#shippy february

[arielseaworth]

Argella Orys 16 thank you!

For the prompt: Argella Durrandon/Orys Baratheon, the opposite of love.

The opposite of love is not hate.

How often had she heard that very sentiment proclaimed and pronounced as if it were the very soul of unquestionable wit and wisdom? It was sometimes accompanied by a patronizing display of concern towards those who were deemed naïve enough to believe that the opposite of love was indeed hate.

Why should it not be hate, in her case? Why could it not be hate? How could it not be hate, towards the man who had slain her father? Who had robbed her of her birthright? Who – and this was perhaps his most unforgivable sin of all – had turned her into a stranger to herself?

“She sups on hate, that one,” Visenya had warned Orys, about the woman he had wed. Argella had overheard the warning, which was not given discreetly in any case, for she was meant to hear it, meant to take heed of its content. Well, she refused! She refused to heed the warning. They could take her castle, her lands and her people, even her hand in marriage, but they could not take her freedom to feel as she wished, to hate as she wished.

The opposite of love is indifference. The opposite of love is apathy.

Lies, all lies! What she felt for the man she had wed was far from indifference, far from apathy. The opposite of love was a burning rage, as far as Argella was concerned. The opposite of love was a frozen heart that saw no sign of thawing, even with all that rage setting it aflame day after day.

The opposite of love is betrayal.

Betrayal could only happen if there was loyalty invested in the relationship to begin with. You could only betray what you were once loyal to; that was the prerequisite. Without previous loyalty, there could be no betrayal worth speaking of. Love, on the other hand, was not one of the preconditions for betrayal.

The opposite of love is pity.

How would you differentiate between pity and sympathy? One was laced with derision, the other with compassion. Yet, it was not always so easy to draw a solid line between the two, to notice that perhaps the former sentiment had shifted to the latter, despite her best effort to rejoice at the loss of his sword hand, and the resulting loss of his sense of self. He, too, became a stranger to himself. He, too, was haunted by the unknown figure in the looking glass.

The opposite of love is grief.

But how could you grieve, if you did not love, if you had never loved? No, not this man, certainly. And not this life, this life they had made together.

It should have been him. He should have been the one left behind, to resolve all these warring contradictions. That should have been his final punishment. He had escaped too lightly, once again. Even in death, he still had the capacity to enrage her.

[arielseaworth]

For shippy February, can you do Egg/Betha #13?

For the prompt: Aegon V Targaryen/Betha Blackwood, a story.

“Her name is Tanselle,” said Egg. “We looked for her in Dorne, but we couldn’t find her. We must have seen a hundred puppet shows. She’s a puppeteer. And a painter. She paints her puppets, I mean. And she painted Ser Duncan’s shield too.”

“A hundred puppet shows? You must have wanted to find her very much indeed. For what reason?”

Egg pursed his lips. “Because Ser Duncan likes her, I suppose.”

Betha stared at him, unblinking. “Is that so odd, for a man to like a woman?”

“He only knew her for a short while,” said Egg. “How could she be his true love?”

“His true love? What about this Red Widow you were telling me before? Isn’t she his true love? How many true loves does he have, your Ser Duncan?”

“My Ser Duncan? You’re the one who’s so impressed with him. Oh, you’re so tall, gallant ser. I have never met a knight so gallant and tall in my life.”

“I never said anything of the sort!”

“Oh yes you did! You were so busy praising him, you didn’t even notice he had a squire with him.”

Betha smiled a knowing smile. “Oh, that’s what this is. Ser Duncan’s rude squire is still nursing his hurt feelings about being overlooked.”

Egg sputtered, “Hurt … hurt … feelings? What hurt feelings? And I wasn’t the one being rude.”

“You were constantly interrupting my conversation with Ser Duncan. What else would you call that if not rude?”

“That was only because –” Egg stopped suddenly, spying Ser Duncan making his way towards them. He lowered his voice and pleaded, desperately, “Promise me you will not tell Ser Duncan that I’ve been telling you stories about his … his …”

Betha interjected, “His romantic adventures? His grand passions? His affairs of the heart?”

