• When I think about Nessian, the first thing that comes to mind is that they would 100000% be reckless!!
• These two know how to have fun.
• Nesta seems like she’s cold and aloof, which she has been in the past, but there is a wild streak in her. She’s just been very good at repressing it.
• With Cassian, Nesta never has to repress a single thing about herself.
• And what is love if not the safest place for you to explore yourself?
• So, Cassian brings out the wild side in Nesta.
• The bat boi’s do this thing called Drops. It’s where they fly super high, bring their wings in tight, and just free fall. Winner is the one who holds out the longest.
• Low and behold, Cassian is almost always the winner.
• Nesta is watching the brothers mess around one day and her heart plummets to the ground as she watches Cassian shoot down the sky. But he’s laughing. He’s cheering. He looks like he’s having the time of his life and a strange, curious eye opens inside her chest.
• She wants to try it.
• She wants to know what that release of control feels like, what ripping through cloud and wind at neck breaking speeds feels like.
• Rhys notices her intriguing stare. He raises a brow at her and opens up an arm as if to say wanna try this again?
• Nesta flicks him off because fuck no is she ever flying with Rhysand ever again.
• Cassian lands beside her, his black hair wind tossed, cheeks flushed, and eyes positively alight.
• She grabs his hand. He still beams at her every time she does.
• She tugs on his hand until his head lowers so that she can whisper, “I want to try.”
• For a moment, he looks shocked, but the widening in his eyes quickly becomes a narrowing. He’s grinning in the way that makes her toes curl and her heart lurch because that smile means trouble. And she’s thrilled.
• His arms are around her and they’re shooting into the sky before she has a chance to second guess herself or catch a breath.
• She’s not afraid. Never with Cassian. Never in his arms. She’s not even afraid of herself.
• Right when she thinks they’ve gone high enough, Cassian keeps ascending.
• His lips press to her ear as he says over the roaring wind, “Hold on tight.”
• She can hear his suggestive tone and she laughs.
• She turns in his arms and the thought of Cassian dropping her never occurs to her, but the fact that this level of trust exists between them does occur to her. That she can wiggle and maneuver in his hold while they are in mild fight and his hold on her is unyielding, it makes her fall in love all over again. He’s never once dropped her. He never will.
• She turns so that her legs are wrapped around him, her arms squeezing his neck. His hands hold the bottom of her legs and he gives a gentle squeeze.
• “One. Two—”
• “Don’t tell me when,” she interrupts.
• He pulls back to look at her and their noses are touching. This close she can see the gold in his hazel eyes. This close she can see the faintest dusting of freckles. He’s looking at her with an intensity that would have sent her sprinting in the other direction once, but she does not look away now. She meets every ounce of passion. She thinks he’s about to kiss her....
• And they drop.
• He’s wings snap in and they’re falling. It’s happening so fast that she can’t even think. Her stomach jumps painfully with a scream that she’s sure is painful to Cassian’s ears. The wind rips her hair out of its usual coronet and her eyes water. The force of the drop presses gravity so heavily on her shoulders she has no idea how Cassian is going to open his wings against it, that maybe this was a bad idea. She’s screaming and screaming and screaming
• And then she’s laughing. That lurch in stomach, the wind slapping at her, the falling—it’s addictive. It’s thrilling. It’s like breathing in something forbidden. She never wants it to stop. She wants to keep falling—
• Until Cassian flings his wings wide and they bank hard to the left, catching a draft of wind.
• She can’t stop laughing and by the way Cassian grips her legs she can tell he knows how great this felt to her.
• She leans her head back into open air, lets her arms fall back, and grins. She feels wild. She feels unhinged. She feels like herself.
• “Again,” she shouts.
• Cassian presses a kiss to her throat and they drop five more times.
• Their Mating Ceremony is a fucking party.
• Before it begins, our bat boi’s have a moment together. Just the three of them. As it all began.
• Rhys holds Cassian by the shoulders and says, “You made me a brother. Before Az, before my sister, you were the first. I love you and I am very proud of you.” Rhys turns very serious. “And you also have now lost me three hundred fucking gold coins to this asshole behind me.”
• Cassian was not embarrassed to cry, but now he’s barking out a laugh. Azriel leans against a tree, smug.
• “Rhys didn’t think this would happen,” Azriel explains. “He bet you two would deny the bond for at least another year or two.”
• Cassian tilts his head. “And you didn’t?”
