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thefangirlofhp · 1 year

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leaning on everlasting arms [1]

in which the world seems to have a problem with Elain Archeron insisting on remaining by Azriel’s side.

(world slows ‘till there’s nothing left)

Winnowing directly in front of the front door was not what Elain had in mind; usually she prefers to arrive at the edge of their property, just a little before the protective enchantments where the trek to the estate would allow her those few minutes of a quiet reprieve as she walks towards her home, effectively shedding the weary layers accumulated over her skin. There’s something about the routine of normalcy that is more effective than remedies, healing powers and prophylactic nature. Each step is a greeting to the earth that surrounds her home, each moment spent is one for reflection and appreciation that reels her back into her head, helps in that transition from work to home.

But she has to smile faintly to herself at the doorknob, as she grabs it and pushes it in with enough arm power whilst conceding to herself how thoroughly rattled she must be, if she cannot wait to be buried beneath the very air inside.

The door creaks shut behind her, and Elain faces the grand empty entryway with a sigh that seems to originate from her very soul. Her back thuds against the door for a second before she pushes herself off it, letting her satchel slide of her shoulder and land with a quitting thud.

I’m home, she half-heartedly announces, regarding the empty doorway with a disappointed pinch in her chest.

Granted, it’s not her usual time of arrival, but the hour’s not so late so as to excuse this bare home welcome. With a frown tugging her lips, she toes out of her heeled shoes and crosses the threshold on relieved feet sinking into the plush carpet. But she barely makes it two steps up the stairs before a familiar sight comes rushing along the railing to greet her. It tugs a smile from her lips as the shadows cord their delighted way around her extended arm and up towards her face and neck.

Hello, I missed you as well!

They’re ticklish and teasing in their soft brushes along her neck, enough to tug a grin out from her. She wonders sometimes what they sound like.

Where is he?

Loyal subjects so easily betray their master as they unanimously point towards the rest of the winding stairs immediately. Chuckling, Elain hurries along the steps eagerly, her skirt swishing about her legs before she hitches it up and eagerly looks ahead of her—

Only to be greeted at the landing with a bear hug that squeezes the life, exhaustion and dust of travel right out of her. It startles a laugh out of her, if only because she’s surprised by how much she only now realises that she needs it, but she is not so insensible as to resist melting in those arms. That warmth.

“I was waiting outside!” Azriel is laughing, a sound that is welcome and cherished, one of his arms wound tight around her waist, the other across her shoulder blades and both equally tight in their embrace. Elain presses her face against him. “Did you winnow directly in?”

She melts into his shoulder, her hands rising to cup his own shoulder blades and the base of the wings that wrap all around her, covering her like a shade, or blanket. Ever reaching. A single nod, where her eyes flutter shut and a shaking exhale escapes her lips. She’s missed this more than she cares to admit, following this particularly interesting week.

No matter. It all melts away when her husband holds her against him, always a pillar of strength she can always, always, afford to lean on. Elain breathes in his scent, and the minute her mind acclimates itself to it, it’s like she has lost sense of her own sense. She doesn’t find the strength in her knees to keep her standing, so she melts against his chest. His arms further tighten around her, shift a little to hold her up against him more reliably and if Elain can have nothing else but this, then she will be quite content for the rest of her life.

“How are you?” His voice very nearly coos in its adoration. He presses his cheek to her head and breathes her scent in. She in turn notices the whiffs about him; he has changed his clothes, even used that cologne she gifted him last solstice that smells like him, and washed up. The house is spotless from what she can see and smell, so the staff must have been in here earlier today.

She’d snuggle closer into him if possible. It isn’t. The locket dutifully worn around his neck makes its presence known as it presses into Elain’s chest. She isn’t quite sure anymore where she begins and he ends. She’s long since discarded any care for that. His body’s become her own home after all this time, and her his.

“I drew you a bath,” he murmurs, moving one hand to drag it gently over her head and along her hair. “And dinner’s still hot. Rhodri’s sleeping over with Nyx.”

She is not in a hurry to escape his hold. And Rhys agreed to that?

Azriel smiles widely at the sound of her once more. It is sickeningly vocal in his voice. “Didn’t have much of a choice. All three babies were ecstatic. He couldn’t be their villain.”

Three?

“Feyre’s never had a sleepover before,” he quips and Elain softly chuckles.

I missed you.

