The Favoured
Tags: Canon divergence post episode 8; No dance of dragons; referenced violence; Pre-relationship; Pre-poly
Cregan & Baela ; Cregan & Jace ; Baela & Jace ; Cregan & Baela & Jace
Cregan/Baela ; Cregan/Jace ; Jace/Baela ; Cregan/Jace/Baela
If the relationship tags seem overkill it's cos either combo of Cregan and Baela is woefully lacking considering their potential — I've seen popular fanon ships with about the same in the way of crumbs — and I wanted to contribute. Will crosspost to ao3 when it's back up and running.
The young heir to the iron throne was racing like the wind, following the winding river of the Wendwater through the kingswood. Jacaerys Velaryon reminded Cregan none so much of a dog chasing after a thrown bone. The Lord of Winterfell had been two weeks in King's Landing thus far, accompanied by sundry lords of the north, all come to swear oaths of fealty to the queen of the Seven Kingdoms, this boy's mother. The Crown Prince had invited Lord Stark to hunt with him and now that was done he bade them accompany him onwards. Onwards to what Cregan knew not for the wind had snatched at his last words. It would not be ambush nor some other trickery for the party was small, Targaryen red and black far overwhelmed by northern colours. He was a dragon on his lonesome. Nor did the prince have a treacherous bone in his body, besides; his face as plain to read as the stars in a night sky. He did seem to be leading them somewhere, or at least had a destination in mind, spurring his horse faster that very moment. It was usual for such zest and focus to be seen in men during the hunt, not just after it. For a moment his brother lived again; Willam used to ride like that and walk like that and live like that — like there was nothing he wanted to miss, nothing he would not know the secret of.
Riding beside him, Osric Cerwyn echoed his thoughts with a laugh. "And there was I thinking the hunt was done. Think you he seeks something? His lost lady love, mayhaps?"
"I had not known she was lost." Except to the ways of propriety. A harsh thought he knew but a true one nonetheless for the breeches-wearing noblewoman who regularly flouted her duty to take to the streets of Flea Bottom. Arra would have liked her; she was ever one to know the story of another, travellers most of all. And from what he knew of Prince Daemon's eldest daughter, Lady Baela Targaryen was a perpetual traveller. "I have no home," she told Cerwyn, who had warmed to her almost at once, he with his own outward looking nature and weakness for a comely face. No home. Not Driftmark, not the Red Keep nor Dragonstone? A year into her reign, would she mount her dragon and ride away to Pentos, the city of her birth where she spent the first ten years of her life? Would the lives of her people ever take root in her heart, or would she flit from pillar to post like her father, beholden to nothing and no one? Cregan had not spent much time in the Prince Consort's presence either but he had heard tales enough to last him a lifetime.
He saw the man's daughter now up ahead, lolling in a glade by the river playing a card game with a few men-at-arms dressed in aquamarine blue and silver. Velaryon household knights. She had some loyalty to her mother's house then. Raised amongst them as ward, how not? She spoke with them easily, as if they were themselves lords. Nay, she spoke with them more merrily than she did with most lords. She and Jacaerys shared an aversion for the southron court and its rigmarole and strictures, its pomp and pageantry. But where the latter came by it through an unpretentious nature ill-suited to the snake's pit of King's Landing, was it so with his lady?
She wore a riding tunic and breeches, her silver curls cropped to her chin — scandalously short for a noblewoman but she did so love to ride and fly, he heard. As the three men drew nearer upon their horses, she said something that made the household knights smirk and snicker. Too familiar, he thought. Is it not good for a lord to know his knights so? She is no lord. No ordinary lady either. Daughter of a king who gave up his crown, raised by one who could have been queen, betrothed to one who would be king in time. No, no ordinary lady was this girl. No ordinary family did she hail from. Targaryens took to the skies upon winged beasts of destruction, and in their arrogance some had named them for gods of the land they hailed from — Balerion, Vhagar, Syrax. What was Lady Baela's called? He couldn't recall in that instant. Could she be more Alysanne than Visenya? Many were the tales of the Good Queen who had charmed Cregan's dour grandsire Alaric and sundry other northern lords, held women's courts for high and lowborn and rode a draconic mount simply named Silverwing. But Daemon was no Aenys.
