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KILLING AMREN

Here is my submission for @nestaarcheronweek 2024!

The prompt “Nesta killing Amren” won my poll, so here is the result! I love the show Killing Eve and thought it would be fun to give them a sort of Eve/Villanelle dynamic.

CW: murder, gore, violence, major character death

Read on ao3 or after the cut!

The hours, the long, grueling hours Nesta had spent trying to connect to her power, the pain, the disgust, all of it amounted to nothing. She’d often wondered if Amren simply wanted to drain her dry, if the fire disturbed the female so deeply she’d do anything to get rid of it even if that meant putting herself in danger of the ricochet.

But there were other times, times when Amren looked at her sidelong with an almost lustful gleam in those silver eyes. As If Nesta’s power were a thing of wonder, terrible and beautiful to behold, and Nesta herself was a goddess reborn. It wasn’t sexual, she didn’t think, but there was something possessive about it, an entitlement that made Nesta feel like she was twelve years old on display in her mother’s parlor.

So shock was not among her emotions when she found Amren in the vault below the Moonstone Palace staring hungrily at the crown of the Dread Trove. Its golden spires glowed in the dim faelights and bounced off the female’s face, casting her in a sickly yellow.

“Lady Death.”

“Amren.”

Nesta heard her own voice echo in the vast chamber, the air cool and smelling of iron. Her power leapt at the sight of the crown but she willed it down with the slow, measured breaths that were always her anchor. 

She had to admire Rhysand’s flair for the dramatics - in the middle of the emptiness, Amren looked every bit the scheming villain when she sneered, a red-taloned hand still hovering over the wards surrounding the crown atop a small stone pedestal. “We both know you haven’t the guts to kill me, girl.”

“Is that what this will come to? Only if you insist.” Nesta tried to school her expression, desperate not to let Amren see how fucking scared she was. In the years since she’d gone into the Cauldron, the female had delved into darker forms of magic that had caused a rift between herself and the High Lord. There were whisperings of horrid rituals, haunting incantations. No one knew anymore what she was capable of.

“Let me keep the crown and I’ll set you free.” Amren grinned with all her teeth then, and half-hidden in the shadows she looked like a nightmare come to life. “Think of what we could do together. How we could rule. You’d never be subject to another’s power again.”

A deep sadness hit Nesta then, to think of those days they’d communed in their grief after the war. Back then, Amren was the only person beside her sisters who understood how it felt to be completely altered. But while Nesta had reached toward hope, toward her friends and Cassian, Amren had fallen further into bitterness and cynicism, her more vicious instincts returning with every passing year.

So Nesta knew the lie the moment she heard it. Because Amren craved the blood, craved the violence. Could never champion peace for long.

“Though I'd be subject to your power, I take it.”

Amren waved a hand, as if it were merely semantics. The gesture cast gruesome shadows along the walls, and Nesta shivered as she remembered the creatures in the cells below. “You need someone willing to do your dirty work. Unless you’re ready to sully your own hands.”

“No more killing, Amren.”

“Your sanctimony sickens me.” The female curled a lip, silver eyes flashing in the gloom. Nesta sucked in a breath, remembering how Amren had threatened to lock her in the Prison to protect the rest of Prythian, the poison she'd whispered in the High Lord's ear. Perhaps her former friend had wanted to eliminate anyone who could check her.

“I can’t let you take the crown,” Nesta said softly, on the edge of both tears and blinding rage. She felt her power morph into a dagger in her hand, the hilt shuddering in anticipation of her will, ready to strike wherever she intended it. The promise to herself - no more killing, never again - hung in the air between them, waiting to be shattered.

Amren snarled and raised her arm high, and for a moment Nesta feared she’d have to throw the knife to stop her speaking a spell. But Amren paused, as if sensing herself cornered. And for the strangest moment Nesta thought she saw a flash of regret in Amren’s eyes, a deep longing for that closeness they’d shared over bottles of Rhysand’s expensive wine back when Nesta still drank.

Without another word, she took a step backward and vanished.

In the following year they found no clue of her whereabouts, no hint of where she’d disappeared to, if she was even alive.

And then the killings began.

—

It took three murders to find the pattern, and only one more to realize it was Amren.

They tracked her for decades, losing her for years at a time before the trail would surface again. At all the scenes there was a single fae victim, drained of both magic and blood. But she never killed the same way twice, unveiling an array of gruesomely creative murders that carried a signature of her somewhere, an imprint of the cruelty that was uniquely hers.

Rhys was convinced she was taunting them. Nesta knew better. 

Amren was bored.

Nesta could see the soul-crushing malaise in the corrupt governor crushed to death under a pile of coin, the vain heiress felled by poisoned cosmetics. Amren had even once committed a murder in plain sight in the streets of Adriata, onlookers believing the drowning male was a performer and not her latest vigilante target, for the crime of hoarding water in a drought.

Varian went into hiding for years after that one. It didn’t help in the end, his heart cut out and spiked through the long dining table in his secret estate in Spring. There was a bite taken out of it, the teeth marks small and delicate.

It was all so obvious , Nesta thought, the cliche premises held up by a flashy presentation. Amren was trying to prove a point, trying to show them violence could be a tool for good, however perverted her sense of justice. Some people deserve to die, she seemed to say, and some people deserve to kill.

Always, Amren left something for Nesta. Sometimes it was a small token, her favorite flower (lilacs), a tin of her preferred tea (Valerian root). Sometimes it was the way she staged the crime scene, the careful tilt of a horned male’s head to cast a beastly shadow in the shape of a crown. On Nesta’s birthday one year she beheaded an aged Tomas Mandray, leaving a single scarlet kiss on handkerchief clutched in his withered fist.

