eudaimonia83

travel, dogs, music, novels, theatre

[eudaimonia83]

Updating for the first time in I don’t even know how long???!? But I finally, FINALLY got enough spoons to finish a chapter. Writing Rhysand and Feyre is a struggle for me. Lol.

Read on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48459925/chapters/168662422

Or you can read here! 🥰

THE GIFT

Chapter 8: ANDHAL

SOLSTICE DAY

If there was any organization to this part of the tithe, thought Andhal, it was deep in the background. The great hall of the Hewn City was cacophonous with sound, with shouts and hisses and murmurs and the occasional bark of laughter, all writhing off the walls and bouncing up to the ceiling, then rolling back down in a tide of echoes that made it impossible to even hear oneself think, let alone add up figures and calculate estimates. He felt vaguely sorry for the clerks, bent nearly double over their huge rolls, scrawling totals and handing out receipts. The chancellor of the exchequer, a sour-faced High Fae who looked as though all the joy had been systematically drained out of him via spigot, collected sheafs of papers with the ink still wet, squinted at the supplicants, and separated them into those who had paid their full tithe and those who still owed.

The hall was packed completely full, the line snaking back and forth across the massive stone floor, and everyone was restless. Andhal was on his third day here; Bindi had gone ahead earlier this morning, and more arrived by the hour; but still there was no sign of the High Lord and Lady.

Though, if he were honest with himself, Andhal almost was too distracted for it to matter. His days were spent sitting in the painfully slow line, waiting to hear if the High Lord would grant him an audience, but his nights had been consumed with wandering the streets of the city, desperately trying to find word of the little nightmare girl. He had gone over and over the route they’d taken under the mountain, but try as he might, he could not make the paths lead to the same place they had before. And in the meantime he’d seen more terrible things, hammering against his mind, caught in thought eddies that surfaced again and again as though the sea was vomiting them up.

…a stone-fae female with two children strapped to her back like gargoyles, crawling ever slower through the streets until, overcome by exhaustion, she froze, melding with the dark stone of the sidewalk like a statue, and the passersby stepped around her like she was a monument that had always been there, ignoring her in death just as they had in life…

…a young female in a pleasure den who might once have been called beautiful, but whose dark circles under her eyes had eclipsed the very orbs themselves. She seemed no more than a shadow looking out from a body, selling herself to the highest bidder. Andhal caught her gaze as a High Fae customer strode into her curtained room, grabbed her arm and dragged her with him, and his very blood turned to frost at the blankness of her face…

…a male with wings like a gleaming beetle’s carapace, one crushed into a sickening mockery of the other, wailing in pain at the crossroads market, kicked aside by the goblin guards…

…a thrashing horse, kicking in panic, screaming as its handlers tried to subdue it with whips and words, shouting into the minds of everyone around it for help, they caught me, they caught me, they’ll kill me, they’ll kill me, help help help…until a blue stone collar locked around its neck and it went limp and docile with a flat gleam to its eyes…

…a miniature goblin dressed in rags, dead atop a giant cross of ironwood, absurdly small against the giant gibbet, head lolling, a sign around his neck bumping gently against his chest proclaiming “stole from Lord Keir’s estate,” and a massive black-bloodstained wound through the center of his heart, where the ravens picked casually at the flesh…

Andhal felt like he might soon go mad if he didn’t find the little nightmare girl, locked somewhere inside the stone. He could sometimes feel the screams beating out of the rock, rough and jagged. And at night, when the whole city seemed to breathe louder, you could actually hear the cries, growing fainter by the day. The only thing that kept him moderately sane was the drumbeat of his first purpose inside his head: a bargain with the High Lord. To save my family. My people. To keep them alive, prospering…away from this hell of a place. Pay the tithe. Invoke the bargain. Find the girl. Get out.

He gripped the mejuri tightly, rubbing his thumb over its smooth surface, murmuring to himself “to keep them safe, to keep them well, though the way is rough and strays through hell.” Last night, as the screams boiled beneath him and visions of the shreds of that imprisoned fae’s arm roiled his guts, he had imagined his mother wrapping her arms around him, singing him her song about a home at the end of the world. Pay the tithe. Invoke the bargain. Find the girl. Get out.

“Andhal of Lariat,” boomed a voice from the arched doorway into the great meeting-hall.

With a start, he stood; now that it was happening, he almost froze. He lurched forward, gripping the mejuri tightly. Pay the tithe. Invoke the bargain. Find the girl. Get out, as fast as you can.

He was head and shoulders above many in the crowd, but it took a few minutes to reach the front anyway. The crowd parted and finally, finally he elbowed his way up to the barrier, a shield of significant force. It looked almost like a sheet of clearest water falling over the doorframe; you could see straight through it, but it distorted everything anyway, made you unable to trust the wavering images of your eyes. Andhal found his eyes watering and he blinked. The clerk who had called him reached a thin arm through the shield and closed cold fingers around his wrist, then pulled. Andhal was reminded of when the little nightmare girl had pushed him through the doorway made of darkness, but although there was much that was similar about this barrier, there was much that was not.

The clerk was speaking to him, clipped and irritated. Andhal had to clear his mind and concentrate before he could properly understand. “I’m sorry, sir?”

“Are you Andhal of Lariat?” the High Fae repeated, rather slower and more testily than was called for.

“Yes,” Andhal replied.

“You have registered your cargo with the seneschal upon your arrival?” The clerk consulted a cascade of parchment, then ticked a box next to Andhal’s name, written in minuscule script that grew and shrank as the quill nib approached it.

“Yes,” Andhal said, rubbing his thumb over the mejuri, “but if I may, I wanted to see the High Lord as well —“

The clerk barked a laugh, hoarse and derisive. “Oh, why yes, and I want a Solstice dance and some currant wine with the High Lady and her half-blood sisters, but I must also learn to live with disappointment.” He pointed down the hallway toward the chancellor, whose foot had started tapping under his desk. “He’ll give you your receipt and your instructions. Best not keep him waiting.”

Andhal frowned and moved down the dark hallway toward the chancellor’s desk, the faelights reflecting in the floor like echoes of stars. They see no stars here, under the stone, he thought bitterly. They breathe no cool night air, fresh off the grass in the summer. They create the stars for themselves, under the ground, and they are somehow content with it…

“Step forward,” intoned the chancellor, eyes hidden behind milk-white spectacles. Andhal thought sourly of the fish in the cave lakes where his people spent their winters; pale, cold, sightless. Adapted to a different kind of darkness. He could feel rage quickening his heart. His boots sounded too loud, echoing off the floor and against the malachite columns. The noise of the waiting hall was far behind him now. That curious stretching effect was happening again. How do they do this? Play with space, to make it larger than it seems? Is it an illusion, or magic in the stone, or their own magic working on the senses…?

He stopped before the desk, one hand resting on the mejuri, which warmed as if to comfort him. The other arm he tucked tightly behind his back, keeping himself bound and restrained.

When the chancellor of the exchequer spoke, it sounded entirely made of echoes, a stone skipping down an endless well, sound skittering up and down and never dying.

“You are from the borderlands, I see. The grain-farming districts.”

Andhal nodded once.

“And your…village…has how many inhabitants?”

Andhal thought of his village, his family and friends, trudging down mountain months before they had planned, arming themselves with rocks and hand axes and torches against the Dul’ahan who would seize them from around the council fires and tear out their throats, male, female, child alike. His throat tightened. Get back to them. Get out of here.

“Three hundred and six, sir.”

The chancellor glanced up over his spectacles from the stack of parchment. “Larger than last year, then. Last year, from our records, you had only two hundred and eighty.”

“Yes.” Luria and Amal had had their younglings, a rare and perilous — and joyous — twin birth. Six more families had joined their fires, for safety from the emboldened predators in the hills. The little boy, Jamir, had been killed by the Dul’aha. And Andhal’s own mother had closed her eyes for the final time, wrapped in her warm wool blanket, bravely facing the glorious sunset over the ridge of the Cyreia…a tally of more than numbers, each life precious.

“But your farms had no higher yields, with more workers?” A dry shuffle of parchment. “Your wagon had only eighteen bushels.”

“That was according to our estimate, sir,” Andhal said.

“Yes, but the estimate takes into account the size of your settlement, and the calculation will have to be adjusted. The difference can be paid in gold or in grain, but will need to be accounted prior to the Summer Solstice for you not to be in arrears.”

“But the harvest cannot be until fall,” Andhal objected…what, did they think he could ripen the barley and wheat early, before the fields were ready, rustling in the cooling nights at the equinox? If he had to pay more before the Summer Solstice, the beehives wouldn’t even have the summer elderflower honey yet, and they would have no gold from their sale, let alone crops to spare. This seemed designed for him and his people to starve or be forced into poverty.

The scratch of a quill skittering over the paper. “Perhaps your new…citizens can pay the fee, as they are the reason for the increase?”

“They have nothing but what we shared with them. Should I have turned away folk who were starving and in peril?” Andhal clenched his fist behind his back. “It was more mouths to feed, and some even went hungry to give this.” He took a deep breath. “But we pay the tithe gladly, and ask only safety in return.”

“Safety?” The exchequer peered at him with genuine curiosity. “Hybern is defeated. What else could threaten your safety in those remote hills?”

Andhal had to consciously unclench his jaw and think before he was able to respond. It wouldn’t do to be rude, but if he complained to this bureaucrat, his complaint would be lost like a shadow under the mountain. No, he needed to see the High Lord. The guarantor of security for the realm. If he had to beg, he would swallow all his pride and do so, but a petition was useless unless it was made to the right ears.

