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Dust, swirrling around in a beam of sunlight falling through curtained windows in a stuffy room.
It’s the only thing his tired mind truly registers when he awakes. He watches the little particles dance in the sun- or at least he tries to. His vision won’t focus properly. It’s annoying, but he can blink as much as he wants, it doesn’t change anything. His vision stays weirldy blurry, no depth of focus.
He gets bored and tries to orientate himself. He recognizes the furniture that came with the room itself once his father was gone. He’s in his bedroom, even if his surroundings still look blurry.
Currently, he is lying in his bed, but it had felt like the whole thing has been giving him a good shake while he was lying there unconsciously a few moments ago. The unrelenting jostling motion woke him up in the first place.
Now, the jostling and churning has stopped, but the dizzyness doesn’t quite leave his head. His vision is blurry and his world spins, but it’s a different feeling compared to the usual dizzyness. The dizzyness he’s used to because he used to be drunk a lot, his head swampy and uneven in his thoughts- as well as he’s been occasionally plagued by terrible headaches in the morning after.
There’s a wheezing sound… from somewhere. He can’t quite make out where that awful noise is coming from. At first, it seems to originate from somewhere above him, but he’s lying on his back motionlessly, and the ceiling is innocently staring back at him. Well, as innocently as a ceiling can appear to look, anyway.
He can’t make out the exact source of the terrible, on-going sound. It’s hot. It’s stuffy. And there’s the faint rustle of fabric and… something else he can hear. Shuffeling of hurried feet, the sound of something cutting and ripping through fabrics.
He wants to know where the bloody sounds come from, but when he frantically looks around, there’s no one in his close proximity, there’s only…-
There’s his father’s model city of Old Valyria.
Odd.
Because he’s bloody sure he smashed that whole thing to bits and pieces in a -in his opinion well deserved- fit of rage.
The model city of Valyria is not the reason the scenery unfolding to his left looks odd, though. The truly odd circumstance is Viserys the Peaceful, sitting at one end of the table, looking as alive and as innocent as they come, while he is slicing away carefuly at some piece of the model itself in his hands. Both of his hands, Aegon notices.
The model city seems smaller, too, not only less destroyed.
If Viserys already noticed his presence in the room with him, he doesn’t show it.
So Aegon tries soundlessly rising from the mattress beneath him. For some reason, breathing is a difficult task right now, but he manages. He then absentmindedly reaches for the right bedpost on the other side of the bed and uses that to carefully pull himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, sliding his legs off said edge.
Good thing it’s the right bedside, he thinks. For some reason, he can hardly even feel anything in the majority of the left side of his body.
Actually standing up turns out to be the most difficult task yet. The moment he tries to truly stand, his feet on the ground, several different spots in both of his legs crack so horribly loud, it sends an icy cold, spinechilling shiver through his whole body. He loses balance, at this point, and falls to the ground like a wet lump of something probably disgusting to most, screaming his head off while meeting the floor face first, because the sudden pain in both of his legs feels unbearable.
Way to go, he thinks. If he ever had the element of surprise, he ruined that one magnificently just now.
Viserys is saying something, Aegon couln’t care less. He also doesn’t quite understand him because of that annoying wheezing sound all around him.
He sits on his butt, which is working surprisingly well, grasping at his legs and is literally frotting at the mouth, still moaning and screaming in pain, because by moving, he just made it worse.
It’s a miracle he hasn’t completely torn his vocal cords yet. When he looks down to his legs, the left one is swollen, and ugly, and sticking out in weird angles. Aegon just screams louder.
And then he can feel it coming before the new kind of excrutiating pain has fully arrived for him. ‘Oh no, nononononono!’
His legs are snapped into place. One broken piece of bone at a time on both sides.
He’s actually wailing now, able to vaguely feel hot tears run down the right side of his face. That is also a miracle in itself, he thinks, that he didn’t start to cry like a babe earlier.
Sunfyre is roaring in his pain with him- somewhere. Wherever is beauty of a dragon is right now. He keeps seeing flashes of him between bursts of pain and the suddenly incredibly difficult urge to breathe.
The pain is still there when he looks down at his legs the next time, but they look exactly as Aegon remembers them to be. In an unbroken state and still intact.
Bloody Hells, his father doesn’t stop talking.
His legs still hurt like a bitch, and he’s got a feeling he isn’t going to fully be able to stand, but he's got enough stubborness in him to at least get himself onto his knees. More of a hassle than it’s really worth, with the sounds that escape him, but he successfully gets himself into a sitting position high enough to gloomily peer over the bed’s edge, where his father is sitting on the other side of the room, still near the table, still holding a pice of the city model in his one, and some shaping instrument in the other. And Viserys is staring back expectantly.
‘What? Afraid I didn’t quite catch that,’ Aegon says dryly.
His pride be damned, he swings his arms upwards, grabbing the bedding on top in the process and does his darndest to pull himself up again, mostly using what little upper arm strengh he’s got, because he’s got a feeling, putting too much pressure on his legs in this weird… dream of his would make them just go pop and fall off. Bloody Hells, it’s exhausting, and he probably looks less than elegant right now. The last time he actually realised how big those beds are was when he himself was far too small to even consider riding a pony, let alone a horse or a grown dragon.
Viserys frustratingly calmy watches him, until he managed to awkwardly fumble-climb on top of this giant’s bed and embarrassingly try to catch his breath. He falls face-first again, this time into the far softer bedding instead of the dirty floor.
Aegon feels like a frog that can’t hop, crawling through mud and swamp water. He thinks he should be more embarrassed in front of the… what? The ghost? The illusion? The figment of his imagination that’s torturing him with Viserys Targaryen for some reason? He doesn’t feel embarrassed. Not really. Aegon mostly doesn’t give a rat’s arse anymore. He’s long abandoned the quest of trying to gain his father’s approval. Or get him to spare a single glance at Aegon.
‘I said, it’s not very wise to go running around on those broken legs of yours, boy.’ He thinks he hears a smile in his father’s voice, but he’s too distracted catching his heavy breath than to look Viserys in the eye. It’s impossible anyways. Viserys never smiled at Aegon. His father never even so much as looked at him, for all Aegon can tell, unless it was to scold him, scream at him, or, occasionally, even both.
Not very wise . Aegon almost laughs, but it’s difficult again to even gingerly draw breath. He’s so far from wise, it’s truly insane. And he knows it. Others know very well, too, as his recent stupidity has shown. It doesn’t matter anyway. Nobody cares. Like usual.
He also notices Viserys calling him “boy”. Not “my boy”, not Aegon’s actual name. “Boy”. To be fair, this is probably what he is to Viserys and always was. Aegon doesn’t begrudge that. Not anymore. It’s what it always has been. Bitter reality.
Aegon stares down at his legs, now back on the soft, insanely huge mattress. They look fine. They really do hurt like a bitch, sure, but they don’t look out of the ordinary anymore. ‘They’re not broken,’ he states then, blinking confused. His left eye feels heavier than the right one.
‘They are not broken here ,’ Viserys corrects him, still working on the stupid piece of stone in his hands.
‘What is that even supposed to mean…?’ Aegon grumbles, and tries to rub away the pain by massaging his legs.
When he looks down again, he realizes that absent feeling in his left arm concluded in him not finding his left leg to give it a good rub. He has to actively guide his stupid hand to his stupid leg, and even then it doesn’t quite work in his favour, because his whole arm feels numb and dead. Nothing seems palpable to his left hand anymore.
Hells, why does everything feel either excrutiatingly painful, cold but burning, or not at all??
‘I would advise to tend to all that bleeding, though,’ Viserys says.
‘...What?’
Viserys’ sympathetic smile doesn’t really look all that sympathetic. It looks like he wanted to say: “Oh, you poor fool.” And he’s gesturing in Aegon’s direction. To his belly, more specifically.
Aegon looks down and screams again.
Hands are tearing at him, clawing at his now exposed belly and scratching away layer after layer of his skin. Are those his hands? They must be, he sees nobody else, but they can’t be… since when does he have three of them??