• Azriel shakes his head. “You are the bravest of us, brother. There is nothing—no truth, no enemy, no battle—you are not willing and ready to face.”
• “You’re also a shit liar,” Rhys quips. “The cat would have come out of the bag eventually.”
• Cassian laughs again. He hugs his brothers and they walk into the temple the same way they have walked through everything: together.
• The ceremony itself is a blend of human and Fae traditions. Cassian stands at the end of the aisle, his brothers and Mor by his side. Nesta walks down the aisle in a white dress with red accents along the neckline and hem.
• Yes, Rhys bought the dress
• She walks herself down the aisle. She likes to think that even if both of her parents were alive to see this day, she would still choose to do this herself. She likes to think her mother is proud, and imagines her hand on Nesta’s cheek as she stands before Cassian.
• He looks damn good in a suit and Nesta wants this ceremony over so she can promptly consummate their bond.
• Gwyn officiates.
• Nesta is a private person so she and Cassian will exchange their super heartfelt vows just the two of them later. Right now, they just have one promise to each other—the one that matters most: forever.
• Gwyn ties a gold ribbon around their hands and it is only to be removed after the exchange of food.
• It doesn’t matter what Nesta gives Cassian. Frankly, she can’t remember what was on the plate. All that matters was the way his eyes never left hers as he took that first bite, as they both felt that final snapping in place of the sacred thing linking their souls.
• Of all the ways Cassian has ever looked at her, this one means the most to her. There is such security, such deep unending love. It’s passion and promise, lust and joy.
• It is friendship.
• Nesta doesn’t care, she kisses the male right there until he forgets his name. Until the only thing he knows is her.
• Rhys cheers the loudest in the background.
• The dancing doesn’t stop until morning. Nesta’s feet hurt. Her cheeks hurt—and what a strange, foreign feeling that is.
• Before Nesta and Cassian leave, there is one last person she wants to see.
• She pulls Feyre outside and the beginning of the morning sun is breaking through the clouds. She looks into her sister’s eyes that are mirrors to her own and says, “There is so much to be said between us.”
• Feyre nods. “I know.”
• Nesta smiles. “And I’m not afraid. I want you to know that I look forward to every conversation to come. However painful, whatever comes, you are my sister and I want to fight for our future.”
• Feyre doesn’t fight her tears and Nesta’s fingers are gentle as she wipes them away. Just as she did when they were young. She’s not sure if Feyre remembers how Nesta would hold her when she cried. But there will be time for that. They have all the time in the world now.
• After their mating ceremony, no one hears from them for a month.
• Azriel, foreseeing this, had temporarily moved into the River House.
• No matter how hard Nesta tries, she cannot convert her mate to love sweets.
• He tolerates chocolate cake, even goes for a second piece sometimes, but that’s really it.
• She asks Azriel for recommendations on bakery’s, because who knew he was such a pastry connoisseur?
• But nothing works. Cassian simply cannot do sweets.
• But he does cook, and he’s incredible at it.
• It’s late evening and she hasn’t seen Cassian all day. He’s not in any of his usual spots and she’s running out of options to go looking for. That is until she passes the kitchens. It’s normally loud and bustling, but she can hear only one inside, along with the soft and methodical sounds of chopping.
• Cassian has a look of focus and mediation that she rarely sees outside of training. He’s chopping an onion, sets it in a sizzling pan, and moves onto a pile of flour and eggs on the counter. She watches his hands carefully mix the two and she realizes that he has a serene calmness to him.
• “I didn’t know you cook,” she announces her arrival, but he is not surprised to find her leaning against the door. He probably knew she was there the entire time.
• “I’m a fantastic cook, Nes.” He looks up from the pile of flour turned dough and winks at her. It makes her face warm.
• The farther she moves into the kitchen, the more her mouth waters. It smells divine. She hauls herself up onto the adjacent counter and asks, “Why don’t you do it more? Why haven’t I ever seen you in here?”
• Cassian tosses a rag onto his shoulder. “I don’t want those hungry inner circle vultures expecting my five star kitchen skills every night. I like it to be a special occasion thing.”
• “Is tonight a special occasion, then?”
• “With you? Always.”
• But the humor doesn’t land. She knows he’s covering something up, that he’s not being entirely truthful. She doesn’t push. She just watches as he moves gracefully from counter to stove to cabinet and all over again. It’s like a dance to him and she finds that she enjoys watching.
