snippet MONDAY because i’ve been deprived of being able to write lately but i still want to share this fic that’s almost done.
Dyanna came hurrying up to him. She had both the children in her arms, with Daeron balanced on one hip and Aerion held tightly to her chest. Her usually perfect hair was all out of sorts, and her chest heaved as she stopped to address him. “Have you heard?” she asked breathlessly.
“What?” Maekar looked behind her, as two ladies in waiting came hurrying up as well. “What’s going on?”
“It was one of Daemon’s boys, my lady,” one of them said. “We saw.” The ladies immediately all broke out into animated talk, each speaking over the other. They ignored his growing annoyance, until Aerion started to fuss in his mother’s arms and Dyanna quickly passed Daeron into his.
“What’s happened?” he asked his son, settling Daeron on his forearm.
Daeron, having only just recently learned how to speak full sentences, simply pointed in the direction they’d just come from. “Val!” he cried out, “Val in the water, Dada!”
“Valarr?” Maekar glanced down the path they’d just come up, where the royals’ private beach was accessible. It was cold, however, and the children shouldn’t be swimming in the water. His own boys were still dry, thankfully.
Two servants suddenly hurried past, faces stony as their footsteps echoed around the garden. Maekar’s heart began to beat furiously in his chest. Something felt terribly wrong. He tuned back into Dyanna’s conversation and stepped closer to her and the ladies. “Tell me what’s happened,” he demanded again.
Dyanna turned towards him in the middle of her sentence, effortlessly switching to answer his question. “Prince Valarr fell into the water at the dock.”
“Pushed,” one of the ladies broke in, though she quickly remembered her manners as her gaze flashed between Dyanna and Maekar, “he was pushed, my lady. We saw it. One of those silver-haired- oh, um. A little Blackfyre boy did it.”
It was as though someone had created a sentence that was made specifically to enrage him. Maekar looked at Dyanna, sure that this must be some odd jest. But she continued.
“And a Kingsguard jumped in to grab him, but all that armor weighed him down.”
“Lady Jena!” Another lady exclaimed, caught up in the excitement of the story. “She jumped in and beat him to the boy.”
“She did,” Dyanna rushed out. “Oh, Maekar, it was all so horrible, they were both shaking when they were pulled out of the water.” Her eyes were wide at the recollection. “Poor Jena. She did look something of a hero from a story, saving her baby like that.”
“Oh yes,” one of the other ladies agreed, and they quickly descended into talk of Jena and her bravery.
Maekar tried to make sense of what he was being told. He could not even picture it. Prince Valarr was only a babe still, hardly bigger than Daeron. His own son patted at his face for his attention, rambling about his own version of events. He handed Daeron off to one of the ladies in waiting and promised his wife he would find her later. He needed to find Baelor, to see for himself that this was some odd jest, and that Prince Valarr and Lady Jena had not actually just been pulled from the frigid bay.
The servants’ faces grew stonier the closer he grew to Baelor’s apartments. And the amount of them grew, too. There was quite a commotion at the doors, and Maekar had to scowl at a circle of servants so he could push inside. There, he found chaos.
Lady Jena was still dripping with water. It fell from her hair into small puddles around her feet. Her dress was soaked through too, and a few ladies pulled ineffectually at her shoulder, trying to pull her away from the chair she was bent over. On it, sat Baelor, with a blanket in his lap. No, his son, wrapped tight in a blanket. Prince Valarr. The boy’s head was thrown back over Baelor’s arm, limp. Jena held it in her hands and it was then that Maekar realized her face was wet with tears as well.
Air rushed past him. The room shifted, the servants all paused their ministrations to bow as the King and Queen both shouldered past Maekar himself. “Place him closer to the fire, Baelor,” Daeron said, coming to stand behind his son. His hands grabbed his shoulders, urging Baelor to stand as well.