Azriel positively sinks into her at this admission, some pride and satisfaction nearly oozing out of him at being so cherished in one’s life this dearly. All he does is bow into her, sways them side to side gently and hums, delighted.

“Will you tell me all about it?”

Elain finally finds it in herself to draw back, and meet his hazel, gorgeous green-golden eyes. Nothing’s changed since she last saw him, but the more she looks and examines his face, the more some aching sorrow in her grows at having been so long apart.

Later, she decides, making note of his eyes and the fact he’s utterly focused on her. I don’t feel like talking.

A gentle smile touches his lips, and he cups the side of her face. “That’s all-right,” he touches their foreheads and just smiles. It’s a handsome accessory to his face, so frequent nowadays that she’s forgotten what he looks like without it, that there are smile wrinkles around his eyes now. The loveliest of marks, Elain fondly touches a finger to one and smiles, herself.

Azriel doesn’t press her to share her mind, as he doesn’t press her for anything at all. He is quite content sitting with her in silence, to exist around her without much words exchanged while Elain begins to acknowledge her built-up exhaustion. A few shadows linger around, if only to play and excitedly swirl around the kitchen while they eat.

How was your week?

Azriel looks up from his steak, and meets her eyes. Gives a little shrug of the shoulders. “A little busy.”

She chews around her meat. What did you do?

Azriel’s fingers push through his hair, attracting Elain’s attention to its length and due haircut before he rests his chin in his palm. “Rhodri, ah, didn’t have a good time at school. I’ve let him take the week off. Mother and Father couldn’t look after him, so…”

She stills. Did something happen?

Azriel shakes his head. “Not really. He was just frustrated, something stupid about a game with his classmates. His teacher said it was a misunderstanding but it got to him. One look at him and I realized he needed time to calm down. Figured school could wait, that it’s not worth fraying his nerves over.”

Elain nods, her mind drifting towards her side-project that’s consumed the majority of her time during her studies at Day. She focuses on him again. What did Rhys want?

Azriel’s eyes remain on his plate, and his smile softening in intensity and presence, until it is nothing more than a forgotten attempt at masking. “Ah.”

Has he asked you to resume your role again?

His lips turn, faintly. “Am I that obvious?”

I’d be concerned if you weren’t to me, Elain smiles. I’m the one supposed to intimately know you.

Azriel smiles back. “Can we forget about that, for now?”

Elain smiles, if a little stiffly, and nods. She too can drop a subject for later.

(no other arms would do)

The issue was that she has started to dream again.

It’s been so long since her mind has been breached by her own exhaustion and magic, and she cannot help but resent its comeback a little. If only because she is always loath to wake Azriel up with her, and she always ends up doing it when they happen, regardless of her intentions.

“You’re all-right,” he delivers their usual nightly script in his hoarse voice as he pulls himself up and towards her, struggling to find purchase in the lush mattress and pillows with his wings and the twisted sheets she’s gone and entangled around themselves. He is reaching for her just as she is leaning towards him, mindlessly going through their usual routine as Elain’s vision begins to clears up from its cloudy haze and she is reacquainted with her own head once more. “It’s ok. I’ve got you. It’s been a minute since you’ve had them, huh?”

She’d apologize if she had the strength, or if she is confident he’d handle further disturbing his sleeping-now-crudely awakened shadows. From past experiences, they are a menace when disturbed, but when it is the dead of night and it is only them, her and Azriel, bare as they get without magic and shadows and songs, it feels easy to breathe. To find her feet once more.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs, half-asleep, as they rescind to the twisted sheets situation with awkwardly bent and lying bodies. Still the fact Elain’s got her head on him is the only thing she requires. She exhales, hot and sharp, and catches her breath. She blinks repeatedly, trying to find her sight once more.

It is always an unnerving deal to lose her sight when she is awake, but she’s made her peace with it, so long she’s got her head on Azriel.

“Take your time,” he reminds, smoothing his fingers over her elbow. “Water?”

She shakes her head. Tightens her clutch on whatever part of him she’s holding.

“The fae, again?” Azriel somberly asks.

She nods.

“It’s going to be okay.”

She believes him.

(my hands couldn’t keep you safe)

In the morning when she wakes up, to sunlight streaming through her bedroom windows and a breeze dancing with her curtains, and her son curled up in her arms, Elain is absent mindedly immediately smiling.

