for reignfall

[nearamir]

This is, when he reflects on it, the longest that Faramir has been away from Gondor - and it has been a long time coming, to see where his wife hails from, and bring their firstborn to a land that, after all, he has some claim to. For all his seafarer's blood, Faramir has not often sailed out of sight of land, and there is a wonder in the journey that will not leave him. Sitting on the deck of the ship, dandling Borahîl on his lap, he sings the songs that his mother taught him: of mariners and open waves and the island that sank beneath them, of the salt in one's veins and the longing for what lies beyond the horizon. There is a part of him, deeper than he knew, that finds itself at home with the endless silver horizon and the clear stars overhead by which they steer. It is almost a disappointment when the voyage ends, and they come to rest on a Westerosi shore.

And yet, it seems to him an opportunity, too; the first time in all his memory where his duty is only to his family, when no war waits on him, and his people must do without him until he returns; the first time that he can see the homeland of his beloved wife, and meet her family more fully than brief wedding conversation allowed, and know that his sword may rest in its sheath. He is a visitor in this land, and as a visitor, has some freedom to be only a man - not a captain, nor prince, nor Steward, but only Faramir.

This illusion of freedom does not last long beyond their welcome. Faramir can be at times naïve, and often idealistic; but he is no fool, and Tywin Lannister makes no secret of his scorn. His scorn, indeed, seems boundless: for his own son, for the apparently too-lowly title of prince, for the time taken to produce an heir, even for the child's Sindarin name, as though he has any right to demand his own traditions take primacy above the line of Húrin. All of this, Faramir bears with as much grace and patience as he can manage, summoning diplomacy and politeness at every turn; for in the end, he is a guest in Lord Tywin's home, and Tywin holds kin-right through their marriage, and he will not make mockery of that by being rude. No matter how Tywin might provoke with his own barely-veiled rudeness, Faramir will not shirk his duty - no matter how he had hoped to be free of it.

No matter, too, how deep an ache it gives him to see that scorn and rudeness turned on Tyrion. From what little Cersei has said of her brother, he had expected to find a vicious and soulless creature, had imagined something more goblin than Man - but that is not at all what he sees in the poor child, who shows from the first a wit and a love of knowledge, and in whose mistreatment Faramir sees all too much of his own image. It aches to hear in Tywin's tone so much of the Denethor of old, to see the same distasteful overlooking of a child eager to be seen. With each small slight and oversight, Faramir feels in himself a greater wish to hold Borahîl close, and to make it certain that his own son should never feel that hollow certainty of an impassable demand. With each word from Tywin's lips that denigrates his youngest son, Faramir must fight the urge to flinch.

You wish, then, that our places had been reversed? That I had died and Boromir had lived? So he had said to his father, in those final days, and his father had looked him squarely in the eye when he answered: I do wish that.

No child should bear such knowledge. No father should wish it. And so, although he cannot be unaware of how it angers his wife - even if he does not entirely understand it - Faramir does what he can, in what small ways he can, to ease that burden; to spend time with Tyrion, and be kind to him, and share with him - more pointedly each time the matter of the boy's size is raised within his hearing - stories of the peoples of his own land, of Halflings and Dwarves and the great deeds they have undertaken, deeds beyond their stature. It is not a great burden to do so, for in truth he enjoys Tyrion's company. Beyond a certain point, it is no longer conscious charity. But still, it hurts to hear Tywin talk to his son that way.

In the end, though, it is not Tyrion's honour that breaks the bonds of mannered meekness - nor Borahîl's, nor Cersei's, nor even his own. In the end, around a ten-night into their stay, it is a greater slight still that spurs him to action. Tywin has not been subtle in his desire for power, nor in his wish that his daughter and his son-in-law might grasp more keenly for it: this, too, Faramir has borne in silence, although the undertones of it at times make his fingers itch for his sword. But this night, for the first time, it is spoken aloud: that word, king. That treason, that a crown might be taken.

Faramir stands abruptly, then, and stands tall; and glaring down the older lord, his eyes are storm-tossed, hard and unyielding as mountain stone. His face is grim, and carved of the same stone as the statues of ancient kings; and he is Captain and Prince and Steward all at once, and cold fury crackles from him in a way that he has scarcely ever allowed it. His voice, too, is cold, the syllables falling into place with a steady finality.

"I do not desire to be King," he says, and his gaze does not flinch from Tywin's, his hand resting almost unconsciously against the haft of a sword he does not wear. "There is one King of Gondor, and I rejoiced in his return, and rejoiced to return the realm to him. I did not desire his crown when I set it upon his head, and I do not desire his throne who sit gladly at the right hand of it; for I have seen what lies down the path of grasping power." His fist has clenched, his knuckles resting against the surface of the table. There is a hardness in the set of his jaw, and a dangerous strength in the slim lines of his body; and such is the weight of his tone that the shadows seem deeper where he stands, the air crisper and more cold. "Death is all that rewards such a hunger, my lord Tywin; death, and hollow shame, and the cold grasp of the Shadow. But at the hands of that very King you speak of was the Shadow burned away; and you may travel that path of Shadow to its end, if you must, but not in my presence will you speak treason against him."

