misereres (misereres) wrote in usurper, @ 2011-12-27 00:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! house martell, ! house targaryen, elia martell, rhaegar targaryen |
rhaegar & elia
who: rhaegar targaryen & elia martell
where: king's landing, post-harrenhal
when: directly after this
what: discovery and reconciliation
The evening drawing in (her daughter sung into slumber, the sky turned dusky blue), Elia found herself alone in her chambers, fingertips brushing over the leather cover of a book that sat upon the carved wooden desk at which she wrote letters. Poetry, of a sort; court songs of the kind that troubadours of Volantis sang to their ladies, borrowed in the weeks before Harrenhal and never returned to its proper place. After a moment of indecision, the idea of sending a servant with the book considered and quickly discarded, Elia picked it up and began to walk.
Rhaegar’s study was not far from the rooms that were all her own (both overlooked a courtyard garden coming into the colours of spring, from different sides of the same quad).The white knight outside was given a weighing glace and half a tight smile as she knocked upon the heavy wooden door twice and pushed it open, stepping inside with her mind occupied by thoughts of Arthur Dayne and the unique position that he occupied within the court, the love that he bore for her husband.
-- her husband who received another half-smile, a distracted greeting offered without the cool kiss that was usual of late as she held up the book that had brought her to him, her gaze immediately drawn by the wide shelves that lined his study. “I had forgotten this -- where does it live, Rhaegar? I shan’t disturb you for long.”
In the hours after the altercation with Oberyn and the ensuing talk with Arthur, there was a stillness in Rhaegar’s study. The Jade Compendium had almost burnt to ash. His hands, bound by the strips of cloth and covered in salve, rested loose in his lap as he stared not into the fire but out the window, at the spray of stars over the glittering ocean.
The metal dragon that would soon belong to his father, Oberyn’s poisons -- all of these instruments of torture and of death encircling, surrounding his family and the fledgling kingdom he would create -- and what do I have?
Elia’s sudden presence cut through the morass of thoughts and he turned up to offer her a vaguely crooked smile. “You are not a disturbance.” A pause. “Above the fireplace, over the mantel.”
I think that I am, in fact. But such words would cut too close to that which they stepped around, the half-knowledge that weighed heavy upon her shoulders. “Thank you.”
She stepped up to the fireplace, fingers brushing gently (so gently) against the spines of the other books that sat above the mantel, until she found the space and set the volume back in its rightful place. The warmth of the fire against her cheek was almost a kiss, and it was only after staring for a long moment into the flames (was it leather, burnt, that she could smell faintly now that she was so close?) that Elia turned and truly looked at Rhaegar.
After another minute of contemplation: “What have you done, Rhaegar? Your hands.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” The tips of his fingers steepled against his lips before his shoulders rose and fell. And now, Oberyn, the lie that you would expect of me? “A book fell into the flames and I tried to save it. I wasn’t successful.”
Her lips pursed almost imperceptibly at his first comment. “I’m sure.” As for the rest -- the idea that a book of Rhaegar’s had fallen into the fire was almost laughable. The respect with which he treated books surpassed that which she had seen in any other, including all scholars. One fine brow raised, she stepped closer and gestured with her own hand: let me see. “And if you say that is what happened, I suppose it must be true.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he repeated. “It burnt but it doesn’t hurt.” Between her tone and the purse of her lips (that minute pressure something he had come to learn) it was suddenly obvious that she would not accept anything that was not beyond the full scope of what had happened. Let me soften this for you as best I can. Leaning forward, he held his hands out for her inspection. “Fell. Tossed. I still tried to rescue it.”
“It’s not you jumping to rescue a book that I doubt.” Elia knelt carefully beside his chair, a certain grace to the movement, despite the fact that she had already caught one of his hands in hers and was inspecting the dressing with a care that belied her terse response. Her closeness to a truth that would be bitter to take (a blow to the heart) unknown, she pushed on. “And so who tossed it? Or is that privileged knowledge, only for dragons who do not feel pain when burnt?”
“And yet, I still burnt. No true dragon would burn.” After a moment’s contemplation in which his lips pursed in a motion not unlike hers, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and her cheek. A deep breath; “Oberyn tossed it, Elia.”
“Well, I never named you a true dragon,” she muttered, before releasing his hand at the kisses, and his words. A sense of heaviness not felt since Harrenhal bore down upon her shoulders; for all the simplicity of what he said, for all that there could be a quite plausible explanation (her brother’s temper was legendary for a reason, after all), the foreboding could not be set aside.
And yet, still -- “Why, Rhaegar? What book, and why.”
