Chapter Text
It is a strange thing, to be a Storm.
Or at least it is for Elenei. She is not, as it happens, a bastard herself. No, she is the trueborn daughter of Rion Storm and his lady wife, Jena Storm, who were both bastards. Her father was as much a son of old Lord Davos as Lord Rogar himself, and her mother had the blood of the Swanns in her veins as surely as anyone who bears the name, but blood without the name only counts for what those with the name are willing to allow.
In the Stormlands, this can be a great deal; it is expected that a noble who sires a bastard will ensure the child's upkeep, and one who is unmarried at the time is expected to take the child into his household. A woman or her family might well decide against a match with a man who has shirked his responsibilities, though of course no woman wants to wed a man with a whole clutch of bastards running about either. A young lordling must therefore act with sense even in sowing his wild oats.
Elenei's mother actually came to Storm's End with her trueborn aunt Alyce when she wed Lord Davos, to foster with the childless steward and his wife. Elenei doesn't think it was an official part of the marriage pact or anything like that, but it's the sort of thing that happens between family. Life can be hard in the Stormlands, given the rough terrain, the rougher weather, and the Dornish on the other side of the Marches. It's important to take care of everyone near to you, even the ones who aren't entirely appropriate.
So Lord Davos wed Lady Alyce, and when his bastard son grew up, he became second-in-command of the castle guard as his wife's bastard niece became the housekeeper's right hand. And the lord and lady gave their blessing when these two almost-family members chose to marry each other as well. Elenei is their only child, and she's been told her almost-uncle Lord Rogar laughed when he heard what name his bastard brother gave to his daughter, because only Rion Storm would dare name his daughter for a goddess. Elenei doesn't know if this story is true, though it wouldn't surprise her either.
When Elenei is six-and-ten, her mother is the housekeeper, and her father, once head of Lord Rogar's personal guard when he was Hand of the King, is now the armsmaster at Storm's End.
When Elenei is six-and-ten, the Shivers come.
When Elenei is six-and-ten, House Baratheon is whittled down to an ailing Lord Rogar, one of his brothers, and four small children, three girls and a boy. Exile claimed one Baratheon brother, disgrace claimed another, and the Shivers took the other children and every woman who had wed into the house, and plenty others besides.
Including Lord Davos' bastard son and gooddaughter.
Elenei hasn't even got a shared name to hold onto, to tie her to the world. All acknowledged bastards in the Stormlands are Storms, after all. But she does have her reflection in the mirror, her night-black hair and dark blue eyes that prove her a Baratheon in blood if not name, even if she looks more like her mother aside from her coloring. So she can stand before Lord Rogar's desk and know they are kin, even if it's never truly going to be official.
Anyway, Lord Rogar liked her parents, he's always acknowledged the kinship.
"I'm dying," Lord Rogar says with his usual bluntness, a year later. "I'm leaving Boremund here with Garon to learn to be the Lord of Storm's End, but there are no women left to help the girls. My Jocelyn is half-sister to King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, and they've agreed to take her into their daughter's household. They've offered spots to Alyrie and Orla too."
Elenei blinks. "And what has that to do with me, sir?" Sir, always, because Lord Rogar expects respect from everyone in the keep, but she has always been permitted to use the more casual title the legitimate relatives use.
"Why, you're going with them, girl," Lord Rogar says. "You're older, and you've your mother's head for organization, and I could always rely on your father." Elenei nods and smiles at the praise for her parents, and breathes past the lump in her throat until it goes away again. There are moments where she can take the time to cry, but this is not one of them.
"You honor me, sir," she says instead.
"No honor," Lord Rogar says. "You know as well as anyone else here the ways my relationship with the Crown's gone messy. It's well enough these days, King Jaehaerys understands I did what I did thinking it was for the good of the realm, but it'll never be a tidy thing again. You're older than the girls, and bastards grow up faster, everyone knows that. I want you to keep an eye on them. My nieces are lucky neither of them are Borys' get, but I don't know that any of them will have it easy. Even my Jocelyn, for all she's the king and queen's sister. Especially if the older one visits from her new holdings."
The older one. Queen Rhaena. Elenei had been in the hall, when Rhaena Targaryen had threatened Lord Rogar, fierce and wild and truly quite intimidating.
She would never say it aloud, not about a woman who had dishonored her lord and kinsman, but Elenei wishes she could be half so strong a presence. Especially now.
Elenei is seven-and-ten, and she is going to the Red Keep, with nothing to anchor her anymore.
