Dark wings, dark words... Who: Aeria, Myrwin What: Raven-mail conversation When: A letter written the afternoon after Elia's discovered, arriving in King's Landing a couple days later. Where: Summerhall/King's Landing Rating: R for language, descriptions, etc Status: CLOSED. Although I'm sure Polonius reads everything.
The fire was probably containing more letters than firewood by now. It was a cold day, or perhaps she was cold. Elia was dead. She had prayed so hard for her brother, the possibility that the gods would take Elia in trade...
She wrote in the family cypher, but her hand was unsteady and the tears she hadn't thought she had had left were falling one by one down her cheeks.
Brother, I pray this finds you strengthened, for the gods have seen fit to test us all. Our sister is dead. Slain in much the way as her namesake. She was strangled, beaten bloody. The maester who examined her says she was raped. She fought the monster and suffered for it, a broken wrist, her head bloodied against a stone perhaps. She may not have been awake for most of it. I find myself asking the gods to have been that kind at least. She was dumped in the lake, where a peasant boy found her this very morn.
The monsters have taken her from us. My last words to her were in anger, and now I ask forgiveness of a ghost. I ask forgiveness of you as well, brother, and strength. I beg you to recover- do not let Dorne lose you both. I would cry for vengeance but against who? What shadows are set against us?
They will not let me see her. Rhaeys says her body has disappeared and asked me not to write you, to let their search discover what it may. Perhaps this is all a nightmare. I will write if there is anything more to tell.
Be safe, be well, and carry my love with you. -Aery.
Aeria put the pen down and folded the note. It nearly followed the others into the fire but she stood up and swept from the room, acting on the resolve of a moment. She didn't dare reconsider her words or she would write them again and again, until days turned to years. There was no word to express the sorrow and rage within her, the hopeless dark that pulled at her heart. Jaehaerys had refused to see her, and she had not pressed again. Tomorrow. She would see him tomorrow. Now she would send this letter...
She carried it to the rookery herself, watched as it was tied to the raven and sent on its way.