Qeya River black swift

for @Gjalla <3 dated for tmrw at time of writing this, will edit later

morwenna, blackfell, and now kaedra. what a joke.

veksar was a man with a limited scope of emotion. even the few things that managed to break down his interior walls were only exposed for so long. things like anger, guilt. annoyance. despair. very rarely was it ever joy.

least of all now.

he'd left blackmarch for one primary reason, and now, nearly seven months in, he was back right where he was originally. back to squabbling with his siblings, back to the sisyphean fight to be above, be better, be tougher, be smarter. as he walked along the banks of the roaring qeya, thoughts racing and circling the way they always did when he felt pressure, he decided — if he couldn't outrun them, he'd have to beat them at their own game.

and if that was how he was going to do it, he had connections to make.

begrudgingly, the man searched for gjalla.

she feels the smells him before she sees it, lingering at the mouth of her den, cutting into the quiet like a dull blade. a flicker of recognition stirs in the haze of half-sleep—blackfell, she thinks, but no. the scent is wrong, just enough to splinter the assumption before it settles.

any warmth that bloomed at the thought was swiftly squashed undertow. her eyes slit open, utterly unwelcoming, the pale gleam of them catching in the dim. she does not lift her head, nor does she offer greeting. her brows knit in half-irritation, half tiredness.

veksar.

a poor substitute.

she had heard whispers of his arrival, though the details were scarce, and blackfell had not troubled himself to elaborate. that alone told her enough.

but now, here he stood, uninvited and unannounced.

she does not offer him the courtesy of readiness. instead, she watches him from where she lies, half-curled, her expression betraying nothing but the weight of her disinterest. "speak."

he should've expected her to be a bit of a bitch, but he hadn't anticipated it at all. immediately veksar was equally unimpressed, and he made no effort to hide it. his brows furrowed.

you're gjalla, yeah? it came out more like a yap than a question, edged by a serrated blade of annoyance. my brother's new warm body. i wanted to see what all the hype was about.

veksar invited himself further into her space, but only by an inch — he sat down adjacent to her, tail neatly curled over his feet. tell me, what'd you do to get him to like you? you're kind of rude.

the shift is immediate. one moment, she is still, coiled in that sharp-edged patience; the next, she moves like a blade unsheathed. 

gjalla rises to her feet in a single fluid motion, obsidian form cutting against the dim as she steps forward, closer, too close. where he had taken an inch, she takes a mile, seizing the space between them with a force that is neither hesitant nor subtle.

her head lifts, her tail arcs high, and the ice in her gaze turns jagged. a warning. a promise. 

he was far to brazen for a man with no standing, fresh off their borders like some desperate stray. his tongue would get him into trouble swiftly if he did not mind it.

“warm body?” the words slip from her lips like a wolf’s breath in the cold, vaporous, fleeting, gone before they can be held.

she does not give him the satisfaction of repeating herself. instead, she steps closer still, towering, the lines of her frame pulled taut with something that is not rage, not yet, but is certainly close. close enough that it could tip with the wrong word, the wrong movement. 

a lesser creature might have shrunk beneath her gaze. veksar does not, but that does not concern her. his boldness is misplaced. his presence in her den, in front of her, is unearned. he should know she has torn heads from shoulders for less. 

whatever he thought this was, whatever game he thought he was playing—he would not like the way it ended.

he fucked up.

he knew immediately that he'd fucked up. he practically saw the crimson as it flashed in her eyes, a seething rage not unlike that of a bull. the regret came swiftly and fiercely.

veksar did not apologize. he, instead, slipped his tongue out from between his lips and peeled his gaze away from her, anywhere but looking directly at her. his ears, too, fell into a splay, resting at the sides of his head.

i'm only concerned for my sibling, he said as calmly as he could muster. you don't have to do this.

for a moment there, he saw the blueflame burn of his mother's dead stare in her eyes.

gjalla watches as the fight bleeds from him, draining like a wound torn open. she watches, glowering, as his gaze skews away, ears wilted, pink tongue swiping between his teeth. an apology in all but words.

she had been moments from making him—forcing him—but he spares himself the indignity. he was a flagrant little shit, but at least he had some manners. very few. good—she wasn’t interested in disciplining a grown man, despite her willingness to.

The tension in her spine unwinds, sharpness melting. she is no less formidable, but no longer poised to strike. satisfied, she puffs, then flicks her tail once, dismissive.

