Cassian's Love is Warm (2/3)
Summary: Nesta's recovery in the Illyria and her developing relationship with Cassian (a continuation)
AN: I'm back for right now. Sorry for typos or tense issues, I was wayyy over it and I want to move on.
Cassian once tells her that she wears a million different expressions. That they change as fast as lightning strikes, and he categorizes each one by name.
He says that he knows at least twenty-five expressions for when she's angry. Fifteen when she's concerned. He knows that when Nesta's nervous she bites the inside of her cheek, and when she's infuriated, he can see the insults trapped behind her teeth, ready to roll out of her in fury.
When she's angry, Cassian swears he sees cracks of lightning beneath the grey. Quick and sharp and dangerous. Because when she's angry, Nesta is more than an oncoming storm. She is rage—so all-consuming he doesn't know whether she's akin to wind and rain or fire and ice…
When she's happy, though—
Cassian doesn't finish his spiel. Instead he looks at Nesta, his eyes brightening to shades of rich honey. His expression growing fonder, even as she narrows her eyes and clenches her teeth.
Nesta wonders if he'll grow fond of the burning expression she gives him, and its close resemblance to hellfire and flames. Ponders if she has met any male who likes to be burned as much as Cassian.
They're having dinner when he says these things. A normal, routine dinner, with plates of food in the middle of the table. A dozen different kinds that Nesta will not touch if only to see the vein in Cassian's temple pulse. Just a little.
She swears she can see his intentions through the steam. The smell coats all of his pretty words. Reminds her that she is supposed to swallow them. Let the words fill her. Nesta only contemplates them. Chews them slowly, washes them down with wine to see if they will taste less bitter.
He isn't finished. Not with his speech and certainly not with her.
No—Cassian piles each word down like he does the food on her plate. So high that all she can think of are mountain tops and the inevitability of collapse.
But when she's happy, truly happy—
"Your eyes smile." Cassian shakes his head in disbelief, as if even the idea is too much to imagine. "Never your mouth or maybe sometimes, just a small tilt. But your eyes—"
He leans forward as she reads him like one of her many books. His gaze searching her own, telling her to run because he knows too much.
"It doesn't matter if you don't want to tell me anything…"
Nesta wonders if he can tell how much her eyes sting, if they look as red as they feel. As red as battle wounds and shredded wings and anger. Wonders what he finds hidden in the depths of grey.
As his lips turn upwards, she thinks he sees death.
"I can still see you."
At first, Nesta doesn't respond to him. The minutes ticking on and on, dissipating into the air like the disappearing steam. Perhaps, time will calm her. Tell her that he isn't trying to break her open with hammers and pretty thoughts, isn't trying to light a match in hopes that she'll explode.
Nesta doesn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, she sets her fork down, the heady clank harsh and deafening. Lets the noise ring in her ears, just a little.
She can't say what the noise whispers to her. She can only tell it isn't angry, that it doesn't wish to harm in its pursuit of liberation. It only wishes to climb down her throat, crawl into her ears, take the shape of her body, look with her own eyes and see what she sees.
The noise—the being—isn't sadness or pity or shame. It doesn't yell like anger. But… it isn't quiet.
It is hollow…and it echoes…and it squirms.
Nesta knows why he says those words.
So, they'll burrow into her like a worm that is hungry and insatiable. Make a home at the core of her. Ripe and ready to consume. Because her home is a bitter apple that is half-rotten and chewed and she had been thrown away long before anyone had looked at her flesh and counted all the bruises.
When he says those words, he wants to get under her skin. Wants the words to mix with the steam of the casserole and the smell of chicken, so that tomorrow when she thinks of dinner—and the next day when the time arrives—she'll remember how he sees her. That she cannot hide from him. That she cannot hide from anyone when it is written so plainly on her face.
Nesta stands from her chair, the handle of the fork imprinted on her palm. She doesn't remember ever picking it up again, but it bends in her fist. Cassian doesn't make her stay, and something about it drives her mad. Has her calling for the moon with the skin of her palms. A prayer to fury and chaos and storm.
His words make her nauseous, and the food makes her nauseous, and Cassian makes her nauseous, too. The bile rising up her throat, sitting there, and waiting. She swallows it down, feels the words settle in the pit of her stomach and churn.
Nesta goes to her room. Settles at the foot of the locked door, claws at the braid of her hair where it pulls and pulls and pulls.
She remembers how the tears feel. Tiny touches trailing down her skin, embracing her cheek. A lover's touch from a lover who will never get to touch her. That she will not let touch her. Not now.
She doesn't wipe them away. They are all she has. All she owns.
The door creaks as she leans against it, as she bumps her head softly against the wood. Nesta stares into the room, her eyes never trailing away from the window and the snow slowly falling outside.
In the end, she's the victor. Sitting on the dirty floor with tears streaking her skin, her nails digging into her palms.
It's just another look Cassian will never name, or see, or memorize. Just another treasure that she gets to hide away. Bury so deep inside of herself that he will never find it.
Nesta still doesn't know if it makes her feel bitter or relieved.
Nesta never tells him that she knows his looks, too. That when she sees another one, she races to catch it, so she can stomp it beneath her shoe—even if she really just holds it close to her chest.
