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scaly-freaks · 2 days

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a cage she'd live in forever

ignore me just randomly re-posting stuff into the vacuum i guess (i'll probably repost my rhaenicent fic next)

Aemond’s stoic manner doesn’t last.

Alicent took one look at her son during the confrontation with Rhaenyra, and understood he was pretending to be a man. He was forcing himself to grow up faster in the face of a cold, callous court, just as she once had. It broke her heart.

Now he’s back in King’s Landing, in the safety of his own chambers, and his voice cracks when he asks his mother to help apply salve to his eye. He doesn’t like the servants touching it.

Each crack in Aemond’s young voice drives her further into madness.

Madness to Alicent was never a legible concept.

It’s tucked away into the neat folds of her green sleeves, a problem for later.

She’s no Targaryen. There is no fire and blood to reckon with here.

And yet she sees her child suffer and she wants to burn down this cursed castle with herself in it.

You let this happen to him. You should have been more vigilant. You knew how obsessed he was with those beasts. YOU DID THIS.

Viserys plays no part in her judgements. The old man gave his seed and withered into the peripheral. These are her children. Alicent has the right to be possessive over them at least. Nothing else in her life has ever truly been hers.

Her title of ‘queen’ belonged to a woman more well-loved by her husband. Her name of ‘Hightower’ belongs to the men in her family. Her regal status could be snatched at any moment should the king die.

But her children she bore and birthed, they are hers.

Even so, they still ask for their father. They haven’t yet learned.

“Why does he like them more than he likes us?” Aegon mumbled to her when she can get a sober word out of him. “I thought he wanted us. I thought he wanted me.”

In a rare moment of affection – slapping Aegon was the worst thing she could have done in that room, she sees that now – she stroked the back of his silver head and made a soft, comforting sound.

“He does want you. He always wanted you.” She lies to her children with ease, just like she lies to everyone else.

When Aegon was born, no matter how it traumatised her to give birth so young, she had celebrated, thinking life would be better now that she was the queen who had managed to birth a male heir for the king.

It changed nothing.

Helaena was born and her depression grew worse.

She tries to forget what she’d done days after the birth, as if it were nothing more than a horrible nightmare. But she can’t forget the screams of her ladies-in-waiting, how they’d dragged her off the ledge. Helaena had been in her arms, shrieking miserably.

Alicent had begged her and begged her to stop crying, that she could do no more for her, that they were both helpless.

At some point, the crying faded into nothing, and the next thing she knew, she was standing on the window ledge, staring down at Maegor’s Holdfast, with her baby girl clutched to her chest.

There’s no doubt in her mind now that she would have jumped if they hadn’t found her.

She was dragged back to her cage, and her father came to rebuke her for her ungratefulness. She didn’t know how to tell him what was wrong. She didn’t know when everything went so perfectly wrong.

Aemond was born when she was happiest. She had grown a little older, become more well-adjusted. And a second son was further proof of her fertility, as well as another pillar to hold up both House Targaryen and Hightower. He was a beautiful baby, wide-eyed and gurgling. He was the happiest baby she’d ever had.

The happiness wears away the older he grows, but sometimes, when she cups his chin in her palm and makes a kissy sound, he beams, and she sees the precious infant again.

He isn’t smiling now. His shoulders are hunched, and he won’t look up, not even when she speaks to him.

Helaena sits on the corner of his bed, glancing up from time to time as she mumbles under her breath.

Alicent looks at her and doesn’t understand her, but there’s something about the girl no one can help but love. And Alicent does, painfully. The guilt of that window ledge will never leave her.

Helaena worries more than she lets on and will often wander into a room and sit in the corner like a watchful ghost when someone in her family is hurting. Alicent can’t count the nights she’s cried into her hands only to look up and see Helaena’s large eyes peering at her from the shadows. It never fails to make her laugh through the tears.

“Is Vhagar fed?” She coaxes Aemond on his favourite subject. She has no love for the dragon, but she uses her to get her son to speak.

He grunts, fiddling with his fingers. She wonders what confusion is now curdling in his young head. All her children are sad in their own ways, as sad as their mother, and she doesn’t know what to do. Leave well enough alone, Otto tells her, and Alicent can’t help thinking he might be right. He did the same with her after all.