“If I might speak on that to Lord Rhysand,” he began.

The exchequer gave a huff of laughter and handed him the paper, totals written in stark black against the white. “The High Lord does not concern himself with the tithe.”

Andhal looked up, shock creeping through him, slow and cold. “But…he is obliged. It is required. To hear our concerns, and to ensure our safety. As citizens. By magical pact with the lands, from time out of mind…”

The exchequer waved a hand. “Yes yes, we’ve heard all that before, but there is no such specification in the High Lord’s agreement. So if he comes by it will be a brief appearance and entirely ceremonial. I am afraid an in-person audience is out of the question. Any petitions can be made via mail, outlining any…dangers to your folk.”

No. No, no. Andhal stepped forward, clutching the mejuri, forgetting his nonthreatening slump in his indignation, pulling up to his full height. Even with the exchequer sitting on a raised platform, Andhal was taller than him, and felt rather than saw the man’s anxiety spike, as his spectacles obscured his eyes. “You have no idea what threatens us,” he rumbled, and the stones around him shivered against one another, a grinding and powdery sound, like the shift of scree just before a landslide. The male’s mouth went slack, and his hands clenched on the sheaf of parchment, which let out a rattling whisper. Andhal locked eyes with him, anger flaring like fire in his belly…he’d had one job, this one thing, and this cold creature was going to tell him it was useless, that they must die or suffer and still produce more gold for the coffers in the caves beneath this city of stone and shadow, who let young ones starve and tortured others? There was a gleam of red at the edges of his vision.

But was it Andhal’s imagination, or was the room becoming even darker?

Andhal turned away as the sentries and the staff they guarded pulled up straight, weapons at the ready. Darkness was sweeping into the great hall where he had waited; he could feel it even from here. The murmur began in the waiting crowd, and reached the clerk who had admitted Andhal to the exchequer’s recess: it is the High Lord. Lord Rhysand is here, and Lady Feyre. Andhal rushed back down the hallway only to be stopped by a sentry at the shield flowing over the doorway; he had to lean to the side to see, and squinted through the watery barrier.

Darkness oozed into the hall, a slow pour, oily and absolute. Not shadows, not twilight, but creeping obsidian blackness that pooled along the floor and then rose like a mist, filling the vision without even starlight to see by. The full anteroom, abuzz with chatter, died into silence, the only noise the scrabbling as folk tried to get out of the way. The torches guttered, sputtered, and failed, the flames receding to a dull blue; the gleam on the malachite darkened until the pillars of stone were indistinguishable from the air. The air, which had been buzzing with surprise, became heavy with fear; Andhal could scent the musk of it, like mountain goats who knew a leopard was near but had not yet discerned its hiding place. His own skin crawled with it.

And then the sound of boot heels, footsteps ringing against the stone.

The light slowly returned, a glimmer around the edges of the forms of the High Lord and Lady, glowing with the drama of their entrance and followed by a blond male with brown eyes, wearing a silver circlet studded with jet black crystals. Andhal saw their bodies silhouetted with faint starlight, forming from the darkness. The effect was astounding, elemental; they seemed to congeal from the darkness into the light, like the first stars winking into visibility from nothing. It looked, Andhal realized, like the terrifying doorway into blackness that had marked the border between the torture chamber and the regular mountain tunnels. They were in command of such power, such dread force. They were as gods standing before mortals, walking through all of them without a second thought. Why would they ever listen to him?

But he thought suddenly of the dark little girl, her hair waving around her, trying to hide her, trapped in the stone, maybe sick, maybe dying, certainly hungry and cold and in need of warmth and family and a childhood; and stubbornness, and anger, and desperation, started cold in his veins and calcified in his chest, slowing his thundering heartbeat. It spiraled into a hardening of his heart against the fear. It would cost them so little to help us…just a crumb of that endless, terrifying might.

He was reaching past the sentry before he knew what he was doing, and in one movement with all his considerable strength behind it, drove the palm of his hand through the shield. It splintered and then burned, the touch of a searing brand, and he shouted in pain, but his momentum was sufficient that he crashed through it, clothes smoldering, and rolled forward onto the coolness of the stone. At the feet of the High Lord.

The shattering of the shield broke the spell of the silence. Light flooded back into the vast hall, as the torches leapt into flame again. There was shuffling, shouting, and commotion from the sentries, and anxious murmuring from the crowd as they were forced back, clearing an open space in the sea of people. Andhal rocked back and forth on the floor, cradling his burning hand, bitter adrenaline exploding in his mouth and tears stinging his eyes.

A sentry rushed forward, stuttering crude apologies, and grabbed his arm and tried to drag him to his feet. Andhal made himself as heavy as he could, and the goblin guard cursed bitterly; he might as well have tried to move a boulder.

“Fucking mountain dirtback,” spat the guard, straining at Andhal’s arm. Andhal pulled against him and drove his elbow into the guard’s knee, earning a crunch and a grunt of pain.

“Let him go,” a cool voice drawled, lazy and careless. “His legs look solid enough. Let him try to walk away.”

Andhal fought the prickle on his neck and looked up into the eyes of the High Lord, violet and black, one color blazing around the other. His hands were in his pockets, his shoulders askance. He looked like a diffident youth, silver threading the velvet of his doublet, ready to slouch idly into his throne like the boy-king he was. Only the glitter of his thin smile betrayed any malevolence whatsoever.

“You frightened my High Lady,” Lord Rhysand said, simply, and the darkness crept up to Andhal’s feet, binding them together. “Tell me why I shouldn’t wipe this floor with your carcass.” Frost swam up the seams of Andhal’s clothes, forming starry patterns along the lines of his trousers, then his jerkin, and down the sleeves of his shirt. They crackled when he breathed.

Andhal lowered his gaze, fixing them on the tips of Rhysand’s boots. “…I…apologize, my Lord,” he croaked. “I only meant…”

“To explode through a shield into a crowded room and cause a stir?” the blonde male sneered. Rhysand only raised an eyebrow, not breaking his fixation on Andhal. The power that burned through him…Andhal’s head ached with it.

“No, sir…”

“Then again, I’ll ask you,” Lord Rhysand said, his voice falling away at the end, “why I shouldn’t let Lord Keir here string you up for insolence at the very least, or an attack against your betters at worst?”

Your betters. Andhal stilled at the phrase. The arrogance of it. The confidence in his own worth, and Andhal’s simultaneous worthlessness. Anger bubbled in him, hot and liquid. He could…he could move his legs. Had Rhysand released him, or had his anger melted the hold? The bitter taste in his mouth intensified, and he rose from his side slowly to his knees, then bent forward until his hands touched the stone.

“Lord Rhysand,” he said into the quiet, trying to remember what he had to say, everything he had to say, “I beg you only for an audience and some assistance.”

“You’ve taken the audience,” interrupted another voice, high and arch. The High Lady. “So. Tell us of the assistance you’re requesting.” She strode forward to stand at the High Lord’s side, and Andhal felt the low hum of another shield buzz against his teeth. Rhysand had thrown a protection around her. Simultaneously, there was a vicious clench at his thoughts, as though they’d been caught in brambles, or…more horrifyingly…a hand edged in talons.

Who are you? it seemed to wonder, stroking at his thoughts. He couldn’t be sure if Rhysand had spoken the words aloud…

“My name is Andhal,” he began, and remembered suddenly that the entire tithe crowd was watching. He lifted his voice. Let them hear. Let them all hear. “I came many hundreds of miles to pay my tithe and speak with you, my High Lord and Lady.”

“From where?” Lady Feyre cut in.

“The Cyreia, my lady,” he replied, then silently cursed himself for using the name she wouldn’t know. “The Amu Darya, I mean. To the south.”

“The grain farmland?” she asked, glancing at her mate, who nodded and then fixed his violet eyes back on Andhal.

“Yes, my lady,” he said, his voice shaking like Windswept grass. Damn him. He had one chance, a single fading chance, to do this…

“I plead with you to come and help us. We have paid our tithes loyally, even in times of great hardship —“ …notwithstanding the new calculations of the exchequer… “— and we have lost members of our tribe to new threats in the past months as winter waxed over the hills.”

“New threats,” Rhysand said, reminding Andhal of nothing so much as a Dul’aha himself, all stillness and clenched muscles before an attack. “The war is over and the Cauldron restored, thank the Mother. What threats do you have that you cannot manage yourselves? Crop beetles?”

There was a restless murmur in the crowd. Andhal couldn’t tell if it was fear or a ripple of anger, similar to the one that crested in his own heart, which sped as his fingers curled against the malachite.

“I have come to ask my betters —“ oh, that was foolish, he would pay for that dearly, he could see Keir’s jaw working in fury… “if you would help us clear the hills of monsters. Dark creatures who crawled out of our legends to snatch our children away.”

“Which monsters are these?” Feyre’s eyebrows had gone up in surprise. Rhysand looked at her sharply and shook his head once. She frowned anxiously and folded her arms in front of her, a gesture of subtle defiance. Andhal felt a spark of hope. She would listen, perhaps…?

“We call them the Dul’ahan, my lady,” he began. “They have roamed our hills since time out of mind but…their numbers have grown this past year beyond our ability to protect our livestock and our people.”

“But what are they, what are they?” Feyre interrupted. “Are they mountain panthers who hunt in packs? Naga like they have in the southern courts?”

