Chapter Text
A gleam of soft light of the afternoon went through a window of the King's Chambers stroking the dark indigo eyes of the middle-aged man. His silver blonde hair fell over his forehead as he put his hand in front of his eyes dropping between his long and elegant fingers the feather that he was holding now for hours. Those hands were made to play the harp and later were taught to use a sword but were certainly not made for writing his name on a one million "important" documents. King Rhaegar of House Targaryen, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. His reign has lasted for twenty and two years now and during this time it seemed that peace finally blossoms in Westeros. Still, there wasn't a night that passes which the king could sleep at ease.
The once known as the Dragon Prince sighted as he falls back into his chair. For a moment he closes his eyes and lets all back in again. The sound of metal striking. A blear of lions, wolves, dragons, and stags passing through his eyes as if they were ghost already. The last sounds of parting men so loud that the dead surely knew they were receiving a new guest anytime soon. The feel of iced water running down his spine passing through his black and red armor. The sight of a mighty hammer slowly sinking down about to crash his skull. Another sigh escaped from his lips but this time it strangle with the hope that this was not is final breath.
The Battle of the Trident was now a tale constantly told. Perhaps it is the fate of all mighty battles, don't you think? The Long Night. Aegon's Conquest. So much pain. So much sorrow. All for a goal that both sides couldn't agree upon or because of one's desire for the power of another that wants the power of yet another and the cycle goes. It all lives on in songs recited by drunk singers to vain nobles bragging about the acts of men that shared nothing with them except, maybe, one or two drops of blood or to the youth and the smallfolk to remember its fallen warriors as symbols of bravery and strength. Nothing told is the truth though. Great warriors, good men, had fallen in those battles, including at the Trident. That's truth, but the songs only tell the good side of the war, even if many believe there's none.
The victorious side immortalized in glory. When your name stands side by side to the ones of those that in your childhood you idolized and dreamed could have met and, if you're cursed enough, you could outlive that glorious battle of yours, and welcome all that respect, admiration and love the people will give you. Nevertheless, don't fall for all those pretty smiles and proud palms on your back for when your back is turned the same new knights who in front of everyone kiss your ass ask themselves what the fuck are you still doing here when age finally took his toll on you. In truth, that's what Ser Barristan Selmy says. Maybe it's better to die in battle then outlive your own glory. Still, not even that's secure. Only the gods know what would have happened if he had perished to Robert Baratheon's war hammer over twenty years ago. His name, his family name, vilified for all times because of his decisions and his father horrendous acts. That's what happens if you lose the war. Even if your intentions were the best. If you didn't agree with the ideas that you're fighting for. Even if in reality you were the one that was right. It doesn't matter because history only remembers, only rises, the winners.
Rhaegar opened his eyes. Honestly, his survival was truly a wish of the gods. When the young prince believed to see his life ending right then and there, a dornish archer, a boy truly, stroked two arrows on the wanna-be-usurper. One on his shoulder and the other on his arm, both on his right side. That boy saved his life, only to be struck down by a Northerner's horse the next instant. That was an image that still haunted his nightmares to this day. The stag's cress of pain. His wounded limb made him dropping his hammer quicker on his head. But it did not. Next thing he knew all was black and cold. As simple as that. Black and cold.
"Is this it? Is this death?" He wondered then, but it wasn't.
After ages, or so felt like, Rhaegar woke in a tent. Death had not come for him. At less, not that day. His view was foggy. He still could notice two figures talking to each other. A strangled sight escaped from his lips and the figures turned to him. One came close to him. It was Ser Barristan. He tried to speak to him but the prince couldn't hear anything except for a high pitch buzz that seemed to be stuck inside his head while a sharped pain from the right side of his head almost brought him back to unconsciousness. Yet when his friend's face became clearer his voice was nothing more than a whisper.