Elenei doesn't particularly like wheelhouses, but the girls are too young to ride all day, and it's her job to keep an eye on them, so here she is. Anyway, it gives her a chance to get them used to her, and her to them. The nursery, after all, was never really part of her duties as her mother's assistant. She knew their mothers better, strange to say, even Queen Alyssa.
The Queen Dowager had been quiet, when she first came to Storm's End, and there was little love remaining between her and Lord Rogar, but Elenei's mother always spoke well of her — mostly of her ability to manage the household, which was how Elenei's mother judged all the nobles of the household, and she found all of them but the Queen Dowager and Ser Garon wanting in that area. And Queen Alyssa had always had a smile, and often a sweet, for Elenei as she trailed her mother.
"My granddaughters are far away, and my children as well. Your little girl reminds me of them, Mistress Jena, it's no trouble," she'd said when Elenei's mother said she didn't have to do such things.
Elenei still has a moonstone pendant on a black cord that Queen Alyssa gave her for her nameday — for all that as the Lady of Storm's End as well as Queen Dowager, she could and did wear far more valuable stones, she had a soft spot for the simpler moonstones and sunstones. Elenei wonders if anyone ever told Jocelyn that.
Perhaps she ought to? She has the care of the girls' jewels inherited from their mothers, which they're too young for now but will wear when they're older, after all.
But for all her fond if hazy recollections of Queen Alyssa, Elenei remembers Orla and Alyrie's mother, Lady Helena, much more clearly, although she can’t say she knew her well. Lady Helena was kind enough, but a little… scattered. She might have been a maester if she’d been a man, fascinated in equal measure by her books and by the herb garden and stillroom she claimed as hers almost as soon as she married Ser Ronnal. But she had no head for numbers or any other aspect of household management, and she wasn’t comfortable with the social side of being the closest thing Storm’s End had to a lady since Queen Alyssa’s death.
Still, she was the kind of woman who spent a great deal of time with her daughters and even her niece, and until they found out about this trip, the girls wandered the halls like small ghosts, so Elenei thinks Lord Rogar was right to send all of them.
Orla takes after her father, which Elenei already knew. She likes animals and she likes the outdoors, and keeping her occupied in a wheelhouse is a trial. Jocelyn helps there, happy to play clapping games or sing with her cousin. Elenei would be more irritated by their childish voices — though neither of them is terrible for their age — if she wasn’t so relieved that Orla mostly stops fidgeting when she’s busy singing.
As for Alyrie, she has a few books in the small bag she brought in the wheelhouse. Her mother’s, probably, since she doubts Lord Rogar would have let the little girl take any from the Storm’s End library. She spends most of each day’s ride absorbed in them, for all that they look difficult for a child of seven.
And Jocelyn? When Orla tires herself out and curls up like a tired kitten with her head in Elenei’s lap, Jocelyn shifts so she can see more clearly out of the window and simply watches the world go by outside. Elenei has no idea what she’s thinking about, if she’s looking forward to meeting the half-siblings who are also king and queen, who can tell her things about her mother no one else can.
Perhaps she should ask. But it seems cruel to do that in front of the other girls, even if Orla is sleeping and Alyrie seems completely focused on her book. So Elenei keeps her silence for now.
She has to keep her silence all the way to King’s Landing, actually. There’s never a time to talk to any of the girls privately, even though she’d like to. She’s the eldest one here, and she wants to know if the girls are nervous. But none of them will say anything, even when it’s just them in the wheelhouse. Baratheons are bold, after all, even the women of the house, and they’ve all heard that since they were in leading strings.
But when they ride through the city gates — she finds out later that they came through the River Gate, which the cityfolk call the Mud Gate — all three girls go quiet and wide-eyed, staring out of the windows.
“There’s… so much, and it’s so loud,” Orla says uncertainly.
“I think it’s interesting,” Jocelyn says, but her hands twist in her lap.
“The castle’s so red. I didn’t think it really could be,” Alyrie says.
Elenei reaches out, stroking each girl’s hair. “It’ll be all right, you’ll see. None of us will need to spend too much time in the city proper, and as for the castle, Storm’s End is stronger, never forget. We’ll settle in, and all will be well.”
She just hopes she’s right.
Elenei doesn't know what to make of the royal nursery. Little Princess Daenerys seems to rule it, her brothers devoted to her in a rather endearingly sweet way. Jocelyn and Orla are quick to dive into the games the children play, while Alyrie hangs back a little, head tipped in that birdlike way she has and her grey eyes taking in everything. As for Elenei, she busies herself with getting the girls' bedchamber sorted — they're to share one, three narrow beds in a decent-sized room with the window overlooking Blackwater Bay. There's a small room attached with a cot she assumes is for her, and she leaves her own bag there.
