ELIA
When news comes to her that her husband has captured the Stark girl, she is still in recovery after Aegon's birth. Her son is only three moons old by now but Rhaenys is not too little anymore and her daughter knows when her father is not around. Ashara certainly doesn't take the news kindly, spitting Rhaegar's name with a fury, but the moment Ashara calls Rhaegar a thief who stole the girl in the dead of the night, Elia silences her. Rhaegar may have been a lot of things but she knows that man would never capture someone. The Stark girl must have gone willingly.
She is certainly brooding on the inside and Oberyn's letters assuring her he will bring Rhaegar's head for her should she so desire, only make her more angry. Truly, if there was somebody who would kill Rhaegar, it would be Elia herself.
However, there was a small part of her that had known Rhaegar would do something reckless. It was after the Harrenhal tourney, when Elia had told him she was with child again, that Rhaegar had told her something she doesn't think many people know. His belief in his prophecies, the heads of the dragon and how he had been certain that he and Elia would have one more child after Aegon for Rhaegar and Elia were destined to bring the saviours of the world. She had listened to her husband patiently, helping him when he couldn't find meaning in his prophecy but Elia had never truly believed them. She had accepted his words to be stories and thought that she should let him have that dedication. It was like an obsession with a book or person, a thing Elia had herself harboured in her childhood, when she would read and re-read every story about Nymeria that she could lay her hands upon.
Yet this had been a big slap to her face and worse was when the servants at Dragonstone themselves whispered that Elia hadn't pleased her husband enough. And to think, she was the princess of the wretched place. However, she had turned from porcelain to ivory at her husband's shameful activities and when she hears news of Brandon Stark being taken prisoner, she realises that she needs to be made of steel to survive every horror coming their way.
She commands the place, rules Dragonstone in her husband's stead and as the wind blows, carrying whispers of the death of two Starks, she prepares for the worst. People had certainly seen her kindness but they forgot that she was the sister of the Red Viper and only the Martell siblings knew that it was Oberyn who had learnt from Elia how to be such a dangerous man. She takes half the credit for Oberyn's reputation as the Red Viper. So no, she will not hide away in her chambers just because her husband has done such a deed. So no, she was not going to be some wife thrown aside for a girl child. She would stand tall and brave the storm and should her husband think of casting her down, she would remind him that the Martells were unconquered for a reason and their house words were not only a challenge to their lovers but also a promise to their enemies.
Honestly, she had expected them sooner when the Targaryen soldiers finally show up to take her to the Red Keep. She had guessed they would come, expected such a move from Aerys. She understands politics better than her husband does, better than people believe she does for she has learnt to rule at her mother's knee and the Ruling Princess of Dorne had been as fierce a ruler as she had been a loving mother. She knows it is a power play, understands that Aerys fears her and her children just because they are bound to Rhaegar but Ashara doesn't and so the girl is ready to fight every soldier out of her way. In that moment, Elia realises that she has been left with three children for Ashara is as reckless as her brother, a brother Ashara hates at the given moment and Elia isn't too fond of either.
Elia meekly obeys them and agrees to the King's orders as she makes her way to King's Landing. Certainly, her children would be much safer at Dragonstone, away from the King, close to the sea they could take to reach Dorne but Elia has others to worry about. The budding Visenya - a sister who suffers for Rhaegar's sin, the Queen - a woman left to a madman's mercy, little Viserys - who possibly doesn't even remember Elia anymore but who is still a brother to her. She had taken them as family the day she had wed and Rhaegar may have abandoned them but Elia wouldn't. She had loved them all as fiercely as she had loved her husband and brothers, the former of which has certainly done enough damage for the coming years.
She arrives to the news of Lord Arryn's revolt - a civil war broken into Vale as the Lords decide which side to join. She visits Visenya first and no words are spoken as the two cling to one another. They had loved Rhaegar equally even if it were in different ways, however sometimes Elia thinks the love between the two girls was stronger. Simply because they had both grown up as the middle child, the only sister of two brothers, born with a crown upon their head and the title of a Princess attached to their name. They had understood each other in a way no one else had. So when she discovers that Visenya had witnessed the burning of Lord Stark, she turns pale and holds Visenya a little tighter, promising her that Elia would protect her. It was Rhaegar's job but who knew where the fool was hiding. It was Queen Rhaella's job but she had been a Queen first and a mother later so it is Elia who decides to shield her good-sister.
Slowly, one kingdom becomes three as the North rises to the Rebel cause and Robert Baratheon calls his own banners. People burn more and more under the King's command now for the crimes that the rebel Lords commit far away from King's Landing. When a battle at Summerhall is fought and won by Lord Robert Baratheon, the war is titled the War of the Usurper by the royalists even if the King's banners are yet to join the war. It is an internal war as the Kingdoms of Vale and Stormlands decide who to pledge their allegiance to. Yet, they title it gloriously for one Lord who searches for his beloved, vowing to burn the Seven Kingdoms down for it should it come to that.
Secretly, Elia laughs mirthlessly and perhaps cruelly as people say Lyanna Stark must have been a true beauty to start the war. The war hadn't been started by the girl however. She was barely a lady reaching her sixteenth name-day. No, she was child who wouldn't be capable of much. The war had been actually started by her foolish husband and the King had only added fuel to the fire by ending the lives of Lord Rickard Stark and his first-born. The war had been started by the Targaryens and she can only hope they will put an end to it.
She sits by the window as the ravens fly to the Lords in the Reach with the King's order to suppress the Rebellion. The Reach is the one apart from the Westerlands which has a sizeable army and so they are the ones called. King Aerys is still too proud and doesn't let the name Tywin Lannister slip from his tongue or anyone else's.