Cassian hated it. Hated Nesta’s continued participation in the investigation, even during the years the trail ran cold. It almost made her quit on several occasions, unable to take the pure terror and devastation on her husband’s face every time she returned to the field. But even as their life became quiet and serene, tucked away on a wooded island near the border of Day and Dawn, Nesta felt haunted by Amren’s freedom, knowing with all her being that she was the only one capable of stopping this.

The only one with a power Amren respected, even feared. 

Rhysand’s sigh was heavy as he crouched over the latest victim, a notorious Velaris loan shark suffocated in the safe where he kept his ill-gotten riches. The rest of his shop was pristine, the jewels and precious metals glittering atop black velvet in their glass cases. Flaunting her restraint, Nesta thought.

“She was in our fucking city,” Rhys said grimly. “We should’ve killed her when we had the chance.”

“You mean I should’ve?” Nesta asked, though she already knew the answer.

In the debrief after Amren’s disappearance, Nesta expected Rhysand’s fury for not stopping her. Her brother-in-law had surprised her by retreating within himself completely, taking every crime that followed as a personal failing. She’d been even more surprised when the incident brought them closer, when he opened up to her about the burden of his power, his fears of being corrupted.

“No,” he answered as he straightened, his dark brows drawn together. “I always knew who Amren was. I thought I could temper her worst instincts by showing her the benefits of a moral life. These deaths are mine to bear.”

Nesta spotted the token at last, tucked into the male’s chest pocket. She bent to pluck out a small slip of paper with a single word in a spidery hand.

Well?

“We won’t find her unless she wants us to,” she said as they exited the shop. Rhys stuffed his hands in his pockets against the chill. 

“I believe you’re right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and she knew from their late-night commiserations that his magic was pressing at him, begging to be released. “I’m just afraid of what it means when she wants to be found.”

—

Nesta winnowed home exhausted and discouraged after sharing a quiet dinner with her sister and nephew. Rhys wasn't up to company, and Nyx had turned into a somewhat anxious young male as his parents dealt with their trauma at last. He benefited from another stabilizing presence when one of them was struggling, and that was worth delaying her desire for a bath and a cuddle with Malka once she got home.

But the cat was nowhere to be found when Nesta deposited her coat on the hook by the door, the cabin hushed and tense as if holding in a breath. She rounded the corner to the kitchen and froze to see Amren sitting at her table, her face cast in shadow in the faelights.

“Cassian will be home any moment,” Nesta said, willing strength into her voice despite the trembling in her legs. Her mind was cascading with thoughts of how to get Amren to surrender, how to get out of this alive, Rhysand’s words echoing. The female rolled her eyes. 

“Then we best talk before the dog returns.”

She looked distorted, like her edges were less solid than they used to be. A streak in the front of her hair was now a pure white, the pupils of her eyes turned to snakelike slits.

“Are you here to kill me?” Nesta asked, and Amren looked even more exasperated.

“Now where would be the fun in that? I have a proposition for you.” She gestured toward the chair opposite her. Nesta found herself sitting even as she said, “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I think you’ll reconsider.”

“I promise you, I won’t.”

“Elain lives in Day now, doesn’t she?” Amren smiled then, and Nesta suppressed a shuddered at the pointed edges of her teeth. “I hear she often forages alone, while her mate is otherwise occupied.”

Nesta flushed with rage, gripping the edge of the scrubbed wood table.“If you ever come near my family, I’ll fucking kill you.” She felt the power roll under her skin, setting her eyes ablaze.

“There it is,” Amren murmured, and the shame burned in Nesta's stomach at the temptation to destroy. “You say you’ll kill me? Do it.”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you, if I became a monster like you. Then you wouldn’t be alone.”

“Saint Nesta, who killed a king and then swore off it forever,” she purred, and Nesta was tired of playing this game, tired of dancing around each other. "Such a waste. I think your mother was right after all."

“What do you want, Amren?”

“For you to join me.” 

Nesta blinked slowly, still reeling. The air felt thick around them, the strings of fate charged and humming. She remembered that promise from the crown's vault, how her magic still craved liberation.

“We could be free,” Amren said, her voice seductive. “Your power could be free. You could rule as you should, with me by your side. High Queen.”

As if in answer, Nesta felt her power swirl, a serpent charmed by the sorceress' song to reach across space in her mind to retrieve the crown. Yet she knew in that untouched part of her, the part that resisted glamour, the corruption of power, that she wouldn't be the one wearing the it. Nesta scowled. “You’re lying, You’d cross me the moment I turned my back.”

“How can I convince you of my sincerity, girl?”

A silence hung between them, and in her mind Nesta saw a flicker a night Amren confessed relief at the loss of her powers. The soft press of a small hand gripping hers.

“Stop.”

Amren squinted, scrutinizing her. “If I do, will you consider my offer?”

“Yes.”

A boom of wings sounded above, and fear jolted through Nesta’s body, rushing her back to reality. Cassian would attack on sight and she couldn’t risk it, not knowing what dark magic had turned Amren’s skin so sallow, made her fingers so long and spidery. She squared off with the female, looking her directly in those eerie, catlike eyes.

“Ten years. No murders. Feed your horrid appetite some other way. If you can make it that long without harming anyone, I’ll join you. For the rest of your life.”

Amren squinted before giving a curt nod. “Deal.”

Nesta felt the bargain tattoo burn the skin of her scalp, hidden beneath her hair in the path of the coronet that wound around her head. A cursed crown for a wretched queen. She closed her eyes against the pain, and by the time she opened them, Amren was gone and Cassian was landing on the upper deck, shaking the snow off his wings.

She pounced on him the moment he descended, crushing her mouth against his with a desperation she’d only felt when they had first fallen together, when every touch seemed like it could be the last. He met her enthusiastically, believing his wife was just particularly happy to have him home today. Nesta buried the secret deep within her heart, only let herself sob in the bath after he was soundly sleeping.

