Lord Elric.
Brilliant Elric.
Elric the Brave.
Benjen could never find an epithet that fit his father, except the one he once overheard a widow whisper in fear.
Benjen had been almost seven-and-ten then. Old enough to know better. He did know better.
A collection of bruises and broken bones had taught him to turn a blind eye before it turned purple, to bite his tongue, to lower his head.
Playing dead could save you from a grizzly bear, he’d been taught.
It didn’t seem to save him.
Not when he disobeyed his father’s command and fed the woman by the keep’s gate. She’d been trembling, bones sharp beneath her skin, the winter’s cruelty carved into her face. Benjen had always wondered how his father could look away from his own starving people.
When Elric struck him, he called it discipline, necessary evils in shaping a worthy leader.
But what was necessary in starvation?
Why did his people have to suffer while bread rotted in their pantries?
Benjen did something foolish.
Brave. He called it brave. He would like to believe it was brave.
He packed what little he could: bread, meat, cheese, and a bottle of milk. Then he slipped through the gates and hid by the bushes, waiting for the woman. She told him her husband—like so many others—had been lost to the war. She was the first to call him Lord Benjen without making him want to retch. She told him of the world beyond the keep’s walls: a world of hunger, grief, and cold.
A world where his father was not the decorated war hero, but something darker, bloodier, something like—
“The Reaper!” the widow gasped when Elric appeared, eyes hollow with terror, the milk nearly spilling from her hands as she fled.
So you see it too, Benjen thought grimly, just as a boot struck his ribs. He smiled through the pain, knowing at least the woman had escaped with the food. There was a dull sense of victory in that: others could see the monster wearing a lord’s skin.
The blood in his mouth tasted less bitter for it.
By nightfall, Lord Benjen had become Melantha’s son, then—through the screams echoing from outside the maester’s chambers—that disgrace.
Before sundown, he was cast out from his own home, told to “live among the beggars he loved so much.” His mother found him at the locked gates, hands trembling as she cupped his bruised face and whispered apologies for wounds she had never caused.
“Go to Cayn… oh, my sweet boy… forgive me. Forgive me…”
Cayn had been a family friend, for lack of a better word. Once a butcher before the war, later a fisherman.
Always loyal. Always quiet.
He knew an Essosi trick to dull lifelong pain: pigment and copper awls to drive color into the skin. The Dothraki called it spirit-marking. Once the ink set, the pain dulled, or at least, that was the promise. Elric had told Cayn that Benjen was born with brittle bones, some old weakness in the blood. When Cayn was called to trace the half-healed fractures, the copper stung, but at least Benjen’s breath soon came in deep bursts. Painless. Free.
Cayn looked as if he hated himself as much as he hated Elric when Benjen collapsed at his door, half-dead on his feet.
From that day forward, Benjen was no longer Elric’s heir.
No longer Melantha’s son.
No longer the brittle lordling, the cursed warg.
He became only Cayn’s apprentice.
A dockhand.
A nameless boy by the water.
And as Ben, he met Marge, tried drinking himself into an early grave, was betrothed to Lord Sunderland’s daughter, learned to master his warging, and fell in love.
Not necessarily in that order.
Living with Cayn for ten moons had put more meat on his bones than a lifetime spent in a castle. Cayn and his wife, Jez, were a lovely pair. Jez worked as a seamstress and brought letters from Benjen’s mother—small rebellions smuggled under Elric’s nose. Cayn taught Benjen what he would have taught a son: how to handle ships and the men aboard them, a few words of Valyrian, how to tell the foreigners apart, how to cook a proper meal, the bawdiest shanties and the best jokes.
He taught him how to live, not just how to fear.
Benjen helped them in any way he could. He worked, learned to knit even better than Jez, and warged deep into the cold waters to find the cod Cayn liked so much.
And after many moons, he learned that pain had not made him immune to love.
He was knee-deep in the shallows one summer evening, eyes rolled white as he saw through a tiny fish’s gaze. The northern sun lingered, long and merciless, making the nights feel like fever dreams, burning through skin and retinas alike.
Benjen blamed the sun for the mirage of a girl at the edge of his sight. He blamed a goldfish striking the one he was warged into for his loss of balance. He blamed the smooth stone for his fall.
When his head broke the surface and he blinked away salt, pushing hair from his eyes, he saw a face hovering above him, so perfect he thought he must be dead and seeing angels. But when his heart stumbled in his chest, he knew whom to blame:
Marge.
That was how the angel introduced herself. Marge. Such a small name for someone so divine. Benjen thought gods didn’t need many titles to be almighty. She had laughed at his clumsy fall, offered him her hand, and given him a thousand reasons to make her laugh again.
A foreigner, there with her father, a businessman. Marge, just Marge.
He was just Ben. Not to mislead her, but because his title had always fit like a borrowed cloak—too heavy, too grand. It felt good to shed it.
In the moons that followed, their eyes found each other, day after day. So did their hands. First love is a fever, once in a lifetime, all heat and trembling. Ben might have orbited Marge, or she him. It hardly mattered. Perhaps neither yielded, caught instead in a shared and stubborn gravity, a pull so fierce it tore a hole through the universe between them. They fell together into that void, toward the unseen horizon that bound them.
Like every star that lights the night sky, perhaps their love had been doomed from the start. Burning bright enough to guide others home, yet already dead, light from a long-vanished fire.
“Insanity,” Marge called it, when he went from proposing to begging—one knee on the ground becoming two.
Run away with me. Run until we find a place warm enough to melt all our ghosts.
“Betrothed,” was the word she used then. Betrothed to another. Someone unworthy of her. Someone who hadn’t counted every freckle, or memorized the exact shade of her laughter-blue eyes. Someone who didn’t know they turned storm-blue when she cried.
Unable to stop the pull, they held each other, sobbing as if tears alone could defy fate.
I branded you in my sorrow. Be mine for life.
But Marge left anyway, taking his heart with her.
A fortnight later, Elric came storming into town, roaring at Cayn, until he saw the man his heir had become.
