#farenduilstarter

It was late when Emma found herself standing in the foyer of her father’s townhome. Simple, but elegant, the enchantments laid over it were not his own and despite the knowledge that he was there, it was jarring to not be able to feel him. She wasn’t sure who she’d be when she finally came face to face with him again, a fool’s hope had kept her earnest in her desire to simply put the man behind her and never return. It would be better if he thought that she was dead, Emma had been robbed of paradise but the man who was the architect of this fate happened to be her oldest friend. Selfish. Fiendish. Emory could not have known but that didn’t keep Emma from blaming him.

Farenduil was a good man. It had taken Emma a long time to admit that, but had he been give. The chance to be a father then he would have been a good one. 

“Hi dad.” The words were small, meeker than they should have been considering who was speaking them. Cursed, burdened by a bastard of a brother, cut down by circumstances, resurrected: despite all that Emma had been made to endure she couldn’t help the feeling of childhood that washed over it. Like all at once she was just a little girl again, whispering to the pages of a fairy tale that her father would walk through the door.

“I was a terrible mother,” Titania whispered, “I put everything I was into being Queen of a people that came to hate me. I wanted to be a mother, and I failed. I wanted to be Queen, and I failed at that too.” The archfey wasn’t the type to purposefully invoke sympathy or to petty self-pity, but the long years tethered to so many of her people had addled her mind alongside the spellplague. While the pharmakis had restored her and the Gods of Elysia had healed her, Titania wasn’t the woman who’d left the mortal realm behind. She’d promised so much to Zahrya, to Meryasek, but even in her resurgence she’d vowed vengeance and made them pledge the same. Everywhere she looked there was fault etched in the lines of all that she had written, Farenduil had not held back, she knew that he despised her: and he’d been right to. Titania despised her too. 

“I thought for so long that it was within my power to control everything, that if I just held on tight enough then we wouldn’t have to lose anymore than we already have.” Titania turned towards her son, worried hands wrung in front of her, “You and your friends came here seeking aid but you won’t find any: Corellon turned his back on the mortal realm long ago.” Farenduil, the son with whom Titania had expected the world and Meryasek, the son with whom Titania had never expected anything. How they’d both surprised her, and how she’d ruined them both. She could feel the pain of his broken soul as his magic ran keenly through her, the death of a warder was an insufferable loss. All because they had hoped to find aid in a hostile realm. Boons, perhaps, but nothing more: these elves sought worship, as all Gods did, nothing more. “As have I.” It was time for the eladrins to come home so they might at last be restored.

It had been months without any real contact, Yavie felt the other's grief and he heard the news - but until Farenduil called he kept his distance. The fall eladrin wasn't without his own feelings on how things had transpired, but because he knew the Prince was venturing out into the Otherworld - Yavie had to follow. Because he wanted to see for himself what was out here, with eyes unclouded by eladrin bias, and to protect the man he'd been warded to for so long.

They had settled in the cottage, the petrified face of the barbarian elf stared distantly into the firelight. Yavie watched it from the limb of a barren tree, his features glowed with a violet hue brought on by the purple fairy light that illuminated this space. He'd never been anywhere so dark, it made him wonder what was out there - waiting for them in the trees.

"Are you ever going to talk to me again?" They'd greeted one another at their reunion, had chatted as they wandered through the Otherworld, but nothing of substance. Nothing significant. His head tilted towards the barbarian, the stone face twisted in visceral rage. "It's true what they say, you know? That our kind can weep themselves to stone, petrify in place. It was like that when my father died." Naturally, Yavie's father had looked quite different when it happened, Yavie had been a child then, and his hands were too small to keep the sorrow and stone from overtaking his father's skin. "I kept waiting for it to happen to you."

Sobs could be heard coming from the cabin. Micah knew then that it was over. Emory’s broken heaves flooded his ears and the faiman buried the axe he’d been using to chop wood into the stump. He’d said his goodbyes but he couldn’t stand there and watch life fade from hollowed out cheeks. Only a few weeks ago Emma had appeared so vibrant, so full of life, even while she was calling him every name in the book and telling him that she never wanted to see him again. 

