Chapter Text
The last thing I remembered from my twenty-one years of life on Earth wasn’t heroic. It wasn’t a dramatic sacrifice or a tragic, lingering illness. I didn’t push a child out of the way of a speeding truck, nor did I go down fighting in some grand, cinematic defense of a localized convenience store. No, my demise was profoundly, embarrassingly stupid. I was walking down my apartment’s basement stairs, my eyes glued to the glowing screen of my phone as I aggressively thumbed out a reply to a thoroughly meaningless group chat. My sneaker caught the edge of the top step. My weight shifted too far forward, gravity took the wheel, and I tumbled face-first down twelve hard, unforgiving wooden steps. My absolute last thought as the concrete floor rushed up to meet my forehead was a mixture of profound irritation and clarity: Wow, this is a genuinely embarrassing way to die.
Then came the darkness, followed immediately by a sensation that I can only describe as being violently vacuum-sealed. It felt like my entire adult consciousness was being compressed, folded over itself, and forced through a straw. Time lost all meaning. There was no tunnel of light, no peaceful music, and certainly no angelic choir waiting to greet me. There was only pressure, a suffocating, crushing warmth, and a sudden, violent shove into the freezing cold.
When I finally managed to open my eyes, everything was a terrifying, agonizing blur of flickering orange candlelight, moving shadows, and loud, echoing noises that pounded against my eardrums like war drums. I tried to take a deep breath to calm the rising panic in my chest, to logically process why my limbs felt entirely useless and why my vision was operating at about four percent capacity. But the moment my lungs filled with air, the cold atmosphere hit my throat, and what came out instead of a rational question was a loud, high-pitched, wet, and thoroughly undignified shriek.
"He breathes! Thanks to the Mother, he breathes!" a panicked, elderly voice yelled from somewhere above me.
Before I could even attempt to stop crying, hands, a rough, heavily calloused hands covered in cold metal chains that clicked and clattered against one another grabbed my fragile body. I was plunged into a basin of warm water. Someone began scrubbing my skin with a piece of cloth that felt entirely too abrasive for my liking. I screamed my absolute head off in pure annoyance, flailing my tiny, uncoordinated arms. I was twenty-one years old, damn it. I had a fluids midterm next Tuesday. Why was a man in clanking chains giving me a sponge bath against my will?
"A boy, Your Grace! A living, breathing prince!" another voice roared, this one thick with overwhelming relief.
I was lifted out of the water, dried with a speed that made my head spin, and wrapped tightly in a thick, ridiculously soft blanket that smelled faintly of lavender and old wool. Swaddled so tightly I could barely wiggle a toe, I was carried across a massive, dimly lit chamber. The air was heavy, thick with the metallic scent of blood, the sharp sting of sweat, and the heavy perfume of burning herbs. The person holding me lowered my tiny form down onto a massive bed piled high with velvet furs.
I squinted hard, trying to force my blurry newborn vision to focus. Slowly, the shapes coalesced into a face. It was a pale, sweating woman with striking silver-gold hair that was plastered to her forehead in damp clumps. She looked completely exhausted, her skin translucent and shadowed with deep, purple bruises of fatigue beneath her eyes. Yet, as she looked down at me, her violet eyes shone with a mixture of fierce, primal love and unshed tears.
"My sweet boy," Queen Aemma Arryn whispered, her voice trembling as she pulled my tightly swaddled body against her bare chest. The warmth radiating off her was immense, a sharp contrast to the cold air of the room. "My beautiful, perfect boy. You stayed with me."
Before I could even begin to process the sheer weight of what those words meant—or the terrifying realization of whose face I was looking at. Holy shit! This lady looks the one from the first episode of hotd! I was rewatiching that show couple days ago! What the actual fuck! The heavy oak doors to the chamber burst open with a resounding thud.
Abubby, panicked man with a thinning crown of silver-gold hair rushed into the room, his rich velvet robes disheveled and dragging on the stone floor. King Viserys I Targaryen collapsed to his knees right by the bedside, completely ignoring the stains on the floor, and clutched Aemma’s hand like a man drowning at sea. He looked down at me, his face a mask of disbelief and pure awe. Ah this fat idiot. Abosolute baffoon. Nvm I dont wanna say too much apparently he is my new dad. Wait is Rhaenyra my sister? Is this before she was born? No viserys looks pretty much the same he looked in the first episode. Wait am I Baelon? Is this during the tourney scene? This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening.
