ironfeather (ironfeather) wrote in usurper, @ 2011-12-27 00:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! house lannister, ! house targaryen, aerys targaryen, jaime lannister, rhaegar targaryen |
aerys & rhaegar
who: aerys & rhaegar targaryen, with a cameo by jaime
where: harrenhal
when: the day right after the major faux pas
what: father and son actually see eye to eye, even if it's for a moment
Amusingly, the King’s household had been placed in the Kingspyre Tower for the duration of the tournament. The heir to the realm could help himself to the draughts that swept across the Gods Eye; Aerys wanted the sweeping views, the reminder that even this castle had felt the breath of dragons (Balerion the Black Dread, pride of his House). He also did not mind the amusement that flared up as he so casually suggested to Lord Whent that the Kingspyre Tower was a more appropriate lodging than the man’s own chambers -- no one had been able to find the words to offer agreement (how could they, without sounding treasonous?), and so a strained silence emerged, one that Aerys himself ended with the breathless sound of his riotous laughter.
He hadn’t laughed when his son offered the crown of blue flowers to Stark’s girl. The laughter came later, when Varys told him of Rhaegar’s disappearance into the godswood... followed shortly by Lyanna’s. More laughter when, over breakfast, Varys sang him a song of a lovers’ quarrel, the prince and princess being overheard despite their efforts not to raise their voices into yells. “The price you pay when you choose walls made of cloth,” was Aerys’ chuckle as Owen Merryweather, Tywin Lannister’s replacement, simpered over him.
And though the laughter had died down as the matters of state were brought to him, Aerys knew it lurked in his chest as he rifled through a selection of hard candies left for him in the tower’s great solar by master sweet makers. Black and red, of course -- blackcurrant and cherry -- but Viserys did enjoy so many flavours. Perhaps he would save himself the trouble and send the child the entire assortment.
In the midst of the commotion made upon the last day, Rhaegar knew that he would eventually have to stand before his father and give some accounting for his actions. Despite his ‘failure’ to locate the mystery knight (would any connect his behaviour with the disappearance?) and the ensuing grief caused by the damnable crown of blue roses, his attempts to go through the motions of normal transactions were evidenced by the beat of his current step through the halls of Kingspyre Tower.
Granted entrance, he made the customary bows before his father and stepped back with his eyes diverted. You speak. Tell me I have done poorly when the kingdom has been the only thing on my mind. Chastize me like all the others. A expectant brow rose then as he pressed his lips into a bloodless line. Sweets. His little brother haunted him at all times - within and without his dreams. He took a breath. “Your Grace …”
A hard crack resonated through the cavernous room: the sound of a bonbon (orange-flavoured) being crushed by a stomp of his teeth as Aerys rose and stood away from the high back chair (throne-like and huge, in the Harrenhal fashion) to peer at his son, whose genuflections had been observed through the faint reflection thrown by a window.
“You look tired, my son.” A flick of his wrist, a black sleeve trimmed with golden thread sliding back to reveal the white skin beneath, as he threw a sweet at him. “-- from the jousting or the whining of a dozen dozen Dornishmen, hmm?”
No. Only three. Rhaegar caught the sweet and his cheeks coloured upon seeing its hue. Orange, for Martell, he supposed. It was consumed with a cup of his palm. The cloyingly sweet taste coated his tongue and he swallowed gainfully to rid himself of it. “I can only pray that we will be soon on our way to King’s Landing. Am I too quick to hope for first light?”
“Good? Will Viserys like it? He enjoys blood oranges, but I find they are too bitter -- I had them use our own humble orange to make these.” Popping another into his mouth, Aerys motioned for Rhaegar to sit. “First light,” he echoed, and though the beginnings of a knowing smile touched his lips, he did not laugh. (Yet.) “It would look ill if we did not depart from here together.”
“There is a sweetness that surpasses the clean taste of oranges. Have it made from blood oranges; the sugar will counteract the bitter tang.” Whereas he would typically perch, every muscle tensed as his father tested his resolve, this time he sank bodily into the smaller chair opposite and sighed. “Yes. If that were not the case, I would have gone with Elia a day ago and left you the peevish brother.”
