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The sept in King's Landing was a terrifying cavern of cold stone full of candle smoke that made Jedys' eyes burn and incense that made her nose itch. The septons and septas within seemed determined to blend into the rock with their vestments, which gave Jedys the uncanny feeling that the walls and floors were moving out of the corner of her eye, an impression not helped by the flickering candlelight on every spare surface. Behind her, Maekar Targaryen stood with his sons Aerion and Aegon, his young daughters Daella and Rhae being tended to by their nursemaids. Baelor was present with his son Valarr and his daughter-in-law Lady Kiera, a profound honour that nobody had expected, although the entire wedding seemed to be a series of shocks for House Marsh. Across from the royal party, Brenn Marsh stood with his House, represented by himself, his and Jedys' younger sister Myna Marsh, their mother Aemma Marsh, and their grandfather, Petyr. Her lord father, Barrian, stood at her shoulder, ready to take her maiden's cloak and return to her mother's side.
She would not be getting married as a woman from the north ought to have. She had made her peace with that, or felt very much like she had before the crushing reality of the sept bore down on her. While the Dornish had the leverage to make demands of House Targaryen, maintaining their royal titles and preserving their customs, House Marsh was a frog in a pot of water desperately waiting for the heat to rise to a boil. Up until the very moment the septon began to speak it'd all felt like a joke the royal family was playing on them. Her dark brown-black hair was netted with pearls and intricately braided against the nape of her neck, her cream-white dress cut along the harsh lines the Targaryens preferred, and surely any moment now their northern vassal house would be laughed out of King's Landing for believing even this much, for letting it go this far.
"The love of the Seven is holy and eternal," the septon began, and something inside of her shrank. "The source of life and love. We stand here tonight in thanks and praise, to join two souls as one." Her fear was irrational; still it felt like this old man's voice could steal her soul and give it to the Targaryens too, as it echoed off the walls. "Father...Mother...Warrior...Smith...Maiden...Crone...Stranger...hear now their vows."
Daeron Targaryen stepped forward, his face wane against the pale orange light and the dark blonde of his hair even more pronounced standing so near his family. It was pulled back but resisted tidiness, strands falling against his temples, and the scruff on his face indicated that he'd shaved a little too early in the day. His blue eyes were dark, like everything in the miserable place. She followed his momentum, kissing his scratchy cheek. "I am yours," he said quietly, "and you are mine. Whatever may come."
"I am yours and you are mine," she said, too loud. It echoed and she blinked out a wince before she could stop herself. "Whatever may come."
"Here," the septon continued, "in the presence of gods and men, I proclaim Daeron, son of Maekar Targaryen, of House Targaryen, and Jedys of House Marsh, to be man and wife: one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever." It didn't seem altogether reasonable that her soul should so easily bind with a house of fallen dragonriders. Surely she would feel such a thing, being subsumed by fire.
Barrian turned her and unclasped her cloak—a deep grey-green with a dark mantle—putting it neatly over his arm and kissing her head before returning to her mother. She turned to her husband, who removed his own cloak and put it over her shoulders. It was heavy and woolen, a comforting weight against the chilly sea air trapped inside the sept, and black as charcoal, embroidered with red dragons along the hems and clasped with a silver pin. He kissed her again, and the assembled clapped politely as they parted.
In spite of the late hour, a host of smallfolk stood outside the sept to watch as they stepped down the stairs and into the waiting wheelhouse. She smiled, as she had been instructed and because she wasn't strictly immune to the giddy adrenaline of having it done, and waved with Daeron before disappearing. There were calls of princess, a northern princess, which was a problem for the Targaryens to clear up lest the Starks begin to resent Marsh's abrupt elevation that no one had truly believed was serious.
They would be at the feast afterwards, so she supposed everyone would have their opportunity to be baffled by it not having been a mass hallucination after all.
Her husband watched her from across the wheelhouse in silence for a moment, then reached out and took her hand. "Well," he asked quietly. "Was it very bad?"
"Bad?" she echoed.
"You looked afraid."
"Oh." Damn it. "The sept was...not what I expected."
"Does House Marsh not have one?" he wondered, and she shrugged.
"It's small and I only attended for lessons." And they hadn't been permitted to make it a true sept, just more or less a room that already existed inside the castle, now full of candles.
"Weirwoods, then?" he asked, and she nodded. It felt surreal to even be speaking to him. They'd chatted briefly in the days before the wedding, but now knowing that it'd all been real and she'd married him, it felt less like a strategy game and suddenly, stunningly corporeal. After the feast, he was going to fuck her.
