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thefangirlofhp · 1 year

Text

brand it on my mind (so I don’t forget)

in which Nyx seeks out his aunt and uncle to soothe some sensitive hurts

follow up to unconditional as quartz, can be read as a stand-alone

The genial peace that the streets of Velaris has to offer is something of a rarity when compared to other bustling cities and towns, Nyx has discovered. Studies abroad in Day’s Court tutored by the finest scholars Prythian had to offer quickly brought the young Night Court heir the exposure to other societies that has allowed him the chain of thoughts that takes on a more think-then-act nature. Having seen many cities and interacted with a score of people, the young lord was surprised to find that the treatment he received in Velaris’ streets was one of a rarity—be it by nature of the city’s close-knit culture or that they just were a particular breed of faes who didn’t give much of an iota’s care regarding High Faes and future High Lords, Nyx has yet to decide.

Still, it’s a blessed thing. One resembling home’s mediocrity and casualness. Nyx walks the streets of the gorgeous city, hand wrapped around the satchel’s strap over his chest, meeting familiar eyes and offering acknowledging awkward head-bobs to warm smiles. He’s not quite the social butterfly that his entire family is, possessing nowhere near the intoxicating confidence Father practically breathes into the air or Mother’s warmth, nor Uncle Cassian’s boisterously loud presence. However, he’s reassured that it’s a thing he will grow out of, once he meets more and more people, and gets the hang of the publicity that comes with being Rhysand’s heir.

The cool wind is pleasant on his face, it makes him subconsciously relax every tense muscle and joint in his body as he crosses the cobblestone path. His eyes automatically relax the minute he steps into the shade of a red-topped house and he politely steps back to allow a fae to pass before continuing his journey.

It’s the scroll of parchment in the bag against his hip that seems to burn through the fabric, and weigh more than three Illyrian blades melted together. He’s worrying his lower lip between his teeth, head ducked and eyes squinted as he walks, consumed by the inevitable upcoming Conversation with his parents that he’ll have to sit through once he makes his way home. It’s why he practically jumps out his skin when he feels the familiar touch of his mother brushing against his subconscious, like a cursory knock at the open door to his room what with the abysmal state of his mental walls. Father taught him better.

Welcome home, darling, he doesn’t so much as hear her speak as much as it is more of a feeling. Like the thought comes from him, but it’s of a softer tone.

Hey, Ma, he thinks back.

I’m at the studio if you want to stop by. Your father’s in a meeting now, but he’ll be finished in an hour. Nuala made you lunch if you’re hungry.

He’s quiet for a while, narrowly avoiding a rolling cart of vegetables and waves a hand to the familiar farmer’s face. I think I’ll see some friends before dinner, if that’s all-right?

His mother takes a second to respond. Of course, comes the smooth unperturbed reply. Don’t be late.

Nyx pauses in the street, takes a moment to exhale softly and look up at the clear blue sky. Seagulls calling in the distance overflying the sea, the vendors yelling for potential customers down the hill in the market, horses neighing, carts crashing and wheels rolling and a blacksmith is heard hammering his work. He lets the breeze sway him gently on his two feet.

And when Nyx opens his eyes, he finds himself staring at the quaint bakery’s window door, the large glass window displaying an impressive new arrangement of flowers and suggested books with a staged tea-party spread complete with beautiful teacups and pots, finger sandwiches and little pastries. The shop gives shade in this hour to the outdoors white iron wrought chairs and little seating hosting a few clients enjoying what The Ivy has to offer, which admittedly is a lot.

Drawing in a deep breath, Nyx crosses the street as he draws on a genuine smile and pushes the door open. He is announced by a twinkle from overhead, and an assortment of giggles from the little garden fairies hovering in the air above, whom subsequently dash to hide in the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling when he looks up at them.

“Welcome! How can I—oh hello, Nyx!”

His smile becomes easier as he makes his way towards the counter, and the auburn-haired female in a pressed white apron behind it.

“Hi, Agatha,” he responds, smiling back at one of his many childhood friends. “How is it going?”

