A FATHER'S INHERITANCE
Rhaegar has left an inheritance for each of his children.
I.
Rhaenys is born on Dragonstone to her parents one fine afternoon. A painful birth but she comes out screaming. Olive skinned, tufts of dark hair. She is her mother's daughter until she opens her eyes. Eyes the exact same shade of her father.
When she is younger, she hates that she looks like her mother and not her father. Her brother and sister are true Targaryens, easily recognisable with pale skin, blond hair, purple eyes. She is not. She is Dornish looking to the bone and she hates that people do not easily recognise her as the daughter of their King. She loves her mother but she absolutely adores her father.
She has heard the whispers of how her grandsire said she "smelled Dornish", of how people look at her like she is not the firstborn of their King but a simple Dornish born lady. She hates it all the more because she is the eldest child, the firstborn and yet everybody calls Aegon, her younger brother, a true Targaryen, the Crown Prince, a King-in-waiting while she is just known as the daughter who resembles her mother.
Her mother passes away and then her sister dresses like their mother upon the funeral. At that instance, Rhaenys is proud that she looks like her mother. Her sister has to dress in Dornish clothes to resemble their mother and Rhaenys does not. The only un-Dornish thing about her are her eyes. Her father's eyes. And she hates her father for it. Because those eyes make her a Targaryen and not a pure Martell.
She is married off to Robert Baratheon's firstborn while her younger sister is offered the crown of their mother. She feels equal amount of anger and pity. Targaryens married older sisters. The Crown was to be hers. But she also pities her younger sister who will now be scrutinised at every turn just because she is a future Queen.
When her own son is born, she is glad he has blue eyes and not purple. Because even though she hates her eyes (though they are beautiful), they are the only thing her father has given her and whether she accepts it or not, it is an important thing to her. Her father has given her presents for her namedays, no denying, but this is her inheritance!
Her father passes away and Rhaenys drags herself out of the birthing chambers to travel all the way to King's Landing with her son Steffon and second born, a daughter (born just two days before) she names Elia. She will not admit it but she had cried the day Elia is born because her daughter is olive-skinned with brownish-black hair like her namesake but she has inherited her mother's purple eyes.
Not even the two other sons she births inherit her eyes and Rhaenys decides it is for the best. It becomes a thing between her and her daughter, just like it was between her and her mother. It is funny both of them are named Elia but she is happy about it. That the name is a Martell name and not a Targaryen one. Targaryens have never been the most fortunate.
II.
Aegon, like his sister, is born on Dragonstone. A painful birth, he almost takes away his mother's life while coming into the world. Once the blood is cleared from him, it is discovered that his skin is as pale as his father's. His hair is a shade darker than his father's, more blond than silver, at the moment but purplish- indigo eyes. Nobody can deny he is a Targaryen. And his looks make him a perfect Targaryen heir.
When he is younger, he hears tales of his father, of his father's skill with the sword and how people are sure he will be just as good as his father. After all, he looks just like him. This makes Aegon stand taller, prouder than most. They are three siblings and there is no denying that out of all three of them, he is the one who is most like their father. Rhaenys resembles their mother in appearance but her father in character and Visenya is the exact opposite, a miniature of their father but truly her mother's daughter. But Aegon, Aegon is his father through and through. So much so that he is knighted at the exact same age as his father was.
When his mother passes away, Aegon ponders on what has he inherited from his mother. Rhaenys has her looks, Visenya her kindness and wit but Aegon, Aegon has nothing to prove he is Elia Martell's son. "Just like his father… Resembles his father so much…" He has heard all this but nobody compares him to his mother. That sadness never leaves him.
When his father passes away, Aegon takes his place as the King. The Crown passes on to him and amongst all his presents and what not, it is the Crown his father has given him that becomes his inheritance, his legacy. He will go down in history as a Targaryen King only because he is his father's heir. Unfortunately, his inheritance weighs more than he had expected. He hates his father for this. He hates being a son because he is not a firstborn like his father was and so he is not his father. And yet, when he sits on the Throne, a Crown atop his head and his Queen by his side, all people whisper is how much he looks like his father. He is quick to correct himself. The crown is not his inheritance, the image of his father with the crown is.
III.
Visenya is the only one of the three children who is born in the Red Keep and not on Dragonstone. She is the only child who's birth is not witnessed by her father as he is busy overthrowing the mad King Aerys. She comes into the world and makes sure that she remains the youngest, tearing her mother's womb along the way. She looks just like her brother did upon his birth, just like her fathered upon his birth, a Targaryen in appearance.
When she is younger, she does not know where she fits in. A daughter like her mother, a son like his father. That is what both her elder siblings are in appearance. She on the other hand is a daughter like her father. Everybody is too busy admiring her brother for being like their father that nobody fawns over her for doing the same thing. She cries about it to her father, a girl of six, she is mature for her age but still her father's little girl. Her father hushes her, wrapping her in his cloak. The cloak is black in colour with a three-headed red dragon upon it and a little more than twice her height. Her father lets her sleep in that cloak telling her that she is the best of both her parents.
That cloak instantly becomes her favourite. No matter what new dress is forced upon her by her mother and the handmaidens, the cloak has become her fixture, her identity and even her father has stopped asking for it, preferring to forgo a cloak altogether. Even when she dons an attire for her mother's funeral, she wears that cloak because it represents her father's protection. It is her inheritance until at ten-and-a-four, she is told by that same father to marry her own brother. The cloak holds little significance now and she throws it out of the room.
That cloak finds its way back to her when Aegon wraps her in it, making her his bride. She knows it is the same cloak and not an identical one. She doesn't know how she knows it but she does. The cloak now symbolises not her father's protection but her brother's husband's and over the years she grows used to it again. Even begins to wear it around, until the day Rhaenarra's betrothal is announced. She washes the cloak herself, neatly folds it and locks it away until the wedding day and presents it to Rhaenarra as her maiden cloak.