#☾ feyre; interactions

[icey--stars]

Part 1: 2.8k words, Azriel's POV

Series Index (incomplete, on temporary hiatus) - { ao3 }

A story of finding solace in another. Azriel finds himself needing danger in a peaceful world, and what is better than the Autumn Court, ruled by his old nemesis, Eris Vanserra?

a/n: Welcome to part 1 of my gift to @catboyjamesbond for the 2023 ACOTAR Gift Exchange! I dearly hope you enjoy it because I'm so excited for it! This story will be 30 parts long, with parts 1-7 posted this week, daily, and then weekly updates up until it finishes!

The inspiration for this fic stemmed from two different songs as you may be able to see later into the fic... "Leave a Light On" by Tom Walker and "Tired" by Gavin James. There also happens to be a little bit of "Daylight" by David Kushner because I love the song and it fits them too well.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy!!!

~ 🎁 (P.S. Do you happen to have an ao3 account so I can gift it to you there as well?)

General Series Warnings: This story contains a lot of anxiety, alcohol and drug use, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, mentions of domestic abuse/violence and quite a few mature jokes (not recommended for minors) and eventual smut. Please be aware of these before you continue reading.

WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: anxiety, mature/slight nsfw topics (not recommended for minors)

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Azriel

The world was quieter than it had been in more than five hundred years. With Hybern dealt with, and the courts allied together, with the human queens no longer causing trouble, and with Koschei’s death, everything was perfect. Right?

Azriel still couldn’t help but feel on edge. Every single moment of peace he’s ever had has always had some sort of string dangling him above the boiling water of danger. He didn’t mind it either. He had gotten used to dealing with danger, thinking it over, during the times of peace. He took time to think over what his spies told him, or what he’d seen on some mission–that was why he was normally silent. His brothers call it brooding, but he just used that time to think. To plan, to overthink some more.

It was typical to not have true peace. Azriel liked it, in some odd way. He enjoyed the thrill of it. It made him feel alive.

But now? There was no one to spy on. Hell, after Eris got control of the Autumn Court as their High Lord, everything was just… perfect. People were happy, his brothers had mates, and one had a child! He should be overjoyed and feeling elated. Cauldron– he couldn’t even hate Eris anymore, not in the wake of the truth from Mor. Eris had been young, and, in a way, saved Mor from the disaster of Beron getting his hands on her. Nobody could deny that, even if it had been horrible.

He wasn’t happy though. He just couldn’t get over that edgy feeling that he was dangling just over a cliff that would plummet him into something even worse than before. There wasn’t any cliff. There wasn’t even a damned ledge. He shouldn’t be feeling so remorseful. He shouldn’t be feeling so damn tired all the time.

He rarely got the chance to spar with his brothers these days. Rhysand had Feyre and Nyx to care for, in addition to the typical court procedures that Azriel didn’t have to deal with. Cassian had Nesta and was the main trainer for the Valkyries. Azriel still trained the lower-level priestesses, but it seemed as if everyone had moved on to the advanced sword maneuvers with Cassian. He helped, of course, by performing some twist of his arm or sparring with one of the trainees, but he missed what he had before.

During the reign of Amarantha, he and Cassian sparred every morning and every night. He didn’t want to have the bitch back, but he wanted his brother back. No matter how selfish that is. He might’ve been the silent type, the one that most people assume want space and not social interaction, but he needed that thrill of sparring with Cassian or Rhys. He craved it. He just felt so dead with only the occasional spar.

He felt useless. 

Most days, instead of using his shadows to spy on everyone, he was lying around, reading a book. When he did check on his shadows, every court, every Illyrian camp, every damned ruler was just living a peaceful, happy life. In the wake of the treaty reformation and Koschei’s death, the world was full of peace. Azriel had long since learned not to confuse silence with peace, but it seemed the world truly was peaceful. Nobody was plotting someone’s death at the moment.

Azriel was sitting on the edge of the training area, while Cassian finished up his last spar with Nesta, just staring off across Velaris. There was a shrill female shriek of frustration and the clanging of steel stopped. He turned, seeing Cassian pinning Nesta to the ground, as expected. Azriel stood, shaking out his wings and giving a small dip of his head to Cassian before leaping off into the skies. His shadows crowded around the apexes of his wings, clustering around the claw-like they were hanging on for dear life.

He glided down to his apartment. He’d bought it for privacy, and to get away from the mated couples. Rhysand and Feyre in the River House, Cassian and Nesta in the House of Wind, and Lucien and Elain in the townhouse. He didn’t like hearing the screams in the middle of the night. Rhys, of course, had offered to build him something, but he’d shook his head immediately, and pointed out the location on the coastal cliff area that he planned to buy. The High Lord had reluctantly receded his urge to give Azriel a new building.

