[ It will never stop being surprising, having people drop into her head like this, but when it's Alicent there's a flustered flutter accompanying the shock that soothes it somewhat. ]
Of course, Your Grace. [ Hesitating, ] Like... this?
Forgive me, I should have reached out to you in person.
[ of course, she's already more used to this way of conversing than Rhaenyra is, but she also had her own reasons to not face her. ]
As you well know, it is no longer safe to stay in the boarding house. Thankfully, we have acquired a property of our own. [ she draws a breath. you know, breathing, like normal people do. ] I think it would be for the best if you moved in with us.
[ asking your best friend/crush to move in with you but you are her queen and step-mother and also she is a teenager? not great!! ]
[ She must needs get used to it and she doesn't want Alicent to think she doesn't want to hear from her, whatever way the words may come. But her offer is slow to process as Rhaenyra turns it over, trying to examine all sides of it so quickly. The facets seem sharp, maybe dangerous. It's unexpected, to say the least. ]
Is... That's very generous of you, Your Grace. [ But the hesitance is clear in her voice, even if all the benefits of private accommodations are rushing through Rhaenyra's mind as well. ] Do my brothers know you're offering?
[ The reactions of both are concerns for such very, very different reasons. ]
I wonder how my mother would feel if she discovered the whore she allowed into our home fucked her favourite son? And she likely intends to do it again.
[ Only a flicker of fear before she steels for the charge straight into these teeth. She's been wondering if she should expect this. She'll test one step at a time, just like the last time. ]
I've no interest in discussing it, and I don't reckon my mother would either. Leave the house, and do not let me catch you if you wish to keep your life.
And, Rhaenyra, if you do not want my pursuit to extend beyond Vesenya Lovti, do not touch him again.
But... what if they hurt someone else while looking for me?
[ She still hasn't moved, hasn't started back towards the sound. It's killing her to think of something bad happening to her hosts because of her but the taste of the blade has not left her mind. ]
[ seamstress gossiping circles, in all likelihood. ]
But I know Queen Alicent, and to think one of her kin was ill-treated is a frightful thing. There has been so much unpleasantness of late, that I would remedy what I can, as I can.
[ Gossips. She should not be surprised but it aches a little all the same. She wonders how much detail has gotten around, whether others may in fact know things that she does not and cannot remember.
But evoking Alicent feels like one of her stab wounds re-opening. ]
Ill-treated by her kin, you should say.
[ She is only Alicent's kin by marriage, but Aegon is her blood. Aegon she would not hear a bad word about, even as he threatened her life. ]
I am alive again. I have been remedied. [ But even Rhaenyra knows that isn't true. ]
Alive does not mean well, plenty of people live with broken hearts. [ Her words are careful, not to be pitying or mocking. ]
I make a sweet cake, stuff with cream, my babushka made it for me when I felt poorly. I have felt very poorly of late, and I have made myself far too much, I was wondering if you would like some?
[ Her brothers, yes. Half brothers, she thinks sourly, usurpers and snakes. But if there's a tangy sharpness to their connection it's only because Rhaenyra cannot hide her fury.
Then Gilia speaks of broken hearts and Rhaenyra's cracks. The anger burns out and fierce loneliness smokes in its place. Smoldering on the line... ]
Well.
I don't believe your stories of how there came to be too much of it, but... I do enjoy cake.
[ She goes quiet for awhile, and bearing all of herself to a stranger is not her preference, but in the way she has learned to come to terms with it - that going to help others, makes it much easier. ]
I had a brother, who meant the world to me.
[ She swallows. ]
When the doors were closed, he hurt me, and often. He said it would make me strong. But I felt so alone, so often. [ It's quiet, the conviction. The determination in that one idea. ] I never want anyone else to feel so alone.
[ Rhaenyra feels a hand close around her heart, holding it so its beating feels harder and louder in her ears. It isn't nothing, this gift of honestly. Rhaenyra believes her. ]
I am sorry.
[ She sounds it. And then, as if in answer, as if she owes her own truth in return: ]
He's... never done anything like this before. [ Cautious, like she's sharing state secrets. ] I did not know him before this realm. Not as he is now.
I know... I know time can change from place to place?
[ She pauses trying to explain. ] My knight, from my homeland, comes from I think some months after when I was taken.
And that is to say nothing that... I am informed that I am ah... 'Medieval', according to some from other lands, which refers to those that come from 'the past' to them. In broad strokes, so to speak.
[Stops - do not blither, Gilia. ]
I mean to say, has much time perhaps passed between you? Has that been the cause of the... ire, perhaps, the difference?