Shock kept him from going anywhere, from doing much of anything. He assumed Emory would come out eventually, they could talk then. Something. Marie Wright was on a plane by now flying towards Rome, she’d get here and Micah supposed they’d have a funeral. Here? No, no, back home. His head turned at the thought of making arrangements and then he was sick, heaving beside the woodshed when he felt the familiar approach of his father. Micah had told him, told him everything and still nothing had been done. Farenduil was the fucking prince, and for all that what was it worth? What had it done for them? 

Nothing. Nothing but a warm place for his sister to go to so she could curl up and fucking die. “I told you-” Micah said shakily, he’d told his father everything and there was so much hurt and rage and sorrow teeming within him that he didn’t know where to send it. “I told you-!” Micah pointed towards the cabin, skin burning hot. He wanted to claw out of his skin, wanted to find someone -anyone- that he could blame. Aurora did this and now she wasn’t even fucking here to see the fruits of her handiwork. 

When Yavie had leapt overboard, he was prepared for what that meant. He knew that it was a senseless venture, to leap towards certain doom hadn’t been for any reason beyond the chance Yavie thought Farenduil deserved. All these past months Yavie had been loud in his resentment for the pecking order, resentful towards a monarchy and chancellorship that had failed at every turn. The powerful who were in power by virtue of their blood, not for anything that had been earned. Putting the strong at the top on secured the notion that the weaker among them could not rise any further.

Warders were meant to die first, it was the design of the spell that entwined two souls together. It was why Yavie’s father had not lived long after Amille had died. Why so many warders who failed their charges vanished. Yavie had come to hate it, and yet, he loved Faren. He hadn’t  followed him because the noble autumn fey was the prince’s warder, and he hadn’t gone for the adventure. Yavie followed after Farenduil because in his heart he’d known from the onset that the Prince needed him. 

So, the warder, despite all his bluster, he had been prepared to die. For love and for friendship, not for something as silly as duty. 

“I wanted to tell you something.” The leaves did not stir at their presence anymore, but rather they drilled around Yavie as if the world itself was holding its breath. “And here I find you, human. Of all things.” This felt like a joke, how could Yavie go anywhere when Faren was going to be dead in a few blinks?

Most of the shop was barren, emptied out by the preparations that were under way. Donated, purchased, it didn’t matter, but Abel needed to know what they still had on hand. “You’ve changed.” Micah commented as he looked up from his clipboard for a moment, returning to it as he continued counting inventory. There was a time when the faiman had thought he wasn’t much good at anything, that he was just useless trash that only knew how to take. Maybe that was still true, but he’d found some solace in running the shop, found purpose in working for Cloe, and found something worth fighting for in the coming conflict. Micah didn’t know what the world would look like when the dust had settled, but his gut told him it was going to be big. And here his father was, mortal, human, and altogether useless. “Shit timing.” Came the grizzly follow-up as he moved on to the next shelf, blue eyes that matched his mother’s flit towards his father. “What are you doing here?”

Emma knew why she was here, but she was surprised to see her father present amongst the crowd. Maybe he knew one of the brides, or maybe he was just lending his blessing and support to the whole affair. Either way, she owed him a debt for what he’d helped her with. Some guilt gnawed at the edge of her core as Emma had to keep an active effort in maintaining her composure, keep her back straight, keep her eyes open, her chin forward. It was what was expected of her. Sick and tired was not a good look, thankfully there was makeup to hide the sinking bags under her eyes. “I think it’s customary for fathers to ask their daughters to dance at weddings.” 

Yavie didn’t like this one bit. He didn’t like scary costumes, or horror movies, he didn’t see the entertainment value in some pyscho with a knife chasing teenagers around for an hour and a half, and he certainly didn’t know how Farenduil had talked him into a movie night at his cottage. A loud, shrill scream emanated from the very depths of Yavie’s soul as popcorn went flying through the air and Yavie buried his face into the prince’s arm. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” Yavie yelled, they’d made it to the first kill about fifteen minutes into the movie.