Archive of Our Own ^beta

...

i. hit me honey, like a beat-up drum / all the way ‘til your hands go numb

...

Myrcella runs her tongue over her teeth.

Her fingers don’t tighten. Her knuckles aren’t white. She’d pinched her cheeks in the shower, and the thin skin across her cheekbones- that same skin that bruises so easily- is probably still red. The clothes she’s wearing leave her looking even smaller than she is, waifish and delicate as a rose in the middle of winter.

“It was a mistake,” she says tremulously. No tears, not yet. “If I were to be released, I’d want the simple life.”

She looks up through her lashes at the parole officer, hair a fan of gold around her shoulders. 

Gotcha, thinks Myrcella, satisfied.

...

Forty-five dollars. God, thinks Myrcella, stepping out of prison for the first time in five years, I could go anywhere. It’s all she’s ever wanted. Freedom, sharp and stinging and painful, rich like wine down her throat. 

...

That’s a lie, if Myrcella’s telling the truth. 

Not that she makes a habit of it.

But Myrcella’s wanted a lot of things in her life: money, fame, the greed of looking powerful men in the eye and knowing she’s better than them, and she’s never been shy about wanting them. The difference is this: before she knew enough to want anything else, she’d wanted freedom. It’s the thing she’s been born with, the thing she’s never known not to have. It’s the thing that’s been taken from her for six long years.

So. Not a lie. 

Just not the entire truth.

Her life, summed up in five short words.

...

One day to herself. She rests in luxury, hair soft around her shoulders, bath oily and shining and smelling like the jasmine that her father had planted in their house, on a trip back from Essos. On the second, she goes to visit her uncle. 

He’s dead. Buried in cold stone in the cemetery. Myrcella stares at the gold-veined stone and wonders, distantly, if it’d been Uncle Tyrion that picked it out, or if Uncle Jaime had prepared a will for it. Her mother’s buried further inside- she’ll never forget how terrible that day had been, least of all because of the look in Joffrey’s eyes- but Myrcella’s not here for her right now. Her mother’s dead. 

Myrcella knows that.

But she doesn’t know if Jaime’s dead. She has sneaking suspicions all around, but- nothing concrete. And she can’t even speak to Joffrey about it; if she tries, she’ll get a bullet between her eyes and a grave even finer than Jaime’s. Joffrey’s many things, but cautious isn’t one of them. If he treats her with the respect her mind and achievements deserves, if he brings the full weight of the Baratheon and Lannister resources on her head, Myrcella will die.

It’s a good thing, then, that Myrcella knows he won’t.

Six years is a long time in prison, and a longer time outside it. She’ll bet everything she has that he’s forgotten how dangerous she can be. No; she is betting everything she has that’s Joffrey’s just as stupid as she remembers.

Betting everything, and more. All her will and all her fury and all her cool, curdled grief honed in six years of prison with nothing to do but craft the perfect vengeance.

Isn’t it only fair to give him a little bit of a warning?

...

She sends him a doll of his girlfriend, the actress Margaery Tyrell. Its eyes are brown and its dress is elegant and Myrcella opens the box with laser sharp precision to add one tiny, almost-forgettable element.

A braid of gold, wrapped around the doll’s throat.

Hair, plucked from Myrcella’s own head.

A noose, in all but name.

...

(Oh, it’s easy to forget, because Myrcella is sweet, and kind, and nice like sunlight on a garden’s green leaves. 

It’s easy to forget that her uncle is Tyrion, the man who built an empire out of nothing but his own wit. That her other uncle is Jaime, who single-handedly held off a battalion with scarce a tenth of the men. That her mother is Cersei Lannister. That her grandfather’s Sir Tywin, the man who’d emerged from the war with twice the land that he entered the war with. That she is sweet, yes, and soft, and still- there is ambition burned into the lines of her hands.)

...

ii. higher, higher, higher we go; right into the fire we go

...

“Why do you need to do this?” asks Arianne.

Prison hasn’t erased any of Myrcella’s beauty, and it hasn’t dulled any of her intellect either. The sunlight behind her paints her hair bright, like spun gold. She’s wearing red lipstick that costs more than Arianne’s entire building, shameless and vivid as ever.

“Because,” says Myrcella, green eyes flashing, “it’s what I’m good at.”

Arianne’s known Myrcella’s mother, who’d been a bitch and a half; she’s known Myrcella’s father, who Myrcella hasn’t inherited anything of, thankfully; she’s known Myrcella’s uncle, who’s ugly as sin but smart enough to thrive in a world that’s only ever hated him.

“’Cella-”

“It’s what I’m good at,” she says, slowly, the syllables rolling around her mouth like thick, sweet taffy. “And that’s why I’m doing this.”

It’s true. Ten years they’ve known each other, and Arianne’s never known anyone quite so good at this, at making people stand and wish and do better than they can manage on their own. She’s got wide eyes, blue as the sky above, blue as the steel on the edge of a broken highway railing, innocent until it sheared your car open. And there’s a demand, there, too, because though she’d learned to hide it that kind of wealth never really went away.

“You don’t have to,” says Arianne, again, helplessly.

“No,” agrees Myrcella, equanimous. Magnanimous, in her victory. And her face? Fucking luminous. “But I want to.”

...

Myrcella’s insane.

No, she thinks, staring at the Met like it’ll change its name if she glares hard enough. But then Arianne sees Myrcella’s eyes. The joy. The best people in the business- they don’t do it for anything other than the glee that comes from winning, from fighting the entire world and coming up on top. And that glee’s written out on Myrcella’s smooth skin. 

Oh, god, we’re going to go to jail, thinks Arianne, heart sinking.

...

Sansa’s not crying in a corner when they find her. But it’s a close thing; Arianne can tell that much. Her face is very pale, and her fingers are folded so tightly in her lap that the grip might well be bruising. Her agent’s shouting in the room next door, so loud that Arianne could make every word out if she wanted to.

Something crashes to the floor. Sansa flinches, then pretends that she didn’t.

Myrcella reaches out. Presses a warm hand to Sansa’s slender shoulder. Her smile isn’t quite shark-like, but it’s not too far off. 

(Ah, but Myrcella’s always loved pretty things, and this Sansa is-)

Jealousy’s an ugly look on her, Arianne decides, and nods, reassuringly, at the young fashion designer to whatever bullshit Myrcella’s spouting now. They’re not heartless, not precisely; but they are criminals. Softness isn’t bred in them. It’s not like they’ll hurt the girl immeasurably. Just- it’s a business, and none of them can forget it.

...

“Hey Shireen,” says Myrcella, swinging onto the counter. “How’re you doing?”

Arianne wrinkles her nose at the pungent smell coming from the other side of the counter, though she takes her seat as well. It’s so hard to believe this girl- small, slender, dark-haired; fingers roughened from working a proper job- is Myrcella’s cousin. Arianne doesn’t think Myrcella’s ever been caught dead in a shop like this.

“’Cella,” says Shireen, evenly, after a moment’s pause. “You’re... out of jail.”

“You could sound more excited to see me.”

“Do you know what my mother’s going to do when he sees you?” Shireen asks flatly. “She’s convinced-”

“I have a job for you.”

Shireen’s eyes narrow, and for just a moment- she looks dangerous. “I’m not interested.”

“Shireen,” says Myrcella, smiling her most dangerous smile: toothless, sweet as sugar-laced arsenic. “If I told you that you didn’t have to stay in this absolute shithole, what would you say?”

Slowly, the anger in Shireen’s face drips away. If there’s ever been something that Myrcella’s good at, it’s finding what people love. If there’s ever been something Myrcella’s never had, it’s the knowledge of when to stop using that.

“I’d ask what I’m risking,” says Shireen.

...

“Veistarb neib,” says the golden-eyed girl, soothing and soft as a lullaby. 

The woman across the table from her hiccups. Bursts into a rapid stream of Spanish, half of which is too mumbled for even a fluent speaker to understand. Arianne’s eyes narrow- if she’s got her faces right, then this woman is the wife of one of Mole Town’s shadiest real estate developers. But the girl doesn’t look put-off, by both the gibberish and who’s sitting in front of her. Instead, she just reaches out and rests her fingers on the inside of the woman’s elbow. She speaks, gently, in the old Vale tongue.

“Al dadver se ne sal sallertes.”

Her hand lifts, and with it comes what Arianne’s willing to stake her entire building is an actual gold bracelet. 

She leans towards Myrcella as the lady gets up and leaves, leaving blessings in her wake. Mutters in her ear: “Girl’s not lacking in guts. Sense, maybe, but- fucking hell. Who the fuck swindles Anya Waynwood?”

“I’m more interested in how she got Anya to come all the way down to the Park.”

“By talking faster,” says the girl. Myrcella flinches, but Arianne just narrows her eyes further. “And being nicer. She pays well, too.” She rises, and Arianne realizes that the girl isn’t actually that much of a girl- she’s far too tall for that- and for all the innocence in her face, there’s enough calculation running under it to sink the goddamn Titanic. “My name’s Missandei. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Myrcella. This is Arianne.” Myrcella tilts her head, just so, and blond strands tumble into her face. Artful innocence, she’d called it once. “We hear you’re good?”

“I’m good at a lot of things,” says Missandei. 

There’s a shadow of a smile on her face.

Arianne can see it, then- hunger. Want. I-don’t-have-anything-and-I’m-not-going-to-die-that-way. It sings in her soul, like high noon after a storm. Muggy and hot and vicious.

