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i.
Her mother had told her that labour would be painful. Had warned her with as much gentleness as a woman can muster. As Helaena lays in her bed, bleeding, she has not even the energy to scream. She knows her mother insisted they give her milk of the poppy to dull the pain somewhat, that they hide the blood for her mother knows how squeamish the sight of it makes her.
Helaena has never accounted for this. The pain is unimaginable, and she closes her eyes and tries to pinpoint the right shade of grey. Not like a rainy day. More like the colour of the sea when the sun is hidden. It brings her comfort.“My sweet girl,” her mother coos, dabbing her forehead with a wet cloth. Helaena groans a little. It’s easier to focus on the memories flashing behind her eyes than—
The baby slips between her legs in one horrible, horrible gush of blood. A word scarcely leaves her lips – whether it be because of her own disposition or the milk of the poppy, she is not certain. But her baby cries instantly. Sharp, powerful little shrieks.
“A son, your grace,” the maester says, but his voice sounds oddly strained. Surprised, even.
Helaena’s eyes flutter open. Her strength renewed, she forces herself up against her pillows, brow creased with sweat. The maester brings her the babe without a word, and Helaena feels her heart catch.
Her mother leans in, her hair brushing against Helaena’s shoulder. “Aegon will be delighted with—”
The words stop. Helaena scarcely notices. Her son is so beautiful. His eyes are the perfect shade of grey. The right shade of grey. His curls, small as they are, are a dark shade of brown.
Just as she’d hoped.
Later, when Helaena finally meets her mother’s gaze, her son nursing at her breast, her mother looks as though she’s seen a ghost.
“He is beautiful, is he not?” Helaena marvels.
Her mother does not speak a word.
Her grandfather says the babe has inherited his grandmother’s Hightower looks. Helaena hears it often enough for her to become aware of it. How much her babe, her own Jaehaerys, looks like her mother.
She says nothing to that. It’s easy to hide away from the world now that he’s there.
“You have a beautiful son, your grace,” the courtiers tell her.
“Yes,” she agrees. “He is very strong indeed.”
She’s aware enough then to catch the look on her mother’s face. Apprehension – fear, even, before it’s quickly abandoned. One can never name or voice something they did not witness, did not even suspect.
But Jaehaerys is a happy babe, and that is what she cares for the most. His hair remains dark and his eyes remain her favourite shade of grey, and Helaena cannot love her babe more than she already does.
With time, Jaehaerys grows.
“Jay,” she calls him for short. Aegon is as absent a father as he is a husband, but Helaena feels no grief in that. It is simply her and Jay for hours on end. Her kind, sweet little boy. She likes to take him for walks on the beach, cradling him in her arms. Waiting. For a ship on the horizon. For a dragon to appear where the sun meets the water during sunset.
His dragon egg hatches in his cradle, and she presses her brow to his head and holds him close. All this talk of succession and inheritance. What does it matter? She has Jaehaerys now. She has her boy with grey eyes, and that is enough.
It is enough.
As her son grows, the shade of his hair darkens more than her mother’s honey-coloured locks. His skin grows paler, and his nose more puggish.
Her grandfather ceases to make declarations about her son’s Hightower looks.
Her mother does not ask. No one in the family does. Even when she catches her mother and grandfather whispering furiously to each other in the corner. They never breathe a word of it to her.
“People refuse to see what’s in front of them,” she murmurs to herself. “The truth is more dangerous than a lie.”
Everyone ignores her whisperings. She is a mad woman, a stranger, a freak, if Aegon is to be believed.
What she is, most of all, is a mother.
(What she is, other than that, is in love)
Jaehaerys is walking when her sister Rhaenyra returns to King’s Landing with her family in tow.
With her sons.
Helaena has heard not a word since. They’d both known the truth, deep down. Known the weight of their duty. Helaena had been married for an hour. What was done before the Gods cannot be undone, no matter how much she wished it.
She stands by the throne, besides her husband, besides her brother and mother, but her eyes are for him. His eyes are mournful as they meet hers, saddened as they were last time she saw him last, when the dreams of their youth were snuffed to dust in favour of duty. Forbidden by the tensions within their family even now.
But Jay sways in between her legs, his hands clasped in hers, and he giggles at the sight of his dark haired kin. Without even thinking, Helaena lets go of her son’s hand, and he stumbles right into the arms of Jacaerys Velaryon, who swoops down to pick him up without a word.
Helaena can’t help but smile. Their eyes gleam their precious grey. The rest of their family stares as Jace lifts Jay up to look him in the eye, as if he’s the most fascinating thing in the whole world. Father drones on about duty and welcomes, but Helaena pays no attention.
When it’s over, Jace approaches her, Jay perched on his hip. His brow creased, but a glimmer of tenderness in his eyes.
“Your son is precious, dear Aunt and Uncle,” he says, still holding Jay close to his chest. Jay coos with delight, looking up at Jace with big, round eyes. Helaena can sense Mother glaring at them from the corner of her eye.
Helaena reaches out to grab Jay, but her hand rests where Jace’s hand is holding Jay close to his chest, hidden from view.
“And strong,” she tells him, her voice low enough for just them to hear.
Their fingers intertwine for a fleeting moment, hidden from view, and Helaena dreads the moment where she’ll finally have to let go.