For a number meme.
Anon asked: Oh Elia and rhaenys please for 24!
24. my child
She doesn't want to send her away. She wants to keep her close, comfort her with tale or song while the world falls apart around them, hug her tight and never let go.
But she has to, she sends her away, because she must. If the Holdfast should fall...
She can't do the same with Aegon, he has to be here with her—he's so small—but Rhaenys is nearly three, old enough to know, old enough to run. She doesn't understand fully what's happening, or why, only that bad men are coming and that more than ever she must trust what her mother says. Rhaenys's dark eyes are wide as she listens to the order, to Elia's command to run. To hide. To find a spot no one would think to look and not to come out for anyone, not even Uncle Jaime. Elia tries to couch it in a game—it's like when you crawl under the desks or crouch down in the clothespress and Mama tries to find you, right? Just like that—but Rhaenys has never been slow of mind; she knows this is no game.
Elia watches as she disappears down the hall out of view, then clutches Aegon to her breast and weeps. It feels as though a great fist is slowly crushing her heart as she realizes she may never see her daughter again. The Holdfast is supposed to be impenetrable, Maegor had made it so, and yet through the nursery window she can see men climbing its walls, murder in their very bones.
She has her Dornish guards outside the nursery, and the doors barred, but somehow she knows it could very well not be enough. If only she had even Jaime here, it would be a comfort, but he's far away guarding Aerys. He wouldn't be able to get to them in time even if he tried.
No, she will be alone, alone but for her infant son. He's sleeping now, blissfully oblivious to the chaos outside, and she strokes the fine down of his hair, praying he doesn't wake. It would sooth her, to know he never felt...
She takes a breath, trying to hold herself together. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. She had faced hardship before; she will do it again. Rhaenys is her daughter, in look and in spirit, and Elia has to believe she'll find a place to hide, somewhere dark and small where men could search for days and still never find her. She would grow up safe and healthy and strong.
It had taken a day and a night to bring Rhaenys into the world—through it all she had never lost faith, and she won't lose it now. She can't.
Rhaenys, she prays, no matter what happens, Mama loves you. Now and always.