“Heard you’re good at stealing,” she says, sliding her foot over to bully Myrcella into silence for a proper thirty seconds. “And we need someone good for this. Not just good. The fucking best.”

“I’m not the best,” disagrees Missandei. 

Myrcella would tell Missandei that it’s not true.

Arianne grins back at her.

“Not yet, maybe.” Arianne leans forward and dangles the golden bracelet that Anya Waynwood wore on her other wrist, the one kept safely out of Missandei’s reach. The one that had brushed Arianne on Anya’s way out. “But with this job? You’ll be a fucking legend.”

...

Daenerys Targaryen snarls in Myrcella’s face.

“I said I was out,” she snaps. “I have whatever I need right here. I don’t need you and your- your schemes, no matter how much money it brings. I’m out. I told you I was out. I don’t want-”

“This is a big deal, Dany,” sings Myrcella.

“Do I look like I need that big of a deal?” asks Daenerys. 

Her hair is silver and thick, braided neatly down her back. Her eyes are like ground amethysts, fair and purple, with bruises underneath them that only highlight their beauty. 

“Yes,” says Arianne frankly.

Daenerys turns on her, face flushing with outrage. “I don’t remember talking to you,” she says sharply. Then she glares back at Myrcella. “Don’t tell me she’s one of your pet charity cases.”

Seeing as Arianne’s started her entire business and also a good chunk of other unsavory things with Myrcella as her primary investor, it wouldn’t be prudent of her to tell the truth. But charity’s a difficult word to apply to their situation- the money that’s from Myrcella is all from those heady days of their youth. 

“Not pet, no,” drawls Arianne, and flashes her teeth at Daenerys. “But we do have the money for you to get rid of that god-awful smell, I’ll tell you that for free.”

“What smell?”

“The one,” says Myrcella delicately, “that probably comes from hanging around the lizards you’ve imported from Essos.”

At least Daenerys doesn’t do them the discourtesy of pretending she doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

“They’re dragons,” she says. “And they weren’t imported, they were a gift, and-”

“-and we have the money for you to smell better. Look better.” The briefest pause, and Myrcella delivers the killing blow: “Prove your worth.” 

Arianne almost laughs aloud at the pose Myrcella’s struck- inspecting her nails; looking up at Daenerys through her lashes; classic posh I-bleed-money-and-need-just-a-favor-darling-don’t-be-a-bother-why-don’t-you stance- but doesn’t. She just watches, satisfied, as Daenerys’ hands- still gripping her door, like that’ll keep them out- flex until they look bloodless. 

Outside, in the too-bright sun, she nudges Myrcella’s shoulder with her own. 

“A bit heavy-handed, don’t you think?”

Myrcella slides into the passenger seat. When Arianne turns the ignition, her hand comes out, covers Arianne’s. Her nails are yellow. On another hand they might look buttery, cheerful. On this one they just look poisonous, like the slide of a snake’s skin. Arianne ignores the flush of heat that shoots down her spine. It’s ten years too late for one thing; Myrcella’s made her choices clear, for another.

“No,” says Myrcella, eyes heavy-lidded. “Just right, I think.”

You’re planning something.

Arianne pulls her hand away slowly. Nods. 

“When we get thrown in jail,” she says pleasantly, “I’ll make sure to tell the officers whose plan this is.”

They spin off into the hot asphalt, Myrcella’s laughter loud around them.

...

iii. i stumbled on the road, the coldest road, where no one has walked before

...

“It’s just- Asha Greyjoy, really?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. 

Myrcella sighs. Sansa swallows, hard, and looks away from her. She doesn’t want to be difficult, not really, but Asha Greyjoy’s fashion choices are... eclectic, to say the least. Some of the more tame are things like skin-tight jumpers; once, memorably, she’d shown up in feathers. Just feathers, glued onto the entirety of her skin. There are rumors that when someone wanted to cast her in the role of a young mother, she’d played the entire audition against an axe, gotten the role, and then turned it down when she heard they couldn’t photoshop a baby into the shoot in the place of the axe.

Though, to be fair, the woman is fairly eclectic herself.

“She’s agreed to meet us,” says Myrcella, shrugging. “Not many actresses would’ve. And seeing as she’s just a stop-gap arrangement... I’m sure you can come up with something to keep her happy?”

Sansa thinks about Peter. About her parents. About- all the things she can do, once she has money enough to restart Winterfell. About all the things she has done, and has lost, over these past years. About the sweetness of hope on her tongue.

“Of course,” she says.

...

Three days later- Hollywood works quick- a woman calls Myrcella, who calls Sansa to tell her that she needs to meet with Margaery Tyrell at Poseidon Hotel for lunch. Sansa dresses in spring green, with silver ribbons threaded through her hair, and hands Shireen a blue scarf to go with her eyes. When Sansa finally sees Margaery, her mouth goes dry.

She’s seen many beautiful people in Hollywood, though few tend to match up to the beautifying effects of photoshop or manipulation. It’s the rare person who’s lovelier in person than on a screen.

Margaery’s one of them.

No single feature is striking, unlike the models that Petyr favors. No hair dark as night or skin so thin it looks translucent. No sharp, aquiline nose; no reed-thin figure. Margaery has brown hair and brown eyes and a relatively common nose. Her curves are generous. She scarcely reaches Sansa’s shoulder. But the way it all pulls together is entirely flattering, helped along with the scandalous dip of her top.

“Hello,” she says. “You’re the designers, then? I took the liberty of ordering some wine and lunch for myself, I have to return for a photoshoot in a few hours-”

Sansa doesn’t respond. She feels a distant alarm ringing in her brain, but she doesn’t manage anything further than a dry-mouthed tip of her head.

“Hello,” says Shireen, a goddamn savior, discreetly trodding on Sansa’s foot as she ushers them both towards the reserved table. She sends a wide-eyed look over her shoulder at Sansa, a mute glare of get your shit together, before plastering a smile back on at Margaery. “Yes, we’re the designers. Sansa decided to partner with me for this Met Gala- you might have heard of Asha- Greyjoy, yes-”

“A strange choice for someone of your... calibre, yes?” The Reach accent blunts Margaery’s vowels, so she sounds nicer than she probably means it to be. 

Sansa fights to look away from the play of rainbows across the tablecloth, shining because of Margaery’s glittery bracelet. She slants a look over to Shireen, who’s starting to look faintly desperate for divine intervention, before focusing back on Margaery and her sharp, soft eyes.

“Not really,” she murmurs, toying with her glass of wine. “Asha is very free with her options. No restrictions. For a designer- a dream come true.”

Sansa sips the wine. It tastes good on the back of her throat, though a little too sweet on her tongue; but maybe that’s just the taste of triumph. Carefully chosen first words can hook anyone, and Margaery Tyrell is hooked, Sansa can tell- it’s just a matter of time. Of dancing the dance of money and pride and influence. Sansa isn’t worried about that at all. She knows the intricacies of this dance well enough to perform it in her sleep.

“Not very mainstream,” Margaery points out. 

“Some of her outfits have been hit or miss,” acknowledges Sansa. “Perhaps more miss than hit- but for every feather-costume, you get that knight’s armor from a few years ago. The absolute freedom is not something one gets with every client.”

“Mmm.” Margaery spears an asparagus and eats it slowly. “So you’re absolutely happy with Greyjoy, then?”

Sansa lets Shireen field the question, which she does with a graceful lift of one shoulder. “A larger budget would not go awry.”

“Pennies, she has me working on!” exclaims Sansa, setting the glass of wine down hard, feeling its stickiness splash on the back of her hand. “Oh, if only I’d had a little more of one- see, the next fashion trend isn’t going to be about the quality of a dress or the cut- it’s going to be the accessories. And there’s really only one thing I’d want for the gala, but...”

“One thing?” Margaery puts down her fork and lifts an eyebrow. 

“Cersei’s diamonds.” Sansa can feel herself go a little dreamy imagining it: the thick rope of it, sitting on Margaery’s delicate neck, framing a gown of both austerity and brilliance. “To borrow, of course, but- oh, they would look gorgeous on you.”

“Well!” Margaery smiles, smooth and cutting as bone through butter. “I’m certain that I can swing that, if you’d be willing to work for me. I can offer you better terms, I’m sure: absolute freedom, of course, and a much higher budget, and an audience ten times the size of any circus artist.”

“I- we’ll have to confirm,” says Shireen, eyes slightly wide as she looks between Sansa and Margaery. She looks a little shell-shocked from the abrupt swing of events. “Perhaps in a day’s time, or-”

“No need,” says Sansa, rising to her feet and holding out a hand. She grips Margaery’s, shakes it firmly, smiles just as wide and just as beautiful. “I look forward to dressing you, Miss Margaery Tyrell.”

“And I look forward to the dress, Miss Stark.” 

Margaery smiles again, more real. Her hand is warm. 

Honest anticipation unfurls down Sansa’s spine at the thought. It’s been so long since she truly constructed something that she wants- the last time Sansa had that freedom of creativity, it’d been before she met Petyr. She’d tried so hard in the beginning to get Petyr to agree to her designs, but he hadn’t; his fashion line’s had always been built on drama and a complete lack of understanding of what the phrase less is more means. Sansa’s clean lines hadn’t interested him at all.

But now.

Now.

Everyone will be watching. Everyone will be watching, and Sansa can do it. Sansa can do it. If all goes according to plan...

