Devotion (GOT Fanfic)

Chapter V

Act III of Devotion: Liberty

Chapter V: Haunting Shadows

'There had come a time in my family where the past had dwelled onto our shoulders for too long - our existence watered by the spring of regret, pain and questions of what if it had been. My mother had spoken of her regrets ever so rarely, as though it was a means to keep us away from the reality of growing older. I remember though, one night when there was no distance between the two of us but the merry drink of Dornish reds. My mother was not fond of drinking to the point of stupor, but that night she had done so. My mother the queen had become a penchant fountain, flowing over and over. Telling the regrets and pains she had never uttered to any of her children, claiming it was not our burden to carry. 

 Her words slurred at the names of my younger siblings who have sadly departed before their time. Caerys dying as she had been born. Baelor passing after ten moons. Maegelle being consumed by illness. Jacarys passing soon after his birth. Baelon dying from his harsh position in the womb, suffocating after days of laboring and nearly causing my mother's death. My mother remembered each and every detail. It had been overwhelming. But I had listened. I kept my mouth shut and allowed her to flow seamlessly the aches she had held inside.

Each and every time they had lost a child, my mother wept bitterly over and over for days in her confinement. Until she was numb, until her health failed her. She would turn everyone way in this time. Not even the royal children were allowed in. I bearly remembered this, the success of aunt Elia's distractions giving us reprieve. As the candle's wax furthered into its ruined, my mother pierced her lips into a line and reminisced about our father's stubbornness. My father at each occasion refused to leave her side, no matter how much she hit him. How much she screamd. How much she cried. How much she turned him away. He stayed. Even at the foot of the door, every day, he would come to visit her. 

  The kingdoms no longer mattered. If it was for my mother, my father left behind everything. My father held my mother, cradling her into his arms as though she had been but a small child. Day and night,  my father Rhaegar watched over her. The only one he trusted to keep her sane in this time was my uncle Oberyn, who despite his hatred for my father, had been the one who had forced my father to rest. My mother said she had been thankful for my father and my uncle Oberyn. That there was two men who had loved her truly, without asking anything. 

But through bitter tears, my mother whispered with her head bowed that she was cursed. She had been cursed. The seer of Nimerod had told her so. I am not entirely certain if such a thing truly exist. Seven only knows. But my mother believed the seer. And she knows truly that she had been cursed and along with her, the family too. Had she succeeded in giving Aegon a love match, then perhaps it would have been easier. If she had not forced Daemon to wed, then he and his poor wife would not suffer. If she had loved Rhaenyra more with her actions, then perhaps she would not be doing things that hurt her. If she had not let Visenya go to Casterly Rock, she would not have been gone.

My mother's Dornish red was marred with her tears as the night ended. And soon enough, her body shook and dropped into a deep slumber. I carried her off to her chambers, where my father had been waiting. As I bid my father goodbye, my mother groaned from her slumber and whispered, "Maekar, whatever I said....forget it." 

 My father looked puzzled  and confused, I could feel  that he too wanted to say something. But I shrugged it off, reassuring him that my mother's words were merely ones of a woman who had been too much into the drink. I do not know if my father believed me, but he had let me go. I pondered about it as I left their chambers and went into my own.  I tried to go to my bed and heed slumber to come to me. But it did not. And I could not forget. Not even after all this time. It had in a way become my own haunting shadow, as it had been with my mother. I carry this burden too.