#eris vandaddy

[ser-matilda]

The dragon hybrid Eris fic probably won’t drop until this Saturday. I’ve started school again, and I obviously want my schoolwork to take priority but I also still want to be an Eris devotee and share my fic ideas with you all.

I am thinking of maybe switching the polls and the fic drops to every two weeks instead of every week, if that is ok with you all.

Thank you for understanding.

-Tilly

[ser-matilda]

Do you guys ever think that maybe Eris might have drop-kicked the fuck out of one of his brothers at some point in time?

[ser-matilda]

Poll time! Vote on what idea you’d like to see me write next.

Eris receiving his first smokehound puppy as a gift (mild angst, mostly soft)

Dragon!hybrid Eris x reader (NSFW)

Eris teaching youngling Lucien how to fish. (soft fic, cute)

Voting ended onJul 13

[ser-matilda]

Not Quite Fatherly

Characters: Eris Vanserra, Lady of Autumn, newborn Lucien Vanserra, OC's

Warnings: Mentions of Beron, mild angst (mostly sweet tho), medical scare.

Theme voted for by you guys! Let me know what you think!

The Forest House was unusually quiet today. The faelights, enchanted to mimic the sun outside, cast a grey gloomy light along the many halls and rooms of the underground manor. Shadows seemed to loom everywhere as the servants moved swiftly and silently, their footsteps barely making a sound as they hurried to and from the Lady of Autumn's bedchamber. 

Eris watched all the silent but frantic activity from the chaise lounge that lined the hall leading to the royal sleeping quarters. He pretended to read, he'd picked up a novel from the Vanserra personal library an hour ago, something about a sleeping princess guarded by a dragon (not his taste at all) and had skulked off to spy on the servants attending his mother. 

It had been a week since she gave birth to his newest brother — Lucien, she had called him. He had only seen the tiny, squalling babe once since then, preferring to stay away from the royal nursery and all its smells and noises. Eris didn't dislike babies, no, he just preferred the company of his hounds over babes. Hounds were simple; they only required food, water, a soft place to rest, and a little attention throughout the day. Babies were more... complex. Each cry meant something different, some for milk, some for comfort, some for a nappy change. 

He had helped with his other younger brothers sometimes (when he could) back when they were younglings, though that mostly consisted of picking them up off the ground and dusting off their clothes and occasionally tending to their cuts and scrapes in secret, after Beron had slapped them so hard they fell over from the force. 

Now though, at nearly 120 years old and the eldest, those days of scooping up teary-eyed, scraped knee younglings were mostly behind him. Lucien would grow up fast–and likely bruised. Eris learned long ago that there was no stopping what happened in this house, only tending to the aftermath when he could get away with it. 

He turned another page he hadn’t actually read and turned his eyes back to the hall. A healer bustled past, her arms full of linens, dark half-moons of exhaustion under her eyes. Eris’ stomach tightened. Healers meant blood, or fever, or worse. 

His mind went racing as he thought back to the week's previous events. Mother had given birth at the beginning of the week, near sundown. She had labored for hours, screaming and groaning as the babe Lucien made his entrance into the world. Father had forbidden her any healing magic to take away her pain, as he always did with his previous sons, claiming that a strong mother makes strong children. Father had also forbidden Eris and the rest of his brothers from being in the bedchamber after Mother delivered Lucien. Only when Father had disappeared to the other side of the manor had Eris and the boys piled into the Lady of Autumn's chambers to greet their new brother. They had not seen their father since, and Mother had only been out of bed twice this week. 

That means something went awfully, terribly wrong. Fear crawled up Eris’ spine, as unwelcome as a draft under a door. He set the book down. "You there," he said, catching the arm of a passing servant girl before she could hurry past him. She startled, nearly dropping the basin of water in her hands. "What's happening in my mother's chambers?" The girl's eyes flicked toward the shut door down the hall, then back to him, wary in the particular way all the Forest House staff were wary of Vanserra sons. "I–I couldn't say, my lord. The healers only just arrived."

"That's not an answer."

"It's fever, my lord. Since this morning. That's all I know, I swear it."

