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All Things Devour | Chapter 1

Samsa Waters is a bastard. A noble bastard, but a bastard nonetheless. She knows — and her aunt so often reminds her — that if she wants anything in this world of politics, war, and dragons, she’ll have to fight for it. Tooth and claw. Luckily, for a child of House Vesgar — an ancient family of Valyrian bloodmages — neither are in short supply.

Tags: Canon Divergence, Original Character(s), Aemond Targaryen/Original Character(s).

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Period-Typical Attitudes, Misgendering of a Trans Character.

Read on AO3!

I'm not really sure where this ride is taking me, nor how soon updates will come, but I've had chapter one of this fic ready for a while now, and I thought, fuck it. Let's do this. I wanna give a quick but huge thank you to everyone who's supported me as I wrote, either through encouragement, feedback, or beta reading! My partner dogboykennedy, my dear friend amarithian, darkwolf76 (everyone go check out her amazing fic, Children of Bone and Blood!), and everyone in the HOTD Hub discord for putting up with my incessant questions! ^^" Note: This is, essentially, an ASOIAF/Resident Evil crossover — if you're the least bit familiar with RE, you'll know — with an OC focus. Prior Resident Evil knowledge definitely not required. There are a few characters in this fic who are transgender, non-binary, or generally gender nonconforming, Samsa being one of them. I use she/her pronouns for her for simplicity. There is also a trans male character who is not always gendered correctly by other characters and, in reference to his daughter, is called 'mother.' Please take careful note if that's something that causes you distress or dysphoria.

The Red Keep reeked of death. When Samsa parted her lips and scented the air, the taste spread across her tongue like melting fat — thick and buttery, cloying in its sweetness. It grew so overwhelming the deeper she and her aunt proceeded within Maegor’s Holdfast, that by the time they reached the king’s chambers, her head was throbbing.

Meat. Fear-scent. Game, spoiled by the chase. Flesh, lost to rot. She had butchered quarry that stunk like this. Deer with fatty liver and rabbits with white-freckled intestines. The illness ruined it all. Samsa eyed the crack beneath King Viserys Targaryen’s door, inhaled the air soaked in sickness and sweetsmoke, and decided then and there that there would be no saving him. Three-and-ten, self-decidedly wise to the ways of life and death and the powers that kept each at bay, she wondered if Alyx’s game was worth playing at all.

The king will die, Samsa had reasoned, clutching the curl of parchment scrawled and sealed by Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King. Words not meant for girls named Waters, but she’d read them all the same. Best he does it under the maester’s watch, not ours.

Alyx had only given her a sly smile, the one she’d once shared with Samsa’s father, and told her to start packing her things. Now, she fussed with her hair as if she were still a babe. Even bastards must look their best. Especially bastards.

“Easy, kēlitsos.” Alyx’s deft fingers combed through Samsa’s blond locks, freshly cut at her shoulders. “Nervous, are you?”

“I’m not nervous,” Samsa countered. Perhaps it would have been wise to be. A pair of voices murmuring behind the door pricked her ears. She tried to parse their owners out as Alyx pinned her hair back with a sliver of polished black rib bone. A whisper, hoarse with exhaustion, then a woman’s, firm but coated in worry. Viserys and the queen?

She felt a tug at the back of her head and hissed. “Watch it!”

“Hush,” Alyx tutted. “You won’t do that in front of the king.”

“Do what?”

“Act like a child.” Alyx released Samsa’s hair and circled her, studying her as though she were choosing new tapestries for Arlior Ānogrion’s receiving hall. “Disregard, disobey, or ignore me…”

The voices caught again, harsh whispers. If only she could hear what they were arguing about…

“Stare,” Alyx pressed up at the underside of Samsa’s chin with a sharp finger, “with your mouth agape like a simpering fool.” Her gaze, an indigo as rich as the sky at dusk, was cool and hard. Still, Samsa found her threats harder to take seriously now that Alyx had to look up into her eyes to scold her.

“I would not dream of disrespecting our king, my lady,” Samsa replied, pushing her hand away. “I’m only listening.”

