[mystical-blaise]

Masterlist (By Fandom)

ACOTAR: Gwynriel: A Court of Whispers and Song 🌶️ Gwynriel: Dadriel Series (Ao3) Baby Take Me In Your Arms This Maniac's In Love With You 🌶️ Don't You Worry Child Shape Of You 🌶️ Kick It Out Cold Shower Watermelon Sugar I Can't Wait To Meet You 🌶️ The Name Game Care for Me Fear is not my Future Gwynriel: Dadriel's Daughter Series (Tumblr) Hand to Hold Keep Your Hands To Yourself Gwynriel: Drawn to you Forever A New Sensation 🌶️ Scars Run Deep Building a Mystery Night Moves Gwynriel Modern Holiday AU Series: Give Me Your Heart for Christmas Heart of the Matter (Valentine's Day w/ Elucien Bonus scene)

Elucien: I Hear Your Heartbeat in the Night 🌶️

ToG: DILFs of Erilea Series Hello, Witchling (Manorian) Hellas Help Him (Elorcan) 🌶️ Elorcan: Threads of Fate CC: Something Evil's Lurking in the Dark🌶️ Dec/Marc

Power Over Me (Quinlar one-shot) FBAA: ** Spoilers for TCOGB The Blood in the Air (Malik/Rev)** Horsewhipped (Poppy/Kieran Friendship)** Praying to the Porcelain Gods (Poppy/Kieran Friendship)**

Lux Series

I don’t expect a normal life. I just expect a life with you. (Daemon/Kat)**

**Spoilers for the Origin series in Chapter 2. Chapter 1 can be read after finishing the Lux series.

Origin Series (Lux Spinoff) **Spoilers for TBN Blue Christmas Castle on the Hill

[witch-and-her-witcher]

Hot and Clumsy | Elucien | Modern AU

“Don’t have sex with my sister.”

Feyre had warned him against falling into bed with her sister - but why hadn't she warned Lucien against the greater threat?

Of falling deeply, madly, inconceivably in love with Elain Archeron.

Part 1 (teen) | Part 2 (explicit)

Huge shoutout to @popjunkie42-blog and @wilde-knight for being my betas and cheer squad. <3

[broodybatboy]

Gwynriel Headcanons: Nights

Summary: Our favorite insomniacs really need to sleep. Preferably together. For @gwynrielweek2022 Imagination Running Wild

"Darkness in her abounds, and all that she inspires is nocturnal and profound."

Sleep schedule…. who? don’t know her ❌

Gwyn delays sleep with reading, training, and making up scenarios with her wild imagination.

Azriel is a quiet procrastinator and delays sleep with busy work, training, or analyzing his mind's catalog of information.

Their late-night rendezvous in the training ring become routine.

Gwyn likes to chatter and is definitely stalling to avoid sleep. He catches on to this almost immediately. He doesn't mind. Not one bit.

She catches on to his little lies too. She knows better than to push him.

Until...she has a terrible, awful, very bad day and is tired. Exhausted beyond belief. Mother above, can she just get a full night's sleep for once? He quietly confesses his own dreadful nights. Once they start, talking to each other is easy.

It’s like a self-help meeting of Insomniacs Anonymous. They share a quiet understanding of support. What’s keeping you up? What's on your mind? What worries and troubles are causing the restlessness?

Vulnerability doesn’t feel hard with someone who understands.

The first night they sleep together... they're nestled on the sofa. They spent the whole night talking and showing each other books. A shy smile and a blush when they realize they're basically horizontal. Neither of them ready to admit that they don't want the other to get up. That was the best sleep they've had in weeks (read more here...)

Eventually, these idiots realize they're perfect for each other.

Cuddling. There is lots and lots of cuddling.

Our baby Az is so starved for touch that he becomes the snuggliest and cuddliest little bat. He takes his role as big spoon very seriously.

He also loves when Gwyn is adorably stubborn and insists on cradling him. She loves feeling bigger than she actually is.

Their late-night chats become filled with giggles, cackles, and roaring laughs. Heated hot-button debates. Pillow talk takes on a literal meaning when one of them is mad. Other times, it’s sleepy mumbles and incoherent gibberish. And unguarded honesty with the one person who matters.

Gwyn sleeps by the window. She likes the cold breeze, the moon in all her glory, and turning to see the vastness of the world.

Azriel sleeps closest to the door. A force of habit. A form of self-preservation and instinct to throw himself at danger and meet menaces head-on. Now, he has someone worth protecting.

Teddy bear? Nah, how ‘bout a knife.

He gets her a blade. Well, he's gotten her several daggers and hand-knives and longswords. He urges her to keep the best one, the twin to his own, under her pillow.

Teddy the Knife

He will do anything to keep her safe. She feels it in the wrap of his arms. The blanket he pulls on her. The way he turns to check the door. The shield of his love.

Both are extremely light sleepers.

One night, they're startled by crashing sounds. Instantly, he shields her and she reaches for the weapon under his pillow. They realize it’s just their incredibly annoying housemates down the hall.

Gwyn puts the dagger down. All traces of sleep are gone. Now, both of them are fully awake busybodies.

They stare at each other. She rolls her eyes. He runs a hand down his face and releases an exasperated sigh. Oh, the torment of centuries of living with Cassian. Now, Cassian and Nesta.

A naked experiment has gone horribly wrong. Cassian is blaming Nesta. A book gets thrown. Screaming. Something is definitely broken beyond repair. Gwyn and Az laugh as bickering reverberate through the halls.

Gwyn: “Has Cassian always been this loud?”

Azriel: 🙄😤

Gwyn: “They sound like rabid animals.”

Azriel: "They sound like that in bed, too.”

Gwyn: “Mother above, Nesta’s getting louder. One way or another Cassian is going to leave her very hoarse tonight."

Azriel nearly falls off the bed with rumbling laughs.

He almost always favors when she sleeps first. At night is when he feels most safe. He whispers I love you's in the darkness. It’s raw sounding and full of pure emotion. It’s almost incredulous as if he can’t quite believe this is his reality. This is happening. His mate is sleeping in his arms.

Some mornings, Gwyn will wake up before him. His arm and wings are loosely draped around her. She will do her best to remain as still as possible

He's the loveliest thing she's ever seen. His hair is messy and ruffled. All his features are calm. There’s a gentleness to him that you don't see in the day. It’s only for her and this moment. His mouth hangs slightly open. His lips a bit swollen from all their kissing. She will lean and place a soft kiss and whisper how much she adores him. She sends a silent prayer to the ceiling, to the stars, to whoever will listen. Please keep him safe. Please keep him at peace. Just like this. Then, she is nuzzling back to the comfort of his embrace.

He smiles in his sleep.

He sleeps like a rock. Heavy and handsome. The unreal heat and magnetism of her wrapped around him all night. He doesn’t think or even dream. And if he does It’s just a series of nebulous flashes of her. Her face. Her body. Her laugh.

She sleeps like an angel. Ethereal and glorious. Her mind floats to all things good and beautiful. Her face is innocent. She clings to him protectively. A guardian.

He sleeps in his underwear. Gwyn’s preferred pajamas are his shirts. He goes absolutely mad the night she emerges in a far too revealing nightgown made of silk barely hanging off her with tiny straps

If only he had a blade to rip ‘em right off…

Most nights they sleep with nothing at all ;)

There’s the nights where she silently suffers. There’s no tears. A jolt out of bed and heavy breathing. All shock and realization. Some buried primal part of him understood the change in breathing, his senses and shadows heeding her every discomfort. He rubs his hand gently on her stomach. She turns and in seconds he's fully awake. He's hugging her. A comforting touch that brings her back to this world.

There's the nights his job takes its twisted burdensome toll. He's tired in the way that leaves him empty and cold. If he could collapse, he'd be crying on the floor. But she’s there waiting in his bed.

And on nights they’re apart. She’s still there. Her scent lingers on his sheets, his clothes, and he finds pieces of her. Strands of hair, a book, a hair ribbon, tidied up papers on his desk and a silly little joke scribbled and hidden in his reports

One day, he decides that he can't bear to be without her at night. He desperately wants to wake up with her every day.

Gwyn realizes that sleeping alone is cold and more often than not, miserable. She misses his messy hair, the fingertips on her bare skin, and the melody of his breath.

She confronts him. She politely proclaims that the nightly separation is ridiculous. She sights a rambling list of very thoughtful reasons. The only logical solution will be to permanently move in together.

She doesn’t get to finish her final point before he’s lifting her up with a beaming smile. He's already planning, already dreaming, already building their future.

Then, they move into their own room in the house he built for them on the outskirts of the city by sea. It’s a sanctuary. He built it so that she could face her massive window and have the best view. At night, she gets not one, but two moons. The moon in all her glory and the reflection in the sea.

Tracing circles absentmindedly. Fingers through hair. Forehead kisses. Strokes of arms. Buried in the chest. Tight squeezes. Protective arms over stomachs.

Gwyn and Azriel still don't sleep. But now…it’s because they have each other. Tangled up in their limbs and love.

And when they finally doze off, it’s a rhythm of their breaths like music. The comforting waves of the sea. Heartbeats in sync. One day, the gentle snore of their child. The sounds of their love.

Check out my other headcanons like this :) Coffee, Illyria, Touch , Cozy & Festive

[separatist-apologist]

The Wildest Winter

In the cracks of light, I looked for you

Summary: Viviane had not been Under the Mountain. As her childhood friend, Kallias had been protective of her to a fault over the years- had placed the sharp-minded female on border duty to avoid the scheming of his court. He didn't let her near Amarantha, either. Didn't let anyone get a whiff of what he felt for his white-haired friend, who had no clue- not one- that he had loved her his entire life.

Read More: AO3

Some things in life were a given. The Salten Mountains were the tallest peaks in Winter Court, the lake would always be nothing but solid, unblemished ice and Kallias could be counted on to wake Viviane up before even the sun. Kallias was like the snow, as far as she was concerned. It had always been there.

And always would be.

Just like her friend. Every memory she had was tainted by his presence. The son of a lord just as she was, they were far enough removed from the High Lord and his family that they could do as they pleased, but not so far from court that they could run as wild as they wanted. 

