Chapter Text
Addressed to Prince Daemon Targaryen, during the third day of the second moon of 112 AC.
To my inbred prick of a husband,
Fuck you. I have said it before- many times, I must confess- but this time I mean it.
I was glad, at first when you fucked off to gods-know-where fighting your gods damned war but now?
I received a bloody missive saying you got your pale arse critically injured.
I repeat, fuck you.
You are NOT allowed to die. I refuse to allow it.
Do you have ANY idea where it would leave me? I hate you, you selfish prick, and I will not be forced to go through another nightmare of a marriage.
At least you leave me mostly alone.
Gods, I hate men.
I hate YOU.
I'll have to burn this later.
- The Lady Rhea Rhoyce of Runestone, the Vale.
— ++ —
Addressed to Daemon Targaryen, the fifteenth day of the second moon of 112 AC.
To my surprisingly resilient bastard of a husband,
My prayers have been answered. You live to fight another day in that ridiculous war.
It is a disturbingly comforting thought.
I hate you. You hate me. We are quite content to live mostly separate. An easy arrangement I do not wish to lose.
Our marriage remains unconsummated. I doubt I would have such luck again.
Despite how it grates to refer to you as anything but a plague upon my house- and you are- I have been lucky.
You have not touched me. Despite the way cruelty and violence blankets you, you have not raised a hand to me.
You could. Gods know you could. I could not stop you. Fuck, you have right yo it, according to the law.
If I only had a cock. Life would be so much easier.
Though, if it left me as unintelligent and short-sighted as most men, perhaps I am better as I am.
Why am I even writing this? It's not as if you'll ever see it.
Perhaps it is simply comforting to put my thoughts on paper.
It is more fun to talk to you when you can't talk back, I feel, though it irritates me how often you are in my thoughts of late.
-Lady Rhea Rhoyce of Runestone
— ++ —
Addressed to Prince Daemon Targaryen, the thirtieth day of the fifth moon, 112 AC.
To my unimaginative silver-haired bastard of a husband,
Word of your ever so ‘witty’ nickname for me has reached the Vale. I'm sure you would be glad of such a thing, you bastard.
Bronze Bitch, indeed. Of all the things to pick, that truly is a dull one. I can honestly say I am disappointed.
Well. I'd rather be your ‘Bronze Bitch’ than another man's broodmare. I will live with it, like I have lived with every other insult, but you will remain married to me, remain alive, or I will kill you myself.
Moons have passed since my last letter. You were thankfully absent from my consideration of late.
While I do not wish for you to die in your pointless war, I cannot say the same for your dragon. We have finally replenished the sheep the overgrown lizard feasts upon during your banishments.
Honestly, could you get on with your bloody brother long enough for the sheep to lamb, at least? The greedy beast always takes the best stock.
I've been feeling rather like a Stark over the past few moons- winter is coming, and quickly. My preparations are almost done, and the Maesters are saying this will be a short one, but I worry all the same.
I care for my people, you see? I doubt you care for anyone, apart from perhaps your brother.
You certainly don't care for me.
Still, I am content enough. My cousin bought me some new oil paints for my nameday, and I'm working on a beautiful sunset piece to give him in thanks.
It has been too long since I last painted. It calms me the way few other things do- as much as I enjoy riding and hunting, they do not provide the same peace that painting does.
You could probably benefit from hobbies other than fighting, whoring and your bloody overgrown lizard.
Why the fuck am I wasting my time on this? Fuck you. I don't care about your bloody hobbies.
-Lady Rhea Rhoyce, your ‘Bronze Bitch.’
— ++ —
Addressed to Prince Daemon Targaryen, twentieth day of the seventh moon, 112 AC
To my selfish, inbred cunt of a husband,
See. That's how you insult someone. Fucking Idiot.
Winter is upon us. It's not too bad as of yet, and it looks like the grain is going to last. I have too much time on my hands now the preparations are over. Perhaps that is why my thoughts keep returning to you.
What are you doing in that bloody war, I wonder. The men would be unhappy, away from home during the winter. I pray for your continued survival, and your misery. I hate you, husband, but I will not suffer another. They are already swarming like vultures over a corpse, have been ever since you started asking for a damned annulment.
You have no idea what it is like. You never have. You and the other damned Targaryens, with your damned beasts to protect you.
I gave up on the idea of love long ago, but I am lonely here. The other lords care little for a Lady with power. Jeyne understands, as Lady of the Vale. But I have little reason to visit the Eyrie and I have been wary of the ravens of late. A few seals were almost certainly broken before they got to me, and the Maesters have their hands on them before anyone else.
I do not trust old men who hoard knowledge like they do. And they are mostly reachmen, besides. Fucking Hightowers. That is one thing we can agree on- they are grasping cunts, yet to grasp that they are no longer kings.
