Chapter Text
Vis didn’t remember when Jace was born, nor Luke, having been barely out of swaddling herself with the former and just able to toddle and babble with the latter; but she remembered when Joffrey was born. Eggy and Viserys, too, but Joff was the first.
She remembered it all very clearly, as it set in motion the events that started the end of life as she knew it:
The day began with her mother’s groans of pain echoing through their suite, waking her from a sound sleep and dreams she would not recall later, just the feeling. A feeling of great, creeping dread that twisted and twined around her, stirring her stomach into knots and pulling her heart into her throat. But as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and stretched her limbs, the feeling quickly faded and she tumbled out of bed, wincing as her feet struck the cold tiles.
Along with her two brothers, their father shepherded Visenya out of their rooms and they broke their fast with the rest of the castle inhabitants, sitting at the high table with only the queen for company. Their aunt and uncles had always been late to rise, eating a light meal in their chambers just before their shared lessons, and the king was not seen at public meals unless it was a feast. The queen offered Visenya and her brothers a tight-lipped smile and murmured half-hearted prayers to their father for their mother to have a safe and easy childbirth, and returned to her oats without acknowledging them any further.
Instead of heading to their lessons with the maester, like Vis knew their aunt and uncles were at that very moment, their father took them on a long walk across the city and into the small hatchery inside the Dragonpit. It was well-guarded and very few outside the royal family even knew of its existence, aside from the Dragonkeepers and the guards who stood vigilant. The walk across the city took over two hours so that by the time they reached the Dragonpit they were sweaty and hot, and stepping into the sweltering depths of the hatchery was nearly unthinkable. But they had a task to complete.
Inside the hatchery, they let Luke pick the egg. Vis had picked Jace’s, and Jace had picked Luke’s; it was his turn now. He chose a smoke-grey egg that shimmered violet in the flamelight. She tried not to feel the pangs of jealousy that plucked at her heart, but it was no use; she swallowed down the bitterness the best she could.
How could she be jealous of a newborn babe when it could only be her own fault that her cradle egg did not hatch? It couldn’t possibly be anyone else’s; the egg had been picked just for her, and placed beside her as she grew and thrived. And yet, the egg did not. It had not hardened into stone like some eggs did over time, but it had not hatched even after eight years, and after both her younger brothers’ eggs had, her mother and father had decided to return the tepid thing to the hatchery on Dragonstone to be tended to by the Dragonkeepers. They would send word if it ever started to crack, but two more years had already passed and no such word had come, and none had been spoken of finding her a new egg.
All of that bitterness welled inside her chest and Vis felt it burst up like sour acid in her throat, drawing tears to her eyes as her little brothers and father exclaimed over the egg, watching the Dragonkeepers carefully pack it away on burning coals.
She wiped them away and quickly pulled her lips into a smile as they turned to her.
“Ready to take this back to your mother?” Their father grinned.
“Do you think she’ll be done by now?” Luke asked, dragging his eyes from the Dragonkeepers to peer up at their father.
He laughed, ruffling the thick curls that sprouted from Luke’s head.
“I doubt it, but it’ll take us a while yet to get back with that,” he said, nodding his head towards the egg. “It took from sunup till sundown for you and your brother to be born, and the night as well for your sister.”
“That long?!” Jace exclaimed, jogging ahead up the path.
“Sometimes it takes even longer,” Vis said, though she didn’t really know. But Father nodded along without giving that smile that meant he was just humoring them, so she thought she must be right.
Luke whined so much after half an hour of walking that their father hoisted him up onto his shoulders and carried him home the rest of the way, and they arrived back at the Red Keep much quicker than they had at the Dragonpit, now that they weren’t lingering at every stall and shop that sold a pretty trinket or pastry that caught her littlest brother’s eye.
They were greeted at the gates of the keep by Ser Harwin, who was grinning widely and tussled Jace’s hair as her brother skipped up to him. Luke scrambled down from Father’s shoulders to join them, and he clapped Ser Harwin on the shoulder before leaving them in the Commander’s care.
