cedric tyrell let her words settle in the space between them like the hush that comes after a well-played chord, one that stretched and lingered amidst that of a thunderous applause that seemed to go and on and on. he did not speak at once—not because he had nothing to say, but because he found it almost too pleasurable to simply look at her, the background sound of chattering and disagreement and yet, the entire time his gaze merely remained sweeping across her own. her voice had been soft but unshaking, threaded with the kind of conviction that came not from sermons but from years of internal reckoning. and when she leaned in, asking her final question with that glint in her eye—half jest, half blade—he didn’t lean in to meet her.
no, he stayed precisely where he was, looming slightly, as if rooted, watching her the way a man might regard a fire he did not fear but would not dare touch.
his gaze lingered—unashamed, steady. he looked her over as a man looks at a painting he’s already decided to steal: with admiration, yes, but also calculation. the shape of her mouth, the scent of citrus and salt that hung about her—he took all of it in like a private indulgence, his lips pressing slowly into a smile that cut sideways and sharp. she was ravishing. that particular kind of beauty that made a man imagine things with his hands. and gods help him, he wanted to make her eyes roll back. in pleasure. in disbelief. in whatever moment silenced her long enough to forget the word if. he chuckled low in his chest—just once.
“if i were hiding,” he murmured, tilting his head, letting his voice drop as he did, “i wasn’t doing it well. i’d argue i was waiting for someone to turn around.” his smile deepened, slow and dry, golden against the lean lines of his face as he watched her for another second too long—long enough to let the humour and the challenge both sit in his gaze. she was close enough now that he could feel the difference in height more keenly—the way he had to angle his head slightly down, the weight of his voice lowering so as not to speak over her but to her. there was something oddly intimate about it, standing amidst the bustle of scholars and noble minds, yet speaking in a register just for two. as though the crowd around them had ceased to exist, or better yet, as though he’d granted it permission to vanish.
and then, when her smile curled and her teasing inquiry came—do you consider yourself a god, cedric tyrell?—he didn’t smirk, didn’t laugh. he simply regarded her, let the full, unbroken weight of his attention fall on her features, one brow raised as though mulling the question in earnest. but his eyes were not solemn. they were dangerous. his gaze travelled over her again, slowly this time, thoughtful and intimate and impossibly impolite. his pause was calculated, designed to remind her that he could hold a silence just as well as he could fill it with words. eventually, he spoke.
“no,” he said, softly. “i’m not a god.” he straightened ever so slightly, that sharp crown of curls gleaming faintly in the afternoon light. “a nonbeliever. and what is a god to a nonbeliever?” he looked down at her like the question wasn’t rhetorical at all; a bed time story. a rumour. a fantasy. and most importantly, irrelevant. there was no venom in it. just certainty. seductive in its confidence, unshaken by offence or doubt.
“i don't believe in gods because i don’t need to,” he continued, shifting his stance slightly, the edge of his boot brushing a fallen blossom beneath their feet. “and because i’ve seen the world turn without them. i’ve made it turn. not with dragons. not with prophecies, but with will, and wit, and weight." of my own name. of broken promises, of kinslaying, of blood on the hands that would never be able to be washed out. his eyes flicked toward the horizon briefly—the ancient reach stretching outward with its green waves of abundance, dotted with septs and shrines and smoke from prayer fires. “some would say the velaryons believe themselves close to gods because they ride beasts that breathe fire,” he said, turning his head back to her slowly. “but even a dragon must bow its neck to a man who understands leverage.” the words weren’t threatening, but there was a velvet sharpness to them.
“some don't need to fly to command the sky. and some, don't need to land a mighty beast to benefit from the earth either.” somewhere in the very back of his mind, a tense conversation with a childhood friend that did not survive to adulthood arose to the very front of his mind; the guardian of the faith, the once voice of oldtown - how he had once told him their gold, their power, came from the ground. it was enough to fill him with a distant feeling of coldness upon his shoulders, like the final chime of a funeral procession - another conversation which felt like a lifetime ago, with one who would never be again.
the conversation around them continued, the speakers still waxing lyrical about divine order and celestial mercy, but he gave none of it his attention now. she was the only presence that held his focus. her ideas, her curves, her voice. it thrilled him more than he liked to admit, this tension of intellect and unspoken promise. a storm gathering behind civil discourse. “you speak of building meaning in a meaningless world,” he said, his tone softening—not in warmth, but in texture, like wine darkening in the cup. “and i respect that, more than blind faith. more than devotion passed down like an old shirt. you speak boldly, and i think all should be able to do that. this is only proving that, look at them. even the old men are joining in.” he indicated his ringed hand toward a group of elderly men, excited, eager to chime in on matters of a world that had long since left them behind.
his eyes dropped for the briefest of moments—just enough to glance at her hands still folded at her waist, at the line of her collarbone where her necklace sat like a signature—and then lifted again. “but it’s the ‘ifs’ that give you away,” he said, the grin returning now, sly and edged with charm. “every stance you’ve offered rests on condition. on possibility. ‘if they exist.’ ‘if they care.’ ‘if they’re cruel, or kind.’” he moved half a step closer, not to intimidate, but simply to close the air that flirted between them.
"tell me your stance," he said, his voice smooth, with just the faintest touch of amusement curling in it, "without using the word if." his eyes danced at that, glinting in the warm reach sunlight, cutting straight through the hesitation that hung around philosophical musings like incense. “not a single ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’ to hide behind. no conditions. no cloaks. do they exist—yes, or no?” something about gut instinct was what he wished to see from her; if she needed to pick one word, what would it be? he let the question rest between them like an apple held out in the palm of a snake.
“but i don’t deal in hypotheticals, lady velaryon. and i certainly don’t want to hear ‘if’ from a woman like you - give me a concrete yes, or no.” it was a challenge, no doubt - he had uttered his opinion in a flat way, as though it were her invitation to meet him in that halfway stance.
