Time will tell (this bitter farewell)
Rhaegar sees his wife the night before he rides to battle. Sometimes sorrow is not sweet, and has little to do with the parting.
It isn't the girl that makes her seethe. Were it just the Stark girl Elia would be hurt, but a part of her would understand. The same part of her that wonders if her husband is mad or merely deludes himself. There was a younger time when she wondered if his prophecy had some truth, but she can't think that anymore when the kingdom lies in ruins.
That he set fire to a brewing war in his rush to save the world…
That he has left her and their children here while rebellion twists his father into madder ravings…that she cannot forgive. As their father, could he not have waited a decade or two until Aegon and Rhaenys were more than helpless?
Her House could not have imagined this when they acquiesced to make seven province-kingdoms from six.
Oberyn told her at her wedding she need merely send word and he would rescue her from King's Landing. But Oberyn is in Essos now, playing mercenary.
"Elia?"
Rhaegar stands in her doorway, grave and still until she invites him in. Her husband, so beautiful and sad and musical that some mistake it for magical. But she's felt his seed between her thighs, offered a hand to his cheek when his prophecies drove him to empty stares and idle strumming.
She has seen him worried before, but Elia cannot recall if she has seen him nervous. Ah, his darling luck, to see himself as fated. What fit of his father could unnerve him, when he thinks of a world surviving whatever he warns could destroy it.
Elia stands as he enters. His kiss is soft, at first. But she knows from the dozens of knights that pass through King's Landing how looming blood can make a man suddenly remember he is mortal. Rhaegar's desires have never been earthbound, but he is a man, and his kiss deepens as he pulls her closer.
Did you feel something for her? Or did you see the ice in her father's eyes and believe the only fissure between the world ending and coercing your prophecy was your wife?
Alas, she is no sanctified sacrifice.
Her mouth and tongue still as she pushes away, still flush against him. Has she broken their kiss before? His face buries in the crook of her neck and she feels a small stab of pity. Her brother has always said he relishes mortality, but Elia thinks deep down it's his way of making friends with fear. Rhaegar has never stopped to consider, and the ominous beating of his heart now has him wondering.
Lightly she pushes his jaw back to meet his eyes.
"I hoped you would come. Please, Rhaegar, drink with me for some peace."
Her husband drinks wine but never to excess. Not that she needs his excess.
Elia steps away to pour the glasses of Dornish red, into her goblets etched in black dragons and silver suns.
Perhaps she is a horrid wife, not to have coaxed him to forget his books and dismal prophecies with strong wine and sanguine heat. It is too late to waste the time on judgment.
She guides him to a chair in front of a warm hearth and takes the one across from him. Never a heat as soothing as Dorne, but she makes do with her silks and cinnamon.
For the first time she can recall, her husband takes a long drink. His lips are slightly stained and he swallows again at the warm rush. A quarter-smile, and she thinks the wine has hit his belly. If you looked this human years before, perhaps I could have made you happy.
"When I return…" he starts suddenly, gaze serious as it always is, but his stare not so distant. "Things will be different. My father started this war."
You started this war, my sweet. Brandon Stark and your beastly father merely assured it, and Lords Stark and Arryn welcomed it with open arms.
She does not say a thing to counter him, but neither can she bring herself to assuage him. She has tried—when she was first with child and his lips were soft and sweet on her swollen belly, she thought she had—but then he insisted the child be Rhaenys, and she knew his dreamy ardor cared little for dynasties and fathering.
"I do not doubt your victory. The best warriors have schooled you, and no written general has escaped your notice."
Did the Stark girl make you feel differently? You said you found the Knight of the Laughing Tree and expect me not to match the pieces? My dear heart, if she slapped you into seeing she was a young and spirited girl, I would thank her here and now.
"You calm me, Elia." He smiles, though his eyes close before she can see if they smile too. "It's…odd...to think I will be leading an army into battle."
He takes another long drink. She feels the smallest twinge as she raises her own glass, letting it brush her lips without taking a sip. She should not be drinking wine anyway, the archmaester has said. Not when she feeds Aegon from her breast.
