Acquainted with the Night
Part I
Arrowsbane
"I have been one acquainted with the night." - Robert Frost
In the eyes of the people, Myrcella Baratheon – firstborn of Robert Baratheon, and the first of his name - is the perfect Princess.
Her beauty is a keen competitor for that of her royal mother, Queen Cersei. With eyes are like emeralds and her glossy chestnut hair that gleams in the sunlight, she is a sight to behold. She ignores the fashions of the court, and wears her own hair half pinned up at the back of the crown of her head and decorated with golden roses that grow outside her window – roses rarely seen outside of Highgarden.
Myrcella is good and kind and thoughtful. It is she who ensures that the orphans do not starve, and she who makes sure that medicine finds its way to those in need thanks to her own network of little birds. When she rides through the streets in on the back of a black mare named Briar, the people follow her in droves and sing her praises.
They love her, and she loves them.
16 years earlier…
When she is born, her mother laments and curses the fact that her child indeed belongs to her husband, when she had been so careful to drink the tansy tea and flush his seed from her womb before it could grow into anything more. Bright green eyes that almost seem to glow in the moonlight stare out from a tiny porcelain face that drinks in everything in the room with an unquenched curiosity.
Cersei watches the babe from her spot next to the gilded cradle, a pillow in her hands and a warring battle inside her – hate for her royal husband and his offspring, which quails and dies under an overwhelming barrage of maternal instinct; her fingers clench and unclench around the ends of the pillow.
She had thought to press the goose down filled case over the child's mouth and nose, and end the tiny life before it could grow to fill her heart, but she finds it is already too late – she has already surrendered her heart to the princess, to her daughter.
The pillow slips from her hands and falls to the floor with a faint sound, and the Queen bends to lift her child from the cradle. She carries her daughter to the balcony, and stares out at the warm summer's night.
"This is yours," she says, "All that you can see and beyond is yours Myrcella."
There is a voice inside her head.
It is not her voice, but that of a man. When she dreams at night, or even sometimes during the day when her Septa thinks she is working on her needlepoint, Myrcella sees a world beyond anything she might have imagined.
She sees a castle twice the size of Casterly Rock, where people wear black dresses and wield sticks of wood and say strange words. She sees a world where dragons roam free, and unicorns are real instead of some mummers' farce. She sees a world at war, and the joy that comes with peace after the mourning is done. She sees a life from before.
"The soul has no gender," that is what the voice tells her, "it simply is what it is."
"We are the same soul," it says, "but not the same person."
She thinks she understands, but isn't sure.
She is a toddler, barely three years old when her mother grows pregnant once more and Joffrey is born. The little lion with a golden mane. Growing up with him is testing at times, he often tries to bully her, but never gets any further than a verbal taunt. There is a look in her eye that warns him away – warns him that there is more to her than there appears.
Myrcella spends her days learning from her Septa, and her evenings in the bright sunny gardens chasing butterflies barefoot or batting her big green eyes at the cooks in order to sneak a lemon cake before dinner. It is an idyllic childhood, and she has not a care in the world. At the back of her mind, the voice sees this and sighs contentedly. All is well.
The voice calls himself Harry. Myrcella asks if it is short for Harrold, and Harry laughs – he has no idea. He has a wicked sense of humor and teaches her how to find a loophole in anything. She likes him. When she discovers her magic, after changing the color of her dress during a minor tantrum – and yes, she has those, he teaches her about that too.
Without access to a wand, something Harry insists is important, they have to come up with a new way of conducting her magic. In the end, it becomes something she controls by the strength of her will alone – and she has always been willful. Ours is the Fury, proclaims the words of her family, and it is fitting, for while Myrcella is good and sweet and kind – there is a greater fury buried down deep inside and it burns hotter than dragonfire.
Harry finds the notion of her families' houses amusing – it is fitting (and more than a little ironic) he says, for his soul to be reborn to a woman from the house of lions, clad in scarlet and gold, with a father who bears banners with a proud Stag that dances in the wind. He absently wonders if she will ever gain the talent to shapeshift like his father did, and if she does – would she take the form of a Doe or a Lioness?
When Tommen is born, Myrcella is almost eight summers old. She isn't quite sure what to make of her new brother at first – the last one wasn't all that impressive in her opinion.
(At five years old, Joffrey is a spoiled golden bundle of fluff with a sadistic streak a mile wide. Myrcella has little patience for him, and is in a particularly bad mood with him ever since he made off with her favourite doll – a delightful china thing shipped in from Dorne and dressed in fine silk – and destroyed it by firing it from a large crossbow over the battlements.)
