#vidalinavhc

Nesta learns the language, for three reasons. 1. curiosity and knowledge, Nesta wants to know and learn everything. I personally feel she should already know more than one, because no way does the entirety of the human land have only one language, and it’s socially advantageous to know more than one. 2. She’s already more integrated in Illyrian society, always lives there part time in my headcanons, and being around Illyrians is infinitely easier if she knows the language because they don’t like outsiders and 3. Because one of her best friends and her mate is Illyrian, who is proud of that fact, and her children will be half Illyrian. Learning it means being closer to them, learning their culture means respecting them, it means her kids growing up without shame and there’s so much shame related to this culture in this series, I HATE it. It’s never look at this culture which is the only reason we have really any POC characters, and let’s look at it in an imperialistic lens, where everything they do is backwards and traditional.... okay jan. Nesta is like, my kids are going to love every part of themselves, so she learns Illyrian. 

She never tells Cassian that she learns Illyrian, but as they spend more time in Windhaven or even just together, she hears Cassian speak it more often, speak it to her. 

Now for the real headcanon, Cassian is not good at expressing himself, but he’s a thousand times better expressing himself in his first language, in the Illyrian language and so very often he will tell her romantic things thinking that she doesn’t understand. But Nesta learns the language from Emerie, learns from being in Windhaven, from any text she can get, any experience. She practices it with Emerie, as in Emerie only talk to me in this language. She’s immersed. And so at first Nesta doesn’t know what he says. He tells her he loves her. That she’s his everything. That he’s grateful for her. That he doesn’t think any time will be enough. Calls her his love, his mate, his wife. He’s very romantic. And he smiles because he thinks she doesn’t have a clue. But Nesta learns and Nesta learns that he does this, and she keeps up the act for a very long time pretending that she doesn’t understand. She wants him to freely say everything, she wants to hear it all, and she’s afraid it’s going to stop if she tells him so she doesn’t. 

He learns that she knows a long time after the fact. Probably because she says I love you back to him. I am imagining sleepy nights where her head is tucked under his, and maybe they’re in their cabin, because I’m never giving that headcanon up, and he just whispers I love you into her hair. The thundering drum of the language filling her ears with music. And she grasps him tighter, her arms around him as she closes her eyes, half awake, and she sleepily replies I love you too. Forever, she whispers back to him, the language light on her tongue. Cassian just immediately stops running his hand down her back. He pulls back, looks at her, and he’s like what did you say? But Nesta’s asleep and Cassian has to wait until morning until he gets to ask how she knows that phrase. How she knows that word. How it came so easily to her. It’s music to his own ears, and he just pulls her closer, holds her like he can’t possibly ever let go, and he whispers back forever. 

In one scenario I imagined, Nesta just sees it stuck on the side, near the rocks, by the water in the river leading to the Sidra and she can’t easily reach it, so she ends up getting stuck trying. She ends up all muddy and wet by the end of it, and maybe she falls in, but she just doesn’t care because she succeeds in getting this little box.  

In another scenario, some creature, nymph, river monster, etc. gives it to her, because I have a weird fascination with Nesta being revered as holy by nature itself and the magical creatures of the world. She’s literally the only one that we know who’s blessed by the mother and that to me means you get bonus points with everything labeled “other,” nature, and the essence of magic, itself. 

In another scenario, she’s just walking on the shore one day, maybe in a more beachy location, maybe not even close to Velaris and it just ends up on the sand like a note in a bottle, as if the sea gifted it to her. Like this was always meant  for you.

But in all scenarios, the box is never wet, it’s been miraculously kept dry, and she takes it and she shows Cassian immediately. Super excited. It’s a treasure that she finds, you know and she opens it and it’s a little book and Nesta just thinks wow, this was meant for me. A gift. Fate. How did the ocean, the Sidra, the creature know that she liked books--that she would want this? She feels special, singled out, dare I say loved--this little shot of “the world maybe is not so bad, because I feel so cherished right now.” 

But I just see them interrupting them always. Cassian and Nesta will be making out *heavily* and clothes will be partially off, they’re on a table or against the wall, and all of a sudden they hear a knock and some footsteps and they’re trying to piece themselves together. And they look disheveled, hair every wear, lips very red, clothes half-askew, and here comes Rhys and Feyre in one of their many arguments that for some reason they now go to Nesta and Cassian about, because they’re the other couple and they need their opinion. Cassian usually sides with Rhys, and Nesta sides with Feyre, but in truth Nesta and Cassian don’t care at all, and usually Nesta and Feyre can convince Cassian to side with them. 

Or it’s Mor, with a bottle of wine, because she’s feeling severely neglected these days, because where is her group of three, so now if she wants to hang out with Cassian she has to hang out with Nesta, except now she’s like f* it, Nesta’s my gal pal. She’s third wheeling hardcore, and is so oblivious to it and Cassian over here is like... Mor we can go to Rita’s tomorrow, Nesta and I were on a date, and she’s like I love this game, let’s play or this is my favorite food. She does not get the hint. 

And then Az, is still taking his chaperone duties serious but mostly it’s because he lives in that house too and has not moved out and is pretending he’s not feeling left out, but he does. So he’s like I can’t go to Mor obvi, I can’t go to Rhys and Feyre, because they’re them and they also now have a baby, and I can’t go to Amren because she’s her, so I’m hanging out with my pals.

And then there’s Amren, who’s like I need Nesta for something, get yourselves dressed, and then she points to Nesta who’s buttoning her top really quick like don’t act like this strange because you did this to me. 

And I want Cassian to smile at her even if it hurts and Nesta to set her hand in his, and him to squeeze it really tight, because he’s okay now that she’s here. 

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Bonus: 

Like Cassian picking up take out from Sevenda’s because Nesta has to try this one dish and he just wants to have a chill night in. I swear I wish technology existed, they’d so be the couple who stays in watching the same show they’ve watched a thousand and one times.  Their comfort show and yes they do laugh at the same jokes over and over. 

The two of them grocery shopping even though they don’t have to at all, because they’re like that’s a normal thing to do, that’s not battling someone, let’s try that. But chaos ensues because 1. Nesta buys everything that is dessert-ish and actually has no impulse control when it comes to what she wants to eat. Bakery section is her aisle 2. They have arguments about the quantity of things they should be getting, because Cassian says like five of something and Nesta’s like uhh... that is way too much, but Cassian knows she’s going to eat a lot of it and he himself can pack it away so he’s preparing. Cassian is an over-preparer I’m telling you. He thinks he’s going to be trapped in that house for years 3. when they get home, the House is downright offended that they went and brought groceries. TheHoW refuses to serve them food for two whole week because of it, like make your own, and they run out within the first couple of days, because they bought nothing remotely meal-ish. The House is petty. Cassian says it takes after Nesta. 

Town festivals (maybe I’ve watched too much Gilmore Girls, but I always imagine Velaris as a small town even though I guess it’s not). There’s so many festivals and parades and markets and Nesta and Cassian will attend them all, because they’re just cute, lovable dorks who go on dates. There are no real “date” nights, there’s just being Nessian.