Chapter Text
Shaera was her name.
Sweet Shaera.
The girl who didn't want for the Iron Throne and everyone thought her odd for it.
When Rhaenyra Targaryen had first brought her daughter—her firstborn—to her father, he cooed and doted upon her like she was his own. He certainly gifted her more attention than his own—save for the very woman who birthed her. And his other child had noticed. Aegon had frowned, not understanding why his father was so taken with a fat babe that was freshly washed. It was the same frown that Alicent Hightower wore when she realized the babe had a dark tuft of hair upon her head and when she blinked, fir-brown eyes stared at them all.
Certainly not a child of Laenor’s, the queen argued with her ailing husband in private. But he explained that his cousin Rhaenys had black hair because of her mother, Jocelyn Baratheon. Of course little Shaera could have brown eyes and brown hair! It ran in the family, he told his young wife.
Alicent—not one to be taken a fool for—kept her eye on the child. More so than she watched her own children. Poor Aegon was five when Shaera was born. Helaena, two. Aemond, just a year old. Some of the most important years for children and those were all spent by Alicent wondering if she was foolish. If she was foolish to be upset. Her father’s words and promise of Rhaenyra Targaryen killing Aegon to keep the throne to herself were always playing in her mind, reminding her that if Rhaenyra was capable of betraying her trust when they were younger, then surely she was capable of kinslaying.
Otto Hightower’s false words ate away at his daughter’s mind like plague to a starved child.
But, Alicent would stay her hand and her mouth from bringing up the fact that the child bore a striking resemblance to the Lord Commander of the City Watch—a certain Harwin Strong, Rhaenyra’s sworn protector. One child was a mistake, she had to tell herself. Perhaps not enough moon tea was to be found. She could bite her tongue.
And then came Jacaerys.
Brown hair and brown eyes, just like his older sister.
A boy! Viserys had been ecstatic when he visited his dear daughter once she was well enough. The princess had smiled sweetly, shared a look with Laenor Velaryon, and told her father about how the married couple adored their newest child. Viserys claimed that the Iron Throne would pass to Shaera and Driftmark to Jacaerys. He threw a feast to celebrate the newest addition to the family.
All the while, Alicent stabbed the leafy vegetables on her plate with extra fervor, sneering as everyone simply ignored the glaring issue with Rhaenyra’s children. Baratheon in them or not, two out of two had dark hair—Shaera’s was growing curly already—and even darker eyes? Just like Ser Harwin?
When she confided in Ser Criston that night, he reassured her that she was not going mad. That Rhaenyra Targaryen was a whore—she swiftly reminded him that Rhaenyra was still the princess, to which he apologized—that she had her cake and she ate it too, expecting everyone to be okay with it.
It soothed the queen's withering heart.
But when Lucerys came along a year later bearing the same brown curls and oaky eyes, Alicent was near her breaking point.
Shaera was fine, she had pleaded with her ailing husband, but three bastards now? This is a slight against our family! Against your name!
But Viserys would hear nothing of it, making her swear that she would never call those children 'bastards' again lest she wished to have her tongue removed. He swore that they were Laenor’s children, that they all carried the Velaryon name with pride and dignity. That they were little princes and a princess. He adored his grandchildren.
Alicent thought he may love them more than his four children from her.
Shaera Velaryon was a round-faced girl with a freckled pug nose. Her dark hair was often allowed to freely bounce in its loose curls with only a black hood pinned atop her head to keep the curls from her face. Sometimes, Rhaenyra’s servants would indulge the girl and clip some sheer fabric to the headpiece as if she wore a veil like Alicent Hightower did when she went to the sept for prayer. Often did she wear black dresses with red lace trim that were plainer mirror versions of what her mother wore. And she never went anywhere without the heir to the Iron Throne. Wherever Rhaenyra was, Shaera was close behind. Especially on dragonback.
Shaera’s egg never hatched.
So, her mother would unchain Syrax from the pit and lift her daughter into the saddle with her. The yellow-scaled dragon was always keen to bring the little girl along, having grown fond of her throughout the years. And though Shaera did not have her own dragon, not once did she complain or want for one. She simply enjoyed riding with her mother, saying hello to Syrax in stilted High Valyrian, and watching her brothers claim their dragons—both of which had hatched in the cradle.
