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Chapter Text

Mine Eyes Are Closed

(Let Me Waste Away)

I drown in my grief.

He is dead.

It matters not the way his chest rises and falls periodically, bringing in air to his lungs. It matters not his blood, warm and still a vibrant red, running through his veins. It matters not the way he can speak, move, and think with all the physicality of a living man.

His mother calls out to him. Softly, like she used to in his early days, the days he clung to with ferocious claws, ripping through the memories and reassembling them to soothe his tired soul.

She calls out to him a second time. Closer now, with her green dress ruffling, rich and heavy with adorned jewels. Her face is still smooth, stress lines mostly absent, pinched into a worried expression. Her mouth does not form a frown, even when her eyes are on him, tentatively curving into a small, coaxing smile.

She calls out to him a third time. Her voice is not raised, not going high enough to elicit a flinch. She does not grow angry. Her footsteps are soft but quick, and she is on her knees before him, meeting his height and eyes equally, like he is something worthy and not just a tool to use and discard.

It is a pleasant dream. An afterlife he does not deserve. Yet he does not speak, does not ask why this blessed concern is laid out for him to take. He does not ask why he carefully takes it into his hands, despite knowing that it is silly for him to hope.

His mother does not speak, watching him with avid eyes. She looks at him, and he sees himself reflected in her irises, and she does not berate him for being silent. Unprincely. Unkingly. Unworthy.

Instead, she reaches out to him, cupping his cheeks like he is a precious treasure. Her hands are soft, not yet marred with callouses and thin scars and blood. They caress his face, then his hair, then she pulls him to her bosom and hugs him tightly, and then she kisses his forehead with a soft smile like he is a son.

He is dead.

He is in a dream.

This dream is wonderful, an illusion taken from the depths of his long-hidden yearning. A dream so perfect that he is afraid to interrupt, frightened to break the fragile mirage and crush the last remnants of his curiously beating heart.

“My son,” his mother says, carding long fingers through his hair. Combing and fixing them as she used to when he was still a babe. “My little spark.”

My little spark, he hears his mother say when he was one and she still looked at him like he was a miracle. To this day, he doesn’t know if his mother truly called him her little spark, or if he only dreamt it and woke up believing a delusion his mind created to keep him sane.

“Muña,” he whispers like a fool struck thoughtless in the midst of euphoria. He is like a man drunk on sweet wines that he spills it all over himself and incites outrage at his carelessness.

His mother does not like Targaryens. She likes their dragons less so, and their language even less. He has called her muña once, and never again.

There is a tiny scar at the bottom of his cheek, barely visible, but every time he sees his reflection, he zones in on it like a thirsty man spotting an oasis. A reminder, he liked to tell himself, even when smaller and larger scars taint the rest of his body. His first reminder, and it is important.

But this mother— the perfect one in his dreams— only smiles at him hesitantly. She does not understand the word, but she understands the meaning. Gingerly, she kisses his forehead again and raises him.

“Little spark,” she says affectionately, lovingly. “Join me for supper?”

He follows her out, lifting his lips to a bright smile. It feels strange. It feels wrong.

It feels like a falsehood. He does not know how to smile. “Of course, muña.”

Aegon II Targaryen wakes up in his bed, the reek of alcohol clinging persistently to his clothes. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, trying to return to his dream.

He is not needed. He is not wanted.

There is no need for him to rise today, he finds, as he throws the furs all over his body. He tries to sleep again, willing himself to return to that wonderful dream once more.

Later, he’ll find that he’s excused from breakfast and supper, on account of him vomiting and unwell. He knows that they think of him as a drunkard, that they gossip about him in the privacy of closed cobblestone rooms and empty corridors. He does not correct them.

He has not drunk any alcohol for a few months now. No one has noticed.

Alcohol reeks. It is why his grandfather does not come to his chambers now, preferring to keep their talks somewhere cleaner but still discreet. It is why his mother rarely comes to scold him in the mornings, either ashamed of or disgusted at his actions.

These days, only servants come to wake him up. None of his family visits him anymore, and it is by Aegon’s own design that they don’t.

(He is lonely and alone. He remembers hearing that loneliness and solitude aren’t quite the same, but with how he is, he can’t see the difference. He sits alone in his room, nursing a glass of wine and wondering if he’ll ever have the courage to step out and face the world by himself.

He doesn’t. He never does. He is a coward and afraid, and he is shaming his family being being a frightened coward.

Shame is a common emotion, often rising in his chest and forcing him to freeze, leaving him frantic and just a little angrier. Self-loathing follows, hollowing the area where his heart is supposed to be, and his anger is doused. He remains alone and lonely, and he doesn’t do anything about it.

Sometimes, it is easy to shift the blame. Blame his grandsire for his selfish dreams and his deliberate placing of a world of hurt and pressure upon Aegon’s shoulders. Blame his sister for not stepping aside and refusing to let go of the throne and the crown in her sight.

Blame his mother for not letting him be at peace, for pushing him over and over again, for refusing to hear his refusals and his pleas, for making him feel unloved—)

He is in his room. He is not drunk. He is holding a book in his hands and it is quite riveting for a book of laws that are rarely upheld and only sought for in times of self-righteous need.

His mother enters his room without any preamble. His eyes are drawn to the rings on her fingers and remembers, very vividly, how much they sting for days on end. It is why he tries to focus on his book, eyes barely glancing over the side to watch her hands carefully.

“Aegon,” his mother says after a pause. For a brief moment of petty anger, he considers asking her if she forgot his name; after all, tools have little use for names. He doesn’t speak up. He only looks at her, wondering what she sees in his eyes that makes her avoid them completely.

“You will join us for supper,” she says stiffly. “The king... your father is ordering for a family meeting. Attendance is a must. Do not be late yet again.”

He nods. “I won’t, Mother.”

They stay together in silence. Every so often, his eyes flicker from the words in his book to the hands just within his peripheral vision. If she notices, she doesn’t say anything.

Both of them are very skilled at not saying anything.

Perhaps that is what he inherited from her: silence, instead of courage.

Here, Mother is his best and worst. She loves him, or at least he hopes she does, but her sense of duty is greater than her affection. She cares for him, or at least he wishes she does, but raising a king does not allow a moment of vulnerability for either of them.

Here, Mother is love, and Aegon is simply not enough. He is unloveable because he doesn’t try to be anything else. He is unworthy of love because he doesn’t attempt to be more than a drunk and a coward.

Here, Mother is love, and Aegon wants to beg her for a morsel, for just a little crumb that his existence can be loved, even if his self can’t be.

(Mother favors green, and prefers one shade above all. It is the exact same shade in her blade, and she smiles at him. It is bitter and grieving, accusing and hateful. She needs not to say anything for Aegon to know what she wants.

His mother does not like red very much. Aegon does his best to wipe away the red in her chambers. He orders her to be clothed in Hightower green instead of Targaryen red at her funeral. Perhaps, even if she detests him up to her dying breath, Aegon will still seek her love, like the fool that he is.)

When Aegon blinks, he’s in a forest. The trees are vibrant, a rich brown and effervescent green matching with the blue of the sky. In the distance, contorted trees can be seen; some are withered, others burnt, and the remaining colored a curious white. When Aegon tries to move closer to inspect the trees, his head pounds, directing him back to where he started.

He winds up in a clearing, the grass gentle and swaying with the wind. There is a lady sitting in the meadows, birds curiously chittering as they hover near her head. A brave one ventures to her shoulder, and the lady lifts her head.

Helaena.

Helaena is, as always, playing with ants and centipedes and other creatures she finds interesting. She is different from Aegon’s Helaena, however, with how brilliant and aware her eyes seem. When he meets hers, she smiles, and motions for him to join her.

Aegon cannot refuse.

Politely, he sits an appropriate distance from her. Not too close, not too distant. Befitting of a brother and sister of noble households. Whether she is chagrined by this or not, she only smiles at him and urges him to watch as ants devour a grasshopper without restraint.

They sit in silence. Aegon does not have the words to start a conversation nor does he want to. He and Helaena hover in the line separating siblings and strangers. Perhaps there is love between them, but that is out of duty, not out of genuine like.

Aegon has been an absent brother, sleeping and wasting away in his room. He has not talked to her in months beyond the perfunctory greeting and unnecessary small talk when courtesy dictates it. She does not know him. He does not know her.

All of a sudden, her eyes grow dark. She stands up and moves away from him, as if disgusted.

All of a sudden, he is cold. His fingers and toes are freezing, his skin blue and worryingly pallid. He is growing numb, and it strikes him how much he’s yearned for numbness all these years. He breaths, and lets the coldness wash over him and envelop him in a mockery of a hug.

Shakily, he stands up to meet her. She does not look away from him, her eyes an accusation all on their own. She speaks, but Aegon cannot hear her. All he hears is the pounding of his heart; all he feels is the cold that threatens to swallow him alive.

