Feyre/Rhys/Tam Fanficfion ACoTaR

Chapter 7

I locked myself in my room at the Night Court, and tried my best not to move and not to breathe.

But everything hurt anyways.

My only company was when Helena came to deliver my meals. She would glance at me where I lay prone on my bed, sniffling, and would grunt before leaving again. By the second day, when she collected my uneaten food, I swear she rolled her eyes. But no matter how many times I scolded myself for the self-pity and weakness, I couldn't help it. My heart had momentarily gained authority of my mind, and it was leaving me here to starve.

The days ticked away slowly, and my ache became something more frightening-until I wasn't sure whether it was even within my own power to leave my bedroom. The only certainty I had ever held in Pythian had been with Tamlin and the Spring Court. Now that it was severed, the walls outside of my bedroom seemed to be a much more frightening place, and I felt as if I was nearing the point of no return. In instances, as I sat by myself in the violet glow of the night or in front of the comfortless heat of the fire, it became clear to me that loneliness was much worse than solitude.

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More days passed.

Helena forced me to bathe and change.
Why?" I demanded, "I'm not going anywhere." She just clicked her tongue and shoved me roughly into the water. After a few days of this, she got sick of my complaining and said,

"You bath for me. No want to serve dirty girl. Now wash." I sulked the rest of the day, but she didn't appear to care.

I began to wonder if I could stay here forever and no one would notice. To distract myself, I knotted my hair, to see how many braids I could make until there was just one. My most common pastime was probably my self-deprecating games, which more or less consisted of me throwing on one of my expensive dresses and prancing around, pretending to be one of the pretty women who would surely now be at Tamlin's beck and call.  As if in some sort of play, I would act out Tamlin's and the latest vixen's roles.

"Why, aren't you handsome?" the vixen would say, draping a seductive hand over the sofa longue.

"And you are simply gorgeous," I would have Tamlin purr back. "Much different from my previous lover. But please, pray tell me before we proceed, lest my heart not take it--are you a patient sort of person?"

"But of course! I could simply wait for you forever."

"Thank goodness. Only a few months, and Feyre got tired of waiting. She left me, you know."
Cue the vixen gasping, then empathetic nodding from Tamlin:
"Yes, she disappeared somewhere. No one's heard from here-could have been eaten by a bog for all anyone cares!" Tamlin then waves a blasé hand and companionable laughter is commenced.

After these episodes I normally collapse onto my bed, until Helena arrives. She'd sigh at the knots in my hair, before getting to work at untangling them. On the days I wasn't depressed enough to act, I didn't even bother to move. I would stare out the windows into the fathomless sky, and trace Tamlin's face into the constellations.

Fifteen days.
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On the seventeenth day, I woke up to stunning purple depths. The abyss within them was indefinable, flecked in a kaleidoscope of gold and silver. Fascinated for the first time in days, I studied them, trying to discern the location of the stars.

And then they blinked.

I shrieked, leaping backwards and almost falling off the edge of the bed. Lying next to where I had just been and looking unconcerned by my outburst, was Rhysand. His eyes were scrutinizing me, as if they could see something I couldn't.