“The Jade Compendium --” he cut off before he could utter ought of the poison, his palms at her arms to encourage her to rise. “I won’t lie to you. I promised that I wouldn’t. But this truth might hurt you and I would want to keep you from it.” A pause. “Or maybe it would not hurt you at all. He only meant to make you free, I think.”
She resisted the gentle pressure of his arms, her hands resting upon her knees and her face a blank mask as she looked up at him. He only meant to make you free, I think. Said so softly, with a spoken desire not to hurt that was as a profession of love. “I cannot tell you whether or not I am hurt until you explain, Rhaegar.” A breath, painful, before she continued. “Finish what you have started.”
“Elia --” He gave two slow shakes of his head before he sat back, hands on his knees in a supplicant’s posture. “The book was poisoned. He poisoned it and then I assume he thought differently because he came in and threw it in the fire before I could open it.”
Each word fell into silence, her eyes closing after the first mention of poison. Can betrayal for love be any better than other betrayal? Is there another category for betrayal by a second-self? That carries part of one’s own self? Instead of these questions, her right hand reached out to grasp his tightly (no longer mindful of the burns that he claimed did not hurt) though her eyes remained closed. After a long moment Elia spoke, almost a child looking for reassurance through a denial now, though her words were not a true question. “You are not lying to me.”
“I could not --” He covered their clasped hands with his left, squeezing tightly. Finally, a feeling -- and his jaw clenched against the growing pain that radiated from his hands through the steel vise squeezing his heart. “Don’t blame Oberyn for this; nothing happened.” A pause. “I struck him.”
Truth seemed all that she could speak, now. “I have thought of it, Rhaegar. I lay awake at night and wished for absence.” Your absence, unspoken. “But just as often I wished for you there. I have tried so hard not to love you, to kill that. Gods as my witnesses, I tried.”
After another silence, her eyes still closed, she continued. “I beg you, do not speak of this. Do not tell your father.” I cannot lose him like that.
“I care not for myself. All I could think of was missing you, missing Rhaenys.” Aegon. “And that my death would immediately implicate Oberyn. You would be alone --” The thought of Elia attempting to kill her love for him was a shock; his grip upon her slid away as he again sat back. “I would not. I love you both and I do not wish to kill it.”
“He was not thinking of that. Anger takes us in such ways, Rhaegar. Hurt.” There was no lenience in her, no attempt to excuse, just fact. Talk of Dornish tempers was not simply words: the Martells ran hot as their sun, whether it was wise or no (even Doran, beneath layers of control that far surpassed their mother), and had long memories for hurt. “Thank you. I will speak with Oberyn.” I will do what must be done, now.
She let him draw away from her, instead rising upon her knees so that they were almost of a height. Her thumb ghosted against his cheekbone, his bottom lip. “I will not apologise for it, Rhaegar. I am entitled. But I do love you. Believe that I love you so much, I would...” A beat. “What would you have of me?”
The apologies that he long laboured within seemed anathema to this oath of unapology. But so be it. With a shake of his head -- “What would I have of you?” He caught her wrist in his hand and pulled her forward into the circle of his knees.
“I would have my wife.”
Elia reached out to set her free hand against his neck, allowing herself to lean forward far enough press her lips to his (a seal, an offering) and trusting that he would not let her lose balance. “You have her, then, husband. Do not undervalue her, for she will not return again.”
“Do I truly --?” was so soft, nearly unintelligible as he answered her kiss with one of his own. “I have dreamt of reconciliation. I have longed for you.”
There would be no loss of balance; Rhaegar’s hand upon his wife’s wrist slid to the small of her back even as he slid forward and then left the chair altogether, setting his knees down on either side of hers. “Let us live in peace and forget this. Our children, our families. Do not cast Oberyn aside for I know how you need him. I would not rob you of him.”
No word on the impossibility of forgetting to mar the moment -- instead Elia’s fingers tangled in his hair, drawing him closer to kiss again, before resting her forehead against his collarbone. “He cannot breathe here.” I know it well. “We will resolve this between ourselves, Rhaegar. I do not cast him aside (how could I?), but he cannot breathe, and he must.”
She pressed a kiss to his shirt, over the heart. “Peace, yes. Let us find what peace we can. I have missed you.”
“I shall leave House Martell to House Martell. He is welcome in the Red Keep at any time.”
Every touch was a fire set upon his skin in the way that the flames which sought to consume his hands could not reach. He needed her; the strength of her mind, the ferocity and independence. He needed her to ground him when the dragon took hold. When, Seven save him, all he wanted was to be a man.
