#nought rhys

[saphushia]

IT'S DONE!! THE OC COMIC THAT I'VE BEEN PROCRASTINATING FINISHING FOR MONTHS!!

anyways hi!! this is how Lain (long hair) and Rhys (side-shave) from my wip story/setting Nought meet! they're both blessed (cursed?) to not die- instead 'respawning' in a specific place upon their deaths, but while rhys has been this way for a few years now and had a lot of deaths to get him familiar with it, lain only became functionally immortal a few weeks ago. though they get separated when they eventually escape, they'll find with time that they just can't stop finding eachother

#so happy this is done #i think once i get some other stuff out of the way it'd be nice to finally put the time into this story #i care abt these 2 a lot even if their relationship isn't the main focus of the story #nought #nought rhys #nought lain #comic #art #oc #btw i know i posted a comic yesterday but no i did not finish this in a day skfdgbkj #i've had it sitting 3 panels from completion for over a month now #btw! in the last panel when there's a scribble in rhys' text bubble before he signs assist- #he went to sign favor and then realized he couldn't with his hands tied #it was fun (pain unending pain torment) to figure out how to draw him signing with his hands tied

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Begged & Borrowed Time (ix, ao3)

(Chapter nine: Cassian goes below the wall to surprise Nesta with a visit, but it only ends in bloodshed. Literally.) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

It had been a week.

Seven full days since Cassian had felt Nesta’s hand slip in with his own, her fingers brushing against his knuckles. Since he’d kissed that hand wreathed in mist— and kissed it twice, like he was starving and a single kiss wasn’t enough, wasn’t anywhere near enough to calm the erratic beating of his heart.

Seven days— and as the sun set over Velaris, turning the sky a beautiful, blushing pink, Cassian made up his mind. With the moon overhead just a pale shadow, barely there in the rose-petal sky, he looked out over the city he’d fought for so long to protect and felt certainty in his bones, thrumming in his blood as he decided— he was going beneath the wall tomorrow.

Because it had been seven days since he’d made his way back to Velaris, shielding the memory of Nesta’s touch like a candle flame in a breeze, and every night since, he’d lain in his bed at the House of Wind and let that fire consume him— let it burn and burn and burn until he was nought but ashes, desperate to be set alight again.

And as he stood in the House of Wind dining room, looking down to the sprawling city below him, he felt the heat still building in his chest, what had once been embers now a roaring, raging inferno. His siphons pulsed in answer, as if they, too, could feel it. The draw to her, that insatiable pulling. That insistent, ravenous tug that had him desperate - so achingly, achingly desperate - to kiss her hand again.

To kiss more than her hand.

The fire in his chest blazed, as it had done since the moment he’d left her on that road bathed in fog, and even though he’d hardly been idle the last seven days… Gods, there wasn’t a thing he could do, a place he could go, where she wasn’t dominating his every thought, stealing his every breath even though a wall and thousands of miles lay between them.

So— yes, he was going below the wall tomorrow, and there wasn’t a soul in this city that could stop him.

And even though, ostensibly, he was going to check for a reply to either of the letters they’d sent to the queens… quietly, silently, he hoped and he prayed that when he arrived at the Archeron manor tomorrow, the Mother would take pity on him and align his visit up with one of Nesta’s. Have her visiting her sister at the exact moment he knocked on their door. He prayed he’d find her there, that she’d let him walk her along that distant, isolated little road one more time. 

With his mind solidly and pleasantly made up, Cassian let out a soft hum, sliding his hands into his pockets. As the setting sun streamed through the wide windows of the House, Cassian let a trembling optimism take him over, let himself hope, as the golden glow danced over the table set for two.

Only two— because four days after Cassian’s parting from Nesta, an invitation had arrived from the Summer Court, written in gold ink and good faith. An invitation that was to make thieves and liars out of Cassian’s High Lord and Nesta’s sister both. Chasing one half of the Book of Breathings, Rhys had taken Feyre - and, to Cassian’s chagrin, Amren - over the Summer border, and since Azriel was still on the continent chasing the second half… Mor had been left in charge of Velaris, and Cassian left with nothing and nobody to stop him crossing the wall tomorrow.

And right on cue, as if his thoughts had summoned her, Mor’s footsteps sounded in the hallway. As the light died away, Cassian caught the scent of her perfume a heartbeat before she opened the door, heard her soft humming a breath before she turned the handle. 

“Hello,” she said brightly, pushing the dining room door open on silent hinges as the table for two became suddenly weighed down with food and wine. As the only two members of the Inner Circle left in Velaris, the House was, apparently, spoiling them— laying out a veritable feast for their dinner every night without fail, and tonight was no exception. Cassian caught sight of a bottle of red wine, stoppered with cork and sealed with thick wax, and raised an eyebrow as he lifted it by the neck.

“Rhys will be furious,” he commented lightly, eyes glinting as he raised the bottle of one of Rhys’ rarer, more expensive vintages. Plucked from the depths of his wine cellar, no doubt— right from one of the shelves lining the back wall, the bottles so rarely touched, so preciously hoarded.

Mor pulled out a chair and lifted her empty glass for Cassian to fill, a smirk cutting across her face as Cassian sank into a chair of his own and reached for the corkscrew.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

He felt an answering smile on his own lips as he cut through the wax and worked the cork free, but as it came loose with a pop that echoed in the hush of the House, he looked over at Mor and felt that smile stumble, felt it drop a little as—

When are you going to talk about how you tease Mor to hide whatever it is you feel for her?

Feyre’s words - five days old, now - echoed in his mind, came back to him as he filled Mor’s glass. 

When are you going to talk about how you sent that note to Tamlin, Cassian had asked— days ago, before the invitation had arrived from Summer, when he and Feyre had been training and he’d found himself suddenly needing to ask, needing to know, just how much of Feyre’s heart Rhys had monopolised. How much she was willing to leave behind for him.

As though the heart of one Archeron sister might reflect another— as though Feyre’s leaving Tamlin behind might somehow be relevant. 

Stupid, really.

He hadn’t thought it through. Had been too lost in Feyre’s damned sister to think it through, and then Feyre had… snapped. Snapped and asked him about Mor, as though she thought she were hitting a nerve, and all he could do was hold up his palms and let the Cursebreaker hit him over and over and over again, until all of her anger, all of her grief and pain, had leeched away, leaving nothing behind but her tears and his bruised palms. 

And as Feyre’s fists had connected with his hand, all Cassian had been able to think was— It’s not Mor. And it hasn’t been for a long time.

But— he couldn’t tell Feyre that, could he? What should he have said, as Feyre pummelled her fists into his outstretched hand?

I kissed the back of your sister’s hand the other day Feyre, and I haven’t thought of anything else since. I tease Mor not because she’s the one that I want, but because she’s the opposite, and the moment I met your sister… I think I found whatever it was that I had hoped, once, to find in Mor. What I wanted to find in her when I was seventeen.

As Cassian cut into the chicken that had materialised on his plate, he cast a wry glance across to the table to Mor, to her golden hair and beautiful face. Gods— if Feyre hadn’t managed to land a punch before, she would after that, wouldn’t she? Cassian had only laughed and said it was old news, because how could he explain to her that what she thought she saw when he looked at Mor wasn’t longing or unrequited love— it was Cassian trying desperately to get a handle on how it was Nesta that had taken root inside his mind.

As Mor raised a toast to something Cassian didn’t hear, he thought of Feyre, how she’d punched his palm until his hand turned numb.

She’d needed it, and as Rhys had shrouded her in darkness, Cassian had slipped away to Azriel and watched as his brother tilted Feyre’s face up to the sun, the tracks left by her tears glistening on her cheeks in the morning light. Cassian had turned away, the moment almost too intimate to witness.

Because he’d had a conversation with Rhys, too.

When you get back, we’ll talk, Rhys had said, and when Cassian returned from Velaris that day, still feeling the weight of Nesta’s fingers against his palm, still feeling the warmth of her against his lips, he’d found his brother sitting on the roof-top patio of the town house, cradling a whiskey like it was a lifeline. 

Tell me, Cassian had said, and as Rhys sighed beneath a sky scattered with stars… He did.

As Mor spoke animatedly, her face alight with laughter, Cassian felt like he was still on that roof. That he’d never really left— that Rhys was still telling him how Feyre was the light to his darkness, how under the mountain, he’d risked everything to save her, screaming her name as her bones snapped. Cassian had listened in silence then, but when Rhys was done, when Cassian returned to the House of Wind, he knew that if it were Nesta…

He’d have died screaming Nesta’s name the way Rhys almost died screaming Feyre’s, and as the food and the wine diminished now, he found himself utterly unable to carry on pretending— to keep acting as though there were nowhere else he’d rather be, as though there weren’t another soul - another heart - battling for residency within his chest.

So as Mor finished her food and picked up her wine, Cassian placed his own empty glass down on the table and sat back in his chair, letting his wings stretch around the mahogany as he adjusted his shoulders.

As casually as he could manage, he said, “I’m going below the wall tomorrow.”

“What?” Mor asked, her eyebrows drawing together in a frown as she tilted her head. “Why?”

Her golden hair fell over her shoulder as she studied him in silence, as though trying to find the answer to her question on his face. He kept his expression blank, his shoulders even and his posture easy as she roved over him with those searching eyes, and it was a long, long moment before she drew back and settled against the carved back of her own chair, cradling her wine glass in her palm. 

Whatever she saw, whatever she gleaned from the look in his eyes, all she said was, “Az is going next week. On his way back from the continent.”

Cassian only shrugged.

“If the human queens have sent a reply, we can’t afford to leave their letter sitting there for a week until Az picks it up,” he pointed out, feeling the solid logic of his argument even as he recognised it for what it was— an excuse. 

And despite that logic, Mor frowned still. As though she saw it for what it was, too. 

“I doubt it, Cass,” she said warily, dragging a finger idly around the rim of her glass, making it sing. The humming was the only thing that broke the silence between them, and as Cassian shrugged again, irreverent and easy, he plucked up the bottle from the centre of the table and poured himself another glass of Rhys’ rare wine.

“What’s the harm in checking?”

“Rhys has already written to Feyre’s sister,” Mor pointed out, tipping her glass forward as she fixed him with her stare. “Elain isn’t expecting us until next week.”

“So?”

“So you’ll be turning up unannounced to the home of a woman engaged to a fae hunter,” Mor said incredulously. She set her glass down on the table, looking at him with wide, disbelieving eyes as she shook her head. “What if her fiancé is there?”

“You know, there’s this little thing called a glamour—”

Mor cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. “I don’t like it.”

“Why?” Cassian asked, giving her a rakish grin as he plucked up his own wine from the table, swilling the dark red liquid as he did. He lifted it up towards her as though it were a toast, tilting his head as he said, languidly, “Don’t you think I can handle myself below the wall?”

She rolled her eyes. “I think any trip below the wall is dangerous. You know they have ash arrows down there, Cass.”

“They can only hit me if they can see me,” he shrugged. “And they can’t.”

Mor only glared in answer, taking up her wine once again and drinking deeply, crimson staining her lips as she lowered her glass. Cassian sighed and leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the edge of the table.

“I can’t sit here and do nothing. There’s nothing for me to do here— nothing in Windhaven either, not with Rhys in Summer and Azriel on the continent. How can I plan a war when I don’t know what Azriel’s found out? How can I craft contingency plans when I don’t know what Rhys will be bringing back from Summer?” Another shake of his head, and Mor dropped her gaze to her lap as the truth of his words settled. Cassian swallowed as he murmured, “I can go to the mortal lands, just in case the gods have decided to give us a break and send us some luck. If there’s a letter, we’ll have it tomorrow.”

Silence.

A beat of silence echoed, and then Mor dragged her finger round the rim of her glass again, the only sound between them the gentle, musical hum the movement elicited. Cassian fixed her with his most open, honest stare, and when she met his eye… She sighed, but whether it was in acquiescence or apprehension, he couldn’t tell.

He only raised one eyebrow, tilted his head and said, again, with a finality that brooked absolutely no argument, “As soon as day breaks tomorrow, I’m going below the wall.”

***

I’d kill him in a heartbeat.

Nesta listened to the soft rasp of her sewing needle as it passed through fabric— tried and failed to focus on the whisper of the thread pulling taut, the cloak draped over her lap, and the new lining she was stitching to the inside. Tried— but with every tug, every rasp, she felt as though part of her remained on that road from seven days ago, blanketed in a fog so dense she’d almost forgotten the world beyond existed.

She looked down at the panels of the old dress she had cut into strips, the new lining she was binding to her cloak, and though she tried to focus only on her stitches, on the sharp end of her needle, she heard his voice in her mind, saw the soft smile as he knocked his shoulder into hers.

