Cassian Appreciation Week

🏔️ Cassian has been described as being Enalius reborn in the battle field. Enalius defended Ramiel from enemies from ancient times, possibly the Asteri, and he climbed to the top of the mountain before passing, which is an event the Blood Rite honors. Cassian’s fighting style is said tPo be very similar. I would go as far as to say they are similar in other ways like how Enalius was loyal to Fionn like Cassian is loyal to Rhysand.

🦇 Honestly, what I think this means for his destiny is that Cassian may be a major factor in Illyria’s future. As we know, he is the only one in the Inner Circle that tries to advocate for the Illyrian people and has tried to do what he can to help his people. He may be a player in Illyria’s future change.

🗡️ Elain had once received a vision of Cassian possibly dying, or at least very injured and falling in battle. I think this could mean Cassian might make a great sacrifice and fight a gruesome battle in a similar fashion to Enalius. I personally don’t believe he will die but his sacrifice will change the course of his life as he knows it. A metaphoric death rather than literal.

Like Oleanna in the myths Rhys's mother tells before the fire, Mor searches the camp for Enalius under the new moon.

Of course Cass has stupid patrol duty tonight.

The plan can't have gone perfectly, she supposes. It's enough that Rhys and Portia are gone for the evening, and Az is on a mission with the High Lord.

That Father is still in Autumn. That the news of her betrothal precedes him.

Mor draws her cloak closer about her neck, cursing the wind. Footsteps approach and she darts between two rows of tents, crouching until the gaggle of trainee warriors passes by.

Firelight gleams off the backs of their scale armor. So much iron and muscle, dark braided hair. They remind her of the wild beasts carved into the entrance of the Hewn City, terrible and dauntless.

Just as she must be.

Just as she will be.

Mor thinks she knows what to do. Cassian definitely does. How quickly he shushed the other two when they whispered of it, knowing she was in earshot. He's bedded a cadet's sister, she gleaned from Rhys later. And the blacksmith's sister. And the baker's apprentice's sister.

Or maybe Rhys was bragging about himself.

All these males seem to do is bed each others' sisters.

She reasons that one more is nothing as his tent appears at the end of the row—one more night, one more romp, one more body to be tasted and forgotten.

And then her first blood will be tainted and her vessel will become unholy and it will be over.

She'll be worth nothing.

It's all a catastrophe. Cassian will be gentle with her, at least.

The future falls off a cliff before her. Once, and that's it. Once, and she'll never have to be near a naked male ever again.

"Hello, stranger."

Cassian's broad shoulders fill the tent's opening even without his wings. Like a stone wall, one that will soon stand between her and the hounds of duty nipping at her heels.

He stares down at her, confused.

"Oh, hey. Aren't you supposed to be in Autumn?"

"I skivved off," Mor says breezily, grateful Cass doesn't know enough about politics to question it at first. He's used to seeing Rhys come and go as he pleases—she's banking on it, anyway.

Cass crosses his arms over his chest—even beneath his shirt, the muscle are prominent. She heard one of the younger boys say they'd seen him crush a boulder once.

"I'm sure your father's thrilled," he jokes, and Mor forces a smile.

He is, that's the worst part. Kier is so ravenous for this betrothal that he likely signed the contract in drool.

Shivering, she clutches her cloak tighter in the front. "My father is a topic I'd rather leave out of this."

"Out of what? Get in here, it's fucking cold."

He raises one brow—that look like he expects her to run from his coarseness. But Mor doesn't run. She only ducks under the lifted flap and throws herself face-first onto his saggy cot, sinking into the bear skin throw until she doubts she'll ever surface.

"Aren't you supposed to be freezing your balls off in the woods somewhere?" she mumbles against his pillow before inhaling deeply. It smells like pine. It smells like male. She can do this. 

"Patrol's not til midnight. Freezing my balls off inside until then," she hears him bemoan, the low grumble of his voice belying patchy sleep.

"Then it's a good thing I'm here to keep you company."

Mor gives a yelp when Cassian grabs her ankles with one hand lifting her legs so he can sit beneath them on the edge of the cot. The movement makes her gown hike above her knee, and she catches him staring at the untouched skin when she glances up.

He catches her catching him.

