Once everyone realized that their Queen was dying, pandemonium happened. They were unsure if they should honor her then or wait, unsure if they should leave or stay. There were years and shouts as Odda announced it formally, afraid to sit in her friends chair, and physically sick to her stomach to look at Pandora's chair.
The kingdom was in shambles. The Dornish has lost, but they had taken almost every ounce of Iltan morale down with them. They had also taken their Hand and their Queen, the things they needed most. The had a funeral for Pandora, not waiting for Andromeda to wake or not. They all prayed to the gods that she would miraculously awaken, and there were people guarding her room day and night, and the people within them.
Jon and Odda sat at Andromeda's bedside, just looking at her. She looked so peaceful. Not a smile or frown on her face, not any single expression. She was simply there, and in a state of death. Her chest was barely rising and falling, and her pulse was very weak, too weak. Her dirty crown sat next to her on the nightstand, and Jon felt terrible not to have it on her head.
Odda looked worlds worse than her dying queen. Her hair was stuck to her forehead and matted from not being washed for four days after hearing the news of the Queen. She barely got in the bath, and even that was as unproductive as possible. She sat there, just looking at Andromeda and thinking of her and Pandora. They didn't have to die, and they died so young. Maybe not Pandora, but Andromeda did. Odda sat and thought about her, about her goals and how ambitious the woman was. She was an amazing Queen who did it all for her people and who wanted to do it all, not because she had someone whispering in her ear about it. Andromeda was a kind heart all around, and she didn't deserve to be stabbed in it.
Jon sat across from her, bouncing his right leg and putting his head in his hands. He was breathing softly, eyes closed and thinking. He was devastated. This was the third time that his lover had died in his arms, and she was the most important to him. He had just gotten her back, and someone put a spear through her. It was a terrible way to die, and it wasn't instant at all. He had to look at the way her face became shocked, angry, sad, and then slack. He had to hold her as she fell onto him, piercing his own skin with the spear. He had to listen to the jumbled and nearly incomprehensible words leave her mouth, her premeditated last words. Jon has to watch the light of Andromeda's dark brown eyes leave, and that sat the worst with him.
He put his hand over her cold one, nearly in tears over it again. He couldn't help but blame himself for everything. He blamed himself for not watching the grounds around her, and he blamed himself for not staying focused during the battle. But mostly, Jon blamed himself for not taking her place. He didn't even spare a glance at Odda before he began to cry, a cry that Ned Stark wouldn't have been proud of. It was the cry he gave when he heard about the Red Wedding, and the cry he nearly gave at Ygritte and Daenerys's death. They were all personal, but Andromeda had become a part of him. He was hers and she was his, and now she was gone.
A grave soldier came into the room after a series of soft and considerate knocks. He stood by the door, his iron clanking. "Camorra Martell has been captured. He is being sent to Ilta as we speak, and should be here in less than a few day's time if the waters call for it." He left immediately after, the amount of sadness in the atmosphere unbearable to be in for too long.
For a while, it was purely silent. "You need some time." Odda said softly after dealing with the insufferable silence before standing and walking out of the room. That's when Jon really broke.
His throat made noises it never had before while he cried, gripping her hand even harder. He had the childish hope that she would wake up, but he knew that wasn't how it worked. He mourned for her even though she still had a weak pulse. She wasn't awake with him, so she was gone.
"I should have looked out for you." He said to her, his eyes skimming across her unmoving face. "I should have seen him coming." He breathed in a shaky breath and cried again. "I could have protected you. You went above and beyond for my sisters, and I couldn't move you out of the way of one spear."
He thought that he shouldn't have been so hard on himself but one second, but he disagreed with himself. He was safe and she wasn't. She was gradually dying, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. She was in some type of long term sleep before she died, was what the Maester said. The kingdom was a wreck without her already, and it had been days. It had only been a fewwithout her, and everyone was a mess. Jon could see now why there must always be a Vela in Ilta. It turned all to chaos, like it was some type of spell. And the weirdest thing of all was that there was no sign of the sun behind the clouds. It had been raining since she was still, and he was convinced the island would flood. He believed it now, he believed everything.
Tyrion back in Westeros hadn't heard a word from Jon. Sansa herself decided to send a raven to Tyrion explaining what had happened, and Tyrion was clearly very upset. He had come to he really fond of the Queen, and Gendry and Davos were upset, too. Davos even shed a tear. They had all come to see her but Tyrion, who was forced to stay in Westeros. But the one who had never left her side was Jon.
He slept by her and he woke by her, checking on her every minute to see if her pulse had slowed or quickened. Gendry and Davos attempted to pull him away for a while, to try and think about anything else. He constantly kept an eye on her, trying not to get his hopes too high or low. He was a king, and the last thing he could think of was his kingdom. His wife was slowly dying, and he could do nothing for her.
