originally a bare-bones cut snippet from ch. 8, pls enjoy this little nugget of hurt/comfort for your viewing pleasure—
for more of this, check out grey ridge (ríl liatroma).
and for something saucier—the very messy public divorce au (lies, sex, videotape, 2x03-coded) bodhrán beat .
*******
Rhaenyra cannot physically handle the sound of it.
It reminds her a bit of Alicent in the early years, maybe—that very slight panic she feels at the thought of it, and that look—allergic as ever still to her daughter’s tears; half-rushing in with arms open and that noise in her head like a drumbeat: fix it, fix it, fix it—
And she’s such a hypocrite, to boot. Used to always be the one always preaching self-sufficiency, self-confidence, let her try. Holding Alicent’s hand in folding chairs sat beneath a little primary school stage—watching her staring out at the audience in her little costume with apprehensive eyes almost but not filling with tears—putting a hand on Alicent’s knee going no, don’t get up, she’s got it—and with a pride she could never even express, with a triumph she couldn’t help but feel, how she’d been loud and clear, emotionless though it was, declaring (like a Targaryen, really) her one, her only, perfect line.
(And she’d scurried back to them, after; wings and facepaint and all—smiling small and wide, reaching for Rhaenyra to lift her proud and possessive (my very own girl) into her arms, wresting messy hands in the silk of her jacket going Mummy I said it perfect and smiling that secret smile as Rhaenyra rocked her soft back and forth amid the noise and said you did, you did indeed, my little princess.)
Later, when she’d been asleep under Rhaenyra’s suit jacket in the car—
(Alicent, with that small smile, that fond one. Your little princess?
Rhaenyra at the stoplight, braking slow. That’s absolutely right.)
But gods above, if Alicent couldn’t have travelled literally any other week—
(She’d know, Rhaenyra knows; she’d know what to do.)
“Sweetling?” She knocks again at the bathroom, tries to set that panic aside. “Sweetling, I need you to tell Mummy what’s wrong.”
We never lock doors. It was something Alicent insisted upon, when they were small—we never lock doors, we always knock, your space is your own, your space is safe—gods alive if she doesn’t want to jimmy the lock now.
(The sound of those tears, intolerable as always.)
Jace is at football practice, so no one would see her hammer the handle off its screws, at least—
“Blood.”
“What? Helaena, what?” Rhaenyra presses her ear up against the door, tries the knob again—knocks uselessly. “What blood, love?”
“There’s blood.”
And then fucking absolutely not—pushing off and making for the utility closet and right it’s coming off the hinges—
The lock unclicks.
Helaena’s seated on the toilet, lid closed, when she tears in; tear tracks down her face and blood on her hands, and on the front of her little blue nightgown, and the inside of her knee.
(And Rhaenyra’s rushing rushing rushing—kneeling and wiping her tears and show me, show me—putting her hand on her little knee, okay, my love, just gentle, to move it—)
And then she sees the colour.
Oh.
(Sweet seven above, this week of all weeks you’ve gone.)
“Right.” She leans up, kisses her little brow; lets Helaena knot her fingers in the shoulders of her sweater, brackets her knees with her arms, focuses her. “Helaena.” She murmurs; waits for her eyes. “This is your moonblood. Do you remember what that means?”
Helaena nods. And then wet eyes are somewhere else. “Mummy told about it.”
When did that happen? (Of course she did.)
(Thank the gods for you, my love, and curse them all for this timing—)
Helaena’s hands are blood-stained; she places them away from herself, like she no longer wants them. Rhaenyra takes them in her own. “It’s perfectly alright, my love, yes? Nothing’s wrong.”
Helaena doesn’t reply.
“Mummy has it, too. And me.”
But Helaena’s still off somewhere else. Rhaenyra wipes a fresh round of tears from her cheeks; watches her hands fidget and her fingers splay, terribly disgusted, terribly uncomfortable, sticky—right, of course, sticky—stamps another kiss to her forehead and retrieves the wet cloth by the basin and crouches again—takes her hands, one by one, and rubs.