"Yeah. Good," Cass says slowly. "At least until you go home…"

Mor fights down the bile in her throat at the word. That place isn't home. It's a prison. It's a tomb.

"Unless I don't want to."

She sees the moment the strangeness hits him. The down twist at the corner of his lips, that she's used to seeing tilt up in a smile. He's recognizing she shouldn't be here unescorted. In the middle of an Illyrian barracks. Just before midnight.

"…unless you don't want to," he repeats, hazel eyes unwavering.

Mor's stomach goes tight when he slides one hand from her ankle to her calf. Then higher, not still not taking his eyes off her, until his fingertips brush the back of her thigh. Her skin breaks out in chills, and he looks suddenly nervous, as if he's just as dizzy from it all as she is.

She sits up.

There's no more luxury of time.

So she leans in, and kisses him.

They'll ask her why not Azriel. She doesn't know how to explain, that sometimes she forgets when the performance ends. She's so used to moving and speaking and thinking in line with the Path that it's hard to remember what's real anymore.

If she explains, he'll try to rescue her himself. But rescue is for girls who wait, and Mor refuses to waste another second.

"You're so beautiful," he breathes when she's bare beneath him, smiling like it's Solstice and his name day and he's right and he's wrong and she's rotten and terrible. But at least she's a rotten and terrible thing of her own creation, mangled by her own hands.

She prays for deliverance, for mercy, for the Forest House to go up in flames. She prays for her mother to abandon the Path, for her father to drop fucking dead.

For Cass to understand. For him to make it should they— should the worst—

The bird in the cage of her heart flaps and flaps its wings. Mor floats away from her body, watching them from above while the wind flaps the thin roof against her back.

She prays he'll forgive her. But mostly she prays not to bleed.

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Then he looked up from beneath his eyelashes, offering her a slashing, slanted grin as he tied his final knot.

“Anyone would think you were the one going into battle, love.”

“It doesn’t concern you?” Nesta asked, swallowing as she watched him lift the mail shirt over his head, the clink of metal doing little to soothe her. So heavy— and yet still so many places the tip of a blade could breach. The space at his neck - so horribly exposed - made her feel nauseous.

“Of course it does,” he said softly, coming to take her hands in his. His thumb brushed a soothing path across the backs of her knuckles, and as she looked at the scars already decorating those hands, she wanted nothing more than to bar the door and never let him leave again.

But there was nothing more she could do— his hair had already been pulled back tightly from his face, braided and woven without a single strand left loose. The silver earrings in his ears had been exchanged for simple silver bars, and the kohl beneath his eyes had been darkened and smudged, to make him look all the more fearsome in his helmet, he’d explained when she had looked curiously as he’d rubbed his thumb back and forth across his face. Still, those eyes were bright and focused, like a hawk that had just spotted its prey.

“I haven’t yet faced a battle I haven’t walked away from,” he reminded her with a blithe shrug and another swipe of his thumb across her knuckles. “And I trust that my brothers in arms will protect me as I will protect them.”

It should have comforted her.

Didn’t.

The sun had only barely risen, and the sky beyond the single window of his bedchamber was stained pink— like it had already tasted blood. From beyond that window drifted the smell of smoke; the fires of the army about to embark mingling with the plumes from blacksmith’s forge, still working to repair and produce weapons that would soon taste Saxon blood and end Saxon lives.

Nesta felt herself unspool like a drop-spindle, unravelling like a length of fine thread. She turned her face away, unable to bear it - bear any of it - as she rested a hand on her lover’s chest and felt the cold, solid weight of that mail shirt as it bit into the centre of her palm.

“We have the advantage, love,” Cassian said smoothly, dipping his head to look her firmly in the eye. His gaze was so certain, so unwaveringly resolute that Nesta swallowed. “Alfred’s army will be tired from marching north. We know this terrain; they do not. For weeks we have been scouting for advantageous ground. We do not go into battle unprepared.”

“I don’t like it,” she said, scowling.

Cassian only laughed, pressing a kiss to her brow, right where it furrowed. Against her will, it smoothed beneath his lips.

“Nor I,” he said simply. “Anything that takes me from your bed irks me.”

“Your bed,” Nesta corrected.

He only shrugged. “Mine. Yours. The end result is the same, no? You’re in it, either way.”

