#of course Elain aids and abets!

[flowerflamestars]

the rolling in the graves snippet

Nesta’s voice emerged from the closet, breathless with anger in a way that piqued Lucien’s every interest, entire focusing concern. “It has to be the silk taffeta?” Word spit like a curse, coming around the corner half in a bodice she was quite actively falling out of, Nesta froze at the sight of Lucien in the middle of white rug she hated. Stopped, one arm crossed over her chest, and like it didn’t break him clean in half, smiled. That quick quirk, her real smile, sharp and small. “Lucien.” In daylight, in domesticity, her sister rattling around downstairs, Nesta saying his name. Lucien slid forward, mindful of the intimacy it truly was, brushing his palm down her bare arm. “Nesta.” She made a face, a quick-change of amusement, scowling gorgeous at the pause before she pulled him close. An exhale, the slow sloping sun of late afternoon picking up a brighter, bloodier metric across her walls, pink and gold across Nesta’s bare skin. Even Lucien’s magic wanted. “Nesta,” Lucien said again, heedless of half filling his mouth with her hair, “What’s wrong?” Shoulders low and teeth sharp against his collarbone, Nesta nuzzled as close as skin and bone would allow, before she sighed. “Fucking temple before dinner. Feyre wants us to match.” “Like children,” Elain said, sunnily, from the doorway, unbothered by their closeness or the hiss Nesta let out, pure temper in the sound. “Mother had better taste.” “Mother was a tyrant,” Nesta heaved out, tipped back in Lucien’s arms but not away, hand bunched in his shirt more than a small wonder. She turned in place, wordlessly offering him her half-bared back, pink-blotched neck curved down. “Vanserra’s good with knots.” His first, desperate urge, was to kiss her nape. To follow Nesta down, heady on the sheer acknowledgement of one true thing. His second was to start lighting things on fire. Lucien could see where she’d tried to get it herself. Where the boning, structuring sheer panels around her waist, had dug in so deep as to leave marks. “Gifts,” Nesta sighed, poisonous. “From the High Lord.”

[starwood-stranded-archived]

Having joined Barholme in his attempt to have Elain executed for the sin of shape-shifting, Zarya attempts to recruit Wanderer to the cause, appealing to his love of tricking others.

“Do you still claim to be clever, Ruffles?”

Wanderer’s initial instinct was to snarl at Zarya, but he held that reaction back, not wanting to give the mirror anything to work with until he knew what she wanted, what she was trying to get by insulting him. And Zarya had to have a reason for bothering him, because she wasn’t stupid, she didn’t have any current feud with him – at least not yet – and she derived plenty of amusement from her own gruesome and solitary pursuits without riling up others.

So instead of bristling Wanderer smiled and said, “Sometimes. Do you?”

“Quite,” Zarya said, grinning. “I’m here to offer you a chance to prove that claim – and maybe have a little fun while you’re at it.”

Wanderer gave Zarya a skeptical look. “Forgive me if proving myself to you is not my first priority, and if I do not share your sense of fun.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to get your claws dirty.” Zarya’s head tilted. “At least, not literally … I hope you’re not developing a conscience. I’ve a game going that might prove a challenge even for your skillful maneuvering.”

Wanderer rearranged himself more comfortably on his cushions: Zarya had sought him out in his own quarters, a luxuriously-appointed and extensively fleecy space on the second floor of a tree by the river. He shared the structure with Bartos – an arrangement he liked – and Zura, whom he cared for less. “I’m listening.”

“You’re aware of Barholme and Elain’s little snit, yes?”

Wanderer chuckled: “snit” was not how he would have chosen to describe that potentially deadly disagreement. “I could hardly avoid knowing about it, with how that chicken hollers.”

“Well, here’s your chance to restore peace and quiet to your home.” Zarya smiled, showing a rather excessive number of teeth. “You may not have noticed, but Aridatha is not exactly inclined to grant Barholme’s request and rid us of Elain. And the rest of the clan is hardly rushing to throw the first stone, either. It would be rather difficult to convince them of the necessity of Elain’s death, wouldn’t it?”

Wanderer sat very still for a moment, processing this. With uncharacteristic gravity and bluntness, he said, “You want me to help you kill Elain? Why? Why should I, and why do you care?”

“It would be quite a way to prove your cunn – ”

“Don’t,” Wanderer cut in. He tilted his head and smirked at Zarya. “Don’t bother stroking or poking my ego – I’m hardly going to fall for the same tricks I use, especially when I do them better.”

Zarya shrugged. “Fair enough. Then I suppose I must admit that there’s not really anything in it for you except entertainment, and simply throw myself upon your mercy.”

Refreshing honesty – though it was, of course, only another form of manipulation. Wanderer propped his head up in his claws. “You still haven’t told me what you get out of this.”

He wasn’t about to get involved with Zarya until he knew what her game was.

“I seek only the advancement of science,” Zarya said, a meaningless platitude. Wanderer waited, and Zarya’s smile broadened. “I want to understand the physiology of a shape-shifter. And you know how I come to understand physiology, don’t you?”

“Ah.” The idea of what exactly Zarya meant, the precise fate she intended for Elain, danced around the edge of Wanderer’s awareness, but he refused to let himself seize on it. He would rather not know, or at least rather not think about it. And that was what she wanted him to aid and abet? Did she think he had no conscience at all?

Well … she wouldn’t exactly be wrong. And it would be a challenge, to turn the clan against Elain – it went to heavily against their inclinations, in almost all cases. To have this bunch of peaceful layabouts baying for the skydancer’s blood would certainly prove Wanderer a master manipulator, an utter master of his craft. See Moros try to do that. Plus, he could do without the noise, and he was bored.

“I thought you could start with La – ” Zarya began.

“Don’t,” Wanderer snapped. “Do I come to your lab and tell you how to split ribs?”

Normally, he’d make a more temperate, diplomatic response – but Zarya didn’t seem bothered. She smiled. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”

“I’ll think about it.” Wandered resettled himself on his cushion, narrowing his eyes as if he prepared to return to his nap. “I might sniff around, see how the wind’s blowing.”

“And if it blows away from us – from myself and Barholme – you’ll go running to Aridatha to tell her about my evil attempt to seduce you from the path of virtue?” Zarya’s smirk suggested that she didn’t exactly feel threatened.

Wanderer pretended to consider the question. “I think Acrux would enjoy that information more, don’t you?”

Finally, Zarya’s mouth turned down – though only briefly. “You’re right, at that. You know he can’t do anything with it, though. I’m allowed to express my opinions, including the opinion that much could be learned from Elain’s corpse … or pre-corpse.”

Wanderer wrinkled his nose: he hadn’t needed or wanted that last detail about Zarya’s plans for the shape-shifter. “I’ll have some little chats about it. Now, if you don’t mind, you stink of formaldehyde, and it’s making me sick.”

With another sharp-toothed grin – and not a word of leave-taking – Zarya departed, and Wanderer curled up in the sun to lounge and think.