Chapter Text
Standing in a corner of the room, the girl watched silently the man as he filled page after page of parchments with his usual crisp and neat script. Everything that was happening on this side of the Seven Kingdoms and certainly most of what was going on elsewhere, troops movements, battle orders, communication, trade, the life and death of countless faceless common people, soldiers or bannermen, came from that room, that table, that dark and commanding man.
Her position and situation had left her in a kind of strange solitary confinement. She was no prisoner: no cell, no chains were restraining her, but since she was serving him, she was bound to this man, not allowed to stray very far for very long. This was her curse as it was her protection. Her age, gender and personal history also made it impossible and her unwilling to create any sort of relation with the perverted and twisted souls dwelling in that dark and horrendous place.
So it was that she could not leave him and had to gravitate around him, focusing her energy and sharp wits at what she could see and hear around her. She would force herself to remember names and faces, orders and strategies, suggestions and decisions. The list of people she wanted dead grew with each passing day but she was buying her time, confident that the tide would turn.
The man, that man was her biggest challenge. He embodied all that she hated and was directly or indirectly the cause of her suffering and grief. Yet she had never met a spirit so fierce or intelligence so bright in all of her young years. Certainly, her father had been a clever and smart man but to her chagrin, she knew deep inside that he paled in comparison to what that man could plan, organize and see in situations and people.
This keen and ruthless intelligence, this relentless drive to reach his goals, this remorseless ability to crush and overcome all that would stand before him made them a sort of kindred souls given how hers had hardened over the past years. She would cringe at such thoughts but could not deny their accuracy.
Some would hesitate calling him a man since one could often doubt whether any spark of humanity still burned inside him. All who had stood, sit, kneeled, crawled, beg in his presence had had reasons to dispute his ability to show mercy or to feel simply inclined to care about the fate of those who held no direct interest or reward to him and to his grand plans for his legacy.
The girl knew better, or at least she believed she did. Standing at his side, serving him wine day after day, week after week for so many moons, no years now, she had seen the usual and worst of him every day but also, now and then, some flicker of something else. It was nothing, really, but taken together it had created another picture in her mind. A softening of his frown, a quirk of his mouth, a lingering hand, a thoughtful glance, a brushing shoulder, a drop in his harsh and domineering voice when ordering her around when they were alone: all of this and then some, she had seen and felt. In her mind, it showed that something was alive, buried under layers of barely controlled rage and spite.
But what could it mean for her? And why being affected by it? She didn’t know if she was reading these gestures correctly. She hadn’t enough experience in the courting ways of men and women since her exposure to this kind of things had been mostly brutal and terrible, as far from romance and caring as the moon was from the Earth. To be truthful, she also dared not push actively in that direction and test these dark waters because she could not trust her own reactions.
She was alone, so alone, and she had suffered so much, seen so many horrors and looked for so long and deep in the eyes of true evil, that she knew painfully that a part of her craved human touch, physical interaction and a kind of emotional comfort, whatever the form. She was young but no longer a child, whether emotionally or physically, but yet she longed.
She could not care less for the age and physical appearance of that man even though she could plainly see that he was still strong, fit and of course powerful. No, it was rather the deep-set conviction that of all the persons she knew and surrounded her, even her scattered family, he would understand and know her best. This growing understanding, coupled with the signs she thought she saw coming from him, made it increasingly frustrating to remain motionless next to him.
Some days, when she was feeling a little too insecure about her future, a little too tired of the perpetual lie she was living, a little less anchored in the harsh reality of her life, she could see herself extend her hand and brush his, put her fingers on his lined and terrible face set in a perpetual frown. She could imagine burying hers in his strong neck and inhale his clean and pleasant smell. She could dream that she would be the one making him relax and let his guard down. She could believe that she could drape her body over his and forget for a few hours about how bleak and violent her life was.
She would be in the arms of his family’s tormentor but at the same time in the hands of the only person who could respect her wits, understand her mindset, provide her with protection against the predators who would tear her apart and weapons against her enemies. Her body and mind cried for relief and some days, even her iron will and ruthless self-control had difficulties keeping them at bay. She knew, however, that this would never happen because he could never find out who she truly was.
Without that knowledge, she was certain that he would never see her otherwise than as a dutiful yet mindless low-born servant, nice for a quick release on his table but nothing else, nothing more. She didn’t understand why he wasn't acting upon his lust since no one and nothing would stand in his way if he decided to have her. Because of this odd fact, she wasn’t so sure that she was reading him properly and it fuelled her doubts and frustration.
As she was standing in her corner, ruminating on those wild yet frustrating dreams, she tried to quench the tension and heat that were slowly creeping from her core at the image that his hands and lips on her body would create. Her mind otherwise busy, she didn’t realize how tired she had become and that her blank mask was cracking around the edges.
So it was purely by accident that a deep sigh, full of unspent desire, escaped her lips.
Her eyes unfocused, watching dust dancing in the evening light pouring from the windows, she didn’t realize that the quill had stopped running and didn't see the sharp turn of his head in her direction.