𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉 𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖈𝖚𝖙

Or perhaps it's a fragment of one of those imagined conversations that bloom in the pits your mind when you least expect it, rarely pleasant, usually to wound and leave a bitter aftertaste whenever something reminds you of her or you wake with the knowledge that you will be forced to face her again and again until what feels like the end of time.

Either way, the sentence comes upon you someday in some shape and it is a lie. You know that deep down despite yourself, though you are not sure if she would ever believe you should you try to explain.

It's not as if she is looking for a conversation anyway anymore. Her shadow passes swiftly through the halls of the keep, her house, her castle, her home. Though you are the Queen, you doubt it will ever feel like yours.

Your home is the cage in your chest, your breath pressed against its bars in fear, the cause of which you cannot pinpoint anymore. Your cage is the castle. Rhaenyra is your home and your home is empty, though she – a memory you refuse to release – she is the ghost that haunts it. Her lavender eyes turn vacant each time they meet your face.

You have acknowledged that you might have gone quite mad somewhere along the way. But there is nothing to hold on to, nobody to tell, for who could understand when not even you seem to understand the entirety of your heartache?

Sometimes, when you gaze at her for too long, you start to notice the tiredness under her eyes, the tired furrow of her fair brow, slim fingers playing with golden signets in a way that paints her as anything but tranquil. It makes you want to cradle her hands in yours, recline on the fresh garden grass and say to her, "Come, lay your head in my lap." It makes your heart near lurch out of your chest and where it used to rest, and it nauseates you to have to remind it each time that there is no longer a place for you there.

Truth be told, you do not feel as if there is a place for you anywhere at this point. Yes, you sleep in the softest sheets and own more land than you could have ever needed, and you may hold the Kingdoms in the palm of your hand... but what is it all for? What good is sacrifice if your soul still feels blighted, if your heart still twists whenever you think of your cold bed? What do you care for duty when you would curse all Seven Kingdoms if only to lay back down on the warm godswood grass all these years ago? What good is a castle when it is no home? What good is a bed when it's not hers?

Then the soft fog of delusion flees your brain, leaving you standing before the princess, staring at her for longer than necessary or proper. Reality crushes you all at once. Confusion flickers across Rhaenyra's face, something similar to your state, something distant that softens her features. You wonder if she knows, if her heart is as much a foolish acrobat in these moments as yours.

You wonder if there is a sort of string, a cruel, invisible jest that ties the two of you together and tugs each time one wanders off or the other gets too close and everything aches all over again.

Your heart is foolish and returns like an old, lovesick dog, unable to remember that its master has long abandoned their home. It pains you to remind it but it is necessary, lest you succumb to any more delusions. It has been years.

You should have moved on the way she has; with a handsome new lover at her side, making the best out of her forced marriage. Gods, have you tried, yet even considering that felt like betrayal. While she has always been able to float above most mortals like a soaring star, burning its path through the realm, you remained chained to misery embodied, its form the rotting corpse of her father. You are the Queen now. You are her step-mother. You are the blazing light of your house. You are the mother of the future king. You are the royal womb.