Flying

"It's only when you're flying above it that you realize how incredible the Earth really is," Philippe Perrin.

Tommen Baratheon, once first of his name, remembers horror.

He remembers on a horror so deep, so strong that it had crawled from the pit of his stomach until it had made its way to his throat, a thick, silencing thing that had coated in his mouth with the foulest taste. He remembers desperation in his heart as well- A desperation that had made it gallop against his breast bone in a frantic drum-beat. His hands, desperate, frantic, clawing at the rubble, of the still-smoldering remains of the Great Sept. His hands had quickly gone red and raw, blistering and cutting, but Tommen had hardly noticed. Only pushed more rock, only screamed orders more fiercely at the men and woman who were trying to find survivors.

He remembers Mother- golden, gilded thing that she had been, dressed in a fine dress of the darkest velvet, a veil long and dramatic, Myrish lace so fine and delicately spun it appeared to be made of spiderwebs. And he remembers as she descended down from her litter, the sway of her full hips, the way her golden hair, had been perfectly made within her golden crown, the perfect clasp of her small hands in front of her, sparkling with onyxes and deep black opals, glittering as rainbows in the hellish, greenish glow of the remaining wildfire.

The look in her eyes, vivid green as they were, had not been of sorrow.

Had not been the horror at the loss of the woman she claimed as her good-daughter.

No.

It had been pleased. It had been glittering in victory and triumph of a fallen foe. But she had been mine. She had been my Margaery, my wife.

He still wakes, shaking, at the remembrance of the beautiful woman that had been his queen, whose body had been warm and true beside him, and thought however many older she had been, had taken the mind to love him in the last few years of their lives. He remembers the way she had reached for him in odd moments, touched his golden blond curls in fondness, or gave a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth, sweet and perfect and her. And he remembers as he saw his mother, standing as she was, the barely concealed smile in her perfect show of mourning, that she had never appeared so like Joffrey to him in that moment.

"Do not despair, sweet King," his mother had all but cooed, "We shall find the little Queen. We must have faith that not all is lost, dear son. We will search for our Queen, do not despair, son of mine."

Her eyes laughed even as tears fell from them.

His heart broke.

On return to the Red Keep, hours later, hands aching and split and bruised, with not even the remains of his wife to lay to rest, he was sitting in his painfully large bedroom, in soot-stained clothes. He saw bits of her in their shared rooms: the carelessly thrown robe across his side of the bed, the ruby jeweled pins he had gifted her for her last nameday past, the remains of her hair in her fine brush, the scent of roses about the room, from her bath, her fine oil perfume. Margaery always smelt of roses, fine, pure and soft. She was warm and sweet, and kind. Even-tempered in ways his mother was not, and she never lost patience with him and had even forgiven him when he had not declared her innocent after that whole affair with the disgraceful knight that had claimed to bed her.

"The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing ... go away inside," the voice of his Uncle- if that was what he really was- echoed in his head.

He had not believed him.

But he used his words, after all, looked without seeing. Looked without seeing to see the monster his mother was. Just as Joffery had been. Now my wife is dead. If I had looked from the beginning I would have kept her away from Margaery. Absently, Tommen rises, striding to his wife's vanity. His face, he notes, is just as soot-stained as his doublet, and he mourns the fact that he had finally had been losing remains of his childish fat about his face, and that just recently he had lost any distance between him and his wife, had finally reached her height.

But he pushes that aside, and carefully removes a few strands of her hair from her brush, brown, the color of chestnuts, and smooth in his hands. Like warm silk, I would slowly remove your pins and tame the mane of his rose held atop her head. He raises it to his lips, kisses the strands, before he leaves the room, through the secret door they had discovered together. He walks the secret passages they had found the time to explore together in the dark of night, back when he was too young for the relationship between man and wife, just married to a woman so much older than him.

He remembers how they had laughed, and how bright and shinning her face had been, so far above him, and when he just began to understand what it meant to want to reach up and kiss her laughing, red mouth.

He appears in his mother's rooms, careful of being quiet. He realizes he needn't bother to be quiet, eyeing the two bodies in bed, the strong smell of wine in the air, and how tangled his mother is with some blond westlander, looking spent. Vaguely, Tommen thinks he looks of Uncle Jaime. Not quite, the man much too young but similar enough in his face, in the blond hair. He recognizes him as a singer newly arrived in court, a little older than himself. He walks quietly as a mouse, either way. He reaches his mother's vanity, where he knows she will find it. He removes his crown, careful of the pins as he removes it, and sets it among jewels and cosmetics. It shines in the waning light of the nearly spent candles. It is a handsome thing of roaring lions, twined thorns, and antlers of a proud stag. It glitters gold and black, a show of his 'father's' House.

