𝐄𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐀𝐍 ━━━ ✧ ⋆ （ acotar ）

✧ ˚ 𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢. 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞

✧ ˚ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀 𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐒𝐎 𝐎𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 her youth favored descriptions that painted Time as something precious. They told of Time as though it was something to be revered, to be cherished, for one could never truly regain it back once it had been lost to them, slipping past hopeful fingertips with the taunting laugh of a late winter breeze. It was said to be more valuable than any coin in a banker's wallet, more fruitful than any stock in a jeweler's refinery. Those who spent their time wisely would find themselves leading a more prosperous life.

Her most beloved fairytales likened Time as a means to an end, as something inconsequential in the grand scheme of the heroine's destined Happily Ever After. If Time were the clamoring toll of a castle war bell within the context of a soulful young maiden and her blossoming love with the Prince Charming of the story, then that bell would be ringing all through the zealous night. With each moment their first meeting grew nearer, it would signal faster and faster as though its enemy rigorously approached, awaiting the scene that their eyes first met from across the room.

For Asteria, Time was now a curse. Time was the loss of love, the loss of childhood innocence, the loss of vibrant hope. It was the foreboding precursor to inevitable heartacheㅡthe beginning of torrential agony, and the end of youthful luminescence. She could no longer return to the naive girl she once was in the light of her reawakening as one of the Fallen, not now that she had seen the worst of the world's monsters, and true nature of its depravity.

Three months.

Three months since Under the Mountain. Three months since the part of her soul that had been hidden since birth had been revealed to the world in the form of an earth-shattering beam of light. Three months since she had last heard from Rhys, and three months of harrowing Starsight dreams. Two months since Tamlin had proposed to Feyre, and two months of those dreams involving those same hateful eyes. That terrorizing shade of amber was practically burned into her consciousness by now.

Idle chatter captured the otherwise silence of the manor's visiting room, the air within brimmed by a stuffy warmth even with the breeze allowed by the open windows. Most of that chatter came from Ianthe, the overbearing blonde High Priestess Tamlin had invited to help ease the preparations for his and Feyre's fast approaching wedding.

Speaking of Asteria's bride-to-be of a sister, Feyre was lounged directly next to her on the emerald sofa, absentmindedly fidgeting with the gaudy fabric of her dawn-pink gown and barely listening to Ianthe's ramblings as she talked and talked about the wedding's seating arrangements.

To be clear, Asteria did not blame her in the slightest, as even she was starting to grow weary of the meeting the High Priestess had all but goaded them into the day before, while Tamlin and Lucien were still away doing... whatever they were doing. Maybe if there weren't a coming war looming over them that leadership in the Spring Court seemed adamant to ignore, and maybe if she was not so busy within her own thoughts, wondering how to best go about gaining the information she needed to prepare for her duty to this world and the Celestial Realm, Asteria would have found joy in such a domestic task. After all, a wedding between a humble village girl and the powerful lord from another land was something straight out of her fairytales, and it was happening to her own sister no less. She should have been ecstatic.