If there's one thing we can never let slide on House of the Dragon, it's a letter that only flashes up on the screen for a few seconds.

Season 2, episode 3 provided one such opportunity, with Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) unrolling a little scroll that was sent to her by her former childhood friend Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), whose son Aegon currently sits on Rhaenyra's throne.

So what does the thing say, and what does it mean? Let's take a closer look.

What does Rhaenyra's scroll say?

The first thing to note is that when Rhaenyra takes the scroll from her lockbox at Dragonstone, it's still sealed. The letter from Alicent has so far gone unread, presumably because Rhaenyra was too angry/grief stricken over the death of her son Lucerys to want to look at it.

When she does open it, though, here's the partial message we can make out:

Rhaenyra, I write [...]
lest the [...]
battling all the hours [...]
might also wish to [speak?] [...]
to the Mother for [...]
along with the hope [...]

From the amount of unrolled scroll we can see before the camera cuts away, that appears to be about two thirds of Alicent's message, with the last third of each line cut off.

As tricky as this makes it to decipher the message in full, though, we don't really need to read much more than that to get a sense of what Alicent is trying to say.

What's the meaning of the scroll?

Context is key here, and we know from our insight into Team Green's small council meetings that Alicent wants to put a stop to the war before it even begins. Since Lucerys' death at the hands of her son Aemond's dragon Vhagar, she's been reaching out to her former bestie to try and build a bridge, or at least a dialogue.

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The line "might also wish to speak" is the clearest indication of this, while the last two lines imply she's been praying to the Mother (one of the Seven Gods) and hoping that Rhaenyra will respond to her.

Unfortunately for both of them, based on the covert meeting they do end up having at the end of the episode, it may be too little, too late.

House of the Dragon Season 2 airs Sundays on HBO and Max at 9 p.m. ET.