.
PART THREE
Stories
... ... ...
Saera-
As no word has reached us of anything otherwise, I am hoping this finds you well. I am sorry I was not home for your departure. With the knowledge that it was unexpected and hasty, it nevertheless sat poorly with me that I missed saying goodbye, and that I might not get a chance to again. That I missed it for the sake of being dragged about Storm's End listening to Robert's whingeing makes it all the worse.
Your half-nephew is a right twat.
I went on our usual ride this morning and I vow the birds miss you as much as I do. They followed me near the entire way, either searching for you or else expecting me to feed them in your stead. I swear to you if these cursed winged vermin turn mad or vexed from the lack of food and turn on me, I will haunt you from beyond to the end of your days. Though half of my motivation would simply be to see my not-sister. All we here at the Roost are sorely less for not having your brazen, ridiculous wit about.
How is living among the royal family? They are all well, I trust? Are you?
Father and Mother send their love. Mother especially requests that you write if there is ought that you need or wish for. We will ensure it sent with all haste.
Would that I could send these fucking birds.
My love,
Jon
...
The two women had been out walking in one of the palace gardens when the page had found them, bearing a letter which had arrived for Visaera. As she had expected no correspondence from home, she had opened it immediately, half dreading some emergency. It had been a relief to see her adopted brother's hasty, slanting handwriting rather than Maester Yorrin's.
At Visaera's sudden burst of laughter, Ashara turned to her, curious smile on her lips.
"What's funny?"
"At home, Jon and I used to go riding up along the cliffs," Visaera explained. "There's a beautiful old cairn to the southwest of the keep where we would eat our midday meal—or else whatever we could swipe or beg from the kitchens."
Rolling the parchment back into a scroll, Visaera tucked it into a pocket in the lining of her cloak.
"There must be a nesting ground nearby, for there are always hundreds of rock gulls about. I thought they were silly and sweet, so I started bringing seed and dried fish to leave them. Apparently they've taken to following Jon about whenever he goes riding now, hoping he'll feed them in my place."
The image of stocky, bearded Jon with gulls trailing after him like so many stormy gray-flecked ducklings begging for treats brought her another fit of snickering.
"Poor lad," Ashara cooed in exaggerated sympathy, clearly amused.
Pulling the front of her cloak more tightly about herself, she folded her arm around the bend of Visaera's and the two continued their walk.
While winter had clung sure and fast for the past year, the bitterness of the chill had lessened rather significantly. The widespread hope was that the new year would welcome in the spring. All the same, it was still quite cold out, and while Visaera – accustomed to the perpetual biting temperatures of the sea cliffs – required only heavy wool for her cloak, Ashara was not so acclimated. She had donned a fur-lined mantle in addition to her own cloak for their stroll, though appeared to be enjoying the open air in spite of it.
There was a pretty pink flush in the apples of her cheeks, her violet eyes bright and alive. She was an intensely beautiful woman, Visaera thought. A daughter of stars, full and colorful with her lovely, oval face and olive skin. Visaera herself was so colorless and bland, and pale – a trait which many considered to be a mark of status, of sophistication, but which in reality meant nothing at all.
"He also made it a point of telling me that my nephew is a twat."
"And is he?"
Visaera snorted. "It's more a compliment to be likened to a woman's cunt. At least our parts are resilient, which is far more than can be said of a man's—"
"Oh, I quite agree," Ashara mused, and there was a faint hint of cool malice to her small, wry smile which perfectly echoed Visaera's own feeling about the matter.
"—but in the spirit of the insult as intended…from what I've been told he's worse than he was as a child, and if that's true, then yes. He is."
The more time she spent in the other woman's company, the more Visaera enjoyed being there. They were of a similar mind in many – if not most – subjects, and shared a similar, somewhat sharp humor. Clever and keenly observant, Ashara was at once gracious, considerate, and staunchly, relentlessly opinionated to the point of occasional rudeness - which Visaera frankly adored.