Wipes the speck off her knee, then; moves them apart, just gentle, to rid that smear inside of her knee, her thigh, and Helaena bites her lip.
“Mummy is home tonight,” she whispers.
(Rhaenyra knows it’s a question—they’d had to get conservative about travel estimates, eventually, especially when she was little, back when she’d been up and down from Scotland—Friday is an expectation, not a rule, remember—her daughter had never particularly appreciated that particular flexibility.)
“Yes, my love.” And she turns the cloth over to the clean side; reaches, deposits it in the linens bin by the sink. “She should be—” She checks her watch. “Well, she’d ought to be coming off the airplane just now, I expect.” Thumbs her little cheek. “Does your tummy hurt?”
Helaena nods.
Rhaenyra raises her brows; thumbs her chin. “Would you like to know a very special secret?”
Helaena seems to consider, for a moment; she watches her lower lip worry again, those eyebrows ever slightly raise. Gods you’re adorable. My little egg. “Yes please.”
“When my tummy’s hurting, this way, I’ve got to have a very nice, very hot lavender bubble bath. And that always makes it feel better.” She adjusts Helaena’s nightgown, then, wrinkled and stained. “And we’ll give your nightie a wash, too, shall we?”
Helaena fixes her fingers along the hem. Her voice is thick. “It’s ruined.”
“No, my love,” she says, even though yes, almost certainly, and gods I’m not sure I remember how to run the wash, actually. “Nothing’s ruined.” She smooths her hair; leaves her eventually, only ten minutes later, with her novel, and her tea on the tray table, and silver hair half-wet against a little bath pillow, and her tears dry. “It’s going to be right as rain.”
***
Some nights when her wife comes home she’d like nothing more than to push her onto the counter with their vibrator in hand—
(Unfortunately for that, they’ve had babies, and those babies have become something of a priority, in fact.)
Rhaenyra watches, almost simply, as Alicent murmurs hello, my heart, presses a kiss to her lips and sets a paper bag of a boatload of something from the pharmacy onto the countertop and heads immediately, calmly and surely, toward the bath.
“Helaena?” It’s only a couple knocks before she goes, slowly—Rhaenyra watches in the open door, only silently, as Helaena rockets her arms out of the water and mumbles Mummy and reaches—clings as Alicent presses a kiss to her forehead and smooths back wet strands, and Rhaenyra can hear it, soft.
You’re having a nice bath time, are you? Yeah? Does your tummy feel better? Another kiss to her brow. You gave your mummy quite a scare, there, didn’t you, love.
“Let me see these, then.” Alicent’s lifting her hand up, gentle; examining little fingers. “You’re going to be our little prune, soon, I think.” Squeezes them gently. “Is your towel rail on?”
Helaena nods. “Mummy turned it on.”
“She did, did she?” Stamps a kiss to her head. “Right. Go on and finish your bath, love, and come and sit with me, please? In Mummy’s room? And you’ll let your mummy speak with you for a minute?” Helaena nods, then; loosens her fingers from Alicent’s sweater, just slow. “Good girl.”
And then when she stands and passes—with her sleeves wet with bathwater, and her eyes tired—shuts the door and nudges Rhaenyra’s hip, just a little, to follow her into the hall.
Looks up under long lashes, half-smile. “I don’t suppose you’d like to take this one.”
Rhaenyra dimples her chin; exhales through the mouth. “Not my area of expertise, really.”
Her wife’s smile grows wider. “Haven’t had your moonblood, have you?” Raises a brow. “Is that why I’ve got the pleasure of the episiotomy, then?”
“Right, yeah—no, I just.” She drums her fingers along her waist; sighs. “I got mine at—well it was late. Like, late. Fifteen.”
“I well remember. Alicent, call me, it’s everywhere—”
“Thanks.”
“Please please it’s obscene—”
“Right, thank you—"
“You know my father got to that voicemail first.”
Rhaenyra shuts her eyes, inhales through the nose. “I’d like a divorce.”
“I told you I didn’t have a phone.”
“I am not hearing this evil.”
