Wildfire Roses

Part II

The Cat Who Got The Cream

Willas Tyrell's P.O.V

"Leave."

Willas barked to the servants meandering around him, stoking hearth fire, changing linens and heaving out the used bronze tub. So unlike himself in tone and pitch and expression, the servants stalled before they fled the sour Lord like ants smoked from a hill. Soon, it was just he, dressed and bathed, alone, standing in the heart of his personal chambers in Highgarden, soaking in the early morn light as if it could wash away what his bath could not. His darkening thoughts.

It was a beautiful place, his home. One he thanked the Seven he had every eve. Stationed on the broad green hills overlooking the Mander, the largest river in the Reach, Highgarden was a castle seen from leagues away. Encircled by three rings of white crenelated stone, it was as wide as it was high, and equal parts glorious to behold. Between the outer and middle walls was the briar labyrinth, a spot Willas had found fun searching and hiding within as a small child, the latter normally taken in a wayward attempt to evade his Grandmother's etiquette lessons.

Some said the Sept, which had rows of stained glass windows honouring Willas's forebearer, Garth Greenhand, could only be matched by the Great Sept of Baelor. As a child he would sit in the pew and hold his hand aloft, watch the colours rinse over his skin, crimson and green and gold and blue, as if he too, like the windows, were made of crystal.

Highgarden's Godswood contained three weirwoods known as the Three Singers, of which Willas, before his accident, had climbed and fell from with his brothers. The palatial keep at the heart was adorned with statues and colonnades, too many to count, the perfect place for a game of chase his sister had often played before ideas of being a proper Lady had filled her head.

There were groves, and fountains, and courtyards galore. Not an inch untouched by creeping ivy, or grape vine, or climbing roses. Filled with flowers, and singers, pipers and fiddlers and harpers, and stables full of fine horseflesh, and pleasure boats to sail along the Mander. Here, fields of golden roses stretched as far as the eye could see, and patches of melons and peach and fireplums wet ones tongue on a sun kissed journey.

This, all this, was his home… It had been since he was a child, a small boy with big gallant dreams… And Willas Tyrell had never felt so confined before. Imprisoned like one of Margaery's little bright birds in their gilt cages. All this finery, all this regalia and splendour, and he would have, in that moment, given it all up for one more day in Honeyholt, between the apple orchards and the soft hands of a woman with an impish smile, who danced with him when no one else would.

Who would never dance with him again.

Aching from his sudden turn of thoughts, as if thoughts could burn too close to the wick of a soul, a dark, twisted little spin he had been fighting for nights on end, Willas clambered over to his side table, his cane clanking, his leg throbbing, and stared at himself in the gleaming mirror above. Willas appeared to be the same man he was months prior, before he was saved from the river, right down to the refined shine of his deerskin boots, and the neatly trimmed beard shadowing his jaw, even if he felt anything but.

He did not know that man that blinked back at him from sleepless eyes.

Willas did not want to know him.

He loathed that man in the mirror. Hated him until his stomach knotted sickeningly in the bottom of his belly like a writhing nest of snakes. That man had abandoned his dream for duty, hitched his horse to a Targaryen stable, had-

He had lost.

In two hours hence, that man, Willas, would walk, or hobble, down the Highgarden's splendid crystal lit Sept and sweep a cloak of gold and green on the shoulders of a dragon.

May the Mother have mercy upon him.

He was dressed for the part too, in beautiful silks and velvets of his Houses colour, embroidered with roses and the odd dragon his Grandmother had insisted he wear, dragons his dear sister had stitched upon his breast with her own hand, his brace newly crafted from rosewood and filigree, his hair neatly combed and loosened in scented oil, all fine, all charming, all perfectly wrong. If only he could feel the part of a soon to be husband.

A soon to be husband who had yet, despite the fact that he had been home for more than two weeks hence, not seen hide nor hair of his wayward bride. They, the Targaryen delegation holding court in his home, gushed excuses of a fever, of sickness, of exhausted, that had delayed their meeting until his wedding day, the alibi shifting with the rise and fall of the sun, and exactly which person was asked.