But unpacking only takes so long, even after she's taken care of her own things too. Uncertain, Elenei drifts back to the nursery proper, to find that the nursemaids aren't the only adults in the space anymore. She remembers Queen Alysanne from when she was at Storm's End to see her dying mother. And the other woman looks enough like a younger Queen Rhaena, only taller, that she must be Princess Aerea.
Elenei immediately drops into a curtsey, even as she notices the third woman all in red, standing near the door. "And who might you be?" Queen Alysanne asks, blue eyes bright with curiosity. "Lord Rogar named only three girls, but you have the look of his house."
"My name is Elenei Storm, Your Grace," Elenei says carefully.
Those blue eyes go abruptly from curious to angry, a flash like dragonfire in them. "Lord Rogar sent his bastard?"
Oh. Oh no. If that were the case, and bearing in mind that the traditions of the Stormlands may not be true in King's Landing or on the islands of Dragonstone and Driftmark, Elenei realizes she has to quickly sort this misunderstanding out. She must seem like the gravest of insults. "No, Your Grace," she says. "I am not Lord Rogar's child, and I am not a bastard. I —"
"You said your name was Storm," the Queen says, raising her eyebrows.
"My parents were bastards," Elenei explains. "My father was Lord Rogar's half-brother, and my parents were decently married. They died in the Shivers as well, and since I am older than my Baratheon cousins, Lord Rogar sent me along to keep watch over them. My father was captain of his guard, my mother the housekeeper at Storm's End. They were trusted, and Lord Rogar honors me with a chance to prove worthy of the same."
The Queen nods, softening again. "All right. He did mention a maiden of the household who was sent along, that must be you. It is my understanding that the trueborn children of bastards alter their names to demonstrate that they are born in wedlock. Why not do that? It would prevent confusion."
In spite of herself Elenei's chin comes up. "It is my parents' name, and all I have to tie me to them. Just because it is a bastard name doesn't make it worthless, when it comes to things like that. Your Majesty."
The younger woman, Princess Aerea, laughs. "Well said. She has you there, Aunt."
The Queen's regal demeanor gives way a little, then, when she gives her niece an exasperated look. "I didn't say otherwise. Your respect to your parents' memory does you credit, Mistress Elenei, but I must admit you pose something of a problem. The children have servants enough, and you are not precisely that in any case." The Queen drums her fingers on the arm of her chair, looking thoughtful. Elenei does her best not to fidget, and to keep her expression calm.
"I have an idea," Princess Aerea says. "Though it involves someone else — say, Jonquil, do you fancy having a squire?"
The woman in red by the door startles slightly. "I'm no knight, Princess. I cannot have a squire."
"No, but you could have a student..." the Queen says thoughtfully. "And the same logic that had me send for you applies to my daughters and the girls of their household as well. Do you know how to use a weapon, Mistress Elenei?"
Elenei stares for a moment, before she gathers her thoughts. "I know how to use a staff, Your Grace. I — my mother was from a Marcher household; lower-born women learn the staff or sling, and higher-born women often wear hidden knives in their clothes. Because of all the conflicts over the years, it's thought we should all have some defense." The Dornishmen, of course, but the Reachermen too, at times. The Marches are a complicated region, held by lords of three different realms, or so Elenei's mother had said. And in the Stormlands, there just aren't always enough people to let even noblewomen go completely unable to protect themselves.
It is best if a woman can rely on her menfolk to defend her life and her honor, but it is not always possible. In the Stormlands part of the Marches, at least, they know that. They say it’s not so in the Reacher parts of the Marches, that there a woman is expected to go pure and virtuous to her grave before picking up a weapon, but Elenei doesn’t know if that’s true or not. They care more about chivalry in the Reach, but she hopes for their womenfolk’s sake they aren’t really that stupid.
Elenei has with her the thin bodice knives and the chain belts sturdy enough to hit someone in the face with, that Lady Alyce brought from home for the daughters she never had, that will one day go to her granddaughters, as well as the sewing patterns needed to make the dresses that can fit such things. She doesn't mention that just now, though.
"Well then," the Queen says. Well then, what? Elenei wants to ask, but she expects that would be rude. "Jonquil?"
"Yes, my Queen?" the woman in red says respectfully.
"Would you take on Mistress Elenei as a student? One day, perhaps, she can guard Daenerys, or Jocelyn. Or little Alyssa," the Queen says.
"If Mistress Elenei wishes to," says the woman, and oh, Elenei has been foolish. This must be the Queen's Scarlet Shadow, that she's heard songs about. Her father said Jonquil Darke moved with all the grace and fierceness of a wildcat. "I'll not take a reluctant student, because even under orders, a lass who doesn't want to fight won't learn."
