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Summary: Everyone knows Earth is lost to humanity, a wasted rock destroyed by nuclear war five hundred years before they fled to the stars.
Or, that's what Elain Archeron believed right until she crash landed on Earth's surface.
Notes: Massive, important, MAJOR thanks to @chelseamorninggirl and @limeandorange for letting me bounce this fic off of them, and for reading whole chapters of it and giving me their thoughts. It wouldn't exist without your encouragement- thank you.
for @elucienweekofficial | Read on AO3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
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Lucien didn’t know what to do with Elain. He sent her with Vassa for a cold bucket shower, the best he could offer her given their limited resources. She didn’t seem to mind much—she didn’t look back, at any rate, which made things easier.
Jurian waited until Elain vanished down a rough hewn hall, quickly dug to hide them from the heat seeking drones of the Imperium. This base had lasted them far longer than any others, which was saying something. Lucien doubted his older brother had gotten sloppy.
If only they could replicate it in other places.
Lucien followed Jurian down the hall, nodding at those wedging past in the narrow passages. Tiny rooms that held two, sometimes three and at their most desperate, four, were carved out every couple feet. There were other places, too—an armory, a makeshift kitchen, places to gather, a rather pathetic war room for plotting and planning, and anything else they might need. Lucien was rather pressed with their work.
Jurian took him to the war room, yanking a sheet across the opening for as much privacy as they could muster. Doors were simply too complicated to put together in an underground bunker that occasionally collapsed in on itself.
Besides, when materials were scarce, why waste what little you had on privacy? Of course Lucien wished he could take a shit in total peace, but he believed in a future where that was possible for him again.
Jurian braced his palms against the oak table in the center of the room.
“From fucking space,” he breathed, hair covering his expression.
Lucien pushed messy wisps off his own sweaty forehead. “She could be lying.”
“Did they look like liars?” Jurian snarled. Lucien held up a hand in warning. Don’t fucking talk to me like that.
“No,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t mean they’re being honest, either. They could be confused, or…or…”
“Or they fell out of the sky in a tin can and now…fuck!”
Lucien rubbed his eyes. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything. How long have we been living in space? What the fuck are we doing up there? Do they have weapons we don’t know about? Some kind of Death Star—”
“This isn’t Star Wars,” Lucien said, turning toward the off-white sheet as he took a deep breath. “And we can ask her when Vassa brings her back.”
“We need to find her friend,” Jurian said urgently, finally looking up at Lucien. He looked wild, angrier than Lucien had ever seen him, and Lucien had seen him angry before.
“Eris has her by now,” Lucien breathed. “He’ll know everything we know exactly as we know it.”
Jurian swore under his breath for the hundredth time. “Okay, new plan.”
Lucien stood there, arms crossed, as he waited for Jurian to elaborate. His friend never did. Jurian merely began to pace, eyes bouncing around the room as he tried to figure out what to do next. Not that Lucien had better ideas. He, too, was reeling from the knowledge that humanity was in space, and Elain’s confusion that anyone might be living on Earth.
He didn’t have to wait long for answers. As he and Jurian murmured different possibilities, none of them realistic given Jurian suggested assembling a nuclear bomb, Vassa pushed open the sheet and gently pushed Elain inside. Her hair was neatly braided down her back, creating a wet spot on her green tunic from the water. Her face was clean and a little bandage had been placed across the bridge of her nose.
She was beautiful. Lucien was immediately ashamed all over again for thinking so—he’d thought the same thing the first time she’d stood before him, facing him fully. Elain was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. It seemed a betrayal of Jesminda, his would-be fiance had she not been killed in a strike by the Imperium.
Lucien had sworn he was done after that. It had been him who’d dragged Jes into the rebellion, and it had been that decision that killed her. She’d never been much of a fighter, and he’d known it. A better man would have taken himself to a therapist’s office and swallowed his anger, but he’d been young and hot-blooded.
Elain turned her pair of soft, round, brown eyes on him. “Have you found Arina?”
Jurian looked close to exploding. “Who?”
“Her friend,” Lucien reminded Jurian, walking around the smooth, oblong table to offer Elain a chair. “And no, we haven’t.”
“How long—”
“How long?! Your friend is dead!” Jurian exploded, slamming his fist on the table. Elain, who’d just sat, jumped back. Lucien fisted his hands at his side to keep himself from fighting with Jurian.
“Why don’t you let me handle this?” Lucien suggested, hoping his look was pointed. Jurian was in his blind spot, a blurry explosion of colors that set his teeth on edge. Losing vision in one of his eyes, to his own father, was a sore spot for Lucien.
Not that Beron had deigned to do it himself—no, he’d sent one of his generals to teach his wayward son a lesson, as if killing Lucien’s soon-to-be-wife hadn’t been punishment enough.
“Fine,” Jurian grumbled, storming out of the room.
Elain wiped the corner of her eye on her sleeve. “Is she—”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Lucien rushed to assure Elain, though in truth he agreed with Jurian. He believed Eris would report what had happened, and he believed that Eris wouldn’t be the one to kill her…but Lucien also believed someone else would. “But I need you to tell me everything.”
A calculated gleam shone in her gaze. “I have questions of my own.”
Lucien made a show of sitting across from her, resting his elbows on the table. Candles illuminated the space, creating more heat than Lucien preferred. Shadows danced across her expression, half obscuring her. That was for the best—if he had to look fully at her, he thought he might start stuttering from nerves.
“Okay. Let’s hear them.”
“How are you here?”
“Elaborate.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Everyone knows Earth isn’t habitable—it’s classified as a level four planet—”
“A level four planet?” he asked, suddenly concerned. “What does that mean?”
Her fingers drummed against the wood, head cocked as she considered. “Every planet has a designation. Level four planets are unable to support life in any form and are often considered toxic even to mine minerals on.”
A dry, bitter laugh escaped from his throat. “Guess no one bothered to tell us. When did you all leave?”
Elain rattled off a date that made the bile in Lucien’s stomach rise into his throat. “Five hundred years,” he breathed, leaning back in his chair. “Meanwhile, our politicians make a show of cutting our space programs.”
“I don’t understand,” Elain admitted, looking at him as if he could give her an answer that would explain everything.
