"But it's golden." - Taylor Swift

The Archeron mother was a collected woman. A colder one, but the perfectly bred lady all the same. And she made sure each of her daughters knew it.

Never slurp your soup.

Raise tea to your lips, don't bend for it.

Sit tall, shoulders straight, never hunched.

Delicately smile and tip your head with grace when a partner offers themselves at a ball.

Greet each and every guest that walks through the door when hosting a dinner party.

Don't act rambunctious. Don't get dirty. Don't act wild.

"You are to be the Lady of your own home one day, Elain," her mother had told her all those years ago, her disease only at the brink of its fingertips and hardly swaying her from summoning Elain to afternoon tea. She had stared down at her daughter with a harsh gentleness, almost as if she could have summoned a suitor for her then and there. "Marriage shall come easy for you. You are to marry for love, and nothing short of it. Whomever the gentleman shall be will not have to concern himself with public appearances; you will bear that responsibility. Nesta has too much of a tongue to her. Feyre is nearly to her wits-end. It falls to you to secure yourself a good match, but one that is worthy of the praise of your beauty. Do you understand, child?"

She had nodded quickly, never one to want to push herself to her mother's breaking point.

But oh, to see the look on the woman's face now.

Elain could imagine the utter horror, the disdain, her furious demands for them to stop. She probably twisted in her grave, thrashing against the confines of her coffin and screaming for them to behave themselves. To act like the proper young women she had tried to raise.

Elain only pumped her legs faster, her cloak flying behind her.

The covering hardly did anything against the storm around them. Wind furiously pushed the coverings open and drenched her dress. The material clung to her legs, and Elain threw her arms out to steady herself just as her shoe, already so covered in mud she could hardly see the soft blue, caught the hem.

She shrieked and ducked her head against a harsh gust, but it quickly morphed into an uncontrollable laugh.

Feyre joined in, turning her face away from the rain pelting her cheeks. But a wide smile kept her sprinting forward, occasionally glancing over to check on the other two.

To Elain's left, something deep and throaty tore itself from between Nesta's lips. It took her more than a second to realize it was a laugh, too. Deep from within her chest until she was nearly howling, throwing her head back to the sky as if she were daring it to give them something bigger and better. As if that were really the best the Mother could throw at them to keep them from reaching the center of the city.

Three Archeron sisters. Sprinting through the streets of Velaris in the pouring rain. Soaked to the brim. Laughing hysterically as if they had just escaped a madhouse.

Elain wouldn't have been surprised if her mother's ghost came to haunt her later that night with a vicious scowl and a firm lecture.

She didn't care. Couldn't and wouldn't.

They pushed and ran on, mindlessly following Feyre as she ran down streets and darted down wider roads. None of them stopped, and none of them slowed. Not until they reached the middle of the bridge running across the Sidra; the very one Elain had leaned against months ago, her arms wrapped around Lucien, and some tiny part of her silently begging he never let her go.

They're feet slapped against the cobblestone road. Her heart pounded against the bond weaving between her ribs, pulling her towards the sprawling downtown that still seemed to glimmer with that beautiful touch of Velaris. A low rumble of thunder shook the sky. The warm faerie lights scattered through shop windows nearly called to her to step inside and escape the cold clinging to every inch of her that the rain could reach.

But Feyre placed a hand on her shoulder and pointed. "There! Third floor, second door from the end."

Elain followed her finger towards a row of apartments clinging to the river's edge. Lights scattered amongst the buildings' windows, while others kept the curtains drawn.

The one on the third floor, second from the end, called to her as a moth might have been drawn to a flame. If the hitch in her chest were any indication.

She took all but two steps before pausing and glancing back over her shoulder. "And you're absolutely su - "

"GO!"

Nesta and Feyre screamed the word in unison, but it was the elder of the two that gripped her shoulders and spun her around, practically shoving her towards the opposite end of the bridge.

Elain followed the nudge in her heart, knowing it hardly needed to be told a second time, and took off.

A grin tugged at her lips as Feyre's squeal faded against the wind, and Nesta's laugh became nothing but the rain pelting against her with every stride she made.

She reached the stairs winding up towards the long hallways spread above her. Without giving herself so much as a moment to breathe, even safely tucked beneath the ceilings that offered a sliver of shelter against the storm, Elain bolted up the steps and nearly tripped in her haste to turn the corners.

Running up the staircase could have been decades. Striding towards the end of the hall might have been centuries. But when Elain reached the smooth oak door, second from the end, time seemed to slow.

