@dancestead : i’m a meddler, not a fool ( from nymeria )
" no need, " the words are soft, fleeting in volume, an abrupt rise and a gradual fall as she moves past her with her back turned, crossing her bed chamber in near complete silence, with a quick, even stride. fluid, yet too hurried to be graceful, " i want you here, " she had never wanted her to need meddle, she never wanted her to feel as though she were a secret that needed to be uncovered, a truth that was not yet spoken. she had not wanted to, she had never intended for the falsehood to go on this long, and yet it had. rhaenys had had little choice in taking it up, but she could understand, in that, how that might feel like a betrayal. that as time went on she had not ever told anyone, the truth. even those she had called and treated as her sisters, she had not... she had lied. there was no other word for it. against the eastern wall set a book shelf made of dark brown oak, varnished by hand every other fortnight, and taller then it was wide and filled with volumes of various sorts that she had collected over the years, journals, and sketchpads bound with old leather covers ( all dating back, and back, records and recollections, things from as far back as when her hand had healed enough that she could hold a pen, and could write clear words, and memories that as the days had stretched on seemed ever more in danger of slipping into that place where all forgotten things went in time ) she had never been forgotten, though, she was remembered as dead, perhaps she should be grateful that her name had not been placed upon a page in the annals of history, and never uttered again. near the end of the record, near the end of the dynasty, a girl on the cusp of her third year as the targaryen dynasty fell on the cusp of its third century. the last, save for her aunt and uncle, somewhere in essos. studying her shelves, she pulled out an older book, set with a cover that was worn a tad more at its edges then the others. a book that the young woman had paged through more times then she had any other. old drawings, renderings with a still mourning child's slightly unsteady hand ( yet no less loving, she had always hoped ) the first that somewhat resembled the paintings of the princess elia that remained around sunspear. drawings, sketches, depictions of people were a truth in themselves, and so much more - one's own truth, one's own, irrefutable truth, through one's own point of view - the technicalities of which needed to be perfect, so it shone clear, clear what one was trying to say with them. this, the oldest of them, was the clearest depiction of her memories, the clearest depiction of what her life was then. she only hoped that nymeria understood.
she was not a fool, no, but she did not forgive deception. she did not take kindly to being lied to, no matter the reason that one might offer. turning back to her cousin, her lips pressed together for the briefest of moments, and slowly, her head inclined, gaze flickering toward the edge of her bed, before returning to the elder's face. and then she moved in that direction herself, taking a seat with the book clutched close to her chest, held tight within hands that move to lay flat upon the cover as she lays it to rest securely across her knees. chin lifting to study the elder's face, before she spoke, voice kept low, and carefully even, carefully controlled, though her heart beat frantically beneath her ribs, racing ahead, betraying the thin layer of ease that she attempted to maintain, a hummingbird's wings as they beat desperately at the air, in an attempt to rise, before they could sing, one needed to rise, to survive. no dragon, in truth, not anymore, a snake, now, and a bird when all was stripped clean and the truth was laid bare before those she loved most, those that rhaenys did care for as sisters, though cousins they were in truth, they had been sisters to her. they could still be so, if she wanted ought to do with her after she told her the truth, " i would never be so foolish as to claim that you were, nym. i had no intention of betraying your trust. but it was.. an agreed upon thing, i hope you understand, by both of the princes. that it would lessen the risks of anyone hearing, and potentially betraying, what one might not want to be heard. i value the truth, as much as you. but i was no more then a babe, and swiftly it had become dangerous to exist in it. i did as i was bade, and it became my constant reality, and speaking honestly, began to feel more and more impossible. the more our uncle lingered, the more i did not believe the truth would ever be said, and it felt ever more hollow to admit. for who would believe it ? who would want to, for the problems it would cause ? and it cannot be repeated, " it was not time yet, he had said, every time she had asked him something close to it. she understood why. she had understood his hesitations, and why they existed, and that they had only existed for the sake of safeguarding that truth, for the sake of protecting her when she could not protect herself, and that, they were strong in dorne, they were. but there was sure support for the targaryen cause to be found in the seven kingdoms. nothing was sure, and so it could not be risked. she could not be risked.
" the truth cannot be widely known, even now, " wide black eyes fall for the briefest of moments, settling upon her hands, lightly curled now into loose fists where they rest. they smooth, and curl again, as she speaks, " but, i did not wish to lie to you again. then, it would well become a choice that i have made, that i do not want to make it - but for others it must persist, it must, because it is safer that way, no matter how i mislike that fact. i wanted you to know, for even if you do not trust me again, i trust you. i trust you still, " teeth sink into her bottom lip, and rhaenys' head shakes, slightly, as she straights where she sits, gaze returning to the other and holding as she continues, the hint of frustration underlining. ink sinking into the page beneath, fainter, and yet, visible, the shadow of grief permeates, too, and grows stronger as she speaks, " most, do not seek danger amongst the dragon skulls. their fire is quelled, their story, ended. nor do they look at calcified eggs and see a looming threat. the dragons are gone, one and all, out of reach on this continent. my royal sire had few noted enemies, in life. and most have either given up the chase, or gone to their graves. but one is dangerous... and continously so, " they say he had sent assassins across the sea, in search of her aunt and uncle, and that he still, to this day, searched, aiming to obliterate the last of them in vengeance for what rhaegar targaryen had taken from him. there was no way to know what the truth was, there was no way of knowing what had happened, then, for all that had been present, then, all who had borne witness to what had happened between lyanna stark and rhaegar targaryen were years and years in the grave. they had borne witness to the tourney, though. they had seen him bypass her mother in favor of the wolf maid. they knew they had vanished from that the same place. the pieces missing, the uncertainty of the story, the truth that would like never be known did little but frustrate her further, " it brings me no pleasure in asking that you lie for me, " she said, " i do not fear death. i fear, what may yet befall our family were it known that i was here, and none were aware of it. the usurper may well take it as treason, and react in kind. more will die, " you could only kill a man once, all knew. but as the old saying went, the sins of the father are often laid upon the child. even if her father had already paid for his with his life, she could pay even more for those left unsatisified with the swiftness of his fate.
even if that were to be her end, she did not want the people that she had come to love to suffer in the process. she did not want the smallfolk she had come to know, she had come to feel a level of steadiness and ease in the presence of - to know the strife and the uncertainty that war would bring, the devastation that had been wrought in the capital when the city had been open to the lannister host, and so many had died, " unfairly. innocents, who committed no crime worthy of such a cruel onslaught that war with westeros will doubtless bring, " she had been taught not to hesitate, when someone deserved it, she knew, how to make it quick, and merciful, and to not drag out what did not need to be ( the cruelty of that was rarely necessary, though some deserved it. some would more then deserve it. some would deserve far worse ) whenever fate brought her face to face with the mountain that rides... he was a man who deserved that cruelty. who deserved a painful, lasting death that did not end, even when anyone would hope that it might. for her mother and her baby brother, for all that he had killed in the time since, all that he would kill, the longer he remained free to enact such brutality upon innocent people. he and his liege lord deserved every misery that might be exacted by every one who had suffered and bled on their account. one day, when they were ready, when it was time to avenge her mother, and aegon, one day they would. he had sworn that much. even if she did not become queen, she hoped that she lived long enough to see them dead. it is in that same soft, careful tone that she continues, " and i do not doubt, that it will be so. even barring his own personal feelings toward my father, i am still his only surviving child, his last legitimate heir. there are some who will believe, when they know i have lived, that it is my throne upon which he sits, and enough so that it will cost me my head. even should i claim i do not want it, it will not matter. "