Eris released her arm. Fever, a week after birth. He knew enough from the whispered talk of servants over the years to know that was not a small thing. Eris stood as the servant girl scurried off into the darkened maze of corridors. He needed to see his mother. He walked the few lengths down the hall and opened the bedchamber door without knocking. A handful of servants and three healers looked up at him in surprise, but Eris was only focused on the figure in the bed.

She was pale, too pale, and sweating. Her normally auburn hair was stained a deep burgundy from all the sweat gathered there. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her eyes moving in rapid, jerking motions behind blue-tinted eyelids. By the Cauldron, Eris cursed to himself as he took a step forward toward the bed. But one of the healers, a wrinkled old female named Maude who had helped deliver all of the sons of Beron, came forward and stopped him, placing a wizened hand on his chest.

Eris looked down at the hand, ready to shove it away, before Maude spoke. "Young lord, forgive my impertinence," she began, her husky voice rattling in the air like wind through dead branches. "Lady Siobhan requested that the family be kept away until her condition improved. Please respect her wishes."

Eris scoffed. "Her wishes? She's barely conscious!" He fought the anger and irritation rising in his voice, trying not to stir his mother from her fitful slumber. "Does my father know?" Eris asked in a hushed tone.

Maude's grey eyes seemed to cloud over before she nodded in silence.

"And he leaves her to suffer, without a word of gratitude for giving him seven sons," Eris hissed under his breath, a bitter anger blooming in his chest. If Maude heard him, she did not react, just stood there, grey eyes still gloomy.

Eris took a deep breath, working to get himself under control before he asked, nicer this time: "Maude, can I please just sit with her for five minutes? I just want to know if she'll be okay." He tried not to sound like a desperate, whiny pup crying for its mother, but he couldn't help it.

The other servants and healers stood quietly, heads down, pretending to fold towels. Pretending not to hear his plea.

Maude studied him for a long moment, her eyes moving over his face the way they might study a wound to see how deep it ran. Whatever she saw there seemed to loosen something in her resolve.

"Five minutes," she said finally. "No more. And you sit, you don't wake her if she's managed to settle. The fever makes her restless enough without you adding to it."

Relief loosened Eris's shoulders before he could stop it. "Thank you."

She stepped aside, and for the first time since he'd walked in, no one stopped him from crossing the room.

Up close, Siobhan looked worse. The planes of her face, always so composed, so carefully arranged for whatever room she stood in, had gone slack with fever. Her lips were cracked. Someone had laid a cool cloth across her brow, and it had already gone warm, forgotten in the scramble of the room.

With gentle fingers, he slowly pulled the cloth from her forehead before dipping it into a basin of cool water placed on the bedside table, then wrung it out and carefully placed it back on her forehead. Eris looked up at Maude, now grinding herbs in a mortar and pestle in the corner of the room with the other healers.

"What's being done for her?" he asked, keeping his voice as low as possible.

"Cooling draughts. Fever-root tea, when we can get her to swallow it. We've sent for more feverfew from the border of the Spring Court, though it won't arrive till morning."

Maude stopped grinding the herbs and looked at him. "Your mother is strong, young lord. You know this. She'll pull through — just give her time."

Eris sat in silence for a moment. Of course he knew that she was strong. She would not have lived this long as Beron's wife if she weren't. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. His mother still lay in uneasy slumber, her chest rising and falling rapidly like the bellows of a forge.

Tentatively, he reached out and took her smaller hand in his. The bones felt so delicate, like a bird's wing. He could not remember the last time he had held her hand. He ran his thumb over the back of it a few times, feeling helpless as to what to do now.

He was still lost in thought when a raspy, whispery voice broke the silence above him.

"Eris... is that you?"

He jerked his head up, relief and anxiety flooding through him at once. "I'm here." He leaned forward still gripping her hand, searching her face in the dim light. Her eyes were only half open, glassy with fever, but they found him and held. "I'm here, Mother. Don't try to sit up." 

"I wasn't planning to." A ghost of her old dryness, even now. Older nobles at court still whispered sometimes about how she'd once been famous for a sardonic wit, much like the one Eris had inherited, before she married Beron. 

When she had just been Siobhan. 

