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PART TWO
Claws

... ... ...

Mere mortal words were in no way sufficient to describe how much Visaera hated this place.

The Landing was, in its way, a beautiful place. As befit the seat of kings. Nevertheless, its beauty felt staged, false, the veneer of paint and powder caked upon an actor's face to create a façade which might seem true at a distance, yet which cracked and flaked upon closer inspection. No amount of golden, elaborate dressing could distract from the decay, nor amount of perfume completely conceal the rank stench of a city in the throes of neglect.

She could acknowledge that much of her loathing stemmed from the very natural homesickness which might be expected of any person torn unwillingly from their home and dragged to such a cold, hostile place.

She missed the jagged cliffs and sheer height of Griffin's Roost. Even in the palace upon its hill she felt grounded, penned in – a game bird with wings clipped. She still had the sea, but that, too, was wrong. The Blackwater was cloudy-dark and riddled with murk, not at all like the deep, clear crushing blue she associated with home. For all it had not been the place of her birth, it had been her home. And for all she had officially been merely their ward, the Conningtons had been as much family to her as the people here who shared her blood. More so, in some ways.

The rest was…more difficult to articulate. Even in her own mind.

It was as though the city itself lay cloaked in a shadow beyond that of the winter dark. As though the stone beneath her feet had absorbed it, stored it as much as it might heat or chill, and spread it to all it touched. The very air was heavy with it, stifled, sour with fear. With corruption. Both shallow and rooted deep.

She loathed the whole of it: the great awful palace and the people in it, shallow and conniving and venomous. She hated the way stepping into any room felt akin to sliding into a pit of snakes and praying none of them were inclined to strike. Most of all she hated the way they watched her.

The way they all watched her.

Lesser and greater nobles alike stared for the novelty she represented – the sheer, simple newness of her, the odd way she wore her hair, and doubtless trading wagers on how long she might last. The higher court and members of the Small Council weighed her potential uses, pondering her promise as an ally, or as a tool. Soon enough she could expect them to begin their tests, or else their machinations. The palace guards studied her, wary of the potential viper in their midst. And while she did not see them, she required no one to warn her of the spies which lurked in every seemingly empty corner, seeking any precious slivers of information to carry back to their endlessly plotting, ill-intended masters.

The only reason she had lived to see her second decade through, and relatively undisturbed, was because she had shown no inclination to marry and had not fallen pregnant. Now it seemed she had reached a threshold which put her firmly into the space all women inevitably found themselves – unoccupied with suitable womanly purpose, armed with the deadly combination of age and time, and therefore the natural inclination of their weak and yet most devious sex to scheme.

What exactly it was she was meant to be scheming that would not have been solved by a convenient, accidental (of course) death, she wasn't certain, though she had her suspicions. As did her kingly cousin.

The irony in that his bringing her here had only served to manifest exactly that which he so feared was…a bitter thing, if strangely satisfying.

Since she was of high standing and not yet old enough to be deemed entirely past her prime, it had been expected that she should be given something to occupy herself as proper unwed noblewomen ought. She suspected that it had been Rhaegar to suggest she join the ranks of his wife's ladies. Whether he had been the one to make the appointment, or whether that decision had come from the Hand, she was less sure.

The cunning Tywin Lannister would surely have been reluctant to approve such a thing, no doubt understanding that doing so positioned her closer to the future seat of power as much as did it place her in near constant watch. Not allowing it would have invited questions as to why. As he could not very well admit that he disliked even this small disruption of his plans to elevate his own family's standing, he would have had little other choice but to approve the placement.

Which suited Visaera just fine.

For her, the honor in becoming one of Princess Elia Martell's ladies lay more in the proximity it granted her to her kin. Not simply to Rhaegar himself, but the mother, brother, wife, and child he might not be in as much position to protect while in the midst of planning to dethrone the ghoulish monster his father had become. Perhaps too she had hoped having company might help to ease the restlessness from being penned up indoors for weeks at a time, not quite yet certain that simply the choice to go riding would draw talk she wished to avoid.

What she hadn't anticipated was finding the reprieve she did in the appointment. Female companionship had been hard to come by at home, harder still to find it both enjoyable and without ulterior motive. And it was enjoyable. Where she had anticipated (and dreaded) being surrounded by simpering girls whose status outweighed their intelligence or individuality twofold that spent their hours talking of nothing but the safest, most polite of topics, she was met with bright, interesting women of varying ages who delighted in everything from discussion of politics to telling bawdy stories.

