A Dark Heart - Rhysand's Sister Fanfic AU

B O N U S

lorcan

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"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."

―Elbert Hubbard

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+eralyn

I panted hard as I shifted on my feet, angling my sparing stick toward my opponent Lorcan. Sweat beaded on my forehead and fell to the ground, soaking the spot it fell at with its saltiness as my muscles were beginning to protest as it'd been a while since I went this hardcore. We'd been at it almost three hours, both releasing our frustrations. Our strength was so unleashed that we'd both made dents in each others sparing sticks. On a normal basis, we'd joke about and be lighter with each other than we'd been in years, but today, that was not the case as it was not easy.

Lorcan had been frowsy ever since the end of the war, as Elide and he had never really patched things up between them completely. Lorcan had always been an ass though, so that little lady who was his match surely set him straight. However, what pissed Lorcan off the most was that she was human, which meant that one day she would grow old and die, as her youth had already started fading. Elide was now in her late thirties, married with three children to a Silent Assassin she met in the war.

I remember that days she started to run to him more often and he around her more so. I remember the pain Lorcan held in his eyes. She really did crack open his walls, Gavriel used to whisper to me silently. But he royally fucked up and broke her trust, I used to whisper back.

From what I seemed, those two used to rely heavily on each other, so when Lorcan broke her trust, he also broke her. I'll admit over the years, Elide did patch up her relationship with Lorcan slightly as he was persistent for that to happen, but she still got married to someone else and pursued happiness with another man.

From the day of her wedding, I saw a piece of Lorcan die. When her first child was born two years later, he turned different and so for twenty years, he would go around like his soul had been eaten. Majority of the cadre, as Aelin still proudly called it, slowly pulled him out of his dark place and while he always had one foot in the Underworld, he was at least talking. I was with him often, just beside him so he wasn't alone.

Lorcan had long apologized for his mistake of letting Aelin into the clutches of Maeve and paid his price handsomely to the demi-Fae by defending her with his life which was almost lost. After that little episode, Rowan slowly let him back in as did the others, and as she Settled and realized that in the long term, mistakes can be mended for the better, Aelin did as well.

But Elide never did, not in the way he wanted her to. There were parts of me that didn't understand but after all, Lorcan was the first person Elide was ever comfortable with romantically. Perhaps, after him, she was a bit more experienced and realized that what she wanted was a five-hundred-year-old warrior who had seen and heard everything. Perhaps, she had wanted something a bit more like her. A human. She moved on as we all did after the war.

Nightmares and fears plagued our minds and our consciousness, but we had all the time in the world to fight them. This is what we fought for. What we slaughtered, tore ourselves apart, and died for.

A free world, how it should have been from the very being.

The people were happy, but they were ignorant to the toll it paid on those who fought to bring them that happiness. All of us agreed, however, that perhaps it was better that way because while we all suffered and died, it would be the people who carried on our legacies, our dreams.

"Lorcan," I wheezed out, "we should stop for now." I was tired, to be honest. I had a hard time sleeping last night, and the past nights as well. The sleep deprivation was really taking its toll on me.

Lorcan looked at me through glazed eyes and nodded distantly.

Today was the twentieth wedding anniversary for Elide and her husband, Saheeb, and Aelin, of course, threw a party. Every year on this day, Lorcan would be completely out of it and get rip-roaring drunk as the night fell and bed some other woman who looked the exact opposite of Elide. Aelin used to joke that I would be one of those women, but I didn't think I would ever be because my hair, although much darker, was a similar color to Elide's.

Shaking my head to regain some stability, I stood a bit straighter and dusted myself off before heading over to where Lorcan stood and patting him on the back, I said, "You'll be okay."

He just looked at me with those sad eyes full of regret and shook his head, before he deposited his sparring stick in the bin and stalked off to some bar even though it was still mid-morning.