Siobhan swallowed, wincing at what the effort cost her throat. "Water."

He reached for a small cup filled with cool water on the side table and held it to her lips, one hand bracing the back of her head so she wouldn't have to lift it. She managed only a few small sips before turning her face away, but even that seemed to steady her.

"There," he murmured, setting the cup down. "Better?"

"Marginally." Her eyes moved over him, the same slow, cataloguing look she gave each of her sons whenever they entered a room– as if she were taking inventory, making sure each one of them was hale and whole.

"You look worse than I feel," she said, "and I feel like I've been dragged behind a horse for the better part of a mile."

"You have a fever the healers still won't put a name to. I think I'm allowed to look tired on your behalf."

"Mm. Generous of you."

Eris gave her a faint smile, feeling a lightness take hold in him now that he knew that she was awake and making jokes again. She smiled at him too, small fingers doing their best to curl around his hand. They sat in silence for a moment, her raspy breaths filling the space between them. 

After a few beats, she finally spoke, the smile having faded from her face. "Lucien," she said, like the name itself cost her something. Her fingers tightened around his, weak but insistent. "Is he well? Have you seen him?"

"He's fine, Mother. Loud. Alive." Eris tried for lightness, but her expression didn't ease.

"I haven't seen him since—" She stopped, throat working. "This morning, although it feels like a lifetime." Her glassy eyes searched his face, as if he might have the answer to a question she hadn't fully asked yet. "Who is tending him?"

"The wetnurse I assume" Eris said, feeling a bit uneasy now at the shift in her mood.

Something flickered across her fevered face, not quite fear, but close to it. "Hired hands are not the same as family, Eris. You know this house. You know what happens to the ones nobody claims."

He did know. He thought of himself at that age, and his brothers after him, learning early which rooms to avoid and which of their father's moods meant a slammed door versus a raised hand. A newborn had no instincts for that yet, no one to read the air of the house for him.

"I want you to look after him," she said. "Until I'm back on my feet. Truly look after him, not just have someone else do it while you tell yourself you have."

Eris felt something in his chest go tight and cold at once. "Mother—"

"I'm not asking your brothers. I'm asking you." Her grip on his hand, frail as it was, didn't loosen. "You're the only one who won't forget he's there."

"I have duties. Father has me riding the border patrols next week, and the accounts from the eastern orchards still need—"

"He's a baby, Eris, not a ledger. He needs someone to notice when he's hungry or when he's cold. He cannot be set down somewhere and left." Her voice cracked on the last word, and for a moment she sounded less like the composed Lady of Autumn and more like a female who had lived in this house long enough to know exactly how a child could be misplaced in it, in every sense.

Eris looked down at their joined hands, at the thinness of her fingers, and felt the apprehension curdle low in his stomach. He didn't know the first thing about infants beyond how to carry a crying youngling to somewhere quieter. Lucien was smaller than that, all fists and shrieking and needs Eris couldn't read. 

"I don't know how," he admitted quietly, the words dragged out of him. It wasn't a thing he said often. "I don't know what he wants when he cries. I'll do something wrong."

"You won't. He'll tell you plenty. You'll just have to listen differently." Siobhan squeezed his hand, a fraction of her old strength returning to it. "Please, Eris. I can't do it myself right now, and I don't trust anyone else." Her voice took on a note of pleading.

Eris exhaled slowly through his nose, staring at some middle distance past her shoulder, already dreading the answer he knew he was about to give.

"Fine," he said finally. "Until you're well."

Relief loosened the tight lines of her forehead, fever-glazed as it was. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Eris muttered. "I've a feeling I'm about to make a fool of myself in front of an infant who won't even remember it."

Eris left his mother's chambers with her words still settled somewhere behind his ribs. The walk to the nursery was not far, the Forest House had been built with its heirs in mind with all of the family rooms relatively close together, clustered together like many holes in a burrow, but it felt longer than it should have. His boots were quiet against the wood floor, and the silence unsettled him more than noise would have.