Andhal shook his head. “No, my lady,” he answered, and struggled to find words to describe the creatures he had hunted, and that had hunted him, for so long. “They are dark-furred creatures, shaped like fae or men whose bodies were cursed in ages past, who could walk like wolves or hounds on four legs; long in arm and leg, with small eyes and wide mouths, with three rows of teeth and venom in their bite. If you survive the initial assault, they can come back later to attack again when the venom has weakened you. They eat mountain goats mostly, as they are easier prey, but they…they killed a youngling of ours not two months gone, and surrounded our fires until we could not escape and had to fight our way free.”

“Why don’t you move to a bigger settlement, if they’re plaguing you in the hills?” Rhysand’s voice was sour. “Surely they would not attack a larger town.”

Andhal swallowed. “We don’t have towns, Lord Rhysand,” he said, as politely as he could. “And we did move downmountain; but we had to go fast, and abandon many of our stores. So now we face a winter where we might starve, and a summer where we might not be able to farm, if they have overrun our lands…unless…”

“And now we come to the assistance,” Rhysand’s face slid into a smile that did not look like a smile at all; his eyes glittered above the white flash of his teeth. “Out with it. What is it you want?”

Andhal brought both hands up to his chest, and clutched the mejuri. It is important what I say now, he thought, feeling the slide of the talons against his mind. I must be calm. I must be eloquent. If I must beg, then I must make it count.

“If you were to come back with us,” he began, and the mejuri warmed encouragingly under his fingers, “and helped us rid the hills of the monsters, we would ask no more of you than that. We would extend to you our hospitality, and our gratitude, to let us keep living as we do, as we have always done. And as we are stewards of the land, the land will thank us with its bounty. And I would thank you…with my sigil. As a gift.” He took off the mejuri and held it out toward the High Lord with both hands, his head bowed. He fell silent, and noticed the quiet, the utter quiet from the crowd. Not a breath or a cough or a whisper. Everyone watched him, stock still. The earth beneath him waited, every crumb of dirt and stone attuned, pulling toward him like iron filings toward a magnet. He took comfort in it. It meant he had done it right, asked with sincerity, invoked with honesty.

Feyre smiled at him as he looked up. She was beautiful, in a way, he could see in that moment — her steel-blue eyes glittering as though laced with stardust. But cold. So cold.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Lord Rhysand said casually, and pulled his hands out of his pockets to adjust the cuffs on his jacket. Andhal stared stupidly at his dark sleeves, shot through with violet and silver. “It is too far. Our son would not be able to make the journey, and for what would be a big-game hunt through the wilderness? At risk to our lives? That seems a large request for a —“ he eyed the mejuri distastefully, “—- small payoff.”

Andhal’s ears had filled with a dull roaring. No, no, no…he had spoken the bargain into existence, it could not be unfulfilled, no no no no no…

“I beg you, Lord Rhysand…” his voice went up in pitch, in panic. “Please, sir, do not forget your folk who live outside your views…”

“I forget nothing,” Lord Rhysand said. His voice filled the chamber with a physical chill. “And I promise you nothing. If you cannot care for your lands, then move to others and start anew. It is denied.” He glanced to the side of the chamber; Andhal, wildly following his gaze, noticed the stricken face of the chancellor of the exchequer, frozen in the doorway where he had shattered the shield, hand at his throat. The pair turned away, as though to head back to their original destination…likely the throne room at the heart of the palace.

In a last, desperate motion, Andhal reached out toward Lady Feyre, whose hand extended as though in reflex. The shield fizzed angrily as his hand touched it. Feyre’s hand closed on the mejuri as Rhysand roared forward, slicing at Andhal with a swath of darkness. It cut against his left arm, painless at first, then burning with cold that spiked along his entire limb. He screamed. The crowd, as though released by the sound, screamed along with him, a roar that seemed to physically pull Rhysand back. Andhal’s hand touched Feyre’s for the briefest instant before he fell back, panting, pain climbing up to his shoulder like a ladder, ragged cuts of darkness writhing along his arm, gnawing at his flesh. He burst into sweat, tears boiling in his eyes, and yet…and yet…he would not make another sound.

No, no. Not in front of the High Lord, and the cruel steward of the Hewn City. He would not show them any more weakness. He would be silent and proud for his people. For the tortured ones screaming in the pits beneath the city. For the little nightmare girl. The strong bore what the weak could not. His eyes scanned over the crowd, looking at the hundreds of eyes watching them, and he noticed a plume of white hair floating above an ashen face, peeking over a sentry’s arm. Bindi?

He struggled up to his knees, although every move was singular agony. It wasn’t even burning pain, or the sharpness of the slice of a knife. This made it feel as though his flesh was tearing away, reknitting itself, and attaching back to the bone - only to start again. He looked up at Rhysand standing over him, teeth exposed and viciously sharp at the canines, spinning a web of darkness around Feyre, who held the mejuri in both of her slender tattooed hands.

“Did he harm you with that thing?” Rhysand snapped at his mate. She thrust her chin out and stared at him. For a moment, tension crackled between them, and then, in a movement of deliberate defiance, she placed the mejuri around her neck.

“Say the word and I will kill him, Lady,” Keir hissed.

“No,” she said, clearly and a trifle petulantly. “He did not hurt me. And I will take this gift of his, not in exchange for what he wanted, but as a reminder. There are monsters we haven’t yet met, Rhys — I’ll have to learn about these Dul’ahan — and the world is larger than Velaris.” She said the last sentence almost thoughtfully, then shook her head as though clearing it from her mind. “And it’s lovely workmanship. Thank you, sir.”

Andhal nodded, still panting with pain, shirt and jerkin damp with sweat, but nonetheless felt the earth underneath him stir in agreement.

It was done. The bargain was struck.

Rhysand let the snarl fall from his face as Feyre stood there, straight-backed, eyes meeting his. Finally, he approached Andhal and squatted, staring him in the face. The crowd, which had watched with growing restlessness, quieted in anticipation of whatever horror was to follow. Andhal felt the talons sweep across his mind, a pain that would drive him truly into madness. But then Rhys’ violet eyes turned, flickering down to the floor where the receipt for Andhal’s tithe payment, and the amount still in arrears, lay crumpled on the stone. He reached out an arm and swept it up, eyes taking it in at a perfunctory glance.

“This is what you owed?” he asked. Andhal felt so sick now that he couldn’t even move; just hung his head in misery. He said nothing. He could not. He would not.

Rhys glanced over to the exchequer and clenched the paper in his fist, rendering it to smoke and cinders that fluttered down to rest on the floor. “Your debt is paid for the year,” he said flatly, and rose up, brushing the soot off his long fingers. Feyre reached out and took his hand, her eyes softening. He pivoted, darkness gathering around them both again, and said over his shoulder, “Now get out. You have until sundown. And afterwards, if you set foot here or in Velaris ever again, you will be killed on sight. Is that understood, Lord Keir?”

The blonde lord nodded once, a vicious gleam in his brown eyes. “As you command, High Lord.”

And with that, Rhysand stood, the darkness spreading out behind him…and the High Lord and Lady moved off together toward their throne room, the spell of their presence retreating with them like the train on a cloak.

Andhal’s ears buzzed with pain and the oddest kind of relief. The first part was finished. He had done what the council fire had decreed. Sooner or later, he thought, grimly satisfied, sooner or later you must come and reckon with the lands where the sun and the stars meet. It may not have been with Lord Rhysand, as he had hoped, but his mate would suffice. She had significant power of her own, after all. Andhal took a deep breath and tried to get up, but his knees would not hold him. Two of the guards began to approach.

“Leave him be,” someone shouted, and…wonder of wonders…the sentries halted, looking uncertainly at one another. When he crumpled to the floor again, he instinctively shot out his arms to break his fall, and the agony wrenched along his left side again at the impact, such a fierce and overwhelming sensation that he groaned and vomited on the dark floor.

“Let me see,” he heard a low voice murmur. At first he was certain he had imagined it, until the pressure of a hand on his shoulder dragged him to full awareness. He flinched, not wanting anyone to touch him, but then he saw Bindi’s pale fingers, sliding along the gash in his jerkin. “We need to get you to a healer, Friend Andhal.” Their eyes were darker than before, the pale irises shrunken as the black pupils expanded. “I know a good one. Can you stand?”

Andhal shook his head. His legs, so strong and sturdy on the cliffs and in the fields, felt like rubber beneath him.

“Come now,” Bindi urged, their hand clamped harder against his elbow, sending arrows of pain along his nerves. “You must stand up, friend. You must. Everyone is watching.”

Andhal clenched his teeth and opened his eyes. He looked beyond Bindi for a moment, letting his eyes refocus; the crowd was all focused intently on him with the weight of a thousand gazes…despite the goblin sentries roughly marching up and down the lines, forcing them back into formation. The seneschal called names, louder and louder, sounding more and more panicked, but no one moved. They were all whispering amongst themselves. Snatches of low voices carried across the marble and malachite. Do you think they hurt him?…Lord Rhysand said he’d kill him…his arm, his arm! It looks terrible, all black and dead…he paid his tithe and offered more besides…

Andhal fought to put one foot on the ground, leaning most of his considerable weight on his uninjured right arm. Bindi nodded encouragingly. “Come on, up you get,” they muttered, dragging at his arm. Slowly, slowly, as though a millstone weighed around his neck, he stretched out his knees and stood. Bindi followed, wrapping their arm around his waist, leaning against him like a counterweight. He was lightheaded, but he was upright. Silence greeted him. The sentries gave him stony glares.