• After a time of comfortable silence, she asks, “What is it?”
• “White wine pasta with mushrooms.” His answer is soft and distant.
• He drops the slices of pasta into the boiling water and she can tell that he wasn’t ready for a pause, that the chopping and mixing was a way to keep himself busy. But there’s nothing to do now but wait. And he looks lost. It rips at her heart.
• She opens her arms to him and he gladly steps between her dangling legs and hugs her close. They stay like that for a while, his arms tightly enveloping her and her hands smoothing through his hair and down his back.
• “It was Haizea’s favorite meal,” he whispers into her neck.
• Oh. Nesta stills for a moment but then keeps to her calming ministrations. She knew Rhysand’s mother was a mother to Cassian and Azriel as well, but no one talked about her very much.
• Cassian breathes in a deep, shuddering breath. “She taught me to cook. She took notice early on how strong I was as a soldier, how different I was from the rest. I think she knew, somehow, that I’d be in command one day because she told me that the most popular male in every army was the one who cooked. And she wanted me to have my best chance at fitting in. Of having the male’s I’d lead trust me.”
• There aren’t words for Nesta to say and she suspects her mate isn’t quite done sharing what’s been bothering him. So, she keeps holding onto him.
• “Today is her birthday.”
• And there it is. She feels his grief down the mating bond and it’s such a deep ache that it takes her breath away, that she almost mistakes his sadness for her own. She wraps her legs around his waist and presses a kiss to his cheek. He grips her back.
• “Rhys doesn’t like to make a big deal of it,” Cassian explains. “But every year the three of us go to her grave, pour out her favorite brand of whiskey, and fly around together for hours. She would want us to laugh, not get stuck in mourning. Other than Solstice, it’s one of the only times my brothers and I get to be kids again. We play air games and for a moment we’re young boys again and Haizea isn’t dead and we can come home to her cooking and her embraces.”
• She leans back then, and brushes the hair from his face. “She’d be endlessly proud of you, Cassian.”
• She feels his wavering in the bond, but she presses their brows together. “She would,” Nesta insists. “There is no part of me that doubts you are not everything she would have hoped you to become. You inspire people to be their bravest, to fight for what they believe in. You reach out for everyone, Cassian. You do not leave a single person behind. You are the light that people flock to, that people trust to lead them.”
• His hazel eyes threaten to spill over with tears. She rubs a thumb over his cheeks. “You are what she would want you to be, because you are relentlessly yourself at all times, Cassian. That’s how I know.”
• His lips crush onto hers and his kiss is desperate, tinged with just the slightest edge of grief. He’s breathing hard and she feels the relief and love in him shining down their mating bond.
• The water boils over the stone and Nesta has to shove him away with a laugh.
• They eat and laugh together. Cassian grows quiet sometimes, but Nesta is there to reach out a hand to him when he does. He tells her of Haizea, how she was the first female to ever hug him. He tells her of Rhysand, how his brother was the first comfort Cassian had ever felt in his life. By the end of their meal, there is a fortitude in her mate.
• “You’re right,” Nesta nods her head at her empty plate. “This was one of the best meals I’ve ever had.”
• The last two days of the week are the only days they don’t train. They spend that time taking the day slowly, waking up slow, and enjoying each other. During the warm seasons, Nesta finds that she adores the beach. Who knew Azriel had a secret sailing hobby? Certainly not Nesta. But lately the male has been opening up more, less withdrawn. When he takes her, Cassian, and Gwyn out in open water she’s delightfully intrigued to find that her best friend is not surprised by Azriel’s sailing. That she moves comfortably and familiarly around the boat.
• Nesta loves sailing. The mystery and fear of the open sea strikes a thrill in her. Cassian ties a long rope attached to a small raft on the end of the boat and Nesta discovers tubing. Cassian and Azriel make the wind fly through sails at soaring speeds and Nesta and Gwyn hold onto the raft with all their strength, but when they hit a wave Nesta goes flying into the air. She shrieks the entire time down into the cool water and she grins the entire swim back to the boat.
• This is living. She’s alive, she’s surrounded by love, and she no longer wonders if she deserves it.
• “Nesta!” She has to fight the urge to throw her book at the voice singing her name.
• Nesta doesn’t look up from her book. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it, Rhysand.”
• The chipper tone doesn’t leave his voice. “Just look at it!”