Nesta rolled her eyes - grasping at familiar straws, letting him quip - as he pulled away to tie a leather belt around the chainmail, a golden buckle gleaming at his waist as he pulled it taut. Such finery— even in battle, in the bloody and brutal game of war, there was finery. The buckle glinted in the light, countless cut and polished garnets winking from within a frame of thick yellow gold, so precious it seemed that it ought to be holding up the cloak of a king, not the sword belt of a soldier.

And yet--

This was no ordinary soldier.

Even amongst the Danes, he had a reputation. Nesta saw the way they looked at him, like he was one of their gods walking amongst them in a mortal shell. Like he was… Tyr, she thought, as the name rose to the forefront of her mind. The god of war.

And yet.

Tyr had lost a hand to a wolf, Nesta recalled. Cassian had told her the tale by the fireside, when the flames had gilded his face and ale had made his voice as smooth as honey. What would Cassian lose, as a man facing down death? A hand, too? Or something far more vital?

Her stomach churned again, the blood draining from her face.

“Pass me my sword,” Cassian said gently. Too gently. Like he knew she needed some kind of distraction to keep herself from spiralling over the life of a bloody Dane— one she was never supposed to care for, anyway.

It took considerable effort to steady her hands as Nesta reached for the wooden sheath that had been placed by his bed, resting against the frame, containing a sword with a golden pommel worked into the shape of wings. Bat wings, she realised, as she lifted it up into the weak light to admire yet more of the finery designed for battle and bloodshed. A ruby gleamed at the hilt, casting a glow across her fingers as her trembling hands closed around its hilt, balancing her grip as, for a long moment, she looked at the blade that had taken oh, so many lives and would yet take oh, so many more.

Once, it would have horrified her.

Yet now she looked at that well-honed weapon and didn’t care how many lives it had ended, only how many times it had saved the man who had wielded it. She didn’t care that it would be used, now, against people she had lived amongst her entire life. Instead she lifted the blade to her lips and pressed a kiss to the ruby in the pommel, pleading with whatever god was listening that the blade in her hands would protect the man standing in half his armour before her.

His face softened, so at odds with the weapons and the armour and the sounds of an army preparing for battle outside the window.

With gentle hands he took the sword from her, sliding the sheath through a loop in the belt at his waist. His hands rose to cup her face, his calloused palms fitting so easily against her chin, his fingers curling around her ear. His nose pressed against hers, and when he kissed her, it was a soft, aching meeting, where his lips moved slowly against her own, like he was taking the time to savour the shape and feel of her against his mouth. Nesta was nothing more than candle wax in his hands, melting all the more with every passing second he had his hands on her, engulfing her in his warmth.

When he pulled back at last, he held her face, his thumb resting beneath her chin.

“Wait for me, my love,” he whispered. “I’ll be back before you even know I am gone.”

Nesta shut her eyes, refusing to let the fear - the sheer terror at what he was about to face - consume her. “Impossible. Every minute you’re away from me will feel like a full turn of the sun. Every night will be the coldest.”

Her warrior swallowed at that, his eyes boring into hers as he brushed that thumb along her jaw, skirting the edge of her lips. He kissed her again, sweet and bitter, made painful by his departure.

“Swear to me,” Nesta said when they parted. “Swear that you will come back to me.”

Cassian only smiled, placing a hand over his heart. “With Odin as my witness,” - his eyes flicked skyward for a heartbeat - “and with Thor at my back, I swear to you.” He cupped his face between her palms, dropping another kiss to the tip of her nose, swift and light. “I will return to you.”

He pulled the pedant he always wore out from beneath his layers of shirts and mail, and let it hang over the armour covering his chest. The small silver hammer gleamed - Thor’s hammer - and Nesta found herself forsaking all else and placing her trust in that foreign god, that he might keep the warrior before her from Valhalla’s hall.

And Nesta was about to kiss him again - to demand that he stay, just a little bit longer - when a knock sounded at the door, loud and blunt enough to suggest that it wasn’t a knuckle rapping against the wooden panels, but the hilt of a weapon of some kind.

“We’re ready to leave, Cass,” Azriel’s voice called through the door.

