Chapter Text
It felt like an eternity had passed since he'd sent out his summons, yet still, she does not appear. Her husband and herself, after years of quietly living at Storm's End, found reason to visit the capital, and it took Elia's death and funeral for it to be so. It would be the first Rhaegar would see her, since their painful separation at Harrenhal five years ago. Rhaegar chewed his lip, clenched and unclenched his fists, and finally, unnerved by himself, forced himself into stillness.
Then, her entrance is declared. Rhaegar cannot feign being casual or disinterested; he lifts his head immediately, looking forward to seeing her face. Lyanna steps forward, and the first he notes is the black brocade dress she wears, and her shortened curls framing her lovely face. Seeing her now, plainly so, the long ago buried, forgotten emotions riled within him.
It were as if his life was left on pause for five years. Every dream, ambition and aspiration he had, rolled into one woman. And that woman was staring back at him now, with an all too familiar icy, stormy gaze.
„You haven't changed at all.“
She was slender still, yet a touch more supple than her six-and-ten self. She did look older now, though most of it is due to dress and posture. Her lips were the same, her eyes were the same, her little nose was the same, and his reaction to it all remained as well. There is a flame of life in her eye, but it's wavering compared to how he remembered it, subdued.
Life, he thought. Life bitters even the sweetest of fruits. Yet there was still hope for her, he hoped, her life was not yet squandered away.
„I've changed plenty,“ she says, foregoing formalities just as he did. He suspects she speaks of more than appearance. „It is you who looks like no day has touched you in years.“ Was she confessing to nostalgia? At this rate, Rhaegar feels he'll read into near every word she speaks.
„Myself and Robert, we've been in King's Landing for a few days now.“ Her voice is low and husky still, nearly an adolescent boy's; he found it charming then and he finds it charming now. „I must confess, the city is largely pleasant. I haven't seen the whole of the Red Keep, but Jon likes it already.“
Don't speak to me of the city. Speak to me about yourself. Was that wild and careless girl he knew still inside, or was she dead, as dead as his dreams? She speaks of her son instead, the little boy who tagged along, with Lyanna's dark head of curls and Robert's name. Perhaps it is too much to ask; she shields herself from him now.
„Pleasant?“ he lingers on the former part of her words, not the latter. „The Lyanna Stark I knew thought nothing was pleasant but Winterfell. Am I to take Storm's End as having sullied your taste in places to live?“
He tries for it to be small talk, yet it came out biting. Lyanna doesn't forgive him for it; her so far impassive eyes quickly brim over with ice. „I retract that statement. It is certainly less pleasant now.“ Her skirts swishing, Lyanna moves to take her leave, yet Rhaegar doesn't allow her; his hand grabs her elbow and he keeps her before himself.
He scans over her hardened, yet lovely features; her eyes are averted, her jaw set in that proud, stubborn manner. She is now nearer than she let herself stand, as if she were ice scared to get too close to fire.
Lyanna. He doesn't say it at first, he merely thinks it. The name forbidden to him, the name that hadn't rolled off his tongue for years, nor did he allow anyone in his vicinity to speak it. Lady Baratheon was equally hurtful, yet far less personal. „Lyanna,“ he says at last, nearly as a begging, and certainly an offering of truce.
Silently, Lyanna agrees to whatever it was he meant; she bumps away from his direct proximity, yet is no longer as ired. They end in the same position as earlier; awkwardly acting strangers when they were anything but.
„My husband could not come with me.“ Her posture, the nervous play of emotion on her features, all of it reveals her discomfort. It is not unexpected, but it is regretful. „It is curious to me why you sent for me regardless.“
„It is not so curious now, is it?“ In truth, Rhaegar knew perfectly well what he was doing. He summoned her covertly, inviting both Robert and his lady wife at a time Robert was indisposed, then, when presented with the fact, only asked for her.
He did not wish to see Robert anymore than he had to. Her, however, he wished to scrutinize up close.
Lyanna blinks away from him, plainly discomforted. „I know naught of your reasons, all I can do is suspect. Now that your late wife is no longer in life, you need another to warm your bed. If that is that case, I must remind you, I am a wife and a mother now. I am not longer fit to indulge whichever fancies you have, Your Grace.“
His fancies? What were his fancies? She speaks as if he thinks her a common whore, and not the love of his life. Rhaegar doesn't know if to be offended or dismayed; in the end he chooses both. He stepped closer to her. „The way I recall it, my wife was well alive the last time you indulged my fancies. It was irrelevant then, and it is irrelevant now. Is it that difficult to trust that I simply wanted to see you?“
Lyanna blinked, faltering some, but then renewed her defensive stance. „I don't know about you, and what you allude to, but I inform you I am perfectly content in my marriage, Your Grace.“
„Yet, this is not what I hear,“ Rhaegar returns easily. Rumors of Robert's infidelity were robust enough that they reached the capital. „From what I hear, your lord husband has a penchant for pursuing blonde servant-maids, does he not? I wonder how this affects you and your married life together.“ He's more callous than he has to be, perhaps, but he does not forgive the wound she inflicted on him at Harrenhal. She had brushed him away and his love „for duty“, when they both knew that was not the correct call.
