I don't know if it's relevant, where I was in-between. But the ways they changed us, changed our bodies, turned us into something else...it might be helpful. It might change someone's mind, about whether the wolves are acting under their own power. [Talking about the village makes Koby's stomach turn a little, with nausea, with longing? With a little of each, if he's being truthful. It had been terrible, it had been familiar. He'd known how to keep his friends, his crew safe -- keep them warm, keep them fed. It was simpler.
Nothing is simple now, least of all the machinations at work within Alicent's family. Koby's brow furrows at the explanation, the words that's not fair written all across his face. Alicent had been a Hightower, an outside player, had been wed when she was younger than Koby is now. The words are childish, and he knows it, but they slip out anyway:] That isn't your fault. You didn't ask for any of that. You -- didn't have a choice.
[He knows. He remembers the older girls who'd married, who lived with a baby on one hip and another clinging to their skirts, another growing inside them. He remembers the ones who seemed exhausted and ragged and perpetually hollowed out by their new lives. How they were the lucky ones.]
And you played the game smartly, Alicent. Whatever else is at play, you made the alliances you needed to and kept them even through all that... [Koby waves a hand, meant to encompass the ballroom, the accusation and fighting and anger.] When nobody else could. I think anyone who underestimates that is an idiot. [Daemon included, thinking maybe that because Alicent and Aemond are the only Greens here that there's an advantage. Koby knows better than to assume old wounds are forgiven, just because of the house's madness.]
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Nothing is simple now, least of all the machinations at work within Alicent's family. Koby's brow furrows at the explanation, the words that's not fair written all across his face. Alicent had been a Hightower, an outside player, had been wed when she was younger than Koby is now. The words are childish, and he knows it, but they slip out anyway:] That isn't your fault. You didn't ask for any of that. You -- didn't have a choice.
[He knows. He remembers the older girls who'd married, who lived with a baby on one hip and another clinging to their skirts, another growing inside them. He remembers the ones who seemed exhausted and ragged and perpetually hollowed out by their new lives. How they were the lucky ones.]
And you played the game smartly, Alicent. Whatever else is at play, you made the alliances you needed to and kept them even through all that... [Koby waves a hand, meant to encompass the ballroom, the accusation and fighting and anger.] When nobody else could. I think anyone who underestimates that is an idiot. [Daemon included, thinking maybe that because Alicent and Aemond are the only Greens here that there's an advantage. Koby knows better than to assume old wounds are forgiven, just because of the house's madness.]