Chapter Text
Charlie endured captivation badly. She’s been on the verge of crying since the day it came clear that they were no guests for Heaven, and rather than spending her time planning and scheming as her Lord Father would, she just completely gave up.
It was a painful image. The poor girl’s never before got that much gloom, this mad look that came with her capture suited her badly. She had a face made for smile, dimples and whitest teeth in her mouth. Vaggi noticed that long ago and grew to love it greatly.
Gladly, Vaggi wasn’t one to give in to spiraling. She was here the only protector to Charlie, and without her there would be no realm to endorse. She shook her head and approached the princess once again.
“Don’t make me say something that would come out of Alastor’s mouth,” she started, nudging gently at Charlie. “But you should put up a smile.”
“This again?”
“This always.”
“No reason to smile here.” Charlie said. “And don’t start on that damned thing.”
Vaggi clenched to her. She pleaded fiercely, grabbing Charlie by the cloak and gripping it until her knuckles were white.
“The trial is near. You’re going to lose however your goal is honourable. Just take the black,” her voice cracked. “I beg you, Charlie. Listen to me now and just,”
Charlie turned away. She bit her lip and huffed, trying to keep herself somewhat calm, but Vaggi could feel her body trembling under a touch.
“Princess, you contradict yourself. You’re the one to stand with Watch always, and now you’re…” She hissed. “I’ll come with you. I’ll stay by, we’ll take the black both, and wherever that’ll go, we’ll… Think of something.”
Vaggi knew that Sera’s people were listening nearby. Everything in that damned court had ears and eyes, she recalled that, yet there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Furthermore, everyone in whole Heaven probably already had a sense that Morningstar heir could still decide to get away with the trial like that.
“And lose my name?” Asked Charlie with remorse. “Do you even know what would happen if I lose my lineage?”
Vaggi gritted her teeth and hissed. She loosened her grip on Charlie and pulled away, tucking her own cloak tighter around her shoulders. There was a bright gold embroidered Morningstar’s banner on her chest that she gripped over.
“You're a fool. Bloody fool.” She felt her eyes watered.
“I’d rather be a fool than to give up on everything.”
“Alright. Have your crowned head off your shoulders.” Vaggi snapped. “But I’m not leaving you to death, may you be crowned or not.”
Long breath escaped Charlie’s mouth.
“And what do I do then, Vaggi?”
She took a step back and put her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“Trial by combat.”
“And who will fight for me? I’m in a foreign land, and no old friend of my Father would want to take the place, we already made sure of that,” she gave her an uncertain look. “Don’t tell me… you’re going to do that? You’re not knighted yet, Vaggi. There is no way.”
“Vaggi Snow is not knighted.” She landed her hand on her chest and took a step forward Charlie, gathering up all of her courage. “Yet Vagatha Swifthawk of Kingsguard is.”
Charlie widened her eyes.
“No. Please, Vaggi, no.” She looked at her in disbelief and fear. “Tell me you’re… No. Please.”
She gripped the cloth right at her heart, stepping aback. “You’ve been cast out. You should… You’re supposed to be on the Wall right now. As a…”
Traitor. That’s the word Charlie was afraid to say out loud.
That’s it, Vaggi thought. All that she can do is to betray and to lie, leaving a mess behind. But this time, it might be at least different.
“Let me fight for you,” she bowed on her knee. “Before you’ll send me back to Wall as you should.”
Charlie stood in silence. Her lips pressed together thin, and Vaggi really, really wanted to fall onto her own knees before Charlie and beg forgiveness for everything that happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to look any more pathetic. Not when she needed to ensure the princess that she could fight for her well and win.
She felt unbearably hot and hated it. Her nose got used to Northern snow a little bit too much.
“You never was a squire to a hedgeknight,” said Charlie. “Never a Snow.”
Vaggi shut her only eye shut.
“I meant to say that.”
“When, Vaggi?” Charlie pressed hand against her mouth and squinted. “When possibly you could have said that?”