His looks are hardest to forget and no amount of staring at the wall will erase the brightness of his eyes, or the reds of his cheeks when they spew hateful words.
When he gets home, it is late. The day darkening to a deep shade of violet and lights, splattered stars in purple skies. Nesta thinks he looks like indigo. Like a fresh bruise blooming across her skin.
Through the window, she watches as he walks to the house, the way he trudges through the snow on worn boots. She can already picture the mud streaking across the dingy carpet, making x's on a treasure map of wool.
If it was yesterday, she'd be hidden away by now. If it was a week ago, she'd be protected by walls and denial. If it was an hour ago, Cassian would still be the enemy to her peace. The noise to her silence. But it isn't yesterday, or a week ago, or the hour that passed her by. It is now. A thunder of a heartbeat, the sound of crunching snow.
Nesta's ready… or ready enough to know she'll never be ready. And if she'll never be ready, she's sick of waiting for a day that will never come. So, Nesta waits for him. For his gaze that sees through her. For his expectations that Nesta's not sure she can ever fulfill.
Still…the more logical part of her brain wants to hide again, even as he's two feet away from the door. But, Nesta silences those thoughts. Squeezes them tightly in her fists, demands that her feet stay where they are. Even as Cassian's thundering footsteps start sounding like the beating of wings and war drums.
Nesta holds her breath, as the door slams into the hinge, feels herself brace for the inevitable. For the impact that will surely leave her bleeding. Because Cassian is not a soft breeze or a gentle wind chime, and he will not spare her in the onslaught.
His body barrels in, his hands tossing his coat on the rack, throwing his boots on the closet floor. He doesn't notice her, and she wonders if he is a forest fire. Unaware of how much his flames hurt as much as they healed.
She imagines him as Chaos walking, a storm that is not a storm, but resembles the universe twisting and turning until only destruction is left in its wake. A storm that has a name, that has hands, and feet, and teeth, and words, and who knows what it feels like to want to be destroyed.
He does not scare her, like ruination should. She can feel the heat radiating off of him, warming the house that had been left cold and desolate until his return.
Nesta thinks it's rather odd, the way his mere presence is comforting. The flush on the bridge of his nose, the color of his sweater. Every hue of heartbeats and second chances. She wonders if today is the day she gets to have hers, and if she'll take it. If she'll reach out, regardless if her limbs tremble, and take it from his outstretched hands.
But Nesta is not courageous. She will not ask for it and every moment that she contemplates carnage and construction, she loses a little bit of time and willpower. Cassian stands right there, in front of her, putting his weapons away, and she still can't say a word.
All Nesta can do is look around—for a broom or a pan, something that makes her look busy. Like she isn't waiting for him in a half-silent stupor. Something that makes her feel less vulnerable, less combustible. Something that makes her look like she isn't is a door left wide open, like she isn't a room with concrete walls that are cracked and broken. Like she isn't tumbling. Falling. Down and down an abyss, where no one can find her but him.
"Nesta?"
She looks up abruptly at the sound. A bell, a gong, a reminder that she is alive, even if she is barely breathing. A reminder that she has always been breathing. Nesta can see him scanning her face. A back and forth. Questions appearing in the color. Her eyes sting as she tries not to blink, hopes she'll disappear if she stands still enough.
Cassian's fists grip his hat. She didn't know he'd been wearing one, the fabric rumpled and beaten between his fingers.
He stares at her. Longer than she'd ever wanted someone to look at her. Longer than she's probably ever looked at herself. So long that time ceases to exist, and it is only now and forever and never again.
Nesta closes her eyes at the idiocy of it all. The nausea building up and up, that she doesn't get the chance to swallow—
"I left you cake on the table."
A moment passes before she opens her eyes again, bracing for an impact that never comes. Cassian looks toward the table. Like she's lying, and he's looking for proof. Nesta half-expects the plate to have disappeared altogether, in the span of mere blinks.
"It's there. Chocolate."
Nesta knows it's his favorite. She wants to deny that fact, but she knows. She knows too much.
Cassian walks to the table, touching the plate lightly with the tip of his thumb like it's some lamp with a djinn trapped inside. Nesta thinks she can hear music in the delicate touch.
He meets her gaze, and there's nothing harsh there. There is nothing so chaotic as when he walked through the front door. His eyes are calm, his stance wide and reassuring. She almost forgets he is supposed to be dangerous.
"Will you eat with me?"
Nesta wants to say no. To run and hide and run some more. To never look back and to never go back to a place she would never belong. She thinks she must be in the eye of it all—A storm, that she is trapped in… but safe in. There is nowhere to go.
Nesta only nods. A silent agreement. A plea to keep her safe. To not damage her in his pursuit of destruction.
Cassian leaves, and for a moment she can breathe again. She can hear the clinking of plates and glasses, imagines them all breaking before he can come back. But he does come back, with another plate and slice. He sets it right beside the one she's cut.
Nesta thinks they'll get lost in the silence, in the idea that time will stop if they don't look at each other. She wonders if he wants the moment to end, if he's waiting for her to run or coming up with excuses to leave or if, like her, he is afraid the moment will end, all too soon, and they will once again have to continue this ridiculous dance of shy glances and heated words.
