Cassian's Love is Warm (Part 4/4)
All of you knew how this was going to end so don't me.
Essay of an Author's Note on the bottom (Please read)
Nesta comes home with three broken ribs and a sprained ankle and Cassian has to stop himself from adjusting her coat every time she breathes. Margery, it seems, makes a fine soldier.
"How did this even happen?" He asks, his voice a tightly wound string. He places a hand gently on her forearm guiding her past the living room and the pictures that wink and wave beyond their control. The glaze in her eyes saying too much.
"Training near the cliffs is not a good idea."
That's exactly what Margery tells him when he arrives in the med clinic hours earlier, his heart thumping loudly, a pounding in his head telling to hit everything in sight. She is lying on a cot, the near identical glazed look staring back at him.
It's the tonic, Margery explains. A special mix of willow bark and poppy fluff that would make Nesta loopy for a while, but not feel a thing. When he asks her how she's holding up, Nesta merely smiles, one-side of her lips raising while she leans her head against the wall. He takes it as a sign that the tonic is working.
Cassian swallows the urge to grumble as the healer takes forever to appear, mumbling to the room that she should set her priorities straight and heal patients. But the healer, probably having her fair share of encounters with overbearing fae males, is quick to hold up her hands as she enters the tent, her voice assertive as she explains.
She needs to take this every few hours. Plenty of sleep, perhaps a warm bath, and absolutely no training. Cassian memorizes the list. He ignores the part where she says she's fine, because only time will tell and the fact that she's fae means nothing when she is sitting there in a daze, having obviously been hurt only hours before.
Nesta says he's being dramatic.
Cassian can't deny the claim. He only knows that as Nesta shuffles towards the chair in the dining room, she sits extra slowly, wincing as she twists in the seat. Even breathing seems to hurt her, and Cassian unconsciously holds his breath. Sympathy pains, he thinks, not some slight pull on a string they have barely acknowledged.
"Are you hungry?" He asks, anxious to do anything that is not standing their awkwardly, hoping that she will tell him where it hurts and what to do about it.
Nesta shakes her head. Cassian huffs in frustration.
"I can make you food." He suggests, but Nesta merely lays her head on her arms and closes her eyes.
Cassian has to stop himself from touching her. He wants to run his hands through her hair, to pat her head until she leans against his palm, to hold her until she's fast asleep and even then he swears he wouldn't let her go.
He does none of this of course.
"Leave me alone." He hears, the sound muffled by her sweater. Cassian taps his foot on the ground, the impatience getting the better of him.
"No." He asserts. Nesta lifts her head, glaring at him with that look he's seen a million and two times. If Cassian wasn't so worried, he would have laughed outright. "Not until you're better. After that you can kick me out of the house, toss me in the mud, throw me all the way back to Velaris. But not until then. Not until I know you're okay."
Nesta sighs and Cassian wants to continue arguing—listing all the ways she can dismiss him entirely, but she puts her arms out as if to say carry me and Cassian all too readily obliges.
He ends up setting her down on the cushioned mattress, pulling the duvet up and over. Her hair tangling with the silvery blue, but he doesn't comb it like his fingers ache to do. Instead, he rushes to get her a glass of water and another drop of that healing tonic, which she swallows with a twist of her mouth.
Cassian waits until her eyes droop, until they close, until her hand goes slack on the glass, that he carefully unfolds and sets on the counter. He places her hand on her stomach and pretends that her skin doesn't feel as soft as silk or that she doesn't smell like aching dreams and heartache.
He wants to stay but he doesn't.
Because it's intrusive? He asks himself. Because it would mean too much, his heart answers back. Because there's something about her that makes him want to be soft. To tuck away all the cares of the past, fluff every pillow, ridding them of the melancholy woes and the hopeless nights, gathering the quilts until they sit on top of both of them. Nothing but sweet dreams and lavender smiles.
But it is all a dream, he thinks. Nothing more than that… The two of them, just a collection of everything he has taken for granted, a mere reminder of everything he could possibly regret. There is no them, there is only her and him. Two separate beings tied by a war-tangled history and childhood sorrow.
Pain recognizes pain. Anger recognizes anger. That's why he is pulled towards her, not some invisible string barely knotted. It is not because gazing at her is like waking up and finding he is young again. Not five hundred years filled with wars and scars too match, but the insatiable desire to learn and relearn and learn some more. Everything new and bright.
Every color of discovery is hidden behind her eyelids, and Cassian wants to wake her up. Wants to shake her, jumble her clothes, mess with her perfect hair and her perfect pin-straight spine, and ruffle the perfection out of her and strangely… Cassian wants her to yell at him for it, wants her to get so mad that she'll explode like those distant stars behind him. He wants to see her purse her lips as if sharp teeth will shred him into two, wants those eyes of hers to pierce his soul, seven shades of grey and blue starlight.
Cassian wants her to tell him those things he hears in his dreams. Not the laughs or the breathy moans, but the trembling, fiery words that have his knees melting to the floor.
Bastard... Nobody… Weak. Coward. Not worth the time. Never good enough. It was all the same to him. He'd heard the words enough times to brush them off quickly, but not from Nesta. Not in the way that mattered.
Cassian wants to hear them from her now… wants to stop dreaming strange, improbable dreams.
He walks away to keep himself—to keep his hands—from causing such a raucous.
