"This is beauty. Touch it. Go on. Caress the fabric." Dany touched it as her brother told her. She lightly ran her hand over it and pulled away.
"Is it really mine?" she asked and her eyes went to Naerel. Naerel looked at Viserys, and nodded her head silently.
"A gift, from the Magister Illyrio", Viserys cooed while vetting the fine whispy silk. He was in high spirits tonight. Naerel had spotted that glimmer of anticipation and ambition in his lilac eyes. "The color will bring out the violet in your eyes. And Illyrio promised that you will have gold as well, and jewels of all sorts. Tonight you must look like a princess."
Dany looked at her brother with those big, wondrous eyes full of innocence and fright, like a young doe that has smelt the hunter's scent in the air. Naerel wondered if only she could see that, or if it was only she that cared of it. Poor, unlucky Dany was sold like meat in a market. The gemstones and trinkets were spices and herbs, her hyaline dress was there to display her young and untouched body. It made her sad, watching little Dany be treated that way. It always made her sad.
"She will", Naerel finally spoke. "She will do her duty and honor our name." That made Viserys cringe a little, and Naerel saw how he didn't like it when she said our and not your, as if she was one of them.
Daenerys gave Naerel a hopeful look, and then returned to the soft fabric. "Why does he give us so much?" she heard her say as silent as a whisper. "What does he want from us?" Daenerys was meek and timid but she was no idiot, Naerel knew. Viserys appeared to have different thoughts. He narrowed his eyes into two dark crevices framed by the wrinkles his life's angst had given him.
"Illyrio is no fool" Viserys said, "the magister knows that I will not forget my friends when I come into my throne." That was the explanation he always had to give. Naerel had once retaliated against it and said that Viserys would never return to his supposed throne. That had earned her a cussed beating. She knew, though, that it was the truth. She just never spoke her mind about it again. "Besides", he continued, "he owes the Lysene a debt he must pay off."
Naerel was born in Dorne on a full moon, which was seen as an omen of good luck and purity. Yet she was raised in Lys by her affluent Lysene father, in a gilded manse close to the sea. Lysene was her Mother Tongue, she dressed in the fashions of Lys and wore her hair in it's famous ways. 'Lys the Lovely', Illyrio had said, 'and yet Naerel the Lysene is even lovelier'. Naerel had heard rumours, that her father, the famous merchant Raanos Lyssenei, was a grandson of Irogenia of Lys and great-great-great nephew of the Black Swan of Lys. Whoresblood, Viserys called it. It drove Naerel mad with anger to hear him insult her heritage with such cold satisfaction. The contempt sluiced from his mouth so often, Naerel had started to believe the things he said as true. After all, she was just a penniless Lysene, what did it matter. She was irrelevant. What did she matter.
Naerel's mind travelled to the memory of her father. He had been gone for so long, he was just a blur now. She felt guilty for not being able to remember him clearly. He was tall like the bell-towers of Norvos, broadly built with shoulders as wide as the Rhoyne. She remembered his face as withered, eroded from the sea like an unyielding head land in front of a seething storm. His eyes burned blue with youthful brilliance, and his hair was long and weavy, swept back or to the side, and it would always smell of salt and of the docks. He would always go and walk amongst the stalls and the traders, even though Naerel never had a chance of understanding why. She also remembered a canary she had. Her father had given it to her, and she had found a letter coiled around it's leg when she got it. It was not written in her father's letters, and in a language alien to her and strange. When she told him, he yanked it from her tiny hand and burned it in an angry frenzy. The canary remained, and she would sing with it all the time, and would invent tunes and songs for the two of them to whistle. How much she loved that little bird. All of that had come to a sudden end, and the canary and her father seemed so long ago, so far away, ruins of a much cherished past. Now, all that remained of Raanos Lyssenei was his vague appearance, and the image of his large back casting a giant, sheltering shadow, covering young Naerel like a cape. She decided she wouldn't think of it now, not in front of the Targaryens.
Illyrio was her father's friend, much long before his rise to golden luxuries and cunning dealings. Naerel knew almost nothing about the matter, only that her father was a captain in Pentos when Illyrio was poor and homeless. When Naerel was born, Raanos had said that a flute made of dragonbone was sent to her, so that her wetnurse would teach her to play. She did not remember how, but she knew it was from that distant, Pentoshi man who somehow knew her but she not him. She had heard a servant whisper to another that she reminded them of the Bard Prince, beyond the Narrow Sea, be it her voice or how much she read. Viserys would always have something to say to that, and so would Daenerys, given the chance. Even Daenerys would scold her, following the example of her brother. She hated her when Dany did that, and when she remembered what other sad tidings those two brats caused, she hated the name Targaryen even more. She was jealous of them and she feared them, too. 'If you don't listen to me' her nurse would say, 'the devil-dragon will come and hurt you'. Naerel would immediately freeze at the thought and do what the nurse would say. The Bard Prince, the Mad King and all of those people where the devil-dragon. That Rhaegar… she spat on his name. She didn't want that name Viserys and Dany carried so nobly. It was already too much that she was dragged along Rhaegar's siblings, in the dirt of exile and the shame of begging.
