here’s a short fic where elain runs to lucien after a nightmare - and where the mating bond is mentioned, as well as the beginning of their courting.

“lucien?”

her footsteps are light, fleeting across the carpeted marble floor. she’s a slim shadow near the door, only her head poking out from behind it. waves of unbound golden-brown hair tumble behind her, and doe shaped eyes, albeit sleepy, seek his out. she’s trembling behind the door, seeking out comfort from the first person that came to mind.

it happened to be him.

she’d be surprised, would probably be on her way down the hall, really, if she wasn’t too exhausted.

“elain?”

her name on his lips is akin to a mother drawing a child in for a hug after a nightmare. she’s pushing the door forward then and there, stumbling inside, her still far too slender frame dwarfed by the oversized slip she’s got on. she bumps against something in the dark, drawing both a wince and a shudder from lucien, but he’s up in an instant, hand against her elbow.

it doesn’t take long until a candle that isn’t too far off flickers, along with another, and another.

“are you alright?” he’s scanning her face, then her body.

it’s that very concern that she feels down that vine covered corridor that is their bond, and she shivers. for once in her life, she doesn’t know WHAT to say. she doesn’t know how to tell him that she had a nightmare. she doesn’t know how to tell him that she’s afraid, and she doesn’t know from what. she doesn’t know how to say that she didn’t intend to come to him, either; she just somehow ended up at his door.

“i - it’s nothing.”

she’s thinking of turning, maybe, or of coming up with an excuse. but then she feels a firm hand tilting her chin up, making her meet that one amber eye and that other metal one of his. “ if it bothers you, it’s nothing. ”

his voice is hoarse, perhaps from just being torn from his sleep, but it leaves her feeling slightly more comfortable. as if she has someone there for her. he tears his hands away from her right after and pushes back, perhaps to make her feel more comfortable, but it only has her moving towards him again.

“i had a nightmare.”

admitted tentatively, sheepishly. as if she’s afraid to see how he’d react.

she can feel understanding rush through him, still spiked with worry, and she dares to push herself down the ivy and rose covered path that is their bond, if only to see what ELSE there is. and it’s that sudden clarity, that feeling that she gets when she suddenly feels and knows too much, that meets her. down in that corridor, in that BOND, she can feel him. she can feel every single thing, and that suddenly has her pulling back, practically running, and she shivers once she’s securely shut herself out.

“i get them too.”

he drags a hand through locks that resemble flames, and he pushes back, sitting on the edge of his bed. it’s almost as if moving away from elain pains him, something she can tell from the way his shoulders slowly begin to hunch forward, but she doesn’t move closer. not until she realizes he’s omitting something. until she realizes that he’s lying.

he gets them every night.

she pushes forward then, the trembling doe sitting beside the fox, and the two share the heaviest of glances before he pushes forward thickly.

“they get… easier after time.”

consoling her, speaking to her, is still so new to him. it’s as foreign as the night court customs could be, yet it still gives him the feeling of coming home after a long day’s work. her hand moves to rest on his arm, and it’s then that he speaks again, this time asking a question quietly.

“what did you dream about?”

elain shudders, and it’s then that he does something he shouldn’t have done. it’s something he doesn’t know if he should do or not, even though every inch of him tells him to, even though it’s impossible to keep fighting against his instincts. he takes her in his arms. one hand strokes soothing lines down her back while the other is threaded through her hair so that it cradles her neck.

he doesn’t expect her to reply - if anything, he expects her to push away from him. all of this, ALL OF IT, is so new to them. their relationship is as fragile as glass, and to him, it’s something that he cannot comprehend. this male has seen loss and knows it far too well; and his worst fear, above everything else, would be to lose her.

which is why he moves the slightest bit back when she speaks, russet eye slightly wide.

“i dream of the cauldron.” her voice is so shaky, and it’s then that a ripple of fair and pain hits her mate. “i hear nesta. i see the winged o- cassian and azriel. i see it all. over and over again.”

he’s silent, guilt plaguing him even then. he’d had something to do with it. he’d taken his mate there. he’d done it to her - he’d made her turn.

he hears her scream, sometimes. at night, when she thinks she’s being dragged under once more. he’d woken her once, had shaken her awake so, so gently. that was the first time he’d seen her at night; the first time he’d seen her… not collected. with hair plastered to her forehead, nightgown practically soaked through with sweat. she looked so scared then, then upset at him for seeing her like that. relieved that he’d woken her up, yes, but upset that he’d seen her at something that simply wasn’t her best.

so when he hears her scream, when he feels her terror and her anxiety at night, he wakes her from the bond. he travels down the ivy covered corridor that’s impossibly short now. he presses against her consciousness, reminds her who she is, and sometimes, when it’s impossible, he roars who she is.

she’s elain archeron. sister to feyre and nesta. the flower grower. the gentle heart. the seer.

and then she wakes.

but to see her here, to see her suffering from a fate that he had brought upon her - he is completely and utterly broken. rarely is the silver-tongued emissary silent, but he is now.

“i’m sorry,” he rasps, unable to say more, to elaborate on what plagues him day and night. “i’m sorry, elain.”

and when she stops trembling, when tears no longer fall from those chocolate brown eyes of hers, she says something that leaves him absolutely shaken.

“i don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

he pauses. his breathing has practically stopped, although to her, he still looks the same. concerned. worried. the same lucien.

“can i stay here, if that’s alright? i - i just don’t want to be alone tonight.”

it’s then that he knows too that she lied to him - that her dream was no ordinary nightmare. because she’d faced those every night and had never been as shaken as she is now.

“elain, you don’t have to ask. you’re free to sleep here whenever you want to. it’s your room as well.”

and when she pulls the sheets up, when the two are both covered and about to fall asleep, she only looks over her shoulders for a quick peek at him. his back is to her as well, if only to respect her, to let her know that her space is hers, and that he wouldn’t want to make her even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

and when the two wake the next day, elain’s cheek is resting against his chest, and his arms are wrapped around her slim frame.