Jace had Vermax and Luke had Arrax. And Shaera had no one.
Then, of course, there were her uncles and aunt.
Aegon had Sunfyre and Helaena had Dreamfyre. And Aemond had no one.
Shaera had grown up finding it odd that the children very near in age to her were supposed to be called the same title as her Uncle Daemon or Aunt Laena. Really, the Hightower-Targaryen children felt more like cousins than anything.
But she supposed it didn’t matter. She didn’t get along with any of them, save for Helaena.
She thought the blonde girl to be a bit odd, always speaking in riddles and playing with bugs that made Shaera squeamish, but their time together was often fun. Sometimes she would play along with whatever it was Helaena was on about this time or that. Sometimes she would bring a book for the two to read. Sometimes she would simply listen and watch.
She would never touch the bugs.
Jace and Luke would spend time with Aegon and Aemond, either in the dragonpit or on the training field, fighting with wooden swords like they were men. Shaera often avoided that. Ser Criston Cole was always there and she wasn’t fond of him. She hated the way he looked down at her and her brothers, something obvious even to a child of her age. The only time she went was if her grandfather dragged her along, or if Ser Harwin Strong was there to help her brothers. He was very nice, that knight. He always looked out for them and he was always around, helping Rhaenyra or Laenor or the children. Shaera liked him very much.
So on some days when her mother needed to meet with the council, Shaera would walk with her hand in her father’s to the training grounds. While he went to spar with young knights—never failing to promise that if she wished to leave, he would bring her back into the keep—she would take a seat where her brothers and uncles played. It didn’t seem much like fighting to her. Just a bunch of throwing wooden sticks around or against straw dummies.
Shaera thought swords were stupid and even when Ser Harwin offered to teach her, she vehemently shook her head and settled with just watching. Until Criston Cole’s glare got to be too much and then she sprinted for her father, tugged on his shirt, and asked they go back inside.
When asked why, she would always glance over her shoulder at the knight and then whisper to her father that she didn’t like that man very much. He would always laugh and tell her that he didn’t either.
When her youngest sibling was to be born, she went with Jace and Luke to find an egg in the dragonpit. They all knew Dreamfyre often had clutches. But they wondered if Syrax would as well—for she was the mother of Vermax and Arrax—and they thought it fitting to find hers first for the new member of the family. Ser Harwin had been a good man and walked with the children, carrying a torch along with the dragon keepers who led them through the tunnels. Even when Jace found an extra egg and offered it to her, Shaera declined it, too focused on having found the perfect egg for their sibling—another child of Rhaenyra would have a dragon-child of Syrax.
And once they returned, they came back to a new brother.
Joffrey was his name.
Shaera wasn’t entirely upset, but she certainly pouted at yet another boy in the family. She would have complained to Helaena but her father took her to the dragonpit with her brothers for Jace to practice his High Valyrian with Vermax. Unfortunately, that also meant Aegon and Aemond were there as well.
Aegon worked with Sunfyre, a pretty dragon with golden scales, and Jace was with Vermax, a creature that came up to his head and had eyes too big for its head. Luke was allowed to see Arrax, but the dragon was still nipping and wild with youth and refused to listen to the Velaryon boy. It left Shaera with Aemond, the only two children who were without bonded mounts.
Well, and now Joffrey too.
She kicked her feet at the dirt, unsure of what to say to her young uncle as she had seen the sadness on his freckled, pale face. “Mayhaps that will be us soon?” she tried to comfort him, wincing at how her voice sounded in the cavernous structure.
Aemond rolled his eyes and said nothing.
This was the reason she did not like her uncles. They did not see her. Not really. Even if she wanted to play with them or talk, they dismissed her in favor of Jace and Luke. Sometimes she heard them call her weird and her brothers didn’t always disagree, too absorbed in being liked by the two blonds. So, she thought it was alright that she was weird with Helaena—though that girl was another type all on her own.
So when Aegon promised Aemond they had found him a dragon, Shaera snorted at the sight of Luke leading up a pig with wings.
The Pink Dread, the boys laughed.
She did not feel bad for the young prince. She thought it funny too!
