𓆩♡𓆪 Dark Matter - Grad student AU ft neuropsych student Gwyn and insomniac Azriel. On hiatus. 1/?
Misc.
ʚ🔮ɞ in the bulrushes - the night court tells many tales about its past—except about Nesta archeron. Years after she left without a trace, Nyx sets out to find his exiled aunt, and learn why. Ongoing, 1/?.
ʚ🔮ɞ Nesta and the Get Down Gang - everyone wants something from Nesta: her body, her power, her penance. But she has many faces depending on the mirror held up to her. 7/7, complete.
ʚ🔮ɞ Thicker Than Water - Nesta gets more than she bargained for when she asks Cassian about his past sexcapades. One-shot.
ʚ🔮ɞ Killing Amren - Killing Eve-inspired Nesta x Amren relationship post-acosf. One-shot.
ʚ🔮ɞ Ash From Your Fire - Angsty Rhysta AU where Rhysand finds a different Archeron on Fire Night. One-shot.
Brother. Friend. Lover. General. Rival. Comrade. Shield.
Seven people tell their story of Cassian. But only one realizes they're all the same.
A series of ficlets for Cassian Week 2026.
Day Four: Lover for @cassianappreciationweek
ERIS
Read below the cut or on ao3
They're bickering again.
Through the trees, Eris watches Nesta Archeron alights from her mates arms just before he sneezes.
"I told you to take your tonic before we got here."
"Did you want me to drop you to reach in my—"
Cassian sneezes again, so forcefully he stumbles back a few feet. His wings shoot out wide, spanning the whole courtyard, and the leaves they kick up make him sneeze again. And again.
Nesta rolls her eyes, reaching up to tug on her mate's earlobe, and the spike of envy in Eris's gut is buried under a wave of boredom.
They do this every fucking time.
Dressed all in black scale armor, the mated pair looks absurd against the fiery maples in his private courtyard at the Forest House. Like they've shown up for training instead of a trade negotiation. Like they'd start rolling around on the flagstones if no one was looking.
What a waste.
Nesta should be sitting on that swinging bench reading poetry. Cassian should be in the mud somewhere.
Instead she's unstoppering a bottle from the satchel at his side, and he's pinching his nose while downing the acid-green liquid with a grimace.
What an utter waste.
But it's fine. Eris rather enjoys playing audience to these squabbles, if he's honest. Though unfortunately, it's time for this one to end.
"Sounds like there's a galewyrm out here, I was about to send the hounds on you," he says loudly, strolling from the alcove where he's been observing them.
They both turn to him at the same moment, Cassian laughing while Nesta's expression flattens.
"Nope, just leaves. You've got a real problem with those around here."
"You're late," Nesta says tartly. "You two talk. I'm going to raid your library."
She breezes past him without another word, disappearing into his study. Chuckling still , Cassian fishes in his satchel before producing a folded document stamped with a violet seal.
"Here you go. Guaranteed safe passage through the Breakwater for all ships with Autumn Court banners."
Eris blinks, taken aback. He takes the parchment and unfolds it, half-expecting Rhysand to have sent a diatribe of expletives.
Instead he finds… exactly the terms he asked for?
"So he agreed to my terms after all?" Eris asks, incredulous.
"Yeah."
"But he stoutly refused just days ago."
An understatement. The words I'd sooner give Tamlin a seat at my table come to mind.
Cassian shrugs. "Changed his mind, I guess."
"Why the devil would he do that?"
"Maybe he liked your idea better."
Fire sparks at Eris's fingertips, and he mumbles an incantation to keep it from damaging the paper. Cauldron boil him, he's in no mood for games today. Whatever racket the Night Court is trying to run, he's not about to be snookered.
"Don't have me on," he growls. "Rhysand would hate the wind if someone else were lord of it."
Leaning a wrist on the pommel of his sword, Cassian shrugs again.
"The Breakwater's already crawling with foreign traders. One more court at Saltspire won't make a difference."
"Then what was all that dithering about Helion getting shirty?"
"Sometimes Rhys needs to hear from—well."
He's silent long enough that Eris starts to feel the thickness of it.
"Not you," Cassian finishes at last.
Eris lowers the parchment. Cassian's eyes dart left, then up—subterfuge. Concealment. But for what?
"You convinced him."
"I mean… yeah?"
The general scratches absently at the back of his neck, as though it's no more remarkable than asking someone to pass the salt.
So Eris waits for the catch.
The trick. The caveat. The great oaf is about to ask for something more than just a handful of books for his wife, and Eris has the low ground, having just gotten everything he wanted.
It doesn't come.
It irks him.
"This simpleton act is wearing thin," he snaps, more harshly than intended.
But Cassian only smiles.
"What act?"
"Come now. You scratch my back, and I scratch your vile, hairy—"
"Are you misbehaving again, Eris?" Nesta asks lightly, appearing at his shoulder. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what happened last time."