Cassian steals glances at her from the corner of his eye, and she has a strange impulse to pound her fist in the cake if only to see a different reaction.
But then, Cassian's eyes widen suddenly. He looks at the cake and looks back at her and looks at the cake again. And the look he tries not to give her, makes her stomach churn and bubble, an uncomfortable nausea once more settling in her chest. Her heart beats faster at his perusal and Nesta is reminded once more why she should be terrified.
Cassian picks up the new piece in a rush, the one he's cut, himself, setting it by the seat at the other end of the table. He merely points to the other.
"You can have that one." His voice is breathless, and uneven, and though he tries to appear nonchalant, his gestures are too unnatural to be normal.
"This one's bigger." He offers in clarification, as if that clarified anything. Nesta has half a mind to be offended by his behavior. But Cassian doesn't stop moving. Instead heading back towards the kitchen.
"Are you not eating with me?"
"Hold on." Cassian procures glasses from the cupboard and moves haphazardly to the refrigerator. When he closes the door, she can see him carrying a jug of milk. He's noticeably less anxious and tries to prove it to her by giving what he probably thinks is his most award-winning smile.
He pours each of them a cup and she can't help but admire the fact that he would use crystal wine glasses for something so simple.
"You can't have chocolate cake without milk." Cassian scoffs. "It's sacrilege."
Nesta tilts her head at his dramatic entry. From the milk to the words. Cassian is… not what she expected. Different from anyone she's ever met. And, though she knows he is trying to distract her from asking too many questions, she's too curious to not indulge him just this once.
"But any other cake is fine without it?"
Cassian sits down in a flourish. Drops of milk landing on the wood. He grabs a napkin to clean the spill between them. "Oh Nesta. Have you no idea?" His arms move in a wave, his voice dripping with mocking disdain. "Have you been sheltered away this long?"
She gives him a blank expression, a gesture to get on with it as any other. Cassian breaks off a piece a cake with the forks she'd set out but doesn't take a bite. Instead, waving it around while crumbs fall to the table.
"Every dessert should be paired with something complimentary." He points to the cake as if it's obvious. "It's how the world works. Chocolate cake with milk. Cookies with milk. But Vanilla cake? It's lighter, so of course you'd have to have a sauce—"
Nesta merely watches as he runs on his tangent. It's almost comical the way he forgets so quickly the last few awkward moments.
"Strawberry goes best, but I'm partial to blueberries. Pie, though, needs whipped cream… Though, I guess, it depends on the filling, because everyone knows that apple pie goes with ice-cream and not whipped—"
Nesta raises her hands in defeat. "Okay, okay. I get it." She shakes her head at this bizarre turn of events. "You know way too many desserts."
He squints at her accusingly, and a laugh bubbles up inside of her that she swallows with a bite.
"You know too little." He says, indignantly. This time she doesn't even try to stop the roll of her eyes.
She watches as he takes a quick bite, smiling softly at the sweet flavor. Nesta tries not to feel too pleased with herself. It is merely a cake, and he is only a person. Her heart should not beat for him.
When Cassian looks back up at her, for what might have been his thousandth time staring, he has that fond look again. The one she knows he tries to hide in between quick glances and shadows.
"Don't worry though, I'm sure I could introduce you to plenty you'll like."
"I look forward to it." Her lips turn upward, and she can't help herself. She can't hide from him. Nesta's not even sure she wants to. If second changes meant being destroyed, Nesta isn't sure she's unwilling. Not if the torment is this sweet.
She is self-inflicting, Nesta decides. She wants to be left with bruises and pain. Their wreckage is inevitable. Their ending preordained. Two storms cannot meet without beatings.
But they continue eating, and though she ends up shaking her head more than a million times, the dining room at least doesn't seem like a terrible place to be in, and she supposes…Cassian isn't the worst person to be trapped in a house with.
Cassian is a sore. His nonstop pestering follows her to the kitchen at breakfast, in the living room when he comes back for lunch, and in the dining room for dinner where she cannot possibly escape him.
She doesn't need training. Abhors even the thought of doing something she doesn't know the first thing about.
"Come on. Just try it once. Once." He holds up his pointer finger in emphasis. His eyes wide, his voice desperate.
She doesn't need training, and she tries to tell him this. That it will neither straighten her attitude nor turn her into one of them.
"I am not some warrior keen on traipsing through the forest for the first thing that wants to kill me."
It's more than that, though.
If not wanting to fight makes her weak to them, to fae, to her family, she'll let them call her that. Better than playing a role she has no desire nor skill to be in. Better than turning into another person she doesn't recognize.
Fighting won't make her new.
It doesn't matter if she's is in a spacious townhouse, a cabin in the Illyrian mountains, or a little hut in the middle of the woods. When she looks in the mirror, her own face makes her want to rip off her skin and piece it back together. Into something different and familiar.
Learning to fight won't put those pieces back together. Won't stop her from yearning for a past that she'd never wanted…or loved.
Fighting won't make her live.
Cassian keeps asking, though.
Every time she thinks they're done with the discussion, he brings her a new book and asks again. He gets in the habit of handing them to her. Another way that he sneaks into crevices of time and space she's been clear on calling her own.