He had lost much in and out the battlefield. At the Trident he lost friends, brothers in arms and his right ear smashed by the stag's hammer but while he was recovering in that tent accompanied only by Ser Barristan and a maester for 15 days in King's Landing his two small children and his former sweet wife Elia were been massacred by a monster of the size of a mountain.
His relationship with Elia had always been... complex. He always respected Elia, no matter what others say. He respected her, he admired her, he grown to care for her, but he never loved her. He tried to early in their marriage. She was everything a good wife and queen should be. Kind, clever, with a gentle heart full of concern for the other with none to herself. She wasn't like any other dornish woman. Her flower had come with no thorn (italic). That was how her brother Oberyn describes her and in truth, there was no better way to do it. Rhaenys and little Aegon were truly lucky to have her as a mother. The truth was that he didn't deserve her. Elia didn't deserve what he did to her and their children and certainly, they didn't deserve what happened to them because of him. Only the gods know how the guilt and the torment of what happened in the Red Keep that day haunt him every day and will continue to away beyond this life.
But most of all he didn't deserve her. Lyanna. His beautiful and wilful Lyanna. Still today the mere memory of her sweet grey eyes or the image of a single winter rose like the ones he gave her that day in Harrenhal were fill of the most bittersweet scent. A lonely tear falls from his chin into the wooden desk. What if he had never entered her life? Would she still be alive? Probably. Possibly she would be the Lady of the Stormlands, with that drunk stag as a husband with perhaps a billion bastards walking around but Lyanna would have her litter of wolves, some with stag's skin but still, wolves. She would have taught them how to ride horses, to hunt, to fight. The girls as well of course. That could have been her life. Not could. Have. Just have. She would still be here. Breathing. Living. Instead, she chose him. She chose love over duty. They both did.
At the time Rhaegar thought he could have made it worked. How young, naive, stupid and in love he was. He knew that Elia believed, like many others, that the lust for power the Iron Throne creates in a person plus the "pure" Targaryen's bloodline was the cause of his father's madness. She didn't want that to be the faith of her children. Maybe that was why Elia agreed to give him the annulment. Or perhaps she just stopped hoping that he would love her as must she loved him. Of course, Rhaenys and little Aegon would still be his children has much any child he would have with Lyanna, and he would have loved them all the same, he does, but he could not compare what he felt for their mother with what he feels for Lyanna. She would have been a fearless queen and a wonderful mother.
Three anxious knocks brought Rhaegar back to the present. He quickly cleaned the silent river of tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. A king must never show weakness. Not even to himself. Rhaegar took two deep breaths while he stood up and walked to the door of his chambers trying to regain his composure. When he opened the door, a servant boy bowed to him. The boy shouldn't be older than ten and five years.
"I... I... I apologize for disturbing you, Your Grace" he said nervously while trying to catching his breath.
"There is nothing to apologize for, young man. Take a moment and breath before you faint." replied the king with a caring but still melancholic tone.
If anyone, including either The Mother or The Father, told the boy that at that moment just seconds ago the king was crying his past demons out he wouldn't believe it. The king looked like he always seemed. Clean, handsome and well preserved for a forty-five-year-old man but certainly one thing remained. The people said the king had always been a melancholic person for he was "born of grief" but since he was crowned there was a constant sadness in his eyes. The cause of such sorrow? The people didn't know. Or better, chose not to know.
If any good happen during the Sack of King's Landing was when Ser Jaime Lannister jabbed his sword through the Mad King's back, even if no one would say that to the Kingslayer or the new King, or no one else for that matter. Nobody truly mourned the fallen King, not even his son who couldn't even cry the family he truly loved. After all the horror caused by the Mad King's reign and the Stag's Rebellion, the country needed a strong ruler to watch over its people, not a griefer widow mourning the loss of his family.
"I...I bring you a message from... from your son... the Prince." said the boy still breathing heavily. "He should arrive in a few hours."
