"I once believed love would be black and white." - Taylor Swift
Mor slapped her hand to her mouth to hide a laugh.
"You know, I think I'm actually going to miss that fireling," Cassian sighed. "For once, he was pretty pleasant to have around."
Feyre snorted, and finally dropped her hands from her mouth to plant them on her hips. "You're really one to talk."
Her eldest sister coughed into her fist and ducked her face away. Cassian slapped a hand to his chest, gasping as if she had taken a dagger and driven it through his heart.
Mor only cocked her hip out the side and rolled her eyes. "Besides, dear Cassian, the last person Lucien of all people was trying to impress tonight was you."
"That's putting it nicely," Emerie muttered. She only shrugged slightly when the Illyrian general's mouth fell agape, and he glanced around the room.
"Why am I the only one that's getting attacked here?"
It was Nesta's turn to snort. "Illyrian baby."
She glanced back over her shoulder in his direction. Only the years Elain had spent with her in their manors and cabin, and having had to grow accustomed to her sister's icy behavior at times, hinted at the spark of warmth in Nesta's sharp eye. It didn't seem lost on Cassian either, who sent her a quick wink in return.
Nesta scowled, but Feyre stepped forward, waving her hand and the conversations away.
"That's beside the point right now," she exclaimed. Feyre turned to face Elain fully, suddenly bearing the weight of her youngest sister's "High Lady" look. "The point is, Elain, that you love him."
She could have slapped her clean across the face, and it hardly would have been any different.
Elain's mouth dropped, furiously opening and closing again. If her cheeks had been warm before, nothing compared to the raging fire spreading from the base of her neck to the very tips of her pointed ears. Eyes darting between Feyre and the rest of the company fixing her with gentle, knowing, or near pitiful looks, she quickly shook her head.
"What - what are you talking about?" Elain sputtered. "N-No, I don't!"
Her voice pitched on the last word, nearly squeaking. Every lesson she had endured on keeping her composure collected flung itself out the window and into the growing storm, even as she desperately tried to wrangle it back inside.
Her hands fisted themselves into the sides of her skirt, and she shook her head again. "I don't."
"Elain, you really don't see it, do you?" Feyre's wide smile eased into something soft, and she walked towards her, only stopping until she was close enough to take Elain's hands into her own. "We've been sisters all our lives, but I've never seen you so happy. I've never seen you talk to anyone the way you do Lucien, I've never seen you smile at someone the way you smile at him. I've seen - correction, we've all seen - how much you've grown around him and away from him, and it's hard to even put into words what I can see so plainly between the two of you. For Cauldron's sake, Amren even agrees!"
Feyre's hand flourished in the female's direction. Amren only cocked her head to the side, her brow going higher as Elain finally glanced at her.
"Do not think me blind or stupid, girl," she scoffed. "Anyone with a half a mind can see that you love him."
Elain opened her mouth, words she didn't even have prepared or thought through waiting on the tip of her tongue, but Feyre only squeezed her hands again.
"And I don't know how you can't see the same in him," she murmured. "The way he looks at you…"
Elain slowly felt the lump in her throat returning, and she gently tugged her hands back to her chest and out of Feyre's hold, suddenly too tight; too gentle; too close to something that dared to give her hope on something that wasn't there for either of them.
She was sure of that. And shoved down the brush of warmth across her chest, delicately curling just beside her heart and between her ribs.
"He doesn't." Elain shook her head. "He doesn't, really. Lucien and I are only friends. That's all we've ever been."
Cassian snorted, not even deigning to hide it behind a cough. He glanced at Rhys out of the corner of his eye, and the High Lord's smirk widened.
Even Nyx, still nestled to his chest and a tiny fist gripping the fabric of his jacket, quietly whimpered what sounded, for the moment, suspiciously close to a "no".
"Elain."
She turned as Nesta slowly strode towards the two of them, arms still firmly crossed.
"I think you're as well aware as I am that Lucien is…hardly a favorite of mine."
Her hard expression flickered, softening the angles of her face. The opposite had been true after Elain's friendship with Lucien had started to take its hold, and she had been nothing short of absolutely stunned when she had accidentally caught the two of them standing out on the terrace of the River House one afternoon. Having a conversation. That bordered on civil.
