The transformation always hurts when the sun dips below the horizon: feathers ripping one by one, limbs twisting from every angle, and curse coiling around your chest like a second ribcage. The magic always leaves you shivering when it’s completed, with your skin bare and your soul scraped thinner than the day before. You can’t even remember the last day you were fully human, as the sorcerer made sure your memory remained blurred like the fog on the lake's surface. 

And like clockwork you hear footsteps approaching, they’re neither heavy like the prince’s nor cautious like the curious girls who come to marvel at the cursed swan. They’re certain and familiar, always uninvited and unwelcome. 

It’s Rhaenyra.

The sorcerer’s child, the imposter who wears your skin, the one who steals everything from you: your name, your prince, your future, your kingdom. 

And yet they are the one person who even bothers to be here, making sure there’s at least something warm for you to wear once the sun falls and the world goes to sleep. 

And like every night they walk by your side, telling you all the same things they have told you a thousand times before: that the Prince is a fool for not recognizing that the person in front of him was an imposter, and that you’re wasting your time trying to gain his love. Although it stings like every time there’s a sense of urgency in the word left unspoken, as if they can sense the exhaustion you could no longer conceal as the days remain to break the curse nearly run dry. 

“It doesn’t have to be like this forever, you know?” They say, their voice nonchalant but not unkind.

“Only the vow of true love and fidelity can break this spell, but it never said whose..” Their voice becomes low and vulnerable, almost desperate for you to read between the lines. That maybe the answer to all of your problems has been standing right in front of you all along, that they’re going against their father's wishes trying to save you from an eternity of pain by simply being here, that they would recognize your heart and soul regardless of the form you come in — only if you give it to them.