Chapter 17: 16
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294 AC
Braavos - House with the red door
Elia Martell
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"So, how are they?" Rhaella asks as she takes a sip of her drink, her eyes a little puffy from crying but other than that she has aged well and still is beautiful. I give a coy smile and pretend to not understand.
"How is who, mother?" She rolls her eyes but the corner of her lips curve up.
"My grandkids, Elia please just spit it out I am dying to know." I relax into my seat and grab the drink that was served and take a sip.
"They are doing fine, Rhaenys vaguely remembers you. That or she remembers the idea of you, I am sure she would be delighted to see you again." Rhaella bites her lip and I can tell she is saddened, I can only imagine how she feels after losing Rhaegar and not being able to see his kids. The kids carried me through the tough times and then When Lyanna came to stay in Sunspear that helped.
I am also sure that her kids and the other two grandkids have kept her preoccupied, I still haven't seen them yet. Looking around I see no telltale signs of kids, no messes or damaged furniture. The kids back home have run rampant and marked almost every corner of the palace in some way or another.
"I can't wait to see her again, and Aegon. I don't even know what Visenya looks like, only a letter from your brother letting me know of her survival and her name." I hide my grimace, maybe we neglected this side of the family too much. I am suddenly very glad that Rhaenys was thoughtful enough to write letters to everyone for me to deliver. Aegon and Visenya also copied her, wanting to somehow get in contact with their family they have never seen.
"I brought you something, Rhaenys wanted to come but I didn't let her since she is still too young. She still wanted to get in contact with you guys though, she stole all of Doran's ink and parchment." I pull out my bag that Ser Barristan gave a quick pat down to when I entered.
"She wrote me a letter?" I nod as I open the bag and sort out the letters, there are quite a few and they each went through the process of stamping them shut to keep them secret. Brat's, what could they even be telling them that I wouldn't already know?
"They sent letters to all of you, once one starts to do something the others usually jump right in with them ready to get involved." I hand Rhaella the three letters that are for her and also the three that are for Shaena to make their way to her. She smiles as she fiddles with the wax seal and I smile back.
"I will read this later, I will probably start crying again." She puts them to the side just out of reach. "Let's get the boring stuff out of the way." Oberyn sits up from the lazy position he was in when he heard that.
"Yes, let's get the boring stuff done." I shoot him a glare and he ignores it, I am going to chew his ear off if he is rude.
"What have you two traveled all this way for?" Rhaella sets her hands on her lap and puts on her stone face, just like when she used to appear in court.
"We are here to discuss marriage, again." Rhaella nods, she suspected this, why else would we show up in person?
"I told all of my kids that so long as I could help it they would get to choose for themselves who to marry, so I can call Viserys in if you would like." Oberyn nods and I also give a smile.
"That would be perfect mother, has he heard of the potential engagement before?" She gives a nod to my question.
"He has, he wanted to wait until the appropriate age to marry before making a decision." Waiting to see if a better option would present itself, not that I blame them. Our offer isn't bad but it's better for us than for them, we would be involved in the war regardless of marriage or not.
Shaena stands and walks out after Rhaella nods at her, only a few moments later Viserys and Shaena enter the room and he pulls a seat up and sits next to his mom.
"Hello prince and princess, it's nice to see you both again." I smile seeing that the young boy has grown up.
"Hello, Viserys." He smiles back, looking at his mom as she begins to speak.
"They are here to discuss marriage once more." He nods along and we soon get into the details.
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294 AC
Braavos - House with the red door
Eragon Targaryen
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"They already showed up." Shiera comments as I walk into my room. She, Danny, and Rhaenyra are all sitting together and looking a bit nervous.
"Can you guys get out of here for a bit?" I ask and only get the stink eye in return, these insensitive brutes. I begin to pull out a clean change of clothes and sneakily listen to their conversation.
"I saw the man and he looks a bit like a jerk, he was scowling like he was in the line to go to hell." Rhaenyra looks aggrieved as she complains, the servant said there was a woman with a man that came and Viserys said it was Elia. Elia is the wife of Rhaegar and had two of his kids, the girls got excited to meet her since she is family and we don't get to see much family other than the ones we live with.
Rhaenyra was especially excited since she also wants her mom to visit like this, but the chances of that happening are low. Seeing someone come through has lit a fire of hope in her from what I can see.
I finish grabbing clean clothes and still need to at least wipe down, working in the sun on boats gets you dirty real fast. I decide to head to the washroom and just use one of the buckets of water, grabbing my towel and clean clothes I head off.
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I walk back into my shared room and see that the girls are still chattering away and roll my eyes. Walking to my bed and dropping on it while looking at the ceiling I listen into their conversation since there isn't anything better to do, mom said not to disturb the guest when they are here.
"I wonder if Viserys will marry her, if he does do you think we will all move to Dorne? We would have a family of blood and marriage there and it should be safe." Daenerys asks and I can't help but wonder if the deserts are as hot as I read about, could be fun to hunt some snakes though.
"I don't think it's safe there if we all are there, one word and the usurper would declare war and bring the might of the other kingdoms to come and put us to the sword." I wonder if he would even be able to, most people would send a token force except maybe the Westerlands and the Stormlands.
Targaryens tried for a long time to take the deserts for themselves and failed to do so until they married for them. I doubt that the other kingdoms would be ready to storm into a fight when they are still in recovery from the last war. Ten years is a long time to recover but not completely, they wouldn't look forward to even more conflict.
"The lions and the Stags would come in full force that's for sure, they can't have anyone to threaten their descendants." I hope when the war breaks out I am old enough to actually participate, though if I go into battle Daenerys will try to as well. I turn my head and look at my twin's side profile, she has been gaining a little muscle but not much. She also isn't fully grown yet with only being ten name days, but when she is Shaena's size I imagine her to be more toned.
