𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐈 — 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄

" 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐈 & 𝐑𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐍𝐘𝐑𝐀 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐄𝐍 𝐈 "

𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 dreamed of marrying a handsome man, someone who was strong and kind, won tourney battles then would name her the Queen of Beauty and would forever be faithful to her. She dreamed of raising a handful of kids in a nice castle surrounded by love and the lavishes that came with being a daughter of a noble. She wanted to make her mother proud, proud that she was being a faithful and good daughter. That's all she wanted in life, she didn't care for much else.

It was most certainly selfish as a daughter of a noble, especially a daughter of a man like Otto Hightower whose ambitions only grew as he became older. Being the daughter of the Hand of the King meant her dreams had nothing to do with her future. No, she was to be married off to whoever fit her father's agenda, to marry for power and alliances, not something as frivolous as love.

It was something she had in common with the Realm's Princess, Rhaenyra Targaryen, who was her closest and only friend growing up in the Court of Snakes and false smiles and pleasantries. While they were different people, one being the daughter of a king and heir to the great Iron Throne and her being the daughter of a noble albeit one to the most powerful - they enjoyed each other's company and had fun times together.

So when her father told her to visit her sad King, Viserys Targaryen the First after the tragic death of his first wife, Aemma Arryn,- a woman Alicent loved and almost saw as a mother figure after the passing of her own - she knew she had no place to deny him. She never could and never would deny her father anything, she was powerless against Otto Hightower and always will be. She was a woman and that's all she would be even if someone slapped a flowery title of Queen in front of her name. She would still be powerless against her father.

She didn't want to spend her time talking and comforting a sad and very old man about a dead woman when she was trying to garner his favour to be named his next wife. Alicent hated herself immensely in the candlelight when she read softly to the King, knowing the ghost of Amma Arryn, a beautiful woman inside and out who had been so kind to her, was watching her with a disgusted look as she mingled with her husband.

While Viserys was not the man of her dreams, he was kind to her and enjoyed her presence. But she hated that she had to lose her dearest friend and sister, Rhaenyra, to their marriage. While she understood Rhaenyras's hatred and the sense of betrayal that always lingered on her face when she saw her with her father. She had no choice in the matter, she was just like the Princess, passed off to the highest bidders. Her wishes were nothing in the face of the betterment of the realm.

When they had their first child, just nine months after their marriage, who was no doubt conceived on the night of their bedding after the marriage ceremony she was overjoyed. The process was traumatizing, she was in pain, scared for her life thinking it would kill her like it did Aemma Arryn and she was alone with only two handmaidens and a Maester. After hours of labour, she held a prince to the realm in her pale and shaky hands.

A son, something Aemma Arryn had failed time and time again to give Viserys. She understood the need to bear a son, especially to the king - by the Seven did she understand the need, the overwhelming pressure to have sons and not daughters but a daughter was what Alicent wanted.

It was Alicents love for Rhaenyra that she did not name him Aegon like her father wanted her to. She named him Arrax, a name she found in a book of Old Gods in Valyria she read to Viserys. While she believed heavily in the Faith of the Seven like her mother and like most of the realm. She wanted her first son, a dragon of Targyaren to have a dragon's name thus Viserys named him Arrax, a fitting for the heir to the Iron Throne she thought.

Her life as Queen wasn't what she wanted but it was what she got and she couldn't be mad when she held her little son in her hands, a pale and small little life form breathing softly unknowing of the horrors of the world she had brought him into. Children were so innocent and soon she would slowly start to resent her children for that and herself.

𝐑𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐍𝐘𝐑𝐀 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 been born a son like her father desperately wanted her to be or how the realm had desperately wanted her to be. She was not a son. She was a daughter, crafted like a mirror image of her late mother.

She had not been a son and she never would be. She had known that for years but it seemed the Realm had not yet understood that or they did and tried their hardest to tell her as if she hadn't known. As if she hadn't known the disappointment she must've been in her Father's arms the moment she was out of her mother's womb and that she would be the only child to come from him and his wife.

She had not been a son and that was what killed her mother. For the King's greed for a son killed his wife and queen. Child after child, miscarriage after miscarriage and only for Rhaneyra to come along and ten years later to have Aemma die along with her first and only living son. How ironic it must've been for the others in attendance who witnessed the death of her mother and brother Baleon.

So when Rhaenyra was with child, she wished and prayed to the Gods that she would come out of the battlefield of womanhood alive. She cared not if it was a son or a daughter, she just wished it was alive and she could hold the child in her arms for many years to come.

