soft blue and white attire mingled with silver jewelry, the bland brown strands that draped from my scalp to my mid back. My eyes themselves a softer hue of brown that seemed to mimic my hair. Then he leaned forward, squinting his eyes deeper and appearing to almost smile. A hoarse gruff escaped him then, "It really is you...you must have really come to gloat...spare me the indecency of your glamour...it is the least you can do." His casualness to his tone was all but aired into the snobbish demeanor of his nose tilting upward slightly.
"It is not the least, the least would be never showing up. As so many of your once friends have deemed a better option. As your potential allegiances threaten to absorb your court into their own for better 'hands'. The least would be letting you rot over what love you felt for a High Lady, for the rest of your days, with the world believing it was dutifully deserved, Tamlin." I blink as my voice echoes out in its steady and unwavering demeanor. Just to twist my lips up into a pursed frown as his retort begins with a rough snarl to my words.
"Get out." Was all he could muster half choked.
"I have hit a nerve, somewhere in all those truths, so you would rather just sit and die in this cell of your own making...much like the very reason that Feyre Archeron left you for by way of rumour...the irony is that you see the suffering now yourself." There is a cutting resolve in my words, one I do feel slight regret in having to use against the High Lord.
Tamlin lowers his head, unlike his typical reaction that I would know him for in rage, instead he merely fades his hues to the half cooked meat before him. "What do you know of it." he would muster in his lowest tone.
"I've watched all of it Tamlin, and my guilt drives me to know that you are truly better than this, that you are not ..as many would call you..a villain. You were selfish, obscenely so, but I know why...of all people..I know why." I feel the choke in my own throat now, and do my best to hold back a swell of tears in my left eye.
"Then remove your glamour, it sickens me to see you like a Child of the Blessed.." Tamlin turns his gaze from his front where no doubt he could still glimmer at my details before looking out his broken window.
I merely sigh, removing my glamour of paled perfection saddened that it was so seen through by him, humanized yet still very fae of heart. I had perfected it for so many years, my own silent way of helping him, yet he'd never cared to know it. Though the last five decades had not given him much room for such thoughts. The long black and blue strands drape over my dark gray leathers. I feel the shade of my eyes turn to starlight, rather somehow manage to see such as a small glimmer of reflection could be born where my sleeve had wiped caked dust from the table before me. His eyes for a moment flicker toward me with a wince of pain before he returns to his seemingly far more important stare. I slouch now, leaning into the table, "I wish all those years ago..."
He interrupted, now with that bit of fire still burning to his emerald hues as they faced me with malice, "I spare your life because your beauty coiled its image upon my mind forever...and it was the right thing to do. And no matter what my heart feels for Feyre, no matter what my heart feels for my court, I will never stop feeling connected to you...even as you've denied me for so long such simple truths...tell me Enchantress," he'd leaned forward enough to stumble to stand, coiling his weight on the table to gradually approach me again, "How much more must I prove? Was sparing you not enough? Was being loyal despite how easy it would have been for me to just let Amarantha take my pride ..not enough? Was being cursed for fifty years with the ridiculous demands of such a curse-not enough? Was all of my long years of suffering -not enough? I grow tired of these dreams so easily shattered.." His face was before mine, canines born and prepared to lunge into my throat at a near moment, his breath cascading over my face. His chest heaved in that primal sense, activating his more feral of natures.
It was hard to not show my repulse at his breath, hard to not crumble before the might of a High Lord, broken as he may still be. I shifted my shoulders up, "We have both been deceivers, Tamlin. For the sake of thinking we're meaning well, when truly we were being selfish. I know what sacrifices you have made, have you thought of what ones I have? Judging that you find that merely beauty was enough to stay your hand over what is right, I seem to feel you still don't fully grasp such a thing. How many will you push away and leave you to such an abyss as yourself before its too late?"
"You don't have a right to talk to me in such a way. Not with the lies...the lies you have done. You are no better than Feyre. Lying...deceiving..." Tamlin started, half choked again.
"Yet you did the same thing, don't pretend you wouldn't have continued to back Hybern if you had not felt some inkling to save yourself when the battle took a bit of a better hand. You knew the weaknesses of Hybern...just as I did." I was staring forced at him, no fear behind my starlit eyes.
"I have no one! Everyone has left me! Look at what it has done for me! Stop your gloating...just leave...forgiveness is something forsaken here!" Tamlin turned now, leaving his back half lurched as he used the table to carry his drunken self back to his seat before I caught his arm.
"You have yourself. And I am here...and we are going to start by cleaning up this wreck of a house of yours. Do yourself a favor and take a bath..." I stood completely squared to him now, releasing his arm as I was turning to begin my leave.
"You're..you're going to stay?" He half choked as well now, turning and grasping my own arm in return. "Why?" His final gaze questioning my motivations.
"It's the right thing to do Tamlin, to not let you suffocate yourself completely." I made to release my arm.
"So...this is the best you can say after all this time..I can suffocate if I want..just leave..." Tamlin released my arm from his grip and made to make back to his chair before I rounded in front of him with a staggering brace against his heaving form. The room around us seemed to darken with the High Lord's shift.
"You need to love yourself before you could ever love anyone else. And before anyone could truly love you too, Tamlin. I'm going to help you start with yourself and your house, after you've bathed the week's worth of grime off, you're going to help me clean up your mess. And we will take it a day at a time."
"It will take us an eternity with just the two of us...I have...behaved poorly." Tamlin sunk again now, his head heaving closer to his chest.
"For now it is the two of us, I don't feel you'll be forgotten for long. Show your people you know your mistakes, own them, repair what you can of them, and I can guarantee you won't be alone. This court can still have life in it Tamlin, but you have to breathe it in yourself first. Now, go take a bath, I'm starting in the foyer. Meet me there."
"Ia.." he began, before I stifled his lips, "Please refer to me as Elleste for now." He only nodded with a sigh, shifting to make his leave and I rounded to where I had entered. For the time we went our separate ways.
