you cannot kill a flower, for it will grow back stronger than before...
caecilia tyrell shed her petals a long time ago and replaced them with thorns. no longer the daisy of highgarden, she brandishes a bow and arrow and devotes herself to the seven...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SUNLIGHT DRIPS through heavy pale green curtains in Highgarden's library.
It is one of the largest rooms in the castle, the walls made up solely of bursting bookshelves, so tall that there is a second floor halfway up for an inhabitant to stand on. A few tables are spotted around the room, old and creaking, worn by unuse throughout the years. It is mostly only used by Maester Hywel, whose clanking chain of interwoven metals rings echoes through the tall, dusty tower as he slinks through book after book. Caecilia and Lunette, however, were often his companions. After Caecilia's studies with her siblings – often taken in the family sitting room or the children's old nursery where more sunlight pours through – she would race through the halls until she reached the library and find Lunette already waiting for her with stolen snacks and new books picked out.
Now, the two ladies sit on the lone table on the second floor, circular in shape and close to the dusty curtains that are always drawn to stop the books from becoming spoiled by sunlight. Maester Hywel claims they could burn and all the information stored in the Highgarden library will be lost forever. Caecilia will miss this library most of all when she returns to Horn Hill, to the damp and the cold, to the ghosts bleeding through the walls, to the dour faces that all Tarly's seem to sport. Maester Cennydd, of Horn Hill, has a small collection of books in his quarters but he refuses to let Caecilia look at them.
She pouts as she leans her chin on the pile of books in front of her.
Lunette leans forward and presses a hand to her forehead but finds no fever spiking there. "Are you in pain?"
Caecilia shakes her head. She wishes she was in pain. Wishes that this child would churn her stomach so she may have an excuse to stay here and be aided by Maester Hywel. Trevyr will return soon, she is sure, and they will be forced back to Horn Hill.
She will have to raise her child in Horn Hill.
"I think you should stay here," she tells Lunette, staring up at her darker-skinned handmaiden. Her friend stares back at her, concern etched into her features. But, Caecilia only wants what is best for the other girl. She knows that Lunette is as lonely at Horn Hill as she is. She knows that she misses her father so much it feels as if her limbs have been torn from her body, the arm she so desperately needs to reach for the sun missing from its trusty place. She knows that she worries more about the fate of her brother while stuck behind those damp walls.
The sunlight of Highgarden has done her some good. It has filled her cheeks, curled her hair, even brightened her skin from an almost sickly taupe to her usual bright brown. Caecilia reaches out to brush her fingers against Lunette's cheek. There is blood rushing there. A warmth. A feeling that has so long been evaded in the chilling castle they cannot quite cut their chains from.
