"This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning."
- Aeschylus
It is a child's dream to outwit fate, to somehow escape the great ending that awaits us all.
But Orianne Fernwood would burn the world if it meant a moment longer w...
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Thoughts of Arthur encircled Orianne's heart like a vice, squeezing and tightening in her chest so that every beat of her heart and pull of breath from her lungs took all her effort.
Another night was lost to Orianne, her bed a battlefield where she fought a losing war against Elia's words and Arthur's haunting violet eyes. She tossed and turned, her attempts to banish him from her thoughts futile. The sun, a harsh judge, rose to expose the world's secrets, leaving Orianne's sleepless night in its wake without an answer to her problems.
The sky dimmed quicker each day they stayed on Dragonstone, and the wind began to pick up speed in the evenings, howling as the sun set each day and beating endlessly upon the walls of the keep. Orianne could see how the sea churned angrily from the window in her room, no longer the endless clear blue that seemed so limitless. Instead, it was a menacing boil of gray and white foam. Like the turmoil within her, Orianne saw no end in sight for the storm that was settling upon the inhabitants of the island.
She had tried desperately to find some solution to the crisis that was Arthur Dayne; all Orianne could settle upon was that it would be best if one of them were to simply disappear. To vanish in the blink of an eye to some faraway land where they would never be faced with one another again. But that seemed as likely as a dragon sprouting from the ground beneath their feet and launching into the sky in a flurry of wings and flames.
Arthur and Orianne were bound to the Targaryen's more than either cared to admit.
A Kingsguard and a lady in waiting, they had made vows, both public and personal. Ones that were not so easily broken even if they wished it.
In her careful dwelling, Orianne realized how alike the two of them truly were, both bound by honor and love by promises made to those that their worlds revolved around, and neither willing to remove themselves from such situations even when it seemed like their lives were coming apart at the seams and all because of one stupid kiss.
Was that what drew them to each other? The knowledge that at their heart's deep core, they were one and the same? Were they so hungry for punishment and pain, making the choice to fall so deeply for someone who was as impossible to free just as they themselves both were?
Or maybe it was not a choice at all. Orianne preferred that. It removed some of the responsibility she felt and allowed her to feel less like a child when her heart began to clench at the thought of him, and her dreams turned to their shared kiss on the shore.
Orianne did not enjoy how her emotions mingled together, each begging to be at the center of her mind, each vying for attention in a way that left her feeling nauseous and unsure of her own mind. There were many things Orianne hated, and feeling unsteady might have been near the top.
The sensation of her carefully crafted world giving way beneath her feet only increased after her conversation with Elia.
The act of speaking with someone, of revealing each and every shameful secret she had been hoarding away like gold, only served to make it all feel more real. Before speaking to Elia, Orianne had been able to pretend that whatever had been happening between herself and Arthur had been nothing more than a fevered dream. Like a mirage in the desert, it would fade away if she only waited long enough. The world would go back to the way it was meant to be if she had the patience to keep moving forward.