Cassian goes to stand in the living room and waits, past the loveseat and the cushions, past the pictures judging him as he paces. He huffs on his way to the kitchen, pulls out a pan and then puts it back into the cupboard. Opens the cabinet, takes out bread, makes a sandwich. It tastes like sawdust in his mouth and he plops it back down on the plate.
He starts moving the furniture as a last act of desperation. Cassian hates moving the furniture and Nesta is never satisfied. She says it's because they're missing something, and she can't quite put her finger on what. And though it's originally Cassian's idea, he merely replies that he has better things to do than spend hours comparing how the couch looks against each wall.
Truthfully, perhaps it isn't in him to make homes out of war zones or pretty things out of bones and blood. Scars don't decorate the living room as easily as they do his body and the house was never really his home. Just a skeleton structure with tattering walls and worn wood. Never with a mat at the front door saying welcome, how have you been, stay a while. He has never been welcome here.
The house isn't like that now, he thinks, a fact that makes Cassian smile as he tosses the throw pillows aside. He lays his head against the soft grey of the couch, looking out into that big picture window. Nesta could read there, he thinks. He imagines her feet tucked in, the light playing with the color of her hair, her eyes, the book open and wide as Nesta devours it. The dust of snow in the background. Maybe he'd be sitting across from her, watching her eyes scan the pages, or maybe he'd be in the kitchen, a savory fragrance drifting through the house like dawdling clouds.
Cassian shakes his head to stop the dreaming, his feet firmly planted on the burgundy carpet and not out in that burgeoning yellow sky dusted with powder blue. She won't like it here, his mind keeps repeating, taunting and tantalizing all the ways Nesta can say I hate you in looks. She won't need them when she can say it so well…
Though, Nesta's never actually said the words. Good morning, yes. You idiot, most definitely. You brute, his favorite. But never, I hate you.
She could, though, and that scares him most of all. The idea that she can change her mind like he is merely a paint color or some bunched up fabric tossed aimlessly on the bed.
What if… what if he opens the door, lets her move in, change all the furniture, move it around, a plant here, a clock there, some pretty pictures on the wall, and she walks out no worse for wear, ready to leave it all behind? What if he is so easily left behind? Not even worth a memory. Not even called a mistake. Just a moment in an enduring lifespan, so long-lived that every choice could mean someone else. Something else that is not him.
And, maybe, that's why Cassian doesn't tell her that he misses her every time she leaves, that he stores conversations in his brain so he can recount them to her later, every part of his day filled with will Nesta laugh at this? What will Nesta think about that? Such joy in revealing himself like filling in lines, coloring in glass, until they all but gleam in the morning sun. Something holy and sacred in the fragments.
Something breakable.
Cassian once wishes for more time and here it is. He spends it wringing his hands and running his fingers through his hair, mulling over the thousand different shades of Nesta Archeron. Not yellow, because it doesn't hurt to look at her. Not green because her age never correlates with that smart mouth of hers and the wit that keeps him roaring. She could be purple because his skin always aches after touching her. Possibly blue, but not the blue that hides pools of mystery, that pulls and lures and drowns, but the light blue that he looks up to every morning, the color his wings and heart yearn for. Baby blue like forget-me-nots and bright eyes.
Eyes that she could look down at him with, he thinks.
Cassian sighs frustrated, picking up a pillow that presses uncomfortably at his side. The room feeling small as his thoughts abound around him, leaping past like dancing shadows. He can't sit still. Not when his soul feels as if it will jump out of his body and find someone more stable minded.
Cassian looks around him. So many fragile pieces, so many happenstances…
Nesta is right when she says something is missing. Cassian feels it too.
He stares out that window where the light filters through, imagines their lives in this house. Pictures the coy looks, the surprising smiles, the way they move around each other, some pull from the pit of his stomach to the bottom of her bodice that keeps them coming back for more. Never far from each other, his arms reaching for her. Always reaching— Their noses almost touching.
And maybe…
They knock into a bookshelf or two in their effort to get closer. Run into a coffee table on their way to the couch. Maybe they don't even make it, maybe they just fall into the small chair in the corner, Cassian careful not to knock the book that is perched on the arm. He can imagine the sharp look Nesta gives him when she thinks he's lost the page, his own answering smirk when he sets it carefully on the table.
Perhaps, the ice on the window makes them cold, but instead of pulling the blankets out where they rest on the back of the chair, they scramble to meet. Every inch of their skin touching the other, wanting to make each other warmer. Softer. Infinitely more pliant—
Cassian is almost afraid to blink as he sees it all. The room awake, the fire roaring and loud.
He knows what's missing. He wants to laugh at how obvious it is.
When Cassian enters her room, Nesta is sleeping soundly. Her chest moving steadily up and down. Some part of his brain whispers creep, but Cassian can't help but stare. Not because she's beautiful—she's always been too beautiful for words or quick glances—but because a possessive part of him, the part that's buried in the middle of his chest, squeezes like a tight fist and says here she is, in our house, in our room, in our bed. She is not afraid of us.
She is not ashamed of us, it says, and Cassian breathes in the words. A deep inhale of possibility as he steps closer, pulling up the blankets she's aimlessly pushed away.
But, Cassian is quick to step back as he catches his actions. His hands curling at his sides. He is not here to dream, he thinks. Not here to ponder on what might have been or what can be if he ever finds the guts to stop living in fantasies.
