91
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298 AC
Kingslanding - Red keep
Myrcella Baratheon
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"What do you mean my father is not a good fit?" Mother complaining to father is heard as I approach the two, I am escorted by one of the Kingsguard after I was summoned to speak with father.
"Hello father, Hello mother." I give a short bow and my dad looks over at me with a smile spreading on his face as he stands up the chair and the table are both pushed back.
"Myrcella my daughter prepare yourself, we are going to travel to the North to visit Winterfell." I fold my hands and wait for him to finish but that seems to have been all he wanted to say as he looks over my shoulder and frowns when he doesn't see anyone else.
"The North?! Do you mean to appoint the Lord of Winterfell your old friend as your new hand? How is he going to be a better hand than my father would?" Father rolls his eyes after he gives me a side hug and looks back at my mom with a grumble in his chest.
"I will appoint whoever the fuck I want as my hand and I won't hear anything from you about it." He walks back to the table where a servant girl picked up his spilled drink and wiped the table clean, as she tries to fill his cup back up my father's hand grabs her behind and she jumps in surprise. He thinks neither of us can see as it is beneath the table but neither of us are idiots so I speak up before my mom can cause a fight.
"Father is that all?" I clear my throat and he lets go of the red-faced woman who was breathing heavily and shaking as my mom glared at her.
"That is all, if you see either of your brothers as you head back and they are not on their way here be sure to crack them on the head for me." He grunts as he adjusts in his chair and I bow once more before waving at my mom who was giving me a side eye and I turn around and leave.
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Spotting Tommen in a part of my private garden that he has been managing I sneak up on him and raise my hand to strike him. I am only doing as my king ordered me, and I want to see his reaction. I won't hit my younger golden-haired brother hard, he might fall over dead if I hit him too hard.
Within range, I drop my fist and it bounces off his thick skull, and his face lands into the bushes he was snipping.
"Oww!" He jumps back and spins around to see who hit him and seeing me his brows furrow.
"Myrcella! Why did you hit me?!" His face scrunches up but I can tell he is mainly just playing along and isn't really in pain.
"Father told me to crack your head for ignoring his summons, we are going to Winterfell so he can convince Eddard Stark to be his new hand." Tommen's face goes downtrodden and I know why so I just pull him into a hug. "It's ok to cry about it, Jon was a nice man and was very kind to us. I can't believe he is gone and I miss him as well so you can talk to me about it." He nods as he returns the embrace.
"He was like our 'real' grandfather, he was so much nicer than the other one." By 'other one', he means Tywin the stone-faced Lannister our blood grandfather on mothers side. I still don't like the man but I have to respect the lessons he has taught me, they are very useful.
"Well at least we have a nice grandmother still, Joanna sent us some new things according to a raven that came and they will be here in a week. Though we might be gone by then if father has anything to say about that and he is the king so we likely won't see the gifts till we are back." I know what they are but it's best for the surprise to cheer little Tommen up, he is easy to get depressed with all the harassment he is subject to.
Speaking of harassment Joffrey can thank the seven for me not finding him on my walk over here. I would have cracked his head and could have blamed it on father for telling me to, the rude prick deserves it. He is getting more and more out of hand and it almost seems like he is acting out on purpose at times and mother isn't even trying to control him anymore.
It's a bit odd, to be honest, she usually talks him down on things or cleans up his messes.
"Do you think Jenna and Tytos will come to Kingslanding again anytime soon?" The cousins we have from our uncle Jaime, I shake my head knowing they are busy at Casterly rock. "Then what about Shireen, she likes to read stuff that I also like. The old tales of dragons are more fun to read with someone else and see their reactions." I ruffle his hair and step away from him as he picks back up his snippers and grabs a stray branch to take off.
"I don't know if any of them will come, but I do know you have gotten good at maintaining your little corner of the garden. I think I will let you have a bigger section if you can keep this up for the rest of the year." The cousin I am most interested in seeing is the one I have never seen, Shiera Targaryen apparently is what she goes by nowadays.
I wonder if I will ever get to see her, a war is going to come and we are on separate sides. I know grandmother wants to see her, she has talked about her with me before.