"The godswoods are a little less...chilling," she said, which was a poor choice of words when describing an outdoor wood popular in the north.
The wheelhouse jerked to a stop and he rose abruptly, moving to sit beside her. "Tell your party you need a moment to compose yourself, and then meet me in the courtyard," he said quietly as the footmen opened the door. He stepped out first as if he hadn't said anything, holding his hand out to help her to the ground before the Red Keep. Her handmaidens swarmed, looking to correct any unfortunate mishaps from the wheelhouse—whether he'd touched her or she'd simply been jostled by the road.
"Leave me," she said quietly. "I need a moment to compose myself before the feast."
. . . . .
Daeron found her in their meeting place, the sun having set and twilight offering the barest blue light to see in. He held out his arm for her and she took it, letting him lead her deeper into the keep. "They won't miss us for a while," he told her conversationally. "And if they do it doesn't matter."
"It does," she protested.
"Why? I married you," he said with a flat smile. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"Because there's an order of things," she explained, which had been explained to her. She'd known the order of winter weddings, and everything else she'd been drilled on. They weren't dissimilar, but different enough to...matter. It had mattered to her, and she was all the poorer for it.
"There is," he agreed, pushing open a door. She stepped into a large courtyard, which she abruptly recognised as a godswood. Lightning bugs blinked in the low light, and the earth had the same heavy, wet smell of soil and foliage that it had in the north. Her brother stood beneath the heart tree, his arms clasped in front of him. "You'll need to show me how to do it," Daeron admitted at her ear. "Or else I'm going to look very stupid in a moment."
"I..." she started breathlessly, and then squeezed his hand. "Go up and switch places with Brenn." He nodded and moved over to her brother, who mumbled something to him before jogging to her side.
"I'm in danger of liking your husband, sister," Brenn told her. "Tracked me down before I got good and wasted to ask me to do as best a northern ceremony as we could cobble together; figured he'd ask me instead of father because father would insist the sept was good enough."
"It wasn't," she admitted finally.
"Fucking right it wasn't."
"Who comes before the gods?" Daeron asked, and she took Brenn's arm.
"Jedys of House Marsh comes here to be wed," he called back. "A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?"
Daeron looked uncertain as they approached, but she nodded her head. He only had to echo them. "Daeron Targaryen, son of Maekar Targaryen, of House Targaryen, Heir to the Prince of Summerhall." He looked at the siblings for a cue, and Brenn grinned.
"I give her. I am Brenn Marsh, son of Barrian Marsh and Heir to House Marsh: Jedys' firstborn brother." He turned to her and she felt, for one horrifying second, like she was going to cry. "Jedys, will you take him?"
"I—" Her voice thinned and she took a deep, fortifying breath. "Aye, I'll take him," she said, not bothering to do the hard work of the septas by enunciating around her northern accent. Brenn took her hand and held it out to Daeron, who took it. She leaned in and stopped short, pleased enough to laugh softly when he'd clearly anticipated a kiss. "Kneel with me and pray a little," she told him instead, sinking to the roots beside him. She let her eyes slipped closed and did what she always did when she prayed; tried to imagine something good. At first it was her home in the chilly swamp lands, and then what she imagined Summerhall to be like. She pictured bees and horses, she pictured the enormous Blackwater Bay she'd hardly gotten a glance at outside the sept before being escorted away from the view, and she pictured Daeron's face and felt his hand warm in hers.
She looked up and he was roused by her movement. "Well," Brenn said. "Next is the cloaks but we covered that."
"I don't have to say I'll take her?" he asked, and her brother snorted.
"Implied by the wedding ceremony, isn't it?" Daeron laughed self-consciously, getting to his feet when Jedys did. "Now you'll just carry her into the feast and that'll be that."
"You don't have to do that," she said immediately, largely out of concern. No one else knew they were out here.
"No by all means," he said, rolling his shoulders. "I'm sober so I may as well take advantage of being able to stand upright. But, if you'll allow, I would like to add something southern to the moment." She glanced up at him and then let out a yelp as he pulled her in sharply, kissing her deeply. Very deep. She tasted the wine that stained his back teeth and and felt his moan from his throat. He hooked his arm under her legs and lifted, and she was mostly impressed with his ability to bear the weight of her and the wool cloak at the same time even as her body shook with warmth from his...southern effort. "You northerners do this in the snow?" he wondered as he carefully stepped around the roots of the oak that served as their heart tree to get to more solid ground.
"We do everything in the snow," Jedys said wryly.
"Then I'm glad we'll be living in Summerhall," he returned.
