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Aegon has been drowning for so long he wonders how he is able to breathe. Drowning in his duty to his mother and the crown. Drowning in his hatred of his father, his Northern wife, and the spawn that resulted from said union. He relishes in that hatred. He lets it consume him when he beats Jon in the training yard, when he sinks in the warm skin of Arianne and hates Daenerys sent off to Dragonstone denying Jon what he so desires.Yes, he has always been drowning but he has always kept his head above water.
Until Jon’s betrothed comes South. He hates Sansa Stark upon principle. She is a Stark. And he will always hate those cravens to the marrow of his bone. Or so it goes until their eyes meet. Bright blue and dark amethyst collide. He sees the grim determination and fury in her gaze collide in his own. And he knows then he was always treading water before. Now it is as if someone has pushed him in the Blackwater Bay. Everything is pulling him under. He hates her manners and polite armour. He hates the wolf that shadows her every step. He hates the kindness she shows the servants and the loyalty that forms. He revels in how she rebuffs the attempts of her aunt to bond. He rejoices when she is nothing but distant and polite to his half brother. He hates how she becomes the diamond of court robbing Rhaenys of her place. How she goes toe to toe with his mother and someho makes Good Queen Elia look petty.
The court follows around her like moths to a flame. He hates how her great Uncle Bryden never leaves her side with a sincere devotion only Tullys seem to possess. He hates how she allows a former whore to be her handmaid and earns her the forever loyalty of Tyrion Lannister. How the dog Sandor Cleagne follows as her shadow and calls her a bird! He hates her but even Aegon can admit she is a wolf through and through. How she befriends the ugly Brienne of Tarth and tells the Hound to give her a sword. How her little brother Brandon, squire to their great uncle, is always at her side mirrored in their wolves.
He hates her the most of all of them. He hates how how they dance at a ball and his skin burns more than any fire could. He hates how she is in his dreams. He hates how yearns and burns and drowns. He hates how she never lets it affect her. He hates how Rhaegar looks at her with lust and a manic gaze. He hates how Jon wants the wedding date moved up. He hates how he is a man grown, nineteen years of age, and this girl of sixteen years makes his knees weak.
He grows surly and quick to fight. He is becoming what the Targaryens are famous for. It takes Viserys, his drunken and whorish uncle, the snap him out of it. Viserys tells him he must make a choice. Viserys tells him that no wedding will occur. His uncle says that the blue roses are blooming here in King’s Landing. And then he understands. All know of how Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon, and Denys Arryn went East to the Company of Blue Roses are the war. How exile has made the men legends and men from all of Westeros go to fight with them. How Viserys himself went East five years ago to seek out any members of House Targaryen who may still be East.
And it is then he knows. He knows he must make a choice. Between his family and whatever haunts him. He knows that he can either be like his father and blow everything to smithereens. Or like his mother and suffer in silence for years. He knows that whatever he does he will suffer. His mother wedding to Arianne is due within a year. He is heir to the throne. His father speaks of him wedding Rhaenys or Daenerys. How there must be three dragons.
Aegons fights anyone who will come near him in the training yard. He draws blood and has wounds of him own. He fights with the ferocity of a cornered dog. He and Jon come to blows and must be separated by Tully and Cleagne. And in the middle of it all Sansa Stark hands him a handkerchief to stem the blood from the wound above his eye. Their eyes meet. And his heart calms and warms and stutters. And he knows in the marrow of his bones what he must do. He knows there was never any choice. And he knows as much as he hates his father and Lyanna he may understand them a little now.
And in two days time he enters in the walls of the Red Keep and does not look back. He knows these passages like the back of his hand from his days as a lonely child with only Viserys for company. With the clothes on his back, blades on his person, coins in his pack, and letters left behind Aegon Targaryen makes his choice.
He meets them at a broken down dock on the Blackwater. All when they see him drawn their swords except Viserys who smirks at him . And then the direwolf prowls toward him. It brings it large head by his own. Eyes meeting his own unblinking. And then the wolf chuffs and turns. He follows it. He says nothing as he comes face to face with Sansa Stark. He looks own into those eyes that drown and save him in equal measure. He comes to stand beside her and offers his hand. GLancing sideways he sees her armour break or does she let it open? And he sees everything she hides under those walls. And she takes his hand. Her pale skin against his the colour of sand. And he knows then he is hers. He has been from his first breath and will be until his last. He hates their joined hand and kisses the back of hers. His sword, blood, bones, love, hate, and soul. Everything he is, has, and will be.
And so she smiles at him and leads him onto the boat. He leaves everything behind that day. He is still drowning. But now he is not alone. And that makes breathing underwater so much easier.