Haraella Targaryen had arrived, to be sure, but she had… Well, she had locked herself away in her own private chambers set aside for her and not shown her face since, but to those of her uncle and aunt and nephew, his father when the Lord had greeted her entrance a day before Willas's own, and a few select maids she favoured from her own household. His own servants, who came past the corridor leading to her wing, brought him whispers of sobbing at night.

Some pale part of him found joy in the news, to know he was not the only one so distressed at the prospect of this marriage. Another part, a bigger part, felt guilt and sorrow that burrowed in deep to his skin like maggots in a corpse.

This Haraella Targaryen was young he knew, younger than he by ten and nine to his thirty, not quite the ten and seven he first believed her to be thank the Gods, and Willas heard what was said of him, the Crippled Noble. A mild man, courtly, fond of reading old books and gazing at stars, gentle and pious and insufferably boring. Certainly not an ideal husband, neither to a young woman nor to a Targaryen bent on conquest.

Wine.

Willas needed wine, and a lot of it.

What he didn't need was a sudden knock upon his chamber door, and the click of a handle turning before he could tell whoever had come snaking his way to be gone. He had an hour left before he was needed to be in the Sept, and he fully planned on spending that hour between loosing his mind and emptying his cups. Nevertheless, when Willas glanced to his reflection anew, straight to the door, it was not Garlan who greeted him, as Willas had first expected it to be, neither was it Loras, or Margaery, or Grandmother, or Father.

"Ah, there is my reclusive friend! If I did not know you were to be married two hours hence, I would think you were cloistering yourself and preparing to take the Septon vows with how well you've been hiding."

Oberyn Martell had all the features of a salty Dornishman. Tall, slender, graceful, he was a being made of sleek, keen lines and a dark sort of control, at home in the shadows as much as he was on a Princes throne. It had been a few years since Willas had last seen his dear friend, time and wars had spread them thin, and furrows were beginning to be etched upon his saturnine face, a peppering of silver streaking at his temple and widows peak.

Oberyn shut the door behind him, head cocking as he spotted Willas staring in the reflection, back to the door, picking apart his face as Willas had done to him.

"And that is the face of a man imagining he is walking to his execution, I believe, and not to his marriage bed. Do not look so put out, Willas. Haraella is not so bad once you get over the scales."

Willas did not laugh. He found he could not, even if he wished to. His smile was gone, away, lost somewhere in Honeyholt. Oberyn glanced down to the cup, half empty already, clasped tightly in his hand.

"Drinking too? So early in the morn? Did you not once disparage me from such behaviour? Why, this is not the man I know at all, is it? Is the thought of marriage so repugnant to you, or is it just the bride's family that has turned you so sickly green?"

Oberyn had a way of making even his concern sound like a barb. Willas scoffed, downed what little wine he had left, and slapped down his cup on the table before him, turning from the mirror that churned his stomach like an ocean in a storm.

"Says the man who has refused to do the act himself. Tell me, what are you so fearful of, Oberyn? It can't be the thought of finally siring a legitimate child, could it?"

It was callous and cruel, Willas knew, to meet concern with such disrespect and resentment, especially to such a dear friend Willas thought of Oberyn as, a dreary kind of depreciation that sullied all in sight like fog rolling in, but that was all he had that day and, he thought, strangely, Oberyn understood that. The Dornishman stole a hawk like sweep of him, a sleek sort of appraisal, before something glinted in his viper eye and the frown between his brows smoothed free.

"Ah, there's another woman."

Willas spluttered, and fought to say something. A denial that would not come because he could, not even with only her memory, deny the girl with wildfire for eyes, an excuse he could not find, anything, but Oberyn waved him off glibly.

"Do not look so surprised, dear Willas. I know matters of the heart intimately, and I know that face. I have seen it a thousand times before, perhaps worn it for a turn or two myself. If this is the issue, if there is someone, a pretty lady perhaps, waiting for you, why are you here and not there… Wherever there is?"

The scowl burned across his face, a tangled bind of weight and grief and rage.

"If I fall back on my word, now of all times with the Targaryen's in my own keep, my home will burn. I may not have seen the dragon they keep yet, but I know they are not foolish enough to leave it far from reach. I am not such a selfish creature that I would risk my siblings a fiery death in hopes of-"

Oberyn cut him off swiftly, his own visage darkening.

