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romanticatheartt · 25 days

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Feyre and Nesta

Not me, because Nesta had always known and hated that she and I were two sides of the same coin, and that I could fight my own battles. ~ acotar ch.4

I couldn’t bring myself to look at my slightly uptilted eyes. I knew I’d see Nesta or my mother looking back at me. I’d sometimes wondered if that was why my sister had insulted me about my looks. I was a far cry from ugly, but … I bore too much of the people we’d hated and loved for Nesta to stand it. For me to stand it, too. ~ acotar ch.7

Nesta merely stared at me for a long while before asking me to teach her how to paint. ~ acotar ch.30

“I couldn’t take care of us, not the way you did. I hated you for that. But I hated him more. I still do.” ~ acotar ch.30

“We don’t need you here, Feyre. Do not look back.”

“Father once told you to never come back,” Nesta said, “and I’m telling you now. We can take care of ourselves.”

Once I might have thought it was an insult, but now I understood—understood what a gift she was offering me. ~ acotar ch.31

“There is a better world, Nesta. There is a better world out there, waiting for you to find it. And if I ever get the chance, if things are ever better, safer … I will find you again.” ~ acotar ch.31

✩₊˚.⋆♡⋆⁺₊✧

“Nesta,” I said, starting on the other wing, “I painted flames for her. She was always angry, always burning. I think she would like Velaris, despite herself.” ~ acomaf ch.49

“Nesta is different from most people,” I explained. “She comes across as rigid and vicious, but I think it’s a wall. A shield—like the ones Rhys has in his mind.”

“Against what?”

“Feeling. I think Nesta feels everything—sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.” ~ acomaf ch.58

“She will never love freely and gift it to everyone who crosses her path. But the few she does care for … I think Nesta would shred the world apart for them. Shred herself apart for them.” ~ acomaf ch.58

✩₊˚.⋆♡⋆⁺₊✧

“I assumed you could read as easily as us.”

“Well, I couldn’t.”

“Why didn’t you ask us to teach you?”

I trailed a finger over the neat row of spines. “Because I doubted you would agree to help.” Nesta stiffened like I’d hit her, coldness blooming in those eyes. ~ acowar ch.30

“Why do you push everyone away but Elain?” Why have you always pushed me away?

Some emotion guttered in her eyes. Her throat bobbed. Nesta shut her eyes for a moment, breathing in sharply. “Because—” ~ acowar ch.30

I gripped Nesta’s fingers in my free hand. She glanced at me.

I need you to trust me, I tried to convey to her.

Nesta read the emotion in my eyes—and gave the barest dip of her chin. ~ acowar ch.31

“Run toward the light,” I breathed to Nesta. “I’ll hold them off.”

“No.”

“Run,” I breathed. “Please.”

She hesitated.

“Please,” I begged her, my voice breaking.

Nesta squeezed my hand once. ~ acowar ch.31

But Nesta looked to me—and I could have sworn fear shone there, and guilt and … some other feeling. “You told me to run.”

“You’re my sister,” was all I said. She’d once tried to cross the wall to save me. ~ acowar ch.32

And nearly made my heart stop dead with shock as she said, “You look beautiful.” ~ acowar ch.41

“It was some distant thing,” she said. “War. Battle. It … it’s not anymore. I will help, if I can. If it means … telling them what happened.”

“You’ve given enough,” I said, my dress rustling as I braved a solitary step toward her. ~ acowar ch.42

“But beneath the wall, I witnessed children—entire families—starve to death.” She jerked her chin at me. “Were it not for my sister … I would be among them.”

My eyes burned, but I blinked it away. ~ acowar ch.46

“Sometimes … I have problems with small spaces.”

Nesta studied me for a long moment. And then she said with equal quiet, though we could all hear, “I can’t get into a bathtub anymore. I have to use buckets.”

I hadn’t known—hadn’t even thought that bathing, submerging in water …

I knew better than to touch her hand. But I said, “When we get home, we’ll install something else for you.”

I could have sworn there was gratitude in her eyes—that she might have said something else. ~ acowar ch.52

“Nesta is many things, but she’s certainly loyal.” ~ acowar ch.61

Nesta broke into another sprint. I reached for Rhysand, his face taut as he stalked for us—

But Nesta got there first.

I swallowed my shout of pain as Nesta’s arms went around my neck and she embraced me so hard it snatched my breath away.

Her body shook—shook as she sobbed and said over and over and over, “Thank you.” ~ acowar ch.65

A moment later, another warm body nestled on my left. Nesta’s scent drifted over me, fire and steel and unbending will. ~ acowar ch.65

I offered my hand to my sister. “I want you here for this. With me.”

