They sat for tea in the front room. It was warm in the house, the windows open and a light breeze flowing through.
Though the setting was calm and peaceful- the beautiful sitting room decorated with flowers and obviously expensive decor- the mood was tense. Feyre had taken one look at the white flowing dress Nesta wore and had let Nesta in and prepared the tea without a word. And Nesta followed and sat without a word.
Feyre came into the room with a silver tray holding three tea cups and a kettle.
Nesta looked at her sister as she set the trey down on the small but extravagant coffee table before them and rested on the chair across from her.
"Are we expecting anyone else?" Nesta asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.
"I was hoping you would let Elain join us. She's in the garden now." Feyre let the question hang in the air.
Can I trust you around her?
Nesta looked away from her sister. She was nothing more then a rabid animal in Feyre's eyes. No longer sister. Not in any way that mattered at least.
Nesta was done. She was so sick of being seen that way. She was not an animal. She was not rabid or feral. As she took a deep breath, she felt the small pocket she has sewn into the white dress press against her bosom. It centered her.
No, she was not an animal. But the way to prove that was not to lash out like one caged.
So, Nesta asked Feyre, still looking down, "Can I go get her?"
Feyre went still. Nesta still looked down. But Feyre simply took a deep breath and asked, "Do you know your way to the gardens?"
________________________________________________________________________________
It seemed all the windows in the grand house were open as the entire house smelt like the beautiful flowers she knew Elain grew. Nesta trailed through the house slowly. Every picture on the wall, every vase with tulips and baby breath, every stoke of carefully picked paint made Nesta crack a little more.
It was so homely. So comfortable. She would never- could never have anything like that. Feyre had no idea how hard it truly was to have everything you knew- your entire world- ripped away from underneath you. She couldn't understand that because when she was changed, when she was made Fae, she had someone to love her. She had a beautiful home to go to. Feyre had never lost. Not like she and Elain had.
When they were made Fae, there were no mates waiting to welcome them. No one to teach them how to simply exist in these new bodies. They lost their lives in their village, Elain had lost whom to her was the love of her life. And then Feyre had ran off to play spy, leaving the two of them with males they barely knew and did not trust in a completely foreign place.
Nesta knew she hadn't been perfect. But she knew she did the best she could with the shitty hand she was dealt. She did her best to protect Elain and keep out of everyones way. What more could she have done? How else could she have made life for Elain easier when everything was so complicated?
The only other question Nesta kept asking herself over and over was, what could she have done differently to have the luck Feyre had?
Rich beyond measure, sickeningly in love with the most powerful male in the realm, adored by her people, a historical figure in Pyrantian's history by anyone's standard.
Nesta was not even close to any of that. But she had tried to be the best sister she could be to Elain. Didn't that count for anything?
Just before the two open glass doors that let outside to the garden, welcoming in a cool breeze, there was a painting on the wall. It was of Feyre and Elain sitting in the garden. In the bottom left corner, it had Feyre's swooping handwriting, marking her as the artist. They sat shoulder to shoulder on a marble bench, surrounded by a large rosebush.
The padding of bare feet behind her made Nesta turn.
Elain was flushed from the afternoon sun, her light pink frock almost as dirty as her gardening gloves. Her hair was up in a simple top knot, lose strands falling and framing her face.
That beautiful face was the only one that shaped a genuine smile when she saw Nesta.
That smile wrapped around Nesta's heart as she closed the distance and gathered her younger sister in her arms. Elain didn't hesitate to bury her head in Nesta's shoulder and hold her back.
Nesta kissed the top of her sisters head. "I'm really happy to see you."
Elain pulled back and placed her hands on either side of Nesta's face. "You're to small for your own good, Nesta. I made some bread this morning, shall I cut some for us?"
Elain linked her arm through Nesta's, turning her around and leading her back through the house. But Nesta felt a darkness behind them.
She turned quickly, looking for anything or anyone. The other winged male, Azriel, stood in the doorway of the garden. His arms were folded over his chest, eyeing her as she still linked her arm through Elain's.
Her sister stepped forward, toward the winged male. She huffed a laugh and he unfolded his arms and walked toward the pair.
Though Elain was right in front of him, his eyes locked on Nesta. Assessing. Asserting.
Elain put a light hand on his chest. "Don't be dramatic, Az." She took off her gloves and handed them to 'Az'. He turned his eyes to Elain, the sharpness in them fading into something sweet and soft.
He took the gloves as she said, "Can you run these to the laundry room for me?"
Azriel nodded at her, glared at Nesta, and left.
