#*vera

vera crisedus is of the day court — complete with ~light magic~ abilities — but she has silver hair and green eyes and pale, absolutely sunless skin. (doesn’t fit day at all. doesn’t quite fit winter, either, which would be the closest match for her appearance but not for her power. weird !) she has never set foot outside in her entire life. (which could mean nothing.) her father, dolion, just wants to keep her safe. he loves her so much. he loves her even when his hands are heavy on her for speaking out of turn, or for meeting his eye, or for touching her utensils before he has begun eating. she doesn’t want to upset him, so she is obedient and docile and quiet and servile and small; this never proves to be enough, but she still tries.

eris meets her a few years prior to amarantha and UtM when dolion, who is of very distant relation to helion and very much believes he should be high lord, entices beron towards an alliance with the promise of a hush hush but very powerful weapon. beron brings eris along as a gesture of good faith, but really because he wants eris to suss out whether this weapon exists and what it actually is if so. beron tried to have his spies do this, but he quickly found dolion’s wards are impenetrable. like. weirdly so.

when eris first meets vera, he doesn’t even look at her. he thinks she’s a really underfed but well-dressed thrall because of the way she’s serving them, the way she keeps her eyes lowered and her mouth so carefully shut — but then dolion introduces her as his daughter. “she’s simple,” dolion tells eris and beron. “some wasting of the mind passed down by the mother. a shame. she could have been so lovely.” vera does not even react, except to dip her chin in greeting or agreement or habit.

eris thinks nothing of it. he has shit to do! when dolion and beron go off to discuss things in private, eris has a brief, uneventful conversation with her, then excuses himself. he puts it out of mind, until the next time they meet, and she acts like she’s never met him before. same thing the next time, and the next time, and the next time. he has never heard of a non-magic related illness that could do such a thing. and sometimes, after dolion rebukes her, there is such anger in her downcast eyes, white-hot and burning, just for a moment. eris is like uhhh ok yea something is fuck here.

long story short … he starts trying to suss out what her deal is, but he finds himself charmed by her freakish nature and burning curiosity and the glimpses of violent rage that she cannot quite hide no matter how she tries. it’s such a slow process bc she keeps forgetting him but eventually, subconsciously things start to stick. when he finds her alone in the library one day, she smiles over at him. she starts asking him questions about the world, the same ones over and over, which she never would have done before. eventually she sees him so often that she remembers him, even if it’s barely. he begins teaching her what he can of the things she doesn’t know (of which there are so many) over and over. sometimes he’ll admit things to her he never can to anyone else because the next day she won’t know.

he can tell her what beron does to him. he can talk about his brothers and how much he loves them and how much he hates them. he can take the comfort she offers because it won’t linger. the next time he sees her, she is a clean slate. he starts to get edgy about this because . he already knows how dolion treats her, and if she does not remember all of what happens to her, how many other fae are taking advantage of her? he also begins to suspect that vera is … dun dun dun … The Weapon dolion has been promising. so eris needs to figure out 1. what she is and 2. how to get her out of these fkn wards — and he’s going to! he’s going to get her free! he has a plan and everything!

but then UtM happens. dolion manages to keep her hidden away, warded tight in her room, so vera is effectively trapped in complete isolation for 50 years <3 and eris is separated from this freak ass girl who does not remember even a fifth of their interactions but who he is, to his absolute horror, so in love with. (he only realizes that when his first instinct is to seek her out upon being trapped, and it makes him want to throw up — because he does not want her here, but if she isn’t here where is she where is she where is she)

for vera, eris is the first male she’s ever met that is kind to her. it isn’t even that he’s particularly so; he just actually speaks to her, and he treats her like a person, and when he comes by, her father is not quite so violent, and he’s funny, and he thinks she’s funny, and he never touches her harshly, and he never gets angry when she asks him questions or meets his eyes, and she does not care what cruelty he perpetuates on others, because he never turns it on her. he is one of the only things that keeps her sane (loosely speaking) during her endless wait.