Baela's own great uncle Vaemond had spoken treason, accusing the then-crown princess' eldest sons of being bastards, no true Velaryons, an offence punishable only by taking the speaker's tongue. Twas all the king demanded of the Velaryon lord but after cutting him down from behind — not even looking him in the eyes, letting him know his death was upon him — the prince they called Lord Fleabottom said, he can keep his tongue. It was said Lady Baela had a similar penchant for such jests; an earthy, almost indecent sense of humour. Was that what she whispered to make them laugh in such ways? Cregan looked to Prince Jacaerys. If any would know, surely it would be he. He was a dutiful young man, unlikely to approve of such things. Cregan was struck by the way he gazed upon her. A gentle happiness, as fragile as if he cupped a newborn bird between his hands.
He knew Lady Baela better than Cregan, better than rumour. Would a girl who had danced upon the tabletops of a brothel possibly make him look so?
"Prince Jacaerys. Lord Stark. Lord Cerwyn. And dinner for the next week. Well met, all of you."
Gazing upon his fond mirth felt too intimate, like Cregan was intruding upon a private moment. He had been seeking her then. Cerwyn slanted him a look of smug amusement, as if to say: did I not tell you? As they dismounted, Jacaerys said, "You look more happy to see the boar, my lady."
"Not as happy as Moondancer would be."
Moondancer, odd name for a god, Cregan thought dryly. The name had nothing reminiscent of Old Valyria at all.
"You should have seen him while he lived." Jacaerys smiled at Cregan, who nodded back, an echo of a smile on his face in turn. "It was a glorious effort to bring him down but we managed."
Her gaze dipped down momentarily to her hand. "Yes, I suppose there would be a sort of glory."
Cregan spoke then, smoothing a hand down his horse's nose. "You do not sound wholly convinced, Lady Baela."
She appraised him intently. He had not had occasion to be so close to her before, not in so intimate and casual a setting. He felt a pang within him, like a bell had been rung too close, soundless but reverberating through him all the same. "You have the right of it, I confess — I am not. I hardly credit hunting to be some great pastime." She spoke easily as if she had not just slighted what was indeed the greatest sport known to man.
"I would have thought otherwise."
The corner of her mouth tipped up slightly. "From my attire and lack of side-saddle? Appearances deceive, my lord." She hadn't yet looked away, neither had he. The strange feeling deepened. Small wonder when he hadn't had anything to eat over the past three hours save dried strips of beef, two boiled eggs and a handful of berries. "Do try to ride an ordinary saddle in skirts and tell me how you fare. Certes I do not fare well in a hunt; the chase is a thrill, yes, but the interminable wait afore then, less so. Hawking, now, is much more of a delight. Or a tourney." Jacaerys groaned under his breath drawing her half-smile out into a broader curve as her gaze dipped down again to her cards. Ah, yes, another rumoured transgression: performing in the coronation tourney under the guise of a mystery knight. No rumour by the prince's reaction. She is not as those who came before her. He liked to think he had the measure of the Crown Prince but his betrothed was more of a mystery to him. One he found himself keen to solve now he had her in his sights. Baela fiddled with the corner of one of her playing cards with a musing frown he was half sure was in jest. Absently, absurdly, he found himself missing her smile.
"Has Princess Rhaenys forgiven you for that yet?" Jacaerys asked
"I'd say so." She looked up at the young prince and winked. "She never stays angry with me for long. Ah!" She pointed a finger at one of her guards who had gotten to his feet, stretched and then ambled by in a casual manner. "Do not think because I am not looking that you may try and see my hand."
"My lady, you wound me." He widened his eyes. "I was only stretching my legs."
"Right by me? Fie on that." She laughed. "Do you take me for a fool? Does he take me for a fool?"
"I couldn't rightly say, milady. I'd hope not."
Appearances deceive. Cregan looked at her again and it was as if he looked through another man's eyes. Her guardsmen, Jacaerys, even Cerwyn — they were drawn to her like iron to a lodestone. She made them feel important, like they mattered. In the midst of her laughter as she played with a card in her hands, her eyes found his. It might have been only a few moments but seemed far longer. Cregan felt what he had earlier dismissed as hunger, and more; he felt a narrowing of the world. A feeling of all else around them being superfluous. He knew he was important, he had known since he was thirteen and his father died but when she looked at him, he felt tugged as if by an undertow; beneath her easy mirth he felt an earnest solemnity, as if she would listen to whatever he said; even if he recited the most mundane of lists she would listen — and not to humour him, nor ingratiate herself but because it was who she was. She would truly hear him; she would see him.
I have no home, she had said, as light as if it were a jest, of no consequence and not one of the saddest things a person could ever say to another.
Osric was the firstborn son and heir of Lord Ethan Cerwyn but spent half as much of his time in Winterfell where he had whiled away his boyhood as foster child to the Warden of the North. Do you never miss it? Cregan asked him once. His younger brother seemed to resent and revel in his absence by turn, as younger brothers did. His answer took Cregan by surprise. Ever the dreamer, Cerwyn. It was pure irony that three of the people Cregan loved most in the world were so idealistic while he couldn't be further from it. His answer was: home is not a place for me; it is people.
