Chapter Text
Viserys Targaryen arrives at the restaurant alone. As the maitre d’ leads him over to their table, Alicent’s father stands and the men embrace one another as old friends, with much slapping of each other’s backs and laughing even though nothing has been said yet. Alicent watches silently, a hesitant smile on her lips.
“Otto, you old dog! It’s wonderful to see you again.”
“It’s been too long,” Otto responds. “May I introduce you to my daughter, Alicent?”
She offers a tremulous hand and Viserys holds it in his own, patting her knuckles gently, his skin dry and warm.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Prime Minister,” Alicent says, praying her nerves don’t show through her voice.
Viserys waves a dismissive hand. “No need for such formalities. The pleasure is all mine.”
The men take their seats and a waiter arrives to take their drink orders. Before he can clear the fourth table setting, Viserys puts out a hand to stop him.
“My daughter will be here soon enough.” He turns to Otto and Alicent, winningly apologetic. “Please forgive her tardiness. I imagine there is traffic.”
“That’s probably the largest change I’ve noticed since my arrival here in the city,” Otto says. “The traffic. The automobile has really taken control of King’s Landing.”
“Tragically yes. Not so in Oldtown?”
“We’re a more conservative folk, I must admit. The times always arrive a bit late to the Reach.”
“Not if you have anything to say about it though, hmm, Otto?” Viserys gives him a conspiratorial grin. “The infrastructure programs you’ve implemented, truly incredible. Just the sort I think this country needs.”
Otto smiles humbly. “I’m pleased to hear you think so. I will say, we took the train on our journey here, the Rose Line, and I was simply astonished by the experience. They’ve outdone themselves with the improvements. Wouldn’t you agree, Alicent?”
Alicent startles at being addressed. “Yes, Father,” she says, having never ridden a train in her life before yesterday and entirely ignorant of whether or not they’ve recently improved.
“You deserve a great deal of the credit for that,” Viserys says, waving off Otto’s modest interjection. “No, no, I won’t condone any of your charming humility in this matter. You have a talent for seizing opportunity, I’ve always thought so. It’s about where the government directs their focus; the industry will inevitably follow. I mean, look at the Vale. Arryn sits on the largest coal reserves on the continent and what does he do? He lets the Westerlands corner the market while sinking all that money into his ludicrous trolley system.”
Alicent’s father nods sagely. “I’ve always respected Arryn, but I have to agree. There’s a shortsightedness there, which you can’t help but fear will cripple the region in the coming years.”
“Of course, of course,” Viserys says, with a regretful shake of his head. “Arryn is a great man, a formidable politician, and from a good family. My late wife, gods rest her soul, was an Arryn. I bear him no ill will, but it’s just as you say, a shortsightedness…”
Alicent’s attention wanes. The restaurant around them murmurs quietly, the flickering gas lamps casting warm but minimal light. No one seems phased by the Prime Minister in their midst, which leads Alicent to assume they are all of a certain status—or at least endowed with a certain incredible degree of discretion. She finds herself studying their clothing, noting how it differs from that worn in the Reach: the necklines slope lower across the collar bones, the hemlines expose flashes of stockinged shin. The women seem to flaunt themselves. Alicent looks away, her stomach twinging, and fiddles with the small pendant on her necklace. The sharp corners of the seven-pointed star scratch at the pads of her thumb and forefinger.
Just as the waiter arrives with four glasses of Arbour Gold, a new figure strides into the dining room. Her fashion is by far the most scandalous Alicent’s yet seen. She dons a sharp suit, her tie, skinny and deep red, tucked neatly into a pinstriped vest. Her posture is upright, her shoulders squared, accentuating her height and physique. And her silver hair, neatly pinned at the front and cascading down her back, allows no confusion about her identity. Catching sight of their party, the new arrival makes her way towards their table.
“Please excuse my lateness,” she says as she approaches. “Huge block up on the Street of Sisters. I had to navigate a perilous series of alleyways to get here.”
Alicent can now see that her hair is just the slightest bit windblown. Viserys fondly rolls his eyes. “We’re just happy you’ve finally arrived, dear. Please, sit.”
She does so. “Didn’t miss anything important, I hope?”
“Oh, just a rousing discourse between two of the foremost political minds in all the Seven Kingdoms.”
The newcomer directs her focus to Alicent, a recognition she was utterly unprepared for. Her violet eyes bring an unbidden flush to Alicent’s cheeks.
“Was he going on about trains in the Vale again? Father, it’s a mountainous region. How are they meant to lay the tracks?”
“The Smith blessed us with dynamite for a reason.”
“Forgive my father,” she says, again to Alicent, who struggles not to quail beneath the attention. “He won’t be satisfied with his reign as PM until the Mountains of the Moon are completely wormed through with train tunnels. And forgive me, yet again. I’ve neglected to introduce myself.”
“Introduction is hardly necessary,” Otto says. He extends a hand. “Your father has told me much about you.”
“Well, now you’ve got me at a disadvantage. I feel horribly vulnerable.” The levity in her tone and the confidence with which she takes Otto’s hand indicate otherwise.
“And we can’t have that, can we?” Viserys gestures across the table. “Darling, this is Otto Hightower and his daughter, Alicent. Mr. and Miss Hightower, my daughter, Captain Rhaenyra Targaryen.”
Alicent offers her hand, the trembling even more obvious now. She feels her father’s gaze burning on the back of her palm.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain.”
Captain Rhaenyra Targaryen holds Alicent’s hand and brushes the lightest of kisses against her knuckles. For a moment, it soothes the sear of her father’s judgment; for a moment, it makes her breath stick fast between her ribs.
“Just Rhaenyra’s alright,” the Captain says, her expression placid, her eyes dancing.
“You toiled hard for that title, dear, you ought to wear it with pride,” Viserys interjects. “Miss Hightower, my daughter served during the conflict in the Stepstones these few years past, and she acquitted herself honorably. The first woman admitted into the Air Force, and they fought like hell to keep her out, but she showed them, didn’t you? Proved that women can fly just as well as the men.”
Rhaenyra’s hand retreats to the stem of her wineglass, her fingers sliding absently against the glass. “You flatter me, Father.”
“Isn’t that a father’s job, to flatter his daughter? His duty, in fact. Wouldn’t you agree, Otto?”
Otto flashes Alicent a warm look, inexplicably sending shivers down the brittle column of her spine. “Of course.”
“Well, I believe I’ve borne my fair share of flattery for the evening,” Rhaenyra says. “Miss Hightower, we come to you. What are your occupations?”
Alicent flushes, staring at her hands in her lap and restraining herself from picking at her cuticles. “Nothing so valorous as serving the country, I’m afraid.”
“Alicent is a devout practitioner of the Faith,” her father offers. “Back in Oldtown, she orchestrated a number of charitable efforts with the Starry Sept. When she was a child, she even professed to me a desire to become a Septa when she was grown.”
Alicent has no way to explain her sudden embarrassment at this anecdote, one which many an adult has cooed over approvingly throughout her life. Perhaps it has something to do with how the Captain’s brow furrows, her mouth drawing into a slight, confused frown. Alicent’s bewildering desire to impress this woman makes her feel like a child masquerading as an adult, sliding around in too-big shoes and fooling no one.
“A noble pursuit for a young girl, no doubt,” Viserys says, a typical reaction. “I must say though, your beauty would have been wasted on the septas. It’s a lucky thing that dream was never realized.”
“I suppose so, sir,” Alicent says, looking up fleetingly to accept his compliment. In this flash, she catches a silent exchange between Viserys and her father, puzzles over it for a moment, then quickly casts her gaze back down to her lap.
Her father chides her. “You might say thank you, Alicent.”
She sinks the nail of her thumb into the skin of her forefinger, forcing a smile. “Thank you, sir.”
“But of course,” Viserys says.
An unbearable silence descends on the table, broken only by the clink of porcelain against the tablecloth as a waiter delivers the plates for the first course. He disappears again, presumably to go fetch the food, and in her peripheral, Alicent sees Rhaenyra pick up a menu previously discarded by her father.
“Well, isn’t this just a lovely restaurant,” she muses. “How did we happen upon it?”
Otto answers, “Alicent and I have rooms upstairs with the hotel.”
Rhaenyra hums. “You won’t be long in the city, then?”
“That remains to be seen. There are some affairs I’m attending to here in the capital that may or may not extend our residence.”
“How very mysterious,” the Captain says. A certain charm returns to her expression. “Your affairs wouldn’t happen to concern trains, would they?”
—
As they wait for the elevator to arrive, Otto Hightower turns to his daughter.
“Dinner went well.”
Alicent pauses before answering, feeling—as she often does when her father begins a conversation with her—that she’s wandering blindly into a trap.
“I’m glad you think so, Father.”
He nods evenly, not looking in her direction. “What was your measure of the Targaryens?”
Alicent considers. The Prime Minister was different than she’d expected him to be. When her father told her who they’d be meeting with for dinner, Alicent had imagined a stern man, more akin to Otto and the Reach politicians he typically entertained. But Viserys was not very serious or taciturn, nor did he appear conniving or power-obsessed. Viserys was, in all honesty, a bit silly: in the sense that he frequently joked and wasn’t above demeaning himself for the sake of entertaining others, but also in the sense that he was, at moments, somewhat absurd. He spoke with authority but often repeated himself, would get lost in his own meandering sentences and need to be led back to the topic at hand. Alicent had imagined the man in charge of the country would be a bit more stately. But Viserys was undeniably passionate about politics, and he doted on his daughter egregiously.
Carefully measuring her words, Alicent says, “He was less imposing than I had imagined he would be. He was very kind.”
Otto mulls that over. Alicent watches him closely. He doesn’t appear too displeased.
“And Rhaenyra?” he asks.
Alicent drops her gaze and begins picking at her cuticles.
Rhaenyra was unlike anyone Alicent had ever met in her life. News about her had spread as far as Oldtown, of course; the torrid exploits of the PM’s daughter were prime fodder for any gossip rag in the country, as well as a number of more serious publications. But Alicent’s father discouraged her from concerning herself with political matters, and thus she had only a vague understanding of Rhaenyra’s public persona: that she was in the Air Force, that she had a bit of a reputation for impropriety, that she took more after her rebellious uncle than her stalwart father. But after meeting the Captain personally, Alicent can’t believe the papers ever truly captured the extent of Rhaenyra’s eccentricity, and if they had, and Alicent had read them, she certainly wouldn’t have believed what they told her.
Rhaenyra Targaryen is something of a war hero, as her father liked to mention whenever possible. She drives her own car, hunts and fences and drinks. She wears men's clothing. She’s beautiful.
When Rhaenyra spoke to Alicent, it was as though she was talking to an equal, to a whole person deserving of one’s whole attention. Throughout the night Rhaenyra nudged her to take on a larger role in the conversation, but Alicent felt as though every time she opened her mouth, she just embarrassed herself. Her father clearly didn’t want her to participate, and Viserys responded to everything she said with unfocused eyes and the same kind smile, as though it was permanently grafted to his face. Eventually Rhaenyra seemed to yield in her efforts, joining the men on their wandering conversations through Westerosi politics while Alicent stayed behind, counting the number of times she chewed each bite of food so she knew when it might be acceptable to swallow.
Rhaenyra invited her to order dessert and Alicent nearly dribbled wine all over herself. It was deeply humiliating. But the quirk of Rhaenyra’s lips in response was thrilling.
Alicent has never had many friends her age before, and she doubts that Rhaenyra reciprocates any of her desires for a closer companionship—certainly not after she acted like an absolute twit for the entire meal. But nevertheless, Alicent feels a deep yearning to know Rhaenyra more, know her better; to make Rhaenyra laugh with her wit and not her stupidity; to be the person who keeps Rhaenyra’s secrets. If Rhaenyra has any secrets—she seemed incredibly upfront. Alicent wants to know if it is all a facade. She wants to know what lies beneath, know the smooth folds of Rhaenyra’s brain, the interlocking chambers of her heart.
