Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Part One: Here & There

Money can’t buy everything, but it can buy most things.

You would know. You’re eight years old when your parents decide to pinch every penny they have and send you to private school. They want the best for you. You’re their only child after all, born long after they’d given up hope of ever having children. You overhear their conversation about your new school one night well past your bedtime. They must think you’re asleep, but in fact you’re peering around the doorframe and down the shadowed hall, straining to hear.

They lay out a plan. Stricter economizing, not that they’re spendthrifts to begin with. More shifts for both of them at the hospital. Always one parent available to take you to school and drop you off, since boarding is out of the question. Your dad worries they won’t see as much of you this way, but your mum replies that it’s too important an opportunity to pass up. Just look how clever she is already, she says, which makes you glow with happiness. Grandview can give her more than Mistwood ever could.

And it’s true, you are clever. Your favorite thing to do is learn the names and workings of the trees in the rainwood that surrounds your home: sentinel, soldier pine, the strange old weirwoods with their blood-red leaves. Your parents teach you to recognize the calls of birds hidden in the highest layers of the forest, and how to navigate through the undergrowth so you don’t disturb the burrows of creatures in the lowest. Every dripping fern, every creeping moss, every squat mushroom: it all goes into a little notebook that you keep with you always.

You don’t mind your current school, even if your science textbook is a few decades out of date. But you can tell how much this new place means to your parents. And you want them to be happy. They’re your closest companions, after all. The three of you in your little forest home: that’s your whole world. Your dad likes to say you’re happy as clams in a bucket, which makes your mum wrinkle her nose but makes you laugh.

A few weeks after that overheard conversation, your mum tows you to a strange windowless building where you take an exam that’s long and terribly boring. When you raise your hand to tell the grown-up in charge that you’re all done, she frowns and asks if you’ve answered all the questions. You have of course; why else would you say you’re finished? Grown-ups are always asking silly things like that. You shuffle to the front of the room past the other children and hand her your packet. Then you return to the dingy waiting room, where you mum is seated on a similarly dingy chair and working on her puzzle book. You’re happy you finished early; maybe now there’s time to go for takeaway before she has to get back to work.

“That was easy,” you say. When she smiles, you smile back.

A big important looking envelope arrives in the mail a week or so later. You open it yourself, since neither of your parents are home and your babysitter (a teenager from down the street) has fallen asleep on the sofa. Your eyes slide over the page until you see the words delighted to offer your daughter admission to Grandview under our scholarship program…

A grin spreads across your face. Flipping through the rest of the packet, your eyes widen when you see the page with the word TUITION across the top, which you guess must mean “cost” because underneath it are a lot of big numbers. The scholarship is a lot too, but it doesn’t cover everything. You’re not quite sure what all of this means, so you tuck the whole thing back into the envelope and leave it on the dining room table.

It must be good because your parents are beyond pleased. That makes you happy; they’ve both looked so tired lately. When you think about how they’re working more so you can go to a new school, you feel the same as when you knocked over a snowglobe while you were playing once. It had shattered, glass and glitter-water and broken ceramic pieces fanning out around you on the floor. You had cried because you knew your mum loved that snowglobe, and even though she told you not to worry, she looked so sad when she tipped the broken pieces in the bin.

You hate feeling that way. You decide to be careful at your new school, and do the very best you can so their hard work will be worth it. That makes you feel better.

So, off you go from the foggy forests of your home into a new world.

The stormlands are a mercurial place: the weather can change in an instant, sunny skies blotted out by thunderstorms blowing in off Cape Wrath. There are places of shelter, however. One is beneath the canopy of the rainwood, where your family makes their home. Another is the town of Grandview, nestled in a valley sheltered on three sides by the Red Mountains. The weather there is the among the best in the stormlands, unusually mild for most of the year and certainly less rainy than you’re used to. The Slayne has its headwaters in the hills above town and flows from there to the south, emptying into the sea of Dorne. You’ve never seen the river before, so on the first ride to school you’re practically glued to the window of your parents’ car as you watch it shimmer just beyond the trees.

In fact, you’ve never left Cape Wrath in your whole life. Until now the farthest place you can imagine is Storm’s End, a gloomy hulk of sea-battered stone across the bay. It’s visible from the very northernmost parts of the rainwood. You were five years old when you first saw it, half asleep at the end of a long hike and hoisted up in your mum’s arms. It was probably too long a hike for your age, but you had begged and begged your parents to take you so you could see a real castle.

Your mum gently bounced you awake. “See, sweetling?”

You looked around blearily, the duckbill hood of your raincoat squashed over your eyes. Your dad chuckled and lifted you from your mum’s arms, setting you down carefully on the damp ground that was springy with a layer of pine needles. The three of you had come to the very edge of the rainwood. The trees parted to show a magnificent view of Shipbreaker Bay.

“There it is,” he said, squatting down next to you and pointing out over the bay. “Not much to look at, is it? I think our house is much grander.” (Mum snorted when he said that, so you knew he was joking.)

There it was, a bulky outline obscured by rain that fell unimpeded out beyond the canopy of the rainwood. You thought it would look the way the castles in your storybooks looked, graceful towers with silk pennants flying from their peaks. Instead, Storm’s End has high walls and one single massive tower. It looked to you like a place on which the sun never shone.

“Our house is much better,” you said, wrinkling your nose. Home for you is cozy and filled with the colorful trinkets your parents have collected over the years. Maybe the rooms are just a little too small, the rugs covering squeaky floorboards a little worn, and the roof always needs patching up, but it’s home. And you have the forest for your backyard. You wondered if anyone in the castle had a place like that to play. Probably not.

“I wouldn’t want to live there,” you said finally, drooping a little in disappointment. “It looks sad.”

That night, after your mum tucks you in, you’re terribly glad you live here with your warm blankets and favorite turtle stuffed animal. Maybe castles aren’t so amazing, after all.

Grandview, however, you love at once. More sunshine means a whole host of new flora and fauna to learn about. You’ve never seen so many flowers in one place before. A class trip into the foothills a few weeks after the school term begins is your only topic of conversation for weeks. You even saw a lizard!

Your parents encourage you to keep writing your thoughts down in your notebook, and these days you’re filling it with drawings too. You like labelling the parts of plants as you learn them at school. Grandview’s textbooks are so new that the spines crackle when you open them.

The kids at Grandview aren’t so bad either. You’re young enough that being new isn’t too terrible, although a few students ask Are you on scholarship? and then make a face when you say yes. After a few weeks you ask your mother about this. Her face sets in the way you know means not to disagree with her. That’s none of their business, she tells you. When you ask your dad later, he says Must be jealous, then makes you laugh by mimicking your classmates’ silly faces.

Some of your new friends at Grandview are full-time boarders. It sounds fun, like a never-ending sleepover. But soon enough you hear complaints about the crabby dormitory mistress who enforces an ironclad rule of lights out at 8pm. Then you feel lucky that your parents are able, with careful planning, to shuttle you back and forth to school during the week. It doesn’t always work perfectly. But one evening, after your mum was almost an hour late picking you up (scheduling mix-up, she told the unsmiling office attendant), she lets you stay up an hour past your bedtime to watch a program on wormtrees. Your classmates who board at the school can’t do that.

You also note, quickly and curiously in the nature of children, that most of the boarders are rich. In fact, almost everyone is, except for you and the few other scholarship students. It’s not hard to figure out. Some of the boarder kids are from as far away as the Reach, so of course they can’t go back and forth. But many are children from important families. You wear the same uniform and carry the same book bag emblazoned with the Grandview crest (a sleeping yellow lion), but that’s where the similarities end. Your school supplies come from the bargain bin, and you only get new shoes when you’ve worn holes into the heels of your olds ones. It doesn’t make you unhappy, noticing these differences. Who cares about new shoes anyway? And you trade your cheap folder for another girl’s expensive-looking one because she likes your green cover and you like her blue.

Still, you do notice things, and sometimes you report these findings to your parents. You tell them how a classmate cried during playtime after his watch broke when he tripped on the pavement during a game. His watch was a special brand, you say, and tell them the name, something you would never know otherwise. Your dad laughs out loud while your mum just shakes her head.

The expressions on your teachers’ faces are also instructive, as are the conversations among parents overheard at pick-up time. Sometimes kids are referred to not by their first names, but as the Rosby girl or Swann’s son. You decide it’s like the pyramids you practice drawing in maths. There’s you and your fellow scholarship students at the bottom; the rich kids with regular surnames in the middle; and then there’s the rich kids with special surnames at the top. Although, you think with a frown, there’s not that many scholarship students, so it doesn’t quite work. Still (although you haven’t learned the word yet) there is certainly a hierarchy, and you’re at the bottom.

But none of this is to say it’s all class warfare among the eight year olds. Everyone shares the fingerpaint and no amount of familial or social cache can keep you all apart when a game of tag breaks out on the playground.

It is during one such game, on a sunny day in early spring, that something extraordinary happens.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the grass near the “out” line. You’ve just sacrificed yourself by diving in front of another girl who was seconds away from being tagged by an unusually snotty boy. You don’t mind being out; in fact, you were secretly hoping for free time to work on your latest drawing. It’s of a deer you saw on a hike with your parents the past weekend. You’d never seen one so close before, though it was still at least a dozen yards away when you spotted it. But its precise beauty had made a deep impression. So you are bent over your notebook, happily shading in the hooves and trying with limited success to get the hind leg just right, when two other kids come barreling toward you. You duck out of the way just in time.

One pushes the other, who tumbles over the out line a few feet away. 

“Out! Out!” The pusher yells, jumping up and down in glee.

“Am not! You cheated!” The boy on the ground is glaring daggers at the other.

“You are ouuuuuut!!!” The other boy crows, turning around and waving his arms over his head as he charges back to the game.

The boy on the ground scowls and crosses his arms. He doesn’t get up. You begin to worry maybe he cracked his head open (your classmates are always bragging about how they definitely cracked their heads open and had to get stitches, for some reason) so you get to your feet and walk over to him.

“Are you ok?” you ask, peering down at him.

His face is smudged with dirt and there is grass in his black hair. He looks familiar, but you don’t know him. It’s only your second month at Grandview and you’ve just barely learned the names of everyone in your class. He squints up at you. You hold out a hand to pull him up and he takes it, clambering to his feet. 

“What’s that?” he says once he’s vertical again, pointing at your notebook. 

“My drawing notebook.”

“What are you drawing?”

He seems ok, so you you walk several feet away from the “out” line (just to be safe) and sit back down. He follows, dropping down beside you, watching as you return to shading in a rear hoof.

“It’s a deer. I saw it this weekend.”

“A deer!” he says, face lighting up. He has a tooth missing, which makes you a little jealous because you’ve barely lost any yet. Then he frowns as he looks at your drawing. “That doesn’t really look like a deer…”

You scowl, pulling your notebook toward yourself. “How would you know? Have you even seen one?” Your parents told you people hardly ever see deer in the rainwood anymore, and it was good luck to have come upon one this weekend. You expect him to fume and pout, since he was so mad about getting tagged.

But he just laughs. “Because I am one!”

“You are not,” you say with some derision. “You’re a human being.” Is he stupid? You stare at him.

“Uh huh, am too. Well, girls are deer. That makes me a stag.” He looks quite proud of this, like he’s just told you he got top marks on a very hard exam.

You sniff. “You have to be a grown-up to be a stag. And girls aren’t deer, everyone is deer. Girls are does.”

You’re not sure if he’s listening. “We have a stag with huge antlers at home. Well, he’s dead. But the antlers are THIS big!” He shows you by spreading his arms out as far as he can. He underestimates his motion and topples over sideways, which makes you giggle.

“Why do you have a dead stag at your house?” You’re genuinely curious. “Is it a taxidermy?” (You just learned this word from one of your mom’s old nature magazines).

“It’s my grandad’s,” he says, like that’s an explanation. “Do you want to see it? It looks way better than yours.”

You should be annoyed, but for some reason you just grin. “I bet your grandad’s stag is sooo ugly.”

He laughs. “Just like my grandad!”

You’re both giggling when someone yells from the field. “Lyonel! Get back in here!”

He jumps up. “He cheated!!” he bellows, cupping his hands around his mouth. Then he looks down at you. “What’s your name? You’re not in my class.”

You tell him and he squints like he’s trying to remember something. “Ok, I don’t know you. But you can come see the antlers if you want.” Then he turns and races off. 

You look down at your drawing, which you have to admit looks a bit like a blob on stilts. It would be a fun to draw in-person instead of from memory. Usually, with plants or trees, you have time to sit and observe while you sketch. But the deer had vanished in an instant, so swift you almost doubted you had seen it.