“Good,” the older female replies, barely a few years his senior, but enough so that she’d been one of the girls at the orphanage to help the minders while he’d run around with the younger ones. “We’re having a little busy day but it’s just the season. Besides, the busier the better, right?”

“Mhm,” he nods, glancing at the glass casing containing all the mouth-watering goods. Despite having had a late breakfast before leaving Day, Nyx’s stomach rumbles at the site of those gorgeous double-tier cakes and lemon tarts and—

“Mistress Elain told me to let you in the kitchen when you get here,” Agatha interrupts his browsing and his eyes snap to her brown ones, brows jumping up in confusion at the ‘when’ and passed-on instructions before she gives a shrug, seeming to summarize it all adequately when it comes to his aunt’s behavior.

“Right. Any chance I can nick that blueberry—“

“Nyx, baby, is that you?” interrupts the soft floaty voice of his second aunt, carried in from the kitchen’s cracked-open door. Agatha gives a sympathetic smile before he leaps over the counter, forgoing normal people’s behavior of rounding it to the side like a true troublesome male Illyrian, and passes through the door to the back-store kitchen.

It’s a kingdom of its own right, one run and entirely managed by his dutiful aunt, somehow its vast interior defying the shop’s small size by a form of one enchantment or another as many other shops in Velaris are spelled to be. His eyes immediately snag on her standing at the center workspace covered in flour and ingredients, and her hands stirring the batter of a cake quickly in prompt professionalism.

He grins, immediately hurrying towards her in order to plant a kiss to her tilted and expecting cheek before receiving a blinding smile and a peck to his own forehead.

“How are you?” she asks, while he brushes off a dusting of flour from her chin and tosses his bag aside in order to rush towards the sink and stick his hands under hot water. Elain’s got her hair wrapped up in a white, patterned kerchief to keep it out the way as she stirs her whisk through fudgy goodness, and if Nyx has any hope of being allowed any close to licking the batter off the whisk and tin, then he’s got to douse himself clean entirely. It’s why he throws aside his jacket as well and rolls up his shirt’s sleeves.

“I’m good,” he replies cheerfully, bounding back towards her and leaning against the wooden top. “What are you making?”

“Can’t guess?” she holds up the whisk, watching the batter promptly slide down in a cascading shower of divinity that makes his mouth water.

“Chocolate cake?” he wagers his basic guess.

“Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate,” she replies, grinning. “With strawberries and cookies and biscuits—the Nyx Deluxe.”

Nyx blinks, assessing the laid out ingredients that promptly confirm her words, cheerful grin fading slightly in contrast to the giddiness bubbling in his chest—there’s little else that rivals the joy stirred in one’s heart at the sight of a beloved meal prepared by a loved one. “I…what’s the occasion?”

She nudges him with an elbow. “Does there have to be?”

“That’s a birthday or Solstice or major milestone cake,” his brows furrow. Then, he gasps. “Are you getting married today?!”

Elain laughs and Nyx nearly deflates in relief at the irrational prospect of having to watch his aunt exchange the ring on her hand to the other. “Who’d get married in the middle of a week, baby?”

“What for, then?”

She looks at him knowingly. “Can’t we celebrate our Nyx’s successful completion of another year at Day?”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” she tilts her head. “I thought you have an accomplishment to present us?”

“Can I lick the bowl?” he instead asks.

Elain grabs a small spoon. “You can have all you want.”

“You really are celebrating,” he remarks, grinning from ear to ear before he busies his mouth with the spoonful of cake batter that has his eyes rolling back into his skull.

Third time stealing the batter, a deep voice flatly interrupts Nyx’s oblivion following the scuffing of boots on the floor and the rustling of wings: “So this is what treason feels like.”

Nyx looks up to see his uncle staring at them with a dark look, the shadowsinger standing still and tall in his betrothed’s kitchen with his hands clasped behind his back. His casual black sleeveless shirt and combat pants both dusted in flour tell Nyx he’s been here for a while, but it’s always easy to overlook the master of shadows until he draws attention to himself.

“Yours is right there,” Elain warns, pointing to a bowl with dark remains of identical cake batter. “Don’t start.”