While Nesta was so happy that Elain had found someone, had found a home here with Feyre, some sick part of her wished Elain was struggling like she was. So that maybe Nesta could have someone, anyone, who truly understood what she was going through. But the way Elain watched the brooding male walk away told Nesta everything she needed to know. Now that Elain had found her person, there was no way she would ever truly understand what Nesta was going through.
Elain turned back to Nesta. "He's really a softie, you know." She smiled that life changing smile, and linking her arm back through Nesta's, she said, "But don't tell him I said that."
Nesta smirked. "I wasn't going to."
"Good," Elain said.
They continued walking down the hall toward the front room. Nestas gaze lingered a little too long on the portrait of Feyre and Elain. Her younger sister noticed.
As they continue to walk Elain remarked, "Feyre painted that. The rosebush is you. It's very symbolic."
Nesta stilled. And walked back several feet to look at the painting again. "It just looks like a normal rosebush." Nesta said more to herself then to Elain, "I didn't think she painted me in her house at all."
Elaine countered coming up next to Nesta to look at the painting "Oh. she doesn't. At least not intentionally."
Nesta turned to her sister. "What does that mean?"
"You're all over this house Nesta, you just have to know where to look. Feyre is just as bitter as you are about what you're doing with your life." Elaine hooked her arm through her sisters once more and they continued walking. "And because she's bitter she convinces herself that she's not painting you. But she is."
And Nesta didn't know how to feel about that.
They were silent until they got to the front room where Feyre waited on the arm chair. She stood when she saw Elain come into the room, and Elain and Feyre shared a quick embrace. Feyre said to Elain, "How is the garden this morning?"
Elaine smiled and brushed some dirt off of her knees. "Things are beginning to wind down with the approaching winter. But my perennials will just not give up!" Feyre laughed at this, and Nesta supposed it was an inside joke she would never be a part of.
Elaine sighed as she tucked her feet underneath herself and curled on the couch grabbing her tea from the table. Blowing on it she said "Anyway, Az helped me get everything ready for the upcoming cold weather and tomorrow we will be trimming the trees and the bushes."
Feyre set her tea on the table and added a spoonful of sugar to it, mixing it with her spoon she looked at Nesta.
Feyre said nothing. Just looked at Nesta. Looked through her.
So Nesta said to her sisters, "By now you've heard I'm going to the camps with Cassian." Her sisters both nodded.
Nesta took a deep breath. She hadn't touched her tea.
"I've never been a good person. I've never claimed to be. I've never claimed to be a good freind. I've never claimed to be a good sister, and I haven't been."
Elaine raised her eyebrows, but Feyres face remained cold.
Nesta continued, even though her guts whirred and her head spun. She had to bring a hand to her forehead, feeling her skin clammy and cold.
"I hate this. I don't know –"
Nesta stood up and went to the window. She couldn't do this. How could she apologize for lifetimes worth of neglect? How could she say goodbye to her sisters, the two she love the most in this world, when they didn't even know if she wanted to be part of the family or not? She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to say it. So she was just honest.
"I can't apologize for what I've done to both of you, because I don't know how. I can't verbalize something that I don't understand. I've been bitter, and disgusting, and cold, because I didn't have any other emotions. I still don't."
Nesta fought the stinging in her eyes and put her head in her hands by the window. She was going to hurl. She had to finish this conversation. She couldn't look at her sisters.
"You two have a life. A good life. And all I've ever done when you found happiness is ruin it. I am so proud of both of you for finding that after..." she breathed, "...everything. Because I sure as Hel can't find it. And I don't wanna ruin this for the two of you just because I can't. So I can't come to dinners and I can't celebrate holidays with you. I don't visit and I don't communicate because when I do I only ruin it. I hurt people."
For once that darkness inside her-that thing-that always lingered just under her skin was silent. For once Nestas head was completely and totally silent.
"So I'm going to the camps." Her voice cracked as she hid a single tear behind her hands.
"And I am going to stay there. I'm not coming back."
She took a deep breath, and finished her goodbye to the sisters she had always loved with every fracture of her heart.
"I am mournful for the time we lost together and for the childhood we never had. I am never going to stop being sorry for what I've done."
She took her hands from her face and braced them on the windowsill. She took a deep breath. Then, she turned and faced her sisters. She shrugged her shoulders.
"I have nothing else to offer but that."
Feyre wasn't looking at Nesta, but at the floor. Elain however was staring at Nesta with eyes full of tears. Her cheeks were stained. She had spilled some of her tea in her lap.
No one said anything.
Slowly, so slowly, Elaine stood up and walked over to Nesta.
Though her cheeks were stained and there was still tears coming out of her eyes, her eyes were empty. Void of any feeling or intention.
Elain was only inches from Nesta as she raised her hands to cup either side of Nestas face.
Elaine breathed, "Darkness..."