He’s much like Azriel in the sense that the pair of them curl up like a cat before a fireplace when they are asleep next to someone they love. Elain’s hobby is to keep adding to her list all the eccentric places she finds Azriel asleep in, and recently Rhodri has been trying to get away with doing something similar, in his attempts to sleep anywhere but in his own bed.

She tickles her fingers along his cheek, because she knows he is trying to make it seem like he’s asleep but the boy is a terrible liar. His breathing is too regular and purposeful, and his lashes keep tickling her skin.

I know you’re awake, she brushes her thumb along his jaw and feels him smile.

He looks up, bedsheets rustling and his hair standing up in all sorts of directions, with a wide sheepish grin on his face. Elain finds herself smiling as she blinks the morning bleariness out of her eyes, and presses a good morning kiss to his forehead.

“Go’oh moarhhing,” he says, proud and off-tune, and charming enough to make Elain beam.

Good morning, she mouths back. She has many, many miles to go still in her learning of his Illyrian dialect, but so far the pair of them have crossed some bridges in order to meet one-another half-way. Simple greetings and nouns that get them by around one another, and they have Azriel to step in for the more complicated matters. It leaves a nice touch to their relationship, because Elain doesn’t have to be the strict lecturing parent if she cannot go on a tangent in the first place, and Azriel frets over the boy enough for the pair of them so she’s seen as the more easy-going, fun one.

Did you have fun with Nyx? She asks, in Illyrian and Rhodri eagerly nods.

She looks around her, noting Azriel’s absence, and his night-clothes tossed on her vanity chair as he always does.

Is Azriel…Did he bring you?

Again, Rhodri nods, sitting up and yawning widely. He’s grown so fast and so much, Elain’s heart spasms at the fact sadly and she finds herself surging after him to wrap her arms around him tightly before he can grow up too big to fit in her hold anymore.

Dressed and washed for the day, she comes downstairs for breakfast feeling a little better than she had last night. Glad that she hadn’t breached whatever was on her mind last night when she is sure the outcome would have been unfavorable, she twists her wedding band around her finger while approaching the table and the food laid out on it. Rhodri points towards the fields outside when she meets his eyes questioningly, and it is clear then where Azriel has wandered off to while she took her time coming down.

She opens the backdoor, and steps out into the fresh air.

He’s crouched in the grass, his arms wrapped around his shoulders as he stares at the steadily standing sapling with its small green leaves swishing in the breeze. Elain gathers her skirts to go after him when he perks up and looks over.

“Morning,” he bids, voice softer than it is prone to be without the feelings layering it. He stands up, stretching his wings and folding them back in once more. “How’re you feeling now?”

She nods, gives him a smile for his troubles, and glances at the little sapling planted in honor of the life that failed to take place in her womb. Elain had figured back then if it couldn’t find purchase enough in her, then at least giving it a place to dig roots in with a tree was better than nothing. Azriel only comes here when there’s a song playing in his head, a tune that Elain doesn’t like him listening to alone.

So she holds out her hand and threads their fingers together when he accepts it.

Are you all-right?

He nods. Glances at the tree growing up in the way nothing they could ever conceive would. “Yeah. Just—Just a little sore, today, you know?”

Damn her if she doesn’t feel tender in her own soul as well, the way that warrants gentle hands and kind words.

Does it have to do with what Rhys asked of you?

Azriel meets her eyes, his mouth twitching. “Yeah, I suppose,” he replies lowly, the sores too chafed and sensitive to stand lying. “Why are you bruised?”

She chuckles. The Order; they want me to take my rightful place amongst them.

His eyes squint a little as they flicker between hers. “Your precious Order likes to peacock around this continent like they’re a sophisticated elite of superior purebreds elevated above the superfluous and lousy workings of everyone else, but in the end they’re exactly like every other system on this earth.”

Elain smiles wryly as she follows him back inside, hands still clasped.

“It’s primitive, do they realize that?” he makes her take a seat while grabbing a slice of toast. “Basing the system of their hierarchy on pure strength alone.”

It’s lovely to hear you berate the way the witches operate just because they want me to lead them. Every day you flatter me more.

Azriel grins, filling up her plate with her favorite foods. “Don’t pretend you don’t hate it,” he knowingly says. “If you didn’t, you’d be skipping your way all to the top.”

I hate that I must shoulder a responsibility I have yet to understand the scope of its burden, she shoots, biting into a bright red strawberry that immediately softens all her tense muscles and locked up jaw. She indulges in the rich savory taste coating her tongue in all its fresh sweetness. Mhm, these have come in nicely.

