"The North, your grace, you must retake the north." Rickon's voice catches distinct in her ears like a storm - it reminds her of when they were growing up at the wall, it was the sound of winter. It had grown rougher as he aged, and now it tumbled out and she smiled at him, shook her head and waved a hand, took a sip of water flavoured with lemons, wrinkled her nose at how tart it was. Honey, she thought, some honey would do better.
"There is plenty of time, Rickon. One war has just ended, we need to recover, we need to heal." she does her best to smile at him, to assuage him for a while longer. they call him the wild wolf, the one who can't be tamed and it's clear in those eyes (blue ice, Tully in colour and Stark in the chasms of them - they are fuelled by wildfire, always shifting and moving - always watching.) "Westeros is in ruins, the Riverlands are, well, the gods would have done less damage to them." she shakes her head, sighs as she smooths out a crinkle on her dress.
"The north is the least of our problems." fish bone fingers run through her hair, smooth out strands away from her cheek, brush over skin hard as stone. She feels it in her fingertips but her cheek and neck remain dead to touch, lifeless, useless.
He shakes his head but holds his tongue, his direwolf grows restless at his side and still, after so many years, she still shits uneasily at the beast, it was dark as night and just as quiet, just as dangerous. It feared nothing, wild and reckless and so much like Rickon it was like they were a part of each other. Gods be good, it could take her arm off with little effort. She was a queen, the daughter of Stannis Baratheon, she was above quivering over a wolf in their midst, she'd seen the other girls at court baulk in fright and what a folly they made of themselves, how droll Rickon found it.
She was a queen. Fear was for children, fear was for the winter.
"Was that all you wished to see me for?" she tilts her chin and straights her back, holds her hands in the center of her stomach, clasped together like she used to as a child, when she grew shy, grew conscious of the grayscale that turned her face into a cliffs edge. She is hopeful, that he will seek more of her time, but he shrugs no and dips his head and turns away from her, stalking off down the hallway towards the practice yard.
The child in her cries out for her lost friend but the ruler in her straightens her shoulders and walks on, a pair of guards following her a few steps back. "Find me my lord of rainwood, I wish to speak with him." She turns, tumbles out onto one of the courtyards, a shuffling array of cloth of gold lined in black, her crown like a halo upon her head, decorated with antlers.
Ours is the fury, she thinks, and wonders where her fury has disappeared to, somewhere lost in Rickon, she decides. as the ringing of swords clatters and echoes around her like leaves falling off the trees in autumn. It's cool with the breeze off the sea, spring had arrived after a winter that had hardened everyone - even the southern lords and their people, they had felt it deep in their bones. The wall had been even more unforgiving, some days she had even been grateful that the grayscale on her face had left it numb to the cold - it was already dead, let the winter try to make it feel.
They grew up amongst shovelled pathways and snow piled higher than the men of the nights watch, running through the tower at East Watch and Rickon, he had made it easier. She had tamed him and he had awoken the beast in her and by the time the winter had opened up to the arms of the spring, her shy nature had melted along with the snow. They had travelled north then, to Winterfell after her father had taken over the castle, it was in ruins but somehow, Rickon had grown brighter, happier in some strange way. The north was in his bones, and I have brought him south, to a place where he does not belong. She still felt the biting sting of guilt when she had asked him to come to Kings Landing to be her Queens Hand. She shouldn't have made him chose between the north and her. It had been a cruel action on her part. She is disrupted from falling back down into such thoughts, such notions that left a bitter taste like bile in the back of her throat, when she hears a cough from behind her.
"Your Grace, I pray I have not disturbed you?" She turns, shakes her head at her father's Hand, he had aged fast after Stannis had passed, he had returned to Rainwood for a number of years to be with his wife, to raise his children but they were fostered now, as squires at Storms End and on Dragonstone, and he had returned to sit her small council.
"Certainly not, Ser, I asked to see you." He smiles, follows her when she motions to sit on one of the benches in the shade of a blossoming peach tree.
"I see Rickon is in the practice yard again. It's been years and the two of you still quarrel as if you were babes again." He smiles then as if taken by some memory, he looks down at his hands that are twisted together, tangled up like salt stained rope. He belongs at sea, her onion knight, and yet he remains here with her too, stranded ashore in this rat's nest of a capital - a boiling pot of problems and folly just waiting to overflow. He should be home with his wife; he should take her sailing along the tiny rivers and creeks and enjoy what years they had left together.
"He wants me to claim the north, he says they would rally to him - a stark - and I disagreed. Westeros needs to be rebuilt, yes, but the south is badly ruined too." Her voice grows quiet, and she sinks into a silence, catching her breath and gazing up at the peach trees. "My father once told me that my Uncle Renly loved peaches, they were his favourite - especially ones from Highgarden. He died at Storms End too." Sadness took over her then, and she swallowed, glanced away from the tree to smile at the knight next to her. His smile was small and even sadder still.
