you cannot kill a flower, for it will grow back stronger than before...
caecilia tyrell shed her petals a long time ago and replaced them with thorns. no longer the daisy of highgarden, she brandishes a bow and arrow and devotes herself to the seven...
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EVEN AS winter settles around the rest of Westeros, Highgarden retains the warmth that allows the people of the Reach to pretend that they are happy.
It has always been a castle of pretence, of lies built into the strong scent of flowers. The charade is a bee buzzing in the ears of the residents, and they simply allow it to come closer instead of swatting it away, allowing it to sting them until they become immune to the poison settling in their veins.
Horn Hill may have been lonely, but Caecilia had never noticed the lies that settled into the grass growing beneath her feet at Highgarden.
They act as if there is no war raging around them. She walks the lengths of the gardens and watches the women left behind laze beneath the winter sun that retains its heat despite the rest of Westeros starting to feel the cold. They allow their dresses to sit around their thighs and laugh as they drink wine. It is almost like their husbands, their sons, their brothers are not currently dying somewhere too far to reach. Caecilia sits by the Mander, staring at the cattails growing beside the running water, and thinks of her husband whom she has not heard from in weeks. He could be dead.
She could be a widow and she may not even know.
And the rest of the women are flouncing around as if there were no husbands to begin with. Someone has started to sing and her friend has started to strum the guitar that was strapped to her back. The other ladies they are with are dancing, light-coloured skirts spinning around their legs. They are laughing and dancing and singing. Trevyr could be dead. She dips her feet beneath the still waters and allows the chill of the water to shock the bones beneath her skin.
Trevyr could be dead.
And she has not heard from Jaime since the tourney.
Oh, Jaime. Her sweet Jaime. Her dear Jaime. He must be fighting with Prince Rhagaer, his beautiful blonde hair stained with the blood of the soldiers he cuts through. Maybe he is fighting beside Trevyr. Maybe they have become friends solely for the battlefield. Maybe, he is also dead and she has lost him forever.
She lets the cold rush right up her spine.
If Trevyr is dead and Jaime is dead, she would rather stay a widow her entire life than marry anyone else. There is nobody else worth it. Nobody else who can know her as fully as they have. She has been loved so entirely by both of them, that there is no more space in her heart for another man.
She would rather her womb remain barren than hold another man's child.
"Excuse me?"
The voice is far away, but carries on the gentle breeze. She is sure she recognises it. Her entire foot slips beneath the water and she wishes she would get swept beneath the current. It is better not to live in this world than without Trevyr and Jaime.
