blessed girl

“there’s no need to say ‘i,’” laena said gently, lilac eyes meeting hers. “it looks nothing like you, really.” she leaned slightly closer, careful not to crowd. “artists can be bold, yes… and sometimes far too...clever... for their own good.” her gaze wandered to the other stalls and easels around them, noting the myriad interpretations and styles that flourished here, some delicate, others garish, all capturing something of life in their own way. it reminded her that likeness was rarely about the truth of someone, only the truth the artist chose to see.

a soft laugh escaped her at elia’s confession about thanking the painter despite herself. “well, he likely appreciated that, though perhaps less than he deserved,” laena said, shrugging lightly. “unfortunately, it does mean he might offer his… creative interpretations to another, someday. hopefully someone who enjoys such a style.” she stepped forward, a quiet invitation in her movement. “come, follow me.” her stride was measured, guiding, as she led the way toward the secluded wing she knew, where the hearth awaited, a space wide and private enough for what elia intended.

the portrait was tucked against elia's chest again. it was not so much that she cared for laena seeing it anymore, since she already had, but laena was not the only person around who might steal a glance at it. her acceptance that the woman did not mean harm when it came to the portrait did not translate into trust of her, though. she was valyrian, her identity reason enough not to let her guard down.

they left the courtyard, winding through the maze of highgarden's corridors. elia began the walk in silence, the echo of her footsteps and gold jingling at her wrists the only sound as they left the crowds of the concord behind them. it was not until laena spoke again that the realisation hit her - this was a woman who knew these halls well, who understood their rhythm well enough to know when they'd been deserted. "you know highgarden well," she commented the unspoken words hanging off the end of her sentence. for a valyrian. "spent much time burning paintings in the reach?"

her question, blunt, sudden, landed with more force than she might’ve intended. he blinked once, then again, his brow furrowing as if searching for the right shelf to place it on. the burdens? they were many. some old, some new. most were quiet things that didn’t speak often but weighed heavy all the same. “truthfully?” he exhaled, the smallest puff of air. “i think they’re not all that different from what you may be familiar with yourself.” he offered a faint smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “just the weight of our name is enough, sometimes.”

he glanced sideways at her when she said she wasn’t soft or sharp. “then you’re in good company,” he murmured. “those in between tend to survive longer than the rest. we learn how to bend, how to observe. we make the world believe we belong wherever we stand.” there was no mockery in his voice, only something that resembled understanding.

her next question made him quiet again. “essos… was different,” he said, thoughtful now. “the air was freer. people saw me as a man before they saw a prince. or didn’t see me at all, which was its own kind of gift.” he smiled faintly. “but yes… coming back to court, to expectation, to eyes always watching—it feels narrower.” he tilted his head toward her. “but maybe it doesn’t have to be a cage. maybe it just feels like one if no one leaves the door open.”

"maybe not," she said, non-committal as she reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears, gold of her bangles glinting in the afternoon sun as she did. "but," her gaze found him now, still hesitant, still unsure, but unwavering and steady, too. "they say burdens are lighter when they are shared." there was an unspoken offer in her words. it felt like too much to say it outright, in the way he did when he spoke to her, but meant no less sincerely.

elia lapsed into silence for a moment, brow furrowing in thought. "surviving sounds more like a consolation than a victory," she pointed out. she had seen so little of the world, her life experience narrowed by the fact she had never spent much time outside of sunspear. in her little corner of dorne, there was nothing but bending and observing, and nothing in the way of victory. she wouldn't mind being a little sharper if it meant more of the latter.

"besides, we aren't supposed to bend. it's right there, in our words." her lips quirked. on this point, at least, she was joking.

they'd reached the stables now, the air smelling of hay and horse. it was a smell elia loved, and she leaned against one of the wooden stalls while ravi spoke of his time away. that didn't sound like something she'd like, either. she'd had enough of not being seen at all to last a lifetime, but it sounded as though ravi craved it. "will you go back?" she asked. she had not thought that he would, before hearing him speak about it, and realising he had actually enjoyed it. she wasn't sure how she felt about it if he did, only that she did not want to waste time getting to know someone who would be only a fleeting presence in her life.

banita sandhu

he eased into the seat across from her, offering a lopsided grin that suggested he was more amused by his own blunder than he probably should be. “right, well, i’ll start by saying i’m sorry for the mix-up, yer grace. it was the hair, i swear it. though now i’ve seen ye properly, i wouldn’t make the mistake again if i were half-blind and drunk off my arse.” he cleared his throat at the slip and glanced sideways, theatrically scanning for devani. “can’t tell motley from majesty, clearly. but fashion’s a mystery to me. i once wore green and purple to a wedding and was told i looked like a roasted squash.”

