(122-07-29) Goodbye
Goodbye
Summary: Visenya says goodbye.
Date: 29 July 2015
Related: Dragon Fever
Players:
Visenya..Rhaegor..

isenya and Rhaegor have not seen each other since after the tourney where Rhaegor won, and they have not been alone in each other's company since before she was married. So it's awkward when they run across each other on the ramparts of Skyreach, and beyond greeting each other they mostly stay silent and in their perspective positions with several feet separating them. Finally she asks, "How are you?"

Rhaegor'd been up on the ramparts a while before chancing to come across Visenya, seeming to prefer the silence and the whistle of the wind to the struggle of knowing what conversation to make with her. When she breaks it to ask how he is, he doesn't turn to look at her, and maybe it lends her to thinking he hasn't heard her. But then he says, "One feels among the clouds here." And perhaps this is why he favors this particular escape; its capacity to make him feel above the rest of life itself. Not so different from when you're upon the back of a dragon. He is stiff, standing there, and when their eyes meet his gaze lacks its usual clarity.

"I suppose we are amongst the clouds. In a way." Visenya says in response, and when their eyes meet she watches him for several heartbeats before she turns her head to look out over the ramparts. "You must be thinking of it a lot." She doesn't have to say what it is. Still, there is some worry in her and she slowly crosses the distance between them to stand next to him. "I've thought about it a lot. Since the night I was bit."

"All the time," Rhaegor admits, as much as her as to himself. When she'd first suggested the possibility of his riding Whoremaster so many months ago, he hadn't allowed himself to spare a thought for it. It seemed a distant thing, and the loss of Nyraxes took him years to recover from. Hope was too dangerous. Hope leads to mania. And he has begun to hope now. His eyes scan the horizon, after their gaze severs. But he glances at her sidelong when she comes nearer. "Did you tell me everything?" he asks, cautiously. About her fever dream.

"Yes." Visenya says with a small little nod of the head. "I believe they are in the desert, but perhaps there are clues as to where they have gone." She rests her arms on the ramparts, and glances down at the Prince's Pass so far below. Occasionally one can see an ant-like object move down the pass and be wowed by the fact that it is probably not an ant at all, but a man on horseback. Wagons are so distant they look like slow-lumbering beetles. "You didn't answer my question. How are you?" She turns her head to look at him then.

Maybe Rhaegor has the same thought, his eye wandering from above to below to track the same slow-moving course of a traveler through the pass. But then he closes his eyes altogether to feel the wind on his face and the sun, too, hotter for their being that little bit closer to it. Winning the melee was probably therapeutic, purging a bit of energy pent-up from their travels and all the things that have occurred along the way. "I am not the one who was bitten by a viper," he says lowly, without looking at Visenya.

Visenya rests her head on her arms. The swelling in her left arm has finally gone down, but the delicate pale flesh of her forearm is still bears a horrible bruise that radiates from the bite marks. She has stopped covering it up now that it is swollen because she thinks the bruise is beautiful in a way, and she wants the Dornishmen in the castle to see the wound she took for their Prince. "I did not die nor was I maimed. So, it doesn't matter much."

Maybe the difficulty Rhaegor has in looking at her is the draw of his eye to the reminder of the bite, the viper's mark on her arm. When he opens his eyes, it's immediately there that they stray. And then, afterward, to her face. His expression is conflicted, and not a little tormented, his usually pale violet eyes clouded. "It matters to me." It's the kind of unequivocal statement that has a way of ending conversations, and it nearly does, but he goes on eventually. "It was the first real reminder that you are his now. More than the wedding. More than watching you happy together. More than seeing you in bed together. Not being able to be by your side. Not knowing what was happening behind that closed door." The way he says it is the way someone admits defeat.

Visenya is silent as he speaks, and when finally he is finished her eyes shine wet. "I'm sorry." She says. And then she lets out a little laugh, but it is humorless, "He thinks that I still belong to you. Not physically, but in my heart." She wipes at her eyes with the split sleeve then, "And he's not completely wrong. When I realized I liked his company I thought it would make it easier to let you go, but now I feel as if I am just betraying you both."

"Your duty is to him, and not to me," Rhaegor says, the way he always says things to try to reassure her when she needs it. "You do not betray me to treat him as you ought your husband." He says nothing of whether or not she betrays Torren; he no more knows her heart than her thoughts, anymore. His eyes dart along the ramparts, across the mountain line, over the horizon, and to his own hands last of all.

"I know." Visenya says with a small nod of her head. She wipes at her eyes again before she stares out into sky. "After I retrieve my dragons and you ride the Whoremaster I think it would be best if you convinced Torren to split the parties again on the way to Dragonstone. And then…" She turns to look at him then, and a tear slips down her cheek. "And then I think it would be best if we remain at a distance from each other. You need to settle with Princess Emira. Besides, perhaps you will ride to Dragonstone on dragon back."

She says it like there is no question he will ride Whoremaster, and Rhaegor can't help but be consumed by the notion. When he stares out at the sky, perhaps she takes it as a reaction to her suggestion of distance, but for the moment the dragon is all that is on his mind. He looks to her when she speaks Emira's name, his attention brought back to the immediacy of the exchange between them, rather than the fantasy in his head. Her tears pose more of a threat to him than any of the weapons he'd crossed blades with in the melee, but he does not lift a hand to brush them off as he might once have done. "As you wish," he says, finally, reckoning it for the best. "Emira and I will divide our time between Oldtown and Sunspear, when I am not called to King's Landing or Dragonstone."

"Sunspear is a big place. I'm sure we only need see each other at official functions or when I am at Torren's side." She blinks to suppress the feeling of more tears coming. It has never seemed as final as is does right now. "And we are going to to build a palace a few miles from Sunspear. It is too hot for me at times so the breezes off of the ocean may help, and I will not be able to keep my dragons in Sunspear once they are large. So, eventually I may not be there at all." She looks over him one last time before she says, "I can't be with you, but it doesn't mean I don't hold you in esteem." A sleeve is wiped over her eyes again, "Goodbye, Rhaegor."

Rhaegor listens, passively, to all that Visenya tells him of the plans she and Torren have. But when she says goodbye, he interrupts, stalling her. "What esteem can you have for me, who controls you and punishes you and uses your love for me against you?" They are words of provocation, but his delivery is almost distracted. Like the usual attention he would pay to keeping a leash on his tongue is given elsewhere. To the horizon, which he watches raptly.

Visenya steps away from the ramparts to look at Rhaegor again. "You mean to throw words I said to you when I was distressed and not myself in my face?" She shakes her head, "No. I'm sorry I said them, but don't do that. Don't turn this sour." She follows his line of sight to the horizon before she says again, "Goodbye."

"How can I forget them?" he wonders aloud, turning back from the vista to watch her go instead. "Perhaps I am not myself now. Forgive me." Or perhaps he gives her the gift of leaving angry, rather than sad, to lessen her emotional burden. He doesn't say goodbye, sensing that she imbues it with a certain meaning and not wanting to do the same. He almost looks a stranger against the wall of the narrow defensive walkway, far away and yet so close at hand.

Visenya doesn't look angry. She just looks tired. She sighs, and nods before she turns to walk away from him. The door to the stairway that leads down is thrown open, and she begins her descent with one last look at him over her shoulder.

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