THE HAMMER

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐋𝐌 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐂𝐇, 𝐘𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄. It surpassed the brief brush of lips as the septon had named them lord husband and lady wife — a symbolic seal of ceremony at most. It surpassed even the warm press of his palm at the low of her spine and the formal clasp of their hands as he led her through the wedding dance — yet another performance. This touch was different. There were no eyes to consume it, no spectacle to be made. It was brief, barely a touch at all, but it belonged solely to them. Jena found that entirely searing. Though the warmth of it faded as swiftly as it had ignited, undoubtedly chased away by her curiosity for the fruit she now held in hand. The wedge of orange had been a humble offering, yet it felt as though the most precious gift of the day. They had been lavished in treasures; shimmering fabrics, jewels, and that accursed cradle presented with a ribald remark upon her fertility that had twisted her stomach and locked her spine rigid. Jena had fought the reflex of rebuke, for she refused to be the reason ill whispers were brought upon the crown. Thusly, she had received each offering with the unwavering composure expected of her; with grace befitting a princess of the realm, with kind smiles and deep wells of gratitude. However, no gift touched her as his did. It was not the fruit itself, but the ease with which he had answered a want she had barely voiced, the way he had risen to quench her curiosity without requesting anything in return. It was ridiculous, truly, how the gesture found a place within her few had ever reached. It was ever more ridiculous how Baelor had managed to navigate there with startling frequency in the span of but an hour.

❛ This is generous. Thank you, your grace. ❜ She said with instinctive veneration, before raising the golden crescent higher. Jena's eyes sharpened; she studied it with an intensity that might have seemed absurd to any who did not know the fervour she devoted to most things that piqued her curiosity. Her father had once scolded her mother for indulging Jena’s painter’s spirit, saying it had given her a gaze too discerning for comfort, one that unsettled whomsoever it lingered upon. Her mother had only laughed and ushered her daughter to a canvas. She examined the orange now as she might examine a subject for her brush; the gentle curve of it, the thin rind casing an intricate array of succulent pearls filled with nectar. The scent. Gods, the scent tantalised until she felt the undignified threat of her mouth watering. Jena's eyes left it only when she heard Baelor move, the soft sounds of mantle and sword being set aside. The very corners of her mouth curved skywards for but a breath. It pleased her that he had complied to her request. It pleased her to know she was not alone in feeling weary from the day’s lengthy line of rituals. It pleased her that he was willing to unburden himself in her presence. It inspired her fortified walls to ease a fraction.

Jena brought the golden wedge to her lips and bit into it. The rind yielded with a quiet, crisp sound, and then the most vibrant burst of flavour skittered across her tongue. Her eyes widened. It was an incandescent, perfectly balanced rush of rich sweetness and bright tartness. It was fragrant. It was lovely. She decided in that moment she had perhaps never tasted anything so delightful.

❛ Oh, heavens, ❜ The gratified sigh fled her before she had the mind or decorum to halt it, ❛ it is wonderful. ❜ she continued — light of lilt and with unguarded awe. She sensed the smallest sliver of tension ease from her shoulders, granting her smile to drift ever closer to the surface. ❛ It is much different from aught I had imagined. I understand now why my father was swift to greed with the few we ever received. ❜ The breath that left her carried a thread of amusement, nearly a laugh; how strange to spend one’s wedding night discovering a fondness for oranges. It was so far from anything she had been prepared for, anything she had been told to expect. He simply continued to surprise her. Fleetingly, Jena wondered what other curiosities her new husband might spark in her. She had thought him already bestowed upon her the greatest surprise; the abolishment of the warning whispers that he was some rough brute. They were evidently false. Gravely so. Jena had sensed the rumours were embellished already at their first meeting. Though she had remained cautious since, knowing that faces and courtesies were things worn for favour and that only time revealed what lay beneath. What little time had existed between them had already begun to reveal him to her. No, she wished to tell the maids of Blackhaven, with defiance and possession and smug satisfaction, it seems my lord husband is no brute at all.

She swallowed the last of the piece he had given her, only to then feel the golden drop of nectar trailing a sticky path down her finger and towards her wrist. Before reason could intervene, unthinking instinct rose in her; she brought her hand to her mouth and caught the droplet upon her tongue. Realisation struck her with relentless force. She froze, tongue still pressed to the pad of her thumb, the heat burning her face sourced not from the crackling hearth. Fuck. She remembered herself. Her spine drew taut once more as her hands folded gracefully in her lap. With cheeks aflame, she lifted her gaze to his. There was no reproach in his eyes, no flicker of displeasure. She might have smiled again, had the sight of him not sent another tremor through her already fragile composure. The chamber was dimly lit, the fire beside them so bright it seemed to carve out a small, intimate realm of its own. Outside the cocoon of gold that enveloped them everything lay in shadow, as though they had stepped into some hidden hollow that contained only the hearth, the bright scent of oranges, and the two of them learning the shape of one another. A realm that was patient with them. A realm that felt as though it belonged to them alone. The thought was perilous. Duties and expectations waited beyond the firelight, and no reverie could keep them at bay forever. The thought tightened her chest.

❛ It is strange to think that something so rare at home now lies in abundance within my reach. ❜ she said, her voice steady and composed, though no longer quite as stiff as when they had first entered these rooms. ❛ Everything is so different here. When I look from these windows I see a vast city that in years’ time will call me queen consort. ❜ The sound she made was a soft and incredulous scoff. The notion of her being named queen was absurd. ❛ Whereas at home, I looked from my window and saw fields and forests that would only ever resound with the echo of my mare’s hoofbeats. ❜ Jena's gaze drifted to the flames licking at the wood, their amber light catching in the blue of her eyes. She stared into the brightness even though it grew uncomfortable, perhaps to spare him from seeing the wistful shadow that moved behind her eyes. She would do her duty. She would be worthy of the title. She had never done anything with half a heart. But that did not mean this new life would come naturally, nor did it mean she did not mourn the girl she had been at Blackhaven. The taste of orange lingered upon her tongue, and Jena savoured it. ❛ Though I do not doubt I will grow used to the city and all it offers. ❜ She continued in assurance. She would not burden him; to begin, it was not . . . proper for a wife, and too she possessed the strangest sense that he might carry her grief closer to his heart than she did to hers.