"you can keep your apologies," she said, half-gracious, half-exasperated, and she settled back into her chair with a facial expression that could only be described as petulant. she had intended to sit there in sulky silence for a bit longer, but she could not help herself, could not stop further conversation falling from her lips. "keep your green and purple, too. preferably far at the back of your wardrobe, never to see the light of day again." at that, there was a slight twist of her mouth, the ghost of a smile lingering there.

"i thought you might be drunk right now," she pointed out. you'd have to be, to confuse the two women, she reasoned. the fact he was not seemed an even bigger insult, somehow, even as she was amused by him against her will. still, her curiousity was greater than her desire to remain offended by him, and she leaned forward slightly so that she may see him better, head cocking to one side. "seawood. where is that?" she asked, having never heard of such a place. "by the sea, obviously, i'm not stupid," already defensive, despite the fact he had made no comment on her intelligence. "but which sea? where?"

she only meant to lift it, to protect it from the dew, from the trampling of passersby. she hadn’t expected to be caught, and certainly not by the very girl whose image it bore. but when the voice snapped toward her, sharp as a thorn, laena stilled where she stood. her eyes, slightly wide and quiet, met the girl’s and did not flinch even when the painting was snatched away. she only responded, softly, “i apologize, i wasn't trying to pry.” her voice was low, the kind that asked to be trusted even if it didn’t ask to be heard. “only trying to keep it from being stepped on.”

her hands lowered to her sides. she did not reach again. “it’s yours. of course. i’m sorry if it felt like i was trespassing.” there was no trace of irony or mockery in her tone, only something gently regretful. not the kind of regret born of embarrassment, but the kind that came from knowing how it felt to have something thrown away because you couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. "for what it's worth, you don't look like it, not even a little."

and she meant it, it were clearly an imitation that didn't know it's subject, even if it may have been what the artist had intended as their sort of style. it were clear that the woman before her had not expected it.

"it... looks enough like me," she admitted, the words bitter on her tongue. enough that she could see herself in it. elia was not normally insecure about the way that she looked, could even be vain about her appearance, but there were days when she looked in the mirror and all she saw were her flaws. the painting seemed to capture, magnify and emphasise every one of them, and that had been why the reaction had been so visceral. she lowered the painting, enough that the woman could look, if she wanted to.

"i look like a chameleon," she was speaking to herself, but the words were spoken out loud. "all boggle-eyed and weird." even the gold of the gown she was wearing, the way the painter had made her complexion sallower than it was in life, took on a greenish hue.

she must have seemed foolish, childish even, to be sulking over a painting like this. it did not matter how much she told herself in the back of her mind that she didn't care what this woman thought of her, she did, because elia always cared what people thought of her. "and the worst part is i thanked him for it," she let out a hollow laugh. "i was too embarrassed to say anything else. the more i look at it the more i think he must have been trying to mock me on purpose, and i thanked him."

He looked at her again, just as she said he’d ruined her predictions. Their eyes met then, and Lucius held her gaze in silence for some time. He did not apologize for skewing whatever she'd expected, and didn't ask what her predictions had been. “You’ve ruined mine,” he said plainly. It wasn't an accusatory statement, though. He had expected the usual from the Litha festival: the same distant, half-hearted, performative enjoyment from years past. And yet here he was now, leaning closer to the fire beside a Dornish princess whose mind moved with grace and wit, who spoke like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone, and who had managed to draw his attention in a way no one had in a very long time.

Her next words drew a silent glance from the bastard, one that lingered on her for a few heartbeats before he turned back to look at the fire before them. It sounded so simple, to articulate peace, and what someone's place in it could be, in the way she did. Maybe it truly was that easy and he simply failed, stubbornly, consistently, to be anything beyond than what he was. “When you build weapons for war, they can rarely be given a different use,” he stated in a low tone. The bowman felt that way. He was a soldier, but he was also the weapon that filled rivers with blood. Lucius Rivers was made up of certainties, but for a moment there, sitting next to Elia Martell and speaking of peace, he doubted. The princess spoke of what filled her days when the chaos of the world gave them a respite, but he didn't say what filled his own in the absence of war. He didn't want to admit that most of that time felt like preparation for something else to crumble eventually.

