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one wedding isn’t enough for me. i want to propose
again & again. on a Wednesday because
you did the dishes. On a Thursday because
we woke up next to each other again. say yes.
say less. I’ll be on one knee asking you
to share in the delight of knowing each other.
let’s get married because Chicago. Because
St. Louis is a city on a map. because your name
is my favourite word.
José Olivarez, ‘Let’s Get Married’ (2022)
I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you,
Nor can imagination form a shape
Besides yourself to like of.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (III.i)
“I think we should do it.”
Rhaenyra paused mid mouthful of dinner, and tried, with no little amount of panic, to think of what Alicent could be referring to. After a few seconds, with no recollections forthcoming, she pursed her lips.
“It?” she repeated.
“Yes,” Alicent said, not looking up, pushing her own food around her plate. “That thing. We spoke about.”
“Is this a…sex thing?” Rhaenyra asked tentatively, though again she could recall no such things being discussed—not recently, anyway. “Because I feel like we’ve actually done most of what there is to do.”
Alicent huffed, glaring at her plate. Rhaenyra bit back a smile.
“No, Rhaenyra,” she said, a little tersely, then took a deep breath. “We should get married.”
Rhaenyra felt her jaw actually drop, cartoonishly. The fork in her hand dropped too, clattering loudly enough that Alicent looked up. Her face was flushed. Rhaenyra stared at her, feeling herself break out into a wide, face-splitting grin.
“Is this because of what that woman said to me at the last concert?” she asked. “Because I have thought about it and I really don’t think she was flirting, Alicent.”
Alicent glared at her.
“No, it is not about that,” she said snappishly. Rhaenyra felt her smile only widen. She got up.
“What is it about then?” she asked, walking over to her side of the dinner table. At Alicent’s disbelieving look, she added: “Come on, humour me.”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said slowly. “This is the worst possible response to a proposal—”
“Well, don’t take this the wrong way,” Rhaenyra said. “But it hasn’t been a very good proposal.”
Alicent looked at her for a moment, then plunged her head into her hands—rather dramatically, Rhaenyra thought.
“Oh, Gods,” she mumbled into her hands, only just audibly. “Fine. Do you want to?”
“Of course I want to,” Rhaenyra said simply. “Not least for tax reasons.”
“That’s what I thought too!” Alicent protested. “But then you had to bring that bloody—woman into it—”
“That was a joke,” Rhaenyra said, although the way that Alicent had looked at one of her well-wishers the week before was not actually that funny.
“Well, I’m not joking.”
“I’m not either.”
They looked at each other for a moment. Rhaenyra was still smiling. She hadn’t stopped since Alicent had first said it, the most ridiculous word in the world. And now she was thinking of the other one.
“Wife,” she murmured.
Alicent’s reaction was impossibly immediate. She went white, then pink, the colour dusting her cheeks. Rhaenyra leaned out to touch one, gently.
“That sounds quite nice, doesn’t it?” she said throatily.
“Yes,” Alicent whispered.
“It is a prehistoric ritual where everybody promises fidelity forever,” Rhaenyra said musingly.
Alicent’s lips pulled up in a smile.
“Which is maybe the most horrifying word I ever heard of,” she added.
Rhaenyra smiled again. “Yes,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Yes.” She leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. “For tax reasons, I’ll marry you.”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said, very quietly.
“Hmm?”
“It’s not just for tax reasons,” she said. She made it sound like a confession, which was so absurd that Rhaenyra couldn’t help but laugh.
“Gods,” she said. “Anyone would think you loved me or something.”
Alicent tried to glare. She failed miserably. Rhaenyra’s grin widened.
“I do love you,” Alicent told her. “Even when you’re being how you are now.”
“Good,” Rhaenyra said. “Double barrelled?”
Alicent’s nose wrinkled. “Bit naff.”
“Well, I’m not taking your name,” Rhaenyra said.
Alicent snorted. “I’m aware that I’m a lowly Hightower—”
“Not what I meant—”
“But I quite like my own, too. And it’s such a hassle. Changing names on credit cards.”
“It’s settled then,” Rhaenyra said. “No name changing necessary. Business as usual.”
Alicent looked at her for a moment. Then she stood up and, quite without ceremony, took her in her arms.
“Oh,” Rhaenyra let out, tightening her arms around her waist in response and resting her chin on her shoulder. They stood there for a couple of seconds. Then something occurred to her.
“Alicent,” she said, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. “Were you—nervous?”
Alicent let out an affronted noise. “I think it’s fairly normal to be nervous about—”
“Oh, baby,” Rhaenyra said, laughing properly now.
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said, a slight whine slipping into her tone. “Don’t be—that’s not—”
“Then?”
“I just thought—you know, nothing is a foregone conclusion,” she replied, voice lowering into a grumble. “It would be a little stupid for me to assume—”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra tried to say seriously, but the effect was undermined by the fact that she was still laughing. “You know what they say about assuming.”
Alicent pulled back slightly to whack her shoulder.
“Keep this up and no dessert for you,” she said warningly.
“Dessert?” Rhaenyra echoed with surprise. “On a Tuesday? What’s the occasion?”
Alicent coloured. “For fuck’s sake,” she said, half exasperated, half embarrassed. “The occasion is proposing, Rhaenyra.”
“Oh,” Rhaenyra said dumbly, then grinned. “There is that.”
“Yes, there is. But I suppose if it’s so unremarkable to you,” Alicent said, pulling away, “then you won’t mind if I crack into the chocolate cake from Blackwaters alone—”
“Hang on,” she yelped, grabbing for Alicent’s waist, “Blackwaters chocolate cake—”
“Yes,” Alicent said primly, though she didn’t resist Rhaenyra’s grip. “For one.”
“No—”
“Yes.”
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said solemnly, tightening her hold on her and ducking to look her straight in the eye. “My darling. My world.”
Alicent rolled her eyes. “Rhaenyra—”
“Won’t you please—”
“You just love to lay it on thick, don’t you?”
“—share some perfect Blackwaters chocolate cake with your fiancée?”
The word had the exact effect that Rhaenyra anticipated it would. Alicent went a little slack in her hold, the faux-irritated look vanishing from her face and replaced by plain, unrestrained happiness. It was an expression Rhaenyra had been working, tirelessly, at uncovering as often as possible for the past several years, bringing it into the light like a particularly precious stone. To have prompted it with such ease caused a flower of triumph to bloom warmly in Rhaenyra’s chest.
“I love you,” she told her sincerely. “So much.”
Alicent, rather preposterously, blushed.
“Yes, well,” she replied, averting her gaze, still smiling. “Perhaps I could find it in my heart to give you a slice.”
Later that night, Rhaenyra was just about drifting off when she felt Alicent fidgeting beside her.
“Rhaenyra,” she whispered into the darkness. “Are you awake?”
Rhaenyra let out a grumbled sound in reply that she hoped would effectively communicate that she was awake but didn’t actually want to be.
“I need to ask you something,” Alicent murmured.
“Can you ask me tomorrow?” Rhaenyra replied in a mumble.
“No,” Alicent said.
“Fine,” Rhaenyra said. “Ask me then.”
“Will you marry me?”
At this, Rhaenyra cracked an eye open. Alicent’s face wasn’t visible in the darkness, but even in her confusion Rhaenyra could imagine it: earnest, maybe a little bashful.
“Didn’t we already do that today?” she asked.
“I didn’t ask properly,” Alicent said.
“I’m pretty sure ‘properly’ is anything that gets you the answer you were looking for. Or were you angling for a rejection?”
“Rhaenyra.”
“Alicent.”
“I didn’t even get you a ring,” Alicent said. She sounded mournful now.
Rhaenyra gave a little snort. “Were you planning to go down on one knee?”
“Maybe!” Alicent replied. “I don’t know! Don’t you—”
“Don’t I what?”
“Wish I hadn’t—just, I don’t know, come out and said it like that?”
She opened both of her eyes now, turning on her side to face Alicent.
“No,” Rhaenyra said firmly. “It was good the first time.”
“But—”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said, taking Alicent’s face in her hands.
“Yes what?”
“Yes it was,” Rhaenyra said. “It was perfect. And yes I will. Marry you. But you didn’t have to ask me again.”
“What if I just want to keep asking?”
“Then keep asking,” Rhaenyra said with a grin, “and I’ll keep saying yes, baby.”Alicent’s expression wavered, unsure. “Rhaenyra—” she began, but Rhaenyra didn’t want to hear anything else. She leaned in and kissed her, soundly.
“Yes,” she whispered against her lips, then pushed at Alicent’s shoulder so that she was lying on her back and crawled up over her. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—”
Four days and an entire Blackwaters chocolate cake later, Rhaenyra returned home from a rehearsal to the dulcet tones of the Beastie Boys, audible before she had even opened the front door.
This in and of itself was a slightly concerning development: the Beastie Boys had fought not only for their right to party but for Alicent’s right to blast them at full volume whenever she was stressed. Rhaenyra had imagined that a post-engagement glow would last for at least a week, but it seemed she was sorely mistaken. She left her things at the door and went straight into the kitchen to make two cups of tea. After a moment’s thought, she placed three biscuits on a plate and, with some impressive balancing, managed to get everything into the study, where Alicent was sitting.
“Hello darling,” she said slowly, barely audible over the music, as she set Alicent’s mug on the desk. “Good day?”
“Hi,” Alicent said, then promptly continued to mumble the lyrics to Root Down and scroll through the web page she had up on the computer. Rhaenyra looked at the monitor, then at the others on the desk—they had three, which she felt was excessive but Alicent insisted she found useful when going through sheet music. After a moment she realised that each of them was showing the same web page.
“Alicent,” she said. “What—is happening?”
“What does it look like?” Alicent said a little peevishly, then, seeming to realise immediately that she was taking out her frustration on the wrong person, she added in a conciliatory tone: “Thank you for the tea.”
“You’re welcome,” said Rhaenyra. “And it looks like you’re on the same website across three separate screens.”
“Well, I want to triple my chances,” Alicent said, as though this was very obvious.
“Right,” Rhaenyra agreed with a nod. “Your chances of what, exactly?”
“Booking this bloody venue,” she retorted, then took a rather irritable sip of her tea. “Is this the peppermint?”
“Of course,” Rhaenyra said in reply, then squinted at one of the monitors. “Is this—is that the website for the Water Gardens?”
“Yes,” Alicent said bitterly. “And it’s stupid, unintuitive, and devoid of a single useful person working for it—”
Rhaenyra wasn’t sure what exactly the good people of House Martell had done to earn Alicent’s ire, but she pushed the plate of biscuits subtly forward in an attempt to quell it slightly in this moment.
“I didn’t know you could even use the Water Gardens as a venue,” she said.
“Well, apparently you can’t,” Alicent replied, taking up a biscuit and then biting into it with great malice. “The man had the cheek to tell me that it’s booked up for the next seven years, and then ask me if I wanted to make a reservation, as if I was going to put off my bloody wedding just so—”
“Hold on,” Rhaenyra interrupted, eyes widening. “This is for us?”
“No, it’s for my other wedding, Rhaenyra,” Alicent shot back with a glare.
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said helplessly. “Why on Earth are you booking the Water Gardens for our wedding?”
The word came out a little awkwardly. The past few days had brought with them a sort of thrill, certainly, but it was one that felt—not illicit, but definitely secret. They hadn’t yet told anyone, or really spoken about it at all. Instead, they’d been staring at each other every evening in wonderment, disbelieving, both knowing exactly what the other was thinking. And then one of them would reach over to the other, across the sofa, in the kitchen, and they’d be having the most energetic sex they’d had in months. Rhaenyra had been thoroughly enjoying this. Now, though, it was occurring to her that maybe it was not enough for Alicent, who was a notorious planner, and sat in front of her now, with their three stupid monitors, the same photograph of the Water Gardens on each one. On the stereo, the song had changed. Oh my God, it’s a mirage , Ad-Rock declared. I’m telling y’all, it’s sabotage.
“Because,” Alicent replied, seemingly just as baffled as Rhaenyra, though clearly for different reasons, “it’s the one you want to get married at.”
Rhaenyra frowned, partly in confusion, and partly in affront, as Alicent’s tone had turned slightly accusing.
“I’m sorry?”
“This is your wedding venue,” Alicent informed her, gesturing at the monitors. “Your dream wedding venue.”
“Is it?” Rhaenyra responded.
“Oh my Gods,” Alicent said, “are you trying to be obtuse—”
“No!” she yelped. “No, I’m not. I just truly don’t—I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely venue, I’ve always enjoyed going when I’m in—”
“No!” Alicent exclaimed. “Rhaenyra. Do you not remember the fucking—sleepover?”
She blinked. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Alicent,” she said. “Is this a sleepover before or after the beginning of our relationship—”
“Before. I don’t call you staying over a sleepover—”
“Well, I do, so—”
“It was when we were—I don’t know, it was—we were in lower sixth, it was just before our exams—”
“When we were sixteen,” Rhaenyra said slowly. “Alicent, we had sleepovers practically every week when we were sixteen.”
“But this one we—” Alicent cut herself short, ran a stressed hand through her hair. Rhaenyra thought distantly, as she always did, how beautiful she looked, even—or perhaps especially—when she was seconds away from erupting. Like a volcano. Perfect. Terrifying. “We spoke about, I don’t know, dream weddings. All that nonsense. Laena said she wanted to get married at home, in a Vera Wang dress, and you as maid of honour—”
“That was nice of her,” Rhaenyra said. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Alicent said.
“Surely not nothing. I’d never have let you off the hook.”
“I made an excuse. To leave. I went to the bathroom.”
“Why?”
“Because you said I’d be your maid of honour.”
“I’d have thought you’d be flattered.”
“I was,” Alicent said. “But I wanted…” she trailed off. Rhaenyra felt the ellipses like hail. Her heart ached so suddenly she thought it might fall out of her chest.
“And that was my dream venue, was it?” she said, moving closer to Alicent. “The Water Gardens?”
“Yes,” Alicent said. The tension in her body was easing slightly. Rhaenyra had always marvelled at how her own presence had the capacity to impact Alicent’s in this way, easing away the troubled parts of her, distilling them out. She had never thought she could do such good for another human being. But then, she thought—it was the same human being who did such good for her. And did this human being even care to marry her in the Water Gardens?
“I can’t believe you don’t remember,” Alicent said with a sigh, a little more humorously now, leaning back into Rhaenyra’s hands, which she’d rested on her shoulders. “You went on and on about it—”
“Sounds like me,” Rhaenyra said, dipping her face into the curve of Alicent’s shoulder. “But you do realise I was sixteen, don’t you? I can’t think of many things I wanted at sixteen that I still want now.” She paused, and nudged her nose against the side of Alicent’s neck with a smile. “Apart from you, of course.”
“And Marmite in your sandwiches,” Alicent added.
“And Marmite in my sandwiches,” Rhaenyra agreed.
There was a pause.
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said.
“Yeah,” she said. Then: “It’s beautiful, though.”
“I had good taste at sixteen,” Rhaenyra replied by way of agreement. “What would you have said?”
“Hmm?”
“Your dream venue,” she said.
“Probably somewhere ridiculous,” Alicent replied. “The Starry Sept or something, I don’t know.”
Rhaenyra stifled a grin at this. Alicent’s childhood devotion to the Seven could be very funny at times, but poking too much fun could invoke ire at others, and she had a feeling that right now would fall into the latter category. Instead she said: “And now?”
“And now what?”
“And now where is your dream wedding to take place?” Rhaenyra asked, taking a hold of the back of the desk chair and spinning it so that they were looking at each other.
“I don’t know,” Alicent admitted.
“So you’ve spent this afternoon thinking all about my dream wedding,” Rhaenyra pointed out. “And not very much about yours. Is that right?”
Alicent flushed at this.
“My dream wedding is yours,” she said, which was so genuinely romantic that Rhaenyra thought she might swoon, even with the way she was asserting it with something like irritation.
“Good gods,” she murmured. “Where did I find you?”
“The Central Regional Youth Orchestra of Westeros,” Alicent replied, but she was smiling.
“Oh yes,” Rhaenyra said, smiling back. “That’s it.” She leaned in and kissed her, slowly. Alicent sighed into her mouth. “Alicent,” she said, drawing back. “Do you actually want to get married at the Water Gardens?”
Alicent blinked, as though surprised by the question.
“I don’t know,” she said again. “They’re nice, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said. “But I didn’t ask that.”
Alicent hesitated, considering.
“I think—” she began, then stopped.
“What?” Rhaenyra prompted. “Why’d you stop?”
“I don’t want you to be upset,” she said.
“I’m not going to be upset.”
“Because I want to marry you, Rhaenyra,” she said seriously, as though this was still in question.
“I know that,” Rhaenyra said, as evenly as she could, tamping down on the girlish giggle that was bubbling up irresistibly inside her just at Alicent saying it.
“But my—I think my dream wedding is just—I don’t know,” Alicent continued. “At the courthouse. Or something. And then the pub.”
“Not the King’s Landing courthouse, I hope,” Rhaenyra said. “It’s fucking ugly.”
“Will you be serious?”
“I am serious. It’s ugly. We’ll have to go to the Duskendale one.”
Alicent swallowed. “But—”
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said. “I really don’t care about the Water Gardens.”
“You don’t,” Alicent said with a frown.
“No,” she said. “I care about you. And the pub.” She paused. “And honestly, seven years? That’s ridiculous.”
“I know!” Alicent exclaimed. “And for what? Getting robbed blind just to—”
“Ridiculous really—”
“—take some stupid Instagram photos—”
“And swan about—”
“And show off to everyone about how married you are,” Alicent finished. “I mean, really.”
“Insane,” Rhaenyra agreed, then slipped into her lap and tugged at her earlobe. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Alicent said. Her mouth curved into a self-deprecating smile, fingers running along the waistband of Rhaenyra’s jeans. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Rhaenyra said. “I remember my first wedding too. You’ll get over the nerves soon enough.”
Alicent rolled her eyes, pinching Rhaenyra’s waist in reprimand. “Not funny,” she said.
“One thing,” Rhaenyra said.
“Mm?”
“Regardless of where we do it. I do want to show off to everyone about how married we are,” she told her.
Alicent grinned.
“Oh yes,” she said seriously. “Me too.”
After that it was like a dam had broken. Rhaenyra had already been thinking about their engagement all the time before, of course—but in an abstracted way, in the same way one might think of their dream car or winning the lottery. That Alicent would one day be her wife seemed a fantasy of equal proportions; even after they had been in a relationship for years, even after she’d proposed. Rhaenyra would walk around the house giddily, staring at the coffee pot Alicent had just been using before going to work, their toothbrushes beside each other in the bathroom. It reminded her of how she’d felt when they’d first agreed to make a real go of it, years before: like it was inevitable, but also impossible, and surreal. That first month she’d gone back to Dragonstone after playing with the WSO she must have spent thousands on her phone contract alone, using up all the minutes she possibly could just to hear Alicent’s voice, the sound of her breath, trying to bring her as close as she could. And when they did see each other, the feeling that came over her was like nothing Rhaenyra had ever felt before. Like she’d crawl into Alicent’s skin if she could. It was this same giddiness that lingered now, but with each passing day it sharpened and evened out, skimming over a multitude of possibilities, all of which related in rather concerning fashion to the banal—but now, somehow, perfect—elements of marital life.
