Chapter 63: Boots
Galadriel had brought a book with her to read while she was at the camp, but there was hardly ever a moment besides the hour after dinner to relax. But by then she was tired and it was dark, the oil lantern Cassian kept lit wasn't bright enough that she didn't strain her eyes looking at the page. Her body clock had fit itself into Cassian's schedule, raising well before the sun to make breakfast, then as he went off to oversee the morning training, she'd clean down the tent canvas and the rug since both were smeared with mud by the end of each day. Of course, she could just wick away the mud, but Galadriel found that it never truly erased the grime, like magic could only wipe away what she could see rather than the actual essence of the mud. After that, she would refill their small storage casket with water from the filtering stations, which she was then obligated to help refill by hiking down to the stream which was at least a twenty-minute journey to just get there and back.
The few hours that she did technically have spare, she couldn't bring herself to be wrapped up in the tent or sitting under the shade of a tree relaxing with a novel while the lives around her moved—because if they didn't, they wouldn't survive.
But helping out where she could had earned her some small tidbit of respect amongst the mothers and wives who would talk to Galadriel without waiting for her to approach them first.
Set up along an overlapped ring of rugs, a group of younger females sat together, working intently with something in their hands. Galadriel wandered closer to watch their deft fingers, which were merely tanned blurs as they worked strips of leather. Over and under and twist and over and under and twist.
"What are they for?" she asked, kneeling down beside one of the youngest girls on the edge.
Steady hazel eyes landed on her, hands not stopping their work as the girl regarded Galadriel. "To wear," she said. "Once you have finished, you find a stone. Smooth it and thread it on. Then you wear it."
Now that she paid attention, she had indeed noticed those among the camp wearing some assortment of leather. The leather braids were thick and squarish and though rather simple, had a sort of elegance about them. A beauty in the craftsmanship that could be hard to detect in the stunning, and sometimes too pristine, jewels Velaris had to offer.
Galadriel deepened her seat. "May I learn?"
The girl lifted her chin and gaze over her companions. They did not speak up. "You may watch," she said. "If you learn by observation, then I cannot stop you from braiding."
So watch she did, intently and scrutinisingly. Her fingers fumbled around for the first hour, the braid's technique more intricate than working with hair and she ruined a number of thin leather strips, but by the end of the second hour, she had made a neat bracelet and necklace. Galadriel eyed the girl next to her more closely, the rock hanging from the braid around her neck. The stone was small, probably the width of her thumb pads put together and engraved on it was a series of swirls that had no identifiable importance.
"River stones," the girl said, jerking her head towards the faraway stream. "They are best."
Galadriel internally sighed at the idea of walking all the way back down but she did, collecting two pale stones that were already smoothed enough that she wouldn't have to do it by hand. On a log by one of the fires, she borrowed one of Cassian's spare hunting knives, gripping it so horrendously that he might faint at the sight, and attempted her best at carving the stone. The result was a crooked and jagged mountaintop and three divots that she supposed could look like stars if you held it at an angle. Replicas of the insignias on Rhys's knees. Galadriel looked at the second stone, but her hands were cramping and decided that it didn't need to be finished that day. Encasing them in a net of twine, she threaded to the necklace, the other to the bracelet.
At the sight of nightfall, she got the fire in the small pit outside the tent going, stoking a few cuts of meat over it. Cassian eventually returned, looking worse for wear, dropping to his backside beside her, arms hooked over his knees. "I remembered to season before cooking it this time," she told him with a tentative smile, poking the meat with a metal skewer.
He gave a huff. "I'll eat anything as long as it doesn't kill me."
Galadriel watched him, biting the inner skin of her lip. "Rhys kept bemoaning to me today. Apparently, Velaris isn't any fun without us. Az has just been keeping to himself and Mor and Amren have left him dry."
He smiled tightly. "I'm not surprised."
She placed the poker down. "Did something go wrong today?" She hadn't wanted to ask, simply so he had a chance to shed from it but her attempts to direct his mind elsewhere clearly weren't working.
