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renascence

characters: tamlin, iphigenia belrose (female oc)

pairing: tamlin/iphigenia (tamgenia)

rating: explicit

word count: 5.7k/39k

warnings: referenced sexual slavery, referenced sexual abuse, internalized misogyny, externalized misogyny

summary: after being liberated from her bodily servitude to the high lord of autumn, iphigenia belrose takes refuge in the derelict spring court alongside her savior: the high lord of spring himself, tamlin. together, they claw their way towards their new beginning.

a/n: endless gratitude and love for my pals @buffy-vanserra and @jon-snows-man-bun for beta reading + cred to @olenvasynyt for the divs<3 just a snippet for tung|r dot hell but you can find the full chapter on ao3 if ! ur nasty

tag list: @rarephloxes @hybernian @themadmorrigan @the-darkestminds @queercontrarian @theknittingoracle (if u want on / off pls Imk ! )

chapter seven: adaptation

Echo from afar, the difference makes its return as Iphigenia descends the staircase. It winks up from jostling toolbelts and glimmers in thrown reflections: wake up, wake up, wake up.

But the harder she tries to place it, the more illusive it becomes.

A word, just beyond the curl of tongue. A memory, lost long to time. A face, obscured by a mask.

As she nears a sturdy pair of oaken doors, she foregoes her efforts. Presence looms as tangible as absence beyond them. The instant she thinks it so, a breeze flutters heedlessly past her to fling them open.

Lord Tamlin sits at a small, covered dining table with his back to a streaming wall of glass.

Iphigenia dips low in curtsy. His regard holds long beneath his brow—lingers, such that she lifts her own from her obeisance and glimpses green in climbing trail up her silhouette. At the crest, his gaze clings unguarded to hers.

Then it gnarls over, and the whole room falls dim.

Lord Tamlin lifts his hand in simple gesture to the seat across from him.

Iphigenia takes it without delay.

As she settles, she notes that the table has already been set: an arrangement of tea, a platter of scones, and two steaming dishes. Not his hearty stew, but an elegant plating of rabbit. Atop her crispened hindquarter, laid like apology, rests a familiar sprig of thyme. It wafts still fragrant with her magic.

She attempts to see its meaning differently.

Reminder. Warning. Threat.

But this is Spring.

Not Autumn.

Its truth avails itself to her simple and intact: this lord is not only unlike hers.

Lord Tamlin is nothing as her lord was.

In its settling, it recolors all things. To understand this court, she cannot think solely in terms of difference. She cannot look out through the bruised tint of the High Lord, casting shadow and capturing shine where none exists to be found; she cannot seek to make scavenged shards of truth fit her preconceptions. Just as all things changed for her when she was taken to the Forest House, so must she accept that all things have changed for her here.

ohhhh baby baby okay i definitely scale faeries up from human heights because i picture them all ~ethereal~ and ~willowy~ and as such Very Tall, especially high fae. i haven’t ever given any of them precise measurements but … eris “towering height” vanserra i peg as like 7’ maybe, tamlin a bit shorter atttt maybe 6’6 but b r o a d, carmine shortest of them at 6’4. to faeries, these are pretty standard heights—tamlin like the equivalent of a human’s 6’ (tall but not crazily so) and carmine the equivalent of a human’s 5’10 (pretty average, same height as beron). eris’ height deviates enough to be visibly considered tall.