A Gentle Breeze | Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

Chapter Ten

||You Win, or You Die||

It was later that day after Zephyr had made the agreement with Cersei to keep quiet as long as no one she cares about gets harmed, that Ser Barristan had yelled her name as he ran down the hallway, effectively startling her and her lady, Aenge.

"Ser? What is the meaning of this?" Zephyr questioned the man, who was panting and covered in blood. "It's your father, the king- we were hunting-" Ser Barristan spoke quickly in a startled panic. "Hush now, it's alright. Where is my father?"  Zephyr asked as she tried to keep her voice calm and steady, despite the growing anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Without wasting any more time, Ser Barristan led the princess to the King's chambers, where he lay looking as pale as a ghost, and never would she have dared to think but, he looked weak.

She noticed that her mother, Joffrey and the King's squire were already in the room, Joffrey sitting at his father's side.

"Father?" Her voice cracked painfully as tears welled up in her eyes. She carefully sat down next to her father on the opposite side where Joffrey was sitting at and she held his hand, afraid she might have to let go soon and never be able to hold his hand again.

"It's alright, just a scratch my beautiful princess." Robert said in a weak and exhausted tone, "Shed your tears when they need to be shed. Don't waste them on a man like myself."

This made Zephyr chuckle. He'd always be against the thought of Zephyr marrying or being in a relationship at all with any man even to his final moments. "I'm so sorry about the meeting, I-"

But the princess was cut off. "Don't apologize. You and Ned were the only ones to tell me no. Every single one of those council members are useless, not speaking up." Her father told her.

"I knew you'd get hurt during one of your hunts..." She stated as a tear rolled down her cheek. She was angry, sad and confused. But she was mostly in denial. In her eyes ever since she was a child, Robert Baratheon, The King was immortal. He lived to tell many battle and war stories, but dying while out on a hunt? It almost seemed like a sick joke that the Gods were playing on her, and she did not find it funny.

As soon as Ned Stark entered the room himself, looking like he was shot with an arrow. He himself did not believe that his friend of so many years would die like this.

But alas, death had a funny way of getting souls, and her father had a funny way of showing he cared. He demanded that everyone leave the room except for Lord Stark and that he had to discuss something with him.

So, for the last time Zephyr glanced at her father and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. "Watch over me, okay?" She said as more tears ran down her face, "And bless me with bravery and courage when I have to go out and battle one day."

"I promise, my princess." Her father swore for the last time as he wiped her tears away, and watched his daughter leave the room, shutting the door close behind her.

As soon as she stepped out of that room, it felt like all hope and joy left her. She felt empty. Personally, she couldn't even feel the emotions she was feeling at this moment, and she wanted this feeling to go away.

"Zeph, my dove-" Cersei began as she watched her daughter get closer and closer to the edge of a breakdown. "I'd like to be alone right now, mother." 

"Dove, you can talk about it.." Cersei nearly begged as she saw a tear fall from her cheek. "Talk about it? To you? You're the one that despised me and favored Joffrey above all else. You hated me and I don't even know what I did to make you hate me so much!" 

And then she broke into pieces.

Zephyr Baratheon couldn't handle the loss of her father on top of her uncle being abducted by Catelyn Stark, her own mother and uncle being lovers and pushing off a ten-year-old boy, hoping the long fall would kill him.