It wasn’t that Rhaenyra wasn’t mindful of the future. Her tendency was, in fact, to linger constantly outside of the present: somewhere in the past, five minutes or ten days or fifteen years ago; somewhere in the future, months ahead, years ahead, a whole lifetime ahead. The problem was that the future had always loomed towards her with the same definite sureness of the present. I’m going to be a concert pianist elided so easily into I am a concert pianist; I’m going to live in Dragonstone into I live in Dragonstone. I’m going to be the next great Targaryen, one with a Wikipedia page, one who they remember, one who they won’t forget. That, too, became fact. Or the Wikipedia page did, at least. And when, years later, the blur became intolerable, the past and the future and the present hazy and terrifying, it had been Alicent who rolled up her sleeves and dug her arms straight into the torrid mess of Rhaenyra’s brain. Staying with her, after years apart. Making her a cup of tea each night. Fighting with her. Making her more tea. Loving her. Making her even more tea. Which often amounted to the same thing. And now, she was thinking inane things, things like should we ask for a new toaster on the registry? Will Alicent need to wear her ring on a necklace on concert days? It had taken so long for Rhaenyra to train herself out of such expansive thinking, to listen just to what was in front of her, the next concert, the next bar on her music score, the next dinner her and Alicent would eat at home. Now, with just the mention of a wedding—her wedding, yes, but still a wedding—she had become a monster of possibilities and likelihoods and necessities. A planner.
“I think we have a problem,” she said.
“What’s that?” Alicent replied. “Syrax! Can you throw the ball, it’s muddy.”
“Oh, and her highness can’t get her hands dirty?” Rhaenyra replied, crouching down to get the ball anyway. “What happened to the chucker?”
“I think it’s still at Aegon’s,” Alicent said with a sigh. “And I’m holding our coffees. So.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Rhaenyra muttered. The ball was covered not only in mud, but dog slobber, which she’d become fairly immune to over the past few years, but still wasn’t ideal. She took it up, then lobbed it across the heath. Syrax zoomed after it immediately, a blur of black and white in the dreary browns and greens of the day.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that we need the chucker back,” Rhaenyra said.
“No, you were saying something else before. Another problem.”
“Oh right,” Rhaenyra said, watching Syrax come back and drop the ball, inevitably, in front of Alicent’s feet. “Why is she always going to you?”
“She likes me more,” Alicent said with a shrug. “Swap?”
Rhaenyra took the two coffee cups from her outstretched hands and watched as she picked up the ball, then threw it back out.
“That was a shit throw,” she commented.
“Fuck off,” Alicent said. “I’m tired. Not had my coffee. How does she have so much energy, anyway?”
“Built different,” Rhaenyra said, smiling as she brought her own coffee to her lips.
“So the problem.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. That. The problem is I’m worried I’m going to be a bridezilla.”
This was enough to stop Alicent short.
“You?” she said incredulously. “A bridezilla?”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said simply.
Syrax returned, though this time had to nudge at Alicent’s shin several times to get her attention, which was still on Rhaenyra, as she apparently attempted to comprehend what she was saying.
“You need to throw the ball,” Rhaenyra said, “before she goes insane.”
“Rhaenyra.”
“Mmhm. Syrax. Come on girl. Here.”
Syrax gave Rhaenyra a slightly disdainful look, before clearly deciding that she would get no response from Alicent in that moment and making her way over to drop the ball at her feet.
“Swap back,” Rhaenyra said. “Or let’s just each take our coffees. Probably easier.”
“I don’t understand,” Alicent said. “Why are you saying that you’d be a bridezilla?”
“Well, I know that that title really belongs to you,” Rhaenyra said, picking the ball back up and throwing it again. “But I’m beginning to display—tendencies.”
“Tendencies?”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said seriously. “Like, I’m thinking about what we’ll wear. And if it should match. And if I should get you flowers. And if you’ll get me flowers? And what rings we should pick out—we really need to do that, by the way—”
“I know, which is why I’m waiting for you to tell me if you’re free next weekend—”
“Yes, I am, but does it really have to take all weekend?”
“Well, no, but I was perhaps under the impression that we’d do other things too.”
“Right. Okay, well. Fine. But I’m just constantly thinking about it. The flowers. And the rings. And the clothes! And the cake. Do we want cake at the pub? And should we ask for anything from my dad, because—why are you laughing?”
“Because,” Alicent said, still laughing as she spoke. “That’s just thinking .”
“Well, I—”
“You’re not used to thinking, I know,” Alicent said with mock-seriousness. “But it’s quite a common trait amongst us normal people—”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Especially about something that takes planning,” she said. “You’ve heard of that, haven’t you? Planning?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Rhaenyra grumbled. “I just leave it to you most of the time.”
“Believe me, I know,” Alicent said dryly. Syrax came bounding back. Alicent fussed over her for a moment, crouching down to adjust her collar. “Are you nervous? Is that it?”
“No,” Rhaenyra said immediately. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Is it weird to be nervous?”
“No,” Alicent said simply. “I am.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Why? It’s just—it’ll just be us. It’ll take about five minutes in the courthouse anyway.”
“Yes, well, the thing is,” Alicent said offhandedly, rubbing at Syrax’s head, then picking the ball up and throwing it back out. “I still quite fancy you.”
“So I make you nervous?”
“Sometimes.”
“In a good way?”
“Not in a bad way, certainly.”
“Alicent.”
Alicent turned to her, and smiled. She looked remarkably serene for someone who only a few weeks ago had had a meltdown soundtracked by the Beastie Boys over a venue Rhaenyra had offhandedly said she’d want to get married at twenty-five years before.
“It’s going to be fun, I think,” she said.
Rhaenyra couldn’t keep from returning her smile. To get Alicent to admit that anything would be fun, out loud and whilst sober, was an achievement of unquantifiable proportions.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so too. I just—I don’t know. I’m always thinking about it.”
“And you don’t like thinking about it?”
“I don’t dislike it. It just feels. Different.”
“Hmm,” Alicent let out thoughtfully. “Why don’t we just do it sooner then?”
“Do…? Get? Married sooner?”
“Well, yeah. It’s what, April now? Syrax, sit. Sit. No, sit . Good girl.” Alicent fished her phone out of her pocket and opened up her calendar app, then, as though they were booking in a friendly coffee, said: “How’s the second week of May for you?”
“Um,” Rhaenyra said.
“Well, if we get into June then it’ll clash with your concerts,” Alicent said. “And we won’t have time for a honeymoon.”
“A honeymoon,” Rhaenyra echoed faintly.
“Yes,” said Alicent. “That thing that is commonly done after a wedding.”
Wedding, Rhaenyra echoed again—mentally this time. And then, I still quite fancy you.
“I fancy you too,” she said out loud.
“I should hope so. Syrax!”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I thought we were walking down to the Dothraki bakery and getting sandwiches.”
“For our honeymoon.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose I thought you’d have more opinions on that than me.”
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said, rolling her eyes. “Come on. You could at least give me a continent to work with.”
Alicent slipped her a soft, wry smile, but didn’t respond straight away. Rhaenyra elbowed her.
“What?” she said.
“What what?”
“What’s the smile for?”
“Nothing,” Alicent said, still smiling. “We haven’t been to the Free Cities in a while. All of them, I mean.”
Rhaenyra hummed in agreement. “We could—”
“Rhaenyra,” she began warningly.
“What?”
“No private plane,” she said.
Rhaenyra glared. “It’s literally easier—”
“It’s literally killing the planet,” Alicent said.
“Oh, like flying economy on a shitty commercial plane is so much better—” Rhaenyra scoffed.
“It literally is. Definitionally. It is. Besides, we don’t have to get a plane.”
“No?”
“No. We could ferry to Dragonstone, then to Braavos. Drive down from there.”
“The ferry,” Rhaenyra said. “How romantic.”
“Oh, like you haven’t tried to shag me on that ferry before,” Alicent retorted with an eye-roll.
“Like you haven’t been into it.”
“I was into it because you were into it!”
“You know where else is good for a shag—”
“Do not say a private—”
“—a private plane.”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said slowly, and drew a little closer.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said, trying not to be too intimidated by the smirk that had suddenly appeared on her face.
“I can make anywhere a good place for a shag,” Alicent murmured in her ear, then drew away immediately. “Syrax! Here, girl!”
Rhaenyra swallowed, momentarily mute. “Is that a promise?” she asked once she managed to rediscover her voice.
“A sincere one,” Alicent said. “Shall we take the long way ‘round?”
Later that afternoon, Alicent made good on her pledge, though really Rhaenyra had been talking about their honeymoon, not that it mattered. In the white clean afternoon light their living room was perfect, and Alicent perfect in it, awash with the gentle shadows of their plants, letting Rhaenyra push her so she was lying down on the sofa even though they were halfway through an episode of a sitcom.
“But I want to know what happens,” she said breathlessly, very evidently not meaning it.
“This happens,” Rhaenyra said, and kissed her, tucking her fingers into Alicent’s joggers. It was stupid and unbearable how erotic she found them; the soft, expensive cotton of them, yes, but really it was the knowledge that Alicent, usually practical to a fault, would choose to indulge herself in an item of clothing like this just because she liked the look of it, sneaking it into her wardrobe like a child sneaking a chocolate bar into their mother’s grocery shop. And then it was also how much she liked the fact that Alicent wore tracksuit bottoms at all, and also the fact that she was one of the only people who knew that she did.
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent let out.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said, winded by the warm smell of her, shucking the trousers off and running one thumb along the inside of Alicent’s leg. Sprawled out on their sofa, Alicent glowed. Rhaenyra drank her in like a plant craving sunlight. She ran the tip of her nose along the hem of Alicent’s underwear, breathing out heavily at the quiet moan she heard above her.
“Are you teasing me?” Alicent asked, the question cracking a little in her voice.
Maybe Rhaenyra was. Or maybe she was teasing herself. The only thing better than Alicent’s cunt, she had discovered, was the knowledge that she could get to it practically all the time. Alicent was yet to dispense with a lot of the strange formalities she affected around sex. Often she seemed to tread around it with caution, as one would around a naked flame, or thin ice. But it was this which made touching her, and being touched by her, so delicious. The person Alicent became in bed was unlike any other. Best of all, it was Rhaenyra alone who could perform this transmutation, or sublimation—and with no difficulty whatsoever. A single finger placed in the crook of Alicent’s arm, a revelation of ankle, a new hairstyle—all were things that could result in hours spent in their sheets, or on their sofa. Sometimes Rhaenyra teased not as a challenge to Alicent but as one to herself. It couldn’t always be this easy, she reasoned. Something had to make it difficult. Even if that something was her.
“I am teasing. Just a little,” she murmured now, then pinched the skin of Alicent’s thigh. “Turned on?”
“Very,” Alicent confessed, shivering as she did so.
“Barely touched you,” Rhaenyra said.
“Yeah,” Alicent agreed. She sounded woozy, almost, like she’d had too much to drink. Rhaenyra licked her lips, then pulled her underwear down her legs, stopping when they were just below her knees.
“Can I—”
“Keep them on,” Rhaenyra said softly. “Where they are.”
Alicent swallowed. Rhaenyra closed her eyes, resting her forehead on her stomach. Breathed in, out.
“I could leave you like this,” she whispered. Alicent let out a moan.
“What do you want?” she asked, voice just as quiet. “Want me to ask—? I will. Please. Rhaenyra.”
Sometimes that was what she wanted, of course. The hushed, gentle way Alicent pleaded to be touched felt almost as good on Rhaenyra’s skin as her hands. But now there was something else, distant, just out of her reach. She knew that enough time here, digging into the crevices of Alicent’s body, would bring it to her.
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said quietly. She felt her fingers come to thread through her hair. “Sweetheart.”
Rhaenyra breathed out into the crease where her thigh ended.
“Need you,” she murmured.
“I know,” Alicent replied. “I need you too. I don’t know why you’re—oh—”
Rhaenyra cut her off by placing her mouth, open, directly onto her, licking roughly at the warmth there, as though drinking it down. She pushed at Alicent’s thighs, spreading them, groaning when she felt the tension of the elastic of her underwear, which was still lingering on her legs, restraining their movement. She could just about hear Alicent, letting out a sound that was more breath than anything, as though she’d been socked in the stomach. She licked again, longer this time, savouring the taste of her. She stayed there for so long she thought her jaw might cramp. She imagined herself sinking into the sofa, disappearing, and leaving just her mouth behind, the wetness of Alicent’s cunt lingering around her lips. She ran her fingers along Alicent’s stomach, feeling the muscles jump and tense, then bringing her hands to her hips, holding them down when they started to jerk upwards, fruitlessly. All the time she could hear Alicent, her breath, the sound of her cries soft and recurrent, as though being pulled out of her, like a stitch being unpicked. When she came across a particular spot that made Alicent squirm even more she latched onto it.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Yes?”
“Yes,” Alicent gasped. “Please—”
Rhaenyra moaned, feeling her come against her mouth, not moving a muscle, as though to do so might make it all disappear. The TV was still on. If Rhaenyra strained she could hear the dialogue, even with Alicent’s thighs bracketing her ears. But she didn’t. She began moving her mouth again, faster this time, knowing a second climax would need to be eked out of Alicent with speed or not at all.
“What have we said about—multiple—oh, Seven , fuck—I don’t know if I can—”
“You can,” Rhaenyra murmured, feeling more than hearing the smack of her lips against Alicent, the wet, obscene sound of them.
“Fuck,” Alicent let out again. “Quickly, I— please , Rhaenyra—yes, yeah, there—”
Rhaenyra let out a pleased hum and kept going. When she could tell Alicent was close, she pulled away.
“Look at me, then,” she said, voice hoarse. “If you’re going to come.” Alicent’s face flickered through a variety of emotions: exasperation, arousal, fondness. Exasperation again. Love. She opened her eyes. Rhaenyra looked right at her. Smiled.
“You going to?” she asked.
“If you stop being a total bitch about it,” Alicent replied, but the pitch of her voice betrayed her—high, unsteady. And she kept looking at Rhaenyra, even as she shoved her hips unceremoniously towards her mouth, even as she cried out, abruptly, when Rhaenyra slid one finger inside her. She looked away only at the last second, coming with her head flung back onto the sofa cushions, shuddering and jerking. Rhaenyra watched her with satisfaction, then crawled up her body, propping herself up on her forearms so she hovered above her.
“Your face is a mess,” Alicent said, chest still heaving.
“Mm,” Rhaenyra said, then stuck her tongue out and licked her lips with great melodrama. “Very good,” she commented, in the same way a sommelier might comment on a wine. “I’m getting hints of—”
“Shut up,” Alicent said roughly, rolling her eyes, then tugged her in by the collar and kissed her. At length, she pulled away, and licked her own lips. Rhaenyra watched her with a smirk. She smiled back slyly, in that way she had when she was about to let herself in on the joke and make them both laugh in the process.
“It’s full-bodied, certainly—”
“See!” Rhaenyra crowed, sitting back on her heels.
“Definitely a complex taste,” Alicent said seriously.
“Very fresh, though,” Rhaenyra replied, waggling her eyebrows.
“No real sign of ageing,” Alicent agreed.
“A wonderful ripeness—”
“Drier on the second nose?”
“Better on the second nose, certainly,” Rhaenyra said. “ And the third—” She reached for Alicent’s thighs again.
“Easy, cowboy,” Alicent said, nudging her away. “Not sure I can handle a third nose right now.”
Rhaenyra pouted. “No?”
“Later,” Alicent said. “When I can feel my toes again. Come here.” She kissed her, slowly. Rhaenyra sighed, feeling Alicent’s hand drift down to the small of her back, then lower.
“Did you lock the back door?” Alicent asked into her mouth.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said.
Alicent pulled away and fixed her with a look. “Are you lying?”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said.
“Rhaenyra—”
“If a burglar were to come in,” she said, “I’m sure that even he would understand that we’re clearly in the middle of something.”
“You know full well that it’s not about now, it’s that we’ll forget tonight—”
Rhaenyra let out a sigh, then sat up. “Fine,” she said. “Lock the back door.”
Alicent glared. “So now you forget to lock the door, and I’m the one who has to get up?”
“You’re the one who’s gotten two orgasms,” Rhaenyra retorted snippily. “I’m currently on zero—”
“If you’re seriously keeping a tally—”
“I am not!” Rhaenyra said, though she was. “I’m just pointing out—”
“Ugh,” Alicent said, then shoved her so that she could get up. “Move. You’re insufferable.”
Rhaenyra sat back and watched her go, noting with some satisfaction that her pants had come off completely and she was walking around with a bare arse.
“Arse not cold?” she called.
“Fuck off,” Alicent said. “And by the way,” she said with a note of triumph to her voice, surely knowing how much the prospect would irritate her, “we need to pick witnesses for this wedding.”
“I see,” Daemon said.
“That’s all you have to say,” Rhaenyra said flatly. “I see?”
“Well, I do see,” Daemon replied with a shrug, taking a sip of his coffee.
“You say it like you don’t,” she pointed out.
“Honestly, I don’t,” he said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Only that you never struck me as the marrying type. Is she putting ideas in your head?”
“If you’re questioning my relationship—”
“Oh, please,” Daemon cut her off, rolling his eyes. “ It’s been, how many years now?”
“Six,” Rhaenyra said. “Seven. Ish.”
He squinted at her. “Try twenty-six. Give or take the middle ten. I’d say questioning your relationship is a slightly lost cause by now, wouldn’t you?” He paused and pursed his lips. “And besides,” he added stiffly. “It would be ridiculous of me to poke holes in something that has made you so tolerable.”
Rhaenyra took a sip of her coffee to hide her smile.
“So,” she said.
“So?”
“So I need to ask you something,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Last I heard, your father’s more than capable of walking. Not sure you need a replacement to take you down the aisle.”
“Will you stop snarking and listen for two seconds?” Rhaenyra said.
Daemon put his coffee down rather formally, then spread out his hands, as though to indicate that he was surrendering his attention solely to her.
“There’s not going to be an aisle,” she said. “We’re doing a courthouse wedding.”
“Quite right,” Daemon said. “Waste of money, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Charming.”
“We want you to be our witness.”
There was a long pause. Rhaenyra realised, with no little amount of satisfaction, that she had managed to do something she often wished she could do—rendered her uncle speechless.
“We?” he repeated at last, once he’d picked his jaw up from the floor. “Are you telling me this is a Hightower-sanctioned request?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re not doing something stupid like taking her name, by the way, are you?”
“No, we’re just keeping our names.”
“Good. Terribly old-fashioned—”
“Oh, like that’s what you care about,” Rhaenyra said, rolling her eyes. “You’d just hate to see a Targaryen surrender their Targaryen-ness—”
“As would you, I would have thought.”
“So will you do it?”
Another pause. Daemon looked at her steadily, in that way he had sometimes, as if she was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. It was a look that still made Rhaenyra’s skin prickle—in part because to be seen, really seen, by anyone was the sort of ordeal that one always felt at least a little scared of. But to be seen by her uncle—who still, to her, bore the distinction of being the first person who had ever really tried to see her—was even more terrifying. It was Daemon who could catch her in a lie, finish her sentences, listen to her play a phrase of music and figure out what it was missing. It was Daemon who saw everything; it was Daemon she wanted to see her marry Alicent.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?” she said.
“Why me?”
“Well,” Rhaenyra began, running her finger along the rim of her coffee cup, averting her gaze from his piercing one. “We each got to pick someone. Alicent chose Gwayne, obviously.”
“Better than her father, I suppose,” Daemon muttered.
“And I’m afraid you’re the best I’ve got,” Rhaenyra replied.
He looked at her. “Not Viserys?” he asked, almost suspiciously.
“No,” Rhaenyra said.
“Or Aegon?”
Rhaenyra snorted. “Definitely not.”