Thick, dark blood oozes out and stains the bedsheets. It stinks. And it smokes . Sunfyre’s screaming helplessly in his head again and he wishes for nothing more than to just throw his whole body weight on his dragon’s snout and stay there until reality catches up to him again. Somewhere secluded and peaceful, where nobody can reach them both. But Sunfyre the Golden is nowhere in sight. His dragon isn’t here. The only one that is present here with him is Viserys. And he’s smiling at him, brightly and caringly, but it’s nothing else than a carricature of how the real Viserys would have interacted with him now.
‘W-What’s happening?? Am I bleeding out!?’ There is one thing he wishes apart from sleeping on top of Sunfyre all day, lazing in the sun with no worry in the world, he supposes. For Viserys to, for once, say something to him that’s actually helpful.
But Viserys, ever the dellusion his mind has concocted just to torture Aegon, is as oblivious and carefree as he was in life. ‘Only if you let it happen.’
He stares at his father wordlessly, vaguely aware of how he’s probably making a stupid face.
What’s that supposed to mean??
The last thing he feels before everything goes dark again, is losing his ballance and hitting his head on the floor.
-
He sees her leaving him like this, one eye pathatically cracked open, while the other has been forcefully shut, wrapped in bandages. He also desperately wants her to stay, to have someone by his side that’s not the awfully chipper ghost of his father haunting him in what must be his dreams, or rather: his nightmares.
‘Mommy…’
Alicent doesn’t hear his pleading, croaking of a voice. Maybe she honestly cannot hear him. Or maybe she doesn’t want to.
And so he lets the darkness take him away again, too weak to protest it.
-
Aegon sits on the windowsill, feeling small with the way he’s currently curled up into a sitting ball of human, his arms clasped around his body tightly. Or. Well. At least he thinks he’s got a tight hold on himself. He isn’t really all that sure, since the left side of his body still feels a little non-existent.
He tilts his head to the side, feels only with his lips that his head brushes over his left hand. He takes in the mess he’s made while dragging himself here. Gods, all that blood…
Viserys told him he’d only bleed out if he gave up and let it happen. So far, Aegon hasn’t completely given himself up, as it seems. And so far, there also hasn’t been any bleeding out on his part either. He’s still here. Wherever “here” really is. But Good Gods, all that blood that had trickeled and splashed to the floor.
He absent-mindedly begins rocking himself a little to the soft sounds of Viserys working on his project like a babe.
It’s quite.
It could be peaceful.
But it fails to calm his nerves, his mind, his pain . It unsettles Aegon.
Viserys has made progress with his pet project. Aegon wonders how much time he’s already spent in this place.
‘Funny, isn’t it? How time drags when you’re waiting for it to tick by,’ his father suddenly says, as if he actually read Aegon’s mind.
Aegon, for his part, wonders what kind of bloody answer his father expects from him, before setteling for the first thing that stupidly came to mind: ‘Why are you talking to me?’ he asks, feeling every bit as dumbfounded as he obviously sounds. He’s more strongly aware of how he’s making a face this time. That kind of grimace that clearly drove Jace mad with anger the last time they all saw each other before all the hells broke loose on them.
Viserys hesitates before resuming his work, frowning slightly: ‘Would you rather be alone here? Because I asure you, you don’t want to be awake.’ There it is again. That bloody little grin. The warm tone.
As far as Aegon can recall, Viserys had always either been senile or angry. Especially towards him. He isn’t used to this side of Viserys. Viserys used to smile. Sometimes. But never while looking at Aegon. There’d been a time where Aegon wished he’d done that… But that time is long gone now.
‘No,’ he finally says, and then he decides to not give a bloody damn anymore, ‘it’s because you never talked to me before. Why now?’
Viserys pauses, then blinks at him. He looks almost stunned. ‘That is not true…-’
‘It is. In fact, I’m very sure we’ve never been alone in the same room before. It’s fine, I suppose. I made my peace with it. No need for sorrow…’
Not that you ever felt like that when it came to me, he thinks privately.
‘And what peace would that be?’ Viserys asks, chuckling in a confused manner.
Aegon grins, but he feels exactly the wrong kind of mischievous while doing so. ‘That you don’t like me.’
The silence that follows makes him feel as if he swapped places with Sunfyre and has squashed something that’s small to him, but valuable to someone else under this giant, golden foot.
Aegon doesn’t exactly feel as sure of himself as he wants Viserys to believe, but he still manages to just uncaringly shrug and look the other way. He’s got his answer, after all. Viserys didn’t say “no”, and his silence is answer enough. Surprisingly, it’s hurting a little less than his mother calling him “imbecile” after he downright asked her wether she loved him or not.
‘If you made your peace with it… what is the reason for me being here, then?’ Viserys finally asks, his voice not exactly quite, but a little haunted-sounding, ironically enough.
‘My mind seems to love torturing me now and again. My apologies for holding you back on important business on “the other side”.’ There it is again. The feeling of having said too much. Of having given something away, of having embarrassed himself. Sunfyre’s foot squashing a minor building. Or a person.
‘Actually, I did have some urgent business to attend to,’ Viserys says, but it sounds like he’s half-joking.
‘I said I was sorry,’ Aegon says sarcastically.
Viserys humms to that. ‘I’d might even be inclined to accept your apology, if you even remotely meant it, you know?’
‘Well, if you like it here even less than I do, I suppose you’re able to leave, are you not?’
‘I’m afraid, that’s not how it works,’ Viserys says, smiling thoughtfully and returning his attention back to his pet project.
‘Really? You can’t go bother Helaena or Aemond? In fact, if you did that earlier, maybe Aemond wouldn’t have…-!’
There’s a sudden pain trying to split his head clean in half. A memory, trying its bloody darndest to surface, but only succeeding in making Aegon wimper pathatically while he’s holding his head- as if that’s going to change anything about the pain.
He feels Viserys’ stare on him, ironically, but he only barely registers it over the pain in his head and his suddenly violently bleeding nose.
‘Yes…?’ Viserys encourages, maybe trying to make Aegon remember, for whatever reason that might be.
Aegon almost had it, but the memory is gone again. He grunts in pain. ‘Why do you care all of a sudden?!’
‘It’s you who should care, for your own sake, Aegon.’
Aegon murmurs something unintelligable. He himself doesn’t even have a true idea of what he wanted to throw at Viserys’ head, but allas, his father doesn’t seem to be that bothered anyway. ‘Maybe try not concentrating on what you’re focussing on. Try somewhat earlier. What’t the last thing you can recall?’
Aemond. Somehow, Aemond is connected to Aegon’s literal latest headache. But as much as he hates to admit to it, Viserys is right. The more he tries to force his memory to work, the more the pain grows inside of him.
And since this is the first time Viserys actually pays him any mind… Aegon could probably lend his ear to his father’s words. Because what else is he going to do in a gods forsaken place like this, wherever he really is?
Sunfyre. His darling dragon. He’d flewn on Sunfyre… to… who knows where. Other dragons. Other riders. Sunfyre and him… they fell. They fell and everything went black, and hot, and hard to breathe, and full of pain ….
Aegon can feel his own heavy breathing; his lungs feel restricted and weak, paired with the panic that’s bubbling up in his stomach and rises higher and higher, until it fully reaches his head. Aegon doesn’t bother filling Viserys in, since his father seems to already know what happened in the grand scheme of things. Instead, he tries to mask his panicked stumbling and falling off the windowsill as a weak jump and almost throws his full body weight into the model city of Valyria uncaringly.
Viserys only stares at him disapprovingly. Yes, his father’s poor pet project! Aegon couldn’t care less. That shitstain is already broken beyond recognition in the real world anyway. Other than his dragon, Aegon hopes with all his heart. ‘Sunfyre! What about Sunfyre?? Is he…?’
‘I don’t know.’
That’s it. He’s about to cry and he knows it.
‘What??! Why did you make me remember then??! I thought…-’
‘Ah, but I never said I knew, did I?’
‘You know what? You’re useless! I shouldn’t have expected help from you of all people in the first place!’ Aegon rages and almost knocks the stone piece Viserys is working on out of his father’s hand. It’s a miracle he doesn’t grab something to smash it into the model city again, like he did after Jaehaerys was murdered. ‘And they call me imbecile…’ he grunts and mindlessly stomps over to the window again.
He can’t breathe.
He’s panicking and he. can’t. breathe!
