⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ °• ☼ CHAPTER SIX: A SILLY CHILD'S DREAM ☾ •°⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

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( trigger warnings: domestic abuse, homophobia. )

A WEEK AFTER Nessie returned, a fleet of ships arrived on the waters of Kings Landing. It was an envoy from Dorne, come to stay for a few weeks. The Martell family had come on the business of weddings. First, the Queen of Dorne and her husband had boarded from the regal ships, while Nessie and her family stood lined up on the stairs, watching their arrival. They were immediately followed their children: Doran, Oberyn, and Elia, who was to be wed to Rhaegar, along with Oberyn's bastard daughters. He had only brought his eldest two, Obara, who was rough and scared Nessie a little bit, and her younger sister, who looked like a sunset dream and introduced herself as "Nym".

     She had hair like ebony and skin the colour of gentle gold sand. Her eyes were dark and slim, like cuts of dragonglass which twinkled with delight and mischief. Her legs were long for her age—not as long as Nessie's, but they were smooth and muscular and ran into her body like a gentle waterfall. Nesaela had thought she was one of the most beautiful girls she had seen. Far more beautiful than any man her father had hoped to betroth her to: prettier than the Knight of Flowers, or any Stark son. Nym was eleven too, the same as Nessie.

     They had spent all the time Nym had at Kings Landing together: running and shooting bows in the forest, far away from their fathers, and Nym had taught her how to climb trees faster than she ever had before. They'd spent their days swinging on branches and adventuring into the rocky caves of the castle's cliffs, and one night in the corridors of Kings Landing, Nesaela kissed her. It was a small peck, innocent enough, and Nym had only retuned a smile and another kiss.

     It was short and sweet, but Nym tasted like sand and smoke and wildness. Part of Nessie had wanted to ask if Nym could steal her back away to Dorne, where she could ride horses through the sand and be treated as equally as a man beside her. Nym and her father could have put a spear in Nessie's hand and let them fight alongside them.

     But she knew the dream was foolish. She was the princess of Kings Landing, and Nym was the princess of Dorne: two entirely different worlds; two sides of the same coin. She wished she could have a home on Dorne, and bury her feet between the orange sands, beneath the red sun, but it was a silly child's dream. And so instead, she'd let Nym play with Nesaela's fancy dress, giggling at its unnecessary nature, and braid coils into her silver hair.

     It was good enough, and Nym's hands were soft and gentle and familiar, and some far-off part of them felt like home. It was a sweet and lonely feeling.

     When she returned to her quarters that evening, she had opened her door to find her father's figure shadowing the sun from her windowsill. Instantly, like a paper dragon, her shoulders dropped downwards and she seemed to fold in on herself as if she was a flower wilting under flames.

     He faced away from her, grey hair behind him matter and wind-tousled, clawed hands clasped in front of him. Aerys said something incomprehensible, lost in the ocean wind pouring through her window, though Nessie caught the anger bubbling in his voice: vengeful and distasteful.

     "What, Father?" she had whispered so quietly that it could hardly be heard.

     When Aerys turned on his heel, there was no sign of fatherly kindness on his face, which Rhaegar had once told Nessie about. No—this man was one turned mad after years-upon-years of stillborns and a daughter who was not the kind of daughter he wanted. "You kissed that filthy Dornish whore! You kissed a girl!" He backhanded her so hard her head bloomed with pain and she was sent stumbling back into the desk. Her golden horses nameday gift toppled to the ground, statue's delicate legs shattering on the tiles. But she was still pressed over her desk, bent like a ribbon, hand clutching her face. "Do you think yourself a common girl from a whorehouse, kissing other women like a wench? I should throw you in one. See how you like it."

     Somehow, in all the stories of Vhaena's and Nym's stories of adventure, Nessie found the strength to stand. "It was just a kiss—" Nessie gasped, why deny it? She wasn't ashamed.

     Clearly, that wasn't the right answer. After all, it wasn't girls she was supposed to be kissing, it was boys; and her father was supposed to decide who she was going to kiss anyway. No husband wanted their bride to have kissed someone beforehand. The second time he hit her, his rings cut across her face, slicing a gash along her nose and across her brow. This time, she fell to the ground, the blow too much for her body and mind to withstand.

     "She," he spat, "has turned you into a little beast of a girl, playing in the woods like a common Dornish whore, tearing your dress. The filth." He had steel-toed boots, and she noticed so as they connected with the right side of her ribs.

     It was a while before Nessie got up, after she'd been left alone. The sunset gleamed through her golden-painted window, caressing her fallen body with golden light. She lay, heaving with sobs, tears running down her cheeks to pool on the floor and eyes rimmed with red, looking at her precious horse with shattered legs. With a tender hand, she painstakingly reached out to grasp it, pulling the beautiful, broken thing towards her. The poor horse had lost its freedom without its legs. It would never walk or run again, never leave the walls of Kings Landing or have a life or will of its own. Nessie cried with the crippled horse tucked in her hands until she fell asleep on the ground.

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     THE NEXT MORNING, she'd emerged from her room with a purple burst lip and a black eye. A healing wound was cut across the bridge nose in an unsightly slice, and one to match on her forehead. Her handmaidens had fussed over her, but she'd dismissed them quickly. She hadn't bothered to cover it up again—no doubt the officials of the city were wondering why she was so often injured. Both Barristan Selmy and Ser Arthur Dayne, her brother's friends, approached her to ask her what the matter was. She'd played it off as clumsiness, but the look on her father's face as they showed their concern for her lit a spiteful fire in her heart.

     Tylan had approached her as she walked through the neatly trimmed gardens, fingers skimming the flowers' petals. She was in a purple gown this time, which came only to her elbows but draped around her feet in delicate layers of silk. "Who hurt you?" he asked, fingers lingering on the hilt of his sword as if ready to cut in half whoever had injured her.

     "Someone who you can't hurt," was all she said as they continued through the gardens. She'd plucked a rose and the thorns cut into her hands.

     Tylan bristled for a moment. "I can still hurt him."

     "If you want a death sentence," Nessie said. She lifted the rose to her nose before dropping it back down to her waist. "It's okay, Tylan. You protect me from everyone else." He didn't seem satisfied with that answer, gold-sheathed sword at his side swaying with each step. Nessie dropped the rose on the ground, letting it be swallowed by the dirt. Nesaela never saw Nym again.

     That night, instead of being engulfed by the opal-eyed dragon's fire, she was on the dragon's wingbone as it set a metal city aflame.

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two chapters for today because i missed my schedule last week!

word count: 1,391

15.01.2019.