misereres (misereres) wrote in usurper, @ 2011-10-30 17:48:00 |
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The Rhoynish word on Elia’s mind translated clumsily into Westerosi: house-of-whispering. Accurate enough though -- even before, maids and manservants lingered at doors, birds fluttered by windows, wall cavities concealed ears and paintings eyes (Harrenhal being a great old castle, it is hardly surprising, and she is a princess used to such things). After -- this is a turning point, there will always be before and after -- she had noticed more magpies listening in than any other day of her life. They would not have satisfaction from her, though, of that she was determined; inside the walls, close to unwanted eyes and ears, she had spent her day coolly polite and distant, nothing more. Inside was another matter.
The breeze near the Gods Eye was pleasant, billowing the fine length of silk wrapped loosely around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the coming evening. One of her guards (liveried in orange and red, a familiar face since childhood) stood discreetly at twenty paces remove and she knew that others stood further away, unseen, but aside from their presence she was alone with her thoughts.
The sweat of the day’s exertions clung to Rhaegar and just as sure as he would hear the gasps of shock as he laid the crown of roses in Lyanna Stark’s lap until the day he died, he knew that he needed to talk to his wife. More than anything, he needed her to grasp the stupidly convoluted logic that lead him down the path of what would (perhaps) be known as one of his more dishonourable moments. It didn’t matter, he told himself. It couldn’t matter.
But she was gone. Unrefined company took her place as he was appropriately washed, dressed and sent off to wile away the hours before the final feast took place. Leaving the company of guards (but for one white knight that clung fiercely to him and faded back as his purpose and intent became more known), he passed first one and then the other. At the cusp of the God’s Eye she was a slash of colour against a pale sky. He said a silent prayer to the sky above -- Please don’t let her hate me -- and strode forward.
“Elia.”
“I have been advised that shooting you on sight would be melodramatic to an unbecoming degree.” Elia might have been commenting on the weather as she turned to her approaching husband with an expression of deceptive serenity. “Something to be thankful for, perhaps.”
She gestured to the body of water. “I did not think it would be so calm. They tell such stories, and yet -- nothing. Perhaps when night falls though.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed, slowing his approach until he stood within arm’s length of her. As for her prior comment, he could not help the pallor that sapped the colour from his cheeks (only to be chapped rose again by the wind) nor his inability to meet her eye. If you knew what I know you would have agreed.
Then, quietly -- “If you wish for a crown of roses, I will make one for you with my own hands.”
“A disappointment nonetheless.” With the lightest of sighs, she turned her back on him, facing towards the dark blue. “I would not take one if you made it, husband. Take a rose from each of the Seven Kingdoms and Old Valyria and my answer will remain unchanged. It is not a question of flowers.”
He could feel the pull of desire as her curls tumbled down her back; the long, raven ringlets begged to be stroked and wrapped around his index finger. “What do you want me to say?” He recognized this longing and knew, intrinsically, that the wounding he gave her wrought a gulf between them that he was not sure that he could safely traverse. Her distance was a strike to his gut. “Would you like me to apologize?”
She did not know what in particular about his offer of apology broke the calm that she had spent over an hour cultivating, but her reply was spear-sharp. “And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that? A shaming in the eyes of all of Westeros is not an easy thing to atone for.” A beat, Elia’s voice a fraction softer: “I know that I am proud, but I will not believe I deserved it.”
“I did not think you would take it to heart.” His stomach churned as he took another step forward, reaching out to catch the slack of silk that fluttered from her shoulder to tuck tightly around her. “House Stark is a formidable ally and Lyanna --” The Knight of the Laughing Tree. “I never meant to shame you.”
“Do you know what they --” Do you know what they say? She paused for a moment. “I don’t suppose you do, actually. I am used to being talked about, but this will reach the Wall and the Stepstones. Whatever your intentions were, you have shamed me.” She turned just enough to meet his gaze. “And all those eyes on Lyanna Stark; you did no kindness to her either.”
