He's a large one, about 3 and a half inches long. [She sends another picture of it in the palm of her hand, easily longer than it.] He's quite friendly.
They say that the females will kill and eat the males during or after mating, but there's suggestion that its actually stress from being observed by the scientists that trigger it, at least more often than not.
And they get their names because of the position of their front legs that makes it look like they're praying. And they're ambush predators! Some of them will even eat small frogs and birds!
I like insects very much. I used to have some pet crickets and spiders, and once a giant centipede when I was a girl. My mother was always telling me it's not a very ladylike hobby, but I find them very interesting.
My favorite is the dragonfly. My family is deeply intertwined with dragons, so I enjoy them on name alone, but also because they're incredibly fast, agile fliers and very successful hunters. They do a lot of good for people with eating mosquitos and the like.
[She sends him a picture of a dragonfly next.]
Just one can eat hundreds of mosquitos a day and can fly forward up to 35 miles per hour.
My mother used to test me on how quickly I could correctly assemble the carpal bones into a functional wrist. I think she, at least, would approve of having a hobby of your very own.
The wings are lovely. This is going to sound ridiculous to you, but which bug is the mosquito? One that bites, yes?
Do you work with bones often? That sounds like a lot to remember.
And yes, mosquitos bite. Well, the females do, they drink blood. A female mosquitoes can drink their entire body weight in blood. And it leaves an awful itching bump afterwards. So dragonflies eating them is a good thing for control of their population.
Oh, fun. Let's see. I think it would build things, presumably for other insects. Livable structures and so on, that kind of thing. It'd have to be robust for that kind of work, so... broad? Hefty, for a little thing. A very large beetle, but gray and silver, for my House colors.
Perhaps there's one that does something similar. I'll look into it for you. In the meantime, I'll do something for you. [ominous...Or maybe not, it IS Helaena]
You mentioned your House before. The 6th House, was it? Colors gray and silver. Do you have a House motto?
Easier to remember with fewer words in a rhythm, perhaps?
They're quite huge. My father's old dragon would cast a shadow over this entire city if he took flight. My brother now has the largest dragon among us, and the oldest. I have the second oldest I believe. Her name is Dreamfyre, and she's silver and blue.
Flying on her is one of my greatest joys, there's nothing quite like the feeling. The bond between rider and dragon is... unparalleled. The dragon will never let anyone else ride them. They feel what we feel and vice versa. I get my dreams from my bond-- I think. They're called 'dragon dreams' for a reason, Isuppose.
Our family is said to have dragon blood mixing in our veins as well.
[How literal is this... Every time he hears about Real Dragons, it still manages to sound fantastical and mesmerizing. A whole dragon! He doesn't even know every bit of dragon lore.]
It's a shame you couldn't bring her here with you. I'd love to meet a dragon.
That's what they're called. I can dream of things and see what will come to pass. It's in riddles and images that are difficult for me to convey. I'm afraid no one really listens to it. But the dreams have calmed here. I don't dream anything at all more often than not here. It's disquieting, a little.
[She thinks of Dreamfyre and how useful she might be here to fly on, and how nice it'd be to fly again.]
She would likely not be as enthused to meet you, but she is not as grumpy as my brother's dragon. If she were here, I would love to introduce you. Perhaps we could have even gone flying together. She and my children are the things I truly miss from home.
The cavalier role is kind of like a bodyguard, but more like a partner. They're trained in swordsmanship, which I know almost nothing at all about. Camilla is her name; we've been together since we were children. You would like her.
[She's straightforward. Anyway, ooh, a name theming convention! Very House.]
Oh, I see. I think I understand. It sounds like a very close relationship, I'm sorry you're here without her.
Hmm a little bit, I suppose. There aren't many twins in our family thus far. The only others I know are my cousins, Baela and Rhaena. It's difficult for both mother and children to survive the birthing when twins are involved, so I'm not sure if there are more that didn't survive to their naming.
But we do reuse names quite a bit. Almost everyone is named after an ancestor or some variation of their name.
Me too, but I'd hate to see her unhappy here. I don't know how she'd feel about the soul.