"Haraella would do no such thing, and neither would she let her uncle, aunt or nephew. And for you to think I would willingly sit by idle as such things happened to you, friend, shows, perhaps, the years have made you forget the man I am."

Perhaps Oberyn would not sit by and watch them die, as Willas was sure the Lords did not sit casually by and watch Brandon and Rickard Stark burn to ashes in Wildfire without some emotional response… But what hope did they, any of them, have in a fight against a dragon?

This was not a kidnapped Direwolf-girl to rescue.

This was not a Mad King to placate.

This was a dragon.

The game had changed, and Willas, lonely, lost Willas, did not know the rules anymore. Perhaps he never had…

"Then why is she going through with this wedding if she detests it as much as I? My servants tell me she's sealed herself away, has barred even Margaery from meeting her for breaking fast. That she cries at night when all else sleep… How am I to be husband to a girl who does not even wish to lay her gaze upon me and my family?"

Perhaps Willas would not love this Targaryen. Marriages, unfortunately, were not born from love and did not always grow to be such. He did not think he wanted to, either. Not with that sunshine smile still echoing in his mind, and the smell of apple peel haunting his pillows, bluebells and white tea perfume and-

No, he did not think he could love the Targaryen girl as he loved the girl who danced in fire, but he could hope to build… Something between them. Respect? Understanding? If nothing else, he wished not to have them loath the mere sight of each other. Was that so much to ask? Perhaps.

Oberyn's face slackened, becoming something soft and secret. The same face he had stared down at Willas with on his bed as the Maester said he would never walk again after their jousting mishap. Willas had never blamed Oberyn. In a way, he never needed to. The older man had blamed himself enough for the both of them.

"Haraella agrees for the same reason you do. She does not wish for war, and if marriage is the only way to ensure the peaceful crossing of the Targaryens through the Reach, then she will marry."

Oberyn crept closer, his boots thudding on the lush rug beneath him.

"See it through her gaze, Willas. The Tyrells have shown their duplicity in recent years, and even you could not argue this. They know your father planned to marry Margaery to the Lannister bastard or the youngest Baratheon Lord. The whole of Westeros knew, so how could they not? She's trying to ensure you don't turn on them as soon as their backs are spun, not content enough with having a Tyrell close to the throne when you could have a Baratheon queen, and cut them off from Dorne and my forces, which will be desperately needed in the coming months."

Willas understood this, he did. He understood, and he even felt a little relief, a little sorrow, so many little emotions that they intertwined together into something big, to big to hold, to big to contain, to big, indefinable and unspeakable. Yet, Willas was hurting. Self-inflicted as the wound might be, it still ached and bled the same, and like the horses he was so fond of, when Willas hurt he back kicked.

"Ah, yes, quite right. The girl who sacked Astapor and razed Meereen to the ground is, behind the bodies falling around her, a peace bringer in truth. How could I not have seen it before! My blindness is cured, thank the Father."

Oberyn scoffed deep in his chest, halfway caught between scorn and chuckle.

"You know nothing but rumours. Word of their exploits have spread, as stories often do, but you have not been to Volantis, have you? You have not seen with your own two eyes what she has built there."

Willas swivelled away.

"I have heard enough-"

And Oberyn snatched a hand out, grasping shoulder, yanking, rolling Willas back around to stare at him dead in the eye.

"Yes, you have heard from other little Lordlings who have not been to Volantis. You've heard tales whispered between Baratheon and Lannister men in taverns. I took you as an poor optimistic fellow, Willas, not a stupid one. Surely, what prize could the Baratheons or Lannisters gain by painting Haraella as a cruel, vicious, half mad wench already? A throne? A crown? A Kingdom?"

Conceivably, the stories were exaggerated, Willas knew this already, but every rumour, Willas equally knew, had a grain of truth to them.

"Are you telling me she has not killed in the name of the Targaryens?"

Oberyn cocked a brow, batting back with the swiftness of a cat.

"Haven't you in the name of Tyrell?"

Whatever retort Willas had perished bitterly on his tongue, festering like an ulcer. As acting Lord, he had sent one or two men to their death, rapists and child murders, and… Were they so different? This Targaryen and he? Could they find some middle ground to inhabit?

