To Love Someone Is Firstly To Confess: I'm Prepared To Be Devastated By You.

to love someone is firstly to confess: i'm prepared to be devastated by you.

Everything goes away

Yeah everything goes away

But I'm gonna be here until I'm nothing

But bones in the ground

So quiet down

@inabcck Lucien

a broken hallelujah

Tamlin was coping — or, that was what he told himself. He was making an effort. He woke up in the morning and dressed, fed, and cared for himself as he should. Magic helped on the days that was too overwhelming.

It isn’t a crutch. He swore. I don’t need crutches.

If no one could see his brokenness, didn’t that mean he wasn’t?

That was what he wished, despite that deep down Tamlin knew that one had to allow themselves to break before they could heal.

Broken bones always hurt when they weren’t set properly and he was tired of setting his bones back into place. He was weary, not just tired. His soul dragged along the edge of the ground underneath every smile that he conjured for his people.

They are happy.

That is all that matters.

He was simply a vessel. It was his job to keep Spring just as alive, as much as he was dead.

The darkness and destruction which both Hybern and the Night Court had wrought on his home was immeasurable. He couldn’t begin to process the damage, let alone repair it alone.

Yet, it didn’t stop him from trying. When he looked around the ruins, he didn’t feel angry; he felt empty. He still did not have it in his heart to blame Feyre Archeron for her misdeeds, despite that they were many. He loved her and always would. Love was to blame.

With the manor under repair, he chose a small house in the village and lived among his people. Calanmai was approaching and his dread ached in his chest.

What if I can’t do this? What if I fail?

Tamlin did not know how much longer his body would tolerate the magic before it gave up completely. He needed an heir.

If he did not have one when that happened, things would fall into a much deeper disarray than they already were. He couldn’t bear the blame for that.

Only a week ago, he had sent notice across his lands that a fertility potion would be available for the young lady chosen by Spring on the upcoming festive night. It explained how bearing him a child would bring great honor to their family and exemption from the Tithe.

He made sure to acknowledge that it was a choice. He’s rewritten his words until his fingers bled. Any girl who did not wish to conceive would be provided her own contraception and those who were against it completely were advised to stay far from the festival that night.

Tamlin groaned, pulling at his hair, as he suffered through another migraine. It was only dawn and the magic was already surging through his system like a cold and deadly drug. He was unsure why the idea of siring an heir with a random woman seemed so trite. Every High Lord had a drive for building their own family…but, the only woman whom he wanted in his arms was the very same one who had destroyed them. Feyre.

His eyes clouded with frustrated tears — red, hot. Tamlin crumbled into his sheets and his from the dawn. Whether he liked it or not, tonight was Calanmai. Life continued to move on, although he had not. Why? All I ever did was love you.

Ten hours later, the High Lord straightened his back in the mirror and dipped his fingers into the blue paint which had been left outside his door, as requested. In the old days, Lucien had always been the one to paint his body with the ancient whorls which helped transfer the magic from his mind to his body. Instead of those comforting and caring hands, his own fingers traced his bare skin and left behind coded blue circles.

He stared blankly at himself as the drums began to rise. Ordinarily, he’d have been with the rest of the fae, playing his instruments and enjoying the free flowing wine; but he was in no mood to celebrate. His mood dipped further downwards as the magic swirled around his brain, thick and murky, like tainted liquor.

He finished the painting and did not bother to wash his hands, smearing the left overs on his black trousers.

It is useless to resist. Tamlin ground his teeth, forcing himself to breathe. What Spring wants, Spring takes.

Spring wanted an heir.

He growled. The pain in his head continued to build.

No…no. I…didn’t want this — I wanted no one else. No one but her.

He bent down on his knees in front of the fireplace, covering his mouth to bury his scream. The magic continued to compel him towards the door. He shuddered, breathing heavily, as he ventured forwards. He felt like he might throw up.

He had completed the ritual for the past two years and the pull out into the darkness had never been this strong before. It had never been this painful.

Tamlin buried his heart in the sodden ground and accepted his fate stalking out the front door and slamming it on its hinges. The music and dancing came to a slow halt as he approached the circle of faeries who’d come to celebrate, prove their worth, or watch him fail. His green eyes glowed in the dark and he scanned the crowd, meeting the yearning eyes of many young fae females in their glittering gowns. He yawned and stalked past them, but stilled as he saw movement on the edge of the trees. Someone was watching.