Nesta lets him. Allows him to be there when she opens the door, when she puts the plates on the table, when she reads a book in the living room. Lets him in on her many secrets…or maybe just a few.
After the fiftieth time, she agrees. Not because of her inherent weakness by literature, but because she is thoroughly annoyed at the questions, at Cassian, at herself even, for letting him annoy her. If breaking sweat will get him to shut his mouth, she'll do practically anything.
Except training, Nesta learns, hurts. Her joints feel bruised and out of place, her bones grind against each other every time she moves. But it's her heart that hurts the most. Where her hands blister, her soul kneels—fists to the ground, head buried in dirt. It doesn't take much to be defeated, she thinks, it doesn't take much to kill her. She is somehow both relieved and infuriated.
Cassian looks on. He doesn't coddle her. His eyes sparkle challengingly. Smirks so indignantly, that the rage slams into her and she's on her feet once more. Kicking and fighting and breathing and very much alive.
She clenches her hands, feels the hard ridge of her knuckles. Reminds herself that she hates them. She hates them all, even herself. Hates everything about them.
She doesn't—but her fists don't know that.
Death is not a dream. Neither are the screams; they come from her.
Nesta wakes up to looming mountains. She can see them from her bedroom window. Illyrian mountains she imagines toppling over; the rock and snow piling on their little house. The roof strong enough to withstand winds and heavy rain, but not strong enough to protect them from stone—or the fear barely contained within her.
Breathe, Nesta, she thinks. Breathe until her heart knows what time it is. Breathe until her lungs know it's safe.
Her fear is a mountain. Immovable, precarious, snow capped with feelings she could never melt away. Stagnant and piling.
"I can't."
The bleak is different when she sleeps. There is nowhere to run, no person to call out to, no day that will inevitably come with swords of golden sunbeams. The night is eternal.
In her nightmares, it surrounds her. When she wakes up, it waits.
A moon-shaped eye watches her from the window, sees her chest move like waves in the dark. Nesta hears the strangled noises. They don't come from her.
Nesta, breathe.
Death is there, she thinks. Disguised as shadows on the wall. He faces her, makes her look. She sees his mouth move, but the words are coming from her.
"I can't!"
Nesta screams the words. Screams them so that she won't hear anything but her own voice. But the darkness is hollow. She can hear the words again and again.
"It's not real," she repeats, cradling her head in her hands. "It's not real."
It is. Her fear isn't a liar. It's there in the dark, in the mountains, in the eyes of the faceless Death who haunts her. It topples right on top of her, and Nesta cannot stop the yells…
But, then there's a knock… and just like that it's quiet.
Nesta knows who it is. She can hear his breathing through the door, can hear her heartbeat pound away with his fists on the wood. Low, but repetitive.
And just like that…Cassian's there.
A pleasant dream in a raging nightmare.
"Nesta. I heard noise." His feet shuffle back and forth. Step by step. A dance. She wants to dance with him. "I just was checking up on you."
His words are soft, though loud enough that she can hear him like her own voice. "Are you okay?"
He makes a tsk sound, as if he knows that's a question, they've all been asking since she could remember. Nesta doesn't fault him for it. She won't respond with something so crass. The night has left her far too empty.
"I'm—" She wipes her eyes with the sleeves of her nightgown. Tries to hide her sniffles in the words. "I'm okay."
It's the first time she's ever said those words, and they are still not true. But Cassian doesn't disagree or argue that she isn't. Perhaps, he can hear something else in her lies. Something like a wish or a dream.
A hope.
For an eternity, they remain quiet. She is half afraid he will go away if she doesn't say anything, and that's the last thing she wants.
"I just had a nightmare." Nesta explains. Hesitantly, because admitting it to him is almost as hard as admitting it to herself. That the dreams come and go, and come again, and don't leave her alone.
She can practically hear his trepidation at the door. It's closed, but she swears the door watches her. Holds its breath. It wants to be opened; she thinks. It doesn't like playing the wall that stands between them.
"I just put the kettle on…and there's still some pie left." Nesta can hear the floor creak as he dances on the balls of his feet. "If you don't want to go back to sleep, we could… play a card game. Or something—If you want."
She can hear him muttering to himself, hears the words stupid and idiot as he waits for her response. Nesta doesn't give him one, instead shifting off the bed, a veil of rustling sheets trailing behind her. It takes her a moment to open the door, the time spent staring at the knob in hopes that it would sink into the wood.
It would be simpler to keep the door closed.
It would be simpler if they'd never said one word to each other.
She opens it anyways.
Cassian's hair is tangled, the left side of his face marked and red. He has both sides of the door frame locked in his grip, like he'd break the door down if she'd asked.
Nesta sighs, rubbing her eyes and her temples.
His lips raise slightly, something half-pitiful and half-understanding. His eyes filled with sleep and empathy.
Nesta wants him to hug her. It's an awful thought that she digests and dismisses, but he looks… warm, bright even. A stark contrast to the night that never leaves her.
He doesn't crowd around her, stepping away when she steps forward. Letting her decide what she wants out of this ordeal—how she wants to be comforted.
