44

Chapter 44: Omake 1: DoubtNotes:

Hi! I'm Alice, Lucky's girlfriend.

Lucky is busy with work. There's been a drastic increase in Covid cases here in Singapore this month, and we've downgraded ourselves to a single step above a second lockdown. All work and school is virtual again now. However, my boyfriend works in intelligence, so he can't exactly bring home classified documents.

So as Lucky cannot bring work back to live with him, work is bringing Lucky back to live with him.

Starting Monday, he and a dozen of his colleagues are back in camp, and won't get out for another three weeks. In fact, he can't even leave the building. They've set up sleeping bags in the break room, turned the female toilet (only men are isolating) into an improvised laundry room and brought enough snacks to last them until the end of the isolation.

He's NOT happy.

I'm told that he COULD use his daughter as an excuse to get out of the isolation, but he's too dutiful to do that. He owes his commanding officer a lot, and absolutely refuses to shirk any duty as a result.

So I've been tasked with pumping out Omakes during this period in his stead, to prevent him from losing too many readers.

I hope I've been able to replicate his writing style. Enjoy!

Chapter Text

"Doubt is the most insidious poison in the cosmos."

-Lady Laena Velaryon, the Skydancer

109 AC, Dragonstone Countryside

Formula, will and execution. The three steps for any spell.

Laena exhaled, forcing her mind to be as a lake in a moonlit night. Still and calm, a prefect reflection smoother than a mirror. She shaped the formula, pruning away all unnecessary thoughts. The creation of fire was one of the easiest spells learnt by sorcerers. Laena imagined the power being shaped into fuel, the oxygen on the air flowing into the flame and feeding it.

Satisfied, Laena hardened her will as much as possible, shoving aside all weaknesses, thinking about her strongest moments in her life. The instant before she committed to kissing Rhae the first time. The second she decided to claim mighty Vhagar. She mustered together her will, hoping to achieve even half of the courage she had those days.

The last step was the easiest. She imagined drawing power from Vhagar into her formula, like a river down an aqueduct. And then she activated the spell, waving her wand and producing a shining torch of blazing white flame on her wandtip...

Or so she wished.

Not even the faintest puff of smoke formed.

Laena screamed in sheer frustration, angrily glaring down at the finger-thin stick of wood in her hand and snapping it in two. Or so she hoped, as the Fyrewood was like an unyielding bar of steel and absolutely refused to even bend. A second scream of blazing hot anger ripped its way out of the Velaryon scion's throat, and she threw the dragonglass-tipped wand over the nearest cliff, only for it to halt in midair, unmoving.

It flipped around in midair, flying past Laena Velaryon's left ear and straight into the outstretched palm of Prince Rhaenyra Targaryen.

"I didn't find Aenar's Vault just for you to destroy its treasures." Rhae chided amusedly. She wore practical clothes. Leather boots led up to long thick cotton pants, which were inexplicably dyed blue. A white long-sleeved shirt of linen covered her upper body, with a brown leather vest with many pockets for all sorts of odds and ends over that. The outfit was loose where it mattered, but otherwise form fitting, allowing Laena to appreciate the Prince's body.

Unlike Bell, whom was stout and muscular, Rhae a lithe and athletic figure, like that of a sleek predator. She'd grown significantly over the past two years, now that she was twelve and leaving girlhood for maidenhood. She'd also filled out considerably around the chest, hips and thighs areas, growing nearly as curvaceous as Laena herself was. In a few years, she'd be outstripped. Like the girlish and slender Rhaenys, to sensual and voluptuous Visenya.

Normally, Laena was all for ogling her lover. While prudish Rhae was adamant that they did not fuck until she was sixteen, Laena had found ways to toe that line over the years. And the two of them, in a quiet cliffside on Dragonstone? On any other day, clothes would start flying very quickly. However today, the Skydancer wasn't in the mood.

"Fuck off, Rhae." Laena grumbled. "Can't you see that this is a bad time."

"If you were going to practise magic, you could have just told me." Rhaenyra said, walking forwards. "I'd have set aside time to teach you."

"I don't need your help." Laena sulked.

"Well, you're getting it anyway." Rhae idly said, slapping the wand into Laena's palm. "Repeat after me."

The younger girl strode to the cliff edge and looked down at the sea and basalt cliffs of Dragonstone.

"Formula." She spoke, raising a palm.

"Will." Her eyes narrowed and there was a weight in the air now, like the calm before a storm. As though the world had taken a bated breath and was awaiting her next move.