Her eyes returned to his, and when they met it was as though she had caught a burning ember from the hearth in her own gaze; she could not quite master the urge to search the depths of his. Gods, how unseemly it was for a lady to stare so intently, so unabashedly into the eyes of a crown prince.

But his eyes were truly captivating.

❛ Do you believe our union might accomplish what the realm hopes? ❜ she asked, her voice quieter now, trepidatious perhaps. Her own answer lingered on the tip of her tongue; it has to, so that the life she had left behind would not have been for naught. ❛ To bring peace after a conflict that has lasted so long. Do you think a marriage can hold such power? ❜ The question hung suspended in the hush between them; charged as a bolt of lightning adorning the firmament, and far too honest for the careful mask she had tried so hard to maintain. But the fire was warm at her side, the scent of oranges still lingered in the air, and Baelor had looked upon her without cruelty. And in its wake, Jena found she could not entirely regret, nor fear, the unguarded honesty.

𝐀 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐁𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒, 𝐘𝐄𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐓 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐁𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐀 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐒? Whenever the question came from councillors, Baelor knew the answer expected of him. A prince must speak of unity as though it were already won; he must praise the wisdom of the match, the loyalty of both houses, the promise of children in whom two long-opposed peoples might behold their own faces and find cause to lower their swords. He lowered his gaze to the orange in his hands; the fruit had begun to come apart beneath his fingers. Its peel lay in a golden coil, bright as beaten metal. Pale strands of pith clung stubbornly to the flesh, delicate little threads binding one crescent to the next. He worried one loose with his thumb, though he scarcely saw it.  Baelor thought of the Red Mountains. He had crossed their passes beneath banners and without them. He knew their hard, austere beauty, the stone rising red and cruel beneath a sky too vast for mercy. He knew the narrow roads where a dozen archers might humble a host; he knew villages built from rock the color of old blood, their smallfolk accustomed to bolting doors whenever riders appeared along the ridges. The marcher lords remembered every Dornish raid; the Dornish remembered every marcher incursion. Neither side remembered its own cruelty with half so keen an eye. Below, the feast erupted into another roar, and the sound rolled up through stone and timber as it had before, rattling faintly through the cups upon the table. Some lord had made a jest, doubtless; some singer had reached the vulgar portion of a bridal song. Men who had never stood watch beneath a marcher moon drank to the ending of a conflict they understood only through heraldry and wine. Baelor’s mouth tightened. Peace was ever easiest in the mouths of those who would not be asked to bleed for it. His fingers stilled upon the fruit.  For one cruel heartbeat, Baelor wished himself more willing to lie. A kinder falsehood stood ready upon his tongue. He might have taken her hand then, might have looked upon her and assured her that their marriage would heal the marches. He might have promised that Dornish spears and stormlander swords would rust together in their scabbards, that sons born of dragon and lightning would bind the old wounds shut, that songs would one day name Jena Dondarrion the bright bride who ended generations of bloodshed. But he would not give her honeyed falsehood on the first night of their marriage. Men had made enough decisions for her in the name of kindness already. ❛ No marriage holds so much power by itself, ❜ He kept his gaze upon the orange for another breath. ❛ Vows may open a door, ❜ he continued, though his voice remained low. ❛ They cannot force men through it. ❜ 

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 : 𝓽𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝑱𝒆𝒏𝒂 𝑫𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒏 ⚡︎

* ˖ ݁ ✦⠀an independent, canon-divergent portrayal of 𝑱𝒆𝒏𝒂 𝑫𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒏 from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe. This interpretation draws from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but is primarily rooted in personal headcanons and AUs. Mature themes ahead. Strictly 21+, minors do not interact. Written by Lyra (30, she/her). This is a sideblog to @starlitsonnets.

𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐘 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐔𝐒. The foreigners, a queer people with ever more queer customs; the very people whose ( alleged ) cruelties had placed the foundational stones of her own house. It was absurd, almost laughable, that the lightning upon the Dondarrion sigil had been born from bloodshed between her ancestors and half of his — and still she had been given to him. Irrevocably bound before gods and men, and soon in flesh. Bound. Shackled. For eternity. Jena drew a lengthy breath, though the intricate knot that narrowed the passage of air to her lungs refused to grant her mercy. She had known since girlhood that her role as the sole daughter of the Lord of Blackhaven would be to garner advantage. To be wedded away in whatever manner raised her father’s standing and brought honour to the windswept lands where she had grown. She had defied it in her early youth, as any daughter of storms must; she had rebelled with deliberate, wilful joy, soiling possible matches with her spirited endeavours, fleeing upon horseback when she was meant to sit demure before some lordling who might wish to claim her. She had thrilled in each small triumph. She had never felt a more merciless noose than the helplessness that circled her throat when her unconventional spirit had not been enough to dissuade the crown. The crown cared not for her thoughts, wants or desires. The crown expected to be given, it would claim, devour, without consideration. It was a given that her whims would die in favour of the benefit the crown hoped to claim in such a match. Jena had possessed no choice but to adhere, to perform her duty with grace, to cast no shadow of reproach upon her house, her father, the crown, or the husband whose name she now bore. If she faltered, her family might suffer. So she had forced herself into the shape worthy of the crown prince — despite knowing frighteningly little of him, his preferences, his heart. She could only assume. And thus far, every assumption had proven infuriatingly false.