“I remembered to water them every day,” he says proudly, pushing Rhodri’s plate towards him. In Illyrian, Elain manages to figure out him telling the boy to eat his fruits before turning back to her. “They still hounding you about it?”

All week, she scoffed. Oh and there’s a new song they’re preaching, as well. About my marital status, they want me to remedy that in order to achieve my full potential.

It does exactly what she anticipated it doing. Azriel’s smile slides off, and his tone sobers as he abandons his interest in breakfast.

“I see,” he slowly remarks, reaching for his coffee. “But you are married.”

Not according to magic.

Azriel slowly tenses, working food from between his teeth as he regards her, and she wonders if his intelligence is a curse or a gift. It surely saves her from having to find all the words.

“You’ve been told to remedy your partner,” he points out tightly.

Elain nods. She’s heard nothing all week-long but objections and whines and pleas from her fellow witches, from her own teachers. “You could have picked anyone but the shadowsinger,” is the general bemoaning. “Anyone but him.”

He is quiet for long.

“I suppose the witches have someone suitable in mind?” he adds quietly, his eyes lidded and coded. “Your mate, by chance?”

Your intelligence is one of the things I love so much about you. Elain blinks back at him.

Why this week, one might wonder?

The simple headache: Lucien has finally plucked up the courage and strength to give Day its lost-heir, and meet Helion with his mother in tow. It has been the event of the entire week, the court celebrating day and night by order of one rejoicing Helion unable to adequately function beneath the weight of all that happiness and reconciliation. Elain was pleased to once again make the acquaintance of Lucien who has become a sort of friendly face in a sea of strangers that Elain would be glad to talk to in a mixer. Yet during those parties, Elain had felt the weight of the entire court’s eyes on her, and him, simply edging them on. Waiting with sheer baited breath for the dramatic conclusion to a climax that has enthralled so many souls.

“She’s married,” Elain overheard a conversation, one that was repeated time and time again in different tones and words. “I hear she’s raising a child, as well.”

“To the Night Court spymaster,” was the sneering reply, the abashed and disgusted opinion. “A shadowsinger. She shall definitely drop that farce of a relationship soon and find her rightful place.”

Elain has come to loath the term: rightful place.

Azriel? Say something?

He leans back in his seat, regarding her with hooded eyes and an impassive face. His lips part as he breathes in and says: “You pledged yourself to me for all eternity. You’re mine, and I can’t pretend like it doesn’t enrage me when others say otherwise. By what right do they see me as the lesser option?”

People don’t see us that way, she replies, twirling her fork between her knuckles.

“Fuck people,” he states, as he had that night once upon several years ago when he tipped the axis of her world and asked her to choose him. “Fuck the world. You’re mine; it’s a done deal. No-one’s giving you to anyone else, ‘cause I won’t let them, yeah? I’ll do whatever it takes to drive that message home.”

I’m not going anywhere, she gently reassures him.

“Then why are you thinking about it?”

It silences her. Not that there is some truth to the sentence, that Elain is seriously contemplating somehow exchanging her current life for another, but by merit of the shine in his eyes he quickly blinks away from Rhodri’s watchful gaze and the cracked syllables of his tone privy to her ears only.

I-I’m not, she answers, steeling herself against the hurt in his voice that is not allowed to reflect on his poker face. I only told you about it to share my mind, and what happened.

Azriel looks down into his cup of coffee. Does he somehow think that Elain would ever give this up for anything in the universe?

Here is a small truth about her: although she is nestled in the friendships of people who will sacrifice their livelihoods and lives for the greater good, for the common dream, are willing to give up and suffer so that others do not, Elain is not that person. To sacrifice means to give up something precious, and if Elain is willing to part with it no matter how much it hurts, then it is not precious to her. Sacrifice meant things like giving up Azriel, these mornings having breakfast together in the kitchen with the sun shining and exchanging conversation and teasings, giving up this life that Elain has never thought she could ever have.

Elain could never give those up.

“It does not feel good,” he confesses softly. “Being reminded of all the reasons we cannot exist together. Sometimes I think about everything you’re sacrificing and giving up, and it gets hard to breathe under all that weight.”

Again, with the sacrifice.

I don’t regret my decisions. They’re not yours to be responsible for.

