Disclaimer: I disclaim.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Everything had changed.

Through her fifteen-year-old eyes, Myrcella Baratheon could see it all too clearly and she was both angry and envious at the little girl she had been, the one who had thought life was only good. But then, how could she have been different? She had led a very sheltered life, pampered by her mother and adored by her father. By everyone in the Red Keep, it now seemed to her.

Now, everyone seemed to avoid her.

It was only to be expected, after all. The end of the Lannister rule had been dreadful and bloody – literally so. Sometimes, Myrcella still couldn't believe that she had made it this far alive. That Tommen was alive, too, albeit held in strict custody. But that didn't make everything easy. She was accustomed to people liking to be in her company and now almost everyone ignored her, the minority still willing to talk to her consisting of her uncle Tyrion and her… Jaime – whom she didn't like to talk to – and, as strange as it was, the new, still uncrowned Queen. Yes, somehow, between Tyrion's attachment to his niece and the whispers of great and not so great Houses that the Lannister bastards should be eliminated, Daenerys Targaryen had managed to form an opinion of Myrcella that stopped her from executing the girl. Sometimes, very rarely and at the most unexpected moments, Myrcella saw glimpses of what Daenerys might really be like – a painfully young woman, vulnerable and insecure, the fate of the world resting upon her shoulders.

"Why so sad, my lady?" someone spoke in her ear – or what was left of it under the veil – and she turned to them, stunned.

"I… I am not sad, my lord," she stammered and he smiled.

"Really? Then you won't mind smiling at me?"

Her heart raced. She hadn't seen Trystane Martell in years and she had purposefully kept her distance ever since his arrival at King's Landing a week ago. She didn't think he'd like to be reminded that he had once been betrothed to Cersei Lannister's bastard daughter and in truth, she didn't want to suffer his empty politeness or worse, pity. Yet now he had sought her out and she didn't know how to react. They had been quite close as children but these days, nothing could stay as it had once been. Trystane had become a stunningly attractive man, lean and broad-shouldered, with the black hair and eyes of his people… but the way he spoke… he was still the boy she had played cyvasse with… yet not quite…

"Myrcella?" Trystane reminded her. "A smile?"

She looked up and noticed how far her eyes needed to travel to reach his face. He was a full head taller than her – a merciless reminder how much time had passed. How much the world had changed.

He was still looking at her expectantly and she smiled. "That's better," the young Dornish prince said. "One more, please? And a little broader one this time?"

Myrcella almost laughed at his outrageous flirting, then looked around to see whether someone had seen them but as usual, no one looked at the alcove she usually occupied to keep herself away from the rest of the court. They were safe. And then, it was suddenly as if she were in Sunspear again, looking at the young lords and knights flirting with Arianne and the other ladies. Trystane probably didn't even realize that such behavior was not proper but she did. And just for a moment, she wanted not to care. She grinned at him with the unrestrained joy that he was still willing to talk to her, to acknowledge that they had history, that she was more than an unpleasant reminder of an old regime of injustice.

He was looking at her, fascinated. "I recognized you immediately," he murmured.

The magic was broken. Myrcella looked away. Of course he recognized me, she thought miserably. With this hideous scar, how could he not?

"Your eyes," he said softly. "I remember… when we first met, I thought how I had never seen anyone who had green eyes before. Like emeralds."

"And I remember you waving at me from the quay," she murmured. She had felt such a relief back then, she'd been so sure that they could get along that she had withstood the glares and murmurs of the Dornishmen while she rode through Sunspear without feeling too hurt.

As the musicians started playing, Trystane regarded her solemnly. "How have you been, Myrcella?" he asked.

As well as can be expected of one whose uncle killed their mother and they are practically prisoners in what was once their family's palace, she wanted to reply. "I am fine, my lord."

For a moment, there was something in his eyes, a brief flicker of hurt and disappointment that made her hold her breath. A moment later, his expression became serene once again and she thought she might have imagined it. Trystane made a step toward her. "I am sorry, my lady," he spoke in a low, urgent voice, totally unlike his previous flirtatious tone. "I should have never let them take you from Dorne. You should have never endured this."

There was such sincerity in his face and voice, such remorse that Myrcella was taken aback. She had thought that he had forsaken her and now, joy bloomed in her like the dawn colouring the yellow sands of Dorne and turning them, for a few minutes, into a garden of rosy and violet. Then, she shook her head. Mother save me, she thought. I can't be falling in love with him, can I? Love never brought happiness to anyone. Not her father. Not her mother and her… Ser Jaime. Not Robb Stark and his ill-fated queen. She had thought that she might grow to love the man Trystane would become. Now, when the boy who was no longer a boy stood in front of her, she felt scared. She was a prisoner of the Targaryens. She had no future. She could only attract suspicions to herself and the Martells. And the last thing she needed was to be reminded of a place where the sun was quick to rise and slow to set, where she could wiggle her toes into the sand and play a new game with a boy who, unlike Joff, didn't mind losing, as long as that meant being with her, playing with her. She did not want to remember of days long gone, days that had been better, happier.

Trystane reached for her face and paused when he was about to remove her veil draped over one side of her face, as if he suddenly realized that it might not be proper to do so. Myrcella was glad. She didn't want him to see the scars too clear. "Don't be sad," he murmured. "I didn't want to make you sad."

"I am not," she lied bravely and looked at him, dry-eyed. He examined her.

"Very well," he said at last. "Then smile for me? Not with your lips, with these forest eyes of yours. I think your smile will bring me luck."

Forest. She had heard many things about her eyes, many praises about her mother's eyes. Emerald. Green silk. Whatever. She had never heard the phrase forest eyes, though. But of course, it made sense. To Trystane, forests were as strange and fascinating as the desert was to her. She remembered him in Sunspear, at the Water Garden, listening to her wide-eyed as she described the mountains and forests she had seen traveling around the Seven Kingdoms with her parents. One of her most cherished memories was her father reaching in the wheelhouse and taking her out, over her mother's loud protests, to place her in the saddle in front of him where she could stare, open-mouthed, at the green magnificence surrounding them. For all his faults, Robert Baratheon had been able to make her hold her breath, make her laugh.

She knew that, in a strange, sad way of his own, he had loved her.

"Here," Trystane said, satisfied. "Now, it's better."

He was smiling at her and her heart fluttered. He was looking at her almost as if… almost as if she was still beautiful. What a silly girl I am.

He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. "Thank you," he said, face suddenly serious once again. "You gave me something to sustain my spirit in the battle."

She became serious, too, reminded that now, they had to face the greatest danger. Very soon, the army of the Seven Kingdoms – or what was left of it after the wars – would leave for the Wall. They could all die very soon and then their petty grievances and flirtations would matter no more.

Still, she felt warmed that now, she had someone to pray for.