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When he was a little boy, Aegon looked at a giant map, painstakingly inked out by the maesters, and he decided that he should like to live his life in the Reach, in a castle by the sea with a vast luscious orchard full of apples.
He would walk through the orchard every day with his lady wife, a beautiful girl with curls almost as lovely as Mother’s, and he would pick apples from the tree, and stems of sweet white blossoms for his wife.
They would have two golden, shaggy haired hounds, one named Star and the other named Moon. There will be a barn, with the finest horses, and fat, lazy cats who sleep in the sunny warmth all day, too content to be chasing mice.
He told this all to Mother, because Mother’s family is in the Reach, and if they choose a castle near Oldtown, Mother and Grandpapa and Helaena and Aemond (and baby Daeron, if he’s not crying), maybe even Rhaenyra and Father, can come visit him, and stroll through the orchard with Aegon’s shaggy hounds.
Aemond tackles him to the hard, sun warmed cobblestones with a ferocity that Aegon has never seen.
Aemond is never ferocious, not after that night. He paid the price for impulsivity, and instead grew to the likeness of the Warrior, stoic and made of stone.
(They never talk about it, they never even discuss it. They can’t even name it.
Just, that night. The incident. That time.
They never talk about anything in their family, not the things that matter. Daeron rarely writes home. Aegon does not blame him.)
To ask if it’s true, is our father really dead—our father who loved a ghost, and forgets his children, our father who chooses one daughter over and over, one dead wife over and over—it is awful and strange.
(The man who taught him as a father should stands right there, just metres away.
It was Ser Criston who taught him how to wield a sword, ride a horse, how to shave.
It is Ser Criston who stands by their mother’s side, who carried Helaena from the Godswood to the birthing bed, who kindly accepts flowers from little Jaehaera.)
Their father is dead.
They want Aegon to be the king.
They want him to sit upon that wretched iron chair, to cut himself over and over until the cuts can be counted to a thousand, so they can see Aegon’s blood drip from artery, from vein, and finally see that this king, this man, this boy is just as his father, his sister, he is the blood of the dragon. See the fire in that blood, all hail the king.
“I’m not suited!”
Aemond agrees with him. Aemond has always agreed with him, on the many times Aegon has said that he does not want to be king, he does not want a realm, he does not want a sister for a wife, he does not wish to be the blood of the dragon.
Aemond has always agreed with Aegon’s agony, that Aegon does not want to be king and it should be someone else. He cannot bear to touch his sister as a man does a woman, it should be someone else. He does not have the fire in his veins, the greatness within him to uphold their grand and wretched house.
It should be someone else.
Aemond is taller, Aemond is stronger, Aemond is better. He pulls, he grabs, he forces Aegon to a standstill.
They struggle there, on the steps to the Sept.
(They counted these stairs together, when Aemond was just a child and Aegon held him in one hand and Helaena in the other.
They counted each step as they followed Mother so that they could pray for Father, as he was unwell again. Father is always unwell.
They counted all one hundred and thirty seven steps, Aemond struggling with his little legs, a little boy of three.)
They struggle there, Aemond his captor, Aegon a prisoner to the crown.
He’s been a prisoner to the crown for as long as he can remember.
He asked Mother once if he could live in an orchard by the sea, and Mother said that he will be king one day.
Aegon asked Mother if Rhaenyra could be king instead, and then they can all visit him when she needs a break from all the tiresome council meetings.
Mother slapped him, and she hissed, “You will be our king, Aegon. Never say such things again.”
It was the first time she ever slapped him.
She softened, her hand instantly on the sting, her face heartbroken.
“You have to be the king, Aegon. Do you understand? You will be the king one day. There is no other choice for any of us.”
He did not understand.
Even now, he does not understand.
Let me go.
They want to make him king, they want to put him on that monstrous throne—he is to be king and here he is, begging—
“Let me go!”
—What type of king begs, he is no king.
(Please. Stop.
Let me go.)
He wonders if love is a weakness, because what strength has love given to any of them. Nothing, he sees nothing there, but he should love—Aegon should love his family, his kingdom, his children. Maybe he does. Maybe, perhaps—he thinks maybe if Aemond loves him, if Aemond loves him as a brother, if Aemond knows him—
He cannot breathe, he cannot think.
He holds his brother’s face in his hands, his brother the Warrior come to life, a dragon won war wound on one eye, the hunger of ambition in the other. Aegon is no Warrior, Aegon is no idol. Aegon holds no resemblance to any of the Seven, he is pitiful and begging, he is no king. Who would want this as king.
(Please.
Let me go.
Brother. Please.)
“I’ll find a ship and sail away, never to be found.”
He is not the rightful heir. Someone else is. He is not a true husband to Helaena. Someone else is. He is not suited to rule. Someone else is—
Take it, he silently begs. Take it, it’s yours. Take it so we may be done with all this bother. Go ahead and take it, set me free.
(Please.)
