Something something e/riels wanting Lucien’s bond and suffering and longing and sacrifices to be just a plot device for their boring ship makes my blood literally boil.
Thank you so much to @/vinc_ry for drawing The Great Elucien. This scene in particular from season 2 has always been one of my favorites, and while the relationship may not fit Elucien, the fashion certainly does.
Summary: On the eve of her wedding, knowing nothing about her husband besides his apparent disinterest in his soon-to-be wife, Elain uses a spell to meet her true love in her dreams.
A contribution to @elucienweekofficial Day 5: Nature
Read on AO3 ・Series Masterlist・Previous Chapter
-
Lucien Vanserra was going mad.
When he was a child, his mother once told him a tale of a boy who went out into the forest intending to bring back food for his family. As he went, the boy happened across a blackberry bush, filled with berries that were oddly ripe for the season. He picked enough to fill his shirt and when he was prepared to take them home, he caught sight of another bush further down the path. Then another, then another. In the end, the boy picked far more than he could carry, and they spilled from his shirt throughout his journey home. Later that night, a pack of wolves followed the sweet scent of berries to his front door.
It was an unhappy story. Lucien had never much enjoyed it, though he couldn’t help feeling he was the boy, tangling his fingers through the bramble of thick hair that smelled of jasmine and honey.
Time passed differently in sleep. He could not tell if it had been hours or mere minutes that he’d spent holding his true love, savoring the silence that was disturbed only by her steady breathing.
A moment like this, so tender and quiet, should have been peace-giving.
Instead, he was holding his true love in his arms, and he felt nothing short of agony. It was so wrong—so wrong that she was married to another man, who had treated her so poorly on their wedding night that she’d come to him in tears. And equally it was wrong that he was with her at all, when his own wife was in the waking world, eating dinner on her own, sleeping in an empty bed.
He hadn’t expected to like Elain. That was the worst thing of all—that his wife was lovely. Beautiful and kind and disarmingly clever.
Lucien had meant to suggest to her that they take on lovers outside of their marriage. For weeks, he had planned what he would say to her, rehearsing it in the quiet so that when he finally came face to face with his wife, he would be prepared. Never, in his imagining, had she had such rich brown eyes that could cut through him to the very core. With one look he was no longer a prince, nor a scholar, nor a gentleman capable of articulating himself, all because she had pink, bow-shaped lips that curved into the sweetest smile he’d ever seen.
Not that it mattered, that she was beautiful. What mattered was that each time she spoke, he found himself hanging on to her every word, eager to know what she might say next, what insight she gleaned from the world when she thought no one was watching. Suddenly, it was excruciating to suggest she find fulfillment with another man, when he doubted that any living mortal could match her for wit.
He hadn’t said what he was planning to say—what he ought to say. She deserved honesty, and equity, especially given that she was a woman of grace and honor. And yet, here he was. Holding another woman on his wedding night.
And that muddied his feelings all the more. Because he knew this woman was his true love, his perfect match in every way, and he felt equally beguiled by her wicked temper and sweet soul. It was not that he wanted his wife more, it was that he wanted her equally. Greedily seeking a second berry bush when his shirt was already full.
The problem with the boy from the story, the problem with Lucien, was that he wanted too much. He wanted to allay his true love’s grief. He wanted to protect her from her husband. He wanted Elain to smile at him. He wanted to make her happy. He wanted his true love and he wanted his wife and he wanted so many things that he thought he might simply be torn apart by the number of contradictions he chased.
Lucien knew he could not have them both. Elain was not his true love and his true love was not his wife and he was going to die trying to decide which should matter more. True love seemed obvious, but there would be no escaping his marriage to Elain. It would follow him as long as they both lived. They could stay on separate sides of the palace, but she would be an ever-present fixture in his life and he thought, if they were both willing to give it a chance, they could be happy together.
His true love was… a dream. One he could chase, but never hold, not past daybreak.
She belonged to another man.
She was in so much pain.
She smelled like jasmine and honey.
Letting her go sounded as inviting as peeling off his own skin. She felt just as much a part of him. No. No. He had to be honest with Elain and tell her that he intended for them to take on lovers. And then he needed to get his true love away from her husband.
