HER FIRST LOVE
It is a horror he will remember for years to come - the sight of Ser Jaime buried deep into Lady Cersei Tully, who was visiting King's Landing with her husband Lord Edmure. At ten, he is not completely unaware of what they were doing. He has a rough idea - ideas formed from the talks of men and young boys in the tiltyard. He understand their actions but he doesn't understand a reason.
So naturally, it is his mother he seeks to ask about it, to understand it for his curiosity is something he inherits from his father.
He finds her in the King's chambers alone, his father having just left.
"Mother?"
"Oh Aegon, my dear. What is it?", his mother, Queen Elia, asks gently. Despite Rhaenys and Visenya's claims stating otherwise, he is almost certain he is his mother's favourite child.
"I was wondering… Is it wrong to love somebody you shouldn't?" From what he knows, people do what Ser Jaime and his sister were doing, only if they love each other. (The stable boy had said so to Aegon, all the while laughing to his heart's content.)
His mother's attention is fully on him now and that makes him slightly nervous. He scratches behind his left ear, a sure sign of his nervousness, his mother had called it.
"Come here!", she beckons and Aegon moves to join his mother on the King's feather bed.
"Tell me honestly, my boy, do you love somebody?" His mother's question is asked in a soft voice, her eyes curious but not furious.
So he tells her honestly, "No."
"Then?"
"Just… Have you ever loved someone you shouldn't?" Despite being close to his mother, he has no desire to share this piece of information about Ser Jaime with her. It was too dirty a secret.
His mother doesn't answer immediately, taking her time to run her hands through his shoulder length hair. Finally, she answers. "Yes."
A lack of elaboration makes him only more inquisitive, "Who was he?"
"I cannot tell you the name, my dear." Even though his mother is physically present, he is certain he doesn't hold her full attention. Her eyes are glazed with a haunting look which Aegon has learnt to recognise simply because of how often his mother is like this.
"Was he handsome?" He can guess the person if he knows enough, he assumes.
"Beautiful not handsome.", his mother corrects immediately. "Tall and gracious with long dark hair and laughing purple eyes." Purple eyes makes him instantly think of his sister Visenya for while Rhaenys and Aegon have inherited their father's indigo eyes, Visenya's are more darker - purple and a shade similar to uncle Viserys's eyes.
"Where is he now? Is he a knight? Or a Lord?" His excitement is not easily controlled and the questions are spilling out of his mouth before he can stop himself.
"Dead." His mother's answer silences him instantly. Dead, his mother's love was dead.
His mother's haunting sadness at those words makes him ask, "You love father more though, right?" He shouldn't be worried of a dead man stealing his mother but he is.
"I love your father dearly", his mother answers vaguely before giving him a sad smile. "First love is not too easily forgotten, my child."
"Story?", he asks simply for his mother understands him better than most and so his mother makes herself comfortable on the bed, lying leisurely, encouraging him to join her. He does it hesitantly, for it is the King's bed even if his father isn't often found in his chambers at night. The entire castle knows that there only two places where the King can be found in the night, either his solar or his Queen's chambers. It is rare for the King to come to his bed at night.
Once they are both settled his mother begins, "I met them when I was a little girl, just like you are now. There were two travellers to Old Palace - them and their elder brother. You remember the Water Gardens?"
Aegon nods to that. The Water Gardens are one of the most loveliest places in Dorne.
"I met them there - as we all played in the waters - low born and high borns alike, bastards and true-borns."
"Was he a bastard?", Aegon enquires. It is just a question that comes to his mind. A bastard would be hard to find - and a dead one impossible.
"A Lord's child. We grew up together and I formed a close bond with their brother too. The brother grew up to be a Knight."
"Was he a Knight too?" A knight would be slightly easier to find. He just wants to know who was his mother's first love.
"My first love was no Knight, my dear. But they did use a dagger well." His mother's lips curl into a sly smirk at that but Aegon almost loses interest. The man was a Lord's son who wasn't a knight. What use was he then?
"Better than Uncle Oberyn?", he asks. For Aegon, no one handles a sword better than Ser Arthur and a spear and dagger better than Uncle Oberyn.
"Oberyn would say no. But that would be a lie.", his mother answers. So his uncle knew of this lord. Hmmm… he would have to write to Dorne it seemed.
"What happened?", he asks. If he wasn't a Knight or a Prince then Aegon has little interest in this man but then again, he had to have something which would capture his mother's love like that.
"I broke it off for it was not going to be allowed. You see I was a Princess of Dorne and my first love was… they were… just… that." His mother smiles at that and turns to him in a way which suggests there is no more to say about it.
"Uncle Oberyn though…", he begins stuttering, his cheeks heating up at the coming words, "he has a paramour and he often takes an…" His uncle's adventures are something he has almost full account to. Every tale is imprinted in his mind.
"I will make it clear Aegon that you will not repeat your uncle's actions. And honestly, his stories are exaggerated.", his mother chastises, muttering about murdering his uncle for rotting her innocent son.
