Reflections (In Another Life)
The baby dies.
But the Queen lives.
Alicent doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Good of course because she will not be forced to marry the King but the bad too because the Queen is weak. She survives but her spirit is diminished, her face tired. Alicent doesn’t have to look at her father to know he is counting down the days. The King is tired too but Rhaenyra manages to get to her Uncle. The Seven knows what she says but Deamon does not shoot his mouth off and therefore he stays as heir to the throne. Rhaenyra does not weep over her brother and she does not weep over her inheritance either. She does not speak about it but she does not weep Alicent can see that much.
Then one morning as the Queen again does not leave her bed she comes to Alicent and says simply.
“I told Daemon”
“About what?”
“All of it”
She chokes on her wine. Rhaenyra sighs as if she was expecting this but she gestures to the door and out of the corner comes Daemon Targaryen himself.
Alicent watches him. He still walks as if he commands the palace. She still cannot help but be a bit in love with him. Daemon is still the most intimidating man she ever met. He is the man who will kill her son, Aemond dies in the God’s Eye and nobody ever knows if Daemon survives. But he loved his wife with all he had and Alicent would not wish this time around to be on the wrong side of him. Arguably as well growing up he was the subject of many a crush she had. It was just reality. There was not a lot of good looking men in the Red Keep.
“So” Daemon says sitting down between them (always fucking between them Alicent thinks viciously). “I heard”
“Are you here to help?” she askes viciously. Daemon shoots her a long look she is quite sure she doesn’t like.
“Yes” he says finally. “Rhaenyra tells me that this war will see the end to the Dragons. And I do not want that, our family became Kings because of the Dragons, I will not see my reign end with them”
“Caraxes dies with Vhagar at his throat. He takes Vhagar down but he does not recover” she says and Daemon flinches. Until her own children and even for a little while afterwards Alicent did not get the bond between dragon and rider. She remembers as though from a distant dream the woman to her left sobbing when Syrax fell from the sky, her hands in her hair, both of her sons gone and her husband and now her dragon. She remembers Aegon when it was clear Sunfyre had not survived. She remembers it all.
“You are to be King then in this new world”
“I am. And I will see your father to the sword if he plots against me”
She finds she doesn’t really care. Actually to be honest that image rather appeals to her. Her father has brought her nothing but misery in her long life, married to a man who didn’t love her, whose touch inspired disgust, who never saw her or her children, the death of three of those children and then the end of the world as she knew it in fire and blood.
Alicent does not want to see her father, she has been avoiding him like one avoids the plague if she is being honest. She does not want him and she does not trust him.
“So you will become King?”
“And I will take Rhaenyra to wife”
Rhaenyra chokes on her wine.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I will take you to wife”
“You will not…not without my say so. My children—”
“Are if Alicent is telling the truth bastards” his violet eyes switch her to. “I assume that is not something that you made up?”
“How many dark haired Uncles do you have” she says quietly. She will not deny Harwin and the love that he and Rhaenyra had, she will not deny that she had something similar with Cristian once upon a time but the truth is that Jace, Luke and Joffrey were…well…
Daemon nods his eyes cold as he looks at her.
“I will take you to wife and we will see an end to the rebellion plotting beneath our feet. Now that I will not shoot my mouth off about my brother’s dead—”
Rhaenyra stands up so suddenly it gives them both whiplash. She walks to the balcony and then turns to look at them both her hair shining in the bright sunlight and Alicent thinks that this conversation is a far cry from this morning when she was curled up around her friend her head on her chest letting Rhaenyra cry to her hearts content over the death of the baby that would have made things a lot easier.
“I am not the problem Uncle” she says clearly. “If my mother is to die—” here her face does a complicated wobble that has both Alicent and Daemon no doubt itching to comfort her. “Then Alicent will be forced to marry my father—”
“Not if I have anything to say about it—”
“Then he will marry someone” she says cautiously. “And we are here again. We have too…we have to make it so that we have stacked the deck. House Hightower linked with House Targaryen but not to close to the throne. We have to make it so that their futures are intertwined enough to please Otto but not enough to see a war break out”
“And how do you reckon that is going to happen?” Daemon asks sardonically. “Unless you are serious about my earlier plan to burn him out of his house and home and blame it on my dragon having a bad day”
Alicent laughs before she can stop herself. Even now Daemon is still Dameon.
“I think there is a way. All my father wants is the security of the realm. He will push for you to marry again. Alicent’s father will never allow it to be me that marries you, he will want his own line near the throne. So I propose something else” she folds her hands in her lap and Alicent can already tell she is not going to like this plan.
“Hear me out” she says proving her right. “If Alicent and you were to marry—”
“ABSOLUTLY NOT” She shouts standing up and nearly throwing her chair back. Daemon raises one eyebrow.
“Well” he says sounding rather offended. “There is no need to be so vocal Alicent I can assure you, you are not my first choice either”
“LISTEN TO ME” Rhaenyra says and she crosses the room and takes Alicent’s hands in her own rubbing her fingers against the bleeding cuticles. “I am not suggesting anything between us changes” she says completely ignoring Daemon. “I will still marry Leanor that I understand because we must have Driftmark in the family. I will still conduct my own affairs especially if you are right about Leanor being interested in cock over cunt. I will still come to you—” she reaches out and brushes Alicent’s hair back and her eyes bleed violet. “And you will have your children with Daemon. Then when my father has died Daemon will take me to wife in our customs but keep you in yours. Aegon the Conqueror did just that with his two sisters I don’t see why we can’t”
“Does anyone want to know what Dameon thinks of this plan?”
