Unfortunately, dick or not, Claude was still Obelia's emperor, so he absolutely had all rights to kick her out when he felt that Penelope had overextended her welcome. He already didn't like her anyway, so that was just an additional reason he scrounged up to justify denying the ex-empress of Eorka and the Archmage of the Grand Magician Tower any more hospitality.

To Claude's unbridled joy and Athanasia's consternation, Jason had been forced back to Arlanta, unable to risk a diplomatic feud between the two countries.

A war was the last thing they needed.

Still, Lady Luck was smiling, and she was not smiling at Claude.

Because four months after she had left for Zavattarello, a letter came for her in the Magician Tower. She had been close to shoving it in the fireplace, if it had not been for the sigil that had been used to seal it; a black stag on a golden envelope.

By the gods...

Penelope was never an ardent follower of gods, but she swore she could be a nun by the amount of times she prayed in this world for any sort of guidance after she got herself fucked over too many times to count.

Seeing the Baratheon sigil might even be enough for her to kneel in front of a saint just to express her gratitude.

With shaking hands, she did not even have the dexterity to open it with a letter opener, then finally, after long, laborious moments, pulled out a cardstock paper. The smell of jasmine immediately overtakes her senses, hammering the last nail in the coffin in confirming her suspicion on who the sender is.

The jasmines bloom beautifully this year. When you have the time, you must see it.

She keeps the letter hidden in a small box reserved for her jewelries, contemplating sending it to Athanasia. After a few moments though, she decides against it.

Shiera is anything but neglectful. She's already taken care of necessary things.

Still, the sudden revelation sends Penelope in deep thought. Seeing Shaena and Jaime here had been an earth-shattering revelation – one that sent her to a raging fever.

Losing Callisto and getting stabbed in the back closed her off from the rest of the world, and she never dared to open up again, afraid of falling in the pit of despair that had threatened to swallow her up in her darkest.

If she hadn't met Jaime by chance when he sought the Magician Tower's services to find Shaena, Penelope would have put a bullet in her head to quiet her ghosts.

If Shiera is here, then Arthur--?

No, no, Penelope shook her head, her cold fingers betraying her calm countenance. She cannot hope – it would hurt far worse.

She had hoped in Arbor, wishing that Prince Rhaegar would come back victorious, and by his side would be Arthur.

She hoped and it broke her terribly.

Never again.

::

The world's most fragrant jasmines grew on the garden of Eorka's Imperial Palace – privateer's words, not hers. Penelope had seriously started to reconsider her decision accepting the invitation when she spied the ridiculous grin in Callisto's face when he saw her arrival.

She didn't need his head getting any bigger than it already is, thinking she came here for him. She already had her adoptive family to spare her headache to, for god's sake.

Between the sucking-up of the nobles and Reynold's – laughably – desperate attempts to cajole her into a conversation, finding Shiera was an endeavour as daunting getting Athanasia to stop eating chocolate.

Getting rid of the nobles was easy – turns out there was a lot a dead-eyed stare can achieve when dealing with unwanted pests – so Penelope took the time sniffing the roses, drinking champagne and eating ridiculously expensive caviars in the hors d'ouevres table.

Eat the rich, as the peasants, so succinctly put it.

"Looking for someone, My Lady?"

Yeah, definitely not you, though.

"Marquis Berdandi, what a joy to see you here," she allows a smile to grace her lips, one she could muster as sincerely as possible because Vinter Berdandi may have orchestrated the doom of her life, he was still a mage like her and she'd rather not have the mages of Eorka start a mutiny against her. "Indeed, there is someone I've been trying to find."

"Mayhaps I can help you with your endeavour?"

She's almost tempted to be touched by his sweet attempts. Then, as she placed her empty champagne flute to a passing servant, she feels her before she hears her.

Penelope thanks the saints and the gods that she isn't holding anything, lest she drop it on the floor and attract attention to the idiotic expression on her face, torn between grief and happiness.

Black and gold floods her vision, black hair on pale skin adorned with the unmistakeable scent of lilies.

"His Excellency is kind, but there is no need. I will take it from here."

An embroidery of a golden stag was stark against the bodice of the black fabric of the gown.

Black and golds, the colors of House Baratheon.

The woman turned to her, smiling, and it takes all of Penelope not to burst into tears on the spot.

A warm hand envelops hers – perfectly fitting, as if welcoming an old friend.

"It's been a long time, Nelly."

Shiera Baratheon has come.

And Penelope's wretched heart – ill-used and rotten from the strain of using ancient magick on her once untrained body – felt oddly lighter.