Though the lady was respected well enough among the court, it was, Visaera suspected, due in part to having the Princess' favor and her brother's status as much as it was her own merit. She had had more than a few offers of marriage, to old and wealthy houses – suitors pledging their hearts as well as their names – yet she had refused them all. People liked to whisper that she was too willful, too wild (too Dornish) to submit to a husband, which tarnished her reputation far more than the lovers she made little effort to conceal.
Something else they had in common, though no one other than she knew it.
She suspected Ashara felt as stifled and cramped to spend so much time closed away inside oppressive stone rooms, under the constant, too-close watch of overbearing guards. Or perhaps the other woman had simply noticed Visaera's growing restlessness. Whatever the reason for it, she had been indescribably grateful for the invitation to accompany Ashara on a stroll outside, and for the pleasant distraction it provided from all that lurked and glowered within. Neither of them were under any illusions that they weren't still under observation, but the weight of the scrutiny was not quite so heavy out here in the sleeping gardens.
It was not the breeze and salt spray of the sea, but it was more than enough.
"In truth," Visaera confessed, "I'm grateful Steffon decided he couldn't stand the sight of me. I wouldn't have been able to stomach living there with the lot of them."
There was the faintest hint of a pause before Ashara spoke, the seconds of quiet interrupted only by the rustle of their skirts.
"Why couldn't he stand the sight of you?"
No one had ever asked it outright before, not even Visaera. She had been so young at the time, too overwhelmed by the sinking realization that what she had thought to be her family didn't want her – that they might even hate her – to even think of asking.
"I don't know for certain," she began, for she didn't. Even after all these years, she had little more than theory based on the supposition of others. "But I expect it's because our mother loved me, for all I was born of the monster that murdered his father. And because I look just like her."
Passing under an archway wrapped round with vines currently brittle in sleep, they turned into an open courtyard structured around a shallow, ornamental pond. In warmer weather the water would be strewn with a lace of lilies, though it was no longer limned in frost as it had been some weeks ago.
"My mother died giving my sister life," Ashara said softly. "I don't look much like her, but Allyria does. Fair and…delicate-strong. Like a deer. My elder brother Allyn oft said it pained him to look at her at first, but that it was a gift to be able to see our mother still, in her."
The sentiment was at once bittersweet and unexpectedly loving, and so vastly different from Visaera's own experience.
"That's a beautiful way to see it. Does your father think the same?"
Ashara's smile was soft, and sad in the way of a long-healed wound which still stung every now and again when it grew too cold or damp. The answer was clear even before she spoke it. "He followed mother into death—within the day. For the loss of her, the Maester said."
Finding the other woman's forearm, Visaera clasped it gently with her free hand.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be." Ashara shook her head, sending her loose hair spilling in rich black coils against the tan-flecked fur she wore. "Even without them I've been fortunate in my family. And I am glad that you have been fortunate in your adopted one, at least."
The Dornishwoman's hand found her own, a bit clammy from the cold, but firm as she offered an assuring squeeze. Visaera returned her smile, warmth at Ashara's open gesture of friendship full in her chest.
"I haven't heard much of your other brother," Visaera remarked as she stepped over a barren branch lying across the path, lifting her skirts clear to avoid them snagging. "Are they much alike?"
It was shameless fishing, using the opportunity posed by the natural flow of conversation about family to pry, yet Visaera excused it for the fact that the question was equal parts earnest curiosity as it was intended to acquire information. For she was curious about this woman she might cautiously call friend.
Almost as much as she was cautious.
She had seen only brief glimpses of Ser Arthur over the better part of the week following the incident with the handsy lord. To all appearances, he had been spending most of that time in close quarters with Prince Rhaegar, which she supposed was to be expected if their friendship was as described. She wasn't certain what it was about this that made her nervous, only that her unease had quite a bit to do with what exactly he had witnessed.
If he was truly loyal to Rhaegar over the king to whom he had sworn his life and counsel, she had little need to fear. If the knight's loyalty was to the king…then his knowledge could – and very likely would – bring her harm.
If it became widely known that she was shrewder than she had led everyone to believe, or that she was not so easily overpowered, any move made against her would be twice as difficult to see coming. There would be no warning whispers, no flickers of movement in the shadows, no slide of metal from sheath. She would be left to hope she caught the glint of the blade before it sank into her, and quickly enough to redirect it to lessen the damage, if not to deflect it outright.
