Paths of the Heart
Waiting
Winter persisted and Elia's heart's wish had yet to come true. Moons went by and turned to years. Years of covert looks and silent appraisals, and whispers that House Baratheon had lost its dynasty before it even started it. Robert Baratheon had doomed it by taking this frail apparition, Rhaegar Targaryen's leftovers, to be his wife and queen. Of course she would never give him a child. She had given all she had in her to the husband who had deemed it not enough. Such were the talks at King's Landing and anywhere the court went. Elia pretended not to hear. Words were wind… but not really. They had the power to hurt, as she had first discovered at Harrenhall.
"Do you want me to take care of the matter?" her lord husband asked her outright when one night he caught her weeping, and she shook her head.
"I don't want anyone punished for being stupid," she said. For being right.
He looked at her curiously. "How did you manage to stand it?" he asked. "They must have been talking this way about you since you were born."
"Starting with my brother," Elia confirmed. "When he was told that he had a sister, he assured his foster father that I would soon die."
His horrified expression made her laugh. "Well, he did. And I never paid any attention to people's talks. I never knew any state but being of frail health."
Except for Harrenhall. Except for Aegon's birth. The first time, she had felt as if she had gathered all the exhaustion in the world after the journey made so soon after she rose from her sickbed to be immediately confronted with the inconveniences of the first moons of a new blessed state that had felt anything but; the second, she had truly thought she had died and then wished she had. It was then that words had gained the might to hurt her. As they did now. An abandoned wife and then an unwanted one, a queen without power, a mother without children – she was all that people said, and more. Sometimes, she wondered if the very fever of her longing for a child prevented her from conceiving it. Might it be that she had insulted the Seven with desiring so strongly? Would they punish her forever with the sight of an empty nursery, a missing cradle, and listening to the water that the pale winter sun sometimes managed to melt somewhat, so it dripped slowly and persistently down walls and windows?
At King's Landing, she felt Jon Arryn's eyes on her, careful not to be obvious now. But for how long? Wait a little, Elia wanted to say. Wait. I am still weak, I experience headaches almost every day, dizziness, weakness in my limbs… I don't need you or anyone else to tell me what we agreed upon. What my duty is because I was born a woman…
At least her husband would not say anything. For now. Elia ground her teeth and welcomed his nightly visits with all she had, trying to pretend that she enjoyed it because he wanted to make it nice for her. But the tears she had sustained at Mariah's birth made every encounter painful. It mattered not. Not if it gave her a child. And it didn't.
Finally, the spring arrived, timid and glorious. Heaps of snow turned to grey rivers flooding the Red Keep, King's Landing, and the world, and yet hope was near. One day, Ashara showed Elia a snowdrop, small and bold in the snow. Further hope came with pale green buds finding their way to the branches of the dark trees and then opening in a glorious display of freshness.
And blossomed more yet when Elia knew for sure that the babe she had longed for these two endless years would arrive soon.
"You see?" Ashara would ask. "I told you that your womb would open with spring. You're the princess of Dorne. A princess of summer. You cannot bloom in winter."
Winter has brought her her first three children and Elia could never regret it, no matter how much the separation hurt. And still, as her new babe grew, she felt a sense of something that she could only call peace. She was about to fulfill her duty. She was not useless. She would have a child to love and care for and this time, she would take her own life before letting anyone take them from her. A new chance. And she knew that her other children were loved and well-cared for. It rarely happened that a week went by without ravens flying both ways between King's Landing and Sunspear.
"Is it… painful?" Robert asked, watching in awe as the babe kicked. Unfortunately, Elia was so thin that the movements were quite visible for everyone around… or was it fortunately? She did not mind flaunting her state in front of all those who had already written her off.
"No," she said and smiled. "It's reassuring, actually."
"But not dangerous?" he insisted. "Both the babe and you?"
She felt another smile spreading across her face. Despite his small signs of attention and the pelts he loaded down on her – when he had found another whore, most often, - despite the increasing sway she was finally allowed to hold, to Tywin Lannister's great chagrin, Robert had never said that he cared about her. Never.
"We're fine," she assured him. "We'll be both fine."
She told herself this as she went through the hard and yes, sometimes painful changes her state forced on her. As she oversaw the preparations for the birth, from the room to the lack of flowers because they made her gag when labouring. As the child dropped low and the memories of her past childbirths started haunting her nights when she could not ward them off. But when the actual day of the birth came, she could no longer deny to herself that it was not truth but wish. A whim of the Mother. A whim of the Stranger. She could almost feel them both lean against her and wage their claims… but then a tiny wail interrupted their fight.
A newborn's scream!
Just once more, she thought as she cradled her son. I have to go through this just once more, and then I'll be free. And as the bells of Baelor's Sept joyously announced the arrival of Edric Baratheon, she held him in her tired arms and wept for the children she had lost.