A long time passes, and with each day passing day so does the King's madness, before they receive the news of a victory at Ashford. The first time the royals had actually engaged with the rebels. The victory is seen as a good omen by Queen Rhaella however Elia knows better and personally, she thinks the Queen does too and the 'good omen' speech is a mere pretence. Lord Tyrell claims to have begun a siege at Storm's End and yet Robert Baratheon moves on join the armies from the North and the Vale.`
Elia and Visenya stand side-by-side, mentally broken and bruised by the King and his atrocities, as the Hand of the King Owen Merryweather pleads innocent.
"You traitor!", the King declares, "You conspire with those fools, those traitors who come for my crown."
"No… no… Your Grace. Never." Elia tunes the man out for she is certain his pleas fall upon deaf ears. Once the King had called the Hand traitor, the man was a traitor for ever, no matter the facts which state otherwise.
Visenya's grip on her hand is strong and Elia prays that the King doesn't burn the Lord before him. Truly, Elia would drag Visenya away from such a scene even if it meant her own death. However, she is saved when Varys and Pycelle urge the King to strip him of his titles and exile the man for they "have more pressing matters to concern themselves with". They say more pressing matters like it was a plan for another celebration. War. They did not have the courage to say that it was war that was coming for all of them. A war which would end in more bloodshed than any could imagine. A war which put every Targaryen at risk, including her goodsister and her own children.
It is in this stolen moment of an actively waging war that Visenya approaches Elia. "My brother's a fool."
Elia simply laughs at that statement. "Ashara take Rhaenys with you, please.", she tells her friend as her son sleeps nearby. It is by Visenya's stance that Elia knows there is much to talk of and even thoughVisenya and Ashara get along famously, they do not have the strong conspiracy bond that Elia shares individually with both girls.
Visenya moves to stand beside Aegon's cot, running a hand over his silver hair and Elia hauntingly thinks of Rhaegar doing the same. It was ridiculous that up until this moment Elia had never truly seen Rhaegar in Visenya or Visenya in Rhaegar. Yet as Visenya continues her actions, Elia finds that same curve of the lips that Rhaegar had. The eyes that match Rhaegar's speck for speck, silver hair that frame her delicately beautiful face just the same and the typical Targaryen colouring. A little taller and with a better muscle build, Visenya could pass off for Rhaegar in the correct light. Which is why Elia joins her, taking Aegon out of his cot. It is a moment of passing horror where Elia vows to make Rhaegar pay for endangering their children but Visenya still feels the stings as she takes a step back.
"Forgive me.", both the princesses speak at the same time and Elia realises that both of them have taken Rhaegar as a common enemy. They were fighting on the same side even if their common enemy is also the enemy of the rebels. Oh, how the King found enemies in all his servants, never realising he had sired one and wed his son to another.
She laid Aegon down again, this time leaving him alone and Visenya saw it as truce.
"Do you even know where he is?", she asks her and Elia just shakes her head. Her foolish husband had left her to fend for herself and their children while he was shacked up who knows where.
"I would have honestly even accepted a personal whore by now.", she answers truthfully. Truly, if Rhaegar had just taken an unimportant tavern girl as well, Elia would have welcomed it.
"He isn't coming. I kept hoping these past months that he would come but he didn't. He hasn't still. He won't come.", Visenya tells her and Elia understands that Rhaegar has hurt not only his wife but also his sister, a girl who had taken him as not only a brother but a father and friend too.
"When I think of him, I see a picture of him somewhere far away, perhaps across the Narrow Sea, the Stark girl cradled to his side as they both laugh over everybody else's misery." She should probably not have had the big glass of Arbor wine.
"I will never forgive him. Or her for that matter.", Visenya tells her and adds in defence, "My brother would never take a girl by force."
Elia knows that too but she doesn't reassure Visenya. She is past the point of worrying about Rhaegar and his actions, or so she tells herself.
"Mother says we shouldn't go to Dragonstone.", Visenya speaks again as Elia focuses on the ordinary table. Honestly, there is nothing to see here but it looks more interesting than Rhaegar's sister at the moment. Elia truly feels wretched for finding a similarity when Visenya was nothing like Rhaegar.
"You mean we aren't allowed to.", Elia corrects her. They do not have a proper choice anymore, not when reports reach that the Rebels are reaching Riverlands.
"We can't stay like this. I saw the maps in Jon's chambers. We will lose if we do not have a greater force." Sneaky Visenya who waded into the new Hand's chambers.
"I know. Yet, the King will never go begging to Lord Tywin." The King had insulted Tywin's golden twins at separate occasions after all.
"I know. Which is why I will." Those were not the words she had expected from Visenya's mouth.
"Sit down Visenya!", Elia commanded, instantly becoming a mother hen. "You are foolish to even speak like this."
"Am I though?", Visenya challenges back.
"Yes! Yes! Do not be so foolish. What are you going to do? Demand that Tywin Lannister bring his army? Oh I can see how brilliantly that conversation will go." She is already dealing with her own two children and Ashara when she occasionally behaves like a child - a fourth foolish kid, she will simply not entertain.
"We cannot even leave the Red Keep without the King's orders.", Elia adds, reminding the girl of the King's new demand from her.
"Well, firstly, my father demanded that of you, not me - atleast not yet. Secondly, I know that Tywin Lannister will not give me much. Which is why I am here." That Elia doesn't fear the glint in Visenya's eye is the sole reason she trusts the younger girl. It is a Targaryen glint all the way but it is neither outright dangerous like the King's nor unnerving like Rhaegar's.
"What are you thinking?" She slightly fears this answer now. Tywin Lannister wasn't a man to be crossed so easily.