Art by @/art_by_ava.georgia
Shout out once again to one of my absolute favorite Elriel fanartists. The way she captures tension, longing, softness, and all the unspoken things between them never fails to make me feel something. I genuinely adore her work and the emotions she manages to pull out of a single moment, a single expression.
Oh, how I love everything she creates.
Because there is something almost unbearable about the way Azriel looks at her here, and his expression does not resemble simple attraction, nor the fleeting fascination of a male entertained by beauty, but rather the quiet devastation of someone realizing that desire has begun rooting itself somewhere deeper before he ever intended to allow it.
The kind of wanting born not from grand moments, but from accumulation.
From collecting small pieces of another person until suddenly ordinary things begin carrying impossible weight.
The way she lifts a glass of wine to her lips.
The absent softness in her posture.
The comfort of someone existing without awareness that they are being observed with enough intensity to alter the air between them.
Because his eyes do not seem impatient.
Hungry only in the way starving people become careful with food.
As though he is holding himself back from crossing a threshold neither of them has named yet.
And perhaps that is why this hurts so much.
Because Azriel has spent centuries surviving duty, violence, and restraint, yet something infinitely softer appears to undo him more effectively than war ever could.
And I think what this art captures so painfully is not simply desire, but the terrifying moment before hope begins.
That fragile space where someone starts wondering:
What if one day I no longer have to look from a distance?
What if one day wanting is allowed?
What if I only taste it once?
Because imagine the future books.
Imagine Azriel after years of teaching himself to accept crumbs of affection, after convincing himself that love belongs to other people, finally reaching a point where Elain is no longer something forbidden or uncertain, but his.
Imagine all this restraint dissolving.
Imagine these silent looks turning into open devotion.
His hand resting at the small of her back without hesitation.
Her drinking wine while seated beside him and not across from him.
The ease. The familiarity.
The devastating tenderness of two people who spent so long circling one another finally existing without fear.
Because I do not think Azriel would love loudly.
I think he would love with attention.
With years spent learning every version of her until care itself became instinct.
And perhaps that is why this image aches.
Because his eyes seem to carry the possibility of a future where he no longer has to wonder whether he is allowed to want her.
A future where he simply does.
And everything soft begins.