He’s trying to fumble with the window. If he could just hold his head out in the free air… He could get that bloody wheezing sound out of his head, where it’s reverberating again and again, and maybe he could finally breathe freely again.
‘Do you hear that?! Where is that bloody sound coming from??’
‘From you, I’m afraid…’
‘That doesn’t even make sense!’ Aegon snaps, then sighs angrily. ‘Forget it. I can’t breath… I only need to get this bloody window to- I need to breathe!’
The window springs open after a bit of raw violence.
But there is no Red Keep and no city of King’s Landing… There is nothing. Blackness, that’s trying to swallow Aegon, even if there was sunlight falling into the room before, the time of day seemingly never changing in this gods forsaken place.
Aegon japs for air pathatically, then cut-short laughter are bubbling up in his throat as if he was a madman. ‘I’m gonna suffocate…’
‘No, you are not… They are just broken rips, you can still breathe, it’s fine.’
‘You have no idea!’ The wheezing sound now comes in unison with Aegon pathatically failing at drawing breath.
There is no air. His lungs feel as if they’re going to burst. He’s going to die.
‘You are not going to die. Breathe in… breathe out…’
Aegon wants to slap his own skull, wants to shut Viserys calming voice out, but he fails miserably.
He’s japping for air again.
‘In… out…’
Appart from Aegon trying very hard to breathe evenly, it’s quite in the room. Viserys is waiting for him to say or do something once he’s finally calmed down.
Funny. Aegon always thought this kind of blatantly missing respect towards his father -like calling him useless and implying he was as much of an imbecile as Aegon is- would at least provoke some kind of reaction. But no. Nothing. Of course not.
Sunfyre can’t be dead. He can’t be . Aegon doesn’t believe it for one second, doesn’t allow it! He also has the inkling of an idea that he wouldn’t be able to bear that sort of realization. Not if it was real. Sunfyre can’t be dead. Not his beauty of a dragon- Not. His. Dragon !
With Sunfyre gone… there’d be no one who truly loves him, he thinks. His father didn’t love him. His mother doesn’t love him. His siblings don’t, his grandfather doesn’t, his uncle doesn’t… The kingdom doesn’t love “Aegon the Magnanimous” either.
The only one who ever truly loved him, despite everything, is Sunfyre. And now he might have lost the only being that ever truly loved him forever, because they rode out to war together, and Aegon maybe survived without his beauty of a dragon…
He sniffles and sobs. And then he manages to gather himself and turn around in what he hopes looks at least partially resembling something akin to fierceness. ‘No,’ he says, steadfast.
‘No?’ Viserys asks, smiling frustratingly weak, but still. That stupid little smile is there.
‘Sunfyre is not dead. He can’t be.’
‘Well, you would be the one to know, wouldn’t you?’ Viserys says mystically.
Aegon wants to ask his father what the bloody hells that’s supposed to mean, but he feels himself not being able to move an inch all of a sudden, not to speak of mustering up enough voice to actually speak. At first, at least. He shakes violently. ‘What’s happening?? Why is it so cold ?!’
Everything disappears in a blurr again.
-
Aegon wants to recoil, disgusted, when he sees his brother’s face sharpening far too close in front of his own. For some reason he is everything but okay with Aemond breathing into his face. He just can’t quite pinpoint the feeling.
Not that he spent an awful lot of time imagining his own brother’s face close enough to almost kiss- or anyone’s face, for that matter. Kissing in general, now that he’s thinking about it. He just never cared. Sex? Yes. Tenderness, romance, and kisses? No.
There’s a different reason why he is dreading Aemond being that close, though. Aegon can feel it in every last aching bone in his body.
What did he do? What did they do? What happened?
Oh, no.
He does know what happened.
‘I can’t remember anything,’ he says, despite of it.
Something round and smooth is pressed into the hand that’s still able to feel around.
Aemond, who is leaning onto him, onto his burns , no less. As if it wasn’t obvious in how much agony Aegon already is. Then again, Aemond looks like he’s enjoying the view. Aemond wants to hurt him, he now fully realises…
He doesn’t hear the threat, can’t even imagine the exact wording, but he knows in his broken and fucked up bones, that he’s going to be in so much more pain, should he even so much as think to rebell.
‘I don’t remember !’ he says again, feeling terribly helpless. He’s everything else but sure about sounding and looking convincing. It’s also extremely difficult to look his brother in the eye, but when he does, it becomes clear that Aemond also doesn’t believe him. But it’s the only bloody thing Aegon can say in that moment. Because it also means “I won’t tell.”. Because it’s the only thing that might keep Aegon alive.
Although, he debates in his head, maybe death wouldn’t be such a punishment after all, should Sunfyre really be dead…
I won’t tell anybody, how I thought you would help me, until you betrayed me and focussed Vhagar’s fire on Sunfyre and me instead of Rhaenys. I won’t tell, how you stood above me, sword drawn, until Criston Cole stopped you. I won’t tell, how you just left me there. Same way I won’t tell any living soul how you, even now, are in the process of half-way killing me, and how you’re clearly savouring this moment.
It’s Maester Orwyle, barging into the room, who saves him, if the Maester intended to or not.
When Aemond moves in to actually kiss him on the forehead, Aegon can taste bile in the back of his throat. If he was able to muster the energy to actually sit up, he would have thrown up on his brother. But given his recent luck, chances are, he isn’t able to. And he’s not going to risk choking on his own vomit. If he has to die, he shall do so by means of poisining. Or in his sleep. Not making it, after all. Or maybe it will just appear like Aegon has died in his sleep…
Aegon stares at the Maester’s almost apologetic gaze, then turns his head away until Orwyle is out of his sight. He’s heard what “instructions” Aemond gave him, after all.
He lets himself be helped to some Milk of the Poppy and then he’s asleep again.
-
‘I never thought him capable of anything like that…’
Viserys’ ghost pauses in his work and regards him with a side glance, not answering immediately.
‘When he killed Luke… I always thought it had to have been some kind of accident. A really stupid one to put the little one-eyed twat to shame because of how mad and out of control his behavior has been… But an accident nontheless.’
‘And now you think otherwise?’
Aegon glances over and tugs his legs up against his body from where he’s sitting in front of the stupid model city of Valyria. Legs, he’s only able to move here , in this place, this illusion, he knows. ‘Don’t give me that look,’ he grunts in Viserys’ general direction. ‘I know I’m not a good person. I probably deserve it. He probably thinks I deserve what happend. I know you think it… It’s just… He tried to kill me thrice . Twice it was thwarted by people interrupting him… or maybe he decided he wanted to mess with me more, now that I’m helplessly lying around, not even able to move most of my body. I don’t know if that would make it better or worse.’
It’s quite for a while.
Then Viserys eventually nudges him in the shin gently with one of his shaping tools. ‘Come on. None of that anymore.’
Aegon hesitates. ‘What?’
‘None of that anymore! Pondering this awful thing won’t make you happier. Do something else. Take your mind off of it.’
Aegon snorts. ‘Any suggestions what there is to do in this gods-forsaken place?’
Viserys blinks at him, then wordlessly points to his beloved model city’s direction.
‘No,’ Aegon says instantly and actually feels a very slight twinge of guilt in his stomach when Viserys seems taken aback and a bit sad. ‘I’d only fuck it up. I’m not very good with this kind of thing,’ he then says, a sad little attempt in making up for it. He doesn’t even know why. This Viserys is a figment of his own imagination, and Aegon doesn’t owe his father’s ghost anything.
I’m not good with anything , he thinks privately.
‘Oh. Well, those things take time. And practise . Practise over all. Not everything can be as easy and immediate as bonding with your dragon,’ Viserys tells him.
That might be the only thing I was ever good at, Aegon thinks, and bonding with Sunfyre has never even been to his credit alone, half of it belongs to Aegon’s beauty of a dragon…
He tries to block out the visions of Sunfyre he keeps seeing in front of his eyes then, crawling through dirt, and ashe, and bodies, feeding on dead people and everything he can find to somehow sustain himself and heal.
He’s been good at Criston Cole’s lessons once. When Jace and Luke had still been children, younger than him, and much smaller. But some day, even Aemond got the better of him and Aegon lost interest and stopped showing up for those lessons in the training yard. Of course, dutifull Aemond still continued them…
‘Hey,’ Viserys nudges him again, ‘what did I say? Now, come on. You owe me for breaking it in the first place.’