She sits by the gilded cradle that has stags and lions carved into the painted wood, prancing up the sides into a single peak from which hangs an arrangement of shining golden animals that dance in the breeze and gleam red in the light of the sunset. Her brother stirs in his sleep, and his face is so peaceful that Myrcella finds herself loving the child even though she does not know him yet.
"I'll keep you safe," she whispers, trailing a hand across his blankets. "I will." She promises as the last of the light dips over the sea and darkness sets in. Outside the birds sing goodnight, and she settles down to sleep in the large chair next to the cradle. She dreams of sunlight and laughter as magic fills the air once more.
When Myrcella is eleven, she is faced with a rather unpleasant truth.
She wanders away from the simpering ladies of the court and turns toward her mother's chambers to ask permission to go swimming in the sea, only to walk in on her mother and uncle… without clothes on.
The little princess stares blankly at her relatives, not entirely comprehending what exactly is happening. Inside her head, an equally stunned Harry explains it in a shaky voice. Oh. Oh.
She closes the door – it was barely open anyway – and flees before they can notice.
Suddenly she doesn't want to go swimming anymore.
A year passes before Myrcella repeats the mistake of entering without knocking, and this time she is not so lucky as to go unnoticed. Her lady mother sees her, and pushes Uncle Jaime off the bed and onto the floor. Myrcella blinks.
"I came to find you, and nobody was here." Myrcella says as evenly as she can, and turns to leave.
"'cella!" her mother calls. Both mother and daughter ignore the groan of pain coming from the stone floor behind the bed.
"Didn't happen. Saw nothing. Nope." The brunette twelve-year-old says, and then shuts the door firmly. For a moment, she stands there in the hallway, trying to catch her breath. Then she flees, like all the demons of hell are at her heels.
Later, when she is sat in the gardens, her mother approaches and sits beside her. When she speaks, it is in a soft, but nervous tone.
"Myrcella, darling, what you saw—"
"I know what I saw mother." Cersei looks as if she has been slapped, and a noise of what could easily be surprise mixed with anger makes its way out of her throat. They sit in silence for a while, and then:
"I don't care." Myrcella says, swinging her feet back and forth childishly.
"What?"
"I said I don't care." She looks up at her mother. "I won't say anything. What you do is your own choice, I still love you." Cersei stares at her daughter for a long while, before pulling the girl into her arms and burying her face in the dark hair.
"How was I so lucky as to be given you," Her mother says in a rare moment of humbleness. Myrcella says nothing, and leans into the embrace.
Her parents, for all they say otherwise, do have favourites among their children. She is her father's, and Joffrey her mother's – poor Tommen is often ignored and Myrcella is more than happy to give him extra attention because he is her favorite. The four-year-old adores anything soft and cuddly, loves to rub his face against fur and will quite happily sleep all day away in the sun if he is allowed. Myrcella enjoys nothing more than making her baby brother laugh, and she hates to hear him cry.
He cries the day that Joffrey decides to chase down the heavily pregnant kitchen cat and kill it. It is a slow death: horrid and cruel, and when Myrcella comes across her brother tormenting the poor creature, she intervenes and orders a guard to snap the poor things neck.
Joffrey howls in anger when the kill is taken from him, and kicks and screams the entire way to the throne room when she bodily throws him to the mercy of their parents. Their royal mother is appropriately horrified when she hears what her son has done, and Robert even more furious. Nobody could have anticipated the blow he dealt his son, and Cersei cries out in rage – because while she is disgusted by her sons' actions she is still his mother.
Myrcella can't decide which parent looks more upset, and then she hears it. The grief stricken wail fills the entire castle and she feels her heart sink.
Tommen has found the cat.
She doesn't wait to hear Joffrey's punishment, and sprints from the hall back to where the servants are removing the cat and Tommen is wailing, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. She pulls him into her arms and runs her fingers through his soft golden halo, murmuring apologies all the while. He thrashes in her arms until she orders the cat to be buried in the gardens, beneath the tree it used to enjoy sleeping in. The rest of the afternoon is spent sat with her brother in her arms as he sniffles through his grief, eyes locked onto the mound of soil that marks the feline's grave.
The next day, they return to the garden and kneel in the soil, pushing the earth about with their bare hands until there are at least a dozen daffodil bulbs buried as a memorial.
When the stable cat has its own litter a few months later, she makes sure that a tiny ginger kitten appears in Tommen's chambers.