“Or Breakbones? Mysaria?”
“Alicent has become very tolerant over the years,” Rhaenyra said, “but she still draws the line at having one of my exes be a witness at our wedding.”
“Hmm,” Daemon said. “I suppose that’s fair enough.”
“Most people would be flattered,” Rhaenyra said pointedly.
He smiled crookedly at her.
“Oh, I am,” he said. The smile softened, into something like fondness. “My niece,” he said quietly, wonderingly. It struck Rhaenyra, suddenly, that he was aging. Daemon was so energetic, so forceful in the way he lived his life, that he appeared to everyone, even her, as somewhat immortal. As a child she’d see him and imagine him as a kind of god; the first man to live forever, waking up every day and having his double espresso, chain smoking cigarettes, playing trumpet. But now, over coffee, he seemed suddenly, wholly human. She reached out a hand and squeezed his wrist.
“So that’s a yes?” she asked.
“It’s a yes,” he said. “When’s the date, bride-to-be?”
She wrinkled her nose at the term. “None of that, thanks. We’re thinking the second week of May. Drinks afterwards.”
“Naturally,” Daemon said. “Aegon will be very offended about this, you know.”
“I know,” Rhaenyra said with a sigh. “We’re compromising.”
“Oh?”
“Alicent’s letting him give a speech.”
“Well, that,” Daemon said, “I am excited to witness.”
Daemon’s a lock, Rhaenyra texted later. Gwayne?
No, Alicent replied. My only brother isn’t interested in witnessing our wedding actually
You’re funny, Rhaenyra sent back.
I’ve heard, Alicent sent. Rhaenyra watched the grey bubble in their chat appear, then disappear again. Then: What did he say?
Who?
Daemon
About?
??????? The wedding, Rhaenyra
He said yes
I know he said yes, Alicent sent. I imagine that wasn’t the extent of the conversation?
Rhaenyra smirked to herself.
Worried he’s going to come out with a reason we can’t lawfully be wed? she texted.
Fuck off, came the reply. Now Rhaenyra let out a snort, which earned her a look from the old man opposite her in the train carriage. She decided to be appeasing.
He was happy for us, she sent, which was maybe an overstatement, but Daemon was never particularly happy about anything, so she didn’t feel too bad about laying it on thick. I think he’s getting sentimental in his old age
I see
You see?
Yes
What did Gwayne say?
Yes, Alicent sent back.
And?
Another pause, and more typing. Then: He said, and I quote, ‘when you think about it, it’s quite dykey not to bother with a wedding’
Rhaenyra let out a surprised, loud laugh. It echoed around the carriage. The old man gave her another look, although this time it seemed to be more of confused amusement, the kind that occurred from laughter being contagious, even if its original source was unknown.
And what did you say? she asked.
I said we are quite dykey, Alicent replied.
Good of you to set him straight
Someone has to. You in tonight?
Pub with Aemond
Oh yes. Send my love. Or tell him to stay over?
Offered but he said no. Think he’s seeing someone on the sly
Intriguing
Will investigate tonight
Report back your findings
Yes ma’am
I’ll leave dinner in the oven
Rhaenyra smiled down at her phone. The smile lingered on her face even as she looked up, perpetuated by the thought of seeing her brother, and then coming home to Alicent later. She made accidental eye contact with the old man, who was getting up to disembark at the next stop. And he smiled back at her.
“Alright, I’m off,” Alicent said the next morning, rapping her knuckles against the door of the room.
Rhaenyra looked up from the piano. “Early?”
“Lots of traffic because of the rain.”
“Makes sense,” Rhaenyra said. “Coming in for a proper goodbye?”
“Yes,” said Alicent, and did so, dropping a kiss to her lips, running a hand down her hair. “You don’t want to swing by and pick me up after?”
“Not sure,” Rhaenyra said, considering it. She was busy—behind on a composition deadline, and besides, she was planning to spend the day digging around the house looking for Alicent’s vows, which she was sure were around somewhere and was busting to have a read of. “Are you teaching?”
“Young Composers,” Alicent said. “They’re on week three now. Showing a lot promise. One of them is talking about putting together variations.”
“On what?”
“Golden Slumbers.”
Rhaenyra laughed. “You’ve been teaching them McCartney? No wonder they’re prodigious—”
“It’s easy! No key signature, four-four—”
“And now one of them wants to write variations on the theme. Goodness.”
“I know,” Alicent said. “They’re bold, these six year-olds. I don’t know if he actually knows what a variation is, but.”
“The Gods love a trier.”
Alicent laughed. “Have you heard enough to tempt you?”
Rhaenyra let out a hum of thought. She often constructed pointless excuses to go past Alicent’s Young Composers class, which when in full swing was heart-rendingly adorable. The worst part was that Alicent didn’t seem to even know it. Rhaenyra had once witnessed her in the midst of a very serious discussion with a five year-old regarding how she might improve her phrasing of the first section of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.
(And there was another time, which she didn’t think about much—any more. Alicent, crouched down in front of a boy with auburn hair, the exact same shade that Rhaenyra remembered Alicent’s had been, before darkening with age. He’d been crying over something. Rhaenyra had watched Alicent wipe his cheek with a tenderness that felt to her like a bodily push, the force just of observing it sending her near-keeling over. When they got home Rhaenyra had practically shoved Alicent into their bed, pulling her over her and running her hands all over her face with desperation.)
“Maybe,” she said.
“Well, it’s up to you,” Alicent replied, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Don’t forget to eat lunch, please.”
“Bye,” Rhaenyra replied, humming in acknowledgement. She tapped at the piano keys. “Once there was a way to get back homeward,” she mumbled to herself. It really was a perfect lullaby.
(Are you alright? Alicent had asked.
Yeah, she’d replied. You just feel so—Gods. So fucking good, Alicent. You’re so deep in me, so big—
Alicent’s had gasped, rather predictably, but still pulled back a little to give her a look.
Big? I’m big? Rhaenyra, it’s a toy, it’s not—me —
You like it though, don’t you? When I say that? Rhaenyra had barrelled on, running her hands up and down Alicent’s arms. She could still feel a hungry, mad thing in her belly. She hadn’t even known what it was, really, only that it wouldn’t go away until she fed it. And there was Alicent. Leaning over her. Filling her view. Always willing to give her what she wanted. Even when she didn’t know what it was yet.
Yes, she’d breathed out. It’s—Gods, yes. I like it. When you say things like that—
You’re so beautiful.
Rhaenyra—
And then she’d just said it, voice hoarse, the words falling out of her mouth without permission, crashing into each other like bricks off a crumbling wall.
Gods, I wish you could knock me up. Just—once—give me one. He’d be perfect, he’d be perfect just like you—so gorgeous. My gorgeous girl.
Alicent’s eyes had gone so dark that Rhaenyra found herself staring. She’d let out a sound that Rhaenyra rarely heard—low and broken, like she didn’t know what to do with herself. Like she was clawing her way out of her body too. Then she’d moved so deeply and hard within her, taken her apart so unrelentingly, that Rhaenyra had thought she was dreaming.
Afterwards, she’d gotten up and gone to the bathroom. She’d stayed in there for what felt like hours. And Rhaenyra, lying there, still sweating, fucked out, knowing better than to follow her, thought, oh shit.
Are you alright? she’d asked later, once Alicent had returned. She always reserved such calamitous questions for when Alicent had turned the bedroom light off, so that they didn’t have to look at each other. It was a cowards’ way out, but they both took it, so it was alright.
I don’t know, Alicent had murmured.
I’m sorry, Rhaenyra had said. Really, Alicent—I didn’t mean—
I know. I know. You don’t have to—it’s okay, Rhaenyra.
Okay. A pause. You give me everything I want, she’d said. More than everything. You know that, don’t you? Alicent?
Silence.
So she’d said: Good night, then.
And Alicent had said: Good night.
She’d worried for a moment that she’d made a wound she couldn’t heal. Or at least one that would scar. But then Alicent had hooked her heel over hers, tangling their ankles together, and brushed her lips against her collarbone, and they fell asleep. And it was alright. They never spoke about it again, of course. But that was alright too.)
“Hello?”
“Hey,” came Harwin’s voice over the loudspeaker. “Just calling you back, sorry, I was out last night. All okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” Rhaenyra said, frowning at the computer, clicking through the myriad of files. They were all meticulously organised, of course, being as this was mostly Alicent’s desktop, but that didn’t make things any easier for Rhaenyra, as Alicent’s system of organisation was frankly inscrutable to the average human being. “Just wanted to tell you we’re getting married.”
There was a long silence on the other side of the line. Rhaenyra glanced bewilderedly at the phone.
“Hello?” she said after a little too long had passed.
“I’m here,” Harwin said.
“Oh,” Rhaenyra said. “Well. Were you planning to say something?”
“By we,” Harwin began.
“I don’t mean you and I, certainly.”
“Yeah, I’m aware that ship has sailed,” Harwin snorted. “Rhaenyra, is this really the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone?”
“Well, I don’t know how else to tell you,” she replied. “You’re so busy.”
“We see each other once a week for rehearsal!”
“That’s unprofessional.”
“We have breaks.”
“Well, still.”
“Seven hells,” Harwin muttered, then didn’t say anything else. Rhaenyra felt her own frown deepen, partly because she’d manage to accidentally navigate her way into Alicent’s “PerformanceScores_Feb19_NoBowings_MarkUp_PrintCopy” folder, and it was all a bit overwhelming.
“I believe the phrase is congratulations,” she said. “Why is everyone so exasperated about this?”
“Everyone?”
“Daemon said, and I quote, I see.”
“Well,” Harwin said. Then a pause. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m actually—permission to be naff?”
“Granted.”
“Well, I’m actually just irritated that you haven’t done this in person because I just want to hug you. Both of you.”
Rhaenyra softened. “Well,” she said quietly.
“I’m fucking ecstatic, Rhaenyra. Really. It’s just—the cheek of you not to do this in front of me—”
“I wanted to!” she yelped. “But Alicent said you’re away next week—”
“Which you also know, since it’s on the quintet calendar—”
“Oh, you know I don’t look at that thing,” she muttered. “It’s despotic.”
“Organisation,” he agreed. “Terrible.”
It was. Rhaenyra would know. She’d gone through what felt like every folder on the bloody computer and she still hadn’t found what she was looking for, which was ideally a document named something ridiculous like “Vows_May_Draft7_PrintCopy”.
“How hard can it be to leave something secret in plain sight?” she mumbled to herself.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said for Harwin to hear. “Listen, make yourself free on the thirteenth of May, will you?”
“Alright. I assume this isn’t going to be an all-out white wedding.”
Rhaenyra shuddered at the thought.
“No,” she said. “We’re going to the courthouse and meeting you all at the pub after.”
“Your local?”
“Yeah. Alicent’s sorted renting out their upstairs, I think. It’ll be nice.”
“It will be,” Harwin said. A beat. “Okay, it’s in my calendar, under ‘the day I lose her forever’.”
Rhaenyra chortled. “Still holding a candle for me?”
“Not you,” he said. “Alicent.”
Now she laughed harder. “You’re too much.”
“I know,” Harwin said. “I knew already, by the way.”
She stopped laughing immediately. The leakage of personal information was no joke.
“I know Alicent didn’t tell you,” she said, aghast. “Unless she’s had some kind of personality transplant.”
“No, she remains as professional as ever at work,” Harwin said with a sigh. “Daemon messaged the boys’ chat—”
“The boys’ chat ,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Just say it’s the chat you have without me and Mysaria.”
“No, Mysaria’s in it.”
“ What ?”
“Listen,” he said. “You have to realise that as a boss your employees need a safe space to talk—”
“I’m not the boss! Daemon is! I’m just the leader—”
“Anyway. He messaged and said we need to start working on a setlist for the thirteenth of May, and when we asked what the occasion was, he said, quote unquote, the most unlikely of nuptials, and by the way this is non-negotiable, so cancel your plans. So I hope there’s enough space in this pub for a five-piece band.”
“And who the fuck is going to be your pianist?” Rhaenyra asked, outraged, choosing for now not to linger on the frankly adorable implications of this anecdote.
“Dunno,” Harwin said. “Dep?”
“Like hells,” she said.
“Well, you can’t play your own wedding.”
“We’re not dancing,” Rhaenyra said. “Alicent would literally rather die.”
“As would you, I imagine. No, it’ll just be some, you know, ambience.”
“I want you as guests.”
“We’re both.”
“Harwin—”
“Look, take it up with Daemon, but I think you need to let him have this. I’m getting the vibe that it’s a wedding present.”
Rhaenyra coloured, casting a look at the phone, even though Harwin couldn’t see her.
“Alright,” she conceded. “But you’re breaking this to Alicent. I’m not sure ‘big band’ was in her plan or her budget—”
“It’s not a big band. And it’ll be free, obviously. You couldn’t afford us anyway.”
Rhaenyra snickered. “Do I at least get to see the setlist?”
“Dunno. Talk to—”
“Daemon,” Rhaenyra interjected, rolling her eyes. “Right. Couldn’t you just email it to me?”
“Not if I want my balls intact.”
“Oh!” Rhaenyra exclaimed. “Email!”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Rhaenyra said, hurriedly opening Alicent’s inbox which was still logged in. “I bet she thought she could play a double bluff—”
“Rhaenyra—”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Look, glad this all worked out, don’t play anything shit at the wedding.”
“Like what?”
“Coldplay or something. How do you search an email inbox?”
“How are you still living in modern society?”
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
“There’s a search bar at the top, Rhaenyra.”
“Thank you. And I can just type in what I’m looking for?”
“That’s the idea, yeah.”
Rhaenyra typed in: vows. After a few seconds, Alicent’s inbox returned several thousand messages, none of which seemed marital in nature.
“Fuck’s sake,” she muttered. “Harwin, I’ve got to go.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for Alicent’s vows.”
“Rhaenyra —”
“Okay, love you, bye!” she chirped, then hung up. She received a text a few moments later. I want it on record that I DO NOT approve, Harwin sent.
Didnt ask, Rhaenyra replied, then went back to her task. On a whim, she went through Alicent’s deleted folder, and finally found more luck: there, two days ago, was a draft to one of her other email addresses, with a document predictably titled: “Vows_Draft3_Final?”.
“Bingo,” she murmured, then right-clicked the document and sent it to the printer. She was just navigating out of the inbox when she caught sight of another deleted draft, and frowned—first at the subject, which was a vague “Hello” that Alicent wouldn’t usually be caught dead putting for an email, and then at the intended recipient. Before she could feel too guilty about the violation of privacy—in for a penny, and besides, she’d been digging around on Alicent’s desktop all morning, so there was only so much lower she could stoop—Rhaenyra clicked on it.
Hi Dad,
How are you? I hope Oldtown is treating you well. I saw adverts for the anniversary recitals start to go up last week and it all seems very exciting.
I just wanted to get in touch to let you know that Rhaenyra and I are planning to get married in a few months’ time. I know you’re very busy, but if you were free on the date, I would love
The email stopped there. A few spaces down was another go at it:
Dad—
How are you? I hope this finds you well. I heard from Gwayne that preparations on your anniversary recitals are going well. I’m sure the Citadel orchestra remains in good nick as ever! I just wanted to let you know that Rhaenyra and I
And then another:
Dear Dad,
I hope this finds you well. How is Oldtown? I’ve been hearing great things about the recitals.
I know we haven’t seen each other in a while. I just wanted to let you know that Rhaenyra and I are getting married on the thirteenth of May. If you find yourself free, it would mean a lot to have you there. I miss you very much and
Rhaenyra stared at the monitor, a lump growing steadily in her throat.
“Oh, Alicent,” she murmured to herself.
She diverted her gaze to the desk, mostly in an effort not to look any longer at the reams of words, all in the same cadence, awkward and pained. All unsent. It was like looking directly into the sun. Her eyes lingered instead on the framed photographs by the keyboard. One of the two of them on holiday in Volantis, Rhaenyra nursing probably the worst sunburn she’d ever had in her life, beaming at the camera. Another of Rhaenyra, coming home after a performance still in black tie, standing in the front door with the night framing her figure. She was kneeling to greet Syrax, letting her slobber all over her outfit. One of Alicent with the quintet after a performance, all of them laughing at something. And a final one, of Alicent and Gwayne as children with Otto, one tucked in each of his arms, somewhere in Oldtown. She was looking up at her father with clear adoration, the kind you got as a small child for your parent, when they were your best friend, your favourite people in the world.
Rhaenyra sighed, and closed the browser. She was just about to get up and leave when the printer chirped, reminding her of her original mission. She strode over to find the piece of paper it had churned out, and grinned.
“Can’t outfox me,” she mumbled to herself. “Try and hide it in your deleted drafts, but I’m a tech genius, a peerless detective, a sleuth—”
She stopped short, turning the page over. It was completely blank, save for two words at the top, in the same annoyingly classy serif font that Alicent used for everything, even her emails.
Nice try.
She gaped at the page, blinking stupidly. Then, she let it drop to the floor with a flutter, and seized her phone, furious. It was just past three, meaning Alicent would be on a break, meaning she would most certainly be making time for her fiancée to tear her a new one, if Rhaenyra had anything to say about it. She dialled her number. Alicent picked up after two rings.
“Hello, you.”
“Don’t ‘hello you’, me,” Rhaenyra spluttered, outraged that Alicent would even attempt such an affectionate and, all told, sexy greeting over the phone at a time like this. “You pranked me!”
“I’m sorry?”
“You. Pranked. Me.”
“Pranked you? What are we, eight?”
“No! You put a vows document on your computer, knowing that I would—”
“Ah,” Alicent let out, the single syllable carrying a ridiculous amount of smugness. “Well. Perhaps you shouldn’t be snooping around my computer.”
“You knew I’d find it,” Rhaenyra said.
“Obviously.”
“Where are your actual vows?”
“That,” Alicent said, “is for me to know.”
“Do you have a burner phone?”
“Even I wouldn’t buy a burner phone just for storing our vows on, Rhaenyra.”
“This isn’t fair,” Rhaenyra whined, well aware she sounded like a small child being deprived of dessert. “I want to know what you’ll say!”
“I suppose you’ll have to wait until the day,” Alicent replied dryly.
“But what if you catch me unawares?”
“That’s the idea, I think. Besides, how unawares can I really catch you?”
“I don’t know,” Rhaenyra mumbled. “What if it says something like, I never really loved you, and by the way I’m running away with—”
“Oh, please —”
“—the hot new trombonist in the WSO—”
“She is not that hot.”
“She is,” Rhaenyra insisted. “And the more you deny it, the more suspicious you look.”
“Well, excuse me for only having eyes for you,” Alicent said, affronted.
“Don’t try that on me,” Rhaenyra said. “I’m still fucking annoyed at you.”
“Hmm,” Alicent let out amusedly. “What is it they say about curiosity and cats?”
“Alicent.”
“Rhaenyra.”
“You can’t even give me a hint?”
“Oh, alright,” Alicent said with a sigh. “Just a small one, though.”
“I’m listening.”
“Alright, here it is.”
A pause. “Well?” Rhaenyra prompted.
“Just a second, I’m finding them.”
“Ugh.”
“Or I could just not, if you prefer—”
“No. Just find them faster.”
“Got them.”
“Go on, then.”
“Okay,” Alicent said, then cleared her throat—rather melodramatically, Rhaenyra thought. “Rhaenyra,” she began seriously.
“Good start,” Rhaenyra said.
“Thanks, I thought so too. Rhaenyra. Ever since we met—”
“Invocation of history. Interesting.”