From the way he had conducted himself that night, she was more inclined to believe his words and actions toward her had been in earnest and honesty. He did not appear to possess much by way of guile, let alone outright deception…though surely he must if he was living half a lie, whichever way his allegiances leaned. She wanted to trust that inclination - the more allies she had, after all, the better. Yet she had been wrong before. This was no small matter, and mistakes could not be remedied from the grave.
"Hm," Ashara considered the question, angling her head back as if to consult the watered-down streaks of blue amidst the moody gray blanket of cloud above. "Somewhat. More in looks than personality. I'm told Allyn didn't have the makings of a promising lord as a boy—too energetic and unfocused. Apparently he's grown into his wisdom. He's quite a lot more boisterous than Arthur is, though Arthur turned out to be the fighter rather than the dreamer."
Visaera could picture them easily: two boys, both small and dark-haired, one rowdy and the other subdued. The disconnect between which of them held a book and which a sword was altogether quite charming.
"Would that I had brothers like yours," she lamented.
Ashara exhaled upon a laugh. "They're mine and I love them," she began, "but make no mistake they have faults aplenty. Dayne men are known for their bullheaded obstinance as much as their courage. And they have a streak of pride that runs wide as the Narrow Sea."
"Better that than a lot of randy, self-absorbed stags," Visaera insisted, nose wrinkling with distaste. "Or a cockerel who believes himself to be a griffin."
Slapping a soft hand against Visaera's shoulder, Ashara threw back her head and let out a peal of delightful, full-throated laughter which she could not help but join.
They stayed out for a little while longer, until Ashara finally admitted to a numb nose and, with it, defeat, whereupon they cut through the lane of ornamental fruit trees and headed back inside.
It was as they were ascending the shallow steps just inside the lesser courtyard of the keep – giggling like children over a humorous story Visaera had recounted about the former steward of Griffin's Roost and a truly horrendous fish pie – when suddenly Ashara drew them to a stop to cry: "Speak of the man and he shall appear!"
At first Visaera was entirely perplexed by the remark. She glanced about the open space, scanning the people scattered there, either clustered in discussion or else passing, not fully seeing the man who approached until he was within speaking distance – and not recognizing him until he did so.
"I believe I'd rather not know what mortifying childhood stories you're regaling Lady Targaryen with."
Ser Arthur was regarding his sister, one dark brow arched as if to scold though there was humor lining the dryness of the statement.
Whatever answer Ashara gave, Visaera didn't hear.
Startled though she might have been, it was immediately clear why she hadn't immediately realized who he was.
He wore clothes that any lord would at leisure: a tunic-length jacket, the leather dyed a rich, deep plum shade very near to black, over a simple shirt and gray trousers tucked into boots. Perhaps a bit simple for a son of a noble house, but perfectly normal. Yet she was so accustomed to seeing him in white and pale metal that the dark, somber colors were oddly startling. He looked entirely different out of the heavy, ornate layers of mail and armor and cloak, with what looked to be several days' worth of beard shadowing his face. Less like some pristine, formidable sentinel and more like…well, a man.
The sword at his hip, at least, was the same. As was the way he stood with his left hand braced against the pommel, wrist and arm relaxed, but never so far from alert as to be rendered harmless.
She had never before seen his hands bare, Visaera realized then. The sight of them made her vastly, inexplicably uncomfortable.
Abruptly realizing she had been staring, she started, her eyes flicking first to lady beside her, then to the knight – relieved that neither appeared to have noticed her momentary slip of inattention.
"—I could say with the power to outweigh your renown," Ashara was saying – or perhaps teasing – much to Arthur's apparent amusement.
"It's not fame I worry for, dear sister," he replied with an air of long-suffering patience that was purely affection. "Only my dignity."
"Ah, well, as to that I make no promises."
Both siblings were rather tall – taller than Visaera, certainly, though that wasn't so difficult to achieve – yet brother was quite a measure taller than sister. A reminder of which was made all the more apparent when his eyes were required to lower several inches more in order to move from Ashara to her.