He loved his apartment, to be honest. It was up on the very end of a street in a quieter area of Velaris. The part most people grew tired of was the continuous loud crashing of waves against the rock surf. Azriel loved it. It gave him a sound to zone out on. Silenced his mind for a few moments, even if he preferred the rustle of trees or the whistle of birds to the sounds of the ocean.

The building itself was two stories tall, and built wide on the bottom, with a study on the top, with the greatest view of Velaris and the sea of all. He opened the door, twisting the door knob of the black, mahogany wood door.

When you first entered the home, it was an open floor plan. There was a living room area directly ahead, with a few armchairs and a couch. To the right, there was a kitchen with pretty blue granite countertops. It was situated across the back corner, the counter curving along the right wall until it stopped at the dining room window area. A nice wide window to show the beautiful lights of Velaris around dinner time.

To the left of the house, there was a wall going through the living room that tightened the house into a hallway. Azriel walked down the hallway, closing his eyes briefly and navigating it by memory. 

The first door frame on the left was the stairs, also painted black. This entire house was either black or dark gray. He had a few paintings hung up, courtesy of Feyre, but not very many. He liked it bare, oddly enough. The first door on the right of the hallway led into a guest bathroom, and the next door on the left was a guest bedroom. 

But, the main part of the house he was in, besides the nice office and study upstairs, with that large window that almost went all the way around the upper level– was the master bedroom. It fit a large bed, enough to fit three Illyrians if they were willing to squish just a bit. For Azriel, it gave him space to lay however he wanted. It was situated with the head of the bed on the left wall, a window going down the wall past the end of the bed until the master bathroom door in the far left corner. On the right wall, there was a door to the closest, but Azriel headed straight for the bathroom.

He might’ve just finished training and probably was going to sweat more later during some random card game during the family game night tonight, but he didn’t care. He wanted the sweat off his skin. He passed the set of two sinks on the right wall and went toward the bathtub and shed his leathers, situating them on the chair that was strategically placed next to the large bathtub. A large oval, deep enough to settle up to his shoulders when laying in it, and large enough to fit his wings into.

He turned the water on quite hot, waiting until it warmed before letting it fill the tub while he tore off his underclothes. A tight-fitting black long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of dirty black pants. He took off the siphons tightened across the back of his hands, closing his eyes to do this part. Others might not mind his scars in the slightest, but that didn’t mean they were pretty to look at. He still hated them, even after five hundred years.

The bath didn’t take off the edge. Not that he’d expected it to, but he still hoped every once in a while. At least the pleasant warm water would give him enough energy to smile tonight.

Game night was miserable, overall. He’d won a good bit of the games– obliterating Cassian, as per usual, but he couldn’t shake that damn feeling. He still managed to keep people off his case though, taking Nyx to bounce on his knee, or shooting a cocky grin in Amren’s direction when he had a good hand. The now-high-fae version of Amren was slightly less intimidating, but the remainder of her power was still not to be messed with. Azriel wasn’t one to test usually, but game nights were the exception. They always were. 

He was banned from some games, however, his shadows gave him too much of an advantage. Like pin-the-tail (somehow, Cassian had ended up sticking it to Lucien’s forehead), charades (because he could use the shadows to help him guess), or two-truths-and-a-lie when Rhys, Cassian, or Mor was involved. That game was mostly for the new additions in Velaris, since Amarantha. But it was great fun when Lucien gazed at him as if searching for an answer amongst his blank face. Lucien somehow managed to mess up the easiest he��d heard all night. Rhys had said, “I used to own a ghost hound, I can do 30 flips in a row in the air, or I have the largest body count in this house.” Lucein had guessed the ghost hound one. Azriel knew for a fact that Cassian had the largest body count. That- or Mor. Scratch that, definitely Mor. Either way, it’d been great to see Lucien’s dumbfounded face when he and Cassian burst out cackling.

He’d also somehow found himself gazing longingly at the mated couples in the room. There was Feyre and Rhys, Nesta and Cass and even Elain had eventually succumbed to the fox’s flirting. And while he yearned for something like what they had, he also knew he wouldn’t be able to get it. There was no chance for him with his dark past. Nobody would even begin to come close to accepting the fact he went into dungeons and ruined people’s lives. He was simply meant for a solitary life it seemed.

-----

The next morning, after training, he finally decided to go looking for the problem. There wasn’t peace without a problem, right? This edge, it had to mean something. Maybe he wasn’t looking hard enough.

Autumn Court was sure to pull up some lies, right? It always had been a jackpot in the past. It surely could be now. At this point, if he found some deadly thing in the world, it might as well be a relief to know what the next thing he’d be facing was.

The orange, red, and yellow leaves greeted him as he winnowed to the edge of the territory, looking back just for a moment to see the stark contrast between Winter Court’s snow, ice, and pine trees and Autumn Court’s oaks, maples and the occasional dogwood with their bright red leaves. The seasonal courts were weird, with this magic keeping it one season and one season alone, the entire year.

