#cubcrowned

surprise edit set for @cubcrowned !!

hope you like it !!

✧˖°˖✧  𝐃𝐔𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 II Accepting

Once upon a time, there would have been a hilarity in her husband asking his bedfellow about the quality of his sleep when surely no one would know clearer than she how little rest he got these past moons. But since they lost Orys, Arya found it difficult to share a chamber, let alone a bed with Tommen, requesting to have her rooms moved to the Maidenvault and demanding solitude, marinating in broken dreams and promises. A wolf with wooden teeth, a mother with no pup, a queen with no desire to rule nor protect. How could she when she failed so pathetically?

"Then find another to warm your bed and your heart." Arya made no attempt to turn and face Tommen. "Obey your advisors and take another who will give you heirs." Instead, she pulled the covers higher, wanting to drown out his words and the thin rays of sunshine peaking through heavy curtains. "Do as kings have done since the dawn of time, as your own father did. I will not do it again. I can't."

━━ ⟢ SENTENCE STARTERS : EXCALIBUR ( 1981 ) II Accepting

Her eyes followed her lord husband as he continued down the hall back to their old chambers. How she wished she could prioritize his feelings, hold him and reassure him. They've lost the promised obscurities of being a second son and daughter. Not when Joffrey's corpse now belonged silent sisters.

Though Arya loved him for his heart, void of ambition for power, times like these where she needed Tommen to remember that he was a lion not a fawn. "We do not have the luxury of choices and wants," she whispered adamantly in hushed tones. She grabbed Tomm's wrist and guided him around the corner, away from prying eyes. Everyone would be watching the King now, gauging his weaknesses, how malleable this new piece on the board would be.

"You are many things, my heart. Naive, despite some fools' misconception, is not one of them. You're expected in the king's bedchambers. You are king not just in name, it is fact."

"Tomm." Her sweet prince. Arya mourned the future buried with the grief in his eyes. Let those assume it is for his brothers but she knew that his life, her life, the lives of their children would never be their own, not anymore. "Everything we do in the next few days will determine the rest of our lives. Show them the King you can be. I know you did not covet the crown but do not wilt under it."

another thing from a decade's worth of hoarded asks & memes @cubcrowned

She has every reason to hate him. The brother of the cruel boy king who demanded her father's head. The son of the woman who tormented her sister and cost them both wolves. And she does hate him. Arya despised him. She hated his audacity to not turn the other way the moment he recognized her. He ought to be on his knees and beg for her forgiveness, for the realm's forgiveness for being a weak and pathetic king that allowed the realms to fall into war and chaos.

His every existence condemned her father to the grave. Arya ran her hand through his chopped locks, gone were the recognizable blond curls. They were slowly growing back though, maybe she'd hack them off again. Bury those nauseating Lannister traits. The more she ruminated, the more her irritation grew. She yanked hard on the fistful of hair she could grab, tilting Tommen's head back so he'd look up at her. "You never should have sailed cross the Narrow Sea."

Maybe this is the divine torment for a summer's son and winter's daughter to find one another across the ocean. No one could truly understand the decline of their house and the deaths of those they held dear, the loss of a home they could never return. "You wanted my attention, your grace." The word like venom on the tongue. "Beg for it."

~~

HEADCANONS FOR THIS AU

They first meet while Arya is still in training under the Faceless Men. It's part of the reason they were able to have that initial conversation when Arya was working hard to distance herself from her name and past identity. As Mercy, she had helped Tommen from falling victim to a scam where foreigners were targeted then robbed. She didn't recognize him until she brought him back to the shabby room he was renting and caught a glimpse of familiar crest on something he tried to keep hidden.

It only took a handful of meetings for Tommen to start identifying that even though he received visitors with different faces that something deeper was at play and they were the same person. He noted that the girl who'd tilted her chin up when she lied, and glared at him with the same icy hatred. Its then he learns about the capabilities of Faceless Men from a drunkard in a pub.

Tommen learns that she's Arya Stark by intentionally goaded Arya into a reaction. It takes about 5 sentences of him vaguely mentioning Ned for Arya to threaten to cut him open with a shucking knife.

Arya initiated their first kiss. Tommen is the one who took it further. He wanted to stop her from arguing and raising her voice again.

The moment it went beyond something physical or them using each other for pleasure and masochistic punishment is when Arya decided to leave the House of Black and White. Tommen finds Arya and nurses her back to health. He's the one who lands the killing blow on the Waif.