Reading Fantasy Books & Being Sad

She becomes acutely aware of the pain in her shoulders, her back--oh, it's everywhere--and shrugs the bag off. Only when it hits the ground with a thud does Cassian turn around.

"What is it?" he says after a minute. It's the first thing he's said to her that isn't a command in...however long she's been here. He doesn't sound like he cares, but she guesses he has to ask.

She doesn't pick her eyes up from the ground. "I'm done." Disuse, dehydration, and exhaustion makes her voice an unattractive type of hoarse, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore.

He doesn't take a step closer. "It's--our campsite's not far. It's only another hour."

Only another hour. There isn't a chance in hell.

"Come on. You can carry the pack."

Something sparks in Nesta's chest at that. Granted, fairly weak, but strong enough to make her look up and meet his gaze head-on. "No," she says, cold and more clearly than before.

He clenches his jaw. "Nesta--"

But she interrupts him. She won't be taking anymore of this--this bullshit.

"If you're going to kill me," she says, keeping her head high the way Mother taught her and her voice icy, "you can do it right here. But I'm not taking another step for this...camping trip."

She's precise and unfeeling with her words. Proper.

Which of course he hates. Of course. So she expects it when he takes a step back, mouth falling open. "You think...I'm...going...to kill you? You think...that I've brought you here...to kill you?"

But Nesta doesn't balk. Her muscles and bones are on the brink of collapse, but she keeps her spine rigid and her stare even. She can do this. She can hold her own.

"Nesta," he says, voice strangled, like it chokes him to say her name. Fine. With how much he hates her, she supposes she should have expected that too.

What she does not expect is what he does next, which is to rush at her, almost faster than she can clock, and grip her arms far more tightly than he ever has before. With her soreness, it hurts more than it should. And she's definitely not ready for when he starts to shout.

"YOU'RE KILLING ME!" he roars, louder than she's ever heard him, as loud as she was when she screamed for his life a lifetime ago, so loud she hears the sound of it well before she begins to process the words. "You're killing me! And--and everyone! Do you know what it's like? I mean, you're just, you're the one killing yourself! Do you know what that does, Nesta, to your sisters? They cry over you because you're killing yourself. And you have been for so long. And what about your friends? What about Gwyn and Emerie? They look up to you! Do you have any idea what something like this can do to them, to watch you just fade out of life? And Amren--Amren doesn't fucking care about anyone like she cares about you--and you just--don't! You just crossed her out of your life!

"And what about me, Nesta?" he asks, pleading, shouting, shaking her slightly as he says the words. "What about me? You know how I feel about you, you know how much I care, and you just...it's like you don't care! You can throw it away like it's nothing! Like it meant fucking nothing to you, and you just--like I don't matter! And you know, because you watched it happen with Elain, you know what it's like to watch someone you care about treat themselves that way, so how can you do that to me? How can you do this to me?"

His final, desperate, repeated question sounds again, echoing in the emptiness between the mountains. It's silent for a long moment, and all she is aware of is the pain in his eyes, twin to the suffocation in her throat.

The spell breaks, shatters, and she with it.

"Get off of me!" she snarls, slapping his chest as she flings herself away from him, almost falling backwards. Her vision goes red, like the whole world is perfectly encased in one of his glowing Siphons. "You are so full of shit, you are such a fucking liar!" She's breathing so heavily but it isn't working--oxygen doesn't seem to be coming through. Distantly, she thinks that this should mean she shouldn't be able to speak, but it's as though someone else is pulling them right out of her mouth. She can't stop them from coming. They all simply fall out; she hears them for the first time along with him.

"My sisters don't care about me! I don't have any sisters! I did everything for both of them and it still wasn't enough! I walked all the way to the Wall for Feyre, I tried to get her out, but she didn't even want to come back! And then I did everything she asked when she did, every time! It wasn't even my war! I could've gone! And I did it--for her!"

Behind her eyelids, she can see her sister: asleep next to her in the bed their mother died in, standing tall in a crown Rhysand placed upon her head, crying her name as Hybern drags her into the Cauldron, pregnant and glowing. Locking her out of her life forever, painting a pretty picture with smiling faces of everyone she knows, except for her.

She relives betrayal after betrayal now, in the middle of nowhere. Her stomach rips in two, forcing her to continue in a messy, unending banshee shriek.

"And I've always done everything for Elain! I've done everything for her! I died for her and the last thing I did alive was fight for her, I fought the Cauldron for her. And it still wasn't enough, it's still not enough, they still don't want me! In her stupid house or in her life, that's why she sent me away--with you!

