Chapter Text
Alys was definitely glad she had decided to ride and not share the carriage with her family.
She could hear, or not hear, how well that was going for her elder sister, Rhaenyra.
Seems like the Realm's Delight is not being too delightful on this morning, Alys thought and smirked.
“Princess,” came the voice of Ser Criston Cole, a member of the Kingsguard, “are you all right to continue?” he asked.
As he had been every hour or so since they had left King's Landing.
As if I cannot handle riding. Granted, I will admit, it is nice for someone to actually pay attention to me for once.
“I am fine, Ser Criston,” she answered. “In fact, Rogue and I,” she said as she patted her stallions black mane, “need to run.”
She did not wait for a response; she was a princess, even if she was the second born, less important one. She took off in a gallop relishing how the wind blew her silver blonde hair behind her. Her violet eyes looked out at the fields around her and she ached to see the view from above with her dragon, Aerion. She missed him, even though she knew in a few days she would be back in King's Landing and would be able to ride him again.
She rode hard and fast trying not to think about why this hunt was happening.
To honour her little brother's, Aegon, second name day. And with that, all the realm, mostly the lords, all believed that Aegon would be king and Rhaenyra would not.
Hence the silent carriage that contained her father, her sister, her pregnant step-mother, Alicent, and baby Aegon. Rhaenyra was angry that all this attention was being paid to Aegon. At seventeen, Rhaenyra was finally having to learn how to share the love of the lords and it was not going well for anyone. Alys, who was sixteen had learned that lesson early; she thought it was probably around the same time she learned how to walk.
Alys saw the camp up a head and rode straight into the middle of it. She heard some curses from men who had to jump out of her way. She pulled gently on Rogue's reins and the horse slowed. She dismounted when he stopped and walked over to pat his nose.
“You are such a sweet good boy,” she said to him in Old Valyrian.
The one thing Uncle Daemon shared with both Rhaenyra and I.
“Princess Alysanne, leaving a path of destruction behind you, per usual, I see,” came the deep voice of the only man in this whole camp who only ever seemed to see Alys first before Rhaenyra.
Alys turned around and smiled as she saw Ser Harwin Strong, standing behind her. His broad shoulders looking especially wide and strong in his blue hunting jacket with his house's symbol emblazoned on the front of it that barely seemed to be able to contain his biceps. Alys was pulled towards his blue eyes though as they looked at her and smiled. She had never understood what it meant to have eyes smile until she met Harwin Strong.
“Ser Harwin, I do not leave a path of destruction behind me,” she said her voice light and teasing, “you are mistaking me for my uncle.”
Harwin smiled and Alys swore that her nether regions tingled and throbbed. He stepped closer to her and pressed his hand to his chest.
“My apologies, Princess,” he said. He winked, “I do tend to mistake one Targaryen for another.”
Alys found herself smiling. She nodded to the stable hand as he took Rogue's reins. “If your eye sight is that bad, that you mistake me for my uncle, who is about three heads taller than I, I have to ask how is it you were named Captain of the City Watch,” she said as she began walking away as she pulled off her riding gloves.
Harwin fell into step beside her. As he always did. He had become her shadow ever since her mother's death three years before. Every time they were in the same place, he found her and walked beside her and it brought her such peace to know that to at least one person in King's Landing thought of her before her sister.
He is a gorgeous man who is just being kind, Alys, do not get your hopes up. He probably also wishes to marry Rhaenyra. She reminded herself not to see too much into it.
“I do not know why I was chosen,” Harwin answered. “Perhaps it was my stunning personality,” he added winking her again.
Alys laughed. She shook her head and tossed her silver hair over her shoulder. Harwin was taller than her, about the same height as her uncle, but unlike Daemon, Harwin was all muscle. He certainly did not earn the nickname 'Breakbones' for being a tall skinny man. He was known as the strongest knight in the Seven Kingdoms and Alys ached to be held tight in his strong arms. She had no doubt he would hold her so gently despite his strength.
“That I may believe,” she said.
“Princess Alysanne,” she heard the voice of Otto Hightower, her father's hand, call from the tent.
She groaned and stopped walking. She turned her back to the tent. “Do you think he saw me?” she asked Harwin.
He looked over her head. “Oh, he definitely saw you,” he raised a dark eyebrow. He looked back down at her. “Is there a reason he would look so very annoyed with you already?”
Alys bit her lip. She stepped closer to Harwin. “I sent a messenger to Lady Rhaenys suggesting that I may fly Aerion to Driftmark to visit.”
Again Harwin's blue eyes found hers. She saw his smirk and had a feeling he had immediately known she had planned to do more than just visit Rhaenys.
