shadow kitty

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Rhysand on his birthday:

-is torn between being super extra with fireworks all over Velaris or just crying in his room and convincing Feyre that there’s really a gray hair above his left ear (it’s just paint)

-isn’t allowed to do the fireworks anyway because Cassian prohibits it, since last time they did fireworks Rhysand flew through them and nearly got blasted to bits

-Rhysand’s cake is beautiful because Feyre made it and used (edible, yes darling) paint to depict some of their favorite activities and memories

-Azriel mutters that he’s thankful that the more nocturnal activities aren’t displayed as well

-Rhysand screams in joy bc Azriel’s voice is the best birthday gift he could’ve asked for from Az

-Everyone gives him great presents and as he winnows them to his room, he notices that he has none from Feyre

-He tries to console himself and remind himself that she gave him a kiss and that always makes him happy

-But then he sees Feyre in the window of their room, her silhouette outlined in moonlight, and something about the way she’s holding her hands is strange

-And then she shifts in the wind, and something is off about her scent. It smells different, almost as if…

-Feyre is pregnant

-Rhysand spends the rest of his birthday cuddling next to Feyre and whispering sweet promises into her ear

-He doesn’t even notice the fireworks outside because he’s too busy alternating between laughing and crying in joy

-When Rhysand wakes up the next morning, he and Feyre don’t let go of each other until they get to the breakfast room and announce the news

-Cassian cries, Mor cries, Amren hears the news from her vacation in the Summer Court and cries, even Azriel cries

-Three minutes later, Feyre is busy listening, horrified, to Cassian as he explains how Illyrian babies take up more, erm, space as they’re being born because of the wings and therefore birth is much more painful

-Rhysand has to come rescue Feyre and explain that the wings do fold against their back and it’ll be fine, and why would you believe Cassian anyway he has no experience

-Cassian hops around in the background screaming that he has, in fact, given birth before “so there!”

-Mor has to be the one to shut Cassian up since Amren is gone

-Rhysand is happy and safe, and he spends the rest of his life knowing that there could be no better birthday present than a future with Feyre

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Azriel

You first saw him across the room during a relatively small ball in the heart of Velaris. Something about the way he leaned against the wall seemed familiar- you, too, used to adopt that stance when you were trying not to seem painfully out of place. Interacting with others had never been your natural strong suit.

You flashed him a quick, encouraging smile as you began to make your way across the room towards him. He straightened up self-consciously, as if surprised by the sudden attention you gave to him.

Something about him was so different. You’re not sure if it was the way his voice was so soft and yet so deliciously low, or the way that he began to show up at all the events you attended and never spoke to anyone else but you. Maybe it was the way that he seemed so shy and yet so passionate when you first invited him into your room after he walked you home, but it could have been the way that after your first time, he began to growl under his breath whenever you talked to another male. Or the way he purred when you ran your hands through his hair.

All you knew was that you loved his beautiful hands when they were wrapped around yours, and that you could never find a blanket that made you feel as safe as his wings wrapped around you. Something in your heart just melted when his shadowy eyes made contact with yours and he called you his little sunbeam. You were just waiting for the mating bond to settle into place…

And waiting…and waiting.

You waited for months, but it never did. You wondered why, but then you attended one of the High Lord’s fancy balls. Azriel had begged you not to go, but his reluctance only increased your curiosity. Besides, you’d already picked out a black dress with gold details that looked just like sunbeams for him.

And then you saw the way he looked at her. You didn’t know who she was, and you didn’t want to. Something told you that she was the reason your bond hadn’t snapped into place. If you were his sunbeam, she was the sun. With all of her golden hair and her lovely eyes and long curves, you couldn’t blame him.

Although something in her eyes made you think that she didn’t know how his hands felt on her waist- nor did she want to- you left anyway.

Now you only see him during the bigger Equinox events. You think you spot the familiar curve of his shoulders sometimes just around the corner, but you’ve given up looking. It’s now a habit for you to turn on all the lights in your house at just the right angles to avoid the shadows, because they remind you too much of him.

