novelraw Chapter 110: On Matters of the Heart
Chapter 110: On Matters of the Heart
Chapter 33: On Matters of the Heart
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I let out a long and deep sigh as I lowered myself into the steaming waters of the Blue Keep’s master bath, and let go the burden of domination for an all too brief moment in my existence. The esoteric task of balancing civilization and humanity fell to me by birthright and by might, and I regret nothing about rising to the work for I can trust no other to it. Thus I keep my complaints about it to the confines of my own thoughts, lest my servants witness the King lamenting his burden and seek to imitate him. I’ll baptize the whole world in dragonfire before I rule over a realm of complainers. But here in the confines of my own home, in this sanctuary of sanitization I allow myself to feel again, briefly.
I opened my eyes to the vision of the most beautiful acreage in my possession. Vast ivory slopes without blemish, without flaw, perfect beyond recall.
"You became more beautiful while I was away. How?" I questioned.
Helaena snickered, causing bounteous bouncing distraction, "You didn’t notice till my tits were out. I want to say it’s incredible, but for you, merely typical."
Now alerted to the changes, my gaze focused and my mind performed the mental calculus of analysis, now cataloging dimensional discrepancies in facial length to width ratio, mouth to nose, segment equality, symmetry, and vertical facial proportions.
"What sorcery is this..." I muttered as I realized the many subtle shifts of her features towards the mathematical ideal.
Nothing shifted so completely that a feature fully outside the ideal range now occupied the median, but all facial metrics shifted towards it just subtly enough that one might overlook it in his haste to fill his view with her enormous teats. My sister-wife now fully possessed the legendary beauty of our bloodline, her geometry resembling more closely Rhaenyra’s at her peak than her former self.
"Sorcery indeed, yours." she explained while a pair of my daughters serving as her handmaidens washed her long fall of thick silver-gold hair, "One night I awoke feeling more vigor and vitality than ever before, something all of your daughters staying with us also felt. Aemond told me he also felt the change, and that it began when you declared yourself King atop the Iron Throne."
I thought through her words, considered that my brother never told me of this boon he apparently received, but he instead told my wife. He’s a good brother. I needed my wits about me during the delicate sequencing of our schemes, and he deposited his findings for me to discover after the pressure eased off. It confirmed my decision to send him off to Essos to secure glory and riches after whatever will happen in Dorne finishes.
My mind failed to wander to that horrid sandy land, for my eyes fixated upon the carnation pink capped peaks floating above the mineral rich hot spring water.
"I once chose to destroy all the magic I could get my hands on. In all my years the higher mysteries of this world have never managed to shake my faith in the rightness of that choice, even when I became the very thing I set out to defeat." I spoke every word without turning either left or right, but fixed firmly upon those glorious orbs, "Now I have seen such wonders I find myself considering, perhaps... I have judged magic too harshly."
"I remember how quickly you changed your stance on the subject last time." Helaena mocked before one of my daughters with a golden pitcher began rinsing out her hair.
"Never let prior convictions hold you back from present advantage." I instructed the girls attending my sister-wife, "The only unforgivable sin is weakness. Power covers many mistakes."
"Save some of these moments for our children." Helaena scowled, "Sometimes it feels like you don’t even know their names."
"Aerys, Rhaella, Rhaegar, Daenarys, Maegor, Maegella, Aelor, Aellora, Aenys, Daenys, Aenar, Elaena, Aerion, Viserra, Maekar, and Saera." I proved her wrong without hesitation, "Eighteen children without adding a single duplicate living name from our House."
I expected the surprise from my bastards, but the small shock Helaena quickly hid cut deeply.
"Don’t be so surprised girls." I turned my gaze on them rather than alert Helaena to my noticing, "Many think me heartless, I often think it myself, but every so often the withered tree of my empathy is watered by bloodshed, and I remember that my heart is great enough to contain the whole world, so long as they meet my standards. Pity so little does, but doubt this not. I love you both, and all of my children."
My girls are lucky they look so good, for their composure held not a single jot against that of my Aunt Rhaenys. Doubt covered every inch of countenance, and one girl opened and closed her mouth as if to speak, while the other found her courage enough to step over the starting line of speech.
"Did you not-" the girl speaking stopped until I nodded for her to continue her inquiry, "Did you not send a hundred of our brothers to their deaths at the start of the war?"
