This was supposed to be short then decided it needed to be 6300 words.
For @nessianweek Day 6: Reverence
Read on AO3
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It began at Rita’s.
Unintentional, yet perhaps inevitable, Cassian followed Nesta Archeron into the street after one snide comment too many from Amren. He’d cast one angry glare at the tiny female as the words ‘pathetic waste’ left her lips, and less than a second later, Nesta was on her feet and out the door.
A moment after that, rain began to pour down from the Night Court sky, cold and slanted.
Illyrian weather, or so it was called.
Nesta somehow looked just as regal soaked to the bone as she did dry, her chin lifted as she tried to see the street signs through the blur of raindrops.
‘My place is closer,’ he’d called. ‘Just around the block.’
‘Your what?’
He’d had to convince her it was real, that he did own his own apartment, even if he never used it. He needed breaks from everyone too, every now and then.
To his delight, it had been enough. She followed him. For some unknown reason, she let him lead her down the street to the left, and into a tiny apartment building that only housed a few units.
Up the stairs and to the right, they were inside.
It had been innocent enough to offer her warm clothes.
It no longer was when she stood naked in his bedroom and let him look. When, suddenly, he remembered he was bare too, wet clothes at his feet.
He told himself it was a necessary release the moment their bodies met. A fated magnetism that had her gasping and arching into his mattress, her nails unforgiving as they raked down his back.
Nesta had fallen asleep so quickly after that first coupling that Cassian hadn’t even asked what it all meant.
All he knew was that it kept happening. Once, twice, then for a few weeks. Then two months.
I really loved Nesta & Cassian’s moment dancing together & Cassian’s determination to whisk Nesta away off her feet. And he was successful doing just that!
I would like to thank @majuandrad for this beautiful piece. You really captured the magic from this scene 💕
Art by @majuandrad / Majuandrad
Commissioned by me/ @krssyreads_
All characters belong to Sarah J Maas and Bloomsbury Publishing
I had to make a little doodle for this. Nesta's version of a perfect birthday -- a night in with her Valkyries. Bryce gifted Nesta a laptop so they could have a movie night, watching some spicy romance instead of reading about it. Safe to say they stayed up all night watching the classics (except Gwyn who ate too many of the Lunathion Cookies and passed out from all the excitement)
Happy @nestaarcheronweek! Here's some angst for day 1 🎉
It was said that a mating bond was a rare thing. A miraculous, precious thing. But no matter how hard she tries, Nesta Archeron can't quite manage to see it the same way, and when a fall down the stairs brings her mate running, she finally has the chance to say it out loud.
************
Her entire body felt like glass; one wrong move and she’d shatter.
So damned fragile— everything was so damned fragile, and Nesta might have laughed, if pain hadn’t been radiating through her jaw. Because she’d made so much more than one wrong move, hadn’t she?
Each blow as she fell was a reverberation that she felt shuddering through her entire body, no bone left unbruised as her hand collided painfully with the stone wall in a desperate attempt to stop - to slow - her fall. Her palm dragged along the stone, splitting skin and flooding the stairwell with the scent of fresh blood. It didn’t work; the stairs kept coming, and Nesta kept falling.
Over and over and over, like she’d been caught in a riptide and dragged under.
She wondered if she’d fall down all ten thousand.
Wondered if they’d find her in a heap at the bottom. Wondered who would find her, and how long it would take. How long until anybody noticed she was missing.
Everything hurt, and then all at once—
Nesta stopped falling.
***
She didn’t know how long she lay curled there, cold stone pressing hard against all of her aches, before the footsteps sounded. It could have been moments— could have been hours, but she didn’t think so, given that her wrist still throbbed, and her ribs still bleated every time she drew air into her lungs. She wondered how many bones she’d broken; how long they’d take to heal in this new, untested, body.
She wondered how much she ought to care.
From high above, the sound of those footsteps grew faster. Grew louder. Not once did they pause, and as a whispered fuck, fuck, fuck echoed on the spiralling stone, the sound of laboured breathing reached her too, something in her chest tugging as awareness slowly came over her, like her broken body was reacting to his nearness alone. Instinctively, she knew who it was that was barrelling down those stairs.
With effort, Nesta tried to force herself up. Refused to let him find her curled up in a ball against the stone.
