Work Text:
Worse Than Death
I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace,
And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves,
You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same
Cursing my name, wishing I stayed
You turned into your worst fears,
And you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain,
Crossing out the good years
And you’re cursing my name, wishing I stayed
—my tears ricochet
He had finally done it.
He was in so much pain, the last two years had done more to age him, to kill the youth in his aching body than tens of years had done on his father, on his grandsire, on anyone. Aegon II, King of the Seven Kingdoms was shattered into a million pieces and had been put together by sheer will, but he had done it.
The man who had once been a drunken boy returned to the city feeling elation for the first time in many years. He wept for his lost dragons, for his children, for his sister-wife and all the pain the realm had suffered through the bloody war. But mostly he wept for joy. His mother would finally know peace, a peace he had brought her.
“Mother!” Aegon exclaimed, jubilant despite his injuries, as the door of the Red Keep opened before him. He did not care for the other people in the room, did not know their names, could not care to place their faces. All that mattered was her. His mother, who looked at him expectantly, though her eyes betrayed her exhaustion too.
“Aegon” she greeted curtly, coldly. She always did. Not after this.
“She is dead!” He had planned how to say this, the perfect cadence, the buildup. It mattered not, for it ran away from him, begging for it to be enough, finally, “the whore of Dragonstone, she is dead!”
The room quieted immediately, soft murmurs of questioning and anticipation followed the King, but he had eyes only for his mother, whose face remained impassive.
“Mother, Rhaenyra Targaryen is dead” Aegon announced, again, maybe if he said it in a different way. Maybe she had not heard, “she is finally gone!”
“How?” someone in the crowd asked, grumblings and murmurings picking up with excitement.
“Sunfyre” he answered quickly, jubilantly, “she burnt, as her traitor bastards did. He feasted upon her body before perishing”
The mood was positively lifted, cheering broke out as men jeered, wishing the usurping Princess the deepest pits of the Seven hells, and women cheered good riddance to the self-serving bitch—all with the measured courtesies befitting their station.
Alicent remained impassive. Her face giving nothing away.
Do you love me? A younger Aegon had asked her. One without scars and fears, and who the crown had not crushed beyond recognition. Still a boy playing at being a man, wearing the clothes of a King and carrying the dagger of a legacy he did not understand. Begging to finally be loved.
You imbecile. She had answered and said nothing beyond that. It must be love, right? He had always known this is how love was given. None of the frills and pageantry he had witnessed his sister laud on her bastard sons. That was for weak boys and babes, he was a man grown, he had to be, and this is how men were loved, with steel and cold. Imbecile was a badge of honor, a sign of love.
“Mother?”
“Very well” Alicent nodded curtly, “prepare rooms for the King’s guests” without further word, she turned on her heel and walked out of the Hall, skirts ruffling in her haste.
Aegon’s mouth twisted bitterly. He had finally done it, rid the world of the plague that haunted his mother, he had brought her peace, had he not? He had broken and shattered against the blows of the Blacks, fought the battles, won the fights, killed the blight upon their house. What more could he do?
“Bring me wine” he ordered a passing girl, who recoiled at the sight of his burnt face.
He had done it, she had to know, she had to see it too. He had broken himself against the storm for her, he was all that remained now. She would see it; they would all see it. He had earned this blasted throne and all its thrice damned glory; he had earned her love.
He could feel the specter of the past haunting him, but they did not matter. She mattered. He mattered. And she would come to see it soon enough.
Alicent found her feet carrying her to the chambers of her youth. The ones that were untainted by this thrice damned war. The ones where the ghosts of a happier past lingered. Or where they had once dwelled.
All that was left were moth eaten drapes, dust covered furniture, abandoned parchment, forgotten trinkets. The ghosts of her past did not live here anymore.
The Queen’s hand reached for some insignificant item, something to anchor her. All it did was burn.
They had all burnt. Her sons, her daughter, her father, those she had called her allies. They were all gone, and their ghosts lingered haunting her every waking moment.
The ghost of her husband dragged his addled body just beyond her reach. He walked by her side as her hand lingered every so delicately over the forgotten pieces of the room, the clanking of his cane matching that of her heart as it pattered against her ribs.
Ser Criston walked behind her, dutiful and pious and ever watchful at her back, the soft lilt of his armor harmonizing with the tempest raging in her mind.
Aemond walked just beyond her sight, not the man he had become, but the little boy who held her hand and comforted her when she felt powerless.
Helaena sat in a darkened corner, muttering to herself—not the mutterings of the broken woman who had thrown herself off a window in despair, but the murmurs of the girl who had once fallen in love with a bug she carried everywhere.
Daeron, her beautiful brave boy, who she had not enough time with, never enough to show him the love he had deserved, pranced around her and the circus of ghosts that surrounded her, his innocent laughter lifting her spirits.
As always, the only ghost who did not have the decency to follow her was the one she had waited for the most.
You said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered to haunt their murderers.
She had waited for this moment with eagerness. The day when Rhaenyra would finally meet the end she deserved. They had caused the other so much pain, but by the Gods had Rhaenyra deserved it. She had earned every miserable moment of her existence. Her bastard sons and all their traitor courtiers had earned, with fire and blood, the hell that awaited them.
She had hoped to receive the most awaited news every day since Rhaenyra had taken the Red Keep. She had sat by her window and prayed that her end was brutal, a fitting payment for the blood that had been spilled for her usurping. It would go a long way to restoring the hurt she had caused, to pay for the children and grandchildren she had lost at her hands.
She may as well have killed her, and it should have filled her heart with happiness.
