One of my favourite details from the original Red Rising trilogy, is that no one ever came close to guessing or even suspecting that Darrow wasn’t a gold.

It shows the inherent flaw in their sense of superiority. Octavia had Darrow right there in front of her, with an Oracle wrapped around his arm, and even though she suspected he was a Son of Ares, she never asked if he was anything other than gold, didn’t even come close.

Adrius and Virginia are geniuses, but still, neither of them could have possibly fathomed that Darrow was a red until they had the concrete evidence of his carving right in front of them.

To this day (in canon) the only reason anyone knows Darrow is a red carved to be gold, is because the video evidence of his carving was leaked (initially from Harmony, and later from others).

No one, no matter how intelligent, practical, paranoid, cautions, clever or skeptical, ever figured out about Darrow’s carving through their own suspicion or means of investigation. They were either in on it from the beginning (Dancer, Mickey, Quicksilver, etc) or they were shown video evidence. No one figured it out themselves or “unravelled the mystery” so to speak. Because no one even knew there was a mystery.

And before people say “it was extremely unlikely, they had no reason to suspect” Yes, Darrow’s carving was incredibly difficult and expensive, but the same procedure was performed on Titus not long after, so how rare or hard could it be? We even get a dialogue from Mustang in Golden Son in which she details that different colours go to carvers all the time to have “intrinsic” parts of themselves altered, far more often than the public realizes. So the possibility should have been on Octavia’s radar, but it wasn’t, because she simply couldn’t fathom it. It was too obscure.

How could a red be the spitting image of what gold society idealizes? How could a red be so tall, strong, and beautiful? How could a red graduate top of the Institute, become a peerless scarred, a Lancer, her own grandson’s celebrity hero? Neither her nor Nero or Lorn or even Adrius were capable of even entertaining the idea. It was not a thought that was ever going to occur to them naturally.

And I really love that, from a narrative perspective, because it says so much about how the Society operates and upholds itself. It says so much about how high on their own egos golds really are. It says so much about how the colours are not as different from one another as golds would have them believe.

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire? What do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands and an Imperial tool kit. They're so proud of themselves, they don't even care. They're so fat and satisfied, they can't imagine it.

Luthen Rael: Can't imagine what?

Cassian Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear.

Andor (2022-)