Aegon flinches. Right… He’d wondered wether Viserys knows about that or not. Apparently, he does. But since Aegon can see no malice in his father’s eyes, he carefully untangles himself from his seat and sits up straighter. ‘Fine. Tell me what to do, so I won’t make it worse?’
‘Why don’t you start by choosing the first piece to work with,’ Viserys suggests and points in the general direction of two objects in particular.
Right. So this is what this is all about, Aegon thinks.
Since first waking up here, he’s felt like Viserys was trying to gently push him in certain directions; giving him suspicious choices, and hinting at other things Aegon is not smart enough to decipher on his own.
Now, Aegon is looking down on two different bricks of stone. The one resembling some piece of a tower, the other more pretty, clearly already shaped into a little dragon statuette. He thinks there is a crack in one of its wings, but aside from that, the dragon looks expertly made. And as such, Aegon rules the dragon out by instinct. He’s not going to take a challenge and fuck it all up.
So his left arm wants to grab the tower piece. But as soon as he’s got the stone shape in his hand, it glides through and crashes to the ground, sounding offended and loud in the quiteness of this room.
Aegon flinches again.
Viserys stares down at the shattered thing on the ground.
‘I didn’t to it on purpose, I swear…!’
‘I know,’ Viserys sighs.
Aegon’s only glad he did not try and grab the stone dragon. His thoughts wander over to Sunfyre once more.
-
Lord Larys Strong is the next to arrive unannounced at his bedside.
By the end of Strong’s visit, Aegon is in tears and pleading for help pathatically. Very “kingly” of him, he supposes.
He’s got no other option anymore. At least that’s how it feels.
-
The little edge inside the wall over the dresser is making Aegon’s right eye twitch nervously, as if he was suffering a sudden mania for cleanliness and symetry. Something is wrong with it. He just knows.
Viserys has done quite a lot of work with his pet project by now. It almost looks as big as it actually was according to Aegon’s recent memory. Aegon himself has got no idea, if that means anything. If it stands for passage of time, and if, how much time exactly has passed by now.
When it became clear how Aegon would always, without fail, appear in this place, where his father’s ghost would patiently wait for him, he tried to find a way out. Ripping open the door and running out, only to march through darkness and to end up here again . Seven Hells, he even tried jumping out of one of the windows at one point. Obviously, that ended up being in vain, too. He simply “woke up” again in the bed.
No matter what, he always ends up in here. In the king’s chambers. Or at least, that’s what his mind wants him to think where he is. He’s in the king’s chambers truly, of course, but that’s when he’s awake. And he’s asleep right now. Hence his re-appearance here. In this ghostly copy of said chambers.
Whatever it is, it wants him to be here until he’s done. But nobody is polite enough to give him a hint or outright tell him what he’s supposed to accomplish here…
He glances over to Viserys again. Viserys the Peaceful.
He truly looks the part, Aegon thinks.
‘Did you look like that? Once upon a time?’ he asks out of boredom, mostly.
Viserys pauses, seemingly surprised. ‘How exactly do I look?’ An irritated smile pulls the one corner of his mouth higher.
‘Healthy,’ Aegon simply dead-pans. ‘And with both of your arms still intact. Not hunched over. No holes in your skin and flesh.’ He reaches for the little thing on the edge that’s protruding in the nook of the wall and pulls. It rattles, but it doesn’t really budge.
‘Yes, thank you, Aegon, I get your point!’
‘And?’ Aegon asks, still pulling at the handle-like object in the corner of the wall, not looking at his father.
‘And what?’
‘Did you look like that when you were healthy?’ Aegon asks, frustrated, but not entirely because of Viserys.
‘I suppose I looked like that when I married your mother.’
‘Huh. I only know you sickly, I think,’ Aegon says, absentmindedly, trying not to look like an utter fool, pulling and jiggling that stupid handle on the wall.
‘Are you afraid you’ll be looking like this, once you finally rise from that bed again?’
‘In case Aemond is going to let me rise from that bed ever again,’ Aegon mutters.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing! What was the question again?’ Aegon turns around, sees Viserys’ disfigured face, flinches and jumps back. He never even thought about how much he got used to Viserys’ healthy young face until now. ‘Seven fucking hells! Warn a man, will you?!’ He averts his gaze immediately.
‘Warn you…?’ Viserys voice asks, sounding suspiciously calm again.
When Aegon squints over, Viserys is his old self again. Well, his young self. Aegon supposes his mental sanity is leaving him even more than ever before. ‘It’s nothing… Anyway. No.’ He returns to grabbing the handle again.
‘No?’
‘No, I’m not afraid.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well… You told me, when I first arrived here, I should believe in things happening… or not happening. So far, that has worked out for me just fine… Besides, I’m not too obsessed with my looks. Ugh! I’m a fool!’ Aegon exhales, and then, punches the wall with his closed fist.
A hidden door swings open behind the closet. In the other direction.
Pushing. No pulling, he tells himself.
‘Since when in all the Seven Hells has that been there?!’ Viserys asks, letting the piece he’s working on sink to the table for once in a long time.
-
‘Seven Hells!’ Grand Maester Orwyle says, stumbling back before catching himself again. ‘…Your Grace,’ the Maester then says, visibly reigning himself in.
‘You look upset,’ Aegon comments.
‘My apologies, Your Grace.’
‘Mind telling me, what startled you?’ Aegon croaks from his lying position on the mattress.
Orwyle hesitates, then carefully starts: ‘Well… If you’re still looking for a suitable name… might I suggest “The Immortal”?’
Aegon lifts the one eyebrow he can physically feel, which probably means he’s lifting both of them at the same time, looking ridiculosly surprised. ‘Any specific reasoning?’
‘Hm… You survived being dropped out of the flaming sky with every bone in your body shattered. Or at least nearly every bone. In addition to that, you sometimes stopped breathing for a few moments too long, before you started again. And while I’m sure, I must have been mistaken… I thought I couldn’t feel any pulse just now. And then you opened your eyes. But as I said. I was surely merely mistaken.’
Aegon hums while Maester Orwyle bussies himself with carefully working on his painfully swollen-closed left eye. ‘Aegon the Immortal. I like it.’
-
He’s beyond bored.
Aegon has lost track of how many hours must have passed; how many nights turned into days and the other way around; how many meals they brought in, only to spoonfeed him, so he wouldn’t dare to even move a single inch…
And he’s sick of lying around on his stupid back!
His eye has opened up in the meantime… But it seems like it took too much damage. Unlike Aemond’s, his left eye is still physically there, but a quick look in the mirror revealed to Aegon that his eye is now discoloured and pale-grey. It’s also rigid in place; he’s not able to move it, like he can with his right eye, still blue, still able to turn hiz gaze elswhere.
Gods, he is bored.
He tries stretching his limbs. And to his surprise- it works. Aegon hesitates. Then he draws a deep breath. His ribcage hurts, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the worst pain he’s endured in recent past in that particular area.
He pauses again.
An idea starts to form in his mind.
His next step is to carefully bend his arms as far back as he can to try and lean on them in order to hoist his upper body up slowly.
He manages. Aegon actually manages to hoist himself up! Halfway, at least. He can’t really sit on his butt because he feels like his left leg is sitting in such a weird angle that he’s prevented to fully make his body bend in the direction he wants it to.
Before he can try and desperately wiggle himself into the right position, the doors to his chambers are opened and in strolls Grand Maester Orwyle.
It takes Orwyle only a few seconds of staring at Aegon, before his eyes grow wild. He subsequently throws the door shut again and approaches Aegon’s bed with hasty steps. ‘You must rest, Your Grace!’ And he sounds like an overprotective mother who’s worried because her babe tried to climb a tree and is about to fall off the highest branch.
Aegon only lets the Maester speak to him like that because he sounds less condescending than he’s sounding worried. Although, Aegon can’t tell if it’s for Aegon’s safety or for his own…
Orwyle tries to grab him by the sides of his body with utmost care, but Aegon resists.
‘No, please let me sit!’
