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em-writes-stuff-sometimes · 10 months

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darilaros (princess) │ Chapter 4: Stepmother

terms of endearment ‘verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Chapter 1 │Chapter 2 │Chapter 3 │Chapter 4 │Chapter 5 │Chapter 6 │Chapter 7 │Chapter 8 (COMPLETE!)

Synopsis: As the second daughter of King Viserys, you experience firsthand what it means to belong to the House of the Dragon. Your father reconnects with you.

Hello! This one, in comparison to the last, kinda flew outta me! Keep in mind that this is Episode 2 from Reader's POV; a lot of the action here is centred on Viserys, Alicent, Rhaenyra and Daemon, and thus the canon events are sorta sidelined by Reader's Big Adventures as a Toddler, lol. Thank you to @ewanmitchellcrumbs for tolerating my bullshit and reading this thing, lol!

TRIGGERS: continued discussion of child grief, Viserys's courtship shenanigans with various underaged females, ranidaphobia (fear of toads), childlike angst.

You never really thought a lot about the things you used to do with Mama. Now that she is dead, you begin to see all the ways that your days and nights had so so much Mama and not much of everyone else.

When Brella woke you up and got you into your dress, you would go straight to wherever Mama is to break your fast. Sometimes, that was in her rooms or in her solar where the sun shone in from the window and made you yawn. Other times, she would be with Papa in the Council rooms or with ’Nyra, so you’d go there instead. Mama always helped you by cutting up your food with the knife because you are too little to touch it, and then she watched you with kind eyes while you used the fork very carefully. After you finished all your food, you would sit on the floor with Brella and learn each of your letters by tracing the etchings in your hornbook and thinking of all the things that started with that letter. Your favourite letter is ‘M’ for Mama. You also like ‘R’ for ’Nyra because her full name is Rhae-nyra, but you stutter when you have to say the whole thing. Then, you would play with your dolls for a while, and then have some more food, and then take a nap. When you woke up, Brella would teach you some of the steps to the dances that grown-up ladies do—one day, you’ll be grown-up and do them, too, so it is important to know them and practise all the steps so that the lords think you are pretty and marriage-able. Mama would then take you outside to play, or even just walk around the gardens so that you could touch all the flowers and feel warm in the sunshine. Brella would give you a bath, and then you would eat supper, and then Mama or maybe Uncle would come and read you a story and you’d go to sleep.

But Mama is gone now, and Brella is the only person that is the same from your days and nights before Mama went away and became not-real.

You never saw much of ’Nyra before, because she is ten years older and that means she doesn’t want to play with little girls like you all day. ’Nyra comes by lots now, almost as much as Mama did, and she sits and plays dolls or teaches you more words in High Valyrian. It is nice, even though she always has to leave for her Council meetings because she is the heir now. But you don’t mind. Usually, Alicent stays behind to practice your dance steps with you or to trace over the letters in your hornbook. When you get upset—letters are very hard and sometimes you want to throw the hornbook away, but Brella tells you “no” which makes you frustrated—Alicent sings songs her mama taught her, and when she hugs you, it is like it was with Mama, special and warm and love-feeling on the inside, like butterflies.

Even though ’Nyra and Alicent and Brella all try so so hard to fill your days and nights with all the things you used to do, like it is the same as it was, it’s not the same. You dance and play and eat and learn and sleep but Mama isn’t there to help with any of it like before. It makes you cry sometimes, sudden and coming from nowhere at all. You just stop and cry and cry and no hug or song can make it any better, and you cannot say exactly why you are crying because you don’t know how to put it in words. You don’t know how to talk about the way you miss Mama when you see the flowers and she’s not there to tell you their names, or when you learn the dances and she doesn’t hum the music that you do the steps to, or when you want a hug the most and no one can do it exactly right like she can. So, you cry, and you have to wait for all the tears to get themselves out before you can stop.

It isn’t all sad, though. Some things are good, too.