At that moment, every fear he ever had was dwarfed. His fear of open water had been diminished. His fear of betrayal had been blown from his mind at the sight of her laying there. Even his worst fear, his fear of the Night King somehow returning, was gone. And it was all because the Queen of the Night was there, laying on her back and closer to death than sand was to water. He decided that if she didn't survive, he would lose his mind. He would go north, north of Sansa's kingdom and past Wall, where he would live amongst wildings again.
Living anywhere south of the Wall without her would be betrayal.
Jon put his fingers to her neck again, feeling her pulse. He kept his fingers on the place, and felt it slow. It slowed more. His eyebrows furrowed as he pressed harder, wanting to feel her pulse come back in harder and quicker. But he couldn't. The outside world became darker slowly but surely as the moon began to cover the sun second by second, and as her pulse completely stopped.
§
It was dark. There were no stars, there was no moon, there was just nothing and Andromeda. She heard nothing and everything, and her hand was not visible in front of her face. She was terrified.
She stood there in her nearly paralyzed state before she heard waves crashing from a distance in the darkness, and she walked towards the only audible sound. The air felt familiar, it felt fresh. But where there were waves, there was outside. Where there was outside, there could be sun. She spread her arm out in front of her, expected the sun to come back to her, shine like a beacon of light. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again, and again, until she realized that nothing had happened. If she didn't have her powers, what the hell did she have?
She breathed in an out roughly, trying to keep a hold of herself. Where am I? She asked herself. Her eyes darted around in the pitch black darkness. The uncontrollable starless night overwhelmed her, and she shut her eyes, clenching her fists too. She put her head in her hands as she tried to remember, tried to grasp any clues that could make her think.
"My child."
The voice was one that she had promised to herself that she would never forget. It chilled her to her very bones, making her body and hair stand up straight. Her eyes shot open at it, revealing a rather quick sunrise. It was a combination of pink and orange, the one her mother used to make. Her head whipped around, trying to find the voice.
"Andromeda, my youngest. How I've missed you." Andromeda hadn't even realized that she was in Ilta. She was too busy looking for the voice that was undoubtedly her mother's. "I'm right in front of you, look. Closer." She tried desperately to do as she was told, and when it finally happened, she could see it clear as day.
Her mother was standing at the front of the triangle of people, the matriarch. She was smiling fondly at her, with tears in her eyes and her hand over her chest. She had a dark blue dress on, a dress that was the woman's favorite in life. Instead of a crown, she wore a necklace, a necklace with three stars on a silver clasp.
She barely saw the people standing behind her mother. "Mom." She ran towards her, and Shirina Vela hugged her daughter in the way that she always meant to when she was alive. Her youngest daughter had been in the real world, the living world. Her arms wrapped around Andromeda in a motherly fashion as she subconsciously rocked her crying daughter, who was no longer a girl anymore. Her hand was in her daughter's hair as she shushed in her ear, trying to consoled her.
"There are more people wanting to see you, dear." Shirina reluctantly pulled away from her youngest child and took a few steps back, only seconds before Andromeda was slammed to the side.
"Andra!" That voice was a voice that she could never forget if she tried. It was the voice of a lion, the voice of a lion that was born to the stars.
"Leo." She cried out, hugging him while they lay in the sand, not caring that she was dirty at all. He hadn't aged, and neither had their mother. She hugged him tighter, nearly pulling out his dark hair in the process. "I've missed you so much," She was now sobbing even harder. Was this real? Was this some sick joke that was being inflicted on her?
"Leonardo," a calm voice said, a voice that was so feminine and so aristocratic that it was one of the most identifiable. "Let my little sister go. Some of us wanted to wait our turns, like mother asked." Ophelia stood in front of her when she looked up, a beautiful woman who had not lost an ounce of her natural grace. She smiled down sweetly at her sister, a smile that was joyful and placid.
"Ophelia!" They embraced tightly, tighter than they had ever done before in life. "I thought you were dead!"
"We are, dear." Shirina said. "You, not quite." Andromeda ignored it. The last time she had seen Ophelia, she was dying in her arms, bleeding out. That was not the way Andromeda wanted to see Ophelia last, and she wanted to hug her while she wasn't dead. She needed this, more than she had ever needed it before.
"As much as I hate to break this up, I'm afraid we're on a calculated time limit." Saros was there when she looked, a boy that always had his face in a book and his hand warming a quill. Andromeda's face fell upon seeing him, a smiling young man like he was. He looked so much younger now that he was years older, and by the look on her face, he knew she was thinking just that. "Don't think I'm younger than you. I just look it, sister."
