117 AC, Driftmark
"I think you are a dirty little liar," Aegon said without preamble the moment Ophaella sat down for their late breakfast. He kicked out her chair and leapt on her with his questions, pointedly ignoring the way she was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She found him unpleasant at the best of times, but he was nearly intolerable on an empty stomach.
"About?" She asked, swatting away his leg from her chair. She felt Aemond staring at them from across the table and she immediately smiled at him. A gesture he returned now that he wasn't left alone at the mercy of his older brother. They were not so far apart in age that they would have nothing in common, but the pair of them managed it all the same.
Ophaella was not sure she had ever seen two people who looked so similar and yet were so far apart.
"You do not have a dragon, least of all such a wild beast like the Cannibal." Aegon was only so confident when he had something extra added to his water. Today, he seemed to start early. Ophaella glanced around the room, looking for the source of his liquid courage. A half-drunk carafe of Velaryon purple wine that he seemed hell-bent on polishing off himself before it reached midday sat on the sidebar.
"Then you believe the King is a liar, as well," Ophaella said, standing up. She walked over to the carafe and picked it, holding in front of her. Truly, she did not care if Aegon wanted to get himself piss drunk, even if it was an alarming new hobby for someone so young.
"No one has seen you with it," Aegon said, snatching the carafe from her hand. Still, despite the clear animosity in his voice, he still smiled at her. "Cheers, sweet cousin."
"I saw her," Helaena said, speaking up for the first time since Ophaella joined them. Still so out of place, Helaena practically hovered over her chair to sitting on it too much. She moved her fingers in front of her face, providing a steady place for the three little spiders she produced from her dress to crawl back and forth. Aegon watched her from over his goblet, lips pursing every time Helaena leaned forward and let one of the spiders brush against her lips. "Ophaella will have many dragons."
"Rubbish. She doesn't even have the one."
Ophaella rolled her eyes, making up her mind to ignore Aegon and his needling for the rest of their meal.
What need did she have to prove her dragon? Her father knew and the King knew.
Aemond knew.
But most importantly of all, she knew the connection all the way down to the marrow in her bones.
"Many dragons?" Aemond asked, clearly not as dismissive of his sister's strange words as his brother.
"Hmm?" Helaena lifted the largest of the three spiders to her lips and let it brush against her again. It was a leggy thing, with pale hair and beady little red eyes. Disturbing to look at, even without the idea of kissing it, and Ophaella had to fight from looking away herself. She held out her hand towards Aegon, biting her lip as he recoiled in disgust. "Oh yes. Many dragons. But she will pay for them with blood."
Ophaella stared at her.
Helaena had her secrets, just as Ophaella had hers, but she could not deny it bothered her how little she understood her older cousin.
"Do shut up, Helaena," Aegon said, spit mixed with the ever so slightest bit of fondness.
He hated her, to be sure. But she knew he also loved her just as much. It was a maddening contradiction to witness and Ophaella's heart ached to watch it happen to someone else, just as it had happened to her. For just as much as she knew her father loved her in his own way, he had spent more of her life hating her very existence.
It was only now that she had a dragon of her own – a great and terrible beast, as everyone seemed so fond of calling the Cannibal – that he had begun to actually see her as more than just a poor reflection of her mother. Who he also hated. It was a startling thing, to realize the truth of one's own family and see it through to its core. Without the blur of grief or sheen of grandeur, they were no different than any other.
Well that was not entirely true.
No other family could even debate having dragons or not.
At least not with any amount of sanity.
"Don't be such a twat, Aegon," Aemond said, voice hard. He straightened his back and leaned forward, glowering at his older brother. Aegon smirked and swirled his drink. There was nothing Aegon loved more than the perfect combination of insulting his sister and angering Aemond all at once. In return, there was nothing Helaena seemed to love more than shoving spiders in his face. Aemond would always try to step in – in defense of Helaena or simply because he didn't care for Aegon that day.
Round and round and round the three of them went, each poking holes in the others and filling them back up with taunts.
Ophaella was still excluded from their little game, for the time being, and could do nothing but watch.
"She knows how I feel about spiders!" Aegon snapped, voice taking on more of a whine than he would have liked. "She put some in my pillow last night."
"I did not," Helaena protested, although she didn't seem inclined to try very hard to protect her innocence in the matter.