“Oh thank goodness, I didn’t want to fight a child over bowl-licking privileges,” Azriel sighs, taking a seat at the table.

“Only ‘cause you’ll lose,” Nyx retorts around a mouthful of chocolate batter that unceremoniously leaks from the corner of his mouth before he ducks and saves himself last minute, and Elain decides he’s had enough as she grabs it and turns to the prepared cake tins.

His uncle gives him a slow, careful one-over, like a cat assessing her next possible meal in a picture-perfect image of danger that is promptly ruined by the batter-coated thumb he sticks in his mouth.

“You’re early,” he notes, grabbing a napkin and wiping his hand clean. The glaring sunlight through the glass roof puts him in the bright spotlight, makes the two siphons stuck to the finger-less gloves on his hands scatter all sort of different shaped cobalt light and accentuate the shadows twisting their shapeless form around his figure.

“You hang around here too much,” Nyx mutters back, rounding the table and approaching him with his spoon. It’s a bold dangerous move, but one Nyx makes. When he’s not cleft in half for daring to steal the batter contents, he sticks his spoon in. He’s surprised when his uncle even passes him the bowl.

“This is my fifth,” he explains, much to Nyx’s bulging eyes and gaping mouth. Azriel props his elbows on the table and yawns, resting his face in scarred hands which Nyx’s eyes linger on for a moment longer than necessary. He’s never figured out why Azriel’s hands are mangled the way they are, considering fae’s predisposition to instant healing and unblemished skin, and so far he’s never worked up the courage to ask what horrible thing had done that to him.

“How was Day?” Elain’s whimsy soft voice floats in the air after she’s closed the massive oven door on her numerous tins of cake and returns to the table, resting her hands atop the work-surface, engagement ring glinting blindingly in the sunlight.

“Good,” Nyx mutters, utilizing his spoon and avoiding the question’s mandated in-depth answer. “I thought you’d be working, Az.”

“Day off,” his uncle grunts, rubbing his face before revealing it. He squints at Nyx. “Let’s have it, then. Who’d you piss off there before you left?”

The boy practically jumps from his skin as his wings startle and he nearly falls over. Hands clench over the bowl tight enough for them to tremble, and he is suddenly acutely aware of how dry his mouth is. Sometimes he forgets that his aunt and uncle are literally all-knowing, not in the annoying figurative way his parents are. While Mother and Father take one look at him and read his face with the uncanny accuracy that comes from parenting, Azriel and Elain have accurate insight into everything around them, which has made them Public Enemy Number 1 in family games and any delicate social situation.

“I—“ he blurts. “Why—I haven’t—“

Denial pays off very poorly in the long run, but it’s a suitable weapon to use in the moment to fend for himself.

Azriel lets out a laugh. “Well before, I was just wagering a guess, but now I know for a fact you’ve done something.”

Nyx is sure his face is flushed a deep incriminating red.

“Leave him be, if he’d rather not talk about it,” Elain—not his favorite aunt for naught—decides, taking a seat and resting her chin in a palm propped up on an elbow.

That’s the thing—he would, and should, but he can’t and is afraid to and maybe, maybe just a touch frightened of the conse—

“Hey,” his uncle reaches out a hand that rests on his slim arm, dwarfs it in comparison. “It’s all-right. Whatever it is.”

Elain lets loose a soft breath, turns her doe eyes from him to her betrothed. “Have you spoken with the priestess?”

Azriel draws back his hand, and Nyx kind of immediately misses the comfort it brought. It’s a thing he shares with Uncle Cassian; a love for physical touch and the comfort it brings. It’s a shame Azriel’s not one of those people.

His jaw clenches. “Yes.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

Nyx would like to pretend that he didn’t see the flash of hurt passing over Elain’s face like a shadow before it quickly disappears as promptly as it came, but it stings him, and from the way his uncle stiffens, so did he. There’s nothing as disconcerting as watching something upset Elain, mostly because his aunt doesn’t let anything upset anyone else, and is sickeningly kind, helpful and considerate to anything that existed. It’s not fair.

“Oh,” she breathes out, managing to adequately mask her disappointment.

“What is it?” Nyx asks.

