The most striking memory of her brother is filled with blood and screams. Jaehaera hasn't forgotten that image, not for a moment. If asked, she can tell the exact shade of violet her brother's eyes were when his head flew off his shoulders, and she can describe the look on his face down to the last line. It's such a strange thing that other, happier, memories fade and this one clings to her like the scent of death to the sick. Aye, the blood and the screams are part of a never ending nightmare which Jaehaera relieves almost every night. Hiding under the blanket no longer keeps the monsters away.
Despite that being the most striking of her memories where Jaehaerys is concerned, it is not the earliest, nor even the one she talks about most. Those are other instances. And their image is less clear in her mind, but Jaehaera can recall a time when Jaehaerys held her hand and led her in a trot over green pastures. She remembers a time when he pulled the ribbons from her hair because he didn't think green was a nice colour. And she can always bring to mind the image of him teasing her for stumbling over the hem of her dress and falling flat on her face.
However, no matter how many of these recollections she gathers to her chest it is still never enough. There is a constant hole in her heart, a gaping wound which she refuses to let close. Every time a light scab forms over the dripping sore, Jaehaera will pull at it with the iron nails of memory. The pain keeps her alive. The ache keeps her breathing.
"I miss you," she whispers to the pile of ash nestled in the silver urn.
Jaehaerys was more than a brother. Jaehaerys was half of her. The sword that pierced his skin, cut her too. Just because her wound cannot be seen with the naked eye, its existence is not less real and no less painful than her brother's hand been. Her brother is gone, ashes and dust.
There is no one left to protect her now. Jaehaerys isn't here to take her hand when she falls or to tease her about being clumsy. Jaehaerys will never again chase her down the corridors, pretending to be Balerion the Black Dread. They won't ever play knights and castles. And it hurts. The knowledge makes her weak in the knees and dizzy and faint.
"My Princess, it is time to go back," Septa Erayne tells her, pulling her away gently. "His Majesty won't like it that you sit here all day."
Jaehaera steels herself against the anguish parting with her brother always produces. She nods to the Septa and they walk back together. Unless it is Jaehaerys, Jaehaera avoids speaking to anybody. What use of there is uttering words they refuse to understand? Jaehaerys would have understood, they don't. All they ever do is stare at her with pity.
She doesn't need their pity. She doesn't want it.