A UNION OF FLAME AND STORM: THE PROPOSAL
WHO: King Aerion Targaryen, Lady Ysabel Dondarrion ( @bybloods )
WHERE: Blackhaven, in the stables
The lashing downfall of rain beats out a frenetic, syncopated rhythm against the roof of the stables, offering the quarters a foundation to build the symphony of neighs the horses give at the sight of their keeper. He marvels at the grand sight of the sheer number of destriers gathered outside of the battlefield. “An invite into your stables at last,” Aerion drolls, inspecting the stead penned closest to him. The king keeps his hands clasped neatly behind his back, feeling as if they will nip at his fingers if he gets too close.
Ysabel stands at the mouth of the stables, pretending to work. She wishes only for a few more moments in her stables — the stables that she spent hours in each day, the stables that she filled with fine horses, emptied after selling them to fine homes, and filled again with foals. It is not, she insists, an excuse to look anywhere other than the king. He sticks out in a way that is unsightly. A tapestry with a tear in it, such that you could see through to the wall behind it.
“Half of those horses are already sold,” she informs, staring down at her hands as she prepares a lead rope, handing it off to her stable hand. Steadfast, reliable Joffrey. How she would miss him. How she wishes she could bring him along with her to Storm’s End. He scurries off, not wishing to be in the king’s presence long either. She’s ignored his comment, but it surely isn’t the first time she’s found herself guilty of that crime.
“Efficient,” he says in approval. Although keeping his distance from the horses, he has yet to learn his lesson from trailing the Dondarrion lady. It is almost a mission to get her to acknowledge his presence, despite commanding it elsewhere daily — Aerion has since given up trying to force her to meet his eyes, taking no pleasure in how miserable she seems these days. Storm’s End seemed to match her, establishing itself with her mood. It was a solemn place, a watery crypt, so unlike the liveliness that had filled its Baratheon halls. He had thought Blackhaven would be a reprieve but it felt just as heavy. “Are you making way for new horses, or is this in preparation for a move?”
She hums, thinking of how best to answer. The truth is simple, but it is almost always easier to brush his questions off. How wicked she would think herself if he was not the king. If he was not Aerion Targaryen. Her brow, furrowed until now, softens slightly. “I sell many of them each summer. So that we shall have room for the spring’s foals.” She made quite a handsome sum, breeding horses. Many of them sold to noblemen across the realm — though her faithful buyers from the Stormlands had quieted in the past few years. Ysabel did her best not to take it personally. This foaling season, many of Ysabel’s favourite mares were due to drop foals. She could find no room amongst the grief and upheaval choking out all else in her life to feel any excitement.
“In truth, I should like to keep them all, but —” But it was not realistic. But it was impossible. But it was more of a young girl’s fantasy than it was a feasible reality. These were the things that she, Alysanne, and Tanselle had dreamed of when they had been girls together in Orys Baratheon’s Storm’s End. Ysabel supposes that her fanciful visions for her future died when Tanselle had. She had been aimless ever since.
“But what?” Aerion prods. He liked hearing about her desires — especially when they did not specifically include pushing him away. The king moves closer to her, watching the furrow to her brow, wishing to soothe the crease there. Her beauty was a gentle kind, skin looking softer than the dew upon the uncut grass of the forest. It seemed that the salt of her tears had done much to fertilize the tawny hills of her cheekbones. He longed to steal a light touch against the velvet of her cheek, but preferred having her with him at an arms length for as long as he could keep her then in his arms for only a day. “If you wish to keep them then you should,” spoken like a man who had never been denied his whims. “There’s much space in King’s Landing for such things. They hardly even blink when a mare goes into labour.” Thinking of the note that had been passed to him before they’d left, Aerion shares, “Only the other day, one of my hounds birthed thirteen pups.”
“But there is not the space for hundreds of horses in any keep that I know of, your grace.” And there would be hundreds, if she had much say in the matter. It was not as if Ysabel enjoyed horses so monumentally that she could not think of taking up another hobby. When she truly thought about it, she supposed that she spent the time with the horses because it was what she had always done. Living according to the whims of the young Lady Baratheon, she had spent day after day in Storm’s End’s stables. She had foregone indoor pass times such as sewing, or music. She had become the perfect companion, as was expected of her. Now, she found it difficult to let go — to face her freedom head on. The world lay at her feet, and Ysabel found it bleak and uninviting. Thus, she continued at what she knew.
“Thirteen?” The question comes out incredulous, almost unbidden. She had only known the kennelmasters in Blackhaven to report litters of a maximum of six pups. Thirteen was unheard of. In her surprise, she turns to look at him. It was the only way that she could detect even the most minute whiff of a farce in his claim. She was discerning, to be sure — but she had never been the best judge of character. In the dance that was Ysabel Dondarrion’s attachments to people, her heart led. “That seems far too many, Aerion.” She studies his face, the set of his mouth, the wideness at which he held his eyes. She finds nothing of suspicion. She turns back to her work. “Are you sure all thirteen were of the same mother?”