"Aemma... he lives," Viserys choked out, tears instantly spilling over his cheeks and running into his short, neatly trimmed beard. "The Maesters said... Mellos told me the labor would share the same fate as the others. But look at him! He lives." This is just a dream, I am probably in a coma right now. When I wake up my friends would probably be there worried at first, then absolutely berate me for doing something stupid like falling down the stairs. This is just a dream, I am just in a coma.
"He is strong, Viserys," Aemma said softly, a weary but triumphant smile breaking through her exhaustion. She leaned down, kissing the top of my fuzzy, bald head. "He fought to be here. What shall we name him?" ah fuck, it isnt is it?
Viserys wiped his face with a trembling hand, his eyes never leaving mine. I, having finally realized that I had been reborn into the absolute meat grinder of the House of the Dragon universe, gave him a flat, slightly grumpy stare. I was still mad about the stairs, and I was deeply concerned about the lack of modern plumbing I was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. Viserys, however, didn't see a grumpy, reincarnated twenty-one-year-old. He saw a brave little miracle. He broke into a wet, booming laugh, completely charmed by my total lack of baby smiles.
"Baelor," Viserys declared proudly, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the birthing chamber. He lifted a hand, gently running a thick finger over my tiny brow. "He shall be named Baelor. After my father, Baelon the Brave. A name for a king." oh shit, so not Baelon? Must be before that then, probably one of earlier babies they lost. Please god dont make marry my sister. Please dont.
As the room erupted into cheers from the midwives and prayers of thanks from the Maesters, I closed my eyes and let out a tiny, milky sigh. Baelor. Baelor Targaryen. I had a new name, a new mother, a king for a father, and a looming civil war waiting for me in about twenty years. If I was going to survive this, I needed to start planning. But first, I desperately needed a nap.
The single greatest lie ever perpetrated by modern fantasy literature is the romance of reincarnation.
Before my twenty-one-year-old self took a fatal headers down a flight of basement stairs, I had read plenty of fanfics about guys waking up in magical worlds. They always skipped the first year. They always magically transitioned from a flash of light straight into a brilliant, sword-wielding toddler who could read ancient runes. Nobody ever warned me about the sheer, unadulterated psychological torture that was the absolute lack of autonomic control.
I was twenty-one years old. I had a driver's license. I had a bank account. And right now, I was trapped in a tiny, jelly-boned prison of flesh, completely unable to stop myself from aggressively ruining a perfectly clean silk blanket.
It happened on a random afternoon—or at least, I assumed it was a afternoon; time don't mean much when your entire schedule is dictated by whether a woman with silver hair decides it’s time for you to stare at a ceiling beam. I was lying in a silver-gilded cradle that was comfortable enough, trying to mentally calculate the compound interest on a hypothetical loan to the Iron Bank of Braavos just to keep my brain from rotting.
Then, a sudden, horrifying warmth bloomed in my lower abdomen.
No, I thought, my adult brain screaming in absolute panic. No, no, no. Hold the line. You are a grown man. You managed to pass calculus. Do not do this.
It didn’t matter. My infant nervous system didn't give a damn about my calculus grade. The muscles relaxed of their own accord, completely bypassing my conscious will. A heavy, wet, and thoroughly humiliating reality settled into the soft linen swaddling clothes beneath me.
I stared up at the canopy of the crib, my face turning a vibrant shade of crimson that had nothing to do with gas and everything to do with pure, existential shame. I tried to let out a deep, world-weary sigh of resignation, but because my vocal cords were still mostly mush, what actually came out of my mouth was a wet, pathetic: "Gwah."
"Oh, my sweet little dragon," a gentle voice cooed.
A wetnurse ( a kindly older woman named Martha whose hands always smelled faintly of tallow soap and onions) leaned over the cradle. She gave me a sympathetic, maternal smile that made me want to dissolve into the stone floor. With practiced, terrifying efficiency, she unswaddled me, lifting my legs into the air like I was a remarkably uncoordinated chicken.
