Starry Night Orchids | Chapter 1
Nyx x Eris’s Daughter!Reader
A/N: This was so fun to write oh my goodness!
Court politics | Courtship politics | Courtly scheming| A spoiled brat pushes reader’s buttons| A very good boy| Lucien’s the best | Eris is a good dad
Nyx stared at the hound with wide eyes. “Does she bring that thing fucking everywhere?”
Merrick, Tarquin’s son, heir to Summer, and Nyx’s honorary cousin by way of Amren and Varian’s common-law marriage, gulped beside him, “since he was big enough to go with her, yes.”
The terrifying terror of a hunting dog heeled at your feet had been a present from your father several years ago. A hound you could raise yourself for whatever purpose you wished. Many in your court - remnants from the days of the grandfather you never had the misfortune of meeting - had expected you to raise the pup as an adorable furry friend like the foxes you had a habit of feeding. Something they thought befit their opinion of what a High Lord’s daughter should be.
You had raised a furry friend alright, just one more suited for physical and social battles than walks through the woods.
In secret you babied Wolfe, but he was a smart dog. He understood that while you loved him, and behind closed doors would give him all the scritches and kisses he wanted, there were times and places for different kinds of work. This Autumn Equinox ball was one of them.
Your father, Eris, had done a great deal of work in the Autumn Court after the truly unfortunate demise of your grandfather. Not that you were alive to see those immediate changes.
He’d told you that he wanted to make the court a better place for many people. Your grandmother - though she lived in Day now - your Uncle Lucien, your mother, you.
But while Autumn had mostly turned from a court of teeth and fire to one more focused on the glories of your season, there was still a reputation to uphold. Many of the High Lords suspected that Beron’s rule had not ended peacefully. And as much as they may prefer Eris to your late grandfather, they were still just a bit wary of your family.
Your father never wanted you, his heir and beloved daughter, to ever bow or shrink for anyone. So posturing and baring your teeth, as it were, is what you did. Many in Prythian were mildly unnerved by you and Wolfe, and you liked it that way. Their momentary apprehension fueled you, made you feel confident in the power you already had.
Even if, often, you wished someone would see the heart of you. The way your mother had with Eris.
You looked up from your assessment of the room, eyes alighting on Nyx and Merrick watching you from across the crowded hall. You grinned at them scratching behind Wolfe’s ear, relishing in the discomfort in the Summer Court heir.
Nyx however, knew a little more about your family history than Merrick. Your uncle was his mother’s close friend even if the bond with his aunt didn’t pan out. And he knew exactly how your father got the throne, and how different a male Eris was from what he showed most of Prythian.
There was a deadly edge to your smile, but Nyx found himself unbothered by it. He knew the roles his family has played before. He’d come to recognize similar performances in others.
He scrunched his nose up skeptically your way. If you wanted to throw him off kilter, you’d have to work harder than that.
For some unexplainable reason - one that totally, absolutely escaped him - Nyx had taken to watching you at events like this one.
He watched as a tall blond male, dripping with smarm, dressed in a mortifying shade of orange, approached you. He recognized the male and ground his teeth. Complicated history between Autumn and Night aside, there was no one at this party he’d rather you not talk to than Oleander.
“Hi boys,” a female voice purred behind Nyx and Merrick. Nyx had been halfway into marching over to you, when his shoulder was touched - wings blessedly tucked away - drawing his attention behind him.
With one hand each on his and Merrick’s backs, the twin to the male talking to you, was grinning coyly up at them.
Amaryllis and her brother Oleander, the terrible twin heirs to Spring. Tamlin’s simpering and backhanded children.
Nyx pivoted immediately, removing her hand from his back, Merrick a step behind. Amaryllis was wearing a puffy purple dress that was darker than her usual shades, coming across almost as the color of a night dark sky or ocean. Nyx and Merrick shared brief, similar looks of disdain. Merrick’s was gone faster and was far more subtle, however.
One of the Spring twins’ favorite things to do at parties like this was to taunt people not just with their conversational slings and arrows, but in their dress as well. Often, they wore colors specifically to signal one thing or another to whoever their chosen target of the evening was. It never made sense to Nyx but most of what Spring got up to didn’t make sense to him.
Nyx couldn’t keep himself from rolling his eyes, “what do you want?”
Amaryllis’s eyes turned big, pitiful and doe-like and both boys knew every bit of it was fake as could be. “I can’t just want to talk to someone?”