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Aedion

The truth is, you’d just been extremely lucky. You were one of the rebels that he corresponded with to organize the Bane’s falsified attacks that he would report to the King of Adarlan. At first, he’d merely been a name on a paper- a general whom you had to report numbers and locations to in order to keep your people alive.

But on a day in the middle of the summer when the streams were filled to the brim with fish and laced with golden sunlight, you received a more relaxed message from the Prince. In it, he asked who he had the pleasure of dealing with for all of these months. On an impulse partially explained by the glasses of wine you’d consumed earlier, you penned a letter to the general explaining your history, your family.

Over the next few months, the two of you began slipping jokes in your letters. Eventually, the amount of pure conversation in the letters so far outweighed the war talk that you began to send two separate letters: one for business, the other for fun. You considered him a friend.

And when you finally visited the General yourself, you found that he looked nothing like the middle-aged, bearded man you’d expected. And you hadn’t complained a bit.

There was something about how he could always make you smile. You even laughed during your first time together- you didn’t even know it could be so much fun.

In fact, on the first snowfall you were together, he awoke to find you outside, reaching for snowflakes to balance on your fingertips. He joined you out in the cold, wrapping his shirtless body around you for warmth. The two of you spent hours making little snowmen, and even had a snowball fight (it didn’t last that long, though, because you kept pegging him in the face and he kept purposely missing).

From then on, you and Aedion made a playground of everything. He called your time together a “winter storm”, because of how cold it was in the snow your first night; but also because of how the two of you together were like a whirlwind of emotions and conversation, the force of which could rival the fiercest winter storm in The Staghorns. The name stuck.

“There’s gonna be a fierce winter storm with howling winds tonight, my lady,” he’d casually mention in front of all his generals, “maybe even louder than last week.” He’d finish his teasing with a wink, and you’d be rendered speechless for a good 5 minutes after- at least.

When news came that he had to go report to Adarlan, you’d initially just been sad about him leaving. He’d come back, though.nBut then the rebels’ reports followed. Plans were being set into motion, plans that would risk the King discovering Aedion’s true allegiance.

If these schemes to destabilize Adarlan worked, Aedion would have to stay and play a vital role in guiding the people towards peace. And if not…either way, he was not coming back.

You’d initially been in denial, and he had too. You spent days together just curled up in his warmth, trying desperately to satiate some need to be closer to him than you knew how to vocalize. You thought you’d have more time with him, more time to appreciate his devilish Ashryver eyes glinting at you and his hair slipping between your fingers like molten gold.

You delayed him for weeks- almost a month-but in the end, duty called. And you were never going to be enough to make him stay.

So he spent one final night with you, talking and cuddling, but somehow avoiding eye contact the whole time. By morning, he’d drifted so far away from you that it felt as if he already left.

His arms circled your waist, a painfully soothing reminder of what you’d never feel again.

“So long, my winter storm,” he whispered into your ear. A breeze picked up in the air, breathing snowflakes into his hair. In that moment, he looked like a god: his eyes gleamed in the snow, shining brighter than the stars the two of you used to gaze up at on clear nights; his lips were sensuously arched into a ghost of a smirk, a familiar expression that you wondered if another person in the cities beyond The Staghorns would enjoy. He glanced at the rising sun, winked at you one final time.

And with that, he was gone.

Heir of Fire, Chapter 3:

“But the king was frowning. ‘I expected you a month ago.’

Aedion actually had the nerve to shrug. ‘Apologies. The Staghorns were slammed with a final winter storm. I left when I could.”

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Lucien

The first time you saw a forest fire, you were only decades old. You awoke to smoke curling through your room like some serpent of ash and embers, a poisonous twin to the plumes of smoke that bordered the bonfires of Calanmai. As a Fae in the countryside of the Spring Court, you’d never seen a fire before. They were exceedingly rare. You spent a few more precious seconds watching the fire through the window; something about it was so powerfully raw that you couldn’t take your eyes off of it, even as it ravaged through your front yard.

You made it out of your home, but the house itself was hopeless.