She frantically pushed the strands of hair clinging to her cheeks back from her face. The curled knot she had intricately woven on the back of her head had grown heavy almost as soon as she had stepped foot out of the River House, now hanging drenched and limp against the hood she hadn't even bothered to throw up again. Her dress hugged her in every uncomfortable place she hadn't wanted it to, splotches of dirt smeared along the hem, a rip running along the bottom where her foot had snagged against it.

Elain knew she looked a mess. Felt like it, too. Knew she had from the moment he had winnowed from the River House with his goodbye hanging between them.

She raised her hand and knocked.

Water dripped from her hair, her face, her cloak. It grew to a puddle beneath her as she waited, forcing herself to take deep breaths behind the smile she hadn't been able to push down.

Elain counted her heartbeats. Every thump against her rib cage as the adrenaline thrumming through her veins began to slow as the seconds ticked by.

Only the wood grains of the door stared back at her. Silence on the other side.

She waited a full minute before her grin slowly slipped into a frown.

She raised her hand to knock again, and froze.

Silence.

Elain strained her ears against the gusts of rain still blowing against her back, and leaned towards the door.

Pine, sandalwood, and the faintest hint of cinnamon overtook her senses. His scent practically seeped from the door's hinges and covered everything beyond it. There wasn't a single doubt in her mind that it was his apartment (the bond spinning itself into a knot around her heart was evidence of that).

But the golden thread slackened as she glanced down the hall towards the staircase. Then towards his door again.

It was his apartment. And she couldn't hear his heartbeat on the other side of it.

Lucien wasn't there.

A small pit settled low in her stomach as Elain raised her hand and knocked again.

"Lucien?"

Silence.

It fizzled out the rain pounding against the walls of the apartments. Blood slowly rushed to her ears, replacing everything with a steady ring. Every breath she took became heavier and heavier, with every moment that she waited and waited for the door to swing open and reveal the male that had taken her heart in his hands and safely tucked it away; the same heart that suddenly hitched when she spun for the staircase again.

"Lucien."

Elain looked over the edge of the railing to the cobblestone roads below and beyond. Completely bear, save for the puddles growing in any crack or crevice the rain could reach.

She bounded down the stairs.

Her breathing turned to quick and frantic pants, chest heaving against her soaked bodice.

Elain turned and ran for the wide path running along the front of the apartments, acting as the only separation between it and the dark waves of the Sidra hurling against the bank.

Another groan of thunder echoed over the city.

She could feel every place the wet fabric of her dress and cloak clung to her skin, driving her heart faster and faster with the urge to simply rip it from her body if it meant she could save herself from the panic slowly filling whatever hole had dropped over her stomach.

"Lucien!"

She whipped her eyes from end to end. Desperate to see a glimpse of molten red hair; a deep russet eye; a cocky smirk that sometimes urged her to smack it from his face; a smile that had started to make her knees go a little wobbly and weak.

Elain turned again and again. She walked one direction, strained her neck, then turned and repeated it the opposite way.

Her vision blurred, and she squinted against the wind that felt too cold. The rain that felt too hard. The storm that mingled with every breath that felt closer to a gasp.

"Lucien!"

Elain's voice cracked on his name. Her throat burned, slowly closing in on itself until she could only push herself back towards the apartments with every muscle in her body protesting against it.

Against the weight of her dress and her cloak. Against the stares she could feel, her sisters huddled together from the railing of the bridge, following her as viciously as the rain with shock, confusion, and pity. Against the pull in her heart that threatened to send her to her knees.

Her slippers slapped against the road as she forced herself to stop in the large center of a string of shops, curling around her to make way for what she had once seen as a busy, bustling market.

Not a single, straggling faerie was left to brave the storm. Even the glowing faerie lights within the storefronts couldn't quite reach her standing in the middle of the empty square.

"No," she whispered.

Elain pressed her lips into a thin line. She shook her head, and spun to check each and every road that led towards another part of the city. Each and every road that remained completely empty. Each and every one that didn't have that warm, steady beat connected to her heart that she would have known in a room of thousands.

"No, no, no, no, no."

She pressed a hand to her mouth to stave off a whimper.

Elain had missed him.

Lucien - her companion, her friend, her mate - was gone. She had missed him.

And he didn't know.

Tears welled in her eyes, and rain slid from her cheeks and dripped off her nose.

"Lucien…" His name was a whisper.

"Elain!"

Hers was not.

A deep voice, rich in a way that only could have come from the depths of the Autumn woods, pierced through her chest. Warmth tucked against it, glowing at the sound of her name on his lips.

Elain slowly turned to look over her shoulder.