“In my experience, Amaryllis,” Merrick said, voice diplomatic, “you don’t often make-“
“You don’t talk to somebody unless you want something,” Nyx said, not having enough patience with the female in front of him to let Merrick finish. “So what do you want?”
“Would either of you care to offer the lady a dance?”
Nyx snorted. Merrick stayed quiet.
After a beat Nyx said, “you’re serious?”
Amaryllis’s eyes bubbled with crocodile tears. “Yes.”
‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ Nyx thought in Merrick’s direction.
Merrick sighed, “there are plenty of other males to dance with Amaryllis, why not ask them?”
Amaryllis began to sniffle and blubber.
‘Cauldron, how old is she?’ Nyx quietly said again. Had it been anyone else, Nyx wouldn’t have denied a pretty girl the chance to dance. He loved dancing in settings like this. It was always fun, a little flirtatious, and always entertaining.
It was a shame that the potential partner this time was a female he positively could not stand.
‘She’s going to make a scene if one of us doesn’t do something,’ Merrick thought back. It appeared he didn’t want to dance with her anymore than Nyx did.
Merrick had a massive crush on Kallias and Viviane’s daughter. He wanted to court her properly, he just hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask her yet. The last thing he needed was rumors swirling around about him and the female heir of Spring. The relationship would be over before it even got the chance to start. Amaryllis, conniving little snake that she was, likely knew that. She was banking on Nyx’s hatred of her to spell doom for Merrick’s romantic prospects.
“Fine,” Nyx said, “If I dance with you once will you leave us both alone?”
“Nyx, you don’t,” Merrick began but the terror in purple cut him off.
“Sure, Nyxie.” A feral, satisfied smile, assuring him that she’d gotten exactly what she wanted. Nyx fought the urge to vomit.
Nyx’s usual play was bowing and offering a hand to his prospective dance partner. Once the hand was taken, he’d gaze up at them and softly kiss the back of it. Then he’d smile - a mix of genuine joy and mischievous glee - as he watched the reaction.
Instead, this time, he stiffly held himself in a dancing position, waiting for her to take his hands.
She glommed onto him, wrapping herself around him in a hug, hands brushed his shoulders where his wings would be if they weren’t magically concealed. Firmly, he grabbed her hands and pulled them back where he wanted them.
Merrick sent Nyx the most apologetic look he’d ever seen.
‘Finally ask your girl to dance, and we’re even, okay? Don’t feel sorry for me, I’ll manage.’ Nyx stiffly spun Amaryllis around, out of Merrick’s view. ‘Go now before she sees.’
The music swirled around them and the other dancers, and Nyx quickly decided he hated this piece.
“The way people rave about your dancing, I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so stiff, Nyxie,” Amaryllis cooed with a coquettish little laugh.
Nyx really was starting to feel sick, perhaps that last spin had been a mistake.
“My dancing is entirely dependent on the company I do it with,” he said.
“Aww, you don’t mean that!”
Twelve different disarming comments danced on the tip of Nyx’s tongue but he forwent them all in favor of another stiff spin.
Commotion to the side of the ballroom halted all dancing and conversation. Nyx dropped Amaryllis’s hands as his head whipped over to where the sound had come from.
Over in the last place Nyx had seen you, Oleander stood - a raging image of his father. He held his hand aloft, a bit of blood dripping from small puncture wounds. You were gone, the faint sent of smoke wafting over to Nyx. Wolfe, however, stood dropped low in a crouch a pace away from Oleander, growling, with faintly red teeth.
“The fucking thing bit me!”
Amaryllis surged over to her brother, pulling him away from Wolfe like he was the greatest monster known to faekind, all the while fretting over the tiny puncture marks that clearly were a warning nip more than anything else. For Cauldron’s sake, he could tell from where he stood the wounds wouldn’t last the hour.
Nyx walked over, cautiously but firmly approaching Wolfe, who was still faintly growling up at Oleander.
“Someone needs to put that thing down!” Oleander shouted.
Nyx held his hand out for Wolfe, who paused his snarling to look up at the Night Court’s heir. Wolfe sniffed the offered hand, looking at Nyx with indifference.
“He doesn’t seem too bad to me,” Nyx responded, “he was trained to protect his owner, seems to me he was just doing his job.”
Amaryllis dramatically gasped, something a bad actress in one of Velaris’s many theaters would have thought to accurately portray horrific betrayal.