Visenya liked Ser Harwin: he was kind, and gentle with her, but didn’t laugh when she said she wanted to train with a sword. When Mother shot that idea down, he even helped Vis learn archery instead. Ser Harwin danced with her at feasts when Jace was too tired and her Uncle Aegon grew too restless for organized footwork. But there was something that always kept her from growing too fond of him.
Her mother had an affection for Ser Harwin that Visenya didn’t understand. He was often in their chambers, sharing meals and free time between his shifts on duty and training, even when their father wasn’t there. Sometimes even when Mother wasn’t there, he would come and see Visenya and her brothers, roughhouse with the boys and bow to Vis as she drank tea with her dolls, asking them about their lessons and how they were getting on that week.
He would smile and laugh at their jokes, nod seriously when they complained about the maester or their uncles, ruffle the boys’ hair and tussle with the two of them. But he never tugged a loose curl or flicked the end of her braid like Vis’ father did, or crinkled his nose up when she was being particularly funny and smart, like he did with Jace and Luke.
Ser Harwin often sat with Jace and patiently walked him through his sums when Mother didn’t have the time and Father was elsewhere, and Vis herself had no patience for arithmetic and her younger brother at the same time. He comforted Luke when boys in the training yard said something particularly mean, and he didn’t want to be seen running to Mummy or Daddy.
He didn’t spare time for Visenya.
He had a smile for her, certainly, and always a kind word or praise, but there was something about her brothers that was special to Ser Harwin. Probably because they were boys; there were many things that her brothers got and could do that she didn’t and couldn’t because they were boys and she was a girl. Vis didn’t like to think about it too much. It made her want to scream.
Now, Ser Harwin took them the long way through the castle until they entered their suite and set the hot casket for the egg on a pile of leathers and settled in to wait. Ser Harwin had the patience to play with Luke, and even Jace, who was growing too big to play make believe with wooden knights and toy soldiers, played with the two of them. But Vis sat down on the settee and kicked her feet restlessly.
“How long do you think it’ll be?” She asked, fretting.
“Not long now, Princess—” Ser Harwin started, but the door was already swinging open to reveal their mother and father.
“Mummy!” Luke cried, jumping to his feet and running towards her.
“Mother!” Jace and Vis echoed him, following more carefully, aware of the precious bundle in her arms. Their father caught Luke by his shoulders before he could run into her legs.
“Look, look at what we got!” He said excitedly, breaking free of Father’s arms to run towards the casket keeping the egg warm.
“What is it?” Vis asked, approaching cautiously, noting the exhausted look on their mother’s face.
“It is a boy, a new brother for you and your brothers,” her mother said, smiling down at her tiredly.
“Can we see?” Jace asked, already reaching for the dark crimson and gold blankets.
“Can I hold him?” Luke stretched out his arms and began to tug at the tassles.
“No, no—” Father intercepted him.
“What’s his name?” Vis asked quietly as Mother handed the babe to Ser Harwin to be introduced.
“Joffrey,” her mother said with an odd twist to her lips. “His name is Joffrey.”
“Please, Father!” Luke whined again, all arms and legs as he tried to find a way around their father.
“No, back to the Dragonpit for you three, it’s time for your lessons.”
“But we were just there!” Jace cried now.
“And now you’ll go back,” Father said. He tilted his head down at them, smirking. “And if you don’t hurry, I’ll make you walk again instead of taking the carriage.”
“No!” Luke screamed, Jace echoing him, and even Vis’ eyes went wide.
The two boys raced to the door and Father followed them after they all gave Mother a kiss. Ser Harwin held Joffrey while Mother rested on the settee and Vis lingered by the door. She had wanted to speak with Mother before they went back to the Dragonpit— she had seen a particularly striking egg in the hatchery that she swore had been just calling to her in a way her own never had—but it was not to be, and her mother’s eyes were nearly closed in sleep as Ser Harwin gently rocked the infant in his arms.
Father loaded the three of them into the carriage and sent them off with a couple of household guards as he himself went off to announce the news of his new son to his friends at court. They rumbled and rattled down the same streets they had walked earlier that day, talking excitedly of their new brother.
“When will he be big enough to play knights with?” Luke asked, fiddling with a wooden soldier in his hands.