Ben had become his son once more. That night, he returned to the Keep. By week’s end, he would warg into a bear and tear the Reaper to pieces for daring to raise a hand to Melantha.
Benjen Mormont was, after all, still Melantha’s son.
“Will the ceremony be held in a sept?” Ursula asked again, tone sharp enough to draw blood.
Benjen made a mental note to tell Cregan to appoint her as his new Master of War. The woman belonged on a battlefield, not at a dinner table.
“If Lady Sunderland so wishes,” he answered—the same answer he’d given to every question that evening. If someone asked whether he’d jump off a cliff, he’d have said it again, and meant it.
Lady Margaery Sunderland. What a long name for someone he had once grouped under a single word: love.
Henrietta had been offering him sympathetic smiles and nods that likely meant he looked as miserable as he felt. Terrance was torn between being curious about a northerner and pretending his plate was the most fascinating thing in the world. Ursula watched him as though she meant to pin him to a board like a rare moth. And Isembard—Gods strike him down—had not stopped talking since they’d sat down. Willow was in King’s Landing, learning sewing from Lady Perianne. Rosey was away with Margaery. Margaery, who had run away a decade ago, and once more now.
Some things never changed.
“I’m sure Lord Benjen is starving, my dear husband,” Henrietta interrupted Isembard’s monologue. Benjen prayed, not for the first time, that Isembard’s heart might combust to make her a widow as rich as the Iron Bank itself.
“Benjen, would you mind saying grace before we eat?” Isembard asked, smiling as he took a generous mouthful of wine.
“I’m fortunately a heathen.”
The wine went spraying from that pompous nose so fast Benjen almost missed the collective gasp from the rest of the family.
“What if Margaery wishes for a sept to pray in?” Ursula demanded.
“So you truly believe we’re alone here?” Terrance added.
“You don’t even know the Warrior’s Prayer?” Henrietta fretted.
Good heavens and the devils below.
“Kidding,” Benjen said quickly, raising his hands in mock surrender. “A jest. It’s a jest.”
A sigh of relief swept the table as they bowed their heads, Isembard still muttering something about “northerners and their odd ways.” Benjen wasn’t religious, not really. But he had always made sure to know the rites of all faiths, just in case there were holy ears willing to listen.
“Oh, Benjen knows a lovely prayer in High Valyrian!” Henrietta supplied brightly. “Marwyn told me so!”
Benjen wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. Instead, he only nodded.
He’d learned that prayer long ago, from his time on the bed of a sailor out of Oldtown whose brother studied to be a maester, a charming man who’d said, ‘If you pray, you should know what you’re asking for.’ And all Benjen had ever asked for was the same thing: Marge. Marge. Marge.
He cleared his throat once, twice, and began.
“Āeksi vāedas, ēdruta jemēna se ynkiro,
(O Crone, veiled in silver and shadow,)
skorī drāzma ēdruta ēdruta ēngoso tubīse,
(whose lamp burns eternal upon the road of night,)
sytilībagon ao ñuhys, ēza syt mirros.
(turn thy gaze upon me, the forsaken.)
Drāzmi ao tubīno ñuhon jorrāelzi belmīs.
(Shine upon the road my love has taken.)
Tubī vāedar rhaenagon belmī se ñuhys,
(The nights are long without them,)
se vestri hāro mirros vēzenka syt hāro hūlī.
(and I wander through their absence as through fog.)
Lo ñuhon belmī rūsita, ao drāzmi lēdys unne tolī ñōti;
(If they are lost, let your light fall upon their eyes;)
lo ñuha iādrāzmar rūsita, ao vestri ñuhon ēdruta ēngoso.
(if I am the one astray, lead me back to where they wait.)
Ao lua ēdruta, skorī iksin syt se skorī ēza ñāqis,
(You who see what was and what shall be,)
ao ēdruta ēngos jemēna vestri ēngoso.
(let your wisdom soften the distance between us.)
Qringtā ao vāedot tubīno,
(Whisper their name upon the wind,)
syt belmīs ñuhys ēza lēdys se ñuhys ēdruta ēdruta.
(so they may remember mine when it touches their ear.)
Pāletā ñuhys, muña sylvie hen vestri ēngoso,
(Show me, wise Mother of the turning path,)
skorī ñuha jorrāelza vāedar hen ynkiro.
(where my beloved drifts amidst the dark.)
Lo ñuha hāro vēzmi belmīs syt ñuhys,
(If their heart yet beats for me,)
ao drāzmi ēdruta ēdruta ēngoso ēza ēdruta belmīs hen ñuhys.
(set your lantern high and lead them home.)
Luā ao ñuhys prūmēn dāeri hen ēngoso trembagon, se mīsō se belmī ēdruta ēngoso ēngoso ēza ēdruta syt ēngos mirros.
(Gather our souls as threads in your trembling hand, and weave them once more into a single fate.)
Lo belmīs hāro ēdruta ēngoso gevives,
(But if their road has turned beyond my reach,)
ao ēza ēdruta ēngoso vestri ēza ēdruta,
(grant me the mercy to see it clear,)
se ao ēza ēdruta ēngoso ēza ēdruta ēngoso tubīno belmī.
(and the strength to walk alone beneath your light.)”
The prayer was received with delight, even in his broken Valyrian learned only through repetition. None of them knew why his hands were white-knuckling the edge of the table.
Can you hear me, Marge?
Can the gods?
Did they bring you back to me?
After Marge left, after his father died, after blood and lordship stained his hands the same shade of red, Benjen lost himself. Quite purposefully, he’d say.
He always prided himself on being the architect of his own destruction.
He had drunk himself into strangers’ beds for moons on end, then drunk himself awake to patrol the woods at night, chased by nightmares. He stopped warging. Stopped going to the beach, the docks. He got himself into so many drunken mishaps that Cayn eventually tattooed him from neck to toe just to dull the ache. He had been so self-destructive that Hugo and Cregan were forced to intervene. He buried guilt and shame in the same shallow grave where they’d laid his father’s coffin, down in the cold crypts.