“Your dragon, Aerion, he is one who black, is he not?” Harwin asked even though he knew the answer. All of King's Landing knew the answer, for Alys loved to ride her dragon almost as much as she loved to ride her stallion.
And probably as much as I would enjoy riding Ser Harwin, she thought and immediately pushed it aside because she did not need to be thinking of that with the man himself in front of her.
Alys nodded. “Black and large. Uncle Daemon wishes to claim him but his egg hatched in my cradle, so he is mine.”
Harwin shook his head. He leaned down and in closer. “Princess Alys,” he whispered, using the nickname that usually only her family used, “were you going to fly from Driftmark to the Sand Steps to help your uncle with your black dragon that people all ready call the Black Dread Reborn?”
Ays blushed. She crossed her arms on her red leather hunting jacket and shook her head. “Ser Harwin, I would never think of such a thing,” she whispered back. “I am a lady,” she turned and glanced over her shoulder as she heard Otto's loud voice ordering someone, anyone, to come and collect her so he could speak to her. She turned back and looked at Harwin. “And I'm not even the lady all of you men came to see and purine around to win favour with,” she added sadly.
She turned to leave. She felt Harwin take her hand. She turned back and looked at him. He pulled her hand up and placed a soft kiss on it.
“The rest of the men may be here for Princess Rhaenyra, Princess, but I am here for you,” he whispered.
Tension swirled around them. It was not the first time he had said something like that. No, that had been when he had found her alone at the Dragon's Pit in the late hours of the night in tears over the loss of her mother. In the years since, he always seemed to make it a point to see her first, to acknowledge her first. Rhaenyra had not noticed yet, which meant Alys still had a chance of having Harwin all to herself.
If she could ever muster the courage to do more than tease and flirt with him that is.
Alys looked at him her heart beating hard in her chest. She nodded. “Must you always try to get me to turn all shades of red before my meetings with the Hand,” she joked. She ran her thumb over his knuckles as he still held her hand. “It makes me look very guilty.”
Harwin smiled. He kissed her hand again his blue eyes never leaving hers. “Again, my apologies, Princess, but it seems whenever you are around, I tend to lose all reason.”
He squeezed her hand. She looked in his eyes. “You, sir, are trouble,” she whispered.
He smiled. “And so are you,” he said.
“Princess Alysanne,” Otto's voice seemed to boom from behind her. “I need to speak to you,” he ordered.
Alys did not even turn to acknowledge him. “You and I must go hunting together, Ser Harwin,” she said suddenly.
“Oh, we must, must we?” he teased.
“Yes, we must,” she pulled her hand back and stepped closer. “If only so that I can get away from that blowhard for a few hours.”
She turned and walked away hearing Harwin's booming laughter from behind her. She smiled and sighed.
Now, to face the Hand of the King and play the stupid spare princess once again.
***
Harwin watched as Alys walked towards the tent. She stood tall, her shoulders straight and back. Until Otto stood in front of her. Then Alys did what Harwin had seen her do time and time again; she made herself smaller. She no longer stood tall, she let her shoulders fall and she wrapped her arms around her waist and bowed her head.
She let Otto Hightower believe she was a nothing and a no one; just the spare Targaryen princess waiting to be married off.
They do not see her at all, Harwin thought anger echoing in him. They only ever see Rhaenyra.
His mind drifted back to that night three years before. He had not been captain of the City Watch. He had been a knight, coming back to the Red Keep where his rooms were after a night in the taverns. He had seen Alys, smaller than she was even now, sneaking across the courtyard headed for the Dragon's Pit. He had followed her.
Harwin crept into the Dragon's Pit, hating how much darker and even scarier it was at night. He followed the sounds of sobbing. He found her sitting in the middle of the sand sobbing in her nightdress and robe. He walked carefully over to her and kneeled beside her. She glanced at him and buried her face in her knees.
“Princess,” he whispered softly. “Should you not be in bed?”
“I cannot sleep,” she sobbed. “I miss my mother and Father, he is,” she shook her head. She looked up at the black hole of the opening to where the dragons were kept. “I had planned on coming here and flying off on Aerion.”
Harwin sat beside her suddenly very sober. He sat close to her, his shoulder brushing hers. He knew if anyone came across them, they could accuse him of impropriety. He did not care though. Alysanne Targaryen, Princess of the Seven Kingdoms had always been his soft spot. Always. He stilled remembered being a young boy, having just lost his step-mother after Larys birth, visiting the King and Queen for the first time. Rhaenyra and Alysanne had been there. Rhaenyra about three laughing and being, well, true to her nickname the Realm's Delight, delighted them. Alysanne though, she was two and so quiet as she sat in the corner with her books and blocks. She was attempting to build a building. Harwin had not even given it a second thought. With a smile and nod to Rhaenyra, leaving her to delight her parents and his father, he walked over to the corner and sat down. He and Alysanne build the most grandest building with all her blocks. And she had graced him with the sweetest smile and laugh.
