Chapter Text
Jon Arryn wasn't a man easily given to emotion, nor was he particularly sentimental–call it manly pride, a prickling side effort of a highly logical mind, or simply being heartless—Lord Arryn cared not for silly jabs, childish notions, or outlandish public displays. But all that stoicism had crackled like poorly painted marble when his Little Dove was born.
She was sickly, quick to cry—he held her hand and kissed her tense brow when her favorite falcon came to the same cruel fate all mortals do, her tiny, pouty face all blotchy and wet with tears, “The Gods will reunite you one day, sweetling—it is just a matter of patience.”
The frail girl of six even managed to force her Lord father into black attire for the falcon’s funeral—buried among seedlings of the girl’s favorite flower, white roses, within the Gate of the Moon‘s gardens.
He held her on his hip as she wept, kissing her temple as her wet nurse lowered the carcass into the ground; “I don’t want him to go…” she murmured with pouty lips, watery words and swollen blotchy, pale flesh framing soft blue eyes. “I want him to stay!” She finished with a more spirited tone, but quickly came to a violent sob.
“We all want the things we love to stay—but sometimes they need to go.” Jon explained softly, Daella looked to her father then. “It is never ‘goodbye’ when we love them so, Little Dove, merely a ‘until I see you again’.”
The little girl parted her swollen lips to protest, but she found there were no words to aid in her grief, no arguments logical enough to explain this ache in her belly— why it is there, why it will never go away—so she plopped her head down on his broad shoulder instead, and let him caress her golden ringlets and sway her in his arms, and shortly after, Jon found he had a sleeping child to put to bed.
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Was there anything so undoing as a daughter? Was there anything more maddening than a son? Robert was not Jon Arryn’s blood, was not of his seed, but he came to love the boy all the same—and that love made discipline a most difficult thing.
A quarrel between weeping children led to a confession most foul—murder, no less. The falcon had not died by the gods’ will, but by Jon Arryn’s fosterling’s own hand. A simple crack of the neck with his roughen hands did the deed, Jon grimaced when he heard the words uttered with such venom–was it a lie to pull tears from Daella’s eyes, or was it truth? “Why would you do such a vile thing?” Jon inquired with narrowed eyes, and a low hiss of a stern tone.
The question seemed to bounce off the walls of Jon’s solar like a rogue arrow, striking the boy of ten in the spine–Robert, nearly his own height, merely shrugged off the initial shock; “Lady Daella is quite the vexing creature, mi’lord.” That on its own, spoken so indifferently, so bitterly, riled the stoic Lord’s temper–a poisonous pot of bile stirred in his chest, leaving his mouth twisted at the mere taste.
Jon had not meant to strike the boy, but his hand met his cheek all the same–but no good sense was beaten into the future Lord of Storm’s End–only defiance. His deep blue eyes simply snapped back to meet Lord Arryn's own, glinting with a new found displeasure that neared hatred. Blood welled from his split lip, streaming a crimson river to trickle down his chin–staining his cream-color tunic.
“Lady Daella will have a formal apology for this unseemly act against her—you will beg on your knees if need be. And as for punishment, your sword training is forfeit until I say otherwise. Do we have an understanding?” The boy looked just about ready to take out an eye, or open a throat. Jon did not yield however, and persisted when there were no words spoken; “Do we have an understanding?”
Robert’s sharp jaw rolled, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in a breath through his nose, his mouth twisting as if tasting poison–he looked to be swallowing his pride.
“Yes, My Lord.”