"Do you dream, Stannis?"

Stannis glared at his brother. "I am not a dreamer, hopeless or otherwise," he said sharply. "You are wrong, as always."

Renly shook his head impatiently. "I meant at night. When you sleep. Do you dream?"

Stannis replied with a question of his own. "What did you dream of, when you dreamed about the siege?"

Renly closed his eyes. "Different things. Arguments. Arguments and loud voices, mostly. It's strange however, I can't quite understand what people are arguing about, most of the time."

"Not so strange. Isn't that how it usually is, in a dream? Voices half-heard, things only half-seen," Stannis replied.

People who recede further and further away the closer you get to them. Dissolving into nothingness in the end.

He had grabbed his mother's hand in one dream, squeezing it so tightly he thought he had broken the bones. But she had disappeared anyway. I'm sorry, Stannis. I have to go.

Renly snickered. "So Stannis Baratheon does dream after all." He paused. "No, the voices were clear enough. It was more like … I can't comprehend what they were saying. Why they were arguing in the first place. And why they were so angry."

Stannis scoffed. "Were they speaking Old Valyrian? Is that why you can't comprehend the argument?"

Renly rolled his eyes. "No, Stannis, everyone spoke the Common Tongue. It's like … it's like when you were a child, spying on a conversation between the grown-ups. You understand what each word being spoken meant, but all the words together? They made no sense at all."

"Well, I wouldn't know. Unlike you, I was never in the habit of spying on other people's conversation." Stannis paused, before a thought occurred to him. "Who are this 'they' you keep talking about?"

"You and Robert," Renly replied, not looking at Stannis.

"Robert was not at Storm's End during the siege. But I suppose anything is possible in a dream," Stannis mused out loud.

Did you dream of Robert coming to our rescue, Renly? Doing the things I could not do, the things I was not capable of doing.

"This was before he rode away to fight the war. When he came home to call the banners," Renly replied. "You were arguing, the two of you, in Robert's bedchamber."

That was very specific for a dream, Stannis thought. Almost too precise in the details, in fact. Was Renly really describing a dream, or a memory?

"What did we argue about? Robert and I."

"The king. The old king. The Mad King," Renly replied, his fingers nervously drumming the table. "He is our king, our liege lord. We owe him our loyalty." He stared at Stannis. "That's what you were shouting to Robert." He paused again, longer this time. "In my dream."

That was indeed what Stannis had said to Robert, when Robert came home from the Eyrie to call his banners. Almost word-for-word, in fact. "You were spying on us, listening to our conversation," Stannis said accusingly. "That is not a dream you were describing."

Renly looked startled. "So it is true after all. You did argue with Robert about the rebellion. I thought I was imagining things. Remembering something that never actually happened."

"You mean … you didn't remember?"

"Not until recently," Renly said. His fingers were still in motion, tapping, pounding. The sound grated on Stannis' nerves.

"What else have you remembered? Recently." Stannis was not certain he really wanted to know.

Renly ignored the question. Instead, he was interrogating Stannis as if Stannis was a prisoner accused of a crime. "Were you really considering staying loyal to the Mad King? Or were you just saying those things to annoy Robert?"

"I am not you. I don't make a habit of saying things just to annoy others," Stannis replied. "Go ahead, ask me the question you've been dying to ask. Ask me how I could even consider that. Ask me why it was even a choice for me. Ask me what kind of a brother I am, that I actually had a hard time choosing between my brother and my king."

Robert had asked Stannis all that, and more. Had spitted out the words with contempt so strong and so powerful Stannis thought he would never recover from the agony.

Renly asked Stannis none of those questions. "What made you decide, in the end? Why did you choose Robert over your king?" He asked instead.

How do you explain the unexplainable? How can you make someone else fathom what is unfathomable to yourself? Stannis sighed, and considered the various reasons he had told himself over the years.

Because the king was mad.

Because the king had behaved in an unjust way, flouting all the rules and laws of the realm.

He considered too the reasons he had strenuously rejected over the years.

Because Robert is still my brother, my blood, despite everything.

Because the king wanted Robert dead. And he would have wanted Renly dead too.

"Does it matter? Why I chose Robert. I chose blood over loyalty, that's all there is to it," Stannis told Renly firmly.

Renly was not satisfied. "The reason matters. The whys are equally as important as the hows, you were the one who told me that.

And when have you ever listened to me?

Stannis regarded Renly carefully. "Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Renly was incredulous. "I'm the one asking the question, remember?"

"Why do you want to know? My reason for choosing Robert. Why does it matter to you, Renly?"

Renly raised his eyebrows, trying to look nonchalant. "It doesn't matter to me. Not a whit. I'm just curious." Stannis did not believe that; Renly's eyes betrayed him. They were gazing intently at Stannis, probing, searching, penetrating. Stannis' reason mattered to Renly, mattered a great deal, in fact. Stannis could not imagine why, however.

"Because it was the right thing to do," Stannis said finally.

Renly looked skeptical. "That's it? It was the right thing to do?"

Stannis nodded.

"How did you know it was the right thing to do?" Renly persisted.

"I just knew," Stannis insisted. He had no wish to recall the sleepless nights, the gnawing doubts, the constant questioning of himself.

Renly was staring out the window. "I wish I could be as certain as you had been. About the right thing to do."

"What?" Stannis asked sharply. "What are you trying to decide?"

"Nothing," Renly hastily replied. "Merely a … a philosophical musing, Stannis."

Stannis snorted. "The philosopher prince. Is that what you are?"

"I'm not a prince," Renly said, in a curious tone that caught Stannis' attention.

