Nerd In the North 4-12 (Patreon)

Myrcella sat where she always did now, back straight against the cushioned armrest, hands folded over the hem of her skirts, palms damp where the velvet met her skin. She didn’t blink as Pycelle leaned in again, his breath catching on every other word like his lungs had forgotten how to cooperate with his mouth. The sleeves of his maester’s robe were frayed at the cuffs. She noticed.

“Princess,” he wheezed, squinting at her like she might change shape if he looked long enough. “A single word—just one, if you would.” His fingers twitched near the blanket on her lap, then pulled back. “The queen mother worries for you terribly, as do we all.”

His voice scraped along the air, too slow. Too loud. The blanket didn’t move. She didn’t move.

“This silence,” he went on, rasping like a choking man through his beard. “It is not natural... entirely... unbecoming, if you will, for a child of your grace and charm.”

Her eyes stayed on the pattern in the carpet. Not because it mattered. But because the firelight hit it differently when she tilted her head just so. Like it was shifting underneath her.

“Spare us the effort,” Cersei said crisply. She hadn’t looked up from her wine. “She hasn’t answered any of us, and she won’t answer you. Questions are a waste of time.”

Pycelle straightened slowly. Turned. His hands knotted together in that way meant to look humble, but only ever looked rehearsed. “Your Grace, I do not mean to overstep—but trauma, well, it wounds the spirit as much as the body.”

“And yet her body is untouched,” Cersei murmured, swirling the wine in her glass without drinking it.

He turned back to Myrcella. She felt his eyes again, rising to her hair this time. Untouched, he mouthed the word, gaze taking too long to trail from her formerly golden locks now a distinct silver-gold.

“A word, Your Grace,” he said. “That is all. To show us you are still... yourself.”

She almost smiled at that. Almost.

Cersei laughed, short and cold. “You waste your breath. She has nothing to say to you. Myrcella knows better than to spend her voice on men who mistake noise for wisdom.”

By the door, Jaime shifted, hand resting atop the pommel of his sword. Not holding it really, simply there. “Maybe she’s finally learned the value of keeping quiet,” he said. “Gods know it’s a lesson more of us should take.”

Cersei gave him a glare that might have blistered a weaker man, but she didn’t rise to it. Her eyes went back to her daughter. There was something softened in the look now, a wrinkle in the mask. Not quite grief. Not quite fear. 

Just that tight, brittle thing mother wore when she tried to lie to herself.

“She’ll be fine,” Cersei said. Not loud. Not to Pycelle. To herself, maybe. “She has me. She has Tommen. That’s all she needs.”

Myrcella shifted slightly, enough that her heel brushed the corner of the blanket. Tommen.

Pycelle cleared his throat again, the sound thankfully nowhere near as loud or obnoxious this time as his dry throat struggled to imagine the sound of phlegm. “Your daughter has endured much, Your Grace,” he said, slower now. “But if she will not speak, we cannot begin to... to mend what has been damaged.”

Cersei stepped forward, wine forgotten, voice lowering to something intimate and uncharacteristically even. “Maybe she doesn’t need mending.” She paused. Breathed. “Maybe she needs time. Myrcella is strong. Stronger than you think. Stronger than she looks.”

That silenced him.

Not the way silence came in court—edged and deliberate, heavy with meaning. No, this one landed differently. It sagged, quiet and frail. Pycelle bowed with the motion of a man made of damp parchment, slow and uneven, his beard brushing his chest like it had to be convinced to follow.

“A-as you s-say,” he muttered, bowing lower. “Though—”

“No, Pycelle.” Cersei’s voice caught just enough air to crack as it landed. Not loud. Not even sharp. But brittle. Brittle enough to cut.

That stopped him. He blinked. One hand twitched near his sleeve.