But her brother’s laughter quickly faded when the three returned to their mother to see that Ser Harwin Strong was leaving. Shaera and her brothers couldn’t understand why the good knight was leaving for Harrenhal—something about having beaten Ser Criston into the ground at training. And she certainly didn’t want him to. But, he had placed a kiss upon her forehead and swiped her cheek with his thumb, a smile hidden beneath his beard. In the light of her mother’s rooms, she thought that if she and Harwin were to look into a mirror, they would look very similar. And when he gave Jace a hug and patted Luke on the head and kissed Joffrey in his bundle, Shaera realized who Harwin Strong was.
Her mother’s face—contorted to keep from crying—laid clear the answer for all as well.
He promised he would return. That he would write to them all. That he wasn’t sorry for the scuffle in the yard; Shaera had missed it and was grateful for it. That he would miss them every day.
He made Jace promise to keep training with a sword. Luke to never let the older boys pick on him. And Shaera to never back down no matter who stood in front of her, to keep her head high.
“You may not like the swords, little princess,” Harwin chuckled, “so make your mind and your heart your weapons. Then no one’ll ever be able to defeat you.”
He slipped a carved piece of wood into her hands and took his leave, refusing to look back. Both Shaera and Jace ran out to chase him into the hallway, watching his back.
Shaera looked down at the trinket he had given her while their mother doted upon them, reassuring them that letters would be fun.
A carved dragon. He had carved this for her. He had given her the dragon that she had never wanted but now held tightly to her heart.
“Is Harwin Strong our father?” Jace asked suddenly.
Shaera looked between her mother and brother, wondering if it was true. Wondering if her fresh revelation was founded.
Jace lowered his voice. “Are we bastards?”
The princess’ face dropped and she looked around the hall before crowding her eldest children together. Shaera looked back at her carved dragon, choosing to focus on that instead. The thought that Laenor Velaryon was not actually her father was enough to make her head hurt. She called him 'father'. She called Harwin Strong 'Ser Harwin'. Should she have called Harwin by his true title? Should she no longer call Laenor 'father'? Did that mean Laena was not her aunt? That Corlys and Rhaenys were not her grandparents? Did that mean that her title—her mother’s heir—was not actually hers?
Rhaenyra cupped Jace’s cheek and looked between her children who now knew the truth. “You are both Targaryens,” she said with sadness lacing her tone. “That’s all that matters.”
She kissed them upon their foreheads and sent them back into the room, promising to return shortly.
Jace and Luke sat together quietly, the latter starting to cry at Harwin’s departure, and Shaera went over to the window, pretending her carved dragon was flying high, high, higher up than even the clouds in the sky.
When they were all told that they would be leaving for Dragonstone, Shaera only cared that she be able to say goodbye to Helaena.
She made her way to the princess’ chambers, stumbling over herself and blubbering the whole way, swiping at the fat tears that lined her dark lashes so she didn’t trip. Unfortunately, she did.
A stone in the floors caught her toe and sent her to the ground, her carved dragon skidding across the hall. Shaera burst into tears, shoving her hands into her eyes that ached so fiercely, she feared they would fall out. Her toe hurt. Her scraped knees hurt. Her carved dragon was somewhere else now. The space in the left side of her chest hurt. It hurt so much that she didn’t understand why it was so terrible.
And then a shadow blanketed her and she ceased her childish whining for just a moment. Before her was her dragon held out to her.
She looked further up.
Aemond was looking not at her but down the hallway, a weird frown on his lips. “Take it and stop crying,” he mumbled.
Shaera hiccuped with stilted sobs and she slowly accepted her statue from him. She cradled it to her chest, finding that the ache started to quell, dissipating into a dull throb. But he still held out his hand.
The young princess—a bastard too, she reminded herself—was all too hesitant to take his hand, but slowly and surely, she slipped hers into his, standing with his assistance. He tugged her onto her feet, gave her one hard look with his pale purple eyes, and muttered something under his breath before walking down the hallway.
She frowned. “Aemond!”
He stopped but did not look at her.
“Thank you!”
“Watch where you walk next time.”
Though the words were coarse, Shaera smiled. She clutched her dragon to her chest and ran to Helaena’s chambers, bidding her only friend goodbye and promising to be back. Ser Harwin had promised, so surely she could as well.
