Disclaimer: I disclaim.
This is my third Elia fic after A Farewell and The Daughter of the Sun. The three stories are not related – just ideas I had about Elia in different moments.
The Sun and the Falling Star
She knew what love was. She had seen it whenever Doran looked at Mellario, whenever her mother's smile turned a little sad when she spoke of the father Elia barely remembered. She had seen it when she had attended the wedding of Ashara's brother, the new Lord of Starfall, to the beautiful Lady Alynna Gargalen. She had watched as one knight or another looked admiringly after Ashara and vowed that they'd love her forever and she knew it wasn't the real thing.
But she had never experienced it and she didn't know whether she ever would. Delicate and frail, she seemed to take longer than most girls to bloom, so she started paying attention to men quite late. And since she was well aware that her marriage would not be of her choosing, she didn't feel any resentment or hidden defiance when she was told she'd be wed to the Crown Prince. She was just proud – for her mother, for herself, for Dorne.
She did not expect love and she did not get it.
The sun shone brightly, turning the attires of the welcoming party into a splendid brilliance of red and gold, and azure blue, and all between. Each important lord and lady in King's Landing had come to meet the Dornish princess who would one day be their queen.
It was only now that Elia felt the entire weight of the change in her life. She would no longer be the beloved child of Sunspear, the princess of smiles and carefree laughter who bloomed under her mother's tutelage, Doran's ministrations, and Oberyn's teasing. Now, she had to carve a place for herself in a city that was not hers, under the watchful eye of a king who was said to get madder with every passing day, in the life of a prince who was no doubt no more excited by the idea of their union that she was. She had been taught in the rest of Westeros' ways but it was not the same thing as practicing them. She felt entirely unprepared.
She stole a look at her right and her spirits lifted. She would not be alone. Ashara would be with her. As beautiful as she was, her violet-eyed friend was no fool, although she was able to keep this image should she so choose. Ashara looked back at her. You're stronger than you think, she would say if they were alone. Remember that, Elia.
And then, a group of riders came forward. Elia's eyes were immediately attracted by the two silver-haired men in the lead. For a moment, she felt panicked that she didn't know who her future husband was. Behind her, Ashara took a deep breath of delight at the very moment Elia's heart sang with joy at seeing something soothing. Something familiar. Someone she knew. Ser Arthur Dayne.
Maybe getting used to King's Landing would be easier than she had feared.
Her marriage was a good one. It was certainly better than most marriages of convenience. There was no love involved, not the one she had seen at Sunspear, but they were fond of each other. Elia appreciated Rhaegar's keen intelligence and the fact that he was trying to make up for his father's mistakes – both to her and the realm. His night visits were not unpleasant, either, although she would like it much better if he was able to see past her fragile health. Things might have been far worse.
She had not felt love and so she did not miss it.
The first time she witnessed one of Aerys' fits in their entirety, she stood stunned, unable to move as he was shouting in his Queen's face and breaking things in the great hall. His hand flew toward Rhaella's face and she jumped aside, falling with a moan against the edge of a chair, then slumping in a boneless pile of pain because she had hurt her backbone. Aerys kept raging and Elia watched wide-eyed, feeling that the walls were closing around her. As many as fifty courtiers did the same, no one daring to intervene. Elia wanted to but she was scared, so scared. She despised herself for that but she just couldn't bring herself to move. At last, the King whirled around and strode out followed by the White Bull and then Rhaegar ran to his mother and helped her rise. Rhaella was trying to keep the pain in but there was no use of that.
Elia went to them, slowly, as if her feet were leaden. "My lord," she said softly, "we'd better summon a litter."
Rhaegar nodded and gave the order. He didn't look at her – not when the litter came, not when he lifted his mother as gently as he could and placed her there. The four men hoisted the litter up and headed for the Queen's chamber where her attendants would take care of her. Elia ordered that a maester should be sent there and left for her own chambers, her head held high, her steps measured. No one looked at her.
And then, a brush of a hand against hers. Purple eyes that she knew. Arthur Dayne. "I am sorry, Princess," he said softly.
About what? she wondered. About standing there as paralyzed as I was and not helping her out? Because my husband brushed me aside as if I was no more than a fly? His eyes were wide and cast down in shame. She remembered that look from the Water Gardens when they were children and he'd been chasing her once. She had tripped and fallen down, her arm bruised and swollen. He had felt guilty for days after that.
She squeezed his hand quickly, as if by chance. "It wasn't your fault, Arthur," she spoke softly, so that no one would hear.
"Wasn't it, really?" he whispered back and fell behind, as a Kingsguard should do.
They were already at the door leading to her chambers and once they were in, they both relaxed, the shared horror and self-disgust bringing them together like the carefree days in the Water Gardens once had. Since Elia's arrival at King's Landing, they had not spoken a word that should not be overheard by anyone but now, the old, almost forgotten feeling of being friends, of feeling good around each other came back with ease that startled them.
Ashara was waiting for Elia in the solar, her eyes, almost black now, showing her concern. As soon as she saw them, she relaxed. "Would you like some wine, my Princess?" she asked evenly.
Elia smiled. "Yes, please." She looked at Ser Arthur, suddenly hesitant without knowing why. "Will you stay with your sister and me?"
"It will be my pleasure," he said immediately and then blushed when he realized that he had misspoken: he should have said he would be honoured to keep the Princess company.
The old feeling of friendship and closeness was back but for some reason, it was not as uninhibited as before.
"She's going to die. It's only a matter of time."
"Well, I cannot deny that the Princess' health was never good but she did manage to give the Prince a healthy girl so who is to say that she won't be able to give him a son and heir when she's fully recovered?"