::

Shiera Baratheon, now living as Keira Parvis looked just as the same as she remembered her, if not for her eyes which were now amethysts instead of their past blues.

It's a joy to have her back – a sentiment that she and Athanasia can share along with their disdain towards their father figures. While the Duke Eckhart was not exactly outright cruel like Emperor Claude had been in Athanasia's childhood – by God, what a terror that man had been – Penelope wasn't exactly desperate for a crumb of familial affection to classify the duke's actions as anything beyond lukewarm.

"I've heard of the incident, yes. Little Duke Blanchett's, I mean," Keira pats her hand as they traverse through the throngs of nobility. "Quentina sends her regards, by the way."

Penelope's startled gaze snaps to Keira happily. "She, as well?"

"Yes," she smiles. "She's a bit younger than us than before... such a pity that her situation did not allow for our reunion."

"One day," Penelope decides to comfort the both of them.

The two of them mutually decides to ignore the conspicuous little rats tailing them through the rose garden, keeping their topic geared to the princess they once served.

"You'd think by now, she'd have taken a page out of Rhaegar's book, wouldn't she?"

The scandalized look in Kiera's face is enough to punch a genuine laugh out of her chest, and the little duchess reaches out to slap the back of Penelope's head. "By the gods, do not wish for such a thing."

"Dearest sister, mayhaps we should give them a helping hand?"

"Many men would piss themselves in front of the Emperor of Obelia."

Helping his only daughter elope with a man he vehemently opposes against? Claude de Alger Obelia would chop their heads off and piss on their corpses if such a thing would come to pass.

Countess Jeremaiah and her possies do an awful attempt of inserting themselves into the conversation – if she thinks Penelope is going to help her with a smile on her face after serving as Kellin's lapdog for years willingly, she had another thing coming for her.

"But we are not men, are we?"

Keira gives her a small smirk, seemingly amused by the quip. "Touche, Lady Archmage."

"Touche, indeed. Should I expect any visits soon? We have much to catch up."

"You should. Who else better than us to discuss the plights of our dearest princess?"

Her ears pricked up.

"Plights?"

Athanasia doesn't have many confidants in her life, but when she does have problems, she was sure to confide in them.

The dark-haired Holy Maiden gave her a quizzical look, almost amused. "Are you so holed up in your Tower that you have no inkling of the latest rumours?" she leaned in to drop her voice to a whisper. "The Obelian Emperor is seeking out Prince Consort prospects for Princess Athanasia. It's all in writing though, so I don't think she knows."

"That is a terrible idea."

"I'd have encouraged this behaviour if only to insult him, but considering he's an emperor, he might actually officiate the marriage himself if it came down to it."

Yeah, the crazy bastard isn't that far off from doing that. Still... someone needs to tell him that arranged marriages aren't the way to go – because if not, he's screwed in the long run – if he wants to establish a clear communication between him and his estranged daughter.

Besides, that poor sucker who was going to get stuck with the job of being their personal tweety bird just because Claude did not like the idea of a man much older than his daughter to be his own son-in-law totally did not deserve that.

Penelope smiled sardonically behind her fan, her eyes catching Callisto's. He looks somber – and she feels the ugly churning of her stomach into something sinister.

He has no right to look like that... not after what he's done to me.

Her sardonic grin must've been so palpable that it allows a shadow of grief crosses her former husband's face – one which fed her vanity and bolstered her ego. The knowledge that he regretted his actions warmed her cold, dead heart, after all.

::

"Hmm~~" Penelope's grin as she watched Pennel bring the package to her was undeniably foreign to all of those who saw it, so Reynold merely watched as she choked on her muffins in an attempt to guffaw at the sender of the parcel.

When she opened the box, she took out a cloak of rich black velvet lined with black fur, and without further ado, waved her hand, her mana forming a corporeal apparition of a small hummingbird – a translucent thing of pale blue – and opens the card attached. Her amused face goes solemn for a moment before it vanishes as she closes it.

Penelope laughed as the little bird flew away.

"Prepare me a seamstress's dressform in my room."

She quieted down the protests of the servants, shutting them up with some sob story in her hell of a childhood and some good old gaslighting. Blanchett's seamstresses are obviously the cream of the crop, but there was a reason why Jaime sent her the cloak and not kept it in his possession until the day comes.

"Why bother doing a servant's work?" came Reynold's grumpy voice once the servants leave to do her bidding. Penelope rolls her eyes, lamenting the minute she decided to accept the invitation to stay in the duchy for a while. "Duke Blanchett has his own servants, why make you do it?"

