In all honesty, when he had offered to bring Baela’s meal to her, he had not had the intention to speak to her. He had simply wanted a moment away from everything he was used to. From the people who would say the same things day in day out, praise his skill with the sword, or how he and Vhagar had handled some thing at some place, or … from the people who did the opposite and would berate him for his temper that would sometimes take over. But he was of the blood of the dragon, the fire was in him and sometimes there was just no holding it back.
He’d sat down to wait and make sure she ate, after all what good would a starved prisoner do, with every intention to just do that. Wait. But waiting and silence lead to his mind wandering and where else could it wander than the enemy in this matter? The Blacks, the war … the war he had started. The kill he had made that had changed everything more than it had already been changed.
I don’t imagine they would.
Her words struck him, catching him off guard and making him realise that he really had been speaking out loud, voicing emotions that he usually kept buried deep within. It was easiest that way, to keep them far from the light of day where people would only judge him if they knew. Nonetheless, he did not react to her words, his eye still fixed on something unimportant in the distance in the room. That way, in a sense, he could pretend none of the words had been said, but she did not let him linger in that pretense and smashed the wall that had already begun to reform with her words.
I have turned things over too.
There were things she regretted, that was clear from her words, from the atmosphere that seemed to wash from them. Things she would turn over until there was nothing of her left to do the turning. He too felt those things would not leave his mind until he was no more than dust in the wind.
His eye had closed by the time she said it didn’t make him weak. Unsettled by the similarities in their minds even though they were most likely over different matters. For him, it was his first kill that would haunt him forever. It had been unintentional and had left him sick in his chambers that night until someone, he had no clear recollection of who, had picked him off the floor and washed, clothed him and brought him to bed.
He did not believe that it did not make him weak however, after all it had left him vulnerable and he could not allow that. Not in this family, not in this city with these people. So he had made the walls higher, stronger … so why was she, Baela, the one to break through them? Perhaps it was because they had once, as kids, known each other before the war had begun, before everything had begun to change. Or was it because of what she had said? For once, someone hearing his words and seeming to read the meaning behind them? And even more so, relating to it. His family did not do that, they only saw him as the cold and stoic prince he had built for them to see.
“How can you be certain that it is not weakness?” He spoke eventually, glancing at her so briefly as if he worried she would see right through him if he gave her a long enough look. “If it brings only trouble and conflict, is it not best just put aside? Buried and never seen again?” But it had been seen, … and once seen, could he ever truly bury it again? “Those things never bring anything good with them.” Was he a fool for continuing this conversation? Perhaps, ... but truth be told, it was the most honest conversation he had had in ages, even despite how few words had been spoken so far.
