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March 4, 2006
They were driving home from gymnastics practice when her mother took the left turn instead of going straight to home, when she pulled into the car lot and smiled at Baela in the rear view mirror.
The decorative vial on a chain that held Daelor’s ashes hung from the rearview, swaying as the car came to a stop, the decorative cut of the glass sending rainbows across the dash of the minivan.
“How do you feel about helping me pick out a new car, baby?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Baela nodded, grinning, and her mother smiled again at her in the mirror before she pulled down the driver’s side visor, pressing a kiss to her fingertips and touching the family picture there and Daelor’s ultrasound next to it. Daelor’s necklace left the rearview, touching her lips before it went around her neck, and then they were out. Baela ran ahead, weaving through the aisles of cars until her Mother called for her to slow down.
“Do you remember what we had before the minivan?” Her mother asked as she reached out to smooth Baela’s curls, “Something smaller, like that, alright?”
Baela had been there when they got to minivan too, holding Rhaena’s hand because her sister was still little even when she claimed she was big enough to not need to stick together. She wasn’t losing Rhaena, not on her watch. They’d bought the minivan for Daelor, when their mother was still pregnant with him, because they’d be too squished in the back with his carseat and Rhaena’s booster.
Then they’d said they wouldn’t need those seats because there wouldn't be any more babies and ever since, they’d only driven the minivan a couple times without their mother pretending she wasn’t crying in the front passenger seat.
Something smaller then. Something the perfect size for them. For their little family. She could do that. She couldn’t bring Daelor back and make things right, but she could do that.
It only took her a moment before she saw it.
It was small, like it needed to be, and it was green. Not dark green, not grassy or foresty or muddy. Not neon or electric. Not even that too-bold green that Uncle Viserys’ accountant Otto favored for all his ties. It was pale, shimmery, like one of the dragons her dad had painted on the wall of her bedroom that chased the moon in old Valyrian children's’ stories. Moondancer and Morning, he’d told her their names, telling her and Rhaena the old stories in Valyrian every night when they were little.
“That one.” Baela said without hesitation.
Her mother chuckled, “We’ve barely even looked at it.”
“It’s the one, trust me.”
Another chuckle, but Baela found herself dutifully followed all the way to the car, the driver door opened and she plopped down into it, still too short to see over the dash.
“Seat feels good?”
Baela nodded, buckling the seatbelt and putting her hands on the steering wheel, “Bit short.”
“You’re short.”
“It’s my birthday,” Baela said, “You can’t tease me.”
“Oh, I can’t?”
“Nope. Grandad said so.”
“Hmmm,” Her mother tapped her fingers on the top of the car, “I suppose you’re right, birthday girl. Now scoot, it’s my turn to try out this too-short seat.”
. . .
June 16, 2015
“Let me see it again.”
Baela liked the way it glittered on the steering wheel, gold and diamond flashing in the sun, even as it still felt unnatural and heavy on her finger. She put the car in park and turned to Rhaena, holding out her hand so her little sister could look over the ring again.
“For an idiot,” Rhaena said, turning her hand to look over the halo setting around the round cut, “He has good taste.”
“Miracles do happen, it seems. I think Alys may have helped.”
Rhaena hummed in agreement, finally letting go of her hand in favor of picking up her phone and checking it. Rhaenys and Rhaenyra were meant to meet them soon and it was known from past experience to not make the two women endure the other’s presence alone for longer than necessary. It never ended well, even these days as they presented more of a united front than ever. Baela had come down for breakfast the morning after her engagement to not just find her father, stepmother, and siblings of varying relations, but also her mother’s parents.
Who lived eight hours away. Who had somehow managed to arrive at some point between nine PM the night before when Jace had put the ring on her finger and eight AM the next morning when she’d descended the stairs. The terrifying efficiency of it was impressive, if not a bit overkill in her opinion.
Strangely, whatever intervention might have been intended for that morning never came. Luke had later mentioned that he thought he’d heard Rhaenyra arguing with Harwin on the phone after they arrived, but he hadn’t heard what his dad had actually said.
So instead of an intervention, they just fell directly into the baptism by fire that was telling Rhaenys Targaryen-Velaryon that she didn’t have a year to plan a wedding, she didn’t even have six months. She had forty-nine days, till August 1st so they could live together at school and be exempt from the dorms, and she was not happy about it.
A dress fitting had been made for the following Tuesday, which according to Rhaenys was still not soon enough, but Baela had made the call that if Rhaenys wanted her favorite bridal shop back in Long Island, the same that had made her own wedding dress as well as her daughter’s, then she’d give Baela a day or two to rest before they went. Rhaenys and Corlys may have flown down but Baela had no intention of leaving her mother’s car in Ohio. If she was going to buy a wedding dress, Moondancer was going with her.