He certainly hasn't. The carpet in his study still bears silver scorch marks.
Cassian smirks and swipes his hand over his nose before reaching for her pillaged stack. Nesta doesn't move. Only arches a brow until her mate wipes his palm off on his thigh before she finally cedes her books.
"I still don't understand why you refuse to use a handkerchief," she grouses.
"The world is my handkerchief, Nes."
Their bickering disappears on the wind, and he ignores the fizzle of malcontent in his chest watching them go. Especially when Cassian's wings rush faster and they shoot above the clouds, Nesta's wild laughter raining down on him like silver coins tossed from the heavens.
The irony, that the bastard is somehow richer than he'll ever be.
Eris drinks too much wine that night. He falls into bed woozy and over-full, angry at nothing, which is as close to lonely as he ever gets.
I loved this idea of a peaceful moment between them after they accepted their mate bond, knowing that alcohol would no longer be an excess since she no longer needed to suppress her feelings 🥹
Even with dried blood across his jaw, a split lip, and exhaustion pulling at the corners of his eyes, he found the energy to smile at her as though they weren't sitting in a tent full of his wounded family.
Nesta tried not to think about anything else, anything bigger, as she finished her work and tied off the wrapping in a clean, deliberate knot.
But of course, as she finished, he didn’t let her pull away. Cassian grasped her fingers in his, the warmth flooding down to her toes. War was cold. Even when it was hot out, there was something cold inside of battle. It was the first time Nesta hadn’t felt like shivering in days.
His eyes caught her. Caught, because she wasn’t sure she offered the too-intimate gaze freely. She swallowed, preparing for a stupid joke or ridiculous innuendo.
But Cassian only said, low, serious – “Thank you.”
And it was like Nesta was looking at him for the first time. She stared too long. Longer than she’d ever allowed herself before. Checking, she realized, to make sure he really was there. Really was (mostly) unharmed and solid in front of her. Real. Her throat was stuck, dry, but she did not pull her hand away. And he did not move his gaze once. Eyes riveted to her face with such heat she thought she might never be cold again. Trying to make her throat untick and her lips part, Nesta prepared to say–
Cold air swept in with the rain outside as the tent flap pulled open.
“You’re hurt.”
And Nesta disappeared with the same words she had spoken only minutes earlier. She could feel it, the way she became a ghost to him. Hand snatched back like he was holding enemy steel.
Let me know if you want to be added to or taken off the taglist!
Snippet below the cut
Nesta’s day had started with a man screaming at her about a refund for three books he had very obviously used and read — cracked spines, dog-eared corners, and one very clear coffee ring bleeding across the back cover — and it ended with a voicemail from her father that said, Nesta, honey, before you say anything, I want you to know it’s handled.
Nothing in the history of the world had ever been handled by her father, and he’d probably gotten himself into trouble yet again. She wouldn’t be surprised if she’d receive three more of his calls before the day was done.
Moreover, throughout the entire day, she’d been bothered by her baby sister Feyre. Forty-one texts by final count, escalating from have you called Dad back to you can’t ice him out forever to a single, devastating Elain agrees with me, he’ll use the money wisely this time, sent at 6:47 p.m. Nesta’d put her phone on Do Not Disturb after that, and had ended up at Rita’s at nine o’clock on a Thursday like a sad cliché, drinking a martini she couldn’t strictly afford — especially if her suspicions about her father were correct — glaring at the bottles behind the bar.
She was on olive number two when the stool beside her scraped back.
The man who sat down took up an unreasonable amount of space. He’d been built on a different scale than anyone she’d ever seen, with shoulders that belonged on some classical sculpture of a Roman warrior or Greek god. He had dark, curly hair that fell loose to his shoulders, and ink climbing out from under his rolled sleeves in sweeping black lines, whorls and edges that she assumed were culturally significant, before she made herself stop staring. He was looking at her openly, though, and his face was devastatingly handsome. He was beautiful. Damn him and damn her and her horrible day that simply wouldn’t end.
She focused on eating her olive, trying to ignore him.
“Rough day?” he asked, clearly not trying to ignore her.
She sighed deeply, figuring every effort to not acknowledge him would be futile. “Very original.”
“I’m only warming up, sweetheart.” He signaled the bartender. “Whatever she’s having, and a beer. On me.”
“I don’t let strangers buy me drinks.”
“Excellent.” He didn’t wave the bartender off. “Cassian.”
Nesta turned her head slowly, and gave him the look that had made grown men apologize for being in her vicinity before. He simply smiled like she was the first ray of warm sunshine after a long, dark winter.
He had his hand extended towards her and watched her, looking almost hopeful.
