@arcnes / aryanna + alerie
it had been too long since she had been in the south. it wasn’t nearly as long as she had built it up to be in her mind, of course, but all of her traveling seemed to be running together and the weeks on the road from winterfell to king’s landing had proved to be rather … not awkward, as she rather liked the majority of her soon to be in laws, but there was a trepidation in traveling for the first time away from the family of her birth with the starks.
her stomach had been rolling since they’d passed through the riverlands but it was undeniable that aryanna had been a rather lovely person to travel with. she might have preferred to ride her own horse for some length of the journey, but she would have missed out time with aryanna and the development of what alerie thought was a lovely friendship that had taken root and bloomed quite quickly over the journey.
as the pair strolled through the gardens of the red keep — something alerie was more than excited to do outside of the glass confines of the gardens in winterfell — she gently looped her arm with aryanna’s. the winds whispered through the trees and offered that there was no one around to hear what they might discuss and even though there was likely nothing of major value to be exchanged between the stark and stark-to-be, it was reassuring. they were, after all, in the home of people who had made themselves enemies of house stark.
❛ are you settling in well ? ❜ it’s the kind of question you ask when you want to start a conversation but aren’t sure what else to say. ❛ i imagine the king would not allow the majority of the festivities to begin until the rest of the great houses and a number of their vassals have arrived and with how … empty the castle seems, i feel as though we are early arrivals. i can not imagine your brothers are pleased by that. ❜