I look at Rhaenyra next and she is similar, though I think she will be a bit taller than Daenerys. Shiera is the most mature looking of the three and is also two names days older than me and Daenerys like Rhaenyra is. Her hair is the longest since she doesn't cut it to keep it lighter for training. Her mismatched eyes sparkle with mischief as she gazes into my own.
Wait, gazes into my own?
"Eragon!" I shake myself out of my daze and look over to a pouting Danny.
"What?" I ask and she huffs.
"I asked you a question but you just keep staring like a dolt. What do you think of the guests?" I sit up and swing my feet off the bed and face her.
"I don't know, I will have to talk to them first to know anything about them." She rolls her eyes and I peek back over at Shiera to see her stick her tongue out. Rhaenyra scrunches her brows at the interaction but doesn't say anything and chooses to just glare at us both.
"Whatever, I hope that they can tell us about our nieces and nephew." I also wonder what they are like, one of them is part northerner and the other two are Dornish. I wonder what Aegon likes to do for fun, ride horses? I hope I can learn to ride a horse before I meet them so I don't embarrass myself.
It's not like there are many of them in a city on top of rocks surrounded by water which is also surrounded by a rock wall on all sides, which is then surrounded by water and rocks. Braavos is beautiful and all but I feel so trapped here when I start to think about it. It's like a big cage and I don't like the idea of being inside of a cage so I have to think about something else.
"How long do you think they will talk for?" I ask and get no answer since they also have no idea.
"I want some honey treats." Rhaenyra groans and lays back on the bed.
"Yeah, I could go for something sweet." Shiera agrees and Danny nods along.
"I can go grab something later if we aren't going to have anything sweet for dinner." I kind of want something sweet as well.
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A knock on the door has all of us jump, I stand up first and rush to the door and when I open it I see Shaena.
"Are the girls in here with you?" I nod and she ruffles my hair and pushes the door the rest of the way open. "Get up girls, we are done talking and you can come and meet Elia now. Oberyn left to go and get a place for them to stay while she meets you guys." She says with a bit of anger, seems Oberyn didn't care to meet us.
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"Oh my, they are so cute!" Danny gets pulled into the arms of a tanned woman with dark hair and eyes, her frame is small and she looks a bit frail. Her appearance is nice though and she does give off a nice feeling, wonder if that's to hide her fangs.
She lets go of Daenerys and moves on to Shiera and Shaena brags about her daughter like it's her job or something.
"Shiera loves to read and picks up on new languages really fast, she can also do complex math and is interested in learning many different things." Shiera fiercely blushes which causes Elia to pinch her cheeks and coo at her.
"I am not a baby." Shiera grumbles while rubbing her cheeks.
Elia moves onto Rhaenyra and looks at her closely, a little too close.
"You look so much like your mom, but also a lot like Daeron. I can't believe you got lucky enough to get both of their good traits." I thought she was about to bring the mood down by bringing up her parents but she seamlessly turns it into a heartfelt complement that has Rhaenyra smiling wide.
She hugs her softly and pats her back gently, it seems she was close with her parents or something. She lets go and looks slowly toward me with a bit of a pained look, what did I do?
"You sure are big for a little guy aren't you?" She pinches my arm and I flex it to her amusement. "You're going to be a good swordsman, you must be picking up everything Ser Barristan is teaching you." She glances at the man in question and he gives a proud look and nods.
"He does indeed, along with also learning water dancing and all other manners of training. He would make a fine knight if I had to say so, lots of determination to get better." I look away from him, it feels weird to be complimented for doing something that I enjoy doing. The stronger and better a fighter I am the more I can protect my family, we won't have to run away and hide if we had better fighters.
"Awww, don't be embarrassed. Skilled men like Ser Barristan rarely compliment people, they have seen hundreds if not thousands of people fighting and know what they're talking about." She pulls me into a hug and I smell a mix of unique scents that make my nose twitch.
"Ok, thank you." I awkwardly step back, I am not used to strangers being so touchy.
"You are welcome Eragon." She smiles before stepping back and looking at all of us again, Danny moves over to my side and grabs my arm.
"Let's get some food served, I am sure you guys are starving." We all nod and move toward the table and pull some chairs toward it.
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294 AC
Disputed lands
Harry Strickland
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"How is young Daemon coming along in training?" I ask and Ser Dacor clears his throat before answering.
"He is doing fine, not as good as his older sister but still good." I wish he would stop bringing that barbarian of a girl up, she refuses to marry and bring us any support to help claim Westeros for House Blackfyre. The duty falls to her younger sister, it works out anyway since that gives us time for our newest plan to grow.
"What about the men we sent out to join some Khalasar's, surely one of them has gotten some kind of word back by now." He nods.
"A few have joined different ones and some joined the same one. Trying to build up some support to challenge the Khal and then they will build up their numbers. This will take years even if it is successful. I wouldn't expect any real results until at least five or six years." That is fine, the girl needs to grow up anyway so she can play the part of the Khal's 'wife'.
In reality, the Khal will be our man and won't touch the girl, she is to marry her brother when all is said and done to keep the dragon blood pure or whatever nonsense it is. The Khal will give us an army to toss at Westeros to weaken them and then when they are wounded we will be able to strike hard and fast and gain ground while they are recovering. A ton of gold and a lordship to the man who can succeed in gaining the Dothraki is a cheap price to pay to get our man onto the Iron Throne.
"Good, just keep sending men occasionally to help support them in taking over a Khalasar." If the plan works great, if it doesn't there are other ways to open up an opportunity for us.
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