I maintained my silence for a time, enough to allow the weight of the topic to breath, then responded, "You are women, the vessel of life, and thus naturally believe it wrong to lay down your life for anything but the lives brought forth of your own. It violates your instincts and sensibility. Your virtue is shackled, but men are not. Men are made for purpose, and called to greatness. In the striving we are fulfilled and in the achievement we are realized. My sons had greatness within their reach. That they died is a tragedy, but that they made the attempt regardless of the danger is a triumph of the spirit."
"Did you at least enjoy yourself, husband, during this civil war you have spent your entire life preparing for?" Helaena changed the topic, wise of her considering the bewilderment and disbelief I saw in my daughters.
"No." I responded immediately, evenly, "Outside of a few maneuvers Sunfyre and I achieved, this cataclysm averted was no more than a chore on my path as a ruler. I have preserved the strength of the realm, but in so doing prevented the purging of the pathological deviation in the culture. The decadence and silliness of multiple decades of peace and prosperity remain."
"Pathological deviation? If only Lyle could see you now." She mused fondly.
"Who?" I furrowed my brow, trying to place the name that smacked of familiarity.
"The maester of Bear Island." Helaena answered in her usual put upon tone whenever I forget something from the past.
She’s only removed from it all less than three decades; for me, I said what I thought was our last goodbye almost sixty years ago, and many a hard year between. My sister-wife sensed the lack of recognition from me and moved on from the topic.
"And how is the High Septon?" she inquired, and my daughters perked up at the mention of the nationally important figure, though my sister cared not a jot for the man.
"Agreeable." I informed her, "He speedily endorsed the Season of Penitence."
The Season of Penitence, my theocratic off ramp for the Faith on the matter of enslaving hundreds of thousands. Those taken into bondage work for the atonement of the lands who supported my half-sister’s brief claimancy. They pay for the sins of the masses, who rebelled against the holy laws of our seven-in-one god by supporting the blasphemous usurpation of a woman over the firstborn son.
"How did it feel, getting the head of the largest anti-slavery institution in the world to agree to you enslaving hundreds of thousands?" Helaena snarked, as is her way.
"Do you think it brought me joy, woman?" my tone caught her off guard, "Pain and fear are my gift to the people of Westeros. In the crucible of suffering they shall become pure and learn righteousness. The old spirit of haughtiness and pride shall be taught humility by my making an eighth hell here on the earth. I shall teach them the lessons of virtue, and order shall finally reign over chaos, and I can finally rest."
I rubbed the corners of my eyes with a finger and thumb, my discontent rumbling from deep within my massive chest, "I am tired, woman. I am tired of being the bitter cure to the madness of humanity."
"What would you even do without it? Without this grand purpose you go on and on about." Helaena scoffed, dismissing me as no one else can, "What do you even want, Aegon, if another came to do all you think needs being done? What do you want?"
I lowered my hand from my eyes to my jaw and told her.
"I want to die."
"What?" she squawked, eyes wide with shock.
"I am a hundred and twenty years old." I sighed, "Older than any man ought be. What further duty can be demanded of one such as me, and yet now the heaviest burden of all weighs upon my back. You ask what I shall do if another shouldered the weight. I say unto you, I would leap from Sunfyre’s back as we soared over the clouds, and send him far from me. I long to marshal the sword host of the Warrior and fight for all time against all evil across the empyrean alongside the great battle saints of the past. I fear that I shall close my eyes for what should be the final time, and open them again as another youth, in another land in need of me. I know not if I possess the strength of will to do this again when I already weary of it so."
I turned my gaze to the mortified faces of my daughters no longer even attending my sister-wife in this steaming hot basin of clear water, "You questioned my love for my sons. My love for my sons is all I have left. I scoured my memory for happiness and joy, I’ve not thought of happiness for years and half the time when I think of joy it’s in relation to harm. That is why all of you are so important. I’ve grown so tired of base humanity, some days I think of little but how I want to take up my sword and slay everyone. That is why you are all so important, for the only warmth I have left when contemplating the future of mankind in Westeros is knowing that he shall bear my face for all time."
Helaena held her beautiful face in her hands, "Why do you say all the worst things I’ve ever heard?" she bemoaned.
"Hahahahaha!" I laughed, then took a deep breath with a wide smile on my face, "Because you ever live in the shelter I build around you. You know nothing of the bottomless malice within the human heart."
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