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Post by Vhagar on Jan 23, 2014 19:21:04 GMT -5
"As you wish. What would you speak of, then? Not the war, I hope. I am so tired of the war," Taena sighed. "Especially as I am stuck here."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 23, 2014 19:40:02 GMT -5
"Did you wish to go along?" Visenya asked, surprise in her voice. "I am glad to stay here, though it is terribly boring and though I am sure Silverwing would be very useful."
"Sorry. Something other than the war..."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 24, 2014 6:25:58 GMT -5
"I would have been happy to go if Victory were big enough to carry me," Taena sighed. "But it is what it is. I am lucky to have her at all, I know. I would not trade her for all the gold in Casterly Rock." She grinned. "I have to wonder if the Lannisters are as wealthy as they claim to be. Perhaps it is all some great deception."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 24, 2014 12:29:10 GMT -5
Visenya's eyes gleamed. "Indeed. I wonder if all the West, which seems to be one great gold mine, will just one day...dry up. Whatever will the do then?"
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 24, 2014 14:07:16 GMT -5
Taena shrugged. "Lie, probably, and pay in promises. Is that not how these things are done? But I have to admit, I'd love some jewellry made from Westerlands gold mines, wouldn't you?" Her eyes gleamed with longing and Visenya recalled that she hardly ever saw the bastard girl wearing more than the simplest jewellry.
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 24, 2014 14:38:32 GMT -5
"I suppose so. I've an allowance, and fine things, but nowhere near as fine as others at court. Perhaps a Westerling husband would not be so bad after all?" She laughed and winked at Taena, though the laughter did not last long when she saw the look in the other woman's eyes. A bastard would not have a Westerling husband, as she had already said.
"Would you really? I probably could find a thing or two that I've grown bored of, and a few more that never suited me. Perhaps they'll suit you better."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 24, 2014 14:53:33 GMT -5
Taena's eyes widened. "Truly, you would do that for me? Oh, I couldn't! That would be...very selfish of me! Unless...would you allow me to do you some small service in return? Like escorting you to visit Silverwing, as we mentioned before? I cannot fly with you, of course, but visits should be allowed, surely."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 24, 2014 19:41:52 GMT -5
She was surprised to see Taena's eyes so wide and to hear her stutter her thanks. "You don't have to repay me," she said slowly. "If we're to be friends, we don't have to pay kindness with kindness as though it were currency. If it would make you more comfortable, I could lend you a jewel or two rather than gift it outright. But a lady with your connections ought to look the part, no matter which side of the sheets she was born on."
"Still," Visenya smiled, "I would be glad if you would accompany me to the Dragonpit on occasion, even if I can't fly."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 24, 2014 20:01:19 GMT -5
"I would be happy to. I need to know it better. And I'd be happier with a loan than a gift," Taena confessed. "Nobody ever gave me gifts before except Grandmother. Or Ser Jaime when he wanted me in his bed. I am not used to...generosity, truly. You know how it is at court. Everybody is out for themselves."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 24, 2014 21:20:37 GMT -5
"Well then, you can borrow what you like. A lot of it's paste, anyway, though very cleverly done." She shrugged, trying to fathom being uncomfortable with a gift that clearly had so strings attached. Or maybe it was not so clear to Taena. "They are, even me." She laughed at that. "At least you realize. Some are to naive to understand the intricacies of court and some never will."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 24, 2014 21:34:36 GMT -5
"Yes. I was that naive once, which is a bad thing for a bastard to be. But I'm learning, with Grandmother's help. I have had to be on my guard against those who would use me."
She paused and eyed Visenya with an interested gaze.
"I used to think you were proud and thought bastards beneath your notice. But I see now that I was wrong. Our situations are not quite as different as I thought. Both of us have certain freedoms the other lacks."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 24, 2014 21:43:17 GMT -5
"I am sure I was as well, but I can't quite recall. My life is already divided in two distinct parts." She thought of the sickening crunch of bone as her father and his dragon fell from the sky. It was a sound she would never in all her years forget.
She blushed. "I am rather proud, but I am afraid it comes with the Targaryen name. And you are right, I had a great deal of disdain for bastards...perhaps I have misjudged too many." She frowned. "Though Trajan and Maekar are certainly horrible and not worthy of their position. They are bastards in very meaning of the word."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 25, 2014 7:42:53 GMT -5
"They are not so bad. Or wouldn't be, were it not for their pride in their role as inquisitors and the power the king has given them," Taena said with a laugh. "I hardly ever speak to Maekar, but Trajan was not so bad, once. And Maekar is Targaryen on both sides, I suppose that makes him prouder than most bastards. I expect he wishes he were trueborn, like the king and queen and his half siblings."