Instead, he zones in on the bookshelves tucked into the corner, framing the walls like studious soldiers standing proudly erect. They are tall, a little past his height. Cassian wonders how Nesta can reach the highest shelves for she has filled them all. He laughs under his breath as he sees her trying.
Nothing ever could stop an Archeron sister.
But, Cassian is careful as he collects each book, laying them down on the chair that sits beside it. He counts them as he goes. Twenty turning to thirty turning to fifty in mere moments. How she can read all of them and still want more, he cannot understand.
Once he is finished, he takes the edge of the shelf in his hands and shuffles it forward. Cassian hears a clink from behind.
A picture frame falls to the floor…
Cassian is quick to grasp it, cutting himself where the glass cracks in the corner, but he can pay no mind when he sees the image. The blood welling up in the space between stars.
It's the two of them.
Her and him. Imagined with such soft smiles, and something in their eyes he doesn't want to name.
Cassian wants to cradle the picture to his chest, hide it before Nesta can see. He spares a quick glance in her direction, but she is not standing over him ready to snatch it from his hands. He doesn't think he could let it go now even if she demanded it.
Cassian traces his fingers along the image and wonders if it is possible to jump in the frame and ask the two of them a thousand different questions. All of them bordering on improbable. An impossible dream.
How do you love when you do not know how to love?
He swears he sees their mouths move, their voices loud and bright.
Love the best you can.
Nesta pads to the living room, her body aching as she makes each step. She rubs her eyes and yet when her hands move from her face, Cassian is undoubtedly there.
She can't help the soft smile that appears. It has been easier to smile lately, and Nesta isn't concerned about how foreign it might look across her face. He is there. He has always been there.
But, the living room is new.
And as Nesta uncovers all of it's secrets, Cassian's grin widens satisfied.
Her bookshelves frame the window and the armchair sits to the side. The couches mirror the fireplace, roaring and loud, and all of it works somehow. Like it never has before. Cassian moves around her as she moves along the walls, tracing her hand over the soft fabric and eventually over the books that sit unperturbed by the light of the sun.
Cassian doesn't say anything, but he stands behind her as she peruses the living room, her gaze going up to the hanging lamp and the chandelier they picked out all those weeks ago. It glimmers blue and green and leaves triangles on the white oak coffee table as it sways.
Her presence is all over this place. She is in every pillow, and every book, and every candle that litter the tables. Every color, every sound, ever touch…
Cassian is there too.
Little accents of fur and Illyrian suede and weapons that hang neatly on the rack. He is there and she is there and together there is place for both of them. It makes her heart clench to think this is hers and her eyes start to burn as she clutches her chest.
She turns to face him, expecting warm looks and soft embraces.
She's met with a frame instead…
Nesta wants to claw it out his hands. Like some secret buried and never forgotten, rising from beneath her feet.
Her eyes begin to water as she stares, Cassian watching for bolting signs or some feral vindictiveness ready to storm and rage out of her. Her hands scrunch into fists and she can feel herself reaching, ready to fight for her last instance of security. Danger going off in her head like loud cymbals.
The two of them blink back at her in the frame. Wide-eyed and innocent.
"Why do you have that?" She asks. Cassian hikes up the image, his eyes rolling over its structured planes as he contemplates her question. Her voice a soft drum compared to his roaring silence.
"I found it."
"Were you sneaking through my things?" She can hear the shrill yell like an echo in her ears. Distant. As if she were holding onto the moment by bare hands as the anger threatens to pull her away. Some distant winds already grabbing hold of her feet.
His nostrils flare, ready to argue, but Nesta steps back, holding her hands up as she reaches for her neck, swallowing a whole universe of shame and hot, fiery words.
Cassian follows. Down a rabbit hole, an abyss of unsaid feelings, tripping over himself as he reaches for her.
"I want this too." He vows. His eyes wide and shining. "I want this more than you know."
Nesta shakes her head, her back and chest sore. The pain getting worse as she breathes deeply, as if she can't breathe at all. Like she's already drowning, and no more air can reach her lungs.
"You shouldn't have seen it." She croaks, trying to force out the words. "You weren't supposed to see it."
Cassian rushes forward, his hair floppily landing across his face. His arms outstretched as they stop near her, curling back like withering vines and roses that fall at their feet.
"I can't take it back," He admits. To her. To himself. To the quiet walls that hold their breath. To the sleeping books all around them. To the people in their picture who do nothing but smile as if nothing at all is wrong with the world.
Nesta doesn't snatch the picture away, but she closes her eyes, places her palms where stars start to form behind her eyelids.
"I want this." He repeats and the words do nothing to calm that restlessness she has learned to embody like a second skin.
"You've said that already." Nesta huffs, her movements careful as she wraps her arms around her middle, her hands clutching her dress. All of it giving too much away.
But, Cassian moves gently, steadily, carefully as he places his hands on her shoulders, moves them until he cradles her neck, her head titling to look up at him.
She can see it in his eyes—the familiarity.
She doesn't have to hide with him. He knows.
Cassian knows what it feels like to wear pain as a fur coat, to collect anger like sticks thrown in a fire that spits and glares. All of it to keep them warm when their hearts have been buried under rock and ice and rain. When they have no home to return to, no roof over their heads, no family to burrow into. Nothing but soft winter nights and harsh winter words.