A moment later, heavy footsteps sounded— retreating, giving the warrior one last moment to say goodbye.

Nesta did not know Rhysand’s master spy all that well, but in that moment…

She had never been more grateful.

Swiftly, she took Cassian’s jaw in hand and hauled him down to her, pressing every inch of her body against his He groaned against her, his hands bracketing her waist as her nails scraped along the chainmail. This time, the kiss was harried. Frantic. A desperate meeting of lips and teeth and tongue, feral and unleashed. Nesta poured herself into that kiss— her very essence, cracking open her chest and handing him her heart on a silver platter. His fingers dug into her waist hard enough to bruise, and when she pulled back, his teeth nipped at her lip, like he wasn’t prepared to turn his back without some leaving some reminder behind.

And when Nesta looked into his eyes, she could have sworn there was an ocean of desire there— of devotion, too.

“Cassian, I…” She trailed off, wanting to say the words that she had been holding back for a while, now.

Immediately he understood.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not now— not yet.”

Nesta frowned, but he only grinned in response.

“Tell me when I return. When this is all over.”

And with that, in a rush of heavy metal and blades, he turned and left, leaving Nesta standing in his chamber, watching the sky outside lighten at the edges, wondering how long it would be before she could tell the man that she loved him.

***

“So,” Azriel said dryly, tucking his helmet into the crook of his arm as he removed it from where it had covered his face, “we didn’t need to lure the Saxon king north after all.”

He wiped his brow, surveying the landscape splayed out before them like a bolt of smooth, even fabric. In the distance, over the trees, smoke from King Alfred’s campfires drifted up into the sky.

“It is less than ideal,” Cassian said with a slow incline of his head. After all, their plan had been to back Alfred into a corner. To make him face them, with peace negotiations or with open warfare. To give him no choice but to meet them in the field, one way or another. But Alfred had marched north before they could even send a messenger. “But we still have the better location. Still have the advantage.”

That precious advantage— so loath had Cassian been to give it up, he’d insisted they march as fast as they could to reach this hill, where the ground sloped gently away from the rise, leading to a flat valley below. They stood at the summit of it now, a day and a half after leaving Jorvik, with a line of trees at their back providing valuable cover. More trees stretched in the distance, but the plain before them was level and wide, the ground dry after days without rain.

A good omen.

Cassian shuddered as he thought of all the times he’d fought knee-deep in mud and freezing hail, and though it had never once made him pause, he couldn’t deny that it was far more comfortable fighting when the ground was dry.

Arms folded across his armoured chest, he tapped his fingers idly across the mail coating his forearms.

“Tomorrow,” he said, looking at those fires on the horizon; each one of them, he knew, set before a huddle of tents housing Alfred’s soldiers. “They will advance tomorrow.”

A small distance away, fingers curled around his sword, Rhys huffed.

“They will not get far,” he said darkly, turning to survey their own camp spreading behind them— their own canvas tents and small fires. “Give the order to rest and be ready by dawn.”

Cassian nodded. “Shield wall on this ridge. Let them exhaust themselves getting up the hill before we engage.”

Azriel hummed his assent; Rhys, too busy scanning the land before them, merely dipped his chin in the barest attempt at a nod. Satisfied, Cassian turned and glanced at one of the other commanders standing a handful of feet away and, with little more than a flick of his fingers and a single look, he knew the order would be relayed as the warrior departed.

Somebody had taken the time to set up a small wooden table laden with dried meat in a small wooden bowl and watered down ale in a simple metal carafe, and Cassian was grateful for it as he poured three cups— plain and unadorned.

Only half a cup each, mind.

He’d need his mind sharp tomorrow; sharper than his blades.

Azriel rubbed a hand along his jaw as he watched Cassian pour, canting his head to the side.

“They’re fighting for more than just land, if his men believe the story Alfred tells them about Mandray’s wi—“ He hesitated, a momentary stumble as he took the cup Cassian offered and beheld the cool, dark glare on Cassian’s face “—about Nesta being mistreated at Jorvik. It will give them purpose. We shouldn’t underestimate that idly.”

Cassian still had Nesta’s wedding ring tucked into his pocket; was planning on sending it to Alfred after dipping it in whatever blood the butcher had readily available. To make them rush, to make them pin this battle on a single misplaced narrative. A king rushing north to save a Saxon, Christian woman from the hands of the ruthless, brutal Danes.

