𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 - 𝐀𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐄𝐍

𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐭.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Alerie Tyrell supposed that maybe she was a tiny bit spoilt, it was hard not to be when you're the eldest daughter of the Lord of a great house. She had been raised on wearing fine silks, given sparkling jewels, tasting the best foods and wines.

Yes, Alerie Tyrell knew that she was spoilt without a doubt, but it wasn't her fault she often reasoned with herself. Maybe it was because her father knew that she would never inherit the home she loved so much, nor its riches, nor its power; maybe it was because her mother knew that one day Alerie would be made to do what she had done once, leave her family and home and become some fat country lord's lady wife. Either way, whatever her parents had thought, or had potentially been making up for, Alerie had ended up a spoilt girl; and people hated her for it.

Maybe they never said as much to her face, but she knew, she knew how they had whispered behind her back from the very first day she had stepped foot in this foul city and entered the court of vultures. She saw the way that their eyes had looked her from head to toe, the judgement dancing in their eyes. Maybe that was when she had decided this city was a plague, when the illusion finally shattered and the city that Aegon and his sisters had built finally lost its lustre for her.

As much as Alerie hated Kings landing, she hated its people tenfold. Maybe not so much the common folk, they didn't ask for the lives they were handed, and she pitied them for that; being stuck living amongst the rats and scum of the city with no way out. Her mother had taught her that; back in Highgarden it was important that the Tyrells were generous, charitable – they were the golden roses, pretty and fragrant and distracting enough that you momentarily forgot the thorns that pricked your fingers. Sometimes her mother had called her the thorn that hid beneath the bloom, she was a wilful child, and she often thought that maybe that never really changed, that maybe she had just learnt to hide it better; she had learnt to become what was expected of her. Although she supposed that maybe she wasn't good at that either though, if the disapproving gazes thrown her way were anything to go by. Those were the people she hated. The rich men and women at court who seemed to look down their noses at her.

She knew that she wasn't entirely like them, she had guessed so much as soon as she had entered the Red Keep. She didn't dress like them, with their high collars and long sleeves, their thick fabrics and hair modestly tucked and pinned away. Initially she wondered if this was all on purpose, if their modesty and propriety was intended to allow for the royal family to shine. But she soon came to realise that this was a mask that they would not lose so easily; in fact, it had only grown over the years that Alerie had spent in the capital, even when the queen had picked her as a lady in waiting for the princess, people had never let their masks slip; not for one second.

Alerie wondered how tiring it must be, suffocating on their false righteousness; she wondered it even now as she walked the gardens with Helaena. They had been walking around the Keep, and then eventually Maegor's Holdfast for hours now – a welcome break from the princesses' restless twins, but nonetheless, Aleries' feet were beginning to hurt.

"May I ask you something?" Alerie asked the princess suddenly, ending their comfortable silence.

"What is it?" Helaena questioned, her gaze focused on the purple flowers they were slowly passing, her tone pleasant.

"I don't mean to speak out of turn, and I apologise if it offends you my lady," she began, "but do you think they are all genuine?"

"The people at court you mean?" Helaena replied, now standing still, holding the bloom of the purple flower in her outstretched hand.