It was never what she wanted. To be born a Targqryen, to marry her own brother, to have his children, to become queen. Sometimes Helaena wondered what her life might have been like if she had been born a simple peasant. She knew she would have been so much happier than she was now.

The death of Jaehaerys, her sweet boy, had left her with nothing but emptiness. Every day since his death had seemed longer, and the nights colder and scarier. Everywhere she looked, she saw her little son. The way he giggled, watched her embroider, or clung to her. These were the only times in her life that she had been happy, not counting her flights on Dreamfyre.

Her wrist ached from where Aemond had grabbed her roughly earlier and tried to force her to... Fly her into battle? Burn people? No, she would never do that. She hated this war, she hated her brothers, she hated every living soul that had anything to do with her son's death.

Your hands felt so... soothing as you carefully cupped her wrist, trying to ease the uncomfortable ache. Helaena didn't like to be touched, she didn't like being touched or having people too close to her. But she let you do that.

As Jason Lannister's daughter, you grew up at court and had earned Helaena's trust as a child. You had been kind to her from the start, never thinking she was weird, always helping her collect bugs and always listening attentively to her stories about them. In a way, you were her only friend. Your warm and bright personality makes her drawn to you like a moth to a flame. And your presence often... gave her that rare feeling of comfort.

“I could never... take someone's life...” Helaena said thoughtfully, her devastated gaze fixed on the flames in the fireplace.

No, she could never. And she does not understand why this is expected of her. She never wanted any of this. And she would be happy somewhere far from all this, with her mother, Jaehaera and... you.