Borahîl begins to whimper. Faramir does not soften at once, but his fist unclenches, and he bends to pick up his son, holding the dark-haired child close against his chest. For a moment, his eyes seek those of the other child at the table - Tyrion, whose mismatched eyes he finds wide in shock - and he nods, a silent consent for the boy to join him if he wills it, before turning without fanfare to stride out of the room, not looking back or waiting to hear whether Tywin will reply.

And if he holds the baby a little more tightly than he is accustomed to do, or if he is shaking a little when, at last, he finds a quiet place in the courtyard to sit, then it is not overly apparent; and if he feels a lump in his throat when he looks out from that seat across the shining water, then nobody need know it but him.

Comments

[nearamir]

There is no law in Westeros that would not name you so, she says, and he feels that anger bubbling up inside him again, that frustration that led him to snap at his erstwhile host. No, there is no such law in Westeros; but I am not Westerosi, and a Steward has never been a King. Even knowing - or, perhaps, merely hoping he knows - what she means by it, that irritation will not be entirely quelled. His jaw tightens, his lips pressing taut. He wants to be sympathetic to her plight, to a fear that he does not doubt is genuine in the face of a threat that has haunted her all this time - and yet, she questions all that he has fought for, all that he has held dear, the dawn that followed a darkness she did not see, and she does not even seem to know she does it.

Then again, how could she know? He has not talked overmuch - except perhaps in feverish dream - of the war; he has prayed, always, that she may be forever innocent of the darkness and despair of those days. He could not have expressed to her, even if he wished to, how hope for Gondor's survival had become enmeshed with the return of the King; how it was only in that moment where he returned the rod of office and all claim to rule that he felt, for the first time in his life, that fate had restored its proper course. He cannot say - to her, to her father, perhaps not even to himself - how dearly he needs to trust in that truth, or how questioning it twists a knife that he has often forgotten is still seated in his breast. And for all this talk of witches and prophecy, of dire fate that twists them in its web, there are some things he cannot set aside.

He swallows hard, and tries his best; and there is an answering ferocity in his grip when he clasps her hand in both of his, meeting her gaze with eyes that burn with a cold fire.

"Why would it be so plain?" he echoes her, and there is force in his tone, too, quiet as it is. "You will question crown and king and word; you will question all but that which hurts you deepest. Yet you have not asked, in all of this, why your brother will come to wish you harm, nor what doom will see our children shrouded; you have not asked, either, what this witch meant in answering a child's questions with such bleak prophecy, or what such a prophecy would serve. For it is said that even true prophecy can be twisted by the giver, that sly words can wrap truth into lies; and men have gone mad in such contemplation, and women too." He sighs then, heavily, and closes his eyes; and there is a great weariness that crosses his face. "Ai! that Mithrandir still came to the White City so often as he did in my youth; for he might give wiser counsel."

[reignfall]

"I am afraid the motive that inspires him will not matter overly much to me once he has murdered me." The knowledge of the prophecy had, at so tender an age, served only to solidify the belief she has come to cling to so fiercely: Tyrion was twisted and evil, a pest upon her family, come to torment them for torment's sake. Like devils and demons, he needs no reason; he is beyond such a thing.

Meanwhile her husband, yet holding her close, grasps at her words like straws, as if the circumstance matters overmuch. She has received her warning, grave as it is, and it will not serve her to read a kinder meaning into it, not if she means to keep feverish track of the worst it could do. The contempt for the notion is plain on her face, and a fierce frustration, too: it hurts her, in truth, to hear him speak as though she cannot possibly have thought her way to a singular correct conclusion in the thing that defined her life the most.

"Fuck Mithrandir." The name means, in truth, next to nothing to her. "Her words are plain because she beheld a plain truth. Do you know what Melara asked? She asked if she will wed Jaime." There is no true amusement in her voice, though it has grown considerably colder. "Well, it would have taken no Seer to tell her this would never come to pass, but Maggy tasted her future regardless. Worms will have your maidenhead, she told her, subtle as she was." Speaking of it now, a shiver runs through her, from head to toe, as though the details of it haunt her now – and it would be a lie to say that they did not. "She told her that death would take her that very night, and so it came to be."

She swallows hard, and looks away.

[nearamir]

Faramir tenses a little at the venom in her voice; tenses more at the shudder that runs through her, and that look on her face, that dread that cuts deeper than her fury ever could. It is enough to restrain him from defending Mithrandir, at least - though it is his instinct to do so, to try to calm her and corral her into realising that there are more possibilities than one. It is enough to keep him from observing aloud how deaf she seems to him, or how the plain truth she insists is before them is not plain at all; how he has pointed out already the ways in which it cannot be plainly and simply true. Perhaps there is a way to say such things which will not spur her to greater anger and grief; but he cannot see one.

Instead, he sighs, and his face is drawn and grave. Again, it comes to him that if this witch-woman were before him now, who would say such things to children and haunt them all their lives, he might not find much mercy in his heart; again, it comes to him to question what it was she intended in saying it. This, too, he swallows down; and he cups Cersei's face in his hands, searching to meet her gaze, so that she might see the sincerity in his eyes.