She clenches her fists, reigns in the torment and fear.
Nesta wants him to know, he has to know, that she is grateful to him. For him.
It isn't those words that come out of her lips. A croak of a question, a stupid question.
"Can we play pinochle?"
The grin he gives her is wide and triumphant. Never-ending, never-stopping.
"Of course." Cassian reaches his arm out, guides her back to the living, and in the direction of the living room. Nesta looks back into her room before she goes, stares at Death one more time in the shadows. Somewhere in the hidden darkness of the moon's glow.
Death—the night—is more frightening when she's alone. And she is not. No matter how many times she's tried to convince herself she is.
Nesta takes his cue, Cassian trailing beside her.
"I still won't go easy on you." He remarks, a haughty tone to his rough voice.
She looks back at him, the ferocity coming back once more. Awake and breathing. Watching and waiting. Ready to pummel and fight.
"Neither will I."
Cassian likes to watch her read. Sometimes walking past her room just to see if he'd catch a glimpse. Her head leaning on the cushion, mouthing the words to herself, pacing back and forth with her eyes glued to a page. He wants to know what she's reading, why it fascinates her so, that she spends most of her day huddled on a couch that is more worn than loved.
He never gets to ask and not because he doesn't have the opportunity. Nesta doesn't like to be intruded on is what he tell himself. Cassian should be happy with the glimpse. She's spent so many days with door glued shut, the crack should be a reprieve. A sliver of heaven. A soft light in the dim hallway.
He remembers making excuses, muttering to himself that he forgot his flying leathers, his hair tie, his gloves. Anything to get to his room, to pass her slightly opened door, even if his gloves were already on his hands. He remembers that glimpse, that light. A gifted piece of time.
Now, Cassian is lucky enough to have earned more. Words turned phrases, sentences he didn't need to reach for. Fragmented pages in a book he wanted so badly to read. One page at a time. One she writes herself. One she lets him hold. That he doesn't have to steal by catching stars.
Cassian will not take those moments for granted. He will not push her off the cliff she paces along, will not let her fall off of it. Cassian will read every page she gives him, memorize each sentence like his own soul had spoken. Each word a treasure. Each word a hope.
So, Cassian stays near the doorway when he wants to speak to her. Doesn't cross the threshold until she lifts her head and sits up along the fading blue fabric. Even then, he doesn't move an inch.
"I think this place looks plain. Don't you think?"
Nesta sits with a book in her lap. His eyes roam over the cover. An old one, he thinks, not the one he'd given her this morning. She puts her head under her chin and just that look alone makes him giddy. Too excited for a simple question, for just a glimpse.
Cassian is reminded of that light again, that sliver of a doorway. Nesta doesn't leave the door closed anymore, doesn't leave it cracked. She looks at him head on, doesn't shy away or hold her nose higher than the tallest shelf in her room. She doesn't turn away from him. She is as open as the door, as bright as the light from the window.
Everything inside, though, is a secret. Cassian may get to see inside, but he does not get to step inside. Not yet.
He almost forgets he asked her a question, the sound of her voice shaking him out of his contemplation.
"It's your house. If you don't like it, no one else will."
"That's what I'm saying." His smile grows wider as her eyes blink lightly. He tries to make himself seem smaller, tilts his head and shrugs. Like he's innocent. New. Peaceful. Unchaotic. Cassian wonders if it's a look he is pulling off. If he ever could to begin with. "I think this place needs some character."
"And?" She scoffs. "Decorating tips are not really my forte. That's reserved more for your high lord."
Cassian has to resist reaching for his neck or playing with the pieces of hair that keeps falling in his face.
She watches him with those analyzing eyes of hers and he wants to tell her that she'd make a good strategist for how well she knew which place to attack. But he makes a good show of being unbothered, standing taller, stretching his wings until one hits the wall. He gives her his Cassian smile, the one he's sure will goad her.
"Opulence isn't my thing." He gestures around him as if it's obvious. The wallpaper that's stripped in places on the wall, the quilts that don't match, but are folded neatly on the bed. The eye of the window, watching as he flopped, sneering at the disarray, staring at the seat and only bookshelf that didn't even have enough room to hold all the books that belong to her. The rest sitting in piles next to the wood.
"I was thinking… since you live here now—" He holds his hands up. "—at least for the time being, we should make this house more comfortable for the both of us."
With a subtle laugh, he continues. "Besides, it looks like you could use more bookshelves."
He expects her to laugh. He doesn't know why, but he expects her to lift her fine-groomed brows and laugh as if he was no one important enough to bother with. That he is merely a nuisance and an obligation to her time in Illyria, that she cannot escape him so she must adapt until she can leave.
Cassian is surprised when she doesn't outright dismiss him.
"How?"
"There's this market. They have prints and fabrics and shelving." She furrows her eyebrows as he pauses and takes a breath, hoping that if she was going to reject him or yell she'd get on with it already. "They also sell decorations, handcrafted art. Food even, so we could get that too on our way back."
Nesta doesn't respond right away. She merely stares at him; another look he files away. Under "I don't know what Cassian's getting at" or… "Cassian has grown two head and I wonder if he's gone insane."
"You want me to go to the market with you, and help you decorate?"
