Writ in Ink Invisible

Quills and parchments, this was her life. This had always been her life. She was descended from a family that valued them more than almost anything else. Words were wind but this was only true for spoken words. Written words remained, as solid and lasting as the truth they reflected.

Or the lie.

So many lies.

All to her harm.

Twisting her into something that even she had a difficulty to recognize.

She was not Rhaena Targaryen come again, no matter what people would write later. Those who did only knew her in her time as queen when in her despair, she had turned to the Seven beseeching them to make her heart's desire come truth. But once upon a time, she had been a lively, vibrant child who had found joy in things earthly and dirty, to the despair of her septa and mother.

Well, perhaps she was like Rhaena Targaryen but people got the wrong Rhaena. The Rhaena the family always told Aelinor she resembled had been a kind, long dragonless woman but with inner strength that would put many to shame. Aelinor only had some flashes of memories of her grandmother in which only Rhaena's death was a fully formed one. The smile that she had left the world with. "Go to them," Aelinor's grandfather had said softly but even at the tender age of five, the little girl knew that Rhaena had left them long ago, living in her past as the weakness left after the summer fever claimed her mind as fully as her body. She did not recognize anybody and her whispers brought into the darkened room names that Aelinor would learn only later, forced on people who bore other names.

"You should really go out more, Aegon," she told Aerys who was staring at her, wide-eyed. "Look, does Viserys sit around all day waiting for his egg to hatch? It will, you know, never fear," she added, looking at Maekar who looked up at his mother, utterly confused. "You are a Targaryen, like all of us. Is he not, Luke?" she went on. "Looks don't matter. What matters is blood and heart… and you are a Targaryen, truly."

Baelor nodded, pressing his lips together. Years later, Aelinor would remember this scene and wonder if by this time, he had already known that he was doubted and disliked, his belonging to them questioned because of his looks. She never asked, of course. It would be terribly tactless and over the years, tact had turned into her shield.

People said she had met her fate of a hostage at King Aegon's court with unusual maturity, grace, and courage but the truth was, she was too stunned and paralyzed with fear to do or say something. She was old enough to know that her parents had somehow attracted the King's disfavour but complex concepts like hostility between father and son, and the realm dividing into ever shifting factions in which her father was one of Prince Daeron's staunchest allies escaped her and without understanding, no maturity would come. She only knew that the King demanded his young hostages, called wards for better sounding, to attend the evening feast; much later, she would understand the double warning in this but at the age of six, she could only stare at the raucously laughing faces, the brazen, nearly naked women, the drunk man who knelt on all four to lap the spilled wine off the floor, unable to give up even a drop of it, and fighting with the dogs there… She had never felt so scared. The mocking or pitying smiles landing on her made her even more scared and she dared not touch the plates in front of her, suddenly sure that should she taste them, she would be confined to the Red Keep forever and never see the Parchments again. Did the old tales not tell about such occasions? She was sure that she had read it somewhere.

Surprisingly attuned to her mood, Maekar, a year younger than her but a year more experienced in living here, pushed his own plate at her. "It's good," he said and since Aelinor knew that he had been allowed to visit his home once, she accepted that the food was harmless and ate it, although she was still scared and he had already taken more than a few bites from the plate.

What people said about her marriage would be enough to fill a book. A thick one. Fill it with lies. Pain. Humiliation.

She was a maid and remained a maid, they said. How ridiculous! As if any prince would leave thing this way, unless he was physically incapable or she was notoriously ugly. Neither of them was. Aerys just waited until she grew old enough for bedding – Aelinor would not have appreciated it if he had bedded her fourteen-year-old self!

Not that she appreciated his lack of interest to her sixteen-year-old self beyond the couplings expected of husband and wife. But claiming that she was a maid was a downright insult to her femininity and when they added the rumour that the still untouched queen prayed for a child daily, this was an insult to her intellect as well.

She was pretty. Perhaps she was not as beautiful as some of the ladies at court but she was pretty enough. More than enough for many men. But not her husband. In the beginning of their true marriage, about two years after they said the words, Aerys came to her chambers regularly, although by no means frequently, and while Aelinor could not say she was mad about the experience, it was not unpleasant either. The awareness that her children would arrive out of it made it even less unpleasant.

But the children did not appear. Never. Instead, Dyanna Dayne did. And her arrival showed Aelinor in cruelly bright light what was missing in her own marriage. Maekar was mad about Dyanna, this much was clear. And although she was just a year older than Aelinor had been at the time of her wedding, her married life had started the night after Maekar had wrapped the Targaryen cloak around her shoulders; just a few weeks later, she was already with child while Aelinor was just starting to realize that Aerys' interest in her might never increase… and she was still not increasing.

She had never resented anyone as she resented Dyanna and Maekar in these days of their early happiness when thick walls were pressing against her from all sides.

Perhaps "hatred" was too strong a word but envy was definitely there. She wanted to be happy like Dyanna or if this was too much, at least like Jena. Or even Alice.

Jena.

Over time, her envy of Jena made her realize how pitiful her life had become. She'd rather have Jena's string of miscarriages and only one living babe – but be loved and treated the way Jena was. Instead, as she turned twenty and her four years of marriage had yet to see a delay in the arrival of her moon blood, Aerys slowly withdrew from her bed, leaving her alone and longing for what she had never had and what she had barely touched, sometimes so tantalizingly close that she could, to her despair, feel it slip between her fingers. Motherhood. Femininity.

Was this the time the book of her life started being written with not just false words but invisible ink?

Author's Note. So, this was the result of a brief visit to "my" forgotten old/new Targaryens. I don't know if I'd be able to update as planned but if not, Merry Christmas to everyone!