Azriel sighs. “No-one has agreed to marry us, so far.”

Nyx frowns. “Why?”

Azriel’s brows arch as he stares at the table. “Your aunt is someone else’s mate. No priestess will ever desecrate something like that. Goes against everything they believe in. Defies the Mother.”

Nyx’s heart sinks low. “S-So what, they’ll just let you live in sin then?”

“I’ve been continuously advised to save my soul and call this off.”

His hand abruptly slams against the countertop. “That’s fucking bullshit!” he finds himself shouting, leaping to his feet, an accumulation of frustration with social discrimination erupting out of him before he can think otherwise. “Fucking bullshit! Why can’t you guys marry?! Lucien hasn’t—he doesn’t give a shit! Didn’t he say so?! He’s married to a fucking human queen!”

“Nyx, calm down,” Elain requests. “Losing your temper and your allowance for the week isn’t worth it. Don’t think I’ve overlooked that colorful language.”

His face warms as he takes his seat once again. It’s really hypocritical of his family to monitor his vocabulary when the things they say on game-night would make a sailor blush.

“Why can’t someone like Mother or Father marry you?” Nyx mutters, regaining his composure. “They’re head of state. They decide the rules.”

“Because being married in the eyes of the state is not the same as being married by a priestess,” Elain explains. “They…mediate your souls together. Allow something to coexist on a biological level. Creates a bond. No priestess would create something like that when there’s a mating bond present.”

“But you turned it down…”

“It remains, still. I’m told,” Elain replies, voice bitter.

Azriel straightens. “I don’t want to raise your hopes, but I can’t stand to see you destitute. I’ve got a few options left which I initially didn’t want to resort to.”

Nyx grins vengefully, making a determined fist. “Yes! Extortion and intimidation!”

“No!” Azriel barks out a startled laugh at the same time that Elain giggles. “No—I’m going to ask one of the priestesses I trained. Or Gwyn. I’m hoping it won’t be unethical.”

Elain’s eyes sober up. “You don’t have to. It’s fine—I’m fine with a…state-marriage.”

“Absolutely not,” Azriel firmly says, staring her down with the intensity that came from one’s love and one’s determination to do anything for said love. “I’ll have nothing less than everything you’ve ever dreamt of.”

Elain’s face visibly softens, with adoration and gratitude, the warmth coloring her cheeks a pink complimenting her white shirt and long skirt. She opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted from doing so by the back door swinging open and a small figure dashing inside, breathless and flushed in the face as it noisily clambers over to Elain.

“Hello, Drisa,” Elain smiles down at the little girl holding onto the table and looking up at her with wide eyes as she catches her breath. “Have you been playing?”

“Uhu!” the girl gasps, her fuchsia skin flushed so deeply in her face it is several shades darker than a beet root, nodding fervently and looking around desperately for something to quench her thirst. Azriel slides over a glass of water procured helpfully from the depths of a shadow, while two more boys run into the kitchen like raging bulls, followed by a short skipping nymph, trailing flower petals after her dancing green dreadlocks.

“Hey!” Elain laughs at the site. “Calm down, catch your breath!”

Gerard collapses against Elain’s shoulder as he loops his arms around her neck. “We—were—racing—a—bird.”

“Who won?” Azriel asks, as the second boy—Yern—walks right over to him and collapses in Azriel’s lap, heavily panting. He looks down at the little boy, and pushes his damp hair from where it’s plastered itself against his face.

“Bird cheated,” he mumbles, dejected. “Wen’ up. Not front!”

“That’s a shame,” the spymaster reckons, resting his hand on Yern’s cobalt blue silky hair and easing it out the way to reveal a flushed forehead. “How’re you going to pay the bird?”

“It cheated!” Gerard exclaims against Elain.

“Were there rules?”

“Only common sense!”

“You’re racing a bird, Gerard, I don’t see any common sense in that.”

The young boy, thirteen years old and practically still seven by the aging standards of his species, huffs.

“Mama we’re hungry!” Drisa announces, her long ears trapping her black hair as she tilts her head up and to the side.

