Listen we all love this unhinged boy with no plan and someday I will return to him but for now enjoy him giving Rhys an aneurism

Snippet:

“Fuck,” Cassian muttered under his breath. FUCK.

Rhys scoffed, “I have to assume you are prepared for this?” His blank expression gave him away. Rhys’ casual annoyance sliding into actual fury. “Cassian what is wrong with you? Did you seriously think you could just kidnap a woman off the street and there would be no consequences?”

You tell me, he nearly muttered, but tossing Rhys’ less than savoury past in his face wouldn’t help them right now. “I knew there would be consequences.” He fought to keep his voice steady. Pictured the spark of light he’d seen in Nesta’s eyes that morning. “I took a calculated risk.”

Rhys’ brow dropped into a flat line. “You’ve never been very fucking good at math.”

Ok I SWEAR this chapter is almost done and it will in fact be published. Since you’ve all been so patient I’m going to give you and extra important spoiler/moment from the next chapter.

Snippet:

They were late. They needed to go. He was the General for crying out loud it was important that he …

But then her eyes caught his and he forgot.

He forgot the weapons. Forgot the cold. Forgot the first flight. Forgot, even, that Azriel still stood near the door with his arms crossed and his mouth set in a line that said, I am not convinced.

She wore his people’s clothing as if it had been waiting for her.

The fabric was thick and layered, made to turn aside wind and hold heat close to the body. Dark wool wrapped her frame, practical in its cut, beautiful in its restraint. Dappled grey fur edged the collar and cuffs, pale against the depth of the cloth. At her waist and shoulder, intricate ribbons bound it all together.

Red ribbons, bright as embers, carefully knotted.

His breath caught and he was going to buy Emerie’s entire shop for this favour. For dressing Nesta in his colour.

So … this all started from the premise what if Elain threatens to go on a dangerous mission if Nesta doesn’t and Nesta, to everyone’s shock, says fine, send Elain. Everyone keeps waiting for her to back down. Or for Feyre to step up.

Neither of them do.

So fine. It hadn’t been a false offer. If her sisters aren’t up to the task then off she goes.

Except … she isn’t exactly up to the task herself. No forced Illyrian training to fall back on and her cauldron gotten powers aren’t exactly useful in combat.

Enter a very snarky Tour Guide of Doom.

Snippet:

“Forgive me,” if Lucien was trying to smother his laugh he was doing a terrible job. “But you don’t know anything about me, Lady.”

“You can call me Elain,” she muttered. Tugging her foot pointedly out of the bramble he’d just cut.

“Elain,” he tested the syllables, tasting them. It was strangely intimate. She knew why, of course she knew why, but did he have to make such a show of it. Dip his voice to that rough timber and roll the vowels around on his tongue like cream. “I only mean that it is not as though we have ever become acquainted in any real way. You don’t know me. And I don’t know you.”

Elain chewed on his words. They were true, of course, but she couldn’t say it was something she had thought about.

You know what it’s actually not cheating because I just realized I’ve been writing the next piece of TWL in my notes app instead of the collab doc so here you go a look at what awaits you in your own story once I get my shit together:

But magic always wore off quickly, and by day 4 Mor had grown used to it. It would’ve been 3 if not for the constant stream of infuriating entertainment curtesy of the Sisters Archeron.

Perhaps that was a trap of the ultra wealthy - when you could have anything, nothing felt truly special.

Everything that should have made her relaxed or awed or excited just resulted in … The Feeling.

The feeling, which seemed to follow her like Peter Pan’s ever youthful shadow, that this might finally be the place Mor found herself. Understood what it was that religious fanatics or daily meditators or people without cellphones were always prattling on about. Meaning, purpose.

The Feeling was a beautiful thing. An enigma to be chased and lost over and over and over again.

As you know I am trying very hard to get this next chapter out and I am trying to be bullied into it so I thank you for bringing this one up.