“Stand strong!” someone in the crowd shouted. The cry bounced off the walls, echoing. Strong, strong, strong. It rolled off the walls.

“You can do it!” someone else hissed, a reedy sound that issued as though from a throat unused to Fae and human speech.

Andhal looked down at Bindi. They looked back up at him, and strangely, with a burning in their eyes that reminded him of a fire on a distant hillside, they smiled. Actually smiled. “Let’s go, friend. One foot and then the other, yes? There’s more for you to do, I can feel it.”

He glanced at the sentries, who were looking back and forth at one another as the whispers and cries became more frequent, louder, more insistent. They all had their hands on their swords. One had a long knife already drawn, pointing outward toward the crowd.

With Bindi leading the way, one agonizing step after the other, he struggled out of the hall. As they left the massive antechamber, the whispers of the crowd had grown to murmurs, louder and louder as the story stretched along the lines. Bindi smiled again, thin and fierce. “Do you know,” they said casually, pivoting to give Andhal’s booted feet more room to step onward, “I think the High Lord might have underestimated you. To his cost.”

Andhal couldn’t imagine how. But he knew one thing for sure and certain: half of his job was already done. Now he had to find the little nightmare girl, and get out. Before they killed him.

“Do…do you think they’ll try to kill me right away?” he rasped. “Or do I have…enough time to…get away?”

Bindi gave their head a single fierce shake. “They can try, friend,” they said. “But they cannot be everywhere or see everything. And there will be many open hands to offer you safe harbor tonight. Even among those who didn’t personally witness you defy the might of the Night Court. News travels fast between willing ears.”

Andhal huffed. It was almost a laugh, but for the pain. “Where are we going?” he asked dully, absorbed by the effort of walking…swing, thud. Shift weight. Swing, thud. They had almost made it to the end of the hall with the great malachite pillars.

Bindi looked around, side to side, and turned him to the right, ducking down a stairwell. “You are mountain fae, as we discussed when you and I met. From the borderlands. Which means you brought your tithe in grain. And that means…” they reached the landing, stopping to rest for a moment. “…that you hauled your bushels on a cart, no? Which must have been drawn by a horse?” Andhal had regained most of his balance, but negotiating stairs had him dizzy and clutching at the wall again.

He nodded. “A mule. Bagal.”

Bindi made a low hissing noise of satisfaction. “Yes. And she will take us out of here faster than we could walk.”

Andhal chortled. For the first time, descending into the bowels of the Hewn City, a High Lord’s order on his head and a little girl to find among all the nightmares that swarmed this place, he felt a mad desire to laugh. “Clearly you haven’t spend much time around mules.”

Bindi rolled their eyes. “Well you won’t have to walk all the way then. Will that make you happy, you big mountain boulder?”

“Yes.” Andhal put as much gratefulness into the word as he could. “Well, it will make me happier. Not happy.”

Bindi shifted to support him as they began the slow descent again. “And that’ll do for now, Friend Andhal. That’ll do for now.”

[fenhex]

The first pride was a riot

[vagathathegreat]

No LGB without the T!

Artist credit dom&ink

[kateammann]

Happy Pride Month to all of my fellow aces!! 🖤🩶🤍💜

[sweetwickednemesis]

One thing I really love about The Folk of the Air trilogy is how Cardan and Jude are mutually shitty to each other and to others. This is such a true, genuine 'enemies to lovers' that I have not actually seen with characters that possess so many flaws.

I love that Jude isn't love-struck and following Cardan like a puppy. I am glad she's not constantly talking about how "hot" he is and she is not instantly in-love with him. She is her own person with ambition and is willing to actually do what it takes to get what she wants. She doesn't only think about it or have it suddenly handed to her, she acts on her desires and achieves them. Frequently getting hurt in some way in the process, too.

Cardan has genuine cruelty that he isn't afraid to lean into, genuine vulnerability and the ability to fully admit it without making excuses. He isn't physically domineering and built so big he can't fit in a doorway. He's a spoiled little pretty boy.

These two were backstabbing each other and pissing each other off constantly. They were taunting and threatening and angry. They were frustrated. They were disgusted. The hate between them was real and mutual.

The Folk of the Air trilogy isn't a one-sided 'MMC is shitty and abusive to the soft, loving FMC but he's really been a good guy all along and he's loved her since before she was even born and all the hate they felt was sexual attraction because of a mating bond created by the stars' story.

Jude and Cardan wrote their fates; separately and together. They fought for their lives, they fought for their loves, and they fought for and with each other.

[critical-quoter]

'You won't miss me so much. When you soar above the clouds, we will all seem very small down here.' 'Wherever I am,' Tané said. 'I am with you.' Susa had risked everything for a dream that was not hers. That sort of friendship was something not found more than once in a lifetime. Some might not find it at all.

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

[eudaimonia83]

🥹😭 I need to read this again. I need it like air.

[snarkformysanity]

A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 42 Part 1

TW - this is the chapter where they all go Under Rhys's Mountain, which necessitates even more discussion of sexual assault. It's also a very long chapter. Like, one of the longest in the book so far. And thus it's been split into two parts because I just could not. This book fucking disgusts me.

I was not frightened.

When this is the very first thing the book wants to tell us, I can't help but be suspicious. Why feel the need to mention it like that? Surely, we'll be able to see that Feyre isn't frightened by the way she acts in the events to follow, no? Essentially, what's going to happen is likely something she *should* be frightened of, but her being frightened would make Rhysand look bad, so we've slapped a pre-emptive bandaid on it. And I know it's Rhysand's fault, because:

Not of the role that Rhys had asked me to play today.

This is the very second thing the book says. Surely, the mental gymnastics this book performs to absolve him of literally everything (even things he hasn't done yet!) is worth an Olympic medal or something. It's really quite a feat.

Anyway, they're currently flying, going to enact whatever plan they have for going Under Rhys's Mountain today. We don't get to hear what it is, but Feyre not only assures us that she's not frightened of it, but also that she definitely agreed to it, even though Rhys looks Haunted for asking it of her. Give me a break.

Naturally, the perfect thing to break the tension is dick jokes, so Feyre gives us our first instance of wing-dick comparisons, equating wingspan to length. And apparently Azriel has the biggest wings. I am perfectly willing to accept this.

Oh. We're also going one step further, as some contrivance makes Feyre accidentally brush one of Rhys's wings, and she touches it again because it feels like silk-wrapped stone (v different to velvet-wrapped steel, donchaknow), and Rhys tells her that it's very "sensitive" there.

“If you want an Illyrian male’s attention, you’d be better off grabbing him by the balls. We’re trained to protect our wings at all costs. Some males attack first, ask questions later, if their wings are touched without invitation.”

Or you could just, you know, tap them on the shoulder like you would for any other humanoid-shaped being? I do not understand the fascination with contriving ways to make men behave like brainless animals. I really don't.

Anyway, there's more banter about wing-dicks, including officially canonising the concept of wing-dicks, but then, all of a sudden, someone shoots ash arrows at Rhys! But it's okay, he and Cassian and Azriel can all conveniently make shields, so they're fine. They land, and Rhys is Mad. And also immediately gets snarly and tries to send Feyre on to the moonstone palace with Cassian while he looks for the attacker. You know what this means.

“Take me with you,” I said. I didn’t want to go to that moonstone palace to pace and wait and wring my fingers. Cassian and Azriel, wisely, kept their mouths shut. And Rhys, Mother bless him, only tucked in his wings and crossed his arms—waiting to hear my reasons.

Yup! Just another way to shoehorn in that Rhys is Better than Tamlin. Why even have him get snarly about it in the first place then? Having him just automatically assume that Feyre would be participating would have been both a better and more subtle way to convey what the books wants to show us here, rather than clunkily and obviously shoving it in our faces like this. Especially since Rhys locked Feyre in the moonstone palace twice before Tamlin locked her anywhere.

“I’ve seen ash arrows,” I said a bit breathlessly. “I might recognize where they were made. And if they came from the hand of another High Lord … I can detect that, too.” If they’d come from Tarquin … “And I can track just as well on the ground as any of you.” Except for Azriel, maybe.

Can't be better than all the men, after all.

Also.... why would you recognise where the ash arrows were made? I don't know that fletchers really signed their work the way blacksmiths sometimes did? And also, why would you recognise where faeries get their ash arrows from? I doubt they buy them from the humans. And, actually, that raises a good question..... do faeries have to use ash wood to kill each other? The existence of these arrows, and the fact that Amarantha made Feyre wield an ash dagger in the first book, suggests they do have to. And yet, they also seem to use generic swords and daggers that appear to kill other faeries just fine. So, what is it? Is it only humans who have to use ash wood to kill faeries? The world building in this book is so haphazard, honestly.

Also...... why would a High Lord go to personally try and assassinate Rhys themselves? That's what assassins are for. You know, like Azriel. Honestly, the only thing that's feasible here is that Feyre is a better tracker than the boys, because she was a hunter, after all. And that's the part that the book undermines by randomly deciding that Azriel is better at it. Okay, book. Whatever. I really should not be surprised at this point.

Rhys gives some orders to Cassian and Azriel that would probably be a lot more meaningful if the worldbuilding weren't so shallow.

[R]"...We keep this contained. We don’t tell anyone inside that court what happened. If anyone mentions it, say it was a training exercise.” Because we couldn’t afford to let that weakness show, even amongst his subjects.

Because all his subjects, except the ones in the privilege-bubble of Velaris, are actually his enemies. Can't say I blame them, tbh. I'd definitely be his enemy.

