#crps

“Sister!” Lyonel calls, his voice booming through the hall, his presence nearly filling the vast space, the storm with which he is made of expands to encompass your room and you look up, eyebrows rising at the glee upon your brother’s face. 

            “Brother,” you mock, tone an exaggeration of his own. He narrows his eyes at you, his expression falling into one of irritation which makes you smile, pushing to your feet, pain flaring through your leg as you reach for your cane, one he made you of an antler, limping towards him. “What do you want, Lyonel? I was reading.” Your book is resting on your bed, the history of dragons, the fire closed, a black lace ribbon enclosed to mark your page. 

            “I have arranged an alliance for our house,” he says, victory alighting upon his face as he crosses to you, picking you up and sweeping your around, the skirts of your dress flaring, legs still covered by the pants you insist on having sewn beneath, skirts that tear-away if needed. 

            “Put me down, you fool,” you snap, antler cane a hazard as you spin and he sets you down gently onto the floor, his touch that of a protector. One who feels that he has failed you. And maybe he has—maybe what they did to you was because Lyonel failed. You don’t know. “Now, what is this about an alliance? They usually only come about through a mar—NO! You didn’t! You swore, Lyonel! You swore you would not!” You stumble back from him, the pain in your leg growing larger than normal, the pain radiating up and up and up, wrapping like a vice around your neck. 

            “I swore that I would not if it would not help us,” he says, his Laughing Storm smile fading, replaced with the grim expression of someone who is breaking. Who is broken. 

            “Who?” Your voice is dark, the image of a wedding dress and veil that of a death sentence. You can taste the kiss of the executioner’s axe upon your neck; you can taste the kiss of death upon your skin for that is what a wedding would be. An execution. 

            “A Targaryen,” he answers, his eyes looking down at the floor. Looking anywhere but at you. 

            “Which one?” you ask, gritting your teeth and limping back to your bed, needing to get off your limb, off the affliction that you’ve lived with for more than a year. An affliction that you’ll live with for the rest of your life. 

            “I do not know,” he says and you freeze in your walk, turning back to him, eyes narrowing, lips pursing. 

            “How do you not know? That’s typically ironed out in any contract,” you say, watching your brother, assessing him for any hint of weakness, of anything that could betray him, but you see nothing except regret. Regret that he has used you as a pawn when he promised he never would. Regret that he has sold you like a broodmare when he promised he never would. 

            Regret that he can never protect you even when he promised you he always would. 

            “They will choose tomorrow when they see you,” he says and you can feel the sting of tears, the ones formed of anger and you lick your lips, biting your tongue in the process, biting back the words you want to yell at him. The words that you have held on for far too long, but you can’t. You just shake your head and turn away from him, limping to your bed and collapsing upon it, face-down, the material dampening the sound of your rage as your brother leaves the room. 

            Leaves you to the fate he has created. That he thinks he has created. 

***

            The sun has gone down, the moon replacing it, shining through your chamber window and you carefully tear away the skirt of your dress, the pants you have sewn in now visible as you tuck your cane into the band of your suit, gripping the stone of the window’s walls, heaving yourself up onto the platform, the ivy that clings to Storm’s End just to the left side of you. 

            You do not intend to marry anyone, especially not a Targaryen. Especially not one that is a variable—a constant would be one thing, but having yourself be a choice is not what you will have. You will not put yourself through that humiliation for you know, you know, you are undesirable, the events of the last year having done so. 

            As you stand on the window ledge, haloed by the moon’s light, you think back on that moment. On that fear. 

            On what you survived. 

***

            The festivities of the tourney have spilled into the paths between the tents, raucous laughter and shouts emanating from outside of your tent, piercing into you and you sigh, throwing your blankets off your body, climbing off the cot and swearing under your breath as you dress, quickly as you can. 

            You cannot sleep with the celebrations going on and you curse your brother for making you attend the festival, curse him for trying to act like a father now that your father is dead. It doesn’t matter what you tell him, he feels he must raise you as his daughter, no matter that you’re seven and ten. No, to him you are still a child and must accompany him to everything. But what he didn’t consider was just how close your tent was to the forest, to your safe haven. 

            And so you slip out of your tent, your guard rolling his eyes at you and shaking his head. 

