#Kali basically here to figure out if Nesta is going to fuck Cassian over: honor is blood human girl

[flowerflamestars]

Effloresce snippet

Whatever they were doing, they’d been out there all night- warrior’s sworn to her family, recklessly pulled from one nation to another- they were there on the ground, absolutely motionless. Had held the same positions for so long she could see dew, gathering across the folding shape of a battalions worth of wings. Weakness, it was pure weakness to wish Cassian with her, but Nesta felt it. Longed to turn from this newest disaster, whatever it was, see his eyes bright despite everything. There had never been room for weakness in her life. Nesta dropped her skirt, velvet settling audible on the grass, stopped before the only member of this party whose name she knew. She’d learn them all- she would, hated that she had not already. “Captain.” He did not look up. Move, those great verdigris wings drawn down so tight Nesta would have expected entrapment were they anywhere else. “It has been my honor,” Koram announced, fist over his heart white-knuckled, “To serve your house, my lady.” “It has been our honor to call you Archeron,” Nesta’s mouth answered, numb. Ritual and rote. When no reply came, she continued. “We do not penalize contracts broken. Not for this. If you wish to leave and join the rallying of the army in the mountains. To”- Clear, distinct, Kali, a full arms length of constant presence away, sucked in a breath. From above, it was easy to see the muscle, jumping on Koram’s jaw. “We would die here, Lady Archeron. With some honor left.” It took too long, seconds, to understand it was a plea. A genuine question of mercy. Nesta shook her head. “No one is dying. No one else. You never have to go back to the Night Court’s armies, as far as I’m concerned.” No wind, no air, no answers, until Kali risked that closer step, not even the beads of her braids chiming together. “Lady Archeron, if I may?” Her head hurt. Her heart, her throat, her damned leg- it hurt to stand here and it infuriated her not to know what the hell was happening. Nesta seized her dragging dress again. “Yes, this way.” It was no comfort, to breathe in rosy mist, the transplanted green scent of a hundred continental plants in a garden her grandmother had never gotten to see. “What are they doing?” Surprise looked cataclysmic on the older woman’s face, starker for the rippling tattoos along her hairline. “Waiting to die.” The books had left out too much. “Why?” Kali blinked, and after a moment, settled into a posture Nesta hatefully could not fail to recognize as familiar, three seconds of motion away from Cassian’s formal salute. “They lost two of their charges, my lady. Two girls.”

#there is a solid chunk of the timeline wherein #Nesta is learning something newly horrific every time she turns around #while Lucien and Elain daydrink their way through sedition across the entire continent #WE ARE WORLD BUILDING #there is some deep fuckery afoot in the Illyrian army and dear god does Nesta have the time or heart for none of it #culture clash #trying so goddamn hard to be a good leigelord when the going standard is unfathomably garbage #A bunch shell shocked humans: we're keeping them? right? ALL THESE PEOPLE THAT SAVED OUR LIVES? THEY'E STAYING RIGHT HERE WHERE ITS SAFE #Kali basically here to figure out if Nesta is going to fuck Cassian over: honor is blood human girl #Nesta: actually about to implode #I refuse to take canon sexism at face value and have given things my own twist twist twist