A shadow of a smile crossed Rhaegar's lips. His boy was coming home. He thanked the servant that than bowed to his king again and left. Rhaegar closed the door and walked to the window a little more peaceful than before. Truth, his life seemed always to be tagged to tragedy. His birth. His "greatest glory in battle." His love. Still, one good thing came out of such disasters in the middle of so many disgraces. That was truly his greatest glory.
"She was a mother." whispered a voice inside his head as the king watched over the horizon.
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The summer sun was shining all over King's Landing accompanied by a soft fresh breeze. Not a single cloud decided to appear and ruin the perfectly blue sky. It was liked the gods had prepared this day for the return of the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms to the capital. As soon as the servant left the king's chambers, the news started to spread faster than wildfire. Quickly the smallfolk gather at the entrance of the Red Keep and shortly after the lords of King's Landing joined them to welcome back the prince. The little love both classes had for his grandfather was forgotten when came to Prince Aegon. The smallfolk hoped that the young prince would follow his father footsteps and became a wise and just ruler. Needless to say, the nobles hoped that he would become a different kind of ruler, one easier to manipulate than the present king that would let his counsel rule instead of himself, to have the real power and him a poppet.
It was for this and many other reasons that when Ned Stark offer to foster his nephew in Winterfell so he could truly learn about his northerner lineage and know his mother's family, Rhaegar didn't hesitate in accepting. He wanted his son, Lyanna's son, to grow up to be more than a good ruler or a good leader. He wanted him to be an honest man, a good man, an honorable man. Rhaegar knew if Aegon spent most of his life in King's Landing that would never happen and despite all the misunderstandings between them, Rhaegar would admit to anyone that Ned Stark was all of those things. So when Aegon was seven, he was sent to the North. It was hard for Rhaegar, but he knew it was the best thing to do for his boy. Still, the most heartbreaking goodbye wasn't between father and son but between the Prince and the Princess Daenerys.
The king's younger brother and the princess' older brother, Prince Viserys, soon in his youth showed signs of having inherited the fearsome Targaryen madness. So, for the good of his brother and the kingdom, the king decided to send him away to Essos with Ser Willem Darry and some servants and guards to make sure he was well taken care of and wouldn't start a rebellion on his own. And it seemed Rhaegar made the right decision. According to Ser Willem's regular reports, Viserys grow up to be a violent, arrogant, immoral and extremely cruel "lizard-boy" (as the servants call him behind his back) that believes that all people from anywhere should obey him simply because his name is Targaryen. Rhaegar knew he could never control his brother. So everytime Viserys would beg him to allow him to return to Westeros Rhaegar would deny it and ask Varys, his Master of Whisperers, to use his "little birds" and resources to make sure Viserys didn't do something stupid, like buying an army or something.
And so only they remained. Aegon and Daenerys. Two motherless children surrounded by nurses, septas and a bunch of men talking nothing else than politics. It wasn't surprising that the Prince and the Princess grow up very attached to each other. When Aegon left to Winterfell with his uncle, the young prince kept a strong face when he said goodbye to his father but when hugged his childhood friend for the last time in a long time a tear fell out of his eye. The princess, on the other hand, didn't try to hide her tears and when the time came to let go she refused to. Not that Aegon tried to get out of her embrace anyway. He wasn't as happy to leave for the North as much believed.
While he was away, the two exchanged letters whenever it was possible. Something Aegon's older cousin Robb loved to tease him about since he would stop whatever he was doing when he heard that a raven from King's Lading had a arrive for him. It didn't matter if it was trying sword fighting in the courtyard or having a lesson with Maester Luwin. Even if it meant to face an annoyed Aunt Cait and a long lecture about how it was so improper of a prince, even more of a future king, to leave the hall at the middle of supper either being with family or, worse, with guests. But honestly, he didn't care. By the next morn, his response was already underway.