            “Truly? At this hour?” he hisses, eyes darting left and right, tracking any potential harms to you. “Your brother will have my head if I let you go, my lady.”

            “Then give me a dagger. A weapon is enough,” you whisper and he does, giving you his and shaking his head, eyes straying from his watch to you.

            “One hour,” he says and you smile at him, whispering your thanks as you walk away from your tent, skirts swishing against your legs, the forest up ahead, so close you can almost smell the moss and hear the insects and their choirs. 

            So, close, yet not close enough. Not close enough for a hand grabs your arm, pulling you back, pulling you against a solid chest, a mouth hot on your neck, wet pressing against the skin. 

            “I’ve never seen a whore so fancy before,” comes the voice of the man who has you, the man who will try to take you. 

            “I am no whore,” you snap, jabbing your elbow up and back, into the tender place between the man’s ribs, giving you time to break away from him, to pull away. “I am a Baratheon. Lord Lyonel Baratheon’s sister.” You turn around to see the man who dares to lay a hand on you, but you don’t know him, someone dressed in common cloth and you startle at the sight in his eyes. 

            You startle and start to run, turning around and tripping over your skirts, aiming to get away, but he lunges after you with a roar, his hand finding your skirts, pulling on them and knocking you to the ground, your knee slamming into the hard-packed earth. You can feel him as your skirt is pushed up and you kick back with your leg, hitting him in the groin and he falls while you fumble for your dagger. 

            But while you fumble, the man beside you has his out and he slams it down and into your already aching leg, the one whose knee is shattered, slamming it down and cutting a hole in you, shattering your bone. You scream, the sound piercing the night air, piercing through the festivities and you lift your dagger, stabbing it beside you, into the man. Over and over and over. 

            But the damage is done. He’s dead. 

            And you will never walk the same again. 

***

            You shake your head, banishing the thoughts, the memory as your hand reaches out to grasp the ivy and you hold tight to it, rappelling down the wall with your good leg, landing softly on the ground, turning around and getting ready to go to the stables, to take your horse and run. 

            Just run and be free for once. 

            But you never get the chance because Lyonel is there with the guards, his expression stern and angry, but at the same time proud. Proud of all the pain that you handle and keep pushing through. Proud of you in general because that is who he is. 

            “I’m afraid you cannot run this time, sister,” he says and waves his hand, the guards slapping shackles on you and you jerk against the chains but there is no give in the iron. “Take her to them. Now. Before I change my mind and let her run.”

***

            It has been a day and night and now you are here, being led through the Red Keep by two guards, their grips like iron, like your shackles, upon your arms. You know that the Targaryen’s will be assembled in some room, waiting for the presentation of you, of the Baratheon girl well known for the blood on her hands. You know, but you have a plan. 

            You always have a plan. 

            “Let go of me!” you cry, struggling against the guards, voice rising in pitch and volume with every word. “Let go of me! You know I cannot run! Let go! You’re hurting me!” Your words echo off the stone walls, reverberating around you, the act of desperation playing nicely. You continue on in that vein until you hear a door open, several footsteps cutting through the silence, harried and angry. 

            Maeker and Baelor emerge before you first, Baelor’s face twisted with concern and Maeker’s in first irritation and then surprise at the sight of you, of the way you are bound like a common criminal. 

            “What is the meaning of this?!” Maeker demands, voice harsh and cutting, violet eyes narrowing upon the guards who hold you while you continue to struggle, Daeron and Aerion joining the older two. “Let her go.”

            “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” one guard says, glancing at you, a barely concealed smirk upon his face, your witting accomplice, “but we were instructed by Lord Baratheon not to release her. She’s liable to run you see.”

            “What with her leg?” Dareon asks, stepping forwards, his beautiful eyes startling sober. “You expect her to run on that mangled thing?”

            “If we release her,” the second guard says, “we cannot be held responsible for what happens.” You bite your tongue hard enough to taste metal, bite it to suppress the smile growing despite the pain in both leg and tongue. 

            “Yes, yes, fine. Release her,” Maeker says, waving his hands and the guards let go of your arms, uncuffing your shackles, setting you free and from the wink the first one gives you, you know all is in place. All is as it should be. 

