perzo | inbox for saltburnt;

inbox for saltburnt;

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME:
RHAENYRA

text ❖ audio ❖ video

[ It does speak of a strange magic — for who could know the faces of their forebears so intimately, be able to capture them so expertly through a weaving like this? But in the moment, Rhaenyra does not find herself plagued by too much questioning, and considers the futility of asking too many questions that Aemond may not even be able to answer. Would it not be better to appreciate the gift as it was offered, and make what inquiries she can later?

It is a deep, sobering reminder of what has preceded them, and what has been lost. Yet she considers, still, her father's words, and the importance of what she has been tasked with securing. She has laid it to rest here, bound within the walls of a house that has no real place in her fight, but they also cannot remain as guests indefinitely. ]

Sometimes. When I am recalling him with kind feeling. [ Other times, her recollections are not so generous to his memory. ]

[ kind feeling.

has aemond ever given their father's memory even an ounce of that? it's hard to remember viserys and not remember his loud claim that he could do nothing more for his maimed son. aemond had spent so many hours agonising over that one night, and eight years on he still cannot find the forgiveness most would afford a father.

viserys wasn't a terrible father, when accounted for — he needed to be a father first to be truly terrible at it. but his neglect was sharp in the face of their legacy, especially considering the loneliness aemond's mother had weathered and the foreignness of his affections the few times he'd given it to his younger children. was it truly too much to ask he spared some of himself for his other children? for the sons he desperately wanted enough to remarry for?

it had been difficult not to think that the failing had been in their blood at first, in their mother's own. but as the years yawned and aemond's desire for a father twisted itself into an anger at the one he has, it got easier to lay the blame at viserys's feet.

aemond's anger towards rhaenyra is a different beast, but that's a story for another time. ]

It's difficult to remember him as anything than he was in the last years.

He's handsome. I never imagined I would think it of him, but he is.

[ Even as she stands here now, Rhaenyra can consider a piece of the unspoken truth that lies between them — her memories of their father are of a distinctly different man, the king Viserys was when he was with his first wife, rather than his second. The king Viserys had been when he'd still yet hoped that Aemma would give him a son and expected heir. He had not been a terrible father then, but neither had he been a father who had entirely acknowledged her worth until he had been confronted with the truth: that she would be his only legitimate heir, at least until the possibility of other sons presented itself.

She also firmly believes that a part of her father had died the day her mother had, never to be recovered — not even by his Hand, who had sent his own daughter to the king with the intention of securing an enduring place for his House at the right hand of the Iron Throne. Could there have been any hope, beyond that marriage, that Viserys would have any deeper affection left to spare — not only for Alicent, who had dutifully borne him more heirs, and those children in turn, but also for Rhaenyra herself, a lasting reminder of the love he had lost?

She had seen her father at the end, and the effects of the infection that had ultimately claimed him, spreading too deep throughout his body for any of the maesters to successfully heal, but she had also been far removed to Dragonstone for many of those final years, rather than at King's Landing, as Aemond had. ]

I think... he would prefer to be thought of as such. [ Handsome, and young, though had Viserys ever been a man in his prime, or always much older than his years would indicate? Rhaenyra draws in a quiet breath, posture straightening as she remembers herself. ]

But the dead have no say in how we remember them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

inbox for saltburnt;

no subject

no pressure tagging back! sweats

too late!