Perhaps we should introduce him to Rossart. “Perhaps we should send him home.” Aerys dropped a handful of sweets into Rhaegar’s hand, fingers lingering around his for one moment too many before he returned to his seat, dropping into it with a sigh that was not dissimilar to his son’s. “And how is Elia? Peevish?”
“No. Do not. He gives her comfort and I like him. A good ruler needs dissenting voices; I trust Oberyn and were it my sister, I would probably behave worse.” The sweets bulged between his fingers as he pushed them into his pocket. A later gift for the man in question, perhaps. A pause. He would surely find out sooner or later -- “Elia is with child.”
“You are my dissenting voice, Rhaegar, and yet...” A spell of silence before he continued, his voice made sticky from the candy he now sucked on: “Pray that it is a boy. Pray for many things -- that the Dornish do not remain peevish, for example. Or the Starks, though they have been remarkably well behaved.”
“You taught me that I do not apologize for my actions. I do what I do by right and what I have done threw so many things into a tailspin that I found myself wishing --” he cut off. That you had given me a sister-wife. “The Starks will go North and forget.” A pause. “We should all forget.”
His son’s words made him blink and straighten from his slump, pleasure a faint etching across his expression. “Yes,” he said, and gave a single nod. “We do not apologize. You are clumsy, Rhaegar, and I do not understand -- a scrawny Northern girl? -- but we are of the dragon, and dragons do not apologize. It matters not if they don’t forget. Let them remember our right.”
“She --” his eyes narrowed. He too sat up, uncurling his legs to place both feet upon the floor. “I am not clumsy. I have not touched her inappropriately.” The right of rule. Could his belief in the prophecies made flesh be excused as such -- ? “No one understands that we do what we must to keep the kingdom from fracturing.”
“If you weren’t clumsy, we wouldn’t have peevish Martells to worry about.” No accusation in his tone; it was merely an observation that he chose to illustrate with his next words: “When I took a lion to my bed, it wasn’t before the eyes of the realm, which so rarely need to see what we do to safeguard the body.” A pause as he licked lingering sweetness from his finger. “I know you were in the godswood with her. Clumsy. But it is what it is, Rhaegar; no apologies.”
“I do what I do to ensure your grandchildren sit the Iron Throne when I am gone.” He swallowed again, this time leaning forward far enough to lay his forearms across his knees. His own discretions were subsumed, even momentarily, by the subtle revelation. A lion? Oh, there was the reason for Tywin’s great, abiding and barely contained hatred for his father. Joanna Lannister. And Jaime’s appointment to the Kingsguard. The swift retreat to Casterly Rock.
“I don’t like lying to Elia.” He took a breath. “I love her.”
“As do I, as did my father and his father before him. I was not meant to sit the throne, you understand, was not meant to ascend as I did, but after my grandsire heard the prophecy, things seemed to fall into place.” Summerhall -- the fires that extinguished the lives of so many -- Rhaegar’s birth. As for Elia? “I’ve told you before that love does not hold a realm together.” Have you begun to see, Rhaegar? “What did you tell her?”
“I told her that I did what I did to honour House Stark.” His eyes widened as Aerys’s words rang in the brief ensuing silence. Prophecy? He moved forward with caution. “Life would be so much more --” I could understand -- “I wish that you would have woke dragons upon that night. Are there any other eggs? Is there any hope?”
Aerys’ pale eyes drifted away from Rhaegar, becoming glassy in the afternoon light as he fixed his gaze on nothing in particular. Musingly -- almost dreamily -- he said, “The promised prince is to come from the line of Aerys and Rhaella. That’s what she said. And Aegon commanded us to be wed, and so we were. There is hope. There is you, and Viserys, and if the Seven allow it, another child. Perhaps a sister for you.”
“Viserys’s birth does not hold to the prophecy. Not like --” not like mine, or so says Aemon. And my dragons shall be of flesh. “I think that it is me. And my children, the dragons we have hoped for.” He leaned forward and grasped the pale hand. “Who is she, Father?”
