Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun
Chapter Twenty-One.
Elia was quiet from the shock for a moment at Rhaegar's request before she remembered her curtsies and nodded with a smile, she sat down at the table. "I would love to speak with you my prince, it has been to long since we have."
She didn't want to be rude after all, forgetting the fact that Rhaegar was the crown prince for a moment he was also her friend and she did not want to deny him, there had been a time when the two of them had told one another anything and they would've been married to one another, she would never have kept anything from him.
But there was no point in lingering on what could've been, she had not married Rhaegar, she had married Ned and she was happy with him, she was bearing his child and she had gotten used to the north. No, she was happy there, happier than she thought that she would ever be.
Rhaegar sat down across from her and offered her a solemn smile. "It's been a very long time Elia. Almost year if I remember correctly." He laid his arm on the table with his outstretched to her.
Elia knew that she shouldn't but she reached out and took his hand, shivering slightly as his long, delicate fingers curled around her hand and how his pale like milk skin, that almost looked like marble, looked against her dark olive skin. "I've missed you as well Rha-My prince." She corrected herself, they were not betrothed anymore and thus she lost the right to call him by his name.
Rhaegar smiled and gently squeezed her hand. "You can still call me by my name Elia, so long as you have no objections to me calling you by yours."
"Thank you Rhaegar, that is very generous of you." Elia said with a small smile, it had so long since she had actually spoken to him even before the betrothal was called off, she had been in Dorne and the Mad King had always been suspicious of them and she had not seen him in months and she had very few letters from him either, then the word had come that Aerys had called off the match and she had been sent North before she even had time to send a letter to Rhaegar to asked what had happened.
It had upset her, it had upset her a great deal. She had wanted to marry Rhaegar, she loved Ned of course, she loved him more than anything but Rhaegar had been a great friend to her over the years and it would not have been impossible for her to grow to love him in time but that time had been stolen from them and she loved another.
There was no point in being upset about it, she realised. No man or woman could turn back time not matter how they wished they could or how much they prayed to the gods. They had to live with their choices, and the choices of others. No matter what and she was happy with Ned.
She gently pulled her hand way from Rhaegar's, if nothing else she didn't not want to give him the wrong impression. "Well then Rhaegar, what would you like to talk to me about?" She asked as she tried to ignore the flash of surprise and what looked far too much like sadness in his eyes.
"I would like to talk about you, Elia. We didn't have any time to speak before you left, I sent a letter to you but Doran wrote back to tell me that you had left two days before." Rhaegar said and Elia tried to hide her surprise, Doran had not once in any of their letters had even mentioned that Rhaegar had sent a letter to her?
Did he think she was stupid? Did he honestly think that she was going to even entertain the idea of having an affair? Not only was she married to a man that she loved and at the time was far away from anyone who would've sheltered her if said affair had gone wrong? She knew that most people thought of Dorne as a land where affairs were treated casually but it was not at all that simple, paramours were accepted as were bastards but most men and women who had paramours were men and women who did not have a husband or a wife or were paramours who were kept after a marriage.
It was rare for a man or a woman of Dorne to seek a paramour after they had already been married and if they did then it was generally looked down on by the rest of Dorne. There was a reason that Oberyn refused to be married after all, as a prince he was held to higher expectations than the rest of lords and ladies in Dorne but so long as he wasn't married then no one cared about him sleeping around, and bastards were not judged as harshly as they were simply the result of such passion and were not born of any fault of there own.
"If I had known that you had written me a letter to me then I would've written to you." Elia said before she let out a heavy sigh. "But maybe I wouldn't have, I'm married to someone else, it would probably have just hurt us both."
"Are you happy, with Lord Stark? He is the second son after all and I am so sorry about that, my father was trying to insult you and your family and-" Rhaegar sighed heavily and rubbed his face with his hands and let out the most tired and bone weary sigh that she had ever heard in her life and in that moment he looked more tired then she had ever seen him.