Sansa will have her cake, and eat it too.

...

Of course the diamonds are protected by a magnetic lock. Of course they are. Myrcella is panicking in her ear, tinny and shrill. Arianne sounds like she wants Myrcella to both calm down and also fix this, simultaneously, as if that’s possible. Shireen’s putting on a brave face to everyone in the room, but she’s white-faced and strained under the professional tone she’s using to discuss with the security.

“-a fucking miracle,” shrieks Myrcella, voice reaching new heights. “Before we’re caught!”

Sansa closes her eyes. What does she want? What does she desire above all others? Her name written out on papers, yes, and people to know how good she is- that ambition sings in her veins, has always sung. But there are memories under that, of a home and a land that had once been her parents’ responsibility; of a place that sits waiting for her return; of the old house she can save, and love, and cherish.

To survive in the fashion industry, you learn to hold onto pride. It’s often the last thing you have, that breathless thing caught in the edges of your nails, and it’s so difficult to imagine letting it go.

Sansa smiles at Margaery before tilting a look at Shireen that makes her go still, a little color return to her face.

It’s difficult to let go of pride. But for the goals Sansa has? For what she wants, she’ll give it all up.

“Not a miracle,” she says, throaty and low enough that people will assume she’s speaking to herself. “Shireen, scan the metal?”

“Yes,” says Shireen. She cocks her hip and nods to the guard. 

She sounds like she’s simply responding to him, but her fingers curve over the latch holding the diamonds and flick it open; she lets her glasses droop over the bridge of her nose until Sansa hears the telltale buzz of completion over their mic.

“I’ll just be a minute,” murmurs Sansa, pushing away from Margaery and the others to head outside. A white-clad waiter gives her a slightly worried look- Sansa isn’t sure what her face looks like, but she’s certain it’s not the blank-faced determination she’d wanted. 

Then she’s outside, on a balcony. The hotel’s damn expensive, and it’s only out in the chilly sunlight of a high King’s Landing building that she realizes how perfectly temperature-controlled it is inside: Sansa’s sweating, and shivering, but inside she’d been far more worried about whatever her face showed. 

You’re afraid. Sansa imagines hearing those words from Petyr. The slick slide of those vowels out of his mouth. The way he’d smile, red-lipped, breath fresh as mint. You’re too afraid.

It’s not that Sansa wants this. It hasn’t been about what Sansa wants in years- no, it’s now about what Sansa’s willing to give to get something in return. A soft dream, quiet, that’s been swelling inside of her like a balloon; she won’t lose it because of her fear. That, Sansa knows.

She dials the number carefully, pressing them into her phone hard enough to blanch the screen. Waits, breathless, for the rings. And then the ringtone stops and leaves a terrifying blankness, and Sansa’s waiting to see if it’ll connect or drop off, because-

“Hello?”

Tinny and suspicious, Sansa still hasn’t heard anything that sounds better than her sister’s voice. 

“Arya,” she says, and her voice wobbles.

“Who is this?”

“Sansa,” she whispers. Then, gathering herself, a little louder: “Sansa. How are you? Can you hear me?”

“I- yes.” The suspicion fades, replaced by a faint sort of bewilderment. “How’d you get this number?”

Petyr. Who’d had fingers in every pie. If Sansa’d known how difficult it would be to escape his grasping hands, she wouldn’t have ever followed him. She doesn’t know what she’d have done at fourteen and friendless, but she knows that much.

“Listen,” says Sansa, gripping the stone railing hard, feeling both weightless and warm, “I need some help.”

...

iv. did she run away? did she run away? i don’t know

...

Walking into the building feels almost sacrilegious.

Daenerys closes her eyes as the air conditioning washes over her. All she can smell is apples and butter, strong enough to give her a headache. Missandei had insisted that she get ready anywhere outside of her home- on account of the faint animal scent that seems to surround Daenerys’ dragons- and right before leaving, she’d handed Daenerys a bottle of perfume. The bottle had cracked open in the cab over and Daenerys had had to pay the cabbie ten percent extra.

Which’ll be small change if this job pays out.

Which won’t happen if she doesn’t get her head on, and do what she has to.

Daenerys walks into Velaryon Caterers with her hair pulled back and a smile wide as a dragon’s mouth and competency like a cloud hovering around her. She hasn’t planned for anything in years- no; she’d been born to be on the other side of this, the person swanning into the Met with a pedigree lifting behind her as rich as the jewels around her throat. But Daenerys had lost that in a very short period of time, and she’s spent almost the entirety of her life scrabbling for some modicum of that stability back. One of those jobs had been as an event planner.

Not a good event planner, she thinks, even as she nods politely to the assistant to Alyssa Velaryon and settles herself on the nearby sofa. Not a big event planner.

Three weddings, one bat mitzvah, and a particularly overbearing couple’s fiftieth anniversary. Oldtown’s debt collectors had caught up with her then, and Daenerys had snatched up all that she owned before sneaking out under cover of dark, hunched low over the steering wheel of her beat-up, stolen Hightower.

“We do need help,” says Alyssa, eyes dark as Daenerys’ hair. She purses her lips critically. “And your references are- impeccable.”

Daenerys doesn’t blink, though she does wonder what Sansa’d asked her sister to falsify as her backstory. She just hopes it isn’t over the top- Daenerys doesn’t precisely have the contacts to bluff her way through easily.

“It’ll only be temporary,” Alyssa tells her. “Until we’re finished with the Met Gala; we have another engagement that same weekend that you can handle.”

No, thinks Daenerys, gripping her wrist with an unyielding hand. I need to be in the gala. 

But she smiles back at Alyssa.

“Sounds perfect to me. What’s that event, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“A Dothraki ceremony. I’ll forward the details to your email?”

Dothraki.

The smile that curves over Daenerys’ lips this time is far more genuine.

“Yes,” she says, and shakes Alyssa’s hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

...

Once, Daenerys had fallen down a cliff.

It’s her first memory. It’s what she remembers when she jerks awake in the middle of the night, heart beating in her throat. She’d been very young, exploring Dragonstone just far enough from Rhaegar and Viserys that she’d slipped on loose mud and tumbled downhill instead of being caught up in their arms. She doesn’t remember what Rhaegar looked like, nor her mother; all she knows is that more than a quarter-century later, her ankle still aches on rainy nights from breaking it then.

(She remembers this, too, though it’s even fainter: a storm, and smoke, and a woman’s screams even as Viserys bears her away. The ache in her ankle as a boat was battered by wave after wave. The tightness in her chest, and the tears that never came.)

And then had come Essos, hot winters, hotter summers. Moving swiftly through the night. Learning to watch for the flash of Viserys’ silver hair through mold-ridden slats, and fleeing attics and roofs and a hundred other places of temporary rest so he could come to her, give her some coins he’d nicked or sold or stolen. Eating spicy food that left her reeling and wanting more.

Until they stayed, for a time, with some people Viserys liked. Viserys was eighteen by then- he scrounged for jobs, and got a few that he could manage like carpentry- and they finally settled for a flat on the wrong side of town. She’d been thirteen; young and enamored with the friendliness of Viserys’ colleagues and naive. So- naive. So fucking naive. School had finished, and Daenerys had come home, and Viserys had asked her to go down to his friends’ cabin for some time.

Just some business I’ve got to finish, he’d told her, and stood. He’d looked so tall that night, so handsome. Cut-glass and silver hair, born to rule a kingdom. Be a good girl for me, Dany?

She’d wandered down. Grinned at Irri and Doreah; explained what Viserys had told her to Drogo; and then she’d slept with them that night, and the next, and soon enough she’d forgotten everything but the way the sun felt so hot on her skin and the rich Dothraki food that Drogo kept making. Whenever she asked about Viserys, everyone shrugged.

Until summer came and Drogo sat her down and explained that they had to leave.

Viserys, Daenerys had said, staring up at him. I don’t know where he is.

I do, Drogo had said, and taken her to a grave of smooth stone. 

He hadn’t apologized; Daenerys hadn’t spoken; he’d left her there.

But two women had come- later, Daenerys had learned they were Drogo’s aunts- and gathered her close and brought her back to their home. They’d kept her with them for far longer than Daenerys could’ve ever hoped. She was eighteen when she walked away from the Dothraki lifestyle, even if she hadn’t been sure it was the best thing to do.

Five years with them. 

Daenerys doesn’t return directly to Myrcella’s apartment. She drives instead to a small park at the far end of the city, and gets out. 

It’s a shabby place, all told- the slides are rusted through, and the only things working are the swings, which creak in the light breeze. There’s not much greenery. Daenerys lets herself sit on the swing, lets sand slide into the open-toed holes of her too-expensive heels, and hits four on her speed-dial.

“Hello?”

The rich accent of Dothraki Common leaves Daenerys smiling involuntarily. The rage she’s been feeling, like hot sun down her spine, slowly melts away.

“Yeah, Irri,” she says, tipping her head back to stare at the sun until she blinds herself. “It’s Dany. How’re you doing?”

“Dany!” Irri’s exuberance is clear even through the line. “We’re all fine here- well, Rikki has been going crazy with her child, it’s absolute madness, and Doreah’s got a new fascination with this painter, so we’re heading to Braavos next week, and-”

“Business as usual, then?”

“I suppose. When’s your next visit to Essos?”