Witch— she remembered the way his wing had extended behind her, spanning her shoulders in a gesture that was almost protective, even as he called her a witch and she called him a brute.

And his kiss—

Nesta felt the phantom touch of that kiss even now, still burning on the back of her hand even though seven full days had come and gone.

She could almost convince herself that, should she look down at her skin, she’d see some imprint left there. Some marker where his lips had brushed her knuckles— because that simple little touch had marked her soul, left an incision on her heart, and it was ludicrous - really, truly ludicrous - that there should be no physical sign of it. No tangible reminder of the way his fingers had touched hers, the way he had kissed the back of her hand, the chasteness of it undercut by the look in his eyes— filled with yearning and longing and want.

Nesta’s hand had been kissed oh, so many times over the years. At balls and society gatherings— where eligible young men would take her hand and kiss her fingers as a gesture of good will, of greeting or farewell. But never - never - had she still been thinking about a single one of those kisses a week later. 

Never.

She didn’t know how, but somehow the politest of gestures, the most innocent of touches, had been transformed— there was nothing polite, nothing innocent, about the way Cassian had kissed her hand, and there had been nothing polite or innocent about the way Nesta’s blood had heated the moment his lips brushed her skin, either. 

And gods save her, as Nesta sat in the parlour of the Mandray house, sewing an old dress into her even-older cloak, she wanted to let him kiss her again. 

Her thread hissed as she pulled it through the wool, her needle shining as it broke through and met the sunlight on the other side. As her needle plunged through the cloak again and again - a steady, numbing monotony - she thought of her old dress and her thin cloak. How the new lining would only keep her a fraction warmer on freezing winter roads, and how there were other ways of keeping warm. Better ways.

Those curious red stones Cassian wore at his shoulders and his hands and his chest and his knees… Nesta thought of how they let off a kernel of heat, like coals right off a fire. She thought, too, of how he’d stopped the wind. Some kind of shield he’d conjured, making him master of the elements on that misty, wooded road from her father’s estate. By his side, the wind didn’t bite her. The cold didn’t touch her. He was warmth and shelter, and as she drew her thread tighter and tighter and tighter… Nesta wished she could cast aside the cloak altogether, and rely only on his heat forever.

A silly little fantasy, really, but as she sat in the silence Nesta let herself be lost in it. Just for a moment— for one fleeting heartbeat, she let herself be carried away.

By the window, Adara hissed.

A sharp sound, pained and bitter, that pulled Nesta from her reverie as she looked up to her mother in law, seated by the window and stitching her husband’s shirts. Blood bloomed on her fingertip, staining the white cotton crimson as she scowled at the needle that had pricked her, and Nesta wondered whether she, too, had been lost in a fantasy. 

If she, too, had been thinking of someone other than the man who put a ring on her finger. Thinking of lands far away, rooms so far removed from this parlour that they might as well have belonged to another world entirely.

Setting aside both shirt and needle, Adara reached for a scrap of cotton discarded in the sewing basket, wrapping it around her finger to staunch the bleeding. When Nesta asked if she was alright, she only nodded, and glared once more at the shirt she’d set down.

Nesta wondered why she even bothered.

Why she made shirts and stitched buttons, shedding her own blood to keep the clothes on her husband’s back, when all he gave her in return was bruises. Quietly, viciously, Nesta hoped Adara had left the stitches loose. Hoped the shirt would tear, split at the seams when the bastard was in the woods, out in the cold.

She might have lingered longer on that thought— the idea of her father-in-law and his sons, shivering in the snow when their seams gave way. Might have let it bring her some small degree of comfort, let it curve her lips into an unforgiving smile— but before she could, the door to the parlour was opened, letting in a bitter draught as Nesta’s own husband stomped his way inside, his boots heavy on the wooden floor.

Adara looked up at his entrance, still clasping a roll of cotton around her bleeding finger, but her son didn’t even seem to notice his mother and her small injury by the window. The woman smiled, but Nesta could have sworn it was a smile filled with more grief than love— with a sadness that Nesta suspected came from years and years of watching Tomas grow into a man exactly like his father. 

Tomas only came to stand before Nesta, grey light silhouetting his folded arms and the tension in his shoulders. The cut of his clenched jaw and the flat look in his eyes made her want to sigh, the emptiness inside her growing so vast it suddenly threatened to swallow her whole, and the only thing - the only thing - that kept her from drowning, from dipping beneath the surface of that void and letting it consume her, was the way her hand still burned, the ghost of Cassian’s kiss still lingering on her fingers.

“Elain wasn’t at the estate,” Tomas announced bluntly, as if that should mean something— as if he thought he’d figured something out, found something to be vindicated by. His eyes dropped to the cloak in Nesta’s lap, the needle in her hand, as he looked at her and glared.

“Excuse me?”

“Last week,” he pressed, his voice low and drawn out, as though he were speaking to a child— speaking to someone too stupid to understand. “Elain wasn’t at the estate when you visited.”

Nesta wanted to say, And it’s taken you a week to figure that out, has it? 

Wanted to roll her eyes and say, in a voice thick with sarcasm, How clever you are, Tomas. What excellent instincts you must have, to catch me in a lie seven days too late.

She only huffed instead.

“If you’re here to accuse me of something, speak plainly.” She plucked up her needle and her cloak again, picking up her stitching exactly where she’d left it when Adara had pricked her finger. “I’m in no mood for riddles.”

His eyes flashed— irritation burning behind the blue she’d once thought pretty in the sunlight. His lip curled too, as if he hadn’t really expected her to speak. As if it was an affront to him, somehow, that she dared to respond when he spat at her. 

“Greysen has just been,” Tomas said tightly, dropping his arms only to clench his fists at his sides, as though the grim sense of justice he’d had, that sense of retribution, had evaporated, replaced only by irritation and anger. “He wants to buy firewood in bulk for his father’s manor. I asked him how the wedding planning was going, and he mentioned that he’d spent all day last week with your sister choosing flowers and other pretty little frivolities.” 

He practically spat the last bit— the words venomous, sharp on his tongue. As though it were the greatest crime in the world for Elain to want flowers at her wedding.

Nesta’s eyes narrowed as her fingers tightened on her needle, the urge to plunge the needle through his neck growing more potent with every sneer that crossed his face.

“So— where were you? Because your sister wasn’t even at your father’s estate when you visited.”

He folded his arms back over his chest, and Nesta set her sewing to the side, placing her needle atop her cloak before she really did put it through his neck. Unbidden, she thought of how Cassian had offered to kill him.

I’d kill him in a heartbeat, he’d said. A promise— a vow, whispered to her in the fog.

Maybe one day she’d take him up on it.

“Elain wasn’t at the estate,” Nesta answered flatly, barely blinking as she met her husband’s eye. “Mrs Laurent told me she was with Greysen when I arrived, but since it was cold and the fog was gathering, she let me inside for a while to wait for her.”

Not a lie.

Not technically.

Mrs Laurent had told Nesta that Elain was out. No matter that Nesta had known already— that Elain had written ahead and asked Nesta to show up at the estate. She’d burned that note the moment she’d read it, and every word she spoke now was true— in the strictest sense, at least.

She refused to think of Cassian, waiting for her on her father’s lawn.

Refused to think of how, when he kissed her hand in farewell, his touch had been almost reverent.

Practically devout as his lips brushed her knuckles. 

She refused to think of how his eyes had met hers the second time he lowered his mouth to her hand— wouldn’t think of how he’d looked up at her from beneath thick eyelashes and looked as though he wanted that moment to last forever.

Even now, sitting in the parlour and lying to her husband’s face, Nesta felt her heart stumble, and had to drag her mind away from that moment on the road. 

She let it be swallowed by the fog— let it be forgotten as Tomas stared down at her, the look in his eyes so drastically, drastically different from the look that had been in Cassian’s.

But Nesta didn’t look away.

Didn’t balk as her husband scanned her face, searching for something— some evidence of a lie. She only blinked mildly, blandly, and waited for him to realise that it was a wasted effort. That there was nothing he could say that would get her to confess the truth of what had happened seven days ago— what words had been spoken in her father’s sitting room, what glances - what touches - had been exchanged on that road.

Nothing in the world would convince her to give that up— and so she kept her secrets, tucked them in her chest, as though they were precious to her.

Eventually, Tomas huffed.

He sighed so heavily that the sound bounced off the empty stone hearth, and with one last look - one last, dissatisfied twist of his mouth - he turned for the door, not bothering to glance to his mother, to offer her a word of farewell. His steps as heavy and as obnoxiously loud on the floorboards as they had been when he arrived, Nesta’s husband almost stormed from the parlour, only pausing when he reached the door.

His fingers on the handle, Tomas stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“I need a new axe head,” he tossed, as though it were an afterthought. “If you’re going into the village today, pick me up a new one.”

Nesta didn’t deign to respond, and when Tomas left, slamming the door behind him, she looked up— looked across to her mother-in-law.

Adara had turned back to her stitching, but her mouth was turned downwards, almost mournful, and when, briefly, she looked up… Nesta could have sworn there were tears lining her eyes.

***

Elain was alone.

Cassian fought against the disappointment that settled in his gut, ignored the sinking in his heart, as he looked through the ground floor window and found Elain sitting in the morning room, on a satin sofa he couldn’t even begin to guess the value of… alone.

In her hands was an embroidery hoop, a delicate little square of fabric stretched taut between its rings, and he almost stood and marvelled as Elain picked out pretty little patterns with her needle and thread. A handkerchief, Cassian supposed, taking in the lace edges— the most ordinary of things made beautiful by her stitching. 

He might have wondered at it, at that innate, human, desire to make even the ordinary beautiful— had he not recognised the patterned carpet and the polished table. 

Elain sat alone in the morning room, and as Cassian raised a fist to tap on the glass, he could think only of the last time - the only time - he’d been in that room. When, left alone, bathed in sunlight and surrounded by wealth, Cassian had gotten his first glimpse of the real Nesta. The Attor’s attack had been a blessing in disguise— not only had it proven to Rhys that Feyre was being hunted, it had given Cassian that moment where Nesta let her mask drop, the moment where she had asked him for his name.

And as he looked through the glass, still picturing her standing before that window, back straight and shoulders back… he could have almost convinced himself that she was there. That she was real, not just a mirage conjured by his aching heart.

But Elain was alone, and the disappointment that coursed through him in her absence was visceral, so potent that he could barely feel anything else. He’d let himself believe, on the way down here, that he’d glance through that window and find her taking tea with her sister, and with the sight of Elain alone burning even when he closed his eyes…

Cassian sighed, and let it go. 

Dropping his glamour, he tapped gently on the window, inhaling deeply and letting the crisp, cold air steal away some of his dismay. 

Elain startled, and Cassian lifted a finger to his lips as she looked towards the windows. Her eyes widened, but she recovered quickly - after all, she is an Archeron, he thought wryly - and then she was moving, setting aside her embroidery and making her way to the sash windows, a vision in pink chiffon as her slippered feet carried her almost silently to where he waited.

Her mouth fell open in surprise as she opened the window, lifting it up and leaning over the sill, brushing the flowers in the box outside as she came close enough to whisper.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, her voice light and lilting even if it was whispered. 

Cassian swore he heard a hint of entertainment in her tone, a touch of bemusement, and as she tilted her head, he couldn’t help but find Nesta in the sweep of her jaw. In her cheekbones and the glint in her eye. Elain might have Feyre’s hair, but so much of her was so remarkably Nesta, too, and as he looked at the middle Archeron, Cassian was reminded all over again of the sister he’d really wanted to see today.

The sister he’d flown miles and miles for, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, she’d be here when he turned up.

Cassian only offered Elain a grin, cheeky and lopsided as he said, “I was just passing.”

Elain let out a soft, musical laugh as Cassian looked over her shoulder. When he was satisfied that Mrs Laurent wasn’t about to come bursting through the door, that none of the household staff were about to come and check on the voices drifting from the morning room, he added, “I came to see if there was any reply to our letter yet. I’m sorry for not sending word ahead.”

“There’s been nothing,” Elain said with a shake of her head. Her curled hair fell over her shoulder in a golden-brown curtain, and her eyebrows drew together in a frown as her lip twisted. “Should we have heard something by now? They will have received the first letter at least, surely?”

Her voice was uncertain, almost worried, and Cassian smiled softly as he shook his head.

“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “Perhaps not. I only came on the off chance.”

Elain raised an eyebrow. “It’s a long way to travel for an off chance.”