The sky outside that afternoon was a dreary gray bluster, as if the weather were simply playing at being a real storm. She and a few of the other ladies were gathered around the hearth in Elia's solar: the Princess and the striking - and strikingly clever - Ashara Dayne each unhurriedly working at their respective embroidery or stitching projects while the little Princess Rhaenys, all of two years old, played at her mother's feet with a set of beautifully carved wooden horses. Illane, a sweet, soft-spoken Tyrell girl, read aloud from a book of poetry.

Visaera sat across from the Princesses, listening to the other women exchange commentary on the works and absently stroking Rhaenys' tiny black kitten where he had curled into a tight contended ball upon her lap.

"—the mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one; yet the light of a whole life dies, when love is done."

"Imagine," Lady Ashara noted dryly while she set a stitch in the emerald green wrap she was adorning, "being so confident in your cock as to believe the sheer loss of it enough to rip the joy and fullness from a woman's life."

Lady Illane looked up from the book, her pretty brown eyes as big and innocent as those of a fawn. At a mere fourteen she was the youngest of the group save for the little Princess, and barely yet a woman - still adjusting to the somewhat violent transition from sheltered childhood home to a strange and all too adult world.

"Is that what it's saying?" she asked, sounding on the verge of mild horror. Princess Elia sent her a reassuring smile.

"No, sweeting. We don't know who wrote that piece. It might not have been a man at all."

"Though if it was a man, he was most certainly writing about his cock," Ashara muttered.

Elia laughed at this – a sound rich and warm and just a bit wicked.

It had not taken much for Visaera to discern that the two women were incredibly close, and likely had been since long before traveling north from their shared homeland. Though the Princess was by far the more obviously Dornish of the two of them with her narrow, willowy frame and amber-brushed skin, the way they spoke and teased and scolded one another with such unthinking, casual ease was proof enough even if the variation in their looks was not. It was a closeness Visaera envied, especially here, where she was such an isolated island of a soul within a largely unfamiliar sea.

Illane frowned, a furrow forming between her narrow brows. "What does...that have to do with love?"

The Princess studied the girl fondly, running a practiced fingertip along the chain of stitches she had just laid to smooth the strands. "There are different sorts of love," she answered after a moment, an almost wistful note to the words.

Taking pity on the girl and her obvious confusion, Visaera added: "you'll understand when you're a little older. Like with your bleeding, some things you simply have to experience for a while in order to fully learn the truth of them."

At this statement, Ashara turned to regard her with something torn between curiosity and apprehension.

"Speaking of love," she began with a gentle caution, "was there someone you had to leave behind, being summoned here?"

Visaera shook her head. "Fortunately, no."

"Truly? No one?"

She couldn't help her smile at the dismay in the other woman's voice.

"Truly."

"Not even young Lord Jon," Ashara pressed, at the mention of which Elia released a faint, dreamy sigh.

"Ooh, he's a handsome one."

"Quite handsome," Visaera agreed, running a fingertip along the sleepy kitten's soot-black ear. "But never had much interest in me—at least not in that way. Nor I in him."

"I suppose he might feel something more of a brother, perhaps," Elia said thoughtfully.

"Excluding the fact that so many of kin would find that no hindrance?"

The Targaryens had been intermarrying for centuries to keep the bloodline pure - cousin to cousin, brother to sister. Had done so since long before Aegon the Conqueror had come to Westeros, long before the Doom had come to Valyria. A practice most of the world reviled, yet somehow seemed to accept where the house of the dragon was concerned. As they accepted that the offspring from these unions had been growing progressively more deranged with each generation, and as their numbers declined. Not that any of this should have been in any way unexpected. Why the practice of inbreeding was regarded a benefit to the Targaryen kings while it was known to cause lasting problems in livestock...no one seemed to have an answer.

Visaera thanked both the Old Gods and the new quite regularly that she had not been born of this practice. It was the sole reason she had been deemed unfit to carry it on via marriage to Rhaegar when they had both come of age. She might have come to love her cousin, but she had no desire to either bed or breed with him.

Elia's smile was at once crooked and understanding. "Excluding that, yes."

"Far too much of a brother. I adore him, but if I were trapped in a room with the obnoxious idiot for too long, I would be forced to bash his head in."

Laughing wryly, Ashara replied: "having grown up with two brothers, I sympathize. Though mine are much less trying now."

"I am relieved for you."

After a contemplative beat one sleek dark brow arched, a slow smile curving at Ashara's mouth. "Would you mind terribly if I gave him a try?"

