Restless minds and late night baths
Chapter 1: Restless minds and late night baths.
3 months before, Prythian, the Illyrian mountains
{135 years after the war with Hybern}
It was raining, and Nesta Archeron could finally cry in peace.
The clock announced the middle of the night with the soft sound of a bell, marking two hours since her friends and family had left her house. And one hour since her husband Cassian, as well as her two daughters, Kadea and Lydia, begrudgingly called it a night, knowing all too well that sleeping was the last thing she would do.
Cassian fell asleep rather easily, today’s ceremony finally taking a toll on him. 84 years and sometimes it still didn’t seem to get easier.
But they pushed through, and this year seemed just a little lighter. It almost felt as if they were celebrating her life, not mourning its end. Sharing happy little stories about her, instead of cursing the ones who took her away from them, and the Gods who allowed it.
Then it started raining.
Nesta was laying on her side, hugging her pregnancy pillow, and facing her sleeping mate when she heard the first drops hit the windows. And just like that, she felt tears pool in her eyes, her throat tightening to the point of pain.
Sighing and cursing her hormones, who, for once, weren’t even to blame, she carefully got out of the bed, one hand supporting her rounded belly. Then, after making sure Cassian did not awake, and listening carefully to the rest of the house to assure herself that her daughters were also dreaming, she made a beeline for the roof.
Strategically built for an Illyrian family, it used to be her daughter’s favorite place in the house, especially when it was raining. And despite having had only 7 years with her, Nesta couldn’t even count how many times she had found her on the roof while the storm was raging.
Now, after 84 years, she could swear she was still able to see the faint outline of her silhouette sometimes, head tilted towards the sky, hair and clothes soaking-wet. But as she tilted her head herself, tears mixing with drops of water, she realized that there were more traces of her in the storm itself, than they were on the roof.
That put a barely-visible smile on Nesta’s face, and made her cease her crying for a moment, content on admiring what her daughter used to love so much.
That’s how Cassian found her minutes later, after he had suddenly woken up and found the other side of the bed empty.
Wrapping his arms around her, and smiling to himself when she leaned back against him, he kissed her temple and whispered lovingly:
“You shouldn’t stay in the rain, baby mama.”
She sighed and intertwined her fingers with his, then placed them back on her pregnant belly. “Just a few more minutes. I won’t tell Madja if you don’t.”
Cassian made to object, but she immediately shushed him.
“It’s not even cold this year, see?”, she said in the same low tone, as she used her magic to gather some droplets into a bigger ball, that she then playfully directed towards Cassian’s face.
Cassian rolled his eyes, only for his attention to be shifted towards her own bloodshot ones. Softening his features, he brought a hand to cup her face, and watched as she turned to kiss his palm.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get to see a year in which this day is not ended by rain,” Nesta said after a while, a smile dancing on her lips.
Cassian hummed. “I supposed she took full ownership over it. Quite a Nadia thing to do.”
Nesta let out a broken, quiet laugh, which was half a sob anyway. “Indeed,” she responded and turned her face again, towards the mountains outside their home.
As if in approval, thunder made it sound as if the sky was breaking apart, and in the time between that and the lightning that followed, the rain started to become a little more violent, biting their skin.
Cassian tugged gently on the mating bond.
“It’s time to go inside sweetheart,” he said, finishing the sentence with a kiss behind her ear.
She reluctantly nodded her approval, giving one last look over the shoulder as her husband guided her back into the house.
The walk back downstairs was filled with comfortable silence, the kind that forms between souls that share both the same love, and the same pain. Nesta used the time to dry them off, magic coming so much easier now that she was pregnant. It was something she had felt during her first pregnancy too. It was as scary as it was intriguing.
As they got in front of their room, Cassian reached for her other hand and brought them both to his chest.
“Want to take a bath?”, he asked, rubbing her fingers with his thumb.
Nesta huffed a laugh. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“We both know that neither of us is going to sleep anytime soon.”
The corner of her mouth rose into a smirk that looked as if she knew when the damned world was going to end.
“I don't know, sweetheart, you barely made it to the bed before you collapsed.”
The challenge glinted in his eyes, but it didn’t take long before it shifted.
“It was a pretty long day.”
Nesta reached up and kissed his cheek. “Alright”,she said softly. “Let’s take a bath.”
Cassian smiled and reached for the doorknob but Nesta caught his wrist.
At his confused ,raised eyebrow, she clarified “Can you please go and get me some orange juice from the kitchen?”
Cassian huffed a laugh and bent down to kiss her belly.
“Of course,sweetheart. Go and prepare the bath while I get it.”
She smiled up at him, which quickly turned into a yelp.
“Cassian!”
The now grinning bastard had pinched her butt cheek to the point of pain, and retreated way too quickly for her to return the favour.
As her too pregnant belly didn’t make running after him a choice, she settled for raising her middle finger to him, as he walked backwards, facing her. At the sight of his shit eating grin full on display she whisper-shouted : “Coward!”
At that, he turned around, but even in the darkness of the hallway, Nesta could see his shoulders were moving with quiet laughter.
She huffed, and got into their room, closing the door carefully. She didn’t want to wake up her daughters. Even if their rooms were one level under, she knew their Illyrian training had made them relatively easy to awake, always on guard, always ready to intervene.
And as they always refused to use sound-proof magic around this time of the year . . .the last thing Nesta wanted was to trouble them.