“Listening,” Alyx echoed. “Fine. Yes. Perhaps try not to look so foolish when you do.”

“I’ll behave.” Samsa offered a smile and felt her canine teeth poke her lip. “Perhaps you should have some faith in me.”

“I had faith in your father.” Alyx touched Samsa’s clasp, a bronze pair of prancing chimeras clutching each side of her crimson wool cloak, and straightened it out with a tug. “And we know where he found himself.”

A burning scent pricked Samsa’s nostrils. Her smile faltered. She set back her shoulders and knit her hands behind her back. “Have I been preened to your liking, my lady?”

Alyx smoothed her hands over her own dress; a modest gown of black linen, with red silk peeking from slits in the fabric like blood blossoming from a wound. A light chain belt, smoky Valyrian steel, hung from her waist, and rubies flashed at her ears. “Well enough. There’s only so much I can do.”

Alyx hadn’t even tried persuading Samsa into a dress. A black doublet with crimson cotton sleeves, embroidered in gold thread at the neck and sharp shoulders, was appropriate for meeting the king and queen, though perhaps not for a young girl. Her long cloak hid the menswear well enough; her dark pants and laced leather boots, not so much.

“How kind of you to say so,” Samsa said, watching as Alyx’s face pinched in resigned displeasure. She took a long, deep breath.

The voices grew louder. Samsa could hear them more clearly now: one man and one woman in disagreement. She let her hands fall to her sides. “The Hand will not be greeting us today.”

“Dāria?”

Samsa nodded. The queen. That was well enough; Alyx had known Alicent as a girl, naught more than a companion to Princess Rhaenyra, before she had ever worn the crown. Still, Alyx ironed out her posture, the lingering folds in her dress.

A moment later, the doors heaved open. A knight of the Kingsguard greeted them. “You may enter.”

“Come. Rȳbās,” her aunt said, urging her with a soft touch to her back. “And do not speak unless spoken to.”

Samsa dipped her head in silent obedience. As she looked back up, she spotted a flash of white at the end of the hallway. Ghostly curls, a pale face. Dark, wide eyes gawked at her from behind the hall’s last column. She reached for Alyx’s sleeve to point them out, but when she blinked, the face was gone. The doors heaved open, and the queen’s voice beckoned.

When all the pleasantries and greetings were said and done, Alyx spread her spidery fingers and slunk them over each pock and crag marring King Viserys’ face. Between the now overwhelming scent of rot and the hard, discomforted looks the queen had been giving her since she set foot in the room, Samsa tried not to grimace.

Alyx hummed, undisturbed by anything but her subject. “These years have not been kind to you, my dear.”

Viserys chuckled hoarsely, and with little joy. “Kinder to you, to be certain. You look as though you were never…”

“I am well. Don’t fret.” Alyx gave a practiced smile. “The gods exact their toll on each of us.”

And some of us have a higher price to pay, Samsa thought. For all the horror it was, the king’s face was a marvel, too. She found herself attempting to peer past Alyx when she blocked her vision, listing each of his possible afflictions in her mind. Sweetrot, yellowgum, wormbone, butterfly fever, brownleg — none seemed to fit. Alyx would comb her for her thoughts afterwards, and she knew to be ready.

“Some of us more than others,” Viserys wheezed. All he seemed to speak in were wheezes and coughs.

“And the pain?”

“It feels as though it grows worse by the day,” he told Alyx. She touched his cheek, gaunter than any man’s Samsa had seen before. The skin was discolored, red with irritation and black with something else. “Some days I can hardly find the strength to eat.”

“That will do you no good, Your Grace. You must try.” Alyx felt down the side of Viserys’ neck, shoulder, and where his arm should have been, ignoring his flinches of pain.

Samsa observed the queen as they spoke. Alicent watched, her body coiled tight like a spring, ready to pounce the moment Alyx pushed too far. They had never been friends, she knew; Alyx had been Aemma’s lady-in-waiting and a guiding voice to Princess Rhaenyra, not Alicent, but Samsa had expected more familiarity and less unease. When Alyx declared she was unsure of the cause of the king’s illness and turned to Alicent to seek her own account, the queen was tense, terse, and gave a smile that convinced no one of her courtesy.