You could do nothing but watch as, one by one, the shingles of your roof were replaced by a ruby flame. You’d often heard fires described as almost hungry, ravenous little creatures. But this was different. The fire was…beautiful. The roaring beast exploded into a delicious chaos of bleeding reds and burgundys, golden flickers that rivaled even the most violently beautiful sunset. At that very moment, you realized your life was nothing- the agony screaming through your heart was nothing- compared to this passionate mass of chaos.

This is what it was like to love Lucien Vanserra.

He met you as he was assisting at the evacuation site, and some part of you recognized that there was a hidden passion that seethed behind the golden fox mask.

It was the same part of you that began to grow when he sought you out a week after, barely even returning to the High Lord’s manor before dawn, and when you grasped at his hair for countless nights as if he himself were a flame that you clenched in your hand no matter how deeply it scorched your soul. It was the same part of you that continued to grow during your late-night pillow talks. You’d whisper to each other late in the night, silly nonsenses about love, like when you told him that the Fae were too powerful, and too bored with immortality, to be checked by anything but love.

He agreed violently, kissing you down the spine as he asked you to repeat that wisdom. He whispered that you could be the one to check him, to tease his power and immortality.

Even if he’d only become a part of you, it was all of you that died when he moaned a different name after seeing you for months.

“Jesminda.”

Just like that, you became nothing but a warm bed. You forgot the feeling of his arms, but his back turned to you every night instead.

That name, that female, ached until one day you kissed him and said goodbye. He sobbed that he would have no love to temper his power and immortality, not without you. You wished him luck with the other female, and he’d smiled to himself through the tears as if it were a joke. That smile is what made you close the door.

