Chapter Text
There would be no child. His mother held Rhaegel’s hands gently when she said it.
“What happened?”
Myriah had taken a shaky breath. Rhaegel thought the shine of her eyes very pretty.
“She died in your brother’s womb.”
The first thing Rhaegel thought of was Maekar stabbing his stomach. Reaching inside his womb to pull the baby out. It was not an uncommon type of image for Rhaegel to receive. He truly must be a cruel person to so easily imagine his brother monstrous.
Because Maekar wasn’t monstrous. He never had been. When he was very little, the maids used to set him upon Rhaegel’s lap, telling him that the baby was Rhaegel’s to look after for the next hour or so. Rhaegel had been very careful with his little brother, letting him pull at his hair, gnaw upon his finger.
Then, as they had grown older, Maekar had been the one to take Rhaegel’s hand in his own, pulling him down to the yard so he may watch whatever new thing Maekar had learned. Older still, and Maekar had taken Rhaegel’s hand to keep him out of trouble, to make sure he knew when their parents wanted them there.
Maekar had mothered him, and so Rhaegel had thought his brother would dearly enjoy the chance to be a mother of his own.
Though, in the end, it wasn’t to be.
“Can I see him?”
His mother watched Rhaegel, smiling even while she cried, all the while pretending she did neither.
“Yes. I think that would be a good idea.”
Very soon after entering Maekar’s rooms, Rhaegel wished he hadn’t.
Maekar was still. Baelor was crying. Both of them were destroyed in a way Rhaegel had never thought to see them. Now, he would never be able to unsee it.
After Aerys had run from the room, Baelor had turned to Rhaegel and offered the baby forth.
He stepped forward only after his father pushed his back.
Baelor instructed him gently on how he was to hold the babe. Where his hands should go, how firmly they should tighten.
Baelor told him it was a girl. That Rhaegel was an uncle and his niece was called Vaera.
Rhaegel allowed a finger to trace over her cheek. It was soft. As soft as his bed pillows.
“She’s cold.” It slipped from his mouth. One of the many things Rhaegel spoke only to instantly regret. He had only spoken what was true to him, yet it had Baelor retching out another cry while his mother turned her head away.
Maekar remained still. “Because she’s dead.”
"But you're not." Wasn't that what everyone prayed for? That a babe would be well but that its mother would live? Didn't some kings go mad in grief for their brides lost to childbed?
When Maekar turned to him, it was clear that he had prayed for none of those things.
"I fucking should be." He turned to their mother, dry-eyed and cruel. "I told you to rip me open, but you let me watch her die, you fucking bitch."
Rhaegel drew away, frightened by the horror of Maekar's words. His arms slackened around Vaera, and Baelor dove forward to catch her, a wail caught in his throat.
"Rhaegel—"
"Maekar!" Father shouted, rage falling upon him at Maekar's words, moving as if to halt them himself. But Mother only held one hand out, creating a barrier between father and son, her gaze never lifting from Maekar's accusation.
"It would have done nothing, nothing at all. And I am sorry for it." Even in sympathy, she was a steel blade, long tried and honed. It would be the last she allowed of him.
Maekar remained still as carved stone, mouth snarling, before he again turned away.
"Fuck off and leave us alone."
Rhaegel was pushed from the room shortly afterwards, Vaera once more in her father's arms, tight enough to smother.
It wasn't that Rhaegel forgot about his niece. She was burned, and he went to Maekar, trying to comfort as an older brother would. Trying to comfort in a way Baelor had always cared for them all.
But Maekar beat his hand away. Little Maekar, fierce from the start, his fire come to embers. Rhaegel could not save him.
For weeks, Maekar was barely seen or heard by any of their household. Trays of food lingered untouched before the locked door of his chambers; faint crashing sounds were heard long into the night. Rhaegel could only watch and despair.
Then, Rhaegel ventured into their old nursery, looking for a book Aerys mentioned losing, and he came upon Maekar cross-legged on the floor, a ragdoll held in hand.
The brothers watched each other, neither daring to comment on the state they had been found in. Rhaegel felt his eyes fall again and again to the rag doll until, with an exasperated grunt, Maekar threw it towards him.
"I made it years ago. I thought—" He paused, mouth gaping uselessly. "She might have liked it."
"I like it," Rhaegel said, both for it was true and also because surely Maekar should know that the doll was well made, all considered.
Maekar snorted in amusement, drawing his legs towards his chest, chin resting upon his knees. Rhaegel almost missed the slight wince on Maekar's face as his stomach curved.
"You may have it. There's little use for it now." Maekar's gaze fell to the paved ground. "I think you would have been a good uncle.” The words stumbled out, as if he had been cradling them on his tongue for a long time.
“I think you would have been a good mother.”
Oh. It was the wrong thing to say. Rhaegel always chose the wrong thing to say, and now Maekar was crying. He made his little brother (his only little brother) cry again.
“I couldn’t even keep her alive.”
Rhaegel wrung his fingers against each other. It was bad. It was so very bad. He wanted to cry. His little brother was crying, and it was because of what Rhaegel had said, and Aerys was right. He shouldn’t have come.
“Not even the gods could. And I think you loved her more than they did.” The gods hadn’t been the ones to sow all the baby clothes. They hadn’t sat each night, drinking the maester’s tonics. They hadn’t curled beside Baelor and pet Vaera through skin and blood. That had all been Maekar.
And Baelor had watched each tonic brewed. He had fetched whatever food Maekar had wanted and pulled him onto his lap. He had kissed Maekar’s belly and beckoned Rhaegel forth so all three could discuss the names they each liked.
Rhaegel drew forth again, hesitating as his arms fell upon Maekar's shoulders, pulling his brother into an embrace.
“You and Baelor loved her, and there’s never a sin in love.”
Then, Maekar turned, falling against Rhaegel's neck with a sob.
“I wanted her, Rhae. I wanted her so badly.”
“She knew that.” How could she not have? How many times had Rhaegel heard his brother tell her such? “And if that was all she ever knew, it was a good thing to know.”
Rhaegel tightened his hold, for he knew that Maekar was not like him; he didn't cringe away from touches that were too firm, that were stifling in their love. Maekar found comfort in strength, and so strength was what Rhaegel could give him.
Maekar’s hand came out and clasped his own. It hurt, because his brother had always been so much stronger than him, but Rhaegel allowed it.
Dawn came, as it always had. As it always would.