She held the his gaze a beat longer. The third martini arrived, frosted and perfect. Her father’s voice was still ringing in her ears and Feyre was probably drafting text number forty-two. The day had already gone to hell. What was another grave mistake anyway?
Brother. Friend. Lover. General. Rival. Comrade. Shield.
Seven people tell their story of Cassian. But only one realizes they're all the same.
A series of ficlets for Cassian Week 2026.
Day Four: Lover for @cassianappreciationweek
ERIS
Read below the cut or on ao3
They're bickering again.
Through the trees, Eris watches Nesta Archeron alights from her mates arms just before he sneezes.
"I told you to take your tonic before we got here."
"Did you want me to drop you to reach in my—"
Cassian sneezes again, so forcefully he stumbles back a few feet. His wings shoot out wide, spanning the whole courtyard, and the leaves they kick up make him sneeze again. And again.
Nesta rolls her eyes, reaching up to tug on her mate's earlobe, and the spike of envy in Eris's gut is buried under a wave of boredom.
They do this every fucking time.
Dressed all in black scale armor, the mated pair looks absurd against the fiery maples in his private courtyard at the Forest House. Like they've shown up for training instead of a trade negotiation. Like they'd start rolling around on the flagstones if no one was looking.
What a waste.
Nesta should be sitting on that swinging bench reading poetry. Cassian should be in the mud somewhere.
Instead she's unstoppering a bottle from the satchel at his side, and he's pinching his nose while downing the acid-green liquid with a grimace.
What an utter waste.
But it's fine. Eris rather enjoys playing audience to these squabbles, if he's honest. Though unfortunately, it's time for this one to end.
"Sounds like there's a galewyrm out here, I was about to send the hounds on you," he says loudly, strolling from the alcove where he's been observing them.
They both turn to him at the same moment, Cassian laughing while Nesta's expression flattens.
"Nope, just leaves. You've got a real problem with those around here."
"You're late," Nesta says tartly. "You two talk. I'm going to raid your library."
She breezes past him without another word, disappearing into his study. Chuckling still , Cassian fishes in his satchel before producing a folded document stamped with a violet seal.
"Here you go. Guaranteed safe passage through the Breakwater for all ships with Autumn Court banners."
Eris blinks, taken aback. He takes the parchment and unfolds it, half-expecting Rhysand to have sent a diatribe of expletives.
Instead he finds… exactly the terms he asked for?
"So he agreed to my terms after all?" Eris asks, incredulous.
"Yeah."
"But he stoutly refused just days ago."
An understatement. The words I'd sooner give Tamlin a seat at my table come to mind.
Cassian shrugs. "Changed his mind, I guess."
"Why the devil would he do that?"
"Maybe he liked your idea better."
Fire sparks at Eris's fingertips, and he mumbles an incantation to keep it from damaging the paper. Cauldron boil him, he's in no mood for games today. Whatever racket the Night Court is trying to run, he's not about to be snookered.
"Don't have me on," he growls. "Rhysand would hate the wind if someone else were lord of it."
Leaning a wrist on the pommel of his sword, Cassian shrugs again.
"The Breakwater's already crawling with foreign traders. One more court at Saltspire won't make a difference."
"Then what was all that dithering about Helion getting shirty?"
"Sometimes Rhys needs to hear from—well."
He's silent long enough that Eris starts to feel the thickness of it.
"Not you," Cassian finishes at last.
Eris lowers the parchment. Cassian's eyes dart left, then up—subterfuge. Concealment. But for what?
"You convinced him."
"I mean… yeah?"
The general scratches absently at the back of his neck, as though it's no more remarkable than asking someone to pass the salt.
So Eris waits for the catch.
The trick. The caveat. The great oaf is about to ask for something more than just a handful of books for his wife, and Eris has the low ground, having just gotten everything he wanted.
It doesn't come.
It irks him.
"This simpleton act is wearing thin," he snaps, more harshly than intended.
But Cassian only smiles.
"What act?"
"Come now. You scratch my back, and I scratch your vile, hairy—"
"Are you misbehaving again, Eris?" Nesta asks lightly, appearing at his shoulder. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what happened last time."
He certainly hasn't. The carpet in his study still bears silver scorch marks.
Cassian smirks and swipes his hand over his nose before reaching for her pillaged stack. Nesta doesn't move. Only arches a brow until her mate wipes his palm off on his thigh before she finally cedes her books.
"I still don't understand why you refuse to use a handkerchief," she grouses.
"The world is my handkerchief, Nes."
Their bickering disappears on the wind, and he ignores the fizzle of malcontent in his chest watching them go. Especially when Cassian's wings rush faster and they shoot above the clouds, Nesta's wild laughter raining down on him like silver coins tossed from the heavens.
The irony, that the bastard is somehow richer than he'll ever be.
Eris drinks too much wine that night. He falls into bed woozy and over-full, angry at nothing, which is as close to lonely as he ever gets.