"I believe you." In that he believes that this death came to pass, and that he understands her fear; in that he believes that prophecy can be wielded by its holder, and that the witch-woman has done exactly that. In that he believes that there is no choice but to act on it, given Cersei's clear fear. He sighs again, smoothing her hair back from her brow, and his brow is deeply furrowed. "I am sorry, beloved, if I seem otherwise; what prophecy came to me, came by other means and in other tones, and I fumbled in fear with its truth then, and I fumble now. I am afraid, and I am uncertain; but I believe you, and I will do all that I can to see it turned aside, if it may yet be done." He lets his hand fall from her cheek, ceases to so intently demand her gaze. "I will not linger in your brother's company, nor allow him to tarry with Borahîl. And erelong, we will return to Gondor, and he will be leagues distant, and so shall he stay."

[reignfall]

Her eyes meet his again, though she does not incredulous per se. No, this is the look of one who has prepared herself for a lengthy war, who has called upon her armies and had walls raised around her city, gathered resources to outlast a siege, and now finds the enemy vanquished at her doorstep. He believes her, she has so quickly gotten through to him, and he believes her. It was worth breathing life into the prophecy again, it was worth breaking her oldest vow over.

She throws herself against him with more force than intended, her arms wrapping around him and drawing him even closer as he promises distance from her brother, safety for their son, and protection, too, for herself. "For so long I thought you might doubt me in this. Had I known you would believe me, I would have told you a thousand days ago."

She withdraws only to kiss him, her relief, her joy, lighting up the room. She smiles freely for the first time since their arrival here, and she has to force herself to lower her voice, as to not disturb Borahîl in the other room. "I love you."

[nearamir]

For an instant, against all his doubts and fears and all his nagging uncertainty, the sheer joy on her face sweeps the darkness aside, and the sun seems to shine from her; and there is an uneasiness itching at the back of his mind, but how can he linger on it, when for the first time in so long she looks genuinely happy? How can doom linger in this moment, in the face of her radiance?

He answers her kiss gladly, and holds her close, his fingers caressing her hair. He cannot help but smile a little too, so infectious is her relief; cannot help but feel that the worst has passed. And, after all, is it not true? It is not so much longer that they will stay in her father's lands (no doubt a shorter stay, if anything, for his anger earlier), and then prophecy and brother and childhood nightmares may be left here beneath the beating of the waves, to be faced only if and when they come. It is a small enough sacrifice to make, is it not, to soothe her fears? He feels still for the child, for Tyrion; but Tyrion is not his son, and Tyrion is not his responsibility. Borahîl and Cersei are where his duty lies.

"I love you," he replies, with equal fervour, and kisses her again. "And, loving you, it is not my duty to doubt you; but to hold you and to keep you safe, and this I will do, by any means I can. Did I not vow it, when we were wed?"

[reignfall]

He did vow it, and she ought to take it for granted, but it means too much to be brushed thusly aside, and she has not been raised to embrace another with any hint of trust. But has there ever been another in this world whom she could trust so readily? She smiles, grins rather, when he confess his love to her as she had offered her own, and meets this second kiss with every bit the fervour of a first.

"There is nothing in the world that I would trade this for." No crown and no kingdom, and none of the imagined lives with her brother. No dream is as good as this certainty – at least for now. "And there is little more upsetting to my father, I am afraid." Does it matter, though, if she can rest her forehead against his, and brush another kiss to his lips, light as a feather? "We must stay long enough for you to meet my brother, or else he will have come all this way in vein. And after that, we can take Borahîl back to safety, and all will be as it was."

Perhaps she is merely trying to convince herself of it, yet the force in her words is true.

[nearamir]

"I do not care overmuch what is upsetting to your father." Perhaps that is ignoble of him; this admission of disrespect, beneath the man's own roof. But guest or not, he will not lie, and nor, in truth, does he think she will particularly mind. She is smiling, and her body fits to his as though it was made for the purpose; and no anger or fear clouds her expression now, and he can breathe again. "Let him fume if he will, and stew in his distaste for me; if you love me, and you are happy, then I care not a whit for anyone else's thoughts on the matter."

Nobody else who is here, at least. Nobody else on this side of the Sea. He caresses her face again, gentle and loving, and his other hand finds the small of her back, holding her close.

"Will you come to bed? It has been a long day, and wearying; and now all I wish to do is set aside all fear and pain and all the anger that has passed between us, and hold you."

[reignfall]

It would be a reach to say she cares not for her father's opinion at all, even now. It is more the realisation that she need not pay mind to it unless she so wishes which is new, or the sentiment that she has, indeed, found happiness so far from Westeros, mingled with the idea that she misses her home less than she has assumed. Home, in fact, has become another place entirely, and while she still looks forward to introducing Borahîl to the joys of playing in the sand, her true home has begun to beckon her.

Though he speaks of feeling weary, her hand does wander down to his chest, and she leans into him, to place a kiss most promising first to the side of his jaw, and then down at his throat. "I will gladly join you in bed, my love. It has been... titillating to see you in so warlike a mood."

[nearamir]

It is not entirely a surprise, at this point, to find her turning emotional weight into something more physical; nor does he mind it in the slightest, weary though he might be. His head tilts back a little as she presses her lips against his skin, and his own hand has moved down to caress her hip, his body shifting against hers.

That is, at least, until she speaks; and it is like a lead weight dropped in a well. He tenses against her, and his hands still.

He does not want to argue. He truly does not. There has been enough trouble between them today as it is. All that he wants, as he said, is to rest, and to hold her, and to forget. And yet...