The warmth in his son’s hand pulled Aerys back from whatever time and place in memory his mind had journeyed to. There was a brief moment of confusion before his gaze cleared. “A woods witch. White skin, red eyes. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“Indeed.” He sat back. White skin, red eyes. In his mind’s eye, the heart tree on Lyanna’s shield no longer smiled. Its face pulled back from a scowl to reveal a glistening line of ruby-tipped fangs. Then, with a shake of his head to clear the image, he pulled a sweet from his pocket and examined its black wrapper in a dull ray of sunlight. I should tell -- “Perhaps we will see if the woods witch is right.”
“Perhaps.” And with that word, Aerys’ attention sharpened. I don’t like lying to Elia. “-- so why did you do what you did, Rhaegar? If not to honour House Stark.”
I will not tell him all. I shall not give everything away so that he can use it against me. He took a deep breath and, with his calm thus gathered, he gave a shrug -- “Ice and fire, Father. Three Targaryen children, two of Martell blood and one from the Starks.”
The prince that is promised will come from my line. “And you are preparing the way?” A smile, as though to say see, we are not so different, my defiant, unhappy son. “Neither family will understand.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” He shook his head and rose, leaning heavily upon the arms of the chair as he slipped the sweet back into his pocket. “As soon as I understand, though, I will tell you. For now, my dalliance with Lyanna Stark was clumsy and nothing more.”
“Indeed.” With a dab of his tongue against his lower lip, Aerys leaned back, watching Rhaegar’s movement in brief silence before he continued -- “So nothing new regarding that...” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “Knight?”
“Beyond the shield, you mean?” He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid that there is no more information. I suspect that there will be no more mystery knight to hound us --” If you but knew the reason for my indiscretions was the very person you sought. Lyanna Stark, I think I hate you. “Shall I continue to search?”
Shaking his head, Aerys mimicked Rhaegar’s earlier action, rising from his seat only to grip one of its arms as he barked out, “Lannister!” and offering his son a swiftly assessing glance before watching the approach of his young -- captive -- knight. “I trust the Lion and the Bull can keep us safe should this mystery knight take up the sword once more,” was muttered out of the side of his mouth before addressing Jaime: “Bring it to me. I’ll have done with this knight’s mystique.”
Wondering what -- if anything -- Jaime heard, considering the thinly veiled indictments of his own mother was given a moment before he smiled a greeting at the young man. “Well met, Ser. Your performance in the lists was admirable.”
Then, to his father, with a minute portion of anxiety -- “What will you do?”
A sharp downward duck of his head was Jaime’s silent acknowledgement of the compliment paid to him (though nothing could dampen the inner address he had in response -- And yours less so, champion.) before he turned, white cloak snapping at his heels as he went into a sideroom, leaving father and son alone for a brief moment.
Aerys placed his hand on Rhaegar’s shoulder in some light gesture of reassurance. “Rossart did not want to take wildfire out of King’s Landing,” he began, a note of regret in his voice, “but this castle is drafty.”
A moment of panic widened his gaze and he wondered if he were meant to burn for his insolence. “You would not let the pyromancer light the wildfire at a place that has seen the wrath of Balerion?” he asked, letting his fingertips creep over the thin breadth of his father’s wrist.
Before Aerys could reply -- “Your Grace.” Jaime: a small axe in his hand, Lyanna Stark’s shield strapped to his arm. At the King’s nod, he let the painted, rough-hewn wood fall to the floor with a clatter before offering the axe to Rhaegar.
“Destroy it, Rhaegar.” Aerys pulled free from his grasp. “I haven’t the strength. We will toss it into the hearth later.”
Rhaegar took the axe up, his eyes narrowed upon the laughing face that seemed to stare guileless at him. Damn you to all seven hells, Lyanna Stark. And he swung it high, prepared to smash it down upon the wood before he paused -- looked to Lannister --
“Ser. If it please you, place the shield upon your arm.”
A flintiness appeared in the emerald gaze -- it does not please me -- but Jaime stepped forward to retrieve the shield after only the slightest pause.
“Careful, Rhaegar, Ser Jaime guards me while I sleep,” Aerys murmured, though there was little disguising the sudden note of interest in his voice.