Aemond falters. Aegon almost smiles.
He should love his family, his kingdom, his children—perhaps Aemond loves him, as Aemond loves Aegon’s children, loves their family, loves Helaena. Aemond loves him too, in that brief moment, Aegon believes it.
Aemond is his brother.
Aemond loves him.
Aemond will set him free.
“The Queen awaits.”
(Please.
Let me go.)
He does not ask to look upon his father’s corpse, does not wish to bide him a farewell.
Aegon does not light a candle to Viserys.
A stranger returning to another, he thinks it’s rather apt.
They crown him with the Conqueror’s crown, with the Conqueror’s sword.
They crown him, and the dragon pit crumbles under the might of an uncrowned queen, of a queen who never was.
Aegon is no Conqueror. He is the cowed.
(They did not name him for the conqueror, despite what the court likes to sing. Aegon, the Second Conqueror. Aegon, the Conqueror Babe.
They named him Aegon instead of Baelon, instead of Jaehaerys, instead of the ones Viserys knew and loved.
Alicent named him Aegon for greatness, for a piece of family legacy, for the first of many outsiders to conquer this Red Keep, to light it afire, a conquering flame as bold and bright as the beacon’s flame in the high tower.)
Aegon does not let himself flinch when the Small Council bows to him.
He does not falter when Ser Criston calls him “My King” (not ‘my Prince’, not ‘my lord of the straw’). Aegon is now King. He must be the King.
He does not let his gaze linger at the bodies hanging in the Red Keep, of traitors who will not swear themselves to the Rightful King. They are traitors, they would have rebelled.
Aegon is now the king. He was meant to be the king.
All the smallfolk cheered him.
(Many of the smallfolk died, crushed carelessly by a dragon.
Will he crush them too.)
The servants bow to him. Your Grace. My King. They bow him, his own mother bows him to him. He walks through the Keep—his Keep—through a sea of bowed heads and deference.
(It is not just the smallfolk.
He too is crushed by the house of the dragon, weighing down upon him.)
He sits in the nursery, the children quietly playing with their trinkets, their carved wooden dragons.
His children are strange, small creatures who look just like him, like his brothers, like his sister.
He wonders if his children will be as hopeless as he is, or as strange as Helaena.
He does not know them well. Just as Aegon is not suited to kingship, he is not suited to fatherhood.
Aegon is feckless, untethered, a lone dingy drifting and ripped from the docks by a rough tide.
He thinks he loves them, as one should love their children, as they come from him. He thinks it’s something like that. His children come from him, from his sister, from a night that was fuelled by strongwine, and eyes closed by the both of them.
He did not let himself look at her that night, or the next, or any other night. She’s his sister, how can he look at her as a man does woman, as a husband does wife, as a lover to another.
(She is his sister.
They played together in the Godswood.
Aegon counted her toes every night for a year to reassure Helaena that they were all there, you can go to sleep now, little sister. No toes will run away tonight.
She is his sister.
They hear of a proposal, Jace to Helaena, and Aegon thinks his nephew is silly, but does not mind getting messy, does not mind stealing a pig from the sty. Jace will not shy from Helaena’s bugs.
She is his sister.
They are Targaryens, wedded by an unsmiling Septon, Helaena looking at the floor and Aegon deep in his cups.)
“Aegon.”
He looks up, to see his sister, his wife, the mother to his children.
She looks away instantly.
“I came to look in on them. Before you take them to say goodnight to Mother.”
Helaena nods, eyes trained on the ground, her hands tugging at her fingers.
(Their first son came abruptly, a full moon before expected. Even with a fully belly and swollen ankles, Helaena scuttled around the Godswood for a spider, a beetle, a ladybird.
Jaehaerys was too early, and Ser Criston had to carry the weeping, terrified Helaena to the birthing bed, a trail of birthing water and birth blood upon the floors of the Keep.)
“They’ve grown,” he says awkwardly.
She nods again.
As he leaves the nursery, Helaena murmurs, “Ten toes.”
“What.”
For a moment, she meets his eye, offering a small flickering smile.
“They all have ten toes. I counted yesterday.”
“And today?”
She shrugs, and they both look upon their small, pale haired children.
“You’ll let me know?”
“What.”
“If they still have ten toes tonight,” Aegon says, looking away from his sister. “My heirs. They must have ten toes.”
“If you wish it, My King.”
He has the maesters bring the giant map to his chambers. They hang it upon a wall that once held a lewd tapestry that Aegon had rather enjoyed, but his mother insisted was a shame upon the Seven.
Aegon stares upon his kingdom, a glass of strongwine to dull the pain of the Valyrian steel pressed on his temples. The crown does not fit his head, it weighs upon him, his shoulders ache—he is not worthy of it.
There is the Reach, once upon a time, there is a castle (not a Keep), there is a wife (not a sister), and there is a man (not a King).
He drinks down the strongwine and looks upon his Seven Kingdoms, an unworthy inheritor, a usurper, a captive to the crown.