Would he laugh? Lean against the wall with his arms crossed and gloat? Would he see her bruises and ignore them, the way he had ignored all those other, more invisible, wounds?
Nesta couldn’t bear the thought. Her head spun, pain racketing through all of her limbs as she straightened.
She didn’t think she could do much more than that.
And then, suddenly, he was there, stepping over her and dropping into a crouch on the step beneath her, his hazel eyes level with her silver-blue. His hands were on her instantly, callouses running over her arms as his breathing calmed, the tension leaking from his jaw as his fingers curled around her shoulder. There was no laughter, no gloating. Instead, his face was hard; so at odds with the softness of his touch, the tentative press of his fingers against her skin.
Nesta flinched.
She couldn’t bear it, the soft brush of his hand more painful than anything the stairs could inflict.
“Hey,” Cassian said softly, his fingers curling beneath her chin, lifting her face as he brushed a thumb across her cheek. His hand was warm, feather-light across her skin as he tilted her face this way and that, studying each small wound the stairs had dealt her. His eyes were grave, a furrow between his brows that spoke to some kind of concern, and Nesta had to wonder if he worried for her at all, or if he was just terrified of telling Feyre she’d fallen to her death on his watch. “Nes. Look at me.”
She shook her head, pulling her face from his grasp as pain bloomed at the base of her spine.
“Fuck,” he muttered, as if he could feel it too. But Nesta couldn’t move any further, her entire body protesting as she cradled her wrist and held it against her chest. When his eyes dropped to it, he swore again. “Fuck. Can you stand?”
She didn’t answer— she didn’t know.
“Nesta.”
Still, she couldn’t find the strength to speak.
“Sweetheart,” Cassian tried again, his voice softening as he leaned closer, studying the cuts and bruises that littered her arms, now. “I need to make sure you didn’t do any real damage.”
And wasn’t that almost laughable?
“I don’t want to see you, Cassian,” Nesta managed at last.
“I don’t care,” he countered quickly. “If you’re hurt, I—“
She laughed— a bitter sound, devoid of mirth.
Because she’d been hurting this entire time, and he hadn’t realised. None of them had realised, and yet here he was now, kneeling before her like if he could, he’d fix each and every one of her wounds. But it was too late; she was too far gone. And somehow, it hurt more than he, of all people, hadn’t seen it, hadn’t noticed. Wasn’t he supposed to understand what it was like, the sheer scale of the loss she’d endured? Wasn’t he supposed to feel it somehow, when she was dragged beneath the waves of her own anguish?
He frowned as her laughter died, but didn’t move from the step he’d crouched on to inspect her face.
“Let me take you back upstairs—“
“No,” Nesta cut in, shaking her head as she tried in vain to force distance between them, twisting her face away, leaving her half in shadow. “I don’t want you to take me anywhere.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“Why?” she asked, her lip curling with a sneer, the taste of blood sharp on her tongue. “Afraid my sister might get angry?”
Cassian’s brow lowered, his entire body still. “This has nothing to do with Feyre.”
“This has everything to do with Feyre,” Nesta bit out, her chest constricting as she let her eyes fall closed. “I’m only here because of her— because she appointed you my gaoler. And I’m sure this is all just one big inconvenience for you, so maybe you should go back upstairs and leave me be.” She huffed. “Or perhaps you should have sent me to the human lands after all. Saved all of us the trouble and just left me there.”
Her voice echoed in the stairwell, grief given form as it lingered uncomfortably in the air between them. Cassian swore again, softer this time, as something like sympathy flashed across his face.
“I was never going to let them do that to you, sweetheart.”
He dragged a thumb over her temple, lingering at her brow, where a thin line of blood beaded along her skin.
“It kills me,” he whispered, “seeing you like this.”
And Nesta didn’t know why— why he insisted on pretending he cared, when he certainly hadn’t seemed inclined to give a damn before now. No, he’d been content to leave her to her own devices for months now, ignoring her as she all but drowned, and only when she lay bleeding did he come running.
Too. Fucking. Late.
With a scowl knitting her brows, Nesta tried to shove herself away, the skin of her palms stinging as she pushed against the stone steps, trying to rise even though her entire body seemed to tremble with the effort, quaking like a just-rung bell. But she couldn’t force her body to move more than an inch as her legs shook, threatening to give out if she attempted even one more step.
