Chapter Text
Cold
They deserved each other, she had heard it whispered. Stannis Baratheon and his cold, haughty wife. But unlike her husband, her coldness was a coldness taught, not one born and bred in the bones. She was once a girl who dreamed of beautiful weddings, of blushing brides and laughing grooms. She never confided those dreams to a soul; not her mother, not even cousin Delena, one of her very few friends. They would have laughed, she knew. Ugly Selyse, sticking out like a sore thumb even among the other not-so-beautiful Florents with their prominent ears. Strange Selyse, charmless and loveless.
He would understand, she thought, when she first met him. The man who looked nothing like his handsome older brother, the man completely lacking his brother’s charms and gallantry. He would know what it felt like, to be disliked, overlooked, ignored, even hated, for nothing more than the sin of being who you are. She saw them as kindred spirits, almost. Together they would teach the world that they were not to be ignored, that they would not cower or hide away in shame, that they were forces to be reckoned with.
He did understand, perhaps too well. He saw her and was reminded of himself and how the world had treated him, and despised her all the more for it. So she closed her eyes and she closed her heart and she taught herself not to care. Not to love.
This is how you protect yourself. She learned that lesson the hard way.