He sighs, and puts his hand to hers to stop its passage over his chest, pulling back enough to look at her. "I would not call it warlike."

[reignfall]

What she wants is to be held, but that wish is easier for her to accept in the warm afterglow, when it feels entirely natural to rest her head at his chest and come to peace by his side. It is easier, too, to forget about the fight amidst a healthy bout of passion, and it separates her from her incessant need to win every battle, or to latch on too tightly to any way she has been upset.

And for a moment, it looks as though he is happy to grant her wish – until he stills her hand, and forces her to look at him, and not with the blithe longing she had aspired to. In truth, she looks a tad confused. "Well, you took the stance of the Warrior," which still holds weight in her world, even though she has not set foot in a sept in years. It is utterly Westerosi, too, as she often is in her worship of war. Men go to war, they die at war, or they return, to play at war in tourneys and the like. This has been the first time she had seen pure steel in her husband, whom she normally loves for his gentleness, his heartfelt and kind nature.

[nearamir]

It is earnest: her reply, and the confusion with which it comes. It is a great deal harder to accept for its earnestness. He knows all too well that she does not mean any ill by it; that she is, in all likelihood, genuinely attracted to what is warlike in him; and that she means it as a compliment as much as anything. This is the worst of all, to know that what she sees is still so far removed from what he does.

For a moment, he is still, his hand still resting on hers, his brows drawing together. At length, he sighs, and lets his hand fall back to his side.

"Would you sooner I was more warrior than I am?" His voice is not accusing; it is, however, sad, and there is behind it something that lurks like shadows in an autumn wood. A genuine question, but one which, even as he says it, he is not sure he wants to know the answer to.

[reignfall]

The answer seems so clear to her, in spite of his tone and the heaviness that swings with it. That is because the answer is an easy one: of course she would prefer him all warrior. This is what matters in a man, that he takes up his sword and fights and kills, that he wins tourneys because his blood may never rest, that he slays his enemies and defends her from all evils, real or imagined. This is what she had played at with Jaime, and this is what she had imagined with Rhaegar – only he also played the harp, and he was no little boy when the thought of marriage first posed itself to her.

And that is exactly the twist in her thoughts he can see, from the way she seems about to affirm, and then pauses, openly struck by how wrong her instinctive answer felt. Her life is no longer all imagining, and he had returned to her once gravely injured, caught in the Stranger's net and only barely freed. She had wished the thought of entering battle had never occurred him then, she'd wished he would have thrown his weapons into a river and decided on a life of compliant luxuries, anything to keep him from another battle, another war. When she had yet been half a child, it had been thrilling to see a man knocked from his horse during the joust, and how forbidden and exciting and horrible it had been to learn that he had not survived that fall. Now, she cannot stop herself from considering that this could have been Jaime. Now, she knows well enough that she would ask if he had lost his marbles, if her husband suggested to gamble his life for gold they did not need, and glory that meant nothing, all to play at some foolish sport.

It would be nice, though, to be crowned his queen of love and beauty. It's a nice image even now, to see all cheer for him and envy her as he, Faramir, wins that shining day.

She reaches for the hand that had dropped from her waist, because who else does she look for assurance to? Her nice little fantasy feels pale compared to seeing him rock Borahîl to sleep, singing to him all the while. It is not a man's place, her father had written, to be present during his child's birth. Yet had she not been endlessly grateful to squeeze his hand and seek his eyes during the worst of it? Would she have preferred, then, the stone-cold warrior, over the loving things he had mumbled to her, those gentle encouragements? "It would cost me what I love most in you."

[nearamir]

All this, to a greater or lesser extent, he sees pass across her face in those few moments; and even as he sees it, he does not know how he feels about it - about any of it. There is a part of him that cries that if it is what she wants of him, then he will be a shining knight, that he will suffer the weight of his sword in his hand again to be sure she feels protected: but he has never been given to lying, even to himself, in so grave a way. If he could not change for his father's love, if he could not harden himself for all that the Ring-War brought, then how can he pretend that he would be able to change for her? He is not Boromir; he is not her brother Jaime, either. And if this uncertainty in her face should come to its end in desire for what he is not, then what will he say or do?

But her hand finds his, and he does not resist it; his fingers, after only a momentary hesitation, lace through hers, and he half-smiles, though there is a grimness and a sorrow still in his look. He leans in, and his lips brush against her temple, a kind of silent thanks. He is not a born warrior; he is not a king; he is not wise enough, either, to wholly drive away her fears. But she reaches for him, nonetheless, and her words are what he most needs to hear.

For a moment, then, he is silent; lingers on the edge of words he cannot find, to put voice to what he feels. At last, though, that distant and rather sorrowful mien fades, and his eyes seek hers anew, and there is something more inviting there.

"I have no taste for war." He shifts, moves close again, his free hand wrapping around her waist; and there is a certain glint in his eye almost of humour. "And I am not the Warrior. But if you would see the Captain of Gondor in your bed more often, then you need only ask."

[reignfall]

"War will not raise our son, nor will it hold me at night." Or play sweetly on his lute, as he does sometimes when sleep cannot be lured to their boy in any other way, when she is gently rocking him in her arms to a slow and gentle song. War means absences, the risk of loss, and the Warrior is a handsome stone statue deep down in the sept below them, who has not held her or loved her, whom she has not shivered for in pleasure and whom she has never adored with genuine fervour. "I thought I needed it, though."