You write down his name next to your drawing, but after a few days you’ve forgotten all about it.

❥

The following week, you’re sitting at the dinner table contemplating a pile of buttered peas on your plate when the phone rings. Your dad sighs as your mum gets up to answer it. She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand.

“It could be an emergency,” she says as she disappears down the hall toward the room your parents call the office, but which is really more of a haphazard storage room with a phone in it.

As soon as she’s out of the room you start shoveling peas onto your dad’s plate, and he solemnly begins to eat them. Both of your plates are clean by the time your mum comes back into the room, a strange expression on her face.

“What’s wrong?” your dad asks, but she’s not looking at him. She’s looking at you. 

“Sweetling,” she says, “did a boy in your class invite you over to play?”

You blink. “No,” you say, a second before you remember. “Oh, yes. Last week. We were playing tag.”

“Did he tell you his last name, love?”

Grown-ups are always asking the weirdest questions. “No. He said his grandad has a big stag I can draw. But I bet he forgot about it.” 

She looks over to your father. “That was… well I don’t know quite who it was. Someone from the Baratheon household.”

You know the Baratheons are an important family. Lots of places have their name on it, including the hospital where your parents work as nurses. You remember that because it was on the top of a paycheck you found a few days ago while looking for scrap paper.

“Is that where Lyonel lives? With the stag?” Your face brightens. Maybe your parents will let you visit! He must have a really big house if he has an important name, plenty of room to keep a taxidermy stag. You weren’t so sure he was telling the truth before, but maybe he was after all. “Can I go play there?”

Your mother’s brows draw together, but she doesn’t look angry. This time she almost looks worried, but that doesn’t make any sense. “I don’t think so, sweetling.”

Your stomach drops in disappointment. “Why not?” 

“Do you remember seeing Storm’s End?” Your father’s voice is quiet. “That’s where his family lives.”

Your eyes widen. “Oh.” The thought of going over there is a little bit scary. More than a little bit. But then you think about Lyonel having to live there. “Maybe no one visits him because his house is so scary.” You feel so sorry for him your fear recedes a little bit. “I don’t mind.”

Your father shakes his head. “I’m sure he has plenty of friends, love.”

“In any case, it’s best if you don’t visit.” Your mother sits back down at the table. “I’m sorry, sweetling. We’re not the Baratheons’ kind of people.”

That doesn’t make any sense. What “kind of people” are you, anyway?

You stare at your empty plate, struggling to understand.“But…Did they do something bad?” Your anxiety builds. Maybe his family did something awful and now the castle is haunted. You’re starting to feel seriously worried for Lyonel. You look back and forth between your parents. “Didn’t the Baratheons build the hospital? And Lyonel didn’t do anything bad. He didn’t even cheat at tag.” 

Your father scoffs. “They paid for their name to be on the hospital—”

“I’m sure Lyonel is very nice,” your mother cuts in, giving your father a look. “But it’s just the way things are. Why don’t we have your friend Rowan over here instead? I was just talking to her sister at the supermarket…”

That’s her “this conversation is over” voice. You slump back into your chair. “I guess so.” You’re too confused and upset to say anything else for the rest of dinner. 

You like Rowan of course, especially because she’s a scholarship student like you. But she doesn’t have a big stag with antlers at her house for you to draw, does she? Plus, you hardly ever actually get to go to her house to play anyway. Your mothers are always trying to make plans, but her mum is just as busy working as yours, and has to do it all by herself too. So she can’t always be there to keep an eye on you, and even if she could, Rowan and her three older sisters (and one much older brother who is always in trouble) are usually causing so much chaos that you’ve found it a little intimidating to join in. Sometimes the four other siblings like to tease you and Rowan for being “eggheads at that Grandview,” but that’s ok because Rowan knows how to bellow back at them.

Still… all of that means you spend most of your afternoons by yourself in the bit of the rainwood that borders your backyard. You’ve come to an agreement with your rotating cast of babysitters: you won’t go far if they won’t tell. They usually forget about you anyway, absorbed with talking on the phone or whatever it is teenagers do.

So naturally the idea of going to someone else’s house is terribly exciting. You don’t give up on it right away. For a few days you try different tactics to change your parents’ minds. What if you promise not to talk to anyone at the house but Lyonel? What if you just go this once? When that doesn’t work, you try and poke holes in your parents’ argument. What about your classmate Bessie? Her dad works for the government, so she lives in a huge house too. You know that because you were just there for her nameday. But each time your parents say no. In fact, each subsequent “no” is firmer than the last. And when you ask why, you don’t get any further explanation.

“It’s just how things are,” your mother says again in exasperation one evening as she folds laundry. When you open your mouth to protest, she gives you a cross look. “That’s our final decision. No more of this.”

It’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense. You hate when grown-ups don’t make any sense. That night, curled under your blankets, you wipe away a few angry tears and tell your stuffed turtle that when you’re grown-up you won’t ever be so stupid.

To make it even worse, you do see Lyonel later that week. He’s in the middle of a game with some other boys that seems to consist mostly of trying to push each other over, but when he notices you walk by he runs after you.

“Hey!” He pulls something out of his pocket and waves it over his head. When he gets closer you see it’s a folded up color photo. It’s kind of out of focus, there’s a blur of a fingertip in the corner, and the lighting is bad, but you can tell it’s a huge taxidermy stag with the biggest set of antlers you’ve ever seen. 

“Whoa!” Your face breaks into a smile of pure astonishment and joy. “That’s crazy!”

He gives you a toothy smile. “Nanny said you can’t come over. Can you use this to draw instead?”

“Yeah, thanks!” you say, and then feel abashed and a little confused. “Sorry I can’t come over.”

He nods. “Me too.” 

You’ve been thinking for days about Lyonel in some dark and drafty castle hall, with no one to play with, and ghosts rattling around in the rafters. You don’t know how to broach this topic and ask him if he’s ok. “Um… Is it fun to live at Storm’s End?”

He scowls. “It’s the worst. But I live with my grandad.”

You’re relieved, but before you can say anything else his friends start yelling at him to come back. “See you later,” he says with a little wave, and races back to them.

After that, it’s decided: you’re friends. Sometimes when you and Rowan sit at the lunch tables, making up hand clapping games or working on your assignments, Lyonel will come over and join you. He’s terrible at the clapping games at first, but makes you keep practicing until he gets it right. Once when Rowan is demonstrating how to paint your nails (you’re no good at it but with her three older sisters, she’s an expert), Lyonel takes the bottle of sparkly purple polish and paints his too. He gets in trouble for it, but when you see him sitting in the hall in time-out later he just wiggles his fingers at you and laughs. 

When you show your parents the picture of the stag, they aren’t as excited as you are, which is disappointing. They don’t go as far as forbidding you from playing with Lyonel; it’s not in their nature. But you see the apprehension on their faces whenever you mention something funny he said or a game you played together. So you learn not to mention him. It still doesn’t make any sense to you.

You decide to ask Lyonel about it.

“What’s your family do?” you ask one day while you wait in line to go down the slide.

He’s shifting from foot to foot in impatience. “Huh?”

You don’t know how else to ask. “What do they do?”

“Um,” he says, “my father buys stuff, I guess.” You find it funny he says father instead of dad but don’t comment on it.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Dunno,” he says. “What’s your family do?”

“You didn’t say what your mum does!”

He shrugs. “She helps father, I guess.”

“Well, my mum and dad both work at the hospital.” You pause, waiting for him to ask what hospital? But instead he squats down and starts drawing squiggles in the dirt. “The Baratheon Memorial Hospital,” you say, meaningfully.

“Oh, that’s nice.” He keeps drawing before jumping up and stamping on his work. “Blam!” He kicks the dirt. “Kaboom!!”

That’s the beginning and the end of the subject of his parents. You decide your parents are just strange. And since they didn’t say you can’t play with Lyonel at school, you decide you don’t need to worry about it. You go on being friends. Very quickly he becomes your favorite person to be around. He never asks if you’re on scholarship or thinks it’s weird when you pick up a bug so you can draw it. He doesn’t mind getting beaten by a girl at a game either, or at least only minds as much as he does getting beaten by anyone. Rematch! he yells, and if you beat him again he just laughs and says You’re good!

The two of you are in the same class the following year. One day, your assignment is to draw yourself with your best friend. You contemplate this, staring at your markers and sheet of construction paper. You’d like to draw yourself with Lyonel, but what if he doesn’t draw himself with you? Does that mean he’s not your best friend? You already have a vague sense that boys and girls aren’t exactly supposed to be best friends. Next to you, Rowan is drawing herself and her sisters. You don’t have any siblings, and you definitely don’t want to draw your parents...You’re frowning down at your paper with such concentration that you don’t notice someone has come up beside you until he pokes you in the shoulder. You look up to see Lyonel with a rare doubtful expression on his face. 

“I think you’re my best friend,” he says.

The fact he doesn’t seem quite certain isn’t encouraging. But then you remember reading about how grown-ups make contracts for important things. It’s like a promise but more official because you write it down and everyone signs their name. It’s so everyone agrees and people can’t go back on it later if they change their mind. 

You don’t want him to change his mind. You turn your paper over and write BEST FRIEND CONTRACT and sign your name beneath it. Then you hand him a marker.

“Write yours too, okay?”

He scribbles his name next to yours.

Then you stick your hand out. “Promise?”

He grins, shaking your hand so extravagantly that you both start laughing. “Promise!”

The pattern of your life takes shape. You see each other at school, at school events, but you never play at each other’s houses. It’s not so strange, in a way; as you get older, the boys and girls start to distinguish themselves from each other as groups. The idea of not being allowed over at a boy’s house is less puzzling by the time you’re eleven, though no less unfair. Still, it doesn’t change anything between the two of you. Maybe if you had become friends as older kids it would have been harder, and not just because of schoolyard gender politics. Lyonel, you come to understand, is one of the most important students the school has had for some time. Since his brother, in fact. The Baratheons aren’t just an important family, they’re the most important family in the stormlands. So it’s a rare person who tries to challenge Lyonel on anything.

You even learn about the Baratheons in history class. As you look ahead in your textbook, you see a picture of Storm’s End and the same sense of dread descends upon you as always does when you think of that place.

“Did you ever live there?” you ask Lyonel one day after school. You’re waiting for your dad, who is always late, and Lyonel is waiting for the big fancy car that always comes to pick him up. You assume his parents are inside, or his grandad, but now you realize you’ve never actually seen them.

“When I was really little." You’re both sitting on a small patch of lawn shaded by an oak tree, and he keeps pulling out blades of grass and tearing them apart.

“Where’s your grandad live, then?”

Shred shred. “He has a house near here. That’s where the stag is, remember?”

“Oh.” You feel strangely guilty at the mention of it, even now. “Shouldn’t he be living at Storm’s End?”

Lyonel sighs. “He doesn’t like it there either.”

You can tell that’s all the explanation you’re going to get. Lyonel still doesn’t like talking about his family. “Well, I wish my parents let me come over, anyway.”

He pauses in his destruction of the surrounding area. “Huh?”

You stare down at your shoes. “’Cause they said I couldn’t.”

“Nuh uh, my grandad said you couldn’t come over.”

Your head whips up. “What?”

“He’s a real shithead.” He shrugs.

You cover your mouth but can’t help laughing. “You can’t say that!”

Lyonel throws his shredded grass confetti at you. “Well, it’s what he is!”

Later, you wonder why your mum didn’t tell you any of that. Maybe it was kinder of her not to; would you still have become friends with Lyonel if you knew his family didn’t want you around? In any case, you don’t bring the matter up with your parents again. The rare times you discuss Lyonel with them have begun to feel painfully embarrassing, though you’re not sure why. You guess your parents don’t like him because of his family, and leave it at that.

The truth is, you wouldn’t know Lyonel comes from an august family line based on how he acts, which for the most part is however he wants. But at the same time, he doesn’t brag about the holidays he takes or new things his parents buy him the way some of the other kids do. He seems entirely indifferent to any discussion of the doings of the Important Families, and the easiest way to make him dislike you is to praise something his father or brother did. As you get older, he starts to shirk what he calls “society bollocks” to stay with you after school in the art classroom, talking about nothing while you practice drawing.

But maybe that’s the true sign of his status, that he can act however he wants. You think about this sometimes, but usually would rather not. All that seems to matter right now is that everyone knows you’re friends and no one makes a whole thing about it. 