Elaine's hands begin to shake on either side of Nestas face. It was not Elaine's voice. No, Elain was somewhere far away.
Feyre seemed to know what this indicated and looked over at Elain knowingly. She rushed over to where the two sister stood.
Nesta turned her head to her sister and whispered to Feyre, "Is she OK?"
Feyre whispered putting a hand on Elain's shoulder,"She's a seer. She's having a vision." Feyre's voice caught on the last words. Nesta understood from that that this did not happen often.
Nesta gaped at her younger sister. Feyre seemed unfazed by the previous remarks of Nesta, only completely concerned about Elaine and her safety.
Nesta felt the same.
Elain turned Nesta's face so that she was looking at her. Painfully quietly, Elain stroked a hand from Nestas's forehead to her chin.
Repeating this action on both sides of Nesta's face, she said painfully quietly, "Decay ..." and then Elain gasped as if she were in pain.
"Elain?!" Nesta grabbed her younger sisters elbows as Elain's body went limp.
Her eyes roll to the back of her head, and she passed out in Nesta's arms.
Nesta lowered her to the floor while yelling at Feyre, "Call a healer!"
Feyre didn't move as she just stared- eyes wide and scared- at Nesta's feet.
Nesta furrowed her brow in confusion and looked down to where Feyre's eyes were locked.
Where the wood floor was rotting out from underneath Nesta's feet.
Nesta shot up, gasping in horror.
Feyre moved to catch Elain on the ground.
Nesta backed away, still staring at the ground. She felt her back press against the window sill, and she snapped around to look at where her hands had been merely moments earlier.
The entire base of the window was black with rot.
She stepped back, away from the decaying window and looked down-where her foot stepped was now blackening the floor.
Nesta looked at Feyre holding her sister on the floor. Her sisters looked terrified.
Nesta took one look at her sisters face and ran out of the house. She didn't look back to see if the floor beneath her was rotting where she stepped. She didn't need to. She could feel the wood soften and give way beneath her feet. She kept running.
She could feel it building up bubbling to the surface refusing to be ignored.
That silence that she had felt momentarily in the manor had been a lie.
It was a wave, receding fully only to come crashing down twice as hard.
Nesta ran and ran and ran. She was faintly aware of her sister calling out to her from inside the house and footsteps behind her in pursuit. But still, she kept running.
It was hot cold sharp raw
It was rejuvenation and murder all at once. It ripped her inside, it clawed at her mind and body and soul as that thing inside her tore its way to the surface.
Nesta screamed as she ran. As her lungs and body burned.
It was everything and nothing. It was inside of her, it was all around her, it was her.
She had to get away from the city. She had to get away from her family. Away from her sisters. She was going to melt away - she was going to fade into nothingness. She was going to burst.
She was going to become air in the sky and sea and water.
Water.
She had to get to the Sidra.
If she could get underwater before her magic broke the surface, she could minimize the damage.
Nesta turned down the road she knew would take her to where she needed to go, running as hard as she could.
Harder then she had ever ran in her life, Nesta made it to the walkway overlooking the Sidra. It was rocky and rough and the waves were relentless.
It was now overcast, and the water was angry. Nesta didn't care as she grabbed the railing and took one foot over than the other.
And turned herself around so that there was no barrier between her and that water.
Water.
black angry loud quiet lustful dexterous water waiting seeking searching
– she had to jump she had no choice. She had to jump. She took a deep breath.
"Nesta, stop!"
A voice shrieked at her from the other side of the railing.
Not a voice, but Cassian.
She didn't know how he got here so fast. She didn't care she looked over her shoulder to see him nearly 30 feet away pumping his arms as hard as he could toward her.
He looked horrified.
Everyone looked at her like that.
She looked at where her hands gripped the railing only to find that the metal railing was starting to rust and fall apart under her grip. She looked at the rocks beneath her feet seeing them starting to crumble and erode underneath her.
She looked back to where Cassian was still sprinting toward her and saw her own trail of foot prints leading up to where she was now rotted into the ground.
YOU HAVE TO JUMP.
Cassian was roaring using his wings to help him go faster. She could smell the salt on his face.
But Nesta turned toward the sea and jumped.
She was vaguely aware of the feeling of a hand grabbing the collar of her dress but losing its' grip.
She hit the water seconds later. Hard.
Nesta plunged down
down
down
down
And suddenly she was back in the throne room back with that king. Back with those creatures who had kidnapped her and her sister and burned their home to the ground. She was being submerged, she was being taken, she was being obliterated, the memories flooded her senses and she couldn't stop her self- her mind – from drowning in that memory.
As her magic thrust out of her and into the endless sea, Nesta raised one finger to the King of Hybern, and let the memory consume her.
6/5/2020