Helaena, sweet Helaena, their family’s dreamer, grasps his hands and looks at his eyes and he cannot look away. In her eyes, he can see himself— damned and bleeding, with his eyes a frightening white. White, like the contorted trees beyond the line of prosperous trees. They are withered and dying.

Dying, like Aegon is.

He is dead, and dying still.

This is a nightmare. This is a dream.

Why does it feel real?

A servant wakes him up, timid and cowering in her worn clothes. He waves her away when she offers to help him bathe. Her relieved face is unsettling, like he’s forced to swallow something bitter. He ignores it and thoroughly cleans his skin, disgusted by something he’s not sure what.

He meets Helaena when he comes down at the king’s behest. She doesn’t meet his gaze, taken by things he cannot see or hear. He clears his throat.

“Good morning,” he greets calmly.

Helaena’s eyes drift to him, and she smiles. It’s the exact smile she wears in his dream. It doesn’t last more than a second, her mind breaking from the bubble of her own world. Her knowing expression changes into one of confusion. Meekly, she dips her head. “Good morning, brother.”

Dreamer, he wants to say, a growing, desperate urge in his chest. It’s okay. I am here now.

He does not say it.

He takes his seat, not the place of the crown’s heir but the second-in-line. He meets his father’s stare, dimly noting how healthy he looks, and turns to his mother’s. His mother is not pleased, evident by the thin line of her lips and the tension in her shoulders. Her dress is blue, today.

Little spark.

Muña.

Aegon wants to laugh. Of course, she never called him her little spark. Why would she? She’s never had a reason to. He is not favored. He is not wanted. He is not loved.

He does not touch a single drop of wine today. Helaena notices.

(Helaena smiles at him sadly. She understands things none of their family ever could, but she never could make them understand. They share the blame for that fault. Helaena, for never raising her voice to more than a whisper. Their family, for never trying. Aegon, for never understanding.

Helaena cups his cheek softly. She is gentle and soft where he is not, where he cannot be. In another world, Aegon may have a mother just like her: kind, caring, loving. Helaena does not love him, but she does care. That is enough.

Aegon will take and take, grasping little crumbs in his grubby hands in hopes of building a fortress. He knows that he never will be able to, but he still tries. Over and over again.)

Here, Helaena is his sister. Family. She ignores him half of the time, and the other half she does not even seem aware of his presence. Aegon considers her the kindest. She does not pretend that she wants to be around him nor does she say that she wants him gone. She is just there: constant and distant.

Here, it’s the little things that make Aegon view her in a different light. A fleeting, worried glance when their grandsire screams at his face. A bottle of ointment left on his bed after a day of grueling training. A small, handwritten card during his nameday, a gift painstakingly created instead of bought.

Here, it’s the little things that make Aegon regret. Weird, lunatic, mad. She is strange, that is true, but she is real. Gentle and honest, murmuring words so peculiar that they appear to be ramblings rather than warnings. Pleading stares from underneath her eyelashes, wishing for him to attempt to understand.

(Children, with Aegon’s facial structure and Helaena’s smile. With Aegon’s eyes and Helaena’s nose. Dead. Helaena, with a spike through her body. An open window. Dead.)

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting different results. Maybe Aegon is a bit mad. Maybe he’s mad to begin with, for hoping he can be loved more than superficially.

He’s never succeeded. Not now, not in the future. Not in the past, not in the present.

His head burns. He goes to sleep.

Daeron is there when he wakes, sitting on a swing. He looks at Aegon with a spark in his eyes, smiling instead of voicing out his request. Aegon walks behind him and pushes the swing slowly. Daeron, somehow younger than he was when Aegon last saw him, laughs gleefully.

His laughter morphs into bells, twinkling. The pleasant sound soon dives into the echoing of warning bells, reverberating from one wall to another and back to Aegon’s ears. He clamps his hands over them, feeling nauseous and dizzy from the sound.

Gentle fingers pull his hands away. Daeron smiles at him, older now, and bloodied from head to toe. He is missing an arm, but his other arm is wielding a blade. Brave and strong, a loyal knight like what he wishes to be.

The world must be moving swiftly, or Aegon is moving slowly. He’s too slow to react when Daeron pushes him, and he tumbles down into an abyss he hasn’t known was there. His mouth opens to scream, but he is shocked and forced silent when Daeron’s body plunges down with him.

When Aegon reaches the bottom of the abyss, there is nothing for him but blood and the broken hilt of Daeron’s sword.

Daeron sends him a missive. His letters are growing sparse. Before, he writes twice a day. Now, Aegon is lucky to receive a missive once a month. It is not Daeron’s fault; who would want to write to someone who doesn’t respond?

Aegon is unwanted and unloved. It is his fault why.

Today, he gathers parchment and writing tools to a table. He writes. Perfunctory, but with a hint of familial warmth. Greetings, brother, he starts. Forgive me for not responding. I have no excuse; please take this as an attempt at reconciliation.

It is too blunt, too honest. Once a person opens the letter, they can see the weakness in the bonds of his mother’s sons: too distant, with little love between them.

That won’t do.

Good day, brother, he starts again on another piece. Perhaps this letter will arrive far too late for your lessons, but I have compiled a list of books for falconry. I hope...

Casual enough not to spark curiosity. It does not speak of years-old bonds, but it implies a bond close enough to know personal interests and hobbies. It makes for a good image, as well: an older brother acting as he should, and a younger brother brilliant and intelligent.

He sends the letter. Two days later, he receives a reply.

Good day, Aeg! The books were of great help, I succeeded in my first falconry lesson! Did you know that Ser...

Aegon reads the letter with a growing smile.

Here, Daeron is a friend. Not a brother, for they are too distant to be brothers. Not family, for Daeron is kind and gentle and looks up to him with the rosy-tinted gaze only a child can have. He is a friend, caring and supportive, and it hurts to realize that he is away.

Sometimes, Aegon wonders what Daeron would think of him if he’d stayed instead of going to Oldtown. Sometimes, Aegon fantasizes about having someone listen to him and give him advice, comforting his insecurities and his pain.

He’ll feel guilty then, for Daeron is younger than he is, and Aegon is not meant to lean on someone. He is meant to be the person his family will lean on, even if he’s doing a shite job at it. He is supposed to be strong, wise, and outspoken.

He is everything but who he is supposed to be.

(A blade sticking through a knight’s chest. Kind eyes, looking at him like he is still good, like the parts of him are still salvageable. Then a hand falls, followed by the thud of a sword and the roar of a grieving dragon. Dead, like everyone else.)

Aegon is awake. He is in the library, for some reason, and is reading books. In front of him, his younger brother shuffles forward, a large book in his arms. Somehow, Aegon knows what to do and takes the book, flipping it open to the bookmarked page.

“Would you like me to read to you?” he asks kindly.

Aemond nods, both of his eyes bright and wide. So Aegon reads, ignoring the feeling in his gut that something is terribly, horribly wrong. He keeps reading until he reaches the end of the book and Aemond is fast asleep.

There is something painful in his chest when Aegon scoops his brother into his arms. He is in pain when he thinks that Aemond will not mind something like this, that Aemond will choose to trust him and sleep in his arms. He hurts and aches, and he rubs his chest in hopes of easing the pain.

When he blinks, he is in Driftmark and watching as the funeral continues. Then he is in a room in a second, and he is watching his father yell and his sister demand recompense for a truth so obvious to anyone with working eyes. He is watching, and he doesn’t know why he is rooted in place. He doesn’t know why he can’t move, why he can’t speak like he is supposed to.

He remembers a knife, then. He remembers the blood spilling all over young cheeks, dripping to the ground in rhythmic plops. There is no mercy to be had here, no kindness to expect; there is no love to be had between father and son.

“It is Aegon,” Aemond says haltingly. Aegon doesn’t deny it, looking into his father’s eyes with the distinct feeling that this is now how it is supposed to go.

Arrax, he thinks vaguely. There is a flicker of something there, power more than anything he’s ever witnessed, and then everything is burning. Fire bursts from where the king stands, drowning him in flames. The fire swallows the walls and the furniture as people run away.

Vaguely, he notices his mother rushing to gather Aemond in her arms, tugging Helaena away. He can hear her call out for him to leave, but her voice feels like it’s muted. He steps forward, a hand reaching out to caress the flames.

They are warm. They surround him, a mimicry of a hug. He breathes in the smoke and finds it fresh, and for once, he wishes he’d been burned.

Everything is spiraling out of control but Aegon is there, at the heart of the fire, and he’s never felt more at peace.

Aegon is sure that Aemond hates him. How could he not? Aemond will make a far better king than Aegon can ever hope to reach. It is only by birthright that Aemond cannot be king, just like how Aegon wants to be loved but cannot be.