Reynold may not be as bad as his older brother, but he was still... too much.

Well, this is her fault anyway.

"This work needs a delicate touch, a specific one that the servants cannot replicate. And," she throws her foster brother a condescending look. "The Little Duke Blanchett is a close friend of mine. What are a few favors between friends?"

Reynold stares at her like she's grown two heads. Penelope leaves him, like she's done many times before.

::::::::::::

"It seems we have indeed waited for too long."

::::::::::::

"...Here, witnessed by our Saints and our friends. I speak words of both love and duty..."

Jaime was crying.

In any other occasion, Penelope would have sniggered along with Philomel – how the blessed knight could not go on for more than two minutes without wetting his eyes while his bride kept her cool – but she was also not an idiot, and she understood Jaime's longing, mirroring her own for Arthur's.

"... I will rest with you in times of peace. I will forever be the weapon in your hand..."

Something warm ghosts over the skin of her, before it's enveloped by a tight grasp. Philomel smiles beside her, sighing. "It's a beautiful thing, don't you think?"

Jaime's wet sniffles are embarrassing, but ah, this is love.

Penelope clenches their hands tighter, chuckling. "Claude's gonna ask for our heads to roll. No regrets?"

"... I have seen your face in the making at the heart of the world and there is no one more beloved, Shaena Targaryen – Athanasia de Alger Obelia, brave and unbreakable...

"Are you kidding me?" Philomel barks out a quiet laugh as she watches Athanasia-Shaena and Jaime exchange rings. "Every second of this is worth it."

They had died enough times to look at death in the eyes and scoff. Death was a later worry. We have what we have when we have it.

She follows Philomel's gaze, her heart curling in agony despite the relief. Once, she had been a bride. Once, she had been in love and looked at the man she had wedded as if he had hung the moons and the stars for her. Once, she had chosen to let go of the past, and it cost her nearly everything.

When the last of dusk's light had fallen, the only thing illuminating the altar was the fourteen fire pits that Penelope had enchanted to light the way to, and the nine lanterns that they had hung on the replica of the godswood tree that Athanasia was adamant to include in the wedding venue they have miraculously found with expeditious finesse.

Finally, when Keira Parvis steps forward with a midnight blue cloak bearing the sigil of House Blanchett – both Athanasia and Jaime had elected not to use the Lannister one, as it was Tywin Lannister's men who murdered her good sister as well as her niece and nephew, both just short of being a babe – and a purple ribbon – Jaime is letting out wet laughter as he takes off Athanasia's black one bearing the sigil of House Targaryen; a red three-headed dragon. He takes the new cloak in his colors that bears his sigil from Keira's arms, then brings them around to wrap her small frame.

Their joy is blinding, and it makes Jaime look much younger than he was. Their small congregation of less than fifteen witnesses – but more than enough to prove the validity of the marriage – lets out a cheer as loud as they can manage as the newlywed couple meet each other halfway to seal their union for a kiss.

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul; that makes us reach for more, that plants the fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.

Athanasia-Shaena is the happiest she's ever seen, the smile in her face threatening to spit sunbeams out. Penelope's seen her relaxed – that was pretty much anytime as long as she was out of court – but never this. Athanasia is as carefree as a lark, and it is the best sight that she's ever seen since she came to this wretched world.

Penelope wipes a tear that escapes Philomel's eyes and leads the toast for the newlyweds, then skims her hand over the sword pendant of her necklace, looking at the darkened sky in contemplation.

She thinks of bronzed skin and purple eyes, imagines herself standing there, in a cloak of purple, emblazoned with a white sword and a fallen star. She thinks of the amethyst ring she kept around her neck – once, in another life – nestled between her breasts and under her gowns, and allows herself to cry.

If there is an afterlife, I will kiss you there, Arthur.

::::::::::::::::::::

I'm a sucker for crossovers so, yes, this is the canon events of my AU:

Penelope Eckart is Penelope Redwyne, Keira Parvis is Shiera Baratheon, and Philomel Belerov is Quentina Tyrell. The ladies-in-waiting positions work for me because Shiera is Robert's sister, who along with all of their siblings are cousins to the Targaryens via their grandmother. The Tyrells and the Redwynes also supported Aerys through the Rebellion.

The wedding vows are from the Grisha Trilogy from David Kostyk and Genya Safin's wedding. Absolutely ABSOLUTELY beautiful quote that sent me ugly crying for half a day.

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Happy Reading!!!

~_star_shine_2004_~