Chapter Text
182 AC
Baelor had always been his favorite brother.
He had a personal fondness for Rhaegel, and he liked Aerys enough, as his own blood, but he had always been the closest to his eldest brother. Rhaegel was a peculiar child, kind and gentle but trapped in the workings of his own mind, and Aerys had always liked his books better than human companionship. But Baelor - Baelor he had always looked up to, and been infuriated by.
He was the one who answered his questions and who always asked some in return. The one who pushed him to be better - at swordplay, at riding, at diplomacy, at reading and sums - and who picked him back up with a laugh when he sometimes failed. The one who shielded him from the worst of their parents’ admonition when he misbehaved. He was the brother who cared. He knew Baelor cared about everything and everybody in truth, in that noble way of his, but Maekar liked to think he had some special kind of care for him. The care which came with a genuine laugh, startled out of him and with crinkles around his eyes. The care which made his eldest brother train with him every time he asked and ruffle his hair when he did especially good. The real care, different from the carefully constructed attention he gave the nobles at court or the diligent focus he gave the adults of their father’s household. Something deeper, and truer. That care came from Baelor as he was, not Baelor as the eldest or the heir.
They were four years apart and dramatically different, both in character and appearance. Baelor was the picture of their Dornish mother : tan and lean, with dark curly hair and a singular dark eye. The only hint of his Targaryen ancestry was his other eye, a pale lilac. It gave his brother a peculiar sort of gaze, both direct and a bit other-wordly. In comparison, Maekar was pale all-over with his fair skin, long silver hair and dark violet eyes. The hawkish nose was his only resemblance to his mother, the rest was all dragonblood. He had also been marked by the pox as a babe, which had left faded scars on his cheeks and neck. He hated the scars, and at eight, he was a good deal shorter than his brothers still, which was another grievance.
Where Baelor was reasonable and calm, Maekar was proud and headstrong. His mother also teasingly called him sulky sometimes, especially when things didn’t go his way. He wished she would call Baelor sulky too, but he knew that wasn’t likely : his brother’s evenness protected him from motherly reproach. It was a well-known fact that Baelor was expected to present as an alpha : already he showed early signs, in the easy command and level-headedness. His youngest brother fiercely wished to present as an alpha too : that way he could become a knight, maybe even a Kingsguard like their granduncle Aemon had been, and remain in the capital with his brother as King. Maekar heard the talk in the Red Keep, at feast tables and royal hearings : Prince Daeron had been blessed with an oldest son worthy of his blood, worthy of the realm. But he sometimes heard the other whispers too, in corridors and dark corners of the keep : Aerys the spare was a bookish introvert, while Rhaegel was touched by madness and he himself only a fourth son. And Baelor, more Martell than Targaryen, with princely manners but no royal coloring.
He was being sulky now, in one of the yards at the foot of Maegar’s Holdfast, training with two of his brothers and their master-at-arms, Ser Quentyn Ball. Usually, they also trained with Daemon, Aegor and Brynden too : they were not princes of the blood like he and his brothers were, for they were named Waters and Rivers, but the court knew them as bastards of their grandfather King Aegon the fourth. Maekar couldn’t really think of them as his uncles, nor could he really think of the King as his grandfather : the bastard boys were of an age with them, and unruly, while his grandfather was nothing more than a stranger sitting on a throne. Maekar could count on his hand the number of times he had interacted with his grandfather, and it had been many years ago. He was only eight, but he knew there was no love lost between his father the prince, and his grandfather the king. Still, they trained together in the Red Keep, as befitting children of kings and princes alike, trueborn or not.
Today none of them were here however, and Baelor had not joined them either, which Maekar found displeasing : he had stayed inside with their father, and in the castle the air was tense. Their grandmother, Queen Naerys, had taken to the childbed two days ago, and still no child had come forth. Earlier in the day, as they were all taking breakfast in their father’s solar, Rhaegel had asked if they could visit her : he liked their grandmother, with her gentle manners and soft speech, who was never disturbed by his bouts of absence. Their mother had looked at him with a hint of something like sadness in her dark eyes, and only replied they could not. His father had stayed silent.
So it was only him, Aerys and Rhaegel in the crisp morning air, and Ser Quentyn was drilling Aerys to begin : his brother, in a padded leather surcoat similar to his own, was moving through the forms with absolute boredom, barely touching the straw dummy with his wooden sword.