• Nesta rolls her eyes as she begrudgingly looks up. Rhysand is holding up a new set of leather boots and she has to admit that she does like them. “Thank you.”
• Rhysand grins as he throws the shoes over his shoulder. They land with a loud thunk behind him. “That’s not even the gift. I mean it is a gift; I saw them on my way over here and just had to buy them, but this is the real gift.”
• Nesta shakes her head at her brother-in-law. “You eventually have to stop with the gifts.”
• He shakes his head, a cat like grin on his face. “Never.”
• Nesta rolls her eyes again and holds her hands out for the box Rhysand as materialized. He’s thrumming with excitement as she opens it and holy shit.
• “Rhysand,” Nesta swallows, her eyes large on the gift in her lap. This is more than a gift. This is...this is...
• “It’s perfect, isn’t it?” He is absolutely giddy.
• She wants to say it’s too much. She wants to hand it back. But he looks so happy and she isn’t sure how she’ll manage to part with a first edition collectors item of her all time favorite book series. Signed by the author no less. “How in the hell did you manage to find this?”
• “I’m the most powerful High Lord in all of—”
• Nesta holds up a hand. “Don’t preen to me, Rhysand.”
• He laughs and she finds that she’s starting to enjoy this comfortable and friendly antagonism with him.
• “I caught wind that Helion had them in one of his libraries. You will not believe how long I had to play poker with him to win them. I—”
• Nesta is out of her chair before she knows what she’s doing. She’s just as astounded as Rhysand when she’s throwing herself into a hug, embracing him tighter than she ever has. This wasn’t just a gift he saw in a window and purchased on a whim. This was something he planned for. For her. He’s still and stiff but he brings his arms around her and he’s hugging her, too.
• “Thank you,” she whispers.
• He squeezes. “No. Thank you.”
• It’s the first time she doesn’t whack him for his insistent gifts and thanks for saving Feyre and Nyx. It’s the first time she truly understands why he does what he does, why he is outrageously generous. It is one of the first times Nesta deeply understands her brother. It is because he feels like he has so little to offer the world, to the people who matter to him.
• Nesta places the books in the center of her bookshelf.
• The more training Nesta goes through, the more competitions she and Cassian have.
• Cassian bets he can hang from a bar longer than she can, that since he’s physically stronger than her he’ll win.
• They hang their for the longest time, both trying to make the other laugh and fall. Cassian’s arms begin to shake and he looks in pain, but godsdamn it he’s gonna hang there until his fingers bleed because Nesta looks smug. She doesn’t even waver. She looks ready to hold on for another hour. Cassian finally has to let go and falls to the ground, trying to catch his breath. To make a point, Nesta doesn’t immediately drop. She smiles at him as she still holds on to the bar. And then they have really rough competitive sex after bye
• Nesta is a snuggler. When they’re in bed, she’s always curling into his side as close as she can get.
• CASSIAN. WRITES. POETRY. 😤
• I will go down swinging for that headcannon. I am ready.
• He’s got a whole ass wall of shelves of various kinds of journals like fucking Stefan from the Vampire Diaries but less sad emo boi things.
• Cassian actually has a gift for writing but he’s shy about it so literally no one knows. He writes a lot about the wars and battles he’s fought in, how those experiences shaped him for good and bad. He writes poems for his brothers, for his mother(s). He secretly has a huge, bleeding heart that he masks with frat boy humor.
• His very best work was writing about Nesta.
• He very slowly shows Nesta all his poems and she never once mocks him. She doesn’t over praise, either. She points out the one’s she really enjoys and they talk about them.
• Nesta’s favorite one is how he describes flying. It takes her several re-reads, but she figures out that the poem reads like an instruction manual, like a teaching lesson. She realizes it’s about how he taught Azriel to fly. The poem is full of love and patience and the beginnings of an unbreakable brotherhood. It shows how deeply Cassian loves.
• She cries when she reads the poem he wrote about waking up after the failed Hybern mission and his wings were ruined. His despair and fear is so tangible, but there is an underlying message of acceptance and that he would do absolutely anything to save his brothers.
• Nesta expected Cassian to be eager for children. They don’t talk about them a lot, and she’s not sure what he wants, but she knows she’s not ready. Not yet. There is still so much she wants to do, so much of her bond with Cassian she wants to discover.
• She brings it up as casually as she can one night over a quite dinner. A light goes on in his eyes, but it’s fleeting as something darker takes root.
