Helena Godiva

Joff does not!!!! know!!!!1 what!!!!! to think about Helena!!!!!!  One one hand, he’s met Alex and Droyn and their sister whose name I can’t remember rn #facepalm and Theodoric and thought they were all awesome.  On the other hand, he’s also met Rowena…and we can guess pr freely what he might think of her ;DDDD  Obv Helena’s had more contact w her sister than her parents, though not a ~ton of either, so Joff is like ????????????  Generally, he likes the Godivas and considers Rowena to be the fluke, but still, it’s hard to say what Helena might be like.  He’s about to meet her, though, as he rides through the east, and I can assure you, it will be w mingled curiosity, admiration, and suspicion hahaha

So yeah, basically I feel like this probably isn’t their very first meeting, but it has definitely been a long time!!!! (I do feel like they probably got on well when they were kids like that 1 time haha but yeah) 

Anyway, makes total sense that he would be ????? about her. tbh she probably doesn’t help her case in that department b/c right now she is very clearly pro!!!!rowena!!!!!!!!!! (ofc she is also sUPER sheltered!) anyway, as long as he didn’t start saying bad things about rowena to her, I’m sure helena would still like him! and she’d have all kinds of questions for him about the south and his journey towards the north and would be happy for him since his ~supposedly!~ trying to find a wife 

MY SISTER ONCE TOLD ME YOU WERE V HELPFUL THAT NIGHT but she didn’t mention how KLADJFLKJSDJFKJSDLFJ DS tristan: *deadpan* ‘i’ll bet she didn’t’  I WANT TO PERSONALLY THANK YOU cue Tristan looking directly at the camera tbqh kalsdjflkjdskljfkld NOT EVEN KIDDING LKSJDAKFLJSD tristan will be like ‘omGGGG’ if/when that happens bc like…did she literally just thank him for murdering her family??????  Tristan: ‘…np…i guess…sorry about your uncle??????? possibly?????’

No, but I feel like these two could actually be friends?…if they ever got past *vague gesturing* all of thaT.  I feel like they have similar temperaments, plus it’s nice to know he’ll probably never have to kill her *thumbs up* but I do think he’d occasionally act weird around her bc yknow he killed her fam and he knows that he knows and knows that she doesN”T know and its…messy and alsO since she looks so much like Elianora who he LITERALLy killed that probs wigs him out sometimes #thatawkwardmoment and ofc I have a feeling asp she’ll figure out what happened and that would probably put a damper on things just…saying hahaha

Yeah, I totally agree that they would be friends!!!!!!! Like Helena trusts him with her life!! Plus, honestly out of the people Rowena seems to trust a lot he’s probably her favorite?????? just like doesn’t 100% see the appeal of cassius and dezod but chalks that up to more of being her problem than theirs haha but w/ tristan she’s like “what a great guy!!!!” 

also, since his ~official~ position is basically like the head of her sister’s guard, I can see him potentially being tasked to guard helena a lot???? (especially since he’s def 100% just for show on rowena’s part haha) also helena is realizing that she needs someone with her who knows the castle just to y’know GET AROUND (also having someone like tristan with her also ensures that she doesn’t accidentally walk into something she shouldn’t be seeing lol)  

She was pretty, this little sister of the queen’s.  Pale, petite, delicate, with big blue eyes that seemed to dominate her whole face.  Pretty, in a human kind of way.  Much like the mother, mused Dezòd, thinking of her dead eyes staring, staring, staring as her own blood dyed her white gown the colors of her natural house.  Yes, this was the traditional role of House Arrington: bleeding out on a stone floor for want of a crown.  And what was it all for?  The next would die the same and the same and the same for generations upon generations and little in Aragoth ever seemed to change for all of that.  But Dezòd had learned to take what he could from the chaos and to give nothing in return.

“Lost, dearie?” he inquired, emerging from a shadowy corner (of which Rowena’s castle had a delightful amount) of the room where Helena now stood, looking somewhat confused.  He wrinkled his nose.  “It’s a big castle.  Easy to do.”  Dezòd strolled towards her, let her take in his shocking appearance at her leisure as he approached.  Sheltered little thing, he doubted she had ever seen anything quite like him.  But then, who had?  

The corners of Dezòd‘s lips turned upward as he approached.  “What’re ya looking for?” he inquired.  He was no longer speaking of the palace, however.  It didn’t especially matter, of course: Helena’s key interest to Dezòd lay in her connection to Rowena.  Her little sister was the only thing his pupil seemed to love.  Dezòd did not understand why.  Still, that would only make Helena more enjoyable to toy with, particularly as Dezòd needed Rowena at her most emotionally vulnerable.  She was much more likely to lash out that way, and a provoked Rowena could keep Roran Degrey busy, which was just how Dezòd needed him.  Strange, how this wan girl before him was the key to all of that.