“I won’t give him any reason to disrupt your dreams, Father. Ser Jaime will come out of this exercise whole” A vague curl of his lip for the tree that laughed at him -- mocking me.
The axe was lowered by a degree before Rhaegar, with his free hand, encouraged Jaime forward. “Attack me, Ser.”
As Aerys sank back down into his chair, Jaime, without a change in his countenance -- that same plastered smile that so irritated his sister, fixed and immovable beneath a hard gaze -- adjusted the shield’s straps across his arm. The wooden weight was solid enough -- how else would it have withstood the blow of so many lances? -- that he did not even reach for the sword buckled at his waist. Instead, he lunged, bringing the shield’s hard edge to crash against Rhaegar’s unprotected side before darting out of his reach.
Lyanna’s shield deserved a nobler end than to be hacked on the floor for Aerys’s enjoyment and though Jaime’s wariness was palpable, Rhaegar had no intention of doing him much harm. He would later acknowledge the need for action that too many had denied him since he laid the winter roses in Lyanna’s lap. His brow rose with interest before the blunt impact of the shield against his ribs brought the breath spilling out, even as he whirled to lunge for the shield with the head of the axe raised to strike.
Jaime’s response was to attack -- again -- using the shield as he would a cudgel. Counter-intuitive in most situations -- but here, now, where the aim was the shield’s destruction, he slammed it straight at Rhaegar and the path of the axe, the moist wheeze of Aerys’ delighted chuckle a counter-note to the sound of metal meeting wood.
Aerys’s laugh registered on some level; Aerys, whose understanding of the entire situation was unnerving. Every time the sweat beaded upon his forehead, he prayed that such understanding was slow wrung from him.
The blade drove between the trees damnably smiling eyes and as he wrenched it free, Jaime was afforded a briefly assessing gaze before he bounded forward again and spun at the shield in an upper cut.
A swift forward slide with an accompanying upward thrust of his arm sent the shield ramming against the heavy blade with a loud crack, a line eating into the grain even as a sliver broke away from it and flew to the ground. “Unlucky to have a tree as a device,” he remarked, the tension of exertion in his voice. “Trees get cut down.”
“Even these beasts --” he grated out between clenched teeth, taking advantage of the weak point in the wood to provide several staccato strokes to the surface, chipping away at the smiling face. Rhaegar paused in his onslaught, mopping his brow with the lift of an elbow. “Again.”
I would prefer not to lose the arm. But Jaime’s smile was immovable, his movements hard and measured as he, stepping back, pulled his arm from the straps to spin the shield so that it could be borne upside down, allowing whatever strike Rhaegar would next deliver to cause a fracture that would eat across the surface and meet the existing one. After a feint, he shifted forward, thrusting it at Rhaegar’s undefended side.
You’re making this far too easy. Jaime’s feint was expectable and, as the tip of the shield drove toward his side, he spun to avoid it and brought the axe crashing down upon the shield from above. The splintering of wood against the scrape of metal echoed in the cavernous solar and with a final thump, it fell in three pieces upon the carpet.
Jaime was quick, but not so quick to hide the reflexive clench of his fist as he shook out his arm and stood back, while Aerys, with a final laugh, sprang to his feet. “Rhaegar, winner,” he announced, giving one of the pieces a prod with his toe. “I will be warmer tonight, at least.”
Exertion coloured Rhaegar’s face as he laid the axe aside and gathered the pieces of the shield to lay next to the great chair at which his father had sat. “Something for which to thank your mystery knight, gracious father.” His eyes slid to Jaime as he straightened. “I would have liked to ride against you in the lists.”
“You defeated Sers Barristan and Arthur,” Jaime said, and for the first time, a hint of something genuine -- awe; reverence for skill -- could be heard colouring his voice. “It would be a satisfying challenge.”
He said nothing of the niggling suspicion that the sers in question dropped their lances to not imperil the life of the heir to the realm. With a mere smile, he shook his head and tasted the irony in the words before they were spoken aloud -- “It was a lucky day. I am not like to defeat them again.”
“So modest,” was Aerys’ contribution. In the coming months, he would see Rhaegar’s defeat of his finest knights as signs of his son growing too powerful for comfort (such was the way of his madness), but now, only a laugh trailed his words. “You may go, Lannister,” he added, and turned back to his seat as Jaime swept a bow before removing himself from the cavernous room, his boots sharp against the floor.
