Of Chivalry and Trust
Thirteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
Dragon's Roost, Sorcerer's Deep
Rhaella Targaryen, once Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, now sorceress, dragon rider, and envoy to her son's stray bannermen, did not know how to do this, did not know which words to speak. If there were even any right words one could use to convey the sentiment she wished. She glanced at the man at her side doing his best to pretend he was looking out the window at the returning Wyverns. Back from a secret mission, the pilots had not even known was in the wings, back from destroying the Golden Company and the Blackfyre pretenders once and for all.
And now you are considering foolishness that might end with just as great a stain on the House's honor, the small nasty voice at the back of her mind noted, the one that sounded a little like Aerys, but mostly like her first Septa who had chastised her for letting a young Alric Chyttering 'steal kisses' from her in the gardens when she had been five and he had been six. Both of them barely knew what kisses were other than something the fair maiden was supposed to give the gallant knight, but that harpy had treated the whole thing like they had been caught in
flagrant delicto. She had even made a note two years later to tell Rhaella that the boy had died of the flux, letting it be understood it had been his poor moral character that had lead to his doom.
But you are not considering anything quite so innocent now, are you? She studied the knight beside her, making inconsequential smalltalk out of pure reflex, letting most of her mind wander. He was not objectively the most handsome man she had ever seen. Rhaella had seen beauty that was born of otherworldly blood and sorcerer's intent, that could entrance the mind without a single spell uttered upon the beholder. He looked tired, but content with a job well done. The troupe of malicious fey had been dealt with, the men and women they had tricked and frightened into aiding them left free to live their lives, and the ones who had enjoyed the fey's cruel games dealt with in a sterner manner. It had been an honorable judgement, a merciful one, yet still it weighed on him. She could read it in the way his voice caught slightly as he recounted the names of those guilty, in the way he remembered all the names.
What was one supposed to say?
I find the way you worry about doing the right thing appealing. The way your eyes cloud over with worry and with weariness make me want to kiss it all away? That was a thing for minstrel's songs and maiden's sighs, and even if all dreary practicality were cast aside and she were to somehow forget that she was not some girl with stars in her eyes, it was a thing one said to a man who was courting you, but somehow for all the times they had found themselves alone, walking in the godswoods or standing by the window talking of things small and great, of everything from gods and magic to lordships and the games of court, he had never asked.
So ask him yourself, a voice that definitely did not sound like her old septa noted.
Kiss him yourself. It took all the skill of decades under the sharp eyes of the court to keep the blush off her cheeks.
Just as she was about to do the first, though certainly not the second, the door creaked open. Rhaella's graciousness slipped a moment as she glared at the servant, but as she met the man's dark eyes a shiver went down her spine... fear and something else, recognition.
"It seems Tiamat still smiles upon me still," he said lips shaping words not of any mortal tongue, though one Rhaella spoke just the same. The being, for this was no servant, and indeed no man no matter the guise he wore, gestured towards her and in the same tongue uttered a spell to
bind her shadow to earth beyond the power of the charm she had been reaching for to carry her away.
"What...?" the knight began, hand already on his sword.
"Enemy, dragon!" Rhaella shouted, not wanting to waste more words than that which could be used for magic. A moment later she had taken wing twisting through the air.
Ser Bonifer, to his credit, did not hesitate a moment, spellsteel cutting though the air with an angry hiss to strike the false servant in the upper arm. A thin stream of smoking blood marred the Myrish carpet underfoot, but the enemy hardly seemed to notice. Again the shadows twisted, this time to bind her
physically in place, but now she was ready, her will cutting though the tangle of blackness. She tossed the token she had kept in hand to Ser Bonifer even as she launched herself towards and hopefully
through the glass of the window.
"Get help!" she shouted, knowing with the utter certainty of deeds seen under the light of common day and dreamed in visions of power both that the two of them were not a match for this thing, this servant of the monster that had tried to enslave her daughter.
For a long moment Bonifer just looked at her in shock, talisman in hand.
He is not going to do it, he is going to stay and fight and die, Rhaella thought with horror.
Amid the glittering bloody fragments of glass she saw him ripple away.
Now I just have to live long enough for help to get here. She dove for the nearest Wyvern, a looming shadow just behind her.
OOC: Poor Rhaella, she thinks of kissing a man just because she finds him attractive for the first time in decades and she gets interrupted by a shape-shifted dragon under Cloak of Khyber trying to capture her for sacrifice. Good thing she passed that first sense motive check. With a surprise round on the dragon's side she would have had practically no chance. Not yet edited.
I think this'll end in failure.