With a flourish of an open hand, Visaera offered: "you're welcome to him, but I doubt he'd notice if you did. Jon is…"

She pondered, considerate of Illane's youth and potential lack of understanding where certain matters of discretion might be concerned. Even if she hadn't done the majority of her growing up with the Conningtons' son and only child, she would not have wanted the knowledge of his proclivities being divulged publicly in a way that might hurt him, which – ridiculously enough in this day and age – it very well could. As had been very well established in the week or so she had spent in the Dornishwomen's company, their opinions on the matter were in alignment with her own, making them safe to confide in.

"…I will simply say that even the most peerlessly stunning of maids are quite safe in his company."

"Ah," Ashara nodded sagely, eyes sparkling. "That certainly explains things."

She returned the nod with a playfully mournful one of her own. "It does, doesn't it?" she added sadly, barely able to keep a straight face at Elia's charmingly undignified snort of amusement.

The knock came some time later, when the ladies had resumed their respective pastimes.

"Yes," Elia called, not looking up from her needlework.

Visaera's eyes darted to the door. Subtly she rearranged her arms in order to better reach the cuff of braided silver she wore at her left forearm, and the cleverly disguised knife it concealed. It might have been considered excessively vigilant, but she preferred to be wary - even if overly - than be caught vulnerable and unprepared. It would not have been the first time the guard placed on the royals had been overpowered, or turned traitor. Even the Kingsguard were not necessarily wholly trustworthy. Their vows were to the King above all else, and occasionally at the expense of all others.

The door had hardly begun to open when Rhaenys jumped up from the floor, abandoning her toys to surge into a toddling run toward it. "Arfur!" she screeched happily, all but hurling herself into the arms of the man that entered as he bent to catch her.

Lifting the little Princess, Ser Arthur balanced her against his armored hip in the manner of a man who was quite accustomed to handling children – holding her just so in order to keep her shoeless feet well clear of the heavy mail below to make certain it would not pinch her. His face was soft with affection when he inclined his head to her. "Hello, Your Grace," he said somberly, "and how are you today?"

Rhaenys, who was not a talkative child by nature, responded with a decisive and enthusiastic: "best."

"Very good, Your Grace."

Visaera's fingers drifted back to soft black fur.

With the grace of someone well used to maneuvering in full plate armor and mail, Arthur moved deeper into the room, his bow hindered somewhat by the little girl clinging to the white gold neck of his cuirass and the helm tucked under the opposite arm.

"Your Grace," he addressed Elia first, then herself and Illane. "Ladies. Sister."

Ashara beamed at him from her seat nearest the hearth.

With the two in the same vicinity, Visaera could easily see the resemblance between them. The Daynes were black of hair as were the Martells, but their skin was slightly fairer, their features slightly more in common with those found more north of the Dornish border. Both siblings possessed the same nose, with the faintest hint of an arch along the bridge, the same proud, angular jaw and soft mouth, and the same uncommonly brilliant violet eyes.

Valyrian eyes. She had been told, however, that there was none of Valyria in the blood of Starfall. They were simply an ancient, prestigious house that had not weakened their lineage the way the Targaryens had (irony of ironies).

"Don't mind my brother," Ashara said to the other two ladies while he crossed the floor, "he knows if he doesn't greet me when he's on guard here that I'll thrash him for it later."

Arthur said nothing as he circled behind the ring of chairs to her, merely bent to bestow a chaste kiss upon the crown of his sister's head. Though his expression remained, for the most part, placidly stoic, Visaera could make out the smile in the corners of his eyes.

She wasn't yet sure what she made of Arthur Dayne.

What she had heard wasn't extensive beyond titles and accolades, which meant little beyond the time it took to put them to voice. The only story she really believed had merit was that he was said to be one of the best fighters in the realm. Half ceremonial the posts might be, the Kingsguard also existed for a purpose: to be the last and most vital defense of the King and his family. The men who served were all chosen for good reason – for prowess and for deadly skill. It was not an assignment made for political token or favor, though whether it was accepted entirely by choice was a matter of some debate. How did one refuse a King, even one not poisoned by madness?

Aside from this, and that Rhaegar evidently trusted him with more than merely his own life, she knew very little about the man.

Well…now she knew one thing more, she noted as she watched the patient way he endured Rhaenys' tugging to be put down and insistence that he hold one of her wooden horses.

He was good with children.

Not simply good. He liked them.

It should not have made much difference; this one positive trait was no indicator that he was to be trusted with the things he knew. She didn't like that seeing a man being so soft and easy with a child made her soft when she could ill afford to be.

