Aegon
Abed, Aegon’s sisters are as different as night and day.
Visenya likes to be kissed slowly, softly, to explore and be explored. She likes to be touched gently, and arches like a cat against Aegon’s hands, shudders against his rough words. The first few times, Visenya had been deeply embarrassed by her reactions, but Aegon finds that a soothing touch, a murmured word against her hair calms her. There are other nights when she is overwhelmed by it all, and pulls away, but always comes back to his arms.
Rhaenys is not nearly so docile. She gives as good as she gets, scratches, bites, kisses hard and fast. Often, it is Rhaenys who takes the lead with Aegon, pins him down and sucks bruises into his throat before he can even process the change in position. When it is the two of them, Aegon loses himself in the physicality of it all, forgets everything but her name.
It is because they are so different that Aegon has not pictured the three of them, together in this way that Rhaenys has suggested. But he cannot deny that once the thought is in his head, it nearly drives him mad with lust.
He nearly loses his head thinking about it when he practices at swords with Visenya that morning. As different as they are in the night, they are even more so by day. Rhaenys can seem demure if she wants, gentle and almost womanly, sewing with the septa, arguing gently about poetry from the age of the Andals with Tyrion Lannister. There is no hint of his wild sister in the light of day, not until her violet eyes meet his and make him flush and duck behind her into one of the unused rooms at Dragonstone.
And Visenya… there is nothing of the careful, touch-starved girl with walls of ice that he has come to know. In the day, Visenya is a warrior, fierce and strong and cold. The only times he sees her thaw in the light is when she is riding her horse, watching Ghost, fighting or plucking away at the harp. Some days it seems like she is too far for Aegon to reach, across a chasm he cannot cross, until at last he finds her again in her bed and they are close, closer than flesh alone can bring them.
“What is wrong with you?” Visenya pants now, backing away from him, her sword still raised. Aegon plants his feet and tries to banish his thoughts. “If you can’t continue, say so.”
“I can,” Aegon insists, and swipes at a bead of sweat on his forehead. Visenya raises a brow, and the next thing Aegon knows, he’s blinking up at the sky and his head is burning.
“Told you to keep your shield up,” Visenya says, her breathing still ragged. “Else I’ll ring your head like a bell.”
With that, she turns away from him and calls back, “Race you to the keep!”
Before she can go more than a few steps away, Aegon hooks his foot around her ankle and pulls. Swearing, Visenya goes down and lands on his chest in a heap of limbs and practice armor. The sudden pain takes Aegon’s breath away, but when he gets it back he finds he is laughing.
“—such a child,” Visenya is muttering, but Aegon notices that she hasn’t moved away yet. Her arms are tense against his chest, though so she’ll be pulling away soon unless he gets it out. The words burn in his throat, but he forces himself to say it.
“Rhaenys spoke to me,” he starts. Visenya doesn’t move; she hums instead, and Aegon feels the vibrations through the plate of his practice armor. Tentatively, so as to not scare Visenya away, Aegon lifts his hand and cards his fingers through her hair softly. Visenya makes an appreciative noise. She won’t be moving away yet. “She…wanted me to talk to you about it.”
“About what?” Visenya says, almost drowsily. With the last of the summer sun reaching them through the tall grass, she looks content against his chest. Aegon wishes he could make her look this way all the time, wishes that they could be this close always.
“Us. The three of us.” Aegon clears his throat. His mouth is dry. “Together.”
There is a moment of tense silence, and suddenly, Visenya has wrenched herself off him. The weight of her hands pushing her off against his chest hurts, and Aegon sucks in a breath.
“What?” Visenya demands, and with the sun at her back, Aegon can’t see the expression on her face. He imagines it’s angry, that she’s figured out the horrible fantasy that’s been playing in his mind for months, the fantasy he’s only just acknowledged with Rhaenys’s prodding.
“Don’t be mad,” Aegon whispers, and reaches out for her. Visenya resists, staying stubbornly out of reach. “I’m just telling you what she wants.”
Visenya laughs bitterly. “I know what she wants, Aegon. And I know that you never do anything you don’t want to, either.”
“Would it be so different?” Aegon asks, his voice raw with hurt. “You’ve been with me. I know you and Rhaenys have done some things as well. Would it be so awful to try?”
Visenya is quiet, and finally, she lowers down enough that Aegon can see her face. She’s still too far for him, and his hands ache to close their gap, but he knows that Visenya hates nothing so much as an unwelcome touch. “Do you know what people will say?” she asks, her voice hard. Her eyes are closed off, her expression pinched. “They already talk about the wolf-bitch who has to fuck her brother. Imagine what they would say to this.”
