Chapter Text
Stars don't fall for men.
The baby's first cry, shrill and strangled, woke up the creation.
The stars cut through the black cloak of night, it was past ghost time when Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen's first child was lifted above a heap of bloody sheets and a feather bed.
Rhaenyra's maiden's vault shattered as rivers of orange, pink, and purple traced the skies. The princess trembled and trembled, paler than her silver hair.
She walks around her chambers away from the Maester in pain, the memories of her mother were enough to scare her for the rest of her life. Her cry is not for her husband, but for the queen and no one else.
“Alicent! I want her! Bring her, please! Alicent!”
Chanting the name like a beautiful prayer on her chapped lips.
Rhaenyra is a dragon, she commands flames and has Balerion's fire in her chest, but now, she's just a woman, big and round and sweaty like a pig, that's how she feels. She thinks of her mother, kind and blonde and always with a belly full of children who never lived long enough, now she was dead.
“Alicent! Alicent! Alicent!”
She cries and screams, begging for her childhood companion and most sincere love, she wants her and wants her comforting smile, while her hands clutch her belly.
Rhaenyra, always slender, with few curves and thin, when her child began to swell inside her, her shape became disproportionate, the court whispered that the child that would come would take the beauty of the Targaryen princess away.
The queen soon bursts through the doors, pale and red-haired, followed by one of the ladies of the Realm's Delight, young and frightened, any remnants of animosity between her and her stepdaughter vanishing like smoke, she dresses in grass-green silks and grabs her princess's hand, with big, tearful doe eyes.
The Hightower prays over Rhaenyra's whimpers, “Please. Please. Don't take her from me.”, knowing that for the man she calls her father, death would be an achievement, a step closer to a chair filled with steel, blood and ash. With sweet, gentle words, she guides her princess into the sheets and into the Maester's care, but never away.
“He’s going to kill me, like he did my mother.” Her voice is a thread, weak and terrified, she squeezes the queen's delicate hand, who trembles in pain, and screams.
Alicent is an angel sent from the Reaches of Old Valyria to calm her, Rhaenyra thinks, she grimaces in pain and gives her a warm smile, "He won't do that, Rhaenyra.”
The princess knows she can't say that for sure, she hates it, “I don't want to die, Alicent.”, she says shakily. She hates all that, she hates feel like that, she hate thos people who leave her exposed, she hates it.
“You will not die, Rhaenyra.” Alicent lies, because there is no way she can say so, and prays to the Seven begging that her heart and love remain out of the Stranger's clutches for as long as she lives.
Rhaenyra remains in labor for nearly three full days, Alicent barely leaves her side for three days and nearly three full nights, when screams finally echo through the chamber, a pink baby is lifted up, to the sound of joyful dragon roars on the outside.
“A girl, princess! A daughter! A healthy little girl!”
Stars don't fall for men, but they did for the rest of the night when Aemma Velaryon came into the world.
At the end of the night and early morning, labor ends. Rhaenyra gives birth to twins, two girls. Two girls, with hair that is not silver, and with features that do not resemble the mother who feeds and carries them.
Alicent picked up one of the babies with ease, her eyes still on Rhaenyra and her smile weak and eyes teary.
The first person other than Rhaenyra to hold her daughter was not Laenor, nor Viserys, but Alicent. It was an intimate feeling, and for some reason, sacred, that passed like a breeze through the queen's chest.
The moment was beautiful in the princess's sleepy eyes, who had her other daughter in her arms. With the child snuggled in the queen's arms, Rhaenyra could fantasize as much as she wanted. She looks at the baby in her arms, covered in a red cloak to hide her lack of silver hair and violet eyes.
Their first children were born as a result of the sin of wanting and lust, dark hair and round faces. Fruits of a night haunted by intimate desires, embers as witnesses and something never said out loud. Fruits of her and Alicent.
Everything turned bitter when Alicent's attention finally rested on the baby in her arms. Disgust comes next, digging into her skin like thorns, lodging around her skull, sinking its fangs into her flesh and scalp.
It wouldn't take much to know that this baby wasn't Laenor's, the violet eyes, like deep amethysts, were the only thing that screamed Rhaenyra's blood, but the mop of dark hair could never be Targaryen.
Alicent's eyes travel to the child in Rhaenyra's arms, dark hair and eyes.
Bastards, bastards, Rhaenyra's daughters, Rhaenyra's bastards, the acidic voice in her mind whispers like poison, dripping straight into her ears and Alicent bites her lip hard until a drop ends up dripping onto the cloak that covers the little one. Her blood barely shows amidst the red, deep red.
The Queen returns the baby to the arms of a servant, and masking the mix of emotions that are consuming her, she says goodbye with a light bow, and pathetically runs from Rhaenyra's chambers like a terrified child, swallowing her cries and screams in her throat.