“Neither do I,” Lucien admitted. To what end did this need to be a secret when they could simply make space travel so wildly unaffordable nothing would change at all. That was what Lucien couldn’t understand—why the lies? Why so much secrecy?
“Are you military?”
Elain shook her head, a pretty smile ghosting her face. “Horticulturlist.”
He was losing his mind. “What, you grow tomatoes?”
“Bananas,” she admitted, looking down at her hands spread across the table.
“Banana’s,” he repeated. “You’re growing something that gets shipped to every city in the Imperium, and costs less than a nickel.”
“No one has tasted a banana since we were forced to flee—”
“You weren’t forced to flee,” he spat, his frustration getting the best of him, “your ancestors left us all here and told the rest of you a lie. Why?”
She blinked again, looking close to tears. “I don’t know?”
“Neither do I,” he replied, resting his forehead against the palm of his hand. “We never left. There was no catastrophe, no world war or major virus. Just…another day.”
“Then we have to find out why,” Elain said, taking Lucien by surprise. He’d expected…well, he didn’t expect anything, to be fair. He hadn’t thought of her at all as he’d begun to grapple with this new information. It was a problem for him and Jurian, sure, and eventually the rest of the tangled, occasionally fractured network of rebellion cells. He’d get word through the channels before the night ended, just in case Elain turned out to be unreliable or they were all killed for taking her in. At least, then, someone else could pick up where he left off.
“We?” he asked with some amusement. “You want to stay?”
“Well, my best friend is…somewhere,” she began, her tone entirely reasonable, “and I’m here, too. I want to know why, too.”
“It’ll be dangerous,” he warned, curious to see what she might say. “This isn’t like a space movie—people die.”
She shot him a look that he rather liked. She had spunk, he decided. Despite looking like someone's cherished, spoiled daughter, Elain had a little fire to her. Good. She’d need it. Lucien didn’t think she knew what she was up against. "Good. It would be boring if it wasn't. Besides...I took down a Teryx,” she added, as if he was supposed to know what that was. His expression must have betrayed him.
“They’re…they’re like men, but with huge wings and shadowy magic.”
“Wings…and shadowy magic,” he repeated blankly.
“Or tech.”
“Right, of course. Or tech, because magic…isn’t real…” Lucien said, his whole worldview upended in the span of an hour. “How many different kinds of aliens are there, exactly?”
“More than I know of, for sure. The donjon keeps an official record, but it’s always in dispute because of how they determine if a species is intelligent or not—”
“Are you telling me they have space phrenology? Is no place safe?” he grumbled, annoyed that the glorious future he’d been promised didn’t seem any more enlightened than his current home.
“Well…there is a race called the plejarens. They have really large, pointed ears, and they were censured three years ago, I think, because everyone found out that they measure ears for length and shape, and if someones ear is misshapen, they’re considered stupid and given menial tasks in their society? Like, it’s all based on the way ears look—it was a huge scandal, they lost their membership to the council.”
Lucien understood half the words she was saying, though one stuck. “Council? You have a council?”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “But membership is mostly highly advanced races, technologically speaking.”
“Does humanity have a seat?”
She nodded, averting her gaze. “We got ours about fifty years ago…it expanded our ability to colonize other planets.”
Lucien wanted to cry. He was so overwhelmed and exhausted that there was no guarantee he wouldn’t. Five hundred years living in space, walking amongst aliens, creating whole political structures…and no one had any idea.
“The colonization is for a home,” Elain told him softly, “but we haven’t found one.”
“Because humanity already has one,” he whispered, feeling more broken than angry. “Why not Earth?”
She only shrugged.
The pair sat there in silence until one of the candles on the table guttered, a mess of melted wax and string.
“Lucien?” Elain finally asked, sliding her hands into her lap, “am I a prisoner?”
“No—maybe,” he amended. “Not technically, but…”
“But?” she pressed.
“Look, Elain, you’ve told me more than I’ve ever imagined, and I have no way of proving it. For all I know, you’re a really convincing actress and tomorrow, the Imperium will have us all lined up for execution.”
To her credit, Elain seemed horrified at the notion. “I wouldn’t.” The conviction in those words nearly convinced him.
“There are good people here, Elain,” he said softly, “and I hope you can understand that my duty is to all of them. Not you.”
She nodded. “Do what you need to do, and find me when you’re ready to begin,” she replied, rising from her chair. “I think I’m done, though.”
He was, too—at least for the moment. Lucien called for Vassa, asking if she’d set Elain up in a bunk somewhere and get her a few things to help keep her comfortable. They didn’t have much, and luckily Elain’s shoes seemed to be in good shape. Some clothes, a few hair ties, and toiletries were about all they could spare.
Lucien made his way to his own room—one of the lucky few that didn’t have to share—and began writing missives of what he’d learned, to be sent out across the North and South American continent—all under the Imperiums control.
It would take all of them united if they stood even a chance against the machine that was the Imperial States of the Americas.
But Lucien was strangely convinced Elain was an omen of fortune, assuming she was being honest. Hadn’t he wished for help?
Well, here she was.
Eris
“Now,” Eris ground out, immensely frustrated with the woman seated across from him, “tell me about your friend.”
She blinked dark lashes at him, her vivid green eyes disconcerting. “What friend?”
He was going to strangle her.
“Arina,” he tried again, trading his scowl for a smile that didn’t meet his eyes, “I’ve answered every question you had, even when it turned into an interrogation. Surely you can answer one question for me?”
“I came here alone,” she replied, drumming long, slender fingers along the metal table. “Did you hit your head?”
Eris had to bite back the urge to throw himself across the table and throttle her.
“All I want is to send you back,” Eris reminded her truthfully. He wanted nothing more than to rid himself of the woman named Arina Novak—he had a whole dossier on her sitting at his home that he hadn’t had a chance to look through because she was currently holding him hostage in a windowless interrogation room. “I can’t do that if you won’t tell me where your friend is.”
“I don’t have a friend,” she replied. “I came alone.”
Eris rose from his seat. “I need a drink,” he said, turning for the door.