Now, you’re simply the smoke on the wind, a hollow reminder to never let fire into your heart.

~~~

ACOTAR, Chapter 11

“We’re too powerful, too bored with immortality, to be checked by anything else [but a firm hand and power,” said Lucien.]

It seemed like a cold, lonely position to have.”

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Under the Mountain

During your first years under Amarantha’s reign, you’d discovered that there were passageways deep within the tunnels Under the Mountain. Some of them were so close to collapse that not even her creatures would dare travel them.

If you followed the oldest, darkest tunnel, it would lead to a cave the size of a cottage.

There, the walls and ceiling were inlaid with gems the color of sapphire, amethyst, emerald, and so many other colors in between that you had no name for them. They were all the colors of the night sky on Starfall, and the cave glowed with their inward light. It felt as if some ancient creature had scraped at the deepest hues of night and then embedded them across the walls of this sanctuary.

It was here that you first met him.

You’d panicked, at first, to open your eyes to a tall, shadowy figure in the entrance to the cave. But when you leapt to your feet, you realized that the scent was familiar. You’d often scented it lingering around here. And so you looked closer- and stuttered an embarrassed greeting to the High Lord of Summer.

“Apologies for interrupting you, my lady, but then again, what are you doing in my hiding spot?” He crossed his muscular arms, the muscles flexing under his mahogany skin, as he leaned on the nearest wall.

“This is my hiding spot, Lord, but you are welcome to share,” you retorted as you sat back down and gestured for him to sit as well.

And sit down he did, but not without starting a fight about who had discovered the cave first. You won, and claimed your dominion.

You spent precious hours talking to him about what you missed most: the stars, the moon, the sky. And he spent hours describing Adriata to you, drawing pictures in the air of the shape of the palace and describing the seas. After finding out that you missed the sound of the ocean, he pressed his palm to the floor, and suddenly the cave came alive with the sounds of the ocean. The effort caused sweat to appear on his brow, but he shrugged it off and said it was worth it. For you.

From then on, the two of you would sit in the cave- sometimes in silence, sometimes in laughter- and listen to the sounds of the ocean underneath the night sky. You’d stroke your fingers through his silver hair when he put his head in your lap, quietly marveling at how it felt as if you were combing through strands of pure, soft moonlight. He would look up at you from time to time, and you’d stare back and note how it seemed like flickering blue lightning was trapped within his crystal blue eyes.

And then Feyre Archeron won her first task.

You all knew that Amarantha would rather die than release her hold on the High Lords. No- maybe not die. She would kill all of you before relinquishing our powers to a human girl. Her beasts watched the High Lords with suspicious eyes, and Tarquin was unable to slip away.

He came the night before her second task, and words of panic tumbled from his mouth.

“We need to get you out. You can leave now- one of my court has to distract Amarantha, even give his life, to give you time. A tumor in his head gives him days left to live. But you have to go now, as far as you can. Find a part of the mortal realms where no one can reach you.”

A life without his mischievous grin flashing at you, without his endless conversation about the ocean and the lesser Fae of Summer? A life without him? No. No. But then he held you by the shoulders, close enough that you had to tilt your head back to meet his eyes.

“I don’t care if Amarantha tortures me for the entirety of my existence from here on out- I will be happy knowing you are safe. My time with you was a gift, and I’ll treasure it with every second of my life. Give me another gift by extending your own life. Please.”

You cried as you kissed him for the first and last time, saltwater tears streaming from both of your faces. Your heart ached as the golden light seemed to leech from his body, and pain- real pain- shone through his eyes.

You felt strangely empty when you slipped from an escape tunnel Under the Mountain. As if your body had shut down. But when you crossed the wall, all of that pain came rushing back into you, as if every inch of your body were being stabbed with flaming knives that attempted to drag you back to him. You had to pull over in the forests of the mortals, sobbing endlessly for days until a hunting party frightened you into moving again.

You’ve settled down now in a corner of the human realms so far that the Fae are simply thought to be bedtime stories. No one here in this small village in the mountains even knows that there was a war.

No one knows that far across the world, there is a High Lord of Summer who is free from Amarantha, searching for his mate. A High Lord of Summer who would tear open the sky and watch the fiery stars fall to the earth if it meant that he could find you among the ashes. A High Lord who hates himself for letting himself give away greatest gift he’s ever received.

Chapter 39, ACOTAR:

“Amarantha flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. ‘You may do what you want with the body afterward.’

The High Lord of the Summer Court bowed- as if he’d been given a gift…”

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Aelin’s fingertips trembled.

The energy began to flow from her, adrenaline roaring through her veins so powerfully that it hurt. But she had to keep going. No one else could bear this- no, she could not let them.