She dreamt of the man from the village again and this time, she saw his fall. It wasn’t from the tops of a wall, as she had imagined, but from the back of a mighty dragon. Down, down, down he’d gone, until the earth rose up to meet them.

He had been a dragon rider. He had been the enemy. 

It was just a dream, she reminded herself. Just a dream. Cassius Montagu had killed all of the traitors: he would not have let one go. Still, there was a nagging part of her wanted to say something to someone -- what if it wasn’t just a dream? What if one of them had survived? What if she knew where they could find him? But part of her felt silly for even considering it. Not all of her dreams were true, she reminded herself. It only felt that way, because she had dreamed of a man she’d never met before. It was more likely, she was sure, that they had met once before, but neither of them had remembered. 

She’d been too deep in thought to pay much attention to where she was going. She only missed one turn, but it was enough. She found herself in an unfamiliar part of the castle. It was poorly lit down this particular corridor. She knew she wasn’t going the right way and turning, she moved back to come the way she came when Dezód emerged from the shadows. She gasped, startled but his sudden appearance. 

“I am. Very.” She admitted, unsure even at what side of the castle she was on, “I was trying to find my way back to my rooms but ... I think I must have missed a turn, a while back.” 

She had met him only once. It had been sometime after her parents death, but before she was sent to the East. She was scared of him then and, even now, even as she knew how he was a trusted member of her sister’s council, there was something about him that made her uneasy. She felt that it must only be his appearance: only she hoped she wasn’t as unkind as that.

Charles froze.  Even his blood felt chill.  ‘Not a sword,’ she’d said.  There was a prick in his gut.  “Why…” Charles forced a smile he didn’t feel, laughed a laugh that was not merry.  His mouth had gone dry.  “Why a sword?” he blurted, before he’d thought.  He remembered the blood racing from the wound, spilling over his brows into his eye.  He remembered gazing up towards where Cassius’ face was but, silhouetted against the flames beyond, he’d seen nothing.  That, he often thought, was perhaps a true depiction of Cassius Montagu than he’d ever seen, looking him in the eye.  As far as Charles was concerned, Cassius had made of himself merely the figure of a man without a face or a heart or a soul.

Realizing what he’d said, Charles clapped his hands together, glancing away, laughing as though it were all nothing to him.  His eyes betrayed him, however, quick with the fires he’d once beheld.  He could not think of anything else, now that the moment had been suggested to him.  

‘I only thought that someone may have hurt you.’  A fatal crunch, Cassius’ sword sinking deep beneath her sapphire scales.  Naerys’ scream rent the air.  And he felt he was falling again, falling with her, wind rushing past him, whipping his face, Naerys’ voice screaming in his head to save himself, save himself, save himself…He’d kept his promises to her these fifteen years, but he’d thought when Cassius stood over him that he was good as dead.  Still, he did not know why Cassius had spared him when he’d slaughtered everyone else.  Often, Charles had wished he had not.

She’d said she took an interest, he tried to go back, tried to draw her attention back to that.  “It is very kind of you, Your Grace,” he replied.  “To take an interest.”  Clearly, he thought wryly, she was not interested enough.  His scar, for as traumatic an event as had earned it, was little and less compared to the suffering of the people around them.  Whole families starving to support a lavish gala thrown in the princess’s own honor…it was unfathomable.  If she would pursue him, if she had found him out…the least he could do, was feed it back to her.

It was a foolish thing, he knew, but the words were out before he’d thought.  In his youth, Charles had been always reckless and impulsive.  It seemed to be a DeGrey trait.  And, dragon or no, Charles was a dragonrider in his bones.  It was in his nature to protect the innocent.  

Charles spoke with all the considerable force he felt.  “I assure you, I’ve less need of your interest than most.  The Queen’s bills do cruelly tax her people, taking bread from the mouths of starving children.  Perhaps your attention would be better employed in serving them.”

“I – “ Helena shook her head, wishing that she had not said those last words. His question had thrown her so off balance that she failed to notice his expression at her words … failed to notice that there might have been much more truth to all of this than she thought. “I don’t know. I … I have something of an overactive imagination that tends to err on the side of the dramatic. When first I saw it, I confess to having thought the worst.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly and managed something of a laugh. It was meant to help clear the air, but she felt suddenly awkward and uncomfortable and wished she knew what to say next.

Talking with strangers was still proving to be difficult. She realized that conversations did not always come with the same ease as they did when she spoke with Aurora. She wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t be having this conversation with him, at all. But she was too far in now, and she wasn’t sure how to get out.

The uncomfortableness of the moment vanished as soon as he accused her sister. Her gaze, which had drifted to the ground, shot up to meet his. How could anyone speak this way of her sister?

