The Princess-Alpha Redana Claudius rests her head against Bella’s shoulder.

At some point— blink and you’ll miss it, though perhaps no one did, perhaps everyone knew— Dany’s embrace wrapped around Bella’s neck, trying to hide where her face was wet from sputtering up coffee, became the knot of a blanket knotted as a heroine’s cape, coming to the small of Bella’s back. It is not the perfect accessory for this ensemble, but perhaps it is comfortable. Perhaps it’s a reminder that she was loved from the moment Dany met her.

This Redana— the Redana in Bella’s arms— is all of them and more. She’s the actress under all the masks, always changing her identity, never changing her heart. She was Skotia, torn apart by desire[1]. She was Redana, young and eager and broken into a new shape[2]. She was Ember, irrepressible, proud, silly and valiant[3].

And she was Dany. When she looks up at Bella, snuggled into the crook of her arm, that’s impossible to deny. Look past the Ceronian augmentations, look past the growing-up, and it’s clear to see.

“…I’m glad you were still there,” she says, after a while, mumbling it with her cheek pressed firmly against her heroine. Her eyes are wet sapphire and emerald. She does not say: all of me was frightened. She does not say: it was like being touched by Dionysus again, the way that the world seemed to change, the way it whispered that what she knew was a lie. She does not say: it hurt. She does not say: but a knight will be hurt for her paramour, and it is the duty of a knight to bear it.

Her fingers on the breastplate say: I love you, even the parts of you that frighten me sometimes. The half-sad smile on her lips says: one day I will tell this story and make it your triumph. Her heart says: the best of me protected you from the worst of me, and I am grateful that the lion was not loose in your heart.

And what she says when she lifts her head is: “Dolce, thank the [i]gods[/i] you were here, too.” And her smile for him is as brave as Dany’s heart.

[hr]
[1]: and she cannot say that she never wished to be torn apart, when she was feeling like the most terrible person in the entire universe, when she hid from her own name and responsibility, when she wanted to be someone who could be with Bella without being hated.
[2]: she only told Bella about that nightmare once. It was a foul, awful thing for Aurelia to make her experience again[2.5].
[2.5]: all of the particulars were different, but it meant the same. In that one, it was her mother who took her apart and put her back together in a jigsaw with new pieces, and she was a dog, not a throne, but it meant the same.
[3]: and very, very thirsty.