“Are you still awake?” his true love asked, voice soft and berry-sweet.
“No,” he said lightly. “You and I are both asleep.”
She laughed. It was the most wonderful sound he’d ever heard.
“Where are you from?” He couldn’t resist. Now that he’d made up his mind, he needed to move quickly. “What kingdom?”
From the fragments of information she’d shared with him, he had his suspicions, but he needed to know. If she was close enough, he could ride out to her as soon as he escorted Elain the rest of the way to his estate. In his head, he saw it playing out perfectly. He would pay off his true love’s husband and her back to the Eastern Kingdom, where she could live in a cottage nearby. He could visit her regularly without needing to offend Elain by putting them in company of each other.
His true love did not answer him. Lucien understood why she was scared to tell him. He had the capacity to ruin her by going to her husband and telling him what they’d done together. Even with good intentions, if he handled things inelegantly it would result in scandal. She didn’t know that he was a Prince, and he hesitated to tell her lest that terrify her, too.
“It can’t be the North,” he said. “There’s not much to farm up there this time of year, and certainly the conditions are too severe for a poor farmer’s daughter to get her hands on a butterfly. To me, that narrows it down to the West or the South. But I have a suspicion, from the way that you speak, that you must be from Carterhaugh.”
Carterhaugh, the land of eternal spring. He was just there, which was utterly predictable. Of course the Cauldron would put his mate and his true love in the same duchy. It felt like the Mother was mocking him.
When his true love tensed in his arms, that told him everything he needed to know.
“I’ve been to Carterhaugh several times,” he told her, pointedly excluding his most recent visit. “Did you know that there is a garden there open to the public that boasts every plant grown naturally in the Southern Kingdom? There’s a hedge maze in its center. Meet me there in two days time.”
“I can’t.”
“Name any sum of money.” He knew he was beginning to sound desperate. “However much you think you’ll need to make the journey, I will send it.”
“I can’t,” she sounded desperate now, too. He braced himself for the return of her tears.
“I understand.” And he did. The last thing he wanted to do was cause her distress. Seeing her in person was a selfish desire, and it would no longer be worth it if it would pain her in the process. “It will be difficult to escape from your husband so soon after marriage.”
“It will be impossible,” she corrected. “We’re on our honeymoon. Not to be disturbed for the next 30 days, at a minimum. What excuse could I possibly have to leave the house without my husband?”
Lucien was painfully aware. She would have as little excuse to the leave the house as he would. What would Elain think if he left for Carterhaugh only three days into their honeymoon? From the way that she’d looked at him just before she’d shut the door in his face, he wondered if she would even care.
“If I can ensure that your husband will be out of the house that day, and if I could send you the means to attend, would you consider it?”
“I don’t know how you would possibly—”
“Would you consider it?”
He could feel her silence like a chasm yawning open in his chest, some ever growing wound of rejection that flared at her uncertainty. He was teetering on a sharp edge, suddenly terrified that she would say no and he would be left to face the painful reality that even his true love had decided that she did not want Little Lucien Vasnerra.
Damaged, scarred, impure.
To think he could come to her stripped of labels, with no name or title to live up to, bearing only the truth of who he was at his core, and she would still find him insufficient. Well, he supposed that was to be expected.
“I’ll consider it,” she said finally, allowing him to breathe once more.
“Good,” he murmured, wishing he’d managed to sound composed, but his short breath gave him away. It hardly mattered. She would consider it, and for that he gently turned her chin so he could kiss her cheek. “Then tell me what you might say to me, so that I can know it’s you.”
“It has to be something so unusual that it couldn’t possibly be mistaken,” she said, sounding lost in thought. He allowed her a moment to consider it, patiently stroking his hand through her hair where she laid against hist chest.
“I know,” she said finally. “I will come up to you and I will say, ‘I can hear your heart beating through the stone. Can you hear mine?’”
Lucien smiled. Had she come up with that because she was, at present, listening to his heart beat? Did she hear it stutter with his affection for her?
“And how will you know it’s me?” He asked.