Not that she was the only one affected.

Illane had been sporting a blush as bright as fever since the moment he'd entered the room, poor girl. Though Visaera didn't blame her. She had been a girl once. Chivalry and fine manners did much to buy the hearts of those so young and sheltered. Add to them pretty eyes and bone structure half so striking as Ser Dayne's, and she was as good as ready to declare everlasting love.

Reality would likely come crashing down on her far sooner than it should and batter much of the joy from someone even so sweet as Illane. Better she should have her dreams while she could.

"Were you merely avoiding said thrashing, Ser Arthur," Elia teased, "or was there something else you came for?"

"If you imagine that not reason enough, Your Grace," he answered flatly, "it's because you are blissfully unaware of just how hard my sister hits."

Elia smiled sweetly at the jest, though Visaera rather suspected there was no small amount of truth to the statement – certainly if Ashara's answering cackle was to be believed.

"If there is nothing you require, I will assume my post."

Slipping the tiny horse into the basket of threads beside the Princess' chair, the knight offered a parting bow to her and her thoroughly distracted daughter. He nodded to Illane, who clutched the book of poems tightly to her chest, her cheeks gone (if possible) even redder.

"Lady Tyrell."

Turning slightly, his gaze fell upon Visaera, skimming briefly down to the kitten lying sprawled now across her lap – belly up, head and hind feet twisted to ridiculous angles. His lips were not quite so full as Ashara's, but they were more expressive - sensitive - and curved now with his smile. This smile was unlike the one he had used to deflect her thinly-veiled attempts to bait him those days ago, and it was a difference she felt as much as saw.

His eyes lifted back to her face, the color of them pure as the very last dying light from a sunset.

"Lady Targaryen."

She returned his nod as he retreated, not half a second before she felt the sharp prick of claws at her wrist.

"Balerion indeed," she remarked to the cat playfully wrapped about her forearm, tapping at his nose and quickly dodging the snap of needle-teeth. "You little terror."

She was fairly sure she only imagined hearing the stifled chuckle beneath Rhaenys' high-pitched giggling, but as it was there and gone just before the door to the solar latched closed, she couldn't be certain.

...

Objectively speaking, Visaera went unmolested for much longer than she had expected.

It finally happened one night after she had departed the dining hall after yet another trying evening meal.

She was accustomed to wearing a metaphorical mask in the public sphere, one she had reasonably adjusted to the particular viciousness of court life and the array of people who would have delighted in tearing her to bloody shreds. She knew how to deflect and dismiss the cutting barbs so often enfolded into meaningless compliments, to recognize what actions would serve to fuel the gossip-mongers endlessly sniffing about without divulging anything she did not want them to know. She knew how to maneuver the complex patterns of social etiquette and protocol required of her station. Though she detested the necessity, she was grateful for the seeds planted by a mother attuned to the likelihood of her daughter's future need for them.

While she was capable enough, these things did not come as easily to her as others, and after a solid days spent leaning on them, she was left drained and irritable more often than she wasn't. The fact that her sleep of late had been little better than fitful was no help.

Twice before in her life had she experienced dreams of similar potency, so intense as to make reality seem the illusion and occurring so frequent that she would wake feeling as though she had hardly slept at all. If this was to be the same as the previous occurrences then they would eventually abate, but the timing was certainly less than ideal. This was not the time or place for her wits not to be at their sharpest.

The meal itself had been relatively uneventful. Visaera had, for the most part, spent it resolutely ignoring the chatter of the other unmarried ladies seated around her, electing to save herself the headache and finish eating as quickly as possible. An endeavor in which she might have succeeded were it not for Cersei Lannister.

On the whole, she did not care for the Lannister clan - far nearer to weasels than to lions, in her opinion. Tywin was a devious viper with far too much power and nowhere near enough to check it. His son was vain and something of a prig, if inoffensive enough, but his daughter was a vile, vicious harpy as greedy for control as her sire.

At first the words were yet more white noise, immersed in the ambient ebb and flow of a thousand conflicting conversations. And then something caught her attention.

"—be a princess. Father says I might marry Prince Viserys when he's of age. And if the Princess cannot soon provide a son, or dies in the birthing bed, I might yet marry Prince Rhaegar after all."

The blood in Visaera's veins all but crackled with ice.

Gripping tight to the reins of her rage, she slowly lifted her head to regard the slender, golden haired girl seated a yard or so down and across the table from her; sipping at her wine, wearing a haughty, self-satisfied expression as surely as she wore the gown seemingly stitched of Lannister gold.