He had to bury the memory of his first love deeper still.
“Quit wiggling. You look like a salmon,” Cayn huffed, angling the awl to drive the pigment deeper. Most of the tattoos had to be redone every few moons. The color no longer vanished, but the pain returned the moment a circle broke.
“Me and my silver scales, so lucky,” Benjen grumbled, searching for a new excuse to kick Hugo out of his room, since ‘I’m almost naked’ hadn’t stopped him from barging in.
“So it’s Marge Marge?” Hugo asked for what felt like the thousandth time, pacing heavy circles across the floor.
“You’re going to wear a hole in my floor.”
“You’re going to wear a hole in my brain!” Hugo shot back, rubbing his eyes like Benjen might suddenly sprout wings. “Heat stroke. It must be heat stroke.”
“In the middle of winter?” Cayn offered helpfully.
“Quite unhelpful,” Hugo muttered.
“Will you do it?” Cayn prodded, dipping his awl again. “Will you marry her?”
Benjen hissed as the pigment bit into his ribs; the cold months always made them ache worse. “Shouldn’t I?” he muttered, biting the inside of his cheek until the flesh split beneath the ceremonial golden fangs.
There was a meeting with the bannermen before he sailed south, to King’s Landing.
To hell.
“What if she doesn’t want to marry you?” they asked together, like twin parrots.
As if that thought hadn’t haunted him long before he even learned Marge was his betrothed. He focused on the dull rhythm of Cayn’s awl. In, out. Dot. In, out. Dot. The dots became lines, the lines pathways. The ink was dark as ash, the wounds like a new language written in aches. Cayn wiped the blood away with a dry cloth that felt like it could flay him alive, then started again.
“I’ll talk to her,” Benjen said quietly. “I can’t assume she— I’ll find her a way out if she doesn’t want me.”
She’s rejected me once. What’s one more heartbreak?
“What if she stays?” Cayn asked. “What if she’s been waiting, too?”
If she’d been waiting, for whom?
He couldn’t be the boy she’d met. He couldn’t undo the scars or the hands that carved them open. Hugo bent to catch his gaze, eyes sharp, almost pleading. From that angle, he looked younger, like the child he once was.
How many lives had they lived since then? How many skins had they shed just to keep breathing? Could a bone healed wrong ever be mended? Could an old dog recognize an even older scent?
Could Marge forgive him for killing the boy she once loved?
He didn’t need to ask whether he’d give her another chance to break his heart. It had always been hers to do as she pleased.
“I suppose you two could be friends—“ Hugo started.
Benjen stood, pulling on a shirt and hopping into his trousers while Cayn and Hugo watched him as if he’d gone mad. Maybe he had. Who kept track of such things?
“Meeting. Bannermen. Cayn, your hold’s on the table. Hugo, fuck off. Cheers, cheers. I’ll see you both in a few moons.”
He was halfway to the door, heart roaring in his ears, when Cayn called after him:
“Boy, we’re not done! Shit… your knee’s going to hurt like a bitch.”
A concern for future Ben, clearly.
His knee was, in fact, hurting like a bitch.
Every step on the cobblestones sent a hot jolt up his leg, a reminder that time—or perhaps fate—was catching up to him. He had spent a good chunk of the trip wincing, and another pretending he wasn’t, jaw clenched so tightly it left an ache in his temples. When Ethan, one of his men, had suggested he use a cane, Benjen had glared at him so fiercely the poor man nearly dropped it overboard. He’d told him, very kindly, that if Ethan didn’t want the cane to end up somewhere anatomically unpleasant, he’d best stop talking.
Stubbornness had always been a living thing in him, a beast with its own mind. It reared and bit whenever pride was tested, as if yielding to pain was the greater humiliation. But by the second day at sea, with the deck rolling and his knee swelling like a ripe fruit, Benjen had relented.
He took the cane, just around the ship, he told himself. Only there. No one judgmental to see him limp but the gulls and the crew.
King’s Landing was, surprisingly, not as unbearable as he remembered. The stench was dulled by the salt air, and though the streets still twisted like a snake’s spine, there was a pulse to the city that almost felt alive. He had to keep one eye on Edrick, whose curiosity could get him killed, and another on Lyarra, who had the same knack for vanishing into crowds as her brother once had. Marwyn had cornered him the moment he arrived, leeching information and patience in equal measure, and the court itself was a hive of games and whispers.
No worse than he thought it would be.
Then, amidst the noise and the wine and the flickering torchlight of a feast, he saw her.
Marge watched him with that same piercing focus she’d always had—sharp, unyielding, as if she could peel him apart with a single look. For a moment, he forgot the ache in his knee, the noise of the hall, the ache of the past. The world shrank to the space between her gaze and his heartbeat.
And then, against every instinct that had ever guided him through war and winter, Benjen did something he had never done with her.
Not away from duty or battle, but from her eyes, the truth in them, the ache they summoned. He slipped between courtiers and servants, dodging gold and silk and the scent of roasted meat, moving as if courage itself could be found somewhere under the floorboards. It was a ridiculous, graceless retreat, and still he couldn’t stop himself. For once, it wasn’t pride or pain that drove him, it was the sheer, gut-deep terror of seeing what she might still see in him.
The hearth flickered low, casting a warm but wan light over the stones. The air smelled faintly of cedar smoke and citrus, likely whatever cologne Marwyn had bathed in to survive another day of courtly ambushes. Benjen had taken off his cloak, boots, and tolerance for company. He sat in the corner chair with a groan, rubbing the base of his fingers like they might detach and roll away if he didn’t hold them down.
“Victory!” Marwyn announced, holding two dark green bottles like twin trophies. “One bottle of the Arbor’s last harvest, and one of the Velaryon vintages stolen from a Lannister’s table.”
Benjen didn’t even lift his head. “You picked the lock again.”
“You locked me out again.”
“And I brought drinks,” Marwyn said, placing the bottles down like peace offerings. “Expensive ones. You’re welcome.”
He poured, uninvited, into two mismatched cups and handed one to Benjen, who took it only after a long pause and a longer sigh.