He puzzled her so terribly it threatened to anger her. You are not mine by terror, he had said, and in the low timbre of his voice she had found a sincerity she believed. He had spoken her name, Jena, and her first, startled thought had been that she had perhaps never heard it said so unconditionally, so unburdened by expectation or rebuke or the weight of what she was meant to become. It was simply her name, spoken softly, kindly, as though it belonged to her still. She met and searched his eyes, and there had been none of the cruelties she had been taught to expect. None of the savage gleams or leers her septas had said belonged to southerners who indulged in carnal delights as thoughtlessly as one might draw breath. Jena held his gaze because it had, indeed, pleased her; violet and dark hazel, remarkably vivid, and found herself momentarily startled — frozen, the breath suspended behind her ribcage. She almost loosed a nervous laugh; she felt vexingly lost and out of her depth, utterly unmoored, for she had not been prepared for this version of the prince. She had been warned to expect a different night entirely; that he would rush her to the bed to fulfil their duty, to complete their marital binding in flesh before he swept away to his own chambers and left her to reel in the wreckage of her new life. Alone.

But no. There was no haste in him. He was not making any sign to bridge the chasm tradition said must be bridged at once. He had not drawn her to the bed. On the contrary, he had beckoned her away from the altar that waited its owed debt. Instead he had offered her the hearth; time, space, a patience the realm would say he did not owe her. Jena knew not what to do with such consideration. From beyond the latticed window, from below them, came another joyous roar and a crescendo of music, the festivities in their name progressing in boisterous fashion. She felt a tightness in her throat. How strange it was to have so many strangers delight in a union she had dreaded.

❛ The capital is much different from home, yet its men equally loud. I am accustomed to it. ❜ Jena said, biting her tongue against the urge to question him again, stifling the desperate need to understand the shape of his mind. She had been prepared for something vastly different from the prince, her prince, Baelor. Her gaze flickered to the roaring fire he had invited her to sit by; where she might warm herself, where she might find respite. For a moment she had feared sitting. Feared that in such a small relief the overwhelm that had pursued her for weeks would finally seize her, threaten to undo her entirely. She could not be undone. She was a crown princess now. She had to be perfect. Why then, when she met his eyes, did the strangest conviction claim her — that if she were to come undone, he would not scorn her, but rather catch her as she fell? Gods, perhaps madness belonged not to Targaryens alone, but had found its way into her own blood as well.

❛ You are a prince of the blood, ❜ she said, her voice steady in its deference, though her pulse was not, ❛ it is your right to speak commands as you see fit. Though I am grateful for your kindness. ❜ Slowly, with the composure her new standing demanded of her, Jena walked past him. Her spine was tall, her chin held high and proud — after all, she now bore the title of princess. She sat where he had offered, hands clasped properly in her lap, ankles tucked close as she had been taught a lady should sit. The warmth of the crackling flames reached for her at once, a perilous comfort that threatened to loosen the tension she had clung to. She looked up at him. The chamber was mostly dim, lit only by fire and candles, and he stood so close to the flames that he glowed golden. It disarmed Jena for a moment, as though the light itself conspired to show her what the bards had only ever sung of in false compliments. They had always described his hair as dark as Dornish night, his complexion warm as Dornish sun, handsome despite his Dornish features. One thought rose in Jena's mind's palace then, simple and honest; he was simply breathtaking just as he was. Akin to a sculpture carved by some master artisan in a distant gallery, a tapestry she would have lingered before — one she would have studied so very intently, tracing every line and shadow. Perhaps even attempting to paint with her own hand. Not because duty demanded it, but because he was everything she had not expected. A gleam of curiosity bled into her gaze, an ember burning within her chest with the want to simply . . . speak, to learn his mind, his thoughts — him. Baelor intrigued her in his oddities, and Jena had always been terribly helpless before the things that intrigued her.

❛ Will you sit with me, your grace? ❜ She asked, requested, offered, before adding, ❛ I do not mean to question your strength — only that I cannot imagine this day has left you any less weary than I. ❜ The scent of the orange he had peeled still lingered in the air; bright and fragrant, refreshing where the redolence of flowers and wine had grown too cloying. It was startlingly tantalising, sweet and tart all at once, and for the first time that day, that week, that moon, Jena felt her appetite stir. The realisation painted a faint smile across her lips — perhaps the first true smile she had worn in his presence. A lightness filled her chest.

❛ Oranges are rare at home. A delicacy, truly. I have seen scarce few upon my father’s table, and never tasted one myself. ❜ She began, bold and unprompted, the words fleeing her before she had the mind to halt them — before she had the mind to think no noble would care for her mundane anecdote about fruit. And yet he had made it so very easy to be honest. ❛ As a girl I would try to imagine their flavour, though my mind could reach no further than the sourness of lemons. From the scent alone, I suspect they are far sweeter. ❜

𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐔𝐏𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐖𝐍 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄. Seven save him, he saw it, and something within him shifted beneath the blow. He had prepared himself for tears. For them he had shaped a hundred speeches during the long moons of their betrothal; each one conceived in solitude and discarded before dawn. He had imagined her weeping beneath the bridal veil whilst singers praised the match. He had imagined her tears upon the pillows, silent and hot and swallowed lest they offend him. He had imagined that she might look upon him as condemned men looked upon the headsman: with terror disciplined into stillness, knowing there was neither flight nor appeal left to them. Against such grief, he had fashioned himself into gentleness. Against her fear, he had gathered patience like a shield. But he had not prepared himself for her smile. There was no shield against that, and it entered him through some unseen breach, passing cleanly between rib and armour, and struck a softer, more foolish place that court and war had failed to kill. Baelor looked down at the fruit in his hands and felt, absurdly, as though the gods had placed there some golden key. All that day, men had heaped treasures before them until the tables groaned beneath the splendor of it. Silver wrought in the shape of dragons. Myrish lace fine enough to be drawn through a ring. Cups of jade, carved ivory, jeweled boxes from Lys, silks from Qarth, and a cradle of red-gold presented by Lord Butterwell with a leer so broad Baelor had briefly considered breaking the man’s nose before the assembled court. None of those things, it seemed, had moved her, nor had called forth the girl beneath the crown. Yet an orange had done it. ❛ Sweeter, ❜ he told her, ❛ though it bears a little sharpness beneath. Most things worth tasting do. ❜  His thumb slipped beneath the pale white pith, following the natural seam of the fruit; the flesh parted easily beneath his touch, glistening in the firelight, and a thin sheen of juice brightened his fingers; the scent rose stronger, clean and vivid amid the cloying abundance of bridal flowers.  Baelor separated one crescent from the rest, and then he crossed toward her slowly; her back was straight enough to shame a spear, and her knees were pressed demurely together beneath her skirts, her ankles tucked, her hands folded one atop the other with such studied perfection that Baelor could almost see the septa who had beaten the posture into her. His chest tightened, though he did not wish to pity her. Jena Dondarrion was not some trembling bird fallen from its nest. She was daughter to storm and stone, bred beneath black walls where lightning cracked the heavens and the marches had drunk blood since before the Conqueror came. There was pride in her. Fire, too. He had glimpsed it only briefly, banked beneath duty, yet he knew a living ember when he saw one.

He extended his hand, palm open, the orange segment lying upon it like a little crescent moon, though he chose not to raise it toward her lips. 

❛ You need imagine it no longer. ❜  Her eyes lowered to his palm, and he watched thought move through her face, quick and subtle beneath the training that sought to still it. Curiosity came first, then caution, then what might have been amusement at the gravity with which he presented so humble a morsel. Baelor held himself still. He knew enough of frightened animals not to reach when they drew near. When at last her fingers came toward him, the touch was scarcely a touch at all; the pads of her fingers brushed the center of his palm as she took the orange, light as the settling of ash after fire. Gods, what a great fool he was. He had crossed swords with men who meant to kill him and felt less disordered by it than by the brush of one woman’s fingers. The warmth of her touch lingered in the hollow of it, slight as breath upon glass and twice as perilous. He closed his hand by slow degrees, as though he might keep that little ghost of contact hidden there. Jena held the segment delicately, studying its glistening flesh as though it were some queer jewel brought from the farthest reaches of Yi Ti. Her solemnity nearly made him smile, but he feared too much amusement might shame her, and shame had already been poured upon the day in cups enough to drown them both.  Only then did he remember her invitation.

Will you sit with me, your grace? He had not answered it then, but in truth, he was weary. The day lay upon his shoulders still, heavy as the mantle clasped at his throat. He had stood before gods and court, bowed to a hundred blessings, endured a hundred jests, and carried the expectation of two kingdoms upon his back whilst men congratulated him upon his good fortune. Jena had been the only soul to look upon him and consider that he, too, might wish to rest. So he conceded, inclining his head in belated acceptance and turned toward the second chair. He drew it nearer to the hearth, though not so near to hers that his knees might brush her skirts or his presence become another wall about her. The clasp at his shoulder yielded beneath his fingers. He removed the heavy mantle and laid it across the chair’s carved back, where the crimson velvet spilled like blood over dark wood, the golden dragon folding in upon itself amid the cloth. The sword belt followed. The relief was immediate and humbling. His boots ached; his shoulders throbbed beneath the memory of velvet and gold. A dull pain had gathered behind his eyes from incense, music, and the endless press of watching faces. He leaned back only slightly, unwilling to sprawl before her, though he allowed the chair to take some portion of his weight. From there, seated rather than looming over her, the great bed no longer seemed to command the whole of it. It remained behind them, swathed in silk and expectation, but the hearth had become its own smaller realm; one of firelight, oranges, and the narrow space of choice they might yet preserve. ❛ The rind is bitter, ❜ he warned her, though there was no rind upon the crescent she held. ❛ The flesh is not. ❜

A useless assurance. He gave it all the same.

The fruit vanished between her lips, and Baelor looked away at once, startled by the intimacy of so innocent an act. His gaze sought the hearth instead, but then he heard the slightest breath from her and glanced back despite himself. Surprise had softened her face; the rigid composure did not wholly leave her, but something passed through it: delight, swift and bright, before she caught it and made herself solemn once more. The sight pierced him with an ache too tender to be called triumph.

❛ Well? ❜ he asked, and the question escaped with more eagerness than befitted a crown prince. He softened it with a faint inclination of his head. ❛ Was your imagining kinder than the truth? ❜

「 ✎𓂃 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓 @serbreakspear 」

❛ 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋. ❜ Jena chastised from beyond the easel. It had been the smallest of motions, scarcely more than the drawing of a deeper breath, yet in the simplicity of the pose it altered the lines etched across the canvas in manners she could not accept. Several moons had come and gone since their union, and in that time much had shifted between them — shifted into incandescence. Jena saw him in such different light now when he was no longer a stranger to her; no longer rumours and whispers, but kindness and warmth, strength and honour, and something far lovelier, still. In that seeing she had felt the most extraordinary desire to paint him. Not the portrait of what the realm demanded, but as she had come to know him. Him, the man behind the prince. The man she hoped would look upon the piece and see himself through her eyes, the man she had grown so very fortunate to love — though the sacred words had not yet passed her lips. 

