Elia.
She had not seen the outside of her suite for days. Her meals were delivered wordlessly, and the trays taken away again just as quietly. There was a guard at her door every second of the day, and it was kept locked from the outside. The few clothes that she had there were laundered and returned, neatly pressed and folded. She was allowed to get fresh air on the balcony, but someone had to unlock it and stand there with her. She wondered what they thought she might do. They were 50 stories up. Was she drastically underestimating the seriousness of her situation? Should she be contemplating suicide? They thought she might be. Perhaps she should change tact.
She could cope with all of that though. What troubled her most was the fact that her children were not with her. She was told they were being kept in another suite on the floor below her, with a nanny and toys from the yellow house. She was told she didn't need to worry about them. She didn't believe any of it. No amount of screaming had done her any good. In the end, she took to lying on the carpet with her ear pressed downwards, trying to hear them, but nothing ever reached her.
She heard other things though. The guards at her door were not always so quiet, and she caught snatches of conversation every so often. She had heard the gun shot too, and found out later who it had been for. She could not bring herself to feel sad for the death of the Starks – her own loss was still too raw – but she mourned them for what their deaths represented. With this act, she knew her father-in-law had slipped in to a war he had little chance of winning.
She heard about the other shootings too, from all over the city, more and more each day. Targaryen businesses were being robbed and looted, people killed in the streets. She watched the TV every night and hung her head solemnly as the news rolled in about another death, another gangland hit. On the third day, she had written a letter to her brother. They had taken her cell and the cut the phone line to the room, but she knew she had to get word to him somehow. He would have seen the news too. Her heart sank to think of him trying to come to her and being caught up in it all. She didn't know what Aerys was capable of any more.
She still had maid service, who came in to change her linen and bring her fresh towels. She bribed one with a pair of her diamond earrings. She had no idea if the letter ever reached its destination, but she heard no news of Oberyn on the TV reports or in the guards whispers, and so hoped it had been successful.
By the eighth day, she started to notice a change in tone. The news reports were getting more frequent. They spoke about curfews, and the national guard, and riots breaking out. From her window she could see the fires burning all over, staining the sky orange, red and black. They burned endlessly, eating up the city block by block, spreading greedily. Her nights were littered with gun fire and police sirens. She did not sleep.
The guards began to talk more loudly, their words rushed and worried. They talked increasingly about breaches in security, and the faces she glimpsed were becoming less familiar, the old names said less often. Most likely dead she thought, numb. People were always running. No one ever seemed to walk anymore.
She asked incessantly about her children. She was used to their silence and blank stares, but she asked all the same. Occasionally, one of them would slip up and give a sad smile and say they were ok. It was easier with these new faces, she found. She was just beginning to pick out the ones she thought she could crack, when Aegon and Rhaenys were dumped unceremoniously on her bed on the thirteenth day. She did not question why her children had been suddenly returned to her. She thought only that they had begun to run out of guards.
On the fifteenth night, she was woken by shouts in the corridor. Clutching her children to her, she listened to heavy footfalls and panic, to more shots and cries. Someone died a few feet from her wall. She heard his last gasps from her bed. A day later, the electricity went out to the whole building and she knew the enemy were getting more bold. They stopped guarding her room all the time, just leaving it locked instead. She had tried to break down the door before – she had enough heavy furniture at her disposal to give her some weight – and her attempts became more desperate after that. But Aerys had built the hotel to keep himself self, and the doors were reinforced with steel. She had soon ruined the wood but the door was no closer to being open.
She kept her voice light, her smiles frequent. But no matter what she did, she couldn't hide the truth from the children. Aegon was quiet all the time, never more than a hands breadth from her, his wide eyes always open. When she hugged him, his little body felt tense under her arms. Rhaenys cried for most of the day, inconsolable no matter what her mother did. There was a moment once, on the seventeenth night, in the dark blackness as she watched the fires burning from her bed, that her thoughts drifted to the balcony and the very high drop below her. She shook it from her mind and didn't think it again.
By the nineteenth day, she started to hear them speaking about an unexpected victory. She didn't pay it much attention at first. Desperate people cling to desperate lies. But the word reached her again and again, the same thing each time. Tywin was returning to the city to help Aerys, the police had arrested Tully and Arryn. She did not let herself feel hopeful at first, but it crept in to her nevertheless. She was so exhausted, it didn't take much for the little seed to take hold and soon enough, the hope ran through her like a wildfire. All she needed was a break in the madness, a moment when she could get out of the hotel and make her way back east, unhindered. Tywin's arrival could offer her that distraction, a way out. She would wait.
On the last day, she was sat huddled on the bed with an infant under each arm, watching the TV with the volume down low. When she heard them coming, she felt her heart jump. When they opened the door, it fell.