Anyway, we can't have Feyre being competent on-page now that Rhysand is around, so we scene-break past all the tracking, and she tells us they found nothing.

But that was twice now that they’d known where Rhys and I would be.

.........................is it? When was the first time?

About the only thing I could think of would be the incident with the Attor, but 1) you have absolutely no evidence that this attack has anything to do with it or Hybern (there's plenty of other people who'd happily shoot Rhys, as evidenced by you not wanting to show weakness in front of them) and 2) the Attor didn't "know where you were", it had apparently been following you for some time and Rhys used you as live bait to draw it out. So I can't tell if this is a retcon or characters peeking at the script or the book gaslighting us. Perhaps all of the above.

Mor found Azriel and me after twenty minutes, wanting to know what the hell had happened. We’d explained—and she’d winnowed away, to spin whatever excuse would keep her horrible family from suspecting anything was amiss.

.............but earlier, Rhys said you had an hour before you were expected at court. Why does Mor need to make an excuse?

But enough of that, time to go Under the Mountain. Oh, but not really, don't worry. Feyre is very quick to assure us that this is Different and therefore Not Traumatic, and therefore Rhysand hasn't done anything bad.

My body clenched as soon as the darkness, the scent of rock and fire and roasting meat, hit me. I had been here before, suffered here— Not Under the Mountain. This was not Under the Mountain. Indeed, Amarantha’s court had been the work of a child. The Court of Nightmares was the work of a god.

Fucking shoot me.

And also, doesn't that just mean that this Under the Mountain is even worse than Amarantha's Under the Mountain? God-tier cruelty instead of child-tier cruelty? And thus should be god-tier traumatic? It stands to reason. But, alas, that would make Rhys look irresponsible and as if he's poking at her trauma, and we can't have that. Even if that's exactly what he's doing, the book will do all sorts of cartwheels to avoid having Feyre look at it and therefore have to acknowledge it.

Feyre describes it to us, and it sounds like every other inside-a-mountain city you've heard of in fantasy.

Music was already playing somewhere, and our hosts still did not come out to greet us. The people we passed—only High Fae—were clothed in finery, their faces deathly pale and cold. Not one stopped us, not one smiled or bowed. Mor ignored them all. Neither of us had said one word.

Okay, a few things. Firstly, you don't think the fact that you're completely ignoring them and not saying anything might have something to do with the fact that they aren't saying anything to you? No? And secondly, isn't Mor technically the queen of the Hewn City, or something like that? So isn't she, technically, your host? And you're already with her? Also, note that the only time the book wants to acknowledge stuff like proper noble procedure, it's only in terms of displays of power that the protagonists aren't being given. So that they can feel slighted about it.

It's just... the entitlement in these books is truly staggering. It's just so deeply embedded in them. Yes, of course there must be an ostentatious greeting waiting for them, and if there isn't, that just means that their "hosts" (which is... Mor, technically....) are just being mean ol' poopyheads, and not giving our poor protagonists their dues. Wait, what, wdym that if they want the privileges of the ruling class, they actually have to do the work and rule as well, and Mor spends all her time dagging around Velaris bc she's "too traumatised" to run the city she's meant to be in charge of? Why put her in charge of it if she's refusing to do the work? Because she's "entitled" to it because they were mean to her, and this is meant to "show them"? Seriously, how would this kind of arrangement ever work? Why hasn't the Hewn City straight-up revolted?

All these questions and more will never be answered, because this book is far too shallow for that. It honestly reads like a high-school revenge fantasy sometimes. Shallow and nonsensical.

Mor led me down the avenue toward another set of stone gates, thrown open at the base of what looked to be a castle within the mountain. The official seat of the High Lord of the Night Court.

And no one is even remotely suspicious that he spends literally no time here whatsoever?

There's some fancy gates that get a paragraph of bland description.

The Gates of Eternity—that’s what I’d call the painting that flickered in my mind.

Book. Stop. It isn't clever. Either your description is good enough that it makes us think this ourselves, in which case you're probably a skilled enough writer to know that pointing it out like this is amateur af, or it isn't, and pointing it out like this just makes it look like you're one of those people who thinks they're hot shit but actually haven't got a fucking clue. Stop telling us what we should think of your lacklustre descriptions. It's cringe-worthy in the extreme.

We get a paragraph devoted to what Mor is wearing.

A queen—a queen who bowed to no one, a queen who had faced them all down and triumphed. A queen who owned her body, her life, her destiny, and never apologized for it.

A queen who's only queen because Rhysand says so, and spends all her time actively avoiding the place she's meant to be queen of. Stop it, book. You wrote what you wrote. And, honestly.... if you want to do a "yaaas queen girlboss slay taking charge of your destiny" moment, you're probably better off doing it with someone who isn't meant to be a literal, ruling queen. Part and parcel of actual governing royalty is service - you need to look after the place you rule, otherwise they'll decide they don't want you to be queen anymore and revolt. It requires sacrifice. Yes, it also comes with a lot of power and luxury, and some rulers indulged in that at the expense of the service aspect. But that's why things like the French and Russian Revolutions happened. People will only put up with their rulers fucking off and living in luxury while leaving them to rot for so long.

But, enough of that I guess. Time to move on to Feyre's clothes. And... uh...

My clothes, which she had taken a moment in the pine wood to shift me into, were of a similar ilk, nearly identical to those I had been forced to wear Under the Mountain.

........................but.................... don't worry guys........... it's not traumatic.......... because.................. er................ because........................................................................................................................................................................

Yeah, no, I've got nothing, sorry. This is the first time the book has directly acknowledged anything Rhysand did to her Under the Mountain (the only other time being when he was going Rage Mode for her alluding to it and only stopped because Mor was about to walk in). And literally the only thing we get from it is a re-description of the clothes, and the information that this one is black, instead of brightly coloured. Absolutely nothing about how Feyre feels to be wearing it again, at the behest of the very same man who made her wear it the first time as he drugged and assaulted her for months, while she goes Under another Mountain. Not. A. Fucking. Blip.

Honestly, I've transcended rage and can only laugh at this point. This is why we had to open the chapter with "I'm not frightened, and I totally agreed to this." Because the book knew this was coming, and rather than have Feyre engage emotionally with it, it tried to take preventative measures so it could just scoot past it as if it's nbd. Like, seriously.

You know what? I'll quote everything we get about Feyre wearing this dress again, because I think it's very telling:

My clothes, which she had taken a moment in the pine wood to shift me into, were of a similar ilk, nearly identical to those I had been forced to wear Under the Mountain. Two shafts of fabric that hardly covered my breasts flowed to below my navel, where a belt across my hips joined them into one long shaft that draped between my legs and barely covered my backside. But unlike the chiffon and bright colors I had worn then, this one was fashioned of black, glittering fabric that sparkled with every swish of my hips.

That's it. We then summarise her makeup and then go back to walking into the city. That is literally it. Two months of Feyre being painted and drugged and assaulted, and the most important thing the book thinks it needs to do is remind us exactly what the dress looked like. When really, that's the least important part of the whole affair - the only thing that mattered about it's appearance is that it was degradingly revealing. The specifics of how it went about that are supremely unimportant.

What should be important is Feyre's emotional reaction to this. We're in first person, for fuck's sake. We are in her fucking head. And literally the only thing she has to say about this is a bland, emotionless description of what it looked like. And, I must reiterate: this is our payoff for two fucking months of Feyre being drugged and assaulted while wearing these dresses. Two. Fucking. Months. After we spent pages and pages and pages wallowing in all the non-Rhysand induced parts of her trauma, after we watched her trauma be used as an excuse for her and Rhysand grow closer, as an excuse to demonise Tamlin. And there is NOT. A. BLIP. from Feyre about any of it. Nothing. Just fucking nothing.

Just........................... I really don't have any words. Wow. Just, wow, book.

And note, because this book doesn't understand how to do tension, and thinks it's the same thing as just hiding shit from the audience, we still have no idea why she's dressed like this. Why is it necessary to dress her in the exact same kind of outfit that she spent two months being traumatised in Under the Mountain? Why????? What does it accomplish that literally no other outfit could???? Surely, there's more than one design of skimpy outfit in the Night Court, if she just needs to look like a harlot for some reason??? Why does it need to be the EXACT SAME ONE????????

Rhysand is trying to retraumatise her. There's literally no other explanation. All of this has been the classic narcissist pushing boundaries, seeing what he can get away with. He's been poking and prodding the whole time she's been with him. Now it's the ultimate test. Can he dress her up like his sex slave again, and take her Under a Mountain, while not only having her not run away from him, but actively agree to it? Just. There is literally no other explanation.

Actually no, I tell a lie, it could also be mind control. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse, tbh.

Well, we have to move on at some point. Just assume I'm banging my head against the wall at the sheer a;fkldg;jghdfjkhgjksdfhgjdfhlgjdh of it all for the rest of this chapter. Actually wait, scratch that. I just thought of something else that I can't believe almost went by me. This:

...nearly identical to those I had been forced to wear Under the Mountain.

Uh huh. Yup. And who forced you to wear them, Feyre? Hmm? Go on. Say it.

Yes, that's right, it's fucking RHYSAND! WHY WON'T YOU JUST FUCKING SAY IT, BOOK??????

This is a very deliberate omission on the book's part. Much like the pre-emptive "I'm not afraid" from before, this is the book doing it's absolute damnedest to absolve Rhysand of responsibility. Look at it! It's even using passive voice just so it can syntactically avoid having to use his name, and thus distance him from his crimes. Fucking pathetic.