He surveyed the empty forest. It was late spring in the Night Court, with Starfall already long gone, and making way for a Summer Solstice that Amren would likely spend with Varian. It wasn’t chilly in the Night Court anymore, at least not in coastal Velaris. 

Yet somehow, the chill got to him through his thin leathers here. It was ever so slightly aggravating. 

He opened his wings, launching through a break in the trees overhead, and soared toward the Forest House. Surely he could find trouble there. Eris Vanserra might be doing a good job at hiding the lies, but Azriel could always find them. He could check the dungeons if he could make it past the wards. He could spy in on some important meeting to find something that the lords were unhappy about. That might spark a revolution in Autumn, right? It surely would. Azriel was just trying to convince himself that something was actually wrong. Because there had to be.

Flying normally cleared his mind, no matter where he was, giving him the ability to think clearly and concisely. It’s why he opted for flying to some locations, rather than just using his shadows to winnow. 

But he still couldn’t shake that itch. The itch that wanted danger, and wanted this prolonged peace to end. Distantly, somewhere in his mind, he was concerned about why he couldn’t calm his anxiety and feeling that something was wrong. It was odd.

The Forest House was visible within a couple of hours. The flying he’d hoped would clear his mind had failed, and he wanted– No, needed to find that danger. He’d settle for a private surveillance first, and then he’d make some sort of public appearance, and try to stir up trouble. That always had the lies and revolting people stirring up.

He found nothing in the dungeons. Absolutely nobody. There wasn’t any important meeting going on, and the records he’d found showed that the Autumn Court was thriving. It was infuriating. He needed that damned itch to stop.

He turned back to the Forest House and decloaked himself. Letting the shadows float in the open space around him, or curl up on his wings, shoulders, or rounded ears. The shadows were useful, for that reason. He could be in the shadow behind the door and nobody might ever know it. Invisible. But now? He was visible, and open for all the guards of the Forest House to see. 

He could see the exact moment they saw him. One stood stiffer, subtly poking his companion with his foot, and gesturing to him. Azriel eyed them both, before moving on to the next pair. They were more obvious, glaring at him openly. In the third pair, only one had seen him and hadn’t bothered to tell his partner yet. What an idiot, Azriel thought. If you wanted to effectively guard or attack, you told your partner everything. No matter how bad it was. If someone’s jerking themselves off in the tent that you’re about to storm? You tell your teammate. You tell your fellow soldiers and make sure that they know the person is jerking themselves off.

He walked out of the cover of the trees, heading for the front door. He could claim to be visiting, right? He could claim Rhys needed him to talk to Eris or something. An easy lie, one he’d used numerous times to get into places. That, or claiming someone had invited him, and then disappearing into the shadows and getting the job done. Whatever that job may be. It tended to float toward the dangerous side though, since he was a spymaster. He loved it though, reveled in the adrenaline and swift thinking.

He walked toward the side entrance, avoiding the main one, since that one was more likely to be used by the important people that would know him. The side door was for servants taking out the trash, or for running out in a panic to collect the groceries they’d forgotten to retrieve for their boss.

However, he was stopped by the sound of dress shoes on the concrete path he was on. He slowed, and half turned to see who was following him. Maybe some lord or a guard who was suspicious and just happened to be wearing his nice shoes today because he was going to a wedding. Or perhaps it was just some servant who was forced to dress nicely-

It was Eris. Eris fucking Vanserra.

“Hello Azriel,” the High Lord of the Autumn Court purred. “How are you this fine evening?”

His face tightened into a filthy scowl. Just because he wasn’t allowed to hate this male anymore, didn’t mean he didn’t find him just positively maddening.

Mor had told them the truth a while ago, during the time they were fighting Koschei and having trouble teaming with the male who’d injured her so badly and left her for dead. Azriel still felt enraged by the whole ordeal, but he didn’t feel as if he could hate someone for being so young and making the best decision they could see at the moment. Eris had barely been twenty, and he hadn’t wanted Mor, who was equally as young, to be in his filthy father’s hands. That really said something about the Vanserras, didn’t it?

“Well, since you’re going to stand there and scowl, care to tell me why you’ve decided to visit the Autumn Court? Is the Night Court unfilling at last?” Eris teased, one side of his lips raising in a smirk. Azriel’s scowl deepened.

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TAGLIST (see post for getting added)

@bunnymallowo, @officiallyunofficialperson, @margssstuff, @rebloggiest-reblogger, @inpraizeof, @graciereads, @eos-princess, @bubybubsters, @fieldofdaisiies, @ladylokilaufeyson5, @marina468,

@acotargiftexchange <- only tagging you in parts 1-7 because this one is gonna go on for a while lol

Ask in the comments to be added to the taglist!

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar fanfic #acotar fic #azriel #eris vanserra #eris acotar #azris #azris fanfiction #mywriting #acotar gift exchange