He had seen only two name days when I last knew him. His brother I knew not at all.
Whatever the cause of this ire is, he will not share it with me. Only curse and punish me for it.
[ She says it with curt finality. She has tried to stop wondering what churns Aegon's poisoned mind but it raises the heat in her to speak of it again. It's done her no good to dwell on it. ]
I am glad, at least, that you have your knight. [ But there's jealousy in her tone, perhaps. ]
[ This sounds like typical noble families, ready to rip themselves to pieces, and the wounds are always more horrific.
No one could hurt, like family could - and when family had control over life and death... ]
I am too, especially that I may offer this. I know the Lady Mavis, and the Sirs Aristaeus and Murphy will never let anything happen to you.
But if you ever need it, you may call on my Knight. She is Sir GalamiΕa of Clan RacisΕawa. Tell her that Second-Child, Queen of the Isle St Loe, She Who Sings the Ocean to Prosperity, has spoken for your safety. She will defend you with her life, by my honour.
You cannot miss her, nor mistake her for another trying to trick you. She is seven foot tall, a scar over one eye, and has a pair of great antlers from her brow. If she does not have them out and you are unsure, ask to see them, then she really will know you have spoken to me.
[ Never let anything happen to her... Only it had happened, hadn't it? The smallest window, the confluence of all the wrong coincidences. It hadn't been their fault they had lives to live that did not involve her. They are not swore to her. She has no one here who is.
But it is a surprising offer. Enough that Rhaenyra accepts it in silence, respectfully. She does not know if she trusts this woman and her offer of aid. But trusting strangers here has been good for her, perhaps.
It was not strangers who have wounded her here. ]
That is... generous of you. [ And a woman that is a knight, well. Rhaenyra cannot say she isn't curious. Supremely. ] She sounds formidable. And as you say, unmistakable.
Another promised to come at my greatest need. He... did not succeed.
[ She remember how Gala would want to apologize, when Gilia was covering from what her brother had done - as if she could have stopped what she was not privy too.
That she knew, Gala was glad to break her brother's legs, when the time came.
To Gilia's mind, it was never her knight's fault. No, it was the world that let her brother think that cruelty was ever allowed, that her family were oblivious to it. ]
You are both young and fighting the battles of your forbears. I admit I would do no different from either of you, but it does not make it easy or wise.
[His heart stutters slightly at her voice. He would reach out an hold her hand in his if he could.]
Peace is not easy. Neither is acquiescing when you know you are in the right. But perhaps it is wise to seek a truce of sorts, if you can. This town is awful enough already.
[ Rhaenyra cannot help the selfish little stumble in her mind - what about me? - when she realizes his intent to move to his own quarters like so many others have. Still staying in the room beside his, she feels suddenly lonely.
It takes her a lingering second to collect herself. ]
That... sounds perfect for you. I've always imagined you at home in just such a place.
[ Because it's true, and the affection that image has always sparked in her kindles a real happiness for him now. ]
Yeah, more or less, [he answers her distractedly, but he can hear the hitch in her voice, and it makes him feel like he's already abandoned her, even while knowing why he reached out to her in the first place.
a fraught moment of hesitation; then, he clears his throat and says,]
Look, um. It's nothing compared to what you're used to, but it does have a loft. Wouldn't take much work at all to put in a second bed up there, a wardrobe--whatever you want, really, [said with some sheepish chagrin,] as long as I can haul it up the stairs.
[another beat, before he adds,] You don't have to. I mean, I'd like for you to, but--christ, let me start again.
[ The heaviness in her heart flies away like a bird when she realizes what it is he's actually attempting to say. He's begun badly, it seems, but she understands his intent and she feels like she's soaring.
He'd considered her. Planned for her. Alicent had been the only one here to do the same for her when she'd invited Rhaenyra to stay in the house the rest of her family had found for themselves. But that had been short-lived, had left her in the situation she's in now.
That Will had rescued her from. And he's offering to do so again. ]
You mean to give me a place to stay? A... home? With you?
[ It's as though she needs to hear him say it, properly. Yet her curiosity cannot help her from asking: ]
Yeah. Yeah, if you want it, it's yours. [something twists in his heart at what hope does to her voice. it's so easy for her pain and despair to become his pain and despair, even without seeing her in front of him. the telepathic connection between their minds does so much of the heavy lifting for his weird empathy condition; all he has left to do is endure the onslaught of feeling that follows.
it's a sensory overload, of a sort, but it's not all bad. her relief and joy warm him from the inside out, like a woodstove in winter. he's begun to smile without realizing he's doing it.]
