Chapter Text
Many things were lost during the Doom of Valyria. A city built on dark magic eventually crumbling under the anger of the God's. Magic which built the greatest city known to man, which controlled the skies and the ground, lost in a rising fire from the very ground that was once controlled.
The magic which gave rise to the houses of Old Valyria remained as new cities were built, the magic that gave alliances with the dragons retained. Valyrian magic was told in fairy tales, passed down from generation to generation, never forgotten but sometimes dismissed as new Houses rose and fell.
Only two houses rose from the ashes of Valyria, the magic of the Old City living on: Velaryon and Targaryen. Two houses borne from fallen God's.
Bonds created and blessed with old magic between man and dragon were a joyous occasion. Bonds created and blessed with old magic between two souls revered.
The greatest of the new world were blessed by such bonds, marked by the God's for infamy.
Lucerys was a carefree and happy child from the moment Rhaenyra held the small, dark haired babe in her arms. He was a child built for love. His first love was his brother, Jacaerys. The second was his dragon, Arrax. Anything he was given he wanted to share it with those he cared most for - be they worthy of it or not. As the years passed his scope for compassion and care remained despite the few times he was led astray by his brother or his uncle.
It pained Rhaenyra to think of her son sent out into a world where his disposition was not suited to the harsh reality faced by all prince's and lord's. He was not built for double words and duplicity. He felt too much, much to his own detriment.
When she read to him she told him the tales of Aegon and his sister-wife Rhaenys, Jaehaerys and Alysanne. Two sets of bonded souls entwined together in history.
Lucerys wanted that.
He wanted to be one of the ones blessed by the God's, to be special to someone like Rhaenys was to Aegon. He wanted a happy life filled with love and joy for both he and all he cared about. As he grew older, he learnt that freely given love and emotion was not a value shared by all, often being teased mercilessly for being soft. For being a cry baby. His empathy was seen as a weakness, especially in the Red Keep.
He loved his family. However as he grew older, he realised that he didn't very much like either of his uncles.
Aemond was an ornery child, serious before his time. As a babe he rarely cried, however he rarely smiled either. His father often said he took after his mother in that aspect.
He was never one to share what was his. He would rage and scream when his brother or nephew's touched his toys or his books. On more then one occasion Aegon would end up with a bloodied nose or Jacaerys struck too hard during training with the boys and Ser Cole as jealousy and self-indulgence festered within the child.
He held little love for anyone, the only ones worthy being Alicent or Helaena. When Aemond had decided somebody was worthy they were his - to the very end and with all that he had. He loved with no restriction, all consuming. His mother said he was devoted. His brother said he was obsessive to the point of madness. When he was younger he would often push his brother away from his mother when he got too close to her, allowing her to wrap him up in her arms. He would do the same to Otto when he tried to get close to his sister. Alicent and Helaena were his and enraged him when other people thought they belonged to them. As he grew older, he learnt how to hide his ire but it never dissipated.
As with his nephew, Alicent would tell him the same tales of bonds. Aemond also wanted it, unbeknownst to him, just as much as Lucerys did. He wanted someone who was made for him, who would belong to him and only him. Someone who he would not have to share with anyone else. Someone who would be as devoted to him as he were to them. He knew his mother and sister loved him. Just not as much as he loved them. Just not as much as he wanted them to love him.
When he was old enough he dedicated hours reading about the bonds descended Old Valyria, his second compulsion to his drive to claim his own dragon.
He knew about the bonds where love blossomed. He read that nobody knew what caused a bond to make itself known or why it took the form of pain shared. He discovers that pain and injury inflicted by one to another leaves irreparable damage. He read of long lost methods where pain can be taken from one bonded and given to another. He learnt about the bonds where love and hatred ran too close together, where hearts and lives were destroyed.
While he coveted it, He knew he was unlikely to ever have a bonded. He was a second son, a spare. He had nothing and he never received what he was due, what was his by right.
The night he claimed his dragon, as he flew through the night sky with the wind in his hair, he felt in like the most powerful person in the world. He had his dragon and everything felt right. One infatuation finally laid to rest.
That night another infatuation, one of hatred, was borne the moment his nephew raised a knife to his face and took his eye.
Lucerys had no thoughts on his mind other then protect Jacaerys. In a panic, he grabs the knife and swings.
He cannot hear Aemond's screams over his own as he tries to claw at his own skin along his eye, anything to stop the burning that is tearing his face apart. Sobbing, he doesn't know whose hands guide him away from Aemond or where he is taken to, his hands still covering his face, eyes scrunched closed as he wails with the pain. Nobody hears him as he is drowned out by Aemond.
He feels gentle hands on his face and he knows it his mother. He opens his eyes and sharply inhales as he realised the vision in his eye is wrong. The edges of his vision in one of his eyes is dark. The remaining vision he has is blurred. He can see his mother, he can see her face, but the vision is not clear.
It is the same eye that he took from his uncle.
Even though he is young he knows what it means. He knows what he has done to the one person the God's, for what reason he does not know, had made for him and he for Aemond.
He is too devastated to cry as his face still radiates with pain. He can't even look at the maimed boy, filled with disgust and guilt over what he had done. In one second he had ruined everything. He had ruined his bond and, more importantly, he had ruined Aemond.
He knows Alicent is arguing for an eye for an eye and he understands there is a confrontation between his mother and Alicent but he is not present for any of it, stuck in a haze of shock.
He feels himself being picked up by a pair of strong arms but he knows not who it is as he is carried out of the room, still staring into the distance, replaying that moment over and over again.
The guilt caused by hurting his bonded hurts his heart and his soul.
The guilt caused by the realisation that he does not regret it, that he would do it again to save his brother, is what breaks him.
What a horrible person he must be to forsake the gift he had been given.
The maesters, called in to examine his nose, say he is in shock. He says nothing as his mother tucks him into bed, all the while Aemond's excruciating screams of pain echo through his mind. The next day he finds himself still trapped within his mind, plagued with guilt, unable to see the world beyond that one night. And so during the next day as well.