Cassian’s hand wrapped around hers, swallowing her fingers like he might try and help her rise. But if there was one thing Nesta was loath to accept, it was his help.
“Go,” she said as she sat back on the step, pulling her hand free. The burning in her legs refused to relent; her ankle throbbing like perhaps she’d sprained it. “I’ll make my own way back up in a minute.”
She expected him to roll his eyes— expected him to make some blithe comment about how pathetic it was that she couldn’t even handle a few stairs anymore. More than anything, she expected him to leave.
But Cassian shook his head, lowering himself onto the step beside her and tucking his wings in so tightly she wondered if it was a strain to hold them so close to his spine.
“We’ll go together,” he said softly, his body shifting as, gently, he bumped her shoulder with his. “Sound familiar?”
Nesta couldn’t fight the flinch.
Couldn’t fight the visceral way her entire body recoiled, stiffening at the memory as she remembered, painfully, the way he’d laid on the ground and she’d laid her body over his. They’d been ready to go together then, too.
What a fool she’d been.
Cassian’s face fell as he watched her pull back, his eyes closing briefly as he let out a long breath.
“Sorry”, he whispered. “Wrong thing to say.”
Nesta let out a sharp huff, letting her eyes drop to the shadows stretching out before them, the stairs twisting down into the darkness. She’d almost died that day; been ready for it, too. The blood had coated her hands and her heart had ached, but when it came down to it, she’d let herself be honest for once about what she wanted— about who she wanted.
Not that it mattered, now. She hadn’t touched him since. Hadn’t been in such close confines with him, without death breathing down their necks. She still remembered how it had felt, though, when his lips had touched hers. When his hand had drifted to her face, like all he had wanted was to die with his hands touching her skin.
She would have been lying if she said she hadn’t been chasing that feeling ever since, trying to find it at the bottom of a bottle or in bed with a stranger.
Because once it was clear that death wasn’t about to take either of them, Cassian certainly hadn’t seemed eager to keep the promise he’d made to her as he lay dying.
Nesta shook her head now, forcing herself to forget the way he’d kissed her and remember, instead, the way he’d walked right off that battlefield and left her to sort through her grief and her pain alone.
“I didn’t realise we’d reached the point where we could make jokes about it,” she said dryly— as cutting, as sharp, as the grief that lanced through her at the reminder of all that he’d once promised her; pretty words, so swiftly forgotten.
Cassian exhaled, his breath a low whistle as dipped his chin in some kind of acquiescence.
“Alright,” he said, bracing his forearms against his knees. “No jokes, then. Perhaps we should start by just talking about what happened that day, since it’s not exactly been broached since.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“I didn’t say it was anybody’s fault—“
“Gods, stop pretending, Cassian,” Nesta cut in, her voice sharp in the quiet of the stairwell. Her every breath hurt, but she forced herself to exhale anyway. “Stop acting like you’re not here out of duty. Whatever was between us, maybe it died that day.”
The silence was heavy— so heavy she wondered if such a narrow space could even contain it. It stretched, the kind of silence that was so restless that it ached.
“Whatever was between us,” Cassian echoed flatly, canting his head to the side, rendering half his face in shadow. “And what was between us, Nesta?”
His face snapped down, looking at her with eyes that seemed to see right through to her very soul. Every vulnerability, every weakness, was suddenly laid bare, and Cassian swallowed, like he saw the truth of it in her face and didn’t quite have the strength to face it just yet.
“You know, don’t you?” he whispered, his voice barely more than a brush against the stone. His brows drew together, his flushed cheeks suddenly bloodless, like her answer terrified him and he didn’t know what he’d do if she said no.
But Nesta had known— had suspected for a while.
And it should have been warm, she thought. That cord in her chest, the trembling, living, breathing thing connecting her to another soul. It should have been warm. But it was cold, now.
Like all the words exchanged in anger had driven it into a grave.
“I think I knew then, on that battlefield,” she said, so quietly it was as though she hoped the words might go unnoticed. Hoped the bond tying her to the warrior beside her might be forgotten if she let it go unspoken for just a little bit longer. “When I pulled you out of the path of that blast— when you left an entire legion just because I called your name.”