Alicent just wants, really. Wants, in a painful, pathetic way.
In lieu of divulging all that, Alicent says, “The Captain was… strange.”
Otto gives a slight laugh under his breath. “That’s one way to put it. Targaryens tend to be. But did you like her?”
“She seemed intelligent,” Alicent offers, conflicted. “And bold. Admirable attributes for a soldier.”
Her father’s brow creases. “Yes, well. I’m glad you admire her.”
Alicent gets the immediate sense that she’s done something wrong. Has she been too complimentary of the Targaryens? Does her father want her to dislike them? But they’re political allies; such disdain wouldn’t make sense. And Alicent doesn’t disdain them. They seemed nice, for all their strangeness. A happy family.
The elevator arrives. As they step on, the operator gives Alicent a look up and down, then grins. She nods stiffly and holds her breath as the cage starts rattling upwards, a breath she doesn’t release until she’s safely disembarked on the floor of their rooms.
She bids her father goodnight and begins to head down the hall, but before she can leave, her father calls her back.
“Wait a moment, would you?” he asks. “I need to speak with you about something.”
Alicent pauses, her heart rate spiking. Her father’s face is grave.
He continues, “I know that since your mother died, you’ve spent much of your time alone, and I regret that terribly. There was so much she was supposed to do for you, teach you, so much that I cannot provide.”
“Father—” Alicent begins, but he plows on.
“It’s a mother’s role to set her child up for life. To clear a path for her daughter through the world. And without a mother’s guidance, you’ve always lacked a direct way forward. You’ve lingered, tread water when you should’ve been swimming boldly along the current. But I hope that after tonight, I might be able to negotiate an arrangement for you that could make up for some of that lack. An arrangement which might provide you some larger purpose.”
Alicent tilts her chin. “An arrangement?”
“A marriage.”
Her stomach plummets. Alicent clutches a hand to her collar bone, noting the racing of her heart beneath the many layers of her dress. She feels stupid for being surprised, for allowing herself to indulge in wishful thinking for so long. A marriage arrangement was bound to come some day—a girl of two and twenty without any prospects is a wasted opportunity, and it’s not as though she was making any effort of her own to find a husband. But had she been making that effort, this match would never have been her choice. Though Alicent understands why her father, why any father, would want his daughter to marry into the Targaryen family, the thought of it chills her to the bone.
“Father, I…” she begins, unsure of how to continue without incurring Otto’s ire. “The Prime Minister seems a very good man but—”
“Viserys?” her father asks. He seems almost bemused. “No, no, he’s still hopelessly enamored with the memory of his late wife. I doubt he’ll ever marry again.”
“Oh. Alright…” Alicent frowns. “Then who?”
Otto turns away, studying the hall’s aging wallpaper.
“Rhaenyra.”
There’s a long, pregnant pause. Alicent furrows her brow. She’s never known her father to be a jovial man; to make a joke of this sort seems entirely out of character for him. And he isn’t acting as though he’s just made a joke. He staunchly avoids looking at his daughter, his expression blank. A desperation swells in Alicent’s chest, for him to acknowledge her, to smile, to say something, anything. But he remains mum.
All Alicent can think to say is, “She’s a woman.”
“Thank you for that astute observation, Alicent. I’m aware she is a woman.”
“She’s the daughter of the Prime Minister,” Alicent says. “It isn’t possible. How would the country allow—”
“I would appreciate if you refrained from telling me what is and isn’t possible,” her father says coldly. All hints of regret have vanished from his expression. “I shouldn’t need to remind you that Rhaenyra is not merely a woman. She’s a Targaryen—heir to an unspeakably powerful political lineage and, preceding democracy, a dynasty of kings. They operate on a set of rules separate from the rest of us. How else would she be admitted into the military? Allowed to carry on as she does in her ridiculous clothing and that absurd automobile? The country may not approve of the engagement, but they will allow it.”
“But if they won’t approve…” Alicent flounders. “The Prime Minister seems very indulging, but he is a politician foremost, surely he wouldn’t—”
“Viserys essentially proposed the idea himself,” Otto says. “Apparently he’s grown weary of his daughter carousing up and down the streets of King’s Landing with her posse of bored soldiers. He wants her to settle down, and I suggested you might be a good influence. I’m confident that, after tonight, he agrees with me that you have much to offer as a wife.”
“I don’t…” Alicent’s mind violently echoes with overlapping concerns, the loudest of which she can’t prevent from leaving her lips. “What of the Faith, Father?”
Otto regards her with incredible disappointment. Alicent feels like a shriveling leaf, ground against the cobblestones beneath a careless heel.
“Alicent, I’ve always abided your devotion to the Seven, as I did the same dedication in your mother. But there reaches a point at which you must look up from the books and take the opportunities the gods place before you. The machinations of the world provide far better evidence of the Father’s will than any dusty words written in the scriptures ever could.”
Alicent can no longer meet her father’s eye. She wraps her arms around her torso, running her fingertips over the seams of her dress, imagining the garment unraveling and her body along with it. Her breath comes short and she finds herself beating back emotion lest she embarrass herself in this hallway.
It occurs to her that this was a strange choice of location for their conversation. Why not in his rooms? Unless he hoped the pressure of possible spectators might curtail her reaction. That seems the sort of thing her father might consider before having a serious conversation with her.
“Why would she even have me, Father?” Alicent asks, forcing her voice to steady. “The Captain doesn’t seem the sort of person who easily bends to the whims of others.”
“Rhaenyra is the sort of daughter who values her father’s insight and strives to meet his expectations,” Otto responds sharply. “Enough with the questions. I won’t hear any more argument on this.”
“I’m sorry, Father, I don’t mean to argue, I only—”
He silences her with a single look.
“Goodnight,” he says and slips into his room, leaving Alicent alone in the hallway. Her shoulders hunch, curving her body into a sort of standing fetal position. Feeling the first hints of tears prickling at her eyes, Alicent hurries down the hall, ensuring the door is closed and secured before succumbing to the relentless pull of her nerves. Sliding to the floor, pressing a hand against her mouth for fear that someone might hear, Alicent releases a shivering sob.
She feels pathetic. She feels gutted, as though someone has cut away the front of her and scrutinized her insides for impurities. She feels trapped, like a rabbit in a cage waiting for the hunter to come in the morning. She feels like she’s about to be sick.
Alicent can still sense the weight of her father’s gaze on her. She closes her eyes to block him out, but another pair of eyes emerges from the darkness: cool, violet, dancing. Wrenching herself back to reality, Alicent stumbles to the edge of her bed and sinks down to her knees.
Almighty Father, just and wise, I pray for your guidance. I strive to honor you in all I do, to trust in your vision for the world, but I confess I do not understand the path you lay before me know. This future I am promised leads me further from you, from the light of the Seven, and I don’t want to stray, I swear I don’t. Allow me to understand. Show me what I must do. I’ll do anything, I swear it, allow me to serve you.
Nurturing Mother, forgive me. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I’m so sorry.
—
Three days following the dinner, an article runs on the front page of The King’s Landing Times announcing the engagement.
“Realm’s Delight” to Wed Daughter of Oldtown Politician
The Interior Office of the Prime Minister released a statement this morning offering congratulations to the Minister’s daughter, Capt. Rhaenyra Targaryen, on her engagement to Miss Alicent Hightower of Oldtown. Captain Targaryen’s betrothed is the daughter of Governor Otto Hightower, known to be a long time friend of the Prime Minister. The engagement came as a shock to many close to the Prime Minister’s family, who in the past have expressed a belief that Captain Targaryen was unlikely to surrender her life as a single woman any time soon. This paper has previously published a number of stories concerning the exploits of Captain Targaryen, chronicled in the weekly column “Detailing the Realm’s Delight.” As for Miss Hightower, little has been reported on her outside of the Reach, though she is understood to be a gracious and charitable figure in Oldtown society. Few details have been released concerning the pair’s courtship, nor has there been any response to the criticism issued by conservative leaders that the proposed marriage is an affront to the Faith and spells the imminent decline of Westerosi civilization. Cont. on page 6.
Alicent reads the article over breakfast, the inflamed red of her cuticles standing out starkly against the black and white pages. She runs a ruined fingertip over the photo of Rhaenyra—a portrait taken upon her enlistment in the Air Force, her face stern and her jaw set—and cringes at the opposing image of herself. It’s a cropped version of an old family portrait; her mother’s hand rests bodiless on Alicent’s left shoulder. She’s a child in that photo. She feels like a child as her tears splash over it, smearing the placid mask of her younger face.
A week following the announcement, Otto finally forces Alicent out of her rooms, mandating her attendance at a fundraising luncheon for the party and making plainly clear that if she doesn’t put on a good face and act the part of dutiful daughter, he will give her something truly worth crying about. Her maid dresses her in the second best dress she brought to the city—the very best, of course, being the one she wore for the dinner with the Prime Minister. Alicent prays the entire drive to the luncheon that a tire might blow out or the engine might explode. The Seven do not heed her pleas.
Previously, Alicent’s greatest anxiety at this sort of event was that no one would make any attempts to talk to her, forcing her to linger awkwardly at the edge of the room or follow her father around like a witless puppy. Upon arriving at the banquet hall, Alicent is well assured that that finding people to converse with not be an issue today; rather, the true issue will be finding a single moment alone without a random party official’s wife or daughter hounding her for information about her engagement.
“What is the Captain like?” pries one woman.
“How did she propose?” asks another.
“How very Dornish of you both,” exclaims one woman, perhaps a touch too drunk for the early afternoon. “How did you meet again?”
All entreaties are equally impossible to respond to. In a strange role reversal, Otto takes to shadowing his daughter around the event, smoothly extricating her from any conversation that seems to be veering too closely to exposing the truth of the arrangement. She supposes she might be grateful for this, but can’t help but bitterly ruminate on the fact that this is all his fault in the first place.
As the afternoon stretches on, Alicent begins to sense that anyone not clambering to speak to her has their eyes trained on her from a distance, expressing a range of emotions anywhere from envy to disinterest to disgust. Alicent shrinks beneath the pressure, her voice growing thinner and thinner as the imagined force of their gaze batters against her resolve. Finally excusing herself from a group of tittering wives making thinly veiled attempts to discern Rhaenyra’s sexual preferences, Alicent scans the banqueting tables for her place setting, hoping she might at least have a moment to rest her feet.
She can’t find a placard with her name on it anywhere among the largest group of tables, leaving only the high table in the front of the room. Internally bemoaning the increased opportunity for total strangers to stare at and gossip about her, Alicent finds her place setting towards one end of the long table. On her right is a placard for her father. On her left is a placard for Captain Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Like a startled deer, Alicent looks up, searching the milling crowd for any hint of silver hair or gender-inappropriate dress. Surely if Rhaenyra was here, she would have noticed; they would’ve been harassed together, rather than Alicent bearing the weight of everyone’s judgment on her own. She feels a flash of resentment, which she quickly castigates herself for. She shouldn’t bear such ill will towards her betrothed.
“Are you looking for someone?” asks a voice to her side.
Alicent turns, coming face to face with just the woman she’d been resenting.
“Captain Targaryen,” Alicent breathes.
“Miss Hightower,” Rhaenyra returns. “Good afternoon.”
She’s wearing another suit. Now that they’re standing directly next to one another, Alicent can tell Rhaenyra has a few inches on her. Her figure is at once graceful and imposing, a strange combination of masculinity and femininity. Alicent wonders at the fact she didn’t notice Rhaenyra’s arrival immediately; the murmuring in the room seems to have increased tenfold, and the staring has gotten significantly less subtle, joined now by some pointing and the cupping of hands around mouths to hide whispered comments. Alicent feels hot embarrassment surfacing on her face and neck.