Laughter. "Fully recovered? Princess Elia? Do you believe it? And even if she gives birth to a boy, she's hardly likely to survive the birth."
Elia's face was burning with rage and helplessness, and that horrible fear that the women might turn out to be right. Rhaenys was already a year old and there was no sign of a second child, although Rhaegar visited his wife's chambers regularly. Neither of them took the tiniest bit of delight in their efforts to continue the line of the dragon kings. In all honesty, lately Elia had come to think of Rhaegar like a peasant planting a crop and thinking, I'll toil once again without reward.
She made a few steps back into the arcade. Rhaegar followed and looked at her concerned. "Elia, I hope you don't take such talks seriously. There are always rumours until an heir is born. I remember there were such talks for years before my brother arrived."
She smiled. "I don't care," she said. "Let them talk. One cannot stop a river."
Rhaegar looked extremely relieved and she wondered what he had expected – that she'd demand the ladies be banished from court? That would mean that she was afraid of them. That she admitted that she shared those thoughts. Never, she vowed. I'll never show them that I know. And come what may, I will give the Iron Throne an heir.
Her husband brought her hand to his lips. "I could not find a more admirable wife," he said and she smiled, not quite merrily.
When he left, she sat in a stone seat overlooking the garden. The two women had disappeared into the palace. Arthur Dayne stepped near and she thought he would ask whether she needed something.
"Were I not a man, I would have broken these jealous cats' noses," he spoke softly instead and his eyes flared. "I'll make Ashara do it for me."
Elia looked at him and laughed. All of a sudden, things didn't look so dark any more. Here was a man who didn't find her admirable… at least not now. Right now, he knew her to be angry and malicious and it didn't bother him a bit. He knew what she needed to hear. Dorne never left an insult unavenged and she was of Dorne.
And despite his Kingsguard vows, so was he.
"I don't know where I belong," he admitted one evening while Ashara poured wine and Lewyn peeled blood oranges – they had these delivered for Elia's Dornish entourage quite frequently, courtesy to Rhaegar. "I never did. Out of everyone in the Water Gardens and in Dorne, actually, only Ashara, Arel, and I had this fair skin and the violet eyes. We didn't fit. Strangers looked at us in wonder. I thought maybe I could find a place of my own in King's Landing but it didn't work. I could simply forge no bond with the rest of Westeros – except for you, my Prince," he said and looked at Lewyn. He always called him that when they were alone – or with the two women, as they often were now. It was not true, not entirely – he had formed a bond with the Crown Prince but now it was not as simple as it had been once. Now, there was envy and anger thrown into the mix. "I might look like the blood of Valyria but in my heart I belong to the sands of Dorne. But I cannot go back there, ever, and with the way things are going here... I wonder whether there is a place for me under the sun."
Ashara and Lewyn shared a look. They both didn't like where this was going – Arthur's words, the look on Elia's face. He had stood guard the entire day, bearing witness to Aerys' last madness, and he hadn't eaten anything, so the wine went to his head, took his walls down, made him say things that were better left unsaid.
"You belong with us, Arthur," Elia said firmly. Her eyes were all but firm, though – they conveyed a mix of anger, desperate sympathy and something that she was not supposed to feel for anyone but her husband. "Your place is with the King, with Rhaegar, with your Kingsguard brothers… and us."
"And you," he agreed. He looked at her, at his sister, at Prince Lewyn Martell. He was Arthur Dayne of Starfall; he was the Sword of the Morning. He would endure.
"So, Ser Arthur?" Elia asked and smiled politely. "Sit down. Would you accept a goblet of Dornish red? You've been away for so long. I heard that you succeeded in taking the outlaws down."
He nodded. "I believe I have something that was stolen from you, my Princess," he said.
The ladies started gawking and praising him as Elia opened the casket and started taking out golden bracelets, dragon brooches, and the old ring of the House Martell.
"There is nothing missing, I hope?" a voice suddenly asked and everyone dropped a curtsy in front of the Crown Prince.
"Not quite," Ser Arthur murmured and for a brief moment, his eyes went to Elia's lips. "I hoped I'd have the chance to kill the scoundrel who stole the most magnificent jewel of all but alas, he made it out alive."
Elia almost gasped. She had had no idea that the talk about this had started circulating so fast.
"Really?" Rhaegar asked, mildly interested. "I hope you weren't bothered too much, my lady?"
"No," she said. She felt sick of his displays of affection. No matter what he did, he couldn't make up for the insult at Harrenhall. "It wasn't something that would disturb you."
Maybe it would, though: she was his. Arthur Dayne, on the other hand, looked visibly distressed, although she didn't belong to him. Against her will, Elia smiled.
She had come to King's Landing hoping to find a life of peace, not love. She had found Arthur Dayne instead. She had not meant to love him – it had just happened. It was not the love out of the ballads, not the love on first sight she had heard so much about – but it was real. She could not help but feel it. Her actions, though, she could choose – and she did. He did, as well. Sometimes, she had wondered whether they were right to deny themselves their heart's desire, to limit themselves to long looks, an unguarded word from time to time and those evenings with Lewyn and Ashara, the evenings she lived for. But now, when the kingdom was crumbling around them, she knew that they had made the right choice. She couldn't have lived with all that blood on her hands and it amazed her that her husband and, presumably, Lyanna Stark could.
Now she knew love. It did not bring her joy. In fact, it left holes in her heart, hollows of despair and lies by omission, precipices of always guarding herself and her secret. But it also gave her those moments of sudden bliss when she caught him looking at her, his heart in his eyes, of happiness that had come out just for a minute. And she was glad that she had experienced it. It was good to feel that she had a heart, after all. Even one that was broken over and over again.