He flinched. Hundreds dead. Lives lost. And yet he survived— lived, breathed, because when it had mattered, he’d come when she called. His eyes closed, like the memory was an arrow for him, shot right through the heart, and Nesta shook her head again, taking a breath and fighting a flinch of her own as her ribs expanded and a whole host of new bruises suddenly made themselves felt.
“Just go, Cassian. I don’t…”
She trailed off, not entirely certain how to end that sentence. I don’t want you? I don’t need you? Were either of them even remotely close to the truth?
“I won’t leave you, Nesta,” Cassian said, his voice as hard and as resolute as the stone beneath their feet. Nesta huffed so hard her ribs ached, her battered bones protesting as she shifted her weight on the step.
“Just because there’s some… thing connecting us—“
“It’s not just some thing to me.”
“You’re only here because you feel like you have to be,” Nesta protested, gritting her teeth as she curled her hands into fists. “Isn’t that why they gave me to you in the first place? Isn’t that what all of this is?” She waved a hand at the spiralling walls of the House stairs. “Putting me up here. With you. Because that’s the only place I’m supposed to be now, isn’t it?”
He swore, a muttered curse under his breath that had him angling his face towards her. “You think that’s the only reason I’m here to stop you falling down ten thousand fucking stairs? That it’s the only reason I’d care about you snapping your fucking neck?”
“Isn’t it?” Nesta asked, forcing her voice to be steady. Calm. After all, hadn’t she long since learned that it was better to be detached about such things?
Cassian reached out to grab her face, tilting her chin up until she had no choice but to meet his eyes; twin pools of hazel, brimming with gold. “I was ready to die for you, Nesta. I’m still ready to die for you. No fucking bond in the world can forge that.”
“And what would you have done, Cassian,” she forced herself to ask in a whisper, “without that bond?”
He stilled. So entirely, so completely, she wasn’t sure he was breathing. “What?”
Nesta sniffed. “Without the bond. Would you have bothered to come with me that day, to face the king? Would you be here now? Or would you have cast me off just like everyone else did?”
“Of course I would— of course I would have gone with you.”
“No,” Nesta pressed, her voice straining in her throat as she shook her head. Pain lanced through her, but this time she didn’t think it was because of the fall; didn’t think it was because of the bruises and the broken skin. “You wouldn’t, Cassian. You’d throw your life away, and for what?”
“You pulled me away from that blast to save me, Nes. You think I’d let you die alone after that?”
“That’s all it was, then? A debt being settled?”
Cassian scowled, and in her heart Nesta knew it was more than that— knew he thought it was more than that, at least. The way he’d kissed her said he really would have thrown his life away, but she was still tripping up on the why and the what-if. The knowledge that he hadn’t acted out of his own free will, but some misguided sense of destiny; a soldier following orders.
“How could you possibly have chosen me, Cassian?” she asked. “In the back of your mind, wouldn’t you have always wondered what might happen if your mate ever came along? A year from now— five, ten?” Her voice quieted, catching in her throat as she looked away, trying to count the cracks in the stone beneath her feet. “Who would you choose then?”
“Nesta—“
She shook her head again, cutting him off as she tried to force space between them on the narrow stone step. He was everywhere, filling up the small space, the scent of him almost cruelly overwhelming. It didn’t seem fair, that he could be there right before her, everything she wanted and all the things she couldn’t take. Because he still didn’t understand. Nesta tried to push off the step, tried to make herself stand, but her wrist barked beneath the pressure as soon as it was forced to bear weight, and she swallowed her hiss of pain, refusing to let him see another ounce of her suffering.
“Never mind. It’s fine, Cassian.”
“It’s not— clearly it’s not.”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Nesta asked with an acerbic huff, flattening her palms on the stone.
“I’m certainly fucking trying to understand.” Incredulity was an undercurrent thick in his voice, the furrow in his brow speaking to confusion. “What does it matter if there was no bond? There is, isn’t that what matters?”
And Nesta wanted to laugh, because hadn’t she asked herself that question a hundred times already? Every time she drained a bottle of wine, every time she took a stranger to her bed, every time she found herself thinking back to that day, that kiss, and the promise he’d made her as his blood soaked the ground beneath them…. she’d asked herself why.
