Prompt for Stannis FicArt Week: Stannis watches Melisandre sleep. She's pretending to sleep but he knows ...
Devan said the king scarcely slept of late. "Since Lord Renly died, he has been troubled by terrible nightmares," the boy had confided to his father. "Maester's potions do not touch them. Only the Lady Melisandre can soothe him to sleep." Is that why she shares his pavilion now? Davos wondered. To pray with him? Or does she have another way to soothe him to sleep? (A Clash of King)
Her face next to him was the most peaceful sight he had seen since they day they set foot in the Stormlands. A stray strand of hair had fallen over her left eye. He made a move to push it away, but halted suddenly, his hand hovering over her face, his eyes never leaving her tightly shut eyes.
She shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here.
We shouldn't be here.
But they were here, in his pavilion, sharing a bed.
He was once a man who knew exactly who he was, and what he was capable of.
He was no longer that man now.
Who am I, if I am not who I have always been?
A man is a sum of his parts - past, present and future. The maester who was like a father to him had told him that, once upon a time. The maester haunted his dreams too, along with his brothers, his mother, his father and countless others, some nameless and faceless.
The dead do not speak, he had told his baby brother once, when the little boy was haunted by dreams of the dead, in a castle full of dead men and dead women dying on an empty belly.
He knew better now.
She did not stir when he sat up, the rise and fall of her chest constant and evenly spaced, as if she was deep in a peaceful slumber. But somehow, he still knew. Knew that she was only pretending, knew that sleep was not something she needed; just as she always knew when to come to him, and when to keep her distance.
He never sent for her, never called out her name.
He never told her to keep her distance, never sent her away when she came to him.
Did she see it in her flames? The dreams he dreamed, the blood sullying the hands he had sworn to his onion knight were clean, the brother who lived - still lived in his dream - grinning and laughing, peach juice dribbling down his chin. He could taste the sweetness and tartness of the peach on his tongue, could almost forget that he had refused the peach angrily and thundered loudly at his brother – "I did not come here to eat fruit!"
He told her none of this. Asked her none of the questions swirling in his mind.
How did my brother really die?
Were my hands truly clean?
Yet she knew. She still knew. She came to him when he needed her. Prayers were for the nightfires and the true believers in his army; they would do nothing for him, would not soothe him to sleep, she seemed to know that as well.
In daylight, she spoke to him of his duty, of Azor Ahai reborn and his tasks, of defeating his enemies, of prophecies and plans and schemes.
At night, she barely spoke a word. She was the word, by herself more than enough, more than any spoken words of comfort and reassurance could have done for him.
Here I am, she was declaring with her presence, the true me, truly here.
Even if she was pretending to be asleep, when she truly was awake.