“Right.” And Alicent leans up; presses a kiss to the tip of her nose. “I’ll start, then.” Takes her hands, just easy; rubs a little into her palms. “And maybe you could give us a few minutes? And then come join us?” Softer, then, with her eyes on their fingers. “You make her feel safe, you know.”
(Rhaenyra only nods.)
It’s when she pushes the door open, slow—to the lamplight, and the soft king bed, how it casts yellow on the silk.
Helaena’s tucked into her side, when she finds them; and Alicent, sitting with her legs folded. The paper bag’s on the ground.
(And before them, perhaps every single menstrual product invented by mankind—)
“And this one,” Alicent murmurs, gentle, hands something to her—Helaena takes it, ginger and gentle—“You use more than once. But you’ve got to clean it each time, and it’s got a special soap.”
Rhaenyra watches, for a moment, how methodically and easily and gently she moves through each one—and it’s got a sticky side, and you press it down, just like this—the way she tears plastic silent, the way she painstakingly never crinkles the paper—and this pushes just outward, just push right there—and this is just a little disc, love; it’s quite the same as the other—
And then it hits her, sort of from nowhere, sort of at once.
(You had to do this alone, didn’t you?)
She smooths Helaena’s hair, damp at the ends; adjusts her pyjama sleeve where it’s catching. “Does that all make sense, my love?”
And kisses her crown, again, gentle, before her eyes flicker upward—and that warmth, in sherry brown, same as always.
And that smile. “Ah, look who’s here.”
Helaena looks up—
And reaches, when Rhaenyra rests on the edge of the bed; captures two of her fingers, like she did when she was young.
Rhaenyra smiles, soft, as the owl hoos outside. “My little princess. You’ve been very brave today.” And looks up again; that brown, that auburn glow. “Got that from your mother, I think.”
***
When Helaena’s gone to sleep—when Rhaenyra’s hair’s wet and it’s the midnight hour, and the sky’s deep blue, and the moon amber—
Alicent’s bare in her arms; bare and smooth and silent—tracing circles on her chest.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispers, slow. “That you made it different.”
Alicent nods, again; almost as silent as the breeze.
“I’m never travelling again.”
(And Rhaenyra laughs, then, despite herself; there, together in the dark.)
it is literally impossible to scroll on this app without heinous music playing (that much of the time doesn't stop even after you've scrolled past the ad.) The fact that you even allow your cheap-as-shit cunt ads to make automatic sounds on a 99% sound-free media platform is absurd. The fact that I can tell gifs not to auto-play -- but not this fucking shit?? -- is evidence of truly nauseatingly stupid platform design.
Nearly no one is paying to go ad-free. They are going to simply go Tumblr-free. If you're going to farm us for data and ad revenue, at least have the basic fucking decency to make the platform barely enjoyable.
!!! ok but that’s legitimately what it’s doing!! That’s a corvid right there (looks like a hooded crow, to be precise), which means it’s intelligent enough to recognize, a) cars are dangerous and streets should be treated with a certain degree of caution, b) this car’s slowing down for them–cars do that sometimes–which means they’re not in imminent danger, so it doesn’t have to fly away just yet, c) that hedgehog’s still gonna get killed if it doesn’t MOVE, FAST (cars can change speed very quickly and the hedgehog’s still in the way), and almost certainly also d) if the bird does nothing it gets a free lunch.
Y’all, Y’ALL. This bird is consciously deciding to put itself in danger in order to save the life of a very stupid creature. A creature which, if the bird did nothing, could be free food.
i can’t - look if you follow me you know I have a thing for corvids, but this is - like!!! People are always saying “ah yes they have sub-human intelligence and don’t consider anything that isn’t immediately necessary for their own survival/pleasure,” but! Whether or not it can do philosophy, this crow is clearly demonstrating compassion. Even if it’s just the kind of compassion a toddler shows to a snail, a social creature that instinctively recognizes the potential for emotion in other beings, that’s still huge and cool and important and corvids!!! are! neat!!!
stormborns
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dededos