What did one even say to an infant? Nothing, presumably. That was the whole trouble with them, they gave you nothing back. No conversation, no argument. Just wordless and endless need, and Eris was fairly certain he would be the last person alive equipped to interpret it. He had managed to keep himself and his brothers breathing through decades of Beron's temper by knowing exactly when to speak and when to disappear into a wall. Lucien would offer him no such cues. Only crying, presumably. 

He paused outside the nursery door, one hand on the frame, and reminded himself that he was a Vanserra son, and Vanserra sons did not loiter outside of rooms like nervous house cats. He pushed the door open. 

The nursery was unlike the rest of the Forest House, warmer, somehow, despite the same enchanted faelight that lit every other room. Someone — likely his mother, back when she still had the authority to oversee such things — had filled the space with color: deep jewel-toned tapestries stitched in ember orange and ruby red hung around the room, and a large woven rug in rich plum covered most of the floor. Carved along the crown moulding, a procession of forest animals chased each other in an endless loop: foxes, stags, hares, a sleepy-eyed owl, each one rendered in warm honeyed wood, their edges soft and round. Autumn leaves, carved in the same wood, spiraled down one wall as though caught mid-fall, frozen at the exact moment before they touched the ground. 

It was, Eris thought, the gentlest room in the entire manor. Which made sense. It was the only room in the house not yet touched by what the rest of it had become.

He crossed the small space toward the crib set near the far wall, his footsteps slowing the closer he got, some old instinct in him bracing for noise, for chaos. But the room was silent, and the crib when he reached it held nothing more alarming than a small sleeping shape wrapped in soft emerald-colored blankets.

Eris looked down at his newest brother for a long moment.

Lucien was smaller than he remembered from that first, brief glimpse a week ago. Impossibly small, fists curled up near his face, chest rising and falling in the quick shallow rhythm of newborn sleep. His face was soft, cheeks round, lips pouty like all newborn babes. But atop his head, in a small unruly patch, was a crown of curls the exact same deep auburn as Siobhan's. The same shade Eris had watched turn burgundy with sweat not an hour ago, the same color that ran diluted or otherwise through every one of Beron's sons.

Eris let out a slow breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Well," he murmured, so quietly it barely disturbed the still air of the room. "I suppose it's you and me for a while."

Eris pulled a plush armchair that had been sitting in the opposite corner of the room up to Lucien's crib. He watched as the boy slept, still unperturbed by his eldest brother's presence. So far. 

The minutes stretched on, and Lucien did not so much as twitch. Eris shifted in the armchair, drumming his fingers once against the armrest before catching himself and going still again, half-expecting the sound to somehow wake the sleeping babe through sheer bad luck. It didn't. Lucien slept on, oblivious, his small chest rising and falling in that same steady rhythm, and Eris was left with nothing to do but sit there and watch him do it.

He hadn't accounted for this part. Somewhere in his mind, "look after him" had conjured images of frantic crying, of some crisis he'd have to solve with his bare hands and no idea how. He had not accounted for simply... sitting. Watching a baby breathe was, it turned out, spectacularly dull.

He glanced toward the door, then back at the crib, calculating. The novel was still sitting on the chaise lounge in the hall, exactly where he'd abandoned it — dragon, sleeping princess, and all. Objectively terrible reading material, but reading material nonetheless, and infinitely more entertaining than counting the carved foxes chasing each other around the crown moulding for the fourth time. Lucien was fast asleep. He'd been fast asleep for the better part of twenty minutes without so much as a whimper. What harm could there be in a two-minute dash down the hall and back?

Eris was halfway out of the armchair, weight already shifting toward the door, when a thin, furious wail cracked through the quiet of the nursery like a whip.

He froze mid-motion, one hand still braced on the armrest, and turned back to find Lucien very much awake face screwed up red, tiny fists pumping the air, mouth open in a cry that seemed entirely too loud for something so small.

"Right," Eris muttered, sinking back down into the chair with the distinct feeling he'd just been caught at something, though there was no one there to have caught him. "Of course."

Eris watched, just for a moment, as Lucien wailed, and thought about his next steps. Did he need a nappy change? How do I change a nappy? Where ARE the nappies? He glanced quickly around the room, as if a pile of fresh nappies would suddenly appear out of thin air. 