"He get's worse with every passing day Elia, he passes the death sentence every chance he gets no matter what the crime is, he burned a boy alive in front of the entire court for stealing some bread from the kitchens. He was younger than Viserys. He's a monster Elia." He admitted and then let out a heavy sigh which seemed to make his entire body shake. "It has been an utter nightmare."
Elia sighed at the sight of Rhaegar with his head buried in his hands and his arms resting on the table, he looked so tired, so sad more sad than she had ever seen him and she had seen him quite sad more than a few times in the past. When they were children there had been more than a few times when Rhaegar and his mother had come to Dorne at her mother's invitation.
Her mother and the Queen had been good friends when they had been about her age, her mother had actually been one of her ladies while she was still just the princess and they formed a strong bond of friendship, it was said that only her bond with Joanna Lannister was stronger than theirs. The queen had visited both her mother and Joanna as much as she could and when she was younger she didn't really understand it.
Did the queen not like King's Landing, did she not like living in the Red Keep? It hadn't occurred to why the woman did not want to be there and how she was seemingly fine spending so much time away from her husband, surely she missed him? But at the time she didn't put much more thought into it then that, she was a child and she was always more excited to see Rhaegar then his mother even though she was always kind to her.
But as time passed on and she grew older and the trips grew less and less come she began to notice certain things, that as soon as they arrived the queen would practically dash into her mother's arms and cry and cry and Elia's mother would simply hold her until she stopped and how it seemed to take her great deal of effort to move and how she needed Elia's mother to help her inside.
Even Rhaegar seemed different, more withdrawn and his voice was quite when ever he spoke, she had always asked him what was wrong but he had never told her and he always looked a little guilty, like he had something to do with it and that concerned her as a child.
A few nights after the end of one of their visits and the queen and Rhaegar were on their way back to King's Landing, Elia had gone to see her mother just before her bedtime and she had asked what was wrong with the queen and why her stays were becoming fewer and fewer.
Her mother had sighed heavily and pulled her into her lap and had brushed her hands through her dark curls and pressed a kiss to her forehead and explained it all to her, how some men could be very, very cruel and the king was very cruel and sometimes very cruel men hurt the people they cared about, the people that they shouldn't and the reason that Rhaegar felt guilty was because there was nothing he could do to stop his father from being cruel to his mother,
That conversation was burned into her mind, it had been the first time anyone had ever spoken to her like she was an adult.
Elia sighed and reached out and placed her hand on Rhaegar's shoulder to try and offer him some sort of comfort to him, Rhaegar smiled and placed his hand over hers.
"I am sorry Elia, I did not come here to talk about my problems, I wanted to make sure that you were well. How is your lord husband? He is treating you well, are you happy with him?" He asked as he stroked his thumb over the back of her hand and Elia could barely suppress a shiver that ran through her entire body, she had forgotten what Rhaegar touching her could do to her.
She gently pulled her hand away again and laid them both in her lap so she wouldn't be able to touch him. "I am happy with him, very much so. I...I love him Rhaegar, I love him a very great deal."
"I am happy to hear that, so long as you are happy." Rhaegar said though Elia could hear something in his voice that sounded to her that he was not quite as happy as he said that he was.
She was to be honest more than a little surprised by how he was acting, they were dear friends and she loved Rhaegar in a way but she did not think that he would be this...put out by the fact that she was happy with her husband, she knew that he considered her a friend and that he trusted her advice but the way he was acting seemed to suggest that he thought more of her than that.
"How about you? I am aware that Cersei Lannister has arrived in King's Landing, do you like her?" Elia asked already thinking that she knew the answer, if she hadn't changed much from when she was a small child abusing her poor baby brother then she wasn't sure how anyone could like the woman.
Rhaegar grimaced, such a look seeming to mar his beautiful face. "She is...very eager to be married to me, so there is that. She and I have not truly spoke and much and when we have spoken it seems...to be honest with you, the woman seems like a complete and utter fool."
Elia tried to remember her curtsies, it would do no good to openly insult the other woman. "I am sure that she is simply excited, it is not every day that you are going to marry a prince. I am sure that when the excitement wears off then you shall be able to truly know her."
