@draconikia approached her grace: ❝ i crossed a thousand leagues to come to you, and lost the best part of me along the way. don’t tell me to leave. ❞ // whispers what if i said barristan selmy
The dragon rears her noble head, fire licking at the roof of her mouth, at her very tongue ; even her children, halting their marveling on the terrace, stalk through the open threshold, hissing and smoking, their tails lashing, tasting ire in the air. FURY IS RISING, there is no doubt, and it climbs, like a spark climbs the dry brush of a tree and ignites a whole forest ; it awakens in the rapid flush crawling across her cheeks, in the delicate flare of her nostrils, in the predacious gleam in her eye. Liar, the hurt girl burning beneath all the anger weeps.
His had been a harmless lie : a fortress erected on a foundation of half-truths, constructed to protect himself. From me, lips thin, and her throat works, as though she may devour the realization ( and feed it to the rage eating at her belly ). It is fruitless, though, for that thought is a key which unlocks a despairing sort of curiosity. Gods above, had her forebears truly been so . . . SO ATROCIOUS, as to warrant such hesitation? When he first set eyes upon her, had she been so fearsome? Across the chamber, she peers, hunting in crystalline eyes : they are alarmingly bright, unbending, and — — — fingers curl against smooth sandsilk trousers — — — so very sorrowful.
A wave of gloom, cool and sobering, nudges against the flames. An innocent lie is still a lie. A lie! A lie. A lie, the voice thrashes unavailingly against the swell, receding, drowning into utter oblivion. Her ferocious veil is thin as kindling now, and through it, she can see : his is not a demand ( as Jorah’s had been ), but a plea. Something loosens in her shoulders, unwinds in her fingers. “Barristan the Bold,” she begins, brow quirking, “well, you are that, at least, for braving my wroth.” A true knight, he must be, to stand tall in the face of danger.
A long, long breath streams out of her ; she is weary ( so very weary and her reign has only just begun ), yet she lifts her chin, bells tinkling with the movement. “Hear me clearly, ser : I’ve no patience for deceit.” The words are a bite. “But I am neither cruel nor forgetful. I know that my standing here is due to your gallantry. You have saved me numerous times and delivered this victory into my lap,” her voice is quiet, weighted, but reflective : twice has he swept her from death’s path, and now, he has won her the very city bowing beneath her dainty sandaled feet. “Your fate is of your own making. If you are to remain at my side, swear to never play me false again. Swear it by the gods you hold and by the heart which gives you life — — — and here, at my side, you shall remain.”
