Rhaella hides under her bed when there is thunder. She has done this for as long as she can remember, gathering her dollies close and scurrying into the too-small-for-Aerys space under her bed when the skies crack.

She hides there now, too, while Father shouts and laughs like a mad man, convinced that yes, finally, here is proof that he and Mother were right when they defied Grandfather!

Rhaella wishes her parents had done as they were told, because then she could be Mother's daughter, safe in Highgarden, and Father and Aerys would be far away in King's Landing. But they did not, and so she is here, and Father thinks to marry her to Aerys because Uncle Duncan's Jenny's woodswitch says he ought.

Rhaella does not wish to marry Aerys. Aerys pinches her and pulls her hair, and has wanted to lay claim to her all their lives, even though he says he loves Joanna. Aerys wishes to lay claim to everything, because he says that since he is to be King, someday, everything is his to claim. Father never tells him otherwise, nor Mother, and while both their grandparents would be sure to tell him to mind his tongue, Grandfather is always busy, and Mother tries to keep them away from Grandmother when she can.

Grandfather, now, is apparently not so busy as usual, because his voice joins in the shouting in the sitting room outside her bedchamber - he is much louder than Father, sturdier even in his voice, and plainly furious. The only other time Rhaella heard him shout so was...

No, she cannot remember a single instance. Gods be good, is he angry with her? She hopes not. She loves her grandparents very much, and the idea of Grandfather being in a temper with her makes her already turned stomach twist with fear.

Please, please, she prays, clutching her dollies closer, please protect me from them all.

Her bedchamber door swings open carefully, and the rustle of skirts is not at all what she expected - likely it is Mother, come to tell her to stop being a baby, to tell her that she must insist to Grandfather that she wishes to marry Aerys.

"Rhaella?" comes Grandmother's voice instead. "Sweetling, where are you hiding?"

Grandfather's boots are next, soft and worn where Father's are always polished to gleaming, and then Grandfather's hands, and then his face. He looks tired, under his beard, under his crown, but he is smiling when he reaches under the bed to her.

"My sister Daella used hide under her bed with her dollies, when we were small," he says, his voice very quiet and very gentle. "Will you come out, poppet? Your grandmother and I would like to speak with you a little, if we may."

Rhaella takes his hand, tucking both her dollies under one arm, and lets him help her out from under the bed, lets him and Grandmother fuss over her and set her hair and skirts to rights.

"I don't want to marry Aerys," she blurts out without meaning to. "Please, Grandfather, please Your Grace, tell Father no, please!"

Grandmother gathers her close, and Grandfather bends to press a kiss to her brow, his face as severe as his own father's, in the portrait in grand-aunt Rhae's solar on Tarth.

"All will be well, sweetling," he promises, and Grandfather never breaks his promises. "Betha, if you would-"

"Of course, my love," Grandmother says, lifting a hand from Rhaella's hair to touch Grandfather's face, before returning it to Rhaella's shoulder. "Come with me, little love, you can stay with me a time. Would you like that?"

Rhaella nods so hard she thinks her head might fall off, and Grandmother gets the door of the sitting room closed behind them just as Father begins shouting again.

"If I am not to marry Aerys," Rhaella says, two weeks later, while breaking her fast with her grandparents. "If- If I am not to be Aerys' wife, who am I to wed?"

"Well," Grandmother says, nudging the pot of gooseberry jam over the table to Grandfather, who has been pawing at the table with one hand while reading the reports he holds in the other, "you are only one-and-ten, sweetling. There is plenty of time for that yet."

Rhaella secretly thinks that there is not so much time as Grandmother might like her to believe, since she must wed high indeed, and there are few enough men of suitable rank for her to wed. The heir to the Hightower is too young, the heir to Highgarden the same, probably, and Rhaella knows well enough that Tywin would never have her for a wife, no more than Steffon would.

So, where is she to look?

"I had half a mind," Grandfather says, trying to both hold his toasted bread and spread it with jam with the same hand, "to host a tourney, my little one - would you like that?"