He shook his head in a way that told her nothing had gone horribly wrong. "Just don't feel like talking."
"You don't have to stay out here then," she said, motioning back to the tent. "I don't mind being alone."
"I've been alone all day. The company is nice."
Galadriel smiled softly, tearing two long strips of bread open and placing them against the plate over the flames to toast them. She prepared the rest of their dinner quietly, making just enough commentary that it didn't grow awkward and tense between them, but Cassian seemed content enough in the silence.
He stomped out the remnants of the campfire with his foot until only the charcoal embers burned and wiped the sole on the cleanest strip of grass before following her into the tent when they were done. She sat on the edge of her cot, toeing off her own boots as he reached to his shoulder, yanking on the buckles and latches of his armour.
Chucking the shoulder piece on the end of his cot, he stopped, swiping something left on his pillow. Galadriel watched him inspect it, pinching the woven leather braid between his fingers. "What's this for?" he asked, a little gruff.
Crossing her legs under the other, she said, "Happy early birthday. I have another gift for you at home, but I made that today." When he, narrow-eyed, looked over his shoulder to her, she pulled down her sleeve to show him the one she'd tied to her wrist. He stared at it, then turned the stone threaded on his around his palm, noting the design. "It's a little rough but made with love. And a little bit of blood."
"These are not meant to be gifted."
Her lips rounded, a quiet little, "Oh," escaping in a breath. Galadriel had just assumed that she could do with it as she pleased. Hadn't considered the customs that might exist. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I didn't know."
Cassian's lips remained in a flat line as he slowly turned around. The cot sunk under their combined weight, his eyes still latched onto the braiding. Galadriel unfolded her legs, toes scraping the rug beneath, waiting for him to do something with it so she'd know the extent of the insult. He wasn't from Wingshield, but he was Illyrian. These were still his people and she had just mushed a tradition for her own intent.
"They're meant to be for families," he said. "Wives and mothers make them when they marry or have children. The stone—the insignia marks them as connected. Each family designs their own. They are not gifted because they are not for the person you make them for. The one that crafts it is the one to do the receiving, accepting the addition to their family. They're also worn with the hope that in the event that the entire family is slaughtered by their enemy and there are no friends to bury them, no one to know their names, that the enemy may bury them together."
Sitting on her hands, itching to get the braid on her wrist now off, she whispered, "I think that is a lovely custom." Shamefully, she hadn't imagined Illyrians would be capable of such tenderness. Spending so long in Autumn, despite her friendship with Azriel and Cassian, had left its stain, still believing after all this time that they were nothing more than brutes who happened to have a few kind amongst them.
Cassian looked at her. "Do you still want me to have it?"
Galadriel gave herself a moment to let herself understand everything he just told her—understand what he was asking. "Yes," she uttered, but it was without waver. Because she had not offered him an insult, but something far more intimate than she had been intending. "Unless—not if that is an Illyrian form of marriage," she added with a hand raised between them.
Cassian laughed. "I think Rhys might have a few problems with his wife trying to marry another. It will mark us as family once you carve the same into your own." He put the necklace in her lap and turned around. With his forearm, he pushed his hair away from the nape of his neck, flattened against his scalp. She couldn't help but chuckle at the masculine way he did so, compared to her habit of gently twisting her hair into a bun when Rhysand placed a necklace on her. Rising to her knees to comfortably reach his height, she wound the necklace around his neck, knotting the loose ends together.
When he turned back around, he pulled her into an embrace she hadn't been expecting, squashing her against his front, but swiftly fell into. It was warm and welcoming and something they both needed. "I am glad that Rhys found you," he murmured.
Galadriel smiled over his shoulder. "Me too."
~
Cassian had snuck into the town house sometime before they left, without Galadriel or Rhysand knowing, and she only found out when he produced two bottles of decadent wine from his pack that he'd been saving "For a night they really needed them." They made the logical decision that since there was only two of them and two bottles of wine, they didn't need cups, gripping the thin neck to swig right from the bottle.