He braces himself for the impact. "Yes… I want that."
Maybe Nesta is reading one of her favorite books, or she got a full night's sleep, or she liked the weather today, but she nods. Cassian has to blink twice to see if it's true and he isn't making it up in delusional hope.
"We'll have to figure out how to bring everything home, and we should probably make a list before we go… but I guess I could finish this book some other time."
Nesta meets him by the doorway, and he walks with her to the living room. His wings flaring as she rushes past him. Cassian wonders if she notices the how his cheeks flush red at the mention of home. His whole body growing fonder and softer and more pliant. She looks back at him and waits at the end of hallway until he catches up.
His cheeks strain from the grin plastered on his face, and for once in his life this house could be his home.
Elain writes her every Sunday.
Like clockwork, the letters pile into ink and printed paper, collecting dust in the small drawer of her nightstand. Some of them she opens, most of them she doesn't.
She learns to read each word in between lines of freesia and Iris. Between stories of misadventures and fake laughs. Reads each letter like one of the books Cassian hands her every morning, every letter as fictious as the last.
The first one starts with a how are you. The second, we miss you. The third, we wish you were here. The fourth, it's not the same without you. A firm you were killing yourself and we couldn't watch. An implied it is your fault. You did this. We're doing this for you.
Nesta stops reading them after the 12th Sunday. The pile turning into unopen envelopes.
When Cassian hands her the 37th, it is from Feyre. She contemplates if her sister's handwriting will still look neat on crumpled paper. She sets it on the table, before her fists can make the decision for her.
If Feyre writes it's because Elain has told her she isn't writing back. Like a good hound, she goes sniffing about. Like a good sister, she makes sure Elain is satisfied.
"I think your sisters miss you."
"So, they've said."
"I could bring them back a letter if you want." Nesta knows this already, implying that she doesn't and asking again isn't going to make her write them.
Cassian merely stares indefinitely at the letter on the table, pauses as if to say something she doesn't want to hear, and won't even deign to imagine. They both get lost in unknown words. Unanswered questions. Silence that screams even louder than her own voice.
She takes the letter with her when she goes back into her room. Closes the door so softly, afraid that she'll show him her pain by even the slightest sound.
Today, the door does not whisper her secrets.
Instead it watches her keenly, watches like everyone does. She heads towards the mattress, lifts it until she sees the others. Piles of letters. Pinks, yellows, and pale greens. Signs of spring when not even the winter has passed.
Nesta never tells him she's written them, doesn't even tell her shadows. Only the door knows. A sliver of silver in a garden of patience, where winter meets spring.
The letters she writes are not closed. The flap of the envelope waves her hello, the words do not say anything. She knows they'd call her coward if she wasn't in the room.
Nesta can't argue against her own words, can't convince the letters to explain on her behalf, to tell her sisters what she means—what she feels.
She can only look them over, move around sentences, change parts, remove others. Write and rewrite and write again. Piles of crumbled paper resembling snow.
Nesta can make the words lie.
But she can't make them tell the truth.
Cassian stretches his wings, a halo of orange and sinew appearing in the horizon, stretching so far Nesta imagines them reaching out like hands towards each end of the universe. He looks both holy and obscene under the setting sun and though his image and the sun are too harsh for her eyes, she does not look away.
Nesta has to resist rolling her eyes. If he means to look impressive, he should do it in front of females who don't already know what an impressive pair of wings look like—as if they don't have some of their own. As if he is the only one who can be both dangerous and god-like.
Cassian is going over the best ways to use a long sword. The Illyrian blade gleaming where he holds it, revealing all of their flaw and inadequacies. The metal more intimidating than most of the men in the camp. Maybe more so than Cassian, himself, who swipes his hand across its spine. The touch soft. A whisper of a caress.
Nesta can't help but wonder what his hands would feel like, how gentle his fingertips would travel, how rough his palms would press against skin. If he'd be as soft with her as he is with something that was made to kill and maim and murder.
"The edge is virtually useless against armor," he says, "but that's not what it's made for. The objective is to hit the soft areas." He points to himself in example. Armpit, neck, face, elbow, any area that looks good enough to bury into.
There are muffled responses from the other girls. Some young, some older. All of them naïve. Even herself. What are they even doing with weapons?
Cassian gestures for them to try, and Nesta picks up the sword. Balancing it in her palm.
The weight of her lies is lighter than she'd thought it be. She sweeps it across her and it cuts through the air, making x's by a trick of the light.
The feeling is odd, and many of the other girls must think so, too. They grimace at each other, scrunching their noses, curling their lips. Nesta supposes she'd do the same, if she'd had any one who'd look back at her.
She watches Cassian, as he breathes in deeply. A silent sigh that makes her lips turn slightly. He's frustrated, Nesta can tell, and though she doesn't wish him pain, she can't help but feel it's what he deserves.
He did this to himself. Cassian can't expect them to love something they have been raised to hate… or be responsible for something they had no obligation to, prior to now.
By the time Devlon arrives, Cassian looks ready to pull out his hair, watching and directing even when none of them will listen pass minimal effort.