Mayhap it was so for her, and she did not know.
Cregan led his horse to the stream to drink, Cerwyn following. Their fellow northmen had long since joined them in this glade, taking their horses to water or graze, taking a moment to rest.
"They are the happiest betrothed in the city."
"A great feat," Cregan said wryly.
Cerwyn shrugged, a common gesture by southron standards. A gesture he had seen the lady make once or twice. She might do well in the north, he thought idly. "They remind me a little of you and Arra."
He near raised a brow at that. Then he conceded in his head that it was likely they had known each other as long. Dear Arra, companion of his boyhood days, then wife, then mother of his son. Sometimes he couldn't breathe for missing her; sometimes it was yet hours before he remembered and the pain hit. "If their marriage is half as happy as our's was, then they will be fortunate indeed."
While the horses drank their fill, Cerwyn went to join the spectators of the card game and Cregan settled himself close enough to hear but far enough to be comfortably alone with his thoughts. He unsheathed Ice, the broadsword of his house and began to whet it carefully. The steel was Valyrian so it could not blunt as common steel did but the familiar motions ever cleared his mind, soothed him. He looked up a few times to glance upon their game, amused at their exuberance over mere squares of painted card. Once or twice he caught the eye of the Crown Prince. He too seemed bemused, giving a cheery shrug as one man let out a particularly loud crow. He would do well in the north himself, Cregan mused; he had always thought so.
Two weeks in the capital had not accustomed him to southron weather. When he had done his task, he found himself over-warm and tugged at the collar of his tunic. They had finished their card game by now and a few household knights were stretching their legs, ambling the perimeter of the glade. Others tended to their horses or were teaching the northmen yet more southron games. The prince, the lady, Cerwyn and Cregan were left to their little bubble. He drained his water skin to the last drop, then frowned.
"Would you suffer another moment of this heat without a word, my lord Stark?"
Did she want to get his measure as he did hers? If she thought he would demand them ride on to King's Landing, he was almost sorry to disappoint. "I suffer nothing."
"Do you not? A shame to hear that."
He frowned for a moment then thought - she meant tolerate, not be afflicted by. He was torn between grudging amusement and amused consternation at her sly wordplay.
"Thus might you suffer the cold of the north."
She pondered his words then shivered, not a wholly theatrical gesture. "I do not believe dragons were made for such climes."
"I would keep you warm." Jacaerys looked down then up again, gazing at her through his lashes. "You do so love to dance."
She sighed. "Yes, we could dance all night long."
Cerwyn hid his grin behind his hand. He looked from Baela to Jacaerys to Cregan and chose at that moment to wander away, murmuring something about the heat. They do say if you cannot handle it, get out of the cave. When Cregan glanced at him in question, he winked.
Jacaerys met Cregan's eyes for a moment before looking away, licking his lip. He studied a blade of grass between his fingers, glancing up once and seeming to flush when he found Cregan's eyes still on him; he looked away again. Cregan was beset by an urge to grab him by the chin and lift his gaze to his. "You will have to show us how you dance in the north, Lord Stark." Was he smiling as he said it? It seemed so. Did he bite his lip, like some shy maid in a song? The thought made Cregan's skin feel too tight.
Baela hummed. "Just so. Our southron dances might be too much for you in this heat. And those of Valyria…"
Did she seek to challenge him? If so, she'd find no shy pup. He may have little experience at flirting but he was not one to back down with his tail between his legs. "I am certain I can handle it. We will show each other."
She inclined her head, her eyes holding his steadily. There was something considering in her gaze. The prince still did not look at him. Mayhap Cregan was mistaken and they truly just meant dance. Such uncertainty. He had not felt like this since he was a boy. He misliked it. He might be frowning for a slight flicker crossed the lady's face before she schooled her expression into placid courtesy. Remote as a statue of the Andal Maiden. It was as if a gust of wind had blown through a cosy room and extinguished the hearth's flames. Baela tipped her head backwards, looking up to the sky then rolled it about her neck, first to one side then the other. "You know, I think I might stretch my legs myself. I have been sitting far too long." With that she rose to her feet, Jacaerys bounding up to his also. She rubbed at her knee with a wince. Glanced up to find Cregan's gaze still upon her; a dry amusement flit across her face. She looked to her betrothed and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Sit. Relax yourself. You have been in the saddle for hours." She looked to Cregan once more. "I am capable of walking alone within your eyesight, surely. I promise I shan't trip over a rock and bruise my pretty face."