Cersei was young still, just approaching her sixteenth year. For that reason alone did Visaera temper her comment, rather than slicing the nasty little bitch to the bone.

"You might be more careful, My Lady," she mused, "you wouldn't wish for someone overhear and mistake your concerns for some manner of plot."

More than a few sets of eyes slid to rest upon her in addition to those of her intended target and the young women over which she held court. It was to be expected. She had been very deliberate in formulating an image of passive complacence – someone that neither wished for nor sought confrontation of any kind. To have thrown such a sharp verbal gibe was bound to attract interest, and, subsequently, to spread. Visaera was prepared for that, and more than equipped to handle the outcome.

So long as she retained her hold on how much, she could allow a portion of her true self to bleed through the pretense, as was inevitable.

It took Cersei a generous moment to transform her momentary shock into the condescending sneer she reached for. A moment more to gather a response.

"Envy is not becoming in a lady of your…position."

It was a tepid insult at best, but it was the flinty gleam in her green eyes which belied just how dangerous she might one day be, if not curbed. What need had she to be a skillful wordsmith when she could simply twist her way into truth with other means?

Still, she did not yet have the experience or the fortitude to match this opponent.

"And ambition is no substitute for wisdom, little lion." Visaera calmly put down her eating knife. "I would advise you to concern yourself with your own position. At least until your teeth finish growing in."

Allowing just the hint of steel to show in her smile, she rose from her seat and left the table, closing her ears to the hushed flurry of whispers which filled the space.

She was starting to feel the headache encroaching now, dull and persistent behind her eyes, and wanted little more to shut herself away in the quiet sanctuary of her rooms for the rest of the night. Away from the poison that passed for common talk among these awful people.

It was both the distraction and the sheer singular focus, she surmised, which prevented her from noticing the man following her path along the corridors until he was nearly upon her. Usually she was much more adept at spotting such things soon enough to lose an unwanted pursuer before it came to confrontation. But then, she usually had a better grip on foul temper when she had it, too.

Alas, not this night.

"Surely you are a dancer, Mistress," the man purred as he fell into step beside her, words reeking of wine as much as charm, "for you move like music."

Steeling herself, Visaera turned to him with what she hoped was a passably flirtatious smile.

She could make out no clear indicator of rank, only that the clasps of his cloak were moderately expensive – too much so to suit a soldier. A lord of some kind, most likely. One that either did not know who she was, or knew all too well and therefore gambled that harming her would not result in much by way of retribution. Which, of course, he would deny to his grave. He had thought her a mistress, after all, not a lady!

Swine.

Stupid swine at that.

"You are too kind, My Lord," she demurred, noting how his dark eyes flickered down her figure, lingering on the shape of her breasts beneath her gown.

Was that what had enticed him? The neckline wasn't all that low, and the layers of gold trim deflected from what the velvet enhanced. Still, she supposed it wouldn't have mattered. Either this dress or another, this night or the next, this man or his brother. None of it mattered. The inevitable was, after all, inevitable.

"Truly, you are a pretty thing," he added, in what he evidently thought was a seductive timbre, moving imperceptibly closer.

She shifted subtly backward.

He wasn't all that detestable to look at, she supposed. His frame and features were pleasant enough to be getting on with, his brown hair thick where it curled against his collar, his beard not so full that it hid the tautness of his jaw. All the same, she did not want him. A man with half an ounce of intelligence would have seen that. Not that this one gave a damn, intelligent or no.

Again he took a measured step, this one slightly to the left, which she immediately countered – and felt the hem of her skirt brush the stone of the wall. He was crowding her - corralling her - effectively, if not subtly.

The dry, pleasant scent of hot wax and herbs from the nearest branch of candles was suddenly suffocating. There was a new pressure in her temples and at the base of her skull. She was tired and well on her way to vexed, and itching to beat the tar out of something solid. In no mood to play this game with any amount of niceness, for all that she knew it would be wiser to do so.

Grasping for tolerance, Visaera planted her feet and assumed an expression both flattered and forlorn. "You honor me," she murmured, "but Her Grace, the Queen, is expecting me to attend—"

He moved directly into her space, the plain of his chest pressing into her shoulder as she quickly angled herself ever so slightly away. Directly into the arm he used to cage her in.

"Give me just a taste, then…"

The coaxing note did nothing to disguise the demand for what it was, hot and sour with too much wine against her face.