Nesta still has to remind herself that it's spring and she wonders if Cassian will put up with her bitter frost in spite of blooming May's… if he will still want her in the sunny July's.
"You and me," Cassian says as he sets his forehead on hers. "I want this more than anything."
Nesta shuts her eyes, bleeding stars erupting behind. A mixture of snow and petals sprinkling down. Down. Down.
"Do you want this too?" She hears him whisper.
The smell of firewood burning reminds her of February forests and she buries her face into his chest. Squeezing him tighter as she hears the distant crackling in her ears. Sticks thrown into the fire and readily forgotten.
It is time to do more than burn, Nesta thinks. It is time to be more than frost.
"Yes."
Nesta is not proud that she can beat them. She is not proud that her fists can be made into flames and her mind into an undisputable weapon. She is not proud that her enemies can grovel at her feet, or that she is safe from all of them.
When the sword in her hand shines like a mirror, she sees who she is. It is not a little girl with bloody hands. Not a young woman scared and alone. It is not a fae who doesn't know where she belongs. It is simply, Nesta.
For whatever it's worth. Whatever it costs.
There is nothing truly special about her at the core. Reduced to the literal, she is merely a human heart in a fae body, but beyond that she is just a person. Someone who thinks and feels and cries and laughs and sometimes regrets her life and circumstances, but she is not the only one who dreams.
And just like the others, she is strong. Weak, but strong.. and willful, often. Arrogant and pathetic. Uninteresting… humorous… even disastrous at times. Sometimes beautiful.
She is capable, Nesta affirms.
She is lovable.
Even if that word has never been one to describe her, even if that is only one part of who she is. She is loved, and she loves, and she is not ashamed.
Even so…
Love is not enough she thinks, as she rips open the envelope and out comes her sisters' letter. Because the worst sound she has ever heard is the voice of Feyre telling her to leave, and the worst words she sees are the ones perfumed on the paper. Her eyes trailing the contents on the way to the kitchens.
Love has never been enough.
It is not enough in that little cabin. It is not enough when Feyre hunts. It is not enough when her father carries ships across seas. It is not enough when he falls to his knees, his head twisted to the right. The blood pooling like spilt paint.
It is certainly not enough when they ask her to come home, because they do. Elain first and Feyre following. She sees it in their handwriting, a joint letter this time, and Nesta wonders why they keep trying. What about her is so appealing?
Love is certainly not enough, now.
Nesta contemplates this as she rushes to Emerie, whose unloading a bag of flour that is half her size. Nesta grabs one end, Emerie at the other, and they both lug it to the corner, the bag flattening on the dusty floors.
They exchange greetings as Margery walks in, a long sword attached to her side. It is their turn for chores and admittedly it is something that Nesta has learned to look forward to, if only because she gets to see them, twice a week.
"Do you plan on cutting carrots with that sword?" Emerie questions with a raise of her brow and a light tilt to her voice.
"And a nice rat, too, if we're lucky enough to find one again."
Emerie mockingly gags and Nesta smirks at her friend's antics. She supposes it's just the price they pay for living near a forest and being the easiest access to food.
Margery tilts her chin towards her, "How's your back?"
Nesta raises both hands in assurance, seemingly touched by the subtle affection. "All healed."
She means it, too. In fact, Nesta has never felt better. She awakes now with little more than a dream, not a wink of a nightmare, and yet… she thinks of her sisters' letter weighing heavily in her pocket.
Is it love when they write her? She questions. Because Nesta thinks she knows what love is. This is love.
These females laugh with her, they talk with her, they value her opinion. She has never once felt belittled or uneasy and yet all she can think about is the fact that at any moment it can all disappear. Nesta is almost afraid to blink in fear that she has made them up in some half-intoxicated dream. That she'll waken to her grungy apartment, the four locks clamped shut, pieces of glass shattered on the floor.
This is their fault, she rages. For leaving her in the middle of nowhere when she was falling a part at the seams.
"I'm surprised our illustrious commander didn't gut me for the injury."
"Cassian isn't like that." She answers, trying to swat away the feeling of betrayal as she focuses on her friends.
"Oh, it's Cassian now." Margery smirks, looking to Emerie as her eyes light up. "Not that one or him."
Emerie adding, "or buffoon or that oversized bat."
"Yes. Yes." Nesta concedes, grabbing a ladle hanging from the wall, giving them a dry look. "He's all of those now."
Margery huffs a laugh, going into her routine of ranting about her week. Nesta breathes a sigh of relief. She starts with Lord Devlon making her do drills to prove herself.
"If I have to do one more drill, my legs are going to fall off."
"You're still training?" Emerie asks and Margery sits in a chair at the table, leaning back as she places the sword and the harness all over the countertops. Nesta wants to roll her eyes. Margery has never been one to embody domesticity. Even the simplest of chores is somewhere in the range of pulling teeth and all she usually does is shine the steel until it gleams.
In typical fashion, Margery takes out a cloth and a bottle of polisher she's conveniently stashed away. Emerie gives Nesta a look. Of course.
"The Rite is going to come up faster than you think, and there's no way I'll survive if I don't get prepared."
"You're competing?" Emerie asks and Nesta supposes it would be surprising, given that Emerie never trains and straight up refuses when asked. She wonders if that's also why they make good friends.
Margery merely shrugs, "If they let me."
"And if they don't?"
"Well," Margery explains, her lips pursing, "then I guess I'm just going to have to go by Marco for a couple of weeks…"
Nesta blinks back in surprise.