Ironically, the difference seemed more significant now. Just as strange, he seemed almost larger than he did in his armor. More solid, perhaps. She surmised this was due to it being evident how much (or how much less than expected) the lack of the additional bulk was, in fact, due to said armor.
Offering a small, deferential incline of his head, he addressed her directly. "Forgive me for intruding, My Lady. I do hope you are well?"
The comment was made out of politeness, nothing more. Yet something in the way he looked at her, lightly, with the barest hint of concern to frame the note of question, said otherwise.
Outright inquiring into the quality of her rest, especially in such a public venue, would have been inappropriate on a number of levels, but she knew it was implicit in the mild, seemingly compulsory question. And he knew she would hear it.
It had been a mistake to give him such knowledge about her.
It was one thing to know she possessed sharp teeth and a willingness to bite. That was valuable as collateral, as a weapon of a kind. Knowing that she was having difficulty sleeping was an altogether different sort of vulnerability, and one which felt far more dangerous in a very different way. That he knew it should probably have worried her, and yet it didn't.
Such confidence bought from nothing but the way his face had ever so slightly gentled upon posing the veiled inquiry. It was this that worried her.
"Well enough," she replied, summoning her best pleasant, courtly smile. "Thank you, Ser. I expect you wished to speak with your sister?"
If the abruptness of her change in subject matter was as jarring to him as it had been to her own ears, he gave no sign of it.
"I did, yes."
She nodded once, businesslike, turning to Ashara and slipping her arm from the other woman's grasp.
"Until later then," she murmured, allowing her mask to slip enough to allow her genuine warmth and gratitude to shine through. "Thank you again for the lovely walk."
She left them with another quick, parting smile, and headed straight for the stairs to the north wing, at once trying and failing to swallow down the unsettling tightness in her throat.
...
"Have you done or said something to offend Lady Visaera?" Ashara demanded, a frown forming as she stared after the other woman.
Arthur's head angled to follow his sister's gaze, his eyes settling upon the lady's retreating back.
"Not to my knowledge," he said, somewhat surprised by the question. "Why?"
In his periphery, he saw the tiny, absentminded shake of Ashara's dark head, though his focus remained fixedly on Lady Visaera as she slid the heavy wool cloak from around her shoulders to fold it over one arm.
"She seemed rather eager to get away from you…"
Arthur felt the pull of his own frown.
Ashara was right, she had appeared rather averse to his presence. The air of levity, and with it the broad, pretty smile, had faded to wary stone, and the instant she'd had an opening she had used it to excuse herself. What might he have done to inspire such a response? He had barely been within eyeshot of her for days, and hadn't spoken to her since…
Since that night in the corridor.
Not for the first time he had the distinct sense that he had seen something during that encounter which she had not wanted him to witness.
Initially he had thought it to be the way she had so efficiently handled the assault upon her person, for unlike Dornishwomen, those of the northern kingdoms were not generally encouraged to engage in even the amount of violence required to protect themselves – for all that it was likewise expected that they would not allow themselves to be violated. He had wondered briefly if she thought he judged her crude and unladylike for not requiring his assistance, yet ultimately determined that even if she did, she would not have been the sort of woman to care what he thought of her.
He'd been at something of a loss to decipher what else he might inadvertently have witnessed, or whether she simply did not care for him due to some reason known only to herself. Now, as he mulled over the slight shift in her expression when he had issued a perfectly polite inquiry as to her health – the subtle flicker of unease – he thought he might understand.
She hadn't been entirely herself that night, no doubt as much due to annoyance as much as the exhaustion she had been suffering from, and she had let him see it. Though she had not, he understood, intended to.
Whether she deemed it a dangerous slip in front of someone she regarded as a potential enemy, or simply disliked that it might have made her appear weak, he could not say. But he could understand both reasons, and many more besides.
"I am sworn to the King," he said, watching as the hem of Lady Visaera's cloak slipped behind the curve of the stairwell. "That seems reason enough for her to be wary of me."
Sometimes it was unclear even to him just how much his sister suspected. The inscrutable look she shot him then, and her uncharacteristic lack of a retort, served simply to emphasize this lack of clarity.