Rhaenyra rolls her eyes and does not look at her Uncle. Her eyes do not leave Alicent’s.
“Then when my father is dead Daemon is king.”
“Then it is still my son against yours” she says to Rhaenyra. “Don’t you see my father will declare his grandson eldest over yours”
“Not if I decree otherwise”
“Your brother did the same it didn’t work” she said scathingly. Deamon sighed.
“Look…this is utterly insane even for this family” he says standing up. “But my niece is right. Our families customs count. Any marriage to her in the old tongue will invalidate any in your faith. The Targaryen line must be preserved. Two Targaryen’s married and producing children counts over whatever children you and I have. Even your father cannot defend that. And…there is one way around it that doesn’t have you my dear niece prancing across the guards room in your nightshift”
“Oh?”
“I marry you both at the same time.”
Now both of them look at him.
“What?” Alicent says, she can feel a headache coming on she really can. Daemon seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself here.
“I marry Rhaenyra in our faith, then I marry you. I will tell my brother I had a prophecy or something…don’t look at me like that Alicent believe me he sings this song about a Prince that was Promised more than he has wine for dinner. And I won’t tell him about this, I will tell him that I was compelled by our ancestors to do what is good for the realm. Because I married Rhaenyra first any children I have with her will come before yours but yours will still be protected. After that…you can do what you like with who you like. I don’t care if our children have red hair or brown. I don’t care that the two of you have an affection. I don’t care…I will not have this dynasty of dragons end with us. I will not lose him” his voice twists for a second and Rhaenyra’s face softens and once again Alicent finds herself adrift in the sea that is the love of dragon and dragon rider that she has never understood. She looks between the two of them and thinks that this is insanity.
“You suggest the three of us share a bed?” she asks quietly.
“I do”
“And if my sons are born with brown hair?” Rhaenyra asks. “Will you accuse me of infidelity”
Deamon shakes his head. His gaze is tender as he looks down at his niece. Alicent knows that look has existed his entire life. Through that time where he defended her against foe both in word and deed. He loves her, he always has and he always will in that odd Targaryen way that nobody but them understand. She has seen it with her other husband.
But what Daemon is offering isn’t terrible she thinks wildly. The old her would be scandalised but what he is offering is not terrible. He is offering to be the father of her children—and Gods knows lying with him has to be better than the humiliation and mortification and disgust of what his brother put her through. With another Sire, one that might actually acknowledge them her children might be different. He is offering her Rhaenyra too. Or Rhaenyra is offering herself that part is not one hundred percent clear but she can keep her best friend. Once Daemon and her are done she will be free to seek her desires elsewhere.
But more importantly there will be no Dance, the Dragons will be safe. She will not lose her children and her grandchildren.
Daemon is right. It is insane. But it’s the best plan they’ve got and admittedly it is one her father will not see coming.
“You might be disinherited anyway” she points out. “When he finds out what you have done”
“I might” he says cheerfully “But I won’t. Like you said there is nobody else. There is me or Rhaenyra. With you by our side there is no other claimants.”
“Rhaenys?”
Daemon shrugs. “Maybe” he says casually. “But the Lords don’t want a woman. And if they did they would choose Rhaenyra not her”
Again she cannot fault with his logic.
But still…
She turns and walks to the balcony and Rhaenyra follows her. Below them Criston is training. Alicent looks at him and doesn’t know what to think.
“Did you both really find him attractive?”
Trust Deamon to cut through the shit she thinks.
“Yes” she says and Rhaenyra smirks catching on quick. Gods Alicent misses this.
“He has a certain charm” she says winking. Daemon huffs.
“He has about as much charm as the droppings in the dragon pit” he says viciously. He frowns and then.
“Ladies are we getting married or what?”
“You know this is probably going to end up with all of us exiled” Rhaenyra says quietly.
“Probably” Daemon says easily. “But I hear Essos is very nice this time of year.”
God help her.
This is the plan.
She thinks of her children and she thinks of her friend and she thinks of those pesky dragons and she thinks of herself. This might be madness, this might be utter insanity but this is the closest thing that she will ever have to choosing something herself. Not since…
She doesn’t look down below. He is gone to her now.
She sighs and then slowly she reaches forwards and takes Daemon’s hand and then Rhaenyra’s. Rhaenyra beams. Dameon looks suspicious but then his look relaxes a fragment.
“Were doing this” she says and Rhaenyra beams.
Dameon looks like the cat that’s got the cream she thinks tiredly.
Two days later Rhaenyra Targaryen weds her Uncle Daemon in the customs of her house.
Three hours later Alicent Hightower weds Daemon Targaryen in the customs of her own.
By nightfall the storm has broken.
But she has a feeling somehow that this will pass.
Perhaps it is naïve of her but that’s what she believes.
Well…she’s in this now for the long haul come what may.
She just wishes Daemon would stop smiling.