Work Text:
A simple life. It was all she had ever wanted while she was human. To have a beautiful home with an even more beautiful garden in front, a wild array of colored flowers to pick, arrange, and maybe rearrange in vases around her kitchen. To bake anything and everything her heart desired. Breads with neat patterns on top or braided into unique shapes. Muffins and scones in a hundred flavors with every fruit or spice she could get her hands on. Cakes and tarts so beautiful and elegant even Nesta would crack a smile at the sight of one. And a husband. A human husband who would love her and protect her and take care of her. One day, she’d imagined they’d have children, too. Tiny girls and boys, always under foot and sneaking little tastes of whatever she was baking, but she’d never be able to be mad about it because the little laughs and smiles would make her heart so full there wouldn’t be room for anything else. A simple life of joy and family and love. That’s what she had pictured, had been on track to achieve. But of course, that had all fallen apart when she and Nesta had been dragged from their home in the middle of the night and brought to that island. That castle. Where they’d met the king and the cauldron and she’d been forced to become the one thing that would derail her plans so completely she wouldn’t know how to get back on track. A fae.
After, when she tried to think of what she wanted it left her with a headache. Not an uncommon occurrence though, as her cauldron given gift of foresight often sent her head spinning. She’d now seen war, and tragedy, and pain, and battle, and all the things she’d never wanted. Her life wasn’t simple in Velaris, with the Illyrians and the fae. She tried her best, baking and gardening, attempting to befriend her new makeshift family, keeping Nesta out of trouble, though that was a losing battle, and fixing her relationship with Feyre, but it all felt out of control. Especially with the mating bond. It should’ve made everything easier. A kind man, a friend of Feyre’s who wanted to devote his whole life to making her happy, loving her, providing her anything she wanted, it sounded ideal. It sounded like a way to get back on track to that simple life. But it felt wrong. She thought at first it was just the shock of it all, the trauma of the change. Then, that maybe it was that she loved Graysen still and maybe that wrong feeling was feeling like having the bond was betraying him. But Graysen has rejected her, broken off the engagement when he found out what she was, and she had been sad, but somehow not truly heartbroken. She saw Rhysand and Feyre, the love they had for each other, the depth of it, and knew she’d never felt anything close to that about Graysen. She’d liked him, he’d been nice, but she had never really wanted to touch him or kiss him or cuddle into him the way Feyre seemed to want Rhysand. She used to wonder if she had even loved him at all. So, she could no longer blame her feelings of wrongness on Graysen. It had kept her up at night, trying to figure out what was wrong with her, why she couldn’t just settle and be happy with what life had handed her and let it be. And it had taken her a full year after the end of the war to figure out why exactly that was.
Azriel has become her closest friend in that time, their quiet contemplative natures allowing for an easy companionship. It had been his idea to start bringing baked goods to the surrounding neighbors. She baked so often that Azriel has started to joke that he was going to have to add an hour into had daily training to burn all the extra calories she was feeding him. It seemed like a nice idea and a way to break out of her shy nature and make some more friends so she had agreed. She had gone out with a basket of cranberry orange scones and a fragile hope of making a new friend, and walked along the outskirts of the city, near Rhysand’s townhouse, looking for a home with someone in it. A small cottage was the first one to catch her attention. The windows were thrown open and dried lavender hung upside down from the top of the frame. The smell of sea and storm wafted from the open window, which was odd since the sea was on the opposite side of the city, but it looked friendly and inviting, so she mustered up her courage and approached the door. A single soft knock was enough, and almost instantly the door was flung open to reveal the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. She looked to be around her own age, though with the fae that meant little about their actual age, with shining brunette curls framing her soft face. The woman’s deep brown eyes creased at the corners as she smiled.
“Elain. I’m- my name is Elain. Sorry. Hello... Sorry,” she stammered as she tried to remember why she had knocked on the stranger's door in the first place and figure out why the only emotion she was conscious of was pure panic.
“I have scones?” It came out as a question rather than an explanation.
The woman laughed brightly, and somehow that only made Elain more panicked.
“Well, I’m Annika, it’s lovely to meet you Elain. Why don’t you come inside, you look a little pale, and I have some tea brewing already,” the woman stepped back from the door frame allowing Elain to enter her small home.
“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess, I’m just collecting some sea salt right now so there’s a lot of water boiling and it’s a bit steamy.”
Elain was struggling to process all her thoughts and feelings as she looked around the woman’s home. Flowers, both fresh and dried, dotted just about every flat surface inside, herbs hung from the exposed beams of the ceiling, the whole space was decorated in soft pinks and whites, and a small number of fresh rolls sat on the counter. It looked like every dream home she’d ever imagined for herself. And then there was the woman herself. The panic had not entirely subsided within her, but she was starting to process the other things she was feeling as well. She was beautiful, but not in the ways Elain was used to considering people beautiful. She didn’t want to look like the woman herself, but there was something much more to it than just an appreciation of the aesthetics of her face. She wanted to stare at the woman. And keep staring. And maybe do more than just stare.
Oh. Wait.
Perhaps this was what being attracted to someone was supposed to feel like. Perhaps the mating bond felt wrong because Lucien was a male. Perhaps things made a lot more sense if she looked at it that was. Perhaps she was gay.