He fought a smirk.

An entertaining story.

But not one that would win the king his battle.

“Whatever they’re fighting for, it doesn’t matter so long as we do not surrender our position.”

It was strong enough to weather an army three times the size of Alfred’s, Cassian suspected. The slope of the hill put them farther out of the reach of Alfred’s archers, whilst giving their own perfect visibility. Their position was so easily defended, it was as though Odin himself had hand-picked the location for this battle, and though the trees were quiet and empty now - like all the wildlife had already fled in anticipation - they were the perfect place to hide away extra forces and allow them to circumvent Alfred’s— manoeuvring around the Saxons until they had them surrounded on all sides.

Rhys drained his ale, looking at the thin plumes of smoke still drifting into the sky from Alfred’s camp.

How many, Cassian wondered? How many men had the Saxon king brought north to die?

“We don’t surrender anything,” Rhys said simply, as though he were commenting on the colour of the sky.

Cassian only grinned. “Never.”

“Never,” Azriel echoed.

***

The dawn was a red smear, the horizon the colour of freshly spilled blood.

Dew still lingered on the grass beneath his boots, and behind him came the steady beat of hammering shields; a heartbeat, pulsing through the lines as the soldiers in their ranks hammered fists and blades and sword-hilts against the round wooden planks that formed their shields.

Smoothly Cassian slid his sword from the sheath at his hip, his fingers curling naturally around the handle and settling into the grooves worn into the leather-wrapped hilt. The ghost of his own grip; valleys made and set the hundred times he’d wielded that blade into battle. An extension of his arm, a part of his own lifeblood.

And—

Hers, too.

He looked at the ruby in the pommel, convinced he might feel her, somehow, if he looked hard enough at the stone her lips had kissed.

As the hammering intensified, grew louder and more determined, Cassian tucked away the thought of her - the thought of all he was fighting for and would be returning to - and settled himself beside Azriel, covering his brother’s shield with half of his own. On his other side, Rhys sank into a crouch beside him, the lord’s shield lifted up and above Cassian’s own.

Everywhere was the press of human, mortal bodies.

Shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek.

Cassian’s arm did not tremble from holding up his shield— hadn’t, for almost twenty years now. Had been ingrained into him from the moment he first picked up a weapon and stepped into a training yard. To drop the shield was to die, to allow weakness into the ranks. To let the shield wall be breached.

A northman did not easily drop his shield.

So Cassian inhaled deeply through his nose and breathed out through his mouth, tightening his grip on the leather strap that ran along the back of his shield. The hammering grew faster, in time with his racing heart, and as he opened his mouth, the breath he let out morphed into a rumble in his throat, a roar that started small before it ended in a battle cry, echoed by each and every one of them holding that shield wall.

Through the small gaps in the shields, Cassian could see the Saxon army waiting down the hill, ready to advance.

He thumped his sword against the back of his shield, the pommel that Nesta had so briefly kissed striking the wood with enough force to rattle his bones.

It shook— and the entire world seemed to hold its breath, like Loki was rattling the surface of the earth and waiting for the drums to sound, for the carnage to begin.

And as the first of the Saxons drew back his bow, ready to loose the first arrow, Cassian turned to his brothers and grinned as the madness, the frenzy, the chaos of battle entered his veins.

It had stormed the night Cassian was born, he’d been told.

Stormed so badly it had seemed like the sky was coming down, and it had always been an omen, a sign, that the babe birthed in the dark amidst the thunder and the lightning and the driving rain…

Was meant for something greater.

Meant for this.

As though Tyr, not Loki, had shook the world when Cassian took his first breaths. As though the god of war had marked him out somehow.

Chosen him.

So Cassian felt the calm wash over him as his battle cry echoed, knowing, without doubt that—

“Valhalla will not welcome us today.”

Azriel’s eyes darted sidewards. “Not today,” he echoed, those eyes dark as his mouth set into a thin, determined line.

Rhys looked straight ahead at the Saxon army advancing now, picking their way slowly across the plain. At length, he turned his eyes on each of his brothers as he, too, said,

“Not today.”