Oak and Ash

PART ONE    PART TWO   If there was one thing Lucien Vanserra learned young, it was to control himself.  But control in the world of Autumn had always been more than half deception- and Lucien was lying more and more each day. That he really was a Spring Lord in all but birth. That Feyre was fine and Tamlin was just. That the rot that had began under Amarantha was being cleansed, not grown right into the soul of a stagnant season.  Burning inside him every day, it became harder.  Without fail, he woke with magic kindling in his veins, sweating out his pores in raging heat. It made no sense to him. Elain was human. He could practically hear the mortal beat of her heart if he focused hard, soft as spring rain falling over Tamlins estate.  But still, Lucien dreamt.  Of Elain dancing, spinning through the figures of Autumn Court dances. The Hunters Moon high in sky, his beautiful savage home a safe place- Elain Archeron wild with joy and framed by bonfires, all dimples and clever eyes. Maddeningly impossible, with faery bright skin. Her curls unbound and soft to the touch- his touch.  There was no world in which those forests might call Lucien home, no story where he would ever be crowned again in rowan and bone, no life where it wasn’t a land ruled by a murderous tyrant.  Lucien spent long night hours staring at the sky, slowing his heart, the fire in his blood, the longing trying to burn him up inside. In some ways, he decided, it was even worse than the death wish he’d carried in the time of Amarantha. Something inside him was waking up, the embers stoked for the first time in centuries.  Something a human girl who wanted only to be his friend had brought to life.  It was as though he’d been half awake for decades. Now his eyes were open, and Lucien couldn’t stop looking. If he’d been asleep, his power had been half dead. It would have been easy to write off on the long imprisonment of Prythian, but deep down he knew that wasn’t true.  No fox worth a forest den lied to himself too.  Lucien thought perhaps he hadn’t felt even a spark of it’s full strength since the day Jesminda had burned. Hadn’t wanted it- not really, not to live or to feel- and that truest, most intrinsic part had listened.  Until he’d stumbled into a rose garden. Winnowed straight over the Wall armed to the teeth.  And every day he rose, the ostentatious costume of a spring noble never more false. It reminded him so much a of her laugh; this girl who he’d known less than a heartbeat, seeing the truth that easily. If his tiredness showed, Tam didn’t comment. Maybe he didn’t notice, too busy celebrating a victory even Lucien was tired of lauding. Too busy seeking ways to kill Rhysand, for all that his fell bargaining had likely saved them all.  It took bitter, constant focus not to melt the gold all around him.  Lucien understood saving face, but he knew sacrifice much more. Hated that he understood the pallor that dulled even Feyre’s glowing immortal skin.  He hated it- hated as he went through every motion, thoughts buried deep. His duties filled his day, but they meant nothing. Emptiness, Lucien learned, only brought the flames higher. He was helpless, had been for a long time, he was realizing. Facing that he hated this fetid court. That Lucien had no home to return to, couldn’t fathom a place in this damned whole land he could safely call his own, with his mother’s fire so bright gold spiked and burned in his gaze.  With Elain Archeron’s smoke and dew flower scent living in his lungs like a haunting.  So Lucien did what he was best at, and didn’t return. No matter that the Wall buzzed like a beacon in the back of his mind every day he spent in too bright, too frozen forests, he didn’t turn toward human lands. Refusing the siren song of his name on the wind, no matter how it hurt. Instead, Lucien winnowed to the furthest of the rebuilding villages and built until he was made to leave.  To return to stand at Tamlin’s side- more and more, to stand and not speak.   He knew how to run, how to fight, turning those gifts inward was nothing at all.  Nothing at all, until the High Lord of Night rescued Feyre from her own wedding, and Lucien was relieved. — Elain would never be so rude as to hide from her own guests.  She was naturally- as she’d explained to the simpering lord who’d escorted her outside- simply overwhelmed by the heat of the ball room, and could he be so kind as to escort her and oh, perhaps fetch some lemonade she’d forgotten inside?  Alone, Elain sank down on the balcony, this years frothy skirts poofing against the cold stone.  They had standing in the community again- riches and place, prospects and respect. Nesta, unable to hide how much she hated the false cheer, had retreated hours ago. But Elain had smiled- danced on and on, familiar burn beneath her ribs writhing.  