“Okay,” Elain replies, easing Gerard’s figure off her as she stands up. “Nyx, baby, please make sure everyone washes up properly.”

As oldest of the bunch, Nyx takes such a duty quite seriously even if he himself is still a child. But to be the older child amongst children granted much privileges and pride to be felt, one he gladly shoulders.

“Nyxie!” Drisa holds up her arms in request, and he bends at the waist to pick her up and let her squirm her way onto his shoulders. Yern comes crawling under the table, and immediately rattles Nyx’s ear off about a ladybug he saw today while Drisa plays with his hair and he overlooks Gerard’s sub-optimal hand washing and in the background, Lisa the nymph is heard rapidly talking Azriel’s ear off in her whispery voice, leaving no room for any sort of reply to be made between her rattled words.

Nyx is no stranger to the orphans that Elain frequently looks after; he’s been friends with them for as long as he can remember, always going with Elain over for breakfast and playtime, never minding the fact they’re different shapes and colours, never quite realizing that this sort of difference ever mattered to anybody. Until he began his studies abroad, his educational trips around courts, and discovered the baffling stratification of the fae society in a way that has never occurred to him before.

Elain makes them sandwiches, which is an underselling of what she actually prepares. Calling them sandwiches makes it more child-friendly, even when they’re a full-course nutritional meal tucked between two crispy slices of fresh bread. Chicken and white sauce and cheese and lettuce. Lamb meat under gravy and mouth-watering tomato slices. They sit quietly at the table while munching their food, Agatha called in from manning the front to have her lunch with them, and Nyx watches them all as he slowly makes his way through his generous sandwich. Cannot seem to understand his friends—and him—would be seen as something less in other places, the degree of inferiority varying from border to border, yet never quite being at the top in anyplace.

He doesn’t understand why it’s different here—if it is so, at all. But they all sit at the same table, laugh at the same joke and fight over the same petty things under the watchful eye of the seer and the shadowsinger. It’s like any family meal Nyx has with his family. He cannot imagine why anyone else would decree it otherwise.

He glances at his aunt and uncle, finding Elain sat next to Azriel, her eyes closed and mouth lined shut neatly while he holds her hand and cups the side of her face. His lips are moving faintly, uttering words too soft for Nyx to hear, but the care in his eyes is blazing.

His gut turns. It’s not fair his aunt and uncle can’t be married. Or have their own children.

Nyx looks back to his food, the conversation he’s eavesdropped on between his mother and father burning his ears even in memory. Threatening to make his eyes prickle, too.

It’s a shame, Mother had sadly remarked. That Elain wouldn’t get to live her dream, the goal she’d sought towards all her life. It’s unfair, that she’d have to choose between her dream and her love when all she’s ever wanted was a large loving family. It’s a shame she has to give up Azriel’s children to be with him.

Nyx is inclined to agree, in terms of sympathy and sadness. If anyone would be loving excellent parents, he’d testify that the pair would make more than an ample example.

It’s only an opinion born out of experience; being born to a large family meant Nyx was hardly raised by his parents alone. He was parented by every member of his parent’s circle, disciplined and taught and loved by a whole plethora of characters whom had equal amounts of authority over him. Of them all, Nyx has always gravitated towards the safety Elain offered. And Azriel’s affection is impossible to overlook, because once he decided he cared, Azriel did so with everything he was.

The pair together always emitted a kind of balance that Nyx sought, subconsciously. It was always easy to talk to them, to seek their advice, mostly because he had little consequences to fear while knowing he was still in safe, secure waters. He couldn’t put it in words, but perhaps there was something to be said in the fact he came here first thing upon setting foot back home.

Nyx is wiping down the table in front of him with his palm, gathering crumbs together and crushing them beneath his index when Elain sends the children to the shop to mind it with Agatha and tidy up. Next to him, Yern is straddling Azriel’s lap, playing with his shirt flaps and twisting the ties around his small fingers while he slowly recites the multiplication table of two to Azriel’s infinite patience.

Elain takes the seat next to him, and he can feel her eyes on him without looking.

“Good job, I want to hear you recite three next time. Deal?”