Seeing her walk out the door, Rhaenyra knows what Alicent is thinking — “Bastards… Bastards, bastards!” — but she has little time to grieve before her baby writhes in tears in her arms.
Her feet have a life and consciousness of their own, they trace the same path they always did when fear took over, and she finds herself standing at the entrance to the Sept, momentarily cursing herself.
Damn it, she feels dirty every time she says her prayers, always looking around, between the embers and the heat of the candles, looking for something that even she doesn't know, fear crawling under her skin every time she stares at the patch of ground where she sinned.
Her throat closes, she still feels it, sweat clinging to her skin, the loss of contact making her cool quickly, violent shivers erupting through her body. Rhaenyra's hands were adventurous, teasing the valleys and curves and line of Alicent's back, her inner thighs shamefully damp and her nipples still erect and sensitive.
"Ah, honey. Hey, sh-shh." Rhaenyra whispers, brushing some of her curls from her sweaty face as Alicent sobs and shakes. "It's okay, take a deep breath. You were great, you were perfect, Ali, Gods, so, so perfect", Rhaenyra's voice is a balm of a false paradise, always laughing, humming between the breasts of a satiated queen, she sniffs and tries to hide her face in the line of her former friend's neck.
Gods. Gods. Gods. Gods, what did she do?
Oh, what happened to her?
She shouldn't-
“There, there, my lovely, little, Alicent.” Rhaenyra continues, stroking the sensitive skin of her hips with her cool, damp fingertips. "You are still a beautiful Maiden. I think it is now more appropriate to say, beautiful queen." Alicent shudders, Rhaenyra's lips curve into an innocent-looking smile, Alicent knows she can be anything but innocent. "Still very anxious, but so in love, little poor thing, I should have noticed," Rhaenyra licks her lips and this brings some lapse in consideration to her, trying to pull away. "Oh, no, no, no. S-sh-sh. Stay…”
"I shouldn't have done that, Rhaenyra," Alicent sighs, she feels dirt on her legs and trembles. "We shouldn't have. Someone might have seen it, we can't-”
“Ah, but why not, Ali?” Rhaenyra's eyes are joyful, filled with an unprecedented vivacity and a vibrant malice that makes Alicent curl up in her lap. "Tell me, Your Grace. Who will know this? Who, besides you and me, will know about this night? This may be our secret, the most imperfect and dangerous one we will keep in our dearly souls." The violet of her eyes shines with amusem*nt, the mere thought makes adrenaline rush through Alicent's veins again, the blood rushing to her cheeks and spreading across her chest. "I know you want this. I can see it in your eyes. And better yet, I can feel it, up close." She squeezes the flesh of Alicent's hips hard and her smile widens. It hurts near Alicent's thighs, it twists and pulses without any shame. “Don't lie to me, Ali. Don't lie to yourself even once. You want to, just say it, and it could happen many more times.”
Alicent can't understand herself, ever when it comes to Rhaenyra.
She always feels a outsized terror taking over her completely after the dizzying climb and infernal heat pass, making her almost forget about the shame exploding inside her that makes her twisting her back until it burns with pain, her head feels heavy with how much she doesn't want to do what they're doing, but at the same time she wants to never stop doing it.
For her, this is the worst part, the truth that rests on all of this, the fact that her perception of Rhaenyra, of her delicate and unapproachable posture, of how beautiful she looks with tousled hair and an exhausted expression, of her dresses that hug her shape, her curves, makes her think that, in some ways, she isn't very different from the men who have already cast glances of greed and lust at Rhaenyra.
She would like to vomit. She wishes she could get such feelings and cravings out with just a reflux rising in my throat. The pressure in her stomach grows, bastards, bastards, whose bastards?
There is someone else. Someone like her… for Rhaenyra. No. She's also just someone. Rhaenyra has a few someone's for her pleasures.
She doesn't cling exclusively to Alicent's person, Alicent is just there, close, accessible, so Rhaenyra can reach out and get what she wants. There's a part of Alicent, warm, soft, and pretensely eager, beneath her womb, that simply loves this, and is more than willing to please her, even if she regrets her actions in the morning.
She knows she can't escape her self-destructive laments. Small, disgusting, sickly, and hopeless, Alicent Hightower.
Since that day, when she gave in to sin, when she tasted the fruit and the wine that she should never know the taste of, she prayed, prayed more than ever, if before seven, now twelve.
She would fall to her knees and beg not to lose herself further in the sea of desire she was sinking into.
She cried and murmured for hours, praying that the Seven would make her a woman like any other — or even that she would return to her old self, uninfected by the influence of the Targaryens — so that the sinful thoughts would disappear as she averted her eyes of the beautiful women of the court.
The air around the Sept is cold and its landscape has never been less welcoming than it is now, Alicent stares for a moment before turning away, her conscience killing her.