By the gods, she was aggravating. It was not his place to say aught but she spoke right to him, as if she believed to know his mind. The arrogance was astounding. No less than yours, a quiet voice in him said. It sounded damningly like Arra.
"The rock will be duly punished if so." She stared, caught off guard. Certes he was by the words coming from his own mouth — had the heat addled his wits?
Jacaerys nodded. "So it shall be done. Well said, Lord Stark. We shall send men to sweep the grounds of this entire woods so that no rocks may catch my lady's foot and threaten her beauty — or worse." He frowned. "What if you hit your head?" Her mouth pursed. The look she cast him said: you are ridiculous. He only raised his chin, staring her down with admirable restraint though his mouth twitched. Insanity. Utter insanity. "We would cast them into the river before seeing you in such dire straits."
"But I do so like to swim. What if they make me turn my ankle while I am standing in the water?"
"Well…" he dithered, "then we shall…" He glanced at Cregan as if seeking assistance. He barely just held in the urge to roll his eyes. Baela raised a brow. Jacaerys raised his hands in concession. "Fine. You win."
She looked as pleased as the cat who had gotten the canary. "I always do."
The look he cast her was so warm, so affectionate, it made Cregan tug at his collar again. She was the one who couldn't hold Jacaerys' gaze now, looking up at the sky and rocking back lightly upon her heels. She is nervous, he thought in stunned amusement. Some awareness of it affected Jacaerys too and he cleared his throat, pink blooming in his cheeks. And now he is flustered. Can he only dare so much before turning red as a summer child? They may flirt brazenly before company but anything of this sort, anything concerning the heart, and they turn shy.
"Quite something." The words fell from Cregan's mouth, unbidden.
Baela tipped her head to the side as she regarded him curiously. "I beg your pardon."
"I said it is quite something how you might act so shameless one moment and then so shy the next."
Jacaerys licked his bottom lip. "And how do they do things in the north, my lord?"
"We say what we mean plainly. What — what we want." Yes, the heat had addled his wits.
Jacaerys' mouth parted. He took in a steadying breath as he and Cregan locked eyes. "Baela, wait. Stay." He held out a hand to stop her for she had crept back on silent feet; she halted now, exasperated, mayhap as she looked from Cregan to Jace.
It was to the latter she spoke, her brow faintly furrowed; at odds with the blithe half-smile upon her face. "It is not me—"
"Appearances deceive, do they not?"
They seemed to have an entire conversation just with their eyes. "Let us see, then," she said quietly after a few moments.
Cregan found his throat was dry as he looked from her to him. The prince rubbed the nape of his neck and then finally opened his mouth to speak again.
A sudden shout cut through the air. Every muscle in Cregan went tense. He went for his sword before he knew what he was about, his instincts well honed by past treachery. Not a moment too soon for he looked to the tree-line and saw men ahorse galloping towards their scattered party. They carried no standard, no banner declaring their houses and wore raiment too tattered to belong to nobles besides. Bare steel winked in the sun. He unsheathed Ice once more, readying to spill blood. Bandits.
The river was to his back; he could hear nothing of a second ambush coming from that quarter but he could hear steel unsheathed — Blackfyre — and let himself focus on what was before him. The first man cantered through the scattered southron knights, riding for him. He knew a Stark when he saw one, tossing out a jeer about lost wolves but he did not seem to know Valyrian steel. Cregan acquainted him with it. And the next and the next. The household guards of Dragonstone, High Tide and Winterfell closed ranks about the future monarchs and Warden of the North as much as they could; they killed the outlaws' horses beneath them, if they were not ahorse themselves and crossing blades with them. Sparse were the bandits who made it past them but they were men, only fallible and wielding common steel besides. They could not hold back them all. Behind him, Cregan saw in flashes the prince and the lady. Jacaerys carried the heirloom of the royal family, Blackfyre. Quick work was made of enemies with one Valyrian sword, but two? Fortune smiled upon them. He had sparred with the prince before, Ice against Blackfyre, holding back only for the difference between the larger broadsword and slighter hand-and-a-half longsword, but he could push him on, he could spar as he could not against one with common steel. Steel such as the lady carried. Of course she had steel; of course she knew how to wield it. He expected nothing less. If her lack of Valyrian steel were a hindrance, she made up for it by being fleet of foot; she covered Jacaerys as he did her. Strike, thrust, parry, feint; they worked in tandem. A silent rhythm he couldn't hear but what need had he to hear it when he could see an opening to let by a nigh defeated foe and move on to the next, trusting that said outlaw would find subjugation by either's blade behind him. The brigands were soon overwhelmed; they had not the numbers to best them.