Myrcella didn’t move. She didn’t need to. The candle in front of her held her attention, its flame narrow and low, barely swaying. The light caught her lashes, her cheekbone, the faintest shimmer of sweat at her temple. It made her look pale. Not weak. Not sick. Just—faded. Like she’d stepped too far from the sun.

“Myrcella,” her mother said, softer now. Not too soft. Still with shape. Still too careful. “My sweet girl...”

She didn’t respond.

Cersei exhaled. It was nearly a sigh. She turned, gown whispering against the stone as she moved. Jaime peeled himself off the doorframe with the kind of effort that made it clear he hadn’t been using any. Pycelle was already halfway out the door by the time the queen caught up to him.

“Your Grace,” Pycelle said, lowering his voice. “I must implore you—the princess’s state is most unnatural. Her silence... and her preoccupation with flame… it does trouble me deeply. There are draughts that may help. Infusions of valerian, perhaps, or a sedate charm of—”

Cersei raised her hand. One sharp motion.

He stopped.

“You will not speak of her condition outside this room, Pycelle.” Her tone didn’t rise, but it didn’t need to. It dropped. That was worse. “If anyone asks, you will say the princess is recovering. She is well. Understood?”

“But—Your Grace, I only wish to—”

“Wish to feed her more of your powders?” she asked. Her teeth showed faintly. “Stuff her full of roots and wine until she sleeps through court and dinner? She’s not one of your citadel puppets, Grand Maester. She’s mine.”

“You know she’s right,” Jaime added, lazily. “You’ve had about as much success with her as you have with leeches. Though I daresay she’d be the prettier patient.”

Pycelle scowled, or tried to. The beard hid most of it.

“Ser Jaime, I beg you, this is no time for jests—”

“Then don’t make it so easy.”

“Enough.” Cersei didn’t look at either of them. Her eyes had gone back to the door, to the room beyond. Her voice was softer again, not warmer. Just lower. “Myrcella is strong. Stronger than either of you think. She doesn’t need fixing. She needs time.”

Pycelle bowed low, or as low as his knees allowed.

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

Their voices drifted down the hall. But the room stayed full. Myrcella’s gaze stayed fixed on the candle. On its wobble. On the way it quivered when the air moved just wrong.

She blinked.

The fire changed.

Not the one before her. Not entirely. The room was gone. Or faded. It thinned like gauze, and through it came the other light—the one behind her eyes. Warmer. Lower. Green-gold, and heavy, and wrong.

Her father.

His chest rose. Fell. Not quite even. Not quite enough. The skin beneath the broth looked waxy, too shiny. The servant's hand shook as they brought the spoon to his lips again. It dripped. No one wiped it.

Myrcella’s hand curled. The flame flickered, strained.

Wake up.

She didn’t say it aloud. Her jaw didn’t even tighten.

The candle sputtered. The wax popped.

And then it died.

She didn’t move for a moment. Just the sound of cloth, then limbs as she turned and climbed into the bed. One breath. Then another. Then the cover drawn over her head, slow and practiced, like she could block it out if she tucked it in far enough.

The dark held quieter shapes.

They stayed longer.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

The queen's chambers stank of sweet rot. Too much perfume poured over old smoke, trying to erase the scent of burnt stone and green fire. Nothing clung like wildfire. It curled in the walls, in the drapes, behind the tapestries—a reminder that even stone could betray you if it burned long enough. Cersei moved through the scent like it didn't matter, because it didn't. Not now. Her steps were soft but precise, silk whispering over the rushes, not a sound out of place. It wasn't silence. It was order.

And still he hadn't looked up.

Tommen sat like he thought himself king already, his legs tucked up, the dragon sprawled across his lap as though it had every right to be there. The creature's breath puffed faint curls of smoke when it slept. Its tail had hooked around his wrist at some point. Possessive.

"Tommen."

She didn't raise her voice. She didn’t need to. The name alone was enough to shift the air.

His head turned slowly. Not startled. Not obedient. Measured.

That look.