‘You have to rest, Your Grace…-’
‘Please! Just… please, let me…’ There he goes, begging again, this time it’s just another member of the Small Council…
Orwyle regards him with a considering glance before he finally sighs and helps him into a sitting position.
Once Aegon can feel his body weight resting on his butt cheeks, he focusses on his breathing. Inhale… Exhale… Repeat… Breathing is harder in a sitting position, but it’s managable. And he longed for a change of position for so long, he can’t bring himself to care for the difficulties.
When he opens his eyes again, Maester Orwyle is watching him very skeptically.
‘Thank you,’ Aegon rasps eventually, sounding small and pathetic. When the Maester’s expression doesn’t change, he lets his arms rest in his lap and straightens his back carefully- Gods, it feels so good not lying around on his back anymore. He then says: ‘You’re scared of my brother.’
Orwyle doesn’t answer.
Aegon leans over, aware of making a face again, but he can’t help it. ‘That makes two of us. And I have a friendly suggestion for you: Don’t tell Aemond about my improvements, if it makes you feel safer.’
Orwyle regards him for a long time, then he simply says: ‘As you wish, Your Grace.’
‘You can leave me alone again, if you want. I’m not going to die. And I’m also not going to make any further improvements, I promise.’ Aegon tries to shrug, but it doesn’t work out as flawlessly as planned- or anything resembling “graceful”.
‘Of course,’ Orwyle says, hesitates for a small while, then takes his leave.
There’s something crossing Aegon’s mind, shortly before Orwyle has reached the door handles. ‘Graend Maester…’
Orwyle turns, nervousness still radiating off of him.
‘Do you remember my father’s books I told you to… relocate?’
‘Yes?’ It sounds like a question rather than an answer.
‘Can you get them back into this room for me? I’m bored. And let my mother know they’re back in the king’s chambers?’
He doesn’t know what horrible task Orwyle expected, but he seems calmer now and nods. ‘Of course. I will let the servants bring the books back to you after I get you in a more comfortable sleeping position, Your Grace.’ So nobody but Maester Orwyle knows about Aegon feeling better. He supposes that’s smart. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’
Aegon almost cracks a smile. ‘Indeed there is. Please narrow the list of people who are allowed to set foot into these chambers down to only the Queen Mother, the Queen, and yourself.’
He is going to try and snatch a knife the next time they bring him a meal and slide it under his pillows, he thinks, just as a precaution.
-
Aegon’s got all kinds of different books about Old Valyria spread all over his bed sheets. He himself is practically lying in and beneath them, with his left cheek resting on the dusty, old, yellow pages.
He’s still bored. He reads all those pages out of boredom, but he doesn’t think he’s learning much, and the history of Old Valyria isn’t all that interesting.
Despite the books, Alicent never shows up.
-
‘Why do I still keep coming back here?’ Aegon grunts. He’d be pulling out his own hair, if he could. Sadly, this other world prevents him from doing so.
‘It has gotten much less than before. It’s not that extreme,’ Viserys gently points out, maybe even in an attempt to calm him down.
As a response, Aegon stares at him darkly. ‘That’s not making it better.’
At least they are able to have a proper conversation by now. The awkardness of never truly speaking before has faded, and they’re at least able to have a small back and forth with each other one could almost understand as pleasant.
‘Well, why don’t we try and find a solution together?’
Aegon stares at his father’s ghost gloomily.
A snarky remark lies on his tongue. Something along the lines of he, as an idiot by himself, not being enough, and maybe this mystery needs two morons to solve it. But that’s probably exactly the case. Aegon knows he isn’t the smartest person around. That’s why he panicked when Larys Strong hinted at his mind possibly being the only thing that he’s got left now. That’s why he tried to learn- and failed. That’s why he’s so desperately praying for at least be able to walk again in the future, if not run. Viserys is probably right. Aegon needs him to think this through with him. Because Aegon on is own isn’t going to solve this.
And that is his thought process while ignoring the fact that Viserys isn’t real and just a figment of his imagination most likely.
‘We can try, can’t we? It’s better than sitting around and doing nothing,’ Viserys points out hopefully.
‘Fine,’ Aegon sighs and walks up to one of the seats in front of his father’s pet project, using the backrest as something to lean on. ‘Where do you suggest we start?’
‘Is there anything… only I can tell you? Do you have any unanswered questions?’
Aegon stares and blinks for a moment. ‘Actually… there is.’
Viserys waits. It might be the first time he’s got his father’s full and undivided attention.
Aegon trys not to think about it for too long. It’s pathetic and sad. ‘Why did you change your mind?’
‘About what exactly?’
‘Come on, don’t play dumb with me now. I mean… you never did. You never changed your mind. Why did you do it last second?’
‘You really have to be more specific. I don’t know what you are talking about, I swear it to you.’
‘You told my mother you changed your mind and you wanted me on the throne instead of Rhaenyra.’
Viserys blinks at him, seemingly lets the new information sink in. ‘No. No, I didn’t…’ he says eventually. Aegon is surprised about how the steadfastness in his father’s voice regarding that particular topic still pains him after all.
‘Yes. You did. My mother is many things, but she is no liar. And you know that, too. I even tried to tell her how unlikely that was. But she was so convinced. She was convinced of it!’
‘Okay… be calm… What exactly did your mother tell you about this? Tell me exactly, what you still remember.’
Aegon sighs. ‘She told me, I had no idea what sacrifices where made. And she told me a few times already, how you spoke of “Aegon’s Dream”...’ Aegon himself knows how little that is. But his mind never was the most complicated of them all.
‘...”Aegon’s Dream”...’ Viserys repeats. ‘I talked about it. After our last supper. Rhaenyra visited me. And in my last moments, I wanted to reaffirm to her… I wanted to remind her, as my heir, about the prophecy. And she told me, she understood…’
Prophecy, Aegon thinks tiredly. He doesn’t bother to mock Viserys about it.
‘Father, Rhaenyra immediately left after supper. She didn’t go anywhere.’ And just like that, a terrible idea starts forming in his mind. ‘But my mother visited you. Like every evening before going to bed.’
Viserys stares at him, mout half-agape, his utensiles laying forgotten on the table next to the model city.
‘What did you tell her?’ Aegon asks urgently, terrified of the answer. ‘And what did my mother misunderstand because of it!?’ He’s got an idea, but he also still has hope it’s not true.
Viserys groans and runs his hand over his face tiredly. Then he starts slowly: ‘There is an old prophecy. It’s called “Aegon’s Dream”. But it’s not about you, it’s a dream Aegon the Conquerer once had. It’s knowledge that gets passed down from ruler to heir when the time is ripe. Rhaenyra asked me before to help her with the burden, and I just wanted to…-’
‘Yes, I know, you never changed your mind and Rhaenyra has been your heir all along!’ Aegon interrupts his father. It hurts, surprisingly enough. He thought he’d gotten over that already. ‘That still doesn’t explain, what mother understood from it.’
Viserys breathes in and out. ‘Years ago… I told your mother about a dream I had. Back then, when I was still married to my first wife. I had a dream in which I sat my son on the Iron Throne and the masses cheered.’
Aegon snorts. ‘Did they cheer or cry?’
Viserys looks at him, unsure of what to think, seemingly.
‘Couldn’t you have just shut your mouth?’ Aegon asks, feels the sting of tears in his eyes. And then he loses it, screams and cries. ‘Why couldn’t you just BE QUIET??! I didn’t want to sit on that GLORIFIED CHAIR! I fought against them, teeth and nails, and they STILL made me sit on it! If you had just been quite… my son would still be alive… EVERYTHING WOULD STILL BE FINE! If you’d just shut your bloody mouth! There would be NO WAR! Aemond wouldn’t have… I WOULD NOT LIE IN MY BED LIKE A CRIPPLE! WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST SHUT YOUR BLOODY MOUTH?? What do you have to say to me?! What??’ Aegon has a feeling of his ribcage bursting and he feels like he can’t breathe, but through sheer stubborness, he remains standing, grabing at his throat and sweating.
For a long time, Aegon’s ragged breathing is the only thing he can hear in his own ears.
Viserys is staring at him, strangely appearing as if he was about to cry himself. Only after a long while, he begins to speak: ‘I am sorry. This wasn’t meant to happen like that.’
Aegon swallows and japs for air. ‘Say it again,’ he demands.