At the time, glimpsing Cassian in one of the lacy underthings Mor insistently gifted him for Solstice would have been less shocking.
Perhaps Nesta had been watching him as a hawk might have looked at a mouse, but she hadn't ripped his throat out with her bare hands. That alone was enough of a win.
Elain blinked just as Nesta sighed, coming to a stop right beside Feyre.
"But I want you to know, Elain, that I want you to be happy. In the same way that Lucien said it, I want you to have a choice in this. Even if we are here to tell you what's blatantly there."
"Or isn't," Elain bit back.
"Why do you think he doesn't love you?"
She narrowed her gaze on Nesta, and ignored the sharp burn in the corner of her eyes. Elain unfurled her hands from the fists they had somehow clenched themselves into, and took a slow breath.
"Lucien is my friend," she replied, praying her tone left no room for argument.
Her sisters either didn't notice or simply didn't care, and Feyre shrugged. "Rhys is mine."
"Cassian too." Nesta glanced over her shoulder again as if to prove her point, and the Illyrian's shoulders slackened. Something within that stern expression Elain had once feared (though had quickly discovered was nothing but a farce behind the "Lord of Bloodshed") softened when Nesta barely dipped her head in a nod towards him, just hiding a tiny smile.
Elain had glimpsed something similar on the male now on the far side of Velaris; similar, particularly, in the sense no one could quite replicate such a relaxed ease as she saw on Lucien. No one she knew, human or not, had the little details. The things that made her heart flutter.
She bit the inside of her cheek; whether it was to keep herself from remembering said details only minutes before, or to stave off the silver lining her eyes for as long as she could, Elain had no idea.
"That's just it, though," she hissed. "All that's between me and Lucien is friendship."
"Are you sure?" Nesta asked. She tilted her head to the side, too like a cat carefully circling its prey.
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes." Elain felt her nails dig into her palms, hands slowly curling into fists again.
"You're sure about that answer?"
"Nesta - "
"Only friends?" Feyre mused.
"Yes, is that so terrible to believe?" Elain demanded.
"Not necessarily."
"Thank y - "
"With Lucien, it only surprises me."
"Why?"
"Well…as your mate - "
"That doesn't mean anything!"
Elain gasped, and slapped a hand to her mouth.
Her sisters' eyes widened, Nesta's with a bit of surprise at the sheer force she had all but screamed at them; Feyre's with a flicker of hurt weighing down their beautiful blue. She didn't need the powers of a daemati to glimpse where it stemmed from. Not because they had just endured one of their rare spit-fights, but the brutality in which she had told two mated females having her own bond meant next to nothing.
The idea roiled her stomach, threatening to send up her dinner and her two glasses of wine.
Even when it was precisely what she and Lucien had done from the beginning. And the nagging feeling that had left her tossing and turning in the late hours of the night and lost in her own thoughts mid-day had grown more persistent in reminding her as such.
"You just…don't understand what we do now," Elain sighed. "We've acknowledged that we're mates - on multiple occasions. It's not some sort of thing we're just trying to dodge around, and we've agreed to leave it as it is. It's a bond we have, and a bond we share. Neither of us asked for it, and neither of us had initially wanted it. And that - what?"
She cut herself short as that same, cat-like spark appeared in Nesta's gaze again, spreading down to her sharp smile. "Initially?"
Elain pressed her lips into a thin line, and refused to acknowledge the warmth flushing her neck again. "I…that's beside the point."
"Is it?"
"Yes," she scowled. "It is."
Nesta arched a brow at her, and Elain tightened her fists.
"Lucien and I have acknowledged that we're mates, but it's gone to nothing beyond that. He and I are friends. I care about him as my friend, as someone that I can turn and trust to without feeling this crushing weight on us that we're supposed to feel around one another. Sure, I can't stand here and lie to the both of you and say I haven't felt it before, but that's hardly what's driven anything between us. Everything that we've done, everything that we've said, everything that's been - "
Elain stopped. Her mouth slowly slipped shut, and she scrambled to find where in her rambling had been the excuse she needed to assure them that she didn't love him.