Marwyn sipped, wincing slightly. “Okay, so the Arbor’s last harvest is more metaphorical than memorable, but it’ll still get us drunk.”
The wine tasted like heaven, which meant Marwyn was either trying to butter Benjen up or apologize in advance. Possibly both.
Benjen eyed the bottle with suspicion, even as Marwyn poured it with the reverence of a septon handling sacred oil.
“You only bring the good stuff when you want something,” Benjen said, accepting the cup anyway. He took a sip, trying not to groan at how good it was. Damn Marwyn and his taste.
“I bring the good stuff because I care about your health and hydration,” Marwyn said primly, lounging across the edge of a dry fountain like it was a chaise. “And also because you once told me this was your favorite.”
“I said it didn’t taste like piss. That’s not the same thing.”
“Semantics. Now drink up.” When Benjen did, Marwyn grinned slyly. “So…”
“I didn’t say anything yet!”
“You’re going to ask a question I don’t want to answer.”
“I’m just curious! You never talk about Bear Island. Or your family. Or yourself. Or feelings, or hobbies, or what you think about when it’s snowing and you’re alone and sad and—”
Marwyn narrowed his eyes. “You’re the human embodiment of sad. You’re like a wet dog in a thunderstorm. Now drink, and tell me something real.”
Benjen drained his cup and immediately refilled it. “I’m not a fucking bard, Marwyn. I don’t tell stories for coins or pity.”
“You could do it for me,” Marwyn said, flopping onto the bed. “Tell me a secret. Just one. I’ll owe you.”
The wine was strong. Too strong. Benjen stared into the cup, weighing whether it was worth just throwing it in Marwyn’s face. But no… he had brought the good stuff. And Marwyn was, gods help him, trying.
The problem was, Benjen wasn’t. Not today.
Marwyn must’ve sensed the shift in his silence, because he quieted too. Not completely—he started picking at a bit of lint on his sleeve, humming tunelessly—but quieter than usual. Benjen looked through the window at the courtyard wall, at the moss creeping into the cracks like it belonged there, and flexed his fingers without thinking.
Except they didn’t flex. Not really. The motion was half-hearted, the bones stiff, the joints swollen like they always were before it rained.
“They hurt,” he said. Quiet. Like it embarrassed him just to say it aloud. “The cold makes it worse. But it never really stops.”
Marwyn looked over, still and uncharacteristically cautious. “Your hands?”
Benjen nodded. “Joints won’t curl right. Half the time I can’t make a proper fist unless I want to feel the bones scream.”
Benjen stared into the fire, jaw tight. “My father. Lord Elric, the Just and Generous,” he said bitterly. “Used to say pain built discipline. That I was too soft. One winter, I don’t know—I mouthed off, maybe. Or spilled something. Doesn’t matter. He stepped on them. Held my hand to the floor and pressed his boot down until something gave.”
“Don’t.” Benjen gave him a look so flat it could have been used to plane wood. “Don’t make it a tragedy. It’s nothing. Not the worst thing I grew up with.”
Marwyn was quiet again. And then, softly: “It still matters.”
He took another gulp of wine. Chewed the inside of his cheek until the taste of blood drowned out the taste of grapes.
“I can live with it. I have lived with it.”
Marwyn said nothing. Just listened.
Benjen let out a humorless laugh. “But I used to knit. Did you know that?”
Marwyn blinked. “You... knit?”
“I did.” Benjen’s expression softened into something almost mournful. “Sweaters. The big thick kind, with stupidly warm collars. I’d make them for my mother and my sister, so they wouldn’t freeze while I was off trying to prove something. Hats, scarves. Socks with stripes. My mother used to call them my ‘blizzard blankets.’ Said I had a talent for it. Could pick up a pattern in an hour and make something better than the maid who’d been doing it her whole life. I liked it. Still do. But my fingers—”
He tried again to flex them. One cracked audibly.
“Now I get maybe ten minutes before I’m swearing and ready to snap the needles in half. Can’t hold the tension. Can’t do the little stitches. Can’t finish a thing.”
Marwyn was unusually quiet. Then, in a rare moment of sincerity:
“I think you should try again.”
Benjen raised an eyebrow. “Did you not hear the part where I just described arthritis and childhood torture?”
“I did. And I also hear you talk about it like you miss it every godsdamn day.” Marwyn leaned forward. “There’s tools. Tricks. I’ll help. I know people who sew. We’ll make you knitting gauntlets or some weird contraption that looks like a torture device from Volantis. I don’t care. You deserve to have something good. Even if it’s just a dumb scarf with crooked lines.”
Benjen looked at him for a long time. Then—
“I’m charming. And bored. And—” Marwyn held up the bottle, grinning, “—a little drunk. But I’m your friend.”
Benjen sighed. “You’re exhausting.”
“You’ve said that before.”
Marwyn leaned back against the headboard with a grin that was all teeth and sunshine. “You knit sweaters. Gods. You’re halfway to being everyone’s favorite grumpy uncle.”
“Yet here I am. The wine-bearing, secret-coaxing migraine of your dreams.”
Benjen didn’t respond. But after a long silence, he muttered:
“Thick yarn. Cream-colored. Soft as clouds.”
“That’s the kind I liked best.”
Marwyn smiled. “Then I’ll find it.”
Ring splints, a bowl of dried lentils, a jar of warm water, fingerless mittens—Marwyn had definitely stolen them and shredded them with a dull blade.
Hope. Oh, stubborn hope.
Benjen had it in abundance, it seemed.
His right hand was clumsy, clumsier still with iron keeping his fingers from bending. He could barely count the number of times a needle slipped from his grasp and rolled under the desk.
He had never been good at knowing when to stop. He used to swim until his vision blackened at the edges, drink until his stomach refused to hold anything, stay awake until collapse claimed him. Better to discover his limits before someone else did.
A twist of both needles braided the yarn into something that resembled a row of stitches. Not nearly perfect, but familiar. Blessed be Marwyn and all seamstresses of the Red Keep.