Anyway, yes, we'll actually move on now.

Mor and Feyre keep walking into the city (for some reason, Rhys and the others are coming later).

Some [of the people watching] looked like Mor, with their gold hair and beautiful faces. They even hissed at her. Mor smirked at them.

Seriously, tell me what part of this isn't just high school mean girl caricatures and the boss-babe "showing" them. It's so utterly fucking juvenile.

They reach the throne room, there is much description.

A crowd had gathered—and for a moment, I was again in Amarantha’s throne room, so similar was the atmosphere, the malice. So similar was the dais at the other end.

And so similar is the outfit you were forced to wear by fucking RHYSAND! DO NOT TRY AND PIN ALL OF FEYRE'S TRAUMA ON AMARANTHA WHILE YOU IGNORE TWO FUCKING MONTHS OF HER BEING PAINTED AND DRUGGED AND ASSAULTED, WHERE WE ONLY HAVE HIS WORD THAT HE DIDN'T FUCKING RAPE HER, BOOK! NONE OF THAT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH AMARANTHA, IT WAS ALL OFF RHYS'S OWN BAT! HE DIDN'T HAVE TO DO IT, AND YET, HE CHOSE TO, AND NOW THE BOOK IS SNEAKILY TRYING TO FRAME IT AS THOUGH THAT, TOO, CAN BE BLAMED ON AMARANTHA!

Fuck, it's just so fucking insidious.

Honestly, at this point I'm not even mad that Feyre has "forgiven him too easily" or anything like that. In order for her to forgive it, the book would have to acknowledge that there's something to forgive first. And it simply refuses. Does it think the people reading it are fucking idiots, that it can get away with just ignoring it like this? Does it think they all have the memory of a goldfish? It's actually so fucking insulting. Legit thinks we're stupid.

Anyway, Mor's father is waiting in the throne room for them.

His brown eyes were like old soil as he said to her, “Where is he?” No greeting, no formality. He ignored me wholly.

Yes, no formality, because this book doesn't actually want to be about nobility. Also, why wouldn't he ignore you, Feyre? You're dressed like a sex slave, and they tended to not be given the same courtesies as high nobility. Don't be all affronted that you're not getting your "dues" when you allegedly agreed to this munted-ass plan in the first place.

Her father surveyed my face, my body—and where I thought he’d sneer and ogle … there was nothing. No emotion. Just heartless cold. I followed Mor before disgust wrecked my own icy mask.

You're............ disgusted that he's not sneering at and ogling you...........?

...........................I honestly don't know what to make of this. The book and I obviously see the purpose of her sex-slave outfit very differently. Feyre seems to think that he should be ogling her, and is disgusted that he isn't. How do you know he's not all icy-faced because he's disgusted that his High Lord would do this to a woman, hmm? That his daughter would allow such a thing to happen to someone else? Obviously, with the power of hindsight, we know this isn't the case, but Feyre doesn't. Just goes to show how well all the prep-work Rhys did telling her about how eeeeeeeevil everyone in the Hewn City was has done it's job.

But even then, it still doesn't explain why Feyre finds the lack of ogling disgusting, specifically. What, do you want him to ogle you? Somehow, I feel like you'd complain about that too. Guy just can't win.

Once again, the book just simply cannot empathise with its characters. It wants Feyre to be a sexy, sexy queen here, and the fact that she is once again being paraded around in front of strangers, wearing the same skimpy dress she was forced to wear UtM while Rhys paraded her around in front of strangers...... well, it's just a complete non-factor in the book's mind. Something it doesn't need to account for at all, except as a convenient means to remind us of the specifics of what the dress looked like.

I really feel like I should be raging, but... it's kind of hard to describe. Like you open a door expecting a certain ordinary thing, but actually, it's just cavernous void where a great honking monster is staring back at you from. And you're just kind of frozen looking at it, with no idea what to do. Or like, that moment in a serial killer movie where the main character starts to realise that actually, maybe they're alone in the room with the killer, and there's no way out. That's what contemplating this situation feels like. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with this book in ways I don't think I quite understood before. Something utterly soulless and empty about the writing. Just..... it thinks disgust is a perfectly natural reaction to have when people aren't drooling over you in the sex-slave outfit you've been forced to wear again, the one you spent two months being traumatised in. Not even a flicker that maybe there's slightly more that needs to be unpacked here. It's actually quite scary.

Again, it's not that Feyre's fine with it that's the problem. It's that the book doesn't think it needs to be acknowledged at all. Like, not even to tell us that Feyre's okay with it.

I... okay. Okay. We'll just move on. What the actual fuck.

Feyre describes a grand feast laid out on the nearby tables.

It might have made my mouth water … Were it not for the High Fae in their finery. Were it not for the fact that no one touched the food—the power and wealth lying in letting it go to waste.

Or..... maybe it's a feast for the High Lord, and they have to wait for him to get there.......? Or maybe it's laid out for after the ceremony/audience? Also, get the fuck off your high horse, Feyre. You were bragging just a chapter or two ago about the "generous" salary Rhys pays you. Remember, if he's High Lord, all of this technically belongs to him. He's the one allowing it to be wasted.

It's honestly a really strange situation with the Night Court. The book wants Rhys to have this bad-guy "mask", so Hewn City is needed for that. It wants them to be his shit-scared underlings, so he can posture and look powerful for Feyre and the audience. It wants them to be his subjects, so he can say that Mor is in charge of them so we can have the "boss-babe" moments I pulled out before. And yet, in so many other respects, it wants them to be an independent power that he can wash his hands of. Here, they're being painted as decadent and wasteful - completely overlooking that any decadence and waste must, by definition, happen with Rhys's approval. He's the Most Powerful High Lord Ever, and as we're about to see, they're all shit-scared of him. If he wanted it to stop, he could stop it. They can only collect as many taxes as his laws (or his enforcement of his laws, if they're breaking them) allow them to. If they can display such "wasteful" decadence, it's because Rhys fucking allows it. If they're all backstabby, sexist assholes, it's because Rhys allows it. It's a city in his Court. He is responsible for what does and doesn't happen there.

You know what *could* make this situation work, at least a little? Make it so that Rhys and Mor aren't cousins (because let's be real, nothing is actually done with that, except to make sure that Mor can never be a rival for Rhysand's affection, since they're relatives. Actually shit, that's a whole trope I've missed this entire time, the only women the protagonist is allowed to be friends with are relatives of the Love Interest, because everyone else is a rival. Fuck), and make it instead that the Hewn City and Velaris are separate political entities. Rhys and Mor (or Mor and a high-ranking person in Rhys's court, since I guess he needs to be available for Feyre) are in a political marriage that creates an alliance between the courts. Rhys can disapprove of the stuff they do; Mor can still hate it there. But they have to swallow it for the sake of what they get from the alliance - the troops and stuff we see later that Rhys says he so desperately needs. That way, the fact that they need to at least appear to play nice with HC despite Rhys being their boss and also the Most Powerful High Lord Ever at least makes a smidgeon of sense, while also allowing the book to absolve Rhys of their atrocities (since, in this version, he's not their boss, and thus has no say over how they run their court).

But, no. That's not what we've got. Instead, we've got.... this. Where Rhys is so growly and dominant and powerful and they're all so terrified of him, but also, uhhhhhh, idk Change Takes Time or something, and Rhys totally can't control what they do despite being their boss and his demonstrated power over them, so that's why HC is still such a shithole. Trying to have its cake and eat it too. It just makes Rhys look like a performative ass who actually gets off on leaving HC the way it is.

Mor stands beside the throne and addresses the room.

“Your High Lord approaches. He is in a foul mood, so I suggest being on your best behavior—unless you wish to be the evening entertainment.”

Remember. This isn't a "mask." This is how Rhys is choosing to treat these people. Nothing is forcing him to be like this. He's the Most Powerful High Lord Ever - what is he afraid they're going to do if he doesn't wear his "mask?"

And ohhh, this is why Rhys wasn't with them from the start, he needed to make a Dramatic Entrance. Much fuss is made of his rumbling power and all that nonsense. The usual.

Everyone in that room went still as death. As if petrified that their very breathing would draw the attention of the predator now strolling toward us.

And yet, there's just nothing he can do about the situation in HC, he has no control over them at all..... such a shame, you guys...

Seriously, which part of this is supposed to convince me that Rhys is just such a swell guy who is forced to do bad things, and not a regular old tyrant revelling in ruling his people through fear? He doesn't do anything with this power he has, just basks in it from time to time when the mood takes him.

Mor’s shoulders were back, her chin high—feral, wanton pride at her master’s arrival. Remembering my role, I kept my own chin lowered, watching beneath my brows.

So, her "role" (to which we are still not privy to details about ofc) is to be subervient... you know, like a slave............ again, I have to ask: why??? Why????? To retraumatise her? Yeah, let's go with that. Just another way for Rhys to get his jollies off by degrading people.

In true dramatic fashion, Cassian and Azriel enter first, and the book is positively creaming itself over how scary-scary dangerous they are. I want to pull so much out of it, but won't, because this post is way too long already and we're barely halfway through the chapter. It's just the same cringy performative shit as always. And also to remind us of Mor's trauma.

They had tried to sell a seventeen-year-old girl into marriage with a sadist

Hold up, Eris is a sadist? When did we find that out? I thought he was just a miscellaneous jerk and Mor just didn't like him? Or has Rhysand fucked Feyre's head so badly that she's now conflating the sadistic Night Court with Mor's former betrothed?