When he would visit his family in the capital, Aegon would spend the most of his time with Daenerys. Well, the most as possible. After all, he was the future king of the Seven Kingdoms and Rhaegar wanted to be the surest possible that his son knew what that meant. Still, they were only children which meant: Sneaking away from the guards and go riding in the Kingswood being day or night. Walking around the gardens laughing about how immature Robb and Theon were or how Arya loved to mess with Sansa in any way she could. Those were only some of the way the two royal children spent their time together. Aegon even taught Daenerys how to use a bow and arrow and later a sword.
"The fact that I'm a princess should be a reason why I should know how to protect myself. I'm not one of those girls who just sit still whimpering themselves out waiting for some knight to come and save them and I refuse to become one." said Daenerys to her brother when her wet nurse told the king how it was not proper for a lady, let alone a princess, to run around playing with weapons all sweaty and full of dirt for only the gods know how much long. Rhaegar just gave his younger sister a barely visible smile and sent her on her way socking the wet nurse. If anyone thought that a lecture would stop that girl from doing anything she was determined to do, then they didn't know her at all. She was indeed of the blood of the dragon.
Although he did miss his best friend, Aegon's life in the North was no torture. Quite the opposite, he loved Winterfell. He loved its people, the cold, the snow. Uncle Ned says many times that he is very much like his mother, even beyond his wild raven curls and his typical Stark grey eyes that he inherited from her. He looked so much like a Stark that the smallfolk and many guests of the Stark family were always mistaken the young prince for Lord Stark's son instead of his nephew what most of the times ended in a good uncomfortable laugh.
"The boy is more wolf than a dragon, thank you old gods." someone would always end up saying either between drinks or in complete seriousness.
That always left Aegon with mix feelings. He knew his father loved him no matter if looked more Stark than Targaryen or the other way around. Still, he could help but feel that he didn't belong either in the North or the South. In King's Landing, he was treated like any other prince would be and everybody could see the love that father and son shared with one other, but that didn't stop rumors from spreading. Some say that Lyanna found her way into Robert Baratheon's bed early on in their betrothal (what wouldn't be difficult) and when she saw she had caught the crown prince's eye she merely started spreading her legs in a more luxurious bed. Of course by that time she was already carrying the stag's bastard. Others say the prince's father is not the king or the wanna-be-usurper but Rhaegar's closest friend, the Sword of the Morning himself, Ser Arthur Dayne. Needless to say that when this rumors arrived at their ears, Rhaegar and Ned just didn't cut off some tongues because it would be of no use. The rumors would continue anyway and perhaps even stronger with some validation from their actions. All they could do was endure and make sure Aegon knew that not all the people say is the truth.
In Winterfell, he felt more at home than he ever felt in King's Landing but never entirely at home. He loved his northern family very much, especially Uncle Ned, Arya, and Robb, but Daenerys... With her was different. She was different. Both he and Daenerys begged his father many times to allow her to go with him to Winterfell but he always refused to. Aegon convinced himself that perhaps it was for the best. He wasn't blind to how the people looked at him. He could see the fear, the distrust, the anger, in the peoples' eyes. It's unbelievable how much people assume they know about you only because of your family name.
This is one of the smallest reasons why Aegon is not anxious in one day becoming king. Oh, how dreaded that day. He would have been very much happier as a master-at-arms in Winterfell or a commander of an army or even as a ranger of the Night's Watch than he could ever be has a king. His name was a constant reminder of his fate. Aegon, a name worth of king, the name of a conqueror. A reminder to those who dare even think to go against House Targaryen, isn't it?
Everyone in the Westeros knows the story of Aegon, the Conqueror. Of how he along with his sister-wives, Rhaenys and Visenya, and their dragons conquered six of the seven kingdoms with fire and blood. But and those who followed him? There wasn't another king named Aegon for over a century and when there was what was Aegon II's greatest act? He fed his own sister to his dragon right in front of her son, after a three years civil war that almost doomed their family and the kingdom. It's ironic that his nephew, the same boy who watched his mother devoured, ended up succeeded him. Who was another Aegon, Aegon III. He was also known as Aegon, the Dragonbane, because despite the fact that he strove to give the realm peace and plenty after the Dance of Dragons, he is better known as the one who brought the death of the last dragons, even though he had no fault to it. Another Aegon not much loved either.