He didn’t even attempt to wipe the smile from his face when the door swung open.
His eyes widened as Margaery appeared instead, clutching his pitiful scarf. She was a ghost in everything but name.
“You! I need to speak with you…” she began. Benjen considered leaping from the window, which would undoubtedly sound heroic if they weren’t at least ten floors above the ground. “Y-you, you who walk around like I am the great villain of our story. Well, Lord Ben, let me tell you something! You are as much at fault as I am for what happened to us… I may have lied, but so did you.”
Benjen had never been needy, not for affection, not for attention. He kept his hands to himself and did what was expected. But what Margaery had done to him, what he had tasted and touched… it had made him feel like he could break from the sheer cold of distance.
To him, she had been the instigator of over-familiarity, making him read meaning into kisses on the forehead, into lying in bed together, brushing teeth side by side in the mirror.
She had been the one who made him feel he could worm his way into permanence. She had made him believe they could grow into something infinitely more.
His legs betrayed him, carrying him closer, needles and yarn tumbling with his heart across the floor. He remembered the feeling of hanging by hope alone, praying to emerge from the void with even the smallest measure of love.
And was there anything more undoing than memory?
“We are now tied together, for life. And I will not continue to act a fool and be part of this little silent game we have been playing! I..." Margaery spat the words, and Benjen’s feet came to a stop on the stone floor.
He was ready to offer her a way out: an annulment, an agreement, anything to prevent their paths from crossing again. Even after all these years, he would gladly fall to his knees if his standing could be the reason for her departure.
Poets were right: there is no room for dignity where desperation lives.
“You…” Benjen cleared his throat. What does one say to the person he has loved for a decade? “You… you look as beautiful as you did the day I lost you.” A beat. “You are aware you do not have to wed me if you choose not to, yes? I will gladly talk to that fuc— Isembard. I’ll gladly talk to him.”
Blue eyes like the sea before a storm.
“I never said that I wanted to break our betrothal. You’ve been ignoring me, that is all I said.” She laughed bitterly. “And are you even aware of what would happen to me if we were to break our betrothal now?”
“Same thing that will happen if anyone sees you unaccompanied in my chambers,” one step forward, then another.
Marge had always reminded him of those tales of mermaids, sirens and sea witches. Beautifully haunting, ready to drag him down where the air turned to salt, to devour him down to the marrow. He would go willingly, it stubbornly seemed. He carefully raised both hands, like when he was a boy coaxing scared pups out of hiding.
His fingers splayed over the wood and tugged slowly, as if shutting them abruptly could make her vanish into thin air.
“No chaperone. Really, Marge?” he teased, the amusement a fragile mask.
“We don’t need a chaperone.” She spoke coolly, face scolded. “I’ve been unmarried for far longer than I should be, according to the court. I’ve been ‘almost betrothed’ far too many times to be considered proper or decent.”
The pause after proper cut deep.
“The court is made up of fools who can shove their notions where the sun won’t shine,” Benjen spat, taking a deep breath, fingers pressing against the wood. Who was stupid enough to give up an engagement with Margaery? He ought to find out their names and—
“I’m now finally betrothed to a Lord, and if I were to be discarded, yet again… well,” she swallowed, “I’d be ruined, Ben. Far more ruined than if someone caught me in here with no chaperone.”
“Discarded?” Both his eyebrows shot toward his hairline. A perfect evening to draw a blade and reopen old scars. “I would never do such a thing. And who the hell were the others? Are they speaking ill of you? Gods, I will—”
Another deep breath, another wave of pain he forced down, burying it as he always did.
“I will not break our engagement if the idea of marrying me doesn’t repulse you,” he said, though it wasn’t what he wanted to say. How else could he convey the relief at the absence of hate? Rage was better, it meant there was still something worth caring for.
“Please… take a seat,” Benjen said, needing space. A distance to keep them from clashing, from him kissing her and becoming a believer for the first time in years.
The old gods had to be real, they had given him the one person he dared to ask for.
“I’m not a terrible host. Though I have no tea, only liquor,” he added, forcing a laugh that came out hollow. “If you want to talk, then let’s talk. Come on, Lady Sunderland.”
“I don’t need anything to drink.” She took a seat, slowly, watching him the whole time, “Ben, please, it’s fine- it’s alright. This is not even what I came here to talk of.”
“Some insufferable lordlings dragging my wife’s name through the mud is hardly nothing,” Ben scoffed, rings knocking on wood as if to banish the scorn. Childish habits to deal with childish feelings.
Not feeling the weight of her eyes on him, he tracked her gaze back down. Oh, the yarn. Right.
“Let me just…” he muttered, leaning over to grab the scarf-to-be while kicking the needles away.
What proved to be the worst decision ever made by someone who got shot by arrows twice on the same knee.
Well, it seemed he had always been destined to kneel by his goddess.
Hugo always called him a heathen. Well, suck it up, Cerwyn.
“What if the idea of marrying me repulses you, Lord Mormont?“ Margaery murmured under her breath.
“Sorry, I’m—“ her question made him look up. Her eyes had always been deep enough to rival the sea, now he could only describe it as a muted gray. “Margaery Sunderland, you could not repulse me in any way. You could quite literally spit on my face and I’d think you look lovely.”
It felt foreign to call her a name over two syllables. To dare naming feelings so long buried. Odder still to pretend they did not exist.
She had known about his nightmares, and the broken bones in his right hand, about the knitting and the furrow in his eyebrows when he was doing his best not to cry.
She had known everything and yet nothing.
“Are you sure you want to marry a liar, love?” Benjen murmured back. She admitted her faults, it was only polite to assume she wouldn’t hate him more for admitting his own.
“Ben… you don’t know me anymore. I don’t know you… I may look lovely, but…” It came out a whisper. A deep breath in. “We’ll be liars together, then, I suppose.”
“Don’t I know you?” Benjen scoffed, stubborn as ever. It was almost a relief, that northern hearts never softened; their roots ran too deep in frozen ground. He had been born with rage, and he’d die with it pressed heavy against his chest. He’d be buried beneath the same soil that raised him, still remembering the way Marge’s lashes brushed her cheeks, the low hum of her voice as she braided her hair.