"Or Jeremiah. Maybe Claud?" Margery jokes.
Emerie does not laugh and Nesta can't tell if admiration is hidden in her eyes or something more akin to horror.
For Nesta, Margery is bold and Nesta has never been so bold as to demand what she wants. She wonders if she even can, if she has the ability to go against the choice people make for her—the life that people want for her and all of the roles that come with it. Mother knows, she's never shown satisfaction, but Nesta has never spoken the words allowed. I don't want this, she wants to say.
In fact, she admires both of her friends. One for running at the target headfirst and the other for refusing the target entirely. She could only wish to be half as brave as they are and though she is stubborn and angry and crass, Nesta always, always gives in.
"Personally," Emerie starts, "I don't understand the appeal of wreaking havoc in the mud.
"Why have the Rite anyways?" She questions, looking to Nesta.
She doesn't voice her opinion and it's a topic Emerie has been vocal about before.
Her lack of response doesn't deter Emerie though, and Nesta thinks it's because she finally has people to say it to. No one in their little group will judge her for it or kick her out into the snow and mud. No one except for Margery on occasion, whose will to fight sometimes outweighed her reasons.
"Why must fighting be the only things we're known for like some war mongering peasants?"
"We live in a war camp." Margery mentions casually, giving Nesta a look.
"Exactly, my point," Emerie sifts, pointing her index to Margery who lounges and Nesta who tries to at least finish peeling the potatoes. "Why must we live in war camps, will we be at war for the rest of our lives? Will we be bearing sons just for them to die who knows where, for a cause that seems useless in comparison?"
"Do I have to mention that you make a living off selling weapons to these war mongering peasants or are you going to negate that in the next speech?"
"I could make a living doing anything," Emerie scoffs. "I could quit right now and become a cobbler. You try and stop me."
Margery snickers at the image, and Nesta can't say she sees it either. But she refuses to mention how unlikely the possibility is, when just a year ago, Emerie is nothing but a daughter at the hands of her father, in search of some well-off husband. Just like her.
It's just their life, she thinks. Is it so wrong to be the person people expect? Is it wrong to give in and get over it? All of their potential stored in their wombs and their breasts rather than the edge of their minds and their viperous tongues. Is it wrong to be a liar, when lying is taught at such a young age and rewarded with a wealthy life and six children? Did she want the wealthy life and six children? Is that the choice she gives up by becoming fae?
Is that choice she blames the world for?
"Who likes fighting anyways," She exasperates, her voice rising as Emerie shifts to Nesta, her eyes bright and burning. "Do you like fighting?"
Nesta pauses at the words. Margery stopping her incessant need to see her knife shine like emerald seas and diamond-shaped skies.
She has been asked this question before. Nesta remembers it well.
It has been so many months… so many different Nesta's before, each worn like a set of costumes and painted faces so that she could be tolerable. Easily chewed and swallowed.
Does she truly enjoy fighting?
Is the answer easy to digest?
Nesta takes a deep breath, looking towards the knife in her hands and the peelings littering the table like bodies in a battlefield.
"I like—I like that when I work hard, my muscles ache and it feels like proof that I did something. Does that make sense?" Nesta taps her fingers on the table, a nervous tick as Emerie nods. "I like that I get to spend time with people—with you all—when before I had no one."
She clenches her fist around the hilt as she pauses. Her mouth having trouble finding the right words, or rather the ones that don't yell at her to be said. Her throat burns and she gulps them down, but Nesta is tired of keeping her mouth shut, when all she needs to do is whisper.
"But, I don't think I like fighting. The act…or the concept. I… sometimes, just… can only see the war." She turns away, refusing to look at them, "I see the bodies and hear the screams… and I see it all. And I feel it all. And I just want to shut my eyes." And Nesta does so as she speaks, the horror an echo in her memory, in her ears as it rings and rings and rings.
"I just want it to stop, but it's the only thing keeping me awake. And I can't lose myself again. I can't."
Emerie shifts towards her and Margery leans closer, setting down her sword on the bench. Nesta shakes her head, holding a hand to her throat, her body shaking.
"I'm afraid that if I stop, everything will go back to the way it was and I won't be me anymore… and I won't feel anymore… and I'll be alone again." Nesta hides face with her sleeves, "I don't want to be alone."
She trembles at the thought of them denying her for her weakness, but Emerie merely shuffles the potatoes away from her, placing the bowl on the counter. She comes to sit beside her, taking the knife from the table, sticking the tip into its wood. Nesta counts each twist.
"My father died in that war," Emerie admits, looking to the floor even as she clenches her fists. "And I am happy that he did. I know I should be ashamed of such things, but I'm not. I couldn't even cry."
She drops the knife and places her hand on top of Nesta's and her eyes widen in surprise.
"I don't want to be alone either… So don't fight if you don't want to."
Nesta sniffles, but nods, wiping her eyes where they've teared up without her permission. Emerie snaps her fingers and Nesta looks up quickly.
"In fact, come with me to the shop today. It's not interesting work, and I can't pay you much…or at all really," Emerie trails, "but you could help me in the shop. I have to go to the blacksmiths today and I've been designing some of my own pieces if you'd like to see."
Nesta agrees because it's another choice she's been granted, and Nesta can count on one hand how many she's been offered over the years.