Uh. It's, [a dry laugh of realization, because this is what started them down this path months ago, wasn't it,] it's sort of like an attic, actually. But it's not entirely closed off from the main body of the house.
...Honestly, you can have the bedroom on the ground floor if you want it instead, I just thought you might, I don't know, [a beat, where he scratches his day-old stubble, awkward,] want some privacy, maybe.
[ Even though she's been smiling to herself in the privacy of the boarding house room she's been staying in, her face falls comically at the mention of an attic. The place she's imagining for Will (with limited references, surely) doesn't have nearly the space for what Aegon had shut her up in and for a terrible moment she pictures a closet at the top of a flight of rickety stairs.
Yet as soon as he walks the offer back, changes it in the slightest, Rhaenyra doesn't have the heart to force that on him, the rearranging of his space. She doesn't want to reject such a gift. ]
No, no. I... would feel safer up above. Though I'm not sure I'm imagining it all correctly.
We could go now, if you want. I've already moved in my things and talked to Nancy. [Nancy Wheeler, his roommate; whatever reservations he has about leaving her alone in the boarding house, he feels confident enough in her ability to protect herself. he has no such confidence about Rhaenyra--not through any fault of her own, but after what Aegon and Aemond did to her--
he takes a breath, a little hesitant.] You're sure about this? [pause.] Alicent won't give you trouble about it?
voice
Date: 2024-03-03 05:17 pm (UTC)Rhaenyra. A word, if I may?
no subject
Date: 2024-03-17 04:18 am (UTC)Of course, Your Grace. [ Hesitating, ] Like... this?
no subject
Date: 2024-03-17 08:34 am (UTC)[ of course, she's already more used to this way of conversing than Rhaenyra is, but she also had her own reasons to not face her. ]
As you well know, it is no longer safe to stay in the boarding house. Thankfully, we have acquired a property of our own. [ she draws a breath. you know, breathing, like normal people do. ] I think it would be for the best if you moved in with us.
[ asking your best friend/crush to move in with you but you are her queen and step-mother and also she is a teenager? not great!! ]
no subject
Date: 2024-04-01 12:01 am (UTC)[ She must needs get used to it and she doesn't want Alicent to think she doesn't want to hear from her, whatever way the words may come. But her offer is slow to process as Rhaenyra turns it over, trying to examine all sides of it so quickly. The facets seem sharp, maybe dangerous. It's unexpected, to say the least. ]
Is... That's very generous of you, Your Grace. [ But the hesitance is clear in her voice, even if all the benefits of private accommodations are rushing through Rhaenyra's mind as well. ] Do my brothers know you're offering?
[ The reactions of both are concerns for such very, very different reasons. ]
voice.
Date: 2024-05-12 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 12:55 am (UTC)[ Her tone has an edge of icy authority to it that betrays her suspicions that he indeed might well dare. ]
πͺ
Date: 2024-05-19 12:58 am (UTC)This is your only warning.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:06 am (UTC)What could you possibly gain from doing this?
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:17 am (UTC)I can promise you, brother, if you catch me awake it will not be.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:27 am (UTC)Best to collect all your things if you're at the house, for you won't be allowed back.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 01:57 am (UTC)But you were not the one who offered the invitation, else I would not be here in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 02:10 am (UTC)as i tag that smut thread in another tab
Date: 2024-05-19 02:24 am (UTC)How dare you accuse me of such?
:
Date: 2024-05-19 02:33 am (UTC)I ought not to have been so surprised. You have a penchant for trying to claim what is mine.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 02:47 am (UTC)Here he is his own, or should be. And I want nothing from him.
[ She hesitates before the justification, weighing that it is more believable than outright denial. ]
I was not myself. If he told you, he should have told you all of it.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 02:57 am (UTC)And, Rhaenyra, if you do not want my pursuit to extend beyond Vesenya Lovti, do not touch him again.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 03:01 am (UTC)As it was not me who lay hands upon him, I will make no such promise. Aemond took no commands from me.
We shall see how well jealousy wields a knife.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-19 03:10 am (UTC)Good luck.
(a few minutes after the explosion)
Date: 2024-06-18 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-21 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-21 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-24 01:37 am (UTC)I'm not far, I should go and see? [ But it comes out as a question because everything is a little bit more frightening around here now. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-06-24 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-24 01:56 am (UTC)[ Oh look, being told no helps make up her mind. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-06-24 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-25 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-07 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-20 09:07 pm (UTC)[ She still hasn't moved, hasn't started back towards the sound. It's killing her to think of something bad happening to her hosts because of her but the taste of the blade has not left her mind. ]
whenever suits best!
