#manelide

So sorry this took so long. Anyway, this is fairly edited, but it is a filler chapter. You’ll meet some people who have been mentioned in Canon and one of my OCs. The spacing is also really weird between paragraphs so sorry about that too.

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“Manon!”

Manon Crochan’s head slowly turned towards her bedroom door before slumping back down into her pillow. “Manon, open the damn door. We have lunch with Grandmother,” Manon proceeded to keep her eyes closed. Of course, her sister was at her house at the break of dawn for a lunch appointment. Her sister, kind as she was, was the absolute worst pain in her ass. Only a few years younger than her, Rhiannon seemed to think they were twins. Brown haired, brown eyed, short, and slender, they couldn’t really be more opposite. Not to mention Manon’s other “built in accessories” as her sister so kindly named her iron teeth and nails.

“Manon! I’m sure whoever is in your bed will probably not want to meet our family so I suggest getting up and kicking her out.”

Manon groaned and shoved her covers off. Throwing on whoever’s shirt was closest, she leaned over and nudged the witch still asleep in her bed. “Hey, wake up. Time to go, my sister is here,” She nudged her one more time and turned to pull on a pair of leggings. She got to the door in time for her sister to start cracking it open. “Good morning, Rhia, nice to see you too,” Said Manon slipping through the door just to shut it behind her again. Leading her sister to the kitchen, she set about making tea.

“So who was it last night, a random townie or someone I know? You know, one day you’re going to run out of witches to sleep with,” Rhia said while sitting at the kitchen counter. Her sister took it upon her self to leisurely look through the bowl of apples next her. “You need to either eat these or throw them out, they’re going bad in three days.”

Her sister’s ability to detect fruit degeneration was truly spectacular. Before magic disappeared, her sister could detect when a heart was about to stop or when a liver was out of time, but after her abilities went from a helpful gift to an annoying knowing. Manon couldn’t tell if she was relieved or disappointed by the vanishing of her magic. She knew it was hard for her sister to know when someone would die, but not be able to do anything of it. Her gift wasn’t ocular in anyway, but messing with the natural flow of the universal was never good.

“Maybe you should stop poking into my business, apples or bedmates,” Manon said. She leaned back against the counter and looked her sister over. She looked tired, but all Crochans were tired these days. The Ironteeth were getting more and more aggressive. Luckily, the Crochans were good enough at hiding that her kin thought they were almost extinct.

“I’m your little sister, it’s my job to poke,” Rhiannon said.

“Maybe so, but I’m older, you should listen to me.”

“We’re over a hundred years old that doesn’t work on me anymore,” Her sister snorted just in time for the kettle to squeal and a door to creak open. Soft footsteps padded down the hallway from the bedroom. Her and her sister looked just in time to see a head of blonde curls to peak around the doorframe. She looked guilty as she said, “You’re in my shirt.”

“Well, good morning,” Her sister drawled from her seat.

“Good morning, Rhiannon,” Her bedmate said awkwardly and proceeded to raise her eyebrows in a cue for Manon to hurry up. “If you don’t mind, I would like to leave soon.”

Manon laughed and walked past her as a lead for her to follow back to the bedroom. “I would have given it back,” Manon said as she reached the door. They switched shirts just in time for the front door to open again with a flourished, “Cousin, wake up!”

She sighed just as her lover was pulling up the window. “It’s just Bronwen, you can go out the front door,” Manon said just as she swung her leg over the sill. “I’d rather not have two people in your family know about this. Rhia is bad enough. Have a nice day,” She swung her other leg out and walked quickly towards the woods behind the house. Manon turned just as her cousin barged in. Similar to her sister in looks and nosiness, Manon always wondered if they were the siblings instead.

Manon walked past her cousin and back towards the kitchen where Rhiannon had made three cups of tea and was sitting at the only table in the house. “So, Poppy, huh?”

“Wait, what? Poppy?” Bronwen asked looking intrigued. Poppy was a well known young witch from the Pradja Clan. Powerful in the sense she was not only well liked, but had a gift for reading and evaluating emotions. Some even thought she could look into people’s minds. Of course, just like her sister, her gift was watered down. She seems to only be able to catch a hint of what people were feeling like a slight shift in the air. Manon had known Poppy for a few years, and it wasn’t till recently she gained interest. Poppy truly was young, only being in her twenties, and Manon had surpassed a century over a decade ago.

“It’s none of your business,” She said to her sister then turned to her cousin, “And it’s not yours either.” Manon sat down across from Rhia and took a sip of tea. She almost cringed. Rhiannon never made her tea sweet enough.

“Yeah, but, Poppy? Isn’t she a little young? And… public?” Bronwen asked sitting at the table as well.

“She’s twenty-four, and she has no inclination of talking about last night.”

“I’m sure. No one wants to flaunt the fact they slept with their queen,” There was an eye roll accompanied with that statement from Bronwen, and Manon answered with one of her own.

“Other than to annoy me, why are you here?”

“Grandmother will be here in two hours,I figured you might want help making lunch.”

“Me too. I also wanted to talk about the Ironteeth,” Rhiannon said setting done her cup. Rhiannon knew Manon hated talking of her relatives. Her grandmother, the Matron, was... something else. And her cousins seemed to be just as bad. Manon figured the moment her and her mother were tossed in the snow to die was the moment those familial ties were severed. But she always felt guilty, felt sorry for those witches. She held the same body, same assets as them, but never once had she hurt an Ironteeth for no reason. They killed and slaughtered for sport.

“What about them?” Manon asked.

“A blonde and a red head with black and gold eyes were seen only about twenty miles from here. Grandmother thinks we should move, but I thought it might be a good opportunity to speak with them. It’s only two, and if us three plus Una go, we’d be fine.”

“No,” Was Manon’s only reply. There was no way in any burning hell she was letting her family near them. If Rhiannon was so eager to sign a truce, Manon would do it by herself. She was recognizable to them. She’s heard what they called her. The White Bitch being one of the nicer ones. But they would never agree to one. If they were interested in peace, they wouldn’t have ripped apart their country so long ago.

“Manon, these are high ranking, respected witches. They could be the key in turning-“

“I don’t care who they are. You’re not going.”

“But-“

“No! That is an order!”

Rhiannon looked more than prepared to do this all day. That look made Manon realize that was the real reason she showed up. She didn’t want their grandmother there to hear them argue, but she still wanted to have this conversation.

“You are not going anywhere near them. If they get any closer we’ll leave, but otherwise, they are not our problem,” Manon said as she walked over and dumped her tea into the sink.

“They are always our problem,” Rhia seethed, “They will never not be, not while they hunt us. Your belief that if we leave it alone is what’s getting us killed.”

Manon gripped the counter as her iron nails slid out. “You think I don’t care? My one job in this life is to keep you all safe. I can’t keep every Crochan safe so I will make sure that my family is. Hate me all you want for that, but until I have the resources, the soldiers, to fight back, I won’t.”

Bronwen cleared her throat. Manon was ready to start it out with her as well. Bronwen has always sided with Rhia. Maybe it was because they were only a few months apart, maybe it was because Manon would never be like them, or maybe it was because Manon didn’t have to time play when she was little. Whatever it was, Manon was always the older one, the meaner one, the colder one. Maybe it was the iron, the blood that flowed in her veins that made her different.

But all Bronwen said was, “We should start on lunch. And you are going to tell us all about Poppy.”

Empire of Storms 

This bit kills me every time. It is the only time Aelin expresses her bitterness at her unfair fate. The only time she asks, why me? The only time she allows her feelings to come through, right before she dutifully accepts the burden of her destiny.