two / nothing has changed

It was a chilly evening that froze everyone in kings landing to their bones. Hearths were lit in every corner of the keep, trying to keep the royals warm in their chambers. Salaenya was wrapped in a thick blue dress, with her shoulders covered by thick fur. She sat amongst Jace and Luke, the two sitting behind her and attempting to braid her hair. She giggled anytime they tugged to hard to get the braid just right.

"Sel, can you show us again?" The seven year old Luke asked, his brow furrowing as he stuck his tongue out in concentration. She shifted and noted that Jace, now nine, was also staring as if a braid was more complicated than Valyrian. "I don't get how you do it so well!" Dramatically and with 'no grace, he let go of the three strands and slumped back into the couch as he heaved a great sigh. Jace did not follow, just continued looking over her from his spot. She shook her head and grabbed the strands.

"It's all over and under," Her arms ached with the effort of holding them over her head for such long periods of time. She tried her best to explain, but she wasn't as good of a teacher as the septons, maesters, or any of the tutors who taught them of their heritage and the houses. "See?" She felt Jace, whose hands were bigger and rougher from his age and his time trying to train with Vermax or in the training yard with Ser Harwin, grab the strands with a hum.

"Over," She sat still as he flipped one piece and tucked another, then proceed to do the same to the next. Luke sat up to watch, Salaenya could very nearly hear his mouth falling open as Jace figured out how to braid Sel's long coppery hair. "Under!" He grinned, showing Luke a very lose and messy braid, but a braid none the less. "I did it!"

She looked over the braid and then grinned up at him, spinning on her knees and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. "You did!" She cheered along with him, as he squeezed the life out of her. She pulled back to look over at Luke, who pouted with his arms crossed. "Oh, are you alright, sweet boy?" She asked, sitting besides him and scooping him into her arms.

"Why is Jace so much better than me at everything?" He whined, pressing his face into her chest as Jace rolled his eyes. She wanted to laugh, she truly wanted to giggle at the poor boy and his fruitless worry, but he didn't need her laughter now. He needed her comfort.

"Oh, my sweet Luke, he isn't better at high valyrian!" The words slipped easily from her tongue and Jace groaned. Luke had better pronunciation than Jace did, but the older knew more words! Yet it was always Luke was better! "But all the things Jace can do better come with age; you will become better at things with time." Her voice was sweet, reminding Jace of their mother, and he felt warm knowing she was growing into such a sweet version of their mother.

"You truly think so?" He looked up and asked her, his eyes were glossy with unshed tears. Sometimes it was easy to forget that he was still just a little boy who was far too smart for his age. He understood and he welcomed challenges, but he was still so young compared to her. Four years had always felt like a lifetime to Luke, and now the older girl was starting to understand why. "You think I'll be good at things one day?"

"Of course I do, silly." She smiled, and brushed a strand of hair from his face, as she always did and tucked it behind his ear. He took comfort in her actions and melted into them. Salaenya, despite being raised as his sister, was so well tied into his soul that sometimes he could not tell where her comfort ended and his own mind began. "You will be a good and wise man with many talents, just as Jace will be too. Do not fret, little dragon." Her voice held a note of melancholy; she didn't want him to grow up; she always wanted him to be her sweet little brother, her sweet little Luke.

"Are you three having fun?" Rhaenyra asked, being led into the room with Laenor and Havaena hovering about her as if she were as breakable as glass. Ser Harwin was just behind them, standing guard at their door like the good guard he was. Salaenya waved to him with a happy smile. He had been just as much a part of her life as her own father had, and she knew exactly why he loved them so. She considered him family, even if, by law, he was not. He waved back with the warmest of smiles, then turned to the hallway and let the door close. She wished he could be inside the room with them.