“Not for a few years yet,” Vis answered, slapping at Jace’s hands as he started fiddling with the buttons on his tunic.
“But that’s so long,” Luke whined.
“You won’t want to play with him now,” Jace said. “All babies do is stink and cry and eat.”
“Jace!” Vis rolled her eyes.
“It’s true! Remember Luke?” She did, just barely, but she didn’t think Jace could possibly.
“When he’s old enough, I’m going to teach him to be a knight,” Luke said, lifting the sword arm of the wooden knight and pointing it outward.
“You can’t teach him how to be a knight if you’re not one,” Jace insisted, making their littlest brother pout.
“Then I’ll be a knight too!”
“You can’t be, you’re to be Lord of Driftmark, after Father.”
“I can too! And I don’t want to be lord, I want to be a knight.”
“You can’t be!”
“Can too!”
“Can’t—”
Before the argument spiralled out of control, Vis took charge. She held out a hand towards each of her brothers.
“Peace. Luke, you can be a knight if you want. It’ll be many years before Grandfather Corlys passes and leaves Driftmark to Father, and many years after that before Father leaves it to you. And you will make a wonderful teacher for Joffrey.”
“But—”
She shot Jace a sharp look until he closed his mouth. The carriage creaked to a stop and the three of them tumbled out, chasing after each other until they spotted Ser Erryk outside the doors of the Dragonpit, and he escorted them to meet their uncles inside.
In the Dragonpit, they watched Jace train Vermax and feed him.
It was her least favorite part of all her lessons: watching her brothers and uncles and aunt train their dragons, and bond with them, all while she had a stupid, silly stone egg that never hatched. At least Aemond was with them today; he didn’t have a dragon, either.
None of their aunt and uncles’ cradle eggs had hatched, but as of earlier that year all but she and Aemond had claimed a dragon; even little Daeron, who was only Luke’s age (all of seven namedays) before he had been sent off to be a cupbearer to Lord Hightower in Oldtown. Both Aegon and Daeron had claimed hatchlings from the Dragonpit and Helaena had had the great luck to bond with Dreamfyre, who was a marvellous beast and one of the oldest and largest dragons. Sunfyre and Tessarion were still young, but Sunfyre was large enough to be ridden, and Aegon had had his first flight already. Helaena was set to take her first ride at the end of the year. She would have sooner if not for the misgivings of the queen.
Vermax was growing larger each time they saw him, a striking apple-green that was tinged a rusty pink-red on his spines and wings.
They watched Jace stumble through the pronunciation of the High Valyrian commands as the Dragonkeepers prodded Vermax with their staffs and guided Jace through it. Aegon huffed and rolled his eyes throughout it, already familiar with the commands needed, but Luke paid attention diligently, for it would be his turn as soon as Arrax grew large enough. Aemond and Vis observed the proceedings with eyes that barely blinked, they were so focused, as if memorizing and perfecting their High Valyrian commands would somehow summon them a dragon.
“Aemond, we have a surprise for you,” Aegon said after they had watched Vermax gorge himself on freshly charred goat.
“What is it?”
“Something very special,” Luke said, and a feeling of dread began to build again in Vis’ stomach, just like earlier that morning when she had awoken.
“What is it?” Vis asked, not minding that she was just repeating Aemond’s words, but she was ignored by the boys.
“You’re the only Targaryen without a dragon,” Aegon said, shooting a look in her direction that was only partly contrite, mostly daring her to argue.
“The only male Targaryen,” Vis muttered, so quietly the boys didn’t hear. Aegon glanced at her over Aemond’s shoulder anyway.
“Indeed,” Aemond said.
“And we felt… badly about it. So we found one for you.” Aegon explained, leading Aemond towards the entrance to the caves underneath the Pit where the dragons nested as Jace tagged alongside and Vis trailed behind. She couldn’t shake the uneasiness from her stomach.
“A dragon? How?” Aemond masked his incredulousness with the usual tone of indifference he used when talking to his older brother. Underneath, the trembling tone of uncertainty was tainted with the faint thread of hope.
“The gods provide,” Aegon said. The feeling in her stomach reached its peak as her heart jammed in her throat.