(Though there was one incident. When you’re twelve, another boy told you it was weird for a girl to be friends with a boy unless she was his girlfriend. You just scowled and tried to ignore him, but he kept pestering you about it. One day he made the mistake of starting in on you just as Lyonel walked into the classroom. The boy immediately stuttered an apology and looked like he wished he could eat his words, but Lyonel kicked him in the shin anyway. Hard.

After that, nobody has said anything.)

Lyonel, you decide, is different from the other top-of-the-pyramid people. He just is. 

It’s not until you’re sixteen that you learn just how right you are about that.

❥

He drops into the seat next to you in the library, huffing and puffing. 

“What now?” you say, not looking up from your history notes. It’s getting close to the end of term and you’re deep in the trenches of revising.

“Pretend like we’re talking.”

“We are talking.” You look over at him, and seeing a familiar glint in his eyes, you roll yours. “What did you do?”

“Just a little bit of friendly sport rivalry,” he says airily, waving a hand.

You suspect that’s a lie, and then you know it is when you hear a commotion in the hallway outside.

“Where the fuck is he?”

Lyonel pulls up the hood of his saffron-yellow hoodie and lays his head down on the table, but he’s grinning up at you like a fool. You sigh.

“Take this off,” you say, pinching some of the fabric of his sleeve between your fingers. When he just stares at you, you add, “Your colors, stupid.”

“Oh. Right.” He sits up and tugs the hoodie off, then shoves it under his chair. You notice a splash of color across his shirt that looks suspiciously like spray paint, and the same color speckled on his hands.

The clamoring in the hallway gets louder. “Baratheon!”

You narrow your eyes at him. “What did you do?” 

He makes a face at you that you can only call puppy-dog eyes—highly manipulative. He presses his palms together prayerfully. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?”

“Ugh! Come on.” You grab his arm and tow him toward the librarian’s office behind the front desk. You are on excellent terms with Miss Maris, so when you make a vague gesture toward the door and mutter, “It’s an emergency,” she only gives Lyonel a brief severe look before nodding you back. 

The office isn’t exactly hidden from view; a large window looks onto the library floor so Miss Maris can keep an eye on things even from that vantage point. You shove Lyonel out of sight and stand at a low table by the window, pretending to sort papers. Really you’re keeping watch to judge when the storm has blown over. Maybe whoever it is will pass the library by and—

The entrance doors slam open. A tall boy with silvery-white hair stomps in, head on a swivel. You don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone look so irritated in your life. Behind him, the picture of calm, is another boy, this one with dark hair. If you weren’t trying to be as unnoticeable as possible, you would be kicking Lyonel.

“Them? Again?” You shoot him a sideways glare. He’s leaning against the wall, just out of view of the window and shaking with silent laughter as he listens to the bellowing outside.

Lyonel has always had a grudge against the Targaryens—of course it’s Targaryens, it wouldn’t be Lyonel if he didn’t cause the most damage possible—for reasons you find hard to understand. It seems to be one of his few points of family pride to be set against them. Whenever Grandview rugby is up against King’s Landing, he becomes almost unbearable to be around between the complaining (“Targaryens are natural cheaters”) and endless retellings of the match. The latter is unnecessary because you always go to see them yourself, the local ones at least, but that never stops him.

“I know he’s fucking in here!” Maekar is so loud, you’d be surprised if they can’t hear him in the classrooms next door. His eyes flash as he strides forward, looking around. “I’m gonna—“

His brother puts a hand on his shoulder. “Library, Maekar.”

“I don’t give a flying—oh.” Maekar notices Miss Maris’ stony glare. He scowls back. 

The Targaryen brothers are maybe three yards away from you when they stop at the librarian’s desk.

“Yes?” Miss Maris says in what you recognize as her “What the fuck do you want?” voice.

Maekar has the decency to appear momentarily uncomfortable, his posture going rigid and formal. “Have you…” He shoots a look at his brother, who is conveniently absorbed in examining a flyer on the desk. “Uh...I wonder if you’ve... seen someone come in here?”

“Students are free to use the library during their study period,” Miss Maris replies coldly.

“Well, obviously, but—”

“Obviously?” Her tone is frosty as a Northern winter. “Perhaps you should read our school policy, if you’re uninformed.” She plucks a pamphlet from a plastic display and shoves it toward him. Maekar looks down at it in what you can only call shock and disgust.

As you watch, you see Baelor hide a laugh behind his hand. You recognize him of course, who wouldn’t? Even if there wasn’t the old intramural sport rivalry in full swing, which explains why these particular Targaryens are at Grandview, everyone knows them. If it’s a question of Important Families, theirs is surely at the top.

Baelor must feel your stare, because his eyes flicker up to meet yours. You take a step back, surprised, and can’t help the instinctive turn of your head to look at Lyonel, checking that he hasn’t moved. He has of course, edging just slightly into view of the window to better enjoy Maekar’s ineffectual arguing with the librarian.

You hiss and motion for him to move back. He does, a smug look on his face and his hands raised. You could kill him. Your face is burning; you don’t dare look up again, but you’re sure you can feel Baelor’s eyes on you.

“Brother,” you hear him say, and your stomach clenches. Lyonel getting in fights isn’t anything new, but you’d really rather not witness it. Especially not in the library. Two on one is hardly fair, you think, even if you don’t doubt he probably deserves it—

Baelor’s voice is placid. “The library doesn’t seem very likely, does it? Let’s look outside.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Miss Maris says with a warm smile for the elder brother. 

Maekar’s scowl deepens. “Fine.” He turns on his heel and stalks back toward the door. Before he follows, Baelor glances at you again, his mismatched gaze curious. Then he’s gone, once again following in his brother’s wake.

You wait until the door closes behind them before you speak to Lyonel.

“You owe me so bad,” you say, throwing down the papers you’ve been shoving around and heading for the door. You thank Miss Maris as you pass her and she rolls her eyes.

Lyonel is laughing. “Did you see his face?” He follows you back to your table where you start packing up your things, all but throwing your books into your bag. You reach under the chair for his hoodie and shove it at him, which cuts off his chuckling.

“I’m serious Lyonel.” The bell for next period rings and you groan. “I was supposed to get my homework done…”

He’s fishing something out of the front pocket of his hoodie. It takes you a second before you recognize it as a can of yellow spray paint. He tosses it into a nearby trash can with a clatter.

“Are you for real?” You sink back into your chair. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

He doesn’t even bother to look sincere in the least when he replies. “Okay, I didn’t.”

“You did! Oh gods be good…”

“You should see it for yourself. I would never have been able to get the perspective right without all those animal anatomy books of yours.” All you can remember of the times he’s watched you while you copied out anatomical drawings were the usual complaints of boredom and rude comments about animal genetalia.

You cover your face with your hands but you can’t help it; you laugh. 

This is how it always is with him. He’s impossible to stay mad at. Who could be mad with that face smiling at you? Well, besides the example that just stomped out of the library.

“I’m sure I’ll see it online imminently.” You shake your head and get up again. “I have to go to class.”

He steps in front of you and blocks your path. It’s not hard to do. The two of you were the same height for about a year before he started to shoot up like a weed. Sometimes you think he’s still growing, which is absurd, and also highly unfair on occasions like these.

“Orrrrrr…” he says in his most wheedling voice. “You could cut class with me.”

“And why would I want to do that?” You dust off your uniform skirt, not meeting his eye. “The point of school is to actually go to class, you know.” Lyonel may not worry about missing lessons, but your scholarship has a grade and attendance requirement. There have been plenty of times before this when he’s whined at you to skip class with him, and every time you say no. You think he’s started asking just to bug you.

He waves that off. “Oh, that. As it happens, something most fortuitous has occurred.” He pauses for effect but you just scoff and try to walk around him. He steps to the side, detaining you easily. “Don’t you want to know?”

If you have one weakness, it’s that you do always want to know. And he knows it. And he knows you know he knows it, which is why he’s smirking at you and you really, really want to punch him.

“Fine. Tell me.”

“The old man,” he says with grand emphasis, “is in King’s Landing.” Your blank stare makes him sigh a little. “You really have no flair for the dramatic, do you?”

“I’m about to do something dramatic to get you out of my way.” You try again to go around him but he blocks you again, matching your movement seemingly without any effort. Maddening.

“The lodge is empty.” You move right, he moves left. “You know, where I live?”

The warning bell rings and desperation sets in. You try shoving him but of course he’s immovable, solid as stone. Plus, it just makes him laugh.

“Lyonel,” you say in warning, “do not make me late for class.” He might be able to show up whenever he wants, but you don’t have that same luxury. You’re already going to have to sprint across the courtyard to make it.

“Well, I just thought that maybe—Hey!”

You’ve remembered that you can just turn around and walk away, and begin to do that. Lyonel darts around you and flings his arms out.

“The stag, remember?” he says, dropping his theatrics.

You pause. You know his grandad has been having some health problems and traveling to the capital for treatment. Mostly, you thought, these were brief appointments that Lyonel often had to accompany him on. One might wonder why his sixteen year old grandson is doing that instead of his adult son, but that’s not important right now.

Slowly the content of what he’s been saying makes its way to your brain. Thoughts of your impending maths lesson drop away.

“The stag?”

There’s no one at the lodge to stop you from seeing it now.

Lyonel drops his arms, satisfied you won’t try and run off. “The stag.”

You bite your lip, weighing your options. You have three classes left today, but no exams thank the gods. You could probably cook up something about being sick that would convince both your parents and the school office attendant, though you don’t love the idea of doing so. But you’ve never forgotten that stolen opportunity to see those glorious antlers. If anything, losing the chance to see them as a child has only made you fixate on them more, so the elder Baratheon’s efforts to keep you away have only turned back and bitten him. Also, ever since you learned that it wasn’t your parents barring you from going but his family disinviting you, you’ve nursed a low flame of anger against them. Not only for yourself, but for Lyonel too. Who were they to shoot down a little kid’s attempt at making friends?

It would be righting a wrong, really, to finally go and see it.

“Well…”

Lyonel knows when he has you. The look in his eyes is positively diabolical. “Perfect.”

❥

Contrary to all common sense, Lyonel is an excellent driver. In fact, Lyonel is good at most things he puts any effort into. That’s not a surprise to you, but you’ve observed that it often is to others. His family, for example, if his stories about them are anything to go on. With the exception of his sister, Lyonel likes to refer to them with such colorful phrases as “complete fuck-ups” and “a shower of cunts.”

Lyonel started driving as soon as he could. You, on the other hand, have been putting off learning. It’s not like there’s a car at home for you to drive, with each of your parents needing theirs for work. Also, they barely have the time to help you practice. In what you’re pretty sure was a highly illegal move, Lyonel insisted on you practicing at least the basics in his car, but the thought of damaging a vehicle you’re pretty sure is worth more than your entire house really put you off it. Also, he’s a terrible co-pilot. (“I’ll just drive you around,” he finally said with a sigh after the third time you narrowly avoided rolling over a curb.)

The Baratheon family lodge, as Lyonel has explained, is something between a summer house and a hunting lodge. It’s within easy driving distance of Grandview, about halfway to Stone’s Helm. The road curves through the forest, and you can see the sparkle of the Slayne every now and then just beyond the trees.

Your phone chimes as the car speeds along.

Rowan👯‍♀️❤️

>hello???????? [link]

She’s linked you a post from an anonymous school account captioned with several laughing emojis. The main image is the hood of a very expensive looking blood-red sports car. On the hood is— you groan.

“Lyonel…”

He glances over, sees the image on your phone and lets out a laugh, then turns the music up and starts singing along.

Someone, and you think you know who, has spray-painted a stag fucking a dragon on the hood of the car in irritatingly bright yellow spray paint. There’s no other way to describe it. You appreciate that he was even able to get the message across, in a way. How exactly one would fuck a dragon isn’t immediately clear, after all.

You send Rowan back an eye rolling emoji and sigh.

>where are u btw

>ur missing a great maths lesson

Rowan is aces with numbers so you know she’s not kidding, but you still suppress a laugh.

long story 😑<

i’ll call you later<

take notes for me?<

>ofc babe xx

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️<

Lyonel is belting out the lyrics to some stupid song on the radio, one hand on the steering wheel and the other out the window to feel the air whip by.

You just shake your head and lean back in the seat, closing your eyes as the sun shines down on everything.

❥

When he said lodge, you imagined a rustic house in the woods. Probably a few steps up from a cabin, but relatively modest, pared down from whatever grandeur is to be found in Storm’s End. Though you have your doubts on that score, because between your childhood disappointment and Lyonel’s description of it as “utterly fucked,” Storm’s End remains a cursed place in your mind.