“I … I don’t understand … ”

Rowena had never wanted this; she’d never thought that such a heavy responsibility should fall her way. And when it did, she met it with a great determination: to be as fair and just a ruler as her parents had been before her. She had such a heavy task ahead of her: she must rebuild the city from the ashes all while trying to keep the country united after the rebellion of the dragon riders … those that so many had believed the creator himself had bestowed upon Aragoth to protect them.

And despite all of this, the country still flourished under her reign! How could anyone think ill of her? How could anyone think that she was doing anything other than what she thought was right?

okay but I feel like ed and helena could actually become friends???? like, I feel like helena ends up spending a lot of her time alone (when she isn’t with aurora) since like her sister is super busy and evie and celia are busy freeing captives and cordelia likes hanging with outlaws and the rest of her fam is either in jail or plotting to murder the rest of her family and so like???? then there’s just helena who knows things are complicated but has no idea just hOW complicated haha. 

aNYWAY, yeah so I feel like she spends a lot of her time in the library or in the gardens just sort of with a book or her thoughts ... also I feel like she still sometimes gets lost trying to navigate the castle??? like it’s pretty familiar but it has also been suCH a long time and things have also changed, i’m sure, since rowena took over and I also feel like she gets a little over confident in her abilities like “i know where i’m going in my own house!!!!” *two seconds later* “haha okay where am i???” and yeah, i feel like ed has come to her rescue more than once haha

It was late, Evie knew (though the exact time was difficult to gauge, she’d learned, in those cells), and she had no idea what she would say to her mother, but Evie had had no intention of rushing the interview.  The mud in the prison had done her fine court gown no favors and Evie was paying more mind to keeping it from trailing mud throughout the Imperial Palace than to those who were moving around nearby until she rounded the corner and found herself face to face with her cousin.  

“Helena!” she exclaimed as the two girls embraced.  Given the circumstances, it was particularly wonderful to see a friendly face whose first instinct was to embrace her.  However, as Helena pulled away, Evie was gripped with the icy fear - if she could not trust her own mother or the queen, who was to say she could trust Helena?  It was ridiculous…but it was also the truth.  She decided to be open and truthful and let the rest fall where it may.  After all, she knew that she could not let matters stand, but she had not yet made up her mind as to what she would do so there was not yet anything to hide.

“I-I-” Evie shrugged.  “I went to see your uncle in the prisons.  Well, first I went to appeal to the Queen for his liberty and then, when I was denied, I went to see him.”  Taking Helena by the hand, she led her to some seats in a more private area of the palace.  “As much as I am loathe to disagree with both my mother and your sister…I do.  I cannot accept the notion that your uncle murdered Jon Valles.  He’s not the cold blooded murder sort!”  She shrugged helplessly.  “Besides, if he were going to do it, I’d wager you anything he’d be much more clever about it.”  She paused, glanced down at her hands.  “Tell me, Helena…Do you think he did it?”

“Oh!” Helena met with Evie’s explanation of her whereabouts with some surprise. She had not expected such a dramatic explanation regarding where she had been and the conversation quickly turned a more serious turn. In truth, Helena hardly knew what to think. She had been, at first, so firmly determined that there had been some sort of mistake. She could not believe that anyone, let alone her uncle! could have done such a thing to anyone (and on their wedding day, no less!).

Upon learning the details, that proved that it had been murder and not some unfortunate accident, she reluctantly came to terms with the idea that a life had been intentionally taken ... but she still could not believe that it had been Alexandir Godiva that had done it. It seemed, however, that her perception of her uncle had been one she had viewed through rose colored glasses ... and that it was, in reality, nothing like what her family had once led her to believe. Both her sister and her aunt stood firmly upon this point. 

She did not think anyone still thought him innocent and she was surprised to see that Evie remained steadfastly in his corner. “Evie, I ... I hardly know what to think. I once could not believe that he was capable of such of thing! But both my sister and your mother have both confessed to me that they were afraid that it was only a matter of time before he did something so drastic! And both feel partly responsible for what happened, having done nothing to prevent it -- and choosing to hope for the best! I hope and pray that they are wrong but ... in the end, they know him and I do not.” 

Avelina was surprised, shocked even, by the quick display of affection, the trusting way that Helena locked Avelina - nearly a stranger to her - into an embrace when she thought of her pain.  Avelina wanted to cringe away.  She feared what even the faintest touch of intimacy with this girl might mean.  After all, there was every chance that someday, for Lynessa’s sake, Helena Godiva would have to die, but Avelina had not been so embraced by anyone in a long, long time - longer than she cared to remember - and she found herself returning it, despite her own will, as though taken hold of my some mad impulse that belonged to another.  Helena was warm and Avelina had been cold for a very long time.