Viserys blinks, then he finally lets everything he’s been holding in his hands still clatter to the table and looks him straight in the eyes. ‘I am sorry.’
Aegon whimpers. Then he reigns himself in again. ‘I accept that,’ he says and hastily wipes the tears from his right cheek. ‘And while we’re at it… I suppose I should tell you that I’m sorry, too. I haven’t been easy. I know that.’ He averts his gaze and Viserys probably does the same, humming deep in thought.
It’s deadly quite like a cript for some time after that.
Until Aegon can’t take the quiteness of this realm anymore. ‘So what now?’ he asks, his voice raspy, his fingers fidgeding and rubbing at the wooden material of the chair he is still holding on to.
‘Hm?’
He hesitates. ‘The past is written, even the recent one. The ink has been spilled. It’s dry. Nobody can change that. What do we do with it all now?’ Only now he is brave enough to look his father in the eye again.
Viserys regards him with a long, thoughtful gaze. Then he takes a deep breath. ‘Did the throne cut you?’
‘What?’
‘Did it cut you at any time?’
‘Outlandish way of formulating a plan. But no,’ Aegon says, making a face. Not to his knowledge, ironically enough. He doesn’t know what he is supposed to make of Viserys paying a stupid peasant’s superstition that much mind.
Viserys nods. ‘Good.’ Then he points to the other seat in front of his pet project. ‘Sit down, Aegon.’
‘Why? For what?’
‘You’re right. What’s done is done. We can’t change the past. I didn’t wish for it, but you’re sitting the Iron Throne now. You’re not ready, but you’ll have to work with what you got, and either way you grow into your role or you lose everything you have left. So please, sit down with me. I need to tell you an old but very important story.’
-
He’d carefully lifted his foot out of this awful contraption long before Grand Maester Orwyle even thought of actually allowing it. But Aegon knew the only thing he’d get out of asking first would have been a rather nervous and wearisome sermon about not straining himself too much- which would have been a lie, because they both know very well what Orwyle’s primary sorrow in this matter is.
So he plays along when Orwyle removes the contraption from his leg in front of the unusual watchful eyes of his mother, and feigns remnants of actual pain here and there. He also desperately holds back from wiggeling his toes like a child.
When Orwyle leaves, Alicent is standing at his bedside, staring down at him.
Aegon tries to ignore it, but folds under her stern gaze. ‘What is it?’
‘Why did you ask them to bring all the books back here? It looks like you’re sleeping between those pages instead of in a bed.’
Aegon ignores the obvious fact. Said obvious fact being, Alicent having asked for them before. Instead he says: ‘I was bored. All I can do is lie around.’
‘I thought, reading brings you no joy.’
‘It doesn’t, but it’s still a little less boring this way. Besides,’ he picks a random book and tries passing it in her general direction, ‘you asked for them, didn’t you? Here. Take it. Whatever you wanted to research. Just don’t take them all at once. I still got very little else to do aside from reading.’
But she doesn’t take the stupid book. ‘Keep it, if you’re so terribly bored. I can wait. Just rest,’ she tells him, and then she leaves without so much as another word or a fleeting touch.
When the doors close behind her, leaving Aegon alone again, he surpresses the urge to throw the book across the room.
It seems he still didn’t meet mother’s high expectations.
Or worse. Maybe Alicent Hightower truly prefers Aemond over Aegon and can’t stand to breathe the same air as Aegon for too long.
-
When he tries to at least swing his legs out of bed and let his bare feet rest on the cool floors beneath him, he does so in the dead of night, when it’s less likely for anyone to dare and intrude on him. It hurts like all the seven hells. It’s still too much, and so he drags his legs back into bed, onto the soft mattress, and endures the pain he inflicted upon himself.
-
He doesn’t give up, though.
In the next days, and weeks, and fortnights, he tries over and over again, until he manages to let his feet dangle there and let them rest on the cold floor while he remains in a sitting position on the bed.
-
The next step is to try and stand.
And bloody hells, he knows how high the risk to just topple over and land face first on the ground actually is. It won’t be easy to get back up again on his own accord and Maester Orwyle would find him next morrow, still lying there, half-naked, on the dirty floor.
It’s worth the risk, though.
And he manages, even if his legs are madly shaking and he has to cling tightly onto the headboard of the bed to keep himself standing upright. A sharp pain is ever present, as long as he’s standing, in both of his legs, even though the left one feels a lot worse for wear.
It makes Aegon ache for Milk of the Poppy to lessen the pain, but Lord Larys Strong made sure to remove every last droplet from Aegon’s reach.
-
His first steps feel like he is walking with naked feet through an ocean of sharpened and pointy shards of glass and steel.
His legs don’t stop wobbeling either. He has to reach for the wall for leverage and pause a lot until he can walk again.
-
It’s lots of work and terrible pain, but some day he manages to get from one end of the room to the other, relatively easy and without incidents.
He’s huffing and puffing when his little itinerancy is over and done, but he managed.
He never thought he would feel so happy for simply being able to walk a few steps, he almost cries.
Then his gaze lands on that wall above the dresser. In his dream, there had been something jutting out, so he knew something had not been right with it.
And so Aegon fights himself onto his pained legs again to embarrassingly wobble in the direction of the dresser. That’s where Aegon is leaning his body against when he’s giving the wall a good push. And just like in that realm of dreams and dead men, a hidden wall swings open and reveals a dangerously dark and narrow flight of stairs leading further into darkness.
Aegon ponders about it for a bit, drumming his fingers against the dresser. Then he decides that he’s going to deposit some clothes there, just in case he’ll ever need a quick exit. Just in case he ever needs to be out of sight in a matter of seconds, like a ghost. Given he can manage to be quick enough, of course.
For now, though, he pulls the hidden door shut again and scrambles back to bed.
-
‘Shouldn’t you be resting?’ a voice comes from the other end of the room, where the doors to his chambers are.
Aegon lifts his head from the stupid, dusty book in his lap and takes in the figure of his sister in the doorway. ‘I am resting,’ he says then, feeling a bit silly.
‘In bed, I mean.’
He’s sitting on the windowsill on the one end of the bedroom. The warm sun shines onto his back and left leg that sits there also, comfortably outstretched. The heat feels good. But point taken. Aegon isn’t in bed.
‘Don’t tell on me,’ he requests sheepishly.
Helaena regards him with her near-empty gaze before she finally closes the doors in her back and awkwardly steps closer. ‘I brought you something.’ And with that, a little wooden cage is nearly pressed into Aegon’s face.
He blinks slowly. ‘Crickets?’
‘They stopped singing,’ Helaena explains, ‘but maybe they will sing again to keep you awake. Or alive.’ With that, she gently sets down the little cage on the windowsill next to Aegon’s leg and kneels in front of it, her chin resting on her arms.
Aegon’s very sure from those three silent crickets, one of them is lying dead on the cage’s floor. But he doesn’t have the heart to tell Helaena. Besides, she probably already knows. She’s not an idiot, after all. Just special in an odd kind of way. And maybe the dead cricket’s two companions are silent because they are in mourning still.
He pushes his body forward until he’s a little hunched over the cage- well, as best as he can and the natural flexibility of his body allows in this state of his. A little pained grunt still escapes him, but she seems to ignore that. ‘Thank you?’
Helaena doesn’t answer.
Out of boredom, he carefully reaches out with his finger and gently touches the cage.
Chirp .
Aegon pulls his hand back as if bitten.
Helaena looks downright dumbfounded. Then she focusses her gaze on the cage fully. ‘Do it again!’
Chirrrp !
He snorts.
Aegon the Conquerer of Crickets, he thinks, not as impressive as “The Immortal”, but still. He should probably settle for less. He’s not exactly a conquerer in any other regard.
Helaena smiles. ‘I think they will sing again. Try to not forget to remind them daily, will you?’ With that, she carefully cradles the little cage, stands up, and sets it down again directly next to the bed.
That’s where she remains for quite a moment, with her back turned to him.
Eventually she says: ‘Aemond left King’s Landing on Vhagar this morning.’
‘He did?’ Aegon hears himself asking, maybe a little too eager.
If there ever was a right time, Sunfyre, the time is now, he thinks nervously. Please come back to me, if you’re out there still.