He follows his brother into the training grounds. They spar. Aemond is harsh, ruthless at best, and lethal at worst. Aegon does not stand a chance against him, nor does he ever aim to. He’s been a terrible brother to Aemond for years; he knows and he accepts whatever punishment Aemond deigns to give.

It is a horrible mindset, but there is this part of Aegon that whispers how he deserves the ache in his elbows and knees. It tells him that he deserves the scrapes and the cuts, that more of his blood should be spilled to the earth instead of just a mere splatter.

He escapes into his room, waving away a maester who offers to take care of his wounds. Aegon can do that himself, with an ease that can only be born by spending months on a brutal battlefield. He doesn’t know why he just knows, and he doesn’t want to spend time figuring it out.

Aemond’s eyes follow him as Aegon leaves. He tells himself that his brother is not worried; he convinces himself that it is hatred, because Aegon cannot handle receiving concern and losing it one day, like he is destined to.

He shuts himself alone in his room. No one will search for him anyway.

(That is an untruth. Aemond often stops in front of his door, knocking, but he doesn’t come in unless Aegon tells him to.

Aegon doesn’t tell his brother how grateful he is— for his continued presence and his respect for Aegon’s boundaries. He does not speak. Aemond does not, either, but he still comes and that is enough.)

Here, Aegon does not consider Aemond as family. Family hurts and screams at him when he does something and when he does nothing. Family ignores him and looks at him like he is filth at the bottom of their shoes when he shows up with alcohol in his breath. Family is subtle insults and declared wars he does not want to be part of.

Aegon does not know if there is a word for what Aemond is to him. He does not know if Aemond is what family should be, and Aegon is just ignorant of how heavy and warm the word should be.

He does not know, but he knows this: Aemond is more than family.

(A bloodstained letter. Screams as a dragon and a rider fall into the deep sea, drowning in its depths. They are dead, the letter says. He is dead. Dead. Fought until his last breath, like the warrior that he is and always will be.)

Come the following morning, Aemond rouses him from rest. Aegon will take a look at him and find him as unwanted as he is, so he forces himself to rise and follow his brother to a table full of people who could care less whether he drinks himself to an early death or not.

He is dead.

His dreams are wonderful. His nightmares are not. It makes sense for him to have more nightmares than dreams, and he ponders as he brings roasted lamb to his mouth.

The meat tastes rotten on his tongue. He does not spit it out. He chews it and swallows it down.

He is strung like twine between his fingers. Pulled and stretched in every direction until he snaps and breaks apart.

He cannot fall apart. Not this time.

King Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, survives two more years after the war. He does not go mad. Crippled and injured as he is, he keeps his reign steady and his position strong. He does not seek death, but he awaits it with the eagerness he once had for wine, watching with avid eyes.

He passes not soon after he survives a long battle with a deadly illness that washes over Westeros. A survivor he was, his people will lament, but even all survivors come to an end.

Sometimes, he thinks he hears voices. They are soft, barely audible. It’s like he’s submerged underwater, drowning in almost-silence as people scream above him. They create ripples in the water he’s drowning in, threatening to ruin the delicate peace in his mind.

Sometimes, he thinks he can hear his mother’s voice—

(“—a dangerously high temperature—”

“We cannot be sure—”

“—treat him! Treat my son!”

“Calm down—”

“Calm down?! My son is dying—!”

“—grace, he will not—”

“I assure you—”

“Please—”)

—but he knows that it is just wishful thinking.

King Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, survives a bout of deadly fever. He would survive a few more years, perhaps another decade or two. Yet when he drinks the medicine a maester insists for his well-being, his body burns with the heat of a poison running through his veins.

Aegon, third of his name, watches him from the doorway. Aegon’s realization is late, coughing as blood drips down his mouth. Still, with the idiocy of a fool who would look death in the eye, he smiles at the child.

You are not your mother’s heir, he wants to say. You are mine.

He coughs again, drowning in his own blood. He is dying.

He is smiling.

Aegon is standing on a cliff, overlooking the waves washing up on the shore. Overhead, Sunfyre flies in circles, roaring now and then. He takes a moment to wonder why he is not flying with him. He doesn’t wonder for long when he dives down to meet him.

Sunfyre is majestic as always, his golden scales glowing ethereal in the sun. He watches him affectionately as Aegon caresses his snout, nuzzling close to his hands. Sunfyre hops backward, preparing to lunge and form a protective circle around him.

Aegon flinches despite himself. Sunfyre notices, of course his boy does, and croons sadly. He nudges him under one of his wings, and he goes willingly, enjoying his dragon’s warmth.

He’s safe here. He’d always been safe here.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his voice wrecked. “Have you ever heard of dragondreams?”

Sunfyre rumbles, tucking him close. Aegon will not cry. Aegon is not going to cry.

“I think they are dreams,” he says, “or I am going mad. I remember things that haven’t happened. I remember things that I know happened, but they have not. I don’t know what to do, Sunfyre. I think I am going mad trying to see what I should do.”

Sunfyre huffs, breathing a small flame to the ground. It doesn’t burn Aegon. Aegon never burns, not with Sunfyre’s flames. Mesmerized, he drops to the ground, leaning against Sunfyre’s warm body. The dragon remains circled around him, nudging him to sleep.

Aegon closes his eyes. For once, he dreads the comfort of sleep.

As always, in sleep, Aegon dreams.

He is— somewhere. He is not sure, with how all his senses are blocked. He can’t see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. He exists in a limbo where there is everything and nothing; he exists in this liminal space where he is everything and nothing.

A wash of voices flicker in his ears. Curious, he floats closer to it. It floats closer to him. The darkness parts way for him as easily as cutting through flesh with a sharpened blade. There, he hears an array of voices, each more perplexing than the last.

(“Your grace, there has been no improvement—”

“Then what are you doing here for hours?”

“Aemond, quiet down.”

“Mother!”

“Maester, are you certain that Aegon’s condition hasn’t improved?”

“Of course, Helaena, just look at him! He’s like a cold co—”

“Maester, continue treating my son. If he does not get better...”

“I will do my best to make sure he is well, your grace.”)

The voices slowly flitter away. Aegon panics irrationally, trying to grasp the slightest bit of connection to those voices once again.

It feels as if water is filling up his lungs, slowly weighing him down as he struggles and thrashes. Breathing as much air as he can, gagging on the taste of murky water as he goes down, down, down...

(“...he will wake soon, Mother.”

“Helaena, we cannot be sure...”

“—he will wake.”

“He should.”)

There is something there, like a hint of familiarity. Helaena. It sounds familiar. The voices are familiar, he just does not understand.

He blindly grasps onto the words, clinging to them like a lifeline. They are important, he knows. He just does not know how.

Then, all of a sudden, he does.

Mother, dressed in rich green silks and cashmere. Green drips down from her blade, merging with red as she gurgles and chokes on her own blood. Red and green in her room, and he wipes away the red. She wears green at her funeral. There is no red to be found.

Helaena, dressed in delicate silks and rough leather. A dragon, nuzzling close to her. Dreamfyre. Dreams, dreaming, dreamed. Little dreamer, he once thought in a mind that is not his own. Beheaded little children. An open window and she plunges down, skewered through a spike.

Aemond, dressed with all of the finesse and strength of a warrior. A dragon larger than castles and islands, older than anyone on land. He’s falling, and falling, and falling, before he drowns in water with his dragon above him. A letter, bloodstained with all the heartbreak that comes from war.

Daeron, dressed in a knight’s garb. A kind smile, with eyes that look at him as if he is the light, as if he is everything. Blood on the soil and rocks and the fabric of his trousers. Sword in his hand and sword in his chest.

And he is drowning, the taste of wine and iron in his mouth. He is drowning, he is dying—

He is smiling.

Aegon wakes to an eerily cold clamminess in his limbs. He aches, not just in his chest, but everywhere in his body.

He is small. He is young. He is old. He is desperate, bitter, and cruel. His hands are smooth, unmarred by callouses and scars. His hands are stained with blood. Kinslayer. Usurper.

Aegon takes a deep breath, eyes flittering open. Then, he tiptoes past his mother’s slumbering figure, snatches a lit candlestick, and leaves.

Chapter Text

I exist in silence.

He is dead.

Outside his chambers, there is a balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay. In his youth, he used to watch as the waves lapped against the shore, dragging against the sand in rhythmic motions. It used to be comforting, gently lulling him into a sense of calmness. He spent his days there more often than in his room. He was always sober when he stepped onto the balcony.

(He knew that he had to be sober when he was there; one clumsy step and he’d plunge to his death.)

(Not that it had been much of a deterrent the day before his coronation.)

Now, Aegon is on the same balcony. It’s still pristine, unmarred by his personal touch. The pillars don’t have the mark of Aemond’s sword when his brother tried to drag him out of his self-imposed isolation. The handrails aren’t lightly singed by Sunfyre’s flames. There is the little wooden chair in the corner instead of the soft wool carpet and fluffy pillows he liked to use.