Rhaella hesitates, afraid as she always was with Father to voice an opinion, but Grandmother smiles. Grandmother only smiles when there is nothing that can go wrong.

"Will I be made to sit with Aerys?" she asks. "It is only that, well, my lady mother has made it clear that she thinks me unfilial and cruel for denying him my hand, and Aerys so hates being denied things-"

"Aerys must learn," Grandfather says, trying to dab pale jam off his deep blue velvet cuff, "to accept being denied things. You will sit with your grandmother and I, and your aunt Rhaelle, if she can come."

In the royal box! Father sometimes sits in the royal box, but Rhaella and Aerys are never allowed - Mother and Father think them too ill-behaved, and while that may be true for Aerys it certainly is not for Rhaella, who only cries and makes noise when Aerys is unkind.

"I promise I won't misbehave," she says, because not only will she be sitting in the royal box, Aunt Rhaelle will be there! Mother and Father don't like Aunt Rhaelle, and they say that it is because she acts as though she is high-and-mighty. Rhaella thinks it is because Aunt Rhaelle, who was sold off to quiet Lord Baratheon after Uncle Duncan betrayed Grandfather's oath, and Father and Mother did the same, makes them feel guilty for having been so selfish as to run away and risk more discord after the mess Uncle Duncan made.

Rhaella has only met Aunt Rhaelle a handful of times, but she likes her enormously - she is very much like Grandmother, from her slow smile to her beautiful dark hair and eyes. She thinks that sitting in the royal box, with Grandfather and Grandmother and Aunt Rhaelle for company, sounds like an absolutely splendid time.

But not so splendid that Rhaella forgets that she must still wed.

Aunt Rhaelle arrives riding a horse draped in black silk, edged in cloth-of-gold, and her gown is to match - gold lace set into the black damask neckline, which even with the lace is scandalously revealing, so much so that Rhaella wonders at Lord Ormund allowing her to wear it, until she remembers Mother saying that Aunt Rhaelle is wilful, and brash, just like Black bloody Betha.

Rhaella thinks she looks terribly brave and daring, and decides immediately to like her very much, especially if Aunt Rhaelle is as much like Grandmother as Mother always insists.

"Hello, Papa," Aunt Rhaelle calls cheerfully, swinging to her feet and throwing herself into Grandfather's waiting embrace. "You look very well, don't you? Mother's been making you eat breakfast again, I see."

"I've missed you as well, little egg," Grandfather says, rolling his eyes and kissing Aunt Rhaelle's temple. "Come, I've a new favourite, you'd best meet her."

Rhaella's heart swells at that, because Grandfather means she's his new favourite! Oh! She's never been anyone's favourite before!

Aunt Rhaelle is smiling when she crouches enough to look Rhaella straight in the eye - she's tall and strong, like Grandfather, but Rhaella's small and slight like Grandmother, and she's only one-and-ten, anyway. Aunt Rhaelle's eyes are dark like Grandmother's, but they shine with mischief, like Grandfather's, or like Uncle Duncan's, when Grandfather isn't about.

"So you're the little love Mother has written about," Aunt Rhaelle says, cupping Rhaella's cheek in her long-fingered hand. "Let me promise you something, sweetling - by the time I'm done with your fool parents, there shan't be another word about marrying you to your brother, I promise you that."

Lord Ormund's shadow hides Rhaella and Rhaelle both for a moment, and were it not for his quiet smile and warm blue eyes, for the way he and Grandfather clasp wrists, Rhaella would be frightened, because he is so big.

"I don't know what my lady is promising, Princess," he says, bowing as low to Rhaella as he did to Grandfather, "but I shall stand over it on her behalf, should the need arise."

Grandfather is smiling when he wraps an arm around Rhaella's shoulders, the fierce sort of smile he saves for fighting with people, and she thinks she understands. Aunt Rhaelle has always been his favourite, and that is part of why he brought her to court for this - but Aunt Rhaelle has always been the thing Rhaella's parents fear most, too, and the regard in which Lord Ormund holds her is notorious at court.

Grandfather is seeking out champions for her, to keep her from Aerys. Rhaella hopes only to be worthy of such effort.