She sees his eyes lose a trace of their melancholy. No sudden peace with mortality though, at least none not sluiced in Dornish red. It still prompts the one question she cannot quell. A princess with an unfaithful husband—publically unfaithful, shameful and careless—might give some ladies a hundred questions, but she cares only for one.
"At least you will make an end to it. Seeing this now…half the kingdom in rebellion, the burning countryside…would you take it all back if you could? Leave fate to its own will?"
The small amount of wine cannot ease the tightness of his mouth, the thousand-year look in his eyes. But that there is tension at all makes her wonder he doubts.
"What's done is done. But if we talk of stories, I would have…not assumed some men to be so incensed. Or my father so far gone." She knew he would say this, and he knows it too. Elia knows his expressions well enough to read the small lines and angles. However she pales to prophecy, she knows he has a softer look that only comes for her. He offers her that now, however paltry the gift. "I swore to you I would be honest."
Softness leaves one open for pain. In her most wishful state she imagines he feels a twinge for the fondness he bears her. But one who lives for stories knows much of pain—most stories she knows end in glorious death. It would not make him choose any differently, she knew this long before he came here.
Ever since the Stark lord burned…or even before that when the king clawed her own daughter…she has grown cold knowing no rescue will come. Yet Oberyn did not leave her helpless. Elia never knew this precise night would come, but when it did she felt the gyre. Her wistful prince, thinking there could be a world as pure and unchanging as his stories.
Perhaps that is not what he thinks at all. Perhaps his thoughts and fears go deeper than he ever speaks of, even those rare times he's closed a book and sought her out, looking almost hopeless. When he reads to Rhaenys or hums a tavern song, she almost doubts.
Still he surprises her when he kneels before her chair, just below her eyes.
Whatever ice hardens her heart, she is a princess of Dorne, and some heat will always cling. Gods damn his perfect face.
His mouth is warm from wine, warm from blood, warm from her. Her legs part before she remembers to be cool and cordial, and she cannot not resist his warm chest at her ribs or her fingers through his fresh-washed hair. Of course she does this one-handed. Her husband's odd affection took her too suddenly to set down her glass. Gods, she wishes this were five years ago and she could have tossed it away and pushed him to his back.
She tastes the wine on his lips, on his tongue, and once more she pushes away. His dark violet eyes are thin rings, even as they glance at her untouched goblet of wine. Surely he heard the archmaester forbid her anything but tea and water.
For the first time, he seems to take her into his thousand-year stare. Nerves tighten, but Aerys' court has trained her to maintain an untouched face.
"I understand." Soft, half-whispered iron to her ears. Silver…silver is softer than iron. Rhaegar is a fool but he is not stupid. "I…understand, Elia."
How dare he! How dare he think he understands?
But she cannot bring herself to ask, not when he rises, tall black boots accentuating his grace. He kisses her forehead one last time and leaves in silence. No prophecy would have ordered him to kiss the wife who bore his Rhaenys and Aegon. Whatever his nerves at the coming clash with Lord Baratheon, he has not taken any measure to protect his children. Either he still gambles everything on fate's favor, or he still sees too far ahead to consider it. Either way, she cannot forgive. Not when he could have taken the throne any time he wanted, before she learned how close roasting meat and roasting man smell.
When her hand begins to ache, she takes the decanter and goblet and splashes them all into the fire, followed by the slender dark vial. The flames hiss and smoke but the logs still smolder. Finally she wipes her lips, sadder than she thought to swipe away his last kiss. Perhaps her husband forces himself to retch now too—mayhaps his battle nerves will even help. But her brother gifted her with subtle claws.
Like as not it won't be until he reaches the Trident that he'll realize his shoulders ache under his pauldrons, that his sword is slower to cut. She knows that Rhaegar, who once thought himself the Prince that was Promised, would never abstain from his final battle.
Elia falls asleep wondering if he hates her now, and feels almost worse thinking he might not consider it enough to care. She'll wonder even after he falls. Her prince has cursed her to wonder about fate and farsight, never more so than when the hellish work of flesh and steel smashes through her door. The nameless lamb in her arms gives a cry.
The Martells made the Seven Kingdoms. We can unmake them if we must.Small comfort, but she asks for none.