A horrible sound was coming from down below, where Luke had gone, in the shadows where the torchlight did not reach. It wasn’t like the clicking and screeching of a young dragon, nor the groaning and roaring of an adult one. Luke appeared from the shadows, tugging a rope, a large hog with feathered wings attached to its back bouncing as it climbed the ramp.
“Behold: the pink dread! ” The three boys cried together, her brothers’ younger tones mixing with Aegon’s cracking one.
They burst out laughing and snorted like hogs as they tossed some last parting words at him, crude and cruel, leaving Aemond with the pig and Vis with Aemond.
“Aemond—” She reached out and touched his shoulder, but he shrugged her off roughly and stormed away.
“Leave me alone!”
“Aemond,” she tried again, jogging to catch up with him but he spun and shoved her away roughly.
“I said, leave me alone,” he shouted, and she could see tears in his eyes.
Aemond was only one year younger than her, and they had never been particularly close. She knew that if he was anything like her brothers, he would want to be alone when he let the tears loose. Plus, her shoulder was smarting from where he shoved her.
The dread in her stomach solidified into something worse, then: anger. Anger at her brothers, at Aegon. Anger at Aemond for pushing her away. Anger at herself, for being dragonless. How could she be a true Targaryen if she didn’t have a dragon?
But she wasn’t, was she?
When she was little, her grandfather Corlys had called her his little queen. He had carried her in his arms all around the Red Keep and told her that, one day, this will all be yours. He promised that as the firstborn child of his son and the heir to the Iron Throne, the Targaryen kingdom, she would inherit everything, as promised by her grandfather Viserys to her Velaryon grandparents when they had arranged Visenya’s parents’ marriage.
But then her brother was born, and then her other brother, and now the next. And since his birth, her mother had not corrected all the assumptions that Jace was to be the heir to the Iron Throne after her. Grandfather promised her that she would be queen and that he would stand beside her through it all with the strength of the Velaryon fleet, but her grandfather Viserys, the king himself, did not so much as glance at her these days when her brothers were in the room. Jace would take the Iron Throne after their mother with the support of the men of the realm and Luke would inherit Driftmark, and Visenya… she would inherit nothing.
The rage welled up so furiously and so suddenly inside her that it burst out like plumes of dragonfire. In great long strides she caught up to where Aegon and her brothers were still giggling like the stupid little boys they were. She pushed Luke out of the way and cuffed Jace on the back of the head. Aegon she shoved back as hard as she could. And when he didn’t fall but only stumbled she shoved him again, and again, until his back hit the wall of Dragonpit, all the laughter gone from his eyes.
“Do you have a pig for me, then?!”
“What?” Aegon gasped, the breath knocked out of his chest at the impact with the wall.
“A pig,” Visenya snarled, feeling every inch a warrior queen in all ten namedays of her body. “I’m dragonless, too. Do you have a pig for me?”
“Vis!” Jace cried, tugging at her sleeve. She noticed she had her hands pinning her uncle’s shoulders to the wall. He was older, larger, and stronger than her, but he didn’t make any effort to break loose.
“Vissy,” Luke whimpered, sniffing as tears began to well in his eyes, using the nickname he hadn’t since he was just a toddling babe learning his first words.
“Well?!” Visenya shouted, her violet eyes staring straight into Aegon’s pale lilac ones.
“Of course not,” Aegon sputtered. His hands came up to lock around her wrists, but he still didn’t struggle to free himself.
“You got one for your brother, your own blood! He’s a prince—”
“He’s a twat!”
“And I’m a princess. So you’ll have to get me a pig, too. Perhaps you can find me a red one, and I can match.” Visenya decided, even as the anger was beginning to flee and leave a deeper, darker sort of malice lingering in her chest.
Her hands finally dropped from Aegon’s shoulders, slipping from his silken green tunic like wind over a dragon’s back. Before they could fall to her side, her uncle caught her wrists in his own hands.
“I wouldn’t… I didn’t mean…”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant. It matters what you did, Aegon.”