Lucien stood just around the corner of one of the shops. His eyes widened as they locked onto her, lips parted, his chest heaving.

The crisp, white shirt she had seen earlier that very evening had turned nearly sheer against the rain. It clung to every ripple in his golden skin beneath it, just covered by the same vest. Strands of red hair flew from the leather strap still haphazardly holding it back, clinging to the sides of his face and neck.

He looked nearly wild.

A breath that was half a sob tumbled from her lips.

Her legs shot for him and carried her across the square before she could even comprehend what she was doing.

But Elain didn't care. Couldn't and wouldn't.

Not as she watched Lucien lunge for her, sprinting to meet her half-way until only an arm's length remained between them. A length too much and a length too far.

She put every fiber of her being into keeping her feet planted, rather than throwing herself into his arms and burying her face in his neck.

"Elain, what happened?" His eyes frantically darted down her figure and over every inch of her face. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

It took her a moment to remember how she was supposed to formulate words, and her head slowly shook itself. "No."

Elain refused to pull her eyes from his, nearly drowning in their confusion and concern.

Lucien's chest rose and fell in quick pants, as if he had run from the Continent itself and wasn't convinced he needed to stop.

"I felt you," he said, voice dropping low but laced with a heavy guilt. "I felt your panic. I - I didn't mean to intrude on the bond, I swear but…by the Cauldron, Elain, you're shaking."

His hands rose, almost as if he wanted to reach for her and take her into his arms. But he paused, and dropped them back to his sides, jaw clenching against whatever line he seemed to mentally berate himself he couldn't cross.

Elain caught his hand flexing, and worry crept into his gaze when she didn't answer.

She couldn't if she wanted to keep herself in one piece. Wanted to keep the tears she had already shed that day from falling.

But the delicate nudge against her ribs brushed along the inside of her throat, forcing her to swallow down a shaky breath.

Elain couldn't keep down her smile, though. Not when Lucien was standing before her, as much of a wreck as she was, but still so unfairly beautiful that she was sure he could hear her heart pounding between the sheets of rain.

Lucien was there.

Her mate was standing there.

And she loved him.

"You're sure nothing happened?" he asked. "I can take you back to the River House, or my apartment is just around the corner and I can - "

"Don't go."

Lucien froze. Utterly and completely froze. He blinked down at her once. Twice.

"What?" It was more a whispered breath than it was a question.

"Don't go, Lucien." Elain swallowed, and hoped to the Mother her voice remained steady. "I…don't want you to go. I want you to stay."

His breath hitched. His shoulders tightened, tensing beneath her gaze even as his lips silently parted. Lucien's eyes darted between hers, and something too akin to hope flashed behind russet.

Just the little things.

"You do?" His voice dropped again, soft and rich in a way that caressed her heart and fanned over her lips in the damned space still between them.

A watery laugh bubbled from her chest, and Elain nodded. "Yes, yes, I do. I want you to stay. Here…with me."

The storm surrounding them might as well have been a drizzle. Might as well have been nothing but a cloudy day against the spark in his eyes. Seemingly daring to believe what she was saying was true.

"Elain. I would never leave if you wished me to stay."

"I wish it, then," she nodded. "With all my heart, Lucien, I don't want you to go. I don't want you to leave me, and I don't want to lose you. Not again."

He opened his mouth, words waiting on the tip of his tongue with a frown, but Elain pushed through in a breathless croak. "I was afraid to tell you before. I was so, so afraid of losing what I had been able to build with you. I didn't want anything to get in the way of that, I didn't want this bond to be the only thing that bridged us together, and you let me. You are patient, and you are kind, and you are brave, and you are one of the greatest friends I have ever had, Lucien. You make me happy, you make me feel like I'm whole, and with or without this bond, I know that I would love you either way!"

She didn't know what kept her from gasping as the confession slipped out. Didn't know what kept her heart from leaping out of her chest when shock like none she had ever seen on him since the day he had whispered the words "you're my mate" slid across his expression.

"You…you love me?"

"I do," she whispered. "I do, Lucien. I love you as my friend. I love you as the male you were and the male you've grown to be. I love you for that very same male that I fell in love with. And I don't want you to leave. Or if you do, I want to go with you. I want to go to every Court, every part of the Human Lands, every corner of the Continent, it doesn't matter. I just want to be with you."

Tears Elain could no longer contain slid down her cheeks just as a watery laugh slipped by her lips. "You're my mate, Lucien. And I love y - "

Broad hands shot forward to cup her cheeks. Russet and golden eyes slipped shut. Warm lips - that had lightly taunted, flirted, and teased her to a glorious oblivion she never wanted to escape - slanted over hers.