Rhaenyra appears not to notice. Her gaze is fixed firmly on Alicent.
“Did you see the announcement in the papers?”
Alicent nods.
“Did you know? That our fathers were planning this engagement,” Rhaenyra asks, not unkindly. She seems genuinely inquisitive if anything.
“My father told me after the dinner we shared,” Alicent says, hardly trusting her own voice to leave her throat. “Prior to that, I had no idea.”
“Me neither. My father told me the next day. It’s— “ Rhaenyra shakes her head. “Well, it’s an absurd idea. Completely ridiculous. But here we are.”
Tentatively, Alicent asks, “Why did you agree to it?”
“My father threatened to disinherit me I didn’t.” The Captain huffs. “Apparently he disapproves of how I’ve comported myself in public; he believes this marriage will ‘rein me in.’ As I said, utterly ridiculous. I’m only sorry you’ve fallen victim to this farce as well.”
The apology catches Alicent off guard. She carefully considers her response, studying the lines of regret in Rhaenyra’s expression.
“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” Alicent says lightly. “I only hope I can serve you dutifully as your wife.”
She thought it a good answer, an appropriate answer. It would have pleased her father; it appears not to please Rhaenyra. The regret turns to a sort of confusion, her brow furrowing even deeper.
“Well, I suppose what I meant is that, I understand this isn’t the life you dreamed of for yourself.” Rhaenyra holds Alicent’s gaze gently. “Do you have someone back in the Reach? A man you intended to marry, or a lover or?”
Alicent coughs. “Of course not, Captain. I wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“I meant no offense,” Rhaenyra says quickly. “But, no, I gather that you wouldn’t. Your father mentioned… you thought to take holy vows, did you?”
Alicent cringes, cursing the day she ever thought to tell her father about that stupid dream. She’d mainly wanted to impress him, to demonstrate her maturity and devotion. It seemed the sort of life her mother would’ve liked for her.
“It was a childish fancy. I never seriously considered it.”
“A child who dreams of becoming a septa…” A small smile comes to Rhaenyra’s lips. “Was being a princess too much of a cliche?”
Alicent is at a loss for words. Her discomfort must show on her face, because Rhaenyra hastily clears her throat.
“Apologies,” she says. “You know, my family and I keep Valyrian customs. Is that… alright with you?”
“Of course,” Alicent responds quickly, fighting the urge to chew on her bottom lip. “The Seven teach us acceptance of all people and their beliefs.”
Rhaenyra quirks an eyebrow. “Do they now?”
Alicent swallows thickly.
“I assure you, Captain, I will be accepting of whatever traditions you would bring to our marriage.”
Much to Alicent’s dismay, Rhaenyra just sighs. “That’s very kind of you, Miss Hightower.”
A canyon of silence yawns between them. Alicent scrapes at the raw edge of her thumb, then quickly curls her hands shut so Rhaenyra won’t see. The Captain seems to have finally noticed the crowd of people conspicuously watching their interaction. Her face darkens. Alicent scrambles to break the silence before that anger can fester too long.
“What did you want to be, as a child?”
Rhaenyra looks to her, surprised at the question. “A dragonrider. An equally childish fancy, you can imagine. I’ve since discovered that being a pilot serves as an adequate facsimile.”
“So you enjoy flying?”
The Captain’s eyes light up. “I love it. There’s nothing in the world like it: being in the cockpit of an airplane, hands on the throttle, soaring thousands of feet above the ground. The absolute definition of freedom, of power—complete and utter control over your fate. I’d live in a plane if I could. Have you ever been in one?”
“I can’t say that I have,” Alicent responds. “But it sounds lovely.”
Rhaenyra nods emphatically. “Perhaps I’ll take you, sometime,” she offers, more bashful than Alicent has ever seen her.
Alicent hums noncommittally, just the bare idea of flying already twisting her stomach into knots. When she was a child, she once snuck out onto the highest balcony of the Hightower and leant over the edge, her stomach pressed flat against the stone barrier, her toes barely scraping the ground. A maid saw her from behind and shouted, and the next thing Alicent knew her mother’s hands were clasped on her shoulders, wrenching her back to reality. She received the worst scolding of her life, wasn’t allowed to leave her room for days, and she’s hated heights ever since. She’d only wanted to look, just for a moment, to see Oldtown how the birds did. She hadn’t meant to be bad.
“Listen,” Rhaenyra begins suddenly. “With all this talk of freedom, I hoped we might speak frankly.”
Alicent furrows her brow, abruptly drawn from her reminiscence.
“Haven’t we been?”
“I never wanted a wife,” Rhaenyra continues, heedless. “I know you didn’t either. This marriage is unasked for, by both parties, and incredibly uncommon in many ways.”
“Yes…” says Alicent, cautious.
“I want you to know that I will make no attempts to control you as a husband might. And I hope that you might extend me the same courtesy.”
Alicent can’t begin to decipher the implications of that first sentence; she’s too caught up in the absurdity of the second.
“I would never dream of trying to control you, Captain,” Alicent says, in complete honesty.
And though yet again she has agreed with Rhaenyra, answered in as appropriate a way she can imagine, the Captain still seems disappointed.
“That’s not exactly… Do you understand what I—”
Rhaenyra stops speaking, looking at a point beyond Alicent’s shoulder. She turns around to see Otto approaching them.
“Ah, Rhaenyra. I’m so pleased you’re here. I heard rumors you might be in attendance, but no one could confirm. You’re a tough one to nail down.”
The Captain nods a short greeting. “Mr. Hightower. I’m actually leaving soon, I just needed to speak with your daughter briefly.”
Otto frowns. “Please, we are to be family soon. We might speak more casually with one another.” He ignores her point about departing. “Now, your father and I have been in correspondence about the wedding. We’re thinking to hold it in a month’s time…”
—
Alicent contributes very little to the planning and execution of her own wedding. Event planners in the Prime Minister’s employ take on the bulk of the work, with Otto providing pointed critiques when he feels they aren’t taking the affair seriously enough. He reiterates frequently the importance of optics and the public response to the ceremony, in brusque letters he requires Alicent to transcribe for him, perhaps to reinforce the same points to herself. Viserys, for his part, wants only for the wedding to be big and beautiful, to inspire the loftiest aspirations for the following generations of marriages. Viserys’ desires are easy enough to sate; the Targaryens are independently wealthy, and their fortune provides more than sufficient funds for the ceremony and festivities without placing any burden on the tax payer. Otto’s goals, however, prove more difficult to meet.
The public response to the Prime Minister’s daughter marrying another woman had not been as unanimously positive as Alicent’s father might have hoped. The upper echelons, especially those for whom the Faith has always been more a nuisance than a solace, are either ambivalent or bemused, in a sort of patronizing way. As one’s attention trails lower on the ladder of society, one finds less and less interest in or approval of the union.
And, of course, all loyal adherents to the Faith are furious.
Contrary to Otto’s belief, the Faith had never truly allowed the Targaryens complete free rein. The family faced pushback for generations on their various indiscretions, with the severity of the critique shifting depending the High Septon. Publicly, very little has ever been said by either party regarding their disagreements, but private correspondence between past ages of Targaryens and the Most Devout reveal a tenuous-at-best relationship. Given the reluctance on both sides to make this rift any more obvious than necessary, the Faith’s ardent disapproval need not have had too large an impact on the wedding going forward. The largest obstacle is the matter of where the ceremony will take place.
All Targaryen weddings going back decades have been held at the Great Sept in King's Landing. Otto writes to the Most Devout requesting that this tradition be upheld, in a grand gesture of goodwill between these opposed factions. The High Septon writes back that he would rather die than see the most sacrosanct structure in the all the Seven Kingdoms desecrated by this farcical and obscene marriage.
Ultimately it’s decided that the wedding be held in the Red Keep, where the Prime Minister and his household will have the most authority and security. The ceremony is kept private, which to Alicent’s best understanding means there will be only 400 people in attendance, as opposed to the entire population of the city.
A new sort of wedding is conceived, borrowing elements from traditional Westerosi and Valyrian ceremonies. The Grand Maester is selected to perform the rites, as he holds sufficient authority without the regrettable hindrance of belligerently opposing the marriage to his last breath. The Grand Maester was a frequent guest at the Hightower throughout Alicent’s childhood, attending dinner whenever he returned from the capital to visit the Citadel. Alicent remembers him as a gentle and wise—if absolutely ancient—man. The thought of him marrying her to Rhaenyra makes Alicent’s stomach churn. As do most thoughts of the wedding, in all fairness.
The day of the ceremony dawns bright and clear. Alicent is woken at sunrise by her maid and shuffled into a car, still groggy, stomach aching. Only later does she realize she’s lost her only chance to take a final look about the hotel room she’s called home for the past month: the flower-patterned walls she stared at while she couldn’t sleep, the thick bedspread that muffled sobs and soaked up tears, the floor where she’d paced and prayed and lain, gazing at the ceiling, at times wishing for something stronger than sleep to come for her.
When she arrives at the Red Keep, she’s cloistered in a room off the great hall and bedecked in all the finery selected for her by the wedding planners. A pale, creamy dress with gold accents, graciously covering her from neck to wrist to ankle, though still more modern and fashionable than anything she’d have selected herself. A thick green cloak, embroidered in a repeating—and frankly hideous—pattern of ivory towers. Shoes that pinch her toes, flats because, she imagines, it would look ridiculous if she appeared taller than Rhaenyra and she can’t imagine the Captain plans to wear heels. Golden jewelry with green stones, excepting a ring meant to stand in for the engagement ring she never received, which boasts a delicate ruby nestled between two diamonds. Alicent wonders if she’ll ever wear it again after tonight, if she’d even be allowed to keep it if she wanted to—she supposes it belongs to some jewelry house or state collection and is only being borrowed for the purposes of the ceremony.
She doesn’t see Rhaenyra; she hasn’t seen Rhaenyra since the luncheon actually. They did the rehearsal without her. Apparently the Captain was unavoidably detained, which Alicent and everyone else present took to mean she was up to something sordid, but hopefully being discrete enough that word wouldn’t get out about her night of debauchery preceding the day of her wedding. Alicent couldn’t decide how to feel about her betrothed’s absence. Primarily she was just worried about forgetting all the words and gestures and dances she needed to remember.
The papers have been unusually silent about Rhaenyra as of late. It seems the family’s press team had exerted an inordinate amount of effort to keep her name out of the public conversation, given the ambivalent buzz surrounding the wedding. Alicent wonders how Rhaenyra feels this morning. It’s hard for her to imagine the Captain ever feeling anything approaching dread or nervousness. She imagines Rhaenyra as disdainful. Or indifferent, which somehow makes her feel even worse. Hung-over is another strong image that comes to mind.
Alicent hears guests beginning to arrive as the finishing touches are applied to her makeup. The sounds of people talking and traipsing through the hall outside make her throat close up, her chest squeezing like a clenched fist. As the music starts up, signaling the wedding is about to begin, she loses control and ruins her manicure, chewing her cuticles to ugly red shreds. She curls her hands closed to hide the destruction from her father when he arrives to lead her out into the ceremony.
As they step into the great hall, Alicent keeps her eyes on the floor. She shivers beneath the weight of the hundreds of eyes fixed on her in this moment. Some cowering, feverish part of her fears someone might start shouting, or throw something. But the music just plays, and she keeps walking.
Her father’s grip is a vice on her arm, leading her slowly towards the altar erected at the front of the hall. The carpet beneath her feet slopes into stairs. Otto gives her a final squeeze, strong enough to strangle, and leaves her side, sliding the cloak from her shoulders as he departs. Suddenly cold and suddenly alone, Alicent looks up and sees her betrothed for the first time in over a month, for the third time in her entire life.