Blood soaked the earth wherever he looked, fallen men and horses strewn across the glade like playthings of the gods. There were no weirwoods here, certes no heart trees, but still Cregan said a prayer under his breath. Too little, too late mayhap. Girding himself, he took quick number of his men. None dead. None amongst the prince or the lady's either. Injures there would be but no deaths. Everyone lives. He let out his breath in a shaky exhalation of relief. Just this once the blood of good men has not been wantonly shed.
"We bring back more than just boar," Cerwyn rasped, his sword levelled at a kneeling outlaw. They were not in the north and so Cregan had no jurisdiction here, but he knew precisely what he would do had he the right of pit and gallows and certes it would not be dragging them back to King's Landing and the Queen's Justice.
As the highest authority present, the Crown Prince had gathered himself and was even now calling out orders, pacing to and fro amongst the men, his voice growing in steadiness with every moment that passed.
Baela, he knew where she was without thinking; he knew as he knew where the sun rose each day. She sat upon the ground by one live, red-faced captive outlaw who was groaning in pain; his ear a ruin, split under her blade, bleeding heavily from a wound on his thigh, also dealt by her blade. He had collapsed to the ground after she kicked at his knee.
She was staring at the prone figure of a man not two paces away, her gaze distant. Was he one who had died beneath her blade?
The living man garbled something under his breath. She barely blinked. He raised his voice and screamed, "You listening to me, you Pentoshi whore?"
Cregan grasped his collar and pulled him up so their faces were near. "Silence that tongue of yours afore you lose it too." Rage burned so strong in him, he felt as if he'd been stabbed through the gut.
From his place among the men, Jacaerys stopped, turning to them at once. "Baela…" A muted despair stole over her face. Why did he hesitate? Even Cregan could see he wanted nothing more than to sweep her up in his embrace and kiss her breath away. She was twining a curl about her finger. A strangely idle motion until he looked closer and saw how she tugged upon the strand every so often, pulling it tightly enough it had to hurt. As if she needed the distraction the pain bought. His chest ached.
He remembered he and Arra. He had known her all his life. But never as a lover, never as an intimate in that way and then, as expected, they were betrothed at four-and-ten. He had wondered how it would go, how they would fit. He so exacting he preferred to saddle his horse himself and she so dithering she could scarcely decide upon what dress to wear of a morning. What if she hated him? What if he could never see her as more than a squint-eyed girl with ink on her fingers? The change came slowly. One day she was perusing the books of Winterfell's library, reading by the window in her particular spot (for the light, she said) when he came bounding in following her brother. Something about the way the wind mussed her hair made him think of how she'd look after they did their duty. Only it would be no duty. When he made her laugh, it gave him a secret thrill. For such a wisp of a girl, her voice was surprisingly throaty, husky. Thus a trickle became a stream which became a rushing river. Desire was no issue. And then when they came of age, they wed. It was no easy thing but he found in all their dissimilarity, they fit. Familiarity and a shared willingness to try bound them where temperament did not.
Cregan dragged the battered outlaw to where his lawless fellows who still lived had been gathered, within a ring of men-at-arms who watched over them; after disposing him unceremoniously in their midst, he went to Jacaerys' side and spoke to him lowly. "Go to her. They are well in hand." That was not enough for the young man who would be king.
"Hang them. Here. Right this moment." Jacaerys turned dark eyes upon the man who had been felled by Baela's blade. "Him last." Fitful cries rose from the captive brigands. Jacaerys minded them as much as a giant would a mouse, his face colourless in his fury. One of Cregan's men gave a low whistle, even Cregan was surprised for a moment and uneasy with it. But the young prince's eyes were clear of bloodlust, hunger. A tension Cregan hadn't fully acknowledged was there eased. The crown would not sit so heavy on his head. Not as it had Aenys the Weak. The young man before him was not weak; he would not let them take what was his without consequence. Should trouble come from the Hightowers and their lackeys, he would rise to meet them with the cold fury of a warrior. He showed these brigands who he was. Showed them the implacable justice of their future king. The justice all wrongdoers would face under his reign. But he was no Maegor the Cruel, no Rogue Prince. He did not relish it.
Jacaerys turned his back to the men, breathing shakily. As Cregan watched him, the rage bleed away and another emotion crept in to take its place. Shame? Surely not. But it was, his shoulders were drooped as if a precursor to a hunch, as if he awaited a blow and his gaze was hollow, inward-turned. Do not dare, the Lord of Winterfell wanted to bellow, one leader to another. And then he heard Jacaerys' mutter and nearly ground his teeth to dust.