Reaching, Ashara looped her arm around his elbow, steering him along the length of the courtyard as the mournful bells of the Great Sept across the city began to call the midday hour.
"You wished to speak with me?" she prompted while they walked, and Arthur redirected his focus to the reason for seeking her out.
"The Queen is to travel to the Riverlands at week's end, and it was decided that I shall escort her. We'll likely be gone for the better part of a fortnight."
What he did not reveal was the reason for the excursion.
With every day, the King's paranoia grew to envelop more and more of the people around him. Even those closest. Perhaps especially those closest. At just what point he had begun to harbor suspicions about his own sons was murky at best, as was just how strong those suspicions were. Rhaegar had long ago anticipated Aerys' certainty that those around him sought to steal his throne would someday focus upon his heirs – the very assurance of his legacy.
Some might have thought this paranoid in turn, for even if Rhaegar might be considered threatening for his popularity among the selfsame public that reviled his father, Viserys was still a boy, and idolized his father in the way small boys did when the world was small and contained within the limited expanse of their imaginings.
They might have thought it. If not for the King's sudden obsession with gaining more offspring.
Queen Rhaella had lost three unborn children in the past two years alone, with each loss taking a greater toll than the last. Yet it did not matter her age, nor that she had never been all that strong. He needed children - new heirs he might somehow control more than those he had. And his wife, the only available source of pure Targaryen blood with which to breed, was not carrying the children she begot to term.
This venture was to be the latest in the endless number of indignities he had subjected her to in pursuit of these new heirs. There was said to be a woods witch in High Heart who might know of some spell or ritual to quicken Rhaella's womb. Or else force it to beget life again. Whatever might be required to do so, the King did not care so long as the results suited his need.
As Kingsguard, Arthur was sworn to keep the king's counsel, to act in pursuit of the king's orders, no matter how vile or dishonorable he might find them to be.
He had been young when he'd taken his vows of knighthood. Far too young. So certain in his desires and dreams for the future. He no longer saw the world through the same golden veil. The world was grim and dirty and harsh, and the righteous honor for which he had given so much...was not so righteous after all. The boy he had been had sought to serve for good. The man he was now had long ago accepted that the king he served was mad and cruel, and no longer capable of concealing either well.
"A fortnight," Ashara echoed beside him. "You'll be gone for New Year's Night? But who will share candied plums with me?" she pouted, in that moment so like the girl she had been not all that long ago - small and round-cheeked - that it was uncanny.
With his free hand, he gently tugged a lock of her hair. "I expect you to save my share."
Ashara snorted. "No bloody likely!" she snipped, slapping his hand away.
"Fine then," he laughed, "tradition will keep to next year."
With a sigh, she let go of the childish lightness, allowing the worry to take its place. "Travel safe, then, if I don't see you before you go."
Leaning, he pressed a tender kiss to the crown of his sister's head.
"Always."
...
"—would you have me prevent it, then?"
Taking the steps two at a time, Arthur trailed Rhaegar down to the lowermost level of Maegor's Holdfast where the common rooms reserved for the royal family were located, his gaze sharp upon the prince's back.
"I cannot guarantee the herb woman will corroborate what did not occur, no matter how much coin I give her."
"No," Rhaegar replied, coming to a halt mid-stride in the center of the corridor. He raked a hand through his white-gold hair, causing it to muss where it fell about his shoulders. Agitation made the motion stiff as it tightened his jaw, the lean tendons in his throat. "No, that wouldn't help her anyhow. Just..."
Arthur laid a gloved hand upon the other man's shoulder.
"I will not allow any harm to come to your mother, Rhaegar," he murmured. "I swear it."
With a heavy breath, the prince met his eyes. "I know." Lifting his own hand, Rhaegar rested a palm against the knight's own shoulder, shielded by armor. "I owe you much, my friend."
Arthur's retort was firm. "You owe me nothing. This I would do without oaths, as you well know."