What you see come into view at the end of a long, tree-lined drive is nothing like Storm’s End. It’s nothing like a cabin either. In fact, you’re pretty sure taxonomically speaking it’s not really anything like a lodge.

There’s no other word for it: it’s a mansion plopped down in the middle of the forest.

You gawp. The main house is three stories tall, built entirely of stone with large mullioned windows on every level and old-style peaked roofs. Ivy creeps artfully up a portion of the facade. It seems to ramble on forever, and you think you see some smaller outbuildings farther back. Your peers are wealthy, you’re no stranger to fancy houses, but this is something different. When you ask yourself why, it takes a few moments for you to hit upon the reason. The place looks positively historic. The weathered stonework, the arched doorways, the high chimneys, the perfectly manicured hedges and lawn… All of it bespeaks a time gone by.

You can’t stop staring. “You live here?”

“Unfortunately.”

He brings the car to a stop on the neatly graveled driveway. The front door—do you call it a front door when the place is a mansion?—opens before the engine is off. A solemn looking grey-haired man in formal wear steps out. For a moment you think he might be Lyonel’s grandad and feel your stomach plummet in disappointment. But then Lyonel pops out of the car and calls out to the man pleasantly.

“Rolph! The old man’s out, isn’t he?”

“Yes, ser.”

Your mouth actually drops open. Ser?

“Brilliant!” Lyonel thumps the man on the shoulder. Then he turns to you with a smile bright as the sun. “Coast’s clear!”

Rolph navigates around Lyonel to your side of the car, opening the door and stepping aside in a smooth, practiced motion. “Good afternoon, miss. Welcome to the Baratheon residence.”

“Only one of us in residence, thank the gods.” Lyonel laughs.

Rolph stands, waiting. You stare at him another moment before your brain starts working again. “Oh. Sorry.” Clambering out, you feel suddenly underdressed in just your Grandview uniform skirt and blouse. “Uh, thank you.” You think the man gives you a sympathetic look, but then Lyonel has you by the elbow and is dragging you up the steps to the front door. “We’ll be in the library,” he calls over his shoulder.

“Very good, ser.”

You look at Lyonel incredulously, but he seems not to detect anything out of the ordinary. Your head is spinning as you take in your surroundings once you’re inside. The full length of the long entrance hall is lined with a plush carpet that somehow looks simultaneously old, expensive, and as if no one has ever walked on it before. You try and step gingerly but Lyonel is towing you forward with such determination that it’s impossible. Beautifully arched stone ceilings rise above you, with antique brass lanterns hung at regular intervals. The walls are a soft cream color and lined with paintings, mirrors, and carven wooden benches that look like no one has sat on them in a hundred years. The place even smells expensive and historic, a warm amber scent mingled with a faint mustiness.

You pass several doors that open onto similarly richly-appointed rooms. You think you see people in a few of the rooms, and realize with a shock they must be servants.

“I thought you said you and your grandad live here alone.” You’re feeling a little faint as you pause at the base of the stone staircase at the far end of the hall.

Lyonel has dropped your arm and is charging ahead, taking the steps two at a time with his unfairly long legs. “Yup,” he says. “Watch out for the last step, people always slip there.”

As you begin to climb the steps, you slide a hand along the cool stone wall for balance. How old is this wall? Lyonel once referred to this place as “newer than Storm’s End,” which you took to mean built sometime this century, but you’re coming to realize the Baratheons might exist on a different time scale.

When you finally limp your way to the second floor landing, he’s waiting with an impatient look on his face.

You come to a standstill, looking around slowly. More paintings, more expensive lamps, something that looks like an honest-to-gods tapestry hanging on the wall...

“You really live here?”

He ignores that and takes you by the arm again, marching down the hall. You try and imagine Lyonel in his hoodie and ratty jeans coming home here and, what, doing homework? Watching TV? The mind simply boggles.

He stops you just before a set double doors, resting his hand on the handle. He gives you a sly look. “I wanna see your face when you see it.”

You almost forgot why you’re here.

“Ready?”

You nod. “Ready.”

He grins and opens the door, stepping back so you can enter ahead of him.

The first thing you notice isn’t the stag, but the view through the nearly floor to ceiling window directly opposite you. Framed by saffron-yellow velvet curtains, the window looks out over the stretch of lawn and dense forest beyond. The day is gorgeous, perfect mid-spring weather with the whole world alive, in bloom. A mellow blue sky, clear and endless. There must be another window propped open nearby because you hear faint birdsong.

It is an instant of complete and total peace.

An odd sensation overcomes you: an exhortation from some deep part of your soul that this is a moment you need to remember. The pale gold of spring sunlight, the still air of the room, the awareness of Lyonel just behind you, waiting…

And then you see it.

On the way here, you worried that you might find yourself disappointed. You’d have to try and fake an awed reaction rather than let Lyonel down, and you’re a terrible liar. All that is forgotten in an instant. Your hands come up to cover your mouth, your eyes wide. The door closes with a soft click. Lyonel is at your side again and you turn to him, speechless.

For once he doesn’t laugh but just gently nudges you forward.

“Go look,” he says.

Your approach is slow. It seems the right thing to do, out of caution or deference. The stag stands in a far corner of the room. That strikes you as unjust; it should be in the center, everything arranged around its splendor. You’ve seen taxidermy animals before, but never one of this size, and never one that looks so alive. You half expect it to swing its head toward you, lift a hoof and paw the ground.

The eyes draw you in. They are dark, of course, but the look in them is liquid, inquisitive, almost defiant. You know animals don’t smile, but this one seems to wear a slight smirk on its tapered and elegant face that says I know I’m magnificent. And it is. It must be over six feet at its highest point, and that’s before the antlers. They sit on its head like a crown on a king, branching out into vastness. Up close you can hardly believe a single creature could balance all that majesty. It’s not just the height though, the breadth. The stag has presence. Its strength is evident even after death; the muscles finely shaped, each leg sturdy and sure.

This is a being, you think, rarely seen in our world. A creature out of the past. Melancholy settles inside of you, slowly like silt sinking to the bottom of a river. Someone felled this animal. Hunted and killed it for display, made an object of it, no different than the ornate vases downstairs. How could they?

But you’re complicit too, aren’t you? Coveting it, longing for so many years to come here and see it.

You realize you’ve drifted across the length room and are close enough now to lift and hand and brush your fingertips over the stag’s noble face. You draw back, bumping into Lyonel. Where did he come from?

“Everything you dreamed and more?” He slings an arm over your shoulder and looks at you sideways.

“Yes.” You’re a little breathless. “Yes, absolutely.”

“Hm. Well, feel free to look and touch. But remember, if you break anything, you have to pay for it.”

The tension breaks; you feel solid again, back in the present, and let out a laugh of pure relief. “Alright, rich boy.”

He sticks his tongue out at you and wanders back toward the sitting area in the middle of the room. You barely even registered anything else beyond the stag and the view. The whole space is lined with shelves that reach to the ceiling, and every single inch of those shelves is filled up with books. The furnishings are fusty and a little outdated, with the kind of upholstery you would expect a rich old man to favor. Every flat surface is littered with what you would like to call trinkets but are probably expensive art objects; inkwells, bowls, pitchers, busts...

You ignore all that and fumble in your bag for your latest sketchbook. You don’t feel quite equal to the task of capturing what’s before you, but you’ve come too far not to at least make an attempt. The ensuing half hour passes in near silence, your attention completely absorbed by the stag.

Lyonel, meanwhile, tries to keep quiet. He really does. He begins by looking through the books on the shelves. Then he rummages fruitlessly through his grandfather’s ancient desk. He even keeps himself from sighing or loudly throwing himself onto one of the sofas in boredom. He knows how long you’ve waited to be here.

But really, he can only take so much. 

“Are you done yet?” He’s lying, somehow, upside down in one of the wingback chairs, his legs braced against the backrest and his head just barely touching the ground. 

“Almost.”

He groans. You turn and frown at him.

“Your head is gonna explode if you stay like that.”

He smiles up at you, happy to have your attention again. “Oh yeah? Watch this.”

Before you can say Don’t be stupid he’s levering his legs and hips forward so his whole body is almost vertical. He presses up—or is it down?— with his hands and for a moment he’s doing a perfect handstand. Which, you have to admit, is pretty impressive and not something you’ve ever seen before. He looks up at you from his upside down world with an expression of complete triumph on his face.

Unfortunately, it can’t last. He pitches to one side and topples over with a crash, bringing down a nearby lamp and pile of books with him.

You drop your sketchbook and rush to his side, crouching down. “Are you ok?” The low table here has a sharpish edge; did he whack himself on that too?

But he rolls over, laughing. “Your face!” He mimics a look of comical surprise.

You slap his arm. “Asshole!”

As you start to stand up, he reaches out and grabs your wrist. “Help, nurse, I can’t get up.” He’s grinning up at you.

You glower and offer your other hand to pull him up. This is all rather ridiculous given your relative height and strength, and also because he decides just then to be dead weight. He closes his eyes and lolls his tongue out like he’s dead.

You stand, trying to counterbalance his weight, then kick him in the leg. “Get up!” You tug harder, leaning back a little. He’s laughing now, and you’re on the verge of letting go when suddenly he pulls back and hoists himself up. You’re so surprised you lose your footing and stumble sideways. He reaches out, curling his hands around your upper arms to steady you.

You stare up at him. It’s only for a moment and afterward, alone at home with racing thoughts, you’re not able to explain exactly what happened. But as you look into his face, the laughter still in his dark eyes, something changes. Your head feels like a bell that someone has rung. His touch on your arms is entirely innocent, it’s not like he caught you around the waist, but heat radiates through your body from where his fingertips are pressed against your bare skin.

“Now are you ready?”

You’re staring. “Huh?”

“To go.” His hands fall back to his sides and he turns away, glancing around the library as if nothing has happened. “You know, I bet we could rig up that stag on wheels and take it out of here and the old man would never even notice. And some of this other junk, too.”

Your face is so flushed with heat it actually hurts. “Right. I mean, what? No. No way.” You turn on your heel, grab your book bag, and stomp toward the door.

“Hey, your sketchbook! Ah, this is a lot better than I thought it would be…”

You snatch the notebook from his hands when he catches up to you in a few strides, and don’t respond. He starts chattering about something as you clatter down the stairs, speculating on how much you could sell a rare volume for and how much longer his grandad has till he kicks it. You can barely follow what he’s saying. You feel a jolt every time his arm bumps yours as you walk down the hall.

This is very, very bad.

❥

That night you lay in bed and tell yourself to get it together. You consider yourself a reasonable, even logically minded, person. Ok, you think your best friend is attractive. That’s not unusual is it? Maybe it’s just an aesthetic appreciation. That’s a thing, isn’t it? There are plenty of people you think are good-looking without being attracted to them. Their names escape you just now, but you’ll think of them. Instead all you can think of is Lyonel’s hands on your skin, and then you feel hot all over and cover your face in embarrassment.

Maybe it’ll go away. You try desperately to conjure to mind people you’ve had crushes on before but their images keep melting into Lyonel laughing, Lyonel looking at you, Lyonel’s hands on you…

Stupid. Stupid. Don’t ruin everything. You can’t even begin to imagine what he would say if you told him. He’d probably laugh, which would be terrible, but if would be even worse if he didn’t and then you could never be around each other without the fact of your big dumb feelings filling the space between you. The mere thought is so awful you feel a little sick just considering it. Wrong, just wrong. You feel like a hermit crab without a shell, scrabbling around in panic.

You roll over and muffle a very quiet scream into your pillow.

This is so stupid.

❥

The course of action you elect to embark upon is thus: pretend nothing happened.

This is easy, because Lyonel doesn’t mention how weird you were acting or how you barely said anything on the car ride back. When he dropped you off at your house, you practically slammed the car door on him before turning around and giving a rushed “Bye.” You were in such a hurry to get away from him, in fact, that you forgot your sketchbook. He hands it to you the following day in the library during your free period.

You stare at his hands, still speckled with yellow spray paint. Have his hands always looked so… You don’t know the word for it. Appealing?

“I can’t believe you forgot it. You never leave this thing anywhere.”

You mutter your thanks and choose the seat farthest away from him.

Everyone is beaten down enough by the impending doom of exams to be absorbed in studying for once. Except Lyonel, of course. He has his chin propped on his hand as he flips through a fashion magazine. You notice his eyelashes, the shadows they cast on his face under the late afternoon sun streaming in through the windows. The motion of his wrist as he flips a page fascinates you, the simple hinged movement seeming suddenly so elegant, so important. The image of a deer in the rainwood comes to your mind, that deliberate, smooth gait...