“Get me water!” she yelled at his retreating back. Eris let the heavy door swing shut behind him. Looking upward at the fluorescent lights, he recalled what Beron had said to him over the phone.
Don’t let her out of your sight, and find the woman she came with. Keep them somewhere until I can make contact and determine what they want us to do.
Eris suspected his father would do what he always did when a problem arose—kill it. He wanted both women in the same place so it was easier to execute them both at the same time, tie up all the loose ends, and bury them in a ditch. Ordinarily, that wasn’t Eris’ problem, but it didn’t sit right with him.
Arina was…irritating. Easily the most difficult woman he’d ever met in his entire life, and probably the first one who didn’t seem impressed by him. That was how Eris knew she wasn’t lying about where she’d come from or what she believed—if she was from here, she’d be looking for any way out of her miserable, bleak existence.
And he was one of the few ways out.
His original plan was to leave her in a cell—that was why he’d brought her to Cook County’s Jail to begin with. Eris genuinely believed if he’d flashed her a few smiles, let her see how handsome and charming he could be, and answered all her questions, she’d be melted butter in his palm.
He hadn’t expected her to see right through him.
She wasn’t hiding her contempt of him, either—it was written all over her face. Well, she could get in line with everyone else who wanted to see his head on a pike, he supposed. Eris looked through the two way mirror to find her looking right back.
“She can’t see you,” he whispered, but even he didn’t believe it.
Don’t be a coward.
He had one card left to play, and decided he might as well play it. Turning back for the door, Eris stepped back inside. She was handcuffed to the table, at least, which meant she couldn’t hit him. His cock still ached from her knee—he’d tried to take a piss earlier and nearly wept like a baby from the pain.
“Arina,” he began after exhaling a short breath, “let me explain how this is going to go—”
“No need,” she interrupted. “This is the part where you start threatening me, right?”
Eris said nothing, folding his arms behind his back while staring at her unblinkingly.
She leaned forward, handcuffs rattling on the desk. He hadn’t allowed her a chance to change, and she didn’t seem to care that he could see nearly all of her tits.
“A day ago, a creature twice as tall as you and with wings the size of both your arms stretched one after another held me down by my throat,” she began, her gaze pinning him in place. “He’s dead.”
Heat slithered up his spine as he imagined how she must have gotten the upper hand. What she’d done to get away. There was no blood smeared over her, so whatever it had been had been relatively quick, which impressed him even more. Though, perhaps the alien creature she spoke of didn’t have blood—Eris knew very little about what went on outside of his small domain in the Upper Plains of the Imperium.
Undaunted, she continued, “So you can make any threats you like, but in the end, you’ll be sprawled on the floor dead, just like he was, and I’ll be walking away without thinking about you ever again.”
Eris raised his brows. “You don’t even know where you are.”
“Some kind of jail.”
“Some kind of jail,” he repeated slowly. “Handcuffed to the tay…ble…”
She raised both wrists, revealing she’d somehow escaped them. Arina cocked her head to the side, blonde hair spilling over slim, bare shoulders. Eris wanted to punish her, wanted to throw her in the general population and see how cocky she was then.
“I’m not going anywhere unless it’s on a ship off this shithole planet,” she hissed, nose wrinkled with hatred.
“Shithole planet?” he scoffed. “You’ve barely seen any of it.”
“I saw how many people were sleeping in that park,” she replied with open disgust.
“You don’t have poverty in space?”
“Why do you have poverty here?” she shot back. “You seem to have enough money.”
“I earned it,” he retorted.
“Oh yeah? Doing what? Tell me all about the hard work you’ve done to keep yourself off the streets.”
Eris should have known she’d call his bluff, just like he knew he couldn’t answer her honestly. Everything he had, he’d inherited from his father, who’d inherited from his, and from his, and on and on all the way back to the gilded age when his family had the sense to invest in steel and rail. But she hadn’t been able to say space had eradicated the ills of humanity, either. Eris was willing to bet that it was worse.
“You first, princess,” he snarled, done with the back and forth. “Let me tell you, now, how this is going to go. Since you won’t tell me the things I need to know so I can get you home, you’ll be living with me, in my home, until someone from your station can vouch for you.”
That seemed to alarm her. “And if they can’t?”
He almost asked why she thought they wouldn’t, but bit his tongue. He had her on the ropes, and that was all that mattered.
“Then you’ll be having a very different conversation with someone far less charming and handsome than I am.”
“That could be anyone,” she grumbled. “Put me in a jail cell.
“Well, now that I know you want it…no, I don’t think I will. Get up,” he added, having had enough of being trapped in that tiny room with her, breathing the exact same air. At least at home there were doors with locks he could hide behind. Hell, he could lock her in the basement and still keep his promise to his father.
She hesitated before standing, following him out the door quickly. Eris didn’t think she wanted to be in a cell at all—he was starting to suspect she merely just said so because so few people ever dared to call her on her bluff. Him, included.
Beron would have been furious if he’d left her there, especially knowing she was adept at getting herself out of handcuffs. God help him, she’d escape from there, too, and he’d have an international incident on his hands.
She said nothing until they were back out in the muggy evening air. His car hadn’t pulled up quite yet, so the two waited on the platform, watching vehicles zip past in the sky lanes. Far, far below, cars with wheels still ran on gasoline, though how anyone could afford to pay a hundred and twelve dollars for a gallon of gas was beyond him. Wages were capped at twelve dollars an hour by the federal government, and still people somehow managed it.
There was no underground public transportation system anymore. Only the sky rail, which required a biometric scan of a person's face along with a scan of their phone, which tracked them from location to location.
As Eris mused on the poor, Arina had spotted The Church of Chicago illuminated in the distance. It was their largest building after all—no wonder she’d seen it. “What is that monstrosity?” she asked.
Eris panicked, catching her by the arm and spinning her away from a nearby watching camera. “Watch your mouth,” he whispered, making it obvious what he was looking at. “That is our Church.”
She seemed bewildered. Did they not have religion in space? Or was space less controlled than their lives here on the surface? Eris had assumed her life was an extension of his—tightly controlled and surveilled. Speaking against the state religion? Well, that was enough to get someone disappeared at best.