She wanted- she wanted out of this gods damned corset, wanted to throw every idiot vying for her hand, for her wealth, out of the house. To know her baby sister was safe, to know her older sister would be okay.  The music, audible from the ballroom, shifted into a faster reel, and Elain pressed her face into her hands.  Unbidden- and she would blame the frustration later- the thought of dark ink on golden skin came to her. Careful lines to make a tangle of plants, true and perfect. At this point, Elain could have traced the shapes in her sleep.  She wanted Lucien to come back.  Which was madness. But she’d thought- hoped, assumed- that they were something like friends. The specter of that fascination twisted hotly in her chest, but here, alone, she let it come. Lucien was her beautiful, impossible faery friend.  Who’d never again answered her summons.  Elain knew it was what she should have expected. Could even, perhaps, be so simple as a difference of species. What were a few long months to a man- creature - who’d live forever? A solid piece of her young life, but to Lucien? An eye blink, an afternoon.  But just as truly she couldn’t shake the image of him striding in from the storm, wild and burning. He’d come for her, to make sure Elain was alright. Savage and protective, but he’d taken her offer to stay and drunk hot chocolate out of dainty china cups like it was a wonder.  The soft slide of one of the glass doors opening had Elain jumping to her feet, excuses on her lips before she saw the shine of her older sisters skirts.  Silently, Nesta walked down the balcony to Elain and sank down onto the cold stone herself. In the moonlight, her pale grey dress and tired face were much the same luminous color. Elain thought, not for the first time, that her older sister might have been better off if she were the one dragged to faery. Stillness- the lack of real answers- to be backed into a corner was what always ruined Nesta in the end.  “I thought you went to bed,” Elain murmured, sinking down until their shoulders touched.  Nesta sighed and Elain felt the moment her straight spine curved. “Lord Macon arrived,” Nesta said, colder than the night air. Elain knew well enough none of that sharpness was for her. “We have to indulge him, at least until father returns.”  They both knew their father was never coming home. But even alone here, neither would say those vulnerable words with their house full of gentry.  The Acherons were rich again- safe again. But how safe could two heiresses be in the wild human country that bordered the Wall? The second they’d had the funds to secure ships their father had disappeared back to the sea. Only the noble blood in their veins and the fair lines of their cheeks remained of the long dead Lady Asteria Acheron.  The sisters were on their own, as they always had been.  So Elain became a darling- she hosted balls and gave to noble women’s charities. Established committees and revelries, provided them every cover gentility could allow.  Tonight’s smiles had made her face ache. “That fucking prick,” Elain sighed, lips twitching as Nesta choked on a laugh.  Her sister’s cost had been far higher these long months. She played the part of a very long, very slow traditional courtship to a lord two decades her senior- and hadn’t stabbed him yet.  Elain had contemplated poison.  Because she knew- better than anyone else could, that Nesta Archeron truly believed in love. That deep in unbending heart of her cold, impossibly strong sister lived a woman who was all fire. And she’d burn herself out for the people she loved- would keep on giving pieces of herself away if it kept Elain safe.  She leaned harder against her sister’s side, pleased and horrified at the press of metal from beneath Nesta’s skirts.  The faery daggers were shared between them, and Nesta was wearing them strapped to her thighs.  The morning Elain confessed to Nesta about Lucien- about tea and poison, danger and beauty- her razor edged sister had wept. Not for Elain, but with the knowledge that somehow, Feyre was alive out there in ageless lands.  And then refused to speak to Elain for days in horrified fury, but that was something else entirely. Neither of them could imagine Feyre’s life now- or a sure way to keep themselves safe if fae continued to come over the Wall- but they couldn’t throw away the connection either. Lucien. Inside, the orchestra shifted to a spring reel, frantically fast. Nesta sighed a second time and let her eyes fall shut, tilting her head back to rest on the stone wall.  Echoing the motion, both sisters sat face to face with where the Wall lay. In the day it was a solid line of disturbance- like looking at the sun a second too long, or trying to read a completely foreign language.  Tonight, in the full light of a red tinged moon, it was invisible.  This was the part they never, ever admitted aloud to each other. Not even on the late nights they gathered in Nesta’s rooms, long after the house was asleep, to speak of faeries. To guess at Feyre’s whereabouts, for Nesta to share the illicit and entirely illegal research she was doing- to wonder and worry, to plan.  