His lips twitch. “I know that. But when I’m reminded of everything you ought to be, the people you’re meant to be with, I feel a crushing responsibility to live up to it. I feel that I must make it worth it, for you. Everything you’ve given up.”

Azriel glances out the large windows at the gardens outside, where he’d been a moment ago, and Elain’s heart sinks in her chest. She doesn’t pretend that this is a wound that has not existed since she accepted Azriel’s proposal, and it is still raw a little to bear.

Although she had agreed to Azriel’s one condition on getting married, the pregnancy was still an accident that neither of them meant to happen. Though Elain had been overjoyed at the start, it was Azriel who grieved from the very moment because he had the foresight Elain was too blinded by joy to use.

It wasn’t even a babe; when Elain miscarried, it was only a slough of tissues and blood—a lot of blood—and in the midst of it, a peculiarly shaped blob that would have become a body. Madja had taken one look at it, at the horrific way it was malformed and the word monster was left unspoken but hanging in the air. Elain had still loved it, and grieved for it and buried it outside in the gardens while her heart learned to carry the weight of this particular wound.

Azriel, naturally, took no joy in being right. They could never reproduce, by merit of their adverse powers that are usually passed on to the child. It seemed the shadowsinger curse and the witch’s magic were not able to adequately co-exist in the child, had ended up killing it.

There was simply no place in Prythian, or the world, that could adequately host this assault on nature.

That’s not fair to you, she pipes up. I don’t hold you responsible, and I’m sorry if you do. But what is love if not something we constantly use to better ourselves? I’m not sorry you’re constantly trying to be a better person, but I am sorry it plagues you.

“Yeah,” he breathes, looking down at his plate. “I know.”

Would…What would you say to coming with me to Day and attending a formal function to quash any thoughts?

He looks up. “Aren’t you meant to do that?”

She pauses as the implication of her words sinks in.

Oh, no I apologize. I don’t want you to assume I accept people’s opinion, or that I entertain them. I am very vocal about my marriage. I only meant it would help cement the permanence of our relationship in my colleagues’ regards.

“You’ve never been vocal about anything in your life,” he quirks a brow and she makes a face back for his joke. “Elain, be honest with me about something.”

Her heart slows down.

He leans forward on his elbows. “When we got together, we spent weeks working out all the implications of it and being aware of the aftermath. So far, it is nothing we have not expected.”

She bops her head, breakfast forgotten.

His eyes flicker between hers curiously and her heart perks up at the spark in his gaze. She should have known better than to fly under the radar of his intelligence.

“There’s something new at play we hadn’t anticipated. Isn’t there?”

It feels like the entire morning comes to halt, and though his words are gentle they have the effect of buzzing in her ears as if he’d bellowed them. Elain’s fingers tighten over her fork and knife and his eyes flicker briefly to the action before returning to her eyes.

It’s just a thing. She says pathetically. The witches have been telling me. H-Helion warned me about it a while ago. It’s why everyone’s fretting over everything that is their business and not.

Azriel pauses, eyes sharp and alert.

Golden witches aren’t in the habit of living long, she says to the plate of barely-touched food. It’s an opinion. Well, a paranoia really, because witches like me are extremely rare in the order by merit of… the lack of longevity. And they’re not willing to let it happen, in my case.

Azriel, to his credit, doesn’t say anything.

Rhodri decides that moment to pipe up. Tapping his spoon against his plate and pointing to the plate of lemon tarts. Elain averts her eyes from her husband to quickly help him to a serving and other pastries. Rhodri gives her a charming beam before tucking in without a care in the world.

When she looks back at Azriel, he is paler than he was a few seconds before. His heart is violently thundering in his chest and shadows are a thick swarm around him before he waves them away sharply.

“Why.”

No-one knows why, Elain tells the fruit bowl with a shrug. There are opinions that the magical load is too much of a burden. That we take more than we are meant to, and it exhausts our life. It’s—it’s why I’m pushed to entertain Lucien as a mate, there’s an opinion that sharing the load would be…beneficial.

“An opinion?” Azriel rushes out, breathless.

I’m not particularly convinced because other witches before me were documented to have mates and it didn’t change anything. Hypatia was un-mated, and as you know, a legend. But she died by treason, not her magic. So it’s a flimsy reasoning, and I didn’t want to tell you because of that.

“How long have you known?”

