Chapter 28: A Man with Two Faces
109 AC, Driftmark
For he would find his answers in a painting, likely the most important painting in his life, because this time, his subject would be one that he had avoided all of his life, one that he had always instinctively refused to paint. For this time, he would paint himself.
Laenor Velaryon stood before the empty canvas, having remained so for quite some time. His sister had left his solar hours ago. He knew that he should probably dress himself for his father’s victory banquet, celebrating the destruction of the Triarchy, but this… this was far more important than a war starting on another continent, as well as its political ramifications.
He had not expected that Laena’s visit would change so much, especially since he had only meant to give her a gift as a way to thank her for standing by him for all those years. Laena lacked for very little, but he knew that she had worked very hard managing the production of mirrors and their sale. It had quickly become a passion of hers, and it felt right to make it official.
And yet, there was no doubt that his sister’s words had left him with the deep realisation of what he must do, and yet something inside him was reluctant to do it, knowing that he would not be able to undo what he did, that something would fundamentally change, though he did not know what it was. Alas, he would do it, for he was no coward. He would not allow fear and apprehension to guide his actions, for this path came with only ruin and disappointment.
He needed to do this; he felt it deep inside him, something that wanted to be acknowledged, questions that needed to be answered.
He remembered the Faceless Man’s words, of finding his questions, and peering into their truths, and unfortunately, there had been so many of them, questions that he simply could not answer. After all, Laenor had known that he was always different, that he saw the world differently.
There were parts of the world that something inside him fundamentally refused utterly and completely, enough that they deeply unsettled him, a way that he thought that the world itself was… wrong. He had felt this whenever he thought of the seasons and their lengths, felt this when he looked at the dragons. And even though, over the years, he had learned to live with these feelings, these instincts, they had never truly gone away.
He wanted to know why he was so different, why he was unsettled so by these things, which should be facts of the world. He wanted to know why he had instincts, intuitions, regarding certain elements of the world that no one, no matter their intelligence, should have so readily. For example, he knew how to forge glass without experimenting with it, knew of its compositions, of silicates, despite the word not having been invented yet.
This was unnatural, and he knew it, and yet… it was. It felt completely right, and he couldn’t help but wonder why that was. Why was he so different? Was it his lineage? Was it some kind of magic? He did not know. But what he did know was that he would not find the answers in a book, but he supposed that doing it on canvas had simply felt… right.
As he had said earlier, there were far too many questions to focus on, but he knew that he was close… He repeated the instructions of the Faceless Man once more, to find his questions, and peer into their truths, the act being almost meditative.
He thought back at the many questions that he thought of, and they had all felt… shallow, or like they were all incomplete in some way. His eyes widened when he realised that they were all fragments of the same question, and that was a very simple one, that he spoke aloud in the empty room. “Who is Laenor Velaryon?”
And wasn’t that a grave question indeed. For Laenor Velaryon was so many things: a son, a brother, an heir, a knight… He was a man who loved bringing about the beauty of the world for everyone to see.
He was the brother who had given away the chance to become a Dragonrider for the sake of his sister’s freedom, so that she would not be married to an unworthy man across the Narrow Sea. He was a son who adored his mother, who had helped her as much as she could when his father had not been around, who wished to comfort his mother, a woman who had faced the entire Seven Kingdoms with dignity, even as they all usurped her claim to the Iron Throne because she was a woman.
He was the heir that his father treasured, an heir that he trusted enough to give him an entire castle to do what he wished. He was a man who left very little mercy to his enemies, a selfish man who had likely condemned thousands to die in the aftermath of his scheme to destroy the Triarchy, a man who had ended a war without entering a single battle. He was an artist who created such wonders that his canvas had seemed almost… blessed.
He was a Velaryon of Driftmark, heir to the Driftwood Throne, and the Painter Knight, who had the blood of the dragon running through his veins.
As Laenor looked up, he realised that he had already begun to paint instinctively during his contemplations and had already finished half of it.
His eyes first drifted to the background, and he could make out Driftmark, the island that he would one day inherit, with dragons flying atop the clouds, almost dancing…
In the foreground, he saw his face, including his soft silverly white hair and his purple eyes. He could see within them the eyes of the artist who wished to share the beauty of the world with everyone, and all of the qualities that he had just thought of, good and ill.
He could see so much within these eyes, and yet, there was something missing; there was something that he had not put into words yet, for so far, he had only painted half of the picture, with half of his face missing its features, and an empty background behind him.
Like they were waiting to be filled, that there was more to Laenor Velaryon than what he had already drawn.
And that alone was a clue, was it not?