"Creepy things are drawn to each other, Aeg," Aemond said, using the nickname he knew he hated the most just to further annoy him.
Ophaella sat back further in her chair and grabbed a roll, tearing off little pieces as she settled in to watch her three cousins pick of each other for the rest of the meal. Why she had to be subject to it, she would never be certain, but she know she was going to be every single morning of hers from now until the end of the Tourney.
Better to keep the children all in one place, she supposed, than letting them run free around Driftmark.
"Is that why the two of you have spent all your time whispering about the halls?" Aegon asked, gesturing between Aemond and Ophaella. "Creepy with creepy. Liar with liar. Dragonless spare of the spare with the dragonless daughter of the spare…"
Aemond stood to his feet, knocking his chair to the ground.
"Aemond," Ophaella said, throwing down her roll and standing up as well. "Let us go for a walk before you two start slapping each other again."
What an undignified sight that had been, each of them slapping at each other like a pair of old women going at it one day in the tiltyard. They both blushed crimson at the memory. Helaena, who had not been there at the time but laughed all the same when Ophaella regaled her with the tale, giggled, letting her spiders free onto the table as she stood up as well.
They cut a straight path towards Aegon.
He shrieked, protecting his wine as he leapt back from the table.
"Damn it all, Helaena!"
"Come, now, Aegon, I want to go watch the knights prepare for the first tilt." Helaena said, completely ignoring the absolutely foul look he gave her.
"Do you not have some headache to attend to? They keep you from our lessons often enough. But no, not when there is some fun to be had," Aegon said, downing the rest of his wine. He slammed his goblet down on the table and turned towards Helaena, clearly growing bored enough of poking at Aemond to willingly spend time with Helaena.
He even offered her his arm, although Ophaella doubted that would last very long once he realized just how many little bugs she kept tucked up her sleeves.
"Do make sure to take note of all the knights, Aemond. A dragon without a dragon is no dragon at all. A future of languishing away on the Tourney circuit is likely all the excitement you'l…" Helaena pulled him away before he could finish, loudly shushing his cackling laughter as they walked down the hall and out of earshot.
Aemond walked over to the door they left standing open and slammed it shut.
"Ignore him," Ophaella said, going back to her discarded roll. "He feels superior bec-"
"Because he is superior, Aella." Aemond kept his hand on the door handle for a moment, back stiff. But for all his simmering anger, she did not miss the casual way he said her name and the way it made her forget what they were talking about for the briefest of moments. "As long as I do not have a dragon, he will always be better than me."
"There have been Targaryens before without a dragon."
"Yes, and where did you hear about them?" Aemond finally turned his back to the door, face pinched and mood turning sourer with every moment that passed. "In history books? Through legend? Rumors?"
"You read everything. You have read more books than anyone I kno-"
"And they all say the same sorry tale. A Targaryen without a dragon might as well not be a Targaryen at all."
He was building up to something, she could tell by the dark tone his voice had taken. He stormed over to the fire place and threw himself down directly on the stones, suddenly looking like the seven she often forgot they were. Their family seemed determined to make them forget, to force them into adulthood far sooner than any of them were ready for.
She knew it was why Aegon had started drinking.
And why Helaena loved her sweet little spiders more than her fellow humans.
It was why Aemond had enough rage for a man fully grown.
She wondered what that could mean for her. She was already the Lady of a Keep she remembered less and less of with each day that passed.
Ophaella sat down next to him by the fire, grimacing at just how hot the stones were.
"You should have gone with them. They have dragons."
"You said you were not mad at me," She said, crossing her legs as she moved back from the fire just a few inches.
"I am not, I promise." He reached forward and grabbed a bit of charred wood. He snapped it in half like a bone and threw it back on the flames.
"Then top acting like it is my fault that your brother is a twat."
"Where did you learn that word?"
"From Aegon. It is a favorite of his," She said, scooting back even more. Sweat bloomed under her dress and spread up and down her back. It would dry the moment she left the room and she would be cold once again. Aemond did not seem to have same problem and leaned closer to the flames. He picked up another piece of wood and turned it over in his hands.
"She said you would have 'many dragons'." His voice was low as he recited Helaena's words. Strange, destiny-tinged things, they often were. But they made very little sense, at the best of times, and Ophaella learned in her year in King's Landing to not try too hard to understand them too much. "You already have one. Perhaps you will have them before I ever get my first, if I ever do."