Cassian gave her some non-comital sound, something nonchalant and irreverent as that light, breezy smile bloomed on his face. Elain’s eyes turned curious, turned searching as she tilted her head, pressing her lips together as though fighting a smile of her own. He could have sworn there was a spark there, in the eyes the exact same shade as Feyre’s— a spark of recognition as she noted the expression that flickered across his face.

“There was a note that said to expect one of you next week,” Elain said lightly, but that spark still burned in her eyes, and there was something in her gaze, something that said she saw through his excuse as easily as Mor had.

Cassian cleared his throat. “Az,” he said mildly. “He’s going to drop by next week.”

Elain hummed, resting her forearms on the painted windowsill.

Suddenly, Cassian wondered at her— the woman soon to be a fae hunter’s wife, smiling at him over her flower boxes, when her fiancé would have her put an ash bolt through his heart.

Was there something in their blood, he wondered, something that made these Archeron sisters a marvel all their own?

“I should…” he began, pushing away from the window, from the flowers in their neat little box on that painted sill. “I should be going, then.”

Elain gave him a small nod as her lips parted into an easy smile, but as her fingers curled around the window, ready to slide it shut, Cassian couldn’t help it— he couldn’t leave without knowing, and he found himself speaking before he could think, before he could stop himself.

“Will Nesta be visiting today?”

Such an idle question— innocent and casual, but his heart thumped in his chest, battering against his ribs, and in that moment Cassian could have sworn Elain could hear it. Could hear the way it had started to pound the moment he’d spoken Nesta’s name, and the question wasn’t idle at all— it was vital to him, pivotal. 

And as Elain looked at him curiously, he wondered whether she’d noticed.

“No,” she said, shaking her head as those eyes drifted to the siphon at his chest, glimmering in the sunlight. “It’s a market day today.”

She shrugged, and Cassian thought she’d leave it there. That she’d close that window and go right back to her embroidery, but after a moment of silence, she added, far too casually, “I imagine she’ll be in the village for most of the day.”

He almost let himself believe that Elain was telling him directly, deliberately where he could find her sister. Like she really hadn’t bought the excuse about the letter.

And whatever she’d seen on his face when he’d spoken Nesta’s name… Whatever it was that had flickered in his eyes, what had set his siphons gleaming…

Elain had noticed it, and as Cassian cleared his throat, thanking her as though he had been asking out of pure curiosity alone, he didn’t miss the way she bit her lip to mask her smile, or how her eyes were glimmering with laughter.

He only cursed lightly under his breath as he wove his glamour anew— and headed right for the market in the village square.

***

The cobbles were uneven beneath his boots as he walked, invisible, through the village Nesta called home.

Through the village Feyre had once called home, too.

The scent of fresh bread hung thick in the air as he passed a bakery, the scent of ale as he passed a tavern. The village was all wooden buildings and thatched roofs, thick glass windows and hobnailed doors, and as Cassian wandered, searching for the main square, he wondered which of these shops were Nesta’s favourites. Which ones she visited regularly, which shopkeepers knew her name.

He passed the blacksmith— and paused, finding himself fixated on the anvil and the hammer. His attention snagged on a sword in the fire, on another on the anvil being beaten into shape by a man wearing a leather apron. There were blacksmiths in Illyria, of course— and it astounded Cassian that the process was the same. That the fire was the same, and the anvil, and the hammer, and the steel at the end. All of it the same and yet…

Cassian had marvelled at Elain stitching flowers on her handkerchief, and as he watched the blacksmith curl the molten steel into a sword’s hilt, he marvelled all over again at mortals and their capacity for creation. Aided by no magic, no immortal strength or endless decades of life in which to perfect their craft… life beneath the wall bred resilience, and Cassian wanted to laugh as he watched the blacksmith’s hammer come down upon the blade, sparks flying as it was beaten into shape.

What had she done to him?

What had she done, to have him watching blacksmiths and noble women embroidering and admiring it? Seeing their similarities as much as their differences? 

Cassian shook his head as he moved on from the smithy, wondering where he’d find her as he made his way down a gently sloping hill. Gone was the pretence that he was here for anything but Nesta, that he was wandering these streets searching for anything but her storm-grey eyes, her furious glare, the smile she seemed to save for him alone— that barely-there, hidden smile.

He walked until he found the market square, a wide space filled with wooden tables and carts. There was smoke in the air and the sound of coins exchanging hands, and Cassian could smell spices and leather, salt and fresh fruit. There were tables laden with dyed wools and silks, others holding shining silverware and brass. Wealthy merchants had solid tables displaying their wares, and the poorest…

The poorest laid out their stock on rugs on the ground, and as Cassian walked slowly past a man selling carved wooden fruit bowls, he remembered the tale Feyre had told about her father. Had he laid out his carvings like this too, once? On a sheet in a market square?

Cassian might have taken pity on the man and bought one of those bowls if he weren’t glamoured. Might have dropped a coin into his upturned hat regardless, if he’d been carrying anything but Night Court currency.

But he moved on, past a stall selling ale and fine wine. Past another selling pretty little coloured glass trinkets, wind-catchers that danced in the breeze, with bells and chimes that sang, and it was there, with the light reflecting off of stained glass, a spectrum in his eyes, that at last, Cassian found her.

Across the square, so far away and yet so, so tantalisingly close— Nesta stood at a stall selling candles, a woven basket over her arm, a brown-paper parcel in her hands.

He almost called out to her. Almost shouted her name.

He wanted to see the sun drifting across her face, wanted to see the spectrum of colour from that stall filled with glass reflected in her eyes— a prism caught in blue-grey, a sight so beautiful that just the thought of it had his steps quickening. But as Nesta veered away, empty handed, from that stall selling candles, Cassian couldn’t catch up, not as she headed for one of the bricks-and-mortar shops lining one side of the square. 

As she opened the door to the apothecary, setting a small bronze bell ringing in her wake, Cassian cut through the crowds as quickly as he could given the bulk of his wings—but it wasn’t enough, and the door closed after her with Cassian still several feet behind. Left on the pavement outside, looking through panes of warped glass as Nesta was swallowed by the tall shelves inside, he waited.

Impatiently, tapping his foot and folding his arms, he waited until the next patron opened the door to the apothecary, allowing Cassian to tuck his wings in tight and slip in, unnoticed.

And once inside…

Once inside, Cassian stopped dead in the doorway. 

The ceiling was a mass of stars.

Wooden slats painted black lined the ceiling, with constellations picked out in shimmering gold paint. Illuminated by gas lamps casting a softly golden glow, Cassian looked up at that ceiling of stars and smiled, because it felt like home, somehow. A little piece of the Night Court, all the way down here, below the wall.

He recognised some of those stars.

Long ago, he had learned to navigate by them, and now… Cassian felt something inside him stutter as he realised that even though the wall and thousands of miles separated them…

He and Nesta still looked up at the same sky. Still saw the same stars.

And as he passed beneath familiar constellations, the boards beneath his feet creaking, he realised that, though they might pray to different gods, when the sun set and the sky darkened… They looked up to the same heavens. Saw the same bursts of light in the sky, despite it all.

And as he passed by copper tubs filled with salts - for aching, for sleep, for pains - it was the most potent balm he’d ever known, soothing something inside him he hadn’t known had been rubbed raw. 

Through the labyrinthine shelves and alleys constructed of wood and glass bottles, Cassian searched— and found Nesta, at last, in a nook at the back of the shop, hidden by tall shelves filled with tonic bottles. His senses were drowning in aniseed and honey, almost overwhelmed by the scent of mustard seed and wax polish, but beneath it all… Beneath it, he could smell Nesta. He scented lavender as he heard the beating of her heart, following the sound of it through the forest of shelves— the rhythm so familiar to him now that he would know it anywhere.

His own heart fell in time as he came close enough to press his lips against her ear and whisper, “There you are, princess.”

Nesta almost dropped the bottle of tincture she held in her hands, her fingers turning slack as she inhaled sharply, turning around with wide eyes that had Cassian grinning as his hand darted out, folding her fingers back around the bottle before she could let it fall. 

Shock and surprise warred with irritation and indignation as fury danced across her face, and it was the single most intoxicating thing he’d ever seen. Worth the hours spent flying from Velaris, worth the seven days he’d spent agonising over the memory of her. 

“Are you insane?” Nesta hissed, hauling him closer and pushing him further into that shadowed little alcove.

His wings brushed the edges of the shelves on either side, and Cassian suppressed a shiver as the membrane scratched against the wood, but it didn’t matter, because Nesta was standing beneath a ceiling filed with stars, her attention entirely, solely, fixed upon him.

“Don’t act like you’re not pleased to see me,” he drawled, letting his grin widen as her scowl deepened.

Tartly, she drew away, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m not.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” he countered, tsking as that barely-there smile, that Nesta smile, pulled at the corner of her lips. 

“I’m an exquisite liar,” she insisted, and though Cassian was about to agree— about to tell her she was exquisite, he only shrugged instead, and leaned closer, satisfaction burning in his veins as she shivered. 

Had she been thinking of nothing but that kiss for the past week, too?

His gaze dropped to her hand, still wrapped around that bottle. Had she been thinking of his lips on her skin the way he had? Given the way she shivered, Cassian dared to think that the answer was yes.

“I don’t believe you,” he added, his voice low. He hummed as Nesta huffed again, and with another glare that could bring even the fiercest to their knees, Nesta slammed the bottle of tonic onto the nearest shelf and picked up the basket she’d placed by her feet.

“What if someone sees you?”

“I’m glamoured,” he shrugged. 

Nesta shook her head, but as she looked around and found absolutely nobody in the vicinity, some of the tension leaked out of her. Her breathing steadied, and though her heart continued to pound, Cassian could tell, instinctively, that it wasn’t racing in panic or fear. It was racing because his was racing too, beating out a rhythm in his chest.

For a breath, there was silence. Nothing but a quiet hush as Nesta looked up at him, blinking slowly as irritation melted away, and something went tight between them as her eyes locked with his— a kind of breathless wonder, as though, in that shadowy little alcove crowned with painted stars, neither of them were entirely certain this was real. 

Cassian reached out, the backs of his fingers brushing against her cheek as he breathed, so softly that his words were but the gentlest, quietest touch, “Hello, Nes.”

Nesta let out a breath of a laugh, one that huffed with surprise - delighted surprise, he thought - as she hit him in the shoulder with the flat of her palm. She turned and walked away, heading for the front of the shop and the door with the little bronze bell, but she’d only taken a handful of steps before she turned.

Before she looked over her shoulder and offered him a tentative smile, the words leaving her in a gentle whisper as she said,

“Hello, Cassian.”

***

Outside, Nesta headed down a narrow alleyway, leading to the other side of the village. It was quiet and deserted, nobody but the weather-worn bricks bearing witness as Cassian followed her down that tight, winding path. There was a new lining to her cloak, he noticed, and though her basket looked heavy, there was colour in her cheeks— a light blush that he dared to hope he’d put there.

Still, she carried that brown paper parcel. A curious shape— large and flat and curved at one end, Cassian frowned as he watched her carry it.

“Let me,” he said, extending a hand as his steps fell in with hers. He nodded to the parcel and the basket as Nesta raised an eyebrow.

“What, you don’t think I can handle it myself?” she asked archly.

Cassian rolled his eyes, even as her stubbornness made his blood heat. “I think you’ve been carrying those around all day, and might like a break. They look heavy.”

She shrugged, and for a moment he thought that was the end of it, but then Nesta turned and handed both over without a word. Satisfied, Cassian gave her a winning smile as he turned the brown paper parcel in hand. 

“That wasn’t so hard, was it sweetheart?”

She hissed, and Cassian only grinned wider, studying the parcel in his grip. It felt like steel, felt heavy, and he was about to ask when—

“Axe head,” Nesta explained. “Tomas chipped his last one.”

Cassian raised an eyebrow. “So tell him to get a new one himself.”

It had a solid weight to it, even though it came with no handle, and Cassian rather thought Nesta should have told her husband to piss off and carry a new one home himself if he needed one so badly. She looked like she might share the sentiment, but she shook her head.

“Gives me a chance to get away from the house,” she shrugged, and though her posture remained casual, her words were quiet. As though it were an admission it pained her to make.

Cassian felt his heart break. Felt it ache in the wake of her vulnerability, in the honesty she only ever seemed to deem him worthy of. He scowled down at the axe head and wished he could curse it somehow— wished he were one of the fae from human stories, fearsome and brutal and possessed of a cruel magic.

Maybe he’d turn Nesta’s husband into a toad.

Maybe he’d throw him to the creature that lived at the bottom of the House of Wind.

Feeling the weight of the axe in one hand and the basket in the other, Cassian pushed aside all thoughts of murdering her husband and said, instead, “Let me walk you home.”

