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backjustforberena · 3 hours ago

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@frozen-sq - it probably needs another read-through but have their first scene alone together...

“Lord Corlys Velaryon, Your Grace.” The knight declares. Corlys gives a bow immediately.

“Thank you, Ser Ryam.” She addresses the Kingsguard, who dips his head and leaves the room with a swish of his white cloak, dismissed.

The Queen glances, briefly, up from her work and gives Corlys a short nod as an indication for him to rise, and not be left bending, forgotten in the entrance. Indeed, he seems to have entered a space in which that might be easily done, for she fills it up so soundly. There are a couple of servants milling about their duties. Lighting candles, stoking the fire. One pulls a great curtain across a partition: he expects the Queen’s bed lies beyond.

Corlys cannot imagine the rooms belonging to another, though he knows that it has. These were King Jaehaerys’s quarters before they were hers. However, there is little of the Old King here. Everything is luxurious femininity: cushions, tapestries, dried wildflowers in vases. All in shades of gold and scarlet, an occasional dark blue. The furniture, he can tell, wears new gloss. Before the desk at which his Queen sits, there is a seating area of two low sofas and a table. By the large fireplace, adorned with dragons, stands a smaller table and two ornate wooden chairs that match the one at the desk.

He has to step to the side as a woman goes for the door, hands laden with a tray of a wine jug and cups. She disappears through it. No refreshments then. This would not be a long conversation. Or, if it was to be, perhaps not a comfortable one. Not a friendly one.

There’s irritation bleeding into him, he cannot hold it back, and his hands are held tight behind his back. The Queen has summoned him here with haste yet now seems content to let him wait. She has barely looked at him, absorbed in the materials in front of her.

But Queen Rhaenys, when she does finally look at him, seems the picture of grace and welcome. As beautiful in this low candlelight as fully lit upon her throne. She sets aside her quill and parchments and rises from her desk, moving over to him with a swish of her skirts.

Corlys has known beautiful women. He has known kings and queens and empresses. Yet his mind cannot conjure her equal. It unnerves him. She offers her hand to him and he kisses it. She smells of roses, and something sharp underneath it.

“A Velaryon presence has long been absent in King’s Landing. I hope you and your company have been made welcome, Lord Corlys.”

“Most welcome, Your Grace.” He smiles, thinking of his men, now drunk and revelling in the city.

The Queen smiles back. She turns her back to him, to go and sit on one of the low sofas, then meets his eyes again. Hers are a pure hazel. Aglow in the flickering candlelight, almost amber. He waits for her to offer him a seat.

She doesn’t.

“And I thank you for your gifts. Most generous.” Her voice is clipped on the second sentence, parrying his own compliment back to him, almost mocking his suit and the pretence of decorum.

The dryness takes him by surprise: she had seemed overeager at the feast. Full of merriment. Her smile had shone for all to see. Now, there is little sign of it.

He had assumed that any ire towards him and his house had been quickly dissolved by a prolonged show of kneeling at her feet and swearing his duty. Soothed by the riches he’d given her, the compliments he had paid. Quickly, Corlys was learning that Queen Rhaenys seemed disinterested with meeting his expectations. It’s admirable. It’s irritating. He’s charmed.

Feeling the need to press some sort of advantage, he lets his hands drop to his sides, and takes a couple of steps further into the room. The only response he gets is a slight tilt of her chin; imperious, an imperceptible smirk playing on her face. Perhaps she likes him daring? Seeks more flattery and flirtation? He would only be too happy to indulge her.

“Though, as generous,” A flash of his teeth as he used her word, “as the revels were, I would say there was nothing like the view coming into the Blackwater. To be greeted by a dragon is an honour that is surpassed by little else. Not least a dragon flown with such skill. By such a Queen.”

A burst of pleasure breaks out over her features and she looks all that younger.

“Meleys excels in fair winds.” Her dragon is a point of pride, Corlys thinks, it’s plain on her face. Something that belongs to the maiden and not the monarch. No doubt, she could not ride her dragon in the finery she wears now, if to ride a dragon was anything like riding a horse. And how could a crown stay in place when performing feats as she had this morning? He imagines she could speak for hours on the subject. He’s compelled to ask her more, to see if this pride could turn into coyness, into a blush.

“Meleys?”

“Her name, my lord.” Her expression turns curious. A victory, to garner an honest expression from her, he thinks. With a graceful movement of her wrist, she bids him sit with a bejewelled hand. His smile widens, eagerly, as he arranges himself opposite her. Already he formulates some questions in his mind, intent on drawing her to him. One question. A thousand. To smooth over ruffled waters with easy conversation now that they sit equally.

But as he sits opposite her, something shifts in her face. He becomes not some coy curiosity but something under inspection. She rakes her gaze over him with all the instinct of a predator. He’s the one trapped.

No victory, then.

“You did not attend my coronation.” The words are blunt but not wholly unexpected.

“I was at sea, Your Grace.” He parries back.