He’d spend the rest of his days trying to forget the way back to her.
A touch to his hand made his eyes snap up. She looked at the yarn, yet again, then back at him. “Oh Ben… You’re still in pain.”
He gripped the back of the chair and pulled himself upright. No rest for the wicked, not today.
“Yeah, yeah.” He dropped back into the seat, tossing the yarn onto the desk like it no longer mattered. She’d already seen too much, what was the point of hiding now? “I’ve been in pain my whole life; it’d be rude if it just up and left.”
“I’m jealous, you know,” he said with a hollow laugh. “You’ve changed so much, and I’m still me.”
“I have changed, but there’s nothing to be jealous of here. Nothing. I’ve only become worse.”
Worse? Did she think he had become any better? He never lied to himself, pretending he was good. He tried, by the gods he tried, it seemed to be something out of his reach.
How could he comfort her as he was now without scaring her away?
“The point is,” he went on, voice roughening, “I knew you once, and you knew me. What do you expect now? A friend of mine said we ought to be friends again, but the very thought makes my skin crawl.” He clicked his tongue, the sound small but sharp. Every choice before him felt cruel, like drowning fish in the shallows. “The North’s cold enough without us pretending not to see each other. So do me a favor and help me out, or may a lightning bolt strike me down where I sit.”
Marge stood up abruptly, chair creaking loudly in the silent room. Stepping toward where he sat, she spoke again.
“Help you out? And how am I supposed to do that… what do you want me to do? Tell me, tell me! Don’t just ignore me, don’t just be mad at me…” her voice held so much despair, it made his breath hitch.
They hadn’t been breathing the same air for an hour before he’d already upset her. Lovely. Did the Red Keep need a new jester?
The small space between them felt suffocating.
Ten years ago, Benjen would have known the answer to every one of her questions. He would have soothed the frown creeping across her face, tracing her warm skin with a thumb. He would have held her right where he sat, forehead pressed to her ribcage, listening to the steady beat of her heart.
Ten years ago, they wouldn’t have lingered in this misery.
“Marge, Marge…” His hands, betraying any semblance of reason or the lessons tutors had tried to drill into him, wrapped around her waist, thumbs brushing her sides. “It’s fine. We’ll be fine… I could never be mad at you. Hear me?”
I love you too much for that.
“I apologize for running away from you,” he said, forcing a smile as he looked up at her face. Still Marge. Still… “brave. You’re still so brave. So please, be brave for me. Tell me, what kind of husband would you want? I don’t know what to expect, but I will do my best to become who you want me to be.”
She shook her head, breath shuddering, eyes closed. Your pain fits right on the palm of my rotten hands.
“It was not you who ran. It was me. We were young, we lied, I left.”
She paused, opening her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’ll never not be. I… I don’t want you to be someone else. That’s the last thing I want.”
When her hands touched his shoulders, Benjen almost forgot how to breathe. The warmth of her palms burned through the wool of his cloak, reaching bone, memory, soul. For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t dare to.
“You’re still so kind, so gentle, so caring,” she said softly.
He’d spent years wondering, hating himself for all the ways he might have failed her. And now she was apologizing? He wanted to laugh, to curse, to pull her close and shake her for saying sorry when she had no reason to be.
“I am sorry too,” Benjen whispered. It was easy to admire her once she wasn’t staring back. Easier still to trace her features, a familiar roadmap he could draw from memory alone. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t kind. Not anymore. That the years had carved him into something rougher, lonelier. That there were nights he’d forgotten how to pray, but never forgotten her.
“You didn’t have to apologize. Not then. Not now.” He swallowed, the ache in his throat almost unbearable. “I’d have waited another ten years if it meant hearing that from you.”
Carefully he reached up, slow as breath, covering one of her hands with his. His thumb brushed her knuckles, and he whispered, rough and quiet,
“I am not kind, nor gentle, or caring. I am spiteful, cruel, I have done every terrible thing that have reached your ears and I fear I don’t regret half of it. I…”
“Well, then. I’m not kind, either, I am rude and overbearing. I’m pushy and angry, and I spend more time alone than I wish I did.”
When Marge tightened her grip on his hand, he felt his pulse jump beneath her fingers. She was real again—warm, trembling, there. He almost smiled when she called herself rude and overbearing, because to him, she was still the gentlest thing that had ever entered his life.
Wretched mirrors they were. Another deep breath.
“I want to get to know you once again. If you allow me to.”
A beat passed, her hands tightened, digging on his shoulders.
“I never wanted to leave you. It killed me to, but I had to. I couldn’t let my sisters be alone with my father, I just couldn’t…” Margaery took her hands off his shoulders then, slowly bringing them to his face. As her palms rose, he forgot how to stand still. The touch made his chest ache, her fingers traced the lines time had carved into him, and he let her, afraid to break the spell.
Gods, he hadn’t known. He’d built stories in his mind for years: ones where she’d stopped loving him, or found someone better, or simply grown tired of a boy who had nothing to offer but his dreams. But not this. Never this.
Something inside him twisted. Guilt, yes, but deeper than that; a grief for the girl she’d been, carrying burdens no one should have had to. He wanted to tell her he would have gone with her, that he would have faced her father, her whole damned world, if only she had asked. But that was foolish now. They were no longer those reckless, desperate children.
He was still going to have a lovely talk with Isembard when they returned home.
Benjen leaned slightly into her hands, eyes closing for half a heartbeat. When he opened them, there was a faint, unsteady smile on his lips.
“I’ll allow it, if you allow me to know you,” she conceded.
“You already know me,” he murmured. “More than anyone ever will. But if you want to know the rest of me… then stay. And I’ll tell you everything.”
Brown eyes met blue without rage.
Stay. Stay for all my days.
“Yes… yes I’ll stay, I—“ Marge started, smile threatening to tug on her mouth.
Just then, a familiar, aggravating knock resonated on the oak door.