You’ve always known Lyonel is handsome. In fact, he loves to say so himself. Usually all that makes you feel is the need to roll your eyes. Now you can’t stop thinking about it. You try and focus on your book, you really do. But the text seems suddenly so flat and featureless. Your eyes keep drifting away from the page and back to Lyonel.

He lifts his head and frowns down the table at you. “What’s wrong?”

“What?” You feel like you’ve been zapped by lightning. Did he see you staring at him?

“You haven’t written anything,” he says, glancing at your notebook, which is uncharacteristically empty of notes.

Your mind is completely blank too. “Oh.”

He sits up, scrutinizing you more closely, leaning forward a little like he’s trying to read your face for an explanation. Your skin prickles all over and you shoot up out of your seat.

“I um. I have to go now.” You blink then start gathering up your books.

Now everyone is staring at you. Rowan puts a hand over yours as you struggle with the zipper of your beat up bookbag. “Alright?”

“Yep. Yes. I have, um.” You wait for an excuse to come to mind but it’s like your brain has fallen out of your head. “I have… a stomachache.”

Then you turn and practically bolt out of the library. You’ve made it halfway down the hall, chanting a muttered litany against your stupidity, when you hear Rowan call out your name.

“Oi! Slow down!”

You’re almost at the door to the outer courtyard but stop short and wait for her, attempting a normal facial expression when all you really want is to hide from everyone, forever.

“Are you on your period?” she says when she catches up to you, puffing a little. There’s a frown on her face as she circles around you to check your pants. “You’re alright, but if you need a tampon—”

“No no, no, I’m,” you stutter. “I’m ok. I just feel, um. Weird.”

“Clearly.” She waits, arms folded. When you just stare back at her, the corners of her mouth turn down. “Did something happen yesterday? You never called me.”

“No. What? Oh, sorry. Wait, what do you mean?”

Rowan raises her eyebrows so high you think they might disappear into her beautiful red hair. “Oh gods, something did happen.”

“What!” you yelp, and then look nervously down the hall toward the library. Why are you acting like a cartoon character? Get ahold of yourself!

“Do I need to beat his ass? Because believe me, I will.”

“No, no it’s not like that. Nothing happened.” You feel a little twist of guilt when you say it. But you can barely explain what happened to yourself, let alone to someone else. Suddenly I realized my best friend is hot? Like, really really hot? So hot I’m rethinking all of our past interactions and oh gods maybe I should transfer school—

“Uh huh.” Rowan looks supremely unconvinced. She squints at you, clearly turning over your bizarre behavior in her mind. You actually see the moment in her eyes when something clicks into place. “Do I need to beat his ass because nothing happened?”

You cover your face with your hands. “Ro, I’m so stupid.”

“Oh, babe. Here, let’s sit outside and you can tell me. It’s ok.”

Except it’s not, of course.

❥

The truth is, dating at Grandview is a fraught business. Rowan has never been interested in any of what she calls “the toffs” and you have to agree. You may get along in class, but there are some people who may as well live on a completely different planet. What would you even talk about? The idea is not only ridiculous, but vaguely irritating. Rich people have their society, but you live in the real world. And you have things to accomplish.

So, you’ve recused yourself from dating on the basis of needing to focus on your studies with an eye toward university. This is what you tell yourself. Also, it’s all too much for you to keep track of, the constantly shifting relationships between the Important Families and their representatives in the form of your classmates. A relationship is never just a relationship here; their families are always looming in the background like disapproving ghosts. The fishbowl effect of an environment where everyone’s known each other all their lives also makes the whole business unappealing. Staying out of it, you reassure yourself, is the most prudent course of action.

Hook-ups are a different story. Or so you hear. Lyonel has never been one to hold back his opinions from you, and that doesn’t change just because the topic is his latest flavor of the week. Sometimes it’s like he’s doing it just to make you laugh (confused one twin for the other, resulting in two very angry boys), or goad you into groaning in disgust (picking a girl to ask out purely on the relative merits of her ass). He doesn’t tell you everything, of course. Ever heard of chivalry? he says disdainfully when you ask how a date went. Have you? you shoot back.

But you can make a pretty good guess about what goes on. In some ways he’s extraordinarily detached about it all. Maybe, you think now, that’s why it never bothered you. If pressed, you would have described his romantic entanglements as amusing at best and irritating at worst, something inconsequential that made arranging plans with him more difficult. Like a weather delay. All of it seemed to exist in a different world, one more transient than the one he lived in with you.

Now you wonder: were you jealous? Did you roll your eyes at those stories because you wanted to believe they were inconsequential? The weight of the cliché of it all almost crushes you. You pace the cramped space of your bedroom over and over, thinking.

Because now you’re seeing everything with new eyes. Just remembering some of what you’ve told him in the past makes you want to dig a hole to the other side of the planet. You used to complain to him about crushes too, about your appearance, about anything. It was freeing, because as tongue-tied as you could be around other people about those things, you never were with Lyonel. It’s not that his advice was right, or even helpful. Sometimes he’d even suggest doing something that would make the situation much worse on purpose, which only made you laugh and forget why the whole thing felt so scary in the first place.

The idea of carrying on like that now is impossible. Things have to change. Romantic topics are strictly off limits. Also, you try not to sit too close to him, or lean on him, or (as happened once during a particularly dull school theatre performance) fall asleep on his shoulder.

But what do you do when he wants to talk about that stuff? It’s not like you can tell him “I’m calling a moratorium on discussing romance.” You don’t even want to think about how he would laugh at that. So instead you try and change the subject. Unfortunately, Lyonel is like a bulldozer when there’s something he wants to talk about, so in the end you mostly just sit in silence and suffer. And try to remember to be encouraging. Yes, text her, I’m sure she’d be interested...

He doesn’t notice any change in your behavior. At least you don’t think he does. In any case, he doesn’t say anything about it. And, you reason to yourself, if he noticed he would say something. Lyonel has always been alert to your moods, sometimes aware of them even before you are. In the past this could be highly annoying, but now it’s deeply alarming. It is of paramount importance that you convincingly act like nothing has changed.

Once or twice, you think you see a look of confusion pass over his face when you duck away from his arm slung around your shoulder. But that’s probably just you inventing things.

Right?

❥

I’ll get over it, you think to yourself. It’s just a stupid crush. People get over crushes all the time. Even crushes on their best friends. You’re determined; you approach it scientifically. Treat it like exposure therapy, you tell yourself.

Because it doesn’t take long for you to get tired of thinking about it all the time. Rowan’s suggestion on that day in the library was to just tell him. But you can’t tell him, that’s out of the question. For one thing, you’re not his type. What’s his type? Hard to say. But you know you’re not it. Second of all, everyone may accept the friendship between the two of you but you’re not sure that would be the case in the extremely unlikely event of a relationship. That slender chance is what keeps you up at night, every time you pick up your phone and think I’ll just tell him. He’ll reject me and we’ll laugh about it. He’ll say something like I can’t blame you, I’m irresistible after all, and it’ll go back to normal.

But what if he didn’t reject you? It’s even worse to contemplate. What if you were together, then broke up? It’s not as if teenage relationships are famous for lasting long. Or ending well. The thought of your friendship crashing and burning in such a predictable way is so awful you can barely make yourself imagine it.

Once, a few months ago, Lyonel dragged you along with him thrifting. He loves digging through bins of cartoon mascot graphic tees and faded sports jerseys, and somehow always finds something that he can style to look amazing on him. You grumble about him being able to afford to buy any new clothes he wants, and he sighs and tells you that’s not the point. Sometimes you let him pick things for you to wear since you find shopping exhausting, and of course those are always the outfits you’re complimented on most.

You were particularly grumpy on this occasion, leaning against the wall with your arms folded and a frown on your face. His laugh interrupted your surly thoughts on the inherent wastefulness of the fashion industry.

“Look at this!” He pulled out a lumpy stack of shirts wrapped in cheap plastic packaging.

“I bet those have been at the bottom of that bin for about ten years,” you said with a sniff.

“No, look here.” He pointed at the text on the packaging. THIS IS A SET. DO NOT SEPARATE. “That’s us!” And he gave you the goofiest grin you couldn’t help but laugh. Your bad mood lifted like fog under a rising sun.

That’s how it feels. Do not separate. Losing his friendship would be like losing part of yourself. One of the important parts, like lungs or a heart. Who are you without his teasing to make you laugh, his cajoling to make you try new things? How could you navigate your life without his way of understanding you before you understand yourself?

There’s only one truly desirable outcome to confessing your feelings, and it’s the only one that’s entirely impossible: you tell him and the two of you stay together forever. That can’t happen because you’re dead set on leaving the stormlands for uni, and Lyonel has told you he’s resigned to going to King’s Landing. Also, for all you care for him, you just can’t imagine even in your wildest fantasies that Lyonel would set aside all the social possibility and excitement university offers in favor of you. The most miserable thing is that you wouldn’t even want him to. You’ve known for a long time that Grandview is too small for Lyonel. He’s like a star spinning into life. Pretty soon he’ll burst forth in brightness and you’ll feel lucky if you can only be a witness to his dazzling light. It’s too much to ask to hold all that shimmering energy in your hands and call it mine.

None of your options feel good. But at least if you keep these feelings to yourself, you’ll still be friends. You’ll be apart but not separated. Not the way breaking up would be. Or driving a wedge between the two of you by confessing something you can’t take back.

After thinking this through, you’re angry at yourself for putting your most important relationship in jeopardy just because you have a stupid crush. Friendship is deeper than romance. It lasts longer, means more. Isn’t that what people say?

So you may feel awkward, occasionally mortified, and always very confused, but you don’t stop spending time with him. You can’t. Your whole being rejects the idea.

You tell yourself this: no matter how agonizing it is, just keep going on like normal and eventually it’ll be normal again.

It has to.

❥

It’s raining a few months later when you find yourself at the lodge again, holed up in one of the many sitting rooms, or parlors, or whatever they’re called. Lyonel is restless and irritable, ping-ponging from bothering you where you sit at a desk trying to read and pacing the room loudly declaring his boredom.

“Why don’t you just call her?” you say, not looking up from a fascinating treatise on a local beetle species. Full access to the library has been a major bonus of visiting the lodge. You were apprehensive at first. Surely his grandfather, who apparently did not like you, would notice someone was reading his books? But the man was in King’s Landing for medical treatment more often than not these days, and no decree of banishment was ever handed down. So you stopped worrying about it.

Lyonel moans as if he’s in real pain and flops down onto one of the sofas. “She never has her phone on.”

Before you can reply, you hear the crunch of tires over gravel. Lyonel is on his feet at once, dashing out of the room and probably almost bowling Rolph over on his way out of the house. (You’ve come to have a kind of rapport with Rolph. He’s as reticent as Lyonel is garrulous, but you’ve managed to have a few short conversations with him during the many times you’re waiting around for Lyonel to be ready to take you home. Rolph is the one who found the book you’re reading, in fact; the week before you’d asked him if he knew anything about the beetles you often saw crawling around in the damper parts of the back garden. No, miss, he’d said, but the next time you were over he handed you the book with what you could almost call an amused expression.)

You, meanwhile, try to ignore the knot of nervousness in your stomach as you stand and check your jumper for stray bits of lint. It’s just his sister, you tell yourself as you move to the sofa Lyonel has vacated. But what if she doesn’t like you? She’s practically the only family member he gets along with and her disapproval would be devastating, though you choose not to investigate that feeling too closely.

The front door closes, cutting off the sound of the driving rain. Their overlapping voices draw closer.

“...absolutely can’t be arsed to do it himself— Oh!” Alyssa pauses in the doorway when she sees you. There’s rain in her hair, the same dark curly hair as Lyonel’s. In fact, she looks so much like him that you almost laugh. The lines of her face are softer than his, and her eyes are deepest blue where his shift from chocolate to the rich ochre of a shadowed forest. She’s tall too, though not as tall as her baby brother, a fact he has smugly told you really pisses her off. But other than that, they could be twins. And the smile that spreads across her face when she sees you is just the same as Lyonel’s.

She exclaims your name and before you know it is wrapping you in a slightly damp hug. “How lovely to meet you! Sorry I’m so late. Oh, seven hells, I’m getting rain all over you.” She steps back, her hands still on your shoulders. “I love that jumper.”