She had still been half a child when her lord father had died the battle of -, they had called it. It had been a true testament to her father, she had been told, a cunning plan to attack by night. The Targaryen's would never expect it - lulled into a sense of safety because who would attack when they had dragons? It was unheard of. But dragons sleep. That's when he had struck. He used a decoy army to the west while a small number of his best men, including the king himself, had creeped to the east where they kept the dragons. There had been three, but the girl, the queen across the water, she had lost one at the siege of Mereen, the white one apparently. That left two. The green one, they slit it's throat and lost a good few men in doing so. It shattered with its tail the men's bones who had tried to attack from the rear, and burned the ones that tried to attack from the front. It did not expect the one on it's back, gripping a wing to keep from being thrown off, the poisoned sword sunk into its neck. The other, seemingly distraught over it's brothers death, had fled the scene - the smell of blood drawing it towards the battle in the west. Some say it was fleeing to its mother, but got waylaid by the salt air and the sea - something it had grown to loved after spending so many years across the narrow sea with the smell of it in it's nostrils.
It left its mother to die.
They say the battle lasted hours, soldiers on either side were sluggish, drenched in sweat and mud and blood, their swords were no longer silver, but flowing red. They fought long into the night and just as dawn peaked and lit up the dark world with gold and red and dust brown, Stannis Baratheons army won. The would be queen and her nephew, the boy who had been whisked away from westeros as a child, leaving some poor street rat's child to die in his place. They say he was born with blood on his hands and raised to wash it off like a proper lord. Some of the small folk say he came back to life after Gregor Clegane had killed him, they said he couldn't be killed. He died like every other man though, beheaded by the king himself who wore a grave faced streaked with blood and dust and smudges of ash. His sword, glowing in the daylight was almost pulsing from the blood being fed to it - like an animal sated from a hunt.
He beheaded Daenerys as well, a swift motion of his arm that sent her silver head of hair sprawling - he looked tired but there was a glint of elation in his eyes as he loosened his grip on his sword, shared a moments glance with Davos before turning away. They thought the battle was over, until the screech of a dragon sent men running. Stannis, however, the stag who would break before he bent, he remained. He was obstinate, wielding his sword - and some say that he laid that dragon to waste before it managed to kill him. But there isn't anything half so mortal as dragon fire and the king died burning like the sigil he'd adopted.
The dragon, it flew away, it's wings were tattered and its fire had burned out in the misery of the death of its mother, its brothers. They say it was never the same since Mereen, when the first of the dragons had been slain. Shireen could understand, the pain of losing a loved one was enough to tear a person apart if they let it. Why could it not be the same for a dragon? It's legend is told in inns across Westeros, it lives in the wild, feeding on goats and wanderers who stray from the path.
Knights and hedge knights, Sellswords and even squires seek out the dragon now, some return with burns and scars, others return unscathed. Some, some don't return at all. Bones turn up in constant flow, they are boiled and they hang from the pillars and ceilings of the throne room, strung up as a reminder of the cost of war, of what was lost when they won Westeros back. Brave quests, a noble path - wanting to slay the dragon who killed the king - others called it folly, there was a reason the dragons conquered Westeros. They would be the only things left in the end, some say the world will end in fire, dragon fire.
She remembers Davos breaking the news, her lady mother had cried but not for very long. Shireen had cried to longest, howled into Rickon's chest, beat her small fists against his chest (it had started to fill out, she'd noticed) until she could cry no longer. All she felt now was some vague sense of sadness, a constant nostalgia for a father who had loved her as best her could whilst still doing his duty - he had never been warm, had never been quick to laugh like his brothers, but she could never doubt that he had loved her. He had taken her aside before he left - as he had each time before, whenever he left for a battle - a queen protects her people, or she is no queen at all, you must remember that, if I am to never return. She had always known he would return, and now, she wondered whether her confidence in her father had been his downfall.
"Yes well, the battle was still won. Your father was an honourable man, he was a great king, just as you will be a great queen. His only downfall was never getting to sit on his throne." He shrugs, tries his best to smile like he is happy, there is grief in his eyes like there is grief in my heart, Shireen thinks, she oft forgot how close her father and the onion knight had become.
"Yes, he was." She laughs then, tugs at a fold on her dress and shakes her head, " I've forgotten what it is I wanted to see you about, Ser. All this talk of battles and peaches has made it slip my mind." He stays silent, offering some company that helps to melt away the despair that threatened to be her undoing.
"It's still nice to sit by the trees at this hour, I'm sure you'll remember what it is you wanted soon your grace." He had always been patient with her, he had treat her as best he could after her mother had passed - somehow she loved him more than her lady mother, who had disappeared into the fires more oft than she did spend time in the company of her daughter. She took to staring at the flames most night, until tears swam from her eyes and carved out rivers on her cheeks. It had been Davos who taught her how a queen must act, taught her to rule how her lord father would have ruled - she would be a great queen, a fair queen.
A/N This is post adwd, wildly au with an intent of a main ship of rickon/shireen. There are spoilers and plot lines that have been assumed! Basically Rickon, when parted with bran, ends up at the Wall with Shireen, the pair grow up together and became fast friends - as you would when there aren't any other kids around! I hope you like it and please review.