“Higher, if it pleases you. Higher. Again !” shouted Ser Quentyn
At one-and-ten, Aerys was a spindly youth with tangled white hair and no interest in swordplay : after much admonishment, their master finally gave up and told his brother to run laps around the yard until the end of practice. Aerys only turned and looked at his brother with mild annoyance, before starting a jog barely above the pace of a walk.
Ser Quentyn sighed and turned to the other two boys. He was of an age with their father, perhaps a few years older, but with lines in his face and grey in his red beard, hardened by warfare. Maekar had always distantly felt like the man cared little for him or his brothers. He did treat them the same way he treated the bastard boys : he wasn’t especially harder on any of them, distributed reprimands and praises alike (which was very little) and punished them all when he felt like it. In truth, Maekar had no evidence to base this feeling upon. But maybe the fact that he treated them all equally, bastards and trueborns alike, actually betrayed some inclination towards the other boys. And he was sure he wasn’t imagining the fleeting glint of something in his eyes when Daemon, Aegor or Brynden bested one of them in a spar.
But for now, he had no Waters and Rivers boys to train when he turned, and his choice was between ten years old Rhaegel and eight years old Maekar. Rhaegel was currently laying against the fence of the yard, wooden sword forgotten in the dirt, head turned up to look at the clouds while quietly singing to himself. He had that faraway look in his eyes which indicated no swordplay was about to take place any time soon. Something like contempt flashed in Ser Quentyn’s eyes and his gaze finally landed on Maekar. Being the youngest, he was often looked over in training : his brothers and uncles would hopefully be squires soon, and needed the training more urgently. Although he felt like even his half-uncle Brynden, at seven, received more attention in the yard. Baelor was already one of the squires of the Lord Commander, Ser Symon Darry, called the Demon of Darry. Maekar wished he was training with the Lord Commander right now, who was quick to laugh and amiable, instead of sour-faced Ser Quentyn.
“Your Grace,” Ser Quentyn said, “show me your stance.”
Maekar came to stand in the middle of the yard, facing the straw dummy. He raised his training sword and shuffled his feet on the ground.
“Put your weight on your back foot. Lower your sword, your middle is unguarded."
He corrected his stance and refrained from rolling his eyes with no small amount of self-control. He was only eight, but he had already heard enough that a prince of the blood was not supposed to roll his eyes as he pleased.
“Overhead strike, two handed,” the master-at-arms called.
Maekar took two steps forward and hit the training dummy square on top of the head.
“Your strike is unprecise because your sword shouldn’t waver so. Keep your arms straight. Again,” Ser Quentyn corrected.
He struck the dummy again, with more strength. Bits of straw flew in the air.
“You are hitting with the strength of an omega maiden. Use your arms and strike harder.”
Maekar felt the anger rise hot in him, like a molten wave escaping the collar of his surcoat and engulfing his face and senses. His heart was pounding and his palms were sweating. He raised the sword above his head again, and surged forward with all his strength. He hit the straw again, but this time the head of the dummy caved in, and a chunk of straw fell to the floor. Ser Quentyn stayed silent for a beat, but not long.
“Obviously, you will strike harder if you raise your sword above your head. Meanwhile in real battle, an enemy would have skewered you through your middle.” Ser Quentyn said with an off-handed gesture.
Maekar felt his mouth open and his brain came up with a scathing response, the sort of answer where the septon would make him memorize and then recite passages of The Seven-Pointed Star to admonish later. Something like telling the master-at-arms where he could shove his wooden sword.
“Well, perhaps we should provide you with a mace, brother, if you already strike with such force with a sword. Don’t you think, Ser Quentyn ?”
Maekar whipped around at the sound of his brother’s voice. Baelor was standing a few feet away, having obviously been privy to the whole exchange, maybe even more. He was wearing a black velvet doublet embroidered with the three-headed dragon of their house in red thread. A sash of crimson silk was also tied around his waist in Dornish fashion, and his silver signet ring shined in the sun. Maekar suddenly felt silly in his faded leather surcoat and practice wooden sword in hand. His brother looked like a prince, and he felt like a boy.
“...Perhaps,” said Ser Quentyn, clearly surprised by his brother's appearance.