“Are you going to let me read or not?”
“Yes, go on.”
“Ever since we met,” said Alicent, “I’ve wanted to tell you this. I never really loved you, and by the way I’m eloping with the hot trombonist—”
“Alicent!”
Alicent laughed, the sound echoing down the phone with a beautiful effervescence of static. “It’s just too easy, darling,” she said. “I have to go, I’ve got tutti in five.”
“Don’t even bother coming home,” Rhaenyra muttered.
“Hmm, I suppose I could always go home with—”
“Oh, fuck off,” Rhaenyra said, even though she was smiling herself, and put down the phone to the irresistably lovely sound of Alicent’s continued laughter. She let out a sigh. She should get started on her own vows, she supposed. And dinner.
“Alicent?”
“Mm?”
“Do you have a moment? Need an opinion.”
Alicent came in, tapping at something on her phone, then coming to stop in front of the piano.
“Shoot,” she said.
“This commission.”
“Oh yes, the movie song.”
“You don’t have to call it that.”
“Well, it helps me differentiate between the other songs you’re writing.”
“I’m writing a lot of movie stuff.”
“Those are scores. This is a song. Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said with a sigh.
“That was a big sigh,” Alicent observed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I mean, something,” Rhaenyra said, tapping at the score with her pencil. “It’s almost there, it’s just the final part I can’t figure out. It should feel like a recapitulation, not a reprise, or a repeat. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” Alicent said. “Have you tried modulating?”
“Obviously,” Rhaenyra sighed frustratedly. “It just sounds twee.”
“What key?”
“What?”
“What key have you modulated to?”
She blinked. “Um, I tried F sharp minor to A major.”
“Circle of fifths.”
“Yeah.”
“What about F sharp minor to F sharp major?”
“You think that’ll sound less twee?”
Alicent smiled. “I think you should try it,” she said.
Dubiously, Rhaenyra did. It sounded good.
“Fuck’s sake,” she muttered. Alicent snorted.
“Too late to give me a co-writing credit?” she teased.
“You get enough thank yous as it is,” Rhaenyra said, rolling her eyes.
“I like it,” Alicent said. “Very sixties.”
“Mm,” Rhaenyra said. She played through the whole ending. Alicent watched her.
“It works with the lyrics, too,” she said.
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra agreed. “Don’t really like the lyrics, though.”
“What, you’re not a fan of the studio’s favourite new ingénue?”
“I just don’t see why they can’t let me pick my own collaborators.”
“You do, Rhaenyra.”
“But not all the time,” she said. “And now I’ve got these—shitty lyrics.”
“Well, it’s for the credits of a blockbuster, so.”
“Still.”
“Pays the mortgage, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra conceded. “And it sounds quite good, now.”
“It does.”
Rhaenyra took the score and scribbled on the new key signature for the second half, then looked at it carefully, thinking about how she’d have to start transcribing the next morning, and sending more emails. She fiddled with her rings as she did so. It took a few minutes for her to realise that Alicent was still watching her. When she looked up from the piano she noted with some surprise that her cheeks were a ruddy shade of red, as though she’d just been exercising.
“You alright?” she asked with a concerned frown.
“Hmm?” Alicent let out. “Um, yes. Yep.” Her voice was raspy. Rhaenyra felt her frown deepen. Alicent cleared her throat. “Shall I—I was going to make a cup of tea. Want one?”
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said slowly, concern growing. “What—?” As she spoke she twisted her ring around her finger without really thinking about it. In the quiet of the study, the responding hitch in Alicent’s breath practically echoed. Rhaenyra froze. She realised, abruptly, that the sound was one of arousal.
“Alicent,” she said.
“Yeah,” Alicent replied breathily. She was looking at Rhaenyra’s hands. Rhaenyra looked at them too. They did not appear to her to be particularly different than usual. It wasn’t as though her hands didn’t have the capacity to turn Alicent on, but she wasn’t clear on what, now, had prompted such a rapid shift in Alicent’s demeanour. She stood, and moved so that they were standing directly opposite each other.
“What is it?” she asked.
“What is what?”
“You’re being—” Rhaenyra began, reaching her hand out to thumb at Alicent’s collar. The same resulting hitch in her breath stopped Rhaenyra short. “There,” she said. “What is that?”
“Nothing,” Alicent said, even as she leaned in closer.
“Not nothing,” Rhaenyra insisted. “You’re…” she trailed off, looking at her hand again. Then it hit her. There, amongst her usual rings, the bracelet around her wrist, the scar on her palm, glinted what was certainly the culprit of Alicent’s sudden stimulation. She grinned.
“Like the ring, do you?”
“Which one?” Alicent replied.
Rhaenyra raised her eyebrows. “Stupid question.”
“Not really,” Alicent said. Rhaenyra could tell that she was working hard to keep her voice as even as possible. “You’re wearing about eleven—”
“My new ring,” Rhaenyra interrupted throatily. “Or your new ring, rather.”
Alicent licked her lips, and didn’t say anything.
“You like that,” Rhaenyra said. When she was met, again, with silence, she prompted: “Alicent?”
“Yes,” Alicent said, quietly, suddenly, as though the word had been tugged out of her. “I like that.”
“I like it too,” Rhaenyra murmured, smiling, looking at it. They’d chosen it together, but it had been Alicent who’d noticed it. That’s very you, she’d said. And it was. Rhaenyra liked it, the thought of it physically being her. Being hers.
“Of course you do,” Alicent said now. “You chose it.”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra agreed, “but that’s not why I like it.”
“Why do you like it, then?”
“Hmm,” Rhaenyra let out, as though thinking about it, then brought her hand up from Alicent’s collar to her lips. She placed her ring finger on her mouth.
“Open,” she said softly. Alicent did. Rhaenyra slipped her finger inside her mouth, sucking in a breath at the sensation. She watched Alicent’s eyes flutter shut. “Good,” she said.
Alicent whimpered, then opened her mouth again, let Rhaenyra rest another finger on her tongue. She was of a deliciously pliant temperament, although Rhaenyra could sense that it was merely the first layer of many that she would be spending at least the next hour uncovering. She took her fingers from Alicent’s mouth and kissed her. She’d intended to be clinical, careful, at least for a little bit, in order to drag as much neediness out of Alicent as she could, but her own body had failed her. Maybe she was turned on by it too, she thought, opening her mouth and licking sloppily into Alicent’s. The ring. Or Alicent’s reaction to the ring. Or both. She undid Alicent’s trousers.
“You first,” she pulled away to say in Alicent’s ear. “You want my fingers, don’t you? Filling up your—”
“Yes,” Alicent let out quickly with a shudder, clinging to Rhaenyra with all the urgency of a drowning man. She pulled Rhaenyra away from the piano stool and walked them backwards, until her back hit the wall with a soft thunk. She groaned out loud just at the contact.
“Fucking hells, Alicent,” Rhaenyra couldn’t keep from blurting out. With their chests close together, she could feel the way Alicent’s was heaving with exertion. She felt a hand come up to grasp at her arse, and let out a groan, falling forward so their faces were close together, Alicent’s breath brushing up over her mouth.
“Is it really the ring?” she whispered, as though encouraging her to share a secret.
“It’s everything,” Alicent replied hoarsely, shimmying her trousers down her hips. Rhaenyra was familiar with, and addicted to, that particular tone of Alicent’s voice, which carried with it all the rugged danger of a blunt knife. “The fucking ring, your hands—”
“Alicent—”
“And you put your fingers in my mouth like—”
“—like?”
“Like you own me,” Alicent said. The fierceness on her face belied the way her body was still turned towards Rhaenyra, yielding, like all of her was there for the taking, which she supposed it was.
“Don’t I?” Rhaenyra replied very quietly, smiling.
“If you hurry up and put your hand down my pants,” Alicent said. “Maybe.”
“This hand,” Rhaenyra said. “This hand with my engagement ring—”
“My engagement ring—”
“Yours,” Rhaenyra agreed, and dipped her hand with Alicent’s or hers or their engagement ring straight into her underwear, shivering at Alicent’s cry, easing two fingers into her and moving them with deliberate slowness.
“More,” Alicent breathed out.
“No,” Rhaenyra said pleasantly, pushing her back.
“Please.”
“No,” Rhaenyra said. “Be patient. You’re so desperate today.”
“Rhaenyra—”
“I’m beginning to think you’ve stopped believing in foreplay,” Rhaenya said with some concern, curling her fingers as she spoke. “And that’s really very worrying to me, Alicent.”
“Is it?” Alicent groaned out. “Oh, Gods, yes—”
“Of course,” Rhaenyra said seriously. “It’s the best part, you know.”
“Seven hells—”
“You get all worked up,” she continued. “You look so beautiful.”
“Shut up.”
“That’s not very romantic,” Rhaenyra said.
“You’re fucking me up against the wall of our study,” Alicent gasped out, jogging her hips in an—rather sly, Rhaenyra thought—attempt to move Rhaenyra’s fingers deeper inside of her. “It’s not exactly the stuff of dreams.”
“No?” Rhaenyra asked. “But I love you so much, sweetheart. And I’ve got your ring on my finger—”
“Gods —”
“This is insane,” Rhaenyra remarked, unable to restrain her shocked delight. “Just mentioning —”
“Less commentary, more fucking,” Alicent demanded in a tight voice. “Please. Please —”
Rhaenyra was inclined to be magnanimous, if only because she could feel her own restraint slipping away from her again; all the talk about rings and ownership was igniting a rather unfeminist feeling of arousal in the pit of her own stomach, and she was desperate to see Alicent come, in part because it was still one of her favourite sights in the world, but also because she knew that the immediate result would be Alicent’s mouth on her.
“Come on then, gorgeous,” she murmured now. “Come for me. I’ll let you eat me out after—”
Alicent groaned. “Rhaenyra—”
“As many times as you want,” she promised. Then—rather boldly, since it wasn’t always up Alicent’s proverbial street—she slipped one more finger inside her, her ring finger. Alicent’s groans grew louder.
“You’re so wet,” she whispered. “Gonna have to wash that—”
“You’re so fucking annoying,” Alicent informed her, although this statement was significantly undercut by the way she was whining it out. “Stop fucking—embarrassing me—”
“Not embarrassing,” Rhaenyra told her, sincerely now. “I love it. I love you. I love you all over me, all over my fingers, my hands. My mouth. And I love your mouth on me, I love the way you come—”
Alicent, presently, did come. Rhaenyra sighed at the feeling of her, scraping her teeth along the muscle of her neck.
“That was—” Alicent managed, then stopped.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra agreed.
“I can still go down on you, can’t I?” Alicent asked.
“I don’t know, can you?” Rhaenyra replied with a laugh. “Can you stand up?”
“I don’t need to stand up,” Alicent said. “We’ve a bed. Very expensive. Beautiful cotton sheets—”
“Now she remembers,” Rhaenyra said, then leaned in and kissed her, lazily, open-mouthed. “Fuck, that was hot,” she mumbled.
“I appreciate the post-mortem,” Alicent murmured back against her lips. “Bed now, please.”
“Mm,” Rhaenyra agreed, wincing as she moved and felt the way her underwear clung to her, uncomfortably wet. She glanced down, at her hand, and the engagement ring on it, and grinned. “This is amazing,” she said.
“What is?” Alicent said, then, rather counterintuitively, kissed her again. It was a while before she got her answer.
“I’ve found something that turns you on in, like, five seconds flat,” Rhaenyra answered eventually. “And I get to wear it on my hand. Forever.”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said, then looked at her.
“What?”
Alicent didn’t reply, only tugged her out of the study and straight into the bedroom. There, she pulled off Rhaenyra’s clothes with merciless, rapid precision. Rhaenyra fell back against the bed, completely naked.
“Spread your legs,” Alicent commanded. Rhaenyra obeyed, grinning like an idiot. Alicent looked at her, looking caught between irritation and affection. Then she said, rather crossly: “Everything does.”
“Hmm?”
“Everything turns me on in five seconds flat,” she said.
“Everything? That must be very stressful, Alicent. My sympathies.”
Alicent pinched her thigh. “Everything about you.”
Rhaenyra beamed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Alicent said. “My hot—”
“—keep talking—”
“Sexy—”
“Yep—”
“Beautiful—”
“Oh, yes—”
“Gorgeous—”
“Wife.”
“Not yet.”
“Fiancée.”
“Better,” Rhaenyra said. Then, as she realised that she was getting wetter just at the sound of the words in Alicent’s voice, the gentle, careful tone of it that hid the searing lust coursing underneath, she added: “But let’s not split hairs.”
“Doesn’t really matter,” Alicent agreed. “What’s a marriage contract in the bedroom?”
“Irrelevant, that’s what. The orgasms take precedence. Same thing, anyway. Wife, fiancée.”
“Potato, pot-ah-to.”
“Tomato, tom-ah-to.”
“Let’s call the whole thing off?”
Rhaenyra laughed, and sat up to tug her in close.
“Not yet,” she said. “I was quite looking forward to my brains being fucked out first.”
Alicent raised her eyebrows. “That sounds uncomfortable.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Rhaenyra replied lecherously. “Come here.” She took up Alicent’s hand, where her own engagement ring was sitting, and licked, with excruciating slowness, up the length of the entire finger. Alicent let out a shuddering breath.
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra murmured. “Definitely want those inside of me.”
“That can be arranged,” Alicent breathed out.
“And your mouth too.”
“Whatever you want,” she promised. “I’ll give you everything you want.”
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra murmured much later. They were slumped on the sofa, in their underwear, with a pizza box on the coffee table—a rare indulgence, permitted by Alicent, since they were both too tired to try and pull together something from the bits and pieces they had in the fridge. The TV was playing through a re-run of Much Ado About Nothing.
“Mm? Oh, I love this part.”
“You’re quite the romantic, aren’t you?”
“Have I ever claimed otherwise?”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said with a fond smile to herself. Benedick and Beatrice had already decided they were too wise to woo peaceably. And I pray thee now tell me, he was telling her. For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
“What were you going to say?” Alicent asked.
“Oh,” she said. “Just that I can’t wait to get married.”
Alicent picked her head up from where it was resting on Rhaenyra’s shoulder, and looked at her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said, trying not to blush at the admission, which she knew to be out of character.
“Me either,” Alicent said softly, and smiled. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? Beatrice asked Benedick.
Rhaenyra reached out and ran her hand across Alicent’s cheek.
“Your hands are greasy,” Alicent informed her.
“Delicious,” Rhaenyra said.
“No, Rhaenyra, it’s gross,” Alicent said, batting the hand in question away. “Go wash them or keep them away from me. We can move it up, if you want.”
“No, we’ve told everyone it’s May now. And besides, I want some sun.”
“Fine. Go wash your hands.”
“You go wash your hands.”
“I did! Twenty minutes ago!”
Rhaenyra thought about this.
“New plan,” she said. “We can find an activity that involves your hands and not mine.”
“And what activity might that be?” Alicent asked, raising her eyebrows. “Watching the movie?”
“No, that’s boring. Use your imagination.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“This won’t take much effort,” Rhaenyra said. “Just lie back. No one needs to use their hands, even.”
Alicent’s eyebrows hiked up higher, but she was already glancing down at Rhaenyra’s legs, as though imagining them around her head.
“You’re insatiable,” she said.
Rhaenyra scoffed. “Oh, don’t try that with me. Hypocrite.”
“Are you actually wet?”
She thought about it, shifted her legs as though checking.
“Yeah.”
“Seven hells,” Alicent muttered, then reached for the waistband of Rhaenyra’s knickers. “Take them off.” Then, when Rhaenyra was apparently too slow: “Take them off.”
“Fucking hells, alright,” Rhaenyra said with a laugh, obeying. “Now who’s insatiable?”
“Ridiculous,” Alicent grumbled, lying back and pushing Rhaenyra upwards, towards her mouth. “Spends the whole afternoon shagging—”
“Excuse me, but it takes two to tango—”
“We’re middle-aged, Rhaenyra, there’s only so much sex it’s safe to have.”
Rhaenyra laughed at this, properly, even as she felt Alicent’s hands come up to rest on her calves, breath ghosting against her thighs, and felt a curl of pleasure in the base of her spine in response. “What, worried you’ll have a heart attack?”
“If you were going to give me a heart attack,” Alicent asserted, voice slightly muffled, “you would have by now.”
“Well, that’s my thinking exactly,” Rhaenyra said, with a sigh as Alicent pressed a gentle, exploratory kiss to her clit. “Oh, that’s nice.”
“Not too sensitive?” Alicent pulled back slightly to ask.
“You wish,” Rhaenyra breathed out. “Gods. You know, I’m really marrying you because you’re such a good lay.”
“I guessed,” Alicent replied. “I was planning to ask you after sex, initially. I thought the endorphins would help you along.”
“Were you really?” Rhaenyra asked, letting out a breath of laughter that changed quickly into a moan. “Oh, fuck, Alicent. Yeah. Please.”
Alicent hummed contentedly.
“I didn’t need anything to help me along,” Rhaenyra told her, moving her hips closer to Alicent’s mouth. “I love you.”
“I know,” Alicent mumbled. “Now ssh.”
“I feel bad,” Rhaenyra said, voice growing hoarse. “You’re missing the movie.”
Alicent moved her mouth with more vigour. Love me, and mend, said Benedick.
“Stop talking,” she pulled away to command firmly.
“Okay,” Rhaenyra said, voice shaking with desire. “I’ll stop talking.”
It crept up on them, of course, the way big things always did. Aegon started it, one morning when he was over for brunch.
“So, two weeks to go,” he announced ceremoniously, taking up a forkful of eggs.
Rhaenyra frowned across the table. “Until what?”
Her brother raised his eyebrows. “You’re lucky Alicent isn’t here, you’d be in trouble for that.”
“For what?”
“Um, for not remembering your wedding is in two weeks?”
“What?” Rhaenyra glanced at the calendar hanging up over the bread bin, horrified. Sure enough, it was the last day of April. On the next page, she knew, the box reserved for the thirteenth of the month already had WEDDING!!!!!! in it, in red Sharpie and capital letters. Alicent had complained when Rhaenyra had first written it in that it looked vaguely threatening, so she’d added a smiley face on it and some stars to appease her.
“Yeah,” Aegon said, leaning back in his chair. “So what are you gonna do for your hen night?”
“Nothing that involves you,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Fuck off,” Aegon said, insulted. “First you don’t ask me to witness the wedding—”
“You’re giving a speech, Aegon. The only speech—”
“—and now I don’t get to organise your stag do?”
“I thought you said it was a hen night.”
“Well, you’re both women!”
“Are we?” Rhaenyra shot back, with a scandalised look. “Well, I didn’t realise that. In that case, I might call it all off.”
“Be serious,” he said scoldingly.
“I am,” she said back.
“I’ve made a working guest list,” he said, taking his phone out. “And I’ve got venue ideas. I wanted to do laser tag or something, but a lot of them don’t really like guys in wheelchairs for some reason.”
“Wankers,” Rhaenyra said.
“Yeah,” Aegon agreed. “So, here’s the list of outstandingly accessible venues—”
“Aegon,” she said. “I don’t want a stag do. Or hen night. Or whatever you’re calling it.”
“I thought you’d say that,” he said. “Because actually the list of venues is just the local and then your house, and the guest list is all of us. And me and Aemond and Hel are paying for drinks and we’re just going to get absolutely battered.”
“That’s just Friday night dinner,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“Exactly,” he said triumphantly. “So? What do you say?”
“Fine,” Rhaeynra said with a sigh. “But you have to be the one to run it past Alicent.”