She had placed him before the tall window where bright sunlight poured in vast floods. It caught the vivid coalescence of colours in his eyes ( so oft portrayed as a uniform violet in the portraits she had seen of him ). It gilded the warmer undertones of his skin ( so oft lightened to appear more Targaryen ). Jena intended to render him honestly. The tapestries and grand portraits she had seen had made her bristle with quiet vehemence; they lied, each one, smoothing away the man to leave only the crown. So she had taken the matter into her own hands. She had arranged him in this standing pose; body angled slightly, one hand resting easy upon the worn leather of his belt, the other around the hilt of his sword. In the sky above she would place the blazing sun of Dorne, and behind him she would paint the proud towers of Dragonstone. It was simple, this vision she held of him, yet it would demand from any who looked upon it a respect not merely for the prince, but for the man beneath. Though of course, Jena did not paint him for display, not unless he wished it so. This was her gift to him alone. The truth of what she saw when she looked upon him — rich of heart and soul. As the thought settled warm within her chest, he shifted again, and Jena arched a brow, setting her charcoal aside with a sigh that held more affection than reproach.

❛ When one agrees to be the muse of a portrait, it is with the understanding that you must hold still. Surely you are not so restless? ❜ She said as she strode across the solar. In this precious privacy, where they might both shed courtly artifice, her hair had been pinned atop her head with a long paintbrush yet unused. Her fingers bore the evidence of her art; smudges of paint and charcoal dried upon one hand while the other, clean, reached for him. She laid her palm upon his shoulder, pressing down with gentle force until the tension there eased. Her touch slid then to his upper arm, guiding the angle by the barest fraction, perceptible only to her eye in truth, before rising to the strong line of his jaw. There her fingers lingered, carefully tilting his head to better capture the sunlight; her touch was gentle in ways that spoke of more than mere concern for composition. The sharp focus of the artist softened; she looked at him and smiled, small yet full of the tenderness that had come to weave itself through every fragment of her.

A moment of silence passed before she relinquished a satisfied hum and withdrew, retreating once more to her easel and the sketched lines upon the canvas. Scarcely had she lifted the charcoal again when she heard the familiar rustle; a breath, a fraction, but enough. A laugh escaped her, incredulous and endlessly fond.

❛ You are terrible, my heart. ❜ She said unashamed, staring at him from beneath raised brows and amused upturn of her lips, ❛ Be. Still. I require only another brief moment to complete the sketch, and then you may do as you please until I have need of you again. ❜

𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏 𝐇𝐈𝐌, 𝐈𝐅 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 in that fond voice, obedience would become impossible to be sure. His mouth betrayed him with the faintest curve, though he schooled it quickly, for even the soft alteration of a smile might earn him another reprimand from beyond the easel. His hand remained where she had bid it rest, curled upon the worn leather of his belt; the other still lay upon the hilt of his sword. Seven save him. His eyes, sworn to the window, strayed again. A man could survive many wounds by knowing where they landed. A sword took the shoulder. An arrow the thigh. But what defense was there against her affections? Gods, what a thing it was to be married and only afterward discover the door of one’s cage had opened into a garden. ❛ I am trying, ❜ Baelor said at last, his voice grave enough for council and warmed enough to confess the lie. ❛ I would have it recorded, should I perish in this noble effort, that I did try. ❜ Her brow rose above the edge of the canvas as he fought the smile and lost by inches. ❛ You must know, ❜ he continued, making a brave show of injured dignity, ❛ that many songs have been written for lesser torments. Men have gone to war over insults kinder than this. You set me beneath the full tyranny of the sun, fasten my hand to a sword, bid my shoulder remain at an angle no merciful god intended, and then accuse me of restlessness when I show the faintest evidence of still being alive. ❜

The jest pleased him because it pleased her; or because he hoped it would. There was a certain boyish folly in him that court had not managed to kill, though it had tried. Around others it slept deeply, drugged by expectation, though around Jena it lifted its head, blinking and foolish and wanting, above all things, to make her laugh. It was a foolish desire, perhaps, to wish to be amusing to one’s wife. Princes were not fashioned for such little hungers, or so Baelor had been taught by every solemn mouth that had ever bent toward his cradle, his training yard, his council seat, his marriage bed in prophecy long before it became a chamber. Yet standing there in the sun, one hand curled upon the worn leather of his belt and the other fixed about the hilt of his sword because Jena had commanded it so, Baelor found he wanted no throne so fiercely as he wanted the small, sovereign mercy of her laughter. It was absurd; it was perilous. And it was, he had begun to suspect, the truest thing in him. Baelor felt the knowledge of it beneath his ribs as keenly as any blade: Jena made him vain in the strangest ways.

His fingers flexed once around the hilt before he remembered himself, an involuntary contraction, the tension of a thought, and he stilled at once, all the doomed dignity of a thief caught beneath the very window he had meant to flee, and from beyond the easel came the smallest sound: a breath, a fraction, the whisper of charcoal pausing against canvas. He could not see her face, though somehow, he felt it land upon him with the weight and precision of an arrow finding its mark, and he held himself rigid once more.  ❛ Forgive me, ❜ he said, though the apology had the misfortune of sounding insufficiently repentant. ❛ I have made a poor muse. ❜

Seven save him, he held once more, and for the span of a breath, Baelor felt almost triumphant. Then Jena made some small sound behind the easel, and the victory collapsed within him like a mummer’s stage in rain. His mouth softened once more before he could command it otherwise. Aye, he was lost. There was no dignity left in denying it. He was hers. Wholly, completely, without reservation or remainder. He was hers in the way that the tide belongs to the moon, because the very nature of its being is the response to her pull. And if that was weakness, then weakness was the strongest thing he had ever known, and he would wear it as proudly as any honour ever bestowed upon him by the crown.