[He knows how she'd feel about his soul, but that's different from, like-- a fucking bird or something. If Patho-Gen harmed Camilla Hect he would yank their entrails out through their nostrils and play jump rope with them, just for starters, so.
There would be pros and cons to her arrival. In any case,]
I see. That's unfortunate to learn about twin births; your doctors must not be putting in the appropriate effort for prenatal care. And, if you'll keep indulging me, how do you differentiate between people with reused names?
I can understand there. There are a few people I would be quite sad to see here. [For different reasons at least.
But ahah. Ha...]
I don't mind. I like talking for my family. I supposed people just tend to know. And the names don't usually repeat too much within the same generation. Most of them have other titles. My husband is Aegon II Targaryen, for example. If you were to refer to him, you would say' King Aegon II usually. If you were to be speaking of our great-great- etc grandsire, you would refer to him as 'Aegon the Conqueror.'
It can be confusing for outsiders though, I suppose. Our family tree gets quite complicated at times.
My father, Viserys, had Rhaenyra in his first marriage. His second marriage with my mother he had me, Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron. Aegon and I have the twins, as I mentioned.
Rhaenyra married Laenor Velaryon and had Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey. Our uncle Daemon had two daughters from his second marriage to Laena Velaryon, Baela and Rhaena. When Laena passed, Daemon married Rhaenyra and they had sons Aegon and Viserys.
Normally we will specify which child we're speaking of when speaking of them to limit the confusion, however. Since my father passed, if someone speaks of Viserys it's generally known that they would mean my sister's son, not our father.
[Oh, they absolutely don't have consanguinity tables in House Targaryen, that's—interesting to have confirmed. He'd suspected something was off the first time she explained her various family connections here in the city, but it's explicit now.
That's... something to know. Good? In the context of, well, context? Hm.]
I imagine royalty is like that. People just knowing things about your family, that is. It sounds like it works for you in context with the occasional numerical reference, although not like ours back home.
[Camilla the Sixth, for example, is not the sixth Camilla of her line. That's just where she lives. It makes complete sense and has never been at all strange, ever.]
I can remember this, though, so you've got one less confused outsider to worry about. Having such a big family must be interesting! I'm my parents' only child. Camilla has a half-sister, but she's older than us by a bit, so we didn't spend much time together growing up. Cam's my second-cousin.
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Hi, Helaena. How big is he? I've never seen anything like him before.
Interesting bit about the head. Both ways?
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They say that the females will kill and eat the males during or after mating, but there's suggestion that its actually stress from being observed by the scientists that trigger it, at least more often than not.
And they get their names because of the position of their front legs that makes it look like they're praying. And they're ambush predators! Some of them will even eat small frogs and birds!
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You like insects? What's your favorite? Where I was living before this place, we essentially had pests and nothing very interesting-looking.
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My favorite is the dragonfly. My family is deeply intertwined with dragons, so I enjoy them on name alone, but also because they're incredibly fast, agile fliers and very successful hunters. They do a lot of good for people with eating mosquitos and the like.
[She sends him a picture of a dragonfly next.]
Just one can eat hundreds of mosquitos a day and can fly forward up to 35 miles per hour.
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The wings are lovely. This is going to sound ridiculous to you, but which bug is the mosquito? One that bites, yes?
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And yes, mosquitos bite. Well, the females do, they drink blood. A female mosquitoes can drink their entire body weight in blood. And it leaves an awful itching bump afterwards. So dragonflies eating them is a good thing for control of their population.
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Ah, bites. Maybe I have met a few and never actually seen them. I fully support the dragonflies' efforts, then.
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You mentioned your House before. The 6th House, was it? Colors gray and silver. Do you have a House motto?
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And yes, there's a whole poem. Our bit goes "Six for the truth over solace in lies," but "truth over solace" is snappier in the moment.
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Our house is very intertwined with dragons. We're all dragon-riders.
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I've never seen a dragon, but I've heard from a reliable source that they're massive. Mountainous. Is that true? What does yours look like?
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They're quite huge. My father's old dragon would cast a shadow over this entire city if he took flight. My brother now has the largest dragon among us, and the oldest. I have the second oldest I believe. Her name is Dreamfyre, and she's silver and blue.
