green lies, black hearts

XXXVII

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threads of flesh stained by the paint of kin

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a/n ~ thank you all for your patience! hope you enjoy, and thank you all so much for almost 150k reads and almost 5k votes over here! we just passed 400k hits on the archive site and almost 7k kudos, which is just so inconceivable to me! thank you all for reading and enjoying :,) also!! adding all the chapter summaries here as well as you can see :D

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Shaera

"H-How?" Shaera asked, pulling away from a hug that felt as though it endured for a century tenfold. Surely this was madness as she stared up at her father. At a ghost walking amongst the living. But he was warm and firm and her good arm was wrapped around his torso, and his her shoulders. They were embracing-had been. She couldn't fathom it. She could hardly believe him to be there, in her chambers of the Old Palace at Sunspear. But he was; Laenor Velaryon had returned from the Stranger's greedy hold and he had come to his daughter's aid once more.

Laenor smiled sadly, and he brushed some hair from her face. "Your mother and I...we came to an agreement after that business with Aemond."

(The sound of his name curdled her heart and stomach like a poisonous bile.)

"I knew she needed Daemon; that she loved him," he quietly told her, leading her to a table and chairs for them to sit at. "And she knew I needed...well, that I needed air. That my breathing and heart had been stifled for far too long."

There was a steaming pot of water, and black tea leaves steeped within. The scent was that of chai-spiced and heavy in the small space, poignant as the evening's breeze drifted lazily into the chambers. The sunset was beautiful, painting everything in an array of oranges, reds, and midnight purples. Laenor grabbed the teapot and began to pour. His hands shook ever so slightly, and Shaera wasn't sure she could reach out to steady. She wasn't sure the tea was actually being poured.

"Was it because of us?" she asked almost silently, the words a cracked whisper on her trembling lips. She wasn't sure why she asked. She understood his meaning quite well, and she always knew her father's...preferences. She shared them herself when it came to her own sex. She knew her mother was the same. Her aunt. Her stepfather. There was no shame to be had within their family where there was only love and compassion. But outside...She remembered Alicent Hightower's cruel remark towards Laenor that night: Undoubtedly entertaining one of his young squires. But Shaera had to ask.

She had to know if she and her brothers...If they weren't enough for her father. If they truly...If they ever needed to be bastards.

(Who could ever want a daughter like you?)

Laenor paused. Shaera could hardly stomach to meet his purple eyes-eyes she herself was not so lucky to inherit from her mother. No, she had her father's eyes. Only, that father was forever gone. Not even his ashes could be discerned in the aftermath, or so it was told to Shaera. And to have her father-the one who claimed her and gave her her name...to have him here before her after all these years...The fear and, and the self hate began to boil over once more. She had missed him-gods new and old, she had missed him.

But standing beside him, it was a painful reminder of how obvious it was. Truth it was that Rhaenys Targaryen had black hair with silver within it. Arryn blood flowed through Shaera well enough from her grandmother, Aemma. But Shaera knew who she looked like, and yes he was a dead man that many had forgotten, but he lived on through his children. Children who were constantly reminded by mirrors and whispers and slanders and cruel tongues wagged their way.