“You’re sure you can help?” she asked, touching the seven-pointed pendant laying across her clavicle.

“Of course,” Alyx answered. “I’ve brought my best. Your maesters have done well, but some things cannot compare to what House Vesgar can offer.” She clasped her hands at her waist and took a step closer, her belt clinking gently against itself. “Still, I should like to meet with the Grand Maester. Orwyle now, is it?” There was a kind of sparkling satisfaction in her eyes — she had never been fond of Mellos, nor Mellos of her.

“Grand Maester Orwyle, yes.” Queen Alicent gave a nod. “I’ll have him visit your chambers once you’re settled.”

“Sooner rather than late,” Alyx said. She looked at Viserys and smiled. “I’d like to start today. If it please you, Your Grace.”

“It would,” The king replied, managing to smile. “Please. We grew up together, my lady. Viserys.”

Alyx nodded deeply. “If his Grace commands.”

They shared a short, gentle laugh as both Samsa and Alicent watched on, silent. For a moment, there was kinship in their frustration, in being nothing more than an outsider. Was she thinking of Aemma, Samsa wondered? The dead queen she had replaced? The familiarity flickered out like a candle the moment she remembered it was the queen that stood beside her, not an equal with jealousy to share.

It could have been hers once. The life Alyx and her father, Albyn, had lived long before she was born. Highborn, companions to dragonriding royalty, living in the shadow of the Iron Throne. Samsa knew she was foolish, immature, petty for thinking so; Alyx had told her as such time and time again. She didn’t even want it, for a creature like her had no place in the Red Keep; not sewing with the princess or sparing with the princes. Yet, the jealousy remained. If only her father had had the decency to wed her mother before having his way...

She’d dreamed of her proper name, her chambers in the Red Keep, of dragonriding; sneaking into the Dragonpit to claim a beast of her own. She had enough Valyrian blood, she thought… But so had her father, and it had hardly done him any good.

The laughter lulled until it was nothing but a buzzing echo in Samsa’s ears. Alyx bowed her head, offering a curtsy to both the king and queen.

“Now, Viserys, Your Grace, if you’ll excuse us…”

“A moment,” Viserys interrupted. He peered past Alyx’s figure and his watery violent eyes met Samsa’s sharp blue ones. “You’ve hidden this one from us for long enough. Albyn’s son, yes?”

“Daughter,” Alicent corrected.

“Daughter,” Viserys echoed. “Yes, yes. My apologies, my girl. Come closer.”

Samsa obeyed, warmed by the attention, and bowed as low as her pride would allow. Alyx touched the small of her back as she passed, a silent warning to behave.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Three-and-ten,” Samsa replied.

“And sprouting like a weed.” Viserys had to crane his neck to look at her properly, and Samsa couldn’t help the smug satisfaction that fluttered in her chest. She could, however, help her smirk. “You look just as your father did at that age.”

Samsa heard it often. Hard-edged with a strong jaw and fierce eyes, she sometimes even gave Alyx a start when turning corners.

Viserys studied her for a long moment. She could only endure as his tired eyes slithered over her frame. Just as the silence became unbearable, he spoke once more. “I was sorry to hear what befell him.” His tongue clicked ever so softly, not in sorrow, but as if he were chiding a dead man. “’Twas a horrible thing.”

“A foolish thing.” Her voice cracked the air into an uneasy silence. Whatever joy she’d taken from the frailty of the man sitting in front of her vanished as quickly as it had taken hold. “You should not mourn my father, Your Grace. Nor my loss. He was a fool, and a thief. He died a fool’s death. There’s no pride in that.”

The stench of the smoke and sulfur that had clung to his black bones was as fresh as the king’s corruption before her. Grief hadn’t found Samsa the night he died, nor any after, but the smell of flesh razed by dragonfire always sought her in her dreams.

Alyx shifted out of the corner of Samsa’s eye, no doubt preparing to berate her as soon as they were alone. She’d spoken out of turn at best, and snapped at the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms at worst. Was Samsa supposed to apologize? Thank him? What good were Viserys’ condolences to a bastard who only knew him by name and sickness? The king flashed her a wavering, pitiful smile.