There were three more Aegons after him. Aegon, the Unworthy. He lets the name speak for himself. His decision of legitimizing all of his bastards on his deathbed led to five generations of pain, grief and sorrow, the Blackfyre Rebellions. Aegon, the Unlikely, who made enemies from some of the most powerful families in the realm when he intended to create alliances. And then there was... little Aegon. He was a few moons old when his skull was dashed against the wall of his nursery while his mother watched helplessly screaming. These not to mention all the stillborn babes named after the first Targaryen king. How nobody ever said the name may be cursed was a surprise to the young prince.
He never saw himself as an Aegon, neither did Daenerys or Uncle Ned. So much that early on in his new life in the North, Aegon also gained a new name, Jon. It was Ned's idea. He hated the way his people, nobles or smallfolk, looked at his nephew after they found out he wasn't only a Stark but a Targaryen too. One day an eight-years-old Aegon went with Lord Stark and Robb to the market in Winter Town to "learn more the daily life of our people" as his uncle put it. At the market, a pair of ornate wooden swords called Robb's attention.
"I craved it myself, my lord. The finest wood in all the Seven Kingdoms. A proper training sword for a future lord" said the traveling seller with fawning voice and a cranky smile. His accent seemed foreign though.
"Please. Please, Father, can I have one? It can be an early name day present." begged Robb while making his best-wounded cub eyes trying to force a little tear to come out. Aegon bit the inside of his lip so he wouldn't laugh at his cousin. Lucky he was highborn because as a mummer he would survive.
Ned sighed and asked the seller how much the sword was. The price was what Lord Stark said was "an absurd among of gold" but in the end, he and seller reached an understanding. The seller would be paid the price he wanted if he sold them both swords and craved a direwolf and each boys' name in each sword. Aegon said that he didn't need a new training sword even though his uncle knew that his training sword was pretty much falling into bites after so much use so Ned insisted. His nephew deserved as much a new sword as his son. When the seller asked what the boys' name were Ned didn't give them a chance to speak.
"Robb and Jon." he said with a confident tone looking to the seller and then when he turned to start carving the names into the swords Ned looked down to his confused nephew with a smile.
So it has been since. The young prince quickly got used to his new name. A name he felt was more is own than his real. Also, who says that Jon isn't his real name? Most of his happiest memories and unhappy ones were with him using that name. It is Uncle Ned calls him. It is what his cousins call him. It is what Dany calls him. Not even when they are mad at him they called him Ageon. To them, it was always Jon. Only his father keeps calling Aegon to the prince great displeasure.
The sound of steps coming down the stairs called the king's attention making him turn around to look inside the Red Keep. His sister Daenerys was running down the stairs holding the front of her skirt with both hands so she wouldn't step on it and fell down. She was wearing a grey dress with red details on the end of her long skirt, on the end of her sleeves that go all the way to her wrists but open in the middle of her arms and also all around the neckline. The simplicity of her dress only made her natural beauty glow even more if it was possible. Instead of her normally complex braids she had her hair loose today with the exception of two braids that meet in the middle behind her head. Indeed she was a sight to be seen.
"Is he here? I'm late?" she asked nervously without catching her breath while she quickly walked to her brother's side without taking her eyes from where the tour should enter.
"No, you are not, not that potentially has ever been one of your strongest qualities, dear sister." Rhaegar answered with firm common voice but also looking at the same place as Daenerys.
"Neither is humor one of yours, brother." Daenerys said in a humorous tone.
Rhaegar saw through the corner of his eye that his sister had a playful smile on her lips. He could help but smile himself. Then the trumpets started to play and both their smiles widened.