The balcony is the same balcony he stood on and died in at twenty and five, but it’s not the same. It is his balcony, but it’s not his.

He stays right at the doorway, unwilling to take another step forward. It is a quiet night. Aegon stays until the candlefires flicker out, and a little more until the sun is rising in the sky.

As the hours drag on, Aegon feels as if he's a newly born fawn stumbling through bushes and untrimmed grass. The rooms aren't quite the same as they were in Aegon's memories. Wooden furniture is still the prevalent choice, yet to be thrown out and replaced with less flammable options. The air isn’t tense; there isn’t a charged atmosphere, full of unspoken accusations and hurts.

(It is calm. It is...)

His room is stripped bare of all the things Aegon did to make it safe. There aren’t any bottles and flagons of wine, especially the strong-smelling kind to dissuade his grandsire from visiting. The box full of sentimental things he kept under his bed isn’t there. The swords Ser Criston gave him after he improved his swordsmanship are absent, free from the wall rack he had installed.

There are children’s toys in place of the ridiculous knick-knacks his mother detested. There are books instead of wine, a wooden sword instead of steel, sharp ones. Aegon feels very, very small and out of place.

(It is maddening.)

He wants to scream and rage against anything he sees. He wants to throw things at the wall, wants to watch wood splinter into pieces under his fists. He wants to light this room on fire and stomp on its ashes. He wants. He wants—

—then he swallows it down. It was easier, to be drunk and careless, since he did not have to feel what he felt. It was easier to be ignorant and unaware, not seeing the danger until it killed someone in front of him and ruined his life permanently.

He, rather pointedly, avoids staring at his mother’s slumbering form and a small drawing— a child’s drawing of four people— attached to the wall.

(He drew that when he was really young. He was one nameday and six moons old, his mother told him. He drew a picture of his father with a silly-looking beard, his mother with a too-big green skirt and the world’s largest smile, his sister with a poorly drawn rendition of her dragon beside her, and a little Aegon surrounded by hearts.

He kept that picture for years, even after his mother told him to throw it out. He kept it secure, like a damning secret tucked close to his chest. He only brought it out three times: once accidentally, and twice intentionally.)

(He only looked at it when he was a little too close to the edge.)

(It didn’t help, not one bit. But it forced him to pretend he was in his perfect world with a less imperfect family, stopping him from doing anything he’ll supposedly regret.)

He is six years of age.

It’s such a marvel, to be six again. If he were smarter, more determined, and more courageous, then he would’ve started planning to divert the horrible future already. Yet, he hasn’t. A coward, even in this new beginning.

Aegon watches as the servants bustle about, forcing his legs to stay still. He pushes his spoon around the bowl of soup a maester instructed him to eat for the first week after his fever. It tastes like bitter ash in his mouth. He swallows it down.

“At least five spoons,” his mother suddenly says. Aegon doesn’t startle, but his hand twitches at the sound of her voice. It is strange, unfamiliar. It is not the voice his mother had when she was dying, cursing out names as blood and spittle dripped down her mouth. Cursed child, his mother swore, I hold no love for you!

“At least five spoons,” his mother repeats, softer now. “Five spoons and you can have an apple to wash out the taste.”

Aegon glances up at her. He looks at her through long lashes, through the pale strands in front of his face, because he does not know what his eyes look like at the sight of her. “Yes, mother.”

He is dead.

When he was young, he loved open balconies and tall towers. He loved perching on top of ledges, swinging through the roofs with childlike glee. His mother was not impressed nor was she tolerant of his reckless behavior, but Aegon did not care. He loved elevated areas and vast skies. He loved flying. It was everything to him, at the age of six.

Then, his brother plummeted from the skies to the oceans and drowned. Then, his sister threw herself off an open window and died, impaled on a spike. Then, his dragon perished, leaving him rooted to the ground for the rest of his pitiful life.

Aegon does not like the skies anymore. He was six and he loved flying; he is six and he is scared of falling. In hindsight, there are dangers that seem silly in childhood but debilitating in adulthood. There are times that Aegon wishes he could be a child again, no matter how unwanted he was and is.

There are times that Aegon wishes he could look at the skies and see a glorious morning ahead, not the blood-stained and fire-tainted ghosts of his life.

He is six years of age.

It is a curse. He is frozen in time as Helaena peeks up at him with confused eyes. Aemond, tiny and just so small, babbles excitedly at seeing him. Eventually, he manages to string out coherent words, his small hand tugging at Aegon’s finger.

Aegon looks down at their connected hands. Aegon’s hand is small, far smaller than the time he wielded a blade and sent Rhaenyra to die by dragonfire. Yet, and yet, it looks so large when compared with Aemond’s little one.

“Read!” Aemond demands, tugging him impatiently. “Read books to me, want dragon stories.”

“Okay,” Aegon agrees, his voice surprisingly not shaking. “Which story?”

He does not remember this. He does not remember if he scooped Aemond into his arms and read him stories full of wonder and meant for childish innocence. He does not remember if he turned his brother away and left to wallow in the too-dark sadness clenching his heart in a tight grip.

This is a curse, for Aegon does not know what he did. This is a curse, for Aegon is given the chance to be kinder, to be gentler, to be better, and he is too afraid to be.

“This!” Aemond says, leading him to a bookshelf. Aegon does not miss the way Helaena follows, caution marring her oddly aware eyes. “Read!”

Aegon reads.

(Aemond is six. Aegon is ten. With a book in his hands, Aemond asks him to read. Aegon does not. That was the last time his brother asked him for something, and Aegon swallows his apologies and promises down with a stolen glass of wine.)

“Do you feel pain anywhere, my prince?” a maester asks, gently holding his wrist.

What a strange notion. Aegon’s chest is on the verge of bursting, imploding in on itself when his delusions break into pieces. He looks at the maester in the eye. They flinch.

“I don’t,” Aegon lies. Then, “Thank you.”

By the doorway, his mother watches him with eagle eyes. Aegon pretends not to feel her stare, wishing he can see her face without remembering the contorted, hateful snarl and the green-stained blood on her lips.

His mother is acting strange. Perhaps this is how she normally is, when he was barely on the cusp of seven years. Yet, Aegon doubts it. He distinctly remembers being left alone for periods of time. He does not remember her fussing, only her appropriate motherly concern after the worst of his illnesses.

This is hardly the first fever he had— he’d been a sickly child at four and five, so his mother grew accustomed to his frequent coughing and body aches. There is no reason for her to worry, not with Maester Grahar attending to him. She would only feel mild concern, not the type of worry that warrants her constant attention.

Is it perhaps because he was on the brink of death for so long? Is it because the maesters told her, in hushed and fearful tones, that he may not live after his fever? Is it because the maesters warned her that he may come out wrong?

If Aegon were to choose, he’d say that it is the third option. With her father breathing down her neck to have one of her children on the throne, his mother would want Aegon to be as close to normal as possible. None of that Targaryen madness, she’d say if she were older and livid. None of that insanity, the strange proclivities, the peculiar traditions.

Aegon stares at the letters on the book he and his mother are reading. Slowly, he traces them one by one. Dream, the third word says. Love, hope, prosperity, and it goes on. The Faith.

“Are you well, Aegon?” his mother asks. “You are oddly quiet tonight.”

“I am well, mother,” Aegon says out of instinct. “Just reading.”

He traces the word love again and then he ignores it and turns the page.

Rhaenyra is pregnant. She smiles as the king gushes about his future grandson, showing none of such excitement to his second wife. Maybe there is malice there, in Rhaenyra’s actions, or maybe he is so accustomed to her hostility that he can only see malevolence where she stands.

Seven months later, Aegon knows that Jacaerys Velaryon will be born, with distinct brown hair and a pug nose. Seven months later, Aegon knows that he will start to lose his family, one by one.

Seven months later, Aegon will have to make a decision.

“He looks happy,” Aegon says. Ser Criston Cole startles from where he is standing guard next to the nursery. Aegon does not turn to him. For a period of his life, he saw the knight as a father figure, but those feelings vanished in the face of his coronation. Aegon does not know if he wants to repeat his mistakes again.

(Kingmaker, they called him.

King Aegon, he called him.

It is strange then, that Aegon feels nothing like a king, even with the crown on his head.)

Ser Criston cranes his head. “Who, my prince?”

“Aemond,” Aegon says, watching as Aemon laughs in glee, supervised by a charmed nursemaid. “He looks happy.”

Ser Criston looks a little out of his depth. Then, he smiles warmly. “Yes, I do suppose he is.”

Aegon moves to turn back, to return to his chambers to sleep once more or stay at his balcony. Strangely, he falters, and he finds himself entering the nursery. He tells himself that it is because he already brought a book, a story that once was Aemond’s favorite.

Aemond gasps at the sight of him, then smiles the brightest smile Aegon has ever seen his brother wear.