Sensing a foothold, Oberyn pushed on.

"Volantis has prospered in Haraella and her uncle and aunts care. The smallfolk… I have seen nothing like it. Tax's are spread evenly, each man paying what they could. Healthcare is free, with special wards that anyone, bastard, noble man, or whore can walk into and be healed. Schools are free and large, each child, lowborn and highborn alike, are not turned away. All are welcome, all are encouraged to come. Everyone has a home and safety…"

Oberyn let his hand slip from Willas's shoulder.

"I will not lie to you, my friend. Yes, she burnt Meereen to the ground, but do you know why? I do. I was there. Meereen did not… like that Haraella had set the Volantis slaves free, and offered home to any slave that made it to Volantis. They thought their own would look westward and wonder if they could do the same, that they would take her offer. So, they sent assassin, after assassin, after assassin to her family, my nephew. When that failed, when Haraella refused to reenslave the people she had freed, or step down from Volantis for them to take, they rounded up fifty children, no older then ten and one name days, knowing she had a fondness for children… They said if she wished to have slaves, they would give them to her freely."

Oberyn winced, even at the memory, and Willas's gut sank down to his feet. It took a lot to unnerve Oberyn Martell.

"They sent each head back in a wire box with her name branded upon their foreheads. They promised another fifty would be at her gate by the moons end, and fifty more each day hence until the 'Targayen bitch and her wretched ilk' left. Until then, she had refused to use her dragon, Vaenora, and had rejected to do much more than settle in Volantis. She didn't want war… She blames herself for it, those fifty children. She has nightmares of it still. She believes if she acted quicker, took Meereen early like Viserys warned her to do, instead of trying to parley for peace-"

Oberyn shook his head resolutely.

"Even then, surrounded with the boxes filled with parts of children, she sent word back to Meereen. She told the city if they did not stand with their Masters, if they were slave or smallfolk or men and women who sort peace, to escape by nightfall. They left for Volantis, now free folk, and… Well, the city became ashes and I am none the sorrier for it."

Oberyn patted him on the back, before heading for the pitcher of wine on his side table to indulge in, talking as he poured.

"Haraella is not perfect. She has the mouth of a sailor. She is quick to act, and less swift to think. She has no courtly manners to speak of, and stands on no graces for any man. She detests Lords more often than not, and she is often seen sprinting about barefoot and covered in muck…"

Barefoot and covered in muck.

Willas thought of his own maid, river soot between her toes and star dust for freckles, in peasant skirts and… Something horrid cinched in his chest, as if his ribs wrenched together into one sharp mass of bone and elegy, so taut Willas thought he no longer had lungs, could not breathe, only inhale the memory of her.

A memory that burned.

"But she has a kind heart, Haraella, just like you. She is loyal to a fault. She will bleed and ache and work for the people of the Reach with everything she has and ever will have, right until it lands her in a crypt. If a man or woman told her they needed the dress or tunic off her back, she would not blink before she stripped it off and handed it over without question."

Turning around, Oberyn offered Willas a goblet of wine. He took it between shaking, confused fingers, but did not drink. He only wanted to hold something, to ground himself in the present.

"You are fond of her."

It was not an accusation, not really, just a truth. Oberyn was fond of this Haraella, Willas noted. Possibly as fond of her as one of his daughters, and if not quite, perhaps around there one day. Oberyn took the time between a sip of wine to still and pick his words carefully.

"Very. She is… She is not what people originally think she will be, myself included. If you expect her to take a right, she will dance left. I am telling you this because you are my close friend."

Oberyn's voice dropped low, secretive, guarded.

"Haraella is too trusting. She takes a man's word too easy. She has difficulty seeing the worst in people. You are a shrewd man, Willas. You are good at inspiring the Lords, and she is good at rallying the smallfolk. You both have souls that ache for other people, and are willing to do what must be done for your family, and more importantly, the peoples prosperity. This unwanted marriage reveals just that. Together, you two could make the Reach something no one has ever seen before. Together, you can build a kingdom unlike any other. I know this… It is why I wrote to your grandmother and Haraella and proffered the betrothal in the first place."

Now Willas's tenor trundled to a stinging allegation.