“My lord father summons us to his apartments,” said Baelor.
“Very well”, answered the master-at-arms, already turning away.
Baelor looked at Ser Quentyn’s back for a moment, before smiling at Maekar. Maekar smiled back, heart beating faster and rejoicing at the interruption, but he could read something else in his brother's face. Something weary. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and behind it, he looked burdened by something that had not been there this morning. Aerys had stopped running at some point and stood beside Maekar, reading the same thing in the eldest’s face.
“Come,” his brother urged, extending an arm.
Maekar fell in step with Baelor, who wrapped his arm around his shoulders. Beside them, Aerys had picked back up the book abandoned at the beginning of training and was leading Rhaegel by the hand. The cold wind was blowing Rhaegel’s dark hair over his purple eyes. He looked focused again, perhaps sensing something was amiss : his eyes were large in his face, and he looked pale. Baelor looked up at the pale red walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, where the royal chambers were situated and where they had heard their grandmother scream the previous night. The castle-within-a-castle was eerily silent now. They walked together toward the Maidenvault, where they lived, its slate roof visible behind the royal sept. When they first came back to Kingslanding from Dragonstone a few years ago, Maekar had thought they would live in the Tower of the Hand, with its solar high above the rest of the Keep and its tall windows. When he had told his father so, he had only answered that he was the Prince of Dragonstone, not the Hand of the King. It had seemed unfair to Maekar that Lord Hightower, who wasn’t a prince of the blood, should continue to live in the beautiful slender tower while they were relegated to the dark halls of the Maidenvault. It still seemed unfair, and now he was sure it was because it was supposed to be so.
They continued to walk along the inner wall of the castle, crossing another yard and leaving behind the sept, before climbing a few serpentine steps to the tall carved doors of the Maidenvault, guarded by anonymous gold cloaks. They hadn’t crossed paths with anybody on their way, merely a few serving folks scurrying along. The castle seemed suspended in time, waiting for them to reach some understanding too far from their reach still. The guards opened the doors of the keep and the boys stepped inside. Maekar had to wait for his eyes to adjust to the light before he spotted his mother in the entrance, waiting for them. Princess Myriah Martell was rather tall for an omega, with tan skin and long brown hair, which she had shared with her eldest son. She had a curved nose and dark eyes framed by thick lashes, and she wore a loose-fitting gown of brightly dyed silk, in the fashion of her house. Maekar thought she was the most beautiful woman he knew. Standing in the entrance, she looked at her sons and her sons looked back at her : for once, the princess looked at a loss for words. Suddenly, Rhaegel stepped forward and embraced her around the middle, pushing her back a few steps. After a beat, Myriah hugged him back and the other boys came forward, embracing her too. Baelor joined last and they looked at each other : an understanding passed between the prince and his mother, and his face closed.
“Your father is in his chambers,” the princess said, “he wants to talk to you all.” She looked at each of them in turn, and as if gathering her courage, led them towards the stairs.
She knocked gently on the door of their father’s chambers and a muffled voice answered. Prince Daeron was sitting at his desk, piled with books, ink, quills and parchment. When his sons came in with his wife, he turned toward them in his chair and beckoned them forward. At only nine-and-twenty, it seemed like his face had been etched with new lines since this morning, and new shadows. There was a sadness in his eyes and in the set of his mouth that Maekar had seldom ever seen in his father. He felt dread creeping over him, rooting him in place : he didn’t want to come forward, to hear whatever it was that had made his father so sad. He’d rather stay on this side of the room and wait for the terrible thing to vanish into the air. But he felt a warm hand on his neck : over his shoulder, Baelor was looking at him with something like encouragement. Like he knew how much it would cost Maekar to cross the room, the before and the after, but he still asked him because their father wanted him to, needed him to, and because he was a prince, and princes crossed rooms to hear terrible news, as it was their duty.
So Maekar crossed the room and came to stand in front of his father with the rest of his brothers.
“Queen Naerys…Your grandmother…” their father said quietly, “She has died. The babe too.”
Silence stretched in the room. Maekar heard Rhaegel sniffle, and felt a tear roll down his cheek.
“After the funeral,” Daeron added, “We are sailing back to Dragonstone.”
Home, Maekar thought.