It was a clue that there was more to Laenor Velaryon than what he had put into his canvas, more than the heir to Driftmark. Looking back, it made sense, in a way, for what lay on the canvas before him did not answer his questions, questions regarding himself. And the other part of the painting, one that remained incomplete, was where these answers lay, answers that he had been seeking all of his life.
As to further prove this, Laenor looked back and remembered faintly how the Faceless Man addressed him back on Braavos. He had called him the Two-Faced One. He had taken it as an insult then, claiming that he was a swindler or a man without any honour, though there was little he could do about it, could he?
But now, looking at the incomplete painting before him, he knew that the Faceless Man had not meant it as such, likely having seen something that Laenor had not at the time, a deeper truth that he had not dared reach for.
He could have stopped. He could have been satisfied by what he had just seen, and walk away. He could leave this painting unfinished, and yet he refused.
And so, Laenor looked at the parts of his life that were not in the incomplete painting before him. There was much that he had not included in this, parts of him that had always been there, and yet felt distinctly apart from what he had already drawn.
There was the part of him that was a scholar, that loved to learn about the world, that already knew things that outstripped that of the Citadel by far. This was the scholar that looked at the extremely slow progress of the world, of the very few changes that had occurred for thousands of years and found it unacceptable.
This was the scholar whose instincts taught him how to forge glass, who taught him how to create porcelain. This was the scholar who looked at a ship from the Summer Isles and immediately theorised its workings, in a manner that was distinctly unnatural. This was the scholar that held instincts regarding the workings of the human body, that outstripped that of every Maester in the Seven Kingdoms, and likely any learned man beyond, instincts that he knew to be correct, despite having no proof of it otherwise.
This was the scholar that also held an unlimited number of stories, each one unique and not having been seen in the world before, songs and tales that he had never heard of before and yet knew intimately to be true.
This was the part of Laenor whose ambitions were centred around, the part of him that saw the world, the suffering of its inhabitants, and knew that it could make it better, that he could improve it in ways that no one else could. Arrogant it might be, it was no less true, for he could feel it, the knowledge that it was, in fact, true.
The young Velaryon had never truly considered this ambition, this dream, to have been something related to the mystery that plagued him, but looking back, he realised that there had never truly been a time when he had decided to pursue that dream. It had always been there, in the back of his mind, a goal without a source…
Without even thinking about it, Laenor had discovered that he had continued to paint, this time filling in details that he had not included in the first section of the painting. He watched as he saw the other half of the canvas being filled.
Whereas the background had shown Driftmark earlier, on this side of the canvas, it seemed to almost morph in a far greyer world, one made of giant fortresses of steel and glass that seemed to rise to the clouds themselves.
In the skies, he saw what he had thought to be winged birds of some kind, only he instinctively knew that they were not. They were metallic machines that travelled in the air, much like dragons, only without magic. He knew that with a certainty that he likely shouldn’t have.
He saw metallic carriages almost moving on the smooth black roads and knew immediately that they did not need horses dragging them. He saw different carriages, laid upon tracks of steel, that would cross great distances in such little time.
It should have been strange. It should not have made sense, and yet, it was all so extremely familiar to him, too familiar.
The workings of what he saw before him were beyond that of any Maester could ever conceive of, and would likely call it witchcraft, despite the fact that no magic had been used in their manufacturing. And yet, he understood them.
This was more than a simple illusion or a delusion. This was an entire world, a very different one than the one that he lived in, and yet, that did not make it any less real.
The greatest question was how Laenor was familiar with such a world, and why it was a part of Laenor.
And so, the young Velaryon tore his gaze from the background and into the face, the portrait that he drew of himself. Where his features had once lain empty, now, they were not, not anymore.
Laenor stared at them, the features that were not his own, and yet, were strangely familiar. He did not know how long he did it, and yet, he could not help but drink it in.
It was then that he realised that he had been right earlier, before he had even begun painting this canvas. He had known deep down that this painting would change him, that the truth being laid bare before him like this would have great consequences.
For realisation began to set in, and Laenor Velaryon began to remember.
AN: This story is still relatively new, so if you'd like me to continue it, please let me know in the comments what you think of the rewrite so far.
I have been looking forward to writing this chapter for a while. Someone suggested Laenor's ability to put truths into his paintings, to realise that he had a life before this. The chapter itself was a bit different; I wanted it to be read like a train of thought, reflections, rather than events happening. Still, it might have taken a bit too long, but I feel it was better to have his character developed before this realisation set in.
As I said before, I am planning on uploading more of this story (outside of normal uploads). I have a bit of a backlog of chapter drafts for this story that I’ll try to go through when I can. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this chapter depending on your feedback, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.