I am ooooobsessed with your art and style!! All the little details are delicious, so much to munch on. I would love to see your take on Nessriel if that tickles your fancy but otherwise I am just happy to be graced with your talent!
I meant to answer your other ask and deleted the post by accident sorryyy
I also misread nessriel as nesriel (nestaxazriel) my bad
"Ἐγὼ δ᾽ εἰμὶ θεράπων μὲν Ἐνυαλίοιο ἄνακτος..." (Fr. 1 W) Archilochus of Paros. "And I am a servant of the lord Enalius"
I chose to represent Cassian as Ares, Greek God of War, who among his epithets had precisely Enalius. My reference was the statue in the canopy of Villa Adriana of Ares, a Roman copy of a Greek one and one of the few existing representing the God.
Then my friend @fimproda suggested Archilochus fragment and we agreed that the first part was fitting, so I added it, thank you dear🫰I'm very proud of this one, loved drawing the columns, my favourite of the whole week (for now)...
Then an artistic liberty that I took since I can't post him without the drape 😔 (what if she's written 'mine' on my upper tight?)
For Enalius Reborn day of @cassianappreciationweek we will be exploring Cassian the general in the first of a 5-part story to be posted for the remaining days of this event week.
What hope can a love born in the middle of a war possibly have? It is easy for passion to run high as combat rages, for emotions to slip at the sight of a battle wound, for declarations to flow in the face of death. But what is left when the din of warfare ends? When the bleeding ebbs but the scars remain. Cassian has done this all before, but Nesta … Nesta is just trying to keep it together.
She isn’t doing the best job.
But honestly, neither is anyone else.
Snippet:
He fought against a grin. "You were worried."
She gave a small laugh devoid of humor. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was worried because losing our general before a war would have been very inconvenient."
He stepped closer. Nearly pushing into her room. Nesta, of course, held her ground. "You can lie to everyone else." A heartbeat. "But not to me."
Something flickered behind her eyes. Not anger. Fear.
Chapter 11: With King Alfred’s army advancing north, the Norsemen leave Jorvik and prepare to face the Saxons in battle.
(For @cassianappreciationweek day 3! 🎉)
(Previous chapter // next chapter)
“In that same year also, the army of heathen which dwelt in East Anglia disgracefully broke the peace which they had concluded with King Alfred.” - An excerpt from the monk Asser’s Life of King Alfred, from the year 885AD.
It was a horror, Nesta realised, as she watched the man she had somehow grown to love don his armour.
Mute, she watched as he tied effortless knots in the padded tunic that went atop his dyed linen shirt. His fingers were so steady and sure of themselves; a marked contrast to hers, shaking and twisting themselves over and over in the fabric of her skirts. Horror— pure horror sluiced through her as she catalogued each and every piece of metal and leather he strapped to that powerful, broad body of his. A chainmail shirt had been laid out on the bed, little more than a hunk of meticulously woven iron, and she couldn’t help but look at those tiny metal rings and wonder if it would really be enough to save his life if a stray arrow was sent his way. If a dagger might really be repelled by the padded tunic he’d secured to his chest. Something inside her hitched - came unmoored - but Cassian did not look up, too focussed on his work to notice the woman tying herself in knots on the other side of his chamber.
Or so she thought.
Then he looked up from beneath his eyelashes, offering her a slashing, slanted grin as he tied his final knot.
“Anyone would think you were the one going into battle, love.”
“It doesn’t concern you?” Nesta asked, swallowing as she watched him lift the mail shirt over his head, the clink of metal doing little to soothe her. So heavy— and yet still so many places the tip of a blade could breach. The space at his neck - so horribly exposed - made her feel nauseous.
“Of course it does,” he said softly, coming to take her hands in his. His thumb brushed a soothing path across the backs of her knuckles, and as she looked at the scars already decorating those hands, she wanted nothing more than to bar the door and never let him leave again.
But there was nothing more she could do— his hair had already been pulled back tightly from his face, braided and woven without a single strand left loose. The silver earrings in his ears had been exchanged for simple silver bars, and the kohl beneath his eyes had been darkened and smudged, to make him look all the more fearsome in his helmet, he’d explained when she had looked curiously as he’d rubbed his thumb back and forth across his face. Still, those eyes were bright and focused, like a hawk that had just spotted its prey.
“I haven’t yet faced a battle I haven’t walked away from,” he reminded her with a blithe shrug and another swipe of his thumb across her knuckles. “And I trust that my brothers in arms will protect me as I will protect them.”
It should have comforted her.
Didn’t.
The sun had only barely risen, and the sky beyond the single window of his bedchamber was stained pink— like it had already tasted blood. From beyond that window drifted the smell of smoke; the fires of the army about to embark mingling with the plumes from blacksmith’s forge, still working to repair and produce weapons that would soon taste Saxon blood and end Saxon lives.
