ON BORROWED TIME

His arrival was signaled by the closing of the door and the sound of his cane clattering onto the floor. Good. She hated the damn thing. Not a day went by that she didn't hope it would inexplicably crack and break so he would stop putting on that ridiculous act of appearing lesser than he was. But knowing him, he'd just get another cane anyway. She just couldn't win.

She just swirled her cup back and forth as he talked, a rather stony expression on her face as she continued to stare straight ahead. Oh, was that another storm on the horizon? What else was new. And there was usually more than one thing that bothered her when it came to moments like this, yet trying to tackle them all was both tiring and cruel to her husband. Instead, she narrowed down to what he suspected. "Mmm." Then: "Don't misunderstand me, Daemon. I am fond of the Starks but that is not why I want Alynne in the north. It's because she wants to be." Another sip... or rather, gulp of wine. "She is filled with fancy, yes, but I also trust the Stark boy. Or at least, the father that raised him. And I will not let our daughter fall into the hands of some brute or unfaithful monger." She was going to oppose him on every front if she thought his candidates anything less than ideal.

Then her expression mellowed a bit and she looked towards him. "I was lucky. Very lucky. But we should never rely on luck, don't you think?" When she had first laid her eyes on Daemon she had been filled with nothing but spite and dislike, and even now she could remember how she defied him on every whim, disappeared for lengths at time into the depths of the Baratheon keep, and worked to undermine him at every opportunity. She had thought the rest of her life was going to only be a downward spiral from there. Yet the man had slowly, surely won her over with an indomitable patience and astuteness of mind, to the point that Althea felt wildly foolish and childish for her initial reaction to him. Not that she would admit it, insisting he had given her a terrible impression. But really they both knew that she had erred at the start, and while some things just don't die, like her willfulness, other things could grow along side them into something bone-deep and enduring, like her love.

But she had been staring fully at him he whole time she had been thinking back on these things, and that just reminded her of something. Althea used her free hand to cup the side of his cheek and trace with her thumb the contours and grooves of his features from his nose to his eyes to his mouth, something she knew practically by heart now. It would have been very tender, if not for the fact that she made a face as she did so. "Really, I always tell you to stop with the frowning, but do you listen? At this rate you'll get all the wrinkles," she complained.

She couldn't help but smile too. For what she'd seen of life and love men were easy victims to lust and women to pride, to which suited her just fine. How could she say no to the man who so earnestly told her she beautiful? She couldn't. And what did her tenacity do for her, when it could withstand force and stress but melted down like butter at such sweet far things? She was glad, very glad, that of all the men in the realm she had been thrown into the arms of one capable of such charming courtship, albeit belated. It would make her the happiest woman in the world to see her daughter have the same.

"And who else will keep that rugged mug of yours handsome if not me? I must have the other ladies jealous, you know." Althea would place her glass down on the table as his hands found her face, her own kept on his cheek and the one now freed to snake around his neck. The kiss would taste lightly of wine and she was rather sad it ended so quickly, the liquid in her veins turning her heated and sybaritic.

She resolved instead to embrace him close instead, lips pressed to his shoulder now as she leaned her head against his neck. "It's in my nature to fret," she admitted with a sigh. "Even now, I see your hair is getting too long and shaggy. You should find some time to let me cut it." Fussing, worrying, doting - all were her methods of affection, the second side to the coin that was otherwise retaliatory in disposition. Two extremes divided by a hair's length, requiring someone deeply rooted to deal with whatever side landed. "But yes. It worked out very well." She planted a quick kiss on his jaw, then was quiet for a bit as she relaxed in their closeness.

After a time, she would confide a bit more. "...Euron troubles me as well. Just... just walking off like that! Going to King's Landing as if he were not a man but invincible. Was it something I said?" Her greatest fear: being smothering.

These words she knew and understood and, if pressed, could even have been said by herself, but it was far more valuable to hear it from him. Perhaps that was what she liked best about Daemon Baratheon. Silence was never uncomfortable, but companionable, and the words in between never felt frivolous or forced. Somehow, things always sounded better when her husband said it. More redeemable.