He tilted his head — almost beastly in the way he hunted the horizon. The movement stopped, but it did not take him long to find the young female fae hiding in the dark shadows, dressed in starlight, and shaking in her slippers. Need hit him in pulses of warmth. He stumbled backwards, shocked by the strength of the desire for a stranger. The magic rarely made it past the boundaries around his heart. What was happening to him?

All Tamlin knew was that this was the girl. This girl was like no other. She turned to leave, but he caught her by the arm and swept her up against his bare chest. His heart thrummed in his chest as they connected. Without a single look at her face, Tamlin winnowed to the cave. They landed on the hard ground and he was left spinning. She stood before him and her hood dropped from her shoulders, illuminating her face in the moonlight.

“You.” He whispered. “Anyone but you.”

@sad-scarred-sassy

“People speak of grieving their dead, but they are silent for those that remain. How do you grieve the one who still breathes? You don’t. You can’t. You can only learn to live without them — as seconds turn to centuries. People are not possessions. They cannot be replaced when lost.”

Tamlin, to Feyre, a ballad of thorns and roses

Tamlin wasn’t fine. He hasn’t been fine for years. He wasn’t certain that he ever had been and didn’t believe that he could be again. Going under the mountain had been hell itself. The only thing that made it survivable for the weeks before Feyre appeared was praying for his own death. He’d waited and wondered — completely silenced, under Amarantha’s bonds. 

Then, there had been Feyre. Something in him broke when he saw her being manhandled by the Attor.

“I SET YOU FREE!” He wanted to scream. “All I wanted was for you to live.”

He remembered banging his head against the hard throne carved from the rocks to which he’d been chained. No, no, no. 

The room went fuzzy. Blood poured down his temples until Amarantha’s hand rose from her lap and forced him to be still. 

She could control his body, but she could not control his tears. Those were all his own. 

Tamlin focused on the distant lights of the village, losing track of where he was until his chest began to ache again. 

What had the physician called it? Stress cardiomyopathy. Broken heart syndrome. 

When Feyre backed down the aisle, he remembered a dull ache start in his diaphragm. It exploded as she ran away. He would have followed her, but all he could do was fall to his knees…in front of his people. His entire court saw his heart break in two. 

He did not remember much after that — only the distant call of Lucien’s voice, pretty lights, and more pain than he remembered in a hundred years. 

“Be honest,” Tamlin’s throat was raw as he briefly met Lucien’s eyes. They glowed in the dark like golden stars. “Neither of us are fine. No one is — not after what happened; but we joke and we laugh because otherwise we would start screaming.” 

He fiddled with the edge of his tunic, running his claw down the center of his opposite hand. He did not wound himself, but the idea…it was soothing. 

He knew Lucien would take the blow before letting him be hurt. Where did he go? 

“Anywhere, everywhere.” Tamlin pulled his knee up to his chest and rested his chin there. “My memory has gone dim and my heart aches, but my soul remembers. As much as I may try to make all of this to poetry, some days it turns out that the blood was never beautiful. It’s just very red.”

Red like the roses he’d planted with his mother.

Red like the petals which Feyre so feared. 

Red like the line on his palm as he lost focus and his claw broke the skin. 

“Anywhere away from here.” He said, leaning forwards, and lying on Lucien’s waiting shoulder with a low groan. “I can’t take one more sunrise without her, Lu. It’s killing me.” 

“you okay?” from Lucien

Tamlin finally turned his head the third time that Lucien spoke. He had a gift for zoning out and tonight was no different. He stood on the balcony, watching the sun drift into the darkening sky, and faced the general direction of Night Court. It had been six days, twelve hours, fifty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds. By morning, Feyre was supposed to be home. If she was not, there was little his people could do to stop him from winnowing to Rhysand’s gate and demanding her return.

“Huh?” His glazed, green eyes drifted towards the faithful Autumn Fae who’d long kept him company. “Sorry —”

Was he okay? Tamlin’s memory prompted him to answer, but he quickly found that he did not know what to say. Was he okay? No. It had been a long time since things were okay for Tamlin. Yet, Lucien knew that. His question held more beneath the surface.

How was he, really? How was his heart? Did he still wish it were solid stone?

“I’m…fine.” Tamlin whispered, avoiding eye contact, and swallowed his shame. “This is my fault, Lucien. Perhaps if I had not told her how I felt, she never would have come after me.”

He knit his fingers together and hoisted himself up to sit on the stone railing of the third floor balcony. That short a fall wouldn’t injure him, but the allure of danger was just enough that it helped quiet the ache in his chest. “Are you…okay?”

FEYRE — @inabcck