She stands to grab another bowl and get on with the chores that need to be completed before anything else can begin. This one is filled with cabbage; the green leaves dusted with mud. But, Margery grabs her arm, tugging lightly. A shadow passing over her face.
"My brother. He came home last spring and he still hasn't looked any of us in the eyes. I like to imagine I know what he went through, but I know I never can. I want to learn to fight, so my brothers don't have to…"
Margery stares, the conviction heavy in her eyes. "Never again will I let them go alone."
She releases her hold, but Nesta can't stop staring. Her gaze following as Margery moves to pick up the sword again, stepping to parry and swing in the small room. A true warrior, not because she can fight, but because she chooses to fight for the people she loves. The people who mean something to her.
It is enough to write her sisters.
They're drunk on fairy wine, Nesta admits, as she stumbles out the doorway of the tavern and Cassian trips on the skirt of her dress.
"And that's how I got banned from the Summer Court," Cassian finishes, his cheeks red and his smile bright with intoxicated glee. "You see, it wasn't my fault at all."
Nesta gives him a look.
"It wasn't!" He offers incredulously and she laughs at the face he makes, his cheeks flushed and bright red.
The air feels cool as they slow into a steady pace away from the tavern, the sky filled with specks of color. The mountains outlining constellations while all the stars are lit like a city in the clouds. She understands why this is the Night Court.
Cassian wraps her scarf around her shoulders as the wind picks up, and Nesta doesn't tell him she doesn't feel cold. Only clutches the fabric closer to her chest.
"Tell me something about your life before." He says, his shoulders touching hers. In fact, there hasn't been a moment where he hasn't been touching her. Hands clasped, thighs brushing, fingers combing through her hair. Lips against lips are only one fraction of the ways the two of them can show affection, she learns.
"My stories are not as exciting as yours," Nesta replies, settling into quiet contemplation. Too silent for a beautiful walk in the night.
Cassian glances at her, encouraging. "I want to hear them anyways."
So, she tells him.
She tells him about the lessons. The governesses, the days her father wasn't there. The brand-new piano he bought her when he missed her eighth birthday. How her mother was strict and frivolous and demanded perfection from her and how Nesta never was the daughter she wanted. She tells him about the sickness—that it took her mother quick and her father was never the same but that Nesta had never loved him the same after that too, because it was the first time he had failed her and it wasn't the last.
She tells him how he lost everything and how the debt collectors came and broke his leg, Feyre watching while she ran upstairs with Elain. How after that, her father stopped being anything…stopped being alive. Her mother had died on the outside and her father had died on the inside and Nesta died with them because at some point she'd wanted to die…or felt like she was.
"I still love them now," Nesta says, contemplating the lunacy, "even if they're gone. I don't know why. But I do."
She shakes her head, her hand swiping over the side of her face, pushing the hair out of her eyes. "I remember hating them even as I loved them and now… I can't even remember how. I can imagine it, but I can't feel it."
The stars flicker in specks of gold and silver and Nesta watches as they brush against the painted sky. How many do exist across the universe? She wants to know. That light up solely so someone can dream, and someone can wish, and another can fall in love. How many times does she herself, dream that things are different? How many times does she look up and wish?
"Do you think you'll ever forgive them?"
Nesta turns her head, Cassian's eyes never leaving the planes of her face.
"My parents?" She asks.
"Your sisters," He clarifies, his face grimacing as he catches his breath, "Rhys… Amren… Azriel, Mor… me." He finishes lamely.
"There's nothing to forgive." She lies.
Cassian scoffs. "I told you I didn't understand why your sisters could love you and then played an accomplice—guiltless, I thought—and dragged you here without your consent."
As if nothing has ever been taken from me without my consent, she wants to say.
"Thank you for the recap." Nesta admonishes, walking ahead. Cassian steps forward, trailing behind.
"I say it because I know it's going to end. This—" He stops to gesture around them, to each other, "being here. I know eventually we're going to have to go back and it won't be just us anymore."
"It was never just us."
"It's different being here. You feel it, too, I know. It's…easier."
Nesta crosses her arms, "For you—it was never easy for me."
"But that's what I mean," his voice stressing the words, "after all of this—after it's done and we go back home—back to Velaris, I mean, will you forgive us? Will you forgive us when we've hurt you so badly?"
"You've hurt me?" She asks, a thrumming anger settling in her stomach. She almost forgets what it tastes like but as it bubbles up her throat, Nesta remembers.
There you are, she thinks.
"We didn't help you—I didn't help you after the war. I didn't know what you needed," Cassian explains desperately. "And I was certain what you needed wasn't me.
"But if I was there—if I had pushed—things might have been different. It might not have taken so long."
"Taken so long for what?" She spits, "For me to become someone I still don't want to be."
Nesta paces exasperated, her hands planted at her waist, her fingers itching to point and to prod at Cassian's chest. You did this, she wants to say.
But that's an excuse and Nesta is tired of excuses.
"All of you think you have so much control over me. That I yearn for all of you, and as soon as I don't get your attention, I'm dying or angry or sad."
She faces him. Her spine going rod straight, her chin raised high.
"My pain is my own. Only I can fix it."
The words settle in her stomach and Nesta is strange to find relief instead of that regret gnawing and chewing through.