“That’s easy, I’ll just get Hel to ask,” he said, already focusing on something on his phone. “She never says no to her.”
“You manipulate her too easily,” Rhaenyra said.
“Me?” Aegon responded, astonished. “You’re joking. That woman has us all wrapped around her little finger! Did you see how Dad got her two new oboes for her birthday last year? And got the orchestra in Winterfell to add her concert one to their collection? He might as well come out with a sign that says ‘Helaena is my favourite child’.”
Rhaenyra stifled a grin. It was true that Helaena was doted on by their father, but really she was doted on by everyone she met, as it took only five minutes for a person to discover that she was surely one of the purest and most genuine souls on the planet. If there was one person who deserved to be spoiled beyond reason, it was most certainly Rhaenyra’s sister.
“Still,” Rhaenyra said. “You should ask Alicent.”
“No, thanks,” Aegon snorted. “I’m already permanently disabled, no need to add to my list of bodily injuries.”
“Not funny, Egg,” Rhaenyra said with a sigh.
“It is a bit funny.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is to me.”
“How’s Ceira?” she asked, rerouting the subject in the direction of Aegon’s girlfriend, lest they get caught in the typical sibling battle of ‘is/isn’t’ ad infinitum. Aegon brightened.
“Good,” he said. “Busy being a doctor, you know how it is. Don’t know if I’ve really seen her for the past few weeks, she’s always in the hospital. Practically never home.”
Rhaenyra frowned. “You can always ring us, you know.”
“I know,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not bloody neglected, I just miss my girlfriend. And I love you, but that is a void that you cannot fill—”
“Stop,” she interrupted, before the conversation turned inappropriate, as it was wont to do with Aegon. “Eat your eggs.”
Aegon smirked, but obeyed.
“Sheesh erry ecksheyed for the weddin,” he said after some time through a bite of eggs.
“What? Don’t talk with your mouth full, it’s disgusting.”
He swallowed. “She’s very excited for the wedding,” he repeated.
“It’s not a wedding.”
“Alright, she’s very excited for the not wedding. And also keeps bugging me about what she should wear, so could you please tell me what to tell her.”
Rhaenyra frowned. “She should wear whatever she wants,” she said. “We put that on the invitation.”
“Yeah, but what should she actually wear?”
Rhaenyra considered this.
“Black tie,” she decided. “But nothing too formal. No hats.”
“No hats,” Aegon repeated. “Alright.”
“Alright.”
“And can she come to the hen night?”
“Aegon.”
“Sorry, the stag do.”
“Aegon.”
“Sorry, the extremely boring night out.”
“Fine,” Rhaenyra said with a sigh. “Someone needs to make sure you don’t drink yourself unconscious.”
“Mm, she’s good at that,” he agreed. “Alright. This weekend?”
“I don’t know. Alicent’s got concerts.”
“I know, so do half the guest list. I was going for a Sunday night. Then everyone has Monday off.”
Rhaenyra looked at him. “You’ve actually thought about this, haven’t you?”
“Of course,” he said, clearly offended. “What do you take me for?”
“My little brother.”
“Ouch.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Alright, well,” Aegon said, leaning back. “ As your younger brother. Just leave it all to me.”
“Seven Hells,” Rhaenyra muttered.
About halfway through the not stag do not hen night incredibly boring night out, Rhaenyra realised that she was the drunkest she’d been in at least three years. She decided to go out into the garden for some fresh air; when she tipped her head up to look at the sky, the stars all spun in her vision, like a hanging mobile.
“Mysaria, where’s the—oh, fuck.”
Rhaenyra drew her sight away to the source of the voice beside her, which was Alicent’s. She was holding a cigarette, and looking extremely guilty about it.
“Hello,” Rhaenyra said blearily.
“Don’t be mad,” Alicent replied immediately.
“Not mad,” Rhaenyra said. “Well, I am a bit. Scandalised, maybe?”
“Don’t be scandalised.”
“Too late. How many have you had?”
“Just this one.”
“Alicent.”
“And one before that.”
“Alicent.”
“Okay, I don’t remember. Four, maybe?”
“Fucking hells,” Rhaenyra muttered. “Give us a drag, then?”
Alicent handed over the cigarette dutifully. Rhaenyra inhaled, savouring the feeling of it.
“Ugh, that’s good,” she said. “Why’d I quit again?”
“General health, I think. And you were leaning too much into the brooding artist thing. It was getting unbearable.”
“Oh yeah. Who’s been your supplier?”
“I have to keep them anonymous,” Alicent said firmly. The conviction with which she said this, as well as the fact that she’d been chain-smoking, made it clear that she was just as drunk as Rhaenyra.
“It’s Mysaria, isn’t it.”
“Anonymous.”
“You know she barely smokes any more, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“She just carries around cigarettes.”
“Well, she smokes them sometimes.”
“When she’s posing,” Rhaenyra said with a smirk.
“No one for her to pose to,” Alicent said, then leaned against the wall with a sigh. “I want that back.”
“Hmm, no.”
“Rhaenyra.”
“Fine.” Rhaenyra handed it back and watched her take another drag. “Is it wrong to say you look hot?” she asked.
“Probably,” Alicent said. “Good night?”
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said. “I like our friends.”
“I like them too,” Alicent agreed a little woozily, exhaling and resting her head against the wall. “It was a good idea to plant earlier this year, by the way.”
“I told you,” replied Rhaenyra, who was not too drunk to avoid being smug about gardening. She looked at Alicent. “Alicent,” she said.
“Mm?”
Rhaenyra frowned over at her. There was something she wanted to say to her, she knew, but it was slipping out of reach, on a wave of red wine and whiskey. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” Alicent asked, her voice becoming clearer as she moved in to grasp Rhaenyra’s wrist.
“No. And That was one time,” Rhaenyra said. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to remember, aren’t I?”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, darling.”
Rhaenyra rubbed at her face and opened her eyes. Alicent’s face was there, the lights from inside casting warm shadows across her jaw. She loved it, dearly. It was strange, she thought, how she could probably draw Alicent’s face from memory more easily than her own. The dimples. The worry-lines. The freckles. The bend of her nose. She could write long, flourishing sonatas on the subject of Alicent’s nose. She had written sonatas about Alicent’s nose. But in lieu of saying this, and because she still couldn’t remember what she’d previously wanted to say, she asked: “Did Aegon make you do shots?”
“Yeah,” Alicent said with another sigh. “You?”
“Yep.”
Alicent laughed. The shadows flickered and changed. From inside came the thumping bass of a stereo, whining guitars. You, me, and all that stuff we’re so scared of. Gotta ride down, baby, into this tunnel of love. Harwin must have gotten ahold of the music queue again, which wasn’t as bad as Aemond’s weird psychedelic stuff, but did mean they were stuck firmly in the eighties.
“I think it was at least one shot of tequila,” said Alicent. “He’s a real menace.”
“He’s Aegon.”
“Who’s Aegon? Because if there’s another Aegon bandying around, that needs to stop.”
This final assertion came from the man himself, who was rolling himself steadily into the garden with a drunken grin. Rhaenyra rolled her eyes, or tried to, but wasn’t quite sure she was pulling the movement off.
“Aegon,” she said. “What have we said about driving drunk?”
“Um, it’s fun?” Aegon asked, and promptly attempted to do a wheelie. Alicent lunged forward, cigarette forgotten, to grab his chair.
“Fuck’s sake,” she muttered over Aegon’s peal of laughter.
“I had it in hand!”
“Shut up,” Alicent said, slapping his arm. “You twat.”
“How would you rate your hen night experience, ladies?”
“Somewhere between middling and average,” Rhaenyra said. Alicent snorted.
“That is so hurtful,” Aegon said, holding a hand to his chest in demonstration of this fact. “I put a lot of effort into this!”
“Really?” Rhaenyra asked. “Because from where I stand, we’re the ones hosting.”
“Nonsense,” Aegon told her. “I bought the booze—”
“You and Aemond and Helaena bought the booze,” Alicent corrected.
“I came up with the party games!”
“It was one quiz,” Rhaenyra said. “About who knows us best. And you didn’t even know the answers to the questions.”
“Well, Laena wrote it and then got too drunk to remember where she put the answers!”
“Passing the buck,” Alicent said with an grin into the glass of wine she’d been nursing along with the now forgotten cigarette.
“I got the banner!” Aegon said.
“They fucked the banner up,” Rhaenyra pointed out. “It says happy marriage Rhaenyra and Alicent and can there be a picture of a musical note on it.”
“How is that my fault?” he protested. “Plus, it’s kind of ironic! You guys love ironic things.”
“You’re a piece of work,” Rhaenyra muttered.
“Aegon,” Alicent said.
“Yeah,” Aegon said, then, after squinting for a while in Alicent’s direction, his face broke out into a broad grin. “Oh my Gods,” he said. “You’re pissed, aren’t you?”
“No,” Alicent said. “Yeah. Whatever. Not the point.”
“What is the point, then?”
“The point is we love it,” Alicent said, the sincerity painfully audible. Rhaenyra wondered dimly if she should record this moment of vulnerability to show to Alicent tomorrow morning, when she’d no doubt be mortified by its occurrence. “I love it. And you. Thank you.”
Aegon’s grin softened. “Yeah,” he said. “Any time.”
“I bloody hope not,” Rhaenyra said. “They’ve practically trashed the living room.”
At this, Alicent’s woozily happy expression morphed into one of clear panic.
“They’ve what?”
“Fu—uuuuck—”
Alicent charged through the patio door into the living room. Aegon and Rhaenyra watched as she looked at it, hands on hips, wobbling a little where she stood. Then, rather surprisingly, she slumped down onto the sofa in apparent resignation and accepted a top-up of her wine from Daeron.
“Oh, she must be drunk,” Aegon commented.
“You’re cleaning up tomorrow,” Rhaenyra said.
“So I’m staying over,” Aegon said.
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said, then spotted the bottle of vodka in his hand. “Give me some of that.”
“Did you remember what you wanted to ask me?” Alicent asked later in bed, her words almost entirely clouded by sleep and drink.
“Hmm?” Rhaenyra replied. She had decided, at some point, to dig her nose in Alicent’s stomach, and just about drifted off to the rhythm of her diaphragm contracting and expanding with her breath.
“You said something,” said Alicent. “Wanted to ask me something.”
“Oh,” Rhaenyra said. “No.”
“Okay. Night.”
“Night.”
“Come on, we’re running late already!”
“Running late for who?” Rhaenyra grumbled as she pulled on a boot. “Dad?”
“Literally yes,” Alicent said, standing at the front door with her arms crossed. Syrax was running excitedly up and down the hallway as though in agreement. “Aegon and Ceira are driving, they’re taking Aemond with them and meeting us there.”
“Helly?”
“She’s coming,” Alicent confirmed. “Bringing the kids, taking the train.”
“They never miss beach day,” Rhaenyra said.
“But we might if you don’t hurry,” Alicent said pointedly.
“Calm down woman,” Rhaenyra replied. “I’m doing my laces!”
“Mm,” Alicent let out. It was remarkable, Rhaenyra thought to herself, how one syllable could be packed with so much contempt. “I’ll be in the car.”
“Fine,” Rhaenyra said. “And take Syrax with you.”
“Syrax! Come on girl! Yes, exactly, it’s beach day! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Ever since she was small, Rhaenyra’s family reserved the eighth of May—what they all agreed to be the most marked herald of summer, and what later, coincidentally, was Aemond’s birthday—for a drive down to the sea. It was the one day of the year that her father, for all his faults, had reserved unfailingly for his children, preserved in the calendar with the all the sanctity of a wedding or a funeral. Every year Rhaenyra watched with some disbelief, and no little amount of fondness, as he gamely played frisbee; went rockpooling; tried to work the portable barbecue. Even now, approaching middle age herself, Rhaenyra still regarded this day as the best of the year, the one that she could—for better or worse—guarantee her father’s undivided attention.
“Shotgun,” she said as they locked up and approached the car. Alicent shot her a glare.
“Who else would be in the passenger seat?”
“Syrax,” Rhaenyra said with a shrug. “Or Dad.”
“Well, you are going to have to move for him.”
“No way.”
“Rhaenyra, he needs to be comfortable—”
“The backseat is comfortable!”
Alicent rolled her eyes as she settled into the driver’s seat.
“You’re impossible.”
“I just want time to talk to my beautiful girlfriend,” Rhaenyra said. “Is that so wrong?”
“Oh, so you have a fiancée and a girlfriend now?”
“Yeah.”
“You must introduce me to them some time.”
“I will,” Rhaenyra said happily, plugging her phone in. “Joni for the drive? What do you think, Syrax?”
A bark.
“That’s a yes, I think,” Rhaenyra concluded.
“No Blue, please, you’ll be crying before we hit the motorway,” Alicent said.
“Oh, we’re not taking the motorway, are we?” Rhaenyra replied. “The other way is so much nicer—”
“I know, but somebody made us late—”
“—it’s not going to kill them if we’re half an hour late! Aegon is half an hour late by necessity.”
“Fine,” Alicent said. “But if we get stuck in traffic, it’s your fault.”
“Fine,” Rhaenyra said. “And I won’t cry,” she added, remembering the initial statement Alicent had made.
“Sure.”
“I won’t,” she insisted, but she put on Court and Spark anyway, just to be sure.
They did get stuck in traffic, but this did very little to reduce the pleasure of the drive, which—once they had picked up Rhaenyra’s father—was filled with enough catching up and discussions of what they would do once they were arrived that the time passed quickly. They stopped once to let Syrax stretch her legs, and Rhaenyra noted with no small amount of delight the beginnings of the sea wind in the air as they approached the coast.
“I’ll take the rest of the way, if you want,” Rhaenyra said before they got back into the car.
“You sure?” Alicent asked.
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said. “Relax.”
“Alright,” Alicent agreed easily. “Do I get control of the music?”
“Not a chance,” Rhaenyra said with a grin.
“On the way back?”
“Maybe.”
“I accept your terms, though they are rather tyrannical,” Alicent said.
“That’s me,” Rhaenyra confirmed, getting into the car. “Tyrant for the ages.” She turned to look at her father. “Ready, Dad?”
“Are you taking us the rest of the way there?” her father asked.
“Yep,” Rhaenyra said, revving the ignition.
“Oh dear,” he replied teasingly. “We better hold on, Syrax.”
Rhaenyra rolled her eyes. “Funny,” she said.
“Only teasing, darling,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. She looked at Alicent out of the corner of her eye. “What, nothing to add? No jibe about my driving?”
Alicent looked at her incredulously. “My Gods,” she said. “A woman can’t sit in quiet contemplation in the passenger seat of her own car any more?”
Both Rhaenyra and Viserys laughed.
“Alright, I’m sorry,” Rhaenyra said.
“Hmm.”
“Let’s go. Dad, no more comments about my driving, please—”
“I wouldn’t dare, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered.
It was a long, lovely day—they didn’t arrive too late, despite Alicent’s reservations, and the sun, though often temperamental at this time of year, had decided to show its face, with bright insistence. They went swimming (even Alicent, who often objected, once Aegon pleaded enough and pretended he wouldn’t be able to go in without her), and meandered slowly up and down the shore, without any particular destination in mind. The beach was a fairly secluded spot, because it was relatively hard to get to, they had most of it to themselves, bar a few pensioners and one small family on a picnic. By the time they’d settled down to light the barbecues for dinner they were the happy kind of hungry, tired out from a day playing catch, entertaining Syrax, diving underneath the water, chasing each other for no reason up and down the sand. Rhaenyra watched as Aegon and Aemond squabbled about the best way to barbecue the food, sitting beside her father on the blanket nearby. In the setting sun, Alicent and Ceira were rockpooling with Helaena and her twins; Alicent was picking out something from the water and crouching to show Jaehaerys excitedly.
“What a perfect day,” her father said with audible contentment.
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra agreed. She didn’t really believe in perfect days—she found that labelling them as such often cancelled out their perfection. You could never really know if a day was perfect until it was done. And by then, its perfection came to you with a tinge of bitterness, because it was over. But then again, she thought. The sun oozing its light onto the sea, painting it in strange and beautiful colours. The smell of woodfire, and roasting sausages. Her father in his reading glasses, frowning down at his book, even though it was getting too dark to read. And Alicent, laughing, inspecting a tangled snarl of seaweed as though it were the most special thing in the world. All perfect, in their own right.
“What did you get Aemond?” she asked.
“A book he asked for,” Viserys said. “And a new watch.”
“He’ll say that it’s too much.”
“Well,” he said. “I’ve not got much else to spend on at my age. So it might as well be my children.”
Rhaenyra grinned. “And grandchildren.”
“And grandchildren,” Viserys said, his own smile widening. “The twins are getting so big already.”
“I know.”
“You think Aegon’ll manage to keep Ceira for long enough?”
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said. “If he makes sure to keep his head out of his own arse.”
“What did you get for Aemond?”
“Cufflinks,” Rhaenyra said with a snort. “And tickets to the new jazz festival in Volantis. He’s so hard to buy for.”
“Well, it’s the thought that counts, darling,” Viserys said reassuringly, which of course wasn’t reassuring at all.
“I think Alicent found a record for him as well. Some first pressing.”
“That’s lovely.”
“Yeah, they nerd out over obscure variations of rockabilly. Did you know that there’s such a thing as psychobilly?”
Her father looked over at her, mildly surprised.
“I did not,” he said, “but it makes sense that Aemond would listen to it.”
“It’s, like, a fusion of rockabilly and punk rock.”
“And you say Alicent likes this music?” Viserys looked vaguely horrified by the idea, as though realising that he didn’t know his future daughter-in-law, and former colleague, at all as well as he thought he did.
“Not necessarily,” Rhaenyra said with a shrug. “She just knows about it. She knows about everything.”
“Mm,” Viserys hummed. “I must say,” he said after a moment. “I’m not at all unhappy at the turn of events. But I am surprised.”
“What turn of events?”
He looked at her flatly. “The wedding, Rhaenyra.”
“Oh,” Rhaenyra said with surprise.
“I didn’t believe you were the marrying type, darling.”
“Daemon said that too,” she said with a sigh.
“And many other things besides, I’m sure,” her father said with a snort. “He’s your witness, is he?”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said. She cast a cautious glance in his direction. “You’re not upset, are you?”
“No,” Viserys said simply. “The two of you have always been thicker than thieves.” He paused again. “And,” he said, “there have been times where Daemon—”
“Oh, Dad, don’t—”
“—has been there for you, when I haven’t—”
“Seriously, you mustn’t—”
“—been as available as I should have been,” he finished firmly, as though doing so would cancel out the note of sadness in his voice. “So I understand. I’m just very happy for you.”
“Thank you,” Rhaenyra said, reaching a hand out for his wrist. “I don’t think I am.”
“Hmm?”
“The marrying type,” she said. “I didn’t really think there was such a type to be. I just—well, I like her.”
Viserys looked at her, and laughed out loud.
“What?” she asked, baffled.
“You like her?” he repeated. “Really, Rhaenyra?”
“Well, obviously I more than like her,” she mumbled, flushing.
“I should hope so,” he agreed. “I certainly do. And your mother did too, you know.”
“Well, I know that,” Rhaenyra said, rolling her eyes. “Always talking about how Alicent was the best house-guest she’d ever had, why couldn’t I be better behaved like my friend Alicent—”
“Not just then,” her father said, shaking his head. “Even before the two of you became friends. We went to see you play in your first concert with that orchestra, and I remember, she took my hand in the audience and whispered, ‘My goodness, that girl leading the orchestra is really something. Her eyes are on fire’.”
