TEARS OF LYS

an abbreviated history.

trigger warnings: death, child neglect, violence, emotional & physical abuse, disease, poisoning.

her birth is blood and secret. complaining of a night’s ill rest, the ruling lady velaryon retires to her quarters in the uppermost tower of castle driftmark on a grey morning, dismissing her attendants while she rests. some hours later when she has not risen, her son vyros climbs the steps to retrieve his mother. what he finds is a pale, silent woman and a bloody, screaming babe: in her entrance into the world, vaelena has torn apart her mother.

her girlhood is marked by the same attributes. with over a decade between herself and her only brother, vyros is marked as a man by the time vaelena is old enough to retain any memory (therefore taken out to sea to prove his salt), and the ruling lord visyron holds little paternal interest. as such she’s raised more by the tides and cold stone walls than any one man, left to wander castle driftmark alone as little more than a pale slip of a child. it’s only in vyros’s returns to the isle that she experiences any tenderness or familial connection, walking the beach by his side to collect shells and chase gulls.

when she sprouts enough to take on a passing image of the late lady of the castle, her father finally takes interest. though his attention occasionally swings back to extreme apathy, largely he is locked into a possessive obsession, often forbidding his daughter from leaving the family halls or enclosure of beach nearby. she’s hoarded as equal parts a treasure and a monstrosity, kept away from outside eyes. 

the realms know little of the velaryon girl until suddenly they clamour to know it all. upon word of a visiting stormland noble declares her the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, rumour and interest froth and multiply -- a calculated bid for freedom from vaelena herself, having seduced the noblemen with such an intent. tall and slender with an eerie ethereality and the markings of a proper velaryon, an influx of curious wanderers make excuse to dock on driftmark’s beaches, coming from a glimpse of the hidden pearl.

she becomes known as the white lady for her pale and distressing loveliness, declared routinely as the most beautiful woman in the seven kingdoms. as is often the case with beautiful and unusual women, rumour is not kind to her (though perhaps not necessarily untrue, either): gossip spreads that the lady velaryon practices dark arts, that her multitude of suitors come by their bone-twisting adoration by way of magick, that her beauty is preserved by blood. to vaelena, borne of no real magick but a woman’s will and a talent with herbs, the reputation an amusement. let them call me a witch. what is a witch but a woman that man cannot quiet?

the velaryon patriarch succumbs slowly to a long-waiting disease, rending him paranoid and erratic. he accuses solid allies of treason and makes scattered attempts at political violences, causing a period disquiet. then, suddenly -- it seems to end and return to deep, still waters. having grown tired of their aged, ruinous father, the velaryon children do what they must: they preserve the house by whatever means necessary. vaelena slips basilisk blood into his goblet within the same fortnight that vyros exacts violent revenge, rending him limp, muted and malleable - a state through which the siblings are able to puppeteer. there are rumours that one velaryon sibling or the other rule through their weak father, but they are just that - whispers. 

misc.

incredibly inspired by shiera seastar, don’t @ me

the siblings have a dragon egg each, and they found them in a way similarly joined - as a boy, vyros dragged a waterlogged trunk up from the sea. unable to open it, it was left abandoned in the treasury. some decade later and after weeks of inner disquiet, vae dreams of the trunk and a silver key in her father’s drawer. it’s she who opens it, finding a pair of gleaming eggs; she takes the pearlescent egg for herself and leaves its darker twin swathed in velvet in her brother’s chambers.

has a white borzoi dog that’s surprisingly well behaved. always at vae’s side and rarely makes any noise

might not have genuine magic but you best believe she’s got a lil trunk of witchy potions with her at all times <3

doesn’t have any genuine interest in being the head of house, nor even a queen - vae finds the duties of rulership monotonous. she’d much rather stand as her brother’s advisor on driftmark and make mischief on her own time. she’d rather have raw power than something strained into a specific title

if you couldn’t guess, incredibly committed to the The Aesthetic. all her gowns tend to be white, silver, or an icy blue, her jewelry cool diamonds or sea-borne pearls.

both she and vyros bare the same birthmark upon their right shoulder blade 

due to the forced isolation in castle driftmark during her teen years, vaelena came to know every inch of the place by heart -- including its innermost workings. at fifteen she discovered hidden passages among the halls, one of which lead directly behind the room where her father held political congress. she spent years observing his meetings.

her ability to use hidden passages is duly why some of the visitors to driftmark believed her to be practiced in magicks - she certainly wasn’t above spying on guest rooms and using gleamed knowledge to come across like she had looked into their soul.

very deeply (and unusually) attached to her dragon egg. partially symptomatic of the isolation and neglect she endured as a young woman, any remaining tenderness or affection not taken by her brother was projected onto the egg. takes it with her if ever making a trip outside driftmark