Arina’s eyes had found the camera, darting from one to the other. Was she realizing how many there were, pointed in every direction. She didn’t know that those cameras could see into a person's vehicle, documenting their face, speed, location, and a million other things. Eris knew that those cameras were used to track the whereabouts of everyone, while capturing every conversation in between.
The Imperium was forever worried about dissenters and traitors. Eris supposed they had good reason for it, given his own brother was leading the Upper Plains chapter of the Rebellion like it was some kind of fraternity. At the rate he was going, he’d be dead before he turned fifty.
His car arrived just in time to spare him from another miserable conversation.
“Just…try to keep your mouth closed in the car,” he hissed, dragging her into the sleek vehicle without any further prompting. To her credit, Arina plopped down in the seat beside him, leaving space between them. She was squished against the door, nose practically pressed to the glass.
“Home,” he murmured to the driver, turning to look out his own window.
Was it wrong that he wanted to leave?
Eris hadn’t known there were people living in space—he’d gotten a crash course in the last five centuries of space exploration and conquest over the phone from his father. It changed everything. Now, in between his frustrations with Arina, all he could do was imagine what lay beyond the stars.
What was it like? How did they travel from planet to planet? He wanted to see all of it. Some part of him felt like an eight year old little boy again, squished on a couch with the rest of his brothers as his mother turned on A New Hope for the first time. Wasn’t that every little kids dream? To wield a lightsaber or fly a Tie Fighter?
“Do you have lightsabers?” he asked, needing to know. If she said yes, Eris thought he might die from the unfairness of it all.
“How old are you, twelve?” she replied, not looking away from the window. Bright lights from billboards advertising products and services, buildings, and passing cars blurred past them as they too zipped through the lanes. Was she comparing it to all the places she’d seen? Did she find it wanting?
It was impossible to tell.
The car pulled up outside his home. The top three floors belonged to him, complete with a parking spot for his car, not that he ever did. It obscured his view of the skyline. Besides, that was why he paid all that money for a parking spot, right?
“Welcome home,” he told her. “The entire first floor is yours.”
Arina walked toward the railing on the roof, ignoring the pool and the bar, both empty of people, to look out at the city, too.
“I didn’t know any of this existed,” she told him.
“What do you think about it?” he asked, curious if she might decide she wanted to stay on Earth. Eris couldn’t imagine anyone making that choice when they could leave for space. He’d leave it all behind, except, perhaps, his money. He’d buy a ship, ditch the expensive clothes for a slouchy belt at his hip, and vanish entirely. Start over where no one had ever heard of the Vanserra’s. Be his own man, for once.
Make his own decisions.
She turned to look at him, face half illuminated by the warm glow of artificial lights from the city and oh. He hadn’t noticed before right then because she’d been pissing him off, but she was beautiful.
“There is a planet off the Obsidian Rift—Ash Meridian—that has buildings like this. I thought it was the best place I’d ever seen…and I was right.”
He should have known.
“You don’t like Earth?”
“I don’t like this,” she disagreed, gesturing around him. “Why are you being watched?”
“Everyone is being watched,” he replied without passion, “for the safety of all citizens.”
“How does that keep you safe?”
“Dissidents vanish, and the state perseveres," he let himself say, knowing that should she be asked, she’d likely tell everything to punish him.
“That sounds like tyranny,” she said.
Eris slid open the door to his home. “Don’t be absurd. It’s freedom.”
This should have won. RIP yearning, you're great and I'm gonna let you finish but Twilight AU was the best day 3 prompt of all time!
Major massive thanks to @ratabrasileira for always being game and her willing spirit of "yes, and-" this was ALL her brilliance, she deserves every ounce of creative credit
And of course thank you to @the-lonelybarricade for being the funniest person I know
@elucienweekofficial - Chapter Three - Peak Yearning
Chapter One - Heartbeat
Chapter Two - Feral
Chapter Three - Peak Yearning
Summary:
On the eve of battle Lucien wakes up to find himself tied up and taken prisoner by Elain. He begrudgingly follows her on a wild goose chase through the Middle. He doesn't know why he's there, or what she wants from him, considering she has spent the last six months ignoring him completely, he assumes the worst. Can Elain convince Lucien to have faith in her when...they can't speak or make a sound the entire journey?
Snippet:
She decided she hated her sister a little bit. Feyre shared an ease with Lucien, a familiarity that rankled the bond. Even now, she watched as Lucien stole the small bottle of liquor Feyre was holding and hid it behind his back. Feyre’s head fell back in annoyance and she reached for it. Lucien twirled it around just outside her grasp and tossed it around his arms effortlessly. Feyre’s consternation built as she tried to snatch the bottle out of the air and went so far as to punch him lightly in the stomach to throw him off his game. He merely laughed and the bottle disappeared completely.
It’s Starfall and the first time Elain and Lucien will see eachother in person after writing to eachother for three months. Elain has a plan to get him alone but Feyre intercepts before she can even talk to him. Will she be able to go through with her plan?
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Summary: As far as Elain knew, in all of her ten years of collected knowledge, she was the only person who frequented these woods. She'd never seen footprints before. Not ones this recent, not ones that the forest guided her to.
That curious sensation in her chest grew stronger. A stumbling beat. A beckoning.
Go, the rustling leaves called to her. Go see.
She had never seen him before, but Elain knew at once who he was.
What he was.
A Vanserra.
Or: That time an eerie meet cute in the forest changed their lives
A contribution to @elucienweekofficial Day 3: Peak yearning
Read on AO3 ・ Series Masterlist ・ Previous Chapter
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4 years earlier
Time was a linear thing to most people.
They were born. And then they died. The moments that happened in between were an orderly chain connecting each point to the next. Every moment was distinct. There were no intersections, no overlaps, no loops.
Elain didn't always experience time that way.
Past, present, and future were sometimes indistinguishable from each other. Layered, and occurring simultaneously. While her physical body was mired to the present, her senses were wayward and drifted wherever they deemed most necessary. It had taken a long time for Elain to recognize when she grew disconnected from the present, longer to master how to tether herself back.
On the day she woke to thousands of names clinging to her like cobwebs, she wondered if the present was something she wanted to be tied to at all. What she wouldn't give to return to the simple days of sneaking off to the forest, when war was so far on the horizon that the only futures she saw where flashes of giggling on Graysen's arm.