All of my dreams betray us. He flinched beneath her gaze, reaching for the nape of her neck to draw her in close to his chest. “She was deserving of merit,” he said and such was his desire to not refer to Lyanna Stark in his wife’s presence that he could feel the back of his throat sting with the effort to breathe. “What do I do to make it better for you?”
She looked at his outstretched arm as if from a great distance, for a moment neither drawing away from his touch nor yielding to the gentle pressure. “No doubt, but was she deserving of that?” The question was half-murmured (almost private) before Elia looked back at her husband, trying to draw her near.
“Ask me tomorrow, or in a week. Today I do not know.” Taking a small but definite step to the side, Elia did not break gaze. “I will promise you one thing though, Rhaegar.”
“Please.” The strength left his arm. His hand fell to her shoulder, down the length of her arm to hang dumbly at his side. He knew himself to be servant to her whim; whatever she had to say, he was bound to hear. Bound by his love (by the daughter whose hair ran as a coal-flecked river). “Tell me.”
“I will not be burdened with such a thing again. I will not. You will lose what you had. And don’t misunderstand me, this is not flowers and Northern girls. This is the eyes of the kingdom and their whispers and...” Her voice trailed off as a particularly harsh gust of wind swept over the both of them, eyes closing for a moment as she took in a deep breath.
“I had a plan for today. I knew that you would win. Or hoped, at least.”
Buffeted by the wind as they were, he unbuckled the cloak from his shoulders to ease it around her, sure that the length of silk would do nothing to protect her from the crisp bite the false spring gave to the evening. “Losing you would unmake me, Elia. Do not speak of losing; my heart cannot stand it.” He paused, stepping back to give her room -- she could not want my arms now.
“Have I entirely ruined your plans? Is there anything to be salvaged from today?”
It seemed petty, to shrug off the cloak -- even, or perhaps especially, on this day -- and so she held it closed around her with one hand, though the wind was what she wanted in that moment, to be scattered in many pieces. “Your heart can stand more than you give it credit for. We are remarkable like that; so many songs about death from heartbreak, and yet we rarely do succumb.”
“Perhaps not salvaged, but there is a truth that is yours to know as much as mine and I am not so cruel as to withhold it.” The thought that she might had come and passed long before he arrived; an arrow in her husband was almost appealing, but there was pain she would not (could not) inflict now.
“I’m with child, Rhaegar.”
“I don’t know,” he began, his musing tone evidence enough of his belief that her presence (which was the completion and capitulation of so much for him) -- if removed -- would mean his destruction. “Elia, I --” But any hope of commenting with any sensical nature left him as her words began to sink in. Another child. An Aegon or a Visenya for our Rhaenys.
There was a quickness to his limbs; an instinctual desire to wrap them around her and laugh for joy. But he held off with a jerk, his eyes seeking allowance as his shoulders fell. “How long have you known?” A breath. “We should never have come here. Elia. Let us saddle Mistral and we will ride, just you and I, far from here. I care not where. Please.”
“You know that we cannot.” Her eyes were unreadable but her hand reached out to him, finally, fingers ghosting against his wind-blushed cheek for a moment. “I have known for some weeks, but --” feared losing our child, for speaking of it “-- I did not want to be premature.”
The notion of cannot was as the growing weight of shame that seemed to weigh him down and drag him toward the earth; “We will rule this land. We can.” He paused, then, grasping her hand to press the cool skin between his palms and firm against his chest. “I cannot stand here, I will not stand with you and our baby, letting there be a lie between us. You must know why I -- you must know why -- so that we can move on.”
Her thumb caught against his own, fingers tangling with his. “The divine Targaryen right, I see.” The faintest hint of a smile was there for a moment before it passed. “Your father will bring us back, you know this.”
There was still anger inside, and hurt (hurt that she had not fully probed, for fear of tears that might overwhelm her on a day when she could not afford to be overwhelmed) but a decision was made in a moment. “So we will ride, and we will return. And yes, Rhaegar, I think that you must.”