Rhaenyra is in full military raiment, as befits a soldier getting married. The stiff creases of her suit are imposing and unforgiving. Over her shoulders is a dark cloak, embroidered richly in red thread. To Alicent’s bewilderment, Rhaenyra is half-smiling, lips tight, almost like she’s trying to be casual about it. Alicent admits the smallest cough from her dry throat and fails to return the expression.
The Grand Maester drones on; Alicent retains nothing. There’s a pounding in her ears that drowns him out. At some point, Rhaenyra sweeps the cloak off her shoulders and drapes it around Alicent, who hadn’t realized she was trembling until she feels Rhaenyra’s sure grasp on her biceps through the thick fabric. She thinks the gesture is meant to be reassuring; she thinks she’s supposed to feel grateful. Unfortunately, it isn’t, and she doesn’t.
In all the Westerosi traditions, Rhaenyra takes on the role of the groom. Alicent recalls, throughout the entirety of the exhaustive planning of this wedding, not one person ever questioning who ought to play which part. There was no discussion of fixing it somehow so they were both the bride, and Seven knows no one considered Alicent might play the man. Alicent reflects on this as the Grand Maester wraps their hands with ribbon, Rhaenyra’s hand, solid and warm, supporting her own, clammy and ruined.
When the Valyrian traditions begin to be incorporated, the roles of bride and groom appear to dissolve. They dab each other’s lips with red paint, in imitation of the traditional blood, and take turns drawing symbols, meaningless to Alicent, on the other’s forehead. Their bound hands are held upright, interlocked. They drink from the same cup. Alicent goes first, swallowing the wine without tasting it. Rhaenyra subtly, so subtly it might not have been intentional at all, turns the rim so her lips do not touch where Alicent’s did.
The Grand Maester ignites a brazier and invites them to pledge themselves.
“I am hers and she is mine,” Rhaenyra recites. “From this day, until my last day.”
Is that a hint of boredom in her tone? Suppressed fury? Her voice is steady. She looks Alicent directly in the eyes.
“I am hers and she is mine,” Alicent says. She returns Rhaenyra’s gaze, her voice stronger than it has any right to be. “From this day, until my last day.”
Rhaenyra continues in High Valyrian. No one expected Alicent to pick up an ancient language in a month, which she supposes might be considered merciful, but now she finds herself embarrassed at not understanding, at having nothing to say in response. She should have tried to learn the marriage rites at the very least. Someone should have told her to do that.
Rhaenyra finishes in the common tongue.
“With this kiss, I pledge my love.”
Alicent Hightower—a woman of two and twenty, the only daughter of a noble house, a maiden considered beautiful by many—has been kissed all of two times in her life.
The first time was by a Tyrell cousin when she was twelve and he was fourteen. He tempted her away from the holiday party his family was hosting and into the library with descriptions of a historic tome his father recently bought, which boasted the most gorgeous illustrations of chivalric knights and armored horses and even dragons, though most Maesters staunchly refuted their existence. As soon as they were alone, rather than showing her the book, he pressed her up against a shelf and put his lips on hers. She squealed and pushed him away, but he persisted until she was nearly screaming, pounding her fists against his chest. Breaking away from her, he ordered her not to tell anyone or he’d tell her father it was all her doing. They went back to the party. Alicent never told anyone.
The second time she was fifteen and understood what could happen to girls that allowed boys to take them into dark rooms all alone. She’d studiously avoided placing herself in any situation in which a boy might get the wrong impression, to the point where most children her age thought her too frigid to associate with at all. This time was at a funeral. There were other people in the room and it was well lit. It was at a sept—a stained-glass window of the Maiden looked on. The boy’s brother pulled him away after two seconds that felt like an eternity, trying to scold him but stifling a laugh, while Alicent remained utterly silent. It seemed that no one really noticed it happening at all. Everyone was too distracted with all the grieving. Alicent was grateful no one saw. The boy tasted like liquor, and the fumes of his breath lingered with her for hours.
Rhaenyra tastes like paint mostly. Maybe some remnants of the wine they just shared, but the strongest impression Alicent gets is of the red on their mouths smearing together. Rhaenyra’s lips are soft and then they aren’t there at all.
The music strikes up once more, and they process from the hall arm-in-arm. Rhaenyra has on that smile again, casual and the slightest bit awkward. Alicent doesn’t entirely feel like she’s in her own body, excepting the place where her elbow links with Rhaenyra’s. With her wife’s.
They separate as soon as they’re out of the hall, a maid rushing forward with damp towels for them to wipe away the paint. Alicent watches Rhaenyra out of the corner of her eye as the Captain methodically dabs at her lips and forehead. After a moment, Rhaenyra turns to Alicent, coughing like she doesn’t know exactly what to say.
“Well done,” she mutters.
Alicent’s eyebrows involuntarily raise. “Thank you. You… did well, also.”
“Thank you.”
The paint is gone from both of their faces and the maid is ushering Alicent back into her dressing room so they can redo the makeup she just ruined.
Rhaenyra says, “See you at the feast then.”
Alicent just nods in response.
—
Alicent sits alone at the high table of her wedding feast. Beside her, her wife’s chair is empty, pushed back carelessly from the table as though any moment its occupant may return. Alicent senses this is not likely.
She watches Rhaenyra on the other side of the hall, deeply engaged in an evidently hilarious conversation with a couple Alicent doesn’t recognize. A ring of people orbits their conversation, unsubtly vying for Rhaenyra’s attention, ready to pounce as soon as they see their moment. Alicent doesn’t recognize many of them either. She stares out over a sea of people she doesn’t recognize, like a captain surveying perilous waters. Or, well, there’s already a captain here and it clearly isn’t Alicent. She’s more akin to a carved maiden affixed to the prow of a ship: static, helpless, pockmarked with scars from her tumultuous existence.
Rhaenyra had kept her promise to see Alicent at the feast. They ate the meal together, sharing spare words about the food neither of them had picked out but mutually agreed could have been far worse. Rhaenyra began to tell a tale about an egregious dinner she was once served on base in the Stepstones, but then she must’ve sensed something in Alicent’s attention that made her want to bail out of the story, because she trailed off without finishing it and Alicent never learned what the meat in the stew actually was.
Alicent wonders what it is about her—her bearing, her expression, her very being—that so often inspires people to abandon ship. That is, if they ever got on board in the first place, which happens infrequently enough.
Gazing around the room, Alicent notes that Viserys made good on his promise of a big and beautiful ceremony. It’s wasted on her but, nonetheless, objectively pretty to look at. The feast hall is decorated lavishly in red and black, with hints of green peaking through, like the intrepid eye of a child watching the rude scenes of a play through their mother’s fingers. The guests are equally well-adorned, shiny black tuxedos and richly-colored gowns twisting and dispersing and coming back together in artful patterns on the dance floor.
Alicent and Rhaenyra performed the first dance together. Alicent found it nerve-wracking, trying to recall all those complicated steps whilst unbearably aware of all the eyes on her—aware of a specific pair of violet eyes, above all others. But Rhaenyra steered her gently though the dance, one hand on the small of her back and the other entwined with Alicent’s own. The real tragedy is that it might have been lovely, in a different context, but Alicent felt the whole time as though there was a crowd of people watching her commit a terrible crime and not one person was doing a thing to stop her.
Don’t they all see that what she’s doing is horrific? Does their silence imply consent? Could she have been committing crimes all this time? Does she want to? Has she wanted to this entire time, yet conjured these imaginary rules to prevent herself from doing so? Why? Why do that? Why do any of this? Why is this happening to her?
Plagued by these inane questions, Alicent asked to sit down as soon as the first song ended. Rhaenyra acquiesced, politely dropped her hand, and disappeared into the thick of the crowd.
Alicent wondered if her wife would go searching for another partner. She had seemed to be enjoying herself. Of course, it wouldn’t be the proper thing to dance with another person at her own wedding, but when has Rhaenyra ever shown any regard for the proper thing?
Watching Rhaenyra mingle across the room, Alicent allows herself to truly take a measure of her wife. She’s spent so much time hearing what other people have to say about Rhaenyra, but shouldn’t she form an opinion of her own? Rhaenyra, for all her eccentricities, has never done Alicent any wrong. She’s been largely courteous and kind, though often incredibly confusing at the same time. Many people seem to respect her, even as they extoll her vices and exploits. She’s a war hero, for Seven’s sake, and even though a woman ought not to be a soldier, if she insists on being one, it says something to her credit that she was at least dutiful and brave.
So focused is Alicent on Rhaenyra, staring at her like a puzzle she can’t solve, that she doesn’t notice a man emerging from the crowd and ascending the dias to the high table until he’s right in front of her face. And he’s quite drunk, not being subtle in the slightest, so it’s a true testament to Alicent’s distraction.
“Congratulations, good-niece!” the man cries. “Welcome to the family!”
“Thank you…” Alicent frantically searches her mind for his name. His coloring marks him a Targaryen, but there’s so many of them and their names are all so similar.
“Daemon,” he offers. “Your good-uncle Daemon. Excited?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you excited?” he repeats. “On the edge of your seat? Quivering in anticipation?”
“Anticipation of what?” Alicent asks.
He rolls his eyes. “For tonight, of course. It’s what everyone’s talking about. The main event. The climax of the evening.”
Alicent finally catches his meaning and flushes deeply. “I…” She fumbles with her words. “That’s an outdated tradition. You forget yourself, sir.”
Daemon scoffs. The red in her cheeks seems only to spur him on further.
“Gods, you are a prude, aren’t you? She wasn’t exaggerating. They breed you all different down in the Reach—all that religion they beat into your heads, makes you drier than the sands of Dorne.”
Alicent barely hears his crass remarks, her mind snagged on that ambiguous “she.” It’s not so ambiguous truly; Alicent only wishes it were. More than anything, she dearly wishes she weren’t having this conversation right now.
Daemon prattles on. “Don’t worry, pet. My niece should still be able to perform her duty well enough without any input required from yourself—”
“If you’ll excuse me, sir—” Alicent interrupts, standing.
“Oh, look at that face.” Daemon leans in close. Alicent can feel his breath on her cheek. “You’re disgusted by me, are you? Scared? You’ll be over that soon enough. Your wife, ” he spits the word venomously, “is just like me. Worse. Have a splendid evening.”
He traipses away on unsteady feet, leaving Alicent alone at the high table yet again. She discovers that she’s breathing heavily, yet no air ever seems to make it to her lungs. Ducking her head, she steps down from the dias, making for a door at the side of the hall that leads out into a courtyard.
On her way to the door, she’s intercepted. All she sees at first is a shiny pair of boots. Her eyes trail up, taking in the uniform slacks, the suit jacket and its array of medals, the liquid-silver hair and the concerned expression.
“Alicent—” Rhaenyra begins.
“I’m just going to get some air.”
“Did Daemon say something to you?”
Alicent flushes anew. “No. He just wished us well in our union.”
“I’m sure he did.” Rhaenyra’s tone is doubtful. “But that’s not all. Don’t lie. What did he tell you?”
Normally, Alicent would have repeated her pitiful lie and dashed for the door. But some testy combination of the heat in her cheeks, the adrenaline in her veins, the pure audacity of Rhaenyra to ask for Alicent’s honesty in this moment, compels her to stand her ground.
She looks up, leaning in to Rhaenyra’s face, jaw clenched tight. Alicent takes brief pride in the fact that Rhaenyra steps backwards.
“What did you tell him of me?”
“I…” Rhaenyra looks confused, then goes ghost white with understanding. “Alicent, wait—”
But Alicent doesn’t stick around to see what other colors her wife can turn, what excuses she can spin. She spears through the crowd and out into the courtyard, chest heaving, pulse racing.