There is an end to her pain. It isn't out of reach and unattainable, always loading over her head and heavy across her shoulders. It is in her grasp… to change how she feels, to actively work against what causes her shame and anger and horrifying despair. It is in her control to be who she wants, to say what she wants, to feel what she wants. All others be damned.
There is no one to please, and no one to be but herself.
Every day she can choose to fight and not with a sword or a bow or some knife strapped to her thigh, but with her mind, her attitude, her will to live. Against those false and very real memories and the lies she keeps telling herself to sleep at night. She doesn't need magic to see things differently. Just a strong-will and an unrelenting hope for something better. To dream in a land of make-believe and to love in a world that was all but hopeless.
Nesta is capable. She is proud. She is loved and she feels…so many things. Her life is messy, sometimes regrettable, but not unforgettable. She could do something with it. Make something of it.
And who are they to fix her like some broken doll, tell her what to do like some little girl?
She is not a child and she cannot be broken.
Cassian gently grabs her hand and Nesta unclenches her fist in his palm. How easy it is for him to calm her as much as it is to light her aflame.
The quietness settles around them. The hot summer sun turning to cool summer nights.
"I'm sorry I wasted time." He rattles, his lips loose from the alcohol and the night that hides them in pockets of intimate darkness. He reaches his hand out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, but he pulls away fast, as if she burns him.
Cassian clenches his eyes shut and Nesta can see him questioning. All of the thoughts going through his brain and writing them across his face. But instead of denying her like she's sure he will, he rushes to cradle her neck, tipping her head to meet his.
They've been in the position before.
Nesta remembers it well.
"You were worth the wait." He says and Nesta's eyes blinks at the admission, "not just these months… The 538 years. You were worth every minute and you're worth every minute more."
"You said you wanted time with me." She says hazel meeting blue. Her eyes trailing to his lips without her permission.
"I meant every word."
She glides her fingers along his and places her hands where they rest on her face and she leans into his palm as his thumb brushes against her cheek.
"Do you think we could start now?" She whispers.
Cassian grins. A bright look—one that she can see in the stars.
"I'm already yours."
Their lips meet. They can't help themselves. They sink into each other, arms entwined in arms. Crashing and pulling, like their hearts and their arguments—like their hearts are trying to argue if this is right. They plough into cabinets and walls, and distantly they can hear the shatter of glass and picture frames. The ones they chose together. It tumbles to the floor with the rest of their doubts. It is swallowed by the sound of their breathing. They don't need to say anything; their tongues whisper all their secrets.
The door of her bedroom is both her friend and her companion, crossing its threshold seems matrimonial. Cassian gives her space, but she demands his body against hers, their figures making shadow puppet on the wall. Along with the rest of the house, the walls are decorated. The wood panels and cream-colored sheets protecting their attachment to skin and heartbeats.
Her hands grasp the bed sheets and he leans into her, breathes her in. She figures they've already become a part of each other, as sure as the fusion of metals and the weapons he pulls from his belt. They clash to the floor.
He pulls at her shirt and she tears the button off his, and their lips never leave the others, except to map the planes of their existence. They only separate long enough for their clothes to end up on the floor, nothing between them. Even their souls say it isn't close enough.
Nesta bares her neck to him, Cassian looks at dip of her neck to her shoulder, the gravitational pull of her skin and her smell calling to him. She expects him to leave little bites and love marks, like that first time in another world across the wall, expects the roughness of his teeth and the scratch of his stubble. Instead, he leans in gently and presses a kiss where her heartbeat meets her skin. It is loud and tumultuous; it echoes his own.
She clasps their fingers together, and he places their entwined hands above her head, as he kisses down her body, until she is gasping and flying, her eyes trailing to the wings that expand above him. The deepest shade of black they shine indigo from the light of the moon.
Her distraction is his leverage and he kisses his way down her body. She gasps, and he pushes. He groans, and she pulls. They move together, slow at first, steady, turning into the untamable flames they knew thrived and burned long before they each existed.
Their lips only part to call out their names. Prayers in the darkest night.
Her nightmares sound like the voice of her sisters. Sometimes it the harmony of their demands—telling her she needs to leave. Sometimes, it's their voices never even reaching her ears. Sometimes, it's not her sisters at all. It's her own. Her own sweet words that rupture and tear.
But in the morning, when her head is on his chest and he is tracing stars on her arms, she shuts out the voice in her head that tells her she doesn't deserve this. That she will undoubtfully make a mess out of the love she cherishes and protects.
If her soul is a fire, she will burn their house to the ground. Their love turning to ash even before she can count the ways Cassian silently says, "I love you," into her skin. A part of her is already burning.
"You're sisters miss you; you know."
She picks at the thread of the purple duvet and gulps the urge to roll her eyes.
"They'll live."
Cassian says nothing at her indignant response and Nesta helps him with little conversation. Instead, she chooses to indulge him between pattered sheets and fur. Distraction as much as a weapon as her mind and his sword.
Nesta doesn't tell him of all the times she wishes her sisters are near, that she could talk to them and bundle into that one bed across the wall in a cabin she doesn't want to remember. She doesn't tell him either, that for many years she's loved them more than herself, and even after all this time Nesta still never shows it well enough.
She loves them still, but she loves herself, too. Enough to know they are all better off and she wonders if this is what love means, to give up or to give in, and if any of those options are palatable. Easily swallowed.
