#*azriel

an inspired follow-up😌 okay see i think azriel shows his love to eris specifically by matching his freak to a concerning degree

first and foremost azriel offers eris a lot of grace and understanding, which eris needs. like i touched on in the azris ask, azriel understands eris without eris having to verbalize his feelings — and for someone who talks so mf much, eris very rarely says anything meaningful about himself. where i think they initially have a lot of misunderstandings, once azriel takes the time to give eris that grace, i think their communication becomes very easy. even if it still isn’t “““healthy””” (but i firmly believe that they prioritize happy over healthy cuz what would healthy even mean to two fae who have been through what they have?)

azriel is just so intense. similar to eris, he is always watching — but he is doing it way more blatantly and more for the joy of it. eris can feel azriel’s eyes on him all the time, and if not his eyes, then his shadows are always nearby, coiling up eris’s leg, twining their fingers into eris’s hair. and for eris, who has never been seen for who he is, to be looked at the way azriel looks at him … that is a very heady thing

also just like . the quiet pride. azriel takes a lot of satisfaction in seeing eris verbally cut someone down and navigate tricky social situations. bitches don’t really try it that much with azriel cuz, again, he’s Very Intense, but bitches love to try it w eris for some reason. eris always handles it so gracefully, even when he’s saying the most horrific derogatory shit you’ve ever heard, and azriel just stands to the side making his version of heart eyes (everyone but eris thinks he looks pissed)

btw don’t worry abt eris not knowing how to be affectionate. azriel manhandles him all the time. like eris isn’t small but azriel is Big. also Strong. azriel is always pulling eris into his lap, tugging him closer by his waistband, by his wrist, by his hair. he always has his hand on the small of eris’s back, even in public, which eris is very unused to. (“perhaps you might consider pissing on me to better mark your territory,” eris snips early on. azriel just quirks a brow. eris blushes furiously. yeah. yeahhhhh)

oh bitch eris’s hair — i think azriel plays with it all the time. runs his fingers through it, samples it at his fingertips bc he likes the slide of it even if he can’t quite make out the texture, winds it around his fist. eris just turns into a puddle. he hates it, because azriel does it without thinking, and he cannot think when azriel is doing it — and then azriel does it intentionally and that’s even worse!

azriel also always listens to eris yap. he listens the whole way through with undivided attention, then he asks like an incredibly insightful question that gets to the root of what eris was telling him (again . speaks so much says so little) and eris is always like floored by this

guard dog azriel guard dog azriel guard dog azriel — and the only person who can call him off is eris

❝ let’s be the same wound if we must bleed. let’s fight side by side, even if the enemy is ourselves: i am yours, you are mine.

Is it too much to ask for Iphigenia x Azriel? If you don't feel like it, Iphigenia x whoever you're most comfortable with

Search unrealized, shadow drifts from chamber to chamber. The wards of some eclipse in total, while others yield with such ease as to be fruitless within. Yet these wards around these chambers—their snarled warning carries the resonance of treasure kept like secret.

A rustle beneath Azriel's ear confirms it.

Here.

As he steps through the in-between of the world, the sense of having slunk past a beast too great to mind all of its body strikes him. His pulse quickens, that anticipatory thrum beating at his veins. He settles it with a breath.

Weapon, he expects to find. Tool. Undeniable proof of double-dealing.

But before the hearth sits only a female, knees tucked tight to her chest, toes delved appreciatively into the fur of a rug. She gazes into the flickersnap fire like it might soon reveal something to her. Its glow sets her alight.

She waits, the shadows sigh. She waits always for him.

Made aware in the saying, the wood of the keep groans out warning to her: Intruder.

The tune of this court must meet her ear wrongly. She glances to the flooring and wrinkles up her nose. Then, as though disgusted by her proximity to it, she rises to her feet and turns to settle instead on a nearby chaise.

Azriel stares, transfixed.

Her resemblance to the lady of this court is a disorienting thing—the soft angles of her jaw, the delicate set of her nose, the loving arrangement of her brow. It is her hair which sets her apart, her eyes, both rich in earthen depth and gleaming like dew; it is the revelation made of her body, draped in gold-wrought chain and plum gossamer so thin as to afford the imagination no opportunity; it is the bounty laid out beneath.

Those things, and the collar around her throat.

Shadow deepens beneath the drape of her hair. So close, the gems bleed red as aestival rubies. No seam at the back, no catch. The metal has been welded that she cannot remove it.

Indignation frosts his chest.

A shiver overtakes her. That is when he notices the steam drifting from her eyelashes—tears turned mist turned nothing. Were it not for this, he never would have realized she had been weeping, so adept is she at concealing her sorrow.

Out now through to his fingers, twitching them towards Truth-Teller.

She waits. For whom?

Footsteps approach.

The knob rattles.

Open swings the door.

"High Lord," she rejoices. A sweep of her gaze over Beron in her approach, and her bearing attunes itself at once to him. No longer the eager enthusiasm of a lover returned but the tender haven afforded a beleaguered warrior. "Did not you enjoy the banquet?"

