Chapter Text
''There once was a woman, born to commonfolk and stolen by an Ironborn. And everyone feared her. And all her victims ever talked about was her beauty, and her ruthlessness, and how they feared her and her crew, and her lord Husband.
She never married the Lord Greyjoy, but she gave him a son, and every night their halls were filled with drinking and revelry.
And when the dragons came, the salt choked her she died the cruellest death, with her sometime-husband and her crew. None of her beauty or strength mattered a damn when the dragons came.''
Nothing mattered a damn when the dragons came.
The Dragon-daughter had settled in her Iron Throne, and the sweet summer children were experiencing the first bites of a cold winter.
Braavos was much more accommodating.
The little harbour was quiet today, boats bobbing on the water in the shadow of the titan, the giant metal gaurdian that stood over the city.
The old fisherman scowled as his nets tangled, stiff fingers fumbling on the netting as he tried to tug them apart. The was a tearing sound, and he swore an oath, scrubbing a hand along his dark bearded jaw in irritation.
''Father?''
He turned, setting down the nets, and eyed the young boy behind him warily,.
''That look tells me you've done something wrong.''
His son shook his head, dark curls bouncing. A youngling of eight namedays, and already tall like his father. But there was a guilty look in his eyes as he sat beside the jetty, feet dipping into the cool water.
His father sighed, and turned back, struggling with the nets. ''No. And a thousand times no- I've already told you-''
''That's not fair! '' The conviction in his voice reminded the man all to much of the boys mother. ''It's my right, and I'm going!''
He turned, and the boy looked terrified, but he wasn't wavering, and he wasn't looking anywhere but at his fathers eyes.
He took the nets and untangled them with a few deft movements, almost like an apology for his words.
The boat bobbed on the water, far out to sea, lost in the blue.
''It didn't used to be blue.'' Herc said. ''They said the water was black for years afterwards.''
He kept his eyes down, hands clasped together in his lap, not thinking about where they were.
His son leaned over the edge of the boat, a hand scooping up the clear water.
''This is where they died?''
''Aye.''
''Mother. Father.'' His voice was awkward. The first time the boy gets to speak to his parents, and it's like this. It was too cruel.
''I've come to pay my respects. I hope you're proud of me. Even though I'm not a pirate.''
The boy raised his hair, and ducked to kiss the water, before letting it trail out of his fingers again, back into the ocean. ''What is dead may never die.''
His voice shook.
''But rises again. Harder-''
Herc sighed, and moved, pulling the boy into his arms and embracing Vladislav.
''And stronger. You're alright, boy. You're safe.''
The way the boy clung to him almost broke his heart.
''I miss them.''
''I know.''
''I shouldn't.''
''Why not?''
''I don't even remember them.''
Herc felt a laugh work its way up his throat, and for a second he couldn't beleive it- here, on the place Charles died, he was laughing. It felt awful. It felt like absalution.
He didn't even know why.
But it felt like Charles understood.
''Then thats when you should miss them the most.''
There was a pause.
''Will you tell me about them?''
''I've told you all there is to know.''
''Just once more. Please? I'll never ask again.''
Herc told him of her mothers skill with an axe, and his fathers laugh.
Of her quick words and his strong hands. Of how they walked, like they were circling the other, keeping them safe. He talked of how Sasha refused nurses, preferring to care for the babe herself, even while she sailed. He talked of how Aleksis broke a man's back for talking ill of his family.
But he couldn't have known the times he should have talked about. The mornings where they woke in the ships cabin, curled together in the dark bunk with the babe nestled between them.
That Sasha would nurse him and tell him stories and sing to him when she thought Aleksis couldn't hear. That Aleksis thought that her out-of-tune singing felt like home.
He couldn't have known how after they had come back from a raid, bathed in blood and salt-spray, they'd bathe and sit in front of the fire, talking and laughing and playing little games with their son. That Sasha had never seen anything as lovely than her babe rocked asleep in Aleksis' giant arms.
He couldn't have known how fiercely they loved each other. How that sort of love crawls under your skin and fills your lungs and makes you whole. How the last thing they had ever thought about, in the one breath, in the one mind, was a demand to the old gods and new, to keep him safe.
Vladislav never knew these things.
And he never asked again.
But years later, when a tall man with his fathers dark hair and his mothers eyes stood in that same tower-room in Pyke, he would be driven to his knees with a sudden, aching sorrow that he couldn't describe.
And he would weep for them all.
For his adopted father. For Charles.
For his parents he barely knew. Bound to him by nothing but the salt in his blood and the salt in their graves.
What is dead may never die.
And they had lived.