“I-I…” she stepped forward. Took Charlie’s hands in her and pulled them right to lay into Vaggi’s own face, covering it in shame. “Please, Charlie. Please. Let me… Let me win this thing for you, and I’ll… I’ll tell you everything. Everything you want, please.”
That was the first night that Charlie spent alone in her bed. It turned out that it was cold and achy without someone holding her close and kissing her back in a sleepy haze.
That and the doomed feeling of tomorrow’s trial made her unable to sleep. She rolled on her bed from one side to another, until she was desperate enough to climb out of bed. She put on her long shirt and stepped out of chambers, followed by the gazes of guards standing outside her door.
“I must see my squire. Lead me to her and let us be.”
Guards shook their heads. “At this hour?”
“If I could’ve run away from here, I would’ve done that before my dearest friend got obliged to a fight with a kingsguard.” Charlie lifted her chin and huffed. “I need to bless her before the morning.”
Both of the guards shared a look and laughed. One nudged the other with his elbow before turning back to Charlie.
“Yeah, of course, northern old tradition, we see. Bless ya’ bitch with a good fuck befo’ yall heads roll onto the dirt.”
Charlie gritted her teeth.
“No one loses their head tomorrow. That’s I’m sure.”
“M’lady, er whore is fighting against the pale bitch herself. There would be more than a head that’ll come cut.”
“Rascals,” she rumbled before clasping at her familial brooch and taking it off. She saw how guards are looking now at her bosom, while she held the robes now with her hand for them to stay on her without the pin. With an angry growl she pressed the brooch onto one of the guards hands. “Take that. Pure gold. Worth the castle somewhere in Riverlands. Your King will never grant you something like that.”
They looked at each other. Next thing Charlie knows is that both are gone, tossing her into the chamber and closing her in it.
She waited at her bed while hours passed.
Vaggi could die tomorrow is all she knew. Vaggi could die for Charlie. It was something heavy enough for Charlie to forget about every single lie Vaggi told her through all these years, she decided at some point that night.
Vagatha Swifthawk, one of the youngest members of the kingsguard. She was Little Bird of the Kingsguard, as people called her. Spear of the Realm. Charlie felt foolish for never noticing how much it all made sense, because Vaggi Snow was too skilled to be a squire to some hedge knight with no name. Vaggi Snow was too educated, and too genteel to be Snow, yet Charlie never questioned that.
She took all that for granted and made Vaggi her closest ally, opening her back for a good old stab so genuinely. No wonder why her father was so mad about Vaggi being in the court. Maybe he knew. Of course he knew.
She heard knocking on the door. Vaggi stood in the doorframe in her night gown, looking both ashamed and confused.
“You called.”
“I did.” Charlie nodded.
She opened her arms. Hands no longer held the robes, making her bare for the most part, and she saw how Vaggi looked at that with a prolonged hunger.
“Princess, you forgot your brooch.” She turned her only eye away.
“I did not.” Charlie crossed her legs. Vaggi gulped at that. “Mingled a bit with the guards.”
“What do you-… Charlie, please, don’t tell me…”
“No, no, Gods,” Charlie shook her head. Maybe she liked that scared and jealous look on Vaggi’s face a little bit too much, but to her honour, Charlie was really pissed with Vaggi right now. It just felt well-deserved. “Paid them with that thing to have you now.”
“Princess…”
Vaggi fell to her knees at Charlie’s feet, clasping at her robes with reverence and fear. Her shaky hands on Charlie felt right as never.
Charlie really tried to look bitter and mad, but she just couldn’t. She gasped and cupped Vaggi’s face, slowly caressing it with her thumb.
“My loyal knight. My only lover,” she whispered to her. “My Vaggi. Dear, dear Vaggi.”
“I’m so sorry, Charlie, I’m so…” Vaggi hiccuped into her. Tears were pouring down her cheeks onto Charlie’s lap. “I’m so sorry, Charlie… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I never… I…”
“Shh, shhh,” Charlie felt a deep ache in her heart. She lulled Vaggi in her arms and pulled closer to her chest, wanting to get as close as she could and forget even for a bit of what has been done and what is coming. She felt warmth from the way Vaggi leaned in, putting her ear just right where Charlie’s heart was beating rapidly. “It doesn’t matter. We’re good, you’re good. Shh…”
She slowly stroked Vaggi’s white hair. Little Bird of Kingsguard still was on her knees, clinging to Charlie with her whole body and crying.