—

Rhysand remained on alert for the first few years, unconvinced by Nesta’s assurances that Amren was subdued. She’d spun a story that the dark sorceress had fled to the continent and been imprisoned by one of the Jarls of Valhallen, which had worked well enough. Only Azriel looked at her a little too long, though he seemed just as glad to be rid of their exiled former second as anyone.

The countdown to the end of the decade was easy to ignore most days, and there were stretches when Nesta forgot it altogether. But inevitably a curl of ink would peek through when she brushed her hair and she’d remember all over again, the secret pressing beneath her skin, fighting to get out.

As the date loomed, Nesta found herself wanting to move slowly, to savor every bite of Elain’s freshly baked bread, every one of Cassian’s sweeping hugs and Gwyn’s laughs. Emerie kept asking if she was pregnant, and she almost wished she still drank to make it clear a child   was nowhere in their plans anytime soon.

With days left, Nesta felt the fear creep in at last. Each deep, even breath felt borrowed as days became hours.

Sunrise was approaching when the knock came at the door. They’d gone several rounds in the night, Nesta feeling shaky and desperate for as much her husband as she could hold onto. She’d lain wide awake after he passed out the last time, watching the shadows shift as the full moon drifted across the sky.

“I’ve got it, love,” Nesta said softly when Cassian stirred, and he gave an indiscernible, sleep-thick mumble before turning over and settling once more. Her dread grew as she rose from bed and approached the door, knowing what was on the other side. Who. She swung it open.

Amren was near unrecognizable. Hair patchy and thin, her face had a waxy quality to it as if she’d rearranged her features several times. There was a slight sulfur smell in the air, and the purple veins in her hands stood out starkly against her pale skin when Amren opened her arms wide.

“I made it,” she said, and Nesta was startled by how rattly her voice sounded, how easily it was swallowed by the wind from the sea.

“Well done.”

It was like handling a child, she thought, the way Amren smiled widely at the praise.

“Will you keep your word, Nesta Archeron?”

“You know I will.” Nesta pressed her lips together, trying to hold back her tears. She’d had a lot of time to think about this moment, but now that it was here, she didn’t know if she had the fortitude to follow through. “I just need to say goodbye.”

Nesta kissed Cassian’s brow, gathering all her strength to leave him slumbering peacefully. She desperately wanted to wake him just to see those hazel eyes, but the Mother gave her a different kindness instead. He smiled in his sleep, her name on his lips, her face in his dreams.

Amren was waiting near the bluff’s edge overlooking the small bay and the village below. She turned as Nesta approached, a flicker in those silver eyes, her deep green cloak flapping about her frail body. Nesta drew herself up to full height, reached across space in her mind for the crown. Amren’s eyes glittered when it flickered into being in Nesta’s hands.

“My queen,” she said, smirking, then bent on one knee and bowed her head to receive her prize. 

So she didn’t see when the false crown reformed into a silver dagger in Nesta’s raised hands. Didn’t see the silver tears that fell from Nesta’s eyes, didn’t hear the sob she couldn‘t suppress over the roar of the sea. 

The blade sunk into the base of her neck, that beautiful death power draining her life. Nesta forced herself to look as Amren jerked her head back in pain, fell to her knees to guide the female gently to the grass. She could see it all on Amren’s face, the disbelief, the rage, the fear, could feel that rending in her soul, her blood. 

But they’d both died before. Knew there was nothing to fear, in the end. And there, in the final flash of her silver eyes, the pupils round - relief.

Nesta built a small pyre from their stores in the woodshed. As the sun crested the horizon she stood vigil as Amren left their world just as she’d entered it, star-bright and burning.

#nestaweek2024 #nesta archeron #amren #fanfic

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#nestaweek2024 #nesta archeron deserves better #nessian #pro nesta archeron

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The Fifty Years

Here is a short lil bonus chapter prequel to my main fic, A Court of Vice and Victors. No spoilers. And no happy endings. Enjoy!(?)

CW: suicidal ideation, alcohol abuse, sexual assault

The first several years were full of activity, devising and implementing long-term plans to sustain the city through what looked to be a long siege. It was quickly discovered that while they could not leave without disrupting the wards, the citizens of Velaris were perfectly free to come and go as they pleased. Azriel’s network was robust enough they learned the particulars of Rhys’ capture not long after he shouted that frantic message in their minds, when the pulse of magic gushed over them like hot blood. They even managed to get someone inside the mountain, to give him the strength of their love and promises of rescue. 

He sent a single word back. 

Don’t.  

Don’t come. Don’t burn the world down, like he knew they wanted to. Don’t let this sacrifice be in vain.

After that, messengers returned bearing nothing. Eventually they stopped returning altogether.

Still, there were things to do in the beginning, enough to keep the blind panic at bay, resources to inventory and ration, information streams to create. Amren wrote for days on end contacting the other courts and hunting down every lead she could. Azriel recruited and trained to expand his spy network and Cassian assigned proxies in Illyria to make sure the camps didn’t collapse into all-out war in his absence.

Mor did something helpful, she guessed, though mostly she just wandered around the empty townhouse twisting her hands and wondering what the fuck they were going to do.

Her despair set in long before everyone else’s, who seemed to think it was a temporary obstacle, victory well within reach. But Mor saw the blood-red writing on the wall - her gift, to know the depth of a thing for what it truly was.

This was going to be bad. For a long time. Maybe forever.

So it was with hollow words that Mor whispered comfort to the other two, with liar’s hands she brushed the hair from their faces where they fell asleep resting against one another on the sofa in front of the fire.