Viviane had never had to spend a day of her life without Kallias. He’d had to spend two. She liked to tease him about that at times, pulling a scowl from his familiar face. It was his face creeping into her bedroom as the clock struck midnight. Winter Solstice meant a day of celebrations, of feasts and listening to priestesses drone on and on while they all shivered outdoors.

But midnight meant Kallias would slip into her room with a gift, and they’d celebrate just the two of them. She couldn’t remember when or how the tradition had begun. Only that for the last decade and a half, she could count on him to lock her door the minute that last chime rang out.

Viviane sat up, watching the lords son step carefully through the dark. He was dressed in pajamas just as she was, his feet bare against the heated marble floors. Kallias’s white hair shone bright in the flickering firelight, his icy blue eyes bright with delight. 

She reached beneath her bed, her own silvery blonde hair creating a curtain around her face as she withdrew the gift she’d hidden from her parents days before. They wanted her and Kallias to stop sneaking around the way they did.

People at court talked. As if Viviane cared. Her and Kallias were friends, and if the others didn’t understand that, she could hardly be blamed. He’d never once touched her and she didn’t think he ever would. What they had was special, but when she tried to explain it to her parents, they merely rolled their eyes with exasperation.

Kallias sat on the edge of her bed, grinning ear to ear as she righted herself. In his lap was a pretty, amethyst wrapped box. “Did I wake you?” he asked, just as he always did.

“Yes,” she lied, letting him admire how much nicer her box was wrapped. “Did you wrap that in the dark?”

“As a matter of fact,” he agreed, his smile undimmed. “Father insists I will not disturb Lady Viviane from her sleep this year.”

“It’s nice to know there are still some gentlemen at court,” she agreed, offering him up her box. 

“Oh? Are you too old for gifts at midnight?”

Viviane was seventeen, Kallias nineteen. They stared at the other for a moment. “No,” she admitted. “I think I will be five hundred years old still waiting for you to creep through the door. You’ll have children and a wife—”

Kallias snorted. “I doubt it.”

“And still I will expect to see you.”

“As you should,” he agreed, his eyes focused intently upon her. She chose not to examine why, snatching the gift out of his lap. He chuckled softly, reaching for his own neatly wrapped gift.

His long fingers slid over the silver bow she painstakingly tied, head cocked as he admired it.

“You go to too much trouble each year,” he complained. “You don’t have to wrap it at all.”

“Of course I do,” she replied just a touch too smugly. “How else will I remind you of your many inadequacies?”

“Just open it, Viv,” Kallias ordered. That was the way of things. She went first, he second. His gift would be impossibly thoughtful and she’d feel bad for what she’d given him in return. She pulled at the paper, not bothering to save it like her mother would demand of her in the morning. Viviane never wanted to reuse the paper from last year—and certainly not on Kallias. 

She ought to have known the moment she felt its weight that he’d replace her worn skates. Only Kallias would have noticed she’d practically worn holes into the toes, that the blades were all but useless.

She swallowed, touching the pretty silver and blue nestled in sparkling golden paper. She looked up at him, heart pounding in her chest. “These are…”

“I saw you fall last month,” he admitted. “I thought these might help.”

“Do you want to go?” she asked. Viviane loved nothing more than she loved to ice skate. Of course he knew it—everyone knew it. 

He laughed loud enough her parents might have caught them had they still been awake. “Now?”

“Don’t you want to see if they fit?” she asked, scooting just a little closer. His eyes gleamed and for a moment, Viviane remembered just how handsome Kallias was. The other females said he was carved from ice, and with his pale skin and his cut jaw, his high cheekbones and his full mouth, she supposed she understood why they thought that. But Kallias was warm, seemed to burn with inner heat. No one understood that about him.

She saw it all, sitting an inch away from him. His fingers drummed on the package in his lap. “I’ll need to change.”

“Dress quickly, then,” she replied, pleased when he nodded his head. 

“What did you get me, Viv?”

She sighed, watching him pull the ribbon with a sinking feeling. She’d never figure out the right thing—the thing Kallias wanted above all else. She’d been trying her whole life. Kallias always got her the exact thing she wanted and needed, and she’d never quite managed the same.

He pulled the curved, steel dagger from inside the box, eyes wide as he beheld it. She’d tried harder this year.

“Where…”

“It’s Illyrian steel,” she whispered. “From the Night Court.”

He ran his finger over the black hilt, encrusted with carefully lain blue stones. “How…”

“I made a friend,” she replied. “One of their court daughters…Morrigan.”

He didn’t look at her for a long moment, a reminder that Kallias was the best fighter in their cohort. Better than the High Lord’s ninety year old son Gunnar—when the male didn’t cheat to win, anyway. She’d hoped this would finally settle whatever disappointment always flickered in his gaze after he considered her gift.

Viviane was wrong. He liked it and it wasn’t what he’d wanted. He looked up at her, unaware of how her heart sank at the sight of his longing. “This is perfect,” he told her. “Nikolai will be so jealous.”

“Do you like it?” she asked, ignoring how he’d said it was perfect. Kallias would have told her a box of used garbage was perfect. She studied him as he sighed.

“Yes, Viv. Perfect. I can’t wait to show the others.”

“Perhaps you could show me,” she replied. A reminder that he’d promised to teach her, too. That she was just as capable as him, and Kallias was the only one who thought so.

He smiled, his expression softening. “Before or after a midnight skate?”

“After,” she said, scrambling out of bed. The disappointment on his face was gone, replaced with only amusement. “Go get dressed.”

He heaved a heavy, mocking sigh. “So demanding—”

Viviane pushed his broad, muscular body towards the door. “Stop talking and just go.”

His soft chuckle echoed through her mind long after he’d left. Viviane scrambled into her fur lined leggings and a heavy purple coat dress. Very quickly, she braided her long hair off her face and tucked the tail into her hood. Just in time for Kallias to return, every inch a lord of winter. He frowned, arms crossed over his chest, when he realized she was jamming wool socks over her feet rather than ready to go.

“I have more hair than you,” she hissed, pleased to see his lips twitching with amusement. His own pair of black and gold skates hung over his shoulder, a reminder that Kallias skated because she loved it. His pair were in far better shape. 

“Hurry up. If your dad catches me, he might skin me alive.”

“It can’t be any worse than when he caught Aeden,” she replied, lacing up her boots quickly. Kallias went utterly still.

“Aeden?”

She laughed. “Yeah. With his pants down, of course. I told him not to be so loud, but…” But males loved for everyone to know they were fucking, even if it meant her father could hear, too.

Even if it meant Aeden had narrowly avoided being flayed within an inch of his life. 

She grabbed the skates from the box Kallias had given her, surprised to see the deep frown on her friend's face.

“Everything okay?” she asked. He blinked, some cold rage flickering just behind them. It was gone before she could finish taking a breath, replaced with an easy smile.

“Of course.” He offered her his own gloved hand. “Ready?”

Viviane had the distinct feeling she’d done something wrong, though she couldn’t say why. Taking his hand made her feel better, and reaching the frigid air outdoors helped. Kallias slipped on his skates, before the two were gliding against the emptied lake, still holding gloved hands. 

“So,” he began, his deep voice half lost in the howling wind. “Aeden, huh?”

“Aimee?” she replied, wondering what he knew that she didn’t. Viviane heard all the rumors of his sexual procilvities and always kept it to herself. He was her best friend, not her husband. She had no right to ask. Kallias’s fingers tightened. 

“Was he the first?”

“No,” she replied, exhaling her relief. Crisp air filled her lungs and the slide of her brand new skates against the lake made Viviane feel otherworldly—like some mystical creature never seen before. 

“Who?

“Jonas,” Viviane admitted. She didn’t dare tell him Jonas had happened because she’d learned Kallias had woken beside three females he barely knew. And her jealousy had overwhelmed her to the point that any male would do. Viviane didn’t dare tell Kal that she’d always assume they’d navigate those new waters together. 

“Ah. Not special, then?”

She snorted.  No. “Better to get it over with, right?”

Kallias peered down at her, his eyes practically colorless in the moonlight overhead. “Is that how you felt about it?”

And she wondered, in that moment, what would have happened if she’d just asked him to take her virginity from her. Viviane had just assumed he wouldn’t be interested, that it would cross some irrevocable line between them.

So she shrugged. He was her best friend. “Isn’t that how you felt about it?”

Kallias shrugged, too. “I suppose. I’m not judging, Viv.”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” she said, looking up into Kallias’s moon-bright eyes. She thought he might argue with her—she could see he had more questions.

He swallowed them with a nod of his head, following her lead as Viviane took them further from the palace. This was a familiar dance between them and though it wasn’t like a waltz, Kallias still knew every step. Every place his skates needed to go in order to keep his hand on her waist, anticipating her every movement seconds before she made it so they both didn’t smash into the ice below.

They stayed out too long, and Viv knew it. Kallias, too, though he didn’t say it. Snow had begun to fall over the ice by the time they took their half frozen bodies back to the palace. The argument that had begun brewing between them was gone, forgotten when Kallias smiled. Viviane relaxed, slipping back into the warmth still holding his hand.

“Happy Solstice, Kal,” she murmured when they had to part ways. 

Kallias hesitated and then grabbed her wrist, pulling her against his broad chest for a tight hug. 

“Happy Solstice, Viv.”

KALLIAS: 

“Gunnar is staring,” Kallias told Viviane, snaking his arm around her waist just to rub it in. She wasn’t paying attention, head turned to mouth something unreadable over at Kira. Only Kallias was looking at Gunnar on his icy throne, brown eyes boring into an ignorant Viviane. 

She was beautiful and Gunnar wanted her. He waited for the inevitable moment when Gunnar's head turned, looking at him.

Kallias couldn’t help himself. He flashed a feral edged smile, ever possessive when he had no right to be. She was his best friend and best friend only. In fifty years, that was the only constant between them. Kallias didn’t dare try and be anything else, too afraid he’d ruin the best thing he ever had.

“Oh, are we dancing?” Viviane breathed when he swept her up into his arms just at the edge of the open dance floor.

“Just once,” he agreed, taking the first dance for himself. Kallias was greedy when it came to her time.  

“Have you seen the emissary?” she asked, trying to look up over his shoulder. 

“Briefly, this morning,” he agreed, too busy looking down at Viviane in her deep purple gown to recall what that female had looked like. He knew she was going to ask, her painted lips parting with excitement. 