“I’m not sure.” Daenerys loops her hand around the chain of the swing, and she smiles. “But I was wondering, you know, what’s up with this Dothraki party in King’s Landing that I haven’t been invited to. You heard of it?”

One breath. Two. Daenerys doesn’t move. Just listens to the birdsong in the middle of concrete jungle, and the distant sounds of a ball being kicked about by children, and all the sounds of the world she’d once wanted so badly to be a part of.

“Of course,” says Irri. “Rollo’s the one who’s throwing it. Apparently his wife’s insisting on a three-layered cake for their...”

The words wash over her, rich, as old as any memory she has of home. 

...

A few calls later, Daenerys walks into Myrcella’s rented apartment. She’d prefer to have returned to her house before coming here- the dragons get antsy if she’s not around- but Myrcella had been very clear on what she needed. And Daenerys has enough anger already to light up the city; she doesn’t need to antagonize Myrcella into any fight. 

Inside, she’s talking to Arianne. Daenerys nods to her and heads to the counter, pops some grapes into her mouth; leans back and lets the marble edge dig into her lower spine. Myrcella and Arianne- both lovely, but dangerous. They make Daenerys feel hazy, like accepting a drink in an unfamiliar place. That wild gamble that might pay off, but usually doesn’t. 

Arianne murmurs something before turning and leaving. Myrcella makes her way over to Daenerys.

“You got the job, then?”

“Yes,” says Daenerys blandly.

Myrcella relaxes into her chair. “That’s a relief.”

“I had the job sewn up the moment Stark’s sister wrote up my CV,” Daenerys tells her. A distant bloom of rage takes her off guard from its severity; she fights to keep it from showing on her face. “Or was there another reason you were worried?”

“There’s another event going on that weekend,” says Myrcella, carefully picking at her jeans. Her eyes don’t flick away from Daenerys, soft and wide as the petals of a blue rose. “There was a chance that Velaryon would’ve assigned you to that.”

“Oh, she did assign me to it.”

She jerks upright. “What? But-”

Right then, Daenerys’ phone rings. She takes it without looking away from Myrcella. The slightly panicked voice of Alyssa Velaryon fills her ears, and she replies as politely as she can manage with anger still thrumming through her veins. When she hangs up, Myrcella remains quiet.

“I got myself reassigned,” Daenerys tells her coldly. “But I don’t appreciate being treated like a pawn. Next time you pull such a con, I’m walking.”

Myrcella pauses. “Don’t tell me you’ll spend the rest of your days hiding in that stupid flat.” Then she shrugs, as if she couldn’t care less. “ You’re worth more than that, Dany.”

“And I’m worth more than being your fucking scapegoat,” Daenerys replies. “Or have you forgotten what happened at Oldtown?”

Five hot years in Essos, scraping together the funds to escape and return to Westeros, where her father had once ruled a kingdom spanning steel-work. But it had been a very long time since the heydays of the Targaryen empire, and Daenerys had nearly died for not understanding that. The world had changed a lot from Viserys’ stories.

But that’s okay.

The world has changed immeasurably since the day Daenerys first set foot on Westeros as well.

The dragons in her flat are the last promise of her family to her, their last heir. It’s what she needs to prove her heritage to the lawyers- the eggs, in actuality, had been what was specified in her father’s will, but after the explosion on the boat that had become impossible. Once that’s done, she can reclaim Dragonstone. She can unlock the steel molds that had kept Targaryen businesses going for decades. She can rebuild her father’s business, this time better, honest and moral and true. For all of that she’ll need money; Daenerys knows this, but she also knows that she can’t gain what she wants at the cost of its underlying values.

Daenerys had been so young then, and so trusting, and Myrcella had helped her. They’d been best of friends until Myrcella got cold feet and walked away, leaving Daenerys with a debt she could never have hoped to pay off and very angry debtors after her neck. Oldtown hadn’t been a very good time.

So her foray into the legally dubious side of the law hadn’t lasted very long, and Daenerys had made sure to stay out of it ever after with everything she had. Until Myrcella waltzed back into her life, golden and glittering, with an offer Daenerys could literally not say no to.

The fury doesn’t soften in her gut, not at all.

“I haven’t forgotten,” says Myrcella quietly. “I- I’m sorry for that. I got... caught up. My- family- had issues.”

“We go back a long ways,” Daenerys tells her. “I haven’t forgotten that.  It’s why I’m here in the first place. But I’m not going to be a chess piece to be moved around on the board.”

“You need me,” says Myrcella, lifting her eyes to meet Daenerys’. “You have a deadline, too, Dany. Or- you thought I didn’t know? About your twenty-fifth birthday?”

Years spent hoping Myrcella would never find out. Daenerys had done her the courtesy of never looking into her past, because she didn’t want her to look into Daenerys’ own history. And now-

“You know.” Nausea grips Daenerys. “When’d you find out?”

“A couple days before I left.” Her face softens, just a little. “That wasn’t the reason for me leaving, by the way.”

“No,” says Daenerys, more bitter than she’d expected to feel. “You’ll never tell me that, will you? Just come back when you want, and leave when you want, and screw everyone else’s happiness.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “You didn’t look very happy when I came to your house.”

“Fuck you,” says Daenerys flatly.

She gets up, limbs jittery with the sheer anger she’s feeling. She wonders how much effort it would be to throw Myrcella out of the window. Surely that would be less painful than- than listening to this.

“I saved your life,” Myrcella whispers. She’s not looking at Daenerys now; just at her hands. At the yellow nail polish, so bright it looks alive. “I saved your life, Dany."

A rainy night. Daenerys, shivering. Standing in front of three boys who want her eggs, her dragon-eggs, and thinking, no, you cannot have this last thing of my blood- And gasping, gasping, because there was pain rippling through her side and it was coming entirely from whatever one of the boys had stabbed her with, and she’d been certain she’d die out there until Myrcella ran in with her golden hair and eyes blue as the Dothraki sky and she’d helped her to her feet, dragged her to a hospital, held her hand while they stitched her up.

The rage doesn’t drain out of her so much as it gets enveloped by the exhaustion. Daenerys shifts, and her ribs hurt. The old, tired scars- they feel bruised. Livid.

“What do you want for that, Myrcella? So we can finally be even?”

Myrcella looks up at her. "Nothing,” she says. “Just wanted to remind you. Of where we stand.”

But beyond even exhaustion and anger, lies Daenerys’ pride. And that is what makes her stand up straight, spine stiff. That’s what makes her smile, lips twisting and heart aching and still, somehow, curved upwards.

“Did you think you were my last hope?”

Myrcella’s tongue darts out, small and pink. “I-”

“I’ve come a long way from that girl in Oldtown. And I’ll follow your plan- it’s an easy way to get cash, and I trust in your brilliance if not your ethics. But you don’t have me backed against a wall, love. You’d know if you did.”

Daenerys picks up her purse; slides her phone inside of her pocket. She’s at the door when Myrcella calls after her: “I’d know?”

“Fire and blood,” says Daenerys Targaryen, tipping her head to look over the top of her glasses at Myrcella. “I’ve got dragons in my home. And I was raised by Dothraki. Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile, and I don’t wait to be given things. Believe me, ‘Cella, you’d know.”

The honks and curses of cars around her as she slides into peak traffic sounds like a symphony. Daenerys keeps her breath level, her eyes straight ahead, her chin up. She’s grown up; she’s learned. Her family’s future rests on her shoulders, and that means she won’t rely on any single person other than herself.

...

Her twenty-fifth birthday is in two weeks.

If she doesn’t face the lawyers with irresistible proof by then, Dragonstone reverts to the government. Her eggs are hatched, when they ought to have been stone; she’s lost almost everything that ought to have named her a Targaryen. She can only hope that money will do the trick.

Or must she?

...

“I need a favor.”

“Arianne?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Favor of what?”

“You’re making the seating arrangements, right? For the Gala?”

“...yes.”

“Don’t put Myrcella next to Joffrey Baratheon.” 

“He’s Tyrell’s plus one. I thought she’d want to be close to her.”

“I know.”

“But-”

“I’ll owe you one, Daenerys.”

“Oh.” 

...

An old memory: a woman in a silver gown, with silver hair, wearing a silver necklace. Eyes as purple as Viserys’. She laughs and holds Daenerys, and for a moment she is happy. 

A truth: Daenerys is an orphan.

A reminder: the only thing she remembers of her mother is a photograph that got buried with Viserys.

A grief: there is only one thing that Daenerys wants in all the world.

She knows exactly what her favor will be.

...

v. and nobody here’s perfect; oh, but everyone’s to blame

...

“Mum,” sighs Shireen. The static comes back to her, loud and unrelenting, and she almost flinches. “I promise I’ll come back.”

“When?” demands her mother loudly. 

“Soon.” Shireen swallows. “Soon.”

“I still don’t know what possessed you to take off when there’s nothing for you in King’s Landing,” her mother continues, as if they haven’t hashed out this exact conversation ten times over. “After all we’ve done for you, you repay it with this- this ungratefulness? We need you! The shop doesn’t run itself!”

“I know that, Mum,” says Shireen sharply. 

She regrets that almost immediately, but- she’s been part of that shop since she was old enough to reach the counters. She’s been running it ever since she proved to Melisandre that she knows basic addition. Shireen doesn’t have much, but she has that little shop on a weather-beaten road and the knowledge of gems stuck in her craw like a wiggling tooth that she can’t quite get to fall.