Myrcella has her father wrapped around her little finger, everybody knows this. She'll turn down the corners of her mouth, tilt up her head so that her eyes look huge, and tell him what she wants in a plaintive tone. If her voice happens to be laced with magic, and her eyes glowing just ever so slightly so that he feels compelled to fulfill her request, nobody will ever know. It isn't like she's asking for the keys to the Kingdom.
She keeps her requests simple – to learn to ride a horse and shoot a bow and arrow, to wield a dagger in case she is ever without her guards, to wear breeches beneath her shortened gowns while she spars in order to allow movement.
Whatever she asks for, he gives her – how could he resist: for as her mother shines with the beauty of the sun, blazing and golden and glorious; Myrcella is the other side to the coin. With skin porcelain as the moon and hair as black as night, eyes that shine like emeralds and a temperament as sweet as a summer breeze - it is no wonder that she has young lords stretching from Riverrun to the Vale, and even as far as Dorne asking for her hand in marriage.
"Minx," the voice in her head whispers fondly, and she smiles.
Nobody dares to ask what she finds so amusing.
On her thirteenth name day, Myrcella receives a basket of golden roses from Highgarden, along with a request for a betrothal to the Tyrell heir. Her father contemplates it, and mother rages that she will not allow her daughter to be sold as she herself was, like a common sow.
Her father makes the argument that it would be a good match, and would bring the Reach under his direct control, but in the end her mother wins and all Myrcella has of the Gardens is her roses. When they wilt and die, she saves the seeds and shares them with Tommen. They plant them at the base of a trellis below her room in the hopes that the roses will climb and fill the air with their sweet scent.
Within a week, thanks to tender care, green shoots begin to appear and Myrcella's eyes shine with joy.
She is five and ten summers old when Jon Arryn falls from his horse during a Tourney and dies.
Her royal father declares that they will ride for Winterfell, and Myrcella defies her mother in riding on horseback alongside her father and uncle more days than not during the month-long trek.
The idea of spending large amounts of time in an enclosed space with her brothers gives her a headache – Joffrey is a pain in her royal arse and Tommen, while sweet as pie, can witter endlessly and it tests even her patience at times. She has no desire to endure the kerfuffle that usually ensues when Joffrey decides to bully their youngest sibling.
At night, she more than happily joins her siblings in the giant wheelhouse and curls under the thick furs to hide from the chill of the North, and tucks Tommen under an arm. Her mother's fingers slip through her dark curls under the cover of night and Myrcella sighs in contentment. Family is everything to the Princess.
They arrive in the afternoon, filing into the stone courtyard with banners proudly flying the Baratheon colors of gold and black. Her royal father swings down from his horse and laughingly greets a man who can only be Lord Stark, before turning to survey the Lord's family. Myrcella slides down from the saddle with all the grace she possesses and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, standing patiently by her horse until her father is ready to introduce her.
The Lady Stark wears a severe expression and her dark auburn hair is bound tightly, her hand resting upon her eldest sons' shoulder – a boy who has inherited her hair and eyes. Myrcella allows her eyes to flit over the boy who can only be the Greyjoy hostage she has heard her father mention, and then she sees him tucked away nearer the back of the group as to not draw attention.
Jon Snow has eyes of ice and steel, and a perpetual frown upon his face. His dark hair curls barely brush the nape of his neck and she absently wonders what it would feel like to wind one of those curls around her finger. It is clear to anyone who knows her, that Myrcella is smitten from the moment she sees him.
She smiles at him, looking up from beneath her dark lashes and tries hard not to preen with pride as he turns ever so slightly pink. "Flirt," Harry teases her, and she doesn't protest. Rather she rolls her shoulders back and holds her head up high.
(She inherited her charm from her father – something that he seems to have lost somewhere in his wineskin over the years, no doubt dulled by the coin in his pockets and weighed down by the crown atop his head. Who needs charm and wit when you are the king? Alas, she is just a Princess and so her charm is her sharpest weapon.)
The younger children stand by their brother's side – a girl with hair even redder than her mother that seems to swoon when Joffrey trots in alongside their uncle Jaime, and for that alone, Myrcella mentally dismisses her; another girl with dark hair and a difficult expression who challenges the king with her tone alone and he laughs. The girl has spirit. The last of the Stark children are two young boys, younger than Tommen and Myrcella dismisses them too simply for a lack of knowing how to communicate with small children.