When Rhaneyra gave birth and held her child - a son, she laughed and laughed until the tears came. For the child was everything her father wished her to be. Birthed during a dark and cold night, the moon high in the air and distressed dragons fluttering their wings in the Dragon Pits and letting out strong cries. Maegor, she named him as a slight on Alicent Hightower who had named her second son Aegon and to the people at Court who had nothing better to do than whisper behind her back.

She was in an angry headspace when she gave birth to her first son in Kings Landing alone and without her husband only to have her lover and loyal guard, Harwin Strong, waiting outside. She cursed her father, Alicent, the Gods and the realm when she was deep in the throws of labour for living such a cursed life where she couldn't marry the one she wanted and to be giving birth to a bastard, having an idea of what was in store for her precious children.

But when the child was finally placed in her sweaty and pale arms, she loved him. She finally understood what her mother meant when she talked about the joys of becoming a mother. Every problem Rhaenyra had, every whisper of the court turned to smoke and Rhaenyra did not care for anything else at that moment - just Maegor Velaryon. While people asked why she called her first son such a daring name due to its predecessor, she did not give them an answer.

It seemed right at the moment and she wanted to give her child a chance, for people to potentially back off in their superstition-addled minds. The child looked nothing like her or her 'husband' and looked like the spitting image of what she would imagine Harwin to look like when he was a small baby. With his dark curly hair, slightly tanned skin and his almost black eyes - he did not look like a Targaryen or a Velaryon, only taking the angular eyebrows and sharp nose from his mother.

It was clear but Rhaenyra did not care, her little dragon was just that - a dragon. As time went by and she had two more sons with Harwin Strong, the fact that Maegor was not a Dragonborn son became clearer. While her two younger sons, Jacryes and Lucerys had the same physical lay attributes as their older brother, it could be ignored when their dragon eggs hatched and grew up alongside them.

Maegor's egg did in fact not hatch, no matter the countless nights he spent sleeping by the fire in hopes the company would lure the dragonet out or the small broken murmures of high Valyrian he spoke to it every night before bed. As the years went by with him pleading with the dragon gods to let him have his birthright and watching his younger brothers with their own dragons he gave up on the nights he would tell the egg stories.

Dragon laid in enteral slumber in the middle of his room amongst the burning coals and would forever stay there until it hatched but Rhaneyra knew it would never hatch. After her firstborn came to terms with the fact he would not have a dragon like his brothers or his uncles and aunt he changed. While she knew he was different to her other sons, with his quiet disposition unlike Jace and Luke's childhood enthusiasm who reminded her of the sun, Maegor reminded her of the moon.

He glowed in the dark where he found the most comfort, especially in the catacombs amongst the skulls of dead dragons - while Jace and Luke loved running around the lit hallways of the castle and the dragon pits.

It was plain to see Maegor had an eerie emptiness about him and as he aged it only grew wider and darker. He was a quiet child but his dark eyes watched and watched, he observed everyone in a dark corner of silence.

If one looked hard enough you could see words and thoughts running through his eyes. While his face hardly ever betrayed what he was thinking, his bright coal eyes showed the world everything. She would've thought, Alicent's firstborn was an idiot if he couldn't realize how in love her son was with him if not for the same love boiling in his lilac eyes.

It was hard as a mother to see your child with an almost melancholy disposition, especially at such a young age. She wasn't completely sure if it was because of his dragon or if he was just born that way. Though he was a quiet baby, never screaming for attention or crying for whaterb reason like his younger brothers. Despite being different to his brothers, he loved them and tried being there as an older brother, a role model and a protector. Maegor protected them from themselves when they got in trouble and when the whispers got too loud.

While not being his father's true son, he took after him in the fact he did not like women much. Perhaps it was silly to assume due to his young age but it wasn't hard to see the relationship he had with Alicents oldest child, Arrax Targaryen - her younger brother.

Rhaenyra would see them from the windows milling around the garden as if they had all the time in the world and she hoped they did. They would sit under red weir wood trees for hours lying amongst each other, Maegor would listen to Arrax's every word with a preconceived detachment that would deter most people but Maegor could recite every word the white-haired boy spoke about.

They would disappear for hours on end either in the shadows of the catacombs or in the forest l outside the city walls only for a knight to bring the two princes back. They often returned with wet hair and their clothes sticking to their bodies from their time in the pond. Rhaenyra and Alicent were at a stun by how they kept fleeing the palace walls but they couldn't help but see the parallels between their sons.

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kinda short but idk what else to put this so have another kinda prologue
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