Hybern had sent an emissary. An apology for their role in the war four centuries before. Kallias was uneasy, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Only that he didn’t want Viviane anywhere near that female until they knew for sure she came only with peaceful intentions. 

She’d been making her way down the courts. She’d begun in Night, then Day and Dawn before finally reaching their court just that morning. She had no home, and if her pattern held, she’d remain with them for a chunk of time, getting to know their land, their people.

Kallias had risen in court, had become an influential diplomat,  and had enough sway he could ask to move people to the border. He hadn’t told Viviane yet, but he’d gone to the High Lord and asked her to be sent to the fortress in the Salten Mountains just on the border. Far from this emissary, at least for now. They needed a steward, someone to help watch out for the mountainside city.

Who better than Viv? The High Lord imagined this a test for his terrible son, proof that Viviane would make a good Lady of Winter Court. Kallias didn’t deny that, though he thought he might have gone to war if she ever changed her opinion on insipid, stupid Gunnar. 

“What is she like?” Viviane asked him, pulling his thoughts back to the present. They were still dancing, he realized. His feet moved automatically, hands tight on her beaded waist. “Is she beautiful?

Kallias laughed. “Hardly.”

“They say she’s the never fading flower. I just assumed it was a testament to her beauty,” Viviane replied. He shook his head.

“I think it’s a testament to her persuasion skills. They say she can charm a High Lord to agree to anything.”

Viviane glanced at their own lord, imperious and solemn despite the festivities raging around him. “Agree to what?”

“Trade,” Kallias murmured, though he caught the note of uncertainty in her own voice. “Shipping. The cost of goods. Anything.”

The music slowed, fading to silence. Kallias pulled her against him, stepping backwards from the ivory colored floor as the arching double doors at the very end of the room opened. Amarantha. That was her name, hardly fitting given she looked less floral and more ice. She ought to have fit right in, and yet there wasn’t an ounce of warmth to her. Even when she smiled, her beetle black eyes and her gleaming, bone white teeth were unsettling. 

Unnatural. 

“Wasn’t she a general?” Viviane whispered, reaching between them to grasp his hand. Amarantha tucked a ruby piece of hair behind her arched ear, swanning past all of them in a sparkling black dress that showed off entirely too much of her moon pale skin. Kallias took another step backwards, blending into the crowd. He didn’t want Amarantha to look at Viviane at all. 

“Yes,” he agreed. He’d forgotten that, but Viviane loved history—she wouldn’t have overlooked such a detail.

All at once, his decision to remove Viviane from court seemed smart. Well thought out, even. Viviane would balk, but perhaps if Kira went, too, she’d see the wisdom in such a move. Amarantha didn’t need to know of Viviane’s existence at all. 

“Why not send an actual emissary?” Viviane wondered. Kallias glanced down at her, hating that the High Lord was right about Viviane. She would have made a good Lady of Winter. 

He cocked his head, watching the Hybernian general turned diplomat bow before the High Lord and Lady and his son with ease. As if she were born to live on her knees. Nothing about her betrayed some ulterior motive.

Kallias felt no better. Not when she took a place beside their High Lord to speak, her eyes sweeping over the room. Not when Viviane vanished to talk and giggle with Kira. Kallias kept watch at the far end of the throne room, leaned up against a pillar.

Nikolai came to see him, his dark hair pushed off his olive skin. Brown eyes swept the room, lingering on Amarantha. He nodded, lips pressed in a thin line. “What do you make of her?”

“I don’t know,” Kallias admitted. “The other courts speak so highly of her. They say she’s generous and eager to make amends.”

“The solar courts can’t be trusted,” Nikolai murmured, earning a careful nod from Kallias. Night was more shadow than anything—their strange High Lord a mystery. Thesan in Dawn was nice enough, though he rarely spoke. No one knew what to make of Thesan.

And of course, Phobos over in Day—popular and well-liked, Phobos might have been the exception to the statement that the solar courts couldn’t be trusted had he not been so close to Night. And anyone who allied alongside Rhysand as unquestioningly as Phobos did was suspect in the minds of the seasonal courts. 

“I guess we’ll see,” Kallias told his friend. His eyes found Viviane again, dancing with another lord's son, a smile on her perfect face. Kallias’s stomach tightened at the sight of her, a feeling he smothered before anyone caught his softness. It was hardly a secret that he and Viv were close and yet he wanted to draw no attention to their connection. Sending her away would put the rumors between them to rest.

Kallias had meant to tell Viviane what she meant to him when they came of age. Had planned to get on both knees and beg her to marry him. Kallias had a ring, he’d had it all planned out.

Hybern had landed that same day. The news of Amarantha swanning into Spring had unsettled them all, Kallias included.

He’d tell her when he knew how things were going to go. When Amarantha proved she only wanted to be friends with Prythian. When marrying Viviane wouldn’t put a target on her back…though, if Kallias was honest, there had been some relief in not having to go through with the proposal.

He had no idea if Viviane loved him as anything more than a brother. She’d never once given him any indication she felt even an inkling of the same love he did. Kallias had been in love with Viviane his whole life. Would have done anything for her.

And she…she was currently in the arms of another lord. 

“Kira is leaving with Viv. Did you tell her?”

Kallias’s eyes slid back to the floor. “No.”

“You should. Don’t let it be Gunnar who tells her. It ought to come from you.”

“Kira hasn’t said?”

Some dark emotion flashed through Nikolai’s eyes and Kallias wondered if he wasn’t the only one pining after a female wholly unaware of his affection. “She doesn’t know Viv is going, too. Only that she’s being removed from court for a mountain city.”

Right. Wegen was their most rural reaching city in the mountains. Defensively, there was nowhere better–the Salten Mountains were unforgiving and brutal, especially to those unused to the cold. 

“They can hold their own court,” Kallias said dismissively. Nikolai only snorted, rolling his eyes at how dismissive Kallias was. He took one step towards Viv, halting when Gunnar stepped off his throne. Eyes only on Viviane, Kallias could do nothing but watch the older male pull Viv into a dance. Only Kallias noticed the way her shoulders stiffened, how her vibrant blue eyes became chips of ice against her otherwise flushed face. 

Gunnar was a century older than the two of them and had been after her since she was a girl. Viviane hadn’t forgotten it.

Neither had Kallias. Kallias took a step back. Waiting. Gunnar wouldn’t be able to resist reminding her that she was being sent away—that the High Lord meant for her to rule. Her head snapped to the side, the words Gunnar murmured lost to the music and the laughing, talking crowd. Strands of her silvery blonde hair caught against her sticky lips, half hiding the betrayal when she finally found him standing at the edge of the crowd.

“Rough luck,” Nikolai murmured, watching Gunnar announce that should Viviane do well, he’d be asking her to marry him under the assumption of course she’d say yes. The High Lord would sanction this union and her parents would, too. Who didn’t want to see their daughter married to a future High Lord, after all? Gunnar had all the markers of it. 

Kallias turned, ignoring the accusation on Viviane’s face. She could hate him all she liked so long as she was far, far away from Hybern. Kallias made it as far as the end of the hall before he heard heels on the marble.

“Kal!”

He stiffened, but didn’t stop.

“Kal!”

Only Viviane’s hand on his biceps stopped him completely. “You…” she breathed, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “You asked to put me at the border?”

Viviane wasn’t really a soldier, though she’d trained as one, just as most of them had. Defending this decision without falling at her feet and telling her everything would be a near impossible task.

“Would you prefer the barracks?” he asked. “You’ll oversee the city itself. I thought you’d prefer that sort of assignment.”

“Since when?” she snapped, shoving him hard in the chest. Kallias didn’t budge, though it wounded him all the same. “When have I ever expressed interest in ruling?”

Her fury threatened to cut him to ribbons. “What are you interested in, then Viv—”

“Politics, and you know it,” she hissed. “And don’t pretend for one minute you didn’t do this to get me away from Hybern’s emissary.”

He remained still, which only seemed to make her angrier. Viviane shoved him again, her cheeks flushed with color. “Gunnar seems to think the end of this assignment will be marriage.”

“You’d make a good Lady of Winter,” Kallias conceded. Viviane’s hand flew upwards, striking him against the cheek before he could stop her.

“What…” she swallowed, eyes wide as if she just realized what she’d done “How could you say that to me?”

“I…” he blinked, the sting of her anger burning his skin. “I’m afraid.”

Taking her wrist in his hand, Kallis flipped her hand palm side up and pressed it against the same cheek she’d just struck. “I know you love politics, Viv. But I’m afraid…” he couldn’t finish that thought. Couldn’t admit that if the Hybern emissary realized that Gunnar was fascinated by Viviane, Amarantha wouldn’t one day use her as some sort of pawn to keep the High Lord’s family in check. Viviane let him press his lips to her skin, let him inhale the soft, feminine scent of her skin. 

“You should have told me,” she said, stepping closer into the shadows. “We’re supposed to be friends. I would have…” she took a deep breath, eyes holding his gaze. “You know I’d do anything you asked.”

He let go of her hand, nodding. “It’s not forever. Just…for now.”

“And you? You’ll stay here?” she questioned. Trust. She’d swallow her anger and hurt because she trusted him. Relief flooded through him. 

“If I could leave, I would,” he admitted. “Kira will take my place.”

“It seems you thought of everything, Kal,” she whispered, unable to hide the entirety of her hurt. A heartbeat of silence passed between them before Viviane stepped away entirely. Shaking her long head of beautiful hair, she turned back for the throne room and the celebration happening just beyond.

And it wasn’t until later that Kallias considered that Viviane had been waiting for him to say something. 

Anything.

And he’d said nothing at all. 

VIVIANE:

Saying goodbye to court had been a toned down affair.Viviane had ignored her mothers whispered you will be Lady of Winter Court one day, with a roll of her eyes. Over her bleeding, dead body would she ever sit beside Gunnar, would she ever rule at all. The whispering, the excitement only irked her. She wasn’t going to prove she could be some thoughtful equal to the one-day High Lord.

She was going because Kallias was an overbearing asshole. It had been his smug face in the crowd, arms crossed over his chest as she made her way out, Kira at her side. Viviane made her way to him, letting him pull her into a hug while her father clicked his teeth with exasperation in the background.

“I think one day you will regret putting so much distance between us,” she murmured, taking a deep inhale of his jacket one last time. He smelled of ice covered pine and midnight snow. Masculine and crisp and comforting. Kallias put his chin atop her head, sighing heavily. 

