ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ - House of the Dragon

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

My nameday was the worst day of the year.

Everyone seemed to forget it was the anniversary of Laenor Velaryon's death, and would smile at me like I would be pleased to shake their hands and kiss their cheeks and thank them for their kind words.

Reality was I always spent my nameday locked in my chambers, losing myself in the old and yellow pages of a book or allowing my fingers to run through the sensitive keys of the old, wooden piano that decorated the corner of my room back in Dragonstone, with my quiet voice mumbling an old song for only the walls to hear. Then, I would go flying on Stormbreaker until dine, where my family would smile at me.

No celebrations, no cake, not even presents.

After that, Lucerys and Jacaerys would come to my chambers, both with teared-up eyes and sad smiles. And we would sleep hugging each other, vaguely remembering any memories with one of our fathers. Joff never joined us, for him to only know one father even when he had Laenor's last name.

This year's was going to be an absolutely disaster. I knew it the moment Emory woke me up.

She had a little chocolate cupcake in her hand and was grinning from ear to ear while she sang an awful song I barely listened to. And I couldn't stop myself for feeling horrible as I watched how her smile fell after her green eyes spotted the salty tears threatening with wetting my cheeks so early in the morn.

She apologized and apologized and apologized a bit more after I told her about my sensitivness during that time of the year, and tried to make it up for me by preparing a hot bath and allowing me to eat the cupcake alone in the large bed as the bright sunlight bathed my skin over the white and raspy blankets.

My green eyed friend stayed with me during the bath, brushing my hair in an equally rough and delicate touch and trying to keep my mind busy by talking about the feast. That damn feast. I tried my best to keep up with her, nodding and mumbling things from time to time, but my mind was in the sky, above the clouds, above the invisible stars, above anything and everything.

Did Laenor find Laena in the after life? Were they finally reunited? I hoped they did. I knew a part of my father died with his twin sister, and I did not want him to fell any pain even in his forever heaven. Perhaps he found Joffrey, the man my brother was named after. I didn't know much of him, besides the fact he was my father's true love and he was murdered in his and my mother's wedding. His death changed Laenor, at least that is what Rhaenyra told me those odd times I dared to ask about him, and I could only swear an oath uppon my father's memory to avenge his lover as soon as I could grab a sword without tripping over nothing. But it matter little, I didn't know who was responsible for the man's death, and it was something my mother never shared with me.

Did my mother still mourn him? Did she keep mourning Ser Harwin? It only took her fortnight to marry Daemon, perhaps for political reasons, but still. And she never dared to name them, besides those times curiosity took the best of me and forced me to ask and ask until she got tired and answered to everything she could, turning her rings over and over and forbbiding herself to drop any tear in front of me.

Should have I light a candle in their names? Pray, perhaps? I did not believe in any gods, but would it make the inceseable pain in my heart stop? Would it allow me to breath again? To stop having those episodes?

Did Jace and Luke remembered our fathers? Did they think of them like I did? Forever seeing them in every corner, forever thinking in the way they would react to certain situations, forever wishing to hear them laughing one last time? I doubted it. Even though I knew Jace was the one that mourned Ser Harwin the most, he never dared to speak or ask about him, almost as if he believed his ghost could have haunted him if he said his name outloud. And Lucerys would have had prefer jump off Arrax before unsettling our mother with questions she clearly did not wish to answer.