“Oh,” Rhaenyra said faintly. She could picture the exact expression on Alicent’s face. It was one that had not faded with age: she got it every time she played a particularly perfect phrase of music. It was a flinty, exquisite thing—a darkening of the eyes, a furrowing of the brow. When they were younger her whole face used to scrunch up with the force of it.
“Yes, I won’t forget that,” he said musingly. “She’s really something. And she was right, of course.”
“She was,” Rhaenyra agreed.
There was a long silence. Syrax had bounded up to Alicent, barking to get her attention. She could faintly hear her greeting in response: hello, my love. Aren’t you tired yet?
“I wish you both the greatest happiness,” her father said softly.
“Well,” Rhaenyra managed, taken aback. “Thank you.” She looked over, and realised with a jolt that he was crying. “Dad—”
“And there’s still the matter of your wedding present,” he said thickly. “Which you both refuse to give me any hints for—”
“You don’t have to—”
“Rhaenyra . Please.”
“I’ll talk to Alicent,” she relented.
“Good.” He looked at her closely. “Rhaenyra.”
“Yes?”
“There isn’t such a thing as soulmates.”
“Okay,” she said.
“What I mean is that love is really very ordinary,” he told her. “And so is a marriage. That’s the best part of it all. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
“Come for a walk?”
Rhaenyra looked up to see Alicent holding out a hand towards her. She groaned.
“But I’m so full,” she said. “Birthday cake, burgers, hot dogs—”
“No one told you to eat that much,” Alicent replied amusedly.
“Oh, like I was going to not eat birthday cake.”
“Too much to ask, is it? Come on, light’s almost gone.”
“The light has gone.”
“Come for a walk anyway.”
Rhaenyra squinted up at her, then, realising she wasn’t going to give up, let herself be pulled up with another groan.
“Ugh, my joints.”
“Oh, stop whining.”
“Where are we going, then? On this walk?”
Alicent gave her a look. “Up the coast.”
“Fine,” Rhaenyra grumbled, though it wasn’t particularly genuine. The evening had turned deliciously cool, and the tide wasn’t in yet. Alicent took her hand.
“Good day?” she asked.
“Great day,” Rhaenyra said. “You have fun rockpooling?”
“Oh, yes,” Alicent said with a smile. “We found a starfish.”
“Did you really?”
“No,” she said in a stage-whisper. “But don’t tell the twins.”
Rhaenyra chuckled. “Dad’s asking what we want for a wedding present.”
“Oh,” Alicent said. “But we don’t want anything, we said that.”
“Yes, well, he’s insisting.”
“Hmm,” she let out. “Maybe a dinner set.”
Rhaenyra snorted. “Oh, like we’d get any use out of that.”
“We have guests over all the time!”
“Our friends,” she pointed out. “And family. We’re not, like, hosting dinner parties.”
“Maybe we should start,” said Alicent decorously.
Rhaenyra wrinkled her nose. “No thanks,” she said. “Besides, who would cook for them? Syrax?”
“You make a good point,” Alicent conceded. Between the two of them they could just about cobble a meal together—Rhaenyra with a little more flare, if she did say so herself—but neither of them were winning culinary awards any time soon. “I don’t know, then. You don’t want a new piano, do you?”
“No. We’ve got plenty of all that.”
“Mm.” Alicent swung their hands together. “Let’s think on it.”
“Alright,” Rhaenyra agreed easily. She looked over at her, and smiled. Alicent caught it and raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Just looking.”
“It’s a pound a glance, thank you.”
“Gosh,” Rhaenyra said. “I don’t know that I can afford you, you know.”
Alicent laughed. “That’s what I’ve been saying,” she replied. Rhaenyra laughed too, then looked at her again.
“What?” Alicent said.
“Looking.”
“Well, stop.”
“Can’t.”
“Fine.”
“Well, I could.”
“Could you?”
“But I don’t want to.”
Alicent smiled softly. “Alright then,” she said. “Don’t.” She looked out at the sea. “You see those boats? They’re lovely.”
“Where?”
“Just over—”
“Oh, yes. That is lovely. Gods, still fishing? They must be knackered.”
“I’d have thought so.”
“Alicent.”
“Yes, Rhaenyra?”
Rhaenyra pursed her lips. She wanted, desperately, to come up with a better way of phrasing her question, one that was more subtle or approached it at a sort of sideways angle, at least something that wouldn’t feel like an assault. But she had never been very good at talking around things. She could only do what she always did, and go for the jugular.
“Do you want to invite your father to the wedding?”
Alicent, to her immense surprise, did not react as she would have guessed—with anger, or shock, or even sadness. Instead, she looked at Rhaenyra very calmly, and said:
“Yes.”
Rhaenyra gaped. “Well, why didn’t you say?”
Alicent shrugged. “Because I said I want to, not that I will.”
“Alicent.”
“I don’t think it’s going to work,” she said.
“But—”
“That’s what he said. I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“Oh,” Rhaenyra said stupidly.
“I called him last week,” Alicent said. Her voice was neutral, as though she were relaying the weather, or the news. “He sends his congratulations, but he won’t be able to make it.”
Rhaenyra didn’t know what to say. She decided the best course of action would be to admit this, and so said:
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Alicent said. Now the sadness Rhaenyra had been looking for before was revealing itself, steadily. It was a particular, peculiar kind that Alicent only got about her father; resigned, exhausted. Deep.
“I can talk to him,” Rhaenyra offered weakly.
Alicent gave a hollow laugh. “I’d like you to still be alive for the wedding, Rhaenyra.”
Rhaenyra felt such a wave of anger come up in her that she knew for a fact that if there was one person who would be at risk of bodily harm in a conversation between herself and Otto Hightower, it would certainly not be her. Nevertheless, she chose not to point this out, instead taking a calming breath through her nose.
“What about Gwayne?” she asked. “Or—my dad, or—?”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent said.
“If it would make you happy for him to be there—”
“It would make me happy to marry you,” Alicent said, stopping where they stood. “The rest is—”
“Is—?”
“The rest is whatever. It’s extra.” Alicent paused, then said very carefully: “He just doesn’t love me as much as you think he does.”
Rhaenyra looked at her. It was the same old story—it always had been. Only three years earlier they’d had almost the exact same conversation. The WSO had insisted on celebrating Alicent’s tenth anniversary as concertmaster with a set of concerts, and after months of wheedling from everyone around her she’d relented, agreeing to play Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. It had been a coup, completely sold out, with glowing reviews. Alicent had been beating off soloist requests with a stick for months after. And still, what lingered now was her face after opening night, heavy with something unnameable, after seeing her father in the concert hall bar. I think he was proud, she’d said to Rhaenyra in bed that night. I don’t know. And then: He wanted me to do the Mendelssohn anyway. And here they were again. Rhaenyra knew that the distance between them now had been steadily and deliberately enforced by Alicent, with great care, twenty years in the making. But even so: she felt impossibly, horribly sad.
“He does love you,” she said once she found her voice, trapped somewhere beneath the lump of her throat.
“I know,” Alicent said. “I know.” A beat. A gust of sea wind picked up, running through her hair, fanning it out in the breeze, which was curled and tousled with salt water. Even with her anger, Rhaenyra almost sighed aloud just looking at her. “He wants to go for lunch with Gwayne and I. The week after. I guess as an apology.”
“Arsehole,” Rhaenyra muttered.
“Rhaenyra.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but he is. What, he can’t take the time out of his busy schedule to come to his daughter’s wedding? He does realise you only get one, doesn’t he?”
Alicent’s lips twitched with something akin to amusement. “If I’m lucky,” she said.
She huffed. “It’s just fucking stupid.”
“Yes,” Alicent agreed. “I’m sure he’ll send along a new oven or something to make up for it.”
“I don’t want a new oven,” Rhaenyra grumbled. “I want you to be happy.”
“And who told you I’m not happy?”
“I don’t know,” Rhaenyra said. “I just don’t imagine having your parent sack off your wedding is—”
“It’s better he isn’t there,” Alicent told her. “It would just stress me out. There’d definitely be a fight by the end of the night.”
“Daemon would be on his best behaviour.”
“Not between him and Daemon, between him and you.”
“Well, can you blame me?”
“No,” Alicent said. “I can’t.” She paused. “I’d like for that to be the end of it, please,” she said after a moment. Then, when Rhaenyra made a face, she said warningly: “Rhaenyra.”
“Fine,” Rhaenyra muttered. “But it better be a fucking nice oven. An Aga or something.”
“Mm,” Alicent said. “On the subject.”
“Of Agas?”
“Of weddings.”
“Ours?”
“Yes.”
“Go on then.”
“I want to stay at Gwayne’s the night before.”
Rhaenyra blinked. “Why?”
“Because,” Alicent said stubbornly. “It’s bad luck.”
“Bad luck?”
“Yes. To see the bride before the wedding.”
Rhaenyra, who, without quite realising, had been nursing dreams of a pre-wedding snog, if not a pre-wedding shag, looked at her incredulously.
“Alicent,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” Alicent said, and Gods help her, she was. “I want—I don’t know.”
“But you know what I’m wearing. You helped me pick it. I helped you pick yours!”
“I know,” Alicent said. “But it’s not the same.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Rhaenyra said. “That’s insane.”
“Yes,” Alicent said. “Humour me, will you?”
“But what if I want to snog you?”
“You can kiss me the night before. Or on the day. I’ve heard it’s quite common to do that.”
“But what about—breakfast! I’ll be lonely without you!”
Alicent shrugged. “Get Aegon to stay over.”
“Fucking hells, no,” Rhaenyra said immediately. “I’ll be nervous enough as it is.”
This elicited a wide grin from Alicent.
“What?”
“You’ll be nervous,” she said.
“Well, obviously!”
Alicent leaned in, rubbing their noses together. “I will too,” she said, as though it were a big secret.
“I know that,” Rhaenyra mumbled, unable to keep the petulance out of her voice. “You don’t even want to see me.”
“I do,” Alicent assured her. “Quite badly. But won’t it be lovely to meet you there?”
“Next thing you’ll be telling me I need to find something old, something new—”
“Well, yes.”
Rhaenyra pulled away. “I’m sorry?”
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” Alicent said, and then didn’t say anything more, as if this by itself was entirely sufficient.
“Yes, I’m familiar with the rhyme, Alicent,” Rhaenyra said shortly. “I didn’t think we’d be applying it to our courthouse wedding.”
“Well, why not? I’m wearing blue anyway. And you’re borrowing Helaena’s necklace, aren’t you?”
Rhaenyra narrowed her eyes. “Did you plan this and put my sister up to it?”
“You make it sound like a grand scheme,” Alicent said.
“Well, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Alicent said. “We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. But maybe it’s nice.”
“And does this optionality extend to you staying at your brother’s?”
“No,” Alicent said. Rhaenyra groaned.
“Alicent.”
“It’s one night,” Alicent said. “You’ll live.”
“One night and one morning!”
“One night and one morning. You’ll still live.”
Rhaenyra opened her mouth to argue further, but was interrupted by the sound of her brothers calling out for them from further down the beach.
“We’re heading back to the car!” Aegon called. “Syrax is coming with us. See you there?”
“Alright, coming!” Rhaenyra called back.
“Last one back’s a rotten egg—” she heard Aegon begin.
“You have wheels, Aegon,” came Aemond’s voice irritably.
“Well, they’re not built for sand, are they? It’s a disadvantage, if anything.”
The sound of their bickering faded away into the night. Alicent tugged at Rhaenyra’s arm to get her attention.
“Yeah?” she asked. Alicent only looked at her for a second, then leaned in and pressed a firm kiss to her cheek.
“Oh,” said Rhaenyra. “What was that for?”
“Nothing,” said Alicent in return, smiling. “Last one back’s a rotten egg.”
The morning of her wedding, having spent the night alone, because her fiancée, despite being for all intents and purposes an intelligent and rational woman, believed it would be bad luck for them to see each other, Rhaenyra woke up to the sound of the front door opening.
She took a breath of surprise, looking around the darkness of the bedroom, and tried not to panic, telling herself that if it was a home invasion, it was a particularly polite one, since the invader in question clearly had keys and seemed to be in the process of taking off their shoes. After a moment, she emerged into the hallway, blinking in the light of the morning. There, she came upon her burglar, who had a chagrined expression on their face, and looked suspiciously like the woman she was due to marry in four hours’ time.
“Alicent?” Rhaenyra said, sleep still audible in her voice, rubbing at her eyes as though she were a mirage. “What happened to bad luck?”
“I know,” Alicent replied. She looked caught between being embarrassed and entranced, as though she’d never seen Rhaenyra before in her life. “I’m sorry. But I just—I just couldn’t wait to see you.”
Rhaenyra felt everything in her—her tiredness, her nerves, her instinct to laugh at Alicent’s superstition—melt away. All that remained was a feeling of sheer adoration so strong she thought her body might fail her. It seemed impossible that all of her, just one person, with a certain number of bones and organs and veins and arteries, could hold so much love in them. What if she died from it, she wondered? Today, on her wedding day? Now? She waited for a moment, almost in case she did. But she didn’t. She just stayed standing, staring at Alicent, she worried she might fall over from it. But she didn’t; just stayed standing, and looked at Alicent, her hair unbrushed, car keys dangling in her hand, her eyes bright.
“That’s alright,” she whispered, already feeling a smile unfurling across her face, already watching Alicent’s own smile begin to loose itself from her mouth like a bullet from a gun, the softness of it made for tearing straight into her heart. “I won’t tell.”
Alicent made them breakfast. They sat on the sofa in their dressing gowns, dipping hash browns into baked beans, squirting brown sauce over their bacon. Rhaenyra stole a piece of halloumi from Alicent’s plate. Alicent, in what was clearly a fit of marital generosity, let it slide. The stereo hummed through something almost inaudible. Alicent frowned.
“Is that samba?” she asked, grinning incredulously.
“Hmm?” Rhaenyra strained her ears, caught the voice of Juca Chaves. “Oh, yeah. I was listening to some last night. Bossa nova, you know.”
“Sexy.”
“Well, I was alone,” Rhaenyra said pointedly. “Tossing and turning in my virginal bed, longing for my wife—”
“What else is a woman to do,” Alicent commented dryly.
“Well, exactly,” Rhaenyra said. Her phone buzzed.
“First of the well-wishers?” Alicent asked.
“Hmm,” Rhaenyra let out, checking it. “No, it’s Gwayne. He says, just woke up, seems my sister’s been let loose. Assume she’s with you? ”
“Right,” Alicent said. “Well, he was asleep, and I didn’t want to wake him—”
“You’re a piece of work,” Rhaenyra snorted. “Should I lie? Tell him I don’t know where you are?”
“Don’t do that,” Alicent said scoldingly, swatting her arm. “He’ll have the fright of his life.”
“Fine. All good, she’s returned to her roots,” Rhaenyra read aloud as she sent the text. “Meet you at the courthouse.” The song changed, and she perked up: “Ooh! Great song.” She put her phone down, and her plate beside it on the coffee table. “Come on.”
Alicent frowned up at her. “Come on what?”
“Last dance as unmarried sinners,” Rhaenyra said. “Samba?”
“Rhaenyra—”
“No excuses,” Rhaenyra said firmly, and tugged her up, then closer. “There,” she murmured in Alicent’s ear as they started swaying to the music. “Not bad, is it?”
“You smell of brown sauce,” Alicent replied.
“You’re not exactly rosy yourself. Skip the pre-wedding shower, did you?”
“I’m going to take one, you little shit,” Alicent shot back, pinching her hip. A pause. “I like this song.”
“And I like you,” Rhaenyra said. The feelings of excitement and love and a full stomach had all combined to bubble over inside her into the juvenile confession, which had the effect of loosening all of Alicent’s features with something precious.
“Well, that’s good,” she said gently, and kissed her.
“That was what I was wanting,” Rhaenyra said when she pulled away.
“What?”
“A samba and a pre-wedding make out session. See, sometimes tradition isn’t the way.”
Alicent laughed. “Well, speaking of. I have a present for you.”
“We said no presents!”
“I know, but I got one anyway.”
Rhaenyra smirked. “Good, because I did too.”
“Well, then,” Alicent said. “Shall we do a hostage exchange?”
“Good a time as any,” Rhaenyra said. Then, when it occurred to her: “Unless it’s a sexy sort of gift. Then maybe we should wait.”
Alicent rolled her eyes. “You’ve really got a one track mind, you know that?”
“When it comes to you, baby, it’s one track, high speed, a hundred and fifty miles an hour,” Rhaenyra replied with a smirk. “Where’d you hide my gift, then?”
“At work,” Alicent said, “because I knew you’d be looking for it, since you went snooping for the vows too. Wait here.”
Rhaenyra did, sitting back down on the sofa once she’d dug out her own gift, which she’d hidden in a storage cupboard she knew Alicent never opened. She sat patiently with it resting on her knees until Alicent emerged, bearing what appeared to be a heavy, leatherbound book.
“Alright,” Alicent said. “If you don’t like it—I mean, well, I can’t return it, but. We can sort some kind of exchange of some kind. So—be honest.”
“Same here,” Rhaenyra said simply. “Shall we do a swap?”
“Maybe,” Alicent said, then let out a laugh. “Gods, I’m actually nervous. Sorry.”
Rhaenyra smiled, and pulled her down to the sofa.
“Here,” she said, handing over her own gift, which was a carefully wrapped frame, and her own leatherbound book. “You want to go first?”
“Okay,” Alicent agreed, and plucked at the paper. “Which bit—?”
“They’re both sort of connected so—you know, whatever,” Rhaenyra said, a little hurriedly now, as the nerves were catching up with her too. She watched as Alicent unwrapped the book delicately, taking what felt like forever. She always did with her presents, taking an age to take apart each piece of wrapping paper, refusing to tear any of it. Name days were agony.
“If you don’t like it,” Rhaenyra began, watching Alicent open the book, brow furrowed in concentration.
“Rhaenyra,” she said softly. “Oh, darling.”
“I just realised you didn’t have a copy of that piano suite,” Rhaenyra said, realising her mouth was moving without her brain’s permission, mostly just saying words to say them, and fill the space. “You gave me the only copy. And I found the old manuscript you gave me back at uni, so I thought—it might be nice. To have it bound. For you.”
“It’s beautiful,” Alicent said in a hushed voice.
“And we don’t have to,” Rhaenyra said, emboldened by this reaction, “but—I spoke to Harwin and Mysaria, and we thought we could record it, at some point. The three of us. You could—direct us. If you’d like.”
Alicent let out a laugh through her nose.
“Rhaenyra,” she said very quietly. “I would not dare to make musicians as good as the three of you record a composition I put together as a teenager.”
“I know,” Rhaenyra said. “But I would. Because it is so beautiful, Alicent. And I—” She swallowed hard. “Fuck, I really should have written—I don’t know, a speech or something. Just—open the other thing.”
Alicent did, and the tiny smile that had been on her face grew in response.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, tracing her fingers over the glass. Rhaenyra had spent months looking for the right person to copy out the music of the piano suite, the right paper to have them draw the score on, the right frame to fit it in. It was only the first two pages, but they were her favourite ones. Every time she looked at them she got the same feeling she got when Alicent had first given the piece to her. The notes were imbued not with the swooping-stomach, woozy-crush feeling that Rhaenyra had had before, for the majority of their teenage years, but the first warm inkling of reciprocated affection.
“You like it, then?” she asked, still feeling tentative, even with the smile growing on Alicent’s face.
“I love it,” Alicent said.