He expected her to refuse him outright. To tell him she didn’t need an overgrown pigeon dogging her steps— but Nesta only blinked mildly, and huffed gently as she looked at the axe and the basket in Cassian’s hands.

“Will you take no for an answer?”

He grinned. “No.”

“I didn’t think so,” she answered, rolling her eyes. That smile pulled at her lips again, the one she was trying to desperately hard to hide, and gods save him…

Cassian would go to the end of the world for that gentle, barely-there smile.

But Nesta only nodded to the road ahead and said, “It’s that way.”

And as Cassian took the first step along that dusty, rocky road, he heard her mutter something about being plagued by a a ridiculous bat. He grinned again, turning to face her and finding the sunlight drifting across her face, exactly the way he’d dreamed of in the market square.

“Witch,” he shot back, and this time… This time Nesta gave him a smile to rival his own.

***

The road grew more uneven underfoot, little more than a dirt track winding through the trees and Cassian knew, without needing her to say it, that Nesta was almost home. His hand tightened around the handle of her woven basket, as if reluctant to let go. Reluctant to say goodbye just yet.

In the distance, Cassian could see buildings.

With broken roof tiles and crumbling chimneys, he glimpsed a modest house nestled amongst the trees. It might have been considered nice once, with its small courtyard and two storeys— with its handful of windows and stone paving. Not anymore, but he took it all in nevertheless, noting the details of the place Nesta called home these days.

Or perhaps not— perhaps not the place she called home, given the way she stopped in the centre of the road and turned, holding her hand out for the basket and the brown-wrapped parcel, still several yards from that old, dilapidated house.

“You can go now.”

Cassian shook his head. “I’m glamoured, sweetheart. I’ll cary these right to your front door.”

Nesta’s heart kicked as she shook her head sharply, and this wasn’t how it had raced in the apothecary. This was different, with tension creeping into her shoulders and unease in her eyes, and as Cassian looked ahead, to where there was no gate barring the entrance - only two tall posts where a gate must have once stood - he felt her anxiety climbing as though it were his own. Her eyes darted over the road before them, over the small, squat building set apart from the main house, only a few feet past those gate-less posts.

A stable, given the scent of hay, but it was in the same state of disrepair as the rest of the place, possessed of a faded aura of gentility— a vanished nobility that had, apparently, dried up generations ago.

“Please,” Nesta said, her hands darting out and closing over the handle of her basket. She pulled, hard enough that he let it go, his eyebrows rising in surprise as that single word left her lips, heavy with something like desperation.

He kept hold of the axe.

“Nesta—”

“Just go, Cassian.” She shook her head, her eyes flitting between him, his face and his wings, and the house ahead— the courtyard and the front door. “Before someone sees you.”

“I told you, I’m glamoured.”

“And I can see through it,” Nesta hissed, her hand closing around the axe head he still carried. “How do you know nobody else can?”

“I’ve never met anybody who can see through a glamour,” he countered flatly, pulling the axe back as it yielded an inch into her grip. Quietly, he added, “Only you.”

She shook her head sharply. Her heartbeat kicked again, and suddenly she was yanking the axe from his grip, too quickly for him to adjust his grip, to move his palm away from the sharp edge. There was a tear as the sharp end cut through the brown paper, and as she pulled—

He felt the burn as the skin of his palm split open beneath the steel edge, the sharp kiss of the axe against his skin. He hissed as his blood welled, and suddenly it was spilling over his fingers and between his knuckles, from a cut so deep that were he human, he might well have been bleeding out already. Crimson stained his skin - stained hers - as it coated his hand, the axe, Nesta.

And through the pain, he heard Nesta gasp. Heard her heartbeat stumble and stutter and shake as she watched the blood spill from the wound she’d inflicted, and since he could feel it healing already, he mustered his best smile— his most cocksure, lazy grin.

As he cradled his bleeding palm in his other hand, he gave her a wink that had her huffing in incredulity and said, “If you wanted me to leave princess, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t need to maim me.”

***

Nesta almost dropped the axe altogether.

“I did ask you,” she bit out, her voice far less steady than she’d have liked.

She watched as the gash on his palm turned a vivid, violent red, and as she lunged forward, almost desperate to reach him, to see for herself that the wound wasn’t fatal, she almost dropped the damned axe that had cut him in the first place. Collecting her senses, she dumped it into the basket— likely squashing the bread she’d bartered twenty minutes for, risking shattering the eggs she’d only bought four of, because she couldn’t afford six.

But it didn’t matter— she didn’t think of it, not as Cassian’s blood welled on his hand, spilling into the hollow by his thumb. Guilt ran through her, and everything Nesta had been terrified of a moment ago - Tomas exiting the house, finding her on the road and, at best, talking ostensibly to herself, or at worst, seeing through Cassian’s glamour - faded, replaced by a sickness that spread like fire through her veins, leaving her unable to care about anything but that wound, unable to think of anything but his blood, his pain— the horror of it, and the way her own blood seemed to keen as each drop of his fell. 

So much blood— flowing ruby-red from the slice on his palm, over the heel of his hand and to his wrist. Too much blood— the aching pulse in her own chest driving her almost to madness as she watched him grin, watched him wink at her as though it were nothing.

With fingers that were damn near trembling, Nesta reached for him, uncaring as his blood stained her hands. He let her take his bloodied hand in hers, let her examine the wound she’d dealt him.

Deep— so, so deep.

“I’ll stitch it,” she said quickly, wincing as she took in the ruined flesh of his palm.

“I’ll be fine, Nesta.”

“No, I should—”

“It’s healing already,” Cassian insisted, his far voice far softer, far gentler than it ought to have been. She’d just sliced his hand open with an axe, after all. He only tilted his head and gave her the kind of wicked, mischievous grin she ought to ignore. “Are you worried about me, princess?”

Nesta forced herself to snort as she let go of his hand.

“I’m only worrying about how I’ll bury your body should you drop down dead.” She gave him her sternest glare, but even as she watched, the flow of blood began to slow, and her racing heart slowed with it. He smirked, as if he could hear it. Perhaps he could, and it made her scowl all the more. “It would take me hours to dig your grave, especially with those ridiculous wings of yours.”

Cassian grinned still, like he’d forgotten he was still bleeding. It was slowing, yes— but crimson still seeped between his fingers.

Nesta shook her head sharply and, with one last glance at the wound, she grabbed hold of the arm that remained uninjured and pulled him forwards, her fingers curling in the leather of his sleeve as she pulled him through the empty stone pillars that had once housed a gate. She didn’t look back to see if there was a trail of blood left behind them, she only hauled him to the stable and pulled him inside, leaving the door ajar.

There were salves and bandages in there, set aside on a little wooden rack by the door. A small box filled with tincture and bandages, salves and needles for stitching. Housed with the horse brushes and leather polish, Nesta quickly found the small first aid kit, inhaling deeply to settle her breathing. The scent of hay mixed with the leather and cinnamon scent of him, and as her breath trembled in her throat, Nesta let it settle her. Let the sound of his steady breathing soothe the edge in her that had grown sharp and cutting the moment she’d watched his blood spill.

“Sit,” she said firmly, nodding to a three-legged stool sitting by the door. Briefly, Nesta wondered if it would even take his weight, but even though it creaked as Cassian lowered himself down, it seemed to hold. Nesta let out another breath, gathering a small jar and filling her hands with gauze and linen.

“Really, Nes, it’s—”

“You’re bleeding on my floor,” Nesta interrupted sharply, even though it wasn’t floor— not her stable, not her home.

Dropping to one knee, Nesta held out her hand expectantly. Cassian raised an eyebrow, but nevertheless, with a kind of exaggerated, sarcastic obedience, he placed his bloody hand in hers, palm facing the ceiling.

“It will heal before you know it,” he said as she cleared away the blood with a ball of rolled-up linen. 

“It’s still an open wound,” Nesta pointed out archly, taking a fresh piece of linen when the first was stained crimson. “And I’m not having you bleeding all over the place.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have sliced my hand open on a blade, sweetheart.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t be so irritating,” she shot back, scowling as he laughed.

The sound of his laughter made something insider her feel lighter— the deep, rich sound of it reverberating through her own chest. When his blood was cleared, she reached for the small jar, blinking flatly as she unscrewed the lid.

It was her own concoction— salt and honey, to fight infection, and since he was being so damned infuriating, Nesta didn’t bother to warn him as she spread a thick layer of the salve over the still-bleeding cut. He hissed as the wound stung, but Nesta only raised a brow and gave him a look that said, what? Can’t handle a little antiseptic?

He scowled right back as though he’d heard her.

Nesta laid the salve on thick, and then laid a fresh piece of linen atop. Taking up the gauze, she began to wrap it around his palm, again and again and again, until it was wrapped tight, the bandage crisp and clean. 

“Where did you learn this?” Cassian asked as she turned his hand over and tied a knot in the gauze, just beneath his shining red stone. 

She shrugged. “My husband is a woodcutter.” Cassian frowned, and shrugged as if to say so?, but the movement jostled his hand, and Nesta scowled at him in silent admonishment. “Sometimes he gets splinters. Sometimes they get infected. That’s why there’s a first aid kit in here.”

Cassian scoffed. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have cared.”

Nesta let out a breath of laugh, ironic as she shook her head. “No,” she agreed, her fingers still lingering on the knot she’d tied, even though there was no need— even though she could have pulled away moments ago. “But it seemed a little counter-productive. To marry Tomas to save my sisters, only to have him die on me a week after the wedding. So a few days after we married, when he got a splinter so deep he almost called for a physician, I made sure there were supplies in here, and in the kitchen of the house too.” She shrugged and added, sardonically and not at all earnestly,  “Mama always taught me that it was my duty as a wife to take care of my husband.”

Cassian snorted, then. “Bullshit.”

Nesta raised an eyebrow, looking up at him from where she still kneeled by his side— the warrior perched on a stool far too small for him, the tips of his wings brushing the flagged stone of the stable floor as he kept his hand in hers.

Then, after a moment, he added quietly, “Your sister doesn’t seem to share your ideas about a woman’s place in the world.”

“Feyre wasn’t raised by my mother,” Nesta shrugged. “Mama never had the chance to get to her.”

She dropped her eyes to the bandages she’d wound around his hand, to the knot she’d tied off with a little bow— the bow her fingers still tugged at even now, as though she were hesitant to pull away, even though the job was done. When he remained silent, the air between them growing thick and taut, she looked up at him, finding his hazel eyes fixed on her, his beautiful face open in way she’d never expected from a creature from above the wall. 

“I was raised all along to know that my worth lies only what I can offer a man,” she continued, her eyes caught up with his, her chest rising as the cadence of his breathing aligned entirely with hers.

He shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“Oh?” Nesta tilted her head. “Then why did I have to marry Tomas to escape starvation in the first place?” She looked down at the bandages on his hand, at the bow she’d tied. “He only wants me for what I can give him.”

Cassian’s eyes darkened when she looked up at him next, and beneath her fingers, that red stone began to pulse. 

“He’s a fool,” he said lowly, a touch of bitterness creeping into his tone, one that made her shiver.

Cassian’s bandaged hand twisted beneath her, her fingers brushing the gauze she’d just wrapped around the wound she’d given him. His fingers curled beneath hers as he brushed the pad of his thumb over her wedding band, his eyes drifting closed for a heartbeat as he felt the metal cold beneath his touch. Nesta felt it burn, felt the coolness of the ring stark against the heat of his skin, of his fingers beneath hers and his thumb dragging along the silver.

She should have pulled away.

Should have done so minutes ago, but his touch was something she didn’t want to be without, something she didn’t want to give up— not when she’d given up so much already. She looked into his eyes and knew he was all too aware that he should have pulled away by now, too. But he let his touch linger a little longer, his eyes dropping to where they were connected— such a simple touch, practically chaste in its innocence, and yet… 

Nesta knew they should have pulled away by now— though neither of them wanted to.

He swallowed as he raised his gaze from their entwined hands and met her eyes. “I swear to you,” he whispered. “Anything you need, anything you want of me, all you have to do is ask. Name it and its yours.”

“What you could possibly give me?” Nesta asked, but her voice wasn’t as sharp as she’d intended. Wasn’t as cutting as she’d tried to make it— it was wry and bittersweet, as though she knew what she wanted was something she couldn’t take.

“Your husband’s head on a platter,” Cassian suggested with a shrug. “His brother’s, if you want. His father I’d do without you asking, but I’d kill him too.”

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles the way he’d done that day on the road— like he was a knight in a fairytale, swearing his allegiance. 

“Anything you want,” he swore.

