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⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ °• ☼ CHAPTER TWELVE: AN OCEAN SWEET, DARK AND DEEP ☾ •°⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
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NESAELA DAENYS TARGARYEN was a child when her parents and siblings were murdered in their home. She was only a child when she'd fled from the only place she'd ever known, when she'd had to mount a boat and cross the seas, unknowing of where she was going. She was supposed to be too young to not know whether the salt on her face was from tears or sea-spray, or whether her family had been buried with flowers or burned.
Sadly, that was not what the world had planned for her. Instead, it seemed, it planned for her to drown. She wondered which would come first: the ocean swallowing her, or her tears.
Nessie had not stopped crying since the small ship had left the docks. Hours had passed; the sun had risen above the horizon without a care of the lives that had been taken that day: painting the waves in a calming glow of yellow, orange and pink. It had bleached the sky with a pretty haze of petals and flowers. The girl lay on the wooden bench, lain as if dead, but her eyes were open. Her silver hair draped in the salt water over the edge of the boat and her pretty lace dress—which her father had intended to sell her to Robert Baratheon in—rippled off the side of the boat in layers of silk.
The captain had told her not to lie so close to the ocean, but she had ignored him. She watched the stars fade from the sky with deep sobs that came from her chest. She hadn't spoken to the captain in what seemed to be hours—she didn't even know his name. One of her arms was draped over the side of the seat to graze against her silver-blue dragon egg, tracing the melted scales on the southern side familiarly. Nessie thought she had never felt so much pain. It bloomed through her chest beneath her ribcage, tugging at her stomach and making her feel ill all over again. Her father was mad, she understood he deserved to die—but what had Rhaegar done? Elia and Rhaenys and baby Aegon? Her mother and the unborn child she carried in her belly, and young Viserys? Why did they deserve to die?
Nessie thought about this as she rolled off her back to face the captain, salt stinging her purple eyes. He was turned towards the sea ahead, hand on the ship's wheel. "Where are we going, Ser?" she asked in a soft, pained voice, throat dry from hours of weeping.
"Ah, she wakes," the captain said, without a hint of malice. His tone was sad and sympathetic. "My name's Jeran, Princess. No need to call me Ser." She didn't have the courage to respond to his words, though it was very impolite. "We're going to the farthest place I know of, where nearly no man has been. The Baratheons and Lannisters won't reach you there." He looked far out onto the horizon which only held blue.