Nyx ignored her, staring down her brother. He received a similar look of contempt from Oleander.
Nyx shrugged, placed one hand in his pocket, carefully scratched Wolfe behind the ear and whispered, “let’s go find your mom, huh?”
Wolfe looked at Oleander one final time before plodding after the smoke smell to the door, Nyx following after, pausing only to open the door and step outside after the dog. He didn’t care that the ballroom remained silent the entire time, he had an Autumn Court princess to find.
“Nyx!” Amaryllis, the brat that she was, whined, “we haven’t finished dancing yet!”
Nyx quickly, without looking back, gestured to the silent ballroom, “Sounds like the song’s over.”
He swore he heard his uncle’s booming laugh just before the door closed.
Outside the Forest House, on the exterior walkways, it was beautiful. Soft golden light flitted out through the windows, partially lighting the darkened balcony. Nyx would give Autumn this, it was gorgeous at night. The reds and oranges of the leaves turned shades of blue and purple in the dark, the only lights being the golden red of a hearth or campfire. Looking up, Nyx noticed that the moon was almost perpetually golden here. An ever harvest moon for the seasonal court built on yields of abundant crops.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” He heard a hushed, sweet voice further away, followed by a sigh of relief. He blinked in the dark, glancing in front of him to find you. Hidden away from the light of the windows, visible only where you’d knelt down to inspect your prized pooch.
Nyx, even though he’d suspected some of what he saw now, was surprised to see you like this. Kneeling in front of your beloved furry friend, your hair haloed where the golden light from inside just managed to reach you. There were drying tear tracks on your face, he realized with a start.
You looked small, cracked slightly to his eyes, as you hugged Wolfe to you.
“I’m so sorry, bud,” you said, even through your own discomfort, “I’m sorry I left you there.”
“You really should see the other guy,” Nyx said stepping closer, “I thought Amaryllis was going to faint.”
You looked up, recognizing who stood before you, and stiffened. Where Wolfe had been licking at your tears, he stopped, heeling to sit at your feet as you stood up. He sat regally beside you, watching Nyx with a sharp eye.
“What do you want?” You wiped as subtly as you could at what evidence of your tears remained on your face, but Nyx had seen it and it appeared you recognized that. Classified the information he now had on you. Nyx found he didn’t like how unsettled you seemed by it.
“I, uhm, I was helping Wolfe find his way back to you. Oleander looked about ready to-“ Nyx realized that what he was about to say would likely be unhelpful, and stopped.
You beat him to the thought though. “If he even thinks of laying a finger on Wolfe, I’ll kill him. I- I don’t care what anyone says.”
Nyx noted the stumble in your words, that little pause that could say so much if he figured out what it was for.
“Well,” you said, still sounding a little shaken, “was there anything else you needed? Anything hospitality wise is inside” The edge hadn’t left your voice, but Nyx decided he’d try his luck tonight.
He leaned his arms on the railing, looking cautiously at you, not unlike approaching a wild animal. “Actually, I wanted to check and see if you were okay.”
“Well, I’m fine, alright, I don’t want your help, and I certainly don’t want your pity,” you bit at him.
Nyx pushed forward, “What did he say to you?”
“I know he said something, or the ballroom wouldn’t have smelled like a barely contained inferno. What did he say?”
The balcony doors eased open a crack, allowing another figure to step out onto the walkway.
“There you are,” a familiar, smooth voice said as your Uncle Lucien swept over to stand between the two of you. “I’ve been looking everywhere. You are a remarkably difficult female to find, young lady.”
For the first time all evening, Nyx watched a real smile spread across your face. Like starlight in the darkness. It was…
“You’ve been hunting with me before,” you said to Lucien, “you shouldn’t be surprised.”
Lucien smiled rakishly at you, shaking his head fondly. His expression shifted to a more serious one as he asked, “are you alright?”
Nyx expected some bite, some comment to your uncle to mind his own business, but instead, you seemed to melt like candle wax. As if Lucien held the magic words to loosen your tongue.
You looked down to save yourself some amount of embarrassment, but you answered him. “I’ve been better.”
Nyx shifted, remaining quiet. It was like you’d forgotten he was there. The sharp-toothed, sharp-clawed Princess of Autumn was gone. This was Lucien’s niece, and she’d been hurt tonight.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
You looked up at Lucien with a sharp eye, the word ‘no,’ etched into every inch of you.
“Okay,” Lucien said, “answer a question or two for me first, little flame?”
