"Loyalty is no loyalty when it wavers."
- Lady Alerie of Houses Tyrell and Hightower.
The Tyrells have always been deceitful, even their spouses.
Lady Alerie of Houses Tyrell and Hightower has her alliances elsewhere..
By the Targaryens, and her d...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
LADY Alerie was a highborn woman, born to Lord Leyton Hightower by his first wife. Their House resides in the South, the Reach to be exact.
Her father hammered their words into her head since she was able to learn. 'We Light The Way'. The way to greatness was theirs, as they lightened it, her father explained.
Her lord father had the best scholars teach her and her siblings. He was of opinion that even his daughters should be taught in politics: to help, or deceive, their lord husbands in the future.
Alerie had grown up to be beautiful, with cocoa brown hair and bright green eyes, mostly dressed in light colours like yellow or green.
She remembers well when she was just thirteen years old. Lord Leyton told her she had the greatest honour a lady of her age could get: be a handmaiden for the Queen. Alerie was excited then. Queen Rhaella was beautiful and very sweet, she heard. It would be amazing to serve her.
And so, young Alerie, innocent and porcelain, travelled to King's Landing and the Red Keep, accompanied by two of her father's men. While she would serve her Queen she would show herself in the courts, making the chance of a suitable lord as husband larger, and her father knew that.
She appeared in front of the King, who was in his thirties. His silver blonde Targaryen hair was neatly brushed and let down, a golden crown displayed on his head. The skin of the man was pale, making his dark lilac eyes point out sharply.
He did not look like a lover, or a nice man for that matter. In fact, he slightly scared Alerie Hightower.
As for Queen Rhaella, who sits at his side with her swollen, pregnant stomach, she was a beauty. Her facial features are sharp, her pale violet eyes staring her up and down. Her long silver blonde hair was not sleek like her husbands, but had a slight wave. She was also wearing a golden crown, wearing it like a true born Queen.
The Queen that Queen Rhaella was from the moment she crawled out of her Queen-Mother.
"So, you are here as a handmaiden for my wife," King Aerys II asked, frowning his thin, silver blonde eyebrows.
Lady Alerie curtesies, keeping her head low. "Yes, your Grace. It will be my honour to serve House Targaryen and serve my Queen, my King," she replies, not looking up to meet the burning gaze of her scary King.
She hears him scoff and shuffling on the two thrones. "Sister, do you accept her as your handmaiden or should I dismiss her," he asks.
Alerie was slightly surprised to hear him say 'sister' to her. Of course, it was a fact that Targaryens married each other to keep their bloodline pure, but to hear him openly call her that was slightly off.
"I do not mind, love. I would like to take Lady Hightower as my handmaiden," she says, her tone cold and emotionless, though she does use an endearment for her husband.
"As you wish, wife," the King replies. Alerie finally dares to look at the pair, to see King Aerys stroke his wife's cheek with a single finger. She does not move in any way.
King Aerys takes his hand off his wife and looks down at the curtseying lady in front of him. "Rise, Lady Alerie of Hightower, and join at my sister's side. I remember you to do anything my wife wishes or desires. She is, after all, carrying another offspring of mine," he says, smirking at his pregnant sister-wife.
"As you wish, your Grace," Alerie says, rising from her kneeling position yet still not looking into her King's eyes when she joins the side of the Queen.
The court continued to go on as King Aerys heard the complaints of his folk. When their time was due King Aerys ordered Lady Alerie to escort his Queen back to their chambers to rest.
They walk back to the chambers together, silence filling between them. Lady Alerie opens the door to the bedchambers and helps the Queen bathing and dressing in a nightgown, as the bump on her stomach was hindering her.
The Queen then takes place before the copper mirror, asking Alerie to brush her long locks.
"Do you have any siblings, Alerie," the Queen asks. She was shocked to hear the Queen speak to her and stops brushing through the blonde hair.
"I-I have one sister, one brother and two half-brothers, my Queen." Queen Rhaella sighs.
"Please Alerie, you are my handmaiden. You will soon be my friend and anchor in this Gods' forsaken place. Call me by my birthname: Rhaella."
Alerie was surprised to hear the Queen say that, but she obliged. "As you wish, Rhaella."
"People think it's so beautiful to be Queen. That it is a right, a gift the Gods gave to me. Yet it's all masks and shields before their eyes. I have to bed my flesh and blood, my brother, because I was born for it. It's not as if he is not a beast when my back hits our bed. It's not as if he tries to impregnate me, making sure I secure his heirs."
She runs a hand over her round belly, sighing deeply. "I dislike it so much. In fact, I hate it."
She was not sure what she could say to help the Queen. It was not as if her words would change her point of view, how she experienced life. The Hightower Lady was not that naive.
"I am sorry to hear that, my Lady," she replies.
"I hope this one will be a boy again. Having two heirs to his throne will keep Aerys off my back for a while," Rhaella mutters, probably more to herself than to her handmaiden.
Alerie decides not to respond, because firstly: she does not know how, and secondly: she was not sure it was even directed to her.
"But then, he will probably want daughters to marry them to. It will never be enough for my brother-husband," Queen Rhaella continues.
Lady Alerie decides to stop the Queen from musing too long and binds her hair with a lilac ribbon. "It's time to rest, my Lady, your babe and you will need it."
The Queen stands up from the seat before her mirror and sinks down into the bed, laying down underneath her blood red, silk blankets.
"Goodnight Alerie."
"Goodnight, Queen Rhaella. Have a nice sleep."
And so Lady Alerie blows out the candles, filling the room with darkness.