Samsa set her shoulders back. If he wouldn’t reprimand her, she saw no reason to prostrate herself. “I’m glad to be here, Your Grace. I look forward to seeing you well.”

The next moments flit by in a blur. Alyx apologized, much to Samsa’s chagrin, and attributed her brashness to the long journey and Albyn’s recent death. The trip was naught more than a few days at sea, and her father’s death a year stale, but Samsa knew better than to protest. They hurried out to their assigned chambers shortly after, with promises of attending to Viserys that evening.

Alyx restrained herself from scolding Samsa until they were alone in their chambers. She stood tall while Samsa draped herself over a plush green chaise lounge and studied her fingernails.

“A different king would have taken your tongue for that,” Alyx hissed. Her voice was smooth, rich and deep like dark silk. This was the tone of a ruling lady; the daughter of a Lannister and a Vesgar. The sweet praise and soft my dears she had treated King Viserys to didn’t sound natural from her lips, but these threats did.

“If there was a different king, we wouldn’t be here,” Samsa replied. “How do you take a tongue with only one hand, anyways?”

“I will. If you won’t listen.”

Samsa flicked her gaze up at Alyx. Her threats were not empty, so she kneaded her tongue with her teeth and kept herself from biting back again. She forced herself to speak more softly, but no less begrudged. “I didn’t want to hear him speak of Father any longer. It’s humiliating.”

“It pleases me no more than it does you to hear him trip over his kind words and apologies.” Alyx held her hands at her waist, smoothing her palms together, the soft sound like a hiss in Samsa’s ears. “You’ll hear more of it. You’ll be stared at. Lords your father once knocked into the dirt will give you condolences, then snicker behind your back. If you plan to remain in the Red Keep for long, you’ll face it with dignity.”

“Dignity,” Samsa echoed, incredulous. “There’s no dignity in any of that.”

“Take up your fight with your father’s ashes, Samsa. It’s been a long day, and the next moons will be longer. No more. Not from you. Not from Ser Leon. Not from the king.” Alyx spoke with an edge that told Samsa that she wouldn’t humor the topic any longer. She sighed, fixed her sleeves, and slipped away to the pale balcony affixed to her suite.

Samsa simmered in a few minutes of silence before joining her. They had plans to make, or at least needed to speak about what to do with Viserys. She kept an ear out for the door, wondering when Alicent would send for the Grand Maester, or when her sworn shield, Ser Leon, would come fetch her so they could walk the castle together. The details of their chambers kept her occupied in the interim. Decently sized, not far from Maegor’s Holdfast, and open to the air of one of the castle gardens. They each had their own room, attached by a small bathhouse, adequately decorated and befitting of their station.

When she grew tired of counting the patterns on the wall, and none of the steps beyond their door halted to knock, Samsa pushed herself to her feet and went to Alyx. The sheer curtains brushed against Samsa’s skin as she pushed past, soft and light as a feather, dancing in the warm breeze. Alyx lounged against the parapet, her loosened blonde braid strewn over her shoulder.

“The queen did not seem fond of you.” Samsa joined her aunt in the fresh air, perching herself on the edge of the parapet. “Us,” she corrected after a moment.

“She didn’t,” Alyx conceded. The edge in her voice had blunted from earlier, though she always kept a certain sharpness to her words. She didn't seem as angry as before, or at least had other things on her mind. “I expected as much. This is not the princess. It’s the queen. We only ever spoke in short courtesies when Rhaenyra brought Lady Alicent to see Aemma.”

“Will it be a problem?”

“I don’t suspect so.” Alyx turned to look at Samsa. The setting sun haloed her in rays of pink and gold. “For all the Hightowers have done, the king brought us here. He’ll not send his oldest friend away so easily.”

“As long as I stay out of trouble, you mean.”

Alyx’s face creased with a hint of impatience. “As long as you stay out of trouble.”

“I hear the eldest prince is a mischievous one,” Samsa said. “Perhaps that’s what I need to get his attention.” She thought back to the face in the hallway, framed by silvery curls. Had it been Prince Aegon, or Aemond? Whichever one, she needed to find him.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Alyx chided. “Be simple, be safe. Keep Leon close.”

