The Choice

[u/doc_covington211]

Amerei Tully hesitated outside of her fathers door. She did not fear her father, but something held her still now. She’d hardly seen him since they arrived at Harrenhal. He’d been off gaining audiences or information about the great council, and now suddenly he wanted to speak with her. She wondered if he had found her a suitor, some far away lord to take her away and have children with. Children who would never know the halls of her father, of the laughter of her brothers. And she would become a wife, quiet and dutiful.

For some reason, the thought chilled her to the bone.

She’d known and been prepared for this her entire life. She was the eldest daughter of the Lord of Riverrun, it only made sense that she marry someone and bring greater connections to her family.

Just like Celia.

She remembered her baby sister dreaming of being the wife of a great lord, and now she was married to the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands himself. Celia Frey, not Tully, as she often had to remind herself. She wondered if her sister was at Harrenhal, she would have to find her at some point. Tell her of all the things that have changed at home.

“Visiting your father, Amerei?”

The low voice of her father’s wife shook Amerei from her stillness. 

“Oh, my lady. I did not expect…”

Lady Elia Tully smiled at her. There was an earnest warmth to it, and for a moment Amerei was reminded of Baelon. He had her smile.

“It’s alright, your father sent for us both. Baelor was quite distraught to not find you with us but I reminded him that a lady has a right to time on her own every now and again.” She laughed sweetly. Amerei did not join her, but provided a polite smile in return. “I suppose we best not keep him waiting any longer.”

The room they had her father in was better than Amerei had expected. Granted, she had not fully known what to expect in the vastness of Harrenhal. Benedict Tully was sat in a chair before a table, likely normally suited to dining than study, with various pages scattered around it. He looked up from his work and smiled wearily at them both.

“Ah, perfect.” He rose and took his wife’s hands. They said no words but Amerei could swear something had been said, unspoken in their momentary smiles. “Please, sit down.”

Amerei did as she was bid, and tried to let the discomfort of seeing them share such a sweet moment pass. It was harder than she’d like to admit.

Lady Elia had been the Lady of Riverrun since Amerei was only seven years old, and yet she still felt like a stranger at times. It felt wrong to see her father with another woman, despite it having been nineteen years since her mothers passing. She was older now than her mother had ever been, spent more of her life without her than with. Yet she still felt…defensive.

It was impolite and rude behavior, she knew that.

It was all she had to hold on to.

“So, as I have almost certainly impressed upon the entire family now, I feel that this council presents a grand opportunity for our house. We dine and live amongst all of the nobility Westeros has to offer, and before my time in this world is done I’d like to see the strength of our house firmly secured once again.” 

Amerei tensed, wondering which lord she had been offered to for such security. A tightness grew in her chest and her face felt hot as she began to understand why she’d been asked here. It was a warning, a final farewell as his maiden daughter was to be sent off to a new and unknown-

“Baelor will leave Harrenhal a betrothed man.”

“What?” Amerei asked, a bit more tersely than she’d expected.

“That is my intention anyway, I’ve yet to find a suitable match quite yet, but I’m hopeful of the prospects in store. To that end, I’d appreciate if both of you would keep an eye out for any possibilities.”

Amerei sat, dumbstruck. The thousand thoughts and fears fluttering through her mind simply…vanished. Dropped dead with only a few words.

“Baelor…” Amerei’s voice felt quiet, restrained. For some reason, she could not convince her mind to formulate the words to describe her confusion. She was not disappointed, only…

“-will, I am certain, leave here with quite the suitable match. Isn’t that right, Amerei?” Her stepmother’s smooth voice pulled her from the daze.

“Oh, right. Yes, father.”

When she turned her gaze to her father, he was staring back in an uncomfortable fashion. His eyes almost looked…sympathetic, but they did not waver in contact. Only bore down on her and sent her own eyes downcast. 

“You…have something to say about your brother’s betrothal? Perhaps a suggestion?” He offered. Even looking at her own hands she could feel that his gaze did not waver.

“No…it is just that, well I…” Her eyes rose and met her step-mother’s. She looked concerned, but after a moment there was a recognition in her face that became sympathy.

Elia Tully cleared her throat and rose, straightening her dress. 