Another sigh, this time into her mother’s injured silence. There’s nobody who does wounded pride as well as Selyse Baratheon, that much Shireen knows.

“Just a little more time. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“You shouldn’t have left before I knew it either,” snaps her mother.

I am twenty-seven years old. Not thirteen.

“And I’ve said sorry,” says Shireen, before she hears something crash outside of her door. She frowns, looking up, and Myrcella bursts into the room like a whirlwind, all polish and frocks and contained mayhem. There’s something there, though, maybe tucked into the whites of her eyes, that makes Shireen realize this is something beyond even her flair for dramatics. “I’ve got to go, Mum. Love you, see you soon, stay safe, talk to you later. Bye!”

She hangs up on the receiver to her mother’s sputtering, and turns to meet Myrcella.

“You okay?”

Myrcella bites her lip. “Yes.” At Shireen’s skeptical look, she deflates. “No. But. I. It’s not... a big deal.”

“Cersei once told me that all the women Uncle Robert kept around him weren’t a big deal,” Shireen says calmly. “That was before Uncle Robert got voted out of office, though.”

“And that was mostly because of that- fucking bitch.” Myrcella collapses into a nearby chair. “The one from the Stormlands, d’you remember her? Her and her tell-all book and that- that bonkers name.”

Shireen winces. “Melisandre?”

“You remember that?”

“She’s with my dad, now.” A loose shrug of her shoulders at Myrcella’s incredulous look. “Properly. Not dating, apparently, just a live-in relationship or something. Dad’s being modern.”

“Oh, fucking hell.” Myrcella passes a hand over her mouth. “I really need to catch up on family history."

“Mmm.”

“Shireen?”

“Yeah?”

Myrcella looks up at her, and she looks genuinely distraught. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

Shireen rolls her eyes. “’Cella,” she says.

“What?” she asks loudly. “I’m just- it’s- I’m so fucking confused and I- I just want to know!”

“No,” says Shireen flatly, turning back to see Myrcella. “It’s not. Aunt Cersei gave what she wanted to give to the people she felt like giving it to. You trying to steal that doesn’t make it right. If you were any kind of normal you’d be halfway to safety in a country without extradition, and not- not-”

“A traumatized mess trying to get parental approval?”

“You’re an orphan,” says Shireen. Myrcella flicks her hand away, like she’s swatting a fly, and Shireen slumps into the kitchen instead of trying to deal with the sheer absurdity of it all. “Right. Well. I don’t think you’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do. You’re doing it because you want to.”

“And me wanting it makes it wrong,” says Myrcella, lifting her chin.

Shireen returns to the hall with a coke, condensation already beading on the metal surface. “Why do you want to know?” she asks wearily.

“Someone... told me. That I’m a bad person.”

The coke judders down her throat, acrid in just the right places. New world salt, thinks Shireen dryly. Wonder what happens if you pour this on an open wound? Her lips curl up though, when she glances back at Myrcella.

“No,” Shireen tells her. “You’re not.”

Myrcella isn’t. That’s... half the problem. Myrcella’s everything her brother isn’t- smart, pretty, nice. The kind of girl that you can’t help but laugh with instead of at. She’s made mistakes along the way- they all have, all of the politician daughters Shireen once used to hang out with; fairly big ones, though the others’ often skewed more towards self-destruction than the fiscal destruction Myrcella favored. 

Favors.

That’s the most dangerous thing about Myrcella: the headiness that sweeps her up in a chase. The thrill that comes with hanging about her, because she’s smarter than damn near everyone around her and isn’t afraid to show it.

“Who told you that you were, though?” Shireen asks, glancing through her lashes at Myrcella. And how many pieces are they in right now?

“Daenerys.”

“Ah.”

“Shireen.”

“What?”

“You know something.”

“I don’t.”

“Shireen.”

“‘Cella.”

“Shireen.”

“You’re telling me that you didn’t see it coming?” Shireen asks, sweeping her hand out over the table. “Daenerys wasn’t ever going to be the type to accept your shit, and the fact that she took it for as long as she did says a lot about how you can, like, sing gold from the gutter than anything else!”

Myrcella stares at her. Her gold eyelashes are somehow catching the afternoon sunlight- it’s the only part of her face that’s lit- and she looks like she’s either constipated or amused or horrified. 

“Gold from gutter?” she asks finally, swiping Shireen’s coke and taking a long sip. “I’m not fucking Rapunzel.”

“Oh my god, that is not what-”

“-and no, listen, if Daenerys won’t take my shit, then how come you’re here, huh? How come you know so much and you’re still around me?”

Shireen leans back. Looks up at Myrcella and her gold lashes and her effortless beauty and her gorgeous green eyes. At the scar pulling at a corner of her lip that she’d never had before prison. At the way she stands, always, like she’s half a breath from punching the living daylights out of the person standing in front of her. At her cousin, who Shireen’s known for a hell of a lot of time.

“I’ve got a choice?” she says softly, leaning forwards so Myrcella sees her eyes, sees the way she isn’t looking away. “‘Cella. There’s one thing I’ve wanted all my life. You think I’m stupid enough to walk away just because it’s you giving it to me?”

“That’s- that’s terrible. That’s-”

“You don’t get to run all your life and want us to trust you now.”

“Wow.” Myrcella whistles through her teeth. Coke’s mussed her lipstick and caught on her front teeth, so it looks like she might have bitten through her lip and smeared the blood. “You’ve turned into a real bitch.”

Shireen shrugs. “We all did what we had to.”

And Shireen hasn’t had the same advantages that the others might have had. Myrcella’s never allowed anyone to forget her, not for a single day of her life, but Shireen? Shireen had learned young that attention isn’t something to desire. Attention from her father meant criticism; attention from her mother meant guilt. 

By the time her father got his divorce and left, he’d left her mother a paranoid shell. Shireen hadn’t had the privilege of boarding school or even education outside of her mother’s haphazard attempts to homeschool her- she doesn’t have a high school degree, and to get a reputed degree in history, to be employable, Shireen needs one. 

She’s smart. Hard-working. Nice. 

To get into Oldtown’s history program, Shireen cannot rely on her educational credits. Which means she needs money.

“Shireen,” sighs Myrcella. “Do you think- what’ll they say, if they figure it out?”

“If they figure out that you’re Cersei Lannister’s daughter, and you’re trying to steal your inheritance back?” Shireen shrugs again. “You didn’t do a good job of picking your crew, ‘Cella. Six women with nothing to lose, each brilliant at their jobs? You double-cross them and you won’t get to sleep soundly ever again. Or you won’t wake up.”

“I’m not planning on double-crossing anyone,” says Myrcella softly.

Shireen closes her eyes. “You never do,” she says.

It always happens, though.

“Fuck you. And your fucking drinks, don’t you have something alcoholic?”

“Don’t have the cash,” says Shireen dryly. “And never got in the habit.”

Myrcella waves a weary hand and leans back, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

They don’t talk much for the rest of the night. 

Shireen gets up after some time to make dinner- she prepares soup from a can and toasts bread to give the meal some substance and before she knows it, Myrcella’s stretched out on her carpet, shoeless and hair tumbling free of its updo, sucking on the aluminum can of the coke Shireen tossed her with all the grace of high-class wine.

“A week,” she tells Shireen, nibbling on the crust of her bread. “You’ll be ready?”

“I’ve practiced,” Shireen replies. “And tried to keep my King’s Landing accent, too.”

“Not a chance in hell,” says Myrcella, turning to stare at her. “You can do that? How?”

Shireen rolls her head lazily, dark hair sliding over the rough scars over her cheeks, and says in her best King’s Landing’s accent: “Three summers with you, and you think I didn’t learn anything?”

Myrcella makes a high, incredulous sound in the back of her throat. “Father above, that’s sad. You remember those years?”

“Yeah. It was... a good time.”

Summers spent in King’s Landing, away from her mother and her rage; away from her father and his withering comments. Cersei and Robert had their own issues, of course, but Shireen hadn’t felt they were half so bad as Joffrey and Myrcella had. She remembers long, silent dinners, but then Myrcella and she would sneak out to food stalls and gorge themselves on greasy fries or chocolate until they felt sick. The weather was terrible and the staff were perpetually irritable and Cersei could be vicious when she got down to it, and still it remained some of the best times of her life.

“Not to me,” says Myrcella frankly. 

“Sorry I can’t compete with you,” Shireen retorts mildly. “I was a bit too caught up in not getting disinherited.”

“Haha. You’re fucking hilarious. D’you have an inheritance now?”

“Not ‘til m’dad dies. Which, knowing my father, will be too late for me to enjoy any of it.”

“Sourpuss Stannis,” agrees Myrcella, turning slightly to grin at Shireen.

It’s not as if they’re friends. They’re not. Myrcella walked away too early, and Shireen’s got more important things on her mind, but they know each other, these two sisters of one family, these two daughters who’ve survived their parents’ faults. They’ve stood together under restaurant awning, giggling, hot burgers in their bellies and no cash in their pockets to get home, shoes impractically high, no regret to be felt. 

The world’s thrown them together once more, improbably, and Shireen, for all that she won’t trust Myrcella one inch more than she must, reaches out to lace her fingers through Myrcella’s, leans back against her carpet because she has absolutely no furniture in her flat, and laughs hard enough to make her chest ache.

...

She slides into the catering company’s records with careless ease. 