"Well, Mistress Elenei?" the Queen asks.
Elenei curtsies to the Queen and Princess, and then bows to the Scarlet Shadow. It feels appropriate, somehow, and the faint curl of a smile Jonquil Darke gives her makes her think she did right. "I would be honored to learn from you," she says, and means it.
She would mean it anyway, because this will give her a purpose and a reason to stay.
And Elenei promised she would stay. Without a name, without a proper anchor, her promise is all she has, isn't it?
Elenei took the offer to serve as Jonquil Darke’s “squire” — apprentice is the word they settle on — because it was a good way to ensure she had a place in King’s Landing, a role that would let her stay close to her little cousins as she had promised her lordly kinsman. But it isn’t long before she values the role for its own sake. She likes the training, likes feeling herself become stronger and swifter. And more observant too.
“Your eyes and ears are just as important as the weapons in your hands,” Lady Jonquil says. “Pay attention to everything you can. It’s not so different from a servant in that way — you have to be able to predict what your charges are like to do. They can be impulsive and it is for you to anticipate their impulses.” Elenei’s mother used to say that was part of running a household as well, and encouraged her to pay attention. Now, though, Elenei feels it in a way she didn’t then.
Truthfully, watching over the children is, as yet, not a hardship. There is usually a knight of the Kingsguard on duty in the nursery as well — some of them ignore her presence entirely, but the recently-appointed Ser Robin Shaw always has a smile and a courteous nod for her. Pate the Woodcock will grin at her every time they meet, and waves her over to sit by him at meals in the Small Hall when neither of them are on duty.
“Your duties deserve the same respect as ours,” he says, and repeats the thought firmly when Ser Joffrey Doggett eyes her with the suspicion a bastard name often brings from those of a devout bent. When he learns that Elenei is the trueborn daughter of two bastards, he unbends some, but in truth she doesn’t much mind either way. Mostly she keeps to her teacher’s side even off-duty.
“Should there be more of us?” she asks one day, as they catch their breath after a bout of knife practice.
“No, at least not at the moment,” Lady Jonquil says. She leans back against the wall, dark eyes watching Elenei carefully. “Originally, Queen Alysanne never had the thought for any lady guardian save for me. And that was only because there was trouble, early in the reign. She wanted a guardian who could go where no men could. But I think now, with two little princesses already and likely more to come, that might change.”
Lady Jonquil pauses for a moment, as though gathering her thoughts “Princess Daenerys is to be Prince Aemon’s bride, of course, and likely little Princess Alyssa will be for Prince Baelon, so they will always be protected by the Kingsguard. But if they have more daughters, they might marry some of them out to high families. I think if that happens, the queen may want her daughters’ attendants to include someone who can be a bodyguard. At least, she and the Princess Aerea were discussing it. That one may not be a hellion anymore, but she’s still got a strange turn of mind.”
“She was a hellion?” Elenei asks, curious. She remembers Queen Rhaena’s fury when her mother died, of course, but Princess Aerea, while a bit irreverent, always seems so very composed.
“Oh yes. A spoiled, temperamental thing as a girl — angry, I expect, at being traded off among relations. But when she got her dragon and came back here to live, she was restless instead. She used to sneak out into the city, that sort of thing. Still, she’s grown up well enough. The king is baffled by her; she and her mother both are too untraditional for him to understand, but the queen is very fond of them both. She’s not half so traditional as she comes off either; she’s just more subtle about it. You haven’t seen her at a women’s court yet, though; she’ll talk to any woman about any topic, and never blush or shy away from any of it.”
Jonquil Darke adores Queen Alysanne; Elenei picked up on that immediately. She’s not the only one, either. Septon Barth is known as King Jaehaerys’ great good friend, and that’s so as far as Elenei can see, but there’s an affection between the queen and the septon that seems even warmer, to Elenei’s eyes. Nothing inappropriate, just fond and respectful. Actually, though she’s only seen it twice, standing quietly in Lady Jonquil’s shadow, Elenei already thinks all three of them, king, queen, and septon, are at their best when they sit together and make grand plans.
There’s something bright and clever and fascinating about them together, the way they finish each other’s sentences or laugh even as they talk of serious matters.
But the truth is, most of Elenei’s job is the children. Her cousins, of course, but also the royal children. Her first guess about Princess Daenerys was right; she’s the oldest child and she knows it, bossing around her little brothers like no one’s business. Orla is quick to become the princess’ little shadow, while Alyrie still hangs back a little, entertaining the baby Princess Alyssa or reading a book. Alyrie’s eyes went wide when she saw the full shelves of children’s tales and simple history books, and so did Jocelyn’s. But unlike Alyrie, Jocelyn always seems to find herself sharing her books with Prince Aemon, the way Princess Daenerys runs wild with the royals’ other main companion, young Corlys Velaryon.
