april 6th, 1992 // big bird learns about death // rhaenys & rhaegar
She had learned what it meant to die two months ago when Mr. Hooper did so on Sesame Street. So she felt herself relatively informed while eavesdropping on her father in his study — though, for a moment, she did forget for a moment that Elia was Mommy’s name. “Dead” meant that Mommy wasn’t coming back. The word didn’t stir any emotion in her, though; she’d never known anyone to die before (an impressive feat, considering all the old guys daddy knew) and didn’t know what it meant. It wasn’t as if she had been close to her mother — she was closer to her father, though that wasn’t saying much — yet she felt an absence of some type of emotion she was sure she should be feeling.
She looked down at the red, plastic monkeys grasped in her small hands — she’d taken two handfuls out of their blue barrel, let the rest spill onto the carpet — and tried in vain to hook their hooked arms together with her hands full. Instead, She ended up spilling half of them on the floor, slipping through her fingers, scratching her skin but leaving no mark. Too frustrated to think, she threw the rest on the floor and shoved her miniature shoulder into the door of Daddy’s study, barging in and staring up at him. Before he even noticed she was there, she called out. “When Mr. Hooper died on Sesame Street, Big Bird was all sad.” Rhaenys stared up at her father, eyes too big for her face, rubbing her hands together and kicking the plastic monkeys out from under the door so he wouldn’t see her mess. “How come I’m not?”
The study was quiet. Rhaegar was sitting behind the desk, hunched over some documents, notes, paper scattered loosely in front of him that hid beneath a photo of Elia he had meant to stow away earlier, locked at the last drawer. These are Elia’s last hospital documents and records — date stamp with each appointment, paper clipped with an ultrasound of the baby boy now sleeping upstairs, stapled with prescriptions — mixed with his own; a proposal letter by Celtigar, an reminder with a scribbled meeting the next day, legalities concerning his wife’s death certificate, and a note from Connington. My condolences, it read.
Send them away was what Aerys told him months before Elia’s death. Send them away. He could have — it would been so easy: buy a plane ticket, a few packed suitcases and boxes to follow them, set up a place anywhere outside of England. Anywhere. It was within his power, if it had not been for the Doctor’s admission that his wife’s health was in such a decline, it would be careless and foolish to send her away, let alone travel with one child and one to come even if Rhaegar does hire a nurse to care for her.
(Sending her away would not have saved her.)
The rest of the house is quieter, even for the late afternoon. He hears a soft thud! against the floor from the hallway, the sound of plastic clattering and he figures it must only be Rhaenys and her toys. She was the only life left in the house, it seemed.
He gathered each loose paper into a messy pile and placed it on the corner of his desk, folding the note from Connington and placing that inside his pocket. When Mr. Hooper died on Sesame Street, Big Bird was all sad. The voice — high pitched and small but striking — was unexpected and he looked up to find his daughter staring up at him. How come I’m not? It took Rhaegar a moment to realize exactly what Rhaenys was asking, struck at first by her presence in his office and how much she looked like Elia.
“No?” he hummed, forcing a smile — a warmer smile than the one’s his received from his father, welcoming even strained. He caught the way her feet were kicking red plastic monkeys from under the door and he raised one eyebrow. “Who is Mr. Hooper?” He stood from his chair, and began walking closer to her, crouching down by her side to pick up one red plastic monkey.
“Are you angry?” he asked, instead.