Egg winced at her choice of words.

She added, “He seems more like a man of the world, Ser Duncan, now that I know that he has had his heart broken, not just once but twice."

Egg despaired, waiting for the promise that was still not given. Ser Duncan was approaching, closer and closer with every passing moment.

Betha gazed at him steadily. “If I promise not to tell, what will you do for me, in return?”

‘Anything. I’ll do anything!” promised Egg, eagerly. “I’ll be in your debt forever.”

When Ser Duncan finally reached them, Betha said to him, “Your squire was just telling me a very interesting story, ser, about a gallant knight.” She paused, glancing at Egg, who looked about ready to pass out. “A gallant knight who lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago,” she continued.

Egg finally took a deep breath, relieved. But his nerve was soon tested again, when Ser Duncan made the remark, “Is he real, this knight? My squire has a very lively imagination, my lady.”

“Oh, he’s real, ser. Very much so,” replied Betha.

[arielseaworth]

Quentyn/Ynys unrequited for february, pretty please?

For the prompt: Quentyn Martell/Ynys Yronwood, unrequited.

When first he’d come to Yronwood, he had been smitten with Ynys, the eldest of Lord Yronwood’s daughters. Though he never said a word about his feelings, he nursed his dreams for years … until the day she was dispatched to wed Ser Ryon Allyrion, the heir to Godsgrace. (A Dance with Dragons)

“Ser Ryon has a natural son older than us,” said Cletus. “Can you imagine my sister trying to mother this Daemon Sand?”

Quentyn was startled. “Surely Ynys would not be expected to do anything of the sort? He is a grown man after all. Why would he need mothering?” he asked.

Ser Daemon had been his uncle’s squire. His sister and his cousins the Sand Snakes were very fond of the Bastard of Godsgrace, but Quentyn secretly found him quite alarming. He had a way of looking at you as if he were measuring your courage and your conviction, even your worth. And Ser Daemon’s smiles were even more disconcerting. A man like that should not have dimples that bloomed like Tyene’s, thought Quentyn. The contrast was too eerie and unnerving.

Cletus clapped Quentyn’s back and laughed. “You are far too earnest, Quent. I thought I have cured you of that habit. It was a jape, brother, merely a jape. Though it would be amusing to see Ser Daemon addressing my dear sister as lady mother."

“Is she … is she happy about the wedding?” Quentyn asked, cautiously. Even Cletus never knew how he truly felt about Ynys. Cletus would have made a jape of it, he feared. Not out of cruelty, for his foster brother was never knowingly and deliberately cruel, but Cletus might have thought of it as yet another thing to tease his sister about.

“Is Ynys happy about her wedding? Well, you can ask her yourself. Here she is.”

She did not look any different, to Quentyn’s eyes. The dress she was wearing was new, though. “A gift from my good-mother,” she said, with a dazzling smile. She was very pleased, it was clear. Quentyn dropped his gaze. He had to look away. To his relief, no one seemed to notice.

Cletus snorted. “Your good-mother? Lady Allyrion is not your good-mother just yet.”

“She will be soon enough,” Ynys replied, serenely.

“You seem more gratified about the prospect of being her good-daughter than being her poor son’s lady wife,” Cletus remarked.

Quentyn stood staring, astonished. He would never have dared to say such a thing to his own sister. Not now, certainly. Perhaps he would have in the past, before they were separated, before he and Arianne grew very polite and exceedingly careful with one another, even in their letters. How did that happen? When did that happen? He felt as if he should have been able to pin down a particular time and occasion. Or was it merely the corrosive and gradual effect of the passage of time? Somehow he doubted it.

My heart is breaking, Ari, he wished he could have confided to his sister. She would have pulled him into her embrace, in the past. She would have listened to his woes and tried to coax more of the truth out of him, and he would have ended up telling her more than he originally intended and feeling the better for it.

But now … now he could not truly say what Arianne would do.

Ynys did not seem offended by her brother’s remark. She laughed and said, “Her poor son? Ser Ryon is marrying me. You should be congratulating him for his good fortune. I will be a formidable Lady Allyrion, just like his great mother.”