The air outside is blessedly cool and dark, the last dregs of sun having just drained below the castle walls. Alicent savors the quiet, happier than she has been all night to find herself alone, here among well-manicured trees and verdant bushes. Leaning her back against the wall, cradling her head in her hands, she forces herself to breathe. To not think, not worry, not spiral. Just breathe.
“Alicent.”
“Oh, seven hells,” Alicent mutters, shooting up. “Father.”
Otto Hightower steps out from the doorway, his hands tucked deeply into the pockets of his tuxedo. Alicent watches his approach warily.
“You look radiant tonight,” he says. She swallows thickly.
“Thank you, Father.”
“I’ve never been happier for you,” he continues. “I think this match has every possibility of ensuring you a wonderful future. If your mother could see you, she’d be so proud.”
If Alicent’s mother had lived long enough to see her daughter wedded to another woman, she’d likely have surrendered to the Stranger in that moment, collapsing from shock and revulsion. But what’s another comforting lie, on a night like this?
“Thank you, Father.”
Otto turns his gaze from his daughter to the flagstones beneath their feet. His expression shifts from paternal pride to something more business-like.
“Have you prepared yourself for tonight?”
Alicent sighs, letting her eyes shut in frustration.
“For the bedding, you mean?” she says, angrier than she ever allows herself to be with her father. “Why is everyone so concerned with it? It’s improper and vulgar.”
Her father tuts chidingly. “Alicent, you are a wedded woman now. There’s no need for such squeamishness.”
“We’re both women,” Alicent says, building up a sort of steam. “I don’t understand what— I don’t understand how I am expected to do my duty.”
Her face burns at this admission, especially delivered to her father, but Otto shows no sign of embarrassment.
“I imagine Rhaenyra will take the lead on all that. Her proclivities are well known.”
Rhaenyra and her gods-damned proclivities. Alicent’s stomach churns.
“I’m not like her though.”
Otto regards her carefully. “I know you aren’t. I’ll admit, I’m somewhat out of my depth in this matter. It really ought to fall to your mother to instruct you here, and I had hoped that you might be canny enough to figure it out despite her absence. But plenty of women are nervous for their first bedding. It’s entirely natural to be apprehensive. Regardless of your nerves, your duty remains the same.”
“I can’t bear her any children.”
“There are other ways in which a wife ought to satisfy her husband.”
Alicent wants to scream. Rhaenyra is not her husband, which is sort of the crux of the whole issue. Why does no one understand? Why does everyone expect her to just go along with all of this? Why do they all keep looking at her?
“Good gods, Alicent, what have you done to your nails?”
The nerves spike in Alicent’s stomach, tears welling up in her tired eyes. As she surrenders to the inevitable weeping, her father puts his arms around her, holding her close to his chest.
“It will be alright, child,” he soothes, rubbing her gently. “It will be over quickly.”
But it won’t be over quickly. This is the rest of her life. How has this happened? What did she do wrong?
Taking pity on his poor daughter, Otto releases her with a final pat and settles her on a bench, promising no one will disturb her. As he returns to the party, Alicent expects the tears to fall more quickly, to overwhelm her entirely, but instead they begin to taper off. Perhaps she’s cried herself out over the past month; maybe she just can’t produce any more tears. She instead sits, head in her hands, trying to breathe.
When she returns to the hall, it appears the night is winding down somewhat. Fewer people are on the dance floor, and it seems as though some guests may have already started to leave. She scans the room, pondering her next move, when her good-uncle again distinguishes himself from the crowd.
“There she is!” he calls from across the room. “Now the ceremony may commence! Someone grab her skirt.”
Alicent barely has time to comprehend his words before her wife emerges at his side, exasperation lining her face.
“Shut up, Uncle,” Rhaenyra mutters, shouldering him to the side. She strides over to where Alicent stands, somewhat dumbstruck, in the doorway.
“We’re going,” Rhaenyra says to her. “No one else is coming. Do you need anything? Have you left anything at the table?” Alicent shakes her head, numb. With a sure nod, Rhaenyra places a hand on her waist, firm but gentle, and leads her out of the hall.
They climb the stairs of the keep silently. Rhaenyra seems to know where she’s going, though Alicent is hopelessly lost. They arrive at a door and Rhaenyra pushes it open, without so much as a glance over her shoulder at her new wife.
The room within glows softly with candlelight. There’s a bottle of wine and two glasses on one of the side tables which flank a truly enormous bed. All of the furniture is finely wrought, looks antique. Rhaenyra sits at the foot of the bed, unbuttoning her collar and leaning down to unlace her boots.
Alicent attempts to mimic the stoicism she’s so often seen Rhaenyra display, arranging her face in as emotionless a mask as she can manage.
“How would you like me?”
Rhaenyra looks up, her brow furrowed. “What?”
Alicent dips her chin, inclining her head haltingly towards the bed. Rhaenyra’s expression slackens.
“Oh gods, no. We aren’t doing that.”
She goes back to unlacing her boots.
Alicent lingers in the threshold, her mouth hanging slightly open. Rhaenyra finally works her shoes off and sheds her jacket, laying it carefully over the back of a chair.
“I—I don’t understand, Captain.”
“You can really stop calling me that,” Rhaenyra says, not looking at her. “We are married now.”
Alicent stays mum. Rhaenyra turns, her face the picture of fatigue.
“This whole night,” she says, “has been so bloody stupid. My uncle is a stupid man, this is a stupid tradition—meaning no offense. I’m just…” She releases a sigh, her shoulders slumping. “I’m exhausted. No one will check for your maiden’s blood on the sheets in the morning. Gods know I shed mine long ago. Let’s just go to bed.”
The looks she gives Alicent is beseeching. Alicent nods once, more of an involuntary jerk than anything.
Rhaenyra stands and rifles through a chest of drawers, drawing a bundle of clothing from within and disappearing through a door on the other side of the room. Alicent hears water running. It occurs to her, after about three minutes of just standing there, that maybe she should do something.
She’s removing her jewelry and gently placing it on the vanity when Rhaenyra emerges from the bathroom, her hairline damp from washing her face. The nightgown she has put on is hemmed past her knees, buttoned at her wrists and collarbones. Even Alicent can tell it’s quite possibly the least sexual item of clothing one could don, excepting maybe a septa’s wimple.
“There was something for you hanging on the door, but wear whatever you like,” Rhaenyra says. Dread pools in Alicent’s stomach.
The nightgown hanging on the back of the bathroom door is silky and sheer and looks incredibly impractical to sleep in. Alicent cringes at the idea of wearing it, even more at the idea of Rhaenyra seeing it and knowing Alicent was meant to wear it. She quickly washes up, stripping off her wedding dress and hanging on the peg next to the nightgown. She decides to sleep in her shift, as it’s both longer and thicker than the alternative—decidedly more modest. It still takes quite a bit of force to get herself out of the bathroom.
Rhaenyra makes no acknowledgement of her reappearance. She’s finger-combing her hair in the mirror above the vanity, waves of silver cascading down her shoulders. Alicent finds herself staring, then looks away, mortified.
She situates herself on the edge of the bed, her fingers sinking into the plush duvet. Based on the rustling she hears behind her, the tug she feels on the covers, Rhaenyra has settled into bed herself. Alicent thinks about laying down but can’t make herself do it.
She’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Rhaenyra to change her mind and go through with the bedding, or tell her to find somewhere else to sleep, or yell at her about something, she doesn’t know exactly what.
Alicent has lived so long with this tension rooted in her body; she doesn’t know how to let it go.
“Do you mind if I put my lamp out?” Rhaenyra asks.
Alicent responds by extinguishing her own, sliding between the covers and turning away so Rhaenyra can see only the back of her head above the blankets. If Rhaenyra is looking at all, which she hasn’t demonstrated much of an inclination towards tonight.
Some sick part of Alicent stings at the rejection. It’s ludicrous, she knows. She’s dreaded this night since she was first informed of the engagement, and now that Rhaenyra gives her an easy out, she acts the role of the jilted lover? She ought to be relieved. She ought to be thankful. But she isn’t.
Her body was all she had to offer, and Rhaenyra doesn’t even want it.
What has she done wrong this time, Alicent wonders, to drive away a woman who, reputation would have it, will sleep with any person with a pulse? Is it her nails? Her faith? Her naivete? Would someone just please tell her what part of her is so hideous, so abjectly horrible, as to render her completely worthless? She knows it’s there—some glaring, inherent flaw—and she’d fix it, she truly would, if someone just told her what it was.
Alicent realizes she’s forgotten to pray, but she can’t very well slip out of bed now. She closes her eyes and silently recites a quick prayer to each of the Seven in turn. Halfway through her invocation of the Warrior, she’s distracted by her wife’s steady breathing. Rhaenyra, her wife, who apparently has very little to trouble her and found sleep all but instantly. Alicent feels a flash of envy, a flash of resentment, a riot of other emotions she can’t even begin to name.
She wraps her arms around her torso and recites every prayer she can remember until she falls into an uneasy sleep.
—
The next morning, following a stilted breakfast with their fathers, Rhaenyra and Alicent depart from the Red Keep. Before she can go, Otto pulls his daughter into a hug, murmuring in her ear instructions about her duty to keep Rhaenyra satisfied, to serve her all manners befitting a wife, to never allow Rhaenyra to become displeased or upset with her. As if Alicent needs any reminder of the noble cause to which her entire life has become forfeit. Her father presses a kiss to the crown of her head and sends her on her way. He will return to the Reach this afternoon; they may not see each other for months. Alicent marvels at how the feeling of loneliness at some point becomes its own sort of company.
Rhaenyra’s uncle Daemon, too hungover to eat with them, tries to catch his niece as she’s leaving, but Rhaenyra brushes his hand off her shoulder and keeps walking. Alicent follows behind, head bowed, certain she’s on the receiving end of some absolutely heinous look at the moment.
Rhaenyra leads her out to the main drive, and Alicent gets her first glimpse of Rhaenyra’s infamous automobile. It’s a sleek two seater, chrome-plated, its convertible top brazenly lowered. The whole body of it flashes silver beneath the midmorning sun. Rhaenyra pulls open the passenger side door and gestures grandly, before apparently getting embarrassed and abandoning the effort. Alicent embarks tentatively, and Rhaenyra slides behind the wheel. With a turn of the key, the engine roars to life, the black leather seats beneath them thrumming with energy. Alicent’s hand tangles in the fabric of her skirt. Rhaenyra puts the car in gear and tears off down the drive.
In all honesty, Rhaenyra probably isn’t driving that quickly nor recklessly. It’s just that Alicent has never been in a convertible before, and Rhaenyra clearly has a destination and isn’t taking any great pains to draw out the journey. Alicent doesn’t recognize any of the streets or neighborhoods blurring past them. Compared to Oldtown, King’s Landing might as well be a different world entirely. The roads twist and turn with very little sense to them, and buildings crowd oppressively along the avenues like maesters clustered around an autopsy table.
Alicent imagines herself becoming hopelessly lost among these winding alleys and is for a brief moment deeply grateful to be in this car with a driver who knows what she’s doing, if only because the breakneck speed at which Rhaenyra insists on traveling carries them through these dire straits faster than any horse and buggy ever could.
They arrive at a townhouse near the peak of the Hill of Rhaenys. Compared to its neighbors, the building is understated—plain, even—but its austerity does little to mask its obvious expense. It’s so much larger than any building at the heart of a major city has any right to be. Rhaenyra pulls into the drive and kills the engine as a burly man steps down from the front stoop. He makes to open Rhaenyra’s door for her, but she waves him away and steps out herself. Smoothly changing directions, the man opens Alicent’s door and offers her an enormous hand. She takes it hesitantly. His grip is surprisingly gentle.
“Harrold, meet Alicent,” Rhaenyra says, rounding the car. “Alicent, this is Harrold Westerling, my—well, I suppose, our— butler.”