Date: 2024-06-19 05:08 am (UTC)Forgive me, we have not spoken before, but my name is Gilia - Queen Gilia, as was, of the Isle St. Loe, little as all that means.
I have heard that... that all has not been well with you, and I wished to bring you something, to cheer you - if I may?
no subject
Date: 2024-06-21 04:48 am (UTC)From whom have you heard this?
[ But her authoritative question comes out more tremulous than she wished it to. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-06-21 04:59 am (UTC)[ seamstress gossiping circles, in all likelihood. ]
But I know Queen Alicent, and to think one of her kin was ill-treated is a frightful thing. There has been so much unpleasantness of late, that I would remedy what I can, as I can.
no subject
Date: 2024-06-24 01:37 am (UTC)But evoking Alicent feels like one of her stab wounds re-opening. ]
Ill-treated by her kin, you should say.
[ She is only Alicent's kin by marriage, but Aegon is her blood. Aegon she would not hear a bad word about, even as he threatened her life. ]
I am alive again. I have been remedied. [ But even Rhaenyra knows that isn't true. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 01:45 am (UTC)Your brothers.
[ She notes that carefully. ]
Alive does not mean well, plenty of people live with broken hearts. [ Her words are careful, not to be pitying or mocking. ]
I make a sweet cake, stuff with cream, my babushka made it for me when I felt poorly. I have felt very poorly of late, and I have made myself far too much, I was wondering if you would like some?
no subject
Date: 2024-07-03 04:47 am (UTC)Then Gilia speaks of broken hearts and Rhaenyra's cracks. The anger burns out and fierce loneliness smokes in its place. Smoldering on the line... ]
Well.
I don't believe your stories of how there came to be too much of it, but... I do enjoy cake.
jumping to action ok?
Date: 2024-07-05 02:23 am (UTC)of course!
Date: 2024-07-07 06:11 am (UTC)[ Only because of their combined strength does Rhaenyra feel she can tell her this. ]
Why are you truly doing this? [ But there's cautious hope and curiosity in the question. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-15 12:55 pm (UTC)I had a brother, who meant the world to me.
[ She swallows. ]
When the doors were closed, he hurt me, and often. He said it would make me strong. But I felt so alone, so often. [ It's quiet, the conviction. The determination in that one idea. ] I never want anyone else to feel so alone.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-20 09:13 pm (UTC)I am sorry.
[ She sounds it. And then, as if in answer, as if she owes her own truth in return: ]
He's... never done anything like this before. [ Cautious, like she's sharing state secrets. ] I did not know him before this realm. Not as he is now.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-23 09:02 am (UTC)[ She pauses trying to explain. ] My knight, from my homeland, comes from I think some months after when I was taken.
And that is to say nothing that... I am informed that I am ah... 'Medieval', according to some from other lands, which refers to those that come from 'the past' to them. In broad strokes, so to speak.
[Stops - do not blither, Gilia. ]
I mean to say, has much time perhaps passed between you? Has that been the cause of the... ire, perhaps, the difference?
no subject
Date: 2024-07-25 12:02 am (UTC)Whatever the cause of this ire is, he will not share it with me. Only curse and punish me for it.
[ She says it with curt finality. She has tried to stop wondering what churns Aegon's poisoned mind but it raises the heat in her to speak of it again. It's done her no good to dwell on it. ]
I am glad, at least, that you have your knight. [ But there's jealousy in her tone, perhaps. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-25 04:39 am (UTC)No one could hurt, like family could - and when family had control over life and death... ]
I am too, especially that I may offer this. I know the Lady Mavis, and the Sirs Aristaeus and Murphy will never let anything happen to you.
But if you ever need it, you may call on my Knight. She is Sir GalamiΕa of Clan RacisΕawa. Tell her that Second-Child, Queen of the Isle St Loe, She Who Sings the Ocean to Prosperity, has spoken for your safety. She will defend you with her life, by my honour.
You cannot miss her, nor mistake her for another trying to trick you. She is seven foot tall, a scar over one eye, and has a pair of great antlers from her brow. If she does not have them out and you are unsure, ask to see them, then she really will know you have spoken to me.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-28 05:01 am (UTC)But it is a surprising offer. Enough that Rhaenyra accepts it in silence, respectfully. She does not know if she trusts this woman and her offer of aid. But trusting strangers here has been good for her, perhaps.
It was not strangers who have wounded her here. ]
That is... generous of you. [ And a woman that is a knight, well. Rhaenyra cannot say she isn't curious. Supremely. ] She sounds formidable. And as you say, unmistakable.
Another promised to come at my greatest need. He... did not succeed.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-28 06:11 am (UTC)[ She remember how Gala would want to apologize, when Gilia was covering from what her brother had done - as if she could have stopped what she was not privy too.