Because what did it matter that they’d been thrown together by the cruel, capricious hands of fate? What did it matter, when it couldn’t be changed anyway?
And she’d realised, at some point along the way, that it did matter, because—
“What if I just wanted somebody to choose me all on their own, Cassian?”
Gods, Nesta swore she’d tried to be angry; tried hard to imbue her words with the same kind of fire that burned in her veins cold enough to leave marks on stone. She’d tried— but it came out as a whisper anyway, a broken sound she didn’t even recognise as belonging to her. Cassian’s face shattered as her words lingered in the stairwell.
“What if I wanted somebody to put me first for once?” she asked, looking down at the stairs that spiralled below her, wondering whether it would hurt less if she carried on falling. “Not just be… stuck with me because some magic cooking pot said so.”
Her heart hurt, like even speaking the words aloud was the worst kind of treachery, the kind that was cruel and unnecessary. Because hadn’t Feyre said that mating bonds were so exquisitely rare that most fae would do anything for one? And here she was, with one sitting in the palm of her hand; one she didn’t know how to appreciate, and one she didn’t know how to be grateful for. Her hands lifted to her chest, like she’d carve the damn thing right out if she could just make it stop aching.
Cassian’s face was grave, like she’d just wounded him so completely there was no hope of recovery. When he spoke, his voice was rough, the serrated edge of a knife.
“Is that really what you think?” he asked quietly. “That I’m stuck with you?”
“Aren’t you?”
Suddenly, he was kneeling before her. His wings blocked the rest of the stairs from view, his hands braced on the step either side of her waist. His face was an inch from hers, so close she could almost count each speck of gold in his eyes as they darted across her face, like they couldn’t find a place to land. At last, after what felt like an age, his eyes caught on hers, and though Nesta wanted so desperately to look away…
She couldn’t.
He swallowed, his throat moving as his fingers flexed on the stone.
“Do you know what I thought, when I first met you?” he said softly, his eyes still fixed on hers, like he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. “I was glad I’d never been tied down before. I hated myself for thinking it, for being relieved that there was nobody else in the picture for me. Because I knew, even back then, when you wouldn’t even speak to me, that you were the one I wanted. Human or not, bond or not— when I met you, I knew you were the one I wanted, Nesta.”
Slowly, she blinked. Her lips parted, trying to speak, but he cut her off with a shake of his head.
“I made so many mistakes, Nes,” he whispered, “but if you think for one moment that I ever - ever - regretted that fate decided to mark my soul as yours, then you’re wrong. I was always going to be yours in the end, anyway.”
She couldn’t speak.
Her throat hurt; her bones ached. She didn’t think there was a single piece of her body that wasn’t bleating beneath the bruises, and as she watched in a stunned kind of silence, Cassian’s face softened. Slowly, he lifted his hand to her face again, his thumb going right back to that cut beside her brow, where that thin line of blood had already started to heal.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, his voice sounding almost as broken as she felt. He wiped his thumb along her temple, tracing that small wound. “I really fucked this one up, didn’t I?”
Nesta refused to cry.
She hadn’t let her tears spill after the war, after her father, after any of it. Had kept her emotions in check, like if she could just hold back the flood for long enough then there would come a day - surely, surely - when she’d open her eyes in the morning and feel the weight on her chest lessened by the passage of time. She thought that if she just waited it out, she’d be strong enough to cope but…
She didn’t think she could hold it back, this time.
And as Cassian’s thumb swept across her temple for a third time, she felt the first of her tears tracing a path along her cheek.
He swallowed, his fingers threading through her hair as he let out a trembling breath, and Nesta swore she felt an echo of something in her chest, a feeling that wasn’t her own. Something like guilt, like remorse, made her ribs ache, but she knew it wasn’t hers; it was his. And perhaps he had finally realised that she couldn’t carry on this way, kept locked up until his brother and her sister deemed her fit enough - good enough - to be part of their precious circle.
Cassian cleared his throat, and Nesta half thought he was blinking back tears of his own as he dropped his hand from her face at last.
He didn’t pull back.
Instead he held out that hand, his fingers curled as he looked into her face and searched her eyes, like he was hoping he could convey in a look alone how much his words rang true.