Aegon straightens, and suddenly he is angry as well. As awful as it is, he takes comfort in the familiarity of this anger. He and Visenya have been at odds all their lives, it seems, and it’s easier to be angry with her than it is to be in love with her. “What do people have to do with our lives?” Aegon demands. “This marriage is between us, Visenya, between you, me and Rhaenys. People have nothing to do with it.”
Visenya’s laugh is disbelieving, and she matches his fire with some of her own. “We are the heirs to the Iron Throne,” she hisses. “Of course people have something to do with it. They are our people.”
“Visenya—” Aegon starts, but she wrenches herself away from him, and marches to her horse. When he follows, he can see that the tears have started in her eyes, but she isn’t letting them fall. For some reason, Aegon feels like crying too.
Slowly, he comes around the horse, and raises his hand to trace a finger down her cheek. Visenya turns her head away, but doesn’t move from him. Aegon takes that as an allowance, and lowers his head so he can kiss her.
The kiss is barely a whisper against her lips, but Aegon can feel Visenya shudder, and suddenly her hands are grabbing for purchase on his shoulders, digging into the plate of his armor. It’s not a comfortable position for either of them, with all the metal in the way, the chill in the air starting to reach them now that their sweat has dried. But Aegon focuses on Visenya instead, this mad, wild wife of his that he will spend the rest of his life apologizing to, even if she tells him he doesn’t have to anymore. With each pass of his tongue on her lips, with each ragged breath, Aegon feels his anger chip away until nothing is left but a boy and a girl, kissing in a field.
When he pulls away, Visenya’s eyes are still closed, her lips swollen and her hair blowing in the wind coming off the sea. “Will you think about it?” Aegon asks, voice unsteady. “I won’t ask you again if you don’t want it, but I think you should consider—” He breaks off. “We both love you, Visenya. And I think you feel the same, sometimes.”
Visenya pulls away, and swings onto her horse without a word. In the distance, Aegon can hear Thorn screech, but his eyes remain on her.
“More than just sometimes,” Visenya murmurs, so quiet that Aegon thinks he’s imagined it until her eyes meet his, the truth of her words in them. Then she is gone, and Aegon is left shivering in the wind alone.
“She said that exactly?” Rhaenys asks, seeming nearly disinterested, looking at her painting instead of at Aegon. But he can tell that she’s nervous from the way the brush in her hand has stilled, the way that she closed her eyes for a moment before speaking. “That she feels the same sometimes?”
“That she feels the same about us more than just sometimes,” Aegon clarifies, and comes around to look at what Rhaenys is working on. She has some skill, and she’s managed to catch the view of the ocean outside her window well, but the colors are too bright, almost falsely so. The waters of Dragonstone are more grey than blue.
“I see,” Rhaenys says, and does not tell Aegon what it is that she sees, exactly.
“You should have spoken to her about it,” Aegon mutters crossly. “Or we should have both spoken to her together.”
“She would have felt like we were siding against her if we did,” Rhaenys reminds him. “Sit down, Aegon.”
He does. With Rhaenys, it’s easy to just listen to her. It was a leftover of their days as children in the Red Keep, when Aegon followed his big sister around, waited for her to tell them what games they would play next, what they would do next.
Rhaenys continues, “I wanted you to speak to her about this because it’s high time that you two talked something out without me in the middle.” She swirls some more blue onto her pallet. “You’re getting better, the two of you. I wanted her to feel comfortable with you being the one that brought it up.” Rhaenys sighs, “Does that make sense?” she asks, and Aegon nods reluctantly.
Like this, Rhaenys is more beautiful than any other woman Aegon has ever seen. Her skin is darker than his and Visenya’s, her hair even more so, but they are offset by her lilac eyes, lighter than Aegon’s. They make him feel like she can see into him, through him.
“Aegon,” she says, her voice soft. “If she decides not to, it is our loss, as well as hers, but it is her choice. Visenya has always resisted change. You just startled her. Don’t be so upset.”
“I’m not,” Aegon insists, lying. Rhaenys scoffs and turns back to her painting. “I’m not,” he repeats. “I just hope I haven’t ruined anything with her.”
Rhaenys laughs, a light and musical sound. Aegon has dreamt of that laugh. “You haven’t,” she says, smiling at him. “You did get her to say she loves you,” Rhaenys teases.
Aegon’s face flushes and sees Visenya’s face in his mind’s eye. More than just sometimes, he hears, and his heart skips a beat. “Not in so many words,” he mutters. Gods, how he wishes he could stay upset. Rhaenys has a gift for calming him, though. He’s glad he came straight to her.
Rhaenys’s face splits into a grin and her eyes are on the horizon again, “Oh! I see Viserion. He’s with Drogon today.” She turns to the canvas. “I wish he’d stay still long enough for me to paint him. Do you think he’ll be big enough for me to ride soon? Daenerys has started riding Drogon and I’ve been nearly mad with jealousy.”
