The Great Impersonation
The fever takes her, the fire takes Rhaenyra, the Gods Eye swallows up Daemon and Aemond, Aemond kills Luke, Aegon is burned beyond anything good, Heleana throws herself off the Red Keep, her father is beheaded in front of her, her brother too, Cristian is barely recognisable, the Kingdom is torn apart and the Dragons fly no more. It leads to the beginning of the end of House Targaryen and as good as wipes hers off the map. She loses her children, her dignity and her standing all in one sweep and a fever takes her and her personality, her person, her very sense of self and identity is wiped away and she becomes a footnote in history, a bad Queen, a cold Queen, an unfeeling mother who did not deserve to have children, someone they scoffed at, a cunt who had no idea how the house she married into worked, who deserved all she got.
She has never been seen as herself.
Until now.
She wakes up gasping for air and it takes a moment for her to realise that something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.
For a start she is not in her chambers, she is not in the chambers she had been in before, there is no cold air blowing into her chambers but there is a cool summer air blowing through the open windows and when she lifts her hands to her sight she sees that her cuticles are there not bloody as they were before. When she sits up she does not feel the fever grip her. She does not feel the weight of the world on her shoulders, the consequences of her actions and as she swings her legs out of the bed she realises she is not in the Queen’s chambers. She is not even wearing green.
She is in her old chambers. And when she looks in the mirror she sees her face, her looking glass has never deceived her before no matter how much she would like it to. She is seeing her face as smooth as it was when she was sixteen.
Somehow, impossibly she is sixteen again and when she goes onto the balcony and looks down she realises that somehow, she, Alicent Hightower has gone back in time.
Because a very young Prince Daemon is walking below her window.
And then her knees give out.
It takes a visit to the sept and two glasses of wine she should not have to get her to understand the semblance of what has happened. Queen Aemma is still pregnant, Rhaenyra is her best friend flying her dragon in the sky and the Dance of the Dragons has not happened.
Alicent goes by route of what she remembers that day to be like. She knows that she will meet Rhaenyra at the dragonpit, knows that by the end of the week her Queen will be dead and by the end of the month she will be the new Queen.
And she does not want that. Being Queen has seen her birth four children, lose two and her best friend will turn on her. She will go to war over Rhaenyra and her actions and if she is being totally honest with herself she has to admit that with Christian, finally with a man who could bring her pleasure she can understand why Rhaenyra did what she had done. Why she had sought out pleasure with another man when her own husband was so lacking. And she had used Rhaenyra’s desires against her and held her own close to her chest.
Funny thing when you were dying Alicent thought as the carriage stopped at the Dragonpit.
You begin to realise the flaws within yourself. What you would do differently.
There was a roar which told her that Syrax had landed but then…then she thought…it was as if the dragon roar and the crashing of her own thoughts had hit her in quick succession. Why should she not change the future? Why should she not try and stop what was going to be a catastrophic clash of dragons. She had seen the world burnt, land and people destroyed, she had seen the end of the house she had served for so many years and the deaths of everyone she had loved. Her bitterness and hatred for Rhaenyra, for her freedom, for the choices she had made while Alicent was shackled from one man to another had dominated her life, she had never known Rhaenyra the mother, the Queen she could be. When they had come face to face at the end Rhaenyra had lost two sons in this war and she had lost her daughter and her grandchildren, Aegon had been taken from her and Aemond…well…for him…if she could change what happened to him that would be a start.
The more she thought about it the more she realised that maybe this could work. The Seven had sent her back in time for a reason, maybe it was to stop the Dance of Dragons. If the Queen had her son and lived then Alicent would never been Queen and neither would Rhaenyra. If the Queen died Alicent would know her father’s plots and inner workings enough to stop him. She might be trapped in her sixteen year old body but she had the knowledge of what was to come and she had the power to stop it.
She and Rhaenyra.
Because Alicent might have been the Queen of the Greens but she knew she needed the Queen of the Blacks with her on this. The Princess and the Queen. Between the two of them they might be able to save the Dragons, to save House Targaryen from the beginning of the end.
And she knew it would end. One did not have to stick one’s hand on the tree at Harenhall to know that eventually this house would devour itself. Without dragons, what was the difference between them and the Starks, the Lannister’s, the Baratheon’s?
The door opened and she stepped out.
This was her moment, this was her battle cry.
And she stepped forwards.
Rhaenyra was just as beautiful as she had always been. Silver hair swaying down her back, covered in dragon dust, infectious smile on her face. Her friend had been a lovely person then, when she had been sure that she was going to have the security and the safety she had always grown up with. Alicent who was achingly aware now as she had been then of how she felt about her best friend found herself falling more in love with her by the second.
