Celestial Hymn 60 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn

Chapter 60

-VB-

Myrcella Baratheon

This was it.

She watched as her betrothed’s most loyal servants and acolytes carried their belongings up the ramp and into the skyship. She wasn’t the only one watching, merely one of hundreds watching. Unlike most, she stood not too far from the bottom of the ramp where Alan himself was instructing and guiding people to where they would need to go inside the skyship. 

This was it.

She no longer had an excuse to not answer him. This was as far as she could go. She had to choose between him and her brother, and the thought still tore at her heart.

“Myr.”

She blinked and turned around. 

Standing some distance behind her was Tommen with his King’s Guards. 

“Tommen,” she said as she walked up to him, lifting up her skirt so that they would not drag along the grass of the hill that Alan chose to have his people gather. 

Her twin brother looked at her for a moment, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

In the years since the war, he had grown more and more to look like their mother and Uncle Jaime, but there was a hint of iron inside him that told her that their father was inside him, too. A stubbornness that no one could bend. 

And yet, she couldn’t see that stubbornness in his eyes right now. 

No, she saw a resignation. 

“Myr, I think you should go with him,” he told her.

Her eyes widened at his words. “Tom-.”

“You won’t be happy here, I think.”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t know whether it was true or not, but also didn’t have the heart to deny it. 

Alan had been the man in her life that no one else had been. The one to woo her with gifts, to tell her the cold truths that others tried to hide, to teach her if she wanted, and to carry her to safety when no one else could. 

Betrothed, yes, but the only man in her life she loved.

It hurt to admit that because it also meant that her life - as well as Tommen’s - had been shit. 

Tommen smiled. It was sad. Not broken but still sad.

“I have … duties,” he whispered to her. He reached down and grabbed her hands in his, running his thumbs across her knuckles gently. “And personally, there’s no way I could live with Alan. He can be suffocating sometimes, you know?”

Myr bit her lips. That wasn’t true, and they both knew it. 

“But you know what life is like. We can’t have everything that we want,” he sighed. “So go with him. He’ll make you happier than all of Westeros ever could. Happier than your family ever could.”

He let go of her hands and hugged her. “Just don’t forget about me, okay?”

She hugged him back as she felt tears in her eyes. “I won’t,” she croaked. 

After what felt like too short of a time, he pulled back from her and gave her a teary smile. He quickly wiped those before turning to Alan, who had been waiting silently. She turned too and realized that everyone who wanted to go with Alan had already entered the skyship.

It was just her. 

Alan, like always, waited patiently. 

She turned to look at Tommen. She could see their grandfather standing in the distance but he looked nonplussed about it all. Myrcella knew that she was never someone worth considering in her grandfather’s eyes. Yes, she was a Lannister through blood, but she was, at the end of the day, not someone he will have control over.

But if she stayed, that would be all she would be: a puppet for someone else. 

She took in a deep breath in and let it out slowly. She turned back to Tommen and smiled. She column’t help the tears that built up and then spilled over. 

“I love you, Tom.”

“I love you, too, Myr,” he croaked.

They hugged one last time before they let each other go, and she turned around. 

Alan waited patiently.

He always did. 

She did love him, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a little resentful. She wouldn’t need to leave Tommen behind if he wasn’t so stubborn about leaving, after all.

Myrcella walked up to him and raised a hand up for her.

“I choose to go with you.”

He smiled. It was grateful. A little sad on her behalf but relieved. 

“I’m happy to have you, Myrcella,” he said quietly as he took her hand and guided her up the ramp.

She huffed as she followed him. “Happy enough to stay?”

This time, he snorted. “And deal with all of the shenanigans this world will inevitably throw at me? No.”

Their shoes tapped against the solid metal of the ramp, and finally, they stood at the top where they turned around to look at the rest of the people who had come to say their goodbyes. A large chunk of them were the believers of the Seven.

“You know, there is a saying about starting a new life elsewhere.”

“Yes?”

“It’ll be a clean slate. You don’t have to be a princess anymore if you don’t want.”

As the ramp rose up to close…

Myrcella did think that not having to be a princess was a boon she hadn’t ever considered. It was simply who she was.

“Then would I not be your queen?” she asked coyly.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. You will always be my queen, regardless of where we are and where we go.”

She sniffled a little as she looked at Tommen.

She waved.

He waved.

And then the ramp closed. 

Myrcella stood there where she last saw her brother. Her lips quivered in the brightly lit hold of the skyship … but then she swallowed her desire to cry and turned to … her husband.

“... Where to?” she asked after a while. 

“I think we should hold our wedding somewhere where the water shines bright blue and the weather is perfect for beach parties,” Alan smiled as he led her deeper into the skyship as she felt it take off smoothly from the ground. 

“What is a beach party?”

The End.

-VB-

A/N: 

WOOT! It ain’t the first story I’ve ever finished but it is one that I’ve finished with all of my patreons and readers in QuestionableQuesting! 

Thank you to my top 25 patreons!

Randall Randall, Nisiris, Actress, PbookR, DemoN, FallenMetalGod, Nick, Marquinn Benjamin, Max Horrichs, Rashomon, Ricanto elito, InsanexSilence, Southmonk, Dinero1121, Richard Whereat, Douglas Karr, Ramon Diaz, bel lastor, Cromaxx, Thordur hrafn, Fungame2, john stockley, erry I draper, Lann, Legion_13

And thank you to the rest of my patreons as well.