Hardship has a habit of bringing out the best and worst in folks, and Mor ricocheted from one to the other so fast her head spun. She found herself drawing from that well of golden light within her, showering a scared mother or fretful shop owner with fortitude while her hands were cold and slick with sweat. Flirting shamelessly with a male before slipping into Velaris’ most discreet pleasure hall to fall apart under the female who no longer charged her for the visit.

And the wine was just too easy, from the beginning. Cassian was coping by treating every small success with as much enthusiasm as he could, so he was always game to end up somewhere weird, the right amount of drunk and laughing a little too loud. And it was nice, having him there, his massive frame making the males give her a wide berth. She was safe with him, she always had been, so it wasn’t difficult to overindulge and need help walking home and tumble into bed like a child. To let him yank off her shoes and toss a blanket over her before heading to his room down the hall.

And though he never said it outright, she knew he liked having someone to care for, to fuss over. His natural bent toward monogamy was completely at odds with the realities of his life, especially now, so he split his need, got the emotional intimacy from Mor and the physical intimacy decidedly elsewhere.

Mor loved Cassian in a way that was incorruptible, never marred by something so idiotic as attraction, but sometimes she felt the gap it left between them, like she could never quite get close enough. The nights his eyes flashed at a female across the bar, she felt the curl of dread rise in her stomach, knowing she’d be bumped down the list, always. 

He kept a chamber of his heart closed to her that he’d one day open for someone else, someone who made him walk like that, like he was the best he’d ever be. Those nights she drank alone until the sun kissed the horizon, until she was too dizzy to stand as the world was shrouded in the watercolors of the dawn.

But they clung to each other, with the unspoken rule between the three that only one of them could fall apart at a time. And so it went, year after year.

There’s a time, in a long wait, when the hope dies. When the heart becomes too heavy and sinks into the well of darkness that lurks in all living things.

Azriel hit the wall first, about a decade in.

He shuffled into her room one night, wings backlit from the hall, and muttered He’s not coming back before continuing toward his bedroom like he said nothing at all. After that, he retreated further into himself, his shadows thick and sluggish where they draped over his body like tendrils of limp seaweed. Cassian and Mor fretted over it for months, heads bent low over a flickering candle in the library, searching for anything that could set their brothers free. Az became almost entirely nocturnal in response to their pushing.

And then the rumors began.

Traitor. Murderer. Amarantha’s whore. Nasty whisperings reached Velaris of Rhys and his new role as consort and enforcer Under the Mountain. Mor was sick the first time she heard them, doubled over on the docks of the Sidra while Cassian held back her hair. She clutched his offered handkerchief to her mouth, the wild beating of her heart telling her to run, run, run , with no idea where to go. 

But the eternal bent of all beings is adaptation, and as the years wore on Velaris settled into a new normal. Mor began to forget the world outside the city, as if the beaches of Summer or yawning halls of Day were just a story she’d heard once. In moments she’d think vaguely that her horses at Athelwood must’ve foaled several times by now, that her father was likely pushing his fundamentalist filth on a new generation of females. But none of it felt real, just a passing thought floating by on the inconstant wind. She could only block out the memories of Rhys, until he too became a symbol, frozen in time. 

The forty-nine year curse felt just as false, and she didn’t have the strength to do much more than wait for her final judgment. Guilt consumed her every time the wish for Rhys’ death crossed her mind, if only because it might set them free, and she'd drink until the sharp edges smoothed like glass tumbled in the sea.

Cassian’s fury at their resignation was not surprising but unwelcome all the same. His encouragement quickly morphed to a sense of betrayal, and he raged at her and Azriel, calling them traitors, cowards. When that didn’t work, he begged them not to give up and, while he said it was for Rhys, Mor couldn’t help but feel his knees hit the moldering carpet for his own life, too. Finding them unmoved, he disappeared into the outer edge of the Palace of Bone and Salt, dominating the underground boxing rings and fucking anything that breathed.

For twelve years, they didn’t speak to each other outside of monthly council meetings. Mor started drinking in the morning, as much to brace herself to see them as for the repulsive normalcy of their courtly tasks. All discussion of rescue plans died a quiet death long ago. Amren alone seemed somewhat content helming the city in Rhys’ stead, and at times Mor was even grateful for the female’s callousness if only because she could see the future no one else would.

As the deadline loomed her despair picked up in fervor, a buzzing under her skin that begged for release. So the night she ran into Azriel skulking in front of a pleasure hall she couldn’t help wrapping him in her arms and squeezing with all her might, as if she could hold him tightly enough to snap all their pieces back in place. Their fate would be decided in three months, and it felt wrong to be apart.

They began this time together; it was only right it should end that way, too.

Without a word, Az winnowed them to the fighting rings and pulled a dull-eyed Cassian out by the collar. After a bout of faltering conversation, they ended up on the roof of the townhouse, passing a bottle of wine between them and trading gallows humor at the wreckage of it all. Mor savored the tastes on her tongue, both the wine and the laughter, small comforts at the end of the world. 

They did the same the next week. And then a few days later, and again, until every night culminated in the trio sprawled on the carpet of the townhouse in various states of impairment, sharing the stories they hadn’t let themselves remember in years because now they had nothing to lose. The idea of her own death was a comfort, wishing for it at times in her sleep, at the bottom of a glass. But she was too far gone to be afraid, to feel anything at all, and she’d always been a coward at heart.

So when Mor stumbled in from the street to find Cassian prone in front of the fire reeking of skullcap and sex, it only made sense to lie next to him and place her head on his broad chest. Feeling the erratic thump of his broken heart against her cheek, she closed her eyes and pictured jumping outside the wards, how she might dissolve into ash and float away on the breeze.

“You’re home early.” His voice was thick with intoxication, the arm he slung around her back limp and heavy.