When she woke from her thoughts, she saw Viserys eclipsing Daenerys with his body, and half-whispering things to her. Her hair stood from her skin, and felt her blood thick and sluggish in her veins. She always turned away. She was taught to always turn away.
Viserys turned around , his lilac eyes reached hers and she remained still. He changed faces so quickly, it was like he wore a mask. Naerel didn't like it. He walked ahead of her. "Come ,wife" he commanded, and Naerel followed him the way a dog follows its master.
"Must I be there tonight?" Naerel said as she followed her husband. Viserys seemed preoccupied and did not listen. "I don't want to come tonight", she spoke.
Viserys stopped and turned around. "What do you mean?"
"It is not my place to come", Naerel said.
"Mmm…" Viserys nodded, "stay here then."
She waited for them to depart on their litters to Khal Drogo's manse. She watched them part, the slaves carrying them away under the light of torches and the new moon that hang between the indigo clouds. When they were far away, she got up from the window and left her room.
She walked the corridors with haste, impatience quickened her heel. Her heart beat fast as she made her way to the marble staircase. She held up her gown as she descendent the steps. She wore an ivory silk, decorated with a net of white crystals that shimmered as she moved. The neckline plunged deep and revealed her full cleavage that she perfumed with essence of water-lily from Yi Ti. From the waist down, the ivory transcended into a deep royal blue, embroidered with pearls and small coins from Lys, mimicking the elegance of the night's sky. She had taken off her slippers and her silver bangles so that she would not make any noise. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she pulled off the large golden pin that kept her rope-braid coiled and let her milky-blonde hair cascade down her shoulders and to her hips in wavy locks that shone like platinum and gold in the light of the torches.
"I thought you'd never come" the bravo said. Naerel heard him approach.
"I am here now" she said and felt a wetness between her thighs. She quickly unlaced the shoulders of her dress, and the man stepped forward and started unbuttoning his shirt. Naerel let her gown drop to her feet, leaving her naked, her round breasts covered by her long silky hair. The bravo took off his shirt and tunic and took her in his arms and softly brushed his lips on hers. She felt his warm skin against hers as he kissed her neck and she ran her long fingers through his unkept, dark hair. Naerel moaned and sighed and whispered the bravo's name in the dark. Aermidon, Aermidon. She gasped as he thrust himself in her slowly, as he pinned on the dank, cellar wall. The wine bottles shook and twinkled as they moved and giggled. She felt happy, ecstatic; she called out in pleasure.
"Ahh!"
"Shh!" the bravo playfully hushed her, "they will hear us."
"I don't care" she whispered with a smile.
When they finished, they lay on their fallen clothes, with love's dew on their rosy skin. Naerel felt like she could fly every time she was with him, her heart's sorrows all seemed magically mended as if her bravo was a blessed charm. He was a handsome lad, three years older than her, tall and with a swordsman's body. His skin was tanned from training in the sun, and freckles where peppered all over his shoulders and his torso.
"I told you to shave that beard" Naerel said.
"That I will not do" he said and stood straight.
"It tickles me" she rolled over and sat on her belly, her hair poured down between her shoulders. She giggled. "I know you keep it short, but it scratches my face and my neck and my…"
Aermidon rose and put on his trousers. "Enough about my beard" he said, "I brought you something."
"Is it a present?" her eyes widened.
"Almost" he said, and from a brown bag somewhere near by, he drew a dagger.
Naerel's excitement flushed away from her face. "What is that?" she asked silently.
"It is what we talked about" Aermidon said, "you know that I can't do it."
She rose and started clothing herself. She would not be having that talk now or ever again. She wanted to get out of there.
"What are you doing?" Aermidon said, "Naerel, you know you have to do this, don't walk away from me."
"You are a fool" she said as she slipped into her dress, "and I am a fool as well for… everything"
"You know this deed must be done, my love. You know what kind of man he is, and you know, just as well as I, that his blood must be spilt so that we can be together and ride away. I can see it in your blue eyes how you hate him." Aermidon looked deep into her eyes and Naerel felt her heart melt. He slipped his fingers around her waist and brought her close to his warm chest. She felt heart beat slow and steady, and he softly kissed her forehead and smelt her hair. She felt desire for him smoothly kindle in her core. Whenever she was near his gentle touch, she forgot how much she needed his sweet breath cool the part of her neck under her ear, or how she wanted to be held by him. How much she wanted to feel loved.
He kissed her again, and before he slipped back into his tunic, he gave her time and day for their next rendezvous. He wore his shirt unbuttoned and his leather gloves tucked in his belt, with his sword and two scabbards in one hand. As he was about to ascend the staircase, the torchlight glowed behind him like a field of gold, and cast a long shadow that made him look black against it. "Valar Morgulis" he said in his deep voice.
"Valar Dohaeris" Naerel said, and saw he still had her periwinkles scarf wrapped around the wrist of his first sword arm. When she looked down, she saw she was holding the dagger.
"All men must die" she said to herself, as the last torch in the cellar died out.