What songs will they sing about him.
Two dogs, one named Star and one named Moon.
Cats, they are fat. They are warming in the sun.
Mother can visit, she can walk barefoot in the sand—he will hold a tourney and crown her Queen of Love and Beauty, crown her as the First Lady of the Realm—Mother will not be chasing ghosts.
Helaena and Jace can visit, with their dark haired children and he will give them a pet pig.
(I have to let it go.
I don’t want to let go.)
He hurls the wineglass to the map, the parchment staining and the glass shattered.
Aegon grabs at it, tears it from its hanging. He rips apart his paper kingdom, a wordless yell as if he too might sprout wings, might rise from his chains, to flee this cage as one dragon and one queen did today.
He yells, over and over, until he can yell no more.
Wingless, toothless, hopeless.
He’s sitting on the floor by the bed, drinking straight from the jug when Aemond enters.
The servants must have scurried off in fear, fetched their mother, fetched their grandfather. It’s never Helaena, it’s always Aemond.
“Hard night, my king?”
The words must be like poison to him, bitter to swallow, to say. It must be burning Aemond up, from the inside out. His mouth is twisted. Aemond is not ferocious though. He just smiles a twisted smile, the bile well contained.
Aegon throws the empty wine jug at Aemond’s head.
He misses by a lot.
“Bad luck, my king.”
Each venomous mocking word, a reminder, over and over.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what.”
Aegon would pick up those glass shards, he would open his veins and turn the Keep truly red, he will bleed for the throne as is the duty of the king, he would do it so that they may see him, their King, his dragon blood, so that they may see that he is just a man who will be cut over and over until the throne consumes him.
He reaches.
He begged to escape—a king does not beg.
He is no king.
He begged to be free, for a ship to sail away, for the stars and moon.
Now he begs for it to stop, for shattered glass, for his brother to leave him, his brother who kicks the glass out of the way, his brother who refuses to let him curl up into hopelessness.
“Stop,” Aegon yells, “Stop it, please, I beg of you!”
(Do you love me.
Is this what you want.
If you won’t let me go, will you—)
Aemond grabs him by the shoulders, hold him at a standstill. He is the captor, Aegon the captive to the crown.
“Listen to me, Your Grace—”
“Stop it—”
“—Listen to me—“
“I said stop!”
“Brother, listen to me.”
All that lingers between them is heaving breath, and Aegon exhausted from the weight of the crown, flattened already from barely a day of ruling.
“You are the king, whether you like it or not. That will not change, for as long as there is breath in our mother’s lungs and ambition in our grandfather’s gut.”
“I am not fit to rule.”
“Dragons do not rule, brother. They reign fire and blood. We are dragons. Be a dragon, brother.”
“I am not fit to rule,” Aegon repeats, and Aemond’s gaze remains on him, as if to know that this is not a complaint, the burdens of inheritance, that this is the truth, that this is a grand destiny that in one life, a kinder life, he would have willingly avoided. He is not fit to rule.
“You are my brother. You are my king. I will be your sword, your justice, your warrior. To this, I swear, for as long as you reign.”
He wonders if the words taste like ashes in Aemond’s mouth. To swear himself to the unworthy, to swear his fealty to the wretched, the weak—he wonders if Aemond does this for Helaena, for their mother, for anyone else. He thinks to kiss Aemond’s lips to see if the bitterness lingers.
But Aemond looks at him, unflinching and unwavering in his promise.
“You have the crown, Aegon. You must protect it. As I will protect you,” for you are the crown, you have always been destined to the crown, captive to it. “Long may you reign, brother.”
His head falls to Aemond’s shoulder, Aegon closing his eyes.
“Long may you reign,” Aemond repeats into the cold darkness of Aegon’s chambers, “Aegon Targaryen, Second of his Name.”
Aemond is all that holds him upright.
He should have been king. Aemond would have been the Conquerer, the Warrior, the rebirth of Old Valyria—Aemond who swears himself to a man who does not wish to be king, Aemond who promises his strength, his sword, himself.
(You won’t let me go.)
He shakes his head slowly, hoping that perhaps in this room, in his chambers, between just them, the darkness will eat up those words, will consume them until there is nothing left, just emptiness and the dregs of this Keep, the treacherous and the hungry left for Rhaenyra to rule.
He shakes his head, and feels the crown slipping, falling to the ground.
“Long may you reign.”
(Please.
Stop.)
The crown sits on the cold stone floor, and Aegon remains broken by the weight of it. He lets himself meet Aemond’s stare, his brother made in the image of the Warrior, the One-Eye, his brother, “My sword, my justice, my warrior. Promise this, to me, to your King.”
“I do so promise.”
Aemond places the crown back on Aegon’s head, as their uncle once did their father.
“Long may you reign, brother.”
(Never let me go.)
One brother a rogue, the other unfit to rule.
They are just ghosts of the ones who came before them.