"Elain helped make these," Nesta immediately said back. "So don't worry, they aren't poisoned."

"That's exactly what I was worried about," he tried to joke back, though he wasn't totally sure it landed right with the way his girlfriend's brow furrowed ever so slightly.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she put the cupcake down on the coffee table, effortlessly slotting into place next to him on their couch. "You've been kind of weird this week."

"Of course," he answered, knowing as the words left his lips that they didn't sound even remotely convincing.

Nesta wasn't fooled. "Cassian."

"Nesta."

"I'm serious. What's going on with you?" Nesta questioned, her frown growing even more pronounced. "Normally you love celebrating your birthday."

"Nothing!" Cassian told her. He could practically see her thinking that he was protesting too much, so he sighed and prepared himself for the worst. "I just... I don't know. I've been thinking a lot about my mom this week."

"Anything in particular?" she replied gently.

He struggled to get the words out. "I'm older than her now."

"Oh," she said, immediately reaching for him. He let himself be pulled into her warm embrace and breathed in the scent of her, trying to sink into the feeling of her hands rubbing slow circles into his back. "Cassian..."

Cassian had only been ten years old when his entire world had shattered apart in the space of a Saturday afternoon, going from hanging out with Rhys and Azriel only to learn that he wouldn't be going home because his mom had a heart defect that had gone unnoticed until it was too late.

"She didn't even make it to thirty, and I can't stop thinking about I have more life experience than her now," Cassian said, his words a bit muffled from how he was pressed against Nesta. "Part of me wondered if I'd even make it."

"I'm so glad you did," Nesta said back, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. It wasn't exactly like his mother had done it, but it would have to be enough. "Tell me about her?"

Cassian hadn't talked about his mother in a long time, especially not more than the usual questions that came up when someone found out he'd lost her so young, and he hadn't talked about her in a while to someone who had never met her. Rhys and Azriel had a handful of childhood memories of his mom, Mor even fewer, but Nesta had never met her, so Cassian would have to hope to do her justice.

"She was kind," Cassian started off quietly. "Never complained -- at least, not to me -- and she was so funny. We had so many little jokes about the people she worked with, or our neighbors, or my teachers that I didn't like, but even when they got on her nerves, she still tried to help when she could."

"I see where you get your big heart from."

"Something like that."

"Okay. What else? What's your favorite memory with her?"

Cassian didn't have to think very hard before one resurfaced. "When I was eight or nine, I got into a huge fight with some asshole in the grade above me. He was picking on this other kid in my class just because he could, so I told him to leave him alone."

"I'm guessing he didn't like that very much," Nesta replied.

"No, not at all," Cassian answered with a soft laugh. He shifted so he was laying down against Nesta properly, and she laid down so they could tangle their legs together. "He tried to fight me instead, but even though I was a small kid I still managed to knock out a loose tooth and fuck him up pretty good."

"What did your mom say?" she asked. "My mom would've had a field day if I did something like that."

"That's the thing," he responded. "I thought she was gonna tear me a new one, but when they told her I was suspended, she took me out for ice cream and told me to just kick him in the balls next time."

They both laughed for a few moments then, just like Cassian had because he thought no way was his mom being serious.

I'm being very serious, mijo, she'd told him through bites of her mint chocolate chip. I don't want you fighting, but if you're gonna fight, you better win. And that's the best way I know how to win.

You're crazy, he'd said, still laughing. I thought you were gonna send me to my room or something!

Only if you lose the fight, she'd said back with a wink.

"She sounded wonderful," Nesta said once Cassian was finished recounting the story in full. "I wish I could've gotten to meet her."

"Me too, sweetheart," Cassian replied. His mom would've teased him relentlessly about shacking up with a white woman who could barely handle her spice, but he knew she and Nesta would've gotten on like a house on fire. "But I think she would've really liked you if she had."

"I hope so, too," she told him softly. "Tell me more? You don't talk about her that much."

Cassian obliged her request, and they laid there well into the afternoon so he could tell Nesta about the food his mom made, her favorite music, even the time that she tried to give him the sex talk and gotten so embarrassed that she'd had to give up halfway through. It felt good to talk about his mom -- it would've been better if she'd been here to tell these stories herself, but it was on him now to keep her memory alive.

And he would.