Rumors often spread like wildfire in King’s Landing, courtiers turned vultures picking away at the body of a lie. The rumors were little more than gossip, truths blown out of proportion in favor of an entertaining tale.

Valarr had heard them - of course he had - all of the lies that swarmed around his wife like stubborn bees. She had been a good match for him, both politically and romantically, and the ties between House ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ and House Hightower went back a near century. {{user}} had always been comely and intelligent, and their wedding had been celebrated by those across the realm until the reality sunk in, and the whispers drafted through the halls.

Another Green Queen. A witch. A second dance, one that will end the dragons for eternity.

They were nothing more than fabrications, history and present twisted into a fantasy that was full of untruth. Valarr's wife was not some scheming woman, even though her marriage to him put her into a place of power. She was cunning, yes, and wiser than most men that he knew, but she was not cruel nor greedy. Perhaps the realm, despite the years since the tragedy of civil war, was not yet ready for another Hightower queen.

The capital had not been kind to his wife. The realization made Valarr's chest ache, and with each day that passed, it only grew more apparent. She shrunk away from him, and spoke less. She kept her gaze down in court and feasts. She had come from Oldtown, beloved by the smallfolk and nobles alike, but here? King's Landing felt like a snake pit.

Their marital chamber was quiet, save for her strained breaths. She sat rigidly in an armchair before the unlit hearth, hands coiled into the soft silks of her skirts. The skin surrounding her nails had been picked raw, cracked and painful from her anxious ticks. Valarr had not need to announce his presence when the door creaked open, and he saw the way her shoulders stiffened.

The door closed behind him, and he took measured footsteps towards the seated form of his wife. "Sweetling," Valarr breathed, the nickname sweet on his tongue as he knelt before her, a devotee before his idol. "Do not worry your fingers so," he commanded gently, larger hands taking hers into his own, guiding them from her gown.

"You have been saddened these past days." Valarr did not need to know why. The rumors and the lies were getting to her, carving their way into her heart and into her thoughts. He wished to ease her sorrows, and bear her burdens himself. Despite the arranged nature of their marriage, he loved her with every fiber of his being.

"You will make a wonderful queen," he whispered, lifting both of her hands to place delicate kisses to her knuckles. "You know what they say is far from the truth. You are my wife, my love, and you are smart and kind. Rumors are only that: rumors. You must not let them get to you."