She felt his other arm drop, recognizing that he was half a second away from simply hiking up her skirts and shoving her against the wall, and, regrettably, lost what hold she retained on her temper.

...

Arthur saw her leave the hall. She was difficult to miss on her own, with her moonglow hair and snow-pale skin, let alone in the sapphire velvet of the gown she wore, notice of which he had justified in the fact that he was celibate and not a corpse. The fact that he had taken heed of the man that followed her too soon after was compete happenstance.

But not one he had been comfortable ignoring.

With a murmur to Lord Commander Hightower stationed at the opposite end of the high table, and a promise to send for another of the Kingsguard to relieve him, he removed himself from the hall. Intercepting one of the pages on the way back to the kitchens, he instructed the lad to run for Ser Oswell, and then set about locating Lady Visaera.

Most likely, she would be headed to either her own rooms, or those of Princess Elia. As they were located in the same wing of the palace – each within clear view of the other – he needn't guess, and as the Lady seemed to do whatever she could to avoid extraneous interaction in the evenings, he started down the slightly longer, indirect route which used the south stairs. At best he would simply find her alone, worries abated, and could leave her to her business. At worst…

It was a boy's notion that all men should, and therefore would, be just and honorable toward women. It was a man's understanding that the reality of notions such as this was that they were ideals, not truths, and that while they should not, there was much in this world from which women were required to protect themselves. His own sister had faced abuses here, in this place of kings and crowns that supposedly stood for something greater than mere mortal grasp. Words, mostly, nothing so vicious that it had caused her true harm – and thus risked causing him to pay the harm back in kind.

For all that Lady Visaera was kin to the King, it did not protect her. Nothing did to those who held nothing above themselves, and, upsettingly, an unaccompanied woman often found herself a target to men without moral or common decency in cities such as these, and the palace was no safe haven. If anything, it was more dangerous. Those newly come to it tended to believe themselves safe and secure within, when in fact they were merely now trapped inside with just as many beasts.

It was just as likely nothing at all would occur. Even so, he preferred to err on the side on caution.

He heard no scuffle to indicate that he drew near, only a man's choked curse, which urged his steps to quicken and his hand to renew its grip upon the hilt of his sword, loosening the seat of the blade for a smoother draw.

The scene he found when he followed the curve of the corridor to the archway at the base of the stair was not the one he had expected.

To all immediate appearances it seemed to be exactly what he had feared. Lady Visaera had her back to the dull sandy stone of the wall, a wiry, dark-haired man he recognized after a moment as Lord Carver Edgerton standing over her. He might have guessed it would be a slimy lump of vermin like Edgerton – who preferred unwilling conquests to his own quite lovely wife. Except…rather than beguiling, or even pawing, the man was stiff and unmoving, the hand he'd braced against the wall to block her escape balled into a white-knuckled fist.

It took him a split second to understand that it was the white of the Lady's hand against Edgerton's neck he saw. Less time to remember the rings she so often wore on the thumb and first finger of her left hand - thick, engraved bands above the middle knuckles connected by delicate chain to the gently curving claws at her fingertips.

Arthur needed no more evidence than Edgerton's lack of struggle to know that the claws with which she gripped him about the throat were sharp as blades.

"I would offer assistance, My Lady," he said, pitching his voice loudly enough to be heard from down the corridor as he approached. "But it appears you have things well in hand."

"Quite literally, as it happens."

Her gaze flicked to him as he drew nearer, slashing like a lick of blue fire.

"I appreciate your offer all the same, Ser."

That, Arthur suspected, was the moment where he determined that he did not merely respect Lady Visaera, but that he rather admired her. Young she might be still, it was clear that she had spent her years under the constant awareness that her life existed balanced upon the edge of a knife, and just as clear that she had elected to walk that edge rather than allow it to command her.

No timid, vulnerable creature was she. No indeed.

He couldn't hear whatever it was she hissed between her teeth at the man in her grip. All he could make out was the elegant curl of her lips – far too mild to be the snarl he knew she would be capable of producing, but fearsome enough to make even a fool bastard like Edgerton think twice before so much as looking at her ever again. Then, very slowly, she allowed her hand to relax.

Clearly curbing the reflex to jerk away upon release, Edgerton attempted to withdraw with what was left of his dignity. Retreating, however, forced him down the path the knight now blocked.

Arthur's hand lifted as he made to pass, closing tight about the Lord's arm just below the elbow to hold him fast.

"If I see you near Lady Targaryen again, Lord Edgerton," he murmured, "you will have the Kingsguard to contend with."