"'Tis a boy's rage. A man would not do this. A man would —"
He stepped closer to him, startling him into meeting his gaze. "A man would protect what is his. You but hasten the process. Their lives are still forfeit for what they have done this day."
He kept his eyes upon Cregan's, a long moment stretching onwards. His mouth wavered. At last, he nodded. The stern mask fell upon the prince's face once more. He turned to where their men had set to work constructing nooses. Good. The man who passes the sentence swings the sword. Cregan cast a glance Baela's way; her expression was inscrutable.
And then it was done. The outlaws all dead, hanging from the tree limbs by their necks in gruesome adornment.
Cregan moved before he had the conscious thought, stopping before Lady Baela with a hand outstretched. She looked from his face to his hand and back, as if not sure she believed her own eyes. She tipped her head to the side.
"So you have bent." Not the first words he would expect from a lady after what had just occurred but when had she ever done as expected? So plainly she spoke her thoughts of him — rigid, implacable, dour. She had sensed his former disapproval of her then. He resolved to do better.
"Will you have me standing here all night?" Tomorrow. He would do better tomorrow.
"And be to blame for the ache you get in your neck from looking down at me so?"
"Something tells me you would relish being the cause."
Did men often challenge her? He thought not by the look upon her face. It was a surprising delight to cause her to smile with more genuine levity than he'd ever seen when she was in the court of the Red Keep. "I cannot confirm that."
"Nor do you deny it."
What would doing better entail? he wondered. Setting this strange, alluring, verbal push and pull between them aside? It felt too integral to them to do so. Even in the aftermath of that ambush, with blood stained visages, it was a certainty between them. One he gladly leaned into. It was oddly life affirming. The sun would set in the west, the Wall would stand forever and a day, and he and Baela would snipe at each other 'til death.
She lifted a hand; he saw it tremble. She lowered it hastily, looking away as if she had merely decided to sit there and admire the glimmer of the sun upon the water. Cregan crouched and held out a hand; when she dipped her chin in a nod, he cupped her elbow, then the other, slowly raised her up. She looked surprised at his gentleness; it would have surprised him too but… she was still trembling. His chest ached again.
"It will pass."
"You could at least do me the courtesy of pretending not to have seen." She spoke somewhat wryly. Some of the haunted look had left her eyes. She leaned into his touch slightly. He squeezed her arms gently, grounding as he liked to be touched. Presumptuous to think his future queen did but she said nothing of hating it, and in fact leaned closer. Something warm and feral stirred in him at that. He had thought her presumptuous before this day, a girl who scorned propriety for no reason other than the fact she could, or boredom, if not both. He had been a fool, taken in by her blithe mien, by what he'd seen and heard of her father who many knew was of a similar nature. There were hidden depths to the woman before him, not unlike the sea. He mistrusted the sea, but it did not mean he need mistrust her.
"You have just seen men die before your eyes, their blood upon your blade. Is this the first time you have ever killed a man?" She gave a jerky nod and something in him twisted at that confirmation, as if a god had reached into his insides and unspooled them. "What you are feeling is as natural as the shifting of the seasons."
She looked up at him and he gave her a quizzical look at her expectant silence. "I was waiting for you to say it."
His house words. He felt his traitorous mouth lift up at the corner. As rare as snow in Dorne, Cerwyn liked to say. Cregan wrested his face back into its usual impassive cast. "I cannot say it is coming for winter is already here."
"Spoilsport." She stuck her tongue out at him. Impudent chit. The thought held no small measure of surprising fondness where a week before it would have been purely acerbic. Her sudden turn to mischief ought to have thrown him, as if he were near unseated by a shying horse — or dragon. But he could see the truth of it in her eyes still, hear it in the faint underlay to her voice. She was yet shaken but she would not linger upon the feeling. They are dead and it is time to move forward. In more ways than one, he thought as he guided her further downriver, looking back upon his men. Cerwyn nodded at him; all was as well as it could be.
Jacaerys did not walk in their wake at once, taking a moment to gather himself. He would follow, Cregan was sure of it. He should not make a habit of thinking he could lead the future king like a dog on a leash — men had been killed for less — but someone need take charge here. The lad was spent. It was a kindness. So he told himself. There was no more to it than that.
"As you walk through the vale of death, know that I am with you, though you see me not. Feel my hand upon you, be awash with the knowledge that I guide you. You are my cattle, said He, and I your herder."