"Everything…"
The warmth in her chest brushed across her ribs again, shooting straight for her heart.
It threatened to send her to her knees, and her lips parted with a silent gasp.
"Everything that's grown between the two of you has been based solely off one another, and not the bond," Nesta murmured. "You've seen each other for who you are, and not what the bond paints you to be."
It wasn't a question.
Elain slowly pressed a hand to her mouth, the other wrapping itself around her stomach. Tears blurred her vision, and a harsh whimper slipped through the tightness gripping her throat.
Every time her heart had hitched at hearing the news he was returning to Velaris. Every time her smile widened when he offered to accompany her around the gardens or on a stroll through the city. Every time he had teased, or flirted, or pushed at her restraints until he forced her to push back and she had simply felt free; felt alive.
Every moment he had made an effort to learn - truly learn - more about her. Every second he had put into making time for the two of them to simply be in one another's company. Every day he had taken one step closer in becoming the person she had never known she needed.
The person she never knew she had wanted.
And she had pushed the blame to a bond that she had buried almost a year before.
The flush in her cheeks, the flutter in her stomach, the pull in her heart. Everything.
Every single thing she felt for the male - for her male - had grown from something deeper. Something warmer. The very thing that gently swerved and twined itself through her chest, and forced her to acknowledge the truth that had been laid before her bare.
The bond, she realized, as if someone had slapped her with the truth, almost seemed to glow. The invisible string she had once felt all those months ago at the faintest tug connected to her mate curled with warm delight, and at the feeling she had pushed nearly to the end of it. Every flush, every flutter, every pull she had experienced only burned it brighter, stemming from the essence of the emotions she couldn't keep from it; couldn't keep from herself.
And the bond had forced none of it.
"Oh gods," she whispered. "Oh gods, I love him."
The bond had forced none of what she would never get the chance to say to him.
Elain stared at the ground. A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she didn't bother to wipe it away.
Slender arms wrapped around her neck and pulled her into a wool sweater. Another pair quickly joined, cradling the back of her head just as cool lips brushed against her hair.
Her arms hung numb between Feyre and Nesta, and it was only when a quiet sobbed pulled itself from the warmth still barreling through her ribs, threatening to burst, that she heard Rhys' soft mutter ushering retreating footsteps back towards the sitting room.
Elain ducked her face into Feyre's sweater, and surrendered the last of her restraint.
She gasped against sobs and heaved against her tears. Every realization weighed heavier against each barrier she had built against the truth, and Elain practically felt them tumble into the oblivion of the bond as her body dissolved into violent shudders.
She couldn't stop. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't face the reality that she loved him and he would never know. Never understand what he had done for her so fully by simply being the male she knew he was.
Elain's arms trembled as she finally wrapped them around her sisters. The three stayed huddled together, unable and unwilling to break the embrace.
Minutes could have bled into hours, and they would have been none the wiser. Her sobs eventually shifted to silent tears, resting her face in the crook of Feyre's shoulder. Cheeks warm, eyes tight, and breath unsteady.
But they didn't let go, and didn't leave her to the misery she had dug for herself. Not until Elain finally sniffed and pulled herself away, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"I hate when you two are busybodies." A harsh, watery laugh escaped her, and she sniffed again.
"That's what sisters are for," Feyre whispered. She smiled softly, running her hand in slow, careful circles across her back.
Nesta lightly squeezed Elain's arm, and an unabashed gentleness (or as close to a softness as her sister could show) flitted behind her gaze. "What else did you think we were supposed to do?"
Another chuckle slipped free, and Elain wiped at the now blotchy strips of powder Cerridwen had splashed across her cheeks.
"How did you know?" she asked. "How could you have possibly known before I even did?"
"I already told you that," Feyre assured her. Her smile widened, and she lifted her shoulder in a weak shrug. "I don't think there's ever been a time in my life that I've seen you so happy, Elain. I've never seen you so, just…alive."
Nothing remained of the defenses she might have used to refute such a claim, and Elain simply nodded, knowing as well as apparently her sisters did it was nothing but the utter and blatant truth.