She shifted to look at the side of his face, silhouetted by the flames. His nose had a new crook in it, and she ran a finger over the bump. “Cass?” 

“Mm.”

“Do you love me?”

She knew the answer, but it still set an ache in her chest when he said, “Of course I do.”

“Would you, if it doesn’t end.. If I don’t have the courage..”

Would you please kill me?

“Mor,” His lips brushed the top of her head, and for a moment she felt as his lovers must in the wake of their pleasure, exhausted and held. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can ever give up. I don’t have it in me.”

She knew he was right. It was why she could never follow through on her fantasies, and as Azriel shuffled into the parlor and threw himself on a sofa she knew she’d never give up either. Because the ghost of her hope had lingered after it died, waiting to be reborn.

The hope for hope itself is unkillable, enduring, even as it tortures the heart eternally.

Mor reached a hand above her head and Azriel took it, and she savored the feeling of the scars she so rarely got to touch. “I miss Rhys,” he murmured and the tears overtook her then, the love and despair and alcohol mixing in her blood, the smell of salt thick in the air.

Those final months they spent huddled before the fire felt longer than the fifty years before. And then Rhys appeared on the balcony, sobbing and repeating she’s my mate, she’s my mate.

For a world-stalling moment, Mor thought he meant Amarantha.

But he brought them his savior, and she stayed the course through his agony, through Feyre’s depression, held to the rule that only one of them could fall apart at a time because one day it would be her turn again. Through war, through upheaval in the family she held fast, waiting for another ending that would never come. 

It wasn’t until much later, when she stared dumbfounded as her cousin sold her out to her father, to the male who’d left her to rot, that she realized a truth even her gift couldn’t see. 

The hope only dies if someone kills it.

#acotar #fanfic #morrigan #rhysand #cassian #azriel #under the mountain #amarantha

[wishcamper]

Happy WIP Wednesday! Let’s get spooky!

A Court of Vice and Victors, chapter XVII

For once, she did not wake in the spring.

The dream began patchily, Feyre running through a dark wood, her belly shrinking and swelling with every step. Then there was Elain dressed as a ballerina, twirling in place on the pink velvet lining of a music box their father had gifted her for her birthday. Rhysand sneaking into homes in some unknown village, pouring poison from a golden vial into the ears of sleeping women.

Then Malka was there, but different, a shimmery veil trailing behind where she led the way through a deserted castle. Nesta felt the heat on her face from the candle she held aloft, though it barely penetrated the dark. The gloom was oppressive, her footsteps the only sound beyond a faint ringing as they passed through the endless, labyrinthine halls, the ceiling so high it seemed to merge straight into the night sky.

The cat paused, sniffing lightly, and approached a door ahead on the left. Nesta felt a mounting dread to push it open, which only grew as she saw what lay beyond.

Her mother’s parlor.

“Come child.” The voice that rang out from the darkness made Nesta knees wobbly, and she fought with everything she had to remain upright. “We must prepare.”

Suddenly she was sitting at a dressing table, an array of cosmetics intermingled with weapons, some bloodied or rusted with age. She recognized the dagger Azriel had pressed into Elain’s hands that day, the last of the war. The dagger she’d used to sever the king’s head. Spidery fingers wound through her hair, yanking her back.

“Stop dawdling. Do as you’re told.”

Nesta felt a sharp sting against her cheek, looked up to see her reflection distorted in the mirror. That Nesta’s fearful expression was half-obscured by the mask, and she reached up to feel the cool metal against her own face, too.

#acotar #nessian #fanfic #nesta archeron deserves better

[wishcamper]

AITF Part IV: The Nestapocalypse

Pre reqs: PART I | PART II | PART III

Creds: licensed mental health profesh, person with a family

Hello and welcome back to our deep dive on ACOTAR and family systems theory!

Last time we talked about how Feyre destabilized, and then re-stabilized the IC family system. Her addition revealed the weak points in the system, particularly of Mor as the primary source of anxiety. So let’s look at what happens to the system, and Mor in particular, once Elain and Nesta join, with Lucien peripherally.

Mor, you good? You’re looking a little lonely there.

So I had to eliminate some relationships to make it readable, but there have been some major changes structurally that I want to highlight:

Feyre and Rhys introduced a romantic alliance into the system. Cassian and Nesta later reinforce this. And Azriel is clearly tryin, even if he’s not having success. This is a complete turn from the original systems where, not only were there no romantic relationships, but via the buffer romance in the family was actively discouraged.

The center of anxiety has shifted to Rhys. We see him make choices for others to soothe that anxiety CONstantly throughout ACOFAS and ACOSF. It’s pretty much his primary strategy. And that’s because..

Rhys has real challenges to his power. Nesta doesn’t want or need anything from him, yet has influence on her sisters and Cassian. Nesta refuses to follow the family rules and participate in the NFEP, undermining Rhys’ ability to keep the system stable. Until they cut her off financially and give her the “intervention”, he has no leverage against her because enough other people ultimately want her in.

Waaaayyyy less energy and resources are being devoted to Mor, and her feelings matter much less in family decisions and functioning. 

It’s interesting because even though Mor is no longer the center of the family in terms of relationships, I think she has the most to lose from instability in the system. Everyone else has a stronger relationship than the one they have with her. Yet she needs each one of them to:

Rhys - establish her relevance in the system, provide structure and enforce the rules, and keep the buffer drama from spilling over

Cassian - protect her from connecting with Azriel’s feelings and diffuse her anxiety

Azriel - provide a reason for her to be cagey about her love life/justify keeping her sexuality a secret

Feyre - ensure her relevance to Rhys / secure her position and value

Elain - less their relationship, more that there’s a blanket family rule of “protect Elain”

I say this not as a call out, but to show that Nesta is the only person Mor can attack without jeopardizing her position and reasonably assume the others will let her. Nesta in ACOFAS and ACOSF is a classic scapegoat as the person with the least apparent power and most obvious and stigmatized issues. She’s an easy target, especially for someone like Mor, who is well-versed in the courtier’s game and can appear to be innocent while actually being quite malicious (see: lingerie-gate).

