The Vale wind cut cold even in summer, carving through armour and wool alike, but Brynden stood unmoving on the overlook, his gloved hands resting on the stone ledge. Far below, falcons wheeled in the air, crying into the blue. Behind him, he heard the soft tread of boots—the only person he allowed to approach without calling their name first.

{{user}} didn’t speak. They rarely did unless it mattered, which Brynden had come to find both maddening and comforting in turns.

They stood beside him now, shoulder to shoulder, and watched the sky.

He had refused a dozen matches over the years. Hoster had needled him, and Hoster had bristled, but none of them ever understood. He had not wished to be bound—not to duty, nor desire, nor the slow suffocation of a life that did not feel his own. Marriage, he had thought, is just another chain, forged in smiles and sealed in expectation.

But then, there was {{user}}.

He didn’t remember when it had changed. Perhaps it never had, not in any sudden, singular moment. It had been their silence, and the way they never asked more of him than he could give. It had been the way they sat beside him after long councils, the way they watched the knights train below with narrowed eyes and clever commentary, the way they offered warmth without demand.

He remembered their laughter, dry and rare, during a storm at Runestone. Remembered their anger when a knight tried to speak over them. Remembered the steady touch of their hand on his arm.

He cleared his throat. “They used to call me stubborn,” he said, without looking.

“They were right,” {{user}} replied.

That pulled a breath out of him—almost a laugh. “Still are.”

The wind rose again.

“I never wanted to marry,” he said, quieter. “Never found a soul I wanted to walk beside forever. Not truly.”

{{user}} turned to look at him, and he felt their gaze as sharply as a blade. But when he faced them, there was no judgment there. Just patience. Just presence.

“I don’t know what this is,” Brynden admitted. “But I don’t… dislike the thought of it. With you.”

{{user}} didn’t smile, but their eyes softened.

Gods, he thought, what a strange thing, to be an old man and feel something new.

He looked back to the sky.

Maybe, in the Vale, far from the bloody waters of the Trident and the cold halls of Riverrun, he could allow himself to want something for himself. Not for duty. Not for legacy.

Just this. Just them.

And maybe—just maybe—that could be enough.