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Her deep inhale of breath is the taste of the pine, feeling her toes seep into the cool sand and the sun on her closed eyelids, wind blowing her hair across her face. Then there’s the familiar click of a camera shutter, and Alicent’s eyes flutter open.
She can see the lake first, stretching out and to the mountains at the other side away from the sandy beach she stands on now. Her gaze shifts to the waves lapping at the grains that shift and create the ever changing boundary of land and water, until she can see the familiar figure standing a few feet a ways down from her, Rhaenyra bringing the camera from her face to smile softly.
“Sorry,” She chuckles, the breeze carrying it over to Alicent, who can only reflect the younger’s smile fondly.
“You’re always stealing photos of me when I least expect it,” Alicent rolls her eyes, but it’s nothing close to annoyed, her toes sinking into the sand with each step towards Rhaenyra, “Do I look good?”
“Of course,” Rhaenyra grins, closing the distance herself and moving to show the picture to the elder proudly, “another one for the wall.”
Alicent shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest with a small smile, “there’s so many of me up there now, no thank you.”
Rhaenyra frowns, exaggeratedly pushing her bottom lip out, “oh come on, it’s only cause you’re so pretty!”
“Nuh Uh,” Alicent shakes her head again, playfully adamant, before she slips her hands over Rhaenyra’s on the camera and gives a tiny tug, declaring “my turn to take some of you!”
Rhaenyra’s initial smile blooms into an even bigger one, rolling her eyes fondly and letting the elder take the camera from her hands and then skip away a few steps with a triumphant laugh, leaving sandy footprints behind her.
And then Alicent spins, camera to her face, lining up a shot of the younger—and Rhaenyra of course poses.
She narrows her eyes dramatically while looking away to the horizon, pursing her lips and placing her hands balled into fists on her waist and trying to look brooding. Alicent can’t help but laugh breathily, the camera shutter clicking once, and then twice.
“Ah, how pretty,” Alicent coos, admiring the beauty of the younger, “a goddess that’s come from the lake to claim me!”
Rhaenyra’s dramatic expression breaks, nose scrunching and eyes closing as she snorts out the beginning of what turns into a loud laugh, followed by, “isn't that you?”
The camera shutter can be heard clicking the entire time Rhaenyra laughs, a hand flying to cover her face even as she shouts playfully for Alicent to stop and the elder laughs now too as she approaches for some ‘close-ups’.
“Ah my beautiful girl,” Alicent giggles, taking another photo of the younger now right up close, Rhaenyra batting her away.
“Oh my god, shut up,” she snorts, snatching back her camera and turning it on Alicent’s gleeful expression. There’s a shout of surprise, the elder scrambling to hide her own face from view.
“Hey! No fair! We still don’t have enough pictures of you yet,” Alicent whines, pouting, and only after the younger drops the camera does she let down her guard, shifting into the younger’s space a little more and moving a lock of Rhaenyra’s short hair from her face as another breeze blows by.
“And we can get more later,” Rhaenyra smiles, shaking her head ever so slightly with a tiny roll of her eyes and a fond flick to Alicent’s nose, pushing her playfully back as Alicent tries to bite said finger with a grin.
They stare into each other’s eyes for a few moments, and then Rhaenyra’s lips curl ever so slightly as she leans in to steal a quick kiss to Alicent’s cheek.
“Hey,” Alicent snaps with a chuckle, swatting Rhaenyra back, “did I say you could?”
“It wasn’t on the lips,” Rhaenyra pouts, “it was romantic.”
“I’m romantic,” Alicent replies, running her hands through the younger's hair to fix it as it gets blown wild by the next breeze.
Then she slips her hand down and into the younger’s, tangling their fingers easily and turning to begin walking back towards the edge of the woods and the beach where their tiny cabin sits, Rhaenyra understanding and quickly skipping to keep up before falling into step with Alicent.
“You came to get me before dark?” Rhaenyra asks, bumping her shoulder into Alicent’s and smiling expectantly, “that’s romantic?”
And of course Alicent rolls her eyes but can’t help her own smile, “of course I did, you fall asleep out here almost every night. And yes, it is.”