She drew in a careful breath, and forced herself to release it slowly.
"What am I going to do?" Elain's voice dropped to nothing short of a weak croak, and her gaze lowered to the floor.
By sheer luck alone, she caught Nesta and Feyre glancing at one another out of the corner of her eye. When she looked up again, the former of the two arched a brow at her, fixing Elain with an incredulous stare.
"Isn't it obvious?"
She frowned at Nesta, and shook her head once.
But her eldest sister only crossed her arms and dipped her head in a nod. "Go after him."
Elain physically winced backwards, shock rippling through to the pit in her stomach that had nearly taken hold over the light beating in tune with her heart.
Nesta scoffed as Elain's mouth fell agape, and her hand planted itself on her hip. Had there been grays that would now never streak through the golden-brown of her hair securely fastened into a beautiful knot along the back of her head, her steely eyes and tight lips would have painted her as the near spitting-image of their mother.
The very human woman that had all but drilled into her very soul that she was the object of her suitors' pursuits; not the other way around. And Nesta had been the first of the three of them to take the full brunt of their mother's lessons.
"Don't tell me you're going to back out of it now," Nesta scoffed with a huff.
Elain blinked, and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing again. She was half-tempted to glance back at the windows to see if the King of Hybern had miraculously resurrected. It would have seemed less of a shock than Nesta urging her to rush after a male.
"Nesta, are you mad?" she demanded. "I can't just - just go."
"Why couldn't you?" Nesta's brow rose higher. "If it would make you feel any better or more comfortable, I could accompany you."
"I will too," Feyre quickly exclaimed.
"What - no! No, no, you don't understand." Elain frantically glanced between the two, silently begging them to see reason her own heart urged her to ignore. "Feyre, I'm not going after him."
"Why not?"
"Well…" She trailed off, and sputtered for only a moment. "Well for one, you just gave him a new assignment. He's going to Day, and I'm sure he already has business in another Court once he's done there. Not to mention he made it seem like there were personal matters involved with it. You can't expect me to ask him to throw an opportunity like that to the side just because I…I feel something for him - "
"Elain, by the fucking Cauldron, that was just an excuse!" Nesta cried, throwing her arms out to the side and slapping them back against the sides of her dress. A shocked laugh slipped by her lips, and she waved her hand towards the front door behind her. "He was practically begging you for a reason to stay in Velaris longer."
Elain felt the glowing warmth in her chest cling to the words with something too close to hope. It spun the thread around her ribs, shimmering nearly gold in her mind's eye. She could see it so clearly, almost alive with the love she had tried to hold from it for so long, she flattened her hand against her skirts to keep herself from actually reaching for her chest to grip it.
"But - "
Feyre clicked her tongue. "Not 'buts' about it."
She stepped around Elain and walked straight for the slim, wooden rack tucked against the corner of the entry hall. Cloaks of varying colors and sizes (some, she noted, even bearing holes intricately cut to accommodate wings) hung over its pegs.
"You need to tell him," Feyre called back. She snatched three of the cloaks and threw them over her arm before returning to the two.
Though amusement glittered in the blue-gray of her eyes perfectly reflected in Nyx's, nothing in her tone hinted at some cruel, unspoken joke.
Elain glanced between her two sisters again, unable to fully comprehend that Feyre - High Lady of the Night Court and known Cursebreaker among Prythian - and Nesta - the designated "Lady Death" and now one of the few Valkyries in the lands - were pushing her to do what seemed like the impossible.
The idea alone was so absurd, and her heart slowly began racing in perfect sync to the bond that seemed to chant at her to go and claim what was hers, in equal part to what was his, that Elain couldn't contain her smile.
She still shook her head, and looked to the cloak's slung across her sister's arm. "I - I can't."
"You can!"
All three Archerons turned to face the doorway of the sitting room again.
Cassian had his neck craned just behind it, leaning so far around the corner Elain was shocked the weight of his wings nearly brushing the floor hadn't sent him tumbling for it. But his smirk only grew when Elain's eyes widened.