This is where we come back to the topic of alliances. I always associate that term with Survivor, which is actually a really good representation of how alliances function in families in three main ways:

Alliances are always mutually beneficial.

Alliance can be used to leverage power.

Alliances can be broken or changed if one person can get their needs met in a better/easier way.

Alliances can be temporary and utilitarian (I’ll give you a dollar if you don’t tell mom I hit you) or long-standing and an integral part of the system (parents do not contradict each other on rules in front of the kids, and work those disputes out in private to maintain consistency).

The Mor/Cassian alliance fits all these qualities exactly. Cassian gets relief from his guilt and can suppress conflict before it starts, and he also gets someone to fuss over which tbh it seems like he enjoys. Mor gets protection from Azriel’s feelings for her, doesn’t have to face the conflict she generates, and gets fussed over which she also seems to enjoy. And when Cassian starts getting those needs met by Nesta instead, with more perks and fewer costs, he leaves more behind and both their roles fundamentally shift.

In that way, Nesta and Cassian’s relationship is really the thing that changes the family permanently, in my opinion. I think if Nesta had just been pushed out, or at least neutralized, they could’ve been fine for a while longer. But because he wants her there, and she refuses to follow the rules, the family has to figure out how to accommodate her. The Nes/Cass alliance is crazy powerful when you break it down.

Nesta has power in the purest sense, as in she is probably magically stronger than anyone else in the Night Court, especially considering Amren’s lost her powers. So at the end of the day, if she got her shit together she could tear it all down. She’s could really leverage the idea that no one should take her temperance for granted. She doesn’t do this and I think that’s because she’s a good person. She doesn’t desire power, which weirdly makes her very suited to have it. She also has power in an influence sense, in that at least her sisters and Cassian are invested in having a good relationship with her which means, by extension, Rhys and Mor have to get on board.

(I realize I haven’t mentioned Azriel very much - he’s the former scapegoat, and never had much power in the first place. I wonder if that’s why he seems to have a soft spot for Nesta, like there’s a sense of solidarity. So his opinions and actions don’t really affect the system unless he wants to start rebelling. Which I think we’ll eventually see him do since he doesn’t have as much investment in keeping the family together after his brothers pair off and Rhys pulls rank.)

Cassian’s power is more passive in this system, in that he causes change when he STOPS doing things, mostly peacemaking behaviors. He absorbs a lot of anxiety in the system, along with Az, and exerts influence through physical and emotional absence. Because of this power, when he starts investing more time and attention in Nesta, Mor reacts by retaliating toward NESTA, who she sees as the more vulnerable/lower status one even though Cassian is 100% initiating the change. Lingerie-gate. “She belongs in the Hewn City”. Her protectiveness of Cass. The call’s coming from inside the house, my love.

As a sidebar, I find this such an interesting dynamic in that is sort of an accidental subversion of the typical tropes. Magical young women conquers the world by NOT using her powers. Bad ass fighting dude is more powerful when he chooses not to act. Such a fascinating theme. Anyway.

We know systems want to stay in balance, so members will do things to rebalance them. Cassian and Nesta are going to be together? Okay, then she has to be acceptable by the family standards and fall in line with the rules. We see this blatantly in the way the IC “intervenes” when Nesta is “embarrassing” them. And there is a layer of the backlash to this shift this that is definitely Mor feeling threatened by Nesta taking her place in the alliance. But what’s interesting to me is that there’s another layer in what she says TO Cassian when Nesta isn’t even around, a passive aggressive way of expressing her disapproval that he’s abandoned her and what she sees as his role.

So when they’re very clearly going to be together, and the mating bond is both obvious and powerful given the rules of their culture and their own system, it forces a schism. On one side is Rhys, Mor, and Amren. On the other is Nesta, Cassian, and Azriel. Feyre straddles the middle, and Elain uses absence to avoid taking sides.

This is actually fairly normal in families as kids grow up and begin families of their own. Shifting priorities change how decisions are made individually and as a group, and where members go to get their needs met. If people are able to accept their changing roles, things can go well - parents transition to being grandparents, siblings can support each other without competing for resources, adult children can establish their own family rules that are in line with their values. When it goes poorly, or when people cling to their rules and roles too rigidly, there can be a lot of conflict.

It’s the great contradiction of the family system that the best way to achieve equilibrium is by accepting that shifting is constant, inevitable, and important. It’s like standing on one foot, that even when you feel stable there are tiny shifts happening, and when you focus too hard on staying upright you almost always fall over. But when you treat the little shifts as normal, you realize that balancing is a process in motion, and looking ahead keeps things steadier than looking down.

Looking at this in a zoomed out way is helpful, but I also want to remember that while these are characters, the dynamics they play out are very real and can be very damaging. We naturally internalize the strategies and structures of our family system. I see this over and over again in my office, the ways people have been conditioned to believe they are defective, broken, inadequate, hopeless. In my personal life, I’ve been contending recently with a lot of trauma from my family that was covert, normalized, and well-hidden but which left me convinced that I was so repulsive, that my inner world was so ugly that anyone I showed it to would immediately leave. Some days it feels like it’s permanently damaged my brain. I know that’s not true, both on a literature level and a personal belief level, but it can be hard to remember and god does it still hurt. I still fear breaking the rules even though I’m the only one enforcing them now.