The door to the wheelhouse opens and her royal mother descends in a graceful collection of silk and furs, golden hair gleaming in the sunlight. Tommen follows at her heel and Myrcella joins them, taking his hand in hers as they approach the Starks who bow and welcome them with kind words. Her father loudly proclaims that he must pay his respects and Myrcella can see her mother visibly tense. Lord Stark bows his head and leads her father away even as her mother protests. If there is one thing about her father that Myrcella does not like, it is his disregard for her mother – his whoring is not uncommon, but the way he is so blatant is a slap in the face to both his wife and children. Thankfully Tommen is too young and shielded to know of it.
"I don't understand," her baby brother whines as they follow their mother and Uncle into the main House. "Where is father going?"
"He is going to visit the previous Lord Stark," she lies quickly, because there are ears everywhere and she has no desire to make her mother suffer further. "Father and Lord Stark were fostered together like brothers, and so Father is going to pay his respects to the family." She catches her mother's eye and holds her breath for a moment. Then Cersei nods in approval and she feels relieved.
Myrcella ushers her younger brother inside and sees that he is settled in his room before asking a servant to lead her to the crypt. She is curious to see the likeness of the woman her father staged a rebellion over. It is cold and dark, and for a moment she falters before whispering a spell. The torch in her hand flares to life, the flames flicker in the draft. She follows the length of the crypt, staring up at the stone faces of the long dead until she hears voices.
"—ve been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection," he father's voice says. "It is not too late. I have son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses."
"Sansa is only eleven," the low voice of Lord Stark answers, and Myrcella remembers the slight girl with the shining red hair who looked at her brother so adoringly. Such a girl deserves a knight – a man of honor, not the monster that lurks beneath her brother's skin.
"Old enough for a betrothal," her father says, and she cannot stay quiet any longer.
"Why not me?" She says clearly, stepping into the light of their own torch. The two men turn to stare at her.
"Why not me?" She repeats. "I am old enough to marry, I am sixteen next summer. Why wait?" She asks. Lord Stark looks surprised to see her, and she raises her chin. She is the Princess Baratheon, firstborn of Robert Baratheon. She bows to no man.
"Myrcella," her royal father warns. "Your mother would have my head."
"Not if I ask her first," she replies. They both know just how persuasive she is. Lord Stark's expression has turned to contemplation and he looks back to the King.
"She is of a similar age to Robb…"
"No. The other one." She says, and both men blink in confusion.
"Jon?" her Father says slowly, as if drawing the name up from the dregs of his memory even though he has heard it not an hour ago.
"Myrcella, he is not trueborn." She hates the way he phrases it, as if she is a fool.
"Then legitimize him," She says, waving a hand. "You are the king, and he is not the firstborn – it will not change the line of succession for the next Lord of Winterfell." Lord Stark sputters and chokes, as the words volley back and forth between father and daughter.
"Myrcella!" her father protests and so she tilts her head to the side, letting the light catch the green of her eyes and light up. They almost seem to glow in the torchlight and her father tenses.
"I like his eyes," Myrcella presses, and then shrugs, "there is something of the wolf in them."
There is a pause, and then her father lets out a mighty sigh.
"On your own head be it," he says, and then adds hurriedly. "But you have to tell your mother." Then he turns to Lord Stark.
"Will you allow it Ned?" He asks, and the Lord of Winterfell looks rather concussed for a moment. He opens his mouth as if to say something, closes it, opens it again and finally resorts to a short, curt nod of consent when the words fail him.
Myrcella smiles, and it is a radiant smile, dancing forwards on excited feet to embrace her father and curtsey to the Lord Stark. She'll never bow her head, but she still has her manners.
"Off with you my girl," the King laughs, and Myrcella spins on the spot, happily scampering off to find her mother. A servant takes the still-burning torch from her, and directs her to the rooms that the Queen is resting in, and Myrcella once again demonstrates her hatred of announcing her presence. She careens into the room like a force of nature, an unstoppable a whirl of crimson skirts and dark curls.
"I am to be married," she tells her mother, and takes pride in the fact that her mother is so shocked that she drops one of the golden combs she had been pinning her hair back with. Cersei's shriek of anger echoes through Winterfell, and down in the crypt, Robert and Eddard share a look.
"Maybe we should stay down here a little longer," the King suggests nervously, for as much as his daughter loves her mother, she also enjoys causing chaos.
Part I of III.
So... this spawned in my brain, most of it was written on a plane and I wanted to post this arc before I wrote the rest.
Currently pondering the rest and plotting. Poor Jon - Pity him. Myrcella is used to getting what she wants.