Like Papa. Since he had come to tell you that Mama and Baelon died, he has ignored you, which means he doesn’t look at you or talk to you or even think you exist. Brella and Alicent said it is because he is grieving, because he is feeling sorrow, so you try not to be so upset that he doesn’t love you anymore. But one day, instead of ’Nyra coming to see you, Papa does.

When Brella suddenly stands and curtseys, you see him in the doorway of your rooms, and your dolls don’t seem very important anymore. “Papa?” you ask, almost sick with the fear and excitement of him finally being there.

He smiles, a small one, and comes inside. As he looks around, it’s like he cannot remember where he is, but you suppose that he doesn’t spend a lot of time in here with you, so he finds all your things strange. Papa pulls out one of the chairs by the table—you never sit there, but all the rooms in the Keep come with tables so you aren’t allowed to have yours taken out—and holds out his hand to you like Mama did when she wanted to give you a hug without getting up.

You put Alysanne down on the floor beside Marya and Hana and Brella and go to your papa. His hand feels funny, not like you think it used to. Uncle’s hands—man’s hands, he always says—have hard skin in parts, which makes holding them scratchy. Papa’s aren’t like that. His are soft where Uncle’s are not, but there are bits where the skin doesn’t seem to want to stick down all over, and instead they come up and show the really red parts deeper inside, like when you fall over and the stone stings against your knee and makes you wail.

“Oh, my girl,” Papa says, and then he’s lifting you onto his knee. He is looking at you, just looking, and his eyes are shiny-bright. “My girl. My little Aemma.”

Lots of people say you look like Mama, whose name was Aemma before she was Mama, and you love love that Papa thinks you are like her. She is who he loves the most, so maybe he will visit more if she is gone and you are like her.

You don’t say that to him, though. “I miss you, Papa,” is what you say instead.

“I know.” He swallows hard. Maybe he has venison stuck there again. “I am sorry. I should have come much sooner. You are only… only a child.”

“I’m a big girl.” You try not to pout, because Uncle says only silly little babies do that when they’re angry or upset, and you’re not a baby.

That makes Papa laugh. “Oh, of course you are. My mistake. Tell me—what have you been doing as of late?”

He’s never asked you that before. Papa would only ever give you hugs or say nice things about you to other people back when Mama was not dead, so it’s very exciting that he wants to know about you now. You tell him all about how ’Nyra is teaching you High Valyrian and how you are learning your letters with Brella, which he seems interested to listen to. When you tell him about how Alicent helps you learn the dances, he starts talking again.

“The Lady Alicent? She has been spending time with you, has she?”

“Yeah,” you say.

“And what do you think of her?” he asks, staring very closely at you. “Do you like her?”

The question is strange. She has been ’Nyra’s friend for a long long time, so Papa should ask your sister instead of you if he wants to know if Alicent is good. But you think about it anyway—you think about how she takes you to the Sept to light candles for Mama, how she always sounds like she wants to hear what you are saying, even though you’re only little. You think about how warm she is, and how her hugs make the sad go away so well.

That stays in your mind longest of all, which is why you say what you say to him. “She’s good, like Mama. I like her lots.”

He makes a noise but doesn’t say anything more. Instead, he looks away from you, his eyes going far away like he’s seeing something different than what’s in front of him. It makes you wonder again about why he is here.

“Is there a bad thing that happened?” you ask.

He frowns, his knee jumping a little bit under you. “What makes you say that?”

“You don’t come and see me, Papa, but you’re here, so maybe you have to say something bad again.” It is hard not to think about the last time, when he told you Mama was dead and Baelon was, too. It’s even harder not to think about how long that was before now, how this is the first time in a while that you have seen him up close. “Do—do you still love me?”

Papa says your name in a very sad way and hugs you so hard that your arms feel pushed in too close. “You are my daughter, my blood. The very best of your mother and I. ‘Tis through my own weakness that I have not done my duty as a father, and naught of your own.” When he pulls away, he cups your face in his hands. “Never, ever doubt that I love you.”