“You were not.” The words leave her lips like a crack of a whip. Corlys knows he has not curbed the surprise on his face by the small expression of triumph on hers; an arch in her brow. It’s slight, so slight, like a trick of the light. For the rest of her continues to reside in the realm of perfect composure and disinterest. “On the day I was crowned, you were in port. Turrani, on Leng, so I was informed.”

“That… may be the case, Your Grace.” He answers her, slowly. He curses it but he does not know. There’s no way for him to counter her, though he’d beg to understand how she knows this - who had told her? Why does it matter? It was a slight, he’ll admit to that, but the damage is done and the reparations made.

She climbs to the pinnacle of her argument, though her voice does not rise in volume. If her previous words have been the noose fitting around his neck, this is the drop.

“It was the case.” She tells him, clearly. “Lord Stark saw fit to make the long journey down from Winterfell to bend the knee, as is expected of a dutiful servant to the realm. Therefore you, ser, hold no excuse in your excursion. When my grandsire, your King, passed from this life, you were sent a message. Either it failed in its delivery or it was ignored. I did not ask you for an answer.” She reprimands as he goes to open his mouth. She does not need his assistance. “Three moons passed between my ascension and my coronation. And yet you did not cut short your journey to return in time, but sailed further into the East.”

“And procured the silks and gems that now decorate your halls, Your Grace.”

“I prefer loyalty to flattery, Lord Corlys.”

“You have it.” He is forceful in his statement, impressed that she knows, well enough, the distinction. She has been raised at court: surrounded by empty words and grasping hands. Raised for this position, he sees it. There is a crown on her brow though it is, at this moment, invisible. He knows in his bones that she is capable.

He wishes to mark himself out. He does not offer empty words. He does not grasp for anything. Corlys holds his reputation plain and waits for her good judgement.

“Do I?” There is a long beat of silence. Finally, she nods. “Good.”

The Queen stands, and goes to her desk, where the sole remaining cup of wine lies. She takes a sip, seeming to shed some skin of anger. What is left is no less poised, but it does not have Corlys feeling under examination. He has passed whatever test she has put forth. Has he allayed some fears of hers? A potent question: does this new Queen fear?

She holds the goblet lightly between her hands, resting back against the desk. Corlys’s lips are dry. He rises from his seat, drawn to her, as she continues speaking.

“Our houses have always been bound. It would grieve me to see such history be erased. I would have good relations with you and your kin, my lord.” Rhaenys tells him. She looks him square in the eye. “I believe that Westeros’s most prosperous times are yet to come.”

It almost sounds flirtatious, though the words are as ordinary as anything. Yet the game they play and his own hopes lend itself to the idea that she wants something more than due deference from him. A gleam in her eye equal to his. The words hang in the air, and then-

“But it would be remiss of me to not remind you that your Valyrian blood and your exotic riches grant you no exception to your duties.” Corlys’s smile only broadens. He’s not sparked to anger, he takes it as a compliment: his blood and riches are important to him, and integral to him as well. They set him apart. He plants his feet and shrugs at her.

“My voyages are of importance.” Corlys injects a bit of fire into his voice. It seems to amuse her: she enjoys when he pushes back.“I do not seek to curb your horizons, Lord Corlys. Your trade and travel do good service and prosperity for your trade routes is equal prosperity for the realm, I understand that. If you choose to go then you go. But I wish to… remind you of your limitations.”

Her voice remains silky but Corlys’s smile slides from his face. His limitations? He does not subscribe to any, and he won’t have any placed on him. For years, he has gone where he wished, propelled by his own ambitions and desire.

“Have I need of your services, I will expect you to answer.”

“And what services would my Queen desire from me?”

By the Gods, he wants to kiss her. The thought crashes into him. Here and now, with her lips as red as the wine she’s drunk, as the silk that falls about her shoulders. He wants to know what it would be like to kneel out of some other duty, voyage beneath her skirts and claim her pleasure for her. He wants to know if this dragon would claw at his back as he took her in his arms, if this Queen would accept his tribute, breathless from his attentions. Would her cheeks turn as red as her mount? Would she mount him?

The thoughts are scandalous. And he has half a mind that she can read every one of them on his face. They teeter on the edge of a dismissal, the question between them thick in the air. The Queen’s lips part.

“That remains to be seen. You may go.”

When the door closes behind him, he stands there for a moment, thinking back on what has just transpired. He gives a small glance to Ser Ryam, standing vigil. Though the Kingsguard looks forward and seems for all intents and purposes a statue, Corlys leaves with then intense feeling that Ser Ryam would have laughed at him, if he could have. Though, perhaps that was his own foolish mind. For if there had been a winner and a loser in the conversation between himself and the Queen, there was no doubt which he was labelled as.

He stalks his way back to his chambers. The next time they meet, Corlys will do better.

#it undoubtedly needs another read-through and polish but hey ho #I would definitely lengthen it out and add something so Corlys isn't jumping SO quickly into heart eyes

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