Not that she remembered.
Harwin did though. And it was why now, whenever he was in King's Landing, which he was coming to more and more often, he made it a point to seek out Alysanne and pull her from her corner. He wished her to know that he believed she could shine and he wished to see her do so.
“You cannot fly away, my princess,” he whispered.
“Why not? I very much doubt anyone would even notice I was gone,” she answered. She turned and looked at him resting her cheek on her arm. Her violet eyes were filled with tears. “I walked by three Kingsguards, Ser Harwin, on my way here” she whispered his name telling him she at least knew who he was, “they were busy guarding my sister's rooms and uncle's. The guards barely acknowledged me. My sister or uncle will, one day, sit on the Iron Throne. So, they are the priority. I,” she whispered so very softly, “am the spare princess, no one sees me. No one ever comes to see me or care for me alone.”
Harwin looked at her. He reached out and brushed the hair from her face. “I come to see you, my princess. Whenever I am in King's Landing, you are the one I wish to see first and foremost.”
Alysanne looked at him. “You are the eldest son, Ser Harwin, your eyes should be turned to my sister.”
He smiled then. “I believe she has enough eyes on her, do you not?” he answered. “She does not need mine. But you, sweet, quiet, Alys,” he whispered using the nickname he had called her all those years ago. Queen Aemma had loved it so, she had begun calling Alys that and it had stuck. “I believe you need my eyes on you.”
And she smiled. It was a sad smile but Harwin would take it. “They are beautiful eyes.”
“How can you tell, princess? It is so dark in here I can barely you.”
“I may have noticed your eyes before,” Alys answered and she sighed. She looked away and wiped her tears away. She stared at the pit opening. “I may still fly away.”
“Stay,” Harwin whispered. “For my eyes at least,” he added teasing. “They need something pretty to look at.”
“Would that be before or after you win at tournament?”
Harwin smiled. “Both,” he let his smile slip then, “but I know you would hate yourself if you did not stay to watch your mother and brother's funeral.”
Alys nodded. “I would,” she whispered. He watched as she sighed and stood. He stood as well. He towered over her. She hugged herself. “But after, Ser Harwin, after,” she shrugged. “I may yet make my escape.”
He leaned in. “Not on my watch, princess,” he gently placed his hand on her back. “Come, let me escort you back to the palace.”
“If you must.”
“Oh, I must,” Harwin answered. “My eyes need to see something beautiful again.”
Alys snorted. “I can show you the entrance to the garden then. There are some beautiful flowers there.”
Harwin smiled and shook his head. Alys, always surprising him.
“I saw you speaking to Princess Alysanne,” his father, Lyonel said as he walked up to Harwin and pulled Harwin from his memory. “Do you wish to marry her?”
Harwin looked at his father. “If I say yes, are you going to tell me that I should hold out for her sister?” he asked.
Lyonel smiled. “No, not at all,” he leaned in closer. “You may have to wait until her sister is wed though. I very much doubt our king is going to allow his second daughter to wed before his first.”
Harwin stepped back. “You would support me, and put forward the suggestion to the king?”
Lyonel got a serious look on his face. “Of course I would. If you were serious about marriage. You are past the age where most noble men get wed. It is high time you found yourself someone,” Lyonel patted his shoulder. “Think on it some more. After all, I did bring you here to be a suitor.”
Harwin rolled his eyes. “Put Larys forward for Princess Rhaenyra. I am sure she would enjoy talking to him more than anyone else.”
Lyonel snorted and walked away. Harwin's eyes turned towards the royal tent but Alys was no where to be seen. He rubbed his beard and turned and walked away following his father.
It was true, he was supposed to there to be a suitor for Princess Rhaenyra, all the eligible men from all the houses were there for the same reason; to attempt to win her over.
But Harwin had agreed to come not for the eldest princess. No, he had come for Alysanne.
Sweet quiet, Alysanne who tended to enjoy the company of her dragon, her horse, and her cats more than she did any actual person. Alysanne, who could read, write, and speak Old Valyrian, and who apparently had told her uncle where to stick the dragon's egg he had stolen and how he could do it in the quickest way possible before Rhaenyra had calmly asked for it back. Alysanne, who snuck out regularly from the Red Keep and constantly lead him on a merry chase around the streets of King's Landing.
His Alys.
He did not know when it was during the years he had spent seeking her out and keeping her company but somewhere along the line he had begun to think of her as his, but there it was. She was his.
In his mind and perhaps even his heart.
Now, if only he could get her to see it.