“I’m choosing you now, Nes,” he whispered. “I didn’t make it clear enough before, so let me do it now. I will always choose you. Over anything, anyone, no matter who they are. No matter how we got here or what quirk of fate decided to tie us together— you’re mine, for eternity.”
Gods, how hard had she hit her head?
Nesta thought she might have been hallucinating; that all of this was a figment of her imagination, because she was struggling to let herself catch up, to let herself believe that the look in his eyes might just be genuine—
“Nesta,” Cassian said softly, keeping his hand extended. “Please, just tell me you’ll let me take you back upstairs.”
She looked at that hand.
At the way he didn’t waver, not for a single second.
I’m choosing you now, Nes.
The words echoed, burrowed deep into her soul. Took up residence there, like they were all she’d really needed to hear, all this time. Like it made the entire world seem different, somehow.
And when Cassian quirked a brow and asked her, for a third time, if he could take her back upstairs…
Happy International Women’s Day to Nesta Archeron!
art by esttrellare
So many people can relate to Nesta, specially to being traumatized or depressed in a way that is not pretty or quiet. We are allowed to be angry. We are allowed to snap back when provoked. We are allowed to ask for space and to put boundaries between us and those that do not make us feel safe or happy. We are allowed to say no and stand our ground.
We are allowed to be difficult, to be messy, to be works in progress. Being a woman is not just being gentle and kind—sometimes it is clawing our way to survival, fighting our way back from the darkness, and demanding more for ourselves even when the world tells us we do not deserve it or are not owed it.
Women are not required to be palatable or amenable to be worthy of love, respect, or happiness. We do not exist to be convenient. We do not have to shrink ourselves to make others comfortable. We do not have to change ourselves to make a man love us. Our rage, our grief, our sadness, no matter how they may exhibit themselves—they are all valid.
Nesta Archeron has shown us that a woman can be messy, spiteful, angry, stubborn, and steadfast in her beliefs yet still be loved. She is loved by her fellow Valkyries, who listened to all the things she hates about herself and in turn shared the parts of themselves they hide from others. They did not shame her or hate her, they loved her all the same. And she is loved by us—even if she is not real and cannot feel it—there are thousands of us around the world who see her, flaws and all, and love her exactly as she is. She may not be real, but her struggles, her flaws, and her personality is. There are women out there going through very similar things—I know I have in the past—and to read about a woman who did not back down, who did not roll over and take it, is so important and healing in itself.
Happy International Women’s Day to Nesta and everyone else out there. You are worthy. You are strong. You are loved.
It has been four years since "A Court of Silver Flames" was published, and Nesta Archeron had part of her journey told. So, in honor of this date, I want to share this incredible art that @polianegicele made of our immortal slayer queen.
First of all, thank you to everyone who supported me this year. Thank you to everyone who sent kind and encouraging messages/comments, you have no idea how much it means to me and my complete lack of art training. (I had art class in high school if that counts? It was a loooong time ago lol)
Thank you to the artists who inspire me and the writers who take me to other worlds. When I say 'writers' I mean those of published and fan fiction alike, because there are some phenomenal writers out there giving us fan fiction for FREE! Like, can you believe that?!
Because I'm a chaotic personage who refuses to make decisions, I made collages of some of my fave pieces from the year, starting with:
Archerons, Nessian, Panoramic Scenes, Valkyries
Breakout stars Andy and Vincent:
My beloveds: BB and the shadowbabies
Canon moments and this-should-be-canon moments
Gowns (because drawing pretty dresses is my happy place, the casts of cats, and my crafting foolery
2024 had some highs (Japan!) and some lows (fractured foot), so I’m excited to see what 2025 throws at me.
I want to get back into writing in 2024, as it's something I used to love doing. I was a marketing copy writer for years (even with dyslexia I was good! I won some awards!) and long story short; writing social media copy in the 'voice' of others destroyed my ability to write narratively and in my own voice. I'm sure this doesn't happen to everyone, but I guess I couldn't compartmentalize enough? It's been a journey to accept and make peace with it.
Anyway, my career thankfully took me elsewhere and I've been meaning to attempt to reclaim my voice.
Thank you to the fandom for being so kind and accepting of my nonsense, I deeply appreciate it 🩵🩵🩵
Miss WonderFlower @misswonderflower - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