Flying on her is one of my greatest joys, there's nothing quite like the feeling. The bond between rider and dragon is... unparalleled. The dragon will never let anyone else ride them. They feel what we feel and vice versa. I get my dreams from my bond-- I think. They're called 'dragon dreams' for a reason, Isuppose.
Our family is said to have dragon blood mixing in our veins as well.
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You have dragon dreams?
[How literal is this... Every time he hears about Real Dragons, it still manages to sound fantastical and mesmerizing. A whole dragon! He doesn't even know every bit of dragon lore.]
It's a shame you couldn't bring her here with you. I'd love to meet a dragon.
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[She thinks of Dreamfyre and how useful she might be here to fly on, and how nice it'd be to fly again.]
She would likely not be as enthused to meet you, but she is not as grumpy as my brother's dragon. If she were here, I would love to introduce you. Perhaps we could have even gone flying together. She and my children are the things I truly miss from home.
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[haha....... He can't comment on how her dreams seem to go, hm, ignored? Not taken seriously? But he'll remember that, for context.]
I miss my cavalier, and my mother and my friends. What are your children's names?
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What is a cavalier? [She's not sure if it has a different meaning from what she understands one to be.]
My son's name is Jaehaerys, after my great-grandsire. And my daughter is Jaehaera, as a feminine form of the name to match her twin brother.
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[Speaking of,]
The cavalier role is kind of like a bodyguard, but more like a partner. They're trained in swordsmanship, which I know almost nothing at all about. Camilla is her name; we've been together since we were children. You would like her.
[She's straightforward. Anyway, ooh, a name theming convention! Very House.]
Is that a tradition? Matching twin names?
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Hmm a little bit, I suppose. There aren't many twins in our family thus far. The only others I know are my cousins, Baela and Rhaena. It's difficult for both mother and children to survive the birthing when twins are involved, so I'm not sure if there are more that didn't survive to their naming.
But we do reuse names quite a bit. Almost everyone is named after an ancestor or some variation of their name.
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[He knows how she'd feel about his soul, but that's different from, like-- a fucking bird or something. If Patho-Gen harmed Camilla Hect he would yank their entrails out through their nostrils and play jump rope with them, just for starters, so.
There would be pros and cons to her arrival. In any case,]
I see. That's unfortunate to learn about twin births; your doctors must not be putting in the appropriate effort for prenatal care. And, if you'll keep indulging me, how do you differentiate between people with reused names?
cw: incest....bc Targaryens......
But ahah. Ha...]
I don't mind. I like talking for my family. I supposed people just tend to know. And the names don't usually repeat too much within the same generation. Most of them have other titles. My husband is Aegon II Targaryen, for example. If you were to refer to him, you would say' King Aegon II usually. If you were to be speaking of our great-great- etc grandsire, you would refer to him as 'Aegon the Conqueror.'
It can be confusing for outsiders though, I suppose. Our family tree gets quite complicated at times.
My father, Viserys, had Rhaenyra in his first marriage. His second marriage with my mother he had me, Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron. Aegon and I have the twins, as I mentioned.
Rhaenyra married Laenor Velaryon and had Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey. Our uncle Daemon had two daughters from his second marriage to Laena Velaryon, Baela and Rhaena. When Laena passed, Daemon married Rhaenyra and they had sons Aegon and Viserys.
Normally we will specify which child we're speaking of when speaking of them to limit the confusion, however. Since my father passed, if someone speaks of Viserys it's generally known that they would mean my sister's son, not our father.
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That's... something to know. Good? In the context of, well, context? Hm.]
I imagine royalty is like that. People just knowing things about your family, that is. It sounds like it works for you in context with the occasional numerical reference, although not like ours back home.
[Camilla the Sixth, for example, is not the sixth Camilla of her line. That's just where she lives. It makes complete sense and has never been at all strange, ever.]
I can remember this, though, so you've got one less confused outsider to worry about. Having such a big family must be interesting! I'm my parents' only child. Camilla has a half-sister, but she's older than us by a bit, so we didn't spend much time together growing up. Cam's my second-cousin.