Dacey's Gaze Whipped To Aleksander, The Surprise And Hesitancy In Her Dark Eyes Softening When She Realised

Sylvia Plath, from The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath; "Three Women,"

cursed with "do you still like me?" "are you mad at me?" "did i do something wrong?" disorder

@asoiafsnet ‘s stark appreciation week

“the winters are hard, but the starks will endure. we always have.”

Willow making the decision to marry Robert

― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

it was a rare thing for dacey to speak without feeling like she had said too much. it was the by product of viewing her thoughts as a burden that they were rarely vocalised, especially not in the presence of strangers. but rather than scoff at them, malee offered her own gentle reassurance. it wasn't until she did that dacey realised she had not been expecting it, but she was grateful for it all the same.

it meant something, to be understood, even if only about something as simple as tapestries handing upon a wall.

her fingers brushed absently over the fabric of her sleeve, the feel of the soft fabric grounding her a little, stopping her thoughts from spiralling entirely into something else. "you aren't rambling," she said, her smile shy. "if anything, i was worried i was. it is rare to speak to someone about these things, for me." she did not add that it was rare for her to speak to anybody about much beyond formalities and polite exchanges. it did not seem necessary to share that much.

"should you ever find yourself in winterfell, i would love to show you the tapestries." those from the north were not the same, thicker, less vibrant, but made to endure. in a way, it was an apt reflection of the people. for a brief moment, she felt strangely protective of it, then, as though it would not measure up in the eyes of one used to the court of the west.

malee stood still, her gaze following the delicate threads of the tapestry as though each one had its own story to tell. she let dacey’s words settle, a quiet smile touching her lips at the thought of how weaving could both be an art and a refuge. "no, not at all," she said gently, shaking her head. "i understand completely. it's the same for me. the process, the rhythm—each thread, each choice, it holds meaning, doesn’t it?" her eyes softened, glancing at the patterns before them. "i think that’s why i’ve come to love it. it’s not just about creating something beautiful; it’s about preserving something deeper, something that feels worth holding onto."

she moved a little closer to dacey, her voice warming as she spoke. "and you’re right about yi ti," malee agreed, her fingers unconsciously tracing a pattern in the air, mirroring the delicate weaving of her thoughts. "there’s something timeless in their work. you can feel the history, the legends they’re passing down with every stitch. it’s more than fabric—it's like they’ve captured the essence of an entire culture, their lives woven into the cloth."

her eyes softened with appreciation. "i can see how it must have become a way to anchor you, how it fills the hours when there was little else to hold onto. for me, that is how the true passion began. my first tapestry, one that i felt compelled to create not out of obligation, but because it struck me, was a distraction from a world that felt too big, too loud." her shoulders fell just slightly, as if relaxing from some invisible weight. "but i think, like you, i started to understand that it’s more than just the end result." malee smiled, a hint of vulnerability in her expression. "it’s the journey, isn’t it? the peace that comes with knowing every single thread matters."

she paused, then gave a small, knowing laugh. "i hope i’m not rambling on too much. i do tend to get caught up in the meaning of it all." looking back to dacey, she offered a quiet smile. "but thank you for listening. it’s rare to find someone who truly understands what weaving can be, and should i ever find myself in winterfell again, i would love to see the tapestries you have there."

closed starter for @hxrundxne

"welcome to the north, your grace."

it was strange, dacey thought, how the chain of events set in motion by the dance had changed both their lives so dramatically. dacey had been born a daughter of house stark, a lady of the north, but in her brother gaining a crown, she had found herself a princess, even if she still wore the title awkwardly. in contrast, aemma had once been a sister to a monarch, and though she retained her title of princess, the line of succession had moved away from her line, to her cousins who now sat in king's landing. it served as a reminder ; how quickly their fortunes could change.

"i hope you aren't finding it too uncomfortable. it always takes me a little while to adjust to the heat in the south," her tone was apologetic - she wasn't sure why. it wasn't as though dacey stark had the ability to control the weather.

but she liked aemma targaryen. dacey was not a woman who made friends easily, always feeling a little out of place wherever she went, but though that self-conscious feeling had not disappeared with aemma, it was lessened somewhat.

"i was glad to hear that you and your brother had made the journey."

as much as dacey did not enjoy large groups, she did enjoy speaking with people. moreso with people she knew well, and who knew her in turn, but in her best of moods, though she remained quiet and shy, she did take joy in conversations with people she knew a little less of. baelon was one of the people she knew by name, but not really much else of. as she had spent most of her life hidden in winterfell, she had heard that he was much the same in dragonstone, using ancestral walls as a shield. and yet, he had made the journey here, when he could have easily remained in his home.

"and we greatly appreciate that you undertook such a journey to be here," she was quick to deflect any gratitude back to him. after all, this ball was not her choice, nor did she help in the organisation. any appreciation was not her due, but that of her brother, of the hand. "if you would like, i can take you inside for some refreshments while your things are taken to your quarters. or if you would prefer to stretch your legs, the winter gardens? it's warmer in there." she was sure that, being from so far south of here, he must be feeling the cold. "i'm certain my brother will be glad to see you here, too."

Baelon had assumed that his cousin did not get any sort of invitation to this event, it would be a shame if he had to come face to face with the man who he believed stole the throne that should be rightfully his. But judging by the lack of relations between the north and the crownlands, it was safe to say that the only Targaryens in Winterfell will be himself and his sister. Owen and the North had always been loyal, always kept their oath and their word, Baelon knew that would not change now.