Shuffling of some papers. A bitching comment about parent companies. Some sheepish smiles. Shireen’s in, and she’s got everything she’ll need tucked away in her pockets.

Daenerys hands her the necklace, nothing but a faint smile on her face and eyes bright as stars. She’s wearing a gown of black silk embroidered with red crystals. When she moves, she looks like dragonfire is rippling across her skirts. Sansa had done a really good job on her dress- though, to be fair, she’d done a brilliant job on all of their gowns.

“Good luck,” she murmurs, hidden in the click of her heels. 

Shireen thinks, briefly, of how Myrcella had been frightened of this woman. 

She is frightening, yes, of course, but only in the way that women born to power, women vicious with ambition can be. 

Only in the way that women who have lost everything and don’t get broken by that are frightening.

Daenerys is frightening in the same way that Myrcella is frightening. As Sansa, bowed over from years of grief and still standing tall. As Arianne, with her all-seeing eyes. As Margaery Tyrell and Missandei and Shireen herself, doing what needs to be done to get what she wants beyond all else. 

Then she slips into the backroom and traces her fingers over the silver clasps of Cersei’s Diamonds. 

“Oh,” she murmurs. “What a shame to break you.”

Her fingers are perfectly clasped along the scissors. The sound of the first clasp’s snap sounds like a song to her ears.

...

There is a moment, between Missandei sliding into the room and taking the cut-up pieces of Cersei’s Diamonds, and Shireen leaving the storage closet. She touches up her makeup. Slips on the dress that Sansa designed for her, as black as Daenerys’ but with yellow highlights instead, like the sky in the heartbeats before a lightning storm.

Her scars are on grander display tonight than they’ve ever been in her life.

Her mother would have tried to keep her stifled and hidden in their home. Her father hasn’t cared much at all what she does, which is to say that he doesn’t think much of everything she’s ever managed. Shireen is here, though, and she’s pinned her hair up proudly, and she’ll walk out of those doors in a minute with her head held high.

She takes a minute, though, to look at herself. To recognize herself. To smile, because while it might be nice to have someone to admire her courage, Shireen’s learned to appreciate it herself over these past years.

“You’re doing this for those girls,” Shireen tells herself solemnly, softly. It is a solemn, soft moment, after all. “For every scarred little girl who doesn’t think she’ll become anything. You’re going to go out there for them, and you’ll have the best night of your life for them.”

...

vi.  i’m going to let the future in, the future in

...

Missandei wakes up in her sunny studio, head throbbing from too much alcohol and neck aching from lying twisted in a particular position. But when she turns, just a little, she sees Daenerys- pale limbs askew over her sheets, hair like strands of silver spilling over the pillows. 

“Dany?” she asks, stretching and wincing from the light angled through the skylight. “You up?”

“Mmm,” she says, stretching languorously. The slow slide of her body- the arch of her back- it leaves Missandei’s mouth dry. Dry. “Yeah. Where’re we?”

“My house.”

It’s not large. The bed’s smushed into a corner with the kitchen directly opposite it, and while it does have a large window, the effect’s ruined by the high-rise beside it. The only sunlight Missandei gets is through the skylight, and that’s perfectly angled to fall into her eyes when she wants nothing more than to sleep in. There’s rats in the walls and the bathroom doesn’t work every odd Tuesday, but she’s been living here for long enough that she’s used to it. And the rent’s cheap, which is always a bonus.

“Wow,” says Daenerys, leaning back. “Yesterday was-”

“Stressful?”

“Fun.”

“Yeah,” says Missandei, because it had been; she hadn’t expected it, but walking through a crowd of people desperately searching for the thing she had in her pockets, carrying something worth millions- it’d been a surprisingly gleeful high. “And the afterparty?”

Daenerys flushes, a little. “I don’t remember much,” she admits, staring up at the ceiling instead of Missandei’s face. “But I think I threw up on Bronn, which isn’t a good memory to carry for my first Met Gala, you know?”

Missandei feels a smile spread across her face. “I met him- but I was a little better when I spoke to Brienne Tarth,” she says. “And that was. You know. Amazing.”

“So we met two people on our cheat lists and neither of us scored?”

“I think I, at least, scored.”

Missandei takes immense pleasure in seeing Daenerys’ face go searing red for the briefest of seconds. Then, reluctantly, she rolls out of bed. 

“Food?” she asks, and barely waits to hear Daenerys’ answer before stumbling into the bathroom. 

She looks terrible, in all honesty: dried makeup’s smeared over her face, and there’s- gods- bruises on her back from where the support bra dug into her skin a little too harshly, and she wrenched her ankle when Daenerys tried to get them both to run in heels through a park on some drunken dare. But the upturn to her lips feels like it’s going nowhere, especially when she realizes that she’s just slept with the woman of her dreams and by the end of the week she should have enough money to leave both this apartment and this entire country behind.

Naath. 

How long has it been since Missandei left? It’s not even that she wants to go back and live there. She just wants to see it once more, but flight tickets are expensive and passports are even worse and going from an illegal to legal citizen is, like, the worst process ever. But if she can? If she can wake up one morning and know that she’ll go to Naath on this date, then yes, Missandei knows the thing that will make her happiest.

She emerges after washing her face and brushing her teeth and looking a whole lot more presentable.

“There’s a diner down the street,” she tells Daenerys. “You want takeout or to eat there?”

“I’d rather just stay here,” Daenerys says, after an assessing glance over the apartment. “Lie in. What’s good there?”

“Coffee. Raspberry pastries, I think.”

“One of each, then?”

Missandei pushes a headband into her springy curls and slips on her jeans, an old t-shirt, her most comfortable running shoes, a jacket. She steps out onto the fire escape and clatters her way down, ignoring her downstairs neighbor’s indignant curse. 

She can’t stop grinning the whole damn way.

...

In the diner, she slips into her booth and gestures to the waiter for double her usual order. Missandei doesn’t come here often, precisely, but it’s the closest thing to a restaurant on her street and their prices are relatively manageable. Somehow she doesn’t miss Naathi food as much when she’s gorging herself on their raspberry pastries, so whenever she starts feeling homesick she just heads here and orders one of each.

Behind her, someone enters; Missandei doesn’t bother looking behind her, not until the entire diner goes still for the briefest of seconds. 

Greed, she thinks, fingers whitening. Then: mark.

Someone’s just walked into the diner with money, and they’re not a druglord or some recently-acquired criminal. Slowly, creakingly casually, Missandei turns her neck to see who these people might be.

Her heart skips a beat.

Myrcella, she recognizes. That arch of her neck. The impatient tap of her fingers. She’s unmistakable. And the man beside her? Tyrion fucking Lannister. Once-Mayor to King’s Landing until he got into trouble for prostitution; elevated to the Cabinet just a few years ago; he made Hand of the Cabinet something like two months before Myrcella approached Missandei for this job.

And, luck of lucks, they choose a booth close enough for Missandei to overhear them, just one behind her. 

“You wanted to talk, Uncle,” says Myrcella flatly, which makes Missandei hunch further down on her coffee, mind whirring a thousand miles per minute. 

Uncle? Tyrion Lannister has two siblings. Jaime Lannister’s famously a bachelor, which leaves-

Missandei chokes. 

Myrcella Baratheon.

“You’re my niece,” says Tyrion fucking Lannister, voice dropping into proper Westerlands’ accent. It’s thick enough that it might throw off the casual listener- the Westerlands are funnily insular that way- but hah, Missandei’s learned enough of it not to be fazed even a little. “I thought I should warn you. They’ve got you on camera near that bathroom, and they’re not that stupid. Once someone puts two and two together- even I won’t be able to interfere.”

“Oh, like you did the last time I went to jail?” drawls Myrcella, venomously bland. “Or when I got out? I really don’t remember seeing you, you know. So you’ll forgive me for being under the impression that you don’t care.”

“I just-” he sighs. “Don’t want you turning out like your dear old uncle. Joffrey’s already talking about putting you six feet under.”

She’s smiling. Missandei knows it, like she knows the pulse of a mark beneath her fingers. Bright and steady and knife-sharp.

“Prison wasn’t good enough for him?” asks Myrcella. “Tell me, Uncle, is this because you actually want to make sure I don’t die, or is it because you want to make sure I don’t ruin the family’s reputation in the process?”

“Myrcella,” says Tyrion quietly.

“Joff sold my mother’s diamonds the week after she died so he had the money to convict me on trumped up charges,” she says, flat and unyielding. “All so he could have the Baratheon and Lannister empires. If you’re asking me to walk away- tell my brother to fucking do it first.”

Tyrion’s silent for a long minute. “You’re going to get hurt.”

“It’s not me that should be wary.” Something clinks; Myrcella’s set down her cup. “I’m smarter than him, Uncle, and probably smarter than you, too. I know you all thought I was done when I went away- but I’m not him. And I’ve got a long memory.”

“You’re saying you did do it, then?”

“No. But I’m saying that if I did, you’d never pin it on me.”

“You’re just as bad as Jaime,” mumbles Tyrion. “Fucking hells, girl. Take my warning. Get out before the city gets too hot for you.”

“Funny story, actually,” says Myrcella casually. “I met Brienne Tarth yesterday. Her plus one was... very familiar.”

Missandei frowns, running through what she remembers from last night. She has a good memory- it comes with training, and the danger that can occur when you need to recognize people you’ve met once or twice to save your life- and a better nose for danger, but what she remembers of Brienne’s companion isn’t memorable. He’d been tall, with a shaggy head of hair and broad shoulders; overall dwarfed by Brienne herself. Funny, though, in an irreverent manner that had left both her and Daenerys in stitches.