(Aemond rarely smiles. Perhaps this is the first genuine one Aegon has coaxed out of him.

It is crooked, odd, and wrong in many places. Aegon does not comment on it; after all, he wears the same.)

A month after the rumors of Aegon’s fever, Otto Hightower visits the palace to check in on his grandchildren.

Aegon spends most of the morning eyeing the flagon of wine placed dangerously close to his room, but he doesn’t fill his glass. Instead, he goes down to the dining hall, composed and calm when he pretends that he is truly dead and this is just one of his horrible dreams.

He doesn’t manage to force anything down his throat.

(His grandsire was executed first. Some say he screamed, some say he begged for mercy. Others say he was cold, defiant to the very end.)

(Sometimes Aegon thinks Otto Hightower died the same way Rhaenyra Targaryen did: standing tall, proud and unfearing.)

“One day,” his grandsire said, “you will be king.”

Aegon, much younger than he currently is, asked, “But isn’t Rhaenyra going to be queen, grandfather?”

His grandsire looked at him like he was a fool. “Idiot child. She will not be queen. You will be king. Do you understand me, Aegon?”

There were fingers latching onto his jaw, and so, Aegon agreed.

“Aegon,” his mother calls. Her hands are bunching up her skirts, smoothing and creasing them in an unconscious attempt to relax. “Your grandsire will be visiting us. Remember to be polite.”

“Yes, mother,” Aegon says, taking on a polite tone. Otto is— he does not know how to feel about his grandsire. He does not know what he would do if he sees him again, if he starts whispering into his ears and claiming that Aegon is a king to be.

His mother purses her lips, uncharacteristically shaken. Before, she would’ve just left his chambers and prepared for her father’s visit, but now... she stays. She stays and Aegon does not know why. She stays, with that look of— of damned concern in her eyes and Aegon—

Aegon—

(He loves her. He loves her so much. Why can’t she see that? He will do anything for her to love him, just not this. He is not fit to be king. He is not meant to be king. He does not want to be king.

Rhaenyra would not hurt them. That is all his grandsire’s influence, his threats obscuring her vision. Rhaenyra is meant to be queen, she will be a wonderful queen and Aegon— Aegon does not have to be king.

Why can’t Mother understand?)

“One day,” his grandsire says, “you will be king.”

Aegon, older now with the knowledge of how heavy the crown weighs on his head, says nothing.

(Oh, how foolish he’d been.)

He is dead.

There is a giant tree in the middle of the castle grounds. He dared Aemond and Jacaerys on who could climb it the fastest. He did not know who won, but they wound up with leaves in their hair and laughter in their mouths. Dirt stained the rich fabric of their shirts and trousers, but they could care less as they chased each other back to the dining hall.

That was the last time Aegon had the ability to see his siblings and his nephews with all the careless love only a child’s heart can have. The next time they saw each other, Aemond had his eye carved out and Jacaerys could only look away.

(If he were stronger and more courageous, then perhaps he’d say he’ll become king purely to protect his family. If Aegon were kinder, more loving, more... more humane, then he’d try, gods be damned, to piece his family whole again.)

(But Aegon is Aegon, and Aegon at his heart is selfish. He does not want to become king, so he won’t be king. He does not want to see his family, so he won’t mend them whole.)

Aegon sits down on a bench in the courtyard. The sunlight feels peculiar on his skin, like a delusion where his mind is failing to understand its transcience. Stiffly, he takes in the sight of the courtyard instead; he lets his gaze wander around the still-upright fountain, the cobblestone pathways surprisingly cleared of leaves, and the grass in the dirt trails not quite well-trod yet.

The feeling of being an outsider, a stranger who’s not supposed to be here, nags in his mind. It makes his body feel a little too small, too inexperienced, too soft to feel comfortable. His throat is dry and he is beginning to shake, so he tries to focus his attention on the bench under him. His eyes rake over the coarse woodgrains, tracing the lines with his fingertips.

In the distance, he can hear someone approach closer and closer. He does not react to the heavy footfalls and the excited pitter-patter of a smaller set of footsteps. He is not real. He has no need to respond. He does not exist, not in here.

Small hands tug at his clothes. Aegon lets himself look down, finding his brother’s face cutely forming a pout. “Play,” Aemond demands, trying to get him to stand. “You— you promised that we’ll play!”

Aegon allows himself a moment of pride and a little surprise that his brother is managing to speak full sentences. At the lack of his response, Aemond tugs at him with a surprising amount of force, dragging his weak knees to stand. Aegon lets him.

He moves away from the bench and the sun, walks into the cool shade of trees that look just the same as they did an odd twenty years later, and he feels a little more real.

(Aemond, roughly older than ten and five, dragged him out of his room. Aegon had been sober then, with a raging headache in his skull. He protested, but he still went along with his brother’s persistent wish.)

(He felt a little more whole by the time he returned to his room to sleep.)

Nights are cold, with winter creeping in closer and closer. He’s donning fur-lined clothes and wrapped in two blankets, his mother fussing over him until he insists that he’s warm enough. He’s even carrying a candlestick around, letting the fires warm his hands.

He stands still, watching and observing the stars in the sky. They’re a welcoming presence, somewhat; they stay constant, even as the years crawl by, forward and backward. He doesn’t realize he’s moving forward until a blanket slips out from his grip.

Aegon’s footsteps falter, accidentally dragging against the marble. He’s two steps away from the ledge, the candlestick doing little to illuminate the waters below. He’s overtaken by a sense of uncertainty; what is he doing?

(Oh, he knows what he’s doing. He knows what he would do, if his mother isn’t a door away from him.)

He takes one step. Then another. His free hand grasps the handrail, the marble alarmingly cold. He swallows. Before, he preferred to either sit on the floor and grip the balusters tight or to stand on his tiptoes to marvel at the waters at night.

Now, he prefers to sit on the handrails. His legs dangle over the ledge, without a proper foothold under him. If he’s pushed, or if he tilts himself forward— then that is it.

He’s growing colder and colder, his fingers turning numb in the freezing night air. It’s not just the cold that makes him tremble, and he knows it.

Slowly, he moves. Back to his rooms, not to the ocean. He moves his right leg first before his left. Then, he takes small steps, one after the other.

(It’s a routine by now. He tethers right at the precipice. He has a choice there, or at least he pretends he does. Even in the face of his coronation, or his children’s deaths, or his siblings’ deaths, or his debilitating injuries, he drags himself back. Little by little.)

(He tries to tell himself that it is because he has much to live for. Perhaps his favorite meal will be made in the morning, or he will receive a new sword or book as a gift. Perhaps he’ll get the chance to drink alone in his chambers without being interrupted. Perhaps it’s because he just has too much self-control to let himself go, to let himself fall.)

The candlefires are extinguished by the time he returns to his bed. He is cold.

There was a silly little game they liked to play, before.

It’s simple: how did they want to die?

Helaena would hum, and say she wanted to die of old age by Dreamfyre’s side. There is something wrong with the way she says it, like she knows it’s an improbable fantasy. Aemond would claim that he’d die as a grand and great knight, protecting their kingdom and their people. Daeron was too young to participate, but Aegon supposed that Daeron would say something similar to Aemond’s answer.

As for Aegon, well, he wanted to die.

(Deep down, he knows that it is because he is a coward.)

There is a small nook in the library, one that remained hidden until Aegon’s discovery of it. He used to hide there, counting the seconds and minutes until someone came looking for him. He was nine back then, and a little desperate to feel wanted again. It was sundown when he came out of hiding.

At dinner, no one commented on his disappearance. His mother fussed about the dust in his hair and clothes, eventually letting a servant take him to bathe and dress properly.

He did it again a second time. Then a third, fourth.

Aegon cried by the fifth time, realizing that no one cared, and.

And.

And he stopped trying.

(Not that it mattered, anyway.)

Viserys stands in the same library Aegon is in, looking uncertain. Aegon supposes that it is because they have not seen each other since Aegon’s third nameday, and because Aegon should not have any memories of the king as his father.

And so Aegon dips his head, lower than it should be for a prince, much less an heir to the throne. “Your grace,” he says in the most normal voice he can muster, and pretends not to see the king flinch.

“Aegon,” Viserys says stiffly, the name falling from his lips the same way a new, unusual word would. Aegon lifts his head. “...I heard about your fever. Are you well now?”

“Yes, your grace,” Aegon says. This time, he does not pretend to hide how shocked he is. It is surprising for Viserys to even know anything that occurs with his second wife’s children. “Maester Grahar took good care of me.”

“Good, that is good,” Viserys says. Then, he clears his throat. “Are your studies going well?”

Aegon vaguely wonders why Viserys looks unnerved. He’s in an apathetic state today, unable to bring up more than a hint of empathy. “Yes, your grace.”