What neither sister would admit- but knew, both, buried between them- was something close to envy. They were safe. Worried for Feyre and scared for her, but safe in human lands.  Feyre was free. — Lucien seen it on Feyre’s face, in the weight she somehow kept shedding, in the frozen fear he could taste on the sweet Spring breeze. There was no world in which Tam, with his hunters senses, hadn’t smelled it too. Could feel it, see it.  But then Feyre was gone, and the world was red. Red wedding roses shredded on the lawn, poisoned Spring twisting garden vines into thorns and bleeding flowers. Tamlin, roaring out that rage that had a voice in Luciens head whispered to snarl back. He’d survived centuries with his head down, but suddenly all at once the required submission turned his bones molten.  Lucien wanted to defend himself against the pain he knew was coming. He wanted to defend Feyre, not a possession to be stolen from Tamlin.  He fought it, locking joints and face to the ground. Not placating Tamlin, but trying to tame the flames that had licked their way up into his eyes, magic settled in seething gold. Lucien had his eyes squeezed shut, counting the beats of his heart. It was a second- it was a moment- but it was enough for him to miss the first death.  He didn’t miss of sound of the body hitting the ground.  He didn’t throw himself forward fast enough to stop the second, to pull his friend- not his High Lord, his friend- back from mindlessly tearing through Feyre’s guard detail. But it wasn’t his friend who looked back, who roared anew as Lucien’s shoulder slammed into him, who fought his unrelenting grip.  They went down hard, Tamlin’s beast aspect a muddle of gold and blood as claws dug into Lucien’s forearms.  Dug and cut, the wetness of blood the only physical anchor Lucien had as his entire left arm went numb, Tamlins claws too deep. He had to get him away, had to push Tamlin away from the soldiers that would die too fast in this conflict.  Faerie dominance was a fickle and instinctual thing. Deadlier than the weapons they forged, stronger than the magic that defined their endless centuries of life. Lucien had learned it young and learned it well, the too bright, too magical youngest son of Prythian’s bloodiest court. Knew the feel of it like breathing, could pick out noble heirs and sense mate bonds a mile off, knew other faeries magical gifts with an instinct so strong it might have been some magic itself.  He knew it all, but somewhere, he’d made a mistake.  Tamlin was stronger than Lucien like this, half transformed and more than half mad with rage. But he’d always been faster than his friend. Like breathing- like he’d always stupidly done- Lucien let himself be hurt to twist in Tamlin’s grip and pull him further from the ruined wedding.  Bleeding- his arm was bleeding too damn much- Lucien kneeded Tamlin in the side, the crunch of breaking bone as much a surprise as a balm to the instincts screaming at him to fight for real.  But Tamlin still didn’t flinch, come to the surface. Instead he snarled, the roar of a creature neither human or fae, teeth dangerously close.  Distantly, Lucien had the horrible thought that the High Lord of Spring had never been this crazed when Amarantha was still alive. This unhinged.  True fear, cold even through the fire, slide down his spine.  It was the last thing Lucien thought, before claws slid up under his ribs. Like a handle of bone, crushing horrible pain as his skin parted- but he didn’t feel it. Lucien didn’t feel anything at all. He wasn’t in his body.  He was- red blood, green blood, her blood- broken ribs screaming as he was ground down into a polished marble floor. He was bleeding- how can there be so much blood from burning? Willow sap blood, autumn’s cost, his brother’s blood staining his skin. He was in the air- Eris had him against the wall by his throat. He could take him in an even fight- he could- but not like this, not with her- He was flying- transformed into an owl, into a wolf, at Tamlin’s behest- red blood, green grass, the world was blurring past his eyes- Elain’s laugh-  He was burning.  Lucien came to the beat after impact- head ringing, body ringing, the riven trunk of the tree Tamlin had thrown him into- thrown him through- catching fire at the touch of his skin. Teeth bared, vision blurred, but it wasn’t a Spring Lord who sat up and looked for Tamlin.  But the High Lord had transformed and vanished, the sound him running through the forest unnaturally loud in Lucien’s ears.  Leaving him, gasping and bleeding, responsible for the bodies of two soldiers he’d trained since their youth.  No. Tamlin was responsible.  