She had been sitting on Ilta's Throne for three years. In those three years, Ilta flourished. She annulled her marriage to Camorra, who ran back to Dorne. People flocked to Ilta, giving her more to rule over and more strength. The people loved her, and so did royalty. She had aged well with the crown. Andromeda could not say the same for Westeros. In those three years, Westeros had practically burned to the ground, literally. The Night King had been defeated in the North, Daenerys Targaryen had burned Kings Landing, some Jon Snow or Targaryen or Stark had become the King of Westeros, and Sansa Stark was sitting on her own ancestral throne as the first female to be crowned the Queen in the North. Andromeda thought everything was as it should be. She was distant from Westeros, and that was fine. Until she received a raven.
Ramona, who would forever sit in the chair beside her throne, was reading the letter aloud to her. "It's from King Jon of Westeros."
Andromeda's eyes bulged and her head came forward, almost losing her crown. Even the guards at the entrance to the throne room were shocked. "A King of Westeros?" She tapped her fingers on the arms of her throne. "Don't read it." She remembered what had happened the last time her family didn't respond to a letter from a King of Westeros. Warning sirens blared in her head. "No, read it, please."
"Apparently it's written by his Hand for him. It says," Ramona cleared her throat and ran her hand through her dark hair. "Lady Andromeda Vela of Ilta, I message you for the king. I would very much like to speak to you on the terms of Ilta being an independent country. Ilta is a territory of Westeros, and therefore, you are no queen. I mean this in no ill manner, but the King of Westeros and Westeros itself pleads for you to come to Kings Landing and swear fealty to the new king, Jon Targaryen." By the time she finished reading the letter, Andromeda's face was that of one of disgust.
"I'm not a lady," she began with. "And I will not bow to a Westerosi King." She said. "Not after what happened, not ever again. Ilta bows to none."
"If we don't bow, we may break again." Ramona said gently. "The last time we did this, we broke. We lost seven members of House Vela, and we had only one beacon of hope. If you die, Ilta will become an abandoned country."
Andromeda put her hand over her face for a moment, and shook her head. "I don't know what I am going to do." She sighed. "Do I kneel for my people so we don't die or do I stand and die with freedom?"
"That's for you to decide as a queen." Ramona said wisely. "There are many things that I can do with you, but deciding the fate of the kingdom is not. I can advise you as your own Hand, but I cannot force a decision."
"What do you think we should do? What do you think I should do?"
"I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to meet before anyone starts another war. You see, the only bad thing about being independent is that we have no true allies. And because the crown is a Stark and Targaryen, he has many." She shook her head, looking off into the distance for a moment. "And you do not want to wake a dragon, trust me."
"Please, I've heard that the man is much more of a kicked puppy that wants to be a direwolf." She almost aborted, but her smile cleared and she got back to business. "I never understood the things with Starks over there in little Westeros. Starks are friends of Baratheons, who are no friend to me." She said. "But they appear to be honorable, with all the stories I've heard of their father and his before him. I'll write them back, do you have pen and paper?"
§
The raven that King Jon Targaryen of Westeros got was tired by the time it got to him. It looked like it was ready to collapse, and it almost did. He took the note off of the black bird, who continued to just lay on the table. His Hand, Tyrion Lannister, sat there, waiting for him to read the letter. Jon Stark opened the letter, but Tyrion interrupted him.
"Before you open this letter," the intelligent man started. "I've been reading a lot about the people of Ilta. They are... not as diplomatic as people of Westeros. They may be Westeros's territory, but they are nothing like us."
Jon Stark furrowed his brows. "Yes, women rule as head of house instead of the men. What of it?" His sister, or cousin, Sansa Stark, ruled as the Queen of the North. It was just her, and she had no King. She planned on having no King.
"And the women are, particularly, very brash. Prideful. Just keep that in mind as you read it." Jon looked at him with a skeptical look before opening the seal of three stars.
"King Jon Targaryen of Westeros, I message you as Andromeda Vela, the Night Queen of Ilta. I am the last Vela, and a Vela must always be in Ilta. You may come to my home to attempt to convince me to swear fealty to you, the new king. I will not come to you. I shifts stars for none." Jon's brows were raised throughout the entirety of reading the short and not-so-sweet letter from the woman who called herself queen. "Did she just say that?"
"I told you how they were over there," Tyrion said, grimacing. "They aren't nice if they aren't their own."
"She's mean to her people?"
"No, they include everyone on Ilta as their own. But if you're part of Westeros, well..." he said. "Let's just hope you're Dornish."
"They like Dornish people?" Jon asked, confused on why it was Dorne, of all places.
"The Dornish hardly discriminate by gender, and that is why the current lady's mother chose Prince Otineo of Dorne for her husband." Tyrion explained. "No other lord from Westeros would let his wife be the head of household."
"So, she's a Martell?"
Tyrion rolled his eyes. "Yes, she's a Martell. How do you think she got the Martell's to fight the Lannisters? Not by simply marrying Camorra Martell."
"She married her cousin?" He automatically regretted his words. He had been intimate with his aunt, not too long ago. Their relationship was different though, it seemed to him. They hadn't known at first.
Tyrion clearly thought the same. "Unconsummated. Clearly done for a power play on her part. She needed an army, and after the battle was won, she got it annulled." Jon nodded. "This Queen of Ilta, what do we do with her?"
"I don't say we wage war on her." Jon said. "If we want her to be friendly with Westeros, doing that would be the last straw between anyone of the Vela line and any talk of joining Westeros." He tapped his nails on the table. "We need to go there."
"Jon, what?" Tyrion nearly exclaimed, leaning forward and losing all formalities. "Need I remind you what happened the last time you went to go see a queen? This is not wise, not at all." He leaned back and shook his head, a look of contemplation on his face. At times like these, he was convinced that Jon Targaryen or Stark or Snow was obsessed with making the same mistakes.
"Maybe we could be the first to make amends with Ilta, Tyrion." He said, pinching his nose. "This meeting with a Queen of Ilta has been on hold for years, ever since Aegon the Conqueror, actually."
"Oh, I see." Tyrion said. "Because the thing with the 'first ever Lord Commander of the Nights Watch to unite with Wildlings' got you somewhere great." He almost felt bad after Jon made his usual sad face. "Being the first to do something is often dangerous, Your Grace."
"We could settle so much. The differences between Targaryen and Vela would be settled, she would finally be complian-"
"Do you think she'll actually be kind to you? You're a Targaryen! I'm a Lannister. We are literally the worst people to talk to a Vela. We'd never get things resolved."
"There's probably only one family she hates more than Targaryens and Lannisters." Jon said. "And until she meets the last member of that family, she will never trust Westeros."
"Do you expect for her to want to settle the score in one visit?" Tyrion asked. "Bombard her with families she's probably wanted to kill since she was old enough to know what murder was?"
"That's why Ser Davos is coming with us, as a mediator. I think it'll work. If she can see that we're not half bad, she won't mind Starks and Targaryens and Lannisters. But until she meets a Baratheon who is kind, she'll never call me her king."
Tyrion's face dropped. "You can't be thinking of bringing a Baratheon." He said, shaking his head. "She will kill us. Strike us down with lightning, throw a damn comet at us."
Jon leaned back in his chair. "We're going, and so is Gendry Baratheon."
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poppin these shitty bitches out like popcorn everybody say heehee