An excerpt from the Seven-Pointed Star, the holy book of the Faith of the Seven; Baela intoned the words just as solemnly as he imagined a septon might, with a very faint dryness beneath. Amusement tickled him, despite himself. He cleared his throat. Unsuccessfully, if the arch smile she slanted his way was proof enough.
He heard a rare sound: Jacaerys, solemn and bashful and burning with quiet rage. Almost old before his time. He was laughing. Baela's own laugh was a bare whisper of a thing but wholly genuine. His boisterous laughter soothed the raw parts of her. He was laughing loud enough to wake the dead. Usually such raucous outbursts of mirth made Cregan wince, harsh upon his ears, but this sound was like the first gleam of sunlight after a snowstorm. It soothed the raw parts of him too, all of them connected by the threads of their amusement. Even as he thought that he felt something turn; saw the unease shadow Baela's face, heard the wet catch of Jacaerys' hastily indrawn breath.
He was no longer laughing, but half-crying.
"Jace," she reached out a hand to him, stopping them in their tracks.
She wore a purple so dark, it was almost black. It was easy to miss the blood until one looked at her hands. Jacaerys looked as if he'd resurrect the brigands just to kill them again. The rage in him was no longer quiet. The second sharp switch in Jacaerys' mood would have disconcerted Cregan if it had concerned anything other than the woman who would be his wife, his queen. Jacaerys closed the distance between them swiftly, reaching for her, breath sucking in on a rush of words that she forestalled quietly as their fingers tangled together.
"At ease," she said a Valyrian word he did not know — with her tone it could as easily have been a teasing comrade, or a comforting cousin. "It is not mine."
"This is not how it should be. It should not be you comforting me." His voice was jagged as if it pained him to breathe.
She looked at a loss for words, hurting for herself and for him.
"There are many ways to hurt," Cregan said lowly. "Diminishing your own does no one any good. We are all of us allowed our hurts." Still holding onto Baela's elbow, he reached out with his free hand and clasped Jace's shoulder. He looked up at him with wide eyes, his hard mask utterly shattered; the vulnerability Cregan saw there tugged at something in him.
Gratitude shone in Baela's eyes, then something else as she beheld them both. Something soft and bright and as lovely as slipping out of the northern chill and into the hot springs of his home. Leave it to her to let none of that slip into her voice; it was faintly wry, blithe.
"Ever the voice of reason, Lord Stark."
"Cregan."
"You are bending again."
"You have miscast me."
"Not the first time. But now? It seems so."
That brilliant flare of warmth again as she smiled at him. He felt himself smile back, powerless to stop it. Jacaerys made a noise in his throat — wounded, Cregan thought with a stab of guilt. Then he saw his face as he looked at them both. Both. No, not the sound of a wounded man. It was the sound of a man drowning who had just broken the surface and taken in a great gulp of air. The knowledge threatened to undo him.
"Come." Cregan's voice had dropped low, low and rough and far too obvious as he led them to the water but he saw no recognition in either of their faces. No laughter in her gaze, no quiet smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. Cregan told himself to be relieved, though he felt nothing of the sort. Had he misread them both? Seen in them only what he wanted to see, his own new-found desire reflected back at him? He washed the blood from his hands, his face. Alas he could not wash away that lingering uncertainty. He had walked them to a spot along the river far away enough from their men to signal privacy but not so far that they couldn't be found. At least no one else need witness his tomfoolery.
He stood and stepped back, watchful as she knelt and Jacaerys knelt beside her, his arms surrounding her as she slid her hands into the water. She rested her back against his chest, sinking into him, and Cregan didn't think that soft sound the sigh of the wind through the trees; his eyes were half-closed in bliss as he turned his nose into her curls. Jacaerys brushed a kiss beneath her ear and she wound a hand through his thick hair, holding him to her; taking comfort in him as he did her. He kissed her again, less tentative, more assured. Oh, to be that patch of skin, to know the touch of his lips; to know the feel of her beneath his mouth, the tickle of those bright curls against his face. It only took a slight turn of the head for mouth to meet smiling mouth. A groan as if he had sunk into a featherbed after a hard day's ride, a catch of the breath as they parted and she swept trembling fingers through his hair. She tucked her head into his neck and he held her close, trailing his hand down her spine as if to reassure himself she was real. As Cregan watched them bask in their embrace, jealousy coiled in the pit of his stomach. It chafed even as he couldn't look away. He had no wish to, truly. He was starved for the sight before him, a beggar at a banquet. He wanted to drop to his knees. He wanted to feast. Droplets of water splashed him. A rude awakening, for certes. Baela looked at him steadily with those pretty doe eyes of hers. Jacaerys hid his smirk in her hair.