“Wherever he may be, enjoying the castle and city without my company...”

“He’ll find his way,” Alyx said. “I sent for him and Luis.”

Leon was older, nearing his twenty-second year, but had not yet grown so insufferable that Samsa dreaded his company. By all accounts his demeanor was a miracle, considering the knight who had mentored him, Ser Jack Connington, was as joyless as they came. He made a good captain-of-the-guard, but had little use otherwise. Leon had been her protector since he’d been knighted, and bearing the name of Waters just like her, she liked to think of him as an elder brother. He was comely, with soft blue eyes that reminded her of a begging dog, and fond of letting Samsa get away with things. She’d spent her last nameday at a tavern by his side, squeezed between the castle blacksmith and kennelmaster.

She didn’t know Luis as well, though he’d been drinking with them too, and a steadfast companion of Leon’s for years. He was another former student of the Citadel, Dornish, and had an easy air about him. With a mind as quick as his smile, he had been Alyx’s first choice to bring to King’s Landing.

Samsa leaned further back, anchoring herself to the parapet by her ankles. The open air yawned at her back while the breeze brushed her cheeks. She scented the clean sea air; salt and flowers, fish and smoke. A touch of pine and sulfur and she could have been home, watching the sun rise over the Gullet from her chambers in Arlior Ānogrion.

Samsa craned her neck, peering across the askew garden and the Sunset Sea beyond. “And… If I come across my mother?”

“Restrain yourself,” Alex said in a flat tone, as if the answer had been obvious. “I don’t need a rogue voice running to Alicent because you grew too eager.”

“You think so highly of him, that he would cry to the queen at first sight.”

“You don’t know him as I did.”

If it were up to you, I wouldn’t know him at all.

Finn. It was hardly a mother’s name, let alone a lady’s, but Samsa liked the way it laid on her tongue. She tasted it each night she laid alone in bed, holding it close, wondering what he looked like, if they had the same nose, or lips, or wide set of the shoulder. He’d left so little of himself in her that Samsa could only guess.

An old maidservant had given the name to her; a witness of what had befallen the poor girl in men’s clothing that Lord Albyn had taken to bed. Alyx had even deigned her his family name when Samsa proudly presented her findings: Flint. The blood of Old Valyria ran thick in her veins, but she took special pleasure in knowing a bit of her came from the North; the barren tundras, the cold, churning waters, the stony seat of Widow’s Watch. She had Bolton in her, too, from her father’s grandmother, but her cousins at the Dreadfort were more distant than the foreign lands across the sea. Finn was a stone’s throw from the very place Samsa sat.

Perhaps he’d stood in these chambers before. Perhaps he’d walked in the garden at her back. Samsa did not want to love him, or his husband Lord Larys Strong, nor the spineless boy their union had produced, but she wanted to see him. Touch him, even. Find a bit of herself in his sharp, Northern face.

“I’ll be courteous,” Samsa promised after a moment of thought, only half lying. “I won’t say I’m his daughter. I’ll greet him as a stranger. He’ll have nothing to fear from me.”

“He’ll recognize you the moment he lays eyes on you.” Alyx pressed her hand against Samsa’s hip, urging her back towards solid ground. She cupped her cheek in her palm. “You have Albyn’s face. It’s sure to terrify him. And fear makes us do very stupid things.” Her gaze softened. “Come down. I’m sure the Grand Maester will be here any moment. Have you given any thought to Viserys?”

“Some.” Samsa slid to her feet. “Sweetrot seems likely,” she said, “but I highly doubt the king has ever been to Sothoryos. The same with wormbone.” The mystery of the king’s ailment piqued her interest, but in the moment, nothing seemed more dull.

“King’s Landing is a trading hub. You don’t think a sailor could have brought it to him?”

A test. “If it’s that contagious, the entire court would be dead.”

“It’s a kind of necrosis, to be certain,” Alyx replied, sauntering back inside with Samsa at her side. “Something that eats at the mind and body but doesn’t kill quickly. We’ll ask Orwyle when the sickness first started, in truth.”

