The Great Sept of Baelor—the Sept that Was—was miles away from the Red Keep, but that didn't keep the noxious fumes from reaching King Tommen of the House Baratheon, First of His Name. The acrid smoke was heavy with the memories of those the unnatural fires had burned in their hunger, and its stench burned Tommen's nose as he forced himself to breathe in. This, in the air around him, was Margaery. This was what remained of his beloved wife, her brother, the High Sparrow, and so many others. The fire didn't care who was innocent and guilty; it merely burned and devoured, ripping King Baelor's great legacy to the ground and returning all those lords and smallfolk to the ash. If he looked out towards the horizon, he could still see the contrast of the green wildfire against the black smoke.

Tommen by nature was introspective. He supposed some long-winded maester had written on the effects of birth order before; it was perhaps natural for a younger brother to be less active than the older to avoid undue tensions or strains of power. He had been younger brother to Joffrey, whose cruelty he had been powerless to curb and who was gone now. He had been younger brother to Myrcella, whose gentleness had shown him that there was still good in this world and who was gone now. Joffrey and Myrcella had been interred in the Great Sept and were now ashes with Margaery.

Tommen had not been born to be king. He had never wanted to be king. He became king through the death of a brother who, though cruel, was still blood. He was able to marry his queen because of that death and had in turn lost her to death. For the length of his rule thus far, he had been powerless, acting still as the younger brother and able only to reflect on the actions of greater men. Now, standing on the balcony and staring into the black and green of what remained of his city, Tommen knew that those greater men were rendered into ash as well.

He supposed he was numb. Ser Gregor—or what was left of him after Qyburn's ministrations—had left once the Sept had fallen, leaving him alone in this void. That was for the better, though.

Tommen wasn't a fool. He knew what the Mountain's presence meant, knew what his temporary house arrest had meant. His mother had known. His mother had a hand in this horrific act, in the extinguishing of a great house and the murder of hundreds—if not thousands—of civilians. The people who had perished, and the people who were still crying out against the din of the bells, were his people. No, they were Margaery's people; it was she who had been the first to truly care about the smallfolk, she who would have striven to right this injustice. But Margaery was gone now. She was ash and smoke, connected and one with her people in a way that had never been possible before.

The void pressed around him, threatening to smother him. The darkness called, and the Stranger suddenly bore Margaery's face and spoke with her sweet voice. Death would reunite him with Margaery, with the woman he hadn't gotten to grow old with, to laugh away years with, to raise a family with, and it would be so easy. Unbidden, Tommen's eyes dropped to the welcoming ground. At this height, he wouldn't feel a thing. He would fly for a long moment, and then he would rejoin Margaery.

He paced away from the edge that beckoned and took his crown in his hands. His crown, he mused, wasn't his at all; it was another thing that he had gained from death. He remembered sitting at Joffrey's wedding, watching his brother's eyes bleed and his lips purple. He remembered his brother's hands—hands that had beat servants and skinned animals, hands that had been raised in anger and clenched into fists prepared and willing to strike without warning—clutching at his throat as if his very skin had suddenly grown too tight for him to breathe. This crown wasn't something that Tommen had earned like his father had, but rather something that had been forced onto him. It was an artifact in this game of thrones, one that cursed its bearer with tragedy and death because no one truly won. Whenever the crown was worn by a violent or weak mind, everyone lost.

The Stranger beckoned again, promising to bring him home to Margaery.

But he hesitated, unfailingly true to his introspective nature.

Whenever the crown was worn by a violent or weak mind, everyone lost.

Unbidden, his grandfather's words drifted through his mind: A good king must be just. Orys the First was just; everyone applauded his reforms, nobles and commoners alike, but he wasn't just for long. He was murdered in his sleep after less than a year by his own brother. Was that truly just of him, to abandon his subjects to an evil that he was too gullible to recognize?

Tommen had once believed that he would be a good king. He had believed that he could rise to be better than the examples Tywin had listed; but he was no better than Orys. He hadn't recognized the threat to his people, to his wife.

His mother.

The void left him all at once. The encroaching black receded all at once, leaving Tommen alone with the harsh reality: if he were to die now, his mother would be the only inheritor to the crown left. She who had destroyed the Great Sept and so many untold lives would sit the Iron Throne with no one to stop her from terrorizing the smallfolk that Margaery so cared for.

Tommen lowered his brother's crown onto the table where his uneaten breakfast still lay. He could not die, not yet. If Margaery did await him in the Stranger's arms, how could he greet her knowing that he had left her murderer the crown?

Tommen loved his mother as any boy did. It was she who had cared for him, had comforted him during the Blackwater. She had tried her best to shelter him from Joffrey's cruelty. She had shielded him from his father's drunkenness. She had encouraged him to spend time with steady and strong Uncle Jaime. She had borne him, feed him from her breast. He loved her.

He also loved Margaery. He loved Margaery as a boy loves his wife: truly and deeply. Margaery had entered his sphere in the darkness of Joffrey's death, and had lifted him from the powerless little boy he had had been at their engagement to one of the pillars of the kingdom. One of the pillars of the kingdom had already fallen thanks to his mother; if he fell now, the kingdom and all its millions of people could be lost as well to the smoke. Tommen lowered himself to sit in front of the crown. He still loved Margaery; he'd never stop loving her. She was the lighthouse in the Stranger's darkness that would eventually guide him home, but he still had a voyage to make before he could make safe harbor in her arms. If he had been the one to burn in the sept, he would wish for her to truly live and carry on their work. He would wait patiently in the dark for her; he only prayed that she would forgive him for the wait.

Time passed as Tommen sat in that chair, hands brought against his mouth as he stared into the crown. It had been dented in Joffrey's fall and, though the metal had been beaten into proper shape, Tommen could still identify where the crown had been damaged. Gold was a soft material, a weak material. Its value was arbitrary, based on a rarity that could shift if a new vein were discovered. Staring at the golden thing with its stylized antlers, rubies and black diamonds, Tommen released a soft scoff and got to his feet.

Joffrey hadn't been a good king. His cruelty had given him an illusion of strength, but Tommen knew better than to believe the illusion. Joffrey's golden crown, and the weakness of the metal, reflected the weakness of his brother's demented mind. Tommen turned away from the crown and the memories contained within its precious gemstones, leaving it where it sat on the table. King Tommen I was young, but he wasn't dead yet and that was more than could be said for his predecessors. So long as he lived, he would strive to be the king that Margaery believed he could be: a good king.

Post 15:09, 4.4.18

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