“I want you to know,” Rhaenyra said slowly. “There’s no part of me that regrets anything. I know it feels like we’re always joking about the ten years. Or everyone else is joking? But—” She took a breath. “When I look at that music, I don’t think about when I didn’t know you. I just think about. Like. How much I loved you. Even then. And now. Especially now. And I think we’ve worked too hard for me to say it was, like, fate, or something ridiculous like that, but I do know it—it was always you. It is always you. For me. And even if it wasn’t, I would choose you anyway. Does that make sense?”
Alicent let out an almighty, undignified sniff, then leaned in and kissed her.
“Yes,” she said after pulling away.
“Good,” Rhaenyra said. “Because we have to put it up. Please.”
“In the bathroom, maybe,” Alicent said teasingly, wiping at her face.
“Well, sure,” Rhaenyra said. “And then everyone who takes a shit in our house can see that you were obsessed with me, even then—”
Alicent laughed. It was a sound of pure joy.
“Oh, they don’t need to see this to know that,” she said.
“For RT,” Rhaenyra quoted triumphantly from the top, surveying the framed pages. “Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Very,” Alicent agreed. “You didn’t pay an extortionate amount of money for this, did you?”
“No,” Rhaenyra lied.
“Rhaenyra.”
“It’s our wedding, give me a break,” she said, rolling her eyes. “My turn?”
“Yes,” Alicent said, then bit her lip in hesitation. “You’ll tell me, won’t you? If you don’t like it?”
“Probably not,” Rhaenyra said. “Bit of a downer on our wedding day.”
Alicent sighed, but relented, shifting the package closer. Rhaenyra did not have the same qualms with tearing directly into the wrapping paper, and presently her hands met smooth, thick red leather, the rich colour of wine. She opened the first page, which bore the thickness of a photo album. Alicent had written on it in her swooping, perfect lettering, the date, and then: For R, I love you. A
She smiled, tracing the letters, and turned the page. It was a photo album. Each photo was placed carefully on the page, and bore a caption. For a moment, Rhaenyra couldn’t quite parse what each was. The only thing the photos had in common was that they all seemed to be of a ceiling: flicking through each page, she recognised the dull wooden beams of the village hall she used to rehearse in as a child; the high marble domes of the Citadel; the deep red of the Winding Walls in Sunspear.
Each caption, written in Alicent’s handwriting, bore a date, the location, and the names of certain pieces, the combination of which prodded at her memory until everything came tumbling out. She turned the page. Highgarden, L.V. Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major. And again. Dragonstone, G. Gershwin, Concerto in F. And later; the ceiling of their living room, in the flat they’d shared in King’s Landing. 31 Shadowblack Lane, C. Porter, Easy to Love; Love for Sale; Night and Day. The date for that was Alicent’s thirty-fifth birthday—Rhaenyra had surprised her with a party and played piano all night, unable to tear herself away, luxuriating in the feeling of playing each piece just for the look of delight on Alicent’s face, the way she’d danced to every jazz standard with a glass of wine, swooping their guests around the room. And there was the ceiling of Aegon’s hospital room in Dragonstone; a date in January two weeks after his accident, when they’d realised how soothing he found the sound of music during his recovery, and smuggled Rhaenyra’s shitty MIDI keyboard in during visiting hours. Dragonstone University Hospital, N. Gallagher, Half the World Away; Champagne Supernova.
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra whispered.
“It was hard finding every concert you’ve ever played,” Alicent said with a nervous laugh. “Your dad had no idea why I wanted to go back to the village you grew up in.”
“This is—” Rhaenyra began, then stopped. “You fucking nutter,” she said softly.
“I know you said—the ceiling thing. You like doing it, and you wished you did it more,” Alicent said. “And I know it’s not about the ceiling, it’s about being there. Really there. Being yourself, in yourself. And for what it’s worth, Rhaenyra, I—I really think you are. And I’m so proud of you. And I love you when you’re here, and when you’re not, and when you’re playing Beethoven in the Red Keep or Norah Jones in the spare room. So, I thought—and we can add to it, obviously, or, you know, just—forget it, if you want to—”
“Stop,” Rhaenyra found the voice to say. “Of course I don’t want to forget it.” She flipped to the first page. “How did you know my first concert piece was Dance of the Swans?”
“Well, I asked your father,” Alicent said. “And, you know, it’s really quite a common piece for beginner clarinettists.”
“And—the—” Rhaenyra blinked, swallowed. “Did you take all of these?”
“Most of them,” Alicent said, then smiled. “I sent some people on missions. Helaena took about a hundred of the Winterfell concert hall, bless her.”
“I love you,” Rhaenyra said, because there was nothing more she could say. “I love you so much, you freak, you had to win at wedding presents—”
“It wasn’t a competition!” Alicent protested. “And I didn’t win —”
“And now I want to just get you into bed,” Rhaenyra bemoaned. “But we have to—get dressed and make this legal—”
“Are you—should I be sorry?” Alicent asked.
“No,” Rhaenyra said. “I’m just saying. That I am in love with you. I am so fucking obsessed with you. And this—this is the most beautiful present.”
“Well,” Alicent said. “Good. Because I’m obsessed with you too.”
“I know,” Rhaenyra said, then grabbed her face and kissed it, all over. “You’re perfect.”
“No,” Alicent said.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said, and got up. “And now I need to shower so I can marry you and say my wife is perfect. And you can’t even join because then we’ll be late. So stay here and look perfect.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Alicent said formally. Rhaenyra went to the door of the living room, and stopped to look back for a moment. Alicent was staring down at the bound score of the piano suite, running her fingers along the page. She was smiling to herself. Rhaenyra smiled too. Then she went to get ready.
Daemon and Gwayne picked them up, and broke five speed limits on the way to the courthouse. Rhaenyra had to pretend not to find it funny that the two of them insisted on blasting Chapel of Love with the windows rolled down. That was most of what Rhaenyra remembered of the ceremony. That, and the ceiling, which she stopped to look at on the way in. But mostly what lingered in her mind, what all four of them wouldn’t stop talking about for years afterwards, was that her and Alicent got the giggles halfway through. The registrar was a kindly man named Simon who had the deepest, most sonorous voice she’d ever heard. He laboured over every vowel that he said in a way that she couldn’t help but find hilarious. The first time he said the word vows she let out a surprised snort, which she hastily covered up with a cough. She thought she might make it through after that with little incident. But then she caught sight of Alicent’s face. Her lips were twitching with amusement too, eyes bright with it. That was what did it. For the rest of the rest of the ceremony Rhaenyra thought her stomach might physically burst from the effort of containing her laughter; she could see Alicent’s shoulders shaking with a similar endeavour. All through the ring exchange they were grinning like idiots. The registrar, nonplussed, told them they were married. They rushed through the paperwork. And then they ran out onto the steps of the courthouse and burst out into cacophonous, dizzy peals of mirth.
“My goodness,” Daemon commented to Gwayne from behind them. “They’ve finally lost it.”
“Hello!” came a voice roughly halfway through the evening, then the clinking of metal against glass. Rhaenyra looked over from her conversation with Laena to find that her brother was holding a pint glass aloft, tapping rather unceremoniously against its edge with a fork. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”
“You’ll break the pint glass like that,” Aemond noted from beside him. Rhaenyra watched Aegon shoot him a glare and mutter something inaudible in his direction before clearing his throat.
“Evening all,” he said in a more formal voice. Rhaenyra noted with some surprise, and a pang of tenderness, that he was fishing a set of tatty index cards out of his jacket. “Very sorry to interrupt your evenings, but if I could borrow you for two minutes.”
The general hubbub simmered down in acquiescence, and Aegon shifted in his chair, fiddling with his sleeve. Rhaenyra watched him frown down at the cards in his hand, then look over at a point just to the left of her, and seem to calm slightly. She followed his gaze, and realised that it was settled on Alicent, who was offering him a gentle smile. She reached under the table for her knee.
“So, um, I knew I was being asked to make a speech essentially as a commiseration prize,” Aegon said, “since apparently I don’t fit the profile of a trustworthy witness—”
“—you can’t witness if you’re pissed!” Harwin heckled from the other end of the table.
“I prefer to call it celebrating, thank you, Harwin,” Aegon shot back smoothly, and there was a resounding laugh. He cracked a grin. “Anyway,” he continued. “I know it was commiseration, because it was offered not by my sister but by her lovely wife,”—here, the requisite cheers and whistling, and Aegon’s grin widened at the sound of them—“who has often been tasked with mediating between the two of us.”
“I say often,” Aegon continued, “because, as everyone well knows, Alicent has been a part of my family since I was born. That makes everything sound vaguely incestuous—”
“—come off it, Aegon,” Daemon interjected.
“—but it isn’t,” he completed pointedly, “because, as I was going to say, what it really means is that my sister is one of those painfully, infuriatingly lucky people who finds the love of their life before they’ve even hit puberty.”
Aegon paused, shuffled his cards a little, and smiled.
“I wanted to make this funny,” he said. “So I have a lot of embarrassing stories about the both of them. And just to be sure, I crowdsourced from everyone here,”—a whistle, from Gwayne, or maybe Daeron—“all of whom seemed to have very similar stories. Something about,” he frowned, pretending to think hard, “a ‘Rachmaninoff concerto’?”
More cheering. Rhaenyra glanced over with a grin at Alicent, who returned it, even with her cheeks flushed an abashed shade of pink. The flush only deepened as the two of them sat dutifully through the next few minutes of ribbing, with anecdotes ranging across their excruciatingly cringe-worthy teenage years (“Rhaenyra once spent a whole year pretending her earphones weren’t working just so that her and Alicent could share on the bus”) to the quiet, self-evident mutual affection at university (“the two of them once got into a fight over who had broken the toaster and Rhaenyra bullied me into bunking off school and coming to visit just to have a buffer between them”; “Alicent once texted Aemond asking if he had an idea of what Rhaenyra meant when she said she ‘didn’t not fancy girls’”). And then more recent moments—the agonising stupidity of their dancing around each other years before, yes, but the warmer, similarly painful recollections of more recent incidents. The time Rhaenyra had wanted to surprise Alicent by coming to a concert and shown up at the wrong place, three thousand miles away. When Alicent had organised a dinner with Viserys to broach the subject of marrying Rhaenyra, only to discover he thought they were already married (“They call each other partner!” he interjected exasperatedly at this point from the far end of the table. “I don’t know what words people use these days!”).
Mostly Rhaenyra was shocked at the revelation of something apparently evident to everyone else: no matter how much she and Alicent felt that their relationship belonged to them alone, there was also a part of it that existed and lingered in the collective memory of the people they surrounded themselves with, who loved them together and apart. It gave her the same lovely, fizzy feeling of pleasure as the first time she’d heard someone refer to her and Alicent as a pair and not individuals. As a child she’d despised feeling that she could not exist alone. She’d worried that it made her less than a person. Now, of course, it was the knowledge that she could not exist alone that made her feel that much more of a person. She looked over at Alicent, who looked back, and knew, with another buzz of warmth, that they were thinking the same thing.
“…anyway, I’ll pause there on the embarrassing anecdotes,” Aegon was saying, letting out a small laugh at the replying boos, “otherwise we’ll be here all night. And, I mean, we will be here all night,”—cheers, now—“but drinking, I hope. And celebrating.” His face grew more sincere, though the smile lingered on his mouth.
“I say that this speech was a commiseration prize,” he said, “but actually, I’m very flattered to be giving it, because—and it’s unfortunate that this will now be on record in front of several witnesses, but that’s life, I suppose—these are my two favourite people in the world.”
“And I really did think about winging this speech.” Here, he paused to grin cheekily at Rhaenyra, who rolled her eyes in return. “But then I realised—well, I realised that these are also the two people who put the fear of the Gods in me, but what I also realised is that I can’t wing this, because I have far too much to say. Too much to fit into five minutes, certainly, so—I’ve picked one thing to tell everyone. Which is that two Feast Days ago, Alicent had the cheek to give me a book as my present. I say cheek because anyone who knows me knows that if there is one thing I absolutely am not interested in doing, it’s reading a book.”
“Because you’re an idiot,” Helaena weighed in to a round of loud agreement from everyone in the room.
“Absolutely,” Aegon said easily. “Anyway, when I bitched to my sister about this—because, of course, I don’t just bitch about Rhaenyra to Alicent, I have to bitch about Alicent to Rhaenyra, you understand—she just looked at me and said, ‘Maybe she thought you’d like it’. And when I pointed out that I’d never liked a book before, and certainly not a book that is about a thousand pages, because did I mention that it was literally about as thick as my head, this book?”
“Must have been pretty thick,” Aemond said.
“It was, thank you,” Aegon said, over some chortling. “Anyway. I said to Rhaenyra, look, I don’t read books, and it is ridiculous that Alicent thinks I will, and what happened to the watch I’ve been hinting at all year, did neither of you get that hint? And she said, no, we got the hint, Aegon, and who do you think I am, a millionaire? And I said, yes. But, anyway, apart from that, she said, ‘well, take it up with Alicent, but perhaps she thought it’ll be useful to you’. As if a novel about provincial life in a fictional village could be useful to anyone. But it was such a Rhaenyra thing to say about Alicent. Perhaps she thought it would be useful to you. Like, maybe she knows you better than you do. Maybe I had the foresight when I was fourteen to fall in love with the smartest, most perceptive person on the planet, and now I get to be smug about it to my little brother all the time—”
Another laugh. Aegon laughed too. He paused, and looked down again, though Rhaenyra realised he wasn’t using the index cards at all, and hadn’t really been the entire time.
“Well, the thing is,” he said. “Three months after that Feast Day I got into a car accident, and I almost died. And I’ve been told by certain people here, cough, Dad, cough, that I can’t call it my sexy sad backstory any more, but anyway, it’s my sexy sad backstory, although what’s actually not very sexy—because believe me, the shitton of scars you see here are sexy—is that I lived with my sister and her wife for a year and a half, and they did everything for me. They dressed me, they fed me, they carried me up and down stairs, they literally wiped the shit off my arse. Which isn’t exactly part of the first date spiel, but is the truth.”
“And wouldn’t you know it, I had a lot of free time on my hands. So it took a near-fatal road collision, and a month-long coma, but after I woke up, I did actually read a book. And not just any book. A nine hundred pager. And you know what, it was actually pretty good. Slow start, but—it was just what I needed.” Aegon looked up. He glanced at Ceira, and smiled. Then looked at Rhaenyra.
“My favourite line in that book is really near the end,” he said, “mostly because when I quote it I can prove that I actually read the whole thing. But I wanted to share it because when I think of it, I think of Alicent and Rhaenyra. Not just because I read it whilst feeling sorry for myself in their spare room, but, because. Yeah.”
“‘What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?’” he quoted. His smile widened out into a grin. “When I asked Rhaenyra why she and Alicent were getting married now,” he said, “she didn’t really have an answer. But she did say what she says every time she talks about their relationship, which is that it was hard, and sometimes it still is, but mostly it’s just really fucking easy. And at risk of sounding extremely naff, I think that being in love, and being a person, is really about finding, um, someone who makes life less difficult for you. Lots of people, really. And one specific person, who you also find really hot, and will make you a cup of coffee in the morning, and knows how you like your socks folded. And that really—is, um, is what I’m toasting. So, if I could ask everyone to raise their glass? And cheers to my sister, and my other sister—no blood relation, obviously, obviously —we all thought you were married anyway. But it’s really very nice you made it official.”
Rhaenyra unlocked the door of the house tentatively, as though expecting it to be different somehow. Syrax was already with Gwayne, who’d agreed to dogsit until the two of them got back from the Free Cities. But aside from that it was just the same as it had been when they left that morning. The two breakfast plates that Rhaenyra had promised she’d wash up, and promptly forgotten to, were still in the kitchen sink.
“My feet are killing me,” Alicent said from the hallway. “Why’d we wear heels again?”
“To make us more attractive to men,” Rhaenyra said with a smile at Alicent’s responding snort. “Drink?”
“Check the fridge,” Alicent’s voice advised her. Raising her eyebrows, Rhaenyra did. There was a bottle of Pol Roger in the fridge with a post-it: For later?
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said.
“Mm?”
“I got one too.”
“What?”
“I got a bottle too.”
“What? Where?”
“It’s in the fridge in the poolhouse,” Rhaenyra said. “I hid it.” She paused, inspecting the bottle, which was very nice, but— “And I do have to say. Mine is slightly more vintage.”
“For crying out loud,” Alicent said, coming into the kitchen. “I understand that I’m not a multi-award winning heiress who makes big bucks—”
“Well, that’s simply not true,” Rhaenyra said. “You’ve won some awards.”
“But I tried,” she finished in a slight whine.
“I know, baby,” Rhaenyra said in a slightly mocking croon. “And it’s the thought that counts.”
Alicent rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible,” she said. “Where’s yours, then?”
“Nah,” Rhaenyra said, plucking Alicent’s one out of the fridge. “I like this one.” She plucked the post-it off the bottle and stuck it on the fridge with a magnet. “Glasses?”
Alicent dutifully went to the cupboard to bring out two flutes.They went into the living room. Rhaenyra turned the stereo on, then popped the bottle open and poured.
“Cheers,” she said, once Alicent had a hold of her own drink. “Happy marriage.”
“Happy marriage,” Alicent said, clinking the glasses together. They drank in silence, still standing, both smiling.
“That was a lovely set from the boys,” Alicent said after a moment.
“The boys,” Rhaenyra repeated irritatedly. “As if Mysaria isn’t there.”
“She refers to herself as one of the boys,” Alicent pointed out. “I heard her.”
“The cheek of it,” Rhaenyra said. “Ambient music when you’re a guest at the wedding. It was just an excuse for Aemond and Aegon to show off.”
“I thought they were quite restrained. And Mysaria’s solo in I Could Write a Book—”
“And to play without me,” Rhaenyra continued, frankly uninterested in listening to Alicent sing another woman’s praises on her wedding night. “With a dep pianist!”
“Well, he was a paltry comparison,” Alicent agreed solemnly. “Doesn’t hold a candle to you.”
“Ugh,” Rhaenyra said. Then after a beat: “He wasn’t bad.”
“Yes, I know,” Alicent said, visibly fighting a smile, since the dep pianist had in fact been Gwayne, who, in his own words, had ‘been around the jazz piano block a few times’. “The arrangements were beautiful.”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra agreed. “Daemon said—” She cut off, worried that she was somehow exposing her uncle’s softheartedness without meaning to. Alicent looked at her curiously.
“What?” she prompted.
“He said he’d been working on them for two years.”
Alicent’s mouth actually fell open.
“In—general?” she asked.
“No,” Rhaenyra said with a small laugh, then took another drink. “For us.”
“But he didn’t even—we didn’t even—”
“I know,” Rhaenyra said, laughing again. “He said he just knew.”
Alicent stared at her, bewildered. Then, clearly at a loss for anything else to do, she just took another drink of her champagne.
“Well,” she said.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra agreed. A moment. “I can’t believe Aegon read that book,” she said.
“Me either,” Alicent said with a laugh. “But it really is from near the end. So unless he skipped the first six hundred pages—”
“Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“It was a beautiful toast,” Alicent said softly. “He loves you very much.”
“He loves you very much.”
Alicent smiled, and took another drink. Rhaenyra looked at her, still resplendent. Her wedding ring was as spun gold in the dim light of the late evening. If someone told her she was dreaming, she’d believe them. The longest, most exquisite dream of her life. She put her glass down and approached, slowly.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
Alicent was smiling. But the look she was giving her was one Rhaenyra knew well. It was one that made her body physically ache—in longing, in anticipation. She swallowed.