“You were brave, Aemond. Your nephews would never have held their own the way you did.” Alicent wipes her fingers clean of salve and lifts his face up. He stares at her with his one, pale violet eye and she feels a burst of rage upon seeing the wound. It’s so strong it makes her nauseous.

“Even our uncle noticed,” Helaena hums. She looks up when she realises her mother and brother are staring at her. Then, she shrugs, stroking the dead centipede in her hand. It died this morning on her pillow. “I think he liked your bravery. But he would never say it.”

Daemon’s baleful, amused eyes flash across Alicent’s vision and she recalls her childhood infatuation with him. She grew out of it and happily so. It does not surprise her that Daemon would look at his brother’s children and see himself in them. He’s always boasted of himself as stronger than Viserys. It would entertain him to see a boy so like himself come from a woman he deems strait-laced and dull and a brother he considers weak.

“Our uncle,” Aemond scoffs. “He slept with her.”

“With whom?” Alicent’s head snaps around.

“Our father’s only child,” he spits out, venom in the words.

Rhaenyra.

“How do you know this?” Her eyes are wide and terrified, picturing a scenario where Aemond bursts out with this information at the wrong moment and gets punished.

“I was waiting to slip out and go to the beach, but I couldn’t find a good time. I saw them leave together. I know what they went to do. I’m not a child, mother.”

“Aemond, you must never speak of this again.”

“Why not?” He gets to his feet, all Targaryen rage and impulsivity. “Why must we always keep our mouths shut while she gets to do whatever she wants?”

Alicent breathes in, willing herself to stay calm.

Taking both his hands in hers, she kisses them and holds them against her cheek, reminding herself that all her children are still here. Daeron is safe in Oldtown. Her eldest three are here with her. They’re not gone yet. Daemon can’t do a thing to them. Daemon, not Rhaenyra, because even she knows her childhood friend would not willingly cut the throats of her own siblings.

“There will come a time when we will no longer live in fear of what Rhaenyra and her brood do or say to us,” she tells him. “But it is not that time yet.”

“Do you mean when father dies?” Helaena pipes up.

Alicent hushes her. “Don’t say such things out loud.” Her eyes dart to the door. Larys has spies everywhere, and though he might act innocuous with his crooked smile and haunted eyes, she knows him too well to think he’s loyal to her. He’s loyal to himself alone, as proven by the deaths of his kin. “But I assure you, Aemond, your patience will be rewarded, not just with a dragon, but by the respect of the entire realm. You are my warrior, my boy, my prince. Nothing will ever change that. Understand?”

Aemond grinds his teeth – it’s a habit she’s trying to help him out of – but he nods, slow at first, but then, with a greater degree of certainty. He believes her.

She glances at Helaena, a wordless signal that they should leave Aemond alone for a while.

At the door, she turns to look at him one last time, and smiles.

He brings peace to her heart, not because she loves him more than the other children, but because she knows he sees outside of himself, just like she was trained to. He will protect his siblings if Alicent is no longer there to do so.

Aemond is her favourite because he is exactly what she pictured when she imagined what it would be like to have a son.

Now they see you as you are.

Alicent wakes in a cold sweat, Rhaenyra’s vicious violet eyes burned into the backs of her eyelids. Her dreams are cruel to her. One moment Nyra’s head is in her lap, her young face alight with pleasure at the thought of flying away with Alicent and finding places no one else will ever reach. And then there’s a knife in her hand and Rhaenyra is bleeding out all over her green dress.

She can never control her dreams. Either she hurts Rhaenyra by the end, or Rhaenyra rips off her mask and shows her what she is.

A frightened young girl turned into a cold, enraged woman.

Her brother Gwayne used to reassure her she would be an excellent wife and mother to some very lucky minor lord. They were children of a second son, it was the most they could expect, even if their father was the Hand. And Alicent had revelled in the imagery. Gwayne was always kind to her, loving her the way younger brothers do, without question and without strife.

She never felt worthy of his simple love. She never believed she would be as good a woman as he believed she would. But often, on nights she can’t sleep, she thinks of all Gwayne told her and measures herself against it.

If she measures herself against what Rhaenyra promised she would grow to become, she’ll cry herself to death.