"Execution." Rhae spoke, snapping her fingers and conjuring a fireball the size of an apple in her hand. She flicked her wrist and flung it off the edge of the cliff. The blazing sphere tumbling down to the rocks below.

"Now you try." The Prince smiled, turning to face the scion.

"I can't." Laena softly said. "I can't do it."

"Yes you can." Rhae encouraged.

"No! I can't!" Laena yelled, falling to her knees in defeat. "I can't do it! Just like I can't do anything!"

"What are you saying?" Rhae asked. "You are the best flier apart from your mother I have ever seen."

"And? How does that help in your plans?" Laena demanded. "Pulling your skycart around like an upjumped coachman? Unleashing Vhagar on your foes? Being your personal flying errand girl?"

Rhae watched impassionately as her lover fell apart, gazing calmly down upon her.

"I'm unworthy of being by your side." Laena wept. "I can't keep up with you. You whom are the first female Heir to the Iron Throne. You whom earned more links in a year, than most maesters do in ten. You whom defeated all foes in the War of Four Directions. You whom humbled Dorne, which even Aegon the Conqueror himself was unable to do. What am I beside you?

"I can make my peace with being second only to you, but even the Dragonseeds are worthier than I am these days." Laena wailed. "Daena's a better archer and nearly as good a flier as I am. Bell is peerless in the melee. Shaeterys is the best jouster. Rhaegar is the cleverest, and Daenys second only to you in sorcery. Aerion is a better hunter, and the twins rival Daena in the air. Shaera is the better handmaiden and Erik the better sailor, never mind that I'm a Velaryon! Even Haegon is a better sorcerer than I am. Haegon! That wimpy kid half my age!

"The only reason why I am considered your right hand, is that I have Vhagar, and even she was a gift from you." Laena laughed mirthlessly. "Would you even have given Vhagar to me if there were alternatives? If you trusted Daena that day?

"To quote you, I have less and nothing." Laena sobbed. "What am I without Vhagar?"

Rhae looked at Laena, her indigo eyes taking her in from her leather boots to her platinum hair.

"So that's your issue." Rhae softly spoke. "Doubt. A poison I am most familiar with."

"Doubt?" Laena sceptically said. "When have you ever doubted anything? You're the most decisive individual I know."

"And yet I still spent eleven years and change doubting myself." Rhae replied, sitting down beside Laena. She stared off into the distance, at the dark blue sea and silvery-blue sky. "It began when I was five."

Laena looked at her lover interestingly. Rhae was free and open about her past life, not hiding even the most explicit details about her torrid affairs with Yuuki and Alice, but only starting from her late teenagerhood onwards. But she rarely spoke of childhood, apart from the occasional anecdote about her family.

Rhae produced a glass candle and lit it. An image of a young boy appeared, but was quickly snuffed out.

"On second thought, I'm going to try something different." Rhae decided, getting to her feet and facing Laena. She tapped the glass candle once, and it shone with brilliant light, enveloping both of them.

The world swam around Laena. She saw colours of every shade. Vibrant and shining, each as a blade of light, piercing into her eyes, through even her eyelids. She fell to the ground in atrocious pain, screaming as her head felt like it was about to explode.

And then they faded, and she opened her eyes once more. 

Images sped through her mind, like a painting of boldness and colour. It was unlike anything Laena had ever seen.

———

The young boy reappeared, with a second one next to him. Older and taller. They laughed and played together. Brother. One called the other.

The shorter's clothes warped, a uniform of white. Different to that of his brother's. He walked away, leaving the older behind. As soon as he left the older, other boys swooped in, insulting the younger, pulling his hair and shoving him about.

The younger boy grew older, and so did his bullies. Years upon years.

An older man, thick and stout, with brown skin, towered over the boy. Unacceptable! He shouted, clouting the boy with a rolled up piece of paper, a red 70/100 inked on it. I don't care if you're being bullied in school! Ignore them! They're not important! Your only concern is getting good grades, not this crap!

A beautiful woman with honey skin, holding a baby in her hands. Don't distract me. Your brother needs my attention. She said, ignoring the boy. Learn to solve your own problems.

The boy aged once more, now a teenager, with acne, oily hair, thick black glasses, yellowed teeth with strange metal bands on them and a slouch. He wore black, standing over a coffin. Grandfather. He sobbed.

The bullying continued. The abuse growing worse. Biting insults. Beatings. Money and possessions stolen. The teenager flipped a knife in his hands, looking at his wrists.

A letter in the mail, opened cautiously. Acceptance written in the cover. The teenager jumped for joy, smiling for the first time in years. His family smiled with him.

Laena started at that. She recognised that smile. That vicious baring of teeth.