Warning issued, Arthur allowed the man to slink off and returned his attention to the Lady before him. She had moved away from the wall, grimly considering the blood which stained the sharp silver he recognized now as no mere ornament.

"I shouldn't have cut him," she remarked, more to herself than to him.

As he watched, a thin drop slipped down the curve of one claw, threatening to reach the skin of her finger.

Hooking his own fingers under the cuff of his left gauntlet, he tugged the cloth from where he kept it tucked beneath his bracer, proffering it to her.

At first she simply eyed the bit of undyed linen, and them him, before finally accepting it.

"I disagree," he told her as he watched her dab at the stain, "clearly he required a reminder as to why he would do better not to impose his company upon a woman who does not wish it. Else she prove to have a sharper bite than he."

"Mmm."

The sound was noncommittal, almost dismissive.

Did she think he was being trite? Or else simply offering false assurances? No, that wasn't it…

"Why did you follow me?"

It was not as much a question as it was a demand, and he blinked, caught unawares by the slant of icy accusation in her stare.

"Beg pardon…?"

Suddenly his heart sank like a stone toward his belly. Did she imagine his motives to match the likes of Edgerton? While it wasn't an unreasonable assumption to make, and any concern was understandable – he was a larger man, both protected and aided by his armor, and far more likely capable of combatting the weapon she wore – still, he would not deny that it stung.

"Did you think to catch me cloistered in the dark whispering secrets to the rats?" she clarified, clipped and all but dripping disdain. "I do so apologize to have disappointed you."

For all the harshness in her voice, the sick twist in his gut instantly eased.

She had thought him to be keeping her under surveillance. And not simply for the sake of the King's suspicions, but his own. She thought he assumed her to be merely waiting for an opportunity to betray the Prince to whom she had promised her confidence and support, and what was more, this imagined assumption of his had offended her.

Now that he was paying heed to it, he realized that the carefully controlled and measured guise she normally wore - the shield behind which she kept herself guarded - had slipped. It wasn't merely the flash of temper he noticed, but the frustration beneath. An agitated restlessness. A flickering hint of pain. He couldn't be certain in any of it so early, he knew that. Yet when she wasn't actively working to keep him out, she wasn't all that difficult to read. She might play at being even tempered and mild, but she vibrant and fierce, far too wild for the world closed in around her, and she was struggling to maintain the illusion.

"I observed that Lord Edgerton quit the hall within moments of yourself and followed in the event you might require intervention. Unnecessarily so, it appears."

She had not expected this answer, yet she did not appear to suspect him of speaking falsely or deflecting the truth. Her slender brows lowered ever so slightly. In confusion, not suspicion.

"You owe me no allegiance," she said. Slow, as if taking a cautious step forward in uncertainty.

"On the contrary," he countered calmly, "I am sworn to protect the King's family as well as his person. That includes you, My Lady."

Whatever others – even Aerys himself – might have thought of her, he spoke the truth as he saw it. Certainly as Prince Rhaegar and Princess Elia did.

It did not escape him that he felt a sense of protectiveness toward her regardless of her heritage. One which went beyond the vows he had taken as a knight to defend the innocent and infirm and those in need, to honor and safeguard women and children. Perhaps because she was of an age with Ashara, or perhaps…perhaps it was something else entirely.

For the briefest of instants amusement flashed across her face. "Does it?" she remarked with a light hint of sarcasm.

"Yes."

Once again she seemed taken aback by his answer. The bitter humor slipped away as she regarded him, considering, before her eyes fell back to her own hands, resuming the task of carefully wiping the blood from her armored fingertips.

"Forgive me," she murmured, the softness of it chagrin rather than assumed politeness. "I am overly weary, which tends to make my tongue harsher than is suitable for polite company."

Arthur's study of her sharpened, focusing on her face. There. They were so faint that one would never see them if not looking for it, but there were shadows beneath her eyes, a barely-there pinch to the outer corners he recognized all too well.

Exhaustion.

"Are you not sleeping well, My Lady?"

The elegant arch of a brow accompanied the glance she shot him. "Would you in my place?"

It was an unexpectedly direct statement, revealing, he thought, far more vulnerability than she might have meant for him to see. Hints of that selfsame meld between the fear and resignation of a woman that expected death to rise up and drag her under like the current.

Perhaps a part of her had wondered, upon seeing him appear, whether he had come to do the dragging. Even if only for a moment.

"No," he answered her honestly. "I would not."