Her throat tightened, but the smile she gave him had been practiced long before he ever learned to walk. "Look at me, darling. Properly."

His eyes met hers, and it was wrong. Not just the colour—that sick, deep purple that swallowed light like ink—but the way they held steady. 

Tommen had always blinked too much when he dared speak untruths to her.

Now he didn't blink at all.

"Your eyes," she said. Her hands remained at her sides, both of them clenched, but hidden by her sleeves. "They've changed. Does it hurt?"

He tilted his head slightly, and for a moment she thought he might laugh. "No, Mother. It feels nice."

"Nice." Her mouth twitched. "What feels nice?"

He glanced down. The red dragon huffed and curled tighter against him. "The warm. Inside. Like when the sun touches the stone. When it's been out all day. That kind."

Stone. She stepped forward, skirts brushing against the carved leg of the chaise. "What stone, Tommen?"

"My red one." His voice brightened, unprompted. He didn’t look up. "I had it. It was smooth. I used to keep it in my boot, but it always fell out. Then I lost it."

Cersei's face did not move. "Who gave it to you?"

He paused. The dragon twitched, one claw flexing.

"No one," he said, slowly. "I just found it. I think. Maybe."

His brows drew together, lips tightening the way they did when he knew he’d said something she wouldn’t like. The silence after was too long.

She stared at the child in front of her—her child—and did not touch him, a question clear on her face that he visibly quailed at.

"I... don't remember, mama. I just found it."

Her breath caught before she could will it steady. Not a gasp—never that—but a tightening, like corset stays pulled too hard, too fast. The child was watching her. No, not watching. Regarding. And it was not the gaze of a boy. Not her boy.

“Tommen.” Her voice was crisp, lacquered in steel. "Listen to me. You are my son." Her words struck like arrows, not questions but declarations. If they wavered, so would the world. "You are a lion of Lannister. This—" her hand snapped up, faltered mid-air, fingers curling half-shut around nothing as if she could grasp the impossible and strangle it. "This nonsense about stones and warmth and dragons—it is nothing.”

Her child—the creature too—tilted his head. Slowly. With a patience that did not belong to someone who had once cried when his cloak snagged on a splinter. His eyes, those cursed purple eyes that belonged to neither her nor Robert, held hers far too long.

"Yes, Mother."

Too smooth. Too even. No tremble. Not even a flicker. She did not believe him. 

She would not.

Her limbs moved without grace. Too sharp at the elbows, her heel catching on the edge of the rug as she turned. She didn’t stumble. She never stumbled. She crossed to the window in two strides and stared down at the city sprawled like a festering sore. The smell of smoke still clung to the walls. The taste of ash sat heavy in her throat.

He is mine.

Tommen had been gentle. Pliable. Soft in all the ways Joffrey had not been, obedient where Myrcella had been clever. But the wildfire did not burn clean. It corrupted. It remade. The boy who once begged to sleep in her bed now hummed lullabies to a dragon. 

He said no now. Not with defiance. 

With certainty. 

With peace.

Peace is not a child’s right. Obedience is.

She gripped the sill hard enough to pale her knuckles. His no was louder than Joffrey's tantrums ever had been, with depth and resonance not volume. It reeked of Robert. That quiet insistence. That blind, bullish rightness.

He can’t be Robert’s. She bit the inside of her cheek. Hard. He cannot be.

And yet. The eyes. The dragon. The stone. She remembered no stone. Yet the boy’s voice had held such conviction. Robert had Targaryen blood, barely thinned, barely forgotten. The seed is strong. The gods laugh.

Her stomach twisted. Bile, not fear. Not fear. She would not name it that.

Tommen hummed again. Low. Tuneless. The dragon’s tail flicked lazily, a spark leaping from its snout to the hearthstone. She hated the sound of it. It sounded like surrender.

She turned. He didn’t flinch.

“You’re mine,” she said. Soft. Flat. A blade pressed to skin. “You’ll always be mine.”