"Salaenya was trying to teach us how to braid." Luke said from her lap, sitting up taller and wiping his eyes with the back of his thick blue sleeve. She tidied his rumpled doublet and let him move so that he could look more presentable towards their mother. He thought she was perfect, as the rest of them thought she was, and wanted to make sure that he was perfect enough to be considered her son. He had the same sense of insecurity regarding their mother as Salaenya did, despite it stemming from a different place. She knew that seeing your parents for what they were was like losing your religion—a god no longer a god. She wanted him to cling to the idea that their family was pure and clean, not whatever malformed monster she was starting to see. She loved Luke too much for him to see the true nature of House Targaryen just yet.

"I managed to do it; Luke still needs a bit more practice." Jace stood and made room for their mother, who was being hovered over like a weeping babe. "Are you quite alright, mother?" He asked with a furrowed brow, sharing a confused glance with Salaenya.

"Your mother is just fine," Laenor said, a proud smile on his face as he looked down at his son.

"Yes, I am fine. Your father and Havaena are just worrisome little creatures." She laughed lightly, the sound ringing like sweet bells through the room. Her voice brought a warmth to the room that only she could provide. She finally sat amongst them and pulled her children to all sit besides her. Luke decided to sit on Salaenya's lap so she too could be held in her mother's embrace. "But I do have very joyous news to share with my lovely little children."

"Did Aegon trip out of his window?" Salaenya asked excitedly.

"Did Aemond finally stop moping and smile for once?" Jace asked curiously.

"Can I finally ride Arrax?" Luke clapped his hands together as if begging.

The questions were asked rapidly, all in succession. All three of the adults smiled gently for a moment. "That is morbid, Sel, No, he has not yet smiled, and no, you most certainly cannot ride an adolescent dragon. What do you all take your mother for?" Laenor laughed, placing a hand on Salaenya's cheek in fatherly affection. She smiles up at him for a moment before looking at him curiously. "No, it is much different, sweet children." He laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

"What is it?" Jacaerys asked, looking between his mother and father as a frown of worry graced his chubby cheeks. Luke was pouting that he could not ride Arrax yet. Crossing his arms and leaning back into Salaenya's chest with puffed cheeks. Salaenya just wrapped her arms around her brother's middle and waited patiently.

She had been learning proper etiquette for almost three years now, but after a conversation with her mother a year ago (after they had snuck out) she had begun to take her duties more seriously. She was still impolite and ill mannered when around her uncles, but she tended to be more refined when around the women of court. Always shadowing her mother, or Queen Alicent, or even her grandmother, Princess Rhaenys when she came to the keep. She wanted to seem as weightless and perfect as the older women in her life. Someday she would be just as graceful and powerful, though she would never be as sad as Alicent always seemed to be amongst the court.

"Oh, my sweet children," Rhaenyra started, pressing a kiss on each of their heads. "We will need to make room on this couch." She said it so simply that none of her children understood. Havana laughed lightly as all three stared at their mother quizzically.

"Why?" Salaenya asks, her brow furrowed as she bit her lip. She always tugged on the soft flesh whenever she was nervous, thinking hard, or trying to figure something out. One small habit she had never realized she had inherited from her mother. Jacaerys, who had glanced over to her at her words, noticed her tugging at her lip. She had caused herself many bloody lips by gnawing there. So he reached around the front of his mother and used his thumb to gently pull her lip from between her teeth.

"You'll make yourself bleed again, Sel."

Rhaenyra looked between the two as Salaenya smiled sheepishly. If it were to go as her father had planned, they would be married on the eve of Jace's four-and-tenth nameday. Salaenya would have barely been six-and-ten. She would have been forced to carry an heir before she was seven-and-ten, before Jacaerys was five-and-ten, she would have been put in the birthing bed as a child. As so many other women were forced to be. She had been at odds with Alicent since her own marriage many years prior, but she was grateful for the woman putting her foot down and letting her two eldest find their way together. They would be married when they wanted to be. Not when a man dictates they should be. She already knew they would fall into a beautiful love that had been deprived of her for so many years. The man who carried her heart standing in the hallways, the father to her children, a father who could never claim or acknowledge their relationship.