Lucien could still feel his friend’s empty eyes. The gaze of the High Lord of Spring, where madness and becoming lived. Where something might have been broken for a long, long time. Lucien had fought with Tamlin before, interceded in years past, but Tam had never looked at him like a true opponent. Like Lucien was an equal, a challenger, and he was going to rip off his fucking head.  Had torn through Cian and Oisin like they were nothing at all.  Lucien knew , without a doubt, Tamlin had felt that magic fighting to be free in his oldest advisor and dearest friend. Had met it head on and decided in that bloody instant, that he was fighting a real enemy.  He couldn’t stay here, dazed and lost in the growing dark. Couldn’t help these males he’d trained, finish the village rebuilding, stay to talk Tamlin out of declaring war on the Night Court.  Because even when Tamlin found his reason his again, Lucien wouldn’t be safe.  The second he’d fought back he’d sealed his fate- not an adviser, a challenger. There was nothing of his friend left right now- and perhaps there hadn’t been for a long, long time. Lucien couldn’t help these faeries, but there was someone left he could.  Someone Lucien was sure Tamlin knew about, and wouldn’t hesitate for a second to use somehow to get Feyre back.  Sky bright, blood trailing after him, Lucien followed the roaring into the woods.  He could feel it now- the Hunters moon as it rose in his veins. The ease of it, to bleed wicked spring blood into old spring soil, like hunting any wild beast. Lucien was the son of forests far older than these. Once he’d earned his crown of bone, under the power of the dying year, the hate of a high lord watching over him. Flooded with fear and adrenaline, the old magic of violence danced beneath his skin.  Lucien shook off the crushing pain. He was a survivor, and after all these miserable years, he burned still. Even among Spring green trees, he could have slaughtered Tamlin.  The absolute fact of that knowledge took whatever breathe had remained in his screaming lungs, made him stand straight in the blood loss haze.  Through the ringing in his ears,  Tamlins rampage could be heard, the only thing dividing the sound of a fae lord from the animals he killed roaring volume. Killing, because even after all these centuries, Tam couldn’t channel the rage. Lucien had always known it, like knowing that he was cornered in Spring, that Tamlin resented the power in his blood instead of bending it to his will.  But it was that power that had saved Lucien, once upon a time ago. Power that had made him stay- and made him think he was weak. He owed Tamlin his life for that day, when Lucien really had been weak, been determined to die after the worst loss of his life. But now?  Now Lucien, blood covered and listening to the leader he’d followed howl like a beast, had to face that the old debt between them was more than repaid. He’d crossed the gods damned wall for Tamlin, ready to give his life. So miserable and grateful, so cut off from himself, to sacrifice every endless year of an immortal life just so that the broken faerie that saved him might break a curse.  For what? Lucien’s vision blurred around the edges, darkness as tempting as a caress. Pain pounded in the same tempo of his heartbeat. But he made himself walk, pulled forth the the strength to run. Not after Tamlin, but toward the Wall. He’d wanted to die, been ready to die for his friend again and again, and what had he gotten in return?  The opportunity to be a good servant? Not an ally. To have Feyre waste away before them, unable to help, unable to make the faerie he’d thought to be his closest friend listen to him even for a minute. Betrayal that twisted in his gut, churning with the concussed nausea that would take hours to heal. He was glad Rhysand had Feyre with him, glad his oldest of enemies could keep her safe from the lord who loved her.  He had to slow, staggering to boundary oaks that marked Spring Court land. If he passed out in these woods, he wasn’t sure he’d ever wake up. Were Tamlin to find him, it was easy to assume he’d kill before he thought. If Lucien didn’t get away, if he stopped holding back, he was going to kill his friend. Fire in his veins and confusion in his heart, fracture lines on every surface. Lucien knew he would do it- if Tamlin beyond reach of logic came at him, Lucien would kill him rather than take the pain ever again.  Dizziness pulling at him hard, Lucien didn’t notice when his footsteps began to leave smoldering prints in their wake. In his ringing ears, he could just feel the pressure of the Spring boundary, taut against him. Teeth gritted, he bore it, bearing down until it couldn’t hold him, until even the poison of the Wall before him faded.  He was too incoherent to think about it, but later, much later, he’d return to find immortal oaks ash, their enchantments cleaved to nothing.  So bleeding and burning, lost and found, Lucien Vanserra staggered into human lands, and found he wanted to live. @breath-of-sindragosa @flxwer-petals @ladyvanserra @missanniewhimsy @tntwme @illyrianinterrasen