‘Harrenhal,’ Helaena explains in her special way of explaining nothing at all and turns around.
‘When do you think he will be back??’ He sounds urgent. And he knows it. It’s probably going to overwhelm Helaena, if he keeps it up for too long.
To his surprise, Helaena says: ‘Not that soon.’ She sounds weirdly knowing. ‘He wants to fight Daemon,’ she adds.
There are a dozen questions burning in Aegon’s head.
One of them is why in the world Helaena would let him ride into his very probable death. He always thought Helaena fancied Aemond more than him.
But he’s also sure he doesn’t actually want her to answer that question in her mysterious way of babbling about.
So instead he asks: ‘Will you take a walk with me?’
She looks at him weirdly. ‘Shouldn’t you rest?’
‘I don’t give a shit, I want out of this room for once!’
She fidgets nervously.
He sighs. ‘It’s not an order. You can say “no” to that.’
‘Would you stay here, if I did?’
Aegon presses his lips into a thin line. Then he shakes his head. ‘No. I’d try my luck alone and I’d probably fall on my face for it. But be warned, if you say yes… I’ll probably shamelessly lean on you for support. And I’ll probably fall on top of you should my legs give way under me. Better say no, now that I think about it…’
Helaena gives him another empty look, then she scurreys over to the wardrobe, opening the first drawer.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Oh, you wanted to go naked!?’
They struggle and fumble him into his clothes then. A shirt, simple pants, his shoes… Helaena’s fingers act clever and gentle enough, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t make it any easier for her in the slightest. Aegon truly wonders why she’s even bothering to get through this nonsense with him. Especially after he didn’t exactly care for her after their son passed away.
He is panting when they’re done, but they’re done eventually.
Aegon can’t believe he is about to set foot outside again, it makes him childishly giddy, and if it wouldn’t hurt him instantly, he’d probably jump around on the spot in anticipation; the doors open up and on his shaky legs, with Helaena as his left eye on his side, he walks out.
And then he turns around, irritated.
His kingsguard…
‘Are they actually sleeping ?!’
‘Seems like the life of a kingsguard is very tiring.’ Sometimes Aegon easily forgets that Helaena is capable of dry humor. ‘Should we wake them…?’
‘Are you kidding? No. Be quiet and let’s just go. I’m sick of them following me around everywhere. That was the only upside of being bed-ridden!’ he announces and makes a few shaky and hopefully mostly soundless steps in the other direction, pulling Helaena with him like that. ‘Just… isn’t there one missing?’ He practically feels the wrinkles on his forehead.
‘Ser Leon fell victim to the smallfolk,’ Helaena whispers.
Aegon stares at her. ‘Fuck. What did I miss?!’
They round a corner- and walk right into an all too familiar face. A face Aegon himself actually sent away some time ago.
Of course they run right into Otto Hightower immediately.
‘Well… there stands the shortened version of some of it,’ Helaena whispers.
Otto takes a step towards them and regards Aegon with an epression Aegon hardly ever sees in his grandfather’s eyes. ‘How are you walking around like that?’ He almost sounds like he’s in awe. Almost. There is something else Aegon can’t decipher.
Aegon breathes in- and out. And then he looks up. Directly into Otto’s eyes. ‘One foot in front of the other. Why? How are you doing that?’ His lip trembles.
But he swears he sees the tiniest twitch upwards on those strict features.
‘You can say it now, if you want,’ Aegon mumbles and carefully squints upwards. ‘I have regrets.. I was stupid. And now I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my life,’ Aegon says bitterly, referring to the ugly burn marks, disfiguring his face.
He waits for his grandfather to say something, to chide him, anything. Aegon didn’t think Otto Hightower would suddenly lunch forward until Aegon’s cheek collides with Otto’s shoulder, forcing him into an uncomfortable blindness all of a sudden.
Aegon instantly grows still and tens. He suspected his grandfather to hit him again, or squish him in anger until all air leaves his lungs. But no. He’s being cradled like a child. A very fragile child. Made from thin glass.
As a response, he tries not to grab around blindly with his left arm in order to find Helaena too viciously.
But he doesn’t return the embrace either. He waits it out, rigid in place, maybe a bit more shocked than he’d be inclined to admit.
When his grandfather releases him again, there is no malice in his eyes. ‘What happened at Rook’s Rest?’
Aegon instantly feels his ribcage tightening painfully. As a result, he fights for the right to draw air into his lungs again. ‘I don’t remember!’ He also sounds a tad too panicky, but the words have already left his lips. ‘Aemond says I attacked Rhaenys, but I can’t remember, I swear, I don’t remember , it’s the truth!’
‘It will be alright. You’ve lost your memories. They will return eventually… don’t you think?’ Otto simply says, but it’s relatively obvious that he has an idea of what’s really happening here. ‘Where are you two off to, all of a sudden?’
‘A walk through the Godswood,’ Helaena decides before Aegon can come up with something probably more stupid or out of the ordinary than that.
‘Of course. The fresh air and afternoon sun is probably beneficial for the King’s health. Don’t let me keep you, Your Grace. But… I assume you want me to resign the position of Hand of the King?’
Dirty move, Aegon thinks dryly. And then he thinks about Criston Cole and Aemond conspiring with each other.
‘No. Keep it.’ It probably came out a little too fast. ‘I can see Aemond’s reasoning behind the decision.’
Otto regards him with a glance that’s nothing short of surprise, but bows his head eventually. ‘Your Grace.’
‘And one other thing, Grandfather… Maester Orwyle told me my health can rapidly decline again. There is the chance… Maybe… by the time Aemond returns… maybe I’m already lying motionless in my bed again, unable to even lift a finger. I’d be thankful if you didn’t mention my good health to my brother should that be the case when he returns. I’d hate for him to worry about me, I mean!’
Otto nods, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Of course. I’m sure he would be devastated. Best not to mention it.’
Aegon nods, his lips pressed into a thin line. And then, before those damned tears can roll down his cheeks, he practically flees.
He’s almost sprinting, and he knows it’s not good for the state of his legs. He also hears Helaena, silent as a mute, but nontheless coming after him with hasty steps.
When he reaches the Godswood, his legs buckle under him and he slums unceremoniously into the grass beneath him. He tries to massage some feelings into his legs that’s not pain, but it’s to no avail.
‘You’re in pain,’ Helaena points out the obvious.
‘It will pass,’ Aegon croaks weakly, feeling a single tear running down his right cheek. He tries rubbing his leg harder.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he clumsily lets himself sink into the freshly cut grass, limbs stretched out as far as he’s able to, and inhaling the scent of the ground, the dirt, and the seemingly freshly cut grass.
It doesn’t take him long to close his eyes and fall asleep in the waning sun.
-
In the end they have to carry Aegon back to his bed because he overexerted himself. For once, nobody complains about his stupidity getting him into trouble, not even in a roundabout way.
-
The dragon scream is unmistakable. Aegon would have recognized that voice between a thousand more.
Aegon shoots up in his bed and immediately regrets it because of his stiff, cramping back. Of course the pain is spreading further into his limbs, but he doesn’t care. Not really. He isn’t allowed to care for that today!
It’s morrow, he vaguely assumes.
‘You are not going to leave, are you?’
Aegon almost screams, flinching so violently he nearly falls off the bed. ‘Seven Hells, Helaena!’
She’s just sitting there, on the windowsill, some stitching laying forgotten in her lap. When Sunfyre chirps again, she pauses and turns around, looks out of the window behind her for a second, then her blue eyes wander back to him, trying to drill themselfes into his skull.
‘What do you even mean?’ Aegon tries to snicker, but he fails miserably.
‘You can’t leave,’ she says, simply, but a lot more plainly this time.
‘Don’t say that. Where would I even go? I’m the cripple, lying in my bed. I can’t even leave if I wanted to. Not truly. You saw what happened when I tried to run the last time…’
She stares at him. For all her quirks, she sees right through people. And he’s a horrible liar, he knows it.
‘If you leave, things are going to happen…’ Helaena announces.
Aegon waits for her to explain, but she doesn’t seem to be about to do that. So he smiles thinnly at her. ‘Well. As I said. I’m currently not even able to go anywhere. You don’t need to worry, you hear me? Nothing is going to happen.’