“We’ll be back soon!” she said.
Helaena nodded, staring hard at one of her millipedes. It curled round and round her hand, never falling and never straying, always curling and moving. “Broken bones amongst the mist, the sea’s child returned to its midst,” she whispered, lifting the millipede higher.
Shaera frowned at the words. She thought them too dark for her taste.
Ser Harwin was dead.
Aunt Laena was dead.
It took everything in Shaera not to collapse into a puddle of tears. She could only hold her dragon to her chest as her aunt’s coffin was pushed into the sea. As Vaemond Velaryon eulogized her and also hinted that she and her brothers were not true. Her mother had taught her High Valyrian. She and everyone who spoke it knew what he meant by Velaryon blood running true.
“You’ve grown up,” her great-uncle, Daemon, told her at the reception of his wife’s funeral. Shaera thought him an imposing figure. But right now, he squatted down and extended his hand, waiting patiently for her to give her dragon to him. “Who made this? You?”
She shook her head. “Ser…Ser Harwin Strong.”
“Ah, I see.” Daemon lifted it into the pale light of the cloudy day. “It’s fine work.” He gave it back to her. “Still no dragon that breathes though, little one?”
“I don’t need one,” she said softly, petting her statue.
Daemon furrowed his brows, glanced over his shoulder at his grown niece, and then back to this little one. Shaera certainly looked like both Harwin and Rhaenyra, there was no denying her parentage. But she lacked the fire they both had. She lacked the fire of a dragon, he thought. Sweet and polite, yes, but she didn’t bite like her mother once had.
“All Targaryens need a dragon,” he told her then, petting her dark brown hair. “And you are a Targaryen, just like your mother, grandfather, and me.”
Shaera turned her large eyes towards her uncle. “I don’t think any dragon, except Syrax, would like me all that much.”
Daemon chuckled and stood, intent on speaking with Rhaenyra. “I’m sure they’ll love you, little one,” he told Shaera.
She begged to differ when she was roused from her bed by Baela and Rhaena, Luke and Jace. Someone’s stolen Vhagar, they all told her. Shaera slipped on her slippers, grabbed her dragon, and followed the four children to a cave of High Tide where Vhagar’s new rider would be. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and yawned once or twice. She had never thought that dragons could be stolen. Her mother said that they bonded, that they chose their rider. But Baela and Rhaena told her that since Vhagar was once Laena’s dragon, the old she-dragon would then be Rhaena’s to claim for she did not have a dragon yet either.
The five children made it to the tunnel and found Aemond walking in, dirt and ash marring his pale face, but nothing could hide his satisfaction.
He had taken Vhagar.
The oldest and largest dragon known to man was now the mount for a child.
Shaera, thinking the mystery was solved, wanted to go back to her bed. But the others had different plans.
First came the insults to Laena and her children. Then the punching and shoving. Then the yelling and shouting. Then the kicking and scratching.
Shaera stood off to the side, watching in terror as her brothers and cousins and uncle fought viciously. She hated violence. She hated it so much. She hated the cruel words Aemond spat out. She hated that he had been so mean. She hated that Jace and Baela and Rhaena were on him, kicking and hitting away. She hated that he had shoved them all down, broke Luke’s nose, grabbed a stone and threatened to hit him with it. No, no, to kill him with it.
“You will die screaming in flames just as your father did!” He glared at the three children of Rhaenyra. “Bastards.”
“My father’s still alive!”
“He doesn’t know, does he, Lord and Lady Strong?”
Shaera cried. She cried and cried. “Please! Please stop!” she begged them all, throwing a tantrum if only to make everyone tell her to shut up. If only to distract them all long enough that they would stop fighting.
She ran over to her little brother and tried to wrench him free of Aemond’s grasp, but as Jace pulled out a knife, Aemond shoved both her and Luke to the ground. Her dragon clattered into the dirt and was forgotten as she held Luke to her, trying to see how bad his nose was through her tears. Wood snapped and Shaera was frantic. Aemond had managed to disarm Jace and throw him down, holding his rock high as if to strike her brother. But now he was looking down at his boot. When he lifted it, Shaera’s broken dragon laid beneath.