So where was she? Where she looked for the silver hair of the Princess, she only saw curtains floating in the whispering wind. Where she listened for Rhaenyra’s once melodious laughter all she heard were the screams of jubilation from the court, toasting to the brutal end of the second coming of Maegor.
I believe—I know that ghosts have wondered on earth.
She surrendered her mind to her feet as her eyes meandered through the corridors that had, for so little, been such a happy place, and now only bore the scars of the brutal war where both sides bled out until it mattered little who was left.
She did not care for the Queen, but her feet cared for the Princess. Alicent stood outside the door that had looked like all others, and the girl Alicent had been opened the door like it was second nature, bleeding fingers finding purchase upon the wood, her ears perking up with excitement as the loitering behind the door ramped up.
The wind howled through the open window, but there was no Rhaenyra here either.
Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad!
Alicent padded forward, begging her feet to step lightly, intrude not upon the specter of a happier childhood she had left behind. Her breath caught in the knot in her throat when she looked around. The room had been left, preserved for a moment in time, and madness took her when she realized it was not filled with her. There was no disarray, no controlled chaos, the smell of dragon and smoke did not waft off when the wind rampaged uncaring. Rhaenyra did not live here anymore. The girl had not left behind even a hint of her spirit behind.
Or maybe it was more sinister.
The punishment more insidious.
Alicent closed her eyes and tried to picture the past. She looked desperately for a hint of Rhaenyra’s laughter. For her easy charm, the vibrant violet eyes that had once begged her to ride with her upon Syrax and eat only cake.
She searched through the painful memories she had buried for a memory of what the Princess had looked like before it all went wrong, of the way she had looked at Alicent before she became tainted with treasons and beguiled enmities.
Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!
Alicent looked, she screamed until her throat was ragged and bloodied, clawed at the drapes and the furniture, upended chairs and tables, threw mementos and curios with brutality against the walls. Anything to summon her ghost, to see her one last time. To scream at the shadow that clung to her for so many years now.
Her.
She had caused Alicent so much pain, she had been the cause of the tears of blood that Alicent had cried until she could cry no more. Where was she? Where was the blasted apparition that had promised to haunt her until her dying day? Where was the mercurial Princess that had sworn to leave Alicent not a moment of peace?
“I killed you” the Queen screamed, rageful and vengeful against the howling wind, “you deserved every moment of pain, and I was the cause of it all” she lifted a chair and slammed it against the floor, finding strength from some hidden recess in her mind, “come and get your piece” she tore the deep red curtains of the four-poster bed where Rhaenyra had committed the worst of her treachery, tearing viciously like it would somehow lift the weight on her soul “where are you now, you despicable monster!”
Alicent lost her footing as she raged, and fell upon her haunches, bloodied hands reaching, clawing at the stones, bloodied nails that had not bled in many years raking against her scalp, dragging through her face leaving behind the marks of her anger.
“Be true to your word, for once” she whispered to the wraith that refused to appear “slaughter me, take me to the depths of the Seven hells” her ragged voice begged, “you promised”
“ I loved you” Rhaenyra had whispered, broken beyond repair, as the mob raged in the city below, “I loved you beyond reason and duty. Loving you has cost me my sons, my realm has bled for you” her once so vibrant and beautiful violet eyes were dull now, the silver gold hair now a muted shade of its former self, “you did this Alicent.”
“I loved you, Rhaenyra. I loved you and look what it cost me” Alicent raged back, not one more tear left to spare in her, “my daughter, my grandsons, my sons, my father, what more can you take? What more did you wish of me?”
“You will see” the Queen replied, white knuckled grip on Alicent’s shoulders, “this has only one end, and it will haunt you, for the rest of your miserable life you will remember what you did to me. I will leave for the Hell your Seven promised when I drag you from this mortal coil. I loved you once, and that love will tether me here, so you may suffer what I suffered. This I promise”
Alicent watched as Rhaenyra sped past her, her son in toe, her last boy, dragged from his bed towards destination unknown. The mark of Rhaenyra’s fingers on her arms branded her with a promise of eternal misery. Alicent had earned it—but so had Rhaenyra, and if they were to burn in this hurt, they would do it together.
“ Here I am, tear me down!” she screamed into her hands, “raze me, lay waste to my soul, I have nothing left to give!”
Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life!
Perhaps this was the indignity she had earned. Rhaenyra had won a final battle, and finally found the truth of where it hurt most. Alicent had relished, awaited, prayed for the day she could finally lay with her ghosts. She had wanted peace to be torn asunder by her guilt.
But what guilt and pain could compare with the reality that she could not remember what Rhaenyra looked like before it all went wrong? What was eternal damnation in the face of her greatest foe, her greatest love, her greatest everything leaving her forever. There was no respite from this. There was nothing to be gained from this void she had thrown her into. Her last hope had been to live forever with the shadow of her most loyal friend clinging to her, whispers reminding her every day of the gift her faithlessness had bought and paid for.
It had been unthinkable that in killing her, Alicent had somehow damned herself.
Rhaenyra’s final revenge was worse than torment. It was sweeter than wine. It was more pervasive than hatred.
Alicent was condemned to live without her, and die in misery, forever wishing she could conjure the phantom of her. Could hear her voice even if it only lived to remind her of the pain. Begging to be thrice damned by the ghoul of the fallen Princess.
To have haunted her every waking moment would have been mercy.
To leave her in this void, to abandon her in this world without the hint of their dance was vicious. It was ruthless. It was what she deserved but always feared.
“Mother, Rhaenyra Targaryen is dead” her broken son had announced so proudly, “ she is finally gone!”
What was left to be said, when this is what she had looked for, and what she had earned.
A fate worse than death.
I cannot live without my soul!