It’s clear she doesn’t believe him in the slightest. In a nervous fit, she almost throws her stitching to the side and shoots into a standing position, making a few steps towards him. ‘Do you want to go see Sunfyre? He seems eager to see you again.’ Helaena obviously just changes the topic, even though she clearly knows Aegon has been lying to her, playing the sick and fragile man.
‘My legs are not in the best shape today. It will be evening before you get me so far down the whole city, not to mention the uneasy smallfolk. Go without me, see what’s going on, at least, even if you don’t leave the Red Keep. I’ll be here when you get back,’ he flippantly says.
Helaena fixates him with her usually ghostly, empty gaze. ‘Stay. Here.’ she says. It’s not a plea, nor an order, but she sounds urgent and stern like Aegon seldomly hears or sees her. But then she actually goes to leave the room.
Maybe she already knows there’s nothing she can do to stop it. To stop Aegon. Or to stop the future she’s so afraid of. The future she thinks is going to happen.
He waits until he can’t hear her steps outside anymore, then he impatiently slides his legs out of bed, stands up and limps in the direction of the hidden door behind the dresser next to the window.
His gaze lands on her stitching work she forgot on the windowsill.
He snorts.
Of course it’s bugs, he thinks.
There’s a scorpion on the one side, but one of the bigger ones, about which he knows, thanks to Helaena, that they’re too big to be poisonous. It’s stinger reaches for some kind of knife or spear. On the other side, there’s a small spider being surrounded by something that’s not quite done yet, as it seems.
Aegon shakes his head. It’s not like he doesn’t feel guilty at all to have mislead her like that. Especially since whatever has been going on in that weird head of hers seems to be of utmost importance to Helaena… Maybe she’s worried something’s going to happen to her for some reason. Aegon is convinced he'd be actually more willing to stay in any other situation- if his own life wouldn’t be in that kind of grave danger.
If he stays, he is going to die. He is in Aemond’s way, and it’s just a matter of time before Aemond gets sick of torturing Aegon or recognizes that Aegon has only been acting sick and fragile… He knows that now. He knows his own brother hates him like that since they were children and he played stupid pranks on Aemond.
What can Aegon say? He wants to live. He never wanted to be king anyway and everything regarding Aemond has become dull and indifferent, as far as Aegon is concerned. He doesn’t care if Aemond takes the throne once he’s gone one way or another. But he prefers to survive to older age. He isn’t planning to die for Aemond and his little brother’s relentless ambitions and thirst for revenge.
So… another solution is needed, he thinks, before pushing open the hidden door and clumsily climbing over the dresser in the corner. His legs and feet hurt badly again when he lands on the cold stone on the other side, but he needs to ignore the pain. He has to do this.
The moment he closes the hidden door in his back, the doors to his chambers fly open again. In steps Helaena, heading for her stitchings, it seems.
He can see into his chambers through little slits and slots in the wall, he realises… Aegon sure hopes he’s the only one using those hidden passage ways, wherever they lead to exactly…
Helaena freezes, not having noticed his absence at first. But then she does, staring at his empty bed. And she wears that expression on her face that makes his stomach clench the tiniest bit. The uneasy disappointment on her face…
She takes the stitching work, presses her lips into a thin line, nods to herself, and silently leaves the room.
Aegon releases his breath and then wordlessly puts on the clothes he’s hidden here days or even weeks ago, he really doesn’t even know or care.
It’s too late to make a sudden change of plans, he tells himself. This is the moment he’s been waiting for. He also got no other choice, if he wants to live.
He knows his father’s ghost probably expects something else from him… But again. If he wants to live, he needs to leave. And he hasn’t seen Viserys anymore after the last time. Maybe he’s going to see him again, maybe slightly more angry this time, since Aegon is so egotistically defying his father’s wishes… again. On purpose this time.
Aegon drops that thought. At least he’s doing his best not to think about this any further. He needs to mentally prepare and then jump into the figurative cold water.
He doesn’t know where the tunnels will lead him, but there’s no other way. And besides, no matter where he will end up, he’ll still have to sneak through the whole city of King’s Landing, probably until his legs give out under him or until he can reach his dragon…
The next minutes, maybe even hours, are going to be torture.
-
When he finally reaches the shores and basically burts through the rows of people, standing and gawking around in a distance that’s probably less safe than they think it is, Aegon’s golden beauty is nervous, and scared, and worried. Worried about him, he realises. And even from the distance Aegon can see the same longing for a home neither Sunfyre nor Aegon know anymore in his dragon’s eyes.
Aegon only knows one destination, and so he stomps in Sunfyre’s direction unthinkingly, his legs shaking like leafes in a cruel storm.
Someone tries to grab him and hold him back, but Aegon simply shoves the stranger and begins running.
He probably looks like any other street rat, with the worn out clothes, the facial scars, and the unmistakable silver-blonde hair hidden under a hood that’s falling deep into his face. Maybe the stranger tried to save his life. Surely, that scrawny little street rat isn’t planning on just stomping head-first into a famous dragon of House Targaryen only to die a horrible death, or is he?
It doesn’t matter. Sunfyre knows it is him, feels it.
When Aegon reaches his dragon, his legs buckle and he falls face first into his dragon’s scales. He lets it happen. So does Sunfyre. His dragon coos at him, carefully closing the distance with his snout and almost blows the hood of Aegon’s head with one massive exhale.
Aegon keeps the hood in place in the last second, laughing madly and feeling tears in his eyes. ‘I missed you, too, you have no idea…’ Or maybe Sunfyre does. Maybe he felt Aegon’s pain exactly like Aegon has been able to see Sunfyre crawling through ashe and charred bodies.
Dear Gods, they both look so bad and marked by pain and nightmares…
Sunfyre’s left wing looks badly damaged, ripped even, as if he almost lost the wing at some point. Fittingly, there’d been a time during which Aegon thought he would lose his left leg, too, as he very well still knows.
‘I am so sorry, Sunfyre, I’m sorry…’ he japs, softly caressing golden scales with his right hand. ‘I almost got both of us killed… I am sorry. Please, tell me you forgive me. You can burn me to death if you don’t, it’s okay…’
Sunfyre coos again, stretching his left wing stubbornly as if to say: “Don’t be fucking stupid, you little moron!”.
Aegon laughs lightheartedly. Then he croaks: ‘Will you help me once again?’
Sunfyre bows his head, blinks at him out of one of his giant eyes. It calms Aegon, even if he can see the ugly, scarred left side of his face in the reflection.
‘Can you fly?’ His voice quivers pathatically.
Sunfyre flaps his wings one single, majestic time.
The people meters behind them are beginning to cower in fear, but Aegon takes this answer as a “yes”.
And so he coughs painfully before he reaches upwards. He needs Sunfyre’s help, and thank all the Gods his dragon instinctively knows and tries to comfort him in his climb. When Aegon reaches the worn saddle on Sunfyre’s back, his lower body truly feels as if it’s going to just plop and fall off like that. It doesn’t, of course, but the pain is nearly unbearable.
He gasps for air and waits until the panicky, little cramps in his lungs stop being palpable.
When he calmed down enough, Aegon reaches out, lying flat on his stomach in the saddle, and gently pets Sunfyre’s neck. ‘We have to go. Before Vhagar comes back. We have to leave, my darling dragon.’
Sunfyre roars in one single, high-pitched dragonscream.
The smallfolk gathered around begin to panic and flee in all kinds of directions like little mice, scurrying away. From way up here, on Sunfyre's back, they all look so small. So afraid to be trampled, Aegon thinks.
Aegon clumsily and arduously straps his near-useless legs into the saddle, so he won’t fall off the damn thing into his sure death this time. It’s not like he’s going to survive such a fall twice, especially since he’s not dressed in any kind of armour anymore.
His dragon takes flight.
Happy little squeals leave his lips and his crying sounds like laughing once the wind breezes through his unruly hair.
They are free. Just like that.
Aegon breathes in the fresh air hungrily and lets the healthy side of his face rest on the saddle, continuing to lie on his stomach on his dragon’s back, and just closes his eyes peacefully.
To wherever Sunfyre is carrying him now, he is going to be safe.
Aegon drifts to sleep without a care in the world.