"One that I cannot ride. By the time her wing is healed, who knows if she will still hold true to our bond."
"You do not have to do that," He said, anger finally dissolving and giving way to sadness. "You do not have to lie to me to try and make me feel better."
"I am not. I am telling you the whole truth of it, Aemond. My dragon is wilder than I could have ever imagined. I might have held with her for a moment, but that could have been it. When you claim your dragon, you will claim it fully and completely. There will not be a question. And if somebody still does, I'll gut them myself."
"Even if the questioner is Aegon."
"Especially if it's Aegon." She reached forward to pull the piece of wood from his hands. She hissed when it touched her skin and she threw it down, shocked by how hot it was. "Does that not hurt you?"
Aemond reached forward and grabbed another stick, this time from deeper in the fire.
It still burned bright red.
And there he held it, with bare hands and unburnt skin.
"Aemond…you…"
"Ophaella, there you are," Her father said, throwing open the door to the room with a loud bang. Aemond tossed the piece of wood in the fire and stood up, wiping the evidence of the ashes and soot on the back of his black breeches. Ophaella followed him, although her dress was not of the sort that let her hide it as well, so she reached down while her father looked around the room and wiped her hands on Aemond's pants.
"Hello, father."
"And you are with Aemond."
"Uncle," Aemond said, putting a bit of space between himself and Ophaella as her father narrowed his eyes at them.
"Nephew."
Ophaella looked back and forth.
"Has the Tourney started?" She asked, thoroughly confused by the sudden shift of attitude in the room. Pity gave way to pride and the pair of them, seemed determined to win the spontaneous staring contest that had sprung up.
"Just now," Her father said, keeping his gaze on Aemond. "Which is why I am here. You were meant to be seated with the King and his Court, not playing in the ashes at breakfast."
"We weren't playing in the ashes," Aemond protested, although he did hide his hands behind his back.
"Clearly. Now if the two of you are not too busy…"
"We will go join the King and Queen," Ophaella said, stepping away from Aemond. She ran her hands along the table, pausing long enough to grab one of the rough napkins to wipe her hands on, before she came to stand beside him.
Aemond clearly wanted this secret kept and keep it she would.
Even from her father.
Though the idea pained her. She had just managed to win his respect, to earn something other than disdain and scorn from him, and she did not relish the idea of it being stripped away by her own deception.
"Will you be joining us?"
"Sitting and watching was not what I had in mind for us," Her father said, gesturing for her to follow. "You might as well come too, nephew. Seems the two of you are inseparable anyway."
The last part was said with scorn.
Aemond glanced at Ophaella before stepping out the open door.
Her father dropped a hand to her shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze. "Why are you covered in sweat? Do I want to know? Never mind, do not tell me."
He kept his hand on her shoulder as they walked out of the room.
"Where are we going?" Aemond asked, taken aback as her father continued to glare at him.
"My ass will get fat if I continue to sit around and eat all day. I do not give a shit about Tourneys, but they are a quite bit better than sitting around and doing nothing. It certainly is better than sitting all day next to that cunt you call a grandfather." Her father paused, pursing his lips before he continued. "Apologies."
He meant not a single syllable of it.
But Aemond did not mind.
In fact, Ophaella caught him smirking when her father looked away.
"Right. Anyway. I am need of a squire and I thought Ophaella would do just fine. You as well, seeing as how you are her weird little shadow as of late. You two together should be enough to get the job done and it will save you from having to spend the day with our family."
That was enough for Aemond.
Any promise of less time spent with Aegon seemed to be enough to sway him. Ophaella tucked that information away and saved it for later, when her own cache of goodwill dried up and she needed something else to convince him with.
"Maybe one day you will fight in Tourneys of your own."
Her father paused at the door that led outside the Keep and down to the Tourney grounds, looking between the pair of them once again.
"I don't give a shit about Tourneys."
"Good lad."
"When were you going to tell me you could stick your hands in the fire?" Ophaella hissed over top of her father's breastplate.
"When were you going to tell me you can use rune magic?" Aemond countered, yanking hard on the leather strap.
"I assumed it was known. My mother's family has never been quiet about their connection with the Old Men and their magic."