But Tyrion seems to understand what Myrcella’s implying. His tone’s too flat for anything else.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We all have secrets,” says Myrcella sweetly. “Be careful which ones come out, if you aren’t careful.”

“You’re threatening me?” 

“Just a warning, Uncle Tyrion.”

Missandei chances a twist of her body, careful and easy, and sees Tyrion slide out of the booth. The back of his neck is red. 

She turns back, hands tight around cooled coffee and soggy pastries, and she closes her eyes. Daenerys is still furious at Myrcella for keeping secrets. But this is what comes with criminals: the bendable truth and the long, sinuous history, rife with terrible secrets. Missandei can tell Daenerys, can walk out the door, can explode the faint, tenuous strands of friendship that they’ve built over these past few weeks. 

Or she can explore those strands instead.

The door to the diner swings shut, and Missandei makes her decision. 

...

When she landed in Westeros, there hadn’t been a college. There hadn’t been anything but a dark room and iron around her wrists and fear, like a living creature coiling around her lungs. Missandei will live for all her days and never forget that.

But the darkness had been shattered one night. The slats above her head had broken open, revealing a man shaved bald, with gleaming eyes and muscles large enough to leave her cringing further into the cot. Far, far above him, had shone the stars.

“Run,” he’d said, even as he broke her chains. He’d released her, shoved her along the pier until they reached a small cove. He’d handed her some money, his jacket, and told her to go, and Missandei hadn’t looked back, not for all the years since she first walked away. 

...

She gets up. 

She turns around the booth divider and sits down across from Myrcella. 

“You’re a Lannister,” she says lowly.

Myrcella’s head jerks up, out of her hands. Her eyes are wide and very faintly red-edged as she takes in Missandei- the old, ratty clothes; the poof of her hair without time spent taming it; the coffee and paper bags in her hands.

“I’m an idiot,” she says, thunking her head back. “You even told me where you lived. How much’d you hear?”

“I was here when you walked in.”

“Mother above.”

Missandei feels a smile curl at her lips. “Indeed,” she says. “Quite a large secret to keep from all of us, isn’t it?”

“Not all of you.” Myrcella shrugs. “Arianne knew. Shireen knows as well.”

“But not all of us knew.”

“No,” says Myrcella quietly, deflating. “Not all of you.”

“Would you have told us?” Missandei asks, because she’s afraid and she’s tired and she still rather likes Myrcella, despite it all. “At the end of it?”

Myrcella lifts an eyebrow at her. “D’you think I would have?”

It’s as much an answer as anything. Missandei thinks back to the diamonds sitting on her bedside besides Daenerys’ pendant, Myrcella’s mother’s diamonds carved out of Casterly Rock’s mines. What had Myrcella said? Her brother had inherited those diamonds, and he’d sold them to get the cash to put Myrcella away in prison. Missandei thinks about it, how easy it would be to take those diamonds and use them as evidence, evidence that she can give to the police and this potential disaster she can easily walk away from. 

But she likes Myrcella.

“You’re going to need help dealing with some of them,” she says instead, calm and unflappable as a Naathi boat spearing through waves, saltspray rich on her tongue. “You should probably tell the others tonight.”

Myrcella’s eyes lighten, like the sky between storms, a blue flecked with nothing but deeper blue. “Why would I do that?”

Missandei drinks from her coffee. Hides the grimace against the taste of it going lukewarm.

“Because,” she tells her, “you do need help.”

“I can handle myself.”

“The Hand of the Cabinet and the richest man in the country want to kill you. You’ve got seven women here who’re willing to help- you should take it.”

“Missandei-”

“When I left Naath,” says Missandei, “I was more afraid of asking for help than of giving it. And it was the thing I was happiest about, that I wouldn’t have five other sisters and brothers asking me to get up early or make them dinner or help them with their homework. Everyone keeps asking us to do things to make their lives easier. Everyone. Always.”

“So you’re telling me to make life more difficult?” Myrcella smiles mirthlessly. “I can manage to ruin my family’s lives just fine by myself, thanks.”

Missandei lifts a shoulder. “Ruin their lives, yes, but get away after?” Myrcella pauses for a beat. Hesitates. Missandei nods- point made. “Take help, Myrcella. Take our help. Don’t make their lives one drop easier than it has to be.”

“Even if I did- what’s your brilliant plan here? I’ve looked at it. From every angle. Every angle. There’s no way you can get Joffrey accused of theft.”

“I said seven women,” says Missandei quietly. Watches the light slowly start to gleam in her eyes. “Not six.”

“Who?” breathes Myrcella.

Slowly, Missandei passes her phone across the table. Myrcella looks down, then up, eyes narrowing.

“Margaery Tyrell isn’t quite as stupid as you thought she was, I’m afraid,” Missandei tells her.

...

Missandei and Margaery aren’t friends, but Margaery knows Bronn and while Missandei spoke to him the previous night, quietly over-awed, she’d slipped into the conversation. Her hands had been dry and tight on Missandei’s forearms as she guided her away, and her voice had been perfectly calm when she handed Missandei a number before whispering into her ear: I know those earrings.

...

Missandei left Naath a long time ago. 

She’d left because she wanted a better life for herself, and because she’d wanted something for herself, and because the man who promised her a college education had been handsome, and Missandei had been flattered by his words.

Three days later, she was in Westeros without any record of entry and no way to return. There hadn’t even been a college. 

So she ran.

It hadn’t been easy. Months of fear. Hiding. Learning the Westerosi language by eavesdropping on shopkeepers’ conversations. Picking pockets and disappearing into the shadows and praying, desperately, that her parents would one day forgive her for her crimes.

But she’s learned, and she’s become better, and she knows one thing if she knows nothing else: she will one day return to Naath, and she will look her mother in the eye, and she will tell her, I walked a long road, but there was joy and triumph lining it. Matching the grief and loss, ounce for ounce.

And on that day, it will not be a lie.

...

She reaches out and lets her fingers sit on Myrcella’s hands. 

“They’ll believe you,” says Missandei. “Let us help.”

“You trust her?” asks Myrcella.

Missandei remembers that man, who’d saved her, who’d looked so angry, who’d been so frightening. She still has his jacket. She wears it very rarely, but she does: on the worst days, those times when she wants to leave this novel land and all the harsh, difficult aches it brings with it. She thinks that she wouldn’t stay next to that man, not for anything, but if she ever got the chance to go back, she would say thank you. She thinks that the world is exhausting and terrible and large, and still there are dreams that have made the worst parts worth it. She thinks of all that she would give to return home, and all that she would give to not have to walk that path alone.

“Yes,” says Missandei. “Yes.”

...

vii. behind a velvet rope, we hide in plain sight; we're dressed in black smoke, and have our hands tied

...

Perfection is unattainable. The appearance of perfection? Less so.

Margaery has spent a very long time ensuring every inch of her life looks as beautiful as she wants it, and she's never been shy about wanting things. It’s why she tilts her head and walks to a golden-eyed woman wearing a white gown with gold spilling down it like sunshine and presses her number into the woman’s fingers. Wanting things gets you nowhere; doing things makes it happen.

She gets a call the next day. The day after that, she takes a cab down to a pier-side warehouse, which looks like it’s a proper week from collapse. Inside, she makes her way up the stairs she’d been directed towards.

Above it is a loft, stuffed with couches and some random materials. Margaery takes her time looking at the motley collection of people: Sansa and Shireen, who Margaery’s met; a slender woman in dark leather with choppy hair; the golden-eyed woman she’d met at the after-party- Missandei- who’s wearing a large skirt and bangles almost up to her elbows; a dark-haired woman with streaks of red and yellow painted through it; another blonde woman who could be mistaken for a socialite who’s arguing loudly with a white-haired woman who’s a head shorter but looks angry enough to light the other on fire. Then she clears her throat.

“You’d called,” Margaery says, nodding to the golden-eyed woman.

“Margaery?” asks Sansa, jerking upright. “What’re you doing here?”

“I figured it out,” Margaery says calmly. “You think I can’t see things that are in front of me?”  She steps further into the room. “And- no offense- but none of you are good actors. Or actors, at all.”

“I invited her here,” says the blonde woman. So that’s Myrcella- she looks too posh to be the mastermind behind the heist, but Margaery doesn’t think she’s in much state to judge on appearances herself. She’s spent too long crafting an image of vapidity to be unaware of such tricks. 

“Why?” spits the white-haired woman. 

Missandei reaches out and rests a hand on her elbow. “Myrcella and I did it,” she tells the room at large, though she’s addressing the white-haired woman directly. “Because Myrcella has a problem, and Margaery has a solution.”

“A problem?” That’s the dark-skinned woman- who’s probably Dornish- stands up. She’s tall. Probably the tallest person in the entire room. And she’s starting to look angry. “I told you- ‘Cella, I told you not to do this. It always-”

Myrcella ignores her and speaks over her loudly. “They’re looking for someone to blame for the theft. I’m... the principal suspect, right now.”

“Despite being caught on one of the cameras the whole time?” asks Sansa wryly.

“They’re smart people,” replies Myrcella. She catches Margaery’s eye. “Smarter than I thought.”