“That is good,” Viserys says, looking even more uncomfortable. “Keep focusing on your lessons then, I’m certain you will do great. I won’t keep you, now.”

His father all but flees out of the library. It is an odd thing, to suddenly see the man as a coward rather than the wielder of the axe over their heads. It is strange that, when Aegon makes an effort to dig deep into the recesses of his heart, he finds nothing but contempt.

Perhaps this is the one thing he inherited from his father: cowardice.

(He does not want to mend his family because he is selfish and greedy.)

(He does not say it is because he does not want to be the only stain on his family’s history. Helaena will be the kingdom’s beloved, a renowned dragondreamer. Aemond will be the kingdom’s protector, the strongest knight in the seven kingdoms. Daeron will be the kingdom’s darling prince, a fine commander.)

(There is no place for Aegon there.)

“You’re strange,” Helaena tells him when they’re playing in one of the courtyards. Her stare is far away, not quite there but still there. She guides a caterpillar up a branch, raising it up to wander to a leaf. “You’re not alive, but you’re not dead. You’re not Aegon, but you are Aegon.”

Helaena offers him a stick. Aegon takes it.

“You’re my brother,” she says. There is no but after that statement.

Aegon does not know why, but then he weeps. Grieving, soundless, agonized.

His chest is tight, and it loosens little by little as he sobs silently, crying with his head buried between his knees. His trousers are wet, but he cares little for that. He cries and cries and just keeps crying, gasping for breath every few seconds. He rubs at his eyes fiercely, but that only irritates them further.

He keeps crying until there’s nothing more to give. He hiccups, his throat dry and his nose congested. He feels miserable. He knows he looks as miserable as he feels.

Helaena hugs him.

(Helaena uses one of her arms to hug him. They’re both unaware of how a hug should be, of how it feels, but they know what it is in theory. Aegon hugs her back, an awkward arm over her shoulder. It’s an uncomfortable position, but he feels warm and loved, and—

—Helaena smiles.)

Here lies the crux of the problem: Aegon does not want to become king.

(Aegon was not a good king. He could never be.)

He has not and never will want to be king. Perhaps, in the height of his coronation, he had. Watching hundreds of people cheering and calling out his name like it was a balm to their tired souls, he certainly felt wanted back then. Not loved, no, but wanted.

For a moment, that was enough.

Then it all came crashing down, with Aegon in the middle of it all.

(Aegon will not be king, because he is selfish and will put his desires above all.)

(He does not say that he does not want to become king because he does not want to be responsible for the blood spilled all over damp soil and polished floors. He does not want to become king because he does not want to be the reason why everyone is dead. He will not become king, because he cannot live if he repeats history and survives alone in the end.)

(A coward, from the start until the end.)

His particularly terrible day goes like this:

He wakes up with anxiety thrumming in his veins and distress threatening to swallow him whole. He’s trembling, and he’s unsure why. Not even an ice-cold bath helps him get his nerves under control. He can only make it to three steps before doubling over as his heart seizes in his chest.

He’s not screaming. He’s sure he isn’t, not until the doors of his chambers burst open. He grasps at his chest, ignoring the hands trying to push him to an upright position. He screams again, and now he’s aware of it, choking on bile and blood as his heart pounds erratically in his chest.

Fire burns in his fingertips, stretching to his fingers and arms and then his back and spine, burning off his nerves and turning them numb. He’s lost his voice somewhere in the middle of it, catching the smell of ash and dragonfire even when his chambers are unmarred by flames.

Sunfyre, he thinks desperately. It is telling, when the only one he trusts to look for him in his vulnerability is his own dragon. Sunfyre!

There is a roar in the distance. He feels his body go lax; his lungs are suddenly able to inhale huge breaths of air. The roars grow closer, and Aegon can feel his dragon, can feel the worry and the love and the hurt hurt how dare they hurt I will kill them all as Sunfyre looms closer.

Logically, he knows that Sunfyre wouldn’t be of much help. His dragon is still young and small, unable to stay with Aegon because of his youth. Isn’t that why Aegon avoided calling for his dragon?

Isn’t that why he stood on the ledge, ready to fall, without his dragon’s name on his lips?

(Coward. That was all Aegon could think as he sat beside Sunfyre. That was all he could do, cursing at himself and weeping as his dragon’s corpse grew colder and colder on the sand. That was all he could do as he crumpled to his knees, screaming and wailing as he tried to will Sunfyre’s warmth back to reality with grief alone.

Aegon wept. Aegon mourned.

He burned Sunfyre’s corpse a sennight later.

Then, Aegon stood up with his dragon’s ashes on his hands and knees and began to make his way back to the throne.)

Here lies the true crux of the problem: Aegon wants to be loved.

Being wanted used to be enough. Sufficient. It was the bare minimum, and he was content with being tolerated.

Nowadays, it isn’t. He watches as his mother fusses over him, soft hands caressing his hair as she tries to get him to sleep. Aegon’s never experienced this before, not even during the worst of his fevers and hangovers. His mother doesn’t show this level of care to him; Aemond, she does and she will, but not to Aegon.

This is love, perhaps. In its most perfunctory form, the basic level of care a mother naturally has for her child. The kind of love that dissipates gradually as Aegon grows older, more disobedient, more incompetent. The kind of love that he would’ve lived for if he had it before.

“Muña,” he says, pretending not to notice her tensing at the rough, draconic lilt his voice takes. “Gaomagon ao jorrāelagon nyke?”

She doesn’t understand. He doesn’t expect her to. Yet, she smiles at him, a little hesitantly, a little lovingly like she does in all of his dreams.

Aegon wishes he was still dreaming.

In the end, it all comes down to this:

Is being loved worth losing everything?

Aegon of before, desperate for love he will accept anything to feel a crumb of it, would say yes. Aegon of now, grieving everything he’s had and he could’ve had and lost, does not know.

Chapter Text

I languish in misery.

He is dead.

He wishes he remains dead.

(Has he truly died?)

If this is his afterlife, or his curse, he wishes he can leave. 

He is good at leaving. (Flying with Sunfyre for hours on end, until the tips of his hair are singed with dragonfire, until his body aches with the pain of riding without a saddle or safety precautions.) 

He is good at running away. (Carrying a bag of clothes and essentials he thinks he needs, disappearing under the cloak of the night, Sunfyre always finding him, always ready to take him elsewhere, but Aegon never takes the offer.)

He was never good at staying. (Staying, not an inch of him urging Sunfyre to turn away, as the castle grounds become clearer and clearer with each beat of Sunfyre's wings.)

Always leaving, always running away.

(Always staying, in the end.)

The thing about death is— it used to symbolize freedom for him. It meant peace. There may be regret beating in his chest as he languishes over his dying breath; there may be grief reflected in the fires as he presides over a funeral... but none of that matters quite as much as being free.

(As being loved.)

Aegon sits in a castle unchanged and changed by time. His mind is sunk deep in the future, his body is living in the past, and his heart is firmly set on letting go. The tapestries above his head are clean and creased. The silvers in his hands are clean and unpolished.

His father is laughing merrily, alcohol spilling as drops on his clothes. They are stained red, but there is joy in the lines of his mouth instead of madness. His mother is calm, each line of her body carefully aligned to form the perfect, poised queen as she tends to her husband. 

It is like an idyllic painting composed of rich oils and pigments. Here, the sunlight shines on his mother’s tightly wound hair, casting her face with an earthly glow. There is a hint of a smile on her face, there but not quite there. Here, his father’s eyes are creased with laugh lines, unmarred by black and poison.

Aemond tugs on his arm. A nursemaid gently picks him up as Aemond protests, his hand holding onto Aegon’s sleeve.

Helaena is already gone, her plate clean and finished. It fits and it does not. A plate devoid of the lavish feast a princess partakes in, yet a symbol of satiety and contentment.

Aemond tugs on his arm again.

(And, he will feel no guilt when he is dead. He will just be.)

Aegon turns his back and leaves with his brother’s hand nested in his sleeve.

(Aegon is young, and Aemond is even younger. There is a scar across his eye. His eyes, one crying tears and the other completely dry, meet Aegon's. There is something in them, as Aemond says, to the king, “It was Aegon.”

Aegon's heart stops in the face of many eyes on him, with the madness of the king a prominent one. Maybe this is a punishment, he thinks, for failing Aemond yet again. He lets himself speak, flinching at the smell of his father's illness, and draws back.

Later, with his grandsire's maester, Aemond's hand clutches at his. A quiet thing, after months of a distance that stretched and stretched between them, and Aegon stares.

 Maybe, he thinks, it was trust.)

The thing about death is— it is miserable. It is full of anguish. It rips his being into pieces and stomps on whatever is left of him. Everything and everyone dies, eventually, but Aegon never truly did learn how to grieve.

(None of his family knew how to. Targaryen madness was not purely in their nature, but groomed from the first moment they were made to say: fire and blood.)

