#scarsoffire

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire VI

"We have a family dinner," Aurelia says. She tilts her head slightly, which gives him better access, which rather undermines the point she is trying to make.

"We'll make it."

"Daemon—"

"I haven't seen you properly since this morning." He turns her in his arms and she lets herself be turned, and he looks at her in the black silk and the firelight and the deep neckline and wants her with a specific focused intensity that three years of marriage has not diminished even slightly. "Half an hour."

She looks up at him with those dark eyes that have always seen more of him than is comfortable, and opens her mouth to say something sensible, and then he kisses her, and whatever sensible thing she was about to say does not get said.

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire snippet!

"...You were raised to be useful and quiet and good, Alicent, the same as I was, the same as every girl raised in a household that needed her for a marriage and not much else. But you are not merely useful now. You are a queen who has decided to make war on her own stepdaughter in front of half the realm's great houses, and a woman who cannot command a room while doing so will find the room commanding her instead."

"I did not decide to make war on anyone." It came out sharper than Alicent intended, and Lynesse's eyebrow rose a fraction, unimpressed.

"Then you chose an unfortunate dress to wear while not deciding it."

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire snippet!

Lines were being drawn. Rhaenyra had worn black throughout the week's events, the deep Targaryen black that needed no further explanation. Alicent had barely been seen without the defining green that meant war for House Hightower since the welcome feast. And Aurelia, in her own way, had been making the same kind of declaration in gold since the festivities began.

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire V

Rhaenyra watches her for a moment. The ease of her. The way she talks about Morgan and Lucerys like they belong to her life and fit there without effort.

"Were you afraid?" Rhaenyra asks. "Before the wedding."

Laena is quiet for long enough that Rhaenyra looks at her.

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire IV

She thinks of standing in the godswood. Of Rhaenyra's eyes, earnest and direct, her voice righteous with indignation. Your father's informant was mistaken. And Alicent had wanted so badly to believe her that she had.

She had made herself a fool. In front of her father. In front of Viserys. In front of herself.

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire III

She looks at him. At the lines around his eyes that weren't there when they married. At the scar along his jaw from the Stepstones that she has traced with her fingers in the dark more times than she can count.

Be careful, says the part of her that is still Cressida, that spent half a lifetime loving the wrong people at the wrong times and learned that wanting too much was the fastest road to devastation.

You already love him, says the part of her that is Aurelia, that has built something real out of nothing in the most dangerous court in the world. You have for years. Stop pretending otherwise.

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire II

"Marriage?" The word was cold, with almost no inflection, as Aurelia stared blankly back at the Sea Snake. "Let’s see, Laenor is married so you can’t mean to marry him and Rhaenyra, but Lucerys is of an age with my daughters… does Laena know you’re plotting her only child’s marriage without her presence?"

[sweetscarlettangel]

Scars of Fire I

Alicent rolled her eyes at Aurelia, it was unbelievable. Aurelia had been born a princess and from a land not part of the Seven Kingdoms. She was able to prioritize herself and her wishes, her wants and desires over everything else. Unlike her.