When she drew away, Avelina flicked away the threatening tears quickly, shook her head.  “Don’t mind me, child.  I am grown weary with care, you see, and silly - much too easy for a grown woman and mother alone to do.”  She laughed, humorlessly.  “I hope you will not be so for long.”  She touched her niece’s arm.  “Good things happen in the Imperial City, too, I promise you.  It is merely that your coming coincided with a most unfortuitous event.  Happiness will come again before long,” assured Avelina, envisioning Lynessa crowned.  “You will see.”

She spoke of Alexandir and Avelina glanced suddenly down.  Braiding her arm through Helena’s, she strolled through the Hall of the Gods, listlessly.  “These are heavy tidings, indeed, it seems I must bear.  Helena, dear, has…has no one at all warned you of him?”  She looked into Helena’s eyes with genuine concern, wondering what a thing it must be to grow up under the pretense of Alexandir Godiva’s goodness.  It was a thing to her unthinkable.

“Sweet girl,” commented Avelina, softly, running a hand through Helena’s flaxen curls.  She dropped the hand to Helena’s wrist.  “Come,” she said.  “Sit with me.  I suppose it is time you learned the sad truth about your uncle,” she began, pausing to compose her words, her thoughts.  “I hope you will believe me when I tell you that our deception was meant to safeguard your own wellbeing, your sweet innocence.”  She smiled softly, sadly.  “But I fear, instead, we have wronged you.”

Avelina sat on one of the benches in the hall, waited for Helena to occupy the spot beside her.  “Power, as you may know, is a heady thing,” she said, slowly, uncomfortably.  Avelina did not know where to begin with a secret as immense as this one: where to at once rip away the tapestry and where, instead, to take it down stitch-by-stitch.  “Some, like your parents, wield it most beautifully.  Others…” Avelina’s voice trailed off, she looked away.  She paused, returned her gaze.  “Perhaps, sweet girl, you might tell me what you do know of your uncle and then I shall know better how to begin?”

Helena felt her heart beat faster and faster in her chest. 

She didn’t like the thought of having been deceived. Her aunt spoke with such tenderness and concern, that Helena could not be angry (it had been meant, after all, for her own protection). But there seemed to be a great many things that she did not know about her uncle and she did not expect of them to be good. 

“Very little, I’ll admit. I know he was my father’s younger brother and I know that he loved him dearly. I have some memories of him from when I was a child ... but I was so very young then, and I cannot say that I ever knew him well. Or, if I did, I do not remember it. He was always very kind to me. Beyond that, I’m afraid I only know what is generally known about him. I know he led our armies into victory against the Southern Isles and secured peace after decades of war. I know that he returned home a hero.” 

She paused, “Truthfully, I confess I only have heard good things about him before this ... if he had been said to have had any flaws, it was that he, perhaps, drinks too much.” This she had seen evidence of ... recalling the heated interaction between himself and Jon Valles the night before the wedding. She’d never seen two people so angry with each other in her life. She had chalked it up to having lived such a sheltered life, but if she was honest, the confrontation, quick as it had been, had frightened her. 

Recently events had Cordelia deeply unsettled.  Going to the palace, she sought out her most rational cousin.  

“Ugh, I don’t know what to do about all this!” exclaimed Cordelia, throwing up her hands.  “I just want it to be all right.  For everyone.  How awful that our home is consumed by this terror and sadness.  And poor Celia and Lynessa!  They deserve only the best, how have they come to receive the worst?  And how can anyone complain so bitterly that your uncle murdered Jon Valles?  It is all so preposterous!  Of course murder is wrong,” she added quickly.  “And I am dreadfully sorry for poor Lynessa, but..” she bit her lip, whispering.  It was wretched, she knew, to speak ill of the dead, but… “Jon Valles was a terrible person.  Surely you don’t believe he’s guilty, really, do you?  I won’t be half surprised if Jon attacked him and Alexandir was simply forced to defend himself!”  Cordelia didn’t care for Alexandir as much as she might, but the whole thing was quite blown out of proportion.  Alexandir wasn’t a terrible person, though she didn’t quite trust him - Dmitrei and Aunt Avelina had warned him against her against him too many times for Cordelia to be so naive as that - but to put up a hue and cry over someone nobody liked anyway as though Alexandir were now the demon god himself incarnate for such an act…It was all so ludicrous.

Cordelia had lived her whole life in spoiled pleasure.  All these events so soon upon each other, causing her family to turn on itself, was utterly unthinkable to her just a week earlier.  Cordelia was spoiled, but she was generous too, and she only wanted to fix the whole thing - which she was certain was all a great misunderstanding - for everyone and go back to the way things had been.  How anyone was caught up in the madness enough to actually believe it baffled Cordelia and she looked forward to its happy conclusion.