She meets his eyes, finally. I’ve been warned from the start to put a leash on it, or it’d turn against me. It’s why Helion was pressed to offer me an education and a chance to control it. But the mates thing—it was only seriously proposed this week.

See, times like this, it’s one of the reasons she has tumbled and fallen and rolled down a mountain slope in love with him. Azriel does not panic, doesn’t lose his head as she feared and has seen her sisters’ mate do. All he does is stare, and stare, and stare long and hard at her quietly for so long. Elain could imagine his mind a collection of cogs and metals furiously turning and working themselves into a dysfunction.

“And there’s no way to stop it?”

It… she searches for the words. It’s not much of an inevitable demise, Azriel. Just a pattern noticed amongst witches like me.

“Of dying, by some tragedy or their own magic turning against them,” he clarifies. “Right?”

Well, when put that way.

I suppose. But—But it could be millennia from now.

“Or a couple of years.”

She purses her lips. Nods.

He blows out a long breath between his lips and reclines back in his chair. “What is the problem, exactly?”

I keep telling you, it’s—

“Elain, just entertain me.”

Well I don’t know, do I? If I did for sure, we’d have the answers by now.

“But there’s a general hypothesis, isn’t there?” he folds his hands behind his head. “Otherwise the witches wouldn’t be pushing you to Lucien as a solution.”

I think the idea is that the magic grows in you the more you practice. And inevitably you cannot handle it anymore and it turns on you. The idea of a mate is to split that burden, but it’s useless in my opinion because by that reasoning it will also overpower the mate.

His eyes flicker. “That’s not a mate bond. You’re looking for carranam.”

The word feels heavy on her ears. She’d never heard of it before.

I don’t understand.

“The premise of sharing powers,” Azriel clarifies as he leans forward, his wings shifting behind him as he sweeps aside breadcrumbs off the table. “Mates don’t do that.”

…Oh?

“Yeah,” he nods, examining her face closely. “I thought the witches would know the difference.”

Well…either way it’s not a solution.

“Sounds to me you need a siphon.”

She blinks. If the answer were so easy, surely the witches would have long guessed it by now. If it is such a problem of existence for an entire subspecies of witches, surely the answer cannot be so simple.

It’s not a matter of summoning the magic, she slowly says, confused. But an abundance. I think.

He nods.

Can you somehow store magic in it?

“I don’t know about storage, but it’s the nature of siphons to drain. You can siphon your magic through it consistently, without having to use it.”

Elain blinks. That easy?

Would it be able to stand a witch’s magic?

He chuckles. “Sweetheart, it channels Illyrian power. Power meant purely for destruction and havoc. They don’t fracture. The average blood-shedding agent of terror we call a warrior needs only one and it adequately serves him. I think you’ll do just fine.”

Somehow Elain gets caught up once more in the realization.

And you use—no, need seven constantly.

Azriel quietly stares back at her. Arms folded on the table as he leans forward, in a simple sleeveless black shirt hugging his torso, the locket hanging from his neck, black fitting pants and arm-guards bearing two cobalt siphons and he looks so normal, sat in the sunlight with breakfast before him and a child next to him and smelling like Elain’s lavender bar of soap that he must have used again this morning, freshly cleaned hair swept back to the sides. Sometimes, most of the times, Elain forgets. That with her lives one of the world’s most renown terrors, one of the most powerful people in history.

And Elain has him watering strawberry bushes. Brewing chamomile tea on rainy days. Folding laundry.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you constantly forgetting that,” he points out. “I’ve never been anything else to anyone, and that you’ve never seen me that way…”

Elain blinks, and remembers herself and what they were discussing.

So would a siphon do the trick?

He raises his hands. “I wouldn’t know. You and your witches should be able to say so.”

If it’s so simple, why hasn’t it been used before?

Azriel stares. “You want the Illyrians to export their siphons to the world? They’d rather export their own decapitated heads than expose their secrets. Here, try using one of mine.”

She hesitates in accepting the siphon delivered into his palm from a dutiful shadow.

What if I break it?

He smiles softly. “That’ll be a first. They’re not breakable.”

Elain cocks her head. What happens if you channel all your power using only one?

Azriel wryly grins. “All-right, they’d break. For now, try using it and see if it helps.”

To accept the cobalt blue gemstone somehow feels to Elain like they’ve exchanged wedding bands on their fingers once more, or something equally significant. Elain cradles the stone in her palms as if it is the most precious thing she can hold, despite being told she cannot break it, but still she is gentle. It’s more of a personal statement, that a possession of Azriel’s must be treated with respect on principle.

