𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 || Cregan Stark

27 | Fortunate Hour

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
F O R T U N A T E H O U R

-

The following days pass with no real clarity or substance to them. Her livelihood becomes a cruel, unyielding blur. The sun rises and sets, marking the passage of time, but Viserra feels none of it. She exists within her own realm of conception and moves through the halls of Harrenhal like a wraith, her shadow flickering against the ancient stone walls. Passing servants bow in silence, their faces graced with curiosity, or perhaps perseverance, but never recognition.

They know nothing about her. They may see her, but they do not have the foggiest notion of the gathering storm behind her eyes. Only she knows. Only she lives with it, sleeps with it.

Though she is desperate for this silent suffering to be wrenched out of her, she blissfully favours the fact that no one knows of its existence. A horrible excitement. The terror of violation. A strange notion where your body and mind are not your own anymore, but rather, at the mercy of something greater.

And yet some part of her wonders if someone does know. Perhaps she has been seen. Perhaps she has been watched.

Her stepfather roams the same halls as her. If the extremities have found their way to her, surely they have not spared him.

There is some hidden inclination within her to speak with him. To sort him out and make sense of the chaos that has taken root in them. But she knows better than to trust him with the turmoil that churns within her.

There has to be another way.

She needs only some more time.

And yet, her time is ceasing.

With each passing day, she feels a growing rapture within her. She knows that something is amiss, but the threads of it elude her. She spends her hours in quiet solitude, waiting, watching— torn asunder by a forceful unrest she cannot escape.

The nights are no kinder.

In sleep, her skin boils. She can barely rest with all this frenzy inside her. She twists and turns in the burning heat, disrobing until only her small clothes remain tethered to her.

Still, the chilly air never manages to cool her. Every little sin burns.

Sometimes when she lies in bed, she turns to find Luke standing there, across the room. A taunting, mirroring image.

He never speaks to her.

She does not think he can anymore.

Rather, he turns to her and shows the wound in his torso, where flesh and sinews have been torn away by Vhagar's maw. A dark patch of blood simmers down what remains of his leg and arm, to the floor. It pours and pours and pours.

Sometimes he reaches out.

Viserra always awakens before he ever manages to touch her. Not from sleep, but just some place else.

Choking on her horror, she stares into the darkness of the night until her mind blurs and she forgets she is tired.

-

The silverware rests in her limp hand, leaning against the oak table. The weight of it is foreign to her. For a moment, she stares at the gleaming metal, her fingers numb, as though her body does not recognize the simple act of holding something so mundane.

The others in the hall continue their quiet murmurs and clinking of cups, their lives proceeding with the ease of routine, but she feels adrift, caught in a matter of thought.