This is my beloved dark and twisty Nesta re-awakens the Dusk Court and the mother has creepy plans for her AU which takes a lot of effort to right because it’s a bit more prose-heavy stylistically.

Snippet to give away what the next chapter will inevitably be:

And in the end it was Feyre. Wild, idealistic, Feyre who stepped in between the two snarling beasts.

Nesta pretended that didn’t hurt. Pretended it wasn’t another squeeze of that perpetual fist around her heart, that it was her little sister to take the stand.

Her little sister standing up for her.

Choosing her, defending her.

It shouldn’t have been.

But of course it was.

Lol I love our fandom because I got 2 asks for this one immediately we are here for PAIN. You asked first so here you go …

Basically this is a song fic for Lucy Dacus’ My Mother and I exploring the incredibly complex nature of mother/daughter relationships and the strange relationship Nesta specifically had as her mother’s favourite - receiving the brunt of her positive and negative attention. Did I write this largely on a family vacation? Yeah …

Snippet:

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Will you talk about it?”

Nesta shook her head. “It’s … my mother.” Cassian’s eyes widened at that. Nesta so rarely spoke of anything from her human life. “I just … I don’t know, I was braiding my hair and I couldn’t get it right.” Strange, for her, it was usually second nature. “There was a bump, just here,” her hand fell over his near the top of her temple. “And I couldn’t get it to smooth no matter what I did and I —“ she was breathless. “It made me think of her. She taught me how to braid.” A short, humourless laugh burst out of her. “I guess I was just thinking …”

Nesta snapped her mouth shut.

“It’s ok, Nes. You can tell me. She can’t hurt you anymore. She-“

“No,” Nesta said quietly. “It’s not that. It’s the opposite, actually. “I was thinking how happy she would be, with how all our lives turned out.”

Cassian’s brow rose.

“She was never so fae-hating as the average human. Truly, she would have taken an advantage wherever it came from. She’d be … happy. To see us all so well protected now, in the only way she knew how to dream for us.”

“Well, that’s …”

“Complicated,” Nesta sighed.

“Yeah,” Cassian agreed though he clearly wanted to say more. “It‘s uh …”

“She was complicated,“ Nesta said.

This is actually so interesting to me and I think the answer is yes it would have been different but not much.

In terms of the intervention if the ONLY difference was she’s just fucking one guy instead of many I don’t think anything changes. Still drinking too much and not showing up to stuff and wasting their money etc etc bad woman no. I think we would’ve gotten a more aggressive/jealous Cassian and his POV would’ve been a bit more of those kinds of convos with the IC and everyone dancing around the world’s worst kept secret. It would have been very interesting to see how they handled a version of Nesta who actually has loved one’s in her new life and wanting visitation essentially lol (side note - Nesta having a community in the slums is one of my favorite headcanons and everyone should read And Now She Becomes Death by @theteaqueendom because it’s amazing).

Realistically, though, I think the only way this happens is that Nesta chooses someone bad for her in line with her self destructive post-war behaviour and then the IC just villainizes this guy in particular and that becomes part of the intervention that they need to save her from this trash ass man which actually I would have personally found way more compelling but it doesn’t REALLY change anything except she’d probably reference that guy rather than Eris in her solstice speech about not deserving Cassian.

My personal perfect version of this would be Feyre cutting Nesta off and Nesta basically says fine and then finds a man to “support” her because that’s what she was raised to do and then we can actually have a nuanced exploration and deconstruction of her childhood trauma in a way where no one is able to exert their will over her to force her to “reform” and it HAS to happen in a softer more “we’re concerned” way (after several inevitable explosive fights between all parties obviously). And as I’m typing this I realized it’s just The Best Laid Plans lol.

I always TAKE them. Sometimes they get answered right away, sometimes they sit a while until I’m bored or unmotivated. Luckily I’m on vacation at the moment so if you had a prompt or something you might just recieve a musing in short order …