Tale of Two Queens

[044] i have nothing but this

The clock ticked in the loud room as the ladies conversed and the world moved ever so slow. Helaena sat in the middle of the circle, bored, barren, and lost.

The things she's done to keep herself sane would have been considered an abomination in the eyes of the seven. Her fingernails had been peeled to insanity, the cuts on her thighs had been secretly hidden with silk bandages.

She didn't know what to do when her maids found her with her dress torn in her own chambers. She wanted to tell her mother, help me! Help me! 

Helaena often found herself sitting there, in the opening of her chamber, waiting for the day to end and for the night to end. She would watch the clock go by, one tick at a time and sometimes she would wonder how Mera was doing. 

And in fact, Helaena would wonder if she were still even alive. She hoped so. Mera was her first friend. Her first love. She wished, deep down under all that hate and resentment, that she could tell Mera how much she loved her and wished for her back.

She hoped Mera would feel the same.

She looked down at the embroidery in her lap. The little clothes she made for her children were all empty of them. And so was her womb.

Her mother nagged her whilst her grandfather berated her for not trying hard enough. She didn't know anything else. All she knew was that every night her husband came for what he wanted and left when he got what he needed. 

All she did was what her mother told her to, lay there and wait. 

Six months since Mera had left. And everyday for six months Helaena drank whatever her mother gave her to have a child. She loathed the thought of knowing that she had no other reason other than being the vessel for Aegon to have his heirs but everytime he visited her she was always painfully reminded of the very fact.

Maybe Mera was right. She was just one of Aegon's whores. 

Helaena cleared her throat and looked to the ladies sat all around her, "You are all excused." They looked at one another before nodding, leaving quickly as they grabbed their skirts and whispered to each other as they spared glances at her.

Stop whispering, just say what you want to my face!

Once the last door closed, Helaena screamed as she threw her embroidery aside. She clawed at her dress, the material irking her to insanity as she cried. Her skin felt like it was burning while her hair felt like someone stitched it to her head. 

It was as if she couldn't stand living in her own body and Helaena wanted so desperately to claw her way out. Day by day she obeyed her mother, grandfather, and husband and not once did she ever do anything for herself.

"Princess?" Her maid asked when she walked in.

"Get it off, get it off!" Helaena cried as her hands frantically tried to unlace the back of her dress. 

"But princess you have tea to attend later this afternoon, we can't just—"

Helaena screamed as she gave up and cried into her hands. The corset was digging into her rib and the red lines that were always left on her stomach always made her disgusted with herself. 

She sat on the floor, weeping as she felt the cuts on her skin sting in pain. Much of her loved it. They made her ignore the pain she had to go through every night but it the sight of it made her loathe ever making them.

Often when she laid helpless in her bed, she'd think of Mera. Mayhaps she'd come back one day and they could be friends again. She'd tell her all about her life and where she went and Helaena would show her all her children.