She hugged him, nearly propelling herself towards him. She laughed with glee, swinging him back and forth as her tears turned into ones of joy. "I missed you." Was all she could say. His grip on her was strong.
"I missed you too. We all did, more than you could imagine." Saros smiled at her graciously, before moving to the side and reversing Andromeda's best friend growing up as a girl, her sister Elara.
"Lara," she whispered as she took the sight of the woman in front of her. Elara looked healthy, and she even looked to be glowing. "Elara!" She ran to her, nearly collapsing when her older sister caught her.
"By the gods, I've missed my youngest sibling." Elara said sweetly. She was always kind, always jovial, always sweet. She was always the one anyone could go to for comfort, and she loved her for it. Everyone did. "I've spent all my time with this lot, and I've missed you."
"I've missed you more than you can imagine." Andromeda said, pulling away with wet eyes. "All of you, god, all of you."
"Even your sparring master?"
Hyperion stood there in all his pride and glory, looking every bit of a knight. He was there in front of her, not kneeling, not dead. He smiled brightly at her, not waiting for her to walk to him as he engulfed her in a hug that was one of the warmest she had received so far. The rest watched as Andromeda touched his face, making sure he was real. She watched him die, more than she watched the others. She watched him fall, she watched him be torn apart, for her. "Sister," he said to her, tears in his own eyes. "I want you to know that nothing I did that night, I regret." She sobbed in his arms again. "But there's one more of us, and he's been literally dying to see you. We only have so much time."
She was nearly shoved off of her oldest brother as she looked in the new direction, the direction where a man was standing in yellow, orange, and dark blue. A quite nasty combination of colors if you thought too hard, but this man owned it. He barely stood, already crying so hard that sobs were wracking his body. His arms were out towards her as he cleared the distance, and her eyes lit up with tears and joy when she saw him and registered it.
"My Songbird." He said in her ear. They hugged there, standing in the same place while they both cried to and with each other. "I love you so much. So much more than you could ever imagine, my daughter."
"Dad," she cried, burying her face in her father's neck. She cried an ugly cry into him, but no one could care less as they watched the two be reunited. It was no contest, Otineo and Andromeda were the closest. If anyone deserved to hug Andromeda, it was their father and Shirina's husband. "What's going on?" She asked, pulling away just enough to see all of her family, her dead family, watching her.
"My darling," Otineo said slowly. "You're dead."
"What?" She blinked twice, backing away a little. "I'm not dead." But she was, and she remembered now. The war with Dorne, her destroying almost every enemy, spear right through the stomach, and Jon holding her as the strength left her body.
"Not for long," Shirina said, somewhat sadly. "You only have about six minutes left here before you live again."
"What? How?"
"I," Saros said uncharacteristically, stepping up. Usually it was never about him, that was Leonardo's thing. "Saw the goddesses and made a deal with them. A calculation, really. I made a deal with Idalia and Neoma, asking for eleven minutes with you while you were recovering."
"I'm not dead?"
"You are." Ophelia corrected, ever honest. "That's how you're seeing us."
"But," Saros cut off, and Andromeda was proud that the youngest male in the family had finally found his voice. Over Leonardo's roar and Ophelia's regal dominance, he had finally found his shine as his own star. "Only for eleven minutes. I made a calculation of the eclipse, and Neoma placed her moon in front of Idalia's sun, and as long as the moon covers Idalia for at the slightest, you can be here."
"Saros, that's brilliant." Andromeda couldn't help but praise him, their own little Tyrion Lannister. "I can't believe I'm seeing you guys again!"
"We need to talk, child." Shirina's voice cut through all of the chatter, her commanding personality there to stay. "About Jon Targaryen."
"Jon?" She asked, shaking her head. "What about Jon?"
"He is a gift from the gods," Otineo said from beside her. "As much as a gift as these few minutes are."
"The key to our bloodline, now more than ever." Ophelia said sadly. "It came with a catch."
Andromeda's face immediately dropped. "What was the catch?" Her heart rate sped up, and she began to panic. "Am I not allowed in the afterlife with you all once I go for real? Am I damned?"
"No," Saros said. "But to ensure that the gods got what they wanted, they made me ensure something with Jon Targaryen."
"What's wrong with him?" She immediately asked. "What did you do?"
"Nothing!" Leonardo shouted. "Goddess, women and their soul bounds." Elara smacked him softly on the back of his head.
"You were speared in the stomach for a reason, by the fate of our goddesses." Shirina explained. "You are aware of how Idalia and Neoma desire a Targaryen and Vela child."
"Where's Pandora?" She asked automatically, searching for her. She had almost forgotten.
"It is too early for her to pass on." Elara explained softly. "You're an exception. We don't have much time, mother." She rushed.