"You two have already had years of experience being older siblings; you'll have to help Luke along once this one arrives." She said it sweetly. Her children stilled, their eyes blowing wide as Havaena and Laenor grinned from their spots in front of them all.

"You-" Salaenya stuttered, and then a wide smile cracked her face open again. "We're getting another sibling?"

"Boy or girl?" Luke asked, sitting forward painfully on his sister's thighs. She hissed and yanked him back to where it didn't feel like she was breaking her thighbone. He looked back at her in apology before looking back at his mother.

"I don't think it works like that, Luke." Salaenya huffed. She was trying to find an easier position to sit in with him on her lap. He was so boney, and she was not very big yet either, and he grew every day. One of these days, he would be far too big to sit in her lap anymore. So she clamped her mouth shut and kept her discomfort to herself. She wouldn't be able to hold her baby brother like this forever. "You don't just automatically know."

"Salaenya is right," Rhaenyra said with a sweet laugh, cupping Luke's cheeks for a moment before looking between the other two. "We will not know if the babe is a boy or girl until they arrive, healthy, if the gods are willing." Her voice was smooth and as soft as silk as she leaned back into the sofa, all of her children leaning with her. Laenor found residence on the floor, his legs crossed as he adjusted the trim of Rhaenyra's dress.

"Father, do you want a boy or girl?" Jacaerys asked, looking at his father with eyes of wonder. "How are children made anyway? And why must Mother get round?" It was the simple curiosity of a child, but Laenor's smile dropped as Havaena laughed from her spot across the room.

"That is a conversation for when you're older." He said it quickly, looking at Rhaenyra for a moment. "You still have a while yet."

"Now, it's getting late and you have to meet Ser Harwin in the training yard tomorrow." Havaena said it with a bright smile. She clapped her hands together as a signal for them all to stand.

"Do we have too?" Luke whined, though he was interrupted by a yawn.

"Yes, sweet boy." Havaena smiled, grabbing onto his hand and helping him from Salaenya's lap. The older girl moved to stand too, but Rhaenyra caught her hand and kept her sitting. "You stay a while, I have something to speak with you about." Salaenya looked confused at her mother, though she only nodded her head and kissed Luke on his head.

"Will you read to me again tonight?" Luke asked her quietly. His hand gripped hers as she sat next to their mother. The sweetest of smiles graced her face as she looked up at him. She wondered if this was what it would be like when they were older, always looking up at him. "I liked the story of Visenya." He muttered, almost shy about his desire for a bedtime story.

"Of course I will," she said softly, squeezing his hand for a second longer before letting it go. Jace walked to her side and kissed the crown of her head, giving his own form of farewell before leading Luke out of the room quickly. She turned to her mother after a few moments and settled back into a comfortable positon. "What did you need me for?" She asked after a moment. Her father stood from his spot on the floor and took a seat on her other side.

Laenor was not always the most present. He liked to feel free, lost in his squires and knightship, forgetting about the family he had within the walls of the keep. Though for all his shortcomings, he was a good man and a good father, and he stayed sat exactly where he was as the worst conversation of Salaenya's one and ten years of life. (She had always had a flare for the dramatics, as her mother had in youth, and it wasn't really the worst conversation. It had brought about many unsettling changes in the eyes of Salaenya, but the older she got, the more welcome they were.)

"It is time I told you of a very personal time for a woman," Rhaenyra said softly, as if she had prepared for this day to come from the moment Daemon had thrust her into her waiting hands. Her only daughter was growing up in the blink of an eye. Yesterday she had been crawling around with Jacaerys, tomorrow she would be marrying him, and the day after she would be a mother herself. The time passed too quickly and she was afraid of the day Salaenya would no longer need her. "A painful time that helps us grow the babe's we must carry."

