flowerflamestars · 2 years ago
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Timeloop AU snippet
Knife-blade face tipped up to the sky, Eris scowled as the first drops began to fall.
  As Lucien bothered only to tuck his books safely away before falling back again, spine pressed the length of the little skiff, rainwater stinging cool, steam rising from his skin.
  “What,” Eris snapped, after several minutes, “The hell.”
  Lucien cracked open an eye, to take in the dripping fury. “Will stop in a minute. Rains most afternoons here.”
  The outermost isles of Summer’s hegemony. Quiet. Palatial. Wild in ways that could almost soothe the hungry creature that lived in his heart, flame without necessary fuel. Eris’s was the first High Fae face he’d seen in months.
  “Which you know,” Eris hissed, shaking blackened blood-dark hair out of his face like nothing so much as an angry feline. “Because you live here. Half the pair that led the most savage, swiftly successful war in High Fae history, and now you’re both fucking hermits. Do you even know what they call you? In the Courts? Archeron and you? The World-Breaker and the Memory-Maker.”
  Lucien, who’d saved every life they could save. Nesta, who’d done the killing blow.
  “Tarquin,” Lucien said, tightly, “Won the war.”
  Just Summer, only Summer. A court decimated by Amarantha, a court that had risen again like the tide rises, and destroyed Prythians oldest enemy without debasing itself before fellow courts that did not respect its ways or people.
  “Should have thought through how long that lie could live,” Eris snapped back, “When you evacuated Hybern’s civilian population. The wreckage might have sunk beneath the sea, but we all saw it on fire first.”
Silver and gold. Magic twisting on magic, the slumbering giant of Nesta’s power let loose, let free, dragging light from Lucien like he’d forgotten he could even be.
He should have known it then. He should have- well, Lucien could not actually pretend what was true now might as well have always been true in every way that mattered. 
  “Technically,” Lucien pointed out. “I’m Summer’s seaward ambassador. Not a hermit.”
  “And technically,” Eris picked right up the thread, “I am the least of the Vanserra. You want to tell me why the crown came for me?”
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