The voice coming from his side caught his attention and Baelon turned around to face the person with a friendly smile. This was a nice change of scenery, while Baelon had been keeping mostly to himself in Dragonstone, only ever leaving the castle when he would go down to the villages to interact with the small folk, it would be nice to see and speak with new people. Or with people that he had not seen in some time, like Princess Dacey. “Princess.” He greeted her, before nodding his head. “It was certainly long and tiring but all went well, I’m glad that we have finally arrived.” He paused. “Thank you for having us and your hospitality, we greatly appreciate it.” There was honesty on his voice, it wasn’t just about this but everything that happened in the past too. Baelon was thankful to them and their loyalty. “I hope you are faring well? I’m looking forward to seeing your brother again too, it's been sometime since we last spoke.”

dacey said nothing in response. always prone to overthinking, thin-skinned over a heavy heart, it was hard not to take cyrene's words and add them to the weight in her chest. everything her sister had said, dacey had taken as an insult against her, and that only made her withdraw into her shell. for months now, she had done her best to hold things together as much as she could, trying to fill multiple roles vacated by their absent kin. with cyrene here, things had shifted, and she no longer knew what her place was. it was yet another adjustment, and she had never done well in uncertainty.

silently, she followed cyrene away from the memories that had enveloped her, up upon the walls where her sister's daughter would be found. still, she hovered silently, inexplicably shy. it was ridiculous. she was the adult, wylla nothing but a small child, but she was a child dacey did not know. it was different with owen and adam's children. she had known them since they were born, but to wylla, she was a stranger.

eventually, she managed a small smile, though there was still a seriousness to her expression, there was warmth, too. "hello, wylla."

Sometimes being alive is all you have.

Cyrene's expression grew into something icy. Stony and hard. "I know." And that was all she would say for now, all she would lay bare of her soul in the frigid air, in front of someone her heart knew but her mind no longer did. She knew. It had been her existence for nearly six years now, even if her children had made it more tolerable. Had taken her from surviving to living for an entirely different purpose.

She was thankful, then, that Dacey readily took to her change of topic. Her head tipped and tilted, a vague gesture to the direction Cyrene had approached her sister from. "Come."

Wylla had been taken to walkway overlooking Winterfell's courtyard by one of Cyrene's ladies, a slight and uncomfortable looking one, bundled in furs to shield against the cold. Cyrene excused her with a quiet word, and the Lady was gone in a flash, likely to seek the warmth that had been leeched from her skin. Cyrene reached for her daughter to pick her up. "Say hello to your auntie, sweetling." As it always did, her voice turned soft and warm, almost uncharacteristically so. She supposed it was, in this place. It was not, with her children.

dacey's palm was flat against the stone, long, thin fingers red from the cold and where the skin had been picked and peeled around the beds of her nails. the starks were of the old gods; they believed that their nameless deities watched them through the trees, spoke to them through the whisper of the winds and rustle of the leaves and rush of the streams, but in the stones lay the history of man, of the ancestors whose blood persisted in their veins.

these walls had stood for thousands of years, raised by brandon the builder, seen the celebrations when the barrow kings and red kings and marsh kings had fallen to the kings of winter. they had seen the andals beaten back to the south and the wildlings back to the north, had seen the king who knelt and the end of the kings of the north, and had seen them rise once more from the dragon's ashes. they had seen starks born and die and born and die, over and over, and would go on doing so for as long as the sun continued to rise and set.

in between those moments, the ones preserved in the pages of history books, the walls had seen other things, the day to day living that had been lost to time. it was there that dacey's mind turned now, to a girl and a girl and a boy and the three wolves that shadowed them, long enough ago to become memory, not yet long enough to be lost.

"you fell from there, once," her voice was gentle and fond, her breath escaping her lips in small puffs that lingered in the air in a misty cloud. "and you landed on my snowman." it had been one of the first snows of the year. the snow was fresh, soft and powdery, which had been cyrene's good fortune. it had not yet compacted and turned to ice, and so, she had popped out of the pile that had once been dacey's work of art without a scratch.

she withdrew her hand from the wall, brushing it daintily against her furs to rid it of any dirt. "i wasn't going to climb it." it was a reversal from how things had been when cyrene had left for the riverlands, a wild and wilful girl who had balked at nothing, so much so that dacey had wondered if her sister had been born without fear. then, it had been dacey who had called words of caution. that cyrene would be halfway up the wall by now, responding to dacey's warnings with nothing but a laugh.

but things changed. the world changed, and they changed with it. in cyrene, the change was more pronounced than dacey could have ever imagined. but then, the years had not been kind to their kin. distance had not saved cyrene from grief and heartache. dacey did not know how to be with this new sister, who wore the face of the old. not yet.

"there isn't enough snow at the moment. to catch me if i fell."

who: @daceystvrk where: at winterfell when cyrene arrives home for the first time in years

There were notches in the outer walls. Always had been, always would be. Cyrene found at least some comfort that things in Winterfell would never change. The people who lived within the walls would. Death haunted the halls, but the years did as well. She'd already seen many who had survived the wars that lay in the past, but they had not come out of it unchanged.

Neither had she.

"Don't climb that," she spoke, voice pragmatic and clipped, "That cannot end well."