"how?" she asked, a little more suddenly than she expected as she turned back to look at him. "i'm quite predictable, really." a shrug followed. he had not asked her what it was about him that had surprised her, and if he had, she doubted she could have given him and answer, but elia pressed at it. she wanted to know what it was about her, what made her special, what exactly had shattered his expectations. perhaps she was fishing for a compliment, or perhaps she wanted to gauge how much of her he had seen, as opposed to what he had thought he had.

a little hum escaped her, her disagreement plan on her face. "i don't think that's true," she wasn't trying to be contrarian this time, she just genuinely didn't believe what he was saying. "everything's got more than one use, doesn't it? even a weapon. a knife can peel an apple as easy as it can slip between the ribs." she'd seen smallfolk prepare to march to battle, and they took whatever was on hand, pitchforks once used in stables or scythes, not special-made swords. and besides: "people aren't weapons, anyway," she pointed out. "i mean, nobody is entirely one thing, are they?" she wondered if it was a comfort to him to have that clarity, to believe he was made for war and devote himself to that purpose and that alone, but it raised a sort of dissonance in her chest.

"maybe it is too much for one man," he said, his tone low but not defensive. “but i’ve carried heavier burdens.” his gaze drifted, not in avoidance, but reflection. “i don’t need to be all of them at once. just one, maybe. the right one, at the right time.”

he almost laughed at her contradiction of his view of the sea, not because it was wrong, but because it was so clearly hers. it was a part of elia he did not really know, not yet. “i didn’t say the sea was safe,” he replied, meeting her amusement with a quiet glint of his own. “just steady. it does what it’s meant to do. even when it destroys you.”

he didn't rush to deny her question of how he saw her, instead, he considered her fully, a flicker of thought crossing his expression like a shadow passing over still water. “no, you are no beast,” he said at last, his voice even but edged with something honest. “but i hope your teeth are sharp.” a beat. “we don’t live in a world that rewards softness.” there was certainly time and place for such a thing, amongst the right people.

"and the cage isn’t for just you," he said. "it’s the whole court. all the performances, the quiet wars behind silk smiles. the pretending. it polishes the bars so well we forget they’re there." he looked back to her, something gentler in his expression now. “i’m glad you’ve found something outside of it.”

he meant the stables, of course, but more than that, the choice itself. the space she had carved that didn’t belong to politics or pretense. in truth, he envied it. he'd only just returned and already felt the noose of expectation tightening around his neck, like the ghosts of essos hadn’t quite let go.

it came down to one simple reason - it had been so long. she had been young when he left for essos, younger still when he went to starfall, and there was so much of each other's lives they had missed. every milestone of her life, both joyful and those of grief, had passed without ravi present, and it would take more than one conversation to put that right.

"what burdens?" she asked, suddenly, the question blurted out before she could stop it, but also preventing her from having to give him an answer she wasn't ready to give. "you said you'd carried heavier," she explained, before it hit her that perhaps he might not want to share that with her. "sorry. you don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

her tongue ran absently over her teeth, as though checking for a jagged edge. "i don't think i'm either." she shrugged. "not soft or sharp. what does the world do with those of us in between?" she did not expect him to have an answer, for she'd never had one herself. if she had, she might have already found her place in sunspear, in dorne, in westeros, but that was something she'd yet to accomplish.

was she in a cage? elia did not think so, and yet, a pampered pet that has only ever known a menagerie cannot envision the rest of the world outside it. "was it different in essos?" her head tilted as she looked at him. "do you feel like you've returned to a cage, ravi?" she asked not to pry, but because she was genuinely curious. perhaps it was because she saw sunspear similarly, but had never had an avenue to talk about that with anyone else.

the sun poured through the arched windows of highgarden’s lesser hall, painting long golden stripes across the mosaic floor and the flower-carved columns. poets and philosophers mingled like bees drunk on their own cleverness, the air thick with lavender, ink, and pride. it was the verdant concord in full swing, an ever-churning feast of art, thought, and declarations made far too loudly for their actual brilliance.

walys had no business, or rather, interest, in being here. but there’d been wine, and a bet, and now he was standing beneath a mural of the maiden looking faintly embarrassed to be in such company, scanning the crowd for a familiar shape. and there, thank the gods or the wine, was devani. at least, he was sure it was. same dark hair. same dornish silks. sitting alone at a table with one elbow propped and her chin tilted like she was suffering through a lecture on the spiritual symbolism of cabbages.

walys strolled over, smirking like a man about to commit a small crime. “i swear by the crone’s crooked toes,” he said, voice low and grinning, “if that old goat up there compares the rhythms of river trade to the cycles of love one more time, i’m standin’ up and telling him he’s never been in love or on a boat.”

he dropped into the seat beside her with a dramatic sigh, already halfway through his next quip. “and you, sit—”

she turned, and it wasn’t devani. it was the dornish princess.