And she supposed it was a fairytale— of some kind, at least. The fae warrior, bleeding in her stable, stitched back together by her hand— the kind of romantic, wistful tales she read about in books she bought second-hand from the market.

And there must have been something in it, something in the way his blood had spilled and she’d cleaned it away. Some transformation, some transubstantiation, where suddenly Nesta found herself longing to ask for all of those things she shouldn’t. She wanted to let him make such pretty promises, wanted to let him kiss her hand as though she were the most precious thing in the world. She wanted to let him do it all, let him give her everything, but when she opened her mouth… There were no words.

Nothing she knew how to say, knew how to ask for.

All she had was, “What are you, my knight in shining armour? Plucked from the pages of a book?”

The lips she so desperately wanted to feel against her skin curved, a slight smile blooming on his face as he tilted his head. “If you want me to be,” he shrugged. “Do you like to read?”

Nesta hummed. “It’s the only escape I have, these days.”

His palm - the one she hadn’t sliced open - lifted, came to rest against her cheek. His thumb traced her cheekbone, his touch light and searching and yet searing her right to the bone. She leaned into it, that touch, letting her eyes drift closed.

And then— a shout from outside, bringing that beautiful, trembling moment crashing down, shattering it before she’d had a chance to savour it.

“Nesta.”

Her husband’s voice, calling across the courtyard, barking something about the stable door being left open, and if she was in there, to check the water trough for the single horse housed at the back of the ancient stone building. His voice broke whatever spell had been woven, cracked whatever peace she’d just found in Cassian’s hands, and suddenly Nesta was drawing away, his one hand dropping from her cheek, the other pulling free of her fingers.

His eyes darkened as she let go of his touch, as she lurched to her feet.

“I need to go,” she whispered.

Cassian blinked, and though he remained silent, she could have sworn she saw pain flicker in his eyes— the kind of pain that had been absent even when he’d been bleeding on the road. But Nesta ignored it, refused to linger on how her chest was aching, how a wrongness suddenly settled in her bones, urging her to turn back— to turn to him as though he were the sun, and she’d just fallen out of orbit.

Glancing to the door, Nesta took up her basket - damned axe head and all - and straightened her cloak. But before she left, she allowed herself one last look at him— the powerful warrior still seated on that tiny stool, the man who had been so utterly, utterly at her mercy, looking at her as though he wanted nothing more than to beg her to stay.

And she hoped he didn’t, because if he did—

Gods save her, she wasn’t certain she’d be able to say no. 

So as she neared the door, Nesta paused. For just the briefest of moments, she paused. Turned to look at him over her shoulder and said, even though it hurt, “You can’t give me what I want, Cassian.”

She tried not to sound mournful or longing, but it crept into her tone anyway. She tried to ignore how every single nerve in her body was begging her, pleading with her, to turn back, to let him take her away. Far, far away.

Instead, she didn’t wait for an answer before she stole out of that stable altogether, and when she found Tomas standing in the courtyard, as the sight of him made her recoil, she ignored the pulling in her chest— ignored whatever it was that was tugging her back towards that stable, as though she’d left her entire world behind. 

And though she heard the stable door open again behind her, the creaking hinges and the scrape of wood on a stone floor, she didn’t look back.

Didn’t turn, not even when she heard the sound of wings, a breath of wind brushing her cheek as she heard the sound of him leaving. 

And only when the sound of wings had faded away entirely did Nesta finally glance behind— finding the skies above entirely empty. 

Tagging:

@hiimheresworld @highladyofillyria @wannawriteyouabook @infiremetotakeachonce @melphss @hereforthenessian

(Also... the apothecary is based on a real one in Yorkshire, one with a starry ceiling that I actually posted about here! It's also the far right picture in the little mood board at the top too, because why not.)

#nessian #nessian fic #begged & borrowed time

[aninsecurewriter]

100 must-read books!

This is a list of books considered "must-reads" from various lists and online posters. I'll be reviewing them as I go but mainly keeping track of what I have and haven't read here.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Matilda by Roald Dahl

The Secret History by Donna Tart

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Norwegian Wood bt Haruki Murakami

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Ulysses by James Joyce

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Beloved by Toni Morrison

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Macbeth by Shakespeare

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by J.R.R Tolkien

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

London Fields by Martin Amis

Sherlock Holmes and the The Hound of the Baskerville's by Arthur Conan Doyle

My Man Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Gladys Aylward the Little Woman by Gladys Aylward

Mindnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Dissolution by C.J Sansom

The Time Machine by H.G Wells

Winnie the Pooh (complete collection) by A.A Milne

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Dracula by Bram Stoker

All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Misery by Stephen King

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis

The Shining by Stephen King

The Odyssey by Homer

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson

Tell No One by Harlan Coben

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

#books #reading #literature #100 -must reads #challenge

[ayrodynamic]

"My Fortress" by Rhys Ayr-Cullen

In the heart of my castle, my fortress, my home, I'm the king and the prisoner, in silence I roam. A tower so high, yet a dungeon so deep, In the chambers of solitude, my vigil I keep.

Windows for eyes, yet they stare into nought, Scared of the chaos, the outside world brought. Barricades bolstered, yet I'm full of fright, Dreading the touch of the cold, cruel light.

Walls closing in, as the whispers arise, A symphony of fear in desolate disguise. My heart races fast, like a wild drum beat, In sync with the panic that echoes defeat.

Doors are my guards, they stand tall and trim, Safeguarding me from a world too grim. Agoraphobia's shroud drapes over me, Invisible chains, yet I'm far from free.

Reflections in mirrors, now ghosts in the glass, Miserably they echo the world as it was. Unseen, unheard, I'm a phantom's sigh, Alone in my fortress, where time passes me by.

Every tick of the clock, every echo of fear, Is a voice in the silence, only I can hear. Shadows of memories, dancing, they glide, Only companions in this perpetual hide.

Here in the echoes of my self-made cell, Resides the beast of fear, that within me dwells. A dragon of dread, breathing fire so cold, Feasting on freedom, in the stories untold.

Yet, a spark remains, a flicker of light, A call to the courage, lost deep in the night. For fear may be fierce, and loneliness vast, But even the darkest of nights will not last.

Here in my castle, my fortress, my home, In the heart of my terror, a desire to roam. To conquer the beast, to break the chain, To face the world, to dance in the rain.

And though I may tremble, as the panic unwinds, There's a hope, an echo, in the back of my mind. That the doors may open, the sunlight spill in, And on that day, my journey re-begins.

#agoraphobia #anxiety disorder #anger issues #panic disorder #ptsd #mental health #social anxiety #mental wellbeing #therapy

[mmvalentine]

Fifty-Six part 3 | Feysand

Okay last one, the smut finale. There's still no plot, blame @asteria-of-mars it's her birthday and this is what she asked for 🤪

Part 1 Part 2

Chapter 3: Return of the King

After that, Feyre suggested they not have males in the house for a while, and Rhys grudgingly agreed. Feyre had Mor around to help with the map she was making, and Rhys was writing a letter on the other side of the library.

The peace lasted for all of twenty minutes, until Mor said “Oh, Feyre you’ve got an ink smudge on your cheek.” Feyre swiped at her face. “No, not there, it’s… never mind, I got it.” Mor licked her thumb and rubbed the offending mark. And Rhys was shoving her bodily out of the room.

“Oh come on!” Mor wailed at the closed door. She thumped her fist against the wood, before storming out grumbling under her breath. Rhys did not get their clothes completely off before he was fucking Feyre against the door.

Amren, of course, refused to be Rhys’s next victim.

“No,” she had said flatly when they asked.

“I need exposure therapy!” Rhys said. “I’m sure I can get this bond thing under control.”

“And he wouldn’t dare mess with you,” Feyre added.

“Boy, get this through your head. You’re newly mated, and you can’t be around other people right now. So go hole up in the townhouse or the cabin or wherever you people live, and call me when your brain is functional.” Rhys opened his mouth, but Amren cut him off. “Until then, stop forcing us to be around all this lovey-dovey, over-possessive, hyper-hormonal shit. Now get the fuck off my doorstep.”

So they winnowed home, and when they got to their bedroom Feyre turned and stared at Rhys with her arms folded.

“Don’t say it,” Rhys warned.

“I told you!” Feyre yelled.

“I said don’t say it,” her mate sulked.

“I told you you weren’t ready!”

“You did.”

“I told you we should have stayed at the cabin another week!”

“Yes.”

“And now our friends won’t have a bar of us!”

“No.”

“Well??”

“Well, don’t stand there and pretend like I’m the only one affected by this thing!”

Feyre stared at him. “I might be affected, but at least I still have some semblance of self-control.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Rhys stiffened all over, and a mask Feyre had not seen for a long time settled itself over his lovely features. The air cooled so fast it took her breath away a little.

“Is that so?” Rhys asked. Dangerously soft.

“Of course,” Feyre said, but it did not come out as certain as she wanted it to. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening yet.

Rhys put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head to one side. There was a steely glint in his eyes, and for a minute Feyre wondered whether she had made him angry. She felt the bond to see if she could get a better reading on him, but all that came back was a dark and pulsing energy.

Rhys walked slowly toward her, and Feyre found herself backing away.

“You’re perfectly in control, are you darling?” he asked. Feyre gasped and put her hands out as her back hit a wall. Rhys was now towering over her, power and shadows coiling around him like black smoke. He lifted a hand, and his fingertips were onyx talons. He hooked the claw of his index finger in Feyre’s neckline, and dragged it downward, tearing fabric like it was paper. All the way to her navel. Feyre shivered as the air hit her bare skin. Rhys bent his head and ghosted his lips along the shell of her ear. “Shall we test that theory, you and I?”

Rhys's gaze traveled down her torn dress and back up to her lips, and Feyre felt the hot line of it searing her skin. He moved his head, inches from hers, and she thought he might kiss her but instead he just moved a curl behind her ear. Feyre's heart beat fast, half willing him to touch her and half willing him to let her go.

And then he leaned in and took soft, slow, sucking bites: behind her ear lobe, against the side of her throat, in the hollow at the base of her neck, in between her breasts. As he did so, his hand slid up her thigh, and he stroked her softly through her underwear. Feyre whimpered. His free hand landed on the wall above her head, and now he was watching her with eyes that burned as the fingers between her legs moved lightly up and down. Made small circles against the cotton. Feyre let out a shuddering breath, and sank down a little further, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze but unable to look away.

Rhys stood up straight again, leaning his forearms on the wall either side of her face and her thighs clenched together at the loss of contact. “Now, Feyre darling,” he said. His breath blew against her face like an ocean breeze, and Feyre's eyes glazed over. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he watched her. “I know you’re rather new around here, but I’m going to have to teach you a lesson in control.”

Without warning, Rhys ducked down and picked Feyre up under the thighs. She yelped and grabbed a hold of his shoulders, and Rhys put her down on the bed. Smoothed her limbs down, then vanished her ruined dress with a thought.

“So,” Rhys said. He lay beside her, ankles crossed and propped up on his elbow. He trailed a finger from the tip of her nose, over her lips, all the way down her sternum. “Since you are so unaffected by this bond of ours, and I am nought but a wastrel of a male buffeted by the tides of my desire, you can demonstrate for me the virtues of self-restraint.” Rhys lifted her arms above her head. “You’re going to keep your hands there, until I say you can move them. And if you don't I'll tie you up so you can't. Think you can manage that, my sweet?”

Feyre lifted her chin. “Of course,” she said. This game was new. But she was fairly certain that after the way Rhys had been behaving all week, she could take him.

“Good girl,” Rhys purred, and then his finger kept moving, down her stomach, circling around but not touching her clit, and then deep inside her. Feyre moaned. “I do love you naked,” he said. “Laid out on the bed for me like this. Already dripping for me. Mine to play with.”

“And you?” Feyre panted. She eyed his jacket meaningfully.

“Why Feyre darling, this is an exquisite suit. I think I’ll keep it on for now.” And he started moving his hand, adding his thumb over her clit. Feyre’s eyes rolled back as his free hand cupped her left breast, and his closed his mouth over her right. His tongue flicked over her nipple in time with the movement of his fingers, and Feyre started to unravel under his touch.

“Oh and Feyre?” Rhys said, lifting his face but speeding his fingers.

“Mmmm?”

“You’re not to come unless I tell you.”

Feyre’s eyes popped open at that, and she opened her mouth to protest but then he curled his fingers, pressing hard against the most sensitive spot inside her and she had to bite down hard on her lip not to climax on the spot.

“Good girl,” Rhys said again, and that was it. She was going to obey. She would earn his praise, and prove him wrong, and win the game.