At supper, Aegon is so wound with nerves that both Daenerys and Tyrion shoot him strange looks. But still, Visenya has not come down to join them for this meal. They’ve just started eating when Ser Jaime comes down and tells them that Visenya is taken ill, that she will not be joining them tonight. Aegon shoots Rhaenys a worried look, and starts to rise, “I shall check on her,” he says.
“No need,” Ser Jaime stops him. His green eyes are unreadable. “Princess Visenya has asked to be left alone this evening. She begs your pardons.” With a clink of his armor, Ser Jaime is gone.
Aegon’s heart sinks in dread. She’s still angry, he tells himself.
The rest of the night is agony. They’ve all become accustomed to listening to Visenya play the harp after supper. Without her there, Tyrion begs off early, and Daenerys goes to see if Visenya will admit her.
Rhaenys strokes the side of Aegon’s face with a cool hand. “It’s alright, Aegon. She just needs time alone,” she says. “Stay with me tonight.”
Aegon does. He’s in no mood to do anything but lay near Rhaenys, arms curled loosely around her in the bed. The dread in the pit of his stomach won’t leave. “I’ve ruined it,” he whispers. Rhaenys shifts against him, ready to deny it. Aegon ignores her and continues speaking. “She’ll never forgive me for even suggesting—”
A knock on the door cuts off the rest of his words. Aegon’s heart is thudding painfully.
“Come in,” Rhaenys calls, sitting up. Aegon cannot look. If it’s not Visenya…
But it is. He knows it is.
“Visenya,” Rhaenys says, voice light. “You’re better, I hope?”
“I—yes,” Visenya answers, and finally Aegon turns his head to look at her. She’s dressed in her riding leathers, and her hair is wild. He can smell the fresh air on her from here. Aegon realizes with relief that she hadn’t been hiding from them in her chambers like they’d all thought, but riding on the stony shores. Somehow, that’s better.
Her face shifts between light and shadow as the fire in the hearth flickers. Aegon cannot see her eyes, but he knows she is watching the two of them with the same intensity she always does.
“I’m sorry,” he says, finally. “I shouldn’t have pushed the issue, Visenya. I knew you would be uncomfortable.”
Rhaenys sighs from besides Aegon, “I’m sorry as well,” she admits. “I—Visenya, you know that I want you. And I want Aegon, too. I just thought this…would be easier. I understand if you don’t believe so.”
“Easier?” Visenya repeats. Her back is still against the door.
Climbing over Aegon and off the bed, Rhaenys walks slowly to Visenya, and pulls at her hand. Visenya follows automatically, much like Aegon had on his way here. She’s not looking at either of them, but when her knees hit the bed, she sits, despite the sudden proximity to Aegon and Rhaenys.
Voice low, Rhaenys kneels before Visenya. “We can try,” she whispers, placing her hands on Visenya’s knees. Aegon can feel his blood begin to burn, but he doesn’t move from behind Visenya. Rhaenys goes on, “One time, my love. If you never wish to do it again, we will both understand, and things can go back to the way they were.” Aegon watches Rhaenys coax Visenya’s legs apart slowly, as though Visenya were a wild animal that would run away at the slightest provocation.
Visenya’s eyelids flutter closed. She leans back heavily into Aegon’s chest and mumbles, “Things can never go back to the way they were.”
“Sometimes, change is good,” Rhaenys insists. “Will you try? Once?”
Softly, Aegon presses a kiss into Visenya’s neck. He feels her shiver.
“Yes,” she whispers.
They are gentle with her, their little sister. Even when Rhaenys scratches her way across Aegon’s chest and nearly draws blood, even when Aegon is so overwhelmed with feeling, with touch. They are gentle with Visenya. They would scare her away otherwise, and she is too important to scare away.
“No one can know,” Visenya says, tucked against Rhaenys’s sweaty shoulder. “The things they say…this cannot be one of them.”
“I know, love,” Rhaenys coos. “This is between the three of us, no one else.”
Aegon nearly laughs at how gentle Rhaenys is now. There are scratches on his chest that prove how frenzied and rough she can be. Instead of laughing, though, he kisses Visenya’s shoulder, then continues his way down her back. “It’s us,” he promises. “Just us, against the world.”
Visenya melts at his words, an echo of what he told her not so long ago. Rhaenys giggles, and the sound goes straight to his groin. It’s too soon for him, but there’s an interested twitch.
They’re all different, Aegon realizes. Not just Rhaenys and Visenya, but him as well. When they started this, when they were wed, Aegon had dreaded it. But now, he only feels contentment and lightness in his heart. And now he knows why.
We fit together.