#casseldreams

“They do, pretty girl.” Jaeyi smiled, her voice soft as it was if she were approaching a flighty doe in a light dappled clearing of a northern forest. These northern girls were raised not to trust those from the south, and she was aware that she did not cut a trustworthy picture with a sword at her side and oaths to the Tyrells tying her to an enemy. The last thing she wished to do was scare Beth off, not when she had such kind eyes and 

 “I am by Lady Margaery’s side always, and I hear a great many things that I assume people say in front of me because they think I will not understand - which army will go where, which lady should marry who to secure alliances, how many men are being sent on covert missions - all of it.” She snorted out a bout of laughter in a rather unladylike way that she found no shame in. 

“I’m sure you have heard things too, my lady. You seem the sort of woman to understand a great many things that men forget.” 

Loras watched Beth for a moment in silence after she had spoken, his eyes empty as he retreated into himself at the mention of love. He had loved only once, and planned never to love another as he had loved Renly Baratheon again as long as he lived. 

The love in him for a now-dead man burned no less strongly in him now than it had when he had kissed his stag king and told him he would be back later that night after he had seen to his duties. Of course, when he had returned that night, there had been nobody to greet him, just as there had been nobody every night since. 

“I have never known it.” Loras lied, though not very convincingly as his eyes grew cloudy and distant. Perhaps that was the cruelest part - he could never share without anyone what he truly felt, the loss that had changed him for the worse. They would never understand. “Have you, my lady? Perhaps you know better than I.” He asked, though the question was hollow as he tried to recall his lover’s face, his voice - love did not fade, but those things did. 

Another reminder to echo through a battered heart, and there was no denying or arguing it. He knew what he had done, he would always know, no matter the many Ironborn–his brother included–that thought it something the Starks deserved. Even so, it caused a rift between himself and his true family–a reminder that he’d betrayed those he cared for in the past, and he knew there was a lingering thought in the back of their minds that he might do the same to them.

“I did not, no.” He said softly in agreement, his chest tightening in his own guilt. How long would he have to live with this? Perhaps forever. Maybe that was the true repercussion of his choices, that and the everlasting reminders tossed at him from those effected. “It’s a regret I will always have.”

Her heart is heavy as they speak, as her friend admits whatshe wishes.

For a moment, Jeyne isthe young girl who was kind and good. The girl who believed in something assimple as the Seven and hoped to marry a Lannister son.  

And then she remembers what the Lannisters have done, rememberswhat could have been the Red Wedding, remembers that it was the Lannisters andnot the North that had ripped her family apart.

She remembers thatthey have rejected her, rejected her father, as they sit on the throne andforget who put them there.

When next she speaks, her tone is flat.

“Perhaps,” Jeyne starts, voice measured. “The Targaryenswill do us a favor.”

“Is chaos an object now?” Clara asked in a joking fashion, though the words would draw no humor in return. “I suppose it is a tool of sorts, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

An inpatient sigh slipped from her lips, while her finely clad arms of burgundy crossed over her slender figure.  ❛  Of course, when the occasion requires it.  ❜  Those who did know her well would immediately say that she was tart-tongued. But she knew how to navigate the intricacies of court, the how to be the winning queen of a chess board. Desmera looked at the Northern girl, the obvious boredom etched on her face like a scarlet letter.  ❛  Are we to stand around all day debating the complexities of my personality? Unless you would care for a goblet of wine and a poetry reading from the lovely Hugo here, I suggest you leave because this conversation has grown rather dull.  ❜  Her hand motioned towards the poet who was stood before her with a nervous smile on his young face.

“I’m not surprised,” he said, carefully. He thought of his own dreams: they had been clogged, lately, with the confinement Ghost felt, stuck on this rocky island with nowhere to really run. Oh, he had nightmares; but he so rarely had good dreams that it was hard to remember that they existed.