If you don’t want to play anymore, a soft voice said in her mind. Just say ‘sunrise.’ And I’ll stop and take care of you. Feyre nodded, and bucked her hips into his hand.

Rhys chuckled, and put his lips on her pussy. Sucked her clit into his mouth while his fingers worked inside her, and she could feel herself soak his hand. Rhys confirmed it when he groaned against her. “So fucking wet,” he murmured. “Give it all to me honey.” The vibration of his groan traveled all the way up her spine, and his free hand smoothed up toward her neck. He gripped her throat, just lightly, just enough to hold her down on the bed. And then squeezed harder when it made her moan. Her hands, remaining above her head, curled around the top edge of the mattress.

“Is that good, love?” Rhys asked her.

“Yes,” Feyre mouthed. “Yes, yes, so good….”

“You taste perfect, do you know that?” Rhys said, before rubbing the flat of his tongue fast against her clit. Feyre cried out, release bursting before her eyes- and Rhys withdrew. Took his hands and his mouth off her and she was mewling and writhing on the bed.

“You weren’t going to come, were you darling?” Rhys asked, head cocked to one side.

“Nnn… no,” she stuttered.

“Because we had an agreement,” he went on. “And you have such control as to not be trifled with a little orgasm delay. Right?”

Feyre nodded, her eyes closed and her hips still searching for him.

“Good,” he said. “Say, is rather warm in here, don’t you think?”

Rhys stood and, very casually, removed his jacket, taking care to drape it carefully over an arm chair. Then he stood at the end of the bed and took off his shirt, taking his time over the buttons while Feyre watched him like a starveling.

“Roll over on your stomach,” he said, and she did so. Rhys hummed his approval. “There’s that beautiful ass,” he said. He dropped to his knees at the end of the bed, and squeezed his hands over her backside. “No one has an ass like yours, darling dear.” While he kneaded her flesh, he tugged her back toward him and started eating her out from behind. Feyre moaned his name, and was rewarded with a deep push of his tongue inside of her. Meanwhile, one of his hands wandered down to the seam of her, and his thumb rubbed against her asshole. Feyre cried out at the new sensation, and her hands scrabbled at the sheets in front of her. She rocked her hips on his tongue, and tried to tilt her pelvis to get friction on her clit, too.

It was all so much. It was delicious. The pleasure curled tight in her belly as the three pressure points collided, and she was lost, lost in the swirling heat and honey and…

And then nothing at all as Rhys pulled back yet again. Feyre cried out in disappointment so sharp it almost hurt, and Rhys clicked his tongue.

“Now now dove, you’re not even trying to hold back.” He spanked her hard across the backside and stars burst before her eyes. “Where’s that self-control I’ve heard so much about?”

Rhys sat on the edge of the bed and kicked his boots off. “Roll back over and keep those hands up.” He removed the rest of his clothes, folding them equally neatly with the jacket. When he turned back to Feyre, she couldn’t help it. She looked down at his hips. At the rock hard length of him. Rhys grinned toothily.

“Oh, so that’s what you want,” he said, like it was only just occurring to him. He knelt on the bed, straddling her waist. “But darling you promised me. You won’t come until I say.” Feyre nodded.

“I won’t,” she whispered. Rhys smoothed his thumb over her bottom lip gently.

“I know,” he said. And then pushed two fingers into her mouth. Feyre sucked hard on them as he dragged then back past her lips and then reached behind to touch his wet fingers to her still-throbbing clit. Feyre lifted her hips to his touch, relieved that the contact had returned. Then with his free hand Rhys guided his cock to her lips.

Feyre licked at the head of him, reaching all that she could with her hands still above her head. Rhys groaned slowly, moved the tip of his cock back and forth over her tongue while the fingers between her legs slid inside of her. Feyre craned her neck to try and take more of him into her mouth, and was gratified when Rhys’s eyes slid closed momentarily and he moved his hips to slide further in. Feyre’s grip on the mattress tightened, fighting the urge to wrap her hand around around the base of him. Instead, she tried to move her head back and forth, range of motion very limited in this position. Rhys’s hand cupped the back of her head and held her up while he started fucking into her mouth, his fingers in her pussy speeding up at the same time, so she was being filled twice over. Rhys added another finger, and ground the heel of his palm against her clit while she sucked him off, and this time when her climax built, Feyre clamped down hard on it.

She tried to concentrate on swirling her tongue around Rhys’s head, focusing on his pleasure instead of hers. But when he moaned her name, she found herself in deeper peril than before.

“Cauldron fuck, Feyre,” Rhys groaned. “You feel incredible around my cock. Just wanna keep fucking your pretty mouth like this until I come,” he said. “Can you take more? Can I fuck your throat a little?” Rhys pushed further in and Feyre’s eyes watered, but she took it. “Fuck yes, Feyre. So good. So good taking my cock like this.”

She wanted him to come first. Surely if he came then she would be allowed to. But the dirty talk was turning her on like crazy, and she tried to hold her hips still to cool some of the heat off. Rhys was having none of that. He pushed a third finger inside her, and the sudden stretch pushed her over the edge. Feyre tried to hide it, but couldn’t stop her body from clenching and shaking beneath him.

Quick as a flash, Rhys had gotten off her, rolled her over and slapped her hard on the ass. Feyre gasped and sobbed as her climax was cut off.

“You wicked thing!” Rhys scolded. He sat down the edge of the bed and dragged her face down so her ass was across his lap, and then landed a spank with each word of his next sentence. “Didn’t- I- tell- you- not- to- come!” And then a final slap sang out right over her desperate pussy. Feyre cried out, and tears filled her eyes as her skin was shot through with electricity all over. She was over-sensitised everywhere; the air was too cold between her legs and the sheets were too rough on her skin.

“Rhys please!” Feyre screamed.

“Oh please is it?” Rhys asked, incensed. “You deliberately disobey instructions and now you’re asking for favours?” He rubbed circles against her clit, but then as she lifted her hips, spanked her pussy again.

"Oh! No don't- please, please Rhys please," she blurted as she was left cold yet again.

He slid out from under her, then pulled her hips up again so she was on all fours. “Fine,” he said coldly, and then lay on his back with his head between her knees. Pushed down on her lower back and held her there so that her pussy was in his face, and then sucked hard against her clit.

But it was too much now, she wanted him to touch her but needed him to slow down.

“Not so much,” she gasped. Rhys ignored her, moved his fingers inside her again at an alarming pace while he continued to suckle against her clit. Feyre’s elbows gave and she dropped to her forearms. Her body had started to shake now, and Rhys's tongue was relentless.

“You’ll take what you’re given,” Rhys said. He gave her a cruel smile. “Since you wanted it so badly, pet.” Underneath her, he slid up the bed to take her nipple in his teeth. She was dragged down his body, and felt him absolutely everywhere. The sensation piled up, and Feyre was falling apart at the seams. His tongue rolled the hardened point like he had her clit, and all the while his fingers pumped inside her. Feyre tried to move but he held her tight against his body.

Rhys pushed up again, and now he was shoving her hips down against his and grinding his hard length against her. She was coating him with her wetness, clenching everything as her pussy was slid over and over the ridges of him but not where she needed it. The tip of an index finger pushed into her ass, and his other hand was sliding along her scalp to fist in her hair. His nails scratched that back of her head, and Feyre didn’t know what feeling was coming from where, couldn’t find focus, couldn't stop shivering.

“Too much,” she gasped. “Please, please Rhys.”

“What do you need, honey?” Rhys asked. He continued to slide his cock up and down her bare, drenched pussy while her eyes rolled in her head. “You need to be fucked?” Feyre couldn’t even manage to nod. “You need to come?” Feyre just wept while she tried to hold her body up over Rhys’s. “Mating bond a little rough there, is it darling?”

“Yes,” Feyre babbled. “Yes, it hurts, I need you, please oh fuck please...”

“You know, you look gorgeous undone,” Rhys crooned, and then he rolled them over, grabbed a hold of her hips and slammed his cock into her, again and again and again, fucking her hard and fast like maybe, just maybe he had been torturing himself a little, too.

"Holy fuck," he groaned. "Fuck you're perfect, perfect and mine."

But Feyre didn't hear him. She was stretched and filled and the didn't know anything except for the pounding repeating and repeating. Her vision blacked out and the pleasure exploded behind her eyelids, and the unbearable pressure finally ignited, pulling her right off the bed with its force. By the time Rhys was coming too, Feyre’s screams had gotten so high they’d lost their sound, and all that could be heard was her name falling off Rhys’s lips as he shuddered his climax.

Feyre lay, completely spent and near comatose on the bed. Rhys pressed reverent kisses to her lips, her chest, her stomach.

“You can come now,” he said, voice sparkling with amusement. Feyre was going to roll he eyes, but then he kissed her slowly right over the clit and to her great surprise, she actually came again on his lips. Just a little.

When she had come down, she was sure she was dead. Rhys pulled her into his arms and kissed the back of her shoulder.

“Okay,” she mumbled. “Maybe I don’t have any self control either.” Rhys chuckled into her neck.

“It’s okay love,” he said. “We’ll work on it.” He slid a hand behind her head and gently massaged her there. “Besides,” he said. “I’m pretty sure we’ve been given orders to stay home and fuck.”

Feyre laughed, but winced as it tugged at her exhausted muscles.

“Oh poor darling,” Rhys said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Was I little rough with you?” His free hand stroked soothingly over her flank.

“Yes,” Feyre sighed. “It was divine.”

“I love you,” Rhys whispered, and then sleep claimed her.

****

And that's the end. Just had to squeeze in some of Liz's favourite CoN!Rhys for the final chapter there, and yes I am a cheeseball and named this chapter after Liz's *other* love. I rather like the idea of king of the nightmare court, don't you? Happy birthday darling xxx

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-loml @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @thebonecarver @rowaelinismyotp @loosingdreams @whythefuckdoiexist @inejsarrow @swankii-art-teacher @sjmships @courtofjurdan @teddytdr @positivewitch @thalia-2-rose @darling-archeron @rapunzel1523 @fairchildjace @philosophorumaurum02 @story-scribbler @allthecolorsneverseen @asteria-of-mars @fandomstalker27 @realbookloverproblems

#feysand #feysand fic #acotar #liz's birthday present #oh so much smut #the most smut i think i've ever written in one go #what if i've used up all my smut? #i think i should be banned now #anyway happy birthday angel!!

[stars-falling]

3 for the prompts with Feysand please if you would be so kind! I need me some angst! 😂💖

Thanks for the prompt❤️

Prompt: I’m dying and I’m confessing my love for you

Send me a prompt from this list

Read here on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come, gentle night

Two households, both alike in dignity

(In fair Prythian, where we lay our scene),

Sacrifice.

War requires sacrifice.

And all they wanted to do was live life without fear.

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

The war that raged around them had been fought for centuries. Ancient grudges that never died. And here, Feyre sat surrounded by bloodshed, holding Rhysand in her arms.

They should not have met. They should not have stayed together. They were on opposite sides of this war. Feyre’s former lover was a general in this war. But against all the odds they had found each other. Two stars in the sky destined to collide.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;

“Stay with me, Rhys. Stay with me.”

Feyre tried to stand. Blood leaked from the bullet wound on her arm. She hooked her arms under Rhy’s arms and attempted to drag him away from the fight. She made it to a side room before she was stopped.

“Feyre! What the hell are you doing here?”

It was a Spring Court soldier. He took in the scene before him, a bloodied Feyre dragging the dying enemy away from the battle.

“What are you doing with him?”

The soldier clicked the safety off his gun and aimed it at Rhys’ unconscious body. A scream tore through Feyre.

“NO!”

Feyre dropped Rhys and launched herself at the soldier. He did not move, frozen by the turn of events. She knocked him down and brought her knife from her belt and down onto the soldier’s chest. There was a small sound behind them.

“Feyre, don’t.”

The knife hovered above the soldier, seconds away from ending his life. She turned to see Rhys attempt to raise his head. The knife clattered to the floor. She rushed over, her hands ghosting over his body.

“Oh my god! Rhys, what can we do? They found us. They found us!” Feyre was sobbing as she reached the final sentence. Behind her the soldier ran. Rhys lifted a trembling hand to her cheek.

“I know, Feyre. I know.”

It had all happened so quickly. They had met at the 2nd rendezvous point. Rhys had requested the meeting on their forbidden phones. He had something to tell her, he had said, something important. She had rushed over, making sure she wasn’t followed. She entered the abandoned warehouse and had hurtled to the black-clad man that stood in the centre.

“Rhys, is something wrong? Is someone hurt?”

He chuckled before pulling her into a hug.

“Calm down. No one is hurt.”

Feyre let out a sigh.