You are the sweetest person I’ve ever known. Everyone in this court looks at me and they see a princess, not a prince. They see what I am not, what I should have been. But you look at me and I feel strong, as if even I could bear the weight of my father’s crown. Do you know the worth of such a quality, Alice? You give strength to those who feel forsaken.

That last sentence was what echoed in Alicent’s mind the night she rushed out of the Great Hall, away from Rhaenyra’s bloodstained wedding, to find Criston Cole kneeling in the godswood, with a knife angled towards himself.

She wonders what Rhaenyra would feel knowing she herself is the reason Criston still lives.

A shadow stirs under her door and she hears the familiar clink of armour.

The guards change at midnight, and he comes to stand by her door, ever unable to sleep when the night is darkest. Alicent has memorised the sound.

Some nights, she can’t sleep until she hears the clink. Her heart doesn’t settle in the right place until Criston moves in front of her rooms, as if he’ll protect her from the hurricane waiting outside.

But no matter how she tries, tonight, sleep evades her.

She gets up and summons one of her maidservants, asking for a cup of mulled wine.

When the door opens, Criston moves an inch to the left, as if expecting trouble. Their eyes lock.

Alicent clutches her robe tighter around herself, suddenly aware of how little she’s wearing in comparison to her daytime garb. Her hair is loose from its coif, and falls in unruly curls down her back, large eyes betraying an age that is still not old enough for the troubles she bears.

“Ser Criston,” she calls, before he can close the door.

He walks into the doorway. “My Queen.”

She inclines her head to indicate he enter. He does so without a flicker in his expression, ever prepared to serve.

“Are you well, my Queen?”

Her palms are sweaty. She’s never been more aware of anything in her life. Whether it’s his presence or the lingering aftermath of her dream, she does not know.

“I could not sleep.”

His brown eyes peer at her through his lashes. They’re so large, they appear wholly sincere, but she’s seen them turn cruel at the mention of Rhaenyra. Never has a man confused her as much as Criston Cole.

Daemon, enigma as he seeks to appear, is fairly predictable within his impulsivity. If one wants trouble, look to the Targaryen prince with not a chip, but a giant oak tree on his shoulder. He’s always certain trouble.

But Criston can pass for serene and dutiful and be something totally different underneath.

Yet with her, Alicent believes he is at her service. She just often has doubts as to the precise reasons why. It can’t all be because she saved him from killing himself.

“The maid – “ he begins.

“Yes, she’s gone to fetch me a jug of mulled wine. I was hoping you would partake of it with me, Ser Criston.”

He bows his head in agreement.

Alicent’s mouth twitches in a sad smile.

He never suspects she may have ulterior motives.

Even to a man as guarded as this, she is laced so tightly, he would never suspect otherwise.

She’s never wanted to be like Rhaenyra – at least not to be in her situation – but now she does. To be able to say something charming, quick-witted, and break the ice, it would be a relief.

The maid returns with the wine and Alicent pours for the knight, setting the cup beside him.

“I appreciate how much you do for my children, Ser Criston.” She gestures for him to sit, and when he does, carefully seats herself beside him.

He keeps his eyes on the ground when he nods. “It is my duty, Your Grace. I will always work in the favour of the princes and the princess.”

“You go above and beyond.”

Now he looks at her and she sees a spark of surprise. “Have I overstepped, Your Grace?”

Alicent’s face softens, and she reaches to rest her hand on his gauntlet. “No. No, you have not. I am commending you, Criston. Not everything is a question of your ability. I will never doubt that.”

She hears him breathe out, but he still appears discomfited. She takes a sip from her own cup, hoping to encourage him to drink from his. A few seconds pass, and he mirrors her action. They smile at each other. Hers is wider, and his is small, but grows the longer he lets himself gaze into her eyes.

“May I ask what troubles you, my Queen?”

He knows. He must.

He was there in the room after the fight between Rhaenyra and Alicent was broken up. He’d watched her cry with Aemond’s bloodied face tucked against her neck. He was the one who had guided them both out, away from the court’s judgemental eyes, somewhere safe to grieve alone.

“I dreamt of Rhaenyra. Of our younger days.”

He keeps his face carefully smooth. “I remember that you were good friends. She always spoke highly of you.”