The solution seemed easy enough — “Then I should build a hundred stables so that you can keep as many horses as you like. You need not sell them for any price beyond that of friendship, bestowing them as you so please.” Laurentia would hate him for such whimsicalities but Aerion felt serious in the offer, wishing to offer Ysabel anything if it pleased her so.
He smiles, delighted to have drawn her attention at last. He has yet to realize it but he is like a dog, tongue falling out of his dopey mouth, ears perking up at her attention. His name sounded well in her voice — stern, chiding, softly, or harshly. He would take it. “I was not there myself, as you might have guessed. But, that is what they say. I do not accuse my kennelmaster of being a liar. My hounds are well taken care of in their motherhood,” the king shrugs, but there is nothing blasé in the action, finding himself beaming. “You are welcome to see the litter for yourself when I make my return to King’s Landing.” His offer this time is different in nature, no longer a demand. Although not wishing to lay down his pursuit of the Dondarrion, Aerion understood that her situation had fundamentally changed. It felt like an ill omen to strong arm her when she was in her grief.
She laughs, hoarse and unpracticed. What had once chimed like broken glass now emerged in the form of two short hums. Her lips turned upwards at the corners, her eyes crinkled slightly, and then it was over. “You sound quite like a Targaryen prince I once knew.” Many times, Ysabel has mulled over the question of royalty. What a privilege it must be to look at a life blatantly full of imperfections and still be able to dub it idyllic, sword tip to each shoulder. Aerion was exactly how she’d expected a prince to be, and she had suspected that he would continue to measure up to her idea of a king. Idealistic as he was, there was an earnest generosity laced between his words, like a ribbon through the eyes of a corset. She wishes to tug on one, but fears the feeling of air seeping from her lungs. “I must remain at Storm’s End.” Speaking it aloud for the first time, Ysabel feels she has resigned herself to a sentence of death. “My brother’s children … My mother and father have already raised their children.” Raised them, loved them, protected and supported them, just for their eldest to die. It was a tragedy — the weight of which was shared between them and their remaining daughters. Ysabel could not trounce off to the Red Keep to frolic with thirteen puppies, birth a hundred foals, and test the bounds of the king’s generosity. Even if there was a minuscule, wriggling part of her mind that wished for just that.
Sarcastically, he says, “well, we are a dime a dozen.”
He supposed he understood her obstinate stance on it. Duty was a rope around a deadman’s neck. To be born into power is to be born into the Stranger’s arms, doomed to trace the predetermined set of movements across a board you did not agree to play on. There were instances that had your fate written into them — this was something Aerion knew well. He felt that Ysabel understood this. But, in that same way, he felt that she was looking for the next thing she was commanded to become. From Alysanne’s companion, to Jasper’s betrothed, to Blackhaven’s Ghost, to the Storm’s End Nurse. This did not seem well enough for his vision of her. “And what of your children, Lady Ysabel?” Aerion often felt that one did not see him. They saw everything he was not and decided that the absence of what they wanted was who he was. They could not pin down who he was. Could not pin down what he wanted despite stating it clearly. He wondered, had anyone ever asked Ysabel for her desires? He doesn’t like to think of her with him, but Aerion cannot bay his curiosity — “Would you have been happy marrying Jasper Baratheon?”
What a ridiculous notion, that she could throw a rock and hit twenty Aerion Targaryens. The Targaryens were the blood of old Valyria, as the story was told. They were amongst the very last vestiges of a place that was nearly mythical, home to dragons and magic unknown. It was hardly fathomable, when Ysabel herself came from a place in which the sun emerging from behind the clouds for more than a few scant hours was considered close to godliness. She only hums such that he knows she is not ignoring him. His question gives her pause. She has never given thought to having children. Even as a young woman, she had seen other ladies succumb to motherhood, smiled as they glowed with pregnancy, held and cooed at their babies, smelled their milky breath and held their clammy little hands. Still, she had not imagined herself in their position. Of course, when she was intended to marry Jasper, she knew she would be expected to bear his heirs. But she had never gone so far as to dream up their names, nor wonder if they would take after her or bear the Baratheon blue eyes. “I do not believe that I’ll have children of my own. Especially now.” It is a truth that she has held close to her chest for years. Closer even than a pendant worn on a chain around one’s neck — mere inches away from their heart. As she says it, she feels something within her tear. “I think I would have been content. Eventually.” That much is true. Ysabel does not know how she would have balanced her love for Tanselle with her duty to Jasper. She imagines that one day, she may have figured it out. “I did not love him. I do not imagine he loved me.” Ysabel feels the need to confess as much, inexplicably.
An ache begins in his chest at her words, feeling an unhappiness at the confession. It’s as if the loss of her future is shared between them, the hinges shrilly squeaking in his ear as the door slowly closes. He thought she would make a beautiful mother — seeing the vision of her now, belly round under the curtain of her purple dress in the same hue of his eyes. He could see it so vividly, Aerion could imagine himself a prophet, the dream to be a certainty in the same way that Aemma did. He wedges a foot in the door’s arc.