The tiny piece of metal was clutched in her palms. So much depended on this. She resisted the urge to sob; her friends would never forget if she was weak in these final breaths. She needed to do this.

She leaned forwards slightly, balancing like a fragile bird on the balls of her feet. She summoned a writhing mass of purely golden flames to lift her from the earth, and with a single command, the Queen of Flames forced the heat to rise until it lifted her dozens of feet in the air. The metal in her hands shone with an inward golden light as it neared its destination. Her flames began to shake, shifting rapidly from blue to gold and blue again. She cried out at the loss of stability, and yet she kept on reaching and reaching….

Her heart fell as the metal slipped.

“DAMMIT AELIN, WE DONT HAVE ANY MORE STARS TO PUT ON THE FLIPPING CHRISTMAS TREE!” Manon shrieked as she began to pick at the scattered golden shards. Aedion was struck still in awe, his hands protectively splayed over Lysandra’s swollen belly as he listened to the witch curse louder than even Aelin.

The cadre, leaning against the wall of the palace courtyard, began to howl in laughter as Aelin fell onto a branch of the Christmas tree and accidentally set it on fire.

With a dramatic sigh, Rowan ruffled his hair. He then coated the flaming branches in ice.

“Fireheart, darling, if you’re going to demand the tallest Christmas tree in Erilea, you need to do one of two things. One, make sure you have a ladder. Or two, let the kid with magic hands put the damn pointy glowing thing on.”

The aforementioned kid with magic hands shoved his real hands into his pockets with a nonchalant shrug, but his sparkling sapphire eyes hinted at his amusement.

“At least we have a better tree than Chaol and his gang,” He smirked.

“And it’s over a hundred feet tall. So there!” Aelin added on from her perch on the tree.

The entire court of Terrasen turned to the room across the hallway, where everyone could clearly see the “gang” with a scraggly Christmas tree barely taller than Yrene.

“They, however, have a star, my queen,” Elide chimed in as she leaned forward in her seat.

“Can I stop doing wall sits now? My thighs hurt. You’re light, but it’s been hours-” a muffled voice behind Elide groaned.

“No, you’re a comfortable chair. And you owe me. Remember that one time when you-“

“But my thighs-“

A resounding growl from all members of the Terrasen court made Lorcan shut up.

A couple minutes later, all of Aelin’s court shut the door to the courtyard and moved over to the room across the hallway to watch Sartaq put the star on his tree.

After a round of resounding applause, Manon looked around with widened eyes.

“Where’s Aelin?”

The whole room went silent, none of the immortals or humans even daring to breathe. In the distance, a stream of unending curses and shrieks were audible. Chaol’s eyes widened.

“Oh my gods, you guys left her in the tree!”

When they burst into the courtyard, not even Aelin’s eyes bursting into flames could make Rowan stop howling in laughter.

She’d climbed to the top of the tree with a golden star she’d scavenged, but the pile of glass on the ground revealed that she had dropped this one too. However, she’d reached the highest branch and gotten herself tangled so far into the shrubbery that her head was barely even visible through the green.

And her golden hair gleamed at the top of the tree, giving the appearance of a star at the top.

They left her there for hours.

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

Doranelle

Her parents walked her into a throne room, one fancier than even her own. The five-year-old tilted her head in mild confusion as she noticed a pretty lady sitting on the throne- wasn’t the throne where her parents were supposed to be? Where she was supposed to be?

Aelin sulked to the walls of the room, in the shadows, as they began to speak of “training” her. Maybe this lady was just another tutor. She hated tutors. But then the pretty lady said something, and a man walked into the room.

Eyes like the hills outside her window at night, hair like the moonlight that slipped through it. She’d seen him before, she must have. He felt like a best friend. She was so sure he was an old friend that she took a couple of steps to him, until the lady began speaking.

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I have someone rather important to Aelin. And if you do not allow me to train my niece, she won’t see him again. You have my word.”

Upon closer inspection, Aelin decided that the lady was not pretty. There was ugly behind her violet eyes, and her hair was nightmare dark.

Aelin could hear her mother and the lady arguing, her father occasionally joining. But all she cared about the man standing at the base of the throne. Well, the adults would probably be here for a while. She might as well say hello. She knew he wouldn’t mind- he was her friend.

Si she began to shuffle towards him, silently enough that no one saw. His eyes became panicked, and he even shook his head at her.

Aelin was hurt. Did he not remember her too?

Eventually, he was but an arm’s length away. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. She felt happy, safe. She liked this feeling.

Her arms raised from her sides, reaching towards him for him to pick her up. He refused, his eyes trained solemnly on her parents. What was so interesting there?

“No,” her mother was saying “she does not need her mate. But she needs us. You will only turn her into another weapon in your- your damned cadre.” She spat out the last word. Aelin grew impatient with the man.

“Up!” She insisted. The word echoed across the throne room. Eyes turned towards her, two pairs in horror, one in triumph.

She didn’t care- her command had worked. The man swung her into his arms, and she decided that this was much more comfortable than any throne. He smelled like home.