Okay I’m gonna stop here. This one is really rambling so I hope you got something out of it lol. Life is hard and weird right now, so I hope you’ll excuse if it’s not my usual standard. Thanks for reading <3

#prythian university #sjm critical #rhys critical #nesta archeron deserves better

[wishcamper]

Chapter XVI is here! Ouch that hurted. Preview after the jump.

CW: ptsd, suicidal ideation, and mentions of religious abuse, child death, torture, war, and sexual trauma

As he alit on a balcony of the Moonstone Palace, Cassian knew he’d need every scrap of courage he could dredge up. 

All the wars, all the violence, and he’d let a snake strike in his own house. His heart ached for Feyre, for their child, who he’d already started distancing himself from in his mind. He was assuming that Feyre would terminate her pregnancy, couldn’t yet handle the thought she might give her own life willingly, again, for the good of another. How hollow it would feel to hold her son without her there to see it.

Feyre, whose selflessness had saved his brother, saved them all from terror and subjugation. Saved him from going down a road of no return at the prospect of being trapped in Velaris for the rest of his long life. 

To lose her for good was unthinkable.

Cassian approached the dungeons, having descended through the winding passages to avoid rousing Kier’s suspicion. His wings scraped the ceiling of the narrow tunnel every now and then and he held his breath, uneasy in the tight space. But rumors must be churning by now of what happened at Ironcrest, and it would be dumb as fuck to encourage them by having the Night Court’s General show up unannounced.

Azriel met him at the mouth of the chamber holding Truth Teller, the blade unstained but drinking in the dim faelights.

“Anything yet?”

#acotar #nessian #fanfic #ok damn didn’t mean to make them this soft but I don’t care

[wishcamper]

WIP Wednesday

This chapter is putting me through it, so I'll give you a big teaser and hope to have it ready for you tomorrow!

A Court of Vice and Victors, Chapter XVI

"She said ‘if he truly loves me, this is his last opportunity to prove it’.” 

Mor sat back on a covered sofa, in the midst of updating them on the happenings in Velaris. Dark circles ringed her eyes, a patch of her red dress wrinkled at the thigh where she’d been worrying at the fabric.

The townhouse looked like a tomb, Cassian thought, the furniture shrouded in white cloth during the renovation, paint and tools stacked neatly on the temporary shelves. They’d spent months here during Amarantha’s reign, years, every available surface piled high with books and scrolls instead of linen and dust. He remembered a night thirty years in when Mor sent a stack crashing to the floor with a sweep of her arm, how he’d held her in front of the fire while she cried.

“I believe he thought he was doing the right thing,” she said. “However misguided it might have been.”

Rhys was sequestered in one wing of the river house, she’d told them, and had so far done nothing but stare between the window and the newly inked bargain tattoo on his hand. Feyre had insisted he agree to stay away from her until she was ready to speak to him, and that he was not allowed to hurt anyone, including himself.

Cassian was reminded with a shudder of how his brother had raged and shattered glass after glass in this very room the last time she'd ordered her mate away. He suspected this time things wouldn’t end so happily.

“I don’t give a fuck what he thought. Mor, he lied to her. To all of us. And you’re just fine with that?

“He’s terrified. Losing Feyre would..” She broke off, teeth worrying at her lower lip. “Do you remember what he was like when he came back? He was beside himself when she was wasting away in Spring.”

Cassian ached to think of that brief, golden time when Rhys had just returned home, when the impossible became possible and every ugly thought fell away in the unrestrained joy of seeing his face again. “I do. But now he’s Tamlin. Worse.”

The rot crept in slowly, he realized now looking back. The callous way Rhys ordered the execution of Illyrians who’d sided with Amarantha, the disregard for how the rest of the Night Court had suffered during her reign. Indifference that the Hewn City had fallen completely under Kier’s power in his absence, that they were still trying to regain ground in liberating the citizens who wanted out. 

A certain malice edging his tone at times, the cruel facade that seemed less and less like an act every day. It was clear the male who went Under the Mountain was not the one who came out. And Cassian had been a fucking idiot to ignore it.

“You’d really turn on him that quickly. We’re his family. He needs our help, Cass, not our judgment.”

“No. Bullshit. We’ve been helping him for the last two years. The last fifty two. And look where it’s gotten us.”

Rhys had never even apologized for trapping them in Velaris, and now they’d enabled him to abuse his mate. Because it was abuse, full stop. He was mystified that Mor couldn’t see it.

#acotar #nessian #fanfic #sjm critical #rhys critical

[wishcamper]

me when the next chapter begins cassian’s roy mustang era

#oh god #my man is about to be #goin THRU it

[wishcamper]

@fancyfade thank you for the incredible template

#sjm critical #rhys critical

[wishcamper]

You know what time it is. Chapter XV on ao3 now. Preview after the jump.

Nesta felt like her body was splitting. One half barrelled down the path toward Cassian, toward release, that funeral shroud of numbness she’d wrapped herself in all those long months. The other half responded to his hesitation, how gently he pulled her hands away from his clothes. It wanted her to fall still and focus only on the lavender- and cedar-scented air, the feel of his stubbly cheek pressed against hers.

“Not now,” he said, and she felt relief when he turned her slowly, deciding for the both of them. 

The bath loomed large in the corner of the room, wooden steps curving around to a raised platform skirting the far side, wide enough for a winged person to sit comfortably. It made her feel wobbly, the steaming water gushing from the large spout too loud, too forceful. Her stomach plunged and in her mind the freezing water bit at her heels, soaking the hem of her gown and they were all screaming, Elain was soaked and sobbing, Cassian unmoving beneath his shredded wings and she would not go in, she would not, she would not - 

“Nes.” 

Cassian in the present kissed a soft line across her shoulder and Nesta realized she’d halted, staring at the tub. She angled her face toward his, felt the warmth of his chest behind her as he said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to get in.”

