It's so funny to me when people go in "the next books Rhys will bond with Gwyn and they will be friends" and "Azriel is going to spend so much time with the Valkyries and he is going to leave the IC for them" . There are also the ones who accept the next books are Elriel . These ones are just spectacular "The Valkyries are going to be Azriel's wing women and help him woo Elain from all they have learned from the romance books they read".
They should leave Rhys and Azriel alone , neother one of them considers them friends nor will they ever . The Valkyries assigned batboy is Cassian , yet they never talk about him . He was the only batboy who wanted to go to the rite and save them , you would think that it would make the Valkyries fans like him more . I guess not .
I am not an idiot , I do understand why they would rather have a powerful daemati Highlord or a powerful shadowsinger Illyrians spymater be friends with their faves . It still isn't going to happen though .
I think Cassian has feelings for Azriel and Rhys . The way he spoke about the Mor and Azriel situation in Wings and Ember . The way he was with Rhys throughout ACoSF .
Imagine requesting a racist and problematic drawing, your racist friend draws it for you, your other racist friends defend her, and then when people bring up the very real, very reasonable concern that a healthcare worker could think this way, all you say is:
I’m sorry, but you have to be a pretty weird person to think that drawing a character “hanging themselves over love” is funny. I’m sure the intention wasn’t to mock real victims, but sometimes we need to stop and think about where the line is between being funny and simply crossing it.
I know we have talked about Elain getting life powers because of the de*th powers Nesta has / had but I wonder if the Cauldron gave her more than we expect .
What if Elain gained the power of "reality warping" . Since there isn't really one concrete explanation of it , here is a link to what it esentially is (this is the explanation according to the PJO universe) : https://riordan.fandom.com/wiki/Mystiokinesis
I think this power is complementary to the power of sight / clairvoyance Elain already possess . Elain went into the cauldron first so I do really believe she more likely has reality warping powers rather than the "opposite" powers of what Nesta stole .
Character: Azriel
Warnings: None
Note: We do not pray at the altar of canon around here. It doesn't exist for me. I write whatever comes to me and whatever makes the characters interesting.
Read it on AO3
It was an unspoken rule among the four—Never speak of the incident.
And so, they never spoke of these changes, either.
Like when Cass avoided his gaze whenever Mor was around and lingered behind a moment too long for a chance alone with her. Or when Rhys returned from his father’s study with a bruise on his face and a crushed envelope in his fist quite too often. Or when Mor reached for the wine more than the others, a glass between her slender fingers any time of the day.
She looked different, too. Red silks replaced dark velvets, her pale skin on display in ways that she once called outrageous, hair brushed fine in place of intricate braids, and soft pink lips now painted bloody.
Sometimes it was hard to remember, hard to believe, as she was quick to tease and quicker to laugh like on those nights in the camp.
Any caution around Azriel was shed. She wasn’t afraid to speak to him anymore, looking him in the eye as she did. She sat beside him at dinners, lured him into conversations, and smiled at him. She sought him wherever he was in the House and waited on him in silence while Azriel parsed through reports for his High Lord.
Her warmth was contagious, enough to fool them once in a while of the pain she tried to hide. But Azriel recognised a charade when he saw one.
Mor wasn’t the innocent girl anymore who was enchanted by the beauty in the mundane. Her insatiable wonder for the world flickered out the day she was dragged back to Hewn City by her father.
There were no more demands for adventures. Open declarations of her dreams died on her tongue as soon as they began. Her laughs became more frequent and soulless, brown eyes clouding when she ran out of words, as though she needed to dictate the moments between them, shape their perception before their pity twisted it into something else. The desperation to forge a new truth for herself and erase the one her father nailed into her fought inside her hopelessly.
And this only drew Azriel closer. He wasn’t new to this battle. Constantly grappling for the right words to say, nodding and smiling at the right moments to avoid any scrutiny, pretending and pretending always to prove he was not as broken as they wanted him to be.
Mor finally understood what it was to be him. She recovered over the years, but the scars remained, and they always would.
An emptiness where the spirit was meant to be, something one didn’t care for until then and its absence an eternal reminder of what was stolen. A dirty imprint that couldn’t be washed off, couldn’t be concealed. It was part of him.
And now, it was part of her, too.
She was as hollow as him. Insides carved out, and she was left with this husk made of deceptive warmth and insincere smiles.
A beautiful husk.
Decorated in vivid colours and gold and gems as though it compensated for what she had no more.