At least he’s not calling her a spoiled cunt anymore.

“She spoke well of you too,” Alicent admits. “Though I never saw when it was that she grew a particular affection for you. I was adept at reading those signs in her. With Daemon it was youthful infatuation. I was guilty of it too for a while. But you, I had no idea.”

A muscle in his jaw pulses. He’s staring into the cup of wine as if it will tell him what to say next, or what to do.

Alicent waits.

“I don’t think she held an affection for me the way I did for her,” he says at length. “I misread her cues. Had I known, I would never have offered what I did on our way to Driftmark. And she’d never had had the chance to prove just how little I meant in her world.”

“Did you – “ Alicent pauses, clears her throat, as if this isn’t something she should ask. Criston glances at her, expectant. “Did you like her a lot?”

His mouth tugs upwards with a tinge of bitterness. “It was my first time at court, away from war. And I was in the service of a princess. I’d heard one too many ballads, and she had a sweet smile. I saw everyone underestimate her. I saw her father harangue her to accept marriage proposals she didn’t want. It tangled up my views on love and duty, and my protectiveness grew into something more. It was youth’s folly on my part. It wasn’t until later that I learned she came to me after her uncle left her stranded in a brothel down in the city.”

Alicent nods, a knot stuck in her throat. She still remembers the pain in her stomach when her father first told her of the news, and that he was being banished from court for it. She remembers the way Rhaenyra’s voice trembled when she dubbed it a “vile accusation.” And yet it was never far from the truth.

Now Alicent understood exactly why Rhaenyra went to Ser Criston afterwards.

She knows this man has failed to forgive Rhaenyra’s youthful indiscretions, just as much as he refuses to forgive his own, but she feels pity for him regardless.

There’s no sense of betrayal towards the princess. Rhaenyra stopped feeling pity for Alicent the moment she was coerced into becoming her new stepmother. Alicent has ceased feeling that stab of guilt whenever she spoke against the princess in her absence. Life goes on.

“Everyone commits folly in their youth. It is of no consequence.” She says the words but doesn’t truly feel them. Her own youth was wasted in biting her cuticles till they bled and praying she did no wrong in her father’s eyes. Hardly a youth at all.

“Not you, my Queen.”

Alicent almost flinches in surprise. Criston has a look of amusement on his face. It takes her a moment to process, and then she laughs, uncertain. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe you’ve ever committed a folly as a child.”

“I have. Plenty of them. My father was always admonishing me for them.”

“What your father deems follies, aren’t really follies. He watches Aegon with the same focus he once used on you.” Criston’s implication is clear.

Just like Aegon, Alicent was once a pawn to move around as Otto saw fit. It doesn’t feel right to allow a member of the Kingsguard to absolve her of her perceived sins, but she leans into the feeling, letting it envelop her in comfort.

“I regret one thing in regard to you,” she mutters, looking away before the heat of the wine reaches her cheeks.

“What’s that?”

“The way I referred to you when you took of your helmet during your first tourney here.”

“’Gods, he’s Dornish’?”

Alicent’s eyes widen. Criston’s voice ripples with laughter. “Rhaenyra told me. I found it amusing.”

“I did not mean it to denigrate you,” Alicent says quickly. “I swear. I just meant – I hadn’t seen many Dornish folk growing up, and I wasn’t expecting – “

“It’s alright, Your Grace,” Criston cuts her off, eyes crinkled at the corners.

He looks young again, the way she remembers.

Alicent heaves a sigh, and then laughs, embarrassed.

They both drift into a comfortable silence, each glancing up while the other isn’t looking. It happens three times before their gazes finally meet and then suddenly, neither can look away.

She tries, but the urge to drown in the dark chasm of his eyes is more enticing than anything her husband has ever said or done to her.

Criston looks away first, but it’s to reach under his gauntlet. “I brought something. I thought the young prince might like it. Losing an eye at such an age is a great blow. I know he wishes to become a better warrior, and I fear it may create problems.”

Alicent’s face falls at the mention of Aemond’s injury. “Yes, well, there’s nothing to be done. His eye is gone.” Her voice cracks, just like her son’s had.

Criston stops fiddling with the gauntlet and stares at her. It’s as if he wants to reach across and comfort her with something more tangible than words.