“I wrote to you every day.” A crooked smile. “ -- is it craven to say I’m glad you missed me? For if so, brand me a coward. I am glad. You have become essential to me.”
“I am glad of it; House Martell will see to herself, but the Keep is beyond that.” And I would have him return, before my time.
But such thoughts were, for the moment, set aside -- his crooked smile was matched by a slight one of her own. “May I read them? Perhaps there are some for you in return, you will have to wait and see. In time.”
The relief of such words, of sweetness after the pain and long silence (of her own making, Elia would freely admit it), was an ache in her chest eased. “It is not craven, or not to me; I am glad of it. More than glad. I turn to stone without you, Rhaegar, and I...” A beat before she continued, softer. “I do not want to be stone.”
“But I have been so patient,” was a trifle playful as he wound his fingers around the small of her back. “I am not made of time, my love. As you are not made of stone but the loveliest --” His lips fell to hers, to the hollow of her neck, to the soft skin where jaw and ear met. “ -- the loveliest of flesh.”
“There is a draft upon the floor.” He paused. “Sit with me; let me read to you.”
“Remarkably patient.” If there was a slight edge to her words (the sharpness with which Elia sometimes teased), it was softened by her smile, her fingers brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead as she sighed. “But so long as I am not stone, we will do well.”
She pressed her own kiss to the corner of his mouth before resting her head for a moment upon his shoulder. Half my heart returned, brought back by silver kisses and poison on the pages on a book. “I will sit with you, Rhaegar -- and what will you read to me?”
Of the long ache of goodbyes; of disasters averted and the coming of the sun. “It’s half-written, a mere draft that I found buried between the pages of an old travelogue from Lys. Perhaps --” And with one foot flat on the rug, he urged her to rise.
“ -- you will have some thought as to how it ought to be finished.”
“I have never aspired to writing, myself,” Elia replied, allowing him to help her to her feet with a laugh, a kiss pressed against the line of his jaw before he rose (the closeness both a kind of comfort, and a sharp reminder of that which she had missed, shutting herself away from him). “But my husband tells me I have the greatest skill for improvisation.”
“The greatest,” he agreed at once, sitting before pulling her onto his lap after him. “First, though --” And his hand splayed across her belly as if, by the pressure of his palm, he could map the health of their child. “Tell me of this.” A tap from the tip of his finger.
“This?” The child that grew within her, another daughter or a son for them to raise between them, as well as they could, to love and to shield from the pressures that he or she would be born into for as long as they could. “We are both well. No quickening yet, but I believe that will come soon.” She smiled, laying her hand over his. “Girlchild or boy, Rhaegar? Divine for me.”
“A boy,” was offered after a moment, fingertips gently drawing four tiny circles upon her bodice. “ -- one for Rhaenys to sweetly rule, as her mother rules her own brothers.” A press of his lips against her pulse point as his free hand sought to unbind her from her clothes. “What shall we call him?”
Elia’s smile was slow, her own hand cool against the nape of his neck for a moment before moving to loosen the lacing of his shirt. “The sweetest princess that ever was, our Rhaenys. And the most determined. He will have a good sister in her.” A sharp intake of breath, then, as his finger brushed against her bare skin beneath dress and chemise.
“It must be a Targaryen name, is that not so? What name would you like, Rhaegar? Choose for our son.”
“It seems inelegant, not to allow both the family traditions to take hold in the child’s name, does it not?” But the quiet musing was rhetorical; their children would bear Targaryen names, just as they would rule with them from the Iron Throne.
As soon as his fingertip brushed against skin, he fisted the delicate fabric and prised it from its lacings. A greedy palm, then, took investiture in re-familiarizing himself with the immediate topography of her body.
“Aegon, then. Strong names for strong rulers who will unite the seven kingdoms and heal the rifts caused by their families. Strong rulers who will shield us from the Long Night.”
“It is inelegant; life often is.”
Though Rhaegar’s choice of name was met with an approving hum, talk of the Long Night and healed rifts washed over Elia as she shifted in his lap to grant easier access to her skin and make better progress in removing his own shirt (fine linen, as she had on many occasions found out to her annoyance, being rather difficult to tear without distracting from the moment). “Aegon, then, my love. Let him be Aegon.
“And let us hope he is not too traumatised by his parents’ reconciliation.”
A beat as he grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. “Aegon,” he murmured, hands sliding across the small of her back as he rose with her in his arms, turning to press her back against one of the many shelves lining the room. “I care not.”
Better still that he chose to withhold the talk of Aegon’s conception and the star firing across the heavens -- better that he all but forgot everything pressing on them but the needs of his own body. “If he is, he will forgive us in his own time.”