A soft creak of the floorboards sounded behind him, and Eris spun around so fast he nearly knocked the armchair over.

A young fae female dressed in a plain cotton gown stood frozen just inside the doorway, a folded muslin cloth draped over one arm, her eyes wide with alarm at the sight of him. She looked, for a moment, like she might turn and flee back the way she came.

"My — my lord," she stammered, dropping into a hasty, off-balance curtsy. "Forgive me, I didn't know anyone would be — that is, I only came to feed him. He hasn't eaten in near two hours, and I heard him crying from the hall, and I—" She stopped herself, clearly unsure whether she was meant to be explaining herself to a Vanserra son or simply obeying him.

Eris held up a hand before she could work herself into a deeper panic. "You're fine. I'm not — this isn't an inspection." He gestured vaguely at the crib, then at himself, feeling suddenly and thoroughly foolish. "My mother asked me to look in on him. Until she's recovered. I didn't mean to get in your way."

The wetnurse's shoulders eased slightly, though her eyes still darted between him and the wailing baby as if waiting for the situation to reveal some trap. "Oh. Of course, my lord. That's — that's good of you." She didn't sound entirely convinced, but she didn't argue either.

"Right." Eris stood, brushing nonexistent dust from his sleeves, mostly to have something to do with his hands. "I'll just—" He gestured at the door. "Give you room."

He slipped out into the hall before she could respond, pulling the door shut behind him with more care than the situation required. Lucien's cries were muffled but still audible through the wood, and Eris stood there a moment, oddly reluctant to walk away before he remembered the novel.

It was exactly where he'd left it, splayed open and face-down on the chaise lounge, spine creased in a way that would have offended any scholar or librarian in the Day Court if they had seen it. Eris scooped it up and returned to his post outside the nursery door, dropping into a bored slouch against the wall, book open but mostly unread, his eyes drifting to the door every time the crying shifted in pitch or paused. 

It felt like a very long while, though it likely wasn't. The crying eventually settled into something quieter — small, satisfied sounds rather than outrage — and a few minutes later the door opened again.

"You can come back in, my lord, if you like," the wetnurse said, considerably more at ease now than she'd been the first time. "He's just fed. Might be a good time, if you want to hold him."

Eris closed the book around one finger to keep his place, suddenly unsure whether he did want to, and followed her back in anyway.

Lucien was awake now, cradled in the crook of the wetnurse's arm, his small face scrunched in the drowsy, milk-drunk look of a newborn who'd just eaten his fill. He didn't look nearly as furious as he had ten minutes ago.

"Sit here, my lord." The wetnurse nodded at the armchair, and Eris obeyed, lowering himself into it with the stiff carefulness of someone approaching an unfamiliar and possibly dangerous task. "Arm along the armrest, there– good. Now cup your other hand behind his head, always his head, he can't hold it up himself yet." She demonstrated with her own hands hovering near Lucien's skull before easing him, with practiced gentleness, into the crook of Eris's arm.

The weight of him was almost nothing. Eris held himself rigid, terrified of some catastrophic error like dropping him, crushing him, or breathing wrong in his direction but the wetnurse only nodded in approval and stepped back to let him settle. 

"There. You've got him." she said, before she dipped into another curtsey and disappeared from the room.

Lucien blinked up at him with dark, unfocused eyes, entirely uninterested in whatever internal crisis his eldest brother was having. He yawned, a small, absurd thing that seemed too large for his face and one tiny hand drifted up to bump against Eris's sleeve.

Eris stared down at him for a long moment, some of the stiffness easing out of his shoulders despite himself.

He wondered not for the first time that day what kind of life waited for this small, unbothered creature in a house like this one. Whether he'd grow up quick enough to read the halls the way the rest of them had learned to, whether he'd be spared it, whether anyone in this family had ever truly been spared anything. Eris thought of tiny scraped knees and younglings with red hair and black eyes. Of slammed doors, his mother's hand curled weak around his own not an hour ago, asking him to be the one thing standing between this boy and the house that raised the rest of them. 

He didn't have an answer. He only had the small, warm weight of his brother settled against his arm, and for the first time since his mother had asked this of him, something that wasn't quite dread. 