It makes you feel so warm inside, like your heart is going pitter-patter or someone has wrapped a big blanket all around you. Papa’s words are safe words, because they mean he has not forgotten you and he still wants you and loves you. You are very, very glad, so you put your hands over his and squeeze to show him that you love him, too.

“Okay, Papa,” you say. He looks like he might cry, and you don’t want him to be so upset, so you think of how Alicent sings songs to you when you are sad to distract you, which means she tries to make you feel more happy. You cannot sing very well, but you do have nice toys. “Can I show you my dolls?”

All of a sudden, his sorrow goes away and he smiles, showing his teeth. “Why ever not? Go on, then.”

Beaming, you wiggle off his lap and get Alysanne and Marya and Hana to show Papa, and you are very happy because he loves you again and the whole world doesn’t feel so sad anymore.

You’ve known Laena and Laenor Velaryon for as long as you can think of.

It is very hard to think far far back, because you are only small and so there is a lot of time that you were only a baby for, and babies don’t really have memory, which is what Brella has told you. But Lord Corlys is one of the men on Papa’s Council, who help him run his kingdom well and make everyone happy. Because Lord Corlys is Master of Ships, he spends most of his time in the Keep, and he is Laena and Laenor’s father, which means that Laena and Laenor also spend time in the Keep.

They are both very nice to you. Laena, the older one, always makes sure to smile and give you a curtsey whenever she sees you, and Laenor likes to say that your hair is braided well or your dress is pretty. You are little, though, and that means they don’t really want to spend much time with you, so ’Nyra knows them better. When Princess Rhaenys, their mama, brings them to court, she and Lord Corlys usually spend their time with Papa and Mama while Laena and Laenor spend time with ’Nyra and sometimes Alicent.

Today, something strange is happening. It looks like Laena has come without Laenor to spend time with Papa.

They are walking in the gardens together, and Brella has told you that it means you cannot go out to play there. Instead, you have to be in the sitting area that looks over the gardens with ’Nyra and Princess Rhaenys. Both of them are watching Papa and Laena very carefully. You are glad you don’t have to do that—Brella has brought your hornbook outside so that you can do some more learning while you wait for Papa to finish.

You sit on a cushion on the stone next to Brella, the hornbook in your lap. Over and over, you trace the letter ‘T’, the big one and the little one next to it. “Tree. Trail. Toe”—you wiggle yours underneath the leather of your slippers—“Toy. Toad—”

“Toad?” Brella’s eyebrow is raised high. “Wherever is this ‘toad’ that you can supposedly see?” She looks around, chin tilting and eyes crinkling like a glare.

“In my mind.” You do see it there—brown, with big bulging eyes and feet that look like claws are at the end of them—and shiver. All the books make them look so horrible. “The toad is up here,” you say, pointing to the spot between your eyes and your hair. “It’s squishy and cold and has spots on it.”

Brella shakes her head. “That is not the game, is it? Real things only, please.”

“There’s no more ‘T’ words. I need more so I can go to ‘U’.”

“Hm.” Brella stares past you for a moment, and then her eyes fall on yours again. “How about I help? Over there”—she points to where Princess Rhaenys is sitting—“the bit that is dangling off the pillow? Tassel.”

“Tassel,” you say, stretching the ‘ss’ sound out like a snake. “Tassel.”

“And…” She stops, and from the way the skin between her brows scrunches, she must be thinking very hard. “Ah! What am I?”

“You’re Brella,” you say, confused.

“No—that’s who I am. What am I being, right now?” She hasn’t helped you any more with these words. She might have made it even harder to guess. “If I’m helping you to learn,” she says, “then I am tee… What?”

It’s almost like your head is on fire from how much you have to think. You squeeze your eyes shut and hold your breath and push like you sometimes do when Brella is showing you how to use the privy like a big girl. It is hard, because ’Nyra and Princess Rhaenys are talking and the sound is distracting.

And then, you remember the word. “Teaching! You’re a teacher!”

“Exactly, Princess! Well done!” Brella smiles.

“… to elicit some anger from me, you should know that you're failing, Princess.”