Nesta felt herself unspool like a drop-spindle, unravelling like a length of fine thread. She turned her face away, unable to bear it - bear any of it - as she rested a hand on her lover’s chest and felt the cold, solid weight of that mail shirt as it bit into the centre of her palm.
“We have the advantage, love,” Cassian said smoothly, dipping his head to look her firmly in the eye. His gaze was so certain, so unwaveringly resolute that Nesta swallowed. “Alfred’s army will be tired from marching north. We know this terrain; they do not. For weeks we have been scouting for advantageous ground. We do not go into battle unprepared.”
“I don’t like it,” she said, scowling.
Cassian only laughed, pressing a kiss to her brow, right where it furrowed. Against her will, it smoothed beneath his lips.
“Nor I,” he said simply. “Anything that takes me from your bed irks me.”
“Your bed,” Nesta corrected.
He only shrugged. “Mine. Yours. The end result is the same, no? You’re in it, either way.”
Nesta rolled her eyes - grasping at familiar straws, letting him quip - as he pulled away to tie a leather belt around the chainmail, a golden buckle gleaming at his waist as he pulled it taut. Such finery— even in battle, in the bloody and brutal game of war, there was finery. The buckle glinted in the light, countless cut and polished garnets winking from within a frame of thick yellow gold, so precious it seemed that it ought to be holding up the cloak of a king, not the sword belt of a soldier.
And yet--
This was no ordinary soldier.
Even amongst the Danes, he had a reputation. Nesta saw the way they looked at him, like he was one of their gods walking amongst them in a mortal shell. Like he was… Tyr, she thought, as the name rose to the forefront of her mind. The god of war.
And yet.
Tyr had lost a hand to a wolf, Nesta recalled. Cassian had told her the tale by the fireside, when the flames had gilded his face and ale had made his voice as smooth as honey. What would Cassian lose, as a man facing down death? A hand, too? Or something far more vital?
Her stomach churned again, the blood draining from her face.
“Pass me my sword,” Cassian said gently. Too gently. Like he knew she needed some kind of distraction to keep herself from spiralling over the life of a bloody Dane— one she was never supposed to care for, anyway.
It took considerable effort to steady her hands as Nesta reached for the wooden sheath that had been placed by his bed, resting against the frame, containing a sword with a golden pommel worked into the shape of wings. Bat wings, she realised, as she lifted it up into the weak light to admire yet more of the finery designed for battle and bloodshed. A ruby gleamed at the hilt, casting a glow across her fingers as her trembling hands closed around its hilt, balancing her grip as, for a long moment, she looked at the blade that had taken oh, so many lives and would yet take oh, so many more.
Once, it would have horrified her.
Yet now she looked at that well-honed weapon and didn’t care how many lives it had ended, only how many times it had saved the man who had wielded it. She didn’t care that it would be used, now, against people she had lived amongst her entire life. Instead she lifted the blade to her lips and pressed a kiss to the ruby in the pommel, pleading with whatever god was listening that the blade in her hands would protect the man standing in half his armour before her.
His face softened, so at odds with the weapons and the armour and the sounds of an army preparing for battle outside the window.
With gentle hands he took the sword from her, sliding the sheath through a loop in the belt at his waist. His hands rose to cup her face, his calloused palms fitting so easily against her chin, his fingers curling around her ear. His nose pressed against hers, and when he kissed her, it was a soft, aching meeting, where his lips moved slowly against her own, like he was taking the time to savour the shape and feel of her against his mouth. Nesta was nothing more than candle wax in his hands, melting all the more with every passing second he had his hands on her, engulfing her in his warmth.
When he pulled back at last, he held her face, his thumb resting beneath her chin.
“Wait for me, my love,” he whispered. “I’ll be back before you even know I am gone.”
Nesta shut her eyes, refusing to let the fear - the sheer terror at what he was about to face - consume her. “Impossible. Every minute you’re away from me will feel like a full turn of the sun. Every night will be the coldest.”
Her warrior swallowed at that, his eyes boring into hers as he brushed that thumb along her jaw, skirting the edge of her lips. He kissed her again, sweet and bitter, made painful by his departure.
“Swear to me,” Nesta said when they parted. “Swear that you will come back to me.”
Cassian only smiled, placing a hand over his heart. “With Odin as my witness,” - his eyes flicked skyward for a heartbeat - “and with Thor at my back, I swear to you.” He cupped his face between her palms, dropping another kiss to the tip of her nose, swift and light. “I will return to you.”
He pulled the pedant he always wore out from beneath his layers of shirts and mail, and let it hang over the armour covering his chest. The small silver hammer gleamed - Thor’s hammer - and Nesta found herself forsaking all else and placing her trust in that foreign god, that he might keep the warrior before her from Valhalla’s hall.