            “Thank you, Your Grace,” you say, your voice lilting with pleasantness, the voice of an obedient daughter and wife. The voice that is a lie. “And I’m sorry for what is about to occur,” you add, free hands tearing the skirt of your new dress off and body limp-running to one of the windows. You’re fast, despite the pain and the damage to your leg; a secret you and Lyonel have kept, preferring no one to know just how much pain you can stand and keep going. 

            You hear the Targaryen’s shout as you climb onto the window ledge, their footsteps behind you as you unlatch it, swinging it open and glancing down to see a horse waiting below for you. You glance over your shoulder, a line of men behind you, waiting with bated breath for what you’ll do next. They think you’re choosing death. 

            Little do they know, you’re choosing life. 

            “So sorry gentlemen,” you say, “but I’m afraid our little visit must be cut short. I have a life to live on my own.” You wave once, a smirk curving on your face and then you jump, one strong tendril of ivy beside you, grasped in your right hand as you slide down the wall, pushing off just enough to land on your horse’s saddle and then you’re gone. Away like a shot, leaving the men staring after you. 

            Aerion watches you, your silhouette on the horse’s back enticing him, the fearlessness in your gaze something he found so attractive. So odd. 

            He’s used to people staring at him with fear and anger and disgust, but never victory. You looked as if you had won something and he craves that look. He craves you. And he doesn’t like it. But he especially doesn’t like seeing you on horseback, running away from him, your hair streaming behind you, having come free from the noble braid. 

            He didn’t originally want you—in fact, his opinion was to marry you to Daeron the Drunk, his idiot brother, for you as a cripple were not worthy of his blood. But now? Seeing how you ran even with the pain you endure, how you leaped out the window onto a horse? How you have skirts designed to tear away to leave you free in breeches?

            He wants you. And he will have you. 

            “Ready my horse!” he cries, a passing servant nodding, fear glazing their eyes as they run, preparing to do just that, practically running away from him. “I claim her,” he says, turning to his father, his uncle. 

            “No,” Maeker says, eyes narrowed at the window, still watching as your form dives into the forest not far from the Keep. “You cannot claim that which runs.”

            “We’ll never find her in the forest,” Daeron says, his face slack with longing and pain as he watches your silhouette disappear within the darkness. “She knows it better than anyone.”

            “You know her?” Aerion demands, walking to his brother, elbow pressing against his throat, slamming him back into the stone. “Why did you not tell us this?”

            “I am her friend,” Daeron says, struggling against Aerion’s iron hold. “I met her once when I was drunk, stumbling through the forest. She came down from the trees like a goddess of the wood and she cared for me. She cared for me and so I sought her out, time and time again. But she’s never shown me her place before.”

            “How could she have a place in that forest? She’s from the Stormlands,” Aerion hisses and Daeron’s face mottles with rage but at the same time confusion as if he no longer knows himself. 

            “Whoever finds her,” Baelor whispers, focus on the forest’s horizon, “will wed her.” He turns to look at his brother and nephews, eyebrows rising, mind on you, the fierce girl whose equal he has never seen. Not in bravery nor stupidity.  

            “It will be me,” Aerion says.

            He will make sure of it.

***

            You let out a breath once your safe in the forest, urging the horse through the trees, weaving in and around at a canter before you leap from the saddle, grasping a sturdy branch of an oak tree, hauling yourself up onto it, scaling the tree as tears stream down your cheeks, silent screams caught in your throat. 

            You climb despite the pain in your leg, the pain that never goes away. The pain that pervades your waking hours. You climb and climb and climb, knowing that you cannot be free, not truly, until they have exhausted their search, a prize having slipped from their grasp. You settle onto a top branch, leaning back against the trunk, the horse long gone and that’s when you hear them—all of them. 

            You hear their shouts and the gallop of horses and you wait. You wait when you hear Baelor beneath you, then Maeker and Daeron and Aerion. You wait until you hear them gone and then you sigh, looking up at the sky, at the clouds drifting across. 

            “Daeron said that you could climb,” comes a voice just beside you and you glance over, fear gripping your heart, its cold grip like that of a vice, restricting your breath as you look into the violet eyes of the Dragon Prince. 

