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[holyposition]

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t.laughlin

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[holyposition]

I have the time, it's not that.

Maybe it'll do me some good, too.

[unapparent]

It is too easy, I think, to lose sight of things when you stay in one place.

I look fondly upon the tour of the realm my husband and I took in the early days of our marriage, for the perspective it gave me.

[holyposition]

You're right. It's been hard for me, stuck in one place with no clear direction. I'm feeling restless.

The grounds here can't compare to an entire realm, I'm pretty sure. But we'll make the best of it.

[unapparent]

As long as they aren not as cold as the North, I shall enjoy them.

[ a moment to think on his other words. ]

I share that feeling. You had a higher purpose, in your America. And I do not think either of us is meant to live a life of indulgence alone.

[holyposition]

In truth, I was just as lost back home. I'd enlisted, but it was more so that I could run away than it was out of anything noble.

[unapparent]

[ so was i, she doesn’t say. if she looks back — ]

Do you know what you were running from?

[holyposition]

[ A long pause between messages, because, while she probably knows, or at least suspects, that there’s more to his relationship with Hawk than being colleagues, she’s been polite enough not to call it out or make her judgement known. To answer her question feels like an admission, and Alicent, despite coming from another world entirely, reminds him of home in ways that are mostly comforting. But back there, he’s never admitted it to anyone but his priest and people that he’s positive share the same proclivities. ]

Yes.

It was more of a ‘who’ than a ‘what’.’

[...a half-admission, then. ]

[unapparent]

I see.

[ as much as she can, without the all pieces. tim had seemed so happy, when she stayed with him in the lockdown. contented and adored by a man who named him acquaintance.

not so, now. ]

Are you running still, in this place?

[holyposition]

[ He was happy. Moreso than he's ever been. Life comes at you fast. ]

There's nowhere to run.

[unapparent]

Not even towards what you want?

[ she hates that she thinks of rhaenyra now, cleaning her bloodied fingernails and lacing her wedding dress with shaky hands. ]

[holyposition]

The thing I want and the thing I need to run from are the same.

have you ever felt like that?

[unapparent]

Yes.

My whole life. It’s as if you plucked the words from my heart.

[holyposition]

Is it
the same?

[ Another person. ]

How do you do it?

[unapparent]

[ it takes her an age to reply. is it rhaenyra? is it her girlhood, swallowed by the dragon’s maw? ]

Yes.
At least in part.

[ a beat, then. ]

I don’t, I’m afraid.

[holyposition]

You must, somehow. You survive. I’ve been finding ways to distract myself, but that can only hold for so long.

This thing that you want, and that you feel like you have to run from. Is it bad for you?

[unapparent]

You are young, Tim, and stronger than you know. You will find your way.

[ but — ]

I am a woman grown and widowed. What I want would damn my children.

[holyposition]

What I want has damned me already, and I can't even have it.

[unapparent]

Perhaps not now, but you may yet see a path.

You are yourself, and that is no small victory.

[holyposition]

There's no path. Some things are always going to hurt you, no matter how badly you want them not to.

I hope that it isn't the same for you.

[unapparent]

Pain always feels endless, when you’re in the eye of it.

[ for some, it is. ]

I do not believe you deserving of such hurt, if that is any comfort.

[holyposition]

Maybe not. But sometimes I think I seek it out on purpose.

What you want, does it want you back?

[unapparent]

I can understand that.

[ the pursuit of pain. the relief and familiarity of it. ]

Any love she once felt for me has withered.

[ she. a slip-up. a confession. ]

[holyposition]

[ Tim waits before he replies. Letting it sink in. He doesn't know if it's a slip or a confession, but either way it's...complicated. He's glad to know her, to have someone in his life who understands having these feelings despite their faith, living in a place different from this one, that makes acting on them difficult to impossible. To have that solidarity soothes him.

To know that she might have this same black hole in her, this endless pull of longing and foolish hopes that swallows the rest of her, takes that comfort right back. ]

Are you sure?

For me, it's not that the love is gone. He needs to hide it. But I can't.

[ He doesn't need to specify he, probably, but he chooses to. A trade of secrets, a comparison of bruises. ]

Is she here?

[unapparent]

[ he, her assumptions made explicit. her agony, echoed and doubled in his heart. she thinks of embry and his ash, then, wondering if the manor drinks of their pain like wine.

is it harder, to see the love and be unable to grasp it — or to think it gone from this world forever? ]

I wish I could give you greater solace, at this impasse.

[ she understands the shame, the fear that plagues tim and hawk both. for it was her most gallant knight who crushed the knight of kisses’ skull. her own viperous tongue, which mocked ser laenor for his failure to give the princess children. there is no room in westeros for her treacherous heart. and nowhere else to go, when her role is there. when her sweet daughter — ]

Here or there, it matters not. When her mother died, her father took me to wife, and now my sons lay claim to the throne that might have been hers. Tell me thus: Would you love your enemy?

[holyposition]

[ That's...medieval court drama, he'd suppose. Tim isn't so naive that he thought a woman of her age and position, with adult sons had married for love, but the real love being his daughter? That's brutal. A scandal regardless of whether all involved are the appropriate sex. It makes him feel guilty for his own complaining, the stakes of which are no higher than his own heart. ]

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"
From the book of Matthew.

I don't think that the love we're talking about is as active a choice. We can only choose if we act on it.

If she were here, would you? Away from home, and the politics, and the scandal it would be?