I WONDER. If Lucien had been there when Ophelia did this, and he came face to face with her later, would he confront his niece/try telling her her father sucks and she shouldn't let him rub off on her?

pre-kirsi carmine wouldn’t care to weaponize it at all! but if miss kirsi’s on the scene, she sure would :•) and by extension, carmine would to impress her :•) i think they’d most likely try to get milo incensed about the bond to make him do something reckless and get himself killed, thus eliminating the heir and hopefully seeing it pass to carmine, which means there’s one less obstacle to the throne. emile … yeahhh i always picture eris only having kids after beron is dead and he ascends to high lord, so if emile’s still alive, this is him at his absolute worst. not only is beron dead but eris is high lord and eris’ son is heir, not emile, thus proving all he ever internalized about himself. he probably tries to start some sort of smear campaign that eris’ line must be impure and unfit for the throne since ophelia has a bond beyond autumn + with the night court 🤮 but this backfires because intercourt sentiment has improved with eris on the throne permitting more faeries of other courts in to buy, sell, trade, including those from velaris, so largely the commonfolk are just mildly impressed that ophelia’s divine match is an heir, regardless of court. rip emile 🥀

lulu in the mix !!! hm hm hm. let’s see. once beron is dead, i envision eris attempting some sort of amends with lucien. which doesn’t mean they’re on good terms by any means and likely just looked like a really tense, double-spoken meeting between them positioning lucien in some sort of role that would ensure he has to come around to see report to eris periodically. and in this way eris can keep him closer than he had been before and approximate a relationship. so lucien’s sentiments towards eris are somewhere in the feigned ambivalence category. he’s distrustful of eris after all that happened and always waiting for the other foot to drop everything eris does but … it hasn’t yet … and won’t … and that’s confusing. lucien also, regardless of whether his bond has been accepted, has definitely spent plenty of time around nyx + the night court, which means he’s likely grown more favorable towards them as he’s been included in more of their meetings, dinners, festivities, and trainings.

so the clever fox sees what happens. sees tells of panic in ophelia that he once knew a long, long time ago—and it takes him a moment, because he has been alive and alone for so long, but he realizes that he once knew them of eris before his brother polished them completely away. panic + food = he clocks her shit immediately. DEFINITELY he approaches her. he manages to get her actually completely alone and away from even eris’ eyes in a forest house hidey hole he used to tuck himself away in—it’s just a matter of when he’s able to do so. i think it’s some tangled mix of like 1) eris’ children being the perfect litmus test for whether eris is as cold and cruel as everyone thinks, so feeling her out also feels out eris; 2) lucien wanting to be there for her and guide her as (he perceives) only his mother ever guided him if eris is beron 2.0 and she’s just being nasty; 3) lucien still searching for connection, for family, for home.

if she could hide it from nyx forever she probably would lmfao but no this would just have been a gut instinct panic response upon first meeting him because regardless of what the future holds, she doesn't want to be forever consigned to a mating bond after it was accepted by pure accident. she'd immediately after feel shocked and stressed and ashamed and very, very worried that the bond will make eris upset with her or think less of her or complicate things for him. i could see her with some tears of frustration in her eyes trying to work through these feelings while breaking the news to eris and him having to reassure her that this bond has absolutely no impact on the way he views her in the most stilted, i've literally never talked about emotions way possible. immediately asks her how she wants to handle it and she's just like [visibly distressed and not wanting to say she doesn't know]

most likely order of events following this situation would be that ophelia pulls milo aside, milo's like what was that, she tells him after downing some faerie wine and whatever equivalent of you're fucking kidding me he responds with pisses her off. she threatens him with his life if he tells anyone, especially father, to which he replies with something like why would i ever tell that to anyone—we should both forget we even know and pisses her off even more. but she trusts her brother and knows he won't blab. she stress drinks while stewing over what to do, eventually coming to the conclusion that the stupid fucking shadowsinger who keeps covertly eyeing her (she really is her daddy's daughter wow) will probably figure out what's going on if nyx hasn't already—and even if it isn't the shadowsinger who betrays her, nyx or his duplicitous father will put the pieces together. yes she discounts feyre. yes she is has at least a dash of internalized misogyny. if they're the ones to tell her father, that's going to be a problem. so she drunkenly requests an audience with him in the middle of this rite. eris agrees. guides his obviously shell-shocked daughter out.

eris, of course, who clocked the entire interaction from afar and knew immediately what it meant and is not at all shocked by what his daughter tells him because he knows her so well by nature of the obsessive amount of tabs he keeps on her and who has, in fact, been running through every possible outcome and approach to this scenario in his head while holding banal conversation with the most boring day court faerie he's ever met. the reveal isn't a reveal at all. it's the Dealing With Emotions that rocks his shit :•)<3

Azriel would have charged at Milo himself but he can do nothing but be mad about it now that it's Ophelia, that's so funny.

Speaking of Milo, does he catch on and figure out that there is something suspicious about what his sister just did?

i think when it comes to a situation like this where it's a public setting, he's been abruptly embarrassed and deeply insulted, and the slight came from a female of relatively equal status to him in her home court, nyx probably leans outwardly more towards rhysand cool than feyre combative. there's fs a spike of his emotions the way we see feyre have during the high lord's meeting, but he keeps his composure—and cassian or azriel's probably immediately at his side to easy now him + Big Boy intimidate the snickering faeries around them. (this sort of mockery is pretty par for the course for illyrians, but it would feel uniquely bad for them to see nyx be treated that way over their heritage. if it's azriel, he winds up honing more in on why ophelia, who he knows to operate similarly to eris even in a non-azris timeline, would be so openly hostile—because a snobbish look would have been just as effective if she just wanted to make nyx feel bad for being illyrian.) i could see nyx with a glass of whiskey in him approaching her later during the rite in more of a feyre what's your fucking problem way as his indignation grows.

milo absoluuutely clocks that something's up—just probably not what. he'd know ophelia isn't so overhanded with her disdain. that, between them, he's the one more likely to cause spectacle, which means something must have happened to make ophelia act that way. he wouldn't assume a bond was in place, but he would almost definitely suspect that nyx had done something to ophelia to upset her, probably something untoward. eris cultivates a very family above everything dynamic amongst his children so i could see milo immediately trying to go post up with nyx without making any effort at clarifying with ophelia about whether something happened first because that's what's Right To Do for his sister + his father hates the night court, which means to him they are unequivocally Bad Actors. (i love milo and his black and white sense of morality when he's young being eris's greek punishment.) ophelia would have to steer milo away from nyx with a massive ! above her head. meanwhile nyx is just standing there like🧍‍♂️hello????

the way it would seem like a meet cute to nyx until ophelia opened her mouth. he’s offended that someone would yank a plate from his hold, but as soon as he looks up to the face to match the hand, he’s got stars in his eyes. she’s so ethereally beautiful—like a moth of flame pinned behind glass, flickering but not wavering, impossible to truly pin down. (free her free her free her.) he’s never seen another faerie of the like. such molten, flowing eyes. such definition to her, as though all of the world bends for her presence, as though she is the center of all things. her shapely, nightshade mouth parts, and his heart skips a beat.