His wings stretch even further, his gate asserting itself. She imagines him like a peacock, or a ruffled chicken, ready to brawl. The image makes Nesta want to laugh, but the look on his face tells her it isn't a fight she particularly wants to start.
When he looks at Devlon there is nothing nice or patient about him. He is all harsh lines and glares. Nesta understands why people would fear him and can't understand why Devlon couldn't be bothered.
Next to Devlon, Cassian looks like a boy. Strong and petulant and stubborn, but still not more experienced than his senior. She questions if this is Cassian's whole life, having to prove himself to beings who will never think highly of him.
Their camp lord stands there, doesn't even gesture for Cassian to follow. Perhaps, it's beneath him to do such things. Nesta has to resist throwing the sword at him for the insult.
"Just keep practicing, I'll be right back." He commands to all of them, subtly peering her way.
The look on Devlon's face says otherwise. Perhaps, the plan all along… or just a pleasant happenstance to his undermining nature. Nesta only nods at Cassian. She knows how these games work.
Cassian leaves, and at first, they continue. Swipe after swipe. Getting used to holding a weapon in their hands, as if they are not weapons themselves. Dangerous with or without a blade.
Nesta's surprised at the ease, the balance, the way the edge looks sharp enough to cut through her anger. It's make her furious how easy it is for her to become them; how easy it is to forget.
But after an hour, it's nearly dinner, and the others start looking nervous. 12 of them. The oldest couldn't have been older than her, though she couldn't have been sure. They were after all fae. It's become increasingly obvious Cassian isn't returning anytime soon.
The nervous looks on some of the girls faces reminds her of Elain, and for a second, she wants to help, to alleviate their grief or guilt. She wants to solve all the world's problems, so they won't have to. It's a feeling she should stop herself from acting on, but it erupts out of her anyways.
"You can go home if you want. I won't tell." The females look at each other, heads turning, back and forth, their dark eyes hiding their worry. They look at her and Nesta thinks she can see contempt, and wonders what she did to cause such things.
It's the eldest who responds, a derisive tone coating her voice. "Why would you let us leave?"
It's a smart question. It's a question, she, herself, would ask. Nesta isn't their leader, their general, their Camp Lord. She is nothing and nobody to them, she is just as much controlled as they are. What gives her more power than them?
Regardless, the haughty tone coupled with her quick temper means the match is lit. It is only a matter of time before she burns all of their houses.
Nesta looks the eldest in the eye, her eyebrow raised, her lips set in a fine line. The monotony coats her voice, and even though she refrains from crossing her arms or clenching her fists, she has a feeling the tone of her words do it for her.
"Because I don't want to be here, so I'm assuming you don't either." The Illyrian's eyes darken, and Nesta wants to know her name, if only to use the information as leverage over her.
"You have no right to assume anything about us." Nesta holds in a scoff and a laugh. She must be standing in front of a mirror. She swears she said that once. "Our males are bred for war. Why should we not fight? Why should you get to and not us?"
Nesta tilts her head in confusion. They were angry about her… training? Never in her life did she think anyone would be envious of that. She wanted to tell them that she'd gladly give them that honor if this conversation ended immediately.
"Am I lucky?"
Some of the girls nod. She can see the wrinkles between their eyes deepen, their cheeks sullen and red.
"You get to fight when you want to, to roam around this camp like one of us. What gives you the right to assume anything about us?"
It's the anger she recognizes. So very much like her own. Nesta wants to welcome it, to say hello to it, to tell it she knows who it belongs to. It looks just like the very one that spills out of her lips. "What makes you assume anything about me? That I want to fight, that I want to be here."
Again, it's the eldest who answers for all of them. Her black hair pulled tightly back from her face, so Nesta can see clearly how much hate shown in her eyes.
"You're all the same—trying to control us. Trying to pretend to be like us, to do our trainings, to talk to our people, to learn our ways, only to change them to be like you. You think you're not the same, look how fast you came to command us when you have not earned that respect. You are just like all of them. Shrouded by your ignorance."
"I am nothing like them." Nesta sneers. It's an assertion she makes many times to herself and it only seems to enrage her more. The statement isn't entirely accurate. Not anymore. Not when every day she looks in the mirror and sees less of herself and more of what Feyre and the rest of that Inner Circle wants her to be.
"You forget that I am also here out of obedience. That when my family looks at me, they see someone that disgusts them, so much that they sent me away because they couldn't stand the sight of me." Nesta has to resist blinking.
"If they are changing you, they are also changing me. Because they can't stand the sight of us. Can't—" she shakes her head, "Can't love us until were someone else."
For a moment, the training pavilion is silent. She wonders what new comment they will make that will feed the bitterness. Nesta marvels at how fast her anger dissipates. A bonfire one minute, a pile of ash the next. She used to be so warm, always ready to burn. Now, she is merely rubble.
Nesta doesn't look at them, merely watches her foot kick a rock until it hits the base of practice figure. Only when she hears shuffling, does she glance back up.
She is grateful that the harsh look on the eldest's face is still there. She doesn't know what she'd do if she saw pity. The female moves her head back and forth, as if she is weighing her options and finds that they're both unfavorable.