“One of us has to be careful, Viv.”

“You’ll write?” 

“Everyday.”

“And you’ll visit?”

“When I can,” he agreed. “We’ll still be friends.”

And she knew it. Viviane knew her and Kallias would be friends until the stars winked out—that there was nothing that would keep him from honoring that whispered promise. It made being angry with him difficult. Kallias was cautious—a planner. It was what made him an adept politician, why the High Lord valued his input and insight. Kallias considered everything and everyone. She’d always known that about him. Despite looking as if he’d been carved of the ice and wind, Kallias burned like the fire beneath their land that heated the water.

And if he was sending her from court, he was scared. He’d said so and still, to see it when she pulled from his embrace was another. There was no kiss this time, perhaps because her father would disapprove of making such a show when the heir to the throne of winter was so fixated. Or, perhaps Kallias merely didn’t care to do it twice. He was her friend, not her lover after all.

She sighed. 

“Who will remind you to have fun?” she whispered, her heart aching in her chest. His mouth pulled deeper, a frown threatening to etch itself permanently onto his face. He placed one of his steady, broad hands against his chest just above his heart.

“You, of course,” he murmured with obvious affection. “As if I could ever remove the sound of your voice from my head urging me to work less.”

Viviane nodded. It wouldn’t be the same and it would  have been petulant to say so. She could feel her fathers eyes on her. Questioning why she needed so long to tell one male goodbye. How often had she assured them Kallias was just like any other friend? Her whole life. Fifty years. It was nothing, a drop in the endless, immortal bucket she expected to live and yet…fifty years of Viviane and Kallias was coming to an end.

She wondered if he felt her anguish, her hurt. Kallias took a careful step forward, his ice blue eyes flickering up over her head before falling back on her face. “You’ll be back before you know it, Viv. Nothing else will change. I swear it.”

Viviane didn’t know why she couldn’t promise him the same. She caught his disappointment just before she turned her back. Viviane had a million things she might have said to him, speeches she’d rehearsed in her mind before coming down. Begging Kallias to use his influence to call this whole thing off, threats that she would marry Gunnar, as if Kallias cared who she chose to marry at all. And her fury for not even bothering to tell her. For keeping this secret until Gunnar blurted it out with excitement. 

Oh, but her anger threatened to drown her. She’d never been so angry with Kallias with her life. Viviane swallowed it, because telling him so might fracture something between them. And if Viviane had to live with either her anger or not having her best friend, well, she’d choose the anger every time. She knew, besides, that Kallias was well aware one day this was all going to come out. 

That he’d have to atone for this caution.

Not that day, though. He merely remained in court, the last thing she saw before she and Kira winnowed away. She thought that was fitting—after all, hre very first memory was of him, too. Some strange part of her assumed his eyes would be the last thing she saw when she died, too—because some too careful decision caused her innate need to rebel, taking her life. 

The image of his disappointment was banished the minute she and Kira reached Wegen.

“Oh…oh Gods,” Kira whispered, clutching Viviane’s wrist. To say the Salten Mountain city was rural was an understatement. Their things were set at their feet not on a road, but a mud path beaten into the ground by the hooves of animals. Livestock roamed between old, rotting buildings in desperate need of repair. 

Built into the mountains was a gleaming, white palace she’d been told the locals affectionately called the Salt Palace. It was where her and Kira were to stay. Viviane didn’t move, the cold, dry air whipping around her until she was certain it had burned her cheeks. Kira, too, remained still. 

“Lady Viviane?”

Both her and Kira turned their heads to the male making his way towards them. He might have been her fathers age, or the wind had merely weathered him prematurely. It was impossible to say—only that his olive skin and his warm, blue eyes had been touched by this place and the result wasn’t unpleasant. Unlike the males back home, who fussed endlessly over their appearance, he just was.

He took the hat from his head, betraying wintry blonde hair not unlike her own fathers. “Forgive me, Lady…”

“Kira,” Kira murmured, glancing towards Viviane with wide, confused eyes.

“We were told only one steward—”

“Just me,” Viviane breathed, catching how tense and tight Kira’s shoulders were. “Kira is here to help with defense and secure the border between Autumn and Winter.”

He exhaled, clearly relieved he had not missed some vital communication from the High Lord. He offered them both a bow that made Kira burst into stifled giggles. Viviane kept her face polite, waiting for him to straighten.

“We haven’t had a lord…ah….forgive me, a lady…in our town in a near century,” he said. Viviane could see that. She wondered if Kallias had known how rough this place was when he’d suggested it. Viviane looked around again. Necessary businesses built like upside down pyramids, she assumed to help protect those on the streets shopping. Viviane could imagine rows upon rows of them lining a neat, well-paved cobblestone street where people could bring their sleds pulled by massive winter deer and dogs. Where the livestock wasn’t just roaming. They’d need to fence them off higher up, and create trails for grazing in order to keep the streets from being smeared in shit.

They’d need gold.

“Do you need anything?” Viviane asked. What had the former lord of this place done? “What is your name?”

He ducked his head. “Agnar, lady.”

“Agnar was one of our great warriors, was he not?” she asked, recalling the legend with perfect clarity. A hero of winter and their first High Lord. 

Agnar’s cheeks flushed. “I am a simple farmer, lady.”

“And Wegner? Does it need anything?”

Besides the obvious, though she didn’t dare say that. Agnar’s cheeks were practically a flame. 

“A school,” he managed. 

Kira’s steps stumbled over a large rock in their path.

“What did the former lord of this place do when he was here?” she asked, wondering who it had been. Kallias would know. She vowed to ask when she wrote, if only to put that male on Kallias’s radar. 

“He built the palace, lady.”

At the expense of the people living in Wegner. He ruled from the edge of the mountains in what she assumed had once been a beautiful fortress. It, like everything else, had seen better days. Just another expensive project, one she’d have to beg the High Lord to fix. 

Viviane was a courtier, just barely a politician. She wasn’t a ruler and had assumed she’d be coming to a place already well run to merely keep their books balanced and throw little parties. Beside her, Kira would create a patrol of sentries, would maybe teach some people more advanced fighting techniques.

And instead—

“There was also sickness last brutal season,” Agnar practically whispered. “We lost three of our younglings.”

Losing even one child was unacceptable. To lose three? She could see his grief, could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Viviane didn’t know what to say as she nodded. 

“I…we will fix our mistakes.”

He would assume she was sent with gold and influence. Had a male come, he might have been right. Instead, Viviane was here to prove she would be a good wife. 

Viviane would make a terrible wife. She was far too rebellious, too headstrong, too spontaneous. Too troublesome, even. The High Lord would learn that evening, she decided with squared shoulders. She would have roads, she would have lumber, and she would see no more children uneducated or dying because of shit in the streets. Not in her territory. 

Agnar offered his gratitude and promised to help her staff the palace before leaving her and Kira to stare down the Salt Palace with disbelief.

“How much do you think the High Lord paid for this monstrosity?”

“It’s bigger than the Ice Palace,” Viviane murmured, her boots creeping towards a wooden drawbridge that separated the sloping castle from the city built in the valley. She could see the use of such a thing—if there were invaders from the north, they could pull it upwards after evacuating, though she doubted the lord had done it for any other reason than to keep the lesser fae off the drive. 

It would do little to keep the marauders from Autumn out—and that was the problem with the Salten Mountains. Autumn paid a pittance to their lesser fae, forcing them to grind out a miserable living. Some joined roving bands that risked the treacherous path between the two courts in favor of looting, burning, and pillaging whatever they could steal from Winter. 

How many made it to Wegen was a question for another day. Viviane possessed enough ice magic to make the roads into their city a miserable journey and both she and Kira were talented enough with a blade to make any former peasant turned warrior think twice when encountering a Winter Court soldier. 

Those were different problems. The High Lord would pay salaries for staff, for warriors, for weapons that kept Autumn from making their way into Winter. Would he pay for medicine, too? And the materials for schools, for markets, for roads? 

Viviane pushed those thoughts aside as well as she stepped into the palace.

“Well,” Kira began, “there truly is no accounting for taste.”

The ivory colored marble was the only decent thing about the palace. It was clear no female had advised the male in charge, who had been giving free reign to just…spend money without consequence.

“Why we let males rule is a mystery,” Viviane agreed breathlessly. Everything was slate gray. The walls, the curtains, the furniture. Huge coats of arms stood motionless and at attention, lining the halls one either side. Unlit sconces on the walls told Viviane she’d have to have faelights installed if she didn’t want to always smell like an open bonfire. 

“If you agreed to marry Gunnar, he’d let you come home,” Kira murmured. Viviane looked to her friend.

“I’d rather stay.”

Kira’s pretty face warmed with a smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. You’ll never catch me bowing to Viviane, Lady of Winter Court.”

Viviane burst out laughing. “Can you imagine?”

“I could,” Kira admitted, looping her arm through Viviane’s. Their things were left at the front door in favor of exploration. “If the lord's son was less awful.”

“I can’t,” Viviane declared. “The Lady of Winter is so…so…”

“Boring?”

“Yes, exactly,” Viviane agreed. “And I simply cannot be bothered to stop having fun.”

Kira elbowed her gently. “Maybe that’s what Gunnar likes.”

“Gunnar likes my long hair and my pretty face,” she replied without ego. “He thinks our children will be powerful and lovely and that I will be perfectly content to lay beneath him while he ruts into me mindlessly.”

“Every females dream,” Kira agreed with amusement. 

“He’ll move on,” Viviane added with certainty. “When I’m not around all day, he’ll move on to someone more accessible.”

“And you’ll remain here?”

She halted at the sweeping steps, her mind returning to Kallias and his disappointment. He’d sent her here to keep her from the Hybern general turned emissary. She didn’t dare wonder if he’d also wanted to banish her from the court scheming. If he didn’t know that refusing the High Lord’s son would ruin her at court. 

“Until the work is done,” Viviane agreed. 

That would keep her busy, at least.

And Viviane loved a project. 

KALLIAS: 

Kallias sat in bed, staring at the large envelope in his hand. He knew that elegant, flowing script like he knew the sight of his own face. 