How could she walk down the hall and smile at the servants as if she hadn't seen the temple razed to the ground? She could go to the High Priestess, explain to her that she saw the temple's wall collapse. That there only a handful of sunrises before the temple was captured by force, after which Beron Vanserra's army would systemically pillage each of their rooms. He would demand they turn over the seer, and the temple would face his wrath if the High Priestess refused.
Every conversation Elain had tried to broker with the High Priestess had fallen on deaf ears. Even with the severity of what Elain had seen, she knew another conversation would end no differently. The High Priestess would insist their army was thriving, that these were only bad dreams, not prophecies.
But what was the point in all this effort to protect Elain if she was to burn alongside the temple anyway?
Elain knew she was standing on a precipice. There were many paths forward, even ones she had not yet Seen. But the path she chose was one of comfort. Familiarity. It involved feigning sickness for the day and climbing out her bedroom window.
This was a path she walked a thousand times before. And for that reason, she would never walk it alone. There were a thousand other versions of Elain walking beside her, some of them young, some of them older. All of them were greeting the forest with a smile and an open heart. Their presence steadied her, reassured her that this was the right path.
The forest had never steered her wrong before.
Even if… even if she was a little nervous to see him again. Assuming he decided to follow her trail, assuming he even saw it, this would be their third time meeting in the forest. But on this occasion, there was no injury forcing his hand. He would need to come to her simply because he was curious enough to do so.
She was unarmed. The thought occurred to her on her third hour of waiting, perched comfortably on a branch near the bluebell carpet where they first met. There was nothing stopping him from assembling a team of men to follow the path she laid, to try to attack her while her guard was down.
Elain indulged the thought for all of a double-heartbeat before she giggled to herself at the absurdity. The future was always a bit murky when she thought of Lucien Vanserra, like a churning sea protecting the secrets within its depths. Even so, she knew there wasn't a single outcome in which Lucien betrayed her location.
He was a Vanserra. He was involved in this conflict to a degree of which she did not yet know. But his heart beat in her chest, and the rot of Autumn had not penetrated it. Its sound was pure. Its presence was warm. There was kindness in him. Softness that perhaps was unsafe to let his court see.
In the forest, it would thrive.
Did he feel the call, too? When the mist parted way, did it feel like coming home at last? Elain didn't know if anyone else could feel as settled as she did in a place so mercurial, but she wanted to ask him. She held on to that question, not wanting to forget it, but by the fifth hour of waiting, she was beginning to lose hope.
Until a branch cracked on the threshold of the treeline. Her heart stilled, but the other kept beating.
He's here, the forest said. He's coming.
His footsteps were quiet, but she heard each one, a steady tap beneath her ribs. Closer and closer. Red hair dipped as he swung beneath a low hanging branch. Uninjured, he was no longer a fox in coloring alone. He moved like one, swift and graceful. Primrose flowers brimmed from his close fist. Those clever eyes swept the forest in search of the next, and she kept to her hiding spot as she watched him pluck another from the trail.
Lucien paused when he reached the base of the tree. Seeing that there were no more flowers, he cast his ensnaring eyes upward, pinning her to the spot with a devilish smile.
"I didn't know these trees fruited such divine flowers," he said in greeting.
For having done nothing but lounge for hours, she was alarmingly breathless.
"Primrose doesn't grow from trees," she couldn't help but correct.
His smile broadened. "I wasn't speaking of the primrose."
"You're very charming for a man who's preparing to raze my home."
Lucien's smile fell, and he turned away before she could mourn its loss. "So you know. My father's lost his patience. He's given the High Priestess time to turn over the seer, but now he feels he must take matters into his own hands. Even if that means taking your temple apart in search of her."
"Can you do anything to stop him?"
"I've tried, in what ways I can. All my brothers have. We didn't want to wage this battle against the temple, but my father, he is…" He trailed off, and Elain wondered if his mind was drifting to another time as hers so often did. Whatever memory he saw, he shook it away and continued, "He will not stop until he finds her, Elain."
"What makes him think we have a seer?"
Lucien turned back to her. She'd thought this might be her opportunity to at last admire his handsome face without seeing it pinched in agony, but it was still there. And this time, there were no poultices to pack in his wound. This conflict was being inflicted on her people, but one would not think so from the grief in his expression.
"I told him," he confessed. "When I was just a boy. He wanted to know how I found my way back from the forest, and I admitted a girl laid a path for me. I didn't understand the implications, but my father explained to me that only a seer can navigate these woods. He's been obsessed with finding you ever since."
Elain's eyes burned. She knew it was the truth because she could still feel their bargain cording around her ribs. He could not lie to her, even if he wanted to.
"Why haven't you told your father who I am?"
"Because I fear what will happen to you." He reached upward for her hand, and she let him take it, breath held as his satin touch swept across her knuckles. "Twice now, you've saved my life. I am honor-bound to repay the favor."
Warm. His touch was so very warm. Like laying in a spot of sun on a bright summer day. Elain stared at their hands, the way her much smaller one was completely enveloped in his, and wondered what it would be like to fall into that heat. Would her mind still be split in three directions, or would she finally be anchored to the present?
"And what will you do when he breeches the temple's walls?" She asked.
Lucien's gaze was caught on their hands, too. But his expression did not convey the same honey-drenched thoughts Elain had been occupying. His brow was drawn, as though troubled. She supposed they were discussing a troubling subject, after all, and it was rather girlish of her to be diverting attention to something as trivial as holding hands with a boy.
A forest away, men were stabbing each other with swords. Ash of the dead was being scattered on the breeze.
It didn't seem such a trivial thing, in the face of it all, to reach for something soft. To hold it as long as she could.
"I'll meet you in these woods," he proposed. "While my father searches for you in the temple, I can help you sneak into the Autumn Court. You can establish a life in a nearby village, live under his nose. I'll make sure you're kept safe."
As he spoke, the timbre of his voice strummed upon the bargain's thread, an indolent musician plucking a string simply for the desire of being heard. Truth, it sang. Then another pluck, more agitated. Hear me.