“Benji? Benjenmin? Oh dear patron Saint of booze… let me in! Did you lock the door? Oh, that’s just rude! Bad Benji,” came Marwyn’s voice. Benjen could picture his face pressed against the door.
He could also picture himself hanging Marwyn from the west tower and letting him learn why the gods didn’t give men wings.
“Go to hell, Marwyn,” Benjen huffed, mouthing to Marge we are so fucked, very eloquently. His mother would certainly be proud.
“Marwyn? Corbray?” Marge asked amusedly.
“Corbray, yes. Unfortunately,” Benjen grunted, his voice half-buried as he pressed his face to her dress before remembering too late that he had no right to be this close. Still, could it truly be wrong when it came as naturally as breathing? Who could be blamed for crossing lines that had long since blurred?
She rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Well, we should let him in, he sounds desperate.”
“Marwyn is always desperate, love,” he muttered, reluctant to move. “He’ll start picking the lock in five minutes, give or take.”
Letting Marwyn in wasn’t the issue; the man could keep a secret better than most lords in King’s Landing. No, the problem was—
“Ohhh, are you with a lady~? Benji, you dog!”
Before the fool could rouse the entire hall with his wolf-whistling, Benjen shot to his feet, already mourning the warmth he’d just recovered.
Benjen was going to kill Marwyn. Slowly. Painfully. Preferably with the sharpest blade in the Seven Kingdoms. Would the Prince Consort let him borrow Dark Sister for the occasion? Gods, he hoped so.
After a miserable stretch of back-and-forth in which Marwyn found it hilarious to declare that their names could merge into “MargiBenji” if said quickly enough, the little shit had taken up position as a self-appointed chaperone, sitting right between them.
“Did he tell you about the time he was banned from Riverrun for three weeks?” Marwyn asked brightly, grinning like a man possessed.
Benjen’s boot found his shin before the sentence even ended.
“Ow! Your boots are heavy! Well, not Riverrun then—aha! Did Benji tell you he has a tattoo now? I was there when he got it—ouch, Benji!”
“My foot slipped,” Benjen said blandly, raising his hands in mock innocence.
Marwyn clutched his leg with theatrical agony, eyes wide in mock betrayal.
Benjen shrugged. “Slippery floor.”
“Lovely to see you, Marwyn. I had no idea you were here in Kings Landing with us.” Marge chuckled, cutting through Marwyn’s accelerated need for gossip. She interjected their arguing and Ben’s kicking by blocking his foot with her smaller one. He, bravely, held back the impulse of giving it a kiss. “A tattoo? And where would that be located?”
Benjen was not a jealous man. Usually.
Hugo—always so bloody insightful—liked to say that was only because Benjen had never truly cared for anyone he’d been with. If they stayed, fine. If they left, even better. Good riddance. The cutting of weeds so the trees could bloom, or however Hugo had so wisely put it.
But he should have known Margaery would be the exception.
How did she know Marwyn? Why did she know Marwyn?
Benjen’s glare fixed on the pair of them, her laughing at something idiotic Marwyn had said, and him soaking in the attention like a cat in sunlight. If looks could kill, Marwyn would be ash on the carpet.
Margaery asked something, he wasn’t sure what. His mind was too busy plotting slow, inventive murder.
He blinked, forced his attention back to her, and bit the inside of his cheek.
“Hm? Tattoo, right, it’s on my back. It’s—”
“Don’t!” Marwyn shrieked, throwing up his hands like a maiden guarding her virtue, only to yelp when Benjen pushed him on reflex. “Ow! Rude! You cannot tell her that, Benji! Or there’ll be no surprises for your wedding night!”
Benjen exhaled through his nose, counting to three then deciding hiding a body was faster.
“I’m going to die,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “Right after I kill him.”
“Ben!? You two are very ridiculous.” She said, stating it as a fact and not a mere jest. “How is it that you two even know each other?” She looked to Marwyn next. “Perhaps it seems we need a new chaperone. So sorry, cousin.”
“Cousins?” Benjen echoed just as Marwyn declared, all too cheerfully, “Winterfell!”
Ah, yes. Henrietta. Poor Henrietta, who’d married Isembard. Cousins was dangerously close to siblings, if one thought about it. Lovely.
No romance, no scandal, no Targaryen inclinations. Absolutely lovely.
“Benji here was in cahoots with a widow when I found out—”
Another swift kick to Marwyn’s knee.
“We don’t need chaperones, Marge. You were absolutely correct,” Benjen said smoothly, catching Marwyn by the coat and guiding him backward toward the door. “It was wonderful of Marwyn to stop by. Very sweet. He should be banished to the Wall.”
“I’ll tell you everything later!” Marwyn sang as he was unceremoniously pushed out.
“Bye, cousin.” She waved, smile unaffected.
The door clicked shut with a soft thud, and silence fell. Benjen let out a breath to empty his lungs, his forehead resting against the wood. Ten years, and he still felt like a boy whenever she was near.
He turned slightly, daring a glance. She stood where he’d left her, the faintest amusement playing at the corner of her lips, the kind that always made his heart trip over itself.
“I can hear your thoughts from here,” he murmured, a small, nervous laugh escaping him. “You’re judging me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, come now,” he said, voice softer now, the playfulness threaded with something truer. “Don’t believe me? For your information, mind reading’s my best party trick, ma’am.”
She took a step forward towards him then, never backing down from a challenge. “Okay then, Ben, what am I thinking now?” Her eyebrows furred, eyes squinting, daring him. Their eyes met, staring at each other, close once again. “Hmm? Can you hear what’s going on in my mind?”
It was easy to fall into step with her again. Too easy. As if no years had passed, as if they’d been together yesterday and every day since.
His hand rose before he could stop it, brushing her hair gently behind her ear, tilting her chin upward. He’d lost himself in those eyes too many times to count, and gods, this might have been the hardest part: remembering how it felt to look at her and not reach for more.
He leaned down anyway, squinting a little to match her gaze.
