The next morning, the maids dressed Myrcella under Cate's watchful eye before helping her into her own gown. The two broke their fast, and said nothing to each other about the night before.
Sansa joined them for embroidery. The three sat on cushioned benches by the window overlooking the gardens while Cate read aloud from one of Myrcella's books about the Year of the Three Brides. Below the window in the garden, a fountain gushed.
The branches of an orange tree battered against the window, interrupting Cate's reading until Myrcella threw open the panes and plucked one of its fruit, peeling and offering sections to the Stark sisters. Sansa took a piece and delicately nibbled. Cate turned hers down. Myrcella scoffed and popped Cate's piece into her own mouth, juice dribbling down her chin.
Sansa wrinkled her nose before getting up to find a handkerchief. Myrcella and Cate shared a giggle, and Myrcella wiped the orange juice from her face with a careless thumb before Sansa or a Septa caught her.
It was such an un-princess-like gesture, and yet so innocent and unguarded that Cate found herself watching in fascination as Myrcella licked orange juice from her thumb.
Lunch was light, followed by a walk in the garden where Sansa and Myrcella discussed the last tourney (Cate hadn't attended, and didn't have anything to say). The day was overcast and gray, and the air was thick with the scent of unfallen rain.
Cate and Sansa returned to the Tower for supper with Septa Mordane and Arya. The three girls ate in uneasy silence while a late summer rain began to patter steadily outside. The Septa prattled on about how disappointed she was in their new behavior - Sansa with her southern fashions and new southern airs, Arya who disappeared for hours on end for her dancing lessons only to come back dirtier than when she'd left, and Cate with her sullen, sulky attitude.
They were picking at their crabapple jelly when Father arrived, limping on his cane. Septa Mordane excused herself from the table, citing a headache and glaring at the girls.
Father didn't seem to notice. He sighed, sitting down at the table with them.
The Stark sisters exchanged glances.
Father waited until they were all looking at him before he announced, "I'm sending the three of you back to Winterfell."
There was silence.
Then Sansa cried, "What?"
Followed by Cate leaping out of her seat. "But why?!"
Sansa went on. "What about Joffrey?!"
Cate threw a glance at her sister. "Shut up, Sansa!"
"Are you dying because of your leg?" Arya asked. "Is that why you're sending us home?"
Father looked at her in confusion. "What? No."
"Please, Father, please don't!" Sansa begged.
"You can't send us back now, we just got here!" Cate reasoned.
"You can't! I've got my lessons with Syrio, I'm finally getting good!" Arya threw in for good measure.
"This isn't a punishment," Father tried to reassure them. "I want you back in Winterfell for your own safety."
"Oh, so now you care about our safety?" Cate stalked around the table to her father, grey eyes glowering like a wolf's. "Because you didn't before when you betrothed me to Joffrey without knowing anything about him, you didn't before when they killed our direwolves, and you didn't before when the queen decided to betroth Sansa to Joffrey!"
"Will you shut up?!" Sansa jumped to her own feet, grabbing and yanking Cate back by her arm. "This isn't about you!"
Arya piped up. "Can't we take Syrio back with us?"
"Who cares about your stupid dancing teacher!" Sansa wailed. "I can't go! I'm supposed to marry Prince Joffrey! I love him, and I'm meant to be his queen and have his babies!"
Cate wheeled on Sansa. "This isn't about you either!"
"Seven hells," Arya muttered.
"Girls!" Father yelled over the. "Listen to me, both of you. When you're old enough, I'll make you a match with someone who's worthy of you, someone who's brave and gentle and strong -"
"I don't want someone brave and gentle and strong!" Sansa said. "I want him!"
"HA!" Cate guffawed. Arya smirked.
Sansa ignored them both. "We'll be so happy, you'll see! I'll give him sons with beautiful blonde hair, and one day he'll be king of all the realm, the greatest king that ever was, a golden lion!"
"He's a craven and a liar, not a lion," Cate snapped.
"The lion's not his sigil anyway," Arya sniped. "He's a stag, like his father."
"Will you shut up? He's nothing like that old drunk king!"
"Go on, girls," Father spoke up suddenly, quietly. All three sisters looked over. A strange expression was on his face, one of amazement, fear, and … disgust, perhaps? "Get your septa and start packing your things."
"Wait!" Sansa cried as Arya started dragging her. "It's not fair!"
Father was turning to leave - but Cate wasn't finished. "Why is King's Landing just now not safe?" He paused, his back still to her as he considered her words. "You promised you wouldn't lie to me."
Father turned around. "I also said I wouldn't frighten you."
"Please, I'm not a child!"
"Can you trust me, please, Cate?" He pleaded.
His grey eyes met her own imploringly, and he seemed so desperate - and so small and so old and so sad, especially with his cane and plaster-bound leg.
But how many times had Joffrey and the queen manipulated her? How many promises would her father keep making to her to keep her safe, only to break them? Father was sworn to the king, to Mother, to their House and family, to his gods. And what had Myrcella said - "eventually they're forsaking one vow or another."
