𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐
"𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨."
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╰┈˚ · ° .ᴛʜᴇ ᴀʀᴄʜᴇʀᴏɴ ꜰᴀᴍɪʟʏ ᴅɪɴᴇᴅ ᴏɴ roasted venison that night. The dinner, as usual, was filled with chatters from the eldest sisters.
Nesta was complaining about the villagers—they had no manners, they had no social graces, they had no idea just how shoddy the fabric of their clothes was, even though they pretended that it was as fine as silk or chiffon. Since the family had lost their fortune, their former friends dutifully ignored them, so the eldest sisters paraded about as though the young peasants of the town made up a second-rate social circle.
"Well, I said to him, 'If you think you can just ask me so nonchalantly, sir, I'm going to decline!' And you know what Tomas said?" Arms braced on the table and eyes wide, Elain shook her head.
"Tomas Mandray?" Feyre interrupted. "The woodcutter's second son?"
Nesta's blue-gray eyes narrowed. "Yes," she said, and shifted to address Elain again.
"What does he want?" she glanced at their father. No reaction—no hint of alarm or sign that he was even listening. Lost to whatever fog of memory had crept over him, he was smiling mildly at his beloved Elain, the only one of them who bothered to really speak to him at all.
"He wants to marry her," Elain said dreamily. Maiven blinked and then blinked again. Disbelief and amusement grew into her at the thought of Nesta marrying the woodcutter's son.
Nesta cocked her head. Just like a predator would'd
"Is there a problem, Feyre?" She flung her name like an insult making Maiven's jaw ache from clenching it so hard.
The youngest sister blinked again, and she knew it was foolish to react to her sister's taunts but she couldn't help but let out a loud laugh saying "You can't chop wood for us, but you want to marry a woodcutter's son?"
Her laugh was so loud and definitely not expected that for a second she swore she had seen everyone at the table jump a bit.
As her laugh died she noticed the look on Nesta's face. Like always, a predator ready to bounce on its next prey.
Nesta squared her shoulders facing Feyre again "I thought all you wanted was for us to get out of the house—to marry off me and Elain so you can have enough time to paint your glorious masterpieces." She sneered at the pillar of foxglove that Maiven's twin painted along the edge of the table.
"Watch it" She spat, hissing her words filling her with venom
"Believe me," Feyre said to the older girl, interrupting the tense stares between her twin and their eldest sister "the day you want to marry someone worthy, I'll march up to his house and hand you over. But you're not going to marry Tomas."
Nesta's nostrils delicately flared. "There's nothing you can do. Clare Beddor told me this afternoon that Tomas is going to propose to me any day now. And then I'll never have to eat these scraps again." She added with a small smile, "At least I don't have to resort to rutting in the hay with Isaac Hale like an animal."
Feyre laid her palms flat on the table as she stared her down. Elain removed her hand from where it lay nearby, as if the dirt and blood beneath the older twin's fingernails would somehow jump onto her porcelain skin. "Tomas's family is barely better off than ours," She said, trying to keep herself from growling the words. "You'd be just another mouth to feed. If he doesn't know this, then his parents must."
"We can't afford a dowry," Maiven continued, and though her tone was firm, her voice almost as cold as the weather outside. "For either of you." If Nesta wanted to leave, then fine. Good. But they had nothing—absolutely nothing—to entice any suitor to take the sisters off their hands.
"We're in love," Nesta declared, and Elain nodded her agreement. Maiven almost laughed again—when had they gone from mooning over aristos to making doe-eyes at peasants? The girl asked herself
"Love won't feed a hungry belly," Feyre countered, keeping her gaze as sturdy as possible.
As if she'd struck her, Nesta leaped from her seat on the bench. "You're both just jealous. I heard them saying how Isaac is going to marry some Greenfield village girl for a handsome dowry." She said looking directly at Feyre before turning her angry eyes towards the youngest girl continuing her speech "And you. You pass your time in a tavern. You are no better than the whores that sit in there all day waiting for a man to pay them for their bodies"
"I work in the tavern Nesta. As a server. Do you know the meaning of word work?" Maiven started. Slowly speaking her words in a soft tone as one would when in presence of a child "Perhaps you don't know the meaning but you certainly acquaintance yourself with the money that I bring back as they always ended up in your greedy hands" She finishes, now lowering her voice, deadly and sharp, as she stared at her sister with her cold eyes.
"Jealous?" Feyre said slowly, answering the accusation that Nesta held to her at the same time shifting her sister's focus to her, preventing the harsh fight that would have probably started between the two "We have nothing to offer them—no dowry; no livestock, even. While Tomas might want to marry you ... you're a burden."
"What do you know?" Nesta breathed. "You're just a half-wild beast with the nerve to bark orders at all hours of the day and night. Keep it up, and someday—someday, Feyre, you'll have no one left to remember you, or to care that you ever existed." She stormed off, Elain darting after her, cooing her sympathy. They slammed the door to the bedroom hard enough to rattle the dishes.
Maiven lowered her own hand to her twin sister's. Squeezing it tightly trying to give her as much comfort as she could.
The wooden bench beneath their father groaned as he shifted. "You should talk some sense into her." Feyre spoke to their father
He examined a burn mark on the table. "What can I say? If it's love—"
"It can't be love, not on his part. Not with his wretched family. I've seen the way he acts around the village—there's one thing he wants from her, and it's not her hand in—"
"We need hope as much as we need bread and meat," he interrupted, his eyes clear for a rare moment. "We need hope, or else we cannot endure. So let her keep this hope. Let her imagine a better life. A better world."
For a moment Maiven fell through the fog of her memories. Moments of years that still haunt her. Pain, sadness, anger. Loneliness.
Maiven shifted her eyes back to her father, her gaze was hard, cold. Almost inhuman as the shadows of death danced across her features as she answered her father "There is no such thing."
✎
˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗
Hello everyone!
The second chapter is out! I hope that you liked it. I have in mind something big for this story and I hope to see you all at the end of it.
Anyways thank you for reading this and if you'd like, please, let me know what you thought of this chapter with a comment and a star.
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!
– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