Caelyra: Sister-Wife and Dragonborn

12: Falling

Dragonstone was a fortress on a cliff, a fortress that were built in the form of a dragon with stone dragon gargoyles everywhere.

Caelyra wondered briefly what the other people would think and do should the gargoyles come to life.

Even the throne were held up on a dragon's back, its stone wing forming a canopy. It was less impressive, and less ugly than the throne her father sat on.

They had reached Dragonstone after mere weeks instead of a month of traveling and she had been grateful to arrive at shore, rowed there in boats.

She was glad for the journey to be over, but not the climb up to the castle that loomed forebodingly over Blackwater Bay.

It strangely reminded her of the climb to another fortress in her former life. One that were inhabited by old grey monks with voices to shatter the skies.

Oh, what wouldn't she give to climb the seven thousand steps again and speak to Master Arngeir once more.

Her first few days at Dragonstone were spent exploring the keep and looking at Aegon's painted table from the high chair that Rhaegar had frequently sat on just to admire the table also.

The painting was of Westeros and had been the war map of Aegon the Conquerer and his war council.

She could just imagine it, his sister-wives and he talking strategy with their supposed half-sibling Orys Baratheon.

When she wasn't in the war room, she was in the library, being eyed with disdain by the Maester. She ignored him.

She also spent her days taking a walk on the beach, thinking about a dream she now constantly had about a blood red dragon swooping in to save her from a fall.

It made her wary of standing on balconies and caused her to always be on high alert.

If she wasn't taking a walk, she visited Aegon's garden, though not too very often considering the tea parties held there by the women who had tagged along for their stay at Dragonstone. They never invited her; a slight that would have to be punished when she is queen one day.

The only one she actually tolerated more than the others were Susanna Tully. Though, she was wary of her also because she had been by the Queen's side until the birth of the stillborn babe. Unfair, but also logical in Caelyra's mind.

It was on one exploration that Caelyra discovered a hidden room filled with dragon eggs, though there were less than twenty of the scaly things. Some people would say that they were petrified, stone. Yet she could feel life when she touched them.

Why they were there, she couldn't comprehend and when she questioned Rhaegar about them, he asked her to show him the room because he had never seen it before and he had explored the castle many times before.

So she showed him, a little put out when Jon Connington, Ser Richard Lonmouth and a few others followed.

At least Prince Oberyn Martell and the other women didn't since she spoke to Rhaegar in his private solar and they were not present. She didn't need them around while she showed her brother-husband the eggs.

"Marvelous," he stated in awe as he glanced at the eggs, running a hand over a black one with silver and gold swirls.
"And you say that they are alive?"

She nodded from where she stood by a crimson one. "Yes. They feel warm when I touch them and I can feel the pulse of life in them."

"Preposterous," Jon Connington rasped, glaring at her down his nose.

Caelyra sighed in exasperation, for once not going to cower in a corner when he and the other men are with her brother.

"Not so, Jon," Rhaegar said, giving Caelyra a smile. "I too feel the warmth." He pondered for a moment, looking regretful as well as wishful for but a moment  as he continued  sadly, "If only we could hatch them without the sacrifice of a life."