Chapter Text
Argella Durrandon/Orys Baratheon + “Your father’s lands are beautiful.”
________________________
“Your father’s lands are beautiful,” Prince Rhaegar had said, standing right where Jon was standing now. And the boy he’d been had replied, “One day they will all be mine.”
(A Dance with Dragons)
________________________
“Your father’s lands are beautiful.”
Oh what mockery. How dare he? She turns her face away.
“Your land now, my lord. Your king’s decree made it so.”
“Yours, too, my lady. And our son’s, when he is born.”
A wife is not a ruler. The Lady of Storm’s End is no Storm Queen. Even your sweet words and gentle caress will not make it so, my lord. Even the child growing in her belly would not make it so.
“What will you tell him, our son?”
“About?”
“His grandfather.”
“That the last Storm King died bravely and honorably. That there was no shame or dishonor in his defeat.”
Will you not show him the sword that killed my father? The sword given to you by your own father.
“And what about his other grandfather?”
“There is no other. Not one he could claim in the eyes of the world.”
Don’t, she thinks. Do not make me think of you as flesh and blood. Wanting and needing, yearning and desperate, just like any other.
“A child needs to know the history of his people.”
“And our children will know. We’ll tell them about Durran Godsgrief and Elenei, and how they defied the gods for the sake of love.”
She laughs. “My lord, you would do well not to put too much faith in songs and legends.”
“Was it not love, then?”
“Lust, more likely. Or an illusion to justify themselves.”
“An illusion?”
“Once so many have died and so much blood has been shed for the two of them to be together, what else could they call it but love? Anything else would have left them vulnerable to the scorn of the world. But call it love, pretend that it is so; then all is forgiven and you’re immortalized in songs and stories.”
“And what will they say about us, in these songs and stories?”
“’They lived happily ever after,’ I expect. Or some foolish nonsense of that sort.”
“And what would you have said, my lady, were you the one writing these songs and stories?”
“’They lived, for a time, and then they died.’”
He smiles. “Well, that is an improvement of sort.”
“An improvement?”
“Before we were married, I was quite certain you would have said, ‘And they lived unhappily ever after.’”