A small snuffling sound broke through Eris's thoughts. Lucien was shifting against his arm, brow furrowing in the particular way infants did before deciding whether a thing was worth crying about. Eris startled slightly, pulled back into the room and the moment, and looked down to find his brother blinking blearily up at him, apparently having decided for now, that it wasn't.

Eris hesitated, then reached out with one finger and brushed it, feather-light, along the curve of Lucien's cheek. The skin there was impossibly soft, softer than the finest silks his mother wore to court, warm and new in a way that made something in his chest tighten unexpectedly.

"Huh," he murmured, mostly to himself.

He let his finger drift up, careful and slow, to the small unruly patch of auburn curls atop Lucien's head and found those softer still, fine as spun thread, and barely there at all beneath his fingertips. Eris turned a curl gently between thumb and forefinger, marveling at it the way he might marvel at some rare, delicate thing he wasn't quite sure he was allowed to touch.

He wasn't sure when, exactly, something in him had started to shift. It hadn't been the crib, or the wetnurse's steady instructions, or even the weight of Lucien settling into the crook of his arm. It had crept up slowly, the way autumn might creep up over the Solar Courts lands and now, sitting here with this small, breathing thing curled trustingly against him, Eris felt something unfamiliar take root behind his sternum. Not quite fatherly. He had no claim to that word, not really, not as an older brother. But something adjacent to it. Something that wanted, fiercely and without his permission, to keep this small creature safe from every last thing this house had ever done to the rest of them. 

"You've got good hair, at least," Eris said quietly, leaning down so the words were meant for no one but Lucien. "Better than mine was at your age, probably. Mother’s too, if the stories are true." He glanced toward the door, toward the direction of Siobhan’s chambers as if she could hear him from down the hall. "Don't tell her I said that." 

Lucien, entirely unmoved by the compliment, began to squirm. His face scrunching toward the telltale signs of a fuss building somewhere beneath the surface.

Eris cast about for a solution before the crying could start in earnest, and his eyes landed on the novel still resting on his knee.

"Right. Well." He shifted Lucien slightly higher against his arm, angling the book so it sat propped against the armrest, and cracked it open to wherever it had last fallen shut. "You won't understand a word of this, and frankly, I could care less for this drivel but I'm told it's a classic.”

He cleared his throat and began to read something about a sleeping princess, a thicket of thorns, and a dragon that guarded her. He kept his voice low and even pitched more for the rhythm of it than the sense. Lucien's squirming slowed gradually, his small face turning toward the sound of his brother's voice and Eris kept reading, feeling faintly ridiculous but also pleased with himself for keeping Lucien calm. 

He read for the better part of an hour, only stopping briefly to light the fireplace with a flick of his powers, worried that the babe seemed to be getting cold. Eris had just reached the part where the hero and the princess had begun dancing together at the ball when he felt a pair of eyes on him. 

Eris looked up from the page, the sentence trailing off unfinished, to find Maude standing in the nursery doorway. He hadn't heard her approach, hadn't heard the door, and for a moment he simply stared at her, caught somewhere between embarrassment and defiance. He became very aware of the picture he made: eldest Vanserra son, curled in an armchair by firelight, reading a ridiculous story about a slumbering princess to an infant who couldn't understand a word of it. 

Maude didn't look surprised so much as she looked like a female confirming something she'd already suspected. Her grey eyes moved from Eris to the book, to Lucien's small face turned toward the sound of his voice, and something in her weathered expression softened, just slightly, at the corners.

"Didn't mean to startle you, young lord," she said, her husky voice pitched low so as not to disturb the room's quiet. "Came to check on the little one. Looks like he's fast asleep again."

Eris looked down at the sleeping bundle in his arms, and of course, Lucien was dozing again as peaceful as ever. Cauldron, Eris cursed himself mentally, how long had he been reading without realizing the babe was asleep?

Eris closed the book, feeling the heat rise in his face despite himself. "He was getting restless. I thought reading might settle him." He glanced toward the fire, crackling low and steady in the hearth now. "And cold. I lit the fire."