A lesser man would have lowered his eyes at being caught. Cregan narrowed his gaze at them, hiding his sudden, galling sheepishness behind his ire at the manner of his rousing. He could still feel the ghost of the water on his face.
A lazy smile curled her mouth. "Were you just going to stand there all day?"
"Your poor neck."
"Your poor feet."
Cregan of a month past would have asked if they were planning to trade their royal raiment for fool's motley, disquieted by their sudden (and mutual) turn to japery. Now he knew them to have layers upon layers, resilience and fortitude enough to keep darkness at bay, now he said simply, "Tis my duty."
"We have plenty guards," Jacaerys said. Sit down and stop being such a uptight bore, aye, he thought drolly. Then another possible meaning hit him with the force of a gale. At the same moment, Jacaerys gave breath to those words, "And no need of another, Cregan. But a companion..." He held out a hand to him, a smile playing about his mouth.
"Sit with you." He knew what they meant but he was stubborn and some part of him as contrary as the lady.
"Yes, we could sit," Baela said sweetly, "or we could lie down or —" He mistrusted that twinkle in her eye.
"Do not scare him off," Jacaerys said playfully.
"I think it will take more than the suggestion of frolicking in that stream to do that. Now, I could propose we wrestle. It has been a while since I've done so. And never with you." Her appraisal of Cregan was frank, appreciative; he nearly shivered with the force of his want, the want for her to touch the very places she traced with her eyes. "I confess myself curious to see how I might put you on your back." Jacaerys blushed even as his mouth pursed against a smile.
Not sit with us. Be with us. And all their hidden depths, their changeability and contradictions and all around insanity.
He didn't need telling twice.
The slide of Jacaerys' fingers against his, his faint calluses stirred the hunger within Cregan as he knelt. He passed his hand over Jacaerys' arm, up to his shoulder, then the nape of his neck. Jacaerys' breath punched out of him. Cregan bared his teeth in a smile. "What was that you said about lying down?" Jacaerys swallowed audibly. "I shall pass on the wrestling." He paused for a moment. "It shall not be necessary in order to have me on my back, if that is what you wish." Baela's gaze danced with delight. "You said you would show me your southron dances…"
"Yes… I… yes." He didn't seem to be breathing. "If you truly…"
"Yes." Cregan looked from one to the other. "Show me yours whilst I am here and when you visit the north I shall show you mine."
"A fine covenant." He tipped up his chin. "Let us seal it then."
Cregan didn't hesitate. He pulled him near and pressed their mouths together. Jacaerys bit his lip when he was nervous, it was bleeding a little. Cregan's tongue soothed over the bite, tasting copper. Jacaerys made that gasping sound again, hands clutching at his arms, smoothing over them in his own appreciative appraisal, and Cregan felt as if it were he who was drowning.
He pulled away slowly when the need for air grew too great. Jacaerys still had his eyes shut, mouth parted, an expression of calm bliss upon his face. Baela had her arm across her upraised knees, her chin resting on top, her smile utterly serene.
"Give him a moment," she pretended to whisper to Cregan, "he has been wanting to do that ever since you took to sparring in your undershirt your first week here."
"Baela."
"He has eyes, Jace. I am certain he has seen you watching him." Not as much as he had thought. "You watch him, he watches you — and me." She pulled a face, mayhap in remembrance and mayhap because he watched her now, though for a different reason than he had at the start.
"And who do you watch, Baela?" Cregan tucked a stray curl behind her ear, trailing a finger around the shell and down her cheek.
He felt the soft puff of her exhale against his skin. His touch, his use of her given name, his closeness all surprised her.
"Allow a lady some mystique," she said faintly.
"I am of the opinion you have too much." The tips of their noses brushed together, they were so close.
"Said the raven to the crow."
Ah, so she had been as uncertain of him as he was of them. "I will dance with me if you would have me."
She gave a breathy laugh, the shade of her disbelief melting away like dew in the summer sun; he took her laughter into his mouth, his teeth nipping at her lip. She relaxed into him, burying her fingers in his hair and he pressed in closer as the wind stirred her curls, brushed them across his cheek. He made a low noise in his throat, nuzzling behind her ear before sitting back to catch his breath.
Jace's smile was beatific. "As you said, he watched you too. Once he got to know you, I knew he would like you, and you him."
"Is that true, Stark?" she asked lightly. "Do you like me?"
"I might ask you the same question."
"That's an easy answer: I like me very much." Her smirk was pure mischief.
Jacaerys' laughter was unrepentantly loud as Cregan rolled his eyes.
Gods preserve him, what had he gotten himself into? Insanity. Pure insanity. Would he truly have it any other way?