“You won’t be the ruling Lady of Godsgrace like Ser Ryon’s mother.”

Ynys ignored her brother’s remark and turned her gaze towards Quentyn. She patted his hand. It was a sisterly gesture, nothing more than that. “You will miss me, won’t you, Quent? My lunk of a brother here will not miss me at all, I’m sure. He’ll throw a feast, the moment I leave.”

[arielseaworth]

ned + cat and 8 a lie

For the prompt: Ned/Catelyn, a lie.

And when you have [the truth], what then? Some secrets are safer kept hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those you love and trust. (A Game of Thrones)

He trained himself to think of it as a secret, rather than a lie. It was a secret which required a lie for its maintenance, but the lie was not told for its own sake. The lie was the means to an end, not an end in and of itself. The lie was a treacherous tool he was forced to employ to protect a life.

The lie came easily to his lips, when he brought his sister’s babe home to Winterfell. At times, he had not even needed to proclaim Jon as his bastard with his own tongue. In certain eyes, the very fact that Jon shared a name with Ned’s beloved foster father was enough to confirm his identity. It also helped that Jon had the Stark look, of course. Ned shuddered to think what additional lies he would have had to invent, to explain the presence of a babe with purple eyes and silver hair.

The lie did not come as easily to his lips, when the lady wife he had wed and left behind at Riverrun finally arrived in Winterfell. And yet he lied nonetheless, lied to her within moments of her arrival with the voice and the face of a stranger she had not yet learned to decipher.

Would Catelyn see it the same way, as a secret rather than a lie, should she ever learn the truth? She would be deeply hurt; Ned had no doubt of that. Deeply hurt at what she would perceive as his lack of trust in her, at his lack of faith in her ability to keep the secret alongside him. But lack of trust and faith was never the issue. Even before love had grown between them, he knew enough of her worth to invest his trust and his faith in her.

A secret was a lonely thing. Ned had always known that. He had prepared himself for that. The greatest temptation to tell Catelyn the truth did not come from his lonely nights. He was only ever truly tempted when he saw how deeply his lie had wounded her. He resisted the temptation each time, silently asking her forgiveness for a lie he could never confess.

He would always remain unreconciled, torn between the lie he had to tell and the effect it was having on the one and only woman he had ever loved. Perhaps that was his saving grace in the end. Though, he wondered, what good would that do Catelyn? His internal doubts, his unvoiced, undeclared remorse, would that provide any consolation to her at all? Could it make up for the lie that had poisoned the foundation of their marriage, and perhaps even tainted their love?

He could not say. He yearned to ask her, but he knew he never could.

[arielseaworth]

Stannis/Mel + 19 :)

For the prompt: Stannis/Melisandre, shelter from the storm.

Devan said the king scarcely slept of late. “Since Lord Renly died, he has been troubled by terrible nightmares,” the boy had confided to his father. “Maester’s potions do not touch them. Only the Lady Melisandre can soothe him to sleep.” (A Clash of Kings)

Her sleep is never troubled, she tells him. She does not dream. She is not afflicted with terrible nightmares, she assures him. She is –

“You are at peace with yourself the way I could never be?” His tone is accusatory, demanding, aggrieved. She is relieved. This man … this man glaring at her is familiar ground. She knows well enough how to deal with him.

But then his tone shifts to an unfamiliar one. “If you are at peace, then why do you weep, my lady, when you stare at your flame?”

What had he seen, when she thought him safely asleep in her bed, after she had soothed him to sleep with her words and her touch? What had he guessed, when she thought him beyond guessing? What had he concluded, when she thought him beyond concluding? Oh, she had been reckless, far too reckless!

“My tears are tears of joy, my king,” she replies. “Joy at the blessings of my god.”

She never makes the mistake of saying our god, when they are alone. He might consent to suffer allusions to R’hllor as his god in the presence of others (albeit with clenched teeth), but not otherwise.

Do not prate at me about your god, she expects him to snap, to scoff, or even to snort. Instead, he says, merely says, “You speak of your god to deflect queries about yourself.”