Elain gasped against his mouth. The tight curl of the bond in her chest practically ignited, sparks flooding her veins with a delicious warmth. Almost like the careful flames of a fire never meant to burn, but only to soothe. Only to protect. Only to love.

Lucien didn't move, hesitancy keeping his mouth softly pressed to hers lest she had suddenly changed her mind and shoved him away. Even after she had poured her very soul to him, he remained that same male; simply waiting for her. Wanting her to make the first move. To allow the next step forward.

And she never wanted to turn back.

Elain felt her eyes slip shut as her fingers wrapped around his wrists, tugging herself up onto the tips of her toes. She gently moved her lips against his, praying he could feel her permission pouring down the edge of the bond with the love she had been terrified to think could have been reciprocated. Could have been hers to cherish for the next thousand centuries. Could have been his if he truly wanted it in the same way.

She wanted this. She wanted him.

The golden thread thrummed in her chest, perfectly tuning itself to her racing heart.

And as Lucien cradled her jaw, pulling her impossibly closer until she could barely stand on her own two feet, Elain realized hers wasn't the only one. His heart pounded on the other end of the invisible string, matching her own beat for beat for beat. It curled and swerved tighter and tighter, pulling taut into a single soul twining between them.

It burned bright enough to rival the sun. Glowed such magnificent gold to put the greatest of treasures to shame. Pulled her farther and farther into the depths of its warmth with no end to no beginning. The storm surrounding them turned fuzzy; the few stragglers sprinting to find shelter disappeared; whatever air was left in her lungs left her in a single, bated breath when he pulled away, close enough that his lips ghosted against hers.

Nothing remained but the two of them. Nothing but that golden thread.

"I love you, too."

Lucien's words caressed her skin in a breathless whisper, pausing only a moment for them to seep into her skin and soul.

And then he was upon her.

Pouring the feeling into her veins as he tilted her head and ducked his mouth to hers. His fingers slid to the sopping mass of her hair and buried themselves against her neck. Hunger lingered beneath his desperation, his need for her to completely understand what she had already known the moment he pressed his lips to hers. The same ones gasping against his mouth again as his tongue traced her bottom lip.

"I love you."

He whispered the words again.

Elain slid her hands down from his arms and wrapped them around his neck. Her chest fell flush to his, and she couldn't keep her fingers from digging into his hair, clenching the silky strands and tugging him down to her. Her lips molded themselves over his, never wanting to pull away.

And again.

Closer and closer and closer until a low groan pulled itself from the depths of his chest. She met every one his movements, every soft stroke of his tongue against hers when she parted her lips, every breath he couldn't seem to take if it meant parting from her. Reveling in every tug and every touch.

And again.

"I love you, too."

Elain couldn't keep the smile from her lips. Not when she could feel one wider, one brighter, uncontainable as the sun was from rising every morning, pulled at his mouth. It forced them apart, only a sliver of space between them as her eyes fluttered open.

The sight nearly sent her to her knees.

Rain mingled with the tears streaking from his russet eye. But they did nothing against the grin breaking across his face. The undeniable, irrefutable feeling pulling at his golden cheeks and lacing through a chuckle that rumbled through his chest. A laugh that she could feel as a hand slipped from the molten strands of hair she never wanted to release and slid across his chest.

His shirt clung to every beautiful muscle carved beneath, and if the sheer, unabashed joy swelling in her chest through the bond hadn't kept her eyes glued to his, she knew they would have wandered.

Her palm settled directly over his heart. The one perfectly synced to her own.

Rain pelted against them, soaking them through to the bone. Lucien simply dipped his head forward, pressing his forehead against hers and slipping his eyes shut. His shaky breath fanned across her lips, warming her flushed cheeks and spreading down to every corner of her soul. Every part of her that loved the male before her.

"Elain." Lucien breathed her name as if she were a goddess. "Elain."

And the male that loved her, too.

She slipped her hand back over his neck and up to his jaw. Her thumb darted out and brushed against the edge of his scar, and her smile widened as a shiver ran down his spine - none of it having to do with the wind.

She cupped his cheek with the reminders of what he had bled through, what he had endured, what he had survived. What marked him as the Lucien she knew, the Lucien she wanted, the Lucien she loved.

Her fingers traced it from the tip of his brow to the bottom of his jaw again. Leaning forward on her toes, she pressed slow, lingering kisses down the same path.

Never once did his smile falter. Never once did he pull away. Only when she had pulled back enough to rest her forehead against his again did Lucien crack his eyes open, staring down at her with a reverence that stole the air from her lungs again.

