This chapter references non-con themes (attempted SA). Just a reminder to please be mindful of the trigger warnings in the summary.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
PROLOGUE —— PRELUDE TO DANCING WITH STORMS
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
104 AC, STORM'S END.
There is a garden of flowers at the edge of Storm's End said to have been cultivated by Rogar Baratheon's second wife, Morrigan's great-grandmother Alyssa Velaryon. It is only available to the ruling family of Storm's End and their entourage and, while it's not a secret that there exists a garden in Storm's End, it's not something that has been widely talked about, either. As a young girl, Morrigan had never been permitted to enter alone, always either in company of her mother or handmaidens or guards.
Aside from the shore of Shipbreaker Bay, this is Morrigan's most favorite place in her home.
There are so many beautiful plants here— some, she thinks, must defy the will of the Gods and nature to thrive here, in this climate of storms and harsh edges, and Morrigan watches them whenever she gets the chance. She can name them all in her sleep now, had been able to since the days of her young girlhood.
All over, especially now in the midst of summer, there's Holly and Clover and Wild Marjoram and Ivy and Camomile— and between them Foxglove and Nightshade and Wolfsbane and Oleander and Hemlock…
Only when she got older did Morrigan understand why her parents and grandfather had forbidden her to enter her great-grandmother's gardens so vehemently. Only when she had been fourteen, and had been taught extensively about plants and poisons and the risks of each of the things thriving in the heart of her home, had she been deemed responsible enough to be permitted to enter alone. She'd been tested time and time again before her mother and father had declared she knew the differences enough and allowed it.
