š·š“š»š°š“š½š° ā± āhello,ā she says to him. a shadow with no body, a spectreĀ ā Ā as much now as she ever was in life. heIaena drifts closer and, with clumsy hands, finds his very core in a stinking heap of clothes and hair and unburnt blood. he does not know, she thinks, that he has blood on him, or something like blood. so much of it, in licking flames and little dots. it clings to him like the smell of smoke. underneath: a core so much like hers, and yet, it wallows, lonely, unheard. he is sleeping, dreamingĀ ā Ā fitful, but heIaena steps inside it like a ghost through a wall. and she is a ghost, and there is a wall, but she has no feet with which to step. again, āhello. your cup is by the very edge of the table. it will fall.ā
the room had started tilting long before his body had āā and daeron does not remember lying down. he does not remember drunkenly pulling off one single boot as if it were some last ditch effort and letting it unceremoniously clatter to the ground. the other remaining; much as he remained in his clothes stained at the front with sweat and spilt sloshes of wine, his coat sleeve ruined with dark freckles upon linen like little burnt stars. BUT HE REMEMBERS THE CUP. the fourth one, perhaps the fifth... the warmth of it. the way it made the room blur pleasantly at the edges. the way it made the silence softer and thoughts more bearable. and the table beside his bed lists slightly on uneven stone āā his cup sitting near its lip āā precarious, abandoned while still half full. he thinks, distantly, that he ought to move it... or finish it off. HE DOES NOT.
sleep had instead taken him the same way flames might fill a room āā slow, invasive, and impossible to fight once noticed. the darkness behind his eyelids had shifted; not black, never fully black, but ember red and flickering... like the familiar pulse of fire seen from too close. HE SMELLS SMOKE. he always dreams in smoke... he seesā
the prince opens his eyes. his bedchambers is there and not at the same time āā because it's all wrong. his discarded cloak lies in a heap at the foot of the bed, yes. his sword belt, his gloves... all there where he'd left them. BUT THE ROOM IS WITHOUT CANDLELIGHT, the walls seem to be rippling like heat above a pyre, and @altarcup stands near the bed. or perhaps she does not stand... he cannot find her feet. and she speaks of his cup as he gathers himself upright, scurrying back across the mattress 'til he has nowhere else to go āā and he doesn't give a shit about his cup nor how close it was to wasting dornish red. ( dornish, he knows, because he asked... twice. ) it had tasted like heat and overripe fruit and something horribly bitter at the back of his throat; he prefers the reach variety because they are softer, kinder.. THEY DO NOT BURN. and now he's hot with hair clinging to his damp temple and sticky, wet palms. sweat? wine? blood? his breath is unsteady.
( . . . ) āā you worry about strange things... have you come to haunt me? āā