"To be honest Elia, I do not wish to marry her. I know my duty and I shall do it but I wish that I did not have too." Rhaegar admitted with a small sigh. "You are an admirable companion, and as I am sure Lord Eddard will attest to, a more than admirable wife."
"You always were a charmer Rhaegar." Elia said with a small giggle.
Rhaegar grinned at her as she giggled but then it fell away after a moment with a heavy sigh. "I have to confess that I didn't just come to speak with you about personal matters, I need to ask you something."
"Of course, what do you need?" Elia asked with a curious expression on her face.
Rhaegar glanced back at the door for a moment and then glanced at the door to the bedroom where the girls were waiting before he reached to his sleeve and pulled out two letters. "Can you make sure that these get to Rickard Stark and your brother?" He asked in a voice that was near a whisper.
Elia glanced down at the two letters that he had handed to her, they weren't sealed and she gently unfolded one of the letters, her eyes widening as she read it's contents, this wasn't too hard to believe but if the king found out that this was what Rhaegar had planned then heir or no the king would show no mercy to him. "Rhaegar, what you have written here is-
"I know, Elia believe me I know but something has to be done and you know it so. It can not stay like this." Rhaegar pleaded with her, his eyes begging her to understand.
"Rhaegar...You've put me in danger by even showing these to me, you are asking me to put my husband, my brothers, my nieces and nephews, my good-father and good-sisters and good-brothers in danger as well, you've put my child in danger!" Elia shouted as she placed her hand over her stomach, mentally she chastised herself for yelling at Rhaegar, he was still the prince after all and for revealing that she was pregnant, she hadn't wanted to tell him.
"You're with child?" Rheagar breathed in disbelief, his eyes glancing down at her stomach before he set them back onto her face. "Elia, I know. I know, and I am so sorry if I could think of any other way to do this without involving you I would've but this is the best way that I can think to do it, your brother and good-father are already planning, don't tell me that you do not see it?"
Elia did see it, she had been trained by their mother as Doran had been and it had not taken her long to notice that her good-father was marrying his children to houses south of the Neck, it was building alliances and her marriage to Ned was a decree of support.
She imagined now that she thought of it that was why Rickard allowed her and Ned to go south in the first place, what better way to throw off suspicion then to send them directly to the Mad King himself, he may hail from a land where playing the game was at least openly looked down up but he was a half decent player himself.
"Your silence condemns you Elia, I just want them to know that they are not alone in planning and they have an ally." Rhaegar whispered and he placed his hands on her shoulders. "They are already in danger but I am sorry I put you in it directly but please. help me. You know that this has to be done."
Elia glanced down at the letters for a moment, her mind racing as she thought. If anyone found her with these letters then her head would be removed from her neck before she knew what had happened but at the same time she knew that if something wasn't done about the Mad King then how many would suffer? How many would die?
She sighed gently before she nodded. "All right, I shall give the letters to them." She said whilst silently praying to the old gods and the new that she was not making a terrible mistake.
Rhaegar closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you Elia, thank you so much." He pulled her into a hug and Elia did not resist, Rhaegar pulled away and made his way to the room's door. "I have to go now, I will be in touch. I promise. And thank you so much." Rhaegar said with a final smile and just like that, he was gone, shutting the door behind him.
Elia glanced down at the letters in her hand for a moment, a million thoughts racing together before she sighed and walked over to her trunk and opened and placed the letters inside and shut the trunk again.
"Can we come out now?" The voice very nearly made Elia jump out of her skin and turned quickly to see Obara half leaning out of the bedroom door, a sheepish grin on her face.
"Yes. You may." Elia said with a small smile and Obara opened the door properly and let her sisters out of the room, as Nym went back to sitting in her own seat Elia walked over to Obara and Tyene and picked the younger girl up, Obara glanced up at her aunt with a small frown on her face. "Are you okay?" She asked quietly.
Elia sighed and reached down to stroke Obara's dark hair and smiled sadly down at her.
She wished that she knew how to answer that.
End of Chapter Twenty-One
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