The teenager grew unrecognisable within a span of six months. The acne faded away. The hair grew longer and silkier. The chunky black glasses were replaced with an elegant golden pair. His teeth whitened, the metal bands vanishing. His back straightened. A smile appeared on his face. Homeliness became handsomeness.

He really resembled the beautiful woman now, Laena realised. He always did.

People flocked around him like sunflowers turning towards the sun. Half of his bullies retreated, looking at him with wariness. The other half curried his favour, waving pieces of paper in their hands. The red ink showed numbers of around fifty, while the teenager held a paper with eighty. Girls approached, flirting with him. 

———

Laena gasped as the visions ended, grasping at her head. Beside her, Rhae was wincing as well.

"Well, that wasn't a very good idea." She muttered. "I'm sticking to holograms next time."

"You were bullied." Laena said, looking at her lover in shock.

"Horridly." Rhae agreed. "I suffered every single form of bullying imaginable during my teenaged years. Physical bullying. Mental bullying. Cyber bullying. Sexual harassment... All of them."

"You contemplated suicide." She gasped.

"My grandfather's death was the catalyst to my depression." Rhae agreed. "I took it very poorly."

"What changed?" Laena asked. "That acceptance letter?"

"To a prestigious boarding school. I didn't expect to pass the entrance exam. I somehow did." Rhae sighed nostalgically. "I was so happy in the aftermath. I decided that I had to be worthy of the school.

"So I worked hard. I committed. I put in the effort." Rhae fervently said. "My grades improved. My popularity increased as a result. I forgot my depression. Life turned around.

"And then." She sighed happily. "I succeeded. I trounced every single bully of mine, well except Derek, fucking snake, but everyone else was defeated."

Rhaenyra looked Laena in the eyes, indigo meeting violet.

"Do you know what the moral of my story was?" She asked.

"That hard work and determination will make me worthy?" Laena asked.

"In a way, that is a moral." Rhae mused. "But no, that wasn't the overarching one."

"Then what was it?"

"The moral of my story, was that once I stopped doubting myself, my entire life turned around." The person beside Laena spoke. "I believed that I could succeed, and so I did.

"My bullies and parents made me doubt myself for years, calling me ugly, stupid and dumb. And hence my grades and looks suffered as a result." She shrugged. "At some point I began to subconsciously believe that they were right. And that I was indeed ugly, dumb and stupid. But then my letter ripped the blinders off my eyes, and I stopped believing that. I stopped doubting myself."

"You changed." Laena softly spoke. "You grew handsome. Your grades improved. You became popular."

"And I succeeded. So can you." Rhae agreed, looking at Laena expectantly. "Ask yourself this question: How many of your limitations are self-imposed?"

"How many of my limitations are self imposed?" Laena asked herself, pondering the question. Something calcified within her. Something great and mighty. Filling her every pore until it could fill no more.

Laena let out a deep shuddering breath, and got to her feet. She raised the wand.

Formula, will and execution. The three steps for any spell.

Laena exhaled, forcing her mind to be as a lake in a moonlit night. Still and calm, a prefect reflection smoother than a mirror. She burned and buried her insecurities. Ripped apart that insidious voice in her head that called her unworthy. She shaped the formula, pruning away all unnecessary thoughts. The creation of fire was one of the easiest spells learnt by sorcerers. Laena imagined the power being shaped into fuel, the oxygen on the air flowing into the flame and feeding it.

Satisfied, Laena hardened her will as much as possible, shoving aside all weaknesses, thinking about her strongest moments in her life. The instant before she committed to kissing Rhae the first time. The second she decided to claim mighty Vhagar. I am Laena Velaryon. She told herself. I am the Blood of Old Valyria. The Old, the True, the Brave. I may not be worthy of standing by Rhae's side, so I will make myself worthy. She mustered together her will, until the world seemed to take in a breath.

The last step was the easiest. She imagined drawing power from Vhagar into her formula, like a river down an aqueduct. And then she activated the spell, waving her wand and producing a shining torch of blazing white flame on her wandtip.

"See." Rhae laughed. "I knew you could do it!"

Laena laughed as well, waving the wand and conjuring up seahorses of light, frolicking in the air. She pointed it at Rhae, causing her dagger to fly out of its sheath and orbit around the younger girl before returning.

It was like the floodgates had opened. Her back straightened and her smile widened. Now that she could perform magic, the rest just seemed easy. Trivial. She had did it once, why couldn't she do it again?

Laena Velaryon never doubted her place by Rhaenyra Targaryen's side ever again for the rest of her life.