“That’s because it was mine,” Lyonel says as he pushes past his sister. You see surprise flash in her eyes before she settles into a laugh.

“Well, it looks better on her.”

“Rude,” Lyonel grumbles.

You smile back at Alyssa. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Lyonel pauses in front of the hearth and leans over to shake his hair out like a wet dog. You and Alyssa both groan, and he snickers. “See? You have so much in common already.” He pushes his hair back from his forehead, and it makes him look surprisingly mature, more serious. The effect is spoiled by when he grins and asks, “So, any of the cunts dead yet?”

Alyssa just sighs and crosses the room to one of the armchairs, plopping down heavily into it. Now that there’s a little distance between you (and you’re not radiating with anxiety), you notice the weariness in her eyes, the faint darkness beneath them.

“The eternal question.” She picks up a miniature crystal deer figure from the small table beside her and begins turning it around in her hands.

Lyonel has seated himself on the rug with his back to the hearth. “According to mother, grandad is practically on death’s doorstep.”

“In her dreams,” Alyssa mutters.

“So he’s not?”

Alyssa contemplates this question for a moment, looking into the flames just over her brother’s shoulder. “He’s a spiteful old bastard,” she finally says. “He’s not giving up that easily.”

Lyonel has nothing to say to that, just frowns. You become aware of a strange energy in the room, some kind of silent conversation happening between the two of them. Also, you notice you’ve just been standing there watching them. You spot the tea service Rolph brought in earlier, untouched on a little table at the back of the room.

“Would you like some tea?” It occurs to you seconds after asking that this is much more Alyssa’s house than yours; she may take it as a presumption on your part, and you want to kick yourself.

But her voice is warm when she replies. “Oh, that sounds divine. I’m glad someone around here has manners.”

“Not one of the family traits,” Lyonel says, and Alyssa laughs.

“The gods know that’s true,” she says as you hand her a teacup and settle down on the sofa next to her. She sighs after taking a sip, eyes closing in bliss. “Thank you. If there’s one thing I miss, it’s good tea.”

You brighten up. “Oh, is the tea in the Reach not as good? I read recently that they’ve started growing a hybrid varietal in Goldengrove. It’ll take a few years before they get a good yield, I think. The soil acidity is...” You trail off when you see the grin on Alyssa’s face. She shakes her head, waving her free hand in an encouraging motion.

“No, no, please continue. Lyonel told me you’re a genius with plants.”

You shouldn’t feel so pleased, but you do. “Oh, well...”

“And animals,” Lyonel adds, flopping down on his back. “Eco-whatever.”

“Ecology? Not famous for his brains, this one,” Alyssa says drily.

Lyonel sticks his tongue out at her. You feel a twinge of surprise at her comment and want to say No, that’s not true. “Ecophysiology,” you say instead. “It’s what I want to study at uni.”

Alyssa looks from you to Lyonel and back to you. “So what are you doing hanging around with my baby brother?”

Maybe it’s the warmth of the room or of Alyssa’s presence, but you feel yourself relax into the moment. “Whatever he wants, mostly,” you say, and laugh.

Lyonel makes a sound of protest and sits up. “Not true!”

“You have a way of being very insistent.”

“I go to plenty of your stuff. Your plant whatevers.” He makes a dismissive motion with his hand.

“It’s the Stormlands Society of Botanists, and you always complain before. And after.” The sad thing is you’re pretty sure everyone at those meetings likes Lyonel better than you. He can charm a whole room with what seems like no effort, even if he can’t tell a perennial from an annual. More than one of the elderly ladies have asked you about that nice young man whenever you show up without him.

“So you admit I go a lot,” he says, smug. “Like the wonderfully supportive friend I am.” He lays back down as if to say There, I won.

Alyssa has been watching your conversation with avid interest from behind her teacup. At Lyonel’s words, she smiles. “Hardheadedness is another family trait, I think.”

“I have to agree,” you say. Lyonel harrumphs.

“And as for the tea,” Alyssa continues, “I’m afraid I meant the tea the family imports. It’s a special orange pekoe from Yi Ti. Not that they appreciate it.”

You notice how she says the family and not our family.

Lyonel has told you, in his usual forthright way, that Alyssa is not on good terms with the rest of the Baratheons and has barely seen any of them since she graduated from university last year. She’s been living in the Reach since then with a rotating cast of friends and spotty mobile service. Only their grandfather’s illness brought her back to King’s Landing, but according to Lyonel she categorically refused to stay in the residence the family keeps there. She hasn’t been back to Storm’s End for even longer. You don’t know the whole of it, but based on what you’ve seen you can hardly blame her. It must be hard enough to have difficult family relationships without living in a dour castle pummeled by the sea from below and rain from above. Your parents aren’t perfect, but they’re not keeping you hostage in some kind of dungeon either. Well, hopefully that wasn’t the case for Alyssa...

“Anyway,” Alyssa says, “How are things here? Whenever I’m in Grandview I wish I’d gone to school there instead of King’s Landing.”

The three of you talk for a little while about goings on at school and among families that Lyonel and Alyssa know. You know them too, of course, but not in the same way; there’s a kind of deep knowledge of past family scions, scandals, and rumors that remains opaque to you. Neither of them leave you out, however, taking the time to explain whatever background is needed, which more often than not has you with your mouth open in horror or sides splitting with laughter. They’re like a comedy duo, you think, telling stories in perfect sync with each other.

“That’s what passes as normal for the cousin-fuckers,” Lyonel says, finishing a story you would like to believe is only half-true. “And why you can never trust a Targaryen.”

“To be fair, most of the families are related in some way.” Alyssa tips back her cup to finish the last of her tea. “Looking too far back at the Baratheon family tree is a little ghastly.”

“At least it’s a tree. Those freaks have intermarried so much it’s more like, uh…” He squints.

“A saucer plant?”

They both look at you.

“It grows in a kind of flat repeating spiral shape,” you explain sheepishly, drawing a circle in the air with your hand. “It’s a bit homely too…”

Lyonel grins. “That sounds right.”

“I was going to say a tumbleweed,” Alyssa says with a chuckle, “but I like yours better.”

Not for the first time, you wonder what it would be like to have a sibling. After some pre-teen angst about it, you now consider yourself neither lucky nor unlucky to be an only child. It’s simply a condition of your existence. Still, seeing their easy back and forth makes your heart ache a little

You notice, however, that neither of them mention Orys, their eldest sibling. Lyonel hardly ever talks about him either, so you’ve curtailed your curiosity, taking the silence for what it probably is: a disinclination to talk about something difficult.

After about half an hour, the rain finally begins to let up. Weak sunshine breaks through the clouds and spills through the large windows looking onto the back of the property. Lyonel notices at once.

“Let’s go out,” he says, rolling to his feet. He pats the pockets of his jeans and frowns.

“Over there.” You point to the side table where he flung his keys when the two of you arrived a few hours ago.

“Right.” He grabs them and the jacket draped over a nearby chair. “I’ll drive. Want to see the rainwood, Lyssa? I know an expert guide.”

You snort. “As if you ever listen.”

“I’m an excellent listener.”

“Last time I tried to explain riparian zones to you, you said you’d rather I throw you in the Slayne.”

“Hm, did I? I must have been in Slayne to say that…”

“Oh, shut up!” You laugh. When you glance at Alyssa, on the verge of explaining to her that actually it’s a quite interesting and complex area of study, you stop short when you see the look on her face. Like Lyonel, she’s more apt to smile than scowl, but this isn’t quite an expression of happiness. You would almost call it… relief?

“Well, I tried,” Lyonel says with a sigh as he leaves the room. “I’ll bring the car round.”

The room feels very still without him in it. You find yourself suddenly shy of meeting Alyssa’s eyes, and reach for your bag, digging around in it like you’re looking for something.

“I’m glad I like you,” Alyssa says.

You look up, heart leaping.

She adds, more quietly, “He’s not usually like that here.”

“Like what?”

“Happy.”

You wish you could be like them and have a quip ready, some perfect reply, but you don’t. Lyonel is the good talker between the two of you. Without him in the room you feel the weight of your silence. All you want to say is please don’t get my hopes up, but then Alyssa speaks again.

“And I’m glad that you’re here. It’s not easy for him.”

“With your grandad?”

“All of them. Bastards.” She sighs. “Not that he’s your responsibility. He can take care of himself. It’s just good to know someone sensible is around.” She shrugs, a helpless smile on her face. “I worry. He’s my baby brother. Emphasis on baby.”

You both laugh. When you hear Lyonel beep the horn outside (and then beep it again several times for effect), the two of you stand and gather your things to go out. But before you step into the main hallway, Alyssa stops you with a hand on your arm.

“Let me give you my mobile number. Just in case.” You must look a little confused because she grins and adds, “And if you ever want a bit of sensible conversation, too.”

❥

A few weeks later, you go to a house party. Your first, in fact.

Lyonel is always trying to get you to go to things like this, and you’re always telling him no, you don’t think getting drunk on some stranger’s boat sounds like a good time. As ever, you think half the reason he asks you is just to bug you. But it’s harder to put Rowan off, and this time she’s insistent.

“You need to blow off some steam,” she says matter-of-factly, as she digs through your closet. “Why don’t you wear any of this stuff? Look at this!” She pulls out a checkered sundress. “This is cute!”

“I don’t have anywhere to wear it, I guess.”

“Exactly.” Rowan hangs the sundress back up and returns to her burrowing. “That’s why you need to go to things. So you can wear your outfits.”

“Not to meet people?”

“Most people aren’t worth meeting,” she grumbles. “But at least you can have fun while you’re there.”

“This isn’t doing much to encourage me, Ro.”

She wheels around, eyes narrowed. “You are not,” she says, giving you a steely look, “spending every weekend holed up in your room. Or working at that stupid job.”

It’s just a part-time job at the local tourist centre, but it’s true you’ve complained nonstop how mind-numbing it is. You don’t even get to do any of the fun stuff, like telling people how wonderful and complex the rainwood is. You’re either stuck filing endless forms or doing data entry.

If it weren’t for the fact you need to save money for uni, you’d be out wandering the rainwood yourself instead of cooped up in a windowless back office that’s more like a storage closet. Uni is why you haven’t been doing much on your free weekends, either. You need to be the best to get into your dream program at White Harbor. Your parents will help as much as they can, but you know that if you don’t get a good scholarship, you’re out of luck. So, it’s true you’ve been all but barricaded in your room studying, but you have good reasons. At least, that’s what you tell yourself every time someone (usually Lyonel) asks you to hang out.

Meeting Alyssa was wonderful, and you rode that high of emotion for a long time. But there was something about that afternoon that nagged at you when you thought over it later. You kept replaying that oblique conversation between the two of them about their family over and over in your mind. There was something more there, but what? Any time you try to ask Lyonel about his family, it’s the same as that first time when you were little kids. He seems utterly uninterested in discussing it, his attention sliding away.

It’s not my business, you tell yourself. I don’t belong in that world. But you can’t deny that it hurts a little.

The one thing you do know is that his grandad is staying put in King’s Landing this summer for medical care. Hence, the house party. And another reason you can’t refuse the invitation.

“If not for yourself, do it for me.” Rowan throws a pair of sandals you haven’t worn in years over her shoulder. “I’ve never seen the place before.”

“It’s just a rich people house,” you mumble. Rowan shoots you a look that says she knows you’re lying.

“Well, then you can at least show me that big moose thing you’re always talking about.”

“It’s a stag,” you say with a huff. Rowan laughs.

“See? We’ll even have something to do while we’re there. You can tell me all about it.” She holds out an aubergine-colored dress Lyonel found for you while thrifting a few months ago. Actually, he forced you to buy it even though you practically swore you’d never wear it. You’d refused to even try it on, but he was more stubborn and won out by citing his previous track record with clothes he’d picked for you. Every time you saw it in your closet you felt faintly embarassed.

Rowan beams at you. “This is the one!”

It’s a simple slip-style satin midi dress that ends just below your knees. The truth is that you’ve been too shy to wear it anywhere since it shows considerably more skin up top than you usually do. But maybe if you can wear a jean jacket over it…

A few nights later you’re in the backseat while one of Rowan’s sisters (sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart, despite your long acquaintance) drives the two of you along the winding road to the lodge.

“Do not,” she says, pointing a finger at Rowan after you both bundle out of the car, “get into any trouble.” Then she thinks for a moment and points at you, too. “You either. Keep an eye on her.”

Rowan just flounces off and you’re left to hurry after her.