Rhaegar smiled. The expression softened his fair, carven face, yet it held a measure of something faraway. It reminded Arthur of the day the boy prince - bookish and far more interested in history than in politics – had come down to the training yards, out of nowhere, to declare that it seemed he must become a warrior. In the years since, Arthur had never been able to get much of an answer as to what had brought about this change in the prince, other than that he had read it as truth.
"Even so," Rhaegar said quietly, "thank you."
Following as Rhaegar continued down the passage, Arthur turned into a shallow corridor. The door at the end was flanked by four palace guards, breastplates embossed with the royal sigil of the three-headed dragon, all of whom bowed at the approach of their crown prince.
Soft music emitted from the room beyond, the source of which became clear when Rhaegar pushed the door inward to reveal those gathered there.
The room was one of several used by members of the royal family to entertain guests, though just now it seemed to serve as a space for the majority of the family – all save the king, now – to keep one another's company. Queen Rhaella rested upon a shallow couch, a fur throw laid across her legs. She wore a soft smile on her ever so slightly too thin face as she watched the scene before her.
Perched upon a low stool, Princess Elia plucked at the strings of the lap harp she held while Lady Visaera and the children watched from where they gathered about her upon the floor.
Of all the noblewomen Arthur might have pictured deigning to sit upon a floor outside the privacy of her own chambers, it had not been this one. Yet there the lady was: legs crossed before her in a most unladylike manner, the little princess settled quite happily in her lap - seemingly as content to be there as her kitten had been. As he watched, she reached to move a piece on the miniature cyvasse board set up between her and Viserys, while the young prince frowned, deep in thought.
What stood out to him more than the unexpectedly casual seating arrangement, however, was the way her face and posture matched it. She looked as she had a week or so before - in the solar with the other ladies. Not-yet faded laughter lingering at the corners of her eyes and mouth, unburdened, at ease, and effortlessly lovely.
An expression, he noted, that did not fall away when she looked up and saw him - Rhaegar's armored shadow taking up position beside the door.
"You see?" Princess Elia was in the midst of explaining, "I told you I was awful—oh!"
Glancing up, Elia's eyes landed upon her husband and brightened to chips of amber.
Rhaegar picked his way across the room, stepping carefully around the gathering upon the rug to reach his wife, pausing twice to ruffle his brother's pale hair and to relieve Visaera of a beaming - and excitedly squirming - Rhaenys, cradling his daughter to his chest.
"Hello, husband," Elia murmured, smiling sweetly when Rhaegar reached to stroke her cheek with the back of a hand.
The prince did not show affection as openly as others did within public view, which had led some to think he was somewhat cold toward his family, which was by design. The hope was to spare them being used to hurt him, whether by his father, or by some scheming, ambitious lord or another. But in private, such as now, he was free to display his fondness for them.
Arranged marriages were common, and while this one had done much to strengthen relations between Dorne and the rest of the seven kingdoms, there had not been much expectation of how relations would be between the two of them. Love rarely came from unions such as these. Camaraderie, trust, even affection, occasionally, yes. But for actual love to build between two people thrust together for the sake of politics and alliances and breeding, was unprecedented.
Ashara had been Elia's lady in waiting and dearest friend since they had both still been girls, and, as such, Arthur had come to care a great deal for the princess' happiness as he had for Rhaegar's. He could not say exactly what form or shade it took, but it was easy to see that they did love one another, in their way.
Moving to where Rhaella reclined, Rhaegar bent to kiss his mother's cheek, lowering himself to sit upon the edge of her couch.
"Elia was showing us what she remembers of the harp," the Queen remarked, reaching to smooth Rhaenys' wild dark curls.
"Oh?"
Princess Elia's face twisted with a grimace. "Which is fair little," she admitted.
"More than a little," Visaera corrected from the floor.
She was clearly quite comfortable there, having not moved much but to lean forward, bracing her elbows upon her parted knees in a way that brought her closer to the game board. Not even the presence of an outsider to the casual family gathering seemed to put her off, which pleased him. He did not wish her to be uneasy around him, though he understood the inclination.
Elia scoffed. "It's been so long since I learned I hardly remember how to hold the thing! I'm nowhere near the gifted musician Rhaegar is."
The lady laughed freely – a bright, captivating sound. "No one is the musician Rhaegar is."