Nesta considered that outstretched hand. For a moment, I thought she’d walk away.

But she slid her hand into mine, and together we walked into that room. ~ acowar ch.79

✩₊˚.⋆♡⋆⁺₊✧

“She wanted you there.” I wanted you there. ~ acofas ch.13

She settled back in her seat, crossing her arms. “Why do I have to be a part of your merry little band?”

“You’re my sister.” ~ acofas ch.13

“I know you still blame yourself for your sisters being Made.” Mor nudged my knee with her own. “And because of that, you want to fix everything for them now that they’re here.”

“I always wanted to do that,” I said glumly.

Mor smiled crookedly. “That’s why we love you. Why they love you.”

Nesta, I wasn’t so sure about. ~ acofas ch.18

But Nesta’s attention had gone to the birthday cake still sitting on the table, its various tiers delved into many times over.

Her eyes lifted to mine in the silence. “Happy birthday.” ~ acofas ch.20

✩₊˚.⋆♡⋆⁺₊✧

Every piece of art had been picked by Feyre herself, or painted by her, many of them portraits and depictions of them—her friends, her … new family.

There were none of Nesta, naturally. ~ acosf ch.1

“I’ll take the blame,” Feyre went on, “for allowing things to get this far, and this bad. After the war with Hybern, with everything else that was going on, it … You … I should have been there to help you, but I wasn’t, and I am ready to admit that this is partially my fault.” ~ acosf ch.1

“Keep your self-righteous do-gooder nonsense out of my life.”

“You don’t have a life,” Feyre retorted. “And I’m not going to sit by for another moment and watch you destroy yourself.” She put a tattooed hand on her heart, like it meant something. “I decided after the war to give you time, but it seems that was wrong. I was wrong.” ~ acosf ch.1

“I built a room in this house for you. I asked you to help me decorate it. You told me to piss off.”

“Why would I ever want to stay in this house?” ~ acosf ch.2

Feyre’s eyes blazed. “But I’m done paying for you to destroy yourself.” ~ acosf ch.2

There was nothing to bind them together anymore. ~ acosf ch.2

“Because she hates me.”

Feyre snorted. “Cassian, Nesta does not hate you. Believe me.”

“She sure as shit acts like it.”

Feyre shook her head. “No, she doesn’t.” Her words were pained enough that he frowned…

…Feyre sighed. “That’s my long way of saying that if Nesta hated you … I know what it looks like, and she doesn’t hate you.” ~ acosf ch.11

Hunting to keep them fed had taught Feyre that skill set. Hunting, while Nesta had stayed home, safe and warm, and let Feyre venture into that forest alone. Those skills Feyre had honed had allowed her to survive against the High Fae and all their terrors, but … Feyre only had them because of what she’d been forced to do. Because Nesta hadn’t been the one to do it. To step up. ~ acosf ch.12

“Feyre taught me how to use a bow.” Only a few lessons, and long ago, but Nesta remembered. It was one of the few times she and Feyre had been allies. ~ acosf ch.12

“Not Feyre.” Nesta hated the words. The way his back stiffened. She couldn’t look at him as she said, “I just …” How could she explain the tangle between her and her sister? The self-loathing that threatened to consume her every time she looked at her sister’s face? ~ acosf ch.16

“I hadn’t realized you were keeping score.”

Feyre gave her an exasperated look. “I’m not, Nesta. I just … Do I need an excuse to share things with you? You’re my sister. I wanted to tell you before anyone else. That’s it.” ~ acosf ch.21

Only Feyre had kept them fed and clothed, earning scant amounts for the pelts and meat she hunted. She’d kept them alive. The last time she’d hunted for them, the food had run out the day before. If Feyre hadn’t returned home with meat that night, they either would have had to starve to death or beg in the village. ~ acosf ch.25

Nesta didn’t care if he’d come to help during the final battle with Hybern.

Tamlin had hurt Feyre. Unforgivably. ~ acosf ch.25

She’d failed at everything. But she could do this.

She’d failed her father, failed Feyre for years before that. ~ acosf ch.29

“...Because you thought Feyre was your property.”

Nesta pointed at Tamlin. The ground shook. ~ acosf ch.43

“I can’t believe Feyre ever loved Tamlin.”

“Tamlin never deserved her.” Cassian rested a hand on her back.

“No.” Nesta again peered into the darkness below. “He didn’t.” ~ acosf ch.43

“Nesta is a wolf who has been locked in a cage her whole life.” ~ acosf ch.44

I knew she was an artist then. The same way Feyre is. But what Feyre does with paint, that’s what Nesta did with music and dance. ~ acosf ch.44

“Feyre doesn’t love me.” She didn’t deserve Feyre’s love. ~ acosf ch.46

And Nesta knew then that she had not once in her life been loved by her mother as much as Feyre already loved the boy growing within her.