One by one, everyone else's heads carefully popped back around the corner to watch them, peering over shoulders or nudging ribs to push each other aside. Even Azriel's.
Elain gnawed her bottom lip, and pushed every ounce of willpower she had left into keeping a stern expression on her face (Amren's answering smirk told her enough that she had failed spectacularly).
"You're all nothing but a bunch of busybodies," she exclaimed. "You know that?"
Cassian shrugged far too innocently, and opened his mouth to answer. But Nesta stepped forward and waved her hand, blocking their sudden audience from view.
"No time for that now," she ordered. "Feyre, are you able to winnow us over to his apartments?"
An answering groan of thunder echoed just outside of the River House before she even had so much as a chance to answer.
Feyre turned to glance over her shoulder with a wince. "I would, but…"
Elain followed her eyes to the windows on the far side of the room - and the rain pounding itself against the glass. What had begun as nothing but a mere drizzle when Lucien had walked to the end of the path and vanished in a single winnow struck the panes in buckets, only interrupted by another low rumble that shook the skies.
Feyre turned back to them with another wince, bordering a grimace. "Winnowing in weather like this wouldn't be for the best."
Elain held her hand out to her sister as if she had just handed her the answers to her very existence. She ignored the gentle snap in her chest, almost as if the bond itself was arching a brow at her in utter confusion as to why she was still trying to push against what needed to be done.
Even when it gently eased against the twinge of fear in her heart. She dared to think it settled as if in understanding. Against the worry that fisted itself into her stomach, and weakly weaseled against the ridiculous plan laid before her.
"We'll go on foot then."
Elain's jaw dropped, and she whipped around to stare at Nesta as if she had sprouted a second head.
She deigned to acknowledge her sister's expression, and instead stepped towards Feyre and took two of the three cloaks. One she extended to Elain, and sighed when she didn't take it.
"I don't think either of us really thought I'd be the one preparing you to go after a man, of all things. A male, I should say. But we are out of options, and you need to catch him before he goes off to Day."
"You can't be serious!"
Nesta cocked a brow at her, and the hint of a smirk twitched at the corner of her lips. "Does it look like I'm joking?"
Elain wanted to shake her head, but still found she couldn't move. Even when Nesta had used the tone her voice slipped towards when - no matter how absurd, wild, or shitty her words could be - there was absolutely nothing joking or amusing about them.
"Nesta is right," Feyre nodded.
"Exactly."
Her younger sister shot her eldest a look out of the corner of her eye, but it did nothing to detain the smile spreading across her face, so wide she was nearly beaming.
Feyre quickly unclasped the cloak and slung it over her shoulders. "Lucien isn't technically supposed to even leave until tomorrow morning, and I doubt in this kind of weather he would risk trying to winnow out tonight."
"Leaving you as much time as you need to tell him the truth," Nesta finished for her. She set to work on securing her own covering, and carefully flipped up the hood, her hair and pointed ears safely tucked beneath.
Elain tried to pry another excuse from her barreling thoughts at the possibility of what she was about to do. But every bit of reason she had put into the idea that Lucien - her mate - would never know what she truly felt for him fell short, slipping between her fingers and melting against the golden glow still humming in her chest. Almost as if nudging her in anticipation.
Not pushing. Not forcing. Only gently guiding her towards what she already knew for certain.
She barely realized Nesta had carefully turned her by the shoulders until her back was to her. The soft fabric of a cloak swept across her shoulders and covered the length of her dress, down to the blue slippers that barely peeked out over the heavy material.
"I think you'll be surprised, Elain," Nesta murmured, softer than she had ever heard her sister's voice go. It was laced with such gentleness, such certainty, that Elain slowly glanced over her shoulder to check it was still her.
Nesta met her gaze, and a different warmth seeped down to her tiny smile. Understanding laid just beneath it, almost as if she knew exactly what lingered in Elain's chest. What curled between her ribs, and licked along the edges of her soul as a constant but soft reminder.
She wouldn't have been surprised if Nesta did. A similar thread had branded itself to her own heart, strung to the male still craning his neck out the sitting room doorway to try and glimpse a better look.