The four of them were quiet for a long time, the sound of flames crackling in the braziers and torchlights and Luke’s soft sniffles as he rubbed his nose the only sounds that broke the silence. Jace was staring down at his feet, looking for all the realm truly remorseful for his actions. IfVis knew her brother at all, he was actually sorry. She would just have to make him apologize to Aemond, because she knew that he would rather wallow in the emotion and then suppress it, than make amends and move past it. But Luke, her silly little… now middle brother, her jokester, he was so sensitive. He was so young he probably didn’t understand the ramifications of their actions.
But Vis knew this idea was all Aegon. Oh, her brothers must have thrown around their own plots and it was probably Luke that suggested the pig, but the pink dread, that was all Aegon, and preying on Aemond’s fears and weakness, that was Aegon as well. Jace played along with whatever Aegon said and did and Luke played along with Jace. Aegon was the true ringleader here, she knew.
His thumbs were tapping on her wrists in a calming manner that did nothing to ease the bitterness inside her. It had mellowed into a manageable level but it was not gone and would not be for a long while.
With a sigh she broke Aegon’s grasp on her wrists and turned to her brothers, pulling them into her with an arm until they hugged each side of her. She kissed the crowns of their dark heads and let Luke rub his snotty face all over the bodice of her blue dress, Jace clutching hard at her back.
“You’ll apologize to Aemond tomorrow before your training with Ser Criston in the yard,” Vis said, feeling like she sounded very much like their mother at that moment.
Jace looked at her petulantly, even though she knew he was probably swimming in guilt and remorse already, while Luke pouted. Aegon puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes but widened them when she turned her pointed violet gaze at him.
“And you as well,” she said.
“Me?”
“It was your idea,” Vis said. Aegon looked down at his feet and scuffed the dirt with his boots.
“Fine,” he conceded eventually.
They waited for a while longer for Aemond to appear so they could all take the carriage back to the Red Keep together, but when the hour turned and he still hadn’t shown himself, they had to leave or risk being late for supper. Vis didn’t want to worry their mother so soon after the birth of their youngest sibling, and so unanimously they decided they should return with Ser Erryk, but leave one of the Targaryen household knights that had come with them to escort Aemond when he decided he wanted to return.
Only the next day did she learn that Aemond had nearly been killed trying to claim a dragon.
By that time, there were more important things on her mind.
Namely, her mother had announced to the small council that Jace would inherit the Iron Throne after her, not Visenya.
The history books often pinpointed the founding moments of the Blacks and Greens as they were called in later years, listing Queen Alicent’s beacon-green gown during Rhaenyra’s wedding feast, and Rhaenyra’s traditional black gowns throughout her adulthood. They did not have such a moment for Visenya, though many assumed it was when her mother announced her younger, oftentimes assumed bastard, brother Jacaerys as her heir instead of the clearly trueborn and firstborn child, Vis.
Visenya would say it was a different moment, however.
It was after Aegon and Aemond and Jace and Luke fought in the training yard, after Ser Harwin smashed in Ser Criston Cole’s face with his fists, after her mother named Jace her heir in front of the small council. After the pink dread, and after she forced her brothers and Aegon to apologize to Aemond, and they did so with lackluster enthusiasm. But what she remembered most was that it was only days after Joff’s birth, when Ser Harwin said goodbye to them, paying special attention to the babe in her mother’s arms and Jace and Luke, giving Vis a pat on the head and a distant, if fond look.
“I will be a stranger when we meet again,” he had said, which Vis had thought to be a very odd thing to say as goodbye.
Jace chased after him and Mother chased after Jace, leaving the door to their suite wide open as Luke attempted to find joy and distraction in playing with his wooden knights, and Vis crept up to the doorway and peeked around it. She caught the tail end of what her mother was saying, until Jace interrupted.
“Is Harwin Strong my father?”
Visenya inhaled sharply.
“Am I a bastard?”
Vis’ heart hammered in her chest.
Bastard.
The word was forbidden in their household, much like the words fuck, and cunt, and shit. She had always thought it was because it was because bastards were an offense to the gods, like murder and theft were.
Now, she knew otherwise.
“You’re a Targaryen. That’s all that matters.”
A Targaryen. Not a Velaryon.
It was enough of an answer that Vis didn’t need to ask more.