“Call me your sweet soul,” she hummed. “And perhaps I will bring some sweet alyssum with me, so that I may cure you of your wickedness.”
Lucien liked the way her voice warmed when she teased him. She could get him to do anything, so long as she spoke to him in that voice.
He lowered his mouth to her neck, crooning, “I fear it is too late to save me from my wickedness.”
“Then perhaps I can save myself,” she said. Now she sounded breathless, and he liked that, too.
“Hmm.” It was an effort to keep his hands off her. He knew he ought to, after what she had endured tonight, and yet she was so soft, so pliant beneath his touch. And when he kissed her neck, he could feel her arch further into his touch. “I have the sense you don’t want to be saved.”
Just as she was turning into him, finally beginning to take charge in the form of throwing her leg across his hip, the darkness around them began rippling. He groaned, sliding his palm to her cheek so he could steal one final kiss from her lips.
“Think on it,” he said against her mouth.
Then he was torn from her, startling awake atop the covers of a foreign bed, the oak door rattling beneath a pair of fists. He was still in his damn wedding clothes.
“What?” He called, too irritated to summon any eloquence. If he didn’t need to be awake, he would have appreciated a few moments longer with his true love.
“We need to leave at daybreak to make it to the manor before nightfall, your highness.”
Lucien cast his eyes to the window in the corner. It was tedious to travel in winter, when the length of daylight was so greatly reduced.
“It is not yet dawn,” he said in complaint.
“No, your highness. But neither you or the princess had any supper—”
“Elain didn’t eat?”
“No, sir. She has not left her room, nor responded to any knocking. We’ve left her trunk in the hall, but we thought perhaps the two of you would prefer to have breakfast before we depart.”
Lucien had known she was upset—though, truly, it perplexed him given that she had agreed to the arrangement. He hadn’t realized that would mean she would deny herself dinner, or even a fresh pair of clothes. He swore, thinking of the state of her dress when he’d last seen it. She hadn’t slept in the wet clothes, had she? Was she so stubborn that she would deny looking after her health as a means of spite?
Quickly, Lucien changed into a pair of fresh trousers and a white linen shirt. While he and Elain weren’t married in the traditional sense, he felt no compulsion to dress himself up as though they were strangers. She was his wife, and he could knock on her door in a loosely buttoned shirt without being improper. Or so he hoped.
She didn’t answer after one polite round of knocking, so he tried a second, then a third.
Losing patience, he called through the door, “Elain, I hope you haven’t attempted to escape out the window. I’d feel wounded to discover you’d sooner brave the winter than be my wife.”
“I am here,” she called, feintly.
“Can you come to the door, then?”
“I am indisposed.”
Her voice was small—embarrassed. Ah. Lucien turned his eyes downward, spying the trunk that rested just beside the door.
“I have a change of clothes out here,” he said. “Will you let me in?”
“Absolutely not!”
“I am your husband. It won’t be improper to assist you.”
When Elain said nothing, he sighed. “I promise to close my eyes?”
It was an absurd solution, and while he waited for Elain to snap at him for it, he pondered if there was a maid in the inn who might be able to assist.
“…okay.” It was a meek, defeated concession.
Lucien blinked. “Okay?”
He hadn't expected her to agree, and for all his assurances that it hardly mattered between a husband and wife, he felt his pulse jump the slightest bit.
“You’re going to need to unlock the door for me, then.”
Lucien leaned down to lift the trunk into his arms. As he straightened, the locking mechanism clicked, and the door handle angled downwards as though Elain were pulling it on the other side. But the door stayed shut.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
“As my wife commands.”
“Are they shut?”
“Yes,” he said, with a laugh.
The door creaked open. Lucien stepped through carefully. He was heaving the trunk with exaggerated ease, catering to some juvenile idea that Elain might be impressed at his strength. Though from the sound of it, she was scrambling to shut the door in such a hurry she wasn’t at all paying any attention to what he was carrying.
“Where should I set this down?”
“Just on the floor,” she said. “At your feet.”
He complied, trying not to entertain the thought that Elain was standing just before him in some state of undress—completely naked, if he had the liberty to imagine, but perhaps that was a step too far for the prudent Elain Archeron.