She smiles with a tinge of pain to it, evidently wounded by her earnestness, but he does return to her, and he does draw her in again, and who can say no to the Captain of Gondor? "You put it in such an odd way. There is not a night that I do not want you in bed with me."

That is part of what has shaped her lessening obsession with the idea of a perpetual warrior, a knight of unending tastes for blood.

[nearamir]

He smiles then, and kisses her, and it is easy enough to set aside his doubts and his fears, at least for the moment; it is easier still to hold her, and to let grief and anger ebb at last from between them, to give pleasure its place. And in the time that follows, then it is easy, too, to forget all the darker shadows of the day; and when he sleeps, with her head against his shoulder and his arms tangled around her warm body, he does not dream.

Still, the knowledge of what has passed between them does not leave him, any more than the newly increased tension between himself and Lord Lannister. They can none of them undo what has been said, or choose not to know what they have learned. For the most part, Faramir puts it from his mind - but, true to his word, he does not continue to keep Tyrion's company, or let him too near to Borahîl. He is gentle in his refusal, courteous as he can be without giving reasons, but he is firm; and if he feels guilt at putting the boy so suddenly aside, as he does not doubt people have put Tyrion aside before, he quashes that guilt swiftly. He is, after all, a Prince of Gondor, and his word is his bond.

It turns out to be a simple enough bond, too, for a time; for not three days later, Tyrion rides out to meet his brother, and does not return. He is, so Ser Jaime says with a laugh, dallying in taverns and with wenches: and if it strikes Faramir uneasily to think of so young a swain in such company, still it does not seem his place to question it. This land holds youth in contempt, so far as he can tell; views children as men grown, and will not set bounds on them as perhaps should be set. In any case, his discomfiture is quashed by the thought of what he has promised, and by the greater ease at once apparent in his wife - and, of course, by the distraction of a brother-in-law whose bristling and boisterous hostility is at once far blunter and no less great than Tywin Lannister's.

This last, in truth, saddens Faramir a great deal: for all his boister and callow bravado, he thinks he could easily grow to like Jaime, if Jaime would only allow it. There is, in the young knight, some core of greater nobility than he seems willing to admit; there is a strength of will, and a courage, and an honour. As well to admit it - he puts Faramir achingly in mind of his own brother, when Boromir was of such an age. Like Boromir, he is swaggering and loud; like Boromir, he holds a certain command and confidence beyond his years; like Boromir, he speaks of his misliked brother with love and fond exasperation, and that perhaps endears Faramir to him most of all.

Unfortunately - also like Boromir - Jaime seems to be a man set in his path, and having (so far as Faramir can tell) taken a dislike to his sister's husband before ever meeting him, he will not be swayed from that hatred. Some of the same scorn that his father showed, too, shines in him towards Faramir's softer habits: scorn for poetry and song, for gentle words, for carrying Borahîl on his hip and hushing him to sleep in his arms. Scorn for Borahîl himself, little as Faramir wishes to believe it possible: the looks given to the small, dark-haired child can be read no other way.

Faramir does his best, as is his wont, to placate; to build some bridge, however uneasy, between himself and his wife's kin. He is unfailingly polite, he smiles and is mild, and daily the intensity of their mislike grows. He looks forward, more and more, to the nearing day when they will take their leave, and return to lands where he is not so despised, and leave prophecies and scorn and lions' bitterness behind.

It will be soon: the ship bearing Gondor's pennants floats at anchor in the bay, promising home, and the days pass in too-slow haze, and soon it will be over. It has been fraught, yes - but not, he must remind himself, a disaster. All that has been lost is the hope, which he admits he clung to, of a family that might fill the void left by his own; all that has been lost, then, is nothing. And duty has been done, and she has seen her kin, and they will sail home and be free of the oppressive air of this place; and so it will be over, and they will walk again in the woods of Ithilien, and think no more of witches' prophecies.

It will be soon, and it will be well. So he thinks, at least, until the storm comes, some two days yet before they are due to sail. Not a storm of weather, but one that crackles in the air in the castle, some doom that hisses in the air around the reeling, unkempt septon who reaches the castle one morning.

Faramir is a gentle man, and a trusting man, and in some ways, a naive man: but he is not, whatever his in-laws may suppose, a foolish man. Nor, among all of his vows and all of his duties, is he a man who can for too long turn a blind eye to what is in front of him. He watches, and he listens, and the picture that comes to light is an ugly one, lit with the promise of doom. He can feel it, that great wave waiting to crash down upon them; and she will hate him, for a while, but what else can he do, when Jaime tells him the last piece of the puzzle, when he must once again find himself before the lord of Casterley Rock with his hand upon his sword and his fury bright as the sun? What else can he do, but what is right?

It is still early afternoon when he hauls open the door of their chambers. He is flushed and breathing heavily, and his expression is one that allows no doubt and no space for question.

"Gather your things." His voice, too, is brisk and commanding; there is no gentleness there, only the grim certainty of the soldier. "I will fetch mine, and Borahîl's. We have an hour, no more. We leave with the turning of the tide."

