Autumn Kiss 💋🍁 || Criston Cole

026 • TOTAL STRANGERS

Tis was a brilliant summer week after that, warm and sunny, hardly a cloud in the sky. It mattered not at all to Alicent and Criston. They were no longer lovers, but strained in heartbreak, even though the attraction still lingered, their interactions was like two total strangers with unhealed wounds.

Aemond was put to sleep with milk of the poppy, his wounds were seen serious enough to warrant such measures. For that week, Criston was nothing more than her sworn protector again, less than that even.

Dowager Alicent would not look at him, she could not look at him. A fierce hate had awoken inside of her and if she even glanced at Criston, she would succumb to it and claw his face to shreds.

All the same, she wished by the very day after the tourney she had Criston back, she missed his reassurance in a time she needed it more than ever. She dreamed of the love they had, it was only then she was happy.

Nevertheless, the anger and betrayal she kept barely contained was too great to set aside. How was she to set aside her own son being grievously wounded? No mother could, it was unthinkable.

She prayed and prayed her son would wake again. Still, she looked about her chamber and the halls she walked and remembered it all, missed it all.

But her thoughts turned to her son and if he worsened. She could not set aside that horrible thought. Not when Criston promised to prevent it and did not.

Ser Criston himself kept his distance, shuffling through the day like a corpse. He hardly slept, ate nearly nothing, it was as if his soul was already fled out of his body.

He wished some days that he did fade away in the night and not awaken. Rhaenyra first, now Alicent, his heart had been torn to shreds. The former almost brought him to his death, the latter conspired to conclude the matter.

For the time being, he was almost too depressed to even muster the strength to end himself. All he could do was follow Dowager Alicent about in similar misery and spend the hours alone consumed in melancholy.

Nearly every day, he too dreamed of his love for Alicent. Nonetheless, he woke up and felt the sting of having that taken away again every morning.

By some unlikely accident, none of this was noticed, everyone else seemingly too busy with other petty intrigues was the court, there was indeed much to discuss and speculate on.

Aemond's duel had, by rights, ended with the Warden of the North being beheaded in front of nearly every lord in the realm, let alone nearly all the lords of the North.

Aemond was asleep for all of that week, his wounds seen to and bandages cleaned. Dowager Alicent visited almost every hour to see if he had improved.

Ser Criston was to wait outside, he did not deserve to see Alicent's son. He was deprived of even the certain knowledge of how Aemond fared.

The boy he had known since birth lay wounded in bed and he could not even lay eyes on him. He understood why she raged, he could never really grasp the depth of that fear and sadness of your child's life at stake.

Every day was the same for them, like some miserable tedious book being read over and over again, no variation. Every day, Alicent shut the door to her room, slamming it sometimes if Criston was too close, and he heard her cry herself to sleep for hours.

He could not help but join with crying of his own, secretly, in private, he did not wish to anger her more by asserting his presence. As broken as he felt, he still had no intention of letting his agony overshadow Alicent's in any way.

One day thereafter, Alicent entered Aemond's chamber and saw all her children together around his bed. Daeron was teary-eyed and clung to his mother, who petted his hair and tried to calm him. To her surprise, Aegon was there and wept as well.