Who are you, my lady, to insist that I reveal myself to your satisfaction, while you conceal everything about yourself? he had demanded of her once. What right do you have to unsettle my peace while you remain peacefully and complacently settled yourself? he had added, in a low whisper than had done more to unsettle her peace than anything he had ever said or done before.

He clearly does not think her peacefully and complacently settled now. How she wishes he is still fully and firmly under that illusion.

He does not seem to know where to put his hands. Or how to arrange his face. But the words come out without any hesitation, without even a slight pause. He must have arranged them in his head beforehand. “You comforted me in my hour of need. I wish to return the favor. So that I will not be in your debt.”

This is for his peace of mind, she tells herself, as she allows him to take her hand and lead her back to bed, away from the flame. He needs the illusion that he could be her shelter from the storm, as she had been his. But it is an illusion, merely an illusion, nothing more and nothing less. Unlike him, she needs no shelter from any storm.

When her tears fall, in full view of his gaze, and she does nothing to hide them, she tells herself the same thing.

When she leans into his embrace, and discovers that she could not turn off the flow of tears as easily as she had believed she could, she keeps telling herself the same thing.

She is still telling herself the same thing as she buries her face in his arm.

[arielseaworth]

FIC: One Truth and Many Lies

He loves Danny. That has never been a lie.

For most of his life, Alex has been trained to distrust, and even as he is learning, slowly, to trust the man he loves, and to trust love itself, he does not believe that after all the many lies he has told, the truth of his love would be believable to Danny without an algorithm to prove it beyond a doubt.

Read @ AO3

[arielseaworth]

||SHIPPY FEBRUARY||

Send me a book!canon ship + a number, and I will write a drabble/ficlet❤️  

Feel free to add specifics to the prompt if you like, e.g. what kind of gift for the gift prompt :D

an anniversary

an argument

a betrayal

a celebration

a death

a gift

a letter

a lie

a memory

a promise

a secret

a song

a story

a surprise

a wedding

the opposite of love

faith in ordinary love

the power and the glory

shelter from the storm

miles from where you are

your hand in mine

we are one

the last illusion

irreconcilable differences

antithesis of duty

love as duty

love as compromise

love is supposed to

spurned

unrequited

||MY ASKBOX||

[arielseaworth]

Snippets from three of the ficlets I'm working on for Shippy February :D

[1]

Her sleep is never troubled, she tells him. She does not dream. She is not afflicted with terrible nightmares. She is –

“You are at peace with yourself the way I could never be?” His tone is accusatory, demanding, aggrieved. She is relieved. This man … this man is familiar ground. She knows well enough how to deal with him.

But then his tone shifts to an unfamiliar one. “If you are at peace, then why do you weep, my lady, when you stare at your flame?”

What had he seen, when she thought him safely asleep in her bed, after she had soothed him to sleep with her words and her touch? Oh, she had been reckless, far too reckless!

[2]

“Her name is Tanselle. We looked for her in Dorne, but we could not find her.”

“Why were you looking for her?”

“Ser Duncan wanted to. He likes her, I suppose.”

“Is that so strange, for a man to like a woman?”

“He only knew her for a short while. How could she be his one true love?”

“What about the Red Widow? Isn’t she his true love too? How many true loves does he have, your Ser Duncan?”

“My Ser Duncan? You’re the one who’s so impressed with him. Oh, you’re so tall, gallant ser. I have never met a knight so gallant and tall in my life.”

“I never said anything of the sort! I was right to tell him that his squire is rude.”

[3]

The opposite of love is not hate.

How often had she heard that very sentiment proclaimed and pronounced as if it were the very soul of unquestionable wit and wisdom? It was usually accompanied by either a sneering contempt or a patronizing display of concern towards those who were deemed naïve enough to believe that the opposite of love was indeed hate.

Why should it not be hate? Why could it not be hate? How could it not be hate, towards the man who had slain her father? The man who had robbed her of her birthright. The man who – and this was perhaps his biggest sin of all – had turned her into a stranger to herself.