“Don’t be surprised,” Margaery tells her. “People who’ve known me for a lot longer than any of you still think I’m a soulless bitch with a walnut-sized brain.” She goes to one of the seats and throws herself down, lazily sprawling. She grins. “It’s one of the few pleasures of my life.”

Once, it hadn’t been. But time’s have changed, and Margaery’s grown into herself, and thorns have grown in the parts of herself that once bore soft skin.

“Why. Are. You. The. Primary. Suspect.” The white-haired woman launches herself away from Missandei, glaring at Myrcella, fingers flexing like she wants to tear at Myrcella’s smooth cheeks. “I told you, I warned you, I swore to you-”

“I’m a Baratheon, Daenerys,” says Myrcella quietly, and the room goes quiet as a grave. Myrcella smiles thinly. “That’s the last secret, you know. Myrcella Baratheon, Cersei’s daughter.”

Daenerys has gone red. It clashes unpleasantly with her silver hair. For a long moment, nobody reacts. Margaery finds herself speechless as well- this woman, so well put-together, so cunning and bright and not evil, is Joffrey’s sister. The girl in a leather jacket- that’s remained silent thus far- slowly gets up off her perch on the back of the sofa. The Dornish woman looks resigned, and Shireen doesn’t look surprised, but the rest of them? Shocked to their core.

Before any of them can say anything, though, Daenerys speaks. “I should fucking shoot you,” she snarls. 

Contradictorily, Myrcella relaxes. There’s the smallest of smiles on her face. “I saved your life,” she says, and doesn’t look away from Daenerys. The words aren’t kind, but they don’t sound cruel. “D’you remember that?”

“Yes.” Daenerys says it softly, and slowly reaches out to grip Myrcella’s wrist. “I won’t ever forget it.” She doesn’t smile, but something in her face softens, as careless as a breeze on the first day of spring. “So. What’s the plan? And this time, don’t fucking lie.”

Her grip must change, because Myrcella winces. 

“Fine,” she exclaims. “Fine, ow, ow, ow- fine, get your stupid hands off of me!”

Daenerys lets go and steps back smugly. 

“They’re looking for Myrcella,” says Missandei, into the silence. “So we need to protect her, and give them incontrovertible proof otherwise.”

“Proof?” asks Shireen. 

“You know what.”

“Yes,” agrees Shireen. “Cersei’s Diamonds. You want to give it back?”

“How’re you planning on paying us, if you give them back?” asks the girl in the leather jacket. 

Sansa reaches out and pinches a sleeve, as if trying to drag her back. “Arya,” she sighs. “Let’s hear this out.”

“I want my money,” she hisses, but deigns to settle back beside Sansa on the arm of the sofa. 

Margaery lifts an eyebrow. “I can get the diamonds into Joffrey’s house,” she says. “But you’ll need more evidence than that to convict him.”

“Joffrey,” murmurs Sansa. She has a dark look in her eyes, and she reaches out to tilt her head at Arya. “The two of us have some unfinished business with him, don’t we?”

Arya looks back at her. For a long minute, she doesn’t say anything. There’s some thought process going on there- but then she smiles, slow and rich and wide. “He won’t know what hits him.” She spreads her fingers wide and suddenly, between the spaces, there are chains of multiple silver links threaded with the tiniest of pearls holding it together. “And if that’s who you’re working to bring down, I’ll do my part in getting us out of the hole.”

“Is that-” Shireen jerks to her feet. “- is that the Braavosi Gauntlet?”

Sansa shrugs off her wrap slowly, guilt written out across her long limbs. She’s wearing a rose pink shirt that’s particularly flattering on her face, and a chunky necklace that looks ugly next to it. But Margaery recognizes that necklace. 

“And the Arryn necklace,” she says. “Everyone was so obsessed with those diamonds- we just... decided to take advantage. Of their lax security.”

“There’s no way you did that on your own,” says the Dornish woman flatly. “That were lasers, and guards, and-”

“And none of it mattered,” says Arya. “Because it turns out that if you’re a trapeze artist, you can manage all those feats with, you know, relative ease.”

“You know trapeze artists?” asks Shireen, looking baffled.

Sansa levels a deeply amused look at Myrcella, who’s starting to look like she regrets ever having this conversation. “I don’t,” she says. “But Myrcella introduced me to one.” One breath, where she revels in their combined surprise, before she elaborates: “Asha Greyjoy.”

Who Margaery knows, who she should have remembered, who-

“Fucking hell,” says the Dornish woman, slanting an irritated look at Daenerys. “You’re telling me I could’ve hired someone to rappel down that stupid roof instead of doing it myself?”

Myrcella whirls on her. “You stole something, too? You, Arianne? After all that absolute bull on not running a job in a-”

“She was trying to protect you,” drawls Daenerys. Her voice is stiff, but her eyes aren’t anywhere near as harsh. “Asked me not to seat you at the same table as her and Joffrey, because you’d forgotten about it in the rush. And I asked her for one thing in response.”

“Which is what?”

“My mother’s necklace,” says Daenerys. She’s pale, very pale, and looks somehow both small and proud. Her eyes dart around the group and she lifts her chin. “You might as well know, now- I’m a Targaryen.”

Shireen flinches. Well, she’s a Baratheon; she might as well- it’d been her uncle who’d thrown Rhaegar in jail. Who’d sent half an army to Dragonstone. Who’d become president on the wave of economic prosperity following their demise, and allowed his son to become even more despotic than any Targaryen. They’ve been enemies, the Baratheons and Targaryens, for so long.

But here stands Myrcella, who’ll be heir if Joffrey leaves. Here stands Daenerys, who apparently wants to rebuild her family’s empire.

Here they stand.

“Why a necklace?” asks Sansa gently.

“Because in a few days, it’s going to be twenty-five years from the date of Robert Baratheon seizing my family’s assets. Statute of limitations runs out, and the government gets Dragonstone.” Daenerys’ lips twist. “Dad’s will specified that his heir would have our family’s dragon eggs, which everyone had thought turned into stone. But on the boat to Westeros, the engine had some... issues. Explosions. I woke up on a life-raft with nothing, just the clothes on my back, third degree burns, and three hatched dragons. Which aren’t specified by any will, so I needed other proof, like my mother’s- which was in a locker in the Met for, like, decades.”

Here they stand, Myrcella and Daenerys, together.

“And that,” says Myrcella, staring at Arianne, “was why you were late in meeting me after the gala?”

Arianne shrugs. “Someone’s got to do the dirty work around here, yes?”

“Well,” murmurs Shireen. “I suppose we’re all criminals, then, aren’t we? Living up to the mantle and all.”

Myrcella closes her eyes. Shireen holds out her purse, which has a number of charms on the tag. One of which is a giant yellow gem, threaded through by the hole that must have been used for a necklace.

“Nothing so dramatic as yours,” she tells Daenerys, “but I can sell this in a couple years. Get. You know. Rich.”

Missandei shakes her head when Myrcella turns to her, an accusing look on her face. “I didn’t do anything like that,” she announces, but she’s smiling. It is ridiculous, thinks Margaery, this group of criminals who’ve lived on their own for so long, who’ve fought the world so desperately, who are even so hanging up their resentments in favor of showing each other what they’ve managed. Who are only now learning to work together, at the end of such a long road next to each other. “But I did pick a lot of pockets in the afterparty. The number of spare Rolex watches and secondary earrings I got can probably keep me going for a while.”

Sansa gets to her feet.

She’s so tall. It’s easy to forget, because she tends to make her shoulders small and hunch in on herself, but Sansa’s taller than even Arianne, even without heels. It leaves Margaery’s mouth a little dry. Her eyes lingering, just a moment, on Sansa’s slender wrists. The pulse of her heartbeat in her neck.

“So we pawn it all,” she says. “And split the money by eight.”

Margaery rises as well. She looks at Sansa, at her blue eyes, at her sharp nose, at the kindness and grief and beauty shining from her features. She doesn’t know what Sansa owes to Joffrey- why she loathes him so. She doesn’t care.

If she can ruin him?

If she can ruin the bastard who's bruised her and raged at her and threatened her- if she can be the catalyst for his ultimate fall from grace? Oh, Margaery will take the opportunity with both hands, and she will thank whoever gave it to her.

“And then,” she says, grinning, viciously, vociferously, at the bloodiness in Sansa’s teeth and all the vengeances she’s paying back, “we’ll get the bastard good.”

“Hear hear,” calls Arya, hand wearing the gauntlet up and glittering like a thousand stars. 

“Hear hear,” call everyone else, sweeter than a song, louder than a concert all around them.

Margaery thinks of all those people who don’t know who she is. Who have known her for decades, some of them, longer than these seven women. Who have never seen her express her true emotions, not once.

Margaery smiles, smiles, smiles, and has no desire to stop, not even a little.

...

Watching Joffrey’s face as he realizes he’s gone from powerful to powerless leaves Margaery giddy. Once he’s walked out by the police, clad in handcuffs and bruised because of course he hadn’t known not to resist- Margaery slips on a loose hoodie and meanders her way down to a small alley beside his building. It’s the first time in years that she’s done such a simple thing, all because she wants to.

“You okay?” asks Sansa.

Margaery has a bruise over her heart, and thorns where her softness once resided. She reaches out and twines her fingers over Sansa’s, and she feels like a rose in spring, having survived winter, petals slowly unfurling, glorious as absolutely nothing else in all the world.

“Never better,” she says, and there isn’t a single lie in sight.