“Deal,” the boy bobs his head, smiling widely when Azriel tucks a coin into his front pocket with a secretive wink.

“Good. Now go play. Go on. Shoo.”

“I’m gonna be rich!” the boy runs off shouting at the top of his lungs, his excitement destined to be short lived if he keeps announcing his fortune for all to hear.

“What color would you like the frosting to be?” Elain asks him, smiling.

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“Come on. It’s in your honor. Why don’t you draw me the design like you always have?”

He has to give her a smile at that; one of his fondest memories is sitting here with Elain in the first days after she opened the shop, drawing far-fetched designs from the depths of his imagination of cakes that Elain would then try her best to bring to life. So far, she’s never failed once.

So he agrees, and the feeling of colored pencils back in his palm somehow simplifies everything in the world, every thought, every problem, every grief swirling in his head. He draws colored lines across paper, and somehow he is a little boy again, keeping his aunt company while she wades through waves of financial challenges and emotional stress, his only care in the world being the design he is putting together.

It loosens his tongue, makes him think things can be simple.

“I’m going to stop my studies,” he announces quietly while coloring in the base layer with deep violet. The choice of color makes his stomach twist at the thought of the look in his father’s eyes when he’ll tell him so. What does disappointment look like, flickering in them, he wonders? Father’s never once voiced a single bad word in Nyx’s regard, or ever been remotely disappointed in him; will he now be?

“Why?” Elain asks carefully.

“I…” there is his strife, is it not? To be able to put it in words without sounding like an idiot.

“Nyx,” his uncle says quietly, voice cold and steel-like in its firmness. “Give me your tutor’s report.”

He is actually relieved to fetch the scroll from his bag, to hand it off to his uncle’s expecting hand like it will explain everything without him having to do so. Elain gets up to read it as well, over Azriel’s shoulder.

They’re quiet as they make their way through the long script. Nyx didn’t read it word-for-word, but he’d read enough. More than enough. Azriel clears his throat, Elain sniffs, parchment scratches against the table as hands further spread it, the kids in the shop are cheerful and loud, the birds outside lively even mid-day and Nyx continues to color his cake. He forces himself not to focus too much on every detail around him, but it’s harder to do so when he’s hyper-aware of his surroundings.

“Baby..” Elain breathes softly with sympathy. “You can’t possibly believe him.”

“Why should I take his word only when he’s complimenting me?” he asks, honestly.

“Because as intelligent a mind he is, baby, he has no insight into our way of living. Or our circumstances.”

“Calling you unfit for higher education because of your blood only tells me you’ve outshined him and his peers,” Azriel sharply remarks, looking at him as he lets the scroll snap back into shape.

“No I haven’t,” the young lord mutters. “They know way more things than me.”

“Contents of books stuffed in libraries,” Elain gently says, laying a hand on his head and smoothing her fingers through his hair the way she’s always done, the way she comforts all her orphans. “Information that can be found in seconds. But a way of thinking, baby, that’s what sets scholars apart. You can’t memorize or study that.”

“I want to train, with the Illyrians.”

Azriel freezes and even Elain pauses. He cannot decipher the expression which his uncle looks at him with, but it’s nothing good. Still, Nyx braves on. Holds his ground.

“Your parents went through a lot of grief keeping you out of it,” Azriel quietly points out. “Besides, you already train with—“

“Uncle Cassian teaches me shit,” Nyx sits up. “Combat skills and techniques but how am I going to be a great warrior like you—all of you—if I’m trained as a curtesy?”

“You want to go through the Illyrian regime?” Azriel asks, as if the concept is alien to him.

“Yes. I—How am I expected to lead my people if I’m just another pampered little shit ruling over them? They respect power, and strength—“

“The Illyrians respect fuck-all, Nyx,” Azriel’s voice drops. “They respect their hierarchy. Their own. You’ll never be one of their own. And that’s all-right.”