❛ But you are making it very difficult, ❜ he said, still facing the window, though now there was no hiding the smile in his voice. ❛ I would have you know that. ❜

𝐈𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃, 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐅𝐎𝐗. Jena had earned the title when she had feigned some malady to flee the leash of lessons and steal away upon her mare. Despite the discovery of her ruse, she had tasted then the power that lay in composure, in reining every muscle of the face to betray none of the wild longings that sang beneath her skin. That art had been polished as she grew, for a woman’s sharpest blade was her control, her gift for veiling the truth of her heart behind a mask of dutiful serenity. She had honed it with particularly meticulous care since the day her betrothal had been announced — bound to the half-Dornish heir who now stood before her in the firelit hush of their wedding chamber. Overwhelm thrummed beneath her surface; akin to the charge before a tempest, a crackling current that set her nerves alight and made the air feel much too dense for the lungs. Yet she would not be undone; her visage remained devastatingly composed, her posture imbued with the regal grace demanded of a crown princess. Crown princess. She, who had once scrambled up the ancient oaks of the Marches with muddied skirts and unrestrained laughter, who had ridden across windswept fields with untamed speed. She, whose hands had borne the vivid stains of pigments from her brushes as eagerly as any knight bore tourney scars. Daughter of storms, they had called her in the halls of Blackhaven; an admonishment her father had laughed so heartily at. Now that same daughter stood cloaked in lavish silks and expectation, torn from her home and bartered away to knit peace between the Stormlands and the Iron Throne. Now she stood here. After enduring false smiles and courtesies at her wedding feast, the wine she had sipped only enough to wet her lips, cordial conversation with King Daeron and his Queen Myriah, forced laughter at jests grown bold with drink when at last they had been ushered to this very chamber. Here, the great marriage bed awaited. Here, she was to fulfil duties she knew only through vague riddles and cryptic metaphors of septas.

Jena was rigid; her spine poised taut, her jaw set firmly against the tremor she refused to show, her gaze brushing his only in fleeting touches, as though direct meeting might ignite heat she was not yet ready to receive. Her hands lay gracefully clasped before her abdomen. She could feel the foreign weight of her wedding band circle her finger; a band he had placed there with a gentleness that had startled her, his touch warm where she had braced for the chill of obligation. She waited. For him, perhaps. For what was expected of them, for the words or deeds that would bridge the chasm. Restlessness prowled beneath her skin. Her mother’s pragmatic counsel returned to her unbidden; it will be painful, but it is your duty to endure. If he is kind, you may find some joy in it.

If he is kind.

Had he not shown a measure of that kindness already, in commanding that no bedding ceremony profane their threshold? The confession had taken her aback enough for her eyes to collide with his. She had dreaded the bedding most of all; the public spectacle of it, the crude hands and cruder jests. That he had forbidden it, that he had chosen her comfort and privacy over the expectations of tradition, struck her with a force she had not anticipated. She might have wept were she not so adamant to remain poised. It was a kindness, a protection, and she dared to believe it an effort to grant her safety in a moment when she felt most exposed. He did not know her, yet he had placed her dignity above the realm’s hunger. How strange a thing to be chosen thus, on the delicate foundation of so little shared history. He could not know the weight of such a gesture; but it settled behind the walls she had risen, warming a corner of her heart she had not known could be reached. Our door, he had said. And in those simple words she glimpsed perhaps the truest unguarded moment between them.

❛ Why? ❜ The question fled her before she could smother it, born of instinct and the surprise that still lingered after his declaration. She asked because he puzzled her, because she wished to understand him — they were bound now, after all. She had expected a prince to adhere to the traditions of his forbears, to ensure the realm witnessed their union sealed beyond doubt. Yet it seemed Baelor proved less predictable than rumour or her own wary imaginings had painted him. Somehow, such a verity both thrilled and unsettled her. Scarcely had the words left her when she felt the impropriety of them; remembered the lesson that one ought not challenge the future king. ❛ Forgive me, your grace, I overstep. I meant only that I was expecting something . . . different. But it is unbecoming to presume—I shall not. ❜ She spoke with the formality carved into her by septas and parents alike, each syllable feeling foreign upon her tongue. Swiftly she reined in the wilder spirit that stirred beneath her polished veneer, forcing herself smaller, more pleasing, more the pliant lady a prince might find acceptable. Jena despised the shrinking of it, yet she had little choice. Though her husband had shown her naught but chivalry in their brief acquaintance, he remained Baelor Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and heir apparent to the Iron Throne. She was but a lady. His lady, now.

She raised the goblet he had given her to her lips; the wine was cloyingly sweet, its richness doing little to soothe the dryness of her throat. Still, she held fast to the cup as though it might anchor her, her gaze lifting from its crimson surface to the man who was now her husband. He was handsome, undeniably so, standing tall of frame and with breadth of shoulder that spoke of strength, striking eyes beneath features that bore the unmistakable brushstrokes of Dorne. Features she had been taught since girlhood to regard with caution. Yet he regarded her now with a kindness that seemed genuine, a curve of the mouth touched with rueful understanding of the strangeness of their position. And he had gone to such lengths already to ease her passage into this night, into this new life. It was too soon to say, though she considered then that perhaps all warnings pressed upon her were naught but nonsense, shadow and unjust suspicion. Beneath the steady regard of his eyes she felt suddenly as though studied by the blazing sun itself — her every hidden tremor laid bare.

❛ I am grateful, truly. Thank you, your grace. ❜ Though there was deference in her tone, though she had yet to even taste his name out loud, the words came softer, warmer. Carrying a thread of sincerity she had not intended to loose. And in that ever fleeting display of sincerity, Jena felt as though she drew the first ever true breath since she had learnt who she was to become. The facade had been, was, a gilded cage of duty and expectation, and she had no choice but to cling to it. Because she was the only daughter of Blackhaven, shaped from birth for alliances and advantage, for her father’s gain. Though Jena had never imagined the match would be of such magnitude. She had thought some lord from House Penrose or House Caron to strengthen the old alliances. Not to be offered a marriage that might nourish the fragile bond between her homelands and the crown.