“Let’s see, let’s see…” he murmured, eyes fluttering shut in mock concentration, though it was really just to steady his heart. They hadn’t been this close in years, and if they were truly trying to take it slow, this was absolutely the wrong thing to be doing.
“Hmm… you’re thinking we should take a walk through King’s Landing and glare at anyone who frowns at our lack of chaperones? How scandalous, Marge!” His lips curved. “Please don’t suggest Marwyn again… let me check.”
He squeezed his eyes tighter, pretending to focus, his grin growing by the second. “No Marwyn in here—just a very, very dangerous mind. How interesting.”
Oh, they were absolutely doomed.
“My mind is dangerous. It makes people run from me.” She pursed her lips, face heating up. I’m not going anywhere. “And, no, you’ve got it all wrong, that’s not what I was thinking! It looks like you can’t read minds, but let me see if I can…”
Benjen froze for half a heartbeat when her fingers curled around his collar. The contact sent a quiet jolt through him. Her hand was smaller than he remembered, but the touch was the same: deliberate, even when it pretended not to be.
A laugh slipped from him before he could stop it. Gods, she hadn’t changed. That same wit, that same spark in her eyes. He tilted his head, enough that their foreheads brushed, his voice low but warm with amusement.
“Hmm, you’re thinking that I need a step stool to talk to you, aren’t you?”
“Wrong too. We’re both terrible mind readers,” he murmured. “I was thinking that if you pull me any closer, I’ll forget every reason we ever had to take this slow.”
“Oh…” She laughed, but didn’t move. Close. Too close. “I was far off, then.”
His gaze flicked down to where her hand still clutched his collar, fingers fisted in the fabric like she might not quite trust herself to let go. He didn’t trust himself, either. He wanted to laugh it off, make another joke, but his voice came out softer instead, more careful than he meant it to.
“Far off,” he echoed, smiling despite the pulse still thudding in his throat. “Only by a lifetime.”
He stayed there for a moment longer, close enough to feel the uneven rhythm of her breath against his own, before he finally smiled again, trying, failing, to reclaim their old rhythm of lightness.
“And for the record,” he added, eyes glinting, “if you ever do want a step stool, I can build you one. But I’d rather you keep pulling me down like that.”
He remembered the way he used to lift her, back in the days when the world felt simpler. His arm would slide around her waist, her feet kicking at the air until they found balance. Her legs would wrap around his hips, his hands steady at the back of her thighs.
He remembered the weight of her, the warmth of her breath against his neck, the sound of her laugh so close it drowned everything else out.
“I suppose I won’t be needing you to build me a step stool then.” Marge smiled. She let go of his collar, smoothing back the fabric where she had wrinkled it. “But I would like to see the other things you’re making. I interrupted you knitting earlier, didn’t I?”
He followed her gaze toward the table, where the half-finished skein of yarn still rested beside his chair, the needles caught mid-stitch like they’d been waiting for permission to move again. The memory made him huff a laugh. “Aye, you did interrupt me. Nearly scared the life out of me, too. I dropped three stitches when you burst through that door.”
“Oops,” was all regret she showed, grinning as she fell into step behind him.
He moved by her side, brushing his fingers along the edge of the table as if to gather his thoughts. The wool was soft beneath his calloused hands, an odd thing for them to hold, after years of steel and cold. “It’s just a scarf,” he admitted. “Nothing worth showing off. I started it last night. Marwyn has been bugging me about finding joy, and you know my right hand is a bit odd since—”
Since my father broke it in pieces.
“Would you like to see?” he asked, voice quieter now, almost careful. “It’s not impressive, but… I’d like to show you. You used to say you liked when I tried to make things with my hands.”
“Wow…” Margaery reached out and touched the scarf he held. “That’s incredible, Ben.”
His lips twitched again, faint amusement curling through his voice as he raised his hand to show off the ring splints. “Still, I’ve gotten better since last night. Haven’t stabbed myself in hours because of these little things.”
“Truly, truly remarkable.” Her fingers ran over the ring splints, gently. “You can do what you love to do.” She whispered then, voice dropping to a grumble that usually accompanied tears. She stopped running her fingers over the mental, simply holding his hand. “It’s going to be beautiful when it’s done.”
His throat tightened. He’d carried so much guilt over the times he couldn’t—over the pain, over the frustration, over the long stretches where he hadn’t been able to hold a needle without wincing. And yet here she was, soft and steady, as if she could stitch the broken parts of him with her hands alone.
Maybe she could. Maybe she had.
“It’s… it’s nothing, just a way to kill time, I—“ he cleared his throat, fingers lacing with hers by instinct. They had always fit like puzzles, it was almost harmful to think nothing could change their rhythm.
Marge repeated herself once more, soft eyes pinning him into place, “It’s going to be beautiful.”
“It can be yours,” Benjen blurted out, hand tightening around hers for a moment too long. “When it’s done, if it’s not hideous, the scarf can be yours.”
She would need it to visit the Bear Islands.
She would need it when they went back home.
“If you want it to be.” If you want me to be.
Slowly—oh, so slowly—she leaned forward again, pressing her forehead to his.
Read my mind. Know how I feel.
“I’d be honored to accept it, and I shall make you something too. It will be a surprise.”
His eyes closed without thinking, savoring the moment, the soft brush of her skin against his. Benjen couldn’t remember anyone else that could make his chest ache simply by being close.
Well, that was unfair to his past lovers. Poor substitutes to the grief of not having Marge next to him.
“I…” he started, voice low, “I’d like that. I’d… be honored.”
“Our first gifts to one another, after all this time apart… it shall be special.” She beamed.
For the first time in a long while, he let himself believe it—believe in the quiet magic of being near her again, in the promise of something new after all the years apart.
“I wasn’t joking earlier,” he said softly. “We should sneak out of the palace. Just for old times’ sake. I’ll hide you in my coat, even.”
“Hmm…” she hummed, grin betraying her answer. “I think I would like that. I have not yet explored the city, nor have I explored the inside of your coat.”
She pulled her head away to face him, but mercifully did not let go of his hand. “Let’s leave right now!”
