Her father had shown her The List, of all the things that must completed before her seventeenth nameday. Before she was officially heralded as the Crown Princess, heir to the Iron Throne. The laws that must be passed, to safeguard her inheritance. And of course, her father's insistence that she be betrothed before her nameday.

"Why? It will be years before I am actually Queen."

"Seventeen is old enough to be married. And you need an heir. I will not have the kingdom thrown into another succession war."

She had looked at her father suspiciously. "What are you not telling me?"

"You must choose soon, or I will do it for you. You're lucky I'm even giving you a say in the matter." And that had ended the conversation.

If father is so desperate for me to be married, he's going about it the wrong way, Shireen thought. The list of suitors had decreased considerably since her father had announced the new law. The future Queen's husband will not be awarded any title - King or Prince. He will be barred by law from serving in the Small Council. The children born from the marriage will carry the Baratheon family name, instead of their father's.

Her father had explained to her the reasons for the law. To protect House Baratheon's lineage as the royal family. To protect the Queen from undue influence by her husband or her husband's family. To protect the Queen's right, and duty, to rule on her own.

To protect, to protect, to protect. Her father had used those words repeatedly. She resented the implication. That he did not trust her judgment and ability. That in his eyes, she was still a child who needed protection. After everything he's put me through, to ensure that I am ready.

Shireen was her father's daughter after all, so she confronted him. Anger had been his response.

"If you had actually been listening when I was trying to teach you something, you would have known how important it is to enshrine things in the law. Instead, you decided to turn it into something personal, about hurt feelings." He had shouted the word 'feelings' as if it was the dirt at the bottom of his feet.

Her mother had calmed her anger and frustration. Not with soothing or sweet words, but with more blunt truth.

"This is why I wanted a son. Not because I don't love you, or I don't trust your ability. But because there will be so many dangers ahead for you. Your father is only doing what has to be done."

"I am surrounded by blunt truth-tellers," she had told Devan later. "Lie to me. Tell me I'm beautiful."

"You're not beautiful," he had replied.

She had laughed. "Of course. You're even less capable of lying than my father."

For some reason, devan had looked confused, as if he had misunderstood the rule of a game. In many ways, he was still that earnest boy who learned to read and write with her, her father's squire who she had used as a source of information about her own father. If it weren't for Devan, I would have known next to nothing about father as a child.

She did not have any illusion about her looks. Even without the grayscale marring her face, she knew the best way people would describe her was 'homely'. The word made her laugh inside. I am so ugly I should stay home? Not likely, she thought. I will be Queen and my people will see me as I am.

"His Grace only has your best interest at heart, Princess Shireen." Devan suddenly spoke, after a long silence.

The deep voice reminded her that he was no longer a boy. He was a knight now, a gold cloak, serving the City Watch. And the one thing he wanted more than anything was to exchange the gold cloak with a white one, to be a member of the Kingsguard, serving and protecting her father once again.

"Why, when you could be the Lord of Rainwood, ruling over your own land someday?" She had asked him once. Devan had blushed and said nothing. But she knew the answer. Because of her father. Boys, and their loyalties. Men, and their loyalties.

There was a vacancy in the Kingsguard after her father made Richard Horpe a lord. Horpe had been very pleased with the land and title, but less pleased about the prospect of taking a wife and fathering an heir, Shireen suspected. Some men prefer fighting over anything else.

It had been widely expected that her father would name Devan to replace Horpe. Devan had proven himself in the City Watch, recruiting and training new members, turning sons of bakers and farmers and former ruffians into respectable and able members of the Gold Cloaks. But almost a moon since Richard Horpe's elevation into a lord, and the Kingsguard was still missing one in its number.

She wondered at times if being the son of the King's Hand actually put Devan at a disadvantage. Shireen knew how valuable Lord Davos' counsel and opinion were to her father, and knowing Lord Davos, he would not be the kind of person who would speak up on behalf of his own son for a position.

But surely father knows about Devan's ability and loyalty better than anyone, perhaps even better than Lord Davos. Why has he not named Devan to the Kingsguard?

"My father does as he wishes and expects everyone else to fall in line."

"Most daughters do not have a say in who they will marry after all. Your father is giving you a chance to choose."

"To choose among a bunch of suitors I do not really know, before my nameday. That is only two moons away."