Death was a constant companion in their life. They had been born into rival gangs and had met when they had been sent to scout the same party. Instead of killing each other on sight, which was suggested and encouraged, they had taken a moment to introduce themselves. Thus begun the covert operation to escape the violent life they lived. Rhys had introduced Feyre to his inner circle and they had started the plan to escape the country and begin new lives. It required funds (quietly siphoned from each gang), vehicles (also stolen) and complete secrecy. But apparently, the latter had been thoroughly compromised.

Rhys and Feyre had been updating each other on certain parts of their mission when an armed team from each gang had stormed the building. A battle had begun straight away, bodies already piling high. They had attempted to run, but Rhys had been shot in the stomach by a Spring Court general with golden hair.

Rhys lay in her arms, crimson blood leaking from his body.

“Feyre,” he said, his hand on her cheek. “I needed to tell you something.”

Feyre lowered her head, sobbing through clenched teeth and trying desperately to staunch the blood. “You are not going to die on me. I won’t allow it.”

“I love you, Feyre. I have loved you since the day I first laid eyes on you. I will love you until my soul has faded. My heart belongs to you. I wanted to tell you before, I really did. But it didn’t seem right. I was going to wait until we were on the plane to our new life. We were going to have that life together. We would find your sisters and we would settle down. We could have a family.

“I uncovered information that Tamlin was coming to take you. Force you to marry him. I came to warn you, to help you escape. Because I love you, Feyre. I just want you to be happy.”

Rhys hand fell away from her face and brought it to his stomach, where he was bleeding out quickly.

“Go, Feyre. Escape. Live.”

“No! I refuse to leave you!”

Two soldiers stormed into the side room where they resided. Feyre picked up the Spring Court soldier’s discarded gun and fired off two shots. Two more bodies fell to the floor.

Feyre grabbed Rhys’s radio and opened a channel.

“Shadowsinger, we are at rendezvous point 2! Rhys is down and forces have stormed the building. We are in the side storage room. We need extraction ASAP!”

Silence filled the room as they waited for a reply.

“Copy that, cursebreaker. We are on our way. Hold tight.”

Relief cascaded through Feyre as if she had been hit by lightning.

She returned to Rhys.

“Hold on, you prick. You are not dying! Help is on its way.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his.

“I love you too you idiot. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

A shout came from the main warehouse and boots thundered towards them.

“Hold on Rhys. Help is coming.”

Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

The door broke down and someone entered. Their golden hair was matted with blood and their Spring Court emblem shone in the dying light.

“Kill the traitor.”

A gunshot echoed throughout the building.

The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,

And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 1,063

#feysand #feyre x rhysand #feyre archeron #rhysand #human au #dystopian au #angst #angst angst angst #death #tw: gun violence #the courts are at war #romeo and juliet inspired/referenced #come gentle night #lily writes

[resetmypatientviolence]

No Script (Prince Hamid x MC)

Pairing: Prince Hamid x MC (Pippa) [Faceclaim: Alia Bhatt]

Word Count: 1,368

Rating: T

Warnings: None/Kissing

Summary: Behind the scenes, Pippa and Prince Hamid have long abandoned the script. And this time, there isn't a bang to stop the one thing-- the only thing-- that feels natural since her world’s been turned upside down. 

Suggested Song Accompaniment: Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata

Notes: It’s time for some Prince Hamid love, all. Writing in this genre isn’t my style, but I hope I served this fic well. It’s perhaps a bit more saucy than the time allows... As always, thank you for reading!  MASTERLIST

“Then, I shall present you with this ring as a token of my undying affection and ask you the honor of becoming my wife…” Pippa, say Pippa. “Madeline.”

He does not say her name, but Pippa is lost in his dark eyes, the practicing actors voices far and distant, Pippa and Prince Hamid backstage, acting out a tale of their own in the dim, crowded space that smells of oak and earth after a thunderstorm, rich and intoxicating; Prince Hamid’s glowing smile the brightest sight Pippa’s ever laid eyes on. More than the Edgewater Estate. More than the white of London. More than the sun.

It’s Prince Hamid and Pippa, the scripts been long since abandoned, utterly surrounded but so blissfully alone. If one were to see them, perhaps she would distangle from his truly chaste embrace– hands, so strong, holding her, as to not give the wrong impression of impropriety. Yet… her eyes drift to that smile, to his lips, soft and full.

A small movement brings her back to reality, eyes travelling up the planes of his face, olive, sunkissed skin smooth, crinkles in the corner of the eyes that she’s already dared to get lost in, heart in her throat, high above the brooch. He presses his fingers against her side, layers of dark blue fabric shifting. “I believe it is your turn for a line, Lady Pippa.”

“Indeed,” Pippa breathes. In the moment-- a single, blissful moment that rushes in all at once, with a sweet scent of cloves and cinnamon-- she’s acutely aware of how close their faces are, inches apart-- closer than any man has been before.

But Prince Hamid is a bold man, one who sends shivers through her body trapped in lace, setting a fire that has never been there before, feelings that she cannot fathom to describe. Yet, should you, Lady Pippa? “Of course, my dear. Of course I shall be your wife, it’s a question you should have known an answer to, my dearest love.” Should she touch a hand to his cheek? To feel the silken skin of his cheek, the gentle pebbled stubble? This is merely acting, is it not? Yet...

The air is heavy and warm, or perhaps it is merely his comforting presence as he holds Pippa in his arms, his breath on her cheek. Prince Hamid’s eyes are dark, and if Pippa could look in a mirror, she would see the same of herself, hearts beating out of their chests. “And now…” Prince Hamid begins, eyes lingering on her lips, as she did to him before in the short few seconds that last an eternity, an unspoken lifetime between the two. He takes her hand, offering a squeeze, thumb leaving a trail of fire as it brushes along her own. “I think the script would say we kiss…”

But where is the script?

Long and forgotten, a kiss nought to be found, but Pippa leans forward, daring to rest a hand on his chest, luxurious fabric soft and fine, pressed close to his chest to where she can feel every heartbeat against her hand. Hamid’s heartbeat, so strong and clear, beating in tune to hers, their dark, imploring eyes saying that very same thing to each other, no words needed: No, this is not an act. We do not need scripts.

As if compelled by a force unknown, their eyes shut at the same time their lips meet. Pippa sucks in a breath. So, this is a kiss. Not a kiss upon her cheek or hand. But a kiss a gentleman should make when he intends for a lady to be something more than a lady he shall meet in passing. This is for a lady he intends to hold until the sun rises. This is a moment that only two should share when they yearn for something more, something larger than themselves.

This is her first kiss.

So and tender, curious, bodies frozen until they thaw, Prince Hamid’s hand that traced a tantalizing line on her palm on her cheek now, fingers grazing the loose hair along her temple. Noses pressed against each other, Pippa follows his motions when the caress of his lips part, gently-- so gently-- pull her lower lip between his teeth.

Her fingers curl against his chest and his hand against her back slides up to the back of her head and draws her closer, warmth and fire and spice and everything bursting forth from the world contained within this kiss, long eyelashes against her cheek. Their lips move in unison, neither willing to part. Every motion, every gentle touch against her body from Prince Hamid is a new and tender feeling-- yet one where fire and lighting dare to swirl into her veins, from head to toe, burning the brightest in her midsection-- yearning.

Yes, yes yearning. Yearning for a taste, her tongue daring to trace his lower lip-- only to meet his, another shock of wonder dancing through her body, impossibly close to Prince Hamid. His fingers travel down the back of her neck-- over the lace-- then back into her hair, winding them into her curls. It’s a kiss that could last forever, Prince Hamid’s tongue caressing hers, both offer a little nip on the others lip, his hand on her side now, lowering her-- body warm and safe in his embrace-- to the floor, on the assortment of pillows that is under them.

Her hand strokes his cheek-- and there she can touch the pebbled stubble, the high planes of his cheekbone-- delicate bone--, and feel the pure warmth contained within the man that is bold and bright Prince Hamid, one that burns like the sun when she was a child and would play under its welcomed warmth, one that lasted well through the night, and dream of meeting her Prince to whisk her away.

But Prince Hamid is no sun. He will not fade away into the darkness of night. No, he is here and she is here, too, bodies as one through a simple, slow, and stunning first kiss-- lips finally (but yet, there is no finally, for she will never get enough) parting, eyes slowly blinking the other into existence.

His thumb runs over her own cheek, smiles on their lips, world fuzzy and hazy and everything right with Prince Hamid. With care, a ghost of his fingertips, eyes dark and eternal, he traces her lips. “Pippa…” he breathes, fingers tracing her jaw now, tingles abound. “Pippa… say something, anything…”

And she goes to speak, but the words cannot come out. Her smile falls, words caught in her throat. No, no, she thinks, the world-- her world-- succumbing to the haze, her name, Pippa, Pippa, Pippa, still on his lips as he fades, voice quieter with every passing second-- that too, lasts an eternity-- this lifetime, however, real. Hers.

“Pippa, darling,” whispers Duke Richards, bearing a smile for the crowd in the pews. “I believe it’s your turn for a line, my dearest.”

And she gulps, looking at the eyes upon her-- none that she cares to know. None that she wants to be here. None that are Prince Hamid’s, long gone, only a fantasy in her mind. The only thing keeping her-- “I do,” she whispers and the Duke squeezes her hands and she cannot avoid his steely, hungry eyes-- cold and harsh and nothing like her daydreams.

The words are blurry-- as is her vision, tears that other would think are from love, her marriage to a proper man securing the Edgewater Estate-- but it is of loss. Of want. Of desire, but not for the man leaning in. No.

It’s for the man she could only dream of; the Prince she wants nothing more than to sweep her away to lands far away, not caring for the estate any longer-- why want for power and money without true love and--

Duke Richards presses his lips to hers-- and it is nothing like the daydream, the fantasy, of her first kiss. Cold and hard and devoid of anything she could claim to call affection-- no it is not.

Ah, she thinks, eyes shut tight, this is a first kiss. 

Disclaimer: All characters and rights belong to Pixelberry Studios. 

Permatag: @youwontlikewherewewillgo, @mfackenthal, @hhiggs, @jadedpixiescribbles, @ashtonmore, @pbchoicesobsessed, @enmchoices @the-everlasting-dream, @hopefulmoonobject, @krisnicjack, @museofbooks, @ladynonsense, @innerpostmentality, @liam-rhys, @thatcatlady0716, @lizeboredom, @choicessa, @boneandfur, @tmarie82, @miss-cordonia-deactivated201808, @speedyoperarascalparty, @thatspicegirlssong, @christopher-powell, @zigthetwig, @craftytacotrashdream, @client327

Fic tag: @sunflowergirl-25, @kinkykingliam, @brightpinkpeppercorn, @annarozenberg

#desire and decorum #desire & decorum #prince hamid x mc #playchoices #choices #desire and decorum fic #desire and decorum fanfic #playchoices fic #playchoices fanfic #prince hamid #drakewalkerwhipped fic #long post #prince hamid x pippa

[comeofage1]

A to Z Book Rec Tag

Thank you to the lovely @that-quirky-girl for tagging me, she recognises the book weakness in me. These books are all linked on goodreads, where I have an account, linked HERE.

