The song of ice and fire

A Tale of Two Princesses

Lyanna

I watch as Aemon trains with Longclaw, Father’s great Valyrian steel sword in the courtyard of Red Keep. The King doesn’t carry a sword with him anymore for he sits on a throne built by his ancestor, forged out of swords. Lord Tyrion told me once that Father never wanted to be King. But the Seven Kingdoms needed a leader after the Great War. Mama was heavily pregnant with Aemon then while Daeron was barely walking, still clinging to her bosom. I try to imagine my mother as the fearless, conquering Queen but it is hard. She has always been gentle, kind and loving. She has always been my Mama. Missandei said that she is a Great woman, the Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons. She protects people from monsters just like Father.

“Having children softens her,” Lord Tyrion tells me.

“It will never soften me,” I tell him most assuredly. He chuckles and shakes his head.

“Even my mad sister’s heart was softened by her children.”

The Mad Queen is now imprisoned in Dragonstone’s dungeon, in a deep pit near the sewers. I remember looking down at her through the iron grates during our twice a year stay in the castle. She would stare up at me, with her long stringy gray hair and dirty face, her cruel green eyes piercing right into my soul. Daeron nicknamed her the Witch of Dragonstone but Cersei Lannister has no supernatural powers of course. It used to frighten me when I was a child, having her stare at me as she screamed. I’d run straight into my mother’s arms but I never cry. Queens do not cry. Father would be all angry with my brothers for bringing me to the cell and they’d immediately apologize insisting that I was the one who begged them to bring me there. He would never be angry with me.

Rhaelle

I love my siblings dearly. They are always very protective of me, because I’m the youngest. They think me frail and delicate. They don’t tell me things, things that I should know being a princess of the realm. I hear them discussing in soft whispers in the drawing room while I play my harp for Mama’s ears. Daeron, Aemon and Lyanna. It’s always about politics with them. It’s a game played in court, the rival Houses circling around us, wanting to move their chess pieces and take down ours. Mama and Father are but figurehead sovereigns now basking in the glow of their triumphant victory two decades ago. Symbols of power but they don’t rule the realm, my siblings do. It was Father’s idea for my brothers to decide on certain relevant matters of state. Practice he says, he doesn’t want them to wait till he’s dead before they start wielding the King’s power. So far Aemon managed to quell a small uprising in Dorne and Daeron demolished the derelict houses in Flea Bottom and build better ones. My sister and I are tasked with overseeing a new school for girls in the Capital.

I don’t speak much maybe because I’m afraid that I’d let out secrets I’m not supposed to let out. I’m afraid that I’ll tell Daeron about his good friend Mark. Mark has designs on Lyanna. They aren’t very honourable. He wants to bed her. I hate that I know this but his thoughts are sometimes too loud and I can even see the lewd things he wants to do to my sister. I don’t want to tell Aemon that the Master of Coin has been siphoning gold dragons into his pocket every month. It’s not much compared to the millions of gold coins in the treasury. But if Aemon knows, he’ll execute the man and strip the titles and lands off his family and it is not fair that his children should pay for their father’s crime. It is a hard thing knowing the secrets and private thoughts of others. Uncle Bran says it’ll take practice. Soon I’ll learn to block them off just like he did and he will teach me how