Q&A - answering your qs

                                    

                                          

First of all, I want to thank everyone for showing so much love to this book in those last 2 years!
                          
As you may notice from the cover, Pyrophilia was added to the reading list of the official Game of Thrones Wattpad page! This is such an honour and I was smiling so widely when I received their message. This book means the world to me. 
                          
In other news, I do plan to go over it again and edit some parts, adding a few more scenes. I started writing this book when I was 17 and now at 21, my writing has matured and changed significantly. Reading the first chapters, there were a lot of things I would like to alter, mostly in my writing style, so that's what I will be doing. 
                          

Now moving onto the questions! 
                          
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What was Aegon's reaction when he first found out about Lyarra jumping off the Keep?
                          
I think Aegon's reaction would be exactly how he described it to his son. He really believed he was to blame for Lyarra's ending and it is a burden he carried to the end of his life. Losing Lyarra must have hurt twice as much as losing Rhaenys, mainly because he lost the two women he loved in the span of days and both deaths linked back to him. In a way, the two deaths reflected Aegon's greatest weaknesses and sins. Rhaenys died because of Aegon's greed to acquire all of the Seven Kingdoms, while Lyarra died because of Aegon's troubled mind and his inability to accept responsibility for his wrong doings. Raised as a golden hero and a conqueror, his flaws were always overlooked by his greatness and even his desire for war was regarded as strategic. Therefore, when he had only himself to blame for Rhaenys' loss, he swayed all of his anger and responsibility to Lyarra, resulting in his hateful speech when she came to comfort him. 
                          
In comparison to how he wailed for Rhaenys, I think he would be mostly angry. His grief would not be wet but completely dry (if that makes sense). He would scream and break everything in his path. He would drink himself to a point of passing out, trying to drown his guilt, which in the end came to him like a tide, made up of all his errors. Lyarra's death and his inability to come to a compromise with Dorne for the next years really ruined the legend of Aegon Targaryen for him, leading him to become the shadow of the man he was, a man who had surrendered like the one we see in the Epilogue. 



                          
How did Aegon find out about Lyarra's death? What was his reaction to the news?
                          
He was probably informed by members of his guard. I think hew would be in utter disbelief in the beginning, but as he slowly realized what had happened, he would grow colder colder. I can't see him losing control in front of his guards  or showing how important Lyarra was, but his face would drop and he would put on a facade, while in reality his heart would be breaking and every fiber of him would want to scream. 



                          
Did he bury her? 
                          
After asking for her body, he would dress her in the finest of clothes and treat her with devastating care, heavily blended with his guilt. However, he did not bury her. He burned her, the way Targaryens did. To Aegon that was his way of keeping her close, of acknowledging how important she was to him. Also, Aegon was taught from a young age that a Targargen could only ever truly belong with a Targaryen. Therefore by burning her in Targaryen customs, he recognizes her as part of him, as someone who belonged with him just as much as he belonged with her. 

                          
What was Lord Arryn's reaction?
                          
Although his feelings changed in the last moments he spent with Lyarra, I really do believe he cared for her, maybe not in an exclusively romantic way but more in a partner one. Lyarra gave him a son and raised him for 5 years, years that cannot be easily replaced. However, to him, Lyarra's end was inevitable, which is partly the reason he told her she would never return if she left him then. It was both a threat and a realization that Lyarra had nothing to lean on and that her feelings for Aegon, which he considered toxic and morally wrong, would at some point lead her to her final end. 
                          
He did mourn for her and he did remember her from time to time, but his grief was more temporary, the way one would feel for losing a partner they had no deep emotional connection to. Lord Arryn lost all of his family at once, his son and wife, but in a way he lost all parts of him that tied him to Lyarra, which in the end I believe made it easier for him to move on, after cutting his losses.


                          
How did House Stark react to her death? 
                          
Benjen was the one who wept for her the most. After rumours of her relationship with the King flooded the Kingdoms, Elric took it as a personal betrayal to their House and a disgrace to the name of the Starks. Although he did mourn his sister, his pride would hardly let him truly cry for her death. Similar to Ronell Arryn who thought her death inevitable, Elric saw it as a just punisgment for her sins, who in the end came back to haunt her. 



                          
What would have happened if Lyarra had not killed herself? 
                          
There was never an alternate ending. Lyarra's death was one of the first scenes I wrote when I started this book. Lyarra was always destined to fall and the entire book was written in accordance to that. However, if she had not died, she would have been exiled by Aegon or sent back to her home ashamed. Knowing Lyarra her actions would not strain far from what actually happened. There is no ending in which Aegon did not love Rhaenys more and in which his grief did not lead both of them to their rock bottom (no pun intended)