If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE / WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
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If Alyssa Royce is honest (and she is often not), she does not care much for the Targaryen name. It has never done anything for her - in fact, it seems to be the cause of most problems in Westeros. Religious uprising? No, that was the Faith expressing disgust because siblings are not appropriate marriage consorts. War brewing in the Stepstones? No, just Daemon Targaryen putting his foot in it again. Really, Alyssa thinks, it's quite a miracle he escaped that encounter unscathed. (Well, unscathed if you discount the damage to his reputation and his wife and his daughters. None of which Daemon has ever shown any care for - though, occasionally he tries to straighten his reputation.)
What have House Targaryen ever given her? Her mother, dead (murdered). Her life, uprooted. Her sister, bred for marriage like a prized horse. Even the one gift of House Targaryen; their dragons - even to that, she is not permitted. No matter how she tries, every winged beast repels her at sight, roars and tries to bite her head off. No, House Targaryen are a disease. The power of House Targaryen is at it's zenith, and naturally that means it must end.
Alyssa is a disappointment, she knows. She spurns her lessons in embroidery in etiquette, she is rude and surly with members of the royal family, and worst of all, she cannot claim a dragon. She struggles to read simple words while her sister buries herself in books as if they are graves (which they are, in a disgusting, morbid way). Instead, Alyssa sneaks around the castle grounds, wishing she were born a man, where it would not matter that she is a terrible noble and almost illiterate. If Alyssa must be hidden away, an embarrassment to the family, a shameful secret they try to avoid speaking of, then she will do it by choice.