More laughter filled the room, as warm and glowing as the hearth embers. Joy was a precious luxury to these people, whose days so often consisted of little more than beads of fear and dread strung upon a wire. Here they could be simply that - people. Not royals trapped beneath the unstable mercy of a tyrant king.
"Cousin Visaera can sing too," Rhaegar mused vaguely, seemingly focused on the little girl in his arms, though there was a hint of mischief in his face.
"Do you really?" Rhaella asked, just as Rhaenys chirped: "sings!"
"Poorly," Visaera replied shortly, staring narrow-eyed at Rhaegar as though marking him the worst manner of traitor. The prince met her gaze evenly, with pointed innocence too clear to be entirely trustworthy.
"Untrue. I heard you that year I visited the Roost, remember?"
"Won't you sing for us, Visaera?" Elia pleaded, "you can't be worse than my abysmal harp playing."
The lady's lips curved with a sardonic non-smile. "Don't be so certain of that," she warned.
Adjusting the lay of her skirts with one hand she leaned into one hip, curling her legs under her, hair falling loose and wild down her back
"What my dear cousin isn't saying is that what he heard was a sea chanty, because that's all I know well enough to—"
Viserys, who up until now had been engrossed in the game pieces and calculating his next move, looked up. "Sea chanty," he echoed, eyes wide and intrigued, "like what pirates sing?"
"I suppose so…"
"Sings?" came Rhaenys' plaintive one-word question, chubby toddler face quite somber.
"Please?" Viserys added with a generous helping of pleading. "Only, not a love song."
Throwing up her hands, Visaera let out an exasperated sigh. "All right!" she cried, while both children cheered, delighted with their victory. "All right, I can't refuse both of you. Darling little beasts."
Playfully she snapped her teeth in Rhaenys' direction, eliciting a flurry of giggling.
Arthur found himself smiling at the ease of her interaction with them. Rhaenys was quite easy to win over, being so young, but Viserys was a standoffish, temperamental child and often quite difficult. Her apparent willingness to entertain his insistences that he was grown enough to attempt complex games of strategy would have won her a few points, and if she was able to feed his boyish fascinations with battle and bandits and other such things, there were a few points more.
She was not a singer the way Rhaegar was – who did, indeed, have a gift for music – but she had a pleasant voice, strong and even. What she lacked in technical skill however she more than made up for in passion and performance.
The song itself was a rather tragic one: an old sailor's legend about a captain betrayed by his own kin to wreckage and death and the ghosts left behind, something she had likely heard many times in her youth among sea folk. She moved while she recounted, as though putting on a play. Miming the rolling of storm-tossed waves with serpentine arms, emphasizing words with a clenched and upheld fist or an exaggerated grimace for the children's entertainment. And at the end, after captain and ship sank beneath bloodsoaked tide, her voice grew hushed and low to deliver the final haunting lines.
"Beware, beware the daughter of the sea. Beware, beware...of me."
Later that night, while he stood guard outside the king and queen's chambers, Arthur found himself thinking back to the way her eyes had flicked briefly toward him once she'd finished, as enthusiastic clapping rose about her.
Had it happened but half a moment earlier, he might have truly thought her to be delivering a warning in earnest, if vague and veiled. But she had been on the brink of a flustered smile, already waving off the declarations of praise. Whatever had been in the split-instant glimmer of a look had been neither dark nor ominous, nor even all that wary, and he had no idea what to make of it. Or, he supposed, of her.
NOTES:
Firstly, credit to Logan Laflotte and Neal Acree for the line of lyrics from "Daughter of the Sea," which is from World of Warcraft, and which is a whole, and perfect, mood.
I may have some strong feelings where the Baratheons are concerned.
I am also...moderately satisfied with this chapter. More the first half . I struggled with the second half a bit, mainly because I want to get to the stuff that happens in the next chapter and this one feels like boring, repetitive filler. And I tried a thing which may or may not have worked. But, as I remind myself again, scenes like this are necessary for buildup and foundational work. I can definitely promise the next one will be much more interesting and exciting, and will really start kicking things into gear. I appreciate you hanging in there!
Until next time!