Aella Targaryen wed on the anniversary of her father's death. To her cousin, nonetheless, continuing the long-standing tradition of her family to marry their relatives. It was a day that was meant to bring joy and overshadow the sorrow that had purs...
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My heart is so full of you I can hardly call it my own
–Liana Radulescu
°•~━━✥❖✥━━~•°
103 AC
Aemma Arryn's hair was the loveliest shade of silver Aella had ever seen. The locks of moonlight ran through her fingers as she brushed them, making sure they were utterly without tangles. Those could not be allowed in the Queen's hair, especially on the day of her and her husband's coronation. These locks would be gathered in a hairnet soon, just a bit more silver than themselves with pearls decorating it like beautiful flecks of snow.
Aemma was to wear white and blue for the coronation, a representation of the alliance House Targaryen had with the Vale through her marriage to Viserys. And she looked wonderful in them, like a maiden crafted from the very very essence of a spring night.
The Queen's trembling went unnoticed by most of her attendants, but Aella was fully aware of her cousin's anxiousness. Aemma had always been pale, but now she was as white as a sheen of ice. The powdered blush from Essos was the only thing giving her face color at the moment. A comforting touch was all Aella could offer for most of the preparation, but now that the attendants were finally filtering out of the room – Aemma dressed, bejeweled, styled –, she could finally do more than that.
"You needn't worry, Aem," she told her as soon as the door clicked shut behind the last maid. "You will make a wonderful queen. Beautiful, just and fair." Aemma did not look entirely convinced. Still, she gave Aella the smallest of smiles, even if it was the most repressed, and forced thing she had ever witnessed. If there was anything Aella believed, it was those words she had spoken. Because Aemma would be fair, and just, because that was the Arryn way and what she had been raised with. Because the very soul that rested inside of her was fair and just and it made up her entire being. It was Aemma's very nature to be so.
"That isn't what I am worried about," Aemma admitted, chewing her bottom lip. "It is just... well- Viserys wants another child." Aella knew, because she had already been told. Despite that, she grimaced, fully aware of the pain Aemma had already gone through with each pregnancy. Out of three children she had born, only one had lasted long enough. Only one had lived. When Daella had died, Aella had though she would never be able to bear another child, if only because it would be too painful and too nerve-wracking to wonder every minute of every day if the child she was carrying would live, if it would even draw its first breath. But then Visenys had been born, and she had been a strong and fine babe and suddenly she wasn't as afraid as before. Even if the fear was still there. Even if it lingered like a dark shadow.
"You do not have to be with child again, Viserys already has three heirs," Aella argued, absentmindedly placing her hand upon her own belly, just above her womb. The possibility that she could very well be with child as of that moment suddenly hit her, as it did often when she was simply lost in her thoughts.