"A philosopher future king, then. A philosopher heir," Stannis said, watching Renly's expression carefully.

"Am I? The future king?" Renly was asking, but so very softly, as if he was merely talking to himself. He changed the subject abruptly before Stannis could reply. "Isn't that what they used to call Rhaegar Targaryen? The philosopher prince."

Stannis laughed, a bitter, derisive laugh. "That, and much, much more. He also sang like an angel apparently, bringing tears to the eyes of all who were fortunate enough to hear it."

Renly was laughing too, but his was a mocking laugh, not a bitter one. "And let's not forget Rhaegar's harp."

"Oh no, we must not forget his precious, precious harp," Stannis replied. Renly smiled, a genuine smile this time, not a mocking smile or a sardonic smile, and for a moment - a very, very brief moment - Stannis felt like smiling too. The moment passed, however, when he remembered what else Rhaegar Targaryen was. The man who started everything, all the death and destruction, when he took Lyanna Stark by force.

"People said Aerys was mad - and he was, no doubt, only a madman would take pleasure in burning a man alive in his armor - but I have my doubts about Rhaegar's sanity as well," Stannis said.

"Why did he do it, do you think? What did he want with Lyanna Stark?" Renly seemed genuinely curious.

"What any brute wants from a woman, I expect."

"It can't be only that. He disappeared as well, after he took her. For almost a year, while his father was losing the war, losing his inheritance, losing the throne that was supposed to be his in the future. If what he intended was only rape, why did he disappear?"

Stannis had thought of those questions as well, long and hard, over the years, but had never reached a satisfactory conclusion. He shrugged. "I don't know." He motioned for his squire to clear the table from the remnants of his dinner. "Bring some wine for Lord Renly."

Renly shook his head, and smiled at Bryen Farring. "No, I only want water, Bryen. It is Bryen, isn't it? Of House Farring?"

"It is, my lord," Bryen Farring replied eagerly. Even Stannis' squire was not immune to Renly's charm.

"Where is your other squire? The son of your onion knight?" Renly asked after Bryen had left the room.

"His name is Ser Davos," Stannis said sharply. Why does everyone persist on calling Davos my onion knight, as if he is my personal possession, instead of a knight of the realm? "I sent the boy Devan to Dragonstone, to keep Shireen company."

"Is she fond of him?"

"Yes. They have become … friends, of sort." His daughter seemed to have a talent for unlikely friendships, Stannis thought. Patchface, Arya Stark, Devan.

Renly quickly lost interest in Shireen. He was saying something about Davos, but Stannis missed the first part.

"- never much liked onions, or salt fish, but I can still remember how delicious they tasted that day. Onion soup, I remember. Onion soup so thin and runny it was almost water. And there was no bread to eat the soup with, so we dunked the salt fish in it instead."

"We had to conserve the onions, that's why the soup was so watery," Stannis said defensively. "There was no telling how much longer the siege would go on."

Ned Stark would not arrive to lift the siege until two months after Davos had come with his onions and his salt fish.

"I was not criticizing you," Renly pointed out. "There's no need to be so defensive, Stannis. I was simply … reminiscing."

Why reminisce about the bad times? Stannis wondered.

"If there is an extended siege this time, do you think anyone will come to our aid?" Renly asked.

Stannis shook his head firmly. "There will not be a long siege, not here. The Lannisters will come, and we will fight. I expect it will be over in a day or so." One day that would determine everything.

"Are you afraid?" Renly was not done with his questions.

"Yes," Stannis replied without thinking, surprising himself as well as his brother.

Renly regarded him cautiously. "Not of dying, I expect. That doesn't sound like you. What are you afraid of?"

The dead piled up everywhere. The faces pleading with him, begging him for the things he was powerless to give. The fear and frustration on a child's face.

"Failing," he replied simply.

Renly nodded, as if he understood. You don't. You can't, Stannis thought, but did not say to his brother.

"Was Robert afraid, when he went to war against Aerys?" Renly kept on with his questions.

Stannis closed his eyes, trying to remember. Robert had acted as fearless and brash as always, but he had spent his last night at Storm's End in the sept, on his knees, praying to the gods. Stannis had not prayed, not to the unworthy gods who had let his mother and father die, but he had stood watch over his older brother that night as Robert prayed fervently.

"Stannis?"

"He was, I expect. Afraid. Not that Robert would ever admit it to anyone," Stannis finally said.

"Only a fool is never afraid," Renly said.

Stannis stared at him, shocked. "Father used to say that."

"I know," Renly nodded.

"Did Maester Cressen tell you that?"

"No, you did," Renly said. "Well, you were not telling me, exactly. You told the smuggler that, the day you chopped off his fingers."

"So I did." Stannis never knew Renly had been listening. "Do you remember what Davos said, in reply?"

Renly shook his head. "I didn't hear it, he was speaking too softly for me to overhear."

"He said, Your father was a wise man, my lord. Fear is what keeps us safe, fear of death especially."

"And yet he risked his life to bring us those onions," Renly replied.

"So he did." Stannis agreed. Their eyes met, Stannis and Renly, and neither could look away for the longest of time. The silence stretched and stretched.

"Renly."

"Yes?"

He did not want to ask the question, to voice his doubt, to say out loud his suspicion.

"I must go," Renly stood up abruptly. "It's late, Margaery must be worried." He left the room before Stannis could say anything else.

Stannis stood up too, and started walking. He was standing in front of his daughter's room before he remembered that Shireen was not there, that she was on her way to Dragonstone with Selyse. He had never felt more alone than he did at that moment, he who had always prided himself on never needing anyone else, except himself.