"So I see." Maude's mouth twitched, not quite a smile but close enough to one that it unsettled him more than her usual stony composure did. "Your mother will be glad to hear it."

Something in his chest eased slightly at the mention of his mother. "How is she?" 

"Fever's broken," Maude said, "Just within the hour. She's resting easy now, properly resting, not that fitful business from before. I say if she holds steady through the night, she should be near herself again by morning."

The relief that flooded through Eris was immediate and almost dizzying. "She'll be alright, then. Truly alright."

"Truly." Maude nodded, something almost gentle in the set of her grey eyes. "You did well to sit with her earlier, young lord. I daresay it helped more than the fever-root did."

Eris opened his mouth to reply, some dry remark half-formed on his tongue, but it died there, replaced by a quieter feeling he hadn't expected to have to contend with. Relief, yes, but beneath it, unwelcome and a little embarrassing. It was something that felt uncomfortably close to disappointment. If his mother was recovering, there would be no more reason for him to sit in this small, warm room with the fire crackling and his brother's weight settled trustingly against his arm. The nursemaids would resume their rounds. The healers would return to their usual business. And Eris would go back to being merely an occasional visitor to a room he had, somehow in the space of an afternoon, come to think of as something closer to his.

He must have let some of that show, because Maude's eyes lingered on him a beat too long, moving from his face to the sleeping bundle in his arms and back again, reading something there he hadn't meant to reveal.

"That doesn't mean you're barred from him, you know," she said, not unkindly. "Babe still needs looking after, fever or no fever. Nothing stopping you from coming by whenever you've a mind to. I'd wager he'd notice in time if his eldest brother stopped visiting."

Eris huffed something that was almost a laugh, low and rough. "He's a week old, Maude. He won't notice anything for months yet."

"Maybe not with his eyes." She gave him a knowing look that he didn't much care to examine too closely. "But babes know more than folk give them credit for."

He didn't have a response to that, so he said nothing at all, only looked down at Lucien, still fast asleep against him, entirely unaware of the conversation happening above his head or the fact that his mother would wake tomorrow whole again.

Carefully, Eris rose from the armchair and carried him the short distance to the crib, lowering him with far more care than he thought himself capable of an hour ago. Lucien stirred faintly at the transfer, one small fist twitching against the blanket but did not wake. Eris lingered there a moment longer than necessary, one hand braced on the crib's edge, before reaching out and brushing his fingers once, gently, along the curve of his brother's cheek.

"Get some rest," he murmured, quiet enough that even Maude, standing a few feet away, likely didn't catch it. "I'll be back."

He straightened, cast one last glance at the small, sleeping shape of his brother, and left the nursery to the nursemaids and the healers, the fire still burning low and steady in the hearth behind him.

Brb crying in the club rn

Tag list ☺️

@erin-bo-berin

@langsnscraps

@frominsidethehouse

@alexof90s

[erin-bo-berin]

Well today’s my one year anniversary since I fell down the Eris Vanserra rabbit hole and realized how much of a delight he is 😅

This time last year was the point I started going he’s a “hear me out” lmao now look at me.

[ser-matilda]

Fic Masterlist

Eris Vanserra x Reader

Taste, the First Offering

Taste, the First Offering Part Two

Such A Good Girl For Me

Eris Vanserra Headcannons

Soft Eris Vanserra Headcannons Part. 1

Soft Eris Vanserra Headcannons Pt. 2

My Eris Vanserra K!nks/Favorite Things To Do During S!x List!

Eris Vanserra K!nk/Favorite Things During S!x List Pt. 2

Eris and Lucien Stories

Not Quite Fatherly

[ser-matilda]

Eris with dragon horns…Eris with dragon dick…yessssss…..

Side note: ALL of the High Fae in ACOTAR should have had their more “monstrous forms” come out when angry/excited/etc. Autumn IS dragons, I don’t make the rules.

[highlordofkrypton]

It's that time of the month again! All my fics that have been updated/posted are contained in this post. If you'd like to be tagged for any specific ones, feel free to let me know but subscribing is much more reliable 😘

ANDRAS

bloodshot // x johan // Twilight AU - Chapter 1-6, Ongoing

Andras is the local sheriff of a small town and is struggling with being the single father to a moody teenager. Dr. Johannes Wolfe has just moved into town with his son, and his beauty (and mysterious aura) has Andras all flustered. Who has time for dating, though, when there's a murderer haunting the woods around his town?