It had always felt too heavy for him, too uncomfortable on his brow.

Now I gift it back to you, MOTHER, you who fought so hard to keep it upon my head.

He turns to the couple on the bed. He wishes… Wishes for a sword at his side. He thinks of it. How the steel would run red with their blood. How it would coat white sheets in it. How right it would be to kill her, justice-

"A King is best measured by not the Justice he gives," a voice sweet and warm in his mind, "But instead the Mercy he gives as well, my love."

A sob is pressed deep back into his throat and it only escapes him as the faintest whine that has his mother shifting slightly around the boy she keeps. Mercy. Mercy Margaery… By the Seven why had you been so kind? He leaves his mother and her lover be, and walks to the tallest tower with a balcony in the Keep. He is out of breath, the remains of his childhood of being overweight, but he does not care. He looks out, beyond the balcony, noting, faintly, that the sun has taken longer and longer to rise each day. It has yet to rise in nearly seven and ten moons turn.

Winter was truly upon them, as the Stark House's words said, it has come. Kind Sansa Stark, who played with me and my cats, who knew what it was like to be hurt by Joffrey... Queen in the North. Margery had become so quiet at the Raven from the North had come, her pale hands clutching at the armrests of her chair, her eyes blinking rapidly at the declaration- at the plea for help from the horror that would call from them all. Mother had flown into a rage and screamed herself hoarse because Uncle Jaime's hand had written the letter on behalf of the Queen he had sworn himself too, slightly wobbly but legible enough. The faint tales he heard from whispering people of the court, of what has been happening North of the Neck, of Monsters of Ice and Snow, of how long the Night has been-

None of it matters. I don't care.

Tommen climbs onto the ledge.

His boots grow closer and closer to the edge. His leg, hovering over the enormous height bellow before he lifts his wife's strands of hair to his lips once again. He steps forward, beyond the ledge.

And for a few moments, it's as if he's flying.

The wind whips at his hair, long and carefully cut curls, just as short as his wife liked it. His eyes water against the course of surging air passing him… But Tommen feels as if he is flying, to his wife, to her warmth and softness. Away from Winter and horror and pain.

Tommen, shifts, blinking rapidly, looking over the edge where he remembers he had taken his own life. He vaguely remembers hitting the ground. But not much beyond pain and increasing darkness. He had died laughing in glee at the thought of his Mother's face at seeing the last of her children dead, a gurgle of glee that had drifted from his broken teeth.

"I did not come back to you in the way I expected, sweet rose," he whispers, soft. His voice, high and faintly disturbing to him, as he feels more connected to the voice in his mind, the voice that was on its way to becoming deeper, cracking only slightly at times. How she had teased him for it, in that kind way of hers, how she had done so with a smile on her fair red lips, "Not yet. But I will find you. I will find you and make you my wife again."

The promise is solemn, said to the air, said to the very gods who his wife had so loved.

"Tommen?"

Tommen keeps a hand on the ledge he had flown from. He turns, and there he is, the man that he strongly suspects is his biological father.

"Hello, Uncle Jaime."

Tentatively, the man gives a smile. Tommen sees himself in his face, the way his jaw would strengthen, the way his eyes would narrow with the passage of time. He sees what could have been his own face had aged beyond four and ten. He thinks Margaery would have approved, as she had loved beautiful things.

"You do know that your Lady Mother is beside herself, now that you aren't present at the feast? It is your nameday celebration, after all. The entirety of the castle is being searched."

Tommen frowns.

Just turning four fucking namedays. Margaery must be two and ten. Mentally, we are much closer, at the very least. With the moons that have gone, I am five and ten now. But I will always be playing catch up to her physically. If I could endure such a thing before, then I can do so again.

"I got tired. It was so loud. And Joffrey was being unkind."

The word, of course, is too small to represent his brother. But what else would a child of four name-days say that was worse about his elder brother, even one as monstrous as Joffrey? If he had been any better a mummer, Tommen would have cried, played to his age. But he was not. He would feel too ridiculous to do such a thing, no matter his appearance. He had been King, after all. As the King of the future, part of him wondered what he should do beyond avoiding his monstrous brother… Joffrey had been a cruel King, and worst, a fool King. Tommen may not have understood such things when he had ascended the Thorne. But he had understood eventually.

Will I do what I must to save those I once claimed as my subjects? I gave up the crown. But what will Margaery think of me, if I leave it in the hands of my brother? Will she marry him to be the Queen she so desperately wished to be? And what of Mother? I gave her mercy once. But how long will I be able to stay my hand?

"Is that so," the amusement in Uncle Jaime's face, it is slight, but genuine as he comes to sit down beside him.