In Dorne she wears her Silver gold hair long to her waist, she is shapely and very beautiful according to the person who gave the information. Grandmother scoffed when she told me about that but I got a good laugh at her expense. She apparently has mismatched eyes like Uncle Tyrion, hers are blue in one eye and green in the other. Tyrion has one black eye and a green eye, he also has an interest in his mismatched eye niece.
Rumors have begun spreading they have dragons and one day will rain fire down on all of us to retake the iron throne. I don't think that's true, if it was true they would have already arrived and taken the throne with Fire and Blood. But quite a few of the common folk believe it and some even moved out of Kingslanding in fear of dragon fire and the return of a new mad king who burns his Lords.
"Are you ok?" Tommen pulls my sleeve and I nod my head.
"I am fine, Let's get some servants to pack your stuff, and then we can head to the kitchens to get some cakes." His smile widens and he grips his fists excitedly.
"Let's go!" He charges ahead and I can't help but smile as I chase after him the best I can in a dress.
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298 AC
The Vale - The Eyrie
Aemma Arryn
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"How are you feeling?" If Robar asks me one more time today how I am then I am having him thrown through the moon door.
"I am fine Robar." I respond icily and he sighs and massages his forehead.
"Aemma, I am worried about you and that is perfectly fine. Your dad died and you are not even talking about it and instead threw yourself into your work. This is also on top of the 'sickness' that has you throwing up early in the mornings and we both know what that means. Others might buy your whole 'traveling didn't agree with me' but I am clued in on you getting seeded in Dorne." If I could choke him I would, but there are messages to send and plans to put in place, I wasn't ready for my dad to die this quickly. I thought I would have at least ten good more years but now things are a 'bit' unsteady.
No one can oppose me as the Lady of the Vale, but I can't declare for House Targaryen right now since the war would start and I am surrounded. I need news about the North joining and if they do I will declare immediately and that should cause the Riverlands to follow. Even if Lysa had no kids with my dad she is still his widow and also the Tullys have blood in the Starks at the moment.
That is the ideal situation but I won't hold out hope.
I will remain silent and not kneel to Robert under the pretext that Dorne is currently an 'independent kingdom' and if they can do it so can we. If he can 'reclaim' Dorne then I will kneel on the spot and declare for House Baratheon. But that is just my cover to remain 'neutral' until I have the information I need to act, if it ever comes.
If it doesn't and the Targaryens are defeated and Dorne reunited then I can only grit my teeth and follow my word. Robert won't attack the Vale for remaining 'neutral' when he already has enemies in House Targaryen and House Blackfyre. So I have time to wait and let the Targaryens get their plans in motion and join at the right time instead of just jumping into the fire myself.
Who knows, Robert could make some horrible mistake and cause more problems that he otherwise wouldn't have made if I had kneeled. He might get desperate seeing the realm fracturing and make haste in attacking the Dornish in their deserts and will take heavy losses.
I put a hand on my stomach feeling my stomach ache and nauseous hit me in a wave.
This is just like the early symptoms I got when I was pregnant with Rhaenyra, a smile threatens to spread but I bite it down. I can get giddy about it when I am farther along in the pregnancy, with all this sudden stress I am not in a good position to carry an extra life.
"You still haven't told your father about our arrangement?" He scoffs and his chair creaks as he sits back in it with force.
"If you looked up for a moment you would see that I have." I look up curiously and see a busted lip and a black eye.
"Oh, I see he didn't take it very well." But he didn't raise a fuss with me so it seems Robar handled it, with these new developments I need to see to it that he did it properly on my own. I need House Royce more now than ever and I can't have him pissed at me over this when I can't have him back out.
"Yea, he took it great 'Hey dad, my wife needs another man to fuck her because I can't get my cock up to women.' that's when the first fist hit me. I wasn't even expecting it to be honest I thought he would think I was joking but it seems he was expecting this at some point. He grumbled and punched and I took it until I had to fend him off from really hurting me. But he was adamant on people 'knowing' that the kid is mine and wants the hair dyed if it's silver." That was already the plan, Eragon can always fly to the Vale when Arrax is big and claim his son or daughter then if he wanted to.
I will not keep the child from their father nor will I keep the father from the child, I would enjoy more of his attention if he wanted to give it to me. Along with more children to raise, in an ideal world we win the war, and Eragon and his lovers can come live in the Vale.
I rub where the 'baby' should be and wonder what the child will look like.