• “Do you want to start trying?” He asks carefully.
• “No. We’ve only been mated for a year and I’m not ready to share you.”
• His smile is wide and does a good job of hiding what’s really going on in his thoughts, but they are well past hiding from one another.
• She reaches across the table and takes his calloused hand. “Tell me.”
• “I don’t know how to be a father.” His eyes look faraway. “I never had one. Rhys’s father was a prime asshole and I never knew my own. I’m afraid something integral is missing in me and I won’t be good to our children.”
• It never ceases to surprise Nesta how deep her mates insecurities go.
• She rubs her thumb over his hand. “I understand. I don’t have the best track record of being a model human being or Fae. My mother, as strange as our relationship was, was not good to my sisters. I’m afraid that exists in me.”
• Neither try to prove the other wrong about their fears. It’s not what is needed. Right now, they just need to be heard and understood.
• Cassian though, is incredible with children. They adore him. He’s funny and gentle and he never tires when they ask to tossed in the air just one more time.
• Lol children do not love Nesta. She doesn’t love children either.
• Except Nyx. He is obsessed with Aunt Nesta. She’s his favorite and honestly, the drooling chub is growing on her. Nesta talks to Nyx like a well educated adult, even if he is a baby. He listens raptly to her, his violet eyes wide. The boy clearly looks like his father, but there are parts of Feyre in his mouth, his mannerisms.
• There is even the smallest trace of Nesta. It’s shocking and it warms her heart in a way she’s never felt before, but the curve of Nyx’s eyes are familiar. They are her shape. Her mother’s shape.
• So, Nesta teaches her beloved nephew the art of the withering side eye. He is a master and she is proud.
• Nyx’s sixth birthday is coming up and she’s in her and Cassian’s private living room. She’s wrapping her nephews gift—a collection of feminist poetry and Valkyrie war strategy and no she doesn’t care he’s six the boy is smart damn it—when Cassian walks in.
• “I am one hundred percent certain Rhysand is giving me a chocolate fountain for Nyx’s birthday,” she says over her shoulder. “He saw me looking at one the other day and I half believe he bought the damn thing that very day.”
• Cassian hasn’t said anything. He’s still and he’s not breathing.
• “What? Did I guess right?” When her mate says nothing she snaps her fingers. “This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve guessed a Rhysand-Gift, Cass. Snap out of it.”
• His hand is on his chest, clenching and unclenching at his heart. “Do you...do you not...smell it?”
• Nesta bursts out into laughter. “Just tell me to take a bath if I smell. I trained a little longer with Emerie today. She said I’ve been slow lately.”
• Cassian is before her all a sudden, his hands holding her face. “Nes.” His thumbs run over her cheeks. “Take a deep breath in.”
• She does. A scent that reminds her of both herself and Cassian—and something new. Something soft.
• And she literally falls to her knees, bringing Cassian with her.
• “Oh my gods,” she covers her mouth. “Oh my gods. Oh my gods.”
• She thought she’d have more eloquent things to say when she found out she was pregnant. Turns out not.
• Cassian is at a loss for words, as well. They only just decided to start trying last month.
• Nesta then cackles. “You have very insistent genetics, Cassian.”
• He’s still shocked and his hazel eyes are still wider than plates, but he manages a chuckle. “On the first go. Can you believe it?”
• “Honestly, I do.”
• Cassian swallows. “A baby.”
• Nesta’s eyes warm. “A baby.”
• Cassian leans his brow against hers and she knows he is softly crying. “I’ll be happy no matter what, but I really want a girl.”
• And they do have a girl.
• Arya, named for Cassian’s mother, is born in the first hour of the first month of the summer season.
• As Nesta gives her final push, it is Cassian who catches their daughter. He weeps at the screaming, squirming, angry faced baby and he is besotted.
• The first person Arya sees when she opens her eyes is her father, who cheers to see that Nesta’s eyes have passed to his daughter.
• Her first steps will be to Cassian’s waiting hands, ready to catch her should she fall. He teaches her to fly and it’s one of Arya’s most treasured memories. He is there for everything, and he is no longer afraid of being a father.

A Court Of Silver Flames -> Aesthetic

“Jesus. God, Sargent. Do you have stitches in your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole” 

“But I watch my brothers give their hearts away and I think, Don’t you know better? Hearts are breakable. And I think even when you heal, you’re never what you were before.”