But Nesta kept her eyes on Elain, never once wavering from whatever it was she saw beneath. "If you go to him. I think you'll be really, pleasantly surprised."
The bond, ever so slightly, nudged her again. A whisper against what her sister had voiced allowed, but still the same, simple message.
Go after him.
Hope - unrestrainable, raw hope that nearly made her hands tremble in anticipation - flooded her veins, and Elain carefully took the clasp from Nesta's hand. She slowly clipped it just below her throat, and situated the hood behind her.
A delighted squeal came from behind them the moment she dropped her hands.
"I can't believe it!" Mor's shriek, though whispered, still carried across the entry hall. "This is finally happening. Rhys, you owe me five marks. Cass, you owe me ten."
Elain swung around to face the group, and her glare settled on the two males that didn't even bother to sway their innocence, or lack thereof.
"You were betting on this?" she hissed.
Rhys held up a single hand as if in surrender, the other still carefully secured around Nyx who hadn't bothered to wake to enjoy the scene. "Think of it as just an amiable wager between friends waiting to see when the two of you would finally realize what had been there for quite a while."
Elain couldn't contain her scowl. "Prick."
Cassian tipped his head back and nearly howled with laughter, slapping a hand on the wood of the doorway. But a different rustle of wings snagged her attention.
And Elain felt her expression slip as she locked eyes with the shadowsinger.
That same, heavy acceptance she had glimpsed earlier that evening shown beneath hazel eyes. Azriel didn't smile; didn't frown; didn't flinch against her stare. Only met it in kind, until Gwyn quietly giggled just beside him.
His eyes slowly slipped down to the red-haired priestess, clutching a hand to her mouth to stave off the wide smile that spread across her freckled cheeks and teal eyes almost brimming with tears.
Elain watched as the acceptance in his gaze softened to something deeper. Something warmer. Something she had once thought had been directed towards her until that fateful Solstice night - or if that's what she could have even called it.
She knew that look now. Had tried to hide and shy away from it.
She vaguely wondered if he did, too. Or if he knew how blatantly anyone with half a mind, as Amren had said, could see what was so clearly there. The feeling that was able to overcome the carefully sculpted mask of the ever feared spymaster of the Night Court.
Elain hoped to the Mother he could see the same acceptance in her eyes. The same, silent push for him to follow that tug in his heart. She had no idea whether it was there or not, but perhaps there was one tied around his rib. One that eased the usual tension in his shoulders, and softened his expression to something almost relieved whenever Gwyn entered a room.
Azriel's eyes slid back to Elain's.
He nodded to her once, shadows winding over his leathers, and though the word was silent, she saw it all the same.
"Go."
Elain released a slow sigh, and a resting resolve curled her lips into a smile. She dipped her head in return, then slipped her arm through Feyre's when she offered it, leading her to the front door.
Nesta turned the handle and swung it open wide. The awaiting storm drowned out the sound of Cassian and Emerie's encouraging whistles, and Mor and Gwyn's ecstatic cheers.
Thunder crashed across the sky. Rain furiously whipped against the River House with every gust of wind.
But nothing sounded so clear as the steady thrum of the bond, glowing with a light that could have rivaled the sun.
It gave her one final, gentle nudge, brushing against the edge of her heart.
The very one that belonged to Lucien.
And without a second thought, Elain threw up her hood, linked her arm through Nesta's, and rushed out onto the cobblestone path.
Yay, cute denial scene! Like I said, I just watched the 2019 version of "Little Women", so it was basically a must to include a few aspects of that. If the characters seem a little OOC, that would be why, but I'm gonna keep rolling with it. :D
Also with the whole Azriel bit I included towards the end, I read a different Elucien-based fic the other day (I completely forgot to save it when my computer died and I was SO MAD) where Elain and him had a much more prominent friendship after the whole Solstice situation, and honestly...I kind of like it. Just the two of them being able to move forward from "this is gonna be super weird and awkward now since we almost kissed" to "we ARE actually better as friends, and we're kind of besties now".
*Insert shrug* Food for thought.
Anyways, after that little ramble, hope you guys have a great morning, afternoon, evening, or night!
- Summerwinds