Would I be able to have my own?

“I don’t know,” Azriel says softly. “They’re handed out to warriors. Illyrians, most importantly.”

I’m married to one, am raising one, and daughter-by-law to two, no, three. And one half-Illyrian. Am I not Illyrian enough?

His lips tug into a smile she loves to see. “When you put it that way, it sounds so simple.”

Could I try?

“You needn’t ask me for permission, I wouldn’t mind giving you all seven of mine. But I’ll take you to see one, if you’re serious and it helps.”

It’s something about the way he says the words, how his lips twist around them, that makes Elain snag onto something tucked between the consonants.

She smiles. Thank you.

He hums, folding his hands behind his neck while watching her. He glances at Rhodri and his face twitches before he taps the table and sharply points to the boy’s leftover eggs with a warning glare. Elain has to hide a smile. Sometimes the language of parenting needed no words to be heard, nor was it restricted by languages and meanings. It was touchingly universal.

“I’ll take you up on the invitation to Day, though,” he muses and snags her attention back once more. “There’s a few things I want to find out.”

Elain leans forward. Will you attend some functions with me, please?

His brows twitch as he fails to hide an amusement off his face. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Elain knows exactly what he means. Her eyebrows further curve. Oh please, please, Azriel? It would mean a lot to me. It’s so easier to shut up gossipers and opinionated people by simply shoving it in their faces rather than go blue in the face explaining.

“I wouldn’t know what to do.”

Oh it’s simple. You just exist there, dance a few with me if they’re warranted, do your brooding and scary male act and quite simply get the message across that no-one is to mess with you or us.

His face softens and his eyes roll away. Elain feels that she has snagged whatever that something was, hidden deep inside him ever since she got home last night.

“I don’t want to do that.”

The words are spoken so simply, softly as well yet they knock the breath from Elain’s chest.

Before her mind can spiral, she forces herself to understand.

Why?

He is looking out the kitchen windows, his expression open and vulnerable and Elain doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to seeing him expose himself to her this way. Safe enough to do so.

“I…” he begins slowly, working through his thoughts and determining his words at his own pace. “Rhys asked me to take up my previous post.”

So. Bullseye.

And?

“I don’t want to do that, either,” Azriel murmurs. “I think I’ve hung up my armor for good. I don’t want nor need all seven siphons. I don’t want to be a nightmare anymore.”

He glances at her, stunned as she is, before adding: “Nor do I want to scare people into respecting me.”

Elain doesn’t have the words.

He clears his throat. “I’ve gotten used to being the way you see me. It’s a nice thing to be—I don’t hate myself for it. I don’t want to hate myself again. It’s a bitter taste.”

In a sense, Elain falls even more.

(my compass, my transport)

Elain’s apartment is quaint and tidy. No-where near the estate they live in, yet it fulfills her purposes adequately. Azriel is somehow too large for it, but fits right in as he always has.

She wakes up early as she always does, feeling beads of sweat rolling down her forehead and sticking her hair to her head. Still, she finds herself asleep on his shoulder, even though he is too warm a body for her coping skills, and just as sticky.

Conjuring a cooling spell does just the trick, and the little smile curling his lips in answer startles her.

“Well called,” he mutters, mostly asleep, and curling into her as if she isn’t gasping for air. Truly, the whole engulf-your-loved-one-in-your-sleep phenomenon is impractical and claustrophobic but damn Elain if it doesn’t make her feel safer, in the otherworldly sense, and a little smug.

To her surprise, Azriel spends his time actually browsing the libraries in Day instead of the attractions. Somehow she is a little disappointed that he shadows her in the library for educational purposes, and not some as fun distraction. Elain works on her project while he flips through ancient texts and tomes, and consults scholars.

In the evenings, Elain takes him to the functions she’s obliged to attend. Dinner parties and mixers and actual parties thrown in Lucien’s honor still. Whenever he is placed in the vicinity of a witch, it is like squaring down a cat and dog, but it’s to Elain’s surprise that Azriel charms every soul he meets and their mother.

It’s not that she doesn’t know he is a painfully polite person—it’s one of the things about him Elain loves the most. How civil he is, and levelheaded in situations. But some part of her realizes that she’s never really seen him around strangers, in the sense of people not from Velaris which by now all feel like an extension of family. He is formal and polite, respectful and charming, and Elain realizes it’s one of his sharply honed skills for espionage. After-all, one did get more flies with honey than vinegar.