Shame flooded her when he curved his wings halfway around them, that he knew why she was afraid. There was no real reason to be embarrassed - she hadn’t chosen to go into the Cauldron, hadn’t chosen any of this. But there was still, always, the lingering sense that her inability to banish the ghosts of the past, to handle normal life, was somehow her fault.

“I’m disgusting,” she said, though unsure whether she meant the creature’s blood or the blight in her soul. The festering, rotten core of your own misery. “Let’s get this over with.”

#acotar #nessian #fanfic #pro nesta archeron #nesta archeron deserves better

[wishcamper]

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

#The Bullet Swallower #Decolonizing Therapy by Dr. Jennifer Mullan #Beautiful Days by Joyce Carol Oates #and for a treat #The Cruel Prince for the 500th time

[wishcamper]

Sometimes with my counseling clients we’ll unearth assessments or other psych documents from childhood and 9 out of 10 times we’ll just laugh and laugh reading them bc they could’ve been written in the present

I always find it comforting, that sort of consistency, because it’s like: yeah I’ve been on my bullshit from the beginning. This ain’t new. The lesson repeats as needed I guess

My mum gave me my old school reports and I found one from aged 6 which was like “Chelsea is a kind and helpful member of the class but she gets easily upset when she encounters a problem” nothing has changed

[wishcamper]

money usually means very little to immortals, particularly wealthy-as-hell immortals, but yeah okay Nesta needing scraps to live on is parasitic to her sister who, in fact, only has money because she married into wealth, who is the reason nesta is forced to live in velaris in the first place, etc. etc.

nesta lived in the slums. it was not justified of rhysand and feyre to prostitute her to eris, even if it was just a dance. if she was forced to seduce men as a child through dancing, why tf would feyre make her seduce a man to "earn her keep". i'll never get over how acosf reduced nesta to a sex object over and over again by everyone.

#nesta deserves better

[wishcamper]

To add to this:

From a developmental perspective, teenagers are supposed to act “defiantly” by the full grown adult standard (testing boundaries, adopting more extreme habits/traits, rejecting caregivers). Kids realize parents are people and thus have flaws, which means they shouldn’t be trusted blindly. This is good not just because kids learn to think for themselves and trust their own intuition, but they also recognize that they will be flawed and make mistakes too, and that’s okay.

The primary task of this stage is to develop a strong but flexible sense of self you carry through every situation. If this stage isn’t resolved, you can end up with adults who don’t know who they are, what they want, or how to be close to others without losing themselves.

The problem is that many parents and adults don’t know how to not take their teenager’s rebellion personally, often because they have unresolved development wounds, personal or generation traumas, and/or overall poor emotion regulation skills. So like a grown man yelling at a customer service person, they try to use their power position to control teenagers instead of taking responsibility for their own uncomfortable emotions. Their pain and anxiety gets projected outward, actively or passively, onto the child.

And, from a systemic perspective, this is acceptable, even beneficial. Settler-colonial white supremacist capitalism benefits from an emotionally reactive and fearful population. You are more open to buying a solution to your problem, especially if you can’t rely on yourself. You’re more willing to give up power when you’re afraid.

Not to tip my tin foil hat, but this one does go all the way to the top!

Unpopular opinion but the reason being a teenager sucks is less to do with hormones and social cliques and more to do with the fact adults fucking hate teenagers. The fact that adults expect teenagers to be able to take on adult responsibilities yet don't deserve rights of an adult. They don't see teenagers as human beings and they aren't prepared to see kids with their own formed identities and humanity. Teenagers are so sexualized and seen as needing to take on more and more adult responsibilities. Yet when they want rights and humanity they are denied. The years your brain spends wanting nothing more than to form an identity are being taken away from you. Teenagers are essentially being kicked out of social spaces unless they have an extra 40 dollars lying around anytime they want to go out. Teenagers being kicked out of the mall just for existing or groomed into the school to prison pipeline. And now creating legislation to keep them off the Internet. Our society hates teenagers. And does everything we can to hurt them. The fact that anyone makes it out of their teenage years without trauma is a fucking miracle frankly.

[wishcamper]

Have I been thinking about this nonstop? Yes.

Did I make a slutty sleeveless Azriel collage like I used to for boybands? Also yes.

is it actually mentioned in the books somewhere or did we all just collectively decide that Azriel wears slutty little sleeveless turtlenecks

#azriel #slutty turtleneck gang #sorry if this is ur art i just visited our lord and savior google images

[wishcamper]

WIP Wednesday

Next ACOVAV chapter snippet bc I'm done hurting my own feelings

She'd clung to him in terror last night, desperate not to fall back down into the well of her own pain. But when she woke the next morning, Nesta felt better than expected. She lay there for a long time with her eyes closed, puzzling over it. Perhaps it was being sober, or just the consistent meals and sleep. Or the books tucked in her bag, the woven bracelet on her wrist, Emerie, Gwyn.  And Azriel. He’d been there, too, in the background. She’d thought Cassian was lying when he denied cleaning the kitchen after her meltdown the first night in the House. It was still gut-wrenching to think of the High Lord’s words, but she could survive it, could try to ride the wave of her own feelings knowing she didn’t have to do so alone.

Nesta knew Cassian would make sure of that, if nothing else.

She could hear him upstairs now in the large kitchen she’d glimpsed the night before. Cracking open an eye, she was startled to see a small tortoiseshell cat sitting on the end of the bed, watching.

#acotar #fanfic #nesta archeron deserves better #wip wednesday

[wishcamper]

is it actually mentioned in the books somewhere or did we all just collectively decide that Azriel wears slutty little sleeveless turtlenecks

#acotar #azriel #slutty turtleneck gang