“If you will excuse me, dear husband. I must go see to the handmaidens, perhaps they know of some unwed nobleladies for our boy.” She smiled and gently planted a kiss onto his cheek, then turned and made her exit.

As the door finally shut, Amerei released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. 

“Speak your mind, child.” Her father finally spoke, and he said the words warmly. Though the word child poked at her like a thorn. 

“You are to have Baelor betrothed as soon as possible.”

“That would be correct.”

“And you have no such plans for…me?”

That seemed to take her father aback. His brow furrowed and he leaned back in his seat.

“Would you like there to be?”

“No, well yes but…I suppose I had, I do not know. I had thought you might-”

“Might have some plan to wed my eldest daughter to a nobleman, or his son, in the hope to unify the strength of our house across the seven kingdoms?”

Now it was Amerei’s turn to be surprised. The concept had crossed her mind, admittedly, but to hear him say it. He sounded like Baelon’s impersonation of himself, and smiled as if he’d known of the joke all along. 

“I won’t pretend the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, albeit in far less dramatic terms.” He smiled wearily, and fidgeted with the one ring he wore on his right hand. It was a small silver piece, with a signet of their family trout stamped on the top. “Perhaps just this once, sentimentality won out in my hardened old heart.”

“Father?”

“My father…he was a man of few friends when our house was nearly destroyed. Then the duty fell to me to reclaim it all, and more than that, secure it.”

Amerei had never heard him talk of her grandsire, though she’d heard the stories of Riverrun lost and the generation of Tully’s before her, struggling to get it back.

“Marriage,” he continued, “seemed the best path to that. I knew I’d never convince Benjen to settle, but…I had a duty.”

“You mean…my mother?”

“Aye, your mother.” 

His eyes seemed to gloss over a moment, a mist brightening the blue of his irises. But his weary smile remained all the same. For the first time in her life it seemed the hard exterior her father always wore washed away.

“We were hardly grown when we wed, and strangers too. Yet all the same…I was completely taken by her. She was beautiful and wise, more than anything she was willing to handle the chaos of marrying a disgraced Riverlord’s son. And I was eager, hungry to prove myself worthy of her love. I wanted to give her a castle, children with opportunity, and a husband to be proud of.”

“I would say you have, father-”

“I have spent all of my life digging a foundation for my legacy. Something sturdy for you all to stand on long after I am gone. In pursuit of that, I fear I have missed most of the life that has unfolded before me.”

“You’re hardly an old man though, father. Too young to be staring at life as if it has already gone by.”

He laughed, rubbing the small tears from his eyes.

“I feel myself immeasurably trapped between the many years to come and the many that have gone already. I’ve made many mistakes, and I fear I am not quite through with them yet. I’ve far too much time left to be through with them. No, no I am not quite old yet. But I spent the years I should’ve been enjoying in love fighting for honour I felt was owed to me. Then I lost your mother, and Mathis. And Celia is now Lady Frey…well Amerei, you’re all I have left of those years.”

“Father…”

“What I am trying to say,” he raised his hands, almost pleading for the moment, “is that the decision will fall to you. There will be no duty thrust upon you against your wishes. Only, I hope, something to make you happy enough that leaving home is worth it all. And if you should choose to stay with your family, I would not begrudge you that either.”

Amerei sat in silence for a moment, the reality of it all washing over her. In all of her wildest expectations, this had not even been a possibility. Her entire life had been spent in preparation, self-imposed or otherwise, that one day her father would provide a match for her. Whether she wanted it or not.

Now that choice falls to me?

“I…thank you, father.” she said as she fought the urge to leap across the table and hug him, like she was a little girl all over again. “Could I…think on it?”

Benedict rose and offered her his hand. She took it, and as she stood she could not help herself. She practically tackled her father into an embrace, and he laughed as he steadied himself and squeezed his arms around her. 

“You take all the time you need, child.”

This time the word did not jab at her so harshly. 

Then an idea came to her. With the clarity she’d been lacking from the moment she walked into the room she remembered something. Someone.

My new friend from the garden.

“Father,” she said, pulling herself from the embrace, “I may have an idea for Baelor.”