“We will be free of it, if only long enough to forget. For a while. I want you, in our cove, with our children --” But as he drew a deep breath, stepping in to brush his lips over her knuckles, he took off with speech. “You remember that my father charged me with finding the mystery knight, the one with the smiling heart tree for its standard. I claimed that I only found his shield. I lied, for I found the mystery knight to be Lyanna Stark, who took up arms to defend the honour of her father’s bannerman. I gave her the crown to honour her bravery without giving her over to the pyromancers.”
“Not now.” The distance had left her voice, but there was certainty there in its place. “Today we will ride and return; we will wait a day or two to bid a farewell and leave ahead of the main party for King’s Landing with all appropriate gifts and apologies and then -- then we shall go to the cove.” I will not ride away in the night as though cowed, nor will I risk your father’s wrath in this. “If we left, we would not be given peace. And it is peace that I want, Rhaegar.”
The story of Lyanna’s bravery she mulled over in silence for a long moment before speaking. Her words, when they came, were quiet: “I still say you did her no kindness.”
“I will obey you in this,” he said, drawing a free hand to encircle the nape of her neck as he hazarded the lightest of kisses against her brow. A crooked smile -- “Martell cunning and strategy. It is a truth that I will cling to.” And a truth he hazarded would put his life in a modicum of danger; Oberyn would be furious. But with his wife, with their children -- let him rage.
“I hurt you both and I wish that I could repair it. Though, more than anything, I wish I had never seen her face. My wrongs begin there.”
“We are not without merit.” Elia, truth be told, was already torn at the thought of the rage that her brother surely held to tightly whilst she had done her best to dissipate her own. He had long been her proxy, free to do that which she could not, but in this she was divided as she had rarely been before. The pain was yet raw, but the eyes of the king looked constantly for perceived dissent and she truly did not know what she wanted from this day (only peace, and space to breathe).
“And we cannot undo actions, but they might be improved upon, in time.” She returned a chaste kiss to his cheek; not forgiveness, but a further sign of yielding nonetheless. “You are not without time.”
He nearly wished for her rage -- for tears and fists, for oaths and threats -- but instead; this gentle yielding. There would be forgiveness but without spending her anger upon him, it would come in time instead of with more immediacy. And perhaps he could help it on its way. His index finger found her chin and brought her gaze up to meet his -- “Never again. I promise you. I will not shame you.”
“I will hold you to it.” After a moment her brow arched, though her gaze did not leave his and the intensity remained. “If you break faith, I will shoot you before I leave; I swear it.”
“ … you can shoot me now,” he said, and there was no playful cant to his voice, only the gravity that he felt when faced with the thought of hurting her again. “You can hit me. Anything, I don’t care.”
“You should care.” A pause. “I have not the energy, Rhaegar -- I spent it on calm, and I cannot switch between the two at will. You will have to atone another way, if it is atonement that you are seeking.” Elia reached up to rest a hand upon her husband’s shoulder with a sigh. “Kiss me and let us be done; we will talk on this more some other day.”
Stretching his hand to gather at her waist, he pulled her against his chest and wondered over the warmth and all the curves that fit into his body. And then there was the propensity for creation; the great growth that she could germinate; there was his desire pulled taut in his belly. And there is the fear. Gods, there will never be peace without fear. There will never be peace without Elia. Give us another but do not take her from me. “As you wish.”
All his aching desire, his yearning to atone for the grief he caused was poured into his kiss commensurate with his joy for their new child and the trepidation that came with such news.
The kiss was returned, Elia standing up upon her toes to meet her husband as an equal; her ardour was not so great as his (could not be so great, after the events of the day), but it was a kiss grounded in desire nonetheless, her fingers tangling in his hair, thumb brushing against his neck. Drawing away, after, she rested her head against his shoulder for a long moment before rising to meet his gaze once more. “We should return now. They will be waiting for you.”