"devani toland," she began when she eventually spoke, with all the haughtiness she could muster. "dresses like she took her inspiration from a jester's motley." perhaps she did. it would align with the history of house toland, if elia remembered it correctly. she arranged her skirts carefully, more to make a point than because it need arranging. the tiny jewels sewn into her silks, the bangles that circled her forearm caught the light, glittering as they did. "today, she is wearing blue with orange, and i remember because it clashed horribly. so it is interesting that you managed to confuse me, wearing this, for her."

her lips began to curl into something like a smile. "but, perhaps you are blind. i think that is the kinder assumption than that you simply can't tell dornish women apart." even when outside of dorne, she did not think she had ever been mistaken for anything but a martell. she could just about tolerate being called by her sister's name, but to be mistaken for a toland was another matter entirely. it scratched at her pride, at the desire that lived inside her to be seen.

the gardens of casterly rock—if they could even be called that—stretched ahead in neat, manicured rows of imported flora, their foreign roots clinging stubbornly to lion-ruled soil. there was a staleness in the air that cedric tyrell found difficult to ignore. the roses here were too pristine, too sculpted, robbed of the wild, fragrant chaos that he knew so well in highgarden. even the sun, filtered as it was through gilded trellises and carved stone, seemed dimmer here, as though caged.

still, as they walked together beneath an arch straining under the weight of lavender that had never once tasted the southern wind, he supposed the company made up for the place’s deficiencies. princess elia moved beside him like a whisper, silk trailing, a faint note of spice and salt on the breeze each time she adjusted her dupatta over her shoulder.

he shifted his arm slightly, more out of instinct than need, to offer her space as the fabric slipped and was fixed again. it was a gesture unnoticed by many, perhaps, but not by him. it was the kind of detail that settled somewhere between observation and thought. “i’m not a man who gives his word lightly,” he said after a moment, his voice low and threaded with something quieter than amusement, “i never have been. you can ask any lord, knight, or farmer who’s stood before me. so that means when i do, i stand by it.” his gaze didn’t press on her as he spoke, though he saw her in the corner of his eye—always half a turn ahead, a woman who walked like she was never quite caught, only accompanied.

“you’re welcome in the reach, elia. that invitation hasn’t dimmed." and it were like the flick of a switch, the way his words could make one feel so seen and heard, as though they were a glittering rose amongst common ones; and then it eased, with a slight glimpse of mischief in vivid blue orbs. "though i may make you wait on the other side of the grand gate a few hours, so wear sturdy shoes." nothing ever needed to sound sentimental, nothing ever needed to sound more sensitive than it ever was. his steps slowed a little more as they turned past a lion-shaped fountain, the water trickling from its mouth with manufactured grace. “not just highgarden, 'cause that's not all the reach.” he added, his tone warming, softening.

“not just the roses and the green and the gold. you’d see the corners too—the fishing towns where the gulls scream louder than the lords, the mountain valleys where the air tastes like snow, the villages that speak in their own tongue and toast in their own drink. there’s more to it than flowers. we’re not all perfume and pageantry.” a short pause, then a wry tilt of his mouth. “though we do those well, i’ll admit.”

the air shifted slightly as she made her jest, a thread of irony in her voice about the wealth of the west. it earned a low laugh from him, the kind that rumbled in the chest and not just the throat. “yeah, i believe you,” he said, his grin lopsided - and he said nothing on the fact he noticed she did not expand on what it was that bothered her if it was not the quiet. “and truly, i’ve never understood why people assume dorne is poor. it never made sense to me. the palaces, the silks, the spices that cost more than some bannermen’s whole yearly yield—does that scream poverty to anyone with eyes?” his head shook faintly. “i always thought dorne was rich. not just in coin, but in pride. in identity. they know who they are.” there was something almost admiring in the way he said it.