Kallias

Two decades without Viviane was wearing on him. And he knew why she’d written—it wasn’t to beg to come home. In fact, Viviane had never asked him that. Other females might have bided their time, might have done exactly what was required of them. Not his Viv. 

He slid his finger along the lip of the envelope, pulling it out with nervous fingers. He hadn’t seen her in months, and it would be at least another before he could excuse himself long enough to go. 

I miss you.

His chest nearly caved. He had to stand, to pace his bedroom as he reread those words. Kallias felt pulled, just as he always had, always would. His Viv was at the border, safe and most importantly, a ghost to the likes of Hybern and Amarantha. Amarantha, who’d lived at their court for eleven years, knew everyone. Had attended every wedding, had met each new baby born. Knew all the females by name and had bedded many of the males. She didn’t know of Viviane. Couldn’t place her face, had never looked into Viviane’s pretty eyes, had never scented her sugar sweet scent.

Kallias didn’t regret sending Viviane away. She was his heart, and so long as she was safe, Kallias could continue. 

Pacing, he returned to the letter. 

We have begun clearing the Salten Pass towards Autumn, and as you can imagine, it’s tedious. I’ve built an ice bridge and I can’t wait for you to see it. My finest creation yet—it’s load bearing, before you ask. Yes, I did try it myself. You would have died, it’s a straight drop into a ravine. I could hear you begging me to get off it the entire time. Did I mention I miss you? 

Gods, but Kallias could imagine it. Could picture her jumping with glee over a thousand foot drop, fully prepared to plunge to her death just so no one else would take on that risk. Had he been there, he would have done it for her. But he wasn’t. He was here, and she was at the border, playing her games. Making friends.

Living her life without him.

We caught three marauders halfway to Wegen. Kira is holding them, but we aren’t sure what we should do. They look hungry and are very poor. I know we aren’t supposed to let thieves have amnesty but one of them couldn’t be older than fifteen, Kal. Will you talk to the High Lord about it? 

And there it was. Viviane had learned the High Lord did not care about the Salten Pass, or Wegen, or even the plague that ripped through a decade before. Viviane cared so much she’d refused to come home when Gunnar had all but gotten on his knees and begged her. Gunnar was moving on, had realized that Wegen was not Viviane’s project. 

And Kallias was the only person she trusted to ask for help. He marked it down on a little sheet of paper—vowing to write her back either way and tell her to send them back if the High Lord told her no. Viviane wouldn’t execute someone for being hungry, at any rate. 

I requested gold or supplies for the roads five years ago. The High Lord wrote me back, by the way. He told me it couldn’t be spared. I’m frustrated—how am I supposed to keep illness out if we can’t have functioning sewers like everywhere else in Winter. I’m tired of looking into the faces of mothers and telling them I’m doing my best. I feel like I do nothing except say no because of costs and through my hands in the air. Last brutal season we buried a six week old baby and I’ve been having nightmares.

Will you talk to him? For me? Just…break it down for me so I might explain. No one cares about his overhead, not when he throws a Winter Solstice celebration so lavish we are taxed to fund it. People feel abandoned. I do, too. As if I am only useful so long as I am breedable to his son. And Kal—I have considered it. I can admit that to only you, but I have considered it more than once. Promising to be his wife, if only to secure their patronage. 

It makes me feel ill to admit even to the gods, let alone to confess to you. I do not think you would judge me for it. The only thing that stops me from making such an offer is the knowledge I would be dragged back, when I am starting to love this place. 

Only Viviane could see filth, squalor, and suffering and find something to love. It made his body tight, imagining her out there doing exactly as the High Lord had hoped she would. His insipid, shallow son was too brainless to see what Viviane was—what she could be. Kallias was grateful for it. If Gunnar ever realized what a true gem Viviane was and how the people might love her enough to forgive their lavish spending and callous, capricious nature, he would have demanded her with a fervor that even Kallias couldn’t have stopped.

He took a breath.

Say you’ll come visit soon. I have forgotten what you look like. When I close my eyes I see not a male (who may or may not be handsome), but a wild, slobbering jotnar. Is that what you are, Kallias? Because you once came monthly, and now I only see you on Solstice and my birthday. Who do I lobby a complain with over this terrible neglect?Should you continue your distance, I will be forced to make new friends. If that is what you want, than by all means. Continue as you are. But I should remind you that I am actually quite charming and many people find my company pleasing. You are not the only one who is entranced by my sparkling personality. 

I miss you. Did I tell you that? Well, just in case.

I miss you.

Viviane. 

Kallias didn’t know whether to laugh or snarl, pacing as he was. The thought of another male making his Viv laugh was enough to practically drag him to his dresser. He halted, fingers grazing the wood. She would have wanted that. Would have worded her letter hoping he’d make a rash, impulsive decision. No one else could compel him to act without thinking. 

He’d visit after he finished his work in Summer. And after he asked the High Lord why she couldn’t have gold for the streets. Kallias did reread her letter, just to hear her admit she missed him. 

Kallias found the High Lord in his office, frowning over a long expense report. Kallias didn’t have to ask what this was about. His son spent money like they’d have it forever, not bothering to consider it had to come from somewhere. 

Blue eyes met his own. “Kallias,” the High Lord murmured, gesturing for him to take a seat opposite his crystal desk. Kallias obliged, looking out the open windows towards the icy lake. He could see others skating atop its surface in the warm summer sun and was reminded of how often that had been him, once.

“The work you’ve done in Summer…” the High Lord trailed off. Kallias crossed his ankle over his knee, reclining in the leather chair. He knew, though he didn’t dare brag. “What do you need?”

“Gold, for Wegen.”

There was nothing but still silence between them. The High Lord assessed him cooly, frosty in his displeasure. Every request Kallias ever made was on Viviane’s behalf.

“I’ve told her no. It can’t be spared.”

“She’s losing younglings to cold and illness. Cold,” he added pointedly. As if they were the masters of it. 

“It’s a tragedy. They were certainly not the only ones who felt it.

“We didn’t,” Kallias reminded the High Lord.

“I wonder,” the High Lord began, steepling long, pale fingers against his lips, “when you might come asking a different question on behalf of Lady Viviane.”

Kallias didn’t back down. 

“She is unmarried,” the High Lord continued. “She could use a patron.”

“She has a patron,” Kallies replied with that same coolness. “She doesn’t need a husband to secure my loyalty and I have no interest in being that for her.  I’m asking to build a road that leads from the Salten path into Winter.”

“My answer is unchanged. I wish I could say yes, but there are circumstances even you cannot change.”

Kallias didn’t dare react—didn’t dare say what he thought. That he’d never have a son so spoiled it threatened to bankrupt their territory. That he’d never put his own comfort above the suffering of younglings. 

That he’d never tell Viviane no. 

“She’s not going to marry Gunnar, is she?” The High Lord’s question stopped Kallias at the door. He had to swallow the urge to snarl, to leap onto the desk and throttle the male for daring to ask. 

“I don’t know why you’d ask me that,” Kallias lied.

The High Lord chuckled. “I’m certain you don’t. Give my regards to Summer…and Lady Viviane, when you visit. I’d like to see what progress she’s made with Wegen one of these days.”

All on her own. No help from the High Lord who wanted to make her his daughter. She was merely decoration. 

Kallias ripped open the door with more force than was necessary. If the High Lord wouldn’t give her the fucking roads, then Kallias would. What was the point of being separated, of working as long and often as he did, if he couldn’t empty his accounts?

“You look…you look pissed,” Nikolai commented when Kallias came to find him.

“Just Gunnar, fucking everything up as he so often does. What else is new?” Kallias hissed, shoving a heavy pouch of gold into Nikolai’s hands. 

“A gift?”

“For Viviane. I need you to take it to her, along with whatever else she needs to build roads in Wegen. Actual, stone laid roads.”

“Is this–”

“I have to go to Summer,” Kallias continued, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He felt as if he were unraveling. Like he needed to winnow directly to her, bury his face in her lap, and confess everything. Gods, but Kallias wanted the High Lord to be right. He wanted to waltz into his office and declare he’d married Viviane, that she was in love with him too, and then maybe put his middle finger right into the male’s face.

But Viviane had never given any indication she loved Kallias like he loved her. And what she wanted—what she needed—was someone who believed in her vision. 

“Should I tell her who sent this?” Nikolai questioned, weighing the sack of gold in his hand without surprise.

“Tell her it's from the High Lord. That’s not a lie—he pays my salary.”

“It would mean more to her knowing you sent it.”

“And then she’d know he had wholly abandoned her,” Kallias retorted hotly. “And she might think she’d be better turning to Gunnar for help. You’ll do this for me?”

“Of course,” Nikolai agreed. 

Relief flooded his otherwise taut body. He nodded, the only gratitude he could force out. Kallias left his friend confused, turning abruptly for his bedroom, if only to get himself together. Only behind the closed door could he run his fingers through his hair, tugging at the strands as he paced again.

I miss you.

He growled into the air, into the silence. He’d sent her away—he didn’t regret the decision. If he hadn’t, she’d be betrothed to Gunnar or worse. Amarantha would have known her face, and though the emissary had done nothing untrustworthy to deserve Kallias’s dislike, he couldn’t risk it all the same.

Couldn’t risk her. 

Wouldn’t.

He swallowed, turning back to her letter laying sweetly on his desk. Kallias dropped into his chair and reached for a pen.

Viv,

I miss you.

[aldbooks]

ACOTAR Masterlist

AO3 ALDBooks

ACOTAR 🥀 The Temporary Roommate - T - 3/3 - 13,951words

ACOTAR Secret Santa 2022 gift

Mor's meddling family sends her and Emerie away to her estate for two weeks.

It's either the best, or the worst thing that ever happened.

She hadn't yet decided.

Cool for the Summer - Emorie - ACOTAR Summer Writing Circle

A Friendly Wager - M - 1/1 - 2,205 words

Gwynriel oneshot fluffy fun - Alternate storyline A Fresh Spark

“Because of you I didn’t sleep at all last night” prompt Gwynriel

“I’m guessing you stole them?” Prompt Gwynriel

Azriel and his mother headcanons

Gwynriel/Kanthony headcanon

The necklace - Angsty Gwynriel

Bodyshop - E - 4/4 - 19,441 words

Inspired by the song Unholy by Sam Smith & Kim Petra

Mor and Cassian drag Azriel to Rita's the strip club the partially own with their friend Rhysand to see a new troop of dancers. A trio of women who go by the name Valkyrie.