"You have met all of them. Some ... more than once."

There was a strange note in Devan's voice as he said the word 'some'. Shireen wondered who he was thinking about.

"Have you heard anything about the Kingsguard?

No answer. Shuffling of feet, hands suddenly on the side of his body, at full attention mode. She knew the sign. There is something he does not want me to know. She would have heard if her father had named someone else.

"Out with it, Ser Devan. You were always very bad at hiding things."

"Your father ... His Grace .. spoke to me the day before yesterday."

"And?" He was testing her patience.

"He asked ... he wanted to know certain ... things."

Certain things? She thought incredulously. He could not have been more vague if he had tried.

"Questions related to the Kingsguard?"

She could see the wheels turning in his head. 'I have said too much. This could cause discord between the Princess and the King.' Oh you are so transparent, Devan.

"It is too late, Ser Devan. You have said too much. What were the questions my father asked of you? Or I will go to him right now and accuse him of all manners of wrongdoings towards you."

The blood drained from his face. Boys and their loyalties, she thought again.

"His Grace was concerned that there could be ... complications, if I am a member of the Kingsguard, no, the Queensguard, once you are on the Throne, Princess Shireen."

"What sort of complications?"

"That there might be ... talk ... from certain quarters."

She snorted. "My father does not care a whit about 'talk'. Words are wind, he'd say. And what sort of talk? Because your father is the King's Hand?"

The expression on his face told her immediately that was not the reason. He looked so uncomfortable and miserable, she did not have the heart to push him further. They stood silently for ages, with her trying to catch his eyes, him staring at his feet. After a while, Shireen noticed that other pairs of eyes were watching them. Intently.

Oh. She suddenly realized. Oh. That kind of 'talk'.

Yet her anger was not directed towards those watching them, but towards her father. How could he even think that Devan ...? That the boy who was the last to board Salla's ship that ill-fated day at Blackwater Bay because he refused to leave his King, would be capable of anything improper towards the King's daughter? That the man whose only wish was to guard his King once again could be deserving of that kind of suspicion?

I have always thought you a discerning man, father. A man with wise judgment, even if your words were not always wise, or kind.

Shireen and Devan took their leave from each other, and she considered her next move. It's pointless to confront father when I am this angry, she thought. Anger makes fools out of men. And women. A lesson her father had repeated to her time and time again. Even though he often did not abide by his own lesson. The only way she could hope to win the argument was to confront her father at her calmest moment. And by winning the argument, she meant to convince her father to name Devan as a Kingsguard.

Her father did not eat with them that night, he had his meal in his room, a more and more common occurrence of late. I will confront him in his room, in the morning, before the Small Council meeting. Having her in his room always made her father uncomfortable, as if she was intruding on a secret he did not wish for her to know.

They usually spoke to each other in his study. Amidst the books and the papers and letters, and the lists. Oh the lists! She had despaired of them in the beginning, after her thirteenth nameday, when he had decided that "it is time she involves herself in the running of the kingdom", as he had put it. Around the same time mother finally gave up on having a son.

Maester Pylos had been given his own lists by her father, over the years, since her father had ascended to the Throne. All the things she needed to learn and know. But her father had left the supervision of her learning to the maester.

That arrangement ended after her thirteenth nameday. Her father was supervising her learning personally, and he could not have been more different than the kindly maester. He was strict, he was demanding, he required detailed reports from her, written and spoken. He was critical of her writing ("I will have maesters to write for me when I am Queen." "You are not Queen yet."), of her timid voice ("How do you expect anyone to obey your command if you speak like a scared child?" "That's better than growling like an angry bear and grinding your teeth at everyone all the time.")

They had argued and fought and stared at each other in anger and disgust countless times since then. It was exhilarating, and Shireen had loved every moment of it. She was no longer the scared, timid little girl who was afraid of her own father. The father who lived a long distance away from her and her mother for most of her childhood, whose letters arrived very rarely, and whose visits home were even rarer.

And he was proud of her, she knew, for standing up to him, for the moments of sudden revelations arrived on her own, for the times when she actually bested him in an argument. But most of all, for the joy she took in learning about ruling, and the law, and duty. They had never spoken of it directly, but Shireen had always known that her father did not want her to share his joyless, grim determination about doing his duty. Like other parents, he had wanted more for his child than what he ever managed for himself.