They are not right in sending her off, and she is not right for letting herself get carried away. By both, her grief and her past. They've done wrong and she's done wrong and they've altogether done so much wrong that she thinks they all must be monsters. Grotesque and inhumane and unfeeling. They all look like monsters anyways, down to every fae bone.
But it's a small price to pay and Nesta prefers being called a monster over the fraudulency of her life.
So when Cassian pushes and pulls, Nesta would rather let go. Let her remain the witch, the bitch, the thorn in their side. Let them remain happily ensconced in Velaris allure with twinkling lights all about.
It makes no difference to her.
How are you, we miss you, we wish you were here. It's not the same without you.
"Do you hate them for sending you here?"
You were killing yourself and we couldn't watch. We're doing this for you.
"I could never hate my sisters."
Go on a date with me.
Why? We already slept together.
Does sleeping together mean I can't take you on dates?
No. I just think it's a little backwards.
We are backwards.
Yes, but a dates going to end up in the same place we started with.
Is that a no?
I didn't say that.
Then, you will?
Ask me nicely.
Nesta Archeron, regardless of how much I will probably regret this, will you go on a date with me?
That wasn't nice—don't roll your eyes.
Say yes, please.
Fine.
So tomorrow then?
I said yes.
I know but I wanted you to say it again.
Your face is going to get stuck like that if you keep smiling so much.
Your eyes are going to fall out if you keep rolling them like that.
Nesta can't escape the darkness. Like a lover, he grabs her hair seductively. Like a lover, he pulls strands out with his grip. Like a lover, he nibbles sweetly on her ear. Like a lover, his teeth sink into her flesh. Like a lover, he leaves a scar she can never get rid of.
Cassian holds her hand, gives her a rose. She chooses a dress made of fresh snow. The color reminds her of blood.
Sometimes, Nesta dreams of wars. Sometimes, she lives them.
There is no color on the battlefield. No death that floats above their heads. No face is familiar, but she thinks she sees her friends. All of them people she has met before.
Their banners mean nothing. Their weapons mean less. Death does not laugh, and they do not scream. She only hears grunts and shallow breathing. It isn't just Illyrian men who serve. It's Illyrian men and women and her, standing beside each other to protect their home.
In her dreams, Death is a villain. He is cruel and mean and arrogant. On the battlefield, Death is each and every one of them fighting for the chance to survive, to kiss their children good night, to build their homes, to wrap their lovers in their arms. Tightly. Softly. Locked in an embrace that not even death can sever.
Death does not mock her. It does not smile cruelly or kiss up her spine. There is nothing seductive in its kiss. It lives inside of her—disguises itself like a fae in wolf's clothing, like lies in sweet words. It is dressed in her armor, with her sword in her hand, with sweat down her back. Like magic under her skin. Death, like magic disguised as fire.
It explodes like the rage she keeps inside of herself.
Explodes before it can even tell her its name.
Cassian holds her body. She chooses a dress made of roses. It reminds her of blood.
Cassian's love is as soft as rose petals and as dangerous as a wound. She hears his voice. Feels his hands, his soft breath against her forehead. Where she once feels nothing a pain blooms... and burns... and takes. Like hatred and anger in a once-human turned fae and the love between them both that leaves no survivors.
She thinks his love is something akin to fire, their love something that burns them both in the end... But perhaps it is sweeter and softer and more fragile than matches. Because, Nesta remembers. Nesta never forgets. And as she feels the subtle softness of his trailing fingers, the rough edge of his palms, Nesta thinks of all the ways that lead her back to him.
Cassian's love is the books left outside her door. The pump of her heartbeat, the feel of skin on his, the hills filled with daisies and the flavor of life in every piece of pie. The color of strawberries and chandeliers and the people who laugh and smile and grimace and cry.
His love is the blood on her hands, the sun she sees outside, and the stars that wink and wave beyond their control.
Cassian's love is the home wedged between mountains, where the fire is always lit.
Cassian's love is a small flame.
It isn't so difficult to choose the light.
The light is warm.
Well, good enough (shrugs)
I feel like I made this part complicated, but it was necessary. I wanted to tie in so many voices and ideas that came up in the beginning and I still didn't want Nesta fully healed because there's no such thing and I wanted Cassian's POV and his to seem just as complex. SO it ended up being so long and so full. I hope it wasn't so confusing to follow.
But...
I have to say all of the comments I have gotten from this fic whether it was on tumblr or Ao3 or have been incredible and have made me feel so amazing, especially since writing on a regular basis is very, very hard to me. Sometimes, it feels like physical torture which is unfortunate because I absolutely love to write and to you know perfect the craft so to speak. Believe me when I say that this fic would have stopped after Nesta's Love is Quiet without all of your encouragement. It means the world to me. 3 I am glad to belong to such a wonderful fandom who really likes to analyze these characters.
"Love is Bright Red, Hope is Dark Blue" the last part of this series, won't be done for a while, if it happens at all. I have so many fics I have stopped writing on, but this is one of the longest goes I've had, so it's going to be all about the timing, I suppose and the ideas that come up when I start really writing for it. I'm writing Queen of Monsters now and it's a lot of the same ideas but with more plot and more characters and places and so on and I really want to get on that one.
Even my AN are long, so I'll just stop here, but please like, reblog, kudos, or favorite for which ever platform you choose to read on, but mostly comment because again I just like talking to y'all and I want to know what you think and how these characters come across to you. Message me even, I'm lonely most days and I need more book friends.