And soon, he is naught but the talk of anyone who knows Elain and is in on the gossip. Even the witches end up somewhat tolerating him, if not liking him.

But still, it does not stop them pushing the Marry-Your-Chosen-Mate agenda.

After escaping one strenuous discussion of the matter, Elain seeks refuge by the refreshments table of the party, gasping for air as she downs one glass after the other.

“Hey, who’s gotten you sweating like a traitor at court?”

She whirls around, finds herself face to face with an amused-looking Lucien.

Madeline. She’s very close to driving me off a cliff.

“Hmm,” he nods, brows jumping. “To be honest, she’s been hounding me as well.”

Oh no.

“I know,” he crosses his arms over his chest. “I figured if people saw us talking, it’d shut them up for a while. It’s hard to have a whole court meddle in your affairs, I think I am becoming nostalgic for the times I was mostly ignored and neglected my entire life.”

Elain gives him a fleeting grin. How are you finding it?

Lucien shrugs, but there is a smile on his face. “I like it, really. And seeing Mother happy makes it tenfold easier.”

She really did seem to blossom here.

Lucien glances at her. “Surprisingly enough, so has your husband.”

Oh, he’s just showing off his manners. Deep down, he can’t wait to go home. To be honest, neither can I.

“What’s he here for, exactly?”

I caught him with Girona heads-buried-in-tomes and making notes like they’re about to be tested, so I didn’t bother prying. He’s finding answers.

“What for?” Lucien nicks some of the finger sandwiches plated behind them.

The question of the longevity of my survival, how to make sure my own magic doesn’t betray me, things like that.

“Excuse me?”

Mmhm. He’s starting to have nightmares I’m going to drop dead any day now.

Lucien stares. “What’s—I had no idea.”

Apparently golden witches don’t survive long and so Azriel and the entire Order is trying to amend that. They’ve got a whole plan which includes pushing me to take my place as the Grand Witch Supreme, accepting you as a mate, and a whole lot of hoops to jump through.

“What?”

Don’t worry, I shot down our bond from the start. It’s not an option, so you needn’t worry about having to make some grand heroic sacrifice to save my life.

He stares. “So that’s why I’ve been hounded. I would be somehow helping alleviate your demise, in a way?”

No, at least not by merit of being my mate. Azriel says it’s a feature of carranam, which happens to be extremely rare, so we needn’t worry about that either. The witches didn’t know that, surprisingly. Oooh…or did they?

Elain sighs through her nose, watching the socializing fae make conversation until she catches Azriel speaking with Helion.

Her husband does clean up nicely, if she gets to say so. Physically and temperament-wise, as well. Everything about him is relaxed and conversational, easy going and sociable. This is the same male who hides in the storage cupboard under the stairs during family dinners when Cassian has had too much to drink.

“Well if you need my help, I’ll be glad to offer it,” Lucien bids her a goodbye before walking off, just as Azriel finishes his conversation with the High Lord of Day and comes find her.

“There you are.”

Here I am.

His arm cords around her waist as he presses his lips to her temple.

Elain leans into him, the reliable weight of him, sturdy and always there. She is of half a mind to fall asleep against him right now and then, confident in his arm to keep her up. The past weeks have been nothing short of exhausting, and she has the urge to scrub it out of her very skin.

Have you found your magical solution?

Azriel brushes his lips against her temple again. “We’ll see.”

___

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-writing @sleeping-and-books @thewayshedreamed @agem10 @superspiritfestival @maybekindasortaace @maastrash @courtofjurdan @ireallyshouldsleeprn @gracie-rosee @bookstaninthesoul @elriel4life @fawnandshadows @123moiaussi @impossiblescissorspeachpaper

#elriel fic #companion piece to your voice in autumn #a sequel one might call it #i'll be adding chapters gauging the reaction #and maybe we'll take it into elrielmonth #this isn't some brainy plot-ish fic #more like a ficlet #and the story? take a look at the color scheme and you'll figure it out #miscarriage #refreenced angst #is it a fany installment if there isn't a dash of angst?#at this point I am only referencing Elriel Lore #cheers lads #fluff #we'll see #it aint rocket science #why am i hiting publish #Livi are you happy there's more yvia?

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