Nyx’s voice twists. “I’m not High Fae enough to the High Fae, not Illyrian enough to the Illyrians, too high-born for the fae, and not pure enough for the high-born. What am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, baby…”

“Your tutor may be a brilliant academic mind, but he’s just as prejudiced as the rest, and that tells me all his books have failed him,” Azriel firmly says, jabbing a finger towards the scroll that deemed Nyx unfit for further education, that sung praises of his performance–for a half-breed—and recommended the young lord be directed towards interest more suited for his future duties. “This is what’s been bothering you? The half-wit seeing you as less because of your lineage?”

“No—Yes—not-not entirely. I…I don’t want to stop because of him but, in some way, he’s right, isn’t he?” he whispers, brows furrowed, and he hates the way he feels his throat constrict. How his eyes prickle. His parents will surely be disappointed that their son has let some stranger get under his skin so. “I have to…to be more like Father, and you, and Uncle Cass. I have to be better. I must.”

Elain sits next to him, takes his hands into her own. “You want to be everything so soon, baby. You haven’t even matured yet.”

His eyes sting. “I have to catch up,” his voice goes hoarse. “They were legends at my age. I have to be fit to fill in Father’s shoes. I can’t fall short of expectations.”

“Nyx, you already are,” Azriel whispers, and he wraps an arm around his shoulders tightly. It makes his eyes water up. “Fuck, you think either of us was concerned with being great at your age? All we did was fly, fight and train. I never learned to read or write until I became eighteen. You think anyone in the world was outsmarting his teachers, challenging ideologies and theories at fourteen? Catch up to what?”

It only chips at the hollowness in his chest. They’ve been fooled and blinded by bias and their own love. They don’t understand that Nyx is much less than what people think him to be. Not that great of a pupil, or that smart of a boy. Just a boy, too anxious for his good, trying to find something to be kind to his grief.

Elain leans close, catching his eye. “Baby,” she softly says and it wipes away all Nyx’s efforts to be stoic and indifferent. He feels himself cracking in the chest, as his tears roll down his cheeks and his eyebrows spasm. “If only you could see what I do.”

“Listen,” Azriel quietly begins. “Prioritizing your education over physical training was for a very good reason. You can’t be a great warrior without a sound mind and you can’t be a sound ruler without a good heart. Sending you to all sorts of places to broaden your mind and open your eyes was a unanimous decision, because you have the advantages none of your predecessors have. You have your Father’s trust and unconditional support, most important of all. No-one ever has before. Sires always fear their sons surpassing them, and you’re lucky to have a father who wants to see you soar where no-one else could reach. That you’re concerned with your roles reassures me, but I never want to see you doubt yourself. Do you hear me?”

The unwelcome tears wobble at his waterline annoyingly before they quietly slide down his cheeks. He sniffs and ducks his head as he wipes his wrist on them, but the more he tries to wipe them away, the more they spill.

His aunt and uncle take him into their arms. Azriel’s shoulder hard and sturdy to lean on, Elain’s body soft and finding every crevice and fold in him that needed to be reached. She hugs his head, pressing multiple kisses to whatever part she can reach, combing her fingers through his hair.

“I think you believe in me more than I do,” Nyx confesses very, very quietly, and sobbing.

“You’ll catch up,” Azriel reassures him, wrapping his other arm around Elain and holding them both to him. “You’ll see. We’re never wrong, Nyx.”

Right—the all-knowing seer and shadowsinger.

He relaxes against them. Perhaps they were right.

___

Tags: @tswaney17 @julesherondalex @mis-lil-red @gorl-power @thesirenwashere @stars-falling @trying-to-read @dreamerforever-5 @hail-doodles @eloeloeheheh @i-am-lost-in-my-world @abraxos-is-toothless @queen-of-glass @elrielllll @negativenesta @b00kworm @harmonyindark245 @ducksmurf135 @empress-ofbloodshed @sleeping-and-books @thewayshedreamed @agem10 @superspiritfestival @maybekindasortaace @maastrash @courtofjurdan @ireallyshouldsleeprn @gracie-rosee @bookstaninthesoul @elriel4life @fawnandshadows @123moiaussi @impossiblescissorspeachpaper

#nyx fanfic #nyx #acotar fic #elriel #elriel fic #but fany why are you using up your ammo of words before elriel month?#shut up i have no grasp of rationing whatsoever

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