Rhaegar’s lying awake again, looking at the tracery of cracks across the ceiling over him, a silvery web against the red stone of the ceiling. He moves his bare feet across the velvet cushions of the couch, having sacrificed his socks for Balerion to play with since Rhaenys had asked (demanded, really but they were happy and it made Elia smile.). It’s worth chilly toes.
It gives Elia pain to have Rhaegar lie beside her tonight, so he had kissed her goodnight, tucked her in under her saffron counterpane embroidered with tiny mirrors and seed pearls, her warm, comforting scent masked by the sharp camphor and lemon, musky cannabis scent of the poultices and salves that Ashara makes to try and make her more comfortable. He likes it when Elia’s been with Ashara, working on gentle yoga poses, the ones Ashara modifies to help her. (Ashara’s also brought him the slightly gritty, bitter tea with honey that’s starting to seep into his system, turning his blood to atoms of ruby.)
Elia’s body has never been strong, though her wit and japes always have. She tells Rhaegar that people will say things in front of a sick girl that they’d never say in front of a man. Sometimes she’ll tell him, raising an ebony inkstroke of a brow, then laughing. Elia has only told him once about her non-betrothal. “I bear the Imp no ill will.” she had sighed, weaving a braid in to Rhaegar’s long silver hair, smooth and tight and sleek just as she does for Rhaenys. “He was in his little plastic crib-like me. Small and crying, twisted. He knows people will say things in front of a demon monkey that they won’t say in front of a whole man.” Rhaegar had smiled as she’d taken a length of thin red yarn from her crochet basket to wind round the end to brighten the braid, her fingers like strong tea against the cream of his hair. A tea like Elia would taste of smoky flowers, burning jasmine, he thinks, fragile yet unexpectedly fierce. Elia may seem broken, but she is not and Rhaegar knows she does not bow, does not bend.
Rhaegar thinks she is beautiful and his father is a fool. Or worse.
Elia had looked into the distance. “Tyrion Lannister does not pity himself and he does not suffer pity.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wish no one pitied me. Or that I didn’t envy—” She doesn’t need to finish her words, just weaves the ends of the yarn in as Rhaegar gently pats her hand. “There.” she had said, smiling.
Rhaegar turns on the reading lamp, sorts through the magazines on top—Fate, Locus, Fortean Times ,pulls one out on alternative housing, ones full of smooth wood, trees, beautiful glass. He lets himself get lost in the picture, a dome in the Northern woods made of tiny triangles, one home made of a large triangle, high and bright as a Sept. It’s always triangles he sees now. The psychics he sees tell him to pay attention to what keeps coming up, what he sees, his visions. He thinks of three pillars, stable, strong, balanced and the mushrooms gently lick around his mind, like he imagines the dragon on his family sigil, nestles, curls up in on itself when no one is looking. He flips the pages to a garden, thinks.
(They are in the bathroom, her bubbles scented with musk and lilies. It’s clouded with steam, sweet, Elia’s limbs light and free. They’re also sure it’s the only room that isn’t bugged. You have to.” Elia had whispered. She’d gestured for her hand mirror steamed over, wrote a few words. )
Rhaegar expected her to be afraid, but she is resolute, draws her knees up in the water under her chin, her hair dripping along her back in inky squiggles. “Your father hates me. Hates the children, said they smell…Dornish. Worse. “ Rhaegar shudders, can’t deny she’s right. They’ve lain awake at the Red Keep, on state visits to Dragonstone, hearing eerie cries, howls that they both know, ones that Rhaegar has heard too often before. “
It’s…ungallant.” Rhaegar wants to say something else. Elia had fixed him, stern, a flicker of fire in her eyes, rich as bourbon.
“You believe, don’t you?”
Lavender’s blue, lavender’s green, hums Rhaegar softly as he reads, just like he does to Aegon and Rhaenys after a day of playtime in the gardens. His father thinks it’s weak of Rhaegar to sing to the children, a humiliating jape that Rhaenys has little black bell-bottoms stained with garden mud, that Aegon has a soft doll.
Rhaegar doesn't care.
Tonight Rhaegar thinks of the first Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya crowned by his side, sanctified by wings. He sighs and as he dozes, dreams of two crowns on his lance, one of lilies from the Water Gardens, one of blue winter roses. In this space, between sleep and waking, he believes truly, the dragon has three heads, the dragon has three heads, the dragon has…
When I am King, Rhaegar wishes, you will be Queens.