You look to the side. ’Nyra is being very loud, her voice so easy to hear even from where you are. Princess Rhaenys is no better.

“Quite the opposite. Whether it's to my daughter or to someone else's, your father will remarry sooner than late,” she says with a funny twist to the lips that doesn’t look very friendly at all. “His new wife will produce new heirs, and chances are, better than not, that one of those will be male. And when that boy comes of age and your father has passed, the men of the Realm will expect him to be heir, not you. Because that is the order of things.”

You do not even have the time to try and make sense of what she’s said—Princess Rhaenys has used a lot-lot of words—when Brella stands and grabs you under the arms. Your hornbook falls onto the blanket laid out on the ground with a quiet thud.

“Come along, Princess,” she says, already pulling you toward the stairs.

“But—”

“This conversation is not for us to hear.” She takes your hand and moves slowly onto each step so that you can go down them one at a time. Soon, you are at the bottom and your shoes are on the trail that goes all the way around the gardens.

You tug your hand free of Brella so that you can run to the grass, smiling wide because it’s like a cloud under your feet, so it is very fun to twirl around on. When you reach it, your footsteps go from hard and quick to soft and slow, and you pretend there are so so many pillows on the ground that you are jumping on.

“Be careful!” Brella calls, but you are not paying much attention.

You swing your arms out wide and spin so fast that the world stops being full of things and is only colours—blue and green and brown and yellow—mixing together in your eyes, and your heart speeds up and gets so loud that you can hear it inside your ears. When you stop spinning, your eyes keep trying to move quick and your whole body wants to tip over. You let it, giggling when you collapse and the grass pokes you in the back of the neck like tiny little swords, or needles. The sun is warm warm on your face and even through your dress, and it makes you so sleepy, so you get up before Brella decides you should go and have a nap.

Then, you see Papa walking with Laena, Lord Corlys with them. They are all going back towards where ’Nyra and Princess Rhaenys are. Where you are.

“Papa!” you say loudly, feet already moving before you know what’s happening. “Papa!”

You cannot see his face up close, but you imagine he is smiling, so you run even faster, trying not to listen to Brella calling out behind you. She doesn’t like it when you run.

It takes only a moment to know why. Your eyes are still going funny and your body still wants to tip over, so when your toes get stuck in the place where the grass becomes the trail that Papa is on, you fall.

Your hands are stinging when you realise you are on the ground again. It hurts so much that you cry before you even see what has made it hurt. Rolling over so that you are sitting, you lift your palms up. They are so red, like the colour of the dragons on your House sigil, and they are covered in all the tiny rocks that the trail is made up of, but they’re not coming off. You cry harder.

“Oh, Princess.” A little hand comes in right next to yours, gently grabbing onto your fingers. When you look up, you see Laena next to you. She doesn’t look scared or upset, which makes you feel a tiny bit better.

Brella is breathing very hard. “I am so very sorry, Your Grace—I did tell her not to run—”

“Not to worry, Nurse,” Papa says as he crouches down beside you. “Children hardly do as they are told all the time. Sh, my girl, you’re alright.”

He pats you on the back, but that doesn’t stop the stinging in your hands or the tears that are coming fast from your eyes and making your nose feel runny.

“I can help, if you’d like.” Laena gives you a small smile, her other hand on your shoulder. “Just need to brush off your palms, and you’ll be fine. Here.” She holds on to your wrist and runs her fingers over the rocks in your hands, which doesn’t feel nice but doesn’t hurt either, and they come away very quick. The stinging isn’t as much after. “See? All better.”

“Say ‘thank you’ to the Lady Laena,” Papa says, looking between her and Lord Corlys with a strange face.

“Thank you, Laena.” You sniff hard to try and stop your nose from running so much. Now that the pain is less, the tears are slower.

“As you can see, Your Grace,” Lord Corlys says, “she conducts herself beyond her years. Her age is inconsequential. She’d make for a worthy bri—”

Papa stops him from finishing his words. “Not—not now, my Lord.” He smiles the way Uncle sometimes smiles at Lord Otto, meaning it is not very nice at all. “We’d best save that discussion for… another time.”