And Nesta was about to kiss him again - to demand that he stay, just a little bit longer - when a knock sounded at the door, loud and blunt enough to suggest that it wasn’t a knuckle rapping against the wooden panels, but the hilt of a weapon of some kind.
“We’re ready to leave, Cass,” Azriel’s voice called through the door.
A moment later, heavy footsteps sounded— retreating, giving the warrior one last moment to say goodbye.
Nesta did not know Rhysand’s master spy all that well, but in that moment…
She had never been more grateful.
Swiftly, she took Cassian’s jaw in hand and hauled him down to her, pressing every inch of her body against his He groaned against her, his hands bracketing her waist as her nails scraped along the chainmail. This time, the kiss was harried. Frantic. A desperate meeting of lips and teeth and tongue, feral and unleashed. Nesta poured herself into that kiss— her very essence, cracking open her chest and handing him her heart on a silver platter. His fingers dug into her waist hard enough to bruise, and when she pulled back, his teeth nipped at her lip, like he wasn’t prepared to turn his back without some leaving some reminder behind.
And when Nesta looked into his eyes, she could have sworn there was an ocean of desire there— of devotion, too.
“Cassian, I…” She trailed off, wanting to say the words that she had been holding back for a while, now.
Immediately he understood.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not now— not yet.”
Nesta frowned, but he only grinned in response.
“Tell me when I return. When this is all over.”
And with that, in a rush of heavy metal and blades, he turned and left, leaving Nesta standing in his chamber, watching the sky outside lighten at the edges, wondering how long it would be before she could tell the man that she loved him.
***
“So,” Azriel said dryly, tucking his helmet into the crook of his arm as he removed it from where it had covered his face, “we didn’t need to lure the Saxon king north after all.”
He wiped his brow, surveying the landscape splayed out before them like a bolt of smooth, even fabric. In the distance, over the trees, smoke from King Alfred’s campfires drifted up into the sky.
“It is less than ideal,” Cassian said with a slow incline of his head. After all, their plan had been to back Alfred into a corner. To make him face them, with peace negotiations or with open warfare. To give him no choice but to meet them in the field, one way or another. But Alfred had marched north before they could even send a messenger. “But we still have the better location. Still have the advantage.”
That precious advantage— so loath had Cassian been to give it up, he’d insisted they march as fast as they could to reach this hill, where the ground sloped gently away from the rise, leading to a flat valley below. They stood at the summit of it now, a day and a half after leaving Jorvik, with a line of trees at their back providing valuable cover. More trees stretched in the distance, but the plain before them was level and wide, the ground dry after days without rain.
A good omen.
Cassian shuddered as he thought of all the times he’d fought knee-deep in mud and freezing hail, and though it had never once made him pause, he couldn’t deny that it was far more comfortable fighting when the ground was dry.
Arms folded across his armoured chest, he tapped his fingers idly across the mail coating his forearms.
“Tomorrow,” he said, looking at those fires on the horizon; each one of them, he knew, set before a huddle of tents housing Alfred’s soldiers. “They will advance tomorrow.”
A small distance away, fingers curled around his sword, Rhys huffed.
“They will not get far,” he said darkly, turning to survey their own camp spreading behind them— their own canvas tents and small fires. “Give the order to rest and be ready by dawn.”
Cassian nodded. “Shield wall on this ridge. Let them exhaust themselves getting up the hill before we engage.”
Azriel hummed his assent; Rhys, too busy scanning the land before them, merely dipped his chin in the barest attempt at a nod. Satisfied, Cassian turned and glanced at one of the other commanders standing a handful of feet away and, with little more than a flick of his fingers and a single look, he knew the order would be relayed as the warrior departed.
Somebody had taken the time to set up a small wooden table laden with dried meat in a small wooden bowl and watered down ale in a simple metal carafe, and Cassian was grateful for it as he poured three cups— plain and unadorned.
Only half a cup each, mind.
He’d need his mind sharp tomorrow; sharper than his blades.
Azriel rubbed a hand along his jaw as he watched Cassian pour, canting his head to the side.
“They’re fighting for more than just land, if his men believe the story Alfred tells them about Mandray’s wi—“ He hesitated, a momentary stumble as he took the cup Cassian offered and beheld the cool, dark glare on Cassian’s face “—about Nesta being mistreated at Jorvik. It will give them purpose. We shouldn’t underestimate that idly.”
Cassian still had Nesta’s wedding ring tucked into his pocket; was planning on sending it to Alfred after dipping it in whatever blood the butcher had readily available. To make them rush, to make them pin this battle on a single misplaced narrative. A king rushing north to save a Saxon, Christian woman from the hands of the ruthless, brutal Danes.
He fought a smirk.
An entertaining story.
But not one that would win the king his battle.
“Whatever they’re fighting for, it doesn’t matter so long as we do not surrender our position.”