Royces were kings, once. Long before your damned dragons came to the Seven Kingdoms. I still sit a throne, one of the last echoes of a time long passed. But we fell, and not even to Dragons. To Andals .
I doubt you even see a difference between us- Andal and First Men. Septs and Godswoods. They are equally as foreign to you, somehow lesser for not being Valyrian. You came to these lands fleeing a broken civilisation, and you have the audacity to think yourselves better.
I doubt you know anything about House Royce. About my family- a family that should have been yours as well.
I can recite every damned member of your family that lived here since the conquest- and their dragons. I know your house words, your house colours, your fucking language. I doubt you could name a single member of my family other than me.
We are strangers. We have been married almost fifteen years and yet we are strangers.
Gods, why am I writing this?
I’m going to bed.
-Lady Rhea Rhoyce of House Royce, ‘we remember’.
— ++ —
Addressed to Prince Daemon Targaryen, thirteenth day of the tenth moon, 112 AC
To my small-pricked menace of a husband,
Fuck you and your fucking war. My paints have become ten times more expensive because of your stupid war. It’s the middle of winter, I can’t afford to pay bags of gold for my paints. But Gods, do I want to.
The snow is a heavy blanket over the heather, the ice creeping over the lakes, the sun shining above it all and all I want to do is paint it.
Why is it you seem to bring misery to my life with every breath? Is it the Gods will for me to be so tormented by you? I am sick of it. I am sick of thinking of you, even if it is only to curse your name. I am sick of loneliness.
Gods curse you, Daemon Targaryen. I hate you. With every breath I take, with every beat of my heart. I hate you.
You consume me. Burn me. You will kill me one day, of that I am sure. You will get sick of begging your brother for an annulment, you will find another that would burn with you instead of against you.
I am just a footnote to you. A shackle.
Well, Daemon Targaryen, I live . Even when I am sick of it, when the monotony and loneliness of my life threatens to consume me, I am totally, damnably, alive .
I hope you see it before the end. See that I am human, a person, not just something in the way of you.
But perhaps, for that, I would need to see you as a person too. And that, I am not capable of. Not with your silver-white hair and violet eye, your dragon and your sword. You are a myth, a legend, a villain.
Targaryens are closer to gods than men, that is what they say. I believe it. I curse your name is if you are a god, I damn myself at your altar. My prayer is one of hatred, my sacrifice one of my life.
Even now, with you so far away, I cannot help but rage at you as if you are the snow that chokes my keep, the sea that bashes at the rocks. Immovable. A fact of life.
Gods, I’m going insane. I will write to my cousin, ask him to visit. The company will do me good, even if it is his.
-Your wife, Rhea.
— ++ —
Addressed to Prince Daemon Targaryen, fifteenth day of the eleventh moon, 113 AC.
To my brainless cunt of a husband,
A year has passed. Winter is over.
I cringe to read my last letter, though I cannot bring myself to burn it without writing this first. This will be the last, of that I am finally sure. I will write this tonight, and on the morrow these letters will be naught but ash. I will allow you to plague me no longer, Daemon Targaryen.
We were bound before a septon, to a faith we both have no connection to. Our marriage was never consummate, never cherished. Simply words on a page. My protection. Your prison.
Spring is a balm to my soul, the snowdrops pushing their way up from the melting frost a sign that life goes on.
I am happy, I think. My people are well, and this winter has not crippled us the way others have.
I tried to paint you, once.
It never looked right.
You are as foreign to me as I am to you. I long for compassion, for companionship from you even as I know it is impossible. It is the vulnerability at my core, the crack in my armour. I am alone.
I want a husband . Not a handsome one, or a gallant one, a knight from the songs.
I want someone to support me, to laugh with me, to cry with me. Someone I can be miserable and lonely with, instead of being miserable and lonely on my own.
Gunther, my cousin, asked me to marry him, if you died. To ensure the security of Runestone, he said.
He sees me the same as everyone else does. Not a ruler, but a key .
I will not allow it. I will not.
You are not allowed to die, Daemon Targaryen.
If the gods grant me anything, I beg them to grant me this. Let me die by your hand, to finally free you from our marriage, and let it be quick.
Let it be remembered.
Daemon Targaryen’s first wife was Rhea Rhoyce. Their marriage was an unhappy one. She died by his hand.
It is a comforting thought. I will not die in the childbed as my mother did, leaving behind a grieving husband and a motherless child. I will not die in the sickbed as my father did, so weakened. I will burn bright, and I will burn short.
This is my goodbye to you, Daemon Targaryen. I will dwell on you no longer.
-Your wife, Rhea.