That stupid yelp was enough anyways.
After getting into their bathroom, and stripping off her nightgown, she started getting the bath ready. As she allowed the warm water to quickly fill the Illyrian-made tub, she felt her thoughts wander a bit. No fear, no nausea (at least none that wasn’t due to her pregnancy), she just wanted to get in. Her hormones almost made her cry over the gratitude she felt towards it.
“You know, little ones,” she whispered to her belly, “ in a few months you’ll be born in one of these. And I’m sure you’ll end up loving the water just as much as your sisters do.”
She continued talking as she applied a nutritive cream to her abdomen.
Little ones .
It had been months since they found out they were about to have triplets again, and as much as they wanted the gender to be a surprise, Nesta could feel, deep down in a place that was naturally programmed to know such things, that they were girls once again. All of them. She could bet on it.
The water had already reached her desired level, and as she turned it off, Cassian entered the bathroom, already naked and carrying a whole tray of food.
Nesta raised a brow as she eyed him up and down, “I thought I said just some orange juice.”
Her husband pursed his lips and shrugged, “Go big or go home.”
“Sometimes I wish you could just go home.”, she muttered and made to get into the tub.
Cassian was instantly on her side, tray placed on the edge of the tub, his hands on her waist to sustain her.
“I got it!”, she snapped.
“Yeah, like you got it last week when you slipped and almost cracked your head open.”
Nesta glared at him but didn't press further.
They ended up positioning themselves face to face, Cassian stretching his wings in a way that just made her want to look at him for a while.
Returning her attention to his face, she saw that his focus was below her neck, and decided that it was time for her to get her juice.
Stretching for it a little more than necessary, she returned afterwards to her place, smile hidden behind her glass.
Yet his gaze appeared more concerned than appreciative.
“Your tits are fucking huge.”
Nesta snorted. “Everything about me is fucking huge right now.”
Cassian grinned, popping some grapes and cheese into his mouth. “For someone who is carrying three little demons, I’d say you are just a little above average.”
“This is your fault.”
“Oh, my fault? Miss Cass, baby, I want another one.”,
“As far as memory serves, you jumped on the opportunity with not one second of hesitation.”
“You know I’m always down for some baby-making with you, Nes,” he winked.
She rolled her eyes and focused her attention on the food instead.
After a few minutes of silence, Cassian ventured “Have you had any baby names ideas lately?”
Nesta’s hand froze mid-way to her mouth. “Don’t ask me that today.”
She refused to meet his eye, but heard his sigh as he started rubbing her foot gently.
“Sweetheart-”
“No,no”, she said quickly, “Im fine. Truly. I just…”
He waited for her to gather her thoughts, trying to make out the shapes she was making in the water.
“It’s just that . . . It’s been so long, and we searched so much, and tried so hard. But it’s so fucking hard to take this day seriously, to . . .to mourn her and comemorate her life when we don’t even have a fucking body to begin with! It’s been 84 years, and we’ve been actively searching, day and night, for the first 40, to no bloody avail. So I know like, logically, that she’s gone. “, she stopped to catch her breath and bring her hands to her face. “But . . . on days like this, when everyone’s focus is on remembering her, I just . . . feel like we haven’t done enough. Like she’s still out there. What if she is? And we have no fucking idea, and she’s trapped somwhere while all we do is sit on our asses and cry for her when she’s not even dead?” she cried out, breath coming out quickly, and tears streaming down her face.
Cassian’s face looked so pained and pitiful that it hurt, and with no needed words, he approached and gathered her in his arms, stroking her hair and letting her cry it out. And as she heard her pained sobs, he felt his throat tightening in pain too.
When her sobs eventually died out, and all that was heard was her sniffling, he found his voice again, enough to whisper “Nadia is dead, Nesta.”
And before she got the chance to respond he firmly cupped her face and continued “And we know this because of this.”
He took one of her strands of hair and brought it between their faces. Hair, that was snow-white in contrast with the rest of her golden brown tresses.
A reminder, of what she had given to get more information on their Nadia.
“What if it wasn’t accurate?”, she whispered.
“It was dark magic, Nes. Ancient. And while it might be cruel, it works by some principles. You gave something to it, and gave you information in return. And what it said, Nesta, was that Nadia’s heart was not beating, and her lungs held no air.”
“Maybe I didn’t give enough. . .”
“You were unconscious for three months, sweetheart.”, he said gently. “You gave more than enough.”
Nesta sighed, oh so very tired.
“Sometimes I find it hard to remember certain details of her face”,she started, playing with his silver necklace. “And I’m lucky that Feyre had painted her portrait. But portraits don’t capture the smell of her hair,or the sound of her laugh. And with each year that passes, my memory of her fades more and more. And it feels like such betrayal, I feel burning shame. It’s like I’m letting her die all over again.”
Cassian tried to hold it together, but soon enough he found himself sharing her quiet tears.
“Our bodies hold little importance in this world, Nes. They are bound to be forgotten. But that’s not what still ties her to this world.”,he whispered, “For I see her in each droplet of rain that hits our house, and hear her in the whooshing of the wind through the trees. I go in her room and look at all the book she’d read and all the drawings she’d made and realize . . . That she’ll never be truly dead, not wholly, not in the way that matters the most.”
Cassian kissed her brow, and then her belly, and as they continued to hold each other close in the intimacy of their bathroom, the storm outside shifted into gentle rain.