His lips parted and he looked at her for a moment as if to apologize, but in her mourning for the only thing she had of her true father and his distraction, Luke scrambled for Jace’s knife. The oldest Velaryon boy grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into Aemond’s face. Stumbling back, he was blind to Luke’s advance, and in only a second, he was flailing on the ground, screaming as he covered his freshly gouged eye.
Alicent Hightower was shouting in the main hall. Aemond’s cut was being cleaned and sewn shut. Aegon and Helaena stood to the side, backs to the fire and grim expressions on their pale faces. Viserys Targaryen was demanding an answer. Corlys and Rhaenys held their grandchildren who all shouted at Aemond. Rhaenyra gathered Luke into her arms and placed her eldest two behind her, forming a barrier so that none could hurt her children.
The queen called for Luke’s eye. An eye for an eye, but she would give him the fortune of choosing which one he lost, she announced—begged Viserys. But he told her to temper her emotions, to understand that nothing would be fixed and Aemond would not be whole because another boy was made partial. He told everyone that whoever questioned the birth of Rhaenyra’s children would lose their tongue.
Bastard still rang like a cackling laugh in Shaera’s head. And she couldn’t do much but stare down at the shards of her broken dragon.
Chaos broke out when the queen stole her husband’s dagger and took it upon herself to maim a child. Shaera stumbled back, grabbing Luke with Jace, and children cried as Kingsguard jumped into action. As Daemon intercepted Criston Cole’s route to the children. As Corlys and Rhaenys gathered all of their grandchildren, pulling them far away from the Hightower queen consort. As Rhaenyra halted Alicent in her path for revenge, the dagger gleaming against a backdrop of fire and tears.
Alicent called for honor. For sacrifice. A deep ache lined her voice, weighing it down into a near whisper. Tears burned in her eyes.
Rhaenyra called the queen as she was. She reminded her that everyone now saw her for who she truly was. For a woman willing to tear apart a family if only for the approval of the men around her.
They separated and the dagger caught the princess, Valyrian steel slicing through black fabric and drawing out red blood. The queen had just assaulted the princess, treason of the highest degree some may say.
In the chaos, Shaera had lost the pieces of her dragon.
She would not remember until her mother married Daemon Targaryen on Dragonstone in the tradition of Old Valyria. For her father, Laenor, was dead. Killed by a scorned lover, Ser Qarl—something Shaera couldn't quite believe, as she had known Ser Qarl for a few weeks and he seemed kind, but was too tired of loss to question it for long. Two fathers gone in less than a week. A new one now to take care of her. A boy lost an eye, a queen lost her mind. How could Shaera remember the broken dragon she had only had for a time?
But at High Tide, a mutilated boy would find the pieces before he took to the ship with his siblings and mother and father and grandfather. He slipped them into his pocket after contemplating if he should just toss them into the fire. But then he remembered how much he hated Shaera crying. He hated the sound. He hated her tears. It was so grating on his ears. So, when she returned to King’s Landing, he would have it fixed for her.
For she was not the one who cut out his eye. A bastard still, yes, but he would not hate her like he did her brothers.
After seeing her cry that day in the hall, Aemond wasn’t sure he ever could.
With Corlys Velaryon’s fate now assuredly in the hands of the gods, the issue of Driftmark’s succession came to a head.
“They would put my children’s birth to question, and thus, mine own claim to the throne,” Rhaenyra scoffed when Daemon had handed her the missive from Baela. For years they had all avoided ever stepping foot in King’s Landing. She had welcomed two more children with Daemon and had a third on the way.
Their family was happy. Content at Dragonstone.
Joffrey was growing to be a young little lord. Luke had begun to ride Arrax regularly. Jace was learning High Valyrian at a reading and speaking capacity that was slow coming but certainly better than others. Rhaena and Shaera spent most of their time together, growing to become as close as true born sisters. Where one went, so did the other. They bonded over a lack of dragons and though Rhaena certainly had the fire of her father, Shaera was her balance in soft-spoken nature that Rhaena teased her was often too quiet and gentle.