At the entrance of the parking lot, a familiar car rounded the corner and Baela flipped down the visor. The family picture was there with Daelor’s ultrasound and the motions were familiar, kissing her fingertips and tapping both pictures before she plucked her mother’s engagement ring off of the rearview where it hung by a chain, pressing it to her lips in a quick kiss before dropping it into her purse. Rhaena did the same, kissing her fingertips and touching the pictures before flipping up the visor again and kissing their mother’s silver wedding band on her right hand. It’d been a ritual for the whole family for nearly as long as Baela could remember, starting after they’d lost Daelor, and the rings had become a part of it later.
“Rhae?”
Her sister paused, hand still on the door handle, “Yeah?”
I love you. Thank you. How do you stay sane? Will you help me stay sane? I don’t know what I’m doing. I caught Dad looking up good divorce attorneys. Do you believe in me? Do you believe in this? Do I believe in this? Do I believe in him? Do I believe he’ll go through with this?
She blinked furiously against tears, “Thank you for coming with me.”
Rhaena smiled.
“You couldn’t have kept me home if you tried, honestly.”
. . .
March 4, 2006
When they left the dealership in the little green car, they still hadn’t gone straight home.
They’d found a church parking lot, empty on a Saturday afternoon, and her mother had brought her up to the front seat and let her sit on her lap so she could see over the hood. Pointed out the blinkers, the windshield wipers, the high beams, the hazard lights, put her hand with the pretty sparkling wedding rings over Baela’s own on the levers and buttons. She’d let Baela pick the radio station, leaning back into her chest as she’d twirled the dials, snuggling in as her mother brushed a hand over her hair.
Her mother had been the one to work the brakes and gas, watching with approval as Baela figured out the rest. The blinkers, going from parked to reverse to forward, each new skill bringing giggling and joy.
“Every good car needs a good name,” Her mother had said once she was back in her seat all buckled up and on their way home, “Do you have any in mind?”
Moondancer, she’d said without hesitation, Moondancer, Moondancer, Moondancer-
. . .
November 11, 2021
The car lot was surprisingly busy for a Thursday night as she parked, watching as families wandered through the rows and were followed by hurried salesmen.
They’d outgrown Moondancer long ago, they just hadn’t been willing to admit it, cramming bags and babies and themselves into a car that seemed to grow smaller by the day. Baela could keep it, yes, but did Moondancer deserve to sit and collect dust in a parking space? In the garage at High Tide? No, Moondancer needed someone. Rhaena was attached to her car, Baela’s babies were far too young to keep it for one of them, and Luke wouldn’t be allowed to even lay a hand on its wheel until he was fifty, at least.
Moondancer needed a person, not to sit and rust, and Baela needed to take care of her family.
She’d come alone, it was something she had to do alone. Part with all the memories on her own time while her babies were at home, their carseats in the hallway and no longer cramped into her backseat. No crying other than her own, no pleas for snacks or to be held or to be allowed to run down the aisles of cars, just her own feet, her hands, her eyes, her hurting heart. Her hands as they flipped down the visor and her eyes as they saw her mother’s face, her dad looking so much younger, Rhaena’s gap-toothed smile, and Daelor’s ultrasound peeking out from beneath it. She kissed her fingertips, touched the photos, and for the first time in a very, very long time, took them down. The corners of both pictures were worn soft and frail from a decade of good lucks, looking so very out of place in her palm. The clear imprint of it was still there on the visor when she looked up, pale against the signs of age and time even with dedicated care and cleaning.
The photos went into an envelope and then into her purse before she turned to the chain that hung down from the rear view every time she drove. Her mother’s engagement ring glittered and gleamed at the bottom of the loop, swaying and clinking against the other rings on the chain, and Baela lifted the necklace off of the rearview with care. She kissed her mother’s ring as she always did and dropped the chain with the rest of the rings into her palm.
The rings Jace had given her when they were eighteen sparkled against her skin, gold against her mother’s silver, the round halo against the emerald cut. It’d been years now, since she wore them, a different set of rings on her finger now. A different proposal. A different wedding.
It felt strange, taking off her rings, the ones encrusted with diamonds and tiny pearls around a pear cut stone. Alexandrite, soft purple against her skin and the gold and the sheen of the pearls.
It felt even stranger to try on those old rings again, the ones with so many memories, good and bad. Sometimes more bad than she was willing to admit. The halo glittered just as it had in this very car when she’d sat with Rhaena outside of the bridal salon. Just as it had when she and Jace had driven back to DC to start school. Just as it had when life had crumbled around them and all they could do was tread water.
She slipped the old rings off her finger, dropping it back onto the chain where it clinked against her mother’s, and the alexandrite ring took its rightful place once more.
A different ring.
A different proposal.
A different wedding.
She wasn’t that girl anymore.
She could never be the girl who wore those rings again.