It was strong enough to weather an army three times the size of Alfred’s, Cassian suspected. The slope of the hill put them farther out of the reach of Alfred’s archers, whilst giving their own perfect visibility. Their position was so easily defended, it was as though Odin himself had hand-picked the location for this battle, and though the trees were quiet and empty now - like all the wildlife had already fled in anticipation - they were the perfect place to hide away extra forces and allow them to circumvent Alfred’s— manoeuvring around the Saxons until they had them surrounded on all sides.
Rhys drained his ale, looking at the thin plumes of smoke still drifting into the sky from Alfred’s camp.
How many, Cassian wondered? How many men had the Saxon king brought north to die?
“We don’t surrender anything,” Rhys said simply, as though he were commenting on the colour of the sky.
Cassian only grinned. “Never.”
“Never,” Azriel echoed.
***
The dawn was a red smear, the horizon the colour of freshly spilled blood.
Dew still lingered on the grass beneath his boots, and behind him came the steady beat of hammering shields; a heartbeat, pulsing through the lines as the soldiers in their ranks hammered fists and blades and sword-hilts against the round wooden planks that formed their shields.
Smoothly Cassian slid his sword from the sheath at his hip, his fingers curling naturally around the handle and settling into the grooves worn into the leather-wrapped hilt. The ghost of his own grip; valleys made and set the hundred times he’d wielded that blade into battle. An extension of his arm, a part of his own lifeblood.
And—
Hers, too.
He looked at the ruby in the pommel, convinced he might feel her, somehow, if he looked hard enough at the stone her lips had kissed.
As the hammering intensified, grew louder and more determined, Cassian tucked away the thought of her - the thought of all he was fighting for and would be returning to - and settled himself beside Azriel, covering his brother’s shield with half of his own. On his other side, Rhys sank into a crouch beside him, the lord’s shield lifted up and above Cassian’s own.
Everywhere was the press of human, mortal bodies.
Shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek.
Cassian’s arm did not tremble from holding up his shield— hadn’t, for almost twenty years now. Had been ingrained into him from the moment he first picked up a weapon and stepped into a training yard. To drop the shield was to die, to allow weakness into the ranks. To let the shield wall be breached.
A northman did not easily drop his shield.
So Cassian inhaled deeply through his nose and breathed out through his mouth, tightening his grip on the leather strap that ran along the back of his shield. The hammering grew faster, in time with his racing heart, and as he opened his mouth, the breath he let out morphed into a rumble in his throat, a roar that started small before it ended in a battle cry, echoed by each and every one of them holding that shield wall.
Through the small gaps in the shields, Cassian could see the Saxon army waiting down the hill, ready to advance.
He thumped his sword against the back of his shield, the pommel that Nesta had so briefly kissed striking the wood with enough force to rattle his bones.
It shook— and the entire world seemed to hold its breath, like Loki was rattling the surface of the earth and waiting for the drums to sound, for the carnage to begin.
And as the first of the Saxons drew back his bow, ready to loose the first arrow, Cassian turned to his brothers and grinned as the madness, the frenzy, the chaos of battle entered his veins.
It had stormed the night Cassian was born, he’d been told.
Stormed so badly it had seemed like the sky was coming down, and it had always been an omen, a sign, that the babe birthed in the dark amidst the thunder and the lightning and the driving rain…
Was meant for something greater.
Meant for this.
As though Tyr, not Loki, had shook the world when Cassian took his first breaths. As though the god of war had marked him out somehow.
Chosen him.
So Cassian felt the calm wash over him as his battle cry echoed, knowing, without doubt that—
“Valhalla will not welcome us today.”
Azriel’s eyes darted sidewards. “Not today,” he echoed, those eyes dark as his mouth set into a thin, determined line.
Rhys looked straight ahead at the Saxon army advancing now, picking their way slowly across the plain. At length, he turned his eyes on each of his brothers as he, too, said,
A double post day for @cassianappreciationweek, this time for Day 3: Enalius Reborn
---
"Curse you,” Briallyn rasped, blood on her lips. “The Cauldron… should have ripped you apart…”
Her life faded quickly, but all Nesta could focus on was the sharp figure Cassian cut in the dim morning light. Tall and strong and of his own mind, standing at the mountain pass.
Enalius Reborn, they called him, she remembered.
He stared down at the witch until she was gone, until her body suddenly faded away into nothing but dust.
---
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Brother. Friend. Lover. General. Rival. Comrade. Shield.Seven people tell their story of Cassian. But only one realizes they're all the same.A series of ficlets for Cassian Week 2026.
Day Three: Enalius Reborn for @cassianappreciationweek
MORRIGAN
Read below the cut or on ao3
Like Oleanna in the myths Rhys's mother tells before the fire, Mor searches the camp for Enalius under the new moon.
