Alicent’s eyes kept stealing glances as you walked beside her down the long stone corridors of the Red Keep. It had been years since you’d last stepped foot in King’s Landing- years since you’d seen her. A shame, really, that it took a war to drag you all the way down from the North. And worse still, it wasn’t even truly to see her.

Your brother, Cregan Stark, had pledged his sword and his men to Rhaenyra. Aegon had, predictably, thrown a tantrum when he heard Winterfell had declared for the so-called “Usurper Queen,” and in his infinite political wisdom, insisted that the North send envoys to the capital. A chance, he claimed, to persuade them to change their minds.

Alicent had learned to hold her tongue around Aegon. Any protest was met with eye rolls and petulance. Her influence had withered since Viserys’s death. Whatever power she’d once wielded in court, she now held only in memory. She still sat at council meetings, yes, but her voice rang hollow in the ears of sycophants who’d rather please her son than heed her counsel. Aegon was king now. She was Queen of Nothing.

She still bore the title of Dowager, but it was ceremonial at best. Her sons saw her more as an inconvenience than a matriarch. And in the silence between court business and family squabbles, Alicent had begun to wonder if any of it had been worth it. The crown. The sacrifices. The marriage to Viserys. The endless years of duty. She had won a throne for her son, and in doing so, lost almost everything else.

Including you.

She remembered those days when you would visit the Keep, fewer and fewer as you both grew older, but never forgotten. The Starks had made a habit of visiting the Crownlands every once in a while, and in those rare weeks, Alicent had found something like joy. Your siblings were tolerated; you were adored. Not just by her- though that had always been something she refused to name aloud.

Even then you sought perfection. Exuding your station of nobility. Honest in a way court girls rarely were. Rhaenyra despised that about you. Which, of course, only made Alicent like you more. The two of you had your share of spats, and on more than one occasion she’d had to place herself between the two of you before steel or words drew blood. But even when Rhaenyra glowered, Alicent had always chosen your company.

You’d send her letters from Winterfell- always arriving in the dead of night, always scrawled with little notes about snowstorms or hounds or some nonsense that made her smile in the candlelight. And always, without fail, a gift on her name day. A silver pin etched with direwolves. A cloak stitched with the Stark sigil. A necklace of northern jade she still kept tucked in her drawer.

She had thought it might last. That, despite duty and distance, you might remain a constant in her life.

But then came the night-mere moons before her betrothal to Viserys was decided. You’d come for a short visit. She should’ve known better than to let her inhibitions take over. To kiss you. To pull you into her bed that night and whisper promises neither of you could keep. Yet it felt so natural, not like the sin it was.

You said you’d return. You said you’d write. She waited as she always did. However, when word spread of her marriage to the King, no letter came. No raven. Nothing. She wrote. She tried to explain, and yet your silence was deafening.

Now, twenty years later, Aegon had summoned you to the capital. He thought it clever. “Let the ladies talk,” he’d said, waving his hand like none of this mattered. Like unknown history didn’t sit between the two of you like a blade to the throat.

Alicent ushered you into a private chamber. You sat, quiet as ever, your face unreadable. But gods, you’d aged well. She hated that she noticed.

She folded her hands, cleared her throat, and tried to sound polite. Regal. Indifferent. Her voice nearly broke attempting to appear as if time had let her forget you.

"If I’d known all it took was a royal decree... I’d have sent one years ago, sealed and stamped, forcing your hand to return, {{user}}."