“Was it ever like this at Vysova?” inquired Cordelia, listlessly, throwing herself backwards onto the bed to stare at the ceiling.  She rolled over to face Helena.  She was tired of all this.  She wanted it to be over already.  Inactivity irritated and stifled her and, seeing that there was nothing she could do about it was endlessly frustrating.  The talk felt pointless unless there was something it could achieve.  She told herself there was - because of course it was all so absurd and everyone must see that - but it was so hard to crawl out from under it all.

Helena frowned, as her cousin suggested that Jon Valles had attacked her uncle. “Was Jon Valles truly so terrible as that?” She asked. Of course, to consider the alternative was to think the same of her uncle. “What could have provoked either of them to do such a thing?” She wondered, aloud, “And at Jon’s own wedding, of all days! Everyone had seemed so happy. I do not understand it.”

She paused, turning to Cordelia, “But you do not believe it was my uncle, do you?” She asked. “I wish I knew him better. But I can’t imagine that he would be able to take a life unless it was to defend himself or someone else.” But then, Helena could not fathom anyone, even Jon Valles, killing without reason. How very wrong she was.

Helena exhaled. Truthfully, she felt so utterly helpless. There wasn’t anything she could do, but she wished she could somehow solve all of their problems. She wished she could ease Lynessa’s grief and aide Celia in rehabilitating. “What can we do for them?” Helena asked. She wished she knew them better, too, but her aunt had never let them travel so far away when they were all children and Helena hardly knew them, either.

Helena managed a laugh, “You know it was not!” Cordelia was one of the few visitors she ever had and, as such, one of the few who could attest to what life was like there. “You coming to visit was the most exciting thing that ever happened.”

When Cordelia asked her about the men in the west, Helena could only shake her head, “Oh, goodness, no! I rarely had any visitors. The only men who ever came to see me were the Viponts and … “ She did not wish to be unkind, but none of them had turned her head. “… well, to answer your question, no.” 

And since coming to the East, things had been no different. But then, as they had been discussing, so much had happened since her arrival. There had been balls and dinners and funerals and weddings and trials and, soon, executions. Sometimes it felt like they didn’t have time enough to breathe, let alone make new acquaintances. 

“There is little enough to see there,” replied Charles with a slight shrug.  “I’m not so very surprised you do not remember it.  It looks much like any other village, I suppose.”  Its unremarkability had been just one more attraction to Charles, as he was a man who very much wished to blend in.  He’d thought himself safe, then, as he did now, until he heard her question.  All at once, the air went out of him.

Char gasped to life, shook his head violently against the black engulfment that had swarmed his eyes.  He became vaguely aware of his body, of its ache, of the wounds that dotted it, of the dull throb that ran through his head and raised an instinctive hand to clutch at it.  He staggered to his feet, grasping the sword that lay by his side and gazed upwards.  Soot and smoke choked the dawn-clouded sky, raining in blackened embers upon his head.  Still fires smoldered all across the barren fields, strewn with the corpses of dragons and their riders.  Char had to find his dragon.  He had to find Naerys.

Charles blinked, rocked an instinctive half-step back before steadying himself where he stood.  He felt as breathless, as though she had struck him, but he formed a smile, he laughed.  It was a good thing, he found, to laugh.  He knew well how to disarm.  Roguish adventures through childhood with Naerys and Will and Aegon had proven enough to teach him that much.  Yet, he couldn’t for all his life think of a suitable lie.  All he could think was of that day, and its wretched night.

Tears streaked the dirt of Char’s face, running in rivulets across his cheeks.  He’d fallen, yes, fallen from the sky with dying Naerys beneath him, and he’d left Will and Aegon alone to fight an indefatiguable foe…A foe who, it seemed, could no longer be killed.  Every blow they struck instantly healed, every surge of magic clouded impotently to nothing about him.  None of the other dragons or riders could say the same.  Like snowfall, they tumbled from the sky, streaking the countryside in a grisly display of horror.

“I am but a simple farmer,” he said with a shrug, forming laughter he did not feel.  “What care has a princess in how I win my scars?  They’re simple enough,” he said, rapidly, trying to think how.  A fall, he thought, desperately, and he remembered the air screaming past his ears as he tumbled to the ground.  He felt ill, felt as though he would collapse or vomit all over her pretty shoes.

“I promise, Naerys,” he whispered.  “I swear it.”  But she was gone and he was alone, alone until the great shadow swallowed him, engulfing half the countryside as Rhaegar and his rider descended from the skies.  The traitor tossed Will’s blade to the ground beside him.

“Your brother’s sword,” Cassius announced and Char knew that Will was dead.

“It was a fall, Your Grace.  Fifteen years ago…”  Foolish, foolish, he thought too late.  He ought to have made it another time, altogether, but now the words were said and they could not be withdrawn.  He laughed again, but this time the smile could not reach his eyes.  “A fool I was,” he said.  To ever trust Cassius Montagu, he thought.