"You never talk about your mother or her family," He said, giving the strap one final yank. It was the end of the day and his hands were growing tired and cold from all the damp, just as hers were. She had taken to wearing gloves several hours before, but they were soaked all the way through and just made the work harder.
Ophaella paused.
She supposed she didn't.
She knew her father would not want to hear it and he was the only one who knew her. She thought it would not mean much to someone else – to talk endlessly about her and all that she loved so much. But just as she had dishonored her heritage in ignoring her connection to the runes and the stone, she had also dishonored the woman who gave it all to her.
"She taught me." Ophaella struggled to remember the first time, back to her earliest memories.
It stated out with a little worrystone - the very same one that belonged to her mother's father's mother and the one that she tried to carve into the rock she gave her father.
"And I suppose her father taught her. My grandmother was an Arryn – Lady Elys – so it could not have been her. Anyway, they were all dead by the time I was born, so I do not really know. I assume it was the Royce. It has been passed down through Royces for a thousand years and more."
"The Maester says your family has the blood of the First Men in them."
"A lot of families claim to have the blood of the First Men. Most are wrong," Ophaella said, pulling out her small carving knife. She held it out in front of her face. The grip had been smoothed by years and years and years of hands making the same practiced movements. The same knife had been used to bring her safely into the world. Perhaps it could have done something save her mother the day she died – if kept in different hands.
If kept in the right hands.
"A lot of families can claim it all the like." Aemond bent down to the ground and grabbed the backplate. He heaved it onto the table and slammed it down, grunting at the weight. It got heavier as the day progressed, but he father seemed pleased enough with their squiring to not complain about their rough treatment of his armor.
It seemed what little care he had for tourneys, he had even less for his ceremonial garb.
The only thing he valued was his dragon helm- ostentatious, in Ophaella's opinion – and his sword.
Dark Sister.
He loved that sword more than he loved her, of that she was absolutely certain.
His sword he cared for and would probably cuff her ears if she so much as thought about touching it. But he would not noticed a few little marks on the back of his breastplate, just as he hadn't noticed the few old dents and smears of ruined paint.
A few little runes.
To settle her mind, if for nothing else.
She scratched them into the surface of the metal, going over them each seven times just to be sure it would stick.
"When I asked about her, I did not mean about the runes."
Aemond eyed her careful marks, raising his eyebrows.
"Oh?"
"Do you look like her?" He began to pull the straps of the backplate, grimacing once again as he started to use his cold hands for more delicate work.
"She had short hair that she always kept pushed back-"
"Like yours."
"And the deepest, most beautiful brown eyes. I know my father never saw it in her, I doubt she saw it much in him, to be honest, but I think she was." Her voice began to wibble wobble at the end and she knew she they did not start to talk about something else soon, she would start crying. "I wish she would have had someone who loved her. My father might be a Prince, but he was never hers."
"She had you," Aemond said.
"For a bit. But it's not the same."
"Did you read the story of Piannei of Narth?"
"No?"
"It was short and I think the Maester did not think it very important to preserve. But I found it propping up an old table. Piannei was never loved very much by her husband, but her children loved her more than enough to make up for it." He did not look at her as he continued working, but she saw his cheeks were tinted with pink.
"I did not know you read those kinds of books."
"You said it yourself, Aella. I read everything."
"Shit shit shit." The flap to the tent flew open and her father hurried in, half dressed in his tourney tunic. "Some drunken prick passed out before his bout. I'm to go next."
"But-"
"Hurry, Ophaella. Aemond, be a good lad and strap me in," He said, turning his back to Aemond so that he could attach the backplate. As the day wore on, they had warmed to each other a considerable amount – not that either of them would ever say as such – and Ophaella thought she even sharing a good-natured smile or two when no one was looking.
They more than covered that up, however, with nasty looks in equal, if not greater, measure.
Ophaella grabbed the breastplate and stood in front of her father. Aemond reached around him, holding the leather straps for her to take. Over his shoulder, she caught Aemond staring pointedly at the marks she made in the backside of the plate. She narrowed her eyes and tried to subtly shake her head when her father was looking towards the tent flap. She shoved it forward and grabbed the straps, smiling awkwardly when her father turned back to look at her, pale eyebrows quirked up.
Aemond went to grab the rest of the armor pieces.
"Sorry."
"You are acting strange," He said, lowering his voice so that Aemond would not hear him.
