"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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Trigger Warning
Blood and descriptions of childbirth
Dark hair flowed between her fingers, smooth and slick like selkies' skin from old sailors' tales, shining like silk under the waning light as it was woven into a braid.
Wynna Piper sat before Orianne, legs folded beneath her and cushioned by a pillow. The two sat in silence, only interrupted by the sound of rain pattering against stone and glass. A fire roared in its stone cradle, carefully tended to hold the cold of Dragonstone at bay.
It was just the two of them, but neither minded the other's sole company.
Elia spent most of her days abed; the final weeks of her pregnancy had left her even more tired than usual, and it was a great tribulation for her to do so much as dress. The girls took turns sitting with her, but it often fell upon Ashara to keep her company when it was desired. That day, Morrigan had decided to join their bedside vigil, and between the two of them, Elia would be well cared for.
Elodie quickly lost her patience and grew bored when she realized that Orianne and Wynna planned to bide their time with reading and peace and quiet. She flittered off to find excitement in some other corner of the keep.
It was rare that Orianne was able to spend time alone with Wynna and she was glad for it. The young woman who had once been so shy and timid had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, still quiet and peaceful, but there was a boldness hidden within her. She no longer melted into the scenery, hiding away and becoming invisible to keep herself safe from the perception of others. Instead, she stood strong, if not a little reserved, and shared her gifts with her friends.
But there was something festering inside Wynna. Orianne had seen it rear its face to her in the weeks past. She no longer looked excited when the women asked her to tell a story, and Orianne would watch as she stared off into nothingness, biting her lip and twirling the end of her braid nervously between her fingers—the same fingers that were bitten to the quick.
Orianne had taken it upon herself to solve whatever it was that had knotted up Wynna so, and she only knew one way to get to the bottom of it.
When Orianne had been a child plagued with worries, her mother had always been able to pull them out of her with the tangle of a brush through her hair and the smooth pull of her fingers turning plain locks into a plait. Those quiet moments between mother and daughter were always enough for Orianne's worries to spill forth like water in a flood, and by the time her hair was styled, her chest was lighter.
When Elodie fled the room, Orianne had been quick to sit Wynna before her and begin to pull her hair free from the simple braid she usually wore. She had asked a servant to fetch a brush and some ribbons from her room, and there she sat, carefully ministering to Wynna's hair and planning to pluck free from her the problems she had tried to carry on her own.