"Scared the shit out of me when you said about doing something southern," Brenn admitted, falling into step beside them. "Thought you meant that uh...Valyrian stuff."
Daeron snorted. "She has nothing to fear from me as I very famously hate it when things hurt."
"What do the Valyrians do?" she asked, and Brenn grimaced.
"Blood sacrifice," he said, and Daeron laughed.
"Hardly! You stand in front of a fire and cut your palms with Valyrian steel, then paint the blood on each other's faces." Brenn shuddered, but Jedys went very still. She thought of Daeran's face, of her blood caught in the stubble on his chin dripping from his lower lip, and the thin pinkish streak his blood would leave down her forehead. She couldn't picture what their clothes would look like, and it frustrated her as she tried to imagine that it would taste like to kiss him and run her tongue along her own blood. "Oh dear. My wife doesn't look scandalized at all."
She endeavoured to stay still, so he wouldn't drop her. "I would have rather done that than the sept."
"You're lucky the bedding strips her down!" Brenn cackled. "She won't be able to hide a dagger to get you with!"
"Men have had worse reasons to fear the wrath of their brides," he mused. "But you know, the dragon isn't usually the one who has to fear the lady being brought to him."
"Do you have Valyrian steel?" she asked. He shook his head. "Then don't worry, my prince." Brenn laughed, throwing open the doors of the feast hall. Jedys could have killed him—she'd meant to get Daeron to put her down before entering the hall, and her face burned as every assembled eye turned towards them.
A slow cheer rose up among the northern lords, doubling when Brenn clapped Daeron on the back and returned to the dais where his house sat. Maekar stared at his son as the two of them approached the high table and made obeisance to the king, until the very moment the bride and groom were seated, then leaned over. "What the fuck was that about?" he asked, and Daeron smiled tersely.
"Diplomacy," he answered vaguely, and Maekar sat back. Daeron's namesake and grandfather beamed, reaching out to squeeze his wrist.
Suddenly as alone as they were going to be until the bedding ceremony, Jedys fiddled with the hem of her cloak. She leaned over, stealing his attention from the servant with the wine. "Thank-you," she murmured. Now was as good a time as any for her to champion her husband. "I'll tell my lord father what you did for me and you'll always have a friend in the Neck."
He seemed amused. "The godswood was for your benefit, my lady, not your lord father's. I don't want you to think that I'm trying to curry favour with your family."
"But you have," she said, then smiled a little. "For whatever it's worth." Less and little, she knew, and accepted the brush of his lips on her jaw. He had no reason to care about the Neck, or even really the northern boys liking him, aside from seeing friendly faces at tourneys.
But maybe her father wasn't the audience to play to.
The floor was cleared for dancing, and Daeron took her for a round first in a southern dance she'd been drilled on so ferociously that she could do it in her sleep. She danced with her brother and sister, then her father who murmured that he was proud of her—which felt good even if the act of getting married wasn't particularly impressive—and that her new husband looked terribly agreeable, all things considered, and then Prince Maekar made his way towards her stiffly.
She settled in, then smiled broadly. "Thank-you, your highness."
"For—what for?" he asked, his hackles rising. She wondered if his mind had already returned to her and his son's strange entrance, or if he was just a naturally suspicious person.
"Prince Daeron honoured my house by bringing me and my brother to the godswood," she explained lightly, as if she assumed it had been his idea. "Now all Brenn's northern friends are crowing about him like he grew up with them."
"The godswood," Maekar said slowly, the idea very much occurring to him for the first time. "Of course. Although your lord father insisted on a sept wedding, to be called legitimate in the south."
"Yes, which made what he did all the more impressive for it being a kind gesture rather than an obligation." That was true, which was the critical foundation of all...harmless exaggerations. The northern men really were impressed with Daeron for the godswood stunt, but he remained a Targaryen and the wedding remained a bizarre and unusual windfall for a house of frogs. "Even Lord Stark cracked a smile." He had, because he'd thought that Brenn had made Daeron do it as a joke.
"Yes...he's a...thoughtful young man..." Maekar said, visibly for lack of a more coherent compliment to pay his heir. Perhaps he was stunned that one of his sons' antics paid off in making the correct people think well of him in a way they hadn't considered. The dance finished and she curtseyed, returning to the high table just in time to see the prince wander over to where his son was mutely overseeing a drinking contest between Donner Stark and Brenn. He wandered by a squeezed his shoulder, nodding shortly at him; and such a small gesture seemed to startle her husband, who glanced around as if King Daeron would be standing in the background and cackling about a joke well-played.
Instead he locked eyes with her, and she smiled knowingly. See husband? she thought. The frog you married isn't completely useless.