II
She was seated in the corner on a hard, wooden seat in her tiny, white-walled room when she found her way back to herself. Her lips parted with a soft inhale, her eyes flickering to the strip of amber light coming in underneath the door.
Was it evening now, or early morning again?
A glance to her right, she saw that the wall was blank. It was early morning.
She rose to her feet with care, the incisions on her torso pulling with each movement. She didn't wince, only felt the trickle of warmth as one of them broke open and bled down into her belly button.
She reached for the special pen they let her have where it sat atop her dresser, clutched onto it like it was her whole world.
Her bare feet made a noise like walking on tacky glue as she stepped over to the wall.
Her eyes darting across the blank wall, she could see the city. She could see the Red Keep, and all the houses and merchant buildings that surrounded it. Rows upon rows of buildings, and then there was the one that meant something to her.
With careful strokes, she began to draw.
Black lines to and fro, up and down, left to right, she made them all connect, made them take form. It didn't matter that they would take this from her, that they would photograph and erase it and pretend like it never existed; it existed to her - it existed because she was walking the great floor of it, over massive tiles and amidst a crowd of people that hated her on either side of her, the vile King leading her towards the waiting stairs.
Stroke by stroke, the image she drew came to life.
She gasped suddenly, hand lingering over the space where he was never meant to have stood. That had been the King's place in the world she had built for herself. But it was different now. Wrong.
Who was he? This man, the King's uncle that had never existed before?
She stepped closer to the wall, leaned against it and let her head drop. Her eyes drifting shut, she let herself go back. Just for a moment, no more. She raced through that life, the one they'd thrust upon her, through the wedding she couldn't reject, the mortifying celebration dinner, and finally to his bed chambers where they stood alone.
His soulful eyes found hers and brought her back from duty. "I won't share your bed. Not until you want me to."
They were about cruelty, nothing more. But this man, her husband in this hell, fought against all that they wanted him to be.
She pulled herself away from the wall, breaking out of his bedchambers and away from the candlelight and back into darkness. Eyes shifting along the lines she'd drawn, she stepped back and mentally traced her way from the ragged sketch of herself, across the tiled floors, up the stairs and to him.
Her husband.
His faced was scarred, his eyes filled with misery. He'd not wanted the marriage any more than she had.
She moved back to the wall, stared at the man from their world. Finally finding a breath, she whispered a hoarse, "Tyrion" as a tear leaked down her cheek.