Salaenya's brow furrowed, a silent confusion passing over her as she glanced over at Havaena across the room. Her fathers hand came to rub comforting circles over her back. "I thought babies were brought by the dragons?" She asked, almost feeling stupid as a smile curled onto her fathers face. She frowned at his smile the way a petulant child would. "Don't look at me like that." She grumbled, crossing her arms and puffing her cheeks.

"Oh, sweet girl," He said, bending over and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "That is something we tell children so they don't wonder too much while they are young."

"Then what is this secret?" She asked.

"As a woman grows, her body changes; from a girl to a woman, you know this." Rhaenyra seemed hesitant to continue. This marked the transitional time between girlhood and womanhood, the middleground right before the storm of changes that would surely come. Salaenya nodded and looked over at her mother. She was much... bigger. "With these changes comes a bleed."

The girl's face dropped and paled. "I'm going to bleed?" She gaped, looking between her parents as her mother swallowed. "From where?"

This was the part Rhaenyra dreaded—the great reveal of the only part of a woman a man ever seemed to want. "From between your legs." There was a sort of fear in her mothers gaze now, looking at her daughter. "It will be painful, but eventually, when you are old enough, it will allow you the gift of life."

Salaenya's face scrunched into a look of disdain. "Pain? Why does it have to be painful?"

As she began to pester her mother with questions about the pain of her bleed–whatever that was supposed to mean—Havaena stepped in front of her. "Because the ability to create a life takes a long time, the gift comes with the price of our moon's blood and all of the pains of it. This is the hardship of a woman." The older woman brushed a small strand of hair away from the younger girls face in a sort of reverence.

"Moon blood?" She gaped, looking at Havaena with horror at her newfound information. "Once a moonturn?"

All three of them seemed to find humor in her horror as they each laughed quietly. She felt like the most unfortunate girl alive, with this terrible reality of getting older shoved into her hands. She didn't like this feeling, the uncertainty of it all. She had been surefooted that the transition would be easy. She would get taller and round out into supple curves like her mother, then just be a woman by age. This was not what she expected or wanted. "Once a moonturn," her mother agreed, the gentle look of resignation deep within her eyes. "You will grow used to it with time."

"When?" She asked her mother.

"It does not have a set time, it comes when it is ready." Her father finally spoke, his hand still a comforting weight of warmth on her back. She looks over at him. "Or so I've been told."

"Men don't experience anything?" She gaped again, looking at him.

"Other than the insufferable behavior of youth?" He laughed, a grin finally donning his face now. "Not very much. We grow taller, our voices find themselves deeper, and we grow broader. Hair grows quickly once we grow up."

"Hair?"

He nodded, "But that is a discussion for another time. You must go read Luke's bedtime story, while your mother rests."

"How am I ever to rest now?" She groaned, leaning back into the couch.

Her parents laugh as Havaena stands. She looked over them for a moment, admiring the way they held themselves. She was still a child; nothing but her knowledge had changed. She smiled as her father stood and lifted her from her seat and high into the air. "You'll find a way, little dragon." His voice was so sweet as he set her down. "You always manage to find a way." She giggled as he poked her sides.

Her mother stood too and placed a sweet kiss on top of her head. "You will always be my sweet little Salaenya." She whispered into her coppery blonde hair before her daughter bid her goodnight. Laenor left Rhaenyra and Havaena to their devices, and as he pushed his daughter towards her own room, Havaena's hand found Rhaenyra's belly.

Nothing had changed as Laenor lifted her off the ground again and nearly tossed her into bed. "Oh, the jolly sailor bold!" He sang, spinning in a silly circle as Salaenya giggled. Her door's flying open as Jace and Luke come barreling in. "Ah!" Her father would pretend to shout as the boys tried, with all their might, to knock him over.

Nothing has changed, Salaenya's mind whispers. For a moment, she let herself bask in the time with her father. Though the reality of it settled in, But it will. 

ngl this is mostly a filler so she has relatonships with others lol.