“Are you sure?” The ugly lady demanded, pointing at Aelin. “This is what you sacrifice.” Aelin didn’t know what the lady meant, but surely if she could stay here with the man, everything would be alright.

“I’m Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius,” she whispered. “What’s your name?”

“Rowan, princess.”

“Rowan princess? What kind of a name is that?” she was amused, and his involuntary chuckle made her smile and hold him tighter.

“Rowan Whitethorn,” he whispered back as the arguing of the adults rose to such loud volume that Aelin covered her ears.

The ugly lady turned towards them with rage writhing across her features.

“Fine!” she screamed. Aelin grew afraid. “You useless worm, end your life, Rowan. Now!”

Rowan’s features turned to stone, until the only expression on his face was a tightened vein and a clenched jaw. Aelin thought that this wasn’t a very funny joke. He shifted so that only one arm was around her, and then drew a dagger.

“No, no, no!” screeched Aelin when she realized his intention. “No thank you! Please-“

“Stop!” her mother’s voice resounded above the chaos. The ugly lady waved her hand, and Rowan’s arms were back around Aelin.

Aelin growled at Rowan for being such a mean pretender. He had truly frightened her. His eyes were shiny- with tears?

“Yes?” the ugly lady’s syllable lasted a lifetime.

“At least don’t do it in front of her. Come, Aelin.” Her mother spoke with such desperation that Aelin obeyed. Do what in front of her?

She could only recall what followed in flashes.

Being turned around, the sound of an unsheathed sword, a heavy thump. Screaming and pain. So much pain she would rather die. Why did her heart hurt so much? Was she dying? The room erupting into flames.

A wicked queen’s ugly smile. A pool of red blood defiling the silver hair Aelin already loved.

[pages-of-spilled-ink]

If Maeve trained Aelin…

Five-year-old Aelin was confused at first. Why did her parents leave her with tears streaming down their faces, and why did they keep saying they’d come back for her? Why did they take so long to come back for her?

The first few months were full of a child’s tears and tantrums, but eventually Aelin became accustomed to Doranelle. After all, Ro would pick her up and spin her in the air whenever she cried, and how could she keep herself from laughing when she felt like she was flying?

Aelin stopped missing Terrasen. Her favorite feeling became the sensation of her fingers tugging on Ro’s hair, braiding all sorts of mismatched flowers into the silvery strands of moonlight- whenever she could convince him to take her out to the hillsides of Doranelle. Her second favorite feeling was the soft pillows of grass that she rolled over when she was able to persuade Ro to roll down the hill with her.

Those were the days Aelin lived for. Auntie Maeve always told her that Rowan woulld become her equal, her beloved- whatever that meant. But Ro was only her friend. Her best friend, who taught her how to climb trees. Even better, he taught her how to fall from trees. The first time she tumbled out of a small pine tree, Rowan’s wind casually gusted underneath her and set her on her feet. Touching a hand to the ground and then staring up at him with pure adrenaline coursing through those Ashryver eyes, she went absolutely wild. She grew braver and braver, until it was a common sight in the countrysides of Doranelle to see a young girl falling from the tallest and oldest trees in the forests, letting out screams of pure elation.

When Maeve forced a pre-teen Aelin to slam her right hand in a doorway to become ambidextrous, Ro was there to bandage her wounds and become her instructor in dealing with all of the inconveniences of being a leftie. Sometimes, he’d use his right hand while eating and clumsily drop food in his lap, making her smile. It wasn’t until later that she found out he had perfect control over both hands.

When Aelin was a teenager, Maeve gouged out the eyes of Aelin’s best Demi-Fae friend because Aelin wouldn’t set a prisoner on fire. Rowan was there that night to hold her and keep the nightmares at bay. He was there every night after that, at her request.

When Aelin wore that gold nightgown soon after she turned nineteen, Rowan was there to groan inwardly at just how screwed he was. He took the lashings from Maeve the next morning with a grin, recklessly baiting Maeve into whipping him more for such impudence.

And when Aelin was caught trying to escape and was locked up in a muzzle and chains, it was Rowan who took the blame for the plan and took most of the punishment from Maeve.

It was her mate who took so much of Maeve’s punishment that Aelin screamed through the muzzle and burned straight through the iron when she felt their bond shatter. Maeve halted the whip in the air, gaping in awe at how the gold ate away at Aelin’s eyes and her hair stirred with some unseen wind and it seemed that Aelin herself had become the fire. No one had ever burned through iron before. Ever.

But it was too late. Rowan was gone.

Aelin could only process the scene in brief flashes, her mind breaking apart and yet somehow still hopelessly tethered to this world- this world without her mate.

A wicked queen’s ugly smile. A pool of red blood defiling the silver hair that Aelin had so deeply loved.

[feyremylove]

“Rhysand is the most handsome High Lord. Rhysand is the most delightful High Lord. Rhysand is the most cunning High Lord.”

1hr speedpaint this morning.

[morgana0anagrom]

finished painting Maeve hope you guys will like it xoxo 

some of you were quite shocked when i said that i like her :D 

well first of all i love villains, i always preferred them over main heroes

as for her she is super evil hella strong,  and strong villain females are my thing :D  i hope she dies in next book but i dont want her to be defeated like some weak bitch who wasnt worth fighting.