"And my sisters?" She pressed. "The temple?"
Lucien winced. "If my father doesn't find the seer, he'll destroy the temple. But you can get your sisters out before that happens. Hide them in these woods."
"My sisters won't abandon the other priestesses. Archerons are not known to flee from a fight, even in the face of slaughter."
"Then trick them," Lucien suggested. "Make them leave."
Elain would have snapped her hand away no faster than if he'd scalded her. Make them leave? Her lips parted to chide him, but a stuttered beat against her ribs gave her pause. Could she really scold a man for being heartless when it was her own chest that it occupied?
Look, the forest said, and she peered down her lashes at the male still cradling his hand around the space hers had been. His fingers closed around the empty air, as if he might still capture the essence of her. Hold on to it as long as he could.
He is scared. For you.
She did not know if the revelation was the forest's or her own, but it struck her that Lucien would be willing to make any suggestion that spared her from his father. He did not feel he owed anything to her sisters, but he felt he owed a life debt to her.
There was a much simpler solution. One he was refusing to acknowledge—perhaps she had been, too. Elain was not as brave as her sisters, but that was something she could overcome in her love of them.
"If your father is given his seer, will the bloodshed end?"
Lucien's posture grew taut. "Elain, don't even think about it."
"If your father is given his seer," she repeated, "will the bloodshed end?"
He was fighting the answer. A vein strained in his throat. The muscles in his jaw flexed. But the vow he'd made to her in this forest was bound by the might of the earth, and the wind would force the words from his lungs if that was what it required.
"Yes," he gasped, sweat beading on his brow. "If you surrender yourself, our army will retreat."
-
"This is a bad idea, Elain."
It was sure to be if even Feyre—the purveyor of bad ideas—thought so.
Elain darted her eyes between both of her sisters. They wore twin expressions of disapproval, which was another ill-omen. A situation ought to be dire, indeed, to find Feyre and Nesta in agreement with each other.
"Help me convince her," she pleaded. "It's the only thing that will save us."
"Are you out of your mind?" Nesta flung her arm towards the tower window, where they had a perfect vantage of the smoke pluming from the lit funeral pyres below. "The Autumn Court will tear you apart. And the High Priestess would sooner burn this temple herself than give you freely to them."
"It's a temporary solution," Elain stressed. "I'll satisfy Beron's demands long enough for you to safely evacuate the temple. Once you light the signal, I'll escape into the woods and meet you there."
Nesta crossed her arms. "And if they keep you in chains? How will you escape then?"
"Lucien will help me. I know he will."
Both of her sisters scoffed. They would never understand. They didn't see how haunted he looked to admit he'd set this conflict in motion. That his father would never know a seer lived in this kingdom if she hadn't shown him kindness.
"No Vanserra can be trusted," Feyre said gravely. "You have a soft heart, Elain. He's trying to use it against you to fulfill his father's goal."
"If that's the case, then why didn't he just capture me in the woods?"
Her sisters shared a glance. Then Feyre said, with grating gentleness, "You're the only one who can navigate those woods, Elain. He can't take you from them unwillingly."
For the slightest moment, Elain's view of the forest took the altered shape that it did in everyone else's eyes. A place that was eerie, unsafe, dangerous. She pictured a red-haired man in those woods, but his clever eyes held the sinister edge of a blade. His smile was just as wicked, but the thrill it wracked through her was one of terror, not pleasure.
Was her naivety covering the truth with a softer lense? Or was it their cynicism churning the image, diluting its water with murky sediment?
Elain's heart knew the truth. Hers and Lucien's beat as one. She'd helped him twice without question or hesitation. He would be driven to do the same. That was the only truth she could make peace with.
Regarding her sisters, so they both could read the depth of her sincerity, Elain told them, "There are two paths forward. You can either help me convince the High Priestess of this plan, or I'll sneak away to surrender myself to Beron's army. I know which choice gives the temple the strongest advantage. Do you?"
She waited patiently as her sisters digested the ultimatum. They studied her, they studied each other. Nesta's eyes even drifted back to the funeral pyres she'd gestured to earlier. There was very little change in her expression, but she did set her lips into a thin line.
"Okay," Nesta said. "I'll help you."
Feyre looked far more stricken, but she nodded. "I will, too."
"Thank you," Elain whispered. She mustered a smile that conveyed far more courage than she felt. "Then, let's go convince the High Priestess to offer my hand to Lucien Vanserra."
Present Day
The boat swayed with the rise and fall of the sea.
Through the stern window in the captain's quarters, Elain could feel the rhythmic swish of water as it swept against the hull. Again and again, like the sea was trailing its knuckles against the wood, just to remind the crew she was still there. Warning, you are alive because I allow you to be. I can change my mind at any moment.
"You used to say my name sounded like the sea," Lucien mused. He leaned forward on the chair he'd pulled to her bedside, a bowl of seared fish and grain cupped in his palm. "Having heard her song, do you still agree?"
Elain's glare hadn't left her face since the moment she'd woken up in that ox-wagon. Now, she speared it towards the spoon he held toward her lips. It didn't matter that the smell made the back of her mouth water, or that her stomach grumbled loud enough for the both of them to hear. She kept her mouth shut.
With a sigh, Lucien set the spoon back in the bowl. "I won't let you starve yourself, Elain."
"Of course not," she sniped. "Your father won't lift your banishment if you return with an emaciated corpse."
"That's not why I care," he said evenly.
"Isn't it?"
Lucien reached for a waterskin with his other hand. "It isn't." The cork popped with an easy pry of his thumb, and then the opening was pressed to her lips. "At least drink something."
Having no desire to be bound to a bed of soaked sheets, Elain parted her lips. To his credit, Lucien held the waterskin at a steady angle as she drank, ensuring too much water didn't pour at once. A small amount dribbled at the corner of her mouth when he pulled away, but that was fixed with a swipe of his thumb that lingered at the plump of her bottom lip for a beat too long.
Lucien cleared his throat. "I noticed you didn't answer my question."
"About the sea?" He nodded, and Elain decided to answer if only because it would offer a distraction from the heat still tingling through her lip. "Maybe I said that because I was really hearing this moment. Maybe it was a warning me that our fates would be bound, and you would be my captor."
