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[CASTLE BLACK; STANNIS'S ROOM]
[STANNIS sits at his desk, reading something. There's a knock at the door. After a moment, SHIREEN enters. STANNIS looks up at her and then back down at his reading material. She closes the door and smiles, but after STANNIS doesn't return her smile, she walks over to a nearby dresser and begins playing with the objects on top of it.]
"It wouldn't hurt you to smile back for your daughter," Ned said kindly. The man was serious, dry-humoured and unsmiling, something Ned somewhat respected. But he could still smile for his daughter, who was somewhat like her father, but knew how to smile.
"It's alright, Lord Stark" Shireen said with a true smile.
Ned smiled back, his smile growing a little when Stannis gently patted her on the head.
"Are you lonely?"
"Just bored."
[SHIREEN Turns around, holding something.]
"My father used to tell me that boredom indicates a lack of inner resources."
Robert chuckled. He remembered those words well.
Renly frowned sadly. He had been young when his father had died, only a year old. He had no such memories.
"I know Castle Black is no place for a child, but I-"
"I like it. I thought I'd be left at home. I know mother didn't want to bring me."
"It's a place I read about in books, old and a place I have not explored yet" Shireen smiled and shrugged, "I wouldn't hate it."
"But you're bored," Bran said, turning and kneeling on his chair to look at the girl. "How can you be bored if there's so much to explore?"
Shireen thought for a moment.
"I probably am not allowed to explore" she answered finally. "Probably have guards who'd report back to father if I wandered off."
"That's lame Bran frowned. The boy had his own fascination with exploring."
Shireen shrugged.
[The girl picks up an X from the table]
"Why do you say that?"
"She told me, I don't want to bring you."
Shireen's mood dropped and the girl shrunk into herself a little.
[SHIREEN fiddles with the objects in her hands. Stannis looks down. She puts down the objects she was playing with and turns to leave. Before opening the door, she turns back to STANNIS.]
"Are you ashamed of me, father?"
[STANNIS looks up surprised. He puts down what he is doing. SHIREEN looks down.]
Stannis looked equally surprised.
"I can never be ashamed of you," he said sternly, but even in his sternness there was a gentleness, a kind of fondness that he would use for no one.
No one but his daughter.
"You are Princess Shireen of House Baratheon, my daughter, nothing can ever make me feel ashamed of you."
Shireen leans into her father and hugs him tightly.
Hesitant at first, Stannis hugs her back.
"I guess he isn't rotten to his core" Renly muttered to himself, watching his brother and niece hug. He looked away back to the vision.
[STANNIS stands and walks around his desk]
"When you were an infant, a Dornish trailer landed on Dragonstone. His goods were junk except for one wooden doll. He'd even sewn a dress on it in the colours of our House. No doubt he'd heard of your birth, and assumed new fathers were easy targets. I still remember how you smiled when I put that doll in your cradle and you pressed it to your cheek. By the time we burnt the doll, it was too late."
[STANNIS walks to the table and adjusts the objects on it]
"I was told you would die. Or worse, the grayscale would go slow. Let you grow just enough to know the world before taking it away from you. Everyone advised me to send you to the ruins of Valyria to live out your short life with the Stone Men before the sickness spread to the castle. I told them all to go to hell."
Robert smirked. He remembered that incident and remembered Pycelle bringing the matter to him. He'd laughed that day, proud of his brother's steel and spine. He'd laugh now as well, but he knew this was not the moment.
"I called in every maester on this side of the world. Every healer, every apothecary. They stopped the disease and saved your life. Because you did not belong across the world with the bloody Stone men. You are the Princess Shireen of House Baratheon. And you are my daughter."
Shireen, still in his father's arms, began to shake. Just as the first sob fell, Stannis scooped his daughter up in his arms and excused himself. He walked out the door without another word.
[WINTERFELL; CATACOMBS]
[SANSA lights a candle on a tomb. She then walks over to LYANNA'S tomb and places a candle in the hand of LYANNA'S statue. She then leans down to pick a dusty feather off of the ground. As she blows off the dust, BAELISH is seen approaching in the background.]
"Father never talked about her. Sometimes I'd find him down here, lighting the candles. They say she was beautiful."
"I wouldn't say I'm beautiful "the girl muttered softly
"But you are," Jon said bluntly, looking at his mother with a smile.
"He's right. You are beautiful" Daenerys nodded.
Lyanna smiled at them both, a blush on her face.
"I saw her once. I was a boy, living with your mother's family. Lord Whent had a great tourney at Harrenhal. Everyone was there. The Mad King, your father, Robert Baratheon. And Lyanna, she was already promised to Robert. You can imagine what it was like for me, a boy from nowhere, with nothing to his name, watching these legendary men, tilting at the lists. The last two riders were Barristan Selmy and Rhaegar Targaryen. When Rhaegar won, everyone cheered for the prince. I remember the girls laughing when he took off his helmet and they saw that silver hair. How handsome he was. Until he rode right past his wife, Elia Martell, and all the smiles died."
Elia grew stone-faced while Rhaegar shifted in discomfort. He had not told her then, his intentions and everything. Which was why she had left the next day, humiliated and angry.
The conversation about that happened once Rhaegar had returned to the Capital. There was... screaming. She had slapped him multiple times. But Rhaegar was nothing if not stubborn, and Elia had just given up trying to make him see reason. He could have his second wife or concubine or paramour or whatever the poor girl would have been called (and that was what she would have been called regardless of their being a marriage or not), but only her children would follow Rhaegar to the throne, her Aegon and Aegon's children after him.
Rhaegar hardly cared about it, so he swore to it.
But that mattered little now. Her Aegon and Rhaenys were killed now even though they would be alive there is no way Aegon could become king before Jon.
"I've never seen so many people so quiet. He rode past his wife, and he lay a crown of winter roses in Lyanna's lap. Blue as frost. How many tens of thousands had to die because Rhaegar chose your aunt?"
Lyanna flinched violently. Tens of thousands... so many people who died because of her foolishness... She'd left a letter, sent to Winterfell... but it had never reached her family... But that was an excuse. She shouldn't have run away, it got her father and brother killed, and it caused a bloody war that got so many others killed...
She flinched when she felt a touch on her face.
It was her son, wiping her tears.
When had she begun crying?
Jon wiped her tears and held her hand firmly. He said nothing, but his hold on her hand was enough for Lyanna, who leaned into it for comfort.
[BAELISH takes her arm and they begin walking away]
"Dressed for riding? Where are you going?"
"King's Landing. Cersei sent for me. We must not let her sniff out any trouble."
"He can't leave me here!" Sansa cried out. Ramsey was an animal, and Roose Bolton was a monster in himself. That man couldn't just leave her there!
"He is doing just that" Arya muttered angrily.
"But he won't once we return" Bran added firmly.
"Bran's right. I'll kill the bastard myself before he can even dream of doing anything if I have" Robb swore.
Sansa nods meekly, a small smile on her lips but the fear was still palpable in her eyes. She loved her siblings for it, but she wouldn't be the same gullible girl anymore. There was a chance that all this might fail and she'd still end up in the enemy's clutches one way or the other...