Don’t you wanna be more than friends? - M - 3,839 words

Azriel and Gwyn have been growing steadily closer thanks to their midnight meetings in the training ring but, tonight, something is different...

TW: mentions of SA

“Who says I want to reject it?” - Elucien

Drunk confessions - Elucien

Elucien angsty Drabble & Part 2

More angsty Elucien 

The haircut - Lucien cuts his hair and Elain has feelings about it

Gwynriel/Elucien drabble

Should've Stayed Dead - M - 4,437 words

Nessian (sort of)

Lucien receives a message requesting a meeting with the Night Court. Specifically, the Archeron sisters.

Cassian's POV

Angsty prompts requests:

Elucien [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Gwynriel [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Lucien/Feyre [1]

Her tears like diamonds on the floor - 1,610words

Angsty Gwynriel Starfall drabble

Embrace - E - 14/? :

Collection of Smut prompt requests including the following ships:

Amren x Varian

Gwynriel

Helion x LoA

Feysand

Elucien

Viviane x Kallias

Jassa

Nessian

Gwynriel week prompts:

Solstice Night

“You’re the new ribbon Az”

To Win a Prince - Cinderella AU

Future Elucien story inspired by Persuasion - The Remembrance of Regret

Rosaline inspired Gwynriel scene

My Jolly Sailor Bold - Gwynriel mermay

I thought my demons were almost defeated but you took their side and you pulled them to freedom - Gwynriel based on @acourtdelaluna head canon

Moth to Flame - Gwynriel Summer Solstice

Frost and Flame - Pure angst from Lucien's POV, no happy ending

A Court of Light and Shadows series - Elucien/Gwynriel

This series consists of an Elucien prequel then a Gwynriel and Elucien story that run tandem to each other - the directions for the tandem read are in the notes of each respective chapter for those interested

A Breaking - M - 1/1 - 2,899 words

After witnessing the almost kiss on Winter Solstice, Lucien makes a decision.

A Court of Shadows - E - 27/? - 70,678 words

Azriel has begun to notice that his thoughts regarding a certain priestess have begun to shift. Before he can fully set aside his more inappropriate musings, Gwyn makes a proposal he can't resist.

A Court of Light - M - 24/? - 68,991 words

A year after the events of A Breaking, Elain feels a tug on the bond and realizes her estranged mate is in danger. Lucien, now returned to the Night Court, wonders if he might have been too hasty in his decision to leave, and if there might still be a chance for him with his mate

[acomaflove]

The Night Court on Twitter

Feyre:

Rhysand:

Nesta:

Cassian:

Azriel:

Morrigan:

Elain:

Amren:

[shadowisles-writes]

ACOTAR Writing Circle 3 Masterlist

The Syren, part 2 @headcanonheadcase @secret-third-thing

I Choose Who. I Choose You., part 2 @hlizr50 @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship

The Great Escape, part 2 @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship, @aldbooks

Blindsided, part 2 @bennylavasbuns, @azrielshadowssing

Peer Pressure, part 2 @azrielshadowssing @mercarimari

Tangled Cable Car Wires, part 2 @thelovelymadone, @bennylavasbuns

On the Edge of Losing You, part 2 @starfall-spirit, @thegloweringcastle

Right There Beside Him All Summer Long, part 2 @rosanna-writer​ @sideralwriting​

Grounded, part 2 @writtenonreceipts, @thehaemanthus​

Fictional, part 2 @mercarimari @rosanna-writer

Sailing Ships, part 2 @foreverinelysian, @writtenonreceipts

Down This Road, part 2 @thegloweringcastle, @headcanonheadcase

Heatwave, part 2 @secret-third-thing, @starfall-spirit

Someday, Today, part 2 @thehaemanthus, @hlizr50

A Sunshine from the Ocean, part 2 @sideralwriting @thelovelymadone

Cool for the Summer, part 2 @aldbooks, @vikingmagic33

I Hate You Too, part 2 @sunshinebingo @foreverinelysian

This One Even Blooms, part 2 @vikingmagic33 @sunshinebingo

[talkfantasytome]

ACOTAR Masterlist

Nessian Masterlist

Other Ships Masterlist (Gwynriel, Elucien, Cresserie, Other)

[shadowisles-writes]

Masterlist

DO NOT STEAL/REPOST MY WORK

Currently taking requests, always happy to receive questions, discuss concepts (NSFW welcome) and write short blurbs.

Smut: ** (if you are under 18 please stay away)

Add yourself to my taglist here

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ACOTAR

Tumblr only:

Elucien week 2022 (the masterlist)

AO3:

ACOTAR Writing Circle Masterlist

ACOTAR Writing Circle 2 Masterlist

ACOTAR Writing Circle 3 Masterlist

Multi-part:

The College Collection (Masterlist)

Side By Side - gwynriel

Wild Rose - elucien

Foxy** - elucien

One-shot:

Bliss** - gwynriel

4 times Azriel wanted to kiss her and 1 time he did - gwynriel

Sin In Your Skin** - Azriel x Cassian x reader

Where’s My Love** - elucien

Fire Night** - elucien

Curious** - gwynesta

The Secret Hot Spring** - gwynriel

I’m Yours** - elucien

Mine to Keep** - tamlin x oc

Dirty Little Secret** - elucien

CRESCENT CITY

Always Fight (For Love) - ruhnlidia

[shadowisles-writes]

ACOTAR Writing Circle 3 Masterlist

The Syren @headcanonheadcase

I Choose Who. I Choose You. @hlizr50

The Great Escape @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship

Blindsided @bennylavasbuns

Peer Pressure @azrielshadowssing

Tangled Cable Car Wires @thelovelymadone

On the Edge of Losing You @starfall-spirit

Right There Beside Him All Summer Long @rosanna-writer

Grounded @writtenonreceipts

Fictional @mercarimari

Sailing Ships @foreverinelysian

Down This Road @thegloweringcastle

Heatwave @secret-third-thing

Someday, Today @thehaemanthus

A Sunshine from the Ocean @sideralwriting

Cool for the Summer @aldbooks

I Hate You Too @sunshinebingo

This One Even Blooms @vikingmagic33

[daevastanner-deactivated2025092]

Read chapter one on ao3

Read chapter one on wattpad

[lylylylylylylylyly]

the relationship between me and black clothes is a love story that can’t be explained

[tealnymph24]

SJM Universe Fanfic Masterlist

I also post my work on AO3, which you can check out here.

If there is a specific scene you would like me to write, my DMs are open.

Important Update: I have created a side blog where I will be posting all of my writing from now on for various reasons. If you want to make sure you see fic updates, please turn on post notifications for my side blog.

Side blog: @tealnymph-writes​

A Song of Shadows (Gwynriel)

1.  You Are My Friend, Right? 

2. A Heated Training Session

3. Azriel POV - A Heated Training Session

4. Questions and Answers

5. Azriel POV - Questions and Answers

6. Surveillance, Snacks and Secrets 

7. Azriel POV - Surveillance, Snacks and Secrets

8. Library Chats and Naps

9. Cocktail Interrogations

10. Poker and Pleading

Keep reading

[brycesstar-deactivated20220630]

✨Gwynriel Headcannons 🦇

This got away from me and is super long so buckle in, mi gente 🤭 it’s more of how they become mates and less little things about them. I’ll have to make a pt. 2 at this point with the little things about them as mates because you know I am already strapped with those headcannons.

Azriel headcannons pt. 1 , pt. 2

Of all the mates in the inner circle, I think Gwyn and Azriel are the most complicated in terms of all the hurdles they will have to jump through.

Azriel’s entire life has been confusion. He loved Mor for 500+ years—

(anyone else think Azriel low key knew about Mor being Bi and kept her secret without her knowing he knew?)

— and then Elain comes into the picture and confuses him even more.

Azriel, at his core, is desperate for love. Moreover, I don’t believe he’d recognize true, healthy love because the “child weaned of love considers harm a comfort.” - Gillian Flynn. Case and point Mor and Elain.

Gwyn is also a survivor of a brutal attack and that healing journey is so commendable and has to be done without the idea of Azriel as a prize or her being “ready again” as a prize either.

Gwyn’s healing must not be centered around a romance plot because that is such a cheap way to “solve” a sexual assault.

That makes me think that Gwynriel will resemble Rowaelin very strongly in terms of creating a deep friendship rooted in understanding and shared secrets and trauma.

Their love and eventual realization of a mating bond will be really slow. Silver Flames has already started the ground work that Gwyn trusts Azriel.

That said, Azriel is the first to recognize the signs of the mating bond. Like Rowan, Azriel doesn’t/isn’t sure about it because of how utterly unexpected it is. He sees Gwyn as his friend, and even that bond is tentative at first because he understands her hesitancy with males.

Their friendship begins to form during private training sessions that happen accidentally. Gwyn prefers to train on the roof at night because “there is no safer place to fail than in darkness.” Azriel, our resident night owl and all around insomniac, is like damn girl you’re right.

Azriel also canonically trains at night, too. So, they begin to train together and Azriel helps Gwyn with all the maneuvers Cassian overlooked because he was too busy simping over Nesta’s ass in those Illyrian leathers.

Cassian and Nesta’s cool down was about silence and stillness of the mind. Azriel and Gwyn’s cool down is about stillness of the soul.

Stillness of the soul comes from sharing pain and grief—two things that demand to be witnessed. We release hardship and trauma when there is a friend with us in the dark who understands. This is the foundation of Gwynriel: a friend in the dark.

Azriel starts opening up about his childhood. Gwyn talks about her sister. Neither feel judged about how dark their souls truly go.

Gwyn, ever the chatterbox, begins to discover that our silent Shadowsinger isn’t all that shy or silent. Mans, to her utter shock, meets Gwyn’s chatter energy step for step. They can talk for hours. They do talk for hours.

When your soul feels seen it will sing and sing and sing.

Not that Azriel never felt understood by his brothers or the inner circle. It’s just different when you find your mate, the other side of your coin, the other end of your very long tunnel.

One night, under a clear sky full of stars, Gwyn sings a raunchy sea shanty about a crew of female pirates who, rum drunk, steal an entire treasure trove beneath the unsuspecting noses of a male rival pirate crew. The shanty is entirely inappropriate and absolutely hilarious.