It broke something in Nesta—broke that rage, that roaring—seeing those tears begin to fall, the fear crumpling Feyre’s paint-smeared face.

She had gone too far. She … Oh, gods. ~ acosf ch.46

She had the courage to tell me the truth.

She told you the truth to hurt you.

Perhaps. But she was the only one who said anything. ~ acosf ch.47

and I would have let us all starve to prove what a wretch he was. It consumed me so much that … that I let Feyre go into that forest and told myself I didn’t care, that she was half-wild, and it didn’t matter, and yet …” She let out a wrenching cry. “I close my eyes and I see her that day she went out to hunt the first time... And now I will see Feyre’s face when I told her that the baby would kill her.” ~ acosf ch.50

“You’ve probably guessed that my residency in the House, my training, my work in the library is my sister’s attempt to help me.” Her sister whom she had still not apologized to, whom she still didn’t have the courage to face. “And I … I think I might be glad Feyre did this for me. The drinking, the males—I don’t miss any of it.” ~ acosf ch.51

and Nesta had heard Feyre’s harrowing tales of visiting the Prison on several occasions. Little frightened her sister... ~ acosf ch.53

Her sister’s eyes slid to her. Nesta swallowed, holding Feyre’s gaze. She prayed that her sister could read the silent words on her face. I am sorry for what I said to you in Amren’s apartment. I am truly sorry.

Feyre’s eyes softened. And then, to Nesta’s shock, Feyre answered into her mind, Don’t worry about it.

I spoke in anger, and I’m sorry.

Feyre’s pause was considerable. Then she said, the words like the first rays of dawn, I forgive you. ~ acosf ch.55

Nesta’s stare drifted to the paint flaking off the walls. The intricate little designs. Cassian followed her stare. “Did Feyre paint that?”

Nesta swallowed, and managed to get out, “She painted every chance she got. Any extra coin she managed to save went toward paints.” ~ acosf ch.55

But she nodded at Cassian and sat, saying to Feyre, “Happy birthday.”

Feyre smiled again. “Thank you.”

And that was that. ~ acosf ch.58

... precisely the sort of room she’d have designed for herself if she’d been given the chance.

She had been given the chance, she realized. Feyre had asked, and she’d refused. Apparently, Feyre had done it herself, somehow knowing what she’d like. ~ acosf ch.58

“Despite her faults—and mine—we loved each other dearly. We were all each other had while growing up. She was the only one I could truly rely on. I miss her every day.”

Nesta couldn’t stop herself from thinking of Feyre. ~ acosf ch.59

“I know who you are. I’m not stupid enough to go after you.”

“It’s the Blood Rite. You’d be forgiven.”

“Feyre Cursebreaker would not forgive me for killing her sister.” ~ acosf ch.66

“We didn’t learn archery,” Emerie breathed...

But Nesta nocked the arrow in place. Took aim. Right at Gwyn, who eyed the rope tied to the arrow, the other end around the tree and Emerie, and understood.

“My sister taught me.” Nesta’s arms trembled as she drew back the string. “A long time ago.” ~ acosf ch.68

Feyre.

Feyre, who had gone into the woods for them. Who had saved them so many times.

Feyre. Her sister. ~ acosf ch.76

Stroking Feyre’s cold hand, Nesta spoke into the timeless, frozen room, “You loved me when no one else would. You never stopped. Even when I didn’t deserve it, you loved me, and fought for me, and …” Nesta looked at Feyre’s face, Death a breath away from claiming it. She didn’t stop the tears that ran down her cheeks as she squeezed Feyre’s slender hand tighter. “I love you, Feyre.”

She had never said the words aloud. To anyone.

“I love you,” Nesta whispered again. “I love you.” ~ acosf ch.77

She blinked at Rhys, and then turned to Nesta.“I love you, too,” Feyre whispered to her sister, and smiled.

Nesta didn’t stop her sob as she launched herself onto Feyre and embraced her. ~ acosf ch.77

She’d joined them at the river house one night to find a mating present from Feyre waiting for her. Hanging on the wall in the grand entry.

A portrait of Nesta, holding the line at the Pass of Enalius…

Nesta had stared and stared at her portrait, hung between one of Feyre and one of Elain, and hadn’t realized she was crying until Feyre had held her tightly. ~ acosf ch.80

She found Feyre and Elain waiting halfway down the hill, Nyx now dozing peacefully in Elain’s arms. Her sisters beamed, beckoning her to join.

And Nesta smiled back, her steps light as she hurried down the hill to meet them. ~ acosf ch.80