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RHAENYRA

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[perzo]

Can you truly take him at his word?

[ from where she stands, their last conversation at dragonstone had been particularly illuminating in that regard — and the likelihood of alicent being able to sway her son's mind is small. ]

Or has his right to vengeance truly not been sated through the lives he has already claimed?

[unapparent]

It will never be slaked, when Viserys himself did not acknowledge the injustice done to him. That is how he sees it.

[ that particular slight still rankles for her as well, only she has the sense to know it is born of her own inadequacy and foolishness. aemond has taken too much from rhaenyra already. ]

But he will not endanger me, and Daemon has informed him that I would be the price of blood.

[ strangely, it does not offend her, when she cares little for her own life (and expects naught but wickedness of daemon targaryen). if it deters aemond's worst impulses in this manor, it is for the best. ]

[perzo]

Then he seeks recompense from one who will never be capable of giving it.

[ there are many words she wishes she could have received from her father, but did not. now, she must rely on what he had promised her himself, unwaveringly — that she had always remained his heir — and what he had told her in confidence, about why the protection of the realm must fall to her above all. ]

Daemon would not act outside my word.

[ she would not have been so confident in saying so before harrenhal, but now, she knows what they have sworn to one another. ]

[unapparent]

I am well aware.

[ she hopes that she would have words for Viserys, too, if she ever saw him again. it is more likely that she would embrace him and cry. ]

So it was not Daemon who sent the catspaw that slit my grandson’s throat before sweet Helaena’s very eyes.

[ Viserys could not control Daemon. She doubts Rhaenyra can — not always. ]

[perzo]

I cannot change what has already transpired.

[ even then, daemon had insisted — and she had believed him — that his orders had been clear, and that the men who had been paid had acted outside of them. but even then, she would have confronted aemond herself in retaliation for luke, if such a path had been open to her. ]

But he has sworn himself to my cause, under penalty of consequence. He only seeks to stay your son's hand.

[unapparent]

[ the cause that will take my son’s heads? ]

I ask you only not to trust your Lord Husband blindly, when he has rarely shown constancy.

Do not forget the pain he caused your father.

[ when he touched her, ruined her, wed her — went gallivanting off to the stepstones — killed one wife and possibly Rhaenyra’s own husband — it is a lifetime of distrust (and a hint of jealousy) that makes her doubt. ]

[perzo]

We spoke at length of his failings in such matters.

[ even if it had been a conversation cut short by daemon's departure for harrenhal on caraxes, but now, time and distance seem to have tempered his worst instincts. that does not mean rhaenyra has abandoned all sense of caution. ]

Much pained my father, in those final years, including our division.

[unapparent]

[ a well-aimed retort, and it stings. ]

Yet he himself sowed the seeds of it.

[ by marrying her — or by putting a son in her belly? ]

I cannot change what has already transpired.
I will mind my son, and you will mind your husband. No blood will be shed on House Balfour’s lands. You need not trouble yourself over me any longer.

[perzo]

I know, now, that you were a comfort to him after my mother passed.

[ something she never would have understood, or sought to, when she was younger. then, she had hated both of them — alicent, for securing her father’s affections, and viserys, for stealing her dearest friend away from her.

but the response she earns now is as definitive as it’s likely intended, and rhaenyra doesn’t attempt to press the subject further — especially since the words read closer to a dismissal, in her mind, over what they’d shared. ]

We are agreed, then.

[unapparent]

[ it is a return to the impasse they have maintained for decades now, yet it feels like a fresh wound. rhaenyra will fight for all, but not this: girlish fantasies best kept locked in distant memory. ]

We are.
Take care, Rhaenyra.