Laenor watches Jace and Luke as they eat their dinner. How well-mannered they have become, the lord thinks to himself. He remembers when each boy was born, the pride he felt as he held each of them in his arms for the very first time. He tells himself it must have been a smaller feeling than what he should have if they shared his blood, yet he cannot imagine a more tender ache in his chest as he watches them grow.

Laenor has spent less time with Joffrey, for Joffrey is fresher from the womb, yet the babe holds a special place in his heart, for the lord named him after his very first love. Enough time has passed for him to think on Joffrey's namesake without a pang of sorrow. The images are still there – the blood on the stone; the flesh turned to meat; the arms that held him earlier that afternoon suddenly lifeless on the floor – but he had gone over and over them in his mind until they eventually lost their mooring, told the story in his head again and again until the words lost their meaning. There are only so many stones that can be turned over for the very first time.

Over the years, Laenor charted the landscape of his grief. As he picked up each image and set it back down, he began to remember the pathways between them. Memories of weeping in his bedchamber as he remembered a new detail replaced memories of the killing itself, and for that, Laenor is thankful. What remains is love – for though the features of Joffrey's face have softened in Laenor's mind, the gratitude he feels for the young knight remains as strong as ever.

Their first kiss was on the beach in Driftmark. They'd been walking. Laenor was shaking and he had not known why until the young knight grabbed him and the lord fell upon him like a drowning man finally reaching the shore. All of it fell away then – the expectations of his parents, the dull piety of his life until that point, the feeling he'd had all his life that he should never be at peace, never truly. Laenor watches the scene in his mind's eye. Tonight, the young men look like boys amongst the crashing waves.

Laenor supposes that this is what it means to grow up: to look back and to love from different angles, to comb over one's steps until one finds treasure in the sand. Oftentimes, it's something small – a joke worth retelling, an embarrassment to be avoided should circumstances repeat.

But sometimes – sometimes it's a thing that shapes a man: the feeling of finally tasting freedom; and the understanding of its loss. It is a wisdom Laenor Velaryon cannot put back back aside. It shall drive him out of Westeros and into the unknown, strapped only with the knowledge of what he leaves behind.

Laenor speaks with Qarl and Rhaenyra after the children are in bed. They are nearly to a consensus on how they must proceed, except for the finer details. A silence hangs over the room as the weight of their loss becomes apparent.

"Our time is limited," says Rhaenyra finally as she stares into the fire. "We cannot wait for Daemon to return to Dragonstone."

"Then we shall summon him to Driftmark," says Laenor.

"Driftmark?" asks Qarl.

"Driftmark," declares Laenor, "for there we shall have witnesses."