"It was you who planned all this?"

Shamelessly, something Oberyn frequently was, he nodded, as if he were confused on how Willas could come to any other conclusion.

"Of course it was me. I know you. I know her. You two… You fit together well. I saw it the first time I met Haraella. She will fill in your blanks, give you fire, and you will fill in her own falls, steadying her running feet. The ground needs a sky to look up to, and the sky needs the ground to stop it floating away. Be her ground Willas, and she will be your sky. I care for you both deeply. I know you two can be happy if you were both to give this a chance to bloom. I want that for you two… If anyone in this world deserves happiness, 'tis you and Haraella."

If anyone deserves happiness in this world, it is you.

Had not Margaery said the same? Garlan too?

Yet, Willas was sure, so very sure, he had left his chance on the balcony of a tavern, in a goodbye kiss soiled salty with tears. Greedily, he did not want to wash that stain away with the thought that maybe he could find happiness with this Targaryen. To give up what he never really had to begin with.

"Furthermore, you should witness her magic. One of my guards got too handsy with her once as he was helping her learn to ride a horse. Touched her rear and let his hand linger slyly… She gave him baby arms. Baby arms, Willas. Stubby little chubby things he wiggled about like worms. It was hilarious. It wore off, of course, but I will always remember the laughter as-"

The rumour of Haraella taking a mans hands for daring to touch her… Not quite what Willas had originally believed.

Much like everything else.

A Targaryen who wanted peace.

A dragon who didn't thirst for war.

A new game to play.

A new garden to grow...

For the first time since that dreadful night at the tavern, Willas straightened out, and steeled himself. He was the heir to Highgarden, future Lord of the Reach, and by eves end, a Targaryen's husband… It was time he acted as such.

He did not love this Targaryen, but perhaps he… Understood a little now, foresaw a shadow less Stranger and more person, as complex as people tended to be, and understanding was the root of all relationships, was it not?

Every story began somewhere, and feasibly theirs began here, in this room, this morning, both mourning things lost, and what could not be.

"I believe there is a wedding I must attend? Shall we go?"

Oberyn grinned at him like a cat licking cream from it's whiskers.

NEXT CHAPTER: A wedding takes place, Willas Tyrell and Haraella Targaryen finally come face to face, all hell breaks loose, and vows are given in a rather non-traditional way…

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ: It has been over two years since the last update of this fic, but, as a small consolidation prize to the monstrous wait I put everyone through, I have been working hard on this and bring good news! This one shot is going to be continued to a full length fic.

I was overwhelmed from the love the last one shot got, as I really wasn't expecting it as Willas isn't really a popular character (or so I thought). I really wanted to finish the one shot, not just for you guys but I sort of fell in Love with Willas myself the more I wrote him, and while trying to give a solid ending, every time I tried to end it somewhere I knew there was more story to go for Haraella and Willas and a two-shot just wasn't going to give everything justice. Solution? Turn it to a full length fic, which is what I am doing.

So I spent the last year doing just that, between writing for my other fics. So far, I have 200,000 words written, and perhaps more to come, so it's going to be quite a big boy of a fic. I really do hope you all enjoy reading what I've got, as this has become like a pet of mine that I've spent a long while feeding and growing into something that, I hope, is original.

I know some of you will be disappointed no more one shots will becoming from this fic, but I am planning to post them as a new story, rather than delete chapter one of this and re-post it all again on a new story when I can just change this fic. I will be updating the summary and pairings tomorrow morning, as I wanted to keep the summary the same so you can be reminded of what exactly this was before I update it.

So, welcome one and all! With Tyrell's and Targaryens and intrigues galore, I hope you all enjoy this! There will be, eventual, Smut and quite a bit of Fluff because, dammit, Haraella and Willas deserve it, so take this as a warning if neither of those things are to your reading tastes. If long-arse fics filled with feel good moments, a hearty sprinkling of smut, and a deep dive into Tyrell's are your thing, boy, have I got a story for you.

Hopefully, I will update again very soon, if not by weeks end, and I hope all have a wonderful night!

P.S Oberyn turned out to be a huge Haraella/Willas Shipper. He sort of just wrote himself that way. *Helpless shrug*