But instead, he removes what he was looking for and holds it out.

It’s a leather eyepatch.

“I had it made. It’s well-padded and it will fit the circumference of his head. I know he is self-conscious about the scar, but once the wound heals, he can cover most of it.”

Alicent doesn’t speak. Her eyes glimmer with an emotion she can’t put a name to and her fingers tremble as they take the patch from Criston’s palm. Her bottom lip quivers, and she sniffs, trying not to give into the weight of grief upon her chest.

“Your Grace,” Criston murmurs, troubled at her reaction.

“Don’t – “ she seals her lips, and squeezes her eyes shut, letting the tears fall free. “Don’t call me that. Call me Alicent for once. I hear the name my mother gave me so little these days.”

He swallows, something unreadable flickering across his face. “Alicent.”

She inhales, a shivering breath, and clutches the eyepatch to her chest. “He’s going to look like a Braavosi ruffian,” she laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. “It would be highly improper.”

Criston shrugs and grins. “The boy deserves to go around however he wants after the trouble he’s had, no?”

She can already picture the scowl on her father’s face when he sees the patch.

It’s what convinces her to set aside her qualms.

Aemond will adore it. He has a knack for going straight for the thing he’s not supposed to, and just as with Vhagar, he’ll continue to make those decisions well into the future. At least Alicent can give him her blessing on this one.

“Thank you,” she says, and her voice barely breaks above a whisper. “You are good to me. To us.”

They smile at each other, and a picture of utter serenity invades her mind’s eye.

In it, her children don’t have silver hair, but red locks like her own, and deep, beautiful brown eyes like his. Their home is small, but happy, and each night when he returns, all four of them run to him, trying to tell him about their day at the same time. Alicent lingers in the back, waiting for her turn, knowing it will always come.

“Your Grace?”

The formal address shatters her vision like an arrow through glass.

She blinks, bringing herself to reality, to the quiet, dark room, so spacious and luxurious.

And him.

He’s closer now, and his hand is halfway up, as if he’s unsure whether he’s allowed to touch her.

Alicent takes it without thinking and kisses the back before pressing it to her cheek.

He doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t say a word. His fingers tighten around hers and his armour shifts as he leans in.

Alicent doesn’t lift her head. She’s afraid of what she might see in the reflection of his eyes. She’s afraid she’ll see herself, yearning, something she’s long forced herself never to do.

“Alicent.”

“I won’t,” she whispers. “I won’t make you break your oath a second time. I’m not like her. I’m not her.”

“I know. I know.” He sets his other hand beneath hers, supporting it. “You’re not Rhaenyra. You are yourself. And I chose to serve you for that, not because I owe you my life and my dignity.”

“Rhaenyra made her choices out of youthful folly, and I am a grown woman. This is wrong.” She lets go of his hand, but he tightens his grip before she can take hers back. It’s not an aggressive hold, but it’s enough to keep her reined in close to him.

“I would never encourage you to do anything you did not want to, my Queen,” he says, and she now sees what Rhaenyra saw in him.

That wide-eyed devotion, the darkness stirring just underneath, as if he would do anything Alicent asked, no matter how cruel.

How could anyone say no to such intensity? Except Rhaenyra used him as a replacement, and Alicent has nothing to replace. She is a grown woman, but in this aspect, her experience is lacklustre.

“I don’t know what I want,” she chokes out, biting her lip to keep it from trembling.

“That’s not quite true, is it?” he says kindly.

She shakes her head. “I want a great many things, most of them to do with my children. But for myself, I don’t know what I want. Perhaps I want to sleep. Or to be at peace. Or maybe I want never to worry about another thing as long as I live.”

Her voice breaks as she remembers Aemond wiping his tears with haste so she won’t see them, and Aegon turning away to hide how her words trouble him, and Helaena – sweet Helaena – hoping her mother will understand what she means without having to try and explain it all the time.

And then she looks up at Criston and he is looking at her, only her.

Not Alicent the queen, nor Alicent the mother, nor Alicent the daughter.

Just Alicent.

She leans in for the space of a long sigh, and kisses his lips, seeking a taste of what it is that makes him see her that way.