I closed my eyes. I looked away. I actively dissociated, pretending I was back on Earth, sitting in a boring lecture about cell mitosis, anywhere but here. The absolute degradation of having a stranger wipe your backside while you flail your tiny, useless arms in the air is a level of psychological warfare that would break the toughest soldier in the marines.
Once the indignity of the changing was over, things somehow managed to get worse. My stomach let out a ferocious, high-pitched rumble.
The heavy oak doors of the nursery creaked open, and Queen Aemma walked in. She looked beautiful, her silver-gold hair braided neatly back, a warm, soft smile on her face as she looked at me. To the court, she was the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, a political figure of immense weight. To me, right now, she was something much more terrifying: a walking lunch counter.
"Is he hungry, Martha?" Aemma asked, settling herself onto a low, velvet-cushioned chair by the hearth.
"Fretful, Your Grace. The little prince has a fierce appetite today," Martha replied, handing my swaddled body over with a cheerful grin.
As Aemma began to unlace the front of her heavy silk gown, my adult mind went into absolute overdrive. Look away. Look at the wall. Look at that tapestry of Aegon the Conqueror over there. Focus on the dragon. Focus on anything else.
The first few weeks of this had been an absolute nightmare of moral and psychological crisis. I knew, logically, that this was a natural biological function. I knew that my tiny infant body would literally starve to death if I didn't cooperate. But knowing the science did absolutely nothing to lessen the sheer, staggering awkwardness of having a 21-year-old consciousness forced to partake in the traditional feeding habits of a newborn.
I tried to turn my head away, pressing my cheek against her shoulder to refuse, but a newborn's rooting reflex is an evolutionary superpower. The moment my cheek brushed against her skin, my primitive baby brain took the steering wheel, completely overriding my internal protests.
I ate because I had to survive. But I hated every single second of it.
To make matters infinitely worse, Aemma started singing. It was a soft, lilting Valyrian lullaby, her voice sweet and entirely full of genuine maternal affection. She gently stroked the fuzzy, silver-white peach fuzz on the top of my head, looking down at me with an expression of such pure, unconditional love that a tiny, treacherous part of my brain actually melted a little bit. It was hard to stay completely detached when someone was treating you like you were the single most precious thing in the entire world.
But the universe, as always, demanded balance.
Just as I finished, Aemma lifted me up, placing my chin over her shoulder to burp me. I was sitting there, staring blankly at the stone wall, feeling a profound sense of relief that the feeding ordeal was over for the next few hours.
Then, a sudden, violent bubble of air pocketed in my chest.
Oh, no, I thought, my eyes widening in horror.
Before I could even attempt to swallow or fight the rising tide, my stomach violently convulsed. A massive, sour wave of warm, half-digested milk rushed up my throat. With a loud, wet, and thoroughly un-royal thwip, I projectile-vomited a massive puddle of white sludge directly down the back of the Queen of Westeros’s priceless, custom-tailored dark green velvet gown. FUCKKK, FUCKK fuck this.
The nursery went dead silent.
Martha gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. I sat there on Aemma's shoulder, a single string of drool hanging from my bottom lip, my tiny face completely blank. Inside, my 21-year-old soul was curled up in a fetal position, screaming into the void. I just threw up on a queen. I am the Crown Prince of the Realm, and I have the habits of a broken lawn sprinkler.
Aemma didn't yell. She didn't call the wetnurses. She just let out a long, deeply tired, yet incredibly fond sigh. She reached up, gently wiping my chin with a clean cloth before patting my back again.
"You truly are your father’s son, Baelor," she murmured with a soft, weary chuckle, completely ignoring the massive, sour-smelling stain spreading across her shoulder. "He cannot handle his milk either."
I closed my eyes, letting my heavy, exhausted head drop against her collarbone. The physical toll of throwing up was already making my tiny body incredibly sleepy. As darkness began to pull me under for a much-needed nap, my final, lingering thought was a prayer to whatever gods brought me here: Please, let the next three years pass quickly. I cannot keep living like this. Please because I might actually crash out and burn them all.
WAIT