Even so, she was quiet and still as he talked except for those moments of affection, to which she responded with like tenderness. She found herself drawn into his arms again, and sighed. It seemed like only a short time ago that her firstborn came into the world, but now he was taller than her, stronger than her, and prone to long bouts of leave from Storm's End. Completely independent.  "We'll lose Euron first," was her gloomy response. "And then the rest will follow. Does that not bother you? It's all starting to happen now." They were reaching that age in their marriage, that age of where their children would begin to leave the nest in sequence.

And the North. The North. Althea would break away from their hold then and take a few steps to place her hands on the low, cool stone wall and peer into the tumultuous sky. Somewhere, beyond the storm clouds, beyond the Blackwater Bay, beyond the Vale of Arryn and the Bite was her old home of Karhold. Perhaps if she looked a few degrees to the left she would stare down that vast distance to Winterfell instead. So far. As much as she wanted Alynne to be happy, Althea despaired at the thought of her daughter essentially disappearing from her life. As well as the thought of the cycle perpetuating itself under the rule of the Targaryens. It was a simpler life, really, living in the North where the only thing one worried about was winter is coming. Now it was all court intrigue and games and a political struggle. Althea liked it not one bit, but even she had to change sometimes.

"...The title of Storm King. Doesn't it sound nice, darling?"

She would turn to look at him with her maroon eyes. These two kept little from each other, and with her lord husband's recent departures from Storm's End, it was time for this kind of discussion.

"But you already have plans, don't you?"

She would only narrow her eyes at her husband's response, both of them, and glared out down below at the vast plains and forests like she would burn craters into them. It was times like this that their elements manifested and clashed, the quintessential ice versus fire and logic versus emotion. Considering this, one might have said it was truly a feat for their marriage to have lasted so lovingly and for so long, but that was only because of immense amounts of effort to overcome their differences and reconcile. After their quarrels, anyway.

The sound of Daemon pouring his own glass would cause Althea to reach back for her own quickly and stubbornly, downing the rest of its contents in one go and leaving it there. Truly, there was a certain childishness to her displeasure that never quite left her with the years. She was clicking her nails against the stone by the time her husband came to stand by her again, a very obvious sign that she was drawing close to a breaking point. And lo and behold, that would happen right after he finished and they exchanged glances.

Hand of the King? That was one of the best things she could hope for him, her like for a king moniker but a fleeting fancy to the Baratheon heritage, but it was something she could not believe he had accepted.

She threw her hands up in the air. "That is what you wagered on? Suicide! You, I, and everybody else knows that nobody returns from the Doom. I thought you were realistic! How can that possibly be worth being found out for treason?"

And, while she was at it, she wasn't going to let his earlier words go either. A woman never forgets, see, not even minor slights that happened weeks and weeks ago. At least, that was the case with Althea, who ramped it up exponentially. "And... and how could you call me selfish, anyway?! You don't have to lecture me! I know it's good for the House to let the children go. I never said I wanted to keep them here. I just... I just don't like it! Can't you let me admit that much without making me sound a fool?"

She took a deep breath, her mind spinning a bit, bringing to bear the deep itch she never managed to scratch; going straight for the jugular. "And you always say you care, but I swear, Daemon, it's so hard to tell if you really do. If this is for them, or yourself."

Daemon Baratheon and sorry for pms

She would cross her arms as it was his turn. Oh, and the numbers. That meant that it was bad. Good. It would hardly be a fair contest if he kept his cool, because that would mean she she would never know what he was truly thinking. The gist of the problem: her lord husband was too controlled for her. She spoke so freely and passionately that he always knew her truths, but what about him? Althea could make no true sense of it, only trusting and hoping that he would make good behind his cool words and promises... so she would have to draw it out of him.

First, the Prince and his folly journey. Althea wanted to scream at him that he was being, ironically enough, too trusting. Her words would whip out to interject him. "And what makes you think that the Prince won't just waltz back over to King's Landing, incite something, and sit back and revel in the chaos?" How could he be so sure the Prince could keep his word and it wasn't all some awful test of allegiance? You don't trust Targaryens. They had dragons and madness in bounds and leaps, but the former was fleeting and the latter increasing as the years went by. If the purpose of his venture was so be stealthy, then wasn't it betrayal from the get-go? "And if the Prince doesn't return, then where would the finger of blame go to, if they investigate and found out his last vessel was Baratheon?"