Steel rang out as Char raced forward, his own sword held aloft.  Handily, Cassius parried the blow and Rhaegar turned hungry molten eyes upon the lad.  “Kneel,” Cassius said again.  “Swear fidelity to Queen Rowena and you shall live.”

With a wild cry, Char charged the other dragonrider once again.

Charles shrugged.  “It is…kind of Your Grace to take an interest,” he said and belatedly he wondered if every country peasant from Dorwine knew the correct address for the Queen’s own sister.  “But it was merely an accident.  I failed, you see, failed to be wary as I ought and I was struck in the head by a passing branch as I rode.  I ought to have been more prepared.  I ought to have seen it coming.”

Cassius’ sword was swift as it was sharp.  He laid Char flat on his back, his sword lost to his grip.  Desperately, Char scrambled backwards, towards where he knew Will’s sword lay, but Cassius came close and held the sword to his throat.  Cassius raised his sword.  With a flick of his wrist, it sliced upwards and down.  Char opened his eyes with surprise; he’d expected death.  Instead, blood streamed from above his right brow.  

She said she should not have asked and Charles’ smirk was real.  He, too, wished that she had not, but there was a queer humor in that: a question that left them both discomfited was a question indeed.  “I pray you,” he said, breezily.  “Do not make yourself uneasy.  I pray you not to think of it again,” he added with a shrug, though it was the most truthful sentiment he’d expressed throughout their discussion.

He prayed and prayed and prayed she forgot it entirely.  Unfortunately, that did not seem likely, given the expression glimmering in her eye, half of comprehension, half of confusion.  Cassius knew Charles was alive.  Had he betrayed the secret, Charles wondered?  It would not have come as a shock to learn that he had.  Betrayal was one thing Charles had come to expect from his one-time friend.

“Someday, I swear it, someday I will come back,” cried Char.  “I will come back and on that day, remember these words.  Remember how I swore a far more lasting oath: I will come back and I will kill you as on this day you have killed.”

“How?”  The word settled into the air like falling ash.  Cassius’ eyes had gone cold; his tone was flippant, a mockery to Char’s bloody wounds.  He stared at Char long and hard, long and hard and utterly without feeling.  At last, he continued.  “You have no dragon, Charles.  You are not a Dragonrider anymore, are you?  How do you propose to kill the last of my kind?”

“It was a very long time ago, Your Grace,” said Charles.  And then he lied; lied, and wondered if she knew that it had all been lies.  “I’ve not thought of it in nearly as many years.”  Yet…yet, he had to know, found the expression of her eyes too curious to leave be.  “Why do you ask?”

Cassius bent and lifted the blade towards which Char had scrambled.  Extending an arm, he presented Will’s sword to the boy, hilt-first.  “You have the sword of a Dragonrider, already.  Have another and know that, even with it, your oath can never come to fruition.”  Cassius turned his pale gaze to the smoking ruin he had wrought and to the sky he breathed, “I have made an end of it.”  

Without another word, Cassius mounted his dragon and flew far away.  Dawn edged into gold glory over a new day.

It was a fall. 

She almost felt it as he said it. He fell, not from a horse, but from the sky, faster and faster as the earth came to meet him. But he’d survived? How? Where had he fallen from? What had broken his fall? 

“I take an interest in all of my subjects,” She said. She and her sister were responsible for many, many lives. Sometimes it felt like a weight she could not carry and, not for the first time, she wondered how her sister seemed to so easily manage it. 

When he asked why she had asked about his scar to begin with, however, it was now her turn to pause. She knew she could not tell him the truth. Because I dreamt it ... only in my dream it was not the fall that did it. 

Instead, she settled on a half truth. 

“I -- I only thought that someone may have hurt you,” She replied, softly. But it had only been a fall. He had said so. Perhaps her dream had been wrong? Although that did not explain why he had frequented her dreams, despite never having met her. Nor did it explain how she had seen the blow that caused the scar. So if her dreams had been true, what cause had he to lie?

Or had her dreams only been half truths? 

She wished she knew. She could not tell if he had been telling her the truth. She had never been much good at discerning what others were thinking, especially if she barely knew them. 

She could tell that the conversation, in general, had put him ill at ease but who could blame him for that? She’d noted in her brief time since returning home that commoners (and even some nobles!) did not feel comfortable in her presence. She supposed they must feel intimidated and unsure around royalty, but she wanted to tell them all how silly that was! She was to serve them as much as they were to serve her. If her sister had no children of her own, Helena would be queen one day and she meant to know the people she was to rule and she wanted them to know her. How could she accomplish anything if they were too afraid to speak freely? 