“Do you truly think we can save him?”

“Ziry kaerīnagon?” Alyx suppressed a laugh. “If anyone can, it will be us.”

The Grand Maester appeared at their door as the sun sank into the sea. Orwyle was a slight man, his small frame shrouded in heavy grey robes, with a thick book pressed under a thin arm. Samsa studied his chain with curious delight as Alyx bid him entry, picking out what metals she could: copper, lead, iron, tin. One link was darker still, laced with pale smokey waves: Valyrian steel. In Arlior Ānogrion, they kept no maester, but plenty would-be initiates and disgraced scholars found solace within their walls. Her father had met his closest friend at the Citadel before their curiosity had them both expelled.

Samsa still dipped her head out of respect, greeting him by title. He in turn named her lady. She wondered if the Alicent would call her the same. Alyx took his hand like he were an old friend and gave him her best smile. More honeyed words. More undeserved idolatry.

Samsa moved to take her leave.

Liquid High Valyrian rang in Samsa’s ears. “And where do you think you’re going?” Alyx had paused her greeting to catch her red handed, going for her sword. She excused herself from Orwyle to pull Samsa aside.

“Jokorigon,” she replied. To explore. “And find Ser Leon.”

“It would serve you best to remain here.”

It would serve you, you mean. As intriguing as the king’s sickness was, Samsa would have plenty of time to study his ailment for the time they were in King’s Landing. Far more interesting was the Red Keep itself, the secrets she could pry from its stone, and the pale-haired prince who had watched her from afar. Her mother, too, if she could find him — but no doubt Finn had heard of her and Alyx’s arrival and had already hidden away like a frightened mouse.

“I’ll be back in the blink of an eye,” Samsa promised. “Before the king’s first session tonight.”

“Before supper,” Alyx replied, insistent on the privacy of their ancestor’s tongue. “I suspect Viserys will invite us to his evening meal.”

“Us, or you?”

“Us. You’re my heir, whether he and the queen like it or not. Not my petulant uncle.” Alyx straightened out Samsa’s dress again, tucking stray strands of blond behind her ear. “Change your clothing before supper as well. The king’s children may be there.”

Samsa smiled, subdued, then nodded. “I understand, my lady.” If luck served her, she’d find at least one of them before they dined. If not, well… She’d have to make her best impression at the table.

“If you find Luis with Leon, send him our way.” Alyx cast a glance towards Orwyle. “Walk in stride, kēlitsos.”

Samsa nodded again, took her sword from amongst her things, and gave her polite goodbyes to the Grand Maester. The castle’s evening sigh met her as she left her apartments; scents of yeast and baking bread, spiced wine and roasting meat. She affixed Chimera’s Claw to her belt, grateful that she was now tall enough for it, and set down the hallway. The weight of the blade at her hip brought a special comfort, like a buck growing back its antlers after shedding season.

Distantly, she heard Alyx speaking to Orwyle, petering into silence the further her feet carried her. “Three-and-ten,” she said, “and she thinks she knows everything…”

Her feet carried her to a junction in the castle. Samsa cast her gaze down one hallway and up another, eyeing the burning daylight through window slats carved in the shapes of fire-breathing dragons. She had some time, but not much. Despite the wealth of time Alyx had promised her to do her work, Samsa felt a heat blooming in her chest, restlessness prickling in her legs. There were moons to make nice with princes and lordlings and whoever was brave enough to come her way — but it did not feel that way. This was her chance to earn her name, her proper name, and she had no desire to waste the precious time she had been given. The sooner the realm knew her as the future of House Vesgar, the sooner the stinging humiliation of her father’s death would burn away.

With a hand around the grip of the Claw, thumb tracing the empty eye sockets of the lion’s head pommel, Samsa shut her eyes, took a scent-filled breath, and listened.

She’d tracked rabbits and shadowcats, brought down great stags and gutted them herself; she’d not let one little prince squirm out of her grasp.

#fic: all things devour #oc: samsa vesgar #oc: alyx vesgar #tbr #let’s gooooo

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