So we reach into the raging chaos, and we pluck some small glittering thing, and we cling to it, and tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end.
-Anne Rice, The tale of the Body Thief
She escapes into the woods, hoping to catch the last rays of a dying sun; one last whiff of fresh air before she's choked by the starless night sky and the terrors that accompany it. It's easy to forget during the day, with the old men singing her praises and the young ones looking at her with star-struck eyes. But then it grows dark and all she can see are the blood stains on her hands that just won't go away. She's taken to scrubbing herself twice as hard and wryly notes that she could drain every single well in the Seven Kingdoms and beyond and yet, it would do her no good.
He sees past her plastic smiles and knows of the war she's waging against herself internally. He wants to hold her close and tell her that he loves her instead of letting her cry herself to sleep. But he's no courageous prince, he's a cowardly bastard and so all he can do is exist, just be there, be her friend or sparring partner or anything else she may need. Today, like every other, he finds her sitting on a rock by her favourite lake, the one her father had loved so. He can hear her over the wild rustling of the leaves and knows she's thinking again of all those lives she has taken. He tries to tell her that she did it out of a need to survive, if not for herself or her people, for him. But he's never been good with words and so settles for taking her hand instead. He feels her tense and mentally berates himself this new found courage. But suddenly the leaves quieten as she squeezes back and he knows that father and daughter approve.