“I’m also technically the chauffeur.” Harrold shares a conspiratorial smile with Alicent. “But she can be so precious about who she lets near her baby.”
“Ah well, I suppose you’re trustworthy enough.” Rhaenyra tosses him the keys. “Put her in the garage, will you? I want to get Alicent settled.”
Mr. Westerling inclines his head to Rhaenyra, then Alicent. “Of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Targaryen.”
Alicent imagines she looks like a dimwitted fish in that moment, as her mouth drops open and no words emerge. After a second, Rhaenyra places a light hand on her waist.
“Shall we?”
Startled back to herself, Alicent snaps her mouth shut and nods once. Rhaenyra leads her into the house.
Withdrawing her hand and relying on Alicent to follow her of her own volition, Rhaenyra guides her new wife through a maze of rooms, each grander than the last, though none of them seeming particularly lived in. In the kitchen, she introduces Alicent to a staff much too large for a household of one: a cook, a valet, a gardener, three maids, and a housekeeper, all of whom greet Alicent warmly and address her as Mr. Westerling did. And it’s not as though they’re wrong to do so—it’s just that Alicent can’t hear herself called “Mrs. Targaryen” without developing an overwhelming urge to gnaw at her cuticles until she reaches bone.
Dismissing the staff to return to their work, Rhaenyra leads Alicent up to the second floor. Ascending the staircase, they pass a series of portraits depicting stern-looking men with silver blond hair and purple eyes. Rhaenyra pays them no mind, but Alicent can’t pull her eyes away. She could swear these ancient scions of House Targaryen were watching her traipse through their home, disapproving of every slight move she makes. It reminds her of her childhood back in the Hightower. Perhaps this place could feel like home after all.
Rhaenyra guides her to a room near the end of the hall. Within, gentle sunlight slants through paned windows; through the glass, Alicent spies a view of the gardens down below. The room contains a bed, a chair, and not much else.
“The belongings your father shipped from the Reach have been stowed here,” Rhaenyra says. “I hope it’s alright. We could move you to elsewhere if you find there’s another room more to your liking. Obviously you can redecorate as you see fit.”
Alicent nods silently, stepping into the room to take a survey of it all before turning back to face her wife. “Thank you. And, I suppose, you sleep…?”
“Down the hall, on the left. I thought you might…” Rhaenyra clears her throat. “Well, it’s all the rage these days, for couples to have separate rooms. I thought you would prefer it this way.”
Alicent resists the urge to worry at her bottom lip. “Thank you, Captain. You’re very considerate.”
“Don’t think anyone’s ever accused me of that before.” Rhaenyra gives an awkward laugh. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
Alicent inhales, taking in the unfamiliar scent of her new room. She exhales, her heart battering against her rib cage.
“Actually, if it’s alright, I think I might just remain here for awhile.”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” Rhaenyra steps back from the doorframe. “Do whatever you’d like. Any, uh, plans for the rest of the day?”
“I considered going to the Sept.”
Rhaenyra nods along, clearly trying to prevent a frown from overtaking her expression. “Right. Sure. I could…”—she tilts her head, almost puzzled—“drive you, if you wanted?”
“That’s alright, Captain,” Alicent says. She fears her tone grows colder with every second. “I could use the exercise.”
“Right,” Rhaenyra breathes out, her relief obvious. “Well, I hope you enjoy yourself then. I’ll ask Harrold to accompany you.”
“There’s no need to trouble him.”
“For your safety,” Rhaenyra insists. “It’s a large city; you may get turned around. You’re not in Oldtown anymore.”
No, Alicent supposes, staring about her barren bedroom within a stranger’s house in a city she’d never visited until last month. I’m truly not.
—
Alicent has never had any infatuation with horror stories.
She’s never seen the appeal of gothic novels, refused throughout her entire adolescence to put up with any nonsense about monsters prowling the night or witches secreted in cupboards. The way she sees it, though she would never voice her feelings aloud as such, is that there is enough horror happening every day to real people, inflicted by other real people, without dreaming up a bunch of ridiculous creatures for base entertainment.
And what’s so entertaining about it, really? It’s not entertaining when a boy drowns a kitten just because it can’t fight back, or when a man shouts vulgarities at you from the back of a wagon, or when a sickness sweeps through your city and cuts every family in half. It’s frightening and tragic and takes from you something you barely noticed you had until it was gone. So no, Alicent never sought out scares, not really.
But there wasn’t much for her to do as a child without any companions and she had to occupy her time some how. In this way, tiptoeing discretely after the maids in the Hightower, quiet as a mouse and feeling twice as small, Alicent got her fill of horror stories.
These stories had no made up monsters, but the sheer number of them that concerned husbands was truly horrifying.
The younger maids, those who weren’t yet married, imagined their future husbands as largely pleasant and gallant, perhaps tainted by a certain boy’s imperfections (his low station, his pitiful trade, his less than winsome looks), but on the whole, these girls looked forward to their marriages.
The older maids hardly ever spoke of their husbands without cursing the day they ever allowed him in their general vicinity.
After all this surreptitious listening, the husband began to take on a certain image in Alicent’s mind. He was surly, drunk, quick to anger, and impossible to soothe. He demanded all sorts of things: another beer, all of your wages, one more child, though that last demand was not couched in such terms. In fact, many of the things he demand, which made Alicent’s stomach turn to even hear described, could never result in a child, but he wanted it all nonetheless. A husband was always relentless in his expectations, exacting in his standards, equal parts dictatorial and utterly incompetent.
Alicent needs no further evidence to prove that Rhaenyra is nothing like a husband than the plain truth that the Captain demands absolutely nothing from her at all.
Rhaenyra is rarely home; they see each other once a day at the most and share fewer than twenty words between them. Alone in her wife’s house, Alicent drifts mindlessly through her routine every day, entrenched in a feeling which has become so familiar, she wonders if she should give it a name, if only for convenience’s sake: this impossible sense that she ought to be very happy with how her life has turned out, yet inexplicably isn’t.
When Alicent wakes up in the morning, Rhaenyra is already gone. Alicent breaks her fast in the kitchen, tries briefly to engage the cook or one of the maids in conversation, then grows self-conscious of her own insipidity, how her vapid comments obstruct their work, the great imposition she places on them by her very presence in this house, and retreats to another room.
Seven knows there are plenty of rooms to choose from.
Alicent spends countless hours scrutinizing every corner of Rhaenyra’s townhouse; she simply can’t think of any more suitable way to occupy her time, though she did try. There’s a piano in the drawing room, but she’s always been dreadful at playing and cringes to think of anyone hearing her pitiful attempts at practice. There are art supplies in the solar, but they look brand new and she doesn’t want to ruin them. (Only much later does it occur to Alicent that Rhaenyra might have bought the supplies especially for her. At the time, she didn’t have such an estimate of her wife to ever presume as much.) Alicent’s father shipped along her embroidery materials from home, but to start stitching at random on Rhaenyra’s pillows seems both inappropriate and somewhat insane. And she hates embroidery anyway.
The house also boasts an impressive collection of books. In a room she thinks must be Rhaenyra’s study—though she isn’t brave enough to root through the papers in the desk to be sure—Alicent finds herself captivated by the spine of a particular history. It’s thick, bound in gilded cloth, looks as though it could contain the most valuable knowledge man ever committed to writing. Alicent runs her finger along its upper edge, toying with this fantasy she’s created in her mind, until hears the footsteps of a maid tapping down the hall. She scampers from the study like an inept thief, cheeks flushed and heart racing.
Alicent can’t shake the sense that she is a sort of criminal, an interloper in this house, her presence unwanted and illicit. Yet she also can’t will herself to leave the manse with any frequency. There’s little need for it. She tries to visit the Sept, but it feels wrong to be there too, when she’s disgraced herself so irreparably. When she kneels at an altar or sits among other parishioners, it feels like everyone is staring at her, like they all know what she’s done. She supposes they might all know. Her and Rhaenyra’s wedding was splashed across the front page of every major newspaper in the city, if not the country. Her father’s dearest wish, yet it’s largest impact thus far has been to make his daughter ashamed to show her face in public.
In the end, Alicent proves herself weak. She recognizes that perhaps this is the gods’ will, that this scorn may be her penance, but it pains her beyond what she can endure. It’s bad enough for a woman to attend the Sept without her spouse—it’s worse still if they all know her spouse is a woman of no faith who can’t attend mass because she’s still recovering from a night of drinking.
That would be one’s assumption: that Rhaenyra would be constantly laying about the house, moaning over a hangover. But one would assume incorrectly. Whenever Rhaenyra comes home, always quite late at night, she demonstrates no obvious signs as to the extent of her debauchery. Sometimes she smells of drink, but just as often she smells of sweat or motor oil or an overwhelming variety of perfumes. They don’t discuss it. Rhaenyra says goodnight, disappears upstairs, and is gone before dawn the next morning.
On the perfumed nights, Alicent often stays up long after Rhaenyra goes to bed, pointedly not imagining how her wife might have come to smell like three different women and a man for good measure. She could stay awake all night not imagining it, not resenting it, not caring about it at all, actually, because what does it matter, a tiger can’t change its stripes just because it was financially manipulated by its father into a loveless marriage, and Alicent doesn’t want a tiger anyway, obviously, so long as it isn’t mauling her face off, it’s fine, all fine, it’s all just so perfectly fine.
Alicent still hasn’t cried since the wedding. It just wouldn’t be proper to cry in a stranger’s house.
Nearly a month into the marriage—at a point when Alicent fears she may soon graduate from biting her nails to chewing on the wallpaper, if only to relieve the oppressive boredom—the housekeeper takes pity on her. She approaches Alicent one afternoon to ask if she might be interested in looking over the monthly accounts. And this, Alicent thinks, this is what she’s meant to do. This is a proper wifely duty, one she knows she can handle with ease. Not that Rhaenyra will ever notice, but at least she, Alicent, will know that she hasn’t failed completely in her father’s assignment.
The housekeeper brings her a gigantic leather-bound ledger, and Alicent pores over it at a small desk she moved—by herself, with much huffing and puffing and stupid pride—into her room. Most people might find these accounts dreadfully dull, but for Alicent, they’re a blissful escape; the smallest of actions—following the numbers along their columns and rows, scratching out mistakes and doing her own balancing—excite her more than she can express. They make her feel confident and useful: two feelings that have relentless evaded her throughout her life. And, coincidentally, the ledger just so happens to provide the clearest image she’s yet received of what her wife gets up to when she isn’t at home.
Rhaenyra pays monthly dues to a number of social clubs in the city, including a fencing club and a hunting association. She rents a hangar in a small airfield on the outskirts of town and spares no expense on fuel and maintenance for both her precious car and a personal biplane. She runs up exorbitant tabs at bars and taverns all across King’s Landing, and then there are even larger bills listed beneath those, with vague-sounding titles or no description at all. After finally taking the plunge and sorting through the records in Rhaenyra’s office, Alicent discovers that most of these mystery bills hail from addresses on the Street of Silk, and she stops her sleuthing there. It’s really not necessary for the sake of her calculations to know exactly what brothels her wife frequents.
Just as she constructed an idea of “the husband” from tales she overheard in her youth, Alicent tries now to develop an image of her wife from these accounts. But it all refuses come together. Within her mind, Alicent tries to slot together the woman she met over dinner with the woman that approached her at the luncheon. Then with the woman in the papers, the woman in the ledger, the woman smiling awkwardly at the altar, the woman collapsing with exhaustion in their wedding bed.
None of it fits. Alicent, in truth, has no clue who she’s married to. And if things carry on as they have, she will never be in the same room with her wife long enough to figure it out.