"then concern yourself from a distance," she instructs, "not my den. you smell."

with a purposeful step forward, she pushes past him. her shoulder brushing his as she ushers him from the confines of her den as if to make her point clearer.

once he is where he belongs—outside—she stops. ”now what do you want?”

veksar allowed himself to be removed. maybe he owed her that much for essentially calling her a whore.

he maintained his stony exterior and met her with his own glower. i wanted to meet you.

he paused. there was more to it than that, wasn't there? he took a second to really look at her, take in more of her, and all he saw was anger. anger if it could be wound together with twine and cancerous cells to make a living being. he felt similarly about morwenna's husband. what did they see in saatsine?

veksar's tongue yet again ran over his lips. a nervous tick, in this case. morwenna told me you used to be a princess.

gjalla stills. stiffens. bristles. it is not that she had to shove him from her den, not him calling her blackfell's bitch, not even his glower that strikes a nerve—but that.

used to be.

her stare sharpens, cold and cutting. used to be? used to? no. no, that was wrong. that was a lie. she does not know where morwenna—star eater—got the idea. gjalla had not made a big deal of her spirit sister's change—the renaming, the husband, the pack—it wasn't her business what she wanted for herself, but it did not mean she would do the same upon joining her.

she had not changed—it was her greatest strength as well as her folly. she had not shed her title like old fur, had not relinquished it like something worn and useless. she was still a princess, an heir—still the blood of kings and conquerors.

and yet, that was what they saw? the remnants of a crown slipping through her fingers like smoke, the faded edges of something once whole. her tail flicks, the only outward sign of her irritation. 

she does not explode, does not let the fire in her blood erupt into something reckless. instead, she steps closer, slow and deliberate, pressing the space between them into something suffocating. her chin tilts just so, not high enough to be arrogant, but high enough to remind him exactly who she is. 

"she says this because it is not saatsine's way. titles, kingdoms. they do not know what it means," the words are crisp, unwavering, carved from the marrow of her very being. " —but it does not change fact. i am a princess. leaving does not nullify it."

veksar was intrigued.

i believe you, was the first thing that came out of his mouth. he looked her dead in the eyes, held her attention firmly. he owed her that kindness, at the very least. of course it was the fault of the fucking husband.

he turned his gaze away for a moment, casting it down to the floor as he contemplated. morwenna... why had she embraced this man's way of life so fully? he hadn't liked the way that man looked at her — as if she were a slab of meat and he a starved lion. blackfell and gjalla's mere presence here made it all the more confusing to him. then again... why was he here?

his voice lowers in volume and grows softer, more calm. what can you tell me about morwenna's husband? and saatsine? why is my family here?

her eyes search him for signs of mockery—doubt. some trace of condescension. it does not come. he says it like it is fact, and for that, she does not snap at him.

"morwenna’s husband. saatsine. why is my family here?" gjalla exhales sharply through her nose. that was a question, wasn’t it? one that had many answers, and she only had a few.

"sun eater. i do not know him well," she concedes, "only that he is good to mo. she has not known much security in her life; he seems to give her that." as long as her spirit sister was safe, she did not care the company she kept.

gjalla did not serve sun eater, not wholly. she was in his service, as she was to rhaegon, but her loyalty belonged to morwenna alone. as for the rest, she considers him, weighing whether or not she should speak further. the question would have been better answered by his kin.  

“saatsine is not like the crags,” she pauses, eyes narrowing as she picks through her words, then finally settles. "nomadic. crude, in a way. you will see. blackfell is here for me."


“why are you here?”

veksar listened.

the way she described sun eater did not line up with the glimpse he'd seen earlier that day. a barrelling, bumbling ape of a man, huffing at his own wife in a tongue neither of them should have understood. though, veksar didn't think very highly of anyone outside of his orbit to begin with.

except for, perhaps, morwenna.

she was only a vision from his childhood. a fantastical memory he loved to return to on those restless nights, soft and warm with her lanky legs and baby-fat cheeks. he loved that memory, no matter how small and blurry the picture.

but it was only that.

i've noticed it's... certainly different here, veksar finally broke his silence with a sharp inhale. i trust your judgment.

silence followed, before he grumbled a name.

blackfell.

"good," she breathes, "you’d be wise to."

gjalla stirs at the mention of her hound, her eyes flicking toward him with a quickness that is almost imperceptible, but sharp all the same. she doesn't respond right away, as if trying to decide how much to give away.

she eyes him a moment longer before speaking, "you will find that your brother... is not easily understood," she begins. "not by me, not by anyone." her lip curls ever so slightly, "don't piss him off. he is brooding enough on his own, hm?"

i wonder how he got you to tolerate him, veksar commented, meant in jest but coming out awkward and stilted. he half-grinned to try and sell it. i have my problems with him, but he is my brother. and the heir to our family's name.

he hated admitting it.

veksar knew he certainly hadn't been the favorite of either of his parents. he felt as if he ranked dead last in their hearts. his last interactions with them had been so cold. he wished he regretted it. he wished he'd at least stood a chance.

his gaze turned back to gjalla. can i trust you, gjalla? if anything goes wrong here, for any reason, can i know that you will back my brother and i up?

"that is generous," she huffs the start of a laugh, a grin playing at the edges of her mouth but never fully forming, and yet, there’s something in her eyes that mars the truth of her words.

at his next words, she watches him closer. the stiffness in his jaw, the weight behind his admittance. it means something to him, but she doesn’t pretend to understand what.

his question makes her gaze sharpen. her ear flicks, a subtle tick of irritation, not at the inquiry itself, but at what it implies. were they planning something without her knowledge?

then, she huffs, tilting her head ever so slightly. considering. "if you are his," she finally says, "then you are mine by proxy. and i do not abandon what is mine." it is not a promise of allegiance, not in the way he might have been hoping for, but it is something.