A shard of a not-quite smile. She truly was weary. He could see it weighing at the movement of her mouth, the unusual tightness in delicate facial muscles which reached all the way down into her throat - which was clearly visible. She had pinned most of her hair up tonight, with tight intricate braiding reaching back from her temples beneath softer waves. But for a single thick, coiling piece, the entirety of her slender neck was exposed. As were the delicate arcs of her collarbones, and the smooth, pale skin above the swell of her breasts.

"Shall I have someone send for the Maester? Perhaps there is some tonic he might fashion for you which might help?"

"I thank you, but no. I would prefer to remain in control of my faculties as much as I may."

He watched the measured motion of her fingers as she ran the cloth along the wickedly curved underside of the silver at her index finger to finish cleaning it. She handled the sharp implement deftly, as though she had performed this same action a hundred times before.

Neatly folding the soiled linen into a tight square to seal the blood within, Lady Visaera offered it back to him with a graceful turn of her wrist - moonstone white against the rich blue of her wide sleeve.

"Keep it, please," he urged, "should you have need of it again. Though I dearly hope that you won't."

Just like that, her stare was once again so intent upon his face that she might have been attempting to pry him open - curl the ends of her claws into the seams of his plate to peel it back like the hooked end of a war hammer. It was…singularly unsettling. But not, he noted, entirely unpleasant. Whatever she found in his face seemed to encourage her fingers to close around the cloth.

"Goodnight, Ser Dayne," she murmured, inclining her head to him as she angled her shoulders toward the stair.

He bowed, palm braced against the pommel of Dawn. "Goodnight, My Lady."

He did not attempt to fool himself into believing that it didn't take all the practice of his years not to watch the drape of the velvet across her shape as she ascended the steps. By now he was more than capable of acknowledging that he thought a woman beautiful without feeling churlish for it. Thinking was not acting, after all. He simply nudged the urge aside, put the lady out of his mind, and returned to the dining hall.

NOTES:

First and foremost: credit to Francis William Bourdillon for use of a line from "The Night has a Thousand Eyes" (which is a Victorian poem, but fit the tone I was looking for).

And a few notes about the story itself and what I'm doing here:

For the most part this is based in the show version of the world, though I am leaning very heavily on some book lore and history and a fuckload of research only 5% will make its way into the actual narrative. While most of this research has been for scene-setting and continuity and worldbuilding, a good chunk has also been in attempt to glean as much as I can about Arthur - mystery that he is.

Factually, we know VERY little about him, and what little we know is seen through the unreliable dreams and memories of others, and as such should be taken with a grain of salt. But, going with the assumption that there is also a grain of truth to them, the picture painted might be small, but it's very vivid. And I feel like the show (brief as the depiction was) expanded on that a little bit. A lot of where I go with him is based in hunch and philosophical questions about how a person remembered the way he is comes to swear two sets of oaths that stand in direct contradiction of one another, while serving a King that is cruel and crazy and all kinds of heinous.

I'm spreading out some of the events that take place within a two-year timespan in book chronology. I.e. having Rhaegar/Elia married before now in order to make Rhaenys a toddler here rather than an infant. Spacing the incident with the Kingswood Brotherhood farther away from the Tourney at Harrenhall and onward. I know that in times of political/social unrest a lot of things can happen very closely together, but...honestly there's no real reason for my doing this other than for the sake of this fic's timeline.

I'm also aging Arthur up a little bit from book chronology - which would put him somewhere around 22/23 at time of death - so that he's between that and the show's depiction, which looks like mid to late 30s. Most everyone is aged up a bit visually if not technically in the show anyway (I adore Sean Bean, but he is WAY too old to be an accurately aged Ned Stark). The show also deliberately eliminated an entire generation of the Targaryen royal family for the sake of simplification, which screwed me up a bit initially. But I digress. The way I've done it makes Visaera and Rhaegar about a year or so apart in age, and Arthur older by about eight or so years. Not that this is super crucial, but I wanted to explain a bit.

Visaera's name is an amalgamation of previous Targaryen names, as is their inclination - both for a Saera who existed at one point, and a female version of Viserys. I deliberately wanted to avoid reusing an existing name because shit with these families is confusing enough already.

Finally, but most importantly, thank you so much to all of you who have read so far. And to those who have been so incredible as to leave kudos, an extra helping of gratitude. The writing part is done to appease and hush the internal demons, but posting is for the other folks who might share my desire to read something along the lines which led to write to begin with. If even just one person finds enjoyment in it, then it's worth it. So thank you. 3

Until next time!