"We're going to help cook dinner. You might think it's beneath you, but it's what we do every day at sundown." She holds up her hands, "And you may say you are not like our leaders, but the judgment is still up in the air with that one, so I think I am allowed to make assumptions on your behalf. I might regret this invitation later… but you're welcome to come with us."
Nesta isn't sure why she agrees. She has never been a people person, never wanted to spend time with anyone outside of her home. But the promise of something new sparks her interest, a promise of company and food. But, more likely, Nesta thinks, she also wants to prove to them that she isn't like Feyre or Rhysand or Mor and even Cassian, sometimes. That she is as unwilling to change as she is willing to change anyone else. That she doesn't need them to feel whole.
Nesta wants to prove to herself she isn't like them and wonders what parts of that circle she wants to omit and what parts she actually admires. If changing means pretending or changing means giving in. She questions if this is what she meant by being destroyed.
"Do you like fighting?" Margery asks, after the work is done. The eldest, she finally learns the name of.
Nesta sits with a bowl of soup in front of her, and she and the other girls are eating at a long table in the kitchen. They cook for a dining hall, Margery tells her, and after each dinner, they are free to eat whatever is left. Today the meal is a beef stew, and when Nesta had seen how many they were feeding her eyes had nearly widened to the size of the pot they were cooking with.
Nesta barely has the spoon to her mouth when she is bombarded with the question. One of the girls looks at another, and for the first time Nesta thinks that they are hiding something. She knows that look. The ways their eyes say much more than their mouths ever will, the way she can almost see their minds, like machinery, move and rotate and grind away.
"It's just a question." Margery gestures to the rest of them. "We'd all like to hear what you'd have to say. We have our own opinions on the matter."
They are clever, she thinks. Clever enough to go prodding for a chink in the armor. To bury something deep in the soft parts. They are weapons, made to murder and maim. They are weapons made to protect. Themselves and their families.
Nesta swallows and sets her spoon down. She grabs a napkin and wipes her mouth, buying time and never getting more than a blink.
Nesta wants to give the honest answer, that no, she abhors training. But she also thinks that the honest answer is a little more complicated. Some part of her screams that for once in her life, she should say what she means.
"Sometimes…" They wait for her explanation, the room going quiet and cautious. Nesta rarely has ever had to explain herself. Either someone would've interrupted her by now, or it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest, but there's something about the tension in the room. Quiet, but cautious, and waiting.
"Sometimes," She searches for the words, "I think I'll learn to like it, because I know I need to learn to protect myself…" She shakes her head, squinting far off into some place past this kitchen. She can see one of them roll her eyes, assuming this to be another spiel of propaganda, they've probably heard many times before. That she's heard before.
"But other times, I think, why do I live in a world where I need to protect myself at all, and why is fighting my only protection?" The words rush out of her. She vomits them all over the countertops
"And sometimes I think that me giving into it, is telling them that they have won. That I give up my will because I trust theirs is better when I know it won't change anything.
"But sometimes I think, that maybe I am afraid of it changing me, or me liking it, or fixing me like I know they want it to do. And it makes me angry to think that so little could change me, and it makes me angry that they think I need to be fixed, like I'm some broken toy they've grown tired of looking at, but somehow can't throw away."
She takes a breath, a gleam making a way into her eyes, as she bores a hole into the table.
"but then I think, if I let them do this to me, if I let them have there way for now, and I earn their trust, then later when I want something else, something bigger and bolder, and requires much more… freedom… they'll give it to me." She glances at Margery who looks at her like she is still trying to figure out what game she is playing, what role she takes, and if it was in her best interest to play along. The others are listening intently to every word. Nesta wants to know if they found what they were looking for. "Because, today, I decided to bite my tongue."
Margery smiles at her, just a small tilt of her lips, but Nesta feels like she's been initiated somehow, as if she was given a test and passed it. She points her chin to the bowl of soup.
"Eat up." Nesta can see the steam coming up from the bowl.
"You'll be needing it." Another responds, laughing good-naturedly, a subtle hint of mockery between the words. "If you plan on fighting them all."
Nesta wonders if she's just committed to something she can't follow through with, or something she doesn't truly understand. But before she can contemplate on the direct consequences of her words, the broth hits her tongue. The flavor bursting in her mouth.
There are swirls of beef and cabbage. The bowl of soup cooling as she stares into it. The vegetables float around like little stars in the galaxy. But while the sky always seems cold to her—absent and much too large—the stew is warm as she takes another bite.
It tastes a little like progress.
I thought a lot about how I perceive Nesta, and I wanted to capture the quietness, the tumultuous emotions, the fact that she's healing and how that's a roller coaster of moods, and maybe her biased narrative, so that's why it's written in chronological pieces of varying degrees of attitude. I also wanted Cassian to not heal her, but be consistently there, talking to her, being supportive, listening, offering what she needs, instead of maybe what he wants to give her. As I think that's probably more accurate to their potential character arcs and my own personal preference of what I want out of their narratives.
Also I rhyme… a lot. I don't know how it started and I don't know how to stop so. What can you do. Anyways, The next part is the last part so yay! We'll see when that gets posted… (Don't look at me)
If you liked and want more: Favorite/Comment, I always like reading what y'all have to say ;D and of course they serve as little reminders to write faster.