She had many questions and more about her dreams, but she doubted he could answer any of them. Until today, she’d never thought that they were anything but that: dreams. But now she’d seen proof that perhaps there was more to them than that. She was determined to tell her sister when she returned. Perhaps she would know what to do. Helena doubted she knew much about magical dreams, themselves, but perhaps one of her advisors would. Cassius Montagu was a dragonrider and Dézod was a great sorcerer. 

It was overwhelming, the full lot of it.  Naerys’ egg hatching - for Roran, no less! - joining the Resistance, raising a dragon, propelling Roran into just the position his father before him had held…being Charles DeGrey again after fifteen years spent as Charles Drake.  He hardly knew what to do.  Knowing that both Roran and Arya were well looked after, Charles plunged deep into the woods, hoping to get away from all of it for a spell, to take some time to himself and sort through it all.

Out here the woods were peaceful, frought with the natural sounds of wind rustling trees and chirruping birds.  Walking and walking and walking, Charles hardly saw any of it go by, so lost was he in thought.  He felt perfectly blind to it…until he realized not only that he’d come to the edge of a road, but that a convoy approached - a convoy trundling along behind Helena Godiva.  Since the death of her cousin-in-law and the kidnapping of her cousin, security had apparently tightened…and Charles had strolling blindly into the thick of such a throng.  Yet, no sooner had he swapped a few lines with the princess than she whispered to her servant…and the soldiers dispersed.

Gazing back and forth between the retreating figures and the princess, Charles was filled with confusion.  He half-suspected a trap…yet this seemed a queer thing, indeed.  Perhaps they feared he’d not lost all his magic when he’d lost his dragon ((had he?)) which caused them to resort to trickery…yet, surely, Cassius could overcome him in any case.  Afterall, Naerys was dead and Rhaegar was not.

Shifting, he eyed her troupe of guards before returning his attention to her.  Her question caught him off guard.  Charles Drake again, Charles Drake, he tried to think, desperately.  Had he ever been…

“Can’t say that I have.  I come from Dorwine and haven’t had much opportunity to travel.”  It was a curious question, indeed, and he wetted his lips.  “I wonder…” he cleared his throat.  “Has Your Grace been there?”  Charles sincerely doubted it.  “Perhaps you take me for another.”  He formed a smile he didn’t feel.  “I imagine I’d remember meeting a princess.”

And, by all the gods, he did.  It was the day Cassius met Rowena, as well.  It was the day that had damned Cassius and condemned all their friends to death.

Everything about this situation was odd. 

The man before her, she’d seen so many times in her dreams. How could she have dreamt of him so clearly, if they had never met? She’d always thought her dreams were just that -- dreams. But perhaps there was more. Was she seeing the past? Or the future? She wished she could see what was happening more clearly. All she knew, was that he was there. 

She hadn’t stopped to think about what everyone else must think of her actions. She was a princess who had stopped her caravan to speak privately with a man she’d never met before. The guards seemed uncertain, the man seemed uncertain, even Aurora seemed uncertain. 

But she didn’t know how to explain her actions and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. 

It would have been better to turn away now, she thought, but she found she did not want to. When she spoke with him, somehow it seemed to make things clearer. It was though the missing piece to the puzzle was just out of reach, hovering right by her fingertips. And if she could only jump a little higher, she could reach it. 

“I believe I may have ridden through Dorwaine on my east but ... I cannot say that I know it well.” And she did not recall meeting anyone while there.” She paused, unsure of what more there was to say. He did not seem to know her (and why should he? Where would she have met him, even as a child?). “But I fear you are right. Forgive me, I must have mistaken you for someone else.” 

She was about to leave when she noticed a scar above his right brow. And she remembered. It was a flash; a fragment; another piece. A man dressed all in black with flames at his back; his face hidden in shadow, stood over him, sword in hand. He swung and his blow was deflected from its original target but scraped his face instead.  

As she spoke, Cassius nodded.  He recalled the capitol under her father: a gleaming citadel, renowned across all of Aragoth as the height of civilization, a haven of learning and peace and prosperity.  Droyn’s daughter had made of it something entirely different.  But then, she had begun her reign with usurpation and one bloody night that ended hundreds of lives by use of fire and the darkest magic.  And Cassius, yes, he had told himself that he did it all for love.  He wondered, now, if that had ever been true.  Had he truly ever loved the queen he now knew was a monster?  And if he had not, was that better…or worse still?

Helena, however, seemed much more to resemble her parents than did her sister, who seemed to take more after her aunt.  But he wondered - was Helena merely putting up the same front that had once fooled him into a passion for Rowena?  Madness, yes, there was madness in the Arrington line.  Histories whispered of it, saying that somewhere in the darkness House Godiva had struck out because of it, but always the possibility was dismissed.  Now, however, Cassius felt the notion stood proven.