And these people now lived in utter terror of the three companions who stood at the dais. Good. They should be afraid of them. Afraid of me.

.............why? No, literally, why??? For starters Feyre, you, yourself, haven't actually done anything worthy of inducing their fear. So far as they're concerned, you're a meek little sex slave, and any shred of power you have in this situation derives solely from your master. And secondly, why, for love of freaking god why, are you so hell-bent on making people fear you??? This is literal tyrant shit! In any other book, the goal would be to depose this fucking regime, not wank off over how scary-powerful it is! And thirdly, why is it that the entire Hewn City is being blamed for something that Mor's family did to her? Seriously, what evidence do you have, apart from Rhys's word, that anyone else there is bad at all, let alone this level of cartoonishly bad? And yet, Feyre thinks this makes it perfectly justified that they should fear her. No. No, you and Rhysand are fucking tyrants, and nothing the book can say will convince me otherwise.

And then Rhysand appeared.

Ugh.

He had released the damper on his power, on who he was. His power filled the throne room, the castle, the mountain. The world. It had no end and no beginning.

Come on book, fap a little harder. I can't quite hear it through the page yet.

No wings. No weapons. No sign of the warrior. Nothing but the elegant, cruel High Lord the world believed him to be he was.

FTFY.

It's not a fucking mask. This is how he is legitimately choosing to treat those of his subjects not fortunate enough to be born in Velaris. He's perfectly happy treating them all like dirt instead of fucking doing something about the situation. His power fills the entire world, book! You literally just said it! Tell me again how he's just so helpless when it comes to doing something about this cruelty. His cruelty! I'll wait.

Here—here was the most powerful High Lord ever born.

Yes, yes, I know, I got it the first 700 times and have been memeing on it ever since. What is the Most Powerful High Lord Ever going to do about this situation that offends his poor, sensitive soul so much?

The face of dreams and nightmares.

Yes, yes, face of dreams and nightmares, because the Court of Nightmares is as much his as the Court of Dreams. What. Is. He. Going. To. Do. About. It?

Rhys’s eyes met mine briefly from across the room as he strolled between the pillars. To the throne that was his by blood and sacrifice and might. [...] Mor stepped off the dais, dropping to one knee in a smooth bow. Cassian and Azriel followed suit. So did everyone in that room. Including me.

Oh, right, he's not going to do fucking anything about it. Just bask in the adoration of his oppressed people, gloating over their misfortune, belittling and blaming them as if it's all somehow their fault. I cannot believe we're meant to think he's not a villain.

Has anyone written a fix-fic where the Hewn City has gone all viva la revolution on Rhys's ass? Because I would totally read that.

Rhys’s boots stopped in my line of sight. His fingers were icy on my chin as he lifted my face. The entire room, still on the floor, watched. But this was the role he needed me to play. To be a distraction and novelty.

Oh. Oh, so this *is* the part where he feels her up in front of his entire court? For some reason, I thought that came later, after they were mates. But no. Fuck, that makes it so much worse. I mean, it'd still be fucking horrible even if they were mates, but. Holy shit.

He led me the few steps onto the dais—to the throne. He sat, smiling faintly at his monstrous court. He owned every inch of the throne. These people.

He owns every inch of them, and yet........ he can't do anything about it being a shit hole..........

And with a tug on my waist, he perched me on his lap.

But then, maybe I'm being a bit unrealistic here. The people at Hewn City have clearly learned their cruelty from the best.

The High Lord’s whore. Who I’d become Under the Mountain—who the world expected me to be.

So. It's not enough to have her go Under this Mountain, on which the Mountain she was traumatised Under was modelled. It's not enough to dress her in the same skimpy outfits in which she was traumatised (by Rhysand) and parade her around in front of strangers (just like Rhysand did UtM). No. He has to fucking sexually assault her again too, in front of everyone. Just to make the re-traumatisation complete. Also:

who the world expected me to be.

No, no, that is not who the world expects you to be, Feyre. A mere few lines earlier, Rhys announced you thusly to his subjects:

Rhys’s lips curved upward. “Welcome to my home, Feyre Cursebreaker.”

The dangerous new pet that Mor’s father would now seek to feel out.

That is who they expect you to be. The badass human who slew the Middengard worm and literally fucking died in order to free Prythian from Amarantha. That's why Rhys announced you like that. Because that's who they know you as. And he wants them to know that he now has Feyre Cursebreaker herself as his own personal sex slave. It's just yet another fucking power play on his part, made at your expense. He wants the world to know that even Feyre Cursebreaker submits to him.

And also, Feyre, remember how at Spring you were bitching about how everyone and their dog knew you saved them, and the attention was just so uncomfortable and whatnot? Not a single fucking person expects you to be Rhysand's whore, and it's just proof of his peak fucking gaslighting that he's gotten you to believe it.

That, or proof of mind control. Just. Fuck it all. Fuck it all to hell.

Why would he give a flying fuck about who Rhys chooses to feel up in the throne room? Seriously. There was absolutely no justification for why Rhys did this to her the first time UtM; this is flimsy enough that I'm inclined to say there's no justification for it the second time, either. He just gets off on publicly humiliating people who are under his power. Words like "tyrant" aren't even strong enough. The guy is a fucking pestilence on every thinking being.

And then... we get to the actual groping.

Rhys’s hand slid along my bare waist, the other running down my exposed thigh. Cold—his hands were so cold I almost yelped. He must have felt the silent flinch. A heartbeat later, his hands had warmed. His thumb, curving around the inside of my thigh, gave a slow, long stroke as if to say Sorry.

Yeah, because that's really the fucking problem here!!!! I just. I can't. I can't. I cannot fathom how anyone could write this. It was incomprehensible enough the first time. Now, we have that first time for added context, as well as this entire book so far being devoted to Feyre's trauma UtM and just.... nothing. Nothing. The only acknowledgements we have that this has even happened before are that 1) the dresses match and 2) that Feyre thinks this is the role the world "expects" of her now, due to it happening before. But there still has not been one, single, solitary peep about how this is a fucking awful, inexcusable thing that Rhys has done to her, either now or UtM. Not ONE! It just... isn't even being acknowledged as something that needs forgiveness. Feyre just shrugs and goes "oh well, this is my life now, I guess." There's just no words. No words.

Rhys indeed leaned in to bring his mouth near my ear, well aware his subjects had not yet risen from the floor. As if they had once done so before they were bidden, long ago, and had learned the consequences.

But they've never learned the consequences for doing all the horrible evil things that Rhys claims to hate so much, uh huh. There's just nothing he can do, you guys! Keep digging your own grave, book. Rhys is the worst of them all.

Rhys starts telling her all about what the other men (sorry, males) in this room are thinking of doing to her, because the situation wasn't awful enough yet, I guess.

I waited for the blush, the shyness, to creep in. But I was beautiful. I was strong.

Again, just. "Beautiful" is presented as the first counter-argument. As if, if Feyre was ugly, then she'd be perfectly justified in feeling embarrassed here, but since she's beautiful, well, that makes it all okay. WHETHER OR NOT FEYRE ACTUALLY LOOKS GOOD ISN'T THE PROBLEM HERE BOOK, THE PROBLEM IS THAT SHE'S BEING GROPED AND PARADED AROUND BASICALLY NAKED IN FRONT OF DOZENS (HUNDREDS?) OF STRANGERS! AND NOT ONLY IS THAT BAD ENOUGH IN AND OF ITSELF, BUT IT'S HAPPENED TO HER BEFORE, UNDER THE MOUNTAIN, ONCE AGAIN AT RHYSAND'S HAND, AND WE HAVE SPENT THIS ENTIRE FUCKING BOOK SO FAR WALLOWING IN ALL THE TRAUMA SHE PICKED UP THERE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, BOOK???? THE FACT THAT SHE'S BEAUTIFUL IS NOT THE PROBLEM! THE FACT THAT SHE'S BEAUTIFUL IS NOT THE PROBLEM! THE FACT THAT SHE'S BEAUTIFUL IS NOT THE ACTUAL FUCKING PROBLEM OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU????

Fucking hell, that soulless monster is back. The one that sees Feyre as just as much of a piece of meat as it wants us to think the HC people do. The one that just does not understand that what Rhysand did to her Under the Mountain was wrong.

I.... I'm actually at a bit of a loss here. I just cannot understand why the book doesn't understand that what Rhysand did was wrong. Even a fucking sociopath understands that they at least have to pretend to think it's wrong. Just say something. Say something about it. I feel like I'm actually losing my mind.

So I smiled a bit, the first smile of my new mask.

And look at that, she's fucking dissociating. Yeah, this totally screams "I 100% agreed to this and am thrilled to be here, and have absolutely no residual trauma from the first time this happened to me at all."

He’d apologized in advance for it—for this game, these roles we’d have to play.

Pics or it didn't happen. No, really. This is not the kind of shit you can handwave away as happening off-page. Feyre is being asked to relive the crux of her trauma on very, very dubious grounds. We need to see her emotional reaction to that.

But the book knows there's no way it can excuse it. It fucking knows. And so, we don't get to be there when Rhys "apologises" for this, because it knows there's absolutely no way it can spin this as defensible. So it just... breezes past it, just like that. And that's why every single thing it says about sexual assault after this, every bit of virtue-signalling with the priestesses and Nesta and whatever else, is an absolute, irredeemable fucking lie. It does not care. It does not care. Here, on full, exhibitionist display, we see what it really thinks of sexual assault victims. To the book, their voices aren't worth hearing. Their emotions aren't worth being understood. it gives us an off-page apology before the perpetrator assaults her again, and expects that to be enough.