“You know why I never made you a knight, Vaggi?” Charlie told her. “Look at me, please. Please. You know why?”
Vaggi whimpered one last time before lifting her head up and really looking at Charlie. She was a crying mess, they both were, but on Vaggi it seemed painful and unjust. She wasn’t the one to cry, at least Vaggi that Charlie knew for so many years wasn’t.
Perhaps, things are too different now.
“I don’t,” she closed her eye. “Perhaps I wasn’t good enough. Or your father never wanted a knight with no name in his kingdom.”
“That is not true, you know that.” Charlie wept the tear from Vaggi’s eye.
“Perhaps your senses felt that the oathbreaker isn’t meant for a knight.”
“My father is an oathbreaker. Never made him less of a king.” She smiled weakly. “Made him a King, more likely.”
Vaggi breaks down and pushes herself fully onto Charlie.
“I never made you a knight because I wanted you close. Being my squire made you bound,” she pressed a long kiss onto Vaggi’s hurten and scarred eye. She probably lost it to fight with Lute, Charlie recalls, thinking back about the whole situation of her banishment. “That's the only kind of vows we can take, and I wanted that. As a fool I am. Restraining you from greatness because I was a...”
She can’t force herself to end a sentence. She was a fool in love, devoted and committed to the women she found half-dead in the snowy forest and brought back to her father’s castle. Bloodied, with darkened fingers from the freezing cold, holding tight to the hilt of some stolen sword. It was easy to believe that someone like that would run off as soon as there was a chance, and Charlie… just wanted her to stay. No matter what.
Because she saw a glimpse of something great in the eye of the freezing girl, and knew that there was something special. Something that just needed to be nursed and brought out of her to shine.
Vaggi was her evidence that smallfolk can be as noble as any other Great House member. And Charlie still held to that though that she would run away as soon she would be knighted. What a two-faced fool Charlie was. No wonder why Vaggi was afraid to tell the truth.
“I would never leave you. I swear it.” Vaggi said with pain in her voice.
“I know. I know, darling, I know. I’m sorry.”
“I really swear it. I know it’s rich, coming from an oathbreaker, but I swear to you-…”
“Don’t fight for me tomorrow,” Charlie stopped her. “I’ll take the black.”
Vaggie pulled away. She stood up on her feet and opened her mouth, looking utterly shocked.
“What?”
“I’ll take the black. You don’t have to go through combat.”
“No. Charlie, no. I won’t-… Don’t you dare, Charlie. I won’t take the black. I won’t replace my sworn princess with some lord-commander on the Wall, you hear that? I’m a fighter, then let me fight and-”
Charlie wanted to shut her. To pull her close again, kiss that cheeks to bring back her sweet smile, and to provide a safety for them both. She wanted to awake at home, with cold walls and blowing winds, with Vaggi Snow lying at her side completely naked and clinging to her for warmth. She was such a southern girl, always cold. Charlie always felt like a real queen-to-be only when her own cloak, giant fur held together by a bunch of apple-shaped pins, was hanging around Vaggi’s small shoulders. In the morning, before sunset, Vaggi was her lady.
Now those guards, probably waiting outside her door and sharing a wicked smile, were somehow sure that Charlie would pull up an escape, and it just for a second made Charlie believe in that too. That she really had a plan, and they were just about to leave that rotten place and go back North.
She really wanted to believe that she didn’t bring Vaggi to her chamber at night just to give up completely.
“I’ll be more than happy to play a knight and its princess with you,” Charlie sighed. “But not when you’re against the Rivers.”
“Lute is nothing!” Vaggi rushed to her and took Charlie’s hands in hers. “I’ve known her long before, I know how she fights.”
“She was the one to capture you, wasn't she?” Charlie recalled. It was a really loud case even back home, not just everyday you have a kingsguard sent to Wall.