"Only a little."
"Too much time spent with family will do that to a person," He mused. "Although you seem to like that one well enough."
"He is my friend," Ophaella whispered, tightening the straps of his armor. His eyebrows raised even higher as he started to smile.
"You are already too smart for your own good, tala. Do I need to be worried that you are too," He paused, lowering his voice even more as Aemond started to walk back. "Familiar, as well."
Ophaella scrunched up her face, horrified at the very thought.
Her father let out a bark of laughter and stood up, holding out his arm to grab his helm from Aemond. He dropped a quick kiss to her forehead, shocking her to her very core at the affection in the action.
"Perhaps this change of schedule is fortuitous. I can get to the business of winning quicker and basking in all my glory." He put his helm on and turned it until it fit just right on his head. "Tourneys might be shit, but the rewards are not half bad." He waved his hand over his shoulder and walked back out the tent, his earlier flurry and panic entirely lost now that he was ready to go and once again excited to hit something.
Aemond followed him, grabbing her hand to pull her along.
He reached the entrance to the yard first and dropped her hand.
He pulled apart the canvas and stuck his head out.
The sound of the cheers was deafening.
"His opponent is small," Aemond mused, forced to speak a little louder over the sound of the excited crowd. He peeked out from behind the bright blue canvas. Ophaella dipped under his arm and looked out, anxiety building. His opponent was small. But small often meant quick, and quick often meant someone making mistakes. "He has won every other bout. This one will be no different."
She gripped the two sides of the canvas tighter.
There was something she did not like.
Something creeping up her spine.
Aemond was no help. For someone who claimed to not give a shit about tourneys, he sure seemed keen on watching the fights as much as he could.
Her father approached the center of the ring, holding his arms aloft as he greeted the crowd.
"They like him."
"You sound impressed," Ophaella said, peering up at him. Aemond glanced down, forced to look at her over his nose.
"A bit. This is better than sitting with Father as he carves up his model of Old Valyria."
"I thought you liked that model?"
"I do. But it has started to smell strange."
"Your father has started to smell strange," Ophaella said and they shared a small smile before they turned back to watch the fight. "I trust you'll keep my confidence and not tell him I said that."
"He hardly has the time to talk to me as it is. You think I would waste the few sentences he gives me on telling him all the strange things you say?"
Her father's opponent approached him, holding two long knives out in front of him as he lowered himself into a crouch. His armor was pale blue, speckled with white.
"I know you do not like tourneys-"Ophaella cut herself off, cringing as the opponent sliced towards her father's stomach. She felt his hand on the middle of her back.
Familiar.
Ophaella blushed and tried not to squirm away.
"I do not like the tourneys in King's Landing." He leaned forward more, clearly enthralled with the movement of the two warriors. As far as Ophaella could tell, they seemed to be evenly matched.
But she still worried.
"But this one is not so bad?"
"No."
"Can you stick your hand fully in the fire?" Ophaella asked quite suddenly, remembering that she wanted to know more.
Or perhaps she simply wanted a distraction.
"I have not tried." The opponent landed a hit to her father's shoulder and Ophaella reeled back, hands gripping the canvas flaps until her knuckles turned white. A bit of blood spilled out over the edge of his armor. "Aella?"
"What is the point?" She asked, not really speaking to him directly. "He rides a dragon. That should be enough excitement for him."
His opponent knocked him to his feet and stood over him, causing a hush to travel through the crowd. Ophaella opened the canvas flaps more, stepping out from in front of Aemond. He followed her step for step. Her father clutched at his neck, grasping at the spot between his arm guards and chest plate.
"He's hurt," Ophaella said, starting to move forward.
"Ophaella, wait!"
Aemond tried to catch her before she sprinted into the ring, fingers grasping at her clothes as she danced out of his grip and ran faster.
Her father's opponent rushed forward as well, dropping his two knives into the sod. His hands began to unbuckle his armor, the movements slowed considerably by his thick gloves. He gave up after a moment and ripped them off, tossing them down next to his knives. He reached for his helmet next.
Long, curly white hair spilled down his back – her back.
Laena Velaryon ignored the gasps from the crowd and continued yanking at her father's armor.
She unclipped the breastplate and threw it to ground, pushing at his tunic in search of a wound cut deep into the skin.
In search of a wound that was, apparently, no longer there.