# - #Junkie and #Rev by Cambria Hebert 

A - Adorkable by Sarra Manning

Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen 

Adulting 101 by Lisa Henry 

Alan Partridge: Nomad by Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) 

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith 

All the Single Ladies by Jane Costello 

And Call me in the Morning by Willa Okati 

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins 

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake 

Austenland by Shannon Hale 

B - The Backup Boyfriend by River Jaymes

Beauty by Robin McKinley 

The Best Corpse for the Job by Charlie Cochrane

Between Ghosts by Garrett Leigh 

Big Mouth, Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

Blame it on the Mistletoe by Eli Easton 

Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton 

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne 

Breakfast at Tiffanys by Truman Capote 

Breathe by Sloane Parker 

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh 

Bridesmaids by Jane Costello 

Brighton Rock by Graham Green 

C - Carry On by Rainbow Rowell 

Carry the Ocean by Heidi Cullinan 

The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jessica Rothenburg 

Caught! by JL Merrow 

Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles 

Chance to be King by Sue Brown 

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 

The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher 

The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

Cinder by Marissa Meyer 

Clear Water by Amy Lane  

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein 

Cold War by Keira Andrews 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black 

Collide by Riley Hart 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker 

Corkscrewed by MJ O’Shea 

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo 

Crossroads by Riley Hart 

The Crucible by Arthur Miller 

Crush by Richard Siken 

D - The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black 

Dash & Lily’s book of Dares by Rachel Cohn 

Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney 

Devoted by Sierra Riley 

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness 

Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy 

E - Eclipsed by Dominic Holland 

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine 

Emma - Jane Austen 

Epic Fail - Claire LaZebnik 

The Epic Love Story of Doug and Stephen by Valerie Z Lewis 

Every Move he Makes by Barbara Elsborg 

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande 

F - Fairest by Gail Carson Levine 

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by JK Rowling 

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy 

The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien 

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk 

Filthy Little Secret by Devon McCormack 

Fish Out Of Water by Amy Lane

Fish Stick Fridays by Rhys Ford 

Flash Burnout by LK Madigan

Flawless by Lara Chapman 

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman 

From What I Remember by Stacy Kramer 

The Future of Us by Jay Asher 

G - Gangsta Rap by Benjamin Zephaniah : 

Girl on the Run by Jane Costello

Glass Tidings by Amy Jo Cousins

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

H - Harry Potter by JK Rowling

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Helping Hand by Jay Northcote

A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne

Him by Sarina Bowen

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien 

Holly Lane by Toni Blake

Hostile Ground by LA Witt

Hot Head by Damon Suede 

Hottie Scotty and Mr Porter by R Cooper

How to Repair a Mechanical Heart by JC Lillis

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

A Hunted Man by Jaime Reese

Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

I - I Love the 80s by Megan Crane

If Only in My Dreams by Keira Andrews

Illegal Contact by Santino Hassell

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde 

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Inseparable by Chris Scully

An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley

J - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

 Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

K - A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

Know Not Why by Hannah Johnson

L - Law of Attraction by Jay Northcote

Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles

Liam Davis & The Raven by Anyta Sunday

Light from the Dark by Mercy Celeste

Lima Oscar Victor Echo and the Truth about Everything by Suki Fleet

The Little Book of Vegan Poems by Benjamin Zephaniah 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

M - Mark Cooper versus America by Lisa Henry

Mark of Cain by Kate Sherwood

Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter

Merry Christmas Mr Miggles by Eli Easton

Midwinter Night’s Dream by Eli Easton

More than This by Patrick Ness

Motel. Pool. by Kim Fielding 

Mrs Warren’s Profession by Bernard George Shaw

My Love Lies Bleeding by Alyxandra Harvey 

My Single Friend by Jane Costello

N - The Nearly-weds by Jane Costello 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn 

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

The Nothingness of Ben by Brad Boney

Noticed Me Yet? by Anyta Sunday

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Off Base by Annabeth Albert

Open Tackle by LC Chase

Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron

P - Passing Through by Jay Northcote

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Peter Pan by JM Barrie

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Pressure Head by JL Merrow

Pride and Modern Prejudice by AJ Michaels 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Private Eye by SE Culpepper

Promised Land by Adam Reynolds

Promises by Marie Sexton

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Q - The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

R - Rattlesnake by Kim Fielding

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

Rock Solid by Riley Hart

Roughing the Passer by Alison Hendricks

S - The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Shiny by Amy Lane

Shrinking Violet by Danielle Joseph

Shut your Face, Anthony Pace by Claire Davis

Silent by Sara Alva

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Skellig by David Almond

Skin Deep by Laura Jarratt

Slam! by JL Merrow

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

Sock it to me, Santa! by Madison Parker

Someday by Sierra Riley

Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

Spencer Cohen by NR Walker

Splintered by SJD Peterson

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Starter for Ten by David Nicholls

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Stay With Me by SE Harmon

Strong Side by Alison Hendricks

Sugar Creek by Toni Blake

Superhero by Eli Easton

T - The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

The Time of Our Lives by Jane Costello

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Tonight by Karen Stivali

Turkey in the Snow by Amy Lane

The Two Gentlemen of Altona by Lisa Henry

U - Unwrapping Hank by Eli Easton

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

V - The Vintners Luck by Elizabeth Knox

W - Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

The Walls of Troy by LA Witt

The Waste Land and Other Poems by TS Eliot

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

We were Feminists Once by Andi Zeisler

A Weekend With Mr Darcy by Victoria Connelly

Where he ends and I Begin by C Cardeno

Where the Lovelight Gleams by Kiera Andrews

Whiskey Business by Avon Gale

The Wish List by Jane Costello

Wonder by RJ Palacio

X - X-It by Jane George

Y - Y: The Last Man by Brian K Vaughan

You Against Me by Jenny Downham

Z - Zero at the Bone by Jane Seville

#Its longgggggggggggggg dudes #Amber I am sorry it took so long I couldn't narrow down so #this is the thing I made

[tuseriesdetv]

Noticias de series de la semana: Adiós a los hermanos Winchester

Renovaciones

ABC ha renovado The Conners por una segunda temporada

Netflix ha renovado Distrito salvaje por una segunda temporada

Sky Atlantic ha renovado Tin Star por una tercera temporada

HBO ha renovado High Maintenance por una cuarta temporada

CBC ha renovado Schitt's Creek por una sexta y última temporada

Cancelaciones

La decimoquinta temporada de Supernatural (The CW) será la última

Incorporaciones y fichajes

Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex, Mean Girls), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Tim Robbins (Mystic River, The Brink), Garrett Hedlund (Mosaic, Tron: Legacy), Yusra Warsama (Our Girl), Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips, Blade Runner 2049) y Matthew Alan (13 Reasons Why) protagonizarán la segunda temporada de Castle Rock, que se centrará en la historia de Misery. Serán Annie Wilkes, su hija Joy, Reginald 'Pop' Merrill, John 'Ace' Merrill, Nadia y Abdi Omar y Chris Merrill.

Miranda Richardson (Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter) se une al piloto de la precuela de Game of Thrones. Se desconocen detalles.

Jack Davenport (Smash) será el marido de Simone (Lucy Liu) en Why Women Kill. Sadie Calvano (Mom, The Package) será April, una joven camarera de espíritu libre que forja amistad con Beth Ann (Ginnifer Goodwin).

Kate Mulgrew (Orange Is the New Black, Star Trek: Voyager), Brett Gelman (Fleabag, Camping) y Natalie Paul (The Sinner, The Deuce) serán recurrentes en la tercera temporada de Mr. Mercedes.

Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey, Good Behavior) y Jaeden Martell (It, Masters of Sex) serán la esposa y el hijo de Andy Barber (Chris Evans) en Defending Jacob.

Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton, Smash) se une a The Many Saints of Newark, la película precuela de The Sopranos.

Anthony Mackie (Captain America, Altered Carbon) y Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, The Get Down) protagonizarán un episodio de la quinta temporada de Black Mirror.

Josh Charles (The Good Wife, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) será recurrente en The Loudest Voice como el marido de Gretchen Carlson (Naomi Watts).

Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd, Get Shorty) participará en un episodio de The Twilight Zone.

Colm Meaney (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Hell on Wheels), Paapa Essiedu (Kiri, Press) y David Bradley (The Straing, Game of Thrones) se unen a Gangs of London.

Matias Varela (Narcos) se une como regular a Raised by Wolves. Será Lucius, un soldado leal que pretende revertir el legado de su padre.

Michael Michele (Star, Queen Sugar) será recurrente en la segunda temporada de Dynasty como Dominique Deveraux.

Bridgit Mendler (Undateable, Good Luck Charlie) y Brent Morin (Undateable) serán Emmy y Matt, una nueva pareja de novios, en Merry Happy Whatever. Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody) y Hayes MacArthur (Angie Tribeca, Go On) serán Kayla y Sean, hermanos de Emmy e hijos de Don (Dennis Quaid). Adam Rose (Veronica Mars, Santa Clarita Diet) también se une a la serie.

Alba Baptista (A Impostora, Jogo Duplo) protagonizará Warrior Nun. Le acompañarán Tristán Ulloa (Fariña, Lucía y el sexo), Toya Turner (Dead Women Walking), Thekla Reuten (Lucky Man, Red Sparrow), Kristina Tonteri-Young, Lorena Andrea (Papillon, House on Elm Lake) y Emilio Sakraya (4 Blocks).

Chelsea T. Zhang (Andi Mack) se une como regular a la segunda temporada de Titans. Será Rose Wilson AKA Ravager. Chella Man será recurrente como Joseph Wilson AKA Jericho, el hijo de Deathstroke (Esai Morales).

Dan J. Johnson (Switched at Birth, Underemployed) y Tyler Lepley (The Haves and the Have Nots) se unen como recurrentes a P-Valley.

Pêpê Rapazote (Narcos, Shameless) y Alimi Ballard (Numb3rs, Queen Sugar) se unen como recurrentes a la cuarta temporada de Queen of the South.

Denny Love (Empire), Jay Lee (American Vandal), Sofia Vassilieva (Medium, Supergirl), Landry Bender (Fuller House, Best Friends Whenever), Uriah Shelton (The Glades, 13 Reasons Why) y Jordan Connor (Riverdale) se unen como regulares a Looking for Alaska. Serán Chip Martin, Takumi, Lara, Sara, Longwell y Kevin.

El rapero Stormzy será Kolawale, un papel creado para él, en Noughts and Crosses.

Donna Air y Ben Bailey se unen a la segunda temporada de The Split.

Emma Paetz (Final Girl, Gentleman Jack) se une como regular a Pennyworth. Será Martha Kane, futura Martha Wayne. Jessica Ellerby (Lovesick, Living the Dream) será recurrente como The Queen.

Posters

   Nuevas series

Netflix encarga seis episodios de The Queen's Gambit, limited series basada en la novela de Walter Tevis (1983), sobre una huérfana que es un prodigio del ajedrez durante la Guerra fría. Protagonizada por Anya Taylor-Joy (Split, The Witch) y escrita por Scott Frank (Godless, Logan).

HBO encarga la limited series Perry Mason protagonizada por Matthew Rhys (The Americans, Brothers & Sisters). Basada en el personaje de Erle Stanley Gardner, se centrará en una etapa anterior a las novelas y la serie de CBS (1957-1966), en 1932, con un caso de secuestro infantil. Producida por Rhys y Robert Downey Jr.

OWN ha encargado Cherish the Day, antología producida por Ava DuVernay (Queen Sugar, When They See Us) que narra el romance de una pareja con cada episodio centrándose en un día.

Netflix encarga diez episodios de una comedia creada y escrita por Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, The Office) y Lang Fisher (The Mindy Project, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) sobre la complicada vida de una adolescente india viviendo en Estados Unidos. Inspirada en la niñez de Kaling.

Fechas

La quinta temporada de Line of Duty se estrena en BBC One el 31 de marzo

Black Summer llega a Netflix el 11 de abril

Gentleman Jack se estrena en HBO el 22 de abril

La película de Deadwood se estrena en HBO el 31 de mayo

La segunda temporada de Yellowstone se estrena en Paramount el 19 de junio

The Politician llega a Netflix el 27 de septiembre

Tráilers y promos

Stranger Things - Temporada 3

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Temporada 2

Black Summer

Gentleman Jack

Deadwood

Godfather of Harlem

Riviera

#series tv #television

[saphushia]

i stayed up way too late finishing this i don't have a comment eat some gay shit ig

#this was supposed to be background practiceeee #nought lain #art #nought #oc #nought rhys #kind of lol #will i ever draw nought stuff that isn't these 2 homos? #we have yet to find out

[saphushia]

nothing weird about 2 dead boys holding hands in the woods :)

#i spent 3 days on this and im really proud of it!!! #i spent 3 days just so i could show a couple of boys holding hands <3 #that was literally the entire point of this lol #worth it #honestly i could spend even more time on it but i mean gotta stop somewhere #oc #art #nought #nought rhys #nought lain

[saphushia]

time for another doodledump fellas

#art #nought #nought lain #nought rhys #nought eino #nought dandy #nought isaac #nought romeo #nought gaelle #nought xander #oc

[saphushia]

<draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <draws my ocs> <dra

#character names should be in the captions if tumblr decides to be a functional website for once #edit: tumblr is in fact a piece of shit and just refuses to show captions #oc #art #yes i know half of these are rhys im love him #this isn't even all of it i have so much more especially if u count my sketchbook #i recently finished a sketchbook and so much of it is nought #nought #nought rhys #nought lain #nought xander #nought adrien #nought eino

[saphushia]

what the fuck is up i’ve been drawing almost exclusively oc design stuff for a new story idea. Xander has a pet tarantula named dysentery.

#also sorry to the people still waiting in my inbox hyperfixation waits for no one unfortunately #even when that hyperfixation is my own ocs skjghdkf #oc #nought #eino nought #zekiye nought #wendel nought #rhys nought #cole nought #xander nought #seren nought #mags nought #gaelle nought #adrien nought #lain nought #dandy nought #ada nought #undertakers nought #pantheon nought #art