Strike one for his first point. It incited her further. And the second... the second, not so much. She would deflate visibly at the way he ended that one, enough at least to not make her yell and instead just wait for it to pass like a bad memory. Jealousy was a strong emotion, very strong when you were confined to one place and one role for the majority of your life, especially if that was by nature second-fiddle in the eyes of everything else. Oh, the woe of the lady. This time her tone was far more despondent than angry.

"But what does it matter, if you're the only one who sees and acknowledges that?"

Add that jealousy that her children would never look at her with the same respect as they did their father would only rile her further as he spoke about duty, of all things.

Because beatings? Abuse? Perhaps herself, with enough torment, could buckle down and retreat inwards and lose her faith and drive. It would even be worthwhile if it was only her burden. But if Daemon had been the kind of man to hurt his own seed then his wife would have dragged them away a long time ago or died trying, make no mistake. In fact, the first few of her months at Storm's End was exactly that sort of planning. Scouring the castle for small passageways. Eyeing what things she could climb, and what she couldn't. Spending time with the servants to gleam information. Staring down the solemn face of the heart tree in the godswood, as if it could look back into her and give her that small taste of crisp cold air and the will of the North. Yet such things never came to pass, and she was filled with the unsettling mixture of gratitude and still, vexation.

"As if what they said at that meeting would've changed your mind! There's nothing worse than giving false hope for appearances," she spat.

The goblet shattered then, which caused her to flinch a bit at the sound and violence of impact. She stared at the shards across the floor and the Arbor Gold seeping outwards past them like the blood from a jagged wound. Her reflection split among the glass stared back at her, face cut into a hundred pieces as he questioned if he doubted that one thing, too. Her mouth opened and then closed without uttering any words. No, that at least was something she couldn't question. To do so would be to trample on over twenty years of what they had built. Instead, she said:

"Duty... duty is doing what's required of you. You shouldn't be proud of being a decent man. You should be proud of being a great one."

She wasn't even sure if she was trying to insult him or praise him anymore. And just like that she had lost her fire, blown out so suddenly like a candle in the under a tempest. And that's what it felt like, standing in complete darkness now as Daemon turned away from her and she too responded in kind, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed and staring listlessly out at the Stormlands once again. There were so many facets to this dispute that she didn't even know what she was supposed to be arguing about anymore. It just.... wasn't worth it.

Ah, and how long did they spend like that, while Daemon fought down his aggravation and Althea languished with none left to give? A few minutes, perhaps longer. She didn't want to be the first to speak. She felt like a nuisance, like he had indulged her far enough for one night - which he had. Which was above and beyond what most would. So her expression was remorseful as eventually, finally she bent down to pick up the pieces of glass with her own hands, meticulously and calmly, saying nothing as it cut at her fingers like a fitting penance.

'Ours is the fury,' she thought sadly.

She merely kept collecting the fragments of the goblet, insisting on being silent throughout. She still did not trust the Targaryens, her resistance a harking from her first home. To be honest, she liked few of the great houses and trusted even fewer, yet fortunately enough had been married into the one perhaps closest in culture to her own, though that was still not saying much. At least the Baratheons were hardy, forcibly invested in the nonsense of court but not forgetting that there was a struggle even in the simplicity of surviving. That all four of their children had learned to take care of themselves, whether they had Daemon's cunning or Althea's intensity. 'It's a good balance,' she thought. 'A good thing that we have going here.' A good thing that she shouldn't break. And so on and so on she guilted herself.

As for his promise? Well, it's not that she didn't think he would make good on it. No, that was never the problem; he would always try to take that extra measure to gratify her, but wanting and needing to do things was different. As a lord he would have those moments where he would have to break his promises to her, because she was unreasonable or because it would be the best compromise he could make. She could never fault him for trying, nor indeed, for doing what was best even if she disagreed.

But she mentioned none of those things, and didn't meet his eyes though she could feel it scrutinize her face. "Don't clean up. It's beneath you," she said coolly as she stood up with a hand full of glass and walked over into their chambers to open some of the lower drawers on an armoire. She found some thick rags and used half to cover the shards. She would walk back to Daemon and hold it out for him to deposit his share - then she'd use the other half to start wiping away the spilled wine.

There was a heavy sigh. "Forgive me." Then: "So, you are amiable to the Stark marriage? By your leave, I'll head north."