BERON VANSERRA

by the horns // x Tamlin // Rancher AU - Chapter 1 & 2, Ongoing

Tamlin’s family, the Creightons, are an old family with new money that have been buying out all the lands around for their business paying out the farmers handsomely. The only exception is the Vanserra farm; Tamlin’s father had left it untouched as a favour for an old friend, but Beron’s bad attitude is worsening by the day and if he doesn’t get it together, Tamlin’s father might just buy it out from right under him. Tamlin thinks he can help, if only Beron will let him in (in more ways than one).

fathers of war // x multi // Canon Divergent & smut AU - Chapter 1, Ongoing

In the year of 1 B.W. (Before Wall), the war between Humans and High Faeries came to a conclusion. As victors, the Humans were granted freedom, opting to live in the Southern parts of the continent where the seasons and the solar cycles would be as free as they are. A bargain was struck by the six Mortal Queens and the (new) High Ladies who suffered underneath their male counterpart's rule. The bargain? Every male who has done them wrong, or were complicit must be punished.

ERIS VANSERRA

calypso // x johan // Mythical Naval Fairytale AU - Chapters 6-9, Complete

His father is dead, and Eris is finally king of the Autumn Kingdom. The problem is his father was lost at sea and had taken his little brother along with him, they ventured too close to the Prison of Souls, an island that hosts the most monstrous creatures the world has ever seen. No one has ever survived sailing too close to it, but Eris refuses to believe that little Lucien is dead. He ventures on a rescue mission on the off chance that his baby brother is alive and meets a creature not even the stories could capture. This is a dark fairy tale romance.

metamours // x johan & tamlin's brother (enfys) // Omegaverse - Chapter 1, Ongoing

Eris Vanserra is an omega. Shunned by his family and tasked by his mother to protect his illegitimate brother, Eris leaves the rich Vanserra crime family to try and make a live for the two of them. With no real skills he can put on paper and Lucien getting sicker every day, he needs to resort to desperate measures or accept the help of those around him. Will he choose to suffer alone or stay caught between a battle of two Alphas who want to provide for him? TL;DR - Eris Vanserra's butt WILL be touched. All that's left is to discover is by who.

reverse vertical horizontal // x Tamlin's Brother (Enfys) // Hockey AU - Side Stories 4 & 5, Complete

The final two "side stories" to this fanfic have been added. Enjoy the sweet, sweet fluff and smut.

RHYSAND'S PARENTS

needle & king // rhysand's father x rhysand's mother // Prequel - Chapter 20, Ongoing

An unlikely ally makes himself known to Lilith, or is he nothing more than a trick from the shadows?

TAMLIN

lowlights // x multi // Smut AU - Oneshot, Complete

Tamlin takes a leap of faith at Voyeurs and finally lets the club's patrons know about his deepest, most hidden desires. He feels exposed and vulnerable, but there's no need to feel fear because his two closest protectors are there to watch over him: Rhysand and Lucien.

the fairest of them all // x niamh & nyx // Fairytale AU - Chapter 10 & 11, Ongoing

Nyx Archeron, the Prince of Velaris, is betrothed to the beautiful Niamh of Hybern with her blood red eyes and fair as white as snow. He grows up alongside her, loving her and dreaming of their arranged marriage and uniting their Kingdoms until one day, she disappears and his city is burned to the ground by the nation of Hybern.

two inches, breathless // x rhysand // Modern AU & smut oneshot - Complete

Tamlin goes camping with his friends and his crush, Rhysand. His tent breaks and he has no choice but to share with Rhysand. Turns out, it's really hard to fall asleep next to the guy you really, really like.

CHRIS REDFIELD X LEON KENNEDY

these residents are (re)tired // multiple moments across their relationship, oneshot chapters - Chapter 3, Ongoing

Leon and Rose teach Emily how to play pranks. Her first victim? Grandpa Chris. They also ask if they can get a kitten or a puppy.