It’s the first time Gwyn hears Azriel’s laugh.

Azriel, when he’s truly laughing, laughs from the stomach. It’s full and deep and loud with a musical lilt to it. Gwyn decides his laugh is her favorite song.

Gwyn is working on slowly leaving the House, and every time she does Nesta is there like a comforting panther ready to strike at any who approach. As comforting as a panther can be.

One day Nesta is away with Cassian on court business, but Gwyn is adamant on maintaining her schedule of acclimating herself to being away from the House. She goes by herself, and for a while she’s doing great, until she isn’t. She’s sweating, she’s breathing too hard, and she wants to hide hide hide.

Azriel doesn’t know why, but he feels the sudden urge to fly out to the side of the Sidra along the base of the House.

As Gwyn is focusing on her Mind Stilling, a shadow casts overhead. She hears a rush of wings, the soft landing of feet, and Azriel is suddenly beside her.

She glares daggers, knives, and swords at him. “I’m fine.”

Azriel’s face is impassive. His eyes stray to her sweat soaked nose and Gwyn wants to shove him when he says, “Of course.”

She doesn’t ask him to leave and he doesn’t offer to. Neither talk and Gwyn finds she can breathe a little easier.

She hears male laughter and her whole body tenses. Azriel steps closer, his eyes straight ahead. She knows she is safe. She knows anyone who tries to take her on is asking to take on the famed and feared Shadowsinger and the entire might of the Inner Circle. Hell, if anyone harmed her they’d have Nesta to answer to. But she is still afraid.

She hates it. She hates her own fear. She is a Valkyrie godsdamn it. Males should fear her.

But she is still afraid.

Beside her, Azriel hums.

It’s not a song she knows and she knows every song. His voice is low and deep and Gwyn finds herself harmonizing. They continue like this for quite sometime until Gwyn realizes this is the farthest she’s ever gone. Her grin and whoop of glee echoes around her and in the corner of her eye she sees Azriel watch and smile, too.

Later, Gwyn will realize that she has never harmonized with anyone as well as she did with Azriel.

Later, Azriel will realize the same.

It’s Nesta’s birthday and to everyone’s shock she wants to celebrate at the River House.

Gwyn asks about Nesta’s decision in private and Nesta says, “There were so many parties I avoided or ruined at that house. I want to cover those memories with new ones. I want to laugh with Feyre and tease Rhysand for how lavishly he gives me gifts. I want to play with my nephew and know that I belong.”

Gwyn decides that she will not miss Nesta’s birthday. Emerie is with her as she leaves the House and they walk together to the River House.

Nesta is glowing. She’s laughing, she’s chasing Nyx, she’s happy. Cassian has an arm around her and Nesta leans into it. They kiss they laugh and the look in their eyes...

It makes Gwyn want to be happy, too. So, when Nesta asks her to sing Gwyn gladly does.

The inner circle sings along and sometimes she sings alone, but Gwyn is having the time of her life.

There is a grand piano that Rhys doesn’t know how to play but purchased because it looks aesthetically beautiful, and for the occasional Azriel serenade.

When Azriel sits on the piano bench he raises a challenging brow to her. Gwyn lifts her chin and feels the way she did towards that white ribbon. As Azriel starts the beginning notes of a familiar song, Gwyn follows with a vibrato.

Their duet is like nothing he’s ever felt. Azriel enjoys singing. He does it all the time even though his brothers only think he does it once every few hundred years. He sings when he flies, when he needs to think, when he feels alone.

But singing has never felt like this. He goes low and Gwyn instinctively knows whether to join his note or go high. He drags a note and she follows. She changes the key and he adjusts quickly to her. His fingers on the piano keys answer her quickening pace. Their voices are so in tune he’s never felt so complimented before.

It feels like a challenge. It feels like an answer. It feels like something has come to a climactic completion.

They end a song on the same note, on the same breath, and they are both panting, both wide eyed and delighted.

Nesta smirks to herself.

Mor, a glass of wine in hand, holds it out in cheers when she and Azriel catch each other’s eye.

Cassian and Rhys secretly watch with shock and excitement because Azriel has never played or sung without being prompted. When Cassian whispers something in Rhys’s ear, Rhys grins and shakes Cassian’s hand.

Elain, in a chair with Nyx, frowns.

But Azriel and Gwyn don’t notice. They stare at each other and they catch their breath. They grin.

Trouble is stirring at the Summer Court and Tarquin suspects he has human spies trying to infiltrate his court. Rhys, in a display of friendship, sends Azriel, Cassian, and our three Valkyrie baddies.

Cassian cannot go anywhere unsupervised.

During this trip, Gwyn finds out about the Elain-Necklace-Re-gift.

Things do not go well.

Nesta is enraged for both the sister of her heart and the one of her blood. Nesta approaches Azriel with every intent to beat his ass, but Cassian interjects. That is until Nesta challenges Azriel to a Blood Duel.

A Blood Duel is a Valkyrie custom that is a contained and controlled fued-letting. The challenger decides how many cuts they wish to inflict, and if the challenged party accepts, the duel cannot end until the number is exacted.

Nesta only asks for three. One for Elain, one for Gwyn, and the last is for Azriel himself because he has to decide to stop doing things that harm him.

The Blood Duel is private and the two fight for three hours.

Nesta is floored when Azriel, after the three landed cuts, cries.

He feels like his father who was terrible to his mother. He feels like Eris who was terrible to Mor. He feels like Tamlin who was terrible to Feyre. Azriel just feels terrible and worthless and horrified.

Nesta, who understands this all too well, doesn’t tell him he isn’t. She knows that when a person is this low, when they hate themselves this much, they don’t want to be proven wrong. They just want to stand back up again. So, Nesta only asks Azriel this one thing, “What do you want to do about it?”

Azriel does not feel shamed or judged by Nesta when he says he doesn’t know. When he admits he’s never had to apologize for his actions and doesn’t know how to start now.

And this is when Azriel realizes that he is beginning to heal because Gwyn is no longer the only person he shares his hurt with. That Azriel was able to look at someone other than his brothers, other than Gwyn and whatever she was becoming to him, and show the side of him that felt regret.

Azriel later finds Gwyn on a private beach. The dammed necklace dangles between her fingers, her red hair ruffles in the salt breeze, and Azriel feels his knees falter.

He cannot remember the last time that has happened to him.

They are quiet for long moments. The waves break on the shore, palm branches scratch above, and there is a haunting hum in the way the sea ebbs and flows.

“It wasn’t about the necklace,” Azriel finally says. “It wasn’t about Elain, either. It was about how I felt discarded. How I’ve always felt that way. Giving you the necklace was giving you the last piece of me I had to offer—the piece that desperately wanted someone to choose it, to love it.”

Gwyn’s throat is painfully tight and she doesn’t respond for a moment. Azriel’s tight face is drawn and so so sad when she asks, “How badly did Nesta get you?”

It’s not what he was expecting, but Azriel huffs out a small chuckle when he shows his left arm. The gash is the deepest one and hurts like a motherfucker. It is the gash she said was for him.

“I think Nesta is one decade away from taking over the world,” Azriel says.

Gwyn’s lips twitch. “More like half that.”

The necklace catches a glimmer of moonlight and they both watch the charm spin.

Gwyn takes a deep breath and releases it into the sea breeze. She looks fully into Azriel’s eyes and says without hesitancy or a tremor, “I do choose you, Azriel.”

His eyes gutter. His chest feels like it’s concaving in relief and disbelief because he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve the hand Gwyn extends to him as she stands, doesn’t deserve the way she gives a small squeeze when he takes hers.

“But I don’t choose only this,” she says to the necklace she holds up. “I choose all of it.”

And then she puts the necklace in his hand.

“So, I don’t need it.” Azriel is shocked he doesn’t fight the hand that cups his face, is shocked he leans into it. “But I think you need it. You need to choose yourself, Azriel.”

He hears Nesta’s voice in his head. What do you want to do about it?

He hears his father’s horrible voice. He hears his mother. He hears his screams as his hands were burned. He hears Mor’s laughter as she avoided his eye for so many centuries. He hears everything and it’s too much.

But he also hears a song. A soft crescendo of courage and friendship, a raunchy sea shanty, a duet that was both an answer and a challenge. He hears Gwyn. He hears himself.

With the entire force of his body, Azriel throws the necklace into the ocean.

Gwyn is a steady presence beside him and in the space between their souls, something that feels like a shore begins to form.

I could write an entire fic about their time at the Summer Court, but the Valkyrie’s accidentally decimate TWO buildings in a skirmish and Cassian, bless, takes the blame for Nesta.

Tarquin near has a whole ass aneurism and makes a decree forever banning Cassian from Summer. The decree is sealed with a Sea Gem engraved with Cassian’s name—it is the second highest threat below the Blood Rubies.

There is a noticeable difference between Gwyn and Azriel when they return from Summer.

They walk together most every day.

Every day they make it further and further into the city and every day that shore between their souls becomes a little more clear.

One day, they make it to Azriel’s favorite bakery. Azriel orders them chocolate croissants and coffee and when Gwyn offers him a bite of the vanilla bean macaroon she’s eating he PANICS.

He doesn’t know know but there’s something instinctual in him that leaps at the idea of accepting her offer of food. There’s also the part of him that deeply loves and respects the friendship they’ve built so taking the macaroon from her hand without her understanding what it would mean, without him fully understanding what it means, is a betrayal.

He shrugs off the macaroon. “Not a fan of vanilla bean.” A lie. He loves it. Has had that macaroon plenty of times.

If Gwyn notices Azriel acting off the next few weeks she doesn’t mention it.

But Azriel’s brothers sure do.

“The fuck is up with you?” Cassian asks bluntly.

Rhys, with the more gentle approach, says, “you’ve had this look of having a branch of ash wood up your ass that last few weeks.”

They’re at the River House and Nyx is crawling around their feet on the grass. Azriel has known Rhys for over 500 years and has never seen the look on his brothers face as he watches his son. Rhys didn’t even look this way around Feyre. This was the face of a father besotted with his son—who was looking more and more like Rhys every day.

“I want to build a house,” Azriel avoids their questions.

His brothers look at him bewildered. Even Nyx pauses and blinks up at Azriel.

Cassian raises a brow. “I am genuinely worried about you.”