"Precious little to enjoy of dining alongside a half-breed whelp," he sneers.

Her round eyes sparkle up at him. As her fingers alight idly on the band of his trousers, his glint dark and hungry.

A dip of his mouth beside the arch of her ear. "But you, petal," he murmurs, reaching between to part the scant fabric of her garment and paw at her sex, "you, I intend to enjoy in full."

She waits, the shadows hiss. For her savior.

And so Azriel descends.

i feel like azriel is a classic i need to be useful to be worthy of love because there is something inherently wrong with me that i have to atone for type of character. all of his formative years are spent isolated and abused, and that impacts him very deeply. he is taught in no uncertain terms that something in him and of him is flawed, enough so that he must be separated from society and penned like a beast. there's even a physical manifestation of this: his shadows, which are an aberration. the moment he and his otherness can't be controlled anymore, he is cast out and into a world of violent unknowns, where he's surrounded by exponentially more of the very same males who abused him. he learns that if he exposes too much of the wrongness in him, he will be punished—he will be abandoned.

then he's taken in by a found family with an extremely rigid sense of morality. he's shown kindness and patience and compassion, something that he's only ever before known from his mother. he thinks: if i can be good enough, i will be allowed to keep this. but he is a creature of darkness, and he has been honed into a weapon, first by the illyrians, then by the high lord of the night court—the only things he's good at by the time he's a part of the inner circle are bloodletting and sneakery. so he takes on the most immoral role available: that of court torturer. this is what he's good for—and this keeps his family, who are all good where he is not, from having to sully themselves the way he has been. of course, the issue there is that the more he maims and kills without experiencing the same qualms his family does, the more he believes that something is wrong with him.

so he clings desperately to righteousness and goodness. he ascribes to the beliefs of those who he loves, even though they make him feel like an imposter, like a wolf in sheep's clothing, like it would only take one true look at him for them all to know. he's a part of this family, but he isn't, really. they love him, but they can't ever love all of him, and he knows that deep down. that's why he withdraws into himself when he experiences heightened emotions. they won't understand, no matter how desperate he is for them to. worse yet, if they ever get close enough to see the otherness and wrongness in him, they'll cast him out. that knowledge always looms overhead—an executioner's blade. it isn't a matter of if but when.

i actually typically don’t picture azris with a mating bond 👀 i like the thought of their choice to be with each other and love each other feeling entirely their own. they’ve had so many choices taken away from them in their life that i think it would be a really comforting, reassuring thing to choose and be chosen with no caveat of is this him? or is this the bond? i’m definitely not anti-mating bond—i similarly think having a predestined, preordained connection to someone is a huge relief, especially for azriel—but at least in my azris mind palace, they trend towards not being mates for that reason.

however comma ! regardless of whether they have a bond, eris absolutely feels that jealousy and possession, especially around the inner circle. while their relationship is secret, eris isn’t really doing anything publicly to assert his claim over azriel. in fact, he’s being even nastier because that jealousy is eating away at some really deep wounds of abandonment, unlovability, and a lack of belonging. but once azriel has chosen eris..,,,..,,,.what a fucking menace he becomes. some of it is unintentional: them making brief eye contact and immediately being on the same page, them mirroring each other’s posture/mannerisms, etc. just like the inherent exclusion of knowing such a strong connection is present and you aren’t a part of it.

but then there’s also eris intentionally just having fucked azriel right before a meeting with the inner circle, so the marks he left on his throat and his collarbones are dark and fresh. they are there to say: mine; not yours. eris intentionally bringing things up about azriel/their life that the inner circle isn’t privy to as if it’s common knowledge they should know. little smirks and smug, glinting eye contact. pulling azriel aside for private conversation just because he can. fingers twirling lazily around azriel’s shadows while he speaks to the inner circle because they’re never far from his person.

ohhhh man. oh man yeah i think eris has a lot of feelings about this. mostly, at first, he would hate not having known about it already. there would be an initial sting—ah, so there is no chance for us to be mates—and of course the subsequent thoughts of once more being the less favored option, just as he had been to his mother, as well as the renewed fear that with just one twitch of a finger from the mate who rejected him, azriel would crawl back to the husk of his bond just for the chance to ease the rejection. in so doing, abndoning eris. this would linger and fester and cause constant mid-level psychic damage to him. but most of all, he would hate being taken by surprise by all these feelings because he would think—if only i knew before, then i would not have let myself grow attached to the shadowsinger. because eris thinks you can just intellectualize feelings away. (eris is of course wrong.)

however ! i am a big proponent of azris who aren’t mates. azris who choose each other with intent. azris who defy predestination to say: you, only; you, always. just something about to characters who are never chosen in the way they need to be finally experiencing that from the other. obviously it would be less of a reassurance for eris in this scenario because he would constantly have that lingering fear that azriel will leave him if ever the mate who rejected him changed their mind. even though the bond couldn’t be recovered, eris knows just the admission to a mistake having been made would be enough to soothe azriel and lead him astray. eris knows because it would be enough for him too.