“when we all travelled south—” his fingers tapped idly against the side of his leg, remembering the heat, the scents, the music. “—i was proven right.”

it was not a thought she voice aloud, though. she was not here to accuse or antagonise, and she had already held him to account for the lack of response to her final letter. instead, she let out a laugh that turned into an exaggerated scoff, and paused strolling for a moment to lift her leg so her foot, in it's bejewelled slipper, trimmed with tiny little gemstones that glimmered when they caught the light, peeked out from underneath the silk of her skirts. "do i look like i own a pair of sturdy shoes?" she finally looked to him then, mock-outrage painted on her features, lips pursed, though her eyes danced with humour. "if you're going to make me wait, at least put out a stool. it is the very least you could do."

there was something in the idea of being welcomed, not merely tolerated or granted the basics of gilded courtesies or the brittle smile of conditional grace, but invited in, that tugged at something within her. she allowed herself to linger on the thought for a moment, idling in the fancy of it all. she did not know if she would see the reach in the way he described, but she liked the idea of it, of a gate opening to her because she was wanted there, rather than the fact it was expected, and rooms that did not fall silent when she approached to talk.

her head tilted as she fell into a hush, allowing him to speak of the wonders of the reach beyond highgarden's halls. he spoke of it in a way that she didn't expect, painting pictures of places she had never seen in vivid shades of green she could scarcely picture in nature. certainly greener than the lannister's perfect, manicured lawns. her expression softened for a moment, not into something sentimental, but thoughtful. "you make it sound like poetry," she said when she finally spoke, words laced with an odd sort of sincerity.

perhaps the reach was not what he claimed it to be. perhaps cedric tyrell was simply a man who was gifted with words, and making falsehoods sound like truth. even so, there was something about the way he said it that defied disbelief. she didn't really know what to do with that, and so she shot him a grin, brimming with something teasing. "you're wasted on ruling, cedric tyrell. you ought to have been a minstrel."when she spoke again, her tone was light. "and it's a shame," she shook her head a little, letting out a small sigh. "i was quite looking forward to drowning myself in perfume. but i suppose sea air and mountain dew will have to suffice." there was something in the corners that always felt more honest than the centre, anyway.

she let out a small hum, the chuckle that escaped her having nothing to do with amusement. "they make assumptions because that is what people do when they don't understand something," she pointed out. she didn't sound bitter about it, though she supposed she easily could be. "and none but the dornish can truly understand dorne." yes, they had wealth and pride, the kind that came from centuries of being told you were different and wearing that as a badge of honour rather than a mark of shame, of survival and defiance and feeling the sun on your skin and finding it exquisite rather than overwhelming. it was something none other but those born to dorne would ever know.

A story for another fire. “I would like to be near when that fire is lit,” he said at last, the corner of his mouth curving ever so slightly. “I did not expect to be talking like this tonight,” the bastard added, his voice low. It went without saying that he did not expect her. The words held no weight beyond their sincerity, only the soft surprise of finding himself engaged in a way he hadn’t planned, at a gathering he thought he could predict.

When she pressed again, speaking of a second nature, his eyes dropped to the ground, where her foot tapped lightly against the earth. “Maybe,” he said after a beat, thoughtful. “Maybe it is. Maybe it runs in the blood,” he murmured. “My brother Ben... He doesn’t know what to do with peace either”. He didn’t elaborate. The thought wasn't grim or mournful; it was just a simple recognition. A quiet sort of acceptance that some men weren’t made for stillness. They understood war, they understood their duty in such times. Peace had a way of being more confusing, having more blurred lines, a less structured path. At the end of the day, the bastard of Raventree Hall was merely a soldier.

"then you better be on your best behaviour, lucius rivers," there was enough levity in her tone to make it plain she was not being serious when she spoke. "i don't let just anyone around my fires." that much was true. elia lived her life in a strange, in-between sort of space, craving the feeling of mattering, but far too used to the opposite, and feeling both defensive and suspicious when attention did turn to her. "i didn't expect this, either," she admitted. "not in the riverlands." she had never thought about the riverlands much at all. her entire presence here was simply because it was something to occupy herself with. "i usually think i know how nights like this will go. you've quite ruined my predictions."

there was nothing particularly tragic in what he was saying, about feeling ill at ease when peace was won, but she frowned all the same. "you live with it, i suppose." it sounded like the most obvious thing in the world to her, she who knew far too much about dresses and jewels and far too little of what it meant to hold a sword in your hand and know your purpose was to wield it. "you find other things to fill your days with, like i do with my horses, and you enjoy yourself until there's something else to worry about." it was never quite that simple, even in her own charmed corner of the world.