King's Landing
Lilah
3 years ago
"Do you think there's more to this? More to wearing flashy dresses, going to feasts, being sold like priced jewelry to a man?" Lilah asked her brother, Stannis, on a late afternoon during supper. She was clearly not hungry, and her food had gone sour after playing with it too much.
Her brother didn't care for these trivial matters, as he himself was born a man, and their lives went on a different route than the one his sister was bound to.
«Don't ask me questions I don't have the answers to.» He said with a grim look on his face. «There are other matters to discuss here.»
The years he had spent in Dragonstone had taken a toll on his mind, and Lilah wondered what he was like before the death of her parents.
«And what is that, precisely? Teaching the Onion Knight how to read? Grant Shireen the permission to visit her aunt for once? I miss her, you know.» She dropped the cutlery on the plate, and looked directly at Stannis. The sound of the clashing seemed to strike a nerve, and the veins on his forehead were visible to the naked eye.
Gods, he's getting old. She imagined what her father would look like at this age, but the thought of it made her anxious and she shook her thoughts off before they settled down. He never fully reached Stannis' age, she presumed.
Lilah cleared her mind, and her throat at it too.
He was losing his patience with his little sister, and she could tell. «Careful now, sister, you've already quarreled enough with Robert today.» He went back to his food, paying her no mind further.
One might describe Stannis Baratheon as a cold, stubborn and rarely forgiving man but also brave and in possession of an immense sense of duty. As is expected of Baratheons, Stannis was proven on the battlefield as both a commander and warrior. Lilah, on other hand, had been unfortunate with the traits she adopted from House Baratheon. If I didn't share our family name, my existence would have little to null significance.
A silence ensured for a while, but upon growing up Lilah had learned, to her dismay, that she could never let things go once she caught the notion of it. Stannis was hiding something, and Lilah had come to learn that men who hid the truth from everyone else decided the fate of Westeros. This could explain why she had spent half of her history lessons by Septa Wayne with her eyes closed. She wondered if it was something that would put their lives in danger. The prospect of it gave her great excitement, as rarely anything happened in the Capital anymore, if one didn't succumb to the gossiping and false rumours that scattered daily like litter in Flea Bottom.
«What are the matters we are to deliberate about? If it's not politics, leave me out of it, would you kindly.» Lilah said with an exaggerated yawn.
He made no reply.
Stannis had very little patience for false politeness that was expected of a lord in court and generally stated his opinions of others or what was on his mind aloud. This could explain the silence that ensured shortly after. He has no opinion of me...
Good.
Lilah couldn't wait to get out of here as soon as she could, though she had nothing else to waste her time with, so she found herself settled anyway.
«Apologies, my dearest siblings.» Renly appeared out of thin air, something he had as of recent learned to master in King's Landing, as it would come very handy in certain aspects of one's life. One might've suspected that he was spying for Varys himself.
Renly sat down, and revealed a smirk straightway when he took notice of the looks casted across his siblings' faces. «And what have I missed this late afternoon?» He said, grinning from ear to ear.
«My dear brother, have you switched sides with the Lannisters? Our unpleasant faces seem to bemuse you." Lilah said, sighting her mischievous grin.
"I'd rather have one of you pierce me from behind than to join forces with the golden wildcats." Lilah laughed at that. She would laugh more if she were in the presence of Renly more often.
"Baratheons do not jest bawdily during supper." Stannis finally said, and the smiles on their faces extinguished just as lit candles did in the wind.
"Your wet nurses weren't great substitutes for your parental figures, and I regret to see that now." He sounded disappointed, as always. His voice could only range from anger to disappointment, to Lilah's experience, and she had grown accustomed to it.
"You're not father," Lilah said with determination in her voice. "You don't have to be because Renly and I, believe it or not, we're faring quite well without the assistance of Robert's or yours, truly."
She had lost her appetite hours ago and it didn't really sit well with her why she would withstand it any longer. Perhaps she longed for Stannis' approval, Renly's self-righteousness and Robert's bravery served on the table at once. But even her food had turned out stale and cold.
"Faring well? One's duty to marry is long overdue and the other is doing the complete opposite of lifting women's skirts." He seemed stoic, and his voice had turned monotonous.
Renly looked hurt for a minute, before his face changed into a somewhat bewildered expression, yet she knew the great deals of his secret life to not seek retribution. The public first, and now his own family ridiculed him for it.
She stood up from her seat, and the sound of the chair's screeching hit every corn of the room.
"And one's duty is to produce heirs, yet you can't seem to grasp the notion of holding your lady wife's bare hands!" She was furious, and she couldn't hold her temper in anymore. Maybe I had been too harsh on Robert's temperament after all.
Renly's eyes widened at Lilah's sudden outburst, and he started choking on his water while repeated coughs were the only sounds made in that moment.
He locked eyes with her right after. She gave him pleading eyes, asking him to stay and to not fight this battle by her own but she knew Renly wouldn't waste a drop of his youth on it.
"I will leave the both of you to sort this issue out, as I don't see myself intertwined in it and so forth." He said matter-of-factly with his brows lifted, he stuffed the last cherry tomato in his mouth from the plate and disappeared out of the room.
"Sit down. Sort out your hunger. Maester Cressen had me informed of what hunger does on one's temperament."
"Is that what you were told during the siege of Storm's End? Did Ser Davos lose his fingers because of hunger? Is that why Robert weighs more than he does now than he used to when Lyanna Stark was still alive?" She was out of breath by the end of the last sentence.
The room was filled with silence yet again.
She sighed.
"Will you ever answer any of these questions?"
"I don't have the right answers to these ludicrous questions." He finally answered.
"That's a lie, and you know it."