A COURT OF DARK SHADOWS AND LIQUID GOLD (AZRIEL X OC)

1.8: Elain - Interlude of Hereafter

❝ I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind — how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall. ❞ 

― Pierce Brown, Golden Son (Red Rising)

Anxiety was not something Elain had ever suffered in her life. 

As a child, she used to innocently think that everything happened for a reason: so, worrying too much about an uncertain future was not a good way to deal with uncertainty. 

¿What was the point of her worrying about something potentially bad, when something good would always happen in the end as a result?

That's until the Cauldron decided it was a good idea for her to let her see the future. And the forthcoming began to torment her from the moment she set foot on the world as a high fae.

The mating bond. Her engagement to Graysen. The visions about Vassa and her curse. The words that came out of her mouth without her being able to control them. The constant expectation that something she had seen or felt would become reality in front of her eyes without her understanding it until it was too late.

She thought that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

But after Hybern was defeated, her visions did not return, as if something within her had nothing to say now. Which was convenient. Because soon it was Elain who she wanted to know.

It didn't have anything to say. She wanted something, anything. Some kind of sign that will help guide her family on the right path.

Maybe, if she saw something, she would know what was happening to her older sister and help her. She could have warned Feyre that her pregnancy would not last. Her gift shouldn't consider those things big enough to warn her about them. Nothing compared to Hybern, until now. But for Elain those things were big enough, and it would have merited a vision, or a prophecy.

It was not fair. After so many years of grief and misery, they finally deserved something good. Feyre deserved it for the countless hours of hunting in the snow. Nesta needed it after years of drowning in hate. Elain needed it, to find a purpose.

But it didn't happen. The silence became very loud to her, to the point that she had resorted to playing lullabies on the piano that was in the River House to shut it up. The ones that their grandmother had taught Elain when she was alive. She didn't remember the woman much, but she did remember those songs, as if they were burned into her mind. Elain came through to them, to fill the void her lack of intent has created in her now immortal life.

Ten years went by. 

Nothing varied in her life, the silence got louder on her head, and other than the flowers blooming in the spring and dying in the winter, no change was made. 

The garden took shape over the years until it became the envy of the entire city, all thanks to Elain's hand. The place brought calm to her most days. Others, that the idea that her only purpose for getting out of bed every day was those flowers, made her want to tear them all off and burn the place to the ground. 

It were moments where she felt like she was always there, sitting on the stone bench, perfectly positioned to have a full view of the flowers. Waiting for something to come along that would change everything as she watched the flower live and die once and again.