“You and your big ass forehead can keep your worrying to yourself,” Azriel retorts.

Cassian bellows in laughter at the call back to Azriel’s first words to Cassian when they were children. Nyx claps along with Cassian’s laughter and Rhys just watches Azriel with that infuriating Rhys look.

Of everyone Azriel has ever known, Rhys has always known him best. That is, expect for Gwyn. Stars wink in those violet eyes and Azriel wants to punch his brother for that damn knowing look. Rhys always fucking knew.

“We’ll help.”

Cassian shoots a look at Rhys but he’s already grabbing his son and heading inside.

Cassian glares at Azriel. “I have a feeling you just lost me a shit ton of money.”

Azriel shrugs. “You’ve always been a terrible gambler.”

And then Cassian gives Azriel a look that surprises him. A look that says Cassian knows more than he lets on. “Do you want to know what I bet Rhys?”

Azriel looks long and hard into his brother’s eyes and sees the answer in them.

He looks away. “No.”

A month later, Azriel lands on the roof of the House and is bone tired. True to his word, Rhys and Cassian helped Azriel build the house on the shore. The little spit of land he’d had his eye on for years. He’s exhausted from the labor of building the whole damn thing with his own hands and doesn’t notice the shadowy shape in the distance until his own shadows leap and dance around him as Gwyn nears.

“You’ve been hiding.”

There’s no reproach in her voice and her stunning teal eyes are only curious. Worried. For him, he realizes.

He scratches the back of his neck. “I’ve been...”

“Building a house,” she supplies with a raised brow.

Fucking Cassian.

Azriel stammers for an explanation but Gwyn raises a hand. “You don’t have to explain. But, I have missed you.”

She doesn’t know what those words do to him, but Azriel doesn’t know what his absence has done to her.

He wants to tell her the house on the shore is almost done and he’s built it with her in mind the entire time.

She wants to tell him she walks alone now and doesn’t feel afraid.

He wants to tell her she helped him find his voice.

She wants to tell him he helped her find her courage.

He wants to tell her that this is love.

She wants to tell him that this is love.

He looks at her and that shore in his soul is singing. His chest aches.

She looks at him and feels safe.

“You know where to find me whenever you’re ready,” and then she’s gone. He’s alone on the roof and his shadows for the first time feel lonely and he wants to scream what he’s feeling, what he’s suspecting.

But Azriel deep down doesn’t believe he deserves this.

“You do.”

Fucking Rhys.

His brother always knows when he needs him and always has a way of sneaking up on him.

Azriel sinks to the ground and lays on his back. “I’ve done heinous things, Rhys.”

Rhys lays beside him. “Same.”

“I’m not a good person.”

“Perspective,” Rhys retorts. “And whatever awful things you think you can’t be forgiven for, I’ve been beside you while you’ve done them or have given the order. If it’s hell you’re afraid of, then be at peace. Your brother is the king of it.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“So are you, brother.”

They watch the stars in the sort of companionable silence that comes with being family until Azriel says, “I think...I think Gwyn is my mate.”

The truth of it is soft sand. It is the sea under a night sky. It is serendipitous and it is half a duet, waiting for its partner.

“I know,” Rhys says softly.

“How do I tell her?”

“What makes you think she does not already suspect?”

Azriel whirls up into a sitting position, wide eyed.

“She sees Nesta with Cassian. She knows what a mating bond is. She’s intelligent.” Rhys sits up. “And mates know when they are bonded.”

Azriel is breathless as he asks, “Has she said anything?”

“Not that I know of,” and then Rhys raises a brow. “But neither have you. All I know is she’s asking questions and you should be the one to answer them with her.”

Azriel is about to run to her but the panic sets in. What if she doesn’t want me?

Rhys claps a hand on his shoulder. You owe to both of you to try.

He waits until nightfall the next day to find her because it is always safest to fail in darkness, as she once told him.

He watches her severe a white ribbon with ease. He wants to clap.

“You can come out now.”

He’s not surprised she knows he’s been there the whole time, finding his courage.

He doesn’t know where to start. The space between them has never felt so cavernous. He settles for, “Do you want to see the house?”

Gwyn tilts her head. She studies him for a moment. “You want to talk about the house you’re building?”

“No, I want to show you it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Semantics.”

He quirks a challenging brow. “Perspective.”

He holds out a scarred hand and she does not hesitate to take it.

He winnows them to the house on the shore and he’s not sure who leans into whom, but they’re embracing and neither immediately notice when they arrive. They only know the other’s arms around them, the shared breath, and the mutual feeling of arriving home after a long, long time away.

Gwyn nods toward the house behind them, her nose brushes his. “Show me what you’ve ditched me for.”

He laughs. From the stomach. And it feels really fucking good.

It’s easy taking her hand, it’s easy falling in step with her. It’s easy showing her the beach he picked and telling her why. It’s easy telling her he’s always wanted a home he created for himself. It’s easy sharing his hopes and dreams and deepest fears. It’s easy because she does it, too. It’s easy because she is his friend in the dark.

The next step is not easy. He sees everyone who has ever turned away from him.

But Gwyn is not them.

She beats him to it. “Tell me about mating bonds.”

He falters. He literally crumbles. His hands shake as he runs them through his hair and Gwyn is kneeling beside him, patient.

He tells her about the history of the bond, of Rhys and Feyre, and Nesta and Cassian. But more importantly he tells her about them. About how the bond between them feels like a shore. About the music between them. About the way his shadows and soul sing of and for her. How she had snuck up on him and somehow become his dearest friend.

He tells her of all the little moments that were arrows pointing him to her, to the truth of their bond. He tells her of the vanilla bean macaroon and she cackles.

She tells him that was when she suspected, too. She tells him of that shore between them, how she’s seen it, too.

She tells him of the friend she found in him. Of the strength in her voice and soul when she thought of him. She tells him that they can take their time.

She tells him that she chooses this—him.

“So,” she looks around them. “You panicked at the realization of having a mate and responded by building said mate a house.”

Azriel laughs and leans his head against hers. “Got any vanilla bean macaroons on you?”

And that’s my Gwynriel! Hope you liked it, hope you have a friend in the dark and if you don’t then here’s my hand 👋🏽

Pt. 2

[brycesstar-deactivated20220630]

🦇 Azriel Headcannons 🦇

He changed his last name to Rhys’s when he reached his majority.

Which is Darling change my mind

But Azriel doesn’t actively use any last name. He’s just Azriel but the Darling is there on paper.

Contrary to popular belief, his favorite color isn’t red or cobalt blue—it’s teal. He remembers his mother telling him that was her favorite color.

Teal low key a surprise tool for later innit 👀

He sings so rarely the inner circle jokes it happens once a century. When he does sing, Cassian—a la Stepbrothers—says “you are the song bird of your generation.”

Stupidly good at everything. He can watch a group of people playing a card game he’s never heard of, learn it in one round, then promptly beat their asses at the game.

A sore loser. Will angrily sulk.

He was scared of the dark as a child 😭

He became a Shadowsinger as a defense mechanism. The shadows sang to him for comfort and so he listened to their language and never forgot his only friends once he left that dark cell of his childhood.

He will never get over the smell of oil.

When he was left at Windhaven and Rhys’s mother took him in (whose name I headcannon as Haizea which means wind), Azriel didn’t speak for two months.

The first time he spoke was when Cassian asked what had happened to Az’s hands, to which he responded, “what happened to your bigass forehead?”

Because Cassian has a deep scar from the top of his head down his left eyebrow.

Rhys was delighted and laughed for hours.

To this day, when Azriel flies he still hears Cassian and Rhys’s voices in his head teaching him how to bank or fly through a rough patch of wind 🥺

Right before Rhys was imprisoned UtM, the bay boi’s got into a stupid fight. During the 49 years without their other brother, Azriel and Cassian spent almost every day together they felt so guilty.

Azriel is left handed.

He is a hella INTJ on the Myers Brigg.

Would never admit it, but has the biggest sweet-tooth. 

Is not enthused by flowers.

His personal love language is physical touch.

Would 10000000% join Nesta’s bookclub and become a romance bro.

I have soooo many Gwynriel headcannons that they will have to be their own post.

BUT. They are mates and they are lovely and they deserve each other 😩

Loves the beach. Has a dream of building a house that overlooks the coast of the Sidra.

^ To be continued in the Gwynriel post 👀

When Chris Evans said he’s an ass man, Azriel felt that.

Shadowplayshadowplayshadowplay

^ he puts Shadow Hands Dorian to shame.

Whiskey > Wine

🎂 need I say more?

Is the Funny Friend

NOT the Responsible Friend

IS the Chaos Friend.

Need to bury a body? He’s your call. In a bar fight? He’s right behind you. In a jail cell? Sitting beside you.

Savage but we been knew.

His eyes are more brown then hazel, but sometimes you can catch the most gorgeous green.

The story of how Azriel got Truth-Teller is really fucking bloody and 😦 and like something out of game of thrones, but long story short Truth-Teller is a Shadowsinger blade and Azriel’s birth father was in possession of it through nefarious means. So, Azriel took it. (This happens during the punishment of Az’s half-brothers that Rhys alludes to)

^if anyone wants my full story on this I’d be happy to make another bloody, Shakespearean post about it.

Is actually a lightweight but has a great poker face so you’d never know he’s drunk until he’s DRUNK drunk.

He’s a chatty drunk and the biggest fucking gossip. Love that for him.

His favorite shows would be the Real Housewives franchise and Game of Thrones. There is no in between.

Obviously a Slytherin, also obviously I think he’s a type 6w5 on the enneagram.

If he could turn into an animal like the ToG fae, his other form (outside of the bat wings) would be a Great Grey Owl

Chaotic Neutral alignment

Sleeps like once a week.

He buys coffee beans from the Summer Court whenever he’s there because I headcannon that Summer farms beans. Is now addicted.

When teaching Feyre how to fly, he discovered that she indeed did have the biggest wingspan. He has yet to tell anyone.

(Here’s the Truth-Teller headcannon!)

(Here are the Gwynriel headcannons!)

[wisteriabookss]

Full Azriel Chapter

This includes the missing page, all in order. 

All credit goes to Lola-hollin662 on reddit! My BAM edition still hasn’t come in the mail but the redditor was kind enough to post it.

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The Suicide Squad (2021) dir. James Gunn