The word is other young noble children will be here soon, to share lessons with the princes and the princess, to grow up alongside them and bond with them. Elenei thinks that makes perfect sense as a way to foster loyalty, but each child will make them busier, probably.
(They say when Princess Aerea has an heir for Crackclaw Point by her Celtigar husband, the child will be summoned to court to be raised in the royal household whether the princess and her mother will it or no, but Elenei doesn’t know if that’s truth or rumor. No such child exists yet, anyway.)
Of course, Princess Daenerys and Prince Aemon also have their dragon hatchlings to bond over. Terrax and Caraxes live in the Dragonpit, tended by keepers, but each day they’re brought to their future riders to spend time together. Elenei assumes it strengthens the bond that allows them to ride, but the hatchlings aren’t her concern and neither are the bonds between a Targaryen and their dragon.
The first children to arrive are the son and daughter of the new Lord and Lady Tyrell — Lord Tyrell’s master of coin now, though word is it’s actually his wife who does the work. They say Queen Alysanne was particularly pleased by the idea, though she thought they ought to appoint Lady Florence directly. Of course, no lord would stand for his wife being appointed instead of him, but Pate tells her that Lord Martyn and Lady Florence both attend the meetings, so it’s near enough as to make no difference. They didn’t bring their children to begin with, but the twins Alyn and Alla are the same age as Prince Aemon.
They fit in well, so far as Elenei can tell — certainly better than the next to arrive, young Lord Edmyn Tully. He’s the Lord of Riverrun at the age of seven with both his parents dead, making him of an age with Orla, Corlys Velaryon and Princess Daenerys, but he’s homesick and he misses his sisters and his dead parents. Elenei feels for the boy even while the nursery staff call him sullen and ill-behaved, at least until he and Orla take charge of a little grey kitten they found in one of the courtyards when Princess Aerea took the children on what she termed an outdoor adventure. He cheers up after that, or at least he stops looking so miserable.
(Septa Jennet loathes Princess Aerea and her habit of popping in on the children to disrupt all normal routines, Elenei realized that almost immediately, but Queen Alysanne is very fond of her niece and encourages closeness ‘among the children’ so there’s nothing the septa can do about it.)
There are a few more children — a Manderly girl and a Massey boy, the late Lord Albin’s young successor, and there’s a chance the new Lord Lannister’s nephew and likely heir, Tymond, will join the little cluster. There’s no Starks of the right age, though Lord Stark’s daughter is one of the queen’s ladies and his bastard niece is Princess Aerea’s dearest friend, so they’re represented at court anyway.
But what Elenei notices, and begins to worry over, is that while Jocelyn and Orla are settled amongst the little crowd of children, Alyrie continues to drift along the edges. “I don’t mind,” she says when Elenei takes her to one of the gardens to talk about it, the pair of them sitting side by side on the edge of a fountain. “The princess is kind, and the princes don’t bother me. No one cares that I like to read more than talk.”
“But you’d tell me, if any of the children were cruel?” Elenei presses.
“I would, Ellie,” Alyrie says, but the way she sighs about it reminds Elenei that what she’d be able to do about such a thing would be limited anyway.
Still…
She cannot help but be relieved when another child, the second son of the heir to House Hightower, arrives. Young Otto is as quiet as little Lord Edmyn, but it’s not sullenness covering sorrow. No, for all the boy is only six, Elenei suspects he’s watching the world as carefully as she has learned to do. But then perhaps being a second son has its challenges just like being a girl with a bastard’s name. Perhaps he already knows he will have to watch for a chance to be more. Elenei doesn’t know; she’s no boy and no second-born noble either. It’s just a curious thing.
And what brings her relief, is that before Otto has been there a week, Alyrie is no longer alone at her books. Instead, she and the little Hightower boy sit with their heads bent together over whatever they’re reading now, and when Prince Baelon isn’t shadowing his brother, he’s sitting with them while they take turns reading aloud for him.
“It’ll be something to see how they grow up,” Pate says one day as they leave the nursery together. “Maybe your cousin Lady Jocelyn will grow up to marry Corlys Velaryon, so they can be as close with the elder prince and princess as they are today.”
“Maybe, but gods, they’re all too young to think of that!” Elenei laughs.
It is an interesting thought, though. How will all these children, most of them set to inherit something and all of them highborn, grow up? But then, Elenei will get to watch, won’t she?