And the party sent to get her from King’s Landing ended up dead by the uprising and hungry North. All but Vaggi, bleeding and carrying someone else’s sword through the woods before passing out in front of Charlie.
Was it a really hungry smallfolk trying to rob the Night Watch, or had Vaggi just killed them and then flew off? Charlie felt mad at the thought, but then… She was now about to get sent to the Wall. What would she do then?
She saw how Vaggi shook. Charlie opened her arms once again, welcoming Vaggi to bed.
“I won’t let you die on me.”
“I won’t die.”
“Gods hardly favor those who say something like that.”
Vaggi obeyed her. She crawled onto the bed where Charlie sprawled across and set herself next to her. Vaggi was now laid on the princess' chest and breathed in.
“My gods betrayed me the second my family’s blade was put into Whitedeath hands.”
“Whitedeath.” Charlie repeated. She looked up at the ceiling of her prison chamber. “I should’ve guessed.”
“What?”
“Smallfolk call her pale bitch. Not Whitedeath,” she shook her head. “Too poetic. I should have known better that you’re… Sorry. Never should have said that thing about losing a lineage.”
Vaggi shifted closer. She put her head into the crook of Charlie’s neck and tossed a leg across her body.
“Doesn’t matter. I did good as a soldier of the North.”
“In the North.” Charlie corrected her.
“Hush you.” She flicked Charlie’s nose, finally making them both laugh.
They laid still for some time in a comfortable silence. Charlie caressed Vaggi’s scarred spine by the pure reflex, now thinking of how exactly she got them. Was it Lute, or was it some grand fight that made Vaggi the member of the Kingsguard? She had so much to ask of her, and there was painfully not enough time for that. Nights were too short here.
“Should’ve made you my bannerman. Should’ve stayed with you back home and never made that trip just like you said. Just if I listened-…”
“Charlie, there is no ‘if’. We here where we are,” Vaggi tapped her collarbone. Her fingers were calloused and rough, but Charlie loved them greatly, always. “I’m not sorry. As long as I can stay near you, I’m not.”
“Then let’s get back. Take the black with me. My uncles are on the Wall, we’ll manage. Let’s…” she grabbed Vaggi’s hands in hers and squeezed them.
“Charlie,” she breathed out. “I need this fight.”
“You need to prove to me that you’re loyal,” Charlie took her by the chin. “Or to win back your blade?”
Vaggi looked at her uncertainly. Her gaze first sharpened, then turned back to soft, before she kissed Charlie’s palm and closed her eye.
“Why can’t it be both?”
Charlie was silent.
She looked at Vaggi. Her Vaggi, who taught her of Heaven, who danced with her hand in hand after every tournament no matter the score, with candlelight in her eye gleaming like stars. Vaggi, for whom Charlie moved to the warmest room in the castle, just to make Vaggi’s nights comfortable.
“All right.” She said. “Take back your blade from her and play your revenge. Win that for both of us.”
They moved a bit. Vaggi got pulled away by Charlie’s hand, pressed against the pillows. It wasn’t their bed’s softest sheets in any way, because no one would provide a prisoner any good bed, but it was still alright.
“I’ll take us both home with a name and a title of my own. It’s better to have a Swifthawk by your side than a Snow.” Vaggi pressed a quick kiss on Charlie’s palm once again. She looked at the princess who kept her silence, pressing Vaggi against the bed. Soon enough Charlie straddled her, pulling up high to gaze at Vaggi whole. “…Princess?”
Charlie flushed. She slowly pulled down her barely holding shirt and tossed it away, leaving her bare naked in front of Vaggi. Next thing she grabbed her squire’s robe and fiddled with the collar on it.
Vaggi gasped and lifted her chin to leave more space for Charlie to take.
“A knight needs a blessing from its princess,” Charlie whispered in fear. She lowered herself to meet Vaggi’s gaze before reverently pressing lips against her forehead and lingering there for a long moment. “Is it?”
Vaggi smiled and pulled her in, tossing off her own robes far away.