Perhaps he’d grieved, once, at six or eight when he lay awake on his bed and felt cold despite the finest wools and furs covering his body. It was a cold that persisted for days, undeterred by the warmth of a fire nor the heat of the sun. It was a cold that rarely went away, that clung to his bones and refused to leave.

Aemond ripped that cold from him, once or twice or thrice. Aegon knows how to count, but how can he when he does not know what he should count? He narrates the story, instead:

Once upon a time, he had a brother— but not family— who gripped his arms like his grandsire but did so with the gentleness his grandsire never had. Long ago, he had someone , a relationship whose lines were so blurred Aegon could hardly read them, but the lines were always there, lingering in the scratches and fingerprints across the woodgrains of his room. In times past, he received a letter while sitting on the head of a table he did not dare to claim as his, and felt his all-too-beating heart shatter at the bloodstained words. 

It feels silly, to use such phrases. Once upon a time. Long ago. In times past. In the olden days.

He must be mad. Driven to such insanity. Perhaps he is still sitting in his room, his body warm and his mind shattered to pieces as he dreams of the past. Perhaps he is the epitome of Targaryen madness as he lounges in a throne that he never wanted to be his, as he laughs with a crown on his head, bleeding and bleeding.

(Once upon a time, he was loved.)

Aegon lifts his hand, achingly unreal, and caresses Aemond’s hair as the child sleeps through the setting of the sun.

Aegon remembers the first time he flew. It was summer and windy. Sunfyre was twice his size back then, and very, very eager. His mother was clutching his shoulder so tight that it left bruises. Aegon did not care back then.

He was flying. He flew.

Sunfyre was roaring. He was laughing. His instructor was trying to get him to calm down, to go closer to the earth instead of the skies.

Aegon flew. Higher and higher, breaking past the clouds. It was glorious, a sight for sore eyes. Sunfyre calmed, then, and they flew in gentle circles as Aegon traced the clouds and watched birds fly past them.  The castle is a small thing just below the horizon, the sea a stretch of blue surrounded by browns and greens. It was beautiful, even as the wind whips at Aegon's face and the cold of the waters seeps in.

Sunfyre croons, a burst of dragonfire swirling around them. Aegon laughs, the fire warming up where the cold has made his skin pale and sickly, and allows a gentle hand to caress Sunfyre's golden scales.

He never wanted to go back.

(In hindsight, maybe that was a sign.)

Aegon never liked his lessons. Flying was glorious, but under his instructor’s eyes, it was painfully restrictive. Swordsmanship was adequate, the sheer amount of movement enough to keep his mind focused and occupied. Sitting in a room filled with books, as an old man drones on and on about history, is just short of torture.

There is something about the familiarity of it all that grounds him, however. Maester Aerin’s voice isn’t as jarring as his grandsire’s, and there is passion where there should be disdain. There is determination where there should be judgment.

Aegon, despite himself, listens. He writes absently, looping cursive turning sharper as the lesson drags on. The history of Westeros isn’t the most thrilling of topics, but it is just the right amount of dullness and familiarity that lets his mind settle, just for now.

They finish the lesson two hours earlier than it is supposed to end. Maester Aerin ends it with a smile.

“One day,” he says softly, with the eyes of a priest in front of a god, “I will write history books of your name and your books will fill up the wooden shelves of the Stormlands and the stone of the North and Dorne.”

(Perhaps, the history is right— but let us not forget that it was written by the victors.) 

His mouth tastes sour when he arrives for supper.

(He does not smile. He cannot find it in him to smile. He stands in front of his grandsire's and his mother's loyal dogs, and says, “We have won.”

His family is to be burned a few days before a feast. In his room, he holds his mother's cooling body and weeps.)

There is a coward who nestles deep in his heart and warns him to run before everything falls apart. It tells him that he will ruin everything, like he had done before; it tells him that he will ruin everything he touches.

It tells him, you cannot save them.

It tells him, why would you even bother to try?

It tells him, if you cannot save yourself, how can you even think that you can save them?

It tells him, you are not a savior.

(You are just a survivor.)  

Aegon goes back.

Of course, he does.

He’s too much of a coward to run. He’s too much of a coward to stay.

Stuck in the in-betweens. Stuck in the what-ifs and could-have-beens. Stuck in the middle of it all, and he’s too much of a coward to do anything.

The flagons of wine remain full in the cellar. 

The thing about death is— everyone dies.

(Aegon died. He did. He felt his lungs fail, his throat closing in as he coughs and hacks. He felt himself lose air as he smiled. He knew what he looked like in death, knowing how his face would turn out deformed and glazed. His mouth open, his tongue limp. Staring into nothingness with that wretched curve of his mouth.)

(Was he granted a gravestone with an engraved name? Was he granted a pyre and burned to ashes like his children? Was he taken apart by an usurper's dragon like his sister was?)

Aegon was just the last to die, and that was what damned him.

(Was he grieved?)

His truly terrible day continues like this:

There is a chill, an aching chill deep in his bones. He shivers as the fire in his chest pulses hotter and hotter. He thinks, maybe deliriously, that if he burns his body to ashes, it will give him a beautifully drawn rendition of peace. He is on the floor, gasping and panting, as he clutches at his chest and cries. 

Aegon cries.

(He had cried often, of course. He cried when he was six and had his grandsire’s hand tight around his jaw. He cried when he was seven and learned that Daeron, the sweet babe who he strangely loved, was leaving. He cried when he was nine and sitting in a forbidden alcove of a library no one’s ever bothered to visit anymore.

He cried when he read Aemond’s death in a bloodstained, tear-stained letter. He cried when he saw Jaehaerys— when he saw his son— when he saw Jaehaera— when he saw his daughter—

Aegon cried, cries, and continues crying.

The robes of a king lie neatly on his lap, his crown somewhere on a table, and he watches the tears falling on the delicate silks of Targaryen red.)

There is a roar in the distance. It grows louder, and louder, deafening and matching the frantic beat of a heart that should not be beating, and—

Something snaps in place. Then, he is nothing.

Here is Aegon, a child, with a bleeding heart:

“Will they love me if I am king?” he asks.

Here is Aegon, a king-to-be, with chopped hair and pale eyes:

“Do you love me?” he asks.

Here is Aegon, old, young, and mad, with the echo of the weight of a crown on his head:

“I don't want to be king,” he says.

(“I want to be loved,” he begs.)

(There is something so tired in his chest, rooted deep enough to reach his soul. It leaves him tired on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes trace the carvings etched in the wood, following the lines. He traces them to the door, curving gently to the side until it reaches the balcony. 

He feels oddly weightless as he slips into the outside, the air freezing against his warmed skin. He is absent-minded, almost forgetting how he arrived on the balcony. It feels like his mind is muddled, gray filling in where his memories should be.

He is tired, but he can’t rest. He is awake, but he’s not there. Not quite real. Not quite alive.

His breaths come out as puffs of cold, dry air. With freezing hands, he slips back into his room. His body feels cold, trembling under the hours spent in the open. Aegon finds that he doesn’t truly mind. At least he feels as cold outside as he feels inside.

His fingers are white and black, tinged with frostbite. Freezing is the opposite of burning, he thinks. There is joy in burning; there is apathy in freezing. Emotions in dragonfire, burning in anger or righteousness or contempt; nothing in the cold depths of Blackwater Bay, as he sinks and sinks and sinks.

Aegon sits under a tree. He’s reading a book. He is always reading books, these days, with a small hand clasped in his. There are words written in dark, bold ink, but they do not make sense under his eyes. He knows what they mean, individually. Laws. Uphold. Constraints. They do not make sense when they are put together. 

Helaena comes up to him. She arrives, dressed in simple lace and earthy browns and greens, with little critters crawling up her arm. She holds a cocoon in her hands, gently angling it until wings break through and a butterfly emerges. She is serene, a perfect picture of their mother’s grace and Targaryen features. 

The first thing she says is, “Do you want one?”

Aegon does not know what Helaena is referring to. There is a cocoon in her hands, but he does not let himself linger there for too long. His eyes drift to the line of ants, curiously clumped together in one circular line. He reaches out a hand.

Helaena’s hand lands on his, and then he’s being dragged away from the bench. The sunlight is startling, burning and blessedly real. “There is a home of spiders near the ants,” she informs him. “Let’s rescue them.”

“Okay,” Aegon agrees. He does not ask which they should rescue. Helaena, even before he got to know her, will choose both if given the chance.

Helaena holds Jaehaerys in her arms. Her face is still smiling, every line and curve of her in denial, as she rocks him back and forth. She is humming a nursery rhyme, soft and gentle, as she caresses their son's corpse. “Jaehaerys,” she says, calm, “wake up. Your sister wants to play with you, hm? We can fly on Dreamfyre later, too. Jaehaerys, wake up.”