“Have you been in love before?” He is more curious to understand how she knows she did not love him. Was the proximity between them unable to cultivate a single bloom? The endeavour to woo Ysabel had begun in pettiness, wishing to take what was Jasper’s from him. Strangely, he does not want to understand her any less. The ache in his chest seems to tighten to a clench, pulsing against his heartbeat. It sounds juvenile to his ears, an inquiry dipped in his selfish immaturity, “Would you look for it again?” For love. A partnership. A union. It must be asked, “Because if you left Storm’s End, you could secure a union to defend the keep. I will not pretend to be blind to the animosity amongst the Stormlands houses who had been your bannermen in arms. There is no one young enough to be appropriate for your nephew, but for you…” He hates the ambiguity in his words. He hates pretending as if the answer isn’t directly in front of them. “You could marry… Anyone.”
“Yes.” The word comes out as little more than a whisper, and it feels as if it has scraped its way through her lips, barbs clamping on to anything they can find in order to stay rooted safely inside. It is painful, speaking of Tanselle without uttering her name. Without telling him in the next breath how Jasper Baratheon was never the one she thought of, whether late at night or early in the morning—any time that she was alone. Tanselle’s memory has only ever hurt Ysabel, squeezing her heart until it ceased to beat, wrenching her stomach into her throat, knocking on the inside of her mind as if she were the one who had trapped it there. In truth, Tanselle had wandered in, uninvited. Hair so black it shone blue in the rare Stormlands sunlight. A smile so wide her teeth looked like fine pearl necklaces. A heart so big and with such a tendency to bleed that she had always implored Alysanne and Ysabel to be kinder to the man that stood in front of Ysabel now. She does not elaborate. She could not.
“Where would I go?” Ysabel scoffs, as quiet as her previous whisper. Her prospects were thinner now than ever before. Even minor houses cowered at the thought of a union with House Dondarrion—reviled by their bannermen, usurpers of the house they had once knelt to. “I could not marry anyone,” she insists, “Listen to yourself.”
Aerion breathes in the thinness of her affirmative — yes. He’s surprised by the honesty, thinking she would not even give him that. If not Jasper, he cannot even imagine who it is in the limited view he has into her past. Names and faces flit by him but he does not imagine a line between the Dondarrion and the Yronwood, not quite privy to hidden mechanics of their shared girlhood, forgetting that not all tales from the stormlands centred around the Baratheons.
The beat of his heart finds its way into his ears, drowning out the steady rainfall outside the wooden confines of the stables. “If you do not care for happiness,” Aerion begins slowly, wetting his lips as he struggles with the word. He is compromising himself now, exposing a secret vulnerability, “You could marry me.”
He feels embarrassed for voicing it now, unused to baring his tenderness for a woman outside of his bedroom. “I have armies, and guards, and thirteen more hounds. Soon,” nothing has proven this, “our dragons shall hatch from their eggs. If you marry me, you may keep your horses and your home. Your home and your nephew’s. If you marry me, I shall promise you that I will keep Storm’s End under the protection of dragonfire until your nephew is old enough to defend it himself.”
Innately, Ysabel feels his question coming before he utters it. Perhaps it was a woman’s intuition. Perhaps still, it could have been the persistent weight of his eyes on her, like flames licking across her skin. She had known from the moment he had beckoned her to King’s Landing that it was not a nostalgic friendship that he wished from her. She had prepared herself as best she could, lying in Targaryen red sheets at night. Surrounded by the noises of a keep that was nearly unimaginably large and densely populated, she had come up with things she would say in response to his hypothetical wants. If he had wanted her to speak, to tell him what she knew of the Baratheons. If he had wanted to revoke his father’s gift of the Stormlands from her own father. If he had wanted her merely to warm his bed. A proposal of marriage was not a possibility that she had allowed herself to dwell upon. Now, her reluctance to do so seemed horrifically naive. Heat pools in her cheeks, and Ysabel steps backwards once towards the stable doors. The cool air that is cast down by the dark clouds alongside sheets of rain tempers her, and she puts a hand behind her back to feel the frigid downpour on the tips of her fingers. She listens to him speak, to him rattling off what he can give her in exchange — In exchange for what? For the rest of her life? For her loyalties? Her body, her womb, her bloodline? It seemed a hefty price to pay for her house’s security, but Ysabel knows before he even begins that she is willing to pay it. She exhales, quiet and long.
She wipes her rain sodden fingers on her skirts, stepping inwards, toward him, before she can lose her nerve. “I will do it,” she nods, a single time. “Be your wife,” she casts her gaze to the floor. Her hesitance makes her feel childish—puerile. It was foolish, to feel shy at the prospect of what would be a political union. Standing a respectable distance from his person, she watches their feet a moment, a few feet apart. They would not make a horrific match. If she could not love the king, then she would be happy. If she could not be happy, then she would be content in knowing that she had done what was best for her house.