Only now does she notice how shaky she is.
There's little pleasure in returning to the depths of the Red Keep, where the murmurs grow loud until a deaf person can hear them. The entire court chokes on words, she has no idea how long she was outside, but her ears burn as she passes through the halls amidst the different bows.
The nobles become hungry snakes after a shortage of scandals, the slightest rumor stirs up desperate prey to become predators, their mouths never stop talking about the pair of princesses, who have nothing in common with their own mother.
For some reason, Alicent feels compelled to walk to the nursery, where she knows that at this hour, the babies must already be settled while Rhaenyra belatedly rests after the first labor of her life.
She never learned to deal with the hustle and bustle of the court, being Lady Alicent was always easier than being the Queen, the steps on the marble dragged as did her skirts, her condition was not the most pleasant, she looked after Rhaenyra for days, the shocked eyes that fall under her are already expected.
Pushing open the nursery door, the servants turn to her with respectful greetings, Alicent no longer has the strength to fake a warm smile for them, she needs to justify her assumptions, provide a basis for her hatred, she needs to embrace the growing anger that spreads under her skin.
Bastards, bastards, they're bastards, her blood boils in her ears until she asks as politely as possible for the servants to leave, and with the sound of hurried footsteps fading away, she finds herself walking towards one of the cribs.
The truth, the reality of her outdated situation, seems to have chosen to take the form of a baby, dragging Alicent by her heels out of her fantasy.
Alicent's heart flutters erratically at the sight of the baby.
She's wrapped in light blue, Arryn-blue, blankets, covering her lack of silver hair, but Alicent has already seen her eyes when she took her in her arms, they were dark violet, sparkling amethyst, so similar and different to Rhaenyra's.
The newborn princess has a namesake, but shares no similarities with her. She tries, she searches and turns over the innocent appearance of the little baby, looking for something, some characteristic, some filthy trace that whoever who the man is might have left.
The princess's namesake was made of silver and bathed in the moon, her eyes a sea of lavender that brought even the cruelest man to tears, but where the former queen was clear and silver, her granddaughter is dark and bronze, forged by the sin of lust and carnal greed.
She gives up, as she can't help the sudden wave of melancholy and reflection that washes over her.
Rhaenyra was a sinner, she committed unseemly, indecent and unworthy acts, she had already disgraced herself in a humiliating way and dragged Alicent along with her, more than once, not to mention the rumors that told about an escape between the princess and her uncle to have an adventure by the brothels of King's Landing.
She shouldn't really be surprised by the inappropriate act on the part of the crown princess, but it still hurts. Not for Rhaenyra, but for these two little girls who barely came into the world.
Alicent was taught that bastards were bad and were not born under the light of the Seven and were therefore not worthy, but as she stares at the cribs and the babies that sleep in them, she cannot help but question.
Rhaenyra was well aware of her crimes and the risks she was taking by continuing to tread this fine line, and yet, would it be fair to these innocent girls to be condemned for their mother's mistakes?
Alicent makes a pained face at the daughters her love produced with some man.
One of them stirs drowsily in one of the cribs, her little fingers moving under the blankets, she opens her big, bright violet eyes, and Alicent leans in almost by magnetism, the tip of her finger brushing the little baby girl's soft, pink skin.
Aemma stares at her, mesmerized, her little fingers moving under Alicent's touch.
Everything blurs like fog and her tears are thin and hot and dot the blankets, Aemma is still looking at her as if she were the center of the world, and Alicent realizes that the anger she so longs to burn in her chest can never become not even sparks, shaking her head in denial.
How could Alicent hate her?
How could she hate them, when they aren't to blame for anything.
Alicent reaches out her arms and cradles Rhaenyra's daughter carefully, her violet eyes never leaving her.
No, Alicent will never be able to hate them, just as even after so much time, so much resentment and loneliness, she will never be able to hate her princess completely.
Even though she knew Rhaenyra was more than willing to use the considerably large amount of power she wielded over against Alicent, how willing to get straight to the point she always seemed to be, to never talk but just to f*ck Alicent as deep as possible, and while it all makes Alicent feel pathetic and has no control over herself, she has fought her desires long enough to know that she will never escape this spiral.
Rhaenyra will always be under Alicent's skin, causing her traitorous reactions and a familiar disgust for herself.
Wanting more than she could was never an option for Alicent, always within the limits of her father's words and orders, wanting was wanting what her father wanted, what her brothers wanted, and what her husband wanted, it was never about her wanting.
For the first time in as long as she can remember, Alicent wants something different from Rhaenyra. It's not a carnal want, like Rhaenyra's for her.
It's something sweet and special and true that makes Alicent place a kiss on baby Aemma's forehead and approach her twin sister's crib.
She smiles, and sighs, tears dampening her cheeks, no, Alicent couldn't hate them.