Waiting a beat, when the heavy door clicked into place, he turned to his father with a quirk of his lips. The exhilaration of destruction had soon left him and he took a breath; “Is there anything else to destroy, father?”
A sound of amusement escaped him as he sat back, slumped between the armrests. “Shall I summon Rossart for you?”
“Rossart.” The spell is broken. The brief moment of understanding between father and son diminished as his face purpled with held breath. “Would you like me to bury the axe in his skull?”
“Ah.” Aerys sunk his face into the warm press of his palm, his tongue swiping a nervous line across the back of his teeth. “Foolish boy. How do you expect to awaken dragons without fire? Still so much to learn.”
His eyes narrowed. “Father.” A step nearer. My dragons shall be made of flesh. “Father. What became of the eggs?”
“Gone. Petrified. Lost.” A shrug, joints and muscles moving in a twitch. “Take your pick. Our last dragon was so stunted, even her clutch was diseased. Aegon tried to hatch them, but...” A smile. “His fires did not burn hot enough.”
Not from wildfire. “And the clutches beneath Dragonstone -- gone. Petrified. Lost.” His brow contracted. “The prince that was promised will wake dragons from stone. If Rossart can wake them with his wildfire, you may then burn me.”
Aerys’ voice had thinned considerably. “Careful, Rhaegar, lest Rossart succeeds. We must have kindling after all.”
“If he does, crown him.”
“Enough.” A creak of wood as Aerys twisted his hand around one of the armrests. “He serves the crown, the crown that will one day be yours. He --” Banished the cold. “Enough.”
The distance between father and son had -- blessedly -- returned. A sparse dip of his head was all the acknowledgment he cared to give the situation of Rossart whose Guildhall, he wished, would fall in on itself in a plume of green fire. “As you wish.” A pause. “Will that be all?”
“Yes.” The king’s chin scraped his chest as he sunk further down in his chair, the hollows of his cheeks seemingly deepening as Rhaegar spoke. He reached for another handful of sweets, only this time, he let them fall, one by one, through his fingers and onto the floor.
After the third fell with a sharply tinny sound -- “Summon your wife to me.”
And this time his hands clenched tightly at his sides so that he would not reach for his sword. Aerys seemed calmly fond of Elia, insomuch as what she could do for his House, but he did not trust his father with her outside of his eyesight.
“No.”
“Prince,” was brittle, “I would speak to my daughter-in-law. If you will not fetch her to me, another will.”
His mouth opened a beat before he spoke. “As her husband, I have a right to know why you wish to speak to her.”
“Your right,” Aerys echoed, monotonous now as he lifted his gaze from the floor, seeking out Rhaegar’s with narrowed eyes. “Your rights begin and end with me, just like any other’s in this realm of mine. Bring her to me swiftly and perhaps I’ll consider telling you anything. Leave, Rhaegar.”
So he left. Once at the outside of the door (beyond the thick slab of wood and beyond his father’s hearing), he paused and drew his hand upon Jaime’s shoulder. “Ser,” he said, pressing his lips into a thin and bloodless line. “I will ask something further of you.”
In the loose stance of one ready to stand at his post for hours, Jaime did not sway beneath the sudden weight of Rhaegar’s hand. A golden brow arched by a degree as he considered the words. “Prince,” he prompted after a beat of silence.
“When my wife comes to dance attendance upon the King, make sure she is not harassed too thoroughly.” His hand squeezed briefly upon Jaime’s shoulder before he dropped his grip. “And if something occurs -- send word to me.” A deep breath. “With my thanks for this and my thanks for humouring me with regard to the shield.”
There was a minute tuck of his chin -- a single nod of understanding -- eyes remaining on Rhaegar as he replied, “No thanks necessary, your highness. It is for me to serve and obey.”
You deserve better than what you got, Lannister. He smiled, the minute twist of his lips only a brief arc upon his face, before stepping back. “All the same -- my thanks.” With a tuck of his head, he turned and disappeared through the deepening gloom to quit the castle.