Legacy and Longing
Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
One could be forgiven for not noticing the small fair-haired boy lost among the feet of his elders on the third balcony. Edric Dayne had been raised to be respectful of Gods and lords alike, and he was hardly a page of seven years among the workings of history too vast to see over the heads of the mighty. The dragons had been terrifying and wondrous, the dragon beasts only the former, and the sky ships had been strange. How did they stay up in the air. Now he was just hungry and sweaty in his fine silk doublet, tugging at the collar and wondering when the food would be arriving and what kind of food they would serve in a sorcerer's city.
When he was younger, the boy had heard all sorts of stories about how sorcerers were bad and false, poisoners and killers. Then his father had started explaining how they could be good if they acted with moral purpose and kept the seven in their heart... and then he had gone to Sunspear and met sorcerers who definitely did not keep the Seven in their heart, since they were heathens, but Prince Doran, his guardian and his father's lord, had insisted that they were good, too.
And that was when he had met a magic cat born of gods not his own, who had grown to be his friend, just to make things really confusing.
But surely the Seven were gods of man not cat, the child assured himself as he had done many times before.
Edric was morally certain this was enough to give a theologian a headache, never mind him and all his seven years, and yet... oh how he wanted to just do magic of his own, to snap his fingers and make light, to sing a little song and make a garden bloom. Surely there could be nothing wrong with such a thing? His own father was just now standing on the floor below, waiting to swear himself to a Sorcerer King... Emperor. Whichever.
He didn't feel hungry anymore, his stomach had gone all queasy.
"If you bite your lip any harder, you are going to draw blood," a high, girlish voice called out from his left.
He turned to see a dark-haired woman with the look of the Prince of Dorne, but a lot younger and next to her a dark haired girl a year or two younger than Edric himself who wore a coronet. She had to be a princess to wear that and there was only one princess of that age, one who had died and been returned from death just like her mother. That was one magic he did not like the sound of.
Dead was supposed to stay dead, something deep inside him whispered.
"Didn't you hear me?" Princess Rhaenys asked annoyed. "If you get blood on the floor you could be cursed by anyone who thinks to scrape it up. Do you know how bad a blood curse can be. I do, and..."
"I'm sure the boy does not need descriptions of something called a
blood curse, and I am just as sure the floors would be cleaned by the Emperor's servants and any blood scrubbed safely away," her mother interjected quickly.
The girl did not look mollified. "I know that, mother, but it's a bad habit to be getting into. You always say to catch those early."
"I wasn't going to bite clean through my lip. Are you daft?" It was only after the words had passed beyond recall that Edric realized it probably wasn't polite to call a princess daft, even if she
was. Fortunately, neither Prince Doran's sister nor the man himself who had just turned to look at the conversation, seemed upset. More amused in that indulgent way adults got sometimes.
"What had you so worried anyway?" the girl asked, the matter of her presumed daftness remaining unanswered.
"I don't want to talk about it," Edric insisted, perhaps a little ungraciously.
Alas, that got the girl smiling slyly. "If you don't say I'm going to start guessing. Were you afraid the Drakenbeasts will eat you? Oh, I know, did you think Lord Drekelis will steal your shadow and your soul? That's the new silly rumor making the rounds according to Dany."
Edric did not know who Lord Drekelis was and he did not really want to find out. "I want to learn magic, but I'm the heir of Starfall so I can't, alright," he declared.
"Who says you can't?" the girl pressed, because she had just no idea when to stop. It had to be the fact that she was half dragon. Well
alright, the other half of her was Martell and he had met some of the younger Sand Snakes...
"My father would never allow it," Edric ground out.
"Did you
ask him?" She did not wait for an answer, it was probably written on his face, likely his warming cheeks and eyes dropped to the floor. "So ask him. What do you have to lose? Worst thing he can do is say no."
Edric looked up at the magic lanterns again. Maybe, just maybe, the daft girl had a point. He wasn't about to tell her that.
OOC: I know you guys wanted Lord Andrew, but this is the Dayne who came to mind. Not yet edited