            “I don’t know him,” you reply, swallowing hard around the anger that has knotted in your throat. “So, I don’t know how he knows. Unless, perhaps, he dreamed it.” Aerion closes the distance between the two of you, his body settling across from you on the branch, the limb sturdy enough for both of your weights. 

            “He should not have,” he whispers, eyes tracing you, straying to your left leg, your mangled leg, curiosity shrouding the purple. 

            “Why? Because dragon blood should not associate with a storm? With a cripple?” Your words are harsh and cruel. Pointed, but he simply smiles at you, his hand pulling your leg to him, ignoring the hiss that escapes you, the hypersensitive skin flaring along his touch points, pulling the fabric of the breeches up to expose the mottled skin.

            The skin of your leg is a blotchy red and purple, swollen in places surrounding the stab wound you received and Aerion sucks in a breath between his teeth, looking up at you, tenderness you did not expect in his eyes. 

            “No,” he answers, “but because you are mine.”

            “You cannot claim a wild thing. You cannot claim a storm,” you counter and he leans forwards, towards you, your heart rate catching, speeding at his closeness. This feeling is a first, but maybe it’s because he’s here, before you and talking not attacking, not berating. 

            “Maybe I do not,” he whispers, “but beseech you to choose me.”

            “Why?” you ask him, pulling your leg away from him, the fabric falling again to conceal the change the Maester called permanent, forever. The change your brother called a Storm’s Curse. “I’ve heard of you, Dragon Prince. I know you take what you want. I know you despise weakness and certainly those of us afflicted with damage. I know you value the blood in your veins. So, why do you want me?” You do not expect him to answer; you expect him to claim you and make you his. 

            Perhaps that’s why he answers.

            “Because I have never seen anyone like you,” he whispers, tone thoughtful, words slow. “I am what you said and at first, I did not want you. I didn’t want you in my family at all, but them you…you ran. You ran on something no soldier could—we’ve heard of your curse you know, the pain worse than the injury. The permanency. Yet you ran and you ignored all proper laws. You do what you want and I want that. I want…I want someone who is not afraid of me. And I didn’t know I wanted that until now.”

            “So, that’s why you haven’t just taken me,” you whisper and he nods, his hand coming to take yours in his. 

            “I cannot promise to be a good husband. I cannot promise that we will not fight, that I will not say things I will not end up regretting. I cannot promise not to be possessive, to be jealous. I cannot promise to be gentle, but I can promise to love you.” You can hear his honesty, the value he places in his words and you nod. 

            You accept if only for the peculiar feeling he causes within you. 

            And you hope you will not regret it. 

***

            And you don’t. You don’t regret it when he helps you down the tree, helps you on his horse, the two of you riding out of the forest, meeting with his family, laughter spilling from the two of you the whole ride as you tell him stories of Storm’s End and Lyonel at his request. You ask him for stories, but he says he prefers not to for he is not as kind as you. He says you would not like his stories and you surprise him even more when you tell him to try you. 

            You don’t regret it when he does tell you, whispering all the things he’s ever done, his soul feeling washed clean. You don’t regret it because you’ve found someone who understands and you can tell him how it felt to kill, how necessary in the moment but how it stains you now. How it weighs on you now. 

            You don’t regret it on your wedding day when you vow to him your life, your love, your everything. You don’t regret it when you dance with him, his arms taking most of the weight from you, holding you and sheltering you even as his dragon’s tongue lashes out at every one else. 

            Everyone but you that is. 

            You don’t regret it that night when he’s tender and careful and gentle, whispering praise over degradation, ever so conscious of your trembling, the flashbacks. 

            You don’t ever regret it because you love him. Somewhere in his talk, you felt that you could love him and you do. It grew and it grew and it grows still. 

            You love him like he’s your soul. 

            Perhaps he is. 

            Your soul that is, your other half. 

            You hope so. No, you know. 

            “How are you, my darling?” he whispers now, his breath on your neck, lips pressing into the delicate skin. 

            “Just fine,” you whisper, fear a chokehold on your throat as you stare at the wine before you. The wine that has the scent of poison, but not poison for you. No, poison for the babe that grows within you. 

            The one no one knows about.