Work Text:
Somewhere, there was a stone, falling like a star. Reaching down from the sweet blue sky to touch his brow. In those final moments, Maekar thought of his brother and wondered if it would hurt.
Had Baelor felt it? He’d never asked the maester. Had never wanted to know. There was much in life he turned his eyes away from. He cast his gaze forward, to what he knew: his sword, his sons, his fury. The grief, the unseemly things, were crumpled up and cast away. But they were waiting for him, there at the end.
Dyanna was the first. Once, when they were young and wild, she clawed his back to ribbons as they coupled. It had taken several stinging weeks for the wounds to heal. He kept his restless hands away from the scabs, but just the thought of them made him harden in his breeches.
A few scarred, but they were only a whisper of silver. Dyanna had been beside herself and kissed him all over in apology. In those days, he would have let her do anything—kill him, maim him, tear him to pieces—if only she kissed him again.
It felt like another life, a stranger’s life, warm and without blemish. He could picture it still: Summerhall, suspended sweetly in time. The beds of Marcher roses never to wither; the butterflies dangling in the air, their frozen wings pretty as flower petals; their children with smiles full of missing milk teeth. Before it all went wrong.
Decades on, he could scarcely remember Dyanna’s face. The curl of her hair, the shade of her eyes, the way her mouth twisted in anger. It all faded. Only the scars remained, her kittenish scratches. He wrapped his arms around himself in the night so he could feel them, smooth under callused fingertips.
Aerion came to him, too. The ghostly, searing heat of his hand. Not the warmth of living flesh, but the scald of wildfire. It ate him up like wick, and in his agony, his begging and suffering and screams, a son’s hand found his father. Aerion’s fingers were red-hot brands, manacling his wrist. Skin sizzled, but Maekar could not pull himself away. He never could. The burn was hideous, but he was grateful for it. In the dark, he could count each of his son’s fingers.
Aegon’s marks were not so grievous. The boy bit savagely as a babe, and not a few wet nurses fled him in agony. He let the boy teeth on his fingers, heedless of the pain, till his knuckles were damp with blood and spit. The faintest patchwork of scars remained.
It was impossible to match that infant to the knight beside him. Aegon’s teeth had grown long and dragon-sharp, leering down from his nightblack visor. Beneath it, he bellowed in a man’s voice, but it was full of a boy’s fear. His son. The fourth, the last, but not like him. Not the least.
The pox marks were easy to forget. They were a childhood hurt, lost beneath a life’s accumulated aches and griefs. But still he dreamt of the sickroom, the swelter, of his brother’s cool hand on his brow. His face bubbled and oozed, but he curled up in Baelor’s lap and let himself be held. Let his brother wipe the tears and pus from his cheeks. Let Baelor promise that all would be well, and believed him.
There were no scars from the tourney. He had always hated that. It felt absurd that there was not some great wound writ across him, where all that he was and would ever be had been wrenched out. That his brother should disappear without marking him. That the sun should still rise and fall, that the world should still be whole, without his brother in it.
There was a great emptiness at the center, gaping open like a widow’s wailing mouth. With the king and queen and all their sons gone, he was the only one left to feel it. And he felt it then. Felt the ropes being wound, smelled the sweat and fear of the men on the battlements high above, felt the end as it took his hand.
The comet was close now, splitting open the sky. Its heat prickled in every scar, in the hidden corner of his heart where his brother still lived. Time slowed and grew fickle. The years melted into each other, a swirl of joy and pain and color. Maekar let himself sink into it, leaving the shell of his armor and himself behind.
It was a joy to be a boy again, catching lantern bugs in his hands. Baelor was there, as he always was in his dimmest and sweetest memories. The sun was gone, and they were standing together in a nameless field. The godswood, the kingswood, some place of their own making.
There was no moon in the sky, but a sprawling tapestry of stars. A few had fallen within reach, golden heartbeats floating all around them.
Gentle, Baelor reminded him, as Maekar grasped for one. It was too dark to see his brother’s smile, but he could feel it.
They’re only bugs, he wanted to retort, but he couldn’t find it in himself to argue. Not when the night was so perfect, windless and still. A part of him wanted to chase the stars through the glen, but he would not stray from his brother’s side. It was so rare that it was just the two of them anymore, the first prince and the last.
He raised his hands to snatch another star from the sky, but it flitted beyond his reach. Baelor was taller, had always been, and he caught it easily. Even after his brother opened his hands, the star rested placidly in his palm, glowing softly.
Here, his brother said, taking his hand in his own. Gentle, remember?
Maekar closed his fingers around it. He knew better now than to grasp too tightly, to crush it in his fist, but the stars had never loved him as they did his brother. The lantern bug strained unhappily against the cage of his cupped hands. Starlight leaked from between his fingers, fading with each pulse. Night wrapped around him in a heavy black cloak.
Somewhere, men were shouting, screaming, slashing with their steel. He knew it would not be long now.
Does it hurt? he asked, in a boy’s high, thin quaver.
He could imagine Baelor’s quizzical look. Does what hurt?
He didn’t know. There was nothing to be afraid of, not anymore. He looked up to the heavens so he would not have to look at his brother.
I missed you, he thought, and didn’t say. No matter where he went or who he was, he always had himself and his shame.
Baelor laughed, warm and fond. His brother always knew him best, knew him worst. Maekar never needed to say anything at all. The stars shimmered as Baelor bent and kissed his brow.
It didn’t, in the end. It didn’t hurt.