“Did Oleander approach you, or did you approach him?”
“I didn’t tell him to do anything, I just left. I assumed he’d follow me. Oleander must have done something. He can say whatever lie he wants, but we didn’t do anything to him that he didn’t earn.”
Wolfe, as if to help, barked.
Lucien looked down at the dog and nodded sagely. That got a laugh out of you, and an unbidden soft smile out of Nyx.
“There she is,” Lucien smiled.
The balcony doors opened once again, your father’s broad shadow stretching out to meet you all before the door shut behind him.
Eris frowned at you and shared a brief look with his little brother. He sent one quick side glance at Nyx as well before he said, “I’d like to speak with my daughter. Alone.”
“Where’s-“ Lucien began but he didn’t have to say your mother’s name for any of you to know who he was asking about.
“Inside, handling it,” Eris responded.
Eris’s tone didn’t sound angered, at least not at you, but Nyx watched as you dropped your head, suddenly very interested in your boots and Wolfe’s paws.
“And no,” Eris said, a touch of his customary dry humor leaking in, “she does not need your help, brother. We’ll be inside shortly.”
Lucien nodded, sending a sympathetic smile your way before walking to the door.
“Alone means you too, boy,” Eris said when Nyx didn’t move.
Nyx locked eyes with you, then looked over his shoulder at Lucien, who stood waiting for him by the door.
Not entirely wanting to, Nyx turned and followed Lucien inside.
“Let’s go find Cassian,” Lucien suggested, “the least we can do for the High Lady is ensure he doesn’t aggravate the situation.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Nyx asked. He didn’t have to specify he was talking about you.
Lucien paused, looking down at his friend’s son, at the concern on his face. “She’ll be alright, I’m sure. I don’t know what happened, but if she is every inch her mother and father’s daughter - and she is - she will be just fine. Thank you, Nyx, for checking on her before we could.”
Nyx nodded then with a sour expression, “What makes Oleander and Amaryllis think they can get away with treating people like this?”
Lucien sighed, “Those children are products of their environment. Tam… Their father did not shield them from his worst courtiers and the two of them learned by example.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” Nyx argued.
“No,” Lucien said, patting the younger male’s shoulder, “No it doesn’t. Come on.”
Nyx frowned, sending one last look back over his shoulders, hoping to catch a glimpse of you and Eris through the window.
Outside, Eris studied you momentarily. He waited for you to start, but once he realized you would not, that you would continue staring at the ground, he sighed and tilted your head up to meet his eyes.
“Pretty sure the whole ballroom saw.”
Eris tilted his head, waiting.
You grabbed Wolfe and hugged him, resting your chin on his head. The affection had him wagging his tail softly into your side, but he whined for both of you.
“Darling, please,” Eris said, his voice like a breaking heart.
You mumbled your answer into Wolfe’s fur.
“I failed you,” you said.
Now Eris’s heart truly did break. He didn’t balk at the dog in between you, pulling the both of you closer, wrapping his arms around the two of you, studying your face.
You growled your frustration. “Today was mine. Ours. Our equinox. And I let him take it from me, I let him ruin it. I let him win. I let him beat me.”
“And you’ll be ready for him next time, little vixen,” Eris said, comfortingly.
“She’s talking to Tamlin now, things will be fine, darling. You did everything right.”
You sighed, rubbing your thumb through Wolfe’s fur.
“I have to ask, however,” he began, dangling the end of his sentence, waiting for your answer.
Oleander’s words echoed in your head, a million back-handed little comments.
Interesting that no one wanted to dance with a vicious little thing like you.
Everyone knows what your father did.
What are you going to do, kill me?
Nothing serious, but every tiny jab had been delivered with such a sadistic sneer that they stuck in, penetrated your armor and illuminated everything you feared. All you’d ever wanted was for someone to love you. Oleander highlighted your most devastating what-if. What if no one trusted you enough to try?
“I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to sleep,” you responded.
He stood and offered his arm to you.
“I can walk there myself, father,” you groaned.
Eris smiled softly, “someone needs to escort the lady home.”
You faintly smiled back, linking your arm with his and fell onto his broad arm. Leaning into your father’s steady support the whole way, your best friend with four paws trailing behind you.
A/N: Ah! Super proud of this one! I had a lot of fun with names in this! Looking forward to the next one! Let me know what you think and if you want to be tagged! Have a good night!
P.S. Did you know orchids are spring and fall blooming flowers?