Then why are you forcing me to marry now, when I am not ready? She banished the question from her mind. She was here to speak to her father about Devan, not about her marriage.

His door was half opened. His squire must have went out for a moment to fetch something, she thought. To her surprise, her father was still in bed. The sun was up, the day had started, and Stannis Baratheon was still in bed. Did the world end yesterday, and I did not notice?

She was slowly walking out of the room, when she heard his voice.

"I suppose this is your idea of trying to get the upper hand in an argument? Sneaking up on someone?"

She turned around to face him, and saw that he was actually already dressed for the day. He was sitting on his bed, and he motioned her to sit on the chair furthest away from him.

Now it is you who are trying to get the upper hand.

She took the chair he pointed to and moved it closer to the bed, so the two of them were sitting across each other, face to face. All the words she had planned very carefully went out of her head as she stared at his pale, haggard face. Her father looked as if he had not slept for days.

"Father -"

"I suppose Devan told you about our meeting?"

Were those his spies? Did he send people to spy on us?

"And I suppose some little birds whispered to you about our conversation?"

"Not any bird I sent, only general chatter. Which proved the point I was making to Devan."

"Which is what, exactly? That Stannis Baratheon suddenly cares about idle chatter?"

"If Jaime Lannister had not been a Kingsguard, the war that consumed the realm for so long would never have started."

The sudden change in subject bewildered her.

"And if there had been no war you would not be sitting on the Throne right now. But what does that have to do with anything? Jaime and Cersei Lannister, they were twins. They did not start a .. relationship because Jaime was a Kingsguard."

"But Jaime being a Kingsguard meant he and Cersei could be near each other, every day. Otherwise Jaime Lannister would have been back at Casterly Rock being his father's heir, and seeing his twin sister perhaps once or twice a year."

"Yes, the proximity made the incest easier. How is that related to Devan being a Kingsguard?"

"He will be a Queensguard, when you are Queen."

"If you think ... how could you ... do you really think that Devan and I would ..."

"It doesn't even have to be true. People would talk, and a war for succession could start with merely words."

"Baratheons. The succession line is Baratheon, through my line. It does not matter who the father is."

"It matters if your heir is a bastard."

"Then I will legitimize him, or her. A Queen can do that."

"And do you think your husband, and your husband's family will sit still and accept that?"

"What choice will they have? You have passed so many laws to restrict their influence. They will be powerless."

"For someone who was so vehemently denying any kind of relationship with Devan a minute ago, you sound as if you have put a lot of thought into this."

Unbelievable, she thought, how her father could twist her words around. "I was reacting to your arguments, debating your points! That is what you taught me to do. I was not constructing a justification for a wrong I am planning to commit in the future."

"Most of the time people never planned to do wrong. They just fell into it. Consumed by feelings, lust, perhaps even love."

"Devan was your squire. We shared some lessons together, when we were children. That is the extent of our ... relationship."

"Do you understand what it means to be a Kingsguard? Not the duties, but the things he would have to give up?"

"They are barred from owning land, taking a wife and fathering children. Yes, father, I remember my lessons."

"And is that what you want for Devan?"

"It's what Devan wants for himself. Land, title, a wife, children, he would give all that up for a chance to serve you again. Like he did, for years, as a boy. Leaving home, his mother and his little brothers when he was barely eight, to serve as your squire. And he has earned it. He is the best man for the position, you cannot deny that. You are only denying it to him because of this fantasy you have created in your head about ... us."

She suddenly realized she was almost shouting. What happened to keeping calm? And her father looked completely exhausted.

"Perhaps we should talk about this la-"

"Have you decided?" Her father interrupted her before she could finish. Another change of subject. It seemed her father was determined to keep her off-balance. She knew what he was asking, though.

"No, I have not. And that is not what we are talking about at the moment."

"They are related?"

"How?"

"Perhaps Devan is the reason you have not decided on a husband."

"Or perhaps I do not see any reason for the urgency. It will be years before I am Queen."

"It will not be years."

It was strange, Shireen thought later, how five short words could change so much, once it was spoken. She was surprised to realize that she was actually not surprised by those five words, that it was something she had always known, in the deep recesses of her mind,. A thought she was determined to keep un-thought, as if that could keep it from becoming a reality.