Autumn Kiss 💋🍁 || Criston Cole

09 • YEARS OF LONELINESS

Ten years passed, change happened as it always does. Lord Lyonel and Ser Harwin both died at Harrenhal, only for Daemon to slither his way back to Westeros. Or was it Rhaenyra who brought him back? Either way, secret affair gave way to open defiance of king and decency and they were married.

With every year, Viserys faded more and more, the very flesh being stripped from his body by his disease. Alicent traded his company, filled with quarrels over Rhaenyra's preferred status in all things and Daemon's outrages and little else, for loneliness or her father attempting to use her to further his secret schemes.

Rhaenyra had been her friend in their youth but now been an enemy of hers for some years. Alicent had never been so alone, aside from chatting with Ser Criston and time with her children, although as they grew those times grew fewer.

Cole hated Rhaenyra, as well, it was relatively plain to see. The hurt of her actions and the shame of his role in it never left him. He considered it just as well he was now the close companion of someone Rhaenyra was at odds with.

However, it was not all motivated by spite. Him and Queen Alicent prayed together, spoke, even conferred on issues with the children when the king was too ill. It was increasingly often, he was disfigured to the point it was almost too much for the children to see him.

Even grown adults were put off at the sight of his lesions and gangrene. As for Criston himself, when he was not making Alicent's sons fighters to match any Rhaenyra could call to service, he advised Alicent or kept her company or made love to her.

Eager to serve, whatever her wish was, he obliged. In truth, he was grasping at some notion of redeeming himself through honorable service. He hoped just as his loyalties had reversed, so too would his reputation and esteem.

Lord Commander Westerling guided the Queen down the torchlit halls. He nodded and a guard opened the way to the kings chambers within. "The king awaits within, Your Grace" he said in an almost mournful voice.

Alicent stepped inside, the brightly lit hallway's light being killed and replaced with shadow before they even reached the foot of Viserys' bed. The room itself was dark as the candles that had been lit had by now been spent, leaving only what little sunlight could penetrate the sheet of clouds.

The room itself was saturated with death overtaking life. On the far side of the room, Viserys lay wheezing and straining to see who had come.

His bandaged face crusted with a sickening yellowed orange, he croaked "Alicent...my queen...good evening to you, I'm sorry to say you've just missed...my brother. He was here only..."

"Four days ago, Viserys" Alicent corrected "Daemon was here four days ago with your daughter and grandchildren."

"Ah....has it been so long? These things...time escapes me as of late."

Alicent did not know what to of Viserys and his sorry state. She should have felt like a bereaved wife watching her husband fade, and yet...she did not.

She pitied his pains and his slow dying, but the closeness that was meant to be in her heart was absent.

"Alicent...I know well enough...my time is quite limited. We...we must speak of some things." Alicent approached and sat near the bed, listening intently

"You have many years left, Viserys, and I have prayed to the Seven for your recovery, be assured. But if it would make you feel better, let us do so then, husband."

Viserys laughed weakly "Husband. It did always...hit my ear strangely. It was not...quite right. It must not...have felt proper for you to say, if you...had leave to be honest."