Alicent Hightower raised a bastard - The Stranger's Child.
Except she didn't.
Naenyra looked nothing like the Targaryen beauty that her father expected. She was, as her mother always wished, a Hightower at heart, and how she looked only proved it...
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Nyra had forgotten what it was like to look over her shoulder, to feel the weight of prolonged gazes and the echo of hurried whispers as she passed. It was an itch of discomfort, a taste of not belonging settling on her tongue. In the sweet, ever stretching years of her life in the Reach, she had forgotten what she was. But the sharp few days of King's Landing and it was a stabbing in her stomach, a reminder that she could never forget.
An outcast. The King's least favourite child. A bastard.
There was no one who would silence those rumours for her, who'd make a grand stand to show she very much was his daughter through and through. It was a weight she would have to bear alone, and it hung heavy on her shoulders despite the proud walk and delicate grace she tried so desperately to hold. Nyra was nothing here, just a return of the favourite turn of the rumour mill - something she had desperately wished had faded with time.
It seemed that the time apart had done nothing but fuel those fires, and she hated it.
No one walked beside her, the space of her friends who were always itching to share their gossip or tea in the garden was left bare. Despite being surrounded by more family now than she had been, she had never felt more alone. For the first time, she was regretting her decision to return. Even Daeron, her shadow, seemed to loiter somewhere she wasn't.
Well, it wasn't strictly true that she was alone. Ser Rickard Thorne was always two steps behind, always quick to distract her when he could see her fingers itch for the others. She owed him far more than she had, but he would wave it away like it was nothing. She had hurt his reputation as much as she had dashed her own, simply by being born.
It was better now than it had been, Nyra had to admit. Without Rhaenyra stalking the halls, and her three boys, it took off some of the pressure. Some of the need to be just like her without being her. There were small virtues in vices, even if none of the court ladies did approach her. Those dark eyes swept the lush green shrubs that surrounded her, finding a severe lack of blankets and girls huddled with picnics.
Instead courtly ladies with drifting glances, too curious for their own good as words slipped from hurried lips as they passed. Nyra took a deep breath before turning to Ser Rickard. "Do not pay them any attention, Princess. They have nothing else to do with their lives but gossip and speculate."
Nyra swallowed deeply, pushing a faux smile to her lips. "It is not that, Ser Rickard, though I appreciate the sentiment." It was very much that. "I think it is time I retire to my room, will you walk me back?" One hand clasped the other, fingers tightening around each other.