She smiled at Visenya. "I am only half Targaryen, and so are you. That is something else we have in common. But that does not make us less than those with two Targaryen parents. Many of our kin have only one Targaryen parent and they have done very well for themselves."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 25, 2014 14:23:42 GMT -5
"Wait, Trajan was different once?" Visenya had always pictured him crawling from his mother's womb with his cold eyes and that horrible haunting whaling song on his infant lips. She shuddered at the very thought. "I cannot ever picture him doing a kind thing or having a kind word for anyone. Not even if the King himself commanded it." If there was one thing to be said of the man, he was a loyal one.
"I suppose I am less of a Targaryen than even Maekar, it seems. My grandmother was a Baratheon." She laughed. "Blood is a funny thing, is it not? I am a lady and a Targaryen just the same, and Maekar only a Waters. His blood likely runs too black for the proper family name."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 25, 2014 17:47:01 GMT -5
Taena laughed. "Perhaps that is so. He was conceived in illicit lust, after all. But so was I, and I hope you would not think ill of me for what my parents did before i was born." She made a face. "The king likes his bastards well. Sometimes I think he likes them better than his trueborn heirs, because they are more...like him."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 26, 2014 18:56:23 GMT -5
She scowled. "Yes, they are more like him, though all of the children of the King seem to have some strain of cruelty in them, save Aegon. Even the little one, Daenya, though she seems to be two sides of a coin."
"I prefer to surround myself with more reasonable folk, who solve a dispute with careful arguments, not clumsy swords."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 26, 2014 19:12:09 GMT -5
"That is not always easy," Taena mused. "I am fond of Daenarys Velaryon, myself, but even she is a warrior. It is so hard to find anyone who can fight a war with words rather than swords. I fear you face a doomed enterprise, Visenya."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 26, 2014 20:24:10 GMT -5
She merely shrugged. "I wouldn't hold it against her. She seems like an interesting person, Daenaerys Velaryon. I might seek her out when they return from Oldtown. There is a place for fighting with swords, after all, especially if one can fight with words as well. I just find skipping the words and going straight to swords to be distasteful option." Some of ethe pomposity of before had returned to her voice.
"Is it very much further?" She asked loudly, to cover a sudden embarrassingly loud rumble of her stomach.
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 26, 2014 20:27:10 GMT -5
"Not very, no. See, the trees have thinned out."
They were soon through the trees and on the home stretch to the city.
"It would be so much easier to fly, wouldn't it? But I love riding too. I would be happy to introduce you to Lady Daenerys if you'd like?"
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 27, 2014 1:20:29 GMT -5
"It would be faster, certainly, but much more difficult to carry on a conversation!" She watched the city walls grow taller and the red keep larger and redder as they approached. It was a lovely place to live in all the luxury of royal birth, but it was a prison to her just the same. "I would be glad to meet with the Lady Daenerys. One can never know too many people."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 27, 2014 3:44:30 GMT -5
"Oh no. I quite agree there! But alas most of our kin are away," Taena sighed. "Hopefully not for too much longer though. Let us hope the valour of your brother and sister will grant you more freedom."
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 27, 2014 12:40:55 GMT -5
She sighed heavily. "Maybe, but I do not wish to speak of my brother or my sister." They were tiresome. Elseyris less so than Rhaegar, with all his swagger and self-importance, though even she did not seem to understand the way of the world. Maybe war will have changed her, she thought, at the same time praying that it would not have.
"Do you have siblings? Other than your trueborn ones, that is."
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 27, 2014 13:35:04 GMT -5
"Only my brother Orys. My mother had no other children except the two of us. Orys went off with the Queen and the royal fleet. I hope he's well. We are not as close as I might wish but i love him still. I would grieve him if he had been slain," Taena admitted.
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Post by Lady Visenya Targaryen on Jan 27, 2014 14:15:13 GMT -5
"It's a shame, really, but the path of sister and brother are always so divergent. Perhaps if you had a sister you'd be closer to her. For. Me, my brother is just insufferable." She laughed.
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Post by Vhagar on Jan 27, 2014 14:32:45 GMT -5
Taena laughed. "I don't believe I have never spoken to Rhaegar," she admitted. "But you are right, of course. It's harder for a girl to be closer to her brother. My only sister is the Whore of Blackhaven, and she's older than me and prefers to pretend I don't exist. Fortunately I feel the same about her." She grinned as the city walls loomed large ahead of them, the gate not far away. "Be thankful you don't have my sister/"
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all alone and also really bored 
Hopefully going to kickstart the festival too
Jul 3, 2014 12:43:09 GMT -5
Hopefully going to kickstart the festival too
Jul 3, 2014 12:43:09 GMT -5