“Syrax is growing” she said looking at the dragon she had seen fall over the city.
“Big enough to saddle two” Rhaenyra said beaming.
Alicent looked and then decided if she was going to change history she may as well start as she meant to go on.
“I might take you up on that one of these days”
Rhaenyra blinked.
“You’ve never wanted to do that before?”
“I’ve never had reason to before” she said as she climbed back into the carriage her friend following her.
“What?” Rhaenyra asked looking at her. “You look…odd…has something happened is it mother?”
“No. I…I fear I must tell you something, but I do not know how you will react…in truth I fear you might have me committed to the Sept for madness”
Rhaenyra shot her a look.
“Please” she said easily leaning back amongst the pillows. “I am not going to do that, you are my dearest friend—”
“I am your only friend”
“And therefore my dearest. There is nothing that you cannot tell me” she moved forwards to tuck her hand within her own.
“You can tell me Alicent. Whatever it is, and I will try to fix it”
Alicent wondered if this was the very living definition of famous last words.
It took dragging Rhaenyra back into her room and saying she felt dizzy to the maids for them to be left alone. She tucked her down onto the bed and poured her some wine but Rhaenyra was silent. Her eyes were unseeing as if she was replaying events through her head time and time again. Alicent watched her and resisted the urge to bite her nails down to the quick.
“I know you must think I am mad—”
“I do not” Rhaenyra said quietly. “I…I…do not ask my why but I do not find you…I think…the…I can see it” she said looking up her lilac eyes wide. “I can see how it happens I can see…I can see your father and mine and I can see Daemon and the storming off…I just…I can see why with Leanor I would…why…but I do not understand why you would turn against me?”
“It was not intentional” Alicent said quietly. “I just…you lived your life so free and I was so imprisoned…” she shakes her head and revels at the fact that her red hair contrasts with her blue dress. There is no green in sight. She does not want to wear green ever again.
Rhaenyra looks at her with sadness.
“I…I didn’t mean to hurt you” she says and Alicent thinks she looks like a child. A little child who has never had to understand that there were consequences. But then again Rhaenyra has buried two sons, her mother, her father, a husband, a lover, another husband too…she has lost everything.
And Alicent is beyond blame and recrimination. She can still see the look in her daughters eyes as she clutched her granddaughter sitting on the floor with the ache from Cristian Cole still between her thighs.
She sighs and sits down on the chair.
“I tell you this because I believe we can stop it”
“Telling my father—”
“Oh Gods no I am not suggesting that!”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“You and I…we must stop what happens. Maybe we cannot stop everything but if we can stop the Dance of the Dragons, our families, our children may be saved. If we do end up having our affairs, we must never let our children know the truth, we must do what we can to save the Dragons”
“You’ve never liked the Dragons before?”
“I have never had reason to. But I have seen what happens when a Dragon is killed. I have seen what happens when the Dragons go to war in the sky. And I do not want to be enemies with you. I love you Rhaenyra”
Rhaenyra takes a gasp and then her hand comes out and tugs Alicent forwards. They fall back onto the bed together as they have done many times before but this time there is a heatedness to it. There is an understanding and this time Alicent knows even if she is forced to marry the King she will not lose Rhaenyra because of it. She knows it deep in her bones like the whore she suspects they both are they will crawl from beds, the King, his brothers, Leanor, Harwin Strongs, Cristian Cole, they will crawl back to the other.
“Don’t leave me this time” she begs. “Please don’t turn your back on me this time I can’t…I would not be able to bare it”
Rhaenyra nods her head. “I won’t” she vows and she takes her hand and presses it to her heart just underneath her breast. If Alicent was to move her thumb just the right way…
“And you will not lose me” Rhaenyra promises. “We will live our lives as best we can weather that involves other people. We will have our children brown haired, red haired, silver haired…we will have our children and I will never leave your side and you will never leave mine…and when your father comes for you or for me he will find us united side by side”
Alicent kisses her hand and Rhaenyra kisses hers.
It’s not a plan per say, not yet.
But it’s a start.
And Gods knows the future that she is going to build her is going to be better than the one she left.
Alicent will not let that become her future. She will not let it become Rhaenyra’s. She will not let it become her children’s future either.
Rhaenyra’s eyes are big in her face and she smells of dragon and her lips when they come down on Alicent’s are soft and so unlike her father’s and they are left alone for the afternoon as the council plots on unaware that the Princess and the once and future Queen are wrapped up in each other’s arms plotting against them for a better outcome for themselves and their children.