"Is it not unbecoming of a man of the city watch to enter a lady's chambers uninvited?"
"Is it not unbecoming of a lady to hold a blade to the commander of the city watch's throat, my princess?"
[or]
Amongst the ceaseless battle of succession to Vi...
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112 A.C
IN THE PASSING LIGHT OF SEVERAL MOONS, A TIME OF HEALING HAD BEGUN. In the wake of their shared heartbreak, both Princess Rhaenyra and Princess Baela's hearts had not reforged their jagged scars back into one entity, nor would they ever truly be able to do so, but as nature often saw fit to do, new life had taken root between the cracks. Where once the cracks loomed large, great voids from which sorrow clawed its way from within, now held the growing blooms of flowers not yet fully formed.
They did not fill the cracks in their entirety but they made the weight just that little more bearable.
Not even half a moon's cycle had slipped the Red Keep by when it was deemed a necessity, by all parties involved in the endeavour, to announce Baela Targaryen's first pregnancy, despite the deliberate absence of a babe quickening within her. With the steady advancement of Rhea Royce's pregnancy, the time to play the role of expectant mother for all the court and its snakes to see had dawned. It was in this time that both women made revelations almost comical in their simultaneous opposite yet identical natures, hiding one's pregnancy and flaunting an empty womb as if it were anything but was far harder than either had presumed it to be.
While Lady Rhea hid away under the provocation of a sudden onset illness, an excuse expertly crafted by her entrusted maestor, Princess Baela took to wearing gowns that were skillfully stuffed with weighed-down cushions to imitate a growing babe as closely as she and Tayla could craft. With each passing moon, Rhea's nonexistent illness would worsen and Baela's false babe would grow heavier. Throughout the span of their theatrics, the two women would raven consistently yet coded under the guise of good sisters simply concerned for one another.
The announcement of the first Targaryen-Strong child had been met with varied reactions. Viserys, despite the ire his sister held for him over the late queen's death, had been overjoyed at the prospect of a niece or nephew so soon. The court whispers had been divided, some offering up well wishes and genuine smiles for the princess and her husband, while others, those swayed by Hightower influence, held sharp-tongued predictions of a stillborn child. Daemon's own reaction, sent with a raven from whatever corner of the realm he'd crawled to, had held bitter undertones and a snide remark for the gods to see fit for the illness to take his lady wife in lieu of Baela in the birthing bed.
Rhaenyra's reaction, however, had been to one to keep Baela awake at night as she paced her and Harwin's shared chambers and knawed her knuckles bloody. First had come anger, loud proclamations of her aunt's foolishness to resign herself to the fate of a birthing bed so soon after her mother's passing. Anger gave way to tears all too quickly, the barely scabbed over wounds of Aemma's butchery torn anew as she watched her beloved aunt's stomach grow with each passing moon. Then came avoidance, the younger princess deeming it necessary to distance herself in a feeble bid to lessen the blow of losing yet another person to the gods-forsaken birthing bed.