Aegon is standing there, useless, as he stares at Jaehaerys. His son, lifeless, eyes beginning to swell in their sockets. He knows what will happen soon, knows how corpses age with time. He is almost numb, until his grandsire takes a step forward. He raises a hand, and Otto Hightower's eyes turn to him instead.

Let her have this moment, he thinks. Just this. Just this.

Aegon walks outside the room with his grandsire. Let her grieve, he thinks, and can almost ignore the way he pleads, in his mind, let me grieve.

Aegon holds a sword with both of his hands. It’s wooden and dull, and a spike of panic rushes through his spine. He tamps it down. Even with dull wood, he can still kill. He can still—

He can still kill.

There is almost satisfaction in his numbness as he strikes another soldier down; there is almost glee as he sheds blood onto the earth. He is apathetic, barely there and almost there, his ears ringing with the echo of warning bells.

Daeron's body is somewhere out here, lost in this battlefield. His sword must be stolen, and maybe his armor is, too. There is no honor in war. There is only survival, and killing like beasts.

Daeron is dead, he thinks, almost able to delude himself that he does not care. This is impersonal, he decides. An eye for an eye, a leg for a leg, a life for a life. This is out of duty, responsibility, and thus should hold no such emotional weight over his head.

He continues fighting. He continues killing. The blood feels warm over his armor, thick and sticky, and it almost feels like an embrace. It feels as if this is the only thing he can do. Fight, and fight, until he has nothing left to lose.

He finds Daeron's body two days later. It is already decomposing, with flies sticking to its skin. It , like it is not Daeron. He orders his men to carry him to the pyre. There is a funeral, just one of many, and grief lingers in the smoke where there used to be air.

He has Sunfyre light the pyre. The pyre burns for days.

Aegon does not find Daeron's sword in the end.

His mother purses her lips. Her dress is blue today, dyed a rich shade of navy. Her hair is kept in a loose bun, little curls falling over the sides of her face. She is beautiful, her smile shifting over to a soft little thing once his grandsire leaves.

Aegon is six. Four, maybe, or twenty and four? He does not know. All he knows is the weight of his mother's kiss on his forehead, her arms around his small body. She is love, here, not yet conditional, as she brushes his (strange, peculiar, disgusting) hair soothingly.

Aegon is young. He is old. He sees the blues of her dress and thinks: maybe, just maybe, this is her rebellion. Not wearing Hightower green or Targaryen red. Neither bowing down nor following one side over the other. Just the blues she loves. 

(Just the son she loves.)

“Aegon,” his mother says, jewels on her head, on her neck, around her wrists. “I am tired. Stay in your room for tonight.”

Aegon hides the storybook behind his back and nods. The jewels are very pretty. They also take the shape of chains.

He wonders if his father’s crown is also a chain.

Aemond scowls up at him, gloomy and sulking behind his books. Aegon, somehow decades older than him, grasps his hand. “Come on,” he says, and leaves a choice there. Choices are grand things; Aegon does not have the worth to afford such luxury. “If we leave now, we can be back in time for the feast.”

“This is stupid,” Aemond says, decides, because that is how he is. He is fiercer and firmer than Aegon can ever be, the good in their parents combined to create a son of Targaryen and a son of Hightower. Aemond takes Aegon's hand, does not mention the sudden tremble of Aegon's fingers, and leads them to their secret exit.

(Right here, as Aegon watches his brother lead despite his reluctance—

He wishes, desperately, that he can do that, too.)

Sunfyre is waiting at the other end, turning around in circles out of sheer boredom. He must have smelled or heard them coming, because he perks up, wings flaring in excitement. He bounds forward, uncaring if he has to fold his wings and keep him close to fit, immediately licking at Aegon's face.

“Are you certain we will not fall to our deaths?” Aemond asks dubiously. Sunfyre hisses at him. “Dragons as young as Sunfyre are not recommended to have two riders at once.”

Aegon waves a hand. “It will be okay,” he assures, “You're the weight of half a pig, maybe even less. It will be like carrying a sack of apples, which is me, and a tiny stick.”

Aemond kicks him. Aegon knows that there is a smile on his brother's face, even if it is turned away from him, and he knows that there is a similar smile on his face, too.

(It did not turn out wholly fine, but Aemond's quiet, amazed gaze at the clouds above and the sea below is worth it. This, Aegon decides, is worth the lecture of his mother and the rough hands of his grandsire that he will receive later.)

(That has never happened.

Aegon does not remember if it is real or a dream.

So, this has never happened.)

Aegon sits in a chair lined with the finest silks and goose feathers. He is reading a book. He traces over the words, slowly, silently, as he rereads and rereads the same page. There are a few words he can understand, and it goes like this: you are cursed.

When he blinks, the words shift, lines of ink bleeding through the page. It becomes like this: you are a curse.

Aemond knocks on the door. Aegon stares, looks up, and sees that he is in the library. There is no need for Aemond to knock, nor does he have the maturity to knock. Then, he clears his throat, and says: “Come in.”

It is not Aemond. Aegon straightens instinctively, and wonders, for the slightest of moments, why he believed with such ferocity that it is his brother.

(He knows. It is not because Aemond loves the library as a child, locking himself in a world of books and words and history. It is not because Aegon has promised, two nights ago, that he will read him a story.

It is because Aemond is the only one who comes looking for him. Who knocks on his door, not to be courteous, but to ask for consent. Who looks at him with disdain but touches him with gentleness; who calls him a moron, a whore, filthy— but takes the time to offer him companionship in the darkest of Aegon’s nights.

It is because Aemond is, has been, will be—)

A servant leaves behind food. Aegon dismisses her, still too numb to offer gratitude, and clasps a hand over his traitorous eyes.

Ser Criston bows, polite and appropriate. He has two wooden swords, one in each hand. Aegon is wide-eyed as he accepts one, and Ser Criston guides him through the exercises. Months later, there is a sword, lovingly engraved with his name, mounted on his wall.

Ser Criston bows, just slightly over the correct amount appropriate for a prince. No, he bows as if he is meeting the heir to the Iron Throne, and nausea crawls up Aegon’s stomach.

His grandsire holds his arm protectively. A smile at a man Aegon does not remember. A thunderous voice, an apology, a hand in his hair.

His grandsire holds his arm threateningly. There are no smiles, no apologies, no gentle hands to be found here; there is only an angry voice, and rough hands, as Aegon wishes for the alcohol to take him away.

His father is dead. In his last moments, his mother says, he has wished for Aegon to be king.

There is a coronation.

His father's crown is placed on Aegon’s head. 

It does feel like a chain.

Daeron is there.

He is dead.

Aemond is laughing, on the back of his dragon. His hand touches the clouds, his mouth open as it parts through his fingers. He flies higher, and higher, and higher.

He does not come back down.

Helaena is there, dressed in Targaryen red.

Her dress is green. It is her blood that stains it with the red of a Targaryen.

(Jaehaerys in his—

Jaehaera, on the pyre—)

His mother, contorted snarl on her lips, dripping red and poison in her wake—

Aegon wipes away the red. He leaves the green behind.

He wishes he cleaned the green, too, and dressed her in her favorite blue.

Glorious golden scales, lined with pink. The scales are cracked, blood seeping through and down the gold. A wing over Aegon, even as it starts to bleed. Protect, his dragon says, weakly, as Aegon begs him to stay, protect.

Love, Aegon feels, and he cries, and he weeps with the grief he's kept at bay. He is a chalice, and the wine overflows. It no longer tastes sweet. It is bitter, salty with his tears, and there is nothing in his chest, but he still weeps, because it is Sunfyre who has been with him, who has never left him and he is—

Dead.)

Dead, Sunfyre croons. His scales are broken and bleeding and Aegon sobs.

Dead, Sunfyre croons. His scales are broken and bleeding and Aegon closes his eyes to weep.

Dead, Sunfyre croons. His scales are broken and bleeding and Aegon closes his eyes so he does not see his dragon die.

Wake up, Sunfyre says in his mother's voice. It is not real, because there is no hand to drag him up.

Wake up, Sunfyre says in Helaena's voice. The ghosts of two children haunt Aegon.

Wake up, Sunfyre says in Aemond's voice. Aegon feels the ocean beneath him.

Wake up, Sunfyre says.

There is a dragon beside his bed. Aegon is awake, he thinks, but he feels as if he is dreaming. He stares at the glossy golden scales, reaching out to caress them with trembling fingers. They feel real under his touch, warmer than the fires he started at his family’s funerals. Sunfyre croons, perking up and nuzzling closer to his palm.

Sunfyre is there. Sunfyre is here. Sunfyre is alive.

(He is alive.)

There is knowledge behind those eyes, as a tongue lolls out and licks at his face. I’m here , Sunfyre’s rumble seems to say. Aegon is flooded by a sensation of love love care we’re alive as he draws Sunfyre into a shaky embrace.

(Aegon is alive.)

Aegon is alive.