[reignfall]

The tension between her father and her husband is not quickly diffused, but she cares little for it now that she knows her life is safe in the hands of her husband. As he promised, he disentangled himself from Tyrion efficiently and with a finality to it that eases her heart into an almost uncharacteristic happiness. Time has rebuilt trust in him, and as for her, time has built trust at all to begin with. Easier it is now to say a gentle word of love, to distract him with a laugh yet another place to show him, another secret of her ancestral home that requires not Tywin's dour attention or the presence of any lasting gloom.

The very next day is when she draws him near, and proposes that, once they are safely home, she might forgo all cautions again, so that Borahîl may know the joy of having a sibling close to him in age. If not met with grander apprehension, if met with happiness, even, she'll have fallen into his arms and forgotten entirely that more suppers with her father await, and that this visit will not come to an end before it might find another way to hurt her.

Jaime did arrive, and with him, Tyrion departed, likely to become the whoremongering, godless fiend he has ever been meant to grow into – but what does it matter, whatever it is their little brother does? Her twin hardly had time to dismount before she fell into his arms, and this might have been the sole peaceful moment they would share during this visit. He holds no care for Faramir, he does not feel the same boundless love for her sweet son, who is, to him, more evidence of her heart lost than a mere marriage. He corners her but once, and tries to kiss her, in a spot where they have hidden away dozens of times before–

But there is Faramir now, and the awful way she had felt when he had felt so betrayed by her, and the sincerity with which he has made his vows –– and there is the love she feels for him, which is not one formed on childish thrills and defiant, clinging sin. She thought once that she could not live without Jaime, that being torn apart was the worst that could happen to her, and that love could only be found like this with him. That all else would be unsafe, rife with treachery, and not good enough to complete her. She'd believed it with such force that she'd gone behind their father's back to keep him close –– and all had come different, in the end. The love for her golden brother yet supersedes much, but it cannot reach the simple joy of watching Faramir rock their son to sleep. It is not the habitual love of brushing her husband's hair aside, of kissing him, of hearing him call her sweet names in his tongue, of being in his arms every night, and happy to be nowhere else.

She leaves her brother standing there, and joins Faramir and Borahîl at the beach, builds clumsy sandcastles with him and tucks into her skirts a lovely shell her husband has found for her to keep. She confesses nothing, but she does not regret that there is nothing new to confess at all.

This does not smooth over that grave dislike, of course. It does not help that they yet think so much alike, but that they are at once awkward with one another, or that Tywin feels strengthened by his son's hatred, or that Cersei only clings more fiercely to Faramir in the face of her self-inflicted loss.

So perhaps, after two more weeks pass, she should not be surprised that her husband has no more patience in him for Westeros, but she still stops her bouncing of Borahîl with a start, and a narrowing of her eyes. She recognises an order for what it is, but that makes it no more expected, and she stands uneasy, yet bordering on the defiant. "There are but two more days left, my heart. At least we should say our goodbyes."

Not to Tywin, perhaps, but at least to Jaime.

[nearamir]

He sighs, and there is, for a moment, a heaviness in him; a sense, perhaps, that he is girding his loins for some new battle. In a sense, he is, for he is not fool enough to think that she will be anything other than furious, at least until he can talk her down.

But he fears, in his heart, that there is no time for talking. Not now; not until they are on board the ship that will take them away, before Lord Tywin recovers his senses enough to realise what has passed between them. There is no time for argument, and there is most of all no time to flinch from what he has already decided; he cannot undo what has been done, and he cannot afford to doubt it now.

"Your brothers are at the dock already." He puts aside all thoughts of doubt, all questions; they will wait. What will not wait is moving past her, to begin to pack his clothes and books into the small chest at the foot of the bed. "As for your father, I left him in murderous ill-temper, and I would fear for Borahîl's safety in his company. Even for yours."

[reignfall]

"Faramir," she struggles to keep her voice level and calm, while all of her is seizing up as though sensing a blow he has not yet lifted his hand for. In his bearing is the weight of some kind of guilt, she sniffs it out like a bloodhound, though the effort is hardly necessary, for he is quick to reveal just what it is he has done.

And it is not, at once, a terrible transgression. She has asked his patience, his self-control, with regard to her lord father, but she does not hail from temperate stock, and thus she cannot blame him wholly. That he has Jaime involved in it somehow is surprising, and that he would mention the other one in the same breath as her twin at best an insult. Yet if he has soured himself to her father once and for all – 

Yes, it might wise to leave. She stands, Borahîl held close, and surveys the room, eyes darting around what is left of her possessions, what has not in succession been brought to ship already, with their visit having come so close to its end. There are toys strewn about, things for their son to hold and wave and grapple with. Not much left in terms of clothing, but there is the shell she has kept by her bedside, a blanket she'd embroidered with lions for Borahîl, various things that seem replaceable if he has managed to bring her father to the point of considering her soon to be widowed.

"What did you do?" It comes out sharper than intended, as she bundles their son, upset now by the shift in the tone of this late afternoon, in his lion-blanket. "He will not be forgiving if he is insulted like this, I know my father and I know well and good that if we breach decorum like this, he will not be keen to see us here again." Her, he won't want to see her again, and he is her sole living parent.

[nearamir]

That sharpness is, he will grant, well-justified - and expected, too, if not welcome. He is very aware that he has put her in an ugly situation, one that is worse because it is a situation he has known too well himself. And yet, what else could he have done?