“Will you come here, darling?” Rhaenyra asked softly.
“Yeah,” Alicent replied in a whisper. Then she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, as though steadying herself. Rhaenyra couldn’t help but grin at the sight. She waited for her to close the distance between them.
“Don’t take anything off, please,” she said.
“No?” Alicent asked.
“No,” Rhaenyra said. “I’d like to do that.”
“Okay,” Alicent agreed. Then her eyes slid to the door of the room, as though in the direction of their bedroom and the multitude of items in the bottom drawer of their night stand. “Do you want—I can put on—?”
“Easy, loverboy,” Rhaenyra said with a breathy laugh, mostly just to see the pale pink of Alicent’s resulting blush. “We’ve got the whole night for that. I just want you first.”
Alicent gulped, almost comically. Rhaenyra would have laughed again were it not for the fact that she felt a similar level of nervousness. This was the woman she had slept with only two nights ago, she thought to herself. The one who she’d slept with innumerable times. She’d heard Alicent fart, watched her break mugs, laughed at her when she put on her jumpers inside out. And she knew every inch of her body almost as well as she knew her own. But tonight she could not help but feel that they were meeting each other for the first time, as different people.
“Hello,” Alicent said once they were nose to nose. “You know, I quite liked that thing we did earlier.”
Rhaenyra grinned. “The marriage thing?”
“Yes,” Alicent said, “that thing.” Then she kissed her, warmly, with such devotion Rhaenyra couldn’t help but let out a sigh into her mouth. Alicent’s hands had settled on her hips with ease, tracing soft shapes along the skin there.
“Can I take this off?” she murmured.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said, already breathless with anticipation. “Yes, please.”
Alicent nudged her gently, turning her around so that Rhaenyra’s back was to her. She pulled at the zip very slowly, kissing down each notch of Rhaenyra’s spine as she went.
“Is there lipstick on my back?” Rhaenyra attempted to joke, although she didn’t have quite enough air in her lungs to deliver it properly.
“Not yet,” Alicent murmured, moving back up and pressing close to her, dropping kisses along the curve of her shoulder. “You’re gorgeous.”
“You—”
“Ssh,” Alicent let out in her ear.
“Alicent.”
“I thought I might take you to bed, at least,” Alicent said, her tone light even as her voice was lowering in timbre. “But I don’t think I can wait.”
“No?” Rhaenyra breathed, shivering at the feeling of Alicent’s hand coming to linger on her thigh, under the hem of her dress, which she still hadn’t taken off.
“No,” Alicent said. “I suppose the sofa will do.”
“It’s seen worse,” Rhaenyra agreed. “Can I—”
“One second,” she said, shushing her again. “Be patient.”
Rhaenyra swallowed down a moan. Alicent was running her hands down her arms. She reached and then stopped at her left hand, skimming her thumb across the rings on her fourth finger. “Yes,” she murmured, more to herself than anything.
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra prompted in a whisper, because the urge to kiss her was getting overwhelming now.
“Yes,” Alicent replied, then turned her around and kissed her, with intensity now, like she’d remembered herself.
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra said again when they broke apart, the pleading note in her voice intensifying despite herself. She tugged at Alicent’s outfit, which was still on for some indiscernible reason, running her hands all over it before locating the zipper at the side.
“Fuck,” she let out, just at the sight of the sliver of bare skin that it exposed. “Oh, Gods. Let me touch you—”
“Wait,” Alicent said, then pushed her onto the sofa. She stood over her in her underwear, a deep blue set Rhaenyra had never seen before.
“You said you hadn’t gone lingerie shopping,” Rhaenyra blurted out, over the fuzz of static in her ears at the sight of her. There was a scar on her thigh from a time she’d fallen off a bicycle in her first year of university. Rhaenyra still could not go a single day without wanting to get her lips on the shape of it.
“I lied,” Alicent said. She seemed, Rhaenyra noted with satisfaction, to be actually panting in anticipation. “You went too, I see.”
“I never denied it,” Rhaenyra replied, stretching out along the cushions with all the vanity of a cat basking in the sun.
“Your tits look incredible,” Alicent said unceremoniously. Rhaenyra’s eyebrows shot up at this rather gruff assertion.
“What language,” she said, laughing, but only a little bit, because the look in Alicent’s eyes was not a joke.
“Yeah,” Alicent said, still in that rough tone of voice. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Come on, then,” Rhaenyra said, raising her eyebrow in challenge. “Get over here.”
Alicent obeyed, laying down over her. Rhaenyra shuddered at the brush of their skin and leaned up to kiss her, undoing her bra as she did so.
“Sneaky,” Alicent mumbled into her mouth.
“Multi-tasking,” Rhaenyra replied, nipping at her lip. She let out a small groan when Alicent shifted and her thigh came between her own, bucking her hips into the contact.
“Easy,” Alicent said lowly, leaning down to kiss her chest through her bra.
“Oh,” Rhaenyra let out, squirming where she lay. Every sound she made echoed out into the room with a strange delicacy that made her nervous and excited in equal measure. “Alicent—”
“Mm,” Alicent hummed distractedly, apparently more concerned with leaving a mark at the place where Rhaenyra’s bra met skin than engaging in any conversation. She leaned back, as though to survey her handiwork, allowing Rhaenyra a view of her own breasts which caused her to practically salivate.
“Take it off,” Rhaenyra ordered, reaching out a hand to caress Alicent’s skin. Then, because it was always the way to get Alicent to do what she wanted her to do: “Please.”
“So polite tonight,” Alicent breathed out. “Are we turning over a new page?”
Rhaenyra let out a choked sort of laugh. “The marital page—”
“Yes,” Alicent mused, fingers dancing down to Rhaenyra’s hips, running along the hems of her underwear. “It was in the contract you signed, you know. Til death do us part, blah blah blah—”
“Blah blah blah—”
“—but also, must become polite to a fault.”
“I can do that,” Rhaenyra said. She would probably do anything at this point to get Alicent to touch her. All day, without quite realising it, she had been humming with longing. Alicent’s hands on her body had been like being plugged into a generator. It was the best part of touching her—how alive she felt, as though there were a well inside her that was plumbed and deepened with every touch of Alicent’s lips. “Look at you,” she whispered. Then, tucking her fingers under Alicent’s chin, bringing their eyes into contact: “My girl.”
Alicent swallowed visibly. “Your wife,” she said.
“Yeah,” Rhaenyra said. “That too.” Alicent flushed a beautiful, pleased pink, and leaned up to kiss her—more slowly this time. Rhaenyra arched into her. Then she sat back and let Alicent move to take off her bra, then her pants, fingers skimming up and down her thighs, then her stomach.
“You won’t rush me, will you?” she murmured, kissing down Rhaenyra’s legs. “Because you can’t rush wedding sex, Rhaenyra.”
“Oh?” Rhaenyra eked out, voice hoarse with anticipation. “And you’re an expert on the subject?”
Alicent grinned. It was a silly thing that Rhaenyra worshipped. The same expression that gave her the giggles at the courthouse, that inevitably led to her coming so hard she could barely breathe from it.
“I’m about to be,” she said cheekily, then parted her legs and practically drank from between them, lapping at her with such filthy irreverence that Rhaenyra emitted a cry that was part surprise and part arousal. “Oh,” she let out, barely able to get anything else out. “Alicent—yes—”
Alicent let out her own moan in response, practically trembling, her own body jerking when Rhaenyra tugged at her hair.
“Don’t—” Rhaenyra managed, “Fuck, don’t you dare touch yourself. I’m serious, Alicent, I’ll be fucking—angry—”
Another moan, louder now; predictable for Alicent, who responded with great vigour to most roughhandling by Rhaenyra, whether physical or verbal. She pulled away, panting, her face scandalously wet.
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”
“I know,” Rhaenyra told her, sighing, hand still in her hair. “Fuck, you feel good.”
“Mm,” Alicent said, then returned to her task, energetically. Rhaenyra was vaguely aware that her climax was being deliberately delayed—each time Alicent’s tongue brushed against a certain spot that made her hips jerk, it would move away immediately, or become lighter in its movement—but she couldn’t find it in herself to be even slightly frustrated. The woman had said not to rush her, after all. And besides, she mused to herself, letting out a gasp when Alicent bit on the inside of her thigh, she would return the favour tenfold—
“So wet for me,” Alicent said softly from in between her thighs. It had taken a bit of time to work Alicent up to the task of dirty talk—she used to remark, amusedly, that she’d hate to move in on Rhaenyra’s field of expertise—but now she was a bloody champion, letting words of all manner of filth fall from her mouth with the best of them. And how well she did it too, with those perfectly enunciated vowels, that raspy, breathless voice, the consonants curving with beautiful obscenity out of her lips. Sometimes, when they were tipsy enough, Rhaenyra would lie in bed and make her say the dirtiest things she could think of just to hear them in her voice. Cock. Cunt. Wet. Fuck. Gorgeous. Perfect. Love.
“You taste perfect,” she gasped out now into Rhaenyra’s skin. “I love when you’re sensitive, love when you just want me inside you, inside your cunt—”
So always, Rhaenyra wanted to say, but when she opened her mouth a strangled cry came out instead.
“Close,” she managed, shuddering. “Please—”
Finally, Alicent relented, loosening her grasp on Rhaenyra’s hips so she could move them just as she wanted, letting herself be tugged by the hair with a groan. Rhaenyra came quietly, or tried to. Just as she was finishing she heard Alicent’s voice, as though from very far away, say: “Let me hear you,” and let out a loud cry just at the begging note in her voice. She’d barely recovered when she felt Alicent’s hand on her jaw, tugging her roughly in for a kiss.
“Fuck,” she gasped out, feeling her other hand between her legs. “Oh, fuck—”
“Again,” Alicent breathed. She was in that mood where everything in her seemed reduced to a wild, wanting thing, desperate only for any part of Rhaenyra’s body to be in contact with any part of her own.
“Okay,” Rhaenyra said. “Okay, okay—oh, fuck, Alicent—”
Still dizzy from the first release, she realised rather belatedly that she was being manhandled, turned over onto her stomach. She let out a hiss at the feeling of Alicent’s front up against her back, and it broadened into a whine when she felt two fingers enter her with ease, shifting in her so deeply that for a moment she worried the pleasure of it might fringe over into pain. But then Alicent grabbed at the back of her neck, pulling her up to kiss her again, with a sort of laziness that masked how deliberate each action was, each thrust, the running of her hand down along Rhaenyra’s side.
“You came with just my mouth,” she pulled away to murmur, the words practically dripping with self-satisfaction. “Haven’t done that in—”
“Oh, Gods,” Rhaenyra let out. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She wished she could say from annoyance, but it was more likely the way Alicent’s fingers were curling inside her. “Take out a notice in the papers, why don’t you—”
“Might do,” Alicent whispered mirthfully “Right next to our marriage announcement—”
“You did not take out a marriage announcement.”
“Maybe I should,” Alicent replied, voice low now, dripping with craving. The words were pouring directly into Rhaenyra’s ear like liquor, like honey. “Tell everyone you’re mine—”
“Alicent,” Rhaenyra whined.
“Yeah.” A beat, then a tight feeling blossomed low in Rhaenyra’s stomach and between her legs.
“Is that another—?” she let out, voice taut.
“Okay?” Alicent asked.
“Fuck,” Rhaenyra said. “Okay. Yes. Yes. Gods, there—”
“I want you to feel it,” Alicent told her, lips brushing against her ear. “I want you to ache all week and know it was from how I fucked you tonight—”
A pause, then another finger, rather audaciously. Rhaenyra’s eyes flew open, the air getting punched out of her at the feeling.
“Alicent. Alicent—”
“Yes,” Alicent whispered. “There you go, baby. You’re gorgeous, stretched out for me, taking me so well—”
Rhaenyra let out a laugh, airy and verging more on a whimper.
“Gods, you’re dirty,” she moaned into the sofa cushion. “Who taught you that?”
“That’s me,” Alicent confirmed. “Your filthy wife—,” she pressed on over the sound of Rhaenyra’s moan —“and you love it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Rhaenyra moaned. “I love you — fuck, I love you—”
She turned, arching her back into Alicent’s hand. Alicent moved so she was hovering over her, her form half visible in the shadow. She could have been an angel. But she was better than that, Rhaenyra thought. She was her filthy, perfect, beautiful wife.
“I know,” Alicent whispered. “I love you too.”
It was enough to push her over the edge into a brutal, painful second climax; this time, there was no staying quiet, and Rhaenyra would have been embarrassed if not for the way Alicent was whining desperately in response, as though she were close herself, which she probably was.
“Give me a minute,” she said eventually, tugging Alicent down so that they were lying side by side on the sofa, feeling her body shivering with anticipation. “I’ll take care of you, baby.”
“I know,” Alicent whispered. “Just need—” Rhaenyra squirmed at the feeling of her lips against her neck, still sensitive.
“What?” she asked, turning over. Then, after a second, when she registered the drag of Alicent’s underwear against her leg: “ Don’t,” she said firmly, grabbing onto her hips, talking over Alicent’s whine of protest. “That’s for me—”
“Please,” Alicent whispered. “I’m so wet for you, Gods, I’m so—it won’t take anything, Rhaenyra—”
“I know,” Rhaenyra said. “It never does with you.” She licked her lips. Looked at Alicent; her kiss-bruised mouth, her cheeks stained red. And the rings on her finger. “But I’m taking my time,” she murmured.
Alicent groaned, part in frustration and part in arousal. “You don’t always have to teach me a lesson—”
“But I do,” Rhaenyra said, smiling wickedly, and pushed so that Alicent was tipped over onto her back. “What is it again? Love and obey?”
“Horribly outdated—” Alicent managed, breath already quickening.
“I don’t know,” Rhaenyra hummed out, licking at her stomach muscles, relishing the way they jumped in response. “I think it has its merits.”
“Wait,” Rhaenyra said, sitting bolt upright in bed much later.
“Huh?” Alicent let out into the pillow beside her, still half asleep. “What? What’s happening?”
“We didn’t dance!” Rhaenyra declared.
A long pause.
“…Huh?” Alicent said again.
“We haven’t had a dance!”
“We agreed not to have a dance,” Alicent muttered, face still half smushed in the pillow. “Literally ages ago. I told you I’d rather die than—”
“Than have Daemon watch you dance, I know,” Rhaenyra finished. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t dance.”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent groaned.
“Alicent.”
Alicent turned over with a huff, hair a mess. She peered at the alarm clock on the table.
“It’s five in the morning,” she said flatly.
“So what?” Rhaenyra asked, and got up. “Come on.” Then, knowing it was a tried and true method of getting Alicent to do almost anything for her, she tacked on: “For me.”
It worked, of course. Presently, the two of them were standing in the kitchen in slippers and pyjamas. Alicent was watching Rhaenyra fiddle with the stereo that sat on the counter, arms crossed over herself.
“We could have done this in the morning,” she grumbled.
“It is morning.”
“We could have done it at a normal hour.”
“It can’t wait,” Rhaenyra insisted.
“We haven’t even agreed on what song,” Alicent pointed out.
“So let’s agree now,” Rhaenyra said simply.
Alicent huffed out a laugh, shifting where she stood. She was wearing a pair of worn plaid pyjamas, Rhaenyra’s favourite. The first months of their relationship she’d not seen hide nor hair of them; each time one of them stayed over, all Alicent had worn was silk negligées, delicate, expensive lingerie. When, one night, she had come over straight from a concert, and crawled into bed in a t-shirt and oversized, ugly pyjama bottoms, Rhaenyra had been beside herself with joy, unable to fight the feeling that she’d won something.
“We’ll be here forever,” Alicent said. “I’ll dance, but I draw the line at debating song choices with you at five in the morning.”
“Alright,” Rhaenyra said, thinking. “Let’s do it this way. Do you have a song?”
Alicent flushed a little. “Yes,” she admitted.
“Me too,” Rhaenyra said. “Do we have it on CD?”
A moment’s thought. Then: “Yes.”
“Well,” Rhaenyra said, “we can each pick ours out. And then see.”
“But they won’t be the same.”
“We’ll dance twice.”
“Rhaenyra.”
“Come on,” Rhaenyra wheedled. “Give me six minutes.”
“Six minutes?”
“Well, six minutes and the rest of your life.”
Alicent chuckled. “Alright,” she said. “Six minutes and the rest of my life is what I signed up for, I suppose.”
“Exactly. With witnesses. No takesies backsies.”
“You pick yours,” Alicent said. “I’ll make coffee.”
“Alright,” Rhaenyra said, smiling. She crossed over to the CD collection on a set of shelves at the back of the kitchen. Most of the time they were too lazy to make use of it—Rhaenyra wasn’t so much of a technophobe that she didn’t appreciate a Bluetooth speaker—but still, there was something unequivocally nice about it, picking out an album, putting it into the player. And then there was the way their discs were all squeezed together on the shelves, not quite fitting in one room, spilling over into the rest of the house. Rhaenyra could barely remember whose was whose. Alicent was constantly saying she’d sit down one afternoon and alphabetise the collection. It had been years and she still hadn’t gotten around to it.
“Are you done yet?”
“Hmm?” Rhaenyra let out. “Um, no. Sorry. Got distracted. I didn’t know you bought the last quintet album.”
“Of course I did.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t tell me we’re dancing to your own recording,” Alicent remarked, voice dry.
“No,” Rhaenyra said. “Obviously not.” She leaned up and picked out a CD from the second shelf. It was one of Alicent’s; the soundtrack of an old fifties movie with particularly nice orchestrations. She put the CD in the player and pressed the button to move it up to track four. “Okay,” she announced. “Done. Swap?”
“Yeah,” Alicent said, crossing over. “Your coffee’s on the counter. No peeking.”
“Oh, it’s a surprise, is it?”
“Obviously.”
Rhaenyra bit back a smile and the urge to point out Alicent’s clearly increased enthusiasm for the game. “Alright,” she said. “No peeking.”
There was a long pause. Rhaenyra went to the counter and started sipping on her coffee. After what felt like a rather long time, she frowned over in Alicent’s direction.
“I thought you said you knew what song,” she said.
“I did!” Alicent protested. “I can’t find it.”
“What album is it?” Rhaenyra asked, crossing over with her mug and Alicent’s in hand. “Here.”
“It’s meant to be a surprise, Rhaenyra,” Alicent said as she took the proffered mug.
“Well,” Rhaenyra said. “If you just tell me the album, the surprise can stay.”
“Ugh,” Alicent said. “It’s the Doris Day one. I’ll See You in My Dreams.”
Rhaenyra blinked in surprise.
“You’re joking,” she said.
“Why would I joke about that?”
“You saw me pick mine out,” Rhaenyra said rather accusatorily.
Alicent looked at her, perplexed. “What do you mean?” she said slowly. “You picked—?”
“Well, yeah. ”
“I didn’t know you liked Doris Day,” Alicent said, a little teasingly now. “I thought you said she lacked grit.”
“She does,” Rhaenyra said. “But I can’t hold it against her. And this song is beautiful.”
Alicent was gazing at her with warm, open regard. “What song?” she said.
“Track four,” said Rhaenyra. “It Had—”
“—To Be You,” Alicent finished. “You were going to choose the same one?” she said in wonderment. “Really?”
“Really,” Rhaenyra said, grinning stupidly. “Because it did.”
“What?”
“It did have to be you,” Rhaenyra said.
Alicent looked at her. Then she took their mugs, placing them on the sideboard, leaned over to press play, and held out her hands.
“Dance with me,” she said softly.
So Rhaenyra did.