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Rhaenyra was going to give her a stroke one of these days. It’s the only thing that Alicent can think about as her childhood friend lifts the helmet from her head, silver hair spilling in rough tangles down her back. As she completes her victory circuit to the loud roar of the crowd, Rhaenyra keeps her gaze locked with Alicent, violet eyes bright with triumph and something else she hesitates to name. Alicent can’t bring herself to look away.
She thought Rhaenyra was joking about entering the tournament. When she had first brought it up to her father, the King had expressly forbade it. Rhaenyra was his only child, and he kept her close and safe with a fierce protectiveness that had only grown after Queen Aemma had barely survived childbirth two years ago. Practice bouts were permitted, even encouraged, but a full-scale competition with no holds barred was a different matter entirely.
As she watches Rhaenyra’s opponent, a heavy-set Lannister, groaning from where he had fallen off his mount, blood soaking his shirt where she had pierced him with her lance- Alicent realizes that there was a second reason. Rhaenyra was competitive and vicious, her emotions as riotous and violent as the sea. She was even more so when she had something to prove.
Alicent rises, unsteady despite her best efforts, as Rhaenyra brings her horse to a halt in front of the stands where she sits. The silver haired girl- no, woman, Alicent would be hard pressed to call her anything else after that showing- smiles up at her, crooked and so, so familiar. Alicent had been afraid when Rhaenyra had begun to court her, when her father had accepted on her behalf, that the ease of their friendship would disappear under the strict rules that their interactions now had.
To her surprise, the distance enforced between them had only made each touch that more intimate, the elaborate dance between them had made the simple moments that much more perfect. The first time that Rhaenyra had kissed her hand she had felt as though she would burn up from the sheer heat that had risen to her face. The heat had traveled to other places as well, secret, sacred places that Alicent only let herself think about in the dark hours and behind a locked door. Places that Rhaenyra would know if (when, the brave part of her whispers) the courtship progressed into something more.
“Milady?” Rhaenyra’s soft question jolts Alicent from her racing thoughts. She smiles down at her, forcing it into something small and proper. She must have missed the announcement declaring Rhaenyra as the winner of the tournament. The applause has died down, replaced with an anticipatory silence, and Alicent watches as Rhaenyra tugs off her gauntlet and wipes her hand against the fabric of her exposed tunic in an attempt to rid it of the dirt and oil caking it. The thoughtfulness is enough to make the dregs of Alicent’s consternation disappear. Rhaenyra then raises her hand up towards her, a silent offer. The stadium itself seems to hold its breath.
Alicent doesn’t hesitate to lean over the balcony, even with the eyes of hundreds of people upon her, something that would have halted her in her tracks but two winters ago. But Alicent has become something different, forged into steel under the careful guidance of Queen Aemma. She has become a dragon in her own right.
Rhaenyra’s hand is warm, the familiar calluses running over Alicent’s palm and catching on the divot between her thumb and her pointer finger. Slowly, she brings Alicent’s hand to her mouth, kissing it gently. They’ve done this thousands of times over the course of their lifetimes, as children, as young women, as friends and as betrothed. But underneath the blazing sun, with Rhaenyra resplendent in shining armor- it holds a divine weight to it.
Rhaenyra lets go with great reluctance, and Alicent takes the opening to reach towards her neck, carefully unraveling the scarf she had draped over herself despite the heat. Perhaps it was foolish, especially when she was not even certain then that Rhaenyra had entered the tournament. But Alicent rarely allowed herself to be foolish. A momentary lapse in judgment was excusable. She hands Rhaenyra the scarf, and she takes in with a reverence that makes Alicent’s breath catch. Rhaenyra then smiles up at her, eyes bright and wild.
“I knew you would like this part.” She says, her smile turning into a smirk as Alicent moves as if she’s going to take the scarf back. “None of that, Lady Hightower. You have already given me your favor, you cannot take it back.”
“Just because it has not been done before does not mean it cannot be done now.” Alicent retorts, and then she realizes that she’s still bent over the railing and straightens with an attempted elegance that has failed if the widening of Rhaenyra’s smirk is anything to go by.
“Anyone listening would think that you detest me.” She jokes.
“If you continue to mock me you may prove them right,” Alicent says, but despite her best efforts she cannot stop the fondness from leaking through.
“Such cruel words,” Rhaenyra laughs, and then sobers, “Will you join me for dinner tonight?”
Alicent is confused at first by the sudden uncertainty in her voice, the teasing tone from before completely gone. Her lips are pressed tightly together,and her hands flex around the soft fabric of Alicent’s scarf unconsciously. Alicent realizes that this will not just be another meal spent together, that Rhaenyra is asking for something more than that. Her throat is as dry as sand, her breath catching on the tip of her tongue. Already, the whole afternoon has felt like one of the fairytales Alicent reads to Rhaenyra under the godswood, the princesses’ head a warm weight in her lap. It feels like the happily-ever after that she had scarcely let herself believe in when she was younger.
“Yes,” she says, feeling the finality of that single word settle around the both of them. Binding them, in ways that they have not yet been bonded. She smiles, unrestrained. “Yes, it would please me greatly to have dinner with you.”
Rhaenyra’s returning smile rivals the brightness of the sun above them.