"I prevented him from doing something that could not be undone." Faramir's jaw shifts, just a little, beneath the skin; he closes the chest, locking it, and straightens to look at her. There is a distance in him, armouring him from what hurt he knows he has wrought already; he will not allow himself to apologise. "We are beyond decorum in this, Cersei. I have never come so close to baring steel against my host, and hope that I never shall again; and what he would have done, if I had not interceded, would have been a damnation against all your people. We are no longer safe here." Then, summoning the steel back to his voice; forcing himself not to allow doubt to creep in. "Nor are Tyrion and Tysha, not this side of the Narrow Sea. They sail with us to Dol Amroth, and there will be left in Prince Imrahil's care until it is safe for them to return."

And now, he thinks, the fury will come. He wishes he had thought to take Borahîl from her arms before it does.

[reignfall]

This tone of his might not be so familiar, but his way of speaking no doubt is. Too much, too many words for what she deems a simple question, and all of it brought forward with the same insistence that always accompanies decisions he made based in honour and his own sense of morality. She has come, in her way, to appreciate it, though there is no appreciation in her now. He would not have needed to brace himself, if he did not know that he brought dark news. He has declared something damned, and knowing her father, and knowing what became of Elia and her children, he might well be right from some moral view.

But this is Tywin Lannister's keep, and no man has the rights to forbid him as he pleases. They are not past decorum now, they are past forgiveness, and if her son were not heavy in her arms, she might step past him at once to try and salvage what she may.

"Who in the seven hells is Tysha?" She asks it before the rest of his words sink in, but he can watch them catch up with her, watch the weight of her realisation settle like ice in her heart, her eyes wide as she ceases to fuss with Borahîl's blanket.

"No. No, Faramir, no." She banishes the pleading as soon as it has come, and she begs herself for rage, for fury, for anything that is not this cold dread that numbs her mind. "Have Jaime take them –" Where to? She clutches their son tighter to herself, and presses on forward, though she has yet to conquer the horror in her voice. "To Essos. Or drop him on the steps of the Citadel, as should have been done years ago. Anything else."

[nearamir]

This is a thousand times worse than fury, and he is not wholly bolstered against it: he feels something in him creak and crack under the strain of her fear. That plea in her voice comes nearer to undoing him than any screaming rage, and he almost falters, almost relents. You knew. You knew that she would be afraid, you know the dread of prophecy, and you brought it here still. To Essos, then; to Oldtown; to anywhere but here - and yet...

"Where Jaime will go, your father will more easily follow." It is an unfortunate truth, one that weighs heavy as he says it; and it is not an excuse, but some part of him fears that it may sound like one. "But he will not risk war with Gondor; or else he would have seen me slain a half-hour ago. I can see no other way, Cersei." His eyes seek hers at last, where they have avoided her gaze more than is ever his way; they seek to catch her eyes and hold them, to show her his seriousness; and now, at last, there is a note of apology in his tone, a sorrow in his face. "Tysha is Tyrion's wife, from what I have been told; and she is a girl no more than fifteen, and your father would have seen her raped by half a regiment. Do you suppose, if she remains here, that she will live past the week? But Dol Amroth is safe, and far still from Ithilien; and I would trust its Prince with any grave errand. They need never set foot in our lands, Cersei, not once we put to shore. Please." He steps towards her, half-raising a hand as though to reach for her, only to let it fall back to his side. "I swore to protect thee, Cersei, and I will hold that vow. But I swore other oaths, too, and if we do not aid now, then I will be no less foresworn. They are in dire need."

[reignfall]

He steps forward, and she all but stumbles back as if the merest risk of his touch could scald her. At least she can claim to hold his gaze, but her eyes are searching for a hint of hope, of anything she can use to undo this trap he has laid out for her. It is a masterfully crafted thing, and he has cut the ropes she might have scaled. Her father will hardly believe her now, if she claims her innocence, and a daughter is no use compared to a son as is – what would he want with one who has broken his trust, who must break her marital vows to remain here, and who will be much harder to sell while clutching another man's child to her breast? A half hour has it been since he wreaked havoc on her blood, too much time gone for her to try and reach out to an uncle, or better, to her aunt. As though they would take her in after this.

As though she has yet cleansed herself of the love that has lead her here so quick.

Mercifully, she does not weep, though she shakes her head as though to bring her mind to heel. "Tyrion and his whore. This is what you sold us out for." Married, in his dreams mayhaps, what septon in his right mind would have seen that boy wed? There is no one here who does not know him by the mere looks of him. What is it to her, if some girl is raped? It would hardly touch her on a good day; she cares for her less than for the dirt beneath her feet, if her salvation comes at this cost. She turns on her heel, then, and steps towards the door, because he is right in one thing. "You have forfeit my son's life. All else can wait, we need to leave."

[nearamir]

He does not move for a moment, cannot move. There is nothing that she says that he could not have foreseen, nothing that should shock him; he knew what he did, and that it would hurt her, and he knew the danger it would put them in. And yet, it pierces him like an arrow, drives itself between his ribs in a cold, spreading horror. You have forfeit my son's life. Our son's life.