He does so with ill-grace, as he is dressed in full armor, and the plates creak as his legs splay out ridiculously. The only true thing of grace was the way his father carefully brings his white cloak, lifts it so as not to let it touch the ground. Tommen follows suit, sinking to the ground next to him, removing his hand from the ledge he had flown from. He dares to come close, presses against plate and mail as if he has the right to ask for such affection from the man that so desperately kept himself distant. His Father carefully places an arm around Tommen's shoulders.

Tommen had been careful, careful, and methodical, in an attempt to have some sort of relationship to the man that he strongly suspects had sired him. He had few good memories of the man the world called his father and all he knows that Robert Baratheon, from inheriting his crown and the crown of the boy he had called his heir, was that he was a fat fool and an ill spender, and the repercussions of his rule had lasted long into Tommen's own. He could not completely blame it on the man, as the practice had been encouraged by the people that had given him ill-council.

Just as they had given me before I realized the puppet they wanted for a King. Even Mother.

"Joffrey is ill-mannered and jealous for the attention I receive," he replies, kicking his feet absently. It seemed to be a side-effect of his coming back in time- his body was so full of energy, and it was all he could do to sit still most of the time.

"Oh?"

"He wants the attention on him, always. It's funny, really. He can have attention. I just wish to be left alone."

To be left alone as time passes until I can return to my wife. But the world is not so kind to let me sit and wait for such a thing.

"Good place to be alone, all the way up here."

That's why I chose to jump from here.

"I know. I try to climb here every morning," he says smartly, and because I can rid myself of this accursed childhood fat, grow strong and pretty, "The sunrises are beautiful."

His father hums.

"Never thought much of sunsets. It occurs every day."

His gaze is far away, and Tommen wonders how often his father goes away inside. Had he been a child, he would have missed the fact that his father was a lost, broken thing. I wonder, did you find peace when you left Mother's side? If you love her as I love Margaery, how could you leave her at all? Tommen remembers the distress, the rage his Mother had displayed when his Uncle had escaped in the middle of the night, only a note on his Mother's vanity explaining why or what he was doing. Tommen had not read the note, as his Mother had refused to part with it. But he remembers at times how she would have the same parchment in her hands. She had kept it in the bodice of her gowns, and her expression had always been a dulled sort of rage that would make something cold trail down Tommen's spine.

"I suppose. But the colors seem different every day."

"I will just have to enjoy one with you Prince Tommen."

Tommen smiled.

"I would like that very much, Uncle Jaime."

"I should take you back to your Mother…"

"I would rather you not."

"She can fret a little longer. The tower has many steps," returned his Uncle, a sly smile appearing on his face.

"Thank you, Uncle." Father.

"You are most welcome, Nephew."

Hesitantly, almost afraid, his Father reached out a hand to ruffle his messy curls. Tommen allowed the indignity and accepted the rare affection.

EDIT: 06 March 2022

SO. Yup. As many of you have guessed from the previous chapter in King's Landing, Tommen remembers.

No big surprise there, I wasn't being very subtle at the hint I dropped lol. SO. We have, Sansa, Brienne and Tommen so far, three out of a total of nine(FINAL NUMBER I SWEAR). Originally I had a total of seven people who remembered the Future-Past, but after examining a couple more characters and assessing where I wanted to direct the story I added three more. Several people will get echoes- moments or emotions that don't quite fit their current life. But they must be around the people who truly remember to get those echoes, and will never have all of their memories or even many of them. While those nine are important to the overall story, the focus will still be mainly to what's happening in Winterfell, because, this is called The Sweetly Sung Queen, after all.

Here's a hint for anyone who wants to guess the people who remember:

They aren't in a high position of power or have much agency on their own.

Sansa is not an exception to this rule, she simply deferred to those who do have power, she only has their trust as a power to change the fate of Westeros. Tommen, as stated before, is barely four and an overlooked second Prince. Brienne... Well, Brienne is Brienne, she's from a relatively minor house and isn't in a place to do much as political power.

As stated in Flowers, I have very mixed feelings about the Tyrells, but this is from Tommen's POV, so he is a little biased towards his wife. That is done on purpose, as I imagined from what we get in canon that Tommen did not have a very nice childhood, and was overly attached to anyone who showed him a semblance of affection. Its also implied that Joffrey did things to Tommen. Not to mention he was only fifteen when he killed himself, so that's an unstable ball of hormones and trauma. As to him doing anything To Cersei or Joffrey... He's fifteen-year-old stuck in a four-year-old body. He can't really... Do much. He's more of waiting and seeing type because of his physical limitations. What he will do in the future is in the future, but more or less he is just waiting and seeing to see what must be done in order to get the one thing he really wants- his wife. He is Jaime's son after all, and he will give anything for her.