Mor struggled to meet his eyes still. No longer out of fear or disgust of what tainted him, but of guilt, her denial of the possibility of them, for she knew Azriel would always see through her mask.
Azriel meets Morrigan for the first time and his impression on her.
Character: Azriel
Warnings: None
Note: Fucking annoying to type “Rhys’s mother” over and over again, I could name her but Azriel wouldn’t use her name anyway under any circumstances and now I’m stuck writing like SJM.
Dividers in this series by @diviniyae.
Read it on AO3
She was the most beautiful female Azriel had ever seen in his life.
All the years in the Illyrian camp, Rhys’s mother never entertained a guest, except for her daughter, who visited them only twice before she turned thirteen. The harsh wilderness and the scattered military camps hardly made an ideal place for retreat.
So when she arrived, escorted by two High Fae guards who refused to cross the muddy yard in front of the house and vanished as soon as Rhys stepped out, everyone was too stunned to speak.
Morrigan was different back then, remembered Azriel.
From neck to feet, she was covered in layers and layers of silk and velvet, her dress so dark that her skin shone as fair as snow, and her hair a thick cord of threaded gold. Her lips were a soft pink, the colour fading the longer she stood at the door, and tears lined her eyes as lashes battled against the cold.
Rhys’s mother didn’t get a chance to come to terms with the visitor at her doorstep, and Morrigan was already moving towards her, shoulders tensing at the sight of the wings, but that didn’t deter her. Teeth chattering through her tight smile, she threw her arms around her aunt like they had been acquainted for such intimacy. Azriel knew they weren’t. Neither Rhys’s mother nor sister were welcomed in the underground city. They weren’t worthy for those High Fae, for their own family.
Morrigan was unlike anything Azriel had seen before. Prim and poised in every move, in every smile, in every look. Of all the places in the world, Illyria was the one where she didn’t—wouldn’t belong.
In its grim severity, males fought and wasted for glory, pressured to break and break until every drop of resistance and hope was squeezed out of them, and females left to wither waiting on their males, whilst Morrigan was the very spark of spirit these camps sought and snuffed out.
Rhys’s mother had left them alone no longer than a few hours, and Morrigan prattled on as if she had known them all her life.
‘You can call me Mor,’ she insisted to Cass, who flustered and sputtered, tripping over his words. Even he couldn’t keep pace with her.
Mor never spoke to Azriel, but he often caught her curious peeks. Eyes seemed to dart between him and his shadows, and, whenever they found his scars, she turned away and started a conversation with Cass, as if to fill her memories with anything other than them.
Sometimes, she stared too long at him, lips parting, and Azriel thought of excuses to politely decline her attempt at nicety, but he never found use for them. Her face would soften before she hurried out of the room.
As they stood outside in the cold and chopped wood for the fireplace—which they didn’t need but Rhys’s mother made them do nonetheless—Mor idled by the window. Shadows would hiss in disapproval and slink out of her sight, and when Azriel turned her way, she would disappear, too.
One thing remained unchanged about her through the centuries. Her desperation for adventures, to be free and one with the wild.
Her petiteness and sheltered past had fooled the three, meanwhile, Mor brimmed with ardour and endless requests all day long. She wanted to explore the forests. She wanted to see a stream and stroll along it, to watch it fall over a cliff. She wanted to remember the scent of pine mixed with snow and fresh air. She wanted to see sunlight glimmer off the peaks of Ramiel, their sacred mountain. She wanted to bask in the light of sun and moon, charting their journeys across the sky.
The night Rhys went searching for her, she stood in the middle of a training pit, under the open starry sky.
’The moon is real,’ whispered Mor. Eyes shining with tears, she laughed, the sound echoing far and long that Rhys hissed under his breath, looking around for unwanted company. ‘Everything is real here!’
Cass stood speechless, not knowing what to say except that they had better return before Rhys’s mother woke up and found them gone.
Maybe it was then Azriel felt it first.
Her hungry eyes fascinated by this new world, her obsession and eagerness to learn everything before this freedom was snatched away, before she realised this was but a dream and she was trapped somewhere, at someone’s mercy forever. It brought forth the longing Azriel had buried long ago.
The wishes of a child he once held dear, fooling himself with bold promises of breaking those iron doors and wandering the world, escaping to places hadn’t been discovered yet so to never be found again.
By the time he was let out of captivity, they were forgotten, just like Azriel had forgotten that he could still dream.
As he saw this girl live hers, the very ones that had lightened his days and kept his soul alive, his heart began to thaw.