The son in question has begun to whimper, clearly picking up on the tension in the air and in his mother's voice. Faramir closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, and forces down the guilt; it will not serve him now, and there will be more than enough time to dwell on it when they are underway. Still, he cannot help but think of how all of this, all this tangled web, is a matter of fathers and sons: how he fears that Tywin will kill his own son in hate, but how he knows too intimately how a father can kill his child with love, too. He cannot help but fear. There is a part of him that longs to take Borahîl from Cersei's arms, to hold him close and comfort him, and in so doing, comfort himself; there is a selfish part that wishes that he had silenced the errant voice of conscience. But he has never been able to do that, not though its price be death.

But not your death only, Denethor's voice echoes in the hallways of his mind, and he clenches his fist at his side, and swallows, and opens his eyes. It has been only a brief moment, and he will not falter, cannot falter. There is nothing to be gained by faltering; there is no retreat. He bends to pick up his things and hers, and straightens his spine, and steadies himself. There is no retreat, and conscience will not be denied.

"The boat is on the southern end of the dock. Jaime said he would await us there."

[reignfall]

"Such effort. The gallows in the courtyard are much closer than the port." If she could, at least, muster her usual venom, then perhaps she could meet this fresh fate with some amount of dignity. There is venom in her voice, but she doubts it is enough to see him close his eyes, and so he will not miss that she has begun to tremble. Between their words, she has caught a harrowing glimpse of what lurks beneath her iron armour of shock, and it is not rage. It has been a spark of an unknown agony tearing at her, before she has recounted again all that he has said in those few minutes, the weight and reach of it still so overwhelming that, like a dive into cold water, it blackens out all else for a moment with a comforting numbness.

Borahîl threatens to weep now, though, and she turns her back to her husband and walks out of the room. There is no time to rock him to perfect peace, but she can kiss his forehead as they walk. "Don't fret, sweetling. I won't betray you."

An empty promise, of course, because she has built too much of their safety on the cliffside of Faramir's vows, and now that the rock has fallen to the sea, she cannot quickly enough find solid ground again. She has no eyes for these old-familiar stairwells, and she need not think of the direction her feet carry her in. She has climbed down to the port a thousand times throughout her childhood – nothing here has changed.

It must take them a half-hour at the least, but she is scarcely responsive for the whole of it, safe for when Borahîl's fretting increases, and then, she mostly means to keep him as soothed as she can.

There is the ship, the readying of which had so few days ago promised a return home. There, too, are her brothers, and a girl she knows at once to be as common as a kernel of sand at the beach. Someone had made a jest of dressing her in a fine gown, but everything from her face to her lack of poise speaks of her station. She should not have rejected Jaime, she realises – he means to return to his duty now, when she could have persuaded him to risk all for her just a brief while ago. But then, would he have accepted that she means to take Borahîl with her? Even now, she cannot let herself fall into his arms, not while she is clinging to her boy. Not when he is taking noble part in her betrayal. He has his hand on Tyrion's shoulder, and she wants to spit, though unlike them, the girl has enough sense to flinch at the scorn in Cersei's face.

[nearamir]

The ache is deep and cold, and it has settled solidly in the cavern of his ribs before she has even fully turned away - before she can say that word, that betray that stings like salt in a wound he has cut himself. He swallows, and pushes it aside; as all wounds must be put aside, until duty is done. Wordlessly he steadies his load of luggage in his arms, and tries not to be envious of the warmth and living heart of the burden she carries. Forfeit. You have forfeit my son.

No. It will pass. He must believe it; it will pass. She will come to understand, and in time, she may forgive him. Once before it has seemed to him certain that all their love was lost, and that rift was healed with time and faithful care. This will be the same. It must be the same. The alternative, even the thought, is unbearable - almost as unbearable as the thought of the girl on the docks, whose blood would be on his hands forever.

He does not break the silence as they walk. What is there to say? He has told her what must happen, he has told her the truth of his dilemma, and his decision. There will be questions, and more to tell, no doubt; but those are for her to bring forth, not for him. He has, he is well aware, done quite enough.

In silence, then, he approaches the boat, sets down the luggage he carries, looks up at the White Tree that flutters from the mainmast. What brought they from the foundered land, over the flowing sea? he thinks, bleakly, and for a moment he is sure that the sorrow that claimed his mother will overcome him too; that grief for a world that might have been. Seven stars, and seven stones, and one white tree.

Seven stones. He remembers those too well. He remembers how the palantír had claimed all his father's thoughts; how, for all Denethor's scorn for his youngest's scholarly ways, the old Steward himself had been no less consumed by thoughts of Númenor and of doing right. In the end, had that not been what drove him mad? With the clarity of grief, had that not been what caused his death, and Boromir's, and so nearly Faramir's own? That same stubborn duty, that same certainty of his own responsibility?

Faramir swallows, and his gaze darts sidelong to Cersei and Borahîl; thence to the defiant Tyrion and the clearly terrified girl beside him; and settles at last on Jaime, with a curt nod.

"I will send word to you and to your father when we put to shore. And you will be made welcome in Gondor, I promise you, should you find time to make the crossing. To Dol Amroth or to Ithilien." He clears his throat, and bows; then, without daring another look at his wife, turns towards the gangway. "I must speak to the captain. Tyrion, Lady Tysha, if you will come with me, we will see to quarters. I do not doubt Cersei and Ser Jaime would sooner bid their farewells absent our company."