34 Chapter 30 - What's the meaning..

(Rhaenys pov)

My legs felt heavy from the weight of worry the maids had over my mishap, more so than I the actual mother felt. My head was starting to hurt from their constant checks, the maesters flocking in like crows, poking around to no end, as I finally had enough and sent them anyway.

'So you do show concern, yet you do not come to see me yourself..' I thought as I lifted myself from the bed, taking a drink of some kind left by the maesters, yet today it was different, the pain in my lower abdomen felt like it washed away within minutes.

"Clover, I know you are there.. did i not tell you I will not need you to shadow me for the time being." I spoke allowed, my eyes checking each dark corner, watching as a man seemed to melt out of one. His feet carried him to me as he knelt.

"My lady, I can not do as you have wished.." His words low as he looked at the ground, the way he refused me seemed different as he was loyal to me from the time he became my protector.

"So he finally reaches, days I've waited for him, but it seems his balls are empty of seed, now that he has a whore to warm his bed." I ranted, I knew why clover would not listen, no matter how he acted, my safety would probably have him kill everyone within the castle to make sure of it.

"My lady, lord Keth only wishes for the best of you and your child.. I have made a mistake, and you suffered for it.." clover's voice was calm, and yet I knew from his words it seemed he made Maliketh quite angry from my refusal of his service.

"He merely cares for what is in my stomach, nothing more.. that I might produce him a healthy child." I knew my words were untrue, but a heart of unwillingness is yet hard to crack, I wanted him to worry as he does to the point it would drive him to seek me out himself.

"My lady, you know this not to be true. The lord puts your safety before any others.." clover said with a firm tone, in all his service to me, clover knew the lengths to make sure of my safety, say for those missing guards replaced with his men.

"And yet he would sooner wet his cock than to make sure of my well-being himself." I could still remember the look he gave me as he lay with that whore, as she sang in the praise of his manhood, while he seeded her if only to vent his lust.

"And now it is proposed for them to be Wed, surely he has many excuses, to tell his woman of why he did so.. say for blaming myself, I know he is unwilling to hear or think of how I lay with Corlys, yet he himself says it does not matter." I could understand his rash behavior, I know it is a knife in his heart that I lay with another far and few times between but all the same.

In the midst of my self examination, I watched as clover said not a word, his blonde hair dangling out of his hood as his head turn towards the door. My eyes following the same, yet it wasn't until they were upon the door did I hear anything. My eyes moving back to where clover had been, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Rhaenys, I hear you've refused the maesters help once more, is your goal to make me endlessly worry?" The door was opened by the guards, my ears hearing Corlys speak as he moved quickly to me, but my eyes shined at the sight of our children.

"Corlys, the thing they help with is give me a headache, doing nothing to actually help but provide momentary pause that begger more questions. I am fine.." I spoke back as he made his way to me, his lips touching my forehead as I almost pulled away without thinking.

"I only wish that you would allow them to wait on you, I do not have the eyes to see problems the maesters can, i only wish to put my worries to rest." Corlys said, and I would have to be cold if I was not moved by his worry for me, even if my feelings of love had died, me and Corlys spend many years together.

"I know, but enough, the matter has finished Corlys, please allow it to end.. laena and laenor, do you plan to hide from me." I spoke up, I understood the worry but now is not the time, my eyes roaming to see laena and laenor whose eyes sat at the end of the bed.

"Mother are you ok? I was worried." Laena spoke first, her body moving atop the bed to me as she laid down beside my belly.

"We both thought something happened to you mother, and our little brother." Lanor who moved around his father to me gave a few words as he hugged me, then touched my belly as he cut Leena off.

"He means our sister." Laena spoke out in refusal to his words about their sibling. My face couldn't help but smile as I watched them go back and forth, my eyes unknowingly going to Corlys who smiled as well.

'I wish moments of time would stand still.. what would they think of the choice I made, and about their sibling..' My mind once again wandered a dark place, in the far reaches of my mind, I wanted to end it with Maliketh, I wished I had stopped, so I didn't hurt those around me. Especially my children, yet each time it hurt to think of him not at my side. That I would lose him and in turn he would lose himself.

Some may say it is fear that keeps me, but he said it himself, If I did not truly wish to continue, I was free to do as I wished. When every time I thought of it my heartaches in want of him, even with the unending guilt that lay in my heart, I still wanted but not all things can be had.

[Flash back]

"Rhaenys have you ever heard the saying, you can not have your cake and eat it to?" Maliketh's words rang next to me, my body had found its way to his chamber once more, his hands rubbing along my skin as I listened to his words.

"No, I don't think I've had the pleasure of hearing such as saying before.." My body shivered at his touch, my head turning back with my hand gently placed around his neck. "Tell me, do you know its meaning?" I did not understand it at that time, I was curious to know what it meant.

"It means, you can't enjoy both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives.." He said words that rattled my mind, my face turning to him as he got up from the bed.

"And what is the meaning in those words.." covering my body, I watched him walk to a window, his back and long white hair glowing in the moonlight above.

"you cannot simultaneously retain possession of a cake and eat it, too." Again his words were lost on me, if I have it, why can I not eat it.

"Your words are still a mystery to me.. if it is mine, can I not enjoy it." I spoke my thoughts as I lifted myself from the bed, coming to his side as I wrapped my arms around his back.

"Once the cake is eaten, it is gone." Keth said his face to the moon, his eyes looking off to something once more. "It can be used to say that one cannot have two incompatible things, or that one should not try to have more than is reasonable." his words calm, yet they started to click within my mind, my hand being made to move as he turned to me, his arms bringing my forehead to his lips as I looked up.

"Do you mean you, yourself? That I can not have you and my life?" I said with a confused voice, I did not want to let him go, but I knew his words were that of a warning from the way he spoke them.

"If ever you wish to never indulge yourself with its sweetness, I will not hinder you in your absence of it." His words seemed to ring in my mind as I laid in his chest, it seems as if he had thought on this matter before, but for everything he said, oh, how I like the sweetness of the cake.

[Present]

"It would seem, you truly can't have your cake.." I said to myself, causing my family to look at me.

"Cake mother, are you in a mood of wanting sweets." Laena said, her face full of an excited smile.

"I guess, I wouldn't mind eating it along with mother.." Lanor the ever reluctant to say what he truly means said, causing me, Corlys and laena to laugh.

"Very well.. cake it is.." Corlys said, his eyes smiling at me as he kissed my forehead once more.

'Yet, I still wish to taste the sweeting..'