“Not, every night,” Rhaenyra defended, kicking a branch buried in the sand as the passed it and feeling Alicent tug her back with a chuckle.
“Every night,” Alicent says again, taking the first step up to their cabin door before the younger quickly follows, “I think one day you might actually turn out to be a lake goddess or something.”
“Pfft,” Rhaenyra snorts a laugh out through her nose, waiting for Alicent to tug open the cabin door before she slips into the dimly lit cabin, “I think you overestimate my abilities, my queen.”
Alicent follows after, the light being provided exclusively by tons of fairy lights strung up all around with pictures clipped to them, seeing as the windows had been shut by the older apparently just before coming out to get Rhaenyra.
She remembers when they first moved here a few months ago and discovered they’d had no lamps or light bulbs, spending the first few nights—week—in darkness because they couldn’t drive into town to buy any. Remembers Rhaenyra holding her close at night and whispering through muffled laughs that she didn’t need light because she had her light in her arms.
The memory makes the elder smile fondly.
“You literally only call me that because of my name,” Alicent huffs, closing the door behind her and closing the very small distance in the cabin to the bed—seeing as it’s really just enough space for a large queen bed and then a tiny kitchen along one wall with a dining table across from that, cabin door separating the space.
It’s tiny but it’s all the space the two of them need, and they spend most days outside—Rhaenyra taking pictures and Alicent painting—it’s their way of life and they don’t need much, the money from selling both of their creative outputs enough to put food on the table and keep water coming through the pipes. The fairy lights also don’t use a lot of electricity so they just have a solar panel Rhaenyra spent about three days figuring out how to install.
The older clambers onto the bed with little grace, quickly sitting back to remove her white and red floral dress and toss it into the tiny basket at the end where they put their clothes to wash in the lake at the end up the week, going to grab a new one from the cabinets on the wall they worked as a tag team to install and store their few possessions in—the bottom one that Alicent opens holding their few clothes.
“I do not,” Rhaenyra scoffs, climbing onto the bed after the older. Her fingers play with the simple blue sheets, the ones that used to be white until Alicent spilled her paints on them and they decided to just dye it completely.
Rhaenyra then follows Alicent’s lead of getting undressed by slipping off her mauve shirt and tosses it to the laundry basket as well, before getting hit in the face by a red shirt thrown at her.
Alicent chuckles at the younger’s betrayed look after the shirt falls to her hands, tugging her own chosen black shirt on and scrambling towards the pillows at the top of the bed. She lays down, waiting for Rhaenyra to finish tugging on the shirt the older chose for her and then join Alicent, laying her head down on the same pillow as the older despite there being two.
Their eyes meet then, both letting the air in their cabin hit against their skin as they stare at each other with only a few inches between them, but not touching.
It’s quiet, except for the sounds of the forest and the lake outside their tiny cabin. And that’s what they like about it, Rhaenyra sitting up for a second to grab the blanket and pull it up over the both of them, stealing Alicent’s hand in the process and tangling their fingers together over her stomach, finally initiating the closeness they both have grown accustomed to.
Rhaenyra flashes a toothy smile, cheeks round and a little rosy, actually starting to hurt from how much she’s smiling—but these days they always hurt because of that reason. Alicent returns it softly shifting a little closer in the bed and moving her free hand to brush the younger’s hair aside, as always letting her fingers tangle a little more in the blonde strands and play with them ever so gently.
“Goodnight lake goddess,” Alicent grins, pressing the softest kiss to the corner of Rhaenyra’s mouth.
It prompts a tiny giggle from the younger, and then, “goodnight my queen.”
This time Rhaenyra presses the kiss to Alicent’s forehead, smiling cheekily and then nuzzling her nose to the older’s cheek, hand not tangled with Alicent’s moving to hug her fully, followed by a satisfied exhale.
Alicent smiles softly, letting her own free hand encircle Rhaenyra however it can—getting sandwiched under the younger’s body after Rhaenyra gives a muffles evil chuckle—and relaxing into the warmth that they share.