"This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning."
- Aeschylus
It is a child's dream to outwit fate, to somehow escape the great ending that awaits us all.
But Orianne Fernwood would burn the world if it meant a moment longer w...
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While the storm cleared from the heavens above King's Landing, making way for golden rays of sun and humid air that beat down upon all in the goliath city, not all was right among the inhabitants of The Red Keep.
Orianne had watched as the days passed and Elia's sickness worsened. Her body ached, and her stomach sickened; her body seemed to shrink beneath the weight of her silken sheets. Nausea and fevers plagued her hourly, from sun up to sun down.
Elia fought an enemy that housed itself within her very own body.
One look at Ashara, who had known the Princess longer than any of them, told Orianne that whatever had befallen Elia was not ordinary for the Dornish woman. Elia was no stranger to sickness, she had dealt with its devastating effects her entire life, but that which held her in its vice grip was not something that Elia had ever fought before.
It took near a week before the Silver Prince noticed his wife's illness or deemed it necessary to intervene, and it was only then that the Grand Maester was sent to attend to her. Orianne had been close to wringing Rhaegar's pretty neck for his absence and had to fight the urge not to threaten the entire royal family. If that's what it took to encourage them to treat Elia with the respect she deserved, so be it.
For all her supposed importance as the future of House Targaryen, Elia was not treated with equal respect. It was clear that the King was not fond of her, nor was his Hand, who would much rather have his daughter in the position of Rhaegar's wife. Even the Prince, who had willingly married Elia and offered her some defense from his father's ire, paid her no mind. He was too busy singing and prancing about the city; Orianne cursed him, too busy to notice his wife.
She could not call Rhaegar cruel; that would have been an exaggeration even for Orianne. He did not have the same glint of madness in his violet eyes that his father boasted. While she had spent little time around the heir to the Iron Throne, Orianne knew that he was not the same man that wore the crown at that moment. Instead of reveling in his subject's pain, Rhaegar sang them songs and walked among them.
Though it did little to better Orianne's opinion of him.
He was of a melancholy sort, prone to bouts of sadness just as Elia was to waves of sickness. While Elia did not divulge the secrets of her marriage bed to those closest to her, it was clear in that which she did and did not say that little more than duty and law tied Rhaegar and Elia together.
It was childish to hope for love in an arranged marriage, especially one of such status, but Rhaegar refused to allow any semblance of affection to enter the union. At best, he was inattentive and, at worst neglectful.
So, instead of tending to Elia or acting as her advocate against the machinations of men like Tywin Lannister, he pranced about with his head in the cloud and his hands strumming at a high harp.
In the days following Elia's decline, it fell upon her ladies to care for the Princess and ensure she received the care she both needed and deserved.
Each of her ladies, though as different as the sun and moon, had grown to love and respect Princess Elia, and they all proved helpful in their own right.