Jena was an appeasement, no more.

❛ I have been told what the wedding night entails. Albeit explained to me in riddles, I understand my role. ❜ She admitted, the round of her cheeks burning beneath the firelight, and suddenly the rich silks and laced bodice of her white gown were much too warm, much too smothering. Her fingers tightened around the goblet’s stem until the metal of her wedding band bit into her flesh. ❛ I intend to prove worthy of mine new title. I intend to perform my duty to the realm — to you. ❜ The words tasted borrowed, shaped by teachings, offered as the appeasement they were meant to be. It was her hands that betrayed her, knuckles blanching white around the chalice as her gaze strayed, almost against her will, to the vast marriage bed — a sacred and terrifying altar awaiting its owed offering. The depths of Jena's stomach twisted with fluttering beasts.

❛ I am ready. ❜ The declaration left her lips as both lie and truth intertwined, for how could she claim readiness when she possessed not the faintest true notion of what she professed herself prepared to face? She knew the stroke of brush on canvas, the thunder of hooves beneath her and the weight of a bow. Of the mysteries that waited beyond the canopied bedposts and the stranger who was now her husband — she knew nothing at all.

𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄, 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐋𝐀𝐃, 𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐀 𝐃𝐎𝐄 stand quivering before a drawn bow: Jena’s voice had put him in mind of that same terrible trepidation. I am ready. He thought of how men said the same before battle, how they stood straight and squared their shoulders and set their jaws against the fear that coiled in their bellies, and how sometimes those same men voided their bladders before the first rank collided. Readiness was a garment worn over terror, and he could see the stitching of it in every measured, hollow breath she drew. Baelor's gaze fell to her hand. Those whitened knuckles, that slight tremor she had mastered almost wholly, that ring he himself had placed upon her finger beneath the painted gaze of gods and kings. His ring. His claim, the realm would say. His wife, the septon had named her. His. He drew one slow breath through his nose. The air was thick with beeswax and bridal flowers and that cloying summerwine they had poured too generously below. Beneath it all lay the sharper scent of oranges. He plucked one from the bowl; the skin gave beneath his thumb, releasing its oil in a fragrant burst that carried him, for a moment, somewhere else entirely, to the Water Gardens, and the sun-drenched terraces of Sunspear where he had spent a season as a boy, to his mother's solar where the scent of citrus had been as constant as the sound of her voice reading to him from the histories. She had taught him the Dornish way to peel them: spiral, unbroken, the rind falling in a single amber ribbon that curled upon itself like a sleeping serpent. He had been proud of learning it, proud of the skill, proud of carrying this small piece of his mother's world within his hands. He had not understood, then, what it meant to be half of two places and wholly of neither. He understood now. 

I have no wish to begin this with you on your knees, he thought, because you are not a spectacle. He had forbidden the bedding ceremony because the thought of it had made his skin crawl, because he had imagined her being dragged from the feast by rough hands and cruder jests, her gown torn and her dignity stripped away in the name of tradition, in the name of the realm's right to witness and verify and possess. He had seen it done before. He had been a boy at his uncle's wedding, standing in the crowd, watching the women carry the bride up the stairs while the men reached and grabbed and shouted their bawdy encouragement, and he had seen the bride's face, white and rigid and staring at nothing, her jaw clenched so tight he had thought her teeth might crack. He had never forgotten that face. He had carried it with him for years, a small and silent weight, and when his own wedding had approached and the maester had begun to speak of the bedding as though it were a formality as routine as the signing of the register, that face had risen before him with the clarity of a bell struck.  ❛ I did not say it to rebuke you, ❜ he said at last, his voice low, ❛ nor to shame you. Look not so stricken. If there is fault in this room, it is not yours. ❜ Perhaps it was too much, too soon, too heavy a weight to place upon two words spoken in a firelit room. Perhaps she had heard only the surface of it, a prince extending a courtesy, a husband sparing his wife a humiliation, and had been grateful for that alone, and the deeper current had passed beneath her unnoticed. That was all right. He had time. The knot was tied, the binding done, and they had years ahead of them in which to discover what they were to each other beyond the formalities. This night, he needed only to not be the thing she feared.

❛ You need prove naught to me in that bed, ❜ Only after the words had left him did Baelor’s gaze betray him, drawn against his will toward the thing that waited behind her. The bed stood broad and solemn beneath its canopy, over-dressed in dyed silks; its pillows plumped, dragon colors and stormland honors twined there together, velvet, gold thread, as though the realm itself had crept beneath the coverlet first and left a warm hollow for them to lie down inside its hunger. Disgust uncoiled beneath his breastbone once more at the ceremony of it all; the swollen certainty with which kings and fathers and septons had dressed a woman’s fear in white silk. ❛ Least of all by enduring me. ❜ The sentiment was darker than he had meant it, and he heard in them the judgment of all the lords below, all the fathers, all the septas with soft hands and merciless lessons. He thought of what must have been told to Jena in some women’s chamber at Blackhaven, whispered beneath the guise of instruction. It will hurt. Be still. Be patient. Men are made thus. A wife must give. A princess must give more. ❛ They have told you, I think, what this night is meant to be. They told you to endure. That it would be brief. That it would be painful, but proper. ❜ His mouth tightened, and Baelor’s gaze returned to her. ❛ I will not have our marriage begin with such butchery. ❜ So bare a truth left him momentarily undone, startled by the sight of his own heart standing unarmored in the firelight. He had not meant to speak so plainly. Princes were trained against plainness as knights were trained against flinching. A prince was meant to sheath truth in velvet, giving no word that might later be turned upon him in council, yet the sight of her standing there—his bride, his stranger, his unwilling ally in a peace neither of them had forged—stripped him of taste for all polished things. A humorless breath left him. When he looked at her again, there was less prince in him than man. Or mayhaps more prince than ever, if a prince was meant to guard those placed within his power rather than gorge himself upon them. ( He did not know. ) The histories were poor guides. Too many kings had been praised for victories won outside themselves and excused for defeats within their own chambers. His father had taught him statecraft. Dorne had taught him pride. Court had taught him caution. But this—this strange, tremulous mercy required of him by a frightened bride who would not ask for mercy—this he must fashion from whatever unspoiled thing yet lived beneath his ribs. ❛ Jena, ❜ Her name fell softly between them. ❛ If it pleases you, look upon me. ❜

