green lies, black hearts

XXXIX

~

in the moments before a dragon's dance

~

a/n ~ thanks y'all for your patience! I know I said rook's rest this chapter but when rewriting what I had lost, I was really unhappy (and overall I've been dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome with my writing) and felt I had rushed to get to the battle, so I fully scraped what I had and just restarted (which explains the delay on the update, as well as life stuff and chronic illness). So next chapter is fully rook's rest! this chapter is a lot of the final prep to feel justified in getting there :) please humbly accept 14k words as an apology for edging y'all lmao

as always, thank you for reading and apologies for any mistakes! And Ramadan Mubarak!

- mint
also go check out @shizunpilled on twt who did an incredible shaemond piece :,)

~+~

Shaera

Shaera sat at the painted table, leaning on her chair's arm with fingers tapping the map of carved stone. She clenched her jaw. Once. Twice. And she sighed deeply as she looked between the statuettes scattered across the map of Westeros. There were no burning candles beneath. There was not even a burning hearth at the head of the room. It was cold. The stone table. The chair. The very room itself, and Shaera curled further into her dark red cloak.

It had been only a fortnight since she and her father returned to Dragonstone. A fortnight, and yet, things were falling apart all too quickly. Was she glad to be back with her family? Reunited? All as one-or as close to one as they can be with Lucerys dead, and Daemon not responding to letters?

(Daemon who had seen to the death of a babe?)

Shaera's eyes burned and she dropped her head into her hand, elbow propped up by her chair. Her left arm still remained wrapped in linen, healing slowly but surely, and she was glad she could move it more now, and that she no longer had to change the dressing as often, but her skin still ached and pulled, now taut where it was covered in contractures. The skin was not completely healed over, but it was better than it was, and she was told by Maester Gerardys that she was lucky. Lucky it was not so extensive. Lucky it was not so deep. Lucky she still had most of the use of her entire arm and her fingers and hand.

(She was not so lucky in matters of her womb.)

Hidden by her cloak, she rested her left arm over her stomach, hand pressing just slightly into it. An exercise of her weakened muscles, she told herself. An exercise of her aching fingers as she poked and prodded at the barely noticeable changes. She knew not how long she was with the... babe.

(This sinful pestilence he had contracted upon her.)

And she knew it to be best if she brewed the tea as quickly as possible. She had the means here, what with Maester Gerardys' stores. She had the knowledge. She knew how much pennyroyal was too much, and she knew how long to keep it steeping before it poisoned the draught. She knew, she knew, she knew. And yet... And yet she remembered what it tasted like. That bitter brew. She remembered that itch in her throat. The closing in. The tightness in her chest. The inability to simply breathe.

She remembered clawing at her throat, vomiting up blood, and the metallic bite on her tongue that she still sometimes tasted. Shaera rubbed her left eye. She still couldn't quite grasp the finer details with it. Sometimes, things were too far away-muddled into a shadow of what they were. And she would simply have to guess what it was she was seeing, straining her right eye until it sent pain rippling through her skull.