—
Late one night, a month and a half after the wedding, Alicent stares blearily into the depths of a cup of tea, resting her forehead in her hand. The tea went lukewarm ages ago. She’s considering brewing another cup and discovering she completely lacks the motivation necessary when she hears the sound of Rhaenyra’s car pulling up in the drive.
Her first instinct is to retreat to her room so that she won’t have to have the same awkward exchange she always has with Rhaenyra when they bump into each other late at night.
Rhaenyra: “You’re still awake? At this hour?”
Alicent: “I couldn’t sleep.”
Rhaenyra: “Oh. Well. Goodnight.”
Alicent: “Goodnight, Captain.”
Painful. Brutally so.
She’s gathering her cup and saucer to take upstairs when she hears something that stops her in her tracks: voices on the front stoop. Male. Unfamiliar.
Creeping on light feet towards the foyer, Alicent hears someone fiddling with the lock and watches as the door creaks open. There’s a bit of shuffling and then three figures enter the house. One of them, unmistakably, is Alicent’s wife, her silver hair shining faintly in the moonlight. Her arms are braced over the shoulders of two men, neither of whom Alicent recognizes.
“Be quiet,” the taller man whispers. “You’ll wake the entire house.”
“I’m trying, she’s slipping—”
They stumble into the entrance hall, both men panting heavily. Rhaenyra slumps between them, barely supporting her own weight, her eyes heavily lidded and her head lolling sideways. Alarmed, Alicent steps forward, clearing her throat.
“Excuse me.”
The first man who spoke, the one with long curly hair, startles. “Shit. Hello.”
“Can I help you two?” Alicent asks, her voice prim.
The other man shuffles forward, still burdened beneath Rhaenyra’s weight. “We’re sorry to disturb your evening. Are you one of the maids?”
Alicent’s eyebrows arch. “I’m her wife.”
“Her…” The man tilts his head, scratching his cheek absently, then realization dawns in his expression. Alicent supposes she could blame the mistake on his obvious inebriation, but the exasperated look he’s receiving from his partner would indicate that he’s this slow most of the time.
“Oh yes, right, her wife.” The man snaps his fingers. “I remember now. We were at your wedding actually.”
“Who are you?” Alicent asks curtly.
“Harwin Strong,” the curly-haired man answers. “That fool’s Criston. We served with your wife in the Stepstones. We’re her friends.”
Alicent looks to Rhaenyra, whose eyes have fully shut, some drool trailing from the corner of her mouth. Some friends they are, if they allow her to get like this.
“What’s happened to her?”
Criston stammers, “She’s just, well, she’s—”
“She’s just absolutely pissed,” Harwin interrupts. “We’ll put her on the couch, shall we?”
Alicent backs away as the two men drag Rhaenyra into the drawing room and deposit her gently on a settee. Harwin situates a pillow beneath her head and dabs away some of the sweat at her brow with the cuff of his sleeve. Alicent serveils them with caution.
“Does she often get like this?” she asks.
Harwin shakes his head, not looking away from Rhaenyra. “No, not really. Rarely this bad. She can really hold her liquor typically. I think it’s a just a matter of today being…” He looks over his shoulder, expression furtive. “You know.”
Alicent most certainly does not know. “Today?”
Harwin stands, turning from Rhaenyra and lowering his voice. “It’s the anniversary of her mother’s death. She died when Rhaenyra was a girl.”
Alicent’s lips part, her eyes widening. “Oh.”
“We really are sorry to intrude,” Criston says. “We didn’t think it was safe for her to drive herself, her condition being what it is.”
The cogs in Alicent’s brain are grinding so loudly that she barely registers he’s spoken. After a pause, she pulls herself back into the moment.
“No, no, thank you for seeing her home safely. I can…” She swallows, looking down at her wife’s immobile form on the couch. “I believe I can manage from here.”
The men nod and back away towards the foyer. Before Criston crosses into the next room, he turns over his shoulder. “Sorry about the whole maid thing. The ceremony was beautiful.”
“Lovely,” Harwin agrees.
“Thank you,” Alicent says, without a speck of gratitude in her tone. “You may leave now.”
The men depart from the drawing room, and after a moment Alicent hears the front door shut behind them. She exhales, clutching a hand to her chest. Her mind is racing, trying to process this revelation, trying to come up with a plan. Her chin jerks up when she hears a groan from the couch.
Rhaenyra, whom Alicent had thought was completely unconscious, is evidently not. Her eyes are glazed and unfocused but open, her brow creased.
“Well, that was bloody embarrassing.”
Recovering from her initial shock, Alicent says, “Stay there. I’ll go get you some water.”
She hurries off to the kitchen; when she returns, Rhaenyra has ignored her instructions completely. She’s trying to get up, struggling like she’s never used her own limbs before. Alicent sinks onto an ottoman, setting the glass of water on an end table and reaching out to press firmly against Rhaenyra’s shoulder.
“No, no, you need to lie down.”
Rhaenyra vigorously shakes her head. “I want to go to bed.”
“You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I won’t fucking hurt myself,” Rhaenyra spits. “I’m not a child. I don’t need your help.”
Alicent removes her hand, feeling like a toddler who’s been scolded for trying to touch the stove. She clenches her jaw, frustration stopping her throat. Rhaenyra, for all her indignance, gives up on trying to stand, choosing instead to slump deeper into the couch and scowl at the ceiling like it did something heinous to her recently. Alicent takes a deep breath.
“I can go wake Mr. Westerling if you’d like,” she tries. Her wife gives no response. “Rhaenyra.”
“Oh, now you’ll call me that, will you?” Rhaenyra’s tone drips with bitter sarcasm. “And you’ll fetch me drinks, and tuck me into bed? What a dutiful wife I’ve got myself.”
Alicent draws back like she’s been slapped. She attempts another deep breath but can feel her grip on her irritation loosening.
“That’s not very nice.”
“I’ve never fancied myself a particularly nice person.” Rhaenyra shifts her head, fixing Alicent with an impassive stare. “I lied to you, you know.”
“Oh?” Alicent asks. “About what?”
“My father never threatened to cut me off if I didn’t marry you,” Rhaenyra says. “Poor old fool wouldn’t have had the heart to do it anyway. And then do what, leave the fortune to Daemon? He’d sooner throw it in the sea.”
Alicent frowns. “Then why do it? Why let yourself be shackled like this?” To me, she thinks.
Rhaenyra sighs gruffly. “The morning after that dinner, my father took me into his office, and he looked at me and said, ‘Your mother would’ve wanted you to settle down. She wanted you to have a family more than anything. And I know you’d chop the balls off any man I set you up with, but maybe you’ll be nicer to the Hightower girl.’”
Alicent considers this for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. She can feel Rhaenyra’s vacant gaze searing against the side of her face.
“You should have told him that you aren’t a particularly nice person.”
There’s a long pause, then Rhaenyra lets out a loud bark of laughter.
“Maybe I should have” she says, amused. As she looks back to ceiling, her expression sobers. “He was right though.”
“About what? That you’d chop the balls off—”
“About my mother,” Rhaenyra says. “She’d be ashamed of me”
“I’m sure that isn’t true.”
Rhaenyra purses her lips. “She cared desperately about family. Gods, she died for it. Died in the birthing bed, trying to give my father the son he always wanted.”
She looks again to Alicent, her expression more contemplative now, her eyes glassy.
“I should’ve been born a boy. Everything would’ve been much simpler. My father might understand me. My mother wouldn’t be dead. You wouldn’t disdain me so.”
“I don’t disdain you,” Alicent says. Rhaenyra looks like she might start laughing again.
“Come off it. I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Indignation swells in Alicent’s chest. She’s always known Rhaenyra to be a bit self-centered, but this is beyond the pale. Glaring at Rhaenyra’s stupid smirk, she allows herself the slightest vent for her temper.
“No,” Alicent says, moderating her tone closely. “You’re wrong. The worst thing that ever happened to me was when my mother died.” She stares Rhaenyra down, forcing back the part of her that desperately wants to be quiet. “I was fifteen. It was a spring sickness.”
There is a long silence. Rhaenyra’s expression softens into something like disbelief.
“I was fifteen too.” Her tone is hushed. She shakes her head in frustration. “How do you stand it?”
Alicent raises her eyebrows, caught off guard by the question. Inhaling, she averts her gaze to give it thought.
“I live my life how she would’ve wished,” she says finally. “I keep my faith and mind my father and imagine her looking down on me. Guiding me.”
“My mother would’ve hated everything I’ve done with my life,” Rhaenyra says. “She loathed my obsession with flying, would’ve absolutely forbidden me from enlisting. She had certain ideas about a woman’s role. I bet she would’ve loved to have a daughter like you—all proper and decent and everything.”
Alicent doesn’t have a good response to that. Rhaenyra doesn’t seem to require one from her anyway.
“She was incredibly brave, though,” Rhaenyra continues. “Until the very end, utterly unyielding. So strong, and gentle, and wise…” She pauses, brow furrowing. “I know it makes me a horrible person, but sometimes I hate her for dying. I didn’t in the moment; I was all weepy and everything like you’re supposed to be. But as I get older, I find myself resenting her. For leaving me and my father. For not preparing me to live without her.”
As Rhaenyra talks, Alicent feels the anger drain from her body, replaced by a mad desire to lay a comforting hand on her wife’s shoulder, to cradle her jaw and wipe away the single furious tear dripping down her pale cheek. She resists the urge, but barely.
“I don’t think you’re horrible,” Alicent says. “Hate and love often go hand in hand. You must truly love someone first, in order to hate them.” She looks away, unable to bear the weight of Rhaenyra’s regard as she talks about this. “When my mother died, I felt like she abandoned me. I wondered how she could do it. Leave me here, alone. And it was completely irrational, but I just wanted to know why she had to go. Why I wasn’t enough for her to stay.”
When Alicent turns back, her wife is looking at her in a way she never has before: it’s as though Rhaenyra is recognizing her for the very first time.
“Yes. Yes, exactly. I know what you mean.” She sounds much more lucid now, like the haze of drink has all but completely lifted from her mind. Rhaenyra inclines her chin tentatively. “Might I ask, in all your praying, have you found any answers to your questions?”
Alicent shakes her head. “Not yet, I’m afraid.”
“Well,” Rhaenyra says. “You’ll just have to keep at it then.”
“Yes.” Alicent, feeling tears threaten to spill over the corners of her eyes, blinks rapidly to disperse them. She brushes her hands against the skirt of her dressing gown and wills herself to stand from the ottoman.
“Drink up, alright?” She points to the glass of water on the end table. “I’ll go wake Mr. Westerling.”
“No, please don’t,” Rhaenyra groans. “I burden that man too much already. Let him sleep.”
“You won’t be able to manage those stairs on your own.”
Rhaenyra looks away, almost bashful. “You could help me. Couldn’t you?”
Eyebrows raised, Alicent replies, “As your dutiful wife, I suppose I’m honorbound to do so.” There’s little malice in it. She reaches out to sling Rhaenyra’s arm over her shoulder. “Come on, up you get.”
Rhaenyra lurches to her feet; for all her mind may be clear, her body still lacks sober coordination. She leans heavily on Alicent, her nose bumping against her wife’s throat.
“Sorry I’m such a dick,” Rhaenyra murmurs.
Alicent shushes her, and they begin to make their way towards the stairs.
—
When the next morning dawns, Alicent assumes something must have changed. They must be in a new phase of their marriage now, in which Rhaenyra confides in her, in which they support each other, in which they lead a shared life built together.
Rhaenyra’s empty bed and the vase of flowers waiting on the kitchen table informs her of her folly. There’s note folded before the flowers, written on formal stationary bearing her wife’s name and the Targaryen sigil.
Won’t happen again. You were too kind. –R
Running the pads of her fingers along the blunt edge of the cardstock, Alicent wonders what it is exactly that won’t happen again: Rhaenyra coming home in a drunken stupor, or Alicent and her wife sharing a genuine moment of human vulnerability with one another.