When at last her eyes rose to him, whether wholly or by some shy fraction, he dared not ask more of her than she chose to give, Baelor felt the breath within his breast falter. She was beautiful. He thought he saw, in that brief lifting of her gaze, the ghost of wind-torn fields and rain-dark stone; the girl she had been before silk and title had been laced about her throat. A child of Blackhaven with mud upon her hem, paint beneath her nails, laughter in her lungs, and no notion yet that one day men would speak of her future in chambers where she was not present. Baelor wondered, with a grief he had no right to feel and a tenderness he had no right to show, what she had been before the betrothal taught her face to become a mask.  ❛ You are not mine by terror. ❜ He saw the bed again from the corner of his eye and turned his body slightly, placing himself between it and her line of sight without making theater of the act. ❛ Wife you are, and I your husband. The gods have heard it. The realm has witnessed it. My father has smiled upon it as though he had planted a tree and already tasted fruit. Yet there are vows the septon did not ask of me, and vows I would speak all the same. ❜ Below, another cheer burst upward, fat and bright. Someone began a bawdy song and was quickly joined by others. For one black instant, he imagined descending among them as Maegor might have done, overturning tables, putting terror into laughing mouths, teaching each lord in turn how swiftly sport soured when the powerless were granted teeth. Then Jena’s breath drew his gaze back. ❛ Forgive the noise below. Men are ever loudest when they have done the least. ❜ A small, dry edge touched his mouth, more weary than amused. ❛ By morning they will boast of having witnessed history, though all they did was spill wine upon themselves and make poor music poorer. ❜ It was a poor little jest, thin as watered wine and hardly fit to bear the weight he placed upon it, though he offered it all the same, then moved toward the hearth, where the fire worried gold from the darkening logs, and drew back the chair nearest its warmth.

❛ Sit, ❜ he began, and at once heard the prince in it, and he bowed his head slightly, chastened by so small a word and all the power it had presumed. ❛ If you wish, ❜ he amended. ❛ I beg your pardon. Commands come too readily to those raised among men eager to obey them. It is an ugly habit, and I shall endeavor not to make you suffer for it. ❜  Only then did he step away from the chair, leaving the path to it clear and unclaimed.   

I didn't take this post for the glory. There is no glory in this.

I swore an oath before I knew what oaths cost. I have been paying ever since.

You should not be in this part of the city at this hour. I will not ask again.

My loyalty belongs to the crown. 

Stand down. All of you. I said stand down! 

I have kept this city's peace for fifteen years. You have undone me in fifteen days.

You come to me with this now. At this hour. With blood on your hands and no explanation.

The gate closes at sundown. You knew that. Why are you only arriving now?

There are things I have done in service of this city that I will not speak of. Not to you. Not to anyone.

Lower your voice. These walls remember everything said within them.

I have followed orders my entire life. I am looking at you and wondering, for the first time, what it would mean to refuse one.

You are not safe here. 

My men did not see you. As far as this watch is concerned you were never here tonight.

I have held this post through three rulers. I will not compromise it. Not even for you.

The city does not sleep. Neither do I. We have that in common, at least.

Tell me what you know and tell me quickly. I have neither time nor patience for half truths.

I understand sacrifice. What I do not understand is being asked to sacrifice you.

Nobody passes through this gate without my leave.

I have drawn this sword in service of causes I did not believe in. I will not draw it against you.

You ask me to look the other way. You do not know what you are asking.

A commander does not have the luxury of doubt. I have been doubting since the moment I met you.

The fog comes in heavy off the river at this hour. Stay close.

I know every shadow in this city. I know every place a person might hide. I will find who did this.

You should fear me. Most people do. The fact that you do not is either very brave or very foolish.

I have given this city everything it has asked of me. Tonight it is asking for something I cannot give.

My second will take the watch. You and I need to speak somewhere without ears in the walls.

The law is the law. I did not write it. I do not always agree with it. I enforce it nonetheless.

You, of all people, came to the barracks. What has happened?

I have seen men break under far less. You are still standing. That means something.

Do not mistake my silence for approval, boy. Do not mistake it for indifference either.

I was told you were trouble the day you arrived in this city. I should have listened.

A knight serves. That is the whole of it. Serve, protect, endure. I have never wanted more than that until now.

I have enemies in every quarter of this city. I will not have you become a target because of your association with me.

The order came from above me. I am not certain it came from a place I still respect.

Put the blade down. I am asking you as someone who does not wish to see you hanged.

There are two kinds of people in a city like this. Those who are protected and those who do the protecting. I have always known which one I am.

You should not trust me simply because I wear this cloak. Trust must be earned. Let me earn it.

I will not pretend the law bends for sentiment. I will also not pretend I am without sentiment where you are concerned.

My duty ends at that door. What happens beyond it is between you and whatever gods you keep.

You are asking me to betray everything I have built my life upon.

The city watch answers to the crown. I answer to the city watch. Tonight I find myself answering to something else entirely.

I have buried men I called brothers. I have mourned them quietly and moved on because the realm does not pause for grief.

I am not accustomed to being seen. Only to being obeyed.

Ride out at first light. Take nothing that marks you as known to me. I will follow when I can.

You remind me of something I gave up a long time ago.

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS APPRECIATION WEEK