"Kee—eep stilluh," she griped, wrestling with his ankle. Cassian laid splayed out on her bed, still half dressed and she wouldn't allow his feet on the mattress while he still wore his boots. But he was too drunk to untie the laces himself. And apparently so was she. "I swear on the Cauldron and Mother if I get boot mud on my face you'll be sleeping with a fist up your ass."
He waggled his brows. "Filthy words coming from such a sweet mouth. Does Rhys enjoy that type of sex talk? Does he know you speak them to me as well?"
"I didn't say it was going to be my fist."
Cassian laughed and rolled over onto his stomach and she narrowly avoided the large boot whacking her in the face but she successfully yanked it off him, tossing it far away from her space of sleep.
She gagged. "Hell, Cassian. Wash your feet once in a while." With a push that required the strength of her entire body, she tossed his leg back on the bed. "And this is my bed. You have your own bed."
"You're an argumentative drunk," he grumbled into her pillow. "I'm stopping you from sleeping here." Deciding that she would be what he just claimed her to be, Galadriel climbed on top of him and sat on his muscled back just below the roots of his wings, folding her legs and crossing her arms. "I can't breathe," Cassian said into the pillow with no tone of panic or urgency. Just a simple fact.
"I'm not that heavy!" she howled, yanking at a fistful of his long hair. But maybe she was. Arguing with him just seemed so much more fun than agreeing. "Suffocate or get in your own bed."
He sighed. She waited.
Flexing his arms, he rolled himself around. Galadriel scrambled over him, balancing like she was a gymnast on a log in water until he was stretched out on his back, arms thrown to hang over either side of the frame, wings drooping down. Sitting on her ankles, she hunched forward, staring at him intently. Cassian had closed his eyes but peeked at her through his lashes. The stone of the leather necklace sat in the bowl of his throat.
She felt something moving beneath her. She laughed, incredulous. "Are you flexing?" Beneath her shins, his abdominal muscles were constricting and releasing, making her body bob like she was on a gentle wave. "You arrogant creature!" she bellowed.
Cassian laughed raucously, performing with even more fervour. He grabbed her hands by the wrist, dragging her forward until he planted her palms on either of his breasts. "Which one is bigger?" Beneath her palm, his pectorals flexed on and off. Galadriel broke into the type of laughter that only came when you had drunk too much but she tried to reign herself in to give a serious assessment despite the tears blurring her sight. Cassian frowned. "The right is bigger, isn't it? I feel like I neglect the left too much."
Galadriel shook her head, blonde hair flying in a dizzying dance around her waist, her cheeks straining. "I can't tell a difference."
She sat back up straight, but he winced and dragged his knees up against her back as she did. "You're on my bladder," he groaned through clenched teeth. Galadriel, still grinning, slipped from him onto the cot. Climbing over her, Cassian got to his feet, gripping just below his belt. "Fuck, alcohol makes you need to piss." He went out of the tent, already unbuckling his pants.
Dragging her knees up, Galadriel fell back against the cot, giggling at something she didn't really remember. "I like sleeping outside," she said to no one. "Well, not outside, but out...side. In a tent. Surrounded by trees. I like hearing birds and insects." She stretched a hand upwards, reaching for nothing before letting it drop back down next to her face. From the corner of her eye, she watched her fingers move at command, curling and straightening by just the will of her mind. A magical thing.
Cassian returned quicker than she expected, hearing him just outside. He mustn't have made it far. "You better have gone out behind," she muttered. "I don't want to walk through your piss puddle."
He didn't answer, but she could still him just beyond the entrance, boots crunching on the gravelly path where the heat from the fire each night had dried out the mud.
Boots.
I would just like to point out the fact that I literally had no intention of naming both my ACOTAR OCs after LOtR characters. It was merely a coincidence that I picked up on a few chapters into this story.