The lodge is the same as always, of course, the same antique furnishings, the same air of wealth that is beyond earning and can only be bestowed. But it feels completely different. The lights are dimmer and there’s music blasting from somewhere. There’s more people, too, so many you and Rowan have to squeeze down the main hallway. Mostly it’s classmates from school, but you think you see a few people that look vaguely like Lyonel. Or, you suppose, they have the Baratheon look, that black hair and stormy aspect.

You hear him before you see him. There’s a crowd in one of the sitting rooms playing some kind of drinking game. As you and Rowan peer inside, a roar of laughter goes up, though you don’t know at what. Lyonel is at the center of attention, his favorite place to be. He looks like a king presiding over his court, shining like the sun and completely at ease. Someone has even put a paper crown on his head, and you’re reminded of the Baratheon family crest. A crowned stag. He sees you at once, his face lighting up. He looks like he might be about to beckon you over so you quickly scoot away, pulling Rowan with you.

Rowan shouts over the noise as you drag her away. “Don’t you want to say hi?”

You pretend not to hear. “The library’s upstairs.”

Unfortunately, you forgot to consider that house party means the whole house. The library is just as full as downstairs, people slung over sofas, leaning on the bookcases, generally making themselves at home. A group of giggling boys are constructing some kind of pyramid of books, and someone has very messily stoked the fireplace, tracking soot on the floor. All of this is fine, of course. It’s not as if you have a special claim to the space.

“Where is it?” Rowan says, and you blink, looking around. The stag is nowhere to be found.

“That’s weird…” you start to say, but Rowan has spotted a mutual friend of yours and tugs you over to her.

It’s not so bad, all told. You even start to enjoy it. People are much looser here than they are at school, and somehow it’s easier to talk. The library is at least a little quieter than downstairs, though there’s still a liberal amount of booze going around. Rowan disappears for a few minutes at one point, and just when you think you should follow her sister’s injunction to keep an eye on her, she comes back bearing drinks.

“Poured them myself,” she says. Another one of her sisters (which one? you can’t remember) works at a pub and has told you both never to take a drink you haven’t seen poured yourself.

You look into the cup she hands to you. “What is it?”

“Cider,” she says. Then she giggles, an unusually girlish sound for Rowan. “There was a guy at the drinks table who was so cute. He said it’s from his cousin’s brewery…”

The cider is delicious, sweet and tangy at once. The conversation rolls on and you feel yourself enter a space of pleasant warmth. A cool evening breeze blows in from an open window somewhere. You’re leaning your head on Rowan’s shoulder as she gesticulates wildly with her other hand and exclaims, telling some story to the great amusement of your other friends. Their laughter is so familiar, so comforting, you forget to feel nervous. In fact, you’re so relaxed you feel like you could fall asleep right here...

Someone is shaking your shoulder. You blink slowly, trying to make sense of what you see. A pair of coffee-colored eyes… dark hair. Someone is crouched down in front of you. This person is also grinning, and definitely laughing at you a little.

“Huh?” You try to sit up. Where’s Rowan? You look around but find the room mostly vacated except for a couple of people having a heated discussion in a corner. Your head spins a little as you get vertical and you steady yourself with a hand to the sofa cushion.

“Careful, lightweight,” Lyonel says. That’s right, you’re at his house. You scowl at him although you’re not sure why.

“Why are you here?” you mumble. He laughs.

“Rowan told me to come watch you.”

“Where’s she?”

He shrugs. “Dunno.”

“Supposed to keep an eye on her,” you mutter.

“She’s with a friend of mine. She’ll be fine.”

“Hmm. Was I asleep?

“Seems like it.” He tips his head to the side, smiling, clearly enjoying your state of befuddlement.

“For how long?”

“Well,” Lyonel says, “it’s 1am. What time was it when you fell asleep?”

That’s too much maths for you right now. You shake your head, but that just makes things worse. “How long have you been here?”

There it is, his shit eating grin. “Ah, I started living here when I was but a lad of six...”

You groan and look around the room again, feeling like you’re forgetting something. The two arguing people are still arguing as they walk toward the door. The room seems very empty now. Unusually empty. You remember the stag.

“Stag’s gone,” you say, turning back to Lyonel and trying to focus. How many cups of that cider did you drink, anyway? You can’t recall. You don’t think you’re drunk, but your mind is certainly moving slower than it usually does.

Lyonel stands up from his crouched position and stretches. You watch him. He’s wearing new clothes; how do you know they’re new? That’s right, because he wouldn’t shut up about them while he was waiting for his order to arrive. For the past week you’ve been getting a daily screenshot of the package’s estimated location and then a series of crying emojis. You thought when he sent you the link, and when you saw him earlier, he was just wearing tailored black trousers and an overpriced long-sleeve black dress shirt. Up close, you realize the material is actually embroidered with a subtle pattern of crowns, and just sheer enough that the glow of his skin is visible beneath it. As he stretches you can see the long line of his torso backlit by the low-burning fire in the hearth.

The room suddenly feels about a thousand degrees hotter. What happened to that cool breeze? Lyonel sighs and sinks onto the sofa next to you. As usual he can’t just sit, he has to slouch so that his long legs are spread out and his head is resting against the back of the sofa.

“I didn’t want anyone messing it up,” he says, turning to look at you.

You are trying very hard to focus on his face and not the rest of him. Shit, that’s no better, staring into his face is just as distracting. He looks a little sleepy himself, his hair tousled and his eyes lidded.

What were you talking about? You can’t remember. “Mess what up?”

He grins. “Oh, don’t worry about it.” His eyes drift down, and you wonder if you spilled cider on yourself earlier before you look down too and remember what you’re wearing. And that you’d taken your jacket off because the room was so pleasantly warm. It’s really not a very daring dress but you may as well be naked for how exposed you suddenly feel. One of the thin straps is slipping off your shoulder and you hastily pull it back up.

“Rowan told me to wear it.” You have a sudden memory of Rowan assessing you after you tried on the dress. This is the one, she said. Your tits look fantastic! Your face heats further, if that’s even possible.

You expect him to laugh or preen over the fact he picked it out, after all, but he doesn’t. His eyes lift up to yours again. “You look nice,” he says.

“Oh. Thanks.” And then your sluggish brain remembers what to say. “You too.”

Now that he looks pleased to hear. He lifts an arm so you can see the cuff of his sleeve. “Pearl buttons.”

You reach to touch it, your fingertips brushing the skin of his wrist. A charge rushes through you, all the way to the pit of your stomach. But you don’t pull away. You’ve hated having to avoid touching him. It’s been exhausting. Everything was so much easier when you didn’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself, betraying something you know he doesn’t reciprocate. You could lean into him and it didn’t have to mean anything other than that he was there and he was your friend.

He’s watching you, and when you meet his eyes all that careful thinking and explaining to yourself about why this is a terrible idea vanishes in an instant. Why not tell him? So what if he turns you down, or his family hates you. He’s your best friend. That won’t ever change.

He’s very close, you realize. Your shoulders are almost touching. You see his eyes flicker as he searches yours.

“Lyonel,” you say, barely more than an exhaled breath.

“Good you’re awake— oh!” Rowan blazes into the room but stops short when she sees the two of you.

You pull your hand back like you’ve been burned and Lyonel drops his arm. Your heart is beating fast, too fast. “Where were you, Ro?” Your voice is squeaky as you straighten up and scoot away from Lyonel.

Her eyes are darting back and forth between the two of you, a frown crinkling her brow. “My sister got lost and I had to try and give her directions. Raymun and I walked practically a whole mile into the forest.”

“Directions? Didn’t she remember from dropping us off?” You very pointedly are not looking at Lyonel.

Rowan flaps a hand. “Different sister.”

Now it’s your turn to give her a narrow look. “Who’s Raymun?”

She giggles. Again. Rowan never giggles.

“Girl talk,” Lyonel says morosely as he heaves himself up. “I’ll excuse myself.”

Your stomach drops in dismay. You almost say Don’t go, but stop yourself, biting your lip. If you felt exposed earlier, you feel utterly alone and adrift when he leaves your side.

“Thanks for having us over,” Rowan says as he passes by and he flashes her a smile.

“Yeah, thanks,” you say a beat later, brain still frazzled. He just lifts a hand in acknowledgment and doesn’t look back.

All the warmth goes out of the room goes with him. It’s like someone has hollowed out your insides. You think this is the worst you’ve ever felt in your life.

Rowan zips to your side as soon as he’s out the door. “What the hell?” Her eyes are wide. “Did you—”

“I think I messed up.”

“What?” She looks flabbergasted. “How?”

“I don’t know.” You look down at your hands, half expecting them to be scorched. “I don’t know.”

❥

Normally you text each other almost every day. Nothing important or deep, just stupid stuff back and forth. The first red leaf of autumn you find, a trailer for a movie he wants to see, stupid memes. He likes to send you totally banal pictures, two dandelions growing in a crack on the pavement, and say us if we were flowers. It makes you laugh.

For a few days after the party you don’t hear from him at all. Every time you see him at school he seems to be on his way somewhere else. He doesn’t ignore you but you swear something is different, his smile for you a little dimmer than usual.

You’re just starting to feel panicked when, after four days, you see his name pop up on your screen.

L🌞

>rainwood tmrw?

You almost drop your phone in your haste to reply.

Sure! ☺️<

> :)

For the first time since he left the room that night you feel the pit of dread in your stomach melt away.

Act normal, you think to yourself.

❥

You’re walking in the rainwood together. Despite his complaining, he really does love being out there, maybe even more than you. Sometimes you’ll be caught up explaining some aspect of the ecosystem and he’ll hold up a hand and say Just listen. You do. Feel that? he says, delight written all over his face. You know what he means. The rainwood hums with life, vibrating with something just beyond speech. Sometimes the two of you will find a likely stump or gnarled root and just sit and listen for a while. It’s both healing and invigorating, like talking with an old friend. It’s also the only place you know where Lyonel seems happy to be silent.

But today isn’t one of those days.

“It’s just a load of nonsense.” He’s walking slightly ahead of you. The rainwood is misty today, and you can feel the chill of it against your skin.

“But why?”

“It’s like school, but worse.”

“Alright, but—”

He pauses, tipping his head back and groaning. “Do we have to talk about this?”

You fall silent, abashed. Things were going perfectly well until you asked him what things were like in King’s Landing, since he’s been up there a few times recently to see his grandfather. You still haven’t been able to shake the questions the visit with Alyssa brought up. No matter how many times you tell yourself that details don’t matter, that all you need to know is the family stuff is difficult, you can’t keep yourself from wanting more. It’s an entire side of his life you know almost nothing about.

For a few moments the only sounds are the distant calls of birds and the drip of rain.

“I guess not,” you say finally.

His whole demeanor brightens. “Great! Now, what’ll you give me when I beat you to that tree with the hanging branch?”

“What tree with— Lyonel!”

He’s already taken off, practically halfway there. There’s nothing to do but run after him. He wins, of course. As a reward, you tell him you won’t kick him for such a dirty trick.

He laughs. “Whatever works,” he says.

❥

The school year comes to an end. This is the last summer before your final year and before, gods willing, you leave for White Harbor. In some ways, it’s a perfect summer. Your parents actually manage to get some time off and the three of you go on long hikes, just like when you were little. Rowan insists if you’re going to be studying all day you may as well come over to her house, which is now blessedly quiet without any of her siblings at home. Work is boring but what else is new? Nothing strange like that night at the house party happens again. In fact, Lyonel is often gone to King’s Landing so there are fewer opportunities for you to humiliate yourself. You tell yourself things have returned to normal. You fall back into the familiar state of low burning infatuation. It could be worse, you tell yourself. It’s not very reassuring.

❥

It’s the first weekend of the new term when Lyonel’s grandfather dies.

You’re bored out of your mind at the tourist centre. Your boss has asked you to stay on into the fall season, which is always busy since the rainwood is a popular autumn retreat. Unfortunately, that changes nothing about the actual substance of your hours on the job. You’re idly trying out formulas on the spreadsheet software when your phone buzzes.

L🌞

>cant make it tomorrow

You frown down at the message. You didn’t have anything particularly exciting planned, just the usual day of wandering around the rainwood or maybe watching a movie since neither of your parents would be home. It’s not that you’re not allowed to have Lyonel over, it’s just that the times your parents have met him have been awkward at best.

Everything ok?<

You wait.

>yeah grandad just died so ill be in kl for a few weeks :/

“What!” you say out loud alone in the workroom, then look over your shoulder, hoping no one outside heard you. You’re supposed to leave your phone in your locker while you’re working. You weigh your options and finally decide it’ll be worth getting reprimanded if you get caught.

