Irresistibly, Irrevocably, Irresponsibly In Love

Chapter 8 - Rhysand

"Rhysand is the most intelligent High Lord."

"Rhysand is the most powerful High Lord."

"Rhysand is the most beautiful High Lord."

I finished repeating my morning affirmations to myself in the mirror, admiring my pearlescent, smooth skin and perfectly proportionate features, and asked myself the question I asked every morning - why did I not have a surname? My morning affirmations would sound so much better with a strong, valiant surname to go with my perfect forename. Maybe I would give one to myself, I thought. I'd ask Feyre about it later.

After some pondering, I wandered back into my bedroom and turned to the majestic human still sleeping in my bed.

"Feyre, darling," I whispered, "time to get up. Only if you want to, of course. It's your choice. Always your choice."

Gradually, she began to stir, grumbling about being woken up so early. I immediately felt guilty. How dare I have woken her up? Although she was a woman, she was perfectly equal to me in every way and she had the right to make her own choices - as a feminist, I knew this.

I had been a feminist from birth, and I expected no recognition for it. None at all. It was just basic human decency (not that I was a human, of course, but my darling Feyre was, and I wanted to please her in every way possible).

Feyre began to speak (although, at this time in the morning, it was more of a mumble). "Rhys... what are... we doing... today?".

"Well, my dearest, I thought we could take a stroll in the gardens, and then you could show me the painting you've been working on. And if we have time later, we could have some fun..."

I trailed off, letting Feyre work out the rest of my sentence. I enjoyed making the mountains shake so much with her that we just had to do it as often as possible. I'd tell anyone I could find about it - which, while I was staying with them, was most often Tamlin or Lucien. A lot of the time, they would tell me they had somewhere else to be - they were busy fae, after all - but I would not let them leave until I had finished. They deserved some time off from their busy schedules, I just made sure that they had it. I was amazing like that.

"OK... Just let me... get ready," Feyre said, and I sat down to wait.

A few hours later (Feyre did have an extensive beauty routine to uphold, after all) we strolled out of my - sorry, our room, everything that was mine was hers, because I was a feminist - and began to stroll down the corridor, our hands tightly intertwined like swans who had mated for life and could not let each other go.

We had almost made it to the gardens when we ran into a harried looking Lucien. His hair was in disarray - a great shame, really, he had such glossy hair, although not as beautiful as mine - and his normally glowing skin was pale and ashen.

"Whatever has happened to you?" I asked, internally praising myself at my selfless concern, coupled with discretion so as to not make him embarrassed.

He immediately flushed puce, and began to stammer. He must also be in awe at my grace and selflessness, I thought to myself.

"Well, nothing, really, I was just wondering, if you'd seen Tamlin? You see, I really need to talk to him, but I can't seem to find him, well, anywhere, he's just nowhere to be found-"

"Do not fear! I saw your boyfriend earlier heading out into the woods. He looked a bit distressed too, now that I think about it. Did something happen between you two? You've always seemed like such a perfect couple to me."

"Oh no, no, you've got the wrong end of the stick. Tamlin and I, we're not, well, together, he's not my boyfriend..."

"Of course he is, don't be silly. You two will work out whatever's going on between you, I'm sure of it. Now, before you go and find him, I thought you might like to hear what Feyre and I were doing last night-"

But he was already walking off, muttering something about urgently needing to leave. Curious, that. He must desperately need to find Tamlin if he didn't want to hear about last night's escapades - he would have found it truly entertaining.

I watched him disappear down the corridor, yelling after him, "Let me know how it goes!"

Satisfied, I turned back to the love of my life, who was smiling up at me with unadulterated adoration. Sometimes it really did seem like she wasn't actually present, like she could have not been there and most people wouldn't have noticed the difference. But that was what I loved about her - her adorable stupidity and terrible decision making. She was perfect in every way, my match, my equal. There could never have been anyone else for me but her. I'd waited hundreds of years for her, and I would have waited hundreds more, despite the fact that some people thought our age gap was creepy. I would never let those people bring us down.

"Now, what would you like to do? You were telling me about that painting you were doing? Of the landscape?"

"Yes... there are so many colours... reds and oranges and yellows and greens and blues and purples and browns-"

"Wonderful!" As much as I loved how much Feyre liked painting, once she started talking about colours, she would sometimes carry on for hours and hours about the most mundane detail. "Let's go and see it!"