"Saros made the deal that ensured that you could not be with child-" Andromeda fell back, and Otineo was luckily there to catch her.
"How am I supposed to procreate! Ensure that our family name goes on?" She turned on Saros. "Saros!" He shrugged, a small smirk on her face.
"Patience was never your strong suit, my daughter." Shirina said, laughing a bit before returning to being serious. "You cannot be with child, unless the child is Jon Targaryen's." Her mouth dropped open.
Hyperion grimaced. He didn't want his little sister to be with child because of any man, but at least it was one that could literally never hurt her. "See? It's hardly a sacrifice on your part." He said, breathing in between his teeth.
"That's very tricky of them." She laughed. "But it wasn't a bad deal. I'm impressed, Saros." Saros merely shrugged again, a happy smile on his face. She looked down at her hands for a moment, shocked to find a golden string wrapped around her finger. It was long, and it was shooting right down below them. "What is this?"
"The bonding string between you and your Targaryen." Elara said, her brows raising cheekily. Andromeda's cheeks flushed.
"Daughter," Shirina said to her youngest daughter. "It's almost time for you to go." Andromeda barely noticed how the moon was covering less than a quarter of the sun. It was almost time for her to go back to a world where she had no more family. "Hug as all one more time." She did so, holding onto some longer than others, all with the same amount of passion.
"I'll miss you all." She whispered.
"You've already made us all proud, Andromeda." Her father said fondly as he fell back in line with all of them, watching her as she stood a few paces away. "We've been watching from here, the whole time." Andromeda's eyes started watering again, and she was less than ashamed about it. "There is it anyone else we would rather have to avenge our family than you have, my sweet Songbird."
"Thank you, father." She said, her eyes trying not to watch the sun go back into power.
"You are your father's daughter." Her mother said softly, looking at her daughter with pride. "But you are my daughter as well, and you have shown the world that." Andromeda's heart swelled. "Rule Ilta with pride."
She nodded as she felt her hands and feet tingle. She looked down to see her body disintegrating, becoming gold dust in the wind. "I love you all."
"We love you!" They all shouted at different times, a mixture of all of her favorite sounds. They smiled at her and she smiled back, a real smile. Her soul left their world and went back to hers, straight into the body that was still laying there without a pulse.
§
Jon hardly noticed the eclipse. Instead, there was so much movement and loud noises around the room that he could think of nothing else other than her nonexistent pulse.
"What happened?" A maester asked, doing all the same things Jon was.
"I don't know! Just help her!" Jon shouted back. Gendry, Ser Davos, and Odda stood in the back of the room as they watched Jon lose his mind, their hands all over their mouths in an identical expression. Sansa and Arya stood in the corner, knowing that their brother was inconsolable at that moment. They were sad for her. Arya because she grew to really like the woman, and Sansa because even though they had their differences, the other woman still risked her life to save her ass. And Andromeda could really be gone to them.
"Your Grace, I don't know what to d-"
"Save your queen!" He yelled, making the old man flinch, as well as Odda and Sansa a little bit. "You will do whatever you can to save your queen, do you understand?" The maester modded fervently and rushed back to her bedside, doing all the methods he could think of to save her.
Minutes passed, and she still had no pulse. It had been nine minutes, and she hadn't started to breathe again. Jon felt a pang in his heart as his knees buckled. He was finally feeling what it felt like to lose his soul bound. Odds rushed to him, knowing exactly what was happening.
"She's gone, Jon." She said to him softly as he began crying from the physical and mental pain he was going through. His heart was being stabbed, torn into two, gutted. "This is the bond severing. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She cried for him, she cried for Pandora, she cried for Andromeda. And she cried for Ilta, who would know no other monarch but a Vela. It would crumble.
"The sun is coming out," Arya said to Sansa, who glared at her while Jon was having his moment. The room was silent besides Jon and Arya , who spoke up again. "Father once told me that the sun sets and rises on a leader's time to lead. The sun is out now, and the darkness of the eclipse is over."
"Arya." Sansa scolded roughly.
"This is a release, Jon." She said, looking at Jon with sad eyes as he sobbed some more. "The sun has set on her time and risen on another's." It was worded sweetly for Arya, and Sansa was shocked by her words. Arya really had cared for the Vela woman. Everyone looked at Jon with pity.
Andromeda's eyes opened, and no one saw. Her eyes were squinted at the bright light of the sun that was peering through as she thought of Arya's words. No, the sun has risen on my time again.
*****
i feel like she really deserved the reunion, and i had been thinking it over for a few days before writing this. this is the longest chapter yet, so i hope it wasn't terrible to read! also, when i was writing this i had 279 reads exactly, so we'll see if this grows any!! i honestly have a blast writing this, so it'll be exciting to see if this interests others :)
lys