Both girls had grown to be quite beautiful. Like Corlys, Rhaena often had her silver hair twisted into locs, some piled at the top of her head like a crown. Shaera wore her now black hair down, curls having weighed down into waves over the years, and she never quite got out of the habit of wearing a small hood pinned atop to keep her bangs out of her face. And where Rhaena often wore dark reds, Shaera wore blacks detailed with gold. They were one another’s most trusted companions—and when Rhaenyra saw them together, she often felt her heart clench for the two girls reminded her greatly of how she and Alicent once were—and they were Daemon’s pride and joy.
The people in the town on Dragonstone, when they saw the girls walking together, sometimes whispered that they may be more than just good friends.
And now the girls stood with their brothers, learning that they were all to return to King’s Landing for the first time in nine years. They were all grown now.
“We will defend Lucerys’ claim to Driftmark,” Rhaenyra told them all before looking to her daughter and Jace. “And…and we will reaffirm that Jacaerys is my named heir.” The very thought that her daughter did not want it was enough to twist her stomach into knots, but she would respect her first child’s wishes.
Shaera smiled and mouthed her thanks to her mother.
She was not fit to become queen one day whereas Jace had taken the news in stride since he was just ten years old. He would make a good king. Shaera, however, did not have the heart nor constitution to lead the Seven Kingdoms like her grandfather had and how her mother surely would.
Shaera could be content in marrying some lord for the strengthening of her brother’s claim. So long as she was able to live truly and freely like she had on Dragonstone, she would not want for anything more other than happiness and health and love.
And no matter what, she would always remain steadfast in the support of her mother’s and brother’s claim to the Iron Throne.
Nine years.
Aemond had spent nine years staring at that damned dragon he had painstakingly tried to recreate. The shards sat beside its copy. He thought it not as fine in craftsmanship, but he hoped it would be apology enough. Apology for what? He still wasn’t sure. He didn’t even know why he taught himself woodwork through the nights when his calloused hands bled from that day’s training with Ser Criston. He had gone through knives and blocks of wood like they were nothing just to get this. To get this imitation that she may not even remember.
How pathetic it was.
He hated himself for it and more than once had he considered tossing it all in the fire. How would she remember? Why would she even care? Why did he care?
He hoped that when he gave it to her, she wouldn’t openly reject it, but maybe she would toss it aside in private. Then he would be absolved of all guilt from that time he broke it. That was what he wished for. Then he could go to loathing that bastard girl and her shite brothers. He would no longer be invested in her—for lack of a better word. He would be as free of that night as he could be save for the patch that now covered the sapphire-filled socket in his skull. Perhaps he could make the bastard who stole it carve out his own. Surely it was better then so long as he didn’t do it himself?
Aemond wondered momentarily if Rhaenyra’s family would come on dragonback.
Had Shaera bonded with one yet?
The rumor was that she had not. That she was a vapid lady who spent her days with her step-sister and did naught else but read and help raise her brothers--and had given up her right as heir in favor of her brother, an oddity that Aemond knew his mother often worried about. Aemond remembered that she cried often when they were children. She cried often and shrunk away from violence. He remembered watching her during his sparring sessions. Watching her leave when one of the boys fell too hard. Watching her grow interested sometimes and immediately turn her nose up. He remembered her begging for all of them to stop fighting that night. Begging for peace and kindness.
He wondered often if he should’ve just dropped the rock.
Vhagar had been worth it, yes; in fact, he would say he won the largest dragon in the world for barely a price at all. His grandfather did well to remind him of that.
Aemond went to his window, expecting to see some dragons flying towards the dragon pit and instead, a wheelhouse had stopped in the courtyard. He could not see the details of their faces, but he knew each and every person.
He could tell the princess was with child. His uncle, Daemon Targaryen, stood with one hand curled over Dark Sister—a sword Aemond wanted for. The bastard boys—three of them—looked at the Red Keep in awe. Behind them, servants carried two young babes with silver heads of hair. No, they handed off two babes to two ladies dressed in red and black. One had skin the shade of warmed wood with silvery hair piled atop her head. And the other had pale skin like his own with hair almost as black as the dress she wore. And she still wore that same damned hood.
Aemond’s hand tightened over the imitation of her dragon statue.
Just like him, she had grown.
And he realized with vicious, green bitterness that even so far away, he could tell she was quite beautiful despite being the bastard of a dead man.