“Your Grace.” Lord Corlys steps back, bending his head low.

Laena stands and leans down to help you up, wiping away the last tears from your cheeks with the sleeve of her dress. “Are you alright now?”

“Yeah,” you say. She is very kind, you think, feeling warm on the inside.

“Nurse,” Papa is saying, “take her to Mellos, just in case.”

“Understood.” Brella picks you up so that your head settles where her neck meets her shoulders and turns around. Over her shoulder you can see Papa and Lord Corlys talking while Laena just stands there, watching them.

And, across the gardens, ’Nyra looks over at them from where she is on the balcony. You cannot see her face clearly. From so far away, though, she seems almost… sad.

There are whispers all around the Keep.

One of the things you like best about being small is that people forget you’re there. It helps you to see and hear things that you wouldn’t usually be told. You don’t understand why you cannot know the things that others do, especially if they’re about your family.

Like now.

Uncle has been gone for a while. He left after Mama’s funeral, and he didn’t even say goodbye. You don’t like to think about it, because it makes you hurt in your chest when you do. When he left to see Lady Rhea, who he hates because of reasons-you-don’t-know, he still made sure to send you letters that Brella would read out to you. This time, he hasn’t sent you anything, and because no one will tell you where he is, you cannot send any to him to remind him that you’re still here and waiting. It’s one of the reasons you cry sometimes, though you’ll never tell that to ’Nyra or Alicent or Brella or Papa.

Even if Uncle is making you sad right now, you still love him, which is why you listen closely when his name keeps getting used by the lords and ladies around you.

“Prince Daemon has seized Dragonstone…

“… even now occupies it in spite of the King’s…”

“… he stole Prince Baelon’s dragon egg, the shame of it!”

Some of it, you don’t understand. But, slowly, a picture forms in your head. One where Uncle has gone all the way to Dragonstone, which Brella says isn’t even that far, to take the egg meant for your brother.

Uncle was angry when Papa made you and ’Nyra choose an egg for Baelon. He yelled at Papa about how he never gave ’Nyra or you an egg as a baby because you were only girls, and what would he do if the baby was another girl? Would he put the egg back and wait for Mama to have a son? Papa didn’t like that at all, and he pretended that Uncle didn’t exist for days until Mama made them say sorry to each other and get along again. But before they said sorry, Uncle asked you if you wanted him to get a dragon egg for you, because dragonriding is in the blood of all Targaryens and you are a Targaryen, too.

“Say the word, sweetling. I’ll take Caraxes right now, should you wish.”

Uncle is walking you back to your rooms after you spent time in the gardens, your hand in his. From the way he frowns as he stares out to the end of the hall, he must still be very angry from the fight he had with Papa in the morning.

You think about his words. “You and ’Nyra didn’t get a dragon from an egg. You found one that was already—already there.”

“I did. But if your brother is to receive a dragon in the cradle, you ought to have the opportunity to claim your own first.”

It would be nice to have a whole baby dragon, all for your own. But Uncle says that sometimes they don’t hatch, that the egg turns to stone and stays that way for so so many years that people forget it has a dragon inside it, and they think it’s just a shiny rock. You don’t want that to happen to you. You don’t want to wait and wait for something that will never come.

“I want a big dragon,” you say, thinking of Caraxes with his long-long neck and his funny noises, more like a bird than a scary monster. “One I can ride already.”

Uncle smiles, squeezing your hand tighter. “Alright, then. For now, you’ll wait, and you’ll get nice and strong. And when you’re older, you’ll go to Dragonstone and find yourself a hatchling, or a young dragon, or perhaps even one of the larger ones.”

“Like you and Caraxes?” You look up at him. “You got him when—when you were thirteen?” You don’t know how much that is, but you know it’s more than ten, which means it is a big number.

“That’s right,” he says, his eyes shining in that way that means you did a good job. You love it when he does that because it means he thinks you are very clever. “And I’m sure that when you’re of suitable age, you’ll have your own chance.”