That she knew, Gala was glad to break her brother's legs, when the time came.
To Gilia's mind, it was never her knight's fault. No, it was the world that let her brother think that cruelty was ever allowed, that her family were oblivious to it. ]
Voice.
Date: 2024-06-30 03:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-30 05:20 am (UTC)Why? Even those who believed me could not stop him.
no subject
Date: 2024-06-30 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 06:15 am (UTC)It is some small comfort to know that others see the truth of him now.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-03 04:53 am (UTC)I would not lay down for him, if that is what you suggest.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-03 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-04 02:32 am (UTC)[ Her voice wavers a little at the end, remembering the vulnerability they had shown one another in the dark. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-04 02:45 am (UTC)Peace is not easy. Neither is acquiescing when you know you are in the right. But perhaps it is wise to seek a truce of sorts, if you can. This town is awful enough already.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-07 06:21 am (UTC)I have no wish to fight, septon. Only to be left alone.
[ But she sounds sad when she says it, not as though she's using it as a way to dismiss him. ]
Why do you believe you could broker such a thing? Do you hold sway with my... half-brothers?
no subject
Date: 2024-07-07 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-20 08:57 pm (UTC)[ She trips on herself a little to ask and the way her voice climbs higher gives her away before she can collect herself. ]
I fear she's as powerless to sway them as you are.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-21 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 11:37 pm (UTC)I await your report.
voice (backdated to early july);
Date: 2024-07-26 06:14 pm (UTC)Um. Am I interrupting anything?
[his touch on her mind is hesitant and cautious, as he has been ever since the duchess's party.]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-27 07:40 am (UTC)[ There's a noticeable stumble in her voice, but she steadies it quickly. She doesn't want to give away the way her heartbeat skips. ]
No, not at all. Is aught amiss?
no subject
Date: 2024-07-27 09:48 pm (UTC)[the rush of heat to his face makes him feel boyishly clumsy; god, he has no call to be feeling like this. acting like this.
time to get it together.] I just wanted to tell you I've found a place outside the boarding house, down by the river.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-28 12:50 am (UTC)It takes her a lingering second to collect herself. ]
That... sounds perfect for you. I've always imagined you at home in just such a place.
[ Because it's true, and the affection that image has always sparked in her kindles a real happiness for him now. ]
Have the arrangements already been made?
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 01:03 am (UTC)a fraught moment of hesitation; then, he clears his throat and says,]
Look, um. It's nothing compared to what you're used to, but it does have a loft. Wouldn't take much work at all to put in a second bed up there, a wardrobe--whatever you want, really, [said with some sheepish chagrin,] as long as I can haul it up the stairs.
[another beat, before he adds,] You don't have to. I mean, I'd like for you to, but--christ, let me start again.
[don't let him start again, Rhaenyra.]
no subject
Date: 2024-08-07 04:39 am (UTC)He'd considered her. Planned for her. Alicent had been the only one here to do the same for her when she'd invited Rhaenyra to stay in the house the rest of her family had found for themselves. But that had been short-lived, had left her in the situation she's in now.
That Will had rescued her from. And he's offering to do so again. ]
You mean to give me a place to stay? A... home? With you?
[ It's as though she needs to hear him say it, properly. Yet her curiosity cannot help her from asking: ]
But what is a 'loft'?
no subject
Date: 2024-08-07 11:11 pm (UTC)it's a sensory overload, of a sort, but it's not all bad. her relief and joy warm him from the inside out, like a woodstove in winter. he's begun to smile without realizing he's doing it.]
Uh. It's, [a dry laugh of realization, because this is what started them down this path months ago, wasn't it,] it's sort of like an attic, actually. But it's not entirely closed off from the main body of the house.
...Honestly, you can have the bedroom on the ground floor if you want it instead, I just thought you might, I don't know, [a beat, where he scratches his day-old stubble, awkward,] want some privacy, maybe.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 04:15 am (UTC)Yet as soon as he walks the offer back, changes it in the slightest, Rhaenyra doesn't have the heart to force that on him, the rearranging of his space. She doesn't want to reject such a gift. ]
No, no. I... would feel safer up above. Though I'm not sure I'm imagining it all correctly.
Are you... will we be leaving soon?
no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 11:50 pm (UTC)he takes a breath, a little hesitant.] You're sure about this? [pause.] Alicent won't give you trouble about it?
[about moving in with a strange man. with him.]
idk where in the timeline, maybe backdated?? just bear with me.
Date: 2024-08-25 04:00 am (UTC)