Criston doesn’t let her pull back. His hand is behind her head – gentle, as if she were made of crystal – and his lips move like warm silk, pressed over her mouth. He kisses each corner, and then the bow of her upper lip, his breath soaked into hers. The scent of mulled wine is strong, but underneath, she tastes something sweeter. She wonders if she’s imagining it.

He manoeuvres her with an ease that steals her breath away.

One moment she’s on the seat, the next she’s half on his lap and his arm is braced around her slender waist.

She’s never been kissed like this before, like the centre of the universe is hidden between her lips and he means to steal it.

“Criston – “

His name is muffled in the wet slide of his tongue over hers, and she isn’t sure what she means to say next. He doesn’t give her the chance to think about it. His hand braces against the side of her neck, pulling her closer, until she’s caged.

This is a cage I would live in forever.

It takes the will of the gods to end the kiss.

The second she does, his mouth grasps at her chin, her cheek, her jaw, her throat, reaching for anything she’ll give him. And for a few heartbeats, she lets him have it all. She pretends her body is his to do with as he pleases, and that no one will ever come through that door to break them up.

She pretends she is his, and he is hers.

And then her body strains back, breaking the restraint of his arm.

Criston releases her immediately, breath coming short, eyes glittering with arousal.

Her own face is no better. Soft steps retreat, taking her back until she finds the bedpost. It’s the only thing keeping her knees from giving out.

Criston stands, and she’s suddenly aware of how much larger he is. It doesn’t help the heat spreading across her body, or the heartbeat pulsing in her throat. Her cheeks are still wet with tears.

“We can’t,” is all she manages to breathe out.

He nods, a sincere gesture. He understands.

Alicent thinks then that she might die to be understood like this always, that she’d die for him.

His white cloak whispers across the floor when he approaches.

A coarse hand rests ever so soft against the petal-skin of her cheek. It brushes down towards her chin, tilting it up. He studies her face as if she were a finely woven tapestry, each thread made of precious gold and silver.

“Your tears are as beautiful as the rest of you,” he murmurs. “But would that I could, I’d banish them from your eyes forever.”

Alicent trembles, trying not to let out the sob building up in her chest.

He presses a kiss to her forehead, chaste, and his hand drops away her face.

He leaves and behind him, lingers a poignant scent she’s only ever breathed in the godswood.

It’s holy.

“What’s this?”

Aemond looks confused at the velvet pouch she dangles before him.

Aegon is sitting on a nearby chair, sober for once, and Helaena is curled up by the fireplace, making swirling patterns with the corpses of dead bugs. Aegon keeps cringing and telling her not to bring them too close to his feet. She threatens to throw one in his open mouth when he’s asleep.

Their bickering continues in the background as Alicent pulls Aemond close. “Open it.”

He does, and removes the patch with a blithely confused face. “What is it?”

“It’s a patch for your eye, you dolt,” Aegon calls.

“Aegon, don’t be mean to your brother.”

“Why not? He told father I knew about the bastards. I got barked at.”

“I was protecting mother,” Aemond snaps.

“Yes,” Alicent says quickly, before it can get out of hand. “And I know you were as well, Aegon. Thank you.”

Aegon opens his mouth to say something, frowns, and then grunts. Alicent gaze lingers on him for a moment, feeling that familiar sadness, but then she’s distracted by Aemond putting on the patch. He laughs in delight as he darts towards the mirror.

“I look like a Braavosi sea lord!” he exclaims.

“This is what he’s giggling over!” Aegon laughs. “No more ‘I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon?’ Pretentious twat.”

Helaena chooses that precise moment to throw a dead bug at Aegon’s head, and the room erupts into chaos.

Alicent’s first instinct is to shout and stop them, order them to behave like the royalty they are.

But then she notices the maidservants giggling, and she lets it carry on. Helaena, emboldened by her initial attack, chases her older brother with a whole tray of bugs, and Aemond stands at the centre of it all, doing his best impression of a Braavosi water dancer.

Alicent smiles so wide her face hurts.

They look like children.

It won’t last, but they look like children again.

#alicent hightower #criston cole #alicent x criston #alicole #ser criston cole #queen alicent #house of the dragon #aemond targaryen #helaena targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #daeron targaryen #viserys targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #scalyfreakswrites

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