Alicent spends the rest of the day fuming. She spent so long moping and weeping and tearing herself into pieces over this marriage. She pushed herself to conform to every expectation, molded herself into a model perfect wife, and all for this wastrel who cares nothing for her, who cares nothing for propriety or respect or courtesy. Alicent is no longer depressed, no longer anxious, no longer desperate for any small bit of approval Rhaenyra might deign to offer her. Now she’s just furious.
When Rhaenyra arrives home that evening, even later than usual, Alicent is waiting for her. Seated at the kitchen table, the vase of flowers across from her, Alicent watches silently as her wife comes in from the garage. Rhaenyra doesn’t notice; why is Alicent not surprised? When her wife turns and starts up the stairs, Alicent lets out a small cough.
“Rhaenyra.”
She whips around; her face folds in confusion. “Alicent. Good evening.”
“Are you drunk?”
Rhaenrya shakes her head. “No, no, I’ve learned my lesson. I just went for a flight over the countryside today. The Kingswood is lovely at this stage in the season. Anyway, I’m quite tired. Goodnight.”
“Wait,” Alicent calls, before she can mount another step. “We need to talk.”
Rhaenyra turns again, her expression the picture of innocent confusion. “What about?”
Alicent gives a pointed look to the vase in front of her. Rhaenyra remains steadfast in her befuddlement.
“The flowers? I had Martyn pick them this morning. Do you not like them?”
She didn’t even pick the flowers herself. What is wrong with this woman?
Alicent responds evenly, “What I don’t like is waking up to find that my wife—who just last night was drunk to the point of incoherence—has sneaked out of the house before the crack of dawn. Without so much as a word.”
Rhaenyra’s mouth drops open as she searches for a response.
“Did you read the note?”
“Of course I read your ridiculous note,” Alicent spits. She wants to push the vase off the table, watch the porcelain shatter and the water crash over the floor. Maybe then Rhaenyra will given her a reaction, an emotion, anything. “The note explains nothing. You can’t just stumble home drunk and expect me to be placated by a note.”
“It won’t happen again,” Rhaenyra insists.
“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I swear, you give no consideration to what it’s like to be your wife—”
“I told you I didn’t want a wife,” Rhaenyra interrupts, irritation leaking into her tone. “We said we wouldn’t try to control one another.”
“This isn’t about control,” Alicent says, aware her voice is rising but unwilling to curtail it. “This is about decency. You are a married woman, whether you wish it or not, and the way you choose to comport yourself is entirely unbecoming. Spending all your days horsing around the city with your soldier friends, drowning yourself in drink, spitting in the face of duty out the window of your absurd automobile—”
“So it was all a lie then?”
Alicent falters, brows drawing together. “What?”
Rhaenyra’s jaw is clenched tight.
“When you said, last night, that you didn’t disdain me. Evidently you do. You would lie to a woman grieving her mother—how’s that for decency?”
Alicent studies her wife’s face. She no longer looks confused, but she isn’t angry either; her expression conveys something more akin to bruised pride—as if this were betrayal she’d been anticipating, but one that stings nonetheless.
“It wasn’t a lie,” Alicent says. “I don’t hate you, Rhaenyra. It’s just that I can’t go on like this anymore.”
“How does what I choose to do with my life burden you in any way? I provide everything for you. I allow you all the freedom in the world to do whatever you want, yet you would strip that same freedom from me?”
Alicent’s irritation flares up again. “You call this freedom? I’m confined to this house—”
“You could leave this house whenever you wanted—”
“And do what?” Alicent demands; Rhaenyra falls silent. “I don’t have a posse of men to drink with me in ale houses and carry me home when I embarrass myself. I don’t have a single friend in this city. I can’t show my face in a sept without garnering scorn and derision. I can’t fly a gods-damned airplane! And my wife, for whom I must reside in this horrendous town, for whom I abandoned everyone, everything I ever knew, for whom I destroyed any scrap of a good reputation I ever laid claim to—she barely acknowledges me. I’m an awkward fixture in her home. A mismatched cushion. A broken lamp. She’ll seek out all manner of other company and will never give me the time of day.”
Silence settles over the dimly lit kitchen. Rhaenyra grips the bannister, staring at the wood grain beneath her fingers with indecipherable emotion. Alicent’s chest is heaving. She’s standing; she doesn’t know when she stood up.
Descending the steps, Rhaenyra murmurs, “I didn’t know you felt this way. I thought you would prefer it if I was absent—”
“Were you truly thinking of my preference?” Alicent asks. She isn’t willing to let go of the anger yet. “Or did you allow your own insatiable desires to guide you, as you always have?”
Rhaenyra’s head snaps up, fury lining her expression. “What do you desire, Alicent?”
“What?”
“What do you want?” she repeats. “And you can’t say that you want to be a good wife or please the Seven or anything like that. What is it that you desire, for you and you alone?”
All of sudden, the urge to pick at her cuticles is overwhelming.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Fine.” Rhaenyra strides closer, leaning over the opposite side of the table. “Let me try another. If you bear me no disdain, why then do you act so afraid of me? You flinch whenever I enter a room. You treat me like a loaded rifle that might fire on you at any moment.”
“Because I don’t know you! You are all but a stranger to me, yet I reside in your house, hundreds of miles from my only home, my only family. I’m utterly at your mercy. You don’t understand the power you wield over me.”
“I would never exercise that power to hurt you. You must know that.”
Rhaenyra’s ire can not entirely mask the genuine hurt in her voice. Alicent draws back, allows her hackles to lower, her temper to calm somewhat.
“I do,” she says haltingly. “I may not know much of you, but I know you are not sadistic by nature. But I also know you to be inconsiderate, flippant, and spoiled.”
Rhaenyra’s hands curl into fists against the tabletop.
“Not many people would allow their wife to speak to them like this.”
“Do you plan to scold me for it?” Alicent asks. “Punish me somehow?”
“No!” Rhaenyra insists. “I wouldn’t—”
“Then you prove yourself more charitable than many people,” Alicent interjects. Her wife regards her with vexation. “I could have been married to someone much worse, I recognize this. For that, you have my gratitude.”
Rhaenyra scoffs. “I would not ask for your gratitude just because I am a halfway decent person.”
“You have it, nonetheless.”
Alicent forces herself to breathe, to clear the haze of rage from her mind, to come back to herself.
“And you have my admiration. While I may not approve of every decision you make, I recognize that you are a remarkable individual. You are loyal and devoted to those you love, and you have a great capacity for care and humor when you are in the right spirits. It is for those reasons, despite your faults, that I do not disdain you.”
Another kind of silence settles over them now; again Rhaenyra is lost for words. She withdraws her hands from the table, slipping them instead inside the pockets of her trousers.
“That is all very kind of you to say. I did not realize you were paying me such close attention.”
“It seems one could fill libraries with everything you don’t realize,” Alicent says bitterly. As the silence drags on, Rhaenyra’s bearing unchanged, she continues, “You need not return the sentiment. I know you bear no great admiration for me.”
Rhaenyra bites her lip. “I will confess to not always understanding you. There are certain things about you… your faith, for instance, or your nerves… that escape me entirely. And I must admit, I truly believed you hated me with all your heart.”
Something in the way Rhaenyra admits this has Alicent’s lip twitching into a half-smile.
“With only a fraction of my heart, in truth.”
Allowing a light laugh, Rhaenyra says, “Well, that’s something, isn’t it? We can build a relationship on a fraction, if we both put in the effort. I can see now how I have… neglected to contribute my share of the effort. Perhaps I have been inconsiderate. I… apologize.”
“Those words seem unfamiliar in your mouth.”
“I suppose they are.” Rhaenyra shrugs. “When one is so infrequently wrong, opportunities to practice apology seldom present themselves. That was a joke, to be clear.”
“I got that.” Alicent looks down to her hands. “And I accept your apology.”
It’s something of an incredible relief to say that, to allow this fury she’s brandished like a knife to clatter to the floor. Rhaenyra seems relieved as well; her shoulders drop, her fingers coming to rest on top of a chair and rubbing mindlessly against the wood.
“Well then,” she says. “I guess… I may not be an expert on the subject, but I understand apologies alone are not enough to resolve a conflict. For that, there must be action, as well as words. How do you see us moving forward?”
Suddenly Alicent is speechless. She hadn’t thought about what she’d do if she got this far. Mainly she’d envisioned packing her bags and returning to Oldtown in disgrace once Rhaenyra kicked her to the curb for daring to question her. The few times her life that she ever put up any resistance to the existence arranged for her by others—mainly her father—the conversations didn’t end with negotiation or compromise. Typically, they ended with a threatening hand and poisonous silence.
“Oh, well,” Alicent mumbles. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t back down now,” Rhaenyra chides. “I’m being unduly generous at the moment; my friends wouldn’t recognize me.”
“I truly don’t wish to control you.” Alicent can feel all the progress she just made slipping away beneath her feet, like soil eroded by a river current. “I know I have no right to dictate how you spend your time—”
“But, as my wife, you are owed some of that time for yourself.” Rhaenyra watches her gently; if she’s confused by the sudden shift in demeanor, she’s kind enough not to mention it. “Would you like it if I was around the house more often?”
“I…”
In a matter of seconds, everything has gone back to how it should be. Rhaenyra is confident, in charge, and Alicent is a stammering, wilting fool. But now Rhaenyra looks to her, asks her for her honesty. She can give it then, yes? Because she’s been asked directly. Not because she wants so badly it could burn a hole through her chest.
“I’d appreciate it, yes.”
“Alright,” Rhaenyra says. “How about we do tea then, tomorrow afternoon? We can work out where we go from there.”
“I’d like that,” Alicent murmurs.
“Would you? Really?”
Meeting her wife’s eye, Alicent nods. She returns the question. “Would you ? Really?”
“I think it sounds delightful.”
It isn’t obviously a lie, which Alicent supposes is good enough.
Then Rhaenyra continues, “But I must ask you to do something for me as well.”
Of course. Nothing without a price. “Yes?” Alicent prompts. What could it be, the demand Rhaenyra finally makes of her? Does this mean she’s a true husband now, if all of a sudden she has caveats and conditions and requirements?
“I want you to think about what you desire,” Rhaenyra says. “Really consider it. Find something that would bring you joy—completely selfish joy, that isn’t about anyone else—and indulge in it. To the best of your ability. Do you think you can manage that?”
Oh. A strange request indeed. Distinctly un-husband-like.
Alicent gives the words their due consideration. “Maybe not all in one day. But I can try.”
“That’s all I ask.” Rhaenyra grins shyly. “Now, may I go to bed? I wasn’t lying about being tired.”
Alicent exhales a small laugh. “You may.”
Rhaenyra groans in relief and begins to head back upstairs. Before she can get too far, Alicent realizes she has one last thing that she must say, that she just can’t hold inside anymore, lest it fester and spread like a sickness.
“Rhaenyra?” she calls.
Her wife turns back, gaze expectant.
“I meant it when I said I have no desire to control you. I’ve accustomed myself to the idea that this marriage will be untraditional. So I’m going to say something now and then we need never discuss it again.”
Rhaenyra quirks her brow. “Alright?”
Alicent takes a deep breath.
“Just don’t get pregnant. It will be impossible to explain.”
In the aftermath of Alicent’s words, Rhaenyra’s expression shifts many times, too rapidly to entirely distinguish: confusion, surprise, embarrassment—something sorrowful, like pity, which Alicent reviles. Nevertheless, she takes it all in, refusing to look away.
Finally Rhaenyra, bottom lip snagged between her teeth, offers Alicent a solemn nod. She responds in kind. Then Alicent’s wife turns away and heads upstairs to bed.