Baelor Targaryenn's dreams are haunted by a northern maiden. Thea Stark wanted nothing other than Winterfell, until him..
At night, sleep became a struggling thing. All those pyres, all the dead boys, they would claw at him until he dreamt again, of that shadowy place and the woman who lived within it. That fair northern maid.
“I don’t like the tapestry.” She whispered out, a hand jutted into her hip. He studied her face intently, so that he might recognize it again. Soft features, round eyes, dimpled chin. Thick coily curls that seemed to repell any efforts of containment. Cheeks that were always pink and rosy. Full of life. “My prince, are you present in this plane of existence?”
“Unfortunately so.” He said, dumbfounded. “The tapestry?”
It was an ugly thing to be true, disguised by the shadows, of a dragon burning down a village. He recognized it as the one leading up to his quarters above the Tower of the Hand.
“It doesn’t send a very good message to your people. Anger the dragon and we’ll burn your children alive.” She assessed astutely. “I realize it was a gift from Tyrosh, but I feel that— mayhaps it should be replaced by the one with the bountiful field and the— you don’t ever listen to me, do you?”
She wasn’t angry, but laughing, and she brought her cold hands to his cheeks, pulling him further into the dream.
“Winter shall be coming for you if you do not answer me promptly.” She teased him. “A long, cold one, that stretches beyond imagination, with an empty bed.”
“Please no.” He managed out. That sounded like his life as it was now.
“Well, we shall move the tapestry, yes?” She smiled again, rosy cheeks flaring. “Because unfortunately I was not born with male parts, and a woman has little else to do in her life than decide which tapestry goes where.”
“Where can I find you?” He asked, out of the blue, his brow knitting together. She laughed then, a light airy sound, and flitted back to him.
“Right in front of you?” She tested his sanity with a second glance.
“Where did we meet, for the very first time?” He corrected, she looked puzzled, yet drifted closer to him, hands working at his doublet.
“We met where winter falls, in my family hold, under the very intense gaze of my dearest father.” She lilted. “How can I snap you out of this?”
She leant her lips up, and instinctively he leant down to claim them, but before he could, she drifted away, and he awoke alone in his bed, cold and hollow.
"I wanted to talk about your about Ashford.” Maekar winced, steeling his resolve with another sip. “This is difficult for me brother, for as you know I so hate talking about my feelings, but… I wanted you to know that… that if I had… killed you. I would never have smiled again, nor yet have taken any joy in anything. That it would have rendered me as a wight amongst the living, because you are my…”
Baelor was surprised. His brother, waxing poetic?
“You know those stones they mark roads with?” Maekar struggled for his words. “Guiding stones I think they’re called. Three more till Ashemark, five till Casterly, well, you’re my guiding stone brother. Always have been. Without those stupid stones we’d all just wander aimlessly, with no idea how far left we’ve to walk, or where we’re even going, or why, or what even the point of a road is.”
“This is very touching.” Baelor studied his brother intently.
“Yes, well, I’ve had a bit to drink. The only thing that keeps me warm here is mead.” He winced, drinking more of his cup. “And I’m glad, to think you might have some happiness, the nauseatingly pretentious rock that you are.”
“But what guides the guiding stone?” Baelor winced, sipping his own cup. It seemed to him, a miserly and lonely job, to be a guiding stone.
“A pretty northern maid?” Maekar winced. “Or perhaps it needs not guiding at all, perhaps it always just knows what to do, where it always ought to be as it’s so annoyingly perfect, immovable as if the gods themselves burnished him gold just to torture.”
“Just when I was starting to believe you liked me, brother.” Baelor’s eyes caught, and his brother held his gaze.
“I need not always like you, to love you.” Maekar was drunk indeed. “Well, I think I’ve inflated your head well enough for one day—”
“Must you always have such terrifying effects on my head.” Baelor laughed, running a hand down the back of his skull. Maekar laughed out a bark. “Pray do tell, brother, what is a guiding stone, with no brother to walk the road with?”
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