“Would you like me to go?”
When Elain didn’t immediately say yes, he straightened, surprised.
After what seemed like a great deal of consideration, she asked him, “Do you have experience lacing a corset?”
“I fear answering that question,” he said, but his sly smile would give an answer all the same. “Though I feel I could manage it competently.”
“Competent enough to do it with your eyes closed?” She challenged.
“I don’t like to boast,” he said.
Elain padded across the room to him. He could have been imagining it, but even her steps sounded haughty. A little vixen, set on proving him wrong. He liked that she was competitive. He hadn’t expected that from her.
“Go on then,” she said. Now, he could tell she was just in front of him. He could smell lavender, and also a hint of firesmoke, like she’d fallen asleep in front of the hearth.
Cautiously, Lucien extended his hand forward. He’d underestimated how tall she was. His fingers grazed the bare skin of her shoulder blade, and she gasped.
“I…” It was unreasonable to feel nervous. But her skin was so soft. He cleared his throat. “This may require a fair bit of touching. Is that okay with you?”
Elain’s voice was stern. “You may touch my waist and my back. Nothing more.”
Gods. Lucien reminded himself that he was a gentleman, though his thoughts were far from that variety. He’d just woken from a night of holding his true love, and one would think he’d be satiated, but all he could think as he gathered up her hair was how desperately he wished to pull, just to see what noise she would make. No wonder the Mother had punished him by marrying his true love to another man. He was not deserving of either woman.
Lucine shook his roguish thoughts long enough to follow the path of her spine down to the unlaced corset at her waist. After finding that Elain was securing both stays in place, he felt blindly along the edges for the first eyelet, before he began threading the lace through. It was clumsy at first. He needed to prod often with his fingers to verify he was looping through the correct hole, but as the stay tightened around her body it became easier. A shame, because he had less of an excuse to trail his fingers over the curve of her hip.
“Not bad,” she hummed, once he’d finished tying the knot at the top.
Lucien smirked. “I think I’d do a better job unlacing it, if you’d like to compare.”
“Rake. I thought you said you weren’t boastful.”
How could he not be boastful, when his hand was still on her hip and she was not stepping away from him? The recollection of what she tasted like flaunted through his mind. She’d kissed him back standing on that altar, lips honey sweet and petal soft. He felt dizzy at just the memory of it.
“What’s there to boast about in untying a corset? The compliment is the company of the woman wearing it.”
Elain snorted. “Do all princes have such smooth tongues?”
He needed to bite back a crude remark about how smooth his tongue could be. He had been honest when he’d said he wanted them to be friends, and the snide comments certainly weren’t helping.
“I could answer honestly, Elain, but I’ve already told you that I am not boastful.”
“How fortunate that my husband is so humble,” she said dryly.
“Can I open my eyes?”
“Not yet.”
Lucien couldn’t resist smiling, albeit ruefully. It would be a long journey to the Eastern Kingdom.
Just two people spontaneously getting married in Las Vegas.
For @elucienweekofficial Day 7: AU
The gang does a Las Vegas trip and one night Elain and Lucien end up hanging out together because everyone else has plans (are they even dating each other? no, just pining). After many drinks, a poker game and a make out session in the hallway of a hotel a wedding drive-through sounds like the absolute best idea ever (it is).
I'm so excited to share this short comic, drawn by the amazing and talented @/artcraawl for todays @elucienweekofficial AU prompt.
If you aren't aware, SJM based Lucien on Sam Heughan's Jamie Fraser, another hot red head. So I thought it would be a fitting AU to recreate the iconic wedding night, which was a pivotal moment in the book/series.
The setting is partially Outlander, but the comic is still tailored to Elain and Lucien, as I wanted it to convey a night filled the tension, longing and angst leading up to their first kiss. 💛
I can't get over how obsessed I'm with this piece, how incredible both Elain and Lucien look and how perfectly well their emotions are depicted.
I can't thank @/artcraawl enough for bringing this concept to life, ever since I saw her work with @amandapearls I knew she'd do it justice, and she more than exceeded my expectations.
To view the entirety of the comic, click the link.
andulkaphoto
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