It’s three rings before he picks up. “It’s not a big deal,” he begins.

“Are you ok?” you say at the same time. You hear him sigh.

“It’s fine. I’ll just be gone until the end of the month.”

That feels like a horribly long time, but you keep that to yourself. After all, he’s the one whose grandfather just died. He doesn’t sound upset, but…

“Is it just you at home?”

“Alyssa will be here tonight. And then we’ll both go up there. Sorry I’ll miss tomorrow.”

“It’s ok.” You hesitate. “I’m sorry he’s gone.”

“Hm,” Lyonel says. “Well, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ok. Bye.”

You sit there for a moment, then shake your head, trying to dispel the sense that something isn’t right.

❥

The next night, you’re just about to fall asleep when your phone lights up. You blink, groping blindly at your bedside table, squinting when you have the screen in front of your face.

L🌞

>can you talk for a sec

You sit up, a little shiver of alarm running through you.

phone call?<

>im outside lol

You stare at the screen. It takes several seconds for the meaning to reach your brain. Then you’re jumping out of bed and looking around for a jumper, tugging it on over your shirt and hurrying down the hall as quietly as possible. After a pause to ensure your parents are still asleep, you crack open the front door and peer outside.

You don’t see anything. You slide on a beat-up pair of shoes and carefully slip out the door. You pad a few feet down the drive until you see the low glow of headlights. There he is, sitting in his car at the very end of the drive where it meets the main road.

It’s not just worry that quickens your step; it’s cold as the seven hells outside, and raining lightly too.

You’re a little short of breath when you open the car door and practically leap inside. The air is blessedly warm, and you notice with a little squeak that the seat is warm too.

“Seat warmer?” you say, sounding truly shocked.

Lyonel shrugs. “You’re always cold.”

You’re about to say, Am not, but then realize you’re still shivering a little from being outside. And then you remember why you’re here at all. “I’m sorry about your grandad,” you say. You feel a little silly to be so solemn while you’re wearing an old jumper and pajama bottoms, but that’s how it is.

Lyonel doesn’t reply. He flips the headlights off. You wait.

It’s almost completely dark in the car. There’s the glow of different buttons on the dashboard, but otherwise there’s no light to see by. But as your eyes adjust you can see him clearly, his hands braced on the steering wheel. He seems to be focusing on a point somewhere out in the darkness.

“I’m the second son,” he says at last. His voice is flat, almost toneless. “That makes me like one of those break in case of emergency boxes. It’ll never happen, but I have to stay up to code anyway and pass regular inspections.”

Any other time you might laugh at the analogy, but he’s not joking. You just clasp your hands in your lap and listen.

“If they hadn’t had me, they would have kept trying until they had another boy. You can imagine how that makes Alyssa feel.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “So I don’t blame her for not wanting to see them. But that doesn’t make it any more exciting for me.”

“She’s not coming with you?”

“She was. Then our parents decided it was more fitting for the old man to go home to Storm’s End. Like his storm king ancestors.” Lyonel scoffs, his hands tightening around the wheel. “I think they did it to spite her. They thought she’d have to come back then.”

“Oh, Lyonel…”

He shakes his head. “I don’t blame her. I wish I could stay away too. But it would just cause more problems.”

The rain pattering on the windshield fills the silence. There’s so much you want to ask, but you don’t want to push him, not now when he’s finally sharing something.

“I’ll be fine,” he says. “But I just wish…” He finally turns toward you. The lost look in his eyes almost breaks your heart. You can’t help it; you inch toward him and rest a hand on his arm.

“It’s ok.”

He nods, blinking fast, wiping a hand across his eyes. “Seven hells,” he grumbles and you laugh softly.

“When you get back, we should do something fun. I’ve heard you can see Dorne from Stonehelm on a clear day.”

Lyonel is usually sarcastic about Dorne, another holdover from ancient rivalries. But he now he just nods.

“Plus, I’ve read there’s a rare gull that nests in the tower there. Isn’t that exciting?” You give him your silliest grin and for a moment the pain falls away from his face and he laughs, for real this time.

You draw back, folding your hands in your lap again.

You talk for a few minutes more about nothing in particular. But you know you have to go. Your parents have accepted that you’re friends with Lyonel, but you doubt they’d be thrilled to discover you snuck out of the house well past midnight to sit in his car.

“I wish I could go with you,” you say, the words spilling out before you can think too hard about them.

“No you don’t.” His expression is closed, impossible to read.

“You should have someone there with you.”

“The last thing I want is you anywhere near Storm’s End.”

You blink. “Oh.”

He lets out a long breath. “Just trust me. You don’t want to be there either.”

There doesn’t seem to be much more to say after that, but you hate to leave on such a strange note. “Well, when you’re over there, remember I’m right across the bay. Just send a signal and I’ll bring reinforcements.”

He grins. It’s like the sun coming out from behind a bank of clouds. “I’ll call the banners.”

“That’s right.” You push open the door and start to climb out.

“Thanks,” he says.”And don’t worry.”

You just smile. “Text me when you’re back, ok?”

You don’t hear tires crunch over gravel until you reach your front door. You stand there on the porch for a moment, breathing in the cool, damp air. The night feels emptier without him in it.

Back in your room, you pull off your jumper and climb back into bed. It takes a few moments for you to realize that in your rush to get outside, you forgot to put on a bra.

❥

The days pass slowly. During the week you can focus on schoolwork, but it still feels wrong not to have Lyonel around. Everything feels so quiet. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the library or at a table of friends at lunch. It’s like someone dimmed the colors and sounds of life. Something’s missing.

Weekends are worse. Normally you would call Rowan, but she’s been busy with her new boyfriend and you can’t bring yourself to mope at her while she’s so happy. You also can’t bring yourself to feel resentful, because Raymun is so smitten with her. So you’re very much not feeling sorry for yourself as you slump in an armchair at home late one afternoon, watching the swaying shadows cast by the willow tree outside.

Through the window, you hear humming and the slight jingle of keys. Your mum opens the front door a few moments later, hefting a grocery bag in one arm. You see she has her wrist brace on and start to get up to help, but she waves you off.

“I’ve got it,” she says by way of greeting, but her tone is warm. She crosses to the kitchen, humming an old folk song you’ve forgotten the name of. “And how she smiled and how she laughed, the maiden of the tree…”

When she returns a few minutes later to find you still in the chair staring into space, she puts her hands on her hips.

“Need something to do?”

You yawn. “Sure. Unless it’s organizing the office.”

She’s on the verge of replying when the phone rings. “Just leave it,” you say with a groan. “It’s probably no one anyway.”

But your mother has never been able to let the phone go to message. “It could be an emergency,” she says as she walks down the hall. Something stirs in your mind, sand shifting after the tide has receded. You walk down the hall toward the office slowly as a memory takes shape.

The phone clicks back into place when she sets it down with a sigh.“Telemarketer. I know, I know.” She shakes her head. “Your dad is always saying the same thing.”

But your thoughts are far away.

In the past, in fact.

“Mum, do you remember when I was little and asked to go to Lyonel’s house?”

Her smile fades. “What about it?”

“What really happened?”

She lets out a little sigh and sits down at the desk. Her daily planner is near to hand and she reaches for it, flipping through the pages. You wonder if she intends not to answer and don’t give her the chance.

“Because I know it wasn’t just you who said no.”

She doesn’t blink an eye. “Of course not.”

“Were you ever going to tell me that?”

This is not the usual kind of conversation you have with your mother. In fact, you can’t remember ever speaking to her this directly. You don’t know why you suddenly feel now is the time to do so. Maybe it’s that you’ve had Lyonel’s family on your mind since he left. You have no desire to meet them, no interest in having their good opinion; but you do want to know exactly where you stand with them.

Your mother gives you a long look. “Do you really want to know?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well,” she says, turning in her chair to face you more fully, “it might not reflect well on him.”

You frown. “We were just little kids. What could he have done?”

“I mean,” she says and you can tell she is choosing her words carefully, “people are still part of their families no matter how different they may be from them. You know the saying, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree...”

But that’s not true. You know that’s not true. Why does it feel like you’re the only person in Westeros who knows that’s not true? Lyonel would never be like that. He isn’t. You push the flare of anger away, knowing an argument won’t get you the information you want. “But what happened?”

“Well, I don’t recall the entire conversation, sweetling, but I remember the essence.” She grimaces. “Someone, not his mother by the way, called on behalf of the Baratheon household. She wanted to, in her words, apologize for a misunderstanding. An invitation had been extended to my daughter by mistake.” Even now, so many years later, the disgust is clear in your mother’s voice. “When I told her I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, she said she hoped I understood the family are very private, and preferred to keep to themselves. You can guess what that meant.”

You had never deluded yourself with thoughts that the Baratheons might like you, but still you feel the sting of rejection. And to be shut out as a child, too. You look down at your hands. If you close your eyes, you can still see the look on Lyonel’s face when he said “I just wish…”

“Don’t take it personally, love.” Your mum returns to her planner, picking up a pen to cross out a few appointments. “That sort treats anyone outside of their world like that. You could be anyone, it wouldn’t matter so long as you’re not one of them.”

Does that make it better? You don’t’ know. And something else is still nagging at you. “Did they mention him?” You’re turning something over in your mind. Your mother already knew his name when she came back down the hall all those years ago. Is there a boy named Lyonel in your class?

“No, no names.”

“Then how did you know who he was?”

Your mother pauses, lifting her head to give you a level look. “Knowing about them is just part of living here.”

Not to you. Knowing Lyonel just means knowing your best friend. You couldn’t care less about the rest of them, except Alyssa. Sometimes it feels like you live in a different reality than everyone else. You feel tears gathering in your eyes and turn toward one of the bookshelves crammed along the walls.

“Just be careful, love.” Your mother’s voice is sad, as if she’d rather not tell you these things. “It’s a different world out there beyond the rainwood.”

For a few moments, you’re both silent. You turn to one of the bookshelves crammed against the wall, pretending to read the titles. You feel sick inside, angry, and don’t want to lash out at your mum when you know it’s not her you’re really angry with.

“How did you know it wasn’t us who said no?” your mum asks suddenly, as if she’s just fully processed your words.

You pick a book at random from the shelf and head toward the door, not looking at her.

“Lyonel told me.”

❥

He’s back sooner than you thought he would be, which should make you happy. The strange thing is you find out not from him, but from Alyssa.

You’ve been sending each other silly owl pictures over the past month for reasons you can’t quite remember. Under the latest one (a baby owl flopped face down on the ground with its fluffy legs sticking out) she tells you to show it to Lyonel when you see him.

Alyssa Baratheon 🦌

>he looked just like this as a baby. Wait, I’ll send you a picture if I can find it…

OMG that’s too much<

Do you know when he’ll be back?<

Sorry, I know it’s a tough time…<

There’s pause and then a series of messages come through rapidfire.

>what? he left storm’s end a few days ago

>omfg i’m going to kill him

>he’s such a troglodyte sometimes. boys…

You stare at your phone. He’s already back? You check your messages with him, the last one your response to a picture of Shipbreaker Bay. Still no good at taking pictures, you said, because it’s somehow out of focus and with a blur in the corner that must be his fingertip. How is it possible to do this on a smartphone? You had laughed to yourself about it.

That was almost a week ago. You had figured things were just tough with family, and hadn’t wanted to bother him.

Oh don’t worry it’s nbd. Just wondering 🙂<

Later that night, sitting at your desk trying to read, you reason with yourself that he probably just needs some time to decompress. If it’s so awful there Alyssa wouldn’t even go, it has to be the kind of place that drains your spirit. Even someone like Lyonel must have a limit, right?

The house is quiet except for the steady drum of rain against the roof and the muffled sound of your parents’ snoring. You realize, as you listen, that you’ve never been in the house at night without them. The few times they both had to take emergency overnight shifts, you had stayed with Rowan and her family. At the time it had been annoying (Rowan shared a room with one of her sisters, and if they weren’t fighting then the other two were), but now you’re glad for it. The house would have seemed so vast, so empty without them. Especially at night.

Because you’re imagining Lyonel by himself in that big house. All those long corridors darkened now, the rooms vacant. And the memory of his grandfather probably hanging over the house too, with the knowledge he wasn’t just gone but dead.

You should just call him. It’s that simple.

But you know, with a certainty that you can’t explain, that he won’t pick up.

The clock on your desk reads 11PM. The sound of the rain gets louder as the storm shifts.

With a sense of utter calm, you get up and grab your keys.