"Captor?" His echo held a sadness that called to her weaker sense, but she refused to give him her pity. Not when she was tied to a bed, trapped in a prison of his making in the middle of the ocean. "I preferred when you called me husband."
"Those words are no different to me. What will I be when you turn me over to your father, wife or captive? You know I'll try to flee at the first opportunity, so what will you do? Keep me chained to our marital bed?"
Lucien narrowed his eyes. "You're the seer between us. You tell me."
Futures couldn't be summoned on a whim, not in the way he was suggesting. She was brought visions as the Cauldron willed it, and though she could often pick up vague senses of where a person's immediate path was heading, with Lucien it was always blank. As if his preferred mask of indifference was rooted down to his soul.
She'd never met a person as guarded as him. There were one or two souls she'd come across on her travels who faced the world through a shield of ice, but Elain could still peer through them on occasion. Perhaps because they were not so layered as Lucien's. Where most people maintained a single barrier between themself and the world, Elain suspected Lucien had built several. Wall after wall after wall—so enclosed that perhaps he no longer knew where the surface was.
And yet, through all those layers of stone, she could still hear the slow, steady beating that begged her to listen. I'm still here, it said. Find me.
Elain returned his glare. "I know that right now, you are keeping me restrained. That makes you my captor."
Yanking on the bindings caused the rope to scrape against her raw flesh, but Elain felt the pain was worth if for the remorse that flashed across Lucien's face. She didn't expect him to set the food aside to inspect her wrists. He swore when he saw the angry blisters on her skin.
"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked, hands flying to the knots around the headboard. Elain didn't say anything, too stunned by the way he untied the rope and took both her hands into his own to further examine the wounds. "Elain."
"I didn't think you cared."
Lucien made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, one that fell somewhere between anguish and frustration. She replayed the sound in her mind, trying to puzzle where it landed closer to. Meanwhile, Lucien retrieved his pack from the far side of the cabin and began rifling through it.
It occurred to her that she could have tried to escape during that short moment his back was turned. But they were in the middle of the sea, and if he'd paid off the crew well enough to take residence in the captain's chambers, she could imagine they wouldn't be scrambling to aid her.
"Here," Lucien said, returning to his seat with a tin in hand. "This salve should help."
Elain held out her hand, expecting to take it from him to administer it herself. He surprised her by taking her hand in his, heartbreakingly gentle. With his other hand, he dipped two of his fingers into the salve. Elain hissed when it met her skin. Despite his gentleness, despite knowing it was coming, the pain still prickled through her.
Knowing when pain was coming did not always alleviate it, she found.
"I'm sorry," Lucien said. His voice was solemn. "You're the last person I ever wanted to hurt."
"Then you should have let me go. You should have never come looking for me."
There it was again, that sadness flicking over his face that preyed on her heart. His voice was strained as he said, "I tried. I told myself I could let you go. But I couldn't. It—you haunted me. I had to set things right again."
As he spoke, something plucked at her. An old string in her chest. If she tugged on it, she had the sinking sensation it would lead to his own. Truth, she thought it said. Elain frowned. Lucien switched to rubbing salve on her other hand. His movements still gentle, the unintended sting still cruel.
"This is your way of making things right?"
"This is a means to an end," he corrected. Then he shook his head. "I would like you to explain it to me, though. Why do you think I no longer care for you? Only one of us was abandoned in those woods, and it wasn't you."
Elain tried very hard to keep her mind anchored to the present. She focused on the pain throbbing through her wrist. The warmth of his hand, cradling hers. His steady heartbeat pleading, listen. Listen. Anything to keep from reliving the moment she last saw him in the forest.
"It was a means to end," she whispered, because it was the only answer she could give him. "I couldn't risk you taking me back to Autumn."
His flattened lip said she was only telling him things he'd already worked out for himself.
"But why do you assume I no longer care for you?"
Because I don't know if you ever did.
"I betrayed you," she answered. "I left you."
"It hurt, but I understood your reasons. How could I not?"
It burned her, that he had the audacity to play ignorant. Like a branch bearing too much weight, the anger in her snapped. If she was capable of deeper anger, her hands would have flown to his cheek. Something in her craved violence, but the most she could bare to strike was the tin of salve in his hands. It clattered to the floor, splattering its contents as it went. Flecks of it decorated Lucien's leg, but that was not nearly so satisfying as the shock on his face.
Shock that morphed into something hot. Anger, and something else. Something that writhed and tangled in her stomach, made her clench her thighs.
Maybe it was because of that heat, because of the fear that rose to meet it, that she snapped, "Don't take me for a fool, Lucien. I am not the same naive girl I used to be."
"No?" Lucien lifted from his chair, surging so fast and so close that Elain instinctively fell back on the bed. He followed, arms braced on either side of her head, lowering himself until she could feel the heat of his body skimming every inch of hers. "I think you're right," he breathed. "The girl I met was no coward, and certainly no oath breaker."
"I broke no oath!"
"You broke the one you made to me!" He snarled. "You left me."
Elain stilled, searching those heated eyes. For just one traitorous second, her gaze dropped to his mouth. She told herself it was because his teeth were bared. A survival instinct, to make sure he wouldn't bite her.
A memory flickered at the cusp of her grasp. If she reached for it, she knew she would feel those teeth sinking into her skin in another time. One framed by the rosy flush of passion. Even without reaching for it, her body recognized its remnants. Her bones sighed in relief, saying, we've been here before. Why fight it?
"You said you understood my reasons." Elain was unable to help the mocking sing-song in her voice. Lucien's eyes flashed, and some inane instinct had Elain craning her neck in response.
He tracked the movement, just as he tracked everything she did.
"That doesn't mean they didn't wound me," he murmured, dipping his head to speak the words against her neck. "Especially when I would have gone with you."
"Liar," she gasped.
Sharp teeth dragged along the column of her throat. She couldn't resist her full-body shudder.
"I've never lied to you, Elain." A nip at her pulse. "You made me swear it."
The hand she slid into his hair was entirely involuntary. She told herself she was only tangling her fingers with the intention to pull him away. But she was his wife, once, in every sense of the word. Memories of it were trailing back to her, slow and syrupy as treacle.