Fuck that. Fuck everything about this book. It's worth less than the dust it will rot to 1000 years from now.

Fuck, why is this chapter still going. Why is it still going???

I think.... I'm going to have to take a break. This chapter will be in two parts. That's all I can deal with right now.

[separatist-apologist]

OKAY SOME DETAILS:

@the-lonelybarricade made the banner, @velidewrites came up with the title, and the idea belongs to @surielteaparty !!

Premise: Lucien and Elain's lock just as she's being judged for a wet t-shirt contest. What happens next? Only you, the writer, can tell us!

When: the whole month of June!

Where: Tumblr and AO3 (I'll make a collection)

Who: anyone who wants to participate!! OPEN INVITATION SO I AM INVITING YOU SPECIFICALLY!!!

Other details:

- We decided to do it across a month to give anyone who wants to participate a fair amount of time!

- you can post it directly to the AO3 collection!

- this is just for fun! The only rule is the premise! And having fun

- this is about APPRECIATION so if you have nothing nice to say, MOVE ON

- anyone who wants to participate can, did I say that?

[eudaimonia83]

Oooh a thirst trap just in time for summer lol 😂

My brain is braining now and I can’t concentrate on anything else…

[rosiethorns88]

Dropping the latest Sketch-a-Wish voted on by my lovely Patreon members for January (yes, I'm drastically behind, but feverishly catching up!)

Featuring Jude and Cardan from The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black! Another scene requested where I took a slight detour to showcase what we didn't see on page (when Jude was unconscious) but was hinted at in the aftermath (Cardan's bloody jacket). Does anyone else's cat shed fur when they're startled or agitated? Mine leaves behind clumps, which for a Devon Rex is dire. I channeled that energy with Cardan's agitated whipping tail and shedding leaves.

Pomegranate have been my go-to fruit to add to my morning oats for over a year now, so it was a fun time to sprinkle them all over this.

[felifeltfrog]

Ok so now I need some madlad directors like Guillermo del Toro and Robert Eggers (specifically these two) to band together and make a movie out of Slewfoot by Brom

[works-of-heart]

I've been away for 3 weeks at a hotel since they are doing renovations on my home. Here's my finished picture of Lucien in a pony tail!

[primulagoldworthy]

Now I see daylight ✨

[snarkformysanity]

Showing and Telling and Sarah J Maas

I think we can all agree that there's a bit too much telling in SJM's works. We'll be assured that a character is the strongest, or the kindest, or the most badass, or whatever, but rarely see any actual evidence of it on-page. But I just happened across this (in the grand scheme of things, fairly innocuous) line in ACOWAR that made me think a bit more about why the problem is so bad in her work. Here is the line, for reference (from after Feyre's initial fight with Mor, though that doesn't really matter for my point):

A caress of claws down my innermost barrier—a comforting touch.

Obviously describing Rhys's mental touch on her mind. And it made me think. It's not just that we're told one thing while seeing little to no evidence of it. It's that there's sentences just like this all through SJM's work (usually either descriptions or when Feyre is making up motivations for other people), where we'll be shown something, and then immediately be told - often with the use of an em-dash - something that completely contradicts the imagery used in the first part of the sentence.

And I say the imagery because it isn't necessarily (though often does as well) contradicting the intent of the first part. Caress + comfort work together in this example, for instance. But claws does not. When claws are scraping against something, or indeed, even if they're caressing, it often implies an unwelcome and unwanted attempt to gain access. Claws are sharp and pointy, not comforting - if the monster is caressing your last barrier (be it a physical door or a mental shield) with its claws, it's because it's playing with you before it kills you, not because it cares.

But then, we're told that actually, this otherwise intrusive-sounding description is meant to be comforting - even though claws typically are not. This specific sentence probably isn't the strongest example of it (just the one that happened to set me thinking of it), but you see this kind of thing again and again and again with her descriptions. And the thing is, she has to tell us, because otherwise, we would all get the complete wrong idea about what she's trying to convey, because she's showing us things that actively work against what she wants us to think of it. She describes something that is intrusive, or aggressive, or [insert other negative adjective here], and then assures us that actually, it's none of those things, it's a good thing. Somehow. For some reason. Straight-up gaslighting us with even the basic fucking description. Like, there's no reason the line above couldn't be something like:

A gentle caress against my innermost barrier. I almost sighed as I leaned into it, as if his hand were actually on my cheek.

Where we're just shown Feyre being comforted by Rhys's touch on her mind (already a very intimate action that implies a deep level of trust, if we go by the book's assertion that it is desired and consensual contact), without any contradictory imagery invoked by the word "claws."

Like I said, this sentence probably isn't the best or most egregious example of it, it's just the one that happened to spark this thought. But it's little wonder that the fandom is in the state it's in, with all the toxicity and arguing and whatnot. We can't even trust basic descriptions to not gaslight us - we're consistently shown one (usually questionable) thing, and then immediately told it's actually something completely different, even in little throwaway, filler lines like this. It's that deeply embedded in the books.

[jccatstudios]

A while ago, I remember promising to show the Crooked Kingdom thumbnails I mocked up if I didn't have time to ever finalize them, and since I've turned my attention to other projects (like my graphic novel pitch!), I felt like it was well past time to release them. So here they are (plus a page I actually finished that I never shared here)!

If it does happen that I come back to finish this scene (unlikely, but hey), I'll delete this post, but I hope you enjoy what my comics look like at their earliest stages. :)

[polartss]

Nina and Matthias 💔

I made this for Illumicrate’s special edition of Six of Crows!!

[eudaimonia83]

Helnik my beloved 😭

[pergaminaa]

Am I the only one who gets annoyed at how easily this fandom excuses Sorscha?

Like… she was literally writing letters to her aunt about Dorian’s magic and lowkey expecting him to stand up for *her* country. and everyone just ignores that part?? hello???

and then the things she says right before she dies… i’m sorry but Dorian was already traumatized and dealing with so much, he did NOT deserve to hear that. not then, not like that. it just makes me so angry for him.

I genuinely think if she had been honest with him from the beginning, things could have been completely different. maybe she wouldn’t have had to hide everything. maybe she could have lived. we’ll never know, but still.

also that scene where Chaol says a healer would make a great queen and she literally grimaces?? girl… who do you think you are 😭

Idk maybe i’m being too harsh but i can’t see her as this innocent angel everyone makes her out to be.🤭🫣

yes totally!!

i was never convinced tbh because from the very start she was just so suspicious!! i never felt that she could be trusted and poor Dorian was pouring his heart to her because she has this angelic demeanor and ugh im sorry but i could never get behind it

I mean Dorian is charming and he lowkey easily just flirts with everyone. and honestly her being available and kind just drew him in but something about Sorscha just didn’t sit well with me. and things were happening way too quickly??? like calm down why is Dorian head over heels for this healer who apparently has a hidden agenda?????

true, she made him feel so guilty in a situation he was also the victim of. i mean, let’s put everything that was happening aside, Dorian was dealing with raw powerful magic in a kingdom where such magic is punished by death. he was scared and confused but also!!! he refused to be a sitting duck or wait for his magic to get out of control and put him so he was practicing in secret just trying to survive so her blaming him really has no place because y’all are in the same boat here????

unrelated but Chaol saying that was a definitely foreshadowing of him falling for a healer lmao he sure has a thing for them

but anyway back to Sorscha, I’m not saying she’s BAD but she isn’t the uwu cute innocent healer angel she was made out to be. no she was cunning and knew how to send correspondence without getting caught and honestly at first i was waiting for her to betray Dorian because all the info he was feeding her??? but at least she didn’t turn out to bad and actually use that information i was honestly worried for Dorian there because why was he so trusting????

it was a sad ending for both honestly her death was so brutal and then Dorian was imprisoned inside himself and it was awful until Manon showed up and awakened him lol

[eudaimonia83]

I enjoyed that she was a spy. It gave us a sense that the resistance was a large movement, involving people at all levels…just like the scene at the symphony when the musicians protest. otherwise the only glimpse we would have of that would be Aedion pretending to be a playboy.

I did not think she and Dorian would ever have lasted. She had some kind of secret evident from the outset.

But I was surprised by her death, and shocked. (That moment really pulled the rug out from under me tbh) I thought she was going to either betray or flee from Dorian, escape, and be another touchstone character (a-la Ansel or Nox) to pull the southern countries of Erilea into the final climactic battles. But it does make a sad sense that it happened the way it did. And the consequences of it were both lasting and believable, which is kind of all you can ask for a character death.

[scarletaire]

homeland (Chapter 1)

A/N: Welcome to my very first multi-chaptered fic! Would love to know what you think ❤️

Fandom: The Folk of the Air

Genre/s: Contains Fluff, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Smut

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Post-QON, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Protective!Cardan, Bewildered!Jude, Jude and Cardan discuss the Undersea, but they get a little Distracted

Description: 

Cardan’s eyes flash open.

“Why?” he repeats, and Jude feels the power shift between them. “Don’t you remember, wife?” he croons. “It was the Undersea who stole you away from me.” 

And Jude has only enough time to think, danger, before he lunges at her.

or:

Cardan and Jude work on removing their armor. Taking off this particularly stubborn piece happens in varying states of undress.

Links: Masterlist | AO3 

Keep reading

[eudaimonia83]

Been rereading old fics today and this one just gets me straight in the feels, every damn time

Especially the scene in chapter 2 where he helps her get dressed. Like. I’m weak.