The talk makes you think straight away that maybe he is trying to get a dragon for you like he said would that time, even though you really want a big dragon that makes your little-ness not seem so little. But then, you hear more.

“… he’s taken his whore to wife…”

“… styled himself the ‘rightful heir to the Iron Throne’…”

“It’s clearly an act of sedition!”

A new picture: Uncle has gone to steal Dragonstone, to steal an egg, and to steal being the heir from ’Nyra.

Stealing is naughty. Once, you stole a lemon cake from the platter after Mama said you couldn’t have anymore, but Mama caught you and you weren’t allowed to have any sweets the whole next day. You wonder how Papa will help Uncle to learn not to steal, if it will be as bad as that.

So many letters could have come from a place like Dragonstone by now. It means that he hasn’t sent any because he didn’t want to, not because he couldn’t. That makes the hurt in your chest even worse.

Because of Uncle’s being naughty, you spend the day with only Brella. Papa is in meetings with his Council and Lord Otto has gone to Dragonstone to tell Daemon he is bad for stealing. You don’t know where ’Nyra is, or Alicent. Brella is extra nice, though, and she lets you have three lemon cakes with your midday meal even though it makes you very giggly and want to run around everywhere. You do all the normal things: learn your letters and practice the dancing steps and play dolls and go outside to the gardens. It isn’t very fun with only one other person, but sometimes people are busy which means they don’t have time to do the things you like doing.

When the sun is starting to go down, Papa comes to see you again. But he’s not alone at the door—he has Alicent with him.

“Good evening,” he says, smiling wide as he goes to the seat he always sits in when he visits your rooms. Alicent follows, but she isn’t smiling as big as Papa.

“Hello, Papa.” You watch with a frown as Brella curtseys and leaves the room. She doesn’t usually leave you by yourself.

Papa holds out his hand, so you go forward and take it. “I have some news to share with you,” he says, patting your hair. “What do you know of marriage, my girl?”

You try to think about all that you can remember. “That—that you and Mama were in one, and Uncle is in one with Lady Rhea. And people aren’t supposed to have babies unless they’re in marriage, but sometimes they do and that’s bad.”

“Oh, my! Well, it sounds like you know a great deal, indeed!” Papa is laughing now, and Alicent’s face has gone bright red. She won’t look at you, which is strange. She is being very quiet.

“You know that I am King?” Papa asks, which makes your eyes go back to him.

“Yeah.”

“Well, a King must have a Queen. ‘Tis important for the stability of the Realm.” He nods like he is agreeing with himself, even though you don’t know what he means so you can’t say he is wrong.

“Mama was the Queen,” you say. It is the only thing you can think of.

“Yes.” Alicent comes forward. Her hand starts moving toward you, then changes to go near Papa’s shoulder, but then she puts it back down in front of her. You wonder what she was trying to do. “An excellent Queen,” she says quietly.

“She was.” Papa sounds sad, but he takes a deep breath. “But the time has come for me to take a new wife—to marry again. I have chosen the Lady Alicent to be my new Queen.” He stares at Alicent, who smiles even though her fingers are twisting around and around each other like she does when she is worried or scared. “Do you understand what I am saying, my girl?”

When Mama was real and not dead, she was the Queen. That meant she had to stand beside Papa and wear a crown sometimes at feasts or balls. She had to have tea with the ladies who come to court and make sure all the maids and servants and all the other people who work in the Keep got their coin for doing their job. She had to give out alms and talk to all sorts of different people all day and try to have babies who are boys and not girls.

Because she was Papa’s wife and he is the King, being the Queen meant she was your mama. You miss her lots and lots.

Papa wants Alicent to be the Queen, now. If she is the Queen, then maybe she has to do all those things, too. Maybe it means she will do all the things that Mama did with you that made you so happy.

“Uh-huh.” You stare at Alicent. “Does that mean that we’ll break our fasts and learn more dance steps and play outside together?”

She smiles. “If you like, Princess.”

You think you would like it very, very much.

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