“Vysova is one of the most peaceful places in all of Aragoth.  I imagine a childhood spent there was equally…pacific,” he commented, as though such a life as she now led were ordinary.  Certainly, it was not that, either, but Cassius did not know how to say that.  So he did not try.

He stopped dead.  Turning towards Helena, Cassius tried to form some response that would satisfy her.  Was Alexandir Godiva VI a good man?  “I believe, Your Grace,” began Cassius, slowly, blue gaze flickering towards the flaming torch on the wall beyond her.  His fellow dragonriders writhed deep in the flames.  “It is our choices that define who we are.  One who commits evil acts is evil, whatever he may think or feel afterwards.”  Focusing again on her face, Cassius formed a smile that did not reach his eyes.  “Otherwise, perhaps, he may have been a good man, but we cannot say what might have happened in another world.  Missed opportunities aren’t truly possibilities: they’re points of condemnation for those who fail the test.”

Glancing away again, he bit the inside of his cheek.  “Your uncle,” he resumed, but he did not look at her, now, looking ahead as he started forward once more.  “Did as much as any good man might to earn such a title.  What was in his heart, only he can know.”  And the gods, reminded some half-pious afterthought instilled by a life time of prayers in which he scarcely believed.  “We mortals can judge only by actions,” he added with some bitterness.  

Cassius wished fervently that he had killed Jon Valles.  He wished he had expunged that dead-eyed plague, himself, and perhaps it might have blotted out one or two of the evil acts he’d committed himself.  He wished he would go to the block, himself.  At least he’d know it was an act of justice.  Alexandir Godiva did not deserve to die, but Cassius did.

Her apology startled him and Cassius turned questingly to look into her face.  Even at her mock-best, Rowena enjoyed a good entrapment, and Cassius’s eyes narrowed.  “I would judge your uncle most kindly, for myself,” said Cassius, finally.  “And while there are those who share my high opinion of him, there are those who do not.  He is, I think, blunt to his own detriment, and in his position, that is a dangerous thing to be.  But I once called him friend, and did so longer, I think, than he called me such.”  And with good reason, Cassius meditated.  He could not begin to think of deeply Alexandir must loathe him now.  He could not blame him.  But that was why Alexandir was dying - regardless of Jon - he knew too much, and his claim was superior.  One of those charges alone might have condemned him: the two together damned him.

“Your uncle is a difficult man to pin down, Your Grace,” said Cassius at last, shaking his head.  “There is no easy answer to your question.”  He paused.  “Have you no memories of him, whatsoever?”  These were valuable things to know in times like these.

“Pacific yes,” She agreed, “And uneventful. Days and weeks and months and years blended together there.” There was hardly anything that would distinguish one time from the next. Her memories of her time there were nonlinear and fragmented. She spend most of it too weak to leave her bed and she’d stray in and out of consciousness -- the only way to tell what was real and what was not was to apply logic to it. Her dreams sometimes felt more vivid than when she was awake and even those she had trouble piecing together. The only moments, the waking moments when she was strong enough to sit up in bed or even go for walks along the shoreline with Aurora were the most clear ... the most eventful. A handful of times she had had noble visitors from Old Shore and of course, Cordelia had come every few years to see her, too. 

“I wasn’t unhappy,” She said, quickly, suddenly aware that perhaps she sounded bitter or ungrateful. Because she wasn’t. She’d prayed and hoped that she’d grow stronger again and she had. There was no use in lamenting over lost time. So many had not been so lucky. So many had perished before their time. And she had just gotten her’s back. 

"Yes, I have a few memories.” She admitted, “But I was such a small child then.” She felt she couldn’t trust the judgements that she had made when she was young and naive. She didn’t realize just how young and naive she was still. “Once, when I was six or seven, I was supposed to be asleep, but I snuck out of bed. I’d climbed to the top of one of the towers and I stood there for a long time, watching the heavens and the dragons and their riders who I thought were protecting us. He found me, hours later, when the sun was starting to rise in the east. ‘You’re supposed to be asleep’ he’d said. I was afraid he was going to scold me and send me back to bed, but he didn’t. He just smiled down at me and then looked up to the sky and said ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ And then he told me the story of Alexandir Godiva V and his brother. And afterwards he did send me to bed.” 

She smiled softly at the memory. Everything had been so much simpler then. Everyone had been so much happier. She knew it was pointless to wish that things were different: it could drive you mad -- thinking about what could have been. She wished her parents were alive. She wondered what they would have said, now? Would they have believed her uncle capable of such a thing? 

“All of my memories of him are like that. I don’t remember seeing him often but ... when I did, he would tell me stories. Stories of knights and riders and dragons and kings. I know my father was very fond of him. I know he loved him very much. But love, I think, can blind us.”