He elaborates on his earlier statement, not bothering to talk of his own actions with women (which is nothing really, for he interacts with the women who are family and the passing servants). "I mean… so you didn't take him with you as your…", the words make him ashamed almost. He cannot imagine his mother with another man and a picture of purple eyes and dark hair is a blur.
His mother laughs loudly at that. "Oh my sweet boy. You understand your uncle is one of a kind. As it is, I wed your father soon after that."
"Was he present for the wedding?" He wonders if the man saw his mother wed and felt truly heartbroken in that moment.
"Yes… The person actually came with me… As part of my Dornish retinue… One of my close friends because we were friends before we loved one another.", his mother explains.
"Did he not ask for your hand? Challenge father?" Aegon thinks that is what he would have done if his mother talks of this love with such sweetness. Also, it would make for an interesting tale, his father's duel with his mother's first love - the stuff of songs and legends.
"No… I do not believe our customs would allow such a thing. My mother was dead-set on the marriage and your father… well… he was Crown Prince then. It would be impossible to do that."
"So this person came with you. Then how did he die?"
"An age old tale of a Tourney and a war." His mother gives no other explanation but Aegon understands that by war his mother meant his father's Rebellion.
"So this man - we should name him something by now - but he died in war?" An honourable death was a death in war, so he had learnt.
"Not the war. And what would you name him?"
"A fool.", he answers in slight anger. Only a fool would think that his mother loved him and not the King.
"I do not believe they would like the name.", his mother speaks in a voice suggesting discontent. His mother had this ability to show that she was not taking kindly to you in the moment without raising her voice.
"Purple then. For his eyes." He cannot think of a better name simply because he isn't putting much thought into this man. And truly, if he didn't die in war then did they even have a right to be given a proper name?
"Well then, Purple was in Dorne when the war continued. Your grandsire had my retinue sent away as the war raged."
"So he couldn't even fight for you? A fool, like I said." Aegon could hit him over his head repeatedly, this fool.
"Aegon!", his mother warns, eyes stern, before continuing, "Purple's hands were tied my child. Not all can start a war."
"Well father fought for his crown.", Aegon remarks before asking again, "So how did this man die?"
His mother draws a heavy sigh at that and closes her eyes for a moment before speaking. "Purple died and died alone." His mother's left hand constantly fiddles with a jewellery on her wrist - a bracelet with a sun and a star dangling from it. "Jumped off a tower. People would say many things about it. Of why Purple did it. A child born dead, a broken heart, a family lost."
Even though his mother's tiredness is visible to him, he presses on, "What was the real reason?" His mother always said to die alone was the cruelest way to meet the Gods.
"I do not know. And I shall never know. You must understand, I loved her as truly as I could. Even after I wed your father, Purple was my friend, my confidant. We shared everything and I was so heartbroken to know that it had happened. I cried and cried and cried when I found out. Then I tried to search for answers but I didn't know where to look. It was the end and I would never see those purple eyes again, never hear that twinkling laugh. And I just didn't know why. I will never know why."
His mother's eyes are watery but no tears fall from them and Aegon grips his mother's hand, his small hand enclosing her slightly bigger one. He is almost certain his mother said she but then he could be mistaken or it was a slip of tongue. Either way, he doesn't focus much on it and his mind creates the image of a scrawny boy with no muscles, raven black hair and purple eyes - a boy or man unworthy of the Queen, a man who was nothing compared to the King. However, the only purple eyes he can give the stranger is Visenya's and so he imagines the boy with his eyes closed. Visenya's eyes weren't meant for a fool like this one.
"I hope someday, you find your first love. Who knows, it might even be your Queen.", his mother comments after a long time, her eyes no longer watery and her smile as sweet as honey.
"I want a Queen like you. Can you be my Queen too?" It is a foolish thought, Aegon knows but then he truly wants a Queen as kind and gentle as his mother. A woman who rules beside him like mother ruled with father.
His mother's laugh rings in the chambers at the comment. "Oh sweet boy. You have so much to learn."
It is a mystic sentence his mother doesn't comment further upon for his father is back from wherever he went.
It was a conversation never repeated or talked of. And Aegon thinks of him an idiot for it had taken him a year and two moons, having just seen his twelfth name-day, to know that the fool was a Lady Ashara of House Dayne. At eleven, he had figured that his mother had hidden much and there was a possibility that this love was a woman. However, Aegon could never digest that truth. But then, he was twelve and the Maester was talking of great Houses and the Martells were brought up, thereby bringing up their sworn bannerman. That was when it had struck him. A Lord's child brought up in Dorne. A Dornish House and there was only one maiden who had died the way his mother's love did. Anyway, it didn't matter then for his mother had passed away a moon back and so would never know that Aegon had finally solved it - that atleast one of her children knew of her first love.
It was perhaps his mother's good wishes that years later, Aegon first and last love does turn out to be his wife, his Queen, his Visenya. And true to the wishes, his Queen was just like his mother for Visenya's likeness to their mother was hard to be ignored. Visenya's kisses were fire and her love consuming and when Visenya dies before Aegon, he truly understands his mother's pain for losing one's first love is hard, extremely so.