There's something wrong with the air here--it's not working, her lungs aren't working. Maybe this is it, maybe Rhsyand has snuck up behind her to kill her. Cassian takes a small step towards her, arms raised, but she swings her arms down violently to keep him away.

"You think Gwyn and Emerie don't know? You think they don't--they're not stupid! They know! Everyone knows, everyone looks at me and sees--they know what I am! They don't need you to--I don't need you to tell them! They know about the soldiers; everyone knows about the soldiers!"

She can taste iron. Blood, from her throat. She hasn't drunk nearly enough this week to be screaming like this--but she is, shrieking, crying, shaking, and everything hurts and her head fucking hurts but she can't stop--

"Amren never cared about! You think I don't--Amren thinks I'm a waste of life! She never cared about me--and she thinks I should go to the Prison because she hates me and she wishes I were dead and Morrigan thinks I should be in the Court of Nightmares--and you don't care about me at all, you liar."

He takes another step, inching closer like his dying form had once, saying something, but she can only hear herself screaming in her memory and now.

"You don't care, you don't care that I died, that I'm already--you don't care, you think I'm a whore, you don't care that I can't eat or sleep and you don't care about anything that's happened to me, and you don't care that I can't take baths and you don't care if the magic kills me and you don't care what people say about me and you don't care if I'm scared and you, you, you only care about yourself! And you hate me because of the soldiers and you don't care that I didn't even mean to kill them and you don't care--you don't care that I see my father--you don't care about the fire--you don't care about me, you don't care what happens to me--you--you--"

A slight gust of cool wind in her face has her gasping for breath. There's a searing pain, but can't localize it, and doubles over.

"Shh," Cassian says, and she realizes it's not the first time he's said it. Her body jerks of its own accord, and that is when she realizes that he's holding her upright. "Shh, Nesta, it's all right, just breathe. Just breathe."

She can't--she's trying but she's not getting any air--she's drowning, her lungs aren't working--she tries to push him off of her. "You stay away from me--"

He holds his palms up again, and she stumbles backwards, falling onto the ground. Her hands scrape against something sharp, but if they bleed, she can't feel it.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Nesta," he says. "You just need to breathe. With me, Nesta."

His voice is quiet. Too quiet. She shouldn't be able to hear him, and maybe she doesn't. Maybe she can only see him mouth the words--but wait, no, she can't see anything--

"Match my breathing, Nesta. In...out...in...out..."

It's a struggle, almost the most effort she's ever put into anything, but after some time--she can't tell how much--she gets there. She finally starts to feel the cold of the night air again, and only then does she realize hot tears are still streaming down her face, and then she hears herself sobbing.

"It's all right, Nesta," he says slowly crawling towards her. His voice sounds odd. Different. "I promise it'll be all right. I promise. Just keep breathing."

He gives her some water to drink. She doesn't want to, it makes her head pound even more, but he makes her. And when she's had a whole skin he says, in the most gentle voice she's heard in years, "You need to sleep, Nesta."

"I..."

"I'm just going to get the mats out...it's all right, Nesta. Come on, lie down."

He helps her; easing her onto the mat.

"I'm just going to clean your hands," he says, coming around to her other side and holding her palms. He swipes them with something cold and lightly stinging, then rubs a soothing lotion over that.

"It's all right," he says again. "I'm going to give you this, all right?" He pulls something out of a pocket. A vial of some blue liquid. "It's to help you sleep. Okay, s--Nesta? Just to help you sleep."

She stares at it. It's quiet now, which means she's stopped crying. Her head still hurts. Thinking still hurts.

"All right, Nesta?"

He takes her hand, opens it, and presses the bottle into her palm. She drops it--she's still shaking.

"It's all right. Everything's going to be all right. You're just going to take this, Nesta." He holds it up to her mouth, tilting it back slowly, as though she were an infant. The stuff is tasteless, and makes her mouth feel numb.

"There you go. It's all right, Nesta..."

Something is on top of her--a blanket? No, there hadn't been blankets. No, it's Cassian's wing.

She twitches closer to him automatically but forces herself to jolt back, his warmth beckoning to her like a forbidden fruit.

"It's all right, Nesta, I won't light the fire. I'm not going to hurt you. No one's going to hurt you. Just go to sleep. Everything's going to be all right. I promise."

Whatever he'd given her acts fast. Or maybe she's just so tired. Perhaps both. But she can feel herself being pulled under, knows she couldn't fight it off even if she wanted to. Vaguely, before her mind goes blank, she realizes what's wrong with his voice: Cassian is crying too.

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and that's it! i've had it in mind for months and i'm excited to share it. i hope i did it justice.