They were telling her things. Secrets buried the bedsheets of Autumn. Like what would happen when she pulled on his hair.
And Elain pulled hard.
Lucien groaned, and the next thing she knew, his teeth were clamped down on her neck. No more teasing. No more gentleness.
She squirmed beneath him, hips bucking until he indulged her silent request by pressing his body in. Pinning her to the bed with a strong thigh wedged between her parted legs, pressing solidly against the place she ached. She was left with no choice but to stay. To feel. To keep herself anchored to this moment of anger and passion and… and something she couldn't bear to name, or it risked shattering her past repair.
Her husband released her when she finally cried out. Not from pain or anguish, but from the sharp, quivering needs she hadn't dared acknowledge since the moment they parted ways.
Lucien's breathing was ragged. "Tell me why you're so angry at me. Tell me why you think I don't care for you anymore."
"You've chased me down to bring me back to him!" She exclaimed, blinking back tears. "Why do you need more explanation than that?"
The bed sighed as Lucien peeled his body away, leaving Elain deprived of his weight. Empty.
"If you think that's why I've been chasing you all these years, then perhaps you truly don't know me at all."
Elain thought she should say something, refute his words or throw them back, but they'd doused cool water over her anger. She could think of nothing to say, could only watch as Lucien strode to the door and left it swinging behind him.
“She is by far the fairest of the three,” Nova remarked, following his eyeline.
Elain was dancing with that same gentleman, the name of which bandied about in the back of his mind.
“Viscount Nolan seems to think so, too.”
Lucien resisted his audible groan of disgust. He knew the name and his wheyface reputation from Andras.
“Nolan cheats at cards,” he said, off-handedly. “Always takes the easy win.”
Nova regarded him. “My, my… I rather think jealousy suits you, Duke.”
He wanted to scoff. Jealous? Of Nolan? Preposterous. He could easily slip in there between them to offer her a dance. He was of a more senior rank and infinitely more well-favoured in Spring than Nolan. More handsome, too.
There was no contest as to who the more desirable suitor would be.
another little tease for you, landing tomorrow 🌷 @elucienweekofficial
I just want to thank the wonderful people that have allowed this week to be possible! It is so fun sharing with you all this fic as well as seeing the wonderful contributions this community has made!
Once again, thank you for reading!! Please comment below as I loved hearing all of your thoughts as this is my first COMPLETED multichapter fic!!!
The self made, independent, Elain Archeron is happy with her life.
She has a newly acquired house, a stable job, and a boyfriend. She is happy in her “living alone era”. At least that is what she tells herself as she holds tight to the strange warmth that greets her whenever she feels most alone… which is most nights.
The last thing she expects is a ghost with hair like a living flame and alluring russet eyes trapped within its walls. So, what is she to do when he appears, as cunning as a fox, to upturn her life?
Thank you @zenkindoflove , @gooseyjossip , and @chaol-apologist for all your help on this fic! You are all so wonderful :)
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Summary: When Elain discovers Lucien’s apartment, she can’t resist sneaking inside. What starts as a harmless little visit quickly turns into her making herself a little too comfortable while he’s away. It’s only a matter of time before Lucien catches her in the middle of something naughty. Set during ACOSF.
I originally had planned to turn this into a longer fic with more detail and nuance, but I clearly lack the conviction to complete a fix on time 😅
So, I turned the overall concept into a poem instead! It's my first in a long time, but hopefully it's not as rusty as I think it is.
Detail below the cut!
This is an acrostic poem. I feel like the form is underappreciated or relegated to the territory of middle school English classes. But they can be fun and require putting intention into word choice and line breaks.
The acrostic is "Peak Yearning", plus an "SH" as a sort of signature line!
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I tend to write little snippets without clear direction or thought. I wrote this awhile ago, heavily edited it this morning, and decided why not? I’ll share.
So here’s my contribution for Elucien Week Day 3 Peak Yearning!
To set the stage: Lucien and Elain have worked together for months towards getting the peace treaty signed between the humans and Prythian courts. With the treaty complete, and Lucien telling Rhys he can no longer be his emissary, Lucien and Elain seem to be going down separate paths. Here’s the night before Elain’s return to Velaris.
—
“Any other day,” Lucien whispered, taking a step closer. Daring to breathe in her scent. Gods, that jasmine and honey scent would bring him to his knees if he didn’t concentrate on the words he needed to get out.
In all these months working together, traveling courts and sleeping under the same roof, there has been barely a graze of the hand or press of shoulders. His hands, constantly clenched so hard indentations were forming on his palms, had been kept to himself.
But now on the eve of her return to Night Court, he finally reached for her. He gently grasped both of her upper arms, pulling himself closer to her as his hands ran down her arms and clasped her hands. He let out a breath of relief as she squeezed his hands in encouragement, and he couldn’t help but bend so low that his nose nearly grazed hers. He thought his chest might give out from how tight the bond was pulling, how that thread strained nearly to the point of snapping. The bond seemed to whisper just a little closer in his ear, to close that gap between their lips. He knew any more touch between them and he’d erupt in light and wind and whatever other magic she seemed to bring out of him. His jaw tightened as he willed himself to restrain.
“Any other day,” he repeated. “I would let it be. It’s always been your choice when it comes to us.”
Us. Cauldron boil him, there was an us between them. He wondered if the thread was yanking as hard in her chest as it was for him. If her knees were dangerously wobbling like his.
Those fawn brown eyes met his own. Those eyes were home, achingly reminiscent of the Autumn Court’s canopies with amber and forest green speckled across that lovely brown. He was instantly brought back to memories of afternoons laying on the forest floor staring above as the sunbeams filtered and shifted with each flutter of the changing leaves. That day in Hybern, when their eyes first locked, he had been transported to his long-lost memories of home. He had known then what she was to him.
She was his home. His mate. His heart twinged painfully at the thought that perhaps she would never consider him her home, and maybe she yearned to return to Velaris. To whomever waited for her there.
“But I’ve spent my whole life just letting things happen to me. And I can’t let this just happen to me too without saying something. So, I’m begging you. Please stay. Be with me. Don’t go back.”