She didn't care so long as he kept doing it.

"Is that offer you made me to come to Day still good?" Elain asked.

Another low laugh shook through his chest. "Of course, my lady."

"And perhaps the next Court after that?"

"It shall be done."

"Maybe even the Continent some day?"

Lucien leaned back and pressed a kiss to forehead. Then her temple. Then the tip of her nose. Down until he pressed his lips to hers. "Whatever your heart desires."

Elain hummed, her smile so wide it nearly hurt. "And yours?"

"You," he breathed. Lucien finally pulled one of his hands from her hair, curling a soaked strand around his finger as he went, and trailed it down to her waist. "That's all I ask for. Just you."

She met him half-way. The kiss that had electrified every bone in her body and brightened the bond to something unrecognizable to anything she had felt before - so good and just so right - softened. The hunger built from what she suddenly suspected had been months, potentially years on his part, still lingered as his tongue languidly brushed into her mouth. But the arm around her waist gently tugged her ever closer, holding her to him like Lucien was afraid she'd slip away. The kiss remained slow, even as Elain tilted her head and pressed into him again the moment they were forced to separate (that damned Cauldron had taken so much from her, but it apparently hadn't managed her need for air).

She raised her hand to circle his neck again. But a blinding, bright light squeezed her eyes tighter and forced her to pull back, almost pulling a whimper from her in the process.

"Wha - "

Elain gasped, and her eyes flew wide.

A brilliant, white light glowed across his body. Every patch of golden skin she had managed to run her fingers across burned bright with a radiance that had her squinting.

Glowing. Her mate was glowing.

And it snapped in her mind so quickly where she had seen such a beautiful, breathtaking sight before, her mouth dropped in a silent 'o'.

On the rare occasion she had stopped by the River House and caught Nyx already asleep in Feyre's arms, a twinge of a golden glow had taken hold over her younger sister's skin, illuminating the space around her and burning all the brighter when her smile widened or softened on the babe.

The first time Feyre had glanced up and caught Elain staring in utter shock that pure light was emitting itself from her body, she had simply shrugged and said, "Day Court."

Day.

Elain's eyes traveled across his hands and forearms, exposed by rolled sleeves. The two buttons left undone on his shirt offered her the perfect glimpse of the glow beneath, even when she could still see the dimmed light under the drenched material across the expanse of his chest. Up his neck and all across his face, unabashed golden light spilled across the space between them.

She arched a brow at him. "'Other matters', hm?"

Lucien's grin fell to something sheepish, and if the light burning brighter over his cheeks was any indication, she would have guessed he had flushed.

He certainly had some explaining to do.

But Elain reminded herself it could certainly wait for later as she threw her arms around his neck and tugged him down again. His surprised grunt quickly turned into a low laugh. And then a groan.

Those beautiful golden hands lost themselves over her hips and around her waist.

She kissed Lucien with everything she had burning in her chest, until one hand tucked behind her back, the other under her knees, and he hoisted her into his arms. Elain shrieked against him and tightened her arms around his neck. Her body was flush to his, his arms holding her as impossibly close as their drenched clothes would allow.

Elain giggled against his lips as a chuckle pulled from his. Without a second thought, Lucien held her closer and spun them around. He buried his nose in her hair, and without even seeing it, Elain knew a grin brighter than a thousand suns had spread across his face again.

In fairness, she knew hers could have hardly been any different.

He loved her.

She loved him.

In her darkest moments, Lucien was there. Her mate had been there. And the love curling around her heart for the male tucking his chin to capture her lips again out-did the glow from his skin tenfold.

And now, that's how it would stay.

Her beautiful, brilliant daylight.

Quite literally, too.

It's officially canon in my head for this fic that the second the two of them kiss is when the Daylight bridge starts playing. Then cue the dramatic camera angle circling them and it's basically a scene from a Hallmark movie. You really can't change my mind :)

If you guys have stuck around to finish out this last chapter, thank you so much for taking the time to read! I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see your guys' comments and being able to hear your thoughts. Trust me, if you haven't hated the Elucien content yet, trust that there will be more - this series is not leaving my head anytime soon...

And, on a more fun note (as I'm probably going to start asking this towards the end of most of my ACOTAR fics based off Taylor Swift songs since I'm highly convinced it's a Swiftie), let me know what you guys think on which Taylor Swift album, or specific song if you've got one, best describes our Elucien ship!

And, as always, hope you have an amazing morning, afternoon, evening, or night!

- Summerwinds