Cate crossed her arms. "Why? Why should I trust you when all you've done is act as a … as some bootlicker to the king?!"
"Cate -"
"And what if I don't want to go? What if I want to stay here? I'm Myrcella's lady-in-waiting now. I have a place here, Myrcella is my friend -"
"That's exactly why you must leave."
Her eyes stung with the tears she was holding back. A single thought flashed through her mind - Does he know? There was no way he could, he couldn't possibly know about her secret feelings, her unspoken longings from all her time with Myrcella -
Myrcella? When had the princess suddenly become "Myrcella"? Had Father noted the change? Was that how he knew?
It wasn't just the tears that burnt now, but guilt. And shame. He suspected, he didn't trust her -
Had she swallowed the gold she'd come to admire? Did she reflect it back - not in the way Moondancer's dark amber eyes had once gleamed in the firelight, but like the golden eyes of a lioness?
Father was saying something now, asking her to trust him or to go pack or both.
She fled.
Down the stairs, through the door and out the tower into the night and the rain. Water pelted her face, hair and clothes. She kept running, following the winding walkways in and out of halls. The sky was clouded - no moon or stars shone through the rain clouds.
She reached the garden gate sooner than she'd thought. It pushed open so easily - not even a creak - and she ran through.
The usual roar of the waves was washed out in the rain, and the darkness seemed all-engulfing, but she knew the way, every twist in the path, following it till - there, against the rain, she could make out the outline of the fountain.
And above it was Myrcella's window, awash in gold candlelight. The panes were ajar, the warmth of the fire just out of arm's reach.
Cate climbed the orange tree and tapped on the open window.
Inside, Myrcella sat by the fire embroidering at a hoop, the flames licking her hair and turning the gold into something deep and richer in the contrasting darkness, like autumn. At the sound of rapping, she jumped in her chair, needle jerking.
Myrcella looked up and saw Cate - wet, bedraggled, sobbing Cate - and the embroidery hoop was all but shoved over as she jumped up and pulled the windows open wider.
"Lady Cate!" She cried. Cate didn't step in so much as fall through the windows half onto the rug, half into Myrcella's arms.
"Just Cate," she murmured as Myrcella helped her to one of the benches they'd sat on earlier that day. Myrcella offered a blanket, which Cate accepted. "Or Lady Dragonknight, if you must use a title."
Myrcella chuckled, but studied Cate as she shivered under the blanket. Her hands rested on the cushions, inches away from Cate's own hands which clutched the covering to herself. "What is it?"
Cate inhaled. Something inside her pulled and her fingers twitched, longing to reach out, but she held them back. "Why are you so kind to me?"
Myrcella looked stricken. "I - you've been a good companion, you've kept my secret about … you know, and your father is the Hand -"
Cate shook her head. "No," she said, "no, even before then you were always kind. No one in King's Landing has been half as kind to me as you've been. Why?"
Myrcella gazed behind them to the window, at the rain howling against the sky. The orange tree whipped against the stone wall outside. The fire crackled in the grate.
"I was hoping ..." she started softly. Myrcella cleared her throat. "I didn't think you'd notice. Most don't."
Something in Cate's heart came unstuck at hearing that. She allowed herself - to reach across the blanket, fingers brushing against smooth skin and enfolding Myrcella's hand in her own.
At the contact, Myrcella's head whipped back. Their eyes met, and Cate didn't know what her own eyes looked like, but Myrcella's were green fire.
"I don't want to leave you," Cate said aloud. The words rung in the air, sure and unretractable. Neither girl blinked, gazes and hands locked. "Father wants to send us back to Winterfell, but I don't want to go."
"Then stay with me," Myrcella whispered.
"I want to." Cate's voice was tight with emotion. "So badly."
They gripped each other's hands as if to shelter against the pouring rain outside. The firelight licked at their faces, and Cate let the warmth envelope her. The blanket slipped from her shoulder, along with the soaked sleeve of her gown, and she felt her heart flutter a bit when Myrcella's eyes darted to the bare skin of her shoulder.
It nearly leapt out of her chest when Myrcella looked back up at her.
"May I?" She whispered.
Oh, she was going to hell for this. All seven hells, she'd burn and burn forever into eternity -
"Please," Cate uttered.
Myrcella leaned forward, and she pressed her lips against Cate's shoulder.
And it was over so quickly, but gods it was divine - the heat, and the skin, and the intimacy of this golden sphere where no one could touch them, and it was the princess and the dragonknight forever frozen in firelight.
Cate felt her breath catch in her throat as she watched Myrcella look back up, wildfire eyes blown wide and filled with - awe? Fear?
"I don't know what this is," she said.
"Me neither."
"I think it's forbidden."
"Me too."
"Cate, I -"
"Don't say anything," Cate suddenly begged, sitting up straight. "Don't remind me. Not yet."
Myrcella looked pained, but nodded. "Stay tonight?"
She didn't even have to ask.
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