PLAY WITH FIRE, helaena targaryen

003

PLAY WITH FIRE.

To learn sometimes meant you would suffer for it. Knowledge was a dangerous thing, but a powerful tool. Lyonel had told his grandson so, and Darik had taken that to heart ever since, his understanding growing by the day. Such little words held such an important message.

"I do not see him often, Your Grace," Darik answers the Queen's less than shy curiosity of his Father's doings. He wouldn't address what the court already saw with their own eyes if that's what she wished for, but he knew she would not settle for nothing entirely. He wondered what his Mother would tell her. "He's a fierce Commander of the City Watch. He has little time for myself."

The smile plastered upon her lips tightened. There was no harshness in her gaze though when she looked upon him, only pity and exhaustion — the same way she'd been looking at him for as long as he could remember. And the way she stared toward his Mother.

But Darik also saw the shine toward his Mother that the Queen held. He figured Alicent Hightower knew that the only true friend she held was that of Lady Celia, and mayhaps that was why Alicent took to Darik as she did, and why — even now — she was doing as she could to assist the boy's education.

Aemond was sat with his younger brother a little away from the Queen, her daughter and Darik, but Darik could see that whilst Daeron was fiddling with his toy dragons and excitedly playing amongst his own imagination, Aemond's head rested in the palm of his hand with a blank look across his pale Valyrian features.

The only ones in this chamber that looked out of place was that of Darik and the Queen herself, for their eyes were not of purple, their hair much darker, and with more rosy colour to their cheeks.

Beside the Queen, sat her only daughter. The King's second daughter. The one that Darik spent the least amount of time in the company with for obvious reasons — he shared no lessons with her, and he avoided attending his Mother's catch-ups with Alicent, and therefore her as well.

His dark eyes wandered to her hands, catching the small flinch of her body when Alicent's fingers skim Helaena Targaryen's forearm. Aegon's dark cruel words that circled around his younger sister flooded his mind.

He had no siblings. . .

( He had no true siblings. )

But the cruelty seemed much more out of place everytime Darik's eyes rested upon Helaena and the softness of her person. Her interest in conversations and people in general were slim, that was another note he'd made long ago of her, but she enjoyed her collections. Insects and rocks, stones, and even a shell he'd given her once moons ago.

Her silver hair shined, and not in the way his would after his Mother had worked her hands through his curls with her oils, but like starlight. Not like her elder half-sister, the younger Princess was blessed with waves running down the long length of her hair and Darik dared found it pretty to admire.

The thought felt improper.

Especially when he wished to be better than his Father.

"They're intelligent," Helaena speaks, capturing her Mother's attention again, but the Princess is only staring down at the creature circling the delicate path of her hand, a small tug of a frown upon her lips for a brief second. Darik wonders why. And then she lifts her head and looks right to him in a way she had never before. "More than others."

He felt daft, not knowing what she was referring to. Darik's eyes darted to the insect again, "I see, my Princess."

Helaena's lips parted to speak again, but stops.