Of course Cass has stupid patrol duty tonight.
The plan can't have gone perfectly, she supposes. It's enough that Rhys and Portia are gone for the evening, and Az is on a mission with the High Lord.
That Father is still in Autumn. That the news of her betrothal precedes him.
Mor draws her cloak closer about her neck, cursing the wind. Footsteps approach and she darts between two rows of tents, crouching until the gaggle of trainee warriors passes by.
Firelight gleams off the backs of their scale armor. So much iron and muscle, dark braided hair. They remind her of the wild beasts carved into the entrance of the Hewn City, terrible and dauntless.
Just as she must be.
Just as she will be.
Mor thinks she knows what to do. Cassian definitely does. How quickly he shushed the other two when they whispered of it, knowing she was in earshot. He's bedded a cadet's sister, she gleaned from Rhys later. And the blacksmith's sister. And the baker's apprentice's sister.
Or maybe Rhys was bragging about himself.
All these males seem to do is bed each others' sisters.
She reasons that one more is nothing as his tent appears at the end of the row—one more night, one more romp, one more body to be tasted and forgotten.
And then her first blood will be tainted and her vessel will become unholy and it will be over.
She'll be worth nothing.
It's all a catastrophe. Cassian will be gentle with her, at least.
The future falls off a cliff before her. Once, and that's it. Once, and she'll never have to be near a naked male ever again.
"Hello, stranger."
Cassian's broad shoulders fill the tent's opening even without his wings. Like a stone wall, one that will soon stand between her and the hounds of duty nipping at her heels.
He stares down at her, confused.
"Oh, hey. Aren't you supposed to be in Autumn?"
"I skivved off," Mor says breezily, grateful Cass doesn't know enough about politics to question it at first. He's used to seeing Rhys come and go as he pleases—she's banking on it, anyway.
Cass crosses his arms over his chest—even beneath his shirt, the muscle are prominent. She heard one of the younger boys say they'd seen him crush a boulder once.
"I'm sure your father's thrilled," he jokes, and Mor forces a smile.
He is, that's the worst part. Kier is so ravenous for this betrothal that he likely signed the contract in drool.
Shivering, she clutches her cloak tighter in the front. "My father is a topic I'd rather leave out of this."
"Out of what? Get in here, it's fucking cold."
He raises one brow—that look like he expects her to run from his coarseness. But Mor doesn't run. She only ducks under the lifted flap and throws herself face-first onto his saggy cot, sinking into the bear skin throw until she doubts she'll ever surface.
"Aren't you supposed to be freezing your balls off in the woods somewhere?" she mumbles against his pillow before inhaling deeply. It smells like pine. It smells like male. She can do this.
"Patrol's not til midnight. Freezing my balls off inside until then," she hears him bemoan, the low grumble of his voice belying patchy sleep.
"Then it's a good thing I'm here to keep you company."
Mor gives a yelp when Cassian grabs her ankles with one hand lifting her legs so he can sit beneath them on the edge of the cot. The movement makes her gown hike above her knee, and she catches him staring at the untouched skin when she glances up.
He catches her catching him.
"Yeah. Good," Cass says slowly. "At least until you go home…"
Mor fights down the bile in her throat at the word. That place isn't home. It's a prison. It's a tomb.
"Unless I don't want to."
She sees the moment the strangeness hits him. The down twist at the corner of his lips, that she's used to seeing tilt up in a smile. He's recognizing she shouldn't be here unescorted. In the middle of an Illyrian barracks. Just before midnight.
"…unless you don't want to," he repeats, hazel eyes unwavering.
Mor's stomach goes tight when he slides one hand from her ankle to her calf. Then higher, not still not taking his eyes off her, until his fingertips brush the back of her thigh. Her skin breaks out in chills, and he looks suddenly nervous, as if he's just as dizzy from it all as she is.
She sits up.
There's no more luxury of time.
So she leans in, and kisses him.
They'll ask her why not Azriel. She doesn't know how to explain, that sometimes she forgets when the performance ends. She's so used to moving and speaking and thinking in line with the Path that it's hard to remember what's real anymore.
If she explains, he'll try to rescue her himself. But rescue is for girls who wait, and Mor refuses to waste another second.
"You're so beautiful," he breathes when she's bare beneath him, smiling like it's Solstice and his name day and he's right and he's wrong and she's rotten and terrible. But at least she's a rotten and terrible thing of her own creation, mangled by her own hands.
She prays for deliverance, for mercy, for the Forest House to go up in flames. She prays for her mother to abandon the Path, for her father to drop fucking dead.
For Cass to understand. For him to make it should they— should the worst—
The bird in the cage of her heart flaps and flaps its wings. Mor floats away from her body, watching them from above while the wind flaps the thin roof against her back.
She prays he'll forgive her. But mostly she prays not to bleed.