„And what of it if he does?“ Lyanna spitefully returns. „Does that mean I cannot love him? Perhaps I am a desperate woman, vying for my husband's attention, while his eye hopelessly strays.“
„It is a valid explanation“, Rhaegar smiled. „Of course, if we fail to take one thing into account. That is not who you are. Even if he were the last man alive, a god on Earth, you would never humiliate yourself so. I can think of a better explanation. You are not quite as eager to receive him in your bed, and thus he is coerced to look for attentions elsewhere.“
Lyanna scowled, and Rhaegar soon felt a slap across his face. He grabbed her by her wrist. „How dare you? My marital affairs and what goes on in my bedroom are none of your business.“
„I offer the biggest of my apologies, Lady Lyanna,“ Rhaegar says with an amused smile. „It could be that I was inappropriate. Yet, am I wrong?“
„And what about you?“ Lyanna asks, with a defiant glint in her eye. She pulled her arm away from him. „Was your wife forced to look for affection elsewhere? I suppose not, for she bore you two children and died with the third in her womb.“
„Lady Lyanna, you know I have always been exceptionally good at divorcing my desire from my duty.“ Rhaegar dryly retorts. „The same cannot be said of you, or at least, it couldn't.“
„And what if they need not be divorced? What if they are one and the same now? You were a childish fancy of mine, I admit, yet I am in love with my husband now.“
Lyanna blinked, and her gaze drifted downwards as Rhaegar approached her, coming even closer. He could feel both the cold and warmth radiating off her. He grabbed her chin in his hand, and made her look him in the eye.
„Tell me that you love him, and feel nothing for me anymore. Look me in the eye and tell me, and I will leave you alone.“
Lyanna lifted her head proudly, to willingly meet his eye. „I love him. There. Is that enough for you yet?“
„I don't believe you,“ Rhaegar flatly says. „You know, I know a thing or two about a loveless marriage. I've spent years in one myself.“
Lyanna scoffed. „And just for you were unhappy in your marriage, you presume to think everyone is. That doesn't seem like the best of calculations, my lord.“
„Not everyone, only you,“ Rhaegar returns. „You, Lyanna Stark, the proud and stubborn woman whom I met at Harrenhal. She would never bow her head down, pretend to be happy with her dreary life, with her destiny to be tied down by a man she doesn't love. So I ask: what happened to you, Lyanna? Are you no longer the woman I used to know? Or are you simply better at concealing it now?“
Lyanna forcefully swallowed the ball in her throat, and looked up. It clearly claimed great effort. „And what if it is true? What if you, in your infinite wisdom, know me better than I claim to know myself?“
„Many things, Lady Lyanna. Many things,“ Rhaegar answered cryptically. „But one to start with.“ Rhaegar grabbed her by her waist and kissed her; immediately, Lyanna melted down in his arms.
It were like all the liveliness that drained out of her returned in an instant; her fingers pulled at the hair at the back of his head, and she bit down on his lip as only a she-wolf would. Her lips tasted like ice and fire at the same time; it was all he had remembered, and all he imagined it would be.
Lyanna's hand began tearing at his collar, and uncharacteristically, Rhaegar grinned into the kiss. She had attempted to push him backwards; Rhaegar remembered there was a door behind him, one she likely assumed the door to his bedroom.
Rhaegar broke their heated kiss, and rested his forehead on hers, calming the both of them down.
„Not now, Lyanna, not right now,“ he whispered against her lips.
„Why not?“ Lyanna's eyes met his boldly. „Why else would you say all these things to me? What do you want from me, then?“
„I want you,“ Rhaegar answers simply. „But not like this. You forget your husband is in this castle, and that I've conspicuously summoned you here.“
„Then what?“ Lyanna asks, with revealed frustration now. „What do you want?“
„Your consent,“ Rhaegar returns. „Your consent to change the current political landscape, and with it our lives.“
Lyanna frowned. „What is that supposed to mean?“ Then her eyes widened. „No. You want to kill Robert.“
„Nothing quite as blunt,“ Rhaegar argues. „Though it would be... lets say, convenient, if some accident were to befall him.“
„No,“ Lyanna shakes her head decisively. „I have a son with him. What do you suppose would happen to my son?“
„Nothing ill would befall your son,“ Rhaegar assures. „I would embrace him as my own, and, when the time comes, he would be fostered with a fitting family and eventually inherit his post as Lord of Storm's End.“
„No,“ Lyanna shakes her curly head. „It is too dangerous. What if people suspect you? Or me? Something like this could very well be the beginning of a war.“
„It is true, that is a possibility,“ Rhaegar affirms. „But I would do everything in my power for it all to transpire smoothly.“ He cupped the side of Lyanna's face with his hand. „Are you willing to spend the rest of your life as it is now, Lyanna? When it can be different? When both of us can be happy?“ No, her expressive eyes seemed to say. Still, she had been conflicted.
„ Don't tire yourself with it, Lyanna. I will take care of everything myself, and I will think through every possibility. All I need is for you to say yes.“
„Yes.“